The Belgian band Front 242 was formed in 1981 by programmers Patrick Codenys and Dirk Bergen. The lineup expanded a year later with the addition of Daniel Bressanutti (Daniel B. Prothese) and vocalist Jean-Luc De Meyer. Drawing initial inspiration from Kraftwerk and Throbbing Gristle, their music is known for its hard-hitting rhythms and pure electronic sounds, making it instantly danceable. This innovative approach led to the creation of a new musical genre: electronic body music (EBM). Front 242’s groundbreaking albums have significantly influenced a host of subsequent bands.
In 1982, Front 242 released their debut single and album, Geography. By 1984, with the release of the EP No Comment, the band’s sound took a harder edge, setting them apart from the burgeoning synthpop scene and establishing their distinctive sonic landscapes. By 1987, Front 242 had gained a record contract in the U.S. through Chicago’s Wax Trax! Records, which featured a diverse roster of mostly European aggressive synthesizer acts later lumped together under the term “industrial rock”. The U.S. market, at this point, appeared ready for Front 242’s brand of innovative electronic music. The following year, they released their third LP, Front by Front.
The band quickly attracted the attention of major labels and signed with Sony/Epic Records. Their single Tragedy for you received immediate promotion on MTV, but some fans of their earlier work did not take to their new major label sound. By 1991, Front 242, along with Ministry and Skinny Puppy, became key figures in a global industrial music movement. During this period, they released two albums that marked a significant departure from their earlier style, leading to a split with some longtime fans. In 1995, Jean-Luc De Meyer left the band to focus on his solo project, Cobalt 60, but Front 242 reunited the following year and embarked on a world tour. In describing advice he would give to other electronic musicians, Patrick Codenys says,
“Use your human abilities and your senses; think about what you want to achieve and construct before you are taken by the technology. Electronic music can be very mental, even conceptual. Each album needs a philosophy. Research how to program because it is also a big part of how you will use the creative tools like synths and production to serve your artistic ideas.”
This according to Das Gothic- und Dark Wave-Lexikon: Das Lexikon der schwarzen Szene (2003). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
Now in their fourth decade of existence, Front 242 are on their final tour performing in Mexico, the United States, and Europe beginning in March 2024 and ending in their hometown of Brussels, Belgium in January 2025. Below is their video for Tragedy for you, a song that some say signaled the end of the 1980s EBM era.
The musician and union educator Joe Glazer, known as “labor’s troubadour”, made significant contributions to work and union songs through his composition, performance, study, and recording from the 1940s to the 2000s. Although not as widely recognized outside labor circles as Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger, Glazer played a crucial role in documenting and providing a soundtrack for many of the 20th century U.S. labor movement’s struggles. Glazer, who referred to himself “an agitator for all good causes”, recorded more than 30 albums, wrote a book about labor music, and recruited a new generation of protest singers.
Born in Manhattan on 19 June 1918, Glazer was the son of a tailor in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Growing up in the Bronx, he admired crooners like Gene Autry, and often played along with them at home on his guitar. He later joined the textile workers as an assistant education director and capitalized on his boss’s suggestion to use the guitar as a tool to inspire and rally workers. During his travels, Glazer encountered an early version of the song We shall overcome at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, which he later recorded with the Elm City Four in 1950. The version he first heard had been adapted from Black tobacco union workers who first sang it on a picket line in 1946.
In 1950, Glazer wrote Too old to work, a protest song inspired by the United Auto Workers’ campaign for occupational pensions. Just four days after Chrysler workers in Michigan adopted the song, the manufacturer capitulated to the union’s demands. The song quickly became a powerful tool for organizers, educators, politicians, and musicians, cementing its place as one of the most influential pension songs in the U.S. labor movement.
This according to “Too old to work: Joe Glazer, labour music, and occupational pensions” by Simon H. Buck, (Comparative American studies 18/3 [2021] 281–301; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-10611).
Listen to Solidarity forever and The give away boys by Joe Glazer below.
On March 1, 1954, the U.S. military detonated Castle Bravo, its most powerful nuclear bomb, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Marshallese residents were evacuated to a nearby atoll two days later without their consent. For the next 75 years, Marshallese music has responded to the profound impacts of U.S. nuclear militarism on their homeland. This music reflects their religious, cultural, and political struggles to make visible the devastating consequences of nuclear violence. Marshallese singing in particular has become a powerful means of addressing the literal silencing of their voices, affected by radiation, as well as the broader suppression of information about the human radiation study.
U.S. Navy building new homes for Marshall Islands residents on Rongerik in 1946.
Composed during and after the nuclear testing era, Marshallese radiation songs offer insight into the processes of imperial ruination, rupture, and fragmentation by reflecting the pervasive impact of radioactive decay. Radiation songs reveal how radiation can be made sensible, illuminating the ways in which the U.S. nuclear project can be considered in terms of imperial ruination. U.S. geopolitical strategies have relied on systematically displacing the Marshallese from their indigenous agency, which is deeply rooted in their matrilineal culture. The performances of women from the Rongelapese community embody the presence of radiation, both in the lyrical content and the affective resonance of their music. These performances trace vocalized moments of decay, conveying how the physical and emotional aftermath of nuclear devastation is embodied and shared within their community.
This according to Radiation sounds: Marshallese music and nuclear silences by Jessica A. Schwartz (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2021-4549) and “Listening to radioactive rubble: Vocal decay, gender, and nuclear ruination in the Marshall Islands” by Jessica A. Schwartz (Twentieth-century music 19/2 [2022] 200–208; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-3395).
August 29 is the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The image at the beginning of the post is of the Baker explosion, a nuclear explosion test conducted by the U.S. at the Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands in 1946.
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Throughout her life, ethnomusicologist Helen Myers dedicated herself to exploring the connections between local East Indian music genres in Trinidad and their counterparts in northern India. Her research produced invaluable documentation of traditional songs and shed light on the rich musical heritage of these communities. In the 1970s, Myers focused on the music of elderly women of Indian descent in Felicity, central Trinidad, leaving a lasting impact on the descendants of those she interviewed. Her commitment to the Indo-Trinidadian community endured over the decades, culminating in a notable tour of India in 2005 with local chutney singers. Her work continues to be fondly remembered by those she engaged with and the broader community she studied. Myers once described herself on social media as a “Democrat, grandmother of 6 and mother of 3 sons, author of 5 books, and lover of reading. 7 cats.”
Helen Myers, the renowned American ethnomusicologist, passed away at the age of 78 on 24 June 2024.
– written and compiled by Mu Qian, Editor, RILM
As a tribute to Myers, a selection of her research from RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is presented below.
Myers, Helen, ed. Ethnomusicology. I: An introduction (United Kingdom: Macmillan, 1992). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1992-38948]
Abstract: This guide to ethnomusicology provides a comprehensive overview of the discipline, encompassing its history, scope, theory, and methodology. The guide is structured in two parts: one focusing on developments before World War II and the other on advancements since the war. It includes up-to-date reports and covers key areas such as ethnography, transcription, musical style analysis, and organology. Helen Myers contributed significantly to this work, authoring three chapters on ethnomusicology, fieldwork, and field technology. Other contributors include John Blacking, Bruno Nettl, Anthony Seeger, Mark Slobin, and Stephen Blum.
Myers, Helen, ed. Ethnomusicology. II: Historical and regional studies (United Kingdom: Macmillan, 1993). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1992-38948]
Abstract: This sister volume to the previous guide focuses on historical and regional studies within ethnomusicology. It features an introduction and includes seven chapters written by Helen Myers, covering a diverse range of topics, including British American music, Native American music, African American music, Latin American music, British American folk music, European American and Asian American music, and music of the West Indies. The volume provides an in-depth exploration of musical traditions and influences across these regions, representing an expanded field of ethnomusicological research. Other contributors include Max Peter Baumann, Theodore Levin, and David W. Hughes.
Myers, Helen. Music of Hindu Trinidad: Songs from the India diaspora (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1998-51243]
Abstract: In the early 19th century, Indian residents who were sent into slavery or indentured servitude in the West Indies brought their native songs with them to the sugar plantations of Trinidad. Through these songs and dances, they managed to preserve their Hindu culture and socioreligious identity. Today, these traditional songs continue to be performed at festivals and weddings, even though many of the participants no longer understand the literal meanings of the lyrics. The ongoing transformation of these songs becomes evident when researchers try to locate the original versions in India, where they sometimes no longer exist.
Myers, Helen and Umesh Chandra Pandey. Storytime in India: Wedding songs, Victorian tales, and the ethnographic experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-32038]
Abstract: This exploration into the narratives that emerge from ethnographic fieldwork focuses on how the authors’ research into Bhojpuri wedding songs intertweaves with their personal stories, collaborative work, and shared experience of reading Anthony Trollope’s The Eustace diamonds. As the narrative weaves through these interconnected stories, readers gain insight into the Bhojpuri wedding tradition through songs performed by Gangajali, along with access to the original song recordings and their translations. Interspersed with these musical explorations, Pandey reads and interprets The Eustace Diamonds, engaging with themes of colonialism and its pervasive influence on India and ethnographic research. The study combines everyday experiences with the highs and lows of fieldwork, blending the stylistic features of Victorian novels with the narrative structure of traditional Indian village tales, where stories unfold within stories. It challenges how ethnography is presented and what we learn in the field. Ultimately, the authors argue that scholarly writing is itself a form of storytelling and art, like the traditions it seeks to document.
Myers, Helen. “Indian, East Indian, and West Indian music in Felicity, Trinidad”, Ethnomusicology and modern music history, ed. by Stephen Blum, Philip Bohlman, and Daniel M. Neuman (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1991) 231–241. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1991-3053]
Abstract: The East Indian community in Felicity, Trinidad, has actively sought to reconnect with Indian musical traditions of their homeland, deliberately choosing to maintain their cultural heritage rather than borrowing from local styles. Their goal has been to revitalize Indian musical traditions in response to Western influences. The evolution of such musical practices in the community is traced from 1845 to 1991.
Myers, Helen. “The remembered rhythms of Trinidad: Bhojpuri chutney 2005 and its antecedents”, Remembered rhythms: Essays on diaspora and the music of India, ed. by Shubha Chaudhuri and Anthony Seeger (Kolkata: Seagull Books, 2010) 197–237. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2010-23417]
Abstract: Many Trinidadians of Indian descent maintain a nostalgic connection to their distant homeland. Chutney, a lively musical genre that originated in the West Indies with roots in South Asian culture, gained popularity in the 1980s by blending musical elements of various Trinidadian communities in innovative ways. Despite English being the primary language of the younger East Indian Trinidadians, chutney songs are predominantly performed in Hindi or Bhojpuri. The musical history of chutney in Trinidad highlights several key issues. Firstly, musical change was intentional and deliberate, with villagers actively discussing their musical choices. Secondly, different repertoires within a musical tradition evolve in distinct ways. In this context, the pace of change can be swift, especially with the emergence of new forms. Furthermore, terminology for describing music changed and became a topic of local debate. Some traditions, like certain wedding songs, did disappear entirely. Finally, living traditions are continually being reformed and reformulated.
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Chicago, the third largest in the United States, was not always the bustling metropolis it is today. It was originally a pristine prairie inhabited by Indigenous peoples, including the Potawatomi people, who referred to the area in their native language as Chigagou (or “wild garlic place”). The city’s modern history began in the 1780s when Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a trader of African descent, established a trading post along the Chicago River at the southern end of Lake Michigan.
A drawing of Chicago from 1868.
Located at the crossroads of major railroads, Great Lakes shipping routes, and more recently, air travel, Chicago’s unique musical heritage reflects its role as a central hub in the United States. The city, often seen as the unofficial capital of the Midwest, which is considered the nation’s heartland due to its agricultural and industrial history, has a rich and diverse musical landscape. While Chicago’s affluent communities have long supported a vibrant array of orchestral, choral, and operatic institutions, the city is perhaps best known for its pivotal role in the development of blues, jazz, and house music.
Sones de México Ensemble
Additionally, Chicago’s immigrant communities have contributed a variety of folk and traditional music genres, adding to the city’s rich and multifaceted musical identity. The diverse folk and traditional music genres of Chicago are significant for two main reasons: first, they reflect the vibrant cultural practices of the city’s many immigrant communities, and second, Chicago played a crucial role in formalizing and preserving these traditions. Throughout much of the 19th century, a substantial portion of the city’s population (between 40 and 50 percent) was foreign-born, predominantly from European countries. Many folk music performances and events by immigrants took place at the Hull House, a major settlement house on the near west side of Chicago, founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr.
Hull House (circa 1905)
Chicago also has long been home to residents of Asian and Latino descent, with the first Chinese immigrants arriving in the 1870s following the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The foundations of today’s Chinatown can be traced back to the 1910s. Additionally, a vibrant Mexican community has been present since the early 20th century. An example of this cultural exchange is found in Silvano Ramos and Daniel Ramirez’s 1929 recording of El corrido de Texas in Chicago, which narrates the story of a migrant worker leaving his girlfriend in Texas to seek employment in Chicago and Indiana. The city’s Asian and Latino populations saw significant growth after the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy in 1965, leading to a flourishing of musical activities rooted in various cultural traditions. The Chinese Fine Arts Society, established in 1984, plays a key role in promoting Chinese music and dance, while the Sones de México ensemble, founded in 1994, has emerged as a leading performer of Mexican music in the United States.
A young Chuck Berry performing in Chicago (April 1956).
Chicago’s greatest contribution to rock ‘n’ roll lies in the influence of Chicago blues on early rock musicians. Additionally, the city played a significant role in shaping the genre through its prominent record labels. In 1955, Chuck Berry, inspired by Muddy Waters, recorded his breakthrough hit Maybellene at Chess Records in Chicago. Bo Diddley, another product of the Chicago blues scene, made a substantial impact on rock music in the 1950s with his innovative sound. Vee-Jay Records, a notable Black-owned label, emerged as a major competitor to Chess Records, achieving success with a diverse array of R&B, doo wop, blues, jazz, and rock records.
Read the full featured article on Chicago and its rich musical history in MGG Online.
Below, Muddy Waters performs at the 1981 Chicago Fest.
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Bernward Halbscheffel’s Lexikon Progressive Rock: Musiker, Bands, Instrumente, Begriffe provides more than 500 articles that feature not only classics of prog rock such as Procol Harum, The Nice, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, and King Crimson, but also more recent groups like Dream Theater, Gazpacho, Glass Hammer, Porcupine Tree, Shining, Spock’s Beard, and Grand General. Representatives of progressive metal are also included, among them Opeth, Symphony X, and Epica. Although British and American prog mainstream is dominant, the lexicon also offers articles on obscure bands like Ozric Tentacles and The Legendary Pink Dots; progenitors of art rock like Roxy Music and 10cc; and the Canterbury scene with Delivery, Soft Machine, Henry Cow, and Caravan.
Halbscheffel features currents of retroprog, neoprog, and new artrock. The 2013 edition replaces some earlier articles on foundational musical terms with new articles that are specifically relevant for progressive rock, such as the entry on polyrhythmics. New articles focus on current bands like Nosound, Knight Area, and Flying Colors. Halbscheffel aptly summarizes this all-encompassing approach in the article Progressive rock, where he focuses on the history of the genre less as a stylistic history than as a history of a functionally oriented inventory of rock techniques and processes.
As pioneers of electropunk and techno, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF, which means German-American Friendship) are regarded as one of the more innovative bands in new German music. Their song lyrics were provocative and minimal, featuring unusual synthesizer sounds set to cool drum beats and rejecting common song structures. The duo was founded in Düsseldorf in 1978 by Robert Görl and the Spanish-born Gabi Delgado-Lopez. The two had met a year earlier through the local punk scene. Together with three other musicians, they released their first LP Ein produkt der DAF in 1979. The album featured the sound that DAF became known for: electronic minimalism, which led the group to be associated with contemporary acts like the U.K.’s Throbbing Gristle and New York City’s Suicide.
DAF’s music became even more rhythmic on their second album Die kleinen und die bösen (1980). This was followed by the provocative single Der Mussolini (probably DAF’s best-known work to date) featuring lyrics that emphasized confrontation and minimalist beats that reduced the stiff marching style and thundering speech of reviled fascist dictators to a novelty dancefloor craze. Visually, their homoerotic leather outfits fit in well with the early synthpop duos of the day (OMD, Soft Cell, Blancmange, Cabaret Voltaire, Wham!) even though they never belonged to that scene. Overall, DAF’s style proved to immensely popular and made them one of the five biggest-selling acts in Germany in 1981.
By 1982, the group was finished. DAF’s final album Für immer was released after they disbanded–although today both Delgado-Lopez and Görl claim they never formally disbanded. The reason for ending the group was musical, explained Gabi-Delgado in an interview, and in his estimation the minimalist concept for the band had run its course. In the mid-1980s, however, the electronic music scene came to be dominated by DAF epigones. Their influence outlived their existence and inspired entire electronic (sub)genres like Detroit techno, Chicago house, German techno, industrial, and electronic body music (EBM).
This according to Das ist DAF: Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft: Die autorisierte biografie by Miriam Spies and Rüdiger Esch (Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2017; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2017-46785). Also find the entry on Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft in Das Gothic- und Dark Wave-Lexikon: Das Lexikon der schwarzen Szene (2003) in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
The Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos is considered one of the foremost Latin American composers of the 20th century. He was deeply interested in Brazil’s folk music traditions and was instrumental in setting up the country’s music education system, emphasizing native songs. His interest in Brazilian folk music resulted from visiting with different communities and listening to their music during his travels to various regions of Brazil as a young cellist. While living in Rio de Janeiro, Villa-Lobos began playing guitar and performing with popular musicians around the city. His mother disapproved of the company he kept, and as a result, he left home to pursue an itinerant life traveling around Brazil while supporting himself by playing cello and guitar. He also continued to learn about the folk music of the areas he visited.
Villa-Lobos later distinguished himself as a conductor, bringing several modern works to the attention of his audiences and consistently composing. His output of over 2,000 works includes everything from chamber music to the larger forms. His lack of formal academic training, far from hampering his development, compelled him to create a truly distinct and original technique.
Villa-Lobos’s prolific output includes the Bachianas brasileiras suites, a group of pieces based on original melodies patterned after the folk songs and Brazilian Indigenous tribal chants treated in a Bach-like fashion on Latin American instruments. The aria is arranged in an AABA form, with the first and last sections performed by a soloist and the repeated first section by the wind instruments followed by the chant:
“Lo, at midnight clouds slowly pass by, rosy and lustrous,
O’er the spacious heaven with loveliness laden,
From the boundless deep the moon arises wondrous,
Glorifying the evening like a beautiful maiden.
Now she adorns herself in half unconscious duty,
Eager, anxious that we recognize her beauty,
While sky and earth, yes, all nature with applause salute her,
All the birds have ceased their sad and mournful complaining:
Now appears on the sea in a silver reflection, Moonlight softly waking
The soul and constraining hearts to cruel tears and bitter dejection.”
Read the entry on Heitor Villa-Lobos in Band music notes (1979). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
Below is a performance of Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras, no. 5 by the Spanish cellist Antonio Martín Acevedo and the Argentinian guitarist Marisa Gómez.
A bagpipe is an aerophone instrument with one or more sounding pipes, each with a single or double reed. The pipes are made to sound by air from a wind container in the form of a bag, which is pressurized by the arm of the player (usually the left one). The wind container is fed either directly from the player’s lungs via a blowpipe or indirectly via bellows. In many languages the bagpipe is simply referred to as a pipe, such as the northern Italian piva (pictured above), Celtic bagpipes such as pìob mhór (large pipe), or the Estonian torupill (reed pipe).
The origins of the bagpipe are mostly unclear. Some have claimed that the instrument originates in western Asia, referencing similar instruments in Nebuchadnezzar‘s orchestra in ancient Babylon or mentioned by Aristophanes in Lysistrata(instruments with a wasp-like sound). Others have suggested that bagpipes originate in the hornpipes of North Africa and the Middle East—for instance, the Arabian instrument mizmār al-girāb, which dates to the 11th century.
A torupill player from Estonia.
European bagpipes were alluded to in texts as early as the 9th century, but certainly by beginning of the 12th century in German manuscripts. The earliest bagpipes typically consisted of a bladder made from whole sheepskin (or goatskin) cut, shaped, and sewn together. Iconographic representations of bagpipes became more common from the 13th century onward, and bagpipes were played in both court and urban areas of England, Ireland, Wales, France, and Germany.
Bagpipe Appreciation Day is on July 27, celebrate it by reading the entry on bagpipes in MGG Online.
Below are videos featuring performances by an ensemble featuring the Estonian torupill bagpipe and the Celtic pìob mhór by Ali Turner.
Amidst a summer break flying by all too quickly, RILM presents another installment of its Instant Classics series—posts comprising annotated bibliographies of books, indexed in RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, that have received the most reviews in academic literature across a given time span. The content of these books exemplifies RILM’s commitment to disseminating publications that are truly international in scope, with coverage that embraces a diversity of languages, nations, subject matter, and approaches to music research. This 2022—23 list contains a little something for everyone, and we hope it will inspire some welcomed additions to your summer reading list.
As always, this collection should be approached with a critical eye. As reviews continue to be written, the order of the books included here will continuously be in flux and, over time, some could be replaced by others. Further, access to resources, familiarity with conventions of proposal writing that are attractive to publishers, and innumerable other factors vary considerably across music research communities around the world. Indeed, closing the gap in such disparities, particularly regarding publications coming from the Global South, is an essential component of RILM’s mission. Despite the inherent limitations, collecting these texts in this way is valuable, as it generates an archive of the topics, methodologies, and perspectives that earned the attention of music scholars, writers, and journalists during a brief period in time. We can appreciate these texts’ contributions to musical knowledge while simultaneously being aware of the powers held and challenges faced by the publishing firms and university presses that sell them. As we zoom out, patterns may emerge that provide insight into the topical trends that have contributed to music discourse in the early decades of the 21st century.
And finally, do keep in mind that RILM can only disseminate the writings on music to which it has access. You are invited to help make RILM Abstracts be as complete as it can be by visiting our submissions page, making sure records of your publications appear there, and adding abstracts and reviews to them as necessary. We thank you in advance and wish you a happy summer of reading!
P.S.: Sympathies to Arnold Schoenberg, the book on whom, either predictably, eerily, coincidentally, or uncannily, placed at number 13, the one number he avoided more than any other while he was alive.
– Written, compiled, and edited by Michael Lupo, Assistant Editor/Marketing & Media, RILM
________________________________
#13. Sachs, Harvey. Schoenberg: Why he matters (New York: Liveright, 2023). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-4761]
Abstract: In his time, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) was an international icon. His twelve-tone system was considered the future of music itself. Today, however, leading orchestras rarely play his works, and his name is met with apathy, if not antipathy. Within the context of this interpretative account, Schoenberg’s reputation is restored to his rightful place in the canon, revealing him as one of the 20th century’s most influential composers and teachers. Schoenberg, a thorny character who composed thorny works, raged against the “Procrustean bed” of tradition. Defying his critics—among them the Nazis, who described his music as “degenerate”—he constantly battled the antisemitism that eventually precipitated his flight from Europe to Los Angeles. Yet Schoenberg, synthesizing Wagnerian excess with Brahmsian restraint, created a shock wave that never quite subsided, and his compositions must be confronted by anyone interested in the past, present, or future of Western music.
#12. Broad, Leah. Quartet: How four women changed the musical world (London: Faber & Faber, 2023). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-1400]
Abstract: A group biography of four women composers who changed the modern musical landscape: Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), famous for her operas, was a trailblazing queer Victorian composer and a larger-than-life socialite, intrepid traveller, and committed Suffragette. Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979) was a talented violist and Pre-Raphaelite beauty, and one of the first women ever hired by a professional orchestra, later celebrated for her modernist experimentation. Dorothy Howell (1898–1982) was a prodigy who shot to fame at the 1919 Proms. She earned a reputation as the “English Strauss”, and after retiring she tended Elgar’s grave alone. Doreen Carwithen (1922–2003) was one of Britain’s first woman film composers, who scored Elizabeth II’s coronation film; her success hid a 20-year affair with her married composition tutor. In their time, these women were celebrities. They composed some of the century’s most popular music and pioneered creative careers; but today, they are ghostly presences, surviving only as muses and footnotes to male contemporaries like Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Britten.
#11. Proksch, Bryan. The golden age of American bands: A document history (1835–1935) (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-10133]
Abstract: The story of the American wind band, told chronologically by those who experienced it in real time from 1835 to 1935. The volume explores how bands became bands, how they rose in popularity, and which figures had insights and specific impacts on the development of the genre. Through source documents and articles, the volume surveys the ensemble’s history from the time of the first brass bands in the 1830s, through the Civil War and the golden ages of Patrick S. Gilmore and John Philip Sousa, to the cusp of the wind ensemble just before World War II. Musicians such as Frederick Fennell, Allessandro Liberati, Karl L. King, Patrick Conway, Fredrick Neil Innes, Jules Levy, Alan Dodworth, and Herbert L. Clarke are included. Numerous rare and unknown illustrations show the places where band history happened. Documents include rare periodical excerpts, handwritten letters, and other writings taken from archives throughout the United States.
#10. Bonnette-Bailey, Lakeyta Moninque and Adolphus G. Belk, Jr., eds. For the culture: Hip-hop and the fight for social justice. Music and social justice (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-4800]
Abstract: Documents and analyzes the ways in which hip hop music, artists, scholars, and activists have discussed, promoted, and supported social justice challenges worldwide. Drawing from diverse approaches and methods, the contributors in this volume demonstrate that rap music can positively influence political behavior and fight to change social injustices, and then zoom in on artists whose work has accomplished these ends. The volume explores topics including education and pedagogy; the Black Lives Matter movement; the politics of crime, punishment, and mass incarceration; electoral politics; gender and sexuality; and the global struggle for social justice. Ultimately, the book argues that hip hop is much more than a musical genre or cultural form: hip hop is a resistance mechanism.
#9. Vera Aguilera, Alejandro and David Andrés Fernández. Los cantorales de la Catedral de Lima: Estudio, reconstrucción, catálogo (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Musicología, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-1557]
Resumen: Los cantorales de la Catedral de Lima estudia, por primera vez, la colección de libros de coro de la Catedral Metropolitana de Lima, que está formada por cuarenta volúmenes manuscritos copiados en su mayor parte en el siglo XVII. En el estudio inicial, se aborda su historia, confección y escribas responsables. Seguidamente, se indaga sobre su forma de interpretación en la época colonial a través de la reconstrucción de un servicio litúrgico de suma importancia en su contexto. Finalmente, se ofrece un catálogo crítico de la colección que incluye sus contenidos íntegros en forma de índices analíticos y alfabéticos que facilitan su localización. En suma, este trabajo constituye un estudio integral sobre una colección de libros de canto llano conservada en Sudamérica. Además, representa una útil herramienta de investigación en la que se exhuman numerosos documentos históricos y se presentan transcripciones de repertorio tanto monódico como polifónico, razón por la que será de interés para musicólogos, historiadores e intérpretes, entre otros.
Abstract: Studies, for the first time, the collection of choir books of the Catedral Metropolitana de Lima, which consists of 40 manuscript volumes copied mostly in the 17th century. The history, physical features, and scribes who worked on the manuscripts are discussed. The way this collection was used in colonial times is examined through the reconstruction of a liturgical service from its context. An annotated catalogue of the collection is offered, which includes its complete contents in the form of analytical and alphabetical indexes that facilitate its location.
#8. Marissen, Michael. Bach against modernity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-3999]
Abstract: Many scholars and music lovers hold that Bach is a modern figure, as his music seems to speak directly to the aesthetic, spiritual, or emotional concerns of today’s listeners. But, by 18th-century standards, Bach and his music in fact reflected and forcefully promoted a premodern world and life view. A new look at Bach is presented that considers problems of inattentiveness to historical considerations in academic and popular writing about Bach’s relation to the present. Also put forward are interpretive reassessments of key individual works by Bach, examining problems in modern comprehension of the partly archaic German texts that Bach set to music. Lastly, Bach’s music is explored in relation to premodern versus enlightened attitudes toward Jews and Judaism, and the theological character of Bach’s secular instrumental music is examined. Overlooked or misunderstood evidence is provided of Bach’s private engagement with religious and social issues that he also addressed in his public vocal compositions. While we are free to make use of Bach and his music in whatever ways we find fitting, we ought also to guard against miscasting Bach in our own ideological image and proclaiming the authenticity of that image, and therefore its prestige value, in support of our own agendas.
#7. Goodman, Karen D., ed. Developing issues in world music therapy education and training: A plurality of views (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 2023). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-7332]
Abstract: Reflects on current or necessary changes in music therapy training that come about because of history, society, economy, generational shifts, and the workplace. The subject matter questions the nature of music therapy itself; examines challenges to education and training; suggests critical thinking (vs. repetition or repackaging of information) for students, educators, clinicians, researchers and supervisors in the field of music therapy; respects the past but looks to the future; and offers perspectives from others in the field through such vehicles as surveys, interviews, and reviews of literature.
#6. Mathew, Nicholas. The Haydn economy: Music, aesthetics, and commerce in the late eighteenth century. New material histories of music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-10831]
Abstract: Reimagines the world of Joseph Haydn and his contemporaries, with its catastrophic upheavals and thrilling sense of potential. Critical questions are addressed, such as how we tell the history of the European Enlightenment and Romanticism; the relation of late 18th-century culture to incipient capitalism and European colonialism; and how the modern market and modern aesthetic values were—and remain—inextricably entwined. The study weaves a vibrant material history of Haydn’s career, extending from the sphere of the ancient Esterházy court to his frenetic years as an entrepreneur plying between London and Vienna to his final decade as a venerable musical celebrity, during which he witnessed the transformation of his legacy by a new generation of students and acolytes, Beethoven foremost among them. Ultimately, Haydn’s historical trajectory compels us to ask what we might retain from the cultural and political practices of European modernity—whether we can extract and preserve its moral promise from its moral failures. And it demands that we confront the deep histories of capitalism that continue to shape our beliefs about music, sound, and material culture.
#5. Dylan, Bob. The philosophy of modern song (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-9712]
Abstract: Comprises over 60 essays written by the Pulitzer Prize winning songwriter, focusing on songs by other artists spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. Among many other subjects, the trap of easy rhymes is analyzed, breaking down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, while also explaining how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. Over 100 photos are included, as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem—characteristic of the author’s own work in the field of songwriting—adding to the work’s transcendence.
#4. Denk, Jeremy. Every good boy does fine: A love story, in music lessons (New York: Random House, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-954]
Abstract: Pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible journey. His life is already a little tough as a precocious, temperamental six-year-old piano prodigy in New Jersey, and then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico. There, Denk must please a new taskmaster, an embittered but devoted professor, while navigating junior high school. At 16 he escapes to college in Ohio, only to encounter a bewildering new cast of music teachers, both kind and cruel. After many humiliations and a few triumphs, he ultimately finds his way as a world-touring pianist, a MacArthur genius, and a frequent performer at Carnegie Hall. But under all this struggle is a love letter to the act of teaching. Denk dives deeply into the pieces and composers that have shaped him—Bach, Mozart, and Brahms, among others—and offers lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. How do melodies work? Why is harmony such a mystery to most people? Why are teachers so obsessed with the metronome? Denk shares the most meaningful lessons of his life, and tries to repay a debt to his teachers. He also reminds us that we must never stop asking questions about music and its purposes: consolation, an armor against disillusionment, pure pleasure, a diversion, a refuge, and a vehicle for empathy.
#3. Cypess, Rebecca. Women and musical salons in the Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-4905]
Abstract: A broad overview of musical salons between 1760 and 1800, placing the figure of the salonnière at its center. The author presents a series of in-depth case studies that meet the salonnière on her own terms. Women such as Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy in Paris, Marianne von Martínez in Vienna, Sara Levy in Berlin, Angelica Kauffman in Rome, and Elizabeth Graeme in Philadelphia come to life in multidimensional ways. Crucially, the author uses performance as a tool for research, and her interpretations draw on her experience with the instruments and performance practices used in 18th-century salons. The book explores women’s agency and authorship, reason and sentiment, and the roles of performing, collecting, listening, and conversing in the formation of 18th-century musical life.
#2. Vela González, Marta. La jota, aragonesa y cosmopolita: De San Petersburgo a Nueva York (Zaragoza: Pregunta, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-14921]
Resumen: En este libro, la pianista, escritora y docente Marta Vela nos lleva tras los pasos de renombrados compositores (Liszt, Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Satie?) que, a lo largo del siglo XIX, visitaron España, descubrieron la jota aragonesa y, fascinados, la integraron en sus obras, desde óperas hasta sinfonías, pasando por ballets y música de salón. Un libro lleno de curiosidades, erudición, anécdotas y hallazgos inéditos, narrado de forma amena y precisa.
Abstract: In this book, the pianist, writer, and teacher Marta Vela takes us in the footsteps of renowned composers (Liszt, Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Satie?) who, throughout the 19th century, visited Spain, discovered the Aragonese jota and, fascinated, integrated it into their works, from operas to symphonies, including ballets and salon music. A book full of curiosities, erudition, anecdotes, and unpublished discoveries, narrated in a pleasant and precise way.
#1. Simon, Andrew. Media of the masses: Cassette culture in modern Egypt. Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-3929]
Abstract: Investigates the social life of an everyday technology—the cassette tape—to offer a multisensory history of modern Egypt. Over the 1970s and 1980s, cassettes became a ubiquitous presence in Egyptian homes and stores. Audiocassette technology gave an opening to ordinary individuals, from singers to smugglers, to challenge state-controlled Egyptian media. Enabling an unprecedented number of people to participate in the creation of culture and circulation of content, cassette players and tapes soon informed broader cultural, political, and economic developments and defined modern Egyptian households. Drawing on a wide array of audio, visual, and textual sources that exist outside the Egyptian national archives, it provides a new entry point into understanding everyday life and culture. Cassettes and cassette players did not simply join other 20th century mass media, like records and radio; they were the media of the masses. Comprised of little more than magnetic reels in plastic cases, cassettes empowered cultural consumers to become cultural producers long before the advent of the Internet. Positioned at the productive crossroads of social history, cultural anthropology, and media and sound studies, it ultimately shows how the most ordinary things may yield the most surprising insights.
Comments Off on Instant Classics: RILM’s Top 13 Reviewed Texts, 2022–23
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 →
