Louth Contemporary Music Society, ‘We Sing for the Future’, 14–18 April 2021, online

The Louth Contemporary Music Society festival, based in Dundalk, only six miles from the border with Northern Ireland, is now an established presence on the contemporary music scene. Thanks to its founder, Eamonn Quinn, it attracts both local musicians and major international figures and also issues CDs. This year, the programme featured a strong Irish connection and a lot of music that is quiet, meditative and minimal. Music for guitar formed another theme, with new work by the Norwegian guitarist/composer Fredrik Rasten and the Cuban Leo Brouwer.

Martin Smolka

Martin Smolka (*1959) studierte Komposition an der Akademie der musischen Künste in Prag. Als Mitbegründer und Mitglied des "Agon Ensembles" drangen seine Kompositionen schon früh durch den Eisernen Vorhang gen Westen und wurden an vielen Orten Europas und Nordamerikas aufgeführt. Ausgehend von zwei unterschiedlichen Ansätzen, dem Serialismus auf der einen und der Minimal Music auf der anderen Seite, gelangte Smolka zunächst zu einer Art konkreter Sonoristik, indem er mit Instrumentalklängen arbeitete, die an alltägliche Geräusche erinnern (etwa Schiffs- und Zugsirenen, Maschinengeräusche, Regengeräusche u. a.). Seit 1998 wandelte sich sein Stil von der Sonoristik zur Arbeit mit Tönen und Formen eher traditioneller Musik, die Smolka durch Mikrotöne und -intervalle verändert, überformt und collageartig arrangiert. Mit Beiträgen von Stefan Drees, Jörn Peter Hiekel, Thomas Meyer, Rainer Nonnenmann, Tobias Eduard Schick und Steffen Schleiermacher.

Introduction

The introduction begins with a discussion of the nature of jazz composition, advancing the view that improvisations can sometimes become compositions. The concept of an authoritative recording is discussed, that is, that a recording with sufficient properties may instantiate a composition in lieu of an officially notated version. The book’s method of listing and categorizing Parker compositions then follows. For the latter, Parker’s compositions are divided into seven groups, which proceed from fully composed 32-bar pieces to those works with minimal music. This final group also includes improvised pieces. The introduction ends by citing significant prior studies and explaining the book’s analytical approaches.

An Exploratory Study of Narrative Experiences of Music

Listeners frequently talk about music in terms of imagined stories, but little empirical research has investigated this tendency. In this study, 47 participants listened to eight 90-second musical excerpts—four of which featured programmatic music composed between 1857-1935 and were selected by music theorists to feature high contrast, and four of which featured Baroque and minimal music and were selected by music theorists to feature low contrast. After each one, they answered a variety of questions intended to assess their narrative engagement with the music. Brief assessments of personality and general listening tendencies were administered at the end of the session. Results showed qualified support for the notion that contrast makes people likelier to hear music in terms of narrative, with stylistic familiarity and enjoyment seeming to play a greater role. The most striking aspect of the results was the emergence of broad areas of consensus among the free descriptions of imagined narratives. People with high AIMS scores also tended to experience more narrative engagement with the music, as did people low in Extraversion and Conscientiousness.