Category Archives: Curiosities

by | April 12, 2013 · 1:00 am

Caballé, Mercury, and Barcelona

 

After Queen’s 1985 tour of Spain, the group’s frontman Freddie Mercury amazed his fans by declaring on Spanish television that the Spaniard he most longed to meet was Montserrat Caballé. Mercury hoped to collaborate with the legendary diva, and in March 1987 he finally arranged a meeting in the Garden Room of the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona with a grand piano, state-of-the art recording and playback equipment, and a sumptuous buffet.

She later described the scene: “We spent the whole time listening to music, eating, and improvising…Barcelona as such did not exist at that time—it was only a musical sketch of just a few bars that Freddie sang. But I liked it and he promised to develop it for me to celebrate the Olympic success.” (Barcelona had just been selected for the 1992 Summer Olympics.)

Mercury worked quickly on the song, and Caballé’s recital in London later that month dovetailed with a recording session at his home. Working until 6:00 in the morning, they produced what effectively became Barcelona’s unofficial Olympic anthem.

This according to Montserrat Caballé: “Casta diva” by Stephen Taylor and Robert Pullen (London: Gollancz, 1995, pp. 302–05).

Caballé is 80 years old today! Below, a memorable performance of Barcelona.

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by | April 8, 2013 · 1:00 am

Stravinsky’s persona

 

Stravinsky has been widely characterized as enigmatic, a composer whose stylistic transformations were impossible to anticipate. He cultivated this image, not in a disingenuous way, but because his eccentricity was central to his self-definition.

More than any composer of 20th-century art music, Stravinsky was able to make the leap from a rarefied intellectual world to the status of a pop icon, widely respected by people who largely did not understand his music. He needed to be public, accepted, and popular, and a surprisingly large proportion of his archival documents reflects his efforts toward these goals.

Television producers in Europe and North America found in Stravinsky the ideal nonconformist film icon: droll, quirky, conversational, contentious, and pedestaled as the epitome of the rebellious hero. He was drawn to them as well, as a natural performer who needed and commanded the spotlight.

This according to “Truths and illusions: Rethinking what we know” and “Film documentaries: The composer on and off camera” by Charles M. Joseph, two essays included in Stravinsky inside out (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 1–34 and 162–195, respectively).

Below, the composer works the camera with some of his favorite things to say about Le sacre du printemps.

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by | April 1, 2013 · 1:00 am

Rahmaninov and Tolstoj

rach-tolstoy

In January 1900 Rahmaninov and the bass Fëdor Ivanovič Šalâpin were invited to perform for a gathering at Tolstoj’s home; they were both 26 years old. Their excitement was tempered with no little trepidation about meeting the revered author, but they could not have foreseen what transpired.

Šalâpin recalled that after the performance Tolstoj accosted him and asked “What kind of music is most necessary to men—scholarly or folk music?”

Rahmaninov’s own experience was no less harrowing, as he later described it:

“Suddenly the enthusiastic applause was hushed and everyone went silent. Tolstoj sat in an armchair a little apart from the others, looking gloomy and cross. For the next hour I evaded him entirely, but suddenly he came up to me and declared excitedly: ‘I must speak to you. I must tell you how I dislike it all!’

“And he went on and on: ‘Beethoven is nonsense, Puškin and Lermontov also.’ It was awful….

“After a while Tolstoj came up to me again: ‘Please excuse me. I am an old man. I did not mean to hurt you.’ I replied: ‘How could I be hurt on my own account if I was not hurt on Beethoven’s?’”

This according to Sergei Rachmaninoff: A lifetime in music by Sergei Bertensson, Jay Leyda, and Sof’â Aleksandrovna Satina (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001 [reprint] pp. 88–89; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2001-23752).

Today is Rahmaninov’s 150th birthday! Below, Šalâpin sings one of his romances.

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by | March 29, 2013 · 1:00 am

Ballet and sauvagerie

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A semiotics of sex roles in French society was played out in 18th- and 19th-century ballet by projecting it onto imaginary Native American societies.

In the 18th century, sauvage culture became a canvas for the projection of utopian sentiment with subtle social texturing, allowing the expression of fantasies of less restrictive sexual roles; in the 19th century, sauvagerie became grotesque and increasingly unrefined, shifting the emphasis from cultural to racial difference and affirming the status quo.

This according to “Sauvages, sex roles, and semiotics: Representations of Native Americans in the French ballet, 1736–1837” by Joellen A. Meglen (Dance chronicle XXIII/2 [2000] pp. 87–132; XXIII/3 [2000] pp. 275–320).

Above and below, Rameau’s Les Indes galantes (1735).

Related article: Rameau’s American dancers

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by | March 15, 2013 · 1:00 am

19th-century acoustical research

manometric capsule

The 19th century was a golden age for the invention of acoustical research instruments—tools for measuring audible frequencies or the speed of sound, or for making sound visible.

Advancements in instrument making and voice physiology paralleled advancements in sound recording, reproduction, and transmission. Apparatuses developed during that time included tuning forks, sirens, sonorous pipes, singing and sensitive flames, manometric capsules, and resonators.

This according to “1800–1900: Un secolo di strumenti per lo studio dell’acustica/1800–1900: A century of instruments for the study of acoustics” by Paolo Brenni, an essay included in L’acustica e suoi strumenti: La collezione dell’Istituto Tecnico Toscano/Acoustics and its instruments: The collection of the Istituto Tecnico Toscano (Firenze: Giunti, 2001, pp. 57–72).

Above, a manometric capsule; below, Professor Henry Higgins demonstrates a sensitive flame, using a rotating mirror for isolating the flame’s oscillations.

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by | February 17, 2013 · 1:00 am

Corelli in the wilderness

Arcangelo_Corelli

On 26 April 1706, in a solemn ceremony in Rome, Arcangelo Corelli was accepted as a member of the Accademia dell’Arcadia; as customary, he assumed a shepherd’s name: Arcomelo.

Forty years later, the Swiss Jesuit Martin Schmid copied several of Corelli’s works into his draft-book of music for the Indian community in Bolivia that he was fostering and overseeing—a community that was sometimes known as New Arcadia.

In Bolivia, Corelli’s Arcadian music was subjected to a radical metamorphosis by those who understood Indian performers and audiences. His works were thereby consigned to a museum of cultural symbols as objects of a revered past.

This according to “Arcadia meets Utopia: Corelli in the South American wildnerness” by Leonardo J. Waisman, an essay included in Arcangelo Corelli: Fra mito e realtà storica–Nuove prospettive d’indagine musicologica e interdisciplinare nel 350° anniversario dalla nascita (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 2007, pp. 651–85).

Today is Corelli’s 360th birthday! Below, the original version of one of the works that was subjected to a Bolivian metamorphosis.

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by | February 15, 2013 · 1:00 am

Music and delinquency

frankie-lymon-im-not-a-juvenile-delinquent

A four-year longitudinal study (n = 309) explored whether early adolescents’ preferences for nonmainstream types of popular music indicate concurrent and later minor delinquency.

The results showed that early fans of types of rock (e.g., rock, heavy metal, gothic, punk), African American music (rhythm and blues, hip-hop), and electronic dance music (trance, techno, hardhouse) showed elevated minor delinquency concurrently and longitudinally. Preferring conventional pop or highbrow music (classical music, jazz), in contrast, was not related to or was negatively related to minor delinquency.

Early music preferences emerged as more powerful indicators of later delinquency than early delinquency, indicating that music choice is a strong marker of later problem behavior.

This according to “Early adolescent music preferences and minor delinquency” by Tom F.M. ter Bogt, Loes Keijsers, and Wim H.J. Meeus (Pediatrics CXXXII/2, pp. e382–e389). Many thanks to the Improbable Research blog for bringing this article to our attention!

Below, Jerry Lee Lewis introduces an earlier study.

BONUS: The Frankie Lymon classic pictured above.

Related article: Sexual attraction by genre

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by | January 30, 2013 · 1:00 am

Negativland and U2

U2_Negativland

Negativland is a group of sound artists who mix fragments and samples of sounds from the mass media to produce a parodic critique of contemporary culture.

The group’s 1991 single U2 combined samples from and a vocalized parody of the band U2’s I still haven’t found what I’m looking for with studio outtakes of Casey Kasem verbally abusing his staff on the American Top 40 radio program. Soon after the single was released it was pulled from stores and Negativland was sued by Island Records, Warner-Chappell Music (U2’s label and music publishing company, respectively) and by their own label, SST.

Over time a community arose that provided a loose distribution system for the recording, along with a medium for producing and disseminating an oppositional discourse to the dominant legal and economic system that had stopped its legitimate release.

This according to “Negativland, out-law judgments, and the politics of cyberspace” by John Sloop and Andrew Herman, an essay included in Mapping the beat: Popular music and contemporary theory (Malden: Blackwell, 1998).

Below, the recording in question. Warning: Negativland is not shy about using profanity.

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by | January 28, 2013 · 1:00 am

17th-century Persian music

Kaempfer

“Fifteen musicians sat in a crosswise position on both sides, and thus in a broken row divided into two groups; these in turn sounded together a strange tune with reed-instruments, cymbals and various stringed instruments; drums struck with a light finger, and less often the human voice, joined in with them.

Perhaps you expect my opinion about this ensemble? A noise rather than an ensemble, it was unencumbered by any rules of harmony, but nevertheless not confused nor disagreeable; in truth if I except the singer’s voice, it was pleasant enough, and subordinated to the extent that it did not disturb the conversations or the proceedings in the assembly, but rather with a certain strangeness in its varied but low-level sound caressed the ears and spirits of the seated company with its sweetness.”

So wrote Engelbert Kaempfer in Amoenitates Exoticae (1712), which documented his observations in Persia in the late 17th century. Excerpts from the book are translated in Time, place and music: An anthology of ethnomusicological observation c. 1550 to c. 1800 by Frank Harrison (Amsterdam: Fritz Knuf, 1973).

Above, a plate from the original publication; below, a modern-day performance of Persian court music.

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by | January 18, 2013 · 1:00 am

Connect 4™ music

Connect 4

MIDI-Connect4 is a program that composes music from the unfolding of a board game, Hasbro’s Connect 4™.

The system uses evolutionary computation to evolve from scratch a neural network that plays the Connect 4 game. Music is produced when a user plays the game against the system. The system generates music by associating the moves of each player with musical forms (see above).

The program was inspired by a musical event called Reunion, which was conceived by John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and Teeny Duchamp in 1968, in which sounds were spatially distributed around a concert audience as a chess game unfolded.

This according to “Composition as game strategy: Making music by playing board games against evolved artificial neural networks” by Eduardo Reck Miranda and Qijun Zhang, an article included in Proceedings of the 31st International Computer Music Conference (San Francisco: International Computer Music Association, 2005).

Below, the game’s intrinsic acoustical properties.

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