Bibliolore

by admin | May 14, 2016 · 6:00 am

The Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives

Launched in 2015, The Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives preserves the orchestra’s rich history with documentation in the form of concert programs, press clippings, posters, photographs, letters, broadcast tapes, and recordings, as well as the BSO’s collection of historic instruments.

Committed to making the collection more readily available to researchers, the BSO is in the process of building up its digital holdings, which can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection.

A separate performance history site nicknamed HENRY (after the founder of the BSO, Henry Lee Higginson) contains all documented concerts of the orchestra beginning with 21 October 1881 through the current season. The search function provides access to the performance history of every work, and of all artists–conductors, ensembles, and soloists–who have performed with the orchestra.

Above, in a photograph from the Archives, Pierre Monteux rehearses Stravinsky’s Le scare du printemps; below, Seiji Ozawa conducts the BSO in the finale of Bartók’s Concerto for orchestra.

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by admin | May 12, 2016 · 6:00 am

Meet the gamelatron

The gamelatron, a robotic gamelan built by the sound artist Aaron Taylor Kuffner, has appeared regularly at events such as Burning Man, raves, and exhibitions.

Breaching the conceptual divides between instrument and art installation, performance and recording, sculptor and composer, and prosthesis and robot, the gamelatron is a singular site for investigating imaginaries of the human, machine, and media.

This according to “Atmosphere as a concept for ethnomusicology: Comparing the gamelatron and gamelan” by Andrew McGraw (Ethnomusicology LX/1 [winter 2016] pp. 125–147.

Below, the gamelatron in action.

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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Curiosities, Instruments

Tagged as Gamelan, Gamelatron

by admin | May 10, 2016 · 6:00 am

Milton Babbitt’s twelve-tone tango

Milton Babbitt’s It takes twelve to tango (1984) has a subdivision series that unfolds in two dimensions: globally in the first beat of the 2/4 meter, and locally in the second beat. Though the eight subdivision series expressed in the second beat mostly proceed at the rate of one subdivision per measure, occasionally a subdivision will be repeated in two consecutive measures.

Attempts to interpret these duplicated subdivisions reveal intersections between the subdivision series and a wide variety of other aspects of the piece, including the pitch-class array, hypermeter, and registral gestures. These non-systematic explanations illuminate the meaning and power of the systematic aspects of Babbitt’s music.

This according to “Duplicated subdivisions in Babbitt’s It takes twelve to tango” by Zachary Bernstein (Music theory online XXVII/2 [July 2011]).

Today would have been Babbitt’s 100th birthday! Below, Edward Neeman does the twelve-tone tango.

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Tagged as Birthdays, Composers, Milton Babbitt

by admin | May 8, 2016 · 6:00 am

Punta and Garífuna culture

The dance-song genre punta and its derivative, punta rock, are iconic of Garífuna ethnicity and modernity. Punta permeates performances of both secular and semisacred rituals, and it is the genre most often used for social commentary.

Punta rock arose from the need to create a new genre fusing elements of Garífuna culture and music that express both indigenous and urban social ideals. As such, it maintains its popularity because it incorporates both the traditional and the contemporary.

This according to “Ethnicity, modernity, and retention in the Garifuna punta” by Oliver N. Greene (Black music research journal XXII [fall 2002] pp. 189–216).

Above and below, Pen Cayetano and the Turtle Shell Band—the originators of punta rock.

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Tagged as Central America, Garífuna people, Punta, Punta rock

by admin | May 5, 2016 · 6:00 am

The smell of jazz

People can systematically match information from different senses; these matches are known as crossmodal correspondences.

A 2013 study demonstrated that at least some color-music correspondences can be explained by emotional mediation.

A later study investigated the emotion mediation hypothesis for correspondences between odor and music, testing whether the strength of odor-music matches for particular odors and musical selections can be predicted by the similarity of the emotional associations with the odors and music. These researchers found that perceived matches were higher when the emotional responses were similar and that a model including emotional dimensions captured a significant amount of the variance of match scores, providing new evidence that crossmodal correspondences are mediated by emotions.

This according to “The smell of jazz: Crossmodal correspondences between music, odor, and emotion” by Carmel A. Levitan, Sara A. Charney, Karen B. Schloss, and Stephen E. Palmer, a paper included in Proceedings of the 37th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Austin: The Cognitive Science Society, 2015, pp. 1326–1331).

Many thanks to Improbable Research for bringing this to our attention, and for noting that “fishy was comprehensively unpopular, except with the category heavy metal, where it was first on the list.”

Beethoven and King Max

Beethoven was known for his unwillingness to show subservience to the aristocracy, but sometimes others might do it for him, as when his friend and occasional librettist Aloys Weißenbach tried— without the composer’s knowledge and without success—to wangle him an Order of Merit from King Maximilian I of Bavaria. When Breitkopf & Härtel issued his 1811 Chorphantasie, op. 80, with an inscription to King Max, Beethoven wrote in protest:

“To what in Heaven’s name do I owe the dedication to the King of Bavaria? Explain it to me immediately. If you meant it as an honorable gift to me, then I want to thank you; for the rest, such a thing does not suit me at all. Did you dedicate the work yourself, personally, perhaps? How does this fit together? One cannot with impunity start dedicating things to kings.”

This according to “Ludwig van Beethoven: Verhinderter Träger eines bayerischen Verdienstordens” by Robert Münster (Musik in Bayern 73 [2007–2008] pp. 207–14).

Above, Maximilian I; below, the Chorphantasie.

Richard Strauss’s 2% solution

The German physician Hans Leicher undertook an operation on Richard Strauss’s nose in 1928, when the composer was working on his opera Arabella.

Leicher subsequently recalled that Strauss drafted two numbers for the work in the hospital immediately following the operation, after two cotton balls impregnated with a 2% cocaine solution had put him into such a state of stimulation that instead of resting he was inspired, and worked intensively.

The numbers were the duets Aber der Richtige, wenn’s einen gibt für mich and Und du wirst mein Gebieter sein, often described as the finest moments in the score.

This according to “Richard Strauss und die Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde: Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der zwei schönsten Duette der Oper Arabella” by Herbert Pichler (Richard Strauss-Blätter I [June 1979] pp. 46–53).

Below, Aber der Richtige.

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Filed under Curiosities, Opera, Romantic era

Tagged as Composers, Creative process, Opera, Richard Strauss

by admin | · 6:00 am

Reverend Gary Davis and Miss Gibson

One day Manny Greenhill, Reverend Gary Davis’s sometime manager, received a desperate call from Wurlitzer, one of Boston’s most staid and respected music stores.

A quavering voice explained that an elderly man, a minister of some sort, had seized the most expensive guitar in the store and refused to part with it.

The man had tried out several models, had chosen the top-of-the-line Gibson, and had been there for some time, talking to it, and playing and singing spirituals in a loud voice. No one dared to take it away from him. “He says he has no money, but he gave your name, Mr. Greenhill, as his manager. He is upsetting the other customers. What shall we do?”

Greenhill bought Davis the guitar, and the debt became a longstanding joke: Davis was always going to pay him back for Miss Gibson “on the next check.”

This according to “Remembering Reverend Gary Davis” by Eric von Schmidt and John Kruth (Sing out! LI/4 [winter 2008] pp. 66–75).

Today is Davis’s 120th birthday! Above and below, Davis and Miss Gibson in action.

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Tagged as Birthdays, Blues, Instruments, Reverend Gary Davis

by admin | April 26, 2016 · 6:00 am

Ma Rainey’s “Prove it on me”

Gertrude “Ma” Rainey’s Prove it on me blues affirms her independence from orthodox norms by boldly celebrating her lesbianism.

Rainey’s sexual involvement with women was no secret with both colleagues and audiences. The advertisement for the song (above, click to enlarge) shows her dressed as a man, obviously flirting with two women, while a policeman keeps an eye on her.

The song’s lyrics include:

They said I do it, ain’t nobody caught me / Sure got to prove it on me

Went out last night with a crowd of my friends / They must’ve been women, ‘cause I don’t like no men

It’s true I wear a collar and tie / Make the wind blow all the while

‘Cause they say I do it, ain’t nobody caught me / They sure got to prove it on me

This according to Blues legacies and black feminism: “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis (New York: Pantheon, 1998 p. 39)

Today is Rainey’s 130th birthday! Below, the 1928 recording.

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Tagged as Birthdays, Blues, Ma Rainey, Sexuality and gender

by admin | April 24, 2016 · 6:00 am

Elliott Carter studies online

Elliott Carter studies online, an open-access journal devoted to the music, life, and times of the American composer Elliott Carter, posted its inaugural issue in 2016.

The journal welcomes submissions on a wide range of topics—there are no restrictions on disciplinary perspective or format—and possibilities include history, theory, performance practice, personal essays, aesthetics, biography, criticism, analysis, and media.

Performers, composers, musicologists, historians, theorists, and “friends of Elliott” are encouraged to submit full-length articles for anonymous peer review, as well as short essays and notes, commentary, analytical vignettes, oral history, reviews, and media. Submissions may be specifically about Elliott Carter and his music or may focus on broader topics of relevance to Carter Studies, such as music and politics, music and philosophy, music and poetry, or theoretical work that bears on Carter’s music.

Below, Carter’s Variations for orchestra, the subject of one of the articles in the first issue.

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Tagged as Composers, Elliott Carter