bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On the Principles of Musical Notation
Authors: Stainer John
Published: January 2007

Some apology seems necessary for reading a Paper on such a well-worn subject as Notation, especially before those who are not only familiar with it themselves, but in many cases occupied daily in teaching or explaining its principles to others. But Music has now become so universally a part of education, that it is of the utmost importance that we should have the best possible system of notation; and I take it, that the remarkable extent to which thoughtful musicians have lately turned their attention to this subject, and the many alterations which have from time to time been suggested by them, prove that some dissatisfaction is felt with existing systems. That there should be some opposition between rival methods is natural enough, but I think much of this opposition would disappear, could we be brought to consider calmly not so much the merits as the demerits of that particular system in which we live and move. For, having mastered its intricacies, we cease to believe in their existence; and having by long usage condoned its faults, we become loth to admit them to be faults at all. Those among you who happen to be special advocates of, and whose names are by common consent associated with, rival systems, will, I hope, understand that none of my remarks are intended to be personal; and that my only desire to-day is to ask you to consider calmly with me what are the true principles of Musical Notation, and how far those systems now in common use are built upon these principles.
Theoretical Study as an Assistance to Execution
Authors: Frost C. J.
Published: January 2007

Topics of musical interest have been so much discussed before you that it seems to me almost an impossibility to introduce one to your notice, the ground of which has not been already in some measure trodden.
On Certain Principles of Musical Exposition Considered Educationally and with Special Reference to Current Systems of Musical Theory
Authors: Cobb Gerard F.
Published: January 2007

The term “Musical Exposition” may be taken to include all the various means adopted for representing to others the work of the musical brain, such as (1) The notation employed for representing it to the eye, and thus stereotyping it for common use; (2) The vocal or instrumental processes by which it is reproduced to the public ear, and eventually made to assume in the brain of the listener the shape in which it originally presented itself to the internal ear or musical imagination of the composer; and (3) The methods by which the arrangement and assortment of sounds which we call music—that manipulation, so to speak, of the elementary material at command which constitutes composition—is explained, justified, and taught to those who wish to learn it.
The Printing of William Holder's ‘Principles of Harmony’
Authors: Poole H. Edmund
Published: January 2007

During the final editing and printing of his Treatise of the Natural Grounds and Principles of Harmony (1694) William Holder was engaged in a protracted correspondence. The letters to Holder were kept together and formed part of the founding collections of the British Museum, but they seem to have been little used. This neglect may represent the true verdict of history upon their merit, or it may be that they have never attracted the attention of a professional student of harmony qualified to assess their value. I am not such a one, and though, as it were by chance, I may turn over a little new grist for specialists, my set purpose is to describe the chances and changes through which one manuscript passed at the hands of its editor, publisher and printer during its transformation into a book at the end of the seventeenth century.
In Defence of J. A. Scheibe against J. S. Bach
Authors: Buelow George J.
Published: January 2007

The name of Johann Adolph Scheibe is at once famous and obscure in music history: famous perhaps for the wrong reasons, and largely as the result of his criticism of Johann Sebastian Bach, which can be found retold and frequently misinterpreted in almost all Bach biographies; obscure because little attention has been focused on his many significant contributions to the historical study of musical thought in the early eighteenth century. In the more than two hundred years since the 29-year-old musician and writer published his rather mild words of aesthetic disagreement with Bach's musical style, Scheibe's opinions regarding Bach have never received an adequate defence. Bach had been insulted, and his Leipzig friends as well as Scheibe's enemies declared him guilty of a heinous crime: he had dared to suggest that the master's music was not without faults. Scheibe has been assumed guilty ever since. He tried to counteract each critical attack aimed at him by Bach's circle of defenders with vigorous logic and at times unfortunate youthful sarcasm, but the war of words which developed never resolved itself positively one way or the other in his lifetime. Rather it faded away after a few years, only to be resurrected by Bach scholarship in the nineteenth century.
The Pibroch Repertory: Some Research Problems
Authors: Cooke Peter
Published: January 2007

The pibroch (derived from Scots Gaelic pìòbaireachd, ‘piping’) is an extended composition in theme and variation form for the Scottish Highland bagpipe. Pibrochs comprise a category of Gaelic music known as ceòl mór, ‘great music’, as opposed to the repertory of ceòl beag, ‘small music’, or dance tunes, song airs and military marches.
A Metamorphic Tragedy
Authors: Smith Julian
Published: January 2007

The outlines of the history of Madama Butterfly are well known. The first performance took place at La Scala on 17 February 1904, and was one of the most spectacular flops ever seen at that famous opera house, or indeed at any other. Puccini immediately withdrew the opera and made a number of revisions. A few months later, on 28 May, the work was performed at Brescia, and was received enthusiastically by public and critics alike. Further alterations were made to the score during the next two and a half years or so, and by early 1907, following a series of performances in Paris, the version we know today had been arrived at.
The Exclusion of Musical Instruments from the Ancient Synagogue
Authors: McKinnon James W.
Published: January 2007

We are remarkably well-informed about the liturgy of the Second Temple at Jerusalem in the years which preceded its destruction by the Romans in AD 70; the same is not the case, as will be seen below, with the contemporary Synagogue. The central source of our knowledge about Temple liturgy is the Talmud, that massive compendium of rabbinic learning and lore which had its first redaction in the Mishnah of about AD 200. There are numerous remarks on Temple liturgy scattered throughout the sixty-three tractates of the Mishnah, but two in particular give us as detailed a description of its daily services as do theordines romaniof the seventh-century Roman pontifical Mass. These are the tractates Middoth, literally measurements, which gives a description of the Temple with its dimensions, and Tamid, literally perfect or perpetual, which goes step by step through the daily sacrificial rites.
Oratorio and Sacred Opera, 1700–1825: Terminology and Genre Distinction
Authors: Smither Howard E.
Published: January 2007

What distinguishes Italian oratorio from Italian sacred opera in the period from around 1700 to around 1825? The question arises from the significant difference between the use of the term ‘oratorio’ by Italian writers and composers at the beginning and end of this period. About 1700 nearly all Italian writers and composers applied the term to works performed without stage action. A century later, on the other hand, Italian writers and composers frequently applied the term to works that were presented as sacred operas. By the early nineteenth century the application of the term to a sacred work with stage action had become so common that it found its way into an Italian musical dictionary. In Lichtenthal'sDizionario‘oratorio’ is defined as 'A species of drama, the subject of which is a theme selected from sacred history, performed by singers with the accompaniment of an orchestra, either in a church, or in a hall, or indeed on a theatrical stage - in this last case one meansOpera sacra, and it bears the mark of the usualOpere in musica, having the same form and conduct.
Stylistic Layers in the English Mass Repertory c. 1400–1450
Authors: Curtis Gareth R. K.
Published: January 2007

That the English style of the early fifteenth century was crucial to the development of later music seems undeniable. The oft-cited, passages from the writings of Martin le Franc and Tinctoris, whatever their obscurities of detail, are unequivocal in their placing of the English in general and Dunstable in particular at the head of a completely new style, and to set against this, we have a large and varied corpus of music, especially music for the mass Ordinary, which amply testifies to the richness of the insular tradition. Not only was this music considered distinctive in its own day, but it has also proved readily recognizable to modern scholars despite the relative dearth of ascriptions. Even so, one feels that any suggestion that it is the English style as such which is so obvious remains surprisingly premature. The main reason for this is not hard to find; in fact, nearly all the most convincing evidence for assigning English authorship to anonymous works has turned out to be either essentially non-musical (e.g. the presence of a piece in an insular source, the use of a distinctively English variant of a given plainsong, the presence of telescoping in settings of the Credo, the use of characteristic notational procedures) or concerned with relatively superficial aspects of style (e.g. the use of a standard mensural scheme, the appearance of one or more of a handful of melodic clichés). Since there are clearly much easier ways of recognizing English music than from the niceties of musical style, efforts at more specifically stylistic analysis have lagged behind somewhat, despite the important work of such scholars as Brian Trowell and Margaret Bent. Certainly, it has not proved possible to tease out that arcane quality, the contenance angloise, which has sometimes been assumed to infuse the entire repertory from the Old Hall Manuscript onwards.
Musica diversa di Compietà: Compline and its Music in Seventeenth-Century Italy
Authors: Roche Jerome
Published: January 2007

At the end of the seventeenth century a Venetian chronicler by the name of Pietro Antonio Pacifico drew attention to the music in two of the Venetian ospedali with the words ‘… these young ladies make a great study of music, with singular success, and to the amazement of foreigners, who wonder at their art in the singing of the divine Office’; and again ‘instructed by the best salaried teachers, they sing with various instruments on all the great feasts of the year Mass, Vespers and Compline — especially in Lent, when many people come to hear’. If Mass and Vespers were principal liturgical functions, this particular mention of Compline — the final Office of the day which almost certainly took place at the same sort of time as today's secular concert and was thus convenient for people of culture and devotion to turn out to — gives a guide to its relative importance as a liturgical act. This is confirmed by a glance at the catalogues of music in stock which the Venetian publisher Vincenti issued in 1621 and 1649, both of which list a considerable number of musical settings of Compline in both old and new styles, with and without continuo — an indication of steady demand. Yet by comparison with Mass and Vespers Compline and its music have been little studied, whether in Italy in the Baroque or elsewhere in other periods, and there is scarcely any substantial information about it in the major musical or religious reference works. It may be less because the repertory consists largely of music by relatively little-known figures (though Legrenzi, Cazzati and Colonna hardly belong in that category) dian because the musical requirements of the liturgy are on the whole straight-forward, not offering musicological conundrums that call into being polemical tracts of the Monteverdi Vespers variety; in essence the Office of Compline is a religious act on an intimate scale, not a potentially grand liturgical occasion with showy ritual. Indeed, the virtual absence of ritual in this final act of tie day probably encouraged its development in seventeenth-century Italy into the spiritual concert of which our Venetian chronicler speaks. Such a development was facilitated, too, by the simplicity of its liturgy — unlike Mass and Vespers, nothing basic changes from day to day, be it Sunday or weekday, feast or ferial day; there is no Proper, nor are there any complex stipulations about psalm groupings, antiphons, and Gregorian tones. Only the concluding Marian antiphon (which did not belong specifically to Compline but was in practice often attached to it) changed four times a year according to the liturgical season. From the outset, therefore, a composer could devise a complete, self-contained ‘package’, either allowing the intrinsic variety of the liturgy to give balance and contrast to bis setting or, as with the more adventurous, to build upon the liturgical foundations a colourful construction that could succeed as a spiritual concert on its own terms.
Handel and Bach
Authors: Macfarren G. A.
Published: January 2007

It is a gratification to me to be invited to resume the subject which was broached to you on the last occasion of our meeting. It is personally a gratification to myself, and more than this, I esteem it for the fact that the subject has proved so interesting to the Musical Association as to elicit a second day's attention to it. The present year, being the two-hundredth since the birth of the illustrious musicians whose names head this dissertation, draws attention particularly to them and their merits. Handel's birthday is passed by a week, Bach's will be on the fortnight after next Saturday. Here we stand between the two, who are more than any other two musicians parallel to each other. I attempted, when I had the gratification of speaking to you before, to collate the several periods of their lives; and I will, with your patient indulgence, resume from the point at which it was necessary on that occasion to break off.
Felix-Eberhard von Cube and the North-German Tradition of Schenkerism
Authors: Drabkin William
Published: January 2007

It is well known that the first, and strongest, branch of the Schenker family tree leads from Vienna to New York City. One of Schenker's early pupils, Hans Weisse, emigrated to America and taught at the David Mannes Music School in the early 1930s; it is thanks to Weisse's efforts that the ‘Five Graphic Analyses’, with which most musicians make their first contact with Schenker, were published simultaneously in New York and Vienna in 1932. Schenker's death, together with the Nazi threat to Austrian Jewish life and culture, led to what seemed like a complete transfer of the Schenker ‘school’ from Vienna to New York by the late 1930s. Two of Schenker's pupils, Oswald Jonas and Felix Salzer – both of whom (like Schenker) were Jewish and both of whom had published important books in Vienna' – had by this time left for America; and Schenkerian theory, which had never been looked on as more than a cottage industry in the 1920s and 30s, apparently ceased to be practised in Europe altogether.
Berg's Sketches for Wozzeck: A Commentary and Inventory
Authors: Fanning David
Published: January 2007

In 1975 the Wozzeck sketches were examined and commented on by Ernst Hilmar, having been made available to him by the composer's widow. Subsequently they were catalogued, along with all the manuscripts in the Berg legacy, by Rosemary Hilmar. It might appear surprising, then, that neither George Perle nor Janet Schmalfeldt makes more than passing mention of them in their important recent studies. In a sense the omission is not unduly sinful – not surprisingly, the majority of the sketches show Berg at work on constructional features of the opera which are already well known, and there is no evidence of hitherto undiscovered esoteric planning.
The Eighteenth-Century Origins of the Musical Canon
Authors: Weber William
Published: January 2007

Joseph Kerman has suggested a distinction crucial in defining the meaning of ‘canon’ in musical culture: repertory, he argues, was simply the performance of old works; canon, by contrast, is their reverence on a critical plane and in a literary context. The distinction is a fertile one, for it challenges us to define when works were not just offered by convention, but when they functioned as models for musical taste critically and aesthetically. The distinction can be extremely fruitful in tracing the early history of the canon – its origins in repertory and gradual evolution into its modern form. What I would like to show here is how repertories grew up originally without true status as canon; before canon there was repertory, and that is where the whole tradition began. In inquiring just where the modern practice of performing old music regularly came about we can look into some of the most fundamental social and intellectual bases upon which the tradition was established.
‘Art to Enchant’: Musical Magic and its Practitioners in English Renaissance Drama
Authors: Austern Linda Phyllis
Published: January 2007

Many practitioners of the magical arts in English Renaissance drama rely on music to achieve their occult goals. Indeed, music often comes to represent the audible sound of arcane forces at work, for to the Renaissance music itself was a dual art with both obvious and hidden properties. On one hand, music was a delightful, practical science concerned with the production of ordered sound by the human voice or artificial instruments. On the other hand, music, like magic, was a powerful numerical art capable of unlocking the obvious and hidden aspects of all creation. As Thomas Morley carefully reminds his readers in the most famous contemporary English treatise on music theory,

Musicke is either speculative or practicall. Speculative is that kinde of musicke which by Mathematicall helpes, seeketh out causes, properties, and natures of soundes by themselves, and compared with others, proceeding no further, but content with onlie contemplation of that Art. Practicall is that which teacheth al that may be knowne in songs, eyther for the understanding of other mens or the making of ones owne.
Scocca pur: Genesis of an English Ground
Authors: Klakowich Robert
Published: January 2007

Henry Playford's The Second Part of Musick's Hand-maid, the famous collection of keyboard pieces published in London in 1689, contains an anonymous and untitled ground in C minor which has today become well known both for its beauty and for its fine exemplary qualities as a post-Restoration English ground. It also presents us with an interesting study both in authenticity and in compositional evolution, inasmuch as its early history is as engaging as its more recent scrutiny has been controversial. The first half of the piece is reproduced in Figure 1.
Vasilii Titov and the ‘Moscow’ Baroque
Authors: Dolskaya-Ackerly Olga
Published: January 2007

The Baroque, which manifested itself in Muscovy during the course of the seventeenth century, has been recognized as one of the most dynamic and influential eras of Russian musical and artistic creativity. When looking at the history of Russian music one has a tendency to equate the new stylistic trends of the second half of the seventeenth century with those of the highly westernized eighteenth, and to dismiss both merely as periods of Western imitation. In reality music manuscripts reveal otherwise, and now that compositions are finally becoming available in transcription we realize that an entire era remains to be recognized and re-evaluated. In art and architecture, that era, known as the ‘Moscow’ or the ‘Naryshkin’ Baroque, is distinguished by a blend of Italian, Dutch, Russian, Ukrainian and Bielorussian features in a style that, although influenced by foreign elements, was none the less distinct from any in existence at the time. The Moscow Baroque embraced many aspects of the arts, from iconography, architecture and the applied arts to literature and music. Endorsed by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1645–76), foreign influence began to penetrate Muscovy, ushering in a cognizance of Western concepts that began to clash with the rich and long-established spiritual and cultural traditions. In fact Muscovy was just emerging from an aesthetic explosion known as the Golden Age of national artistic expression. Familiar are the magnificent onion-dome churches that were created during the sixteenth century and the flourishing musical centres in Novgorod and Moscow, where composers and singers developed an intrinsically Russian musical style. This was also the age of indigenous Russian polyphony (e.g. strochnoe moskovskoe, strochnoe novgorodskoe, znamennoe and demestvennoe mnogogolosie) which preceded the wave of Western infiltration that inadvertently led to an untimely halt of the evolutionary process of national awakening. Prior to that halt, the Moscow Baroque stands as a brief but unique chapter in the development of the Russian choral tradition.
Art-Song Reworkings: An Overview
Authors: Meconi Honey
Published: January 2007

Broadly speaking, we can divide Renaissance polyphony into five groups: works not using any pre-existent material, and pieces based on sacred monophony, secular monophony, sacred polyphony or secular polyphony. This is not the common way to classify Renaissance compositions. The more normal breakdown is by the technique applied to the pre-existent material – cantus firmus, paraphrase, parody – regardless of what that material was. Yet much is to be gained by starting with the original material, and that was, after all, what the composer probably did at least some of the time.
Closes
Authors: Corder F.
Published: January 2007

A variety of causes led me recently to consider attentively the subject of Closes in music, not the least of these causes being the very meagre and superficial way in which the subject is treated in all the theory works with which I am acquainted. Even a satisfactory definition of the term Close or Cadence is hardly to be found, and the sum total of book-information on the subject is to the effect that a Close is the end of a period in music and is distinguished by the occurrence of two particular chords; that the principal kinds of closes are the “perfect,” “plagal,” and “half” close, but that there is also the “imperfect,” “false,” or “deceptive” close; thus we are given at least six technical terms for one thing. If the student searches for the meaning of the term “musical period” he is referred back to “Close,” so that the definition is of the true dictionary type; merely a cross reference.
Further “Notes” on the Organ. Suggested by Papers of Sir F.A.G. Ouseley and Mr. Audsley
Authors: Clarke Somers
Published: January 2007

In venturing to read this paper, I have not undertaken the work with the view of giving instruction, but rather of eliciting information from those who are better able than myself to teach.
Richard Wagner
Authors: Cart Henry
Published: January 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen,—I feel that by way of preface I must ask your pardon for venturing to intrude upon your notice a paper very hastily composed, scrappily written, and to a great extent carelessly put together. I must tell you that when the idea of this paper first suggested itself to me I hoped that I should be able to devote much time and study to the consideration of so vast and absorbing a subject, but since then circumstances have materially altered, and I have been obliged to give my whole time to other matters more especially connected with my work as a clergyman which previously had not been thrown in my way. But is not this the way with so many matters in this hurrying, driving, bustling, brain-wearing age in which we live; we propose to ourselves great things, but how many attain to them ? I at least so far as this paper is concerned must in dust and ashes sit with covered head and say “Peccavi, I have sinned.” And then again, why should I speak to you about Richard Wagner ? I never knew the man, I only saw him once; I have never been to that musical Mecca, Bayreuth; I have never seen any of his operas performed in his native land; and I have not exhaustively studied his life, works, or character. Well, I suppose there are two reasons to account for this whimsical caprice in my selection of a subject : first, a blind following of the spirit of the age, a spirit which prompts people to talk a great deal about what they know very little of; and secondly, an earnest desire on my part to ascertain the attitude of members of this Association towards so great a genius as Wagner, and to elicit a genuine expression of opinion as to the future prospects of what has been not inaptly, though I will not say prophetically termed “The music of the future.” If this paper only arouses and awakens an interesting discussion amongst the members here present, my object will have been more than fulfilled, and we shall all leave this room with the very candid opinion that the second half-hour has been far more entertaining and useful than the first one. Such sentences may suggest to wily-minded individuals that I am what is called “fishing for compliments,” but I assure you I am not; I am convinced within myself that I am speaking solid and indisputable truth.
Some Details Concerning the Work Done in Connection with Completing and Instrumenting Schubert's Sketch Symphony in E, No. 7, As Performed at the Crystal Palace Concert on May 5th, 1883
Authors: Barnett John Francis
Published: January 2007

Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—It lately occurred to me that it might be interesting to the members of this Association to give a short account of my work in connection with the remarkable sketch Symphony in E of Schubert.
Manx Music
Authors: Gill W. H.
Published: January 2007

It is strange but true that, so far as the general British public is concerned, the Isle of Man, notwithstanding its great antiquity, its unique political constitution, its ancient statutes and venerable customs, its invigorating climate and charming scenery, has only just been discovered.
The Trumpet as an Orchestral Instrument
Authors: Morrow Walter
Published: January 2007

Trumpets seem to have been originated by someone discovering that sound could be produced by blowing into the opened end of the horns of animals, spiral shells, or hollow reeds, and on the use of metals being known trumpets of silver, copper, and brass were made in the form of horns and spiral shells. The chatzotzeroth of the Hebrews and the Egyptians was a straight conical tube; the salpinx of the Greeks likewise. The schophar and keren of the Hebrews were horn-shaped, and the buccina of the Romans was made after the fashion of a spiral shell. Judging from the conical shape of these instruments one naturally comes to the conclusion that they were not musical. They would emit only one sound—a terrific blare—which was no doubt useful for giving signals, calling an assembly, or striking terror in the heart of an enemy, &c., but there was no music.
A Few Words on the Successive Editions of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
Authors: Grove George
Published: January 2007

My remarks this evening are not to be taken as those of a musician, to which character I cannot pretend. I simply desire to call your attention to a matter of fact—to the alterations which have been made in the score of the Ninth Symphony in the successive publications of the last thirty years.
A Staff Notation Tonal Modulator (On Tonic Sol-Fa Lines)
Authors: Ward John C.
Published: January 2007

Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—By the courtesy of your Council, I have the pleasure to bring under your notice the latest development of my Staff Notation Tonal Modulator:—

an original invention of mine worked out for the most part several years ago, though only protected and brought out in its present form within the last few months.
The Whistles and Reed Instruments of the American Indians of the North-West Coast
Authors: Galpin F. W.
Published: January 2007

The Pacific seaboard which bounds the territory of British Columbia on its west side is marked by frequent inlets backed by high mountain ranges and fringed with numerous islands, whose rocky heights, crowned with spruce and cedar, testify to their having at one time formed part of the mainland itself. Scattered along this coast in a territory about a thousand miles long by one hundred and fifty miles wide and separated from the inhabitants of the interior by natural barriers of hill and forest are certain Indian tribes of a peculiar and distinct character. Not only are their complexions surprisingly light coloured, — in some instances almost as fair as those of Europeans and in no way due to recent intermixture with white races—but in customs and laws, in arts and handicrafts, they show themselves superior to all other existing Indian tribes.
Some Notes on Musical Libraries, and on That of the Writer in Particular
Authors: Matthew James E.
Published: January 2007

To a Society “formed for the investigation and discussion of subjects connected with the Art, Science, and History of Music,” the subject of musical libraries cannot fail to be of interest, as neither of these branches of the study can be followed without an adequate knowledge of the work of previous investigators. The development of the art of musical notation, the rise of the art of music-printing from its rude early attempts to its present perfection, the history of the gradual development of harmony, must be of interest to every intelligent musician, and even the executant cannot fail to be interested in the life and surroundings of the composer whose works he is interpreting, and his relation to the composers who have preceded and followed him. For such studies the resources of a well - furnished library are indispensable.
On Improvements in the Trumpet
Authors: Bassett Henry
Published: January 2007

The two instruments which I have the pleasure of describing to the Association are the results of my endeavours to remedy some of the shortcomings of that ancient and important instrument, the trumpet.
Bach's ‘Art of Fugue’
Authors: Higgs James
Published: January 2007

When, some time ago, I was invited to read a paper before this Association, and I ventured to select Bach's ‘Art of Fugue’ as my theme, I did so because the study of the work had recently afforded me much enjoyment, and circumstances had led me to the conclusion that it was neither widely nor deeply known. When, however, I began to prepare for my task, I soon discovered that I should be in the position of the preacher who, in a thinly attended Church, scolded his congregation for the neglect shown by staying away from public worship, and then had to apologise when he remembered that his remarks could not apply to those present. I find myself in a somewhat similar position, when I reflect that many in this room must know the work on which I have undertaken to offer a few remarks, far better than I do. I can only ask their indulgence, and rely on the belief that in proportion as Bach's ‘Art of Fugue’ is known, its value and importance will be acknowledged, and its manifold beauties appreciated.
On the Philosophy of Harmony
Authors: Pole W.
Published: January 2007

Dr. Pole began by stating it was not the object of the paper to meddle with the practice of harmony, as determined by the best composers; nor with the teaching of harmony, so far as it was of a practical nature. Students must be taught what they were to do, and their instruction was generally efficient and admirable. But the writers of books on harmony were often not content with practical teaching; they thought it necessary to bring forward systems and theories with the object of explaining, deriving, and accounting for all the facts of harmony on grounds of natural necessity. The first who attempted this was Rameau, in 1722, who was a philosopher as well as a musician, and whose system, though it did not go far, was novel and useful, and laid the foundation for all that had been done since. But harmony had much extended since his day, and later theorists had supplemented Rameau's principles by theories and hypotheses of much more doubtful authority; hence had arisen a host of different systems, so conflicting and inconsistent that, instead of aiding the study of harmony, they were only calculated to throw stumbling-blocks in its way. A reaction had set in, and many of the best authorities had lately been inclined to doubt the possibility of explaining all the facts and rules of harmony on natural principles; many opinions to this effect being quoted in the paper.
Hector Berlioz
Authors: Wotton Tom S.
Published: January 2007

In this paper I propose to deal with Berlioz the musician, rather than with Berlioz the man: firstly, because in this his centenary year we have most of us had our memories refreshed with, the main details of his life; and secondly, because even now, a hundred years after his birth, there are many things connected with his music or his ideas on music which are either misconstrued or imperfectly understood.
Mozart's Early Efforts in Opera
Authors: Edgar Clifford B.
Published: January 2007

The Musical world celebrates this month the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Mozart's birth, and your Council, being desirous that the occasion should not pass entirely unnoticed by the Association, have done me the honour of asking me to read a paper to-day.
Lute Music of the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries
Authors: Dodge Janet
Published: January 2007

To attempt in the short space of an hour a clear and adequate account of lute music in Europe during the centuries in which it was most active and influential, is a task that might frighten away the most sanguine student, especially when we consider how great the difficulties have been, and still are, which stand in the way of any wide and intimate knowledge of it. Difficulties which in the past have prevented some of the most learned and painstaking musical archaeologists from arriving at anything but a very general survey of the field, cannot be entirely overcome even at the present stage of research, and it is only with the utmost diffidence that this attempt can be made to put together the detached fragments of an art that has been dead nearly 150 years. The greatest handicap of all in acquiring the necessary knowledge of lute music is, of course, the tablature with which lutenists, with a strange perversity, chose to record their achievements. It takes on an average about five times as long to decipher a page of ordinary lute tablature as it does to copy one of ordinary notation. Moreover, unlike notation, it cannot be understood without deciphering, so that hours are frequently wasted over works which in the end turn out little worth the time and trouble. Sometimes, too, misprints render the labour futile; and sometimes, when we are dealing with 17th century lute music, much time is spent in finding the proper tuning wherewith to transcribe. No wonder then that there is a pitiful lack of material upon which to base any final judgments of the music or of its composers. There have been, indeed, some modern reprints of lute music, some attempts at a reconstruction of individual lutenists, and diligent search will reveal a considerable literature on the subject of a detached and unsystematized kind. In Italy and Germany especially much has been done in this way, and it is chiefly to these labours that we owe any slight acquaintance with composers for the instrument who are not represented in English libraries. But it needs a thoroughly organized system of combined research in all countries finally to make possible a knowledge of the vast bulk of lute music that exists, and until the results of such a system are made public, any general view must be full of shortcomings. There is at present, recently formed, under the wing of the International Musical Society, a Commission for this special purpose, and it is hoped that time will reveal the value of the work it has taken in hand.
Some Considerations of the Effect of Orchestral Colour Upon Design and Texture in Musical Composition
Authors: Allen H. P.
Published: January 2007

The subject of this paper is one which deserves some attention. With it is bound up some of the remarkable developments of the present day in Germany and in France, to say nothing of our own country (so deliberate and cautious in all its proceedings), developments which have caused us wonder and amazement, mingled with some sorrow, and which undoubtedly have set us thinking as to the attitude we should adopt towards them and as to our hopes of a future state. We seem to be arriving at a period in our musical existence when form and structure, balance and calm reasoning, are of little account as compared with the creation of impressions and atmosphere by means of what we call colour.
The Music of the Byzantine Liturgy
Authors: Terry R. R.
Published: January 2007

It is rather disconcerting to hear the chairman say that you are coming “to sit at my feet”; especially so as my own interest in this subject only dates back to last year, when, in my professional capacity, it was necessary for me to be responsible for the music of an entire—I will not say Greek Mass : we all use that expression, but it is quite incorrect. After all is said and done, the term “Mass” is peculiar to the Roman liturgy. The Greeks never called their liturgy a Mass, and in dealing with any question of this kind we should always use the name which the people engaged in a particular form of service give to it themselves. Therefore we speak of the Byzantine liturgy, not the Greek Mass. Indeed it is not strictly correct to call it even Greek; we have to remember that it exists in about fourteen different tongues, of which Greek, Old Slavonic, Arabic and Roumanian are the chief. True, it was composed in the Greek language, but of course this applies equally to all Eastern rites, especially those of the Armenians and the Slavonians.
Choral Technique
Authors: McNaught W G.
Published: January 2007

My purpose is to attempt a general survey of the conditions of choral technique and its relation to the still more important matter of interpretation. I am not providing a text-book. All who desire such instruction should consult Dr. Coward's unique work on the subject. That work is the most remarkable and exhaustive contribution to the study of choral-training that has appeared in any language.
Ear-Training and the Standardisation of Equal Temperament
Authors: Atkins E. P. Lennox
Published: January 2007

My purpose to-day is to bring before the members of the Musical Association, whose position in the musical world is I know so influential, some considerations regarding the manner in which the tonal base of the musical art—the pitch relation of sounds to one another—is, under existing circumstances, aurally presented; more especially through keyed instruments, such as the pianoforte or organ.
The Clock Jacks of England
Authors: Starmer William Wooding
Published: January 2007

It is a great pleasure to me to have the privilege of addressing you this afternoon on the subject of Clock Jacks or Quarter Boys as they are frequently called. In my two papers on Chimes and Chime Tunes, I felt that there was little of musical interest that had not been dealt with, but after further research I found that Clock Jacks were of special historic interest, and also that the bells used and the notes played by them were worthy of the attention of musicians.
Sir Hubert Parry
Authors: Hadow W. H.
Published: January 2007

The twin arts of Music and Poetry, the “sphere-born harmonious sisters, voice and verse,” have met with curiously different fortunes in the history of this country. Our poetry has the most continuous, and except for Greece, the most famous record in Europe: apart from our dark century—and that not so dark but that it produced some of the best of our English ballads—the line of succession is virtually unbroken from Beowulf to the present day: there is no generation, there is almost no decade, in which Englishmen were not at the forefront of skill and invention. But our musical history contains a lamentable number of what Bacon calls the deserts and waste-places of time—indeed, it has one century of lavish fruitfulness, and for the rest has been until now a desert with a few infrequent oases. There was one lyric outburst in the thirteenth century, it was followed by silence for over a hundred years. John Dunstable was the first musician of his time: at his death the sceptre passed, not to his English imitators, but to his Flemish disciples. Then, no doubt, came our glorious period of Tudor and Elizabe than composers, the period at which English music and English poetry attained side by side to the heights of human achievement; but there was no musical Milton to follow that Elizabethan age, only a Dryden, and he short-lived and without successors. It is to no service to make excuse—to say that Handel was an English musician of German extraction or to complain that his brilliance reduced our native genius to darkness. German art was not obliterated by Haydn, or French by Lulli: they were strong enough to accept the foreigner's music and graft it into the parent-stock. We let Handel overshadow us like a beech tree, under whose spreading and magnificent foliage nothing prosperous can grow.
Musical Settings of Horace's Lyric Poems
Authors: Thomas Henry
Published: January 2007

It was with such diffidence as becomes an amateur that I yielded to an invitation to read a paper before the Musical Association. For some three years I have at intervals collected notes of musical settings of Classical—that is to say, Greek and Latin—lyrics, excluding those which occur in the drama. I have paid particular attention to one author—Horace, but even in this instance my notes are in many places defective, partly because I was unable, owing to the war, to consult friends and colleagues abroad, and partly because I had not the leisure to make any systematic attempt to exhaust the sources of information nearer at hand. Hence it is that the chief reason for my reluctance to face this learned audience—my inadequate equipment—became in the end the chief reason for my acceptance of your flattering invitation. By bringing my subject to the notice of musicians I hoped to gather more material, and I shall be grateful to any members of the Association who may add to my store.
The Emmanuel Moor New Duplex-Coupler Pianoforte
Authors: Webb F. Gilbert
Published: January 2007

My sole object in calling your attention to the new Duplex-coupler Pianoforte, invented by Mr. Emmanuel Moor, is to provoke a discussion on its merits, its possibilities, its advantages and disadvantages, and, if accepted by the public, its probable influence on the future of pianoforte music. In these days of discovery, removal of old foundations, rapid development and plunges after new effects, it seems to me that the duty of a long-established Association such as that to which we belong, is to examine and pronounce judgment on new departures as well as to keep alive interest in the past and the achievements of our forefathers to whom we owe so much.
Josquin Des Prez
Authors: Smijers A.
Published: January 2007

When some little time ago I was, through the kind offices of Mr. Herbert Antcliffe, invited by the members of the Musical Association to address them on the subject of Josquin des Prez I did not long hesitate in accepting this friendly invitation. For, although I am conscious that for many of you I have probably little that is new to say, it seemed to me a welcome opportunity of making propaganda in England for the works of that composer,1a complete edition of which has been entrusted to me for preparation under the auspices of the Vereeniging voor Nederlandsche Muziekgeschiedenis, or Society for Netherlands History of Music.
Wind Bands and Music
Authors: Hoby Charles
Published: January 2007

The bibliography of the subject is a scanty one. In all not more than a total round dozen of really useful works have been published in this country, on the Continent, and in the New World.

Apparently these, everyone of them touching on Military or Army Bands and their music, represent the sum total. I know of none on what soldiers call civilian wind band music that have seen the light. If I except the researches of Professor Bridge on “Waits” I believe I except all.
Some Problems of Present-Day Music
Authors: Moule H. C. C.
Published: January 2007

When I had the honour of receiving your Council's invitation to read a paper on present-day music, I will not pretend that I felt nothing but pleasure. Naturally I was greatly pleased, and very grateful for the opportunity of talking about a subject on which I am intensely keen. At the same time I felt very much alarmed. It seemed to me that a man could not reasonably be expected to know enough about such a subject to address your Association until he had been a concert-goer for at least a couple of hundred years. Two reflections, however, gave me courage to accept the invitation. The first was that, long before a man has been attending concerts for two hundred years, he is apt to lose his interest in modern music. At the best he probably only retains an interest in the music that was modern when he was young. The second comforting reflection was that age is apt, not only to diminish one's enthusiasm for modem music, but to diminish also one's enthusiasm for rushing in where angels fear to tread. And that, I think, fairly describes this afternoon's enterprise. In other words, we have to discuss points on which no wise man would offer an opinion.
Italian Trecento Music
Authors: Wolf Johannes
Published: January 2007

My first duty is to thank the Musical Association for having elected me an Honorary Member and for having given me the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. I must beg your forgiveness if I do not speak your language as well as I should wish. Yet I hope we shall understand each other.
Handel's Cantatas
Authors: Ford Walter
Published: January 2007

Many besides myself, who have counted ourselves lovers of Handel, must have had twinges of conscience when their eyes fell upon the four volumes (in the G.H.S. great edition of Handel's works) which contain his cantatas. I may remind you that the Italian cantata of the late seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries is a form of music which differs from that of the German cantata, of which Bach has given us so many examples; that it supplanted the madrigal as the popular musical diversion of cultivated society in Italy; that it held the place as vocal chamber music, which instrumental quartets and trios were later to occupy; that all the best Italian composers from Carrissimi to Scarlatti produced them in large quantities; and lastly that Italy, when Handel went there in 1706, was the acknowledged centre of European music. What Handel composed there—whatever its value may be—was composed for the most important and the most cultivated audiences he was ever likely to find.
Musical Origins
Authors: Kirby Percival R.
Published: January 2007

First of all, I want to explain my title, for on seeing it in cold print it seemed to me to be a bold title for anyone to take or to dare to discuss Musical Origins. I should perhaps rather have said the “Problem of Musical Origins in Light of the Musical Practices of Bushman, Hottentot Bantu.” I must, however, start with some sort of preamble and propose to begin with a short elementary lesson in South African geography from the point of view of the distribution of the native peoples.