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The current of ‘critical composition’ has sought to stimulate critical thinking in its listeners by challenging compositional norms. One of its defining exponents is the composer Helmut Lachenmann, whose writings on music are analysed in this paper. Following the method of Critical Discourse Analysis, I then confronted them with the empirical research on ‘new music’ in order to locate the discourse in the social field in which it takes place. An important topic in Lachenmann’s writing is the definition of European art music and its delimitation against other forms of music. As the empirical investigations show, ‘new music’ audiences possess exceptionally high levels of formal education and income. Furthermore, the research demonstrates the role of influential institutions in regulating access to the ‘new music’ field. However, the last decades have witnessed a weakening of the role of established organisations and a gradual blurring of the field’s confines. Lachenmann’s adherence to an emphatic notion of art can thus be interpreted as a reaction to an ongoing transformation of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some of the hitherto rather little-known examples of liturgical polyphony, the so-called ßsimple poliphonyÇ Ñ from the Croatian regions. The research presented here follows on from the first systematic examination of these sources by Rudolf Flotzinger: ßMittelalterliche Mehrstimmigkeit in Dalmatien und SlowenienÇ, Revista de musicolog.a, vol. XVI, Nr. 3, Madrid, 1993, pp. 29-49. Occurrences of the ßsimple polyphonyÇ in the Croatian liturgical practice are to be found in the liturgical manuscripts from the period between the late 13th and the 19th centuries.Among about one hundred Ñ mostly two-part Ñ liturgical chants, a predominant number are those for the mass ordinary. The author focuses on her own insights into some of the earliest examples of simple polyphony from Dalmatia: a two-part troped Sanctus from the Cartulary of the Benedictine monastery of St Mary in Zadar (late 13th century) and a group of two-part Benedicamus domino chants, now kept in the Dominican monastery in Stari Grad on the island of Hvar, and compares them with the chants from similar Italian sources. Other examples discussed here are: a two-part chant Tota pulchra es from the manuscript by the friar Frane Divniæ from Zadar (17th century) and a Requiem from the codex now kept in the Benedictine monstery at Cres (18th century). In addition, the paper contains a brief discussion of the sociological context of these sources. A preliminaryconclusion may be reached that the monastic communities in Croatia, in particulary those of the Franciscans, Dominicans and Benedictines, were the main bodies responsible for the long survival of this medieval phenomenon in the Croatian regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proceeding from the fact that the organ of the Split Cathedral was sold in 1901 to the Order of the Sisters of St Clare in Split, the author presents in this paper four previous assumptions about the builder of that organ. In the continuation of the paper, he provides a completely new slant on the technical data concerning the organ in St Clare's Church in Split. The data are the result of careful study, measurement and comparison and enable a reliable approach to the solving of two important issues: when the organ was built and who built it. By careful reading of papers to date and, above all, by detailed analysis of the instrument itself, the author proves the assumption that this organ is the work of the distinguished organ builder, Petar Nakić from Šibenik, and that it was built at the mid-18th century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their The Birth of the Orchestra (Oxford, 2004), John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw offer a useful means by which one can consider the »life and times« of typical eighteenth-century orchestral musicians. Their discussion is especially valuable when considering those musicians who lived during the second half of the eighteenth century, a time when employment styles shifted from the confines of the court-sponsored Kapelle to the freelance or free-market setting. This transition from the former to the latter is not simply found from one generation to the next, it is also evident within the working life of a single musician. This paper examines the professional life of Carlo Graziani, an eighteenth-century Italian cellist. As he moved from his native Asti to Paris, then London, and finally to Berlin, Graziani showed himself capable of adapting to current settings depending on the location and the opportunities available. In each instance, his job situation accurately reflected the musical life of the respective cities and the transitional nature of this period, with its lack of a straight-line progression from Kapelle-style to free-market style employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]