Tag Archives: Composers

by | October 20, 2014 · 6:00 am

Charles Ives and baseball

Charles Ives baseball

Baseball played an important part in Charles Ives’s life, music, and writings; it was a place where he proved himself as a man, and it provided a framework within which he could build new musical ideas. Ives’s identity as a U.S. composer links him to this game, and a brief chronology of baseball history demonstrates significant changes in the game over the course of his lifetime (1874–1954).

Baseball provided Ives with a vehicle to establish his masculine identity, counterbalancing societal and self views of his musical participation as feminine. His pieces and unfinished sketches about baseball provided a vehicle for him to invent new musical ideas in reference to specific baseball situations that he could use as part of his basic musical language in later pieces.

Analyses of Ives’s baseball-related completed pieces (All the way around and back, Some southpaw pitching, Old home day, The fourth of July) and unfinished sketches (Take-off #3: Rube trying to walk 2 to 3!!, Take-off #7: Mike Donlin–Johnny Evers, and Take-off #8: Willy Keeler at the bat), compared with passages from later works, reveal these associations.

This according to Baseball and the music of Charles Ives: A proving ground by Timothy A. Johnson (Lanham: Scarecrow, 2004).

Today is Ives’s 140th birthday! Above, the Danbury Alerts, ca. 1890; a young Charles Ives is the first seated player from the left. Below, James Sykes plays Study no. 21: Some southpaw pitching.

Comments Off on Charles Ives and baseball

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Sports and games

Tagged as , , ,

by | September 23, 2014 · 6:00 am

Capricornus strikes back

Samuel Capricornus

In 1657 Samuel Capricornus was summoned from Pressburg (now Bratislava) to take up the position of Kapellmeister to the Stuttgart court of Duke Eberhard III of Württemberg—to the surprise and disappointment of the organist of the Stuttgart collegiate church, Philipp Friedrich Böddecker, a distinguished composer in his own right, who had hoped to obtain the job himself.

Disputes quickly arose between Capricornus and Böddecker, as well as Böddecker’s brother David, a zinck player, who complained that Capricornus had required him outside the provisions of his contract to play the quart-zinck and to sing “such high-pitched, difficult passages” (so hohe und schwehre Stückh) that he was unable to comply “because of bodily weakness, short breath, and also declining vocal ability” (Leibsschwachheit, kurzem Athems, auch vergehende Stimme halber); and furthermore had insulted him publicly, saying he played the zinck “only like a cow-horn.”

Capricornus responded with a lengthy complaint of his own, presenting a gloomy picture of conditions in the ducal musical establishment and accusing the organist Böddecker of gluttony and drunkenness (Fressereien und Saufereien) and of being at the center of a whole network of intrigue against the Kapellmeister; moreover, “[he] did not deal especially gently with his inimical rival from the organ bench, and used all the arts of dialectic and learning to convict him of musical ignorance.”

This according to “Samuel Capricornus contra Philipp Friedrich Böddecker” by Josef Sittard (Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft III/1 [November 1901] pp. 87-128), which includes a complete edition of Capricornus’s grievance letter as found by the author in the ducal archives.

Below, Capricornus’s Magnificat.

Comments Off on Capricornus strikes back

Filed under Baroque era

Tagged as , ,

by | September 8, 2014 · 6:00 am

Peter Maxwell Davies and sonata form

Throughout much of his career, Peter Maxwell Davies  has had a preoccupation with sonata form. He has exploited the tension between this form and his other conflicting musical preoccupations, such as a penchant for continuous development and an abhorrence of exact repetition.

In his earlier works, Davies at times referred to the presence of a “ghost” of sonata form, whereas more recently he directly states that some of his pieces are in this form. Throughout its evolution the salient elements of sonata form have been contrast, conflict, and resolution, all three of which apply in an examination of Davies’s use of it.

In his second Taverner fantasia, the first movement appears on the surface to be in sonata form, but is actually driven by other principles such as recurring chordal material. The opening movement of the first symphony has the general outline of a sonata form without adhering to its contrasting thematic implications. The more recent third quartet combines the formal and harmonic implications of a pre-Beethovenian, essentially binary, sonata form, with a highly complex and idiosyncratic serial technique derived from magic squares.

This according to “The ghost in the machine: Sonata form in the music of Peter Maxwell Davies” by Rodney Lister, an essay included in Peter Maxwell Davies studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) pp. 106–28).

Today is Sir Peter’s 80th birthday!

Above, photo courtesy of University of Salford Press Office, licensed under CC BY 2.0; below, Davies conducts the BBC Philharmonic in his first symphony.

Comments Off on Peter Maxwell Davies and sonata form

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music

Tagged as , ,

by | September 4, 2014 · 6:00 am

Milhaud and jazz

In a 1922 interview in New York City, Darius Milhaud described how jazz had recently taken the French musical scene by storm, to the delight of young composers like himself.

“Jazz interests us tremendously. We are fascinated and intrigued by the jazz rhythms and are devoting serious study to it. There are new elements of clarity and rhythmic power that were a real shock to us when we heard jazz for the first time.”

“It was in 1919, immediately after the war, that the first jazz band was heard in Paris. To us it was a musical event of genuine import. Music had long been under the domination of the impressionist school. Poetry was the predominating element. Jazz came to us as a good shock—like a cold shower when you have been half asleep with ennui.”

This according to “Jazz, says Darius Milhaud, is the most significant thing in music today” (The musical observer XXIII [March 1923] p. 23; reprinted in Jazz in print 1856–1929: An anthology of selected early readings in jazz history [Hillsdale: Pendragon press, 2002] p. 235).

Today is Milhaud’s 120th birthday! Above, the composer with his student Dave Brubeck (standing); below, La création du monde from 1923.

Comments Off on Milhaud and jazz

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Jazz and blues

Tagged as , , , ,

by | September 1, 2014 · 6:00 am

Interactive Hansel and Gretel

hansel&gretel

Hansel and Gretel: Design your own opera! is an open-access website that allows children to create a personalized version of Humperdinck’s opera and to go backstage to learn about the making of an opera production.

Clicking through the screens, the child is engaged in each scene in creating some aspect of the setting or action, such as costumes, choreography, backdrops, lighting, or props. After a selection is made—such as a costume—it remains that way throughout the whole opera.

The interactivity is combined with guided listening suggestions; before the child clicks to go to the next scene, an audio prompt suggests what to listen for.

This according to “Design your own opera!…online!” by Rachel Nardo (General music today XXIV/1 [October 2010] pp. 41–42).

Today is Engelbert Humperdinck’s 160th birthday! Below, the iconic duet followed by some decidedly odd goings-on.

Comments Off on Interactive Hansel and Gretel

Filed under Opera

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | August 27, 2014 · 6:00 am

Gluck and Winckelmann

Laocoön

“Sculpture, music, text: Winckelmann, Herder, and Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride” by Simon Richter (Goethe yearbook VIII [1996] pp. 157–71) considers Gluck’s opera in the context of Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s writings on the statue known as Laocoön, widely regarded as the measure for classical beauty in the second half of the 18th century, and Johann Gottfried Herder‘s writings on the human voice as a common origin for both music and language.

According to Richter, Gluck’s Iphigénie enacts a musical version of Winckelmann’s classical aesthetics, which in turn may have consequences for the way in which Iphigénie is performed, staged, and interpreted. Gluck is in every respect staging the allegorical triumph of his opera reform as the musical counterpart of Winckelmann’s classical aesthetics.

This year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the publication of Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst des Althertums (Dresden, 1764)! Winckelmann revolutionized the understanding of stylistic changes in Greco-Roman art and deeply influenced archaeological studies. His concept of edle Einfalt und stille Grösse (noble simplicity and quiet grandeur) put the excessive complexities of Baroque aesthetics to rest, influencing Gluck and others.

Above, the sculpture in question (click to enlarge); below, Véronique Gens as Iphigénie.

Comments Off on Gluck and Winckelmann

Filed under Visual art

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | August 23, 2014 · 11:00 am

The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies publication

The Jewish Experience in Classical Music

Cambridge Scholars launched the series The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies publication in 2014 with The Jewish experience in classical music: Shostakovich and Asia, edited by Alexander Tentser.

The book’s juxtaposition of two highly dissimilar composers allows an exploration of the breadth of influence of traditional Jewish culture on Western classical music in the 20th century and beyond. The first part focuses on the humane qualities of Dmitrij Šostakovič’s personality—his honesty and courage, which enabled him in difficult times to express Jewish torment and suffering under both the Soviet and Nazi regimes through his works; the second part is dedicated to the music of Daniel Asia and to his philosophical and religious identification with Judaism.

Below, Šostakovič and Nina Dorliak perform one of his settings of traditional Jewish songs, and Jonathan Shames performs Asia’s Why (?) Jacob.

Comments Off on The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies publication

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

Tagged as , , , ,

by | August 21, 2014 · 11:00 am

Basie’s unprecedented sound

Count Basie-Ethel Waters 1951

When the Count Basie Orchestra first achieved prominence in 1936 it was using a basic antiphonal style and repertoire borrowed from other performance groups.

In those days, the originality of Basie’s orchestra lay in its rhythm section and in the abilities of its several outstanding soloists. In effect, Basie brought a version of the Kansas City backroom jam session onto the bandstand.

When he re-formed his orchestra in 1950–51, after over a year of leading a sextet, Basie depended on mass effects, orchestral precision, adventurous voicings, and a new repertoire.

During this time he relied on the talents of composer-orchestrators Frank Foster, composer of Shiny stockings, Neal Hefti (Cute), Thad Jones (Speaking of sounds), and others. Basie’s new sound slightly echoed that of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra of the 1930s, but was otherwise without precedent in jazz history.

This according to “Horses in midstream: Count Basie in the 1950s” by Martin T. Williams (Annual review of jazz studies II [1983] pp. 1–6).

Today is Basie’s 110th birthday! Above and below, the Count Basie Orchestra in 1951 (pictured above with Ethel Waters).

Comments Off on Basie’s unprecedented sound

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Jazz and blues

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | August 18, 2014 · 11:00 am

Celos aun del aire matan

Celos aun del aire matan

Celos aun del aire matan: Fiesta cantada (opera in three acts)  (Middleton: A-R editions, 2014) is a critical performing edition of the earliest extant Hispanic opera, Celos aun del aire matan by Juan Hidalgo (1614–85). The work is the most extensive surviving example of Hispanic Baroque theatrical music.

Designed for the Spanish royal court’s festivities honoring the marriage of Infanta María Teresa of Spain and King Louis XIV of France, this passionate fiesta cantada in three acts was first produced in Madrid, thanks to the collaboration of Hidalgo and the court dramatist, Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–81). The opera was designed for performance by a cast of young female actress-singers (the only role requiring a male voice is for a comic tenor) and a continuo group.

This edition, which includes an extensive introduction, an English translation of the Calderón text, and a unique loa from the 1682 Naples production, contributes to a better understanding of Hidalgo’s music and the contribution of Hispanic music to early modern musical culture.

Above and below, moments from a 2000 performance of the work at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

Comments Off on Celos aun del aire matan

Filed under Baroque era, New editions, Opera

Tagged as , , ,

by | August 12, 2014 · 11:00 am

Pat Metheny’s extended work

Metheny Way Up

In 2005 Pat Metheny was alarmed by shortening attention spans and bite-sized media blips.

“The new form now is ringtones!” he exclaimed in an interview. “It went from a symphony to an album, then to singles, then edit your single, then four-bar loops, and now it’s down to one or two seconds.

In response Metheny created The way up, a CD comprising a single work that lasts over an hour. The guitarist described it as “a protest in the purest sense of the word—it offers an alternative, not just a shrill polemic…[the album] “is a reaction to a world where things are getting shorter, dumber, less interesting, less detailed, more predictable.”

“If you look at the whole history of the group, we’ve been totally interested in expansion in terms of form… It seemed like now was the time to go all the way and attempt to use the CD itself as a platform.”

This according to “The advancing guitarist” by David L. Adler (JazzTimes XXXV/2 [March 2005] pp. 36–42).

Today is Metheny’s 60th birthday! Below, the group plays the opening of the work live in 2005.

Comments Off on Pat Metheny’s extended work

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Jazz and blues

Tagged as , , , ,