Contemporary American Composers Being a Study of the Music of This Country, Its Present Conditions and Its Future, with Critical Estimates and Biographies of the Principal Living Composers; and an Abundance of Portraits, Fac-simile Musical Autographs, and Compositions

About this book

Rupert Hughes’s 1900 volume is a sweeping survey of American musical life at the turn of the century, presented as a single‑volume reference that blends criticism, biography, and visual documentation. The work opens with a practical note on transcription and illustration, then launches into a foreword that frames the project as a personal crusade to uncover “the best music in the world…written here at home.” Hughes explains that he has combed the catalogs of respectable publishers, tracked down unpublished manuscripts, and examined thousands of scores, from short songs to operatic and orchestral works, to assemble a catalogue of living composers he deems worthy. The book is organized into sections on innovators, academics, colonists, women, and foreign composers, each accompanied by fac‑simile autographs, portrait illustrations, and, in modern editions, MIDI files for the music excerpts.

The tone is that of an early‑20th‑century musicologist, earnest, polemical, and occasionally digressive, reflecting the period’s confidence in nation‑building and the belief that a distinct American voice was emerging from European roots. Its dense prose, extensive footnotes, and scholarly apparatus will appeal to readers who enjoy historical music criticism, researchers tracing the genealogy of American composition, and collectors fascinated by primary sources such as handwritten scores and period portraits.