February 28

Lesser-Known Composers in the 
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
RIPM’s “Illustrations of the Week”

The influential German music journal, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung [AMZ], appeared weekly from 1798 to 1848, and again, from 1863 to 1882. Along with reviews and analyses of printed music, reports on musical life, announcements, news, and miscellaneous sections, many volumes contain at least one portrait of a musician. A number of the composers depicted in this periodical are lesser-known today, yet distinguished enough to be featured at the time of publication.

This week, we bring attention to a few of these lesser-known composers by presenting their featured portraits in the AMZ. Are you familiar with their music? Should we be?

A. B. Marx
Vol. L, Supplementary pages ([5 January – 27 December 1848]): [1] 920/921.

Friedrich Heinrich Adolf Bernhard Marx (1795-1866) was a German composer whose works include oratorios, sonatas, and an opera, yet is perhaps best known today for his contributions as a music critic and theorist. In 1825, he became the editor of the Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and in 1830, upon the recommendation of longtime friend and colleague Felix Mendelssohn, was appointed professor of music at Berlin University. His publications include a seminal four-volume work, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, praktisch-theoretisch (The Theory and Practice of Musical Composition), and a biography of Beethoven.

G. W. Fink
Vol. XLVIII, Supplementary pages ([7 January – 30 December 1846]): [1] 944/1

German composer, music theorist, and poet Gottfried Wilhelm Fink (1783-1846) was a longtime contributor to the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitschrift, and in 1827, became the magazine’s editor-in-chief. His compositions consist mainly of songs, many of which appeared in collected editions.  He also edited the Musikalischer Hausschatz der Deutschen, a collection of around 1,000 German songs.

Niels W. Gade
Vol. XLVII, Supplementary pages ([1 January – 31 December 1845]): [1] 888/1

Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817-1890) was a Danish composer, conductor, violinist, organist and teacher. Born in Copenhagen, Gade moved to Germany in 1843 to teach at the Leipzig Conservatory, and in 1845, conducted the premiere of Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. In 1848, the First Schleswig War forced Gade to return to Denmark, where he soon after founded the Copenhagen Conservatory. His oeuvre includes symphonies, a violin concerto, chamber music, keyboard works, and cantatas. A number of Gade’s most popular works may be sampled in this lengthy recording.

Ferdinand Hiller
Vol. II, Supplementary pages ([1864]): 1 S.

German composer, conductor, writer, and music-director Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885) was a leading figure in the musical life of 19th-century Germany, having worked professionally in Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Dresden, and as twelve-time festival director of Das Niederrheinische Musikfest (Lower Rhenish Music Festival). The dedicatee and conductor of the premiere of Robert Schumann’s only piano concerto, Hiller’s own compositional output spans practically all genres. Below is an excerpt of his Opus 69 Piano Concerto.

 

Henri Herz
Vol. XLII, Supplementary pages ([1 January – 23 December 1940]): [1] 1060/1

Henri Herz (1803-1888) was known as both a celebrated pianist and composer. Born in Vienna, Herz settled in Paris as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, where he became a longstanding professor.  In 1839, Herz, like Sax and Pleyel, created a factory in Paris for the construction of instruments.  Often, instrument manufacturers also built performance venues to promote their specific brands.  Herz and his brother Jacques Simon Herz followed this model and constructed the Salle des Concerts Herz on the rue de la Victoire.  Works of many well-known composers, including Berlioz and Offenbach were performed there.

Herz’s published compositions include over 200 works, mostly for the piano; a sampling may be heard in the following clip below.

 

RIPM search tip: To view more portraits in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, access the RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, and fill in the following fields: Keyword = Porträt; Periodical = Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung [1798-1848]; Type = Illustration.

For more information on the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, read RIPM‘s introduction to the journal in English, or, German!

Click here to subscribe to RIPM’s Curios, News, and Chronicles! 

When is our next posting? To find out, follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

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RIPM is an international non-profit organization preserving and providing access to music periodicals published in more than twenty countries between approximately 1760 and 1966, from Bach to Bernstein. Functioning under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres, RIPM produces four electronic publications: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, European and North American Music Periodicals (Preservation Series), and RIPM Jazz Periodicals (Preservation Series, forthcoming).
Category: Illustration(s) of the Week | Comments Off on Lesser-Known Composers in the 
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
RIPM’s “Illustrations of the Week”
February 21

Forty-Five Women Composers
in Early 20th-Century America

From June 1909 to April 1910, the journal Musical America published a series of forty-five illustrated articles entitled, “Women Composers of America”. This series, well in advance of its time, serves as an excellent resource for research on the presence, impact, and advocacy of American women in music during the early 20th century. Today, we spotlight five composers of particular interest, whose works range from parlor songs to large-form European concert music.

Vol. 10 No. 17 (4 September 1909): 15.

Listen to Helen Hopekirk’s Konzertstück in D minor by clicking here!

 

Vol. 10 No. 8 (3 July 1909): 15.

 

Vol. 10 No. 7 (26 June 1909): 15.

Interestingly, one of Anita Owen’s most popular songs, “Sweet Bunch of Daisies”, has over time become a standard of the bluegrass genre, so much so, that many enthusiasts are unaware of its parlor song origins.

 

Vol. 10 No. 21 (2 October 1909): 17.

 

Vol. 11 No. 6 (18 December 1909): 21.

Remember, these are just five of the forty-five women featured in this remarkable series!

RIPM search tip: To read all forty-five articles in the series, “Women Composers of America”, access RIPM’s Preservation Series: European and North American Music Periodicals, and in “Advanced Search”, fill in the following fields: Periodical = Musical America (New York, 1898-1899, 1905-1922 [-1964]); Keyword = women composers of america; Year = 1909 to 1910.

Click here to subscribe to RIPM’s Curios, News, and Chronicles! 

When is our next posting? To find out, follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

***

RIPM is an international non-profit organization preserving and providing access to music periodicals published in more than twenty countries between approximately 1760 and 1966, from Bach to Bernstein. Functioning under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres, RIPM produces four electronic publications: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, European and North American Music Periodicals (Preservation Series), and RIPM Jazz Periodicals (Preservation Series, forthcoming).
Category: Curios and Chronicles | Comments Off on Forty-Five Women Composers
in Early 20th-Century America
February 15

Alban Berg’s Reflections on Wozzeck

Emil Stumpp, Porträt des Musikers Alban Berg, Deutsches Historisches Museum (1927), above left
B. F. Dolbin, Alban Berg (1935), Modern Music, Vol. 8 No. 3 (March-April 1936): [31], above right

 

This week, we celebrate the influential Austrian composer, Alban Berg, born 9 February 1885. A longtime student of Arnold Schoenberg, Berg’s compositional style blended modernist twelve-tone and serial techniques—hallmark characteristics of the so-called Second Viennese School—with late 19th-century Romanticism. His first major success was the 1925 opera, Wozzeck, derived from an unfinished play by German dramatist Georg Büchner, which told the story of an impoverished soldier’s descent into madness and murder. To commemorate Berg’s birth, we present several reflections on Wozzeck written by the composer himself—translated and published in an issue [Vol. 5 No. 1 (Nov. – Dec. 1927): 22-24.] of the journal Modern Music—accompanied by video excerpts of several memorable scenes from Act III of a 1987 production by the Vienna State Opera, the late Claudio Abbado conducting.

 

I wanted to compose good music; to develop musically the contents of Buechner’s immortal drama; to translate his poetic language into music; but other than that, when I decided to write an opera, my only intention, as related to the technique of composition, was to give the theatre what belongs to the theatre.

Berg’s commitment to writing music in service of the opera’s action is reflected in the so-called “drowning music” of Act III Scene IV.  Having returned to the pond where he killed his wife Marie, Wozzeck fears that his murder weapon will be discovered, and soon after, drowns.  Though Wozzeck is no longer visible to the audience, Berg’s use of overlapping ascending chromatic patterns of increasing duration signifies Wozzeck’s continued subjective experience of rising water and gradual loss of consciousness.

Act III Scene IV (Invention on a Six-Note Chord)

 

I obeyed the necessity of giving each scene and each accompanying piece of entr’acte music, whether prelude, postlude, connecting link or interlude, an unmistakable aspect, a rounded off and finished character.  It was therefore imperative to use everything warranted to create individualizing characteristics on the one hand, and coherence on the other; thus the much discussed utilization of old and new musical forms and their application in an absolute music.

Rather than adopting more traditional operatic forms in Wozzeck, Berg designed each scene and interlude using instrumental, or “absolute”, forms (fantasia and fugue, suite, passacaglia, invention, etc.).  While predominantly atonal, the interlude that follows Wozzeck’s drowning is closely tied to D minor, a Romantic afterword to the tragic character’s demise, and further evidence of Berg’s desire to “use everything warranted” to create his opera.

Interlude (Invention on a Key [D minor])

 

No matter how cognizant any particular individual may be of the musical forms contained in the framework of this opera, of the precision and logic with which everything is worked out and the skill manifested in every detail, from the moment the curtain parts until it closes for the last time, there is no one in the audience who pays any attention to the various fugues, inventions, suites, sonata movements, variations and passacaglias…
no one who heeds anything but the social problems of this opera which by far transcend the personal destiny of Wozzeck.  This I believe to be my achievement.

Berg’s unflinching depiction of poverty, militarism, and sadism in Wozzeck–no doubt inspired by the composer’s own military service during World War I–is of paramount importance.  Perhaps the most chilling scene is the opera’s last; a group of children are told Marie’s body has been discovered and hurry to the scene, while Marie and Wozzeck’s little boy continues to play, before joining the others.

Act III Scene V (Invention on an Eighth-Note Moto Perpetuo)

 

RIPM search tip: To read more about Wozzeck in the musical press, search “Wozzeck” as a keyword in RIPM’s Retrospective Index and Preservation Series: European and North American Music Periodicals.

Click here to subscribe to RIPM’s Curios, News, and Chronicles! 

When is our next posting? To find out, follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

***

RIPM is an international non-profit organization preserving and providing access to music periodicals published in more than twenty countries between approximately 1760 and 1966, from Bach to Bernstein. Functioning under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres, RIPM produces four electronic publications: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, European and North American Music Periodicals (Preservation Series), and RIPM Jazz Periodicals (Preservation Series, forthcoming).
WWW.RIPM.ORG
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February 7

RIPM’s “Illustrations of the Week”
Sketches of Opera Characters in The Baton

The Baton (1922-32) was published by the Institute of Musical Art in New York City. In 1924, the Juilliard Graduate School opened, with its facilities directly adjacent to the Institute. By 1926 the two music schools merged although both continued to maintain their own administrations until 1946, when they officially unified as the Juilliard School of Music.

A charming feature of The Baton from 1923 to 1928 is a number of drawings by pianist, writer, and artist Leslie Fairchild. Particularly interested in depicting circus life, Fairchild’s sketches were displayed in several locations including the Ringling Museum of the American Circus in Sarasota, FL, the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI, and the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, CT. As a piano student, Fairchild incorporated musical symbols into a style of simple lines and shapes, adding a touch of whimsy to the journal’s written material. In 1928, he combined his drawing skills and musical training to write a children’s piano method book entitled, A Jolly Trip to Music Land  (Chicago: Forster Music Publisher Inc., 1928). 

This week, we present seven of Fairchild’s delightful little drawings of well-known opera characters published in The Baton.

Canio, from Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci
Vol. 3 No. 1 (October 1923): 13.

 

Cio-Cio-san, from Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly
Vol. 3 No. 2 (November 1923): 13.

 

Wotan, from Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen
Vol. 3 No. 4 (January 1924): 13.

 

Carmen, from Georges Bizet’s opera of the same title
Vol. 3 No. 5 (February 1924): 7.

 

Romeo and Juliet, from Charles Gounod’s opera of the same title
Vol. 3 No. 7 (April 1924): 11.

 

The Chief of Police, Baron Scarpia, and his men (below) from Puccini’s Tosca
Vol. 3 No. 8 (May 1924): 12-13.

 

 

RIPM search tip: To view more of Leslie Fairchild’s drawings, access RIPM’s Retrospective Index and Online Archive, and fill in the following fields: Keyword = Leslie Fairchild; Periodical = The Baton [1922-1932]; Type = Illustration.  For more information on The Baton, click here!

Click here to subscribe to RIPM’s Curios, News, and Chronicles! 

When is our next posting? To find out, follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

 

***

RIPM is an international non-profit organization preserving and providing access to music periodicals published in more than twenty countries between approximately 1760 and 1966, from Bach to Bernstein. Functioning under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres, RIPM produces four electronic publications: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, European and North American Music Periodicals (Preservation Series), and RIPM Jazz Periodicals (Preservation Series, forthcoming).
WWW.RIPM.ORG
Category: Illustration(s) of the Week | Comments Off on RIPM’s “Illustrations of the Week”
Sketches of Opera Characters in The Baton