Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
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Goreckïs creative journeys between nature and culture. Around the ‘Copernicari Symphony
Get PDFHenryk M. Gôrecki’s oeuvre is characteristic in its almost constant oscillation between meditation on the world, the universe, nature, and implication in history, tradition, culture; between the delight in the beauty of nature and the delight in culture. ‘We were no longer the centre of the universe, we became nothing.’This idea of the composer was fundamental for his creation of his II Symphony. Its two-movement form was a consequence of his own understanding of the Copernican revolution. Its Latin text was derived from the Book of Psalms; due to the circumstances of its commission, it also includes a fragment from Copernicus tractate. The distribution of tension in the first movement is non-trivial. Judging by the composer’s “cosmic” fascinations, the beginning is a “Big Bang”. The central climax of this movement appears in its finale, when the huge chorus sings and cries the words of the Psalms. In Movement Two we are ushered into a different, a lyrical world of contemplation. The soloists are singing in traditional and simplest possible way. The chorus, harmonized modally is singing the words of Nicolaus Copernicus about the “heaven” - “beauty” relation. Chorale-like, they place us in a transcendental dimension. The work is crowned with long-standing yet pulsating sonorities of the orchestral mass in pentatonic interval structure, resolved into an A flat major triad: in the tradition of Baroque rhetoric, depicts emotions of stillness, of the calm of the night; in late Romanticism - the emotion of mild and solemn. Perhaps these sonorities of the orchestral mass in the finale - that is exactly the sound of the Universe as Górecki has been expressed
Chopin and jazz. The case of Andrzej Jagodziński’s arrangement ofthe Prelude in E minor
Get PDFThe current of jazz interpretations of Chopin’s music appeared in Polish jazz in the early 1990s. On the one hand, it is the most original and native stylistic trend of all trends influencing jazz in Poland. On the other, it is an exceptional phenomenon internationally, since no works of classical music have received so many jazz arrangements worldwide. The achievements of Polish jazz pianists in this regard have become most representative, since piano texture and the process of improvisation on a given theme show the most obvious references - not only musically, but also emotionally- to the musical language of Chopin. The recording of the award-winning album Chopin by the Andrzej Jagodziński Trio in December 1993 triggered a host of artistic arrangements of Chopin works by Polish jazz pianists, each of which constitutes an individual approach to the Chopin material, reflected in basic factors such as the criteria for the selection of compositions or themes and the process of the original’s transformation. Most jazz arrangements of Chopin’s music involve the piano miniatures that dominate the composer’s oeuvre. This is due to the clarity of the melodic lines, which inspire artists to turn them into themes for jazz standards. The Prelude in E minor, Op. 28 No. 4 has become the most frequently arranged piece of Chopin’s music in the field of jazz. The numerous arrangements are also stylistically diverse. Jagodziński’s arrangement is an example of this pattern being adapted for use in a jazz context. For him, the themes and mood of Chopin’s music have become a pretext for the creation of his own jazz compositions largely inspired by Chopin’s melodies and harmonies, but also by symmetrical form. Arrangements of Chopin’s music have been continually criticised by purists, who regard such procedures as a sort of profanation (any patriotic content in Chopin’s original compositions seems to vanish in the chaos of jazz improvisation, which disturbs the integral form of the originals). The basic problem here seems to be ignorance of the fact that Chopin’s music is essentially only a pretext, a kind of external emblem, for the creation of entirely new compositions, carrying different content, characterised by the author’s individuality
Arnold Bôcklin’s ‘Im Spiel der Wellen’ as Interpreted in Music by Composers Ludomir Różycki and Max Reger. A Contribution to the Theory and History of Musical Ekphrasis
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The vocal competence of children and youth - diagnostic research
Get PDFThere is a prevailing conviction that Poles cannot sing. The custom of singing has died out in families, and it is even waning in music lessons in school. There is a general perception that singing skills are conditioned by the possession of special musical abilities and that not everyone can master them. This article presents the results of my diagnostic research carried out at the end of the 1980s and reprised by other scholars in recent years. Because the same research method and procedures were used in all this research, it is possible to compare the results and observe any changes in the level of singing skills over the space of around twenty years. The research signals an alarming situation in respect to such an important musical competence as singing. After the twenty years that have passed since the first research, we observe a decline in the ability to sing among children and youngsters
Stockholm manuscript S 230 and its Prussian context
Get PDFThe manuscript S 230, held in the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm, has not been thoroughly investigated until now. The only extant partbook of the source contains thirty two works, comprising motets and German songs. Only four of them bear the composers’ names: Orlande de Lassus, Franciscus de Rivulo, Johannes de Vienna and Joachim a Burck. Among the composers of anonymous works to have been identified are Jacob Bultel, Jacobus Clemens non Papa, Arnold Feys, Nicolas Gombert, Josquin des Prez and Jacob Meiland, as well as Lassus and Rivulo. At least two works are unique to this source: Rivulo’s A Domino egressa est res ista and Vienna’s Wohl dem, der den Herrenfiirchtet. The text of Rivulo’s motet is taken from the non-Vulgate version of the Book of Genesis, and the only other composer to write music to these words was Johannes Wanning, who succeeded Rivulo as magister chori musici at the Marian church in Gdańsk in 1569, five years after the latter’s death. Johannes de Vienna was composer at the Königsberg court in 1564-1568 and 1571 1576. The work from the Stockholm manuscript is his only extant composition. Two motets from the Swedish collection also appear in the Prussian manuscript J 40 24-28, held in the Copernican Library in Toruń: the anonymous Non est bonum and Rivulo’s Nuptiaefactae sunt
Liszt and the French literary avant-garde o f the 1830s
Get PDFIn France the 1820s and 1830s brought about enormous changes in the perception of literature and art as a whole. Young poets, encouraged by the success and novelty of Méditations poétiques by Alphonse de Lamartine, started seeking new possibilities of expression and ways of breaking with the several-centuries-old tradition. They met with a strong protest from conservative milieu, especially those linked to Académie française, and this made them fight for a new paradigm in literature. They eagerly experimented with language as sound (Lamartine, Sainte-Beuve) and graphic (Nodier) matter. They published their texts in the press (Le Globe) and presented them during meetings in artistic salons, which functioned as a kind of laboratory. Thanks to the support of Charles Nodier they could publish their poems in the best publishing houses, which largely contributed to their success. The final victory of the romantics was the premiere of Hernani by Victor Hugo in February 1830. Franz Liszt, who came to Paris in 1823, was an active participant in the artistic and intellectual life there. Moreover, he was also a friend of many prominent artists of the epoch, which can be seen in his letters, writings, and piano music from the early 1830s. A particular example of the relationship between the composer’s music and literary avant-garde is the piece Harmonies poétiques et religieuses of 1835. We find there the domination of the sound element, formal freedom, the intertwining of poetical techniques, experiments with structure, and a strong stress on the word aspect of the oeuvre, for example through very precise notation of tempo markings
Sketch for a portrait of Kalkbrenner and Chopin
Get PDFIn this article, the author sketches a portrait of Kalkbrenner and Chopin against the background of musical practice during the 1830s. On the basis of sources, including Chopin’s correspondence and the opinions of his contemporaries and of Chopin scholars, an attempt is made to distinguish characteristic features of the two composers in their mutual relations. Their contacts are outlined, as well as their artistic activities, with particular emphasis on Chopin’s first concert in Paris and the role of pianistic virtuosity linked with the style brillant. Attention is drawn to the properties of the Pleyel piano which Kalkbrenner and Chopin both preferred and to the differing playing aesthetics and artistic images of the two composer-virtuosos. Chosen for the purposes of stylistic comparison are their methods of piano playing, with the accent on the schematic nature of Kalkbrenner’s “finger technique”, whilst most crucial for Chopin was to bring out the beautiful quality of the sound. In the closing remarks, it is stated that the two musicians, in their pianistic, compositional and pedagogic activities, represented the distinct antithesis of one another and two different schools. Prominent in the portrait of Kalkbrenner are distinct connections with the convention of the style brillant, whilst the portrait of Chopin, who broke through those conventions, is marked by features more profound and individualised