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Henry Cowell, Bohemian.

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By Michael Hicks. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. [ix, 204 p. ISBN 0252027515. $29.95.] Illustrations, bibliography, index.

Henry Cowell (1897-1965) remains both one of the most renowned and enigmatic of American composers. His reputation as an avant-garde performer, inventor of extended techniques, theoretician, and multi-culturalist suggests several personalities from which it is hard even now to discern an obvious unity. Add to this an extraordinary prolificity (to the point that archivists are still trying to determine a definitive works list), and it becomes clear why Cowell remains something of a historical chimera. Michael Hicks, who teaches at Brigham Young University, presents what is billed as the "first full-length study" of the composer, although his book is far more controversial, problematic, and incomplete than that description might suggest. Before dealing with my reservations, however, let me examine what Hicks does accomplish, at times brilliantly.

Hicks's thesis is that Cowell, who presented himself as a homegrown prodigy, a sort of "wild first fruit" of native American genius, was in fact the product of a cultural environment that almost guaranteed his emergence. According to Hicks, Cowell's career and aesthetic stance was the natural result of growing up in early-twentieth-century California, and in particular the Bohemian community of the Bay Area. He benefitted from a series of devoted supporters and patrons, ranging from his...

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