Music Library Association. Notes

Mla-L at Twenty

MLA-L, the electronic-mail distribution list for music librarians, is now twenty years old. Before the establishment of the list in 1989, professional communication among music librarians was paper based and slow. The growth of computer networks in the early 1980s led to the development of applications to promote group communication, including LISTSERV, an e-mail distribution application released in 1986. With the help of Mary Papakhian, a member of the information technology staff at Indiana...

Copyright and Historical Sound Recordings: Recent Efforts to Change U.S. Law

Constantly expanding copyright laws in the U.S. have made it increasingly difficult for archives to preserve our past effectively, and for the public to legally access it. This is especially true in the field of historical sound recordings. Most people are surprised to learn that for recordings made prior to 1972 there is no public domain, no fair use, and very few exceptions for preservation. This article looks at current guidelines for the use of copyrighted historical recordings; some impo...

Are We On the Right Track? Issues with Lp Record Collections in U.S. Academic Libraries

This article reports on the findings of a survey on collection development and circulation practices of LP records in U.S. academic libraries conducted in September of 2007. Areas of special interest included the size of LP collections, identification of barriers to access, collection development practices, and digitization activities. The survey found that libraries have large LP collections, many libraries have large uncataloged collections, limited resources to manage these sound collectio...

Notes for Notes

For more information about the Samuel and Ann Charters Archives of Blues and Vernacular African American Musical Culture please visit: http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ASC/collections/ ChartersArchives_brochure.pdf (accessed 19 November 2008), or contact Kristin Eshelman, curator of multimedia collections, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries, 405 Babbidge Rd. Mr. Root notes It is gratifying that the leading professional and scholarly associatio...

Warrior, Courtier, Singer: Giulio Cesare Brancaccio and the Perfor Mance of Identity in the Late Renaissance

Illustrations, music examples, bibliographic references, index. [...] Giulio Cesare Brancaccio has been a minor figure in music history.

Editing Music in Early Modern Germany

In relating the sixteenth-century procedure to a much earlier manuscript tradition, she draws on the work of musicologist Emma Dillon, who in working with fourteenthcentury sources "has demonstrated the attention given to page layout and finding aids such as alphabetization, marginalia, and letter size, to locate and retrieve information in the Roman de Fauvel " (p. 35). Some of the translators, notably Cesare de Zacharia, a native Italian active in Munich in the last decade of the sixteenth...

Peter Sculthorpe: The Making of an Australian Composer

Historically, he was among the Australian cultural leaders of the 1960s who helped create increased financial and educational support for composers, more performance opportunities, and receptive audiences for new Australian music, at home and abroad. Skinner quotes amusing descriptions, by secretaries, copyists, and others, of Sculthorpe's household in the 1960s-the politicking, parties, house guests, unexpected callers, students stopping by, his supervision of the interior decor and garden ...

French Music, Culture, and National Identity, 1870-1939

In 1876, Dijon, the birthplace of Rameau, held a festival in his honor. Besides public performances of his music, the composer was the subject of a sculpture in the town's center.

Origins and Development of Musical Instruments

Montagu chooses to adopt a five-part classification system: idiophones (rigid enough to clang when struck), skin instruments and strings (each requiring tension), winds (hollow with an orifice for blowing), electrophones (a power source). In the interlude that follows this chapter, Montagu mentions some of the magical and real powers of the noisemakers-those particular musical instruments described in the preceding chapter-to give protection to people, animals, and places in times of strife,...

Title, Frequency, and Publisher Changes; Cessations

GLSG Newsletter for the Gay & Lesbian Study Group of the American Musico-logical Society (ISSN 1087-8564), has a new title, The Newsletter for the LGBTQ Study Group of the American Musicological Society (ISSN 1556-0406), beginning with volume 15, number 2 (semiannual). The periodical began in January 2000 and covered music business vocational guidance and sound equipment and instrument supplies.

Artstor

Pricing for a site license permitting unlimited simultaneous users: for colleges and universities in the United States, a one-time Archive Capital Fee (ACF) ranges from $1,000 to $40,000 and an Annual Access Fee (AAF) from $1,200 to $20,000; for public libraries, the ACF ranges from $750 to $5,000 and the AAF from $500 to $3,000; price ranges vary for colleges and universities outside the United States, independent art schools, K-12 schools, and museums. Initiated by the Mellon Foundation in ...

Tchaikovsky

Hazelwood, a veteran of BBC radio and television programs about classical music, establishes the right tone at the beginning, presenting Tchaikovsky as a complex figure whose genius cannot be fully appreciated without knowing about the events which influenced the music. According to the filmmakers, Tchaikovsky's guilt over his homosexuality led to the romantic longings in many of his compositions, especially Romeo and Juliet and Eugene Onegin.

Jean Sibelius, 1865-1957/Itzhak Perlman: Virtuoso Violinist

The biographical material alternates with long passages from the composer's major works performed by the Swedish Radio Sym phony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. Extras include a 1969 performance of Schubert's The Trout by Perlman, du Pré, and Daniel Barenboim, with the violinist's recent memories of du Pré, 1978 BBC radio performances, filmed by Nupen, Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita in E major and Partita in D minor, and another compilation of scenes from Nupen films, including o...

Joe Zawinul: A Musical Portrait

To help underscore the point, the camera cuts to another galloping Zawinul Syndicate performance and the musicians reacting to each other on the fly. Weather Report's so-called "jazz fusion" blended jazz with rock instrumentation, soul, funk and ethnic music.

The 'Reichsorchester': The Berlin Philharmonic and the Third Reich

Even with only a few first-hand accounts of the period, Lansch delivers a compelling film describing events and circumstances most musicians today could not imagine. Since the orchestra was deemed "essential" to the cause of Party propaganda, the musicians were treated very well; they were offered housing and, most importantly, were exempt from military service.

Transcriptions

[...] the video and music are not always synched up. [...] we hear excerpts from an interview with the ensemble's conductor, Laurence Equibey, discussing choral transcriptions, editing, marking, conferring with composers, and practice-conducting some of the music as she prepares for performance.

Book Reviews

Chambonniàres, a Thematic Catalogue: The Complete Works of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières (1601/02-1672)

The catalog itself follows, listing the 153 known harpsichord works attributed to Chambonnières. Because chronology is frequently difficult to ascertain in these works, Gustafson's ordering is based on authority; he begins with sixty pieces in the order that the composer himself determined for his two published collections (both printed in 1670) then moves to works that appear only in manuscripts, beginning with the most authoritative.

Maestros in America: Conductors in the 21st Century

The real value that this book offers can be found in its more than 100 subject entries, which are ordered alphabetically and include a bibliography for further reading (mostly articles and interviews) and selected recordings. Sharpe and Stierman pay particular attention to each conductor's dedication to music written by living composers, making the effort to distinguish between the variety and quantity of contemporary music being programmed, as well as audience reception.

A Conductor's Guide to Nineteenth-Century Choral-Orchestral Works

[...] under the subheading of "Soloists," a detailed annotation of the range and tessitura for each vocal part is given, as well as a rating of difficulty, e.g., "medium easy," for both chorus and orchestra. [...] a reference to a particular translation of the text would generally constitute a more complete citation and be much more helpful to scholars. [...] there is inconsistency of format regarding italicization of "Book of Psalms."

Uniform Titles for Music/Shelflisting Music: Guidelines for Use with the Library of Congress Classification: M

Uniform titles, perhaps the most complex and difficult part of music cataloging, are important to library catalogs, and bring together all variant manifestations of a musical work under one unique heading. [...] there is a concise "handbook" for consulting uniform titles in music, covering every aspect of the topic, delving into many questionable areas not completely covered by the rules. In the introduction, the author states The guidelines presented here represent an updating and expansio...

Inside the Recording Studio: Working with Callas, Rostropovich, Domingo and the Classical Elite

Andry is less discrete in regards to some of the tricks of the trade such as splicing in a single note from another take within that series of recording sessions or over-dubbing, the art of adding a performance to one that was previously recorded. [...] with the memoirs by other record producers, Inside the recording studio is remarkably honest about the problems which occur and also the exultation when a major project is brought to fruition with all of the participants completely at peace w...

Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay On the Origins of Musical Modernity

[...] later, in comparing the overarching philosophical connections between Don Gio vanni and that quintessential German eighteenth-century play, Goethe's Faust, the concepts become metaphorical and monumental: "Aspiration to absolute freedom, pursuit of desire without limits, the paradoxical commitment to a lack of commitment, the privileging of becoming over being-all of these belong to a modern outlook . . . and it is this aspect of modernity that is embodied in the stories of Don Juan and...

Inside Beethoven's Quartets: History, Performance, Interpretation

The Juilliard Quartet needs no introduction to music lovers, and Lewis Lockwood-though hardly a household name to non-musicologists-is one of the most respected figures in the field of Beethoven studies, as well as being a gifted amateur cellist. The large size makes the book suitable for coffee tables, and there is even a complimentary compact disc inside the back cover with specially recorded performances of the three movements discussed in the book, plus a rarity: the original, "Amenda" v...

Alban Berg and Hanna Fuchs: The Story of a Love in Letters

Judging from Berg's later correspondence with Hanna-all that is known is given in this book for the first time in English-the flirting between the two got heavier during his weeklong stay, leading in all likelihood to a sexual encounter, ("that blissful half hour," as Berg described it), probably on the morning of 20 May. [...] composers in the past-Bach, Schumann, and Brahms among many others-have incorporated personalized symbols in their works, but Berg's recourse to this technique by 192...

Keeping the Embers Alive: Musicians of Zimbabwe

Musicians of Zimbabwe, Myrna Capp, an assistant professor of piano performance and pedagogy at Seattle Pacific University, presents a collection of thirteen interviews she has conducted with an array of Zimbabwean cultural performers including musicians, dancers, and poets. Capp states in her introduction that the "starting point for talking about Zimbabwean music and musicians is the mbira, a lamellophone which is a percussive instrument consisting of a small wooden board or box onto which ...

Video Reviews

The Full Monteverdi

In this film, noted opera director John La Bouchardière, visually captures his interactive experiment in musical theater from 2004 in which the viewer witnesses the dramatic emotional experience of six couples simultaneously dealing with various issues of infidelity while communicating not in dialog, but in sung verse. Throughout the film, La Bouchardière shows no consistent desire to portray the more subtle double meanings of the original texts, but focuses instead on the basic emotions inv...

Carl Nielsen/Gioacchino Rossini/Gioacchino Rossini

The DVD from Naxos offers no extras beyond English subtitles and the choice of stereo, or surround, sound, and there are occasional jumpy movements in the video image which probably derive from the PAL to NTSC transfer. Widely regarded as a comic masterpiece which bears comparison to Verdi's Falstaff, it has been produced only rarely outside Denmark, due no doubt to the language barrier: few singers on the international scene are comfortable singing in Danish.

Ferruccio Busoni

The performances offered by Thomas Hampson (Faust), Günther Groissböck (Mephistopheles), and Sandra Trattnigg (Duchess of Parma) are spectacular, capturing the intensity of the work's psychological drama and humanizing characters that, because of the opera's fragmentary structure, have little opportunity to develop. [...] while the orchestration, offstage chorus, and live setting certainly must have posed numerous challenges for the disc's recording engineers, the audio quality is generally ...

Stravinsky: Once at a Border

Accompanied by interviews with Stravinsky's children Milene, Soulima, and Theo dore as well as with Madame Vera Stravin sky, music associate Robert Craft, pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, ballerinas Alexandra Danilova, Vera Krasovsky, Marie Rambert, Tamara Geva, choreographer George Balanchine, Stravinsky's musical assistant Alexei Haieff, Nijinsky's daughter Kyra, Diaghilev's secretary Boris Kochno, concert promoter Jean Wiener, composer Georges Auric, old friend Nicolas Nabokov, and biographer Mi...

Pierre Henry-the Art of Sounds/Olivier Messiaen-La Liturgie de Cristal

[...] I have a profound love for nature. Building from breathtaking aerial shots of the Cedar Breaks Mountains, the film moves easily into archival footage of the composer tromping through the forest to hear and notate birdsong while beginning to explore how those melodies helped revolutionize and solidify Messiaen's musical language. Following the film's structure, the features are divided into the same three categories and feature interviews conducted with the men and women most notable i...