bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Symphonic Intelligibility and Sonata Form
Authors: Schroeder David P
Published: November 2023

For Haydn’s biographer G. A. Griesinger, a perfectly logical and appropriate question to put to the most celebrated symphonist of his time was ‘to know from what motives Haydn wrote his compositions, as well as the feelings and ideas that he had in mind and that he strove to express through musical language’ (Not. 62). There was no doubt for Haydn that it was appropriate to answer this question, although given his age, it would have been ‘irksome’ to elucidate each work in this way. Haydn’s answer, which has already been cited in earlier chapters, should now be given in full: For those who doubt the capacity of the symphony to do anything other than serve a purely musical function, Haydn’s reply could be successfully dismissed in a number of ways. These could be the words of an elderly man whose thinking is no longer lucid. On the other hand, it could be yet another demonstration of Haydn’s famous sense of humour. However, in the context of the eighteenth century, this reply is entirely lucid and genuine. As we have seen, his choice of the term ‘moral characters’ was borrowed from the practice of the moral weeklies, a tradition over a century old by this time. His reference to an abandoned sinner raises an interesting matter as well. Supporters of programmatic music may wish to take these remarks as evidence that Haydn attempted to represent specific objects, persons, or events in his symphonies.
‘Le Matin d’un jour de fête’
Authors: Brown Matthew
Published: November 2023

When listening to ‘Le Matin d’un jour de fête’ it is hard not to agree with Falla’s claims that the piece conjures up ‘the joy of villagers who move forward, dancing to the sound of guitars and bandurria band’.
The Early Years: 1560–1590
Authors: Watkins Glenn , Stravinsky Igor
Published: November 2023

THE village of Gesualdo sits lonely and isolated in the foothills one hundred kilometres east of Naples. It is not an unpleasant country and the view which the castle commands is impressive. This is no accident, for the castle was built in its present position as early as the middle of the seventh century in order to serve as a fortress.
The Last Years: 1597–1613
Authors: Watkins Glenn , Stravinsky Igor
Published: November 2023

IT cannot be precisely determined when Don Carlo left for Gesualdo after his extended sojourn in Ferrara.1 There are reports that Gesualdo’s conduct had not always been beyond reproach while still at Ferrara, and that certain of his amorous adventures were so overt as to disgust the Court and Ferrarese society.2 Talk of maltreatment of his new wife, a recurring complaint later, also begins to enjoy some circulation. Whatever the reason for the Prince’s decision to leave for Gesualdo, we know that again Leonora did not accompany him. During the period 1594–6, however, she had given birth to a baby boy, Alfonsino, and it could easily be argued that she preferred to avoid the rigours of an arduous journey with a new infant.
The Question of Mannerism
Authors: Watkins Glenn , Stravinsky Igor
Published: November 2023

THE music of Gesualdo may be viewed as leading from the central movement of the Renaissance, while standing somewhat apart from it; and moving toward, but stopping short of, the Baroque. As such, it is characteristic of the spirit which prevailed between the High Renaissance and the Early Baroque. The richer the time the greater the variety of possible interpretations, and the century from 1520 to 1620 is sufficiently rich to have inspired an abundant and diverse literature. Yet for all its chronological breadth, which to a degree guarantees some over lapping, this period increasingly emerges as one which possesses a clearly perceivable orientation and an identifiable stylistic character—that of an Age of Mannerism.
The Madrigals: Books I & II
Authors: Watkins Glenn , Stravinsky Igor
Published: November 2023

THE form most consistently cultivated by Gesualdo was the five voice madrigal. Of the seven books of madrigals only one, the posthumous collection of 1626, developed the madrigal a sei. There are three excursions into the six-voice medium in the earlier volumes, the last piece of Book III and the last two (actually a single madrigal of two parts) of Book IV. Otherwise six-voice polyphony is reserved by Gesualdo for two sacred collections, the Sacrae Cantiones in sex vocibus of 1603 and the Responsoria of 1611.
The Late Style: Models and Successors
Authors: Watkins Glenn , Stravinsky Igor
Published: November 2023

WE have seen that the resemblances between Gesualdo’s style and that of his best-known predecessors, Marenzio, Wert, Rore, Caimo, and especially Luzzaschi, ultimately related more to the larger issues—form, textual quality, and madrigalism, and only partially to expressive nuance. These composers do not share to any great extent the idiosyncratic gestures peculiar to Gesualdo’s personality, the harmonic and rhythmic daring and the exaggerated emotionalism. Even so the question remains whether in the smaller details Gesualdo stands in any demonstrable relation with one or more of his contemporaries.
Miscellanea
Authors: Watkins Glenn , Stravinsky Igor
Published: November 2023

AFEW of Gesualdo’s previously published madrigals, particularly those of the earlier volumes, were also included in the anthologies of the time.1 Other collections include items by Gesualdo which appeared nowhere else. Psalms of Compline by Gesualdo are to be found amongst psalms by various Neapolitan composers published by Ottavio Beltrano in 1620 (Salmi de!le Compiete de diversi Musici Neapolitani), and two canzonette by him appear at the end of Pomponio Nenna’s eighth book of madrigals of 1618. So far as is known, this accounts for all of the Prince’s music that found its way into print.
Handel and the English Verse Anthem: His First Setting of As pants the hart, c.1712
Authors: Burrows Donald
Published: November 2023

Handel’s first English church music was written in London while he was still in the employ of the Hanoverian court. The post of Kapellmeister to which he was appointed in June 1710 must have been, from the first, something of an honorary post: the Hanover opera was in abeyance and the routine music of the Hanover court was in the hands of a Konzertmeister, who was in charge of the court musicians.
Other Chapel Royal Music from the First Period, 1712–1714
Authors: Burrows Donald
Published: November 2023

Queen Anne granted Handel a pension of £200 per annum on 28 December 1713. This sum was identical to the salary of the Master of the Queen’s Musick, and roughly comparable to the 1,000 Thaler carried by Handel’s former post as Kapellmeister at Hanover. By the end of 1713 Handel had, in fact, achieved the object of entering the Queen’s service that was reported as his intention in Kreienberg’s letter quoted at the beginning of the previous chapter.
New Versions of As pants the hart
Authors: Burrows Donald
Published: November 2023

This chapter is concerned with the versions of As pants the hart that Handel composed during the 1720s. It will refer also to his other settings of the anthem, because the topic relates both to the chronology of the various versions and to the processes of composition in which Handel utilized or rejected material from his preceding settings of the text. The versions will be identified by letters deriving from the suffixes to the HWV numbers in the thematic catalogue.
Princess Anne’s Wedding Anthem, 1733–1734
Authors: Burrows Donald
Published: November 2023

The Hanoverian family was part of a large dynastic structure, characterized by much intermarriage and an instinctive concern to preserve and increase power, influence, and territory through marriage. There were no royal marriages during George I’s reign: the King’s two children were already married by 1714 and his grandchildren were too young to be of marriageable age. Nevertheless, dynastic plans for the future would have been second nature to George I, and involved both political and personal considerations.
The London Choirs
Authors: Burrows Donald
Published: November 2023

The Chapel Royal, the Royal Musicians, and the Royal Trumpeters were all within the Department of State administered by the Lord Chamberlain. The Master of the Musick and the Musicians in Ordinary were among the ‘Servants above Stairs’ under the direct control of the Chamberlain, but the Chapel Royal was a separate sub-department of the Chamber and had a greater measure of independence: the management of the Chapel was the responsibility of the Dean, though (as the Cheque Books show) the Sub-Dean in practice acted for him in most matters of routine administration.
The Chapel’s Resources and Handel’s Music
Authors: Burrows Donald
Published: November 2023

From the Foundling Hospital accounts for Handel’s Messiah performances in the 1750s it appears that four or six boys from the Chapel were provided by Bernard Gates for the chorus, and this provides an indication of the usual number of able musicians among the trebles: of the nominal group of ten, the younger ones would have been musically inexperienced, and the reliability of the older ones would have been unpredictable on account of changing voices.
Mendelssohn and Hanover Square
Authors: Ehrlich Cyril
Published: November 2023

The Argyll Rooms were destroyed by fire on 6 February I 830, three weeks before the season’s opening concert. The Philharmonic library, which already contained precious scores and documents, was rescued, but had to be stored in the librarian’s private residence. This lack of a permanent base weakened the Society’s image and would become increasingly burdensome as rents rose in central London. It probably also encouraged a rather perfunctory attitude towards papers, some of which apparently found their way profitably into the open market.
Francesco Berger and Recovery
Authors: Ehrlich Cyril
Published: November 2023

By the summer of 1880 the Philharmonic Society was known to be a wreck, about to go down with the few who cared to remain on board. Yet salvage and refitting were undertaken with such speed and efficiency that within a decade it was being described as a flagship for the nation. ‘Foreigners’, declared the Musical Times in April 1890, ‘will largely judge our musical condition by the state of the Society which, in their eyes, represents it’.
Between Wars
Authors: Ehrlich Cyril
Published: November 2023

The Society’s concessions to xenophobia were mild by the standards of the day, as befitted its long history of international connection and goodwill. The roll of honorary members was temporarily purged of ‘alien enemies’, and there was some fuss about advertisements in concert programmes: the publisher Augener was asked to insert ‘British owned’ into its entries.
Johannes Brahms
Authors: Avins Styra , Eisinger Josef
Published: November 2023

This book is the first comprehensive collection of the letters of Johannes Brahms ever to appear in English. Over 550 are included, virtually all uncut, and there are over a dozen published here for the first time in any language. Although he corresponded throughout his life with some of the great performers, composers, musicologists, writers, scientists, and artists of the day, and although thousands of his letters have survived, English readers have until now had scant opportunity to meet Brahms in person, through his words, and in his own voice. ’I am aware of my bad habit of writing briefly but obscurely’, Brahms once wrote to a friend. He was needlessly hard on himself, for his letters describe many significant events in his life, throw light on his friendships and music, and reveal his wit, idealism, intelligence, generosity, sarcasm, and above all his powerful sense of integrity. The letters in this volume range from 1848 to just before his death. They include all Brahms’s letters to Robert Schumann, over a hundred letters to Clara Schumann, and the complete Brahms-Wagner correspondence. They are joined by a running commentary to form an absorbing narrative, documented with scholarly care, provided with comprehensive notes, but written for the general music lover. The result is a lively biography. The book is generously illustrated, and contains several detailed appendices and an index.
Maknpkeces
Authors: Girdharn Jane
Published: November 2023

Storace moved to Drury Lane in 1788, after returning from Vienna a year earlier then working at the King,s Theatre for a year or so. He composed a total of six mainpiece operas in English, at first deliberately conforming to English operatic conventions, later approaching the dramatically integrated form of opera buffa that had been his first love.
Sir Peter Pears
Authors: Elliott Graham
Published: November 2023

Musing on his own perceptions of Britten’s ‘themes and concerns’, Peter Pears observed that ‘what is an essential part of you must perfume all that you do’. Pears has long been acknowledged as one of the greatest English singers of the twentieth century, and a foremost interpreter of the music of Benjamin Britten. He shared with Britten a remarkable personal and professional partnership which lasted for almost forty years from the creation of the relationship in 1937 until Britten’s death in 1976. Any attempted assessment of the personal and professional motivations in Britten’s life and work must pay due regard to the views of Pears, and the memories of the many years they lived and worked together.
Summary
Authors: Elliott Graham
Published: November 2023

The life and work of Benjamin Britten are remarkably well documented in a wide variety of articles and books. It would be surprising if such a vast amount of material did not contain a good deal of speculation on the subject of the com- poser’s personality and motivation, and about the non-musical forces in his life.

Those who wrote commentaries during Britten’s lifetime were careful to avoid any direct reference to his homosexuality. Philip Brett examines the phenomenon at considerable length in his book Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes, and he refers to the tendency to euphemism on the part of writers who, he states, were prone to use such phrases as ‘emotional immaturity’ to describe Britten’s sexual orientation.
Plainsong and Hymn Tunes
Authors: Elliott Graham
Published: November 2023

This extract from a letter written by Britten to his mother, soon after his arrival at Gresham’s School (quoted in Chapter 2, page 11), and it demonstrates the contrast in churchmanship in the school chapel with the tradition of Low Church worship to which Britten had been exposed in his regular attendance at St John’s, Lowestoft. The extract is more significant as an indication of what was, in all , Britten’s first experience of plainsong. Whatever the impression made on Britten by the plainsong he heard and sang at Gresham’s, there is ample evidence that plainsong formed one of the recurring ‘themes’ throughout his career. Coupled with his evocation of bells and his occasional use of hymn tunes, it supplied a fruitful means for evoking ‘things spiritual’, and frequently provided germinal material for melodic development.
Miscellaneous Aspects of Horn Playing
Authors: Schuller Gunther
Published: November 2023

The first of these is the problem of intonation. Naturally a prerequisite for good intonation is the acquiring of a critical ear. Given this, it is a relatively easy matter to play in tune on a horn—I would say easier than on most other wind instruments. For on the horn there are three aids in controlling intonation. The first is manipulation of the right hand in the bell. A slight opening of the hand-to be exact, a movement of the wrist away from that side of the bell closest to the player’s body-results in raising the pitch. Closing in with the hand-i.e. towards the body side of the bell—will lower the pitch.
Origin and Incorporation of the Poetic Texts
Authors: Cooper Barry
Published: November 2023

Whereas the melodies supplied by Thomson came mainly from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, the texts were mostly provided by English and Scottish poets. The most substantial contributor was William Smyth (1765–1849), son of a Liverpool banker, and Professor of History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, from 1807 until his death. Passionately fond of music (including Beethoven’s), he wrote much verse, and his English Lyrics went through five editions including a posthumous one in 1850.
The Ritornellos
Authors: Cooper Barry
Published: November 2023

Beethoven’s opening and closing ritornellos are, if anything, even more remarkable than his accompaniments to the folksong settings. Unfettered by the restrictions of the melody, he was able to give full rein to his free imagination, and the ritornellos display many of the most characteristic features of his style, as well as a high level of originality, despite their limited length and scope.
A Reassessment
Authors: Cooper Barry
Published: November 2023

Beethoven’s folksong settings are among the least explored and appreciated parts of his output. Part of the reason is their inconvenient setting for voice or voices and piano trio, which has no doubt discouraged some singers from taking them up. This problem is easily overcome now that it is clear that the settings can be performed satisfactorily without the string parts and also, if necessary, without the additional voices.
Collecting Handel
Authors: Coke Gerald
Published: November 2023

I STARTED my Handel Collection in the mid-193os. Its genesis was an interest both in fine books and music, and the idea that the two interests should be channelled into the formation of a collection of fine and first editions of music. After a false start collecting Mozart first editions, which turned out to be too expensive (and over-collected), the idea of a Handel collection was born. This dream could not have been translated into reality without the help of Percy Muir of Elkin Mathews whom I met through a mutual friend. Not only did he take immense trouble to learn about the subject—his firm had not previously done any business in this particular field—but he secured for me several indispensable guides, including a detailed list of the printed music in Newman Flower’s collection and a copy of Schoelcher’s catalogue of librettos.
The Malmesbury Collection
Authors: Dean Winton
Published: November 2023

THE Earl of Malmesbury’s Collection is by far the most important body of Handel manuscripts still in private hands, and the only one in the possession of the same family since the eighteenth century. Strictly speaking it should be called the Legh Collection, for the original owner, for whom the manuscripts were copied, was Elizabeth Legh of Adlington Hall in Cheshire, a friend and fanatical admirer of the composer, an accomplished harpsichordist and possibly an amateur singer as well. From about 1715 until her death in August 1734 at the age of 39 she evidently had a standing order with Handel’s copyists for everything he composed. She had each volume uniformly bound in leather with her arms stamped on the cover, and they remain today in their original condition.
The Shaw-Hellier Collection
Authors: Young Percy
Published: November 2023

AMONG those whose present reputation depends on their foresight in having collected works by Handel, Samuel Hellier (1736—84) stands out as an exceptional figure. His library of music, his collection of orchestral instruments, and the organs which he had Abraham Adcock to build, were all assembled and cared for as much in public as private interest. Hellier did not compose a formal essay explaining his philosophical views on the social value of the arts in society, but he did leave in documentary form evidence of a strong conviction that music was a necessary ingredient in the life of the community. The little world of which he was in this particular its cultural engine was the village of Wombourne, four miles from Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, where his home was the house known since the Middle Ages as The Woodhouse. Here for two centuries was preserved his memorial, the Shaw-Hellier Collection of music and of instruments. The music is now preserved, on permanent loan, in the Music Library of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in the University of Birmingham.
The Santini Collection
Authors: Marx Hans Joachim
Published: November 2023

SHORTLY after 1900 a young English musician travelled from Cambridge to Munster in Westphalia, in search of manuscripts containing works by Alessandro Scarlatti that were said to be in the local Diocesan Museum. His attention may have been drawn to Munster by a handwritten catalogue in the British Museum that had been compiled by Vincent Novello in 1843. This listed some of the manuscripts and printed music in the library of the Abbate Santini in Rome. The young musicologist—it was Edward Dent—found far more than he had imagined. In addition to the Scarlatti manuscripts he was looking for, the music collection of the Diocesan Museum contained innumerable manuscripts and a large amount of printed music from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. These holdings had been ignored by scholars for decades, and had been quietly gathering dust. Dent was the first musicologist to draw attention to the importance of this Collection.
The Concertos
Authors: Careri Enrico
Published: November 2023

‘GEMINIANI with all his harmonica! abilities, was so circumscribed in his invention, that he was obliged to have recourse to all the arts of musical cookery, not to call it quackery, for materials to publish.’ The charge that Burney levels against the composer refers to his alleged lack of imagination, which caused him to recycle the same compositions several times over. Indeed, if we exclude all his numerous elaborations and transcriptions, the musical output of Geminiani seems rather exiguous: two sets of violin sonatas (Opp. I and N), one of cello sonatas (Op. V), three of Concerti grossi (Opp. II, ill, and VII), The Inchanted Forrest, and the compositions published in his treatises. Nevertheless, the same reproof could be addressed to Corelli and several other contemporary composers of note. Burney’s irritation probably stemmed from the disproportion between the success of Geminiani in England, where he had no rivals in the instrumental domain and was considered the equal of Handel, and the reason for this same success, which was almost entirely connected with his Op. ill concertos. His other compositions, with few exceptions, were rarely performed and little appreciated; in contrast, his Op. ill enjoyed an extraordinarily wide circulation, which even rivalled that of the celebrated works of Corelli. ‘Handel, Geminiani & Corelli’, Burney notes elsewhere, ‘were the sole Divinities of my Youth, but I was drawn off from their exclusive worship before I was 20, by keeping company with travelled & heterodox gentlemen, who were partial to the Music of more modem composers whom they had heard in Italy.’ The openmindedness of the young Burney was an exception in contemporary English musical circles, which in the years around the middle of the eighteenth century remained faithful to Corelli and Geminiani and showed little interest in what was going on beyond the English Channel.
The Sonatas
Authors: Careri Enrico
Published: November 2023

THE three main sets of sonatas composed by Francesco Geminiani suffered the same fate as his concertos: they were elaborated, transcribed for different instruments, and ‘nuovamente ristampate econ diligenza corrette’. Op. I alone was published in five different versions: the original version for violin (1716), the trio sonatas (performable as concertos by adding the ripieno parts provided), the edition of 1739, the harpsichord transcriptions, and the transcriptions for flute. The second set of violin sonatas, Op. IV (1739), of which a version for concerto grosso also exists, were transcribed almost in their entirety for harpsichord. The cello sonatas, Op. V (1746), were published simultaneously with their transcription for violin. The remaining sonatas, with few exceptions, are drawn from earlier compositions: the two sets of Pieces de Clavecin (1743, 1762) from Opp. I, II, IV, V, and VII, and the treatises for violin and cittem.
The Inchanted Forrest
Authors: Careri Enrico
Published: November 2023

THE Inchanted Forrest is the only composition by Francesco Geminiani of which both the autograph manuscript score and a series of documents concerning its first performance are extant. Unlike with the other works, however, it is difficult to establish with certainty the date of publication. According to Burney and Hawkins it was published in the years that followed his return from his last visit to Paris, around 1755–6, while on the title-page of the autograph score we read: ‘The Gift of Francesco Geminiani the Author to James Mathias/ 7 dee.er 1761/ La Selva Incantata del Tasso/ Composizione Istrumentale/ da F. G.’ Dates quoted by Burney and Hawkins with regard to Geminiani are rarely reliable, while the one marked on the manuscript may refer only to the year in which the composer presented it to James Mathias and therefore serve merely as a terminus .ad quern.
Reworkings and Transcriptions
Authors: Careri Enrico
Published: November 2023

The reheaters (rifriggitori) [writes Veracini] were so called because on every occasion when they had to produce new works they always ‘reheated’ the same works that they had heated up on other occasions; they started to do this while studying under their master (when they went to him in their youth for instruction), freely and frequently removing the good that was previously in them and inserting in its place new additions taken from the most popular music of others; they then proceeded to reheat this in the same way that they had done their own eternal stews. Then, going from country to country, with their Lenten sermons reheated (so to speak) two hundred thousand times, they peddle their merchandise, just like those who travel through different countries exhibiting the ‘New World’ or a ‘tabernacle’ and on such occasions sell jaspers [a kind of precious stone] to arrest nose-bleeds and a thousand other remedies for teeth, eyes, and ears.
The Vocal Music
Authors: Careri Enrico
Published: November 2023

A QUICK glance at the catalogue of Geminiani’s music suffices to show that the composer had little interest in vocal music. With the sole exception of L’incostanza delusa, performed in 1745, he had no links with opera or with any other kind of large-scale vocal music. As was observed earlier, only a more rapid worker than Geminiani could hope to cope with the demands of operatic composition. Nevertheless, a few short vocal compositions by Geminiani enjoyed a wide circulation, as the remarkable number of manuscript and printed copies of them preserved today attests. It is therefore necessary to give them a brief mention in this chapter.
Senesino and the Heroic—Anti-Heroic Male Role
Authors: Larue C Steven
Published: November 2023

In the ‘Instructions to Mr Hendel’ issued by Thomas Holles on 14 May 1719 on behalf of the nascent Royal Academy of Music, only one specific singer is named with specific terms: ‘That Mr Hendel engage Senezino as soon as possible to Serve the Said Company and for as many Years as may be.’1
J
Authors: Clinkscale Martha Novak
Published: November 2023

JACOBUS. See BALL, Jacobus (James]. JAHN, Johann Friedrich (Frederikus) (b Cera, Saxony, 19 Mar. 1780-d St Gall, 28 Nov. 1866). Jahn was recognized from 1807 as a musician and instrument builder in St Gall. He obtained his Swiss citizenship in 1845. (Hirt/MEISTER, 477)
s
Authors: Clinkscale Martha Novak
Published: November 2023

SAILER, J. [fl.1800-25). Piano maker in Munich. This maker is perhaps the same as Jakob Sailer {b Pest), a piano builder who was granted citizenship in Pest in 1819 and made from eight to ten pianos annually in his workshop there. Fontana gives no birth or death dates or addresses. It seems possible that he could have maintained a workshop in Munich, perhaps at a later date from his Budapest residence. {See Fontana/PEST, 178.)
V
Authors: Clinkscale Martha Novak
Published: November 2023

van CASTEEL. See CASTEEL, Henrique (Henri-VINSEN. See SCHOENE & Co. Joseph, or Henricus) van.

van der DOES. See DOES, Corneille Charles Ema nuel van der.

van der HOEF. See DOES, Corneille Ema nuel van der.

VAN OLST and Comp. [fl. c. 1800). Piano makers in London.
Instruments and Keyboard Idiom
Authors: Harrison Bernard
Published: November 2023

Haydn's keyboard music spans the period from the 1750s, when it is assumed he wrote his first solo keyboard works, to 1797, when he produced the keyboard version of the slow movement from the ‘Emperor’ String Quartet. Quite apart from changes in compositional style, this period saw many changes in the music profession, among which we may count the gradual acceptance, by composers, performers, and the musical public, of the fortepiano as the main keyboard instrument and the gradual displacement of the harpsichord and clavichord. Although it is now accepted that Cristofori had invented the gravicembalo col piano e forte by c. 1700 (possibly a few years before the advent of the eighteenth century) and had solved most of the mechanical problems of construction, the rise in popularity of the new instrument and the consequent, gradual decline in the use of the harpsichord occurred principally in the years 1760 to 1790. The transfer in allegiance from one instrument to another occurred at a different pace in various countries and even within a specific geographical region composers embraced the ‘new’ instrument at remarkably divergent dates. In Italy, notwithstanding the early example of Giustini's Sonate da cimbalo di piano, e forte detto volgarmente di martelletti, published in Florence in 1732, the fortepiano seems, paradoxically, to have become dominant at a relatively late date: for example, Galuppi's Passatempo al cembalo of 1785 is still perfectly compatible with performance on a harpsichord.
Appoggiaturas: Notation and Interpretation
Authors: Harrison Bernard
Published: November 2023

Writing in The New Grove, Robert Donington commented as follows on the duration of appoggiaturas in Classical music: In Haydn, Mozart and even Beethoven the rules of Quantz and C. P. E. Bach still apply in almost all respects, and the appoggiaturas shown by these composers must be interpreted almost entirely in the light of the Baroque conventions, rather than by their literal appearance. These rules, examined in some detail below, are usually formulated as a number of stereotyped conventions: namely, that an appoggiatura before a binary main note receives half the length of the main note, an appoggiatura before a dotted note receives two-thirds of the overall value, while appoggiaturas before main notes which are ‘tied’ or followed by a rest take the whole value of the main note, and the resolution (i.e. the main note), falls in the place of the second of the tied notes or on the rest. Such conventions feature in many modern prescriptions for the realization of appoggiaturas in Classical music, but their widespread application cannot withstand close scrutiny. Notational habits vary from one composer to another, and within the output of one composer important changes in orthography may also be identified; consequently the relevance of conventional interpretations must be assessed in the light of changing orthography. Two important general tendencies towards greater precision in the notation of appoggiaturas can be identified in the eighteenth century; these either necessitate a modification of the conventions used in determining the duration of appoggiaturas or completely dispense with these conventions.
Doppelschlag and Mordent
Authors: Harrison Bernard
Published: November 2023

The Doppelschlag placed over a note is relatively unproblematic as regards performance, the general opinion being that it is played on the beat as fast as possible. C. P. E. Bach gives three realizations appropriate for different tempos (see Ex. 8. I a) which illustrate his instruction that the Doppelschlag is ‘almost always performed rapidly’. Undoubtedly there is latitude for expressive rhythmic nuance, particularly in slow movements, but it is characteristic that part of the value of the main note should remain ‘unfilled’ except in the fastest tempos (Bach's presto realization) where this is impossible. While the performance of the ornament in this context is clear, there are in Haydn's keyboard music undoubted problems of recognition. Haydn's notation of the Doppelschlag is diverse and changes considerably in the course of his career.
Centering as a Psychological Resource for Achieving Joint Reference in Spontaneous Discourse
Authors: Brennan Susan E
Published: November 2023

A basic goal of communication is for two or more people to construct mental representations that are shared in some way, and the most common means for this is everyday conversation. In conversation a speaker makes many expressive choices, and these choices are not arbitrary. The speaker’s lexical, syntactic, and prosodic choices reflect, among other things, her mental model of the situation under discussion and her attentional focus over this model.
Interaction of Discourse Structure with Explicitness of Discourse Anaphoric Noun Phrases
Authors: Passonneau Rebecca J
Published: November 2023

Centering is a processing model that relates the local utterance-by utterance context, inference, and discourse anaphoric reference. As such, it potentially serves as a point of departure for a general theory of language use. However, its predictive force has been restricted to a small class of speech act constituents: unstressed or reduced forms of third-person defi nite pronouns. One question for extending centering is, how does local utterance processing relate to the global discourse context? Another open question is, how does centering interact with the global context in con straining the surface form of referring expressions other than pronouns? These are empirical questions. I present the results of two empirical stud ies directed at these larger questions.
The Place of Centering in a General Theory of Anaphora Resolution
Authors: Roberts Craige
Published: November 2023

Centering presupposes some type of locality between utterances, and of fers principles for characterizing the preferred patterns of pronoun use which anaphorically relate utterances that are local in that sense. This chapter argues that integrating the theory of the structures of discourse of Grosz and Sidner with a dynamic theory of semantic interpretation related to those of Heim and Kamp makes possible a more precise characteriza tion of the locality relevant for centering. and of the related notion of salience, than has heretofore been possible. while also capturing logical constraints on anaphora. The primitives of the resulting theory are dis course referents. not syntactic NPs, so that the focus is on information about discourse structure, not on syntactic structure or relations. Data involving definiteness and pronouns without linguistic antecedents are used to argue for the proposed integrated theory.
Poulenc, Le Danse, Et La Belle France
Authors: Mellers Wilfrid
Published: November 2023

The music of Poulenc’s first phase is remarkable for the candour with which it lives and breathes childhood, this being his legacy from Satie. Francis associated his childhood with Nogent-surMarne, where he spent so much time at his grandparents’ country house. Even so, Poulenc, unlike Satie, was a social being, who refashioned his art accordingly. During the 1930s and 1940s, his life-style changed, for he divided his time between his Paris apartment and his elegant and spacious country house, Le Grand Coteau, at Noizay in Touraine, where he enjoyed playing the country squire but resisted the attempts of the villagers to elect him mayor. His ideal life was poised between Paris and ‘une solitude coupee de visites d’amies’, his circle of friends being unusually eclectic.
The Better Land
Authors: Moore Jerrold Northrop
Published: November 2023

Music and biography share the expression of time remembered. For each finds its form through recapitulation. When Edward Elgar’s career had attained its peak, in 1912, his eldest sister Lucy set down what she alone survived to remember of its beginning. Before the beginning, she sketched a portrait of their father, William Henry Elgar, born in September 1821: My father was a native of Dover.
Ensembles
Authors: Moore Jerrold Northrop
Published: November 2023

In 1867, the year of his tenth birthday, Edward crossed the river and returned to Broadheath. There he spent a summer holiday with old friends of his family.And this return to the Better Land of his own beginning brought about the real entry to what he had longed for in the reeds on the city side of the Severn. For it was linked ever afterwards in his memory with the first dated music he actually wrote.
The Black Knight
Authors: Moore Jerrold Northrop
Published: November 2023

Any hope for an easy acceptance of Edward’s engagement to Alice vanished as soon as the families heard of it. In later years their daughter wrote: The news brought cries of horror from the Roberts [aunts] & Raikes [cousins] (with the notable exception of Mr. & Mrs. W. A. Raikes and her mother who lived in Norwood and were always most helpful). They said he was an unknown musician; his family was in trade; and anyway he looked too delicate to live any length of time. One of the aunts was going to leave Alice a substantial sum, but on hearing the news, she forthwith cast her out of her will altogether.
With Distinction (1876-1888)
Authors: Clark Walter Aaron
Published: November 2023

Albeniz now entered a period of his life devoted to serious and persistent study. Angel clearly understood that if the youth were to make the transition from child prodigy to mature artist, he would have to submit himself to a more disciplined path. The decision to study in Leipzig was logical, given the enormous prestige German music, musicians, and music schools enjoyed. How father and son imagined, though, that even so adaptable and clever a young man as he could survive in a country where he could not speak the local language, and few could speak his, is a mystery. But the famous con servatory held an irresistible lure, and it was in that direction Albeniz determined to go.
D’India the Peripatetic
Authors: Watkins Glenn
Published: November 2023

Despite a rich chain of evidence to the contrary, it is frequently asserted that the birth of solo song coincided with the arrival of the Baroque. Even allowing for the special circumstances that prompted the renewal of solo singing towards the end of the sixteenth century, it is an especially confusing judgement that links its ascension at the dawn of the Baroque with the supposed demise of outworn polyphonic forms, figures, and textures. In addressing the dilemmas of similar stereotypes throughout the range of music history, musicologists have for some time been preoccupied with promoting a sense of continuity in those periods characterized by striking aesthetic shifts. If this desire to acknowledge formal and expressive reciprocity inevitably conscripts uncertainty in the location of a boundary line, the madrigal has none the less provided an exemplary testing ground. Although Monteverdi’s significant status and justly acclaimed achievements in the domain of madrigal and opera have promoted both genres as ideal for observing the transferral of late Renaissance polyphonic techniques to early Baroque form and expression, the need to evaluate similar exchanges between generic and stylistic categories in the work of his contemporaries stems from the contention that no single figure ought to be required to stand for an age; that, indeed, only to the extent that the impulse is discoverable in the works of others can the dimension as well as the importance of such achievements be properly assessed. The music of Sigismondo d’India (born c.1582, died before 19 April 1629) offers an excellent opportunity for evaluating such questions. Nigel Fortune and Federico Mompellio were the first to pique our curiosity about this musician, laying the foundation for all work that followed.
Resemblance and Representation: Towards a New Aesthetic in the Music of Monteverdi
Authors: Carter Tim
Published: November 2023

By the mid-1620s, Claudio Monteverdi had been maestro di cappella of St Mark’s, Venice, for over a decade. He was widely recognized as the leading composer in Italy, was head of a prestigious musical establishment, and was supported by gifted assistants who could carry the day-to-day burdens of administering, rehearsing, and directing music in the Basilica. As the composer entered middle age, his thoughts turned to more relaxing endeavours. There was still the unfinished business of the treatise he had (perhaps foolishly, he now felt) promised Artusi in his famous polemic with the Bolognese theorist in the early 16oos—we know that the treatise was still on his mind from two letters to Giovanni Battista Dani written in 1633-41—but Artusi had died in the year Monteverdi moved to Venice (I 6I 3), and the composer claimed the satisfaction of seeing him reconciled with the modernist position.
On the Origins of an Operatic Topos: The Mad-Scene
Authors: Fabbri Paolo
Published: November 2023

The Venetian poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi (1583-1652) exploited the theme of feigned madness at least twice on the musical stage: in La finta pazza (1641) written for Francesco Sacrati (the long-lost opera rediscovered by Lorenzo Bianconi); and in Licori finta pazza innamorata d’Aminta, a text offered to Claudio Monteverdi more than a decade earlier. The latter is mentioned for the first time in Monteverdi’s letter of 1 May 1627 (L. 91 [92]).1 On 2January 1627 (L. 89 [90]), Monteverdi had noted that on a visit to Venice the Mantuan singer Francesco Campagnolo raised the possibility of a commission for the composer from Mantua: This should probably be associated with the forthcoming coronation of Duke Vincenzo II Gonzaga. Monteverdi made a number of suggestions, including ‘a little play by Signor Giulio Strozzi, very beautiful and unusual, which runs to some 400 lines, called Licorifinta pazza innamorata d’Aminta, and this—after a thousand comical situations—ends up with a wedding, by a nice touch of strategem’ (L. 91 [92] ).
The Making of Alcina
Authors: Dean Winton
Published: November 2023

Alcina was the most successful of Handel’s later operas, with eighteen performances in its first season (April-July 1735), three in November 1736, and two in June 1737. It is also by common consent one of the finest, and it has enjoyed much success in recent years, especially since the first modern British revival by the Handel Opera Society (with Joan Sutherland) in 1957. The opera has many attractions for audiences: quite apart from the quality of the music, it is (or should be) very spectacular in the theatre. Unlike most of Handel’s operas, it employs all four vocal ranges, including a grateful tenor part and only one castrato; and the texture is varied by four true choruses (not mere ensembles for the soloists) and some captivating dances. The story, based on an episode in Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando furioso (Cantos v1-vn), is sufficiently familiar not to require a full summary here. The knight Ruggiero, held in thrall by the sexually voracious enchantress Alcina on her magic island, is rescued by his betrothed Bradamante, disguised as her warrior brother, and his old tutor Melissa by means of a magic ring, which opens his eyes to the true nature of his paramour. Alcina’s former lovers, whom (like Circe) she has changed into animals, rocks, and trees, are restored to their human shape, and the enchanted island withers to a desert. A subsidiary plot concerning a desultory love affair between Alcina’s general Oronte and her sister Morgana serves as an effective foil to the relationship of the central characters. The opera is dominated by the towering figure of Alcina, a genuinely tragic heroine, whose powers, hitherto invincible, cannot in the last resort command the love of the mortal with whom she is infatuated.
Manuel García (1775–1832)
Authors: Radomski James
Published: November 2023

This is the first comprehensive biography of one of opera history’s most glorious Spanish tenors. Apart from being renowned as the opening-night tenor in Rossini’s Barber of Seville, García was an important popularizer of other Rossini roles as well as those of Mozart (in particular, Don Giovanni) in Paris and London during the 1820s. As one of the first intercontinental superstars, Garce directed the initial professional Italian opera performances in New York City in 1825 and in Mexico City in 1827. Apart from his extraordinary singing career, García was also an important composer. His early operettas were extremely popular in Madrid, his II califfo di Bagdad achieved success in Naples and Paris, and his La mort du Tasse was premitred at the Paris Opera. García’s Spanish compositions, in particular, had an impact on French Romantics such as George Sand and Victor Hugo, and ultimately influenced the music of Bizet’s Carmen. As a singing teacher, García was beyond comparison. Foremost among his many successful pupils were the tenor, Adolphe Nouritt, and his three children, Maria Malibran, Pauline Viardot- García, and Manuel Patricio García. James Radomski gathers, for the first time, all pertinent information surrounding García and sets vividly the operatic scene of the period. The musicians life is chronicled from his earliest years in Seville until his death in Paris in 1832. With substantial reference to previously undiscovered reviews and letters, this biography also includes discussions of Garcia’s compositions and teaching through musical examples and illustrations.
Début in Madrid, 1798–1799
Authors: Radomski James
Published: November 2023

By April 1798, Manuel García and Manuela Morales were in Madrid for the new season of the company of Francisco Ramos. The Madrid theatre season began each year on Easter Sunday and ran until the following Ash Wednesday. ‘spiritual concerts’ or oratorios substituted opera and theatre performances during the Lenten season.

The earliest mention of García’s arrival is in a rough draft of the company list in which García appears as ninth galán (i.e. ninth in rank among principal male singers). When the list was finally published in the Diario de Madrid (as it was each year) on 7 April 1798, García was listed as eighth galan ‘to sing in the three companies ‘and Manuela Morales as fourth dama. Next to the name of each, in italics, is printed: ‘(de Cádiz)’. The composer of the company was Blas de Laserna, an important contributor to the tonadilla repertoire.
Establishing a Career: Paris (1807–1811) and Italy (1812–1816)
Authors: Radomski James
Published: November 2023

There exists in the Archivo de Osuna1 a valuable collection of letters between García and the Duchess of Osuna (the same who figures in the well-known paintings by Goya) which capture the circumstances of García’s exodus to Paris, the centre of European culture at the time (Plate 7). The first was sent from Bayonne, one and a half months after his departure from Madrid.
Return to Paris, 1819–1823
Authors: Radomski James
Published: November 2023

García returned to Paris for the premiere of Il barbiere di Siviglia on 26 October 1819.1 The next day’s review records the work’s poor reception -which is now history.

The Barber of Seville, with music by Rossini, was given this evening [October 26] for the return of García, who was seen again with much satisfaction. Where we were strangely deceived was in that this opera did not respond to the expectations one had for it. It was received rather coldly, and all the talent of the singers, all the ability of the orchestra did not seem to serve but to adorn a rather sterile luxury, a painful, over-worked composition, devoid of melody, and in which one could not notice but a small number of piquant passages which made a pleasant effect. It is assured, however, that this composition, as all of those of its author, has caused what in Italy is called a ‘furor ‘.