Way Of Singing Research Articles

Lavish sounds of early modern Italy

In the present time, when everything seems to have been discovered, researched and revisited, it seems difficult to find a ‘first’. Yet this batch of recordings presents six firsts for early modern Italian sacred vocal polyphonic music. A collection of representative mid-17th-century small-scale sacred monodies by Carlo Filago and Leonardo Leo’s responsories are recorded in their entirety for the first time. The first two albums of Giovanni Legrenzi’s collected liturgical music revisit the late 17th-century composer’s opus, in line with the performers’ goal to record his complete works. Similarly, another in a line of first recordings of Melchior Vulpius’s liturgical output is added to the project, slowly working towards the completion of this composer’s oeuvre on disc. Lastly, late 15th- and early 16th-century music from Italian convents reaches us for the first time. Performed by Italian ensemble Les Nations, Carlo Filago: Sacri concerti a voce sola, 1642 (Tactus tc 580610, issued 2022) is a first in the row of firsts: a first almost complete recording of the composer’s last collection, missing only two out of 16 original compositions. In the context of the rest of his opus—two collections of polyphonic motets (1611 and 1619) and a lost collection of Sacrae cantiones (1611)—this collection presents a genre typical of the period. Sacred monody was an effective and popular tool in devotion and was well known by the mid 17th century. In the liner notes, musicologist Mariarosa Pollastri points out that the collection is directly connected to a Polish nun Maria Felice Sbarasca (active in the convent of St Marco and St Andrea in Murano), as well as Filago’s afterword. There, he uncovers his dissatisfaction with ‘the modern way of singing and composing’, in which he ‘condemns decidedly the excesses of the virtuosi that sing in the church as if they were in a theatre’.

An ethnomusical analysis: Albanian highland songs

Albanian folklore is very rich in genres and different types of folklore. Among them a special place is occupied by the creations of the Albanian oral epic. In this paper we will treat the songs of songs of mountaineers or, as they are popularly known as highland songs. They are folk creations with a spread not in all Albanian territories. They are mostly practiced in the northern folklore areas and have their own independence, conditioned or determined by the specifics of the way of practice. During our work we can summarize the main features and characteristics of mountainers or highland songs. In addition to the treatments and arguments of the theoretical plan, a number of concrete analyzes will be realized and argumented on our conclusion. We believe that in this way, not as an aim in itself, the spaces of this special type of Albanian folklore will become clearer, more complete and in a more general plan. To reach such a definition, we start from the fact that the poetics of these songs is quite distinct and special, in relation to all other types of Albanian historical songs in general. Among other things, for this type of song we would distinguish the way of singing, which is completely different and unrepeatable in general in all other types of historical songs, poetic structure, shortness of poetry or with so many reduced verses, but also with the lack of pronunciation, and therefore of understanding in many cases of the poetic text.

Fútbol y murga. El habitar de los clubes carolinos

There is a strong temporal and spatial relationship between the practices of football and murga in the city of San Carlos, Maldonado. They are linked to local actors on a daily basis, and with extra-local actors during the competition seasons, with an alternating temporal intensity (winter for football and summer for murga).  The spatial relationship is generated by the fact that football clubs hold and promote both football teams and murgas in the same facilities. The objective is to detect the situations expressed by these cultural and social universes in their complex articulation and relationship. Hegemonic masculinity in the clubs where these activities take place is linked to the learning processes of a set of body techniques. The way of singing, the relationships with other masculinities and femininities; the hierarchies in the club, consumption, excesses, sensibilities, clothing…it is in this way that certain elements are acquired, giving meaning to the bodies that inhabit these clubs, disputing and testing the hegemony of knowledge, which also shapes up perceptions and appraisals.

Flamenco experience in Córdoba, Spain: estimating tourist profiles by multilayer perceptron's artificial neural networks

PurposeThis research aims to demonstrate the possible link between the sociodemographic profile of visitors motivated by the visit to flamenco shows and the city of Córdoba (Spain), and the preferences and sensations regarding these experiences.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology used (multilayer perceptron) is based on the development of an artificial neural network.FindingsThe results show that the variables age and educational level are determining factors in the profile of the visitor. Also, as the level of income increases, so does the interest in flamenco, a fact that can be useful to determine the target audience for this type of shows.Originality/valueFlamenco is an art that originated in the Andalusian region that arouses the interest of the visitor due to its music, way of singing and dance. Flamenco is a popular art that excites and awakens the senses of those who attend this dance, song and guitar show. Its recognition as Intangible Heritage of Humanity by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) since 2010, makes it a tourist product that motivates visitors to travel to the city of Córdoba (Spain), being also one of flamenco's places of origin. Córdoba has this art in its tourist offer so that the identity of the city has two aspects: patrimonial and immaterial, among the flamenco highlighted.

«synge yndelig i vore Hierter for Herren»: Sangens betydning for Hans Nielsen Hauge og i haugebevegelsen

Hans Nielsen Hauge started a religious revival which became the largest and most important one people in Norway had seen until then. This article considers the important role singing played in the Haugian movement and for Hauge himself. Hauge’s hymn book is of special interest given that roughly half of it is composed of hymns written by the pietistic poet Hans Adolph Brorson. This article also emphasizes Hauge’s role in introducing and spreading Brorson hymns in Norway, Hauge’s personal thoughts about singing, and the use and function of the singing by Hauge and those within the Haugian movement. The article concludes that Hauge and the Haugian movement was of great importance in dispersion of Brorson’s hymns and singing practice. Accompanied by folk melodies, the hymns were sung in tradition way of singing. Through Brorson and the forerunner of the pietist movement Johann Arndt, the tradition of Christian mysticism was carried on by Hauge to the people of his movement. The Hauge movement also influenced the way of singing and the function of the singing. The increased singing activity was of great importance not only for Hauge and the Haugian movement, but also for the following times up until this day.

Implementation of audio recognition using mel frequency cepstrum coefficient and dynamic time warping in wirama praharsini

Sekar Agung or wirama is a Balinese classic work which contains of moral values, and is usually sung during traditional or religious ceremonies. The classic nature of wirama made this art was abandoned by the younger generation who were less interested to learn or preserve it. Related to the problem, this study aimed at conducting sound matching as a medium to learn wirama praharsini based on the rule of guru and laghu. Wirama Praharsini was chosen because of the simple way of singing and pronunciation when it was compared to the other kinds of wirama. This study applied voice recognition method to identify words’ pronunciation in wirama praharsini. MFCC (Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient) was used to extract the voice feature from expert and the tester. The extraction results were compared with the DTW (Dynamic Time Warping) method that was used to compare two sound features from MFCC process. The result of this study showed average accuracy value of 88.89% which indicated that the implementation of MFCC and DTW method could be done to recognize the wirama praharsini pronunciation and detect the right way to sing it based on the rules of guru and laghu in wirama.

A obra de Elomar Figueira Mello: contexto e estilo além do popular e do erudito

Discussão sobre os processos composicionais na obra de Elomar Figueira Mello, considerada neste artigo em duas vertentes: a regionalista e popular (presente no seu cancioneiro) e a erudita (representada principalmente por suas óperas), que integram estilos diversos como a cantoria nordestina, o estilo flamenco, a seresta, o tango, o hinário cristão e a música erudita tradicional. Essa integração produz contextos harmônicos com mesclas de modalismo e tonalismo, assim como um fraseado complexo derivado principalmente do uso do dialeto regional no sul da Bahia. O estilo de Elomar revela alguns dos "elos perdidos" na formação da música brasileira através de sua admirável hibridação de estilos e técnicas diversas.

Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers i jego chorał

Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers (ca. 1632–1714), a composer and organist of the Parisian parish of Saint-Sulpice, regarded as one of the keenest advocators of the Gregorian chant in the 17th c. when heated debates on its subject were carried out by the Church. The Gregorianists of Grand Siècle carefully analysed the proper approaches towards this way of singing, how to interpret it, what is the correlation between words and chants, what should be the proper rhythm. Amongst various opinions (e.g. by Jumilhac and Le Clerc) representing purely theoretical approach, Nivers’ main idea was to make a choral regain its place as most appropriate during liturgy. For that reason his theoretical work Dysertacja na temat chorału gregoriańskiego (Treatise on Gregorian Chant) was wholly written in order to present “proper” rules of the chant, cleansing it of all misinterpretations and misuses to have crept into it over the centuries. In his work Guillaume- Gabriel Nivers used his high abilities and paid due respect to tradition when relying on the authorities of the Church, e.g. St. Augustine, St. Gregory or St. Justin. In his approach towards the Gregorian chant he emphasised the principle of Church “correctness” which consisted in:excluding from singing all connections with secular music;focusing on internal sense of lyrics through „affects” included in particular modes, proper punctuation in texts, and making melodies apply to grammar rules;respecting inégalité (inequality) in singing, as resulted from „good taste” and rules of diction.

ONE GOSPEL — DIVERSE EXPRESSIONS

The affirmation of the unity in faith has been considered from the very beginning an essential element that kept together in full koinonia the members of the sacramental Body of Christ everywhere. The insistence on the is found both in the New Testament and in the early creeds. There is one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all (Eph. 4:4-6). There is one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, one salvation and one kingdom of God. Although according to many authors, there is a single and unique gospel. Although with many approaches and different perspectives, there is a single Apostolic faith that binds Christians together as brothers and sisters. Moreover, the very basis of the World Council of Churches is the common confession of Jesus Christ as God and Saviour, who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8).(1) Christian faith, however, does not remain in the realm of a philosophical system or of intellectual gymnastics; it is rather incarnated in the very reality of the whole cosmos. The faith in the Word who became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14) relates to life in all its aspects and, consequently, looks for meaning and relevance. It is not a simple repetition of some magical or holy articles inherited from the past with no relation to the reality that people live in. On the contrary, the affirmation of the Apostolic Faith has always been profoundly related to humankind and creation and motivated by their final goal: salvation. The basis and the general framework of the Apostolic faith are found in the scriptures, being the very Revelation of God Himself through His Incarnated Son in the Holy Spirit. Its formulation, however, is an act of the church throughout history in its attempt to preserve the spirit of the one gospel against repeated tendencies to distort it. In this context, it is important to underline the relationship between local and catholic in the process of doctrinal formulations. The ecumenical councils of the first millennium of Christianity, which formulated in concise formulas and articles important parts of Christian doctrine, were convened out of necessity. As a certain local church was troubled by disputes and misunderstandings on certain aspects of the Christian faith and life, it needed the help, guidance and advice of the church as a whole (Catholic). In this way, a particular problem of a local church became a global problem. However historically important a local church could be, it was not able to give the definitive answer to disputes and divisions. The truth was seen only in the koinonia of the whole. According to all (kata olon), the mutual accountability, as one would say today, was the criteria for truth and koinonia in the early church. As we attempt to advance on the path towards mutual acceptance and full recognition in the visible eclesial unity, the rediscovery of that ancient and efficient golden rule and criteria could be very fruitful. Very often we are not able to recognize the same message of the gospel in the expression of the other as his or her cultural context is different from our own. Many times the theological expressions of the other seem to us heretical as the terminologies that we use come from different cultural backgrounds. There are times when the liturgical expressions of the other seem to us blasphemous, syncretistic and pagan just because they are not identical to ours or to our way of understanding worship. And still, at the end of the day, we have to discover with perplexity that despite all differences we share the same faith, are led by the same ethos and live with the same hope. Such feelings have been shared by many of the non-African Orthodox who attended in Addis Ababa in January 1996 the Inter-Orthodox preparatory meeting for the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism, which will take place in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, towards the end of 1996. Despite the liturgical dances, the very specific way of singing and in general the African expression of orthodoxy, we could, after some time of reflection, feel at home. …

Hymns of the Old Colony Mennonites and the Old Way of Singing

In an article on the origin and development of the so-called Old Way of Singing, Nicholas Temperley described it as a phenomenon that had existed during several centuries of Anglo-Saxon culture in both Great Britain and North America.1 A brief analysis of a German hymn sung by the Old Order Amish led him to suggest further that the practice might in fact be a characteristic of Protestant worship in general.2 In this article I shall examine various aspects of the hymnody of a group known as the Old Colony Mennonites that may lead to further clarification and expansion of the concept. The availability of written documents that can be compared with the music of congregations still singing in a style that seems to have changed very little in the past century makes it possible to study this particular melismatic hymn-singing tradition-the Old Way of Singing among the Old Colony Mennonites--in considerable detail. Because there are still congregations living in relative isolation, it is also possible to examine the ways in which their musical practices reflect and reinforce their view of the world and its relationship to them. Old Colony Mennonites are one of several groups of Mennonites for whom the injunction to live apart from the world has manifested itself in visible and sometimes dramatic ways. They share with the larger body of Mennonites basic Anabaptist tenets of faith such as the concept of the church as a voluntary community, the refusal to take an oath, and the renunciation of violence.3 Like the Hutterites, the Old Order Amish of Pennsylvania, and the Old Order Mennonites of Waterloo County in southern Ontario, however, they have been distinguishable by their simple, austere clothing and rural way of life and by their avoidance of technological developments that might compromise their attempts to remain separated from the world.4 And like the Hutterites and Old Order Amish, the Old Colony Mennonites have a rich tradition of hymn singing.5

Why the first opera given in Paris wasn't Roman

Genealogies persist in the writing of histories, if not to suggest lineages then to delight or dismay us with the effects of accident and circumstance. The first generation of Italian operas were all court, that is private, entertainments, whether produced in Florence, Mantua, Rome or Turin. When this new form of entertainment first emigrated, it spoke Italian in foreign courts (except in Madrid), perhaps because it was so identified in its novelty with still novel Italian musical styles, with the dramaturgy of Italian spectacle and above all with the Italian way of singing. It travelled to the Habsburg imperial court early, in Prague, 1627. Like this performance, later occasional stagings in Vienna and Innsbruck remained in Italian and at first by Italians, though eventual progeny included scores by Gluck and Mozart. The court in Madrid, however, heard in 1627 a version of opera with a libretto by Lope de Vega, La selva sin amor; its score was by a theatrically inexperienced Tuscan lutenist, Filippo Piccinni. Madrid did not essay opera again until 1660. The court of Sigismund III in Warsaw heard Italian opera beginning in 1628, possibly with a Mantuan score. Opera made its way to Paris only in 1645, where, after acquiring a French text and French dancing and singing, it became one of the glories of the royal court. The cradle of opera, in all these cases, was the court, with all its resources in terms of money, an obligated audience and more than willing professionals, whether imported or local.

A belated salute to the ‘old way’ of ‘snaking’ the voice on its (ca) 345th birthday

When Joe S. James, a southern singing school teacher, brought out his edition of the long-lived shape-note hymnal The Sacred Harp in 1911, he stated rather forcefully that his readers would find ‘but few of the twisted rills and trills of the unnatural snaking of the voice’ which he had heard while in the company of those yet untutored in the art of singing by note – or ‘regular singing’, as it had been called (James 1911, p. iii). It was not the first time the ‘old way’ of singing and its ‘rills and trills’ had found a critic among champions of some form of the Western European music system, nor would it be the last. Indeed, the history of the quarrel has shown that if there is anything more intransigent than the old way of singing, it is the accompanying opprobrium spread by a musical élite convinced of the superiority of the diatonic system and all that is extrapolated from it.

Verdi’s Macbeth: A Sourcebook ed. by David Rosen, Andrew Porter

Reviews 387 traditional readings of Shakespeare’s play as Individualist tragedy. On the other hand, Brecht’s strategy is complicated by a tendency to give the posited future specific features. Suvin discusses this tendency and points to some of its Leninist features (the exact character of Brecht’s political phi­ losophy, as Suvin points out in the Afterword, remains to be delineated) in his essay on Coriolan and again in his essay on St. Joan of the Slaugh­ terhouses. The three essays are also excellent close readings of the plays concerned; the essay on St. Joan is a masterpiece. Suvin’s final two essays move beyond Brecht to consider two “counter­ projects” (p. 271), the dramaturgies of Beckett and the Happenings. Suvin’s chapter on Beckett is particularly valuable as a telling but balanced Marxist critique. Although the majority of its essays are devoted to Brecht, To Brecht and Beyond is more than a book on Brecht. Or, rather, it is a book on Brecht in the way that any post-Brechtian examination of dramaturgy must be. Its general thrust and the innumerable insights and provocations it provides make it a book no one interested in dramatic theory or modern drama can afford to ignore. JOHN ROUSE Tulane University Verdi’s Macbeth: A Sourcebook, ed. David Rosen and Andrew Porter. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1984. Pp. 527. $39.95. It often happens that a work not of the first rank in a great creative figure’s canon turns out to be the most fascinating, illuminating, indeed most exciting of all—showing as it does the first struggles of individual genius to free itself from the cocoon of contemporary fashion. Among Mozart’s operas the musically stupendous (though dramatically ungainly) La finta giardiniera holds this position. For Verdi the crucial work is Macbeth. Three days after its Florentine premiere, Felice Varesi, the baritone who sang the title role, wrote in a letter: “Verdi has adopted a new style suited to the fantastical nature of Shakespeare’s tragedy and in my opinion this score of his is the most careful and the most artistically beautiful that he has written.” A reviewer of the Milanese premiere wrote, “The valiant author . . . has attempted with Macbeth a new path, to separate himself from the crowd of composers,” and more recently Julian Budden has concluded that “over and over again [Macbeth] lifted [Verdi] out of the rut of operatic cliché.” It is therefore eminently just that Macbeth should be singled out for the attentions devoted to it in this extraordinarily rich and estimable volume, which was generated by an international Verdi Congress that took place in Danville, Kentucky, in 1977 and centered on a performance of the 1847 Macbeth (the revised Parisian version of 1865 now holds the stage). Professor Rosen and Mr. Porter and their many contributors give us a book that thrusts happily beyond the bounds of mere musicology, providing, among other insights, important knowledge about: the Con­ tinental reception of Shakespeare; the modes of 19th-century dramaturgy and scenic technology; the styles of contemporary belles lettres; the as 388 Comparative Drama always colorful, perfidious, hectic life of the operatic backstage; not to mention much valuable insight into Verdi’s methods of generating a libretto and composing. The heart of the volume is the 120 pages of letters relevant to Macbeth, which are printed in Italian and in English translation. Here we read of Verdi’s exertions to get the right cast. He set his heart, for instance, on Varesi “because of his way of singing, and because of his intelligence, and even because of his small and ugly appearance.” He then adds a telling remark that might give comfort to several baritones of my exper­ ience: “You will say he sings out of tune, but that doesn’t matter since the part would be almost totally declaimed.” In several letters the “lion of Busseto” bullies his hapless librettist Piave: “How wordy you always are!! . . . do it in a way that doesn’t force me to think of it as work tossed off just to get it done . . . c o n c is e s t y l e . . . f e...

Shape-Note Tune Books and Primitive Hymns

appeared since 1800 and the hymnody of the rural South that survives in the oral tradition is a difficult one to analyze, and is at this late date probably lost forever to complete understanding. However, careful study of current singing traditions in light of the published sacred music that has accumulated over the years affords a useful perspective on this relationship. I recently had the opportunity to conduct a field study of Primitive Baptist hymn singing, including both black and white churches, in the Blue Ridge region of Virginia and North Carolina, and found it to be pertinent to this issue in several ways.1 First, these Primitive Baptists are committed to a uniquely conservative philosophy that extends to their way of singing, which is one of the oldest surviving sacred song traditions in America. Second, although the black and white branches of the church are now independent, like many Southern denominations, they were united until the post-bellum divisions of the 1870s and 1880s, and can thus be viewed as two diverging exponents of a single singing tradition, subtraditions that are the products of contrasting cultural preferences. The complicating factor is that both branches possess a tune repertory that may have been strongly influenced by published tune sources. My purpose in this essay is to summarize the findings of my fieldwork and, drawing on some of the historical evidence, to try to clarify some features of the fuzzy relationship between the oral tradition and published tune books. On the face of it, the Primitive Baptists possess an old-fashioned hymnody of remarkable strength and vitality. Largely responsible is the church's nonconformist predestinarian theology and its distrust of innovation. Just as most conservative Primitive Baptists reject Sunday schools, seminaries, foreign missions, and most other proselytizing institutions, they continue to repudiate modernizations in hymn singing that have been taken up over the years by more progressive denominations, including the use of harmony, written music, musical instruments, soloists, and performing choirs. Their position is not rooted simply in a stubborn rejection of new ideas in general or musical progress in particular,

The Old Way of Singing: Its Origins and Development

Research Article| October 01 1981 The Old Way of Singing: Its Origins and Development Nicholas Temperley Nicholas Temperley Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (1981) 34 (3): 511–544. https://doi.org/10.2307/831191 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Nicholas Temperley; The Old Way of Singing: Its Origins and Development. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 October 1981; 34 (3): 511–544. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/831191 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1981 The American Musicological Society, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Old Way of Singing: Its Origins and Development

The Old Way of Singing: Its Origins and Development

The Old Way of Singing

The Old Way of Singing