An overview of the choral music of the Scottish composer Hamish MacCunn within the context of British music history.

Since the 1950s, Brigadoon has been accepted as a representation of Scotland. Brigadoon’s Scotland consists of a highland landscape with lochs, mists, castles populated by fair maidens, warlike yet sensitive kilted men and bagpipers. Much of this comes from the invented traditions of Scotland, particularly kilts and clan tartans; late n…[Read more]

Rolf de Maré’s Ballets Suédois was active from 1920 to 1925. It was the chief artistic rival to Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and de Maré was often referred to as the Swedish Serge Diaghilev. With Jean Börlin as chief choreographer, the company created twenty-four ballets in collaboration with prominent modern artists and composers, includi…[Read more]

Talk on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and ANOHNI’s Hopelessness

The following contributions are cited separately in RILM: John T. HAMILTON, Così fan tutti i compositori: The Cephalus-Procris myth and the birth of romantic opera in Hoffmann’s Aurora (RILM 2013-12919); Julia RANDEL, Un-voicing Orpheus: The powers of music in Stravinsky and Balanchine’s ‘Greek’ ballets (RILM 2013-12920).

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos (1874–1952), along with her husband, the poet Angehlos Sikelianos,
founded the first modern Delphic Festival in 1927 in an effort to revive the Ancient Greek rites that
took place on that spot over 2,500 years before. She invited “overseers of culture” from around
the globe to convene in the holy city of Delphi for a reena…[Read more]

In arguing that underneath the placid, ‘stripped-down’ style of Socrate there lurks a hidden violence, this essay does not focus on Satie’s compositional process, documented in his notebooks; instead, it examines Socrate’s performance history and the creation of the work’s libretto, which the composer completed before sketching his musical ideas.…[Read more]

Sappho’s oeuvre exists in tantalizing fragments providing fodder for generations of interpreters to reimagine her life and poetry in myriad ways. The paper looks at three Parisian fantasies of Sappho: Charles Gounod’s first opera Sapho (1851 and 1884), Charles Cuvillier’s operetta Sapphô (1912), and the Sapphic music and dramatic activities held i…[Read more]

Book review of Reviewed Works: Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella”: A Facsimile of the Sources and Sketches by Maureen A. Carr; The Wendy Hilton Dance & Music Series 12 by Millicent Hodson

An essay on Ruth Crawford Seeger’s string quartet, using the technique of integral serialism: http://www.theavidlistener.com/2014/12/the-innovations-of-ruth-crawford-seeger.html

An essay on The Decemberists’ The Tain: http://www.theavidlistener.com/2015/11/american-folk-rock-cattle-raid-the-decemberistss-the-tain.html

An essay on Anthony Burgess’s Napoleon Symphony: http://www.theavidlistener.com/2015/11/art-mimics-art-anthony-burgesss-napoleon-symphony-a-novel-in-four-movements.html

An essay on Delia Derbyshire and women in electronic music: http://www.theavidlistener.com/2014/12/women-cant-do-that-delia-derbyshire-and-electronic-music.html?cid=6a00d83534ac5b69e201bb07c160e9970d#comment-6a00d83534ac5b69e201bb07c160e9970d

An essay on autobiography in pop songs by women: http://www.theavidlistener.com/2014/12/singing-about-yourself-autobiography-in-pop-music.html

An essay on music in Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy: http://www.theavidlistener.com/2015/10/survival-through-song.html