To close or not to close?: An intriguing moment in Ravel's "Menuet"

Eddy Chong, Nanyang Technological University—National Institute of Education, SGP, paper

There is an intriguing moment in the "Menuet" of Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin. The middle section of the opening Menuet leads to the dominant chord of the home key, yet instead of sounding like a retransition towards the ensuing reprise, there is, arguably, a curiously strong sense of closure. Such a contravention of classical norms brings to mind the reversed consequent-antecedent construction that opens this menuet, as noted by Roy Howat (2000). The issue raised by this apparent contravention of musical expectation bears on performance decisions: how should one shape this retransition (if, indeed, it is one) to connect with the reprise? A sampling of recordings (Casadesus, Hewitt, Osborne, and Queffélec), reveals a variety of performative approaches to this structural moment. This paper will examine this tonal juncture from a variety of angles. A listener's perception of the music's modally-influenced tonality in relation to the formal and phrasal structure will be juxtaposed against a more Schenkerian hearing. References will also be made to Ravel's remarks as reported by Perlemuter as well as to Messiaen's recent posthumously published analysis of this piece. This discussion will shed light on Ravel's neo-classical idiosyncrasies as well as the nature of Schenkerian hearing. The paper ends by returning to comment on the recordings.

Eddy Chong teaches in the Visual and Performing Arts Department of Singapore's National Institute of Education.

Recording Messiaen: a Romantic in a modernist world

Christopher Dingle, UCE Birmingham Conservatoire, UK, paper

[Messiaen] is a man who is preoccupied strongly with techniques, but who puts forward, in the first place, expression ... He has a kind of revolutionary ideal and at the same time a very conservative taste for what the essence of music is ... that's a man who is exactly in the centre of some very important contradictions of this century. (Pierre Boulez)

It is only natural that Messiaen's recorded legacy should reflect his era. As the composer and pedagogue who played a pivotal role during the central years of the twentieth century, it might be expected that his performances would exemplify the objective approach taken by many of his most celebrated advocates, notably Yvonne Loriod and Pierre Boulez. Such a supposition would appear to be supported by Messiaen's various entreaties to performers to respect the score; directives that appear to be at odds with the evidence from his own recordings, whether as organist, pianist or accompanist. Illustrated by examples from rarely heard recordings both by Messiaen and early advocates such as Desormière, Monteux and Stokowski, this paper places the revolutionary post-war composer firmly within the context of a performance aesthetic more strongly associated with pre-war Romantic norms.

Christopher Dingle is author of The Life of Messiaen (Cambridge University Press, 2007), co-editor with Nigel Simeone of Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature (Ashgate, June 2007), and one of several organisers of the Messiaen 2008 International Centenary Conference.

Viewing Ravel's La Valse as a Cubist Waltz

Graeme Fullerton, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, New York, USA, paper

Upon hearing La Valse, Diaghilev told Ravel it was not a ballet, but rather a painting of a ballet. The painting analogy is apt, for the work can be seen as a cubist tone painting. Using the canvas of a traditional form, Ravel reimagines the typical elements of a waltz and juxtaposes fragmented melodies in a manner that mirrors how cubist painters manipulate different angles of a violin or a woman's face. Even though a canvas or sculpture may seem a frozen image, a cubist work presents the story of a painter's time spent examining an object from many angles. Subsequently, a new narrative is born when observers spend time piecing together the conflicting views. A musical score provides a more linear progression of elements than a canvas, but that does not mean the experience of hearing the piece is somehow proscribed. Ravel forces the listener to reconstruct the waltz as his faceted themes emerge, coalesce, and evanesce. The conductor is there to illuminate the process, but there are problematic issues lurking, such as tempo and rubato, that can result in a disintegration and obfuscation of the narrative. La Valse is Ravel's homage to the Viennese waltz through the fractured lens of the cubist perspective.

Graeme Fullerton is a graduate of the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Pierre Boulez's Mémoriale (…explosante-fixe... Originel): Harmonic schemas, thematic writing, perceptive predictions and ‹‹ unplugged electronics ›› in the later works

Jonathan Goldman, University of Victoria, CAN, paper

Pierre Boulez’s post-1975 period is characterized by an increase in formal perceptibility. His writings from this period make use of concepts such as ‘signals’, ‘envelopes’, and ‘hyperthemes’ which testify to an interest in perceptual categories, i.e. to predicting how his works are perceived. Another consequence of this ‘esthesic turn’ is the reinstatement of thematic writing. The IRCAM experience, whose roots lie in the withdrawn Poésie pour pouvoir (1958), led to a rethinking of the interactions between acoustic and electronic sound. One consequence is an appropriation of electronic techniques into Boulez’s purely instrumental works, creating a texture which could be called “unplugged electronics”, in which a solo instrument’s sound is ‘extended’ by an instrumental ensemble. All of these tendencies inform Mémoriale (…explosante-fixe… Originel) (1985): the preponderance of ‘unplugged electronics’ textures, the delineation of clear harmonic fields, the presence of ‘signals’ which articulate formal junctures, thematic writing, etc. An unpublished lecture addressed to performers which Boulez gave at McGill University in 1991 offers a rare opportunity to observe how the composer analyzes one of his works. This talk presents a paradigmatic analysis (using a multimedia tool developed at IRCAM in collaboration with the author) of Mémoriale, followed by an indepth exposition of its harmonic and rhythmic materials, and a discussion of how its orchestration conforms to the aforementioned ‘unplugged electronics’ model. Revealing the simple harmonic structure of the piece and its jagged ‘puzzle form’ has obvious consequences for the performance of this challenging work for flute solo and small ensemble.

Jonathan Goldman is Editor-in-chief of the new music journal Circuit: musiques contemporaines. After completing undergraduate studies in mathematics and philosophy, Jonathan Goldman obtained a PhD in musicology from the Université of Montréal in 2006, under the direction of Jean-Jacques Nattiez. His thesis deals with form in the works and thought of Pierre Boulez. In 2005, Jonathan Goldman wrote the preface to Boulez's Leçons de musique (2005). Beginning in July 2007, Jonathan Goldman will be Assistant Professor in the School of Music of the University of Victoria.

Nature into music: Messiaen and birdsong in the 1950s

Peter Hill, University of Sheffield, UK, keynote address

During the 1950s Messiaen’s approach to using birdsong in his compositions was in a constant state of evolution. This paper surveys the period 1952 to 1957 which began with Messiaen’s meeting with the ornithologist Jacques Delamain. This was followed by the composition of Réveil des oiseaux (1952-3) in which Messiaen transferred material from his field notes to the score often with minimal alteration. With Oiseaux exotiques (1955-6) Messiaen used recordings for the first time, leading to a radical change of method. The paper then examines Messiaen’s earliest sketches for Catalogue d’oiseaux and his use of source material in ‘L’Alouette lulu’ together with other pieces from the first wave of composition (September 1956 to February 1957). Differences of approach will be highlighted between these pieces and those composed in the summer of 1957, including ‘La Bouscarle’, ‘Le Traquet stapazin’ and ‘Le Merle bleu’.

Peter Hill is Acting Head of Department and Professor of Music at the University of Sheffield, England.

Inside rather than under the composer's skin: another tilt at being authentic

Roy Howat, Royal Academy of Music, UK, keynote address

Toward understanding tempo in the late songs of Gabriel Fauré—Can Brain Science help?

Ruth Jacobson, Bemidji State University, USA, paper

For the last thirty years, the relatively uncomplicated early songs of Gabriel Fauré have been the pedagogical choice of repertoire for introducing young singers to the world of French mélodie. Yet his late songs have proven a challenge to both experienced performers and audiences. Discoveries in the field of Brain Science offer new perspectives from which to consider the refined music of Faurés most ambiguous style period. Claire Croiza's advice from the composer was, "You must separate and not confuse "movement, expression, nuance". Close examination of tempo in the late songs is important in two ways: it provides the framework within which the music itself can express nuance, and it establishes the continuous movement so beloved of Fauré. As his songs become more and more contrapuntal, the linear flow of time becomes equally important. What Fauré means by nuance is not entirely clear. In many song traditions, we look for nuance in small attentions to words or gradations of tone color and dynamics but for Fauré, who objected to vocal exhibitionism, what Bob Snyder calls rhythmic nuance opens another approach to bringing 'feeling' into this rational music.

Ruth Jacobson, Assistant Professor, teaches in the Music Department at Bemidji State University.

'The Getting of Wisdom': Narrative and dramatic coherence in L'Enfant et les sortilèges

Emily Kilpatrick, PhD candidate in Musicology, Elder Conservatorium of Music, AU, paper

Maurice Ravel's 1925 opera L'Enfant et les sortilèges was originally conceived by its librettist Colette as a 'Divertissement for my daughter'. Like the French opera-ballets of the eighteenth century to which a divertissement must necessarily pay tribute, the narrative of L'Enfant et les sortilèges is episodic, constructed around a diverse collection of characters and musical idioms. Yet were the opera nothing more than a series of entertaining but unrelated vaudevillian scenes it would not have maintained its appeal beyond the music-hall-loving 1920s. Something more substantial has to bind these incongruous scenes together—a point not fully explored in the numerous existing studies of the opera. This paper contends that through the character of the eponymous Child the opera takes on an essential coherence that transcends its episodic structure. It explores the unique perspective that characterises the opera: we watch the story unfold through the very eyes of the Child, whose centrality to his world is unprecendeted on the operatic stage. It addresses questions of staging, narrative and musical structure, text setting and orchestration in order to trace the Child's growth as the work progresses. The repetition and integration of subtle melodic and harmonic gestures together with broader elements of formal construction offer us a musical landscape in which to map the development of the Child. It is this process of development that gives the work the cohesion, balance and dramatic intensity that confirm its place as the foremost French opera of the interwar years.

Emily Kilpatrick is a First Class Honours (Piano Performance) graduate of the Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, where she studied under the guidance of Dr David Lockett. She is currently a PhD candidate in Musicology and part-time lecturer in Music History and Aural at the same institution. She has undertaken extensive study at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and at the Musée Maurice Ravel in Montfort l'Amaury. She has recently collaborated with Roy Howat on a study of the première of Ravel's first opera L'Heure espagnole, which draws on previously undocumented source material.

Analyzing Messiaen's Later Piano Music: Petites esquisses d'oiseaux (1985)

David Kopp, Boston University School of Music, USA, lecture recital

Messiaen's later piano music has received much less analytic attention than his earlier music. The more orderly aspects of Messiaen's earlier style are less in evidence in the later style, subsumed into a broader harmonic palette featuring enhanced use of complex chords and textures, with content relating to a wide range of traditional scales and modes of limited transposition. Petites esquisses d'oiseaux, a group of six short birdsong pieces, provides opportunities for close analyses of complete Messiaen pieces. The music's continually changing textures, tempi, pitch content, and expressive character present a challenge both to performance and analysis. This lecture-recital will concentrate on aspects of the first two pieces, Le rouge gorge and Le merle noir, with occasional references to the rest of the set:

David Kopp, Associate Professor, teaches in the Department of Composition and Theory at the Boston University School of Music.

A link to the French pianistic tradition: the teaching of Paul Doguereau

David Korevaar, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA, lecture recital

Paul René Doguereau (1908–2000) studied as a youth in Paris with Marguerite Long and her assistants. He had early encounters there with Roger-Ducasse, with whom he discussed the music of Fauré and others. Later teachers included Alfredo Casella, Emil von Sauer, and Egon Petri. As a representative for Duo-Art in New York, he worked with Ravel, whom he also later encountered at Montfort. (There is also evidence that he recorded a roll for Ampico around that time of Stravinsky’s Danse Russe.) While never claiming to be a student of Ravel, he made much of his conversations with Ravel about the piano music. I first met Doguereau in 1978 and worked with him over the years until his death in 1998. Over that time, we worked on a wide range of repertoire from the German and French canon. The works to be presented in this lecture recital, all of which I studied with Doguereau, will include Franck’s Prélude Choral et Fugue, Fauré’s Sixth Nocturne and Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau. These pieces offer a view of three different aspects of French piano music between 1880 and 1910. The presentation will focus on examples of Doguereau’s teaching on these pieces and how it reflects upon the approach to elements of rhythm and rubato, articulation, pedaling, and dynamics/tone.

David Korevaar is Associate Professor of Piano in the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The Criticisms of Paul Dukas (1865–1935): Interpreting French Theatre Performance

Helen Julia Minors, Roehampton University, London and Lancaster University, UK, paper

During the early twentieth century, in France, composers engaged with performance on many levels, from collaborative productions and personal performance to scholarly intersession and discussion. One important area, which documents performance within this vibrant era, resides within the musical and theatrical criticisms. Dukas's writings, which have been largely unexplored, include many theoretical musing questioning the qualities of a good performance within a theatre context and the need to provide opportunities for new composers' works to be performed. Two prominent articles are 'Le Théâtre lyrique' (1893) 'La déception scénique' (1896). Dukas confronts problems associated with 'Le Théâtre lyrique': he looks at music and the stage—considering issues of theatre responsibility—the role of imagination within the performance experience, alongside media relationships. In 'La déception scénique' he confronts the reasons why critics are often disappointed with staged musical dramas, and in discussing music and the other components of theatre, he reveals much about his thoughts as regards staging a dramatic work. Issues of performance and narrative arise in union with ideas concerning the performance outlet. This paper aims to critically appraise Dukas's writings concerning theatre performance, to question what critical interaction the critic-composer has with performance. Criticisms are located contextually; comparisons and differences are drawn with his contemporary, Debussy, to illustrate broader composer-performance issues which were raised during the period. Conclusions are drawn which reveal Dukas's awareness of many performance problems, but a desire to tackle these even facing potential 'surprises' and 'disappointments'.

Helen Julia Minors is Associate Lecturer at Roehampton University.

Préludes pour piano and the technique of Messiaen's harmonic language

Samuel Ng, St Andrew's Junior School, SGP, lecture recital

A survey of Messiaen's Technique de mon langage musical reveals that much of Messiaen's unique harmonic vocabulary and syntactic structure draw from practices of the tonal tradition. While the treatise lists each of these influences and discloses Messiaen's musical outlook through detailed description of the procedures he employs, it unveils little of how Messiaen assimilates what he has distilled from the tonal past and how they are organized into a complete and unique sound entity. Using the five of eight preludes of Messiaen's Préludes pour piano (1929) that are built on eighteenth-century formal prototypes as illustration—nos. 1 ("La colombe"), 7 ("Plainte calme"), 3 ("Le nombre léger"), 2 ("Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste"), and 8 ("Un reflet dan le vent…")—this paper examines the compositional strategies Messiaen employs in relation to his use of harmony, and frames the discussion in the context of the tonal tradition he inherited. Relating these findings with the insight given in Technique de mon langage musical, the harmonic devices Messiaen makes use of is thus more fully appreciated in the context of his harmonic perspective.

Samuel Ng is a general music educator in Singapore, currently teaching at St Andrew's Junior School.

Spectral Music: Tristan Murail's Territoires de l'Oubli: Analysis, Performance, and Perception

Marilyn Nonken, New York University, USA, lecture recital

In the 1970s, Tristan Murail responded against serialism and postserialism, seeking a compositional methodology informed by research in acoustic analysis, technology, and the psychology of music. Initially, Murail's aesthetic goal was to develop a capacity to control musical subtlety and articulate fine degrees of harmonic and timbral change. Yet his research necessitated a reevaluation of Western notation, the nature of acoustic instruments, and the capacities of performers and listeners. The issues surrounding musique spectrale are ideally explored in the context of Murail's work for solo piano Territoires de L'Oubli (Lands of the Unknown), a groundbreaking composition which exemplifies not only Murail's innovations but also his debts to Messiaen (his teacher), Debussy, and Liszt. In this work, the damper pedal is depressed throughout, creating a continually evolving fantasia of resonance. In terms of acoustic phenomena, the "unknown lands" Territoires explores are landscapes of pianistic impossibility and auditory illusion: notes heard but never played (sympathetic vibrations), microtones (resulting from the interaction of the harmonics), and sonorities that seemingly emerge without attach or decay. Analysis of the processes and the transformations that occur in Territoires not only enhance performance and listening strategies but also shed light on concepts of musical representation, virtuosity, and ecological psychology. The presenter is a pianist who has recorded Murail's complete solo piano works and collaborated with the composer.

Marilyn Nonken is Director of Piano Studies (Music and Performing Arts Professions) at The Steinhardt School of New York University.

From East to West and Back Again: Contemporary East Asian Composers in Paris

Caroline Potter, Kingston University, UK, paper

Performances of non-Western musics at the Paris Expositions Universelles of 1889 and 1900 had a strong impact on the music of many French composers, not least Debussy. Much research has been done on the appeal of 'exotic' musics to a number of French composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but the rise of a new generation of East Asian composers of concert music, many of whom are notably influenced by French composers, has received far less attention from critics. These composers with strong connections to French through their studies or residency include the Japanese Yoshihisa Taira (1937–2005), the Vietnamese Ton-That Tiet (1933–) and Nguyen-Thien Dao (1940–), and the Chinese Qigang Chen (1959–) and Xu Yi (1963). All have received commissions from major music festivals in Europe and beyond, all are contracted to publishers, and while much of their music has been recorded on commercially available CDs, it has received very limited critical attention, and this tends to focus purely on the background of the composers. This paper will focus on works by Taira and Ton-That Tiet, particularly exploring the influence of their teachers Messiaen and Dutilleux on their music and their possible 'reappropriation' of those elements drawn from traditional Asian musics which appealed so much to earlier French composers.

Caroline Potter is Senior Lecturer in Music at Kingston University and a specialist in French music since Debussy. She has published numerous articles and book chapters, and three books with Ashgate: Henri Dutilleux (1997), Nadia and Lili Boulanger (2006) and French music since Berlioz (2006, co-edited with Richard Langham Smith). Her current research focuses on the music of French-based East Asian composers.

Analysis and Performance of Two Late Fauré Songs

Adam Ricci, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA, paper

The rhythmic and textural homogeneity of Gabriel Fauré's late songs, in combination with their harmonic complexity, has made them elusive to analyst and performer alike. As Robert Gartside put it, this "is fragile music that, if poorly performed, will be bland and without flavor." This paper will focus on two songs from the collection Le jardin clos (op. 106), "Je me poserai sur ton coeur" and "Dans la nymphée," suggesting ways in which analysis can inform performance. "Je me poserai" features a goal-directed large-scale progression, a tetrachordal motive that undergoes significant transformations, and tonicized areas that are symmetrically disposed about the tonic. The interaction and integration of these three musical elements imposes a kind of narrative upon Charles van Lerberghe's poetry. "Dans la nymphée" juxtaposes the tonic key of Dß major with D major, employing a recurring A dominant-7th chord as a referential sonority and bridge between the two keys. In my interpretation, the two keys loosely correspond to reality and fantasy; my analysis converges on the ways in which the music navigates between the two keys—creating, then denying, expectations in particular ways. The analyses are not intended as prescriptive of particular performances, but as scaffolds upon which performers can construct interpretations.

Adam Ricci is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the School of Music of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Bizet's "Carmen": towards a performance Urtext

Richard Langham Smith, Open University, UK, keynote address

Asked to produce an edition of "Carmen" corresponding to the 'original' Opéra-Comique production in 1875, I found myself faced with many research questions. On reflection the first question which had to be probed was 'What was an opéra-comique, produced at the Opéra-Comique, in the latter part of the nineteenth century? This led to interrogation of the traditions and statutes of the Opéra-Comique; the ways in which operas were recorded and disseminated, and the nature of the 'mise-en-scène'. My conclusions were to realise the dynamic rather than static nature of the process; the role of collaboration between composer, librettists and régisseurs; and the differences between 20th century and 19th concepts of staging and production. Thus the first part of my paper is about the nature (or ontology) of an opéra-comique at THE Opéra-Comique: something which too few editors have considered. Surely an editor needs to know what he/she is editing? The paper then goes on to propose a way in which an opéra-comique can be presented in the 21st century, comparing this compression into one score to the process of polytextuality which was the essence of the production-process of the musical, literary and theatrical texts in Bizet's time.

Richard Langham Smith is currently Arnold Kettle Distinguished Scholar in Music at the Open University (UK); Visiting Lecturer at the University of Cambridge; and an Honorary Fellow in Modern Languages at the University of Exeter.

The elusive Études of Debussy's Livre II: exploring performance and listening strategies

Kathleen Solose, University of Saskatchewan, CAN, lecture recital

The late piano Etudes of 1915 "Pour les arpèges composés", "Pour les sonorités opposées", and "Pour les agréments" represent Debussy at his most elusive in terms of content and form. These pieces pose formidable challenges—not because of their technical virtuosity, but because they consist often of fragmentary, aimless and unresolved passages, seemingly unrelated and difficult for the listener to grasp. This paper will attempt to identify and illuminate some of the referents, from a performer-interpreter's perspective. Some of these ideas hearken back to similar gestures in his previous compositions, but which here appear in fleeting passages as short as a bar or two. This technique of juxtaposing disjunct images and ideas will be compared to examples from Mallarmé, in which carefully chosen words may lead to a variety of associations and memories, inducing a stream-of-consciousness approach, which has the potential to inspire a multiplicity of interpretations. (The famous "ptyx", a word without definition, is an example of how a mere sound, inserted to complete a rhyming scheme, is subject to any number of inferred meanings.) Similarly, a musical gesture, a trumpet-call, or even the colour of a chord may have subliminal meanings in these works. Both the performing and listening experience are creative, open-ended acts, as our minds are challenged to "make sense of" a stream of changing elements. Quotes from Debussy's letters and writings revealing his rebellious attitudes towards composition will shed light on the performance of these pieces. An analysis of the somewhat tenuous connections between ideas, their distinctive key-colour relationships, and their rhythmic and textural characteristics will inform performance. Excerpts from these Études will be demonstrated at the piano and the pieces will be then performed in their entirety.

Kathleen Solose, pianist, is Associate Professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada.

Proust's memory concept in Dutilleux's Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1947)

Bernarda Swart, School of Music, North-West University, ZAF, paper

According to the internationally acclaimed composer Henri Dutilleux (1916–), he is influenced by the ideas of time and involuntary memory (souvenir involontaire) from Marcel Proust's (1862–1912) novel Á la recherche du temps perdu. The Narrator in the novel tries to regain lost time (le temps retrouvé) and is in search of his lost past, the past that lives in his innermost being, his involuntary memory. During the well-known madeleine episode—where the smell of a biscuit dipped into tea—his childhood in Combray in involuntarily recalled. Another aspect from Proust's novel is the idea that spiritually a person is never fully formed but slowly evolves in subconsciousness, establishing a gradual, spiritual evolution and progressive change in the course of time. This idea in the novel can be linked to thematic transformation by means of cells in Dutilleux's music, a procedure that he describes as croissance progressive. The procedure was initially consciously applied in Dutilleux's First Symphony (1950). However, this paper demonstrates thematic growth in his Sonata for oboe and piano (1947). The main theme is not introduced as a fixed idea at the beginning of the sonata, but originates from a basic cell in the last four bars of the work which is disguised throughout the sonata and perpetually changes as it emerges and grows from this idea to reach the final climax at the end. Progressive growth and Proust's souvenir involontaire concept is created by means of perpetually changing atriadic trichords or cells which originate from this initial basic cell.

Bernarda Swart lectures in the School of Music of North-West University (Potchefstroomse campus), South Africa.

The Rousselian water

Damien Top, Centre International Albert-Roussel, FRA, paper

Now considered one of the foremost composers of the 20th-century French school, Albert Roussel (1869–1937) made a career in the French Navy before devoting himself to music. Studies of Roussel to date have neglected this aspect of his life. It seems important, however, to consider the liquid element and the far-off voyage as essential components of his entire creation. Seen from this angle, the composer's work presents an entirely different dimension; it becomes possible to determine the role played in his musical inspiration by imagination and actual experience. Eternal traveler who dreamed of Polynesia, he reached India (opera Padmavati), he was in contact with the Australian poet Oliphant (song: A Farewell) and had plans to write a vast "Poem of the Sea". What traces of his Navy career can be found in the works he created? Was there any integration of indigenous elements drawn from the far-off civilizations he visited during his voyages? What technical and stylistic means did the composer use to describe and characterize the sea, the waves, the islands? Or was the ocean no more than a pretext for daydreaming and escape into the exotic?

Damien Top directs the Albert-Roussel International Festival.

Analyzing and performing Chopin's nocturne in F-sharp major, op. 15, no. 2

Ralph van der Beek, Weber State University, USA, lecture-recital roundtable

Chopin's F-sharp major nocturne, op. 15, no. 2, illustrates a 'micro-macro' approach to composition—within this piece, seemingly innocent, melodic events take on structural significance. The opening passing tone from D-natural to C-sharp becomes an intense source of conflict in section B. At the close, D-natural is overcome, and Chopin resolves the duel with D-sharp to C-sharp, in effect creating one of Chopin's most beautiful phrases. I will show how an understanding of harmonic process is vital to an informed musical interpretation by presenting a discussion of linear approach, as evidenced by multi-layered chromatic shifts. Following my own performance, additional interpretations are considered in the form of a participatory discussion, which includes pianists Roy Howat of the Royal Academy of Music and Kathleen Solose of the University of Saskatchewan.

New-Zealand-born, artist-teacher Ralph van der Beek is Assistant Professor of Piano at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.

Indians in Carthage? Aeneas in the Pacific?: Asian and Pacific influences in the writings and music of Berlioz

Inge van Rij, NZSM, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, paper

In Berlioz's Memoirs he describes the two leading obsessions of his childhood: the 'islands, capes, and straits of the southern seas and the Indian Archipelago' that he read about in travel literature, and Virgil's Aeneid. While the Aeneid inspired the monumental opera Les Troyens, Berlioz's interest in the Pacific and India would appear to have left little impact on his music—a lack all the more striking given the extensive evidence of an ongoing fascination with these areas in Berlioz's written works. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the Pacific and India did in fact significantly impact upon Berlioz's music. Beginning with an examination of a small selection of Berlioz's references to New Zealand, Tahiti, and India, I expose both the exoticism of Berlioz's approach and the hitherto overlooked grounding of Berlioz's accounts in facts gleaned from travel writing, oral accounts of navigators in his acquaintance, and performances of genuine Indian musicians in Paris. This information in turn sheds new light on Berlioz's Les Troyens. The composer himself claimed that Indian musicians and dancers provided the initial inspiration for one of the ballets, and I reveal for the first time how this influence is manifested in his music. Moreover, I propose that Berlioz's presentation of the story of Aeneas was informed by his knowledge and imaginings of travellers in the Pacific—and that both reflect France's imperialist ethos. The close proximity in the Memoirs of Berlioz's references to the Pacific and India and to the Aeneid is thus crucial to our understanding of Les Troyens, and to our appreciation of the influence of these regions on Berlioz's music generally.

Inge van Rij is Lecturer in Musicology at the New Zealand School of Music. Her research is centred on Brahms, issues of music and text, the coherence of multi-movement works, and musical representations of cultural identity, including New Zealand 'exoticism'. In 2003 she was awarded a Marsden Grant and is currently preparing a book for Cambridge University Press on the cyclicity of Brahms's Lieder collections.

Qi Gong, Tai Chi, and the Twenty-Four Chopin Preludes, op. 28

Lisa Weiss, Goucher College, USA, lecture demonstration

The study and performance of Frederick Chopin's Twenty-Four Preludes, op. 28, invites a complex, multi-layered journey into the self. Such a journey parallels the quest for the unification of mind, body and spirit which practitioners of Qi Gong and Tai Chi continually seek. Concepts inherent to these ancient forms, such as wuji (nothingness), yin and yang, movement and stillness, are powerfully present in the Preludes. Correct breathing, balance, "mindfulness" and the combined forces of "attention" and "intention" are as central to the understanding of Qi Gong and Tai Chi as they are to the analysis, interpretation and execution of the Preludes. This lecture-demonstration will examine the Preludes both as individual pieces and as subsets in relation to one another from the point of view of Qi Gong and Tai Chi. Methods of practicing coupled with insights into the performance of the Preludes as a complete set will be shared, gleaned through the intersection—at times exacting and specific, at times metaphorical—of these parallel universes. Just as the performer's relationship to the Preludes changes every day, similarly lifelong practitioners of Qi Gong and Tai Chi have a different experience each time they repeat these forms. My presentation, furthermore, will not attempt to establish "proof" of the connections between eastern and western modalities or force relationships where they do not exist. Rather, it will attempt to show how an appreciation of QG/TC can open the performer to new and useful ways to achieve technical, structural and emotional mastery of the Preludes.

Lisa Weiss is Associate Professor and Chair of the Music Department at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland.

Why Are Three Analyses Necessary for Le Travail du peintre?

Marjorie R. Wharton, Luther College, USA, lecture recital

Philip Wharton, New York, USA

JoAnn Ottley, Brigham Young University-Hawaii, USA

In the format of an illustrated lecture-recital, we propose a multi-faceted analysis of Le Travail du peintre, a cycle of seven songs by Francis Poulenc on texts of Paul Eluard. Marjorie Wharton will discuss briefly the work of the seven artists after whom the seven songs are named: Picasso, Chagall, Braque, Gris, Klee, Miró, Villon. She will provide some general hints for understanding Paul Eluard's work as a poet and suggest an interpretation for several poems. Philip Wharton will present a structural analysis to show what makes this group of songs a cycle, and will then show how specific compositional techniques enlighten and enliven the meaning of a poem. A performance of this 12-minute cycle will conclude the session. We will provide a printed program with the texts in French and English. This cycle is infrequently performed, perhaps for the following reasons. Some vocalists find that the range of these songs lies in an awkward tessitura. Singers and pianists may not connect with the text of these poems or the work of the seven artists. These musicians may not have time to investigate the ingenious compositional scheme. We hope this triptych analysis will be an invitation to performance.

Marjorie (Running) Wharton teaches French and Piano at Luther College in Decorah Iowa. She earned an M.A. in French from Tulane University in New Orleans and the D.M.A. in Piano from the University of Iowa. Her doctoral thesis Visual Art and Poetry in the Songs of Francis Poulenc reflects her interest in French art, music, and poetry. A portion of it was published as "Nogent Music: Poulenc and Dufy" in Francis Poulenc: Music, Art and Literature (Ashgate, 1999).

Composer and violinist Philip Wharton lives and works in Manhattan. He holds an M.M. in violin performance from Eastman School of Music, a Certificate of Advanced Solo Studies from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and a D.M.A. in composition from The Juilliard School. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls (IA) Symphony Orchestra has appointed him as their Composer-in-Residence beginning next season.

JoAnn Ottley, soprano, teaches voice at Brigham Young University-Hawaii.

Silencing the clarion call: Debussy's Berceuse héroïque and "Pour les sonorités opposées"

Marianne Wheeldon, University of Texas at Austin, USA, paper

In the first months of World War I, Debussy received a commission for King Albert's Book, a collection of works by noted writers, composers, artists, and statesmen from the Allied countries, dedicated to the King of Belgium and commemorating the Belgian soldiers who had died during the German invasion. Debussy's offering, a short piano work entitled Berceuse héroïque, reflects the unique circumstances of its genesis with a musical narrative that situates itself within this specific time, place, and atmosphere. Composed less than a year later, the etude "Pour les sonorités opposées" (1915) exhibits striking similarities to the Berceuse in terms of its musical ideas and formal strategies, yet the two compositions occupy very different worlds. One inhabits the public (and political) sphere of the wartime occasional work, the other the rarified and more abstract milieu of the advanced piano etude. As a result, gestures transplanted from the Berceuse to the etude undergo modification in order to traverse the distance from occasional work to piano etude—or more simply, from program to absolute music. This paper examines the compositional techniques Debussy employs to transform musical ideas, once invested with explicit significance in the Berceuse héroïque, and divest them of their meaning in "Pour les sonorités opposées." Such transformations are encapsulated in the repeated clarion calls, the most salient motive in both works, but whose extra-musical dimension in the Berceuse is silenced in the etude.

Marianne Wheeldon is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of the forthcoming book Debussy's Late Style: the Compositions of the Great War (Indiana University Press).

Louis Vierne's Vingt-quatre pieces en style libre, Opus 31: The Manuscript Speaks

Steven Young, Bridgewater State College, USA, lecture recital

The organ music of Louis Vierne, renowned organist of Notre-Dame de Paris, has long been a staple of the organist's repertoire. Most of the recent research into Vierne's music centers on the large organ symphonies; little work has been done on the smaller works. Recently, a copy of the manuscript of the well-known miniatures for organ, the Vingt-quatre pieces en style libre, has become available. These works have long been used in the teaching and performing repertory, but little attention has been given to some significant notational problems in the score. A comparison of the manuscript and the published edition reveals the wisdom of some editorial decisions and the error of others. This lecture-recital proposes to provide some background on these works, to share new information on the manuscripts, examines some editorial choices that seem to enhance the score, and to demonstrate how a detailed analysis of the original score can have a significant effect on the performance of these works, with special emphasis on thyrhm and articulation.

Steven Young is Associate Professor of Music at Bridgewater State College, Massachusetts.