Tag Archives: Composers

by | September 28, 2012 · 1:00 am

The day Herrmann’s score stood still

Bernard Herrmann’s score for Robert Wise’s The day the earth stood still (1950) is widely celebrated among film historians, and its use of theremins and other electronic instruments makes it the first large-scale electronic music composition in history.

Three considerations explain the perceived suspension of motion in the film’s opening title sequence: nullification of harmonic progress through polytonality, nullification of rhythmic pulse through polyrhythms, and  nullification of acoustical interaction through the use of electronic instruments and tape manipulations.

This accordting to “Suspended motion in the title scene from The day the earth stood still” by Stephen Husarik, an essay included in Sounds of the future: Essays on music in science fiction film (Jefferson: McFarland, 2010). Below, a colorized version of the sequence in question.

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by | September 24, 2012 · 1:00 am

Bach’s youthful indescretions

Although we think of Bach as a paragon of devotion to duty and hard work, school records indicate that as a child he was an inveterate class cutter. This gives a wrong impression, however; he was most likely helping out in the family business—singing, that is (he had a very fine soprano voice) at weddings, baptisms, anniversaries, and burials.

Still, when the 22-year-old Bach resigned his first major job in 1707 the management may have felt relieved, because he had accumulated quite a list of complaints: he had introduced too many surprising variations into the chorales, confusing the congregation; he had extended a four-week professional-development leave to study with Buxtehude to a full four months; and he was known to slip temporarily off the organ bench during a Sunday sermon to refresh himself at the local winery.

This according to Bach-ABC (Sinzig: Studio-Verlag, 2007). Above, a portrait of Bach when he was a young man; below, Robert Tiso plays Bach’s music on wine glasses.

More posts about J.S. Bach are here.

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by | September 13, 2012 · 1:00 am

Kodály and somatic eruption

There are various basic orientations, persuasions, and biases underlying specific uses of metaphors of somatic eruption. An alternative reading of body fluids as metaphoric sites of festive critique in subversively humorous discourse and art differs from more prevalent psychoanalytic interpretations.

The most appropriate musical example in this context is Kodály’s 1926 Háry János, in particular the opening sneeze.

This according to “Explosions in visual art, literature, and music” by Suzanne De Villiers-Human, an essay included in Critical theories symposium (International review of the aesthetics and sociology of music XXXVI/1 [June 2005] pp. 179–197).

Below, the celebrated sneeze depiction, which introduces both the opera and the suite derived from it.

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by | September 5, 2012 · 1:00 am

John Cage unbound

John Cage unbound: A living archive is an online multimedia project about the American composer and avant-garde music pioneer.

Hosted by the New York Public Library, the project invites musicians and others to submit videos of their own interpretations of Cage’s work for addition to the online archive. Visitors to the site can view submitted videos as well as a portion of the library’s collection of Cage’s original notes and manuscripts.

Today is Cage’s 100th birthday! Below, his classic 1960 appearance on I’ve got a secret.

BONUS: Cage’s own recipe for dogsup.

Related article: Source: Music of the avant-garde

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by | August 18, 2012 · 1:00 am

A Knud Jeppesen resource

Sponsored by  Det Kongelige Bibliotek in Copenhagen, the free online resource Knud Jeppesen (1892–1974) presents lists of the composer’s works, his music editions, his musicological writings, and literature on Jeppesen, along with a discography and portraits.

Jeppesen was one of the 20th century’s foremost musicologists, and as such he gained an international reputation. Professionally, Jeppesen worked as an organist at Sankt Stefans Kirke (1917–32) and Holmens Kirke (1932–46), both in Copenhagen, as a teacher at Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium (1920–47) in Copenhagen, and as the first professor of musicology at Aarhus Universitet (1946–57). Jeppesen, who was a pupil of, among others, Thomas Laub and Carl Nielsen, produced many compositions, most of which were both performed and published.

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by | August 15, 2012 · 1:00 am

Jimi Hendrix’s asteroid prophecy

A timely prophecy remains hidden in the words of Jimi Hendrix—a connection between history and religions, linking the future with the past—that predicts the existence of an asteroid on course to impact the earth.

Hendrix was an authentic Afro-American Cherokee seer, the World Shaman who glimpsed a trajectory of extraterrestrial events already in place during his lifetime. The dominators have silenced the seers throughout the ages and retarded history by impeding humanity’s advance towards anti-asteroid technology.

In 1993 Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who acquired rights to a large collection of Hendrix memorabilia for the Experience Music Project in Seattle, loaned the Hendrix family a sum of money to finance a lawsuit against a Hendrix production company in Hollywood, thus facilitating the coverup of Hendrix’s asteroid prophecy.

This according to Rock prophecy: Sex and Jimi Hendrix in world religions—The original asteroid prediction and Microsoft connection by Michael Fairchild (Rochester: First Century, 1999). Below, Hendrix’s If 6 was 9—a song closely connected with the prophecy.

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by | August 12, 2012 · 1:00 am

Gabrieli crosses the border

Giovanni Gabrieli’s unique achievement was the unification of two opposing styles that had been developing throughout the Renaissance: the local Venetian technique involving antiphonal masses of sound and the international technique of interwoven melodic strands.

Having assimilated both traditions, he resolved their conflicts in his Symphoniae sacrae of 1597 and especially of 1615; in so doing, he crossed the border between Renaissance and Baroque and penetrated well into the new territory.

To allow full appreciation of these works, the choirs must not be widely separated: The optimum situation is that depicted in the frontispiece of the tenor part of the fifth volume of Praetorius’s Musae Sioniae (1607, inset; click to enlarge), with one choir on the floor and the other two in balconies on their right and left. The impact must come not from the juxtaposition of masses of sound, but from clarity of texture.

This according to “Texture versus mass in the music of Giovanni Gabrieli” by George Wallace Woodworth, a contribution to Essays on music in honor of Archibald Thompson Davison (Cambridge: Harvard University Department of Music, 1957, pp. 129–138.

Today is the 400th anniversary of Gabrieli’s death! (His birth date is not known.) Below, Green Mountain Project performs his Magnificat à 14, which was published posthumously in 1615.

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by | July 30, 2012 · 1:00 am

DayDay MoeMoe’s boingboxes

David Moore (a.k.a. DayDay MoeMoe, a.k.a. Umburkus) is a musician, artist, furniture maker, and visionary hermit hidden away in a secretive corner of a haunted-looking house in the fading Delta cotton town of Rosedale, Mississippi.

The inquisitive, anarchic child of a family that once held considerable sway there, Moore now lives alone in a house covered in vines and filled with his own artwork alongside untold numbers of sweetly unnerving semicollectibles, a trusty dog, and myriad musical instruments and furniture of his own invention, including his signature schizoid zither, a.k.a. buzzstick,  a.k.a. boingbox. The music that he plays with them is unique and unforgettable.

This according to “SoLost: Discovering a visionary hermit musician-artist” by Dave Anderson (Oxford American, 25 July 2012). Below, Umburkus discusses his oeuvre.

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by | July 25, 2012 · 1:00 am

Wagner and Eros

Wagner’s obsession with sexuality prefigured the composition of operas such as Tannhäuser, Die Walküre, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal. Daring to represent erotic stimulation, passionate ecstasy, and the torment of sexual desire, Wagner sparked intense reactions from figures like Baudelaire, Clara Schumann, Nietzsche, and Nordau, whose verbal tributes and censures disclose what was transmitted when music represented sex.

Wagner himself saw the cultivation of an erotic high style as central to his art, especially after devising an anti-philosophical response to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of sexual love. A reluctant eroticist, Wagner masked his personal compulsion to cross-dress in pink satin and drench himself in rose perfumes while simultaneously incorporating his silk fetish and love of floral scents into his librettos. His affection for dominant females and surprising regard for homosexual love likewise enable some striking portraits in his operas.

In the end, Wagner’s achievement was to have fashioned an oeuvre which explored his sexual yearnings as much as it conveyed—as never before—how music could act on erotic impulse.

This according to Wagner and the erotic impulse by Laurence Dreyfus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010). Below, Kirsten Flagstad’s historic recording of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde.

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by | July 16, 2012 · 1:00 am

Beethoven does the details

The increasing range of Beethoven’s performance indications paralleled the growing depth of expression in his music. While his predecessors had been content with four basic tempos—adagio, andante, allegro, and presto—he began to add qualifiers, indications of gradual tempo change, and descriptive words and phrases in German.

Still unsatisfied, he began to rely on metronome markings, although he stressed that they only provide a point of departure for a performance in which “feeling also has its beat, which cannot wholly be conveyed by a number”.

He started to favor graphic treatments of crescendo and diminuendo, ensuring dynamic shapes that would not necessarily be intuited by the performer. He used sforzando in structural as well as expressive ways, and expanded volume markings beyond the range from pp to ff.

His pedaling indications usually reinforce harmonic contexts, though sometimes they cause harmonic areas to overlap; this might explain why some of Beethoven’s contemporaries complained that his pedaling resulted in a confused sound. His articulation markings often reinforce motivic structure and development.

All of these performance indications are most fully understood in the context of the particular instrument he was using at the time.

This according to “Interpreting Beethoven’s markings: A preliminary survey of the piano sonatas” by Tallis Barker (The music review LV/3 [August 1994] pp. 169–182). Below, Sviatoslav Richter demonstrates his approach to Beethoven’s performance indications.

More posts about Beethoven are here.

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