Category Archives: 20th- and 21st-century music

by | June 29, 2020 · 6:00 am

Morton Feldman and Persian carpets

Repetition and variation are important components of the music of Morton Feldman—components that he extracted from his observation of Persian carpet designs.

Rug design and music are arts that use symbolic language to express certain concepts with a focus on the idea of unity in multiplicity. The designs of some Persian carpets are based on the weaver’s mind map, which resembles Feldman’s musical approach. Key elements of these carpet patterns correspond directly to Feldman’s use of repetition and symmetry in his works.

This according to “A study on the rug patterns and Morton Feldman’s approach” by A.A. Javadi and M. Fujieda (International journal of music science, technology and art II/1 [2020] 48–53; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2020-3041). Many thanks to Improbable research for bringing this study to our attention!

Above, a comparison of selected carpets with excerpts from Feldman’s Crippled symmetry; below, a performance of the work.

Related post: Morton Feldman’s The viola in my life

1 Comment

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Curiosities, Visual art

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | February 24, 2020 · 6:00 am

Ernst Krenek and Charles V

 

Ernst Krenek’s Karl V is a testimony to the anachronistic—in the best sense of the word—exploitation of the memory of the Holy Roman Empire, or the imperial idea of Charles V as the composer understood it, reflecting the unrealized possibility of a transformation of the medieval concept of empire into a contemporary form.

In its interpretation of the Holy Roman Empire, the opera builds a bridge to the world of values of the Austrian corporative state, which sought to attribute a special mission to Austria by linking it with the supranational idea of the Habsburg Empire.  This involves a distinct rejection of the National Socialist idea of empire. On the musical level, this is expressed by the use of the proscribed 12-tone technique. which in various respects corresponds to the conceptual theme of the work.

Krenek’s position can be defined both from the standpoint of music-art and of philosophy-politics, as that of a border-crosser, one which resists classification in any specific direction.

This according to “Die Idee des Reiches in Ernst Kreneks Bühnenwerk mit Musik Karl V, op. 73 (1933)” by Raymond Dittrich, s essay included in Was vom Alten Reiche blieb…: Deutungen, Institutionen und Bilder des frühneuzeitlichen Heiligen Römischen Reiches Deutscher Nation im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (München: Bayerische Landeszentrale für Politische Bildungsarbeit, 2011, pp. 421–33).

Today is Charles V’s 520th birthday! Above, Titian’s La gloria, once owned by the birthday boy, who is depicted in white near the top; Krenek called for the painting to be used as a stage backdrop for his opera. Below, the opening of the Bayerische Staatsoper’s production.

Comments Off on Ernst Krenek and Charles V

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Curiosities, Opera, Politics

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | January 4, 2020 · 6:00 am

Stravinsky and Pergolesi

In his statements on the origin of Pulcinella, Igor Stravinsky leads the reader astray; none of the models used by him are, as he alleges, fragments, incomplete, or sketches, and none were unknown.

Stravinsky’s ballet is a parody based on 21 pieces transmitted under Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s name and taken from various contexts. Four are from Pergolesi’s Frate ’nnamorato, three from Flaminio, one from the cantata Luce degli occhi miei, and one from the violoncello sonata. The rest of the pieces have been incorrectly attributed to Pergolesi; one is a modern forgery.

The texts of the arias are distorted to the point of unrecognizability in Stravinsky’s ballet; the curious double text in the trio results from a misunderstanding of the manuscript source. Apparently Stravinsky became acquainted with the music from both of Pergolesi’s comedies in 1917 in Naples. The material that he took from these was later supplemented by primarily unauthentic pieces from printed sources in the British Museum.

This according to “Die musikalischen Vorlagen zu Igor Strawinskys Pulcinella” by Helmut Hucke, an essay included in Frankfurter musikhistorische Studien: Helmuth Osthoff zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag uberreicht von Kollegen, Mitarbeitern und Schülern (Tutzing: Schneider, 1969, pp. 241–50).

Today is Pergolesi’s 310th birthday! Below, Stravinsky’s suite from Pulcinella.

Comments Off on Stravinsky and Pergolesi

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Classic era, Curiosities

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | December 19, 2019 · 6:00 am

International journal of the study of music and musical performance

 

In 2019 Open Music Library launched International journal of the study of music and musical performance.

The journal advances both a general and professional interest in music and its performance with essays that cover a range of approaches: from discussions of little-known composers and musicians drawing upon primary and secondary sources to more specialized studies of composers, works, instruments, performers, audiences, and institutions. A review section covers new books, scores, and recordings. Whenever possible, international contributions are presented in the original language as well as in English.

Below, Hans Werner Henze’s Du schönes Bächlein; the work’s performance practice is discussed in the inaugural issue.

Comments Off on International journal of the study of music and musical performance

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, New periodicals, Performance practice

Tagged as , , ,

by | October 24, 2019 · 6:00 am

George Crumb and “Black angels”

In the 1960s and early 1970s George Crumb explored new sonorities on conventional instruments and embedded quotations from historical Western classical music into new compositions. These techniques, along with his use of the concert stage as theater, come together in one of his best-known works—the string quartet Black angels, initially titled A quartet in time of war.

In the spring prior to its premiere, the nation had witnessed several devastating events surrounding the Vietnam War, which led to his inscription “finished on Friday the thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli).” Crumb’s liner notes for the work’s first recording provided further context:

“Black angels was conceived as a kind of parable on our troubled contemporary world. The numerous quasi-programmatic allusions in the work are therefore symbolic, although the essential polarity—God versus Devil—implies more than a purely metaphysical reality. The image of the ‘black angel’ was a conventional device used by early painters to symbolize the fallen angel.”

“The work portrays a voyage of the soul. The three stages of this voyage are Departure (fall from grace), Absence (spiritual annihilation), and Return (redemption).”

This according to “George Crumb and Black angels: A quartet in time of war”, an entry in Music in the USA: A documentary companion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 pp. 658–60).

Today is Crumb’s 90th birthday! Above, an excerpt from Crumb’s score; below, a performance by Ensemble InterContemporain.

Comments Off on George Crumb and “Black angels”

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music

Tagged as , , ,

by | September 13, 2019 · 6:00 am

Ephraim Amu’s musical hybridity

 

The creative hybridity of Ephraim Amu’s choral composition Yɛn ara asase ni contributed to the emergence of national consciousness in Ghana.

Originally composed for a colonial holiday in 1929, this piece spread through schools, radio broadcasts, and live performances, and was heard throughout the country around the time of Ghanaian Independence. Yɛn ara asase ni ultimately disrupted colonial categories and prepared the way for an independence movement informed by Pan-Africanism and Christianity.

This according to “African musical hybridity in the colonial context: An analysis of Ephraim Amu’s Yɛn ara asase ni” by Steven Spinner Terpenning (Ethnomusicology LX/3 [fall 2016] pp. 459–83).

Today is Ephraim Amu’s 120th birthday! Below, a performance of Yɛn ara asase ni in 2016.

Comments Off on Ephraim Amu’s musical hybridity

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Africa, Politics

Tagged as , , , ,

by | July 29, 2019 · 6:00 am

Georgij Mušel’ and Uzbek traditional music

 

The Soviet composer Georgij Aleksandrovič Mušel’ was deeply influenced by Uzbek traditional music and Central Asian musical culture.

While his arrangements of Uzbek traditional songs display the most characteristic aspects of his style, this influence is also evident in his three symphonies, seven concertos, and nine other orchestral pieces, as well as in his chamber music and stage works, securing him a unique place among Russian composers.

This according to Творчество Г.А. Мушеля в аспекте проблемы взаимосвязей музыкальныx культур братских народов (The music of G.A. Mušel’ in connection with the interchange of musical cultures among the Soviet republics) by Galina Vasil’evna Kuznecova, a dissertation accepted by the Taškentskaja Gosudarstvennaja Konservatorija in 1974.

Today would have been Mušel’s 110th birthday! Below, a performance of one of his piano works.

Comments Off on Georgij Mušel’ and Uzbek traditional music

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | July 8, 2019 · 6:00 am

INSAM: Journal of contemporary music, art and technology

 

In 2018 the Institut za Savremenu Muziku launched INSAM: Journal of contemporary music, art and technology, an international peer-reviewed journal dealing with topical issues in contemporary art music, visual and performing arts, and technology.

The journal encourages interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches and innovative views on these subjects, aiming to create a platform for communicating new ideas and theoretical and artistic impulses. This open-access journal is published online semi-annually, in July and December.

Below, XO pt. II by Dino Rešidbegović; the work is the subject of one of the articles in the inaugural issue.

Comments Off on INSAM: Journal of contemporary music, art and technology

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, New periodicals

Tagged as , , ,

by | July 4, 2019 · 6:00 am

Cathy Berberian and pop art

 

In the 1950s and 1960s the musical avant-garde developed a new type of vocal composition that incorporated everyday vocal sounds, such as gestural utterances or expressions of affect, into aesthetic parameters. Cathy Berberian took center stage in this development thanks to the extraordinary range of her vocal capabilities; she inspired numerous composers to write in this emerging style, and was herself engaged in the creative process.

Berberian’s composition Stripsody (1966), a sounding glossary of typical onomatopoeia of comic strips, can be understood as a musical pendant to the paintings of pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Her creative process was closely intertwined with input from the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco, who was a close friend of Berberian and her former husband, the composer Luciano Berio. Eco encouraged her to create a composition out of her interest for comic onomatopoeia, and he acquainted her with the Italian artist Eugenio Carmi, who created the first visual transformation of her vocal glossary.

The connection to pop art, however, is not restricted to the aesthetic approach; in form and content, Berberian and her Stripsody relate to pop art characteristics on several levels: (1) with her appearance, performances, and image, Berberian stylized herself as a pop icon; (2) with Stripsody, she took exactly the same path that Umberto Eco described in Apocalypse postponed, from avant-garde music through pop art to comic strips; (3) several components of Stripsody allude directly to typical popular themes that can also be found in the works of contemporaneous pop artists; and (4) the work directly quotes comics that enjoyed pop-icon status.

This according to “Musical pop art: Cathy Berberian’s Stripsody (1966)” by Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild, an essay included in Music and figurative arts in the twentieth century (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016, pp. 150–65).

Today is Berberian’s birthday! Above and below, performing Stripsody.

Comments Off on Cathy Berberian and pop art

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Humor, Performers

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | May 30, 2019 · 9:49 pm

Benny Goodman goes classical

 

Benny Goodman was only 28 years old when he reached the pinnacle of his career, bringing his big band to Carnegie Hall in January 1938.

Joseph Szigeti, who took an interest in jazz and admired Goodman’s playing for its expressiveness and technical proficiency, was present at that tremendously successful historic concert. That same year, he suggested the idea to Goodman to underwrite a commission for a short concert piece by Bela Bartók for clarinet, violin, and piano, with virtuoso candenzas in the vein of the violin rhapsodies.

Bartók completed the piece in September 1938, and Goodman returned to Carnegie Hall a year after his famous jazz concert with the premiere of two movements of Bartók’s work. The reviews of the sound recording of Contrasts, made during the composer’s visit to the United States in the spring of 1940, were unequivocal in their praise of Goodman’s performance.

This according to “Bartók: Kontrasztok, Benny Goodman és a szabad előadásmód” by Vera Lampert (Magyar zene: Zenetudományi folyóirat LIII/1 [február 2015] pp. 48–65).

Today would have been Goodman’s 110th birthday! Above and below, the 1940 session.

1 Comment

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Performers

Tagged as , , , , ,