bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Postscript and Conclusion: Hofmannsthal and Rimbaud
Authors: Vilain Robert
Published: November 2023

There is a name glaringly absent so far from this survey of Hofmannsthal’s reception of French Symbolist poets, that of Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud is nowadays commonly placed alongside Verlaine and Mallarme as one of the three most important representatives of French Symbolist poetry, arguably the most radical and inspirational of them all. ‘Le Bateau ivre’ and ‘Voyelles’ are two of the most famous, most frequently anthologized and most influential of the poems ever gathered together under the heading of Symbolism. Yet Hofmannsthal seems either not to have known of Rimbaud’s work or to have ignored it. Rimbaud is absent, for example, from the list of ‘Maler und Musiker’ that George contrasted with the ‘Plastiker des Stils’ in his important conversation with Hofmannsthal on 21 December 1891-which is doubly surprising, since Rimbaud had died only six weeks before, and, as is often the case, had been the subject of a sudden rush of articles, reviews, homages, retrospectives and appreciations in the French literary press.
Mirrors, Fusions, and Splittings The Papins, the fait divers, and the Psychoanalysts
Authors: Edwards Rachel , Reader Keith
Published: November 2023

Interest in the fait divers-for which the only approximation to an English-language equivalent seems to be the somewhat feeble ‘human interest story’-has increased apace with the advent and growth of cultural studies, but the repercussions of the Papin case show that it goes back a good way beyond that. The first appearance of the term can be traced to Le Petit Journal in 1863, which links its emergence to that of the age of mass literacy. Christine and Lea seem to have had very little interest in reading (though Christine is said to have copied out poetry in her youth), but it is a fairly safe bet that many of the written texts that might have come their way would have been of the order of the fait divers, requiring none of the cultural background necessary for the reading of ‘serious’ news stories.
Literary Reproductions
Authors: Edwards Rachel , Reader Keith
Published: November 2023

The uniqueness of the Papin affair means that it has inspired a variety of literary reproductions in various genres, ranging from the short story to the theatre to the biographical novel, and belonging to both high and low culture. Amongst the former may be considered such well-known texts as Jean-Paul Sartre’s short story Érostrate, Simone de Beauvoir’s consideration of the affair in La Force de !’age, and Jean Genet’s play Les Bonnes.
An Authentic Eighteenth-Century Performance Source: C. F. Colt’s Organ-Barrels
Authors: Badura-Skoda Paul , Clayton Alfred
Published: November 2023

What would we not give to possess eighteenth-century gramophone records, if not by one of the great masters, then at least by a professional performer! Such a performance would tell us more than the treatises, for all their rules and regulations, which often left the simplest things unsaid because they were apparently familiar to everyone.
Studies in Rhythm
Authors: Badura-Skoda Paul , Clayton Alfred
Published: November 2023

Whole books could and should be written about Bach’s rhythm. To date the literature that has accumulated on this subject is unfortunately rather small, and at times it is also misleading. There are of course a number of studies and polemics on the various aspects of rhythm in performance, but far too little has been written about the nature of Bach’s rhythm as such. In restricting myself to certain aspects that are of importance for the performer, I am aware that I am merely concentrating on the tip of an iceberg, the greater part of which still remains to be discovered.
The Urtext Problem: An Imaginary Interview
Authors: Badura-Skoda Paul , Clayton Alfred
Published: November 2023

dr c. Professor Badura-Skoda, for decades you have been studying the problems associated with musical texts. I have taken the trouble to look up some of your essays and, in addition to the ‘Urtext’ chapter of the book on Mozart written jointly with your wife, I have found the following articles on the subject.
Prelude in E flat minor and Fugue in D sharp minor, WTC I, BWV 853. An Analysis for Performance
Authors: Badura-Skoda Paul , Clayton Alfred
Published: November 2023

The primary purpose of this book is to pave the way for stylistically authentic performances of Bach. Yet analytical knowledge is worthless if it is not brought together to form a whole, a synthesis of all the different aspects in the shape of a performance that strikes the listener as organic, a performance that no longer displays traces of long and laborious study. In the final analysis art emanates from the subconscious, from the wealth of imagination seeking communion with others.
Introduction
Authors: Badura-Skoda Paul , Clayton Alfred
Published: November 2023

Clothes are at the mercy of fashion, and so are performing styles. As Goethe once said, ‘Erlaubt ist was gefallt’ (One may do anything so long as it pleases). However, what pleases is largely determined by habit, fashion, and imitation. Significantly, the answer to the above statement in Goethe’s Torquato Tasso is ‘Erlaubt ist, was sich ziemt’ (One may do anything so long as it is right and proper).
Pralltriller
Authors: Badura-Skoda Paul , Clayton Alfred
Published: November 2023

As we have seen, especially in Chapter 12, a stepwise descending succession of notes is the classic instance of where a Pralltriller occurs; and here it almost always has to begin on the main note. Here even confirmed devotees of the ‘auxiliary’ admit the main-note execution, though with the wrong proviso that there must be a slur.
Free Embellishments in Bach’s Keyboard Works
Authors: Badura-Skoda Paul , Clayton Alfred
Published: November 2023

One of the most noticeable differences between the music of the Baroque era and that of the Classical period is the fact that in the former richly decorated melodic lines predominated, particularly in slow movements, whereas towards the end of the eighteenth century there gradually arose a predilection for cantilenas and long sustained singing notes. Of course these melodic forms have always existed side by side, yet it is possible to state in general terms that in slow baroque pieces straightforward sustained lines were the exception, whereas in the Classical and Romantic epochs they tended to be the rule.
Haydn and Shaftesbury Music and Morality
Authors: Schroeder David P
Published: November 2023

Haydn had been an active composer for three decades by the 1780s, and had thoroughly established his mastery in all facets of composition. The new level of sophistication and challenge apparent in his works at this time, therefore, appears to have implications beyond matters of craft. To suggest that these implications concern the Enlightenment, however, raises immediate problems and questions. One normally associates the Enlightenment with fields such as philosophy, politics, and literature. If music is to be added to the list-and instrumental music in particular-it becomes necessary to proceed with a critical framework which greatly expands what one normally thinks of as the province of a type of composition such as the symphony. One must also be clear in defining what the Enlightenment may have meant to a late eighteenth-century Austrian composer since this phenomenon was international and in some countries had lost much of its impetus by the time Haydn appears to have developed an interest in it. In order to attempt to answer some of these questions and lay the groundwork for responding to others, it is necessary to define as clearly as possible the nature of enlightened thinking which Haydn is likely to have encountered, and establish the sources of his familiarity with this body of thought.
String Quartets, Op. 33 ‘A New and Special Way’
Authors: Schroeder David P
Published: November 2023

In issuing the notice of his String Quartets, Op. 33, Haydn announced to potential subscribers that this set was written in ‘a new and special way’. Connoisseurs who knew the Op. 20 set may have found this to be a somewhat inflated claim, possibly suspecting that it was made for commercial rather than musical reasons. Numerous scholars since Adolf Sand berger at the end of the nineteenth century have been prepared to take sides on this issue, some claiming that these quartets represent the beginning of mature classicism in music and others dismissing the remark as mere sales promotion.
Theory versus Practice Aesthetics and Instrumental Music
Authors: Schroeder David P
Published: November 2023

An intriguing separation inevitably appears to exist between theory and practice, between the thinking of eighteenth-century music theorists or aestheticians and the compositional approaches of a practising musician such as Haydn. Aesthetics, as a branch of philosophical inquiry, has its own principles and procedures, and need not be disturbed by the approaches to art emerging at the same time. Modern aesthetic historians, such as Rene Wellek, make no apologies for the independence of their discipline and its detachment from the practice of writing.1 Concerning music aesthetics, Carl Dahlhaus simply states that it is shaped by philosophical or literary considerations.2 From the historian’s point of view, then, the importance of the activity is in no way diminished by a lack of correspondence with practice. It is on this premise that John Neubauer proceeds in his recent study entitled The Emancipation of Music from Language.3 Similarly for the theorists of the eighteenth century, there was not always a necessary link between theory and practice, as their agendas were often determined by prior theoretical discourse or other aesthetic principles.
Haydn and the English Audience
Authors: Schroeder David P
Published: November 2023

For writers of the eighteenth century, a necessary balance existed between approbation and a higher purpose in art. This balance, according to Shaftesbury, concerned orators, leaders, and practitioners of all the arts: ‘where chief men and leaders had the strongest interest to persuade, there was the highest endeavour to please’ (Char. i. 237). The artist could neither disdain his audience nor ingratiate himself with the public. His task was to ‘polish the age’ or refine the public so that his efforts would have consequences for the present as well as the future. While giving pleasure and providing moral instruction were seen to be inexorably linked, they nevertheless can be examined as separate phenomena, since each needed to be cultivated and nurtured on its own terms. In the case of Haydn, one can see him at times pursuing these separately in his own works, taking steps which have specific effects on either gaining audience approval or providing intellectual challenge. On the one hand, there is no doubt about his sense of business acumen, while on the other, he shared the values of the society which made up his audience and built these values into his works. Putting these into practice required the assistance and opinions of others, and in England these were readily forthcoming.
Melodic Sources and Musical Images
Authors: Schroeder David P
Published: November 2023

The interaction of opposing forces near the beginning of first move¬ ments is fundamental to Haydn’s symphonic language in the late symphonies, and a primary facet of this interaction is to be found in the relationship of the slow introduction and the initial ‘allegro’ theme. The importance of the introduction to Haydn’s late symphonic language is evident not only in its frequent use but also in that there is a thematic relationship of this material to the first theme in the fast tempo (or some other part of the first movement). The fact that this material is both contrasted and thematically related seems to suggest the possibility that the relationship may be of critical dramatic importance, and in numerous examples this relationship is indeed crucial to the dramatic unfolding of the movement. In works such as Nos. 97 and 103, in which the introductory material appears at some other point or points in the movement, one cannot doubt that this is of the greatest dramatic significance. In others as well the affective contrast and thematic similarity may also have a strong bearing on subsequent events of the first movement.
Symphonies and the Salomon Concerts
Authors: Schroeder David P
Published: November 2023

Haydn’s decision to spend a few years in England has been a source of satisfaction to most English observers, in the twentieth as well as the eighteenth century. Among some writers in the present century, in fact, this feeling has been extended to include a view of mutual advantage, a sense that rubbing shoulders with the English released in Haydn ‘the still untapped spring of creative life within him’. Some non-English Haydn scholars have taken exception to this ascendant view of his London works, and one in particular has reflected that ‘in light of his total output their importance has been exaggerated’. The English works are in a sense special, but not, of course, because of some newly discovered inspiration which makes them superior to previously written works. The differences clearly are not qualitative. Indeed, in the case of the symphonies, one could argue that the works written for the first season of Salomon Concerts are no more advanced than most of the symphonies written for performance in Paris.
Beethoven’s Artistic Aims
Authors: Cooper Barry
Published: November 2023

WHAT was the underlying motivation for Beethoven’s compositional activity? On one level he regarded composition as necessary for earning a living,’ but the prime motivation lay much deeper. It seems that from an early age he felt an urge to compose, and this urge remained with him throughout his life. He did in fact expressly mention it at a remarkably early date (14 October 178 3), in the dedicatory letter for one of his first compositions, the three ‘Kurfiirsten’ sonatas (WoO 47): ‘My Muse in hours of sacred inspiration has often whispered to me: “Make the attempt, just put down on paper the harmonies of your soul!” ⃛ My Muse insisted—I obeyed and I composed.” In later life he occasionally repeated similar ideas, referring to his talent commanding him, or more poetically to sacrificing himself to art or to the heavenly Muses. His desire to achieve greatness or even immortality through his compositions also played its part in stimulating his creative drive; andin addition he felt a certain sense of mission to be accomplished.
Recurring Ideas
Authors: Cooper Barry
Published: November 2023

BEETHOVEN’S musical style was inevitably founded in the musical language of the time and shaped by the influences of a great variety of music from Bach and even Gregorian chant to works by such contemporaries as Clementi and Cherubini. But from these influences and within this language he created his own highly personal style, easily recognizable because many of his most original and characteristic musical ideas recur in several works. As he grew older and built up an increasingly large fund of original ideas that could be reused, his distinctive style became even more pronounced. The term ‘musical idea’ in this context is very broad, ranging from short motifs to overall structures; it can encompass harmonic progressions, individual chords, key relationships, methods of development, rhythms, textures, types of contrast, and combinations of these or other elements. The idea may be reused in a quite different way and in a different context, and it may be modified so much that it is almost unrecognizable, so that it is difficult to tell in borderline cases whether there is any real relationship or not. And some ideas are so basic and commonplace that their reuse is not confined mainly to Beethoven; here too there are borderline cases. With these few caveats in mind, let us examine the various ways in which ideas from his earlier works reappeared in later ones, and how far back in his output such ideas can be traced.
The Vertical Dimension and the Finishing Touches
Authors: Cooper Barry
Published: November 2023

THE sketches discussed so far concentrate on the horizontal dimensions of Beethoven’s music—the form, lengths, and proportions of different sections, tonal relationships, rhythm, and melodic outline. But Beethoven also had to work out the vertical dimension, including such matters as harmony, texture, orchestration, and dynamics; each of these was tackled in a slightly different way from the others and in a very different way from the horizontal elements. Little has been written about this aspect of his compositional process except incidentally during discussions of other aspects, but such elements obviously play a vital role in the finished work and so it is important to understand how they were approached.
A Creation in Three Phases: The Late Bagatelles
Authors: Cooper Barry
Published: November 2023

tHE two late sets of bagatelles—Op. I 19 (eleven pieces) and Op. 126 (six pieces) —raise a number of questions about Beethoven’s creative process. Why did he, during a period when he was working on the Missa solemnis and the Diabelli Variations and had other large-scale compositions in mind such as another Mass and an opera, bother with such relatively trivial pieces? How much trouble did he take in composing them? And how far is each set a unified whole rather than a collection of oddments? The answer to the first two questions is best provided by a detailed look at the origins of the pieces. The traditional answer to the third question is that Op. 119 is a heterogeneous collection while Op. 126 is a unified cycle, but this view is somewhat misleading, as will be seen. Before the two published sets of bagatelles are examined, however, it will be necessary to consider some other bagatelles that Beethoven did not publish, for it is clear from his correspondence and his sketches that the seventeen pieces were not the only bagatelles he considered publishing during the 1820s. In particular he seems at one time to have assembled a group of at least twelve bagatelles, most of which were not published until long after his death.
The Technical Basis of Movement and Expression
Authors: Hurford Peter
Published: November 2023

THE increasing sensitivity of modern mechanical-action organs presents a healthy challenge to the performer, for as well as conveying his musical intentions with greater fidelity, it can reveal his technical shortcomings in devastating detail. The performer is therefore encouraged to apply himself not only to interpretative study, but also to the means whereby his interpretation may best be projected to the listener. In matching his technique to the instrument’s potential, he is taking a vital step towards the ideal of the interpretative entity of performer and-instrument.

Some of the problems inherent in the organ as a musical instrument were outlined in Chapter I. The present chapter suggests a basic technical approach to the instrument which, bearing these limitations in mind, will permit convincing and effective music-making. It bears the same relationship to actual performance as does a recipe to good cooking-only with constant practice and a good nose might you tum out to be an Escoffier; only with a good ear and the intelligent application of technique can the suggestions in this chapter be fully utilized. The ear is the best organ an organist ever has, and often, alas, the least used; as with any other part of our sensory apparatus, its capabilities will improve with practice.
The French Classical School
Authors: Hurford Peter
Published: November 2023

THE period which spans roughly the reign of Louis XIV witnessed the fust great flowering of the French organ and its music. The importance of .Bach and the north German school at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has tended to overshadow that of the grand siecle1 in terms of the development of the French organ and the music written for it. Modern musicology, particularly in America, has concentrated most of its efforts on the German culture of the period, and organ design has followed suit. Had there been, since the 1930s, at least as much interest in the classical French organ school as in the German, the qua1ity of musical interpretation upon the organ might well have been higher at the present time. The character of the French organ and its music demands a sensitivity to colour, line, and movement that can only be of immediate va1ue to an emerging musician, and the modern student’s curriculum should certainly include some study of this field.
Renaissance
Authors: Hurford Peter
Published: November 2023

THE early twentieth-century demise of the organ as a medium for musical expression (temporary though it proved to be) was neatly, poetically, and devastatingly summarized by Arnold Dolmetsch in 1916, when the instrument's artistic fortunes were at their lowest ebb.
Introduction
Authors: Berger Anna Maria Busse
Published: November 2023

The origin and interpretation of time signatures, the signs control ling the temporal relationships in the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is one of the least understood and most controversial topics in music history. It is also a topic of central importance for anyone attempting to comprehend the evolution of music in the West. The signs made it possible for the first time to rationalize all temporal relationships in music, and thus constituted a crucial chapter in the process of rationalization that (according to the well known thesis of Max Weber1) characterizes the history of Western music.
The Representation and Interpretation of Mensuration Signs
Authors: Berger Anna Maria Busse
Published: November 2023

Mensuration signs were first described and used in the fourteenth century. Since theorists and composers were by no means in agree ment as to which signs should be used to indicate what mensuration, it is necessary to provide an overview of mensuration signs as found in theoretical sources of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Prelude1833-1852
Authors: Avins Styra , Eisinger Josef
Published: November 2023

When Johannes Brahms was born, on the seventh of May 1833, in Hamburg, there was never a doubt in the minds of his parents but that he would become a musician. He was named after his father, Johann Jakob (and mother Johanna and grandfather Johann!), and it was expected that, like him, he would learn to play as many instruments as necessary to earn a living performing in dance bands, theatre orchestras, military bands, and symphony orchestras.
In Vienna, Sometimes1863-1870
Authors: Avins Styra , Eisinger Josef
Published: November 2023

That Brahms stayed in Vienna through winter and spring is due to circumstance rather than plan. His family probably had some inkling of the hopes that had been dashed in Hamburg-his sister’s letters, in particular, sometimes allude to what life would have been like ‘if .. .’-but Brahms kept his hopes of an appointment to Grund’s old job a secret to all but a very few people. As far as his acquaintances knew, the decision not to come home was simply due to the success of his exploratory trip to Vienna, a rather striking success in fact, gained in remarkably short order in a city where music held a place of honour far greater than in his own.
Agazzari’s Treatises and Sacred Latin Works
Authors: Reardon Colleen
Published: November 2023

‘I have devoted myself more to practice than to theory,’ wrote Agazzari to Giovanbattista Doni in 1636, blissfully unaware of the ironic resonance the statement would carry over 350 years later. He spoke the truth: his two treatises are dwarfed by his 333 compositions.
The Art of Practising
Authors: Schuller Gunther
Published: November 2023

There are two primary elements that can make practising a success: intelligence and perseverance. What one student may accomplish through hours of hard, physically tiring work, another may attain in half the time by applying logic and intelligent thinking. Many students never learn to think a problem through. Instead they stubbornly hammer out exercises which deal with the problem at hand only superficially or deal with an altogether different problem. While such practising is not completely useless, it is obvious that correct diagnosis of a problem will lead to more fruitful practising results.
G
Authors: Clinkscale Martha Novak
Published: November 2023

GAAB, Hermann (fl. 1820-21). Piano maker in Vienna. (Ottner/WIEN, 53) GAIDON (est. 1820). Piano makers in Paris. (Haine/FACT) GAISER, Christian [fl. c.1800-25?]. Piano maker in Rastatt, Baden-Württemberg.
H
Authors: Clinkscale Martha Novak
Published: November 2023

HABERACKER, John lfl. 1820]. Piano maker in Reading, Pennsylvania. SERIAL No. 104 DATE: c.1820 STYLE: Square COMPASS: 5 oct.: FF-f3 LENGTH: 159.8 WIDTH: 56.5 DEPTH: 22.7 TOTAL HEIGHT: 82.8 CASE: [Rosewood or cherry); rounded comers, inlaid wood stringing near the lower edge; six slim rounded tapered legs with brass collars and cuffs, casters INSCRIPTION: JOHN HABERACKER I READING on a dark ellipse ground with floral garlands STRINGS: Double-strung: FF-E. wound brass; F-e brass; £-f’ steel; some missing, some replaced SCALE: c•-26 (28.7) NATURALS: Ivory: 4.2 (head), 2.2 SHARPS: Ebony tops: 8.1, 0.8 ACTION:
I
Authors: Clinkscale Martha Novak
Published: November 2023

IBACH. Firm of German piano makers founded in 1806 in Barmen, near Diisseldorf, by Johannes Adolph Ibach (b Lüttringhausen near Barmen, 17 Oct. 1766-dBarmen, 14 Sept. 1848). After Johannes Adolph had learned his craft, he opened his first independent organ and keyboard instrument work shop in Beyenburg (now Barmen), in 1794. By 1801 he also worked in Rittershausen and in 1806 in Wupperfeld. In 1816 he had again expanded by opening a large workshop in the AlleestraBe at Unterbarmen.
T
Authors: Clinkscale Martha Novak
Published: November 2023

TANNENBERG (originally TANNEBERGER), David (b Berthelsdorf, Saxony, 21 Mar. 1728-d York, Pennsylvania, 19 May 1804). Maker oforgans and perhaps of clavichords and pianos. Tannenberg arrived in America in 1749 and settled in the Moravian community of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He and his wife lived for a time at Whitefield House in nearby Nazareth, where Tannenberg ap prenticed with Johann Gottlob Clemm (q.v.), who also was a resident of Whitefield House. Tannen berg is said to have built two pianos in 1795 and 1804; however, none of his pianos is extant. He taught the piano maker John Philip Bachmann (q.v.}, who was his son-in-law. (Bruner/THAT, 69-74; Libin; Mann/PIANO, 121-32)
Repeat Conventions and Embellishment
Authors: Harrison Bernard
Published: November 2023

The practice of omitting certain formal repeats in eighteenth-century music (in particular, the omission of the second repeat in a binary movement and the omission of both repeats in the da capo of minuets) has become so commonplace that it may be regarded as a modern convention. The reasons for the adoption of this practice are complex and to some extent actually have their origins in some late eighteenth-century music; extra-musical factors associated with modern performance are, however, probably equally responsible for the widespread present-day practice. Whatever the reasons, and the justifications, for the omission of certain repeats in modern performance may be, it seems to be clear that there is little eighteenth-century evidence to support modern convention. Studies by Macdonald, Broyles, and others have described repeat conventions in a large amount of eighteenth-century music in various genres. My purpose here is to study the repeat conventions operable in Haydn's keyboard music and to compare these with trends observable in the eighteenth century as a whole.
Arpeggio, Slide [Schleifer], and Anschlag
Authors: Harrison Bernard
Published: November 2023

The attention given to the arpeggio in eighteenth-century treatises is minimal by comparison with the detail in which other ornaments are discussed. The reason for this may not be, as Neumann believes, that theorists resorted to a few stereotyped comments and standard realizations because of the difficulty of describing and illustrating the actual performance of this ornament, but because the arpeggio in galant and Classical keyboard music is relatively unproblematic. The complex notational systems used in French keyboard music of the early part of the eighteenth century to distinguish between ascending and descending arpeggios and to indicate various types of arpeggios ornamented with passing notes are not relevant to Haydn's keyboard music, or, in general, to music and treatises on performance practice from the second half of the eighteenth century. Problems relating to the performance of passages written as a series of chords but marked ‘arpeggio’ (such as occur in J. S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy in D minor, BWV.903, or in a number of C. P. E. Bach's freien Fantasien) are also irrelevant to a discussion of Haydn's keyboard music, since passages of this type do not occur: continuous arpeggios are, of course, found in Haydn's music but they are figurative and written with precise note values rather than being a function of improvisation. Arpeggios, as ornaments, in Haydn's music occur relatively infrequently, are almost always associated with the strongest beats in the bar, and, I would suggest, primarily serve the purpose of accentuation.
Ars Nova and Algorism
Authors: Page Christopher
Published: November 2023

IN his Notitia artis rnusice of 1321, Johannes de Muris reveals that measured notation had become a subject of lively interest. Duple mensuration, the new rules for imperfection, and the device of coloration (whereby, in common practice, a coloured note loses one-third of its value) now offered scope for keen enthusiasms and disagreements. These innovations were so significant that Johannes, pondering them at the close of his treatise, found himself reflecting upon the restless and ultimately futile motion of all human thought. ‘Opinions and scientiae revolutiones race onwards’, he declares, ‘and come round in a circle ⃛’.
Prophet without Honour(1894-1895)
Authors: Clark Walter Aaron
Published: November 2023

Albeniz‘S first assignment from Coutts was to set the libretto for an opera whose action takes place in fifteenth-century England, during the Wars of the Roses, eventually entitled Henry Clifford. Albeniz began work on this new opera about the time he decided to leave London, for reasons of health, in the autumn of 1893.1 Another motivation for the change of locale was that his wife Rosina did not care for the climate and ambience of London.2 She much preferred Paris, which she found more congenial to her temperament and where she could speak French, in which she was more fluent than English (though born in Catalonia, she was of French extraction3). He was no doubt also attracted to Paris as the artistic and intellectual mecca of Europe.
The Imperfect Wagnerite(1898-1904)
Authors: Clark Walter Aaron
Published: November 2023

The next product of Albeniz‘s professional association with Coutts was an operatic project on a truly grand scale, one that held tremendous importance for Coutts, if not as much for Albéniz. This was a trilogy of operas based on the Arthurian romance Le Morte dʾArthur by the fifteenth-century English author Sir Thomas Malory. The constituent parts of the King Arthur trilogy were to be Merlin, Launcelot, and Guenevere. The urgency Coutts felt about this project is already apparent in a letter of 4 January 1895 (previously quoted in connection with his quest for a suitable title for Henry Clifford), in which he relates the following:
Iberia (1905-1909)
Authors: Clark Walter Aaron
Published: November 2023

Albéniz and Brussels went back a long way, and he retained many friends and professional connections there. In 1905 he finally succeeded in securing a production of Pepita Jiménez and his zarzuela San Antonio de la Florida at the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie,2 with which he had kept up a long correspondence on this very matter.3 The opera and the zarzuela premiered together on 3 January, 1905, with additional performances on 6, 10, 13 January, and 1 February. Maurice Kufferath translated the opera libretto into French4 and the work appeared as a comedic lyrique in two acts and three scenes (cast in Table 10). The production was apparently a huge success, though its total of five performances might not suggest this.
Years of Crisis
Authors: Wegman Rob C
Published: November 2023

On 7 February 1485 the chapter of St Donatian’s at Bruges discussed the recent resignation of their succentor Aliamus de Groote. Having decided to appoint Johannes Rykelin temporarily in his place, the canons went on to consider the very timely application of magister Jacob Obrecht, master of the choirboys at Cambrai Cathedral. He had expressed a strong interest in the position: a friend of his, presumably the singer Jean Cordier (himself a canon at St Donatian’s), assured the chapter of Obrecht’s ardent wish to become the new succentor.
The Critical Phase
Authors: Wegman Rob C
Published: November 2023

As succentor at St Donatian’s, Jacob Obrecht faced a demand for new mass music that must have been greater than at any other time in his life.1 His tasks included the writing of a new mass every year for the Feast of Cripples (celebrated on Thursday in Whit week). The Rogation Days similarly required an annual newly composed mass—and this in competition with his colleagues at St Saviour’s and Our Lady’s.
Transitional Years (1769–1773)
Authors: Howard Patricia
Published: November 2023

If Calzabigi’s claim, that Paride ed Elena was already written by the end of 1768 is true, then Gluck’s years between then and his first French opera were singularly barren. He revised L’innocenza giustificata, under the title La Vestale, for a performance at the Burgtheater in the summer of 1768; only the libretto survives, providing the information that Gluck had been elected as a member of the Arcadian Academy under the name of ‘Armonide Terpsicoreo’.1
Chanting and Choral Service C.1690-C.l 820
Authors: Wilson Ruth M
Published: November 2023

Not all churchmen concerned about the state of the national church in the early eighteenth century predicted such dire consequences as these from compromises and abrogations proposed in the traditional performance of cathedral choral service. Chanting the prose texts of Morning and Evening Prayer, Litany, and Communion, nevertheless, was at the centre of the liturgical ritual which had defined choral worship for centuries. The extraordinary character of cathedrals and collegiate churches and chapels seemed to depend as much on whether or not they chanted the prayers as on their special status at the top of the hierarchy of institutional bodies within the Church of England. Chanting the prose psalms in harmony ‘by sides’ was not viewed in exactly the same way, for in places where orders were given to cease chanting prayers, the psalmody was exempted.
Gibbons in the Bedchamber
Authors: Pinto David
Published: November 2023

Revival of interest in the ensemble music of Orlando Gibbons can claim a history of a century and a half, counting from the pioneering edition of his three-part fantasies by Edward F. Rimbault. A recent full critical edition of all the extant works in the Musica Britannica series would seem to crown the process; and yet there has been little detailed attention paid at any time, except by two stalwart champions, Ernst Meyer and Thurston Dart, to what is a respectable body of work by a great composer, little of which shows him beneath the height of his powers.1 One senses that even now the instrumental works languish in the long shadow cast by his other achievements and the disastrous eclipse undergone for long by ensemble music of his time. Parry may have been unusually forthright in his disdain, but he was not untypical in judging fantasy music no more (nor less) than ‘a drouthy aberration rather characteristic of English composers’. He felt that for one’s peace of mind ‘the whole branch of art might almost be spared consideration, but for its being such an extensive futility’. After this bout of exasperation, it is reassuring to learn that he was ready to see in Gibbons’ three-part fantasies ‘a grit ... and an energy and force’, though even they hardly matched his ‘rare and peculiar genius’, and compared unfavourably with Andrea Gabrieli’s four-part ricercari.
‘To Glorify Your Choir’:The Context of Jenkins’s Sacred Vocal Music
Authors: Smith Kathryn
Published: November 2023

abstract

The latter part of the twentieth century has witnessed a distinct pattern of research and publication of scholarly and practical editions of mid-seventeenth-century instrumental music, yet a parallel interest in contemporary vocal music has been less visible. Consequently it is not surprising that the vocal music of John Jenkins, highly regarded as an instrumental composer, should languish in obscurity. The primary source for Jenkins’s surviving vocal works is Mus. 736-8 at Christ Church, Oxford. Apart from an article by Vincent Duckles focusing on Jenkins’s settings of poetry by George Herbert, this manuscript set of three partbooks containing fifty-five threepart vocal works (seventeen of them by Jenkins) has received little attention.1 Undoubtedly one reason for its neglect is its three-part scoring: vocal ensembles have tended to seek out music in four or more parts. This is unfortunate, because the three-part repertoire in England during this and the earlier Elizabethan and Jacobean periods deserves frequent performance. For important examples, one need only look to settings of the seven Penitential Psalms by Byrd and Tomkins, which may have served as inspirational models for Jenkins.
The Transmission of Consort Music in Some Seventeenth-Century English Manuscripts
Authors: Ashbee Andrew
Published: November 2023

In an important recent study, Harold Love has drawn attention to what he labels ‘scribal publication’, that is ‘the publication of texts in handwritten copies within a culture which had developed sophisticated means of generating and transmitting such copies’. Although he is primarily concerned with literary sources, Love’s own interest in English consort music has made him aware of the work undertaken by seventeenth-century music copyists in supplying the needs of patrons and players, for, apart from Gibbons’s famous set and others by East, consort music was transmitted in manuscript, not print. As work on the Index ef Manuscripts Containing Consort Music gets under way, consideration of how consort manuscripts were compiled and distributed is a necessary element in trying to understand their format and provenance. The social setting of this music is crucial to an understanding of its deployment, and Love is at pains to point out that ‘scribal publication’ of consort music served a particular and clearly defined clientele. Professional musicians apart, it was the privileged aristocracy, merchants, clergy, and their families who enjoyed playing the viol repertory.
Some Late Sources of Music by John Jenkins
Authors: Thompson Robert
Published: November 2023

English chamber-music manuscripts of the later seventeenth century display a remarkable diversity of content. By the 1680s if not before a variety of Continental music had found its way into the English domestic repertory, but older English music, as well as the work of contemporary English composers, retained considerable popularity, and it is often difficult to establish the date of seventeenth-century partbooks on the basis of their content. The evidence of paper type, watermarks, and manuscript structure, in conjunction with other kinds of information, not only indicates that works by Jenkins formed part of a considerable repertory of earlier English music still being copied and played well into the last quarter of the seventeenth century but also, by confirming the approximate date of a number of unique or closely related sources, lends further support to the suggestion that Jenkins remained an active and innovative composer in his old age.1
Jenkins’s Lute Music: An Approach to Reconstructing the Lost Multitudes of Lute Lessons
Authors: Spring Matthew
Published: November 2023

Information on Jenkins as a player comes from three groups of records: court documents and accounts, references to him in the Burwell Lute Tutor, and comments made by Roger North. Taken together these give us some idea of Jenkins the lutenist. Sadly it seems that not a single piece of music by him survives in any source of lute music that has yet come to light. One approach to rectifying this loss is to adapt pieces by him from lyra-viol and baryton sources. Lute music and lyra-viol music in Caroline England had much in common, and it is clear that pieces for one instrument can easily be adapted for the other. There are also indications that this was a contemporary practice. This paper seeks to review all the source information on Jenkins as a lute-player, leading to the formulation of an approach to making a stylistically correct and idiomatic adaptation into lute music of suitable pieces by Jenkins from baryton and lyra-viol sources. Finally some of the resulting lute pieces are presented alongside the originals.
Mahler
Authors: Kennedy Michael
Published: November 2023

Bridging the nineteenth – and the twentieth-centuries, the late-Romantic tradition and the beginnings of modernism, Mahler’s music is an intimate reflection of his life and thought – and his continual self-questioning on matters of belief and the role of mankind. In this revised and enlarged edition of his Master Musicians volume, Michael Kennedy has drawn on new documentary evidence which has enabled him to give a much fuller account of Mahler’s childhood and youth, and of his years as an opera conductor in Cassel, Prague, Leipzig, Budapest, Hamburg, and Vienna. All of Mahler’s works are discussed and for the reprint in 2000 the author has added a new chapter covering recent research on the composer.
The boy martyr
Authors: Kennedy Michael
Published: November 2023

The music of Gustav Mahler is the bridge from the nineteenth century to the twentieth. His last seven major works were composed in the first decade of the twentieth century, which was also the last decade of his life; and while it is true that in his music we can hear the culmination of the Romantic tradition, it is equally true that in it we hear the music of the new epoch in composition which followed the overthrow of tonality. Nostalgia and prophecy, both are there, symbolic of Mahler as man and musician.
‘Abschied’
Authors: Kennedy Michael
Published: November 2023

Mahler spent only parts of 1908–11 in New York. We must therefore go back to May 1908, when he returned to Europe to conduct his First Symphony at Wiesbaden. He had composed nothing in 1907 and there was no question of returning to Maiernigg with its painful memories. Alma found them a farmhouse at AltSchluderbach outside the village of Toblach in the Dolomites, a region of unspoilt natural beauty. There in June he set to work again. But now, perhaps for the first time, he fully realized the implications of his heart ailment. He wrote to Bruno Walter from Toblach:
Rückert Symphonies
Authors: Kennedy Michael
Published: November 2023

When discussing the three central instrumental symphonies, Nos. 5, 6 and 7, several writers seem to have been so dazzled by their complexity and ingenuity that it is difficult, when listening to the music, to equate it with the verbal contortions and metaphors employed. There is perhaps a parallel with the late quartets of Beethoven, which for years were regarded as on such a high plane of musical philosophy that hardly a coherent paragraph could be written about them. Bernard Shaw was not merely an iconoclast but a heretic when he wrote in 1894 of the late quartets as ‘beautiful, simple, straightforward, unpretentious, perfectly intelligible’. Mahler’s three middle symphonies are not simple and straightforward, but they are beautiful and intelligible. Few composers have benefited more from the invention of the longplaying record and tape-recording. Only in the second half of the twentieth century has it been possible fully to absorb these works, not through the score and the memories of isolated performances but by constant study of their sound in a series of superb interpretations. Far from breeding contempt, familiarity increases admiration for their mastery. They are complex, but Mahler’s grand designs are logical and purposive, becoming clearer and simpler with each repetition.
Das Lied von der Erde
Authors: Kennedy Michael
Published: November 2023

When Theobald Pollak gave Hans Bethge’s The Chinese Flute to Mahler, he set in motion a masterpiece in which the words acquired an extra dimension and became inseparable from the marvellous music to which they were set. The genesis of Das Lied von der Erde has been described in Chapter 8. In Mahler’s depressed state in 1907 and 1908, when he was suddenly conscious of his physical limitations and therefore exceptionally aware of his mortality, the eighty-three poems which Bethge paraphrased from English, German and French translations of the Chinese originals aroused profound thoughts and distant echoes. Bethge’s sources were Hans Heilmann’s Chinesische Lyrik, Judith Gautier’s Le Livre de Jade and the Marquis d’Hervey-SaintDenys’s Poesies de /’epilogue des Thang. Gautier’s translations provided the models for both Heilmann, in 1905, and Bethge. But her translations were very free and she was careless, or uncaring, about her attributions. Certain of the poems Bethge adapted from her book are not by the Chinese poets she names; and in Von der Jugend (which is not by Li-Tai-Po) the way clothes were worn at that period in Chinese history meant that what she described in the fourth stanza – ‘their silken sleeves slip backwards, their silken caps perch gaily on the back of their necks’ – could not have occurred.
Afterthoughts
Authors: Kennedy Michael
Published: November 2023

In the decade since I revised this book, research on Mahler has continued unabated. New books about him have been written, wonderful facsimile editions of some of his scores have been issued, and performances and recordings of his music have multiplied. As the twenty-first century arrives, there seems little likelihood of any diminution of interest in any aspect of Mahler. Much of the latest research has been brought together in one large and handsome volume, The Mahler Companion (Oxford, 1999), edited by Britain’s leading and indefatigable Mahler scholar Donald Mitchell and by Andrew Nicholson. It is to this book that I am indebted for most of this chapter, a debt I acknowledge with gratitude. The early cantata Das klagende Lied was heard in 1997 for the first time in its original form and scoring and has since been recorded. Mahler himself never heard this 1880 version, in which there were four soloists, an off-stage band and a children’s choir. This original version is more radical than the two-movement version which Mahler eventually conducted in Vienna in February 1901 after a lengthy process of revision, begun in Hamburg in 1893.
1825–30
Authors: Radcliffe Philip
Published: November 2023

The events of 1825 were considerably more varied. Henriette Mendelssohn’s pupil had now married, and in March Abraham decided to go to Paris to fetch his sister back. He was still uncertain whether, with all his successes, it was wise to allow. Felix to become a professional musician, and he therefore took him too, to show him to Cherubini and ask his advice.
Overtures and other orchestral works
Authors: Radcliffe Philip
Published: November 2023

The earliest overture is that in C for wind instruments (Ouverture fur Harmoniemusik) op. 24, writen in 1824, but revised before publication in 1839. This is not a work of great individuality; the slow introduction is strongly influenced by Mozart and the rest by Weber. But it is thoroughly fluent and ably written, and should be very effective in performance. The so-called ‘Trumpet’ Overture, published posthumously as op. 101, dates from 1826, and was revised in 1833. It is a considerably maturer work. The themes are not particularly striking in themselves, but they are treated with real imaginativeness.