by | September 21, 2017 · 6:00 am

Syrtaki redux

 

Though Greek people rarely perform it among themselves in their own country, where the dance is mainly a tourist attraction, the internationally renowned syrtaki choreography by Giorgos Provias from the 1964 film Zorba the Greek functions as a symbol of Greek identity worldwide.

In the last decade syrtaki has drawn further international attention through its documentation by Guinness World Records as the world’s longest chain dance performance—twice, in 2007 in Cyprus and in 2012 in Greece. The enduring popularity of this international dance phenomenon engages the concepts of cosmopolitanism, globalization, and urbanization.

This according to “For the syrtaki dance once more: Cosmopolitanism, globalization and urbanization in continuum” by Maria I. Koutsouba, an essay included in Dance, senses, urban contexts: Dance and the senses—Dancing and dance cultures in urban contexts (Herzogenrath: Shaker Verlag, 2017, pp. 173–83; RILM Abstracts 2017-25564).

Below, the classic film sequence.

BONUS: The 2012 record-holding performance.

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by | September 18, 2017 · 6:00 am

A saxophone in surgery

 

When doctors discovered a tumor in Dan Fabbio’s brain, he began a long journey involving a team of physicians, scientists, and a music professor that culminated with him awake and playing a saxophone as surgeons operated on him.

A professional musician and music teacher, Fabbio suddenly started to experience hallucinations, and a visit to a hospital led to a CAT scan that indicated a brain tumor. It appeared to be benign, but doctors were concerned about its proximity to a brain region that is responsible for music processing.

Fabbio was referred to the neurosurgeon Web Pilcher, who contacted Elizabeth Marvin, a music theorist who also specializes in music cognition, and together they developed a series of cognitive musical tests that Fabbio could perform while researchers were conducting brain scans. Using this information, the team produced a highly detailed three-dimensional map of Fabbio’s brain that would be used to help guide the surgeons in the operating room.

The surgeons wanted to know if they were successful in preserving Fabbio’s ability to perform music, so they decided to bring his saxophone into the operating room; once the tumor had been removed, they gave the go-ahead for Fabbio to play it.  “It made you want to cry,” said Marvin.  “He played it flawlessly and when he finished the entire operating room erupted in applause.”

This according to “Saxophonist is told to play while undergoing brain surgery” by Norman Lebrecht (Slipped disc 30 August 2017). Below, a brief documentary fleshes out the story.

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by | September 16, 2017 · 6:00 am

Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyse und Musik

Psychoanalytic studies of the arts have mainly focused on visual art, literature, and film; launched by Psychosozial-Verlag in 2017, Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyse und Musik (ISSN 2367-2498) aims to fill the gap with psychoanalytic explorations of music.

The journal addresses musicians, musicologists, and cultural scientists as well as psychoanalysts and psychotherapists; its interdisciplinary approach illuminates seldom-noted connections between academic fields. The inaugural volume, edited by Sebastian Leikert and Antje Niebuhr, focuses on the unconscious meanings of interrelationships between music and language.

Below, the finale of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, a work discussed in the journal’s first issue.

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by | September 14, 2017 · 6:00 am

Mozart’s starling

On 27 May 1784 Mozart purchased a European starling (Sturnus vulgaris, above). The pleasure he expressed at hearing the bird’s song—“Das war schon!”—is all the more understandable when one compares his notation of it with the beginning of the last movement of his Piano Concerto in G major, K.453, which was written around the same time.

Three years later the bird died, and he buried it with much ceremony. Heavily veiled mourners marched in a procession, sang hymns, and listened to a graveside recitation of a poem Mozart had composed for the occasion.

Although many questions remain about starlings’ vocal capacities, a recent study supports a definite link between their mimicry and their lively social interactions, illuminating Mozart’s response to his beloved pet’s death.

This according to “Mozart’s starling” by Meredith J. West and Andrew P. King (American scientist LXXVIII/2 [May–August 1990] pp. 106–114).

Below, the concerto movement sung by Mozart’s starling.

More articles about Mozart are here.

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by | September 11, 2017 · 6:00 am

Afrofuturism and anti-anti-essentialism

 

In the 1990s the term Afrofuturism emerged to describe a vein of science fiction-inspired art that repositions black subjects in a purportedly race-free future that is nonetheless coded as white. While ostensibly about the future, Afrofuturism in fact works dialectically with an equally overwritten past to critique the reified distance between racialized fictions of black magic and white science.

Three successive concepts— the experimental jazz bandleader Sun Ra’s myth-science, the funk bandleader George Clinton’s P-Funk, and the hip hop artist Kool Keith’s robot voodoo power—track a historical continuity of collapsing fictions of both past and future in Afrofuturist music, reflecting strategic versions of what Paul Gilroy refers to as anti-anti-essentialism. The robot voodoo power thesis thus recognizes in Afrofuturism a dialectical third way out of the double binds and unproductive debates about racial essence and non-essence.

This according to “The robot voodoo power thesis: Afrofuturism and anti-anti-essentialism from Sun Ra to Kool Keith” by J. Griffith Rollefson (Black music research journal XXVIII/1 [spring 2008] pp. 83–109).

Above, Sun Ra; below, Earth people by Kool Keith (as Dr. Octagon), one of the works discussed in the article.

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by | September 9, 2017 · 6:00 am

Metodi e trattati

In 2016 Società Editrice di Musicologia launched the series Metodi e trattati with a new critical edition of Francesco Pollini’s Metodo per pianoforte.

Pollini was the preeminent figure among Italian pianists of the early nineteenth century. A student of Mozart, he enjoyed considerable fame not only as a pianist and composer but also—and above all—as a teacher.

In 1811 the Conservatorio di Milano commissioned Pollini to write a piano method, the first of its kind to be published in Italy. Printed as Metodo pel clavicembalo in 1812 and reprinted in 1834, the treatise covers several aspects of pianistic technique and performance practice.

This new critical edition, provided with a parallel English translation, presents the text and its 400 examples and exercises based on the most complete edition of 1834. The introduction retraces the work’s complex publishing history, discusses in detail the typology of the instrument, and examines several technical and performance practice issues addressed in Pollini’s text, including articulation, touch, rhythmic flexibility, improvisation, ornamentation, and pedaling.

Below, Costantino Mastroprimiano performs one of Pollini’s works on the fortepiano.

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by | September 7, 2017 · 6:00 am

Dancing elephants in ancient Rome

 

In his De natura animalium, Claudius Aelianus described the training of dancing elephants.

“To begin with, [the trainer] introduced them in a quiet, gentle fashion to his instructions, supplying them with delicacies and the most appetizing food, varied so as to allure and entice them into abandoning all trace of ferocity…So what they learned was not to go wild at the sound of the flutes (auloi), not to be alarmed at the beating of drums (tympanon), to be charmed by the pipe (syrinx), and to endure the beat of marching feet and the singing of crowds.”

Noting that elephants have a keen sense of music and an aptitude for learning, Aelian reported that they successfully mastered “the movements of a chorus, the steps of a dance, how to march in time, how to enjoy the sound of auloi, and how to distinguish different notes.”

This according to “Vox naturae: Music as human-animal communication in the context of animal training in ancient Rome” by Rodney Martin Cross (Greek and Roman musical studies V/2 [2017] pp. 147–58).

Below, two elephants enjoying a serenade.

Related article: The Thai Elephant Orchestra

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by | September 5, 2017 · 6:00 am

Amy Beach’s “Gaelic symphony”

Amy Beach’s highly polished Gaelic symphony represents her triumph over 19th-century women’s socialization and her honest desire to present a feminine image worthy of imitation.

After the work’s 1896 premiere Beach was described by the critic Philip Hale as “an epoch maker who has broken through old boundaries and presented an enrichment and expansion of woman’s sphere in art.” Even the Boston Brahmin composer George Whitefield Chadwick wrote, in a letter to her, “I am pleased that an American and a woman can produce such strong and beautiful musical ideas . . . You are now one of the boys.”

This according to “Amy Beach: Muse, conscience, and society” by Susan Mardinly (Journal of singing LXX/5 [May–June 2014] pp. 527–40).

Today is Beach’s 150th birthday! Below, the work’s finale.

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by | August 31, 2017 · 6:00 am

Nickelback jokes

 

Nickelback is one of the most successful rock bands of the early 21st century; it is also one of the era’s most publicly derided groups.

Nickelback hatred became trendy when the band was signed to Roadrunner Records in 1999, and the extreme metal label lost its subcultural cachet even as it raked in the profits. From there the circle of scorn grew ever wider. In 2006 Nickelback released their most despised single, Rockstar, with lead singer Chad Kroeger’s reputation taking hit after hit.

Finally, with the birth of Web 2.0, contempt for the band was democratized and made available to all. Memes and a steady stream of jokes at Nickelback’s expense assured their “worst band ever” punch-line status. Around 2012 Nickelback finally took the if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em escape clause, reinforcing their butt-of-the-joke status with self-deprecating humor.

This according to “Nickelback the meme: A complete history of how we came to hate a successful band” by Sage Lazzaro (Observer 26 January 2016). Below, the official (and widely loathed) Rockstar video.

 

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by | August 29, 2017 · 6:00 am

C.L. Junker: Keyboard concerto in B-flat major

In 2017 A-R Editions issued a new critical edition of Carl Ludwig Junker’s only surviving concerto, edited by Mark Kroll.

Junker, a pastor, critic, and writer by profession, is far better known today for his books, articles, and published letters than for his musical compositions. As one of the most interesting and perceptive commentators and theorists of the late eighteenth century, he provided valuable information about musicians and music making during his lifetime. He also wrote twenty-four symphonies (now lost), thirteen piano pieces, and several songs.

The concerto presented in this edition enriches our understanding and appreciation of the early piano concerto, a genre that would find its full realization in the hands of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Below, a recording of the work with Prof. Kroll at the fortepiano.

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