Tag Archives: Composers

by | November 3, 2013 · 1:00 am

Bert Jansch’s legacy

 

The guitarists’ guitarist and the songwriters’ songwriter, Bert Jansch (1943–2011) influenced musicians as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Paul Simon, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Donovan, Pete Townshend, Neil Young, Bernard Butler, Beth Orton, and Laura Marling.

Unassuming, enigmatic, and completely focused on his music until his untimely death, he remained singularly resilient to the vagaries of fashion, being rediscovered and revered by new generations of artists every few years.

Born in Edinburgh, Jansch became an inspirational and pioneering figure during Britain’s folk revival of the 1960s. In 1967 he formed the folk/jazz fusion band Pentangle with John Renbourn and enjoyed international success; when they split in 1973 he returned to his solo career, securing his standing as one of the true originals of British music.

This according to Dazzling stranger: Bert Jansch and the British folk and blues revival by Colin Harper (London: Bloomsbury, 2000, 2nd ed. 2006).

Jansch would have turned 70 today! Below, his classic version of Black waterside.

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by | October 25, 2013 · 1:00 am

Songs of Sam Lucas

sam lucas

Songs of Sam Lucas by Sandra Jean Graham is an open-access resource that streams recordings of 12 songs attributed to Lucas (ca. 1840–1916), one of the most celebrated entertainers of his generation, supplemented by a background essay, extensive liner notes, and illustrations.

Lucas created a significant body of black popular song that serves as an important window into the post-Civil War era. His songs illustrate a range of strategies: conformity to minstrel stereotypes, an attempt to recuperate the dignity of black traditional song, and ultimately liberation from minstrelsy through the adoption of white popular song style.

Recordings of Lucas’s songs are extremely rare; this site gives the public a chance to become acquainted with the music of this performer whose career spanned minstrelsy, variety, vaudeville, theater, and silent film.

Above, a newspaper photograph of Lucas from 1911; the full article is here.

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by | October 23, 2013 · 1:00 am

Ned Rorem’s organ music

 

Although Ned Rorem had composed little organ music until he was in his 50s, his output for the instrument since that time has been considerable, making him the most prolific living U.S. composer for the organ.

Rorem says that he writes music that he wants to hear, and composes out of necessity because no one else is making what he needs.

This according to The organ works of Ned Rorem by John David Marsh, a dissertation accepted by Rice University in 2002.

Today is Rorem’s 90th birthday! Below, Jung Jin Kim performs “Mary Dyer did hang as a flag” from A Quaker reader.

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by | October 20, 2013 · 1:00 am

Robert Craft and Stravinsky

 

Robert Craft progressed with remarkable speed from being Stravinsky’s assistant to serving as his adviser, collaborator, and defender.

While Craft has been castigated for suppressing or misstating information, his actions must be viewed in the context of his complicated relationship with the composer, which has no clear parallel in music history. Craft was ethically bound both to interpret Stravinsky to the outside world and to ensure his status as a 20th-century hero.

This according to “Boswellizing an icon: Stravinsky, Craft, and the historian’s dilemma” by Charles M. Joseph, an essay included in Stravinsky inside out (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 233–265).

Today is Craft’s 90th birthday! Below, he recalls Stravinsky’s California years.

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by | October 9, 2013 · 1:00 am

Verdi’s pigs

verdi-pig

Archivists at the American Institute for Verdi Studies discovered a document that sheds new light on Verdi’s activity just prior to the composition of his final opera, Falstaff.

A letter from the publisher Giulio Ricordi dated 22 August 1890 congratulates Verdi on the successful launching of a new business devoted to the sale of pork prepared at the composer’s Sant’Agata farm.

Ricordi, having purchased a “G.V. brand” pork shoulder, reports that he found the bill “a bit salty”, but for such exquisite meat he would pay “neither a lira more nor a lira less”.

This according to “New Verdi document discovered” by Martin Chusid (Verdi newsletter XX [1992] p. 23). (The information in this article, delicious as it is, appears to be outdated; see the comment below.)

Today is Verdi’s 200th birthday! Below, in Falstaff’s finale, the opera’s characters prepare to dine together—no doubt anticipating the composer’s own homegrown prosciutto.

Related article: Verdi’s gastromusicology

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by | October 7, 2013 · 1:00 am

Hildegard of Bingen

Museum - Hildegard von Bingen

In Hildegard of Bingen (Oxford bibliographies, 2013) Honey Meconi presents an annotated bibliography of over 130 of the most important publications for the study of the 12th-century composer’s works.

This resource is divided into separate sections for editions, essay collections, Ordo virtutum, performance practice, and so on. Significant publications of Hildegard’s nonmusical works are included as well.

Above, a detail from a stained glass piece that was once part of Rochuskapelle, just southeast of Bingen. below, the Oxford Camerata performs Hildegard’s Ave generosa.

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by | September 27, 2013 · 1:00 am

Wiener Veröffentlichungen zur Theorie und Interpretation der Musik

im-schatten-des-kunstwerks

In 2012 Praesens Verlag launched the series Wiener Veröffentlichungen zur Theorie und Interpretation der Musik with Im Schatten des Kunstwerks. I: Komponisten als Theoretiker in Wien vom 17. bis Anfang 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Dieter Torkewitz.

The book’s articles discuss Viennese composers from the 17th through the 19th centuries who were also theorists; future publications will cover other topics in Viennese music theory and interpretation.

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by | September 17, 2013 · 1:00 am

Hank Williams’s subversive narratives

 

The extraordinary popularity of Hank Williams’s songs in the late 1940s and early 1950s played a crucial role in transforming country music from a regional and class-bound genre to a staple of mass popular culture.

Yet Williams’s narratives exuded a fatalism and despair about personal relationships, resisted romantic optimism, and avoided the kinds of closure and transcendence historically associated with male subjectivity.

His refusal to embrace dominant cultural narratives gave an individual voice to collective fears and hopes about the body, romance, gender roles, and the family.

This according to “‘Everybody’s lonesome for somebody’: Age, the body and experience in the music of Hank Williams” by Richard D. Leppert and George Lipsitz (Popular music IX/3 [October 1990] pp. 259–274).

Today is Williams’s 90th birthday! Below, a live recording of his classic expression of male vulnerability.

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by | September 1, 2013 · 1:00 am

Pachelbel and immune response

pachelbel

In an experiment, 80 students were each randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: no treatment (control), music only, imagery only, and music and imagery combined.

The first group was asked to sit quietly for 17 minutes. The second group listened to a recording of Pachelbel’s D-major canon. The third treatment used directed imagery to help the subjects visualize the bone marrow, a primary source of lymphocyte production, and the radiation of cleansing lymphocytes to various areas of the body. The fourth treatment combined the music and the directed imagery.

The second, third, and fourth treatments resulted in significant increases in the subjects’ immune response. The fourth treatment, however, did not show a significant increase over those of the second and third.

This according to “The effects of music and biological imagery on immune response (S-IgA)” by Chung Tsao Chien, et al., an essay included in Applications of music in medicine (Washington, D.C.: National Association for Music Therapy, 1991, pp. 85–121.

Today is Pachelbel’s 360th birthday! Below, Rob Paravonian discusses other uses of the celebrated canon in D.

BONUS: The notorious rubber-chicken performance.

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by | July 10, 2013 · 1:00 am

Webern-Studien

Webern series

In 2012 Verlag Lafite, a division of Musikzeit, launched the series Webern-Studien with Wechselnde Erscheinung: Sechs Perspektiven auf Anton Weberns sechste Bagatelle, edited by Simon Obert.

The series will serve as a supplement to Musikzeit’s edition of the composer’s complete works, providing relevant correspondence, journal entries, and so on, in addition to detailed analyses of the works themselves.

Below, the Tesla Quartet performs all six of Webern’s bagatelles.

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