This study provides a fuller account of Bruckner's early and middle years than has hitherto been available, and supplements the more accessible information about his years in Vienna by drawing on a rich source of material in contemporary reviews of performances of his works, comparisons between him and Brahms, and the well-documented accounts of hostility between the conservative pro-Brahms faction (represented by Hanslick, Halbeck and others) and the progressive pro-Wagner and pro-Bruckner faction (represented by the Schalk brothers, Ferdinand Lowe and Hugo Wolf).
Few works in the nineteenth-century repertoire have aroused such extremes of hostility and admiration, or have generated so many scholarly problems, as Anton Bruckner's symphonies. In this 2004 book, Julian Horton seeks fresh ways of understanding the symphonies and the problems they have accrued by treating them as the focus for a variety of inter-disciplinary debates and methodological controversies. He isolates problematic areas in the works' analysis and reception, and approaches them from a range of analytical, historical, philosophical, literary, critical and psychoanalytical viewpoints. The symphonies are thus explored in the context of a number of crucial and sometimes provocative themes, including the political circumstances of the works' production, Bruckner and post-war musical analysis, issues of musical influence, the problem of editions, Bruckner and psychobiography, and the composer's controversial relationship to the Nazis.
This study provides a fuller account of Bruckner's early and middle years than has hitherto been available, and supplements the more accessible information about his years in Vienna by drawing on a rich source of material in contemporary reviews of performances of his works, comparisons between him and Brahms, and the well-documented accounts of hostility between the conservative pro-Brahms faction (represented by Hanslick, Halbeck and others) and the progressive pro-Wagner and pro-Bruckner faction (represented by the Schalk brothers, Ferdinand Lowe and Hugo Wolf).
Topics are musical signs developed and employed primarily during the long eighteenth century. Their significance relies on associations that are clearly recognizable to the listener with different genres, styles and types of music making. Topic theory, which is used to explain conventional subjects of musical composition in this period, is grounded in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism, while drawing also from music cognition and semiotics. The concept of topics was introduced into by Leonard Ratner in the 1980s to account for cross-references between eighteenth-century styles and genres. As the invention of a twentieth-century academic, topic theory as a field is comparatively new, and The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory provides a much-needed reconstruction of the field's aesthetic underpinnings. The volume grounds the concept of topics in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism. Documenting the historical reality of individual topics on the basis of eighteenth-century sources, it traces the origins of topical mixtures to transformations of eighteenth-century musical life, and relates topical analysis to other methods of music analysis conducted from the perspectives of composers, performers, and listeners. Focusing its scope on eighteenth-century musical repertoire, The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory lays the foundation for further investigation of topics in music of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.
This study asserts that Stravinsky's Octour pour instruments a vents (1923) is pivotal within Stravinsky's progressions in regard to orchestrational practice, instrumental choices, and compositional choices, and presents it as the point in which all of these transitions came together for the first time. After an opening discussion of Stravinsky's early life and compositional career, it concentrates on setting up the Octet and Concerto through discussion of the years leading up to their composition. In addition to placing the two works within their context of their position and broader influence upon Stravinsky's surrounding production, it provides a full musical analysis of the Octet, followed by comparative analysis between it and the Concerto. The analysis is predominantly centered around compositional practices and orchestrational techniques.
This book presents these significant scores in a modern edition that is suitable for scholars and performers. Copious critical notes and discussions of various aspects of the manuscripts, sources, will be most enlightening for musicologists interested in Haydn source materials. H. C. Robbins Landon introduced a citation of authentic parts for Symphony no. 93 in his monumental study, The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn, with the remarks: As this book goes to press, I have made the discovery that parts of all twelve London symphonies were printed by J. P. Salomon with the firm Monzani & Cimador... Textually these parts are of the utmost importance, since comparison with the autographs shows that this edition was made from Salomon's MS. orchestral material and not from the scores.1 Twenty some years after those words were written, score copies of Haydn's symphonies 97, 93, 94 and 98 came to light at the British Library2 that are likewise traceable to Salomon and clearly establish his role as one of the earliest agents for the transmission of the London symphonies in authentic guise. 1792 and 1794, most likely at his behest, using the original performing parts or Salomon's own copies of them as their model. Thus, their importance as sources for the symphonies in question can scarcely be overestimated. Michael Ruhling traces the history of these fascinating scores, examining the myriad of details that reflect their striking resemblance to Haydn's own autographs. He reveals that Salomon's scores preserve numerous details of articulation, phrasing, even of note material that are absent from the autographs; and adduces Salomon's later quintet arrangements of the symphonies, wherein the same details are duplicated, as evidence of the sound and manner that shaped the works at their earliest performances. Ruhling concludes his study with first-ever editions of Salomon's score copies. Handsomely engraved and meticulously documented, these editions present a delight to the eye as well as a provocation to thoughtful study.
Ferdinando Giorgetti's Metodo per Esercitarsi a Ben Suonare L'Alto Viola (A Self-Training Method for Playing the Viola Well) was first published in Florence in 1854. In this translation, Sciannameo (multidisciplinary studies, music, Carnegie Mellon University) gives background on Giorgetti's life an
For this vast array of information in these studies, Dr. Radice, Curator of the Karel Husa Archive and Gallery at Ithaca College School of Music, P. rofessor of Music History at Ithaca, has provided cohesion in his opening essay, in which he offers full biographical dat in addition to discussions of everything that Karel has written to date; he has also included selected, edited, and translated correspondence dating back into the 1940s with extensive annotations about personalities and compositions.
