This is an updated version of the 1981 paper. The first part, published in Theory and Practice, is substantially unchanged save for some details of the analysis and several added comments. The second part, written over the past year, is an appendix that addresses the role of memory in Ives’s music. There is an additional analysis of his song “The…[Read more]

This essay explores how the early American stage functioned as an incubator for ideas about national identity, artistic expression, and masculinity. Reading four plays from the early years of the Republic – Royall Tyler’s The Contrast, William Dunlap’s Andre´, John Augustus Stone’s Metamora, and Robert Montgomery Bird’s The Gladiator, I demonstrat…[Read more]

In 1587 the Flemish composer Carolus Luython, employed by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, published an unusual motet collection in Prague. Titled Popularis anni jubilus, the collection describes the sounds and rituals beloved by Central European peasants, recasting them as the ecstatic songs of rustic laborers (jubilus) famously celebrated by Saint…[Read more]

Encounters with the Russian Avant Garde

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]

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]

With the ever-expanding sea of resources available to students today, it is now more important than ever to teach students how to navigate, assess, and interpret resources. Given the ease of access to information, students tend to seek out the path of least resistance, most often a Google search and/or Wikipedia. Their unfamiliarity with print…[Read more]

Musicians are subject to a wide range of medical and performance problems related to the physical and psychological demands of their profession. Such problems are usually diagnosed and treated in relation to a specific cause, for example direct treatment to reduce inflammation. While holistic factors are increasingly acknowledged, currently…[Read more]

Users of contemporary media technology in religious settings often oscillate between immediacy in spiritual interaction and the increasing complexity and visibility of media technology as human artifacts. Drawing on approaches to mediation from philosophy and media theory, I examine Mauritian Muslims’ uses of sound reproduction in performing a d…[Read more]

Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann (nacido en 1973) es un compositor peruano/brasileño/estadounidense que estudió composición en São Paulo en la Faculdade Santa Marcelina y en los Estados Unidos en la Universidad Internacional de Florida y la Universidad de Boston. Su cuarteto de cuerdas no. 3 apareció en un disco reciente de cuartetos de cuerda lati…[Read more]

Elliott Carter once extolled the visceral, primitive effect of Penderecki’s Threnody on untrained listeners. In this article, I examine how a formalized analytical approach to the central section of the piece contributes positively to a phenomenological experience of the whole piece. Part 1 presents an ear-training progression aimed at bringing t…[Read more]

In this article I demonstrate how listeners understand musical processes with their bodies, and how their gestures can be used to build analytical models. Specifically, I draw on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue that situated, active listeners project their motor intentional gestures inside music, where they reconstitute the…[Read more]

In this article I demonstrate how listeners understand musical processes with their bodies, and how their gestures can be used to build analytical models. Specifically, I draw on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue that situated, active listeners project their motor intentional gestures inside music, where they reconstitute the…[Read more]

This paper argues that Epicene, Jonson’s first public play after being made official court masque writer, is unusually optimistic about the possibilities of drama. The play explores the possibility of creating an authentic personality through performance, an idea that Jonson is often hostile towards. However, Jonson’s flirtation with this…[Read more]

Composer Donnacha Dennehy could be described as a bi-coastal composer, but in his case that would be the East Coasts of both Ireland and the United States of America. He is known for his work as co-founder of the Crash Ensemble, based in Dublin, and has four collections of his work issued on CDs from Nonesuch, RTE, and NMC. He joined the…[Read more]

Trying to rank Bach’s great moments is like trying to rank miracles in order of impossibility. Yet I’ve caught myself feeling that a moment in the B Minor Mass may be the greatest of all. This short essay, adapted from a chapter in my forthcoming ebook Why Bach?: An Audio-Visual Appreciation, says why. If features highlighted scores that play as a…[Read more]

The development of the Portuguese entertainment market and the rise of several types of musical theatre are inextricably bound to the complex symbolic and material process through which Portugal was established, presented, developed, and commodified as a modern nation-state between 1865 and 1908. During this period, several fundamental…[Read more]

The development of the Portuguese entertainment market and the rise of several types of musical theatre are inextricably bound to the complex symbolic and material process through which Portugal was established, presented, developed, and commodified as a modern nation-state between 1865 and 1908. During this period, several fundamental…[Read more]

Part One of this study seeks to define the nature of Spanish and Italian printed keyboard sources in the 16th and 17th centuries. In Chapter two, seven Spanish keyboard prints or theoretical works are examined, dating from 1546 to 1626. These works clearly state a conception of the ideals of keyboard playing; they also show the beginnings of a…[Read more]