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Social history and music history
No full textThere are other disjunctions between the idea of history as seen by professional historians and the way history is used by musicians. Historians, particularly those for whom social and cultural history have been subsidiary to political and constitutional history, have typically used music as the fodder of footnotes, merely illustrating background social and cultural patterns. But can social history-particularly in its newer cultural forms, and employing wider discourses than are offered simply by economic and demographic parameters-offer alternative perspectives to music history, and, if it can, will it matter? The critical reflection within both disciplines in the closing decades of the twentieth century, forced as it was by wider theoretical debates, makes such questions especially compelling. My purpose here is to give an overview of some traditions of history and music history, and-in the light of newer, more radical approaches to historical discourse-to examine convergences and divergences between the two disciplines. The main question I want to pose is whether there are new avenues for genuine social histories of Western art music
War and Peace and Prokofiev's late operatic aesthetic
No full textDescribes the structure of two scenes from the original version of the opera and relates them to the composer's overall operatic aesthetic. Includes analysis of motive and theme, orchestration, and tonality in the two scenes
Strumenti musicali e Angeli musicanti nel Tabernacolo dei Linaioli: una proposta di interpretazione [Musical instruments and musician angels in the Tabernacle of the Linaioli: a proposal for interpretation]
No full textWhat is to be made of these good-looking violinists? Male virtuosos with high cheekbones are vexing to some high-art traditionalists
No full textA brief reflection on the relationship between physical beauty and musical artistry, and how it affects reception
'Aimer ainsi': rekindling the lamp in Pelléas
No full textRecent productions of Pelléas et Mélisande have often used current strategies in interventionist “subsequent” or “afterlife” interpretations, terms emanating from Jonathan Miller's book Subsequent Performances. Two approaches are popular: first, to use current psychoanalytical and psychotherapeutic concepts to interpret the play and opera; second, to set the opera in its own age, the turn of the nineteenth century. Instead of such graftings of meaning, this chapter returns to the worth of original significances, as reflected in Maeterlinck's early writings, to determine his views of destiny, fate, and theology and their effect on the central cameo of the opera: the idealized, incomparable love between Pelléas and Mélisande. The chapter is motivated by two beliefs: that Miller's “subsequent performances” are preceded by a primary concept of particular worth, and that we must test whether this concept of worth is reflected in the musical projection
Primary school children’s self-efficacy for music learning
No full textThe Self-Efficacy for Musical Learning questionnaire was adapted and tested with 404 primary school children, producing a robust Cronbach alpha (0.87) and confirming a single underlying factor through exploratory factor analysis. Test–retest scores showed the measure’s stability over a 9-month period. Data were collected on children’s prior music experience, extracurricular activities, and typical daily activities. Children also completed the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Those currently engaged in music tuition (learning an instrument or singing) had significantly higher self-efficacy scores than children who were not, and overall, girls’ scores were significantly higher than boys’. Correlations with various additional measures, including wellbeing and reading for pleasure, highlighted multifaceted relationships of self-efficacy to children’s lives. Regression analyses revealed that prior experience with instrumental tuition was the strongest predictor of music self-efficacy for learning; prosocial behaviors predicted boys’ scores, and well-being predicted girls’ scores
Alle origini dell’organologia storica italiana: il dibattito nei periodici tra Otto e Novecento [On the origins of historic organology in Italy: the debate in periodicals between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries]
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A bit of a stony sound: the marble harpsichord signed Michele Antonio Grandi of the Galleria Estense in Modena
No full textIn the year 2005 a harpsichord entirely made in marble appeared on the market in Rome and was purchased by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, to be permanently lent and displayed at the Galleria Estense.
This article is a study of the marble harpsichord, in the context of other marble instruments, aimed at assessing its original state, through the individuation of the many modifications it underwent during its history, in an attempt to define whether it was originally conceived as a sounding object, or as a mute aesthetic reproduction
Motive, gesture, and the analysis of performance
No full textThis chapter reverses a common tendency to assign the status of musical gestures to conventional musical motives. In contrast, we regard the gestures created in and through performance as potentially having motivic functions within the performed music. Such ‘motives’ are defined not in terms of pitch, harmony or rhythm, however, but as expressive patterns in timing, dynamics, articulation, timbre and/or other performative parameters that maintain their identity upon literal or varied repetition. The essential point has to do with the nature and function of the given patterns. By way of example, the following discussion focuses on select performances of Chopin’s Mazurka, Op. 24 No. 2, including certain dance-related features characteristic of the mazurka genre as a whole