Court Composer Research Articles

Where Sight Meets Sound: The Poetics of Late-Medieval Music Writing Emily Zazulia

Continuities within and between historical periods are often contentious, and this new book offers a stimulating perspective on the point of demarcation between ‘Medieval’ and ‘Renaissance’. At issue is the potential, made possible by mensural notation, for the same written material to yield different musical results in performance. The discrepancy between written material and sonic results only appears that way to us because of music notation’s subsequent development, as the relative duration of musical signs became fixed; to those working within the mensural system, the notation of duration was always understood to be contextually dependent. But over the course of the fifteenth century composers began to engage collectively with that potential with ever increasing intensity, ingenuity, and sophistication. Where Sight Meets Sound focuses on an area where this phenomenon found particularly rich expression: the notation and performance of cantus firmi. One might think that this potential had always existed, being written into the mensural system itself. The first surprise of Emily Zazulia’s narrative is the realization that its exploitation as a compositional resource came about only gradually. She begins with a thought experiment: Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, having inherited the now fragmentary Trémoïlle manuscript first owned by his great-grandfather, asks his court composer Antoine Busnoys to re-notate some of the music so that his chapel can sing it. Confronted with tenors incorporating repetition, Busnoys and his singers would have found the notation alien not because it was too complex but because it was in a certain sense not complex enough. Although it was quite common in fourteenth-century tenors for material to be repeated in halved note values (diminution, in other words), Zazulia shows that in such cases scribes generally wrote out the diminutions out in full, whereas by Busnoys’s time they were typically indicated by means of a repeat sign, a verbal rubric, or some other ‘metasign’ (Zazulia’s term—not just for reasons of practicality or economy (e.g. space-saving) but as a positive aesthetic decision. In the first chapter, Zazulia locates the change in scribal practice in the first quarter of the fifteenth century; not coincidentally, the same period sees the emergence of pieces (like the much-discussed Codex Chantilly motet Inter densas/Imbribus/Admirabile) where repetition no longer consists of ‘straight’ or exact diminution (in modern terms) but entails a degree of contextual reinterpretation, brought about by reading the same material under different mensurations. (Another harbinger of the change in approach is scribes’ increasing tendency to notate mensural signs at the start of pieces.) The potential for prescribing non-standard readings of the notation (Zazulia’s ‘transformative impulse’) gradually extended to other systematic procedures (e.g. augmentation, inversion, retrograde) and thence to more arbitrary operations in the last quarter of the fifteenth century (e.g. discounting of stems, certain categories of pitches, or rests). But the ‘transformative impulse’ is often accompanied by a corollary, the principle of ‘notational fixity’ (Zazulia’s term again), whereby all these transformations refer back to a single notational artefact whose details were fixed for the duration of the work. As the genre most associated with multiple repetitions of borrowed material, the cantus firmus mass became a privileged locus of these strategies. It has been observed that notational fixity was first associated with mass tenors derived from polyphonic songs (understandably, since these dictated both pitches and rhythms); only later, particularly with Obrecht, was the principle extended to chant-based tenors (particularly with respect to the ligatures of the given source), whose use as cantus firmi of course pre-dated that of polyphonic songs.

CREATIVE WORK OF THE EARLY VIENNESE CLASSICS IN HISTORICAL RETROSPECTIVE

The purpose of the research is to analyze the achievements of early Viennese classics through the historical prism of Empress Maria-Theresa's reign, who was the promoter and financed the musical culture in her country. The methodology of the research is based on the use of historical, source, musicological, culturological approaches, which allowed to analyze the activities of the Habsburg era musicians, who created the basis for the emergence of Viennese musical Classicism. The scientific novelty consists in the formulation of the mentioned research vector and the research material systematization of that historical epoch, which concerns the analysis of the works of early Viennese royal court composers and performers, who are little known to the general public. The Conclusions. Thus, there were significant reform changes in the cultural, socio-state and religious life of the Austrian Empire during the reign of Empress Maria-Theresa (1740 – 1780). The musical life of Vienna was characterized by the intensity and developed forms of music and concert practice. Old Viennese musicians of Maria-Theresa era created a favourable foundation for the activities of Viennese musical classics, laying the foundations in all areas of the artistic process – composer's creative work, performing practice, pedagogue's practice, music education infrastructure and concert entertainment institutions. Among the galaxy of contemporary composers-performers stood out the figures of G. K. Wagenzail, G. Reuter, M. G. Monn, J. Starzer and J. K. Manna, who were united by a common geographical location (the city of Vienna) and the same period of time (the reign of Maria-Theresa), which coincided with the peak of their creative activity. According to E. Braudo, each of the representatives of Old Viennese school individually “strengthened the foundations of the new instrumental style, both in symphonic and instrumental music” (E. Braudo).

Music, Melancholia, and Mania: Gaetano Brunetti's Obsessional Symphony

In his symphony “Il maníatico” (1780), Gaetano Brunetti gave a musical portrayal of monomania decades before it became a staple of nineteenth-century alienism (psychiatry), as well as of Romantic music and art. A detailed analysis of his symphony shows both the presenting features of what he called manía as well as the stages of the “maniac's” interaction with the surrounding “normal” world. These stages respond to widely known mental peculiarities of several generations of Spanish royalty, whom Brunetti served as court composer. Though its court audience would likely have compared this portrayal of obsession to Cervantes's Don Quixote, Brunetti's symphony may also have sent a coded message of sympathy to his patron, the crown prince who would later reign as Carlos IV and who struggled with his obsessional father, then reigning as Carlos III. At the same time, Brunetti mocked Luigi Boccherini, his rival as court composer. By presenting a subversive reimagining of the “normal” symphonic world, Brunetti characterized the mannerisms of classical style as monomania writ large. In the following decades, the term fixe Idee emerged in German literature and usage considerably before the French idée fixe. Both concepts emerged from literary, rather than medical, sources. Though Don Quixote remained a touchstone for reflections on “madness,” Brunetti's symphony anatomized obsession decades before medical discourse gave its clinical description.

Bach-Facetten. Essays, Studien, Miszellen. Mit einem Geleitwort von Peter Wollny by Hans Joachim Schulze

Reviewed by: Bach-Facetten. Essays, Studien, Miszellen. Mit einem Geleitwort von Peter Wollny by Hans Joachim Schulze Markus Rathey (bio) Hans Joachim Schulze. Bach-Facetten. Essays, Studien, Miszellen. Mit einem Geleitwort von Peter Wollny (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017). 824 pp. A total of 327 items by Hans Joachim Schulze are listed in the catalogue of publications at the end of the fascinating essay collection Bach-Facetten. The items range from books to articles, from reviews to critical editions of music to CD and LP booklets. Schulze is arguably one of the most prolific and influential Bach scholars of the second half of the twentieth century. As director of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, co-editor of the Bach Jahrbuch, and editor of numerous works by Bach, Schulze has contributed to and shaped Bach scholarship for decades. The sixty-four articles selected for this collection of representative essays, written over a span of more than five decades, are a testament to the enduring quality of Schulze’s work. Most of the articles are still relevant and have not been significantly superseded by more recent scholarship. The articles have been published here without being updated; in cases where newer research has brought forth additional information, this information is included in a short “Nachtrag” (appendix) at the end of each article. The book opens with a selection of articles about Bach’s biography and family. Particularly fascinating is the first text, which was originally written in 1978 as a sample chapter for a planned but never written Bach biography. Here, Schulze explores the years 1722–1723 and the search for a new cantor at the Thomaskirche. Who should follow Johann Kuhnau? The international star composer Georg Philipp Telemann? The experienced court composers Johann Friedrich Fasch or Christoph Graupner? Or a man much lower on the list, Johann Sebastian Bach? Schulze weaves the familiar sources about the selection of the Thomaskantor into a chapter that eschews academic jargon and presents the facts in a way that almost has the narrative drive of a novel. It is regrettable that Schulze never finished his Bach biography. He follows the vestiges of it with two later articles further examining the years 1722 and 1723, primarily by discussing in more detail the sources he had paraphrased in the initial biographical article. Readers will have to [End Page 118] complete all three texts and cope with seeing some details at least three times to get Schulze’s full picture. What would be a problem in most other books is a forgivable flaw in a retrospective collection of essays like this. The repetition shows consistency in Schulze’s methodology and thinking, such that essays from the early 1970s can stand next to articles from the late 1990s. It is remarkable how Schulze can dress biting criticism in an almost charming way. When commenting on Ulrich Siegele’s essays on the cultural politics in Bach’s Leipzig, Schulze writes: A few years later, my own short sketch [about Bach’s election as cantor] was used by Ulrich Siegele as a basis for a broad, panoramic survey, which supplements the surviving sources with a lot of intriguing hypotheses and which has a compelling explanation for every opinion uttered by the burgomasters and members of the town council, and for the selection, assessment, and evaluation of the candidates. Astonishing is the confidence with which the reader is guided through the (real or seemingly) labyrinthian election process; it is remarkable in the way it continues its chosen path to the end, even if [the author] finds himself in a dead end created by himself. (45)1 The passage not only shows Schulze’s biting sarcasm but also reflects his reluctance to speculate about things that are not backed up by sources. This reluctance does not mean that Schulze was limited in his approach. His encyclopedic knowledge of the surviving documents on Bach’s life and works, of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature, and of the history of central Germany allowed him to connect Bach’s life with other developments without resorting to speculation about hidden agendas. In the essay “Von Weimar nach Köthen,” Schulze provides details about Bach’s transition from the Lutheran court...

The Italian Cantata in Vienna, 1713–1740: Repertoire and Sources

A constant stream of Italian chamber cantatas served as an important source of entertainment at the Viennese court of Emperor Charles VI (r. 1712-1740). A total of 183 extant cantatas found in thirty-six libraries and composed between 1716 and 1740 have been identified. The cantatas were written for one or a few voices with basso continuo accompaniment only, or with one or a few obbligato instruments. Ninety-five percent of the cantatas were composed by three composers: the Assistant Kapellmeister Antonio Caldara and the court composers Francesco Conti and Giuseppe Porsile. A handful of cantatas were provided by Giovanni Perroni, Francesco Borosini, Ignazio Maria Conti, Leopold Timmer, and Georg Reutter the Younger.

The early keyboard concertos in Ptuj: music composed for the Dornava court? / Zgodnji koncerti za glasbila s tipkami na Ptuju: glasba, napisana za Dornavski dvorec?

The 31 keyboard concertos now housed at the Knjižnica Ivana Potrča Ptuj represent a unique sample of early keyboard concertos in Central Europe, including works by the Viennese court composers Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1714–1777) and Wenzel Raimund Birck (1718–1763) as well as two musicians employed at the Graz parish church, Johann Michael Steinbacher (before 1710–after 1740) and Giovanni Antonio Sgatberoni (1708/09–1795). It is assumed that the Ptuj collection of keyboard music stems from the court of Count Joseph Bernhard von Attems, who resided at Dornava from 1754 to 1772. Considering the scribes and the paper quality of the sources, it seems possible that Steinbacher and Sgatberoni may have had a closer relationship to the Dornava court than has been assumed so far.

Review of Matthew Riley,The Viennese Minor-Key Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Mozart(Oxford University Press, 2014).

[1] In a fascinating synthesis of critical, analytical, and historical approaches, musicologist Matthew Riley (Senior Lecturer, University of Birmingham) defines and explores structure and expression in some fifty minor-mode Viennese symphonies composed primarily between 1760 and 1790. Theorists will be particularly interested in Riley's adaptation of current form-theory approaches to unusual features in these works; he deftly appropriates Caplin's (1998) formal functions, Hepokoski and Darcy's (2006) sonata-form theory, and Gjerdingen's (2007) galant schemas. But there is also concern for expressive and rhetorical effects, and here Riley draws on markedness and topic theory. The sampling of repertoire initially suggests a subgenre of the Viennese symphony based on the markedness (Hatten 1994, 36) of minor mode alone, but modern formal functions are also useful in helping to explain still other marked features. One such feature merits a new term: the "mediant tutti," which Riley defines as a tonal shift (usually directly from V of the minor home key) to the relative major, enhanced by the entry of the full orchestra. A mediant tutti may occur either before (as a surprise) or right after a medial caesura (a medial caesura is most typically the formal articulation after V of the new key has been established and just before the second theme; see Hepokoski and Darcy 2006, 23-50). Still other marked features (e.g., contrapuntal minuets in the tonic minor, stormy finales), as well as some significant intertextual relationships, are marshaled as evidence to support the main argument of the book: that the minor-mode Austrian symphonies from 1760-90 constitute a subgenre of the Viennese symphony, one whose language is best understood as "an energized minor-mode dialect of the galant style" (4).[2] Among the various composers contributing to this repertoire-Dittersdorf, Gassmann, Haydn, Hoffmeister, Kozeluch, Mozart, Ordonez, Swieten, Vanhal, and Wagenseil-Haydn (with eleven), Johann Baptist Vanhal (with twelve), and Mozart (with two) account for fully half of the minor-mode concert symphonies and receive the greatest attention.(1) By contrast, a single chapter is devoted to the minor-mode symphonies of the three Hapsburg Imperial Court composers-Wagenseil, Gassmann, and Ordonez. These composers are nonetheless considered significant for having initiated key features of the subgenre.[3] In addition to straightforward formal analyses, Riley is clearly unafraid to make evaluative aesthetic judgments. He devotes two entire chapters to the symphonies of Vanhal (early and late, respectively) and praises him as "the best composer of instrumental music who inhabited Vienna day-to-day in the 1760s and 1770s" (8). Vanhal thus becomes the test case for establishing the consistency of those conventions supporting the subgenre thesis. Interestingly, Vanhal was largely self-taught, modeling his works on exemplary compositions. His early "paraphrasing" (79) of Haydn's first minor-key symphony beginning with an Allegro (assai), Symphony no. 39 in G minor (1765), also provides a crucial thread of historical and intertextual evidence. However, Riley notes that five other minor-mode symphonies had appeared before then (12). And by 1770, "the sample of works is large enough to establish a sense of a 'horizon of expectations' for the Viennese minor-key symphony" (4), thus enabling categorization in terms of a (sub)genre with typical formal and expressive features.[4] Riley observes that "the earliest Viennese minor-key symphonies were probably composed by Wagenseil in the early 1760s" and featured "untimely rhetoric" (as opposed to the more current galant-style rhetoric found in major-mode symphonies), including "fugato, ritornello-like gestures, trio-sonata textures, and fast-moving basslines."(2) (36) Already among the Imperial court composers (Wagenseil, Gassmann, and Ordonez) one can find a group of minor-mode symphonies and movements (often in G minor) featuring these elements. …

Musical Czechness

What was it about Bohemia and Moravia that produced so many fine musicians during the 17th and 18th centuries, important figures such as Franz (František) and Georg (Jiří) Benda, Christoph Willibald Gluck and Jan Dismas Zelenka? Czech émigré musicians were disproportionately well represented in European musical centres, given the small geographical area and supposed ‘backwater’ status of their homeland, and their virtuosity as performers and composers was no less widely celebrated. Why did they seek their fortunes in foreign countries, and what types of music were produced and performed by the culture that they left behind? In his wide-ranging study, Robert Rawson seeks to dispel the still common notions that Czech music suffered a dark period from the early 17th to the late 18th centuries, and that it was dominated by German influence from within and outside Bohemia and Moravia. Drawing upon both his own extensive archival work and previous Czech-language research that has remained inaccessible to most Anglophone scholars, he shows that Czech musical culture, far from being the exclusive province of émigré court composers, thrived in local cities, towns and villages, and equally in secular and sacred contexts.

Plus oultre, Pierre de la Rue, and the Emperor’s Music

The manuscript Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung, Ms. 9814 includes a section compiled under the supervision of Petrus Alamire that contains five motets and one anonymous chanson, Plus oultre. The works are anomalous within Alamire’s output, copied as they are on a series of separate paper folios. The essay demonstrates that the anonymous chanson, inspired by the motto adopted by Archduke Charles at the age of sixteen, is unlikely to be by the recently retired court composer Pierre de la Rue. It further documents how most of the non-Alamire works included in the manuscript are directly connected to later members of the Habsburg dynasty, strengthening the likelihood that the Alamire portions of the manuscript were not transmitted through the Fugger family, as usually assumed, but via imperial channels. The texts of the Alamire motets are shown to reflect the image of the young Charles and to mirror the sentiments of the Plus oultre chanson, thereby unifying the collection.

If on a Winter's Night a Composer Unfurling Music: A Conversation with Carlo Forlivesi

IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A COMPOSER UNFURLING MUSIC: A CONVERSATION WITH CARLO FORLIVESI CRISTINA SCUDERI OMPOSER CARLO FORLIVESI IS KNOWN AND APPRECIATED in academia for his research and teaching experience. A recipient of numerous international composition awards, with performances and masterclasses held in many cities around the world, he currently divides his time between Italy, France, Australia, and his beloved Japan. His multiple interests extend from contemporary to early music, from electronics to ethnomusicology, from essay writing to social responsibility. Artist Forlivesi avoids the media hubbub. Like many traditional travelers, he is reserved but comfortable and at ease when you speak to him. He has just returned from the Unique Forms International Composition Workshop in Adelaide and will be leaving soon to lecture at the Kyoto Art University. He is also in the process of planning his future collaborations with the University of California and the Mozarteum of Salzburg, but desired to take the time to talk to us about his work and career. C 94 Perspectives of New Music * * * CRISTINA SCUDERI: Maestro, let’s start from the beginning. You were among the youngest composition students ever admitted at the Bologna Conservatory of Music (Italy) when you entered. What happened during these ten years of school? CARLO FORLIVESI: In the junior course, I studied with maestro Costante Fantini from Forlì. In Bologna, he and Capuchin Father Callisto Giacomini were among the greatest professors who taught the basics of classical harmony and counterpoint in a way that many today would find too meticulous. Recalling those years, I realized only after a long time that I had been practicing an incredibly strict mental training, with an approach that had little to do with imagination, but much more to do with practice, rigor, and rules. I was very young then and in no hurry to become a tout court composer, as often happens to creative minds. Later, when I moved to the intermediate course, I continued to study historic music, do my own research, exercises in style, absorbing an attitude towards composition that I had not known before. I was in Ivan Vandor’s class. He introduced me to that mindset and raised my interest in composing, although still at an embryonic stage. In the senior course, I then studied with Alessandro Solbiati. I learned the composition method from the Donatoni School (a more “formalized” school), which was certainly very useful for me, although I never felt it completely mine. Of course, it is important to learn a method to compose, as long as you can invent other more personal methods. The temptation is to remain trapped in your own systems, or even worse, in your teachers’ systems. Although I was aesthetically interested in the school production, I could not remain either intellectually or emotionally tied to it. We can’t forget that the “emotional” and “affinity” factors play a very strong role in contemporary art dynamics. At one point, I “left the moorings” and went down my own path, obviously a hard choice both artistically and for the career. At first, it was extremely difficult. Once you leave a certain world, it doesn’t allow you back in! I did not want to abandon anything of what I had learned, and for which I am certainly grateful—but with a view towards seeking other channels. But this is not always understood. Now that I am a teacher myself, I have realized that the relationship with one’s student risks becoming “possessive.” This possessiveness is not positive and can be even discriminatory; you need to maintain a balance between teacher/student with respect and due liberty. A Conversation with Carlo Forlivesi 95 SCUDERI: After the Conservatory, you arrived at the IRCAM and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. What were your main interests in these two institutions? How did they influence your work? FORLIVESI: In 1996 I graduated from the Conservatory of Milan, and just after, in the academic year 1997–1998, I was selected for the IRCAM. The course selection commission, which included Marco Stroppa and Wolfgang Rihm, selected more “traditional” composers: e.g., not already working with electronics. Rihm, moreover, is known to be a composer who does not...

Music and Ceremony at the Court of Charles V: The Capilla Flamenca and the Art of Political Promotion by Mary Tiffany Ferer (review)

Music and Ceremony at the Court of Charles V: The Capilla Flamenca and the Art of Political Promotion. By Mary Tiffany Ferer. (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music, no. 12.) Woodbridge, UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2012. [xii, 304 p. ISBN 9781843836995. $99.] Illustrations, tables, appendices, bibliography, index. The study of music and ceremony at important courts is neither new nor controversial. For many years scholars have documented the music produced for various events by court composers and performers and sought to understand the motivations behind certain style choices by parsing documentary, historical and theoretical ideas. In so doing, they began to explain the manner in which the music might have been significant and aided the promotion of the ruler's image and agendas. Few scholars, however, have attempted such a broad topic as the music at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. In Music and Ceremony at the Gond of Charles II The Capilla flamenca and the Art of political Promotion, Mary Tiffany Ferer takes on that challenge, producing an encyclopedic discussion of many aspects of music at one of the most prestigious courts in Europe. Her choice of title suggests the focus on Charles's chapel of musicians from the Low Countries. Indeed, Charles had two significant chapels, the Capilla Flamenca and the Capilla Espanola; the former traveled with the peripatetic emperor and thus would have produced the music that many Europeans associated with the emperor, while the second chapel remained resident in Spain. The thesis for the volume, although informed by new findings (p. 15), does not rely so much on new interpretation or newly uncovered information, but rather on a painstaking collation and review of the extensive scholarship that documents the life, travels and musicians of Charles V. The author discusses the chapel membership and rituals using documentary evidence, from payroll documents and chapel registries, to prescribed duties included in various ordinances. Finally, the study attempts to identify specific musical compositions, looking primarily at compositions that might have been written to celebrate important events and activities of the emperor, and their political contexts. In constructing the concept of Charles's image and direction as a leader, the author opens with an examination of his idea of his primary roles: that of defender of the faith and that of monarch ruling over both inherited and conquered territories so vast that he might even be considered universal. His constructed image as protector, defender, and fortress led him to choose as his personal device (adopted at the 1516 meeting of the Order of the Golden Fleece) a banner reading Plus ultra (Even further), with the motto set between the Pillars of Hercules. The author continues by listing known musical settings of the device text (among the composers are Lupi, Gombert, and Festa) and some issues regarding their performances and transmission. Fever also provides it list of the known sources and scholarly editions of the same works (a helpful practice which is repeated in quite a number of the other tables listing musical works). Omitted are discussions of the music itself, as well as full texts of these compositions. although there is mention that one of the Plus ultra settings doubtfully attributed to Lupi convey[s] an image of military, power (p. 8). In order to give adequate context for the political-musical traditions that Charles inherited, in chapter 2 the author examines the situation of his parents. Philip the Fair and Juana of Castile, and their development and use of their musical chapel. Fever also examines the musical court of his aunt, Margaret of Austria, who assumed the role of guardian and oversaw Charles's education while he stayed at her court in Mechelen after his father passed away when he was six years old. As a result, he was instilled with a sense of the role that the arts (and music in particular) could play in the promotion of his perception as leader of what would rapidly become a broad and multicultural empire. …

Le Roi Danse (The King Dances) (review)

Le Roi Danse (The King Dances) (2000) Directed by Gerard Corbiau Distributed by RemStar 115 minutes Gerard Corbiau's Le Ro/ Danse (2000; released with subtitles 2008) puts its foot forward, as it were, from the very beginning. Dancing feet, elegantly slippered and superbly arched, propelled both King Louis IV and his court composer Jean-Baptiste LuIIy (1632-1687) to heights of power and glory. But those same feet, damaged and broken, ultimately brought both men down. The aging Sun King stumbled badly and never danced again. And after suffering a freak accident to his right foot, the venerable LuIIy took to his bed and died of gangrenous infection. A metaphor for life and art, the dance, like the meteoric careers of both men, defied gravity and circumstance in its initial ascent and fell back to Earth in its final trajectory of failure and disgrace. Likewise, Le Ro/ Danse initially leaps forward in its breathless pace, propulsive editing, and blazing color palette; but at the end it lapses into the still point of a somber and measured eulogy for a vanished Golden Age. LuIIy was, according to French Baroque music historian William Christie, a national figure from his early days, and long after his death he was canonized only by the aristocracy, the literati, and the musical educated, but by everybody in France. His god-like standing in the world of French music constituted a parallel to the divine appointments of his patron, Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 to his death in 1715. Together they ruled; and together they repeatedly bickered and reconciled in a symbiotic artistic and political embrace. The film opens in 1687 when the aging LuIIy, in defiance of the King's absence at a court performance, orders his orchestra to begin to play. But while pounding his staff into the floor to keep time, he stabs himself in the foot and takes to his bed, facing the amputation of his foot. Not my leg, he cries, not a dancer's leg! Flashback: It is 1653. The young Louis, yet a King, prepares to make his dancing debut as Apollo. The boy LuIIy, newly arrived from his native Italy, and currying favor with the future King, presents him with a specially crafted pair of dancing slippers. Reluctant at first, the King tries them on and is soon dancing his approval. Eight years later, upon the death of Cardinal Mazarin, the King claims the throne and demands his autocratic power over all affairs of state and art. Lully's music by now is setting the King to dancing, and the King's favor protects LuIIy from the court intrigues against his increasingly licentious lifestyle. Lully's one wish to the King is granted: he is now proclaimed a French citizen. Both LuIIy and the King bask in the same divinely-appointed glow, Sun Kings alike, of State and of Music. But both are inevitably consumed by their own egos. Against the warnings of his mother, the King grows increasingly arrogant in his God-like assumptions and foolish extravagances at the Versailles Court. LuIIy is likewise autocratic in his presumptions that he is the god of music, and only he composes for France and the King. Both will pay a price: the King lapses into conservative politics and religious intolerance; LuIIy finds himself estranged from the Court; and both will confess they are alone and friendless. Enter the third angle of this tripartite story, Moliere (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin). After years of acting and supplying one-actors in the provinces with his own touring company, we see him back in Court, also enjoying the King's favor, even when his satiric plays offend the religious zealots at court (as in the alleged insults to religion in a performance of Tartuffe,i64i). His targets include silly young bloods, jealous/henpecked husbands, misers, coquettes, hypocrites and physicians. The King, reluctantly bowing to his mother's pressure, bans Moliere's play. Meanwhile, Moliere desires to strike a bargain with LuIIy: They will compose comedy-ballets as a counter to the current popularity in Paris of Italian opera. …

‘HEE-HAW … LLELUJAH’: HANDEL AMONG THE VAUXHALL ASSES (1732)

ABSTRACTThe discovery of a satirical list from 1732 helps us revisit Handel's affairs during the early 1730s. Placing the composer among elite guests at the opening night of Vauxhall Gardens in 1732, the new document predates his known links with the venue by six years, offers a rare description of him as subservient to John James Heidegger and possibly alludes to his medical condition prior to 1737. It also invites an exploration of hidden affinities between English oratorio and John Henley's much-abused Oratory, including a hypothesis about the strictures applied to Esther by the Bishop of London. Much more important, it helps launch a re-examination of Handel's role in the ‘Second Academy’ as a court composer in an entrepreneurial milieu.

French voices recovered

So much French vocal music of the late 17th century has appeared difficult of assessment by musicians, and has not always been considered by musicologists, simply because it survives only in partbooks rather than in score. This particularly applies to the music of Henry Du Mont, arguably the finest and certainly one of the most influential of French court composers in the early years of Louis XIV. Some of Du Mont's collections (and he was, by the standards of the time, quite a prolific publisher) have long been available in facsimile, such as his most mature collection and the last to appear in his lifetime, the Motets à II, III et IV parties of 1681 (Peer: Alamire, 1989). These works have now been scored and edited by the French scholar, Laurence Decobert, already responsible for the tour-de-force of assembling into score all 16 partbooks of 20 of Du Mont's grands motets originally published posthumously in 1686. Thus, we now have for the first time the possibility (aside from consulting a manuscript in the British Library in the hand of John Blow) of studying from score these works which achieved such a wide distribution in their day, not least in England.

Princes of Peace and War and their Most Humble, Most Obedient Court Composer

J. S. Bach took many of his own vocal works conceived as tributes to earthly sovereigns and transformed them into glorifications of the heavenly King. Yet in contrast to the implications of some aspects of Luther's theology, these transformations leave undisturbed an underlying commitment to temporal authority and social obedience. Indeed, many of Bach's sacred works not only rely on rhetorical and musical topics associated with court life and the culture of war, but exploit these images in order to dramatize their message more immediately in the imaginations of contemporary churchgoing listeners.

Music in the Service of Counter-Reformation Politics: The Immaculate Conception at the Habsburg Court of Ferdinand III (1637-1657)

During the tumultuous final decade of the Thirty Years War, the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III used music as an important tool to further his religious and political agendas. Using the political ramifications of the emperor's public devotion to the Immaculate Conception as a frame of reference, this article presents two case studies in which meaning is teased out of Marian motets written by the imperial court composer Giovanni Felice Sances and by Ferdinand III himself. In the first study, a motet by Sances with a seemingly generic text is shown to present important Habsburg messages through the composer's powerful music; the second study examines the incorporation of music within the Emperor's most important religious–political ceremony in the face of a Swedish siege in 1645. In both cases not only does the imperial court context provide insights into the music, but the music also sheds light onto how Ferdinand III was able to steer successfully through the war despite military defeat.

Selling Britten: music and the marketplace

List of Illustrations and Tables List of Abbreviations Preface Introduction 1. Carrying Music to the Masses 2. Britten and the BBC 3. The Impresario and the English Opera Group 4. The Arts Council's Pursuit of 'Grand Opera' 5. Aldeburgh's Court Composer 6. Recording a Reputation Bibliography Index

Music in Lubavicher Life

Reviewed by: Music in Lubavicher Life Joshua Jacobson Music in Lubavicher Life, by Ellen Koskoff. Music in American Life Series. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000. 225 pp. $39.95. Hassidic music has been collected and analyzed. Decontextualized, it has been commercialized, arranged, performed, published, recorded, sold, and exploited for all it’s worth. But now for the first time we have a serious scholarly monograph about the role of music in the life of a Hassidic community. Ellen Koskoff is an ethno musicologist—she studies the ways a society uses music. Since 1973, she has been examining the role of music in Lubavitcher life. Through her fieldwork she has learned a great deal not only about her subject, but also about the relationship between investigator and informant. Koskoff set out to examine how music reflects the core values and beliefs of the Lubavitcher community. But her fieldwork became a context for both other- and self- understanding, as she gained significant insights into her own attitudes towards Orthodox Judaism. Stepping into a world that she had assumed would be somewhat familiar, she experienced an unexpected culture shock. Living among informers who were constantly proselytizing, she found herself increasingly on the defensive. Con fronting culture and gender attitudes that were antithetical to her own cherished beliefs, she found it difficult to maintain her professional detachment. Koskoff relates all this through an engaging combination of descriptive vignettes, historical background, and systematic analysis. In the Lubavitcher world, music is regarded as a powerful force, with the potential to elevate the soul. A niggun (devotional song), especially one associated with the first Lubavitcher rebbes, can bring a Jew to a state of dveykus, a sort of spiritual fusion with [End Page 160] God. As such, the singing of niggunim is an indispensable feature of Lubavitcher gatherings, whether liturgical, paraliturgical or secular. But Koskoff also sees the niggun as a manifestation of Lubavitcher values. Many niggunim are borrowed or “rescued” from external sources. By liberating a secular song from its profane context the Hassid has performed an act of tikkun olam. Diverting a song to a sacred purpose is consonant with the Chabad mission of turning a secular Jew onto the path of orthodoxy. Analysis of the structure of a niggun reveals further links to Chabad ideology. “Der Alter Rebbes Niggun,” also referred to as “Niggun of the Four Worlds,” is constructed in four-part form. But there are also many ideological fours: the four worlds of the ten sefirot, the tetragrammaton, and the four-stage process of dveykus: awakening, self- evaluation, work, and union. In her observation of the farbrengen, the author also discerns a manifestation of the four-stage process of dveykus in performance practice. “Awakening” the intention of the performer stems from the act of choosing a niggun, a task either taken by the rebbe himself or delegated to a Hassid who is intimately familiar with the rebbe’s intentions. In the stage of “self-evaluation” the singing begins with emotional intensity, characterized by musical gestures such as strong accents, ornamentation and repetition. In this stage the animal urges are said to become hypnotized, allowing the divine soul to take control. In the third stage, “work,” performance gestures become exaggerated. The performers begin to sway and dance, clapping becomes louder, the vocal tone becomes harsher, the pitch level rises, the tempo increases, and the vodka flows even more feely. After many repetitions, the performers may swoon or lose consciousness, behaviors considered to be the ultimate “union” with the divine. Koskoff also explores the structure of Sefer Ha-nigunim as a reflection of the organization of Lubavitch society. Sefer Ha-nigunim, a collection of 347 notated songs, was commissioned by Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson in the 1940s as part of a project to preserve and disseminate Chabad niggunim. The songs placed at the head of each volume are those that are felt to be closest to the divine. These are the com positions attributed to the first Lubavitcher rebbe, Schneur Zalman, and the four rebbes who succeeded him. The middle section contains songs attributed to European Lubavitcher rebbes’ court composers, as well as songs stemming from other Hassidic courts. The third section, representing...

LUDWIG SENFL AND THE JUDAS TROPE: COMPOSITION AND RELIGIOUS TOLERATION AT THE BAVARIAN COURT

O du armer Judas, was hastu getan? Das du deinen Herren also verrathen han,Darumb mustu leiden in der helle peinLucifers gesellen mustu ewig sein,Kyrieleison.ldquo;O wretched Judas, what have you done? / You have betrayed your Lord! / For that you must suffer torment in Hell, / You must be Lucifer's companion eternally. / Kyrie eleison”. Text from P. Wackernagel, Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der altesten Zeit bis zum Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1864-77; repr. Hildesheim, 1964), ii, pp. 615-18; translation mine.Rooted in Catholic folk piety, the song ‘O du armer Judas’ became one of the most common expressions of religious and political belief in the popular culture of sixteenth-century Germany. The Judaslied was the ideal vehicle for musical propaganda in the Reformation, and it turned the Catholic notion of the eternally damned betrayer of Christ on its ear. Protestant polemicists rewrote the song to equate Catholic authorities with Judas, and their contrafacta forged unbreakable links between the Judaslied melody and the idea of Catholic corruption. The very strong political associations the song would come to have with the Lutheran movement might well have been reason enough for a composer to avoid setting such a controversial work polyphonically, but at least four chose it as a model.Other than Senfl, Arnold von Bruck, Matthias Eckel and Cosmas Alder also arranged the Judaslied polyphonically, and a number of anonymous settings exist. See Das Tenorlied: Mehrstimmige Lieder in deutschen Quellen, 1450-1580, ed. N. Boker-Heil, H. Heckmann and I. Kindermann, 3 vols. (Catalogus musicus, 9-11; Kassel, 1979-86), iii, p. 105. Among these was Ludwig Senfl, court composer to the Catholic Wittelsbach dukes in Bavaria. Senfl's setting raises interesting questions about his position at the court, his music and religious toleration in the early days of the Reformation.

Tradition and Reception of Roman Imperial Ethics in the Opera La clemenza di Tito

??? COHPAnATIST TRADITION AND RECEPTION OF ROMAN IMPERIAL ETHICS IN THE OPERA LA CLEMENZA DI TITO Werner Wunderlich I. Fingiti in mente Eroe più generoso, e più clemente. [...] Inútil chiama, perduto il giorno ei dice, in cui fatto non ha qualcun felice. (Mozart, Clemenza I, Recitative) ViteUia, to whom these Unes are addressed in Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito, is told to imagine a milder and more generous hero, one who says that the day on which he has made no one happy is useless and lost. This patriotic and friendly song of praise to the Roman emperor Tito (Titus) and his goodness is sung by Sesto (Sextus), his favorite and confidant. He cites the famous dictum "Amici, diem perdidi," the apothegm of hyperbolic self-characterization that had been attributed to Titus Flavius Vespasianus Caesar by the Roman historian Suetonius (669).' Sesto wants to make it clear to his beloved Vitellia what an outrage an assassination attempt on this emperor would be. However, Vitellia , the proud daughter ofthe former emperor Vitellius whom Titus had ousted, is furious. She impatiently scolds Sesto, telling him that he should drive that magnificent embodiment of imperial virtue from the throne and not delay a moment longer. Enough words have gone back and forth; now she wants action. Agitated with rage and hate, Vitellia angrUy demands revenge for her father and for her shattered hope that Titus would make her his empress. And so disaster takes its course within twenty-four hours. Of course, the palace coup miscarries. Titus, torn between raison d'état and mercy, forgives Sesto and Vitellia in the end as weU as aU the other conspirators because he prefers not to exercise his official power and authority, but to show human love and goodness. II. Metastasio's opera of royal homage La clemenza di Tito was first produced on November 4, 1734, in the Vienna Hoftheater, using the score by court composer and vice conductor Antonio Caldara, to celebrate the nameday of Charles VI, honored in Italy as "cesare" and as the successor ofthe Roman emperors (cf. Rice 132 ff). In the epilogue-like "licenza" of La clemenza di Tito, which functions more as a topos than as a declaraVcH . 25 (2001): 5 ROMAN IMPERIAL ETHICS IN LA CLEMENZA DI TITO tion ofloyalty, the author turns directly to the "good" sovereign Charles VI and gives his reasons for referring to Titus: Non crederlo, signor; te non pretesi Ritrarre in Tito. [...] Veggo ben che ciascuno Ti riconobbe in lui. [. . .] E ogni virtù più bella, Se in te, signor, s'aduna, Come ritrarne alcuna Che non somigli a te? (750) Believe not, Sire, that I wish to portray you in Titus. [. . .] But I see that everyone recognizes you in him. [. . .] And were, O Sire, all virtue combined in you most beautifully, how could one portray someone that would not resemble you?2 The motif and theme of this Titus play (Lühning, "Clemenza" 60Of) correspond to those in CorneiUe's Cinna ou la clémence d'Auguste (1641). Of course, instead of the Augustus material, Metastasio, the famous "principe" of melodramatic poetry and "poeta cesareo" of the Vienna court, chooses the Flavian emperor Titus as eponymous hero of the libretto praised by Rousseau and Voltaire3 for its unity ofplace, time, and action (cf. Moberly). Besides, ever since the Titus plays by Corneille and Racine, the figure of the forgiving ruler and the motif of mildness were familiar on the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century stages. For example , Francisco Antonio Bances Candamo's play El esclavo en grillos de oro (ca. 1690) shows how the emperor Trajan brings a conspirator to reason by naming him co-emperor and forcing him to discharge the duties ofthe position. Likewise, Johann EUas Schlegel's tragedy Canut of 1746 is an homage to the Danish King Friedrich V, who was admired by Klopstock as the ideal enlightened monarch (cf. Borchmeyer). Metastasio, whose original name was Pietro Antonio Domenico Bonaventura Trapassi and who got his HeUenized name from his patron, the jurist and writer Gian Vincenzo Gravina, belonged to the tradition ofthe Accademia dell'Arcadia, founded in Rome in 1690 and supported by Gravina . This "poet's school...