Winter 2020 Meeting Abstracts
0 Comments Published by AMSGNY President on Thursday, January 16, 2020 at 7:37 PM.
Panel 1
Mythic Paradigms and Jungian Archetypes in Per Nørgård’s Gilgamesh (1972)
Barry Wiener (Independent Scholar)
Per Nørgård’s opera Gilgamesh (1972) embodies visions of universal harmony and discord, and of spiritual wholeness and disintegration. Nørgård revised the ancient Mesopotamian epic narrative to create a parable about the growth of human consciousness. In this paper, I analyze Nørgård’s use of mythic paradigms and Jungian archetypes in the opera. In addition, I examine his use of dialectical polarities and parallels, including creation and death, the human and the divine, and focus on self and on others. I show how Nørgård’s reinterprets Gilgamesh’s path to spiritual enlightenment in a manner characteristic of the “flower-power time” of the late 1960s.
Musical Borrowing in English and Continental Settings of "Une jeune fillette"
Christopher Morrongiello (Hofstra University)
"Une jeune fillette," also known as "Aria della Monica," "Ich ging einmal spazieren," "The Old Almain," "The Queen's Almain," "The King of Africa," "Von Gott will ich nicht lassen," among other colorful titles, is one of the most important and widely disseminated melodies in the history of Western music. Many late-16th- and early-17th-century settings of the melody survive in printed or manuscript tablatures for lute, cittern, bandora, and guitar. There are at least fifty-five settings extant for solo lute, including Daniel Bacheler’s magnificent extended set of variations in the Lord Herbert of Cherbury Lute Book (GB-Cfm Mus. MS 689, fos. 23v–25)—the longest piece in the book. While examining the English and Continental settings contemporaneous with Bacheler’s setting, I discovered a complex interchange of borrowed materials. This paper will reveal the fascinating interrelationship and extensive exchange of borrowed music among these contemporary settings.
Whither the soul of the artist? A pilot methodology for comparing early phonograph disc recordings to corresponding piano roll renditions
Artis Wodehouse (Independent Scholar)
Professional musicians and connoisseurs have frequently questioned the performance authenticity of piano roll renditions. Do they give a fair representation of the artist’s expressive intention, or were so-called hand-played reproducing piano roll performances so constrained by technological limitations that in order to produce salable product, the artist’s live rendition needed to be significantly modified? Artis Wodehouse seeks to open a discussion of these questions through a new analytic method.
Panel 2
Fostering the Career of Johannes Brahms: Clara Schumann's Essential Aid
Styra Avins (Independent Scholar)
What Clara Schumann did for Johannes Brahms-- not what you are thinking.
'All my heart, in this my singing:' Amy Beach and the Women's Clubs of New England
Lili Tobias (Independent Scholar)
Scholars have regularly chosen to focus on the large-scale works of Amy Beach in the context of the concert hall, situating her within a narrative of “masters” and “masterworks.” Yet such an approach
paints an inaccurate picture of the ways Beach interacted with music and contributed to American musical culture. In fact, Beach’s compositional career overwhelmingly centered on creating music for
women within the context of women’s social clubs, and participation within this musical landscape was integral to her identity. By examining the music Amy Beach in the context of women’s music
clubs, I remove her from the narrative of musical “masters” and “masterworks” in order to sufficiently discuss her contribution to American music at the turn of the twentieth century.
Leitmotif and Network Form in Lili Boulanger’s Clairieres dans le ciel
Jordan Stokes (Westchester University)
The first major work that Lili Boulanger wrote after winning the Prix de Rome was her song cycle, Clairieres dans le ciel (1915). This should have marked the beginning of a thrilling new chapter in her creative development, but instead it stands as something of an epitaph: she died three years later, aged 24.
The question of form in a song cycle is always somewhat vexed. We don’t have a good model for the way that form works in collections of miniatures. But one of the most remarkable aspects of Clairieres dans le ciel is precisely its musical form: the network of reminiscence and significance created by recurring musical elements on the one hand, and recurring linguistic textual elements on the other. The last song contains a quotation — words and music — of the first line of the first song. Obviously this creates a formal connection between these two moments. Just as obvious is the connection forged between the last song and the ninth song by the use of words “lilas” and “parterre” (which appear nowhere else in the entire cycle). A proper evaluation of Boulanger’s magnum opus requires us to sketch out a new concept of form for the song cycle more generally, using network graphs to visualize the patterns of repetition and recollection that emerge during our experience of each successive song.
Mythic Paradigms and Jungian Archetypes in Per Nørgård’s Gilgamesh (1972)
Barry Wiener (Independent Scholar)
Per Nørgård’s opera Gilgamesh (1972) embodies visions of universal harmony and discord, and of spiritual wholeness and disintegration. Nørgård revised the ancient Mesopotamian epic narrative to create a parable about the growth of human consciousness. In this paper, I analyze Nørgård’s use of mythic paradigms and Jungian archetypes in the opera. In addition, I examine his use of dialectical polarities and parallels, including creation and death, the human and the divine, and focus on self and on others. I show how Nørgård’s reinterprets Gilgamesh’s path to spiritual enlightenment in a manner characteristic of the “flower-power time” of the late 1960s.
Musical Borrowing in English and Continental Settings of "Une jeune fillette"
Christopher Morrongiello (Hofstra University)
"Une jeune fillette," also known as "Aria della Monica," "Ich ging einmal spazieren," "The Old Almain," "The Queen's Almain," "The King of Africa," "Von Gott will ich nicht lassen," among other colorful titles, is one of the most important and widely disseminated melodies in the history of Western music. Many late-16th- and early-17th-century settings of the melody survive in printed or manuscript tablatures for lute, cittern, bandora, and guitar. There are at least fifty-five settings extant for solo lute, including Daniel Bacheler’s magnificent extended set of variations in the Lord Herbert of Cherbury Lute Book (GB-Cfm Mus. MS 689, fos. 23v–25)—the longest piece in the book. While examining the English and Continental settings contemporaneous with Bacheler’s setting, I discovered a complex interchange of borrowed materials. This paper will reveal the fascinating interrelationship and extensive exchange of borrowed music among these contemporary settings.
Whither the soul of the artist? A pilot methodology for comparing early phonograph disc recordings to corresponding piano roll renditions
Artis Wodehouse (Independent Scholar)
Professional musicians and connoisseurs have frequently questioned the performance authenticity of piano roll renditions. Do they give a fair representation of the artist’s expressive intention, or were so-called hand-played reproducing piano roll performances so constrained by technological limitations that in order to produce salable product, the artist’s live rendition needed to be significantly modified? Artis Wodehouse seeks to open a discussion of these questions through a new analytic method.
Panel 2
Fostering the Career of Johannes Brahms: Clara Schumann's Essential Aid
Styra Avins (Independent Scholar)
What Clara Schumann did for Johannes Brahms-- not what you are thinking.
'All my heart, in this my singing:' Amy Beach and the Women's Clubs of New England
Lili Tobias (Independent Scholar)
Scholars have regularly chosen to focus on the large-scale works of Amy Beach in the context of the concert hall, situating her within a narrative of “masters” and “masterworks.” Yet such an approach
paints an inaccurate picture of the ways Beach interacted with music and contributed to American musical culture. In fact, Beach’s compositional career overwhelmingly centered on creating music for
women within the context of women’s social clubs, and participation within this musical landscape was integral to her identity. By examining the music Amy Beach in the context of women’s music
clubs, I remove her from the narrative of musical “masters” and “masterworks” in order to sufficiently discuss her contribution to American music at the turn of the twentieth century.
Leitmotif and Network Form in Lili Boulanger’s Clairieres dans le ciel
Jordan Stokes (Westchester University)
The first major work that Lili Boulanger wrote after winning the Prix de Rome was her song cycle, Clairieres dans le ciel (1915). This should have marked the beginning of a thrilling new chapter in her creative development, but instead it stands as something of an epitaph: she died three years later, aged 24.
The question of form in a song cycle is always somewhat vexed. We don’t have a good model for the way that form works in collections of miniatures. But one of the most remarkable aspects of Clairieres dans le ciel is precisely its musical form: the network of reminiscence and significance created by recurring musical elements on the one hand, and recurring linguistic textual elements on the other. The last song contains a quotation — words and music — of the first line of the first song. Obviously this creates a formal connection between these two moments. Just as obvious is the connection forged between the last song and the ninth song by the use of words “lilas” and “parterre” (which appear nowhere else in the entire cycle). A proper evaluation of Boulanger’s magnum opus requires us to sketch out a new concept of form for the song cycle more generally, using network graphs to visualize the patterns of repetition and recollection that emerge during our experience of each successive song.
Concert Announcement from Sylvia Kahan
0 Comments Published by AMSGNY President on Tuesday, January 7, 2020 at 5:20 PM.
2020 is the centenary of the creation of the "Groupe des Six": composers Auric, Durey, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc and Tailleferre, whose musical and spiritual mentor was Erik Satie and whose de facto publicity agent was Jean Cocteau. I am thrilled to be commemorating the occasion by performing a concert of music by Les Six at Taplin Auditorium, Princeton University, on Friday, January 17 at 8 p.m. I'll share the program with the amazing mezzo-soprano Barbara Rearick. The concert is part of a conference, "Within and Without: Les Six at 100," sponsored by Princeton University, January 16-18. Here's the link: https://music.princeton.
