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: James Rhodes´ autobiography, Instrumental, constructs the interplay between darkness and light, evil and good by accompanying the exposure of extremely traumatic events with the redeeming power of music.
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Sofia Gubaidulina's work introduces new sounds and an incessant search for spirituality through sound. De Profundis, Et Expecto, Silenzio, Last seven Words, Fachwerk, Under the sign of Scorpio are some of the composer's works inspired by the orthodox chants that insert the Bayan (accordion) as a scholarly instrument and essential vehicle for metamorphosis in musical language. The article is presented in three sections: general notions about the composer and work, interpretive analysis, and the interpreter's point of view (interpretive practice).
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The problems in tonality and tonal composition are not tied to harmony or counterpoint but are the result of their combination. In the more elaborate compositions, harmony and counterpoint have very well-defined functions, thus resulting in a set of clear basic principles in composition development. One of these principles consists in the idea that harmonic progressions are the structure of the composition and the contrapuntal progressions and chords are the ones that enrich and create the flow of it.
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This study is an analysis of voice technique for the tenor, more specifically of the “i” vowel in the aria “Una furtiva lagrima” by Gaetano Donizetti. It studies 6 different recordings of singers who recorded this aria with a gap of 50 years from the oldest one till the recent one. It analyses the vowel modification and the vocal frontality of the I vowel in the tenor´s passaggio and in the high register. The lighter voices have a natural frontality that is richer in harmonics than the darker voices who have a squillo sound.
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Anna Bolena is one of the most representative works of the composer Gaetano Donizetti because it marks the transition from the style of its predecessors (Rossini, Mayr, Pacini) to a more well-defined personal style. This study addresses the vocal profile of the main character, both in the context of the characteristic vocal typology and in the context of the voice-dramaturgy relationship. The character of Anna Bolena highlights the vocality of dramatic coloratura soprano and outlines the new hypostases of “prima donna” in the Italian opera - that of the performer-actress.
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This research article aims at bringing to the attention of the public and young performers a repertoire less played in our country and aims in addition to broadening and deepening a lesser-known musical material and the analysis of new musical forms and genres, the issue being so related to instrumental technique, as well as understanding the elements of a specific language. The deepening of these composers and their compositional style helps to diversify the romantic repertoire and to expand the knowledge of the lesser-known schools. The peculiarity of these composers consists in the fact that they composed representative works, especially for wind instruments.
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Le but de cette recherche est de récupérer les idées musicales véhiculées par certains ménétriers qui les ont utilisées sans en préciser la source, c’est un essai de relever les mérites des ménétriers de haute tenue interprétative qui détiennent une technique instrumentale particulière, ayant un impact positif à l’auditoire avec un univers culturel un peu limité. C’est un sujet délicat par la difficulté à identifier et analyser toute ressemblance, c’est aussi difficile de l’aborder et surtout de ne pas déranger gratuitement afin d’obtenir cependant l’effet escompté. Tout cela, je le fais pour mes élèves et pour ceux qui auront accès à cette recherche! L’ennui c’est que certains ménétriers consacrés, au moins ceux de leur confrérie ne reconnaissent pas la source du thème , répondant le plus souvent à la question „D’où vous est-il venue cette idée?” par „j’en ai des tas…”. „Les idées” sont à la portée de l’interprète- compositeur; celui-ci profitant ainsi de l’ignorance du public, amateur exclusif de ce genre de musique , il est très attentif à d’autres genres musicaux souvent même à des bandes-son des films célèbres (Aimez-vous Brahms?), il „emprunte” le thème et l’adapte „à la longueur d’onde” du public!... Est-ce que c’est une forme de culturalisation? La réponse c’est que „cela pourrait être une forme de culturalisation à condition qu’elle annonce la source du thème”, à la façon des compositeurs de musique classique: „Variations sur un thème de…”! Ainsi, l’auditoire que j’appelerais „de niche” pourrait être informé ou encore, il pourrait s’intéresser lui-même à la source. Peut-être!... Sans aucune intention de minimaliser ou de stigmatiser le phénomène, de blâmer la valeur des ménétriers, parfois géniaux en ce qu’ils recréent effectivement, dans un style accessible à un public limité et restrictif, je dois reconnaître que leur valeur est incontestable dans l’improvisation et dans les opportunités qu’ils fructifient au maximum!
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Symphony orchestra of blowers, Representative Music of the Ministry of National Defense is today the performance standard in terms of wind bands in our country. Through its activity carried out during seven decades, the band crowned the creative, interpretative, educational, and cultural values of the military music bands from the Romanian garrisons and military units. Having a repertoire that exceeds two thousand works from almost all musical genres (hymns, marches, patriotic and military songs, fantasies, potpourri, overtures, processing of songs and folk games, symphonic poems, symphonies, jazz, Romanian light music, etc.) from the creations of Romanian and universal composers, the wind symphony orchestra supported a rich concert, ceremonial and protocol activity, representing Romania in numerous national and international festivals.
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The biography of a work of art is always strongly connected to the biography of its creator. This statement is already well-known and it doesn’t need further explanation. In the musical analysis tradition, we are more inclined to treat the matter of work by beginning with the context in which it was created by the composer, but we sometimes tend to neglect the fact that the given work has a biography of its own which, from a counter perspective, speaks of the creator’s social and psychological context by itself. In the following article, we selected two chamber music pieces by each composer in order to trace through them the causality relationships that connect the works to the creators and their (inner and outer) world and see how the musical material of The Soldier’s Tale and the Piano Trio in E minor, respectively, can bring us to a better understanding of the immanent meanings which they possess.
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In an attempt to substantiate the translation and transcription of liturgical works from the Romanian space of the 19th century, besides Maccarius Hieromonk, Anton Pann and one of his labor continuers, composer and psalm book teacher Stefanache Popescu, his apprentices, Nuns Epiharia Moisescu and Magdalina Nicolescu can be mentioned with honors. The monastic life where they were active turned them towards the thorough study of church music and only increased their wish, issued from their reverence to the Mother of God and the saints, to follow the not so easy path of composition. Their songs enriched the liturgical heritage with the Vespers and the Matins for the Services dedicated to celebrating the Dormition of the Virgin, the Protection of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos, Saints Gregory Deccapolisen, Demetrius Bassarabov, and Saint Martyr Philophteia, pages that facilitated the continuity of service, achieving in those times the link between the treasure of the past and the heritage to be left for the future.
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This study focuses on one of the most spectacular aspects of opera singers' evolution – the change of vocal subrange, or even of vocal range. We identified the most frequent reasons prompting artists to such changes, the prerequisites, the most frequent types of specific evolutions, the advantages and risks inherent to such choices. Besides physiological particularities, opera singers have available certain technical parameters which, when carefully adapted and fine-tuned, may lead to spectacular results. We presented several case studies reflecting the performance of famous artists, whose vocal technique illustrates the solutions and adjustments mentioned above.
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In the musical field, Lebanese composers represent living proof of a different approach to cult music, a symbiosis between tradition and avant-garde, between modern and oriental elements, folk music with melisma typical of traditional Lebanese music, and western classical music of French inspiration. (this is due to the specialized studies carried out in France and here I would mention the Francophone contribution underlying the institutionalization of education in Lebanon). The privilege of performing Pastorale for bassoon solo by Naji Hakim, a work that was dedicated to me by the author and was experienced to its final sound value, gave me unforgettable moments from an interpretative point of view and a special honor to participate in such a collaboration.
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The cluster is a constituent part of György Ligeti’s concept of harmony that has crystallized in several stages. Successive accumulations are found in the different periods of creation as an integral part of his compositions. A separate category consists of the three works devoted to the organ. We set out to inventory and classify the types of clusters used by the composer in these works. The first, signed in 1962 and revised in 1969, Volumina, stems directly from the experience of electronic music and is the most radical of them all. Between this and the two organ studies is the Symphonic Poem for 100 Metronomes. Harmonies and Coulée frame Continuum - another Ligetian masterpiece. Contrary to appearances, these organ works have many elements in common. They represent the stages of research on the same problem – the cluster. Together, the three opuses constitute a mini-compendium of compositional and instrumental techniques used in the creation of the following decades.
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Hungarian Folk Dance Music of Transylvania – István Pávai – 2020. Hungarian Heritage House & MMA Kiadó, 430 p. ISBN 978-615-5927-14-0
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This article is a survey of the specificity of the process of adopting William Blake’s ‘illuminated book’ The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) by the Norwegian (heavy-)metal band Ulver. The illuminated plates of Blake inspired and also structured an album highly praised for its originality, that must be analyzed in the context of metal music and word/music adaptation. The paper also sketches, as Robert Walser suggested in 1993 (Running with the Devil), a view of metal music as discourse, by analyzing the signifying practices the album Themes from William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1998) is based on. The album initiated a new direction for Ulver, not only as ideological or lyrical perspective, but also musically. The avant-garde electronic and progressive metal with clean vocal style supported Blake’s idea that the sensual world can lead to the spiritual, and that the repression of desire destroys the spirit. As adaptation studies are now central to intermedia studies, it is necessary to take into account the adaptation issue as broad as possible. Michael J. Meyer emphasizes in Literature and Musical Adaptation the idea that every reading of the text is necessarily a misreading, and that our readings are made in the direction of our own interests. If so, then we could easily affirm that the reading that pop music does today is the reading that opera, for example, has done in the past, when Verdi or Berlioz read Shakespeare, as David Francis Urrows affirms. Influenced by Theodor W. Adorno’s critique of popular music, my point is that Ulver’s version of Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell is not a mere adaptation, but a transposition, with specific meanings, as Alison Stone argues, and can be an alternative musical discourse as opposed to pop music.
More...(Shona Illingworth’s “Besa”)
Shona Illingworth's "Besa" project was realised in 2006. It is a homage dedicated to solo singer Besa Berberi, a friend of the artist who has also collaborated in the realization of some of her other works. "Besa" is a book of text and images with Besa Berberi as the main protagonist. Besa recounts her memories of a stay in England, at the exact time when Kosovo was in a state of curfew and repression, a year before the outbreak of war. At that time, Besa was very worried about the fate of her family and hometown, but she did not possess travel documents to visit her parents and ease this sense of longing. In her narrative, she describes her feeling of hopelessness. Only memories and love help her build some confidence and hope.
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A lukácsi evangéliumból ismert történet szerint amikor Zakariás felesége, Erzsé- bet a házában köszönthette rokonát, Má- riát, ez utóbbi az ókori Közel-Kelet irodal - mának egyik kimagasló szépségű „énekét” rögtönözte, mintegy válaszul arra, hogy idő- sebb rokona méhében felujjongott a gyermek – vagyis a későbbi Keresztelő János.
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13th century appears as a period when the theory of music in Islamic civilization was considered as one of the Riyādī (ta‘limī) sciences based on wisdom and experience, and it was restructured in a comparative way with the works written. Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 1311), who was among the first music theorists of the period, dealt with the science of music with theories and calculations that some of which are still in use today and at the same time he was interested in the practical part of music. His work called Durrat al-taj, in which he includes the views of al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā and Urmawī and criticizes their discourses, is in an encyclopedic structure in Persian-Deri dialect, which also including the music section. al-Shīrāzī, who was educated by the important masters of his time like Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, and also distinguished himself as a teacher and music theorist, is a historical figure who was growed by the Iranian geography and played an important role in laying the basies of Turkish-Arabic-Iranian music, and affected many scholars like Maraghi after him. It is aimed to bring the musical part of al-Shīrāzī’s work named Durrat al-taj into the theory of music by using historical musicology, analysis, interpretation, systematic musicology, comparative musicology, and source scanning methods. For this purpose, the work has been examined by making an examination on four different copies. With these studies, the theoretical and terminological innovations of the work and its historical value will be examined. At the same time, perception and meaning problems of the period will be put forward theoretically by considering the subjects in detail. As a result of the research, it has been determined that the work is not an Urmawī commentary, and besides, it has many original aspects. It has also been seen that it is a copyrighted work that includes all the basic subjects such as sound physics, sound theory, intervals, pitches, scales, and the genera that make up it, rhythm, in which computational methods are used extensively. The fact that he criticizes the views in some theoretical studies done before him, and the use of his own terminology and his detailed approach to the issues add value to the work. It has gained an important position in the music theory literature with its new intervals, scales and originality in the structures of these scales, additions to the writing of notes, the use of nuance, oud training and prosody in the music section. The fact that he gave place to a singing technique that could only be identified in the recent period with its technical details in his own period has been seen as another contribution of the work to our day. For all these reasons, the subjects of the musical part of al-Shīrāzī’s Durrat al-taj work and al-Shīrāzī’s personality, which is compatible with his music will be examined in this paper.
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