This book offers thorough and detailed research on nineteenth-and earlytwentieth-century piano performance practice. Undoubtedly, concepts of performance practice have changed throughout the years, and what once was essential may now be considered alien or pedantic. It is also evident that not everything intended by the composer is written in the score, and such will always be the case. Earlier recordings can serve as guides to the modern pianist, but they can never serve as fixed templates for successful interpretation. They should serve only as examples of long-established traditions. A good performance is still based on following the score with additional agogic interpretation, coupled with historical guidance. Peres da Costa sums it all in his last paragraph: 'To come to an understanding about what musical notation meant to composers and performers of the late nineteenth century, we must accept that the most admired musicians of the era approached the aesthetics of performance from a very different perspective than musicians today. Such knowledge suggests that a historically informed style of performance for any repertoire, time, or place requires more than just playing by the book' (p. 310).
Mark Darlow asserts that 'we understand Revolutionary culture far better than we did a decade or so ago' (p. 9), and he is right. A dazzling number of recent publications, including his own, reflect the current scholarly interest in this period amongst English-speaking academics. The author, a senior lecturer at Cambridge, also is correct in noting that despite the many studies to have come out on specific composers, theatres, forms and genres (listed in his bibliography of secondary sources) 'the full story of the Opéra's trajectory during the Revolution has never been told' (p. 6). Staging the French Revolution is a fascinating and thoroughly researched volume that contributes to the cultural, institutional and musical history of the Opéra. Its author describes it as 'an account of theatrical institutions, linked up with politics and reception' (p. 9). He therefore sets out to examine the political context in which important works of the period were premiè red by investigating the nature and extent of state intervention in French theatres. He also examines how these works, produced for the most prestigious stage in the nation, were received by the French public, and the influence they had on the social views of the French citizenry, a phenomenon that has not been examined up until now. The eight chapters of the book fall into two parts. The first four relate to what the author calls the 'external dimension' of the institution: the Opéra's relationship with state and municipal authorities, its ownership, its funding and its governance. The second part deals with the 'internal aspect': repertory, production process, reception and, most interestingly, revisions made in response to audience reaction, or after a change of regime. The critical apparatus includes a bibliography of manuscript sources, periodicals, printed primary and secondary sources, and an index of names, stage works and terms, with some surprising entries such as 'bail amphytéotique' (long lease), 'inflation', 'subsidy' and 'taste'. A companion website offers full references to the primary musical documents and the longer original French quotations, translated into English in the text. The decision to offload to this website the author's brief chronology of the Revolution and a glossary of common terms used in the period is regrettable. These short appendices would be much more useful if included in the volume itself. The first part of the book gives a gripping account of the relationship between the Opéra and its successive governing authorities: the Crown, the City of Paris, private entrepreneurs operating under a 'privilège', a self-managing collective of artists from the Opéra itself, the Assemblée Nationale, and finally the Commune. Some organs of government, such as the Comité d'instruction publique and the Comité de sureté générale, also exercised oversight and control over the theatres. What might surprise the modern reader is that in July of 1789 the Revolution did not break out as suddenly and violently on the lyric stage as it did in lif...
Le labyrinthe, un symbole millénaire qui se retrouve encore aujourd’hui sur les sols de pierre des cathédrales, est devenu pour le compositeur John Burke une sorte de laboratoire pour trouver l’essence de la démarche de la musique classique occidentale. Dans sa recherche de la transcendance, il s’est intéressé au labyrinthe tel que décrit dans l’ouvrage de Lauren Artress, Walking the Path, dont il a suivi les ateliers à San Francisco. Influencé par les ouvrages du mythologue américain Joseph Campbell, en particulier The Hero’s Journey, il a également exploré cette autre conception du voyage intérieur. Sur les traces de musiciens du xxe siècle comme Stockhausen et Boulez qui ont voulu évacuer l’expérience du concert classique avec les musiciens d’un côté et le public de l’autre, John Burke propose donc un espace musical où son langage classique infusé de philosophie orientale invite les musiciens et le public à entreprendre un voyage musical et spirituel très personnel.The labyrinth, a millennial symbol still found on stone floors of cathedrals, has for composer John Burke become a kind of laboratory in his quest to discern the essence of classical music experience in the West. His research on transcendence led to an interest in the labyrinth via workshops he attended by Lauren Artress in San Francisco, and as described in her book, Walking the Path. Influenced by the works of the American mythologist Joseph Campbell, in particular The Hero’s Journey, he also explored this other notion of the inner journey. And continuing the thrust of 20th century musicians Stockhausen and Boulez to alter the classical concert with musicians and audience on different sides, John Burke used language replete with Eastern philosophy to describe a musical space that invites musicians and audience to embark on a very personal musical and spiritual journey
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