by | April 5, 2012 · 1:00 am

Virtual Assyria

The ancient land of Assyria, long divided among modern nations, lives again—in cyberspace.

Exiled around the world, Assyrians have established an Internet homeland, Nineveh on line. This portal links to many other Assyrian websites and hosts articles about Assyrian concerns.

Music has proved to be a decisive factor in uniting this virtual community and its  corporeal counterparts. Assyrian songs have become powerful tools for shaping and communicating Assyrian identity—and even for learning the ancestral language.

This according to “Translocal communities: Music as an identity marker in the Assyrian disapora” by Dan Lundberg, an essay included in Music in motion: Diversity and dialogue in Europe (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2009) pp. 153–172.

Below, the Iranian singer Gaggi performs Assyrian pop.

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by | April 3, 2012 · 1:00 am

Bumble boogie

Bee imagery has long been a prominent element in song titles and lyrics. Bumble boogie: 100 years of bee imagery in American sound recordings—A discography by William L. Schurk and B. Lee Cooper (Popular music and society XXXIV/4 [October 2011] pp. 493–502) explores several bee themes featured in more than 200 commercial recordings released in the U.S. during the past century.

Themes cited include references to scent, terms of endearment, analogies to bee-related structures and hive-oriented treasures, allusions to romance, sexuality and reproduction, and fears of physical pain and emotional rejection. The discography features recordings released over the past ten decades either as singles (45 or 78 rpm records) or as songs compiled in albums (33⅓ rpm records) or on compact discs.

Below, the sublime Muddy Waters with his classic Honey bee.

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by | March 31, 2012 · 1:00 am

Haydn and Ellington

In what he dubbed “a musicological jeu d’esprit”, Edward Green drew 25 parallels between the lives of Joseph Haydn and Duke Ellington in “Haydn and Ellington: Parallel lives?” (International review of the aesthetics and sociology of music XL/2 [December 2009] pp. 349–51). These include:

  • Both had an outstanding orchestra at their immediate disposal for decades. This meant that they wrote for individuals, not just for instruments, and enabled the striking timbral and contrapuntal risks that they felt safe taking.

  • Both helped to create the predominant musical style of their century, and were celebrated in their lifetime for having done so.

  • Despite the necessity of producing numerous occasional works, both took an experimental attitude to composing, striving for freshness of form, design, and content, and their styles changed and developed remarkably over their careers.

  • Both had a notoriously keen business sense.

Today is Haydn’s 270th birthday! Below, Baryton Trio Valkkoog performs the Adagio and Finale Fuga from Haydn’s “Birthday” trio, Hob.XI:97, composed for the birthday of  Prince Nikolaus Esterházy.

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by | March 28, 2012 · 1:00 am

Jazz and shamanism

With its emphasis on altered consciousness, shamanism—communication with the spirit world—offers archetypal visionary insight concerning the nature of the psyche; it has much in common with the key Jungian notion of individuation or fully developed and integrated consciousness.

Jazz has much in common with shamanic experience. The pan-tonal and pan-rhythmic music of the Norwegian saxophonist and composer Jan Garbarek exemplifies the healing presence of the shamanic, or individuated, spirit in 20th-century music.

This according to “The body electric: The shamanic spirit in twentieth century music” by Michael Tucker, an essay included in Music and mysticism, two consecutive issues of Contemporary music review (XIV/1–2 and 3–4) dedicated to the memory of Philip Rawson.

Above, a shaman from the Altaj Mountains of Central Asia. Below, Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s I talk with the spirits.

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by | March 23, 2012 · 1:00 am

Punk & post-punk

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In 2012 Intellect launched Punk & post-punk (ISSN 2044-1983; EISSN 2044-3706), a journal for academics, artists, journalists, and the wider cultural industries.

Placing punk and its progeny at the heart of interdisciplinary investigation, it is the first forum of its kind to explore this rich and influential topic in both historical and critical theoretical terms. The journal is edited by Philip Kiszely and Alex Ogg.

More articles about punk rock are here.

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by | March 20, 2012 · 1:00 am

Mozart and folk proverbs

Mozart’s epistolary style was based on spoken traditions, not written ones; his spontaneous use of language—including rich proverbial speech—gives his lively and telling letters their linguistic and emotional authenticity.

Examples include:

    • “Of what use is a great sensation and rapid fortune? It never lasts. Chi va piano, va sano. One must just cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth.”
    • “Now I sit like a rabbit in the pepper! The first act was finished more than three weeks ago…but I cannot compose any more, because the whole story is being altered.”
    • “Yes, my dear little cello, it’s the way of the world, I’m told. Tom has the purse and Dick has the gold; and whoever has neither has nothing, and nothing is equal to very little, and little is not much; therefore nothing is still less than little, and little is still more than not much, and much is still more than little and—so it is, was, and ever shall be.”

This from “‘Nun sitz ich wie der Haass im Pfeffer”: Sprichwörtliches in Mozarts Briefen” by Wolfgang Mieder (Augsburger Volkskundliche Nachrichten XII/16 [December 2002] pp. 7–50; an English translation is in Journal of folklore research XL/I [January–April 2003] pp. 33–70).

Mozart’s appreciation of folklore extended to music as well; below, Clara Haskil plays his variations on the folk song Ah, vous dirai-je maman.

More articles about Mozart are here.

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by | March 18, 2012 · 1:00 am

Odes to obesity

“Odes to obesity: Images of overweight men and women in commercial sound recordings—A discography” by William L. Schurk and  B. Lee Cooper (Popular music and society XXXIV/2 [2011] pp. 237–246) explores more than 200 commercial sound recordings that address obesity themes in lyrics and song titles.

The introductory text examines gluttonous dietary patterns and food addictions among endomorphs. It also traces socially inflicted and self-ascribed references to individuals of hefty stature. Finally, it probes assertions of personal affection and social rejection based upon excessive body weight.

The discography features recordings that address fat themes that were released over the past eight decades as either singles (45 or 78 rpm records) or as songs compiled in albums (33⅓ rpm records) or on compact discs. A brief bibliography of articles and books that address either physical or lyrical obesity concludes the study.

Below, Queen analyzes the concept of Fat bottomed girls.

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by | March 15, 2012 · 1:00 am

Improvised vocal fugues

Sethus Calvisius (1556–1615), one of the very small number of specialists in the improvised vocal fugue, provided a discussion of the practice in his Melopoiia (1592), illustrated with 21 notated examples of fugæ extemporaneæ—tricinia, or two-part canons, over a cantus firmus.

These pieces were improvised as a third voice sang the cantus firmus, with the two improvising voices entering a minim or semibreve apart; the first of the two singers was effectively the composer. Analysis of Calvisius’s works shows that his mastery of the technique was complete, and he was capable of creating canonic improvisations of surprising originality.

This according to “Harmonia fvgata extemporanea: Fugenimprovisation nach Calvisius und den Italienern” by Olivier Trachier, an essay included in Tempus musicae–tempus mundi: Untersuchungen zu Seth Calvisius (Hildesheim: Georg Olms 2008, pp. 77–102). Below, the Dresdner Kreuzchor performs Calvisius’s Freut euch und jubilieret.

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by | March 13, 2012 · 1:00 am

Indian stamps redux

The music philatelist S. Sankaranarayanan has produced monthly articles for the magazine Sruti almost without a break since April 2004.

Each article covers the issuance of a stamp (or group of stamps) by the Indian Department of Posts and includes a philatelic report along with a first day cover and background information on the stamp’s subject—these have included exponents of the Karnatak and Hindustani traditions as well as Indian folk musicians, dancers, musicologists, and patrons of the arts.

Above, a first day cover of a 1961 stamp honoring the Karnatak composer Tyāgarāja (1767–1847); Sankaranarayanan’s article about this stamp appeared in Sruti 269 (February 2007), pp. 40–41.

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by | March 10, 2012 · 1:00 am

Sherlock Holmes, violist

A close reading of the canonical texts yields conclusive evidence that the celebrated sleuth was not a superb violinist—he was a superb violist.

The mistake was likely perpetuated by an early printer’s error. After all, Watson was a doctor, which means that even at best his handwriting was nearly illegible; he undoubtedly wrote “viola”, not “violin”. References to Holmes’s playing such as a “low, dreamy, melodious air” and “low melancholy wailing”—as well as to his habit of playing it “thrown across his knee”—clearly indicate that his instrument must have been a viola.

In fact, further textual references point to a historical mystery solved. Holmes referred to his instrument as a Stradivarius bought from a shady broker for only 55 shillings; surely this was the one Stradivarius viola, dated 1695, whose whereabouts has eluded instrument historians.

This according to “Quick, Watson, the fiddle” by Rolfe Boswell (The Baker Street journal, October 1948; reprinted in Journal of the American Viola Society online 26 [summer 2010] pp. 14–18).

Above, a classic depiction by Sidney Paget, Conan Doyle’s original illustrator; below, Jeremy Brett holds forth.

Related article: Dickens and music

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