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What we think music is shapes how we hear it. This book traces the history of the idea of pure—“absolute”—music from Pythagoras to the present, with special emphasis on efforts to reconcile the irreducible essence of the art with its profound effects on the human spirit. The core of this study focuses on the period 1850–1935, beginning with the collision between Richard Wagner and the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick. Wagner, who coined the term “absolute music” in 1846, used it as a pejorative in his efforts to expose the limitations of purely instrumental music. For him, music that was “absolute” was isolated, detached from the world, sterile. Hanslick considered this quality of isolation a guarantor of purity: music could be understood only in terms of itself. Hanslick had few followers among musicians during his lifetime (1825–1904). By 1920, however, absolute music was being endorsed by leading modernists, including both Schoenberg and Stravinsky. The key impetus for this change came from discourse not about music but rather about the visual arts. The growing prestige of abstraction and form in painting at the turn of the twentieth century helped move the idea of purely abstract, absolute music to the cutting edge of musical modernism.

Achieving Musical Success in the String Classroom describes the author’s pragmatic pedagogical approach toward developing complete musicianship in beginning through advanced-level string players by incorporating the ideas of Mimi Zweig, Paul Rolland, and Shinichi Suzuki. The author’s philosophical assumptions are explained in regard to the structure and purpose of string teaching contributing to a high level of musical artistry among students. Introductory through advanced string concepts relating to instrument setup, posture, left- and right-hand development, music theory, aural skills, assessment procedures, imagery in playing, the development of individual practice and ensemble skills, and effective rehearsal strategies are explained in a sequential approach that benefits the classroom teacher and student. In addition, several score examples, sample lesson plans, and grading rubrics, as well as videos of the author demonstrating his pedagogical ideas and techniques with musicians, are included.

This new multiauthor volume will examine The Wizard of Oz and its surrounding culture, centering on three areas of study: early adaptations of Baum’s novels, insights into the MGM film, and the legacy of The Wizard of Oz on the popular stage. Although the articles will devote some attention to the genesis of the musical and the biographical profiles of the creative team, the book will prioritize critical and analytical readings. Authors will primarily illuminate the reasons why The Wizard of Oz has become iconic in the history of the movie musical, acknowledging the great lengths to which MGM went in making it an exceptional project, and why it continues to hold so much appeal in the twenty-first century. The development of the score will receive particularly close attention, filling an important gap in the literature and addressing the fact that the songs are key to the movie’s popularity. Two central chapters will address the music in the MGM film, considering the interaction between the songs and the underscore, and also reflecting on the enduring appeal of the musical numbers. But the significance of the music in early stage productions and later reinterpretations will also be given careful attention: several of the authors will question how the music is employed alongside other components—on stage and screen—and to what effect. Ultimately, the book will incorporate a variety of scholarly approaches, to present an authoritative and engaging understanding of one of the most significant movie musicals that will appeal to film lovers and academics alike.

Adaptive Strategies for Small-Handed Pianists brings together information from ergonomics, physics, biomechanics, anatomy, medicine, and piano pedagogy to focus on the subject of small-handedness. Chapter 1 presents an overview from historical, anatomical, and pedagogical perspectives and includes a discussion of small-handedness as a risk factor for piano-related injury. Chapter 2 establishes a basic understanding of work efficiency and the human anatomy, moves on to general observations about piano playing and the constraints of physics, and explains the principles of healthy movement at the piano. Chapter 3 is a focused analysis of piano technique as it relates to small-handedness. Chapters 4 to 7 deal with specific alternative approaches: redistribution, refingering, ways to maximize reach and power, and musical solutions for technical problems. Hundreds of examples taken from the standard intermediate and advanced piano literature show concrete applications of these strategies within appropriate musical contexts. Chapter 8 presents tables that pianists can use to diagnose and resolve commonly encountered problems and synthesizes the adaptive approaches outlined in the book. Reflective application points are provided as guides to further exploration. The book demonstrates that the specific physical and musical needs of the small-handed can be addressed in sensitive and appropriate ways and illuminates alternative paths to help pianists with small hands reach their musical goals.

Adolescents on Music foregrounds the voices of 30 American adolescent musicians, ages 12–18. Adolescent singer-songwriters, studio and solo musicians, rappers, composers and arrangers, and band, choir, and orchestra members tell about their musical development and what it is like to make music by themselves and others. Situated in these 30 adolescents’ experiences is a theory of adolescent musical development—a theory that will help music educators support adolescents in their lives. The book is structured in three parts: Part I focuses on “who I am” with an in-depth look at musical identities; Part II explores “the social self” by investigating adolescent experiences of belonging, community, and social identity; Part III looks toward “a future vision” focusing on adolescent perspectives on their future and their advice for music educators. In the last chapter, Parker proposes one philosophy of adolescent music-making. Throughout the book, research from the arts, social and natural sciences, humanities, and education dimensionalize adolescent perspectives. Special features of this book include “Step Back” locations, reflective spaces for the reader to draw connections with adolescents’ experience and their own experiences. At the end of each chapter, the “Wrap Up” allows additional spaces for topics, questions, and possibilities for effective teaching interactions. Between each chapter are “Interludes” written by one or more of the 30 adolescent contributors.

Conceived as an introduction to a vast, immensely rich and diverse set of repertories, this book explores the sounding forms of Sub-Saharan African music. Aimed at a general musical readership, it describes the major dimensions of African music and the values upon which they are built. An opening chapter invites readers to sample the basic qualities of African music and reflect on the challenges of writing about African music. In subsequent chapters, the book discusses the place of music in society, musical instruments, the relationship between language and music, rhythm, melody, form, and harmony. A final chapter traces various appropriations of African music. In conveying the dynamics within each of the core dimensions, a broad orientation is typically supplemented by close readings of selected repertory items. These include an Ewe dirge, an Nkundo lullaby, an Aka Pygmy children’s song, an item of Central African entertainment music, an art song, and a piano etude. Although the focus throughout is on Africa’s “traditional” heritage, here regarded as the backbone of Africa’s musical thinking, a few items of popular and art music are included to demonstrate the range of African musical imagining. Frequent reference is made to the vast recorded legacy of African music, and readers are encouraged to explore them to gain a deeper appreciation of the music. The book illuminates both the structural and the expressive dimensions of black African music and is designed to engender dialogue between scholars of music and ethnographers, music analysts and composers.

This book discusses how musicians from Bahia, an emblematic African diasporic location in northeastern Brazil, think about, discuss, compose, rehearse, perform, and stage music inspired by what they perceive to be their own African ancestry. It argues that these musicians assert Afro-Brazilian identities and connect to the African continent and other diasporic places by creatively engaging essentialized notions about African music and culture: instead of mechanically reproducing these tropes, they emphasize them or downplay them. The book theorizes these preconceived notions about African music, culture, and performance as tropes of Africanness, emphasizing that they exist in two interrelated realms: as essentialist ideas in discourse and as concrete practices and sounds. Six commonly encountered tropes of African music are analyzed: the notions that its most important parameter is rhythm and that it is dominated by percussion; that it is meant to be danced to or deeply embodied rather than intellectualized; that it always touches on the sacred; that it is spontaneous and improvisatory; and that it reflects communalism rather than individualism. Through four case studies from Bahia (a jazz big band called Orkestra Rumpilezz, a symphony orchestra called the Orquestra Afrosinfônica, and two berimbau orchestras led by capoeira practitioners), the book demonstrates the nuances of musical creation in the African diaspora, acknowledging the genuine impact that essentialisms have on Bahian music while showing that they may not be an essential part of the musicians’ African roots.

This book explores an idea of music, exemplified by the work of Debussy, in dialogue with a parallel movement in French literary and philosophical thought. Its central thesis is that modern music and philosophy converge on the same set of problems but from opposite directions. Through close readings of selected musical works it argues that Debussy’s rethinking of the relation between sound and grammar anticipates and complements the defining problem of modern philosophy – the gap between language and a sensory relation to the world, between abstract systems of signification and embodied experience. Although its principal focus is the music of Debussy, it ranges widely across French music from Fauré and Ravel to Dutilleux, Boulez, Grisey, Murail, and Saariaho. It ranges similarly through a set of French writers and philosophers, from Mallarmé and Proust to Merleau-Ponty, Jankélévitch, Derrida, Lyotard, and Nancy. Frequent reference is made to the visual arts (Rodin, Monet, Bonnard, Cezanne, Matisse). It explores the idea that this current of French music, running through the long twentieth century from Debussy to the present, makes sense in a manner that affords a different way of knowing the world, foregrounding sound over syntax, and sense over signification.

Haitian carnival offers a lens into popular power and politics. Political demonstrations in Haiti often manifest as musical performances. Studying carnival and political protest side by side brings insight to the musical engagement that ordinary citizens and celebrity musicians often cultivate and revere in contemporary Haiti. This book explores how the self-declared president of konpa Sweet Micky (Michel Martelly) rose to the nation’s highest office while methodically crafting a political product inherently entangled with his musical product. It provides deep historical perspective on the characteristics of carnivalesque verbal play—and the performative skill set of the artist (Sweet Micky) who dominated carnival for more than a decade—including vulgarities and polemics. It moreover demonstrates that the practice of leveraging the carnivalesque for expedient political function has precedence in Haiti’s history. Yet there has been profound resistance to this brand of politics led by many other high-profile artists, including Matyas and Jòj, Brothers Posse, Boukman Eksperyans, and RAM. These groups have each released popular carnival songs that have contributed to the public’s discussions of what civic participation and citizenship in Haiti can and should be. Author Rebecca Dirksen presents an in-depth consideration of politically and socially engaged music and what these expressions mean for the Haitian population in the face of challenging political and economic circumstances. After the Dance, the Drums Are Heavy centers the voices of Haitian musicians and regular citizens by extensively sharing interviews and detailed analyses of musical performance in the context of contemporary events well beyond the musical realm.

This book dissects the oft-invoked myth of a romantic Golden Age of Pianism. It discusses the performance-style of great pianists from Liszt to Paderewski and Busoni, and delves into the far-from-inevitable development of the piano recital. The book recounts how classical concerts evolved from exuberant, sometimes riotous events into the formal, funereal trotting out of predictable pieces they can be today; how an often unhistorical “respect for the score” began to replace pianists' improvizations and adaptations; and how the clinical custom arose that an audience should be seen and not heard. The book chronicles why pianists of the past did not always begin a piece with the first note of the score, nor end with the last. It emphasizes that anxiety over wrong notes is a relatively recent psychosis, and that playing entirely from memory a relatively recent requirement. The book presents a vivid tale of how drastically different are the recitals of the present compared to concerts of the past, and how their own role has diminished from noisily active participants in the concert experience to passive recipients of artistic benediction from the stage. The book's broad message proclaims that there is nothing divinely ordained about our own concert-practices, programming, and piano-performance styles. Many aspects of the modern approach are unhistorical — some laudable, some merely ludicrous. They are also far removed from those fondly remembered as constituting a Golden Age.

After the Rite: Stravinsky’s Path to Neoclassicism (1914–25) traces the evolution of Stravinsky’s compositional process with excerpts from Rossignol, Three Pieces for String Quartet, Renard, Histoire du soldat, Étude for Pianola, Ragtime, Piano-Rag-Music, Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Concertino, Pulcinella, Mavra, Octet, Cinq pièces monométriques, Concerto for Piano and Winds, Piano Sonata, the Serenade in A. One of the goals of this monograph is to illustrate how musical sketches help to inform music analysis. The use of original sources, diplomatic transcriptions, and diagrams illustrate: (1) the presence of melodic motives, such as anticipatory gestures that have a bearing on subsequent works, (2) the layering of imitative techniques that sometimes participate in the emergence of block form before transitioning into Stravinsky’s Neoclassical style, and (3) the incorporation of materials borrowed from the eighteenth century to create musical narrative, and so on. In addition to these visual representations of musical ideas, another goal is to consider the cultural complexities that established the framework for Stravinsky’s evolution as a composer, such as: (1) the cross-currents in literary circles around 1914 that were concerned with Shklovsky’s “Resurrection of the Word” and the notion of defamiliarization, (2) the swirling designs in artworks by painters who espoused the ideals of futurism and cubo-futurism, and (3) Fokine’s outline of the “New Ballet” that appeared in the Times (London) on July 6, 1914, just before the declaration of war on July 28, 1914, and that in a way paralleled the emergence of Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism.

This book explores the Broadway legacy of choreographer Agnes de Mille, from the 1940s through the 1960s. Six musicals are discussed in depth—Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, Carousel, Brigadoon, and Allegro. Carousel and Brigadoon were de Mille’s most influential and lucrative Broadway works. The other three shows exemplify aspects of her legacy that have not been fully examined, including the impact of her ideas on some of the composers with whom she worked; her ability to incorporate a previously conceived work into the context of a Broadway show; and her trailblazing foray into the role of choreographer/director. Each chapter emphasizes de Mille’s unique contributions to the original productions. Several themes emerge. First, character development remained at the heart of de Mille’s Broadway work. She often took minor characters, represented with minimal or no dialogue, and fleshed out their stories. Second, de Mille often came into conflict with her collaborators because of her strong views, but her dances added a layer of meaning that resulted in more complex final products. Finally, de Mille saw much of her choreography as an authorship and argued that she should be given the same rights as the librettist and the composer. Her work as an activist contributed to revisions in dance copyright law and the founding of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a theatrical union that protects the rights of directors and choreographers. Agnes de Mille

Few Mexican musicians in the twentieth century achieved as much notoriety or had such an international impact as the popular singer and songwriter Agustín Lara (1897–1970). Widely known as “el flaco de oro” (“the Golden Skinny”), this remarkably thin fellow was prolific across the genres of bolero, ballad, and folk. His most beloved “Granada,” a song so enduring that it has been covered by the likes of Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra, and Placido Domingo, is today a standard in the vocal repertory. However, there exists very little biographical literature on Lara in English. This book's informed and informative placement of Lara's work in a broader cultural context presents a reading of the life of this significant musical figure. Lara's career as a media celebrity as well as musician provides an excellent window on Mexican society in the mid-twentieth century and on popular culture in Latin America. The book also delves into Lara's music itself, bringing to light how the composer's work unites a number of important currents in Latin music of his day, particularly the bolero.

Alan Jay Lerner was the lyricist of some of the most beloved musicals of all time, including My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon, and Camelot. Yet much of his work is less well known and his career has been overlooked in the scholarly literature on musicals. This book helps to bridge the gap by providing new insights into his working life through his professional correspondence with his colleagues and friends. The collection contains letters to Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Frederick Loewe, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Leonard Bernstein, among many others. It also provides an extensive commentary outlining his early years and putting his career into context.

Albion’s Dance was inspired by the author’s memory of her childhood ballet teacher who danced in Britain during World War Two. Dancers’ memoirs and the writings of dance critics are central resources for this book that asks how ballet in Britain survived during the war and how the end of war resulted in a newly refined national ballet. Exploring the so-called ballet boom during World War Two, the larger story of this book is one of how art and artists thrive during conflict, and how they respond pragmatically and creatively to privation and duress. The way ballet participated in propagandistic discourse and answered to a public mood of pragmatism and idealism are part of this story. Also considered are the distinct roles of dance critics, male and female dancers, producers, audiences, and choreographers. Each population contributed to the creation of a uniquely British ballet identity. After the war, British ballet emerged on the international stage demonstrating superb qualities of dramatic acuity, musicality, and sensitivity to the classic ballets.

This book provides for the first time an accessible, comprehensive study of Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1 (1977). One of Schnittke’s best-known and most compelling works, the Concerto Grosso no. 1 sounds the surface of late Soviet life, resonating as well with contemporary compositional currents around the world. This innovative monograph builds on existing publications about the Concerto Grosso no. 1 in English, Russian, and German, augmenting and complicating them. It adds new information from underused primary sources, including Schnittke’s unpublished correspondence and his many published interviews. It also engages further with his sketches for the Concerto Grosso no. 1 and contemporary Soviet musical criticism. The result is a more objective, historical appraisal of this rich, multifaceted composition. The Concerto Grosso no. 1 provided a utopian model of the contemporary soundscape. It was a decisive point in Schnittke’s development of the approach he called polystylism, which aimed to contain in a single composition the wide range of contemporary musical styles, including jazz, pop, rock, and serial music. Thanks to it and his other similar compositions, Schnittke became one of the most-performed and most-recorded living composers at the end of the twentieth century. The novel structure of this book engages the Concerto Grosso no. 1 conceptually, historically, musically, and phenomenologically: the six movements of the composition frame the six chapters. The present volume thus provides a holistic accounting of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, its influences, and its impact on subsequent music making in the Soviet Union and worldwide.

In 1975, the Broadway musical Chicago brought together a host of memes and myths, the gleefully subversive character of American musical comedy, the reckless glamor of the big-city newspaper, the mad decade of the 1920s, the work of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon—two of the greatest talents in the musical’s history—and the Wild West gangsterville that was the city of Chicago itself. The tale of a young woman who murders her departing lover and then tricks the jury into letting her off, Chicago seemed too blunt and cynical at first. Everyone agreed it was show biz at its brilliant best, yet the public still preferred A Chorus Line, with its cast of innocents and sentimental feeling. Nevertheless, the 1996 Chicago revival is now the longest-running American musical in history, and the movie version won the Best Picture Oscar. As this text looks back at Chicago’s various moving parts, including the original 1926 play that started it all, a sexy silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, a talkie remake with Ginger Rogers, the musical itself, and at last the movie of the musical, we see how the American theatre serves as a kind of alternative news medium, a town crier warning the public about the racy, devious interior contradictions of American society.

Alla Osipenko is one of history’s greatest ballerinas, a courageous rebel who paid the price for speaking truth to the Soviet state. At Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet, Osipenko’s lines, shapes, and movement both exemplified the venerable traditions of Russian ballet and projected those traditions into uncharted and experimental realms. Her sharp tongue and candid independence, as well as her almost reckless flouting of Soviet rules for personal and political conduct, soon found her all but quarantined in Russia. An internationally acclaimed ballerina at the height of her career, she had to persist against constant attempts by the Soviet state and the Kirov administration to humble her. Throughout the book, Osipenko talks frankly and freely in a way that few Russians of her generation have allowed themselves to do. The book chronicles her life to the age of eighty-two—a great-grandmother, still outspoken, and still a dynamic participant in the international world of ballet. A cast of characters drawn from all sectors of Soviet and post-perestroika society makes this biography as encyclopedic and encompassing as a great Russian novel.

This book is a full-length biography in English of Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824), one of the great violinist-composers in the history of music, and arguably the most influential violinist who ever lived. He rose from humble origins as a blacksmith's son in a village near Turin, Italy, and early studies with Gaetano Pugnani, to a triumphant international career, particularly in Paris and London. His multifarious career as concert performer, composer, teacher, opera theater director, and impresario was played out against the backdrop of a dramatically changing world: from the ancien régime patronage of an Italian prince and the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, to the commercial and box-office–centered institutions of the early 19th century. Viotti's life was intensely dramatic. He knew tragedy as well as success: he was forced to flee the French Revolution, he was exiled from England for an extended period, his attempt to establish himself in business met with failure, and he died heavily in debt. His correspondence with an English family, the Chinnerys, with whom he was intimately associated for the last half of his life, provides an unusually revealing glimpse into his personal life. Viotti's biography is not without its mysteries, among which is his renunciation, twice in his life, of public performance. This study is based on extensive documentary research, much of it here revealed for the first time. Viotti's works are considered in the context of his life. Eleven appendices include translations of various Viotti-related archival documents, and additional information on Viotti's siblings, his places of residence, his violins, his unfinished violin method, and financial matters.

This collection of essays analyzes diverse musical creations with reference to the contexts in which the music is created and performed. The authors explain the music as sound in process, through prose, diagrams, transcriptions, recordings, and (online) multimedia presentations, all intended to convey the richness, beauty, and ingenuity of their subjects. The music ranges across geography and cultures—court music of Japan and medieval Europe, pagode song from Brazil, solos by the jazz pianist Thelonius Monk and by the sitar master Budhaditya Mukherjee, form-and-timbre improvisations of a Boston sound collective, South Korean folk drumming, and the ceremonial music of indigenous cultures in North American and Australia. Thus the essays diversify and expand the scope of this book’s companion volume, Analytical Studies in World Music, to all inhabited continents and many of its greatest musical traditions. An introduction and an afterword point out common analytical approaches, and present a new way to classify music according to its temporal organization. Two special chapters consider the juxtaposition of music from different cultures: of world-music traditions and popular music genres, and of Balinese music and European Art music, raising questions about the musical encounters and fusions of today’s interconnected world.