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Synge’s formative years as a writer (1893–1901) were spent abroad, but his earliest artistic impulses and training were expressed through music. The history of late Victorian and Edwardian music in Dublin can provide a much better explanation than has hitherto been available for Synge’s abandonment of music in favour of literature. Several features of music in Dublin at the turn of the century explain why it was that Synge’s ‘cry to God for a melody’ (1898) was answered in words rather than tones. These include the influence of Stanford on the composition of Irish art music, the appointment of Michele Esposito to the Royal Irish Academy of Music (where Synge was a student) in 1882, the uncertain fate of the Dublin Orchestral Society in Edwardian Dublin, and the reception of music in Dublin in Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, written in the same year as Synge’s Playboy of the Western World.

This chapter continues to draw upon the Chinnery Family Papers, especially the extensive correspondence between Viotti and members of the Chinnery family. Viotti's role as a founding member, director, and performer in the Philharmonic Society in London in 1813–16, and his involvement in an abortive attempt to form a rival association, including the establishment of a Royal Academy of Music, are considered at length. Due consideration is given to his continued participation in private concerts in the Chinnery home and elsewhere in London, his yearly visits to the Continent, usually to Paris, with Margaret Chinnery in the years 1814–18, his involvement in the wine business, his dealings with music publishers, and his pupils, including Philippe Libon, Nicolas Mori, and André Robberechts.

The dispute between the Philharmonic and its landlord was about who would control orchestral music in New York City, how that music would be organized, and how it would be presented to the public. There was new perspective on the growing presence of orchestral music in mid-nineteenth-century America, its increasing marketability, and the changing preferences of American audiences in entertainment and music. Bernard Ullman, one of the most successful musical managers in the United States, negotiated a multiyear lease for the Academy of Music, lasting until September 1861, with an option to renew. He tried to force the Philharmonic Society out of his theater so he could develop his own orchestral performances free of direct competition. Moreover, Ullman's creative negotiations in regulating Alfred Musard and his monster orchestra revealed that there were as many different kinds of orchestra as one could imagine.

This chapter presents Reich's thoughts about Electric Counterpoint, which was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival for the guitarist Pat Metheny. It was composed during the summer of 1987. The duration is about 15 minutes. It is the third in a series of pieces (preceded by Vermont Counterpoint and New York Counterpoint) all dealing with a soloist playing against a prerecorded tape of themselves.

The Academy of Music, the Musical Fund Society, and the Philharmonic Society conducted orchestral programs in Boston between 1841 and 1855. Whether in Europe or in America, concert programming followed principles quite different from those that are taken for granted today. The Salem and Birmingham programs revealed how canonic repertory was less important in America than in Britain. The notion of programming as a “work of art” excluded those who wanted to be entertained and divided musical culture into separate regions in programming and aesthetics. The countervailing strength of religion and musical idealism complicated the establishment of a long-term set of orchestral concerts in Boston. It is noted that Boston's music public was not ready for “pure” classical music without vocal pieces.

The chapter deals with the recruitment and training of military musicians in the context of wider aspects of recruitment and training for music professionals. It deals with boy musicians, their training and recruitment, and with concerns over the training of musicians in London more generally and the establishment of what was to become the Royal Military School of Music.

Chapter 2 provides a historical overview of the early music revival in Britain. Early Music’s pre-history (taking us to Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and France, in particular) is briefly introduced. The main part of the chapter then applies an analytical schema - the ‘Seven Ages of Early Music’ to highlight key milestones in the cultural movement over the last 40 years or so. The seven stages take us through Early Music’s Infancy (1966-67), Growth, Independence, Maturity, Consolidation, Restlessness, and thenNew Direction?(2007 onwards). Leading pioneers of the movement, such as Michael Morrow, David Munrow, the ‘class of’ 73, Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner are introduced. Inhighlightingthe pattern of early music ensemble formations over the years, the chapter develops a strong sense of the movement’s trajectory, complete with its ‘coming of age’ with the launch of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in 1986.

Chapter 3 introduces the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and its emergence as a key site of cultural debate and performance in the 1990s. It explores ways in which mythology, symbol, and ritual are constantly evoked within the Academy to reinforce, contest, and perform its core values of inclusivity, creativity, and respect for diversity. It examines the impact of practice theory on understandings of performance. Practice theory and performance studies have helped singers, dancers, and musicians recast their activities, not as passive “inscriptions” onto their bodies in socially structured rituals, but as active, intelligent practices, influencing social and cultural space through performance. It suggests that the Academy continuously ritualizes and performs its ethos of creative belonging.

An exploration and analysis of the intricate relationships in the Takarazuka Revue forms one of the repeating, looping themes of this book, which is more than just a sustained piece of theater criticism. This chapter presents a brief history of the Revue, emphasizing those features central to the general subject of sexual politics and popular culture in modern Japan. Upon their successful application to the Takarazuka Music Academy, the student actors are assigned their “secondary” genders. Unlike “primary” gender, which is assigned at birth on the basis of an infant's genitalia, secondary gender is based on both physical (but not genital) and sociopsychological criteria and, to a certain extent, personal preference. The chapter also addresses a related issue about sex and gender terminology that challenges ostensibly well-meaning but relativistic and reductive notions of cultural encounter and exchange.

In the late eighteenth century, The Academy of Ancient Music prepared a modern adaptation of Dido and Aeneas that was performed into the nineteenth century. The score was brought “up-to-date” by means of alterations to rhythmic flow and cadential patterns, and the temporal separation of individual movements from one another. Scenic demarcations were revised to indicate entrances and exits rather than stage set, and cuts were taken throughout the score. The vocal ranges of the soloists were altered to cover the standard vocal range: soprano (Dido), alto (Belinda), tenor (Aeneas), bass (Sorceress). Some of the surviving sources for these performances offer the names of specific singers who played the major roles.

This chapter focuses on Arnold Schoenberg's final years spanning 1944 to 1951, starting with his retirement from teaching at the University of California at Los Angeles to his death. It begins with his canon for Richard Rodzinski, the son of Artur Rodzinski, who had conducted several of Schoenberg's works, two of which were Ode to Napoleon and Violin Concerto. It then presents his views on contemporary composers and conducting, his proposal for a Record-of-the-Month Club, his String Trio, Op. 45 (1946), the performance of new music, the Holocaust, art and science, abstract art and politics, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno's philosophy of modern music, twelve-tone composition, the founding of the state of Israel, and prayer and superstition. It also looks at Schoenberg's conflict with Thomas Mann concerning the latter's 1947 novel Doctor Faustus and his appointment as honorary president of the Israel Academy of Music.

In this chapter, Cate describes her life, thus far, through bullying and cruelty at school from many, including her brother, to her discovery that she could sing, her time at the Royal Academy of Music, her singing career, and, latterly, her time as a wife and mother. It was through singing that she first connected with emotional experience and it is when singing that she feels strongest and most alive.

This chapter describes George Frideric Handel's association with the Royal Academy of Music as Master of the orchestra. Under the perpetual governorship of the Lord Chamberlain, Handel's first order of business was to gather known opera singers from mainland Europe and encourage them to produce opera at the Academy. His perseverance bore fruit as he was able to get the castrato Senesino, the sopranos Durastante and Salvai, castrato Berselli, tenor Guicciardi, and the bass Boschi. The chapter then discusses Handel's first opera at the academy, Radamisto, which was to mark the reunion of the patronage base of King George I. Handel's life during the following years was controlled by the routine of the opera seasons, which started a rivalry with Giovanni Bononcini. One notable event during this period was Handel's naturalisation to British citizenship signed by the King in 1727.

This chapter focuses on Béla Bartók's musical activities between 1907 and 1909. It first considers Bartók's appointment as professor of piano at the Academy of Music in Hungary before turning to his concert activity, teaching, composing, and collecting of folk music. It then examines Bartók's compositions in collaboration with Stefi Geyer, including the First Violin Concerto, Two Portraits, Fourteen Bagatelles, Ten Easy Piano Pieces, Two Elegies, and the First String Quartet. It also discusses some of Bartók's compositions after his relationship with Geyer ended, such as the rhetorical and rhapsodic elegy for solo piano completed in February 1908 and the pedagogic Ten Easy Piano Pieces, along with his interest in Romanian folk music.

This chapter explores musical compositions written by George Frideric Handel during his time at the Royal Academy of Music where he was Master of the Orchestra. It examines Handel's works in some detail, beginning with his early Academy operas as a general introduction. During the years 1723–25, Handel produced three major works that must be regarded as the masterpieces of his Academy years in terms of quality — Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano, and Rodelinda. For sheer musical and compositional power, Rodelinda might be preferred: one beautiful aria follows another in a consistently well-balanced succession of contrasts. Tamerlano, on the other hand, had a conventional final aria for one of the leading soloists preceded by a chain ensemble. For illustration of the wide range of Handel's techniques, however, the best example is Giulio Cesare, consisting of a fast-moving plot, full of incident and containing some of Handel's best arias.

This chapter focuses on dance-in-diplomacy as it emerged in the twenty-first century as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks on the United States and the negative international image the United States acquired after invading Afghanistan and then Iraq. The State Department in 2010 began a new international touring program, DanceMotion USA, a partnership with the nonprofit arts presenter the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The new dance-in-diplomacy program, especially when compared to its Cold War predecessor, focuses much more on international engagement (workshops, lecture-demonstrations) than concert performances, a shift that reflects an American foreign policy more focused on presenting the United States as global partner rather than elite global leader. The dance companies featured include ODC/Dance Company, Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, and Urban Bush Women.

This chapter examines George Frideric Handel's career as the general manager of The King's Theatre, where he made his first attempts at transition from writing Italian opera to English oratorio. Handel's first English oratorio, Esther, was performed in 1732 where he indicated in advertisements that there was to be a lack of stage action. This element, combined with the music of the opera stars and the grand anthem style used in the coronation anthems sung in English, created the recipe for his future theatre career. The chapter concludes by describing his rivalry with the Opera of the Nobility group and his programme at Covent Garden in 1737 which was a repertory of twelve works: eight operas and four oratorios. The programme proved to be the end for the Opera of the Nobility but was also dangerous as Handel's health gave way towards the end of the season.