Composition, Performance, Reception
Composition, Performance, Reception

Author: Wyndham Thomas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1351571303

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Composers, performers, listeners, critics and theorists all play vital roles in the creation of music culture; yet often each group can appear to hold widely divergent views of a musical work‘s aims and effects. As the title indicates, this book examines the parts played by these groups and the interaction between them. In the first of eleven essays, Robert Saxton discusses the difficulty in pin-pointing the moment of inspiration for a new composition; while Raymond Warren looks at the problems facing operatic performers, including those that arise when interpretations are suggested by the libretto but not in the music. The changing perception of the composer's art from the 14th century to the present day is charted by Wyndham Thomas, in particular attitudes towards arrangement. Two quite different views of the performer‘s responsibility in communicating the composer‘s intentions are taken by Charles Rosen and Susan Bradshaw, the latter arguing for the need to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical analysis of a work; and in two fascinating case studies, Eric Clarke and Jennifer Davidson highlight the ways in which attention to movements of the body in performance can reveal aspects of musical structure. The reception of music is tackled from a variety of perspectives in the book. In his assessment of audience reaction to Jonathan Harvey‘sThe Riot Adrian Beaumont concludes that our response is influenced by a complex web of expectations and previous musical experience. The influence of record sleeves in also determining a listener‘s response to music is discussed by Nicholas Cook; while Stephen Walsh and Adrian Thomas explore two milieux of critical reception - the first to the music of Stravinsky, and the second to works composed during the social-realist period in Poland. On a more personal level, Bojan Bujic‘s essay forms a fitting counterpart to Saxton‘s in his attempt to locate the ways in which we experience a new musica

Billboard
Billboard

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1952-03-08

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13:

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In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.

Theory for Today's Musician Textbook
Theory for Today's Musician Textbook

Author: Ralph Turek

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 726

ISBN-13: 1351246259

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Theory for Today’s Musician, Third Edition, recasts the scope of the traditional music theory course to meet the demands of the professional music world, in a style that speaks directly and engagingly to today’s music student. It uses classical, folk, popular, and jazz repertoires with clear explanations that link music theory to musical applications. The authors help prepare students by not only exploring how music theory works in art music, but how it functions within modern music, and why this knowledge will help them become better composers, music teachers, performers, and recording engineers. This broadly comprehensive text merges traditional topics such as part writing and harmony (diatonic, chromatic, neo-tonal and atonal), with less traditional topics such as counterpoint and musical process, and includes the non-traditional topics of popular music songwriting, jazz harmony and the blues. The accompanying companion website provides interactive exercises that allow students to practice foundational theory skills. Written by experienced authors, both active classroom teachers for many years, Theory for Today’s Musician is the complete and ideal theory text to enable today’s student to accomplish their musical goals tomorrow. Updated and corrected throughout, the Third Edition includes: Expanded coverage of atonality and serialism, now separated into two chapters. Broadened treatment of cadences, including examples from popular music. Substantially rewritten chapter on songwriting. Interactive features of the text simplified to two types, "Concept Checks" and "Review and Reinforcement," for greater ease of use. New and updated musical examples added throughout. Charts, illustrations, and musical examples revised for increased clarity. Audio of musical examples now provided through the companion website. The accompanying Workbook offers exercises and assignments to accompany each chapter in the book. A companion website houses online tutorials with drills of basic concepts, as well as audio. The hardback TEXTBOOK is also paired with the corresponding paperback WORKBOOK in a discounted PACKAGE (9780815371731).

Brahms Beyond Mastery
Brahms Beyond Mastery

Author: Robert Pascall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 135157325X

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In 1853 Robert Schumann identified fully-formed compositional mastery in the young Brahms, who nevertheless in the years following embarked on a period of intensive further study, producing, among other works, the neo-baroque Sarabande and Gavotte. These dances have not been properly recognized as constituting a distinct Brahms work before now, but manuscript evidence and their performance history indicate that Brahms and his friends thought of them as such in the mid-1850s, when they became the first music of his performed publicly in Gdansk, Vienna, Budapest and London. He later suppressed the dances, using them instead as a thematic quarry for three chamber music masterpieces, from different stages in his life and in distinctly different ways: the Second String Sextet, the First String Quintet and the Clarinet Quintet. This book gives an account of the compositional and performance history, stylistic features and re-uses of the dances, setting these in the wider context of Brahms‘s developing creative concerns and trajectory. It constitutes therefore a study of alost work, of how a fully-formed master opens himself tothe in-flowing from afar (in Martin Heidegger‘s terms), and of the transformative reach and concomitant expressive richness of Brahms‘s creative thought.

The Szymanowski Companion
The Szymanowski Companion

Author: Stephen Downes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-09

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 131701443X

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The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski is one of the most fascinating musical figures of the early twentieth century. His works included four symphonies, two violin concertos, the operas Hagith and King Roger, the ballet-pantomime Harnasie, the oratorio Stabat Mater, as well as numerous piano, violin, vocal and choral compositions. The profile and popularity of Szymanowski's music outside Poland has never been higher and continues to grow. The Szymanowski Companion constitutes the most significant and comprehensive reference source to the composer in English. Edited by two of the leading scholars in the field, Paul Cadrin and Stephen Downes, the collection consists of over 50 contributions from an international array of contributors, including recognized Polish experts. The Companion thus provides a systematic, authoritative and up-to-date compilation of information concerning the composer's life, thought and works.