An artistic portrait of Glenn Gould based on the analysis of his recordings of “The Goldberg Variations” by Johann Sebastian Bach from 1955 and 1981. Part 1

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
pp. 137-160
Author(s):  
Michał Stupski

The article presents the profile of Glenn Gould, one of the most prominent and popular pianists of the 20th century, whose great career was closely connected with his two recordings of The Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach. The first recording dated 1955 became his ticket to international fame whereas the second one (from 1981) is one of his last recordings, so it sort of symbolises the end of his musical adventure. A very interesting fact is that these two recordings are very different – both in terms of interpretation and performance. The first part of the article focuses on the biography of the Canadian pianist and it attempts to answer the question what happened in Glenn Gould’s life that might make him change his approach towards The Goldberg Variations and such diversified attitude towards music. Apart from that, it describes Gould’s style and his unusual musical preferences. The second part of the article presents the origin and characterisation of The Goldberg Variations as this piece includes numerous references to symbolism and numerology, which for ages has been a subject of interest of not only performers and audiences, but also scholars. The article presents the circumstances how The Variations (which constitute the fourth part of the Clavier Übung cycle) as well as other parts were written. It also touches on the construction and division of that piece plus two interesting yet controversial 19th century theories connected with The Variations.

10.1068/d51j ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek P McCormack

In this paper I seek to apprehend some of the powers of nonrepresentational practice and performance through an encounter with the rhythmic movement of the body. I concentrate on eurhythmics, a practice that emerged in Geneva in the late 19th century and early 20th century as an effort to improve musical appreciation through rhythmic movement. Drawing on work in cultural and architectural theory, I argue that the historical and cultural geographies of eurhythmics can best be apprehended diagrammatically. Specifically, I situate eurhythmics in diagrammatic relation to the corporeal kinaesthetics of rhythmic movement, to practices of social and cultural transformation, and to architectures of performative potential. By apprehending the geographies of eurhythmics in this way, I not only work to demonstrate that nonrepresentational styles of thinking and working multiply rather than undermine the field of power in which geographers move, but also present a sense of how these powers can become implicated in the very practice and performance of geographical research.


Author(s):  
Tatyana V. Kovalevskaya

The article considers the “Faustian” scene in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Adolescent as the musical embodiment of Dostoevsky’s central poetic device: statements with maximum formal similarity and maximum semantic divergence. This device is contextualized within Mikhail Bakhtin’s polyphonic novel concept and within the context of the history of polyphony as a musical phenomenon starting with its origins in the Western European music. We follow Larisa Gogotishvili’s suggestion that Mikhail Bakhtin’s polyphony is not the polyphony of the 18th-19th century (Johann Sebastian Bach, for instance) but the 20th-century polyphony (Arnold Schoenberg) and propose that Bakhtin’s and Dostoevsky’s concepts of polyphony have different origins (relativist in Bakhtin and epistemological in Dostoevsky) and consequently serve different purposes: Bakhtin affirms a multiplicity of voices as a matter of principle, while Dostoevsky strives to ultimately overcome this multiplicity by covering as many concepts of reality as possible. The breadth of Dostoevsky’s conceptual range is intended to overcome humans’ epistemological limitations and avoid dangerous cognitive traps that lie in statements that are formally close, but semantically different.


Muzikologija ◽  
2003 ◽  
pp. 43-55
Author(s):  
Ekaterini Romanou

In Greece, the monophonic chant of the Orthodox church and its neumatic notation have been transmitted as a popular tradition up to the first decades of the 20th century. The transformation of Greek musical tradition to a Western type of urban culture and the introduction of harmony, staff notation and western instruments and performance practices in the country began in the 19th century. Italian musicians played a central role in that process. A large number of them lived and worked on the Ionian Islands. Those Italian musicians have left a considerable number of transcriptions and original compositions. Quite a different cultural background existed in Athens. Education was in most cases connected to the church - the institution that during the four centuries of Turkish occupation kept Greeks united and nationally conscious. The neumatic notation was used for all music sung by the people, music of both western and eastern origin. The assimilation of staff notation and harmony was accelerated in the last quarter of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century in Athens a violent cultural clash was provoked by the reformers of music education all of them belonging to German culture. The clash ended with the displacement of the Italian and Greek musicians from the Ionian Islands working at the time in Athens, and the defamation of their fundamental work in music education.


Author(s):  
Tatyana V. Kovalevskaya

The article considers the “Faustian” scene in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Adolescent as the musical embodiment of Dostoevsky’s central poetic device: statements with maximum formal similarity and maximum semantic divergence. This device is contextualized within Mikhail Bakhtin’s polyphonic novel concept and within the context of the history of polyphony as a musical phenomenon starting with its origins in the Western European music. We follow Larisa Gogotishvili’s suggestion that Mikhail Bakhtin’s polyphony is not the polyphony of the 18th-19th century (Johann Sebastian Bach, for instance) but the 20th-century polyphony (Arnold Schoenberg) and propose that Bakhtin’s and Dostoevsky’s concepts of polyphony have different origins (relativist in Bakhtin and epistemological in Dostoevsky) and consequently serve different purposes: Bakhtin affirms a multiplicity of voices as a matter of principle, while Dostoevsky strives to ultimately overcome this multiplicity by covering as many concepts of reality as possible. The breadth of Dostoevsky’s conceptual range is intended to overcome humans’ epistemological limitations and avoid dangerous cognitive traps that lie in statements that are formally close, but semantically different.


1970 ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Sarah Limorté

Levantine immigration to Chile started during the last quarter of the 19th century. This immigration, almost exclusively male at the outset, changed at the beginning of the 20th century when women started following their fathers, brothers, and husbands to the New World. Defining the role and status of the Arab woman within her community in Chile has never before been tackled in a detailed study. This article attempts to broach the subject by looking at Arabic newspapers published in Chile between 1912 and the end of the 1920s. A thematic analysis of articles dealing with the question of women or written by women, appearing in publications such as Al-Murshid, Asch-Schabibat, Al-Watan, and Oriente, will be discussed.


Author(s):  
A. Drutsé

The modern world popularity of the nai — a traditional Romanian instrument — has identified interest in writing this article. This problematic constitutes the circle of our research interest as a doctoral candidate, but also as a concert performer, a graduate of the Academy of Music, Theater and Fine Arts. One of the most interesting aspects of the study of nai is its technical improvement since 60s of the 20th century, which led to the acquisition of a number of new, innovative skills and performance skills. In this article we have identified some pages of the modern history of the manufacture of this ancient instrument associated with these processes.


1969 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 1-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony K. Higgins

The first recorded landing by Europeans on the coast of northern East Greenland (north of 69°N) was that of William Scoresby Jr., a British whaler, in 1822. This volume includes a chronological summary of the pioneer 19th century exploration voyages made by British, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, French and German expeditions – all of whom reported that the region had previously been occupied by the Inuit or Eskimo; also included are brief outlines of the increasing number of government and privately sponsored expeditions throughout the 20th century, whose objectives included cartography, geology, zoology, botany, trapping and the ascent of the highest mountain summits. In 1934 the Place Name Committee for Greenland was established, the tasks of which included a review of all place names hitherto recorded on published maps of Greenland, their formal adoption in danicised form, and the approval or rejection of new name proposals. In northern East Greenland, by far the largest numbers of new place names were those proposed by scientists associated with Lauge Koch's geological expeditions that lasted from 1926 until 1958. This volume records the location and origin of more than 3000 officially approved place names as well as about 2650 unapproved names. The author's interest in the exploration history and place names of northern East Greenland started in 1968, when the Geological Survey of Greenland initiated a major five-year geological mapping programme in the Scoresby Sund region. Systematic compilation of names began about 1970, initially with the names given by William Scoresby Jr., and subsequently broadened in scope to include the names proposed by all expeditions to northern East Greenland. The author has participated in 16 summer mapping expeditions with the Survey to northern East Greenland. Publication of this volume represents the culmination of a lifetime working in the Arctic.


1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-51
Author(s):  
Jan Richard Heier

Accounting has always been utilitarian in nature. It adapts to the changes in the business environment by meeting the need for new types of information. The change in waterborne transportation in the U.S. during the 19th century provides an example of such an environmental change that led to a need for accounting adaptation. With the advent of the steamboat, old accounting methods were modified and new ones created to meet the changes in the business environment. In the process, a standardized ships-accounting model was developed. The model can be seen in the accounting records of three ships that sailed at the beginning of the 20th century.


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