Early Music News

I will be starting a weekly "news' page where I will post things I find interesting and or of note. So here goes.

Story about an early string maker in DNAinfo New York, link here.

I am sure that everyone knows the website Partifi, a wonderful website that takes scores and makes them into parts. Particularly good for music that we only have scores for. What you might not know is that the couple who runs the website has put in a lot of their own money and a lot of time into building and maintaining the site, so if you use the site, please donate to them.

It is festival season! Madison Early Music Festival will be July 12- 19. MEMF has a special place in my heart, so it gets the first shoutout.

The Tide is Low

‘Classical music, trying to seem cool and less stuffy, reeks of some sort of fossilised art form undergoing a midlife crisis.’

Said by the man attempting to crowd surf an audience during a classical music concert. If you happened to miss it, the complete article is here. The man, Dr David R Glowacki, attended a concert at the Bristol Proms, a concert series begun in order to challenge the “elitist, unwelcoming atmosphere surrounding classical." Bristol Proms uses a variety of techniques in attempts to bring new audiences to classical music and break down barriers between artist and performer. What happened during this particular performance was that a "mosh pit" was created near the orchestra, drinks were allowed in, and audience members were encouraged to make noise when they felt like it. Dr. Glowacki became a bit excited about the alleluia chorus culminating with his own personal finale attempt at crowd surfing.

For me, the story is amusing and I love when audience members are scandalized, we definitely need more of this is the classical music world. The story also highlights an issue that concerns me when people start talking about difficulties and stuffiness in regards to classical music concerts. I applaud the brave performers and music directors being creative and trying new methods of bringing music we love to a greater audience and trying to break down barriers. I also agree that the standard symphony orchestra situation of overture, concerto, symphony with three concerts a week can be a creativity killer. However, when the addition of various multi-media or special effects are utilized, we need to be careful to not drown out the actual reason for the concert, which is the music itself. It is our job to bring new life to old pieces. If we are lucky, we can do this on a daily basis. Maybe with or without high tech gadgets or multi media. What we should focus on are the fundamentals of expression, and finding ways to enhance this. I feel that all the brave souls who try something new, first ask yourself this, am I doing this because it is cool, or because it enhances the expression that is implicit already in the music.

A Moving Ordeal

Moving is always a pain. I know, I have moved many different times in the last 10 years, 6 times in the last ten year, and I am about to make it 7. Except this move, this move is the biggest, I am moving to Germany. To be exact, I am moving with my husband, life partner, partner with papers, partner in crime, whatever, and two cats to the city of Dresden. Some of you may remember Dresden from Kurt Vonnigeut's book Slaughterhouse 5, and that extraordinarily unfortunate event known as World War II. Today, Dresden has been mostly rebuilt, the people are much more hospitable towards people from the west, and one of the libraries there holds some very exciting manuscripts. Since this move will most likely be permanent, how does one do this? How does one move all of ones things over an ocean? We have 10 boxes, plus room for my bicycle, that will go from door to door, and then 1 checked luggage and our carry-ons for the plane. The carry-ons are already reserved for my modern bassoon and baroque bassoon, and the recorders that I will need right away will fit in my purse. So, that leave 10 boxes. 10 medium sized boxes. I think all of my music and scores and books about music would fill those 10 boxes. So I must downsize. This is how I am attempting it:

Going through all my music. Every single page. I am making five different piles:

1. Keep and pack. This is for actual purchased, complete, good editions of scores that I will use right off the bat. Music that I love, or will need.
2. Keep and store. This is for music that is either a good edition but I won't need immediately, music that is important to have but it isn't a good edition,  sentimental scores, or some of the more obscure etude books that I might need for students at some point, but not likely right away.
3. Scan and attempt to sell. This is music that is either a poor edition of something that I don't really need, duplicate copies of music, etude books so obsure it is unlikely that I will ever need it. Stuff that I am almost 100% sure I won't need, but am making a copy just in case. The scans will go onto an external hardrive which will be in my cary-on purse.
4. Scan an toss. Photocopies. I have tried to purchase as many things as I could, but when I was a student, this just wasn't possible. So I made a lot of photocopies. Additionally a lot of the transcriptions of early music are on photocopies. So these, as much as I would like to keep, will go onto that little hardrive.
5. Toss. Duplicate copies of music. Copies of music I am 100% sure I will never need. Incomplete photocopies.

Then the next step, is scan, scan, scan... This is talking multiple trips to the library, which has an amazing scanner that sends everything to my inbox. Then I open up the pdf's, label them properly so that I can find them with ease.

I am hoping with this method, that I might be able to ship one box of music and keep two boxes of music somewhere in the US. Wish me luck.  Of course this is not including music books, and scores which I am not sure what to do with yet...