Maureen A. Carr
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199742936
- eISBN:
- 9780199367993
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199742936.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–25) traces the evolution of Stravinsky’s compositional process with excerpts from Rossignol, Three Pieces for String Quartet, Renard, Histoire ...
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After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–25) traces the evolution of Stravinsky’s compositional process with excerpts from Rossignol, Three Pieces for String Quartet, Renard, Histoire du soldat, Étude for Pianola, Ragtime, Piano-Rag-Music, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Concertino, Pulcinella, Mavra, Octet, Cinq pièces monométriques, Concerto for Piano and Winds, Piano Sonata, the Serenade in A. One of the goals of this monograph is to illustrate how musical sketches help to inform music analysis. The use of original sources, diplomatic transcriptions, and diagrams illustrate: (1) the presence of melodic motives, such as anticipatory gestures that have a bearing on subsequent works, (2) the layering of imitative techniques that sometimes participate in the emergence of block form before transitioning into Stravinsky’s Neoclassical style, and (3) the incorporation of materials borrowed from the eighteenth century to create musical narrative, and so on. In addition to these visual representations of musical ideas, another goal is to consider the cultural complexities that established the framework for Stravinsky’s evolution as a composer, such as: (1) the cross-currents in literary circles around 1914 that were concerned with Shklovsky’s “Resurrection of the Word” and the notion of defamiliarization, (2) the swirling designs in artworks by painters who espoused the ideals of futurism and cubo-futurism, and (3) Fokine’s outline of the “New Ballet” that appeared in the Times (London) on July 6, 1914, just before the declaration of war on July 28, 1914, and that in a way paralleled the emergence of Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism.Less
After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–25) traces the evolution of Stravinsky’s compositional process with excerpts from Rossignol, Three Pieces for String Quartet, Renard, Histoire du soldat, Étude for Pianola, Ragtime, Piano-Rag-Music, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Concertino, Pulcinella, Mavra, Octet, Cinq pièces monométriques, Concerto for Piano and Winds, Piano Sonata, the Serenade in A. One of the goals of this monograph is to illustrate how musical sketches help to inform music analysis. The use of original sources, diplomatic transcriptions, and diagrams illustrate: (1) the presence of melodic motives, such as anticipatory gestures that have a bearing on subsequent works, (2) the layering of imitative techniques that sometimes participate in the emergence of block form before transitioning into Stravinsky’s Neoclassical style, and (3) the incorporation of materials borrowed from the eighteenth century to create musical narrative, and so on. In addition to these visual representations of musical ideas, another goal is to consider the cultural complexities that established the framework for Stravinsky’s evolution as a composer, such as: (1) the cross-currents in literary circles around 1914 that were concerned with Shklovsky’s “Resurrection of the Word” and the notion of defamiliarization, (2) the swirling designs in artworks by painters who espoused the ideals of futurism and cubo-futurism, and (3) Fokine’s outline of the “New Ballet” that appeared in the Times (London) on July 6, 1914, just before the declaration of war on July 28, 1914, and that in a way paralleled the emergence of Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism.
Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190236861
- eISBN:
- 9780190236892
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190236861.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This multiauthor collection, the first of an unprecedented four-volume series of analytical essays on music by women composers from Hildegard of Bingen to the twenty-first century, presents detailed ...
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This multiauthor collection, the first of an unprecedented four-volume series of analytical essays on music by women composers from Hildegard of Bingen to the twenty-first century, presents detailed studies of compositions written since 1960 by Ursula Mamlok, Norma Beecroft, Joan Tower, Sofia Gubaidulina, Chen Yi, Kaija Saariaho, Libby Larsen, and Elisabeth Lutyens. Each chapter opens with a brief biographical sketch of the composer written by the editors, followed by an in-depth analysis of a single representative composition linking analytical observations with broader considerations of music history, gender, culture, or hermeneutics. These essays, many by leading music theorists, are grouped thematically into three sections, the first focused on pitch design, the second on musical gesture, and the third on music and text. The collection is designed to challenge and stimulate a wide range of readers. For academics, these thorough analytical studies can open new paths into unexplored research areas in music theory and musicology. Postsecondary instructors may be inspired by the insights offered here to include new works in graduate or upper-level undergraduate courses in post-tonal theory, history, or women and music. Finally, for performers, conductors, and music broadcasters, these thoughtful analyses can offer enriched understandings of this repertoire and suggest fresh new programming possibilities to share with listeners—an endeavor of discovery for all those interested in twentieth-century music.Less
This multiauthor collection, the first of an unprecedented four-volume series of analytical essays on music by women composers from Hildegard of Bingen to the twenty-first century, presents detailed studies of compositions written since 1960 by Ursula Mamlok, Norma Beecroft, Joan Tower, Sofia Gubaidulina, Chen Yi, Kaija Saariaho, Libby Larsen, and Elisabeth Lutyens. Each chapter opens with a brief biographical sketch of the composer written by the editors, followed by an in-depth analysis of a single representative composition linking analytical observations with broader considerations of music history, gender, culture, or hermeneutics. These essays, many by leading music theorists, are grouped thematically into three sections, the first focused on pitch design, the second on musical gesture, and the third on music and text. The collection is designed to challenge and stimulate a wide range of readers. For academics, these thorough analytical studies can open new paths into unexplored research areas in music theory and musicology. Postsecondary instructors may be inspired by the insights offered here to include new works in graduate or upper-level undergraduate courses in post-tonal theory, history, or women and music. Finally, for performers, conductors, and music broadcasters, these thoughtful analyses can offer enriched understandings of this repertoire and suggest fresh new programming possibilities to share with listeners—an endeavor of discovery for all those interested in twentieth-century music.
Gretchen Horlacher
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195370867
- eISBN:
- 9780199893492
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195370867.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, History, Western
A pioneer of musical modernism, Igor Stravinsky marked a significant turn in compositional method. He broke free from traditional styles and contemporary trends in the early part of the 20th century ...
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A pioneer of musical modernism, Igor Stravinsky marked a significant turn in compositional method. He broke free from traditional styles and contemporary trends in the early part of the 20th century to achieve an entirely new and truly modern aesthetic. Striking a remarkable concurrence of stasis and discontinuity, Stravinsky crafted large-scale compositions out of short repeating melodies, juxtaposed these primary motives with contrasting and varying fragments, and layered on fixed ostinati which repeated at their own rates throughout the piece. Previous scholarship on Stravinsky focuses on the disparate and independent nature of such textures, conceiving them as separated and deadlocked, unable to escape their repetitions, and having no goal. This connects Stravinsky's procedures with the more radical music of subsequent composers for whom disconnection has served as a primary aesthetic. Yet, from the perspective of his later works, the static and discontinuous depictions of Stravinsky's music seem incomplete and perhaps even simplistic. The “building blocks” of his novel textures often consist of tunes with identifiable intervallic shapes, goal pitches, and defining durational patterns—organizations that engender continuity and connection. This book provides a fuller perspective, and offers a fresh approach to this music and the theoretical constructs behind it. The book portrays the whole of Stravinsky's repertoire as radical or modern not because it eschews continuity and connection, but because it places them in relation to their opposites: the music holds our interest because undeniable references toward continuity are dynamically coordinated (rather than subsumed) with stasis and discontinuity. From this vantage point, Stravinsky's music becomes a commentary on the nature of time: the music draws into relation the tension between time as it is punctuated by fixed reference and as it flows from one event to another. It is quintessentially modern because of its inherent emphasis on multiple vantage points.Less
A pioneer of musical modernism, Igor Stravinsky marked a significant turn in compositional method. He broke free from traditional styles and contemporary trends in the early part of the 20th century to achieve an entirely new and truly modern aesthetic. Striking a remarkable concurrence of stasis and discontinuity, Stravinsky crafted large-scale compositions out of short repeating melodies, juxtaposed these primary motives with contrasting and varying fragments, and layered on fixed ostinati which repeated at their own rates throughout the piece. Previous scholarship on Stravinsky focuses on the disparate and independent nature of such textures, conceiving them as separated and deadlocked, unable to escape their repetitions, and having no goal. This connects Stravinsky's procedures with the more radical music of subsequent composers for whom disconnection has served as a primary aesthetic. Yet, from the perspective of his later works, the static and discontinuous depictions of Stravinsky's music seem incomplete and perhaps even simplistic. The “building blocks” of his novel textures often consist of tunes with identifiable intervallic shapes, goal pitches, and defining durational patterns—organizations that engender continuity and connection. This book provides a fuller perspective, and offers a fresh approach to this music and the theoretical constructs behind it. The book portrays the whole of Stravinsky's repertoire as radical or modern not because it eschews continuity and connection, but because it places them in relation to their opposites: the music holds our interest because undeniable references toward continuity are dynamically coordinated (rather than subsumed) with stasis and discontinuity. From this vantage point, Stravinsky's music becomes a commentary on the nature of time: the music draws into relation the tension between time as it is punctuated by fixed reference and as it flows from one event to another. It is quintessentially modern because of its inherent emphasis on multiple vantage points.
Jonathan Bellman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195338867
- eISBN:
- 9780199863723
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338867.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, History, Western
Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to ...
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Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to derive—somehow—from the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, there has even been disagreement on matters as basic as tonic key, form, and narrative content. The ballade is generally understood to relate in some way to Poland's increasingly precarious political status in the early nineteenth century and Russia's eradication of the last vestiges of Polish independence in 1831—turmoil that affected Chopin deeply on both the personal and the political levels. Discussions of the work's compositional strategies have tended to rely on the sonata‐allegro model and its contemporary variants, but these have not proven very fruitful. Instead, the formal and stylistic antecedents for the Second Ballade are to be found in the operatic repertoire, where a ballade tradition had been developing since the 1820s, and in the amateur piano repertoire, where narrative and depictive works had been a thriving genre for decades. A close examination of the Second Ballade reveals it to be a work more closely linked to the music of its time than has previously been realized: referencing well‐known operatic music and drawing on the repertoires and stock gestures of contemporary middlebrow music, it tells a story of Polish national martyrdom in a way understood by certain of Chopin's contemporaries but by virtually no one since. Reexamined in this light, the Second Ballade proves revelatory regarding both the composer's compositional aesthetic and the way his music engaged the wider culture.Less
Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to derive—somehow—from the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, there has even been disagreement on matters as basic as tonic key, form, and narrative content. The ballade is generally understood to relate in some way to Poland's increasingly precarious political status in the early nineteenth century and Russia's eradication of the last vestiges of Polish independence in 1831—turmoil that affected Chopin deeply on both the personal and the political levels. Discussions of the work's compositional strategies have tended to rely on the sonata‐allegro model and its contemporary variants, but these have not proven very fruitful. Instead, the formal and stylistic antecedents for the Second Ballade are to be found in the operatic repertoire, where a ballade tradition had been developing since the 1820s, and in the amateur piano repertoire, where narrative and depictive works had been a thriving genre for decades. A close examination of the Second Ballade reveals it to be a work more closely linked to the music of its time than has previously been realized: referencing well‐known operatic music and drawing on the repertoires and stock gestures of contemporary middlebrow music, it tells a story of Polish national martyrdom in a way understood by certain of Chopin's contemporaries but by virtually no one since. Reexamined in this light, the Second Ballade proves revelatory regarding both the composer's compositional aesthetic and the way his music engaged the wider culture.
Elaine Kelly
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199998098
- eISBN:
- 9780199394371
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199998098.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
National identity in the German Democratic Republic was heavily predicated on the past. The state was posited as the second German Enlightenment, and socialism as the culmination of a legacy of ...
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National identity in the German Democratic Republic was heavily predicated on the past. The state was posited as the second German Enlightenment, and socialism as the culmination of a legacy of rational thought dating back to the French Revolution. Nineteenth-century music featured prominently in this foundation myth. A heritage of classical realism originating with Beethoven was heralded as the precursor to socialist realism. Romanticism, in contrast, was identified as the locus for the irrationalism that had led to fascism and capitalism. This book charts the reception of this canon in the GDR. It explores the role that the musical heritage played in the construction of East German socialism, and demonstrates how the changing landscape of canon reception in later decades anticipated the GDR’s demise. As the GDR stagnated, disillusioned intellectuals deconstructed the socialist canon’s unifying narratives, and positioned it firmly within a discourse of late socialism. The book considers processes of canon formation in a variety of contexts, including musicology, composition, opera, literature, and film. It draws on a broad range of primary sources, and combines empirical archival research with conceptual methodologies adapted from discourse theory, theories of nationalism, and theories of lateness, both artistic and political. The resulting study illuminates not only the nuances of musical thought in the GDR, it also reveals the extent to which the state’s aesthetic discourse encoded a trajectory of societal ascent and decline.Less
National identity in the German Democratic Republic was heavily predicated on the past. The state was posited as the second German Enlightenment, and socialism as the culmination of a legacy of rational thought dating back to the French Revolution. Nineteenth-century music featured prominently in this foundation myth. A heritage of classical realism originating with Beethoven was heralded as the precursor to socialist realism. Romanticism, in contrast, was identified as the locus for the irrationalism that had led to fascism and capitalism. This book charts the reception of this canon in the GDR. It explores the role that the musical heritage played in the construction of East German socialism, and demonstrates how the changing landscape of canon reception in later decades anticipated the GDR’s demise. As the GDR stagnated, disillusioned intellectuals deconstructed the socialist canon’s unifying narratives, and positioned it firmly within a discourse of late socialism. The book considers processes of canon formation in a variety of contexts, including musicology, composition, opera, literature, and film. It draws on a broad range of primary sources, and combines empirical archival research with conceptual methodologies adapted from discourse theory, theories of nationalism, and theories of lateness, both artistic and political. The resulting study illuminates not only the nuances of musical thought in the GDR, it also reveals the extent to which the state’s aesthetic discourse encoded a trajectory of societal ascent and decline.
David Brodbeck
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199362707
- eISBN:
- 9780199362721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199362707.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
Defining Deutschtum: Political Ideology, German Identity, and Music-Critical Discourse in Liberal Vienna Defining Deutschtum offers a nuanced look at the intersection of music, cultural identity, and ...
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Defining Deutschtum: Political Ideology, German Identity, and Music-Critical Discourse in Liberal Vienna Defining Deutschtum offers a nuanced look at the intersection of music, cultural identity, and political ideology in Liberal Vienna by examining music-critical writing about Carl Goldmark, Antonín Dvořák, and Bedřich Smetana, three notable composers of the day who were Austrian citizens but not ethnic Germans. Vienna’s critics are treated here as agents within the public sphere whose writing gave voice to distinct ideological positions on the question of who could be deemed “German” in the multinational Austrian state. Historian Pieter M. Judson’s perspective on Austro-German liberalism as an evolving but always exclusionary ideology provides a suggestive approach to interpreting this music-critical discourse. For Eduard Hanslick and Ludwig Speidel, German liberal nationalists who came of age around 1848, Germanness was theoretically available to any ambitious Bürger, including Jews and those of non-German nationality, who professed German cultural values. The national liberalism that characterized the work of the younger Theodor Helm was an outgrowth of the tensions between Germans and Czechs that first flared up in the 1860s. Later came a new generation of Wagnerian critics whose racialist antisemitism and irredentist German nationalism reflected the radical student politics of the 1880s. The critical reception of the three composers in question reveals a continuum of exclusivity, from a conception of Germanness rooted in social class and cultural elitism to one based in blood. The book thus offers insight into how educated German Austrians conceived of Germanness in music and understood their relationship to the “non-Germans” in their midst.Less
Defining Deutschtum: Political Ideology, German Identity, and Music-Critical Discourse in Liberal Vienna Defining Deutschtum offers a nuanced look at the intersection of music, cultural identity, and political ideology in Liberal Vienna by examining music-critical writing about Carl Goldmark, Antonín Dvořák, and Bedřich Smetana, three notable composers of the day who were Austrian citizens but not ethnic Germans. Vienna’s critics are treated here as agents within the public sphere whose writing gave voice to distinct ideological positions on the question of who could be deemed “German” in the multinational Austrian state. Historian Pieter M. Judson’s perspective on Austro-German liberalism as an evolving but always exclusionary ideology provides a suggestive approach to interpreting this music-critical discourse. For Eduard Hanslick and Ludwig Speidel, German liberal nationalists who came of age around 1848, Germanness was theoretically available to any ambitious Bürger, including Jews and those of non-German nationality, who professed German cultural values. The national liberalism that characterized the work of the younger Theodor Helm was an outgrowth of the tensions between Germans and Czechs that first flared up in the 1860s. Later came a new generation of Wagnerian critics whose racialist antisemitism and irredentist German nationalism reflected the radical student politics of the 1880s. The critical reception of the three composers in question reveals a continuum of exclusivity, from a conception of Germanness rooted in social class and cultural elitism to one based in blood. The book thus offers insight into how educated German Austrians conceived of Germanness in music and understood their relationship to the “non-Germans” in their midst.
Klára Móricz and Simon Morrison (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199829446
- eISBN:
- 9780199377244
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199829446.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
An exploration of the unhappy career of Arthur Lourié, a cutting-edge modernist composer who briefly served the Soviet regime before emigrating to Germany, France, and ultimately the United States, ...
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An exploration of the unhappy career of Arthur Lourié, a cutting-edge modernist composer who briefly served the Soviet regime before emigrating to Germany, France, and ultimately the United States, where his life and works both came to a bathetic end. The book surveys his involvement in the Russian Futurist movement and his subsequent cultivation of a form of Neoclassicism indebted to the spiritual philosophy of Jacques Maritain. Much of the aesthetic and technical discussion focuses on Lourié’s grandly eulogistic opera The Blackamoor of Peter the Great, which he considered his masterpiece, but which remains unperformed. Lourié’s close relationship to Stravinsky is highlighted, as is the tremendous assistance that he provided to the conductor Serge Koussevitzky. The book is a martyr’s tale; it is also an attempt to recover music of strange, elusive beauty—the music of a Russia that Lourié saw disappear.Less
An exploration of the unhappy career of Arthur Lourié, a cutting-edge modernist composer who briefly served the Soviet regime before emigrating to Germany, France, and ultimately the United States, where his life and works both came to a bathetic end. The book surveys his involvement in the Russian Futurist movement and his subsequent cultivation of a form of Neoclassicism indebted to the spiritual philosophy of Jacques Maritain. Much of the aesthetic and technical discussion focuses on Lourié’s grandly eulogistic opera The Blackamoor of Peter the Great, which he considered his masterpiece, but which remains unperformed. Lourié’s close relationship to Stravinsky is highlighted, as is the tremendous assistance that he provided to the conductor Serge Koussevitzky. The book is a martyr’s tale; it is also an attempt to recover music of strange, elusive beauty—the music of a Russia that Lourié saw disappear.
Rebecca Maloy
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195315172
- eISBN:
- 9780199776252
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315172.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, History, Western
The offertory has played a crucial role in recent vigorous debates about the origins of Gregorian chant. Its elaborate solo verses are among the most splendid of chant melodies, yet the verses ceased ...
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The offertory has played a crucial role in recent vigorous debates about the origins of Gregorian chant. Its elaborate solo verses are among the most splendid of chant melodies, yet the verses ceased to be performed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, making them among the least known and studied chants of the repertory. This study draws on the music, lyrics, and liturgical history of the offertory to shed new light on its origins and chronology. The book addresses issues that are at the heart of chant scholarship, such as the relationship between the Gregorian and Old Roman melodies, the nature of oral transmission, the presence of non‐Roman pieces in the Gregorian repertory, and the influence of theoretical thought on the transmission of the melodies. In contrast to the view that the Roman chant versions closely reflect the eighth‐century state of the melodies, this book argues that the prolonged period of oral transmission from the eighth to the eleventh centuries instead enforced a formulaic trend. Demonstrating that certain musical and textual traits of the offertory are distributed in distinct patterns by liturgical season, this study outlines new chronological layers within the repertory and explores the presence and implications of foreign imports into the Roman and Gregorian repertories. Available for the first time as a complete critical edition, ninety‐four Gregorian and Old Roman offertories are presented here in side‐by‐side transcriptions. A companion website provides music examples and essays that elucidate these transcriptions and the variants between manuscripts.Less
The offertory has played a crucial role in recent vigorous debates about the origins of Gregorian chant. Its elaborate solo verses are among the most splendid of chant melodies, yet the verses ceased to be performed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, making them among the least known and studied chants of the repertory. This study draws on the music, lyrics, and liturgical history of the offertory to shed new light on its origins and chronology. The book addresses issues that are at the heart of chant scholarship, such as the relationship between the Gregorian and Old Roman melodies, the nature of oral transmission, the presence of non‐Roman pieces in the Gregorian repertory, and the influence of theoretical thought on the transmission of the melodies. In contrast to the view that the Roman chant versions closely reflect the eighth‐century state of the melodies, this book argues that the prolonged period of oral transmission from the eighth to the eleventh centuries instead enforced a formulaic trend. Demonstrating that certain musical and textual traits of the offertory are distributed in distinct patterns by liturgical season, this study outlines new chronological layers within the repertory and explores the presence and implications of foreign imports into the Roman and Gregorian repertories. Available for the first time as a complete critical edition, ninety‐four Gregorian and Old Roman offertories are presented here in side‐by‐side transcriptions. A companion website provides music examples and essays that elucidate these transcriptions and the variants between manuscripts.
Eric Chafe
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199773343
- eISBN:
- 9780199949502
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199773343.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
Expanding in part on earlier studies of the St. John Passion and the principle of “tonal allegory” in Bach's vocal music as a whole, this book investigates the musico‐theological character of the ...
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Expanding in part on earlier studies of the St. John Passion and the principle of “tonal allegory” in Bach's vocal music as a whole, this book investigates the musico‐theological character of the passion and the sequence of cantatas that followed its second performance in 1725. Citing many Lutheran authors from the 16th to the 18th century (with particular reference to August Hermann Francke and Johann Jacob Rambach), it attempts to show how Bach responded to the qualities that theologians have long recognized as characteristic of John, and that are now generally described as “Johannine.” Part One sets forth the research “problems” involved in the revisions to and versions of the passion as well as those surrounding the breaking off of the chorale cantata cycle just before Easter 1725 and the composition of the so‐called “Ziegler” cantatas. In addition it lays the conceptual groundwork for Part Two (a five‐chapter study of the St. John Passion) and Part Three (a study of the Spring 1725 cantatas). The book argues that in this unique series of compositions Bach reveals a thoroughgoing understanding of John's special qualities and devises special means of translating them into music.Less
Expanding in part on earlier studies of the St. John Passion and the principle of “tonal allegory” in Bach's vocal music as a whole, this book investigates the musico‐theological character of the passion and the sequence of cantatas that followed its second performance in 1725. Citing many Lutheran authors from the 16th to the 18th century (with particular reference to August Hermann Francke and Johann Jacob Rambach), it attempts to show how Bach responded to the qualities that theologians have long recognized as characteristic of John, and that are now generally described as “Johannine.” Part One sets forth the research “problems” involved in the revisions to and versions of the passion as well as those surrounding the breaking off of the chorale cantata cycle just before Easter 1725 and the composition of the so‐called “Ziegler” cantatas. In addition it lays the conceptual groundwork for Part Two (a five‐chapter study of the St. John Passion) and Part Three (a study of the Spring 1725 cantatas). The book argues that in this unique series of compositions Bach reveals a thoroughgoing understanding of John's special qualities and devises special means of translating them into music.
Jesse Rodin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199844302
- eISBN:
- 9780199979868
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199844302.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
In the late 15th century the newly built Sistine Chapel was home to a vigorous culture of musical composition and performance. Josquin des Prez stood at its center, singing and composing for the ...
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In the late 15th century the newly built Sistine Chapel was home to a vigorous culture of musical composition and performance. Josquin des Prez stood at its center, singing and composing for the pope’s private choir. This book offers a new reading of Josquin’s Roman compositions in light of the repertory he and his fellow papal singers performed from the chapel’s singers’ box. Comprising the single largest surviving corpus of late 15th-century sacred music, these pieces served as a backdrop for elaborately choreographed liturgical ceremonies—a sonic analogue to the frescoes by Botticelli, Perugino, and their contemporaries that adorn the chapel’s walls. Josquin’s Rome uses a comparative approach to uncover this aesthetically and intellectually rich musical tradition. Through multidimensional analyses set forth in lively prose, Jesse Rodin confronts longstanding problems concerning the authenticity and chronology of Josquin’s music while also offering nuanced readings of scandalously understudied works by his contemporaries. He further contextualizes Josquin by locating intersections between his music and the wider soundscape of the Cappella Sistina. Central to Rodin’s argument is the idea that these pieces lived in performance; for this reason Josquin’s Rome is firmly tethered to a series of superb companion recordings by Cut Circle, an ensemble directed by the author.Less
In the late 15th century the newly built Sistine Chapel was home to a vigorous culture of musical composition and performance. Josquin des Prez stood at its center, singing and composing for the pope’s private choir. This book offers a new reading of Josquin’s Roman compositions in light of the repertory he and his fellow papal singers performed from the chapel’s singers’ box. Comprising the single largest surviving corpus of late 15th-century sacred music, these pieces served as a backdrop for elaborately choreographed liturgical ceremonies—a sonic analogue to the frescoes by Botticelli, Perugino, and their contemporaries that adorn the chapel’s walls. Josquin’s Rome uses a comparative approach to uncover this aesthetically and intellectually rich musical tradition. Through multidimensional analyses set forth in lively prose, Jesse Rodin confronts longstanding problems concerning the authenticity and chronology of Josquin’s music while also offering nuanced readings of scandalously understudied works by his contemporaries. He further contextualizes Josquin by locating intersections between his music and the wider soundscape of the Cappella Sistina. Central to Rodin’s argument is the idea that these pieces lived in performance; for this reason Josquin’s Rome is firmly tethered to a series of superb companion recordings by Cut Circle, an ensemble directed by the author.
Accounting for Oneself
Adjusting to a World in Motion
Advancing the Human Right to Health
Aid and Development
The AIDS Generation
Aliens and Strangers?
The Alternatives to War
Altruism in Humans
American Arcadia
