Performing Practice/Studies

This book addresses the needs of teacher-educators seeking to include composition pedagogy in music education curricula. Though several decades of scholarship have examined the processes and products of young composers and offered insight to their work, many teachers still report a significant degree of trepidation when asked to lead students in composition activities. This book provides guidance for developing pre-service and in-service teachers ability to confidently and effectively facilitate composition study in PreK-12 settings. Issues that frame the volume include why composition should be part of music education, and by extension, music teacher education; research bases in creativity and children's composition; and the changing nature of compositional practices in contemporary culture. Drawing on both research and practice, chapters provide models for leading composition study in elementary general music, choral and instrumental ensembles, and songwriting classes. Guidance is offered for those working with special needs populations and gifted-and-talented students, as well as those interested in expanding experiences beyond the classroom via technology. Moreover, specific programmatic approaches for addressing the professional development of pre-service and in-service teachers are offered in detail so that music teacher-educators may create environments where composition's potential to enliven and invigorate contemporary practices in music education can be fully embraced.

This book is an investigation into Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions for the organ. It provides numerous new perspectives on the stylistic orientation and historical context of these masterpieces. The study opens with a consideration of recent scholarship, a discussion that culminates in an edition of a previously unpublished fugue by the Bach pupil Schübler. Based on Bach’s “Little” Fugue in G Minor, Schübler’s work suggests that the subject of Bach’s fugue is not an original melody but is borrowed from a folk song. The next chapter involves Bach’s use of the “varied Stollen” in over twenty of his chorale preludes, a hitherto unexplored topic that bears implications for the entire corpus of baroque organ chorales. The remainder of the book concerns the diverse ways in which Bach’s organ works have been received from the composer’s own lifetime to the present. Individual chapters are devoted to Felix Mendelssohn as a performer; to Robert Schumann as an editor and critic; to César Franck as a performer, pedagogue, and composer; and to Edward Elgar as a performer, critic, and transcriber. A final chapter explores the reception of particular pieces not only by various luminaries from the realm of classical music but also within such disparate contexts as film, literature, politics, and rock music.

This book offers advice for all performers to achieve performance mastery. It defines performance in the broadest terms as being applicable to many life situations and challenges in many professions. Through real life experiences and pre-performance exercises, the book offers highly practical advice on every aspect of performance. It analyzes motivation, assesses talent levels, sets performance goals, suggests levels of energy needed, and develops a performance philosophy. It deals with building technique, practice routines, the role of repetition and drill, changing bad habits, and developing a secure memory. It discusses performance anxiety or stage fright and how to deal with it. It explores psychological states during performance, evaluation after performance, audience reaction, and challenges faced during a lifetime of performance, including career planning, plateaus, and burnout. Finally, it relates performance to the development of a spiritual life.

Although Mendelssohn was most famous during his lifetime as a composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor, he also enjoyed an enviable reputation as a highly skilled organist. The instrument had fascinated — one might almost say mesmerized — him from earliest youth, but aside from a year or so of formal training at the age of about 12 or 13, he was entirely self-taught. He never held a position as church organist, and never had any organ pupils. Nevertheless, the instrument played a uniquely important role in his personal life. In the course of his many travels, whether in major cities or tiny villages, he invariably gravitated to the organ loft, where he might spend hours playing the works of Bach or simply improvising. Although the piano clearly served Mendelssohn as an eminently practical instrument, the organ seems to have been his instrument of choice. He searched out an organ loft, not because he had to, but because he wanted to, because on the organ he could find catharsis. Indeed, as he once exclaimed to his parents after reading a portion of Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, “I must rush off to the monastery and work off my excitement on the organ!” Mendelssohn's public performance on the organ in Germany was rare, and he gave but one public recital: in the Thomas-Kirche in Leipzig in 1840. In England, however, he evidently felt more comfortable on the organ bench and played there often before large crowds. Indeed, he performed as Guest Organist twice at the Birmingham Music Festivals in 1837 and 1842. Given Mendelssohn's profound affinity for the organ, it is remarkable that he composed but relatively little for the instrument, and assigned an Opus number to only two works: his Three Preludes and Fugues for Organ (Op. 37) and his Six Sonatas for the Organ (Op. 65). A small number of organ works, plus sketches and drafts, were scattered among his musical papers; most of these only gradually found their way into print, and it was not until the late 20th century that an edition of his complete organ works was finally published. This volume is intended as a companion to that edition.