‘The Timpani Beats Just Hit on My Heart!’ Music, Memory, and Diplomacy in the Philadelphia Orchestra's 1973 China Tour

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-418
Author(s):  
BESS XINTONG LIU
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Western Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Art Music ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Musical Diplomacy

AbstractThis article examines the underexplored history of the 1973 Philadelphia Orchestra China tour and retheorizes twentieth-century musical diplomacy as a process of ritualization. As a case study, I consult bilingual archives and incorporate interviews with participants in this event, which brings together individual narratives and public opinions. By contextualizing this musical diplomacy in the Cold War détente and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, I argue for the complex set of relations mobilized by Western art music in 1973. This tour first created a sense of co-dependency between musicians and politicians. It also engaged Chinese audiences by revitalizing pre-Cultural Revolution sonic memories. Second, I argue that the significance of the 1973 Orchestra tour lies in the ritualization of Western art music as diplomatic etiquette, based on further contextualization of this event in the historical trajectory of Sino-US relations and within the entrenched Chinese ideology of liyue (ritual and music).

Hearing Film Music Topics outside the Movie Theatre

2021 ◽  
pp. 548-574
Author(s):  
Janet Bourne
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Extraction Method ◽  
Film Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Film Scores ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Western Art Music ◽  
Movie Theatre

This chapter describes a cognitively informed framework based on analogy for theorizing cinematic listening; in this case, it tests the hypothesis that contemporary listeners might use associations learned from film music topics to make sense of western art music (WAM). Using the pastoral topic as a case study, a corpus of film scores from 1980–2014 determines common associations for this topic based on imagery, emotion, and narrative contexts. Then, the chapter outlines potential narratives a modern moviegoer might make by listening “cinematically” to a Sibelius movement. The hypothesis is empirically tested through an experiment where participants record their imagined narratives and images while listening to WAM and film music. The meaning extraction method, a statistical analysis for identifying associational themes, is used to analyze people’s responses.

scholarly journals The Music Room: Betty Freeman's Musical Soirées

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-409
Author(s):  
JAKE JOHNSON
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Interaction Rituals ◽  
Salon Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Art Music

AbstractFor over ten years, Los Angeles arts patron Betty Freeman (1921–2009) welcomed composers, performers, scholars, patrons, and invited guests into her home for a series of monthly musicales that were known as ‘Salotto’. In this article, I analyse Freeman's musicales within a sociological framework of gender and what Randall Collins calls ‘interaction rituals’. I contextualize these events, which took place in a space in her Beverly Hills home known as the Music Room, within a broader history of salon culture in Los Angeles in the twentieth century – a history that shaped the city's relationship with the artistic avant-garde and made Los Angeles an important amplifier for many of the most important voices in contemporary Western art music of the last sixty years.

scholarly journals Intervision

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Yulia Yurtaeva
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Basic Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western View ◽  
The Cold War

The research on the “Intervision”, used as an empiric case study about the inter-cultural communication between its participants, consists of examining primary sources spread over several archives throughout Europe to collect structural and administrative data, making interviews with contemporary witnesses and evaluating statistics – with mainly the task to widen the perspective on a subject, that was formerly nation-focused or being described with a Western view only. As the preliminary steps of a basic study on the History of the Program Exchange in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, this research became an example, with which challenges one is confronted within an Media Archaeological task.

Will New Blood in the Leadership Produce New Blood on the Battlefield? The Impact of Regime Changes on Middle East Military Rivalries

2004 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Tures
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Conflict ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Regime Changes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

The Middle East has witnessed a recent spate of alterations in rulers and regimes. These new leaders are coming to power in countries having a history of international conflict with other states in the region. Will the change in government exacerbate interstate crises, producing disputes and wars? Or will the nascent leadership steer their countries to peace, choosing instead to focus on an internal consolidation of power? To answer this question, this article examines the theories of foreign policy behavior of new leaders. It discusses the results of a quantitative analysis of an earlier time frame: the initial years of the Cold War. The article then conducts a series of case study analyses of contemporary times to determine if the theory and prior statistical tests remain valid. The results show that new administrations are more likely to target rivals with a threat, display, or limited use of force. Such incoming leaders, however, seem reluctant to drag their countries into a full-scale war. These findings hold for a variety of countries in a number of different contexts. Such results are relevant for Middle East scholars, conflict mediators, as well as American foreign policymakers who seem to have adopted a taste for regime change in the region.

scholarly journals Исследования Pоссии/СССР и стран Восточной Европы после холодной войны: новое лицо дисциплины

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (7) ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Olga Bolshakova
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
New Developments ◽  
East European ◽  
Global Character ◽  
History Of ◽  
Community Of Researchers ◽  
The Cold War

The paper deals with the new developments in the field of Russian and East European studies (REES) after the end of the Cold war, with the focus on the U.S. and Great Britain. Along with organizational and structural changes in the field special attention is devoted to new subjects and trends in the study of the region, with Belarus as a case study. Research in this field began in the 90s and has been booming since the 2000s. Researchers are primarily interested in the history of the country, political science, anthropology, and literary studies. The formation of an international community of researchers allows us to conclude that previously “Western” discipline of REES is gaining a global character.

scholarly journals Onset asynchrony in Western art music

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-158
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dunsby ◽  
Yannis Rammos
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Claude Debussy ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Piano Pedagogy ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Western Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Art Music ◽  
Onset Asynchrony

Melodic onset asynchrony, whereby the upper or some component of a musical simultaneity may strike the ear ahead of other sounds, is a common feature in the performance of Western art music. It seems to be of high aesthetic value in the history of pianism, often harnessed to the seemingly contradictory “bass lead” that prevailed in the early 20th century, though in fact the two are far from exclusive. Departing from an application of Brent Yorgason’s taxonomy of “hand-breaking” (2009) to canonical, composed examples of onset asynchrony from Beethoven, Schumann, and Liszt, we examine timbral, organological, and aesthetic continuities that underly distinct practices of asynchrony. We consider the physical nature of such normally non-notated “microtiming”, ranging in performance from a few ms of melodic onset asynchrony to about 100ms, above which it is generally agreed that even the casual listener may perceive it. A piano-roll recording by Claude Debussy, of “The Little Shepherd”, illustrates the mix of melodic onset asynchrony, bass lead, and apparent simultaneity that may be applied in a single interpretation. We then discuss the concept of “audibility” and the question of to what extent, and in what ways, the combined transients of piano attacks may interact. We consider with reference to 20th century Russian piano pedagogy why onset asynchrony seems to have been a little documented, rather than an explicit playing technique, even though certain sources, such as a 1973 treatise by Nadezhda Golubovskaya, show it to be ubiquitous and well theorised. Finally, regarding the thinking that has predominated in musical performance studies in recent decades, with its emphasis on average practices and “ordinary” listeners, we suggest that a new emphasis will be fruitful, that is, research on what is particular about the embodied creativity of expert musicians.

RIAS, 1963–1992

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Rock And Roll ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Unique Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This concluding chapter briefly charts the history of RIAS until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. By the late 1960s RIAS had undergone three significant changes. First, the station had become a much more thoroughly German institution. Next was RIAS's decision to broadcast more popular music, especially rock-and-roll. The final significant change for RIAS was the introduction of a new format: television. The chapter shows how these changes coincided with political and generational shifts in the last decades of the Cold War, which at the same time highlights the fact that RIAS is a product of the Cold War. Finally, the chapter turns to a discussion of the legacy of RIAS and of how the station's history serves as an important and unique case study for considering the success and limitations of the American efforts to sway public attitudes behind the Iron Curtain.

scholarly journals Cover Songs and Tradition: A Case Study of Symphonic Metal

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Hillier
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metal ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Heavy Metal Music ◽  
Western Art Music ◽  
Cover Songs ◽  
Musical Canon

This paper examines the role of cover songs in the continuation of tradition, and in the formation of a musical canon. It explores the connections between ‘classical’ and heavy metal music as expressed by musicians of said genres, specifically those who partake in both. Furthermore, I argue that the practice of covering works from the Western art music canon in the metal genre, evinces the consequent development of the symphonic metal sub-genre. An embedded investigation attests to Western art music having inspired numerous metal musicians, who have in turn covered said music as a means to show their respect for the tradition. As such, cover versions are essential to continue one tradition in a new direction. Ultimately, these cover versions of classical works liaise classical music and heavy metal, resulting in the formation of the symphonic metal tradition. Covering music also strengthens a musicians’ position as authentic artists by demonstrating their belonging to two rites, and through their work of synthesizing grounds for the fusion of aforementioned rites. This research provides a further basis for examining the same phenomenon in other genres of music that demonstrate inter- and intra-generic links. It also provides a base for research into how rock and metal bands construct their own notions of tradition, canon, and authenticity through the music that they create and adapt.

Sound Pedagogy: Teaching listening since Cage

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Tinkle
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Experimental Music ◽  
Sound Art ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Lived Space ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Western Art Music

This article proposes that teaching people how to listen is a central and underappreciated facet of post-Cagean experimental music and sound art. Under a new analytical framework that I call ‘sound pedagogy’, I trace a history of linguistic discourses about listening, from John Cage’s talking pieces to Fluxus text scores, Max Neuhaus’s soundwalks, R. Murray Schafer’s ear cleaning exercises and Pauline Oliveros’s Sonic Meditations. I show how all these artists attempt to transform auditory perception in the everyday life of the subject. A central debate here is whether this more ‘open’ listening should be viewed as a new, cultivated practice, or, more problematically, as a primordial condition to which we must return. Framed as a polemical antidote to our harmful auditory enculturation (which privileges Western art music and alienates us from potential auditory aesthesis in the lived space of daily life), these sound pedagogies are, as I will show, ripe for deconstruction and critique. Yet, more hopefully, they may also open up broader and more immediate forms of participation than Western art music has typically allowed.

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