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Full-Text Articles in Musicology
Soundboard Scholar No. 2: Editor's Letter, Thomas Heck
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 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)
The Life And Times Of Josef Kaspar Mertz: New Biographical Insights, Andreas Stevens
The Life And Times Of Josef Kaspar Mertz: New Biographical Insights, Andreas Stevens
Soundboard Scholar
Stevens examines the biographical information about the German Romantic-era guitarist Josef Kaspar Mertz.The first one, authored in Russian by Nicolai Makaroff, became the best known because it has been available in English. By today's standards, Makaroff's recollections of the guitar's situation in the middle of the nineteenth century seem deeply subjective. Ever on the lookout for active exponents of the art of guitar playing, he met Mertz twice in Vienna and witnessed several private performances by Mertz. For better or for worse, his less-than-enthusiastic assessment of Mertz's playing has been taken at face value for perhaps too long, especially since …
Giuliani’S Naples: A Walking Tour, Nicoletta Confalone, Grégory Leclair
Giuliani’S Naples: A Walking Tour, Nicoletta Confalone, Grégory Leclair
Soundboard Scholar
With 430,000 inhabitants in 1800, Naples had become the third most populous European city after London and Paris. The excavation of the site of Pompeii in the eighteenth century gave a special prestige to the city. Its newly unearthed antiquities and frescoes led to a vogue of neoclassicism across the arts. Images of ancient Greek and Roman lyres inspired the creation of the lyre-guitar, an instrument on which Mauro Giuliani performed on various occasions in Naples--probably more for its visual effect than for audibility's sake.
The Guitar In Tudor England: A Social And Musical History, By Christopher Page, Richard Long
The Guitar In Tudor England: A Social And Musical History, By Christopher Page, Richard Long
Soundboard Scholar
Long reviews The Guitar in Tudor England: A Social and Musical History by Christopher Page.
Henry Worrall (1825–1902): Anglo-American Guitarist, Robert Ferguson
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.
German Romantic Guitar Duets (Schneiderman, Yamaya), Richard Long
German Romantic Guitar Duets (Schneiderman, Yamaya), Richard Long
Soundboard Scholar
Long reviews Darr's German Romantic Guitar Duets by John Schneiderman and Hideki Yamaya.
Return With Us Now... Featured Facsimile: Henry Worrall’S Spanish Retreat, Robert Ferguson
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 …