by | January 11, 2013 · 1:00 am

Psalate synetos

new series

In 2012 the Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Lipińskiego in Wrocław launched the series Psalate synetos with Wybrane zagadnienia akompaniamentu liturgicznego (Selected problems of liturgical accompaniment, ISBN 978-83-86543-69-2), edited by Marta Kierska-Witczak. The series is dedicated to church music and is addressed to organ students and others who wish to widen their scope of knowledge and practical skills.

The first volume combines contemporary church music theory and practice. Its 16 essays are divided into two groups: Chorał gregoriański źródłem odniesień dla nowożytnej muzyki liturgicznej (Gregorian chant as a source of reference for modern liturgical music) and Historyczny, estetyczny oraz praktyczny wymiar akompaniamentu liturgicznego i liturgicznej improwizacji organowej (Historical, aesthetic, and practical aspects of liturgical accompaniment and liturgical organ improvisation). The table of contents is  here.

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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 | January 4, 2013 · 4:43 pm

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 51,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 12 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

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by | January 2, 2013 · 1:00 am

John Cage, visual artist

Cage painting

Best known as an experimental composer and performer, John Cage (1912–92) was also a visual artist who created an extensive body of prints, drawings, and watercolors during the last 20 years of his life.

In all of his work, regardless of medium, Cage consistently dismissed conventional aesthetics by limiting or eliminating the artist’s choice in the creative process. In composing his watercolors, he relied on his signature method of chance operations, guided by a system of random numbers derived from the Yijing.

The sight of silence: John Cage’s complete watercolors by Ray Kass (Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, 2011) reproduces all of the 125 signed watercolors that Cage created during four week-long sessions at the Mountain Lake Workshop, Virginia, between 1983 and 1990.

The included critical essay and accompanying workshop diaries relate the methods at play in Cage’s visual art to those of his musical compositions and theater pieces. The accompanying DVD offers a live view of Cage at work, featuring a public reading with audience discussion, as well as an interview with him about his watercolor paintings.

Below, Cage’s collaboration with the visual artist Marcel Duchamp for Hans Richter’s Dreams that money can buy.

Related articles:

 

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by | December 31, 2012 · 1:00 am

Exotic dance and civil liberties

exotic dance

Exotic dance is a theatrical art form that communicates within its own aesthetic. It is a multisensory nonverbal performance in which audience members may become active communicators.

But eroticism unleashes passions that defy the dictates of social conservatives, who have stoked public outrage and incited local and state governments to impose onerous restrictions on clubs with the intent of dismantling the exotic dance industry.

While the fight happens at the local level, it is part of a national campaign to regulate sexuality and punish those who do not adhere to conservative values. Ultimately, the separation of church and state is under siege and U.S. civil liberties—free speech, women’s rights, and free enterprise—are at stake.

This according to Naked truth: Strip clubs, democracy, and a Christian Right by Judith Lynne Hanna (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012). Below, exotic dancers in Las Vegas talk about their lives and work.

Related article: Subversive belly dancing

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by | December 28, 2012 · 1:00 am

Dead studies

Dead Studies

Launched in 2011 by the Grateful Dead Archive at the University of California Santa Cruz Library, Dead studies builds on momentum that has been growing among Grateful Dead researchers for some 15 years.

The annual Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conferences have seen the rise of a group that has come to be known as the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus; one of them, the historian and archivist Nicholas Meriwether, founded an irregularly published journal called Dead letters to disseminate their work.

Now, thanks to two anonymous donors and a dedicated Editorial Board, the Grateful Dead Archive has become the publisher of a continuation of Meriwether’s work, retaining him as Editor. The new journal aims to be “the definitive organ of Grateful Dead scholarship, as well as an important community resource.”

Below, the band in 1969.

Related article: Dead fiction

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by | December 26, 2012 · 1:00 am

The woodwind hotel

Gîte d'Ivry

“For our first breakfast on the sunny forecourt our host…brought us croissants, brioches, and six metal clarinets!”

So begins “Surrounded by woodwind in Normandy” by John Playfair (Clarinet & saxophone XXXV/1 [Spring 2010] pp. 36–37). The article describes a visit to Gîte d’Ivry (above), a bed and breakfast that now occupies part of the former Eugène Thibouville woodwind factory in Ivry-la-Bataille. Some 1200 of the maker’s instruments are on display, and many are available to be played by guests.

Below, Phillipe Perlot performs on a Thibouville flageolet.

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by | December 24, 2012 · 1:00 am

The twelve days of Christmas

While the popular carol The twelve days of Christmas is well known for its unusual cumulative structure, few carollers know that the lyrics’ original meaning involves an elaborate symbolic code.

The encoding of political messages in songs was frequent in Protestant England: examples include Rock-a-bye, baby, on the demise of King Henry VIII, and Ring around a rosy, on the plague of 1665. From at least the 1600s, Catholics in England disseminated their faith and politics in similarly encrypted form in catechism songs such as Green grow the rushes, O, and Go where I send thee.

Though first published only in 1909, The twelve days of Christmas is such a catechism song, and likely originated much earlier. The “true love” of the song is God, who bestows cumulative gifts. Each of the twelve gifts represents a particular image of Catholic faith. The ever-repeating “partridge in a pear tree” is Jesus: In English folklore the partridge feigns injury to lure predators from its young, and is thus willing to sacrifice itself to save those for whom it is responsible.

This according to “The twelve days of Christmas” by Hugh D. McKellar (The hymn: A journal of congregational song XLV/4 [October 1994] pp. 30–32). Below, a performance by the University of Washington Choral Program (with a little help from their friends).

More posts about Christmas are here.

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by | December 19, 2012 · 1:00 am

Radio for cows

cows at sunset

The cowboy practice of “singing the cattle down”—the night herder’s soft crooning to quiet the cows for sleep—received a new twist in 1926.

A fan letter sent to WGES in Chicago by Tom Blevins, a Utah cowman, reported that he had set up a portable radio on the range and was treating the cows to urban dance music in the evening.

“It sure is a big saving on the voice” Blevins wrote. “The herd don’t seem to tell the difference. Don’t put on any speeches, though. That’ll stampede ’em sure as shootin’.”

This according to “’Sing down the cattle’ by radio” (Popular radio October 1926, p. 615), which is reprinted in Music, sound, and technology in America: A documentary history of early phonograph, cinema, and radio (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012) p. 279.

Below, evidence suggesting that cows continue to enjoy that era’s dance music.

Related articles:

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