The work of the Wagnerian theorist and analyst Alfred Lorenz (1869-1939) has had a profound influence upon both Wagnerian scholarship and music analysis in the twentieth century, and yet it has never been properly evaluated. Analyzing Wagner's Operas outlines the origins and development of the expressive aesthetic in writings by Wagner and others, as well as in early-twentieth-century theories of musical form, and it considers Lorenz's work and contributions in this light. The book also hopes to show, to the extent possible, where Lorenz's work acted as a sort of -musical metaphor- for German...

This far-reaching collection of heretofore unpublished studies ushers in the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869). The contributors include leading music historians and two prominent historians of culture, Peter Gay and Jacques Barzun. The essays discuss Berlioz's views of the music of the -past,- Berlioz's interactions with music and musicians of his -present,- and views of Berlioz during the several generations after his death (the -future-). A long-awaited piece by Richard Macnutt meticulously inventories and investigates more than two hundred letters and...

This book aims to enrich our understanding of the French secular music of Orlando di Lasso, using those songs as a means of understanding a particular community of Renaissance readers and the music books they created. Lasso's secular songs figured quite prominently in a number of collections of devotional songs issued by Protestant printers in the late sixteenth century. Lasso's profane lyrics were changed to convey spiritual meanings. This study uses the example of such reworkings as a means of discovering how such a repertory was heard and understood by a particular community of listeners,...

Percy Grainger (1882-1961) was a pianist, composer, ethnographer, essayist, and much more. The Australian-American musician aspired to the condition of a polymath, with strong interests in language, culture, ecology and technology. In an age of increasing specialisation Grainger held to a breathless all-roundedness. This book looks at the scrabbling diversity of Grainger's life through the eyes of others. Family and friends, pupils, musical associates and chance acquaintances recall their experiences of Percy Grainger from his boyhood in colonial Australia, through his conservatorium years in...

This work studies two works that are among the most challenging of the entire Romantic Movement, not least because they assault the notion of genre: they take place in a sort of limbo between symphony and opera, and try to fulfill the highest goals of each simultaneously. Berlioz was a composer who strenuously resisted any impediments that stood in the way of complete compositional freedom. Most of his large-scale works nevertheless obey the strictures of some preexistent form, whether opera or symphony or mass or cantata; it is chiefly in these two experiments that Berlioz allowed himself to...

Modern musical-analytical techniques are applied to a wide range of Western music, disregarding barriers between different kinds of music. Topics discussed fall into three sections: compositional poietics (poietics being the pre-compositional activities of composer theorists); structuralist approaches, extending musical-theoretical research to new repertoires; and musical-analysis employing techniques from other disciplines. The essays in this volume present current research into a wide range of Western music, disregarding barriers between different kinds of music, and drawing on modern...

The 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris has become famous as a turning point in the history of French music, and modern music generally. For the first time, Debussy and his fellow composers could be inspired by Javanese gamelan music, while the Russian concerts conducted by Rimsky-Korsakov brought recent music by the Mighty Five to Parisian ears. But the 1889 World's Fair had much wider musical and cultural ramifications; one contemporary described it as a "gigantic encyclopedia, in which nothing was forgotten." Music was so pervasive at the 1889 Exposition Universelle that newspaper...

The Leipzig middle-class evolved with the cooperation and gratitude of an extravagant, greedy, and disinterested absolutist ruler. Bach's Changing World documents how this community and other German communities responded to a variety of religious, social, and political demands that emerged during the years of the composer's lifetime. An accepted, admired, and trusted member of this community, as evidenced by the commissions he received for secular celebrations from royalty and members of the middle-class alike -- in addition to functioning as church composer -- Bach shared its values.BR>...

The Rosary Cantoral is a rare and beautifully decorated manuscript of Latin plainchant for the Catholic Mass compiled in Toledo, Spain, around the year 1500. In an engaging and richly interdisciplinary essay, Lorenzo Candelaria approaches the Rosary Cantoral as a cultural artifact, unlocking the secrets behind its images and music to reveal the social history and rituals of an elite brotherhood dedicated to the rosary and aspects of the religious community it served: the Dominicans of San Pedro Martir de Toledo. The Rosary Cantoral: Ritual and Social Design in a Chantbook from Early...

Paul Griffiths offers his own personal selection of some of his most substantial and imaginative articles and concert reviews from over three decades of indefatigable concertgoing around the world. He reports on premieres and other important performances of works by such composers as Elliott Carter, Sofia Gubaidulina, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Steve Reich, as well as Harrison Birtwistle and other important British figures. Griffiths vividly conveys the vision, aura, and idiosyncrasies of prominent pianists, singers, and conductors (such as Herbert von Karajan), and debates changing styles of...