Multimodality in “The Bells”: New Explorations in Poe’s Symphonic Poem

The article is dedicated to analyse and newly evaluate one of the last M. K. cŒiurlionis“™ music compositions ““ the symphonic poem “Dies irae“. First of all, the role of liturgical sequence of the middle ages “Dies irae“ is described in the context of Christian culture of Europe. Then the adaptations of the sequence in music of European composers (especially of romantic epoch) are presented. It is noted that the usage of “Dies irae“ sequence in music compositions of Hector Berlioz, Ferenc Liszt and Sergei Rachmaninov was directly related to the idea of fatality, pain and death. One of the most typical examples is the Symphonic poem “preludes“ by Liszt which embodies a philosophical view of Alphonse de Lamartine. Some aspects of cŒiurlionis“™ creative process related to destiny, eternity and death are revealed in this context. The influence of painter Arnold BA¶cklin to the formation of cŒiurlionis“™ philosophical views and its expression not only in painting but also in music is emphasized. The painting “Isle of the Dead“ by BA¶cklin influenced many artists at the end of the 19 th century. cŒiurlionis also admired BA¶cklin. He saw the painting “Isle of the Dead“ for the first time in Leipzig, May 1902. It was the 5 th version of the painting (1886) with brighter-coloured sky and sea, slightly lacking the mournful serenity of the earlier versions. In the same year cŒiurlionis listened to the Symphony No. 2 by Hans Huber and was left disappointed. This means that cŒiurlionis was already well acquainted with many BA¶cklin“™s paintings and felt the sense of it deeper than Hubert. Influence of BA¶cklin to cŒiurlionis is seen in postcards he has sent to his brother Povilas ““ cŒiurlionis has used not only reproduction of BA¶cklin“™s “Prometheus“ but also his own picture “Serenity“ which is very similar to BA¶cklin in its composition and expressed mood. Cycle of paintings “Funeral symphony“, first part of tryptic “Rex“ and painting “Night“ are also influenced by BA¶cklin as it is described by art critics A. Savickas and V. Landsbergis. Influence of BA¶cklin in cŒiurlionis“™ music is not so evident. Here it is possible to talk about such influence only on very general level and partly expressed ideas of death, fatality and eternity. Nevertheless cŒiurlionis titled some of his late symphonic poems as “Creation of the World“, “Dies irae“ which links our mind with basic ideas of human life. The genesis of the symphonic poem “Dies irae“ is analysed for the first time. Reasons and circumstances of disappearance of the poem from the research discourse during the 20 th century are also explained. The first question concerns the date when the symphonic poem was composed. A signed date of 1 February 1910 at the end of the score means only the final date when the manuscript was finished. Another composition written in the same manuscript book before “Dies irae“ is the symphonic poem “Creation of the World“ dated 15 March 1907, Warsaw. So it is possible that the symphonic poem “Dies irae“ was created between 1907 and 1910 and only rewritten into one manuscript book together with previous compositions on 1 February 1910. In the analysis of the symphonic poem thematic and structural features are presented together with the explanation of new principles of music composition ““ the specific way to organize musical elements according to the principles of visual art. There are a lot of themes used in the symphonic poem “Dies irae“ and they are used like visual icons with minimum transformations. Only different ways of comparing these themes between themselves is used instead of thematic evaluation. This influenced the main structure of the poem. There are features of 3 part recapitulative structure as well as concentric form (symmetrical, 5 parts) and sonata allegro form as well. The conclusion is made that the symphonic poem “Dies irae“ is the pinnacle of all cŒiurlionis“™ music, outstanding with new conception of thematic exposition, development and music drama-making principles.

Liszt composed the symphonic poem Hamlet towards the end of his tenure as Kapellmeister of the Weimar Court Theatre, a time when he regularly conducted operas, concerts, incidental music and variety performances. It was also a time when he frequently came into contact with artists, writers, musicians and actors. One actor in particular left a memorable impression: Bogumil Dawison. Dawison's style was unusual at the time; his performances were noted for their aggression, expressiveness and energy, and many praised the flexibility of his voice and face. Dawison aimed for a realistic approach in response to Goethe's Classicism, but the result was closer to the melodramatic style that was gaining in popularity at the time. His portrayal of Hamlet was particularly innovative, and it captured Liszt's imagination shortly before he composed the symphonic poem inspired by Shakespeare's tragedy.The relationship between the world of the theatre (particularly spoken theatre) and the symphonic poems has never before been explored in Liszt scholarship, yet, as this article reveals, spoken theatre had a significant influence onHamlet.Indeed, this article will draw new stylistic and conceptual parallels between this symphonic poem and both melodrama as a genre and its related ‘melodramatic’ style of acting. The article argues that Dawison's influence can be traced in Liszt's approach to this work and that a ‘melodramatic reading’ can enable us to interpret some of its more puzzling aspects.

This short work is one in a series of tone poems for symphony orchestra, written by the composer in late summer 2013. It is written in the tradition of similar works by Franz Liszt, Bedřich Smetana, Mikhail Glinka, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The composer intended to compose 3 symphonic poems in this set, though may write more. The Symphonic Poem #2 was written with bagpipe in the orchestra. (All parts to this work are available on Academic Commons).

This short work is one in a series of tone poems for symphony orchestra, written by the composer in late summer 2013. It is written in the tradition of similar works by Franz Liszt, Bedřich Smetana, Mikhail Glinka, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The composer intended to composer 3 symphonic poems in this set, though may write more. The Symphonic Poem #1 was written with a specific emphasis on harp and flute. (All parts of this work are also available on Academic Commons).

Semantic labelling of acoustic scenes has recently emerged as active topic covering a wide range of applications, e.g. surveillance and audio-based information retrieval. In this paper, we present an effective approach for acoustic scene classification through characterizing both background sound textures and acoustic events. The work takes inspiration from the psychoacoustic definition of acoustic scenes, that is, skeleton of (acoustic) events on a bed of (sound) texture. In detail, we firstly employ distinct models to exploit sound textures and events in acoustic scenes, individually. Subsequently, based on fact that the perceptual importance of two parts will vary with respect to different scene categories, we develop favourable class-conditional fusion scheme to aggregate two-channel information. To validate proposed approach, we conduct extensive experiments on Rouen dataset which includes 19 categories of daily acoustic scenes with 3026 real-world recordings, and the proposed approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods by a large margin.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsClare A. ThornleyClare A. Thornley is currently a casual academic in Music at the University of Western Sydney. She received a Ph.D. from New York University where she completed a dissertation on Antonín Dvořák's symphonic poems. She has also written about Martinů's student Vítěslava Kaprálová, Dvořák's student Laura Sedgwick Collins, and music performances in Sydney in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Email: c.thornley@uws.edu.au

On Gabriel Pierné and his compositions for piano and orchestra

Music performance is inherently social. Most music is performed in groups, and even soloists are subject to influence from a (real or imagined) audience. It is also inherently creative. Performers are called upon to interpret notated music, improvise new musical material, adapt to unexpected playing conditions, and accommodate technical errors. The focus of this paper is how creativity is distributed across members of a music ensemble as they perform these tasks. Some aspects of ensemble performance have been investigated extensively in recent years as part of the broader literature on joint action (e.g., the processes underlying sensorimotor synchronization). Much of this research has been done under highly controlled conditions, using tasks that generate reliable results, but capture only a small part of ensemble performance as it occurs naturalistically. Still missing from this literature is an explanation of how ensemble musicians perform in conditions that require creative interpretation, improvisation, and/or adaptation: how do they coordinate the production of something new? Current theories of creativity endorse the idea that dynamic interaction between individuals, their actions, and their social and material environments underlies creative performance. This framework is much in line with the embodied music cognition paradigm and the dynamical systems perspective on ensemble coordination. This review begins by situating the concept of collaborative musical creativity in the context of embodiment. Progress that has been made toward identifying the mechanisms that underlie collaborative creativity in music performance is then assessed. The focus is on the possible role of musical imagination in facilitating performer flexibility, and on the forms of communication that are likely to support the coordination of creative musical output. Next, emergence and group flow–constructs that seem to characterize ensemble performance at its peak–are considered, and some of the conditions that may encourage periods of emergence or flow are identified. Finally, it is argued that further research is needed to (1) demystify the constructs of emergence and group flow, clarifying their effects on performer experience and listener response, (2) determine how constrained musical imagination is by perceptual experience and understand people's capacity to depart from familiar frameworks and imagine new sounds and sound structures, and (3) assess the technological developments that are supposed to facilitate or enhance musical creativity, and determine what effect they have on the processes underlying creative collaboration.

The subject matter discussed in the text is a symphonic poem by Ferenc Kovač (KOVÁCS, 1948) titled
 “Ratna poema” (The War Poem) arranged for piano and tamburitza orchestra. The premiere performance of the piece
 by the pianist Slađana Marić and The Grand Tamburitza Orchestra of Radio-Television of Vojvodina, conducted by
 F. Kovač, was held on 24th of May, 2011 in Novi Sad, Serbia. The main purpose of this research was to discuss this
 unique music piece in contemporary piano and tamburitza orchestra repertoire. Methodology was based on soft or
 research interview and analytical approach. The main conclusion was that, in general, this orchestral work with a
 solo piano, is a unique combination of memorable tunes, solid construction, and vivid orchestration. The analytical
 interpretations offered in this paper may be the first guidance for future interpretation or performance of the piece.
 
 Keywords: Kovač (Kovács) Ferenc; Musical analysis and performance; Piano Repertoire; Tamburitza Orchestra.

The Relationship between Flow and Music Performance Level of Undergraduates in Exam Situations: The Effect of Musical Instrument

Melodic dictations are usually practiced in Ear Training classes and, associated with them, some strategies are employed by students and instructors in order to favor these types of ac-tivities. This study investigates two strategies that can be used in this context: composition and performance. The aims of this work are to investigate the influence of composition and musical performance, accomplished prior to a set of dictations, on the results of the latter; and to discuss the use of these strategies in Ear Training teaching. Two quasi-experimental studies were carried out, during the Covid-19 pandemic, involving a pre and a post-test applied on-line and formed by melodic dictations. Between them, the participants of the first experiment (N = 25) performed a compositional activity and, in the second (N = 44), they performed mu-sic. The results of these studies showed that composition and musical performance did not play a significant role on performance in melodic dictation. Explanations for this can be found in limitations of the online research instruments employed. However, we believe that the strategies investigated here can be used not as simple “formulas for success”, but as ped-agogical tools to be used in the long term for the development of perception. It is possible that future studies, carried out under better conditions, could observe the positive effects of mu-sical composition and performance.

Certain trends in the recital of Western art music composition and performance have embraced indeterminacy through an emerging sonic aesthetic that seeks to redefine the notion of failure. From Charles Ives' adoption of bi-tonality in the early twentieth century to the ‘glitch’ movement in contemporary computer music, this article traces ways in which musicians have sought to embrace the risk for failure in performance with special attention to virtuosic instrumental music ( Cascone 2006 ; Rodgers 2003 ; Godlovitch 1998 ; Rosen 2002 ). Drawing upon the author's recent interdisciplinary practice-led research ‘Woman=Music=Desire’ (2010) and adopting a choreographic approach to the re-appropriation of musical gesture, the author explores how the risk for failure contributes to live musical experience. This discussion is then extended to the process of corporeal acquisition necessary in rehearsing and performing a piece of music which, the author suggests, results in a degree of gestural self-simulation. In this way, the performer's personal authenticity is discussed as a potential locus of failure in which the physical manifestation of emotional expression helps to determine empathetic identification between performer, spectator and instrument ( Kivy 1995 ). Drawing upon Steven Baker's notion of ‘botched taxidermy’ (2000), the author suggests that this empathetic identification creates a space in which the potential risk for failure might be considered intrinsic to conceptions of corporeality in music performance. In this way, live musical experience is posited a site of risk in which the performer, as a desiring subject, emerges as the embodiment of failure. A short excerpt of the case study ‘Woman=Music=Desire’ may be viewed at: http://www.imogene-newland.co.uk/perf_women_md.php

On October 16, 1973, at four o'clock in the afternoon, musician and educator Jorge Pena was executed in the penitentiary of La Serena, Chile, on the command of General Sergio Arellano Stark, the leader of the Caravan of Death and delegate of the army commander-in-chief Augusto Pinochet. (1) A military court had convicted Pena on trumped-up charges of having participated in the acquisition and distribution of firearms and of instructional and organizational paramilitary activity against the armed forces, policemen, and people of (2) As the dictatorship's violent killing brought a halt to Pena's musical reforms, the exile of many of his colleagues by the Pinochet regime scattered Pena's followers. The military's suppression of his ideas removed them from public discourse until after the return to democracy in the 1990s. All that stood as testimony to his life were remnants of musical compositions written during his final days of imprisonment with the ends of burnt matchsticks on the inside of old cigarette boxes. Why was Pena so brutally silenced? In 1950s and 1960s Chile, Jorge Pena proposed and successfully instituted reforms that fundamentally changed the access Chileans had to music education and performance. He openly critiqued the music education institutions of previous decades as elitist and aristocratic, since they provided music education for a select few and restricted Western art music performance to a small circle. In contrast, Pena sought to bring Western art music beyond Santiago and make it available to all across social and geographic divisions. In overturning traditionally restricted access to Western art music his musical work became controversial and ultimately politically powerful, resulting in his execution during the early days of Pinochet's regime. In this essay, I show that Jorge Pena reformed Chilean music performance and education in three steps: founding the Sociedad Bach de La Serena in 1950 and the Conservatorio Regional in 1956, focusing on children in the proposal of the Plan de Extension Docente and the Orquesta de Ninos in 1964, and institutionalizing these changes in the form of the Escuela Experimental in 1965. These reforms had the immediate effect of transforming Chilean music education and performance in the 1960s and a long-lasting resonance in the development of Western art music in Chile as the philosophical foundation for the youth symphony movement of the 1990s. Methodology In this article, I analyze Pena's work in its historical and political contexts and locate Pena as a protagonist in the process of democratizing Western art music in Chile. Restoring this context requires innovative research, since much documentation has been lost through both deliberate erasure and neglectful storage. This historical analysis is pieced together using a variety of primary sources, including personal interviews with colleagues and students of Pena. These are supported by reviews and articles in music publications such as the Revista Musical Chilena and local periodicals such as El Mercurio (Santiago) and El Dia (La Serena) published during the time Pena was working, in order to provide perspective into both public and institutional reactions to Pena's reforms. Key secondary sources include a biography about Pena's life and works and two unpublished dissertations. (3) Pena's Early Work: The Sociedad Bach and the Conservatorio Regional Jorge Pena had the intuition that it was possible to redefine boundaries, to tear down the barriers that had determined Western art music should be reserved for the cultured elite of our country. --Jose Weinstein, former Chilean minister of culture, 2003 The importance of Pena's work can be highlighted in contrast to the state of Chilean Western art music prior to the 1950s, which was restricted to the upper class and confined to the capital city of Santiago. Music professor Marfa Luisa Munoz summed up the midcentury situation: Only in small and select groups that keep themselves isolated, is art music cultivated and its aesthetic benefits valued. …

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Musical Works: Ontology and Meta‐Ontology

With the emergence of new and sophisticated control devices, like data gloves and data suits, there is an increasing need to integrate gestural expression into the musical composition and performance environment. In such an environment, emotions can be expressed through sensors and combined with musical software. State-of-the-art sound and music generation systems, like MAX/FTS, MIDAS, PD/GEM and Supercollider, can be used for such an environment. The issues and related demands, like visualisation and scripting, addressed by these software packages are complex and resource-intensive. The underlying software architectures have to deal with multitasking, parallel processing, real-time operation, etc. This paper evaluates architectures of known software and hardware systems with respect to their ability to integrate gestural control algorithms and devices into a sound and music generation environment.