1857 research outputs found
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[Multiple contributions]
No full textThe primary goal of the project is to research and understand the surface qualities of varnish seen under Day- and UV-light. The investigation was based on a careful and thorough analysis of the previous published scientific literature and cultural historic aspects. Scientific standards regarding UV-light photography where set and applied, leading to reproducible scientific environments. Only under such conditions can a layer profile of the varnish be extracted in a comparable non invasive manner, thus leading to important conclusions of the actual work techniques. This non invasive approach also includes the use of microscopic analysis, which leads to even further insights regarding pigments and substances that have been applied. The book is arranged in three sections. The research results of Brandmair and Greiner are presented in this book in the articles “The Build-up of Layers in Stradivari’s Varnish” by Stefan-Peter Greiner (41 pages) and “Foundations of Classical Cremonese Violin Varnishes” by Brigitte Brandmair (91 pages). The third section presents a pictures circle of 219 pages. Displayed are twenty-one outstanding instruments expertly photographed by the photographer Jan Röhrmann. They are presented in chronological order to provide a representative cross-section of Antonio Stradivari's work, whereas the first instrument is a Nicolò Amati and the last one a Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù. The instruments are documented in daylight and UV radiation from life size till magnifications up to 1000x. Each instrument is preceded by a short introductory description written by experts as Eric Blot (Cremona), Dr Rudolf Hopfner (Vienna), John Dilworth, David Rattray (London) and Dott. Gabriele Rossi-Rognoni (Florence). Many of these instruments have not been documented in the past decades and under no circumstances in this quality. All texts are written in English and German
Happy birthday
No full textMusic for the short film 'Happy Birthday' written and directed by Jules Rampton
Music for the multitude: accounts of brass bands entering Enderby Jackson's Crystal Palace contests in the 1860s
No full textJackson, one of the most talented musical entrepreneurs of the mid-Victorian period, claimed to have invented the brass band contest. One of his major achievements was the establishment of contests held at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, on the outskirts of London, between 1860 and 1863. They brought mass audiences to the edifice, which had been moved from its original site in central London. One of the main purposes of the event was to contribute to the establishment of the new venue as a center for entertainment at a national rather than a merely local level. Jackson was a brilliant commercial strategist who based his organizational method on meticulous planning. Each band wishing to enter the contest was required to complete a form that detailed critical information about its musical and social identity. Seventy-five of these forms survive in the care of the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, and they provide a rich and intimate source of information on the instrumentation, repertoire, and social framework of bands of the period. Taken with information about the reception of the events, the sources cast an important light on the nature of one of the most widespread and popular forms of public musical entertainment of the period, and about the entrepreneurial techniques that were employed to make it successful
The Giant and other creatures: Prokofiev's childhood compositions
No full textA survey and general analyses of the composer's juvenile works from 1896 to 1909, including solo piano music and operas
The form of performance: analyzing pattern distribution in select recordings of Chopin's Mazurka Op. 24 No. 2
No full textPerformances of the same piece can differ from one another in innumerable ways and for many different reasons. The aim of the current study is to analyze the timing and dynamic patterns of a large sample of performances in order to explore the musical reasons for both the occurrence of such patterns and the differences in their location and characteristics. The investigation focuses on twenty-nine performances of Chopin's Mazurka Op. 24 No. 2, which features clear four-bar phrases and correspondingly consistent sectional units, but which also has characteristics such as a steady crotchet accompaniment that remain constant throughout. This results in a potential tension between “through-performed” and sectionalized features. In this study we examine the performances accordingly, investigating the relationship between the work's structural and thematic characteristics on the one hand and the timing and dynamic characteristics of performances on the other. Following this, we narrow our investigation of these and other features by undertaking a comparative analysis of three recordings by the same performer, Artur Rubinstein. A toolkit of methods is employed, including an approach that has been little used for this purpose: Self-Organizing Maps. This method enables the systematic analysis and comparison of different performances by identifying recurrent expressive patterns and their location within the respective performances. The results show that, in general, the structure of the performed music emerges from and is defined by the performance patterns. Particular patterns occur in a range of contexts, and this may reflect the structural and/or thematic status of the locations in question. Whereas the performance patterns at section ends seem to be most closely related to the large-scale structural context, however, those within some sections apparently arise from typical features of the mazurka genre. Performances by the same performer over a 27-year span are characterized by striking similarities as well as differences on a global level in terms of the patterns themselves as well as the use thereof
Preparing for memorized cello performance: the role of performance cues
No full textAn experienced cello soloist recorded her practice as she learned and memorized the Prelude from J.S. Bach’s Suite No. 6 for solo cello and gave 10 public performances over a period of more than three years. She described the musical structure, decisions about basic technique (e.g., bowing), interpretation (e.g., dynamics), and five kinds of performance cues she attended to during performance (expressive, interpretive, intonation, and basic technique separately for left and right hand). The 38 hours of practice provide the most comprehensive empirical account to date of preparation of a new piece of music for performance. The cellist repeatedly took the piece apart section-by-section and then re-integrated the sections into practice performances in each of five stages: exploration, smoothing out, listening, reworking and preparation for performance. The location of starts, stops and repetitions identified the changing focus of practice in each stage. The cellist organized her practice around the musical structure, developed interpretation before working on technique and practised memory retrieval at each stage. When she wrote out the score from memory, better recall of expressive and structural performance cues showed that they served as landmarks in a hierarchical memory retrieval organization
Once in royal David's city [Gauntlett arr. Hesketh]
No full textBy Henry John Gauntlett, arranged for SATB choir and organ or SATB choir and orchestra by Kenneth Hesketh, duration 3.5 minutes.
A recording of the orchestral version is available at this link: http://www.kennethhesketh.co.uk/seasonal
Prokofiev, opera and theatre: a case study of The Gambler
No full textProkofiev's first mature opera, Igrok (The gambler) was a radical work that was, in many ways, ahead of its time. Some of the changes the composer made to the 1917 version of the opera when he came to revise it a decade later are considered. In the process of discussing these revisions, the insights into the nature of Prokofiev's theatrical instinct. The composer's operatic ideal depended primarily on the crafting of a theatrical rhythm that would shape the entire work. Characterization and declamation techniques also play a crucial role in controlling the work's internal rhythm and in achieving a degree of dramatic realism