Music & Letters articles from February 1997

Music & Letters archives from February 1997

Further light on the career of 'Captain' Francois De Prendcourt.
February 1, 1997... As Michael Tilmouth has pointed out in The New Grove, 'nearly everything that is known' about Captain Prendcourt, the keyboard player and composer, 'is derived from the account of Roger North who, as Attorney General in James II's...

More light on Haydn's 'English widow.' (Joseph Haydn)
February 1, 1997... Haydn smiled and said: 'Letters from an English widow in London, who loved me; but she was, though already 60 years old, still a beautiful and charming woman, whom I, if I had been single at the time, would very easily have married'.(1)...

A tale of two operas: Stanford's 'Savonarola' and 'The Canterbury Pilgrims' from gestation to production. (Charles Villiers Stanford)
February 1, 1997... Few nineteenth-century composers had the pleasure of having two operas premiered within two weeks of each other. Charles Villiers Stanford is the only British member of this group, the operas in question being Savonarola (Hamburg,...

Bartok's last concert?
February 1, 1997... Bartok was by nature orderly, yet when death caught up with him, in September 1945, his affairs were in an untidy state. He left two conflicting wills - one Hungarian, one American(1) - which were to generate controversy for some four decades....

Laborare fratres in unum: Festschrift Laszlo Dobszay zum 60: Geburstag.
February 1, 1997... This handsome volume is in every way worthy of its dedicatee, a fine scholar who has worked tirelessly in his native country for the better appreciation of its heritage of chant and who has fostered international co-operation through the Cantus...

Makers of the Harpsichord and the Clavichord, 1440-1840.
February 1, 1997... After several years of waiting for a new edition of Donald Boalch's indispensable compendium, researchers and collectors have at last been rewarded with a beautifully produced volume, containing information about a breathtaking profusion of...

'Con che soavita': Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and Dance.
February 1, 1997... A Festschrift can be a difficult volume to organize, especially when the scholar who is being honoured has contributed to an area of research which has multiple aspects and consequences: in order to avoid putting out a hotchpotch, the editors...

Henry Purcell: The Origins and Development of his Musical Style.
February 1, 1997... Why has it been so difficult to write about Henry Purcell's music? Back in the 1960s Franklin B. Zimmerman announced a forthcoming volume entitled 'Henry Purcell, 1659-1695: Analytical Essays on his Musical Forms'. This was to be the final...

Purcell Studies.
February 1, 1997... It was perhaps inevitable that the 1995 tercentenary commemorations of Purcell's death would yield a rich legacy of publications devoted to his life and music. And because the circle of scholars actively engaged in Purcell research is far from...

Aspects of Mozart's Music in G Minor: Toward the Identification of Common Structural and Compositional Characteristics.
February 1, 1997... Whether or not one accepts Saint-Foix's description of G minor as 'a tonality that for Mozart always bore a marked significance of passionate feverishness', or Einstein's assertion that 'G minor is for Mozart the key of fate', one cannot deny...

Music and the Occult: French Musical Philosophies, 1750-1950.
February 1, 1997... Joscelyn Godwin, in adding a valuable description of the musico-cosmic speculations of French esotericists of the period 1750-1950 to a series of similar books on cosmic harmony and theosophy, is quite explicit about how little this has to do...

Mahler's Sixth Symphony: A Study in Musical Semiotics.
February 1, 1997... This book makes valuable contributions to our understanding of Mahler's musical language. No less significantly, however, it is a state-of-the-art musicological performance which elegantly displays tensions which mark the discipline and its...

The Blackwell History of Music in Britain.
February 1, 1997... The writing of concise but comprehensive history is a prospect challenging enough in itself, but when the century and country concerned are the author's own, the task can become fraught with perceptual difficulties. Some of these are openly...

The Music of Gershwin.
February 1, 1997... George Gershwin is an awkward presence in America's musical landscape. He helped to shape an American musical vernacular and then to adapt it to the concert hall and opera house, thus serving as an influence on composers from Aaron Copland and...

The Music of Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): A Catalogue.
February 1, 1997... Well before the centenary of Poulenc's birth in 1999, musicologists worldwide have been putting his affairs in order, so that all that really remains to be achieved is a critical edition of his oeuvres completes. To this end, Professor...

Blindheit als Schutz vor der Wahrheit: Aufzeichnungen eines Beteiligten zu Musik und Musikleben in der ehemaligen Sowjetunion.
February 1, 1997... Almost as much as composers, musicologists in the former Soviet Union carried a heavy burden. They were expected to take part in the same legalistic rituals of accusation, self-abasement and sentencing, and to be equally willing to stand as...

The Music of Per Norgard: Fourteen Interpretative Essays.
February 1, 1997... Per Norgard stands firmly in the line of Nielsen, Sibelius and Vagn Holmboe: his interest in organic consistency in musical composition clearly derives from his illustrious predecessors. Sibelius particularly impressed Norgard, though in many...

Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge.
February 1, 1997... 'Once upon a time', writes Lawrence Kramer in the epilogue to his new book, 'the autonomous artwork could stand alone, no need for props. But time runs on; hurry up please, it's time. Persistent sightings notwithstanding, the Autonomous Artwork...

Music, Politics, and the Academy.
February 1, 1997... This book is a thoughtful repudiation of the 'new musicology', as well as being a singularly vehement j'accuse, whose principal energies are directed against two scholars in particular: Susan McClary and Leo Treitler. It is only fair to both...

Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance.
February 1, 1997... I cannot really write this review without using the word 'authenticists', thrown into a dazzling spotlight by Richard Taruskin in Authenticity and Early Music, edited by Nicholas Kenyon (Oxford, 1988); and although natural courtesy leads me to...

Harnasie: Goralenballett in einem Akt und zwei Aufzugen
February 1, 1997... It is widely acknowledged that the study of musical nationalism must avail itself of the insights gained from theories of artistic production and reception. The psychology of influence and the politics of reception assume acute relevance in...