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Late Victorian Welsh bands: taste, virtuosity and Cymmrodorion attitudes/Bandiau Cymreig y cyfnod Fictoraidd diweddar: Chwaeth, pencampwriaeth ac agweddau'r Cymmrodorion
No full textWhile brass bands in Wales during the 19th century were viewed by some as a reflection of the increased musical enlightenment of the lower classes during the Victorian age, this instrumental activity has been largely overlooked. The repertoire, often consisting of opera overtures and similar works, failed to reflect any sort of regional identity or Welshness, which was primarily identified with singing. At the same time, brass bands did not attain to what passed for high art, and were thus dismissed by the English-oriented elite, such as The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, as an activity of the labor class
Harrison Birtwistle's recent music
No full textGetting to grips with Harrison Birtwistle's ever expanding oeuvre is becoming an increasingly challenging business. The forthcoming South Bank Centre festival naturally provides occasion for some critical stocktaking. Yet the retrospective schemas within which composers' works are traditionally placed seem less than usually appropriate. The idea of linear development is of as limited use to understanding Birtwistle's creative progress as it is to explaining his musical forms. Contrasting musical surfaces, for instance, testify to the difficulty of useful generalization about the recent works' lineage. Whereas the crisp, pulse-based clarity of many pages in The Cry of Anubis bears comparison with moments in Earth Dances and the contemporaneous Words Overheard, Panic's impenetrable textures and sonorities are more reminiscent of the earlier Verses for Ensembles and An Imaginary Landscape. The treatment of musical form in the recent works similarly resists summary description
