Chamber Music

Instrumental Bach: questions of scoring and interpretation

by Uri Golomb

Record review, to be published in the February 2011 issue of Early Music (currently available on advance access through the journal's website)

Review of the following recordings: Flute Sonatas by the Bach Sons (Accent ACC 24216, rec 2008, 76’), played by... more Review of the following recordings: Flute Sonatas by the Bach Sons (Accent ACC 24216, rec 2008, 76’), played by Barthold Kuijken (flute) and Ewald Demeyere (harpsichord); Bach arranging and arranged (Hyphen Press Music 001, rec 2008, 57’), with the Bach Players; Johann Sebastian Bach: Triosonatas for organ (Antoine Marchand/Challenge Classics CC72314, rec 2008, 67’) with Reine-Marie Verhagen (recorder) and Tini Mathot (organ and harpsichord); Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonatas for Flute and Harpsichord (Arts SACD 47612-8, rec 2003, 64’), with Mario Folena (flute) and Roberto Loreggian (harpsichord) ; Johann Sebastian Bach: Musikalisches Opfer (Antoine Marchand/Challenge Classics CC72309, rec 2008, 57’), with Ton Koopman and members of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; Bach: The Cello Suites (Red Priest Recording RP006, rec 2001, 2004, 148’) with Angela East; Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard (ABC Classics ABC 476 5942, rec 2005-2007, 95’), with Richard Tognetti (violin), Neal Peres Da Costa (organ and harpsichord), and Daniel Yeadon (cello and viola da gamba); and Bach: Chamber Music (Passacaille 942, rec 2007, 68’) with La Divina Armonia.

Musician identity in interaction

by Katharine Parton

DCP, 2009

A MÚSICA DE CÂMARA COM PIANO DE LIDUÍNO PITOMBEIRA: ASPECTOS GERAIS DA ESCRITA PIANÍSTICA

by Danilo Jatobá

Artigo apresentado no XXI Congresso da Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Música, realizado de 22 a 26 de agosto de 2011 na cidade de Uberlândia/MG. Anais do XXI Congresso da ANPPOM, pp. 1249 - 1254.

The chamber music of Liduino Pitombeira reveals his greatest compositional output and the piano plays a relevant role... more The chamber music of Liduino Pitombeira reveals his greatest compositional output and the piano plays a relevant role in this production. From 105 chamber works in his current listing, 39 of them have the piano as part of their instrumental formation. The importance of using this instrument is on the unifying role of idiomatic elements peculiar to the Pitombeira’s piano writing and nationalist elements. This article aims to show elements more frequently identified in the piano part in some of the chamber works of Liduino Pitombeira and its main theoretical reference is the doctorate thesis of the pianist Karina Praxedes.

Embodied knowledge in ensemble performance: the case of informed observation.

by Murphy McCaleb

Delivered at Performa’11 Conference on Performance Studies, University of Aveiro (Portugal), 19–21 May 2011.

This paper examines small ensemble interaction from the perspective of reflective practice. Current research on... more This paper examines small ensemble interaction from the perspective of reflective practice. Current research on ensembles has increasingly focused on determining communicative properties of performers’ physical gestures. Interpretative coordination, although mentioned by Goodman (2002) and Williamon and Davidson (2002), has not been extensively explored. I argue that interpretative ensemble collaboration involves a connection between internal mental constructions of music and the way performers interact with their instruments. McNeill’s research on speech (2000, 2005) illustrates the influence of verbal content on physical gestures. In my work, I argue that gestures during musical performance could be not only similarly influenced by content within the score being played, but also could be required in order to play the music effectively.

Communication or Interaction? Applied environmental knowledge in ensemble performance.

by Murphy McCaleb

Delivered at the CMPCP Performance Studies Network International Conference, University of Cambridge, 14–17 July 2011.

Research on ensemble interaction has extensively focused on the paradigm of communication, drawing upon both its... more Research on ensemble interaction has extensively focused on the paradigm of communication, drawing upon both its process of encoding, transmitting, and decoding information and its associated linguistic terms (‘non-verbal communication’ (King and Ginsborg 2011), ‘communicative gestures’ (Dahl et al. 2010), ‘modes of communication’ (Seddon and Biasutti 2009), ‘visual communication’ (Kokotsaki 2007), etc.). However, this approach has not yet been extensively critiqued from the perspective of a performing ensemble musician. Coming from this standpoint, in this paper I interrogate the notion of communication within musical ensembles, proposing an alternative conceptual model based upon interaction. Through the use of reflective practice and informed observation within the framework of action research, I propose that ensemble interaction relies upon ‘ecological’ knowledge (as described by Godøy 2010) applied within the process of co- performer attunement (see Sawyer 2005).

Dvorak&Martinu_notes

by Stephen Soderberg

"Die stillen Praktiken der Musikedition des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Zur Drucküberlieferung des Grand Duo Concertant JV 204 von Carl Maria von Weber", in: Rohrblatt. die Zeitschrift für Oboe, Klarinette, Fagott und Saxophon 22 (2007), S. 2-15.

by Knut Holtstraeter

Mother Lode Issues: Ralph Shapey's worksheet and the late music

by Christian Carey

Published in Perspectives of New Music Vol 47, no. 2

Keywords: Ralph Shapey, Mother Lode worksheet, contemporary composition, post-tonal analysis, twelve-tone row, string... more Keywords: Ralph Shapey, Mother Lode worksheet, contemporary composition, post-tonal analysis, twelve-tone row, string quartet

Abstract: From 1981 until his death in 2002, Ralph Shapey repeatedly employed the Mother Lode, a worksheet which included a twelve-tone collection, together with various pitch and rhythmic relationships that he associated with the row. The Mother Lode worksheet is an omnipresent precompositional tool. Shapey included it at the beginning of some of his published scores.

Patrick Finley and Mary Greitzer have both evaluated works from the 1980s in which Shapey was remarkably faithful to the ordering of linear elements, verticals, and rhythmic gestures found on the Mother Lode worksheet. Although more varied in its deployment, the Mother Lode worksheet still exerted a great degree of influence in Shapey's works from the 90s and 00s. Shapey's single-minded exploration of the potentialities of the worksheet is an essential component to an understanding of his late works.   

Lovelorn Lamentation or Histrionic Historicism? Reconsidering Allusion and Extramusical Meaning in the 1854 Version of Brahms's B-Major Trio

by Jacquelyn Sholes

19th-Century Music 34/1 (Summer 2010): 61-86.

Although it has long been accepted that the 1854 version of Brahms's B-major piano trio contains references to... more Although it has long been accepted that the 1854 version of Brahms's B-major piano trio contains references to Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte and Schubert's Schwanengesang, it has escaped notice until now that the piece also alludes, clearly and in a structurally significant manner, to Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in C major, K.159. Strong musical evidence for this additional allusion is corroborated by Brahms's long-term, multifaceted engagement with Scarlatti's music as demonstrated by his correspondence, music library, performance repertoire, theoretical studies, and other compositions. The revisions Brahms made to the trio in 1889 are also highly suggestive: for the first time, the three theme groups replaced by altogether new material can be understood to correspond precisely to those containing the clearest allusions to the music of other composers. Identification of the Scarlatti reference necessitates reevaluation of the oft-proposed idea that the trio's song references function as a lament for Brahms's own “distant beloved', Clara Schumann. The reference to Scarlatti, while potentially supportive of such a program, also suggests an alternative interpretation: perhaps the trio's allusions are best understood within the context of the young composer's struggle to reconcile his relationship to his predecessors in the heady period surrounding the publication of Schumann's Neue Bahnen. If the original trio represents an elegy for the musical past, rather than—or even in addition to—a lament for Clara, then the 1889 revisions, not to be understood simply as Brahms's attempt to expunge an embarrassing confession of love, must be considered in terms of the historical perspective of the mature composer.

Shostakovich In Dialogue: Form, Imagery and Ideas In Quartets 1-7

by Judith Kuhn

“Mendelssohn’s creative response to late Beethoven: Polyphony and thematic identity in Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A-major Op. 13”

by Uri Golomb

The copy posted here is a draft proofread, which may contain some mistakes. The final, print version appeared in _Ad Parnassum: A Journal of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music_, Volume 4, Issue 7 (April 2006): 101-119.

Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A minor, Op. 13, completed in October 1827, is one of several works by the young composer to... more Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A minor, Op. 13, completed in October 1827, is one of several works by the young composer to feature the unmistakable influence of Beethoven’s “late” style. Op. 13 is therefore treated frequently as an apprentice work, an attempt by a teenage composer to come to terms with the style of an earlier and venerated master; Beethoven’s music is thus used as a critical yardstick in evaluating Mendelssohn’s work. Mendelssohn’s aims in his work, however, were often quite different from Beethoven’s. In this paper, I attempt to place Op. 13 within Mendelssohn’s own creative development, examining where his Beethovenian apprenticeship might fit within the development of his own style. I shall focus on a comparison between Mendelssohn’s work and Beethoven’s Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, which served as primary model for the first and (to a lesser extent) last movements of Mendelssohn’s quartet. As a counter-example, placing Op. 13 in the context of earlier works, I shall also include a comparison between Op. 13 and the F-minor Sinfonia for string orchestra.

Mendelssohn’s work displays greater formal clarity and rhetorical directness than that of his late-Beethovenian models. Mendelssohn avoids Beethoven’s tonal, thematic and emotional ambiguities, and his fractured musical surface, in favour of fluency and continuity. He also seeks a more obvious sense of unity: Beethoven achieves unity through subtle, implicit motivic connections which are not always directly audible; Mendelssohn’s Op. 13, on the other hand, is a cyclic work, the unity of which relies on explicitly audible connections between entire (self-sufficient) themes.

In terms of expressive ambience, Op. 13 is clearly linked to Mendelssohn’s own earlier compositions. A number of the composer’s teenage works (notably the First Symphony, Op. 11, and several movements in his String Symphonies) are characterised by an agitated, dramatic expression, reminiscent of Haydn’s so-called Sturm und Drang works. Op. 13, especially in its outer movements, achieves a greater intensity and drive than Mendelssohn’s earlier explorations of agitated expression, and this is due in no small part to devices which he probably owes to his intense familiarity with Beethoven’s late works (e.g., the fragmentation and disruption of thematic materials, and the use of polyphony as a destabilising factor, a means of bringing two contrasted themes together, allowing one to question the other).

Even in his partial adaptation of Beethoven’s means and thematic materials, then, Mendelssohn was not merely attempting to assimilate Beethoven’s style. Instead, he treated his models selectively, emulating those features in Beethoven’s work that helped him in consolidating and intensifying his own expressive aims.

Music Written for Bassoon by Bassoonists

by Michael Burns

published in 'The Double Reed' Volume 24 No. 2

Ästhetische Vergewisserung durch Tradition. Jörg Widmanns fünfteiliger Streichquartettzyklus als Relektüre historischer Satztypologien

by Stefan Drees

in: Die Tonkunst 3 (2009), H. 1, S. 58-65

Mit der zyklischen Auffassung seiner Streichquartette stellt Jörg Widmann die zwischen 1997 und 2005 entstandene... more Mit der zyklischen Auffassung seiner Streichquartette stellt Jörg Widmann die zwischen 1997 und 2005 entstandene Werkgruppe in einen Kontext, der durch ein spezifisches Verständnis von Tradition gekennzeichnet ist. Die Besonderheit der Kompositionen besteht nach Widmann gerade darin, dass sie sowohl als Einzelwerke aufgeführt werden können, wobei der jeweilige Kerngedanke einer an traditionellen Auffassungen interessierten Untersuchung bestimmter Satztypologien und deren musikalischer Essenz in den Vordergrund rückt, dass sie aber zugleich auch Gegenstand einer zyklischen Präsentation sein können, in deren Verlauf sich die Einzelkompositionen den Charakteristika einer Mehrsätzigkeit mit aufeinander bezogenen Werkteilen annähern. Die Fragestellungen, mit denen Widmann der Gattung Streichquartett in jedem Einzelfall begegnet, führen ihn einerseits zu einer Erweiterung instrumentaler Techniken, andererseits zu formalen Lösungen, die, obgleich auf den thematisierten Satz-Archetypen basierend, über diese hinausreichen.