Notes articles from March 1999

Notes archives from March 1999

Opera in History: From Monteverdi to Cage.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Herbert Lindenberger. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. [x, 364 p. ISBN 0-8047-3104-7 (cloth); 0-8047-3105-5 (pbk.). $49.50 (cloth); $18.95 (pbk.).] Herbert Lindenberger's Opera in History begins with a "prelude" and ends with...

Opera and Politics: From Monteverdi to Henze.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By John Bokina. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. [xiv, 240 p. ISBN 0-300-06935-9. $28.50.] Herbert Lindenberger's Opera in History begins with a "prelude" and ends with a "finale." The very structure of the book playfully resonates...

Richard Wagner, Fritz Lang, and the Nibelungen: The Dramaturgy of Disavowal.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By David J. Levin. (Princeton Studies in Opera.) Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. [xi, 207 p. ISBN 0-691-02621-1. $29.95.] This is a smart and thoroughly absorbing book. Its focus is not on a single genre but on the uses that...

Encrypted Messages in Alban Berg's Music.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Siglind Bruhn. (Border Crossings, 1.) New York: Garland Publishing, 1998. [xvi, 307 p. ISBN 0-8153-2480-4. $59.] Carl Dahlhaus reminded us twenty years ago that the idea of music as "a sounding phenomenon and nothing more .... ..

La musica strumentale di Antonio Vivaldi.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Cesare Fertonani. (Studi di musica veneta; Quaderni vivaldiani, 9.) Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1998. [vi, 621 p. ISBN 88-222-4598-9. L 115,000.] For musicologists and the general public alike, Antonio Vivaldi's major claim to historical...

Counterpoint and Compositional Process in the Time of Dufay: Perspectives from German Musicology.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited and translated by Kevin N. Moll. (Criticism and Analysis of Early Music, 2.) New York: Garland Publishing, 1997. [xviii, 411 p. ISBN 0-8153-2346-8. $72.] Of few books can it be said that they needed to be written, and of even fewer...

Opera Production and Its Resources.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Lorenzo Bianconi and Giorgio Pestelli. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. (History of Italian Opera, 4.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. [xviii, 440 p. ISBN 0-226-04590-0. $50.] Opera Production and Its Resources is the...

Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London, vol 1.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Curtis Price, Judith Milhous, and Robert D. Hume. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. [xxv, 698 p. ISBN 0-19-816166-2.$95.] The fragmentary and intractable nature of the evidence on opera in eighteenth-century London has long stymied those...

Opera in Context: Essays on Historical Staging from the Late Renaissance to the Time of Puccini.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Mark A. Radice. Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 1998. [410 p. ISBN 1-57467-032-8. $44.95.] The study of opera has changed considerably over the past two decades. Earlier scholarship tended to favor the music and its tangible...

Performance on Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Victor Anand Coelho. (Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice, 6.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. [xix, 231 p. ISBN 0-521-45528-6. $64.95.] In the wake of such progenitors as Andres Segovia and Julian Bream,...

International Encyclopedia of Dance.(Review)
March 1, 1999... New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. [6 vols. ISBN 0-19-509462-X. $1,250.] The International Encyclopedia of Dance (IED) is a monumental work that establishes a baseline of scholarship from which the discourse on dance may proceed for...

A Discography of 78 RPM Era Recording of the Horn: Solo and Chamber Literature with Commentary.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Compiled by Amy McBeth. (Discographies, 74.) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. [xvi, 210 p. ISBN 0-313-304444-0. $69.50.] The era of the "acoustic" or nonelectric recording began in 1877 when Thomas Edison's phonograph recorded his...

Dennis Brain on Record: A Comprehensive Discography of His Solo, Chamber and Orchestral Recordings.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Compiled by Robert L. Marshall. Newton Centre, Mass.: Margun Music, 1996. [xxviii, 162 p. $30.] The era of the "acoustic" or nonelectric recording began in 1877 when Thomas Edison's phonograph recorded his spoken rendition of "Mary Had a...

Latin Poetry and Conductus Rhythm in Medieval France.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Christopher Page. (Royal Musical Association Monographs, 8.) London: Royal Musical Association, 1997. [xi, 76 p. ISBN 0-947854-07-X.] This book addresses the problem of the conducti found in cum littera notation, normally unmeasured, as...

Chromatic Beauty in the Late Medieval Chanson: An Interpretation of Manuscript Accidents.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Thomas Brothers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. [xiii, 226 p. ISBN 0-521-55051-3. $64.95.] The publication in 1987 of Karol Berger's imposing Musica Ficta: Theories of Accidental Infections in Vocal Polyphony from...

Johannes Ockeghem: Masses and Models.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Fabrice Fitch. (Collection Ricercar, 2). Paris: Honore Champion, 1997. [xii, 240 p. ISBN 2-85203-735-1. Fr 350.] Fabrice Fitch's new monograph on the masses of Johannes Ockeghem (revised from his University of Manchester dissertation) is...

Orlando di Lasso in der Musikgeschichte: Bericht uber das Symposion der Bayarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munchen, 4-6. Juli 1997.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Bernhold Schmid. (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-historische Klasse Abhandlungen, Neue Folge, 111.) Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996. [276 p. ISBN 3-7696-0106-8.] This large...

Musical Patronage in Seventeenth-Century England: Christopher, First Baron Hatton (1605-1670).(Review)
March 1, 1999... Jonathan P. Wainwright. Aldershot, England: Scholar Press, 1997. [xviii, 470 p. ISBN 1-85928-278-4. $89.95.] Jonathan Wainwright has sieved through a large quantity of manuscript and printed music of the seventeenth century and established...

Music and Musicians in the Escorial Liturgy Under the Habsburgs, 1563-1700.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Michael Noone. (Eastman Studies in Music, 9.) Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1998. [xvii, 396 p. ISBN 1-878822-71-3. $99.50.] This study of the cultivation of liturgical music at the extraordinary monastery-palace built by...

Die Sprache der Natur: Natur in der Musik des 18. Jahrhunderts.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Peter Schleuning. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1998. [ix, 230 p. ISBN 3-476-01280-8. DM 58.] Die Sprache der Natur (The Language of Nature) explores eighteenth-century concepts of nature, their manifestations in music (mostly German and...

Monstrous Opera: Rameau and the Tragic Tradition.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Charles Dill. (Princeton Studies in Opera.) Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. [xx, 197 p. ISBN 0-691-04443-0. $39.95.] The first task in reviewing Charles Dill's new book is to explain the title. The "monster" in Jean-Philippe...

The Cambridge Companion to Handel.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Donald Burrows. (Cambridge Companions to Music.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. [xvi, 349 p. ISBN 0-521-45425-5 (cloth); 0-521-45613-4 (pbk.). $59.95 (cloth); $19.95 (pbk.).] This Companion proposes to offer the...

Johann Wanhal, Viennese Symphonist: His Life and His Musical Environment.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Paul Bryan. (Thematic Catalogues Series, 23.) Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1997. [xxiii, 557 p. ISBN 0-945193-63-7. $86.] There never has been much doubt that, once the evidence was in, Johann Wanhal (Vanhal) would be awarded a...

Method for the One-Keyed Flute: Baroque and Classical.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Janice Dockendorff Boland. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. [xiii, 228 p. ISBN 0-520-21447-1. $24.95 (pbk.).] Modern tutors for the eighteenthcentury flute are rare. Janice Dockendorff Boland's method is intended for the...

La lyre maconne: Haydn, Mozart, Spohr, Liszt.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Philippe A. Autexier. Paris: Editions Detrad/A.V.S., 1997. [297 p. ISBN 2-905-319-569. Fr 170.] Given the notorious secrecy of the Masonic order in the past, it is not surprising that the topic of music and Masonry has always invited...

Briefe an Hugo Faibt.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Hugo Wolf. Edited by Joachim Draheim and Susanne Hoy. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1996. [275 p. ISBN 35-7952-0858-0.] Despite the great interest in the music and musical life of the nineteenth century, much work remains to be done on the...

Franz Liszt. vol 3: The Final Years, 1861-1886.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Alan Walker. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. [xx, 594 p. ISBN 0-8014-8453-7. $24.95 (pbk.).] "Picaresque": suggesting a type of fiction dealing with the episodic adventures of an amiably roguish protagonist. Franz Liszt's life...

Domenico Dragonetti in England (1794-1846): The Career of a Double Bass Virtusso.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Fiona M. Palmer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. [xi, 291 p. ISBN 0-19-816591-9. $77.] Domenico Dragonetti (1763-1846), the internationally admired double-bass virtuoso, has long been acknowledged as the seminal figure in developing the...

The Contribution of Cambridge Ecclesiologists to the Revival of Anglican Choral Worship, 1839-62.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Dale Adelmann. (Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain.) Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1997. [xiv, 244 p. ISBN 1-85928-389-6. $68.95.] In the preface to this important contribution to the history of Anglican church music in the nineteenth...

Selected Letters of Sergei Prokofiev.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited and translated by Harlow Robinson. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. [xx, 348 p. ISBN 1-55553-347-7. $40.] Harlow Robinson's new book contains a representative sample of Sergey Prokofiev's correspondence with those who had...

Notes of a Moscow Pianist.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Dmitry Paperno. Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 1998. [226 p. ISBN 1-57467-034-4. $27.95.] Notes of a Moscow Pianist was first published in Russian in 1983 (Ann Arbor: Hermitage). Amadeus Press has now issued Dmitry Paperno's memoirs in...

The Music of Sergei Prokofiev.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Neil Minturn. (Composers of the Twentieth Century.) New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. [xiii, 241 p. ISBN 0-300-06366-0. $30.] Neil Minturn's book is the first fulllength analytical study of Sergey Prokofiev's music, and as such it...

Bela Bartok and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Judit Frigyesi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. [x, 357 p. ISBN 0-520-20740-8. $45.] A schism has long divided scholars studying the music of Bela Bartok: Anglo-Americans have tended to an analytic, music-theoretical...

Henri Dutilleux: His Life and Works.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Caroline Potter. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1997. [ix, 236 p. ISBN 1-85928-330-6. $59.95.] Biographies of composers often, but not always, assume a structure in which notable events of the composer's life are associated with musical...

Enclosure 3: Harry Partch.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Philip Blackburn. Saint Paul, Minn.: American Composers Forum, 1997. [523 p. ISBN 0-9656569-0-X. $90.] This book, called a "Partch BioScrapbook," is an extraordinary compilation by Philip Blackburn of reviews, photographs, lectures,...

Music and Nationalism in 20th-Century Great Britain and Finland.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Tomi Makela. Hamburg: Von Bockel Verlag, 1997. [243 p. ISBN 3-928770-99-3.] This book is a collection of nineteen papers delivered at a symposium at the Finnish Institute in London in December 1992. The essays, by British and...

Samuel Beckett and Music.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Mary Bryden. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. [xviii, 267 p. ISBN 0-19-818427-1. $75.] A study of Samuel Beckett's relationship to music could address three major topics: the significance of music in his works, the significance of...

Stage to Studio: Musicians and the Sound Revolution, 1890-1950.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By James P. Kraft. (Studies in Industry and Society, 9.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. [x, 255 p. ISBN 0-8018-5089-4. $35.] Stage to Studio, begun as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Southern California and...

Music-Cultures in Contact: Convergences and Collisions.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Edited by Margaret J. Kartomi and Stephen Blum. (Musicology, 16.) Basel: Gordon and Breach, 1994. [xiii, 289 p. ISBN 2-88449-137-6. $28 (pbk.).] Having just arrived back in California, it was impossible to read the title of this book...

A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Karin van Nieuwkerk. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. [xi, 226 p. ISBN 0-292-78723-5. $15.95.] Based on fieldwork conducted in two periods between 1988 and 1990 and a review of available sources dating from the late eighteenth...

Composing Interactive Music: Techniques and Ideas Using Max.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Todd Winkler. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998. [xiii, 350 p. ISBN 0-262-23193-X. $50.] Over the past decade, the music-programming environment known as Max has had a far-reaching impact on those involved with electronic and computer...

The Four Voices of Man.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Jerome Hines. New York: Limelight Editions, 1997. [xi, 227 p. ISBN 0-87910-099-0. $23.] The Four Voices of Man is a curious mixture of opposing and confusing viewpoints, contradictions from chapter to chapter, highly personal...

Schenker's Interpretive Practice.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Robert Snarrenberg. (Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis, 11.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. [xxiii, 175 p. ISBN 0-521-49726-4. $64.95.] For over forty years, North American musicians have been intrigued by the...

Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on Theory and Method.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By A. B. Marx. Edited and translated by Scott Burnham. (Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis, 12.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. [xvi, 197 p. ISBN 0-521-45274-0. $64.95.] The last few years have seen something of a...

The Piece as a Whole: Studies in Holistic Musical Analysis.(Review)
March 1, 1999... By Hugh Aitken. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997. [viii, 127 p. ISBN 0-275-96038-2. $17.95.] In this well-meaning but superficial attempt to expand the range of analytic discourse among undergraduate music students, composer Hugh Aitken...

"Infinite riches in a little room": the music collections in the Pierpont Morgan Library.
March 1, 1999... THE CARY COLLECTION SINCE 1968 When Mrs. Cary's collection was given to the library in September 1968, it contained some two hundred music manuscripts, to which we have added about four hundred. The first two decades following the gift...

New sources of music from Spain and colonial Mexico at the Sutro Library.(part of the California State Library)
March 1, 1999... The recent discovery of an anthology in manuscript of 124 late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Spanish theater songs imported to Mexico and three late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Mexican music manuscripts of theatrical,...