Funeral March Research Articles

Acercamiento a la obra musical Duelo de la Patria de Rafael Chávez Torres

The shared approach in this essay appeared in search of answers to questions about the most beloved funeral march in Costa Rica. Thosequestions were generated after reading the book on Rafael Chávez Torres by the researcher Ligia María Rosales Chacón. Some elements of Julia Kristeva about text theory are used, bringing us closer to thepyramidal structure of the sign ideologeme, from which we analyze the president of Costa Rica Tomás Guardia, we make a reading of the androcentric concept that he represents, and we approach it to concepts such as tonality. As music is a social text, we reviewed the musicaldrama using elements of the Western musical tradition, for which wepresented some musical signs and highlighted those that we consider reasons for pain that are used in the musical piece.

«Метаморфозы» Р. Штрауса: специфика музыкального нарратива

The article explores the principles of narrative thinking in R. Strauss’s "Meta­morphoses" — a composition for twenty-three string instruments. The main focus is on the examination of the author’s method of working with thematic material, formed by Strauss in previous symphonic compositions, as well as the study of intonation dramaturgy. Intonational connections between Strauss’s musical writing and Beethoven’s compositions, in particular the funeral march from the Third Symphony, are identified. The idea of metamorphoses is traced through the development and transformation of the intonation-harmonic core of the composition. A narrative theory approach allows for the analysis of the sequence of musical events in a composition dedicated to the departure of the late romantic era.

Yuval Sharon’s Twilight: Gods (2020-21)

Yuval Sharon’s Twilight: Gods is a drive-through opera that presents a contemporary vernacular reimagination of Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung. Motivated by pandemic-related concerns, it was staged in the Detroit Opera House Parking Center in October 2020 and subsequently in Chicago’s Millennium Lakeside Parking Garage in April 2021. Rejecting immersion, my article puts forth re-enchantment as a phenomenological model, which captures the sense of play underlying site-specific opera. I build on Carolyn Abbate’s notion of “ludic distance” in positing that re-enchantment is derived not despite, but because of our hyperawareness of the creative tensions present in the hybrid media and technologies fleshed out before us. Moving on then to more specifically ideological—and ethical—considerations, I interrogate the racialized scripting underpinning the opera’s display culture. Employing Matthew Morrison’s Blacksound, I examine Scene 4 (“Siegfried’s Funeral March”) in demonstrating how it reveals an attempt to muster Detroit/Blacksound in the commodified packaging of Black signifiers for the edification of an elite, mostly white audience. A musical collaboration premised on “fitting” Black music into the dominant Western paradigm perpetuates musical essentialism. Similarly problematic questions ensue from examining the ethics and politics of collaboration with the two Black poets who contribute to the productions in uneven ways. It is an open question whether, in the end, the creative team has succeeded in fulfilling the redemptive terms it has set for itself. I conclude by stimulating further questions and reflections on how a socially progressive and anti-Racist opera would look and sound like in 21st-century America.

«Modification of ghosts»: conductors interpretations of Yevhen Stankovych’s Sinfonietta in 2017 and 2023

«Modification of ghosts»: conductors interpretations of Yevhen Stankovych’s Sinfonietta in 2017 and 2023

Networking Operatic Italy Francesca Vella

Enrico Petrella’s funeral march in Jone (1858) might at first seem indistinguishable from other nineteenth-century musical ephemera. Performed by an on-stage banda in Act IV of the once widely performed opera, the ‘lugubrious’ march—as it was named in the autograph score—accompanies the dramatic walk of a wrongly accused lover to his execution. However, the performance history of the march on opera stages—and Jone toured the world extensively in its first decades of performances—would fail to hear its growing presence on Italian city streets. Shortly after the opera’s La Scala premiere, the signature march became a standard in Italian wind-band repertory, where it found new life (and death) in secular funerals across the peninsula and during Holy Week processions in parts of southern Italy. The march grew to function in the Italian cultural consciousness as ‘an inward cipher of death and mourning’ (p. 67). Stories like this, which unspool how an operatic artefact became entangled in Italian culture, pepper Francesca Vella’s recent book, Networking Operatic Italy. In this enticing monograph, artists and operas travel the globe, technologies evolve and malfunction, and literary, archival, and musical sources are put in dialogue in innovative ways. One of the book’s core arguments is that ‘opera has always had a special networking capacity’ (p. 14) Vella ‘networks’—and use of the verb is deliberate—nineteenth-century Italian opera with its supporting media, wider infrastructure of mobility, and surrounding cultural discourses. Her concept of the network is, in part, indebted to Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory and Bill Brown’s thing theory, as the objects central to her narrative are not passive components of opera’s history. Instead, objects, technologies, and ideas shape and condition opera through their affordances or limitations. Across five case studies of interconnected webs of people, ideas, and—of course—operas, Vella addresses transportation and communications media (railroads, wind-bands, voices, newspapers, and the telegraph) in the increasingly mobilized environment of Risorgimento and Liberal-era Italy. Her study of Italian opera journeys to various theatres across Italy, and the reader encounters works by Meyerbeer, Wagner, and Verdi, as well as those of the lesser-known Petrella. The five chapters examine scores of operatic works—most chapters contain hermeneutic readings of specific scenes—and intersect with the many participants and components of opera productions, as uncovered through painstaking archival efforts (the forty pages of endnotes are a treasure trove for any reader).

Regulation of LTP at rat hippocampal Schaffer-CA1 in vitro by musical rhythmic magnetic fields generated by red-pink (soothing) music tracks

Purpose Music therapy, like red-pink (soothing) music, is an important treatment for neurological disorders associated with learning and memory. Magnetic fields have been proved to have a similar regulating effect. However, the effect of magnetic fields with musical rhythm generated by the combination of the two has not been confirmed. This study aimed to investigate the regulation of magnetic stimulation with music rhythm on LTP (long-term potentiation) of Schaffer-CA1. Materials and methods This article selected three sorts of music tracks in different frequencies (music track (1) Turkish March, music track (2) Moonlight Sonata, music track (3) Funeral March) and four sorts of pure sinusoidal tracks of four different harmonic frequency (music track (4) the frequency is 3500 Hz; music track (5) the frequency is 2500 Hz; music track (6) the frequency is 1500 Hz; music track (7) the frequency is 500 Hz). These music tracks are converted into analog signals by the external sound card and power amplifier and fed into a homemade coil that meets the demand for this frequency bandwidth. The coil can generate seven sorts of time-varying magnetic fields with musical rhythm with a mean intensity of about 2 mT. We used multi-electrode array (MEA) to record the LTP signals of Schaffer-CA1 synaptic induced by seven sorts of musical rhythmic magnetic fields and analyze the regulation of them. Results The musical rhythmic magnetic fields generated by track 1 and track 2 have a remarkable enhancing effect on the amplitude of fEPSPs (field excitatory postsynaptic potentials) (p < .05), and these effects intensify with the increase of frequency. Nevertheless, there is no significant enhancing effect on LTP of the rhythmic magnetic field generated by track 3 (p > .05). The sinusoidal magnetic fields generated by track 4 and track 5 have an enhancing effect on the amplitude of fEPSPs (p < .05), and the enhancement is better than track 1 and track 2. The sinusoidal magnetic fields generated by track 6 and track 7 have an inhibiting effect (p < .05). Conclusion We found that the enhancing effect of musical rhythmic magnetic fields generated by track 1 was the most significant. The frequency of 1500 Hz could be a turning-point frequency in the regulation of magnetic field on LTP.

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ СОНАТНИХ ЦИКЛІВ СЕРЕДНЬОГО ПЕРІОДУ ТВОРЧОСТІ Л. ВАН БЕТХОВЕНА

The article is devoted to the analysis of Beethoven’s piano work, and more specifically to the sonatas of the middle period of creativity. The study provides a detailed analysis of the sonata cycles, Op. 26, 27, 31. The main purpose of the work is to study modifications, which the composer brought to the sonata cycle. The article uses methods of analysis, synthesis, analogy and biographical context. The results obtained allow us to state the composer’s dissatisfaction with the canons of the structure of the sonata cycle. He was constantly looking for new means of expression to embody his creative potential. At the beginning of his search, he decided to diminish the role of the sonata form in the sonata cycle. For example, sonatas No. 12, 13 are absolutely unique in their structure. These are sonatas without a shitty sign of a sonata cycle: a movement that is written in sonata form. With these extraordinary sonatas, Beethoven opens a new, experimental section of his work. In Sonata No. 12, he for the first time introduces a sonata cycle, a part written in the genre of a funeral march. In the future, a part written in the genre of a funeral march will be used by many composers of the era of romanticism (for example F. Chopin in Sonata #2, P.Tchaikovsky in Symphony #6). Sonata No. 13 (Sonata quasi una fantasia) is the first of the composer’s sonatas where the division into parts is rather arbitrary. This structure will be typical for many of Robert Schumann’s works. In the sonata cycles, Op. 31 Beethoven, on the contrary, increases the number of partsin the sonata cycle written in sonata form. In this cycle, the composer found a way to further modify the sonata form. Sonata No. 18 was the first in which one can feel the structure of a sonata cycle in two parts (which will become characteristic of Beethoven in the future). The article analyzes the ways of modifying the sonata cycle in Beethoven’s work, shows the connection between the composer’s personal experiences and the figurative content of the sonatas of this period. This work will help to better get acquainted with the different content of the works of the middle period of the composer’s work for a better understanding and performance.

War and the Musical Grotesque in Crumb’s “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”

This analysis interprets Crumb’s setting of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” as a musical memorial. I situate this song within larger memorial culture, Civil War memory, and musical memorials to show how it commemorates and criticizes official narratives of the Civil War. While the first three verses present an earnest version of the song that celebrates military power, the fourth quotes Mahler to transform the song into an ironic funeral march. I draw on scholarship on the musical grotesque to show how this grotesque funeral march critiques conventional perceptions of the Civil War, and how Crumb extends this critique to more recent American wars.

МУЗИЧНО-ТЕАТРАЛЬНА СПАДЩИНА ВОЛОДИМИРА БАЛТАРОВИЧА В КОНТЕКСТІ СТАНОВЛЕННЯ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ОПЕРЕТИ 1930-х років (із фондів Львівської національної наукової бібліотеки України імені В. Стефаника)

Introduction. In the early 1930s, the task of creating a new Ukrainian operetta arose on Ukrainian soil, however, the ways and conditions of its implementation in Eastern and Western Ukraine differed significantly (state system, ideology, professional and production opportunities, etc. played its role). In “UnderSoviet” Ukraine, composers were in a better financial position: there were stationary specialized theaters with professional performers, state support. However, they had to glorify the “happy Soviet life” (in the conditions of mass repressions and the Holodomor) — mainly due to mass song genres. In 1930s, the musical-theatrical creativity of Lviv composer, singer, and public figure V. Baltarovich: “Mefistiada” (1930–31), “Three Hearts in 2/4” (1930), “Frogging” (1932–34), “The Marriage in Two Apartments” (1933), “Chords” (1934) and “Sich’s adventure” (1939, author of the libretto G. Luzh¬nytsky), — had a great popularity, confirming the responses of the press of that time. However, V. Baltarovich’s emigration to Czechoslovakia after II World War led to the removal of his works from the repertoire and a ban on even mentioning his name. Therefore, the fourth volume of the academic “History of Ukrainian Music” (1992) was only about Soviet operetta. The first information about the operettas of Western Ukraine began to appear only with the beginning of Ukraine’s independence. As one knows, in the funds of V. Stefanyk’s LNSBU manuscripts of the musical comedies “Marriage in Two Apartments” and “Frogging” have been preserved since 2011. So, objectives: to introduce the named works into scientific circulation and to inscribe them in the context of Ukrainian operetta. The musical and theatrical heritage of V. Baltarovich (Ston) has been analyzed. His talent, education and musical activity at the head of the Bohemia theater studio made it possible to create outstanding works. His music was “fashionable”, easy to remember, with many salon dances (tango, waltz, foxtrot, rumba, etc.). The composer made extensive use of ensembles (duets, trios, sextet), and sometimes quoted classical music (F. Chopin’s Funeral March, Toreador’s couplets from opera “Carmen” G. Bizet etc.) in a parody key. Results and Discussion Conclusion. We proved that V. Baltarovich’s musical and theatrical works were predominantly comic in nature (sometimes with elements of satire). Built on models of the salon genres, they were designed to entertain the public (and successfully achieved that goal). With some textual editing of these musical comedies (first of all, “Marriage in Two Apartments” and “Frogging”), they deserve a musical and stage reconstruc-tion, that will enrich the national repertoire. Keywords: V. Baltarovich’s musical and theatrical heritage, musical comedies, epoch musical dictionary, “Marriage in two Apartments”, “Frogging”, operetta of 1930, becoming.

Celebratory Firing: A Journey from Marriage Procession to Funeral March

Celebratory Firing: A Journey from Marriage Procession to Funeral March

Tórtola Valencia, la performer: Sus acciones entre la danza y la performance fuera del escenario

En este artículo proponemos resaltar la figura de la misteriosa bailarina Tórtola Valencia y recuperarla en tanto sujeto-performerque utiliza la vida cotidiana como una danza (proto)performática. De manera alternativa a las danzas realizadas en los escenarios -La Maja, (Albéniz) La Danza de la gitana descalza (Saint-Saens),La Danza de Anitra (Grieg), La Marcha Fúnebre (Chopin), La Danza de los gnomos (Grieg), La danza de la serpiente (Delibes), La Danza del incienso (Buccalossi) o la Danza Árabe (Tchaikovsky), entre otras-, proponemos rescatar un conjunto de danzas performáticas derivadas de una actitud transgresora, que Tórtola realizó de forma espontánea fuera del escenario. Con sus acciones, Tórtola convirtió espacios como barcos, playas, cementerios o un campo de batalla en improvisados teatros donde llevar a cabo una comprensión de la vida como obra de arte, adelantándose en muchos casos a prácticas desarrolladas posteriormente y situadas entre el arte de la performancey la danza contemporñanea.

A Funeral March for Those Drowning in Shallow Ponds?

Abstract I discuss the problem that Kant’s ethics seems to be incapable of capturing our strong intuition that emergencies create a context for actions that is very different from other cases of helping and from other opportunities to further obligatory ends. I argue that if we pay attention to how Kant grounds beneficence we see that distress and emergency function as constitutive concerns. They are vital to establishing the duty of beneficence in the first place, and they also guide the application of duties to specific cases. Kant’s conception of imperfect duties to others, when understood correctly, offers a way to understand why emergencies are morally important, but also why other factors have a place in our moral reasoning.

Funeral March

Funeral March

Психологизм поэзии Э. Бронте (на примере стихотворения «Remembrance» и его русских переводов)

Significance and deep psychologism of one of Emily Bronte’s most famous poems “Remembrance” is considered. Attention is paid to the analysis of translations of this poem into Russian. The results of comparative analysis of two translations of this poem made by T. Gutina, famous translator of E. Bronte’s poetry, and Sh. Fenn, translator under the pseudonym, are presented. The question of relevance of the study of Emily Bronte’s poetry from the standpoint of psychoanalysis is raised. Special attention is paid to equivalence and adequacy in the translation of poetry. The key positions of the analysis of the translations of the poem by E. Bronte necessary for the transmission of the meaning of her poetry are determined. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that Emily Bronte, the author of the novel “Wuthering Heights,” well-known to Russian readers, is completely unknown for her poetry, which is rightfully worthy of attention of readers. The relevance of the research is due to the need to determine the basic key positions of the poetry translation, namely: preservation of the logical content, rhythmic and melodic pattern, stylistic expression when translating. The facts are given, urging that to pass the rhythm of a funeral march is fundamental for the poem “Remembrance”, and it was implemented in translators in full. The author focuses on the analysis of the system of images, as well as those formal characteristics of the poem, which contribute to the understanding of its deep meaning.

Protestant Funerals in Contemporary Xiamen (当代厦门的基督教葬礼﹕中国城市里的变迁、抵抗与传教)

Following its designation as a Special Economic Zone in 1980, the Chinese island city of Xiamen has once again become an affluent urban center. This paper explores recent changes in discourse and practice in Xiamen’s historic Protestant community, focusing on funerals and how they could become major platforms for proselytizing. Based on data derived from interviews, participant observation, and documents issued by secular or religious authorities, four key processes are identified. First, urban modernization policies of the local state have outlawed—but not quite eradicated—cherished funeral rites like lighting firecrackers and holding funeral marches accompanied by brass bands. Second, modernization efforts by Xiamen’s church leadership have reduced the prevalence of sackcloth and led to changes in services in funeral parlors. Third, large-scale immigration established Mandarin as the dominant language and gave rise to so-called Protestant funeral groups, whose charity work is focused on proselytizing among bereaved families. Fourth, the increasing human and financial resources of Protestants in Xiamen facilitate the mobility of large funeral groups and their use of items such as decorative crosses, musical instruments, and songbooks. The paper concludes that change, resistance to change, and proselytizing at funerals can provide insights for the study of Protestant Christians and their ritual events in China’s burgeoning urban societies. 自1980年厦门获批成为经济特区以来，这座中国海岛城市再次成为富裕的中心城市。本文探讨在厦门历史悠久的基督教社区中话语和实践的新近变迁，以葬礼为研究对象，研究其如何成为传教的平台。基于访谈和参与观察得到的资料，本文总结得出四个主要变迁。一、厦门市现代化政策禁止了一些传统的葬礼仪式，如燃放烟花炮竹和举行乐队伴奏的近葬游行，但是这些仪式并没有被根除。二、厦门教会领袖致力于劝阻人们披麻戴孝，并鼓励人们在殡仪馆举行安息礼拜。三，大规模移民的出现使得普通话成为主要语言，并推动了所谓基督教丧事组的兴起，他们慈善工作的重点是 针对死者家属的布道。四、厦门基督教徒日益增长的人力与资金资源提高了大型丧事组的流动性，也推广了有装饰的十字架、乐器以及诗歌集的使用。本文认为厦门基督教葬礼的变迁、对变迁的抵抗与传教活动， 能够为理解中国蓬勃发展的城市基督徒及其宗教仪式提供启发。 (This article is in English.)

Preface

Preface Michael C. Jordan, Editor Two signifcant contemporary works of art that participate in the Catholic artistic tradition, each in its own distinctive way, were presented (coincidentally) within a few blocks of each other in downtown Los Angeles during mid-January 2015: the first performance in the United States of Henryk Górecki’s Fourth Symphony by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Walt Disney Hall, and the first West Coast presentation of Andy Warhol’s Shadows at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art Grand Avenue, described by the museum as “a monumental painting in 102 parts.”1 The Roman Catholic roots of Górecki’s work as a composer are well known; the influence of Andy Warhol’s upbringing as a Byzantine Catholic and his continuing practice as a Catholic have been widely discussed since his death in 1987. There is much drama in the story of the composition of Górecki’s Fourth Symphony, even apart from the oft-told story (but I will not repeat it here) of the surprising rise in popularity starting about 1992 of his Third Symphony: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs composed in 1976. The Fourth Symphony was scheduled for its world premiere in London in April 2010 and for its American premiere in Los Angeles [End Page 5] in January 2011, but the performances were cancelled when Górecki was unable to complete the work because of failing health. He died on November 12, 2010 leaving the work unfinished, and its fate was unknown for several years thereafter. It was eventually determined that the composer had completed the work in piano score, and his son, Mikolaj, who is a composer in his own right, was able to orchestrate the work according to indications of his father’s intentions. The London Philharmonic Orchestra first performed the work in London in April 2014, conducted by Andrey Boreyko, and Boreyko then conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing the work in Los Angeles on January 16–18, 2015. In a talk given prior to the Los Angeles performance on January 17, Boreyko speculated that Górecki was well aware of his failing health and perhaps his impending death as he composed the piece. When asked by interlocutor Christopher Russell about common elements found in Górecki’s Fourth Symphony and Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony (his final symphony), each quoting the funeral march from Wagner’s Siegfried and ending on an A major chord, Boreyko speculated that each symphony was indeed a kind of farewell to life but that the two composers approached the awareness of death in contrasting ways. Noting that in general Górecki did not feel an affinity for the music of Shostakovich, Boreyko suggested that he found a significant contrast between the underlying foundation of Christian hope embedded in Górecki’s symphony and the feeling of despair that he sensed in Shostakovich’s final symphony. Górecki’s Christian faith establishes a key to his Fourth Symphony, in Boreyko’s opinion. While cautiously noting that he did not think the symphony has a necessary program that the listener must follow, Boreyko nonetheless disclosed that after considering the importance of quotations in the work from the funeral march from Wagner’s Siegfried, from Karol Syzmanowski’s Stabat Mater, and from the final movement of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, titled “The Great Gate of Kiev,” he found the work to be “a musical ritual with a deep religious background.” He also suggested [End Page 6] that the work might be thought of as Górecki’s Passion, with sections suggestive of the via dolorosa, the lamentation of the mother, and the Resurrection, among other moments. This account of the symphony so far produces an inaccurate picture of the work as a whole because the elements that most directly suggest the religious background of the composition are embedded within the modernist musical framework that is also an important part of Górecki’s compositional style throughout his career. The work is built on a short initial theme whose notes are derived from the name of Polish-born composer Alexandre Tansman, and much of the first movement involves what music critic Alex Ross...

Metabolic syndrome: variations on the theme of inflammation

“It is too violent to gather up the four movements of such different characters under the name of Sonata! But this piece is incredibly beautiful...” This historic quote was made by Robert Schumann in reference to the second piano sonata by Frederic Chopin that contains the famous funeral march. When experiencing the sonata for the first time, one may feel that this piece is somewhat “slippery”, as the association between the movements appears obscure due to the musical independency and distinctive color of each movement. However, after having heard the whole piece, one will no longer find any cracks in the artistic structure and will be fully convinced that the four movements form a definite complex. In fact, this is brought about by the common motif with a minor third , which is used throughout the sonata in the form of various metaphors; thus, it is not obvious at first glance. This motif links all the movements, thereby providing unity to the masterpiece. The prominent increase in the incidence of obesity in modern society has been caused by rapid and extreme changes in lifestyle, particularly eating habits. Obesity induces multiple diseases, each of which threatens our health and is a burden on medical expenses. Examples includes type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis followed by cardiovascular complications, fatty liver diseases giving rise to liver fibrosis and cancer, and, interestingly, autoimmune diseases. At a glance, these diseases appear independent of each other: the pathogenesis of each disease is distinctive, the major affected organ in each disease is different, and each disease is treated and studied by its own specialists. However, all these diseases are manifestations of metabolic syndrome, which is the most talked about disease complex in modern society. In this sense, the relationship between metabolic syndrome and its associated diseases is reminiscent of the second sonata by Chopin and its four movements. Then, what is the minor third motif that mechanistically links all these different diseases? Accumulating evidence indicates that the answer to this question is inflammation. The breakthrough in understanding the events which bridge obesity and its associated diseases was brought about by the discovery that the chronic, low-grade inflammation observed in obese adipose tissue is responsible for triggering insulin resistance. In recent years, it has become clear that infiltration of a large number of classically activated inflammatory macrophages (M1 macrophages) into adipose tissue is responsible for obesity-associated inflammation. Lean adipose tissue contains a resident population of alternatively activated macrophages (M2 macrophages), which can suppress inflammation in both adipocytes and macrophages themselves, partly via secreting interleukin 10. Hence, obesity induces a switch in the macrophage activation state in adipose tissue toward M1 polarization, which induces inflammation. Such subclinical inflammation of adipose tissue is closely associated with insulin resistance not only in adipose tissue, but also systemically, thus contributing to the development of multiple obesity-induced metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. In this issue, the authors introduce eight variations of obesity-associated disease linked by the motif of inflammation. Arai et al. discuss adipose tissue macrophage recruitment with a focus on the newly identified role of apoptosis inhibitor of macrophage (AIM), a macrophage-derived blood protein initially identified as an apoptosis inhibitor that supports macrophage survival. Under obese conditions, augmented blood AIM is incorporated into adipocytes via CD36-mediated endocytosis and induces vigorous lipolysis. The authors show how this AIM-induced lipolytic response influences the This article is a contribution to the special issue onMetabolic Syndrome Guest Editor: T. Miyazaki

CONGEDO MUSICALE

We end up our meeting presenting two DVD which will enable to listen and see Arturo Toscanini conducting his american orchestra, the NBC Symphony, in two interesting fragments of compositions of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. Verdi will be represented by the “Hymn of the Nations”, a cantata written in the years 1861-1862 on a text by Arrigo Boito; and Wagner by the fragment “Siegfried’s Death and Funeral March” taken from the Götterdämmerung. The written text underlines the role of Maestro Toscanini in introducing Wagner’s music in our country, and in showing the art of Verdi with a critical and intellectual approach which was missing in the generic “routine” of the nineteenth century.

Chopin's Ghosts

Abstract Chopin's Stuttgart diary, written in a state of fear for his loved ones after the defeat of the anti-Russian insurrection in fall 1831, reveals the exiled composer's emotional distress and morbid alienation. Chopin's intense feelings of mourning lent his imagination a peculiar fascination with the morbid. References to corpses and allusions to ghosts in the diary reflect a profound trauma caused by the uncertainty of his personal situation and his awareness of the political crisis. The Stuttgart crisis is only one of numerous instances in which Chopin mapped his personal losses onto the broader fate of those Poles forced into exile after the failure of the uprising. This identification with the estranged community was capable of producing a deeply subjective experience of haunting. Chopin's music carries a poignant relationship to loss and melancholia, exemplified in this article by the Étude, op. 10, no. 12 (“Revolutionary”), the Nocturne, op. 15, no. 3, and the Funeral March from the Piano Sonata, op. 35. These traits have prompted recent films by Andrzej Zulawski and Zbig Rybczynski to adopt Chopin's music as a means of collective mourning in post-Communist Poland.

Satira v glasbi

The article surveys the scope of satire and suggests its range. It is divided into six sections. The introductory comment (The semantics of music) briefly outlines the fact that music has always been a part of communicative endeavors. The historical background of the semantic issues in music is described (Historical surmises), which is necessary to define satire in music as a specific genre combining features from different musical forms. The third section discusses six areas as the most common contexts of musical satire: 1) satirical music theater works, such as the opera Il Girello by Jacopo Melani, the famous Coff ee Cantata (Schweigt Still, plaudert nicht, BWV 211) by Johann Sebastian Bach, Der Schulmeister by Georg Philipp Telemann, The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay, and so on; 2) musical genres associated with satire, either a) within vocal-instrumental music; for instance, opera buffa, Singspiel, operetta, cabaret, vaudeville, and so on, or b) in instrumental pieces, such as capriccios, grotesques, scherzos, burlesques, and so on; 3) individual features or compositional parts related to satire; for example, in a) vocal music, the Satiro in Orfeo by Luigi Rossi, the range of the Orlando character in eighteenth-century opera, who “may be satire, a fool or hero, but never all together” (Harris, 1986, 106), the satirical antihero Matěj Brouček in Leoš Janáček’s work, and also Lady Macbeth, and in b) instrumental music, such as the sermon of St. Anthony in Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony, his marches, and “low-brow tunes,” a number of episodes in Dmitri Shostakovich’s works, and so on; 4) works variously related to criticism, such as the work of Eric Satie, Kurt Weill, Luigi Nono, Maurizio Kagel, and Vinko Globokar, as well as Fran Milčinski (a.k.a. Ježek), Laibach, or Bob Dylan; 5) music journalism, from Johann Beer and Louis-Abel Beffroy de Reigny and his popular pieces de circonstance, to nineteenth-century music journalism, George Bernard Shaw, contemporary musical feuilletons, and so on; and 6) folk-music legacy, to which it seems reasonable to add some of contemporary musical-poetic genres of popular culture, especially rap. After delineating the fields in which music has been connected to satire, the relations between them are analyzed in some detail with discussion of the march section in Mahler’s Third Symphony (Gustav Mahler and universal satire), Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet (Dmitri Shostakovich and social satire), and Lebič’s ingenious Fauvel ’86 (Lojze Lebič and gestural satire). The last section of the article offers a typology of the satirical potential in music. Five types of relations between music and language’s meanings are considered, as well as five groups of satire-connected levers in instrumental music: 1. Music has certain aesthetic features that evoke a “strange” effect: a) music takes a “neutral,” “parallel-world” stance toward the text, without direct involvement in the meaning of the text; b) music “highlights” the sense of the text; c) music “comments” on the text in exposing different “telling details”; d) music tries to negate the text. 2. Musical incorporates certain “coded chips” such as a) motifs from one’s own oeuvre; b) motifs from compositions by other authors; c) “encrypted statements,” such as the “sign” in Shostakovich: the DSCH motif, the BACH motif, and so on; d) semanticized “cultural gestures,” such as Wagner’s funeral march in Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet. 3. Musical flow is characterized by a “breach of genres”: a) various musical forms; for instance, the symphony and the Lied in Mahler, or b) “low-brow” and “high” styles in Mahler and other composers. 4. Musical flow violates the established cultural norms, not only musical ones, with items such as a) certain cultural position, such as John Cage’s 4’33’’; b) specific, not only musical, ideology, the Poeme Symphonique by György Ligeti; c) certain cultural norms, as in Marko Mihevc’s Hallelujah). 5. The musical stream is hardly connected with concrete musical or broader cultural norms, but its semantic potential emerges out of some “physical cognitive universals,” as indicated by programmatic genres and performance indications, such as scherzo, scherzoso, scherzando, grotesque, and burlesque.