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“…men of great perfection in their science…”: the trumpeter as musician and diplomat in England in the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
No full textThe role of trumpeters as emissaries in the early modern period has been known for some time. The article explains and illustrates this role by reference to several primary sources that reveal in considerable detail the emissarial and diplomatic duties in which (mainly) English trumpeters were engaged between the late 15th and the early 17th c. A number of key questions are also addressed in the paper: what exactly were the duties that these trumpeters were expected to acquit, and what qualifications made them fit for their purpose? How were the credentials of the trumpeter as diplomat advertised? How broadly understood were the protocols that allowed trumpeters to do this work, and what historical or other precedents were drawn on to allow such protocols to operate at a European level? Perhaps most important is the question of whether these trumpeters really were musicians at all, or merely diplomatic functionaries for whom the trumpet was merely a symbol that afforded rights of passage. The article draws on British state papers and other sources to answer these questions, concluding that the status of the trumpeter as diplomat was partly derived from older protocols of heraldic chivalry and the commonality of Christian ethics. It also offers evidence that far from being mere carriers of the trumpet, these men really were musicians who could be counted among the best of their time
BBC Radio 3 record review: building a library: Strauss: Alpine Symphony
No full textWilliam Mival reviews recordings of Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony and makes a recommendation in this programme broadcast on 22 January 2011. This discussion is also available (UK only) on the Record Review Podcast, see https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tmqsc
What is the rationale for music in a Children’s Centre?
No full textMusicians have been working in Children’s Centres for over ten years, and early studies found that music teachers were adapting their established teaching approaches in order to meet these particular needs (MacKenzie & 2008; Young, 2007). With a Centre now located in every community, and with the majority offering music sessions for families, this study seeks to understand the rationale behind choosing music as part of a Centre’s programme of activities. It also investigates the effects of group music making on parents, children, and the ‘community of practice’ surrounding this activity. Many externally-funded, early years music project evaluations highlight the benefits of music participation for parents in terms of raised self-esteem and confidence (Lonie, 2010). Gudmundsdottir (2010) found higher than expected scores in the subjective mental wellbeing of mothers attending music classes together with their young children. This paper presents some preliminary findings from an exploratory pilot study carried out in a children’s centre in the east of England.
The methodology comprises semi-structured interviews, using open-ended questions, undertaken with professionals and parents. The themes emerging from the analysis of the data have been used to generate main themes for a questionnaire survey which forms part of a series of subsequent studies. The initial findings provide evidence of the contribution that music makes to the cultural world of children and their families. Musicians are developing new ways of working as part of multi-professional teams, using music as a tool for engagement and interaction
Paganini’s legacy
No full textExamines the legacy of Paganini, both as a composer and a performer, tracing connections between the music, its technical demands, and the extreme physiological traits of Paganini's body
Trombone glissando: a case study in continuity and change in brass instrument performance idioms
No full textThe glissando is one of the key idiomatic features of the slide trombone. It appears to have originated in the improvisatory practices of circus and itinerant theater groups in the mid-19th c. There is no evidence of it being notated in art music until late in the 19th c.; even in the early 20th c., glissando markings in scores (the notation varies) needed an explanatory note about how the effect was to be achieved. The article traces the history of trombone glissando and suggests that its introduction into the idiom of the instrument was hampered by ideological controversy about its origins and its implementation by early jazz performers in New Orleans. Valve trombones were better known to these players than the slide instrument, so when they were acquired by those players who exploited the 'tailgate' style, they naturally emphasized the effect that the slide instrument seemed to encourage. The ideological conflict arose as the maturing conservatoire tradition set out orthodoxies based on the most refined stylistic models of virtuosity and taste drawn from art music. The point of friction appears to have been partly racial and class-based, and partly focused on an interpretation of glissando that placed it as a crude corruption of portamento, which was encouraged in the didactic literature as an emblem of refinement
A dendrochronological investigation of stringed instruments from the collection of the Cherubini Conservatory in Florence, Italy
No full textA total of forty-nine stringed instruments of the Conservatory Cherubini collection, at the Musical Instruments Department of the Accademia Gallery in Florence, were submitted to a dendrochronological investigation in order to date them, check the validity of their attribution and to find out more about their construction characteristics. Thirty-seven instruments were successfully dated, thereby determining the terminus post quem date of manufacture. The correlation values of the statistical cross-dating tests were generally very high. The dendrochronological analyses determined which instruments had been made from wood of the same provenance and, in some cases, from the same tree trunk. The mean chronology built from the musical instrument series, named “Accademia Master Chronology”, is 558 years long and dates from 1396 to 1953AD. The interval between the youngest ring dated dendrochronologically and the given date of manufacture increased constantly in the course of the centuries, from a mean value of just over eleven years for instruments built in the eighteenth century, to nearly 74 years in the twentieth century, when the use of old wood from other artefacts became more frequent. Furthermore, in the Cherubini Collection, the average tree rings on violins are smaller than those of other stringed instruments; in fact, they increase in proportion to instrument size and are widest in cello and double bass
Review of The Biology of Musical Performance and Performance-related Injury (Scarecrow Press, 2009)
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