In 2011 Biblioteca Musicale LIM launched Miscellanea Ruspoli, a series centered around the noble Ruspoli family of Florence, with Studi sulla musica dell´età barocca.
Edited by Giorgio Monari, the volume includes articles by Monari, Warren Kirkendale, Giulia Giovani, Ilaria Grippaudo, Ugo Piovano, and Alessia Silvaggi.
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Filed under Baroque era, New series
After the East India Company attained a firm foothold in Calcutta in 1757, an influx of English middle-class civil and military personnel brought Western classical music to the subcontinent.
A taste for arrangements of Indian melodies arose among these expatriates, prompting such publications as William Hamilton Bird’s The Oriental Miscellany: Being a collection of the most favourite airs of Hindoostan, compiled and adapted for the harpsichord (Calcutta: Cooper, 1789).
In his introduction Bird complained that the songs’ brevity and “their want of variety” obliged him to compose variations for each one, and that their rhythms cost him “great pains to bring them into any form as to time.”
This according to “Corelli in Calcutta: Colonial music-making in India during the 17th and 18th centuries” by Raymond Head (Early music XIII/4 [November 1985] pp. 548–553).
Above, Johan Zoffany’s Colonel Blair with his family and an Indian ayah (Calcutta, 1786), showing a square piano or clavichord. Below, Daniel Laumans performs a “Hindustan air” arranged by Sophia Plowden around the same time.
Related article: How far can a song travel?
Filed under Classic era, Curiosities
Launched in 2012, Síneris is a monthly Spanish online musicology journal born from the experience of some of the members of the now-extinct Jugar con Fuego.
The journal aims to present research papers, essays, literary creations, opinions, interviews, and criticism of recent works, performances, and writings. It casts a wide net, including Western classical music, ethnomusicological topics, popular music, cinema, and dance.
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Filed under New periodicals
Scrabble™-to-MIDI is a computer-emulated two-dimensional board game that generates MIDI music as the game is played.
The plug-in translator and its configuration parameters comprise a composition. Improvisation consists of playing a unique game and of making ongoing adjustments to mapping parameters during play.
Statistical distributions of letters and words provide a basis for mapping structures from word lists to notes, chords, and phrases. While pseudo-random tile selection provides a stochastic aspect to the instrument, players use knowledge of vocabulary to impose structure on this sequence of pseudo-random selections, and a conductor uses mapping parameters to variegate this structure in up to 16 instrument voices.
This according to “Algorithmic musical improvisation from 2D board games” by Dale E. Parson, an essay included in ICMC 2010: Research, education, discovery (San Francisco: International Computer Music Association, 2010). Above, a demonstration of Scrabble™-to-MIDI.
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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Curiosities, Science
Produced by the Appalachian College Association, the Digital Library of Appalachia provides online access to archival and historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. The database’s contents are drawn from special collections of Appalachian College Association member libraries.
Above, the Bog Trotters Band in Galax, Virginia, in 1937. Below, the legendary Roscoe Holcomb at home in Kentucky.
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Filed under North America, Resources, World music
On 23 April 1843 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy made a ceremonial presentation of a monument to Bach in the courtyard of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where Bach served as cantor and where his remains now lie.
Mendelssohn Bartholdy worked tirelessly to make the monument a reality. He offered suggestions about its details, gave concerts to raise the necessary funds, and handled much of the project’s organization. His many letters provide information about his commitment to it.
Now known as the Altes Bach-Denkmal, it may be the only example of a monument built by a composer to honor another.
This according to Ein Denkstein für den alten Prachtkerl: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy und das alte Bach-Denkmal in Leipzig by Peter Wollny (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2004). Above, a woodcut depiction from around 1850.
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Filed under Architecture, Baroque era, Iconography, Reception
The beloved author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, who died yesterday, was deeply influenced by Western classical music, particularly by the works of Mozart.
“Art has always been my salvation,” he said in an interview, “and my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, and Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can’t explain. I don’t need to. I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart.”
Below, the full interview with Bill Moyers in 2004.
Filed under Classic era, Curiosities, Literature, Visual art
The first Russian-language electronic journal for contemporary art music, Dialettica del suono, was launched in 2011 as a joint project of the independent creative association Диалектика Звука (Dialectic of Sound) and the Молодежное Отделение Союза Композиторов (МолОт/The Youth Department of the Union of Composers).
The journal, edited by Дионис Афоничев, is published twice a year and is available online in PDF format. Dialettica del suono provides a publication platform mainly for young professional musicians, musicologists, composers, and critics. A supplement with scores by young Russian composers is appended to each issue.
Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, New periodicals
The first piano ever to be carried on a passenger aircraft was created by the Julius Blüthner Pianofortefabrik for the ill-fated Hindenburg airship.
The lightweight aluminum alloy grand piano weighed only 162 kg (356 lbs). The frame, rim, fallboard, and top lid were made of duralumin, and the legs, back bracing, and lyre were made of hollow duralumin tubing.
The piano was a prominent feature of the Hindenburg’s first flight to America in 1936, during which the pianist Franz Wagner gave several concerts for the passengers, playing works by Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, and Brahms as well as popular music.
The instrument was not on board for the Hindenburg’s fatal flight in 1937; it was removed before the beginning of that season and put on display at the Blüthner factory, which was destroyed during an air raid in 1943.
This according to “The Hindenburg piano” by Daniel Grossman (Airships: The Hindenburg and other zeppelins 2010).
Today is the 75th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster! Above, the piano in the lounge on board the Hindenberg; below, a tour of the Hindenburg’s “A” deck, with a few glimpses of the instrument.
Related article: The Britannic organ
Filed under Curiosities, Instruments
The son of an Indian Brahman and a French singer, Korla Pandit (born John Roland Redd, 1921–98) performed on Hammond organ and piano on Los Angeles television three times a week from 1949 to 1951. In every program he wore a suit and tie and a bejewelled turban, and he never spoke.
While he fulfilled, perpetrated, and even helped to form stereotypes of the mystical, exotic, Indian Other, Pandit interpreted and manipulated these notions to assert his ideas and beliefs about the essential union of East and West and the universality of spiritual experience.
This according to “Korla Pandit: Music, exoticism, and mysticism” by Timothy D. Taylor, an essay included in Widening the horizon: Exoticism in post-war popular music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). Below, a 1951 performance of one of his trademark pieces, the traditional Greek song Μισιρλού (Misirlou).
BONUS: A classic surf-rock performance of the same piece by Dick Dale & the Del-Tones:
Filed under Curiosities, Mass media, Popular music
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