Allegheny Chapter of the American Musicological Society
Saturday, March 19, 2016 • Chatham University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Program Spring Meeting
8:30 AM Registration and Refreshments
9:00 AM Opening Remarks by Chapter President, Christopher Wilkinson
Contemporary Music: Notation and Quotations
Chair: Andrew Farina (Butler University)
Antonella Di Giulio (University at Buffalo, SUNY)
Deictic Spaces and Form-Meaning Pairings in 20th-Century Works
The recent research of Gjerdingen offers some ideas for the application of construction grammar to schemas. This paper considers two types of space involved in score: the map of schemas and the segmentations within the piece. The combination of these spaces is defined as deictic.
Using as a point of departure Etude by Salvatore Sciarrino and “Der Spiegel sagt mir†by Luigi Dallapiccola, this paper provides a window on deictic spaces used as analytical tool. Listeners are able to remember and predict segments of sounds and the act of recalling is facilitated by the points of orientation distributed in time.
Laura Dallman (Indiana University)
The Surface and Beyond: Quotation and Allusion in Daugherty’s Orchestral Works
Many of Michael Daugherty’s orchestral works use musical quotation and allusion, drawing upon history and popular culture to create a sense of familiarity. He manipulates a variety of material, from simple to complex, creating a diverse musical palette. With borrowed material, Daugherty often labels the score or writes explanatory program notes. In a few instances, however, he makes little or no mention of a quotation or allusion. This raises questions. Why this particular material? How does it connect to the larger work? Addressing these questions moves beyond the surface and offers more nuanced interpretations of Daugherty’s work.
Recording Technology and Dissemination: Music and Radio
Chair: William Hannam (Kent State University)
Julie VanGyzen (University of Pittsburgh)
Listening for Hope: Listening and Resistance During the Occupation of France
During the German occupation of France in World War II (1940–44) both Germany and Great Britain launched propaganda initiatives through the employment of radio broadcasting. Germany wanted to subsume the French identity, while Great Britain’s goal, via the BBC, was to encourage French citizens to join the resistance against Germany. The majority of French citizens tuned into the BBC broadcasts each night, but not many joined the resistance movement, begging the question—why did they listen? Using Occupied France as a case study, this paper will investigate how occupied peoples conceive a notion of collective identity through collective radiographic listening.
Garreth Broesche (University of Houston)
Are Recordings Forgeries?
This paper considers issues of authenticity and ontology in recordings of Western art music. I engage with ideas developed by Lydia Goehr (the perfect performance of music and the perfect musical performance) and Nicholas Cook (that musical performances lie on a continuum between two poles of product and process). To this largely theoretical discussion, I introduce real-world considerations gathered from interviews with producers and performers. I conclude by proposing that performers, perhaps surprisingly, do not wish to produce “perfect†recordings. Rather, they seek to leave some human trace in the recording, some proof of the process behind the product.
12:00 PM Lunch Break
2:00 PM Business Meeting
Eighteenth-Century Opera in Germany
Chair: Christopher Wilkinson (West Virginia University)
Adam Shoaff (University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music)
Rousseauian Aesthetics and the Rebirth of German Opera
In the late-1760s, public opera in North Germany experienced a reawakening following the Seven Years’ War. Johann Adam Hiller, a composer, writer, and pedagogue in Leipzig, played a pivotal role in the genre’s rebirth. While writing his first operas, he was also editing a new music periodical, the Wöchentliche Nachrichten und Anmerkungen, die Musik betreffend (1766–70). Hiller gave special consideration to the aesthetic writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This presentation discusses a few points of aesthetic agreement between Rousseau and Hiller, and demonstrates Hiller’s reflection of these principles in his comic operas Lottchen am Hofe, Die Jagd, and Der Aerndtekranz.
Music, Culture and Place
Chair: Michael Baumgartner (Cleveland State University)
Juan Fernando Velásquez (University of Pittsburgh)
(Re)Sounding Urban: Symphonic Bands, Modernity, and Public Space in MedellÃn, Colombia (1863–1910)
An historical analysis of the Banda de la GendarmerÃa—a symphonic band from MedellÃn, Colombia—provides a powerful case study of music, public space, and the reconfiguration of modern urban life in Latin America. During the second half of the nineteenth century, MedellÃn experienced a modernization process that included the transformation of the colonial plaza into the republican parque. This paper illustrates how retretas (public concerts) of MedellÃn’s symphonic bands during this period reflected a changing urban environment while simultaneously producing new understandings of public culture and use of urban spaces through music and sound.
Anne Briggs (Wichita State University)
Fado: Origin Narratives and Female Azorean Immigrants
An important paradox is built into the structure of Portuguese fado. The genre is defined by a sense of saudade—longing, nostalgia, soulfulness, and heartache—but also deliberately lacks a solidified origin narrative. This circumstance results in constructed, highly gendered narratives surrounding the genre and its performers. But even more importantly, this circumstance means that the process of formulating folk traditions is self-consciously and continually unfolding in the fado community. As a lens onto fado and its communities, this paper explores the complex gender expectations in fado narratives and the influence on female Azorean-American immigrants’ agency during the twentieth century.
Matthew Baumer (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)
Who Benefits from a Benefit Concert? Music and Philanthropy in 1980s Pittsburgh
Music and charity have a venerable and reciprocal relationship. In the U.S., the opera and symphony have always required contributions beyond ticket sales, but musicians are also frequently asked to donate their services for charity. The all-purpose vehicle for charity for and from musical organizations is the benefit concert, an institution with multiple and overlapping meanings. High-profile benefit concerts in mid-1980s Pittsburgh given by Pavarotti and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra reveal many shadings of the word “benefit.†Far from being special or unusual, the benefit concert is an important part of the strategy for marketing, supporting and legitimizing cultural institutions.
4:45 PM Informal Get-Together
