Category Archives: New series

by | November 27, 2017 · 6:00 am

33 1/3 global

 

In August 2017 Bloomsbury launched 33 1/3 global, a series of short music-based books related to but independent from their series 33 1/3. The new series brings the focus to music throughout the world, starting with Supercell’s “Supercell” featuring Hatsune Miku by Keisuke Yamada, in the subseries 33 1/3 Japan.

The lead singer on Supercell’s eponymous first album is Hatsune Miku (初音ミク), a Vocaloid character created by Crypton Future Media with voice synthesizers. A virtual superstar, over 100,000 songs, uploaded mostly by fans, are attributed to her. By the time Supercell was released in March 2009, the group’s Vocaloid works were already well-known to fans.

This book explores the Vocaloid and DTM (desktop music) phenomena through the lenses of media and fan studies, looking closely at online social media platforms, the new technology for composing, avid fans of the Vocaloid character, and these fans’ performative practices. It provides a sense of how interactive new media and an empowered fan base combine to engage in the creation processes and enhance the circulation of DTM works.

Below, Hatsune Miku in action.

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Filed under New series, Popular music, Reception, World music

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by | October 29, 2017 · 6:00 am

Music and visual cultures

In 2017 Brepols launched the series Music and visual cultures with Late eighteenth-century music and visual culture, edited by Cliff Eisen and Alan Davison.

In this volume, nine prominent scholars employ a set of interdisciplinary methodological tools to come to a comprehensive understanding of the rich tapestry of eighteenth-century musical taste, performance, consumption, and aesthetics. While the link between visual material and musicological study lies at the heart of the research presented in this collection of essays, the importance of the textual element, as it denoted the process of thinking about music and the various ways in which that was symbolically and often literally visualized in writing and print culture, is also closely examined.

This series will include monographs and thematic collections on issues concerning music iconography and interactions between music and visual arts. The series editor is Zdravko Blažeković.

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Filed under Classic era, Iconography, New series

by | October 7, 2017 · 6:00 am

Opera theoriae artis

In 2016 Prešovská Univerzita launched the series Opera theoriae artis with Súčasné hudobnoestetické myslenie na Slovensku v kontexte metodologických problémov estetiky a muzikológie, edited by Slávka Kopčáková.

Slovak music is a living river of new problems for theoretical thinking and the search for methodological innovations whose divergent solutions enrich the quality of the reception of musical art in the time of globalization and changing listening habits. This volume is an essential contribution to the field of musical aesthetics, applying historical and contemporary theoretical music-aesthetic concepts to the study of Slovak music in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The second volume of the series, 25 rokov študijného odboru estetika v Prešove, edited by  Slávka Kopčáková and Lukáš Makky, presents the history and current activities of the aesthetics program at the Prešovská Univerzita in both Slovak and broader European contexts.

Below, a work by Ladislav Kupkovič, one of the composers discussed in the book.

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

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by | September 9, 2017 · 6:00 am

Metodi e trattati

In 2016 Società Editrice di Musicologia launched the series Metodi e trattati with a new critical edition of Francesco Pollini’s Metodo per pianoforte.

Pollini was the preeminent figure among Italian pianists of the early nineteenth century. A student of Mozart, he enjoyed considerable fame not only as a pianist and composer but also—and above all—as a teacher.

In 1811 the Conservatorio di Milano commissioned Pollini to write a piano method, the first of its kind to be published in Italy. Printed as Metodo pel clavicembalo in 1812 and reprinted in 1834, the treatise covers several aspects of pianistic technique and performance practice.

This new critical edition, provided with a parallel English translation, presents the text and its 400 examples and exercises based on the most complete edition of 1834. The introduction retraces the work’s complex publishing history, discusses in detail the typology of the instrument, and examines several technical and performance practice issues addressed in Pollini’s text, including articulation, touch, rhythmic flexibility, improvisation, ornamentation, and pedaling.

Below, Costantino Mastroprimiano performs one of Pollini’s works on the fortepiano.

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Filed under Classic era, New editions, New series

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by | August 12, 2017 · 6:00 am

Geistliche Musik im Stift Wilhering/Sacred music in Wilhering Abbey

In 2016 Wagner Verlag launched the series Geistliche Musik im Stift Wilhering/Sacred music in Wilhering Abbey in collaboration with Stift Wilhering and its organist and music archivist Stefan Ikarus Kaiser.

The series presents editions of works closely related to Wilhering. As a rule, these will be unpublished works from the rich historical archive of the monastery itself, as well as works that were either written specifically for the monastery or whose composers have a close relationship with Wilhering.

The inaugural volume is an edition of a large orchestral work from the Biedermeier era. Its composer, Mathias Pernsteiner (inset), served as an organist at Wilhering in 1822 and 1823. This Mass, the so-called Missa posta in musica, was dedicated to Bruno Detterle, who was Wilhering’s Abbot at the time; it has not been previously published or performed. The work is an outstanding testimony to the Austrian church music of the period.

Below, a look at the monastery’s church, which has been called “the most outstanding Rococo ecclesiastical space in Austria”.

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Filed under New editions, New series, Romantic era

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by | July 24, 2017 · 6:00 am

Schriftenreihe des Archivs der Zeitgenossen

In 2016 Studien-Verlag launched the series Schriftenreihe des Archivs der Zeitgenossen with Mechanismen der Macht: Friedrich Cerha und sein musikdramatisches Werk.

Founded in 2009, the Archiv der Zeitgenossen (archive of contemporaries) is a collection of artists’ estates donated both during their lifetimes and posthumously. Established by the state of Lower Austria, it is housed at the Donau-Universität Krems, which curates it.

The inaugural volume of the series draws on the archive’s Friedrich Cerha collection, which documents Cerha’s life, primarily as composer and conductor, but also as musician, musicologist, scholar of German literature, teacher, private person, and public figure. The archival holdings provide scholars with a unique source for studying Cerha’s musical work, and also contain a wealth of materials on questions regarding cultural politics, reception history, media studies, and musicology.

Below, excerpts from Cerha’s Onkel Präsident, one of the works discussed in the book.

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

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by | June 28, 2017 · 6:00 am

Medieval interventions: New light on traditional thinking

In 2016 Peter Lang launched the series Medieval interventions: New light on traditional thinking with The power and value of music: Its effect and ethos in classical authors and contemporary music theory by Andreas Kramarz.

The series publishes innovative studies on medieval culture broadly conceived—works espousing, for example, new research protocols, especially those involving digitized resources; revisionist approaches to codicology and paleography; reflections on medieval ideologies; fresh pedagogical practices; digital humanities; advances in gender studies; and fresh thinking on animal, environmental, geospatial, and nature studies. In short, the series will seek to set rather than follow agendas in the study of medieval culture.

Since medieval intellectual and artistic practices were naturally interdisciplinary, the series welcomes studies from across the humanities and social sciences. Recognizing also the vigor that marks the field worldwide, the series endeavors to publish work in translation from non-Anglophone medievalists.

Below, Dr. Kramarz engagingly introduces himself and his subject matter.

BONUS: In an example of Apollonian aesthetics cited in the book, Tamino controls the elements with his magic flute in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.

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by | June 17, 2017 · 6:00 am

Cherubini studies

In 2016 Studio-Verlag launched the series Cherubini studies (ISSN 2509-6117) with Luigi Cherubini: Vielzitiert, bewundert, unbekannt, edited by Helen Geyer and Michael Pauser.

The book presents papers from the Internationale Cherubini-Kongress Weimar 2010. Topics include aesthetic questions such as Cherubini’s relationship to the Italian musica-antica tradition, the possibilities and limitations of a musical aestheticization of natural catastrophes, and the reception of Cherubini in the contemporary press.

Below, the finale of Cherubini’s Requiem in C minor, one of the works discussed in the collection.

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by | April 19, 2017 · 6:00 am

19th-century variations for piano

Issued in 2017 by Greenway Music Press, 19th-century variations for piano features nine theme-and-variation sets composed in the early through mid-nineteenth century by Jan Ladislav Dussek, Otto Dresel, and American composers of the early nineteenth century. The variations are based on a variety of popular songs and dances of the period, as well as on original themes. This is both a new edition and a new series!

Below, Dussek’s variations on “Vive Henri-quatre”, one of the sets included in the collection.

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Filed under New editions, New series, Romantic era

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by | December 8, 2016 · 6:00 am

Disney music legacy libraries

snow-white-score

In 2015 Hal Leonard launched the series Disney music legacy libraries with Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the seven dwarfs”, a bound, glossy facsimile of the master score for the 1937 animated film Snow White and the seven dwarfs.

This 200-page MS guided the construction of the film’s final mix of music, dialogue, and sound effects—in effect, it represents the entire soundtrack of the world’s first full-length animated feature film.

Unlike many film studios, Disney has always saved its written and recorded music assets. Over almost 90 years, dating back to the earliest Mickey Mouse shorts and Silly symphonies, millions of pages of music have been preserved, most recently in climate-controlled conditions. Over a million of these documents have now been digitized, streamlining the time needed to find one from two weeks to three minutes.

Above, a two-page spread from the book (click to enlarge); below, Disney recalls making the film. More about the book series is here.

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Filed under Film music, New editions, New series

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