scholarly journals Alban Berg – Sieben frühe Lieder. Performance perspectives

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-230
Author(s):  
Ionela Butu

AbstractThe study presents several interpretative suggestions made from the perspective of the accompanying pianist that played Alban Bergʼs Sieben frühe Lieder. Why this topic? Because in the Romanian music literature, there is nothing written about the song cycle Sieben frühe Lieder by Alban Berg, which is a representative work in the history of the art song. The theme, addressed in the literature written abroad, is treated mostly from a musicological standpoint. That is why we considered it useful to make some observations of an interpretative nature. They will become relevant if read in parallel with the PhD thesis entitled Alban Bergʼs “Sieben frühe Lieder”: An Analysis of Musical Structures and Selected Performances, written by Lisa A. Lynch (the only documentary source that proposes in-depth syntactic analyses of the work, associated with valuable interpretative suggestions made from a vocal perspective). We also considered useful, during the study, the comparison between the two variants of the work: the chamber/voice-piano version and the orchestral version. The analysis of the symphonic text was carried out intending the observation of significant details useful for realizing an expressive duo performance. Of course, our interpretative suggestions are a variant between many others. However, irrespective of dynamic, agogic, timbral, and articulation elements highlighted by the various performances, the reference point of any interpretative view remains the musical text, whose syntactic wealth opens up a generous semantic area.

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-42
Author(s):  
Allan T Maganga ◽  
Charles Tembo ◽  
Peterson Dewah

Oral sources such as proverbs, songs and folktales have been used to reconstruct people’s identities. As a primary ‘means of communication’ music is often used to capture or record peoples’ experiences in history. In Zimbabwe, Simon Chimbetu exemplifies one musician who is in search of his country’s past in as far as he uses his music to record the history of the liberation struggle. This paper provides an in-depth examination of Chimbetu’s selected songs. Singing after the war itself is over, it is argued, the music functions as a reference point to the citizens because it is a transcript of their past experiences something which is essential to the present and future generations. By insisting on educating his audiences on the liberation struggle, Chimbetu satisfies Sankofan approach. It is argued in this paper that Chimbetu’s musical reflections provide enriching experiences and reveals that it is historical music.


Author(s):  
Yulia Egorova

The chapter explores how notions of Jewish and Muslim difference play out in the history of communal violence in independent India. In doing so it will first interrogate the way in which trajectories of anti-Muslim ideologies intersect in India with Nazi rhetoric that harks back to Hitler’s Germany, and the (lack of) the memory of the Holocaust on the subcontinent. It will then discuss how the experiences of contemporary Indian Jewish communities both mirror and contrast those of Indian Muslims and how Indian Jews and the alleged absence of anti-Semitism in India have become a reference point in the discourse of the Hindu right deployed to mask anti-Muslim and other forms of intolerance.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 538-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franck Cochoy

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the sociological process behind the development of the American Marketing Association (AMA). It shows how the shift from isolated endeavors to an organized movement happened in marketing, how and why marketing pioneers merged to build a professional body and what this body provided to its community and to society at large. Design/methodology/approach – This paper studies the history of the AMA from the perspective of the sociology of science and relies on the marketing literature and other written sources. Findings – The paper shows that the AMA is both the result and the center of a coupling procedure. Isolated pioneers in the marketing field found it useful to communicate with those who were engaged in endeavors similar to their own. The meeting resulted in a dialog, and the dialog had necessitated the establishment of the AMA as a common reference point. The AMA provided the marketing community with a language and an institution that could help them to exist and move forward together. Originality/value – This paper provides an up to date account of the history of the AMA as well as a sociological analysis of its development.


Literary Fact ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 131-145
Author(s):  
Vassili E. Molodiakov

Russian Modernism scholar Leonid Konstantinovich Dolgolopov (1928 –1995), known for his studies on Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely, completed his PhD thesis on Blok’s narrative poems “Retribution” and “The Twelve” in 1960, received his degree in 1962, but never published the text (now in the author’s possession). Its major parts were published as papers, its principal propositions and conclusions were developed in Dolgopolov’s later research works, but the thesis was never printed as a whole, and, from the author’s point of view, is worth being published as a valuable source for history of literary studies on Russian Symbolism as well as an original work useful and readable even now. The article presents Dolgopolov’s unpublished PhD thesis. Chapter One deals with “Retribution” and presents a comprehensive study of the poem’s plan, plot, and literary history, its genre peculiarities and historical scenes. Chapter Two analyzes evolution of Blok’s political views during the First World War and the Russian Revolution of 1917 and also its reflection in Blok’s lyric poems of this period. Chapter Three is the first of Dolgopolov’s numerous studies on “The Twelve”, the work he considered to be Blok’s highest literary achievement. Dolgopolov analyzed the poem’s ideas and images (especially Jesus Christ), its formal and rythmic novelty, its place among other contempopary poetical works on Russian revolution.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Imogen Thirlwall

<p>My experience of learning and performing Arnold Schoenberg’s song cycle, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, can be explored through the lens of Foucault’s ‘docile bodies’ theory – that is, bodies that are ‘subjected, used, transformed, improved’. Participating in the disciplinary practice of self-policing, my obedience to the social, cultural and musical orders shaping western art song performance is enforced through self-imposed internalisation of normative practices and values. The singer’s body – my own body – is regulated in the Foucauldian sense; ‘disciplined’ through training and conditioning to align with normative practices, and, simultaneously, I act as ‘discipliner’ through self-imposed policing and monitoring of my body. The compulsive need to engage in the acts and processes of discipline implies inherent deficiency or deviance; the body must be transformed and ‘corrected’ through the processes of discipline that reflect the internalised value systems a body is measured against. In this exegesis, I explore my processes of self-regulation as disciplined and discipliner, investigating an intersection of ideals and tensions in my pursuit of technical command of vocal technique, obedience to the score, and the expectation of emotional abandon that an expressionist song cycle demands. Framed through narratives of ‘service’ and ‘prohibition’, I position the political anatomy of an eroticised, reproductive female body, exploring resistance and ‘rupture’ through the sexual agency of a disobedient and disruptive female singer.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Imogen Thirlwall

<p>My experience of learning and performing Arnold Schoenberg’s song cycle, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, can be explored through the lens of Foucault’s ‘docile bodies’ theory – that is, bodies that are ‘subjected, used, transformed, improved’. Participating in the disciplinary practice of self-policing, my obedience to the social, cultural and musical orders shaping western art song performance is enforced through self-imposed internalisation of normative practices and values. The singer’s body – my own body – is regulated in the Foucauldian sense; ‘disciplined’ through training and conditioning to align with normative practices, and, simultaneously, I act as ‘discipliner’ through self-imposed policing and monitoring of my body. The compulsive need to engage in the acts and processes of discipline implies inherent deficiency or deviance; the body must be transformed and ‘corrected’ through the processes of discipline that reflect the internalised value systems a body is measured against. In this exegesis, I explore my processes of self-regulation as disciplined and discipliner, investigating an intersection of ideals and tensions in my pursuit of technical command of vocal technique, obedience to the score, and the expectation of emotional abandon that an expressionist song cycle demands. Framed through narratives of ‘service’ and ‘prohibition’, I position the political anatomy of an eroticised, reproductive female body, exploring resistance and ‘rupture’ through the sexual agency of a disobedient and disruptive female singer.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-292
Author(s):  
Oded Heilbronner

Abstract This article argues that the first two decades of Israeli state-building can be compared structurally to some main processes in postwar Western-European societies, and that this approach productively situates Israel within a global perspective, uncovering new relationships between the local and the global. In addition, it proposes a methodological reading of the young Israeli society before the Six-Day War and a theoretical framework in which to place it. It provides an analysis of this young society from the perspective of Western history, constituting a new reference point that does not strive to negate other common approaches. If, until now, the history of the first two decades of Israel has been examined from a local and particular point of view – whether the state-building process or political, social, and national controversies – I propose to view the Israel of the 1950s–1960s as a postwar society that underwent the same structural processes as other Western European societies during those years, despite domestic differences.


2021 ◽  
pp. 46-92
Author(s):  
James Waller

The past in Northern Ireland is always present and always contested. This chapter is not a rehashing of the complex history of the north of Ireland nor is it an attempt to place blame for the origin or continuation of the sectarian divide that defines it. A legion of scholars have addressed the former, and the latter—“the conflict about the conflict”—is a daily exercise for most everyone in Northern Ireland. Rather, this chapter offers a broad survey of that scarified history in recognition that understanding the origins of those competing social identities and the ways in which they became cemented over generations, is essential context and a necessary reference point for our coming analysis of risk and resilience in contemporary Northern Ireland.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 186-213
Author(s):  
Jean-Christophe Branger

AbstractLucy Arbell (1878–1947) assumed an important position in Massenet's compositional process and output. Beginning with Ariane in 1906, he wrote principal or secondary roles for the singer in all of his operas, as well as the celebrated song cycle Expressions lyriques (1909–1911). Despite Massenet's admiration, the French contralto was received ambivalently by critics and she fell into oblivion soon after his death. For some, her talents as an actress could not make up for the mediocre quality of her voice. Drawing on unpublished and hitherto unknown archival documents, this article explores Arbell's career, which has been largely overlooked by scholars. I reveal how her career's evolution was intimately connected to the professional and sentimental relationship between singer and composer. Massenet notably wrote roles for her that included extensive use of spoken declamation, which sets them apart in the history of opera.


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