Music Performance Commons^™

La Guitare = The Guitar = La Chitarra, Paris, 1650-1950, Addendum, By Daniel Sinier And FrançOise De Ridder, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

La Guitare = The Guitar = La Chitarra, Paris, 1650-1950, Addendum, by Sinier, Daniel and Francoise de Ridder is reviewed.

New Voices In Old Bodies: A Study Of “Recycled” Musical Instruments With A Focus On The Hahn Collection In The Deutsches Museum, By Panagiotis Poulopoulos, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

New Voices in Old Bodies: A Study of "Recycled" Musical Instruments with a Focus on the Hahn Collection in the Deutsches Museum, album by Poulopoulos, Panagiotis is reviewed.

The Russian Guitar 1800-1850 (Timofeyev And Schneiderman), Stanley Yates

Soundboard Scholar

The Russian Guitar 1800-1850, album by Oleg Timofeyev and John Schneiderman is reviewed.

A Newly Discovered Letter Of 1827 By Fernando Sor, Erik Stenstadvold

Soundboard Scholar

This article discusses a hitherto unknown letter, written by Sor in Saint Petersburg in April 1827. It provides new insight into the publishing and personal relationship between Sor and his Paris publisher, Antoine Meissonnier, to whom the letter was addressed. We learn about three airs with variations Sor was busy composing at the time; he was particularly pleased with the variations Meissonnier later published as op. 30. The letter also mentions some unknown Sor works, including a book of drafts at Málaga, and it reveals that Meissonnier had published, without Sor’s knowledge, music that he had received from sources other …

Guitar Music In Collections: A New Web-Based Index Is Launched, Ellwood Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

Is there any really good way to locate specific pieces of guitar music within published collections and anthologies? Might there be already a best way? Anyone who has taught or studied classical guitar is familiar with collections like Das Gitarrespiel or the Noad anthologies. But it is hard to remember with accuracy which pieces are in which of these editions or in dozens of others like them. Library and trade catalogs are not of much help. What is needed for this problem is in-depth indexing rather than traditional cataloging. These print indexes of song anthologies and collections have more recently …

AndréS Segovia’S Unfinished Guitar Method: Placing His “Scales” In Historical Context, Andreas Stevens

Soundboard Scholar

For over sixty years, guitarists of my generation have been familiar with the so-called Segovia Scales—the systematic scale fingerings advocated by the Andalusian maestro. They have been an influential—some might say a definitive—bestseller since their first USA publication in 1953. Countless guitar students have incorporated them into their daily practice routines. For the publisher, Columbia Music, they seem to be the goose that laid the golden egg. Are they everything that Segovia wanted them to be? Two books of recent date on guitar technique attest to their enduring value and relevance. Thomas Offermann wrote in 2015: “The fingerings of the …

Sinfonia Concertante By Luigi Boccherini, Edited By Matanya Ophee, Richard Long

Soundboard Scholar

Sinfonia concertante (G. 523), by Boccherini, Luigi is reviewed.

Soundboard Scholar No. 2: Editor's Letter, Thomas Heck

Soundboard Scholar

An introduction to the contents of this issue.

Soundboard Scholar No. 2: Cover

Soundboard Scholar

The painting Home Ranch, by Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), executed in 1892, visually captures some of the atmosphere that must have prevailed in Henry Worrall’s frontier world. The singing guitarist has been identified as Franklin Schenck. Might he have been singing Home on the Range, first published in Kansas in 1873? His friend Samuel Murray sits on the right. Now part of the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Home Ranch was donated by the artist’s widow and by Miss Mary Adeline Williams in 1929. This reproduction is in the public domain, according to the Wikimedia Foundation. …

Soundboard Scholar No. 2 (Complete)

Soundboard Scholar

No abstract provided.

"Manuscripts And Medieval Song: Inscription, Performance, Context" By Helen Deeming And Elizabeth Leach, Timothy Mcgee

Performance Practice Review

Timothy McGee reviews and discusses Helen Deeming and Elizabeth Leach's 2015 work. Deeming, Helen and Elizabeth Leach. Manuscripts and Medieval Song: Inscription, Performance, Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. ISBN: 1107062632.

The Rhythm And Blues (R&B) Protest Songs Of The Civil Rights Movement: Outlining The Natural Alignment Between The Foundational R&B Recordings Artists And The African-American Church During The Movement, Michelee Jones

Masters Theses

This study examines the R&B protest songs performed during the Civil Rights Movement and outlines their stories and musical characteristics for the purposes of highlighting a natural alignment that existed between several of the R&B recording artists that laid the foundations of R&B music and the agendas of the African-American church during the Civil Rights Movement. This study includes lyric and music analyses of some of the more popular R&B songs released during the Civil Rights Movement between 1960-1968 in which these analyses are compared with one another to form some general themes as to how these songs outlined the …

Ten Etudes For Solo Cello By Sofia Gubaidulina, Julia A. Biber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sofia Gubaidulina is regarded as one of the most original and highly respected voices in contemporary music today. Her use of the Fibonacci and its related series to structure her compositions has become a defining feature of her music and, therefore, most analysis has focused on pieces that incorporate this method, which she calls “rhythm of form.” Consequently, works written prior to her adoption of this method have garnered much less analytical attention. However, in her earlier works­––from the late 1960s through the early 80s––Gubaidulina not only explores new sounds and colors, but also found creative ways to structure these …

Edwin Fischer And Bach Performance Practice Of The Weimar Republic, Bradley V. Brookshire

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Edwin Fischer (1886-1960) provided a synthesis of approaches to Bach pianism that resolved dialectical tensions of long standing between schools that opposed one another throughout the nineteenth century. I argue that Fischer’s synthesis––which permits exegetical interpretation while maintaining a preservationist stance toward the integrity of the text––resembles both Felix Mendelssohn’s bifurcated approach to Bach’s music and Moses Mendelssohn’s description of a similar duality within modern Judaism. Such resemblance may not be coincidental or superficial, given that Fischer married into the Mendelssohn family at the height of its cultural influence in Weimar-Era Berlin. Although pieces of the Mendelssohnian construct were in …

"Werke Für Klavier Zu Vier Händen" By Franz Schubert, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2013, Su Yin Mak

Performance Practice Review

Su Yin Mak discusses Bärenreiter's 2013 edition of Schubert's work.

Schubert, Franz. Werke für Klavier zu vier Händen, Band III, ed. Walburga Litschauer (Nos. 2-5) and Werner Aderhold (No. 1); Urtext of the New Schubert Edition, BA 9645. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2013.

ISMN: 9790006539871.

"Beyond The Score: Music As Performance" By Nicholas Cook, Aron Edidin

Performance Practice Review

Aron Edidin reviews and discusses Nicholas Cook's 2013 work. Cook, Nicholas. Beyond the Score: Music as Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0-19-935740-6.

Searching For Sounds: Instrumental Agency And Modularity In Electroacoustic Improvisation, Stephen (Red) Wierenga

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In their radical departure from conventional instrumental technique and standardized instruments themselves, the practices of electroacoustic improvisation present a particular challenge to prevalent Western concepts of musical instruments. These concepts—which generally treat instruments as fixed objects—are ill-equipped to account for the ways in which electroacoustic improvisers foreground the agency of their instruments and abandon the quest for “mastery” typical especially of classical attitudes. Additionally, electroacoustic improvisers often approach instruments not as singular, self-contained, and static in their materiality, but rather as modular instrumentaria capable of myriad states and ever in flux, similarly problematizing conventional conceptions that view the physical constitutions …

A Comparative History And The Importance Of Chamber Music, Aaron M. Sacks

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone presentation focuses on the role of chamber music in both social and academic contexts. Using examples from the past five centuries and including local examples, parallels and divergences are drawn to points of most import. The spotlight is upon three areas: a) what the role of chamber music was in the past, compared to today; b) why it is an important genre, to both musicians, as well as non-musicians, and c) in what ways more exposure to the form can be built. Much of the focus is on composers and their influence, but the impact of and upon …

Choral Theatre, Albert Joseph Wolfe Jr.

Dissertations

Jamaica gained its independence from Great Britain in 1962, after some 300 years of colonization. Prior to Independence, the standard arts education curriculum was decidedly British and Western European. That which was labeled Caribbean or Jamaican “folk” by the British was deemed inferior and was not taught, demonstrated, or performed in formal settings. Thus, generations of Jamaicans never observed or imagined a Caribbean aesthetic in the visual and performing arts. Instead, pre-Independence Jamaicans were taught British and Western European music and performed it the “British” way.

Today, Jamaicans boast a number of artistic developments that are instantly recognized across the …

Exploring The Life And Music Of Percy Grainger Through Transcription, Francisco Javier D. De Alba

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this lecture recital was to demonstrate how Percy Grainger’s life affected his compositional works and arrangements, as well as the stylistic choices made in my transcriptions of his music. This was achieved through a discussion of the different occupations that Percy Grainger had throughout his life, such as a pianist, composer, and ethnomusicologist. In addition, the lecture included an analysis of five pieces by Percy Grainger: Country Gardens, Eastern Intermezzo, Mock Morris, Spoon River, and Handel in the Strand. Transcriptions of these pieces were performed and comparisons were made to Percy Grainger’s original scores.

The Evolution Of The Clarinet And Its Effect On Compositions Written For The Instrument, Victoria A. Hargrove

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this lecture recital was to reflect upon the rapid mechanical progression of the clarinet, a fairly new instrument to the musical world and how these quick changes effected the way composers were writing music for the instrument. There are many factors to the contribution of the clarinet repertoire in which some are explored in the following research. This research revealed that the evolution of the clarinet depended on many individuals both composers, performers, and instrument makers alike.

Cello Technique: A Result Of Cello Construction And Its Effect On Virtuosic Playing In The Works Of Dvořák And Pärt, Mineo P. Yasutake Mr.

Music: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Mozart’S Concerto For Piano And Orchestra In B-Flat Major, K. 450: A Performance And Formal Analysis, Yihao Zhou

Music Honors Projects

An examination of the formal designs of the three movements that comprise Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in B-Flat Major, K. 450, this thesis, along with a performance of the work (April 16, 2016), completes my Honors Project in the Macalester College Music Department. Drawing connections with standard musical forms that had been developed by the late eighteenth century, the formal analysis of K. 450, through a hermeneutic approach, offers a way of understanding the formal aspects of the three concerto movements. Particularly, it reveals that this concerto simultaneously presents the distinction of an individual in the …

Program Notes And Translations, Kelly Frailly

Honors Projects

This project consists of program notes about sixteen pieces of music that I publically performed on April 10th, 2016. These notes are comprised of research done about each piece on the program, its composer, the history of the era in which the song or aria was composed, and an analysis of the text. The pieces ranged from Baroque operatic arias all the way to twenty-first century musical theater works. I have also included translations of all of the foreign language pieces.

Breakdown: Vol 1: Text And Music, A Survey Of Methodology And Process, Vol 2: In Full Score., Andrew Synnott

Doctoral

The work presented here is in two parts. The first part is an opera composed to a libretto by the Irish playwright, John Breen. This opera is in three acts and concerns the performance of four famous performance art pieces; Rhythm 0 by Marina Abramović, Breakdown by Michael Landy, Velocity Piece by Barry La Va and How To Explain Pictures To a Dead Hare by Joseph Beuys. These art works are presented as the action of the opera and happen concurrently on the stage during the first two acts. The third act reflects on the action of acts one and …

The Gĩkũyũ Mũtũrĩrũ: Preserving A Piece Of Kenya's Agrarian Past Through Flute Music, Jennifer Larue

Masters Theses

The Agĩkũyũ people of Kenya are one of the largest people groups in Kenya. However, systematic repression of Gĩkũyũ culture led to many traditional elements being forgotten, put aside, if not lost completely. The mũtũrĩrũ, a bark flute used when herding and in certain ritual dances, was one such element. The mũtũrĩrũ was initially a temporary instrument, which evolved into more permanent bamboo versions. These may have between two and six finger holes. Another version, called a "spider web mũtũrĩrũ" has no finger holes but has a paper membrane over one end to create a buzzing timbre effect. Research was …

Missa Yielu: Music In The Dagara Mass, Karin Rau

Masters Theses

This paper explores the music of Dagara Masses in Ghana. The Dagara people are defined and described according to the geography of their land and linguistic dialects spoken in the region. A discussion of cultural indicators highlights traditional occupations, family structure, and social practices. Dagara musical practices are outlined by function and include descriptions of instruments and how they are played. Examination of indigenous religious beliefs describe the behaviors, values, and symbols that permeate Dagara life. A summary of the Dagara's encounter with Christianity sets the scene for present-day celebrations of the Mass. Through observation and interview, research was conducted …

Frederick May Songs, Mark Fitzgerald

Compositions/Arrangements

This volume gathers together Frederick May's surviving songs in a new performing edition with a commentary by the editor. Individual string parts for the Four Romantic Songs are available from the editor.

Henry Worrall (1825–1902): Anglo-American Guitarist, Robert Ferguson

Soundboard Scholar

Anglo-American guitarist Henry Worrall appeared on the American scene just as the guitar reached a plateau of popularity. As vital as the guitar itself, the prevailing social, philosophical, and aesthetic tenets of Worrall's era also wove a unifying thread through his life, career, and oeuvre. His immersion in both the graphic and musical arts; his straddling of vernacular and high culture; his connection to nature and especially agriculture; his nationalist and regionalist sympathies; and his fondness for folk, popular, and heroic musical themes all drew from and evinced a Romantic worldview. Here, Ferguson discusses Worrall's professional life.

Return With Us Now... Featured Facsimile: Henry Worrall’S Spanish Retreat, Robert Ferguson

Soundboard Scholar

Ferguson examines Henry Worrall's Spanish Retreat. Its origins go back to London, specifically to two guitar prints published there in the mid-1820s. Though the earliest of these (c.1826) states that the piece was "arranged for guitar" by Alexander Sosson, this does not necessarily indicate that it was originally written for a different instrument, such as piano. "Arranged" could mean the piece was already in circulation among guitarists, or another guitarist created or popularized it, and Sosson merely reworked it (and wrote it down). Moreover, imitating other instruments, at which the guitar proved particularly adroit, constituted the essence and charm of …