Mozart's Concerto Research Articles

Ferruccio Busoni and His Legacy by Erinn E. Knyt

Reviewed by: Ferruccio Busoni and His Legacy by Erinn E. Knyt Jonathan Kregor Ferruccio Busoni and His Legacy. By Erinn E. Knyt. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2017. [xii, 372 p. ISBN 9780253026286 (hardback), $85; ISBN 9780253026842 (paperback), $38; ISBN 9780253026897 (e-book), price varies.] Illustrations, music examples, tables. Ferruccio Busoni's activities as critic, pianist, and composer are usually characterized as products of their time, bringing about no lasting impact. Yet as Erinn Knyt argues throughout Ferruccio Busoni and His Legacy, his presence was [End Page 549] profoundly felt in the twentieth century and continues well into the twenty-first. Specifically, she identifies various manifestations of Busoni's "aesthetic ideals" (p. 5) in the activities and output of selected students that Busoni mentored or inspired, including Jean Sibelius, Edgard Varèse, Louis Gruenberg, Otto Luening, and Philipp Jarnach. Many of these students became musical pioneers in their own right, whether in exploring "how technology and new instruments could expand musical possibilities, how sonority could become an integral material of music," or "how stylistic heterogeneity could be used to break away from traditional forms" (p. 8). Chapter 1, "Unconventional Maestro," focuses on Busoni's general pedagogical approach, which on the surface does not seem to have been unique. It was, however, strikingly conservative. Johann Sebastian Bach provided his students with countless solutions to age-old questions of form, counterpoint, and thematic cohesion, with book 2 of Das wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier) serving as the closest thing to a one-stop composition manual that Busoni would ever allow. Instead of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, or Gustav Mahler, it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who guided Busoni's advice on orchestration. Busoni's abandoned orchestration treatise from around 1905 emphasizes Mozartian principles of spacing, voice leading, and "diverse instrumental timbres and colors" (p. 16) as do the exercises in orchestral transcription using Mozart's concertos that Busoni regularly assigned to his pupils. Indeed, Austro-Italian models dominated Busoni's examples of dramatic forms, musical characterization, stylistic cohesion, and even subject matter, with Mozart also serving as the source of an operatic tradition that ran through Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Giuseppe Verdi. On the other hand, a strongly Germanic line of philosophers from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Friedrich Nietzsche shaped Busoni's aesthetics, which in turn attracted him to various contemporary movements, such as Jugendstil and futurism, while developing his own ideas that jelled in his Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst ([Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music] Leipzig: Insel, 1907). Knyt is keen to point out that, despite its title, the Entwurf is not about breaking with the past. Rather, it reflects Busoni's pedagogy of "embrac[ing] the stylistic characteristics of all the compositions [a student admires] and to combine them, reflecting the multiplicity of musics in the sounding universe" (p. 24). Syncretism, however, does not a system make, and Knyt rightly notes the unpredictability and even contradictions of Busoni's pedagogical statements. Improvisation was a recommended compositional stimulus, but so was having a clear vision for the work. Students were inspired to seek out the unknown, yet Busoni cautioned against prioritizing originality. Serendipitous human experience could form the characteristic marrow of a work, just as much as the calculated lines and angles of centuries old architectural masterpieces. Knyt's comparisons of the teaching styles of Arnold Schoenberg and Nadia Boulanger at the close of chapter 1 hammer home just how distinctive Busoni's was for its day. In the next four chapters, Knyt examines how selected students put Busoni's esoteric prescriptions into practice. Sibelius, although never an official student, benefited enormously from Busoni's counsel for almost thirty-five years. According to Knyt, the breadth of their relationship has made it difficult for scholars to treat it comprehensively. She seeks to remedy that situation in chapter 2, "Janus-Faced Modernism," by arguing Busoni [End Page 550] "stimulated Sibelius's imagination and was a catalyst for his experimentation with sound, color, and structure. He helped Sibelius discover a distinctive style that was an alternative to both the avant-garde and the conservative trends of the day. At the same time, he promoted his music across Europe...

Mozart Englished

Mozart’s concertos for piano have always been subject to claims that they are being performed in circumstances that would have been familiar to the composer. ‘Conducting from the keyboard’ is a slogan rarely far from performances and recordings of this repertory, and the practice is occasionally claimed to reflect how Mozart would have performed his music himself. Although Murray Perahia was genuinely honest when he reported in 1987 that he wanted to conduct from the keyboard because he found aligning his performances with conductors difficult, most conductor-pianists do not even bother to repeat what they consider self-evident: that conducting Mozart concertos from the keyboard grants some kind of access to the composer’s aims that other modes of performance do not. This modern practice seems to have started with Edwin Fischer in Berlin in the 1930s, but was picked up systematically by his pupil Géza Anda’s complete set of recordings with the Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg in the 1960s; from then on—Daniel Barenboim was an important pioneer in the UK—it became part of the landscape of Mozart concerto performance. But of course, the practice was a modern mythology. Yes, composer-performers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries worked with their violinist colleagues to direct the performance, but they also contributed much more to the tutti and ritornello textures from the keyboard as well. This is a far cry from the mixture of performing the solo part and then indulging in interpretative conducting during the ritornellos and tuttis that modern ‘conducting from the keyboard’ involves. When Fischer developed the practice in the 1930s, he was inventing a modern technique—quite reasonably in response to the monumental performances he must have heard in his youth—but despite the claims of others he was not recovering a practice from the past.

Improvements in Cognition and Educational Attainment as a Result of Integrating Music into Science Teaching in Elementary School

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: This study examines the effect on third-grade students’ academic achievement and their pleasure and interest in lessons as a result of the incorporation of music into science classes. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Sixty third grade Arab school children were studied before and after listing a Mozart Concerto. Their pleasure and interest in the lesson was evaluated using the 20-statement Barak questionnaire. Comparison was made between an initial 6 lessons without music and subsequent 6 lessons with music. In another study at the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Havana, Cuba, continuous electroencephalographic monitoring (CEEG) was performed in 15 third-grade school children during 10 minutes at basal condition and for 10 minutes while listening to the same piece of music. RESULTS: Assessment scores in the science examination were significantly higher overall after listening to music. A clear increment of alpha and gamma absolute powers was found when listening to music, although for the alpha band this augmentation was significantly greater. An increment of the alpha band power was related to significantly better performance of spatial–temporal tasks when listening to music. Changes in the gamma frequency band represent cognitive processes. Hence, CEEG analysis adds to evidence that listening to music can increase enjoyment and improve academic achievement among elementary school students. CONCLUSION: We propose that music stimulates the formation of neural networks that prime the brain for learning. We recommend that teachers of core subjects, especially mathematics, science and languages, begin their lessons with 5 minutes of calm music.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Keyboard Concertos from Manuscript Sources VII ed. by Mark W. Knoll, and: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ed. by Jason B. Grant and Elias N. Kulukundis

Reviewed by: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Keyboard Concertos from Manuscript Sources VII ed. by Mark W. Knoll, and: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ed. by Jason B. Grant and Elias N. Kulukundis Simon P. Keefe Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Keyboard Concertos from Manuscript Sources VII. Edited by Mark W. Knoll. (C. P. E. Bach - the Complete Works‚ Ser. III, Vol. 9.7). Los Altos, CA: Packard Humanities Institute, 2018. [xv p.; score, 255 p. Cloth. ISBN 1933280654. $54.25] Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Keyboard Concertos from Manuscript Sources XI. Edited by Jason B. Grant and Elias N. Kulukundis. (C. P. E. Bach - the Complete Works‚ Ser. III, Vol. 9.11). Los Altos, CA: Packard Humanities Institute, 2017. [xvii p.; score, 134 p. Cloth. ISBN 1938325044. $38.50] The C. P. E. Bach Complete Works has emerged as one of the most important, extended scholarly ventures in current eighteenth-century musical scholarship. C. P. E. Bach (1714–1788) wrote around fifty concertos at all stages of his career. As General Editor Peter Wollny explains in a succinct preface to both volumes under review: "In addition to the increasingly refined interplay between solo and tutti, the development of Bach's concerto style manifests itself primarily through larger dimensions, higher compositional demands, and a more symphonic quality to the movements" (ix). On the first point, it can be noted that the influential German theorist Heinrich Christoph Koch (1714–1816), writing between 1782 and 1793, considered C. P. E. Bach concertos models of a well-worked concerto in which, during the solo, the accompanying voices are not merely there to sound this or that missing interval of the chord between the soprano and bass. There is a passionate dialogue (leidenschaftliche Unterhaltung) between the concerto player and the accompanying orchestra. He expresses his feelings to the orchestra, and it signals him through short interspersed phrases sometimes approval, sometimes acceptance of his expression, as it were. Now in the allegro it tries to stimulate his noble feelings still more; now it commiserates, now it comforts him in the adagio. (Koch, Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition [Leipzig, 1782–1793; reprint Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1969], trans. Nancy Kovaleff Baker as Introductory Essay on Composition: the Mechanical Rules of Melody, Sections 3 and 4 [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983], 209, 211–212. In his later Musikalisches Lexikon [Frankfurt, 1802; reprint Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964], col. 854, Koch cited Mozart's concertos as the model.) Together, the two new volumes contain five keyboard concertos, Wq 21 in A minor, Wq 22 in D minor, Wq 23 in D minor (vol. 9.7, plus an early version of Wq 21), and Wq 34 in G major and Wq 35 in E major (vol. 9.11). The editors' introductions are informative and concise, skillfully explaining source issues and matters of compositional genesis. Wq 21 was initially written in 1747 (in Berlin) and "renewed" (erneuert) nearly thirty years later in 1775 [End Page 157] (Hamburg). We should be thankful to the editor, Mark W. Knoll, and publisher for providing both texts: "Wq 21 is unquestionably a rare case of a surviving original version of one of Bach's works prior to its revision" (vol. 9.7, xii). Wq 22, in contrast, originated as a flute concerto, only later being arranged by C. P. E. Bach for keyboard, a version for which two horn parts not in the flute concerto were also added. Wq 23, unlike Wq 21 and Wq 22, survives in autograph form. Wq 34 and Wq 35 (vol. 9.11) date respectively from 1755 and 1759, are contemporary with C. P. E. Bach's organ sonatas, and were conceived with organ as well as harpsichord in mind. Surviving autograph materials "indicate that Bach made alterations and improvements at a somewhat later time after the works were composed" (vol. 9.11, xi). Moreover, "more than a dozen contemporary copies of each work exist, indicating that they were both well-known and popular with the North German musical public" (vol. 9.11, xi). Wq 35, probably composed for Princess Anna Amalia, is the only C. P. E. Bach concerto written between 1755 and 1762, a fact attributable to the challenging conditions of the...

Notes for Clarinetists: A Guide to the Repertoire by Albert R. Rice

Reviewed by: Notes for Clarinetists: A Guide to the Repertoire by Albert R. Rice Sonia Archer-Capuzzo Notes for Clarinetists: A Guide to the Repertoire. By Albert R. Rice. (Notes for Performers.) New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. [xv, 281 p. ISBN 9780190205201 (hardcover), $105; 9780190205218 (paperback), $27.95. Also available as an e-book (ISBN and price varies).] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Albert R. Rice is a well-known author of scholarly works about the clarinet and its history, literature, and development. His research on the clarinet in the Baroque and Classical periods has been praised as a "massive and rather daunting organizational task" (Eric Hoeprich, review of The Baroque Clarinet, by Albert R. Rice, Notes 50, no. 1 [September 1993]: 187) involving "a vast amount of data" (Alissa Abrams, review of The Clarinet in the Classical Period, by Albert R. Rice, Notes 62, no. 3 [March 2006]: 729). Like his earlier works, Rice's most recent publication, Notes for Clarinetists: A Guide to the Repertoire, is thoroughly researched and full of useful detail. It provides a valuable store of information about the clarinet's core repertoire. The second volume in the Notes for Performers series produced by Oxford University Press, Notes for Clarinetists provides a list of some of the most important compositions for solo clarinet, clarinet and piano, or clarinet and orchestra (p. xi). The series follows two key guidelines: (1) pieces must be among the best known for the instrument, and (2) only one work may be chosen per composer. In his preface, Rice further stipulates that he chose repertoire for its musical quality, frequency of performance, and "substantial and creative use of the clarinet" (p. xii). These criteria are somewhat subjective, leading to a list of compositions that includes a few works that might not make everyone's inventory of clarinet standards. However, the vast majority of the pieces described in the book are important and popular contributions to the clarinet repertoire. [End Page 446] Each chapter in Notes for Clarinetists focuses on a different composition, organized alphabetically by the last names of the composers, ranging from Arthur Benjamin to Carl Maria von Weber. Chapters follow a standard formula consisting of biographical material on the composers, a short explanation of their compositions, and an analysis of their specific pieces for clarinet. For each piece, Rice also outlines its technical and expressive challenges and how it might best fit into a concert program. Although each chapter is fewer than ten pages in length, Rice manages to pack a great deal of detail into a small space. In addition to tempo indications (such as allegro), he often provides metronome markings, stipulating when these markings are his own suggestions. He augments his simple form charts for each piece or movement with discussions of important aspects of the composition, including pitch, rhythm, meter, and dynamics. There is some flexibility built into this format, which allows Rice to discuss a wide-ranging selection of works. For example, in the section on William O. Smith's Variants for Solo Clarinet, he concentrates on advanced techniques such as multiphonics and flutter tonguing, but in the next chapter, about Louis Spohr's Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, op. 26, his focus shifts to musical form and how the friendships between Spohr, Johann Simon Hermstedt, and various clarinet makers influenced the development of the instrument (pp. 206–19). In some cases, Rice corrects mistakes in specific editions or recommends which editions the performer should favor over others. This advice can be quite helpful, for example in the case of the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Francis Poulenc. Rice points out that the first edition has a number of "notation ambiguities" (p. 163) because Poulenc died before the work was premiered. In spite of multiple revisions and much study over the years, numerous errors persisted until the publication of the sixteenth edition in 2006 (p. 164). Similarly, Rice discusses the many different editions and arrangements of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622 (pp. 128–35). Originally written for the basset-horn, the piece is now more frequently performed on a modern clarinet in A. Because the range of...

Modern Illuminations in Poetry and Music: Charles Wuorinen's Ashberyana

MODERN ILLUMINATIONS IN POETRY AND MUSIC: CHARLES WUORINEN’S ASHBERYANA SARAH ROTHENBERG OURTEEN YEARS AFTER ITS CREATION, Charles Wuorinen’s Ashberyana stands as a tour-de-force of musical text-setting, bringing together, to mutual benefit, the work of two contemporaneous artists at the height of their powers. Wuorinen’s compositional agility, wit and deep understanding of English language poetry rise to the idiosyncratic challenges of John Ashbery’s poetic genius. The resultant work, composed in 2005, is a transparent and illuminating marriage of music and text in which the audacious inventiveness of each artist shines with diamond-sharp brilliance. This year, as we celebrate Charles Wuorinen’s 80th birthday, we also mourn the death of John Ashbery, who died this past September at the age of 90. Eleven years apart in age, these two men, distinct in personality, share key attributes: towering intellects, fierce artistic independence, and profound historical knowledge of their respective art forms. (As well as a taste for dry martinis.) Thoroughly committed to modernism, each possesses a rare historical sense of his own place in the larger trajectory of his respective art-form—the embodiment of F 248 Perspectives of New Music authentic artistic personality as outlined by T. S. Eliot in his seminal essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot argues that true originality does not spontaneously appear, but is tied to an understanding of the past; even if the brilliance of innovation seems completely new, a seeming rebellion against all that is current, the sustainability of such brilliance is tied to an understanding of tradition: [Tradition] cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature . . . has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.1 This keen knowledge of artistic past, in both Wuorinen and Ashbery, provides the foundation for daring originality—both of these artists understand what has preceded the moment into which they are born. John Ashbery was quietly erudite, an insatiably curious reader who continually dug into the past, with a refined taste for the obscure, from such early surrealist poets as Raymond Roussel back to medieval times. He was also a great music-lover, with a large and diverse record collection , who cultivated a special penchant for forgotten composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in addition to following his musical contemporaries. He wrote eloquently and prolifically about painting, was active as an art critic in the 1960s, and shared deep friendships with many artists of his time. Associated with a rigorous modernism, Wuorinen’s concept of the modern is one in which tradition holds with innovation. Occasional overt homages to music of the medieval, renaissance, and classical traditions have figured throughout his compositional career, as evidenced in such early works as Two Lute Songs of Thomas Campion (1956) and Salve Regina: John Bull (1966); several works inspired by the Renaissance genius Josquin Desprez—Josquin: Ave Christe (1988), Josquiniana (2002), Ave Maria . . . Virgo Serena (Josquin) (2007)— Jan’s Dowland (2014); and, recently, cadenzas for a Haydn piano concerto, which were preceded over five decades ago, in 1965, by cadenzas to a Mozart concerto. These tributes, besides being delightful musical works, serve as a gracious acknowledgement of techniques that have informed Wuorinen’s approach to composition. Modern Illuminations in Poetry and Music 249 With his deep respect for craft, Wuorinen’s roots go back to the two seminal modernists of the last century, Schoenberg and Stravinsky—as testament, their photographs sit side by side on a music stand in his study. Wuorinen absorbed the late works of Stravinsky with such depth that they become a springboard for his own distinctive style; this was recognized in his tribute of 1975, A Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky, in which Wuorinen received...

Hear Me:

Hear Me:

Research System of the Origin of a Musical Work: Case Study of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto K622

Revealing the origin of a musical work represents a process of data gathering. Therefore, it requires a well-developed system of their aquistion, verification and synthetisation. Based on and derived from the case study of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto K622, a research system of the origin of a musical work has been developed in this paper. By employing its structural elements it is possible to make a solid framework within which the comprehensive review of the origin of the work can be given. The system bears general features and it is applicable for any of the musical works. It proved to be efficient platform for the case study of Mozart's Concerto.

Efficacy of auditory enrichment in a prosimian primate (Otolemur garnettii)

Research suggests that auditory environmental enrichment might reduce abnormal behavior in certain primate species. The authors evaluated the behavioral effects of exposure to music in a prosimian primate (Garnett's bushbaby; Otolemur garnettii). They exposed bushbabies to a Mozart concerto for 15 min per day for 20 d (5 h exposure total), video-recorded them and subsequently analyzed the frequency of subjects' grooming and stereotypic behaviors. The authors compared the data with baseline behavioral data that had been recorded over a 20-d period before the experimental treatment. Neither stereotypy nor grooming behavior varied as a result of exposure to music. These results do not support the hypothesis that auditory enrichment in the form of exposure to music is an effective means of reducing stereotypic behavior in O. garnettii.

‘We hardly knew what we should pay attention to first’: Mozart the Performer-Composer at Work on the Viennese Piano Concertos

Late eighteenth-century writings bear witness to Mozart's extraordinary skills as a performer-composer. But this dual status has yet to exert a serious influence on our understanding of Mozart's piano concertos. An examination of changes to the autograph scores of his Viennese works catches him in the act of negotiating performance needs as soloist and compositional needs as author. His acute attention to detail and his intense personal involvement and commitment – evident in written testimony and in alterations to the autographs – reveal a performer-composer intent on harnessing very specific musical events (sounds, timbres, instrumental and solo effects) to more general ends that ultimately invite listeners to perceive performance and composition as mutually reinforcing features of a complete musical experience. Modern performers trying to recreate the performer-composer experience – soloists and orchestral instrumentalists alike – are thus encouraged to put sounds, textures and effects centre stage in their own interpretations of Mozart's concertos.

Mozart's Haffner and Linz Symphonies Arranged for Pianoforte, Flute, Violin, and Violoncello, and: Twelve Select Overtures Arranged for Pianoforte, Flute, Violin, and Violoncello (review)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Mozart's and Symphonies Arranged for Pianoforte, Flute, Violin, and Violoncello. Edited by Mark Kroll. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, 29.) Madison, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., c2000. [Acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xvi; 2 plates; scores, 114 p.; crit. report, p. 115-17. ISBN 0-89579-466-7. $55; parts (fl., vln., vc.), $27.] Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Twelve Select Overtures Arranged for Pianoforte, Flute, Violin, and Violoncello. Edited by Mark Kroll. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, 35.) Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., c2003. [Acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xii; 2 plates; scores, 285 p.; crit. report, p. 287-89. ISBN 0-89579-519-1. $160; parts (fl., vln., vc.), $54.] Contains overtures to Prometheus (Beethoven), Die Zauberflote (Mozart), Lodoiska (Cherubini), Figaro (Mozart), Iphigenia [en Aulide] (Gluck), Sargino (Ferdinando Paer), Der Freischutz (Weber), Euryanthe (Weber), Tancredi (Rossini), and Anacreon (Cherubini), plus Original Overture (Friedrich Heinrich Himmel) and [Original] Overture (Andreas Jakob Romberg). On the face of it, a critical edition of an version of a musical work, and of an arrangement no less, would seem to be a misdirection of scholarly effort, particularly when the work in question is very familiar and readily available, both in print and in recorded performances, in its authentic form. But there are many valid reasons for taking such arrangements and inauthentic editions seriously, and we can therefore extend a warm welcome to these two volumes edited by Mark Kroll in Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries that present Johann Nepomuk Hummel's arrangements of two Mozart symphonies (from Mozart's Six Grand Symphonies [London: Chappell & Co., 1823-24]) and a dozen overtures by various composers that comprised his first set of Twelve Select Overtures (London: Boosey, 1821). As Kroll details in his valuable introduction to the Mozart volume (see table 1, pp. xi-xii), Hummel produced a substantial catalog of such arrangements in the 1820s and 1830s. In addition to the works at hand, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Haffner and Linz Symphonies, K. 385 and 425, these include another dozen overtures, Ludwig van Beethoven's Septet, Fidelia (for piano four-hands), and his first seven symphonies, four symphonies by Joseph Haydn (nos. 44, 100, 102, and 103), a symphony by Andreas Jakob Romberg, and the balance of Mozart's last six symphonies and seven of his piano concertos. This last group is especially notable for Hummel's original cadenzas and for his lavish embellishments to both slow and fast movements, designed to exploit the expanded range of the nineteenth-century piano. Until recently, Hummel's cadenzas could still be heard from time to time. The old Schirmer two-piano edition of the DMinor Concerto, K. 466, edited by Franz Kullak (Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics, 661 [1901, 1929; reprint, 2002]), printed Hummel's cadenzas in the body of the score while relegating Beethoven's to an appendix. Even Glenn Gould, who was quite capable of fashioning brilliant cadenzas of his own, as we know from his incomparable recording of Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, chose Hummel's firstmovement cadenza when he recorded Mozart's C-Minor Concerto, K. 491 (Beethoven: Columbia Symphony Orchestra/ Vladimir Golschmann, (Columbia MS 6017 [1958], LP, with various reissues including Beethoven, The 5 Piano Concertos, Sony Classical SM3K 52632 [1992], CD); Mozart: CBC Symphony/Walter Susskind, Columbia MS 6339 [1962], LP, in various reissues including Sony Classical SMK 52626 [1992], CD). And should some venturesome pianists feel the urge to go it alone in Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 365, they should be aware that Hummel's arrangement awaits their perusal. The titles of Hummel's arrangements, as given on the title pages of the new editions -arranged for pianoforte, flute, violin, and violoncello-do not fully represent these versions, as they might more accurately be designated for piano solo or piano with the accompaniment of flute, violin, and cello. …

Adjudicating the Debate Over Two Models of Nature Appreciation

Adjudicating the Debate Over Two Models of Nature Appreciation Sheila Lintott (bio) It seems commonplace to point out that we aesthetically appreciate a wide variety of objects: that is, art objects are not the only good candidates for aesthetic appreciation.1 We know from experience that one can aesthetically appreciate not only Georgia O'Keefe's White Trumpet Flower, but also a white trumpet flower. Similarly, we can aesthetically appreciate both a pictorial representation of the human form and that form instantiated in certain prime specimens. We do so, moreover, without classifying either flowers or human beings as art objects. Yet, the paradigm of aesthetic appreciation today, in both everyday life and in educative contexts, is the appreciation of art, which explains why we tend to try to understand what makes aesthetic appreciation appropriate in terms of what makes art appreciation appropriate. This approach may not be entirely mistaken, for beginning with the familiar is always a good plan. However, it must be done with care, otherwise important differences between our relationships with the art we appreciate and with the nature we appreciate may be overlooked, thereby obscuring salient differences in the appreciation of each. In this essay, I focus on the issue of the appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature and offer an overview of a contemporary debate on the topic. I begin with a general discussion of art and nature appreciation. I then summarize Kendall Walton's theory of appropriate art appreciation and explain his skepticism regarding the possibility of appropriate and inappropriate nature appreciation. Next, I discuss two models according to which Walton is mistaken, as the philosophers who present these models, Allen Carlson and Noël Carroll, do so to illustrate how nature appreciation can be properly considered appropriate or inappropriate. It may seem that given the recent proliferation of models of nature appreciation, the last thing we should seek is yet another model. However, in the end, I shall argue the need for a new and different kind of model, one that is a revisionist and extensionist model of nature appreciation. [End Page 52] Art and Nature Appreciation Concerning the perceptual activity of the audience, how we ought to appreciate artworks is largely uncontroversial. Perhaps this is why Carlson opens his attempt to understand the aesthetic appreciation of nature with a presentation of the aesthetic appreciation of art, explaining that "with art objects there is a straightforward sense in which we know both what and how to aesthetically appreciate."2 Although not all artworks offer "straightforward" examples of aesthetic appreciation, Carlson's general point is reasonably motivated. As Kendall Walton succinctly explains: "Paintings and sculptures are to be looked at; sonatas and songs are to be heard. What is important about these works of art, as works of art, is what can be seen or heard in them."3 That we ought to look at paintings and listen to sonatas seems obvious for at least two reasons. First, via formal education and informal interactions, we have grown familiar with the conventions of art appreciation; second, such conventions find experiential reinforcement when, for example, our auditory sense is tickled by a Mozart concerto.4 Underlying our relative lack of confidence when it comes to nature appreciation is the obvious fact that nature, unlike art, is not an artifact. Nature was not made by beings like us; it was made neither for our use, nor for our entertainment, nor for our appreciation.5 As Carlson puts it, "art objects are our own creations; it is for this reason that we know what is and what is not part of a work, which of its aspects are of aesthetic significance, and how to appreciate them" (ANE, 41). We need, therefore, a model of nature appreciation that will serve as a source of education regarding how best to appreciate nature and will offer the confidence we lack and the guidance we seek. It might seem that we should simply apply our knowledge of art to nature appreciation — that is, appreciate nature as if it were art. However, as numerous philosophers have noticed, this approach is mistaken.6 The mistake is both theoretical and practical. Theoretically, it is a category error...

Mozart's piano concertos

Mozart's piano concertos stand alongside his operas and symphonies as his most frequently performed and best loved music. They have attracted the attention of generations of musicologists who have explored their manifold meanings from a variety of viewpoints. In this study, John Irving brings together the various strands of scholarship surrounding Mozart's concertos including analytical approaches, aspects of performance practice and issues of compositional genesis based on investigation of manuscript and early printed editions. Treating the concertos collectively as a repertoire, rather than as individual works, the first section of the book tackles broad thematic issues such as the role of the piano concerto in Mozart's quasi-freelance life in late eighteenth-century Vienna, the origin of his concertos in earlier traditions of concerto writing; eighteenth-century theoretical frameworks for the understanding of movement forms, subsequent historical shifts in the perception of the concerto's form, listening strategies and performance practices. This is followed by a 'documentary register' which proceeds through all 23 original works, drawing together information on the source materials. Accounts of the concertos' compositional genesis, early performance history and reception are also included here, drawing extensively on the Mozart family correspondence and other contemporary reports. Drawing together and synthesizing this wealth of material, Irving provides an invaluable reference source for those already familiar with this repertoire.

Festival Lodoviciano, Viadana

cept, but the execution was rather informal, as though the audience was sitting in on a dress rehearsal. The second featured David Breitman (fortepiano) and Brian Brooks (violin) playing Schuster's Divertimento da camera, followed by Mozart's K303 and K306, then Abel's Sonata in A major, op.5 no.5, paired with K526. There was a performance on Saturday night by Tafelmusik, featuring Malcolm Bilson as soloist in Mozart's Concerto in G Major, K453. After the intermission Bilson also played the Rondo, K485. Neal Zaslaw, chair of local arrangements, deserves credit for organizing the informative and integrated exhibits and concerts that accompanied the paper sessions. The exhibit is accessible online via the Kroch Library at Cornell.* The conference was co-sponsored by the Department of Music and the Institute for German Cultural Studies at Cornell University.

Whose Affirmative Culture? Response to Pfister

Playing on the title of Herbert Marcuse's The Affirmative Character of Culture (1937), Joel Pfister calls for a pragmatic and revitalized agency studies-a liberation or movement studies-that can nurture the power of cultural affirmation, rather than teaching us what we already know about the complicitous character of culture. Pfister argues that US cultural studies has come to lack relevance for students because of its overemphasis on art's collusion with economic privilege and social oppression. Worse yet, the insights of complicity critique simply mirror the needs of an expanding, multinational, corporate state. These problems might be solved, Pfister suggests, if we just remember that, while American literature and culture can be complicitous, they also keep us alive. In the present, as in the past, American culture-from the novel to Mozart concertos and slave spirituals-has helped oppressed and exhausted people to survive and to reorganize under seemingly impossible conditions. Pfister surveys performances and statements by artists and critics such as Sarah Vaughan, Cornel West, Marvin Gaye, Lawrence Levine, James Baldwin, and Zora Neale Hurston to argue that cultural studies can, and must, move beyond the western Marxist tradition of complicity critique in order to provide revitalizing and adhesive resources for social action.

Mozart's Concerto for Second H: Korn. 370b and 371

Mozart's Concerto for Second H: Korn. 370b and 371

Mozart, piano concertos no. 20 in D minor, K. 466, and no. 21 in C major, K. 467

1. Introduction 2. Twentieth-century theories of Mozart's concerto form 3. First movements 4. Middle movements 5. Finales 6 Performance practice issues.

A dilemma on Orchid Island.

“Ah, Indian River country,” remarked Theodore Conrad as he drove the car rental southward to Vero Beach. “Our favorite vacation spot,” affirmed Elizabeth. “I was just thinking about a potential public health conundrum that might take place in this part of the world,” added Theodore. “Tell us about it,” pleaded Thaddeus and Alexandra from the back seat. “With pleasure….” At the wheel of his new silver Volvo sat Seymour Lavin. Sy and his new bride, Joyce, were headed south on US 1 to their new home in Orchid Island. They had just left the Blue Gull Marina in Sebastian, where they had enjoyed a lunch of charbroiled shrimp over endive with balsamic-based vinaigrette and a bottle of their favorite California Chardonnay. With the solitude provided by closed windows and the stereo featuring a Mozart concerto, Sy and Joyce each quietly contemplated the future. Sy had a new lease on life, a new bride and a new home. He had finally come to grips with the loss of Ruth, his first wife, and her painful battle with the ravages of metastatic breast carcinoma. For more than a year after Ruth’s passing in 1994, Sy had been severely depressed, seemingly lost without his soulmate and partner. He had been unable to concentrate on his successful real estate business in Chicago. He barely coped with life. However, his grief had been assuaged 18 months later when he met 31-year-old Joyce through a mutual friend. A physical therapist, Joyce was bright, vivacious and sensitive. Her attentiveness, engaging personality and feminine charms had restored Sy’s peace of mind, and he felt like a young man again. Sy and Joyce were married on December 15, 1996, and chose to spend their winter months at their new home on the shores of Orchid Island in central Florida. …

The stylistic significance of the first movement of Mozart's piano concerto no. 24 in minor, K. 491: A dialogic apotheosis

Although Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in Minor, K. 491 is widely regarded as his crowning achievement in the genre, its precise status among his concertos has not been explored in detail. In this article I focus on the first movement, using one of its most remarkable stylistic features, the intense dialogue between the piano and the orchestra, to explain its pivotal position in Mozart's oeuvre. Drawing on Heinrich Christoph Koch's explanation of “passionate dialogue” in the late 18th‐century concerto and Antoine Reicha's detailed codification of types of dialogue in the Traité de mélodie, I compare dialogic organization in the opening movement of K. 491 to similar organizations in corresponding movements of Mozart's preceding Viennese piano concertos (K. 413–488). While there are precedents in earlier concertos for both the distinctive dialogic processes of K. 491/i (the striking confrontation between the piano and the orchestra in the development section, for example) and for its general pattern of relational development (intimate dialogue in the solo exposition and recapitulation sections contrasting with less tightly‐knit exchange in the development), this movement goes further than its predecessors both in its symmetrical arrangements of dialogue and in its tour de force of dialogic ingenuity in the recapitulation. By interpreting Mozart's departure from his standard pattern of relational development in the final three concertos (K. 503,537 and 595) as an attempt, after the remarkable sophistication of K. 491/i, at dialogic renewal, I reinforce K. 491's position as a climactic work in Mozart's concerto cycle.

Effect of Instruction in Appropriate Rubato Usage on the Onset Timings and Perceived Musicianship of Musical Performances

The purpose of this study was to investigate how instruction in the use of specific rhythmic nuances influences the performed timings of a musical performance. Volunteer participants were asked to learn and musically perform an excerpt from Mozart's Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, No. 2. They did this using computer software titled Instant Pleasure. As the title of the software implies, no prior musical training is required to perform a piece of music using this program. The only element that the operator controlled was the rhythmic onset of each pitch. Pitches, amplitude, and all other musical variables were controlled by the computer. When the participants had generated a performance of the concerto with which they were pleased, they recorded it using the same software. Participants were then taught the rhythmic tendencies that have been identified in the finest performances of this excerpt and practiced them until they believed they were prepared to make a second recording which served as a posttest. All digital onset data were calculated and analyzed to determine if participants had successfully integrated the given rhythmic tendencies into their performance. Results indicated that subjects did indeed use significantly more rubato in their posttest performance and that usage more closely reflected the model performance. In a further analysis, a single aggregate performance rhythmically representing subjects' pretest performances and a single aggregate of subjects' posttest performances were evaluated on the basis of musicianship by a select panel of musicians. Results indicated that the aggregate posttest performance was somewhat more musical.