This article tabulates the publications and dissertation advisees of the music theorist Allen Forte they are called the “twin legacies” of one whose work in academe has been devoted to both scholarship and teaching. This will include analysis of War Office archives, Parliamentary papers, and contemporary publications, revealing the crucial role the army played in the standardisation of pitch in Britain, paving the way for international consensus on standard musical pitch in 1939." With bands serving in China, India, Africa, and the West Indies, in addition to those on Home Service, this paper will explore some of the far-reaching consequences of the change that eventually took place. A deputation, headed by Elgar, to meet with the Secretary of State for War was refused, questions were raised in Parliament, and the King took a personal interest. When Colonel JAC Somerville became Commandant of the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, in 1920, he intended that military musicians should perform at the same pitch as civilians, but the cost of a complete re-issue of instruments was not palatable to the War Office. With approximately 180 official bands, employing some 7,000 full-time musicians, the army was a primary stakeholder in the music industry and a huge customer for instrument manufacturers. British army bands, however, retained the ‘Old Philharmonic’ pitch. "In Britain, in 1896, civilian musicians moved from ‘Philharmonic Pitch’ to the flatter ‘New Philharmonic Pitch’. For the full updated text see Chapter 7 of my book, British Army Music in the Interwar Years: Culture, Performance, and Influence, available from Amazon () or your preferred vendor. Was Verdi or his librettist Somma aware of Isabella d’Aspeno, a big operatic hit at that time in Milano, when they started working on the dramatic plot of Un Ballo in Maschera? This paper attempts to answer this question by offering a comparative examination of the two operas, supplemented by a scrutiny of the other known prototypes of Un Ballo in Maschera, such as the works of Auber (Gustave III ou Le Bal Masquée), Gabussi (Clemenza di Valois) and Mercadante (Il Reggente). Taking into consideration that Carrer’s Isabella (composed in 1853 and first presented in Italy in 1855) is anterior to Verdi’s Ballo (1859), it would be reasonable to wonder whether the work of the young composer from Zante was one of the prototypes for one of the major operatic creations of the incontestable king of the Italian opera. Both works dramatize the assassination of a sovereign by his political and erotic rival, which takes place during an official masquerade ball. The particularity of this work lies is its obvious thematic similarity to the celebrated Italian opera Un Ballo in Maschera by Giuseppe Verdi and Antonio Somma. The opera Isabella d’Aspeno opened in April 1855 at the Milanese theatre ‘Carcano’ and was considered one of the grands succès of the year, a fact confirmed by the numerous repetitions of the production during that year and the next. This paper paper focuses on an opera forgotten today, but popular in its time: Isabella d’Aspeno, a work by the Ionian composer Paolo Carrer and the unknown Italian librettist hidden behind the initials R.G.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |