German Composer Research Articles

Between Performance and Notation: How did Carl Reinecke understand Mozart’s piano concerto No.26 K.537?

Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) was a German composer, pianist, conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and professor at the Leipzig Conservatory. His piano performances were admired by Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt, and he was reputed as "the greatest and most sincere Mozart player of his time."However, you may be surprised on listening for the first time to his performances preserved on piano rolls, since there is noticeable use of expressive practices such as manual asynchrony, unnotated arpeggiation, and rubato (flexibility of rhythm and tempo), which is quite far from the kind of performance style that is considered good today. This research clarifies the features of the performance practices audible in early piano rolls, such as those by Reinecke. It focuses on how he arranged and notated the Larghetto from Mozart's Piano Concerto No.26 K.537 for piano solo, how he performed it on piano roll (1905), and how he described the performance of the movement in his book Zur Wiederbelebung der Mozart'schen Clavier-Concerte (1891). The discrepancies between the three source materials give an insight into the implied performance practices of Reinecke’s time and his tacit knowledge. The research culminates with personal experimentation and reflection on how these performance practices can expand the freedom and possibilities of the author’s performances.

Disney’s Wagner Aesthetic: Music Drama in Pursuit of the Total Artwork

Aside from Walt Disney’s reputation for renegade avant-gardism, ‘sentimental modernism’ and subliterary Americana, the German composer Richard Wagner’s pursuit of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork) provides a coherent framework for interpreting the ‘music drama’ of the Disney studio’s Depression-era shorts of the 1930s and its feature films of the Golden Age (1937–1942). In citing Wagner and Adorno’s critique of him, the author argues that Disney follows Wagner in three key respects: (1) in his disavowal of the ‘work’ of art and corresponding objectification of Nature; (2) his espousal of technology and its ‘innovation’ as a means of attaining artistic perfection; and (3) his striving for a synaesthesia, or aesthetic unity of the senses, which would ultimately prove unsustainable given the commercial constraints of capitalist modernity.

Some Aspects of Innovation in Brahms's F Sharp Minor Piano Sonata

Brahms was commonly introduced as the successor to the classicism, while some consider him one of the most distinctive German composers of the 19th century. Among Brahms's oeuvre of various genre of orchestral, chamber, piano, and vocal music, large-scale works demonstrate the most obvious inheritance of classical style, however, they exhibit revolutionary qualities in specific technical aspects. This article explores some innovative features of Brahms's F sharp minor piano sonata in treatment of motive, tonal and syntax, to show that the progressive consciousness was emerging already in his early works.

Exploring Bach's "Musical Game" World Analysis of Bach's "Goldberg Variations"

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 March 21st 1750 July 28th), born in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany, was a German composer and keyboard player of the Baroque period. This paper focuses on the musical analysis of Bachs Goldberg Variations to explore Bachs musical game world from four aspects: historical background, counterpoint and fugue, musical analysis of Goldberg Variations, and the essence of Bachs musical games. It aims to provide valuable insights for relevant researchers.

The Principles and Techniques of Artur Schnabel’s Performance of the Piano Sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven

The piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) represent the highest achievement of the First Viennese School in modern piano performance. The complexity and depth of the stage interpretation requires the study of the composer’s music based on its performance specifics. The study of the features of the piano sonata works by Beethoven on the example of performances by Artur Schnabel, one of the most prominent pianists of the twentieth century, will enrich modern knowledge about the style of Beethoven’s piano works. The objectives of the paper are to characterize the genre and stylistic features of Beethoven’s sonata works and to study the performing features of the German composer’s sonatas in Schnabel’s interpretation. Rationalistic approach is not typical for Schnabel’s interpretation of Beethoven’s sonatas. On the contrary, his performance has romantic features in terms of strength and depth of feeling but is classical in terms of the proportionality of expressive means. His performance impresses with its philosophical orientation and epic spirit. What is especially important to him in the musical composition is an individual approach to the intonation of recitatives, cadences, syncopation, and those stylistic components of playing that form an original interpretation of Beethoven’s music. Schnabel embodies Beethoven’s concepts on the basis of integrity, starting from the epic characteristics of Beethoven’s work

Semantics of programmaticism in r. Schumann’s piano music

The author substantiates the semiotic approach to the study of the semantic content of music, reveals a multifaceted panorama of its scientific facets, allowing us to focus on a specific historical and cultural period and the work of the great German composer R. Schumann. First of all, it is associated with the Romanticism era and its aesthetic canons. The article examines the semantics of programmaticism in R. Schumann's piano music through a number of key works in different genres. It is shown that R. Schumann's programmatic piano music embodies the principle of cultural intertextuality both in the form of a reflection extra-musical realities of literary and social life and the formation of a new type of man in the Romantic era.

Moniuszko and the Revival of the Noble Traditions: The Countess and The Haunted Manor

The two recently recorded CD sets of Hrabina (The Countess) and Straszny dwór (The Haunted Manor) in complete concert versions with eighteenth-century instruments add enormously to the Polish operatic repertoire in the nineteenth century, and offer a fresh listening experience for those who have long wished for first-rate recordings of lesser-known, yet brilliantly executed, works of the hitherto neglected composer, Stanisław Moniuszko (1819–1872). Born in the Minsk district of modern Belarus, Monisuzko was gentry, and his nostalgia for the customs, the fields and forest, and the rural community that shaped his childhood years, fuelled his enthusiasm for modern operas set in the eighteenth century. These stellar concert versions of The Countess and The Haunted Manor provide a fascinating glimpse into the provocative and glittering salons of the eighteenth-century Warsaw nobility, whose inhabitants stand firmly in contrast to the more modest and self-effacing life of the peasants and the country gentry. In both operas Moniuszko successfully provides a romanticized portrayal of pre-Partition courtly life in Poland. While these two operas were highly regarded as national treasures in Poland, they were not particularly well known outside of the country. Polish opera at that time was largely overshadowed by Italian, French, and German composers, and the nation's subjugation to the Hapsburgs, Prussians, and Russians throughout the nineteenth century contributed mightily to the neglect of staged works by Polish composers. Additionally, singers needed to be trained in the nuances and inflections of the language. Prior recordings were either incomplete or were not available with English translations of the librettos. With the Biondi and Nowak recordings, Moniuszko's vision of expanding his art to a global audience has finally been achieved. These recordings are accessible to all opera enthusiasts on an international playing field.

Are Richard Wagner's operas a potential tool to teach medical students and young doctors humanities?

Abstract There is an increasing interest in using poems and novels as a powerful resource to teach medical students ethical and professional behavior, virtues, and to illustrate the complexity of the doctor–patient relationship. This approach as part of a narrative medicine provides a framework for approaching a patient’s problems more holistically and also offers a method for addressing existential inner qualities such as grief, hope, and despair that are part of illnesses. Occasionally, operas (mainly Italian) have also been used for this purpose. I however, propose that medical students may learn a lot from a deeper confrontation with the operas from the German composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883). Certainly, Wagner had a rather self-centered personality, also known for his notorious nationalistic and anti-Semitic essays, but his complete Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) encompasses almost every human feeling, conflict, and psychological problem including suffering, compassion, redemption, etc. Wagner’s opera somewhat reflected his unsteady life. Wagner was convinced that his art could fill the void left by the retreat of traditional religion, suggesting that humanity may achieve freedom through the perception of beauty uniting communities through shared aesthetic experience. Not a very modest approach and not a very likable character, but a great composer. After a short biography, I will provide some (because of the complexity of the subject, naturally limited) arguments on what medical students can learn from Wagner operas, even though I am convinced that Wagner and his music are not easy to digest, even for experienced opera lovers.Key messages

The Representation of East Asian Music in Silent Film Accompaniment Scores

The Representation of East Asian Music in Silent Film Accompaniment Scores

Radierter Patriotismus

In his late novel Doktor Faustus (1947) – written in exile in the USA during the Second World War – Thomas Mann has the fictional “German composer” Adrian Leverkühn “take back” Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with his last cantata “Dr. Fausti Weheklag”. The humanism of the “Ode to Joy” with its final exultation “Alle Menschen werden Brüder” had been discredited by dictatorship, terror, war and the Holocaust, and by patriotic and nationalistic appropriations by various political systems. In the course of Germany’s coming to terms with its past – the so-called “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” – from the mid-1960s onwards, a number of composers reacted to the scandal of the misuse of this major classical work of art and its liberating message with compositions whose direct reference to Beethoven’s Ninth can also be understood as “retractions” of this symphony. This article investigates different approaches to Beethoven’s controversial work in Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Requiem für einen jungen Dichter (1967–1969), Hans Werner Henze’s Sinfonia N. 9 (1995–1997), Andreas F. Staffel’s Beethoven off set – oder: ich nehme sie zurück die neunte Symphonie (2015–2019) and many other works.

Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms by Kira Thurman

Reviewed by: Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms by Kira Thurman Kathryn Agnes Huether Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. By Kira Thurman. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021. Pp. 368. Hardcover $32.95. ISBN 978-1501759840. In the field of musicology, several key studies have examined how categories of “Germanness” and “Otherness” have been constructed and negotiated in musical discourse, ranging from such topics as the musical practice of Martin Luther’s aesthetic reform, or the revival of J. S. Bach’s work under the auspices of the Enlightenment-era German Jewish patron Sarah Levy. The rise in antisemitism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found its way into music criticism, with composers and music critics—such as Rudolf Louis and Richard Wagner—frequently attacking German Jewish composers such as Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler for the supposed aural “tainting” and eastern “accents” of their music. The Third Reich escalated racist musical stereotypes by defaming certain music as “entartet,” including Jewish composers, African American jazz, and Roma traditions. Now, musicologist [End Page 326] Kira Thurman brings attention to another important but heretofore overlooked topic in the history of the construction and policing of “Germanness” in German classical music, specifically the prominent role that Black classical musicians have played in the performance of that music from the late nineteenth century to the recent past. In Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, Thurman follows a chronological three-part trajectory: Part I: 1870–1914; Part II: 1918–1945; and Part III: 1945–1961. In Part I, Thurman conveys that the “music of Reinecke and other German composers floated freely out of the windows of chapels [and] concert halls in the 1890s [America]” (22). Black Americans’ drive to educate themselves in the music of Reineke and others, in addition to other academic approaches, was a mass movement that “promised to cultivate new generations of politically minded, culturally sophisticated, and socially aware Black citizens to advance their rights in a nation that still refused to recognize them” (23). German classical music, in its own immigrant journey to America, found a place in the lives of African Americans. But there was also movement in the other direction. Thurman presents a series of case studies on Black migration to, and venture within Germany— including Will Marion Cook, William H. Tyers, J. Elmer Spyglass, and Portia Washington— to name a few. Thurman is careful to explain the unique components of each individual’s transatlantic travel. Even across the ocean, Thurman unveils how Jim Crow still haunted African American lives in Germany, predominantly at the hands of white Americans who also found themselves in Germany. Thurman dedicates an entire chapter to a discussion of how transatlantic notions of race influenced white listening experiences of Black classical musicians in German, emphasizing the aesthetic component of this construction, which forced white listeners to confront the juxtaposition of the visual and aural. In Part II, Thurman emphasizes the heightening of racial propaganda that led toward starker forms of discrimination in the 1920s, specifically the “Black Horror on the Rhine” campaign. The author tracks how these racial slurs then impacted the reception of Black musicians in Germany. Despite the exceptional mastering of the German Lieder by Black musicians in this period, Thurman finds, in her scrutiny of the archive of German music reviews, that critics “revisited their definitions of Blackness and whiteness in response to Black performers’ musical erasures of the Black-white binary” (158). Part III focuses largely on the process of denazification and the role that Black musicians played in it. Thurman shows that the US State Department saw in them the “best asset in the reorientation of Germans” (196), a role that I view as far more nuanced and difficult than Leonard Bernstein’s “Mahler revival” in Vienna. In her closing chapters, the author demonstrates the continuation of racial discrimination and the push for Black musicians to carry an agency that was simultaneously denied to them by their own government. [End Page 327] As a scholar of the Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism, I personally see a...

Балет в театрах князей Радзивиллов в XVIII столетии

The appearance of the first ballet productions and the emergence of professional education for dancers on the territory of Belarus in the 18th century is associated with the activities of the theaters of the magnates — the wealthiest representatives of the highest nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Russia and Zhmud, which included present-day Belarusian lands. The theater stages, equipped with complex mechanisms and decorations for creating a variety of sound and visual effects, were where the leading choreographers and dancers of their time worked. The most durable and large-scale activities were those of private theaters created and functioning at the expense of the ‘uncrowned kings’ of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the princes Radziwiłłs. The representatives of this family demonstrated sincere interest in art and made their courtyards the center of cultural life and artistic education of their time. To teach the art of the ballet to their own children, people close to the court and cadets of the ‘Knight’s Academy’ created by the Radziwiłłs based on the model of the Saxon educational institution for the military, the princes invited famous professional dancers from France and the Italian kingdoms to work. In order to form permanent dance troupes at their theaters in Slutsk and Niasviž, the Radziwiłłs established ballet schools. The heyday of the art of ballet on the theater stages belonging to the Radziwiłłs dates back to 1777–1790. During this period, along with choreographers from European countries, Belarusian dancer Antony Loiko began engaging himself in productions of ballet divertissements and interludes. Student of ballet reformer Jean-Georges Noverre, Francesco Caselli staged several ballet performances with detailed dramatic plots, one of which was Orfeusz w piekle (Orpheus in Hell) to the music of the German composer and leader of the Niasviž Chapel, Jan Dawid Holland. The activities of the theaters belonging to the Radziwiłłs in the 18th century were of great significance for the development of the art of dance, as well as education for people of different social strata. Because of the latter’s personal participation in performances, not only representatives of the nobility, but also peasants, bourgeois and soldiers were introduced to classical European music and ballet. Children who successfully completed their studies at schools with leading European choreographers acquired a profession that allowed them to later work in different theaters and provide themselves with a comfortable existence.

Ментори та Інґеборґ Бахман: письменницька майстерня успішного старту

The article studies the image of a mentor for the development of a novice author on the example of the work of the successful Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926–1973). The role of a tutor is analysed from her first texts to the status of a Viennese intellectual in the middle of the 20th century. The direct influence of older writers and artists from the same generation on the formation of her author’s style is gradually investigated. The figure of the first mentor, the Carinthian writer and teacher Joseph Friedrich Perkonig is emphasized in the example of her early story “The Cross of Hondich” („Das Honditschkreuz”, 1943/1944) and “Letters to Felician” („Briefe an Felician”, 1946). The figure of the second mentor, the Austrian repatriate writer Hans Weigel and his writing workshop (“Group 50”) is examined. Attention is focused on H. Weigel’s autobiographical novel “Unfinished Symphony” („Unvollendete Symphonie”, 1951) and I. Bachman’s first novel “Nameless City” („Stadt ohne Namen”) on his consulting during 1947–1952. Attention is turned to the I. Bachman’s acquaintance with Paul Celan in Vienna, started the artistic dialogue between two young authors: the collection of poems “Deferred Time” („Die gestundete Zeit”, 1953) and “Invocation to the Big Dipper” („Anrufung des großen Bären”, 1956) by I. Bachman and “Poppy and Memory” („Mohn und Gedächtnis”, 1952) by P. Celan. The parallel correspondence of the author with H. Weigel and P. Celan is also compared. We study the role of Hans Werner Richter, the leader of the prominent “Group 47”, whose prize (1953) finally convinced the young author to become a professional writer. Communication with the German composer Hans Werner Henze is stressed as a coexistence of “twins in spirit” and successful intermedial tandem.

Songs in the Key of Life

Songs in the Key of Life

Implementation of Richard Wagner’s Ideas in Cinematography: Music as an Important Component of the Screen Work

The paper raises a number of issues regarding the synthesis of art, its implementation in cinematography, and the role of music in these processes. The importance of combining music with other forms of art was substantiated by Richard Wagner in his theoretical works. He also used these ideas in his composing practice, in particular for creating music dramas that later changed the perception of the possible influence of the synthesis of arts on the audience. The synthesis of music with the other forms of art developed, and, at present, it often becomes the foundation of composers’ creativity: it enables increasing the level of intercultural communication, promotes the emergence of new genres, styles, and trends in art, creates conditions for updating compositional techniques, contributes to increasing the audience of mass art events. The role of music is also crucial in cinematography, which as a synthetic form of art incorporates many ideas about the interaction of arts articulated by the German composer. It is not a coincidence that R. Wagner’s music is actively used in cinematography as a powerful structuring component for the realization of the director’sidea. As a result of the study, the ideas of the interaction of different forms of art were outlined, as well as their impact on the audience and the role of music in this process, previously publicized by R. Wagner and implemented in his works, and later on in the practice of cinematography. The music by the German composer features prominently in the practice of interaction between the visuals and the musical component in filmmaking because by its nature it corresponds with many functions of music in cinema, has a high level of emotional and sensual expressiveness, and emotionally reinforces the visuals of the screen work. Cinematography as a synthetic form of art goes in line with R. Wagner’sideas about the unity of art forms and, at the same time, with the needs of 19th–20th-century society that are still relevant today. Characteristic features of cinema—spectacularity, scale, prolongation in time-space coordinates, ability to express the idea of myth-making and its embodiment in perfect visual forms—enable using the unity of music and visuals in the overall dramaturgy of the film.

Clémence de Grandval in the French artistic culture of the XIX century

Statement of the problem. One of the main issues of the humanities has always been to study urgent problems due to the proceses of economic and social life, changes of artistic guidelines, one of which is to comprehend the specifics of the functioning of contemporary art. Nevertheless, the direction of music scholarship that explores the culture of previous eras and the work of little-known «second-rate» artists remains no less important. In this aspect, the XIX century, namely the era of Romanticism, attracts attention with the flourishing of salon culture, the interest in the work of the Musician-Creator, which led to the formation of a significant layer of educated amateurs and many composers, whose works have been forgotten. The purpose of this article is to present Clémence de Grandval’s creativity as an important component of the development of artistic culture of France in the XIX century. Results and conclusion. The centers of salon culture, where composers and performers, poets and publicists, artists and theater figures gathered in the epoch of blossom of the European Romanticism influenced on shaping of personality and individual artistic style of Clémence de Grandval (1828–1907), born as Marie Félicie Clémence de Reiset (and also known as Vicomtesse de Grandval and Marie Grandval). Unlike of many women of that time, she was lucky to study from a young age. She took lessons from a family friend, the German composer F. Flotow, and later – from F.Chopin and C. Saint-Saëns. In the artistic environment of France in the XIX century Clémence de Grandval was not only well-known, but also a highly respected composer. For many years she held an honorable place in the National Musical Society of France, where she was also involved in patronage, helping young talented composers to promote their works. Both, the significant art prizes of that period, which Clémence de Grandval received through her musical talant and professional knowledge, as well as the respectful attitude of her contemporaries, indicate that during her lifetime she achieved great recognition. Clémence de Grandval’s creative heritage includes several operas, choral and instrumental works that were actively publishing in the XIX century, but later the scores of her orchestral compositions were lost. As of today, the interest to Clémence de Grandval’s creativity is reviving, though performers focus mainly on her chamber works, where orientation on home music is obvious. Thus, the legacy of this remarcable French women composer deserves a deeper investigation.

Anne Dawson Her Book (1716) ed. by Jon Baxendale, and: Toccatas, Suites and Preludes for Harpsichord by William Babell ed. by Andrew Woolley

Reviewed by: Anne Dawson Her Book (1716) ed. by Jon Baxendale, and: Toccatas, Suites and Preludes for Harpsichord by William Babell ed. by Andrew Woolley Graydon Beeks Anne Dawson Her Book (1716). Edited by Jon Baxendale. Tynset: Lyrebird Music, 2021. [302 p. ISMN 979-0-796670-14-0. €58.99] Toccatas, Suites and Preludes for Harpsichord. By William Babell, edited by Andrew Woolley. Tynset: Lyrebird Music, 2021. [302 p. ISMN 979-0-706670-16-4. €48.99] Lyrebird Music, the project of harpsichordist and musicologist Jon Baxendale, began publishing in 2020 and has already produced a remarkable body of work—at least twenty-two editions to date. It is not related to Editions L'Oiseau-Lyre, but like that series, is committed to making available practical editions of keyboard music that take advantage of the latest and best scholarship. Repertoire is heavily weighted toward French music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both familiar and little-known, but there are also volumes of works by Georg Muffat (Apparatus musicoorganisticus) and J. S. Bach (Die Kunst der Fuge), together with a projected edition of the complete organ works of César Franck. All volumes have a detailed critical apparatus with an emphasis on providing supporting information for the performer. The two volumes under review here contain music composed or circulated in England during the first two decades of the eighteenth century. They complement new editions of The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and My Lady Nevells Book, which contain English music from the previous century. The first to be considered is Anne Dawson Her Book (1716), an edition of manuscript BRM 710.5 CR 71 in the Henry Watson Music Library in Manchester that Baxendale, the editor of the volume, has studied for some twenty years. The contents include keyboard transcriptions of instrumental works, idiomatic keyboard pieces, and songs with basso continuo accompaniment, most with obbligato instrumental lines. It has not been possible to identify the original owner of the book, but the editor suggests that she was likely a young 'cultured gentlewoman' and that it was prepared as part of her musical education, presumably at the behest of an unidentified music master who could possibly have also been the primary scribe. The bulk of the transcriptions are of concertos by Italian composers, primarily Antonio Vivaldi, but also Domenico Alberti and Francesco Manfredini. The overture to Bononcini's popular opera Camilla is included, as are sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli and Johann [End Page 348] Christoph Pepusch, who was active in London at the time, and Jean Baptiste Lully's famous 'Choeur de Cybèle' from his opera Atys. Of the five keyboard toccatas, at least one is by William Babell, while another is attributed to 'Sr. Hendel'. The final toccata is attributed elsewhere to Henry Purcell, Michelangelo Rossi, and J. S. Bach, but Baxendale suggests it is more likely to be by a North German composer, perhaps someone in the circle of Dietrich Buxtehude. Among the shorter pieces by French and German composers, John Weldon's three-movement Suite in F Major is the only piece definitely written by a native English composer. The transcribed arias, some of which have been transposed, are all apt for a soprano or tenor voice and are largely taken from Italian operas that were performed in London in the years preceding 1716. Because the continuo bass is so extensively figured, Baxendale suggests that these transcriptions may have been used to teach Ms. Dawson how to accompany at the keyboard. The second volume, Andrew Woolley's edition of Toccatas, Suites and Preludes for Harpsichord by the harpsichordist, organist, and composer William Babell (1688–1723), connects us with the life of a busy professional musician in early eighteenth-century London. Born in Germany into a family of French musicians, both he and his father acquired positions at the English Court, and both joined the orchestra of the newly established Italian opera in 1707. William presumably continued playing with that orchestra until 1717, but he became better known for his activities in public concerts. He also made keyboard arrangements of opera arias that were published by John Walsh. In later years, he became increasingly active as a church organist and...

P. Hindemith’s Eight Pieces For Double Bass Solo: compositional and dramaturgical peculiarities

Statement of the problem. The heritage of German composer Paul Hindemith significantly influenced the development of double bass art of the XX century. Yet, from the 1920s, the author of one of the most renowned chamber works with double bass of his time, the Sonata for Double Bass and Piano (1949), a composer, multi-instrumentalist, P. Hindemith actively involved the double bass in other works, both chamber and solo ones. The Eight Pieces for Double Bass Solo (1927) for a long time have not been the focus of attention of contemporary researchers or double bass players. However, one should not underestimate the fact that P. Hindemith turned to the double bass as an instrument capable of performing a solo work. P. Hindemith’s double bass works still receive insufficient attention from both foreign and domestic musicologists, although many aspects of the composer’s work are highlighted in the studies of E. Hartmann (2013), J. Haney (2008), D. Trippett (2007) and others. The most complete information about the Eight Pieces for Solo Double Bass is given in the Introduction by G. Schubert (1997) before the publication of these pieces, however, their analytical interpretation has not yet been the subject of special research. The purpose of our study is to identify the compositional and dramaturgical peculiarities of Hindemith’s Eight Pieces for Double Bass Solo and to determine their role in the development of the double bass “branch” in the composer’s work. The following scientific methods were used: historiographic approach to study the scientific sources devoted to P. Hindemith; structural-functional and textological approaches in analytical descriptions. As a result of the analysis it was concluded that the Eight Pieces for Double Bass Solo by P. Hindemith are unique as they are a vivid example of the composer’s search for non-standard solutions connected with choosing the solo instrument timbre and the cycle-making factors. From the 1920s, the timbre of the double bass solo in Hindemith’s works in most cases correlates with the semantic spheres of joke, parody, sarcasm or grotesque. Created for home performance with friends, Eight Pieces for Double Bass Solo present the parody direction in the composer’s work. The cycle was undoubtedly influenced by Gertrude Hindemith’s preferences and talents. Gifted not only as a singer, cellist and double bassist, but also as an actress, she played these pieces not only at private parties for friends, but also performed them on stage following all the “acting” remarks written in Hindemith’s manuscript. The Eight Pieces built by the principle of “the cycle in cycle”, and their dramaturgy is subjected not only to musical logic, but also to numerous nonmusical factors (reflected in the remarks, graphics, etc.), which determined the theatrical nature of the work. After a real flourish of Hindemith’s chamber and instrumental work in the 1920s, the composer focused mainly on symphonic genres. However, his interest in double bass didn’t exhaust itself. After many years of active work in the symphony genre, P. Hindemith again turned to it as a solo instrument in the Sonata for Double Bass and Piano – the peak of the evolution of this instrument in his music. However, the formation of the sound image of the solo double bass in the composer’s was gradual since the 1920s. The Eight Pieces for Double Bass Solo, which were an important step on this path, despite being intended for home music, laid not only the foundations of a sound image of the double bass, but also the aesthetic basis of the instrumental theater.

French Music in Britain 1830–1914 Paul J Rodmell

Given the long-standing contribution of the ‘Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain’ series to research on the fabled ‘Land without Music’, it comes as a shock to realize just how many basic questions still need answers. Paul Rodmell’s fourth book in the Routledge series, which has published forty-one titles since 2001, tackles French stage and concert music—repertories all but absent in general accounts of British musical life dominated by Italian and then German composers. To what extent, Rodmell asks, were French repertories present within the professional operatic and concert activity of London and the British provinces? How were they adapted to fit local circumstances; and which genres or composers were either influential or failed to make an impact? What did the Frenchness of French music mean to English audiences, and how did such meanings change over time? To answer these questions Rodmell turns to press reviews first and foremost. As a foundation for such discussion, patient searching of newspapers, alongside other printed sources, lies behind his chronologically ordered appendix of first performances of French music in Britain (pp. 201–20), which alone counts as a highly suggestive document illustrating changing patterns of British exposure to performances of French music. Obituaries of key figures, and entries on French musicians in Grove’s Dictionary, offer a rounding-out of contemporary discourse on French music, though in the light of recent literature on the history of listening in Britain I was surprised at the omission of programme notes as a potential source of aesthetic and pedagogical commentary, and at the relatively slight attention given to caricatures and other types of illustration included within the text.

Johann Melchior Molter

Among young musicians there is not much motivation to "go outside the box". We are so used to seeing from a young age the same books and the same typical pieces. All this just to get in front of a jury and play the same passages that we started to study since we were 12 years old. But it is inevitable that a hurricane of questions sweeps through your head when you see that a composer from the 18th century you didn't know wrote a concerto for your instrument. Which instrument did the composer play? In which stylistic period can we place him? Who was the concerto written for? Do we know if there is another concerto for my instrument? This is what my research is about, to study the life as well as the bassoon concertos of the German composer Johann Melchior Molter, born in Karlsruhe in 1696, unknown to me until a year ago. He was chapel master in Karlsruhe, he travelled around the cultural centres of Europe, which gave him a unique and varied style that is present in all his works.