Here are this week's odds and ends in my musicological readings.
Heinrich Albert (1604-1651), a German composer, gave me some great advice about continuo playing. When you're playing continuo, it should not be like "hacking cabbage". Good advice. I'm also planning to include more vegetable analogies in my teaching.
Domenico Alberti (1710-1740), the composer for whom the famous "bass" is named was plagarized by his former pupil Giuseppe Jozzi. Jozzi, a well known castrato, published some of Alberti's keyboard music under his own name. Fortunately, cable television was not around or an announcer would have inevitably had to say, "Next on Fox: When castrati plagarize." There is also an infertility joke to be made here if you so desire.
Vincenzo Albrici (1631-1696), upon becoming the organist at the Thomaskirche became converted to Protestantism. Upon becoming the musical director of St. Augustin in Prague, he converted back to Catholicism. Fortunately for him, there was not a big Christian Science congregation in Europe at the time.
Henry Aldrich (1648-1710), an English composer wrote a catch called "Good indeed the herb's good weed" which includes conspicuous rests to allow the singers time to puff on their pipes while singing the song. Dude!
Guiseppe Aldrovandini (1672-1707), "died at the age of 34; leaving a waterfront tavern in an intoxicated condition at about 3a.m., he fell into a canal and was drowned." Most of the composers I know can't seem to avoid the former, so try to avoid the latter.
Young's Composition 160 no. 5 includes the instructions "Turn a butterfly (or any number of butterflies) loose in the performance area." This is a disturbing precedent. Presumably some student of Boulez will eventually write a piece in which every animal in the zoo is released on the stage in all permutations of verticality.
Sir Hugh Allen (1869-1946), retained his Oxford professorship until he died in 1946 "as a result of being run down by a bicycle". Being found dead in a canal at 3 a.m. doesn't sound quite so bad now.
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Sunday, May 27, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
With thanks to Carol Reynolds
I had the occasion this week to talk with some lovely librarians. We were chatting about the things that one normally talks about, and it made me recall with great fondness one of the most brutal teachers I ever had.
At the beginning of Dr. Reynolds' methodology class, I was convinced that I wasn't ready for graduate school. On the first day, she passed out a sheet filled with foreign phrases. It turned out that once you found the correct resource, the project was fairly simple. What terrified me was that a fellow student named Peeter Tammearu was a fearsome polyglot who corrected a misspelled Latin declension immediately. Convinced that I was way behind everyone else, I plodded on with determination. Dr. Reynolds' class turned out to be one of the best classes I ever took.
In the beginning, she said something like, "You know where the milk is in the grocery store without having to look it up. I want you to be that familiar with the music library." So, we started by having a test on all of the Library of Congress numbers for the music library. It had questions like, "What work am I likely to find at the call number M425 .B76?" Or, "Make up a realistic Call number and Cutter number for The Ring Cycle."
When we were going to have a test on the ML134's, she said - no joke - "OK, we going to have a test on the ML134's in about 3 weeks. I'm going to have them set up in stations around the room and you'll walk from book to book and answer questions. Now, some of them are in German, so if you don't read German, I suggest that you learn some before the test. Here is a sheet with about 50 words that you'll have to know in order to pass."
When I tell this to librarians, they are always amazed. They always say, "I never had to do anything like that when I did my library science degree!"
It was also in her class - during a section on iconography - that I made the important discovery of the nude shots of Stravinsky which you can see here.
In the end, it was one of the best and hardest classes I ever took. I've never felt disoriented in the music library, and I often don't need to look things up in order to find them. So, a profound thank you, Dr. Reynolds. It was a good and useful gift that you gave us.
At the beginning of Dr. Reynolds' methodology class, I was convinced that I wasn't ready for graduate school. On the first day, she passed out a sheet filled with foreign phrases. It turned out that once you found the correct resource, the project was fairly simple. What terrified me was that a fellow student named Peeter Tammearu was a fearsome polyglot who corrected a misspelled Latin declension immediately. Convinced that I was way behind everyone else, I plodded on with determination. Dr. Reynolds' class turned out to be one of the best classes I ever took.
In the beginning, she said something like, "You know where the milk is in the grocery store without having to look it up. I want you to be that familiar with the music library." So, we started by having a test on all of the Library of Congress numbers for the music library. It had questions like, "What work am I likely to find at the call number M425 .B76?" Or, "Make up a realistic Call number and Cutter number for The Ring Cycle."
When we were going to have a test on the ML134's, she said - no joke - "OK, we going to have a test on the ML134's in about 3 weeks. I'm going to have them set up in stations around the room and you'll walk from book to book and answer questions. Now, some of them are in German, so if you don't read German, I suggest that you learn some before the test. Here is a sheet with about 50 words that you'll have to know in order to pass."
When I tell this to librarians, they are always amazed. They always say, "I never had to do anything like that when I did my library science degree!"
It was also in her class - during a section on iconography - that I made the important discovery of the nude shots of Stravinsky which you can see here.
In the end, it was one of the best and hardest classes I ever took. I've never felt disoriented in the music library, and I often don't need to look things up in order to find them. So, a profound thank you, Dr. Reynolds. It was a good and useful gift that you gave us.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The problem of teaching Wagner
A friend recently asked why some people have a problem with Wagner, and it brought to mind the last time I taught him in a history class. I'm not sure I have a good strategy for teaching Wagner, but I know that the next time I approach him, I'm not going to do what I did last time.
I started by talking about the adventures in Riga and even brought up the dog and the daring escape. I naturally covered his extremely offensive essay on the need to purge the Jewish elements out of music. To punctuate this, I told the anecdote about him conducting Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn was extremely popular, so Wagner was under obligation to conduct his music. At least on one occasion, he made a big production of putting on a pair of children's gloves to conduct the Mendelssohn piece which he then removed to conduct the remainder of the program (which was of music that he deemed more mature).
I told the class about his regular affairs with the chorus girls. I talked about Bayreuth and the operas. I touched on one of his final essays when he attempted to score the trifecta by saying that the answer to all of the problems facing the world was a return to the sacraments, a vegetarian diet, and the removal of Jewish influence from arts and culture. I mentioned that at least one scholar believes that he had his heart attack after Cosima confronted him about one of his affairs with a chorus girl. At this point, I heard a student in the class say, "Good."
Then, I attempted to explain that he wrote some of the most beautiful music ever written. I played a video of Liebestod from the end of Tristan and Isolde as an example. I even brought up Father Lee's argument in his book on Die Meistersinger. Even if Wagner was one of the most petulant human beings that walked the earth, we can at least see in Meistersinger that somewhere inside of him, he knew what a beautiful human being was.
It was all to no avail. By the time I finished the biography, the students were so offended by his personal life and attitudes that they couldn't hear the music. I know that I will start with the music next time, but he does present an almost unsolvable pedagogical problem.
When I hear the music, I do wish that someone like Hans Sachs had written it and not Wagner. In some ways it's good for class discussion. It does break students out of the 1:1 semiotic associations that seem to be so much a part of popular culture. I've heard students talk about Brahms' longing for Clara Schumann being expressed in the Poco Alegretto from the 3rd Symphony. They don't like to talk about Wagner's anti-semitism being expressed in the Siegfired leitmotif. So maybe it's all good in the end.
I started by talking about the adventures in Riga and even brought up the dog and the daring escape. I naturally covered his extremely offensive essay on the need to purge the Jewish elements out of music. To punctuate this, I told the anecdote about him conducting Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn was extremely popular, so Wagner was under obligation to conduct his music. At least on one occasion, he made a big production of putting on a pair of children's gloves to conduct the Mendelssohn piece which he then removed to conduct the remainder of the program (which was of music that he deemed more mature).
I told the class about his regular affairs with the chorus girls. I talked about Bayreuth and the operas. I touched on one of his final essays when he attempted to score the trifecta by saying that the answer to all of the problems facing the world was a return to the sacraments, a vegetarian diet, and the removal of Jewish influence from arts and culture. I mentioned that at least one scholar believes that he had his heart attack after Cosima confronted him about one of his affairs with a chorus girl. At this point, I heard a student in the class say, "Good."
Then, I attempted to explain that he wrote some of the most beautiful music ever written. I played a video of Liebestod from the end of Tristan and Isolde as an example. I even brought up Father Lee's argument in his book on Die Meistersinger. Even if Wagner was one of the most petulant human beings that walked the earth, we can at least see in Meistersinger that somewhere inside of him, he knew what a beautiful human being was.
It was all to no avail. By the time I finished the biography, the students were so offended by his personal life and attitudes that they couldn't hear the music. I know that I will start with the music next time, but he does present an almost unsolvable pedagogical problem.
When I hear the music, I do wish that someone like Hans Sachs had written it and not Wagner. In some ways it's good for class discussion. It does break students out of the 1:1 semiotic associations that seem to be so much a part of popular culture. I've heard students talk about Brahms' longing for Clara Schumann being expressed in the Poco Alegretto from the 3rd Symphony. They don't like to talk about Wagner's anti-semitism being expressed in the Siegfired leitmotif. So maybe it's all good in the end.
Mostly musicology: Agostini - composer, lover, murderer
Pietro Agostini (c. 1635 - 1680) was like a lot of composers that I know. He had extra-musical interests that wound up causing him a lot of trouble. Giuseppe Pitoni says that Agostini "led a swash-buckling and notorious life and had a natural inclination to impropriety and baseness". This also sounds like quite a few of the composers that I know.
Groves says that he got kicked out of his native city when we was young because of his involvement in a murder. So, he naturally turned to composition.
He showed up in Genoa and went to church. He complained about the music so much that someone said, "Can you do any better?" He wrote some music for them, and it was better. After silencing the critics, he got invited to write for the opera in Milan.
His stay in Genoa was cut short, however, because they kicked him out of that city too. This time, apparently, because he had taken up an intimate relationship with a nun. So, he went to Rome to finish his career where presumably his peccadilloes went relatively unnoticed.
The lesson here is apparently that if you want to be a swash-buckling composer, you should probably live in a big city.
Groves says that he got kicked out of his native city when we was young because of his involvement in a murder. So, he naturally turned to composition.
He showed up in Genoa and went to church. He complained about the music so much that someone said, "Can you do any better?" He wrote some music for them, and it was better. After silencing the critics, he got invited to write for the opera in Milan.
His stay in Genoa was cut short, however, because they kicked him out of that city too. This time, apparently, because he had taken up an intimate relationship with a nun. So, he went to Rome to finish his career where presumably his peccadilloes went relatively unnoticed.
The lesson here is apparently that if you want to be a swash-buckling composer, you should probably live in a big city.
Mostly musicology: Aelred bashing hocket
Haven't had time to post recently. I'll try to get back on my game. In the meantime, enjoy this description from Aelred (c. 1109-1166). He doesn't appear to be very pleased with the new music the kids are trying out in church.
"This voice sings afterwards, that one below, another above, another divides and cuts into the middle of certain notes. A note is sung rapidly, then broken, then thrust against another note, then drawn out in extended sound...Sometimes you may see a man with an open mouth, not to sing but as it were to expire by shutting in his breath, and with a ridiculous interception of his voice to threaten silence."
"This voice sings afterwards, that one below, another above, another divides and cuts into the middle of certain notes. A note is sung rapidly, then broken, then thrust against another note, then drawn out in extended sound...Sometimes you may see a man with an open mouth, not to sing but as it were to expire by shutting in his breath, and with a ridiculous interception of his voice to threaten silence."
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Mostly musicology: Adam the Hunchback
Adam de Halle (13th century) is quite rightly the most famous of the trouvères. He was also commonly known as Adam le Bossu (Adam the Hunchback). Funny thing is, we have record of him explaining that it was a family name and that he wasn't personally a Hunchback.
I'm just trying to imagine how often that must have played out in court. "Lords and ladies, I present to you the most famous singer in the world, Adam the Hunchback."
"I've know some Hunchbacks in my time, and you, sir, are not a Hunchback. Why are you called Adam the Hunchback?"
"Well, it's a family name. One of my great grandfathers was probably a Hunchback, so everyone called him Paul the Hunchback. He passed the name onto his son, and everyone has called us Hunchback ever since. It's really more of a marketing ploy than anything."
It's sort of the Medieval version of Bare Naked Ladies. There aren't any BNL's in the group, but you remember the name. Same thing here. No hunchback, but you remember that a guy who isn't a hunchback calls himself one.
I'm thinking of some names for myself, but I'm willing to hear suggestions.
I'm just trying to imagine how often that must have played out in court. "Lords and ladies, I present to you the most famous singer in the world, Adam the Hunchback."
"I've know some Hunchbacks in my time, and you, sir, are not a Hunchback. Why are you called Adam the Hunchback?"
"Well, it's a family name. One of my great grandfathers was probably a Hunchback, so everyone called him Paul the Hunchback. He passed the name onto his son, and everyone has called us Hunchback ever since. It's really more of a marketing ploy than anything."
It's sort of the Medieval version of Bare Naked Ladies. There aren't any BNL's in the group, but you remember the name. Same thing here. No hunchback, but you remember that a guy who isn't a hunchback calls himself one.
I'm thinking of some names for myself, but I'm willing to hear suggestions.
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