scholarly journals The Felix Meritis Concert Programs Database, 1832–1888: From Archival Ephemera to Searchable Performance Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-78
Author(s):  
Mascha van Nieuwkerk ◽  
Harm Nijboer ◽  
Ivan Kisjes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Performance Data ◽  
Concert Hall ◽  
Concert Programming ◽  
Item Level ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Concert Programs

Abstract The Felix Meritis Concert Programs Database 1832–1888 (fmcp Database) provides a full digitisation of the concert programs collection of the most long-standing Dutch concert hall in the nineteenth century: Felix Meritis. Formerly hidden in boxes with archival ephemera, the content of this collection is now unlocked by manually entering the program details into a searchable dataset. The programs give an extremely rich account of a local concert practice, the performed repertoire, and the musicians involved. However, archiving concert programs at item-level presents a challenge: due to inconsistencies in and incompleteness of work descriptions it is often hard to identify and categorize the musical works performed. For the fmcp database, the authors have developed a possible solution to this problem; a strategy for structuring and categorizing concert programming data that aims to include incomplete work descriptions and reflect genre categorizations used in local concert practice. In this paper, the authors will present this categorization method and discuss the attributes and the basic structure of the fmcp database.

Op. 131 and the Rise of Attentive Listening

2021 ◽  
pp. 103-120
Author(s):  
Nancy November
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
String Quartet ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Concert Hall ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Sense Of Time ◽  
Audience Behavior ◽  
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung

This chapter begins with a discussion of Mark Andre’s ensemble work riss 2 (2014) as an alternative window on the modern-day reception of Op. 131—the two works can similarly disrupt our ontological understanding of musical works in terms of structure, sound transformations, and especially sense of time. I then step back to consider the larger context in which Op. 131 was originally heard, setting it within an emerging ideology of “serious listening” in Vienna in the early nineteenth century. I consider the early nineteenth century as an era in which the seeds for silent listening were sown, by key agents of change, who tried to adjust audience behavior at string quartet concerts—influential figures such as Schuppanzigh, Beethoven, and reviewers for the Wiener Theater-Zeitung and Viennese Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in the 1810s and ’20s. Beethoven’s C-sharp minor quartet can be understood as a work that took part in this move to instill silent and serious listening. However, the climate in Vienna was not was not such that Beethoven (and Schuppanzigh) could enjoy much success with this particular listening project. The “romantic listener” does not represent a nineteenth-century norm, and was certainly not the norm in Beethoven’s Vienna. But the compelling ideology of listening and associated habits that started to develop there—especially reverent silence—continue to influence powerfully our concert hall behaviors today.

Researching Audience Behaviors in Nineteenth-Century Paris

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Concert Programs

This chapter starts by revisiting a now-familiar text: James H. Johnson’s book Listening in Paris (1995). On the basis of concert and opera reviews, images, and the paratexts of concert programs, Ellis reframes Johnson’s question “When did audiences fall silent?” as “Where and why did audiences fail to fall silent?” Multilayered answers show how (1) many of the noisier phenomena of the eighteenth century resurfaced in new guises from the 1850s onward; (2) the democratization of art music took place in contexts that could not always impose “religious” listening; and (3) there was a resurgent demand, possibly concomitant, for music as pure entertainment in venues where silence was neither required nor expected. The chapter argues that although attentive listening was a gold standard during the latter two-thirds of the nineteenth century in Paris, practice rarely lived up to such expectations, and it was in effect a niche activity.

The Flageolet: A Woodwind Instrument that Transcended Social Class and Gender in Nineteenth-Century England

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Douglas MacMillan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Societal Implications ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
Professional Musicians ◽  
Concert Hall ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Music Hall ◽  
And Gender

The flageolet – a woodwind instrument closely akin to the recorder – achieved considerably popularity in nineteenth-century England. It was predominantly an instrument of the amateur musician, and its story becomes a mirror of the musical society in which the instrument flourished. An account of the organology of the flageolet in both its English and French forms, and of its evolution into double, triple and transverse versions, precedes a study of pedagogical material and repertoire. The work of William Bainbridge, who modified the flageolet to simplify its technique and hence enhance its suitability for amateur players, is emphasized, along with his skill as an innovator of complex flageolets. The flageolet attracted a small number of professional exponents who tended to favour the French form of the instrument. The principal focus of the article is an examination of the role of the flageolet within the context of musical praxis in England and its societal implications during the long nineteenth century. After consideration of matters of finance, social class and gender, the article examines the use of the flageolet by amateur and professional musicians, particularly highlighting the importance of the instrument in domestic music-making as well as in amateur public performance. Professional use of the instrument within the context of the concert hall, the theatre, the ballroom and the music hall is explored and examples given of prominent players and ensembles, some of which were composed entirely of female musicians. Final paragraphs note the playing of the flageolet by itinerant and street musicians.

Four-Hand Piano Transcription and Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Musical Reception

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Orchestral Works ◽  
Piano Transcriptions ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Many ◽  
Musical Reception

Throughout the nineteenth century, massive quantities of four-hand piano transcriptions were published of virtually every musical genre. Indeed, no other medium before the advent of the radio and phonograph was arguably so important for the dissemination and iterability of concert and chamber repertories. Yet such transcriptions proved to be anything but innocent vehicles of translation. Not only did these four-hand arrangements offer simplified facsimiles of most orchestral works blanched of their instrumental timbres (a result that was often compared to the many reproductive engravings and black-and-white lithographs of artworks that were churned out by publishers at the same time); such arrangements also destabilized traditional musical divisions between symphonic and chamber genres, professional and amateur music cultures, and even repertories gendered as masculine and feminine. By bringing music intended for the public sphere of the concert hall, opera house, and salon into the domestic space of the bourgeois home parlor, the four-hand transcription profoundly altered the generic identity and consequent reception of musical works.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-2
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
Concert Hall

The study of American music by serious scholars who were willing to consider the producers, products, and consumers of music without hierarchical bias, snobbish condescension, or fealty to the canons of nineteenth-century concert-hall culture is a relatively recent development in the United States. Over twenty years ago Richard Crawford traced the historiography of American music in the hands of such writers as William Hubbard, Louis T. Elson, and John Tasker Howard in ...

The Social Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Sumner Lott
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Chamber Music ◽  
Social History ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Niche Markets ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Romantic Music ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Dynamic Relationships

This book examines the music available to musical consumers in the nineteenth century, and what that music tells us about their tastes, priorities, and activities. The book's social history of chamber music performance places the works of canonic composers such as Schubert, Brahms, and Dvořák in relation to lesser-known but influential peers. The book explores the dynamic relationships among the active agents involved in the creation of Romantic music and shows how each influenced the others' choices in a rich, collaborative environment. In addition to documenting the ways companies acquired and marketed sheet music, the book reveals how the publication and performance of chamber music differed from that of ephemeral piano and song genres or more monumental orchestral and operatic works. Several distinct niche markets existed within the audience for chamber music, and composers created new musical works for their use and enjoyment. The book revises prevailing views of middle-class influence on nineteenth-century musical style and presents new methods for interpreting the meanings of musical works for musicians both past and present.

Mendelssohn’s Difference in FaithRethinking Kunstreligion in the Context of His Compositional Aesthetics

2020 ◽  
pp. 311-329
Author(s):  
Sabine Koch
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Rhetoric ◽  
True Self ◽  
Moral Consciousness ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Practical Implications

This chapter departs from confessional interpretations of Felix Mendelssohn’s musical and religious outlook, encouraged by an empathetic reading of his own statements within the context of wider philosophies of art and religion, which combined into what became known as art-religion. In Mendelssohn’s writings, Kunstreligion was both a form of religion that was associated with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s theology and a means of finding his true self as a composer, as intended by his father, Abraham. His identification with nineteenth-century sacralized aesthetics of feelings never gave way to the unworldly nostalgia that critics and scholars have so often associated negatively with aesthetic religion. For Mendelssohn, Kunstreligion had practical implications and clear boundaries. His leaning towards religious theories of art inspired him to compose musical works for the spiritual enhancement of his audiences but found its limits whenever musico-religious rhetoric ran counter to his own moral consciousness, innermost beliefs, and sense of tolerance.

Harmonic analysis of the ensemble and singing pieces from Erdal Tugcular as an educational music composer

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasan Bozkurt ◽  
H. Seval Köse
Keyword(s):  
Harmonic Analysis ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Concert Programs ◽  
New Generation

Considered as one of Turkish new generation composers, Erdal Tugcular is today’s one of the strongest representatives of the folklorism in our Polyphonic Contemporary Turkish Music based on the Turkish Five. Musical pieces of Tugcular which are frequently heard in various national and international concert programs are of value and significance with their educational function at various levels of music education.This study harmonically analyses the pieces composed for Ensembles and Singing by Erdal Tugcular who has produced compositions in various styles and forms. For this purpose, “Osmanım” folk song composed for Singing with piano accompaniment and the polyphonic “Road tunes” piece composed for Ensemble were selected as samples among the compositions of Tugcular for Ensemble and Singing. The musical works selected are studied in terms of harmonic patterns and rules used in polyphonic singing.It is believed that the results of the study will contribute in the vocalization-rendition quality of the pieces analyzed and the realization of their educational functions. Keywords: Erdal Tugcular, ensemble pieces, singing pieces, harmonic analysis.

Magnified Vision, Mediated Listening and the ‘Point of Audition’ of Early Romanticism

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEIRDRE LOUGHRIDGE
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Spatial Position ◽  
Piano Concerto ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Senses

ABSTRACTEmploying the term ‘point of audition’ to describe the spatial position musical works imply for their listeners, this article examines the use of technologies for extending the senses to define new points of audition in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Popular literature on natural philosophy promoted magnifying instruments as windows onto distant or hidden realms and as tools for acquiring knowledge. On the operatic stage and in writers' metaphorical musings, kindred sensory extensions were imagined for hearing. These contexts connected (magic) mirrors and magnifying instruments to their musical analogues: muted tone and keyboard fantasizing. The development of these associations in opera and literature made it possible for instrumental music to position listeners as eavesdroppers upon unknown realms. Such a point of audition is shown to be implied by the Adagio un poco mosso of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto. By examining material practices and discourses surrounding sensory extension, this article demonstrates the relevance of technologically mediated observation to musical culture at the turn of the nineteenth century, and its contribution to the otherworldly orientation characteristic of romantic listening.

scholarly journals Ancient Greek rhythms in Messiaen’s le sacre: Nietzsche’s legacy?

Muzikologija ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 97-136
Author(s):  
Wai-Ling Cheong
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Textual Studies ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Classical Philology ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Paris Conservatoire ◽  
Le Sacre Du Printemps

It is little known that Nietzsche - appointed professor of classical philology at Basel University in his twenties - had postulated on the basis of rigorous textual studies that the leading classical philologists active in Central Europe in the nineteenth century, predominantly German-speaking, had gone seriously off -track by fitting Greek rhythms into measures of equal length. Unlike the philologists, influential musicologists who wrote about ancient Greek rhythms were mostly French. The Paris Conservatoire was a powerhouse of rhythmic theory, with an impressive lineage from F?tis and Gevaert through Laloy and Emmanuel to Messiaen and beyond. F?tis and Gevaert referenced their contemporary German philologists without really critiquing them. With Laloy, Emmanuel, and Messiaen, however, there was a notable change of orientation. These authors all read as if they had somehow become aware of Nietzsche?s discovery. Yet none of them make any mention of him whatsoever. In this study, a comparative analysis of their musical rendition of Greek rhythms is undertaken before focusing on Messiaen?s analytical proposal that there is an impressively long series of Greek rhythms in Stravinsky?s Le sacre du printemps. I seek to throw light on the resurgence of interest in ancient Greek rhythms in modernist musical works, and question how the convoluted reception of Nietzsche?s discovery in Parisian music circles might have sparked rhythmic innovation to new heights.

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