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It has long been accepted that participating in music, either as a
performer, listener, or composer, can contribute to human happiness
and well-being. This volume, part of The Humanities and Human
Flourishing series, explores a fourth musical activity—the act of
music scholarship—and reveals how engagement with the cultural,
social, and political practices surrounding music contributes to
human flourishing in a way that listening, performing, and even
composing alone cannot. Music and Human Flourishing contains essays
by eleven prominent scholars representing the fields of musicology,
ethnomusicology, and music theory. The essays are divided into
three general categories and cover a broad range of topics and
music traditions. In Part I, Contemplation, contributors explore a
specific facet of music's connection to human flourishing and
contemplate new approaches for future action. Part II, Critique,
contains essays that challenge past assumptions of the various
roles of music in society and highlight the effects that
unconscious bias and stereotyping have had on music's effectiveness
to facilitate human flourishing. Part III, Communication, features
essays that explore how ethnicity, gender, religion, and technology
influence our ability to connect with others through music.
Collectively, these essays demonstrate how the process of thinking
and writing about music and human flourishing can lead to
revelations about cultural identity, social rituals, political
ideologies, and even spiritual transcendence.
Hans Christian Andersen was the most prominent Danish author of the
nineteenth century. Now known primarily for his fairy tales, during
his lifetime he was equally famous for his novels, travelogues,
poetry, and stage works, and it was through these genres that he
most often reflected on the world around him. With the bicentennial
of Andersen's birth in 2005, there is still much about the writer
that is not yet common knowledge. This book explores a single
aspect of that void - his interest in and relationship to the
musical culture of nineteenth-century Europe. Why look to Andersen
for information about music? To begin, Andersen had a musical
background. He enjoyed a brief career as an opera singer and dancer
at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen, and in later years he went on
to produce opera libretti for the Danish and German stage. Andersen
was also an avid music devotee. He made thirty major European tours
during his seventy years, and on each of these trips he regularly
attended opera and concert performances, recording his impressions
in a series of travel diaries. In short, Andersen was a
well-informed listener, and as this book reveals, his reflections
on the music of his age serve as valuable sources for the study of
music reception in the nineteenth century. Over the course of his
life, Andersen embraced and then later rejected performers such as
Maria Malibran, Franz Liszt, and Ole Bull, and his interest in
opera and instrumental music underwent a series of dramatic
transformations. In his final years, Andersen promoted figures as
disparate as Wagner and Mendelssohn, while strongly objecting to
Brahms. Although such changes in taste might be interpreted as
indiscriminate by modern-day readers, this study shows that such
shifts in opinion were not contradictory, but rather quite logical
given the social and cultural climate of the age.
Hans Christian Andersen was the most prominent Danish author of the
nineteenth century. Now known primarily for his fairy tales, during
his lifetime he was equally famous for his novels, travelogues,
poetry, and stage works, and it was through these genres that he
most often reflected on the world around him. With the bicentennial
of Andersen's birth in 2005, there is still much about the writer
that is not yet common knowledge. This book explores a single
aspect of that void - his interest in and relationship to the
musical culture of nineteenth-century Europe. Why look to Andersen
for information about music? To begin, Andersen had a musical
background. He enjoyed a brief career as an opera singer and dancer
at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen, and in later years he went on
to produce opera libretti for the Danish and German stage. Andersen
was also an avid music devotee. He made thirty major European tours
during his seventy years, and on each of these trips he regularly
attended opera and concert performances, recording his impressions
in a series of travel diaries. In short, Andersen was a
well-informed listener, and as this book reveals, his reflections
on the music of his age serve as valuable sources for the study of
music reception in the nineteenth century. Over the course of his
life, Andersen embraced and then later rejected performers such as
Maria Malibran, Franz Liszt, and Ole Bull, and his interest in
opera and instrumental music underwent a series of dramatic
transformations. In his final years, Andersen promoted figures as
disparate as Wagner and Mendelssohn, while strongly objecting to
Brahms. Although such changes in taste might be interpreted as
indiscriminate by modern-day readers, this study shows that such
shifts in opinion were not contradictory, but rather quite logical
given the social and cultural climate of the age.
Jazz Italian Style explores a complex era in music history, when
politics and popular culture collided with national identity and
technology. When jazz arrived in Italy at the conclusion of World
War I, it quickly became part of the local music culture. In Italy,
thanks to the gramophone and radio, many Italian listeners paid
little attention to a performer's national and ethnic identity.
Nick LaRocca (Italian-American), Gorni Kramer (Italian), the Trio
Lescano (Jewish-Dutch), and Louis Armstrong (African-American), to
name a few, all found equal footing in the Italian soundscape. The
book reveals how Italians made jazz their own, and how, by the
mid-1930s, a genre of jazz distinguishable from American varieties
and supported by Mussolini began to flourish in northern Italy and
in its turn influenced Italian-American musicians. Most
importantly, the book recovers a lost repertoire and an array of
musicians whose stories and performances are compelling and well
worth remembering.
George Gershwin is often described as a quintessentially American
composer. This Cambridge Companion explains why, engaging with the
ways in which his music was shaped by American political,
intellectual, cultural and business interests. As a composer and
performer, Gershwin embraced technological advances and broke new
ground in music business practices. In the decades preceding World
War II, he captured the mechanistic pulse of modern life with his
concert works and lay the groundwork for the Great American
Songbook with his Broadway shows and film music. With his brother
Ira, and his cousins Henry and B. A. Botkin, Gershwin explored
various ethnic and cultural identities and contemplated their roles
in US culture. His music confronted race during the Jim Crow era
and continues to engage with issues of race today. This
interdisciplinary exploration of Gershwin's life and music
describes his avowed pursuit of an 'American' musical identity and
its ongoing legacy.
George Gershwin is often described as a quintessentially American
composer. This Cambridge Companion explains why, engaging with the
ways in which his music was shaped by American political,
intellectual, cultural and business interests. As a composer and
performer, Gershwin embraced technological advances and broke new
ground in music business practices. In the decades preceding World
War II, he captured the mechanistic pulse of modern life with his
concert works and lay the groundwork for the Great American
Songbook with his Broadway shows and film music. With his brother
Ira, and his cousins Henry and B. A. Botkin, Gershwin explored
various ethnic and cultural identities and contemplated their roles
in US culture. His music confronted race during the Jim Crow era
and continues to engage with issues of race today. This
interdisciplinary exploration of Gershwin's life and music
describes his avowed pursuit of an 'American' musical identity and
its ongoing legacy.
Jazz Italian Style explores a complex era in music history, when
politics and popular culture collided with national identity and
technology. When jazz arrived in Italy at the conclusion of World
War I, it quickly became part of the local music culture. In Italy,
thanks to the gramophone and radio, many Italian listeners paid
little attention to a performer's national and ethnic identity.
Nick LaRocca (Italian-American), Gorni Kramer (Italian), the Trio
Lescano (Jewish-Dutch), and Louis Armstrong (African-American), to
name a few, all found equal footing in the Italian soundscape. The
book reveals how Italians made jazz their own, and how, by the
mid-1930s, a genre of jazz distinguishable from American varieties
and supported by Mussolini began to flourish in northern Italy and
in its turn influenced Italian-American musicians. Most
importantly, the book recovers a lost repertoire and an array of
musicians whose stories and performances are compelling and well
worth remembering.
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