by | May 24, 2014 · 1:00 am

The Leonard Bernstein Collection

bernstein tanglewood august 1946

The Leonard Bernstein Collection is a free online resource comprising selections from The Library of Congress’s holdings related to the composer and conductor.

The collection’s more than 400,000 items—including music and literary manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, audio and video recordings, fan mail, and other types of materials—extensively document Bernstein’s extraordinary life and career, making available 85 photographs, 177 scripts from the Young People’s Concerts, 74 scripts from the Thursday Evening Previews, and over 1,100 pieces of correspondence, all browseable or accessible through the collection’s Finding Aid.

Above, Bernstein at the piano at a party at Tanglewood in August 1946 (photographer unknown); below, the opening of the first televised Young People’s Concert.

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by | May 22, 2014 · 1:00 am

Sun Ra’s utopianism

 

Sun Ra’s music and poetry can claim to create otherwise impossible utopian worlds; this contrasts with the European Romantic tradition in which compositions or poems seek to describe utopian worlds that remain unattainable.

Music and words in Sun Ra’s view of the arts—a view based on African aesthetics—both have a magical function: they do not portray impossibilities but strive to make them a reality.

This according to “Pictures of infinity: Sun Ras klangliche Umrahmungen der Grenzenlosigkeit” by Christian Zürner, an essay included in “Was du nicht hören kannst, Musik”: Zum Verhältnis von Musik und Philosophie im 20. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1999, pp. 205–238).

Today is Sun Ra’s 100th birthday! Below, the Arkestra in 1976.

 

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by | May 19, 2014 · 1:00 am

Patuas’ paintings repurposed

bengali scroll painting

In West Bengali tradition, a person known as a patua travels around the countryside to entertain with sung narratives illustrated with painted scrolls. The patua’s audiences are usually poor and illiterate, lacking access to televisions and films as well as to written entertainments.

Increasingly, however, patuas are finding that their scrolls are viewed as valuable folk art, and that their storytelling skills are in demand among the urban intellectual elite as a means of selling these illustrations, which thereby take on a new, passive function.

This according to “From oral tradition to folk art: Reevaluating Bengali scroll paintings” by Beatrix Hauser (Asian ethnology LXI/1 [2002] pp. 105–122). Below, a patua demonstrates her art.

BONUS: A more modern example of the patua’s skills used to raise ecological awareness, with English subtitles.

Related article: Bhāgavata purāṇa as performance

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by | May 17, 2014 · 1:00 am

Publications of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology

music-ritual

In 2013 Ēkhō Verlag launched the series Publications of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology (ISSN 2198-039X) with Music & ritual: Bridging material & living cultures, edited by Raquel Jiménez Pasalodos and Rupert Till.

The volumes in this series are anthologies of peer-reviewed articles focused on a specific topic. Reflecting the broad scope of music-archaeological research worldwide, they draw in perspectives from a range of disciplines, including newly emerging fields such as archaeoacoustics, but particularly encouraging both music-archaeological and ethnomusicological perspectives.

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by | May 14, 2014 · 1:00 am

RILM to publish MGG Online

 

MGG

In 2014 Bärenreiter and J. B. Metzler, the publishers of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG), entered a long-term partnership with RILM. MGG Online will include the content of the 1994–2008 print edition of MGG as well as future updates, revisions, and additions.

Regular updates will guarantee that MGG remains musicology’s foremost reference work. All entries from this widely consulted and cited encyclopedia will be accessible to users through the new online database beginning in 2017.

Bärenreiter and J. B. Metzler will remain responsible for MGG’s content and will ensure that MGG Online continues to offer up-to-date and authoritative articles. RILM will bring its expertise to bear on the design of the online database and the creation of a user-friendly platform that will be fully equipped with the most advanced search and browse capabilities.

With its broad international experience, RILM will also be responsible for the worldwide marketing of MGG Online. Subscription details for libraries and other users will be issued soon.

More information is here (English) and here (German).

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by | May 10, 2014 · 1:00 am

My homeland Tennessee

tennessee

Perhaps more than any other state, Tennessee is associated with music. The state, its cities, natural features, and historical events have been the subject of thousands of popular songs written and performed in almost every style. The idea of Tennessee is so popular that it has inspired great songwriting and performances not only by native Tennesseans but by people from all over the world.

My homeland Tennessee: A research guide to songs about Tennessee preserves and presents historic documents and recordings that illuminate Tennessee as represented in blues, ragtime, rock’n’roll, rap, folk, country, jazz, rhythm and blues, and other styles. This open-access resource also includes a special section on the several official state songs of Tennessee.

Below, Tennessee’s own Dolly Parton.

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by | May 7, 2014 · 1:00 am

The Bonzo Dog Band

 

In the 1960s many rock bands were funny some of the time; only a few made humor about as much of the act as music was.

In the U.S., only two such bands did so with consistent brilliance: the Mothers of Invention and the Fugs. The international, and kinder and gentler, branch of that triangle of major rock comics was represented by England’s Bonzo Dog Band.

The Bonzos had only one big hit in the U.K. with I’m the urban spaceman, and some Beatles-glamor-by-association due to a cameo appearance in the Magical mystery tour film. In the U.S. they remained a cult band.

Sometimes compared to the Mothers of Invention, particularly in their zany stage shows and their facility for parodying multiple pop genres, the Bonzos lacked the savage cynicism that powered Frank Zappa’s brand of wit. As compensation, they offered a more whimsical, surreal take on the absurd that was in some ways more sonically versatile, encompassing not just rock but also prewar music hall, jazz, and spoken word.

This according to “The Bonzo Dog Band” by Richie Unterberger, an essay included in Urban spacemen and wayfaring strangers: Overlooked innovators and eccentric visionaries of ’60s rock (San Francisco: Miller Freeman, 2000, pp. 109–121).

Below, the Bonzos perform Death cab for cutie, the song that the American alt-rock band took for its name; the performance starts around 0:50.

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by | May 5, 2014 · 1:00 am

Music Monday

music monday

Music Monday is an annual event sponsored by Canada’s Coalition for Music Education; each year it unites hundreds of thousands of young people through their schools and communities from coast to coast through a simultaneous musical event on the first Monday of May.

Singing and playing the official Music Monday song brings attention to the importance of music as part of a well-rounded education. I.S.S. (Is somebody singing), the official song for Music Monday 2013, was commissioned by the Coalition and CBC Music and written by the astronaut  Col. Chris Hadfield—the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station—and singer/songwriter Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies.

On Monday 6 May 2013 Hadfield performed the song from the International Space Station while Robertson, the Barenaked Ladies, and the Wexford Gleeks (the choir of the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts), performed from Earth.

This according to “Building a voice that cannot be ignored!” by Holly Nimmons (Canadian music educator/Musicien éducateur au Canada LIV/3 [spring 2013] pp. 20–23).

Today is Music Monday’s 10th anniversary! Below, Hadfield, the Ladies, and the Gleeks perform I.S.S. for Music Monday 2013.

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by | May 1, 2014 · 1:00 am

Knutsford Royal May Day

SONY DSC

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Knutsford Royal May Day!

On this day in 1864 all of the children in the parish schools marched in procession with flowers and wreaths, along with the Cheshire Rifle Volunteers Band and a cart carrying the May Queen and her ladies-in-waiting. Then, as now, the procession ended on the Heath in the center of town, where the Queen was crowned.

Today the tradition is augmented with several dances, both as part of the procession and as displays before and after the crowning; morris, hornpipe, and sword dances are among the perennial favorites. Maypole dances round out the proceedings.

This according to “Royal May Day!” by Derek Schofield (English dance and song LXXVI/1 [spring 2014] pp. 32–35). Below, selections from the 145th celebration.

BONUS UPDATE: The 2017 celebration.

Related articles:

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by | April 29, 2014 · 1:00 am

Prace doktorskie

2012 na orkiestrę

In 2013 Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Lipińskiego in Wrocław launched the series Prace doktorskie, which will publish doctoral dissertations completed at the Akademia.

The first number in the series is Katarzyna Dziewiątkowska-Mleczko’s dissertation 2012 na orkiestrę: Wybrane zagadnienia warsztatu kompozytorskiego w perspektywie idei pozamuzycznych (2012 na orkiestrę: Selected issues in compositional skills from the perspective of extramusical ideas), analyzing the author’s composition 2012 na orkiestrę (2012 for orchestra).

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