Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Research Publications

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Subject: Theatre and Dance) × Subject: Music; The Performing Arts (incl. Music × Type: Journal Article ×

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    A Study of British Influence on Musical Taste and Programming: New Choral Works Introduced to Audiences by the Melbourne Philharmonic Society, 1876–1901
    Stockigt, JB (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2005-01-01)
    When the Annual Report of Melbourne Philharmonic for 1899 complained about the lack of public support for new musical enterprises of the Society, it stated that more encouragement of the local press was needed so that ‘public curiosity might be excited, an artistic taste educated, and a desire created to hear what the Old World had approved’ (my italics). The domination of British opinion in the assembly of a music library for the Melbourne Philharmonic Society during the years of its existence in the nineteenth century, focusing upon the years 1876 to 1901, is investigated in Part I of this article. Factors influencing the choice of repertoire during this era – particularly the influence of the British publication The Musical Times and Singing-Class Circular (founded in 1844) – are noted. Examination of reports and reviews in the Musical Times supports the hypothesis that much of the new repertoire acquired by the Melbourne Philharmonic Society during these years was the direct result of opinions expressed in that publication, and the availability of performance materials publicized by Novello, Ewer, and Co. through the Musical Times, which was also published by Novello. ‘What J. Alfred Novello had on offer was unashamedly a house magazine … firmly dedicated to the advertisement of Novello's publications’. In the cultivation of musical taste, and in the development of libraries of choral societies, the activities of the publisher extended an authority far beyond the UK, placing the Musical Times in a formidable position of power throughout the English-speaking world. Part II explores three works to receive their Australian or Melbourne premieres at concerts given by the Philharmonic Society in the final quarter of the nineteenth century: each item was promulgated by the Musical Times.
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    ‘As Much by Force of Circumstances as by Ambition’: The Programming Practices of the Melbourne Liedertafel Societies, 1880–1905
    Cole, S (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2005-11)
    Two male-voice singing societies – the Metropolitan Liedertafel and the Melbourne Liedertafel – occupied prominent positions in the concert life of Melbourne during the prosperous 1880s. At this time the Metropolitan Liedertafel, formed in 1870, had between 80 and 100 performing members and regularly attracted audiences of over two thousand to its ‘Social Evenings for Ladies and Gentlemen’. A concert described as the ‘greatest gathering of its kind every [sic] seen in this city’, given at the recently completed Exhibition Buildings on 7 July 1881 and attended by the Princes Albert Victor and George, drew a crowd of between five and six thousand. The farewell concert given on 13 February 1882 for the Mendelssohn Quintette Club, visiting from Boston, had an audience of approximately two thousand, even though as one of the society's ‘smoke nights’, attendance was limited to men. The Metropolitan Liedertafel played host to a number of other visiting international musicians, including Henri Kowalski, August Wilhelmj, Carlotta Patti, Ernest de Munck, and, somewhat later, Sir Charles and Lady Hallé. In the early 1880s, the Metropolitan was identified as the city's leading musical society; an 1881 review in the Argus made so bold as to suggest that it was ‘the most successful association of its kind ever established here – or probably anywhere else’! This sentiment is reflected in a satirical piece in Town Talk in October 1881 in which the Metropolitan's conductor, Julius Herz, refers to himself, in a mock German accent, as ‘the subreme conductor of the greatest musical organisation in the vorld“.
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    ‘Volk von Brüdern’: The German-speaking Liedertafel in Melbourne
    Murphy, K (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2005-01-01)
    A Liedertafel concert at which the former Governor His Excellency Sir Henry Loch and Lady Loch were present was reported in the Illustrated Australian News and Musical Times of 1889 as follows: In the course of some remarks Lord Loch made the statement that the advancement of musical culture in Melbourne is to be attributed to the influence of Germans. Now although the community includes some excellent musicians of that nationality, the opinion expressed by our late governor is by no means in accordance with facts. It is only just that honour should be given where it is due and the untiring efforts of the English musicians in the colony in educating public taste ought to be thoroughly recognised.
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    Race and Identity: Appraisals in France of Meyerbeer on his 1891 Centenary
    Murphy, K (Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2004-01-01)
    This article examines the ways in which critics and music historians in the Third Republic wrote about Meyerbeer's national and racial identity focusing particularly on the period around the time of the centenary of his birth, the period just before the explosion of the Dreyfus affair. The centenary of Meyerbeer's birth was celebrated in November 1891, by a performance to a packed audience at the Paris Opéra. Critics marked the centenary by writing substantial articles about Meyerbeer. Although many of Meyerbeer's contemporary critics conferred honorary French citizenship on him, by 1891 a significant number saw him as lacking any national identity. This should be seen in the context of a period in which French composers were intensely debating the issue of their own national identity, and clearly since the Franco-Prussian war, they were no longer so complacent about welcoming a German as a Frenchman. Yet the perceptions of Meyerbeer's lack of national identity were also often motivated by negative associations of Meyerbeer as Jew. Derogatory stereotypes of the Jewish composer are present in Meyerbeer criticism from the July Monarchy onwards, but in the early days of the Third Republic they change slightly in focus and also, as might be expected, become more overtly stated. This article presents a brief overview of this change in focus and concentrates on a number of discrete topics: eclecticism, nationhood, originality and artistic capitulation. The examination of this last topic leads to a short discussion of the impact of Wagner on the musical world at this time, and the effect that this had on Meyerbeer reception. The centenary celebrations occurred only two months after the success ofLohengrinat the Opéra (16 September 1891) and the proximity of the two events caused many critics to ponder whether the celebrations marked the end of Meyerbeer's reign at the Opéra and the beginning of the reign of Wagner. The centenary event forced critics to take a position on Meyerbeer's current standing in the operatic world.
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    Two More New Vivaldi Finds in Dresden
    STOCKIGT, J ; Talbot, M ( 2006)
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    Homage to a 'non-harmonic genius': Glanville-Hicks on Cage
    Robinson, S (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2007-01-01)