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PROGRAM NOTES Witold Lutosławski Concerto for Orchestra
PROGRAM NOTES by Phillip Huscher Witold Lutosławski Born January 25, 1913, Warsaw, Poland. Died February 7, 1994, Warsaw, Poland. Concerto for Orchestra Lutosławski began this work in 1950 and completed it in 1954. The first performance was given on November 26, 1954, in Warsaw. The score calls for three flutes and two piccolos, three oboes and english horn, three clarinets and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, four trombones and tuba, timpani, snare drum, side drums, tenor drum, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, tambourine, xylophone, bells, celesta, two harps, piano, and strings. Performance time is approximately twenty-eight minutes. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's first subscription concert performances of Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra were given at Orchestra Hall on February 6, 7, and 8, 1964, with Paul Kletzki conducting. Our most recent subscription concert performance was given November 7, 8, and 9, 2002, with Christoph von Dohnányi conducting. The Orchestra has performed this concerto at the Ravinia Festival only once, on June 28, 1970, with Seiji Ozawa conducting. For the record The Orchestra recorded Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra in 1970 under Seiji Ozawa for Angel, and in 1992 under Daniel Barenboim for Erato. To most musicians today, as to Witold Lutosławski in 1954, the title “concerto for orchestra” suggests Béla Bartók's landmark 1943 score of that name. Bartók's is the most celebrated, but it's neither the first nor the last work with this title. Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston, and Zoltán Kodály all wrote concertos for orchestra before Bartók, and Witold Lutosławski, Michael Tippett, Elliott Carter, and Shulamit Ran are among those who have done so after his famous example. -
Building Cultural Bridges: Benjamin Britten and Russia
BUILDING CULTURAL BRIDGES: BENJAMIN BRITTEN AND RUSSIA Book Review of Benjamin Britten and Russia, by Cameron Pyke Maja Brlečić Benjamin Britten visited Soviet Russia during a time of great trial for Soviet artists and intellectuals. Between the years of 1963 and 1971, he made six trips, four formal and two private. During this time, the communist regime within the Soviet Union was at its heyday, and bureaucratization of culture served as a propaganda tool to gain totalitarian control over all spheres of public activity. This was also a period during which the international political situation was turbulent; the Cold War was at its height with ongoing issues of nuclear armaments, the tensions among the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom ebbed and flowed, and the atmosphere of unrest was heightened by the Vietnam War. It was not until the early 1990s that the Iron Curtain collapsed, and the Cold War finally ended. While the 1960s were economically and culturally prosperous for Western Europe, those same years were tough for communist Eastern Europe, where the people still suffered from the aftermath of Stalin thwarting any attempts of artistic openness and creativity. As a result, certain efforts were made to build cultural bridges between West and East, including efforts that were significantly aided by Britten’s engagements. In his book Benjamin Britten and Russia, Cameron Pyke portrays the bridging of the vast gulf achieved through Britten’s interactions with the Soviet Union, drawing skillfully from historical and cultural contextualization, Britten’s and Pears’s personal accounts, interviews, musical scores, a series of articles about Britten published in the Soviet Union, and discussions of cultural and political figures of the time.1 In the seven chapters of his book, Pyke brings to light the nature of Britten’s six visits and offers detailed accounts of Britten’s affection for Russian music and culture. -
Perceptual Interactions of Pitch and Timbre: an Experimental Study on Pitch-Interval Recognition with Analytical Applications
Perceptual interactions of pitch and timbre: An experimental study on pitch-interval recognition with analytical applications SARAH GATES Music Theory Area Department of Music Research Schulich School of Music McGill University Montréal • Quebec • Canada August 2015 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts. Copyright © 2015 • Sarah Gates Contents List of Figures v List of Tables vi List of Examples vii Abstract ix Résumé xi Acknowledgements xiii Author Contributions xiv Introduction 1 Pitch, Timbre and their Interaction • Klangfarbenmelodie • Goals of the Current Project 1 Literature Review 7 Pitch-Timbre Interactions • Unanswered Questions • Resulting Goals and Hypotheses • Pitch-Interval Recognition 2 Experimental Investigation 19 2.1 Aims and Hypotheses of Current Experiment 19 2.2 Experiment 1: Timbre Selection on the Basis of Dissimilarity 20 A. Rationale 20 B. Methods 21 Participants • Stimuli • Apparatus • Procedure C. Results 23 2.3 Experiment 2: Interval Identification 26 A. Rationale 26 i B. Method 26 Participants • Stimuli • Apparatus • Procedure • Evaluation of Trials • Speech Errors and Evaluation Method C. Results 37 Accuracy • Response Time D. Discussion 51 2.4 Conclusions and Future Directions 55 3 Theoretical Investigation 58 3.1 Introduction 58 3.2 Auditory Scene Analysis 59 3.3 Carter Duets and Klangfarbenmelodie 62 Esprit Rude/Esprit Doux • Carter and Klangfarbenmelodie: Examples with Timbral Dissimilarity • Conclusions about Carter 3.4 Webern and Klangfarbenmelodie in Quartet op. 22 and Concerto op 24 83 Quartet op. 22 • Klangfarbenmelodie in Webern’s Concerto op. 24, mvt II: Timbre’s effect on Motivic and Formal Boundaries 3.5 Closing Remarks 110 4 Conclusions and Future Directions 112 Appendix 117 A.1,3,5,7,9,11,13 Confusion Matrices for each Timbre Pair A.2,4,6,8,10,12,14 Confusion Matrices by Direction for each Timbre Pair B.1 Response Times for Unisons by Timbre Pair References 122 ii List of Figures Fig. -
Comparison and Contrast of Performance Practice for the Tuba
COMPARISON AND CONTRAST OF PERFORMANCE PRACTICE OF THE TUBA IN IGOR STRAVINSKY’S THE RITE OF SPRING, DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH’S SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN D MAJOR, OP. 47, AND SERGEI PROKOFIEV’S SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN B FLAT MAJOR, OP. 100 Roy L. Couch, B.M., M.M. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2006 APPROVED: Donald C. Little, Major Professor Eugene Migliaro Corporon, Minor Professor Keith Johnson, Committee Member Brian Bowman, Coordinator of Brass Instrument Studies Graham Phipps, Program Coordinator of Graduate Studies in the College of Music James C. Scott, Dean of the College of Music Sandra L. Terrell, Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Couch, Roy L., Comparison and Contrast of Performance Practice for the Tuba in Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D major, Op. 47, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 100, Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), May 2006, 46 pp.,references, 63 titles. Performance practice is a term familiar to serious musicians. For the performer, this means assimilating and applying all the education and training that has been pursued in a course of study. Performance practice entails many aspects such as development of the craft of performing on the instrument, comprehensive knowledge of pertinent literature, score study and listening to recordings, study of instruments of the period, notation and articulation practices of the time, and issues of tempo and dynamics. The orchestral literature of Eastern Europe, especially Germany and Russia, from the mid-nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century provides some of the most significant and musically challenging parts for the tuba. -
Britten Connections a Guide for Performers and Programmers
Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers by Paul Kildea Britten –Pears Foundation Telephone 01728 451 700 The Red House, Golf Lane, [email protected] Aldeburgh, Suffolk, IP15 5PZ www.brittenpears.org Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers by Paul Kildea Contents The twentieth century’s Programming tips for 03 consummate musician 07 13 selected Britten works Britten connected 20 26 Timeline CD sampler tracks The Britten-Pears Foundation is grateful to Orchestra, Naxos, Nimbus Records, NMC the following for permission to use the Recordings, Onyx Classics. EMI recordings recordings featured on the CD sampler: BBC, are licensed courtesy of EMI Classics, Decca Classics, EMI Classics, Hyperion Records, www.emiclassics.com For full track details, 28 Lammas Records, London Philharmonic and all label websites, see pages 26-27. Index of featured works Front cover : Britten in 1938. Photo: Howard Coster © National Portrait Gallery, London. Above: Britten in his composition studio at The Red House, c1958. Photo: Kurt Hutton . 29 Further information Opposite left : Conducting a rehearsal, early 1950s. Opposite right : Demonstrating how to make 'slung mugs' sound like raindrops for Noye's Fludde , 1958. Photo: Kurt Hutton. Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers 03 The twentieth century's consummate musician In his tweed jackets and woollen ties, and When asked as a boy what he planned to be He had, of course, a great guide and mentor. with his plummy accent, country houses and when he grew up, Britten confidently The English composer Frank Bridge began royal connections, Benjamin Britten looked replied: ‘A composer.’ ‘But what else ?’ was the teaching composition to the teenage Britten every inch the English gentleman. -
Serial Music and Other New Trends in Western Art Music of the 20Th Century
Serial Music and other new trends in Western Art Music of the 20th century In the 20th Century composers of Western Art Music experimented in the same way that artists did. The result was that things like melody, pitch, rhythm and time were used very differently to make up music. Whole tone music, atonal music, bitonal music, microtonal music, serial music and minimalist music were some of the different types of new music that were a result of this experimentation. Minimalist music is discussed on a separate page. Atonal music and Bitonal music Atonal music is music where the composer has experimented with pitch and melody to the point where there is no home note in the music. Bitonal music is when the composer uses 2 different key signatures (ie 2 different home notes), in two different parts, at the same time. Whole tone music Whole tone music is based on the whole tone scale. This is a scale made up of whole tones only, eg. C D E F# G# A# C. Melodies built on the whole tone scale sound hazy or misty. The chords (harmonies) built on the whole tone scale are also unconventional and colourful (different) sounding. A composer who used the whole tone scale quite a lot was Debussy. He is also known for being influenced by Indonesian Gamelan music (see the page on Minimalism for an explanation of Gamelan). Debussy’s use of pedal points (like a drone – the same note is held or continually repeated while other parts change) and ostinato give his music the ‘cyclical’ feeling created by repetition in Gamelan music. -
21-Asis Aktualios Muzikos Festivalis GAIDA 21Th Contemporary Music Festival
GAIDA 21-asis aktualios muzikos festivalis GAIDA 21th Contemporary Music festival 2011 m. spalio 21–29 d., Vilnius 21–29 October, 2011, Vilnius Festivalio viešbutis Globėjai: 21-asis tarptautinis šiuolaikinės muzikos festivalis GAIDA 21th International Contemporary Music Festival Pagrindiniai informaciniai rėmėjai: MINIMAL | MAXIMAL • Festivalio tema – minimalizmas ir maksimalizmas muzikoje: bandymas Informaciniai rėmėjai: pažvelgti į skirtingus muzikos polius • Vienos didžiausių šiuolaikinės muzikos asmenybių platesnis kūrybos pristatymas – portretas: kompozitorius vizionierius Iannis Xenakis • Pirmą kartą Lietuvoje – iškiliausio XX a. pabaigos lenkų simfoninio kūrinio, Henryko Mikołajaus Góreckio III simfonijos, atlikimas • Dėmesys tikriems šiuolaikinės muzikos atlikimo lyderiams iš Prancūzijos, Vokietijos ir Italijos Partneriai ir rėmėjai: • Intriguojantys audiovizualiniai projektai – originalios skirtingų menų sąveikos ir netikėti sprendimai • Keletas potėpių M. K. Čiurlioniui, pažymint kompozitoriaus 100-ąsias mirties metines • Naujų kūrinių užsakymai ir geriausi Lietuvos bei užsienio atlikėjai: simfoniniai orkestrai, ansambliai, solistai Festivalis GAIDA yra europinio naujosios muzikos kūrybos ir sklaidos tinklo Réseau Varése, remiamo Europos Komisijos programos Kultūra, narys. The GAIDA Festival is a member of the Réseau Varése, European network Rengėjai: for the creation and promotion of new music, subsidized by the Culture Programme of the European Commission. TURINYS / CONTENT Programa / Programme.......................................................................................2 -
Edinburgh International Festival 1962
WRITING ABOUT SHOSTAKOVICH Edinburgh International Festival 1962 Edinburgh Festival 1962 working cover design ay after day, the small, drab figure in the dark suit hunched forward in the front row of the gallery listening tensely. Sometimes he tapped his fingers nervously against his cheek; occasionally he nodded Dhis head rhythmically in time with the music. In the whole of his productive career, remarked Soviet Composer Dmitry Shostakovich, he had “never heard so many of my works performed in so short a period.” Time Music: The Two Dmitrys; September 14, 1962 In 1962 Shostakovich was invited to attend the Edinburgh Festival, Scotland’s annual arts festival and Europe’s largest and most prestigious. An important precursor to this invitation had been the outstanding British premiere in 1960 of the First Cello Concerto – which to an extent had helped focus the British public’s attention on Shostakovich’s evolving repertoire. Week one of the Festival saw performances of the First, Third and Fifth String Quartets; the Cello Concerto and the song-cycle Satires with Galina Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich. 31 DSCH JOURNAL No. 37 – July 2012 Edinburgh International Festival 1962 Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya in Edinburgh Week two heralded performances of the Preludes & Fugues for Piano, arias from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the Sixth, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies, the Third, Fourth, Seventh and Eighth String Quartets and Shostakovich’s orches- tration of Musorgsky’s Khovanschina. Finally in week three the Fourth, Tenth and Twelfth Symphonies were per- formed along with the Violin Concerto (No. 1), the Suite from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the Three Fantastic Dances, the Cello Sonata and From Jewish Folk Poetry. -
John Cage's Entanglement with the Ideas Of
JOHN CAGE’S ENTANGLEMENT WITH THE IDEAS OF COOMARASWAMY Edward James Crooks PhD University of York Music July 2011 John Cage’s Entanglement with the Ideas of Coomaraswamy by Edward Crooks Abstract The American composer John Cage was famous for the expansiveness of his thought. In particular, his borrowings from ‘Oriental philosophy’ have directed the critical and popular reception of his works. But what is the reality of such claims? In the twenty years since his death, Cage scholars have started to discover the significant gap between Cage’s presentation of theories he claimed he borrowed from India, China, and Japan, and the presentation of the same theories in the sources he referenced. The present study delves into the circumstances and contexts of Cage’s Asian influences, specifically as related to Cage’s borrowings from the British-Ceylonese art historian and metaphysician Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. In addition, Cage’s friendship with the Jungian mythologist Joseph Campbell is detailed, as are Cage’s borrowings from the theories of Jung. Particular attention is paid to the conservative ideology integral to the theories of all three thinkers. After a new analysis of the life and work of Coomaraswamy, the investigation focuses on the metaphysics of Coomaraswamy’s philosophy of art. The phrase ‘art is the imitation of nature in her manner of operation’ opens the doors to a wide- ranging exploration of the mimesis of intelligible and sensible forms. Comparing Coomaraswamy’s ‘Traditional’ idealism to Cage’s radical epistemological realism demonstrates the extent of the lack of congruity between the two thinkers. In a second chapter on Coomaraswamy, the extent of the differences between Cage and Coomaraswamy are revealed through investigating their differing approaches to rasa , the Renaissance, tradition, ‘art and life’, and museums. -
Microtonality As an Expressive Device: an Approach for the Contemporary Saxophonist
Technological University Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin Dissertations Conservatory of Music and Drama 2009 Microtonality as an Expressive Device: an Approach for the Contemporary Saxophonist Seán Mac Erlaine Technological University Dublin, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/aaconmusdiss Part of the Composition Commons, Musicology Commons, Music Pedagogy Commons, Music Performance Commons, and the Music Theory Commons Recommended Citation Mac Erlaine, S.: Microtonality as an Expressive Device: an Approach for the Contemporary Saxophonist. Masters Dissertation. Technological University Dublin, 2009. This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Conservatory of Music and Drama at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License Microtonality as an expressive device: An approach for the contemporary saxophonist September 2009 Seán Mac Erlaine www.sean-og.com Table of Contents Abstract i Introduction ii CHAPTER ONE 1 1.1 Tuning Theory 1 1.1.1 Tuning Discrepancies 1 1.2 Temperament for Keyboard Instruments 2 1.3 Non‐fixed Intonation Instruments 5 1.4 Dominance of Equal Temperament 7 1.5 The Evolution of Equal Temperament: Microtonality 9 CHAPTER TWO 11 2.1 Twentieth Century Tradition of Microtonality 11 2.2 Use of Microtonality -
Soviet Censorship Policy from a Musician's Perspective
The View from an Open Window: Soviet Censorship Policy from a Musician’s Perspective By Danica Wong David Brodbeck, Ph.D. Departments of Music and European Studies Jayne Lewis, Ph.D. Department of English A Thesis Submitted in Partial Completion of the Certification Requirements for the Honors Program of the School of Humanities University of California, Irvine 24 May 2019 i Table of Contents Acknowledgments ii Abstract iii Introduction 1 The Music of Dmitri Shostakovich 9 Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District 10 The Fifth Symphony 17 The Music of Sergei Prokofiev 23 Alexander Nevsky 24 Zdravitsa 30 Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and The Crisis of 1948 35 Vano Muradeli and The Great Fellowship 35 The Zhdanov Affair 38 Conclusion 41 Bibliography 44 ii Acknowledgements While this world has been marked across time by the silenced and the silencers, there have always been and continue to be the supporters who work to help others achieve their dreams and communicate what they believe to be vital in their own lives. I am fortunate enough have a background and live in a place where my voice can be heard without much opposition, but this thesis could not have been completed without the immeasurable support I received from a variety of individuals and groups. First, I must extend my utmost gratitude to my primary advisor, Dr. David Brodbeck. I did not think that I would be able to find a humanities faculty member so in tune with both history and music, but to my great surprise and delight, I found the perfect advisor for my project. -
Analyzing Modular Smoothness in Video Game Music
Analyzing Modular Smoothness in Video Game Music Elizabeth Medina-Gray KEYWORDS: video game music, modular music, smoothness, probability, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Portal 2 ABSTRACT: This article provides a detailed method for analyzing smoothness in the seams between musical modules in video games. Video game music is comprised of distinct modules that are triggered during gameplay to yield the real-time soundtracks that accompany players’ diverse experiences with a given game. Smoothness —a quality in which two convergent musical modules fit well together—as well as the opposite quality, disjunction, are integral products of modularity, and each quality can significantly contribute to a game. This article first highlights some modular music structures that are common in video games, and outlines the importance of smoothness and disjunction in video game music. Drawing from sources in the music theory, music perception, and video game music literature (including both scholarship and practical composition guides), this article then introduces a method for analyzing smoothness at modular seams through a particular focus on the musical aspects of meter, timbre, pitch, volume, and abruptness. The method allows for a comprehensive examination of smoothness in both sequential and simultaneous situations, and it includes a probabilistic approach so that an analyst can treat all of the many possible seams that might arise from a single modular system. Select analytical examples from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Portal