Journal articles on the topic 'London Symphony Orchestra'

In a substantial concert at the Barbican Centre on 15 February 2013 the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov, presented the British debut of Schubert Fantasia (1978, revised 1989) – senior German composer Dieter Schnebel's subtle reconstruction of one of Schubert's most original piano sonata movements – and the first performance of David Sawer's dramatic scena for mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists and orchestra, Flesh and Blood (2012). Both premières lasted around 25 minutes. Sawer's new work made a satisfying contrast with its Schubertian surroundings. But an even more rewarding, and certainly more congruent, companion to the Schnebel might have been Luciano Berio's Rendering for Orchestra (1990), which reworks the fragments of Schubert's unfinished Tenth Symphony in D major, D936a into a three-movement symphonic work that would have complemented Schnebel's postmodern re-imaginings. It would also have made some fascinating associations with the Viennese master's last completed work in symphonic form: the ‘Great’ C major Symphony, which was heard after the interval. Enough speculating on what might have been; what of the fare that was actually on offer?

Oliver Knussen's Symphony in One Movement is his latest symphony. It is also his earliest – originally composed as the Concerto for Orchestra in 1969, and premièred by the 17-year old Knussen and the London Symphony Orchestra, with André Previn playing the flamboyant piano part. 33 years later, the piece has finally reached its definitive form, and Knussen conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in its world première as part of an all-Knussen programme in celebration of his 50th birthday, at the Barbican Hall on 1 November.

‘Why shouldn't we be allowed to write symphonic poems?’ Tristan Murail asked the audience gathered at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios for his interview with Jonathan Cross. Murail, now 67, was visiting the UK for the first time in many years, here for the world premiere of his new orchestral work Reflections, which took place on 2 November 2013 in a robust performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo. Reflections parts one and two evoke certain aspects of early modernist music, and, most of all, the music of Debussy, a composer Murail has come to cite more and more frequently. This diptych premiered by the BBC SO comprises the first two parts, said Murail, of a projected cycle for orchestra of several relatively brief pieces, each of which reflects on a certain image, memory or object of personal significance to the composer.

There would hardly seem to be a composer better placed to write a concerto for orchestra than Magnus Lindberg: his complete mastery of orchestral texture – demonstrated in a string of modern classics, Joy (1989–90), Arena (1994–95), Feria (1997) and Cantigas (1998–99) among them – makes it a wonder he hasn't tackled the genre before now. Indeed, he quietly billed the magnificent Aura (1994–95) as a concerto for orchestra, although in reality it's as good a symphony as anyone has written this past half-century – my suspicion is that the label allowed him to dodge the issue.

MORTON GOULD: Symphony No. 2. HARBISON: Cello Concerto1. STUCKY: Son et Lumière. GABRIEL GOULD: Watercolors2. 1David Finckel (vlc), 2Robert Sheena (cor anglais), Albany Symphony Orchestra c. David Alan Miller. Albany TROY 605.McKINLEY: Violin Concerto1; Symphony of Winds; Sinfonie Concertante2. 1Janet Packer (vln), Warsaw National Philharmonic c. Jerzy Svoboda, 2Silesian Philarmonic Orchestra c. Joel Suben. MMC2119.McKINLEY: Wind, Fire, and Ice1; Mostly Mozart2; Silent Whispers3. 1Victoria Griswold (pno), London Symphony Orchestra c. Roger Briggs, 2Royal Liverpool Philharmonic c. Gerard Schwarz, 3Warsaw Philharmonic c. Robert Black. MMC2134.McKINLEY: Symphony No. 6, Prague1. STEWART: Scherzo. BIGGS: Salutation. ROSSI: Moon-Mirror. 1Roman Janal (bar), Czech Radio Symphony c. Vladimir Valek. MMC2123.

It's not the premiere of every Polish symphony that's greeted by a near sell-out audience at the Royal Festival Hall, but then it's not every composer whose previous symphony had the success of Henryk Górecki's Third, his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. The Upshaw/London Sinfonietta/Zinman recording of this work has sold over a million copies.

Judith Weir (b.1954) is one of Britain's leading composers. Her three full-length operas (A Night at the Chinese Opera, The Vanishing Bridegroom and Blond Eckbert) have been widely performed in Britain and abroad. Since the 1990s she has had a fruitful association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and its sister group, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG). Weir's theatre work includes collaborations with the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her interest in community music projects included an innovative spell of six years as the Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival in London. Recent works include the orchestral piece The Welcome Arrival of Rain for the Minnesota Orchestra, heard at the Proms in 2002, and the ensemble work The Tiger Under the Table for the London Sinfonietta.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the key findings of a yearlong collaborative research project focusing on the London Symphony Orchestra’s development, implementation and testing of a branded smartphone app. This app was designed to primarily sell discounted tickets, engage and inform a student audience. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed-method approach including an analysis of the technology, focus groups and interviews was used. Findings – Though the aims of app developers and marketers are often to provide customers with more choice and interactivity, this research suggests that though the app proved a useful mechanism for selling discounted tickets, it indicates that existing customers were mostly enroled and mobilised via a limited and focused functionality for the app. Originality/value – This paper is significant as mobile phone use remains comparatively under-researched, in particular there is still a relatively small literature on the growing phenomena of apps, and even less on their use in brand marketing. Also importantly, though this paper offers a consideration of one case, the app has since been expanded to include the ticketing for ten major orchestras in London, and moreover, many of the lessons learnt from this study will be of relevance to other arts organisations.

In a baffling case of unhelpful scheduling, major new works by Mark-Anthony Turnage were showcased by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra in concerts held at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool and London's Barbican, respectively, on the same evening – 7 February 2013. Apart from necessitating an explanation for the composer's absence from the RLPO concert in their season's programme book, this double booking resulted in audiences being unable to experience live performances of two of Turnage's most substantial recent orchestral pieces. Surely one of these significant premières could have been rescheduled to another date – or, if not, a different time of day, creating a sporting chance to experience both events? Fortunately, the LSO concert was broadcast, enabling those of us who chose to attend the Liverpool concert to catch the London première retrospectively.

In an uncommonly enterprising programme, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Garry Walker, presented a world première, a UK première, a London première and a first professional performance in the same Maida Vale Studio concert on 25 January 2013, recorded for future broadcast on Radio 3's afternoon schedules. Despite the inclement weather, all four composers were present, and they all spoke briefly but engagingly about their piece. Though roughly of the same generation, each composer offered a refreshingly contrasting approach to orchestral writing in the present century.

ABSTRACTThe early history of the London Symphony Orchestra and its association with Richter and Elgar have been well documented, yet there is much still to be learnt about the 1904 break with the autocratic Henry Wood and about the artistic and commercial decisions facing the new self-governing orchestra. From the start, the LSO confidently allied itself with international standards and cosmopolitan repertoire, and a roster of celebrated conductors to match. But financial security was less easily gained. Detailed analysis of the finances of the prestigious subscription series shows initial eclecticism giving way to concentration on the Austro-German canon in reaction to commercial and social pressures. British music came in and out of focus, despite the nationalistic mood of the time, and the analysis places in sharp relief the successes and failures of the link with Elgar. Furthermore, in an extraordinary sacrifice of self-interest, the freelance members decided to renounce normal fees for the subscription series in order to gain lucrative engagements elsewhere: thus the orchestra acted more as an agency than as a stable business proposition. Nevertheless, the innovative governance structure, underpinning a combination of resolute management, entrepreneurial energy and communal decision-making, eventually proved a viable and sustainable model that has remained influential up to this day.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's conductor, Sakari Oramo, took up the cause of the long-neglected and little-regarded British composer John Foulds (1880–1939) in the late 1990s, as soon as he was appointed to his present post. This February saw his most high-profile push on Foulds's behalf so far, with performances of three Foulds works – one of them a UK and concert première, another a world première – in three Symphony Hall concerts, two of them broadcast on BBC Radio 3. This was followed by a CD recording for Warner Classics of these three pieces plus a fourth, Foulds's early elegy for violin and orchestra, Apotheosis. Intervening in one of the pre-concert talks, Oramo stated his conviction that after decades of misunderstanding during his lifetime, and half a century of neglect thereafter, ‘we owe it to this remarkable composer to play his music – and play it often’. It is difficult to think that any London orchestra would dare to programme anything so distant from their narrow core repertoire and so utterly contrary to contemporary fashions. Yet three near-capacity audiences were plainly both surprised and enthralled by the music, and many members of the public expressed a desire to hear more.

Michael Zev Gordon had an intriguing idea in choosing to centre his new piece – Bohortha – on a visit he made to the small hamlet of this name that lies in a remote Cornwall peninsula, close to the sea: he sought to explore the concept of ‘the passing of time’. So it was that the world première of Bohortha was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican on 3 October 2012, opening a programme to also include Mahler's highly emotive Rückert Lieder and was then completely outflanked after the interval by a rare performance of Shostakovich's starkly political Symphony No. 4.

James MacMillan was 50 years old on 16 July 2009 and his birthday was celebrated by musical institutions not just in Britain, but internationally. As a composer and conductor in residence for the BBC Philharmonic he led performances of his Symphony No.3: Silence and The World's Ransoming. The Royal Northern College of Music staged a three-day celebration of his work while The Sixteen toured his music under conductor Harry Christophers. His recent St John Passion was performed in Berlin and Amsterdam by the London Symphony Orchestra and in Rotterdam concerts of his music were given by the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra and the Hilliard Ensemble. The widespread regard for MacMillan's music evidenced by these performances is the culmination of a steady rise in popularity, undisputedly catalyzed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra première of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie. In a 1993 Tempo article on MacMillan, music critic Stephen Johnson describes the premiere thus: ‘there have been warm receptions for other new works at Promenade Concerts, but the thunderous, ecstatic welcome given to James MacMillan's The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the 1990 Proms was unprecedented’.

Until the world première of Joe Duddell's Ruby on 25 July, I had yet to hear a percussion concerto which didn't trip itself up. I thought it was in the nature of the beast: the orchestra develops some material, which is then passed to the percussion, at which point all development perforce stops. Duddell (b. 1972) solved the problem by turning it on its head, and limiting the orchestral material to what the solo percussionist could handle; the downside is that he necessarily limits the expressive scope of the orchestra. Ruby – the title is simply a rhyming-slang working label that stuck: it's the final part of a trilogy of works written for the percussionist Colin Currie – opens with a vibraphone pattern that suggests a lyrical music-box and soon shows a stylistic affinity with American minimalism, which alternates with slabs of good-natured energy. The slow movement begins with tremolo marimba chords over string lines that drift aimlessly and agreeably, with a more active central section spurred by brief brass figures which trigger rising scalic patterns in the vibraphone. The initial material returns with soft-centred strings above hypnotic vibraphone figuration and is sung to a close by the rapturous sound of bowed vibraphone chords. The finale likewise deals in cheerfully mesmeric vibraphone patterns over a wash of strings and stuttering comment from horns and trumpets; the soloist then offers an improvised toccata on drum-kit backed by forceful rhythms from a near-tutti orchestra. The vibraphone resumes its jolly prattle until, seemingly having run out of things to say, the music just stops dead. Currie, supported by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under the functional Marin Alsop, played it with obvious commitment, and from memory – no small achievement in such motoric music.

On the evidence of the last year alone, Thomas Adès's international profile, as well as his productivity, remains undiminished as he enters his sixth decade. In a concert on 6 March 2021 to mark his fiftieth birthday, he conducted Kirill Gerstein and the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his In Seven Days and Sibelius's Sixth Symphony. Because lockdown restrictions in response to Covid-19 were still in force, the celebratory nature of the concert was necessarily muted – given behind closed doors, the players distanced – and only later uploaded to YouTube.

‘Old mythologies’ have been important for some time to Anna Clyne, and they come into play again in two of her most recent works: the violin concerto The Seamstress and her brief Auden setting, This Lunar Beauty, for soprano and ensemble. The young British composer (b. 1980) has for many years been a resident of New York; she studied with Julia Wolfe in Manhattan and since 2010 has been the composer in association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Tenth Symphony was given its premiere by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the Barbican on 2 February 2014. The work concerns itself with both the architecture and the death of Francesco Borromini; while perhaps an unusual subject for a symphony, there is precedence in Maxwell Davies's work, as the same man is the subject of his Third Naxos Quartet, and the Third Symphony takes Brunelleschi as its subject. Maxwell Davies has suggested direct links between Borromini's creations and his own – in the programme note we discover that ‘the precise parameters and proportions by which a huge basilica of Borromini's was constructed’ control portions of the work – and indeed the architect's presence pervades the symphony. As well as guiding Maxwell Davies's constructive parameters in the instrumental movements, Borromini is the subject of the chorus' music throughout and almost becomes a character in an operatic scena in the final passage, as he plays out his own suicide to the backdrop of the chorus intoning the names of his most celebrated work. Yet this new symphony rarely betrays its rigorous origins, and aside from passages for percussion mimetic of building activity (hammers, vibraphone, anvils and so on) many aspects in fact suggest a softer, smoother musical language.

There's no doubt that Masterprize, the international composition competition with a mission ‘to bring music lovers and composers closer together’, is a slick and professional operation, with a tremendous outreach. The CD with the six pieces which made it to the final (of some 1,000 entries) was stuck on the front of both Gramophone and Classic FM magazines, with a joint print-run of around 100,000. The ‘gala final’ in the Barbican on 30 October, when the London Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Daniel Harding, was broadcast live on Classic FM (which reaches 6.5 million listeners a week), NPR in the States (16 million) and Radio Latvia (you tell me); and NPR also packaged it for their deferred ‘Symphony Cast’. These are scarcely believable figures for contemporary classical music: Masterprize is plainly doing an enormous amount of good. Another statistic worth celebrating is that 1,300 children were involved in the associated education project, playing the six works up and down the UK. It's just a pity that most of the music that made it through to the final was so dull, a post-Hollywood syrup of feel-good consonance and glittering over-orchestration – slickly wrapped empty boxes.

Deirdre Gribbin's piano concerto, The Binding of the Years, written between 2009 and 2012, was given its UK première by soloist Finghin Collins with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Alan Buribayev at a Maida Vale Studio concert on 15 March. Its evocative title refers to the gathering and securing of 52 reeds that symbolized the old years in Aztec culture; that civilization's rituals connected with fire and time form part of the inspiration behind Gribbin's new work.

In April 2010, the Guildhall School of Music recognized German composer Helmut Lachenmann's expertise in extended instrumental techniques, inviting him to give the keynote speech at a research day dedicated to contemporary performance practice; in May, he had a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music conferred upon him for his achievements as a composer; in June, the London Symphony Orchestra performed Lachenmann's Double (Grido II) for string orchestra, in doing so becoming the first non-BBC British orchestra to have performed his music; and in October, the Southbank Centre presented two days of Lachenmann's music including performances by the Arditti String Quartet and a much expanded London Sinfonietta, the latter broadcast on Radio 3. Outside London, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group gave a performance of his most recent work, Got Lost for soprano and piano, and the University of Manchester presented a mini-festival dedicated to his music. This roll call of events might be seen then as the celebration to be expected as a noted composer passes a milestone, but Lachenmann is a composer who – despite his age – could until recently have escaped such attention in Britain. In 1995, Elke Hockings wrote in these pages that, while enjoying ‘an exalted reputation among a small circle of English contemporary music enthusiasts, […] to the wider English music public he [Lachenmann] is little known’ and critical reception has been mixed, often extremely negative. Introducing Lachenmann to an audience at the Southbank Centre in October, Ivan Hewett described him as ‘a composer we don't know well in this country, an omission we are gradually repairing’.

This paper considers the key findings of a year-long collaborative research project focusing on the audience of the London Symphony Orchestra and their introduction of a new mobile telephone (‘app’) ticketing system. A mixed-method approach was employed, utilizing focus groups and questionnaires with over 80 participants, to research a sample group of university students. This research develops our understanding of classical music audiences, and highlights the continued individualistic, middle-class, and exclusionary culture of classical music attendance and patterns of behaviours. The research also suggests that a mobile phone app does prove a useful mechanism for selling discounted tickets, but shows little indication of being a useful means of expanding this audience beyond its traditional demographic.

Murray McLachlan's première of Erik Chisholm's Sonata in A minor on 4 January marked the centenary of Chisholm's birth (in Cathcart, outside Glasgow) to the day itself. Chisholm was a considerable force for good while he was busy in Scotland: the first British performances of Les Troyens, Béatrice et Bénédicte and Idomeneo; visits to his ‘Active Society for the Propagation of Contemporary Music’ in Glasgow from Bartók, Casella, Schmitt, Sorabji (a close friend), Szymanowski and other luminaries. But he could, apparently, be a difficult man, and with his posting to Singapore by ENSA in 1943, to conduct the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and subsequent nomination to the chair of the music department of the University of Cape Town in 1946, his native land seems to have been content to forget the outsized personality whom Arnold Bax called ‘the most progressive composer that Scotland has produced’.

One of the most enjoyable characteristics of London musical life is that it is peopled by a generous number of foreigners who, every so often, take it upon themselves to enlighten the rest of us as to the music we are missing from back home. These can, of course, be hit-and-miss occasions, but it's in the nature of exploring unknown music of any age that you will happily put up with a handful of duds if you come away with a real discovery ringing in your ears. The Second London Festival of Bulgarian Culture (I seem to have missed the First) ran in various venues over the course of November 2012 and also accommodated art, film, literature, theatre and other forms of music (folk, pop and jazz). It opened its classical batting with a concert of ‘Bulgarian and British Symphonic Folk Songs’ in Cadogan Hall on 3 November, with the Varna Symphony Orchestra, Paulina Voices (the choir of St Paul's Girls' School) and the Holst Choir (from James Allen's Girls' School) conducted by Martin Georgiev. Pancho Vladigerov (1899–1978) being the only Bulgarian composer generally known to the outside world, it made sense to begin with him. His Shumen Miniatures, six attractive piano pieces based on folk-tunes from the town, Shumen, where Vladigerov grew up, were written in 1934 and orchestrated at some later date vouchsafed neither by the concert-programme nor the worklist at www.vladigerov.org. They embrace a variety of lighter moods: the first and fourth pieces offer lazy and lyrical summer-evening hazes and the second and third vigorous dances; the proximity of the fifth to the style of Enescu brought a reminder of the long common border Bulgaria shares with Romania (Shumen is around 100 km away from it).

AbstractIn 1965, the Australian government and Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust (AETT) debated which performing arts ensembles should represent Australia at the London Commonwealth Arts Festival. The AETT proposed the newly formed Aboriginal Theatre, comprising songmakers, musicians, and dancers from the Tiwi Islands, northeast Arnhem Land and the Daly River. The government declined, and instead sent the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performing works by John Antill and Peter Sculthorpe. In examining the historical context for these negotiations, I demonstrate the direct relationship between the historical promotion of ‘Australianist’ art music composition that claimed to represent Aboriginal culture, and the denial of the right of representation to Aboriginal performers as owners of their musical traditions. Within the framing of Wolfe's settler colonial theory and ‘logic of elimination’, I suggest that appropriative Australian art music has directly sought to replace performances of Aboriginal culture by Aboriginal people, even while Aboriginal people have resisted replacement.

The author considered the main stages of creative formation and musical-educational as well as concert-performance activities of Jean Rémusat (J. Rémusat) in Europe and China. J. Rémusat's achievements as a flutist are examined in the context of his orchestral practice in Parisian and London theaters. Concert programs of J. Rémusat's performances as a soloist and member of ensemble groups on the basis of music-critical publications of Shanghai periodicals of 1860-1870 were analyzed. The main directions of his creative collaboration with other European musicians (G.B Fentum, J. C. H. Iburg) is highlighted in the cultural leisure of Shanghai in the western sector of the city. The author identified the role of the French musician in the founding of the Shanghai Philharmonic Society and the Wind Music Association to intensify the concert and performance activities of local amateur groups and professional musicians and hold their regular performances in front of citizens. It is emphasized that the organization of J. Rémusat's concerts is based on European experience, offering various forms of performances by artists with a repertoire available to the local public. The work of J. Rémusat, conductor and musician-educator, is described in view of his founding of private orchestral groups and his close cooperation with military musicians on the way to creating an amateur group "Shanghai Volunteer Brass Band". The process of professionalization of the amateur orchestra and the development of instrumental composition with the involvement of qualified musicians on the way to its transformation into a symphonic ensemble is highlighted. The orchestra repertoire based on works by classical and romantic composers is described. The representative functions of the orchestra in the celebration and participation in various citywide cultural events in Shanghai is clarified. The principle of formation of the instrumental composition of the municipal orchestra by professional musicians is revealed. It has been found that in the selection of orchestras, J. Rémusat preferred Filipino instrumentalists, who after a three-hundred-year period of Spanish colonial dependence were more familiar with Western orchestral culture than local Chinese musicians. The decisive role of Jean Rémusat as an active propagandist of European orchestral traditions in the creation of the official municipal "Shanghai Public Brass Band" (Shanghai Public Band) has been proved.

Over the past decade, some major changes have taken place in the policies of Britain's symphony orchestras towards the communities within which they operate. Responding to local needs, most have now evolved enterprising educational activities. This ‘community’ brief has itself generated enthusiastic commitment from the participating musicians; but it has also highlighted the new responsibilities of orchestral management to the personal and artistic development of the players who must work in this somewhat different cultural climate. The author, Gresham Professor of Music and Director of the Department of Performance and Communication Skills at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, examines these issues and their implications for the future of orchestral musicians.

This article considers the reception of Ralph Vaughan Williams's nine symphonies (and a few non-symphonic works) in New York City (and, occasionally, its suburban environs), from the American premiere of A London Symphony on 30 December 1920 to a performance of Symphony No. 6 on 10 December 2014. The author argues that the reception rolls out across five distinct periods: (1) 1920/1–1922/3: the New York premieres of A London Symphony, A Sea Symphony and A Pastoral Symphony (in that order), all to greetings that were lukewarm at best; (2) 1923/4–1934/5: Vaughan Williams's reputation grew meteorically, and A London Symphony became something of a staple; during this period Olin Downes of the New York Times became Vaughan Williams's most ardent champion among New York's music critics; (3) 1935/6–1944/5: Symphonies 4 and 5 made their New York debuts, and a rift opened between the pro-Vaughan Williams New York Times and the negative criticism of the New York Herald Tribune, one that would follow Vaughan Williams to the grave and beyond; (4) 1945/6–1958/9: premieres of Symphonies 6, 8 and 9, as Vaughan Williams's reputation in New York reached its honours- and awards-filled zenith; and (5) the long period from 1959/60 to the present day, which can be described as 20 years of decline (1960s–1970s), another 20 in which his reputation reached rock bottom (1980s–1990s) and, since the beginning of the new millennium, something of a reassessment, one that is seemingly unencumbered by the ideologically driven criticism of the past. Finally, Appendix I provides a chronological inventory of all New York Philharmonic programmes (along with those of the New York Symphony prior to the two orchestras' merger in 1928) that include any music (not just the symphonies) by Vaughan Williams. Appendix II then reorganizes the information of the chronological list according to work, conductor, venue and premieres.

The founding of the Philharmonic Society in 1813 has traditionally been seen to represent a significant milestone in the development of English concert life, standard musicology holding that the Society emerged from a period of orchestral inactivity in London stretching back to the departure of Haydn from the city some eighteen years earlier. Tracing the origins of these claims to the writings of the Society's founders and early historians, this article will attempt to reassess the validity of this ‘myth’ surrounding the Philharmonic. Offering a detailed examination of certain previously under-explored elements of turn-of-the-century London concert culture it will illustrate that, although the Philharmonic clearly did provide a prominent new institutional focus for the performance of symphonic repertory after 1813, concert series prior to that point can no longer be assumed to have been entirely devoid of orchestral music.

In conjunction with Wolfgang Amadé Mozart's 265th birthday on 27 January 2021, the Salzburg International Mozarteum Foundation presented a premiere performance and an online edition of the recently rediscovered Allegro in D major for Piano, K. 626b/16. While the authenticity of the document and of Mozart's handwriting appears to be beyond doubt, Mozart's authorship has been designated "conjectural" in the RISM data released alongside the piece's edition. In this study I set out to examine the question of authenticity of this miniature, demonstrably a piano reduction of an orchestral composition, from a style-analytical perspective. Some aspects recall Mozart's London Sketchbook, dated almost a decade earlier than the editor's proposed dating for K. 626b/16, 1773; however, no compelling connection between the two can be established. The piece's midway position between a sonata-dance and a sonata-allegro movement, and its particular employment of voice-leading schemata and musical punctuation, deem Mozart's authorship unlikely. I discuss its possible origin as a ballet number in conjunction with the genres of the chaconne and the stage minuet. Borrowings from K. 626b/16 are identified in both the first movement of Mozart's Symphony K. 128 and the closing chorus of Lucio Silla, suggesting a date no later than the first months of 1772. Elements of the piano piece resurfacing in later well-known Mozart works substantiate its lasting influence on the composer.

This article examines how ideas about music and music listening are articulated and what listening practices are constructed when symphony orchestras provide concert performances through streaming services. This is achieved by paying attention to how listening situations connected to symphony orchestras’ digital performances are characterized, how the audience is positioned in relation to the performances and the involved musicians, and furthermore to how the music is represented in text, images and verbal statements. The empirical data comprises the streaming service platforms, and supporting materials, of two concert institutions, London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (GSO), and was gathered during spring 2020, i.e. when concert halls were closed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The article demonstrates how online listening practices are characterized as disconnected from constraints of time and space, and free for anyone to use, anytime and for almost any reason, yet also as strongly connected to temporal and spatial dimensions. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the listening practices connected to online symphonic performances are constructed in line with discourses on music as a health resource or as a mood enhancer and emotional regulator, but also in line with romantic aesthetic ideals. Even if the romantic aspects are less explicit, and thus could be perceived to be challenged, such ideals seem to remain uncontested as long as they are combined with more recent discourses on music. 

Ubicándose teórica- y metodológicamente dentro de los estudios del per­formance, el interés de este trabajo se centra en la presencia corporal del intérprete en relación con los demás actores de un proceso musical, el cual transcurre siempre dentro de un distinto contexto social y cultural. Partimos de un acercamiento a los estudios del performance, sus antecedentes en la lingüística, la ciencia del teatro y la antropología, para revisar en un segundo paso las repercusiones de esa corriente en la investigación musicológica actual. Enfocándose en el mundo de la música occidental de concierto, específicamente el formato del recital, que trae consigo un catálogo de convenciones y reglas no-escritas referente al comportamiento social de todos sus actores, se investiga y analiza el traba­jo corporal de la cantante Barbara Hannigan en su interpretación de la obra Mysteries of the Macabre de György Ligeti, con la London Symphony Orchestra, bajo la batuta de Sir Simon Rattle. Con este trabajo se busca observar una nueva propuesta del performance en el formato del recital, con el objetivo de destacar la importancia del entrenamiento y de la expre­sión corporal en el músico académico; así como cuestionar los cánones establecidos con la intensión de plantear la necesidad de nuevos elementos discursivos para el intér­prete, que vayan de acuerdo con las exigencias de la época actual.

Abstract Despite the ‘acoustic turn’ providing ‘a corrective to the visualist bias of much scholarship on modern and postmodern culture’, the Alice books and their author have been almost exclusively seen rather than heard by critics to date. Prompted by a collaboration with composer Paul Rissmann which resulted in a concert suite performed by the London Symphony Orchestra in 2015, in this article I undertake the first detailed exploration of the sonic dimension of these texts. This merits attention not only because of its very emphatic foregrounding within the frame narrative of Wonderland, but also because of authorial interests and preoccupations, and the quickly established and still enduring musical afterlife of the books. Although triggered in Wonderland by the pastoral and by the sounds of the natural world, a process of translation or transformation renders a very different sonic landscape within the narrative proper. The bucolic frames an often raucous modern core, with Carroll embedding not only catchy anodyne melodies but also the sounds of the everyday and of contemporary industry, transport, and material culture. Attending to the rich and varied soundscape of Carroll’s best-known works sheds new light on their widely examined images but also restores a key dimension of the texts, essential to their Victorian reception. The detailed exploration of the full range of sonic phenomena within the works, from music to noise, and spanning both sound and silence, opens up new relationships between Carroll and his Victorian contemporaries, as well as further reinforcing his status as a proto-modernist.

Nine Inch Nails have just released a new single; In addition to the usual formats, “The Hand That Feeds” was available for free download in Garageband format. Trent Reznor explained, “For quite some time I’ve been interested in the idea of allowing you the ability to tinker around with my tracks – to create remixes, experiment, embellish or destroy what’s there” (MacMinute 15 April 2005). Reznor invites creativity facilitated by copying and transformation. “Copy” carries connotations of unsavoury notions such as piracy, stealing, fake, and plagiarism. Conversely, in some circumstances copying is acceptable, some situations demand copying. This article examines the treatment of “copy” at the intersection of musical creativity and copyright law with regard to cover versions and sampling. Waldron reminds us that copyright was devised first and foremost with a public benefit in mind (851). This fundamental has been persistently reiterated (H. R Rep. (1909); Sen. Rep. (1909); H. R. Rep. (1988); Patterson & Lindberg 70). The law grants creators a bundle of rights in copyrighted works. Two rights implicated in recorded music are located in the composition and the recording. Many potential uses of copyrighted songs require a license. The Copyright Act 1976, s. 115 provides a compulsory licence for cover versions. In other words, any song can be covered for a statutory royalty fee. The law curtails the extent of the copyright monopoly. Compulsory licensing serves both creative and business sides of the recording industry. First, it ensures creative diversity. Musicians are free to reinterpret cultural soundtracks. Second, it safeguards the composer’s right to generate an income from his work by securing royalties for subsequent usage. Although s. 115 permits a certain degree of artistic licence, it requires “the arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work”. Notwithstanding this proviso, songs can still be transformed and their meaning reshaped. Johnny Cash was able to provide an insight into the mind of a dying man through covering such songs as Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”, Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” and Parker & Charles’ “We’ll Meet Again”. Compulsory licensing was introduced in response to a Supreme Court decision that deprived composers of royalties. Congress recognised: The main object to be desired in expanding copyright protection accorded to music has been to give to the composer an adequate return for the value of his composition, and it has been a serious and difficult task to combine the protection of the composer with the protection of the public, and to so frame an act that it would accomplish the double purpose of securing to the composer and at the same time prevent the formation of oppressive monopolies, which might be founded upon the very rights granted to the composer for the purpose of protecting his interests (H. R. Rep. (1909)). Composers exercise rights over the initial exploitation of a song. Once a recording is released, the right is curtailed to serve the public dimension of copyright. A sampler is a device that allows recorded (sampled) sounds to be triggered from a MIDI keyboard or sequencer. Samplers provide potent tools for transforming sounds – filters, pitch-shifting, time-stretching and effects can warp samples beyond recognition. Sampling is a practice that formed the backbone of rap and hip-hop, features heavily in many forms of electronic music, and has proved invaluable in many studio productions (Rose 73-80; Prendergast 383-84, 415-16, 433-34). Samples implicate both of the musical copyrights mentioned earlier. To legally use a sample, the rights in the recording and the underlying composition must be licensed. Ostensibly, acquiring permission to use the composition poses few obstacles due to the compulsory licence. The sound recording, however, is a different matter entirely. There is no compulsory licence for sound recordings. Copyright owners (usually record labels) are free to demand whatever fees they see fit. For example, SST charged Fatboy Slim $1000 for sampling a Negativland record (Negativland). (Ironically, the sample was itself an unlicensed sample appropriated from a 1966 religious recording.) The price paid by The Verve for sampling an obscure orchestral version of a Rolling Stones song was more substantial. Allan Klein owns the copyright in “The Last Time” released by The Andrew Oldham Orchestra in 1965 (American Hit Network, undated). Licence negotiations for the sample left Klein with 100% of the royalties from the song and The Verve with a bitter taste. To add insult to injury, “Bittersweet Symphony” was attributed to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards when the song was nominated for a Grammy (Superswell, undated). License fees can prove prohibitive to many musicians and may outweigh the artistic merit in using the sample: “Sony wanted five thousand dollars for the Clash sample, which … is one thousand dollars a word. In retrospect, this was a bargain, given the skyrocketing costs of sampling throughout the 1990s” (McLeod 86). Adam Dorn, alias Mocean Worker, tried for nine months to licence a sample of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Eventually his persistent requests were met with a demand for $10,000 in advance with royalties of six cents per record. Dorn was working with an album budget of a mere $40 and was expecting to sell 2500 copies (Beaujon 25). Unregulated licensing fees stifle creativity and create a de facto monopoly over recorded music. Although copyright was designed to be an engine of free expression1 it still carries characteristics of its monopolistic, totalitarian heritage. The decision in Bridgeport Music v. Dimension Films supported this monopoly. Judge Guy ruled, “Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this stifling creativity in any significant way” (397). The lack of compulsory licensing and the Bridgeport decision creates an untenable situation for sampling musicians and adversely impacts upon the public benefit derived from creative diversity and transformative works (Netanel 288, 331). The sobering potential for lawsuits, ruinous legal costs, injunctions, damages (to copyright owners as well as master recordings), suppresses the creativity of musicians unwilling or unable to pay licence fees (Negativland 251.). I’m a big fan of David Bowie. If I wanted to release a cover version of “Survive”, Bowie and Gabrels (composers) and BMI (publishers) could not prevent it. According the Harry Fox Agency’s online licensing system, it would cost $222.50 (US) for a licence to produce 2500 copies. The compulsory licence demands fidelity to the character of the original. Although my own individual style would be embedded in the cover version, the potential for transformation is limited. Whilst trawling through results from a search for “acapella” on the Soulseek network I found an MP3 of the vocal acapella for “Survive”. Thirty minutes later Bowie was loaded into Sonar 4 and accompanied by a drum loop and bass line whilst I jammed along on guitar and tinkered with synths. Free access to music encourages creative diversity and active cultural participation. Licensing fees, however, may prohibit such creative explorations. Sampling technology offers some truly innovative possibilities for transforming recorded sound. The Roland VariOS can pitch-eliminate; a vocal sample can be reproduced to a melody played by the sampling musician. Although the original singer’s voice is preserved the melody and characteristic nuances can be significantly altered: V-Producer’s Phrase Scope [a system software component] separates the melody from the rest of the phrase, allowing users to re-construct a new melody or add harmonies graphically, or by playing in notes from a MIDI keyboard. Using Phrase Scope, you can take an existing vocal phrase or melodic instrument phrase and change the actual notes, phrasing and vocal gender without unwanted artefacts. Bowie’s original vocal could be aligned with an original melody and set to an original composition. The original would be completely transformed into a new creative work. Unfortunately, EMI is the parent company for Virgin Records, the copyright owner of “Survive”. It is doubtful licence fees could be accommodated by many inspired bedroom producers. EMI’s reaction to DJ Dangermouse’s “Grey Album“ suggests that it would not look upon unlicensed sampling with any favour. Threatening letters from lawyers representing one of the “Big Four” are enough to subjugate most small time producers. Fair use? If a musician is unable to afford a licence, it is unlikely he can afford a fair use defence. Musicians planning only a limited run, underground release may be forgiven for assuming that the “Big Four” have better things to do than trawl through bins of White Labels for unlicensed samples. Professional bootlegger Richard X found otherwise when his history of unlicensed sampling caught up to him: “A certain major label won’t let me use any samples I ask them to. We just got a report back from them saying, ‘Due to Richard’s earlier work of which we are well aware, we will not be assisting him with any future projects’” (Petridis). For record labels “copy” equals “money”. Allan Klein did very well out of licensing his newly acquired “Bittersweet Symphony” to Nike (Superswell). Inability to afford either licences or legal costs means that some innovative and novel creations will never leave the bedroom. Sampling masterpieces such as “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” are no longer cost effective (McLeod). The absence of a compulsory licence for sampling permits a de facto monopoly over recorded music. Tricia Rose notes the recording industry knows the value of “copy” (90). “Copy” is permissible as long as musicians pay for the privilege – if the resultant market for the sampling song is not highly profitable labels may decline to negotiate a licence. Some parties have recognised the value of the desire to creatively engage with music. UK (dis)band(ed) Curve posted component samples of their song “Unreadable Communication” on their website and invited fans to create their own versions of the song. All submissions were listed on the website. Although the band reserved copyright, they permitted me to upload my version to my online distribution website for free download. It has been downloaded 113 times and streamed a further 112 times over the last couple of months. The remix project has a reciprocal dimension: Creative engagement strengthens the fan base. Guitarist/programmer, Dean Garcia, states “the main reason for posting the samples is for others to experiment with something they love . . . an opportunity as you say to mess around with something you otherwise would never have access to2”. Umixit is testing the market for remixable songs. Although the company has only five bands on its roster (the most notable being Aerosmith), it will be interesting to observe the development of a market for “neutered sampling” and how long it will be before the majors claim a stake. The would-be descendants of Grand Master Flash and Afrika Bambaataa may find themselves bound by end-user licences and contracts. The notion of “copy” at the nexus of creativity and copyright law is simultaneously a vehicle for free expression and a vulgar infringement on a valuable economic interest. The compulsory licence for cover versions encourages musicians to rework existing music, uncover hidden meaning, challenge the boundaries of genre, and actively participate in culture creation. Lack of affirmative congressional or judicial interference in the current sampling regime places the beneficial aspects of “copy” under an oppressive monopoly founded on copyright, an engine of free expression. References American Hit Network. “Bittersweet Symphony – The Verve.” Undated. 17 April 2005 http://www.americanhitnetwork.com/1990/fsongs.cfm?id=8&view=detail&rank=1>. Beaujon, A. “It’s Not The Beat, It’s the Mocean.’ CMJ New Music Monthly, April 1999. EMI. “EMI and Orange Announce New Music Deal.” Immediate Future: PR & Communications, 6 January 2005. 17 April 2005 http://www.immediatefuture.co.uk/359>. H. R. Rep. No. 2222. 60th Cong., 2nd Sess. 7. 1909. H. R. Rep. No. 609. 100th Cong., 2nd Sess. 23. 1988. MacMinute. “NIN Offers New Single in GarageBand Format.” 15 April 2005. 16 April 2005 http://www.macminute.com/2005/04/15/nin/>. McLeod, K. “How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop: An Interview with Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Hank Shocklee.” Stay Free 2002, 23 June 2004 http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/public_enemy.html>. McLeod, K. Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity. United States: Doubleday Books, 2005. Negativland. “Discography.” Undated. 18 April 2005 http://www.negativland.com/negdisco.html>. Negativland (ed.). Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2. Concord: Seeland, 2005. Netanel, N. W. “Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society.” 106 Yale L. J. 283. 1996. Patterson, L.R., and S. Lindberg. The Nature of Copyright: A Law of Users’ Rights. Georgia: U of Georgia P, 1991. Petridis, A. “Pop Will Eat Itself.” The Guardian (UK) 2003. 22 June 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,922797,00.html>. Prendergast, M. The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Moby – The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Rose, T. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2004. Sen. Rep. No. 1108, 60th Cong., 2nd Sess. 7. 1909. Superswell. “Horror Stories.” 17 April 2005 http://www.superswell.com/samplelaw/horror.html>. Waldron, J. “From Authors to Copiers: Individual Rights and Social Values in Intellectual Property.” 68 Chicago-Kent Law Review 842, 1998. Endnotes 1 Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises 471 U.S. 539, 558 (1985). 2 From personal correspondence with Curve dated 16 September 2004. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Collins, Steve. "Good Copy, Bad Copy: Covers, Sampling and Copyright." M/C Journal 8.3 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/02-collins.php>. APA Style Collins, S. (Jul. 2005) "Good Copy, Bad Copy: Covers, Sampling and Copyright," M/C Journal, 8(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/02-collins.php>.