Period composition (and the truth about Albinoni’s adagio)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- For the footnotes and other extra information see the following link:
www.earlymusicsources.com/you...
0:00 Introduction
1:01 What is period composition?
2:58 Historical cases of style copies and period composition
10:04 Period composition in the 20th century
20:20 Period composition in today’s early music scene
25:10 Contemporary examples of period composition
Created by Elam Rotem, March 2024.
Special thanks to Erik Schroeder, Alon Schab, Nimrod Ben-Zeev, Enrico Correggia, Iason Marmaras, Fynn Titford-Mock, Bob Tennent, Lisandro Abadie, Tim Braithwaite, Nicola Schneider, Domen Marincic, Augusta Campagne and Anne Smith.
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Tears came into my eyes when you said that it’s worth composing if your piece is meaningful to you. Absolutely! Music is a language and don’t we all speak someone else’s language? It’s what you have to say and how clearly you can express it that makes it meaningful or not. Thank you for addressing and clarifying this topic which has been sorely needed for the past one hundred years!
I don’t think you made any points.
To use your language analogy, a person today writing music 'in a baroque style' is a bit like a person today speaking 17th century English, or writing a novel in that style. It's very difficult to believe you're being sincere, and you can't blame people for thinking you're joking or being pretentious.
@@paranoidlawyer Music is transparent. It (generally) does not rely on preconceived ideas like a language. For example, in the English language, the word "grape" means a very specific thing, whereas in music a G minor chord sounds a certain way (and composers have used that sound in certain contexts to convey certain emotions and ideas), but the G minor chord does not have a specific symbolic meaning assigned to it. While music is based on established forms such as sonatas, concertos or symphonies, that is like how writing uses established forms like essays, novels etc. And while the style of music has changed over time, it is the same that the style of writing (even in using the same words) has changed over time. So, the original commenter is correct. Just because music is old-fashioned does not mean it is outdated and incomprehensible in the same way that 17th century English speaking practice is today, since music is primarily aesthetic and not implied in meaning. THIS is why music is called "a universal language"--because even if there are many things that are helped by specific cultural context, it still stands that the basic meaning of a piece can be perceived independently of any previous knowledge based on time in history or location. A foreigner does not need a dictionary to understand music, unlike someone would need a dictionary to understand a foreign language.
I'm glad to see a non-judgmental treatment of this subject.
What is sometimes deprecated by the derogatory term "pastiche" is, in my opinion, just as valid as compositions that were written between the years of the original period.
Why a particular piece's value should be limited to its historical authenticity is a mystery.
If, for example, Elam wrote what we know as Haydn's Seasons oratorio yesterday (and Haydn never had), I would enjoy it just as much as I do the actual oratorio we know. It would be very strange if I didn't.
Music is music. Aesthetics and biography are two different things.
As a period composer, primarily of Latin liturgical music, and primarily in 16th century polyphonic style (Palestrina) with occasional travels into 18th century Austria (Mozart/Salieri), I can attest to what can be learned from composition in a given manner and how that then informs and transforms the way one looks at old music: For one, it seems somehow less old and foreign and more contemporary, since one can, if you will, speak with the composer in his own language, without the aid of a translator.
Another exquisite episode, thank you! When I was younger, I wanted to compose in the styles - roughly speaking - of Ockeghem, Byrd, and Monteverdi, three of my favourite 'pre-Bach' composers. And I did dabble a bit along those lines, but at the time many of my colleagues ridiculed my 'little projects' as a waste of time or even that I was being disingenuous. And to be clear, I never had any intention of wishing to pass off any of this work as original to that period. So I did compose sections of pieces that I never shared with anyone. As you suggest here, one of the many benefits of having done so was experiencing a blessed surprise when I realised I had actually come to understand original period pieces far better than I had before. It was like spending time in a beautiful building with many rooms, but then suddenly coming upon a door that opens onto a magnificent landscape that provides a setting the makes the building all the more beautiful and contextually meaningful. Cheers!
When I was an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Purchase (now Purchase College) we had a wonderful and well known organist/composer/professor - Anthony Newman. He designed a series of courses that I've never seen at any other college - known as MODELS I-IV. For Models I all the students would study the works of the Medieval period from Plainsong through Machaut and compose works in the style. Models II would focus on composers of the Renaissance and early Baroque etc. It is something that I still employ as a Professor of Harmony - study works from the literature and then compose pieces in the style. It has turned many of my students from performers to performer-composers.
Anthony Newman was one of my favorite interpreters of Bach when I was growing up in New York. If for nothing else, the way he would thumb his nose at ridged twentieth century performance dogma. This is something us early music performers still often have to deal with. He was also briefly our choir director after our organist passed away, way too early. Unfortunately for me, this was after I had left NY. I would have loved to sing under his direction.
@@ralphmarshall1000He is the gentlest of souls.
Hey, and what about models III and IV? You left us cliff-hanging..
Wonderful video, Elam! Thank you very much for letting me be a part of it!
'Joseph and his Brethren' sounds gorgeous! I can vouch for the educational value, for a student, of composing in a period style. With the guidance of a knowledgeable teacher it can be a real revelation of how the music of that period worked and hence is useful knowledge for compositions in any style.
It is a supremely gorgeous and expressive piece, I agree. I was in tears when I first heard it. I could not believe at first that it was written by a person living in this century. Thank you, Elam!
For the audience to captivated by the composition... isn't that what so many of us wish for? Both as composers and performers, to enchant our listeners, to bring them with us into the music and to share with them our joy? I feel like every musician throughout the ages has had that hope, sought that joy and enchantment.
Wonderfully done as always! I have been very pleased to introduce your work, and this channel, to friends of mine who are also "music nerds" as we like to call ourselves. Especially my friend who understands Hebrew; she told me your music made her weep.
Another period composer I can really recommend a listen to, is Italian flutist and musicologist Federico Maria Sardelli. He’s written some absolutely fabulous works in a baroque Italian style that reminisces of Corelli, Tartini and Vivaldi❣️
Also, harpsichordist Michele Barchi 😊
I think it’s a vastly important thing to do today, why should people be ashamed to compose in timeless style? New composition brings life to these beautiful styles!
I am reminded of the popular Oboe Concerto by Domenico Cimarosa in C major/C minor that is actually an arrangement by Arthur Benjamin. In AllMusic, Rita Laurance writes: "In 1949, Arthur Benjamin took four of his favorite keyboard sonatas of Cimarosa and combined them into the larger concerto form. He rewrote the pieces, scoring them for oboe and string orchestra, keeping most of the melody in the solo voice."
I started studying period composition in late French baroque style on my own. I bought some books, picked early scores, listened to Dieupart, Rameau, Francoeur, Philidor, Corrette, and others. Now I have some pieces for traverso and alto recorder solos that include a couple of French suites, some passacailles, chaconnes, allemandes, ouvertures, courantes, marches, vaudevilles totally made from scratch. Now I am studying Italian galant style and partimento.
I would love to be able to listen to your pieces! I also compose in French Baroque style, so I’m very interested!
As a so called "period composer", I have seen that the majority of living composers are desperate to find their own original style and contribute to the future of music history. I have personally never found this mindset appealing. Of course I'm going to write the same kind of music as the one I like to perform and listen to, that makes sense, does it not? I have had some people call my works "pastiches", but I believe it's important for oneself as a composer to ignore these claims and continue writing the things one wants to write. Copying others to any degree is inevitable, and even alright if done properly. If I lived in the 18th century my music would have been regarded as original, so why shouldn't it be considered as original today too? Regardless of style, a composition is one's original handiwork!
Thank you for this most relevant and fantastic video, Elam! I suggest you to perhaps analyse one of your hebrew sacred works in a future video (perhaps the lamentation of David), because they are absolutely gorgeous!
Elam, I have been to your performance of Josef and his brethren at the early music festival in Utrecht and was utterly blown away. I really see what you mean with seeing the composition for itself and not the hype, to paraphrase it, because that was what it was for me too. Nobody telling me it was good, and me telling everyone it was awesome afterwards.
If you're ever performing nearby again I'll be sure to get a ticket, especially if it's your own composition.
Yes, the volume of compliments this has already attracted is fully justified. I really like this channel for its professionalism tinged with a little fun. This video I thought was particularly good - full of interest and offering a new angle on aspects of early music. I particularly liked the comparisons with literature and art: IMO. we don't get enough comparative work on the different arts.
The Viola Concerto in the Style of J. C. Bach by Henri Casadesus is one of my favorites
Wow... feel a strong affinity for your own period compositions❤. Did not realize now many musician composers choose period style compositions. Certainly not the case 30 years ago at university when and a composition student had to be more avant garde. I rejected that then and still do, letting my ears and mind decide.
Very interesting content as always! I would like to add Vladimir F. Vavilov to the list, who composed in different old stiles in post war Soviet Union. His album «Lute Music from the 16th-17th centuries» deeply impressed me in my youth and was an important factor for my interest in Early Music - only to learn much later that most of the pieces were composed by Vavilov himself.
His Ave Maria is very famous. I used to sing it in choir in late 80s as a piece by Caccini
I’m glad to see period composition being accepted by performers and audiences. I have always been irritated by the, ‘above the rest of the world’ contemporary composers, who immediately turn their noses up at anything remotely tonal. As if all art should be paint randomly splashed on canvas. In music school, I was taught that we move from one period to the next, when all the possibilities of the current period have been exhausted. This is why Colleges keep music and science majors in separate buildings. Why do some people compose beautiful music? Because they can!
composing and performing period style music: story of my life - since 1978 🙂
'78? you're a disco composer! 🤣😂🤣
@@Marcel_Audubon ha-ha! Well, as a matter of a fact, last month I arranged Abba's 'Mamma mia' for female choir and wind band 😁
I can say from experience that period composition is an extremely enriching exercise. I had not thought so much of the performance aspects of such endeavors until now. Thank you, Elam! Especially for the encouragement to "go for it" :)
One could add Mozart's re-orchestration of Handel's Messiah which can still be found. Also, there were a large number of compositions in 'prima prattica' by such diverse late Baroque composers as A. Scarlatti and Buxtehude. In fact I see Buxtehude's 'Membra Jesu Nostri' as a homage to the slightly older Carissimi. Then there's Monteverdi's six part parody Mass (after Gombert) in 16th c. style included in the publication of 1610 along with the 'seconda prattica' Vespers.
My favorite thing in the world is to listen to young composers on TH-cam compose fugues in the Baroque style 😊
What a contentious topic. My favorite.
I compose music in the late French Baroque style, but I have leaned back to Lully when requested to. I consider French Baroque music my “mother tongue,” and if I were asked to compose in any other style I, presently, would be unable to. I do not care for the word “pastiche,” as applied to my music, as I am not imitating a composer or style. Rather, I have absorbed the style and am creating music as a French Baroque composer. I make French Baroque music because I believe it is the best, highest quality music that exists, in melody, harmony, and form. Because once I ran out of Rameau operas, I needed another source. It’s not an addiction guys!
I believe the reason why period composing commonly applies to baroque or renaissance music is that it was deeply different from ours (modal music, different conception of rhythm, different conception of harmony in general). It's not that baroque "evolved" into classical music, it just died. So some people just want to revive that lost tradition.
Yes!! I call it the “great simplification,” great in scale, not in goodness. Classical music took the contrapuntal melody and bass, and discarded the other voices, making the textures as simple as possible, thus destroying the richness that was present in the music. The classical minuet, for example, is a shadow of what it once was.
I got briefly confused when reading your comment, as I consider my music to be French Baroque music, and modern music, be it pop, jazz, or something else, to be not my own at all. Perhaps it is that so few other people want to claim Baroque music that I feel like it can be my own. ;)
Wow. This was just fascinating. I love how period composition can be a source of freshness and inspiration.
You read my mind! I woke up this morning thinking "it's about time EMS puts out a video". An hour later there you are! I have coffee and half an hour to spare. Lovely!
I could imagine that writing in an old style could be a task someone sometimes faces when he is asked to write music for a movie. Because when the story takes place in another century this could be expected.
As a fellow period composer (18th century), what a lovely video this has been.
Thank you, Elam. This episode brought you, as a person and as artist, nearer to the audience and therefor is one of the best and most interesting episodes in my opinion. You are a treasure.
Thank you for a fantastic overview of the history of period composition and of many of the issues surrounding it. I gave a couple of conference talks on this some years ago, but yours is a much more detailed and better researched summary.
I will certainly share this video with my students (German subtitles would be great at some point) as I believe the historical segment gives much insight on the context of 19th-century historicism which has had such a fundamental impact on Western musical culture, not just on the repertoire played in most concert halls but also on the composition of new music since at least the late 19th century.
In that sense I do feel that there is a continuum or spectrum which ranges from period composition as you define it, all the way to the creation of new compositional styles and techniques, whether these sonically refer back to the "époque classique" (as in much French Neoclassicism including some Stravinsky) or not, as in the radically new interpretation of Baroque dance forms in Schoenberg's Suite op. 25 or even in the consistent adoption of constructivist techniques from early Renaissance music and Bach, such as the use of intervallic inversion and retrograde in the Second Viennese School (the name of which is also a clear backward-looking reference of course).
I have certainly encountered knee-jerk reactions along the lines of "it's just copying, not composition" countless times, including after one of my conference talks. The term "composition" (from Latin "componere" = put together) is, however, wonderfully vague. The commentator and amateur musician Roger North in the early 18th century rather reflects the prevailing attitude of his time when he writes that "it is not to be expected that a master [at improvisation] invents all he plays in that manner. No, he doth but play over those passages that are in his memory and habituall to him ... [so it] will appear as a new work of a good composer, of whom the best ... more or less borrows ayre from those that went before him".
Of course, composers in the tradition of Webern and the Darmstadt School often use the term "composition" not just to describe an activity (the act of composing) but as a synonym for what could often also be deemed a piece or musical "work" all the while attempting to avoid the baggage of the "work concept".
If "period composition" is not composition, what about so-called "arrangements" such as those in Stravinsky's Pulcinella or Michael Nyman's film music for The Draughtsman's Contract, or even Giazotto's Adagio? What about music that straddles the lines, so to speak, such as Schnittke's 1st symphony or, much more extreme, George Rochberg's Music for The Magic Theater? Does "Act 2" of the latter start as merely a copy of Mozart (perhaps with the vague uncertainty of whether it actually is Mozart, an arrangement of Mozart or something else) and only becomes a "composition" ("real music"?) after more than six minutes, with barely a minute left to play, ironically announced by a muted trumpet and a quotation of the iconic start of Webern's Konzert op. 24?
Again, thank you for your wonderful contribution, which I believe serves as an excellent introduction to this fascinating and complex topic.
Just like Alessandro Parisotti, who actually composed some of the old Italian songs he published. They are luscious.
Frankly, the increase in period composition may well be a key of promise that might help revivify “classical” music.
I completely agree with the analysis of what is valuable about period composition, but I’d like to offer a short analysis that lies beyond the scope of your video as to the socioeconomic context of why people explore period composition, less out of joy and more out of necessity. This is not to suggest it’s the only reason, or that people don’t take joy in period composition. I myself do, but I’m also aware of other factors that make it feel sometimes like the only viable outlet.
In earlier time periods the music ‘of one’s own time’ was a discourse readily available to musicians in a way that contemporary music of today is not.
1. Music of the common practice period is more readily transcribable than 21st century classical music. The use of tonality, tropes, devices and so on makes the music imitable in a way that the atonality and highly idiosyncratic nature of modern classical works does not easily permit.
2. While sheet music was historically much more expensive, the lack of copyright allowed for copies to be made freely. The number of new works in circulation amongst musicians allows composers like Bach to copy and study lots of new music. The extremely high price and copyright protection of new music makes accessing scores much more difficult. This has the effect that it can be difficult to beg, borrow or steal a new work. As an organist I can ask any colleague for a copy of any work by Bach, or use IMSLP. Even the latest Bärenreiter editions are very competitively priced, so aren’t beyond the pale for most on an organist’s salary. Works by Messiaen however are painfully expensive, with long works being published in three, four or even five small booklets, each about twice the price of a volume of the complete Bach urtext edition. Because the music is less popular than Bach’s, and more challenging to listeners, fewer colleagues have copies I can borrow. And this is some of the most widely performed modern organ music, and it’s not particularly recent. As a working musician I feel extremely alienated from the zeitgeist of contemporary classical music because it is extremely expensive to get my hands on scores often enough that I can feel up-to-date with what is happening, at least as a performer. I can listen, but as a musician I am unable to participate in the performance practice.
These factors make earlier styles more natural - I can develop a fluency in them from exposure and participation. I don’t feel I choose to write in earlier styles, I feel my vocabulary is limited to earlier styles because contemporary styles are an elite language that costs a huge amount of money to follow. I personally feel this is one of the reasons that the world contemporary composition feels so atomistic, with emphasis on unique, individual musical languages - because there is not a sense of an evolving shared language because there are financial barriers to engagement with it. This in turn requires much more work on the part of the audience to understand each new work. Not in itself a bad thing, except that using the score as a tool to understand is prohibitively costly, especially on top of the cost of time.
Earlier styles are fundamentally a common tongue for experienced musicians, whereas contemporary music is a Babel of highly individualised languages that gatekeeps access by requiring lavish personal means or access through the academe (which is also very expensive in the UK).
Just some thoughts to add as to the darker side of why period composition is so attractive to so many, because I think if music is to be a forward-looking thing as well as something looking to the past, it needs the freedom to do both, and I don’t think this freedom really exists at the moment.
I agree with a lot you have said here, there is joy and 'necessity' which can go hand in hand here as well :)
As a composer, I find writing period pieces very enjoyable. It’s refreshing to the ears and more often than not they will help me advance in more contemporary pieces I’m working on.
I wrote pieces à la Josquin, Bach, Haydn, Satie, Schubert, Bruckner even, Koechlin, Reich…
This video was awesome. Best classical music content on the internet, for sure. Thanks!!
Thanks for sharing. A few comments:
1. Cassado's attribution claim of his Toccata for Cello and Piano to Girolamo Frescobaldi is particularly egregious, because the work bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to Frescobaldi's actual style. Frescobaldi was a Renaissance composer, yet that Toccata is written in a remarkably Romantic-influenced pseudo-Baroque idiom. Furthermore, Cassado has produced a "concert edition" of Schubert's "Arpeggione" sonata, originally for arpeggione (an obsolete instrument that is essentially a bowed guitar) and piano, but dramatically rewritten as a Romantic-styled concerto for cello and orchestra.
2. I used to believe Giazotto's "reconstruction" claims had at least some truth to them, until I learned about how his "biography" of the Italian Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella was later discovered to entirely consist of fabricated information, which definitely puts his claims about Albinoni in hot water.
3. There have been other fascinating modern-era attempts at reconstructing unfinished works in a... (ahem) highly liberal manner, such as Schnittke's Piano Quartet (after the unfinished second movement of Mahler's Piano Quartet), Schnittke's "Moz-Art a la Haydn" (after music written for a pantomime by Mozart for which only the first violin part survives), or Berio's "Rendering" (after the sketches for Schubert's Symphony No. 10 in D major), which nonetheless make no effort to claim them as an authentic reconstruction of what would've been the original. What are your thoughts on those, and have you listened to them?
4. The late Peter Schickele (RIP) went an entire step further and parodied the entire concept of reconstructing / rediscovering earlier music with his fictitious composer "P.D.Q. Bach", an alleged long-lost son of Johann Sebastian.
This fascinating topic puts composition, improvisation, musicology, the early music movement, pastiche, facsimile etc and even forgery with reference to period styles on it's head. A wonderful presentation YET AGAIN from Elam Rotem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One period composition that I performed in many years ago was Domenico Scarlatti's Missa for 4 Voices aka Misa de Madrid, which mostly proceeds in an older style (I thought at the time that it being a capella it was imitation Renaissance, but on a re-listen, it's maybe inspired by Schütz?) while occasionally jumping forward a century to nearer Scarlatti's day, catching out the unwary chorister!
As a Baroque lover, it's such a precious gift to be provided with examples of living composers creating music inspired by the era of music I cherish! Might I add that I am a big fan of Matthias Maute's compositions as well!
Rolfgang Bamadeus Pozart - man I love the humor sprinkled in to all your videos! Pretty obvious someone grew up with Futurama, and dare I assume, Simpsons
As always, a fabulous video. So many leads to now follow up... Your ideas have me cheering yes yes yes! A complete breath of fresh air. One other example is those composers who got so old that their music became 'period composition' in later life - as in Richard Strauss, and perhaps Saint-Saens.
The single most convincing period compositions I’ve ever heard is Elam Rotem’s “Lamentations of David.”
Thank you, Elam! You should have 1 million subscribers!
The operatic excerpt near the end was rather “Mozart by numbers” with strong Schauspieldirektor notes, but this was an excellent post! Really liked the other two examples - your Joseph excerpt comes off beautifully.
I actually uploaded clementi’s parodies (op.19) onto musescore!
I was just thinking about this earlier today and now this video pops out in my feed, I've got the feeling somebody's watching me 🎵🎶
You may enlarge this video with a section of "formerly attributed to ...." pieces. It doesn´t take anything from the music when we finally find out that it was not written by the composer we thought it was. It only makes it an occasion for conversation, if it´s not useless knowledge all together.
With my choir we are learning "Ave Maria" (not) by Giuilo Caccini. It´s a lovely piece of music!
Two challenging and delightful solo viola concerti were composed by the brothers Casadesus, yet were published as “Handel” and “JC Bach” despite not having anything to do with the two. The two brothers were VERy active in the early instrument movement in the late 19th century in paris, founding the society of ancient instruments there. It is yet undetermined whether one should commend them or simply tip their hats for their efforts.
The first period composer I remember is Miguel Andrade Gomes back around the year 2000. His midi files are unfortunately now very hard to find. There is some of his music on soundclick. I haven't heard his music in more than 20 years but going to soundclick I still remember his works like yesterday.
Fascinating and beautiful music. I do wish my sister were still alive. She received her degree inusicology and focused on the German works. She certainly would have been following your scholarly presentaments. Creating (composing) and making new music in a traditional way was what she wanted to do, but she was suddenly taken away on a trip to Germany in 2012.
It is interesting to observe the shredding of the present plagiarists in academic circles who do so with great abandon. Let us hope that those who study and use the knowledge in music history are more careful to credit the source of the beautiful works they create. May you guide the effort for all to follow.
Thank you very much for your clear and excellent explanation!
Great content as always!
Excellent and a lot of fun. I always wondered why composers don’t write polyphonic music based on all the lessons Bach gave us.
thank you elam! commenting & liking before watching
A delightful video as always, thank you Elam
Great Video! looking forward to hear more Compositions from you!
Molto interessante, come al solito. Grazie, Elam.
Wonderful video!
Thanks Elam for this awesome essay , I'm always looking forward to your videos .
Wonderful Episode, I enjoyed it!
I've learned so much. I've enjoyed so much. Thanks again for a wonderful video.
An excelent video, as always. Congratulations!
A thought provoking video. The biggest hurdle for the composer, I reckon, is making a good composition when there is so much risk of falling into stylistic clichés and leaving out any substance. This seems to be true in at least the first two examples at the end of the video (though the excerpts are short), and is true in other styles as well: modern takes on early rock'n'roll, westerners attempting "middle eastern" music, synth wave and any other nostalgia-driven popular music - though there are some exceptions, and as you say, there is no style police, so my cliché might be someone else's nostalgia trip, and vice versa. I guess if nothing else the exercise suggests why musical styles evolve: precisely to avoid sounding clichéd. But I hope I'm not taking music too seriously by thinking about all of this!
So glad you shared one of your compositions! I had no idea and that was amazing. Love the videos way to go man great stuff
@elamrotem, I admire the work that you do. Thank you so much for doing all of these!
Great video with good information. Tnx!
Great presentation and thank you for the excellent excerpt of your oratorio! It sounds amazing!
What an amazing episode, as always. THANK YOU
Excelente video como siempre Maestro Elam!!
Loved the personal touch on this one!
I've often thought about what the difference is between a reconstruction (as I've practiced quite often) and an "independent" historical composition. It's interesting to look at the borderline case of the Adagio, which is half, or at least tried to pass itself off as a reconstruction. My own efforts at style copy never leave my desk (or my classroom), but I feel more justified when I'm restoring someone else's music somehow. Another thought I had watching this was about fakes. The success of Han van Meegeren was not that he painted works like the known Vermeers. In fact Van Meegeren painted what art historians (and the public) most wanted from a Vermeer: the elusive, lost early works, on catholic themes. That is pretty much Pärt's pseudo-medievalism, minus the overt deception, or perhaps Bruckner's choir pieces that gave the Cecilian's a mirror of their own "Palestrina".
I had gooseflesh listening to your piece, Elam. WOW.
Very elegant work, maestro.
Congratulations. Incredible video and so explanatory 👏🏻👏🏻
Very good and interesting -- thank you very much! 😊👏
Thank you, this was very inspiring!
Thank you for the great content.
Very informative and enthusiastic program on Period MC, Elam Rotem !!! When talking about a piece of music written in a historical style, some people use the term "pastiche," despectively, as if saying such work is a "poor imitation" of a given style. But, if there is no autonomous "style police" to judge period pieces, then I wonder if no meaningful difference between "pastiche" and period composition exists, only perhaps, degrees of "purity." We don't have Zarlino, Fux, or Albrechtsberger, in person, critiquing our work, so I guess our current skillset (craft) and comparison to historical models stand (as intimated by Erik Schroeder) as the only valid viewpoints.
One of my old professors of 18th-century counterpoint liked to use the term "approximatura" to make us realize we unknowingly "deviated from practice" by writing a NCT "foreign" to 18th-C. music ....
There are many great reasons for writing Period MC and I especially like what you list as #4 (deepening knowledge). Also, taken together, modal and tonal polyphony account for hundreds of years of cultural heritage and thus their "historical weight" (importance) is huge. Learning about the partimenti and solfeggio tradition has shown that music is composed of both, artesanal (e.g. schemes "in stock") as well as artistic (how a skeletal pattern is used) elements. Therefore, "saving" these modal and tonal traditions is as important as preserving an old pottery tradition ....
Though, I understand your argument that, in the end, the attributes of devotion, expressiveness, meaning, audience, etc., are more important than stylistic correctness ....
When people ask what kind of music I compose I should resume everything in just 'classical music' everytime, although those who listened to some baroque music can call it baroque it is, as I see it: modern music.
But found in those styles better accuracy for what I intended with my compositions: a possibilty for elevation, so everyone who listened could end up in a better place than before.
Maybe is just modern music for a different purpouse.
composition teachers and course's at the average university's music department are rarely particularly interested by this kind of thing as I found out. Less that they don't respect it but more that how the mark schemes surrounding grading composition work are based a lot on some level of breaking styles and norms and also on a narrative of some sort underpinning the work
This was truly a gift. I couldn't think up a more interesting episode if i tried. You have a new patron. Thank you.
What an episode! And, I liked your "Go For It" approach in the continuation of historical based composition.
Cool video man!
I always appreciated knowledge and intelligence, and the artistry of combining them into practice. This channel is such a case. Thank you, Elam!
An excellent upload - from all aspects: history, musicology, performance vs. composing (past and now), comparison to the art world, etc. But the most important advantage of this upload is in the thought and philosophical challenge that Elam Rotem poses to us: that of the essence and justification (or non-justification) of the periodic composition. Bravo!
As an amateur period composer myself, you put into words my exact thoughts on it's value as a tool for a better understanding of music styles from "within". A knowledge that has later been proven useful for me when it comes to musical analysis on actual period pieces. Amazing content as always Elam!
The genius of the past is alive and rejoicing in you.
Elam, I saw your group in San Diego last year. I loved your composition!
Nuova Pratica is another group I came across recently.
There are still so many fugues yet to be written!
Fantastic video, Elam. it's a fascinating topic! The period composer that came to my mind while watching was Willem Ceuleers. I love his Renaissance Style compositions.
Inspirational. I truly enjoyed this video.
Perhaps an even earlier style copy: Mudarra's Fantasia que contrahaze la harpa en la manera de Ludovico (1546). Mudarra played vihuela de mano (a guitar-shaped relative of Renaissance lute). This piece was written for vihuela to emulate the style of a popular 16th-c. harpist.
I love parallel fifths. Bring them on.
Everything in its right place.
Sardelli wrote beutiful sonatas and concertos in the baroque style
Elam, you're amazing. 🤯❤️
Great video!! I think that it's now time for Kunst der Fugue video to be next:)
Thank you for yet another masterful video! One point that I expected to hear about more is the use of period composition in the teaching of music theory. The first example that comes to my mind is Renaissance counterpoint, and the many generations of students that were (and are) tasked with writing music according to some version of the rules of that style. The video does mention Palestrina as the first composer to be explicitly imitated by later admirers - it seems that the practice has endured to this day. More broadly, I would love a video on how composing has been taught over the centuries. How did Machaut learn music? Who taught Palestrina counterpoint? I want to know!
My mom always referred to Albinoni's Adagio as "Theme from Gallipoli." She'd even sing along "Theme from Galli-po-lee-eee! Theme from Galli-po-leee-eeee..."
This is right up my alley! I compose for fun and not a professional by any means but very inspired by the 17th & 18thC. I definitely use elements from those eras but made a conscious decision not to make 'copies' of the styles.
But now I'm learning proper counterpoint so that may change hehe. Thanks for a another great video Elam!
I specially loved this video❤
Very interesting indeed. It is a bit like contemporary painters who now often paint in olden realistic styles. I would love to try composing for rarer instruments that are no longer used in modern compositions e.g. the viol da gamba and 5 string cello, with period style as basis if not entirely full imitation, kind of like What Max Reger did with Bach. Definitely such exercises would deepen the understanding of the original baroque compositions..
In Sweden we have Gustaf Fredrici (1770-1801) who never existed but was invented by Uppsala University director musices Sven E Svensson in the 1930's and 1940's. He "discovered" the Classical composer and "revived" among other pieces a Requiem broadcast in National public service radio.
Another example that comes to mind is Manuel Ponce who published guitar (lute) suites supposedly composed by Baroque composers Alessandro Scarlatti and Silvius Weiss.
😯
The King of Discoverers was undoubtedly the late great Professor Peter Schickele 👑
@@VaughanMcAlley Undoubtably!
How interesting that you uploaded this the very day that I premiered with a viol consort, a piece that I had composed in the style of the Renaissance while combining it with the Indian raga system.