Sourcebook for Research in Music


Book Description

This bibliography of bibliographies lists and describes sources, from basic references to highly specialized materials. Valuable as a classroom text and as a research tool for scholars, librarians, performers, and teachers.




The Crucifixion in Music


Book Description

The Crucifixion in Music studies the musical representation of words and the concepts and contexts to which words refer, examining the way the treatment of a literary text, namely the Crucifixus, coalesces into a recognizable musical tradition that individual composers follow, develop, modify, or ignore.




Studies in the Music of Tomás Luis de Victoria


Book Description

Representing nearly thirty years of research by one of the leading scholars in the field, this series of in-depth studies examines selected aspects of the music of the great Spanish composer in the late Renaissance, Tom Luis de Victoria. Presenting new insights into both the musical style and language and the compositional procedure of this contemporary of Palestrina, Lasso and Byrd, Eugene Cramer illuminates the extent to which Victoria's compositions are musically related. The book reveals that the falsobordone or fabord layed a much larger role in Victoria's music than has previously been thought. Cramer also demonstrates that Victoria's parody or imitation technique, especially in respect to his Masses of 1592, extended the parameters that are generally thought to be characteristic of works of this type. Of special interest is the discussion of thirty-eight works, including thirty-four psalm settings that are attributed to Victoria in extant manuscript sources. Extensively illustrated with over 130 musical examples, these studies will not only interest the serious student of sacred music, but also the performer, both the singer and the conductor alike.




Music around the World [3 volumes]


Book Description

With entries on topics ranging from non-Western instruments to distinctive rhythms of music from various countries, this one-stop resource on global music also promotes appreciation of other countries and cultural groups. A perfect resource for students and music enthusiasts alike, this expansive three-volume set provides readers with multidisciplinary perspectives on the music of countries and ethnic groups from around the globe. Students will find Music around the World: A Global Encyclopedia accessible and useful in their research, not only for music history and music appreciation classes but also for geography, social studies, language studies, and anthropology. Additionally, general readers will find the books appealing and an invaluable general reference on world music. The volumes cover all world regions, including the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and Asia and the Pacific, promoting a geographic understanding and appreciation of global music. Entries are arranged alphabetically. A preface explains the scope of the set as well as how to use the encyclopedia, followed by a brief history of traditional music and important current influences of music in each particular world region.




The Steelband Movement


Book Description

The Steelband Movement examines the dramatic transformation of pan from a Carnival street music into a national art and symbol in Trinidad and Tobago. By focusing on pan as a cultural process, Stephen Stuempfle demonstrates how the struggles and achievements of the steelband movement parallel the problems and successes of building a nation. Stuempfle explores the history of the steelband from its emergence around 1940 as an assemblage of diverse metal containers to today's immense orchestra of high-precision instruments with bell-like tones. Drawing on interviews with different generations of pan musicians (including the earliest), a wide array of archival material, and field observations, the author traces the growth of the movement in the context of the grass-roots uprisings of the 1930s and 1940s, the American presence in Trinidad in World War II, the nationalist movement of the postwar period, the aftermath of independence from Britain in 1962, the Black Power protests and the oil boom of the 1970s, and the recession of recent years. The Steelband Movement suggests that the history of pan has involved a series of negotiations between different ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes, and social organizations, all of which have attempted to define and use the music according to their own values and interests. This drama provides a window into the ways in which Trinidadians have constructed various visions of a national identity.




Focus: Music in Contemporary Japan


Book Description

Focus: Music in Contemporary Japan explores a diversity of musics performed in Japan today, ranging from folk song to classical music, the songs of geisha to the screaming of underground rock, with a specific look at the increasingly popular world of taiko (ensemble drumming). Discussion of contemporary musical practice is situated within broader frames of musical and sociopolitical history, processes of globalization and cosmopolitanism, and the continued search for Japanese identity through artistic expression. It explores how the Japanese have long negotiated cultural identity through musical practice in three parts: Part I, "Japanese Music and Culture," provides an overview of the key characteristics of Japanese culture that inform musical performance, such as the attitude towards the natural environment, changes in ruling powers, dominant religious forms, and historical processes of cultural exchange. Part II, "Sounding Japan," describes the elements that distinguish traditional Japanese music and then explores how music has changed in the modern era under the influence of Western music and ideology. Part III, "Focusing In: Identity, Meaning and Japanese Drumming in Kyoto," is based on fieldwork with musicians and explores the position of Japanese drumming within Kyoto. It focuses on four case studies that paint a vivid picture of each respective site, the music that is practiced, and the pedagogy and creative processes of each group. The downloadable resources include examples of Japanese music that illustrate specific elements and key genres introduced in the text. A companion website includes additional audio-visual sources discussed in detail in the text. Jennifer Milioto Matsue is an Associate Professor at Union College and specializes in modern Japanese music and culture.




After Sibelius: Studies in Finnish Music


Book Description

During the last twenty years, the rest of the world has come to focus on the music of Finland. The seemingly disproportionate creative energy from this small country defies prevalent trends in the production of classical music. Tim Howell provides an engaging investigation into Finnish music and combines elements of composer biography and detailed analysis within the broader context of cultural and national identity. The book consists of a collection of eight individual composer studies that investigate the historical position and compositional characteristics of a representative selection of leading figures, ranging from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. These potentially self-contained studies subscribe to a larger picture, which explains the Sibelian legacy, the effect of this considerable influence on subsequent generations and its lasting consequences: an internationally acclaimed school of contemporary music. Outlining a particular perspective on modernism, Howell provides a careful balance between biographical and analytical concerns to allow the work to be accessible to the non-specialist. Each composer study offers a sense of overview followed by progressively more detail. Close readings of selected orchestral works provide a focus, while the structure of each analysis accommodates the different levels of engagement expected by a wide readership. The composers under consideration are Aarre Merikanto, Erik Bergman, Joonas Kokkonen, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Aulis Sallinen, Paavo Heininen, Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg. The concluding discussion of issues of national distinctiveness and the whole phenomenon of why such a small nation is compositionally so active, is of wide-ranging significance. Drawing together various strands to emerge from these individual personalities, Howell explores the Finnish attitude to new music, in both its composition and reception, uncovering an enlightened view of the value of creativity from which




The Versatile Clarinet


Book Description

The Versatile Clarinet gives a wide-ranging look at the clarinet and the music that has been played on it. The book offers a brief survey of the types of music that have been played on the instrument, key players, and issues facing clarinetists as they seek to expand the instrument's repertory and recognition. The topics covered include everything from playing early and historic clarinets; jazz clarinet technique; contemporary and avant-garde music; klezmer clarinet; and the history of clarinet recording. The book will appeal to clarinetists, music historians, musical instrument scholars, and general readers interested in the development of this important instrument.




The Shostakovich Wars


Book Description




Essays on Word/Music Adaptation and on Surveying the Field


Book Description

The twelve essays presented in this volume are drawn from the Fifth International Conference on Word and Music Studies held at Santa Barbara, CA, in 2005. The conference was organized and sponsored by The International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA) and in its central section explored the theme of “Word/Music Adaptation”. In these wide-ranging papers, a great variety of cases of intermedial transposition between music, literature, drama and film are examined. The music of Berlioz, Biber, Chopin, Carlisle Floyd, Robert Franz, Bernard Herrmann, Liszt, Richard Strauss, Verdi, and pop singer Kate Bush confronts and commingles with the writings of Emily Brontë, Goethe, Nancy Huston, George Sand, and Shakespeare in these cutting-edge adaptation studies. In addition, four films are discussed: Wuthering Heights, Fedora, Otello, and The Notebook. The articles collected will be of interest not only to music and literary scholars, but also to those engaged in the study of adaptation theory, semiotics, literary criticism, narrative theory, art history, feminism or postmodernism.