Routledge inaugurated the series Routledge studies in music theory on 3 April 2012 with Music and twentieth-century tonality: Harmonic progression based on modality and the interval cycles by Paolo Susanni and Elliott Antokoletz.
The book explores the web of pitch relations that generates the musical language of non-serialized 12-tone music, and supplies the analytical materials and methods necessary for analyses of a vast proportion of the 20th-century musical repertoire.
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Stravinsky’s collaborations with the Ballets Russes were only a part of his life between 1910 and 1914; he was also involved with the Parisian avant-garde group known as Les Apaches (The Apaches), an interdisciplinary society that included Ravel, Falla, and the poet Léon-Paul Fargue.
Les Apaches’ support was vital for Stravinsky’s composition of Le sacre du printemps, and its aesthetic preoccupations helped to motivate his decision to set Trois poésies de la lyrique japonaise.
This according to “Stravinsky and The Apaches” by Jann Pasler (The musical times CXXIII/1672 [June 1982] pp. 403-407).
Today is Stravinsky’s 130th birthday! Above, the composer at work in Paris in 1911; below, Evelyn Lear sings the Trois poésies with members of the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Craft.
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Scrabble™-to-MIDI is a computer-emulated two-dimensional board game that generates MIDI music as the game is played.
The plug-in translator and its configuration parameters comprise a composition. Improvisation consists of playing a unique game and of making ongoing adjustments to mapping parameters during play.
Statistical distributions of letters and words provide a basis for mapping structures from word lists to notes, chords, and phrases. While pseudo-random tile selection provides a stochastic aspect to the instrument, players use knowledge of vocabulary to impose structure on this sequence of pseudo-random selections, and a conductor uses mapping parameters to variegate this structure in up to 16 instrument voices.
This according to “Algorithmic musical improvisation from 2D board games” by Dale E. Parson, an essay included in ICMC 2010: Research, education, discovery (San Francisco: International Computer Music Association, 2010). Above, a demonstration of Scrabble™-to-MIDI.
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The first Russian-language electronic journal for contemporary art music, Dialettica del suono, was launched in 2011 as a joint project of the independent creative association Диалектика Звука (Dialectic of Sound) and the Молодежное Отделение Союза Композиторов (МолОт/The Youth Department of the Union of Composers).
The journal, edited by Дионис Афоничев, is published twice a year and is available online in PDF format. Dialettica del suono provides a publication platform mainly for young professional musicians, musicologists, composers, and critics. A supplement with scores by young Russian composers is appended to each issue.
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In October 2011 Christoph Dohr—the founder of Verlag Dohr, which specializes in publishing old and new German music via books, journals and magazines, sheet music, and sound recordings—started the yearbook/series Almanach für Musik (ISBN 978-3-936655-79-7).
Following the ninteenth-century tradition of musicological writings, this new almanac is intended as a publication platform that will stimulate authors to produce original scholarly articles apart from monographs or conference proceedings.
The first volume brings together 13 essays on a variety of scholarly topics covering the time span from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, and comprising historical, analytical, biographical, and mathematical approaches. The authors are Kirsten Beißwenger, Wolfgang Birtel, Klaus Martin Kopitz, Rainer Mohrs, Peter Hawig, Michael Leinert, Volker Müller, Ernst-Jürgen Dreyer, Lars Wallerang, Stefan Weiss, Gerald Golka, Sabine Sonntag, and Hans-Joachim Wagner.
A brief review penned by Peter Schnaus appeared in das Orchester 3 (2012).
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In 2011 Pfau-Verlag launched Schriften der Frankfurter Gesellschaft für Neue Musik, a series devoted to writings by members of the Frankfurter Gesellschaft für Neue Musik. The first book in the series is Mind the gap! Medienkonstellationen zwischen zeitgenössischer Musik und Klangkunst, which presents essays focusing on works that explore the gaps between media formats in the contemporary music scene.
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Until now, the assumed hurdles of electronic design have kept laypersons at bay. Circuit bending—the chance-directed rewiring of preexisting electronic devices—transforms the circuit into a friendly and immediate canvas, like that of a painter: Just walk up and paint.
Indeed, the modern-day painter’s canvas is more immediate than ever, since there is no longer a need to study the science of pigment making. Similarly, circuit bending’s chance approach—an act of clear illogic—obviates any need to understand the science of electronics.
Just as traditional cultures can transform a coconut into myriad different instruments, circuit bending can transform a Speak & Spell, for example, into an untold number of homemade synthesizers.
This according to “The folk music of chance electronics: Circuit bending the modern coconut” by Qubais Reed Ghazala (Leonardo music journal XIV [2004], pp. 96–104).
Many thanks to the Improbable Research blog for reminding us about Ghazala’s writings! Below, the author discusses his work; above, he admires an amanita muscaria.
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The journal Source: Music of the avant-garde was and remains a seminal source for materials on the heyday of experimental music and arts. Conceived in 1966 and published until 1973, it included some of the most important composers and artists of the time: John Cage, Harry Partch, David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Steve Reich, and many others.
A pathbreaking publication, Source documented crucial changes in performance practice and live electronics, computer music, notation and event scores, theater and installations, intermedia and technology, politics and the social roles of composers and performers, and innovations in the sound of music. Special features included custom typography, multiple paper stocks, multicolored scores, 10 inch LPs, 35mm slides, fur, and shotgun holes.
Source: Music of the avant-garde 1966–1973, a 396-page collection of reprints from the journal, was issued by the University of California Press in 2011. Below, a performance of Feldman’s revolutionary percussion work The king of Denmark.
Related article: John Cage unbound
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Devoted to the English composer, pianist, writer, and critic Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892–1988), Sorabji resource site is a complementary resource for the forthcoming critical biography by Marc-André Roberge.
The menu bar offers broad categories (Biography, People, Writings, Sources, Works, Performances, and Miscellaneous) that lead to some 85 pages, each with a search box, presenting resources including lists, compilations, tables, and analytical charts related to various aspects of Sorabji’s life and works. A printed version of the entire site would produce a 350-page book.
Below, John Carey performs Sorabji’s Fantaisie espagnole.
Related article: Sorabji’s marathon premiere
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Launched by the Fundación Juan March in 2011, Clamor: Colección Digital de Música Española presents open-access documentation of performances of over 800 Spanish works—mostly from the 20th or 21st century—at over 130 concerts presented by the Foundation since its inception in 1975.
In addition to the concert recordings, this resource presents pre-concert talks given by composers or specialists, program notes, scores, photographs, and over 230 composer biographies and works lists.
Below, Suzana Stefanović performs Jesús Rueda’s Love song nº 3 at the Foundation in October 2011.
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