Blog topic: Music

John C. Lilly open reel audio tape

Open reel tapes, head blocks, and unconventional track arrangements at the Stanford Media Preservation Lab

Part of audio preservation work includes working with media that has peculiar characteristics. Sometimes the atypical qualities are a byproduct of how the recording was made by the recordist. An example of this type of problem that we occasionally see at the Stanford Media Preservation Lab is when an open reel tape is recorded over and there is remaining content hidden in certain spots of the tape. This presents specific problems in capture since tape heads are built for use with specific physical configurations of tracks and thus capturing the hidden spots outside of the normal range of track configuration is near impossible. With this in mind SMPL recently worked on obtaining equipment to address this challenging scenario.

Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise (1872)

New music scores and facsimiles, June 2016

June 7, 2016
by Ray Heigemeir

For your browsing pleasure, we present the following list of new scores added to composer complete editions, historical sets, and facsimiles.

Modern editions

CPE Bach. Flute concertos, vol. II. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ; edited by Barthold Kuijken (Works, series III, vol. 4:2)

Cavalli. Orione / Francesco Cavalli ; dramma per musica by Francesco Melosio.

Chabrier. L'Étoile : opéra bouffe en trois actes / Emmanuel Chabrier.

Archangel Michael Hurls the Rebellious Angels into the Abyss, by Luca Giordano (ca. 1666)

The Fallen Angel: An oratorio, unearthed

March 30, 2016
by Ray Heigemeir

“There was war in heaven: and Satan was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them: woe to the inhabiters of the earth.” – Revelation 12:7-12

So opens The Fallen Angel, an oratorio by Sir Henry Rowley Bishop. The manuscript score, in Bishop’s hand, has recently been reunited with a full set of manuscript orchestral and choral parts, as item MLM 87 in Stanford’s Memorial Library of Music.

Oinousses main settlement

Ravel's lively Greek songs

October 6, 2016
by Ray Heigemeir

Tout Gai!, original manuscript by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937); traditional Greek text from the island of Chios, French translation by Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi; No. 5 of Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques.
Memorial Library of Music, MLM 864
[download images of this work]

Guest blogger: Kirstin Haag

Maurice Ravel was known as France’s premier living composer in the 1920s and ‘30s, but his early career was not without challenges. By 1900, Ravel had flunked out of his courses at the Conservatoire de Paris not once, but twice. By 1905, he had failed to win the Prix de Rome no less than five times. However, in the wake of these career hardships, Ravel orchestrated several Greek songs that would become some of his most beloved recital pieces.

Beethoven string quartet (detail)

New music scores and facsimiles, April 2016

April 13, 2016
by Ray Heigemeir

For your browsing pleasure, we present the following list of new scores added to composer complete editions, historical sets, and facsimiles:

 

Modern editions

Bach, CPE. Miscellaneous songs / Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ; edited by Christoph Wolff. 

Bach, JS. Mass in B minor / Johann Sebastian Bach ; edited by Ulrich Leisinger. Accompanying DVD-ROM includes a reproductions of the holograph (including original parts for Kyrie and Gloria), the 1924 facsimile, and 2 copyist manuscripts (Hering and Kirnberger)); it also includes the full score (as found in printed version), detailed critical report, and PDF files ("Et in unum Dominum", Individual remarks in German (not found in printed work), Latin words printed as text, and Quick start guides in German and English)

Beethoven. Streichquartette III. Werke / Beethoven (v. 6/5)

Johann Sebastian Bach’s face from Elias Gottlob Haussmann’s 1748 portrait.

Celebrate Bach's birthday

March 14, 2016
by Ray Heigemeir

On March 21, 2016, we celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach's 331st birthday. Here are links to freely available resources, including some courtesy of Stanford University.

 

Scores

Stanford University Libraries holds one original Bach manuscript, the basso part from the cantata "Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte Greifet zu, fasst das Heil", BWV 174. A high-quality digital image is available for viewing and download.

The Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke (new edition of the complete works) is shelved in the Music Library stacks.

The 19th-century Bach Gesellschaft edition of the complete works is available for download via the Petrucci Music Library (IMSLP)

The Bach Digital database provides links to most of the known manuscripts in existence and tracks Bach scholarship worldwide.

 

Duke Ellington

A small remembrance of Duke Ellington

January 26, 2016
by Ray Heigemeir

I came across this miniature book, Duke Ellington Remembered: New York Notes, by Whitney Balliett, and thought it perfect for a miniature blog post. It is by far the tiniest book in the Music Library. Balliett (1926-2007) was a journalist and jazz critic who wrote for a number of publications, including for the New Yorker under famed editor William Shawn.  His essays on jazz and jazz musicians have been collected into a number of monographs, many of which are available in the Stanford Libraries.

Cataloging piano rolls

February 3, 2016

Over the past year this blog has covered a wide variety of piano roll topics: conjoined rolls, archival storage issues, publication dates, illustrations on rolls, piano roll lending libraries, Welte-Mignon at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and Hupfeld piano rolls. Many thoughtful comments from members of the player piano and mechanical music communities came to us through email, blog comments, or in-person visits during our listening parties.

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