When Human Emotion Meets Technology. A Study of Machover’s “Death and the Powers”, the Robot Opera

Author(s): Mihaela Buhaiciuc / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

A vast palette of artistic experiences remains purposely unexplored today by many performers of traditionally oriented opera companies. Ignorance is often the cause of statements such as: absence of melody, of emotions and difficulty in communicating with the audience in the new operatic repertoire. My study offers an assessment: that melody can be identified in the most unusual musical architecture of today’s composed opera; and that emotional delivery and communication in the singing art occur still through text, audio-visual, and now, as never before, through technology. In order to demonstrate this I have chosen one single opera, perhaps the newest, but certainly the most innovating of the 21st century, a masterpiece, that has been in the spotlight since its premiere in 2010 and whose music, libretto and performing production may seem controversial to some of the traditional-oriented performers and audiences. It is Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers, the Robot opera. The article also highlights the importance of sustaining innovation in the opera as a need to naturally adapt to the new conduct of life.

Instrumental Transcription for Guitar and its Framing in the Copyright Law

Author(s): Corneliu George Voicescu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

Publication framing in the articles corresponding to the aforementioned law pre-eminently represents a legal approach that may be made under the law, by authorized persons. The existence of a general score entails, as agreed upon by experts, the mandatory editing of the parts afferent to the overall score. The observance of the legal text outlined above must be an ongoing preoccupation for all composers and likewise for all adequately skilled and professionally trained persons to discharge these specific activities.

Classical Archetype in “Sonatina for violin and piano” by Paul Constantinescu

Author(s): Dan Pepelea / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

Focusing his entire creation on the enhancement of the folkloric lode and Byzantine psychical melos, Paul Constantinescu, disciple of Mihail Jora composition school, takes withal forward the path opened by George Enescu, as regards the autochthonous “transformation” of the classical forms of the sonatina.

Adaptations of the Schenkerian Analysis to Post-Tonal Music

Author(s): Anca Preda-Uliţă / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

Heinrich Schenker restricted his analytical application to the baroque to romantic German repertoire. As a result, a series of theorists attempted to apply his approaches beyond this range. In view of that, one has to consider the extent to which Schenkerian analysis may provide information regarding post-tonal music. Therefore, analysts have to begin with Schenker’s own ideas about analysis to show how they are not abandoned in the analysis of post-tonal music and then examine the literature that offers insight into this theoretical issue.

Alban Berg – Concerto for violin and Orchestra “In Memory of an Angel”

Author(s): Maria Cristina Bostan / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

The concerto bears this subtitle from the tragic event (becoming itself ominous, which will determine Berg to interrupt his work on the opera Lulu with whose orchestration he was concerned): the death of the young Manon Gropius (daughter of Alma Mahler), which has deeply marked the composer. In less than three months he composes the Concerto for violin and orchestra dedicated to this young woman, dead at the age of 18. Alban Berg's concerto has a two parts form: I - Andante, II - Allegro, each part being in turn subdivided into two parts: I = Andante and Allegretto and II = Allegro and Adagio. This "binomial" symbol is met in the antinomic presentation of the dodecaphonic series of the concerto. Part One of the Concerto for violin and orchestra by Alban Berg, is divided into sections: Andante and Allegretto (scherzando). The second part of the concerto is divided into two sections that are also played without interruption: Allegro (bars 1-135) and Adagio (bars 136-230). The allegro of the second part, in triple meter (3/4), starts in sff and fortissimo on an ensemble chord.. The orchestra, organised on groups of instruments, with solo interventions, reveals a transparent texture. The solo bass clarinet sustains the low voice, on jumps over major seventh, minor ninth and minor sixth intervals, on which the violas and the bassoon overlap in harmonic intervals. The last four sounds of the series: B - C sharp - E flat - F (9,10,11,12) form a sequence of whole steps and represent the beginning Choral of the Cantata No. 60 - O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort by Bach.

“Mass in C major” by Franz Schubert. Performance Landmarks

Author(s): Ioan Oarcea / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

The syncretic thinking of vocal-symphonic creation and performance synthesizes three elements with complementary implication at the level of musical expressiveness and architecture: choir, soloists, and orchestra. The composing and performing dramaturgy creates convergence spaces between the three components through: the synchronic performance itself, shaping horizontal and vertical levels of dynamics, generating the expressive image of the entire opus. By subordinating each component to the overall concept – correct intonation and tuning, rhythmic synchronisation, fluidity of tempo and agogic, dynamic dosage and expressivity must be the main objectives of musical performance, as the achievement of a professional concert is the balanced accumulation of all participants in decoding and performing the language of creation. Each performer’s personality must be subordinated to the overall performance concept, and integrated into the conductor’s expressive vision. Lastly, but also first of all, the science of conducting performance must start from a deepened knowledge of the musical essence from the tackled opus, and from the conductor’s ability to coordinate and valorise the entire vocal-instrumental ensemble at its highest potential.

George Enescu – “Voix de la Steppe”. Few Pedagogical Considerations (I)

Author(s): Cristina Buga / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

A great Enescu performer should be raised and accustomed from early ages to understand and deal with both its musical and instrumental challenges. Getting accustomed to Enescu’s philosophical approach of the music and its deep Romanian sense is a natural way leading to the finest achievements of his best comprehension. That’s why a process of his deepest accomplishment opens up with a good start within the educational process. Voix de la Steppe can be a worthwhile step in this regard. Even not considered among the greatest Enescu’s piano works it still shows a good deal of complexity of his musical style.

Stylistic Directions in Paul Constantinescu’s Musical Creation

Author(s): Roxana Pepelea / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

Centering on the changes in the musical language of the composer, the division into periods of Paul Constantinescu’s creation represents, essentially, the evolution of a modal thinking particularised by the passing from the diatonic phase to that of chromatic, from the modern stadium of modal towards that of the contemporary neo-modal of synthesis.

Archaic Elements in the Romanian Spring-Summer Traditions. Landmarks for Dâmboviţa County

Author(s): Constantina Boghici / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

Although enjoying less diversity, frequency and appreciation than winter traditions, spring-summer traditions represent important moments in the work and life of the rural communities. Due to the cultural stratifications occurred along the centuries, in the spring-summer traditions, certain magical acts and practices disappeared or their function changed, so that their spectacular character and social meanings prevailed over the predominantly ritual functions originating in the ancient practices of our Getho-Dacian ancestors. Old writings (Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Xenophon, Hesychius of Alexandria, Pomponius Mela, etc.) describe in detail the practice of certain rituals in the areas inhabited by Thracians and Dacians. The Carpathia ritual (related to land cultivation), the celebration of Dionysus (expressing the joy at the renewal of nature and the gathering of the crops), the rituals in honour of Apollo and Artemis (the earth was purified of bad charms before gathering the crops), the bacchic festivals and the messengers sent to Zamolxis are considered by the researchers as lying at the basis of the spring-summer traditions and rituals.

Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom Live

Author(s): Austin L. Ray / Language(s): English Issue: 69/2009

“Now, when I was a boy my daddy sat me on his knee and he told me, he told me many things. And he said, ‘Son,’ he always called me son, he said, ‘There’s a lot of things in this world, son, you’re going to have absolutely no use for,’ and he was right.” – Tom Waits, “Lucky Day”

Том Вејтс: Блесок и проклетство во живо

Author(s): Austin L. Ray / Language(s): Macedonian Issue: 69/2009

„Така, кога бев дете татко ми ме седна на колено и ми кажа, ми кажа многу работи. И рече, ‘сине’, секогаш ме викаше сине, рече ‘На светов има многу работи, сине, кои апсолутно никогаш нема да ти користат’, и беше во право“. – Том Вејтс, „Среќен ден“

Тom, We Are Waitsing...

Author(s): Ilina Jakimovska / Language(s): English Issue: 69/2009

Том, те чекаме...

Author(s): Ilina Jakimovska / Language(s): Macedonian Issue: 69/2009

Антифонният жанр в латинския репертоар за св. Николай

Author(s): Yavor Genov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2012

St. Nicolas is the only Eastern saint in the Latin Christianity, distinguished by rich, complete and developed chant repertory. This repertory leads to certain questions about the time and the way of compilation, whether some part or the full repertory was borrowed from other offices or, on the contrary, was “composed” in memory of St. Nicolas in particular. The present article is a part of a more detailed research about the chant repertory about St. Nicolas. The attention here is focused on a certain chant genre – the gospel antiphons for the Vespers and Lauds. The results of the investigation of the antiphons confirm my observation upon the liturgical and structural specifics of the repertory, published in a previous paper, that the chant repertory about St. Nicolas, based on the discussed antiphons, could be assumed as composed especially for the purpose of worship to the saint. There is considerable probability that this has happened shortly after the transition of the relics of the saint to Bari, Italy, in 1087. The article also features observations on certain interactions between different chants of the office of St. Nicolas as well as the repertory for later established offices. After the research of the antiphonal genre, it is possible to gain a more detailed and clear picture about the compilation of a certain chant corpus, which gives a perspective for searching a point of contact with the service of St. Nicolas in the Orthodox church.

Лазар Николов и Константин Илиев: паресия и симфония

Author(s): Dragomir Iosifov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2012

The parrhesia as an uncontrollable impulse to pronounce the truth, as intimate or publicly cried possession of the truth, parrhesiast as a public figure are shown in two different types of presence and behavior of the two composers in the field of bulgarian musical culture: If with Konstantin Iliev the parrhesional articulation of truth in the lava of tymos-language forms gaps in public conventions, then Lazar Nikolov rather holds back and implies this truth, keeping it in a special state of continuity. What constitutes the seemingly strange connection between parrhesia and symphony in the title? “The Sonata-symphonic мode of thinking can be characterized as follows: the main thing is continuity, the origination of one musical thought from the other and the restless, conflicting musica expansion” - claimed Lazar Nikolov. To him “sonata” was a composition principle, but also a sub-sistance of the world, a sign of deep substantiality. The symphony as a specific art of dislocations, of tectonic metamorphoses had reserved for Lazar Nikolov connotations like firmness, restraint, power, serene-tragical sense. The sonata by Lazar Nikolov is based mostly on sonoric contexts and harmonic affinities, of a wide understanding of functionality and pattern. The sound material generates the sonatic out of itself, causes itself as a phenomena - and that is the specific type of sound parrhesia, which uncontrollably speaks itself in its natural truth, disclosedness.

Деница Анчева: „Русенският балет и Асен Манолов. Подстъпи, формиране, развитие“

Author(s): Anelia Yaneva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2012

Denica Ancheva`s book “The Ballet of Ruse and Asen Manolov (First steps, formation, development)”, publication of the Institution of Art Studies to Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (S., 2011, 450pages), is valued contribution to the culture history of Ruse. The chronological frames of the dissertation cover a period of almost a century – from the end of the 60-es of the XІX-th century till the end of the 60-es of the XX-th century. The research starts with the appearance of the first dance parties in Ruse, traces the participation of dancers in amateur stage expressions and goes further to the formation of a professional ballet group. In detail the author investigates the times when on stage worked the choreographer Asen Manolov, whose independent ballet settings brought the ballet dancing in Ruse to a national level and placed it among the best provincial ballet groups. I believe that the purpose of the author to look for the basis of the ballet art in Ruse and to make popular its achievements will find a response among the audience of Ruse and will present with dignity the Ruse ballet in its 50-year history. The first independent ballet in Ruse – „The fairy of dolls” by Bayer – was performed on 7th March 1952. This performance marked the beginning of the professional ballet in Ruse. In 2012 the Ruse ballet is getting on for the 50-year anniversary of its existence.

Полифонични похвати и додекафонични композиционни техники в операта „Одисей” от Луиджи Далапикола

Author(s): Vera Tzenova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2012

The present exploration investigates the polyphonic devices and dodecaphonic compositional techniques in the opera “Ulisse” by Luigi Dallapiccola. The paperexamines some of the stylistic impacts on the development of the composer’s serial technique and, for this purpose, some research-workers’ opinions have been applied. Luigi Dallapiccola’s contribution to the establishment of the twelve-tone avantgarde method in Italy has also been outlined in the text. The sophisticated combination of music-dramaturgical interconnections in the opera has been examined as well.

Международен уъркшоп „Хоровите общества и националната мобилизация през ХIХ век“

Author(s): Ivanka Vlaeva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2012

The workshop Choral Societies and Nationalist Mobilization in Nineteenth-Century Europe is part of a large international project which was organized by NISE (Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms, Amsterdam) and SPIN (National movements & Intermediary Structures in Europe, Antwerp). It was held in the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, Belgium (17-19 February 2011) with the collaboration of ADVN (Archief en Documentatiecentrum voor het Vlaams-nationalisme), Koor & Stem, History Department at the University of Antwerp and University of Amsterdam. The review observes the work and conclusions of the event. Invited speakers from all over Europe (historians and musicologists) analyzed the phenomenon of choral music and its correlations with the national movements. This is the first complex comparative research of this kind and the topic is essential for understanding the historical processes in the 19th Century Europe. The program was focused on simultaneously on going tendencies in choral practices, regional models and their interactions. The debates were about common features across Europe, but also about the cultural specifics in different countries and regions from Norway to Serbia and Bulgaria as well as from Scotland to Estonia.

Authors in this issue

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2012

Authors in this issue.