Music Library Reading Room Notes

Home , Earl Gardner (musician), James Harley, Roger Reynolds, Start Something, UPIC

Issue no.4 & 5 (2001-20)

University Libraries The University of the Arts

Compiled by the Music Library Staff Mark Germer: Music Librarian Lars Halle & Aaron Meicht: Circulation Supervisors

The Origins and Development of Jazz at UArts: p.2 Conversations with School of Music Faculty

Who’s Afraid of the Big Band Wolf? p.9

CCMIX 2001-02 p.11

In Retrospect p.14

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, p.16 2nd Edition: A Review

The University of the Arts . 320 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19102 http://www.uarts.edu University Libraries: http://library.uarts.edu The Origins and Development of Jazz at UArts: Conversations with School of Music Faculty by Music Library Staff

On four different occasions between May were students already playing jazz. We and November 2002, the Music Library were always trying to start something. I staff asked individual members of the full- had experience in starting big bands from time music faculty to reminisce about the when I was a junior in high school. There development of jazz performance and was a University of Pennsylvania gradu- instruction in the School of Music. The ate [student] named Jimmy DePreist [now same questions were put to Profs. Evan well-known as an orchestra conductor] Solot, Ron Kerber, Bill Zaccagni, and Marc who was also a drummer. When I was Dicciani, although our conversations were in high school I called him, and he said separate, and the responses naturally em- he would get together a youth band if we phasized different areas of interest. Here would take care of auditioning. We put up we have compiled their answers, editing notices in all the high schools around the them for concision and clarity. Also we city and set up auditions. Vince Trombet- have spelled out abbreviated titles, cor- ta played in that band. So, when I came rected a few names without comment, to PMA, I worked toward two degrees, a and reconciled conflicting dates when we music education degree with a trumpet could identify them. Throughout we have major and an applied music degree with tried to preserve the informal tone of the a composition major. I was studying com- conversations. position with [Professor] Joseph Castaldo. During my senior year we talked him into letting us have a big band for no credit We asked about the early years. under the guidance of a faculty member, MD: More than anybody, Evan Solot is Peter Lewis, a theory teacher who played the single person credited with champion- some jazz piano. ing the jazz program. And championing is probably a suitable descriptor because during those years there was a great sen- MD: When I was in high school one of timent against such things. There was a the best jazz festivals in the country was lot of resistance to it early on, mostly philo- held nearby at Villanova [University]. I sophical, not so much budgetary. Certain- went out there on two occasions to hear ly in those days jazz was not a respected the PMA Big Band play, and they won area of conservatory study. the festival [competition]. They also had a small group; Mike Pedicin, Evan, Jimmy Paxson, Stanley Clarke, Sunnie Paxson ES: I came to the Philadelphia Musical and maybe a few other students also Academy as a student during the years played. But that was a student-organized 1962 through 1967. When I was a student thing. They won the festival competition there was some jazz but it was not officially for small group too, and that was a pretty recognized by the school. The saxophon- prestigious thing. They had also gone to ist Vince Trombetta and the trumpet player the Glassboro Jazz Festival. I knew of the Mike Natale were both at the school. They PMA Big Band because I was keenly interested in coming to the School; my teacher, imprimatur from the School, as in the of- Paul Patterson, was also the teacher of ficial name Philadelphia Musical Academy Jimmy Paxson, in those days a legend. Festival Band. They were playing and re- [University of] Notre Dame at that point hearsing, but they weren’t going out and hosted the “finals” of college jazz festivals. representing the school and they wanted It was one of the most important [competi- to. 1967 was the year that they asked for tions] in the country and the PMA Big Band and got the official “ok” from the School went there a couple of times. to use the name. Joseph Castaldo, who was president during those years, was first and foremost a composer and didn’t really BZ: I knew Evan Solot from when I was have anything against jazz. He liked Evan a in high school. Evan studied trumpet with lot and he liked the people who were play- my high school band director who was ing and teaching jazz. So he kind of took on faculty at PMA--Tony Marchione--and up the charge a little bit and allowed it to Evan used to write arrangements for our grow. high school jazz band.

BZ: I was still in college at Temple Uni- We then asked how the program began to versity at the time. In 1967 they didn’t take formal shape. have a saxophone major at PMA. It wasn’t until the next year that Vince Trombetta started the saxophone major. Until then, if ES: The year after I graduated, Castaldo students wanted to play saxophone they decided to experiment and offer the Big would come in as clarinet majors with a Band for credit. I was teaching in the Phila- saxophone minor. There were few college delphia Public Schools, and came down jazz programs around at that point; basi- here two afternoons a week and rehearsed cally, North Texas State [University] had a the band offered for credit for the first time. program since 1947--they had the “Dance Well, what happened was that we had all Band” major, as it was called--and Berk- this success in the first year, with maga- lee [College of Music] was already in ex- zines writing about and praising our great istence. As far as I know there were not band! Castaldo was looking for a worthy many schools of music trying to build any pursuit as another extension of getting the kind of jazz program. I was envious, be- school’s name “out there” and attracting ing at Temple, because we were barely al- people. lowed to say the word [jazz] there.

MD:The band was pretty famous then, RK: Vince Trombetta’s background was and they brought a lot of notoriety to the “classical”, but he was a great jazz musi- School, not all of which was well received cian and commercial musician, so when by the rest of the faculty. Some of them he started the sax major it was an “Ameri- were becoming concerned that PMA was can Saxophone” major as opposed to a becoming known as a school that pro- classical or jazz major. You learned how to moted or condoned this “jazz” thing. This play saxophone and woodwinds in order is the time that the festival we are now to make a living. I started as a student here planning is designed to commemorate. in the fall of 1975. But I’d made my mind So, 35 years ago the students had a band, up in ninth grade that I wanted to be part of but what they wanted to have was the that. The faculty always had a reputation, and it still does: those are the guys who the benefit of the students. Just being in are playing. The guys who are teaching that stimulating environment was some- are also the guys performing throughout thing you can’t get from a recording or a the area. At least in terms of jazz and score or a book. commercial music. This was a place that there was a lot of buzz about. It was the place where there were ensembles per- RK: There was a division. There is still a forming really good jazz, and where the division. As open-minded as this school teachers were good jazz musicians. was, there was a division that often hap- pens when people are fearful of their own territory. There was a jazz snobbery, and ES: There was even a time when we what I would call a “classical” snobbery had three big bands and lots of small that existed in the mid ‘70s and later. There groups. And the thing that was differ- were so-called “legitters” and “jazzers”, ent then--that I miss--is that the same but there were also good musicians who people who played in the Big Band also crossed over, playing in both jazz groups played in the orchestra, and that was and in new music ensembles and in the such a wonderful thing to have. It was orchestra. so much richer. In those days there were more people, say woodwind players, who were more interested in being “doublers” As the program continued to evolve, local than they are today, because they could interest from outside the School grew. make a living in the theater. I remember a saxophone player named Alfie Williams-- he later played with Mongo Santamaria- BZ: I left school and went on the road -who also played flute and bassoon. The for a year with a bus-and-truck-tour classical teachers who were sensitive to Broadway show called Promises, Prom- jazz--such as Adeline Tomassone, a flute ises. I came back and led the Big Band at player--taught a lot of jazz performance Temple University for one year, for no pay, majors. So, for instance, I could write for in 1972-73. Jim Herbert was the guy who four flutes and bassoon in the sax sec- had been in charge of it. I wound up con- tion and know that they were going to ducting the band and writing for it. We had be played by people who were seriously a great trumpet section: Earl Gardner, Stu studying those instruments. Satalof, Rick Kerber, Jeff Jarvis, and Kevin Rogers.

MD: We were known at one point as a school that really taught and embraced ES: I remember hearing Bill’s band at all kinds of contemporary music. Andrew Temple for the first time. They blew me Rudin, Castaldo, Theodore Antoniou, away--how good that Temple band was. going all the way back to Vincent Persi- I was just really impressed with what he chetti: all of those people were obviously was doing. very “pro 20th century”. Their focus was not conservative. Even when we had the orchestra it was programming some BZ: In the mid ‘70s Evan called me and pretty novel pieces. There were always asked me to come in and sub for a guy “two different kinds of mindsets” coexist- named John Davis, who was on faculty, ing, maybe uncomfortably, but I think to with the third big band. As a matter of fact, Mike Quaile, who is now on the faculty, place to rehearse. was the guitar player in that band. I was eventually hired in 1979, when [Dean] Clem Petrillo was still head of the school, MD: I remember playing on the roof one to lead the Big Band and to teach Jazz day [at 313] in December when it started History. I was not [yet] a saxophone to snow flurry. I brought a snare drum up teacher. and was playing with brushes and Stanley Clarke was playing bass. Allen Golden- berg brought his alto [saxophone] up and We were curious about rehearsal facili- the three of us were playing on the roof ties. because we weren’t allowed to go into a practice room and play jazz. MD: We rehearsed in the 313 S. Broad St. building, which no longer exists. On ES: I have an early recollection of the the second floor there was a big rehears- first time we asked for a jazz group to play al room. In those early days there was in Performance Hour--the equivalent of only one drum set--which wasn’t even what we now call First Wednesday. It was four pieces of the same set--that we had a weekly thing. It was a chance for people to take out of the closet to play and then to play in front of their peers, and the first put back. Outside of when the ensemble instance of jazz at the school, officially, was rehearsing we weren’t allowed to was a jazz group playing [in] Performance play the drums. There was no drum set Hour and [then assistant dean, and origi- in any practice room. nal PMA president] Maria Ezerman-Drake rang the fire alarm--emptied the whole school onto the street. She didn’t want to RK: I have fond memories of also re- hear that music in the School. hearsing in a [former] carriage house be- hind the music building [313]. It’s where Evan’s office was and it’s where the jazz A full curriculum slowly started to gel, be- bands rehearsed. It was a carriage house ginning with the ensembles as a locus of for [what had been] a hotel. It was ba- jazz education. sically a big garage, and it was the jazz “getaway.” MD: Initially the only jazz opportunity [for- mally] was to play in the big band; then af- ES: We rehearsed there because it ter some years there came to be a second was a separate building and the noise big band. That was a period when maybe didn’t bother anybody else. At one point jazz wasn’t yet so worthy of study at a very we also rehearsed in the basement of deep level in a university setting. I think the 313, and when you turned the lights on way that we’ve promoted or grown the jazz the roaches would all scatter. program today makes a lot of sense now. I don’t know how much sense it would have made to have had a full-blown jazz pro- BZ: When I first came on we were in gram in a college or university setting in 313, Music Library and all. We rehearsed those days. We started with just the [Big] in the basement which had no air con- Band, and I think by the time I was a junior ditioning and no heat, and every time it they offered a jazz history class and a jazz rained the rugs got moldy. It was a brutal arranging class. Evan taught them both. est to put more things together and get a whole four-year jazz program. So the Jazz Emphasis billowed out and became a Jazz ES: When I became a full-time faculty Major. Many of the best former students member in 1970-71, Larry McKenna and were asked to stay on as teachers: Ron Mike Natale taught jazz improvisation. I Kerber, Tony Salicondro, Dennis Wasko, taught a jazz history course the first time Edward Simon, Marc Dicciani; and later soon after that. Steve Beskrone, Sam Dockery, Tony Miceli and Chris Farr. BZ: There were some supplemental theory and composition courses that had BZ: George Akerley was here as a stu- a jazz slant to them. dent and played piano in Evan’s band. He was comfortable doing anything, from fig- ured bass on the harpsichord to Moog syn- ES: We started adding courses and thesizers. George wound up on the faculty got to the point where we put enough here. The trombonist Robin Eubanks also courses together to have what we called comes to mind as a former student who is Jazz Emphasis, which was a two-year comfortable in a lot of different idioms. program.

RK: By the time I graduated it was a MD: The first year we had a Jazz Em- foregone conclusion that a jazz major was phasis was 1976. There were more cours- going to happen. It’s what the School ex- es and it was ok to take lessons with a celled at. The classical programs had great teacher who also played jazz, and you teachers and great musicians, but in an could take those lessons as part of your age of specialization, our students weren’t instrument major. People like Bob DiNar- graduating and playing in major symphonic do and Vince Trombetta were jazz play- orchestras. If you were going to specialize ers, though they were classically trained, in that, there were other places to go. But and they were teaching “classical” music the players who were coming out of this as well, but they were allowed to incorpo- School were in the commercial world. You rate more jazz into their lessons. But you could look around in any pit orchestra and still couldn’t be a jazz major, and the jury see the musicians were trained at PMA/ requirements were all classically based. PCPA. And many of the people who were going to be performing in the commercial BZ: We started to move towards a jazz world were graduating from this School. major in the early-to-mid ‘80s. And at that point some people came on specifically BZ: To this day--and this is no exagger- to teach drum set. Joe Nero came in to ation--any gig I go on, fifty to seventy-five teach drums and percussion. Domenick percent of the orchestra or band has an Fiore came on to teach bass. Ed Flana- association with this School. gan, who is now the head of the [jazz] program at Temple, was on the guitar faculty here.

ES: There seemed to be enough inter- The School endured some difficult jazz faculty, Don Chittum was always the times. one who had the most open of minds, and just wanted to nurture people in any way that they needed to be nurtured. When he RK: By the time I was a student in the was director, he took that to the next level. mid ‘70s, there were 35-36 saxophone When Marc Dicciani took over as direc- majors at a very small school. And I think tor, he had some very difficult [economic] this is interesting historically: by the early decisions to make. Sleepless nights. That ‘80s it was “broken”. For various reasons whole period was difficult. But I really think the school was broken, and at a low that the problem turned into an opportu- point, in many ways, I think. And it didn’t nity. have the identity it once had. The energy wasn’t there, the spark wasn’t there. But by the mid ‘80s there was what I would MD: When we had to let go of the or- call the “second generation” of the jazz chestral programs, we all considered it a program. We got very serious about re- loss because of how much both popula- cruitment. It was really a lot of the will [on tions really benefited from each other. the part] of the faculty to go out to different high schools and festivals for recruit- ment, trying to bring in a better level of We asked how the jazz program today student, and also trying to raise the bar continues to evolve. while they were here. And by the early ‘90s there were thirty-some saxophone majors again, and the same thing was BZ: There have been some very crucial happening with guitar and percussion. and very basic changes to the program, as we keep trying to make sure we’re on the same page. Now, as the curriculum BZ: We [the jazz faculty] were trying has developed we’ve been able to make to go out and perform as much as we adjustments and move at our own pace. could, to make that impact, and to make I’d like to believe we can get away from the connections. We also had former referring to courses as having a “jazz” pre- students, now going out and teaching fix in front of them. We are who we are at or working with jazz bands in the local this point. The educational values are still schools, or getting full-time jobs in area there. school districts.

MD: We’re trying to help people to become MD: As the director, Castaldo was us- educated and trained in music, but also to ing a different prism to try to understand be educated and trained in a larger con- what was going on. There was a discon- text. We’ve made curricular changes, and nect with respect to jazz. But he was al- we’re not done making curricular changes, ways supportive of the jazz program and to try to create this balance of skills. We he was a really great guy. I think the pro- are training people who are going to go gram was in place by the time Don Chit- out and, for the rest of their lives, work in tum came in as director. music, so we need to give them those basic skills. We’ve enhanced those skills, but in so doing we’ve tried to put more critical RK: Although you may not consider him thought into the individual training process. If you look at where we are now, we’re in BZ: It’s important to remember that this continuum of redefining what a mu- there’s nothing wrong with a traditional sic school should do, what our social re- approach, with paying tribute to what has sponsibilities are. When I look at the jazz happened in keeping the music alive. But, program now, I don’t want to separate you have to be careful that the message it from music education--I don’t want to you’re sending is not that we have to go separate it from a university education. back and do this over again. When tradi- One of the foremost things we are trying tionalism becomes the main focus, that is to do is produce critical thinkers who can a problem. assimilate into society and be successful. MD: The arts require encouraging our students to take risks. Being conservative BZ: The real question is, “Why is a jazz and traditional is not our mission, was not program necessary?” What does it offer? our mission before, but especially not now I think [jazz] has become a huge umbrella in a university setting. If that were our goal, that covers many styles. then we’d better change our name to A University of Some of the Arts. I don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. MD: We are really talking about support- We’re The University of the Arts--what a ing the individual, letting people think dif- bold name that is--and we’d better live up ferently, providing opportunities for them to our name. to find out not only what kind of music they want to make, but also what kind of people they want to be. Only three-quarters of our students’ studies are in music; inside of the understanding and analysis of music [that this part of their curriculum offers] is also an understanding and analysis of the individual. A jazz program can help build the inner voice, build individual confidence, through improvisation, composition, musical creativity.

There are a lot of fundamental differences between ours and an orchestral training program, but the basis for the difference really is that we use, as a body of information, literature--to form technique and all the elements of control on your instrument and development and style and interpretation and theory and eartraining and composition and form and analysis- -we use, instead of the European tradition, a hundred years of a jazz tradition as the foundation. Who’s Afraid of the Big Band Wolf?

by Lars Halle

I was eleven years old when I first Granted, my ambitions have decided that I wanted to write big band changed over the years, as I grew to real- music. I had been studying drums for a ize that I had the ability to develop these year, and my teacher had been the drum- skills into a considerable part of my musi- mer with the local big band since its start cal career. Having built a library of arrange- in 1968. I started to tag along to rehearsals ments and compositions, I decided to put and as soon as I saw the process, I knew I together a big band of my own. Since its wanted to be a part of it. I can’t explain why first rehearsal in 2000 the Lars Halle Jazz I knew. It was just an inherent recognition- Orchestra has achieved a sound that is -as if it were meant to be. I didn’t just want definitively its own--an extension of the to play--I wanted to be responsible for the music on the page. And having the talent entire entity of sound. I wanted to have made available to me, I have been able control over the sounds that the instru- to expand my horizons and develop my ments would produce, and that the audi- musical ideas particularly for the band, ence would perceive. So, I started to write. but simultaneously pushing the band to But, at eleven years old I had a lot to learn, new limits and new sounds. While the and no experience to act as a foundation. musicians in the band are showcased as My first attempts were sonic fiascos, but soloists, as well as part of the ensemble, with the support of the band and a fire in these compositions become the ultimate my belly, I set out to fix my errors and keep solo performance for the writer. Making trying. Years later, writing for big band has music is something that I, as a person, become part of my identity. Whether I am cannot fathom being without, unless I arranging a popular standard or compos- settled for a miserable and utterly pointing my own big band creation, I take pride less life. I have chosen the big band as a in that part of my musical soul is affect- medium because I feel that I can express ing not only the musicians in performance, myself most effectively through that par- but also the audience. And it is particularly ticular ensemble. gratifying to realize how the music has pro- foundly affected the audience, whether on a deeper level, or just on the surface. I am In the spring of 2002 I stepped into often approached by listeners, acquainted the commercial world of big band writing or not, who express their experiences with by joining the long list of arrangers and my music, and though I have no particular composers published by Kendor Music. impact in mind while composing, I find it My first published composition, Switch- interesting and enlightening to see how it ing Gears, hit high school music stands may have inspired someone. There is no last summer and have led to the approval greater reward to a composer than having of a second composition, Sonidos de la brightened someone’s day with a compo- Calle, coming out this spring. Now, writ- sition, even if just for a moment. ing for the high school ensemble proves to be a challenge if you have gotten used to a nearly flawless ensemble whose musicians have virtuostic abilities and tional American sound, while the ensem- exceptional sightreading skills. Writing ble writing is as strong as the playing. At “easier” music has inherently changed times, the lack of a bass trombone cheats my writing as a whole, perhaps trying the band’s sonic girth in places where per- to find a common ground between the haps one were intended, although some two extremes. But my aesthetic reasons compensation is found in Gary Smulyan’s for writing have not changed, and I feel baritone saxophone, which fills the bottom that no matter what I produce, there is of the band with groundshaking low notes. without question a part of me in the final Though only in existence for a short period product. And whereas some might scorn of time, the Dave Holland Big Band plays a composer for writing music for “enter- like a group that has taken years to co- tainment,” I feel that if people walk away here. Holland fans and big band fans alike having been touched by my music--call will find this recording a rejuvenating and it entertainment, enlightenment, therapy, rewarding listening experience. philosophy, spirituality, or just plain listening joy--that’s alright with me. Satoko Fujii Orchestra. Jo. (CD3362) Lars reviews two Big Band sound re- This recording immediately kicks off with cordings recently acquired by the Music the title work, which at once commands Library the attention of every listener, as it clearly captured that of the players. The writing is very dense and complex and utilizes the Dave Holland Big Band. What Goes band’s musicians to their utmost abilities. Around. (CD4165) Though there are some “cameos” of tradi- tionalism, this listening experience thrives The first thing that struck me upon listen- on the intensity of the collective improvisa- ing to the Dave Holland Big Band was tions and free spirit of the ensemble play- the uncanny ability of the ensemble to ing. Dense and daring harmonies create balance the sound of a big band and a sheets of sound which become release small group, because you get the feel- points for creative improvisations, whether ing that you are listening to both simul- collective or more soloistic. Though the taneously. Much of this, of course, must composing seems to play the main role be credited to the togetherness of the here, there are times when one wishes that rhythm section which is yanked out of the improvisations were permitted further Holland’s preexisting quintet which has development. That said, pianist Satoko issued several recordings previously. Fujii has been unusually successful in bal- The other two members of the quintet, ancing the compositional and improvisa- saxophonist Chris Potter and the for- tional aspects of a project of this size, and mer UArts student Robin Eubanks, have she never fails to ensnare your ears’ and taken spots in the somewhat downsized mind’s attention. The trumpeter Natsuki big band horn sections. The 13-piece Tamura incorporates incidental comic re- band is brimming with outstanding solo- lief in his two compositional contributions, ists, and this recording does not fail to perhaps in a conscious attempt to startle relish their individual talents, though it the listener back to “reality” from the argu- could have easily focused the spotlight ably sinister and dark-spirited, yet enticing on chosen players. The recording is a journeys this recording makes. nice balance between European influence, more modern sound and a tradi- CCMIX 2001-02

by Aaron Meicht

Le Centre de Creation Musicale Ian- ers Julio Estrada, Jean-Claude Risset, nis Xenakis (CCMIX) is a center for new Agostino DiScipio and Trevor Wishart, music founded by the composer Iannis the musicologist Harry Halbreich, and the Xenakis in 1985. The studio is located in computer music gurus Carla Scaletti and Paris, France. At first the studio, formerly Curtis Roads. called Les Ateliers UPIC, was given the task of promoting the research pursued at the CEMAMu, (Centre des Etudes Mathe- This course of study has as its aim matiques Automatiques Musicales), nota- the exploration of the nature of sound- bly the UPIC system (Unite Polyagogique based composition, that is, an approach Informatique du CEMAMu), which is a sys- to musical composition that takes sound tem that can translate graphic notation into itself as its very material. In the consid- soundwaves. CCMIX has since enlarged eration of these topics, we followed Ian- its field of activities to include work on new nis Xenakis’ advice that composers who music not exclusivly connected with the want to follow this path must not limit CEMAMu. themselves to a knowledge of music, but rather immerse themselves also in such topics as morphology or psychology, for Since its founding, many reknowned example, in pursuit of the creative goal. composers have created works in the In addition to readings, lectures, and dis- UPIC studios, among them, Iannis Xena- cussions, different studio tools were intro- kis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luc Ferrari, duced and nine hours of individual weekly Paul Mefano, Tristan Murail, Brigitte Rob- studio time were accorded. I worked ex- indore, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Yuji Takahashi, tensively with the UPIC system as well as Roger Reynolds, and Horacio Vaggione. with the fantastic real-time transformation programs in the Kyma System. CCMIX is also dedicated to the development of young composers. I was I returned to Philadelphia inspired awarded a scholarship from the French by my experience at CCMIX. In particular, Ministry of Culture and invited to attend I found Jean-Claude Risset’s and Curtis the eight month course of lectures, read- Roads’ views on the history of electronic ings, workshops and studio composition music enlightening. Also, Gerard Pape’s from October 2001 to May 2002. rigorous tour through the pages of the book Formalised Music by Xenakis gave me new insights into music. But, I think Overseeing the program and teach- I was most impressed with the Mexican ing some of the courses was Gerard Pape, composer Julio Estrada’s theories on the CCMIX director and one of the most what he called the “musical imaginary”. original composers in the world today. Estrada attempts to tap directly into the Guest professors included the compos- sub-conscious and compose in the un- influenced world of the mind. By break- Pape, Gerard. “Iannis Xenakis and the ing away from musical references and ‘Real’ of Musical Composition.” Computer limitations of instrumentation, pitch and Music Journal. (ML1379 .C85 v.26 2002) rhythm, for example, a composer can truly be original. Estrada then created a In this article Pape delivers a personal multidimensional graphic description of piece about the influence that Xenakis had several parameters of sound or rhythm on his own life and work--written to honor in order to transcribe these imagined the recent passing of Xenakis. Pape also sounds and then translate them to the talks about the influence of Lacanian Psy- language of Western music notation. At chology on his work (Pape is, in addition to the end of my time in Paris, I completed being a composer, a practicing psycholo- a chamber work for prepared piano, per- gist). This issue of Computer Music Jour- cussion, bass trombone and five-channel nal is dedicated to Xenakis and includes tape called second tone. The work was articles by Agostino DiScipio, and a fan- premiered in Paris in December 2002. I tastic introduction to the electroacoustic also completed a two-track tape piece works of Xenakis by James Harley. called Sacrificebell. Both of these works utilized sounds that I created on the UPIC Pape, Gerard. Electroacoustic Chamber system. Works. (CD4309) Gerard Pape’s chamber music on this sound recording include his landmark Some Music Library holdings related to string quartet, Le Fleuve de Desire and CCMIX the remarkable vocal excerpt from his opera Weaveworld entitled Battle. The string quartet is performed masterfully by the CCMIX Paris. (CD3917) Arditti Quartet. Pape has written the work so that each player must independently This sound recording features works by control different parameters such as pitch, composers who have been associated dynamics and timbre on contrary temporal with CCMIX, including Xenakis, Pape, layers. Battle explores the most extended Roads, Estrada, Risset, Terrugi, Shimazu techniques of the vocalists in the ensem- and Robindore. Of particular interest are ble Vox Nova. Also of note is Makbenach Xenakis’ Mycenae Alpha which was the for saxophone, chamber ensemble & tape first work entirely realized on the UPIC, performed by the amazing French experi- and his Polytope de Cluny which is avail- mental saxophonist, Daniel Kientzy. able for the first time on this recording. Estrada, Julio. “Focusing on Freedom and Movement in Music.” Perspectives Risset, Jean-Claude. Sud, Dialogues, In- of New Music. (ML1 .P47 v.40 2002) harmonique, Mutations. (CD4304) This article details Estrada’s theory of the Risset is one of the pioneers of computer musical imaginary and the transcription synthesis. His work with Max Matthews of ideas into notation. After a time in New at Bell Labs here in the United States was Mexico studying Amerindian music, Es- groundbreaking. The classic works of trada developed his theory of the musical computer music on this sound recording imaginary. follow Risset’s compositional thinking from 1969 to 1985. Roads, Curtis. Microsound. (ML3805 veloped his theories of granular synthesis .R63M5 2001) first implemented in Analogique B. And he Microsound is Curtis Roads’ study of the elaborates on his musical and philosophi- use of microsonic particles that are only cal outlook in chapters such as “Towards a now, in the age of computers, able to Metamusic” and “Towards a Philosophy of be controlled and manipulated in com- Music”. This book is difficult to penetrate, position. Part history, part composition but can really open up new worlds for the guide, Roads gives a complete picture aspiring artist. of the state of microsonic music and the composers so important to its development including Horatio Vaggione and the author himself.

Wishart, Trevor. Red Bird, Anticredos. (CD4306) Subtitled “a political prisoner’s dream”, Red Bird was composed between 1973 and 1977. Wishart describes the concert work for two-track tape as not only music, but “mythic narrative”. This work was made in the studio with analogue techniques and is most interesting for its use of morphing between sounds of human voices, machines, animals, and birds. Much of the vocal material used is initially improvised by the composer.

Xenakis, Iannis. Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composi- tion. (ML3800 .X4F6) With Formalized Music, Xenakis collects his theories and methods in a dense, but rewarding text that certainly figures as one of the twentieth century’s land- marks. In this book Xenakis the scien- tist, the composer, the philosopher and the experimenter all come together to deliver a series of essays that focus on different ideas as they serve his compositional purposes. He explains his theory of Stochastic Music, which uses chaos and probability theory to generate musical ideas for pieces such as Pithop- rakta and Achorripsis. He writes about Markovian Stochastics and how he de- In Retrospect

by Maria Ezerman Drake

The following is reprinted from Variations nary of learning in the United States for of 1951 [Yearbook of the Philadelphia proficiency in music”. The three degrees Conservatory of Music], p.7. conferred by this institution are Bachelor of Music, Master of Music and Doctor of Music. The Philadelphia Conservatory of Music was founded by Richard C. Schirm- er, born in Salburg, Germany, in 1838. Mr. There was, at that time, great dif- Schirmer came here at the age of twenty, ficulty in obtaining sheet music! Whatever and established himself as a teacher of was available was imported and very ex- music. He soon felt the urge to further his pensive. Mr. Schirmer, therefore, brought musical career and returned to Leipzig, to this country from Germany a music en- Germany, graduating from the Leipzig graver, and in a few years had published Conservatory, majoring in piano. Returning a large library of teaching music. Later, to this country, he resumed his teaching the Presser Publishing Company bought and also conducted various choral societ- and used many of these engravings. ies and the Schubert Symphony Society.

The school flourished, and moved Although the old Quaker spirit pre- into larger headquarters at 822 North vailed in Philadelphia, Mr. Schirmer soon Broad Street. Courses included many realized the need for a good music school. instruments, as well as Theory, History, He knew that his early pupils would be re- Languages and Lectures. Professor Hugh cruited chiefly from first generation- Ger A. Clark, of the University of Pennsylva- mans and other music-loving nationalities. nia, taught Theory which included Har- Undeterred by general lack of interest, he mony, Counterpoint, Canon, Fugue and founded the Philadelphia Conservatory of Composition. Later he was succeeded Music in 1877 near Broad Street and Gi- by Henry A. Lang who studied extensive- rard Avenue. The first years were difficult, ly in Germany. A program dated 1895, but the small staff was genuinely interest- sponsored Robert Temple playing all the ed and persevered. Chopin Etudes. Faculty concerts presented chamber music, and the Chorus was also a very active part of the school. Therefore, in 1884 this school was incorporated under the laws of Pennsylva- nia, and received the first charter with the In 1913 Mr. Schirmer retired, and power to “Grant to its students diplomas the co-directors of the conservatory be- or honorary testimonials in such form as it came D. Hendrik Ezerman, heading the may designate, and grant and confer such Piano Department, and Hedda Van den honors, titles and degrees as are granted Beemt, the Violin Department. Both mu- or conferred by and university or semi- sicians came from Holland to play in the Philadelphia Orchestra, Mr. Ezerman as 1947 under the direction of Enzo Serafini- cellist and Mr. Van den Beemt as first vi- Lupo, an experienced dramatic and vocal olinist, engaged by Fritz Scheel, its first coach. conductor. The conservatory moved to central studios in the Fuller Building, 18th and Market Streets. Interest in music A major change in the faculty oc- continued to grow, and requirements for curred in 1948 when Madame Samaroff a musical education developed. Serious, died in the twentieth year of her teaching well-trained teachers afforded thorough at the conservatory. The following season, training in various departments. Mr. Edward Steuermann, a well known Eu- ropean pianist and teacher, was engaged to head the Piano Department. In 1920 the school was forced to find new quarters, and moved to 216 South 20th Street enabling future growth. In recent years, numerous activi- In 1925 Mr. Van den Beemt died at the age ties include student orchestra concerts, of forty-five, and Boris Koutzen, a young opera performances and concerts, faculty Russian violinist and composer, was en- concerts, and many student recitals. A gaged to head the Violin Department, a culminating point each season is the Con- position which he has been holding suc- cert and Commencement at the Bellevue cessfully for twenty-six years. In 1925 Mr. Stratford Ballroom, presenting the orches- Ezerman and Mr. Koutzen worked out a tra, chorus and talented students in an im- definitely outlined course of requirements pressive program. for each instrument, and examinations in the instruments were given at the end of each season.

Mr. Ezerman met an untimely death in 1928, and Mrs. Ezerman took over Di- rectorship. She engaged Olga Samaroff, a famous pianist and teacher at the Juil- liard School, to head the faculty. Her leadership and devotion to the cause of teaching and performing was an inspira- tion to everyone who knew her. In 1940, our beloved director, Mrs. Ezerman died very suddenly, and was succeeded by her daughter, Maria Ezerman Drake, who has carried on the aims of this school. The Theory Department was under the leadership of Frederick Schlieder, Paul Nordoff, and since 1942 the department has been headed by Vincent Persichetti who is also a member of the Composition Department at the Juilliard School and a well known contemporary composer. An Opera Department was inaugurated in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition: A Review by Mark Gerber

(Reprinted, slightly altered, from Notes: Quar- can the additive progress of knowledge terly Journal of the Music Library Association be called into play? And to what degree 58 [2001-02], 320-325; by permission.) must a self-conscious attempt at encyclopedism acquiesce before its own uto- pian premise--that ongoing discourses The encyclopedic articulation of a will yield new fragments and thus new world presupposes, in a way that the art connections--and so account for its own of the summa does not, a plurality of di- fragmentary condition? It is of course chotomies and discourses. Oppositions these dichotomies and (perhaps insolu- concerning the nature of meaningfulness, ble) oppositions that infuse the themes of understanding, and knowledge itself are at totalizing fictional narratives with urgen- its core. What is knowledge? And what de- cy, from Dante’s Divine Comedy to Cer- termines its relationship to information? Is vantes’ Don Quixote and Goethe’s Faust, it represented best as a closed inventory-- paradigmatic allegories of the quest for d’Alembert’s “engine of ordered learning”-- encyclopedic knowledge. The status of or as an open-ended arbitration--Diderot’s such works in the Western canon testifies “living school for philosophers”? (For this to the centrality of this compulsion, this duality within the encyclopedic enterprise “Drang zur Universalitat,” as Hermann does extend back to the Encyclopedie; I Broch and Elias Canetti encapsulated it have benefitted from Wilda Anderson’s (I rely on Ronald Swigger, “Fictional En- “Encyclopedic Topologies,” Modern Lan- cyclopedism,” Comparative Literature guage Notes 101 [1986], 912-29). The Studies 12 [1976], 351-66). Testimony institutionalization of encyclopedism since of a contrasting sort can be read in the the nineteenth century would appear to susceptibility of the encyclopedic mode express the hegemonic striving that in- to broad parody, most famously in Flau- forms Western culture to collect, possess, bert’s Bouvard et Pecuchet; as well as to order, and control--a given--but does the irony bordering on ridicule, in a number of totalizing text in fact represent some to- the ficciones of Borges, so beloved of li- tal stock of knowledge, or does it instead brarians on account, among other things, propose a model? That is, does the order- of their proof that encyclopedias are im- ing of fragments (the dictionary) in an in- possible. tegrated structure (the system) mirror the world or set out principles for constructing it? The problem does not end here. How It has been suggested that encyclopedias made for today’s audiences sembled from the verso of NG2’s title pag- are consulted not for knowledge but for es and the reprinted prefaces in vol. 1.) In information. While conceding that the the first lines of introduction to the index- specialist souls of our age give small -a triumphant innovation, not incidentally-- quarter to the notion of a comprehensive Margot Levy invokes Guido Adler’s holistic speculum mundi (even as a pedogical conceptualization of music study. (“All er- device), I would not care to see the sec- rors are my own,” she concludes [p. xii]; ond edition of the New Grove Dictionary but her editors might have saved her from of Music and Musicians--NG2 hereinaf- assigning Adler’s foundational “Umfang, ter--relativized that way. (My remarks, it Methode, und Ziel der Musikwissenschaft” should be stressed, are intended to ap- to the year of his birth, and thus from in- ply to the printed edition (29 vols., ed. troducing into the literature the Borgesian Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell [London: invention that an 1885 publication “in- Grove, 2001]); the attributes and objec- formed” a lexikon in press by 1879. Or tives of the electronic edition will be ad- is it 1878? The title-page versos, the re- dressed in Notes in a separate discus- printed preface, the index, and the article sion.) Obviously NG2 may be consulted on George Grove do not agree.) Adler, a as a modern reference resource: for in- “meta-encyclopedist” in that he outlined formation. But it seems clear to me that it a totalizing plan without implementing it, inclines toward something greater, if that does indeed deserve the credit that Levy is the word. Emphatically not a deviant prematurely bestows. Though in certain offshoot from the Grove family line--in defining ways his conspectus has been all important aspects its profile remains honored chiefly in the breach--with respect recognizable--NG2 presents itself as an to what is regarded essential as opposed encyclopedic dictionary of a lofty order, to marginal--Adler still exerts influence: aspiring to eloquence, capacious and no other arts discipline encompasses the long-breathed, synthetic and system- range from the physics to the sociology of atized, replete with a diagrammatic map its subject in a manner comparable to that (vol. 29, p. [viii]) that for all the world looks of music. Bruno Nettl, musicology’s latter- like the divine scheme from some hu- day chronicler and the first author of an ar- manistic Bibliotheca Universalis. It is fair ticle on “Music” in Grove’s history, has ob- to say that this articulation of an inhering served additionally a reanimation in Adler’s totality fulfills its promise as a milestone. reach, linking his speculative premise that “All peoples who can be said to possess a musical art [Tonkunst] also have a system The reasons why this should be so of musical thought [Tonwissenschaft]” to have much to do with the parallel evo- the recent embrace by Western scholars lution of the successive Grove editions of autochthonous “musicologies” (“The In- and European academic musicology. (A stitutionalization of Musicology,” Rethink- publication history in outline can be as- ing Music, ed. Nicholas Cook and Mark discoverable here, and I believe that read- Everist [Oxford: Oxford University Press, ers can well start with this assumption. 1999], 287-310; I have altered the trans- But Nettl’s charge is unenviable. In the first lation slightly). There is something famil- place, the lexicographical literature offers iar about this formulation, perhaps in part little precedent in approaching whatever because composers of our own time cul- may be meant by the “essential nature” tivate so much analytical language. (One of music. (Oddly, The Dictionary of Art [34 thinks of Elliott Carter’s aside: “How seri- vols., ed. Jane Turner; New York: Grove’s ous music would have developed without Dictionaries, 1996] contains a small entry its accompaniment of verbiage is hard to for “Art” that proves remarkably well written imagine” [“Music Criticism,” reprinted in for all its phlegmatic reticence. In succes- Collected Essays and Lectures, 1937- sion, historians of ideas, anthropologists, 1995, ed. Jonathan Bernard (Rochester: psychologists, and philosophers are all University of Rochester Press, 1997), taken to task for failing to provide insight. 335-42], and of George Steiner’s attempt Scholars of art are tacitly let off the hook. to imagine it all the same [“A Second- The question of art’s essential nature re- ary City,” in Real Presences (Chicago: mains unsettled, we are told, because it University of Chicago Press, 1989), at is ignored!) In the second place, the word 4-21].) For a phenomenon often deemed “music” corresponds to things and behav- abstract beyond words, music inspires iors and concepts that do seem to exist enough of them (NG2 offers twenty-five in sharp focus for those who use it, un- million). And this engagement brings us like such terms as “nationalism,” whose round again to the dichotomous proper- meanings exist, tautologically, within the ties of encyclopedism, this time framed debate over meaning itself. In an impor- in ontological terms. “What there is does tant sense, therefore, “music” lends itself not in general depend on one’s use of to generalization unwillingly. And in the language,” the logician tells us, “but what third place, pioneering efforts tilt toward one says there is does” (W.V. Quine, the unsatisfying. Nettl enlists some anec- “Logic and the Reification of Universals,” dotal evidence uncritically, employs some in From a Logical Point of View, 2nd ed. rhetorical constructions without rigor--in [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University passages, for instance, on the alleged pri- Press, 1980], 102-29). macy of instrumental music and of com- With Levy’s index and Sadie’s position as opposed to performance; the editorial introduction (vol. 1, p. xv-xxv), question of music-making in nonhuman then, Nettl’s courageous article “Music” species; and the relative profile of improvi- completes the triune statement of NG2’s sation and its psychology. Seemingly con- system. It seems elementary to me that tradictory elements need deeper reconcili- the work’s epistemological as well as ation (in Western culture “music is a good methodological underpinnings should be thing” in ¶II.1 but is often “dangerous and to be avoided” in ¶III.4). A weakness, too, Practice” into ‘Western’ and ‘Non-Western lies in the pervading acceptance of aes- and Traditional’. In a parallel vein, it is not thetic value (judgement regarding suc- necessary to site some empty capitulation cess or failure) as culturally dominant in to “cultural diversity” in order to appreci- most contexts, with limited exposition of ate that mass media have become so inte- poetic value (judgement regarding intent; grated into the modern world as to require not to be confused with mere descrip- scholarly notice. Thus the article “Singing” tions of “function”). Yet the article reflects benefits from its greater acknowledge- both our tenuous grasp and its imperfect ment of the central place of the human encyclopedic representation. voice in popular idioms. With the principal exception of some organological surveys (e.g., “Trumpet,” ¶2; “Bell,” ¶1.4), for the “Imperfect” by NG2’s own stan- most part this is subject integration on a dard because the system has not yet superficial level, more a matter of where been fully worked out. This “intermedi- the discussion resides than a search for ate” status is clearest in articles on mod- continuities or commonalities. The point ern nation states that divide, predictably here, in any event, is--ungratefully--to ask but unhelpfully, into “Art” and “Tradi- for more. It does not seem inescapable tional” halves. Others--”Uzbekistan” can to me that, even (or especially?) in Adle- serve as example--succeed in exhibiting rian terms, “Musicology” and “Ethnomusi- idiosyncratic plans driven by their con- cology” would have to have been so se- tent. “Indonesia” is too magisterial to verely divorced in NG2. “Dance” follows be contained within any generalization. suit, shunting everything ‘Traditional’ and (An important expansion is worth bring- ‘Non-Western’ over to “Ethnochoreogra- ing to notice: NG2 preserves an older phy.” Perhaps scholarship has not come layer of survey articles--”Arab Music,” far enough for NG2 to account for either a “Amerindian Music,” “European Tradi- psychology or a philosophy of music from tional Music,” “Latin America”--without somewhere East, but the same cannot be sacrificing individual entries; thus “Syria” said with respect to manuscript sources has a separate discussion now, as op- of music. Curiously, “Harmony” and “Mel- posed to a directional reference to “Arab ody” take no notice of what we are pre- Music.” A few exceptions remain, e.g., sumably to call the ‘Non-West.’ The article “Melanesia,” not “Papua New Guinea.”) on “Chanson,” exemplary on its subject Inter- and intracultural accounts appear up to 1600, leaves us without so much in a number of conceptual articles, some as directional help to whatever it was that enhanced from the previous edition but Edith Piaf sang, although the term is found all ideologically significant. “Polyphony” throughout NG2’s bibliography for her and divides into ‘Western’ and (infelicitously) in the text of the article on Aristide Bruant. ‘Non-Western’ sections; “Popular Music” into ‘West’ and ‘World’; and “Performing Nettl’s reference to the limitations additive series of modulations connected of a “statement by one author” (“Music,” together by chains of dominants in which intro.) rings slightly hollow, I think, given tonal coherence has more to do with the that numerous articles involve contribu- dramatic action on stage (or the sentiment tions from twenty authors or more. Leav- of a poetic image) than [with] an abstract ing aside his implicit question about how musical design. well his subject has been served, I must register admiration for many new single- author commissions. The editors suc- +++ ceed often enough in hewing to house style when multiple authorship must have [T]onality virtually coincides with the presented difficulties; but where they age of Western modernism, the great era most excel is in giving lattitude to strong of representation that stretches from the literary presences. The concluding col- philosophical meditations of Descartes to umns on Beethoven by Scott Burnham the general crisis of representation in the will, through sheer brilliance, enhance arts around 1910. It thus forms a precise the reception of Beethoven reception; analogue to linear perspective in painting Thomas Connolly’s “Cecilia” comes clos- as one of the principal cognitive structures er to poetry than what can reasonably be in Western culture: in their respective me- expected of nonfiction prose. Parallel en- dia, tonality and linear perspective are re- ergies of clarity and insight elevate pas- sponsible for the effect of subjectivity--the sages such as these: notion that an individual embodies an his- torical consciousness--so crucial to mo- The preoccupation with the modernity. ment-to-moment resolution of dissonance [T]he representation of speech rhythms in Rameau’s theories mirrors the sensu- [in 17th-century Italy] by a limited number ous harmonic sonorities and episodic and proportionally specific set of duration- nature of French Baroque music. These al values hardly yielded accurate or natu- dissonances urge the fundamental bass ral results. Thus by the century’s end this forward, but gravitational momentum in practice had been abandoned and most this music nevertheless tends to be local recitative was notated in rapid and even in significance, directed toward an- im notes (crotchets or quavers), with the un- mediate cadential goal. It is an improvisa- derstanding that the rhythm would follow tional, accompanimental harmonic prac- that of the speech declamation. Ground- tice, one that responds to the expressive ing the rhythms of recitative in speech needs of the moment: rapid transitions also means that the singer need not worry from one tonic to the next--Rameau was about precise coordination of most syl- inclined to hear any triad without a disso- lables with the accompaniment, save at nance as a tonic--organize the music into cadence points. augur NG2’s potential to exert a forma- +++ tive influence. Roger Parker on Verdi, Rob Wegman on Obrecht, Bradford Robinson on Basie, and James Webster on Haydn, In the music of the common prac- they and others go some distance to- tice period the coordination of various wards enacting a syllabus on the subject parts relative to an externalized metre of style. became such a deeply rooted aspect of

Western musical culture that its presence has gone largely unnoticed. It is perhaps As with his conservatism in larger for that reason that the graphic notation formal matters, this self-imposed restric- used in works by composers such as tion had the effect of channelling Verdi’s in- Boulez and Cage still strikes us revolu- vention into manipulations of the prototype tionary, for not only do such scores lack from within, into expansions, contractions, pitch and durational specification among and enrichments of the lyric form. Elvira’s their parts, they also have loosened or Andantino in Act I of Ernani, for example, even abandoned any pretense of coor- sees a dramatic expansion of the B sec- dination among them. Interestingly, many tion that injects a new sense of dialectic pieces in graphic notation, such as Be- tension into the aria. More than that: far rio’s Sequenza III, make use of stopwatch from ‘dissolving’ into ornamental writing at timings to determine structural articula- the end, the aria continues to subordinate, tions. As with the music of the Middle or rather harness, the ornamentation, con- Ages, this mode of temporal reckoning taining it within a strictly controlled period- is not intrinsic to the temporal activity of icity. any part of the music itself, but must be imposed from without. +++

Rameau and modernism in the The older aesthetic of the ‘wall of hands of Brian Hyer (“Tonality”), recitative sound’ disappears completely: cantus- and graphic notation in those of Justin firmus based passages in full scoring tend London (“Rhythm”): such are the very em- to move at varying rates of rhythmic and bedded riches that will earn NG2 its lon- harmonic activity, ranging from drawn- gevity. A veritable study could be under- out homophonic passages, usually at key taken on one of conventional musicology’s phrases of the mass text, to stretches of most important critical achievements of almost frenzied contrapuntal activity. The the last generation--a serviceable, largely allocation of these different passages typi- nontechnical vocabulary and syntax for cally reflects a purposeful musical design- the discussion of musical style--by mak- -though one, significantly, that is seldom ing use of passages so crystalline as to dictated by the shape of the predeter- +++ mined cantus firmus, and indeed may encompass long stretches in which the tenor is not heard at all. Instead of a con- The crucial point, however, is that ventional alternation between sharply Haydn’s popular style is not a simple pro- contrasted passages in full and reduced jection of his personality, but his compo- scoring, standing side by side as mono- sitional ‘persona,’ or ‘musical personality’, lithic stretches of relatively undifferenti- deliberately assumed for complex artistic ated counterpoint, Obrecht now tended purposes. Indeed ‘wit’ signifies intelligence to treat the beginning or ending of a tenor as well as humour: his inexhaustible rhyth- statement as one of several steps in a mic and motivic inventiveness, the conver- continuing musical development. sational air of many quartet movements, his formal ambiguity and caprice, his bril- liant and at times disquieting play with be- +++ ginnings that are endings and the reverse.

Using an elliptical style of melodic The article on Wuorinen can stand leads and cues, Basie was able to con- for material at the opposite end of the trol his band firmly from the keyboard spectrum, its silliness unsalvageable by while blending perfectly with his rhythm any means. Inhabiting the middleground section. This celebrated group ... altered somewhere, “Modernism” stalls and disin- the ideal of jazz accompaniment, mak- tegrates into lists (“Verbally,” George Stein- ing it more supple and responsive to the er has argued, “it is very nearly impossible wind instruments and helping to estab- to arrive at any satisfactory concept of the lish fourbeat jazz (with four almost identi- coming of ‘modernism’ into music” [op. cally stressed beats to a bar) as the norm cit., p. 21]. Emphasis should be placed, for jazz performance. Of particularly far- of course, on the word “satisfactory.” Even reaching significance was [Jo] Jones’s so, the attempt here to relate musical phe- technique of placing the constant pulse nomena to the problems of modernity can on the hi-hat cymbal instead of the bass only be described as desultory.) The pro- drum, thereby immeasurably lightening motional literature announced that NG2 the timbre of jazz drumming. Another would contain some two thousand new important factor was the accuracy and entries for contemporary composers; but solidity of [Walter] Page’s walking bass the formulas can be tiresome: the music of technique, which obviated the need for Peteris Vasks, while modeled on that of Lu- left-hand patterns in the piano and im- toslawski, has a “radical individuality,” and parted a buoyant swing to the ensem- its aesthetic is “rooted”--lo, and behold-- ble. in traditional culture. Vapidity of this order may be attributable to editorial fatigue, one suspects. One also suspects slight humor will call them the cut-and-paste complex, in the assertion that the reputation of rap and cite them in part owing to their sta- music spread by word-of-mouth. I con- tus as markers in documenting the first fess I do not know what to make of the electronically-produced music Grove. First fact that Imogen Holst’s music often fea- is the replacement (or duplicate) problem, tures the minor second, any more than I wherein the edited text contains both the can appreciate how Wuorinen’s music of correction and the element(s) intended for the 1980s “became more rhythmic.” And deletion (e.g., “Tonality,” ¶3: “expression then there are the rock groups. The writ- representation”; “Tunisia,” last bibliograph- ing about them has not yet, I think, come ic item; “Gheraert de Houdt,” duplicated in of age; in any event, while there seems the index). I will call the second category to be a consensus that it must always be the misplaced ibid. problem, and regard it noted how many copies of each album as self-explanatory (see the Rousseau en- were sold, I simply do not know what to tries in the bibliography for Jean-Jacques do with this information. That the music Eigeldinger). The number of these cut- of Siouxsie and the Banshees is “stylish and-paste errors cannot be regarded con- and uncompromising” may be true; I just siderable in a work so vast, but a third sort do not know what it means. I hope I can moves beyond the arena of the chiefly me- be forgiven for feeling mystified about the chanical into that of the frankly troubling: songs of ABBA, which use “combinations the double attribution problem. The ar- of diatonic melody and tonal harmony, of- ticles on Benjamin Franklin and “Musical ten involving harmonic motion alternating Glasses,” for instance, contain identical between two or three chords.” It is not portions of text attributed, repsectively, to merely disturbing that such drivel takes Thomas Marrocco and to Alec King. In an up space in NG2; it is disturbing that it age when students have difficulty grasp- takes up space anywhere. ing how their “appropriation” of blocks of text from documents not their own is con- strued as theft, any disregard for accuracy Obviously I cannot speculate on in crediting authorship poses an obstacle the cause of every editorial misstep-- to their understanding, to say nothing of most of us will not easily accept Ceske fidelity to humanistic standards. It would Budejovice, beautiful Renaissance mar- seem that this instance outlines the tip of ket town that it is, as the “cultural cen- an iceberg of editorial high-handedness, tre of Bohemia”--and entries out of al- as the voices of contributors who claim phabetical order (“Narantsogt”) are just that their names are attached to work that mistakes. But it may be useful to identify does not represent them begin to form an recurring errors that can be corrected in intelligible chorus. the electronic edition, and perhaps will have been before these words appear. Three such categories may be related: I Serious, too, are the much-discu- ussed omissions in the print edition of the from consideration, all those sensitized to updated bibliography for Richard Wagner this distortion will unlikely be comforted by and segments of the works list for Stra- the imminence of NGJ2. vinsky. It should be recorded that promises for remediation have been made by the publisher, though not fulfilled as of For the distortion, of course, offends this writing. Everyone can play the parlor against NG2 itself. Until we step back, that game “What has NG2 missed out?”, yet is. What systematic corpus of critical and for reference librarians there is a serious interpretive discourses does not offend side to this, too (my first three encounters against itself? “The encyclopedia is a tool,” with NG2 on behalf of students proved goes a paraphrase of Diderot, “to maintain unsuccessful). One braces for the Gil- organization in the face of change” (Ander- bertian patter: Marcel Moyse, the flutist, son, op cit., p. 925). Its achievements have has earned a place but Marcel Mule, the to do with pointing the way not to perfect saxophonist, has not; the Savoy Record summation (Beckett’s “vain entelechies”) Company is there, but not the Savoy Op- but to that which must still be transcend- era Company; Gwen Verdon but not Ann ed. What Umberto Eco prescribes as the Miller; Mallarme but not Valery, Byron but first duty of the cultivated person--”to be not Milton, Nketia but not Kebede, Al- always prepared to rewrite the encyclo- brecht but not Zagrosek, kazoo but not pedia” (“The Force of Falsity,” Serendipit- conch--and only three members of the ies: Language and Lunacy, trans. William Modern Jazz Quartet. The parsimonious Weaver [New York: Columbia University treatment of jazz, finally, must be counted Press, 1998], p. 21)--is, at best, a gam- among NG2’s most conspicuous flaws. It ble. scarcely seems arguable that two jazz vi- olinists marginal to American jazz should appear in the absence of Joe Venuti, Ed- die South, Stuff Smith, and Billy Bang- -an extreme but not unique case. As a rule the bibliographies for important jazz figures are minimally updated, while the practice of introducing discographies as primary source material, begun in the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (ed. Bar- ry Kernfeld; London: Macmillan, 1988) and continued in NG2 for ethnographic (and some chant) entries, is inexplicably abandoned (“inexplicably” because the data obviously already exists in the Grove computer files). Even were cost excluded