David Cooper and Kevin Dawe, eds, The Mediterranean in Music: critical perspectives, common concerns, cultural differences (opens in a new window) (Lanham MD: Scarecrow, 2005)

Politically and historically, the Mediterranean has been a space for critical dialogue for competing and often antagonistic voices, and still functions as meeting place for diverse and interdisciplinary approaches. Although other academic disciplines have attempted a unified approach to Mediterranean studies, until recently Mediterranean music as a singular concept has received relatively little scholarly development. This volume is a crucial first step and investigates several musical cultures that have traditionally demonstrated common threads, trends, and interactions. The music of Greece, Crete, Turkey, Albania, Corsica, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Algeria and Palestine are all considered in this volume as the scholars represented here reveal the musical commonality among otherwise divergent traditions. An interdisciplinary approach embracing ethnology and material culture considerations makes this volume relevant not only to musicologists and anthropologists, but also to specialists in tourism studies.

Rachel Cowgill and Peter Holman, eds, Music in the British Provinces, 1690-1914 (opens in a new window) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)

The period covered by this volume, roughly from Purcell to Elgar, has traditionally been seen as a dark age in British musical history. Much has been done recently to revise this view, though research still tends to focus on London as the commercial and cultural hub of the British Isles. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that by the mid-eighteenth century musical activity outside London was highly distinctive in terms of its reach, the way it was organized, and its size, richness, and quality. There was an extraordinary amount of musical activity of all sorts, in provincial theatres and halls, in the amateur orchestras and choirs that developed in most towns of any size, in taverns, and convivial clubs, in parish churches and dissenting chapels, and, of course, in the home. This is the first book to concentrate specifically on musical life in the provinces, bringing together new archival research and offering a fresh perspective on British music of the period. The essays brought together here testify to the vital role played by music in provincial culture, not only in socializing and networking, but in regional economies and rivalries, demographics and class dynamics, religion and identity, education and recreation, and community and the formation of tradition. Most important, perhaps, as our focus shifts from London to the regions, new light is shed on neglected figures and forgotten repertoires, all of them worthy of reconsideration.

Rachel Cowgill and Julian Rushton, eds, Europe, Empire, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century British Music (opens in a new window) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006)

This volume illuminates musical connections between Britain and the continent of Europe, and Britain and its Empire. The seldom-recognized vitality of musical theatre and other kinds of spectacle in Britain itself, and also the flourishing concert life of the period, indicates a means of defining tradition and identity within nineteenth-century British musical culture. The objective of the volume has been to add significantly to the growing literature on these topics. It benefits not only from new archival research, but also from fresh musicological approaches and interdisciplinary methods that recognize the integral role of music within a wider culture, including religious, political and social life. The essays are by scholars from the USA, Britain, and Europe, covering a wide range of experience. Topics range from the reception of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt in England, a musical response to Shakespeare, Italian opera in Dublin, exoticism, gender, black musical identities, British musicians in Canada, and uses of music in various theatrical genres and state ceremony, and in articulating the politics of the Union and Empire.

‘Of use to the general scholar of British studies as the music scholar alike.’ ‘In essence the volume helps move the study of British music from the insular to the wider world of nineteenth-century contexts [… and] delves impressively into issues of conceptions of “English” (or “British”) identity versus that of the “other”’. ‘Particularly excellent within the volume are David Wright’s essay on the organization of coronation music for Edward VII, Rachel Cowgill’s essay on the lengthy process of reception and acceptance of Mozart’s Requiem, and Julian Rushton’s study of Henry Hugo Pearson’s Shakespearean tone poems. All of the essays, though, are of great interest and well written’.  Charles McGuire, Journal of British Studies, 46 (2007), 977-8.

'an excellent addition to the growing corpus of symposia about musical life in 19th-century Britain [...]  The editors [...] have each contributed an outstanding essay'.  Nicholas Temperley, NABMSA Newsletter, 3 (Spring 2007). 

Andy Bennett and Kevin Dawe, eds, Guitar Cultures (opens in a new window) (Oxford: Berg, 2001)

The guitar is one of the most evocative instruments in the world. It features in music as diverse as heavy metal, blues, indie and flamenco, as well as Indian classical music, village music-making in Papua New Guinea and carnival in Brazil. This cross-cultural popularity makes it a unique starting point for understanding social interaction and cultural identity. Guitar music can be sexy, soothing, melancholy or manic, but it nearly always brings people together and creates a common ground even if this common ground is often the site of intense social, cultural, economic and political negotiation and contest. This book explores how people use guitars and guitar music in various nations across the world as a musical and symbolic basis for creating identities. In a world where place and space are challenged by the pace of globalization, the guitar provides images, sounds and styles that help define new cultural territories. Guitars play a crucial part in shaping the commercial music industry, educational music programmes, and local community atmosphere. Live or recorded, guitar music and performance, collecting and manufacture sustains a network of varied social exchanges that constitute a distinct cultural milieu. Representing the first sustained analysis of what the guitar means to artists and audiences world-wide, this book demonstrates that this seemingly simple material artefact resonates with meaning as well as music.

Peter Desain and Luke Windsor, eds, Rhythm Perception and Production (Exton PA: Swets and Zeitlinger, 2000)

This primer, designed for those interested in the perception of rhythm, provides readers with both an overview of recent research in the introductions to each section, and a broad selection of chapters dealing with more detailed studies. It consists of contributions by some of the most respected investigators in the fields of motor behaviour, timing control, music cognition and psychology and arose out of the 7th Workshop on Rhythm Perception and Production, held in Wassenaar in 1998.;The book begins with a discussion of more generic studies of timing and synchronisation, focusing on the two main methods of modelling timing behaviour (the modern complex dynamics approach and the older methods of analysis of covariance) and some progress is made towards an integration of these two historically conflicting approaches. It then moves on to consider rhythm perception and production in a wide variety of contexts, with a prticular focus on music and language. The individual contributions range from attempts to model the processes involved in tracking or synchronising to an external pulse to detailed studies of the ways in which the rhythmic complexities of real musical and linguistic behaviour (such as polyrhythmic drumming) are executed and perceived.

Julian Rushton, Mozart (opens in a new window) (Oxford: OUP, 2006)

This book belongs to a well established series of scholarly studies of the life and music of major composers.  It covers the essential features of Mozart’s life, taking into account recent biographical research, and considers every genre of music to which he contributed, with examples taken not only from familiar, but also from early and neglected, repertoire.  The book is informed by the author’s own performing experience and previous published work on Mozart operas (including The New Grove Guide to Mozart’s Operas (Oxford: OUP, 2007)), but is an entirely fresh look at this peculiarly iconic composer in his time, with reflections on the posthumous reception of his music. 

Mischa Donat writes ‘It is a pity he doesn’t expound at greater length’ (BBC Music Magazine, March 2006), a plaint echoed in other reviews (the compressed format – 85,000 words including appendices – was imposed by OUP).  Nevertheless, according to Alan Blakelock ‘Rushton succeeds magnificently [… in] perhaps the finest concise study of Mozart and his music yet written’ (Piano (Nov-Dec 2006), 32).  David Grayson says ‘Rushton has done a magnificent job […] particularly good on Mozart’s dramatic music […] a superb introduction to [Mozart’s] life and works […] the expert will have much to contemplate’ (Music & Letters, 88 (2007), 345-7).  John Irving calls the book ‘an achievement of real distinction’ (Eighteenth-Century Music, 4 (2007), 315).

Rachel Cowgill, ‘Mozart productions and the emergence of Werktreue at London's Italian opera house, 1780–1830’, in Operatic Migrations (opens in a new window) , ed. by Roberta Marvin and Downing Thomas (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 145-186

This essay was the sole British contribution to international peer-reviewed volume originating from the interdisciplinary seminar 'Opera in Context', held at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa (2001). The collection was shortlisted for the 2007 AMS Ruth Solie Award. Scholars of Italian opera find evidence of an emerging Werktreue aesthetic in Continental opera houses after 1830; but here Cowgill argues that a ‘work-concept’ began to regulate performances in London considerably earlier, in the 1810s–20s, and particularly in productions of Mozart. The inter-relationship of London’s operatic and concert spheres, and close links between literary romanticism and opera criticism, are among the factors discussed in accounting for this phenomenon. The article also addresses a significant gap in scholarship on London's Italian Opera, for which the period 1795–1830 has remained largely unstudied. The article has significance for the study of emerging canons in Western art music, particularly since it looks beyond autonomous instrumental music (where much of the theoretical work has been done). It models a ‘thick’ holistic approach to the study of opera production in history, informed by institutional archives, legal records, newspaper and periodical criticism, and close comparison of surviving printed and manuscript libretti held in the UK and US (relevant musical sources having mostly perished). Of direct relevance to specialists in reception studies and performance practice is the historicisation of changing attitudes towards the fluidity of the musical work. The discussion is based throughout on exhaustive collation, study, critique, and corroboration of surviving sources. Line-by-line comparison of different versions of the same libretto is just one example of the rigour demonstrated. This essay works towards a monograph investigating the English reception of Mozart's operas (2012).

'Fresh, intriguing and insightful [...] the subject matter is wide-ranging, the approach invariably stimulating. This book will fascinate anyone interested in what makes opera tick' (Classical Music, 26 November 2006). 

Julian Rushton, ‘Play or Compulsion? Variation in Recapitulations in Music for Wind Instruments’, in Mozart Studies (opens in a new window) , ed. by Simon P. Keefe (Cambridge: CUP, 2006), 47-73

The Cambridge Composer Studies (as distinct from the Companions) embody primary research in detailed studies of special aspects of their subjects. This is an original investigation into Mozart’s compositional imagination, through his use of wind instruments in various contexts (orchestral, chamber, as soloists). It focuses on the necessary alterations made to accommodate them to best effect in the recapitulation space of movements in sonata form. Previous work by Agawu and Cavett-Dunsby on variation and recapitulatory strategies has not taken into account the limitations imposed, and Mozart’s response to those limitations, by the restricted range of instruments and the unavailability of pitches on the natural horn.

Clive McClelland, ‘Shadows of the Evening: new light on Elgar’s “dark saying”’, Musical Times, 148(Winter 2007), 43-48

In revisiting the perennial problem of the source of Elgar’s Enigma theme, a fresh approach has been adopted which suggests another possible alternative. The hymn tune ‘Now the day is over’ (Eudoxia) accounts for all 24 notes of Elgar’s theme (unlike most of the other ‘solutions’ published so far), with 12 precise pitch matches and 12 consonant intervals. Crucially, there are no dissonances at all between the two themes. Furthermore, the material which immediately follows is shown to derive from it, including Elgar’s counter-melody to the theme.

Recent publications on the subject (Rushton 1999 and Turner 1999) have provided certain criteria which need to be met if a credible solution is to be found. What Elgar meant by stating that the theme’s ‘dark saying’ would have to ‘remain unguessed’, and why Dorabella ‘of all people’ should have been able to guess it are issues that have continued to puzzle musicologists. This article addresses these and the other criteria, and provides strong documentary evidence to support each case. While a definitive solution can probably never be proven, this offering is guaranteed to fuel the debate in this anniversary year for Elgar.

Clive Brown, Elgar: Music for Violin, Elgar Complete Edition, 37 (Elgar Society, 2007)

This volume comprises all Elgar’s known pieces for violin and piano and violin solo, together with all known sketches and drafts of unfinished pieces of this kind.  There are 37 pieces and 31 sketches or groups of sketches.  Most of the music included in the volume has not been published in a new edition since Elgar’s lifetime, and apart from Salut d’amour, none of them has been issued in a scholarly edition.  The present edition addresses many bibliographical and textual problems in connection with the earlier pieces, exposing, and in many cases resolving, previously unrecognised problems.  It establishes for the first time a reliable chronology and publication history for much of this repertoire.

A Foreword of more than 10,000 words addresses the context in which the pieces were written, together with issues arising from revisions undertaken during Elgar’s lifetime, notational problems, and performing practice matters, including the significance of Elgar’s own fingerings and bowings and their relationship with his style of playing the violin.  Elgar’s engagement with the violin constitutes a major focus of the volume.  The Commentary, which runs to more than 35,000 words, presents not only a bar-by-bar text-critical commentary, but also a mass of new bibliographical information, including the re-dating of editions and the resolution of numerous problems concerning variants between earlier and later issues of the same pieces.  It also identifies many hitherto unrecognised sources, including a single known copy of the first edition of Salut d’amour and a holograph of the violin and piano version of Sérénade Lyrique.  The new edition of the Violin Sonata op. 83 offers corrections of errors in the original edition, overlooked by Elgar in proof reading; these include engraver’s mistakes and erroneous readings derived from misinterpretations of the original holograph material.

J.P.E. Harper-Scott and Julian Rushton, eds, Elgar Studies (opens in a new window) (Cambridge: CUP, 2007)

Reflecting the growth of international interest in Elgar’s music, this collection of essays brings together leading scholars from the UK and the USA, and covers the broadest range of analytical approaches to his music. It is perhaps in textual analysis and criticism that Elgar studies are showing their most remarkable growth. In this volume, analysts and theorists place Elgar at the centre of research into late-tonal music theory - particularly Schenkerian and neo-Riemannian - and the continually burgeoning area of musical hermeneutics. Through study of published scores and recently discovered sketches, different contributions explore Elgar’s musical language and treatment of symphonic form, and themes in his music such as empire, race, the pastoral and idyllic, mourning, and loss. The essays cover the entire range of current thinking on Elgar’s music, and have wide ramifications for future approaches to music of the early twentieth century.

Rachel Cowgill, ‘Elgar’s War Requiem’, in Elgar and His World (opens in a new window) , ed. by Byron Adams (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 317-362

This essay was commissioned for the first American volume of Elgar essays, arising from the 2007 Bard Festival. The centrality of Elgar’s Roman Catholicism in the conception and reception of The Dream of Gerontius is widely acknowledged, yet few Elgar scholars consider in detail the role his faith might have played in other works, particularly his non-sacred music. This article investigates The Spirit of England, a cantata composed during World War I, and its relationship to Elgar’s catholicism and sense of heroic nationalism: generally dismissed as a jingoistic occasional piece, Spirit of England is shown to be an exceptionally complex work, dealing with eschatological issues that had concerned Elgar at least since the late 1890s and which increased in urgency for him and his countrymen during and after the war. The article contributes to current debate on Elgar’s Catholicism, especially its meaning for him as he struggled to complete his oratorio The Last Judgement. Instances of self-referencing assist a hermeneutical reading of Spirit of England in which religion can be seen to have provided a crucial frame of reference. This reading is based on a detailed reconstruction of the work’s composition, performance history, and intertextuality, and draws on contemporary responses to the war from artists, poets, writers, theologians, and critics. Often-quoted documentary sources are interpreted afresh, and new sources introduced in ways that invite a new understanding of this work, its quasi-liturgical significance for those who experienced it in the 1910s and 20s, and the factors which may have
shaped the composer's response to Binyon's poems. The article extends from research for the author's monograph on the English reception of Mozart’s Requiem (Boydell & Brewer, 2009). Daniel Jaffé considers it 'thought-provoking' (BBC Music Magazine (November 2007), 95).

Daniel Grimley and Julian Rushton, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Elgar (opens in a new window) (Cambridge: CUP, 2004)

Edward Elgar occupies a pivotal place in the British cultural imagination. His music has been heard as emblematic of Empire and the English landscape. The recent success of Anthony Payne’s elaboration of the sketches for Elgar’s Third Symphony has prompted a critical revaluation of his music. This Companion provides an accessible and vivid account of Elgar’s work in its historical and cultural context. Established authorities on British music and scholars new in the field examine Elgar’s music from a range of critical perspectives, including nationalism, post-colonialism, decadence, reception and musical influences. There are also chapters on interpretation, including his own (Elgar was the first major composer to commit a representative quantity of his own work to record), and on Elgar’s relationships with the BBC and with his publishers. The book includes much new material, drawing on original research, as well as providing a comprehensive introduction to Elgar’s major musical achievements.

Michael Allis, ‘Elgar, Lytton, and the Piano Quintet, op. 84’, Music & Letters, 85 (2004), 198-238

This article identifies problematic issues in the reception of Elgar’s Piano Quintet, and explores Alice Elgar’s diary entry noting that the score seemed to suggest parallels with Edward Bulwer Lytton’s occult novel A Strange Story.  After an overview of the background to the Quintet and its reception (identifying a more negative approach to the work in the late 1930s), a chronology for Elgar’s composition is established (with reference to sketch material and diary extracts), and there is a detailed discussion of Elgar’s relationship with the critic Ernest Newman, the Quintet’s dedicatee, and his acknowledgement that an unstated ‘quasi programme’ lay behind the work.  The Newman/Elgar debate over programme music provides additional context for the suitability of Newman’s role as dedicatee, and for the nature of this hidden programme.  Narrative links between the novel and the Quintet are then explored in detail – both in relation to the nature of the musical material, and the specific ordering of events; these parallels help to explain some of the ‘problematic’ features of the Quintet, and suggest that A Strange Story may have had a pivotal role in the conception of the work.    

Katherine Brown, ‘The Social Liminality of Musicians: case studies from Mughal India and beyond’, Twentieth-Century Music, 3 (2007), 13-49.

This is the core theoretical paper in a special issue of this new journal, for which Brown was guest editor and wrote the introductory survey article.  It offers a new cross-cultural paradigm for understanding the location of professional musicians in modern social hierarchies.  Most discussions of the social location of musicians base their work on the classic module of Alan Merriam (1964), with its tripartite formulation of low status/high importance/tolerance of ‘deviance’.  Beginning with primary-source research into North Indian musicians c. 1658-1858, and then extending the argument to modern societies, this article argues that Victor Turner’s notion of liminality offers a better solution to the problem of musicians’ social location, if one considers musicians to occupy an institutionally liminal profession.  Although the occupation of musicians is relatively low, being essentially both service profession and cultural labour, the cultural capital that accrues to the product of their labour – their music – enables musicians to cross over into higher-status spaces, to mingle on more equal terms with their patrons, and in the moment of performance to exercise power over them.  While this may offer opportunities for permanent social elevation for the best performers, in many societies patrons may apply subtle social sanctions to those who attempt to overstep the boundaries, in order to keep them in their place.  While this hypothesis has clear resonances with Merriam’s tripartite formulation, permanent liminality also makes sense of the apparent exceptions to his rule.      

Simon Warner, 'Raising the Consciousness? Re-visiting Allen Ginsberg's Liverpool trip in 1965', in Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant Garde, ed. by Christoph Grunenberg and Robert Knifton (Liverpool & Chicago: Liverpool University Press/Chicago University Press, 2007)

This chapter, which appears in the publication accompanying the Tate Liverpool exhibition Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant Garde, a volume co-edited by the art gallery’s director Christoph Grunenberg, considers the landmark visit of the American poet to Liverpool in May 1965. Ginsberg, one of the principal figures in the US literary movement the Beat Generation, spent almost a week in the city. The essay explores the reasons for the trip, the activities Ginsberg pursued while there and the individuals who played a part in welcoming him. It reflects on Ginsberg’s growing interest in rock culture – the Beatles had become a fascination to him – and his support of the emerging poetry scene that would be reflected in Edward Lucie-Smith’s The Liverpool Scene and the Penguin Modern Poets volume The Mersey Sound, both published in 1967.

The essay takes particular interest in a statement Ginsberg made during his stay: 'Liverpool is, at the present moment, the centre of the consciousness of the human universe'. The remark, which was adapted as the title of the linked exhibition, has been seized upon by city institutions in subsequent decades as a significant cultural endorsement and also as a promotional device. In the chapter, the meanings we derive from the poet’s statement are interrogated by a number of important transatlantic voices – Liverpool poet Brian Patten; Ginsberg guitarist Steven Taylor; British Beat Michael Horovitz; and American literary commentator Jonah Raskin among them. The piece reports that Ginsberg was prompted, on other occasions, to make similarly iconoclastic comments on other cities – Baltimore and Milwaukee among them – which places his praise of Liverpool in a fresh and more ambiguous perspective. The exhibition, which prefaced the 2008 European City of Culture celebrations in Liverpool, ran at the Tate from 20 February to 9 September 2007.

The chapter’s primary research draws on nine new interviews with poets, musicians and critics linked directly - or closely - to Allen Ginsberg and his Liverpool visit. Original material derived for the account by personal communication includes: an interview with Liverpool poet Brian Patten; a letter from poet, small magazine publisher and Beat Scene deputy editor Jim Burns; and e-mail exchanges with London-based British Beat and publisher Michael Horovitz; Steven Taylor, Ginsberg musical collaborator and Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado ethnomusicologist; Jonah Raskin, Edward Lucie-Smith, editor of The Liverpool Scene (1967); and poets David Meltzer, Royston Ellis and Christopher George.

Secondary research for the account was based on commentaries by the principal available texts on Ginsberg’s life and work and the Liverpool poetry scene of the 1960s. Key texts included poet biographies by Barry Miles (1990) and Michael Schumacher (1999); descriptions of the city’s poetry scene of the period by Phil Bowen (1999) and Steven Wade (2001); and important contemporary accounts of the visit or wider cultural setting, including Edward Lucie-Smith (1967), Jeff Nuttall (1968), Henri, McGough and Patten (1967) and George Melly (1970).

This is the first account focusing at length on Ginsberg’s Liverpool visit. It brings together a range of voices who have not contributed to a consideration of the poet’s trip before. The piece is linked to a prestigious gallery – the Tate Liverpool – and an important exhibition and part of a publication co-edited by the director of the Tate Liverpool. The chapter appears in a publication associated with the Tate and two university presses, one international – Liverpool University Press and Chicago University Press. The piece forms part of a longer research study into the relationship between the Beats and popular music from the mid-1960s.


Tate exhibition:
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/centreofthecreativeuniverse/default.shtm
(opens in a new window)

Tate publication:
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/centreofthecreativeuniverse/catalogue.shtm
(opens in a new window)

Chicago University Press:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/259687.ctl
(opens in a new window)

Karen Burland and Jane W. Davidson, ‘Training the Talented’, Music Education Research, 4/1 (2002), 121-140

This article summarises the findings of a biographical study designed to gain insight into the life-span development of child musicians showing great potential. The study follows up an influential piece of research on musical development reported during 1993-1996 (by Davidson, Sloboda, Howe, and Moore). It is unique, because it is the first time that research into musical development has been conducted with a longitudinal element - that is, the child musicians from the original study were interviewed again eight years later. Burland conducted the research, analysed the data, and wrote the article, and Davidson provided access to the details of the participants and data from the original study, and checked the analysis of the data. The qualitative approach adopted was considered the most appropriate methodology for providing rich data, and the sample of 20 was suitable for gaining a representative insight into the experiences of the musicians. The article emphasises the significance of three elements - coping strategies, music as a central determinant of self-concept, and positive experiences - in achieving a career as a professional musician. The first two have never been reported as significant in musical development, and these areas have continued to be explored through Burland's and other researchers' investigations. The findings also raise several implications for the teaching of music in higher education, hence Music Education Research was considered a particularly appropriate place for their dissemination.

Kevin Dawe, ‘Regional Voices in a National Soundscape: Balkan music and dance in Greece’, in Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene (opens in a new window) , ed. by Donna Buchanan (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2007), 175-190

This is the first major article to bring a Greek perspective to bear on an account of the processes and significant outcomes of interplay between the musicians and popular music styles of the Balkan states during the late 1990s. It provides a crucial first account of the ‘balkanization’ of both traditional and popular musical forms in Greece, at a time of social upheaval and in a variety of musical settings (from festivals to commercial recordings). The chapter is one of eleven in this path-finding book - the first edited collection to engage with the wider meanings and implications of musical ‘balkanization’ throughout the region. Since the early twentieth century, ‘balkanization’ has signified the often militant fracturing of territories, states, or groups along ethnic, religious, and linguistic divides. Yet the remarkable similarities found among contemporary Balkan popular music, including those in Greece, reveal the region as the site of a thriving creative dialogue and interchange. The chapter draws on seventeen years of fieldwork in Greece, but also in surrounding countries and the wider Mediterranean context. A range of evidence is rallied to substantiate claims based in a thorough ethnographic study of Greek popular and traditional music; Dawe draws on, for example, interviews and first-hand accounts by musicians, dancers, folklorists, producers, and record company executives. A wide range of reading accompanies the chapter, which has been peer-reviewed both formally and informally by several leading figures in Balkan music studies.

Peter Holman, '“A Solo on the Viola da Gamba”: Carl Friedrich Abel as a Performer’, Ad Parnassum, 2/4 (2004), 45-71

Although Abel was the subject of a good deal of scholarly attention in the twentieth century – Walter Knape published a complete edition (1958-1974) and a biography (1973) – there is a need for research based on primary sources. This article is the first study of Abel’s London’s career to be based on a thorough examination of London newspapers, as well as diaries, letters, memoirs, reports in the foreign press, and primary musical sources. The paper asks and answers a number of research questions. Which instruments did Abel play in London concerts? What was meant by the word ‘solo’? Would his solos have been accompanied, and, if so, how? Did he play any other types of music on the gamba? Did he play other instruments? Did he only play his own music? The paper shows that, after his first year in England, he only ever played the viola da gamba in public, though he taught the harpsichord and played the violoncello in ensembles. ‘Solo’ meant a multi-movement piece with bass, usually accompanied by violoncello. Abel is known to have played viola da gamba concertos in public and to have used the gamba to play the viola parts of chamber works, particularly in chamber concerts given in the Queen’s household. There is also evidence that, as well as playing his own music, he used solos and chamber works with gamba parts by J.C. Bach, Kammel, and perhaps Mozart. This study will appear in a revised form as a chapter in the author's forthcoming book Life after Death: the viola da gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch (Boydell & Brewer), and will provide the basis for a new study of Abel’s gamba music and its sources.

Peter Holman, ‘Ann Ford Revisited’, Eighteenth-Century Music, 1 (2004), 157-181

Although Ann Ford (1737-1824) has never been given an entry in Grove, she was a figure of considerable significance in eighteenth-century English society, particularly during her period of fame around 1760. She was the subject of one of Thomas Gainsborough’s most glamorous paintings, and what is effectively her ghost-written autobiography was published in 1806 in the series Public Characters. She was also the subject of an article in the Victorian Dictionary of National Biography. She is of interest not just for her fashionable life and persona: she was a pioneer female concert artist, she was unusual in that she seems to have specialised entirely in exotic instruments, and she was one of the most effective and accomplished exponents of the Georgian cult of sensibility. Although Ann Ford was discussed in a number of twentieth-century books and articles, this is the first article that is based on a fresh examination of primary sources. In particular, the most important sources, the Public Characters article and her autobiographical novel The School for Fashion (1800), do not seem to have been known to twentieth-century writers, and the article is also the first to be based on a thorough search for newspaper reports of her life andher concert activities. It is also the first to discuss her two printed collections of music in detail, and to discuss and evaluate the musicological significance of the various visual images of her.

Eno Koço, ‘Shostakovich, Kadaré and the nature of dissidence: an Albanian view’, Musical Times, 146 (May 2005), 58-74

This article concerns the effect of the Communist totalitarian system on two great artists: Dmitri Shostakovich, who lived under Soviet rule before and after the Second World War, and the Albanian author Ismail Kadaré, whose career developed over the last forty years of the twentieth century. In spite of the appellation ‘socialist’, the regimes were conservative and aesthetic expression was rigidly controlled. The constraints imposed by Communist regimes were an extreme example of the master-servant relationship. Shostakovich and Kadaré persistently strove to liberate music and literature in their respective countries from Communist repression and, thankfully, survived the attempt, though not without a great deal of difficulty and stress. The article is written from the subject position of an Albanian émigré whose musical training and early life took place under the Communist regime. His early friendship with Solomon Volkov and acquaintance with the central protagonists give him a valuable and original perspective - shared insider-knowledge of the atmosphere and pressures on Soviet artists - from which he reflects on recent Shostakovich scholarship, the identity of 'dissident', and issues arising for his own and others' interpretations as conductors of Shostakovich's music.

Clive Brown and David Milsom, ‘The 19th-century Legacy of the Viotti School: Editions of the Violin Concerto No. 22’, in Giovanni Battista Viotti: A Composer Between the Two Revolutions (opens in a new window) , ed. by Massimiliano Sala (Bologna: Ut Orpheus Edizioni, 2006), 157-198

Of Viotti’s twenty-nine violin concertos, only the 22nd had a significant performance history in the twentieth century, and even in the nineteenth the others soon became unfashionable. The reason is unclear, since the 22nd concerto is not measurably any greater than the others. Milsom and Brown (equal collaborators in this project) test the hypothesis that Joachim’s estimation of the work accounts for its survival, and establish that the work had a substantial edited history in the nineteenth century. Many of the editors (for example, Adolf Grünwald, a teacher at the Berlin Hochschule) edited the work for pedagogic purposes. The article reviews these editions in detail for the first time. The editions reveal the stylistic predilections of their authors, casting further light upon the inter-relationship of violinists within the same geographical/aesthetic ‘school’ (such as David, Grünwald, and Joachim) and the differences between schools/traditions (found in, for example, comparisons of the Joachim and Sauret editions). The article seeks evidence of the survival of/references to Viotti’s own practices, and those of the early Parisian school (of Kreutzer, Rode, and Baillot) which he inspired. The article not only finds detailed evidence of stylistic change in the nineteenth century, but also that some players, chiefly of the German school, attempted a degree of stylistic ‘authenticity’, which might account for an apparent tradition of ornamenting the slow movement (long after such practice ceased to be a normal part of playing style) and indeed allusion to Viotti's bowing styles, making editorial stipulations by some editors (such as David and Joachim) more stylistically conservative than in other works they edited. The article concludes that Alfred Einstein’s 1929 Eulenburg miniature score represented more an act of piety to the work than evidence of a resurgence of interest. Modern, historically informed performance has, however, inspired a limited revival.

Kia Ng, ‘Music via Motion (MvM): Transdomain Mapping of Motion and Sound for Interactive Performances’, in Proceedings of the IEEE, 92 (2004), 645-655

Most musical performances involve some forms of human body (performer) movements. The body motion and gestures contribute, directly and indirectly, to various important factors in the artistic event. This paper presents a creative multimedia framework by which physical motion (for example, dance, instrumental performance, conducting, and so on) can be transformed into musical sound for interactive performances, using computer vision with visual tracking and image processing. It reports original work on Music via Motion <www.kcng.org/mvm> which has supported several projects and produced a series of interactive dance performances including the Coat of the Invisible Notes (CoIN), in collaboration with a choreographer, costume designer, sound designer, composer, and dancers. This was supported by the UK Arts Council, also a collaboration with the Fachhochschule Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences with industrial sponsors on an interactive installation that has been exhibited (<www.roomoor.de>) at the ACS (International Trade Fair for Computer Systems in the AEC Industry) and the Euromold world fair. The paper also describes a distributed multimedia-mapping server, which allows multiplatform and multisensory integrations, and presents a sample application which integrates a real-time face tracking system. Further understanding of musical communications and expressions is an important factor for developments in the performing arts. Extensions and continuation of this work explore gesture analysis and emotive analysis using 3D motion capture and pattern-recognition techniques. MvM has been has been widely featured in the media, including the BBC's News 24, Tomorrow's World Plus, and Sky TV.

Derek B. Scott, ‘The Music-Hall Cockney: Flesh and Blood, or Replicant?’, Music & Letters, 83 (2002), 237-259

This is the first critical essay on music hall to apply theoretical ideas drawn from the work of Jean Baudrillard. It is also the first essay on British music hall to discuss the influence of London's East End Jewish community. In addition, the essay challenges some received ideas concerning the class basis of music-hall entertainment. The British music hall as a topic is seriously neglected by musicologists. This essay is significant in that it contends, with appropriate evidence, that the music-hall Cockney is a theatrical, literary, and musical construction, and not a reflection of working-class life as argued elsewhere. The essay originated as a paper accepted for an RMA conference at Oxford University. It was later given as an invited paper at New England Conservatory, Boston, Massachussetts. It was submitted to Music & Letters and was peer reviewed. The final, revised essay took on board the comments of the reviewers.

Bryan White, ‘Music for a “brave livlylike boy”: the Duke of Gloucester, Purcell and “The noise of foreign wars”’, Musical Times, 148 (2007)

Since the fragment of the ode ‘The noise of foreign wars’ was first brought to scholarly attention in 1964, the music has been attributed to Henry Purcell, though the date and occasion of its composition has remained a mystery. This article brings to light for the first time a complete manuscript copy of the text of the ode. It demonstrates that the ode was written for Princess Anne, to celebrate the birth of her son William Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, on 24 July 1689. While the manuscript does not identify Purcell as the composer, it provides a context for the ode that fits well with the known facts of Purcell’s career. This article suggests that, given Purcell’s two known odes written for Princess Anne’s marriage in 1683 and for the Duke of Gloucester’s birthday in 1695, composing works for her and her family may have been part of his court duties. The date of the ode and the likelihood that it was composed at short notice suggests a relationship with Purcell’s ode for Mr Maidwell’s school, performed on 5 August 1689. Hitherto, scholars have been unable to explain why Purcell recycled the symphony from his 1685 anthem ‘My heart is inditing’ as the opening symphony for ‘Celestial Music’. The short time-span in which he is likely to have been required to compose ‘The noise of foreign wars’ and its temporal proximity to ‘Celestial Music’ now provide a plausible explanation for this recycling. The manuscript copy of the poem demonstrates that the whole of the ode was set. This, combined with analysis of the extant manuscript copy of the music, provides grounds to hypothesize on the nature of the original lost source, probably a ‘fowle original’ that was not bound.

Luke Windsor, M. Borkent, P. Desain, A. Penel, ‘A structurally guided method for the decomposition of expression in music performance’, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119 (2006), 1182-1193

This collaboration, which involved contributions from music theory, computational statistics, and cognitive science, provides a robust method for displaying the different expressive gestures that make up an expressive musical performance, and quantifying their relative importance. It is published in one of the most prestigious journals in its field, and aims to provide a benchmark for statistical transparency and clarity in the modelling of performance. The work described led to an invitation to deliver a keynote address at an international conference (Music and Gesture 2006). Windsor (the first author) was involved in all aspects of this study, managing the international collaboration, writing 70% of the text, and, though not directly involved in the programming, having a hand in all decisions made about the design, application, and analysis of the model.

P. Desain, Luke Windsor, and B.H. Repp, ‘Effects of Tempo on the Timing of Simple Musical Rhythms’, Music Perception, 19 (2002), 565-593

This work has been cited eight times in international peer-reviewed journals (ISI) since its publication (once by a group including Bruno Repp). It is one of the few attempts to study systematically the timing of musical rhythms at different tempi, and the team was able to provide reliable data which have been used in other recent studies of tempo and timing. Windsor (the second author) carried out 50% of the empirical work, and had 40% responsibility for the design of the study and interpretation of results.

Graham Barber: Jerusalem on High (Hyperion CDA67356)

Here is some really rare music, virtually unknown for a hundred years or more even to organists. The CD brings together organ voluntaries and concert pieces from the Victorian period. Graham Barber has thoroughly scrutinized the large surviving repertoire of the nineteenth century and selected these works as being fully worthy of resurrection. Apart from one transcription they are all original organ compositions, based on hymns, chorales and psalm tunes.

Edward Silas’s Fantasia on ‘St Ann’s Hymn’ unfolds in the manuals above a gently ruminating statement of the hymn ‘O God, our help in ages past’, while Oliver King’s Prelude for Lent is a deeply-felt meditation on the first chorale in Bach’s St Matthew Passion. The two major works are William Spark’s Theme, Variations and Fugue on ‘The Ancient Vesper Hymn’, and Charles William Pearce’s symphonic poem ‘Corde natus ex parentis’ (Of the Father sole begotten).

The music is played on the organ of Tewkesbury Abbey.

Peter Holman: ‘The fam'd Italian masters’ - Music for two trumpets, strings and continuo from the Italian baroque (Hyperion CDA67359)

This disc combines the talents of internationally-renowned Crispian Steele-Perkins, and Alison Balsom, a recent graduate currently taking the musical world by storm. Both are in radiant form in a collection of works from that era of Italian baroque music celebrated and loved for its vibrancy and spirit.
The lesser-known composers presented here (Melani, Cazzati, Jacchini, Lazzari, Grossi, etc.) sit happily beside the ‘greats’ of the era (Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Torelli). Before mid-seventeenth century the trumpet was essentially a ceremonial instrument until German composers such as Praetorius and Schütz began to incorporate it into concert works. This idea was soon adopted elsewhere, and Italian sonatas and concertos form much of the baroque repertoire for trumpet.
The accomplished Parley of Instruments play ‘one to a part’, reflecting the combination of forces most likely to have been used at the time these works were first performed.

'It comes as no surprise to have a well researched, well presented and beautifully played issue from this team of artists and recording company. The trumpeters, representing the pioneering and the newest generations of players, are well matched and sparkling in their duets and share the solo works equally. It scarcely needs it, but this gets the warmest of recommendations' (Early Music Review)

'Fascinating […] Crispian Steele-Perkins and Alison Balsom play with an assured virtuosity' (Daily Telegraph)

'beautifully lyrical trumpet-playing' (BBC Music Magazine)

'Steele-Perkins and Balsom play throughout this recording as robustly and as sensitively as one could wish […] Buy this disc' (Early Music News)

'exemplary performances … The disc as a whole is not only extremely enjoyable in its own right, but is of value for illuminating a major development in the history of instrumental music' (Goldberg)

'Soloists Crispian Steele-Perkins and Alison Balsam play with utmost delicacy and control' (Early Music Today)

Peter Holman: Nativity – Christmas Music from Georgian England, English Orpheus 49 (Hyperion CDA67443)

When the season of turkey and stuffing looms in our minds, there could be no more homey a disc for Christmas than this unusual collection championing the village genius of local composers, whose settings of carols and hymns kept the congregations warm all those years ago – a time when the commercial excesses of today's Christmas were unknown. Modern clichés about community values have nothing in comparison to the humble pride and unity of villagers and townsfolk who gathered to sing settings that were the labour of love and skill on the part of the local composer or choirmaster ... or even excise officer! The foibles and fondness of community life combine here with all manner of interesting tastes in compositional technique, be it idiosyncratic fugal treatment or instrumentation designed to keep busy whatever musicians could be mustered. The organ on the recording dates from 1789 and the old temperament is used.

'Rasping, rousing and riveting [...] the freshness and immediacy of the music and musicians are irresistible' (International Record Review)

'It is beautifully played and superbly recorded. A CD to gladden the heart with none of the usual clichés.' (Classic FM Magazine)

'Christmas cheer in abundance.' (Evening Standard)

Peter Holman: Orpheus with His Lute – Music for Shakespeare from Purcell to Arne, English Orpheus 50 (Hyperion CDA67450)

This fiftieth release in Hyperion’s glorious ‘English Orpheus’ series takes us on a Shakespearean Odyssey through Titus Andronicus, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, Much Ado about Nothing, Henry VIII, Cymbeline, Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest. Pride of place, of course, goes to Thomas Arne’s immortal settings, but the disc additionally explores some remarkable songs by his predecessors and contemporaries.

'The Parley of Instruments, Rachel Brown, director Peter Holman and the Hyperion recording team all deserve applause' (Gramophone)

'With the programme arranged by play rather than chronology, creating an alluring stylistic variety within its 100-or-so-year span, and excellent sound, music for Shakespeare doesn't come much better than this' (BBC Music Magazine)

'I'm sure that if it wasn't for the pioneering series of recordings named The English Orpheus we would find ourselves less the richer for the discoveries this series has brought to our notions of English musical heritage' (The Organ)

'Programmed with Peter Holman's usual ingenuity and originality' (Goldberg)

Ewan Stefani: Lametta (2006)

Lametta investigates the musical application of convolution techniques within the context of acousmatic electroacoustic composition. A wide variety of sonic material including soundscapes and synthetic sounds provide the basis for this exploration. Complex rhythmic motifs, melodic patterns and harmonic textures are all derived from this form of spectral processing. In particular, Lametta establishes the practice of spectral motifs, which take the form of musical fragments or themes primarily identified by recognisable spectromorphology. Novel spectral processing techniques include the use of artificially constructed impulse responses convolved with broadband or narrowband noise signals, time-compressed soundscape recordings, and pre-processed sequences of transients. Lametta highlights the significance of convolution as a spectral processing technique for a wide range of musical applications that have only recently become possible in compositional practice.

Performance of Lametta in 2006 include ICMC (USA), Sonic Arts Network Expo (Manchester) and Cave du Forum (France).

Mic Spencer: The Eemis Stane – Homage to K.S. Sorabji (2002)


Helmut Lachenmann has referred to the notion of, ‘sounds pointing away from themselves … towards the precondition of their production’. (Seminar with Helmut Lachenmann, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, 2000).  Taking this as a starting point, The Eemis Stane begins with the sounds ‘pointing away from themselves’ (the various extended performance techniques) and gradually develop towards the more ‘familiar landscape’ of the conclusion.  On a poetic level, this concept relates to the poem from which the title is taken: Hugh MacDiarmid presents the Earth of the future as an unfamiliar dead rock, covered by the lichen of time and the fog of history, yet underneath, the poet can sense the residue of mankind, the familiarity of something essentially human that is buried. Most people associate the piano player’s hands on the keys as the source of the sound.  However, by exploring, via extensive use of the third pedal (rarely utilised to its full potential in contemporary music), various resultant harmonic frequencies, and the interior of the instrument, the work moves from the unfamiliar (i.e. material played inside the instrument using damping etc) to the familiar (‘traditional’ execution on the keys).

Performances of The Eemis Stane – Homage to K.S. Sorabji include University of Manchester (Peter Mumford), University of Manchester (Suzy Wapshott), St Cyprian’s Church, London (Peter Mumford), Clothworkers’ Centenary Concert Hall, University of Leeds (Richard Casey), School of Music, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (Aleksander Szram, in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Doctorate of Musical Arts), Clothworkers’ Centenary Concert Hall, University of Leeds (Ian Pace), University College Cork, Ireland (Ian Pace) and a CD recording – Into the 21st Century by Aleks Szram (FONORUM record label, 2006)