Tag Archives: Composers

by | July 18, 2016 · 6:00 am

Mushrooms and new music

morels

Can it be a mere coincidence that in many English dictionaries the words mushroom and music are right next to each other? Points of contact between mushrooms and new music go beyond the figure of the self-proclaimed mushroom-lover John Cage.

One fundamental similarity is the fact that both exist in marginal social zones whose inhabitants are often dismissed as other-worldly weirdos. In the early 21st century there is only a difference in degree between the social acceptability of composers and woodland gnomes.

This according to “‘After all, nature is better than art’: Exkursionen ins verborgene Verhältnis von Pilzen und (neuer) Musik” by Dirk Wieschollek (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik CLXXIII/1 [2012] pp. 32–37).

Above, Morchella (morel), a favorite of Mr. Cage. Below, Václav Hálek composed over 1000 works referencing different varieties of mushrooms.

Comments Off on Mushrooms and new music

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Food

Tagged as , ,

by | July 4, 2016 · 6:00 am

Stephen Foster and nostalgia

 

The dates of Stephen Foster’s life bracket the transformation of U.S. culture from a patrician society with a stable hierarchical structure to a democratic society stressing individual responsibility and freedom.

The dynamic interaction of individual alienation, cultural idealism, and popular culture assumed a particularly vivid dimension in music; the portrayal of bittersweet emotions stimulated by the contemplation of something lost to the narrator became the favorite device of 19th-century songwriters.

Nostalgic topics in Foster’s songs include the middle-class domestic woman, the Old South, and traditional Celtic ballads.

This according to “Sound and sentimentality: Nostalgia in the songs of Stephen Foster” by Susan Key (American music XIII/2 [summer 1995] pp. 145–166).

Today is Foster’s 190th birthday! Below, Gentle Annie, one of the songs discussed in the article.

Comments Off on Stephen Foster and nostalgia

Filed under Popular music, Romantic era

Tagged as , ,

by | May 26, 2016 · 6:00 am

Moondog makes it big

moondog

Louis T. Hardin, known to all as Moondog, was celebrated among New Yorkers for two decades as a mysterious and extravagantly clothed blind street performer; but he went on to win acclaim in Europe as an avant-garde composer, conducting orchestras before royalty.

From the late 1940s until the early 1970s Moondog stood like a sentinel on Avenue of the Americas near 54th Street. Rain or shine, he wore a homemade robe, sandals, a flowing cape, and a horned Viking helmet, and clutched a long homemade spear.

Most of the passers-by who dismissed him as “the Viking of Sixth Avenue” and offered him contributions for copies of his music and poetry were unaware that he had recorded his music on the CBS, Prestige, Epic, Angel, and Mars labels.

Although many New Yorkers assumed that he had died after he vanished from his customary post in 1974, Moondog had actually been invited to perform his music in West Germany and decided to stay.

In his later years he produced at least five albums in Europe, and regularly performed his compositions with chamber and symphony orchestras before tony audiences in German cities as well as in Paris and Stockholm.

This according to “Louis (Moondog) Hardin, 83, musician, dies” by Glenn Collins (The New York times CXLVIII/51,643 [12 September 1999] p. I:47).

Today would have been Moondog’s 100th birthday! Below, his 1971 album Moondog 2.

1 Comment

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

Tagged as , ,

by | May 23, 2016 · 6:00 am

Haydn and Lady Hamilton

Lady Hamilton

Returning from Palermo to London in 1800 Lady Hamilton, the poet Cornelia Knight, the ambassador Sir William Hamilton, and Lord Nelson stopped on the way for a visit to Eisenstadt.

From 6 to 10 September the entourage was hosted by Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy with receptions, dances, and concerts in their honor. Haydn organized a performance of his Te Deum and Nelson Mass (Missa in Angustiis), and composed Lines from the Battle of the Nile, to a text by Ms. Knight, for Emma Hamilton to sing.

Hamilton repeated the cantata in Prague on 8 October, and in 1801 the work was published there with the dedication “The music composed and dedicated to Lady Hamilton.”

This according to “Eternal praise! Joseph Haydn komponiert für Lady Hamilton/Eternal Praise! Joseph Haydn compone per Lady Hamilton” by Dieter Richter, an essay included in Lady Hamilton: Eros und Attitüde–Schönheitskult und Antikenrezeption in der Goethezeit/Eros e attitude–Culto della bellezza e antichità classica nell’epoca di Goethe (Petersburg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2015, pp. 54–56).

Above, Lady Hamilton in a ca. 1782 portrait by George Romney; below, Emma Kirkby sings Lines from the Battle of the Nile.

Comments Off on Haydn and Lady Hamilton

Filed under Classic era

Tagged as , , ,

by | May 19, 2016 · 6:00 am

Froberger and the clavichord

Froberger

Although Johann Jacob Froberger was employed as an organist and recognized as an exceptional harpsichordist, he was also a clavichordist. Musically trained in Germany and Italy, where the clavichord flourished, he undoubtedly played the instrument.

The most convincing proof of this hypothesis is his music, nearly all of which can be performed effectively on the clavichord, whose dynamic range makes possible the nuances of lute playing and singing.

Stylistically, Froberger’s suites for keyboard resemble lute music; at the time, lutenists and keyboardists regularly traded repertoire, and clavichordists playing the music of Froberger should follow the vocal models of his polyphonic works.

This according to “Froberger and the clavichord” by Howard Schott, an article included in De clavicordio. III (Magnano: Musica antica, 1997, pp. 27–34).

Today is the 400th anniversary of Froberger’s baptism! (His birthdate is not known.) Below, Richard Smith plays his Lamento sopra la dolorosa perdita della Real M.stà di FerdinandoIV, Rè de Romani on the clavichord.

Comments Off on Froberger and the clavichord

Filed under Baroque era

Tagged as , ,

by | 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.

Comments Off on Milton Babbitt’s twelve-tone tango

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music

Tagged as , ,

by | May 3, 2016 · 6:00 am

Beethoven and King Max

Hornöck_Maximilian_I_von_Bayern_um_1810

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.

More posts about Beethoven are here.

Comments Off on Beethoven and King Max

Filed under Classic era

Tagged as , ,

by | April 30, 2016 · 5:08 pm

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.

Comments Off on Richard Strauss’s 2% solution

Filed under Curiosities, Opera, Romantic era

Tagged as , , ,

by | April 24, 2016 · 6:00 am

Elliott Carter studies online

carter studies

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.

Comments Off on Elliott Carter studies online

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, New periodicals

Tagged as ,

by | April 11, 2016 · 6:00 am

Ginastera and Argentine traditions

 

Three categories of Argentine traditional elements are evident in Alberto Ginastera’s sonata for guitar, op. 47.

Characteristics of the criollo guitar tradition and of the guitar itself play important roles in the construction of the piece. Elements of the andino cantos de caja, the baguala, and the vidala are used in the development of important thematic material as well. Finally, the malambo and other criollo dances generate the rhythms of the energetic closing movement.

This according to Alberto Ginastera’s use of Argentine folk elements in the sonata for guitar, op. 47 by Mark Grover Basinski, a dissertation accepted by the University of Arizona in 1994.

Today is Ginastera’s 100th birthday! Below, Manuel Espinás performs the sonata.

BONUS: The composer with one of his more temperamental critics (click to enlarge).

Ginastera

 

Comments Off on Ginastera and Argentine traditions

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music

Tagged as , ,