In Paul Dukas’s L’apprenti sorcier, the figure of the magically animated broom becomes an agent of the uncanny, matching definitions subsequently outlined by Freud in his 1919 essay Das Unheimliche.
New attention to musical details, the composer’s unpublished notes, and the structure of Goethe’s poem Der Zauberlehrling suggests that Dukas’s work stands as a peculiar kind of fiction that points to the uncanny nature of narrative itself and the impossibility of mastery.
This according to “Silence, echo: A response to What the sorcerer said” by Carlo Caballero (19th-century music XXVIII/2 [fall 2004] pp. 160–182).
Today is Dukas’s 150th birthday! Below, the work in question.
In 2014 Taarnborg inaugurated the series Hjerterne opad with Mod lyset: Rued Langgaard, musikken og symbolismen by Esben Tange.
The book discusses how The Danish composer Rued Langgaard was very much fascinated by light, which runs as an important theme in his life and production. It is especially expressed in his symphony no. 1 (Klippepastoraler). In the symphony no. 10 (Hin torden-bolig) and symphony no. 12 (Helsingeborg), light is linked to its contrast–darkness–and in his last symphony, no. 16 (Syndflod af Sol), Langgaard makes the divine light shine through the music.
Below, a performance of Langgaard’s 16th symphony.
In 2007 the ACDA and the Library began a collaborative effort to create a website devoted to choral music that would present music in the public domain, available for users to download. The site serves to highlight the collections of sheet music in the Library of Congress and to advance and promote the performance of choral music.
The 76 works presented are limited to a period beginning shortly after the Civil War and ending in 1922. The music selected reflects the diversity of choral music in the collections written during the later 19th- and early 20th centuries and includes accompanied, a cappella, sacred, and secular works for mixed choirs, women’s and men’s ensembles, and children’s choruses.
Below, Amy Beach’s Through the house give glimmering light, one of the works included on the site.
From 1 November 1879 to 31 December 1883 the teen-aged Carl Nielsen was employed as a bugler and trombonist in Odense, with the 16th battalion and the 5th regiment, respectively.
In the long run his modest position in the military could not satisfy him, so he traveled to København to continue his musical training at the conservatory. However, in many ways his time as a military bandsman in Odense was a particularly good basis upon which to build his future.
This according to “Spillemand Carl August Nielsen” by Ida-Marie Vorre (Fynske Minder 2008, pp. 49–63).
Today is Nielsen’s 150th birthday! Above, a photograph from ca. 1880; below, Helios, op. 17, a work in which the orchestra’s brass section figures prominently.
Gabriel Fauré’s apparently irresistible appeal to women led to the kind of extramarital liaisons that were far from uncommon in the Third Republic; Alfredo Casella, one of his pupils, described the composer as having “the large, languid, and sensual eyes of an impenitent Casanova.”
Fauré’s friends and associates were not insensitive to the delicate situations that this predilection incurred; for example, some the composer’s most talented students at the Paris Conservatoire were rumored to be his illegitimate children.
This according to Gabriel Fauré by Jessican Duchen (London: Phaidon, 2000, p. 63).
Today is Fauré’s 170th birthday! Above, Fauré and Gustave Bret with the pianist Marguerite Hasselmans, the composer’s mistress for the last 24 years of his life; below, Fauré’s Fantasie, op. 111, which Hasselmans premiered in 1919.
Currently 730 signatures are available, most with philological commentary. In addition, around 7,000 high-quality color illustrations of sources in Austrian archives are presented.
Comparisons of different versions of the same work are easily facilitated. A compilation of important episodes from the composer’s life and a literature database complete the current phase of the project.
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.
The roles and realizations of childhood in Ravel’s music were inextricably linked with the language, traditions, and idioms of the literary fairytale—an idea that he himself supported when he wrote that his intention in his fairytale-based Ma mère l’Oye was to evoke “the poetry of childhood”.
Ravel deliberately aligned his music with the traditions of the fairytale through the creation and expressive manipulation of musical and dramatic structure, language, gesture, and perspective. One may trace the voice and presence of the storyteller in Ma mère l’Oye, a work dedicated to two children for whom Ravel was a favorite companion and teller of fairytales.
This according to The language of enchantment: Childhood and fairytale in the music of Maurice Ravel by Emily Alison Kilpatrick, a dissertation accepted by Elder Conservatorium of Music at The University of Adelaide in 2008.
There are specific musical gestures with which listeners can identify in camp ways, or use to explain the presence of camp. Even if these are not inherently camp, they may invite a camp interpretation of the text by a performer or a camp reading by a listener.
This according to “Notes on musical camp” by Freya Jarman-Ivens, an essay included in The Ashgate research companion to popular musicology (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009) pp. 189–203.
Thanks to Improbable Research for bringing this article to our attention! Above, Ms. Minnelli in action; below, Liberace in 1969.
The Bizet catalogue is a searchable online list of Georges Bizet’s works, providing essential information about the history and content of each one.
This open-access website gives information on manuscript and printed sources and provides documentary materials relating to the composition, performance, and publication of each work. It is intended to provide a full historical documentation of Bizet’s work as composer and transcriber.
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