Ted Shawn was the first choreographer to introduce carefully researched interpretations of Native American dance to audiences in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Beginning in the 1910s, when prominent dance critics were utterly dismissive of Native American dance, Shawn formed a high opinion of it—a view that was confirmed when he witnessed a complete Hopi ceremony in 1924.
This according to “The American Indian imagery of Ted Shawn” by Jane Sherman (Dance chronicle XII/3 [1989] pp. 366–382). Below, archival footage of some of Shawn’s work.
The designation of blues as “devil’s music”—a notion that has been largely unquestioned since the publication of Paul Oliver’s Blues fell this morning (1960)—imposes Christianity’s dualistic views on the holistic cosmology of an African-derived culture.
The supposed atheism of blues is simply a polemical means of opposing oppression, a stance that does not contradict blues’s fundamentally religious nature. White blues scholars have misrepresented blues by reducing its meaning to the language of ethnomusicology, a theoretical methodology that is not indigenous to the culture of blues; theomusicology, an indigenous approach, offers a deeper understanding of the people who created blues.
This according to “Blues and evil: Theomusicology and Afrocentricity” by Jon Michael Spencer, an essay included in Saints and sinners: Religion, blues and (d)evil in African-American music and literature (Liège: Société Liégeoise de Musicologie, 1996 pp. 37–51).
Alternately stiff and pliable, the ballerina demonstrates that which is desired, while her partner embodies the forces that pursue, guide, and manipulate the desired object.
An understanding of the ballerina-as-phallus may allow her to reconfigure her power, so that she can sustain her charisma even as she begins to determine her own fate; it may also reclaim for ballet a sensual and even sexual potency.
This according to “The ballerina’s phallic pointe” by Susan Leigh Foster, an essay included in Corporealities: Dancing knowledge, culture, and power (London: Routledge, 1996 pp. 1–24). You can see her inimitable performance of the paper here.
As a child, Bream first learned to play the guitar along with his father from “an extraordinary little book, and that was great fun.”
When he was around 11 Boris Perrot, the president of the Philharmonic Society of Guitarists, heard him and, duly impressed, offered to teach him. The boy was honored, but soon found that he disliked the outmoded technique that Perrot insisted on.
Bream stopped the lessons and never took another one; instead, “I watched how Segovia did it and made up my technique as I went along.”
“Actually, I think I must have been quite a little horror because I was very instinctive about things. I only did what I wanted to do. I didn’t care a damn what other people wanted me to do.”
This according to “Julian Bream at 60: An interview” by Gareth Walters (Guitar review 96 [winter 1994] pp. 2–15).
Today is Julian Bream’s 80th birthday! Above, the guitarist in 1947; below, his arrangement of Danza del molinero from Manuel de Falla’s El sombrero de tres picos.
Bibliolore now has 100 followers! Many thanks to all who have helped the RILM blog to get the word out on timely and interesting publications about music. Kool & the Gang have something to say about that:
In 2012 Verlag Lafite, a division of Musikzeit, launched the series Webern-Studien with Wechselnde Erscheinung: Sechs Perspektiven auf Anton Weberns sechste Bagatelle, edited by Simon Obert.
The series will serve as a supplement to Musikzeit’s edition of the composer’s complete works, providing relevant correspondence, journal entries, and so on, in addition to detailed analyses of the works themselves.
Below, the Tesla Quartet performs all six of Webern’s bagatelles.
In the late 19th century the new Japanese government chose European models for economic and political systems; it also chose European music as its official standard.
European musicians were brought to Japan, and in 1879 Franz Eckert (above) arrived in response to Japan’s request to the German navy for a kapellmeister. As a conductor for the Japanese navy and teacher at military and civilian music schools, he was among the most influential European musicians in Japan in the 1800s.
Eckert is widely considered the composer of Japan’s national anthem, Kimi ga yo, though he maintained that he merely arranged an old Japanese melody.
This according to “German military musicians in Japan during the early Meiji Era (since 1868)” by Wolfgang Suppan and Wilhelm Baethge (Journal of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles III [1996] pp. 13-32). Below, Kimi ga yo as it was sung by Koyanagi Yuki and the audience when Japan played Trinidad and Tobago in 2006.
The first generation of Danish rock musicians started out as fans of international stars, learning the songs by listening to the records. The lyrics they sang often were nonsense, as they had been written down from the recordings by teenagers with only limited English skills. The sound of the words and the language was more important than the semantic meaning of the lyrics.
This practice was highlighted in the mid-1970s, when two bands, Shu-bi-dua and Bamses Venner, released debut albums that contained Danish versions of rock classics and contemporary international hits. Both bands employed phonetic translations, translating the sound of the words instead of the meaning. A well-known example is Shu-bi-dua’s Kylling med soft ice og pølser (Chicken with soft ice cream and sausages), which is the title of a Danish version of Roberta Flack’s Killing me softly with his song.
Kylling og softice og pølser/Chicken with soft ice cream and sausages
Det er min favourite menu/That’s my favorite menu
Mon der noget bedre/Surely there’s nothing better
End pølsegrillens røg/Than grilled sausage smoke
Og så en herlig hot-dogs med brutale løg/And then heavenly hotdogs with raw onions
To tykke og en kage/Two fat ones and a cake
Og godt med begge dele/And good both ways
Kylling og softice og pølser/Chicken with soft ice cream and sausages
Det er min favourite menu/That’s my favorite menu …
This according to “Kylling med soft ice og pølser”: Populærmusikalske versioneringspraksisser i forbindelse med danske versioner af udenlandske sange i perioden 1945–2007 by Henrik Smith-Sivertsen, a dissertation accepted by Københavns Universitet, Institut for Kunst- og Kulturvidenskab in 2007.
BONUS: In 1972 Adriano Celentano’s Prisencolinensinainciusol (below) poked a stick in the ribs of Italian singers who pretended to speak and understand English. Celentano’s song consisted of nonsense lyrics that in many cases sound remarkably close to North American English speech.
Bach’s life was shaken by several confrontations and traumatic events that had important repercussions on his personal and professional development.
One of the first documented conflicts with authority occurred when he was just nine years old, following the loss of both of Bach’s parents, when his brother Johann Christoph confiscated a manuscript that Sebastian had copied behind his back. When this event is conceptualized in terms of recent research on coping with trauma and trauma recovery, it reveals Bach’s sense of vulnerability to authorities and the establishment of a lifelong approach to resolving conflict.
Patterns of action throughout Bach’s early career reveal efforts towards autonomy and independence through outward resolutions of conflicts with authority. When he was in Leipzig the authorities’ lack of enthusiasm for music made him consider departing from this prestigious position. His previous conflicts with authorities resulted in just such a departure; however, his decision to stay in Leipzig reflects a different mode of conflict resolution, one that involves inward reflection rather than assertive confrontation.
This according to “From Ohrdruf to Mühlhausen: A subversive reading of Bach’s relationship to authority” by Sara Botwinick (BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute XXXV/2 [2004] pp. 1–59).
Above, Bach as he may have appeared in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig; below, the beautifully reflective Ich habe genug, BWV 82, from February 1727, four years into his Leipzig tenure.
Two televised performances galvanized the young Yngwie Malmsteen: one by Jimi Hendrix when Malmsteen was 8, and, when he was 13, one by a violinist playing works by Paganini.
Malmsteen has openly embraced the premises of classical music more than any rock musician before him. With his fetishization of instrumental technique and his move toward absolute music he adopted classical music’s style and vocabulary, models of virtuosic rhetoric, and modes of practice, pedagogy, and analysis; he also adopted the social values that underpin these activities.
This according to Running with the devil: Power, gender, and madness in heavy metal music by Robert Walser (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1993, pp. 94–98).
Today is Malmsteen’s 50th birthday! Below, the birthday boy holds forth.
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 →
