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Books > Music > Musical instruments & instrumental ensembles > General
Using a collection of over one thousand popular songs from the war years, as well as around 150 soldiers' songs, John Mullen provides a fascinating insight into the world of popular entertainment during the First World War. Mullen considers the position of songs of this time within the history of popular music, and the needs, tastes and experiences of working-class audiences who loved this music. To do this, he dispels some of the nostalgic, rose-tinted myths about music hall. At a time when recording companies and record sales were marginal, the book shows the centrality of the live show and of the sale of sheet music to the economy of the entertainment industry. Mullen assesses the popularity and significance of the different genres of musical entertainment which were common in the war years and the previous decades, including music hall, revue, pantomime, musical comedy, blackface minstrelsy, army entertainment and amateur entertainment in prisoner of war camps. He also considers non-commercial songs, such as hymns, folk songs and soldiers' songs and weaves them into a subtle and nuanced approach to the nature of popular song, the ways in which audiences related to the music and the effects of the competing pressures of commerce, propaganda, patriotism, social attitudes and the progress of the war.
Using a collection of over one thousand popular songs from the war years, as well as around 150 soldiers' songs, John Mullen provides a fascinating insight into the world of popular entertainment during the First World War. Mullen considers the position of songs of this time within the history of popular music, and the needs, tastes and experiences of working-class audiences who loved this music. To do this, he dispels some of the nostalgic, rose-tinted myths about music hall. At a time when recording companies and record sales were marginal, the book shows the centrality of the live show and of the sale of sheet music to the economy of the entertainment industry. Mullen assesses the popularity and significance of the different genres of musical entertainment which were common in the war years and the previous decades, including music hall, revue, pantomime, musical comedy, blackface minstrelsy, army entertainment and amateur entertainment in prisoner of war camps. He also considers non-commercial songs, such as hymns, folk songs and soldiers' songs and weaves them into a subtle and nuanced approach to the nature of popular song, the ways in which audiences related to the music and the effects of the competing pressures of commerce, propaganda, patriotism, social attitudes and the progress of the war.
Virtuoso Mariachi presents a unique insight into the history and development of Mexico's traditional music, including how its history has affected performance practice, an in-depth discussion of mariachi trumpet style and technique, a survey of song types common in mariachi music today, critical examination of current trends in mariachi and the performers who set them, and the author's thoughts on the future of mariachi music. This unique, intelligently written and long awaited work is extremely important to the world of mariachi and will serve to elevate the status of this beautiful and passionate music in the eyes of the general public, Classical-Music musicians and enthusiasts, students everywhere who are studying mariachi, and indeed the thousands of mariachi musicians around the globe themselves, who have seen their music greatly ignored by the academic community up until now. Included with each book is a coupon for a free, full-length CD of the author's Mariachi Champana Nevin performing traditional mariachi music. This recording was made with great care and the intention of illustrating many of the issues discussed in Virtuoso Mariachi."
To reach the highest standards of instrumental performance, several years of sustained and focused learning are required. This requires perseverance, commitment and opportunities to learn and practise, often in a collective musical environment. This book brings together a wide range of enlightening current psychological and educational research to offer deeper insights into the mosaic of factors and related experiences that combine to nurture (and sometimes hinder) advanced musical performance. Each of the book's four sections focus on one aspect of music performance and learning: musics in higher education and beyond; musical journeys and educational reflections; performance learning; and developing expertise and professionalism. Although each chapter within its home section offers a particular focus, there is an underlying conception across all the book's contents of the achievability of advanced musical performance and of the important nurturing role that higher education can play, particularly if policy and practice are evidence-based and draw on the latest international research findings. The narrative offers an insight into the world of advanced musicians, detailing their learning journeys and the processes involved in their quest for the development of expertise and professionalism. It is the first book of its kind to consider performance learning in higher education across a variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, popular and folk musics. The editors have invited an international community of leading scholars and performance practitioners to contribute to this publication, which draws on meticulous research and critical practice. This collection is an essential resource for all musicians, educators, researchers and policy makers who share our interest in promoting the development of advanced performance skills and professionalism.
This innovative study of nineteenth-century cellists and cello playing shows how simple concepts of posture, technique and expression changed over time, while acknowledging that many different practices co-existed. By placing an awareness of this diversity at the centre of an historical narrative, George Kennaway has produced a unique cultural history of performance practices. In addition to drawing upon an unusually wide range of source materials - from instructional methods to poetry, novels and film - Kennaway acknowledges the instability and ambiguity of the data that supports historically informed performance. By examining nineteenth-century assumptions about the very nature of the cello itself, he demonstrates new ways of thinking about historical performance today. Kennaway's treatment of tone quality and projection, and of posture, bow-strokes and fingering, is informed by his practical insights as a professional cellist and teacher. Vibrato and portamento are examined in the context of an increasing divergence between theory and practice, as seen in printed sources and heard in early cello recordings. Kennaway also explores differing nineteenth-century views of the cello's gendered identity and the relevance of these cultural tropes to contemporary performance. By accepting the diversity and ambiguity of nineteenth-century sources, and by resisting oversimplified solutions, Kennaway has produced a nuanced performing history that will challenge and engage musicologists and performers alike.
Perspectives on the Performance of French Piano Music offers a range of approaches central to the performance of French piano music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors include scholars and active performers who see performance not as an independent activity but as a practice enriched by a wealth of historical and analytical approaches. To underline the usefulness of contextual understanding for performance, each author highlights the choices performers must confront with examples drawn from particular repertoires and composers. Topics explored include editorial practice, the use of early recordings, emergent disciplines such as analysis-and-performance, and traditions passed down from teacher to student. Themes that emerge demonstrate the importance of editions as a form of communication, the challenges of notation, the significance of detail and of deeper continuity, the importance of performing and teaching traditions, and the influence of cross disciplinary frameworks. A link to a set of performed examples on the Brigham Young University-Hawai'i website allows readers to hear and compare performances and interpretations of the music discussed. The volume will appeal to musicologists and analysts interested in performance, performers, students, and piano teachers.
This is the first full-length study of British women's instrumental chamber music in the early twentieth century. Laura Seddon argues that the Cobbett competitions, instigated by Walter Willson Cobbett in 1905, and the formation of the Society of Women Musicians in 1911 contributed to the explosion of instrumental music written by women in this period and highlighted women's place in British musical society in the years leading up to and during the First World War. Seddon investigates the relationship between Cobbett, the Society of Women Musicians and women composers themselves. The book's six case studies - of Adela Maddison (1866-1929), Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Morfydd Owen (1891-1918), Ethel Barns (1880-1948), Alice Verne-Bredt (1868-1958) and Susan Spain-Dunk (1880-1962) - offer valuable insight into the women's musical education and compositional careers. Seddon's discussion of their chamber works for differing instrumental combinations includes an exploration of formal procedures, an issue much discussed by contemporary sources. The individual composers' reactions to the debate instigated by the Society of Women Musicians, on the future of women's music, is considered in relation to their lives, careers and the chamber music itself. As the composers in this study were not a cohesive group, creatively or ideologically, the book draws on primary sources, as well as the writings of contemporary commentators, to assess the legacy of the chamber works produced.
Despite the musical and social roles they play in many parts of the world, wind bands have not attracted much interest from sociologists. The Sociology of Wind Bands seeks to fill this gap in research by providing a sociological account of this musical universe as it stands now. Based on a qualitative and quantitative survey conducted in northeastern France, the authors present a vivid description of the orchestras, the backgrounds and practices of their musicians, and the repertoires they play. Their multi-level analysis, ranging from the cultural field to the wind music subfield and to everyday life relationships within bands and local communities, sheds new light on the social organisation, meanings and functions of a type of music that is all too often taken for granted. Yet they go further than merely portraying a musical genre. As wind music is routinely neglected and socially defined in terms of its poor musical quality or even bad taste, the book addresses the thorny issue of the effects of cultural hierarchy and domination. It proposes an imaginative and balanced framework which, beyond the specific case of wind music, is an innovative contribution to the sociology of lowbrow culture.
Richard Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra is one of his most controversial works, but it is also one of the staples of the virtuoso orchestra. Its greatest popularity has been achieved in recent years with its association with Kubrick's film 2001--A Space Odyssey. This guide examines the intellectual background of the work and considers the ways in which it has been received by composers and writers. It also discusses the musical background of Liszt and Wagner which gave rise to the genre "tone poem," and provides an analysis of several aspects of Strauss's musical language.
Learning was never so much fun! If you're looking for a revolutionary band curriculum that builds solid musicianship while motivating your students to practice throughout the year, then you've found it! This full band curriculum is sound in its pedagogy, written by leading young band composers and educators, including Robert W. Smith and Michael Story. The integration of important songs from the band world, that are both familiar and fun to play, is one of the stellar aspects of this course. Throughout the book, students experience music from a veritable "who's who" list of great band composers. They'll discover the musical contributions of Percy Grainger, Gustav Holst, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, John Williams and John Philip Sousa as well as classical composers. Some of the notable features include: A wonderful variety of melodies that span various styles and periods, including many popular themes students will know: -A 96-track CD in each student
The popularity of Mahler's symphonic works is unremitting. More recordings have been made during the past ten years than in the previous six decades. This work is a companion to the first volume, published in 1986; together, the two review virtually every recording commercially released (as well as some private issues). The intention of both works is to provide a comprehensive analysis of all recordings. A general overview is combined with details of particular importance. Recordings of special merit are noted. The objective critical discussions will appeal to the newcomer as well as the knowledgeable devotee and the work will serve as a valuable addition to university, music school, and public libraries, as well as any music lover's library. This guide provides a symphony-by-symphony commentary, including the unfinished Tenth Symphony, Das Lied von der Erde, and piano and chamber music reductions of the works. It includes all new recordings issued worldwide as well as compact disc reissues of previously released recordings and all performances on videocassette. Listings are arranged alphabetically by conductor, and headings for each recording contain specific information about the performers, record label, catalog number, and timing. Helpful indexes by conductor, orchestra, vocal and instrumental soloists, chorus, and record label are included.
In Studio-Based Instrumental Learning, Kim Burwell investigates the nature of lesson interactions in instrumental teaching and learning. Studio lesson activity is represented as a private interaction, dealing with skill acquisition and reflecting a tradition based in apprenticeship, as well as the personal attributes and intentions of participants. The varied and particular nature of such interaction does not always lend itself well to observation or - when observed - to easy interpretation. This presents particular problems for practitioners wishing to share aspects of professional knowledge, and for researchers seeking to explain the practice. Focusing on a single case study of two clarinet lessons, Burwell uses video observations and interviews to analyse collaborative lesson activity, through the 'rich transcription' of performance, verbal and nonverbal behaviours. The foregrounded lesson interactions are also contextualised by the background consideration of social, cultural and institutional frameworks. The research is aimed a helping to create a framework that can support reflection among practitioners as they continually develop their work, not only experientially - through the tradition of 'vertical transmission' from one musician to another - but collaboratively, through the 'horizontal' sharing of good practice.
Mary Cyr addresses the needs of researchers, performers, and informed listeners who wish to apply knowledge about historically informed performance to specific pieces. Special emphasis is placed upon the period 1680 to 1760, when the viol, violin, and violoncello grew to prominence as solo instruments in France. Part I deals with the historical background to the debate between the French and Italian styles and the features that defined French style. Part II summarizes the present state of research on bowed string instruments (violin, viola, cello, contrebasse, pardessus de viole, and viol) in France, including such topics as the size and distribution of parts in ensembles and the role of the contrebasse. Part III addresses issues and conventions of interpretation such as articulation, tempo and character, inequality, ornamentation, the basse continue, pitch, temperament, and "special effects" such as tremolo and harmonics. Part IV introduces four composer profiles that examine performance issues in the music of A0/00lisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Marin Marais, Jean-Baptiste Barriere, and the Forquerays (father and son). The diversity of compositional styles among this group of composers, and the virtuosity they incorporated in their music, generate a broad field for discussing issues of performance practice and offer opportunities to explore controversial themes within the context of specific pieces.
As Robert Schumann put it, 'Only few works are as clearly stamped with their author's imprint as his'. This book explores Schubert's stylistic traits in a series of chapters each discussing an individual 'fingerprint' with case studies drawn principally from the piano and chamber music. The notion of Schubert's compositional fingerprints has not previously formed the subject of a book-length study. The features of his personal style considered here include musical manifestations of Schubert's 'violent nature', the characteristics of his thematic material, and the signs of his 'classicizing' manner. In the process of the discussion, attention is given to matters of form, texture, harmony and gesture in a range of works, with regard to the various 'fingerprints' identified in each chapter. The repertoire discussed includes the late string quartets, the String Quintet, the E flat Piano Trio and the last three piano sonatas. Developing ideas which she first proposed in a series of journal articles and contributions to symposia on Schubert, Professor Wollenberg takes into account recent literature by other scholars and draws together her own researches to present her view of Schubert's 'compositional personality'. Schubert emerges as someone exerting intellectual control over his musical material and imbuing it with poetic resonance.
Based on primary sources, many of which have never been published or examined in detail, this book examines the music of the late seventeenth-century composers, Biber, Schmeltzer and Muffat, and the compositions preserved in the extensive Moravian archives in Kromeriz. These works have never before been fully examined in the cultural and conceptual contexts of their time. Charles E. Brewer sets these composers and their music within a framework that first examines the basic Baroque concepts of instrumental style, and then provides a context for the specific works. The dances of Schmeltzer, for example, functioned both as incidental music in Viennese operas and as music for elaborate court pantomimes and balls. These same cultural practices also account for some of Biber's most programmatic music, which accompanied similar entertainments in Kromeriz and Salzburg. The many sonatas by these composers have also been misunderstood by not being placed in a context where it was normal to be entertained in church and edified in court. Many of the works discussed here remain unpublished but have, in recent years, been recorded. This book enhances our understanding and appreciation of these recordings by providing an analysis of the context in which the works were first performed.
This guide to Mozart's last and most celebrated symphony explores the historical background and aesthetic context of the work as well as the music itself. The early chapters examine the expectations of the symphony in Mozart's Vienna, Mozart's career in 1788 - the year of the three last symphonies - and the changing reception of the 'Jupiter' over the subsequent two hundred years. A separate chapter is then devoted to each movement of the symphony with musical discussion illuminated by a broad array of topics. Finally, a lucid exposition of rhetoric reveals the connections between elevated and learned styles and the sublime, enabling the reader to grasp the effect Mozart's music had upon his contemporaries.
Mozart's piano sonatas are among the most familiar of his works and stand alongside those of Haydn and Beethoven as staples of the pianist's repertoire. In this study, John Irving looks at a wide selection of contextual situations for Mozart's sonatas, focusing on the variety of ways in which they assume identities and achieve meanings. In particular, the book seeks to establish the provisionality of the sonatas' notated texts, suggesting that the texts are not so much identifiers as possibilities and that their identity resides in the usage. Close attention is paid to reception matters, analytical approaches, organology, the role of autograph manuscripts, early editions and editors, and aspects of historical performance practice - all of which go beyond the texts in opening windows onto Mozart's sonatas. Treating the sonatas collectively as a repertoire, rather than as individual works, the book surveys broad thematic issues such as the role of historical writing about music in defining a generic space for Mozart's sonatas, their construction within pedagogical traditions, the significance of sound as opposed to sight in these works (and in particular their sound on fortepianos of the later eighteenth-century) , and the creative role of the performer in their representation beyond the frame of the text. Drawing together and synthesizing this wealth of material, Irving provides an invaluable reference source for those already familiar with this repertoire.
Many tombs dating to the Eastern Zhou (770-221 BCE) and Han (206 BCE-220 AD) periods contain musical instruments or their visual representations in the form of wood, stone, and ceramic figures, tomb tiles, and engravings. These finds suggest that music was viewed as an important part of the afterlife. While bells have survived more frequently than wooden instruments, and therefore have received the most scholarly attention, strings, winds, and drums are the focus of discussion in this book. The book examines the use of these three instrument types in both solo and ensemble music, as well as the social, ritual, and entertainment functions of each. When combined with bells (and chime stones), strings, drums, and winds appear to have been associated with formal ritual ceremonies. However, when appearing alone or in assemblages with other wooden instruments during Zhou, they appear to be connected with warfare and entertainment. By Han times, strings, winds, and drums seem to be associated almost exclusively with entertainment, pointing to a shift in the social life of the times. Another topic explored in this book is the association of musical instruments with wealth. When combined with bells and chime stones, they are only found in the wealthiest tombs. However, when found by themselves, strings, winds, and drums appear in small to large, modest to wealthy tombs, suggesting that they were available to a broad range of peoples in early Chinese elite society. This book analyzes an often disregarded aspect of early Chinese music, the role of strings, winds, and drums. Music in Ancient China will be a valuable book for those interested in ethnomusicology and music history, Asian art history and archaeology, and Asian studies.
Sonata form is fundamentally a dramatic structure that creates, manipulates, and ultimately satisfies expectation. It engages its audience by inviting prediction, association, and interpretation. That sonata form was the chief vehicle of dramatic instrumental music for nearly 200 years is due to the power, the universality, and the tonal and stylistic adaptability of its conception. This book presents nine studies whose central focus is sonata form. Their diversity attests both to the manifold analytical approaches to which the form responds, and to the vast range of musical possibility within the form's exemplars. At the same time, common compositional issues, analytical methods, and overarching perspectives on the essential nature of the form weave their way through the volume. Several of the essays approach the musical structure directly as drama, casting the work as an expression of its composer's engagement with an idea or principle that is dynamic and at times intensely difficult. Others concentrate their attention on a composer's use of "motive," which typically takes the form of a simple melodic span that shapes the musical architecture through an interdependent series of structural levels. Integrating these motivic threads within the musical fabric often warrants departures from formal norms in other areas. Analyses that seek to understand works with anomalous formal qualities-whether engendered by a motivic component or not-have a prominent place in the volume. Among these, accounts of idiosyncratic tonal discourse that threatens to undermine the unfolding of form-defining qualities or events are central.
Student learning in school music ensembles is often focused on technical skill development. Give your students broader experience involving multiple music learnings, technical proficiency, cognition, and personal meaning. The Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance (CMP) model will help you plan instruction for school ensembles that promotes a holistic form of music learning and will allow you to use your creativity, passion, and vision. With model teaching plans and questions for discussion, this book can give you richer, more meaningful challenges and help you provide your students with deeper musical experiences. Sindberg combines the theoretical foundations of CMP with practical applications in a book that's useful for practicing teacher-conductors, scholars, and teacher educators alike.
As the first compendium of musical instruments in the Bible, this volume is both a reference book and a piece of serious scholarly research based on historical facts, comparative linguistic analysis, and careful musical study. In researching the musical instruments in the Bible, the sources drawn on include the main translations of the Bible both ancient and modern, the works of rabbinic teachers, Church Fathers, medieval exegetes and contemporary scholars. The Compendium contains a historical survey and 34 specific entries. The survey outlines the background of Hebrew instrumental music, its origin and links with neighbouring cultures, the role of instruments in the religious, social, public and private life of ancient Israel, and the system of musical education. It also traces the development of Hebrew musical instruments in post-biblical times, showing their new symbolic significance in the writings of the Church Fathers, in the comments of the Medieval and Renaissance exegetes, and culturally based interpretations of the terms for the instruments in translations of the Bible into different languages both ancient and modern. The specific entries include the whole range of instrumental terminology, including ambiguous terms that may have instrumental meaning. The Compendium also contains indices, a glossary of Biblical and Talmudic terms, a bibliography, a list of all the references to musical instruments in the Bible, a table of instrumental ensembles and a summary table of their names as found in different Bible versions. The Compendium is intended for specialists in various disciplines: theologians, historians, philologists and Bible translators, as well as for all who would like to have a deeper understanding of the Book of Books.
This is the first book-length study of the composition, reception, extramusical implications, and stylistic eclecticism of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, a staple of the nineteenth-century musical canon. Cooper devotes extensive attention to the differences between the posthumously published familiar version of the work and the composer's revision, which remained unpublished until 2001. He presents substantial new insights into a work which many listeners and scholars have known only in the version the composer considered less successful.
Examines the life and work of Scottish cellist and antiquarian John Gunn (1766-1824) through newly discovered sources. The Scottish cellist and antiquarian John Gunn (1766-1824) is unique among British writers on music in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Learned and practical, at home in classical and modern languages, knowledgeable in a wide range of musical topics and with even wider-ranging interests, and committed to the ideal of progress through rational thought, he typified the Enlightenment. His published output was large and diverse: a cello treatise in two quite different editions; two books on the flute and one on the piano; a treatise on figured bass; a history of the harp in the Highlands; and a translation of a French work of music theory. The list of his unrealised publications is even longer, including a proof of the oriental origins of the Scots. He married Anne Young, a well-known Edinburgh piano teacher, and his letters cast new light on the circumstances and date of her death. Taking account of Gunn's diverse experiences as a musician-scholar in Cambridge, London and Edinburgh, studying his sundry occupations, and exploring his social connections through a recently unearthed cache of his letters, this study moves away from 'treatise archaeology' and offers a broader view than is usually possible with such figures. The book will be of interest to those studying historical performance practice, music education in Enlightenment Britain, and the dissemination of Enlightenment thought.
First published in 1998, this volume is the first book to focus on the American symphony. Neil Butterworth surveys the development of the symphony in the United States from early European influences in the last century to the present day, and asks why American composers have shown such allegiance to a musical form which their European contemporaries appear to have discarded. An overview of the growth of musical societies in America during the eighteenth century and the establishment of the first professional orchestras during the early part of the nineteenth century is followed by chronological analyses of the works of those composers who have played important parts in the progress of symphony in the United States, from Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, to contemporary figures such as William Bolcom and John Harbison. Complete with a comprehensive catalogue of symphonies and an extensive discography, this book is an indispensable reference work.
This book, the first of its kind, is a study of Bolognese instrumental music during the height of the city's musical activity in the late seventeenth century. The period"marked by a rapid expansion of the cappella musicale of the principal city church, San Petronio, by the founding of the Accademia Filarmonica, and by increasingly lavish patronage of musical events"witnessed the proliferation of repertory for instrumental ensembles. This music not only reveals crucial stages in the development of the sonata and concerto but also recalls the elaborate church rituals and the opulent public and private celebrations in which they figured prominently. Moreover, the late seventeenth century saw the heyday of Bolognese music publishing, whose output of sonatas and related instrumental genres easily surpassed that of the once-dominating Venetian presses. The approach taken here departs from composer- and genre-centered monographs on Italian instrumental music in order to illuminate an array of topics that center on the Bolognese repertory: the social condition of instrumentalist-composers; the acumen of music publishers in the creation of the repertory; the diverse contexts of the instrumental dances; the influence of liturgical traditions on sonata topoi; the impact of psalmodic practice on tonal style; and the innovative climate that led to experiments with scoring and form in the earliest instrumental concertos. In sum, this book not only illustrates the historically significant and defining features of the music, but also links the surviving repertory to the flourishing musical culture in which it was created. |
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