Casella, Alfredo (1883--1947)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Roderick
Keyword(s):  
Claude Debussy ◽  
Igor Stravinsky ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Letter Writer ◽  
Musical Modernism ◽  
Orchestral Musicians ◽  
Trench Warfare

Alfredo Casella was an Italian composer, the leading member of the generazione dell’ottanta who were all born in the 1880s and who turned away from Italy’s operatic tradition in favor of new musical directions. Casella’s musical life consisted of a number of phases. Born into a Torinese musical family and surrounded by orchestral musicians in his early years, a move to Paris at the age of twleve years broadened his horizons considerably, and offered him the chance to study with Fauré and absorb the heady musical life of that city. He lived there for various periods during the subsequent twenty years, and the music and acquaintance of Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla ensured that Casella formed an entry point into Italy for much of Europe’s most innovative musical Modernism. Sachs writes that ‘he was polyglot, cosmopolitan, and ardently interested in European musical developments’ (1988: 134); added to this, he was a prodigious essayist and letter writer. Many works from this time are stylistically adventurous: Notte di Maggio (1913) is comparable to Debussy’s Jeux, while the Pagine di Guerra (1918) for two pianos are a harsh and dissonant reflection on the horrors of war, using cinematic images of trench warfare as their inspiration

“Monsieur Prokofieff”

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-86
Author(s):  
Marina Frolova-Walker
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Impact

Composers’ national identities, as we perceive them, tend to act as a constraint on the type of questions we ask about them. Prokofiev research is a clear example of this, since it has been focused either on his early years or on his return to Soviet Russia. His two decades abroad have usually been treated as transitional, unsettled, and of limited significance. This chapter reimagines Prokofiev in Paris, not as a fleeting Russian émigré but as a fixture in Parisian musical life. It assesses both how important Prokofiev was for Paris and how important Paris was for Prokofiev. The materials for this task are now abundant: Prokofiev’s own diaries and much of his personal and professional correspondence have been published; and a multitude of French press reviews are available online. The impact of the Paris years well into Prokofiev’s Soviet period is also examined—an influence not generally recognized by either Soviet or Western commentators.

The activity of the singing society «Lutna» (based on the publications of the daily «Dilo» in the 1880s)

2019 ◽  
pp. 181-197
Author(s):  
Nataliia Kobryn
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Mixed Choir ◽  
Music Associations ◽  
Choral Society ◽  
The 19Th Century

The paper seeks to develop new avenues for the study of the singing society «Lutna» (based in Lviv, late 19th century). There were several music associations with differing objectives in musical activities in the 80s of the 19th century in Lviv. Specifically, they were the Galician Musical Society, the Association «Harmony» and the Choir «Lutna». None of them was specifically the Ukrainian institution, but many Ukrainians were the members of the «Lutna». Therefore, the «Lutna» had the repertoire of the Ukrainian musical works and took part in the nationwide musical life of Ukrainians (specifically, in Lviv). The paper aims to study the participation of the «Lutna» in the Ukrainian concerts at the 1880s in Lviv as well as to outline the works of Ukrainian composers and its repertoire. Our research is based on the daily newspaper «Dilo». We used chronological, historiography, comparative and analytical methods to explore the content of publications concerning the «Lutna» and to form the concert chronicle of the choir among the Ukrainian residents of Lviv. Our findings show that the choral society «Lutna» was founded as the «Men Choir of Lviv» to be based on the multinational principles in 1881. The first concert of the renewed society as the mixed choir «Lutna» was held in 1883. The critics of «Dilo» followed the Choir at Ukrainian concerts, analyzed their performing of the Ukrainian music and observed every change of its repertoire. About 20 Ukrainians were indicated in the «Lutna» registry documents spanning 1880s, specifically, A. Vakhnianyn, M. Vitoshynsky, S. Fedak, V. Shukhevych and others. Traditionally, the «Lutna» with S. Cetvinsky’s con ducting participated at the Shevchenko concerts as well as the other national cultural events during the 1880s. The society was the most active in Ukrainian music life at its early years. The musical works by A. Vakhnianyn, M. Verbytskyi, S. Vorobkevych, M. Lysenko, P. Nishchyn skyi and others were in the repertoire of the «Lutna». The «Lutna»’s performing of M. Lysenko’s choral poem «Zapovit» and his cantata «Biut Porohy» and P. Nishchynskyi’s «Zakuvala ta syva zozulia» were the most significant art events of that time. We conclude that the annual concerts of the «Lutna» along with other Ukrainian organizations and the large Ukrainian repertoire of the choir had a significant influence on the revival of the Ukrainian musical life in Galicia at the end of the 19th century. Keywords: Ukrainian concert life, choir society «Lutna», Ukrainian musical critics, the newspaper «Dilo» («Work»), Lviv.

scholarly journals The early years setting is an underutilised entry point to build healthy food environments

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
A. Devine ◽  
R. Wallace ◽  
L. Costello ◽  
R. Sambell ◽  
S. Baker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Healthy Food ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Food Environments

Stravinsky's Music in Hitler's Germany

2003 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Evans
Keyword(s):  
Igor Stravinsky ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Modern Music ◽  
Cultural Community ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
Political Views

Abstract This investigation of the reception in Nazi Germany of the work (and person) of Igor Stravinsky offers new insights into the issue of modern music in Hitler's Germany. As the most prominent modernist composer of the period, Stravinsky was the chief beneficiary of Germany's desire, after the xenophobic early Nazi years, to rejoin the European cultural community. Thanks to the determination of his supporters, and aided by the greater accessibility of his 1930s works, Stravinsky's music achieved a significant position in the musical life of the New Germany, which it maintained until the outbreak of war. Modern-minded critics articulated the ideological basis for his “rehabilitation”: although rooted in a foreign musical tradition, Stravinsky was an “Aryan” composer with acceptable political views, whose tonally based music revealed suitably “national” qualities. Many foreign composers, including the antifascist Béla Bartók, shared Stravinsky's desire for German performances. Whether they allowed this to temper their modernist tendencies is difficult to determine. What is certain is that their tonally based music allowed many (racially and politically acceptable) foreign composers to find an audience in Nazi Germany. It also made feasible Germany's desire to reconnect with the larger musical world.

scholarly journals Saint-Saëns, Debussy, and Superseding German Musical Taste in the United States1

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 113-119
Author(s):  
James R. Briscoe ◽  
Chloé Huvet
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Claude Debussy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great War ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Solo Piano ◽  
Pelleas Et Melisande ◽  
French Music ◽  
The Great War

In an interview published in the October 21, 1908, issue of the Boston Transcript, Debussy had been asked to comment on American musical life. He remarked, “The distinction of a country like [the United States] is that it imbibes from all sources... it is less German bound than are the countries who hear little or no other music through chauvinism or antipathies.” This paper examines the roles of Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918) in driving such a modernist evolution. Saint- Saëns performed with and conducted the New York Symphony in 1906, including his symphonic poem Le rouet d’Omphale and playing solo piano in his Africa, Fantaisie pour piano et orchestre. He thereafter appeared in both Chicago and San Francisco, and critics could already hear the modernist aesthetic in formation. When conductor Frederick Stock, a stalwart champion of French music, led Prélude à “L’après- midi-d’un faune” in Chicago in December 1908, the symbolist dimensions of the new music were grasped by both critics and audiences, and Paul Rosenfeld wrote: “We should look to France for the latest gospel [of the new musical advancement] […] Claude Debussy has broken through the limitation of the old, and shall we say he has found new musical dimensions?” Contemporaneously, the premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande in New York dramatically impressed the new hearing on American audiences. To be sure, anti-German feelings after 1910, brought with the Great War, promoted such a shift from the aesthetics of the Gilded Age, but the new French music had itself led the way since just after 1900. By 1923, Carl Van Vechten, in Music after the Great War, wrote, “It is not from the German countries that the musical invention of the past two decades has come. It is from France.”

scholarly journals Diverging from an established Greek musical nationalism: Aspects of modernism in the works of Dimitri Mitropoulos, Nikos Skalkottas, Dimitrios Levidis and Harilaos Perpessas, during the 1920s and 30s

Muzikologija ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 183-206
Author(s):  
Giorgos Sakallieros
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Second Viennese School ◽  
Musical Modernism ◽  
Ardent Supporter ◽  
New Instruments

The presence of many young talented composers outside Greece, studying in prominent European music centres during the 1920s and 30s, set them free from the ideological compulsions of Greek musical nationalism prevailing in Athenian musical life during the first decades of the 20th century. The creative approach and adoption of aspects of musical modernism, having been established around the same period in western music, are subsequently commented upon in the works, style and ideology of four different Greek composers: the pioneer of atonality and twelve-note technique in Greece, Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960); the innovator and descendant of the Second Viennese School, Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949); the ardent supporter of timbral innovation into new instruments and ensembles, Dimitrios Levidis (1886-1951); and, finally, the ascetical and secluded Harilaos Perpessas (1907-1995), another pupil of Schoenberg in Berlin.

A “League Against Willan”? The Early Years of the Canadian League of Composers, 1951–1960

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-480
Author(s):  
BENITA WOLTERS-FREDLUND
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Concert Programming ◽  
Canadian Music ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Stylistic Influences ◽  
Musical Modernism ◽  
Canadian Composers ◽  
League Of Composers

AbstractThe founders of the Canadian League of Composers were young modernists who resented the conservative musical climate in Canada epitomized by the traditional British style of Canada's most famous composer, Healey Willan. In their first decade (1951–60), during which their membership grew from eight to more than forty and they presented dozens of concerts of new Canadian music, they struggled to find a balance between two competing goals: championing the cause of all Canadian composers, regardless of style, and promoting modern and avant-garde styles, which had been virtually ignored by the older Canadian musical establishment. This article probes how those tensions played out in two of the league's early activities: membership decisions and concert programming. Although the league did admit composers and feature works representing a wide variety of stylistic influences, its membership and concerts were nonetheless dominated by younger composers interested in modern styles, especially the group of composers in John Weinzweig's circle in Toronto. The group earned a reputation as young radicals because of their modernistic programming choices and a controversial policy that limited membership to composers younger than sixty. Although its members may not have been entirely successful in their efforts at inclusivity, the league's ground-breaking activities in the 1950s did help to establish a place for composition generally and musical modernism in particular in the postwar Canadian cultural landscape.

scholarly journals The Choreomusical Page-to-Stage Approach: Visual Representations of Musical Modernism Through the Works of Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Eustacia Lynn Jocea Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Igor Stravinsky ◽  
Visual Medium ◽  
Context Analysis ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Musical Modernism ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Changing Attitudes

<p>The musical developments of the Modernist period provided a new understanding and approach to composition. These developments are also seen in ballet, branching into several styles, with many choreographers providing their unique take to staging musical works. In this study, the modernist choreomusical relationship is examined with respect to the possibility of a page-to-stage approach in dance. This thesis examines how this approach is manifested in the complex relationships between the composer, and the choreographer. Drawing on nine examples of modernist era ballets categorised in to three styles (classical, neoclassical, and contemporary ballets), discussion of historical context, analysis of the musical and choreographic relationship, and other ideas surrounding adapting music for a visual medium are explored.  This thesis also examines changing attitudes to music/dance relationships. Two lines of enquiry are followed, the first assesses, through the example of Stravinsky, Balanchine, and several other contemporaries, whether a page-to-stage approach exists for ballet. A supplementary enquiry explores how such an approach is manifested within different methods of choreography. This study finds that there are difficulties in applying the choreomusical page-to-stage approach to analysing changing attitudes to music/dance relationships. At another level, this study points to the benefit of incorporating the concept of diegesis in analysing the changing attitudes to music/dance relationships.</p>

scholarly journals Dreams of Destiny and Omens of Greatness: Exceptionalism in Ottoman Political and Historical Thought

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan L Menchinger
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Future Period ◽  
Dream Stories ◽  
Historical Thought

Abstract This article uses dreams, portents, and prognostications as an entry point into what some scholars have recently called ‘Ottoman exceptionalism’. Drawing on sources in Turkish and Arabic, it traces beliefs about the Ottoman dynasty and empire’s superiority, divine favour, and special role in history from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. I begin with the ‘seeds’ of the topic in the empire’s early years and myths of origin, including a number of dream stories, before moving to full-scale political exceptionalism. Looking closer, I then identify an eschatological strand in the lead-up to the Islamic millennium that centred on the dynasty’s role in the end time. The millennium’s uneventful passing led to the dissolution of this strand but not of ideas about exceptionalism itself, which in later forms turned inward, depicting the empire as ‘eternal’ and projecting its rule to an undetermined future period.

scholarly journals The Choreomusical Page-to-Stage Approach: Visual Representations of Musical Modernism Through the Works of Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Eustacia Lynn Jocea Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Igor Stravinsky ◽  
Visual Medium ◽  
Context Analysis ◽  
George Balanchine ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Musical Modernism ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Changing Attitudes

<p>The musical developments of the Modernist period provided a new understanding and approach to composition. These developments are also seen in ballet, branching into several styles, with many choreographers providing their unique take to staging musical works. In this study, the modernist choreomusical relationship is examined with respect to the possibility of a page-to-stage approach in dance. This thesis examines how this approach is manifested in the complex relationships between the composer, and the choreographer. Drawing on nine examples of modernist era ballets categorised in to three styles (classical, neoclassical, and contemporary ballets), discussion of historical context, analysis of the musical and choreographic relationship, and other ideas surrounding adapting music for a visual medium are explored.  This thesis also examines changing attitudes to music/dance relationships. Two lines of enquiry are followed, the first assesses, through the example of Stravinsky, Balanchine, and several other contemporaries, whether a page-to-stage approach exists for ballet. A supplementary enquiry explores how such an approach is manifested within different methods of choreography. This study finds that there are difficulties in applying the choreomusical page-to-stage approach to analysing changing attitudes to music/dance relationships. At another level, this study points to the benefit of incorporating the concept of diegesis in analysing the changing attitudes to music/dance relationships.</p>

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