bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fryderyk Chopin Romance From The Pianoforte Concerto In E Minor, Op. II
Authors: Tilmouth Michael , Kimbell David , Savage Roger
Published: November 2023

The unity of a sonata or symphony is inviolable; all the more because it is so easily broken up. But there are cases where this unity is an illusion, and the detached movements of a work may show a perfection which is ruined by fatal flaws in the construction of the larger whole. The arias of Handel’s operas are a conspicuous example; it is the aria itself that is an important art-form, and Handelian opera as a whole represents nothing more than a bad habit of dressing up the singers expensively and putting them on a pantomime stage to please an eighteenth-century public that would not listen to music for music’s sake.
12 [L]
Authors: Tilmouth Michael , Kimbell David , Savage Roger
Published: November 2023

The early and sudden death of Louis Fleury is a loss which will be deeply felt by lovers of music who a generation ago would never have believed that the death of a flute player would be of higher consequence than a change in the personnel of a first-rate orchestra. In the memories of all who heard him, Fleury’s art will have defined the status of his instrument as the art of Miihlfeld defined the status of the clarinet. Miihlfeld had his Brahms; this is not an inverted way of putting the case, for it was Miihlfeld’s playing that inspired Brahms to the composition of his last four pieces of chamber music; and the position of authoritative and quasi-originative interpreter of those works was the foundation of Miihlfeld’s unique position.
Keyboard Talks: First Series-Beethoven
Authors: Tilmouth Michael , Kimbell David , Savage Roger
Published: November 2023

Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope that these talks are passed for Universal Exhibi­tion, without age limit in either direction. 1 What I have to say is of no impor­tance except in so far as it illustrates what I have to play. These Keyboard Talks are not talks illustrated by music; they’re music illustrated by talk. And Beethoven is a master whose music nobody who can listen is too young to enjoy.
German Music (1915)
Authors: Tilmouth Michael , Kimbell David , Savage Roger
Published: November 2023

Music is, of all the arts, perhaps the most impossible to explain in words; and writers on music deserve more sympathy than blame for the readiness with which they welcome topics that distract attention from the difficulties of purely musical questions. Where it is difficult to say anything without entering into principles and details which, to most readers, must seem purely technical, there is great temptation to discuss the first side-issue which connects the subject with ethics or politics, religion or science; and if all that has been written on the history of music were reduced to that portion of it in which the history is musical and the view of music is historical, the bulk would be conveniently small, but far from easy to read.
The Reid Foundation and Music in Edinburgh (1920, 1916)
Authors: Tilmouth Michael , Kimbell David , Savage Roger
Published: November 2023

It is hoped that this Festival Concert [to celebrate the first twenty-five given by the Reid Orchestra] will bring about a wider and a clearer understanding of the aims of the Reid Chair of Music. General Reid’s will provided for the foundation of a Professorship of Music in the University of Edinburgh, and also for an annual Reid Concert, to be given on or conveniently near to his birthday, 1 3 February.2 This bequest took effect in 1839 when the first Reid Professor was appointed.
No. 2 (1939)
Authors: Tilmouth Michael , Kimbell David , Savage Roger
Published: November 2023

One of the chief barbarities of musical Romanticism, Academicism, Neo classicism and Musikgelehrsamkeit in the last hundred and thirty years has been the neglect of Haydn’s middle works. The other day my orchestra played one of the most beautiful of the Paris symphonies, the work in G minor known as ‘La Poule’.1 Trustworthy modern orchestral parts were available, but the score had to be copied from them, though four-hand arrangements are in print. If the symphony had not happened to have a fanciful title I doubt whether it would have been so accessible.
Ideological Warfare and Disintegration
Authors: Thomson Andrew
Published: November 2023

It was certainly not d’lndy’s way to go into a protracted period of mourning for Isabelle; the active business of his life went on as usual. On 18 February 1906, Jour d’été à la montagne received its premiere at the Concerts Colonne, only six weeks after her funeral.
An Old Soldier Never Dies
Authors: Thomson Andrew
Published: November 2023

The year 1914 began in an increasing mood of tension between France and Germany, even though the war cloud which was to engulf them at the end of the year seemed as yet no bigger than a man’s hand. Even on the cultural plane, the prevailing virulent nationalism on both sides diminished each country in the eyes of the other. If Debussy was not properly appreciated beyond the Rhine, Gustav Mahler likewise was rejected by the French, with d’lndy calling his Fourth Symphony ‘a piece for the Alhambra or the Moulin Rouge’—fit only for music-halls and sex shows.
Mediterranean Summers
Authors: Thomson Andrew
Published: November 2023

With the end of the Great War, d’lndy’s exhilaration knew no bounds. At last, it seemed that the German menace was a thing of the past, and the question of Alsace-Lorraine resolved. To add humiliation to defeat, Clemenceau insisted that the peace treaty be signed in Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles, where, in 1871, in the same Hall of Mirrors, Bismarck had proclaimed William I Emperor of Germany. But if d’lndy had regarded the war itself as a terrible though necessary purgation of the corrupt state of France, he was painfully to discover that its aftermath would fail to bring the expected moral and cultural regeneration. Indeed, the chief political preoccupation was with the disastrous state of the economy and galloping inflation.
The Social Context: Vienna and her Ruler
Authors: Steptoe Andrew
Published: November 2023

The appearance of Vienna in the eighteenth century was unusual for a major European city. Whereas the medieval centres of other towns were surrounded by the ordered, elegant signs of urban expansion, no building in Vienna had been erected within several hundred yards of the old walls (see Plate 1). This was a consequence of the great Turkish siege of 1683, during which the suburbs had been demolished. When Vienna was reconstructed and fortified in 1704, a wide protective glads and rampart were built around the city (now the site of the Ringstrasse development). As a result, the inner city was densely packed, while extensive suburbs grew up at a distance. The latter contained not only the factories and workshops of the new industrialization, but also the magnificent mansions and parks of the nobility and rising middle class. During the summer, the wealthy would move to these semi-rural suburbs, returning to their city residences only in the autumn.
New Variants of Formal Models
Authors: Shreffler Anne C
Published: November 2023

The second part of Trakl’s poem ‘Abendland’, to which Webern returned two years after completing Part III, forms a lyrical interlude between the two powerful outer sections of the poem. The lines ‘So leise sind die griinen Wälder | Unsrer Heimat’ begin the poem with a pastoral quality, invoking standard imagery of German romantic poetry.
‘Gesang einer gefangenen Amsel’ (Op. I4 No. 6): A Two-Year Preoccupation
Authors: Shreffler Anne C
Published: November 2023

Webern worked longer and more intensively on ‘Gesang einer gefangenen Amsel’ than on any other Trakl poem. Between 1917 and 1919, he sketched nine distinct drafts, the last of which became Op. 14 No. 6 (these are shown in Table 15). The ‘Amsel’ sketches document years of experimentation. Calling for instruments ranging from a trio of flute, viola, and bass clarinet to a large chamber orchestra, they range in length as well from a single phrase to a setting of the whole poem.
External Musicians: Maestri and Composers
Authors: Baldauf-Berdes Jane L
Published: November 2023

PART Three reviews the activity of musicians in the ospedali, the external musicians, that is, male teachers and composers from outside the institutions, those greater and lesser figures in music history who guaranteed acclaim for the cori (this chapter) and exemplars from among some ten generations of internal female musicians (Chapter 8). This chronological scheme covers the three major periods of the history and marks the stages in the ascent of the cori from being noteworthy church choirs to becoming, urban¬ wide, then internationally acclaimed, musical entities. Documents for the employment of external musicians at the ospedali and statistics derived from them draw attention to the further break-down of the three major periods into the nine phases into which the story of the cori is shown to divide itself. These nine phases correspond to the partition of the history of music into periods delineated by Suzanne Clercx in Le Baroque et la musique. Supporting the narrative are excerpts from contemporary commentaries.
The Renaissance Flute
Authors: Solum John , Smith Anne
Published: November 2023

The increasing interest in early music in general, and in the baroque flute in particular, has in recent years carried over to the Renaissance flute. This instrument is, however, very different from the baroque flute. Perhaps it is just because it appears so deceptively simple that it has long been neglected. In fact it is only recently that a comprehensive study of the extant instruments has been made. This research indicates that the instruments have certain characteristics in common which are quite distinct from those of later flutes. In order to do justice to the instrument, and thus to the music performed on it, the player must be aware of these inherent features, and accept them.
The Classical Flute
Authors: Solum John , Smith Anne
Published: November 2023

The classical flute emerged gradually, almost imperceptibly, out of the baroque flute-this is a modern distinction-just as the classical style of music was a gradual development from the baroque style. Indeed, the traverso’s development was a reflection of the changing musical styles of the eighteenth century.1 As the thicker contrapuntal textures of the baroque orchestra were transformed into the lighter, more transparent textures of the classical orchestra, so the darker sounds of the baroque flute turned into the lighter, brighter sounds of the classical flute. The higher pitches, higher tessitura, and greater flexibility of the classical orchestra were mirrored in the higher pitches, tessitura, and flexibility of the classical flute.
Care and Maintenance of the Instrument
Authors: Solum John , Smith Anne
Published: November 2023

All musical instruments need good care and maintenance, and the traverso is no exception. These wooden or ivory instruments are very different from the metal Boehm-system flute; while they are mechanically simple and do not usually need delicate adjustments, they do require special handling. Proper restoration of an antique traverso should bring the instrument up to maximum playing condition (if restoration is feasible) and, in the case of both antique and modern replica flutes, careful maintenance should keep them in good playing condition for an indefinite period of time. Moreover, there is a financial factor to be considered: an instrument in fine condition is worth more than a similar one in poor condition. Common sense tells us to conserve and preserve our assets.
Sources: Technique
Authors: Solum John , Smith Anne
Published: November 2023

The technique of playing baroque and classical flutes is well served by primary sources dating from the period under consideration in this book. Although few of these sources were originally written in English, many have now been translated. Of the original source materials in English included in this chapter, only those available in modern reprint are discussed. A few treatises exist only in the original language (usually French). Some of these will be commented upon here because they are available in facsimile editions and contain easily understood fingering charts as well as musical examples which are useful as learning material.
Bringing It All to Life: Advice to the Contemporary Player
Authors: Solum John , Smith Anne
Published: November 2023

The flute treatises from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries contain sufficient instruction to enable the old instrument to be played well by contemporary players without requiring a comparative knowledge of the modern flute. However, many modern traverso-players have come to the instrument from the Boehm flute, and many will continue to do so. Comparisons between the two types of flutes can be helpful. Such basic musical concepts as tone, pitch, intonation, tuning and temperament, acoustics, articulation, vibrato, tempo, and notation should be reconsidered by the modern player when preparing to learn the traverso because these concepts may have somewhat different meanings to the modern player from those they had to flautists in previous centuries.
Commentary
Authors: Crookes David Z
Published: November 2023

Praetorius properly begins with the sacred trumpets of Moses, choosing to ignore both Tubal, a descendant of Cain (Gen. 4), and Miriam, a mere woman percussionist (Exod. 15) There is no basis for the assumption, which Praetorius makes here, that the trumpets of Moses and Gideon were identical in size.
Jérusalem
Authors: Budden Julian
Published: November 2023

Sooner or later an aspiring Italian composer of the nineteenth century was bound to want to make his debut at the Paris Opera; and not for financial reasons only. On the whole, Italians, little as they liked to admit the fact, produced their best work for Paris. The grandiose scale of French serious opera with its choruses and ballet oftered them more scope, while the more intelligent, more dramatic quality of the average French libretto forced them to take greater thought for the drama instead of relying for their effects mainly on the quality of the human voice.
Luisa Miller
Authors: Budden Julian
Published: November 2023

In August 1848 Verdi wrote from Paris formally cancelling the contract that he had entered into three years earlier to write an opera for the San Carlo theatre, Naples.*But it was not to be got rid of quite so easily. The management turned on Cammarano and threatened him with imprisonment for having failed to supply the libretto. He was not a wealthy man, and he had a wife and six children to support. He wrote a desperate letter to Verdi begging him to renew his Neapolitan contract for the following year; and Verdi with a rather bad grace consented, ‘just so that you won’t have to suffer anything ... I’m making this sacrifice for your sake only.’t A letter from Flauto followed thanking him for getting Cammarano out of his difficulty in a way which ‘does great honour to Italy’s supreme Maestro’.; But it was some time before Cammarano felt completely secure.
Don Carlos
Authors: Budden Julian
Published: November 2023

We considered suggesting to you Schiller’s Don Carlos. Of course it would merely serve as a point of departure, and we should modify it so as to provide you with a scenario that would satisfy you in every respect.. You have already drawn on Schiller for the plots of I Masnadieri and Luisa Miller. Don Carlos I would say offers you a much larger and more poetic frame. It has all the emotional power you need....
Introduction
Authors: Harrán Don
Published: November 2023

There were Jewish musicians before Salamone Rossi, but Rossi was the first of them to leave an indelible imprint on European music history as a composer. We know little of his predecessors: most appear to have been instrumentalists, perhaps accompanying themselves while they sang—Abramo dall’Arpa, active in Mantua around the mid-sixteenth century, comes to mind. Of early Jewish composers we know even less. It stands to reason that some may have written one or more works, probably for a single voice, as, for example, Obadiah the Proselyte, thought to be the author of music to a prayer and part of a hymn in the twelfth century. The larger part of the instrumentalists and composers are likely to have yielded to external pressures by converting to Christianity, as did Mahieu le juif, a trouvere from the thirteenth century, or the lutenist Giovanni Maria ebreo, active in Rome, until 1523, under Leo X, Adrian VI, and Clement VIl.
Music and the Comedia nueva, 1600–1690
Authors: Stein Louise K
Published: November 2023

By the close of the sixteenth century, commercial theatres were operating in several major Spanish cities, including Madrid, Seville, Valencia, and Valladolid. The Madrid public theatres, the corral de la Cruz and the corral del Principe (opened in 1579 and 1582, respectively), were the focal point in the early part of the seventeenth century, because Spain’s greatest playwrights worked in Madrid and wrote mainly for their enthusiastic public.
Case Study One
Authors: Alvin Juliette , Warwick Auriel
Published: November 2023

Sarah is Anne and Mark’s elder daughter. Her birth was a forceps delivery following a straightforward pregnancy. However, Anne was admitted to hospital a week before the birth as it was suspected that she might have diabetes. Although the tests proved to be negative, it was decided that she should be induced a day before the baby was due. The birth was a long process during which Anne became very tired but as she had heard of longer deliveries, she was not worried. She believed she had a perfect baby-until Sarah was eight months old. Sarah was born with a squint and when Anne took her back to her doctor she was referred to the paediatrician.
The First Movement
Authors: Frogley Alain
Published: November 2023

How does a symphony germinate and grow in its creator’s mind? One might immediately object that such language is tendentiously organic. Indeed, the readiness with which it springs to mind offers a salutary reminder of the weight of organicist assumption that has been so influential in the history of studying compositional process, and which can all too easily be adopted without critical examination in any new investigation. The temptation is doubly strong when dealing with a symphony, given the prevalence of organicist metaphors in critical and analytical approaches to the genre.2 The manuscripts for Vaughan Williams’s Ninth Symphony provide, in fact, a good deal of evidence to support certain aspects of the organic view of composition, at least in the case of this composer; yet they also reveal processes which run sharply against it. Both sides of the equation are important in the sketches for the first movement.
The Second Movement
Authors: Frogley Alain
Published: November 2023

In terms of formal process and of tonal concerns, the second movement sees a hardening of features familiar from the first movement. It is as if the earlier failure to integrate and to resolve decisively has been accepted, and the consequences of division are now being explored; juxtaposed ideas are contrasted more sharply, and the overall impression is more static. This is reflected in the sketch origins of the movement, which are both more complex than those of the opening movement, involving a relatively large amount of material scattered amongst many different books, and more sectional, often treating individual parts of the movement in isolation. Yet if the finished piece prepares us for this aspect of the compositional process, we shall see that the manuscripts also contain many other features which could not have been predicted.
The Fourth Movement
Authors: Frogley Alain
Published: November 2023

It is an axiom of the symphony after Beethoven that, of all the movements, the Finale presents a composer with the greatest challenge: the pressure to surpass, to draw together, to resolve the issues of the preceding movements is intense. In his symphonies before the Ninth, Vaughan Williams solved the finale problem in a number of contrasting ways, according to the compositional issues explored in the preceding movements. In the first three movements of the Ninth the restlessly shifting tonal relationships, especially those involving semitones, and the frequent alternations and interruptions of blocks of contrasting material, induce a feeling of circularity, of frustrated expansion and development. The Finale confronts these issues, and in the realm of development there is impressive compensation. The question of tonal resolution is more complex, however: although earlier tensions are addressed, most particularly those of the first movement, the final assertion of E major emerges more as a kind of leap of faith than as an inexorable out come, and the ambivalent and shifting tonal relations are never fully clarified. Given the weight of responsibility carried by this movement, and the fact that it is the longest in the symphony, it is no surprise to discover that it is represented by far the greatest number of sketches and drafts. What could not have been predicted, however, is that the manuscripts should include a large amount of music that did not find a place in the finished symphony; indeed, if such material is discounted, the Finale did not require significantly more written work to reach its final form than the other movements, although we shall see below that the rejected material seems nevertheless to have been essential to the arduous process of concretizing the complex com positional vision underlying this unique movement.
Post-Romanticism, 1914–1945
Authors: Caldwell John
Published: November 2023

This chapter begins and ends with a period of war, not just to pad out an inconveniently short inter-war period of little more than twenty years but because 1914 and 1945 were more of an end and a beginning respectively than 1918 and 1939 were a beginning and an end. There had been ‘ends of an era’ before 1914—at the death of Victoria in 1901 and at the death of Edward VII in 1910—but the outbreak of war in August 1914, even though its full consequences could not then be foreseen, was accompanied by the instinctive feeling that whatever the outcome, certain qualities of life would have disappeared for ever by the time it ended. Perhaps there were similar emotions during the autumn of 1939; but this came after two decades of political and diplomatic turbulence, and there was less left by then to bemoan. 1945, in contrast, was marked by a determination not to repeat the mistakes of the 1920s and 1930s; and with hindsight we can see that, whatever mistakes there may have been, they were not the same ones. 1945 did genuinely mark a fresh start.
England and Its Music
Authors: Caldwell John
Published: November 2023

At the end of a lengthy narrative it seems appropriate to consider again its basic premisses; to ask whether they are borne out by the evidence laid before the reader, and to offer some conclusions about the nature and relevance of what has been described.

Foremost among these premisses is that there is such a thing as English music, the music of the English people as distinct both from that of other nations and from that of the larger entities to which the English belong or have at one time belonged. A second is that the music of a nation or people acquires a self-sustaining impetus that enables it to retain its individuality over a long period embracing profound historical and social changes. The music itself has self-evidently evolved in ways that are at least as farreaching; but it is an underlying presumption that a connecting thread, a characteristic reaction to changing conditions and to musical fashion elsewhere, has determined its course throughout.
Western Plainchant
Authors: Hiley David
Published: November 2023

Plainchant is the oldest substantial body of music that has been preserved in any shape or form. It was first written down in Western Europe in the wake of the Carolingian renaissance of the 8th and 9th centuries. Many thousands of chants have been sung at different times or places in a multitude of forms and styles, responding to the differing needs of the church through the ages. This book provides a clear and concise introduction, designed both for those to whom the subject is new and those who require a reference work for advanced studies. It begins with an explanation of the liturgies which plainchant was designed to serve. All the chief genres of chant, different types of liturgical book, and plainchant notations are described. The later chapters are complemented by plates, with commentary and transcriptions. After an exposition of early medieval theoretical writing on plainchant, a historical survey follows the constantly changing nature of the repertory through from the earliest times to the restoration of medieval chant a century ago. The historical relations between Gregorian, Old-Roman, Milanese, Spanish, and other repertories is considered. Important musicians and centre of composition are discussed, together with the establishment of Gregorian chant in all the lands of medieval Europe, and the reformations and revisions carried out by the religious orders and the humanists. Copiously illustrated with over 200 musical examples transcribed from original sources, the book highlights the diversity of practice and richness of the chant repertory characteristic of the Middle Ages. As both a self-contained summary and also, with its many pointers to further reading, a handbook for research, it will become an indispensable reference book on this vast subject.
The Carolingian Century
Authors: Hiley David
Published: November 2023

The events which led to the establishment of the chant repertory we know as ‘Gregorian’ are inextricably bound up with political developments of the eighth century, principally the establishment of a strong and extensive Frankish kingdom, which by the end of the reign of Charlemagne (768-814) covered an area roughly corresponding to that of modern France, West Germany, and north and central Italy.
Gregorian Chant and Other Chant Repertories
Authors: Hiley David
Published: November 2023

In this chapter I shall attempt to summarize the relationship of Gregorian chant to other types of early chant in the West, so that Gregorian chant itself may be understood in a rather broader context than would otherwise be possible. Something of the similarities and differences in liturgy between Roman, Milanese, Old Spanish (Mozarabic), and Gallican uses has been indicated in previous chapters (VI.4-5). Now the musical aspects of this relationship are sketched in.
British Folk Music
Authors: Merwe Peter Van Der
Published: November 2023

Lack of harmony. In general European folk music is non harmonic, at least as regards the older styles. There is a tradition of instrumental accompaniment in the south, and here and there one finds traces of ancient harmonic practices of a completely non-classical kind, in Iceland or Sardinia for instance. Whether such practices survived in Britain, and, if so, whether they had any influence on vocal harmonization in the United States, are interesting questions. The Copper family of Sussex is known for its two-part unaccompanied vocal harmonies, but this style gives a strong impression of being derived from eighteenth century glee singing. Apart from such isolated and problematical survivals, the only harmonic effect of any importance in British folk music is supplied by drones.
Some Fundamentals of African Music
Authors: Merwe Peter Van Der
Published: November 2023

This chapter pretends to be no more than an introduction to the fundamentals of African musical practice. Details of rhythm, melody, harmony, and form find their places later on; here, I am attempting merely to sketch in some of the attitudes, assumptions, and habits that shape those details. In dealing with such generalities, it seems permissible to use the words ‘Africa’ or ‘African’ without qualification, though, as the previous chapter should make clear, it is difficult to make a really foolproof generalization about African music. All I really claim is that my generalizations are true of that part of African music that influenced American practice.
Modality
Authors: Merwe Peter Van Der
Published: November 2023

One reads a great deal about something called the major-minor system of tonality, born c.1600, died c.1900, RIP. As regards popular music, at least, this obituary seems a little suspect. On the one hand, you could say that the major-minor system is still going strong; on the other, that it never really existed at all.
The Uniqueness of the Blues
Authors: Merwe Peter Van Der
Published: November 2023

To bring out the full confusion surrounding ‘the blues’, let us consider the progress of a hypothetical blues fan. To start with, he has read the dictionary definitions and the introductions to the subject in the jazz histories. From these he knows that the blues is melancholy, dejected, a song of lamentation, in a slow tempo; that it follows a certain harmonic pattern and a twelve-bar form, with plenty of ‘blue notes’; that it was invented by black Americans. It is true that, when he looks up the term ‘blue note’, he finds that some definitions describe it as a minor interval where a major one would be expected, and others as an interval between major and minor in pitch.
African Origins of the Blues
Authors: Merwe Peter Van Der
Published: November 2023

The African antecedents of the blues are just as mixed as common sense would suggest them to be. There are many parallels to individual features, but nowhere-to the best of my knowledge, but who knows what research may turn up tomorrow?-is there anything like the blues mode in its complete form. The notes may sometimes look the same, but when one examines them carefully the unique logic of blues modality is lacking. All the components of the blues mode are to be found somewhere in West Africa, but separately, awaiting assembly on American soil.
Blues Accompaniment
Authors: Merwe Peter Van Der
Published: November 2023

There are two African accompaniment techniques of special importance to Afro-American music. One is the familiar ostinato, in which a short phrase is repeated over and over again, with or without slight variation. The other, though less well known, seems to have been even more important in the development of the early blues. This is the ‘dialogue’ form of accompaniment, in which voice and instrument alternate, as in the African lament ‘Tukhong’ine tulauya’ (Ex. 37).
Parlour Harmony
Authors: Merwe Peter Van Der
Published: November 2023

The old libel about popular composers using the outworn cast-offs of their musical betters comes closest to the truth with harmony. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at any rate, popular harmony is usually an echo of what serious composers had been doing several decades before. The lush Romantic chromaticism of the years between 1830 and 1850 took half a century to reappear in the parlour ballads of the 80s and 90s, just as, in the next century, Impressionist harmonies turn up a few decades later in jazz.
The Early Years(1894-1911)
Authors: Smith Barry
Published: November 2023

In october 1894 the 75-year-old Queen Victoria had been on the throne for fifty-seven years and was no doubt still delighting in the fact that her bete noire Gladstone had been forced to resign as Prime Minister in March. She had once summed up her feelings about him in the famous remark: ‘He speaks to me as if I was a public meeting.’ Unadvised, the Queen and Empress had recently appointed Lord Rosebery as his successor and would, doubtless, not be amused to see his government collapse after only sixteen months. However, on the last Tuesday of October, the 30th, Her Majesty was temporarily unconcerned with matters of State. She had lunched with the Duke and Duchess of Fife during a late autumn visit to Balmoral and her thoughts were, no doubt, very much occupied with the condition of the dying Tsar of Russia, Alexander III.
Friendship With Delius (1911-1913)
Authors: Smith Barry
Published: November 2023

After the ecstasy of the Delius concert in June, his meeting with the composer, and their ensuing correspondence, Philip’s thoughts turned more and more towards a career in music. His mother was, however, determined that he should follow in the family footsteps and go to University to prepare either for a career on the Stock Exchange or in the Civil Service. Philip’s sojourn in Germany was therefore to be a kind of compromise: he would acquire the knowledge of another language, which would be useful in his future career, and at the same time he would be allowed to satisfy his urge to further his musical studies. So in October 1911 he set out for Cologne accompanied by his mother who, no doubt, wanted to see him happily settled in with his hosts, Professor and Frau Bussius. En route mother and son spent some time with Uncle Joe in Marlotte. Among Joseph Heseltine’s other visitors were the brother of Sir Leander Starr Jameson (of the famous 1895 raid in South Africa) and an American by the name of Thomas.
The Oxford Year (19I3-1914)
Authors: Smith Barry
Published: November 2023

A new chapter now opened in Philip’s life as he began the Michaelmas Term at Christ Church. During his year at Oxford he was assigned to room 4 (staircase 7) of the mid-Victorian Meadow Buildings, situated in an out-of-the-way comer off the main quad. His accommodation consisted of a large and well-furnished sittingroom, with plain, dark red wallpaper, a padded window seat, and a large ‘stoney-kind’ of fireplace, surmounted by a shelf and a large mirror, as well as a bedroom which he found ‘dark but roomy’. As these rooms were on the top floor and reached by a steep, stone spiral staircase, Philip was assured of a certain degree of privacy. Although the Morris motor works had opened the previous year in nearby Cowley, the peacefulness of pre-war Oxford had not yet been shattered, and from his window he would have had a rustic view towards the river across Christ Church meadow where cattle were and still continue to be grazed.
Return To London ( 1928-1930)
Authors: Smith Barry
Published: November 2023

As soon As Philip arrived back in Wales he knew instinctively that there was no way he could survive for any length of time in the stifling atmosphere of Cefn Bryntalch.
Introduction to the Compact Disc
Authors: Pohlmann Ken C
Published: November 2023

Let‘s try a conceptual experiment. From your conceptual seat in your conceptual concert hall, you lean forward in anticipation as the conceptual orchestra begins its conceptual performance of Beethoven‘s Tenth Symphony. (No, I‘m not conceptualizing; he really did start a tenth.) Your job is to write down all the information you hear. Ready? Begin! Whew! After only a few bars, you give up. Even writing down the score in musical notation is overwhelming, much less recording all the timbres, aesthetic considerations, hall acoustics, and so forth. We have to conclude that music is a surprisingly complex phenomenon; it is filled with information. To store it, we require a system which can deal with incredible amounts of information. It is not surprising that historically the latest and highest technology has always been utilized to make recordings, because only the best technology satisfies our current expectations of what a good recording should sound like. As higher technology was devised and pressed into service, our expectations were redefined. All of which brings us to the topic at hand: digital audio and the compact disc.
Practical Concerns
Authors: Pohlmann Ken C
Published: November 2023

All CD discs and players offer considerable advantages over other audio media. The specifications are great: flat response, low noise, low distortion over the entire audio frequency band, and absolute speed stability and accuracy. The operational features are great: small size, long playing time, timing and contents information, indexing, and programmability. The longevity is great: Discs are completely immune to damage from repeated playing and relatively impervious to handling damage. Still, as with any other product in the marketplace, there are good players and not so-good players, good discs, and not-so-good discs. Remember-a smart consumer is a retailer’s worst enemy.
Disc Manufacturing
Authors: Pohlmann Ken C
Published: November 2023

The compact disc has proved to be a technological wunderkind in the highly sophisticated and competitive field of music and data storage. Annual worldwide demand for CDs passed the 1 billion mark in 1991. Established injection molding factories are expanding, and new facilities are coming on-line. In this chapter we explore the CD manufacturing chain.
1907-1914
Authors: Kennedy Michael
Published: November 2023

With the completion of work on the English Hymnal and the resumption of composition, Vaughan Williams search- ingly re-examined his musical self. He found it difficult to study and ‘learnt almost entirely what I have learnt by trying it the dog’. One exercise of the kind Holst advocated he did employ: ‘One summer [1904] I retired for a month to a Yorkshire farmhouse with several classical scores and the themes of my own “compositions”. These themes I proceeded to treat and develop according to my classical models, choosing, of course, themes which more or less corresponded in structure. I found this a wonderful discipline, and I have passed it on to my pupils (I believe .Charles Wood used much the same method).…
The Sociological Response
Authors: Frith Simon
Published: November 2023

In Contingencies of Value, her book about high cultural evaluation, Barbara Herrnstein Smith suggests that “what we are doing in making an explicit judgment of a literary work is (a) articulating an estimate of how well that work will serve certain implicitly defined functions (b) for a specific implicitly defined audience (c) who are conceived of as experiencing the work under certain implicitly defined conditions.” This could equally well describe what’s going on in the judgment of pop songs or TV shows, shopping centers or newscasters, and it suggests a sociology of aesthetic discrimination:
Where Do Sounds Come From?
Authors: Frith Simon
Published: November 2023

Musical evaluation as I’ve discussed it so far seems inevitably to mean thinking backwards: first the experience, the music; then the judgment, the account of the music. Even everyday criticism frames the music discursively after the event, as it were. The question I want to ask now is this: what was the event? And the question concerns cognition as well as evaluation: we have to recognize something as something (noise as music; music as genre) before we know what to do with it, how to assess it. How does this cognitive process work? Even if we adopt Herrnstein Smith’s account of evaluation at its most functional—so that the question “is it good?” really means “is it good for something or somebody?”—there is still the question of what the “it” is.
Rhythm: Race, Sex, and the Body
Authors: Frith Simon
Published: November 2023

Everyone seems agreed, the music’s lovers and loathers alike, that rock and roll means sex; everyone assumes that this meaning comes with the beat. I don’t, and in this chapter I suggest that if rock does sometimes mean sex it is for sociological, not musicological reasons. (And besides, as the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ casual male chauvinism makes clear, in this context sex is an essentially sociological sort of thing, anyway.) Deliberately misreading the Chili’s point, then, I will start this chapter with the concept of fun.
Performance
Authors: Frith Simon
Published: November 2023

My argument in this book is not just that in listening to popular music we are listening to a performance, but, further, that “listening” itself is a performance: to understand how musical pleasure, meaning, and evaluation work, we have to understand how, as listeners, we perform the music for ourselves. In this chapter I want to explore in detail how pop performance works.
The Meaning of Music
Authors: Frith Simon
Published: November 2023

My argument in this book rests on a simple enough premise. As a sociologist I’m happy to assume that “meaning” can only be defined institutionally: the term describes not simply discursive conventions—agreements to agree—but regulated forms of social behavior. Arthur Danto’s philosophical point—“To see something as art requires something the eye cannot decry—an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld”—is the guiding principle of the sociology of culture too.
The Origins to 1800
Authors: Smallman Basil
Published: November 2023

BY comparison with the steadfast course of development charted by Haydn and his contemporaries for the string quartet during the second half of the eighteenth century, the progress of chamber music with obbligato keyboard appears, from a present-day standpoint at least, to have been slow and irresolute. By the early 1770s the string quartet had already gained (notably with Haydn’s Op. 17 and Op. 20 sets) many of the features which were eventually to mark its maturity, including four-movement structures, closely-wrought sonata schemes, and a large degree of instrumental parity. The keyboard chamber music of the period, on the other hand, though wide in range and large in quantity, usually involved only two or three movements, and, with many problems of texture and scoring still to be resolved, was often limited both in style and structure.
The Early Romantics
Authors: Smallman Basil
Published: November 2023

PROMINENT among the first contributors to the new keyboard ensemble repertoire were the Czech pianist-composer, Jan Ladislav Dussek, and his royal patron and sometime pupil, Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, a nephew of Frederick the Great. At the time of their first meeting, at Magdeburg in 1803, Dussek had already completed (probably in London in 1799) his Piano Quintet in F minor, a three-movement work comprising a sonata allegro, a slow movement in ternary form, and a rondo finale. The role of the strings—violin, viola, and cello, with an optional part for double bass—is largely accompanimental, though the violin is granted some melodic passages and there are a few short sections for the string ensemble alone, such as the simple opening idea of the slow movement. The piano, on the other hand, has a vivid concertante part, covering a range of nearly five and a half octaves, which was clearly designed to exploit the power and extended compass of the latest instruments of the period.
Mixed Ensembles
Authors: Smallman Basil
Published: November 2023

BEFORE the present century, compos1t1on for mixed chamber groups, with both wind and stringed instruments linked to the piano, was relatively little cultivated. Most fruitful of the available groupings was the trio—the one most precisely adapted to ‘three-sided’ scoring—which was preferred by leading composers to any of the larger ensembles. Its small, but eventually very impressive, repertoire includes the Trio for clarinet, viola, and piano, K. 498 of Mozart, and those in which a cello replaces the viola, by Beethoven (Op. u), and Brahms (Op. 114), together with the latter’s wonderfully effective Trio, Op. 40, for violin, horn, and piano. Combinations of greater size, usually quintets or septets, were more rarely employed, and then mainly by composers of the second rank, in works which display hybrid characteristics, often with chamber and concerto elements freely combined.
The programme chain
Authors: Borwick John
Published: November 2023

The making and marketing of a successful sound recording is so much a matter of team work that it can almost be likened to a relay race. Each member of a relay team needs to have the right talents, training, and attitudes, and to be on top form on the day. He is solely responsible for his own part of the race but must work hand in hand (almost literally) with his fellow team-mates at the point of handing over the baton. In the same way, the chain of ‘runners’ who carry a sound recording on its way from the original conception and performance to the consumer must apply a fine balance of skills and experience whilst the recording is in their hands. But they will do a better job—particularly at the hand-over points—if they understand the role of their colleagues throughout the entire programme chain.
Microphones
Authors: Borwick John
Published: November 2023

The programme chain as described in Chapter 1 begins with one or more microphones and ends with one or more loudspeakers (the usual number is two, suitably spaced to produce the stereo effect of musicians arranged more or less naturally across an arc). Microphones and loudspeakers belong to the large family of ‘transducers’, that is devices whose job it is to convert energy from one form to another.

The microphone converts acoustical energy into electrical energy, whilst the loudspeaker, interestingly enough, does the same job in reverse, converting electrical energy (supplied as an electric current) back into acoustical energy (radiated as sound waves). Other examples of reciprocal transducing devices are to be found in the recording/reproducing chain. A tape recording head, for example, converts electrical energy into magnetic energy, whilst a tape playback head does the reverse. (Indeed, a single head is used on the majority of cheaper domestic type machines, simply switched according to which function is required at the time.) A disc cutter converts electrical energy into mechanical vibration of the stylus, and leaves a ‘record’ of the sound waves etched into a groove in the master disc surface; the gramophone pickup stylus retraces this waveform, and its vibrations are used to generate an electric current. Again, the laser source which ‘cuts’ a track of digital pits on the photo-resist surface of a Compact Disc master converts electrical energy into light energy, whilst the lightsensitive device in a CD player, which receives the reflected laser beam, reverses the transducing process and converts light energy into a usable electric current.
The spoken word
Authors: Taylor (revised by Peter Wisbey) Derek
Published: November 2023

At the outset it should be said that all microphone balancing is an art or a technique, not a science. It is impossible to lay down hard-and-fast rules. If you say something must always (or never) be done, the next day some combination of programme requirement/studio acoustic/equipment characteristic will prove that the only practical solution is the exact opposite. The only criterion is: will it sound right to the listener? The only way of being sure is to try something and listen. This may take time, and this chapter is designed to help to obtain the desired result more quickly by using well-tried methods and avoiding some of the pitfalls. In practice the method adopted will be controlled to a large extent by the facilities and time (that is to say money) available.
The role of the producer
Authors: Wainman Phil
Published: November 2023

For many years, when a problem has arisen in the studio, I have often wished I could refer to an imaginary ‘Producer’s Handbook’ which had the answers to everything from machine breakdowns to people with similar ailments. Thus I see my chapter in this book as being perhaps more along the lines of a ‘Dr Spock of Record Production’, something that reflects my own experiences through the years, rather than a tome on the dos and don’ts of recording, mixing and cutting.
Disc cutting
Authors: Davies Sean
Published: November 2023

A disc-recording machine consists of a turntable, a screw shaft (the lead screw), and a carriage to which may be attached an electromechanical transducer (the cutter head). The leadscrew drives the carriage along a radius of the turntable, and a chisel-shaped tool (the cutting stylus) cuts a groove in the surface of a blank disc placed on the turntable (Plate 27). The turntable normally rotates at a constant speed, and, if the same is true of the leadscrew, then a spiral of constant spacing or pitch will be cut. In practice the leadscrew speed is not constant but is altered to produce a variable-pitch groove, for reasons which will be apparent later.