Category Archives: Reception

by | March 23, 2015 · 6:00 am

Music for abusers

Istedgade

For some decades the back entrance of the Hovedbanegård (Central Station) in København served as a shelter and meeting place for alcoholics, drug abusers, and drug dealers, because this part of the station faces Istedgade Kvarteret (Isted Street Quarter, above), a part of the city that accommodates prostitution and pornography shops and cinemas. When narcotics entered the milieu of prostitution, this part of the city also became the home of junkies and drug dealers.

After a major restoration of the station in the 1990s the management wanted to get rid of the abusers in the back entrance. So did many travelers. And as the police did not succeed, they adopted a concept that had proved its efficiency at the central station in Hamburg. By playing music from the Romantic period through a loudspeaker, they stressed the abusers so much that, after a few days of persistence, they left the entrance hall.

Most of the junkies and alcoholics are not familiar with nor attracted to classical Romanticism, and popular music has been a vital part of their lifestyle. Therefore they feel uncomfortable when smoking, fixing, or dealing accompanied by strange classical music. For the travelers, however, Romantic-era music is a preferred genre compared to, for example, medieval music, atonal music, bebop, or modern jazz, and they are not bothered by it during the half minute it takes to pass through the entrance.

This according to “Musik for misbrugere” by Olav Harsløf (Antropologi LIV [2006–2007] pp. 87–98). Below, an excerpt from Berlioz’s opium-themed Symphonie fantastique, a Romantic-era work suitable for the station’s loudspeaker.

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by | February 16, 2015 · 6:00 am

Accidental hooks

prado cherry pink

Popular records often include accidents, indicating something about the flexibility of musical practices and the limits of theories. Musical hooks provide useful test-cases because they are normally considered the least accidental part of a song.

One imagines the hook emerging fully formed in a moment of inspiration—the catchy phrase that comes into a songwriter’s head—or at least of calculation: But hooks sometimes incorporate accidents or happen accidentally. If hooks are less than completely determinate, then every aspect of a popular record must be subject to contingency.

This according to “Accidents, hooks, and theory” by Charles Kronengold (Popular music XXIV/3 [October 2005] pp. 381–397).

Above and below, Pérez Prado’s Cherry pink and apple blossom white, one of the examples cited in the article. The intended hook was the prominent trumpet lip slurs; the accidental hook, which made the record a number one U.S. hit in 1955, was Prado’s occasional interpolated vocalizations.

Related post: Pérez Prado and mambo

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by | December 14, 2014 · 6:00 am

Rosalyn Tureck and Bach

tureck

When Rosalyn Tureck was first studying piano, Bach’s keyboard music was widely considered to be primarily didactic—good for training in pianistic skills, but too dry for the concert hall. Tureck, however, was fascinated with this repertoire, and started making a point of memorizing a prelude and fugue pair every week.

At the age of 16 she moved to New York City to study at Julliard, and immediately declared her interest in specializing in Bach. Her teachers there were encouraging, but others were not: at the Naumberg Competition, for example, she made it to the finals but the jury declined to give her the award because they were convinced that nobody could make a career out of playing Bach.

Tureck persevered, keeping her repertoire centered on Bach while continuing to pursue her interest in new music. In the 1950s she began to focus more exclusively on Bach, and in 1957 she moved to London, having found that European audiences were more eager for Bach programs than U.S. ones.

This according to “Rosalyn Tureck, pianist specializing in Bach, dies at 88” by Allan Kozinn (The New York times CLII/52,549 [19 July 2003] p. A:11).

Today is Tureck’s 100th birthday! Below, the prelude and fugue in A minor, BWV 895, in 1962.

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by | May 29, 2014 · 1:00 am

ABBA’s film renaissance

 

ABBA’s music has often been denigrated as bland, mass market pop. However, viewed from the point of view of reception, the ABBA phenomenon is a highly complex text that offers contemporary music consumers diverse, even perverse, pleasures.

Between them, Stephan Elliott’s The adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) and P.J. Hogan’s Muriel’s wedding (1994) suggest a broad spectrum of ABBA consumers, from the sincere and sentimental to the hip, camp, and kitsch, using this spectrum to map a series of interfaces between culture, identity, the performance of gender, and place.

This according to “Music and camp: Popular music performance in Priscilla and Muriel’s wedding” by Catherine Lumby, an essay included in Screen scores: Studies in contemporary Australian film music (North Ryde: Australian Film, Television, and Radio School, 1999, pp. 78–88).

Below, ABBA’s Waterloo in Muriel’s wedding.

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by | April 5, 2014 · 1:00 am

Spohr and German opera

 

Spohr

In 1823 Louis Spohr’s article “Aufruf an deutsche Komponisten” appeared in Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. He wrote it to encourage young German composers to contribute to the genre of German opera, but he may have had other intentions as well.

Spohr was determined to promote his latest opera, Jessonda, which he mentioned as a model for his ideas of German opera—but a closer look at that work reveals that Spohr did not think along nationalist lines. In a way its dramaturgy depicts Kant’s definition of Enlightenment and aims at a united and enlightened mankind; so did the composer in his personal life.

Indeed, Spohr’s liberal and enlightened ideas are so prominent in his operas that they became increasingly neglected in the 1870s, when chauvinistic tendencies became more widespread. This development culminated in the 1940s, when the Nazis banned Jessonda from the German stage. As Spohr’s original resisted attempts to align it with the Nazi idea of German opera, the Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen commissioned an amended version; the end of World War II curtailed this effort.

This according to “Zwischen nationalem Anspruch und lokalpolitischen Zwangen: Entstehungs- und Rezeptionsbedingungen der Kasseler Opern Louis Spohrs” by Wolfram Boder (Studia musicologica LII/1–4 [March 2011] pp. 311–321).

Today is Spohr’s 230th birthday! Above, the composer’s self-portrait; below, some excerpts from Jessonda.

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by | January 9, 2013 · 1:00 am

Albéniz and Shaw

albeniz-shaw

While there is no evidence that Isaac Albéniz and George Bernard Shaw ever met, the latter attended and reviewed some of the former’s London recitals.

The outspoken Shaw pointed out what he perceived as the composer and pianist’s limitations—dismissing, for example, his renditions of Mozart’s works as “monotonously pretty”—but he had some approving  words as well.

Arriving at an 1891 recital at one minute before three, Shaw was “intending to have the usual twenty minutes or so over the evening paper before business began. To my amazement Albéniz appeared at the stroke of three as if he had been sent up on the platform by electric wire from Greenwich…I shall henceforth regard Albéniz not only as one of the pleasantest, most musical, and most original of pianists, but as a man of superior character.”

This according to “Albéniz and Shaw” by Colin Cooper (Classical guitar XXV/1 [September 2006] pp. 30–31). Below, a recital for Alfonso XII from Louis César Amidori’s Albéniz (1947).

Related article: Franck and Rodin

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by | January 7, 2013 · 1:00 am

Cardinal O’Connell and crooning

W.C.O'Connell

In an address delivered on 10  January 1932 William Cardinal O’Connell described crooners as “whiners and bleaters defiling the air.”

“No true American would practice this base art,” he continued. “I like to use my radio, when weary. But I cannot turn the dials without getting these whiners, crying vapid words to impossible tunes.”

“If you will listen closely when you are unfortunate enough to get one of these you will discern the basest appeal to sex emotions in the young. They are not true love songs—they profane the name. They are ribald and revolting to true men.”

This according to “Cardinal denounces crooners as whiners defiling the air” (New York times 11 January 1932, p. 21), which is reprinted in Music, sound, and technology in America: A documentary history of early phonograph, cinema, and radio (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012) pp. 319–20.

Below, Rudy Valée defiles the air in Florenz Ziegfeld’s Glorifying the American girl).

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by | November 12, 2012 · 1:00 am

Gramophone ethics

With outward horror, but with secret envy, let us contemplate a man who is wealthy, unambitious, and unencumbered. After breakfast he lights a cigar, sinks into an armchair, and rings for the butler to set the gramophone going.

While one’s imagination may boggle at the thought, let us free ourselves from such trammels of convention that would confine the gramophone to the first half hour of after-dinner plethora. There is music to be had for all times and seasons.

Further, a convincing argument cannot be made against listening to the gramophone alone: If one may read a book without company, how can enjoying music in solitude be indecent?

This according to “Times and seasons” by Orlo Williams (Gramophone June 1923, pp. 38–39), an article reprinted in Music, sound, and technology in America: A documentary history of early phonograph, cinema, and radio (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012). Below, a gramophone record issued a few months after the article appeared.

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by | October 1, 2012 · 1:00 am

Dylan and devotion

 

Small talk at the wall, a Yahoo! Group honoring Bob Dylan, has established a weekly hoot night—a chat room where Dylan’s songs are performed by its members.

These hoot nights can be read into a foreground of medieval representational devotion, due to the structure that consists of canonical texts with which the audience can identify itself. The hoot nights become an example of the transformation of medieval rituals into art.

This according to “Music practices around Bob Dylan, medieval rituals, and modernity” by Nils Holger Petersen, an essay included in The cultural heritage of medieval rituals: Genre and ritual (Transfiguration: Nordisk tidsskrift for kunst og kristendom V/1–2 [2003] pp. 321–330). Below, “Weird Al” Yankovic demonstrates his devotion to Dylan.

Related article: The Caffè Lena Collection

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by | August 27, 2012 · 1:00 am

Operatic degeneracy II

 

La verità mascherata (Milan, 1681), an anonymous and apparently fictional account of a libertine’s reform, includes a description of an elaborate opera performance on the occasion of a royal wedding.

The account suggests that 17th-century Italian audiences were neither silent nor attentive during overtures and instrumental interludes; that the danced intermezzi were barely considered part of the opera at all (Italians apparently regarded stage dancing as comical and grotesque at that time); and that drunkenness and lasciviousness were freely depicted on the stage. The story ends with the hero renouncing opera and retiring to a monastery.

This according to “A Jesuit at the opera in 1680” by Edward Joseph Dent, an essay included in Riemann-Festschrift: Gesammelte Studien–Hugo Riemann zum sechzigsten Geburtstage überreicht von Freunden und Schülern (Leipzig: Hesse, 1909, pp. 381–393); the book is covered in RILM’s Liber amicorum: Festschriften for music scholars and nonmusicians, 1840–1966 (2009, 100 years after the article was published).

Below, an excerpt from a 1996 performance of La Calisto, a 1651 opera by Francesco Cavalli that could have helped to form the impression of Italian comic opera depicted in La verità mascherata.

Related article: Operatic degeneracy I

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