Harvard University Department of M usic MUSICnewsletter Vol. 14, No. 1 Winter 2014 Border Crossings: Kate van Orden Looks at 16th-Century Musical Migration Music Building When Professor Kate van Orden tracked a North Yard 16th-century French chansonnier across the Harvard University Alps to Italy, she discovered she’d embarked Cambridge, MA 02138 on a rich new vein of research. She’d also 617-495-2791 become the first Renaissance scholar to ask what it means when vernacular musics travel www.music.fas.harvard.edu beyond their natural, national contexts. “Western art music has always been INSIDE categorized: Lied is German; chanson, French; madrigal, Italian. But some genres 2 Abbate named University Professor cross borders. Following the migration of 2 Faculty News music and musicians disrupts the nationalist 3 Jason Robert Brown, A-I-R history of music in Europe.” Scholars of European music have long 3 Remembering Rulan Pian been working within the parameters of the Van Orden joined the Music Department faculty in July, 2013. She 19th century, says van Orden, which often 4 Czernowin’s Revolution also specializes in historical performance on the bassoon. sanitized history to give nations a false sense of wholeness, an ethnic purity. From this we have hard to write. In France, you feel the effect of the the myth of “folk,” who never traveled. Revolution, that two hundred plus years ago most “It’s just not true,” she explains. “People were of the books were thrown into piles and destroyed. really mobile in the 16th century. There were This didn’t happen in Italy. The source material is Germans in Venice, Italians in Lyon and London. deep. And, thankfully, the handwriting on Italian In 1600, there were 30,000 Spaniards living in manuscripts is much easier to read.” 5 Wolff Fund Announced Rome.” Van Orden’s been working with Italian travel- 6 Klingenberg in Uganda Van Orden’s research will soon be published ogues, Montaigne’s diary of his trip to Italy, church in Musica Transalpina: French Music, Musicians, archives and French confraternity records in Rome, 6 Graduate Student News and Culture in Cinquecento Italy, a volume in and Venetian musical collections. She’s examining 7 Alumni News which she theorizes the musical performance of demographic records—censuses and lists of births, 7 Stetson’s Hacking Arts ethnicity in early modern Europe by concentrating deaths, and marriages—to learn where foreigners on migratory contexts like that of Rome, where lived and who intermarried, as well as early maps 8 Library News cross-cultural encounters threw identities into high from the Harvard Map Collection to understand 9 The Art of Listening contrast. how conceptions of national borders and power “I look into what it meant to be French in centers shifted over time. 10 Calendar of Events 16th-century Italy, to sing in French. I examine “No one’s worked on this before, so I have 12 Parker Quartet in Residence songs that traveled, mixed languages, or were lots of freedom. It’s a rare chance to expand my translations, to understand newly urban cultures horizons both linguistically and as a scholar. We Department Chair where immigrants made up a large part of the music historians tend to conduct our research in Alexander Rehding population.” the physical places central to our disciplines, and Director of Administration Van Orden has concentrated her focus on this adds a whole new country to mine. It’s revi- Nancy Shafman major international trade centers; multi-ethnic talizing. And music is so revealing. These French Newsletter Editor cities where immigrants were key across all strata of songs—we can get the sound back. Polyphonic Lesley Bannatyne society, such as Lyon in France, and Rome, Venice, notation gives a remarkably precise record of how [email protected] and Ferrara. people did things together in groups, what speech “I’d been working intensively on French patterns were like. Polyphonic songs even give us chansons in France. But those histories can be some sense of ethnic expression and insight into HarvardMusicDepartment van Orden, continued Faculty News Photo by Stephanie Mitchell Stephanie by Photo Renaissance stereotypes of foreigners. Preceptor on Music Richard Beaudoin About her career in general, she says: completed a millisecond-level microtiming “Coming to Harvard is proving such a won- analysis of Pablo Casals’ 1936 recording of derful opportunity to retool. The resources for the D minor Sarabande from Bach’s Suite, research and teaching that open up what I can BWV 1008 [image of sketches below]. Mu- do are exciting. My Spectacular France course, sic that incorporates such microtimings con- for example (which van Orden taught as a Visit- tinues to be composed and performed, most ing Professor in fall of 2012), featured dance, recently in December 2013, when The Artist something that’s usually left at the door of and his Model I – La fille floutée was given music history classes because it has no notation. by Constantine Finehouse at the Nicholas But with digital media ever easier to produce Roerich Museum in New York City. and share, I was able to stock our course website with hours of videos for the students to watch. Carolyn Abbate has been named the Paul and This spring, together with ethnomusicologist Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor, Kay Kaufman Shelemay, I’ll co-teach a course Harvard’s highest honor for a faculty member. on music and migration. It’s giving our class “Carolyn Abbate’s imagination and sense a chance to cross some disciplinary borders of intellectual adventure have changed the and study historical musics ethnically rather course of musicology,” said President Drew than in terms of nation. Next year, the general Faust. “With its original and highly interdis- education course I’m hoping to teach will have ciplinary outlook, her work helps us to see an audio glossary, podcasts with instrumental the many disparate elements of opera each in demos, a visual encyclopedia, and an interactive relation to the other, as part of a polyphonic Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor time-map. whole, and to see great works in their social Robert Levin toured worldwide, giving “When you think about it, this is and cultural contexts. And by illuminating concerts in Malaysia, Tokyo, Germany, UK, an amazing moment in musicology.” such considerations as the intentions of the and France. Notable performances included composer, the technical challenges facing the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Sarah Van Orden’s Music, performers, and the subjective experiences of Braun and Rafael Popper-Keizer, Emmanuel Authorship, and the audience members, she enlarges and enlivens Music, Boston; a solo recital of the Bach Book in the First our understanding not just of opera but of English Suites 2, 3, 6 on harpsichord, Kings Century of Print music more generally.” Place, London; the Mendelssohn Double (2014) is published Abbate has focused her research principal- Concerto in A-flat with Ya-Fei Chuang, by University of Cali- ly on opera as it has evolved over the past four Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; fornia Press, and her centuries, with special emphasis on the 19th Schubert Fantasy in F minor (with Ya-Fei Materialities: Books, and 20th centuries. Beyond her academic work, Chuang), Bristol St. George’s, London; Readers, and the Abbate is herself a talented performer, and she and a solo recital of Mozart, Philadelphia Chanson in 16th-c. has been active in staging musical and oper- Chamber Music Society. He also chaired the Europe is forthcoming atic works, including serving as a dramaturg Viola Jury at the ARD Music Competition from Oxford Univer- for productions at the Metropolitan Opera. in Munich. T h e sity Press. [excerpted from the Harvard Gazette 11.20.13] Department is delighted to welcome Os- w Lockwood, Gosman: Beethoven’s “Eroica” Sketchbook continued on page 5 Beethoven’s “Eroica” Sketchbook: A Critical Edition, Transcribed, witness to a pivotal period in his creative development.” Edited, and with a Commentary by Lewis Lockwood and Alan Gos- The “Eroica” Sketchbook is essentially a diary of Beethoven's creative man was published by Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013 work during one of the great turning points in his career. This edition in 2 volumes. Lockwood is Fanny Peabody Research Professor makes available both a complete facsimile and transcription of the sketch- and Alan Gosman received his PhD from Harvard in 2001 and is book for the first time, along with a detailed commentary on the origins, currently Associate Professor of Music at University of Michigan. contents, and significance of this vitally important source. The publication is part of the Beethoven Sketchbook Series Joseph Kerman calls the edition, “A very impressive scholarly edition issued by the University of Illniois Press of which William Kin- of the most famous and important of Beethoven’s sketchbooks, long trea- derman is General Editor. Kinderman writes in his preface to the sured for their illumination of Beethoven’s works. The difficult notations publication, “The most famous of all Beethoven's sketchbooks is are deciphered scrupulously and ingeniously, and Lockwood and Gosman that known as the ‘Eroica’ Sketchbook (Landsberg 6) whose pages have not hesitated to add their clarifications of obscure notations right were filled mainly during 1803-04...this sketchbook bears special on the transcription pages.” 2 Tony-Award-Winner Jason Remembering Rulan Chao Pian Robert Brown Named Blodgett April 20, 1922-November 30, 2013 Artist-in-Residence Rulan Chao Pian, an eminent scholar of Chinese music, an influential Chi- The Harvard Department of Music and the nese language teacher, and a mentor Office for the Arts at Harvard have appointed to students and younger colleagues in Jason Robert Brown as Blodgett Artist-in-Res- China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and North idence during the spring of 2014.