Search

Instrumental music is once more rearing its ugly head among churches of Christ. Congregations are adding instrumental music to worship because they “can't see anything wrong with it.” Maybe the instrument is added to draw more people into the assembly. Perhaps some advocate instrumental music, for, like L. L. Pinkerton, the singing is abysmal. Dr. Justin Imel, Sr., comes from a family where instrumental music was considered acceptable; therefore, he has heard nearly every argument under the sun to justify its use in worship. In this work, Dr. Imel examines arguments in favor of instrumental music and finds them wanting. Accompanied by the Instruments of David lays out a forceful argument for a cappella singing in worship.

SCHWERPUNKTTHEMA: ÄSTHETIK DES JAZZ Alessandro Bertinetto, Georg W. Bertram und David M. Feige: Einleitung Georg W. Bertram: Jazz als paradigmatische Kunstform - Eine Metakritik von Adornos Kritik des Jazz Daniel Martin Feige: Jazz als künstlerische Musik Davide Sparti: Acta Fluens. Generatives Handeln und Improvisation im Jazz David P. Schweikard: Solo, Interaktion und Ensemblespiel - Handlungstheoretische Überlegungen zur Dimension der Improvisation im Jazz Alexander Becker: Zeitstrukturen im Jazz Jerrold Levinson: Die expressive Spezifität des Jazz Alessandro Bertinetto: Jazz als gelungene Performance - Ästhetische Normativität und Improvisation ABHANDLUNG Christian Jany:'Das Anschauen ist eine so wunderbare Sache, von der wir noch so wenig wissen'- Szenographien des Schauens beim mittleren Rilke BESPRECHUNG Wolfgang Iser: Emergenz - Nachgelassene und verstreut publizierte Essays, hrsg. von Alexander Schmitz, Konstanz: Konstanz University Press 2013, 320 S. (Eckhard Lobsien)

Anyone interested in the history and development of Western music will welcome this collection of outstanding musical examples illustrating the general course of musical style from the early Middle Ages to the mid-eighteenth century. Included are 50 carefully selected compositions of great historical importance — each masterful and beautiful in its own right.Selections include chants, the organum, parts of masses, motets, chansons, canzonas, lute dances, madrigals, ricercari, and clavecin pieces. Among the pieces are exquisite motets by Josquin, Lassus, and Byrd; madrigals by Marenzio and Caccini; brilliant instrumental displays by Frescobaldi, Pachelbel, Couperin, and Domenico Scarlatti; choral music by Handel and Bach, and much more.Each example is accompanied by notes that identify the place of the composition in the history of music and suggest ways for the reader to undertake a useful analysis of that music. Most examples are in easy-to-follow'short score'— i.e., in two staves, lending themselves to analysis and performance by the student singly or in informal ensembles. The music can be performed either vocally or at the keyboard, allowing the reader to gain unmatched insight into the character and significance of a rich cross-section of historic styles.

What is it that makes Mendelssohn's music recognizably unique? This study hopes to make a contribution to the answer through an analysis of an extensive sample of Mendelssohn's instrumental music. I identify a compositional practice which I believe to be a hallmark of his style: the smoothing over of formal junctures of various types. By and large, Mendelssohn's dynamic treatment of formal junctures reflects a general concern with enhancing continuity andmomentum in longer forms, a compositional issue that has always presented a challenge to composers in the Western music tradition. The main purpose of our investigation, then, is to delineate the specific techniques that Mendelssohn used in his characteristic effort to bridge over formal divisions. Numerous of Mendelssohn's works reveal a clear (and evidently deliberate) propensity to create larger continuities by means of bridging over divisions, regardless of the formal prototype or level of structure. At the same time, an almost Mozartian clarity of form often is preserved. This might at first seem contradictory, but Mendelssohn, as I shall attempt to demonstrate, was able tofind ingenious ways of having his his cake and eating it, too.

This book is born out of two contradictions: first, it explores the making of meaning in a musical form that was made to lose its meaning at the turn of the nineteenth century; secondly, it is a history of a music that claims to have no history - absolute music. The book therefore writes against that notion of absolute music which tends to be the paradigm for most musicological and analytical studies. It is concerned not so much with what music is, but with why and how meaning is constructed in instrumental music and what structures of knowledge need to be in place for such meaning to exist. From the thought of Vincenzo Galilei to that of Theodore Adorno, Daniel Chua suggests that instrumental music has always been a critical and negative force in modernity, even with its nineteenth-century apotheosis as'absolute music'.