by | February 17, 2013 · 1:00 am

Corelli in the wilderness

Arcangelo_Corelli

On 26 April 1706, in a solemn ceremony in Rome, Arcangelo Corelli was accepted as a member of the Accademia dell’Arcadia; as customary, he assumed a shepherd’s name: Arcomelo.

Forty years later, the Swiss Jesuit Martin Schmid copied several of Corelli’s works into his draft-book of music for the Indian community in Bolivia that he was fostering and overseeing—a community that was sometimes known as New Arcadia.

In Bolivia, Corelli’s Arcadian music was subjected to a radical metamorphosis by those who understood Indian performers and audiences. His works were thereby consigned to a museum of cultural symbols as objects of a revered past.

This according to “Arcadia meets Utopia: Corelli in the South American wildnerness” by Leonardo J. Waisman, an essay included in Arcangelo Corelli: Fra mito e realtà storica–Nuove prospettive d’indagine musicologica e interdisciplinare nel 350° anniversario dalla nascita (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 2007, pp. 651–85).

Today is Corelli’s 360th birthday! Below, the original version of one of the works that was subjected to a Bolivian metamorphosis.

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by | February 15, 2013 · 1:00 am

Music and delinquency

frankie-lymon-im-not-a-juvenile-delinquent

A four-year longitudinal study (n = 309) explored whether early adolescents’ preferences for nonmainstream types of popular music indicate concurrent and later minor delinquency.

The results showed that early fans of types of rock (e.g., rock, heavy metal, gothic, punk), African American music (rhythm and blues, hip-hop), and electronic dance music (trance, techno, hardhouse) showed elevated minor delinquency concurrently and longitudinally. Preferring conventional pop or highbrow music (classical music, jazz), in contrast, was not related to or was negatively related to minor delinquency.

Early music preferences emerged as more powerful indicators of later delinquency than early delinquency, indicating that music choice is a strong marker of later problem behavior.

This according to “Early adolescent music preferences and minor delinquency” by Tom F.M. ter Bogt, Loes Keijsers, and Wim H.J. Meeus (Pediatrics CXXXII/2, pp. e382–e389). Many thanks to the Improbable Research blog for bringing this article to our attention!

Below, Jerry Lee Lewis introduces an earlier study.

BONUS: The Frankie Lymon classic pictured above.

Related article: Sexual attraction by genre

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by | February 11, 2013 · 1:00 am

Fred Astaire’s drunk dances

Astaire

In his comic depictions of drunk dancing, Astaire used choreography to project social views and feelings about drunkenness, and to set up tensions between those qualities of inebriation and the precision and agility that his dancing embodied.

Memorable examples include the solo number “One for my baby (and one more for the road)” in The sky’s the limit (1943, above and below).

This according to “Stepping high: Fred Astaire’s drunk dances” by Sally Banes, an essay included in Writing dancing in the age of postmodernism (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994, pp. 171–183).

BONUS: The astonishing New Year’s Eve dance from Holiday Inn.

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by | February 8, 2013 · 1:00 am

Stuttgarter Musikwissenschaftliche Schriften

Was bleibt

In 2011 Schott launched the series Stuttgarter Musikwissenschaftliche Schriften with Was bleibt? 100 Jahre Neue Musik, edited by Andreas Meyer.

Noting that the musical revolutions of Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg are over a century old, and that the experimentalism of the 1950s belongs to a bygone era, the authors assess the current new music scene and demonstrate how audiences have changed in recent years.

Below, Stockhausen’s pioneering Gesang der Jünglinge (1955–56).

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by | February 6, 2013 · 1:00 am

Folk lexicon

weavers

Folk lexicon: Lexicon of the modern folk fan was published by Caffè Lena in 2013.

This free online resource provides information on the folk music scene as it has evolved (mainly in North America) since the 1950s. Categories include awards, folk festivals, instruments, musical styles, publications, radio shows, and record companies, along with discussions of terminology and corny nicknames.

Above, the Weavers were influential founders of the contemporary scene. Below, the group’s 1980 reunion at Carnegie Hall.

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by | February 4, 2013 · 1:00 am

Studien, Beiträge und Materialien zur Leschetizky-Forschung

Leschetizky book

The series Studien, Beiträge und Materialien zur Leschetizky-Forschung was launched by Musikverlag Burkhard Muth in 2011 with Theodor Leschetizky by Annette Hullah, in a German translation from the original English (London: J. Lane, 1906).

This volume is particularly suitable as the beginning of the series, since—in addition to presenting a contemporaneous, authentic text—it provides an ideal introduction for those who know little or nothing about the pianist, composer, and teacher.

The first two chapters are devoted to Leschetizky’s biography; the remaining chapters explore his approach to teaching. Information on newly published editions of his piano works is also included.

Below, Leschetizky plays one of his own compositions via piano roll.

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by | February 1, 2013 · 1:00 am

Hound music

hounds

West Virginians appreciate the music made by hounds baying during a fox chase, and there are various tastes in the matter.

Some hunters prefer a “coarse mouth” whereas others esteem a “fine” or “tenor mouth”; other terms for hound vocalizations include “fast chop”, “turkey mouth”, and “pretty-tongued beller”.

This according to “‘Listen to that beautiful music’: Fox chasing in the Mountain State” by Gerald Milnes (Goldenseal XX/2 [summer 1996] pp. 27–33). Below, a polychoral welcoming anthem.

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by | January 30, 2013 · 1:00 am

Negativland and U2

U2_Negativland

Negativland is a group of sound artists who mix fragments and samples of sounds from the mass media to produce a parodic critique of contemporary culture.

The group’s 1991 single U2 combined samples from and a vocalized parody of the band U2’s I still haven’t found what I’m looking for with studio outtakes of Casey Kasem verbally abusing his staff on the American Top 40 radio program. Soon after the single was released it was pulled from stores and Negativland was sued by Island Records, Warner-Chappell Music (U2’s label and music publishing company, respectively) and by their own label, SST.

Over time a community arose that provided a loose distribution system for the recording, along with a medium for producing and disseminating an oppositional discourse to the dominant legal and economic system that had stopped its legitimate release.

This according to “Negativland, out-law judgments, and the politics of cyberspace” by John Sloop and Andrew Herman, an essay included in Mapping the beat: Popular music and contemporary theory (Malden: Blackwell, 1998).

Below, the recording in question. Warning: Negativland is not shy about using profanity.

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by | January 28, 2013 · 1:00 am

17th-century Persian music

Kaempfer

“Fifteen musicians sat in a crosswise position on both sides, and thus in a broken row divided into two groups; these in turn sounded together a strange tune with reed-instruments, cymbals and various stringed instruments; drums struck with a light finger, and less often the human voice, joined in with them.

Perhaps you expect my opinion about this ensemble? A noise rather than an ensemble, it was unencumbered by any rules of harmony, but nevertheless not confused nor disagreeable; in truth if I except the singer’s voice, it was pleasant enough, and subordinated to the extent that it did not disturb the conversations or the proceedings in the assembly, but rather with a certain strangeness in its varied but low-level sound caressed the ears and spirits of the seated company with its sweetness.”

So wrote Engelbert Kaempfer in Amoenitates Exoticae (1712), which documented his observations in Persia in the late 17th century. Excerpts from the book are translated in Time, place and music: An anthology of ethnomusicological observation c. 1550 to c. 1800 by Frank Harrison (Amsterdam: Fritz Knuf, 1973).

Above, a plate from the original publication; below, a modern-day performance of Persian court music.

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by | January 25, 2013 · 1:00 am

Lutosławski’s mature style

Witold Lutoslawski

Lutosławski’s Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux for choir and orchestra features many of the key elements of his mature compositional style: mirror-symmetrical sonorities, composite rhythms incorporating the element of chance, and the use of textural counterpoint.

Perhaps its most significant aspect is the intricately interwoven structural layers that form its foundation. Pitch, rhythm, and timbre unite to create texture, the main building block of the piece and the musical parameter that ultimately determines its formal subdivisions.

This according to Wheels within wheels: An examination of Witold Lutosławski’s “Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux” by Frederick Carl Gurney, a dissertation accepted by the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1999.

Today is Lutosławski’s 100th birthday! Below, the first movement of Trois poèmes (after about two minutes score excerpts are shown). Above, a portrait of the composer by Mariusz Kałdowski.

Related article: Lutosławski Centenary 2013: Philharmonia (onpolishmusic.com)

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