Six on History: Music
philip panaritis
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1) Hear the Amati “King” Cello, the Oldest Known Cello in Existence (c. 1560), Open Culture
"The Stradivari family has received all of the popular acclaim for perfecting the violin. But we should know the name Amati — in whose Cremona workshop Antonio Stradivari apprenticed in the 17th century. The violin-making family was immensely important to the refinement of classical instruments. “Born around 1505,” writes Jordan Smith at CMuse, founder Andrea Amati “is considered the father of modern violinmaking. He made major steps forward in improving the design of violins, including through the development of sound-holes” into their now-familiar f-shape.
Among Amati’s creations is the so-called “King” cello, made in the mid-1500s, part of a set of 38 stringed instruments decorated and “painted in the style of Limoges porcelain” for the court of King Charles IX of France." ...
Oh, Lord, don’t let ‘em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don’t let ‘em stab us!
Oh, Lord, don’t let ‘em tar and feather us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!
—Charles Mingus, “Fables of Faubus”
In 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus decided that integration—mandated three years earlier by Brown v. Board of Ed.—constituted such a state of emergency that he mobilized the National Guard to prevent nine black students from going to school. An outraged Charles Mingus responded with the lyrics to “Fables of Faubus,” a composition that first appeared on his celebrated Mingus Ah Um in 1959.
" ... The tension between the sacred and the secular did not emerge in the twenty-first century. Claudrena Harold’s When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras is a masterclass in navigating the tumultuous debates that have occupied the gospel music industry since its founding in the early-twentieth century. As the chair of the University of Virginia’s History Department, Harold is known for her intellectual and creative investment in African American political activism as well as her passion for music. When Sunday Comes merges the two fields for a groundbreaking study.
Arguing that gospel music and artists are at the foundation of Black culture and activism, Harold builds on the scholarship of theologians, historians, and musicologists such as James Cone, Trey Ellis, and Norma Jean Pender. She weaves together national politics, local histories, and life stories over the course of eleven chapters to explore an understudied period in the history of gospel music. When Sunday Comes moves readers through the last three decades of the twentieth century to spotlight the musical innovation and unique challenges faced by the gospel industry in post-civil rights Black America. This “collective biography” gives insight into the upbringings, musical training, and personal struggles of gospel greats like James Cleveland, Shirley Caesar, Andraé Crouch, and John P. Kee (9). Through their personal histories, Harold weaves together a portrait of modern gospel music that imposes its presence on our greater understanding of Black cultural and political life after the “golden era” (1945-65) of the genre (13). ... "
"Most of our playlists today are filled with music about emotions: usually love, of course, but also excitement, defiance, anger, devastation, and a host of others besides. We listen to these songs in order to appreciate the musicianship that went into them, but also to indulge in their emotions for ourselves. As for what exactly evokes these feelings within us, lyrics only do part of the job, and perhaps a small part at that. In search of a more rigorous conception of which sonic qualities trigger which emotions in listeners — and a measurement of how many kinds of emotions music can trigger — scientists at UC Berkeley have conducted a cross-cultural research project and used the data to make an interactive listening map.
The study’s creators, a group including psychology professor Dacher Keltner (founding director of the Greater Good Science Center) and neuroscience doctoral student Alan Cowen, “surveyed more than 2,500 people in the United States and China about their emotional responses to these and thousands of other songs from genres including rock, folk, jazz, classical, marching band, experimental and heavy metal.” So writes Berkley News’ Yasmin Anwar, who summarizes the broader findings as follows: “The subjective experience of music across cultures can be mapped within at least 13 overarching feelings: Amusement, joy, eroticism, beauty, relaxation, sadness, dreaminess, triumph, anxiety, scariness, annoyance, defiance, and feeling pumped up.”
Many listener responses can’t have been terribly surprising. “Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ made people feel energized. The Clash’s ‘Rock the Casbah’ pumped them up. Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’ evoked sensuality and Israel (Iz) Kamakawiwoʻole’s ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ elicited joy.
Meanwhile, heavy metal was widely viewed as defiant and, just as its composer intended, the shower scene score from the movie Psycho triggered fear.” The cultural influence of Hitchcock, one might object, has by now transcended all boundaries, but according to the study even Chinese classical music gets the same basic emotions across to Chinese and non-Chinese listeners alike.
Still, all respectable art, even or perhaps especially an abstract one such as music, leaves plenty of room for personal interpretation. You can check your own emotional responses against those of the Berkeley survey’s respondents with its interactive listening map. Just roll your cursor over any of point on its emotional territories, and you’ll hear a short clip of the song listeners placed there. On the peninsula of category H, “erotic, desirous,” you’ll hear Chris Isaak, Wham!, and a great many saxophonists; down in the netherlands of category G, “energizing, pump-up,” Rick Astley’s immortalized “Never Gonna Give You Up” and Alien Ant Farm’s novelty cover of “Smooth Criminal.” Anwar also notes that “The Shape of You,” Ed Sheeran’s inescapable hit, “sparks joy” — but if I have to hear it one more time at the gym, I can assure you my own emotional response won’t be quite so positive."
"A new exhibition at the Arab World Institute in Paris is celebrating the divas of the region, from Oum Kalthoum to Dalida to Fairuz. These women were not just the greatest Arab artists of the 20th century – some of them were also pioneering feminists in deeply patriarchal societies. We give you a sneak peek of the exhibition, and delve into the ideas behind it, with co-curator Élodie Bouffard."
"Divas, from Oum Kalthoum to Dalida" is on from May 19 to September 26.
