Musicological Methods Research Articles

Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in the Works by Modern Time Composers: Aspects of Genre Stylistics

Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in the Works by Modern Time Composers: Aspects of Genre Stylistics

Interconnectedness of the Philosophical and Aesthetical Views and Principles of Polyphonic Thinking in the Time of Baroque

The article “Interconnectedness of The Philosophical and Aesthetical Views and Principles of Polyphonic Thinking in The Time of Baroque” is focused on the combinatorial method as the key compositional idea of polyphonic music of J. S. Bach; it emphasizes parallels between the scientific and artistic ideas of the time. The article also explores the interconnectedness of the philosophical-aesthetic, mathematical, and artistic cognition of the world in the Baroque period and its reflection in the music of J. S. Bach. Polyphonic thinking is viewed as a creative phenomenon in the larger context of the historical development of Western European music. The article employs a complex method, a synthesis of various structural approaches ranging from the traditional methods of theoretical musicology to those of other sciences, structural linguistics in particular. Aria No. 3 from Bach's “Magnificat” and canon in four from his “Musical Offering” are brought into discussion as the works, which feature combinatorial method in Bach’s instrumental and vocal-instrumental writing. J. S. Bach uses combinatorial technique of two types - permutation and combination. Tones, motives, and larger thematic constructions could become subjects to permutations. The criterion for the selection of elements that participate in the combinatorial game is the principle of similarity and difference and the contrast between repetition and non-repetition, variability and immutability, which, in their turn, become manifestations of Ars combinatoria. The combinatorial method in Bach's music is not only its key compositional idea (at the level of operating with a limited number of intonational motifs-symbols in the infinitely large number of their combinations through different spatial relationships), but also the main factor in the continuous development of the dramatic idea, which corresponds to G. W. Leibniz’s principle of “maximum and minimum.

«Exegi monumentum»: the reflection of Schumann’s images in the Variations by J. Brahms on the theme by R. Schumann op. 23

«Exegi monumentum»: the reflection of Schumann’s images in the Variations by J. Brahms on the theme by R. Schumann op. 23

Toward an integration of musicological methods into fan video studies

Methods are emerging regarding the analysis of fan videos and vidding. In an expansion of existing analytical methods, I add musical analysis to the repertoire. Assessing music on a deeper, more conscious level takes into account the affective contributions of music in vids, as well as how elements of music contribute to the structuring and creation of vids—for example, in how mood and tone of voice influence the emotional impact of a vid, and in how both rhythm and instrumentation are used by vidders in their creative process. This analytical method opens up a new and fruitful understanding of the art of vidding, the vids themselves, and the vids' creators.

Ukrainian Diaspora Bandura Players Originates from Galicia

The article deals with the sociocultural origin of many well-known bandura art representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora. The work distinguishes the personalities of the diaspora bandura players, the natives of Galicia and their achievements in the context of the study necessity actualization in performing tradition broadcast, the preservation of the performing school characteristics, etc. The purpose of the article is to study the contribution of Galician bandura players to the development of bandura art in foreign countries. The scientific novelty of the research is the systematic information introduction about the representation of Galician bandura players in the Ukrainian diaspora, their priorities in the tools, repertoires, performances, and so on. The contribution of K. Misewych, D. Honta, D. Scherbyna to popularization of bandura in Poland in the interwar period is being determined. The activities of the Yuri Singalevich Lviv Galician school are being pointed out, whose students (S. Hanushevskyi, S. Lastovich- Chulivskyi, V. Yurkevych, Z. Shtokalko, etc.) not only promoted the bandura in Galicia, but also became successful in various types of bandura activity in the Ukrainian diaspora, synthesized their skills with traditional regional bandura schools. Particularly, the natives of Galicia V. Lutsiv and B. Shark, who in the Ukrainian diaspora synthesized the regional bandura schools of performance, were noted. The article uses historical, axiological, musicological and cultural approaches and their corresponding methods, which determine the methodology of research. In particular, the historical-chronological method is used to examine the stages of bandura players artistic path; the axiological - to determine the value of their achievements, musicological and cultural methods will contribute to the multi-vector representation of Galician bandura players contribution to the world treasury of Ukrainian culture. Conclusions. It has been determined, that in the process of bandura art development in Galicia, the unification of Western and Eastern bandura schools took place, the basic directions of music instrument functioning were laid, which ideas were continued in post-war emigration.

“Case Carmen” by Maxim Shalygin: heroine’s characteristic Features in a retrospective ballet composition

Topicality of research. In contemporary culture artists take a remarkable interest in remakes due to the desire to actualize the classical subjects and show new semantic layers familiar to the person of the 21st century. Dance performance “Case Carmen” (2017, The Hague) by the Dutch choreographer Lonneke van Leth opens up a new modern look at one of the brightest heroines in the history of world literature and art.Scientific novelty. The musical series of ballet, written by the Ukrainian-Dutch composer of the new generation Maxim Shalygin, for the first time serve as an object of scientific consideration which is a new step in the process of studying the composer’s multifaceted creativity.The main objective of the study is to consider the features of Carmen’s figurative characteristic in retrospective composition of “Case Carmen” dance performance.Methodology. The article uses methods of historical and theoretical musicology. Ballet electro acoustic score has determined the peculiarity of the analytical method which combines genre-intonation and auditory descriptive analysis. A comparative method is used to reveal similar and distinctive features of the modern ballet version and primary sources (P. Merime’s novels, J. Bizet’s opera); 2) in Carmen’s image interpretation in the ballets of the 20–21 centuries. An appeal to the retrospective category led to the use of a linguistic approach.Relevance of the study. “Case Carmen” (Dance Performance About the Murder Case) is a «dance thriller» whose characters (Carmen, Jose, Mikaela) are borrowed from J. Bizet’s opera but are inscribed in the picture of modern life with its oppressive routine and routine relationships. M. Shalygin’s music as well as L. van Leet’s choreography emphasizes the acute-modern orientation of the play (this is evidenced by the performer composition itself – the combination of instrumental ensemble, female choir and electronics). There were found connections of the ballet with P. Merimee’s novella, which are traced at the level of constructing the whole (retrospective composition stemming from the specific organization of artistic time) as well as the level of Carmen’s characteristics (formation of the heroine’s image from individual memories and representations about her). The value of the Detective’s image (dramatic role) is revealed, it is a new character that lives through Carmen’s case in retrospective reflection. Being obsessed with the fatal beauty, he reconstructs the history of her relationship with Jose, speaking as a guide between past and present. The importance of a wide range of noise in the musical fabric of the ballet was emphasized, which “cemented” the whole structure, while enhancing the feeling of nonlinear time, the habitat of events in partially erased, blurry or distorted by the consciousness memories. On the basis of the dance performance musical series analysis the complexity and ambiguity of the image of Carmen with the inherent unpredictability, mystery, demonism, aspiration of mortal danger, a combination of incompatible features such as purity and promiscuity are described. Accordingly, the musical characterization of the heroine is colorful and contradictory, based on a variety of genre-tone sources (elevated chorale and club dubstep, inspired flexible cantilena and soulless mechanistic motility).Results and conclusions. The dance performance “Case Carmen” is marked by the discontinuity, multidimensionality and artistic time reversal. In this complex fluctuation of the present and past images of the main characters appear among which the most complex and ambiguous is Carmen’s characteristic. An exceptionally original and multi-valued interpretation of the eternal story in the modern format of the “dance thriller” presented by the choreographer L. van Leet and composer M. Shalygin contains numerous directions for new research. First of all, this relates to the ballet musical number which is one of the most important components of the performance that gives the key to solving the mystery of the fatal beauty.

THE SYMBOLIC PROPERTIES OF LITURGICAL SINGING TRADITION: FROM THE CATEGORY OF SYMBOL TO THE NOETIC MEASUREMENT OF CULTURE

The purpose of the article is to reveal the symbolic properties of the liturgical singing tradition, which allows us to trace the main parameters of the category of a symbol and to identify the noetic dimensions of culture. Research methodology assumes the use of the following general scientific methods: typological – to identify key characteristics of the liturgical singing tradition; philosophical and aesthetic, musicological analytical, historical and cultural methods. The scientific novelty of this research consists in considering the musical side of the liturgical singing tradition as the main conductor in revealing its symbolic properties. Conclusions. The canonical verbal aspect of the liturgical order, like all its verbal elements, contributes to the interaction of the external-visual and inner-auditory sides, strengthens the «rational» direction of worship, while permeating with musical-auditory emanations and acquiring some symbolic ciphering – in the case of a direct connection with the singing presentation. Thus, the religious tradition of the temple can be considered as a stable model of the «philosophical style», which in turn represents a special spiritual phenomenon that characterizes human cognitive activity and its value-semantic results. The Orthodox liturgical and singing tradition appeals to memory in its sociocultural significance and makes the phenomenon of memory leading and especially noticeable, in particular, it allows us to notice what the phenomenon of memory is related to in musical creativity. In this regard, it is especially urgent to justify the meaning of memory as a cultural universal, to define the semantic function of the notion of memory in Orthodox worship, and also to relate the phenomenon of memory to the chronotopic approach to the history of culture, with the temporal-spatial dimension of culture.

Victor Stepurkо’s choral heritage and its functioning in the contemporary performing space

The aim of the study is to consider the concert performance of choral works by V. Stepurko, whose creativity is one of the leading branches in the development of contemporary Ukrainian choral music.The object of the research is the choral music of Victor Stepurko. The subject is a concert practice of Ukrainian choirs that perform composer’s music.Research methodology. The following methods are used in the article: historical-biographical – it is aimed to study the composer’s choral heritage; system-complex, through which the components of choral composition are considered. The analysis of performances is aimed to reveal the peculiarities the artist’s oeuvres by choir collectives. With the help of musicological method some genre features of performed works are revealed and their character in concert programs by choral groups is determined.Relevance of the study. The spiritual choral work of V. Stepurko is described on the example of performing practice of various choir collectives; the author has revealed problems of concert performance of composer’s music. The concert performance of his works (“Dyvo-Dyvneye”, diptych “Supramental dream”) was analyzed for the first time.The author carried out a brief genre analysis of choral works of the composer, especially the spiritual choral music, leading in his work. Being basic in the genres of classical music, V. Stepurko boldly experiments and modernizes them, embodying sacredness and spirituality, preaching through the voices of instruments and singers the depth and grandeur of God’s Word. The works of the composer emotionally affect the listener, his music is easy to perceive as a result of appealing totraditional intonational sources, folk-ephemeral structures, and complex – thanks to deep intellectual decoding, it is verified and balanced with the use of formal means. The author considers the characteristic feature of his vocal forms and their correspondence to poetic structures, the logic of poetic syntactic norms. He demonstrates the professional technique of writing in a clear musical form, which makes it possible to know his soul, to plunge into his musical world.The author raises the issues of the possibility to perform in concert secular activities the religious themes and genres. The peculiarities of the creation of some works by V. Stepurko (“Dyvo- Dyvneye”, 1996; diptych “Supramental Dream”, 1997) are highlighted in the article.The performance of V. Stepurko’s music by different groups is characterized: in particular, the choir ensemble from Makarov “Holy-circle”, created by the composer himself in 1992. It was after the execution by this collective such works as “Litany of Supplication”, “Believe” and “Hear the Lord”, the gradual increase of the composer’s popularity began.The significance of V. Stepurko’s music in festivals – “Musical premiere of the season” and “Golden-domed Kiev”– has been highlighted.V. Stepurko’s music sounds not only in Ukraine but also abroad. The Kyiv Chamber Choir performed one of the early works of V. Stepurko – “Thanks to the Lord”, which was written for a choir with a saxophone, it has been performed in Denmark at the festival “Copenhagen – European Capital of Culture’96”, in Vatican City (2000), in the USA (2002) in the famous Carnegie Holl. Poltava chamber choir “Gilea” under the direction of Pavel Lymansky in 2000 at the competition in Italy performed the works “Litany of Supplication” and “Lord Have mercy”, having won the title of laureate of the second prize and the first place in the nomination “For the best performance of spiritual music”.Thanks to the choir “Kyiv”, choral works by Ukrainian composers, including works by V. Stepurko, have always sounded in a broad cultural context. Thus, in 1996, his music at the Kyiv Music Fest Festival was performed alongside the works of prominent foreign composers such as J. Tavener, A. Onegger, R. Tvardovsky, as well as other contemporary Ukrainian authors – Yu. Alzhnev, M. Shukh, C. Lunyov, L. Dychko.Fateful for the creative cooperation of V. Stepurko with the choir “Kyiv” was 1997, when at the festival “Golden-domed Kiev” this collective performed the entire written choir’s works of the composer at that time. He himself called this concert “his second birth”.Findings and conclusions. Today Victor Stepurko’s works can be heard at concerts, festivals, assemblies and other musical events. His music sounds being performed by various choir: chamber choir “Kyiv”, its artistic director M. Gobdych has released several recordings with works by V. Stepurko, they are called “Ukrainian Christmas”, “Christmas with chamber choir “Kyiv”, “Monologues of the ages”; Chamber Choir “Khreshchatyk” (artistic director P. Strutz), choir of the National Television and Radio Company (artistic director Yu. Tkach), chamber choir of the R. M. Glier Institute of Music (artistic director Z. Thomson) and many other collectives often perform the works of the composer. V. Stepurko’s choral work is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers. The issues of its concert performance are equally relevant and interesting.

Instrumental Theater in the Modern Ukrainian Composers’ Creativity

Relevance of research. Instrumental theatre as a specific phenomenon of musical creativity was first recognized in the mid-1960s. Researchers note the following features of the instrumental theatre: the search for a new musical language; the presence of sound drama; appeal to the voice and the word as a background or semantic subtext; hidden polyphony; openness to protest and provocation; the stage game of the musicians-performers. However, this original artistic phenomenon remains little investigated in Ukrainian musicology. The purpose of the article is to actualize the samples of the instrumental theatre in Ukrainian musicology, presented in the works of L. Yurina, S. Zagitchka and S. Yarunsky, and based on the analysis of new works to conclude the directions of the development of contemporary musical thinking. Methods of the research – analytical, the complex of musicological methods’ research (based on the classification of works by the number of participants). Conclusions. Regardless of the genre variety, practically for all considered opuses, characteristic fixation in the scores of the smallest nuances of execution is common. Changing the paradigms of writing, performing and perceiving music, in many works the spectacular factor dominates over the actual musical, the increasing visualization and theatricalization of the musical process became evidence of the transformation of modern musical thinking. Practical significance. The instrumental theatre is a relatively new phenomenon both in world culture and in Ukrainian music. Further research of this phenomenon will help not only to distinguish its specific features, but also to realize new spiritual constants of the present.

Релігійно-культові засади творчості Г. Свиридова.

Метою даної статті є виявлення релігійно-культових засад композиторського методу як головних парадигматичних властивостей творчості Г. Свиридова. Методологія дослідження спирається на системний аналітичний підхід з виокремленням музично-історичного, етимологічного, текстологічного та семантичного музикознавчих методів, що дозволяє простежити шляхи формування стильових ознак творчості Г. Свиридова. Наукова новизна даної статті міститься у виявленні православної богослужбової традиції як культурної домінанти у творчому доробку Г. Свиридова. Висновки. Головні стильові настанови та провідні семантичні аспекти у творчості Г. Свиридова наочно демонструють те, що релігійно-культові тенденції набувають значення парадигми, а у пізньому періоді його творчості досягають філософської, майже богословської узагальненості. Композитор прагне з одного боку до ораторіальності як до однієї з постійних форм музичної виразності, наділеною стійкими інтонаційно-тематичними формулами як відображення сфери колективної піснетворчості як широкої музичної метафори пам'яті – соборності, з іншого – прагне до пісенності як до ідеального природнього способу буття музики.Ключові слова: релігійно-культова традиція, культ, соборність, канон, канонічний текст.

Review: Holy Treasure and Sacred Song: Relic Cults and Their Liturgies in Medieval Tuscany, by Benjamin Brand

Holy Treasure and Sacred Song: Relic Cults and Their Liturgies in Medieval Tuscany , by Benjamin Brand. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. xxiv, 296 pp. What constitutes a musicological subject? What constitutes a musicological method? What constitutes a musicological source? These are the questions that frame Benjamin Brand's extraordinary study of relic cults in medieval Tuscany. At the outset the author declares that a proper evaluation of his subject will require a “rare,” more holistic approach than is ordinarily practiced in the field of musicology (pp. 2–3). Until now, he explains, investigations of relic cults and their liturgies have been limited either by overly technical musicological approaches (too entrenched in musical analysis to have an impact on other fields) or by overly amusical approaches, which avoid engaging with the music altogether. In the author's own words, “The present study bridges this disciplinary divide, developing music-analytic techniques in a manner accessible to non-specialists and placing the aural riches of the liturgy at the heart of a broader examination of medieval relic cults” (p. 3). In Holy Treasure and Sacred Song the artistic, architectural, literary, liturgical, and musical aspects of relic cults are thus brought together within a single framework for the first time. The result is a study as valuable to the field for its holistic methodology as it is for its scholarly findings. The depth of inquiry achieved in this relatively concise study is wholly impressive. Examining the development of relic …

Interpretation of the Buryat Heroic Epic in the Libretto of Zh. Batuev’s Ballets “Geser” and “The Son of the Earth”

~ ~ ~ This paper examines examples of professional choreographic art of Buryatia - Zhigzhit Batuev's ballets Geser (1967) and The Son of the Earth (1972), created on the basis of national heroic epic (uliger). Connecting traditional methods of historical musicology with the techniques of literary analysis comprise a comprehensive approach to the study of folk and professional art. Comparison of the folklore source based on realizing shamanic mythology's plot motifs and images with the text of the libretto helped the researcher to identify the main stages in the dramatic development of ballets and reveal the specifics of the interpretation of national heroic and archaic epic in musical stage productions.

Between Opera and Dance

In 2006 Simon Morrison and Stephanie Jordan guest edited an issue of this journal entitled “Sound Moves.” In it, they announced the emergence of “choreomusicology,” a new discipline forged by scholars possessing a certain skill set, namely, “a sensitive ear” and the ability to read multiple forms of notation.1 Eight years later, the tandem study of music and dance has attained greater visibility, a fact nowhere more evident than in the establishment in 2012 of a Music and Dance Study Group under the auspices of the American Musicological Society. The Group hosted its inaugural session, “Getting Musicology to Dance,” at the Society's 2013 annual meeting.2 In spite of these developments, however, it seems likely that at least within the precincts of musicology the study of dance will remain a marginal interest—a “Group” rather than a robust subdiscipline. However, within the field of opera studies, studious attention to dance is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, the study of dance has fit rather comfortably under the banner of opera studies for many years now. Today, a class of scholars has arrived, specializing in what we might call “dance in opera.” In addition to the scholarship of Morrison and Jordan, work by Daniel Albright, Irene Alm, Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Bruce Alan Brown, Wayne Heisler, Wendy Heller, Mary Ann Smart, and Marian Smith argues both for the necessity of studying these two artistic forms in tandem and demonstrates that the historical and analytical methods of musicology have much to offer to dance studies and vice versa.

The Music of Herbert Howells ed. by Phillip A. Cooke and David Maw (review)

The Music of Herbert Howells. Edited by Phillip A. Cooke and David Maw. Woodbridge, Suffolk, Eng.: Boydell Press, 2013. [xxi, 360 p. ISBN 9781843838791. $90.] Music examples, illustrations, tables, appendix, bibliography, index. Herbert Howells (1892-1983) is best known as a composer of Anglican music. He wrote over thirty settings of the Morning and Evening services, not to mention some fifty anthems, motets, and Masses, works frequently heard today in English and American churches. Yet, as this new book on Howells is at pains to point out, his career as a church musician began as a kind of sideline midway through his life. A prodigious talent and the favorite pupil of Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music (RCM), he made his initial mark with large-scale chamber and concert works, and throughout his career produced a steady stream of keyboard music for piano and clavichord (the latter an outgrowth of his interest in early English music). Professor of composition at the RCM from 1920, tireless adjudicator at university examinations and music competitions throughout the country, a fixture at the annual Three Choirs Festival (where a number of his works were premiered), Howells was a pillar of the English musical establishment. Even so, it seems that he never quite measured up to expectations. The big works--the symphonies, the operas--never materialized, and it was the uncertain reception accorded his orchestral works and concertos in the 1920s and 1930s that prompted him to turn to the established church, where his smaller-scale liturgical offerings found a ready audience. The argument could thus be made that Howells, like Gerald Finzi (as portrayed in Stephen Banfield's biography of Finzi), embraced the model of the minor English composer: content to work in the shadow of more important figures, avoid the compositional limelight, and concentrate on the creation of exquisite miniatures instead. Some of the essays in the volume appear to endorse this view insofar as they focus on Howells's songs, services, and smaller-scale keyboard music. But this is to misread the intention of these essays, and indeed of the book as a whole, which pointedly treats Howells as a major, not minor, artist whose music is worth examining using the analytical techniques and research methods of mainstream musicology. Thus Paul Andrews subjects Howells's thrice-written String Quartet No. 3 (In Gloucestershire), to a sophisticated source analysis that reconstructs the complex compositional history of the work and makes shrewd critical judgments about the relative merits of the different versions. (Andrews's now-standard catalog of Howells's works concludes the volume.) David Maw employs the most up-to-date analytical techniques of modern-day music theory to uncover the stylistic influences and formal innovations of Howells's phantasy works. (This genre, loosely modeled on the Tudor and Jacobean fantasy, was the brainchild of the twentieth-century chamber-music enthusiast W. W. Cobbett, who funded a long-running competition for such works.) Fabian Huss makes an equally convincing case for the oboe and clarinet sonatas while focusing in more generalized terms on large-scale compositional strategies of repetition and contrast. Lewis Foreman's crisp survey of the early orchestral music refreshingly highlights Howells's colorful orchestral palette, gleaned from his close study of Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky. The essays on the slighter genres, cited above, are no less thorough. Jeremy Dibble dissects the solo songs and uncovers a remarkable subtlety of motivic interconnection and tonal argument. Lionel Pike's detailed bar-by-bar analysis of the motet Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing reveals a mind-boggling unity of design. In her study of the Six Pieces for organ, Diane Nolan Cooke nicely toggles back and forth between generalized discussions aimed at the nonspecialist and the detailed technical analyses of the professional musical theorist in order to explore the dialectic of technique and aesthetic (p. …

Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment by Mark Pedelty (review)

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and Environment. By Mark Pedelty. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012. [xi, 229 p. ISBN 9781439907122. $29.95.] Illustrations, bibliography, index.Over past decade, musicologists and ethnomusicologists have become increas- ingly interested in ecomusicology, a mode of inquiry that Aaron S. Allen has described as the study of music, culture, and nature in all complexities of those terms (Ecomusicology, in The New Grove Dictio- nary of American Music, 2d ed., [New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming]; http://www.ecomusicology .info, accessed 20 September 2013). Interest groups devoted to development and re- finement of ecomusicological methods are currently recognized by American Musicological Society and Society for Ethnomusicology, and, in 2011, Journal of American Musicological Society pub- lished a series of essays by several noted ecomusicologists that outlined need for musicological methods that engage with ecological crises, articulated ecomusicol- ogy's relationship to existing musicological preoccupations regarding connections between music and natural world, and reflected upon ethical implications of ecocritical research in music (Colloquy: Ecomusicology, Journal of American Mu- sicological Society 64, no. 2 [Summer 2011]: 391-424). Using a rich combination of tex- tual analysis and ethnographic participant- observation, anthropologist Mark Pedelty's recent book, Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and Environment, extends current ecomusico- logical discourse through a careful consid- eration of ecological impacts of rock and folk production and consumption and challenges readers to engage in what Alexander Rehding has described as awareness-raising, praxis (in Marxian sense), and activism (Ecomusicology be- tween Apocalypse and Nostalgia, Journal of American Musicological Society 64, no. 2 [Summer 2011]: 410). Whereas much eco- musicological scholarship has, to date, fo- cused primarily on specific musical texts, Pedelty works to broaden term ecomu- sicology from its current use-describing specific modes of critical inquiry-and to transform it into a way of life, arguing that we should add sustainability to long list of musical values and expectations (p. 202). Through a series of case studies, he interrogates ways in which music making-and rock and folk music in particular-have been mobilized for greater ecological good or contributed to environmental degradation. Furthermore, he offers some general advice to assist com- munities in creating more sustainable modes of music making and to build local communities. Although book occasion- ally mobilizes utopian rhetoric, Pedelty is quick to observe that music's [ability] to play some role in fostering environmental sustainability, biodiversity, and human well- being (p. 202) is complicated by inevitable negative environmental impacts, vary- ing levels of engagement of audience mem- bers, and skill level and professional ambitions of musicians themselves.Pedelty opens book with a detailed exploration of environmental impacts of contemporary rock touring practices and organizations that are working to miti- gate negative consequences of global touring. Using U2's 2009-11 360° Tour (which required hundreds of trucks, as well as ships and airplanes, to transport equip- ment and personnel) and Al Gore's anti- climate-change Live Earth concerts as ex- amples, he demonstrates that, regardless of socially-oriented rhetoric of concert organizers and musicians, touring con- tributes to climate change, unsustainable land use practices, and localized pollution. Criticizing carbon offset programs used to counteract emissions of tour buses and trucks and drawing attention to contradic- tions between pro-environmental rhetoric of many national and international rock and pop stars and their lifestyles, he notes that 'eco-friendly' rock is still about celebrity and spectacle, massive apparatuses and media designed to project individual personas onto giant stages for large audi- ences to enjoy (p. …

Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner by David Conway (review)

Reviewed by: Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner by David Conway Steven J. Cahn Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner David Conway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 356 pp. David Conway offers a much needed historical account of the unexpected emergence of men and women of Jewish extraction who, independent of church and court, had careers as composers, performers, patrons, publishers, or impresarios in late-eighteenth- to mid-nineteenth-century musical Europe. His book stands as a complement to two other recent books: James Loeffler’s engaging 2010 study of Jewish musicians in Russia, and Ruth HaCohen’s penetrating 2011 study, which covers some of the same material as Conway’s, such as Lord Byron’s Hebrew Melodies set by Isaac Nathan, but in a more essayistic fashion. Together these three books stand as a corrective to other recent studies that by virtue of either their polemics or their interpretive shortcomings are unable to draw together methods of Judaic studies and musicology effectively. With three quarters of its text organized as a country-by-country exploration, covering the Netherlands, England, Austria, Germany, and France, with a brief excursion to Italy, there is the sense that one is embarking on a journey akin to the grand tour. Though discrete points of interest do crop up—did you know Charles Sloman (born Solomon), who wrote, “Pop Goes the Weasel,” was Jewish?—the journey is not intended to be simply a pleasure cruise. For one thing, it is punctuated by case studies of major figures—Charles-Valentin Alkan, Fromental Halévy, sister and brother Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Jacques Offenbach, Salomon Sulzer—and for another, Richard Wagner is always looming. The views of Wagner are represented by his notorious 1850 essay, Das Judentum in der Musik, which Conway translates as Jewry in Music, thus intentionally sharing a title and placing his work in counterpoint with Wagner’s. Although Judentum is commonly translated as Judaism, which is Charles Osborne’s choice for his 1973 translation, Judaism is not Wagner’s subject. “Jewry” is the topic common to Wagner and Conway, namely, the social-economic dimensions and authenticity questions of Jewry’s involvement in the arts. It is Conway’s purpose to erode the key points of Wagner’s position: that Jews do not have the capacity for artistic creativity, and their participation in European culture is artificial—both are reflected in Wagner’s animus toward Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer. Ultimately, Conway presents [End Page 125] evidence to reduce the exaggerated footprint of Wagner’s essay by showing that “for the broad public of 1850 … Wagner’s affronted principles were below the threshold of perception” (265). In the spirit of looking at this history of emergence free from the coloration of Wagner’s essay while mindful of its existence, we can take up the question that motivates Conway’s book: “why did Jews suddenly appear in the musical profession from the turn of the nineteenth century onwards?” (1). Ramifications of this question touch on the fluidity of social standing and religious identity, societal pressure to convert and the exchange value of conversion, economic and intellectual opportunity, and cultural and self-formation. All these aspects are taken up in the treatment of Felix Mendelssohn, who has been the subject of renewed scholarly interest in the aftermath of attempts either to degrade him (Wagner) or, since World War II, valorize him (Eric Werner) by tying him falsely, in one way or another, to his Jewish origins. Those following the discourse in recent years concerning Mendelssohn’s inscrutable spiritual identity and who are wondering what Conway adds to help crack this enigma will wish to turn to “The Jewish Ambience of Felix Mendelssohn” (173–84). Conway does not adopt the approach of Jeffrey Sposato, Leon Botstein, or Michael Steinberg, that of using Mendelssohn’s music to assess his mature attitudes to Jewish self-identity. Distinct from Botstein’s or Steinberg’s, Sposato’s analysis of the anti-Judaic texts set to music by Mendelssohn places him at a remove from a Jewish orbit. As desirable as a musically informed reading of Mendelssohn...

READING MUSIC BACKWARDS: ALEJO CARPENTIER'S UNPUBLISHED TEXT 'LOS ORÍGENES DE LA MÚSICA Y LA MÚSICA PRIMITIVA'

This article examines Alejo Carpentier?s unpublished and undated text ?Los or�genes de la m�sica y la m�sica primitiva? (The Origins of Music and Primitive Music). This important but hitherto unknown document appears to be the most important antecedent for the musicological discussions narrated in Carpentier?s groundbreaking novel Los pasos perdidos (1953), an account of a musicologist-composer who travels into the South American jungle to collect musical instruments and discovers the origin of music among South American so-called primitives. In ?Los or�genes de la m�sica y la m�sica primitiva?, Carpentier proposes that speech and music emerged simultaneously, seeking the origin of music in rhythm. He incorporates the paradigm of cultural evolution, making extensive use of the nineteenth-century analogy between prehistoric humanity and current-day ?primitives?. Carpentier also adheres to some of the concepts and methods of comparative musicology ? which made use of evolutionary models ? stressing the potential of primeval music for Western researchers and composers. The present study frames ?Los or�genes de la m�sica? in the context of evolutionary theory, drawing on a range of anthropological and musicological accounts. It traces how Carpentier assimilates, resists, distorts and challenges theories concerning primeval music by Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Richard Wallaschek, Jules Combarieu and Fernando Ortiz, among others. The article concludes with a brief examination of the discussions of primeval music and ethnomusicological research in Los pasos perdidos.

Verticality and Containment in Song and Improvisation: An Application of Schema Theory to Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy

This study illustrates the use of a new musicological method for analyzing music in music therapy. It examines two pieces of clinical music through the constructs of schema theory. It begins with an argument for enhanced musical analysis in music therapy as a means of elevating the status of explanation in music therapy. Schema theory is introduced as a means of integrating musical with clinical concerns. Some basic ideas in schema theory are explained and the schemas of VERTICALITY and CONTAINER are presented as central ones in the analysis of music. Two transcriptions-one of a composed song and one of an improvisation-are examined in detail to illustrate how decisions in the temporal, melodic, and harmonic dimensions of the music are linked to specific clinical goals. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this type of musicological analysis for explanatory theory in music therapy.

Clara Schumann's collection of playbills: A historiometric analysis of life-span development, mobility, and repertoire canonization

Clara Schumann's (1819–1896) important influence on concert life and piano performance throughout the 19th century can still be felt in our times. Virtually all concerts Clara gave between 1828 (at age 9) and 1891 (at age 71) are documented in a historically unique collection of over 1300 printed concert program leaflets (playbills). Combining an historiometric approach with musicological methods, we analyzed those data descriptively and theoretically from the perspective of repertoire canonization. The aim of this study was to document details of Clara's life-time career as a concert pianist, to study her repertoire development in the context of critical life events and personal aesthetic beliefs, and to establish some first comparisons with data from other performers of the time. This study complements existing research on programming and canonization by explaining the cumulative effects of an individual performer's programming decisions. First, the playbills were entered into a database and prepared for computer-assisted analysis. From the 20,000 program entries we extracted those 536 solo piano and chamber music pieces which Clara had performed. Analyses showed that the yearly frequency of concerts reflected her personal circumstances and critical life events. Although Clara performed works by almost 40 composers, the most frequently performed four composers (R. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Chopin) comprised 70% of all performances. Furthermore, although she performed in 160 cities, 50% of her concerts took place in only seven major cities which represented international (London, Leipzig, Vienna) and national (Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfurt) music centers. Finally, her influential role in the canonization of classical piano music can be explained by biographical circumstances which resulted in particular choices of traditionalist repertoire after Robert Schumann's death (1856). This included decreasing program diversity after 1870 and the avoidance of contemporary composers, such as Liszt, Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky or Saint-Saens.

La casa del mugnaio: ascolto e interpretazione della Schone Mullerin: con l'edizione del ciclo liederistico secondo la Neue Schubert-Ausgabe (review)

La casa del mugnaio: ascolto e interpretazione della Schone Mullerin: con l'edizione del ciclo liederistico secondo la Neue Schubert-Ausgabe. By Giuseppina La Face Bianconi. (Historiae Musicae Cultores, 102.) Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2003. [322 p. ISBN 88 222 4323 X. euro32.] Indexes. In 1823, during one of the most physically and psychologically challenging moments of his life, Schubert set Wilhelm Muller's cycle of poems about the unrequited love of a mill worker for the beautiful daughter of the mill owner. Die schone Mullerin occupies an odd position in the history of art song for its deceptive simplicity, ordinary, almost archetypical plot, and predominantly simple musical forms. It remains a highly controversial and fascinating lieder cycle, because, on the one hand, it is a landmark of the golden age of the Romantic lied, and, on the other hand, it offers a representation of the miller's anguish that is more realistic than romantic, more a malady than a lyrical abstraction, presenting a stunningly modern combination of passionate involvement and controlled, almost scientific lucidity. Notwithstanding the considerable amount of existing high-quality critical literature on Schubert's Die schone Mullerin, Giuseppina La Face Bianconi's book offers new and valuable insights on the history and meaning of this cycle by bridging traditional musicological methods of investigation based on documentary evidence and formal analysis with less traditional approaches inspired by psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and cognitive musicology. The entire second half of the volume presents appendices featuring documents in the original German with Italian translation, including Eduard Hanslick's critical essays on Die schone Mullerin; Wilhelm Muller's collection of poems Die schone Mullerin (Im Winter zu lesen), including the poems not set by Schubert; a selection of Johann Mayrhofer's poems showing intriguing thematic similarities with Muller's lyrics; and, the critical score established by the Neue Ausgabe samtlicher Werke IV/2, edited by Walther Durr (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1975). A vexing issue related to Die schone Mullerin concerns Schubert's late stylistic and formal developments. Evolutionist and teleological interpreters had to cope with the embarrassingly regressive taste of Schubert for poetry and his rediscovery of simplicity of form: if Schubert launched his career by his ground-breaking setting of Goethe's strophic ballad Erlkonig as a through-composed, highly imaginative and complex lied, he ended it by setting Mullller's cheesy stanzas by reverting to a pervasive use of repetition and simple strophic setting. Although Susan Youens has repeatedly and convincingly argued that the quality of Muller's poems has been unjustly underrated (see especially Schubert's Poets and the Making of Lieder [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], and Schubert, Muller, and Die schone Mullerin [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)], the problem of formal regression continues to puzzle commentators. As Bianconi argues, in Die schone Mullerin, repetition does not result from a lack of creative resources (since it is used together and not in lieu of more fluid formal solutions) but, on the contrary it is itself a powerful resource. Bianconi's analytical strategy, therefore, is to emphasize rather than to hide the effect of saturation produced by redundancy of form, rhythm, and phrasing (pp. 27-36), pointing to the strong referential implications of these pervading repetitive techniques. The bulk of her study is the exploration of what (and how) repetition means in this cycle. In the first chapter Giuseppina Bianconi offers a thorough critical review of secondary literature on the cycle, summarizing the achievements of leading Schubert scholars, such as Youens, Walther Durr, Thrasybulos Georgiades, and Arnold Feil and grouping interpretative approaches in large categories: those who see in the cycle a projection of the idyllic or Romantic sensibility for nature and focus on musical pictorialism (Joseph Risse, Eberhard Waechter, Alfred Einstein, and others); those who relate the cycle to the personal existential troubles of the composer (Brigitte Massin, Craig Bell, or Eric Sams); those who address the apparent regression to strophic form in various and less or more apologetic ways, and in particular the formalistic analysts who try to counterbalance the loss of formal openness and fluidity by emphasizing the complexity of expression (Hans Gal and Hans Joachim Moser), or by 'discovering' large-scale tonal coherence or other unifying formal factors which in fact are not immediately clear in Schubert's score (Alfred Durr, Richard Capell, and Peter Gulke). …