Ex oriente': Ten Composers from the Former USSR;Ex oriente II': Nine Composers from the Former USSR;Ex oriente III': Eight Composers from the Former USSR
Music and Letters, 2004
... 'Ex oriente …': Ten Composers from the Former USSR; 'Ex oriente … II': Nine C... more ... 'Ex oriente …': Ten Composers from the Former USSR; 'Ex oriente … II': Nine Composers from the Former USSR; 'Ex oriente … III': Eight Composers from the Former USSR. Author: David Fanning. ... ( Ernst Kuhn , Berlin , 2002 , 2003 , 2003 , 49.95 each. ...
Alexander Skrjabin: Werk und Gedankenwelt. By Leonid Sabanejew
Music and Letters, 2007
... Alexander Skrjabin: Werk und Gedankenwelt. By Leonid Sabanejew. Alexander Skrjabin: Werk und ... more ... Alexander Skrjabin: Werk und Gedankenwelt. By Leonid Sabanejew. Alexander Skrjabin: Werk und Gedankenwelt. By Leonid Sabanejew. . pp. x + 292. Musik Konkret, 17. (Ernst Kuhn, Berlin, 2006, €59.95. ISBN 3-936637-06-7.). David Fanning. ...
In June 1916 Nielsen supplied incidental music for the tercentenary Shakespeare celebrations in H... more In June 1916 Nielsen supplied incidental music for the tercentenary Shakespeare celebrations in Hamlet’s castle of Kronborg, Helsingør (Elsinore). The three choruses and two songs he composed constitute one of his least-known works. But they had a legacy, and not only in the final choral number, which, to other words, subsequently became a candidate for Danish national anthem. Shortly after the event, Nielsen confided that he found Ariel and Caliban (for each of whom he had composed a sharply characterful song) so fascinating that he was considering writing an instrumental work based on their contrasting temperaments. This he never did, at least not overtly. However, ten years later the drastic instrumental contrasts in his Flute Concerto invite a reading based on the Ariel/Caliban duality. The distinctiveness of the concerto’s confrontation between the flute solo and the orchestral bass trombone has long been recognised. However, this duality takes on a more focused and at the same...
Skryabin, Philosophy and the Music of Desire. By Kenneth M. Smith
Music and Letters, 2014
the 1939 film by Abel Gance. Indeed, this logic of a work in perpetual generic and medial transfo... more the 1939 film by Abel Gance. Indeed, this logic of a work in perpetual generic and medial transformation seems central to the composer’s thinking, even if the accommodation of those external drivers and contingencies did not always sit happily with him. Fascinating in this section is Niccolai’s recounting of a controversy over a song Louise, popularized in Europe and America by Maurice Chevalier, that was frequently confused and conflated with the opera in the public domain (and imagination), and from which Charpentier fought bitterly to disentangle his work. So Charpentier was not a ‘one-hit wonder’ (despite the focus of this book being Louise and its associated works Le Couronnement de la Muse and Julien), and what this book tries to do is to re-evaluate Charpentier’s meagre uvre by bolstering the importance of the social, intellectual, political, and philosophical context in which it was conceived. Niccolai stresses the depth of the composer’s social engagement while reminding us of his national importance during his lifetime, receiving the Republican accolades of success, including his former teacher Massenet’s chair at the Institut. But Niccolai paints a picture of Charpentier as his own ambassador, as a composer who managed to create a network of associated activities around composition that afforded him this position during his long lifetime, only to be all but forgotten on his death in 1956, until revivals of Louise began thirty years later. Despite his anarcho-revolutionary tendencies, Charpentier was a staunch Republican and utopian socialist with a firm belief in the democratic dissemination and social power of culture and art for the wider population. His whole life’s work was dedicated to this aim, one which seemingly dominated his personality as a creative artist. We eagerly await the next volume from Niccolai in which she might look to the composer’s writings and other works and give them the same contextual treatment. One would also hope that it might be as beautifully illustrated and presented as this Brepols volume (without the odd mix of French and more international styles of punctuation perhaps), and one might even dare to hope for an English-language version which would serve the cause Niccolai defends so well, but for a wider public. CLAIR ROWDEN Cardiff University
Um das Spatwerk betrogen? Prokofjews letze Schaffensperiode. Ed. by Ernst Kuhn
Music and Letters, 2008
'More than a decade after the end of the USSR, it is time to turn without prejudice to numero... more 'More than a decade after the end of the USSR, it is time to turn without prejudice to numerous questions of detail [Detailfragen] regarding the life and work of this great composer. Has the musical world in the case of Prokofiev—and perhaps he himself— ...
Review: 'Ex oriente ...': Ten Composers from the Former USSR; 'Ex oriente ... II': Nine Composers from the Former USSR; 'Ex oriente ... III': Eight Composers from the Former USSR
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