Research has used the normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI) to examine relationships between musical rhythm and durational contrast in composers’ native languages. Applying this methodology, ...linearly increasing nPVI in Austro-German, but not Italian music has recently been ascribed to waning Italian and increasing German influence on Austro-German music after the Baroque Era. The inapplicability of controlled experimental methods to historical data necessitates further replication with more sensitive methods and new repertoire. Using novel polynomial modelling procedures, we demonstrate an initial increase and a subsequent decrease in nPVI in music by 34 French composers. Moreover, previous findings for 21 Austro-German (linear increase) and 15 Italian composers (no change) are replicated. Our results provide promissory quantitative support for accounts from historical musicology of an Italian-dominated Baroque (1600-1750), a Classical Era (1750-1820) with Austro-German centres of gravity (e.g., Mannheim, Vienna), and a Romantic Era (1820-1900) with greater national independence. Future studies should aim to replicate these findings with larger corpora with greater historical representability.
Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre was a French composer whose career spanned the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Marcia Citron has argued that female composers have notoriously ...been excluded from the canon of musicology for various reasons. Among these reasons is the difficulty impressed upon women of the time to achieve recognition as professional musicians. In examining the societal obstacles women faced throughout history, Citron lists four benchmarks to musical professionalism: education, publication and repeated performance, critical reception, and to a lesser extent, composition within larger genres of music. When one considers these criteria for musical professionalism in the context of Elisabeth Jacquet’s career, which was filled with accomplishments, it becomes clear that she was one of the earliest professional female musicians, and warrants inclusion in the musical canon. This paper examines different aspects of Jacquet’s career, drawing attention to how it contrasts from the careers of other female composers, particularly those who lived in later time periods, to demonstrate how she impacted musical gender roles and set an example of success for composers in general.
The article is dedicated to the analysis of the opus Tema con Variazioni for clarinet and piano by Jean Françaix which still presents interest nowadays. This creation represents an original work in ...which the composer uses a novel type of variation, having as thematic source an onomatopoeic intonation that is used as an innovative nucleus out of which is developed the musical discourse. The author also considers diff erent aspects of the variation form and the peculiarities of using it in the analysed opus.
The article focuses on the analysis of the Sonata for clarinet and piano by Francis Poulenc that still presents great interest nowadays. This is a masterpiece of twenty century music – an original ...composition considered from the point of view of its stylistic structure in the context of the experiments carried out in the composition techniques of last century. The author approaches problems of opus themes and architectonics as well as some aspects of musical language.
Opera is about people in conflict, sung, played and performed in non-realistic fashion; it does not faithfully imitate real life. I claim that nevertheless, opera can enliven the characters and their ...state of mind, causing the listener-spectator experience a sensation unequalled by other genres. My aim is to show the musical means by which Berlioz achieved characterization. To do this I select three of his dramatic works, created at different periods of his career, and follow some key figures through the action, analyzing their role. Part One deals with a theoretical approach to characterization and the multiple components of opera. My investigations use the libretto's role only as a basis for the musical events, and exclude the visual element. I present nineteenth-century's aesthetic principles and match them with Berlioz's own credo. I compare some aspects of the novel and poetry with opera. From these readings one can sense Berlioz's urge to express inner feelings, their `psychological essence'. I consider contemporaries' reception of his operas that shows that he was appreciated mainly by a few but first-rank artists. Criticism over the last century is also reviewed, and an assessments made of the composer's own aesthetic position. Part Two provides the Case Studies of characters and deals with the operas Benvenuto Cellini, La Damnation de Faust, and Les Troyens. I also demonstrate the characterization of different atmospheres and of whole operas. In Benvenuto Cellini I concentrate on the role of Teresa, which shows imaginative use of a motive that represents the essence of her character. This method comes close to a 'Leitmotif. In La Damnation de Faust there is a focus on the supernatural, relating to Mephisto. Music is Margarita's natural way of expression and personifies her chaste character. Her music contrasts starkly with Mephisto's. In this unstaged opera music plays a special dramaturgical role. In the opera Les Troyens Aeneas is characterized as a fully rounded and complex person. Music takes an active part in the unfolding of Aeneas's development, as he assumes leadership; in each phase of his development, in intimate situations or in authoritative ones, Berlioz found the adequate musical idiom to deepen our comprehension of his motivations. In conclusion: Characters achieve a `psychological essence' because they appear as human beings with weaknesses and virtues. Berlioz applied no single method, but a deep understanding both of human nature and of the language of music. It is possible to follow the composer's intentions by listening attentively to the symbolic language in which they are offered.
Homage to Henri Dutilleux Marinescu, Alexandra
Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai. Musica,
07/2023, Letnik:
68, Številka:
Sp.Iss. 1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
"Henri Dutilleux was one of the prominent figures of European composition, especially in the second half of the 20th century. A complex personality, he worked throughout his career as a musician in ...various roles, from pianist, to accompanist, to conductor, to pedagogue, to composer, being one of the main promoters of French culture and beyond. He received numerous awards and recognitions for his entire activity, his reputation not only surpassing the borders of the country, but also the European ones. Although he began composing at a very young age, Dutilleux repeatedly omits to include these works in his catalogue, refusing even to mention them in the section of his interpreted works. Meticulous and extremely pedantic, he always made changes to his works, constantly crystallizing his style both throughout the varied musical experiences in which the musician took part and through the close collaborations he had with instrumental artists whom he consulted regarding timbral possibilities and techniques of the instruments he was writing for. His compositions, although not very numerous, encompass a genuistically vast variety, and an exhaustive stylistic approach. Although he always embraces new compositional techniques, Dutilleux never reaches a rational extremism, keeping in the foreground the idea of meaningful music, and not the other way around. He died on 22nd of May 2013, in Paris, at the age of 97. Keywords: Henri Dutilleux, French composer, 20th century"
Henry Dutilleaux belongs to the group of French musicians who worked in the second half of the 20th century and recorded a new stage in the evolution of French composition after C. Debussy, M. Ravel ...and the members of the Group of Six. Through his musical works, the maestro brought a new and original breath to the evolution of modern technique, constituting the universal avant-garde of the era. One of Henry Dutilleux’s early works is the Sonatina for Flute and Piano, which denotes the composer’s academic orientation in approaching genres and a personal view on the sonatina genre and form. In this article, H. Dutilleaux’s Sonatina is analyzed from the point of view of the evolution of the genre and form. The three movements unfold attacca, with a smooth passage, in a permanent and consistent evolution of the discourse. The work is not only a successful composition, performed with knowledge and inspiration, it has become one of the important pieces in the universal flute chamber repertoire.
Charles Camille Saint–Saëns is a remarkable French composer, pianist, organist, conductor and musical critic from the second half of the 19th century. Saint- Saëns’s principles of composition were ...developed under the influence of national traditions, of the creations of French harpsichord players, of Hector Berlioz and of the French opera. The work of this French composer is characterized by luminous lyricism, by a cheerful, joyful disposition, created by dynamic, expressive movements, by noble pathos and by peaceful contemplation. His style is characterized by recitative-melodious intonations and by an extensive use of popular music procedures and rhythmic dance formulas. The syntheses of classical and romantic principles, as well as the inclination towards symphonic poems and monothematic structures are specific features of Saint-Saëns’s ample creations.
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