Exploring Xenakis: Performance, Practice, Philosophy

Exploring Xenakis: Performance, Practice, Philosophy PDF Author: Alfia Nakipbekova
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1622736575
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Considered to be one of the most revolutionary composers of the twentieth century, Iannis Xenakis pushed the boundaries of classical music. As a largely self-taught composer, Xenakis drew from his technical training in engineering and architecture to produce music that had the ability to both unnerve and enrapture his audiences. Motivated by his intense study of many scientific disciplines, he employed the mathematical rules of the natural world to test the traditional rules of counterpoint and harmony, and to explore the spatial texture of sound, colour and architecture. The Romanian-born Greek-French composer transformed twentieth century classical music for decades to come, leaving behind an undeniable legacy that continues to inspire and even shock listeners to this day. By approaching Xenakis’s creative output from a variety of perspectives, the contributors to this edited volume seek not only to situate Xenakis’s music within a larger cultural, social and political context but also to shed light on contemporary issues surrounding his work. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of Xenakis’s music (in the context of particular works) and musical philosophy: mathematical, structural, performative, as well as the genesis of his compositional style and distinctive sound. Xenakis’s artistic presence on the contemporary music scene, his political influence during the tumultuous protests in Paris ’68, and his first piano composition, Herma, are also explored in-depth providing new insights into the life and work of this avant-garde figure. This book will appeal to contemporary music researchers, students and scholars and may also be of interest to artists, performers and composers, alike.

Performing Xenakis

Performing Xenakis PDF Author: Sharon E. Kanach
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781576471913
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
A collection of essays by international performers of Xenakis's music. Each essay gives perspective on what the composer was looking for, or on "tricks of the trade" for performing technical passages. Divided into sections by instrumentation, the book presents issues unique to each family of instruments as well as the performance of electronic works.

Classical Music in a Changing World

Classical Music in a Changing World PDF Author: Lawrence Kramer
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648892736
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
In recent years classical music has become a test case for debates over the future of culture. As times have changed, the value traditionally placed on this music has been challenged on social rather than aesthetic grounds. Lovers of classical music have been asked how its privileged history can be reconciled with growing demands for social justice and social inclusiveness. They have been asked how the music’s standing as one of the great accomplishments of the West can be reconciled with the many injustices on which those accomplishments in part depended. How can the future of classical music escape the darker shadows of its past? ‘Classical Music in a Changing World: Crisis and Vital Signs’ addresses the crisis provoked by such questions in two complementary ways. Several of the chapters show how the classical music world is already grappling with the crisis, and finding vital signs beyond the borders of the music’s traditional European strongholds: in Turkey from Ottoman times to the present, in Colombia, and in a Black American film. Other chapters identify areas that still need improvement, especially on behalf of female and LGBTQ+ musicians, and suggest how advances can be made both on concert stages and in schools. This volume, which opens with an introduction by Alberto Nones that contextualizes the book and outlines the main arguments of its chapters, contains an essay by Lawrence Kramer that examines the place of classical music in the history of consciousness—a history now changing rapidly—and concludes with a Postscript written by the two editors. The writing in this volume will be accessible to a wide audience, including scholars and students, professionals and amateurs, performers and listeners. Teachers will find it a source of lively classroom debate, and scholars a source of learning outside the usual arenas. The book’s “vital signs” include the accompanying audio tracks (available for download at: https://vernonpress. com/book/1281), which feature vibrant music-making from a diverse range of performers and composers.

Boulez, Music and Philosophy

Boulez, Music and Philosophy PDF Author: Edward Campbell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521862426
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
In this book, Campbell explores the relationships of music, philosophy and intellectual culture in the work of Pierre Boulez.

Critique of Authenticity

Critique of Authenticity PDF Author: Thomas Claviez
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1622738640
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
The volume provides a critical assessment of the concept of authenticity and gauges its role, significance and shortcomings in a variety of disciplinary contexts. Many of the contributions communicate with each other and thus acknowledge the enormous significance of this politically, morally, philosophically and economically-charged concept that at the same time harbors dangerous implications and has been critically deconstructed. The volume shows that the alleged need or desire for authenticity is alive and kicking but oftentimes comes at a high price, connected to a culture of experts, authority and exclusionary strategies.

Forms of Performance: From J.S. Bach to M. Alunno (1972-)

Forms of Performance: From J.S. Bach to M. Alunno (1972-) PDF Author: Michael Maul
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1622738659
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 85

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Book Description
Today, Bach is one of the most revered and studied figures of classical music, despite there being a time in which he was almost forgotten. Divided into two sections, this volume explores research on J.S. Bach and more broadly examines the topics of music and performance studies; with the latter focusing on composers active today, such as Marco Alunno, or those from the recent past who are lesser-known and performed, such as Pietro Cimara and Leo Ornstein. Following from Nones’s (ed.) previous publication Music as Communication: Perspectives on Music, Image and Performance (ABE, 2018), this work provides a rather unique contribution as a choral attempt at exploring performance today. The intention of this book and the downloadable audio content, with live recordings of the music explored at the conference from which the volume originated, is to inspire fresh approaches to the study of a monument like Bach, while also encouraging original research of modern composition and performance. Recordings of the performances given over the two days of the conference serve either to clarify arguments made in the papers or to attest to the music explored more generally. This volume is founded on the belief that the history of music is comprised of many figures, some of whom are undeservedly forgotten, and that our understanding of and approach to music is simultaneously shaped by the past and directed by the continual evolution of sounds and attitudes of the present. Examining music styles from baroque (Bach) to contemporary (Alunno), Forms of Performance will be of particular interest to Bach and performance studies scholars, as well as advanced researchers and PhD students in this field.

Beyond the Score

Beyond the Score PDF Author: Nicholas Cook
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199357404
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
In Beyond the Score: Music as Performance, author Nicholas Cook supplants the traditional musicological notion of music as writing, asserting instead that it is as performance that music is loved, understood, and consumed. This book reconceives music as an activity through which meaning is generated in real time, as Cook rethinks familiar assumptions and develops new approaches. Focusing primarily but not exclusively on the Western 'art' tradition, Cook explores perspectives that range from close listening to computational analysis, from ethnography to the study of recordings, and from the social relations constructed through performance to the performing (and listening) body. In doing so, he reveals not only that the notion of music as text has hampered academic understanding of music, but also that it has inhibited performance practices, placing them in a textualist straightjacket. Beyond the Score has a strong historical emphasis, touching on broad developments in twentieth-century performance style and setting them into their larger cultural context. Cook also investigates the relationship between recordings and performance, arguing that we do not experience recordings as mere reproductions of a performance but as performances in their own right. Beyond the Score is a comprehensive exploration of new approaches and methods for the study of music as performance, and will be an invaluable addition to the libraries of music scholars-including musicologists, music theorists, and music cognition scholars-everywhere.

From Music to Sound

From Music to Sound PDF Author: Makis Solomos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429575017
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
From Music to Sound is an examination of the six musical histories whose convergence produces the emergence of sound, offering a plural, original history of new music and showing how music had begun a change of paradigm, moving from a culture centred on the note to a culture of sound. Each chapter follows a chronological progression and is illustrated with numerous musical examples. The chapters are composed of six parallel histories: timbre, which became a central category for musical composition; noise and the exploration of its musical potential; listening, the awareness of which opens to the generality of sound; deeper and deeper immersion in sound; the substitution of composing the sound for composing with sounds; and space, which is progressively viewed as composable. The book proposes a global overview, one of the first of its kind, since its ambition is to systematically delimit the emergence of sound. Both well-known and lesser-known works and composers are analysed in detail; from Debussy to contemporary music in the early twenty-first century; from rock to electronica; from the sound objects of the earliest musique concrète to current electroacoustic music; from the Poème électronique of Le Corbusier-Varèse-Xenakis to the most recent inter-arts attempts. Covering theory, analysis and aesthetics, From Music to Sound will be of great interest to scholars, professionals and students of Music, Musicology, Sound Studies and Sonic Arts. Supporting musical examples can be accessed via the online Routledge Music Research Portal.

Transformations of Musical Modernism

Transformations of Musical Modernism PDF Author: Erling E. Guldbrandsen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107127211
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This collection brings fresh perspectives to bear upon key questions surrounding the composition, performance and reception of musical modernism.

Encyclopedia of Percussion

Encyclopedia of Percussion PDF Author: John Beck
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780824047887
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
A valuable resource for all music enthusiasts;The opening section of this first-stop reference source offers over 3,000 alphabetically arranged short definitions of percussion instruments and terms and is a valuable resource for the student, scholar, performer, and teacher coping with names of western and non-western instruments in several languages. Each definition covers the manufacturer, inventor or designer, the country of origin (including regional cultural significance and general usage, such as orchestra, band, jazz, ethnic), musical examples, compositions, and important books and publishers. The Encyclopedia also features a who's who of percussionists Written by well known experts;The bulk of the Encyclopedia consists of 28 new articles by noted scholars who explore their topics in detail, provide basic information for ready reference, and include a selective bibliography as a starting point for further research. The coverage is rounded out by a comprehensive index, internal cross-references, lists, illustrations, and a glossary of percussion instruments and terms in four languages, as well as an extensive bibliography of percussion methods. Major features:; Defines 3,000 instrument terms and forms; Presents a table of 350 percussion instruments and terms and their equivalents in English, French, German, and Italian; Covers Western and non-Western instruments; Provides 28 signed articles on families of instruments and other important topics; Over 100 illustrations; Offers practical information for performers; Easy to use for students and general readers