Serial Works Research Articles

Science for all: the popularization of science in early twentieth-century Britain

Recent scholarship has revealed that pioneering Victorian scientists endeavored through voluminous writing to raise public interest in science and its implications. But it has generally been assumed that once science became a profession around the turn of the twentieth century, this new generation of scientists turned its collective back on public outreach. Science for All debunks this apocryphal notion. Peter J. Bowler surveys the books, serial works, magazines, and newspapers published between 1900 and the outbreak of World War II to show that practicing scientists were very active in writing about their work for a general readership. Science for All argues that the social environment of early twentieth-century Britain created a substantial market for science books and magazines aimed at those who had benefited from better secondary education but could not access higher learning. Scientists found it easy and profitable to write for this audience, Bowler reveals, and because their work was seen as educational, they faced no hostility from their peers. But when admission to colleges and universities became more accessible in the 1960s, this market diminished and professional scientists began to lose interest in writing at the nonspecialist level. Eagerly anticipated by scholars of scientific engagement throughout the ages, Science for All speaks to our own era and the continuing tension between science and public understanding.

Inside Luciano Berio's Serialism

ABSTRACTLike many other composers who later distanced themselves from serialism, Luciano Berio (1925–2003) embraced its principles in the 1950s and beyond. While Berio's early serial techniques from the Due pezzi of 1951 to Nones of 1954 are well known, his subsequent serial practice is still little understood for three principal reasons: in his writings and interviews Berio provided only limited information on his serial works; it is very difficult to decipher Berio's later complex serial techniques from the published scores alone; and only one sketch survives for any of his serial works from 1951 to 1958 (for Allelujah I, 1955–6).Following a brief examination of the integral serialism in Nones (whose principles have been known for some time thanks to an analytical note by Berio), the present study investigates the serial techniques deployed in the Quartetto per archi (1955–6) and Allelujah I. Berio's serial materials are reconstructed with the help of distributional analyses and from an historical angle that has been little explored thus far: the influence of Bruno Maderna (1920–1973), Berio's mentor and close collaborator at the Studio di fonologia musicale in Milan.

‘Composing withIntervals’: IntervallicSyntax andSerialTechnique inLateStravinsky

ABSTRACTIn Stravinsky's final serial works, the intervallic component assumed a more decisive role than in his in earlier compositions, becoming the foundational aspect of a ‘motivic’ technique, the specific aspects of which are illustrated here through several sketch‐based analyses. In Stravinsky's case, motivic‐intervallic syntax and serial procedures operate according to slightly but significantly different criteria: the first on the level of single intervals, the second on the level of pitch‐class sets. Using several specific examples drawn from compositions ranging fromAgonto theRequiem Canticles, this article demonstrates that the discrepancy provided Stravinsky with a stimulus, rather than an obstacle, to composition, and provides a guide to the interpretation of certain well‐known characteristics both of his creative process and of his serial technique. The music‐theoretical aspects of Stravinsky's intervallic syntax are illustrated, and its interaction with serial technique is observed from two conceptually different directions: from intervallic motives to rows (the initial definition of a row of pitches), and from the row to intervallic motives (the transformation of the ‘abstract’ row into concrete musical contexts).

Atonality and Tonality: Musical Analogies in Roland Barthes's Lectures at the Collège de France

Though explicit references to music are infrequent in Barthes's Collège de France lectures, Barthes's use of music in other work from the 1970s makes it clear that music can act as a fruitful analogy in consideration of the text. This article uses the serialist or atonal analogy, as set up by Barthes in ‘From Work to Text’ and elsewhere, to examine the structuring of Comment vivre ensemble and The Neutral. In viewing these courses as serial or open works we can, it is hoped, arrive at a fuller understanding of their methodology and the role they ascribe to the listener or reader. The atonal analogy, however, is left behind in 1978, as Barthes's major projects (La Préparation du roman and Camera Lucida) employ more conventional, developmental structuring. It is here, then, that the analogy with tonality, again suggested by Barthes, can be usefully employed.

Conference Report

ABSTRACT The possible applicability of the FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) model to serial works was discussed by Kristin Antelman from North Carolina State University. She provided an overview of the FRBR model, pointing out that, while there are currently few details on how it would relate to serials, it does have applicability to serial works. The concept of a super-record was discussed as a way to incorporate FRBR concepts into one bibliographic record that could represent an overview of a serial work with all of its title changes, different formats, and holdings information. Antelman used a variety of screen shot examples to show how current views of a serial in an OPAC can be confusing and frustrating for library users and how a super-record approach drawing on FRBR concepts could present information in a much more concise, easy-to-read format. While a formal model to apply FRBR to serial works has not yet been developed, Antelman demonstrated that such a model could be beneficial to library and information science professionals as well as library users.

FRBR and Serials

ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) with an emphasis on issues of interest to serialists. The basics of the Entity-Relationship (E-R) model are used to introduce the aspects of FRBR which can be used to model serial publications. Special attention is paid to the attributes and relationships of the article (the individual contribution in a periodical) and the article's relationship to its “aggregated” work (the issue and the journal). This article includes a short discussion of the serial “work” and of outstanding issues in the application of FRBR to serial works.

Streamlining a Book Digitization Workflow

By the late 1990s, Harvard University's Library Digital Initiative (LDI) program had funded a number of ambitious collections digitization projects, but it was not until 2002 and the establishment of the Open Collections Program (OCP) that a large number of bound, published volumes would be selected for digitization. This paper outlines the methodology that guided the design and implementation of the first OCP book digitization workflow and follows the changes that were implemented based on that experience. The authors discuss the reasons for these changes as well as their implications. While OCP digitizes photographic images, manuscripts, and other archival materials as well as books, the focus of this paper is the published monographic and serial works that were selected for inclusion in the Program's first two projects.

PALERMO AT WORK

In New York City between 1973 and 1977, the German artist Palermo created his final body of work, comprising close to 30 serial works which he executed in various synthetic media. Despite the restrained, formal design of the works, Palermo succeeded in creating the most exuberant colour combinations. Close study of the works makes it clear that these are the result of a laborious process, evidence of which is still present beneath the surface in the form of multiple layers, often exceeding 20 on a single panel. This paper describes how the discovery of four sketch-books by Palermo, together with other documentary sources and cross-sections, allowed an unprecedented reconstruction of the evolution of the series. These sources also provide a significantly improved understanding of Palermo as an artist and how his sensibility is manifested in his works, particularly those on aluminium.

The Music of Luigi Dallapiccola (review)

Music of Luigi Dallapiccola. By Raymond Fearn. (Eastman Studies in Music.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003. [xviii, 303 p. ISBN 1-58046-OV8-X. $90.] Music examples, list of compositions, bibliography, index. English readers have long awaited a definitive book on the life and works of Luigi Dallapiccola. While American and British writers have produced a number of important articles and essays and a handful of unpublished doctoral dissertations on specific works from Dallapiccola's oeuvre, there is to date neither a full-scale biographical study nor a critical examination of his compositional output. Raymond Fearn seeks to fill this serious gap for English readers of Iwenticth-century music history by providing a study of the complete works of Dallapiccola documented with information about their historical context. book complements Dietrich Kamper's study of twenty years ago (Gefangenschaft und Freiheil: Leben und Werk des Komponisten Luigi Dallapiccola [Koln: Gitarre + Laute Verlag, 1984]) and Mario Ruffini's recent sourcebook (L'opera di Luigi Dallapiccola: Catalogo Ragionato [Milan: Edizioni Suvini Zerboni, 2002]). real strength of Fearn's book is found in its historical and biographical side, providing the reader with much information and detail that has never been made available in print. Especially in the first chapter, the author provides a wealth of information about Dallapiccola's musical training and background and aspects of his musical life and literary activity in Italy prior to the Second World War. book also includes very full discussions of Dallapiccola's literary sources and the role that Laura Dallapiccola played in helping him to make judicious textual choices. Fearn has consulted a wide range of both primary and secondary source materials: sketches, letters, notebooks, and diaries from the archival collection in Florence, Italy; writings of and consultation with specialists; and interviews with members of the Dallapiccola family. Included is an accurate listing of the composer's published compositions and writings on music, a good selective list of secondary literature on Dallapiccola, and a substantial listing of current secondary literature on twelve-tone music in general. book is organized under six chronologically ordered headings: The Beginnings (1904-1938); Self-Exile and Discovery (1939-1945); Towards the Light of Freedom (1945-1948); The Serial Idea (1948-1953); Text and Symbol (1954-1964); and Ulysses, Wanderer and Discoverer (1965-1975). Whereas these titles are useful in identifying thematic elements that Fearn wishes to explore in the book, the chronological divisions thus established separate compositional groups that were conceived together. In particular, the constellation of works that include the piano set Quaderno musicale di Annalibera (1951-52), the Vanazioni per Orchestra (1954), and the symphonic choral work Canti di liberazione (1951-55), all based upon the same tone row, are discussed in separate chapters without reference to mutual influences between them and the place that such mutual influence played in Dallapiccola's development as a composer of large-scale serial works. There is also an inconsistency in the purpose of the individual chapter titles when they also serve as guides to the composer's chronology. Is the reader to infer that Dallapiccola's compositional procedure varied between nonreferential structuralism (The Serial Idea) and poetic conception (Towards the Light of Freedom) in different periods of his life? chronological approach followed in this text would be better served with chapter divisions and titles that reflect musical stylistic changes, probably with a break before Liriche greche (begun in 1942), the first completely serial work; a second break after Canti di liberazione (1955), when the Quaderno/Variazioni/Canti group was completed; while retaining the final break in 1964. …

The Metaphysics of the Mundane: Understanding Andy Warhol's Serial Imagery

The serial structure of Andy Warhol's silkscreens articulates a dynamic structure of actualization of which anything is an instance, thus providing a model of how the mundane world comes to be, persists to be the same, but is always changing. His serial works enact iterative structures of free, synthetic, iterative self-realization, a rational process of the actualization of things. In making numerous depthless images identical, Warhol makes them different through obvious surface printing accidents, spontaneous traces of differentiating activity. They reveal the constructive activity irreducible to any element involved in making the series. This underivable activity is spontaneous, non-deterministic and free, but also relational because serial.

Generation of higher-order atomic dipole squeezing in a high-Q micromaser cavity. (VIII). Multi-photon interaction

In our preceding serial works, we have investigated the generation of higher-order atomic dipole squeezing (HOADS) in a high-Q micromaser cavity, discussing the effects of dynamic Stark shift, atomic damping, atomic coherence and nonlinear one-photon processes and different initial states (for example, correlated and uncorrelated states, superposition states, squeezed vacuum). In this paper, we continue to study HOADS in a high-Q micromaser cavity, but consider that the atom interacts with the optical field via a multi-photon transition process and that the initial atom is arbitrarily prepared. For a vacuum initial field, we demonstrate that HOADS cannot occur if the atom is initially prepared in a chaotic state and that a coherent atomic state generates less efficient and stable HOADS than an arbitrary one. It is found that large detuning may lead to enhanced and strong HOADS.

Generation of higher-order atomic dipole squeezing in a high-Q micromaser cavity. (VI). Atomic damping by a squeezed vacuum

In our previous serial works, we investigated the generation of higher-order atomic dipole squeezing (HOADS) in a high-Q micromaser cavity. In this paper, we continue to study HOADS in this system but consider the effect of atomic damping by a squeezed vacuum in the absence of an external field. The corresponding master equation is introduced and its solutions for an initial SU(2) coherent state of the atom are presented. In the absence of the atomic damping, we have shown that stable and permanent HOADS can be generated by properly preparing the atom in certain SU(2) coherent state. We demonstrate the destructive effect of atomic damping on HOADS by changing the initial atomic coherence or the average number of the reservoir photons. The relation between HOADS and second-order atomic dipole squeezing (SOADS) is discussed. It is found that the atomic damping has more destructive effects on SOADS than on HOADS.

Andy Warhol series and singles

Thirteen years after his death, Andy Warhol's art is more dominant and omnipresent than ever before. In particular, his serial works - the Campbell's Soup Can, Jackie, Marilyn, Mao, and others - have been reproduced everywhere and have profoundly influenced our perception and thinking about mass culture. This striking book is a highly original survey of Warhol's entire creative output. The book begins with an overview of Warhol's work by Ernst Beyeler and Georg Frei that ranges over the Campbell's Soup Can pictures, Warhol's first attempt at using a succession of images based on the same motif in various paintings; the early silk screen prints (portraits of such teenage idols as Elvis Presley, Warren Beatty, and Natalie Wood); the Disaster pictures, which reveal the dark side of American consumer positivism; and the later works, including the Last Supper in which Warhol celebrates his own immortality. Peter Gidal then discusses two of Warhol's single works, the monumental Saturday's Disaster and the thirty-minute film Blow Job. And Edward Sanders examines some of Warhol's images in the context of his life and times. Together the text and copious illustrations are a magnificent testimony to Warhol's contributions to the world of art.

Gender and Genre in Novels without End: The British "Roman-Fleuve"

Fresh, strong, and engaging. . . . The combination of narratology, reader-response, and feminist approaches realizes complexity and complications of characterization, narrative voice, plot, and closure in these and in roman-fleuve. . . . Brings into focus . . . sub-genre in relation to novel in general while at same time presenting insightful analyses of particular examples of such texts.--Kathryn N. Benzel, University of Nebraska, Kearney This is first substantive study of roman-fleuve--the multivolume sequence novel--as a distinctive genre. Though Lynette Felber finds these novels without end to be the ultimate pleasurable text, prolonging a moment of Keatsian arrested passion, she claims they have fallen between cracks of popular and canonical novel. Tracing roman-fleuve through three periods of history, she examines three British serial works that were to some degree innovative and experimental: Anthony Trollope's Palliser (1864-80), Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage (1915-38), and Anthony Powell's A Dance to Music of Time (1951-75). Felber argues that roman-fleuve has inherent propensity for an ecriture feminine, a writing with narrative features designated feminine. She acknowledges that French theorists with whom she is aligned define formal features of writing in sexual terms. Certain to be controversial to some feminists, her argument places her in heart of essentialism-constructionism debate. While some critics might find length of genre impediment to critical acceptance, Felber claims that it is perception of this form as a feminine genre that has had a detrimental effect on its status. She finds that massive roman-fleuve, damned by its refusal to meet conventional expectations and by its association with a feminine discourse, reveals prejudice of marketplace and literary establishment. Lynette Felber is associate professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University in Fort Wayne. She is general editor of CLIO: A Journal of Literature, History, and Philosophy of History and author of many book chapters and articles published in journals such as Mosaic, Genre, Frontiers, The Victorian Newsletter, and Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature.

Karel Goeyvaerts: a Belgian Pioneer of Serial, Electronic and Minimal Music

‘From now on, I will accept only Karel Goeyvaerts as my teacher in composition’ exclaimed the young Karlheinz Stockhausen during the famous New Music Summer Courses at Darmstadt in 1951. Goeyvaerts had just explained the very principles of serial organization for which Stockhausen had been searching for some time. In the following years Goeyvaerts 1923–1993) developed those basic principles into variety of composition techniques, and into a stylistic diversity not often encountered in serious music. After having applied serialism to tapegenerated music in the early 1950s and to experimental and aleatoric procedures in the 1960s, Goeyvaerts developed the repetitive element, already couched in some of his serial works, during the 70s and 80s. In his last period, the Belgian composer did not eschew a return to tonality, without however foresaking the core of serial thinking of which he had been the founding father. For many of these tendencies Goeyvaerts was the forerunner; to others he added valuable contributions. Therefore, his artistic legacy should be evaluated against the work of other European avantgarde composers such as Stockhausen or Boulez, or put into perspective by comparing it with the work of his American colleagues such as Babbitt, Carter, Riley or Glass.

British Music at Darmstadt 1982–92

The new music summer school in Darmstadt is perhaps the most important gathering of and performers of contemporary music in Europe. Launched in 1946 in the then American Zone of occupied Germany, as part of the postwar process of internationalization (and, therefore, de-Nazification) of German culture, the Darmstadt Ferienkurse quickly gained a reputation as a forum for the promulgation of a radically abstract musical aesthetic, based on reductive analyses of the serial works of Webern in particular. While some composers saw this new aesthetic as a ‘mechanistic heresy’, the music of what came to be known as the Darmstadt School – Boulez, Maderna, Nono, Stockhausen – soon attracted official support since, like Abstract Expressionist painting, ‘a seemingly abstract art could readily be elevated as an emblem of “terrible freedom”’. This ‘terrible freedom’, the freedom to be unpopular, was a potent symbol of Western individualism in the symbolic battle that characterized the European theatre of the Cold War during the 1950s.

America's continuing story: an introduction to serial fiction, 1850-1900

Most of the fiction published in America from 1850 to 1900 first appeared in a number of installment formats. Lund explains how most American novels were published and read during the period, then provides the titles of several hundred serial works, their parts' divisions, and the dates of publicati

Digital squares

As one of our serial works on digital geometry, digital squares are discussed. The purpose of this paper is to give an algorithm to decide whether or not an arbitrary set of lattice points is the digitization of a real square.

Spun Steel and Stardust: The Rejection of Contemporary Compositions

Audiences consistently reject contemporary orchestral music. One reason given for this is that inaccessible form and syntax cause cognitive/perceptual difficulties for listeners. Another possible explanation is that contemporary music is impoverished in emotional or referential expression. Why do listeners say they reject atonal music? We compared their responses to tonal and serial works by the same two composers (Schoenberg and Webern). Listeners rejected the atonal works, found them less expressive along some affective dimensions but not others, and found them less rich in referential meanings. In fact, emotional and referential considerations determined preference at least as strongly as syntactic considerations. We discuss the modern music revolution in this light and consider the importance of nonsyntactic aesthetic dimensions in a psychology of music.

The Wind Quintet

Roberto Gerhard wrote his Wind Quintet (for flute doubling piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn) in 1928, and conducted the first performance in Barcelona in 1930. At the time of writing it, Gerhard had reached the end of his five years of study with Arnold Schoenberg, whose own gigantic Wind Quintet had appeared just four years previously. Gerhard's Quintet is a short, concentrated work. It is also—at least as far as considerations of its origins and future implications are concerned—rather a complex one. To put it in a wide historical perspective, it stands among the foremost of the first generation of post-Viennese-school serial works. Looking closer, one can see revealed in it—aside from those craftsmanly skills, the mastering of which was the primary task of any Schoenberg pupil—a young composer, alive to many of the possibilities now open to him, possibilities beyond just those pertaining to his teacher's more revolutionary ideas, and at the same time perhaps uncertain which general direction to take.