Music

After the Golden Age

Kenneth Hamilton

This book dissects the oft-invoked myth of a romantic Golden Age of Pianism. It discusses the performance-style of great pianists from Liszt to Paderewski and Busoni, and delves into the ... More

This book dissects the oft-invoked myth of a romantic Golden Age of Pianism. It discusses the performance-style of great pianists from Liszt to Paderewski and Busoni, and delves into the far-from-inevitable development of the piano recital. The book recounts how classical concerts evolved from exuberant, sometimes riotous events into the formal, funereal trotting out of predictable pieces they can be today; how an often unhistorical “respect for the score” began to replace pianists' improvizations and adaptations; and how the clinical custom arose that an audience should be seen and not heard. The book chronicles why pianists of the past did not always begin a piece with the first note of the score, nor end with the last. It emphasizes that anxiety over wrong notes is a relatively recent psychosis, and that playing entirely from memory a relatively recent requirement. The book presents a vivid tale of how drastically different are the recitals of the present compared to concerts of the past, and how their own role has diminished from noisily active participants in the concert experience to passive recipients of artistic benediction from the stage. The book's broad message proclaims that there is nothing divinely ordained about our own concert-practices, programming, and piano-performance styles. Many aspects of the modern approach are unhistorical — some laudable, some merely ludicrous. They are also far removed from those fondly remembered as constituting a Golden Age.

Amico

Warwick Lister

This book is a full-length biography in English of Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824), one of the great violinist-composers in the history of music, and arguably the most influential violinist who ... More

This book is a full-length biography in English of Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824), one of the great violinist-composers in the history of music, and arguably the most influential violinist who ever lived. He rose from humble origins as a blacksmith's son in a village near Turin, Italy, and early studies with Gaetano Pugnani, to a triumphant international career, particularly in Paris and London. His multifarious career as concert performer, composer, teacher, opera theater director, and impresario was played out against the backdrop of a dramatically changing world: from the ancien régime patronage of an Italian prince and the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, to the commercial and box-office–centered institutions of the early 19th century. Viotti's life was intensely dramatic. He knew tragedy as well as success: he was forced to flee the French Revolution, he was exiled from England for an extended period, his attempt to establish himself in business met with failure, and he died heavily in debt. His correspondence with an English family, the Chinnerys, with whom he was intimately associated for the last half of his life, provides an unusually revealing glimpse into his personal life. Viotti's biography is not without its mysteries, among which is his renunciation, twice in his life, of public performance. This study is based on extensive documentary research, much of it here revealed for the first time. Viotti's works are considered in the context of his life. Eleven appendices include translations of various Viotti-related archival documents, and additional information on Viotti's siblings, his places of residence, his violins, his unfinished violin method, and financial matters.

Analytical and Cross-Cultural Studies in World Music

Michael Tenzer, John Roeder (eds)

This collection of essays analyzes diverse musical creations with reference to the contexts in which the music is created and performed. The authors explain the music as sound in ... More

This collection of essays analyzes diverse musical creations with reference to the contexts in which the music is created and performed. The authors explain the music as sound in process, through prose, diagrams, transcriptions, recordings, and (online) multimedia presentations, all intended to convey the richness, beauty, and ingenuity of their subjects. The music ranges across geography and cultures—court music of Japan and medieval Europe, pagode song from Brazil, solos by the jazz pianist Thelonius Monk and by the sitar master Budhaditya Mukherjee, form-and-timbre improvisations of a Boston sound collective, South Korean folk drumming, and the ceremonial music of indigenous cultures in North American and Australia. Thus the essays diversify and expand the scope of this book’s companion volume, Analytical Studies in World Music, to all inhabited continents and many of its greatest musical traditions. An introduction and an afterword point out common analytical approaches, and present a new way to classify music according to its temporal organization. Two special chapters consider the juxtaposition of music from different cultures: of world-music traditions and popular music genres, and of Balinese music and European Art music, raising questions about the musical encounters and fusions of today’s interconnected world.

Analytical Studies in World Music: Analytical Studies in World Music

Michael Tenzer (ed.)

Combining the approaches of ethnomusicology and music theory, this book offers perspectives for thinking about how musical sounds are shaped, arranged, and composed by their diverse ... More

Combining the approaches of ethnomusicology and music theory, this book offers perspectives for thinking about how musical sounds are shaped, arranged, and composed by their diverse makers worldwide. Eleven in-depth explanations of Iranian sung poetry, Javanese and Balinese gamelan music, Afro-Cuban drumming, Shanghai opera, flamenco, modern American chamber music, Central African group singing, Bulgarian dance tunes, South Indian song, and a Mozart piano concerto create a diverse compendium of music analyses. Through description of contexts of performance and creation, and especially compositional and formal construction, each chapter proposes stimulating ways to hear, conceive, and imagine these repertoires. Selections on the companion recordings are carefully matched with extensive transcriptions and illuminating diagrams in every chapter. Opening rich cross-cultural and comparative perspectives on music, this volume addresses the practical needs of students and scholars in the contemporary world of fusions, contact, borrowing, and curiosity about music everywhere.

The Art of Performance

Heinrich Schenker, Irene Schreier Scott

Heribert Esser (ed.)

From early on, Heinrich Schenker was deeply interested in performance. There are many references to a planned publication on performance, there are finished segments and many miscellaneous related ... More

From early on, Heinrich Schenker was deeply interested in performance. There are many references to a planned publication on performance, there are finished segments and many miscellaneous related notebook-jottings, but his theoretical writings took precedence over all else and he never completed the book. This book may be taken as a compilation, as is explained in detail in the editor's introduction. It presents what Schenker regarded as one of his main missions: to rectify the direction music performance had taken in his time. He argues that for a meaningful performance of a masterwork the performer must understand the inner workings of the music. Therefore, the many players — largely pianists — who merely use the text to show their own ability do injustice to the music and mislead audiences. This holds true even for those who follow the markings of the composers slavishly but without understanding. In discussing the great composers' modes of notation and showing that their markings only indicate a desired effect, we get highly practical and imaginative advice based on the author's own experience as performing pianist and composer. He covers different aspects of pianistic technique including hand motions, legato and non legato touch, fingering, pedal, and articulation. The discussion of dynamics and tempo are equally valid for all instrumentalists. Throughout, the aim of a free, “singing” performance which comes from having assimilated the music is stressed: it results in true “re-creation”.

The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg 1908–1923

Bryan R. Simms

In the years from 1908 to 1923, Arnold Schoenberg developed a compositional strategy that moved beyond the accepted concepts and practices of Western tonality. Pieces from this period such as Pierrot ... More

In the years from 1908 to 1923, Arnold Schoenberg developed a compositional strategy that moved beyond the accepted concepts and practices of Western tonality. Pieces from this period such as Pierrot Lunaire and Erwartung remain masterpieces of the modern repertoire. The lasting importance of Schoenberg's atonal music is reflected in the very large but fragmented critical and analytical literature that surrounds it. This book synthesizes and advances the state of knowledge about this body of work, building up a comprehensive description from close analytical study.

Bach

Malcolm Boyd

In this book, biographical chapters alternate with commentary on the works of Bach, to demonstrate how the circumstances of Bach's life helped to shape the music he wrote during various periods. The ... More

In this book, biographical chapters alternate with commentary on the works of Bach, to demonstrate how the circumstances of Bach's life helped to shape the music he wrote during various periods. The book follows Bach as he travels from Arnstadt and Muhlhausen to Weimar, Cothen, and finally Leipzig. These journeys alternating with insightful discussions of the great composer's organ and orchestral compositions. As well as presenting a rounded picture of Bach, his music, and his posthumous reputation and influence, this book considers the sometimes controversial topics of “parody” and arrangement, number symbolism, and the style and meaning of Bach's late works. Recent theories on the constitution of Bach's performing forces at Leipzig are also present. The text and the appendixes (which include a chronology, personalia, bibliography, and a complete catalogue of Bach's works) are revised in this edition to take account of more recent research undertaken by Bach scholars, including the gold mine of new information uncovered in the former USSR.

Bach: The Orgelbüchlein

Russell Stinson

This is a book-length study of the Orgelbüchlein, the masterly collection of organ chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach. This “Little Organ Book” is regarded by Bach scholars as one of the composer's ... More

This is a book-length study of the Orgelbüchlein, the masterly collection of organ chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach. This “Little Organ Book” is regarded by Bach scholars as one of the composer's most important achievements and by organ scholars as a milestone in the development of the chorale. The book examines the collection from a range of historical and analytical perspectives in a way that resonates. The book begins with a discussion of Bach's reasons for compiling the collection and his original plans to create a comprehensive set of 164 chorales. The book then examines the composer's compositional process in the collection and considers the music in its historical context with attention to each of the three types of chorale: the melody chorale, the ornamental chorale, and the chorale canon. The book goes on to look at each of the forty-six individual compositions, illuminating the structure of each and tracing the evolution through the set of Bach's concept of chorale. The book concludes with a discussion of the Orgelbüchlein's reception from the 18th century to the present. The appendix includes a complete score of the chorale “Ich ruf zu dir” as arranged by C. P. E. Bach and a list of published transcriptions of the chorales for other instruments.

Bach's Works for Solo Violin

Joel Lester

The structural and stylistic features of Johann Sebastian Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, and the history of these works, are the focus of this book. Historical topics include Bach as a ... More

The structural and stylistic features of Johann Sebastian Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, and the history of these works, are the focus of this book. Historical topics include Bach as a violinist, the autograph score of the work, the published editions, and the history of performance traditions. Eighteenth-century notions of thoroughbass, harmony, keys, counterpoint, cadences, and rhetoric are the basis of Bach's music, from point-to-point musical continuity to the shape of the construction of movements. A general principle underlying all Bach's music is the heightening of activity as musical materials succeed one another and return in more elaborate guises. The solo-violin works are related to Bach's compositions in other genres and differentiated from music by later composers. This leads to thoughts on performing these works so as to bring to life these 18th-century features, while making the music alive in our own time.

Bartók's Viola Concerto

Donald Maurice

When Béla Bartók died in September of 1945, he left a partially completed viola concerto commissioned by the violist William Primrose. While no definitive version of the work exists, this concerto ... More

When Béla Bartók died in September of 1945, he left a partially completed viola concerto commissioned by the violist William Primrose. While no definitive version of the work exists, this concerto has become arguably the most-performed viola concerto in the world. After Bartók's death, his family asked the composer's friend, Tibor Serly, to look over the sketches of the concerto and to prepare it for publication. While a draft was ready, it took Serly years to assemble the sketches into a complete piece. In 1949, Primrose finally unveiled it at a premiere performance with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. For almost half a century, the Serly version enjoyed great popularity among the viola community, even while it faced charges of inauthenticity. In the 1990s, several revisions appeared and, in 1995, the composer's son, Peter Bartók, released a revision and a facsimile of the original manuscript, opening the way for an intensified debate on the authenticity of the multiple versions. This debate continues as violists and Bartók scholars seek the definitive version of this final work of Hungary's greatest composer. This book tells the story of the genesis and completion of the work (including detailed analysis of its musical elements), from its commissioning by Primrose to its first performance, its reception over the second half of the 20th century, its revisions, and future possibilities.