Manchester Beethoven studies

Manchester Beethoven studies
Author: Barry Cooper
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2023-04-25
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1526155672

Manchester Beethoven studies presents ten original chapters by scholars with close ties to the University of Manchester. It throws new light on many aspects of Beethoven’s life and works, with a special emphasis on early or little-known compositions such as his concert aria Erste Liebe, his String Quintet Op. 104 and his folksong settings. Biographical elements are prominent in a wide-ranging reassessment of his religious attitudes and beliefs, while Charles Hallé, founder of the Manchester-based Hallé Orchestra, is revealed to have been a tireless and energetic promoter of Beethoven’s music in the later nineteenth century.

Beethoven: Variations on a Life

Beethoven: Variations on a Life
Author: Mark Evan Bonds
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2020-07-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190054093

Despite the ups and downs of his personal life and professional career-even in the face of deafness-Beethoven remained remarkably consistent in his most basic convictions about his art. This inner consistency, the music historian Mark Evan Bonds argues, provides the key to understanding the composer's life and works. Beethoven approached music as he approached life, weighing whatever occupied him from a variety of perspectives: a melodic idea, a musical genre, a word or phrase, a friend, a lover, a patron, money, politics, religion. His ability to unlock so many possibilities from each helps explain the emotional breadth and richness of his output as a whole, from the heaven-storming Ninth Symphony to the eccentric Eighth, and from the arcane Great Fugue to the crowd-pleasing Wellington's Victory. Beethoven's works, Bonds argues, are a series of variations on his life. The iconic scowl so familiar from later images of the composer is but one of many attitudes he could assume and project through his music. The supposedly characteristic furrowed brow and frown, moreover, came only after his time. Discarding tired myths about the composer, Bonds proposes a new way of listening to Beethoven by hearing his music as an expression of his entire self, not just his scowling self.

Beethoven’s Dedications

Beethoven’s Dedications
Author: Artur Pereira
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2020-12-30
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0429997876

The dedication of a piece of music is a feature generally overlooked, but it can reveal a great deal about the work, the composer, the society and the music world in which the composer lived. This book explores the musical, biographical and sociological aspects of the practice of dedicating new compositions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and makes a significant contribution towards a better understanding of the impact these tributes had on Beethoven’s life and work, and their function within the context of the musical, cultural and economic environments in which they appeared. As the first of its kind, this study demonstrates that, as a result of their different functions, published dedications and handwritten inscriptions are distinct from one another, and for that reason they have been classified in different categories. This book, therefore, challenges the idea of what exactly can be termed as a ‘dedication’, a concept which extends far beyond the dedication of musical works.

The Creation of Beethoven's 35 Piano Sonatas

The Creation of Beethoven's 35 Piano Sonatas
Author: Barry Cooper
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-04-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 131703709X

Beethoven’s piano sonatas are a cornerstone of the piano repertoire and favourites of both the concert hall and recording studio. The sonatas have been the subject of much scholarship, but no single study gives an adequate account of the processes by which these sonatas were composed and published. With source materials such as sketches and correspondence increasingly available, the time is ripe for a close study of the history of these works. Barry Cooper, who in 2007 produced a new edition of all 35 sonatas, including three that are often overlooked, examines each sonata in turn, addressing questions such as: Why were they written? Why did they turn out as they did? How did they come into being and how did they reach their final form? Drawing on the composer’s sketches, autograph scores and early printed editions, as well as contextual material such as correspondence, Cooper explores the links between the notes and symbols found in the musical texts of the sonatas, and the environment that brought them about. The result is a biography not of the composer, but of the works themselves.

Musical Topics and Musical Performance

Musical Topics and Musical Performance
Author: Julian Hellaby
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1000815285

The principal purpose of topics in musicology has been to identify meaning-bearing units within a musical composition that would have been understood by contemporary audiences and therefore also by later receivers, albeit in a different context and with a need for historically aware listening. Since Leonard Ratner (1980) introduced the idea of topics, his relatively simple ideas have been expanded and developed by a number of distinguished authors. Topic theory has now become a well-established branch of musicology, often embracing semiotics, but its relationship to performance has received less attention. Musical Topics and Musical Performance thus focuses on the interface of theory and practice, and investigates how an appreciation of topical presence in a work may prompt interpretative thoughts for a potential performer as well as how performers have responded to such a presence in practice. The chapters focus on music from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries with case studies drawn from composers as diverse as Beethoven, Scriabin and Péter Eötvös. Using both scores and recordings, the book presents a variety of original and innovative perspectives on the subject from a range of distinguished authors, and addresses a neglected area of musicology and musical performance.

Philosophy of Music Education Challenged: Heideggerian Inspirations

Philosophy of Music Education Challenged: Heideggerian Inspirations
Author: Frederik Pio
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2014-10-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9401793190

This volume offers key insights into the crisis of legitimization that music as a subject of arts education seems to be in. Music as an educational subject is under intense pressure, both economically, due to the reduction of education budgets, as well as due to a loss of status with policy makers. The contributions in this book illuminate Martin Heidegger’s thinking as a highly cogent theoretical framework for understanding the nature and depth of this crisis. The contributors explore from various angles the relationship between the pressure on music education and the foundations of our technical and rationalized modern society and lead the way on the indispensable first steps towards reconnecting the cultural practices of education with music and its valuable contributions to personal development.

Beethoven's Compositional Process

Beethoven's Compositional Process
Author: William Kinderman
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 1991-01-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780803212220

Fresh perspectives on the symphonies and piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven are offered in the inaugural volume of North American Beethoven Studies. To be published under the joint auspices of the University of Nebraska Press and the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, the volumes in the new series will focus on the life and work, milieu and influence of the great composer. The first volume, edited by the noted music scholar and pianist William Kinderman, brings together recent studies by leading scholars on Beethoven?s major orchestral, including the first two piano concertos, the Egmont overture, the Missa Solemnis, and several of the symphonies, especially the Third, Fifth, and Ninth. They devote special attention to Beethoven?s creative process by analyzing, in some instances closely for the first time, his numerous surviving musical sketchbooks and loose sketch-leaves. The issues dealt with include Beethoven?s reinterpretation of the composition models of Haydn and Mozart, his working methods in composition, the structural expansion of his symphonic forms, the design of variation movements in his symphonies, and Beethoven?s musical symbolism. Four introductory essays probe the relation between Beethoven?s sketches and the analysis of his finished works; it is a fascinating and controversial undertaking. The first volume of North American Beethoven Studies illuminates critical issues and challenges traditional interpretations of some of Beethoven?s most celebrated works while avoiding the narrow specialization of some recent scholarship. Future volumes will focus on performance practices, composition, and recording history.

Planet Beethoven

Planet Beethoven
Author: Mina Yang
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2014-11-04
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0819574872

In Planet Beethoven, Mina Yang makes the compelling case that classical music in the twenty-first century is just as vibrant and relevant as ever—but with significant changes that give us insight into the major cultural shifts of our day. Perusing events, projects, programs, writings, musicians, and compositions, Yang shines a spotlight on the Western art music tradition. The book covers an array of topics, from the use of Beethoven’s “Für Elise” in YouTube clips and hip-hop, to the marketing claims of Baby Einstein products, and the new forms of music education introduced by Gustavo Dudamel, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. While the book is global in its outlook, each chapter investigates the unique attributes of a specific performer, performance, or event. One chapter reflects on Chinese pianist Yuja Wang’s controversial performance at the Hollywood Bowl, another explores the highly symbolic Passion 2000 Project in Stuttgart, Germany. Sure to be of interest to students, professionals, and aficionados, Planet Beethoven traces the tensions that arise from the “classical” nature of this tradition and our rapidly changing world. Ebook Edition Note: One image has been redacted.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell

The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell
Author: Rebecca Herissone
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1317043278

The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell provides a comprehensive and authoritative review of current research into Purcell and the environment of Restoration music, with contributions from leading experts in the field. Seen from the perspective of modern, interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship, the companion allows the reader to develop a rounded view of the environment in which Purcell lived, the people with whom he worked, the social conditions that influenced his activities, and the ways in which the modern perception of him has been affected by reception of his music after his death. In this sense the contributions do not privilege the individual over the environment: rather, they use the modern reader's familiarity with Purcell's music as a gateway into the broader Restoration world. Topics include a reassessment of our understanding of Purcell's sources and the transmission of his music; new ways of approaching the study of his creative methods; performance practice; the multi-faceted theatre environment in which his work was focused in the last five years of his life; the importance of the political and social contexts of late seventeenth-century England; and the ways in which the performance history and reception of his music have influenced modern appreciation of the composer. The book will be essential reading for anyone studying the music and culture of the seventeenth century.