Musical composition and vocal expression

Author(s):  
Brian Abrams
Author(s):  
Tim Rutherford-Johnson

By the start of the 21st century many of the foundations of postwar culture had disappeared: Europe had been rebuilt and, as the EU, had become one of the world’s largest economies; the United States’ claim to global dominance was threatened; and the postwar social democratic consensus was being replaced by market-led neoliberalism. Most importantly of all, the Cold War was over, and the World Wide Web had been born. Music After The Fall considers contemporary musical composition against this changed backdrop, placing it in the context of globalization, digitization, and new media. Drawing on theories from the other arts, in particular art and architecture, it expands the definition of Western art music to include forms of composition, experimental music, sound art, and crossover work from across the spectrum, inside and beyond the concert hall. Each chapter considers a wide range of composers, performers, works, and institutions are considered critically to build up a broad and rich picture of the new music ecosystem, from North American string quartets to Lebanese improvisers, from South American electroacoustic studios to pianos in the Australian outback. A new approach to the study of contemporary music is developed that relies less on taxonomies of style and technique, and more on the comparison of different responses to common themes, among them permission, fluidity, excess, and loss.


Tempo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (295) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Maayan Tsadka

AbstractSonic botany is an ongoing project that I have been developing over the past few years. It incorporates natural artefacts: dry leaves, pods, flowers, branches, rocks, bones and other organic findings. These are used as musical instruments that are played on with a scientific/musical tool: tuning forks in various frequencies. The vibration from the tuning forks resonates through the natural artefacts which amplify the vibration and – via sound – reveal the texture, size, material and condition of the organic matter. This process generates new sonic material, new context and new forms of musical composition. The practice developed into several compositions and projects, a performance practice, a notation system and a way of listening. Here I share some of the insights I gained through this process, the tools and the compositional framework.


1943 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 30-30
Author(s):  
Bertha W. Bailey
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Р.Х. Лаул

Настоящий материал продолжает серию публикаций лекций Рейна Лаула по анализу музыки в Санкт-Петербургской (Ленинградской) консерватории. Шестая лекция завершает обзор приемов разработочного развития музыкального материала. В нее вошли шесть из двадцати пяти приемов в авторской классификации (эпизодическая тема, производная тема, варьирование, полифонические варианты, приемы подвижного контрапункта, полифонические структуры), способствующей систематизации разработочных процессов. В поле зрения автора включены неспецифически сонатные способы преобразования музыкального материала, благодаря чему сонатность предстает в гибком и взаимодополняющем взаимодействии с иными принципами формообразования. Особое внимание уделено специфике применения полифонических средств развития музыкального материала в контексте сонатного формообразования. В ходе детального рассмотрения финала симфонии В. А. Моцарта Юпитер оказываются тесно связанными технологический, композиционно-драматургический и стилевой аспекты становления музыкальной формы. Заключительный раздел, обобщающий содержание лекции в целом, содержит пример практического применения предлагаемой автором методологии. Тем самым доказывается ее целесообразность и высокая эффективность как в аспекте анализа интонационной драматургии музыкального произведения, так и в достижении главной аналитической цели в формировании объективного представления о содержательной сути каждого этапа в развёртывании музыкальной композиции. This material continues the series of publications of R. H. Lauls lectures on music analysis at the Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory. The sixth lecture concludes the review of techniques for developing musical material. It discusses six of the twenty-five techniques in the authors classification (episodic theme, derived theme, variation, polyphonic variants, mobile counterpoint techniques, polyphonic structures), which contributes to systematization of the development processes. The authors field of view includes non-specific Sonata methods of transforming the musical material, so that sonateness appears in a flexible and complementary interaction with other principles of formation. Special attention is paid to the specifics of using polyphonic means of developing musical material in the context of Sonata formation. The detailed examination of the finale of Mozarts Symphony Jupiter, shows that technological, compositional, dramatic, and stylistic aspects of the formation of a musical form appear to be closely related. The final section summarizing the content of the lecture as a whole contains an example of practical application of the methodology proposed by the author, proving its expediency and high efficiency not only in the aspect of analyzing the intonation drama of a musical work, but also of achieving the main analytical goal to form a reasoned judgment about the content of each stage in the deployment of a musical composition.


Author(s):  
Elisabete M. de Sousa ◽  

The present essay presents the content of the landmarks that punctuate the long dialogue between verbal language and musical language during the 19th Century, by means of examples taken from the critical and theoretical writings of Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner. In the search for the dramatic essence of music, such dialogue took different forms: the possibility of verbal language being translated by musical language, the pre-existence of a musical-poetic idea in any musical composition, eventually contributing to the appearance of program music, and finally, the principles presiding over Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk. Special emphasis is given to Richard Wagner’s Parisian article De l'Ouverture (1841), as well as to the impact on Soren Kierkegaard.


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