by | February 20, 2017 · 6:00 am

Kurt Cobain’s idealism

 

While Kurt Cobain openly disdained certain elements of his audience, he liked the idea of bending their minds to his left-leaning convictions.

“I wanted to fool people at first” he said in an interview. “I wanted people to think that we were no different than Guns n’ Roses. Because that way they would listen to the music first, accept us, and then maybe start listening to a few things that we had to say.” When he began letting loose with carefully aimed condemnations of racism, sexism, and homophobia, he was pleased to discover that high schools had become divided between Nirvana kids and Guns n’ Roses kids.

This according to “Generation exit” by Alex Ross (The New Yorker 25 April 1994, pp. 102–06).

Today would have been Cobain’s 50th birthday! Above, Julie Kramer’s 1991 photograph is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license; below, Cobain with Nirvana in 1992.

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by | February 16, 2017 · 6:00 am

The Rutles and rock mockumentaries

 

 

Rock mockumentaries like The Rutles: All you need is cash lampoon the notion of high art and satirize the image of the solitary, suffering genius in an attempt to recuperate the carnivalesque heart of the music.

All you need is cash offers a complex and subtle relationship to the documentary tradition and the history of rock and roll. Its target is not simply The Beatles themselves, but the mythology that surrounded them and that they alternately promoted and assaulted. The film also targets the solemn documentary and critical tradition that upholds the mythology.

While the mythology needs to be challenged and the kings dethroned, the parodic elements of the carnival also affirm and create. Rock and roll documentaries need their uncanny doubles: Mockumentaries remind us of the music’s power, and remind us that behind any domesticated narrative we find a potentially transgressive force—one that is, in this case, unleashed through laughter.

This according to “The circus is in town: Rock mockumentaries and the carnivalesque” by Jeffrey Roessner, an essay included in The music documentary: Acid rock to electropop (New York: Routledge, 2013, pp. 159–70).

Below, The Rutles in their heyday.

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by | February 13, 2017 · 6:00 am

Burns antiphoner

burns-antiphoner1

In September 2016 Boston College Libraries introduced Burns antiphoner, an interactive open access resource.

Using an early 14th-century Franciscan antiphoner from the collections of Boston College’s John J. Burns Library, this digital research platform presents and contextualizes a medieval liturgical manuscript for both scholarly and general audiences. Employing open source technologies to create structured data and encode over 1500 incipits and notation, the site enables users to query and view music notation, metadata, performances, and textual incipits through a searchable interface.

The website also includes scholarly essays about the manuscript written by Graeme Skinner and videos of performances from short sections of the antiphoner by Schola Antiqua.

Above, a page from the manuscript; below, one of the performances included on the website.

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by | February 10, 2017 · 6:00 am

Leontyne Price arrives

 

On 28 January 1961 Langston Hughes wrote to a friend about having heard a black soprano the night before “busting the walls of the Metropolitan wide open.”

It was hyperbole that neared truth. Just days shy of her 34th birthday, Leontyne Price debuted before an audience whose standards and expectations were high; she lived up to them, and surpassed them beyond even her own imagination. At the final chord of Verdi’s Il trovatore the walls of the venerable institution vibrated with one of the most protracted and vociferous ovations in its history—nearly three-quarters of an hour—for the voice that Time magazine described as “like a bright banner unfurling.”

Price’s arrival at the pinnacle of American opera had a dual significance: She was one of the first American-trained singers to establish herself as a truly international star, and she continued, in grand style, the work of Marian Anderson as a trailblazer, barrier-breaker, and door-opener for black performers.

This according to “Leontyne Price: Prima donna assoluta” by Rosalyn M. Story, an essay included in And so I sing: African-American divas of opera and concert (New York: Warner, 1990, pp. 100–14).

Today is Price’s 90th birthday! Below, her Metropolitan Opera debut.

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by | February 8, 2017 · 11:33 am

RILM’s response to the Executive Order

The Board of Directors of the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) joins other music organizations and societies in their condemnation of the Trump administration’s Executive Order of 27 January 2017 suspending entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barring Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocking entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen).

For fifty years, RILM’s mission has been to facilitate and disseminate music research produced and published in any country of the world. This goal has been fulfilled through a close collaboration between RILM’s International Center in New York City, RILM’s national committees, and scholars doing musicological research anywhere in the world. RILM’s Board of Directors and the staff at the International Center greatly value such international collaboration and consider it essential for an accurate representation of global music scholarship.

RILM’s goal is to represent music scholarship in its bibliographic databases as inclusively as possible. We value diversity and support free inquiry in music of all cultures and religions. The ban directly jeopardizes our collaboration with scholars from Muslim countries and might impact RILM’s collaboration with scholars anywhere in the world. As free thinking cannot be suppressed by imposing arbitrary limitations on movement, we are inviting members of the scholarly community around the world to contribute to RILM’s bibliographic database with additional entries for articles concerning music and Islam. Although this effort cannot relieve the hardship experienced by the good people affected by the ban, it can demonstrate the achievements of their communities and represent their music culture through writings by scholars worldwide. The bibliographic records can be submitted at http://rilm.org/submissions/.

Тhe Board of Directors
Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale
February 8th, 2017

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by | February 7, 2017 · 6:00 am

Eubie Blake’s second act

eubieblakeEubie Blake enjoyed a rewarding career in the 1910s and 1920s with his lifelong friend and lyricist Noble Sissle, both as the duo Sissle and Blake, the most successful black act of their time, and as songwriters for landmark musicals—most notably Shuffle along (1921), which included their most enduring number, I’m just wild about Harry.

Blake continued to compose songs for revues through the 1930s and 1940s, although none of his ventures reached the level of success that he experienced in the 1920s. But the ragtime revival of the 1950s kindled new interest in his talents, and he began playing and composing ragtime pieces.

In 1969 Columbia issued a two-LP set, The 86 years of Eubie Blake, featuring both his ragtime and his show music (along with a reunion with Sissle), which helped to renew interest in his work. During the last decades of his life Blake had his own record label, and his songs returned to Broadway in the anthology revue Eubie!(1978), which ran for 439 performances. The show’s namesake attended several times and performed a few songs on opening night.

This according to “Eubie Blake” by David A. Jasen, an article in Tin Pan Alley: An encyclopedia of the golden age of American song (New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 47–48); this resource is one of many included in RILM music encyclopedias, an ever-expanding full-text compilation of reference works.

Today is Blake’s 130th birthday! Below, performing in 1972.

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by | February 4, 2017 · 6:00 am

Osibisa and the British melting pot

osibisa

During the 1950s and early 1960s, as the British economy recovered from World War II, increasing numbers of people from the Caribbean came to work in Britain. At the same time, many West Africans came to Britain to study.

Musicians from both diasporas played with each other in predominantly white bands and in sessions for Melodisc, a recording company that released material appealing to West African and Afro-Caribbean audiences, and soon they began forming groups based on their own common musical features. By the early 1970s Osibisa, which included both West African and West Indian members, had become a mainstream success.

This according to “Melting pot: The making of black British music in the 1950s and 1960s” by Jon Stratton, an essay included in Black popular music in Britain since 1945 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, pp. 27–45).

Below, performing in 2014.

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by | February 2, 2017 · 6:00 am

Stan Getz and bossa nova

 

Stan Getz was already a successful jazz saxophone player when, in 1962, Charlie Byrd’s search for a horn with a human voice prompted him to record Antônio Carlos Jobim’s Desafinado.

The recording was such a surprise hit that Getz decided to pursue Brazilian music further, particularly examples of the new bossa nova genre. His subsequent recording of Jobim’s Garota de Ipanema (Girl from Ipanema) became his biggest success, spearheading a brief but notable enthusiasm for Brazilian styles among international audiences. Getz’s breathy, smooth sound and the delicate floating effect that he created proved widely popular beyond the jazz world.

This according to “Getz, Stan” by Jeff Kaliss (Encyclopedia of music in the 20th century [New York: Routledge, 2013] p. 247); this resource is one of many included in RILM music encyclopedias, an ever-expanding full-text compilation of reference works.

Today would have been Getz’s 90th birthday! Below, his signature numbers in 1983.

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by | January 31, 2017 · 6:00 am

Schubert and Das Dreimäderlhaus

dreimaderlhaus

The operetta Das Dreimäderlhaus (1916) was based on Schwammerl (Mushroom, one of Schubert’s nicknames), a novel about Franz Schubert by Rudolf Hans Bartsch; the music incorporated numerous melodies by the composer. U.S. and U.K. adaptations followed: Blossom time (1921) and Lilac time (1922), respectively.

Unsurprisingly, the work was excoriated by critics, scholars, and performers for its defilement of Schubert’s melodies, spurious plot lines, and superficial, misleading, and sentimentalized portrayal of the composer’s character. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau derided it as “Schubert steeped in kitsch”, while Maurice J.E. Brown declared that “the popularity of this pastiche has done Schubert more harm than good.”

Audiences, however, adored it; the operetta passed its 1000th Berlin performance in 1918, and its 1100th Viennese one in 1927.

This according to “Of mushrooms and lilac blossom” by Richard Morris (The Schubertian 27 [December 1999] pp. 6–14; 28 [March 2000] pp. 15–18).

Today is Schubert’s 220th birthday! Above, a poster for the 1958 film version starring Karlheinz Böhm; below, a trailer for the film.

BONUS: Selections from Sigmund Romberg’s score for Blossom time; the show’s publicity breathlessly promised, among other attractions, “32 Schubert themes in eight bars.”

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by | January 28, 2017 · 6:00 am

Artur Rubinstein’s big break

arthur_rubinstein_1906

In 1897, when Artur Rubinstein was ten years old, his mother Felicja traveled with him from their home in Łódź to Berlin, armed with dozens of letters of introduction. After a dreary week of slogging unsuccessfully through the rain, Felicja played her last card when she secured a meeting for Artur with Joseph Joachim, the director of the Hochschule für Musik.

joseph-joachimJoachim (inset) was known to take a dim view of prodigies due to his own difficulties as one, but when Rubinstein played Mozart’s rondo in A minor, K. 511, to his “evident satisfaction” he rewarded the boy with an entire bar of Lindt’s bittersweet chocolate.

He also rewarded him with one of the most successful musical careers of the twentieth century, because on the basis of that brief audition Joachim decided that Rubinstein had the makings of an outstanding pianist, and he told the astonished Felicja that he would personally undertake the supervision of her son’s musical and general education.

This according to Rubinstein: A life by Harvey Sachs (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, 1995, pp. 22–24).

Today is Rubinstein’s 130th birthday! Above, Rubinstein in 1906; below, performing in Moscow in 1964.

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