rss_2.0Sciendo RSS Feed for Musicology Todayhttps://sciendo.com/journal/MUSOhttps://www.sciendo.comhttps://sciendo-parsed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/64725839215d2f6c89dc4dd6/cover-image.jpghttps://sciendo.com/journal/MUSO140216https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-0008<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The paper discusses Wrocław’s beach bars, i.e. open-air riverside facilities which (as the name suggests) mostly possess artificial sandy beaches. This importance of this type of venue, relatively new in Wrocław, for the local music life is constantly growing. The text characterises these urban spaces (which have been of only marginal interest to Polish scholars to date) and defines their place in the city’s popular music scene in relation to traditional forms of that repertoire’s presence. In his survey of local musical practice, the author refers to the city’s sonic identity (soundscape), which is co-created by urban artists. The paper covers the period of the author’s field research in 2019–2021 as well as his later observations which indicate potential directions of beach bars’ development and confirm their growing role in shaping Wrocław’s local music scene.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-00082024-05-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-0007<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The figure of the street musician has long attracted much attention among scholars working in various academic disciplines. This paper attempts to answer the question of who the street musician / artist actually is. While on a scholarship to Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 University in 2013, I conducted a number of surveys and experiments in order better to understand what situations present-day musicians face while playing in the streets and how their social status is changing. Interviews with street performers and their audiences prove to be a valuable source of information. The paper presents the results of my own field research conducted both among street musicians and their audiences, as well as my own personal experience of performing music in public urban spaces in Montpellier, Sète, and Paris</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-00072024-05-26T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-0004<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The paper characterises music-involving cultural practices in Cracow’s urban parks, squares, streets, and ice rinks in the period of the so-called Galician Autonomy (1866–1918). Typologies of the spaces where music was performed and of open-air events involving music have been proposed. Music repertoires and performers have been discussed. The main sources for this text are press materials, memoirs, regulations, sheet music, and iconography.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-00042024-05-08T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-0006<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Eminent Polish composer Karol Rathaus (1895–1954) left behind an essay dedicated to his uncle Chune Wolfsthal (1851–1924). In this text, Rathaus recalls his childhood and adolescent years in (Austria-Hungary’s crown land of ) Galicia. His memories of Wolfsthal, a famous klezmer and operetta composer active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, provide an opportunity to recollect the now non-existent world of Jewish amateur musicians working in Tarnopol and Lwów before World War II. Those musicians performed in synagogues, at family events and social functions, in cafés and tea gardens. Some of them, including Chune, became involved in the activity of the then emerging Jewish theatre, which was a part-vulgar, part-artistic phenomenon.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-00062024-04-27T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-0003<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The paper discusses Georg Philipp Telemann’s presence in Sorau (now Żary in Poland) in 1704–1708, inspirations from Polish folk music in Telemann’s works, as well as projects undertaken by and in the present-day city of Żary with a view to incorporating and commemorating Telemann’s figure and oeuvre in the city’s contemporary culture.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-00032024-04-19T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-0002<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The paper focuses on a comprehensive dance collection compiled by two Wrocław/Breslau town musicians (<italic>Stadtpfeifer</italic>), the brothers Bartholomäus and Paul Hess. The anthology, partly preserved at Wrocław University Library, was published in 1555 at the Wrocław printing house of Crispin Scharffenberg and documents the transition of dance repertoire from the courtly realm to the private and public spheres, which was typical of the mid-sixteenth century. The Wrocław collection, scored for wind ensemble, contains 477 four- and five-part dances of German, Polish, French, and Italian provenance. The paper offers some new views on the repertoire from the collection. Particular attention has been given to the so-called Polish dances.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-00022024-04-14T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-0001ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-00012024-04-14T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-0005<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The aim of the paper is to situate the most important open-air venues where music was performed on the map of interwar Warsaw. This includes venues in city parks, restaurant tea gardens, streets and squares where mass celebrations and demonstrations took place, as well as the courtyards of tenement houses frequented by street players and singers. In addition to live music, that coming from the radio, gramophone records, as well as megaphones installed in parks and streets has been taken into account. On the basis of press reports, taken mainly from the <italic>Kurier Warszawski</italic> (Warsaw's largest daily newspaper), as well as works of fiction and diaries, the repertoire of works performed in the open air has been reconstructed. The organisers and performers of concerts, open-air shows, and street marches during which music was performed have also been listed. The material is divided into contexts connected with the everyday life of Warsaw's bourgeoisie and working class (during which music, functioning independently or as part of theatrical, cabaret and film performances, functioned as entertainment) and those belonging to the official-public or ceremonial sphere (celebrations of religious and national holidays, military parades, spontaneous demonstrations of supporters of various political groups). Special emphasis has been placed on recreating the social and political context of the latter type of events, which highlight the role of interwar Warsaw as the capital of the state.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2023-00052024-04-02T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-0003<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The seminar on mass songs held in Nieborów, Poland in June 1950 is notable for what it did not accomplish: Amid a diversity of opinions voiced by poets, composers, and cultural officials, no firm guidelines for this seemingly new type of song emerged. What we can draw from examining the proceedings of this three-day session are an enhanced understanding of mass song as an evolving, not a static phenomenon and fresh insights into the political and logistical complexities that faced composers at this time.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-00032022-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-0002<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The paper concerns the presence and ideological identity-building function of Polish folk music in Polish state-run schools between the World Wars, and the experiences of Jewish children and teenagers in this regard. The young Polish state brought together populations from the former three partitioned territories, which included numerous national minorities. The need for bond-forming, powerfully symbolic elements supporting a collectively developed national identity was soon strongly felt. Polish folk music, with particular emphasis on its regional varieties, perfectly fitted into the ideological current of patriotic and civic youth education in both state-run and private schools. Dances and songs which children learned at music and PE lessons familiarised them with the wealth of traditions, imbuing them with pride and the love of national culture. The paper quotes examples of young Jews’ experiences in this context, as they encountered Polish folksongs and dances in state-run schools: their responses to this issue and the impact of such contacts on their identities. The source material comes from pre-WWII press, in which we hear the voices of the children themselves, reporting their experiences.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-00022022-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-0005<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Collections of silent film music constitute valuable sources for historical research on the musical practice in the silent film era. The musical prints preserved in the Mirskey Collection were previously used by the author to reconstruct a score for the movie <italic>A Kiss for Cinderella</italic> (1925, dir. Herbert Brenon). This article describes the historical context considered during the reconstruction and discusses the workflow applied by Nek Mirskey (Bronisław Mirski) as a musical director of movie theatres. A comparative analysis of sheet music from the Mirskey Collection accompanied by handwritten notes, original cue sheet compiled by James Bradford for the Paramount Pictures, and a digitised copy of the film, have led to conclusions that are applicable not only to Mirskey's methods of compiling scores, but also to the more general rules for the development of musical accompaniments to silent films in the 1920s.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-00052022-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-0007<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The article is a polemic with the views formulated in 2020 by Philip A. Ewell in the <italic>Journal of the Society for Music Theory</italic>. His text is a critique of European music theory, mainly as represented in the writings by Heinrich Schenker. Ewell's main claim is that European music theory is based on racist concepts.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-00072022-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-0006<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Cooperation between the Institute of Musicology of the University of Warsaw and ‘Jestem’ Foundation began in 2013. The Foundation aims to support adults (especially elderly people) with chronic or terminal illnesses. The so-called ‘hour on beauty’, the Foundation's innovation introduced as part of the schedule of activities for patients, takes the form of weekly meetings with interesting persons (journalists, actors, travellers, etc.), and in the last several years – also with students of musicology. Cooperation involves regular facultative classes at which teams of musicology students prepare educational-therapeutic projects subsequently implemented at the Foundation's seat as part of the ‘hour on beauty’. The paper presents the model of cooperation worked out over the years and examples of original projects implemented by musicology students. The diversity of topics has been discussed here along with effective methods of patient activation (such as task-oriented listening, joint singing, and improvisation using everyday objects). The Foundation's work fills a gap in the Polish health care system resulting from the National Health Fund (NFZ) only financing stationary and home-based hospices but not designating any resources for day-care hospices targeting those oncological patients who need not be permanently hospitalised. The Foundation strives to prevent their exclusion and to improve the quality of their lives as well as their well-being. The benefits of the cooperation are invaluable. There is no doubt that this project (innovative on the Polish scale) reveals a new and potentially surprising function of musicology in the contemporary world.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-00062022-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-0004<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>In his concept of a composer's creative work Mieczysław Tomaszewski distinguishes the late and final phases. Edward W. Said, on the other hand, devoted his last publication to reflections on the late style in music and literature, referring to the existing body of research on the subject. What is the position, in the context of both these perspectives, of three important works for voices and instruments by Zygmunt Mycielski: <italic>Three Psalms</italic>, <italic>Liturgia sacra</italic>, and <italic>Fragments</italic> to words by Juliusz Słowacki, written in the last few years of the composer's life? The author discusses these works and attempts to answer that question in her conclusion.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-00042022-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-0001<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The paper is dedicated to the eminent Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk's opera <italic>Moses</italic>, which has been researched here from the standpoint of musical imagology for the first time. The methodology of the paper is based on the complex imagological concepts of Manfred S. Fischer and Jean-Marc Moura, in which they propose to analyse literary phenomena in national comparative contexts in terms of imagemes, imagothemes, and imagotypes. This triad in its totality makes up the imagosphere, that is, the world of artistic images which are both a cultural representation of a given national identity and its reflection in the artist's work. It has been found that one of the central images of Skoryk's opera and entire output is the national character of his music, which is defined by references to Ukrainian folksongs as well as the nation's operatic and choral tradition. The imagothemes of Skoryk's opera are related to a wide range of ‘eternal’ philosophical problems, such as good vs evil, faith vs its lack, human vs God, etc. By developing the ideas of Ivan Franko, the author of the opera's literary prototype, the composer presents a whole complex of ‘eternal’ themes, which he refers to the contemporary Ukrainian context: freedom and faith, liberation from centuries-long slavery and dependence, as well as the theme of the nation's spiritual leaders’ responsibilities and their relationship with the people. The main imagotypes of the opera: the God Jehovah, the prophet Moses, a lyrical young couple, and the Poet – correspond to the main qualities of Ukrainian mentality and national character, namely: patriotism, spirituality, piety, ‘cordocentrism’, and a lyrical-poetic worldview.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-00012022-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-0008ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2022-00082022-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2021-0005<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Operatic pasticcio and the need for experiencing pleasure were inseparable in eighteenth-century operatic theatre, as can be demonstrated on the example of <italic>L’abbandono di Armida</italic>, a pasticcio that was performed in the Venetian Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo on the last day of the 1729 carnival and gained considerable success. The article discusses the ingredients of pleasure derived from experiencing the pasticcio, which seems to have been multi-layered (the word ingredients used here perfectly reflects the <italic>haute cuisine</italic> roots of the pasticcio). The librettist Giovanni Boldini re-used for <italic>Armida</italic> arias from successful operas by Nicola Porpora, Tomaso Albinoni (?), Leonardo Leo, Leonardo Vinci, and Benedetto Marcello. Five arias have been analysed in order to exemplify the diversity of musical pleasure that the audience could experience. The final question is whether the pleasure drawn from a pasticcio is limited to one historical period, or possibly it presents a more universal appeal.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2021-00052021-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2021-0014<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>On 6 December 2006, students of the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels performed two one-act pasticci arranged by the author of this article: <italic>Ifigenia</italic> and <italic>Ipermestra</italic>. Assembled as experiments in the young discipline of artistic research in music, both ‘cut &amp; paste’ operas offered opportunities to explore issues of music-dramatic syntax in <italic>opera seria</italic>. In this article, I explain how individual arias and recitatives were combined into two meta-compositions that sometimes respected, and sometimes overrode eighteenth-century generic conventions. By revisiting the scores, libretti, archives and first-hand memories pertaining to this venture, I will show that ‘pastiching’ (<italic>pasticciare</italic>) is more than a historical form; it is a transhistorical method, involving a broad network of agencies, operators, and stakeholders whose strategies can be artistic and non-artistic, convergent and divergent. Pastiching does not necessarily result in ‘works’, fixed in time and space, but rather produces meta-compositional assemblages, the transience and formal instability of which provide opportunities to showcase neglected repertoire and tackle outdated musical ontologies.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2021-00142021-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2021-0001ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2021-00012021-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2021-0003<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>In 1719, the Royal Academy of Music was founded with the purpose of setting Italian opera in England on solid ground. Previously, at least two thirds of the Italian operas staged in London had been pasticci. Much of the criticism of the Italian opera before 1719 concerned stylistic fickleness. This is just one reason why it seems likely that the declining number of pasticci after 1719 can be interpreted as an effect of the move against stylistic compilations in music. In fact, in the first period of the Academy’s opera management (from 1720 to 1728) the share of pasticci fell to approximately 10 percent or even less – depending on where the dividing line is placed at a time before the English definition of the operatic pasticcio was established. My paper focuses on some experiments between ‘opera’ and ‘pasticcio’, staged in the Royal Academy’s first period (particularly <italic>Muzio Scevola</italic>), presented against the backdrop of the audience’s more general cultural knowledge practices and the works’ appeal to female members of the audience.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/muso-2021-00032021-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00en-us-1