Piano culture of South and Latin America: features of formation and transformation

The purpose of the article involves a thorough study of the original sources of the emergence in Latin and South America of such an instrument as the piano. In addition, it is necessary to trace the historical stages of the transformation of the composer’s style — from European classical to a new ideological and artistic musical embodiment of a specific Latin American culture. The methodology. The main research method in the article is based on next principals: cultural-historical, comparative-typological, structural, analysis and synthesis and ascent from the abstract to the concrete. The results. The conducted historical and musical analysis revealed the importance of the piano for the formation of the musical culture of South and Latin America. Thanks to touring artists from Europe, the piano gradually gained popularity. Its evolution has gone from European imitation to the formation of its own identity in world music culture. The path of Latin and South American composers to national identity took place through rethinking and interpreting the musical styles of past eras (baroque, classicism, romanticism) and folklore. During the period of experiments, study and introduction of national cultural elements, piano works by composers of Latin and South America had a high level of professionalism and popularity. The scientific novelty. It is that the work is a comprehensive scientific study, which substantiates a holistic system of evolution and transformation of piano culture in South and Latin America. The practical significance. The materials of the article can be used in further research on the phenomenon of Latin America piano culture, as well as in classes on the history of piano art and world music history.

Affective and musical understanding in piano chamber music pedagogy at the fundamental level

<p>Individual piano lessons have limitations for peer interaction and cooperation, which leads to insufficient stimulation for children to achieve affective and musical understanding. This paper attempts to set up a piano chamber music program at the fundamental level in the first four years of learning piano, corresponding to children around five to nine years old) to close this gap. The program is a supplementary measure to solve problems deriving from a model of only individual lessons. It assists children in strengthening their existing knowledge as well as developing their abilities. The program is based on Piaget’s theory regarding cognitive development, and it combines theories of musical embodiment and music pedagogy. It promotes a rich musical environment and multiple opportunities for peer interaction so that children can make up for deficiencies arising from a single lesson model, using moderate stimulation from a suitable environment.</p>

Affective and musical understanding in piano chamber music pedagogy at the fundamental level

<p>Individual piano lessons have limitations for peer interaction and cooperation, which leads to insufficient stimulation for children to achieve affective and musical understanding. This paper attempts to set up a piano chamber music program at the fundamental level in the first four years of learning piano, corresponding to children around five to nine years old) to close this gap. The program is a supplementary measure to solve problems deriving from a model of only individual lessons. It assists children in strengthening their existing knowledge as well as developing their abilities. The program is based on Piaget’s theory regarding cognitive development, and it combines theories of musical embodiment and music pedagogy. It promotes a rich musical environment and multiple opportunities for peer interaction so that children can make up for deficiencies arising from a single lesson model, using moderate stimulation from a suitable environment.</p>

Babbitt’s Gestural Dialectics

The array structures of Babbitt’s music, which present twelve-tone series fixed in narrow registers, seem abstract and impersonal. Nevertheless, numerous commentators on Babbitt’s music have celebrated the sense of motion the music inspires in its listeners. This chapter explores the tension between the music’s static contrapuntal structures and the dynamic experience that results, drawing from research on musical embodiment by Matthew Baileyshea and Seth Monahan, Candace Brower, Arnie Cox, Robert Hatten, Mariusz Kozak, Justin London, Patrick McCreless, and Andrew Mead. An exploration of these gestural dialectics sheds light on a variety of topics: virtuosity, text setting, the liminal periodicity of Babbitt’s later rhythmic practice, anomalous deviations from serial expectations, closing rhetoric, and partitioning. The chapter ends by discussing how scholars may navigate the distinction between Babbitt’s formalistic prose and the gestural experience of his music.

Japanese women singer-songwriters of the 1970s: female agency, musical impact and social change

With the debuts of highly popular artists such as Matsutōya Yumi, Nakajima Miyuki and Takeuchi Mariya, Japanese popular music of the 1970s saw a rise of young female singer-songwriters. Not only were they notably successful commercially but they were also respected as creative artists. This recognition and valuation of female professional creativity was extraordinary from a gender point of view. Furthermore, their position as active social agents defied the social expectations for women in Japan at that time. In this respect, they can be conceptualised as a musical embodiment of the movements pursuing female emancipation in the 1970s. While the musical significance of these female singer-songwriters has been recognised in previous studies, the gender point of view has remained largely unaddressed. By drawing from theories about female musicians and canon formation, this article re-assesses the social significance of Japanese female singer-songwriters of the 1970s.

“Making Antifascist Politics Visible”

In the course of the 1970s, membership of the Jewish communities dwindled further, yet Jewish music continued to strive due to the presence of the Leipziger Synagogalchor, which kept prewar repertoires alive and exposed an ever-wider audience to them. As such, Jewish music slowly entered the mainstream and moved “out of the ghetto,” as Werner Sander had expressly called for in his very first programs. But this course was also turning into a Jewish heritage music, a mode of cultural production in the present with recourse to the past, singled out for protection, nourishment, and even enshrinement. Financially supported by the state, the Leipziger Synagogalchor also became a musical embodiment of the “success” of the GDR’s antifascist course. In reality, the choir, which consisted of non-Jewish singers, represented the presence of absence, a substitute for a culturally striving Jewish life.

Charles Gounod’s Faust and Dostoevsky Artistic Principles

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.

Charles Gounod’s Faust and Dostoevsky Artistic Principles

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.

Cherub chants of M. Berezovsky, D. Bortnyansky, A. Wedel: from innovation to tradition

The article examines the Cherubim chants written by Ukrainian composers of the musical classicism era – by Maxim Berezovsky, Dmitry Bortnyansky and Artemy Wedel. These composers wrote mainly spiritual music, so they did not omit the Cherubim chant – one of the songs in musical part during the Orthodox Liturgy. The purpose of this article is to reveal an innovative view on the musical embodiment of Cherubim songs by Ukrainian composers of the Classicism era, which, compared to previous cherubim chants, appears at the level of musical style and musical form, and the difference from pieces of music in concert genre, which had been influenced by everyday status of Cherubim chants. The research methods are based on the ways of musical-theoretical and stylistic analysis, as well as on the comparative manner. The method of musical-theoretical analysis contributed to the study of musical texts in Cherubim chants, the analytical method became the basis for identifying the stylistic belonging of pieces of music, comparative – to compare with the songs of previous and subsequent eras. The scientific novelty lies in the Cherubim chants separation from the creative heritage of Ukrainian composers of the Classicism era and their analysis as an independent line of creativity, which embodied an individual approach to the musical perusal of the canonical text. In the process of analysis it was concluded that the Cherubim chants written by M. Berezovsky, D. Bortnyansky and A. Wedel are striking examples of the new style, they can reveal features of musical classicism. Cherubim chants belong to everyday chant and, unlike choral concerts, have a more unified manner of musical presentation, but some chants reflect the features of individual thinking of their authors. At one time, the cherubim chants of these composers became an undoubted breakthrough, and later became a tradition.

The formation of the chamber-vocal style of Zhu Jian’er: early works

Background. The little-known pages of the work of an outstanding Chinese composer are presented. The genesis of chamber-vocal style is explored on the example of early chamber and vocal creativity of the 1940s. This is the stage in the formation of the musical language of the composer, which coincides with the “experimental” period of the formation of Chinese chamber vocal music of the twentieth century. Zhu Jiangier became one of the pioneers in the attempts of creative synthesis of national and European musical experience. Specificity of musical content and features of the intonational language, form, texture of the piano accompaniment of the cycle or. 1 (1940–1944) and two songs created in 1944 are considered. The characterization of the composer’s early song creativity, features inherent in his style, is generalized. It is proved that the earliest period of creativity, in particular, the sphere of chamber vocal music, which formed the personality of Zhu Jiangera style. Objectives. The purpose of this article is to consider and study the early period of the chamber-vocal creativity of Zhu Jian’er, the formation of his talent in his young years. The section of the creative biography of the composer, connected with the 1940s, has been least studied by researchers. At the same time, it was he who laid and formed the foundations of Zhu Jianar’s compositional personality in the field of vocal music. Methods. The methods of research are based on the scientific approaches necessary for the disclosure of the topic. The methodology is based on an integrated approach that combines the principle of musical-theoretical, musical-historical and executive analysis. Results. The specifics of the musical content, peculiarities of the intonational language, the composition form and texture of the piano accompaniment of the vocal cycle op. 1 (1940–1944) and two songs created in 1944 are considered. The subject content of the cycle songs covered a wide range of musical images. The central place in the songs is devoted to philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, the theme of love for the homeland, everyday sketches, and landscape and love lyrics, separation. The general composition of the first opus is of considerable interest – the first play is divided into four parts, which allows one to speak of such a structural phenomenon as a cycle in a cycle. There is clearly felt the influence of Western European compositional technology. At the same time, the song has features of traditional Chinese music, which is due, above all, to the elements of pentatonic in the melody of the vocal part of the work. The first song of op. 1 No. 1 “Memory” is a mini-cycle consisting of four parts. Poetic text determines the detailed nature of the musical composition with a pronounced ballad color and complex drama, the structure of the song is based on the principle of end-to-end development, the change of emotional mood occurs in one breath. Already on this composition it is clear that at the very beginning of his work Zhu Jian’er had the skill of a versatile depiction of inner experiences and difficulties encountered in the life of the hero. The second number or. 1 No. 2 “Waves washing sand” – imbued with a lyrical and philosophical mood. In the musical-figurative sphere, the landscape poetry occupies a central place with philosophical overtones, symbolically revealing the images of waves on the sand, characterizing the lyrical experiences of the hero and his sadness. op. 1 No. 3 “Lullaby” – the lyrical center of the cycle, a song of meditation with a predominant shade of sadness and philosophical overtones – the theme of enlightenment, the general meaningful canvas corresponds to the genre of lullabies, the appeal to the child, full of tender feelings. The fourth song Or. 1 No. 4 “I want to return to my homeland”, serves as a kind of finale. The basis of the song is the topic of separation, which is very popular in the songwriting of Chinese composers. The content of the song is symbolic: it is not only dreams of a distant friend, family and friends, but also a reflection of emotional feelings of separation from the motherland. Songs “Spring, when you return” and “Dream” were created by the composer in 1944, are devoted to events from the life of the composer. Zhu Jian’er saturates the musical fabric of the song with unstable harmonies, offers a more complex texture solution to the piano part (alternating polyphonic and homophonic-harmonious presentation) and gives it greater independence as an independent layer of musical tissue. The vocal melody also acquires a new look. An arioso-declamatory by nature, it embodies all the nuances of a poetic text that is pronounced with a special sentimental feeling (“Spring, when you return”) or a joyful hope (“Dream”). The analysis completes the generalized characterization of the composer’s early song-writing, in which the inherent features are distinguished. The skill and artistic significance of his songs testify to the fact that Zhu Jian’er succeeded in original compositions with vivid national characteristics. In the early chamber-vocal works of Zhu Jian’er, musical embodiment was achieved both in luminous, lyrical, and sad, even grim character themes related to the reflection of deep emotional, indeed – philosophical aspects of being revealed through a change of experiences. The theme of many songs is associated with the embodiment of the thoughts and feelings of a person, with the chanting of a beautiful nature. Conclusions. The least studied early period of creativity, in particular, the sphere of chamber-vocal music formed the individuality of the compositional style of Zhu Jian’er. Zhu Jian’er’s songs are characterized by vivid musical images and colorful writing, vividly representing the individuality of the composer’s musical language. These works alone allow us to say that in his early years the composer Zhu Jian’er was a high-level musician.