Gilding the Lily? Additions to Classic Pieces

What do Edvard Grieg and Ignaz Moscheles have in common? Aside from being European composers of the second half of the nineteenth century, they both felt certain classics of the solo piano repertoire could use a supplemental second piano. Grieg wrote a second piano part to three Mozart piano sonatas, and Moscheles practically rewrote 10 preludes from the Well-Tempered Clavier, conceiving of

Atonal Counterpoint from Norway: Fartein Valen

Valen (1887-1952) lived his entire life a bachelor in the country of Norway, but made important strides in the field of 20^th century music despite his relative isolation. His particular atonal “dissonant counterpoint” was developed in all likelihood completely unaware of Schoenberg’s work, though based on the same recognition of the need for a solid ground when leaving tonality behind. Valen was fond of the polyphony of Bach and worked out contrapuntal solutions which, while not tonal or based on consonant intervals, are as intricate and complex a system as that of the old masters. Interestingly, Valen studied composition with Max Bruch about ten years after the latter had mentored Ernst Mielck (see Friday’s post).

Much of Valen’s work is available at IMSLP, which is where I first encountered this fascinating composer. Recordings are available through Naxos for most of his work including the pieces written after 1923 which are not yet in the public domain. In addition, here is a taste of Valen’s unique style, from YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kPHBiB0Lc Nachtstuck, from a set of 4 piano pieces

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q2rBzyPzhM Glenn Gould plays the 2^nd piano sonata (part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hrz-vSBpVw&feature=related (part 2)

Sources: Grove, Naxos, links from Wikipedia

Tchaikovsky, Boris

Yes, that’s right, not Piotr Ilich, but Boris Alexandrovich Tchaikovsky (1925-1996). A composer of the modern age, his career took place 100 years after his more famous countryman. This Tchaikovsky is represented by orchestral works, film scores, chamber music, and an opera. His miniatures for piano are playful, sometimes modal, and ultimately charming.  If you can, check them out on Naxos, or his "After the Ball" suite, also on Naxos - lovely old-fashioned orchestral dance music.  Developing his style from the Russian masters of the previous generation and mixing in contemporary influences, Tchaikovsky was famous in his country but not well known outside of the Iron Curtain. Nowadays, he is fairly well represented on record, with several dozen recordings at the Naxos Music Library. 

Here is a recording of one of his settings of Pushkin’s poetry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK_NOYNSRJU

the String Quartet, no.6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zoh9cBkEL8

and the Sinfonietta for Strings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YNaxTW5l4


Sources - Grove, Naxos, additional links available from Wikipedia

Career Contemplations

This summer is both a time of relaxation and a nonstop continuance of the previous school year. I’m taking classes online and working part time, but overall my workload is much easier than during the school year and I have time for long term goals. So I find myself applying to grad school – Indiana University, Bloomington is my first choice. The program I am interested in is the dual Master’s in Library Science and Musicology, a combination which does not exist anywhere else in the country, and seems tailor-made to my favorite career choice: music librarian. While writing my personal statement for the application, I decided to revisit my goals before codifying and concentrating them to 500 words. Here go my thoughts, starting slowly.

I love school, and I love work. I want to combine all I love about education - learning languages, dissecting and enjoying music, meeting contrasting points of view – with what I love about work – connecting people with information or services, a long-term pattern of variety within continuity – and having worked in a library setting, I would love to work in libraries for the rest of my life. Being at UNH has given me free access to much of what comes under the heading of “culture:” different people, different traditions at all scales, a wide focus on learning and learning everywhere, and an appreciation of history and histories. Because of this broad range of experiences, I have grown as a person and a lifelong student, and I want to continue to experience new things through the lens of a university town. No, New Hampshire is not the most diverse state, but you get out of UNH what you put into it and through effort and the internet you can get a lot in this small white-bred state. Of course, in order to access the important next steps of my career I have to leave New Hampshire and join a new intellectual collection. Indiana’s proud reputation as a language school fits my goal to learn as much as I can about as many languages as possible. The Jacobs School’s partnership with the Library Science program will allow me to prepare for a career of helping people and working with information, with a view towards the historical uses and meaning of music in culture. The community of Bloomington will be a place to grow and pursue intellectual avenues only available at a large university.

Other options include Florida State, University of Maryland, University of North Carolina, and University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. All of these will require major relocating and culture adjustments, and each has its own merits as an institution. The dual master’s degree is unique to Indiana, but all my other top contenders offer me the option of successive Library Science & Musicology degrees with small cross-enrollment possibilities.

Alfredo Casella

Casella (1883-1947) is another one of my cherished finds from IMSLP.  His use of modes and colorful pianistic style make him a unique find from the era immediately surrounding 1923 - the beginning-date of copyright, the end-date of free public domain music.  Casella was also a theorist and talented orchestrator, and I own a copy of his treatise on orchestration. His piano works vary from miniatures "for children" to vignettes in the style of various contemporaries or predecessors- Brahms, Debussy, Wagner, Strauss. The  children's pieces are a joy and cover various levels of technical skill, all in Casella's unique style and mixing in various influences and modes. The vignettes demonstrate the composer's sense of reverent and not-so reverent humor towards his fellows - in each piece, both the title and the use of the piano are pitch-perfect to the composer they evoke.  His orchestral music represents different periods of his career, from the early influence of Impressionism (A Notte Alta is a good example), to the "second generation" (Puccini being the first) of lush pieces like Resphighi's Pines of Rome, to angular, chromatic works of the later years. 

Here is a recording from YouTube of the first 6 of the Children's pieces: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4-qsdEjeaY 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq5il4xkPmw  virtuoso etudes 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuA8QOXpCFA&playnext=1&list=PLAEB1B84D21D745DD  A Notte Alta part 1 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXG8A8NPp5g&feature=related  part 2

The Short but Promising Life of Ernst Mielck

Ernst Mielck was a Finnish pianist and composer whose life was entirely spent in the last third of the 19th century. He died of tuberculosis two days before his 22nd birthday, leaving a small oeuvre of approximately 30 works. The Finnish critic Flodin, a contemporary of Sibelius, called him "the Finnish Schubert." During his brief career Mielck wrote songs for four part choir, orchestra pieces, chamber music, and works featuring his own instrument, the piano. As with the premature death of Mozart, we will never know what the mature Mielck would have produced; at the time of his death, his compositions had just won international notice, and even favorable comparison with Sibelius, considered a rival by critics. It is interesting to note that Mielck did not begin playing or composing music until he was 10, making his career and development by the time of his death even more remarkable. 

The few recordings I can locate are available through Naxos Music Library: the String Quartet, op.1; the Fairy Tale Symphony, op.4; the Konzertstuck for Violin, op.8, and two songs for baritone on poems by Fontane, without opus. Scores for one of the songs, Heimat, and the String Quartet are available through IMSLP, as well as 3 works for piano and 4 songs for choir. These pieces, however, have been scanned in color and are consequently difficult to reproduce in a printed copy. I transcribed several of the partsongs and the Sarabande, one of Mielck's last works, in a clean and reproducible copy.  Mielck's music is late-Romantic and as accessible as that of Sibelius, with the piano music idiomatic and brilliant as might be expected from a composer who was first a pianist. What I have seen of his oeuvre tends to be melancholy, but this may not be representative of the (only slightly larger) entire collection. 

Here is a recording of the Symphony from youtube: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wCb3ggMAD8 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R7h1qEUPxc 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DosihHqf61o 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCyi9vkxJc8 

and the Violin Concerto: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9yxF6AATH0&feature=related 


Sources: Grove, Naxos, additional links available from wikipedia

Quarter tones and Beethoven

In free time, I frequently browse IMSLP by “random page” in search of the next obscure find. In this way I came across the composer and theorist Anton Reicha, who perhaps I might have found earlier had I been a woodwind player. He is well known for his woodwind quintets, but was also a prescient and ground-breaking theorist, exploring polymeter, quarter tones, and bitonality in his theoretical treatises – in Beethoven’s time! Reicha and Beethoven were friends and contemporaries, though Reicha lived much longer than Beethoven and never became the same kind of celebrity.

One particular favorite of mine from Reicha’s works is the Overture in D, which is in 5/8 time. Not on Youtube, unfortunately, and out of print commercially in the US. Here instead is a segment from Reicha’s Requiem- the Lacrimosa, at 7:51 – notice the augmented 2^nd!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em0FtFd8QWs

http://www.youtube.com/user/agir3?blend=9&ob=5#p/u/0/sSu7a4oO7xg some fugues from his set of 36 – Reicha re-envisioned the fugue, with the answer entering on any step of the scale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkN_GrNGdrk&playnext=1&list=PLC288BD9B3985EEDD for Glass Harmonica and Orchestra – a novelty piece then as now (not the best recording)

Sources: Grove, Naxos, and sites from wikipedia

Turandot: Modern Atalanta - Spring 2009

In 1921, Giacomo Puccini began composing an opera which was to be his last.  The story was based on a play by Gozzi, also set by Schiller, which in turn owes much to the Greek archetypal myths of such as Atalanta, Hippodameia, and Thetis.  The archetypes of the reluctant bride, ice princess, femme fatale, and intellectual or athletic woman mix in these myths and plays, and reflect a fascination through time with the unattainably desired woman. Turandot, the princess who kills her spurned lovers, combines

Waiting Music

At one point of my life before UNH, I spent a lot of time in waiting rooms. Two albums which kept me company through those times are still my favorites today, and they hold special meaning from the time I spent waiting and listening.

Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (Karajan, Ghiaurov)

Ghiaurov is, as I have mentioned elsewhere (http://majoringinunhstudies.blogspot.com/2011/05/prima-la-musica-dopo-le-parole-or-opera.html) one of my favorite singers of all time. His magisterial bass was smooth and intense, with a real bite to the attacks - he was trained in Italy as well as his native Bulgaria, and the legato phrasing he brought to Russian opera is a great gift. Even before Ghiaurov makes his first entrance with the monologue at Boris’ coronation, however, the music for the chorus resonates with me. They too are waiting, considerably more uncomfortable than I, out in the Russian winter outside the palace, and they are waiting for their “father” to come and save them – they wish for Boris to ascend to the throne and remember the Russian people. They pray dutifully, seemingly without much hope of fulfillment. The chorus is answered indirectly, by Shchelkalov, a minor official who takes up the themes of their dissatisfaction and hope but cannot promise that Boris will accede. He sings a short monologue of a few lines which are some of the most reassuring in opera; reassuring, yet realistic in their limited optimism. In my time waiting in March 2007 I listened to these scenes from the Prologue over and over, enjoying Mussorgsky’s sympathetic harmonies.

Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem (Maazel, Prey, Cotrubas)

A requiem which is not in Latin, and does not use the Requiem text, Brahms’ is a Requiem in name only. The main theme of a Latin Requiem is death and eternal damnation from which we pray to be saved, but the theme of Brahms’ Requiem is comfort for those left behind. As one not yet left behind, this piece was key to the beginning of my grieving my father before he had actually gone. Nearly everything in the Requiem is oriented toward this process of grieving, with the solos especially moving in their recognition of realistic emotions. The Requiem is a particular kind of dark music which is not morbid but knows that there are times in winter when there is less sunlight around, just as it knows that there will be a spring. The last movement, I feel, can see that spring as the year turns.

Prima la musica, dopo le parole; or Opera and Acting

Wort oder Ton: the great question at the center of Strauss’ last opera “Capriccio” beckons us to consider which is of greater importance in an opera – the words or the music. Even when not directly attempting to answer this question, opera singers confront it in their interpretations for the stage. Should the demands of the score take precedence over those of the script? Some of my favorite singers have weighed in on this question.

My portrayals are based entirely on the musical score. I cannot go beyond, or outside, what the composer has written because I feel a character right from the opening orchestral bars…[the music] immediately suggest[s] what lines your interpretation should take.  – Nicolai Ghiaurov, in Helena Matheopoulos Divo: great tenors, baritones, and basses discuss their roles.

Ghiaurov hailed from Bulgaria, as do so many other fantastic opera stars, and his voice is my #1 favorite of all basses (Rene Pape is my favorite living bass). His philosophy of acting is drawn organically from the score, painting his character with the colors of the instrumental and vocal writing provided by the composer. Ghiaurov sang most of the great bass roles and is best known for Mephistopheles (Gounod), Boris (Mussorgsky), and Filippo (Verdi). http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/opera/OFB/stars/ghi01.htm This site has several samplings of his long career – check out the Rachmaninov excerpt from 1956!

What [Tullio Serafin] said that impressed me was:  "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that. " If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears — and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also — you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know. – Maria Callas, BBC (April 1968) on Maria Callas : The Callas Conversations

Callas is of course renowned for her acting as much as for her voice. Her philosophy agrees with that of Ghiaurov, basing the interpretation of a role on the expressive content of the music. She stands in great contrast to other sopranos who shared her repertoire of bel canto music, who allowed the “beautiful” part of bel canto to carry the interpretation of roles such as Lucia or Anna Bolena. Callas knew the dramatic power of these operas could be tapped through a close look at the music and that a great opera singer is more than a songbird.

There are other theories of opera acting which rely more on the physicality of the actor than on the music. I personally agree with Ghiaurov and Callas, because their approach can be extended past vocal music into the instrumental repertoire. Not every composer has coded a dramatic interpretation into his or her non-vocal music, but observing what clues the composer leaves us and remaining faithful to them is a good philosophy for pianists and singers alike.

Pop music and ear training

Oh, the things you learn from life when you're a music major.

I sucked at ear training when I got to UNH. Some of my friends have even said I might be a little tone deaf, because it takes a lot sometimes for me to match pitches, or tell if I'm singing sharp or flat. (That's why it's fortunate I play piano!) But nevertheless, I didn't have any remedial theory homework the summer between orientation and freshman year, and I got passing grades – actually quite decent ones – in the four semesters of Ear Training. For me, the breakthrough came halfway through the second semester, over Spring Break 2009.

I went to New Orleans for an alternative spring break trip, and doing light carpentry work with my team, heard a LOT of pop songs. If I didn't know the words to most of them the first day, by the end of the week I did, and I noticed many common features among songs that got frequent airplay. Certain chord progressions repeated throughout this repertoire, and it became possible for me to improvise the melody or a harmony line along with the song by following the progression. Not surprisingly, the songs were harmonically simple and mostly picked up on three common progressions in Western music: I IV V I, root progression from dominant to tonic; I vi IV V I, the rock'n'roll progression (heard in songs like Heart and Soul); and the blues, I IV I V IV I. These progressions make improvised lines easy to create because of the common tones in I, IV, and vi, and knowing cadential formulas from Theory I provided the basic framework to follow. (Theory taught me to resolve tritones out, and to take the melody 3-2-1 over a I64 V I bass – all features of Western tonality which are woven through pop music whether we normally pay attention to them or not.)

After spending a week immersed in pop music, I found theory and ear training both easier. The easy melodies which stick in your ear are also very useful for immediately recognizing the 3^rd or 5^th scale degree, and even intervals are better remembered in a pop context. (Minor 6^th is the first two notes of "In My Life" by the Beatles; Major 6^th is the first two notes of "All at Once You Love Her" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Pipe Dream;" and the Star Wars theme begins with a perfect 5^th.) I've never stopped listening critically to pop music and along the last 2 years, I've found some gems in odd places. Two of my favorites are below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt0_oPPK6eA From the Country end of the spectrum, Big & Rich "Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy." The melody is doubled at the octave, and the two singers mix pitched speaking voices with singing. Overall, the effect strikes me as a reflection of early styles of organum, where the melody would be doubled with a perfect interval (4^th, 5^th, octave). Their speaking-singing also reminds me of Rex Harrison speaking his way through Henry Higgins on Broadway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xp2lgiAjY Amie, by Pure Prairie League. The main body of the song is very typical of 1970s folk blends like America or Kansas, but near the end as the song is playing out (and nothing new is happening in the text) the supporting harmonies highlight the melody in an unusual way. Leading to IV through V7/IV over 1 (in this case, A – A7 –D over an A pedal), the melody itself is sung below the backup vocals. The lyrics here are "fallin' in and out of love with you" and until the word "love" the backup vocals are following the melody's contour a third above. At "love" the interval between melody and accompaniment widens to a minor 7^th, as the backup vocals follow a descending line above the melody's pedal point. This dissonance is very exposed by being higher than the melody, but the well-matched timbres of the voices mitigate the dissonant quality and allow this passage to express tension in a wistful way, while bringing the song to a quiet close.

Drive My Car: sexual politics in words and music - Summer 2011

Featured on the 1965 album Rubber Soul, the Beatles’ song “Drive My Car” was co-written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The style looks back to classic rock-n-roll with a modal melody and blue-note inflections, and references Otis Redding’s bass-heavy version of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”[1] Examination of the lyrics as set by Lennon and McCartney shows a dynamic of power being established between the song’s narrator and a “girl.” This power play of the dominant female and the willingly subservient narrator who wishes to join her future plans is written into both the lyrics and the musical elements of the song.

Verdi: the Falstaff fugue - Spring 2011

Verdi’s last opera may well be his greatest, and Falstaff has received its share of analysis and interpretation from multiple angles, as befits this great magnum opus. This paper will address some details of the overall work, while focusing in greater depth on the fugue[1] at the end of Act III, a topic which receives less attention than others in this opera.

Falstaff, Verdi’s last opera, premiered when the composer was nearly 80 years old. The project had been germinating in his mind for years,

Consonance: Different Approaches to Organum in Paris and Aquitaine - Spring 2011

The innovative expansion of music into polyphony forever changed the face of Western music and widened the horizon for composers of the future. Two major schools of free organum have had a lasting legacy which continues to influence music today in overt and hidden ways: the Parisian school at Notre-Dame, the great Gothic cathedral; and the manuscript tradition preserved at the abbey of St. Martial, at Limoges. These traditions date from an era when music was created largely in religious context and preserved in both functional memory and print; the ideas of “composer” and “genius” had

Kindespflicht, oder das höchste der Gefühle: Filial Relationships in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Idomeneo - Spring 2011

Mozart's final Singspiel, like many of his previous works, features paired characters with opposite or complimentary attributes. The Queen of the Night, and her opponent Sarastro, the ruler of all that is light and good, are the most prominent pair (and highest in the social hierarchy); Pamina and her lover Tamino represent idealized female and male youth, and unite at the opera’s end as virtue and peace are established; Papageno the birdcatcher seeks his mate, as do the birds. These paired characters relate to one another in the horizontal direction of attraction or repulsion, and meet as peers; they also relate in a generational, vertical direction: as parents and children, whether

"Genius" in scare quotes - Spring 2011

Paula Higgins’ article "The Apotheosis of Josquin des Prez and Other Mythologies of Musical Genius" and David Brackett’s analysis (in Interpreting Popular Music) of James Brown’s music in performance dovetailed neatly on a trope which we are all familiar with in Western culture: the genius. With Higgins, the “genius” in question was mainly Josquin des Prez, but as we come to see, Josquin can hardly be seen these days without his accompanying successor-genius, Ludwig van Beethoven. James Brown hardly figures in the same narrative as these composers – at first blush – but the chapter invokes in the same breath his hard work and devotion to his art, and his “uncanny” talent and natural style. Complete this sketch with wildly flying hair, and an individualistic, “difficult” artistic personality, and you have Beethoven again. Why do we return to this archetype in so many different guises?


The modern notion of genius, as Higgins reminds us, is a modern notion, one which emerged from the Romantic era in which Beethoven, a child of the Enlightenment, found himself. Josquin’s era would not have called him a genius, because neither the concept nor the word existed yet in their modern senses. As for Brown, despite Brackett’s detailed analysis of his careful manipulation of rhythm and delivery of words, I will go out on a limb and say “genius” is not one of his most common titles. As a performer, his iconic personality – both on-stage and off – was magnetic, provocative, and energetic. These characteristics do not necessarily exclude genius, but rather redirect the audience’s admiration to the icon of the performer/performance, away from the usual material “genius” works on – invention, in a broad sense, and musical composition, in a more specific sense. Beethoven, Josquin, and Brown are all said to have been hardworking men, but the legacies of Beethoven and Josquin include, significantly, both printed and hand-written music. Brown’s music is realized, not printed (excluding the pop reprints one buys in a music shop, which ignore the fine details of rhythmic, vocal, and textual inflection which Brackett analyses) and our concept of genius relies on concrete achievement. Peggy Phelan (quoted in Stacy Wolf’s A Problem Like Maria) argues that “performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented […]: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance.” Brown’s music participates in this paradox and thus belies the typical study of “genius,” Brackett’s description aside. We are not accustomed to equating the genius of Brown with that of Einstein, even if they participate in the same archetype: Einstein stated theorems, wrote treatises, whereas Brown performed (and wrote) songs for an audience.


The Romantic era gave us the concept of genius, and genius can be seen as both a product of the age which first described it and an archetype which Western civilization needed even before it was articulated. Why do we need “genius?” Geniuses like Beethoven and Einstein – and Brown – play the hero role, whether it is to a civilization, ethnic group, or to one’s highly personal memories. Romantic-era conceptions of genius are often removed from society in some dramatic fashion: Beethoven’s deafness isolated him, and isolation (whether self-imposed or through an “act of God” such as deafness) is a theme which also typically accompanies the hero archetype. I feel that we hasten to draw Josquin in Beethoven colors, or lionize Brown’s image as the “hardest working man in rock n’ roll,” because we want to have heroes, who both share our troubles and exceed us in talent, and especially in this context – heroes who write timeless music. Beethoven was often painted in the colors of the most heroic genius archetype of Western history – Jesus, who is exemplified to us as the hero who feels human pain and can do godly things. It is no coincidence that the Romantics, whose fascination with mysticism and the sublime would emphasize the “divine” talent of their hero-composer; it is also no coincidence that Brown can be described in terms reserved for “genius” without naming the archetype. He, with Beethoven and Josquin, is a “hero” figure often imitated and never duplicated, and therefore (regardless of the relative merit of his music) a “genius” of the same rank.

Cosi Fan Tutte: Enlightened Minds versus Enlightened Hearts - Spring 2011

Introduction

Mozart and Da Ponte’s only original libretto features two couples who take a crash course in the School for Lovers. The cast consists of only six characters: two sisters, engaged to two best friends; and two philosophes, who lead the lovers through their 24-hour education. The cast is interconnected by similarities of gender, relationship status, occupation, and age. Mozart’s score and Da Ponte’s libretto delineate further

Don Giovanni: Nobilità and other complications - Spring 2011

Analysis


As with The Marriage of Figaro and its companions in Beaumarchais’ trilogy, nobility is a key concept in Don Giovanni. If you don’t have it (by birth), you try to compete with it, or gain it by other means; if you have it by birth, you have a blank check which extends beyond currency into the realm of morals and privilege. Every character in Giovanni and Figaro is dealing with nobility on a conscious or unconscious level, and it

Leo Treitler on oral traditions - Spring 2011

In his 1974 article Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant, Leo Treitler discusses the dissemination of chant through the Holy Roman Empire, which was prompted by Charlemagne’s desire for uniformity in liturgical practice. Charlemagne arranged for official chanters to teach far-lying dioceses the official chants, and viewed divergence from these as corruption of the music. The chants which we know as Gregorian were ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, which taught them to Pope Gregory the Great. Because these chants were believed in this way to be divinely prescribed, corruption was to be purged and the authoritative canon to be fixed. Treitler postulates that this is the first occurrence of our modern view on the musical canon, and points out that the co-incidence of the Carolingian reforms and the origins of notation for chant seems intentional (that Charlemagne resorted to notation in order to fix the correct repertoire for the entire empire and for future generations). This causality is complicated, however, by several factors. Elucidating these factors takes Treitler through an explanation of Bartlett’s theories on memorization, and an exploration of the process by which a chant is transmitted orally.

            Oral transmission of chant has several important consequences: the workings of memory mean that chant remembered is not simply reproduced, but rather reconstructed, and if the method of transmission of chant is oral in the absence of scores, the method of composition is also oral (in some ways, similar to improvisation, but different in the details and purpose). Formulas and formulaic systems in chant both constrict and aid the singer in creating/recreating chants for various parts of the service. These conclusions are drawn from the studies of oral transmission which have their beginning in Homeric studies, yet another nested explanation in this article. Treitler’s necessary digressions and detours follow eachother seamlessly and without superfluity.

            Treitler shows how Homeric epic, as presented by Parry, makes sense as seen within the tradition of oral epic, and how what we know/study about Homer helps our knowledge of chant and other oral repertoires. One major commonality is the use of formulas as both aide-memoires and compositional techniques: for instance, the beginning and end of lines tend to be memorized easily, and so this lends itself to formulas for these components. Treitler shows examples of chants (Gregorian and Old Roman) which start and end similarly or contain other melodic formulas, and similarity in single chants – Tracts, which are long antiphonal chants – where each strophe begins and ends the same way. A famous example from oral poetry is the Homeric epithet, a naming formula for the various gods, goddesses and heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey; e.g. gray-eyed Athena, or swift-footed Achilles.

Finally, Treitler speculates about the possible decline in oral composition and greater use of what we would normally consider memorization (with more tradition of specific melodies rather than general formulas), preceding the beginnings of notation. These melodies could have become more fixed with the passing of time, or in accordance with the prevailing tradition, becoming a prescribed canon for liturgical observance. Whether the Carolingian reforms caused this trend towards canon before notation, or used notation to bring about a unified canon is not clear.

The differences in style between the Gregorian and Old Roman chants are explored in light of oral transmission: Treitler presents three possible scenarios regarding the reliance of each tradition on oral transmission and concludes that it seems most plausible that Old Roman chant shows more evidence of oral transmission because it was oral longer, rather than that it was “more oral” or that the Gregorian chants had these aspects of oral transmission purged from them editorially. Other authors have concluded that Old Roman chant is “more primitive” and therefore older; Treitler does not rely on the duality of primitive and advanced to explain the relative age of these traditions. Treitler ends the analysis with three different angles from which to examine the uniformity of chant: 1) the Carolingian reforms caused uniformity; 2) the chants show this uniformity because of a common ancestor, so to speak, which can be traced; and 3) oral transmission causes and makes use of this uniformity in composition. It is difficult to examine Old Roman chant and Gregorian chant from before the Carolingian reforms, because the only notated examples we have of Old Roman postdate these reforms. For this same reason, it is difficult to obtain evidence of a common ancestor tradition of chant, either in written examples of the ancestor itself, or in older examples of Old Roman and Gregorian chant. The third angle is likely to be the most fertile for future study: oral transmission, though increasingly difficult to encounter in today’s world, is still present, as well as studies cited in Treitler’s article which rely on Eastern European traditions which may no longer be extant. Further study of oral transmission may give us textual analysis techniques which can probe Old Roman and Gregorian chant for their DNA, so to speak, and determine (as modern DNA testing can now tell us so much) details about their ancestry.

Machaut's Modernity - Spring 2011

     Guillaume de Machaut was known to his contemporaries as Guillaume; that appellation strikes us as incomplete or unfamiliar, because of our modern conception of surname.  There are many aspects of his music which seem ancient to us – the harmonies, the “double leading tone” cadence formula, the rhythms – and after all, he did write in two languages which are now “dead” (Latin for the religious music, and Medieval French).  The aspects of Machaut’s character and career that seem the most striking to us, however, are those which seem to foreshadow aspects of modern art and music.  Machaut was the first composer to take pains to ensure his music’s legacy, and to cement his role as composer and author of his own works; his oeuvre is dominated by secular music, as opposed to religious; and he can be considered usefully the forerunner to the modern “singer-songwriter” type.  His music, religious and secular, has a strong sense of identity and unity, especially the Mass of Notre-Dame, and the unity in the Mass is unusual for works of this time both for its single author and his undoubtedly conscious design for this piece. 

     Machaut’s influence, as discussed in class, would still be relevant today if he had never written or been associated with music.  He was a renowned poet and inspired Chaucer, and is a great representative of French literature in the 14^th century.  But his approach to music and words unified further ensures his value to modern culture: Machaut, though perhaps not actually singing his own poems as a roving artist, is considered the last link in the cultural-artistic troubadour lineage.  He brought this tradition forward into his era by enhancing the traditional style with a close attention to forms which are both complex and flexible in his hands.  The troubadour music was already a secular genre mainly concerned with courtly love, but the combination in Machaut of talented poet, fluent composer, and sole author gives his “troubadour” songs a stronger sense of being art music, as opposed to a performing tradition.  Machaut knew how to set “silly love songs” (pace Paul McCartney) in an educated polyphonic idiom, and the words he set were his own.  The most modern aspect of Machaut is his deliberate act of identifying his music with him, as composer and author; the majority of music before him comes to us in varying degrees of anonymity, which is the prevailing characteristic of early music composers. 
     Machaut’s focus on secular music, or rather, the bias in his complete surviving works towards secular music, contrasts with what we know of his predecessors and influential composers before the 18^th century.  The church of his day was still the Roman Catholic church, the Reformation being two centuries in the future, but there is a trend (beginning with the writing of secular motets, and later the work of Philippe de Vitry – composer of the Roman de Fauvel) of religious subversion or dissidence in music at this time.  Machaut’s appointments were courtly, not religiously affiliated positions, so the need to write Masses or other service music is absent (compared to Bach, for instance, or the works we identify as written by Leonin).  This shows that by the 14^th century, patronage still held the key to stable musical employment, but patronage could be non-religious and still furnish a viable opportunity for a composer or poet.  Machaut’s cyclic setting of the Mass also represents a divergence from previous composers: he wrote the piece himself, conceived it as having unity among the movements, and made sure it was identified as his for posterity and performed at his endowment.  This kind of identity – identifying as an individual, not as a Christian subject or clerk in an establishment – is very forward looking, and takes centuries to take permanent hold.

Le Nozze di Figaro and the issue of identity - Spring 2011

Analysis

As so often in Mozart’s operas, the theme of identity – mistaken, revealed, assumed – is employed and exploited in various ways in The Marriage of Figaro.  The characters deceive or spy on each other in disguise, manipulate the truth through their choice of disguise and revelation, and discover their own uncertainties about their reality.  Confusion is almost a counter theme to this idea: all the characters at some point in the opera are unsure or confused, whether through the agency of other characters or

Josquin, Beethoven, and musical literacy - Spring 2011

            Josquin des Prez has been compared to Beethoven as the greatest composer of his generation and beyond.  The parallels between these two legendary figures extend from their musical influence to the contemporary shifting paradigms of music dissemination.  Musical literacy in Josquin’s time had recently received a boost through the advent of printing (Petrucci, 1501), and now musical enthusiasts were able to study not only manuscripts (hand copied) but also printed scores or parts.  In Beethoven’s time, musical literacy grew through public concerts and mass produced scores.  These two developments contribute in part to the reputations afforded to the composers.

            Before Petrucci, music was available to connoisseurs through manuscripts, usually copied by monks.  Manuscripts of this type would be “distributed” to very few patrons. As printing of books was just starting in the late 15^th century, some liturgical music was printed, but this seems to have also been very rare.  Familiarity with contemporary music at this time came more from performance than from score study.  Petrucci and his successors provided a viable method by which music could be copied and disseminated, though this was by no means “mass media.”  Music printing as an industry began to take off, alongside the book industry, and people throughout Europe could now own and perform works by composers like Josquin.  Scores thus distributed were more than likely to be chamber music, for amateurs to perform from and enjoy, and perhaps study.  At this time, larger works, such as requiem s and masses were being written and were well known (as composers began to be identified with their work) but “mass producing” their scores was not done, as the audience for these works would be less broad (and commercially viable) as for small scale works.  Church patrons were a different market, which may have continued to utilize manuscripts (especially where the work had been written by a local composer for a specific church), as well as still having access to scribes and funding for scores.  Widespread dissemination of printed works meant a larger audience for Josquin and his contemporaries, and a legacy by which they could be memorialized in future generations. 

By the 19^th century, music printing was as widespread as private and public performance.  As noted in class, the first published scores of Haydn’s symphonies became available in the 1780s, and for the first time, not only chamber music but large scale orchestral works – too large to be performed in the home – were available to consumers.  This represents, to me, two trends in music history: the popularity of these larger works to a mass audience, and the advent of greater literacy in music.  If you were to buy a score of a Haydn symphony, this would likely not be the only printed book or even book of music on your shelf; you likely could read the notation and study the score’s finer points of harmony, melody and orchestration, and may have already become familiar with the piece through attending a concert performance or reading through a four-hands piano arrangement.  In the time of Beethoven, the association between composer and works had grown even tighter, as scores were published and given an opus number (roughly) in order of composition.  Haydn’s works were left, as with Bach, to be catalogued as part of his legacy; Beethoven had some control in his interactions with publishers over which pieces would form an opus and what, if any, extra information (title, etc) would be included.  Beethoven’s music was marketed to an audience who participated in contemporary music through listening to performances, collecting printed scores, performing the music themselves (in arrangements or as written) and perhaps studying them.  Musical amateurs were both an intellectual and commercial audience, and composers and publishers worked to gain their business.

Discussions of musical literacy in our day often touch on the issues involved in “cultural literacy:” how to market awareness of classical and classic pieces to an audience more familiar with the Top Ten.  At the same time, our contemporary composers can seem difficult to approach, especially through printed scores.  Musical literacy today must keep up with complicated notational techniques and non-tonal approaches to harmony or counterpoint, as well as literacy in the “common practice” style.  It is interesting to contemplate what kind of paradigm-shift could take place today to equal that of the eras of Josquin and Beethoven: what innovation in music dissemination has the ability to increase the audience of amateurs? The innovations that brought scores by Josquin and Beethoven into more people’s hands helped in some small way to make the reputations of these composers last far beyond their lifetimes, and the changing times of these composers may also contribute to the legends that have grown up around their reputations.  Perhaps in the future digital technology may be seen as the next parallel to music printing and the careers of our most legendary musical figures.

The growth of music technology and musical literacy is a subject I know far too little about, and not the easiest subject to trace in one source.  Some of the sources I found helpful include:

Boorman, Stanley, et al. "Printing and publishing of music." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40101 (accessed April 7, 2011).

Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. “The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance.”

Past & Present, No. 45 (Nov., 1969), pp. 19-89

Taruskin, Richard. "Chapter 13 Middle and Low." In Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 7 Apr. 2011, from http://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-013008.xml

Weber, William. “Mass Culture and the Reshaping of European Musical Taste, 1770-1870.” Croatian Musicological Society: Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jun., 1977), pp. 5-22  http://www.jstor.org/stable/836535