An Interview with György Ligeti in Hamburg

У статті розглядається дуетність як константний принцип ансамблевого письма в фортепіанному тріо № 1 ор. 7 та струнному квартеті № 2 ор. 4 Б. Лятошинського. Обидва твори написані 1922 року, в період еволюційних змін стилю композитора, що робить їх показовими з точки зору композиторського мислення. Модерністські пошуки та експерименти проявились в них ускладненням музичної мови, однак в ансамблевому письмі можна спостерігати тяжіння до втілення принципу дуетності як квінтесенції романтичного типу висловлювання. Аналіз наукової літератури з питань композиторського письма продемонстрував активну розробку його галузевих різновидів – хорового, оркестрового ансамблевого. З опорою на сформовані концепції автор статті обирає “ансамблеве письмо” інструментом аналізу особливості ансамблевої взаємодії в двох камерно-інструментальних творах Б. Лятошинського різних інструментальних складів (фортепіанне тріо і струнний квартет) на перетині загального й індивідуального. Таким чином, метою статті є дослідження дуетності як константного принципу ансамблевої письма в струнному квартеті № 2 ор. 4 та фортепіанному тріо № 1 ор. 7 Б. Лятошинського. З огляду на існування дослідницької лакуни з окресленої проблеми новизна пропонованої статті вбачається у розгляді камерно-інструментальних ансамблевих творів різних складів Б. Лятошинського в аспекті особливостей ансамблевого письма. Застосовані жанровий, функціональний, компаративний, стильовий методи дослідження. У висновках наголошується на константності і знаковості дуетності як принципу ансамблевого письма в обраних творах Б. Лятошинського. Аналіз засобів втілення дуетності дозволив виокремити п’ять прийомів, що можуть гнучко чергуватись і реалізовуватись в різних тембрових і регістрових умовах.

Bright Sheng was born in Shanghai, China, in 1955, and became one of America’s leading composers in the twentieth-century. Bright Sheng’s orchestral music, opera and chamber music is frequently performed throughout the world. His musical language combines Chinese folk music and Western techniques--the meeting of East and West. This essay will discuss Bright Sheng’s The Stream Flows for solo violin (1990), Three Fantasies for Violin and Piano (2006), String Quartet No.3 (1993), and String Quartet No.4 Silent Tempo (2000). These works represent Sheng’s chamber music for strings. This essay will be organized as follows: Chapter 1 will provide Bright Sheng’s biography and compositional style. Chapter 2 will discuss an overview of Chinese folk music. Chapter 3 is an analysis of Sheng’s The Stream Flows for solo violin. Chapter 4 will introduce Sheng’s Three Fantasies for Violin and Piano. Chapters 5 and 6 will present Sheng’s String Quartets No.3 and No.4.

Haydn's keyboard music spans the period from the 1750s, when it is assumed he wrote his first solo keyboard works, to 1797, when he produced the keyboard version of the slow movement from the ‘Emperor’ String Quartet. Quite apart from changes in compositional style, this period saw many changes in the music profession, among which we may count the gradual acceptance, by composers, performers, and the musical public, of the fortepiano as the main keyboard instrument and the gradual displacement of the harpsichord and clavichord. Although it is now accepted that Cristofori had invented the gravicembalo col piano e forte by c. 1700 (possibly a few years before the advent of the eighteenth century) and had solved most of the mechanical problems of construction, the rise in popularity of the new instrument and the consequent, gradual decline in the use of the harpsichord occurred principally in the years 1760 to 1790. The transfer in allegiance from one instrument to another occurred at a different pace in various countries and even within a specific geographical region composers embraced the ‘new’ instrument at remarkably divergent dates. In Italy, notwithstanding the early example of Giustini's Sonate da cimbalo di piano, e forte detto volgarmente di martelletti, published in Florence in 1732, the fortepiano seems, paradoxically, to have become dominant at a relatively late date: for example, Galuppi's Passatempo al cembalo of 1785 is still perfectly compatible with performance on a harpsichord.

Speculatively probing the twilight of Czech composer Leos Janacek’s (1854-1928) life and career, an enthusiastic PhD student, Anezka Ungrova, crossexamines the dead Janacek – the subject of her thesis. The setting for the play is the present day when Ungrova is interviewing the deceased Janacek for her doctoral dissertation. She is intrigued by the passions of word and music embodied in this story. Of particular interest to Ungrova are the 700 passionate love letters the composer wrote to Kamila Stosslova over the last 11 years of his life and to what extent this relationship influenced and inspired his later quartets, mainly Quartet No. 2 which the composer called Intimate Letters. Janacek wrote his String Quartet No. 2 over a period of three weeks in January-February 1928. He was then in his 74th year. He died the following August. While he was composing Intimate Letters, every day he wrote extravagant, passionate, at times barely coherent love-letters to Kamila Stosslova, a married woman 37 years his junior. Performances, Friel’s latest play, looks at Janacek’s frantic life during those intoxicated weeks, and specifically at his obsession with Kamila and the manifestation of that passion in the themes of the Quartet. Punctuated only by the intrusion by a string quartet, Ungrova’s relentless questioning of Janacek gradually assumes a shrink/patient relationship and is elevated above the tedium of mere biographical inquiry. This device allows Friel to expertly portray the broader themes of human longing and love, and their subsequent manifestations in art and music. Friel also explores the issue about the way that we tend to prefer the artist to his art and look to the life rather than the work. Musical constructions abound in the work of Friel and it is not unusual to find him structuring sections of his drama after musical forms. This paper sustains that unlike other plays by Friel such as Translations and Philadelphia Here I Come! which can be considered strong political plays, Performances can be remembered as an impulse to combine theatre and music. However, according to critics, Friel “has written this piece with a carefree, almost reckless and disdainful attitude towards popular acclaim” which may disappoint theatregoers who attend on the strength of his previous hit outings, such as Dancing at Lughnasa, Living Quarters or Philadelphia, Here I Come.

Bartók’s string quartets play an important role in his overall output, as they represent a stylistic universe encompassing almost his entire oeuvre. In his String Quartet No. 1, Bartók aimed at reworking and expanding the folk elements as well as at developing his own personal expression. Despite being deeply rooted in folklore, this is not a folkloric work, but an expression that goes beyond folklore, which the composer placed in a new relationship to art-music. The aim of this research paper is to explore the aspects of language, the content conforming to the preoccupations of the modern era and the types of writing used, with a focus on the use of the melodic and rhythmic elements of folk music. The musical stylistics of this work is based precisely on the intertwinement and fusion of the two great creative principles: folk and art. REZUMAT. EXPRESIA FILONULUI FOLCLORIC ROMÂNESC ÎN CVARTETUL DE COARDE NR. 1 DE BÉLA BARTÓK. Cvartetele de coarde, în creaţia lui Bartók, au un rol important în ansamblul gândirii întregii creaţii a compozitorului, deoarece acestea reprezintă un univers stilistic extins în aproape întreaga viaţă componistică. În Cvartetul de coarde nr. 1, Bartók a urmărit prelucrarea şi lărgirea elementelor populare şi realizarea expresiei personale. Cu toate rădăcinile în folclor, ea nu este folclorică, ci este o expresie suprapusă folclorului, pe care compozitorul a situat-o în raporturi noi cu arta cultă. Problemele de limbaj, conţinutul legat de preocupările epocii moderne, tipurile de scriitură folosite vor constitui obiectul cercetării prezentei lucrări, având focusul orientat înspre folosirea elementelor melodice şi ritmice ale muzicii folclorice. Stilistica muzicală regăsită în această lucrare se bazează tocmai pe întrepătrunderea şi unificarea celor două mari principii creatoare: folcloricul şi cultul/clasicul. Cuvinte cheie: Béla Bartók, cvartet de coarde, elemente folclorice.

Esta tesis estudia el impacto que tuvo en la música e ideario estético de Roberto Gerhard el intenso contacto del compositor con Arnold Schoenberg durante los años veinte. En la primera parte examino la relación de Gerhard con los principios compositivos y pedagógicos de Schoenberg, en particular durante su periodo de estudio en Viena y Berlín (1923 – 28). El magisterio de Schoenberg es contextualizado con respecto a la formación musical anterior del compositor. En la segunda parte estudio la transformación del lenguaje compositivo de Gerhard en el periodo 1921 - 1927. Comparo para ello el primer Apunt para piano (1921) –compuesto poco antes de su traslado a Viena– con tres piezas compuestas junto a Schoenberg que considero particularmente interesantes: el Divertimento para instrumentos de viento (1926), el Andantino para violín, clarinete y piano (ca. 1927) y el primer movimiento del cuarteto de cuerda compuesto en 1927 como proyecto fin de estudios, en claro homenaje al Cuarteto de cuerda nº 2, Op. 10 de Schoenberg. Ninguna de estas obras ha sido pormenorizadamente analizada hasta el momento. Mi trabajo detalla las técnicas compositivas empleadas en estas piezas y su relación con la obra e ideario de Schoenberg en los años veinte. En menor medida, se examinan otras afinidades significativas con la música de autores contemporáneos como Frederic Mompou, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók o Josef Matthias Hauer. Mi análisis se centra en explicar las distintas estrategias de integración motívica, el uso de la simetría y la “combinación transpositiva” como principales factores constructivos, la fuerte tendencia al empleo de la colección octatónica como set referencial, las primeras técnicas empleadas para la organización serial del material, las abundantes (y a menudo irónicas) alusiones a elementos musicales del pasado (principalmente de los siglos XVII y XVIII) y la clara adscripción de las obras compuestas entre 1926 y 1928 al formalismo neoclásico de los años veinte. Entender las particularidades y transformaciones de la técnica compositiva de Gerhard durante el periodo de formación con Schoenberg es fundamental para poder comprender en profundidad el desarrollo posterior de su lenguaje y abordar con éxito el estudio de su obra de madurez.

Statement of the problem. In modern performance and musicological practice, there is a clear tendency to revite the works of little-known or forgotten authors, in particular, female composers. The study of their work in modern discourse, mainly English-speaking, is mostly of an overview nature. The work of female composers is often considered from the standpoint of gender inequality and gender psychology. A certain lack of actually musicological studies of the works by female composers is observed. One of such little-known figures is Amanda Maier Röntgen – a Swedish violinist and composer, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and the Leipzig Conservatory, the first woman received the title of “Musik Direktor” and was actively toured in Europe, whose work is practically not studied in Ukrainian musicology. Analysis of recent publications. The figure of A. Maier is briefly mentioned in a number of works devoted to Swedish musical culture, in reference materials (Jönsson, 1995; Karlsson, 1994; Öhrström, 1987; Öhrström & Eriksson, 1995; Riemann, 2017; Laurence, 1978), in the studies devoted to other composers: J. Brahms, E. Grieg, J. Röntgen (Internationaler Brahms-Kongress Gmunden, 2001; Hofmann & Hofmann, 2006; Grieg, 2001; Vis, 2007). The most meaningful study dedicated to A. Maier is J. Martin’s dissertation (2018), but it focuses on the biographical moments and the position of female artists in the 19th century in general, omitting the actual musicological consideration of the composer’s works. Analysis of recent research and publications. The figure of A. Maier is briefly mentioned in a number of works devoted to Swedish musical culture, in reference materials (Jönsson, 1995; Karlsson, 1994; Öhrström, 1987; Öhrström & Eriksson, 1995; Riemann, 2017; Laurence, 1978), studies devoted to other composers: J. Brahms, E. Grieg, J. Röntgen (Internationaler Brahms-Kongress Gmunden, 2001; Hofmann & Hofmann, 2006; Grieg, 2001; Vis, 2007). The most meaningful study dedicated to the creative personality of A. Maier is the dissertation of J. Martin, but the researcher focuses on biographical moments and the position of female artists in the 19th century in general, omitting the actual musicological consideration of the composer’s works. The purpose of this article is to characterize A. Maier’s chamber work, to prorose its periodization and to trace the specifics of evolution of the composer’s chamber-instrumental style. The scientific novelty. For the first time in Ukrainian musicology, a comprehensive study of A. Maier’s chamber-instrumental work is carried out. Methodology of the research. The research results is based on such scientific and culturologic methods as historical and biographical; historical and genrestylistic; also the analytical musicological methods were used when considering A.Maier’s chamber instrumental works. Conclusions. The main phases of A. Maier’s professional development as a composer are the early and mature periods. Taking into account both, the biographical and purely musical stylistic factors, we regarde it inappropriate to talk about the late period of the artist’s work. We consider the early period to be the study time at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. The mature period begins after its end with the creation of the Sonata for violin and piano (1873). The mature period of the composer’s creativity is also subject to internal differentiation, since the time period from 1873 to 1880 (the year of marriage) was marked by much more active creative searches, a greater variety of genres and instrumental compositions, than the later years of A. Mayer’s life (in addition to chamber instrumental works, the Concerto for violin and orchestra, the chamber and vocal pieces were written). In the mature period, such notable opuses as Piano Trio, String Quartet, cycles of miniatures for piano and violin were created. The analysis of A. Maier’s scores revealed the main trends in the development of the composer’s chamber-instrumental style: an aspiration to symphonize the chamber music; the expansion of the imagery palette (the dominance of lyricodramatic impulses in the first mature works, the synthesis of lyrico-dramatic, lyrico-epic, epico-heroic, folklore-genre imagery spheres in the laters ones); active search for an individual solution to the violin miniature genre, in which the Swedish national musical traditions are most vividly embodied.

This chapter examines Britten's relatively few mature works for conventional chamber ensemble-just three numbered string quartets – and four pieces written for the artistry of a single virtuoso instrumentalist: the Sonata in C, and the three solo Suites, all for the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. The small number of works under discussion need not imply a lack of sympathy for purely instrumental composition on the part of a composer whose career was dominated by opera. Britten's precocious boyhood compositions include numerous chamber works (in 1926–8, for example, he wrote four pieces under the title ‘String Quartet’), and this early involvement with chamber music – continued as a student at the Royal College, where Britten played piano trios regularly – was certainly reinforced by his contact with Frank Bridge. Much later in life, Britten wrote publicly of his debt to his teacher: ‘He taught me to think and feel through the instruments I was writing for: he was most naturally an instrumental composer, and as a superb viola player he thought instrumentally.’ The cello works for Rostropovich (and also the haunting Nocturnal for guitarist Julian Bream) are solitary, private statements, and they do not offer the chamber-musical interplay of voices within a group. In clarity of line and textural transparency, though, they encapsulate that aesthetic ideal of chamber music – in the composer's words, ‘a subtlety, an intimacy … usually lacking in grander forms’ – that informs all of Britten's work.

Maurice Ohana. 3e quatuor (Sorgin-ngo) pour quatuor à cordes, [1989]. Paris: Gérard Billaudot (T. Presser), c1995. [Score, 22 p. and 4 parts; G 5627 B. $37.50; duration: 219300.]

In the article, the author reveals the specifics of the artistic and aesthetic views of the outstanding French composer based on the study of the musical text of M. Ravel's chamber-instrumental composition and musicological literature. The authors substantiate the idea of the significance of literary sources for the formation of Ravel's compositional style. Using the analytical method, the author identifies the compositional, dramatic, melodic, textural and Lado-harmonic features of the Ravel string Quartet (1903). The use of the comparative analysis method allowed us to determine the similarity and difference of the approaches Of M. Ravel and C. Debussy in the interpretation of the string Quartet genre. Consideration of the string Quartet in the context Of M. Ravel's work allowed the author to clarify certain aspects of the composer's creative method, to Supplement the ideas about his aesthetic and ideological principles.

The article explores the genre of string quartet on the example of Beethoven and Shostakovich in the aspect of intonation and thematic connections, as well as the parallels of creativity of both composers. The author gives examples of thematic, interval, intonation and textural-melodic quoting of Beethoven's works in Shostakovich's quartets. Russian culture and Beethoven's influence is revealed, in particular, in relation to working with the material of Russian songs in quartets written by order of Count Razumovsky. The author reveals Shostakovich's attraction to Beethoven's work, the closeness of his compositional style and ideas in terms of conceptuality, architectonics, the use of musical and expressive means and a tendency to dynamic onslaught. The methodology of the research is based on the analysis of historical materials, musical articles, concepts of outstanding historians and music theorists. The main contribution of this study is the identification of thematic and semantic connections between the quartets of Beethoven and Shostakovich. The author concludes that Shostakovich often turned to Beethoven's work, used his methods and techniques of working with the material, the structure of the cycle, included allusions to themes, intonations in his quartets, and even used whole textured excerpts from Beethoven's music – and he made it through the prism of his creative style. The novelty of the article lies in the identification of the connection between Beethoven's work and Russian music, the composer's use of melodies of Russian songs in "Russian Quartets", as well as intonation-thematic parallels between the quartets of Beethoven and Shostakovich. In addition, the article reveals the special role of the performer in the work on the quartet of both Beethoven and Shostakovich.

To understand the movement of Variations V is not to grasp just the politics of representation in the presence of its sights and sounds, but also the signification that could result through the potentiality of the culture of indeterminacy. The slippage of dijferance allows for any number of ecological, political, or technological statements. Through this Derridean play, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and the rest of the collaborators of Variations V critically engaged with American culture during the 1960s.

Gaetano Brunetti. Trios para dos violines y violonchelo. Series VI y VIII. Edicion critica Lluis Bertran Xirau. (Musica Hispana, Serie B: Musica Instrumental, 48.) Madrid: Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, 2012. [Introd. in Spa., Eng. (including editorial criteria, description of the sources, and critical notes), p. vii-xxx; scores, p. 3-283. ISMN 979-09013192-5-7 (recte, 979-0-9013192-7-1). 35 [euro].] Gaetano Brunetti. Cuartetos de cuerda LI 84-El 99. Edicion critica Miguel Angel Marin, Jorge Fonseca. (Musica Hispana, Serie B: Musica Instrumental, 51.) Madrid: Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, 2012. [Introd. in Spa., Eng. (including description of the sources, and editorial criteria), p. ix-xl; scores, p. 3-392. ISMN 979-0-9013192-5-7. 40 [euro].] It can truly be said that Gaetano Brunetti (1744-1798) has been a discovery of American musicology; at a time when the composer had remained forgotten for some 150 years, the slow process of recovering Brunetti's music was set in motion by Newell Jenkins, who recorded three of his symphonies in the 1950s, thanks to the Haydn Society, and it was mainly in the United States where Brunetti's music was first published through the 1960s; also, the first two doctoral dissertations and the first master's thesis on the composer were also written in North American universities. But Brunetti remains an obscure composer in the European panorama of the late eighteenth century, partly due to the scarcity of recordings, scores, and a long-standing and sustained scholarly tradition. It may be useful to remember that Brunetti and Luigi Boccherini were the main composers active in Spain in the second half of the eighteenth century. Both were Italians and moved to Spain early in their careers, entering the service of the royal family in 1770 and 1769, respectively. Brunetti followed multiple career paths: he was a violinist in the Royal Chapel, maestro de musica to the Prince of Asturias, chamber musician, composer and, although he published only four of his works, he was the main provider of music at the Spanish court between 1770 and 1798. His extensive compositional oeuvre includes seventy-four sonatas, thirteen duos, forty-seven string trios, fifty quartets, sixty-six quintets, twelve sextets, forty-one symphonies and orchestral works, and twenty-five vocal works of different kinds. Together with Boccherini, Brunetti was the most prolific author of symphonies and chamber music in Spain in the last third of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, only twenty-four of his works have been recorded in the last twenty years, while four of his symphonies (the releases from the 1950s) are hard to find. At the same time, the scarcity of modern editions of Brunetti's compositions has effectively limited the number of recordings of his music and its diversity: there are two versions of symphonies no. 22 and no. 23, and three versions of no. 33, while only five symphonies (out of thirty-six) are commercially available nowadays. I believe this situation is already changing. In 2012 and 2013 two recordings have been released (Gaetano Brunetti: String Quartets, performed by Ensemble Carmen Veneris [Lindoro NL-3011]; and Retrato de maniatico: Arias y sinfonias de Gaetano Brunetti, performed by the Orquesta barroca de Sevilla, cond. Chrlstophe Coin, soprano Raquel Andueza [OBS 08]); and another one is due this year (Gaetano Brunetti: Divertimenti para trio de. cuerda, Serie IV, performed by Ensemble Carmen Veneris [Lindoro NL-3021]). This equals the number of Brunetti compact discs recorded in the previous seventeen years: 3 Sinfonien performed by Concerto Koln (Capriccio 10489 [1994]); Siring Quartets, performed by the Schuppanzigh Quartett (CPO 999 780-2 [2001]); and Sei quintetti per due violini, viola, fagotto e violoncello, op. 2, performed by the Quartetto Sandro Materasi with Paolo Carlini (Tactus TC742701 [2002]). The same goes for the editions: Newell Jenkins published twelve symphonies in the 1960s and 1970s (these were the first Brunetti editions since 1776: II maniatico, Sinfonia no. …

Enhancing the Social Impact of Contemporary Music with Neurotechnology

FLAMENCO, FRACTALS, AND THE REFIGURED PAST: THREE CREATIVE PATHS FOR IMPLEMENTING MICROTONES IN CONTEMPORARY SPANISH STRING QUARTETS JOSÉ L. BESADA OUNTLESS COMPOSERS, especially in the last few decades, have implemented any number of systems of microtones in praxis, mainly quarter-tones but also even smaller intervals. This fact aside, their technical and aesthetic reasons are varied: current compositional practices are far from normalized these days, which helps to avoid a global approach to the subject of microtonality. The aim of this article is therefore to discuss a range of attitudes and solutions related to microtonal writing in recent Spanish instrumental music. In the interest of obtaining relevant results from a vast potential repertoire, the field of study is restricted to string quartets.1 This article relies on a total sample of thirteen scores signed by three composers who were born in the 1960s: Mauricio Sotelo (Madrid, 1961), Alberto Posadas (Valladolid, 1967), and Ramon Lazkano (San Sebastián, 1968). All of them draw frequently on microintervals, yet they do not C 6 Perspectives of New Music share the same creative motivations. Seven string quartets from the aforementioned sample will be duly discussed in order to provide evidence about the practices of these composers. A reminder of Julia Werntz’s academic contribution for a categorization of the cardinal reasons giving rise to a microtonal compositional style by “adding pitches”2 could be helpful: first, to build compact and blurry harmonies, often in order to obtain denser clusters or sound masses; second, to allow subtle inflections in diatonic or chromatic writing; and finally, to enlarge twelve-tone compositional logic with new formal and functional consequences. Although such categorizations can provide an analytical frame that works well in several contexts, and we could feel tempted to apply it to the present case studies, they do not necessarily match the poetics of these composers. Indeed, more complex seem to orient each composer’s implementation of microtones, not exactly fitting in with Werntz’s scheme yet converging with it in a subtler way. Before analyzing the proposed case studies, the article will provide a synoptic overview of the historical advent of microtones in Spain during the twentieth century. It will not only take into account a material accomplishment of microtonal scores—a relatively late milestone—but also several earlier theoretical writings. BRIEF HISTORICAL REMARKS Microtones implicitly emerge in several oral traditions within Spanish music, with flamenco, to be discussed below, being the most often cited. Nonetheless, microtonality in Spanish art-music appeared much later than the effervescent experimentation of the 1910s and 1920s, mainly theorized and developed in Czechoslovakia, Russia, Mexico, and the USA. Only a very narrow elite of Spanish musicians and critics kept abreast of such international avant-garde proposals. It was the case of Adolfo Salazar, who published in Spain an article with regard to microtonal music, after an exhibition he visited in Frankfurt in the summer of 1927, the Internationale Ausstellung “Musik im Leben der Völker.” The Spanish critic, among the most influential personalities within his country’s musical milieu, reported the Czech “specialization in quarter-tones,”3 though it should be pointed out that Alois Hába is not explicitly quoted in his text, comparing it with Julián Carrillo’s Sonido 13, though Carrillo’s music was not represented in the exhibition. Salazar’s article remains one of the earliest references to microtonal music from the Iberian Peninsula, despite its contingent provenance and its almost anecdotal character. Flamenco, Fractals, and the Refigured Past 7 Perhaps Salazar’s close relationship with several members of the Group of Eight, an important group of composers in various ways indebted to Manuel de Falla’s modernist attitudes,4 could explain the irruption of microtonality in their theoretical discourse, even if no systematic trace of microtones can be detected in these composers’ music during the 1930s. Even so, Gustavo Pittaluga’s conference prologue introducing the first public concert of the Group of Eight at the Residencia de Estudiantes in the autumn of 1930 contained an absolutely explicit allusion to microintervallic music: This innovator [a conscious musician] will start from the point where acoustics and music overlap. One will search the wholetone scale, another will...