72 research outputs found
Unsound Seeds
With this image of a curtain hiding and at the same time heightening some terrible secret, Max Kalbeck began his review of the first Viennese performance of Richard Straussâs Salome. Theodor W. Adorno picked up the image of the curtain in the context of Straussâs fabled skill at composing non-musical events, when he identified the opening flourish of Straussâs Salome as the swooshing sound of the rising curtain. If this is so, the succĂšs de scandale of the opera was achieved, in more than one sense, as soon as the curtain rose at Dresdenâs Semperoper on 10 December 1905.
Critics of the premiere noted that the opera set âboundless wildness and degeneration to musicâ; it brought âhigh decadenceâ onto the operatic stage; a âcomposition of hysteriaâ, reflecting the âdisease of our timeâ, Salome is âhardly music any moreâ.The outrage did not end there
Opera and Hypnosis: Victor Maurelâs Experiments with Verdiâs Otello
One day in his private home on the avenue Bugeaud, in Parisâs sixteenth arrondissement, the famous baritone Victor Maurel hosted a meeting which combined music with hypnotism of a young woman
Science, Technology and Love in Late Eighteenth-Century Opera
It is a tale told by countless operas: young love, thwarted by an old manâs financially motivated marriage plans, triumphs in the end thanks to a deception that tricks the old man into blessing the young loversâ union. Always a doddering fool, the old man is often also an enthusiast for knowledge. Such is the case, for instance, in Carlo Goldoniâs comic opera libretto Il mondo della luna (1750), in which Buonafedeâs interest in the moon opens him to an elaborate hoax that has him believe he and his daughters have left Earth for the lunar world; and also in the Singspiel Die LuftbĂ€lle, oder der Liebhaber Ă la Montgolfier (1788), wherein the apothecary Wurm trades Sophie, the ward he intended to marry himself, for a technological innovation that will make him a pioneering aeronaut
Vocal Culture in the Age of Laryngoscopy
For several months beginning in 1884, readers of Life, Science, Health, the Atlantic Monthly and similar magazines would have encountered half-page advertisements for a newly patented medical device called the âammoniaphoneâ (Figure 2.1). Invented and promoted by a Scottish doctor named Carter Moffat and endorsed by the soprano Adelina Patti, British Prime Minister William Gladstone and the Princess of Wales, the ammoniaphone promised a miraculous transformation in the voices of its users. It was recommended for âvocalists, clergymen, public speakers, parliamentary men, readers, reciters, lecturers, leaders of psalmody, schoolmasters, amateurs, church choirs, barristers, and all persons who have to use their voices professionally, or who desire to greatly improve their speaking or singing tonesâ. Some estimates indicated that Moffat sold upwards of 30,000 units, yet the ammoniaphone was a flash in the pan as far as such things go, fading from public view after 1886
Operatic Fantasies in Early Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry
In his celebrated essay on insanity in the Dictionnaire des sciences mĂ©dicales (1816), French psychiatrist Ătienne Esquirol marvelled at the earlier custom of allowing asylum inmates to attend theatrical productions at Charenton
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Boundaries and Bridges: the influence of James Cooksey Culwick on the development of the teaching and learning of music in nineteenth century Ireland
James Cooksey Culwick (1845-1907) was born in England. Trained as chorister and organist in Lichfield Cathedral, he moved to Ireland at twenty- one and remained until his death in 1907. Although his reputation as scholar, musician and teacher was acknowledged widely during his lifetime - he received an honorary doctorate from University of Dublin (1893) - little is known about the contribution he made to music education. This paper addresses this gap in the literature and argues that it was Culwick's singular achievement to pay attention to music pedagogy at secondary level, by recognizing that music could be seen as a serious career option for girls, and by providing resources for teachers which emphasised the development of an 'art-feeling' in pupils of all abilities. In addition, he considered Irish music as an art which had significance as music first, and Irish music second, and advocated a 'laudable tolerance' for opposing views on matters of cultural identity to Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century
Alfred Day's Treatise on Harmony
Alfred Day (1810-49) pertama kali menerbitkan karya kontroversial ini pada tahun 1845 dengan kritik negatif yang substansial. Dia didorong oleh perusahaannya oleh komposer George Alexander Macfarren (1813-87) yang tetap menjadi pendukung setia teori Day. Pekerjaan dimulai dengan pengenalan pendekatan baru Day kepada bass tertentu dan kemudian beralih untuk menetapkan konsep harmoni diatonik (atau ketat) dan harmoni kromatik (atau gratis). Masing-masing dibahas secara mendalam, dengan bagian-bagian yang ditujukan untuk akord dan inversi, diskordan, pedal dan modulasi bersama dengan sejumlah besar contoh musik. Edisi kedua 1885 oleh Macfarren ini mencakup sebuah kata pengantar tambahan yang membahas asal mula karya dan mendukung premis dasarnya, bersama dengan lampiran yang luas yang menyajikan penambahan dan perbedaan pandangannya, yang dikembangkan selama periode intervensi. Meskipun kompleksitasnya, pemikiran Day memiliki pengaruh yang cukup besar pada penulis kemudian dalam harmoni.xv, 224 hal. ; 23 c
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