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Teaching Notes podcast episode 123
No full textDr Kirsty Devaney and Dr Ed McKeon talk to Patrick Johns about the Time Loops project. This was run by the Science Museum Group, using old music technology in new and innovative ways, with Key Stage 3 resources to bring it into the classroom. ***** This podcast is created by the Music Teachers' Association and is available open access at the 'Official URL' link below. ****
Ex uno plures: strategies of linear expansion
No full textThis chapter considers techniques of musical development through the lens of solo monodic (i.e. single line) musical works. It explores a range of approaches to melody, development, vertical-horizontal relationships, and expression, suggesting ways to unfold and expand musical ideas that are rooted in sonority and dramaturgy
Technology and composition — an autoethnography on the influence of electronics on orchestration practice
Full text linkThis research explores novel methods of orchestration, focusing on the influence
of electronics on my own orchestration practice. By drawing upon electronic music
composition techniques and timbral-shaping tools, this project addresses the
boundaries of orchestration and examines processes that inform orchestration
decisions. Through the resulting portfolio, I explore timbral blend, spatialization and
acoustics, real-time orchestration, computer-aided/assisted orchestration, and the
extension of the timbral palette by rethinking the ideals of spectral composition. These
methods aim to create unique sound worlds and audience experiences while situating
my distinctive approach in relation to other existing practices. Furthermore, a
supporting commentary illuminates the deep pre-compositional research that informs
my orchestration practice by identifying the techniques and evaluating their
application.
To explore such concepts, it is vital to conduct practice-led autoethnographic
research. This allows for full, creative exploration and application of site-specific and
acoustic/electronic tools. Through recognizing the impact of electronics on my
approach to orchestration, I have made exciting discoveries in this field by integrating
electronic and non-electronic systems, forming what I regard as my orchestration
discourse.
The radical overhaul of my orchestration approach has served to highlight just how
much more work there is to be made in the realm of human-machine creative
collaboration and that sound has many more lessons to teach me. This research
marks a ‘checkpoint’ of life-long research as contemporary arts and science work
hand in hand. We cannot disregard the fact that the gap between the world of
instrumental music and electronic music is still too unexplored in the timbral-based
orchestration domain
How pianists programme lesser-known solo repertoire: an autoethnography through Clara Schumann’s Sonata and interviews with four pianists
No full textThe Western classical music canon is experiencing unprecedented transformations, driven by composer anniversaries, sociopolitical movements, and diversity quotas. Recent scholarship addresses intersectional analysis, global perspectives, and broader frameworks to assess women’s creativity (Mathias, 2022), and demonstrates the growing awareness of the role researchers play in recontextualising historical figures such as Clara Wieck-Schumann (Davies and Grimes, 2023). However, discourses on methods of inclusion have not transcended issues raised in the 1990s (Macarthur et al., 2017) and historical patterns demonstrate that progress is not linear. Despite growing interest in directors’ strategies (Tröndle, 2021; Kouvaras et al., 2022) and audience experience (Pitts and Price, 2021), Gilmore’s (1993) remains the only published study exploring how performers select lesser-known works, albeit focusing on their aesthetic interests and the avant-garde.
This thesis examines the interrelation between the solo pianist’s sense of identity and agency as a performer and their selection and programming of lesser-known repertoire. The inquiry focuses on approaches to women composers’ music, then extends to composers lesser-known due to stylistic unfamiliarity or other demographic characteristics. Study 1 (Chapter 4) adopts autoethnography to examine my decisions and experiences in contextualising Wieck-Schumann’s Sonata (1841–42) in four concerts. Drawing upon literature on Wieck-Schumann (Davies et al., 2021), gender and the canon (Citron, 2000), concert programming (Gotham, 2014), and audiences, the concerts are framed as method and output, with live recordings. To position performers as co-creators of meaning and value, Study 1 findings are integrated with a concurrent Study 2 (Chapter 5), wherein Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is applied to four pianists’ accounts of their approaches.
The thesis contributes novel insights into understanding pianists’ musical, social, and personal connections to lesser-known repertoire; the interrelationship between this repertoire and their professional identities; interpretative strategies and frameworks; perceptions of pianists’ role as performers and of audiences; and programming agency. The findings bear practical implications for programming, artistic development, conservatoire pedagogy, and effective EDI strategies in music
English songs by Karl Rankl
No full textThese 18 English Songs by Karl Rankl (1898-1968) were recorded in 2022/23 in the RCM Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall during the Music, Migration and Mobility project, with recent RCM graduate singers and pianists. 'Music, Migration and Mobility - The Legacy of Migrant Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain’ was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (reference AH/S013032/1) and was a performance-led and multi-disciplinary project that aimed to better understand the significance of migration and mobility for music.
Producer: Norbert Meyn, co-producer and engineer Anna Heath. Songs and performers:
From Chinese Picture Book, Op. 5, texts by Ruth Tenney:
Op 5 No 1 In a Peking Shop, Michael Bell (tenor) and Jack Campbell (piano);
Op 5 No 9 The Cruel Raingod, Michael Bell (tenor) and Jack Campbell (piano);
Op 5 No 13 The Priest’s Cry in the Evening, Michael Bell (tenor) and Jack Campbell (piano);
Op 5 No. 12 The Travelling Players, Annabel Kennedy (mezzo soprano) and Jack Campbell (piano);
Op 5 No. 4 Camel-Bells, Annabel Kennedy (mezzo soprano) and Jack Campbell (piano);
Op 5 No. 10 Ceremonial, Annabel Kennedy (mezzo soprano) and Jack Campbell (piano);
Op 5 No. 2 Lullaby of the Outcast, Emma Roberts (mezzo soprano) and Jack Campbell (piano);
Op 5 No. 6 On the River, Emma Roberts (mezzo soprano) and Jack Campbell (piano);
Op 5 No. 8 Day Dream in the Court of the Daughters, Emma Roberts (mezzo soprano) and Jack Campbell (piano).
From Op. 7 Songs for soprano, texts by various poets:
Op 7 No 1 A Girl's Mood , Charlotte Bowden (soprano) and Ella O'Neill (piano);
Op 7 No 4 To Daffodils, Charlotte Bowden (soprano) and Ella O'Neill (piano);
Op 7 No 7 Coming and Going, Charlotte Bowden (soprano) and Ella O'Neill (piano);
Op 7 Nr. 2 Night Song at Amalfi, Milly Forrest (soprano) and Ella O'Neill (piano);
Op 7 Nr. 3 Laugh and the World laughs with you, Milly Forrest (soprano) and Ella O'Neill (piano);
Op 7 Nr. 8 Little Fruit Tree in November, Milly Forrest (soprano) and Ella O'Neill (piano).
From Op. 10 ‘War’, texts by Siegfried Sassoon and various poets:
Op 10 No 2 Dreamers, Julian von Mellaerts (baritone) and Ella O’Neill (piano);
Op 10 No 10 Died of Wounds, Julian von Mellaerts (baritone) and Ella O’Neill (piano);
Op 10 No 11 Say not the Struggle naught availeth, Julian von Mellaerts (baritone) and Ella O’Neill (piano).
***** COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The performers have all given permission for publication of these recordings. The copyright for the recordings is held by the RCM and they are made available on this repository under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0 licence. ****
Sergei Prokofiev
No full textAn absorbing, wide-ranging and incisive biography of celebrated composer Sergei Prokofiev. This absorbing, wide-ranging and incisive biography unfolds the life and work of the much-loved twentieth-century composer Sergei Prokofiev, revealing a surprisingly optimistic spirit amidst a tumultuous backdrop of geopolitical chaos and ever-shifting musical landscapes. The narrative weaves through Prokofiev’s intricate existence, depicting a life coloured by pathos and intersecting with a myriad of characters. Christina Guillaumier breathes life into the people and landscapes that shaped Prokofiev’s journey, capturing the unwavering passion of a musical genius whose love for his craft transcended all barriers. This new critical account is a vivid portrait of resilience, offering a fresh perspective on Prokofiev’s indomitable spirit
Robert Kahn: Tagebuch in Tönen: selected pieces for piano
Full text linkSelected pieces for piano by Robert Kahn (1865-1951) edited by Brian Hughes and Norbert Meyn, with introductory texts by Werner Grünzweig and Norbert Meyn. This edition has been prepared for the research project ‘Music, Migration and Mobility - The Legacy of Migrant Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain’, a performance-led and multi-disciplinary project that aimed to better understand the significance of migration and mobility for music. Born into a wealthy Jewish family and educated in Mannheim, Robert Kahn had early success as a composer, enjoying the support of Joseph Joachim, Hans von Bülow, Clara Schumann and especially Johannes Brahms, with whom he spent several months in Vienna in 1887. As a composer of Lieder, chamber music and choral music he was widely performed and published by major publishers until his vilification by the Nazis, who removed him from his position at the Akademie in 1934. In 1939, when he was 73 years old, Robert Kahn and his wife Katharina emigrated to the UK, where he lived in Biddenden, Kent and Ashted, Surrey.
Having lost his position in public life after the Nazis came to power in 1933, Kahn withdrew to his country residence in Feldberg, about 85 miles (135 km) north of Berlin, his Haus Obdach (house refuge). Here he began to write piano music, surprised by the ‘sprudeling fountain’ (bubbling fountain) of inspiration (as he put it in a letter to his brother Paul) that kept bringing forth this music. At the point of his emigration to Britain in early 1939 he had written 211 pieces. He continued to write an average of almost 2 pieces per week for the next 10 years, reaching the staggering total of 1160
pieces.
For this taster-edition we have chosen a small selection that includes some of the stand-out pieces alongside those that represent important structural points, including the first five pieces, the pieces written immediately before and after Kahn’s emigration to Britain, number 500 (variations on no. 1), the piece marking the end of the war, and the final three pieces written in 1949.
***** COPYRIGHT NOTICE: This edition is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0 licence. © 2024 Royal College of Music, London (graphic rights only). Robert Kahn’s music is now in the public domain
The Dartington Summer School of Music
No full textIn October 2022 the Dartington Summer School Foundation donated to the British Library the archive of Summer School papers and images curated by Jeremy Wilson. This has allowed the Royal College of Music’s Music, Migration and Mobility team to study another lasting post-war British institution in which migration and mobility have played a central role. Like Glyndebourne and the Edinburgh Festival, the original inspiration for the Summer School came from a central European émigré – in this case the pianist Artur Schnabel – and many other émigrés were crucial to its success, forming a bridge between cultures divided by war and establishing musical standards far in excess of what was normal in Britain at the time. **** This article is available as part of the Music, Migration and Mobility online resource at the Official URL given below. ***
Liveness, Liveliness, aLiveness: an empirical study on audience experience in Film-with-Live-Orchestra concerts
Full text linkWe are now living in the screen age. There is a screen on every palm. There is a screen in every room. The incursion of screens in symphonic spaces seems only an inevitable eventuality. Since 2016, over 3 million people from 48 countries have watched symphony orchestras perform the score live to the projection of the Harry Potter films, in over 1300 Film-with-Live-Orchestra concerts. Due to accelerating audiovisual culture, ageing audiences, and declining state funding for classical music, arts organisations programme such events to introduce the sight and the sound of a symphony orchestra to newer, younger, and a more diverse audience. There does not exist any empirical study on the experience of the audience attending such concerts. Do the audience pay attention to the orchestra? How do people of screen age perceive such events? What, first, is a Film-with-Live-Orchestra (FLO) concert and how is it different from other screen-based concerts? What constitutes the experience of an audience member attending an FLO concert? In this exploratory study, I find answers to these questions. I followed a netnographic approach to collect data for the study. The dataset consists of over 2000 Twitter messages and over 250 online magazine reviews in which audiences have shared their FLO concert experiences. I conducted an inductive thematic analysis of the qualitative data and found that the experience of an audience member in an FLO concert constitutes Inclusion, Interaction, Immersion, Interruption, Intense affect, feeling, and emotion, Illumination, and Invigoration. From these ‘7 Is’ emerge the theory of lifeness in audience experience: Liveness, Liveliness, and aLiveness; a theory that could be used to understand what makes an encounter with any work of art unforgettable, and to understand the resonance, or lack thereof, between a perceiver and a perceived work of art
National Treasures: Vermeer in Edinburgh
No full textVirginal music by William Byrd from RCM MS 2093 (http://www.ekm.org.uk/2093recording.html), performed by Terence Charlston, as part of the visitor audio guide to exhibition Vermeer's painting 'A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal', National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, as part of the bicentennial celebrations of the National Gallery
Exhibition presentation, National Galleries of Scotland, 10 May - 8 September 2024