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Norman Cazden

Norman Cazden redirects here. For other uses, see cazden
Cazden originally from Kazhdan (Russian Jewish, derived from mother’s name).
Cazden often refers to American composer Norman Cazden. Cazden may also refer to:
Courtney B. Cazden, educator
Elizabeth “Betsy” Cazden, Quaker historian, writer, speaker
Joanna Cazden, speech pathologist
Cazden Ltd., an HR and recruitment firm in Edinburgh, Scotland

Norman Cazden, 23 September, 1914, New York City (Bronx), New York — 18 August, 1980, Bangor, Maine. The son of Russian immigrants, he was a child prodigy pianist, and later a composer, musicologist, folklorist, and educator. A nationally known composer who won several prestigious musicology awards, Dr. Cazden published and composed 100-plus compositions for piano and other instruments. He was interested in psychology and aesthetics as well as composition and performance, and integrated historical and theoretical concepts with practice.

Biography

Family Background & Personal Life

Norman Cazden was born to Yiddish-speaking, Russian immigrant parents Chaim Plotkin and Elizavetka Kazhdan, both from Borisov, White Russia (now Belarus), in the Bronx, New York, on September 23, 1914. His father had an upholstery shop; Plotkin was also a Socialist and a community organizer.

He married Courtney Borden on Feb. 17, 1946, in Stamford, Connecticut. She was from an upper-class WASP family, Adlai Stevenson's sister-in-law; a philosophy major at Radcliffe, she later earned a teaching degree from Hunter College. Their two daughters are Elizabeth (1950) and Joanna (1952). The family settled in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, as Cazden taught at the University of Illinois from 1950 to 1953; he was on track for academic tenure. McCarthy Era pressures on the state-funded university abruptly curtailed Cazden's career and, despite his never having written about politics or government, but because of his associations, he was fired.

The family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Norman's father had relocated from the Bronx. He helped his father in the upholstery shop and taught piano privately, while his wife taught public school to support the family. In a letter to long-time colleague Herbert Haufrecht, Cazden wrote: “I have pursued a varied private practice in teaching, occasional editing and consulting. I have also devoted much time to composing, to grant-free research projects, and on writing music.”

Through the 1950s and 1960s, Cazden continued to compose, teach privately, and write about both abstract and ethnomusicology topics. Absent any formal university affiliation, however, and in the aftermath of the fear fomented by McCarthyism, his musical compositions went largely unplayed and unknown. Those who knew him aver that for Cazden, only music mattered, not personality.

In 1961, the family relocated to Lexington, Massachusetts. In the late 1960s when Cazden's daughters were of college age, he made inquiries about being able to return to academic life. At last, in the fall of 1969, he was offered a position at the University of Maine in Orono. Courtney earned a doctoral degree at the Harvard School of Education and was hired there; she advanced to full professorship and taught until her retirement. She and Norman divorced in 1970. He moved to Bangor and stayed at the University of Maine until his death, from cancer, in August 1980.

As of 2014, his elder daughter Elizabeth lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she is a writer and historian; her son David Cazden Kleinshmidt is a pianist and a composer—he followed in his grandfather's footsteps although he never met him—and earned a degree from Oberlin Conservatory; her daughter, Sarah Cazden Kleinshmidt, is a medical student. Norman Cazden's younger daughter Joanna lives in the Los Angeles, California, area, where she is a singer and speech therapist.

Musical Training & Education

At a very early age, Norman showed prodigious musical talent and studied piano with Bernard Ravitch of Yonkers. He gave a debut recital in Town Hall, New York City, when he was 12 years old. While still in high school, he received scholarships to attend the Institute of Musical Art and the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied piano with Arthur Newstead and Ernest Hutcheson, and studied composition, musical theory, and history with Leopold Mannes, Charles Seeger (folk icon Pete Seeger's father), and Bernard Wagenaar. He earned a teacher's diploma with honors in 1932 and a diploma in composition in 1939, and went on to enroll at the School of Social Sciences at the City College of New York, from which he was awarded a bachelor of science degree, cum laude, in 1943.

Rejected by the U.S. Army during World War II for health reasons, Cazden entered Harvard University in 1943 on a graduate fellowship and studied composition with Walter Piston and Aaron Copland; musicology with Archibald T. Davison, A. Tillman Merrit, and G. Wallace Woodworth; and psychology of music with Carrol C. Pratt. He earned his master's degree and, in 1948, a doctorate from Harvard. His dissertation topic was Musical Consonance and Dissonance.

Work Life

During the 1930s and early 1940s, Cazden was actively involved in the progressive artistic movements in New York City. He gave recitals and toured as a concert pianist throughout the eastern United States, taught piano and theory, directed radio programs on WYNC and WLIB (New York), and composed for such modern dance pioneers as the New Dance Group headed by Jane Dudley, the Humphrey-Weidman Company, and José Limón and Company.

His thoughts about making music for modern dance are captured succinctly in the following excerpt from an article that originally appeared in Dance Observer.

It is precisely because of the remarkable structure, its inexorable logic and self-consistency, its tremendous rhythmic unity on the large scale combined with the utmost precision and clarity of proportion in detail, that Bach's music is the pinnacle of musical freedom—yes, and not only musical. The fugue, for instance, is the most exactly regulated and prescribed of musical forms and is at the same time the form that allows the greatest sweep of free movement and imagination. Freedom in art forms does not mean anarchy; it means limitation, selection, rigorous elimination of the irrelevant, and concentrated organization of its intrinsic material.

When Bach wrote seemingly stylized elaborations of the chorales “From the Deepest Need I Cry to Thee” and “In Thee Is Joy,” or when he intoned, “Why do ye tremble, why do ye hesitate,” it was in no conventionally religious turn of phrase, as the depth of passion makes clear; it was a practical manifesto. It is in terms of this meaning of Bach for the human drama of his day that our present attraction to his music finds expression. It is this heritage which in Germany itself is being destroyed by the Nazis. The new barbarians aim to eradicate the hopes of the German people of Bach's time from the memory of those living; they seek to burn out from history the advance of communal faith of which the chorales become part of our cultural heritage, a heritage which it is prerogative as artists of a free people to affirm, and on which it is natural for us to build. The extension and fruition of those dreams become the goal of our highest art.

Universities and Beyond

Beginning in 1947, Cazden was appointed to teach at Vassar College, the Peabody Conservatory (1948), the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1949), and the University of Illinois, Urbana (1950–1953). “His teaching assignments were broad; they ranged from composition, piano, historical musicology, contemporary music, and the psychology of musical folklore. … Those who had the privilege of knowing [him] and to engage him in scholarly discussions were constantly impressed by the scope of his learning. Not only was he at home in Western art music and all its periods, he was equally well versed in the literature of musical psychology, acoustics, esthetics and folklore.” These peer-acknowledged intellectual gifts might have inspired many more university students, but for the political pressures of the era, and the blacklist which rendered Norman Cazden—along with many valued teachers, artists, writers, musicians and artists—unable to work for a number of years.

Political Issues

During his time in New York City, Cazden was a member of the Composers Collective of the Pierre de Geyter Club, which discussed the aesthetics of music for political change. Club members intended their compositions to be “the realization of the new music in service of the people”; one of the collective's leaders—and one of Cazden's mentors—was Charles Seeger, who composed revolutionary songs under the pseudonym “Carl Sands.”

Composers Collective discussions ranged from the logistics of playing piano along a street protest march, to whether dissonant harmonies inspired activism while consonant, resolving chords might imply complacency toward social conditions. Cazden would later explain that, as one of the better sight-readers of the group, he would often be called on to play new pieces on the piano before the group critiqued them. A colleague of 50-plus years wrote, “[H]e steadfastly maintained a humanitarian and egalitarian philosophy of society and culture which is reflected in his compositions and in his prose writings.”

Cazden had helped to annotate music for early “People's Songs,” collections of international folk songs and political anthems. In its Fifth Report of the California Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, the 1949 California Legislature cited Peoples Songs, Inc. as subversive and subpoenaed Cazden to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC); he invoked the Fifth Amendment, but was blacklisted and, as a result, unable to work in academia for sixteen years. A list of 21 people associated with Peoples Songs that reads like a Who's Who of the music, literary, and entertainment industry includes Norman Cazden's name. The Legislature published the following list in its report:

Sam Barlow	Jack Guilford	Dorothy Parker
Leonard Bernstein	E. Y. Harburg	Paul Robeson
Marc Blitzstein	Judy Holliday	Harold Rome
B. A. Botkin	Langston Hughes	Artie Shaw
Norman Cazden	Rockwell Kent	Kenneth Spencer
Aaron Copland	Millard Lampell	Louis Untermeyer
Norman Corwin	Alan Lomax	Sam Wanamaker

He and his wife, Courtney, were interviewed for and briefly mentioned in Victor Navasky's book about McCarthyism in academia, ‘’Naming Names’’. and in scholarly presentations. He published numerous essays about folks and traditional music. (For more about these resources and where to find them, see the reference and opus listings below.)

Camp Woodland was founded by Norman Studer to introduce city youth to the people of the Catskill Mountains, and campers were encouraged to interact with local craftsmen and visit local communities to glean history they could include in dramatic and musical productions. The mountain culture still had music as a vital part of its everyday culture and, along with their students, Studer, trained musicologist–composers Norman Cazden and Herb Haufrecht collected, notated, and verified these oral-tradition songs, effectively capturing a resource that would otherwise have been lost. They agreed that there were many good old songs worth remembering, worth singing, and worth writing down, and their extensive documentation was thorough and conscientious.

Herbert Haufrecht and Norman Cazden entered upon the notation of the songs with considerable musical training and experience, but with few preconceived notions about how to approach traditional music. From the first, they saw their task with a song to be “set it down right.” Indeed, they sought to set it down to the satisfaction of the original singer, to whom the transcribed tune was most often sung back as a test.

One outcome of this study was the development of an overall view of Catskill music as constituting of a sort of cultural pocket in respect to its song lore. That is, taken as a whole, the body of Catskill songs and ballads presented here shows a less than expected resemblance to the traditional music reported from the nearby regions, while it seems much more similar to the repertory found in the lumber woods of Michigan, Ontario, northern New England, and the Maritime Provinces of Canada. The analysis sustaining such a view has been presented by Norman Cazden in his paper, “Regional and Occupational Orientations to American Traditional Song” (JAF 72). That analysis relies rather more on the evidence from musical comparison that is usual in folklore studies.

Cazden's daughter, Joanna, has written, “Folk music became a central component of his musical and professional life. Especially after the blacklist derailed Norman's academic career, both the place and the music of the Catskills provided our family both solace and inspiration.

“I saw Norman and the rest of the staff show respect to rural working people who, in turn, overcame enough distrust of cityfolk to share their traditions with us. (That the camp staff helped preserve American folk traditions, while at the same time many were answering subpoenas from the House Unamerican Activities Committee, is one of many ironies from that complex time.)

“Norman and Herb stayed connected to the music long after Camp Woodland closed its doors, and their work stayed close to the center of my family's life and identity.

“Norman worked and reworked the Catskills material throughout his life, publishing square dance tunes with instructions (‘’Dances from Woodland’’), ballads (‘’The Abelard Folk Song Book’’), serious compositions (‘’Three Catskill Ballads for Orchestra’’), the silly and the bawdy (‘’A Book of Nonsense Songs’’), and easy piano settings (‘’American Folk Songs for Children’’). Purple Mountain Press still carries the user-friendly ‘’A Catskill Songbook’’. “My dad was finishing the notes to the complete collection (Folk Songs of the Catskills) in 1980 when he died, and Herb [Haufrecht] carried the project to completion. One of Norman's orchestral settings surfaced a few years ago on Jay Unger's Catskill Collection CD.”

Norman Cazden compiled the complete Folk Songs of the Catskills collection over the course of many years. It contains detailed ethnomusicological analysis of tunes as well as texts, and was nearly finished by the time of his death in 1980. His long-time colleague Herbert Haufrecht saw it through to publication before his own death in 1998. Haufrecht's widow invested in an all-star recording of favorite songs, released in 2001. It featured Joanna Cazden, Bob and Louise DeCormier, Ronnie Gilbert, Joe Hickerson, Geoff Kaufman, Abby Newton, Pete Seeger, Artie Traum, Happy Traum, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, Mickey Vandow, and Eric Weissberg.

Compositions—Piano, Chamber Music and Orchestra

Note: This section describing Cazden's compositions is excerpted from an essay by Herbert Haufrecht:

Because he was a child prodigy on the piano, all but two of Cazden's early works (through Opus 16) were piano compositions. He was familiar with the music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich and aware of other modern trends, and his musical style and texture extend from these sources. The works display brittle percussive themes in extreme registers, often using sparse two-voiced counterpoint that alternates with full bitonal or polytonal chord passages, and regular four-square meter contrasted with polymetric sections. Although these devices are employed in most of his works, as well as in music by other composers, they reveal a more distinctive character in Cazden's piano writing; his figuration never becomes trite. His Three Satires, Op. 2, and Sonatina, Op. 7, are typical.

The Sonatina embodies many of Cazden's ideas and techniques. Its germinal motif is of rising fourths is transformed in various sections and movements, at first chromatic and rhythmically irregular, then diatonic and regular; also its diminution becomes a pianistic figuration. In the second movement it is calm and lyrical, and here the motif is used as a counterpoint to the new main theme. In the final Allegro it appears as part of a marchlike theme. Composed throughout with economy, yet varied in its treatment of the material, the work is indeed Through-composed. The dramatic clash of this music reflects the turbulent period of the 1930s when it was written. The main themes strive upward and the final pages' resolute march express a forward movement.

His consciousness of the world about him is directly manifest in much of Cazden's music. In the work for band, Elegy on the Death of a Spanish Child, Op. 20, he expressed a poignant sympathy for the tragedy and human suffering in the wake of the Spanish Civil War. Cast in the mood of a funeral march, he gave it greater freedom and expressivity by extending and contracting the meter to suit the needs of the musical phrases. His accumulative harmony, piling up chords of the fourth, is also effective.

The musical play Dingle Hill (Op. 70) deals with the subject of social conflict, the “down-rent wars” of the 1840s against the wealthy landowners. Similar to actions emblematic of the Boston Tea Party, the local farmers in the vicinity of the northern Catskill Mountains, masquerading as Indians, attacked the rent collectors. They were protesting the indentured servitude that perpetually bound them in debt to the patroon, a sort of baronial landowner. For background material, Cazden, in his characteristically thorough manner, unearthed a number of period folk songs and political broadsides that dealt with the situation and wove them into the play, giving the music topical authenticity.

Another phase of Cazden’s work, stemming from his needs as a piano teacher, is his Gebrauchsmusik. Among his numerous pieces for piano study are Twenty-one Evolutions, Op. 4; Ten Progressions, Op. 5; and Six Demonstrations, Op. 6. These elementary-level studies embody the materials of contemporary music.

He used modern devices in practical settings with relatively easy technical requirements in certain of his chamber music compositions as well, including Ten Conversations for two clarinets, Op. 34; Three Constructions for woodwinds, Op. 38, Three Directions for brass, Op. 39 and Six Discussions for various wind combinations, Op. 40. In each work the themes are germane to the special instrumental grouping. For example, ‘’Three Constructions’’ is well suited to the woodwind quintet: the second movement is lyrical and exploits long and legato lines and is especially effective. The third movement contrasts bright staccato with legato, sometimes in counterpoint, elsewhere in juxtaposition.

Three Directions for brass quartet uses characteristic material for this combination, yet it is never treated in a commonplace way. The Entrée, with its homespun tune, punctuated background and oom-pah bass, suggests the small-town band, although it is full of urbane surprises. The ensemble has vigorous and syncopated fanfares, in Teamwork, and in the middle section a repeated note figure is a “natural” for the brass group.

Cazden was always adventuresome in his quest for new forms or shaping older ones to his needs. He preceded his Three New Sonatas, Op. 53 for piano by an essay (that he termed program notes) on the various meanings of the term sonata. Not written in the standard textbook form, these have the scope and the ingredients of the classical sonata. The third one, for example, employs contrasting themes, episodic passages and development, but not a development section. There is no recapitulation, or as musicologists might say, it is in the “wrong” place—just before the end. The meter is not indicated because it frequently changes; however, the unit of measure, an eighth note, is constant.

The Symphony, Op. 49, composed during the same period as the aforementioned sonatas, uses similar techniques but has greater scope. Examples of Cazden's free and extended evolution of a melody are found here. At the opening of the work, the cellos announce the theme in a short motif. Each of the ensuing phrases derive logically from the preceding, ever propelling the theme forward. This is also manifest in the oboe solo in the second movement. (Only a few weeks before his death, Cazden went to Domaine School for Conductors in Hancock, Maine—via ambulance and on a stretcher—to hear the premiere performance of the symphony he composed in 1948.)

Most of the dance forms of the baroque and classical periods served as a mold for his imaginative use of their basic rhythmic patterns. His Suite for violin and piano, Op. 43, consists of a Prelude, Gavotte, Sarabande, and Reel. The Prelude has a beautiful, long, single-line folklike statement for solo violin that begins in the low register and slowly mounts to the extreme high notes. Then there is a contrasting harmonic reply by the piano alone. He developed these two ideas in no set pattern, but their logic derives from the nature of the themes. The Gavotte and Sarabande are written with invention and modern embellishments, much as Ravel and Prokofiev treated this genre. The Reel is not merely the background music for a square dance; here it takes its rightful place in a dance suite by an American composer. Thus the Gavotte and Sarabande are brought up-to-date; or conversely, the modal folk song and the Reel are set with respectability in the classic suite.

The Variations for piano, Op. 26, are of considerable interest and again show Cazden's individuality in adapting an old form to his needs. He pointedly did not name the work “Themes and Variations.” The main idea is hardly a suitable theme for variations in the generally acceptable sense. Its harmony does not move from the G chord for nine measures; the melody consists of broken-up blueslike motifs. The main idea, nevertheless, seems to piece itself together into a long line with a feeling of movement, comparable to a large structure built of little bricks. Also, the variations have neither a beginning nor an end, and they certainly do not stop and start, as do more formal variations. The work has continuous flow that develops to greater complexity and then returns to its original appearance. No grandiose finale here, no fugue, no virtuoso display—just back to the “blues”.

Not all of Norman Cazden's works are as accessible or as effective. In some he seems to be carried away by the intellectual problems at hand. In the Passacaglia Op. 46 for piano, difficulties for the performer as well as for the audience make it forbidding. Its theme, in a meter of five, is highly chromatic—almost in tone-row style, and is combined with a complex and thick superstructure. The work, although of interest, does not capture one's heart. Some of his works seem somewhat dry for the opposite reason: they are too thin in texture. Two of the Three Chamber Sonatas for solo viola and solo clarinet, Op. 17, are and are well written for them. The limitations set by the composer, however, despite their value for the performer, are too restricting for the audience.

Because Cazden was essentially eclectic, he was at the same time been influenced in another direction away from the somewhat academic style. He was drawn into that great stream of composers who based their writing on the folk traditions of their country. Here and there, even in his more formal and abstract works, are folklike motifs, but he also wrote a group of compositions that were frankly and almost totally derived from folk sources. Many composers have had a casual interest in folk music and some have attempted to apply folk song themes to their creative work. Too often their study of the field has been academic, or their investigation has been of the moment, or superficially they have been seeking the “quaint” or exotic sources. Not so with Norman Cazden. Since the early 1930s he pursued a continuing search for a real understanding of the folk tradition. His numerous works embodying this material are testimony that he absorbed it and molded it into his own creative composition with craftsmanship.

The Three Ballads from the Catskills for orchestra, Op. 52, are noteworthy. The focal point of each ballad is a different solo instrument. In The Lass of Glenshee, a viola conveys the lyrical quality of the band. A solo cello elicits the mood of tragedy in The Dens of Yarrow, and the orchestra brings out the violent conflict of the drama. The buoyancy of a solo violin sets the sprightly mood of The Old Spotted Cow. The ballads are treated in a kind of free variation form.

Among these works in the folk vein, the most distinctive is Stony Hollow for orchestra, Op. 47. It is like a montage of the music at a square dance. It treats the trumpet as the voice of the caller. Sometimes the calls are announced in a regular patter, elsewhere merely as interjections or as addenda to a phrase. A country fiddler is audible, as is also a concertina-accordion player with his in-and-out tonic and dominant harmony (measures 146–151). The sudden shifts of tonality and meter (measures 93–94) within the framework of the basic beat, the varied themes unified with the main motif, the skillful combining of themes (measures 152–160) where six independent melodic lines occur simultaneously including “Yankee Doodle” in the bass—make Stony Hollow an outstanding work deserving a place in regular orchestra repertoire.

Among the arrangements of Catskill folk songs and instrumentals are Dances from Woodland Op. 48, piano settings with square dance calls and directions; and 200 Reels Jigs and Squares Op. 50, 200 Traditional Dances Op. 56, and 142 Olden Time Dances Op. 57, all for violin and piano. In addition to many short arrangements for piano and for recorder groups, Cazden made a monumental collection of the Catskill Mountain folk songs. The harvest of fifteen years of effort, the collection contains copious annotations that give the background of each ballad, and includes comparative studies with other groupings of the same songs found elsewhere. A portion of the work has been published as The Abelard Folk Song Book with piano and guitar accompaniments.

Writing

Theoretical writing and criticism

[Note: these paragraphs are excerpted from Haufrecht's essay] Another by no means unimportant facet of Norman Cazden's career is his theoretical writing and criticism about music and aesthetics. In line with such predecessors as Mattheson, Fux, Schumann, Wagner, Debussy and Hindemith, Cazden examined the materials of his craft. Armed with a sharp polemical pen, he challenged some time-encrusted theories as well as some newly heralded ones. His first major paper was his doctoral dissertation, “Musical Consonance and Dissonance,” a portion of which was published by the ‘’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism’’. Cazden debunked the theory that consonance and dissonance are determined by mathematical ratios, or by the physical properties of the overtone series. He pointed to the fallacy of attributing such qualities to isolated intervals or chords. He defined dissonance as tension, and consonance as resolution not inherent in the notes themselves, but rather in their function in a given context and within a given cultural area.

“Perceptions of interval qualities, though they do not arise on natural foundations, are neither arbitrary nor accidental. They are conditioned responses derived from the structural relations of a specific musical language and its history. In western music of the past few centuries, consonance and dissonance are the poles of a relation of resolution expectation. We recognize them because this relation exists in all the music we have heard. Structurally, one might say grammatically, consonance and dissonance are the polar forms of stability–instability, completeness–incompleteness, passivity–activity. This polarity is parallel and interlocked with other prominent features of our musical language: tonality (tonic–dominant), modality (major–minor), rhythm (relaxation–tension). In this broader sense, resolution may be described as the dialectic structure of our musical language.”

Dr. Cazden continued,

“These qualities are not inherent in perception as such, but are learned responses, adaptations to an existing pattern of the social group. Historical movements, changes in the social function of music, and not the harmony of the spheres, control and direct transformations in the musical structures. It is suggested that where radical innovations in our musical system are proposed their real basis be sought in the needs of humanity, in the cultural movements of our historic time. ”

At a 1952 meeting of the Music Teachers National Association, Dr. Cazden read his paper, “Tonal Function and Sonority in the Study of Harmony.” He defined his terms:

“Every chord possesses both a tonal function and an absolute sonority. Tonal function and sonority thus refer to two aspects of the same phenomena; the tonal function essentially dealing with what the harmonies do, the absolute sonority comprising what harmonies are. Tonal function deals with the dynamics, with the laws of motion of harmonies; absolute sonority deals with statics, with the internal and composite structure of harmonies. ”

Cazden analyzed many of the devices used by contemporary composers. He pointed to the new academism, which is like a mirror reflection of the old dogmas. Despite the verbal rejection of traditional harmony and counterpoint, the new pathfinders often based their schools (which were equally restrictive and as proscribed as the old ones) on the diametrically reversed rules. In “Hindemith and Nature,” Cazden attacked that composer's theoretical writings in The Craft of Musical Composition.

In two essays Cazden grappled with the problem of an oft misused and maligned term, realism. In the first of these, “Towards a Theory of Realism in Music,” he dealt with the overall problem including program music, pictorialism and naturalism. In “Realism in Abstract Music,” the second paper, he attacked the very sanctuary of the snobs, escapists, abstractionists, etc. He observed that abstract music usually refers to the instrumental concert music of west-central Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He proceeded to show that even then it is not as abstract as one would think. Many of the references of realism are to the then-current musical forms and styles as well as to music of prior periods with the associations and imagery that they evoke. Cazden considered the concert instrumental music of the Classical era as the fullest flowering of realism in western music.

Norman Cazden's theoretical writing, aside from its intrinsic merits, gives us insight into his compositions. It parallels his musical logic, painstaking care with detail and broad view of art in relation to life. Despite his varied activities, Cazden was thorough and purposeful when pursuing each aspect of his creative work. And his work is creative in each area. As a composer, musicologist, folk song collector, teacher and pianist, he made a significant contribution to society.

List of Norman Cazden’s Compositions

Opus #	Title	Date	Instrumentation
001	Sonatina: for piano	©1941	piano
002	Three satires: for piano	©1941	piano
003	Hunger dance: for piano [Danza Del Hambre]	©1941	piano
004	21 evolutions for piano	©1939 (1933-1936)	piano
005	Ten progressions: for piano	©1939, © 1941	piano
006	Six demonstrations: for piano	©1941	piano
007	Sonatina	©1940	piano
008	Metro: dance for piano solo [For the New Dance Group]	©1941	piano
009	String quartet	©1941	2 violin, viola, violoncello
010	Concerto for ten instruments	©1953	fl, ob, cl, bsn, 2 hn, trpt, piano, vla, vlc.
011	8 preludes for piano	1939	piano
012	Sonata: for piano	©1941	piano
013	Six educational dances: for piano	©1969	piano
014	Five American dances: for piano	1938,©1941	piano
017	Three chamber sonatas	©1941	clarinet, viola
018	Preamble for orchestra	1958	3,2,3,3-4.3.3.1-timp, perc, piano, str.
020	On the Death of a Spanish Child for Symphonic Band [aka Elegy before dawn' Elegy]	©1948	4, 2, 6, 3, 5 sax-4, (3 cornet), 2,(bar), 3, 2-timp, perc, cb.d
021	7 compositions for piano [Seven compositions]	©1941	piano
022	Six children’s pieces for piano	©1941, 1969	piano
023	Quartet: for clarinet, violin, viola, violoncello	©1941	violin, clarinet, viola, violoncello
024	Three recitations for violoncello (or viola) and piano	©1941	piano,violoncello (or viola)
025	Six Definitions: For Instrumental Ensemble	©1946	3 vln, vla, vlc, cb-obt: sop. Recorder, fl, ob, Eng.hn, 3 cl, bsn, c-bsn, 2 hn, trpt, piano
026	Variations [for piano solo]	©1941	piano
027	Twelve chordata: for piano	©1941, 1969	piano
028	Three dances for orchestra	©1958	3, 2, 4, 3-4, 4, 3, 1-timp, 2 perc, piano, strgs.
029	Three messages: for trumpet or clarinet and piano	©1941	trumpet or clarinet and piano
030	Five rejections and an epilogue: for piano	©1941, 1969	piano
031	American suite: for violoncello and piano	1941	piano, violincello
032	Quintet for 2 violins, viola and 2 violoncelli	©1969	2 vlns, vla, 2 vlcs.
033	Sonata for horn and piano [for French horn and piano]	1941	piano, horn
034	Ten conversations: for two clarinets	©1951	2 clarinets
035	Etcetera	©1941	piano (Recitation with piano)
036	Sonata for flute and piano [or flute and harpsichord]	©1941	piano, flute
037	Twelve dance studies: for piano	©1945	piano
038	Three constructions: for woodwind quintet	©1951	flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon
039	Three directions: brass quartet	1949	2 Cornets Or Trumpets In B♭, Baritone Or 1st Trombone, Trombone Or 2nd Trombone
040	Six discussions for mixed wind ensembles		various mixed wind ensembles
040a	Plainfield Square (in 800 Years of Music for Recorders)	©1945	4 recorders
042	Three modern dances for piano	1945	piano
043	Suite: for violin and piano	©1958+	piano, violin
044	The lonely ones		piano or orchestra
045	Four presentations: for violin and piano	1958+	piano, violin
046	Passacaglia for piano	©1945	piano
047	Stony Hollow for orchestra	1946, ©1962+	1, 1, 2, 1-2, 2, 2, 0-timp, piano, strgs. (also 2222/3220/timp/str (2-1-1-1-1))
048	Dances from Woodland: square dances from the Catskills	1955	piano
049	Symphony	©1948, 1958	3, 3, 3-4, 3, 3, 1 -timp, piano,strings
050	Reels, jigs, and squares; 200 dance tunes for violin and piano	©1945	piano, violin
051	BItter Herbs; dance for solo piano	©1958	piano
052	Three ballads from the Catskills: for small orchestra	©1949	1,1,2,1-2,2,2, 0-timp,strgs, solo vln, solo vla, solo vlc.
053	Three new sonatas	(1950)	piano
053 #3	Sonata, op. 53, no. 3 (in New Music for the Piano)	©1963	piano
054	Songs from the Catskills for concert band	©1958	: 4, 2, 7, 3, 7, sax-4,(3 cornet), 2, (bar), 3, 2-timp, perc, cb.
055	Suite for brass sextet	©1958	2 trumpets, horn (or horn in E♭), baritone(or euphonium), trombone, and tuba.
056	Traditional dances. 200 tunes for violin and piano	©1951-52, 1958	piano, violin
057	Olden time dances. 142 tunes for violin and piano	1951, 1958	piano, violin
058	A Catskill Songster	1954, 1958	songbook with chords
059	Merry Ditties	1955, 1958, 1973	songbook
060	Sing, Learn and Play for Piano	1974	piano
061	3 Traditional Songs for 4-part chorus	1965, 1966	SATB
063	[45] American folksongs for piano	1958
064	[25] Good Old Songs for Piano - music for study	1958, 1959	piano
066	[12] Old songs for young sailors	1958
067	[55] American folk songs; arr. for 2 recorders, Vol 1 & 2	©1962, 1963	2 recorders
068	[15] Traditional dances: for piano	1958	piano
069	Three sonatinas: for piano	1957	piano
069	Three traditional songs		choral
070	Dingle Hill	1958	cantata for vocal soloists, chorus, orchestra
071	Book of Nonsense Songs	1971	songbook/chords
072	A first diatonic reader for piano	1962	piano
073	Woodland Valley Sketches for small orchestra #1-6		fl,3cl,baritone h,2 vln, vla, cello
074	Quintet for Oboe and Strings	©1960	oboe, 2 violins, viola and violoncello
075	A second diatonic reader: for piano	©1962	piano
076	Next steps: for piano	©1962	piano
077	More steps: for piano	©1962	piano
079	Clefs, crabs & mirrors: easy-to-play puzzles for piano	©1962	piano
080	First Steps for Piano	©1964	piano
081	Music for recorder (or other woodwind instrument) without accompaniment: book 1, 32 easy melodies	©1964	recorder, oboe, sax, clarinet, bassoon, bass rec
082	Music for recorder (or other woodwind instrument) without accompaniment: book 2, 16 short solos	©1964	recorder (or other woodwind)
083	The tempest: music to the comedy by William Shakespeare (also listed as Op 83a)	©1964	instrumental
083a	The tempest: music to the comedy by William Shakespeare (also listed as Op 83a)	1964	vocal
084	Music for Shakespeare; a collection of songs and instrumental pieces for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, freely adapted from Elizabethan sources.	1964	vocal, piano
086	Easterns: music for the dance	1964	piano
087	Four favors: for beginning violin and piano	1964	piano, violin
088	Sonatina: for piano	1964	piano
089	Three charades: for clarinet & piano	1964	piano, clarinet
090	Three codettas for piano	©1961	piano
091	Elizabethan suite no. 1 for brass quintet	©1964, 1977	horn, trombone, 2 trumpets, tuba
092	Elizabethan suite no. 2 for string quartet	©1965	strings
094	Chamber concerto: for clarinet and strings	©1965	clarinet, string orchestra
095	New pieces for piano	©1966	piano
096	Quintet for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn & bassoon,	©1967	flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon
097	Trio: for violin, violoncello & piano	©1969	violin, violoncello, piano
098	Sonata for alto recorder (or flute) and harp (harpsichord or piano), opus 98	©1971	alto recorder (or flute), harp
098a	Evocation for alto recorder & guitar	1971	Alto Recorder or flute with guitar
099	Five intonations for trumpet quartet	©1971	4 trumpets
099a	Intonation #6: for recorder quartet (S A A T)	1971	recorders (S A A T)
100	Six Sennets for Trombone Quartet	©1971	trombone
101	The sunshine sonata: sonata quasi una fantasia	©1971	piano
102	Sonata for bassoon and piano	©1971	piano, bassoon
102a	Sonata for Violincello and Piano	©1971	piano, violincello
103	Concerto for viola and orchestra	©1972	piano, viola
104	Sonata: for english horn and piano	©1974	piano, english horn
104a	Sonata: for viola and piano, op. 104a	©1974	piano, viola
104b	Sonata: for clarinet and piano	©1974	piano, clarinet
105	Sonata: for tuba and piano	©1974	piano, tuba
105a	Sonata for double bass and piano	©1971	piano, double bass
106	6 [six] preludes and fugues: for piano	©1974	piano