Reorchestrating the Past

Taking its title from Australian novelist Alexis Wright’s description of her novel Carpentaria as a ‘long song, following ancient tradition’, this chapter considers how antipodean relations of place interrupt abstract notions of globalization as a financial system. The first section exemplifies this by focusing on Australian/American director Baz Luhrmann, whose version of The Great Gatsby (2013), filmed in Sydney, resituates Fitzgerald’s classic novel within an antipodean context. The second section develops this through consideration of Wright’s fiction, along with that of New Zealand/Maori author Keri Hulme, so as to illuminate ways in which spiral conceptions of time, where ends merge into beginnings, contest Western epistemological frames. In the final section, this ‘long song’ is related to the musical aesthetics of Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe and English composers George Benjamin and Harrison Birtwistle. The chapter concludes by arguing that musical modes are an overlooked dimension of postmodernist culture more generally.

Fugue in the Renaissance Motet

This chapter explores fugal writing in the genre that contemporary writers indicated was the “home” of fugue: the motet. Beginning with the establishment by Jean Mouton and others of the classic Renaissance motet—based on serious counterpoint within a point-of-imitation structure—in the first two decades of the century, the fugal motet received its most important features at the hands of Nicolas Gombert in the 1530s when he expanded the use of imitation beyond a single thematic statement in each voice to feature a texture based on multiple returning statements. This approach then formed the basis for motet writing by Thomas Crecquillon and Jacobus Clemens non Papa around mid-century and later by Francesco Guerrero and G. P. da Palestrina. By century’s end, composers had grown weary of fugue’s use in vocal music, such that it plays a lesser role in the motets of Lassus, but English composers contributed their own efforts in the 1580s and 1590s.

What Do Signatures Signify?

At the beginning of the seventeenth century English composers used only a handful of keys: they combined five keynotes (G, A, C, D, and F) with the three signatures documented in English solmization theory (♮,♭, and♭♭). By the end of the century English theorists described eighteen keys—all of the modern major and minor keys with up to four signature accidentals. But the route from eight to eighteen keys was not straightforward. This article traces this route by examining how the function of signature flats and sharps changed in seventeenth-century England. At the beginning of the century signature flats and sharps were clefs, mere notational symbols that provided a shorthand for the probable pitches in a composition. As a result, English musicians used adjacent keys (i.e., ♮-D and -D), which were distinct, well-formed versions of a broader category of D minor. In the middle of the century, composers and theorists used ad hoc and asymmetrical strategies ♭ to create new keys. Composers explored new flat keys through the process of signature creep, while theorists devised new sharp keys when they identified the parallel key relationship. Finally, theoretical interventions at the end of the century “fixed” keys into our modern system but obscured the varied pitch structure that still animated musical practice. The messy, flexible circumstances in which keys arose complicate several assumptions about modern key; this evidence challenges notions of transpositional equivalence and reveals that different kinds of keys may be built on different conceptual foundations.

From Phrase Structure to Form

The balletto unfolds on a uniquely small scale: many balletti can be performed in less than a minute. The genre’s brevity supports a number of perceptual benefits that train listeners to attend to tonal dynamics at multiple scales. The shortest balletti lie at the perceptual limit for entraining hypermeter and within the boundary for remembering tonic. Dynamic attending theory posits that periodic cadences correspond with peaks of attention, facilitating comparison of distant harmonic events. The balletto’s repeat structure fosters a deeper knowledge of tonal and formal procedures, and repetition directs attention to larger groupings. Together, these principles enabled listeners to identify important harmonic events, compare them across broad time spans, and associate them with specific formal units. Furthermore, a comparison of Italian, English, and German balletti reveals important regional differences in tonal and harmonic norms, illustrating how English composers, especially Thomas Morley, maximally leveraged the genre’s profound perceptual benefits.

JAMES WILSON (1922–2005)First Frost (1988)

This chapter discusses First Frost by James Wilson. This work showcases Wilson’s unfaltering taste, wit, and technical expertise. Drawing on a rich range of interests and experience, he possesses a flexible musical language, implicitly tonal, yet with a free-ranging chromaticism. Some gestures evoke an earlier generation of English composers, yet remain distinctively his, generating considerable emotional power. He sustains atmosphere especially well, and responds instinctively to the sensuous nature of syllables and the minutiae of their inflections. Furthermore, the texts offer a veritable cornucopia of memorable images, their biting perceptions needing no further adornment. They reflect eloquently on the relation between Man and Nature, especially the parallel between impending Death and the coming of Winter. Despite the often grim pictures presented, however, a sense of beauty and truth prevails in this piece.

WILLIAM BABELL AS A PERFORMER-COMPOSER AND MUSIC COPYIST

The career of William Babell (1688–1723), an English composer of German birth, has recently been reassessed by me following identification of a manuscript source in Bergamo, which appears to be a collection of his harpsichord music. The manuscript shows he was an important keyboard composer active in Britain immediately prior to the publication of Handel's Suites de Pieces pour le Clavecin (1720), and it has provided insights into his working methods. The major items – eleven substantial toccatas mostly in prelude–fugue form together with two suites – are replete with the cadenza-like passagework familiar from his arrangements of arias from operas produced at the Haymarket Theatre between 1706 and 1714, which were published in three collections in his lifetime (in 1709, 1711 and 1717). They also reveal the range of influences on his keyboard style, illustrating how he adapted material from music by French, Italian, German and English composers. Though the source is not an autograph, it was copied towards the end of Babell's life by an individual close to him, to judge from the large number of pencil corrections that appear to be the composer's own. The manuscript therefore has biographical implications, suggesting that there was a composer-supervised project to bring together his keyboard music, perhaps in order to prepare some of it for publication, which never saw completion.

THE SOUND OF THE "GOLDEN AGE": PROBLEMS IN PERFORMING ENGLISH VIRGINAL ART

The main objective of the article is to investigate the problems of performing compositions by English composers of the XVIth – XVIIth centuries and the history of their sound incarnation. The author analyzes the appeal to the musical art of the "Golden Age" by A. G. Rubinstein, who included in the piano "Historical Concerts" and lectures works by W. Byrd, O. Gibbons, H. Purcell. Considering the specifics of the clavier texture, different types of variations and their influence on the development of instrumental techniques are distinguished. Based on the comparison of the pavane, the article draws conclusions about the stylistic features of various composers. As one of the key problems in creating an interpretation, the author notes the solution to the question of choosing a musical instrument (both between harpsichord and piano and between historical instruments), which has a decisive influence on sound quality. The article examines the experience of A. B. Lyubimov in performing works by English virginalists. Interpreted by G. Gould, the pianist emphasizes the new contemporary hearing of compositions by W. Byrd and O. Gibbons, performed in the same program with the works of A. Schoenberg, A. Webern, A. Berg, which reveals the dialogue of eras.

SAVING FAITH: STOCKHAUSEN AND SPIRITUALITY

ABSTRACTInvited in 2011 by Robert Sholl and Sander van Maas to contribute to a proposed symposium on the spiritual in late twentieth-century music, I accepted, not because I agreed with the project and its aims, but to defend Stockhausen's character and reputation from convenient misrepresentation. Sin and virtue, spirituality and the spiritual life ask to be addressed in terms of actual works and personal witness – in my own case, not least given the composer's complaint late in life: ‘You have to watch out for Maconie's nihilism’. The test of spirituality inevitably entails scrutinizing the motives of former Stockhausen disciples who changed their minds, among them two English composers of my own generation, Jonathan Harvey and John Tavener, who have since passed away. In 2014 the opening sentence of the present paper provided theologian and Stockhausen-forum editor Thomas Ulrich with an amusing starting-point (‘Suffering? How very Protestant!’) for just the second of a trickle of online discussions of largely pathetic inconsequence.

Carl Nielsen and the Idea of English National Music

Why did Carl Nielsen achieve such a favourable reception in England from the 1950s on, compared to the rather reluctant recognition in continental Europe? We would suggest that one reason could be an affi nity of features in his music with the concept of English national music. This attempt to discuss the British reception of Nielsen does, of course, not imply that Nielsen’s music is English. From a constructivist position, national musics are based on cultural common-views in a population of people identifying themselves with a certain concept of a nation which they regard their own. The concept of English national music had Ralph Vaughan Williams as chief engineer and champion. Based on Cecil J. Sharp’s scientific investigation of the English folk song, Vaughan Williams developed a theoretical background on which English composers could (and later would) create their compositions, and his thoughts became prevalent through the English musical establishment. Such ideas of English music did not by accident or as some kind of revelation find their way to the hearts and minds of English listeners and critics. The success was due to a deliberate effort by a national movement, and a most crucial feature was the introduction of folk song singing in elementary schools, instilling these particular views into following generations of listeners. Though mainly concerned with the music of England, Vaughan Williams’ ideas were not limited by nationality as such, but were general guidelines for every composer in every nation of the world. In many ways Nielsen’s music can be seen to fi t Vaughan Williams’ characteristics for good music. When fi rst established, ideas of national music are embedded in a value system that considers such music of high quality and thus music – like Nielsen’s – which has affi nities with the image of English national music, is more likely to be recognized and appreciated as ‘good’.

Extended Play: Reflections of Heinrich Isaac's Music in Early Tudor England

The so-called Henry VIII's Book (London, British Library Add. MS 31922) contains two textless pieces by Isaac—his three-part Benedictus and the four-part La my—together with a number of other Franco-Flemish “songs without words” typical of the contents of manuscripts copied for the North Italian courts where the earliest viol consorts were being developed in the 1490s and early 1500s. Alongside these pieces are works by native English composers, including William Cornyshe, whose extended three-part Fa la sol has a number of stylistic traits in common with some works by Isaac (for example, his three-part Der Hundt) and Alexander Agricola (his three-part Cecus non judicat de coloribus) that were also transmitted in textless format. The fact that these latter two pieces were published in Hieronymus Formschneider's Trium vocum carmina (Nuremberg, 1538) while Cornyshe's Fa la sol was published in XX Songes (London, 1530) shows that this type of repertoire was still prized several years after the composers' deaths. Analysis of musical connections between the work of Isaac and Cornyshe, as evident in pieces such as those from Henry VIII's Book—in particular, techniques employed by the composers to extend the structures of their “songs without words”—sheds fresh light on the reception in England of Isaac's music and that of his continental contemporary Agricola. Relevant considerations include the context in which these pieces were anthologized together and the introduction into England of viols similar to those Isaac may have known in Ferrara in 1502, when La my was composed. Such pieces are representative of a typical courtly repertoire that developed into the riches of the later Tudor instrumental consort music.