Musicology Today

05/07/2024

Since the Dresden symposium also hosted a book launch at the end, Musicology Today invites you to read one of the volumes presented on that occasion: George Enescu – Creația pentru pian [George Enescu – Piano Works] (2022) by Raluca Știrbăț. The invitation is addressed by Vlad Văidean in a paper published in issue 53 of Musicology Today, that reflects his erudition on Enescu and goes beyond the conventional boundaries of a book review in its scope and approach: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-53/book-reviews/

03/07/2024

Michael Heinemann signs the second study that focuses on Dan Dediu’s Rafale/Heathering Winds (1997). The author detects in Dediu’s work “all kinds of hints for a vivid realisation of the literary model’s dramaturgy in music”, for “a musical narrative that largely follows the plot of the novel”. However, he does not limit himself to what he calls a “naïve hermeneutics of narrative” but identifies two other layers of understanding of the work: one based on the assimilation of the performer (pianist) with the protagonist of the novel from the perspective of Roland Barthes’ semiology of bodies; another structural, at the level of which Dediu’s music and Brontë’s novel converge, and which involves the deconstruction and reconstruction of the sound material itself.

📖Published in issue 53 of Musicology Today, “Sichtbarmachung der Differenz. Zu Dan Dedius Rafales (Heathering Winds)” by Michael Heinemann is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-53/studies/sichtbarmachung-der-differenz-zu-dan-dedius-rafales-heathering-winds/

01/07/2024

In “Heathering Winds von Dan Dediu, oder die Ausbreitung der Melodie”, Iulia Mogoșan focuses mainly on the melodic conception, in which she perceives “a new creative aesthetic, a new orientation of our time, probably very different from the first, but also from the second half of the 20th century”. Starting from the concepts of inframelody and supramelody – in the meaning given by Dan Dediu: of manifestations at the border between melody and other musical parameters –, Mogoșan reveals the composer’s inventiveness in exploring them to suggest the complexity of the wind gusts that metaphorically punctuate the narrative plot.

📖The full text is published in issue 53 of Musicology Today and is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-53/studies/heathering-winds-von-dan-dediu-oder-die-ausbreitung-der-melodie/

28/06/2024

A completely different approach of Aurel Stroe’s Sonata No. 3 In Palimpsest (1991) is proposed by Monika Jäger, who offers an example of a quasi-guided reception of this work. In her study, she describes the listening experiment she coordinated as a music teacher with 11th graders, in order to familiarize them with contemporary music. Structuring a coherent and interesting discussion plan around listening to the second part of Stroe’s Sonata No. 3, titled Hommage à Pierre de la Rue, she shows how, with imagination, tact, interdisciplinary openness and, above all, without prejudice, one can optimise the understanding of new music by non-specialists.

📖Published in issue 53 of Musicology Today, “Aurel Stroe: 3. Klaviersonate, En Palimpseste. 2. Satz Hommage à Pierre de la Rue im Musikunterricht 'nach Corona'“ by Monika Jäger is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-53/studies/aurel-stroe-3-klaviersonate-en-palimpseste-2-satz-hommage-a-pierre-de-la-rue-im-musikunterricht-nach-corona/

25/06/2024

Today we present you the first study that discusses Aurel Stroe’s Sonata No. 3 In Palimpsest (1991). Laura Manolache chooses the formula of a structural analysis, aimed at highlighting the “models of the composer’s mature musical thought”, the composition techniques specific to Aurel Stroe. The author traces how the poetic idea of “palimpsest”, expressed in the sonata’s title, is reflected both at the macrostructural level of the piece – the thematic material coming from three distinct periods of composition (1947, 1957, 1991) – and at the microstructural level. The demonstration initiated by Manolache converges towards emphasising the overall unity of the work, due to the adoption of similar patterns of composition and thematic treatment.

📖Published in issue 53 of Musicology Today, “Aurel Stroe: III. Klaviersonate – Im Palimpsest (1991). Muster musikalischer Gestaltung” by Laura Manolache is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-53/studies/aurel-stroe-iii-klaviersonate-im-palimpsest-1991-muster-musikalischer-gestaltung/

20/06/2024

Dear friends, it is our pleasure to announce you that issue 53 of Musicology Today is available on our website and includes for the first time a DOI code for each article. This issue remains in the atmosphere of the debates on Romanian piano music, held during the symposium on September 23-25, 2022, at the Carl Maria von Weber Conservatory in Dresden. As we saw in the previous issue, the format adopted at this event, organised by Professor Michael Heinemann, involved discussing each topic from two perspectives, one from a German and one from a Romanian musicologist. The four studies included here illustrate the double reception of Aurel Stroe’s Sonata No. 3 In Palimpsest (1991) and Dan Dediu’s Rafale/Heathering Winds (1997):

📌Laura Manolache - Aurel Stroe: III. Klaviersonate – Im Palimpsest (1991). Muster musikalischer Gestaltung.

📌Monika Jäger - Aurel Stroe: 3. Klaviersonate, En Palimpseste. 2. Satz Hommage à Pierre de la Rue im Musikunterricht „nach Corona“.

📌Iulia Mogoșan - Heathering Winds von Dan Dediu, oder die Ausbreitung der Melodie.

📌Michael Heinemann - Sichtbarmachung der Differenz. Zu Dan Dedius Rafales (Heathering Winds).

Since the Dresden symposium also hosted a book launch at the end, Musicology Today invites you to read one of the volumes presented on that occasion: George Enescu – Creația pentru pian [George Enescu – Piano Works] (2022) by Raluca Știrbăț. The invitation is addressed by Vlad Văidean in a paper that reflects his erudition on Enescu and goes beyond the conventional boundaries of a book review in its scope and approach.

📖We invite you to read the full texts on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-53/editorial/

Photo credits: Dan Dennis on Unsplash

15/04/2024

🔜Tomorrow, at 6:30 p.m., the Bucharest National Opera House will host a new edition of „Thinking Scene” – Bucharest National Opera Conferences. The event, titled „In Line with the World”, will be a dialogue about research, intellectual synchronization, stakes and crises of specialized knowledge, on the occasion of the three decades celebration of the New Europe College. The guests will be Andrei Pleșu, founder of the College, and Valentina Sandu-Dediu, rector of the institution from 2014 until now.
🎟Tickets on http://tickets.operanb.ro/ and at the Bucharest National Opera Ticket Office.

Pe 16 aprilie 2024, începând cu orele 18.30, Opera Națională București va găzdui o nouă ediție din SCENA GÂNDIRII – Conferințele Operei Naționale București. Evenimentul, desfășurat sub titlul „ÎN RÂND CU LUMEA”, va fi un dialog despre cercetare, despre sincronizare intelectuală, despre mizele și crizele cunoașterii specializate, prilejuit de sărbătorirea a trei decenii de existență a Colegiului Noua Europă. Invitații ediției din aprilie vor fi Andrei Pleșu, fondatorul Colegiului și Valentina Sandu-Dediu, rector al instituției din anul 2014 și până în prezent.

🎟Bilete pe http://tickets.operanb.ro/ și de la Casa de Bilete a Operei Naționale București.

21/02/2024

At the end of Musicology Today's issue 52, Iulia Mogoșan takes the pulse of the Dresden symposium, presenting the topics and the working atmosphere in a concise, interesting and essential way and providing an excellent link to the next issue of the journal.

📖The full text is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-52/thoughts/

19/02/2024

In her study regarding Theodor Grigoriu’s Modal Column, Valentina Sandu-Dediu sets some analytical landmarks on the pieces that make up the piano cycle, conceived in pairs, following the prelude/fugue or free/rigorous constructed model of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. As for the Romanian imaginary created by Grigoriu, which is basically deeply subjective, the author acknowledges the difficulty she has in distinguishing "the Romanian feelings, the Romanian thought, the ethos linked to the genetics of the Romanian people, to which Grigoriu often refers", while questioning the role such a theoretical construction played in the extremely difficult political context of the time.

📖Published in issue 52 of Musicology Today, Schlüsselbegriffe der rumänischen Nachkriegsmusikwissen-schaft: Spiritualität und Ethos. Eine Fallstudie: Theodor Grigoriu, Modale Säule by Valentina Sandu-Dediu is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-52/studies/schlusselbegriffe-der-rumanischen-nachkriegsmusikwissenschaft-spiritualitat-und-ethos-eine-fallstudie-theodor-grigoriu-modale-saule/

16/02/2024

In issue 52 of Musicology Today, Theodor Grigoriu’s Modal Column also gave rise to approaches from different angles. As the probing of the Romanian ethos was for Grigoriu a manifesto of his oeuvre, explicitly assumed in the subtitle of this work, "investigations into the ethos of Romanian music", and perpetuated in numerous subsequent compositions, Ana Szilágyi focuses on the musical and extra-musical aspects (from the visual arts, poetry, nature) of Grigoriu’s thinking from the perspective of understanding the ethos, while also treating this opus from the pianist’s point of view.

📖Columna modală [Modale Kolumne] für Klavier von Theodor Grigoriu. Betrachtung der musikalisch-kulturellen Aspekte auf der Grundlage von Theodor Grigorius Verständnis des Ethos by Ana Szilágyi is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-52/studies/columna-modala-modale-kolumne-fur-klavier-von-theodor-grigoriu-betrachtung-der-musikalisch-kulturellen-aspekte-auf-der-grundlage-von-theodor-grigorius-verstandnis-des-ethos/

14/02/2024

Corneliu Dan Georgescu conceives a broad systematization of Romanian piano music, imagining two axes. The first, the temporal one, marks the beginning of six periods through historically significant years (1820, 1920, 1945, 1965, 1970, 1990), periods that "usually merge with the next and continue to coexist with it, so that their end cannot be specified". The second axis, typological, comprises four aesthetic orientations Georgescu calls lyric-contemplative, structuralist-constructivist, archetypal-reflexive and ludic-parodic. The works he has selected for exemplification offer some clues to the viability of this two-dimensional system.

📖Published in issue 52 of Musicology Today, Rumänische Klaviermusik aus Perspektive der ästhetischen Orientierung. Umriss einer möglichen Systematisierung by Corneliu Dan Georgescu is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-52/studies/rumanische-klaviermusik-aus-perspektive-der-asthetischen-orientierung-umriss-einer-moglichen-systematisierung/

12/02/2024

In his study published in issue 52 of Musicology Today, Adalbert Grote aims to trace the main stylistic orientations in 20th and 21st century Romanian piano music, starting with Enescu’s versatility and continuing with the various compositional abstractions of folkloric sources, then marking the convergences – especially from the first half of the 20th century – with French neoclassicism, but also with the Bartókian model, reaching then the "radical" conceptions specific to the avant-garde of the 1960s-1980s, and, finally, the conceptual, stylistic and expressive plurality that characterizes the piano works after 1990.

📖The full text of Ausgewählte Beispiele rumänischer Klaviermusik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts im diachronen Schnitt by Adalbert Grote is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-52/studies/ausgewahlte-beispiele-rumanischer-klaviermusik-des-20-und-21-jahrhunderts-im-diachronen-schnitt/

09/02/2024

Dear friends, it is our pleasure to announce that issue 52 of Musicology Today is available on our website. The idea of discussing Romanian piano music by analysing a series of works from a double musicological perspective – that of a German author and that of a Romanian one – was at the basis of the symposium held on September 23-25, 2022 at the Carl Maria von Weber Conservatory in Dresden, at the initiative of Professor Michael Heinemann. The event was a continuation of the series of symposia on Romanian music entitled Zwischen Zeiten, initiated in 2006 in Oldenburg by Professor Violeta Dinescu and coordinated by her annually for 15 editions. The discussions in Dresden have resulted in a series of materials that Musicology Today presents in two successive issues. The four studies included in this issue deal with two thematic pairs:

🔶 An overview of Romanian piano music

📌Adalbert Grote - Ausgewählte Beispiele rumänischer Klaviermusik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts im diachronen Schnitt

📌Corneliu Dan Georgescu - Rumänische Klaviermusik aus Perspektive der ästhetischen Orientierung. Umriss einer möglichen Systematisierung

🔶 Analytical juxtapositions of Theodor Grigoriu’s piano cycle Columna modală [Modal Column] (1983-1985)

📌Ana Szilágyi - Columna modală [Modale Kolumne] für Klavier von Theodor Grigoriu. Betrachtung der musikalisch-kulturellen Aspekte auf der Grundlage von Theodor Grigorius Verständnis des Ethos

📌Valentina Sandu-Dediu - Schlüsselbegriffe der rumänischen Nachkriegsmusikwissenschaft: Spiritualität und Ethos. Eine Fallstudie: Theodor Grigoriu, Modale Säule

Iulia Mogoșan takes the pulse of the Dresden symposium, presenting the topics and the working atmosphere in a concise, interesting and essential way and providing an excellent link to the next issue of the journal.

📖We invite you to read the full texts on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-52/editorial/

07/08/2023

Issue 51 of Musicology Today is completed by the last interview of Speranța Rădulescu, given in April 2021. Grace to Ana Diaconu, we have the occasion to “hear” Speranța herself talk about the themes evoked by her colleagues and friends in these last two issues of Musicology Today: the discs containing oral musics from Romania, the ties with francophone ethnomusicologists, her research method, the Regards, the cursed folklorized music and her great esteem for the lăutari. Goodbye, dear Speranța!

📖“A Conversation with Ethnomusicologist Speranța Rădulescu” by Ana Diaconu is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-51/interviews/

31/07/2023

In Carmen A. Mateiescu's article we could read about some interesting details regarding the beginnings of Speranța Rădulescu's career. On the other hand, Cécile Folschweiller's meeting with Speranța took place towards the end of the latter's life. Folschweiller shows the particular usefulness of Speranța's volume, Regards sur la musique en Roumanie au XXe siècle, in understanding the Romanian musical landscape and especially matters like the distinction between peasant and folklorized music or defining gypsy music.

📖 Published in issue 51 of Musicology Today, “Speranța Rădulescu, un regard lumineux sur le paysage musical roumain” by Cécile Folschweiller is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-51/thoughts/speranta-radulescu-un-regard-lumineux-sur-le-paysage-musical-roumain/

24/07/2023

Issue 51 of Musicology Today also contains two articles about scientific and personal meetings with Speranța Rădulescu. In the first one, Carmen A. Mateiescu depicts a very young Speranța, altruistic, highly professional, hard working - as she stayed for the rest of her life. Mateiescu reveals how their projects at the Folklore Institute were born and flourished - studies about the lyric song, the LP series dedicated to the taraf music etc. - and mentions Speranța’s interest in George Enescu, music analysis, structuralism and rhetoric.

📖“‘As in a Bath of Light’ – Speranța Rădulescu: Beginnings” by Carmen A. Mateiescu is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-51/thoughts/as-in-a-bath-of-light-speranta-radulescu-beginnings/

Artwork: “Horse Bath” by LeAnne Sowa, www.SowaArt.com

17/07/2023

In his study, published in issue 51 of Musicology Today, Filippo Bonini Baraldi explores another theme dear to Speranța Rădulescu: the aksak rhythm with elastic beats, which we can find in the plain of Transylvania. The author presents two case studies from the plain of Transylvania and Pernambuco, where he utilizes the modern technologies - multi-track recordings, motion capture and automatic onset detection algorithms - in order to evidentiate the temporal microvariations associated with emotion in music.

📖 “Analysis of Expressive Microvariations in Oral Tradition Music: Two Studies from Romania and Brazil” by Filippo Bonini Baraldi is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-51/studies/analysis-of-expressive-microvariations-in-oral-tradition-music-two-studies-from-romania-and-brazil/

10/07/2023

The recordings meant to figure in CD anthologies of traditional music were of great interest to Speranța Rădulescu. Victor A. Stoichiță examines the recordings made by Speranța and published in the Ethnophonie series - particulary those of the brass band from the Moldavian village of Zece Prăjini - and reflects on the relationships between the music of a community, the music which the ethnomusicologist chooses to present on a CD to the public and the music which the musicians and the members of the community would like to see figuring on such a recording.

📖 Published in issue 51 of Musicology Today, “To Bark or Not to Bark? On Familiarity, 'Field', and Speranţa Rădulescu’s Recordings” by Victor A. Stoichiță is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-51/studies/to-bark-or-not-to-bark-on-familiarity-field-and-speranta-radulescus-recordings/

05/07/2023

Dear friends, it is our pleasure to announce that issue 51 of Musicology Today is available on our website. As the previous one, this issue gathers articles presented in the section “In Memoriam Speranța Rădulescu” (coordinated by Costin Moisil) of the International Musicological Symposium: Musical Creation and Exegesis, held at the National University of Music in Bucharest during the 31st edition of the International Week of New Music (2022), a festival organized by the Union of Romanian Composers and Musicologists. Moisil views the “In Memoriam” section not only as a scientific tribute, but also as an opportunity for Rădulescu’s friends to say goodbye to her. Here are the articles included in this issue:

📌Victor A. Stoichiță - To Bark or Not to Bark? On Familiarity, “Field”, and Speranţa Rădulescu’s Recordings.

📌Filippo Bonini Baraldi - Analysis of Expressive Microvariations in Oral Tradition Music: Two Studies from Romania and Brazil.

📌Carmen A. Mateiescu - “As in a Bath of Light” – Speranța Rădulescu: Beginnings.

📌Cécile Folschweiller - Speranța Rădulescu, un regard lumineux sur le paysage musical roumain.

📌Ana Diaconu - A Conversation with Ethnomusicologist Speranța Rădulescu.

📖We invite you to visit our website, where you can read the full texts: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-51/editorial/

29/06/2023

29/05/2023

Issue 50 of Musicology Today ends with Mariana Hurjui-Său's review on the second edition of Speranța Rădulescu's Peisaje muzicale în România secolului XX [Musical Landscapes in 20th-Century Romania]. Before making the usual presentation of the volume's contents, Hurjui-Său gives a brief history of the three versions – two in Romanian and one in French – and outlines the controversies that accompanied the first edition, published 20 years ago. She points out that, despite the passage of time, Speranța Rădulescu's perspective "remains valid and necessary for the contemporary reader – both Romanian and European – who will find in the pages of the book . . . a key to understanding the interdependent relationship between musics and the various realities in the background".

📖The full text is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-50/book-review/

26/05/2023

In issue 50 of Musicology Today, ethnomusicologist Laurent Aubert talks about the lăutari and the topic of Gypsy music – including the clichés that are spread about it. He starts, however, from his meeting in 1986 with Speranța Rădulescu and the lăutari from Clejani, who were later to become famous under the name Taraf de Haïdouks. Aubert follows the lăutari not only in the village world, but also in the new circumstances to which they have had to adapt: on the concert stage, in the Western cafés, etc., and performing, in addition to traditional musics, pan-Balkan brass band musics or manele.

📖The full text of "La Naissance d’un mythe : le Taraf de Haïdouks" by Laurent Aubert is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-50/thoughts/la-naissance-dun-mythe-le-taraf-de-haidouks/

24/05/2023

In her article "On Friendship in Ethnomusicology: A Tribute to Speranța Rădulescu", Zuzana Jurková looks at the connection between interpersonal relationships and the profession, and points out – following in Bruno Nettl's footsteps – that the process of becoming an ethnomusicologist depends on the presence in his or her life of a number of people who may or may not be connected with the field of ethnomusicology. Jurková pays a touching tribute to Speranța Rădulescu and other colleagues and musicians whom she admires for their professional qualities and whose friendship she cherishes.

📖The full text, published in issue 50 of Musicology Today, is also available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-50/thoughts/on-friendship-in-ethnomusicology-a-tribute-to-speranta-radulescu/

22/05/2023

Margaret Hiebert Beissinger investigates a series of publications by Speranța Rădulescu on lăutari – professional folk musicians, mostly Roma – in which the latter presents the fiddlers' accounts and opinions on the history of folk ensembles (tarafuri), the apprenticeship of the lăutari, their contracts and the definition of Gypsy music (muzică țigănească). Beissinger appreciates the fact that, in her articles and books, Speranța Rădulescu lets the lăutari speak and shows that her scholarly opinions are based on the own words of the lăutari.

📖Published in issue 50 of Musicology Today, "Speranţa Rădulescu and Lăutari: Engaging with Musicians and Music-Making" by Margaret Hiebert Beissinger is also available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-50/studies/speranta-radulescu-and-lautari-engaging-with-musicians-and-music-making/

19/05/2023

Today we present you the first study published in issue 50 of Musicology Today. In "L'Oreille paysanne de Speranța", Bernard Lortat-Jacob evokes several encounters with musicians from Oaș and, drawing on Speranța Rădulescu's vocabulary, outlines her idea of beauty. Speranța's beauty concerns not only the musical piece, but also the person who performs it and "ne renvoie pas à une catégorie kantienne, mais à des entités multiples et solidaires où sont étroitement associés des comportements, des styles, un mode de partage, un type de connaissance et tant d’autres choses que seule l’attention ethnographique peut rendre sensibles".

📖The full text is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-50/studies/loreille-paysanne-de-speranta/

15/05/2023

Dear friends, we announce you that issue 50 of Musicology Today is available on our website. The current issue and the next one gather the articles presented in the section "In Memoriam Speranța Rădulescu" (coordinated by Costin Moisil) of the International Musicological Symposium: Musical Creation and Exegesis, held at the National University of Music in Bucharest during the 31st edition of the International Week of New Music (2022), a festival organized by the Union of Romanian Composers and Musicologists. Moisil views the "In Memoriam" section not only as a scientific tribute, but also as an opportunity for Rădulescu's friends to say goodbye to her. Here are the articles included in this issue:

📌Bernard Lortat-Jacob - L’Oreille paysanne de Speranța.

📌Margaret Hiebert Beissinger - Speranţa Rădulescu and Lăutari: Engaging with Musicians and Music-Making.

📌Zuzana Jurková - On Friendship in Ethnomusicology: A Tribute to Speranța Rădulescu.

📌Laurent Aubert - La Naissance d’un mythe : le Taraf de Haïdouks.

📌Mariana Hurjui-Său - Peisaje muzicale în România secolului XX [Musical Landscapes in 20th-Century Romania] by Speranța Rădulescu.

📖We invite you to visit our website, where you can read the full texts: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-50/editorial/

26/04/2023

Andrei Tudor gives an overview of a very popular musical genre in 20th century Romania, the so-called light music, the local equivalent of pop music. Despite the few bibliographical sources available, but based on his own experience as a composer in this field, Tudor clarifies aspects such as: specific terminology – which he explains also through the lenses of communist censorship –, the history of Romanian light music and influences from other genres, the formal structure and its relation to the text and, last but not least, the promotion of these musical works, especially during the communist period. The internationally visible compositions that the author mentions at the end seem to be rather the exception, as the extent of this genre remains essentially local.

📖Published in issue 49 of Musicology Today, "Accessibility and Popularity: A Brief History of Romanian Pop Music" by Andrei Tudor is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-49/studies/accessibility-and-popularity-a-brief-history-of-romanian-pop-music/

24/04/2023

As a performer, pianist Oxana Corjos focuses on an early concertante work by Richard Strauss, namely Burleske for Piano and Orchestra (1885), revealing not only the young composer's previous stylistic accumulations, but also "an imperative conversion to program music, where profound musical image seems to be forever recalibrated, recycled and transfigured by a monk habit-wearing Till". Corjos' performing vision of this opus is revealed by a detailed and nuanced analysis of the score, which also highlights its role as a turning point in Strauss' compositional development.

📖The full text, published in issue 49 of Musicology Today, is available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-49/studies/burleske-for-piano-and-orchestra-by-richard-strauss/

21/04/2023

Using a wide arsenal of concepts from the field of cultural philosophy, Andreea Stoicescu examines the impact of two radical and diametrically opposed perspectives on artistic creation and reception in modernity: that of transgressive art, associated with the avant-garde, and that of art imbued with extreme nationalism. After setting some milestones in the debate on modernity from Martin Heidegger to Heinrich Schenker, the author focuses on the ambiguous reception of Arnold Schönberg in the 20th century, who is usually regarded as an emblem of radical musical transgression. As far as contemporary music is concerned, Andreea Stoicescu advocates overcoming radical modern oppositions, such as those related to the aesthetics of originality and transgression.

📖Published in issue 49 of Musicology Today, "Musical Thinking and Aesthetic Reception during Modernity: Between the Project of Searching after the Origins of Art and the Project of Transgressing Art Itself" by Andreea Stoicescu is also available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-49/studies/musical-thinking-and-aesthetic-reception-during-modernity-between-the-project-of-searching-after-the-origins-of-art-and-the-project-of-transgressing-art-itself/

17/04/2023

In his study "Music Nationalism in a Non-Communist Country: The Canonization of National Martyrs in Greek Orthodox Church and Its Impact on Ecclesiastical Hymnography", John Plemmenos looks at the effects of a different kind of nationalism than the communist one in Romania, namely that propagated by the Orthodox Church in Greece between 1921 and 1992. The author explains the phenomenon by the very close relationship between state and church in modern Greece, where Orthodox Christianity is constitutionally recognised as the "official religion", although the two authorities are technically separated. Plemmenos illustrates through several case studies how ecclesiastical hymnography transformed church martyrs into national symbols, marking at the same time the most distinctive phases of the religious nationalism in modern Greece: Gregorios, patriarch of Constantinople; Chrysostomos, bishop of Smyrna; Theotokos, the holy protection; "Greece for Christian Greeks".

📖The full text, published in issue 49 of Musicology Today, is also available on our website: https://musicologytoday.ro/current-issue/nr-49/studies/music-nationalism-in-a-non-communist-country-the-canonization-of-national-martyrs-in-greek-orthodox-church-and-its-impact-on-ecclesiastical-hymnography/