bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Marriage: Towards Boris
Authors: Brown David
Published: November 2023

Ushkin’s four little tragedies have been rated among literary critics as his most remarkable dramatic creations. Concentrated dramatic vignettes, the longest only some 500 lines of blank verse, they are so fleeting it is difficult to envisage them staged. But their very concentration, their mingling of the colloquial with the poetic, their economy and precision in character delineation, and their structural tautness made them gifts to the opera composer—provided each was accepted on its own terms.
Life alongside Boris I: The Nursery Completed
Authors: Brown David
Published: November 2023

T is no Surprise That While Boris Was In The Making Musorgsky had little time for other things, and not one of his letters survives from the period of its composition. Since September 1868 his permanent base had been with old family friends, Alexander Opochinin and his sister Nadezhda. Throughout the earlier part of 1869 there were occasional reports of him at the familiar musical gatherings at various friends’ and colleagues’ homes, where Boris was exhibited as it was composed, Musorgsky himself performing all the male parts, choruses, and recitatives, Alexander Purgold the female and boys’ roles. But not until October 1869 do we have any direct evidence from the composer himself, when he wrote to Balakirev excusing himself from being a rehearsal pianist for an FMS concert on the grounds that he was too out-of-practice and would be a hindrance rather than help. Nor, as he explained in December to Karl Albrecht, one of Tchaikovsky’s colleagues at the Moscow Conservatoire, did he have anything to hand that he could contribute to the anthology of choral pieces that Albrecht was compiling. Since Albrecht belonged to a musical establishment antipathetic to Musorgsky, the latter might have been expected to show no sympathy for this project, and it seems the more surprising that he should have promised to compose and despatch such a piece as soon as time permitted. But relations between the two main opposing groups in Russia’s musical life were by now much easier.
Two Relationships: Pictures at an Exhibition and Sunless
Authors: Brown David
Published: November 2023

Usorgsky had Known the Architect and Artist Viktor Hartmann since the late sixties. The two men had quickly become friends, and in 1868 Hartmann had presented Musorgsky with two of his sketches (of a rich and a poor Jew). In return Musorgsky had dedicated to Hartmann the second song, ‘In the corner’, of his Nursery cycle, and the artist had become a frequent presence at the musical soirees of Musorgsky’s circle. But suddenly, on 4 August 1873, he had died. Musorgsky was deeply shocked; while walking with Hartmann in St Petersburg during the artist’s last visit, he had seen him suddenly taken ill with what was clearly some serious cardiac disorder and was now full of self-reproach for having shrugged it off at the time. The letter to Stasov in which he recounted his reaction is perhaps the most consistently pain-filled he ever wrote.
Peter Grimes
Authors: Evans Peter
Published: November 2023

By now it is even more obvious than it was in 1945 how fastidious Britten was in selecting poets and poems for the song-cycles that form one important branch of his work. A composer who seeks in both the sonority and the emotional and intellectual content of verse a powerful stimulus to his imagination must embark on an operatic enterprise with trepidation since, unless he decides directly to adapt an existing play (a solution Britten was not to attempt until his version of A Midsummer-Night’s Dream in 1960), he runs the risk that his initial vision, even when embodied in the choice of a subject, may be dimmed by the actual verbal material to which his librettist commits him.
Music for Children
Authors: Evans Peter
Published: November 2023

By comparison with the other composite chapters of this book, unified by the medium of the works discussed, the assembly of pieces within this chapter must appear heterogeneous. And it could be considered not altogether logical a selection, since both the Missa Brevis and the Gemini Variations might with no less justice be regarded as music for children yet have been relegated to other chapters, whereas Saint Nicolas, though written for young people, is now at least as often performed by adult choirs. However, it seems to me worthwhile for once to look right across Britten’s creative career, and to observe his response, always sympathetic but always changing both in its form and its tone, to the musical needs and ambitions of groups of children.
War Requiem
Authors: Evans Peter
Published: November 2023

It has not been the purpose of this book to record the fluctuations of Britten’s critical stock, for such an account would not bear much demonstrable relation to the quality of the music he was producing at any given period. However, it may be that in taking the War Requiem to be a landmark in the composer’s creative career one is too much swayed by the reception it was originally accorded and the subsequent anxiety on the part of writers who had joined in the paean to qualify their praise.
Anglican Plainchant Apologetics: the 1820s to 1860s
Authors: Zon Bennett
Published: November 2023

The nineteenth-century Anglican plainchant revival was nothing without its defenders of sacred music. Apologists may have held widely differing views on the matter, but all were united in one fundamental belief, that being the absolute necessity for a revival of musical worship in England. The man looked upon by Victorians as the father of sacred music apologetics is Richard Hooker (c.1554–1600), whose work formed the early cornerstone of apologetical literature. Hooker’s name appears frequently in numerous periodicals including The Parish Choir and The Ecclesiologist, and he is cited extensively in contemporary sermons, lectures, and pamphlets, particularly in reference to chapters 38 and 39 of the fifth book of his Ecclesiastical Polity. In part 38, ‘Of Music with Psalms’, Hooker divides his ideas into three separate points.
The Pathétique
Authors: Poznansky Alexander
Published: November 2023

Pyotr Ilyich arrived in St Petersburg on 10 October. As usual, our nephew and I met him, and I found him as hale and hearty as when I had last seen him in Moscow. He liked everything about our new apartment, and his good mood stayed with him, especially during the first few days, while his arrival was not yet known in the city and he could still dispose of his time freely. Only one thing disturbed him: the musicians at the rehearsals were little impressed with his Sixth Symphony. Besides the fact that he valued their opinion, he was worried that their indifference might affect the actual performance of the piece. Pyotr Ilyich conducted well only those of his works which he knew the orchestra liked. In order to achieve subtlety of shading, overall harmony, it was essential for him to feel sympathy and pleasure from those around him. A cold expression, an indifferent gaze, the yawn of an orchestra member, all understandable when a piece was as yet unfamiliar, constrained and flustered him, and he paid scant attention to polishing up details.
Tribute
Authors: Poznansky Alexander
Published: November 2023

Along the staircase leading to Modest Tchaikovsky’s apartment two counter-currents of people flow unceasingly. The apartment door stands constantly open. A thousand people have passed through it today. The corner room, in which the coffin lies, makes a distinctive impression: its whole tropical decor [the correspondent has in mind the palms and other tropical plants in the room-A.P. |, the drawn white curtains at the windows, and the garlands hung about the walls, breathe an air of still and silent sorrow. Throughout the day the crowd scarcely diminishes, but despite its presence the room is quiet.
Funeral
Authors: Poznansky Alexander
Published: November 2023

Today Tchaikovsky’s funeral was held. A funeral is a sad ceremony, but when it is performed so majestically, so solemnly as it was today, this sadness is made somewhat less evident; this scene of universal respect for the deceased offers us the consolation that the life and labours of a man do not pass without leaving a trace. The whole of the city’s intelligentsia turned out to bury Tchaikovsky: everyone capable of feeling, appreciating, and perceiving musical impressions longed to pay their last respects to the great composer, to catch a glimpse of his coffin, to sigh bitterly over such an untimely loss. Dignitaries, students, artists of word and thought, and crowds of common people came en masse to accompany Tchaikovsky to his grave; everyone entreated God to grant peace to the soul of the extinguished “leading light of Russian musical art”, as was written on one wreath.
Three Tributaries of ‘The River’
Authors: Griffiths Dai
Published: November 2023

Now all them things that seemed so important, well, Naturally, in appealing to so many consumers, pop music admits of little formal complexity. Whatever a song’s concern, it occurs stringently within the demotic constraints of verse, chorus, middle eight, and their like. So often is the familiar blast of Bob Dylan’s harmonica an end in itself that he is able to contradict this expectation by withholding the true final verse. Describing Handel’s practice within the formal convention of recitative and aria in eighteenth-century opera seria, Winton Dean observed: ‘His care for dramatic values led him to modify the formal scheme to express not only states of mind but character in action; and here most of all the stiffness of the convention enabled him to bring off all manner of surprises’ (Dean 1969: 171).
Secrecy and Silence: An Introduction to Music and its Metaphor
Authors: Goehr Lydia
Published: November 2023

Consider three paradoxical proclamations: first, Orwell’s: ‘the opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude’; secondly, Goethe’s: ‘You cannot escape from the world more certainly than through art; and you cannot bind yourself to it more certainly than through art’; and thirdly, Adorno’s: ‘music represents society the more deeply the less it blinks in its direction’. Though they were uttered in very different times and places, these proclamations share the rationale of protecting music, literature, and the arts from the threat of the moralizing censor, where the censor symbolizes a social or moral unfreedom. I borrow part of my opening thought from Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, specifically from his comment on ‘l’art pour l’art’ (section 24): ‘The struggle against purpose in art is always a struggle against the moralizing tendency in art, against the subordination of art to morality. L’art pour !’art means: the devil take morality! But this very hostility betrays that moral prejudice is still dominant.’
Vocal Style and Technique
Authors: Mcgee Timothy J
Published: November 2023

Giorgio Anselmi’s praise of the voice, written in 1432, resembles similar tributes down through the centuries, including the present. But while such consis tent characterization of the voice might suggest that little has changed in terms of vocal sound during that period, nothing could be further from the truth. What has remained constant is the attraction of the well-trained voice, but as will be demonstrated in the following chapters, the actual sound made by the voice has changed drastically over the centuries, and the sound that was valued so highly in the time of Giorgio and earlier was one that was highly ornate. By studying the ornaments that were an integral part of the singing style of the Middle Ages along with an analysis of the various commentaries on singing and singers, we shall be able to come to some understanding of the nature of the particular vocal sound that inspired Giorgio’s remarks.
Written Ornaments
Authors: Mcgee Timothy J
Published: November 2023

To complete our investigation of the medieval singing style and at the same time introduce the concept of ornamentation, we have the testimony of a set of ‘ornamental’ neumes and instructions on their performance. A study of these neumes and the special sounds that they require will bring the instructions of the previous chapter to the level of practical application. It will also assist us in comprehending the extent to which ornamentation was a part of basic musical practices of the late Middle Ages, and make clearer the fundamental concept of the vocal style as well as the specific techniques involved in singing medieval music.
The Lute in Britain
Authors: Spring Matthew
Published: November 2023

The lute was one of the most important instruments in use in Europe from late medieval times up to the eighteenth century, as a solo instrument, in combination with other instruments, or with the voice. Despite its acknowledged importance this study is the first ever comprehensive work on the instrument and its music, apart from performance studies or bibliographical and reference publications. While Spring focuses on the lute in Britain, he also includes two chapters devoted to continental developments: one on the transition from medieval to renaissance, the other on renaissance to baroque, and the lute in Britain is never treated in isolation. Six chapters cover all aspects of the lute's history and its music in England from 1285 to well into the eighteenth century, whilst other chapters cover the instruments early history, the lute in concert, lute song accompaniment, the thearbo, and the lute in Scotland. Writing for the music student, the serious listener, the player, maker, and lute enthusiast, Spring makes available for the first time, over 40 years of musical scholarship previously the preserve of academic journals.
Introduction
Authors: Spring Matthew
Published: November 2023

Contrary to popular belief, the lute was never the natural instrument of the troubadour or trouvere. It does not feature in French or English iconography or literature before the thirteenth century. This introduction traces the appearance of the lute before its arrival in northern Europe. It serves to differentiate, at an early stage, the lute from other popular plucked instruments like the gittern and citole. It is intended to do no more than lay down some general markers on the early history of the lute, a huge subject quite outside the scope of this book.
The Lute in England before 1500
Authors: Spring Matthew
Published: November 2023

No actual lute music from Britain survives before the earliest sixteenth-century tab latures. We must rely on literary and iconographical evidence to build a picture of lute practice in the medieval period. This chapter surveys what material there is. Conclusions are few and questions are many.There is no trace of the lute or gittern in Britain before 1285. Certainly these instruments were largely unknown, or at best insignificant, before the fourteenth century. They may have been introduced directly from Spain: the medieval English court had good contacts with those of Spain, and Plantagenet kings often intermarried with the northern Spanish to bolster themselves against the French. Richard I, the son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, married Berengaria, daughter of Sancho VI of Navarre, in 1191. Another of Henry II’s offspring, his daughter Eleanor, married Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1169.
The Lute in Song Accompaniment
Authors: Spring Matthew
Published: November 2023

Singing to the lute is as old as lute playing itself. The earliest English sources (mid sixteenth century) all show that the influence of vocal accompaniment was ever present in the lute repertoire. A good proportion of the surviving pre-1580 pieces are either tablature versions of popular song tunes to be played as solos, or actual accompaniments to songs. This is to be expected, as the early sources like Stowe 389, RA 58, and the commonplace books belonged to amateurs for whom popular songs may have been the most accessible repertoire.
From Renaissance to Baroque: A Continental Excursus, 1600 – 1650
Authors: Spring Matthew
Published: November 2023

Vomigny Perrichon and the Polack are furthest Lutinists in the memory of man that deserve to be menconed and to have a Statue upon the Mount of Parnassus for haveing given us the Rudimente of the Lute and cleared the first difficulties that hindered production of this Masterpeece[.] Afterwards Monsieur Mezan geot appeared upon the Stage of Musicke and using the Lute with nyneteene Stringes hath soe polished the Composition and the playing of it that without Contradiction we must give him the praise to have given to the Lute his first perfection …
The Caroline and Commonwealth Periods (I625–I660)
Authors: Spring Matthew
Published: November 2023

Here is a fellow who comes into England with an ill meen and thredbare cloaths, and there presently sets up a Court of Judicature, arraigning both Musick, Instruments, and Musicians, for not being a la mode de France; the twelve ranks of strings other Lute, the double neck, the lessons, the method of playing, and almost the hands too, for not being mangy about the wrists like his: he belies great masters; and teaches but his own imperfections: And if his fingers be so weak they can scarce crawle o’re a Lute, then to play gently and softly is the mode, and doucement is the word: and if so gouty and child-blained as he rakes the strings worse than if they were grated on by a ragged staff: then fort and Gallyard is the word, and strong and lusty is the mode agen; and if you like not his play, he tells ye at least, that he has the only new method of Paris, and that he teaches a ravir and non pareille, and for his lessons (which he has rakt out of Gau/tier’s dunghill, or collected from the privy-house of Dufaut) he keeps them as precious reliques, giving such out for new as were made before the Avignon or the Pope’s coming there:
Scottish Lute Music
Authors: Spring Matthew
Published: November 2023

Lutenists were fully established at the Scottish royal court by the late fifteenth century, though the instrument is occasionally mentioned in Scots literature before this time.1 Sir John Graham Dalyell in his Musical Memoirs of Scotland (1849) mentions a number of lutenists belonging to the royal household, the earliest reference being in 1474. Dalyell lists extracts taken from the Household Accounts of the Lords High Treasurers of Scotland showing frequent payments to lutenists during the reign of James III (1460 – 88) and James IV (1488 – 1513). Payments were made to a certain Jacob, but also to his fellow lutenists: John Wardlaw, Rankine, Robert Rudman, Adam Dikeson, Robert Hay, John Ledebetar, Craig, ‘Lindores’, and ‘Gray Steil’.The unfortunate James IV married Margaret Tudor in 1503. During the celebrations he entertained his bride by playing the ‘clarychordes’ and ‘lute’. Margaret had been taught the lute as a child. Kenner or Krennar, her ‘lutar’, is mentioned in English accounts prior to her departure, and was probably English.
The Bridge, Soundpost, and Tailpiece
Authors: Beamnt Jams
Published: November 2023

The bridge transfers the vibration of the string to the body and plays a much larger part in determining tone than is often recognized. We saw in the previous chapter that it is also involved with pitch. A well cut, perfectly fitting bridge of the right weight is essential. Would that every player appreciated that a good professionally cut bridge is also precious. The bridge has one foot near the point where the front is supported internally by the sound post; the other foot is over the bass bar, a beam along the inside (Fig. S. l ). In the playing position the violinist and violist see the sound post side on their right; the cellist and bassist see it on their left. In the figures the bass bar is marked Bb and the sound post Sp.
Hearing String Sound
Authors: Beamnt Jams
Published: November 2023

The previous chapters have outlined discoveries about the mechanism of bowed instruments, and how that produces the sounds in the air; for much of this we are indebted to a small number of skilled investigators working during the past fifty years. We now have to try to relate those sounds to the sensations we hear. At least one thing is helpful in this. Important aspects of instrument mechanism have been described in terms of pure tone vibrations, and what we have called their sustained pitched sounds are most easily appreciated as sets of pure tone harmonics. Some of the most useful knowledge we have of hearing has also been obtained by exploring with pure tones.
Purchase, Maintenance, and Children’s Instruments
Authors: Beamnt Jams
Published: November 2023

Most products arrive complete with manufacturer’s instructions, though often written in pidgin and always more concerned with protecting the makers against litigation than with helping the user. Violins don’t. There are a few big and many little things which need to be checked when buying an instrument, especially perhaps a small-size one for a child, some of which make all the difference to using it. There are things which have to be maintained, and there are symptoms of trouble, large or small, which will usually get larger if they are not dealt with when they are small. Even so simple a thing as winding a string on a peg has a best way and a way which can do serious damage. This chapter describes some things which ought to be in the instruction snot the maker’s instructions, because it includes things which should make one reject an instrument on sight.
John Zumpe and the English Pianoforte
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

AtSome Timeduring the 1730s or early 1740s Samuel Crisp, a gentleman who had spent some time abroad,· returned to England with a pianoforte-according to Burney the first ever seen in England. It had been made in Rome by an English expatriate whom we know only as ‘Father Wood’. In 1747 the instrument was at Wilbury, the country mansion of Fulke Greville, who at that time or shortly afterwards paid Thomas Arne a large some of money to release the young Charles Burney from an indenture so that he could become Greville’s resident music master (in much the same way that Peter Beckford later employed the young Clementi). In one of the few fragments that remain of Burney’s autobiographical memoirs, there is a brief account of his experiences at Wilbury showing that, at a formative period in his life, the future music historian and composer had limitless opportunities for daily practice on this early piano-forte, at a time when very few people had ever seen such an instrument.
After Zumpe: Small Pianos in Europe and America, 1770-1795
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

ThePhenomenal Success of Zumpe’s invention catapulted the pianoforte from relative obscurity to a position of considerable cultural significance in the space of only a few years. The importance of music in social gatherings, and the general admiration of anyone, but particularly ladies, who had the skill to provide musical entertainment at the keyboard, induced many harpsichord players to purchase a piano just as soon as Zumpe’s instruments began to appear. And, as Burney noted, by him¬ self Zumpe could not make them fast enough. The manufacture of keyboard instruments was carried out in quite small workshops within ordinary dwelling-houses by methods that made no sense whatsoever in terms of mass production. So the business run by Zumpe and Buntebart from the house in Princes Street was soon replicated by other craftsmen. On the whole, the new piano makers were not master craftsmen already established in harpsichord manufacture, who simply switched their production to a related kind of instrument. Mostly the piano-making workshops were new ventures with no previous history. AB noted elsewhere, harpsichord production was hardly affected by the rise of the piano for at least a decade.
Buying a Pianoforte: Extracts from the Twining-Burney Correspondence
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

ThomasTwining Introducedhimself to Charles Burney (by letter) in 1773 after reading of his plans to publish a ‘History of Music’. Twining was an excellent linguist and classical scholar, and had made a particular study of the ancient Greek traditions linking poetry and music; it was his expertise in this area that he offered to put at Burney’s disposal. This friendly, open-hearted gesture was typical of the man. In fact it was only with Burney’s constant encouragement that Twining eventually published something on his own account—a translation and commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle (in 1789). He was a contemporary of Mason at Cambridge, but chose to spend the greater part of his life as a country clergyman at Fordham, near Colchester.
Beyond Zumpe: Improvements to the English Square Piano after 1780
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

ConsideringThe LimitationsofZumpe’s non-escapement action, it is surprising how long a honeymoon period it enjoyed. For almost twenty years this very primitive mechanism was replicated in thousands of square pianos made in the ‘English style’, attracting very few adverse comments. It was not until 1783, when John Broadwood took out a patent for several ‘improvements’, that any significantly better mechanism was made in any quantity. That said, it was still basically Zumpe’s action. Three fur¬ ther years then elapsed before John Geib, in his London patent of 1786, laid the foundations for a truly expressive touch in the square piano, with a very long-lived design for an escapement action.
Johann Andreas Stein and the German Grand Piano
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

WhenHe Arrivedin Augsburg as a 21-year-old, during his long, ill-fated journey to Paris, Mozart was about to encounter the developed form of the German fortepiano that was to play such a significant part in his life over the next ten years. Arriving late at night from Munich, one of his major priorities the next day, 12 October 1777, was to visit the organ and instrument maker Johann Andreas Stein. He had not visited Augsburg since he was a small boy, and among other things he was hoping to see the new claviers about which he had evidently heard very favourable reports. Mozart’s father, Leopold, was a native of Augsburg, and tolerably well informed about affairs there. His scheme was that if his son were to stop over for more than a few days, he should try to enlist Stein’s help in organizing an impressive concert before leaving town. In the event, when he approached the town councillors, they declined to support this pro¬ ject. Worse still, Mozart felt humiliated by their condescending attitude and was about to leave the town in a burning rage; but Stein placated the young man, and eventually prevailed upon him to stay until suitable arrangements could be made. Stein himself took the leading role in co-ordinating matters.
Mozart’s Own Fortepiano
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

Of All Theinstruments that have come down to us from the eighteenth century, none is more revered and cherished than ‘Mozart’s own fortepiano’, which for many years has been standing in the Geburthaus Museum in Salzburg. The authentication of this instrument runs as follows.When Mozart arrived in Vienna, he did not possess a keyboard instrument of his own. For many months he lived with the Weber family, where he had the use of a harpsichord (which presumably belonged to them); but for concert opportunities during 1781 he was compelled to rely upon the generosity of Countess Thun, who allowed him to use her fortepiano made by Stein of Augsburg. But when he moved out, he needed an instrument in his room. In a letter of August 1781 he writes: ‘Now I am going to borrow a Clavier, for unless (I have one) in the room, I cannot live here.’ This borrowed or hired clavier had to suffice for a time, when he was very short of money, but later he acquired a fortepiano.
Harpsichord, Pianoforte, and Combination Instruments
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

ThroughoutThe Eighteenthcentury the majority of musicians brought to their first experience of playing the pianoforte a prior knowledge of the harpsichord. Therefore, while they may have appreciated the advantages of the new instrument, their ears were accustomed to a different sonority, and their skills of hand and mind were adapted to the practicalities of performance on the older instrument, in the repertoire they already knew. The harpsichord’s quick speech and clear articulation were well suited to realization of mid-eighteenth century ensemble music, and also made perfect sense of the all-pervasive Italian style of keyboard writing. In a reciprocal way, perhaps one ought to say that the nature of the available music and musical tastes had been formed by the particular qualities of the harpsichord. So, when Charles Burney first sat down to a pianoforte in 1747, it was with the music of Handel and Arne that he tried out this unfamiliar instrument-not, be it noted, with their keyboard works as such, but with transcriptions of vocal and orchestral items. He found that the light and shade that he was able to impart to some favourite operatic excerpts gave the music a new life that the harpsichord entirely missed, yet he also quickly discovered that the action of the pianoforte did not respond nearly so well to rapid passages, such as were then familiar from the sonatas of Scarlatti. These were continuing problems. Until the very last decade of the eighteenth century the pianoforte was invariably compared with the harpsichord, and too often the proving ground chosen for the comparison was the harpsichord’s own repertoire.
Construction of the Early Piano
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

InChapter 1we noted that no two of Cristofori’s surviving pianos are exactly alike. In fact, they vary to a surprising extent, though they were made within a span of only six years. Because they were handmade artefacts, produced in small numbers one after another, the maker was free to change his design as often as he liked. If the action parts inside them are taken out for examination, one sees with surprise how crudely they were fashioned, though they work well enough. The finish may be rough, but the maker expended a great deal of effort in free-hand carving on jacks and keys. If one then moves forward seventy years and pulls the action out of a Broad-wood grand from the 1790s, one can only marvel at the astonishing precision of every piece: the uniformity, the neat finish, the intricate design. It is an amazing contrast. One would think that the Broadwood piano had been machine-made, so high are the standards of workmanship. Nevertheless, the English piano is a handmade piece no less than the Italian, for it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that machinery began to be used for the work to any significant extent. The following pages are intended to give a general picture of the methods and materials used in piano manufacture in the eighteenth century.
At the Keyboard: Touch and Tone in the Early Piano
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

A Musician Whohas been trained exclusively at the modern piano may find many things unfamiliar when seated for the first time at a Viennese fortepiano from the classical period. Untutored in the special requirements of an antique keyboard, the modern pianist is likely to find the first touch of the keys either an alarming or a delightful experience-probably both. The keys are so small and so unresisting that, almost before one is aware of having pressed a note, a fortissimo has been sounded.
Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries
Authors: Cole Michael
Published: November 2023

Fakes And Forgerieshave been produced in every age. For the purposes of establishing a history of the pianoforte firmly grounded in fact rather than fantasy, they need to be identified. We might distinguish four kinds. These are, first of all, fakes or counterfeits made during the same period as the object they copy. Second are frauds in the form of misleading alterations made to the inscriptions on otherwise perfectly genuine instruments (usually falsifying the name of the maker or year of manufacture). Third are material alterations to genuine instruments which significantly change some aspect of the construction or function-for example, redecorating the casework or adding spurious refinements to the action. (Sometimes later changes of this kind may be difficult to distinguish from alterations carried out shortly after an instrument was made, with no fraudulent intent what-soever.) Fourth, in ascending order of culpability, we come to the construction of counterfeit instruments in a later era for the purposes of deception. In this last category one would, of course, include the creative reassembly of otherwise genuine parts to make a fraudulent whole, as was so often done with old harpsichords (by dealers like Franciolini) to arouse the interest of late nineteenth-century collectors. Examples of all kinds will be mentioned below.
Patronage and the Bolognese Aristocracy
Authors: Crowther Victor
Published: November 2023

The constitutional settlements of the early sixteenth century that brought Bologna under papal hegemony curtailed the political power and ambition of the aristocracy. Dynasties that had vied with each other for total domination of the city in the Middle Ages were obliged under the new constitution to co-operate in the administration of local affairs.
Musical Institutions in Bologna
Authors: Crowther Victor
Published: November 2023

Bologna’s prestige as a musical centre in the Baroque era rested upon the reputation of two of the city’s oldest institutions: the cappella musicale in San Petronio founded in 1436, and the Concerto Palatino,2 the town band, whose origins can be traced back to the work of town criers in the thirteenth century. They were state institutions, regulated and financed by Senate. The affairs of San Petronio were governed by a Fabbriceria comprising six elected senators, five serving in rotation whilst the sixth, a president, normally served for life. The constitution and conditions of service of the Concerto Palatino were also determined by Senate, advised by the magistrature.
The Cazzati Era, 1657-1674
Authors: Crowther Victor
Published: November 2023

What we know of the early development of oratorio in Bologna is information gleaned from printed librettos; no scores of full-scale oratorios have survived from the period 1657-74. The librettos contain rubrics signifying arias, sinfonias, and instrumentation, but our only guides to the quality of the music performed in the oratories are scores in closely related genres (e.g. spiritual cantatas, dialogues, etc.) produced by composers of oratorios (see Chapters 6 and 7).
Colonna’s II Transito di S. Gioseppe (1678)
Authors: Crowther Victor
Published: November 2023

Librettos of S. Gioseppe were printed in Bologna (1678), Modena (1681), Bologna (1685), and Faenza (1693). Two scores of the oratorio survive, one in Modena (I-MOe, Mus F. 298), the other in Naples (I-NJ, no. 476/ 4). Both performances at Bologna were given in the chapel of the Palazzo Paleotti on via San Donato. At the same venue in the 1660s the Paleottis had hosted Cazzati’s II transito di S. Giuseppe as well as Bernabei’s S. Christina, Cossoni’s Adamo, and Cossoni’s Dina rapita.
Perti’s La Beata Imelde Lambertini (1686)
Authors: Crowther Victor
Published: November 2023

Giacomo Perti was only 24 years old when he composed La Beata Imelde. In the spring of 1685 he had been in Modena, fulfilling a commission from the duke for an oratorio on the life of Moses, and providing an opera, Oreste in Argo, for the carnival season. By January 1686 he was back in Bologna directing two of his operas in the Malvezzi Theatre: L’incoronazione di Dario on 13 January, and La Flavia on 16 February. In March he presented La Beata Imelde as a tribute to one of Bologna’s most distinguished families, the Lambertini (see Chapter 1). It was the first oratorio in the Bolognese repertory to honour a local saint. The venue for the performance is unknown, but it may have been the sixteenth-century Palazzo Lambertini on the strada San Stefano.
Diverging Traditions 2: Europe
Authors: Fletcher Peter
Published: November 2023

The civilization that emerged in Europe was, ultimately, to prove more adaptable to change, and thus to show greater powers of evolution, than ancient civilizations to the east and south that preceded it. It developed, nevertheless, along familiar lines, with the progressive development of farming, pottery, writing, and monumental architecture. Until recently, it was widely accepted that its origin was in Crete, but recent studies suggest that it originated in the ancient civilizations of Egypt and West Asia. A Proto-Indo-European speech spread into Greece and Crete, from southern Anatolia, about 7000 BC, with the spread of farming. the original of Greek itself are still contentious. The view that it ‘arrived ‘ in Greece with Indo- European-speaking Dorian invaders, during the late second millennium, was compromised when the Cretan ‘Linear B ‘ dating from about 1450 BC and deriving from earlier models, were deciphered on the basis of Greek. In fact, invasions on the Greek mainland during the second millennium arrested the development of civilization there, while in Crete civilization was able to flourish.
Disintegration
Authors: Fletcher Peter
Published: November 2023

Many people would still agree today that the eighteenth century embodied much of what was best in the European cultural tradition; that, in that century, reason and order were blended with judgment and taste, to make possible in music, art, architecture and, characteristically, landscape-gardening-outstanding creations that still, uniquely, comfort the mind and the spirit. It can be no accident that the music of Bach and Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and early Beet hoven emerged during the eighteenth century. The musical formulas that generated this music are still to be observed in music produced according to the pluralist temper of the late twentieth century.
Tradition and Change
Authors: Fletcher Peter
Published: November 2023

It is probably fair to suggest that the world has changed more over the past 200 years than it did during the millennia that separated the Industrial Revolution from the Neolithic. This sudden acceleration of change has leant a new slant to the meaning of the word ‘tradition ’. Tradition tends now to be regarded as being antithetic to change—as representing customs that prevailed, before industrialization, urbanization, and electronic communications rendered them largely redundant. Tradition, however—even as thus defined—was never a stasis. Although throughout most of human history continuity was regarded as the touchstone of stability, were seldom stable for long. Changes in climate, for example, natural disasters, and frequent intrusion by one society into the affairs of another caused political and social change. With too slow a rate of change, societies stagnate; with too great or too continuous change, societies disintegrate.
Discriminations
Authors: Maconie Robin
Published: November 2023

Once we understand how the features that are characteristic of living beings have a biological explanation, it no longer seems mysterious to us that matter should be alive. I think that exactly similar considerations should apply to our discus sion of consciousness. The way, in short, to dispel the mys tery is to understand the processes. We do not yet fully understand the processes.
Naming Names
Authors: Maconie Robin
Published: November 2023

asked to tell the difference between one sound and another, a lis tener today may respond in a number of ways. One high-tech method involves reproducing the field of varying intensities of a sound sample as a contour landscape representing amplitude as height, and frequency and time as longitude and latitude. An alter native is the two-dimensional sonagraph or ‘voice print’ used in language research, forensic acoustics, and studies of birdsong, portraying the shape of a sound as an evolving smudge. Electro cardiogram reports deal in rhythm and line, expressing in visual terms activity that a stethoscope detects as the sound of the heart beat; different medical conditions sampled at different points add up to characteristic patterns of frequency and amplitude, and com binations of waveform. Reading sounds in visual form is an acquired skill. We learn from such examples that sounds that are easy to distinguish aurally are not always as easy to distinguish in the visual domain.
Temperament
Authors: Maconie Robin
Published: November 2023

The idea of dimensioning pitch in equal intervallic steps has logic on its side. In various ways, pitch can be related to length, and as length is a continuum, so one assumes is pitch also. Western stud ies have tended to interpret exotic scales as alternative expressions of equal temperament. A. J. Ellis, the English translator of Helmholtz’s On the Sensations of Tone and an indefatigable annota tor of non-Western scales-as embodied in museum collections of wind and percussion instruments-promoted the view that equal divisions of the octave should be taken as the norm, leading the musicologist Carl Stumpfin 1901 to wonder how the Siamese were supposed to derive an equal-tempered seven-tone scale without the help of logarithm and square root tables (Schneider and Beurmann 1993: 198-9).
Discourse
Authors: Maconie Robin
Published: November 2023

There are those who declare music to be unintelligible. Presumably they find it so. Some make unintelligibility a virtue. In the opening sentences of Music and the Emotions: The Philosophical Theories Malcolm Budd challenges Rameau’s definition of music as the science of sounds, declaring that ‘when music is regarded as one of the fine arts it is more accurate to define it . . . as the art of sounds’, furthermore, ‘the art of uninterpreted sounds’ (Budd 1985: ix). In effect, ‘I do not think that music, considered as an art, ever does convey propositions of a philosophical kind’ (private com munication, 1993). I am sure he is not the only philosopher to think so. I also believe that if music could be shown to convey propositions of a philosophical kind, then that would be sufficient proof, in present company, that music is intelligible.
‘Bubbles’
Authors: Bird John
Published: November 2023

The City of Melbourne in the early 18Sos found itself at the core of one of the most dazzling explosions of affluence ever to hit any city or state anywhere in the world. A decade previously Melbourne, the capital city of the state of Victoria, had been unattractive and undeveloped. Unmetalled streets in and around the centre of the city within minutes of a downpour became oozing rivers of mud, churned up and rutted by the flow of the horse-drawn transport of the day. The stench from the huge open roadside sewers would make the warmer months almost unbearable. In the main streets they were so wide that footbridges had to be constructed to enable pedestrians to cross them unsullied.
‘The years before the war were Hell’
Authors: Bird John
Published: November 2023

There were many forces drawing Grainger to England’s capital. By the turn of the century most of the Frankfurt Gang had begun to drift back to England and Grainger realized that it was there that everything that inter¬ested him in the field of musical composition was about to blossom. He was anxious to be in the thick of it.
‘The measure of my artistic defeat’
Authors: Bird John
Published: November 2023

Grainger’s concert season of 1927/28 took some new musical direc¬tions, and the general picture of his concert-giving was slowly changing. He was now beginning to shun the generally accepted centres of culture and instead was striking out for the smaller cities. He was trying to drop the label of star piano virtuoso. He began to feel at home with music clubs, chamber groups, school choirs, college bands and the smaller music festi¬vals far removed from the recognized cultural centres, and often received more enthusiastic playing from such musicians than from professional organizations.
History of Violin Frauds
Authors: Harvey Brian W , Shapreau Carla J
Published: November 2023

False labelling of violins appears to be as old a practice as the existence of the violin itself. In the early years of the seventeenth century Matthias Albani’s instruments were consistently copied, with false labels, in his lifetime (1621-1712). In Italy the Hills in their monograph on Stradivari quote a petition to the Duke of Modena from a citizen (Vitali) which is dated in 1685 and con cerns a Ruggieri being labelled Nicolo Amati.1 This poses a very familiar problem of deception.
Business or Pleasure -- Legal Traps
Authors: Harvey Brian W , Shapreau Carla J
Published: November 2023

In the violin world there are broadly three classes of person interested in stringed instruments. First there is the player or teacher. Players and teachers very often form the end link of the chain: the consumer in a true sense, for whom the product exists. Then there is the collector. Collectors have occupied a ubiquitous position for some centuries. Collecting violins is almost as old as their manufacture. But it became a more com mon pursuit in the nineteenth century when a larger number of connoisseurs began to appreciate the violin as a valuable artefact.
Stolen Violins
Authors: Harvey Brian W , Shapreau Carla J
Published: November 2023

Thefts of violins and other bowed stringed instruments have been endemic for the past two centuries. Violins can be beautiful things. They are known by the general public to be of value. A few collectors, players, or other ‘fidiculomaniacs’ are happy to conceal a famous stolen violin, it seems for their lifetimes (as is the case with dishonest art collectors), and less famous violins can be disposed of in various ways, just like other stolen goods. For the last hundred years or so the pages of the Strad have been full of sad accounts of the loss of someone’s instrument, more often than not taken with its case when proper attention to its safety was not being paid. In one recent example the owner put her double violin case on the ground while helping an elderly cellist into her car. In this brief moment the double violin case was taken.
The Purloined Violin
Authors: Harvey Brian W , Shapreau Carla J
Published: November 2023

As noted by Brian Harvey in Chapter 7 on stolen violins, violins have repeatedly been an attractive target for thieves motivated by profit or passion for the instrument. In the USA, as in Eng land, a good faith purchaser cannot generally acquire title to, or right to possession of, stolen property, nor can a person receiving stolen goods from a thief, or a person in line of possession of a thief, obtain title to stolen goods.1 Although the law may vary in different states, most states have adopted the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) which provides that ‘[a] purchaser of goods acquires all title which his transferor had or had power to transfer.’
Discovery of Fraud and Deception: Fiddling Away the Time - The Statute of Limitations and Other Defences
Authors: Harvey Brian W , Shapreau Carla J
Published: November 2023

When one obtains an inaccurate certificate of authenticity or appraisal from an expert, the mere passage of time may cut off one’s ability to obtain a remedy for the wrong, as discussed above in Chapter 9. In most jurisdictions, tort claims for fraud or negligent misrepresentation will not accrue until the victim dis covers, or reasonably should have discovered, the facts constituting the fraud. Therefore, the statute of limitations may run on a claim for fraud if a court finds that the owner should have dis covered the fraud at an earlier date.