“The fair draught of Óðinn”

Icelandic poets in the 16th and 17th century had great interest in formal features such as rhyme, kennings, and periphrasis. Rímur poets made use of Eddic diction and imagery but the use of kennings was not limited to rímur; it can also be found in other kinds of poetry. Baroque delight in periphrasis and metrical complexity ensured a favorable reception for the renewed interest in dróttkvætt measure, with its aurally intriguing rhymes and complex kennings. The paper discusses the use of kennings and the connection between kennings, riddles and metaphors and also between kennings and Eddic and classical myths.

Effects of musical training and culture on meter perception

Western music is characterized primarily by simple meters, but a number of other musical cultures, including Turkish, have both simple and complex meters. In Experiment 1, Turkish and American adults with and without musical training were asked to detect metrical changes in Turkish music with simple and complex meter. Musicians performed significantly better than nonmusicians, and performance was significantly better on simple meter than on complex meter, but Turkish listeners performed no differently than American listeners. In Experiment 2, members of Turkish classical and folk music clubs who were tested on the same materials exhibited comparable sensitivity to simple and complex meters, unlike the American and Turkish listeners in Experiment 1. Together, the findings reveal important effects of musical training and culture on meter perception: trained musicians are generally more sensitive than nonmusicians, regardless of metrical complexity, but sensitivity to complex meter requires sufficient exposure to musical genres featuring such meters.

Metal as a Gradual Process

While the popular genres of progressive rock and heavy metal have received significant scholarly attention, discussions of the syncretic subgenre of progressive metal are rare. Jonathan Pieslak’s 2007 article on the music of Meshuggah does much to delimit the stylistic boundaries of the subgenre, noting the importance placed by progressive metal bands and their fans on the rhythmic and metrical complexity of the music. Dream Theater, one of the most visible and commercially successful progressive metal bands, however, has received little scholarly attention to this point. The aim of this article is to describe Dream Theater’s unique metrical processes, focusing on a technique that I label the ABAC Additive Metrical Process (ABAC-AMP). The temporally complex examples I analyze in this article—culled from throughout Dream Theater’s decades-long career—are compared with techniques of early minimalist composers. The analysis demonstrates Dream Theater’s “progressive” aesthetic, and it aids in a characterization of the band’s sound as possessing a progressive rock center and a heavy metal periphery.

Poeta poranka i wieczoru. Hymny św. Ambrożego w Liturgii godzin

Following the example of the Lord, who frequently sang hymns with his dis­ciples, and encouraged to sing by St Paul, the early Christians praised God in music and song. The first Latin hymns were composed by Hilary of Poitiers. Their metrical complexity and content discouraged their liturgical use by the Church. Thus, St. Ambrose of Milan is considered the first „official” Latin hymnodist. He composed several hymns, still used in the Liturgy of the Hours, which were mu­sicated by himself. These hymns come from the particular circumstances of the Arian controversy and derive, in the main, from the necessity of encouraging „or­thodox” Christians in their defence of the Basilica Porziana in Milan. They were designed to guide their prayer at different times of the day. The Author’s text-critical analysis of two of these hymns – Aeterne rerum conditor, sung at dawn (in gallicinium) and Deus, creator omnium, sung at dusk as the lamps were lit (ad horam incensi) – well testifies to the literary and pastoral genius of the Bishop of Milan as he transforms the complex theological reflection of his time into poetry and music, while not only retaining the integrity of the depth of that reflection but also enhancing its aesthetic profile by drawing on a repertoire of images based on the parallelism of cosmic reality and human reality. St Ambrose’s corpus of hymns, together with his prose works, was admired both by his contemporaries and by successive generations. They promoted the flowering of a merciful Chris­tocentricity which, according to the experts, is the most original and attractive feature of his poetry. As is clearly seen in the hymns received into the Divine Of­fice, Ambrose’s singular ability effectively to stimulate the soul to prayer through a powerful and insuperable lyrical inspiration, is capable literally of transforming the daily hours into songs of praise, and explains Petrarch’s habit of rising during the night to sing hymns to the Lord.