The medieval German town Hann. Münden was home to Johann Andreas Eisenbarth (1663–1727), a colorful figure who became a subject of folklore to the extent that fact and fiction are now difficult to untangle.
A celebrated surgeon who was bestowed with privileges by various members of German royalty, Eisenbarth had no formal medical credentials, nor was he ever officially awarded the title “Doctor”. Nevertheless, his skill and medical innovations are matters of historical record, not least his pioneering contributions to the development of cataract surgery.
Reputed to have traveled with an entourage of up to 120 attendants including musicians, acrobats, and clowns, he is said to have plied his trade in a carnival-like atmosphere. The loud music and revelry served both to attract large crowds—potential customers for Eisenbarth’s services and bottled remedies—and to drown out the cries of his patients, who underwent procedures including tooth extractions and amputations in an era before the advent of anesthetics.
In honor of this now semi-legendary resident, a mechanical clock was installed in the upper story of Hann. Münden’s Rathaus in 1980. After the stroke of noon and a brief pause, an automatic carillon plays the tune of the comical song Ich bin der Doktor Eisenbart as automata depict the doctor extracting a huge, bloody tooth from the mouth of a terrified, gesticulating patient restrained by a hammer-wielding attendant. In addition to these central figures, a juggler, an acrobat, and a flag-bearer suggest the festive nature of Eisenbarth’s medical procedures.
This according to “Dr Eisenbarth’s automated musical clock in Hann. Münden” by Mark Singleton and Sven Heinmann (The music box: An international journal of mechanical music XXVIII/5 [spring 2018] pp. 185–87; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2018-52039).
Today is Eisenbarth’s 360th birthday! Above and below, the good doctor in action.
Today a growing number of Mexican-American musicians in the United States perform on Indigenous Mesoamerican instruments and archaeological replicas in what is widely referred to as Aztec music.
For example, contemporary musicians in Los Angeles draw on legacies of Mexican nationalist music research and integrate applied anthropological and archeological models, showing how musical and cultural frameworks that once served to unite post-revolutionary Mexico have gained new significance in countering Mexican Indigenous erasure in the United States.
This according to “Forging Aztecness: Twentieth-century Mexican musical nationalism in twenty-first century Los Angeles/Forjando el Aztecanismo: Nacionalismo musical mexicano del siglo XX en el siglo XXI en Los Ángeles” by Kristina F. Nielsen (Yearbook for traditional music LII [2020] 127–46; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2020-69466).
Above, Martin Espino is one of the musicians profiled in the article (photo by Krystal Mora, used with permission); below, Espino’s group Mexika in 2017.
The manual addresses a multitude of special problems faced by writers on music—problems rarely solved by general writing guides. It applies an international perspective to matters often handled piecemeal and in ethnocentric fashion: work titles, manuscript sources, transliteration, non-Western theoretical systems, opus and catalogue numbers, and pitch and chord names, to name just a few. Detailed guidelines are provided for the bibliographic handling of standard print, audiovisual, and electronic sources, as well as specialized ones such as program notes, liner notes, and music videos. A chapter on indexing is also included. Throughout, abundant examples illustrate each point.
The first edition (2005) reflected many years of experience and thought, working with a wide variety of terms and concepts from around the world; the second edition (2006), roughly one-third larger than the first, included both revisions and new material. This third edition incorporates numerous updates, many of them reflecting developments in writing and publishing over the past 17 years—not least, those involving the online environment. Unlike the earlier printed editions, it is an electronic edition that will be continuously updated.
“Students, scholars, librarians, critics, and performers will find this third edition of the manual indispensable. It takes into account a bibliodiversity hardly found in similar such ventures and is reflective of RILM’s global mission,” writes RILM Executive Director Dr. Tina Frühauf.
How to Write About Music is available through EBSCO’s eBook Collection, on EBSCOhost. For questions and purchase, please contact information@ebsco.com or your EBSCO sales representative.
On 29 April 1900 the engineer John Luther “Casey” Jones died in the wreck of the Illinois Central’s Cannonball, the fast passenger express from Chicago to New Orleans. No one else was killed or even seriously injured in the accident, a fact generally ascribed to Jones’s skillful but self-sacrificing actions.
The myriad versions of the song commemorating this incident—formally known as The ballad of Casey Jones—stand at the crossroads of the African American and Anglo-American ballad traditions.
Nine years after Jones’s death, Casey Jones (The brave engineer), a vaudeville song by T.L. Seibert and E. Newton, became widely popular. It is generally accepted that Seibert and Newton based it on a song that they had heard among African Americans in New Orleans, which had been composed by Wallace Saunders—a Black roundhouse man who knew Jones personally. “Wallace had a gift for improvising ballads as he labored at wiping engines or shoveling coal” one source reported. “He would sing in rhythm with his muscular activity; and one of his creations, as innumerable witnesses agreed, was the original version of Casey Jones.”
Turning a song deeply rooted in African American traditions into a popular hit involved merging its attributes with those of Anglo-American broadside ballads, which were more characterized by a semi-journalistic recounting of events than by verses extemporaneously arranged around an underlying narrative. Over time, the traditional and popular versions naturally influenced each other, resulting in an uncommonly rich demonstration of pop and folk interactions.
This according to “Casey Jones: At the crossroads of two ballad traditions” by Norm Cohen (Western folklore XXXII/2 [April 1973] 77–103; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 1973-2351).
Today is Casey Jones’s 160th birthday! Above, CaseyJonesPortrait (public domain); below, a performance by Furry Lewis, who first recorded the song in 1928, followed by Johnny Cash’s classic recording.
Cassandre Balosso-Bardin Associate Professor, University of Lincoln Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 1888 Mary Elizabeth Brown sent out copies of her new catalogue, Musical instruments and their homes, to her many missionary friends across the world; they had helped her to collect instruments from around the globe, leading to an impressive collection of approximately 270 instruments, which she donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1889 (Brown 2014).
The subtitle of the catalogue reads: With two hundred and seventy illustrations in pen and ink by Wm. Adams Brown, the whole forming a complete catalogue of the collection of musical instruments now in the possession of Mrs. J. Crosby Brown of New York. As suggested in this lengthy description, the catalogue was beautifully illustrated by Brown’s son, William Adams Brown, with line drawings for each instrument, alongside short descriptions with minimal measurements. W.A. Brown’s contribution is significant: It gives unique pictorial insight into the breadth of the collection, and it adds myriad details that are usually forgotten or glossed over in textual descriptions. His drawings give us a much better understanding of the instruments collected, and may point to unwitting mistakes that, in turn, give us insights into the collecting world of the late 19th century.
As an ethnomusicologist with a specialty in bagpipes, I was particularly fascinated to identify the five examples of this instrument in the catalogue, and to unravel the stories they told. Their wide geographical spread demonstrates the breadth of contacts Mary Elizabeth Brown had, as well as her interest in collecting instruments from around the world, no matter how obscure they might have seemed. The five instruments hail from Scotland, India, Russia, Turkey, and Sclavonia, the latter possibly referring to a region now found in North Eastern Croatia or a former region in the Hungarian territory, or even just Slavic countries in general. If we detail each instrument alongside their illustrations, some discrepancies become clear, and an understanding of the 19th-century collector’s challenges starts to emerge.
Figure 1: Page 335 of Musical instruments and their homes.
The Scottish highland bagpipe listed in the catalogue (p. 335) was obviously well-known enough to not warrant any kind of description beyond its origin (“Scotch”), the fact that it was “modern”’, and the measurement of its bag (1 foot, 3 inches) and longest pipe (3 feet). This instrument (acquisition number 89.4.863) was made by Robert MacKinnon, a Scottish maker active in Glasgow between 1875 and 1902 (a detail omitted by the Browns in the catalogue, possibly because of its contemporary association). This might have made the instrument slightly less attractive than other items hailing from further afield and of rarer provenance.
The other European bagpipe illustrated on the same page presents more of a mystery. It is presented as a bagpipe from Sclavonia: “a very old specimen. The pipes of wood, inlaid with lead. The bag of leather. L. of the longest pipe 45 in. of bag 24 in.” Upon inspection of the illustration, however, the instrument strongly resembles a bagpipe from Central France. This large type of bagpipe, inlaid with pewter, is known to be from the Nivernais region, and its dimensions correspond to one of the grandes cornemuses du Nivernais currently in the Museum’s collection (89.4.860). These types of instruments were older, often made in the 18th century or very early 19th century. Upon closer inspection, one notices that the inlaid pewter is not filed, and that the instrument has not been played, unlike its sister instrument in the collection. Bernard Blanc, a French bagpipe maker specializing in instruments from this region, speculated during his visit to the collection in 1987 that this instrument was probably a copy of an older instrument, made in the 19th century specifically for the collector’s market (Metropolitan Museum Musical Instrument Archives).
Figure 2: Page 347 of Musical instruments and their homes.
A stunning instrument collected by Brown is the bagpipe illustrated in the Russian section of the catalogue (p. 347). This instrument takes up a significant amount of textual space in the catalogue, with a lengthy description enveloping the drawing, speaking to its aesthetic value:
The bag made of white skin, undressed. Three pipes, one for the breath, and the other two furnished, one with six and the other with three fingerholes. The extremities of the two latter covered with a cap of wood bound with brass, which is held in place by a leather strap. The pipes and movable cap decorated with imitations of precious stones, and the latter with nineteen small hanging chains. Bag 18x13 in. L. of pipe and cap 17 in.
This instrument is currently in the collection (89.4.318) and it is just as beautiful as the description suggests. The blue, green, and red glass jewels inserted along the finely stamped metallic straps that wrap around the double pipes, along with the small paisley-shaped ornaments hanging from delicate chains at the end of the wooden horn, all contribute to the impression of a fine instrument. While Mary Elizabeth Brown named it simply “bagpipe”, it is currently described as a volynka, a generic Russian term that means “bagpipe”, giving little indication about its regional origin. The instrument’s file notes that in 1977 “a Georgian visitor recognized this instrument as Georgian”. Indeed, the instrument presents all the characteristics of a gudastviri, a Georgian bagpipe, as illustrated on a USSR stamp from 1990 (Figure 3). It is possible that this instrument arrived in the collection among many other Russian instruments, with little attention paid to its actual origin. Brown’s correspondence shows regular contact with a dealer based in Moscow, although this instrument isn’t specifically identified (Brown Correspondence, Metropolitan Museum Musical Instrument Archives).
Figure 3: USSR stamp from 1990 depicting traditional Georgian instruments, including the Georgian bagpipe./Figure 4: Page 209 of Musical instruments and their homes.
The Turkish bagpipe in the catalogue (p. 209) also presents a few mysteries. The instrument illustrated resembles more a bagpipe that might have been found in Iran (ney-anbān) or the Gulf States rather than in Turkey. Turkey’s two main types of bagpipes in the 19th century were the gaida (or ghaida), a Balkan-type instrument close to the Bulgarian or Macedonian bagpipe, and the tulum, a Mediterranean-type instrument found in a specific region by the Black Sea. While this particular instrument was catalogued as a “ghaida”, it does not resemble either of these instruments. Still in the collection today (89.4.362), its provenance remains a mystery. Could it be that an instrument from a different part of the world made its way to Turkey and was collected as such by Brown’s missionary friends? Brown’s correspondent in Turkey recognized that she did not know much about musical instruments (Brown Correspondence, Metropolitan Museum Musical Instrument Archives), which may have contributed to such confusion.
Figure 5: Page 87 of Musical instruments and their homes.
The final bagpipe in Brown’s collection is a bagpipe from Madras (now Chennai), India (p. 87). While it is called a zitty (or titthi) in the catalogue, it is also known as a sruti upanga. This instrument is commonly depicted in nautch performances within a larger group of musicians (see below). Most likely bought in 1886 through Reverend Canklin, who sent a range of instruments from Madras (Metropolitan Museum Musical Instrument Archive), it is still part of the collection (89.4.264). It is material evidence of a bagpipe that was mainly used for accompaniment rather than melody. According to the instrument’s file and further iconographic evidence, the sruti panga was traditionally used to supply drone accompaniment; the fingerholes were not for playing melodies, but were stopped with wax to create different drone pitches.
Brown’s illustrated catalogue is a remarkable document that gives fascinating insights into the collecting world of the late 19th century. William Adam Brown’s drawings allow us to understand both the wide range of instruments collected and the limitations of knowledge at the time, when individuals relied on third-party information to collate instrument files. Often bought and sent by individuals who had little knowledge about instruments, they regularly fell victim to misidentification, at times remaining unidentified for decades until visitors with specific regional knowledge were able to set the records straight.
The catalogue images also reveal the inconsistencies of the 19th-century market, and how collectors might have been taken advantage of by dealers misrepresenting instruments, passing them off as ancient when they were contemporary, most likely to fetch a better price as they played into the collectors’ fascination for antiques.
This unique document shows Brown’s strong will to collect all manner of instruments, no matter how humble or unassuming, providing us with a real global snapshot of the instruments played in the second half of the 19th century. It also highlights the value of accurate illustrations alongside the catalogue entries: Not only do they bring the objects to life, they also enable a much more detailed and in-depth analysis of them, allowing us to re-evaluate the textual descriptions passed down through the years, correcting discrepancies, and providing insights into the work undertaken by 19th-century collectors.
Brown, Mary Elizabeth Adams and William Adams Brown. Musical instruments and their homes (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1888; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 1888-516).
This article was written and published to mark International Bagpipe Day, which is celebrated on 10 March every year. International Bagpipe Day was co-founded by Cassandre Balosso-Bardin in 2012 and is now celebrated across the world. Dr. Balosso-Bardin is the founding director of the International Bagpipe Organisation and is an Associate Professor in Music at University of Lincoln, where she lectures in ethnomusicology. This research was made possible thanks to a Chester Dale Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2022–23).
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Music & Musical Performance: An International Journal was launched in 2022 by a consortium of music scholars from around the world. It is published online, open-access, in conjunction with Digital Commons and the Florida International University library system. Its editorial and advisory boards are broadly international. It welcomes contributions in any language, and aims—when possible—to offer a reliable English translation of contributions that are not in English.
Most of all, M&MP seeks to bridge the worlds of academic discourse and of performers and listeners. With this aim in mind, it encourages contributions that are more essayistic than is typical in existing journals. It also welcomes reactions to recorded and live performances. Being an online journal, M&MP can easily incorporate color illustrations, video, and sound files. Such enrichments help it to provide a forum for discussion of music as it is practiced—and has been practiced—in numerous times and places and for widely differing purposes.
Below, a performance of Idin Samimi Mofakham’s Hommage à Abolhasan Saba, a work discussed in the inaugural issue.
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To celebrate Enrico Caruso’s 150th birthday, we are delighted to provide documentary evidence seldom found elsewhere—the full text of his own words on his gastronomic predilections! Alas, we have been unable to find the name of the translator, but the English version originally appeared in The monthly musical record, which published it along with Caruso’s technical observations on singing in its May, June, and July 1913 issues. It was republished as “Talks on singing: Signor Enrico Caruso. I” in The choral journal XIV/4 (December 1973) 31–33 (RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 1973-17498).
As regards eating — a rather important item, by the way — I have kept to the light “Continental” breakfast, which I do not take too early; then a rather substantial luncheon towards 2 o’clock. My native macaroni, specially prepared by my chef, who is engaged particularly for his ability in this way, is often a feature in this midday meal. I incline towards the simpler and more nourishing food, though my tastes are broad in the matter, but I lay particular stress on the excellence of the cooking, for one cannot afford to risk one’s health on indifferently cooked food, no matter what its quality.
On the nights when I sing I take nothing after luncheon, except perhaps a sandwich and a glass of Chianti, until after the performance, when I have a supper of whatever I fancy within reasonable bounds. Being blessed with a good digestion, I have not been obliged to take the extraordinary precautions about what I eat that some singers do. Still, I am careful never to indulge to excess in the pleasures of the table, for the condition of our alimentary apparatus and that of the vocal cords are very closely related, and the unhealthy state of the one immediately reacts on the other.
My reason for abstaining from food for so long before singing may be inquired. It is simply that when the large space required by the diaphragm in expanding to take in breath is partly occupied by one’s dinner the result is that one cannot take as deep a breath as one would like, and consequently the tone suffers, and the all-important ease of breathing is interfered with. In addition, a certain amount of bodily energy is used in the process of digestion which would otherwise be entirely given to the production of the voice.
These facts, seemingly so simple, are very vital ones to a singer, particularly on an opening night. A singer’s life is such an active one, with rehearsals and performances, that not much opportunity is given for exercise, and the time to do this must, of course, be governed by individual needs. I find a few simple physical exercises in the morning after rising, somewhat similar to those practiced in the army, or the use for a few minutes of a pair of light dumb-bells, very beneficial. Otherwise I must content myself with an occasional automobile ride. One must not forget, however, that the exercise of singing, with its constant deep inhalation (and acting in itself is considerable exercise also), tends much to keep one from acquiring an oversupply of embonpoint.
A proper moderation in eating, however, as I have already said, will contribute as much to the maintenance of correct proportion in one’s figure as any amount of voluntary exercise which one only goes through with on principle.
On the subject of whether one should or should not drink intoxicants, you may inquire what practice is, in my opinion, most in consonance with a singer’s well-being. Here again, of course, customs vary with the individual. In Italy, we habitually drink the light wines of the country with our meals, and surely are never the worse for it. I have retained my fondness for my native chianti, which I have even made on my own Italian estate, but believe and carry out the belief that moderation is the only possible course. I am inclined to condemn the use of spirits, whisky in particular, which is so prevalent in the Anglo-Saxon countries, for it is sure to inflame the delicate little ribbons of tissue which produce the singing tone, and then — addio to a clear and ringing high C!
Though I indulge occasionally in a cigarette, I advise all singers, particularly young singers, against this practice, which can certainly not fail to have a bad effect on the delicate lining of the throat, the vocal cords, and the lungs.
You will see by all foregoing that even the gift of a good breath is not to be abused or treated lightly, and that the “goose with the golden egg” must be most carefully nurtured.
In 1963 Eunice Waymon, a classically-trained pianist who had recently achieved recognition as a jazz singer under the stage name Nina Simone, learned that four young African American girls had been killed in the bombing of a Baptist church in Alabama.
She immediately wrote the song Mississippi Goddam “in a rush of fury, hatred, and determination.” The lyrics—filled with anger and despair in stark contrast to the fast-paced and rollicking rhythm—vehemently rejected the notions that race relations could change gradually, that the South was unique in terms of discrimination, and that African Americans could or would patiently seek political rights. Simone also challenged principles that are still strongly associated with liberal civil rights activism in that period, especially the viability of a beloved community of Whites and Blacks.
With both her music and her self-presentation, Simone offered a vision of Black cultural nationalism within and outside the U.S. that insisted on female power. Her story demonstrates how events and issues from the 1960s that are often treated as separate were in fact deeply intertwined—the development of Black cultural nationalism, the role of women in Black activism more generally, and the emergence of second-wave feminism.
This according to “‘I don’t trust you anymore’: Nina Simone, culture, and Black activism in the 1960s” by Ruth Feldstein (Journal of American history XCI/4 [2005] 1349–79; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2005-23369).
Today would have been Simone’s 90th birthday!
Above, Nina Simone 1965 is licensed under CCO 1.0; below, performing Mississippi Goddam in 1965.
Among the Gogo people of Tanzania music is an essential factor in societal cohesion, comprising the central link between earthly and spiritual life. Gogo music is concerned with ethics, not aesthetics, and it is governed by direct connections between performance circumstances and musical parameters.
For example, the polyphonic section linked to the performance of cipande functions as a way to relieve pain during ritual male circumcision. After the song has begun, the men surround the boy who is about to be circumcised and, on a signal, break into vocal polyphony as they project their voices toward him; the women continue to sing just outside the ritual circle. The information saturation generated by the dense polyphonic texture acts as a natural anesthetic, as the distracted boy is unable to process the aural complexity.
On 27 November 1890 Milan’s Corriere della sera broke the news that Giuseppi Verdi, then 77 years old, had already composed more than half of a comic opera drawn from Shakespeare, to be called Falstaff. The revelation took Italy by storm, and newspapers throughout the country immediately amplified the story.
“[Verdi] said that Boito’s libretto is beautiful,” La perseveranza gushed, “so comic that even while composing it he has to break off work from time to time to burst into laughter.”
This was amazing news, since Verdi’s name was universally linked with a brilliant succession of tragic operas over a span of more than 40 years, and it was widely assumed that his serious temperament was unsuited to comedy.
Verdi and Boito worked together closely, modifying Shakespeare’s work to make it more suitable for operatic treatment. They were particularly concerned about focusing the dramatic interest of the third act, and Verdi suggested several specific lines and passages from Shakespeare as promising anchors for musical treatment.
“I’m amusing myself by writing fugues!” Verdi wrote to him at one point. “Yes, sir; a fugue…and a comic fugue, which would be in place in Falstaff!” He may well have been referring to the opera’s finale—meaning that he composed its music before he received its text!
For the work’s premiere (pictured above), La Scala’s ticket prices were 30 times higher than usual, and royalty, aristocracy, and critics from around the world attended. The performance was hugely successful; numbers were encored, and at the end the applause for the composer and the cast lasted an hour.
This according to Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff by James A. Hepokoski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 1983-2848).
Today is the 130th anniversary of Falstaff’s premiere!
The main entrance to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’s exhibition Lou Reed: Caught between the twisted stars opens up on Lincoln Plaza, directly adjacent to the The Metropolitan Opera house. On a sunny day, the Met’s … Continue reading →
Seven strings/Сім струн (dedicated to Uncle Michael)* For thee, O Ukraine, O our mother unfortunate, bound, The first string I touch is for thee. The string will vibrate with a quiet yet deep solemn sound, The song from my heart … Continue reading →
Introduction: Dr. Philip Ewell, Associate Professor of Music at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, posted a series of daily tweets during Black History Month (February 2021) providing information on some under-researched Black … Continue reading →
For it [the Walkman] permits the possibility…of imposing your soundscape on the surrounding aural environment and thereby domesticating the external world: for a moment, it can all be brought under the STOP/START, FAST FOWARD, PAUSE and REWIND buttons. –Iain Chambers, “The … Continue reading →
