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The authors of "Defragmentation: Curating Contemporary Music," a special issue of the Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik published in 2019, considered all aspects of any given artistic event as fair game for curation. They suggested that not only could the choice of pieces, soloists, conductors, and ensembles be (re)tooled (including even site-specific aspects), but the roles of the musicians and audience and even value regimes could be instrumentalized to accord with the artistic demands of the curator. In her introduction to the special issue, Dorothee Richter argued that curation should be a "practice that is deeply involved in the politics of display, politics of site, politics of transfer and translation, and regimes of visibility." If we understand politics with Jacques Rancière as "giving form to the social," then Richter suggests that every thinkable manner in which people relate can, and should, be weighed when programming a concert. Curators need to reflect and act upon the way relationships in our world are displayed, the interplay involved on site, the participation or lack thereof of an audience, the participants' ability to understand, enjoy, and be entertained, and even the audience's and presenter's perceived positions in society and how they play out in concert. Writing as a performer-researcher, a cultural-sociologist, and a musicologist, and drawing on previous research in the visual arts, we discuss the impact of the curator within the European new music world. We question the curator's central role and probe shifts in power relations between festival directors, receptive venues, and performing ensembles. In our view, the rise of the curator in the new music world leads us in at least two distinct directions. First, as in the visual arts world, the individual curator may assume the role of the new protagonist, displacing the performing artists from their throne. When this occurs, curating takes place in a game of mutual competition, distinction, and exploitation, in which illustration of an abstract idea or concept prevails over musical experience. Alternatively, curating may become a collective affair and responsibility along the lines of commoning principles, in which curating returns to its etymological roots as a form of caring for each other and for both the tradition and the future of music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The histories of finance and music are more interconnected than they might at first appear. From ancient ideas on the mathematical harmony of the universe to ultra-contemporary approaches driven by networked data, the flow of sounds and the circulation of capital have long traced one another's shadow. Indeed, since the publication of Jacques Attali's Noise in 1977, musicologists and sound scholars have been probing how music as an expression of mathematical knowledge has intersected with a range of intellectual, social, and economic shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an interview with John Michael Cooper talking about musicologist's journey from percussionist to scholar, highlighting their shift from performing to exploring music history and theory. Topics include focus on Felix Mendelssohn and later Florence Price and Margaret Bonds; and transition from performance to musicology, the fascination with Mendelssohn's work and identity, and the discovery of lesser-known composers like Florence Price and Margaret Bonds.

Numerous pages have already been filled out about Astor Piazzolla's operita Maria de Buenos Aires. What I aim to bring anew through this work is the delineation of the musical dramaturgy within this work, with an emphasis on the orchestral ensemble, instrumental architecture, general developmental principles, organization of musical material, created effects, and how they assist in constructing each section. Additionally, I aspire to bring this Piazzollian masterpiece closer to the public. Despite premiering in May 1968, it remains relatively unknown and rarely staged. Librettist Horacio Ferrer employs a "coded," enigmatic language that is challenging to understand even for Spanish speakers. But the musicality and rhythm provided by his text contribute masterfully to the construction of the work's dramaturgy, with the operita's libretto perfectly fitting Piazzolla's language. Maria de Buenos Aires is an important lesson in composition and orchestration, as well as a model of musical dramaturgy construction. It is also a truly source of inspiration for instrumentalists, singers, composers, orchestrators, or musicologists, as well as for actors, directors, choreographers, and poets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kunqu, one of the oldest forms of Chinese opera, features a unique artistic expression arising from the interplay between vocal melody and the tonal quality of its lyrics. Identifying Kunqu's character tone trend (vocal melodies derived from tonal quality of the lyrics) is critical to understanding and preserving this art form. Traditional research methods, which rely on qualitative descriptions by musicologists, have often been debated due to their subjective nature. In this study, we present a novel approach to analyze the character tone trend in Kunqu by employing computer modeling machine learning techniques. By extracting the character tone trend of Kunqu using computational modeling methods and employing machine learning techniques to apply cluster analysis on Kunqu's character tone melody, our model uncovers musical structural patterns between singing and speech, validating and refining the qualitative findings of musicologists. Furthermore, our model can automatically assess whether a piece adheres to the rhythmic norms of 'the integration of literature and music' in Kunqu, thus contributing to the digitization, creation, and preservation of this important cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the musical style in Scarlatti’s sonata K. 288, as K. 288 has not yet been explored in detail in the Scarlatti scholarship. Not only the form, but also other musical elements, such as melody, harmony, and rhythm are being explored. Furthermore, irregular groupings are discussed. By examining some characteristics shown in K. 288, this paper shows Scarlatti’s ‘originality’ and contributes to discovering Scarlatti as “the interesting historical figure” (Sutcliffe 2003, 1). In addition to the analysis, the scope of this paper was expanded by including a comparison with a contemporary pastiche composition by the author of this paper. This pastiche composition was written to emulate Scarlatti’s style, and this paper discusses the similarities and differences between the two pieces. In this way, theory and practice are combined, which would broaden the horizon of musicology and music theory. Therefore, this research would be of interest to not only musicologists but also musicians and composers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the subject of the ekphrastic description of experiencing music. It shows the main differences between ekphrasis and commonly used analysis in music theory and musicology. In approaching the problem of ekphrasis with what is called pure music, I emphasize its ancient understanding, thus differing from Lydia Goehr (2010) and Siglind Bruhn (2000 , 2001 , 2019). The ekphrastic analysis of the first movement of Arnold Schoenberg's Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19 conducted in this article uses the methodology developed by Gottfried Boehm (2014) and Georges Didi-Huberman (2005 , 2015 , 2017 , 2018) in the discipline of art history. This article aims to delineate a new way of researching the art of music, an essential feature of which is the combination of the traditions of analytic philosophy and phenomenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it say about you if you enjoy sexist humour? One answer to this question holds that finding sexist humour funny reveals that you have sexist beliefs, whilst another holds that it reveals nothing deeper about you at all. I argue that neither of these answers are correct, as neither can capture the feeling of unwilling complicity we often get from enjoying sexist jokes. Rather, we should navigate between these two positions by understanding the sense of humour as a kind of sensibility or taste, analogous to Anne Eaton's account of erotic taste. This allows for a fleshing out of the purely belief-centred understanding of the sense of humour, adding emotional, perceptual and motivational aspects to it. Finally, I propose that one's sense of humour is shaped the representations one engages with, which suggests a possible avenue for habituating it in a more egalitarian direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between performance and analysis has been a consistent point of discussion in music discourse for at least the past four decades. This article uses Johannesburg Etude No. 1 (2012) by South African composer Clare Loveday as a case study to explore ways in which searches for musical meaning may proceed from insights generated in and through a performer's body – how bodily knowledge may become an entry point into music analysis. I draw on musicologists Nicholas Cook and Suzanne Cusick to establish frameworks through which performance may be approached not as an 'end point' of structural music analysis, but rather as the primary point of entry into analytical endeavours. I offer a 'bodily analysis' of Johannesburg Etude No. 1, which I first performed in 2014 as part of the Cape Town public arts festival Infecting the City. This analysis is connected to notions of an 'urban imaginary', an affect which I suggest is characteristic of an African metropolis such as Johannesburg.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musical Impressionism is one of the currents that reflected the anti-romantic discourse of the beginning of the 20th century, having a resonance only in the French cultural space - where the preference for suggestion, for deliberately imprecise tone and nuance has always worked. Although musicological studies do not display very important differences in attitude when it comes to defining impressionist compositions, musicologists’ opinions sometimes diverge. However, taking into consideration the extent to which the comparative method and the stylistic analysis, applied to music, can be conditioned by subjective experiences, the discrepancies can be said to be almost negligible. Basically, the opinion is that the elements of Impressionism in the first half of the 20th century were the most marked in certain compositions by Petar Konjović (1883-1970), Miloje Milojević (1884-1946) and Stevan Hristić (1885-1958), and to a lesser degree (only in the case of a few parameters of the musical language) we can see them in certain compositions by other composers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the origins and functioning of the Wroclaw School of Musicology in the first half of the 20th century. is relevant, since the development of new approaches in modern Ukraine requires the broadest historical generalizations, while the general indicator of the genesis and results of the development of the relevant links of educational institutions indicated in the special literature is not sufficiently covered in the scientific works of Ukrainian and foreign musicologists until our time. This is connected not only with the discovery and analysis of new documentary materials and facts, but also with the unfortunate lack of regular cooperation between the musicology centers of Wroclaw and Lviv at the scientific and educational and methodological levels in the modern period. University musicology of the Wrocław school in the forms of musicological embodiments of the concept of a higher school has become an important factor in the educational completeness of professional musical training, taking into account the organic interaction of the higher level of music schooling with primary and secondary levels, which is broken in the modern Western European musiceducational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Or voit tout en aventure by Guido is often regarded as an archetype of the late-medieval notationally and rhythmically complex style that musicologists term the ars subtilior. Transmitted in Chantilly, Mus'ee Cond'e, MS 564, the ballade has gained notoriety for both its self-reflexive text and its idiosyncratic notation. The song's narrator laments the invention of new and confusing figures, but the song's notation incorporates a collection of special note shapes--lozenge-shaped figures with appended stems and flags. Previous studies have emphasized the obscurity of the notation of Or voit. Three of its note shapes represent the same duration, leading scholars to suggest that the notation of the song is unnecessarily and thereby ironically complex and redundant. Analyzing Or voit from the psychological perspective of hypothetical performers as they think through the notation of the piece allows a new reading of the song to emerge. The notation of Or voit is not ambiguous but projects distinct gestures from which localized notational hierarchies can be inferred. The humor of Or voit can thus be located not in the notation but in the text, which claims dishonestly that the notation is "not well done." Rereading Or voit from the performer's psychological perspective illustrates that reflecting on the contrasting conceptual frameworks of historical notations can help to resolve music-analytical problems that, at face value, seem to arise from the playful incompetence of historical thinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the development of the library of the International Mozarteum Foundation after Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany, 1938 to 1945. Although the Mozarteum Foundation was under direct government control, it nominally remained a non-governmental institution even during the Nazi era. Therefore, although it was not directly involved in the National Socialist system of cultural property theft, it made intensive efforts to expand its holdings from collections expropriated by the National Socialists. The driving force behind this was the musicologist Erich Valentin, who was also responsible for the library; he worked closely with the Viennese professor of musicology, Erich Schenk. Various, entirely unsuccessful attempts to profit from the expropriation of Jewish collectors (like Stefan zweig) are described. In contrast, the intensive efforts of the Mozarteum Foundation to take over expropriated libraries of ecclesiastical institutions, such as St Peter's Abbey in Salzburg with its valuable historical holdings, were successful. The article also deals with the restitutions after World War II, which only began a decade after the end of the war and were not carried out systematically. Therefore, looted property could still be identified in recent years, the restitution of which is also addressed. An important concern of the article is also to point out the importance of a thorough documentation of the results of provenance research (not only in regard to the Nazi period). All the information ascertained about the provenance of the individual sources should be permanently documented in the catalogues, if possible, in standardised form. Cet article examine le développement de la bibliothèque de la Fondation internationale Mozarteum après l'annexion de l'Autriche par l'Allemagne nazie, de 1938 à 1945. La Fondation Mozarteum était certes sous le contrôle direct de l'État, mais elle restait nominalement une institution non gouvernementale même pendant la période nazie. Elle n'a donc pas été directement impliquée dans le processus national-socialiste de spoliations de biens culturels, mais elle a déployé des efforts considérables pour accroître ses fonds à partir de collections spoliées par les nationaux-socialistes. Le musicologue Erich Valentin, également responsable de la bibliothèque, en étroite collaboration avec le professeur de musicologie viennois Erich Schenk, a joué un rôle moteur dans cette entreprise. Diverses tentatives, totalement infructueuses, de profiter de l'expropriation de collectionneurs juifs (tels que Stefan zweig) sont décrites. En revanche, les efforts intensifs de la Fondation Mozarteum pour récupérer les bibliothèques confisquées d'institutions ecclésiastiques, telles que l'abbaye Saint-Pierre de Salzbourg et ses précieux fonds historiques, ont été couronnés de succès. L'article aborde également les restitutions effectuées après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, qui n'ont commencé qu'une décennie après la fin de la guerre et n'ont pas été menées de manière systématique. C'est pourquoi des biens spoliés ont encore pu être identifiés ces dernières années, et leur restitution est également évoquée. L'un des principaux objectifs de cet article est de souligner à quel point il est important de documenter minutieusement les résultats des recherches sur la provenance (pas seulement en ce qui concerne la période nazie). Toutes les informations relatives à la provenance devraient être documentées de manière permanente dans les catalogues, si possible sous une forme standardisée. Der Beitrag untersucht die Entwicklung der Bibliothek der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum nach dem Anschluss Österreichs an Nazi-Deutschland in der zeit zwischen 1938 und 1945. Die Stiftung Mozarteum stand zwar unter direkter staatlicher Kontrolle, blieb aber nominell auch während der NS-zeit eine nichtstaatliche Einrichtung. Daher war sie zwar nicht unmittelbar in das nationalsozialistische System des Kulturgüterraubes eingebunden, bemühte sich aber intensiv darum, ihren Bestand aus von den Nationalsozialisten enteigneten Sammlungen zu erweitern. Treibende Kraft war dabei der Musikwissenschaftler Erich Valentin, der auch für die Bibliothek zuständig war; er arbeitete eng mit dem Wiener Professor für Musikwissenschaft Erich Schenk zusammen. Beschrieben werde verschiedene, durchweg erfolglosen Versuche, von der Enteignung jüdischer Sammler (hier insbesondere Stefan zweig) zu profitieren. Erfolgreich waren im Gegensatz dazu die intensiven Bemühungen der Stiftung Mozarteum um die Übernahme von enteigneten Bibliotheken kirchlicher Institutionen wie dem Stift St. Peter in Salzburg mit seinen wertvollen historischen Beständen. Der Beitrag geht auch auf die Restitutionen nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg ein, die erst ein Jahrzehnt nach dem Ende des Krieges begannen und nicht systematisch durchgeführt wurden. Daher konnte auch in den letzten Jahren noch Raubgut identifiziert werden, dessen Restitution ebenfalls thematisiert wird. Ein wichtiges Anliegen des Beitrages ist es auch, auf die Bedeutung einer sorgfältigen Dokumentation der Ergebnisse der Provenienzforschung (nicht nur im Blick auf die NS-zeit) hinzuweisen. Alle ermittelten Informationen zur Provenienz der einzelnen Quellen sollten in den Katalogen, möglichst in standardisierter Form, dauerhaft dokumentiert werden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a review of the book "Jacinto Valledor (1744-1809). Tonadillas. Volume 2. Works from 1785 onwards", edited by Aurèlia Pessarrodona. The book includes 24 tonadillas by the composer Jacinto Valledor, of which 11 were composed between 1785 and 1797 in Madrid. Pessarrodona's critical study provides a biographical synthesis of the composer, analyzes the tonadillas in their musical context, and traces Valledor's evolution and contribution to this popular genre in the 18th century. The edition includes meticulous editorial criteria and is accompanied by librettos and musical manuscripts, making it relevant for musicologists, literary scholars, and performing arts enthusiasts. The research updates and rehabilitates Valledor's memory as a composer of tonadillas, highlighting the importance of continuing to study this scenic genre. [Extracted from the article]

How did musical activity intersect with imperialism and colonialism in the Cold War period (1948–89)? While musicologists have started to explore this question, most current research has focused on the role of the U.S.A. rather than declining European powers, and has frequently foregrounded those efforts at engagement and exchange that Christina Klein has termed 'Cold War Orientalism'. With reference to the archival records of one Cold War colonial encounter in British Guiana, this article reveals a more disturbing strain of postwar cultural relations, one in which efforts at rapprochement were obstructed by imperial powers, and in which colonial cultural voices were denied or dismissed. At the same time, the article considers the surprising case of a British communist musician – Alan Bush – who, in spite of these barriers to encounter, was able to attempt a form of cultural hybridity in his opera The Sugar Reapers (1962–1965). Ultimately, this article demonstrates the importance of interpreting cultural artefacts like Bush's opera as musical embodiments of complex colonial connections, and of exploring more deeply those Cold War encounters in which the imperial past was painfully present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the science and art of music have been in constant change due to various controversies throughout history, Iranian classical music has also been changed normally. Iranian music, in which the pre-Islamic "rah" instruction was applied, was replaced by the "advar" and "maqam" systems after Islam. This operating system has been changed again and is now known as "destgah". The reasons for the transition of the "Heft (seven) Destgah" system, its historical process, the concept and why it was seven have not been met with any clear explanation in the musical tracts and historical sources. The results of the work of musicologists and researchers of our time also have not been given a definitive explanation. According to our research on Destgah, the oldest explanation is found in Osman Dede's Persian verse Rabt-ı Tagyîrât-ı Mûsikî, written on the subject of music. Osman Dede quoted the system applied in Iran with the phrase "Heftgane" (seven). In this article, after the information about Iranian music and the "destgah" system, Osman Dede's life, sources and his comments about Iranian music and the "destgah" system in Rabt-ı Tagyîrat-ı Musiki are included and evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One thing above others is known widely about the so-called 'English' cadence: that it is not English. Ever since musicologists of the mid-twentieth century named it, the cadence has laboured under the guise of its deceptiveness. However, as argued in this article, the cadence has much to tell us about the musical culture of England at the end of the sixteeenth and into the seventeenth century, during which period it was popular. The 'English' cadence shines a light on the movement towards tonality, the twilight period of solmization, and the understanding of false relations. An etymology of the cadence, making use of etymology's older, more playful, punning role as the rhetorical trope etymologia , demonstrates that (English or not), the cadence has much to tell us about this poignant period of English history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyse piano compositions by A. Schoenberg (Six pieces, Op. 19) and A. Berg (Sonata, Op. 1) in the context of a performance reading based on the symbolist aestheticism of expressing the reviving string-plucking analogy of the keyboard-piano expression. The methodological basis is the intonation approach of B. Asafiev's school in the works of Ukrainian musicologists, including T. Verkina, O. Kozarenko, I. Lyashenko, O. Markova, O. Sokol and others, using research methods of comparative-stylistic, hermeneutical, biographical-descriptive, and analytical- typological. The scientific novelty lies in the originality of the observation of the compensatory aestheticism of the performance perspective of the above music by A. Schoenberg and A. Berg and the correspondence of the latter to the neo-symbolist tendencies of contemporary creative thinking. Another independent conclusion is the nature of this performing choice, which meets the audience's expectations and is correlated with the game-mosaic worldview of our time to exclude dramatic and tragic angles of the content of the musical classics. Conclusions. The neo-symbolist eclecticism of the post-avant-garde revived the keyboard string- plucking analogy in piano sound production, giving pianistic expression a salon-like spiritualised "lightness" that reoriented the expressionist-salon tendencies of the piano heritage of the Novovidenians to a compensatory aestheticism of pro-symbolist meaning. The reality of performing compositions by A. Schoenberg and A. Berg is that the music of their works, including those performed by the author of this essay, approaches the character of salon cordiality of sound, which rejects expressionist anti- aestheticism in favour of pro-Schubertian greetings of the post-post-avant-garde. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important question in Stephen Lett's provocative article is K'eguro Macharia's, "Who is gathered by your invitation?" (2021). Lett outlines how the founders of the Society for Music Theory staked out territory for the discipline to establish theorists as separate from composers, musicologists, and pedagogues, and how they assessed who was to be invited by determining what theory as a discipline was and what it was to be. He then discusses how others have been (and still are) invited or excluded based on principles present since the founding of the society and offers suggestions for how to make SMT as an institution more welcoming by using the ideas of homemaking and world-building. My response addresses two topics: first, that the narrow view of the discipline of music theory present at its inception created an anti-pedagogy bias that exists to this day; and second, that this narrow view is perpetuated by graduate programs, which can and should be changed in order to achieve the goal of diversification of the discipline and its members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After St Cecilia's reportedly incorrupt body was excavated in Rome in 1599, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrato commissioned a series of artworks in her honour. The last of these, Guido Reni's St Cecilia playing the violin (1606), shows her gazing upwards, violin in hand, in a state of musical ecstasy. Highlighting the importance of this painting, which thus far has received little attention from musicologists, this article seeks to unpack the ambiguities inherent in Reni's portrayal of the virgin martyr as a violinist. Taking the complex tradition linking Cecilia with music as a point of departure, the article examines the portrait in the context of contemporary attitudes to spiritual listening and women's performance. This brings into focus the network of ideas about music-induced transcendence that would have informed visual readings of the painting; conversely, it also shows that the virginal saint was not immune to sensualizing interpretations. Finally, the study explores the ways in which the portrait references the saint's miraculous body, suggesting that Reni sought to emphasize Cecilia's sacred chastity and to gesture towards a numinous music unknowable by the senses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the efforts of the young musicologists Ekaterina Blazhkova in Leningrad, Friedrich Hommel, and Wilhelm in West Germany between 1990 and 2000, the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt and Russia exchange was strengthened. The interplay of the letters that were sent reveals that a musical constellation was created. The IMD helped Blazhkova when she authored and defended the first academic work in Russian with regard to the history of Darmstädter Ferienkursen. For other Russian composers, such as Alexander Knaifel and Alexander Alexander Radvilovich, whose attendance to Darmstadt in 1992 and 1994 opened doors for the New Sounds Festival in St. Petersburg, which attracted musicians from Central Europe, Blazhkova's involvement was also significant. This article aims to reconstruct the background of the relationship between Darmstadt and St. Petersburg after the cold war. It is based on correspondence preserved at the IMD Archiv and Stadtarchiv Darmstadt, interviews with some musicians involved in that bicultural project, and specialized literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the accessibility and immediacy of drumming. It highlights the connection between stroke and sound. It discusses the author's experiences with drumming facilitation, pedagogical issues, and historical contexts. It reports that the author acknowledges colonialist perspectives and shares personal experiences as an ethnomusicologist and professional drummer.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a basic overview of the current ways of perceiving the Franciscan musicians of the Franciscan Province of the Most Holy Redeemer in literature, starting from the mid-19th century until today. Following the discourse of the writings of Croatian and European (mostly Italian) scholars (especially musicologists) regarding the elucidation of the names, as well as the biographies, actions and contributions of musicians and members of the Franciscan Province from the 18th century (and partly of those of the older mother-Province Bosna Srebrena), we can notice the different approaches and gradual increase in insight into the number and achievements of the respective protagonists. Don Petar (formerly Fra Pavao OFM) Nakić (Podgrebača/Bulić nr Benkovac, 1694 – Conegliano, Treviso, 1769) and Fra Petar Knežević OFM (Kapitul nr Knin, 1701 – Sinj, 1768), both known since the second half of the 19th century as the most famous among Franciscan musicians had to wait to be »recognized« and more correctly understood in relation to their musical predecessors, contemporaries and successors. At the same time, recent works on Croatian music history from the 18th century, such as articles, specialized (non-scientific) editions, or historical syntheses/overviews etc., can by no means provide a sufficient overview of them anymore. Future research, which should be continued and intensified, will certainly provide us with answers to some of the questions that are still open, and enable a sharper picture of the facts already known to us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synaesthesia is a multifaceted phenomenon encompassing genetic, neurochemical, and cognitive elements, contributing to a deeper understanding of how our senses and perceptions are intricately intertwined. This paper approaches an interdisciplinary approach to a current subject in cognitive psychology, examined by specialists from diverse fields: cognitive psychologists, neurologists, philologists, musicologists etc. Nevertheless, the diverse manifestations of synaesthesia and its phenomenological nature have posed challenges in verifying and studying its origins and mechanisms. This article adopts a medical standpoint in its examination of synesthesia, with a particular focus on its evolutionary trends and its influence within the domain of musical tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current state of the converter accordion is the result of a path marked by reflection, commitment, ingenuity and creativity. Factories, interpreters, musicologists have played a key role in this evolution. Although its appearance is associated with the year 1829 by Cyrill Demian (Austria), according to various literature on the subject, the origin of the accordion is often associated with the predecessor instruments of the organ, given the reed system used by both. At the same time, other ancient instruments that used free reeds or that made use of bellows as a sound activating agent, also inspired the successive improvements introduced in the accordion as we know it today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students in the United States discuss popular music all the time, but often outside the music classroom. How can music educators bring those conversations into the classroom in ways that students find engaging and meaningful? Podcasts offer a potential solution. By taking on the role of the popular music podcaster, students enrich their conversations by developing analytical skills that theorists, musicologists, and critics use in the process of making a tangible product. This article invites educators to consider the potential of popular music podcasts using pedagogical strategies that include listening, responding, and project-based learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interpretation and performance of 18th-century musical texts, specifically focusing on the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. It highlights the argument made by musicologist Edward Dent in 1906 that some of Scarlatti's sonatas were intended for the violin and keyboard rather than a single keyboard instrument. Further examination of the source materials revealed additional sonatas with similar characteristics. The article also mentions recordings and performances of Scarlatti's sonatas using different instrumentations, including violin and keyboard. Additionally, the article briefly mentions recordings of Italian sonatas from the 1730s arranged for recorder and harpsichord, as well as recordings of Jean-Marie Leclair's violin sonatas and Antonio Vivaldi's serenata "La Senna festeggiante." Finally, it discusses the opera "Zoroastre" by Jean-Philippe Rameau and the premiere recording of the 1749 version. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses a conference held at St John's College, University of Cambridge, focusing on medieval French narrative and song. The conference included presentations by literary scholars and musicologists from various universities, exploring topics such as the international impact of French songs, translation issues, the role of nature in medieval French literature, and the performance of medieval songs. The conference concluded with a concert by the Ensemble Leones, showcasing the repertoire discussed during the event. The success of the conference has led to potential collaborations between scholars and musicians for future projects. [Extracted from the article]

Anglophone topic theory scholarship evinces only peripheral awareness of rich traditions of topical analysis that have existed outside its linguistic sphere. Many of the elements defining Anglophone topic theory today were present in the writings of Soviet musicologists, some dating back to the 1930s. Soviet "topic theory"—to use the term anachronistically—grew out of the method of holistic analysis (tselostnïy analiz) developed by Leo (Lev) Mazel' and Viktor Zuckermann (Tsukkerman). Even the earliest scholarship of these theorists is peppered with references to topics, with the topical explorations embedded within broader considerations of style, history, and musical structure and discourse. By the early 1960s, a culture of topical analysis, one that emphasized topics' expressive and formal functions, was in place, and over the next decade it began to transform into a theory. The core of this essay is devoted to Mazel's and, especially, Zuckermann's understanding of topics and what they make possible in music analysis. Mazel's and Zuckermann's work stimulated the next generation of theorists—including Viktor Bobrovsky, Yevgeny Nazaykinsky, and Vyacheslav Medushevsky—to systematize and consolidate their ideas and take them in new directions. This study—part conspectus, part interpretation, and part critique—surveys the evolution of topic theory by holistic analysts and their disciples between 1930 and 1990. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the influence of the French composer and musicologist Charles Bordes (1863–1909) on the definition of 'Basque music' both in the peninsular Basque Country and in Paris. On the one hand, it studies Bordes' ideological background, his vision of traditional Basque music and the acceptance of his shared musicological legacy in Basque regionalist and nationalist circles. On the other hand, it pays particular attention to the reception of his ideas in the Parisian musical milieu through the analysis of the criticism aroused by the premieres of two Basque‐themed operas: Ramuntcho (1908) and Chiquito (1909). This article frames Bordes' activity within the regionalist movement in France. However, it also draws attention to the transnational and ambivalent nature of regionalism, especially in cross‐border spaces, where regionalist discourses could take divergent forms according to the different nationalist agendas with which they were associated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I analyse the creative opus by the Serbian composer and academician Vlastimir Trajković (1947–2017) through the lens of his 'tributes' to several of his favourite composers and musicologists, including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Olivier Messiaen, and Manuel de Falla. However, Trajković also made a conscious effort to include at least two Serbian musical figures in this 'Pantheon' of greats: his own grandfather, Miloje Milojević (1884–1946), whose modernist and decidedly 'antiromantic' style, strongly influenced by impressionism, had a profound impact on Trajković's own stylistic choices, and Dragutin Gostuški (1923–1998), whose seminal book Vreme umetnosti [The Time of Art] influenced Trajković's entire poetics. I argue that Trajković built his own artistic identity with the ultimate goal of honouring his 'heroes', while also aiming to broaden the affirmation and acknowledgment of Serbian art music, recognising it as a constitutive element of European musical legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groove, understood as an enjoyable compulsion to move to musical rhythms, typically varies along an inverted U-curve with increasing rhythmic complexity (e.g., syncopation, pickups). Predictive coding accounts posit that moderate complexity drives us to move to reduce sensory prediction errors and model the temporal structure. While musicologists generally distinguish the effects of pickups (anacruses) and syncopations, their difference remains unexplored in groove. We used pupillometry as an index to noradrenergic arousal while subjects listened to and rated drumbeats varying in rhythmic complexity. We replicated the inverted U-shaped relationship between rhythmic complexity and groove and showed this is modulated by musical ability, based on a psychoacoustic beat perception test. The pupil drift rates suggest that groovier rhythms hold attention longer than ones rated less groovy. Moreover, we found complementary effects of syncopations and pickups on groove ratings and pupil size, respectively, discovering a distinct predictive process related to pickups. We suggest that the brain deploys attention to pickups to sharpen subsequent strong beats, augmenting the predictive scaffolding's focus on beats that reduce syncopations' prediction errors. This interpretation is in accordance with groove envisioned as an embodied resolution of precision-weighted prediction error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The infamous resolution of 1948, denouncing formalism in music, was widely considered as a serious blow to outstanding composers such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and others. Far less attention was paid to the destinies of musicologists who also suffered during the second wave of official denunciation in 1949. In fact, musicologists were severely criticized both as the pioneers of formalism and as cosmopolitans (i.e., Jews). The author shows that the spirit of 1948/1949 negatively influenced not only the young and accomplished scholars of that generation, but affected the professional and public atmosphere for quite a long time, until Gorbachev's "perestroika". The personal destiny and career of the author, examined in the context of the 1970s, describes the dangers in her decision to research 20th century non-Russian music, and the complications stemming from her Jewish nationality. Thanks to the support and prolonged fight undertaken by her teachers and senior colleagues she was accepted to PhD studies and later to a research position at the Russian Art Research Institute, Moscow. Presumably her specialization in 20th century music, which was not very widespread in Israel as well as among new immigrants from the Soviet Union, was in fact the key that provided her with the opportunity to be included in the Hebrew University support program for new immigrants in 1995, and later to teach there at the Department of Musicology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to outline the methodical principles of M. Lysenko’s cooperation with a choir and to disclose his conducting practice. The research methodology is based on the combination of biographical and theoretical approaches and the method of generalisation. As a whole, they highlight the main aspects of the master’s conducting activity, peculiarities of choral works interpretation, and creative methods of cooperation with a choir. The novelty of this research involves disclosing an issue about M. Lysenko’s conducting activity for the first time through the prism of contemporaries’ memoirs, epistolary, which helped to manifest a deep interest in choral activity, as well as, reconstructing separate conductors’ concert performances with a choir and accentuating the methodology of learning compositions, their "reading” with the help of manual techniques. The peculiarities of M. Lysenko’s conducting style and his connection with Ukrainian national singing tradition have been summarised here for the first time. Conclusions. M. Lysenko’s multifaceted talent – he is known to be a composer, a pianist, a conductor, a teacher, a musicologist – testifies his versatility as a master, who seemed to be organised, original, productive and having his own unique style in different spheres of creating activity. This kind of performing method correlated with organisational, compositional, musical-public, and pedagogical practice – the symbiosis of which was focused on the process of Ukrainian nationalisation. Although conducting activity did not play an important role in his life and work, we can state that M. Lysenko’s work as a conductor is a great contribution to a national culture-creating process. Its description reveals the depth of the artistic “workshop” of M. Lysenko, concentrating on separate aspects of conducting and interpretations, of which M. Lysenko is a composer and a conductor, showing his artistic potential, hidden in a choral musical score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to determine the technical and expressive functions of “transitional tones” and “primary tone” in vocal art. The methodology is based on the holistic analysis of the performing, teaching experience of prominent singers, teachers, the author's own experience in synergy with the works of musicologists and scholars, used to study the specific functioning of the “transitional tones” and “primary tones” in the structure of the opera part as an artistic whole; performing analysis, aimed at determining the technical specificity of vocal singing in “transitional tones” and “primary tone”, defined as an embodiment of the specific musical content of the “soaring human spirit” over the “prose of life”; a condition for the study of the subject of research is the historical approach, with the support of which the opera singer has to select the appropriate performance-stylistic perspectives of the opera part for the sake of revealing the “artistic truth” of vocalisation. The scientific novelty of the study is due to the identification of the specifics of the synthesis of the doctrine of “transitional tones” and “primary tone”, formed in the Italian and German schools, which have gained importance as a component of the domestic vocal performance; interpretations of the singer's voice as a tool for revealing the artistic content of the musical work in terms of basing on the principle of interaction of the performing registers. Conclusions. The technical and expressive-content functions of “transitional tones” and “primary tone” in the context of vocal-register performing strategy are determined; the significance of “transitional tones” and “primary tone” as representations of the performing musicology in the process of formation of stylistic erudition and technical mastery of vocalists-performers is determined; the experience of performance technique and expressive emotional value of the “transitional tones” and the “primary tone” acquired by the Odessa school of vocal performance has been revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the ideas of Andrzej Chłopecki (1950-2012), an outstanding Polish music critic and musicologist who specialised in contemporary music, on the subject of twentieth-century music and the ways in which he presented it to nonprofes sional readers in the pages of the Polish press. The author also discusses models of musical historiography relating to the twentieth century, demonstrating the enormous challenge posed by attempts to describe the history of the music of that century. She recapitulates the specific features of Chłopecki’s writing style and the impact of Chłopecki’s wide-ranging activities as promoter of new music in Polish musical culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience of modern instrumental/orchestral transcriptions and improvisations on themes/ works by Beethoven is an excellent example of a virtual creative dialogue between modern artists and the Viennese master. These samples show the qualitative aspects of artistic interpretation as a creative process and its specific result, the dialectic of interaction between interpretation and improvisation, which for a reason arouse from both composers and performers, as well as musicologists. The situation that here arises becomes a consequence of interstylistic communication, which, firstly, activates in secondary genres the role of creative communication in artists — the interaction of their individual compositional »I«, and secondly – shows the very mechanisms and techniques of this interaction. Beethoven’s works become objects of compositional interpretations in the genres of transcription, variation, impromptu, fantasy, improvisation, and even musical humor in the work of many modern European and non-European composers. Their works in tribute to the Viennese master reach a wide variety of artistic-semantic, genre-stylistic and compositional solutions from the academic tradition to polystylistic, popular, experimental, and perform ative directions of musical art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]