Music and Letters - current issue

Reviews of Books: Index

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:15 PDT

Unresolved

Rodin, J. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:15 PDT

How expert were professional singers of the fifteenth century? I address this question by examining some of the period's most notationally complex pieces, which employ devices such as verbal canons, strict fuga, and mensural augmentation. In such cases editors and scribes at times provided a resolutio—a resolved version of a conceptually or notationally complex voice part. More often, however, they left the singer to fend for himself. In fact, among a sample of more than 200 pieces in the repertory of the Cappella Sistina, only a handful were deemed sufficiently demanding to warrant simplification. One among these stands out for its extreme notational complexity: the Missa L’homme armé of Marbrianus de Orto (d. 1529). The unusual metrical relationships between the cantus-firmus voice and the others led a Vatican scribe to provide resolutiones for nearly every section of de Orto's mass. Equally unusual, and rather puzzling, is that the resolutiones drastically reinterpret the rhythms of the cantus firmus. This piece thus emerges as one of the most extraordinary of the period—indeed, as the exception that proves the rule: in the great majority of cases the papal singers needed no help in performing even the most abstruse music composers had to offer.

Funerall Teares or Dolefull Songes? Reconsidering Historical Connections and Musical Resemblances in Early English 'Absalom' Settings

Di Grazia, D. M. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:15 PDT

For over forty-five years, scholars have speculated about an unusual collection of early seventeenth-century settings of David's lament for Absalom by twelve English composers, including Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Tomkins. Though some see these works as referring symbolically to James I as both king and grieving father, and Henry as his dead son, others believe they were all written within a few months if not days of Henry's death specifically as memorial pieces for him. The period 1612–13 has thus been considered a significant dating marker for the manuscripts in which the settings are preserved. Using previously unexamined or unnoticed evidence from the text, music, and sources, I suggest that most of these Absalom settings were not written in the first few years of the 1610s but emerged slowly over the course of several decades. Although one or two settings may indeed have been prompted by Henry's death—there remains no evidence to suggest any were written specifically for the funeral ceremonies, however—it is more probable that most of them were composed in 1618 or later.

Handel at a Crossroads: His 1737-1738 and 1738-1739 Seasons Re-Examined

Chrissochoidis, I. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:15 PDT

The years 1738 and 1739 saw a dramatic reversal in Handel's life and career. Wide popularity, admiration, and financial success in the spring of 1738 gave place to unexpected competition and performance clashes with the Italian opera party a year later, spoiling Handel's first oratorio season and exhausting his current account. New documentary evidence culled from a variety of sources allows us to reconsider this period, probe its central episodes, and reveal new ones. Among the topics explored in this essay are a hitherto unknown attempt by female aristocrats to produce Italian operas in 1739, Handel's long-standing interest in musical innovation, a Frenchman's eyewitness account of key Handelian events in 1738, a reconsideration of Saul's and Israel in Egypt's reception in 1739, and the earliest attempt to promote English Oratorio as a British national genre.

'Il n'y a qu'un Paris au monde, et j'y reviendrai planter mon drapeau!': Rossini's Second Grand Opera

Everist, M. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

When Rossini left Paris in 1836, he left a city with which he had been closely associated for nearly fifteen years. But he also departed with the nagging sense that Paris was owed more than the single grand opéra represented by Guillaume Tell, an obligation that emerged anew in the early 1840s. The Paris premiere of the revised version of the Stabat mater in 1842 laid the ground for Rossini's return to the city in the following year. Expectations that he was coming to Paris to provide a successor to Guillaume Tell were not matched by Rossini's own ambitions: to consult with the world-famous urologist Jean Civiale. While a wide range of new Rossini endeavours were mooted for the Académie Royale de Musique—translations of La donna del lago, Semiramide, and L’italiana in Algeri—none came to fruition. The question of Rossini's second grand opéra continued in the background alongside various rumours of new works—an opera based on Jeanne d’Arc and one on a new libretto by Scribe—the concrete results were a French translation of Othello (1844) and the pasticcio Robert Bruce (1846). In 1844, a statue of Rossini was proposed for the foyer of the Académie Royale de Musique in the Salle Le Peletier, and it was inaugurated in 1846. Rossini was the only living composer to be so honoured, a fact that triggered a number of discourses—formal and informal—that equated Rossini's creative silence with death.

Sounds of the Metropolis: The Nineteenth-Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris, and Vienna. By Derek B. Scott.

Van der Merwe, P. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

Music Theory from Boethius to Zarlino: A Bibliography and Guide. By David Russell Williams and C. Matthew Balensuela.

Fuller, S. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

'Noyses, Sounds and Sweet Aires': Music in Early Modern England. Compiled and ed. by Jessie Ann Owens.

RH, — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

Song and Season: Science, Culture, and Theatrical Time in Early Modern Venice. By Eleanor Selfridge-Field. * A New Chronology of Venetian Opera and Related Genres, 1660-1760. By Eleanor Selfridge-Field.

Glixon, J. E. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi. By Bella Brover-Lubovsky.

Lockey, N. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

1808 -- ein Jahr mit Beethoven. Ed. by Ute Jung-Kaiser and Matthias Kruse.

Cooper, B. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

Fanny Hensels Chorwerke. By Stefan Wolitz.

Todd, R. L. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

History of Music in Russia from Antiquity to 1800. Volume 1: From Antiquity to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century; Volume 2: The Eighteenth Century. By Nikolai Findeizen. Ed. by Milos Velimirovic and Claudia R. Jensen; trans. by Samuel William Pring.

Maes, F. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

Poetry and the Romantic Musical Aesthetic. By James H. Donelan.

Tunbridge, L. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

Opera from the Greek: Studies in the Poetics of Appropriation. By Michael Ewans.

Rutherford, S. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:16 PDT

Elizabeth Stirling and the Musical Life of Female Organists in Nineteenth-Century England. By Judith Barger.

Sykes, I. J. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Looking and Listening in Nineteenth-Century France. Ed. by Martha Ward and Anne Leonard. * Musique, esthetique et societe au XIXe siecle. Ed. by Damien Colas, Florence Getreau, and Malou Haine.

Sykes, I. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Mallarme and Wagner: Music and Poetic Language. By Heath Lees with extracts translated from the French by Rosemary Lloyd.

Acquisto, J. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Discovering Mahler: Writings on Mahler 1955-2005. By Donald Mitchell. * The Cambridge Companion to Mahler. Ed. by Jeremy Barham.

Johnson, J. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Leos Janacek: Thema con variazioni: korespondence s manzelkou Zdenkou a dcerou Olgou. Ed. by Svatava Pribanova.

Tyrrell, J. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Emerik Beran (1868-1940) Samotni Svetovljan. by Jernej Weiss.

Tyrrell, J. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Western Music and Race. Ed. by Julie Brown.

Downes, S. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Sergey Prokofiev, Diaries 1915-1923: Behind the Mask. Translated and annotated by Anthony Phillips.

Fairclough, P. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas. By Boris Berman.

Guillaumier, C. K. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Prokofiev and his World. Ed. by Simon Morrison. * The People's Artist. Prokofiev's Soviet Years. By Simon Morrison.

Fairclough, P. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Analyzing Atonal Music: Pitch-Class Set Theory and Its Contexts. By Michiel Schuijer.

Russ, M. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Elliott Carter: A Centennial Celebration. Ed. by Marc Ponthus and Susan Tang. * Elliott Carter: A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents. Ed. by Felix Meyer and Anne C. Shreffler.

Whittall, A. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Jewish Music and Modernity. By Philip Bohlman.

Wood, A. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

J. P. E. Harper Scott, Twentieth-Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain. By Irene Morra, Music & Letters, 90 (2009), 495-8 at 497

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

The Westrup Prize

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:17 PDT

Recipients of 'Music & Letters' Awards

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:18 PDT

Notes to Contributors

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:18 PDT

'Music & Letters' Awards

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:18 PDT

Authors of Articles in this Issue

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:18 PDT

Books Received

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:18 PDT