{"title":"Hearing Global Britishness on the BBC's Commonwealth of Song (1953–1961)","authors":"T. Nelson","doi":"10.1017/S1478572222000147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572222000147","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Part of the United Kingdom's national reconstruction following the Second World War was reforming its self-image as a global power in light of imperial decline. This recasting took place across political and cultural spheres and emphasized the Commonwealth, idealized as a friendly collection of current and former colonies linked by British culture. In this article, I demonstrate how music broadcasting functioned as a site of diplomacy, using white, middle-class taste for light entertainment to reinforce British values at the Empire's twilight. I focus on musical depictions of the Commonwealth on the BBC radio programme Commonwealth of Song. Using archival records, I reconstruct debates concerning Commonwealth representation and its importance to British citizens. I argue that Commonwealth of Song was a site of testing and reformulating new sonic constructions of globally minded ‘Britishness’ in the 1950s, yet conflicting messaging about what musics and people should represent the Commonwealth led to a lukewarm reception.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"311 - 341"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44636365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Destroying the Imagined City","authors":"Ariana Phillips-Hutton","doi":"10.1017/S1478572222000111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572222000111","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The transformation of rubble into aestheticized ruins turns on the relation of aesthetics, politics, and power alongside questions of memory, imagination, and embodiment. Working outward from this suggestive confluence, I investigate contemporary practices of commemorative composition that resituate elements of the historical archive, and so turn sonic rubble into ruin. Using Mary Kouyoumdjian's 2014 composition Bombs of Beirut as an example, I consider how the composer uses witness testimony and archival recordings of wartime sounds from the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90) to first construct, and then destroy, a version of the city of Beirut. In so doing, she engages in what Marianne Hirsch would call a ‘postmemorial act’ that reconfigures the relationships between physical, mental, and social spaces. The resulting palimpsest of meanings not only offers an important contemplative space for approaching the past but also suggests intriguing futures for the musical art of the ruin.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"227 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46289250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Singing on Solid Ground: Music Education in Post-Earthquake Haiti","authors":"Lauren Eldridge Stewart","doi":"10.1017/s147857222200007x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s147857222200007x","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The sonic aftershocks of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti continue to reverberate throughout the cultural landscape, particularly within the relatively small but long-standing mizik klasik community. In this article, I analyse the sometimes divergent performances of a composition that commemorates that tragedy. Haitian-American composer Sydney Guillaume wrote ‘N'ap Debat’ (‘We're Hangin’ On’) from Los Angeles shortly after the earthquake. One performance of this work takes place far from the site of ruin, voiced by distant observers. The other performance happens in Haiti, sung by its survivors. Both performances transform rubble into ruin.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"194 - 200"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45513122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Whiplash, Buddy Rich, and Visual Virtuosity in Drum Kit Performance","authors":"Jonathan Godsall","doi":"10.1017/S1478572221000268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572221000268","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The 2014 film Whiplash depicts successful jazz drumming as an athletic exhibition of speed and endurance, in a manner that reflects its protagonist's idolization of Buddy Rich (1917–87). The crowd-pleasing virtuosity of Rich and Whiplash has drawn critics’ ire, but this article interrogates the ideas of musical authenticity that underpin their complaints, and offers a more productive analysis of the film's drum kit performances and their inspiration, informed by a range of jazz, film, and performance scholarship. Specific attention is drawn to the performances’ visual attractions. Whiplash's fast editing style and shots of exertion – grimacing, sweat, blood – give non-expert viewers a sense of drumming's physical and mental demands, and much the same is true of Rich's exaggerated movements and expressions, whether seen live or (as is commonly the case) amplified by a screen's mediation.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"283 - 309"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42231027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Listening to Radioactive Rubble: Vocal Decay, Gender, and Nuclear Ruination in the Marshall Islands","authors":"Jessica A. Schwartz","doi":"10.1017/S1478572222000081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572222000081","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores how Marshallese radiation songs, written during and after the nuclear testing period as nuclear survivors tried to make sense of their sufferings, yield insight into processes of imperial ruination, rupture, and fragmentation by resounding the powerful impress of radioactive decay in Marshallese lives. In assessing the parameters through which radiation becomes sensible, how, and to whom, it becomes all the clearer how the US nuclear project can be considered in terms of ‘imperial ruination’. US geopolitical accrual has depended on the structural dispossession of Marshallese from their Indigenous agency rooted in and routed through their matrilineal culture. Focusing on women's performances from the Rongelapese community, the presence of radiation – lyrically and affectively – can be traced through vocalized moments of decay that intimate how rubble is embodied and shared in the aftermath of nuclear destruction.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"200 - 208"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47529771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus: National Exoticism or International Modernism?","authors":"Owen Burton","doi":"10.1017/S1478572221000311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572221000311","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Einojuhani Rautavaara's international fame rests largely on pieces celebrated for their apparently non-modernist accessibility. Cantus Arcticus – Concerto for Birds and Orchestra (1972) is greeted with suspicion on account of its wide appeal. This article reconsiders this piece in the context of his complicated and original stylistic development and re-evaluates its relation to Finnish nature and culture. By examining the intersections of nationalism, landscape, and modernism in a late twentieth-century piece, this discussion builds upon established research on early twentieth-century Nordic repertoire, applying it to this contemporary context. It also finds a new perspective by supplementing that approach to include more recent scholarship on post-war tonality. As a result, new insights into musical form and a post-serial renewal of tonal thinking emerge, and through its unique synthesis of seemingly diverse elements, Cantus Arcticus can be seen as a milestone work within Rautavaara's stylistic evolution.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"251 - 282"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46277143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"John Howland, Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021), ISBN: 978-0-520-30010-1 (hb), 978-0-520-30011-8 (pb).","authors":"Lloyd Whitesell","doi":"10.1017/S1478572221000323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572221000323","url":null,"abstract":"In his new book, John Howland showcases a set of ‘entertainment practices and aesthetics’ (13) geared towards lushness, glamour, and sophistication, and traces their lineage across genres and generations. One of the refreshing aspects of his approach is the way he takes mass enjoyment seriously as a historical phenomenon, bringing it from the overlooked background to the foreground of interest. Many genre and style histories pivot on subcultural or vanguard innovations and give short shrift to the vast middle-of-the-road sonic terrains with which they commingle and cross-fertilize. Howland takes us to the soft, luscious centre. In this, he participates in the recent advancement of scholarship into middlebrow musical taste and discourse. His cross-genre perspective frees him to appreciate hybrids (e.g., ‘jazz-with-strings’, ‘symphonic soul’, ‘jazz-meets-pop’) and fuzzy adjacencies (‘a large family of “jazzy”, syncopated popular musics’, 85), while shining light on some lesser-known entertainment forms (e.g., ‘the big-band venue of movie theater prologue-revue shows’, 93). Far from resulting in a bland porridge, the impure exchanges and mongrelizations he highlights are multiform and vibrant with stylistic collisions. The book fleshes out a historical narrative, covering four distinct eras:","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"343 - 347"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43022620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Play the Rain Down’: Prince, Paul Morton, and the Idea of Black Ecstasy","authors":"B. Shelley","doi":"10.1017/S1478572221000244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572221000244","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article grapples with ‘Let It Rain’, the title track of Bishop Paul S. Morton and the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship's 2003 release, which revises Michael Farren's contemporary Christian ballad by braiding it together with Prince's ‘Purple Rain’ and the formal logic of Black gospel tradition. As the Full Gospel version of this song commingles these seemingly discordant components, Morton, choir, and band turn a sung prayer into an assertion of interworldly presence. Building on its received musical materials, this gospel power ballad performs the Black gospel tradition's characteristic inflection – an arresting turn from one level of musicking to a heightened, ecstatic frame. In so doing, this song brings rain near, illuminating the links between performances of musical ecstasy and musical Blackness.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"93 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57036095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}