scholarly journals „Würde Sie’s zu sehr ermüden zu begleiten?“ – Clara Schumann als Lied- und Kammermusikpartnerin

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Synofzik
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Robert Schumann ◽  
Complete Collection ◽  
Basso Continuo ◽  
Concert Reviews ◽  
Piano Reductions

80 percent of Clara Schumann‘s playbills in her complete collection of concert programmes (Robert-Schumann-Haus Zwickau) include vocal participation of solo singers, choirs or actors. The question is to which extent Clara Schumann used to accompany these vocal contributions herself on the piano. Only rarely are other accompanists named on the concert playbills, but evidence from concert reviews suggests that these vocal contributions normally served as rests for the solo pianist. Sometimes separate accompanists are named in the concert reviews. In orchestral concerts it was usually the conductor who accompanied solo songs on the piano, not the solo pianist. The Popular Concerts in St. James’s Hall in London were chamber concerts, which had a regular accompanist who was labelled as „conductor“ though there was no orchestra participating. These accompanists sometimes also performed with instrumentalists, e. g. basso continuo music from the 18th century or piano reductions of orchestral concerts.

Cello in the Baroque, part 1

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (9) ◽  
pp. 9-42
Author(s):  
Jakub Kościukiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Performance Practice ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Slope Angle ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Basso Continuo ◽  
Viola Da Gamba ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Tuning Methods ◽  
Solo Instrument

The article was based on a fragment of the author’s doctoral dissertation entitled The birth of cello as a solo instrument – instruments, practice, and selected literature examples (Academy of Music in Łódź, chapter The evolution of cello in the 17th century) and consists of two parts. The first part outlines of the evolution of cello from its birth in the 16th century to the 18th century (the text is supplemented with illustrations), whereas the second part describes the role and use of cello in music of that period. The introduction to the article includes a critical reference to the list of academic and popular science publications therein, in Polish and other languages, touching on the cello issue in the 17th and 18th centuries. The historical part touches on the circumstances of how the violin family emerged with a special attention paid to bass representatives of that group of instruments. Following a detailed analysis of preserved instruments, their reliable copies, luthier publications, illustrations and treatises from that period, the author discussed the construction of the earlies cellos. Apart from data concerning sizes and scale length of these instruments, the article includes information about their body, neck, fingerboard (with slope angle), bridge and tailpiece, materials they were made of, and types and gauge of strings used at that time. It also describes cello tuning methods. Moreover, the author mentions different types of cello (piccolo, da spalla, basse de violon) and different ways of how it was held. A separate issue are the bows, especially types of bows, their evolution and ways of holding. This part of the article is concluded with a list of different names of bass variants of the violin used in the 16th and 17th centuries before the name cello/violoncello finally settled. The second part of the article elaborates on the most important functions of cello: as a consort instrument, a universal continuo instrument or a solo instrument. Cello (along with viola da gamba or dulcian/bassoon) managed especially well as a melodic instrument co-rendering the continuo parts, and the result was that the basso continuo became the most important domain of cello in the Baroque, having a significant influence on the shape of playing technique and performance practice of that instrument. As one of melodic bass instruments, cello performed an important role in shaping the concertante style, along with the violin, shawm/oboe, cornet or flute. It was that practice combined with the improvisation practice developed simultaneously (which also influenced the development of the instrument itself) that the idea to write first autonomous compositions for the cello (solo, chamber or with basso continuo) emerged from at the end of the 17th century. Continuation of this article, which shall be devoted to Baroque works for the cello and their composers, will be published in the following issue of “Notes Muzyczny”.

Distance and Disembodiment: Harps, Horns, and the Requiem Idea in Schumann and Brahms

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Beller-McKenna
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Johannes Brahms ◽  
Robert Schumann ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
The Dead

In his final book, Crossing Paths, John Daverio identified a common "Requiem Idea" in the music of Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Both composers, Daverio argued, focused more on the survivors of the deceased than on the souls of the dead, and on consolation rather then grieving. Whereas works by Schumann and Brahms that represent Daverio's Requiem Idea take many forms and fall into various genres, a considerable number of these pieces are united by their use (literally or figuratively) of two distinctly romantic instruments-primarily the harp and secondarily the horn, instruments which Daverio labelled "emblems of distance and disembodiment." Borrowing on both the Osssianic/ bardic tradition of the late 18th century and on the spiritually tinged associations of the harp among German Romantics, Schumann, and later Brahms, used this instrument to convey separation and mediation between the dead and the living, the underlying paradigm that informs the consolatory nature of the Requiem Idea. Frequently allied with the harp in such situations is the horn, which carries its own associations with distance and thereby separation.

Releasing the 'Loudie'

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Christian Kjos
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Early Music ◽  
Basso Continuo ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Keyboard Music ◽  
Music Community ◽  
Baroque Era ◽  
Oriented Approach

My artistic research project at the Norwegian Academy of Music aims to highlight the role of the harpsichord player and the interpretation of basso continuo in G. F. Handel’s continuo cantatas – i.e. cantatas for one voice with continuo accompaniment only. How the continuo realization is shaped in performance of this repertoire is crucial to the overall sound since there are no other obbligato instruments, unlike in the instrumental cantatas. A wide range of possible solutions emerge in the intersection between improvisation, composition, imagination, and speculation within a source-oriented approach. To give these cantatas a musical guise that is rarely heard among performer’s today, I focus on an advanced and soloistic harpsichord continuo that includes different use of imitation, counterpoint, harmonic additions, ‘duet-making’ with the vocal part and other rarely heard features; inspired by certain German 18th-century continuo treatises such as Heinichen’s Der Generalbass in der Composition (Dresden, 1728), Mattheson’s Grosse Generalbass-schule (Hamburg, 1731) and Daube’s General-Bass in drey Accorden (Leipzig, 1756) in addition to several preceding Italian(ate) and English sources, as well as idioms from Handel’s own keyboard music. There are frequently significant discrepancies between how historical sources describe basso continuo playing and how today’s harpsichordists interpret and perform their part within the context of the HIP-movement. In the last decades, two contrasting approaches stand out: those who accompany discretely with few parts and a transparent accompaniment: unofficially nicknamed ‘Softies’; and those who play generally fuller: ‘Loudies’ – from which my project receives its title. With this project, I aim to deepen the understanding of the discipline of continuo playing and to develop realizations that go beyond mere chordal playing often heard today in a much-neglected repertoire by one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era. Hopefully, this will challenge existing views and conventions among several branches of today’s early music community, where strong performers and personas foster strong opinions.

Performance topics in harpsichord music in the second half of the 18th century – Part 1

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (11) ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
Marek Pilch
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Piano Music ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Proper Selection ◽  
Basso Continuo ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Keyboard Music ◽  
The Right ◽  
Selection Of

The present article is connected in terms of its topic with the text entitled Harpsichord or piano? Different concepts in the 18th century keyboard music published by the author in “Notes Muzyczny” no. 1 (9) 2018, and it is the continuation of the discussion on the capacities and ways of performance of music from the Classical period, which is now understood as piano music, on the harpsichord. Subsequent parts will touch on peculiar performance topics connected with the role of the harpsichord in that period: the understanding and rendering of the dynamics, the performance of arpeggios, and the ornamentation. The starting point of the author’s deliberations is the textbook by Daniel Gottlob Türk entitled Klavierschule oder Anweisung zum Klavierspielen für Lehrer und Lernende mit kritischen Anmerkungen. (Leipzig, Halle 1789) and textbooks by other theoreticians of that period (J. J. Quantz, C. Ph. E. Bach), as well as modern publications (F. Neumann, C. Brown, S. Rampe, J. Trinkewitz). The possibility of the rendering of the dynamics understood as the capacity to influence the strength of single sounds is not the necessary condition for performing keyboard compositions from the second half of the 18th century. Neither is it the feature placing keyboard instruments in any particular hierarchy of values. In the 18th century sources it is hard to find any opinions stating that harpsichords were perceived as worse than other keyboard instruments due to the impossibility of shaping the dynamics of individual sounds. The most significant remarks referring to the performance are the topics connected with expression. The dynamics is not the only mean thanks to which a performance becomes expressive. It is possible to play in an expressive way on the harpsichord, yet it is achieved thanks to articulatory measures, agogic nuances, the right way of hitting keys and the proper selection of texture while playing basso continuo.

scholarly journals Handel's use of plucked instruments

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Orlando Fraga
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Basso Continuo ◽  
Instrumental Color ◽  
Baroque Music ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Vocal Works ◽  
Early 18Th Century

Three central features of Baroque music encompass a large portion of questions about the performance of this particular repertory: its improvisatory aspect, the use of basso continuo, and the instrumental color and variety. Teorbo and lute solos, aside of playing a role as a continuo, filled in the intermissions of oratorios in Italy since late 17th century, while organ concertos provided the same function for English oratorios in the early 18th century. It is from Handel's early period ‒ his first trip to Italy in 1707 ‒ that teorbo and archiliuto start to appear in his vocal music. Handel employed either the teorbo or archiliuto (or simply liuto) in twelve vocal works and in one instrumental Ouverture.  A complete examination of the circumstances that involve this particular aspect of Handel's music is the subject this paper.  

EPITAFIES OF THE RELATIVES OF HADJI IBRAHIM AL-URADI AS A SOURCE ON THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE SCIENTIST AND ON THE HISTORY OF GIDATL

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 13-21
Author(s):  
Sh M Khapizov ◽  
M G Shekhmagomedov
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Medieval History ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Past ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
The Look ◽  
Cultural Monuments ◽  
Written Sources

The article is devoted to the study of inscriptions on the gravestones of Haji Ibrahim al-Uradi, his father, brothers and other relatives. The information revealed during the translation of these inscriptions allows one to date important events from the history of Highland Dagestan. Also we can reconsider the look at some important events from the past of Hidatl. Epitaphs are interesting in and of themselves, as historical and cultural monuments that needed to be studied and attributed. Research of epigraphy data monuments clarifies periodization medieval epitaphs mountain Dagestan using record templates and features of the Arabic script. We see the study of medieval epigraphy as one of the important tasks of contemporary Caucasian studies facing Dagestani researchers. Given the relatively weak illumination of the picture of events of that period in historical sources, comprehensive work in this direction can fill gaps in our knowledge of the medieval history of Dagestan. In addition, these epigraphs are of great importance for researchers of onomastics, linguistics, the history of culture and religion of Dagestan. The authors managed to clarify the date of death of Ibrahim-Haji al-Uradi, as well as his two sons. These data, the attraction of written sources and legends allowed the reconstruction of the events of the second half of the 18th century. For example, because of the epidemic of plague and the death of most of the population of Hidatl, this society noticeably weakened and could no longer maintain its influence on Akhvakh. The attraction of memorable records allowed us to specify the dates of the Ibrahim-Haji pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, as well as the route through which he traveled to these cities.

Nature, poetry and medicine in late 18th century England: a unified perspective of Erasmus Darwin

1976 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-537
Author(s):  
M. McNEIL
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Nature Poetry ◽  
Medicine And Philosophy ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
Medical Theory ◽  
Lunar Society Of Birmingham ◽  
Organizational Principles ◽  
Century Science ◽  
Erasmus Darwin

Erasmus Darwin was the focus and embodiment of provincial England in his day. Renowned as a physician, he spent much of his life at Lichfield. He instigated the founding of the Lichfield Botanic Society, which provided the first English translation of the works of Linnaeus, and established a botanic garden; the Lunar Society of Birmingham; the Derby Philosophical Society; and two provincial libraries. A list of Darwin's correspondents and associates reads like a "who's who" of eighteenth century science, industry, medicine and philosophy. His poetry was also well received by his contemporaries and he expounded the evolutionary principles of life. Darwin can be seen as an English equivalent of Lamarck, being a philosopher of nature and human society. His ideas have been linked to a multitude of movements, including the nosological movement in Western medicine, nineteenth century utilitarianism, Romanticism in both Britain and Germany, and associationist psychology. The relationships between various aspects of Darwin's interests and the organizational principles of his writings were examined. His poetical form and medical theory were not peripheral to his study of nature but intrinsically linked in providing his contemporaries with a panorama of nature. A richer, more integrated comprehension of Erasmus Darwin as one of the most significant and representative personalities of his era was presented.

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