scholarly journals Vocal and Choral Symphonies and Considerations on Text Representation in Music

ICONI ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 26-37
Author(s):  
Anton А. Rovner ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Wassily Kandinsky ◽  
Choral Symphony ◽  
Text Settings ◽  
Lied Von Der Erde ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century

The article examines the genres of the vocal and the choral symphony in connection with the author’s vocal symphony Finland for soprano, tenor and orchestra set to Evgeny Baratynsky’s poem with the same title. It also discusses the issue of expression of the literary text in vocal music, as viewed by a number of influential 19th and 20th century composers, music theorists and artists. Among the greatest examples of the vocal symphony are Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Lyrische Symphonie. These works combine in an organic way the features of the symphony and the song cycle. The genre of the choral symphony started with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and includes such works as Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony, Scriabin’s First Symphony and Mahler’s Second, Third and Eighth Symphonies. Both genres exemplify composers’ attempts to combine the most substantial genre of instrumental music embodying the composers’ philosophical worldviews with that of vocal music, which expresses the emotional content of the literary texts set to music. The issue of expressivity in music is further elaborated in examinations of various composers’ approaches to it. Wagner claimed that the purpose of music was to express the composers’ emotional experience and especially the literary texts set to music. Stravinsky expressed the view that music in its very essence is not meant to express emotions. He called for an emotionally detached approach to music and especially to text settings in vocal music. Schoenberg pointed towards a more introversive and abstract approach to musical expression and text setting in vocal music, renouncing outward depiction for the sake of inner expression. Similar attitudes to this position were held by painter Wassily Kandinsky and music theorist Theodor Adorno. The author views Schoenberg’s approach to be the most viable for 20th and early 21st century music.

Vasyl Bezkorovayny’s vocal works in Ukrainian music of the first half of the XX century

2019 ◽  
pp. 500-515
Author(s):  
Nataliia Kosaniak
Keyword(s):  
Choral Music ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Western European ◽  
Vocal Works ◽  
Post War ◽  
Talented Artist

Vasyl Bezkorovayny (1880–1966) was a talented artist, an active figure in the musical life of Galicia and a representative of post-war Ukrainian emigrants in the United States of America. He wrote more than 350 works of various genres. Among them are compositions for symphony orchestra; vocal works — for chorus, ensembles or solo singing; chamber and instrumental music — for piano, violin, zither, cello; music for dramatic performances. The article deals with the archival and musicological analysis of expressive and stylistic features of V. Bezkorovayny’s vocal works, based on the materials of Stefanyk Lviv National Library of Ukraine. Attention is paid to the place of the composer’s vocal masterpieces in the context of Ukrainian vocal music of the first half of the XX century. The most important achievements of the composer related to the genres of choral and chamber vocal music. In style, the composer’s works combine the influences of M. Lysenko, composers of the «Peremyshl school» and Western European romantic and post-romantic models. The original secular choral music of V. Bezkorovayny covers genres of songs, plays, and large-form choirs. In his solo songs the influences of romantic western European music and Ukrainian folk songs affected the formation and approval of the composer’s style. Keywords: vocal music, chorus, solos, melodic-intonation means, harmony, rhythm.

In the Middle of Life

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Winter's Tale ◽  
Winter's Tale ◽  
Moral Repair ◽  
Moral Frameworks ◽  
Moral Time

This chapter explores the specific challenges that cognitive science and social psychology pose to those literary concepts and modes that are grounded in traditional moral understandings of selfhood and action, including integrity of character and notions such as tragic realization and moral repair. Focusing on the concept of moral time, the chapter explores two literary texts in which profound middle-of-life dramas take place: Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle” and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. A form of slow psychic time entirely lost to view in recent cognitive science is shown to take place in James’s tale, while The Winter’s Tale insists on the forms of moral and emotional experience that are beyond reflection and explanation. The readings presented are set in relation to key critical debates on the works, to challenge a persistent evasion of moral frameworks in contemporary anti-normative approaches.

Musical training improves memory for instrumental music, but not vocal music or words

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-159
Author(s):  
Jonathan M. P. Wilbiks ◽  
Sean Hutchins
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Verbal Material ◽  
The Other ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Facilitative Effect ◽  
Musical Excerpts ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Brain

In previous research, there exists some debate about the effects of musical training on memory for verbal material. The current research examines this relationship, while also considering musical training effects on memory for musical excerpts. Twenty individuals with musical training were tested and their results were compared to 20 age-matched individuals with no musical experience. Musically trained individuals demonstrated a higher level of memory for classical musical excerpts, with no significant differences for popular musical excerpts or for words. These findings are in support of previous research showing that while music and words overlap in terms of their processing in the brain, there is not necessarily a facilitative effect between training in one domain and performance in the other.

Alessandro Grandi: A Case Study in the Choice of Texts for Motets

1988 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-305
Author(s):  
Jerome Roche
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way ◽  
Musical Styles

It is perhaps still true that research into sacred types of music in early seventeenth-century Italy lags behind that into madrigal, monody and opera; it is certainly the case that the textual aspects of sacred music, themselves closely bound up with liturgical questions, have not so far received the kind of study that has been taken for granted with regard to the literary texts of opera and of secular vocal music. This is hardly to be wondered at: unlike great madrigal poetry or the work of the best librettists, sacred texts do not include much that can be valued as art in its own right. Nevertheless, if we are to understand better the context of the motet – as distinct from the musical setting of liturgical entities such as Mass, Vespers or Compline – we need a clearer view of the types of text that were set, the way in which composers exercised their choice, and the way such taste was itself changing in relation to the development of musical styles. For the motet was the one form of sacred music in which an Italian composer of the early decades of the seventeenth century could combine a certain freedom of textual choice with an adventurousness of musical idiom.

scholarly journals A Historical Perspective of Mangalavattiyam

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Suganya Aravinthon
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Solo Music ◽  
Musical Genres ◽  
Over Time

From the earliest days of the Tamil music tradition, music was considered to be a combination of vocal music, instrumental music and dance. Each of these musical genres is closely intertwined. Knowledge of one helps to know about the other. Instrumental music has been interpreted as accompaniment to solo music and dance and as a solo specialty. In Bharata's book 'Natyashasthram', musical instruments are generally divided into four categories as nerve (tata) hole (kasira) ¸ skin (avanatta) ¸ kana (kanja). In this context, it is a research paper on the history and use of the Nagaswaram and thavil instruments, which are referred to today as the Mangala Vaathyam, which the Tamils ​​have merged with their culture.  This article also examines in detail the ideological changes that have taken place over time in the use of these two musical instruments. At the same time, the use of these instruments in the sociological context is taken into account. Finally, this article is a historical study of the lineage of musicians who have mastered these instruments.

Effects of Background Music on Phonological Short-Term Memory

1989 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Salamé ◽  
Alan Baddeley
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Exclusion Process ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Background Music ◽  
Theoretical Interpretation ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Noise Condition ◽  
Trained Subjects ◽  
Immediate Memory

Immediate memory for visually presented verbal material is disrupted by concurrent speech, even when the speech is unattended and in a foreign language. Unattended noise does not produce a reliable decrement. These results have been interpreted in terms of a phonological short-term store that excludes non-speechlike sounds. The characteristics of this exclusion process were explored by studying the effects of music on the serial recall of sequences of nine digits presented visually. Experiment 1 compared the effects of unattended vocal or instrumental music with quiet and showed that both types of music disrupted STM performance, with vocal music being more disruptive than instrumental music. Experiment 2 attempted to replicate this result using more highly trained subjects. Vocal music caused significantly more disruption than instrumental music, which was not significantly worse than the silent control condition. Experiment 3 compared instrumental music with unattended speech and with noise modulated in amplitude, the degree of modulation being the same as in speech. The results showed that the noise condition did not differ from silence; both of these proved less disruptive than instrumental music, which was in turn less disruptive than the unattended speech condition. Theoretical interpretation of these results and their potential practical implications for the disruption of cognitive performance by background music are discussed.

scholarly journals Vinay Mishra and the Artistry of the Harmonium

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 39-46
Author(s):  
Lahiru Gimhana Komangoda
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Tuning Method ◽  
Equal Temperament ◽  
Hindustani Music ◽  
Tuning Methods ◽  
Music Faculty

Vinay Mishra is an accomplished Indian solo and accompanying harmonium player born and brought up in Benaras and currently residing in Delhi serving as a faculty member of the Department of Music, Faculty of Music and Fine Arts, University of Delhi. The rigorous training of both vocal and instrumental music under veteran Hindustani Music virtuosos, the academic and scholarly scope built up till the degree of PhD in Music, the realizations, and understandings on music must have conspicuously made an impact of his practice and artistry as a harmonium player. Harmonium was originated in the west and adopted by Indian musicians in the colonial era which was brought up to the present day through many artistic, cultural and political controversies, and obstacles. This work focuses on discovering the insights of the harmonium art of Vinay Mishra. Hence, his academic background, musical training, musical career, his playing style as a soloist, general techniques and techniques of accompaniment, sense of machinery, perspectives on raga Taal, and thoroughly the tuning methods were studied in-depth through personal conversations and literature resources where it was observed that modern Hindustani harmonium artists favor a typical natural tuning method over the 12 equal temperaments of the common keyboard instruments. According to him, the stable sound of the harmonium was the reason to be vocal music- friendly in classical and light vocal music accompaniment which was only interrupted by the equal temperament earlier and was later overcome by the artists and harmonium makers. The idea was also raised that apart from gaining the basic command of an instrument, a Hindustani instrumentalist may learn and practice all other aspects of Hindustani music from the teachers of other forms too. Vinay Mishra’s thoughts of machinery, musical forms, compositions, applying Hindustani vocal, and plucking string instrumental ornamentations on the Harmonium were also reviewed.

scholarly journals Reflections on Linguistic Poetics

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-127
Author(s):  
O. G. Revzina
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Percy Bysshe Shelley ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cognitive Poetics ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Holistic Perception ◽  
The Impact

Cognitive poetics is a part of cognitive science. Cognitive science is a scholarly paradigm of the second half of the 20th – first decades of 21st cent. Cognitive science shares all traits of scholarly paradigm: critics of predecessors, new understanding of investigation object and new conceptual apparatus, new tasks and effective methods of its solution, and its indraft, in the capacity of obligatory, into material of scholarly of fiction. It’s always written about discourse of fiction, that it is at the interface of literary criticism and linguistics. It is exactly literary texts that form the “figure” of modern cognitive poetics, whereas its “background” is religious, humorous texts and also mass-media products. Cognitive poetics devotes itself to the exploration of mental processes, accompanied by communication of reader and text. Notions of prototype and uniformity, conceptual metaphor and metaphorical blending are treated, resting on works of M. Freeman, G. Lakoff, K. Hautley, P. Stockwell. Special attention is payed to incompatibility of cognitive poetics, that proclaims deligitimation of fiction, with philological and structural-semiotic approaches, with ideas of aesthetic function of language and aesthetic value of verbal work of fiction, with concepts of mimesis and catharsis by Aristoteles. In the last part analysis by M. L. Gasparov of the verse by A. Fet (Чудная картина, Как ты мне родна: Белая равнина, Полная луна, свет небес высоких и блестящий снег И саней далеких Одинокий бег) and the verse by Percy Bysshe Shelley «Ozymandias» are discussed. M. L. Gasparov is far from cognitive poetics, but he builds his analysis, resting on the major human cognitive capacity – visual perception and tridimensional text space, reconstructed by him, which implicitly refers to cognitive deixis. Holistic perception is superposed with strong emotional experience and unselfish satisfaction. P. Stockwell, on the contrary, starts from the notion of cognitive deixis and describes its kinds, but, analyzing “Ozymandias”, he applies to well-known figures of different senders and receivers. The parallel is made between sculpture and poet and then – between destroyed statue and text as an archetype. The verse is also concentrated on the production process of creation and on the act of reading: traveler reads inscription and then reads it to narrator, which in its turn reads it to us in the form of verse. Finally Stockwell reaches that explanation of the impact on the reader, made by this verse. Thus, incompatible in theory turns to be pretty compatible in practice.

Surface

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiamin Kwa
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Decorative Arts ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Graphic Narratives ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Digital Stories ◽  
History Of Architecture

Thinking about surface and its historiography in the early 21st century is a way of thinking about ways of seeing in the world, and how people define themselves in relation to the things around them. From literary texts to the decorative arts, from graphic narratives to digital stories, and from film to the textile arts, the ways of reading those texts frequently raise questions about interactions with surfaces. Theories of surface have been engaged in many ways since their invocation by French theorists in the final decades of the twentieth century. They have a steady but by no means identical presence in the field of visual studies, history of architecture, and film studies; they have found an application in discussions of race and identity; they have enjoyed an early 21st century turn in the spotlight under the auspices of a broadly defined call for a “surface reading.” This critical move defines surface as worthy of scrutiny in its own right, rather than as something that needs to be “seen through,” and makes its most profound claims less by reactivating attention to reading surfaces, which arguably has been done all along, but by a shifting away from a model of interpretation that makes claims for authoritative symptomatic readings by an all-knowing interpreter.

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