History of Musical Composition

Complete transcription and reconstruction of the canon a13 for Christ and his Twelve Disciples on the Apostles Creed. This piece is found in both the Eton Choirbook and the Baldwin Manuscript. This edition contained both the fully realized canon as well as a modern reconstruction of the original monophonic version of the canon, as found in the manuscripts.

For a recording with a score animation see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBu66rLAv7I

Performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt-7n6z9lQ8

The doctrine you desire,
absolute, perfect,
dogma that alone provides wisdom,
does not exist.

Nor should you long
for a perfect doctrine....

Rather, you should long
for the perfection
of yourself.

Truth reveals itself
in enigma;
let us approach it
with wonder and awe
as diviners of its mystery.

(text adapted in part from Hermann Hesse's "Glass Bead Game" and Gene Roddenberry)

For Hermann Schroeder (1904 - 1984) – German composer, conductor, organist, and pedagogue – music was a "practical" commitment to the "mandatory inheritance" from Bach. When asked what composers he considered “modern leading figures”, his list would hardly be considered “modern” by contemporary standards, citing predominantly Paul Hindemith and Max Reger. Seeming unquestionably old-fashioned, his music is typically characterized as Neoclassical, especially when compared to his prominent avant-garde peers and modernist predecessors. However, rather than merely attempting to mimic or return to aesthetic precepts associated with Classicism, Schroeder saw himself in a continuing lineage, able to look both forward and backward while interacting with and reacting to his contemporaries to create an eclectic yet internally cohesive modern musical language. In what ways has Schroeder synthesized old and new styles in his music? What particularly in his music is “modern” in mid-20th century Germany and even today? Schroeder’s concert and chamber oeuvre composed during the 1950s and thereafter form a repertoire of music that demonstrates his commitment to recasting sounds, styles, and forms of the past. Through examination of some of the pieces from this artistically productive and mature period in Schroeder’s life, not only will it become apparent that he is worthy of the further scrutiny of American scholars, but also the label “modern”.

"Die Arbeitweise Arnold Schönbergs" gibt mit Untersuchungen und Analysen eines umfangreichen und vielseitigen Werkes, das mehrere hundert Kompositionen umfasst, Einblick in die Entstehung von Schönbergs Musik. Neben einer Beschreibung und statistischen Auswertung der Quellensorten in Schönbergs Manuskripten wird das Werkstattmaterial analytisch anhand von ausgesuchten Beispielen betrachtet. Zudem wird beleuchtet, wie der Komponist sich selbst bei seinem Schaffen wahrnahm: nicht konstruieren, sondern den Gedanken Ausdruck verleihen.

A transcription of Leonin's "Viderunt Omnes" (c. mid to late 12th century), showing excerpts of the original two sources with comparative variations and a modern transcription.

For a recording and score-video see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p9WQlyVPrA

A critical and performance edition of Alexander Agricola's chanson "De tous biens plaine" for three voices. The cantus firmus of the tenor is extracted from Hayne Van Ghizeghem's (c. 1445 – 1476 to 1497) eponymous chanson.

The text of the first verse is underlaid in this edition, though only the first few words actually appear in the manuscript. The complete text as found in a number of Ghizeghem's sources with a complete translation is given at the end.

It seems unlikely that the outer voices should be sung, given their continual motion, frequent awkward leaps, and extreme ambitus.  However, the inner voice certainly could be sung.

A non-barred critical transcription of Alexander Agricola's motet-chanson "Belles sur toutes - Tota pulchra es" from Florence, Bibliotea del Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini,  MS 2439 ff. 63v-64r.

For a recording of the music with a score-video see link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2N_Ru9xjuA

Performance score of Francesco Landini's madrigal, " Musica Son - Già Furon - Ciascun Vuol" transcribed from the Squarcialupi Codex (121v-122r). For a video of the score with a performance see the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNcfZSBF9ow

This is a threefold transcription of Baude Cordier's "circle canon," two versions in rondeau form and one in perpetual canon. Included with the music transcriptions are full translations from Medieval French to English of all the accompanying texts as well as an English text underlay for the music.

Also included is a full explanation of the various mensurations and colorations that appear in the piece.

The design of the scores attempts to illustrate the rondeau form overlaying the canonic conceit.

For a score animation with the transcription and original manuscript, see this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaeOWdXM4Pg

This is a comparative manuscript edition of Gherardello da Firenze's (c. 1350) caccia "Tosto che l'alba". Herein you can see the difference between the piece's three available sources listed below. For a performable realization of this piece taken from these three sources, see the related title under "performance edition".

Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana [I-Fl], MS Mediceo Palatino 87 “Codex Squarcialupi”, no. 40 fol 25v-26r
Bibliothèque Nationale [F-PN], MS fonds italien 568 “Pit”, no. 40 fol. 25v-26r
British Library [GB-Lbl], Add. MS 29987, no 31 fol. 25r

For a recording and video of the score see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok4VOFvLE2Y

A pedagogical transcription of Richard Sampson's (attr.) motet in double canon, "Salve radix," written to celebrate the union of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon and the birth of their daughter, Mary.

For a video with recording accompanying the modern transcription with side-by-side animated original notated music see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9wl1XqV6Nk

For a video presentation of the conclusions of the work see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN4fU4laue4

Three times in the history of Western Music - at the end of the 14th century, the end of the 16th century, and the beginning of the 20th century – has there been a flowering in the development of non-dyadic rational rhythmic hierarchies. Only in the last of these occurrences has this development persisted continuously to the present; each time before, rhythmic complexity collapsed into a system dominated by dyadic- and/or triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies. By the 17th century, even triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies had totally disappeared from musical discourse to be supplanted by our modern system of dyadic-rational time signatures. Even into the 21st century, dyadic-rational time signatures remain predominant, despite work by composers like Henry Cowell and Conlon Nancarrow, which suggested the possibility of a rhythmic paradigm shift during the early- and mid-20th century.

Despite the persistent hold of dyadic-rational time signatures, developments in prescriptive rhythmic complexity during the 20th century have continued to the present, persisting over multiple generations of composers and forming distinct schools of musical discourse popular in contemporary classical music today. Among these composers are not only Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and Conlon Nancarrow, but also Thomas Ades, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Gordon, Karen Khachaturian, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Jonathan Dawe among others. Within their oeuvre, each of these composers have encountered the need for a broader exploration, development, and notation of rhythmic structure beyond our current dyadic-rational system, allowing in their music pan-rational time signatures, irrational time-signatures, and/or dense and/or indivisible rhythmic hierarchies – all of these levels of rhythmic prescription either not seen since the 16th century or altogether never before seen in Western music.

Given the present state of our system of music notation and rhythmic prescription within it, what are we doing and what can we do now in the 21st century with the rhythmic tools developed in the past one hundred years? By thoroughly understanding the history of prescriptive rhythmic experimentation in Western Music, we can possibly better understand why certain systems of rhythmic notation have persisted while others have been forgotten; through such better understanding of the history of rhythmic notation we might fashion a notational system today that overcomes our present limitations in rhythmic prescription better than previous failed models. To this end, I will trace the historical development of systems of rhythmic hierarchy from Medieval to Modern music, focusing on music with exceptional prescriptive, precise, mathematically defined rhythmic structures, excluding aleatoric and spatially based rhythmic notation. In doing this, we will gain a historical contextualization of the rise of pan-rational systems of rhythmic notation. Following this, we will survey a variety of modern compositional methods that expand standard prescriptive rhythmic notation, beginning with Charles Ives and Henry Cowell and ending with living composers like Thomas Ades and Michael Gordon. Last, this dissertation will address my own compositional work in the context of pan-rational systems of rhythmic hierarchies and propose a new addition to the lexicon of rhythmic notation that will emancipate the composer from traditional dyadically-rational rhythmic notation.

This is a performance edition of Gherardello da Firenze's (c. 1350) caccia, "Tosto che l'alba." This edition is a combination of the three available sources for this piece, selecting those options which are optimal when differences arise between the manuscripts. If one desires to see the other available options in each source, please refer to the related title under "comparative manuscript edition". The complete text of the piece is provided with a translation at the end of the score.

For a recording and video of the score see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok4VOFvLE2Y

El trabajo hace una comparación sobre la danza puertorriqueña, sacándola del aspecto de ser música bailable y viéndola desde una perspectiva clásica como música nacional que tiene influencias de la escuela europea, específicamente del "lieder" alemán y el poema sinfónico

The work of the proposal consists of a number of interviews with Carlos Aurelio Rubira Infante, from whom the primordial guidelines will be obtained that will serve as a guide to other sources of information, such as artists, musicians, singers, musical producers, record companies. , who have worked directly with him in the artistic area, the same ones who will be in charge of detailing with certainty the musical styles that the composer in mention has made with them.

For an audio-video animation of the manuscript with the modern transcription see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo

An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the House of Dedalus) from the Berkeley Manuscript.

This edition includes a modern transcription of the music, the original manuscript excerpted, poetic and literal translations of the text, reconstruction of the 11-tier labyrinth upon which the music is overlain, and pedagogical materials/explanations of the musical and poetic medieval Ballade forme-fixe.

A transcription of a lesser known masterpiece from the early 16th century. The only known work by composer Johannes Mittner, this Mass, and particularly its Sanctus movement, demonstrates one of the largest mensuration canons from the Renaissance - five voices from one.

For a audio-visual animation with recording see the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCe7WGoJVLI

Johannes Mittner: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarae, Sanctus
Sanctus a4,
Pleni sunt coeli a2,
Osanna I a5 mensuration canon,
Benedictus a4
Osanna II a3

A critical transcription of the three-voice Caça (“chace” or canon) known as “O Virgo Splendens” (“O splendorous virgin”), the first in the small collection of music from the Llibre Vermell. It is perhaps the oddest of the set, being the most stylistically remote. It is the only piece not notated or composed in the contemporary style of the Ars Nova. Rather, its notation and style harken to previous centuries, possibly as recent as the discant style of the Parisian school of Notre Dame or of Santiago de Compostela from the 12th and 13th century, or as old as the free organum style of the 10th and 11th centuries such as that found in the Ad organum faciendum. Given its apparent lack of rhythmic mode of any kind, its relation to the 10th and 11th centuries seem more likely.

For a video of the score with a recorded performance visit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BkzBK5-oDw

This is an overview of the available multi-disciplinary data on the history of “hemiolic” musical modes that use a melodic interval of the augmented second (e.g., Arabic and Turkish Hijaz). Such modes are extremely popular in Mediterranean, Balkan, and Central Asian countries, and originate from the Ancient Greek chromatic and enharmonic genera. Hemiolic modes form a special type of tonality – “Phrygian” – forming the “Dominant keys” as opposed to the “Tonic keys” of the Western classical music tradition. Hence, the vast area from Spain to India should be regarded as home to the hemiolic "Mediterranean tonality", in contrast to the Western tonality that is based on the diatonic system, expanded into the chromatic system through the course of its historic development. The structural, aesthetic and semantic differences between the Western and Mediterranean tonalities reflect the growing divergence between the Western and Eastern cultures of thought, which in turn seems to be fueled by the cultural opposition of Western Christian and Islamic ideologies.

Du 18e siècle à la première décennie du 19e siècle, l'enseignement des conservatoires napolitains semble avoir donné aux jeunes compositeurs un avantage sur la plupart de leurs contemporains européens. Au coeur de cet enseignement, la formation au partimento (exercice de basse légèrement ou non chiffrée) a pu jouer un rôle déterminant dans la promotion de l'excellence en matière de composition et la transformation de jeunes garçons italiens en compositeurs capables d'improviser tout un tissu polyphonique au départ d'un seul fil. Si les méthodes didactiques insolites des conservatoires napolitains (à l'origine nés comme institutions caritatives) s'attirèrent le scepticisme de visiteurs étrangers tels que Charles Burney, les élèves qui en sortaient avaient le don de composer avec une rapidité et une fluidité hors du commun. Au terme d'une formation ancrée sur l'assimilation minutieuse et laborieuse de schémas musicaux au moyen des partimenti, ces compositeurs pouvaient imaginer et exécuter de la musique à plusieurs voix avec une facilité déconcertante. Fedele Fenaroli (1730-1818) fut le codificateur de cette tradition non verbale emblématique de l'école napolitaine. Utilisés par de nombreuses générations de musiciens italiens (parmi lesquels Giuseppe Verdi et Luciano Berio), ses ouvrages pour l'apprentissage de la composition - Regole (1775) et Partimenti (c.1800) - connurent un succès éditorial sans précédent, en Italie et au-delà, jusqu'aux premières décennies du 20e siècle. Ses compositions, principalement religieuses, tombèrent quant à elles dans l'oubli, bien que la plupart des manuscrits autographes aient été conservés. Notre étude s'est attachée à retracer l'historique des conservatoires napolitains et caractériser les méthodes d'enseignement de l'école napolitaine au tournant du 18e au 19e siècle ; proposer une synthèse des éléments biographiques connus de Fedele Fenaroli et de son école ; inventorier l'ensemble de ses compositions ; définir la nature et la fonction des partimenti - replacés dans le contexte des récents développements de l'histoire de la théorie musicale en général, et de la tonalité en particulier - et analyser la contribution spéciique de Fenaroli dans la transmission et perpétuation de cette tradition ; circonstancier l'héritage de l'oeuvre fénarolienne aux 19e et 20e siècles et la réévaluation moderne de la tradition du partimento au tournant du 20e au 21e siècle.

A non-barred critical transcription of Alexander Agricola's contrafacta motet, "Virgo sub ethereis" (Source: Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, MS 40021 ff. 131v-132r) as derived from his "Comme femme desconfortée".

For a video of the score with a performance recording see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_nnTzNXeUY

Edition of Lorenzo da Firenze's caccia, "A poste messe" with english lyrical text underlay. For a video-score of this edition with a recording see the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN1dFq0jK-U

Transcribed from the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana [I-Fl], MS Mediceo Palatino 87, “Codex Squarcialupi”, fol 25v-26r and the
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence (Firenze), Italy [I-Fn], MS Panciatichiano 26, "Panciatichi", fol. 76v-77r.

The form of this piece is canonic with monophonic (?) ritornello. As indicated in the codices, the first part of the piece is clearly a canon for ether two or three voices. The second part, however, gives no sign that it should be performed canonically. Furthermore, there seems to be no reasonable way to render the second half of this piece as a canon without numerous and egregious counterpoint errors. Thus, it is generally accepted that the Ritornello is not a canon like the first part.

The second part can be performed monophonically or by many voices in octaves. However, many recordings have taken the liberty to arrange polyphonic parts to fit with the given monophonic line. Most such arrangements borrow material from the monophonic line, parts of which work contrapuntally well together when isolated and extracted arbitrarily.

This article reviews four 20th century proposals by theoreticians
of speculative music whose work has focused on
assigning pitches to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet,
with the intention of being able to deduce the musical
equivalence of texts written in Hebrew, often used in Hermetic,
magical and cabalistic rituals, seals, or talismans.
This first part deals with the direct attributions of letters
to pitches; that is to say, the kind of attribution that is not
based on gematria or cabalistic numerology, which will be
discussed in a later piece.

Este artículo reseña cuatro propuestas realizadas en el siglo
xx por teóricos de la música especulativa, cuya intención
ha sido relacionar las alturas musicales con las letras del
alfabeto hebreo para deducir la equivalencia musical de
textos hebreos utilizados en rituales, sellos o talismanes
cabalísticos y de la tradición Hermética del esoterismo
occidental. En esta primera parte se examinan las atribuciones
“directas”, (las que no utilizan el valor numérico de
las letras hebreas como factor intermedio de conversión)
comparables a sistemas de decodificación criptográfica.
La gematría musical se discutirá en una segunda parte.

Tesi di laurea triennale in Comparatistica presso la facoltà di Lettere e filosofia, La Sapienza, Roma.
Storia e peripezie di un canto di origini probabilmente mediorientali, del genere greco a cui è approdato, il Rebetiko, e sua immensa fortuna in ambiti disparati.

Introduzione, traduzione e commento di Paolo Vittorelli.
Franchino Gaffurio (Lodi, 1451 - Milano, 1522), dopo la «Theorica musice» (presente in questa stessa collana), pubblicò, nel 1496, la «Practica musice», con l’intento di esporre quella parte della teoria musicale che esulava dalla pura speculazione intellettuale. In questo trattato sono infatti contenute ampie descrizioni della pratica del canto piano e del canto figurato, corredate da una dettagliatissima esposizione dei princìpi della notazione mensurale di fine Quattrocento, da una trattazione critica e coerente dei fondamenti del contrappunto (l’autore era anche compositore), ricca di consigli di prassi esecutiva non soliti a scriversi da parte dei teorici coevi, e dalla più logica e completa dissertazione dei rapporti ritmici (nel lessico dell’epoca detti “proporzioni”) mai scritta da qualsiasi musicografo, il tutto illustrato da numerosissimi esempi, spesso composti «ad hoc». Nel testo tornano, per la prima volta nella storia musicale europea, alcune citazioni di autori greci classici o bizantini diversi dagli usuali Boezio e Marziano Capella (alcuni fatti tradurre in latino per la prima volta proprio da Gaffurio stesso), con lo scopo di consentire l’uso della categoria di Umanesimo anche nel campo della musica. L’opera conobbe all’epoca un successo insuperato da parte di qualsiasi altro trattato di argomento musicale (ben cinque edizioni in una quindicina d’anni) e rimase uno dei testi di riferimento per le “regole della musica” sino a un periodo molto posteriore rispetto alla sua data di pubblicazione: ancora Leopold Mozart citerà il nome del lodigiano.

econdo titolo della stagione di Carnevale 1760 del Teatro Regio di Torino, Enea nel Lazio costituisce l'espressione e il prodotto di una volontà precisa, di intenti programmatici ben determinati. Alle esigenze dell'una e ai principî degli altri rispondono la scelta, l'organizzazione, l'impiego di persone, elementi artistici e spettacolari, mezzi tecnici: funzione dell'opera è veicolare un complesso di valori, messaggi e simboli -quelli della Corte, tesi a sancirne l'autorità e giustificarne il potere -in una realtà e per un pubblico particolari: quelli della capitale, la città di Torino. S Una potenza militare Negli anni immediatamente successivi alla metà del Settecento, il Regno di Sardegna e la dinastia sabauda godono di un prestigio guadagnato e consolidato sul campo di battaglia, nelle imprese militari. Determinante era stata la partecipazione alla guerra di successione spagnola (1701-1714; ma l'intervento sabaudo si esaurisce tra il 1702 e il 1713), combattuta dapprima a fianco dei Regni di Francia e Castiglia e dell'Elettorato di Baviera; e poi, con una manovra spregiudicata quanto fruttuosa, nello schieramento opposto, accanto ai Regni di Gran Bretagna, Portogallo, Danimarca, alle Province Unite e al Sacro Romano Impero. Le vicende del conflitto avevano consentito al Ducato di Savoia, guidato da Vittorio Amedeo II, di collocarsi nel novero delle grandi potenze europee e qui stabilire rapporti diplomatici e commerciali, di espandere i propri confini e acquisire la corona regia: in seguito alla pace di Utrecht, del 1713, la Casa sabauda ottiene il Regno di Sicilia, che nel 1720 commuta con quello di Sardegna per ottemperare al Trattato di Londra del 1718. 1 L'esaltazione del Regno di Sardegna come potenza militare trova eco nella netta ripartizione di Torino in spazi civili e militari, attuata in seno al riordino della città che il re affida a Filippo Juvarra tra il 1716 e il 1719. 2 In ciò si evidenzia un primo segnale di quella ALFIERI, VITTORIO,

Due to the 20th century mathematical and scientific developments of Georg Cantor, Max Karl Planck, Albert Einstein, and Werner Heisenberg, concepts once relegated to obscurity, such as irrationality, infinity, insolvability, and chaos, were brought to mainstream attention, ultimately changing the course of technological and scientific development into the 21st century. Before these seminal thinkers, concepts like numerical irrationality and infinity were considered by many to be worthless if not amoral; such attitudes can be found persisting back to the ancient Greeks under the Pythagoreans. Interestingly, the aesthetic of irrationality follows a similar historical trajectory, mostly finding relegation in peripheral movements and specific artists before the 20th century. However, the 20th century has seen the greatest and longest persisting resurgence in mathematically irrational thought within the arts. This paper compares the visual and musical experiments in irrationality, incommensurability, and infinity in the works of MC Escher and Conlon Nancarrow during the early and mid-twentieth century, showing a correlation between contemporary mathematical and physical innovations and specific aesthetic pursuits in art and music.

The prestigious and exceptional characterization of Hildegard von Bingen, promoted for at least the past century, and popularized within the past few decades, has become the standard expectation in most textbooks and curriculums on Medieval Music. Some questions arise against many historians" claims however. While there might be many surviving chants of Hildegard, possibly numbering more than any other single contemporary individual, this claim seems to propose that there was no other individual writing significant amounts of innovative monophonic liturgical music during this time. However, evidence available to musicologists for the past fifty years would indicate otherwise. Music by such 12 th century composers as Hermannus Contractus clearly shows evidence for an extremely prolific and progressive monophonic compositional style at least fifty years before Hildegard von Bingen. This evidence suggests that the musically historical position that historians have given Hildegard von Bingen is perhaps over inflated and ultimately incorrect, neglecting the novel innovations of composers a generation before her time.

En las poesías del Cancionero Musical de Palacio con melodías atribuidas a Juan del Encina, aparecen algunas que, por sus recursos expresivos, recuerdan inequívocamente la poesía musical italiana de su tiempo, especialmente las frottole y los canti carnascialeschi; por otra parte, los cancioneros musicales italianos manuscritos e impresos, además de recoger algunas composiciones de Juan del Encina, contienen otras cuya transmisión puede haber sido facilitada por él mismo.  A la luz de estos datos, hacia 1500 parece haberse erigido en mediador entre la música italiana y la española

The living traditions of monodic Orthodox chant were going through innovations, as the music theory and its notation were created starting from 1814. They are the results of a reform finished under the third generation or the “4th music school of the patriarchate” (Istanbul). The reformers, who were called “the three great teachers”, had close relationships with musicians at the Ottoman Court, with musicians belonging to Sufi brotherhoods, and with synagogal singers—a context which Rudolf Maria Brandl called 1989 the Levantine community of traditional musicians (“The Music of the Fanariots”).

The paper is about the performance practice of Greek-Orthodox singers and is focused on the various forms of the diatonic (papadic) ēchos barys, as they can be found in the living tradition today. It is also an attempt to trace back the theoretical concept of this mode and to answer the question, to what extent the reformers were inspired by traditional musicians of the Levant.

For a complete annimated score video of this work containing the original manuscript, modern score, and translation, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcOtQNR8lzE

This is a pedagogical edition of Baude Cordier's' famous piece of augenmusik, "Belle, Bonne, Sage" from the 14th century. Find herein complete explanations of all parts of the piece (pictorial, poetical, musical, formal, etc.). Complete translations of all texts are provided along with an explanation of translations methodology and problems. Complete high-resolution graphics of the two sources are included.

This study explores a novel approach to estimating a timeline of the evolution of music by establishing the commonalities between the principles of spatial organization of pictorial composition in works of visual art and the principles of tonal organization of music composition in music works. The cross-modal features of perception of music allow musicians and listeners to envisage melodic motion and harmonic progressions in a peculiar virtual space, where the height axis is associated with frequency, the width - with time, and the depth - with music texture, i.e., the number of simultaneously active parts and/or voices. The available evidence from psychophysiological research suggests that capacity of music to trigger spatial representation constitutes a cross-cultural phenomenon biologically rooted in the shared mechanisms of perception of pitch contours of music parts and visual contours of pictorial and real-life objects. Hence, drawing parallels between the typologies of visual composition in works of realistic art, on the one hand, and the typologies of music texture and schemes of harmonic organization in music compositions, on the other hand, might reveal patterns of tonal organization of music that otherwise are hard to identify. This line of inquiry is especially beneficial for the reconstruction of prehistoric music that lacks direct documentation, other than the disposition of holes on the earliest wind musical instruments excavated by archaeologists. Prehistoric artworks, in contrast, present a well documented source for charting a timeline of evolution of spatial organization through establishing patterns and schemes of pictorial representation of perceptual reality. Matching of such schemes to the typological schemes of tonal organization of music of those indigenous ethnicities that maintain the lifestyle and inhabit environments similar to prehistoric people can potentially help detect the general course of the evolution of music and sketch its global history in a manner similar to existing histories of human art. This study seeks to review the compositional commonalities between major canons of pictorial representation, from the Ancient Egypt to the 18th century Europe, and those music systems that were in use by the same people who used those pictorial canons. I start with the well established similarity between the rules of linear perspective and the rules of Western tonality and try to track their correspondences at first to the Hellenic theory of perspective and theory of music, then, identify their common traits and trace their development chronologically all the way from the earliest forms of Paleolithic art to the Baroque period, focusing on the geographic area of Europe and the Near East. The presentation contains 40 carefully selected images and 45 audio examples - identifying 15 principal types of musical texture along with their pictorial analogs. The entire overview reveals the dramatic change in compositional organization that accompanied the rise of urban civilizations of the Bronze change, followed by the steady increase in structural complexity, the discovery of the depth parameter and the prevalence of naturalistic approach to semantic content - until the fall of the Roman Empire. The Dark Ages marked a temporary decline in the techniques of rendition of the depth parameter while instituting new means of compositional integration, until the compositional methods of Antiquity were restored on a new platform of hierarchically differentiated parameter of depth during the 12-14th centuries. At this point the compositional practices of the West and the East diverged. The Renaissance opened a new era of rational science-like approach to various aspects of composition, eventually merging them into a coherent comprehensive theory of perspectival organization in arts and theory of tonality in music. In the process of this advance, music composition acquired a considerably greater capacity to transmit large volumes of information amongst general population than that of pictorial composition. In conclusion, this study offers possible explanations of this discrepancy.

A performance and critical edition of Agricola's two voiced polyphonic setting of "Gaudeamus omnes", Introit for the Feast of the Assumption. For two different recordings and video-scores of the piece see the links below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZnRmQ-B2Zc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxK8zd2hLEM

Only the incipit "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" appears with Agricola's music. The Introit text set to the chant cantus firmus used in this transcription is the text for the Introit for the Feast of the Assumption (also Gaudeamus omnes in domino).

Furthermore, Agricola only set down as semibreves each of the first 38 notes of the "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" chant. This transcription, following the example of Edward Learner's edition, reconstructs the remaining tenor notes. This edition differs from Learner's in that it uses the Introit chant for Assumption from Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale [F-CA], MS B-12, fol. 49r-v (c. 1500), rather than a British version from the Sarum rite.

______________________________

Gaudeamus omnes in domino,
diem festum celebrantes sub honore Mariae Virginis:
de cujus assumptione gaudent angeli,
et collaudant filium dei.

Let us all rejoice in the Lord
celebrating this day the feast in honor of the Virgin Mary,
in whose solemnity the angels rejoice,
and praising the Son of God.

Analytical material concerning the music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) is simultaneously rife and sparse. Compared to his towering contemporaries writing modern music in the West such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, and Paul Hindemith, Stravinsky’s music is, at times, much more difficult to fit into neat and tidy analytical boxes. His music spans so many genres and influences, often mixing and juxtaposing them, that it becomes challenging to understand his music though only one or even two analytical methods. At times, his music defies meaningful quantitative analysis at all. The brief study here only hopes to add one tool to the multifaceted tool box available to analyze Stravinsky’s music, offering a new perspective through which to view his more Neo-Classical works. This process stems from the earlier music which Stravinsky is referencing in Neo-Classicism, and hopes to offer reasonable justification to recognize tonal structures in the background of tonally ambiguous music in Stravinsky’s repertoire. I give this analytical and compositional process the name “Poly-Contrapuntalism” and use it to explain four-part voice leading in Stravinsky’s “Grand Chorale” from The Soldier’s Tale and use it to reverse engineer easily recognizable tonal structures in this piece to better understand the macro-tonal process that is happening throughout the work.

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar processos de hibridismo no arranjo da música popular brasileira (MPB) no século 21. Realiza uma revisão de literatura sobre os temas abordados, entre eles os conceitos de arranjo, MPB e hibridação, e apresenta uma análise do álbum A mulher do fim do mundo, de Elza Soares, como exemplo deste limiar estético.

Breve trattato redatto con l’intento di offrire una sintesi chiara degli argomenti fondamentali che riguardano la conoscenza ed il concatenamento degli accordi, seguendo i concetti cardine dello studio dell’armonia tonale-funzionale e ponendo l’accento sul concetto di “relazione”. La presente sintesi, contenendo anche alcuni fondamenti di ritmica e di analisi, può essere utile come supporto alle lezioni di Teoria e Tecnica dell’Armonia nei Conservatori e Istituti Musicali (COTP/01), ma può essere anche impiegata come introduzione nei corsi di fondamenti di composizione, direzione d’orchestra e musica applicata alle immagini.
Con una breve prefazione del M° Angelo Bruzzese.

A study and critical edition of Agricola's two voiced polyphonic setting of "Gaudeamus omnes", Introit for the Feast of the Assumption. This is intended for teaching various 14th and 15th century mensuration signs and their modern translations and persisting problems.

For two recordings and video-scores of the piece see the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZnRmQ-B2Zc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxK8zd2hLEM

Only the incipit "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" appears with Agricola's music. The Introit text set to the chant cantus firmus used in this transcription is the text for the Introit for the Feast of the Assumption (also Gaudeamus omnes in domino).

Furthermore, Agricola only set down as semibreves each of the first 38 notes of the "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" chant. This transcription, following the example of Edward Learner's edition, reconstructs the remaining tenor notes. This edition differs from Learner's in that it uses the Introit chant for Assumption from Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale [F-CA], MS B-12, fol. 49r-v (c. 1500), rather than a British version from the Sarum rite.

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Gaudeamus omnes in domino,
diem festum celebrantes sub honore Mariae Virginis:
de cujus assumptione gaudent angeli,
et collaudant filium dei.

Let us all rejoice in the Lord
celebrating this day the feast in honor of the Virgin Mary,
in whose solemnity the angels rejoice,
and praising the Son of God.

This is an overview of the available multi-disciplinary data on the history of "hemiolic" musical modes that use a melodic interval of the augmented second (i.e., Arabic and Turkish Hijaz). Such modes are extremely popular in Mediterranean, Balkan, and Central Asian countries, and originate from the Ancient Greek chromatic and enharmonic genera. Hemiolic modes form a special type of tonality – "Phrygian" – forming the "Dominant keys" as opposed to the "Tonic keys" of the Western classical music tradition. Hence, the vast area from Spain to India should be regarded as home to the hemiolic "Mediterranean tonality", in contrast to the Western tonality that is based on the diatonic system, expanded into the chromatic system through the course of its historic development. The structural, aesthetic and semantic differences between the Western and Mediterranean tonalities reflect the growing divergence between the Western and Eastern cultur...

Als "Zeitkunst" stellt sich für die Musik immer wieder die Frage, wie ihr Ende zu gestalten, wo nicht zu bewältigen ist. Der Band widmet sich musikalischer Schlussgestaltung als einem grundlegenden Problem kompositorischer Formgebung. Vielfältige Ansätze für diese kompositorische Auseinandersetzung, die im Laufe der europäischen Musikgeschichte entwickelt und reflektiert worden sind, bewegen sich im Spannungsfeld zwischen Auflösung und Abreißen, Erfüllung und Verweigerung, triumphaler Apotheose und ersterbendem Verklingen. Die Probleme, um die es beim musikalischen Schließen geht, sind wiederum nicht allein formaler oder struktureller Provenienz, sondern auch ästhetischer Natur und werden oft erst in kulturgeschichtlichen Zusammenhängen sichtbar. Von ihnen her kann der Schluss seine jeweilige besondere Bedeutung erhalten. Diese Probleme betreffen die Frage, welche expliziten oder impliziten Vorstellungen von 'Zeitlichkeit' und '(Un-)Endlichkeit', 'Spannung' und 'Auflösung' oder 'Bewältigung' und 'Resignation' sich in einem bestimmten historischen Kontext in die Schlussgestaltung einschreiben. Die einzelnen Beiträge des Bandes entwerfen systematische, historische und musiktheoretische Perspektiven auf das Problem des Schließens. Das untersuchte Feld erstreckt sich vom Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert und enthält neben Beispielen, die in der Tradition europäischer Kunstmusik dem Werkbegriff zuzuordnen sind, auch Überlegungen zur Schlussgestaltung im Musiktheater und in der Jazz-Improvisation.

As a " temporal art", music is constantly confronted with the question of how to shape its end, where it cannot be managed. This volume is dedicated to musical finale as a fundamental problem of compositional design. Various approaches to this compositional debate, which have been developed and reflected upon in the course of European music history, move in the field of tension between dissolution and tearing down, fulfilment and refusal, triumphant apotheosis and dying out. The problems involved in musical closure are in turn not only of formal or structural provenance, but also of an aesthetic nature and often only become visible in cultural-historical contexts. It is from them that the conclusion can acquire its particular significance. These problems relate to the question of which explicit or implicit notions of 'temporality' and '(in)finiteness', 'tension' and 'dissolution' or 'coping' and 'resignation' inscribe themselves in the finale in a particular historical context. The individual contributions in this volume outline systematic, historical and music-theoretical perspectives on the problem of closure. The field under investigation extends from the Middle Ages to the 20th century and, in addition to examples that can be assigned to the concept of "work" in the tradition of European art music, also includes reflections on the final composition in music theatre and jazz improvisation.

Link to performance recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNkMCBwO9XQ  ----  "Threnody on the Death of Children" was written shortly after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Florida this past February. Consequently, this work is inspired by recent and ongoing tragedies such as school shootings in the United States of America and the use of child soldiers in conflicts around the world as a by-product of global violence. While I cannot pretend to be able to truly empathize with the children and families directly impacted by gun violence, I feel a responsibility to speak out against these injustices with whatever means I possess.

Octet is intended to be a meditation on life from the perspective of the children living through these situations at the moment of this horrific culmination. In part, this piece also attempts to express the anger and contempt the composer and many others feel towards those in our society who continue to be apathetic towards gun regulation as well as those - like many of our politicians and the NRA - who happily profiteer from gun deregulation and manufacturing, murderously promoting violence in our homes, schools, nation, and world. As a consequence of this attempt at musical protest in a time of tragic loss, this music intertwines the emotion of mournfulness with those of fear, anger, horror, and dread, creating a work that bears the ugliness of our nation's current gun-financed state.

This piece was intended to be disconcerting and even harsh- to use unusual rhythmic structures to evoke anxiety and hysteria.  It pulls musical quotations from modern and historical pieces as well and plays those themes against each other to represent the discourse of history with the present and how our resultant collective actions and inactions have led to these events around the world.  It crescendos and decrescendos until a final culmination to juxtapose moments of narrow escape with the inevitable and terrible finale of a young life cut too short.

Premier: June 27 in Vienna, Austria (The Vienna Summer Music Festival), PHACE Ensemble

Despite the frequently critiqued prolixity in much of his oeuvre, Alexander Agricola (1445/46-1506) crafted music comprehensible enough to elicit great praise from numerous contemporaries. What is then inherently praiseworthy in this abstruse music? In his Salve Regina I, Agricola crafts a musical argument for his garrulity, the thesis of which aims to clarify and justify the virtue of his style. While Agricola employed cantus firmus conventions to provide formal scaffolding, he also imbues discursiveness with comprehensibility through rhetorical techniques, such as inflection of cadence, clearness of imitation, phraseology of text, and varied implementation of cantus firmus. Articulating the micro-structure of his music, these components are then couched in the discourse of the classical argument: an introduction, confirmation, and refutation of a thesis. In Agricola’s Salve Regina I, motet becomes a medium for the exhibition and logical justification of his musical thesis of abstract polystylism.