Form Of Songs Research Articles

The Soundtrack of Revolution Memory, Affect, and the Power of Protest Songs

All cultural representations in the form of songs, pictures, literature, theater, film, television shows, and other media are deeply emotional and ideological, often difficult to define or analyze. Emotions are embedded as a cultural and social soundtrack of memories and minds, whether we like it or not. Feminist scholarship has emphasized over the past decade that affects and emotions are a foundation of human interaction. The cognitive understanding of the world has been replaced by a critical analysis in which questions about emotions and how we relate to the world as human beings is central (Ahmed 2004: 5-12).
 It is in this memory-related instance that this article discusses the unexpected reappearance of a long forgotten song, Hasta siempre, as a part of my personal musical memory. It is a personal reflection on the complex interaction between memory, affect and the genre of protest songs as experiences in life and music. What does it mean when a melody intrudes in the middle of unrelated thoughts, when one’s mind is occupied with rational and purposive considerations? These memories are no coincidences, I argue, they are our forgotten selves singing to us.

The Gorgons’ Lament: Auletics, Poetics, and Chorality in Pindar’s Pythian 12

This article offers a fresh reading of Pindar’s Pythian 12, an ode composed for a victorious aulete, which demonstrates its engagement in current musicological debates concerning innovations in instrumentation, relations between the musical and vocal elements in choreia , and the status of the pipes. In ways that intersect with these issues, Pindar anticipates a motif that resurfaces in later Attic drama and other texts concerning the origins of choral lyric and that identifies women’s lament as the prototypical form of song.

ITRI’NIN EDEBIYATTAKI YERI

ABSTRACT Examining the studies done on Itri, it is seen that these studies generally deal with the life of Itri and discuss subjects such as his music love, being poet, compositions and poems. It is seen in the studies that his literal personality is included and his extant odes, quintets, sestes, kâr-i natik, compositions, semai and nakis (a form of song) semai, song, psalm, ballad, and dates written in ebced (mathematical value) are recorded. However, his name and composed works were used as a stereotyped expression, poems were written for him, and his life became subjects of novels; since there is not a study collecting poems of Buhurizâde Mustafa Itri Efendi who is known as professional singer of the Turkish classical music, poet, calligrapher, and composer, a need for dealing with the subject become clear. Therefore, we tried to gather poems of the Buhurizâde Mustafa Itri Efendi at this year declared as Itri year by the UNESCO due to the 300th anniversary of his death. Keywords: Itri, Music, Literature, Poem, Composition

Toward an Understanding of Aggregate Death Penalty Opinion Change: A Possible Role for Popular Music

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between popular music; specifically, death penalty songs, and aggregate death penalty opinion change utilizing an exploratory time series analysis. An assumption of this study is that the public is made conscious of the death penalty as a salient issue through the popular media, e.g., newspaper stories, magazine articles, movies, television programs, and music. Results of this study support the hypotheses that public consciousness about the death penalty as well as changes in aggregate death penalty opinion are associated with the content of popular media in the form of death penalty songs. As the number of death penalty songs increases in a year, death penalty support decreases two years later.

Sectarian Relations in Arab Iraq: Contextualising the Civil War of 2006–2007

Discussions surrounding sectarian relations in Iraq have often been reduced to extremes of either overemphasising the Sunni-Shiʿa divide to a near Manichean level or, the other extreme, reducing them to the point of irrelevance in Iraqi history and society. This paper challenges both views and attempts an examination of the dynamics of Sunni-Shiʿa relations in Arab Iraq and how these interact with Iraqi nationalism. As will be shown, sectarian identity advances and recedes depending on wider circumstances, often at the expense, but not to the exclusion, of national identity. The post-2003 period in general and the civil war of 2006–2007 in particular offer us a wealth of highly charged sectarian discourse in the form of songs, poems, speeches and publications. I have relied on a considerable sample of such forms of public discourse to analyse the rising salience of sectarian identity in the period under consideration in a broader attempt at analysing the dynamics of Sunni-Shi‘a relations in Arab Iraq generally. It will be seen that sectarian relations are dynamic and responsive and that civil wars are not necessarily the end of the process; rather, in some cases, sectarian civil wars are merely a violent stage which many mixed communities around the world — including Iraq perhaps — have unfortunately gone through.

The singer-songwriter on stage: Reconciling the artist and the performer

The singer-songwriter is a ubiquitous figure within popular music. Although the name may appear to simply refer to an artist who writes and performs his or her own material, it also signifies a web of assumptions around what constitutes quality and value within popular music. In the context of the European genres of the chanson française and the canzone d’autore, the singer-songwriter is conceptualized as a legend of his or her respective song form and a paradigmatic example of quality songwriting. Yet it is often the notion of the singer-songwriter as artist that remains the focus of analyses of these figures. As a result, an important element of what it means to be a singer-songwriter can be overlooked: that is, the place of performance, the necessity for a singer-songwriter to appear live on stage and play and sing his or her songs in front of an audience. This article explores some of the apparent tensions inherent to this artist-performer paradox, by critically analysing examples of the singer-songwriters’ performance styles in the context of the genre discourse which depicts them primarily as artists. It thus challenges the appropriateness of such conceptualizations when applied to the singer-songwriter on stage

Subverting the Verse–Chorus Paradigm

This article defines and demonstrates a formal type I call “terminally climactic forms.” These forms, which appear frequently in rock songs after 1990, are characterized by their balance between the expected memorable highpoint (the chorus) and the thematically independent terminal climax, the song’s actual high point, which appears only once at the end of the song. After presenting the rationale for such forms, including new models of rock endings and climaxes, the article presents archetypes for three classifications of terminally climactic forms: two-part, three-part, and extended. Each archetype is supported by analytical examples from the post-millennial rock corpus. In his primer on rock song form, John Covach writes: “In a verse-chorus [form] ... the focus of the song is squarely on the chorus. ... [T]he verse serves primarily to prepare the return of the chorus.” Similarly, Walter Everett notes that “[t]he pop song typically alternates verses and choruses. These will usually be balanced by one or two statements of a contrasting bridge.” These commonly held axioms about rock song form represent an archetype I call the “verse–chorus paradigm,” a perception that acts both as a methodological constraint on analysts, and as a compositional constraint on songwriters. While this paradigm faithfully models the music for which it was intended (that being conventional rock from about 1957 to 1990), many songs from the past 10 to 15 years are not structured in this way. Rather than relying on a repeated chorus, these songs seem to be directed toward a single moment of new material at the end. This novel and refreshing model for organizing songs is what I call terminally climactic form (TCF), where not a chorus but a single, thematically independent section placed at the end functions as the song’s most memorable moment. TCF’s unique dramatic shape derives from tension between the expected highpoint (repeated chorus) and the climactic ending, the song’s actual highpoint.

Kiwis to pewees: the value of studying bird calls

Avian vocalizations are typically divided into two fundamental types: songs and calls. The dividing line between calls and songs is somewhat unclear, but researchers generally agree that songs are longer and more complex than calls, which tend to be brief and simple (Catchpole & Slater 2008). The literature on birdsong (particularly oscine passerine song) is extensive, encompassing the fields of behaviour, evolution, neuroscience, psychology and more (Slater 2003). Many fewer studies of avian vocalizations focus on the form and function of calls, but this is an area ripe for adding to our understanding of animal acoustic communication (Marler 2006). Researchers can learn much from analyses of avian calls for a number of reasons. First, calls are produced by all species. Many species of birds, particularly those in basal lineages, are not known to sing. Some nonpasserines do sing, but the majority of song research has been conducted on oscine passerine songbirds. Oscines are in part grouped together by their complex syringeal musculature and morphology that allows for the production of intricate song forms (Suthers & Zollinger 2006). However, it would be a mistake to assume that nonoscines, and even birds from basal lineages such as paleognath (ratites such as kiwis and ostriches), galliform and anseriform birds, do not exhibit complexity in the anatomy of their sound-producing structures or in their vocal repertoire. For example, ducks possess a range of fascinating syringeal morphologies (Livezey 1986, 1991); the relationship between the form of these structures and sound production remains to be studied. Basal birds can also produce a rich repertoire of vocalizations, as is seen in Wild Turkeys Meleagris gallopavo, which produce at least 28 different calls to help navigate their complex social world (Williams 1984). Both morphological and vocal complexity can hide undiscovered even in relatively well-studied species; in spite of decades of research into the vocal behavior of Greater Sage-grouse Centrocercus urophasianus, a ‘two-voiced’ system and a syringeal muscle found only in males were only recently described (Krakauer et al. 2009). Thus, while studies of song are necessarily taxonomically restricted, research into calls can take advantage of the rich diversity of morphology, ecology and behaviour found across all lineages of birds. Ornithologists are interested not only in how birds make sounds, but also why such a dizzying array of acoustic signals has arisen. Many hypotheses postulate evolutionary benefits associated with particular features of calls or songs. Inter-individual, inter-sexual and interpopulation differences in species with learned songs could result from the effects of learning. When the acoustic structure of an oscine song improves function, that outcome may be a result of cultural evolution. Calls, on the other hand, are generally thought to be innate, rather than learned (but this is not a universal rule, see Kroodsma & Baylis 1982, Zann 1985) (Catchpole & Slater 2008). Although they are innate, however, calls are not entirely fixed. The calls of many species show significant geographical and even inter-individual variation, as seen in the individual identity encoded in the harmonically rich calls of penguins (Aubin et al. 2000). Selection for communication functions has even led to adaptive variation within individuals. The calls of coucals, swans and tinamous vary with context or local environment, and the combination of vocal and visual displays in Red Junglefowl Gallus gallus has become a model system for understanding communication (Smith & Evans 2008, Geberzahn et al. 2009, Patel et al. 2010, Schuster et al. 2012). Thus, although calls are relatively fixed compared with songs, there is clearly individual variation and the potential for selection on these traits. When calls are unlearned, such selection would necessarily lead to biological evolution, allowing researchers to assess how vocal traits evolve in the absence of cultural influences. Finally, calls are particularly useful in studies of intersexual interactions because across avian species they are generally produced by both males and females (Catchpole & Slater 2008). Many studies of song-learning and song variation have been conducted in species where only the male sings. Although there is a growing interest in and recognition of female song (used in solo song or song duets), studies of song continue to be male-biased (Langmore 1998, Garamszegi et al. 2007). In contrast, studies of call form and function often focus on the calls of both sexes. By studying call form, researchers can gain insights into the power of natural selection in shaping vocal communication in both sexes. In an article published in this issue of Ibis, Digby et al. (2013) describe the calls of the Little Spotted Kiwi Apteryx owenii, providing an overview of call usage patterns and call structure. This article is one of only a *Corresponding author. Email: lauryn.benedict@unco.edu

The whole song is greater than the sum of its parts: Local and structural features in music listening.

Four experiments reported here demonstrate the importance of structural as well as local features in listening to contemporary popular music. Experiment 1 established that listeners without formal musical training regard as salient the formal structure that links individual sections of songs. When asked to listen to and assemble the individual sections of unfamiliar contemporary songs to form new compositions, participants positioned the sections in ways consistent with the true structure of the music. In Experiment 2, participants were provided with only the song lyrics with which to arrange the individual sections of contemporary songs. It was found that in addition to musical features studied in Experiment 1, lyrical content of contemporary music also acts as a strong cue to a song's formal structure. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that listeners' enjoyment of music is influenced both by structural features and local features of music, which were carried by the individual song sections. The influence of structural features on music listening was most apparent over repeated hearings. In Experiment 4, listeners' liking for contemporary music followed an inverted U-shape trend with repeated exposure, in which liking for music took a downward turn after just four repeated hearings. In contrast, liking for restructured music increased with repeated hearings and almost eliminated an initial negative effect of restructuring by the sixth hearing. In sum, our findings demonstrate that structural features as well as local features of contemporary music are salient and important to listeners.Keywords: music listening, local and structural features, song form, song structure, contemporary and popular musicMusic composition is a creative process through which the songwriter engages the listener. Central to this process is how themes, motifs, and individual elements of a composition are linked and arranged, and this process is a major determinant of a composition's overall form and structure (Bonds, 1991; Car- penter, 1983). The issue of formal structure and its variations in music composition is a topic of great discussion among song- writers and musicologists (Cohn & Dempster, 1992; Covach, 2005; Nadeau & Tesson, 1968). However, despite its impor- tance for music composition, it is less clear whether structural features of song form are important for the experiences of the listener. For example, when researchers have rearranged the individual sections of classical compositions to form new re- structured versions of those compositions, it is often found that this has little (to no) influence on the experiences of the listener (Eitan & Granot, 2008; Gotlieb & Konecni, 1985; Karno & Konecni, 1992; Konecni, 1984; Tillmann & Bigand, 1996). In some cases, listeners have actually preferred the restructured versions, even when these severely violate the composer's intended structure (Eitan & Granot, 2008).Tan et al. (Tan & Spackman, 2005; Tan, Spackman, & Peaslee, 2006) found that restructuring classical compositions impacts on the listener, but only when musical segments are combined from completely different compositions. As well as rating the patchwork versions as less unified, participants rated the compositions as less pleasing initially than their original intact versions. Structural features of music may be important for the experiences of the listener then, but effects of restructuring may only become apparent for compositions that have a salient structure or when adjacent sections differ sharply in volume and tone, such as when segments are combined from different compositions and are heard as part of a complete composition.When chunks or individual segments of compositions are reas- sembled to form restructured versions, this preserves local features of the music but disrupts the formal structure of the composition. Restructuring may even focus the listener's attention on local aspects of music by disrupting its overall form. …

Hymns as Acclamations: The Case of Ambrose of Milan

The hymns of Ambrose of Milan may usefully be seen in the context of other forms of rhythmic chant and song found in the social world of the Roman Empire: above all, they may be connected with popular songs and with acclamations, whether theatrical, political, or religious. Ambrose's hymns in particular share with songs and acclamations a number of formal features, being regular in form and based on accentual stress patterns rather than quantitative meter, and being similarly intended for popular and untrained participation. The most important parallel, however, lies in what may be called their function or effect: for just as did songs and acclamations, Ambrose's hymns demonstrated and articulated the unity of a diverse population by allowing the constituents to express themselves in a single voice. What the hymns may have lacked in spontaneity—being complex and pre-composed—they gained in direction and discipline, so that Ambrose was able to exploit the unity and harmony of his congregation in support of his own political and religious aims. Ambrose's hymns thus reconfigured songs and acclamations as a means of establishing and promoting a Milanese Christian identity and of affirming his own popular authority and legitimacy.

Social context and the lack of sexual dimorphism in song in an avian cooperative breeder

Elaborate male traits are typically used to attract mates and to compete with other males for mating opportunities. However, similarly ornate secondary sexual characteristics are also found in females in many species and may be used in competition in both sexual and nonsexual contexts. Trait elaboration in females may be particularly important in cooperatively breeding species where reproduction is monopolized by a few individuals in a group and where both sexes must compete for these limited mating opportunities. Previous work in African starlings has shown that females in cooperatively breeding species are larger and more ornamented than those in noncooperative species, resulting in reduced plumage and size dimorphism. To further examine patterns of sexual dimorphism in signalling traits and to better understand their role in mediating social competition, we investigated the form and function of song in cooperatively breeding superb starlings, Lamprotornis superbus . In addition to comparing song between sexes, we contrasted song in dominant breeders and subordinate helpers of both sexes and examined its use in various social contexts. We found that song was indistinguishable between males and females, with both sexes showing similar complexity, pitch, versatility and structure. However, the song of breeders was more versatile than that of helpers. Moreover, song structure differed when birds sang in chorus from when they sang alone. These findings suggest that, like male song, female song may be used in social competition, and that song may be an important signal in both sexes in species where intrasexual competition is high in males and females. ► Both sexes are predicted to have elaborate traits in cooperatively breeding species. ► Song form and function was examined in cooperatively breeding superb starlings. ► Both sexes sang equally complex songs. ► The song of dominant breeders differed from that of subordinate helpers. ► Song structure also differed in different social contexts.

Staging Tahrir: Laila Soliman’s Revolutionary Theatre

If one day, a people desire to live, Then fate will answer their call And their night will then begin to fade, And their chains break and fall.“Will to Live” Abī al-Qāsim al-ShābīOne of the most inspiring aspects of the Egyptian revolution was the outpouring of creative expression that accompanied the uprising’s social and political movements in the form of protest songs, poetry, slogans, chants, graffiti and installation art, street theatre, cartoons, among other forms of artistic inventiveness. Creative dissidence has always been an integral part of protest movements, as argued by Iraqi poet Sinan Antoon (2011): Poetry, novels and popular culture have chronicled and encapsulated the struggle of peoples against colonial rule and later, against postcolonial monarchies and dictatorships, so the poems, vignettes, and quotes from novels were all there in the collective unconscious.... The revolution introduced new songs, chants and tropes, but it refocused attention on an already existing, rich and living archive.... Contrary to all the brouhaha about Twitter and Facebook, what energized people in Tunisia and Egypt and elsewhere, aside from sociopolitical grievances and an accumulation of pain and anger, was a famous line of poetry by a Tunisian poet, al-Shabbi.Antoon evokes Abū al-Qāsim al-Shābī, whose poem “The Will to Live,” referenced in the epigraph, symbolized the battle cry of Tunisians in the anti-colonial struggles of the early 1900s. Refrains from the poem echoed in both Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab spring uprisings over one century later, thereby highlighting the intimate synergies between the creative imaginary and revolutionary action.

“Police and Thieves”

Attention to pop ideology is inevitably limited where it doesn’t take formal questions into consideration. However, the question of form in a pop record is itself complicated, because form here doesn’t simply mean song form: it also involves negotiations and interactions among producers, engineers, and musicians, and the mediations of management and the record company as well as (sometimes) those of the artists themselves. Such negotiations are a constant; their particularities are not. During the punk era, record form was generally a charged site where politics were made manifest, but nowhere was that more true than in the early work of the Clash. Their 1977 cover of reggae artist Junior Murvin’s 1976 Jamaican hit “Police and Thieves” represents an unusual moment in the checkered history of white bands covering black music. The cover song has always been a key nexus for rock negotiations of authenticity, whether figured in terms of race or of roots. But the Clash refused to appeal to a nostalgic, imaginary purity—which makes the retrospective nostalgic mythos that has surrounded Joe Strummer since his early death just that much more disturbing. Rather, in “Police and Thieves,” the Clash create a form that from the outset denies resolution. Examining cover-song form enables us to think beyond those questions of ethics and appropriation that have, hitherto, dominated the theorizing of pop.

RECORDINGS IN REVIEW ALEC WILDER & FRAN LANDESMAN

1 8 8 Y R E C O R D I N G S I N R E V I E W T I M O T H Y Y O U N G In planning concert seasons, a handy trope to follow is the anniversary . As with museums and the lecture circuit, nothing fits on a poster like a nice proud one followed by two zeroes. A centennial gives free rein to pay homage to, reconsider the status of, or formally enshrine a composer. Even semi-centennials (50) or dodranscentennials (75) bring out the admirers. This year and next we’ll mark Margaret Bonds’s and Benjamin Britten’s 100th birthdays, Giuseppe Verdi’s 200th, and C. P. E. Bach’s 300th. But what about composers of American popular songs? They might get a tribute in a cabaret here and there after their deaths, but the long wait until an easily divisible year may see them fade from memory. So let us raise a toast to the upcoming birthdays of two of the finest and quirkiest of the twentieth-century’s songwriters who mark lopsided numbers this year. Alec Wilder would have turned 106 in February and Fran Landesman would have become a sprightly 86 in October of this year. Anyone familiar with their work will raise the objection that they need no introduction, each having solid, nearly cultlike followings. But the wider listening public, for whom a few songs by these two great writers may be familiar, will probably know nothing about their biographies – and each of these song- 1 8 9 R smiths led a life filled with grand gestures as clever as any of the songs they wrote. Alec Wilder has been well served in musical scholarship. Since his death in 1980, two biographies have been published that explore his immense talent, and an annotated reissue of Letters I Never Mailed, his 1975 epistolary autobiography, was released in 2006. His life is well chronicled from his upbringing as the scion of a well-to-do Rochester, New York, family, through his early emancipation from them, and his nontraditional musical training at the Eastman School of Music to his extremely productive decades-long career. He began composing classical pieces early on but soon ventured into popular song form, a genre that he would explore with regularity for the rest of his life. Along the way, he composed fourteen musicals and operas, scored motion pictures, and composed octets, quintets, duets, many solos, and other chamber pieces. This stunning variety of output, though impressive by anyone’s account, causes him often to be deemed uncatagorizeable by music historians . Add in his songs for jazz singers and pop vocalists, and his art songs for sopranos such as Eileen Farrell, and you have a truly polymorphous genius. If you put on virtual blinders and a good pair of earphones, you’ll recognize Wilder as a very disciplined student of the American popular songbook. (Indeed, he was a scholar and a canonizer, with his American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950, published by Oxford University Press in 1972 – a volume that is required reading to understand the heavyweights of the twentieth century.) He wrote a few hundred songs at best estimate and made a strong impression on singers, including Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Mabel Mercer, who all collaborated with him closely. Wilder had his first rush of success with songwriting in the early 1940s, when Mildred Bailey released her recordings of ‘‘Give Me Time,’’ ‘‘It’s So Peaceful in the Country,’’ and ‘‘I’ll Be Around.’’ As was standard practice of the day, songs were usually recorded by an array of singers, competing with one another for supremacy on radios and jukeboxes. The version of ‘‘I’ll Be Around’’ by the Mills Brothers, which lacked the depth of sadness in Bailey’s original , became a bona-fide hit, putting Wilder in solid business as a songwriter. Subsequent compositions, including ‘‘While We’re Young’’ and ‘‘Trouble Is a Man,’’ proved good sellers, but none ever 1 9 0 Y O U N G Y reached the heights of ‘‘I’ll Be Around’’ – perhaps because the general tenor of many of Wilder...

Effectiveness of Artificial Song Playback on Influencing the Settlement Decisions of an Endangered Resident Grassland Passerine

Abstract. Social information in the form of songs, calls, or other overt behaviors may assist birds in assessing the quality of potential breeding habitat by providing direct public information about a site's quality or by providing indirect cues (e.g., the presence of conspecifics) that may be used to infer its quality. Broadcast of song has been used to demonstrate the influence of conspecific cues on the decisions of migratory passerines to settle; however, there is currently a dearth of information regarding resident species. We tested the influence of conspecific attraction and the effectiveness of song playback on an endangered resident of grassland, the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow (Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis). We broadcast recorded song over large areas of suitable breeding habitat in the Florida Everglades in an attempt to influence the settlement of male sparrows during territory establishment. Our analyses included the creation of a qualitative sound map that formed a basis for measuring the ...

Grooves and Waves: Cyclicity and Narrativity in Cuban Timba Piano

Since the early 1990s, Cuba has developed a popular dance music genre known as timba. Influenced by structures, instrumentation and song forms from earlier Cuban genres, timba also incorporates elements from Cuban folkloric music, American jazz, and funk. During the call-and-response montuno sections of timba arrangements, repeating piano tumbaos balance cyclicity and narrativity (vamps or ostinati) cooperate with percussion, horns, and vocals to form interlocking grooves. Focusing on the piano's role within the timba rhythm section, I trace the development of pianistic gestural and textural vocabularies, exploring how the piano's ensemble role interrelates with those of bass, percussion, horns, and vocals, through a genre-based historicized lens.

“101 Years of Mine Disasters and 101 Years of Song: Truth or Myth in Nova Scotia Mining Songs?”

It is generally accepted that the majority of responses to a disaster in social media sources misrepresent what actually occurs in such an event. Over the last century, mine disasters occurring in Nova Scotia have generated numerous responses in the form of folk songs. The purpose of this study is to determine if these folk songs, unlike other forms of popular culture, accurately portray the events and context surrounding these disasters while also examining how they describe human responses to disasters. The findings show that these folk songs in contrast to other media, books and movies do provide a generally factually and contextually accurate view of the disasters, with a focus limited to the events of the disaster itself, the rescue efforts, and the dead and trapped. The possibilities for why this is true are then considered, including looks at the nature and origins of the songs, the response of composers to the disasters, and how the media response to the disasters affected the songs.

Songs of Contentment and Transgression: Discharged Officials and Literati Communities in Sixteenth-Century North China (review)

Reviewed by: Songs of Contentment and Transgression: Discharged Officials and Literati Communities in Sixteenth-Century North China Catherine Swatek Songs of Contentment and Transgression: Discharged Officials and Literati Communities in Sixteenth-Century North China. By Tian Yuan Tan. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monographs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2010. xiv + 293 pp. Hardcover $39.95. This book explores a sixty-year slice of literary history through case studies of three men whose lives and careers intersected in the mid-Ming dynasty. All three lived in north China; all became Metropolitan Graduates (jinshi) and had promising futures, only to be cashiered in mid-career because of factional conflict. Accordingly, all had to cope with a wrenching transition from active life in government to forced retirement at the margins of society. They did this, in part, by becoming leaders in their local communities and literary circles, but they also sought support and affirmation from each other and exerted influence well beyond their localities. In this well-researched study, Tian Yuan Tan examines the post-retirement activities of Wang Jiusi (1468-1551), Kang Hai (1475-1541), and Li Kaixian (1502-1568), focusing on their writing of qu, a song form associated with a "wanton" lifestyle, hence stigmatized as harmful to serious literary pursuits. Because all three men had the prestige and [End Page 310] the means to assume leadership locally, Tan does not treat them as "solitary outcasts" but as "signposts" to qu communities whose members become visible only through their links to the three. What emerges from these case studies is a "world of sanqu and drama among the literati" (p. 10), little studied because it is undocumented in standard anthologies. Tan's introduction traces a connection between frustrated career ambitions and qu writing as an avocation, making a distinction between this embrace of qu and that associated with early Ming regional courts whose members wrote qu for self-protection. In the mid-Ming—in north China at least—literati began to write qu in local centers, their activities defining a literary subfield with its own "distinct level of symbolic and cultural capital" (p. 12). Tan examines these activities at both the local and translocal levels, hence his decision to study overlapping generations of writers located in two regional centers. Part 1's four chapters focus on the Shaanxi community that formed around Wang Jiusi and Kang Hai, friends by virtue of similar backgrounds, shared literary communities both in and out of office, and proximity (being from adjacent counties). Chapter 1 ("Paths into Qu Writing") traces how both men, after dismissal from office in 1510, redirected their writing from the recognized genres of shi (classical poetry) and wen (classical prose) to qu (songs) while taking up a flamboyantly decadent lifestyle. Translations of four qu reveal how each man reassessed his official career and made "performance of contentment in retirement" a recurring theme of their songs and plays; translations from letters and prefaces also reveal both men defending their decision to take up this stigmatized genre. Chapter 2 ("Performing Contentment and Dramatizing Retirement") translates songs by both men on the theme of "Return." These showcase the variety of qu forms—xiaoling (single-stanza songs), daiguoqu (paired songs), and sanqu (song suites)—and reflect distinct aspects of qu writing as pursued in these northern communities: emphasis on single songs or suites as opposed to plays, and willingness to experiment (here, with an unusual binary form). However, both men also wrote plays and in the chapter's final section Tan discusses a zaju by Wang Jiusi that fictionalized events of Du Fu's life in a way that enabled him to use the play for self-expression. Discussion of the play reveals how the same fraught theme (retirement) might be treated differently in a sanqu, a play, or a letter to a friend. The next two chapters take up communal aspects of qu writing in Shaanxi. Chapter 3 ("Writing in a Local Community") examines three kinds of evidence for such activity: production (writing qu or matching pieces), transmission (printing or circulating texts), and consumption (writing prefaces and colophons and performing qu). Such writing was occasional, seldom anthologized, and hence little studied. Tan makes it his...

Towards a German Romantic Concept of the Ballad: Goethe’s “Johanna Sebus” and Its Musical Interpretations by Zelter and Reichardt

Towards a German Romantic Concept of the Ballad: Goethe’s “Johanna Sebus” and Its Musical Interpretations by Zelter and Reichardt Francien Markx In the midst of the political turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, the force of nature took its toll on the French-occupied lower Rhine region. On January 13, 1809, the dam near Cleve (lying today in Germany near the Dutch border) collapsed, and the icy waters of the Rhine devastated the village of Brienen and flooded several other villages nearby. A seventeen-year-old village girl, Johanna Sebus, saved her mother’s life but died herself trying to rescue her neighbors. Three months later, her body was found, and she was buried with honor near the old Gothic church in Rindern.1 Her selfless deed was not forgotten, which was especially due to the efforts of the magistrate of the Cleve district, Baron Charles de Keverberg, who brought the events to the attention of the French authorities. In 1811, a monument was erected to Johanna’s memory. Designed by Dominique Vivant-Denon, whom Napoleon had appointed as first director of the Louvre Museum (at that time known as the Musée Napoléon), it is over three meters high, featuring a French text, and a marble medallion depicting a rose floating on the waves.2 Johanna’s death continues to be commemorated, most recently with an exhibition in Cleve on the 200th anniversary of her demise.3 Her courageous act has also inspired many painters, sculptors, and authors.4 The most famous and influential contribution was penned by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who honored Johanna with a ballad in May 1809. Goethe learned about Johanna’s tragic death from his acquaintance Christiane von Vernejoul, who sent him the report of the events written by Baron Keverberg and requested in an accompanying letter: “Mögten Sie die rührende That werth finden von dem ersten Dichter der lebenden Welt, in einer Ballade verewigt zu werden—so wäre dießem edlen Mädchen ein Denckmal errichtet, welches in jedes fühlenden Menschen Brust Bewunderung für die Heldin, und heißen Danck für den Großmüthigen Dichter erwecken würde.”5 Goethe honored the request6 and sent his ballad to Keverberg in Cleve, where it was read at a memorial service for Johanna.7 Among the composers who were inspired by the ballad were Goethe’s contemporaries Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758–1832) and Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752–1814).8 Both were well acquainted with Goethe, and at [End Page 1] some point in their lives his most important musical advisor. Reichardt, Kapellmeister to three Prussian kings, was a renowned music critic and song composer, and had worked closely together with Goethe during the late 1780s and early 1790s on the Singspiele Claudine von Villa Bella and Erwin und Elmire.9 Goethe, however, abruptly ended the collaboration after Reichardt’s sympathies with the French revolution and its democratic cause had become public and his subsequent dismissal as Prussian Hofkapellmeister in 1794. Around this time, the master mason Zelter turned to composing Lieder, and his songs soon came to Goethe’s attention. A close friendship developed, resulting in an extensive correspondence that lasted over thirty years. Zelter was an important figure in Berlin’s musical and cultural life; he took over the direction of the Berlin Singakademie in 1800, was appointed Professor of Music at the Royal Prussian Akademie der Künste in 1809 and responsible for the founding of several musical institutions in Berlin. Together with Johann Abraham Peter Schulz (1747–1800), Zelter and Reichardt were the main representatives of the zweite Berliner Liederschule (ca. 1770–1814). In their Lieder, this second generation of song composers in Berlin tried to find an adequate musical idiom for the new subjective expression of the literature of Empfindsamkeit and Sturm und Drang. The natural, artless quality of the Volkslied, with its regular strophic structure and simple and singable melody, was the ideal for this new form of art song, which nurtured the awakening feelings of German self-awareness and cultural identity.10 For both Reichardt and Zelter, texts by Goethe formed an important inspiration in their search for a new...

Echoing the Environment in Kam Big Song

Kam big song is an important genre sung within Kam (in Chinese, Dong) minority communities in southeastern Guizhou, China. It has traditionally served as a medium for transmitting historical, philosophical and ecological knowledge. Since the 1978 reforms, this region of Guizhou has been increasingly drawn into the national labour economy and has experienced a surge in economic development. The ensuing youth migration to urban centres, growing school attendance rates, and a marked rise in television viewing have led to a decline in Kam singing amongst younger generations. Nevertheless, in recent years certain forms of big song have featured increasingly in staged Kam cultural performances intended for broader audiences. Kam big song was recognised as a form of National Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in 2006, and was included on UNESCO's Representative List of the ICH of Humanity in 2009. This study draws upon various big songs that I learnt during almost twenty-four months of musical research in rural Kam regions from 2004 to 2011. It illustrates the cultural and ecological significance of this musical tradition, and the importance and complexities of its maintenance at a time of social transformation.