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A treatise De musica, ascribed to Plutarch (the 2nd c. AD), reflects the music evolution from the beginning of this art in archaic Greece until the early Hellenistic period. Initially, within the spiritual life and the education of the citizens the importance of music education was extremely high. Gradually, during the years, and even since the last part of the 5th c. BC, music, after centuries of dominance, appeared in the spiritual life of the Greeks not as a prevailing feature but as a subsiding one. It was even difficult to maintain its position in the educational system. The participants of the dialogue (the rich host Onesicrates, a musician Lysias and an educated man Soterichus) have been gathered to discuss, investigate and highlight the reasons why this decadence of the role of music has happened, by citing the musicians and recollecting the innovations they brought in the musical practise since the beginning of its history. In the book, apart from the list of musicians and the technical developments they invented, we find information about the views of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle and others about the value that music used to have in ancient Greece. The paideutic and moral value of music was the reason why it played a very important role in the education and the three men adopt the most traditionalistic approach and conclude that the technical improvements made it lost ground in favor of the literary studies.
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The heir of Aristotle Theophrastus of Eresus (the head of Lyceum from 322 to c. 287 BCE) wrote voluminously on a great variety of subjects, including music. Unfortunately, not much survived intact, and for recovering his highly original approach to music we have to rely on a series of testimonies in later authors (fr. 714 ff. Fortenbaugh), and a relatively long extract from his treatise On Music, quoted by Porphyry in his Commentary to Ptolemy’s Harmonics. He seems to be especially concerned with educational and therapeutic value of music and, most importantly, while criticising standard Pythagorean, Platonic and Peripatetic mathematical harmonics as well as contemporary acoustical theories, have proposed a new qualitative approach to music, based on a re-evaluation of common empirical considerations and a very problematic (due to the lack of sufficient evidence) theory of the psychological nature of musical consciousness, and special power of music, manifested in the movement productive of melody which occurs in the human soul when it reveals itself in a melodic voice. The fragments of Theophrastus’ musical works, translated here into the Russian for the first time, are supplemented with other evidences, also quoted by Porphyry, such as the most important musical fragment of Archytas (fr. 1 DK), extracts from the Peripatetic De audibilibus, as well as quotes from such otherwise unknown musical writers as Panaetius, Heraclidus, and Aelianus, all on the subject of Pythagorean harmonics and acoustic theory.
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A collection of questions and answers on the subject of music, Book XIX of the Aristotelian vast Problemata, translated into the Russian for the first time, was compiled, as the majority of scholars agree, in Lyceum during and after Aristotle's time, in the late fourth and the early third centuries BCE. Unlike later manuals, the collection is marked by its diversity: it proposes a range of working hypotheses and offers alternative explanations for the same phenomenon, a rare witness of vivid school discussions of the scientific matters.
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In the years 1725–1734, there was an Italian opera troupe performing in Wrocław, which was composed almost entirely of well-known Italian artists. At the beginning, its repertoire mimicked those of Italian theatres operating in Venice, Vienna, Florence, Genoa and Prague. Later on, however, the operas staged by Treu and Bioni, the music directors of the Wrocław opera, were also performed by other European theatres. The owner of the theatre in Prague and the originator of the idea to set up a theatre in Wrocław was Count Anton von Sporck, an imperial governor and a friend of Silesian aristocracy. It was on his initiative that a meeting with Antonio Vivaldi was arranged and the performers he recommended were invited to Wrocław. Thanks to the extensive contacts of Wrocław’s impresarios and bandmasters, the city’s virtuoso singers travelled throughout Europe, and outstanding musicians, stage designers and ballet masters were hired. The fame and high standards of Wrocław’s theatre caused its chief conductor, Daniel Gottlieb Treu (Daniele Teofilo Fedele), a pupil of Vivaldi, to write the history of the theatre, which was published in Hamburg (1740) by Johann Mattheson in Grundlage einer Ehren-Phorte. During the nine-year long operation of the theatre, a total of 45 operas were premiered, and their librettos are partly extant in the collection of Wrocław’s University Library (the Silesian-Lusatian Section) and at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan. Recently, a previously unknown copy of the opera Il Daphni by Spanish composer Emanuele d’Astorga, currently in the collection of the Sapieha Library, part of the collection of the Wawel Royal Castle Museum, has been discovered. The staging by the theatre in Wrocław of eminent baroque operas, performed by outstanding artists, puts them among the most interesting events in the European opera in the 18th century.
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The article presents statistical rhythm analysis of Lithuanian composers' pieces for string quartet. Rhythm cells and pulsation, frequency, intensity and change of their constituent parts have been analysed. The results obtained have added to previously conducted statistical research data in the analysis of musical texts (Ambrazevičius, Kučinskas, 2010; Besasparytė, Kučinskas, 2011). The new obtained data have been compared with K. Kašponis' research results published in the monograph “Melody and harmony in Lithuanian music” (Kašponis, 1992). The research has revealed Lithuanian composers' features of rhythmics at the rhythm cell level and allowed to highlight some of the general 20th century Lithuanian composers' instrumental music features, rhythmic changes in chronological and gender aspects. The research has also confirmed other Lithuanian musicologists' insights on the diversity of rhythmic pulsations and its particularity in separate composer's cases. Lithuanian composers' pieces for string quartet are the research object. The research aim is to evaluate the rhythmic features, their change and differences in Lithuanian composers' pieces in historical (change in composers' generations), geographical (pieces created in Lithuania and abroad) and gender aspects by applying statistical research methods. Statistical analysis is the research method applied.
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The study deals with the urban musical styles in Europe as a topic of ethnomusicology: city folk music in the historical processes, "the other existence" of folklore, influence of the phenomena of imigration and multiculture, an overview of the city musical styles "from Albany to Portugal".
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Italy has been considered the centre of culture and art for centuries and hence the whole world has emanated with new trends in the artistic and academic field. The wealth of art to be met there attracts not only the tourists and researchers from all over the world, but also many outstanding artists. Among Poles to this group belong Igor Mitoraj, Ryszard Demel, Maria Pałasińska, Magdalena Aparta, Piotr Cwojdziński, Piotr Lechert de Peslin. The above-mentioned artists, thanks to their creative work and successes achieved there, create a contemporary image of Poland and Poles among the Italian society. They successively enrich the foreign and European culture with their attainments in a widely-understood art.
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The organ tools of Cieszyn Silesia constitutes an example of a dynamic development and care of historical values. The organmaster actions of recent years prove changes that take place in the sphere of obtaining, transferring and renovating the organs retained. A stylistic design of the organ tools, undergoes changes resulting from building the organs of a Baroque sound provenance, allowing for a stylistically appropriate interpretation or improvisation of old music. Recent years of well-thought out organmaster actions resulted in the appearance of among others three interesting mechanical organs of a diversified sound and architecture conception. These are organs of Norweska Fabryka Organów i Fisharmonii in Church of Christ the King of the Universe in Ustroń-Zawodzie, organs by Fuhrer in Church of St John Niepomucen in Brenna-Leśnica and organs by Walker in Church of St Mary’s Our Lady Queen of Poland in Pogórze. All newly-created and renovated instruments increase possibilities of a cultural development in the context of a music life in Cieszyn Silesia and express a care of shaping the cultural heritage.
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The work is devoted to the person of Jerzy Drozd (1907—1981), a pedagogue, singer, conductor, folklorist and organizer of a music life in Cieszyn Silesia. It presents his life and achievements within the scope of hymn, dance and ceremony folklore. Jerzy Drozda’s interests connected with folk cultural tradition were rewarded with works of a source character. They involve: recordings of selected love and family hymns revealed in volumes of "Pieśni ludowe z polskiego Śląska" (v. 3, book 1 and 2), and own works entitled "Wiązanka tańców śląskich", "Dożynki cieszyńskie", "Cieszyński śpiewnik regionalny". The publications contain numerous melodies of hymns and folk dances with their choreographic descriptions and circumstances of their performance. Source materials, obtained directly in the very area and the ones the author knows personally are regarded as the evidence proving richness and variety of folklore and topicality of music culture in Cieszyn region. For a contemporary receiver, folklore works by Jerzy Drozd will remain an important book of knowledge of a traditional social culture, vocal, dance and performing art of the citizens of Cieszyn Silesia, a precious lesson for folk bands and regional groups.
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The phenomenon of prosody makes the element appear in all vocal and vocal-instrumental works irrespective of the time and place of their creation. Language and author’s nationality are also unimportant. It means that prosody is in fact inseparably connected with the text. However, in order to achieve the maximum expression of the work, one has to take care of the appropriateness of its usage in work structure and extract from it the whole melody of accents. The role of composers, singers, and, above all, conductors is to get acquainted with the rules governing the languages (especially on the prosodic surface), and, subsequently, preserving these principles in everyday artistic work.
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The aim of the article is to present selected performing techniques in the flute literature of the 20th century. Due to their multiplicity, only some techniques currently considered to be the most popular are described. The starting point for a discussion constitutes three compositions: "Chant de Linos" for flute and piano by André Jolivet, "L’Aube Enchantée" for flute and guitar by Ravi Shankar and "The Great Train Race" for solo flute by Ian Clarke. Perhaps, these are not the standard and groundbreaking works but they are certainly an outstanding example of their usage.
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The author, following the trace of considerations by Carl Dahlhaus, an outstanding musicologist, ponders over the value of “novelty” in music, and the usefulness of such categorizing in a historical perspective of the history of the “art of sound”. She contrasts the category of “novelty” in music with the category of “old music”, reminds of the dates considered to be the most significant for the understanding of the turns in artistic music. Following Dahlhaus, she also enumerates the most important features of “new music” and raises the issue of the reception of music conditioned by the perspective of novelty. In conclusion, the author reminds us that novelty is above all the historical category whereas classicism the esthetic category, that novelty is more like an event than work. She also underlines that taking into account the category of novelty in music is an indispensable element of a didactic activity of a pedagogue dealing with the history of the “art of sound”.
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The article makes an attempt to prove the rightness of the hypothesis formulated by the author that a choir band conducted by a professional conductor is able to achieve a high level of performance comparable to a professional band. In order to realize this task an important factor that needs to be taken into account is the appropriate choice of literature, especially the one arousing motivation for an artistic action and freeing sensitivity and sound imagination of the choir singer -amateur, gradually deepening his/her music awareness.
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A desire of synthesis and willingness to combine the multitude of experiences is a desire of contemporary man. Each epoch of the past left its recognizable language. A modern creator, despite his/her endeavours for universalism, is torn and alienated. A conscious reference to tradition has become a chance of overcoming a discord between an artist and receiver. The subject-matter of the relations between an artistic work and the audience, being the work reception, is one of the main themes included in a theoretical reflection by Krzysztof Penderecki, man for whom music is not only a sphere of a theoretical interest, but, above all, a real material and effect of his own work. The article presents composer’s theoretical considerations included in the book "Labirynt czasu. Pięć wykładów na koniec wieku" published in 1997 by the publishing house of “Rzeczpospolita”, as well as in an interview conducted with the composer by Mieczysław Tomaszewski entitled "Penderecki. Bunt i wyzwolenie". Vol. 1. "Rozpętanie żywiołów" published in 2008.
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As a part of his doctoral dissertation, the author of the article published "Cleofide, an opera seria" by Johann Adolf Hasse, the premiere of which took place in autumn 1731 in Dresden, the capital of Saxony. In Hasse’s biography and artistic work, the very work is very significant as it opens the period of over 30 years of composer’s work for the Saxon court. A discovery of the so far unknown documents in the State Archive in Dresden in the period of preliminary research allowed for a thorough clarification of this crucial point of Hasse’s biography for the first time. Also, a new perspective on the retained music material from the time of opera creation allowed for a complete and reliable reconstruction of the score with accurate hints concerning the performing practice.
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The author proves that teacher’s professionalism and sensitivity, as well as his/her skill of interpreting and popularizing art are the basis of a good music education. In this difficult process not only textbooks are helpful, but also communicatively written books in which we find many proves that music is or might be a personal or social value. Understanding this fact by children and young people requires the arousal of esthetic, linguistic and socio-moral sensitivity in them. The teacher alone should be convinced that playing gives rise to child spiritual development, frees hidden creative dispositions, helps in noticing and admiring the beauty of the world, talents and achievements of other people. Shaping musical culture cannot do without innovative education, that is the conception of complex teaching. It accentuates the importance of independence, creativity and cooperation. In the course of teaching a nice intellectual, emotional and worldview space is created. Students’ activeness favours a harmonous gathering of the subject knowledge (which music notions and problems are well known to them?), strategic knowledge (how will I use the knowledge in action?) and selfcreative one (how do I feel discovering values?) What do I aim at? What must I achieve? What can I give up?
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Ethnomusicological explorations in terrain result in the need of an appropriate archivisation of the collected material. Terrain studies are an indispensable element of each ethnomusicologist or folklorist. They provide a constant contact with the area being explored, its functioning in the past and present. A selection of the appropriate recording method is often determined by a collection collected (e.g. a hymn one). The alternative is to create one’s own system of archivisation and transcription which, however, should base on the experience of earlier generations of musicologists, folklorists or ethnomusicologists (J., M. Sobiescy, A. Czekanowska among others).
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