scholarly journals The Appearance of the “Ideal” and Other Topoi in Bartók’s Two Sonatas for Violin and Piano nos. 1–2

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Song Type ◽  
Piano Sonatas ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
Definite Form ◽  
Violin And Piano ◽  
Violin Playing ◽  
The Ideal

Abstract The early Violin Concerto (1907–1908) dedicated to the young violinist, Stefi Geyer, is regarded as one of the most personal compositions by Béla Bartók. The transparent structure, and the ethereal, unearthly tone of the first movement, probably inspired by Stefi Geyer’s playing, belongs to the warmest and most intimate tone used by the composer. Presumably, its re-emergence in certain passages of the two Violin-Piano Sonatas (1921 and 1922) was not by chance. It might have been the composer’s reaction to Jelly d’Arányi’s violin playing that evoked the memory of the early concerto and its source of inspiration. However, despite their similarities the “ideal” tone of the Sonatas is not the same as that in the Violin Concerto. It is still recognisable, but it has a different, perhaps more mature character and, furthermore, within the material surrounding it, we can detect the kernel of those Bartókian types which gain their definite form only in his 1926 emblematic piano pieces, for instance some elements of his “night music” type, his mourning song type, and some characteristic traits of his “chase” music. In the present article, besides following the process of transformation of the “ideal,” I make an attempt to identify the newly developed musical types, and to find an explanation of all these changes.

Bartók and his Violin Concerto

Tempo ◽  
1944 ◽  
pp. 134-136
Author(s):  
Henry Cowell
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Technical Skill ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
Violin Playing

It is not surprising that Hungary's greatest composer should write a violin concerto whose qualities are unique. A good concerto has, among other obligations, that of displaying the art of the solo performer to the best advantage. This means that, besides lyrical and expressive passages, there must be liberal portions devoted to pyrotechnics. Yet in many otherwise great concerti such sections seem dragged in to show off technical skill alone, and to have no real significance in the musical structure as a whole. Hungary, however, can boast a long-standing and proud tradition of exciting violin playing in which expressive qualities boil over into a flashing prestidigitation which enhances them. The tradition is exemplified in both gipsy and Magyar folk music. Béla Bartók grew up with this music, and he has devoted many years of exploration and study to it throughout the course of his life. His violin concerto is not based on specific folk themes, but it is certainly steeped in the best traditions of Hungarian folk violin playing.

Jean Sibelius's Violin Concerto

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina K. Ramnarine
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Recording Technology ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Violin Playing ◽  
Political Figure ◽  
Early Training

This book highlights the unique insights that Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D Minor (op. 47) offers into the composer’s musical imagination, violin virtuosity, and connections between violin-playing traditions. It discusses the concerto’s cultural contexts, performers who are connected with its early history, and recordings of the work. Beginning with Sibelius’s early training as a violinist and his aspirations to be a virtuoso player, the book traces the composition of the concerto at a dramatic political moment in Finnish history. This concerto was composed when Finland, as an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, was going through a period of intense struggle for self-determination and protest against Russian imperial policies. Taking the concerto’s historical context into consideration leads to a new paradigm of the twentieth-century virtuoso as a political figure, which replaces nineteenth-century representations of the virtuoso as a magical figure. The book explores this paradigm by analyzing twentieth-century violin virtuosity in terms of labor, recording technology, and gender politics, especially the new possibilities for women aiming to develop musical careers. Ultimately, the book moves away from the compositional context of the concerto and a reading of the virtuoso as a political figure to reveal how Sibelius’s musical imagination prompts thinking about the long ecological histories of musical transmission and virtuosity.

scholarly journals The relevance of C. S. Peirce for socio-semiotics

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 231-248
Author(s):  
Janice Deledalle-Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Mode Of Action ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Comprehensive Model ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
Ideal Form ◽  
Dyadic Model ◽  
The Ideal

Neither Peirce’s thought in general nor his semeiotic in particular would appear to be concerned with ‘society’ as it is generally conceived today. Moreover, Peirce rarely mentions ‘society’, preferring the term ‘community’, which his readers have often interpreted restrictively. There are two essential points to be borne in mind. In the first place, the epithet ‘social’ refers here not to the object of thought, but to its production, its mode of action and its transmission and conservation. In the second place, the term ‘community’ is not restricted to the scientific community, as is sometimes supposed. On the contrary, it refers to the ideal form of a society, which he calls ‘the unlimited community’, i. e. a group of people striving towards a common goal. Furthermore, Peirce’s semeiotic has been put in doubt as capable of providing a model for communication, the basis of social, dialogic, thought and action. The aim of the present article is to show that semeiotic, funded as it is on Peirce’s three categories, which define and delimit the ways in which man perceives and represents the phenomena, can provide a comprehensive model for the analysis of all types of communication in all social contexts. Finally, in this domain, as in others, Peirce was a forerunner, with the result that his thought has often been misunderstood or forgotten. In addition, he was pre-eminently a philosopher, thus his work has been neglected in other disciplines. The elaboration of other triadic systems, such as, notably, that of Rossi-Landi, shows that the tendency of semiotics in general is to move away from the former static, dyadic model towards that involving a triadic process. This trend, with which Peircean theory is in harmony, has been sharply accentuated in recent years, but often lacks a philosophical justification for its assumptions, which Peirce provides.

scholarly journals La vivencia del ideal anarquista en la España de los años treinta

2018 ◽  
pp. 134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Lora Medina
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Ethical Behavior ◽  
Main Issue ◽  
Social Revolution ◽  
Moral Idealism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Special Relevance ◽  
The Ideal

Resumen: El presente artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la vivencia del ideal y la importancia que adquiere la moral ácrata como modeladora del carácter del militante de la CNT en la España de los años treinta. El compromiso debía demostrarse a través de un estricto comportamiento ético que condujera al fiel a abandonar su identidad para luchar por el advenimiento de la revolución y el triunfo del colectivo. La propaganda por la conducta adquiere una especial relevancia en el anarquismo, tanto por alentar al trabajador a adquirir una cultura y educación propias, como por servir de atractivo a personas ajenas al colectivo a engrosar sus filas. Esta responsabilidad definía al seguidor de las ideas anarquistas frente a otros colectivos, pero también frente a muchos militantes que no seguían este estilo de vida "libertario". De este modo, la cuestión principal a resolver es si hubo realmente una vivencia práctica de los ideales defendidos.Palabras clave: España, anarquismo, militante, moral, idealismo.Abstract: The present article aims to analyze the experience of the ideal and the importance acquired by the anarchistic moral as a modeler of the character of the militant of the CNT in the Spain of the thirties. The commitment had to be demonstrated through a strict ethical behavior that led the faithful to abandon their identity to fight for the advent of the social revolution ant the triumph of the collective. The propaganda for the behavior acquires a special relevance in the anarchism, as much to encourage the worker to acquire its own culture and education, as to serve as attractive to people outside the collective to swell its ranks. This responsibility defined the follower of anarchist ideas in front of other groups, but also in front of many militants who didn´t follow this "libertarian" lifestyle. In this way, the main issue to resolve is whether they really lived according to the ideals defended.Keywords: Spain, anarchism, militant, moral, idealism.

scholarly journals Didaktična literatura za violino Dušana Vodiška / Didactic violin literature by Dušan Vodišek

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (34) ◽  
pp. 115-145
Author(s):  
Stanka Dokuzova
Keyword(s):  
Chamber Ensemble ◽  
String Orchestra ◽  
Violin Pedagogy ◽  
Musical Development ◽  
Violin And Piano ◽  
Violin Playing ◽  
Development Of Students

The article discusses didactic violin literature by violinist and pedagogue Dušan Vodišek. Covering the period between 1966 and 2016, his oeuvre represents a bridge between didactic violin literature of the previous century and contemporary didactic violin literature. Over these 50 years, he significantly enriched didactic violin literature in Slovenia with his works, which include a violin book for beginners, children’s compositions for violin and piano, youth compositions for violin and piano, compositions for chamber ensemble and string orchestra, and two textbooks on position changing. These materials provide original solutions to challenges concerning individual elements of violin playing and the musical development of students. Therefore, they also represent an important contribution to the development of violin pedagogy and violin playing in Slovenia.

scholarly journals Transgressive Gestures: Women and Violin Performance in Eighteenth-Century Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Hester Bell Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Physical Movement ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Economic Support ◽  
Violin Performance ◽  
Gendered Roles ◽  
Violin Playing

<p>Studies concerning eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century women musicians abound within recent musicological scholarship, but the focus on singers and keyboard players – whose musical activities are understood to have “affirmed” their femininity – has had the effect of obscuring players of less typical instruments. Violin-playing, frequently cast as a man’s activity and imbued with indecent associations, was a case in point. Yet despite the connotations of the instrument, a small but significant group of women did play the violin: it is these violinists that this thesis takes as its central focus. Looking first at the complex reasons behind objections to women’s violin performance, a number of factors that restricted women’s access to the violin – including the influence of the male gaze and limits placed on women’s physical movement – are revealed. Particular conditions nevertheless enabled certain women to play the violin, namely the personal, educational, and economic support available from diverse sources such as family members, patrons, and institutions like convents and the Venetian ospedali.  In addition to placing women violinists in their historical context, this thesis centres on an analysis of a violin concerto by one of the most well-known female violinists of the era, the Italian virtuoso Regina Strinasacchi. The analysis of Strinasacchi’s Violin Concerto in B flat major is strongly performance based and focuses on the issue of gender and physical movement (performance gesture), topics which were of much interest to eighteenth-century commentators who witnessed women violinists performing. As such the analysis engages with concepts from “embodied” musicology. In exploring Strinasacchi’s concerto we see that female violinists could experiment with a variety of gendered roles through violin performance, embodying both masculinity and femininity through their transgressive gestures. By taking a closer look at women’s violin performance and experiences, this thesis aims to show that these violinists were not as peripheral to the workings of the wider musical community as is sometimes implied. Furthermore, it aims to put women violinists more firmly at the centre of their own stories, challenging the tendency to treat female violinists as novel anomalies.</p>

Regional and Transnational Traditions of Violin Playing

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-88
Author(s):  
Tina K. Ramnarine
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Performance Style ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Violin Playing ◽  
Transnational Traditions

This chapter argues that an appreciation of both regional and transnational violin-playing styles is needed for a profound understanding of the Sibelius violin concerto. Sibelius’s musical ideas and performers’ interpretations of the violin concerto are shaped by different violin-playing traditions. This argument also offers perspectives on how pedagogy shapes musical transmission and performance style by focusing on Leopold Auer’s influence on the violin playing of the twentieth century. Leading into the main concerns of the fifth chapter, the argument concludes by noting that Auer’s teaching practice coincided with women’s emerging political voices. He accepted many women violinists into his class in the St. Petersburg Conservatory, women who went on to forge careers as virtuoso violinists and to champion Sibelius’s violin concerto internationally.

The influence of the style of Karol Szymanowski on the creative work of Polish 20th century composers based on the Polish Suite by Szymon Laks

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (11) ◽  
pp. 109-146
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Szwejkowska-Belica
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Artistic Development ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Polish Music ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Violin And Piano ◽  
Karol Szymanowski

The essence of the present article is presenting the influence of the creative output as well as personality of Karol Szymanowski on subsequent generations of Polish 20th century composers searching for new trends and options for their artistic development, based on the Polish Suite for violin and piano by Szymon Laks. It is a very interesting composition as an object for an academic study as well as from the performance-related and artistic perspectives. All research activities aim towards finding style similarities in Laks’ composition and analysing them in comparison to works by Szymanowski. The examples given in the article illustrate a clear influence of Szymanowski, from distant associations concerning the mood, colour and aura of the piece to specific quotations substantiating a great respect and admiration Szymon Laks had for Karol Szymanowski. Another confirmation of that is the fact that this composition was dedicated to Szymanowski. The rich heritage Szymanowski left became the new path he had set for future generations of not only Polis composers. It seems that this thesis has been duly proven in the article. In Laks’ composition we will find clear influences and often even quotations from Polish folklore, which Karol Szymanowski also used in his works. The aim of the article is also familiarising readers with this very rarely performed composition, showing its undisputed qualities and encouraging everyone to discover and promote numerous forgotten yet often very valuable pieces in Polish music.

scholarly journals Transgressive Gestures: Women and Violin Performance in Eighteenth-Century Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Hester Bell Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Physical Movement ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Economic Support ◽  
Violin Performance ◽  
Gendered Roles ◽  
Violin Playing

<p>Studies concerning eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century women musicians abound within recent musicological scholarship, but the focus on singers and keyboard players – whose musical activities are understood to have “affirmed” their femininity – has had the effect of obscuring players of less typical instruments. Violin-playing, frequently cast as a man’s activity and imbued with indecent associations, was a case in point. Yet despite the connotations of the instrument, a small but significant group of women did play the violin: it is these violinists that this thesis takes as its central focus. Looking first at the complex reasons behind objections to women’s violin performance, a number of factors that restricted women’s access to the violin – including the influence of the male gaze and limits placed on women’s physical movement – are revealed. Particular conditions nevertheless enabled certain women to play the violin, namely the personal, educational, and economic support available from diverse sources such as family members, patrons, and institutions like convents and the Venetian ospedali.  In addition to placing women violinists in their historical context, this thesis centres on an analysis of a violin concerto by one of the most well-known female violinists of the era, the Italian virtuoso Regina Strinasacchi. The analysis of Strinasacchi’s Violin Concerto in B flat major is strongly performance based and focuses on the issue of gender and physical movement (performance gesture), topics which were of much interest to eighteenth-century commentators who witnessed women violinists performing. As such the analysis engages with concepts from “embodied” musicology. In exploring Strinasacchi’s concerto we see that female violinists could experiment with a variety of gendered roles through violin performance, embodying both masculinity and femininity through their transgressive gestures. By taking a closer look at women’s violin performance and experiences, this thesis aims to show that these violinists were not as peripheral to the workings of the wider musical community as is sometimes implied. Furthermore, it aims to put women violinists more firmly at the centre of their own stories, challenging the tendency to treat female violinists as novel anomalies.</p>

scholarly journals “I Have an Ideal, it Was Given me: Christ”: Dostoevsky’s Christology in the Context of the Tradition of Moral Interpretation of Dogma

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-64
Author(s):  
Anastasia G. Gacheva
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Fyodor Dostoevsky ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Utopian Thought ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Ideal

The present article continues a series of studies devoted to the theology of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the context of the tradition of moral interpretation of dogma, which was developing in Russian thought during the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century. The article focuses on Dostoevsky’s Christology, presented through the prism of the idea of transforming dogma into a commandment. It is shown that Dostoevsky’s perception of Christ as the “ideal man in flesh” should be understood not in the context of utopian thought, but as a manifestation of the idea of the deification of man, as expressed in the patristic aphorism: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” Dostoevsky’s polemic with Konstantin Kavelin is discussed from the point of view of the Christological dogma. It is illustrated how the assertion of the equality of the two natures, Divine and human, in Christ affects the anthropology and historiosophy of Dostoevsky. Views of writer’s contemporaries who developed the idea of a moral interpretation of the dogma of the God-man, such as: archimandrite Fedor (Bukharev), bishop Ivan (Sokolov), Nikolay Fedorov, archimandrite Antony (Khrapovitsky), Viktor Nesmelov, Sergey Bulgakov are also considered.

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