The Historical Anthology of Music by Willy Apple

[beatusmusicus]

G.F. Handel    Zadok the Priest

Academy of Ancient Music

[realmusichistory]

Historical performance at its finest!

[realmusichistory]

I don't know where my Philipoctus ended up.

Anonymous

[realmusichistory]

Ockeghem’s Missa “Mi Mi” is not my favorite, it’s texture is almost 16th century. It’s kinda narcissistic too.

Willy Apple

[peashooter85]

[realmusichistory]

Concert hall monitors, early 20th century.

In the days before modern concert etiquette, it was common for audiences to talk, eat, applaud, and even copulate during a performance.  For the prudish and hopelessly boring members of the audience this made it particularly difficult to hear the music.  The situation got somewhat better after Pope Wagner I issued the Papal bull of 1876 banning any extraneous sounds during a performance and plunging the audience into darkness.

However, there were many who refused to acquiesce, claiming it was good and right to show appreciation for fine music making and that it did no harm.  Tensions steadily rose over then next few years until 1882 when, after a performance of Parsifal, a dozen concert-goers were declared heretics for crinkling candy wrappers and burned at the stake.

After the events of what came to be known as the Lindt & Sprüngli Massecre, public opinion began to change.  While most people felt that anyone who clapped between movements, sneezed, or made any other offensive noise should be punished, it was felt burning them alive was too harsh and messy.  Therefore, between 1882 and 1913, concert halls deployed covert operatives equipped with special noise detecting headgear (see above).  This allowed staff to quickly and quietly remove the perpetrator and beat them up out back.

This, too, came to an end after Stravinsky premiered The Rite of Spring in May of 1913.  By that time, standards had continued to fall, and no-one could really tell the difference anyway.

After this watershed, if anyone dared make a sound, it became tradition to merely glare at them and make them feel as unwelcome as possible.  This had the added benefit of ensuring future generations of young people would never be tempted to enjoy classical music, thus allowing the aged to take it to their graves.

[realmusichistory]

Sometimes I enjoy Renaissance music, sometimes I don't. It's an Ock-eghem off-again relationship.

[realmusichistory]

O Podio, Podio! wherefore art thou Podio

Gonzalo Martínez de Bizcargui

[de-es-ce-ha]

[realmusichistory]

This photo of a gleeful Igor Stravinsky was taken in 1957, shortly after he had devised a new method of bringing utter bewilderment to the lives of both musicians and audiences alike.

[wtfrenaissance]

Tiffani’s new vibrator had some very intense settings.

[instrumental-artistry]

[realmusichistory]

Iran-Contra Bassoon, ca. [after]1985

C Weinberger (Washington D.C, USA, act.1981–1987) - Length: 154.5 cm • Bell Diam: 21.2 cm • Ammunition: 20mm shell

- Notes: Equipped with a double baffle muzzle brake and a semi-automatic vertical sliding block breech, with a tied jaw and the block moving down to open.

Source: NY-MetMA

[discardingimages]

[realmusichistory]

Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale, France 1297. Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 131, fol. 202r

Early two-voice counterpoint was a complicated and risky affair.

[instrumental-artistry]

[realmusichistory]

Bass Glubby Flurfelphone in C, ca. 1820

Nicola Flurfenini (Chiaravalle, Italy, act. 1800–1825) - Length: 68 cm - Other Notes: Consists of five parts: blowy mouth bit, bendy bit, straight bit, bulbous body bit, and naught bit. The body is carved from two separate slabs to form the bore of a super slinky stunningly sumptuous serpentine shape; the halves are glued together and fastened by the combined willpower of all the residents of a small village in Norway. Nine front fingerholes, two thumbholes, a pinkyhole, and one blowhole in bell. Three square keys - d𝄪, e, f♭, and a speaker in the shape of a duck. The mouthpiece is dated later, but never married.

- Materials: Body: Wumbuswood • Mouthpiece: Fuddlewood  • Keys: Gilded lead  • Rings: Petrified Unicorn Testicle (the left one)

Source: Boston-MFA

[realmusichistory]

Can you explain the concept of coloration in early music notation?

The term coloration (color) first occurs in the 14th century to designate the use of red notes for certain Goldberg variations from the normal values which, at the time, were written as black notes.  In the later period of black notation, white forms were frequently used instead of the red ones.  Blue notes were also used, but this was mostly confined to the early jazz music written in Haarlem, especially the Clavicytherium Rags of Scott Josquin.

When, in the middle of the 15th century, the forms for the normal values changed from black to white ones, the special values expressed previously by white (or red) notes now came to be indicated by black, gray, and charcoal notes.  At the start of the 16th century this practice further evolved so that white notes were now red, red notes were now blood orange, black notes were now grape, and blue notes were more of a dull aqua.  This practice was used up till the early 18th century when J.S. Bach standardized musical notation to the perfect and logical form we know today.

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

[realmusichistory]

The first page of John Cage’s 4’33”

A recent Harvard Study established that during the course of a conversation, silence will occur approximately every 7 minutes.  The International Organization for Standardization has determined that while the frequency of such lulls are in the public domain, the duration is not.  Any persons participating in silence lasting from 4 minutes, 20 seconds to 4 minutes, 40 seconds must pay a royalty to the John Cage estate.  According to a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008, this is also applicable to so-called 'dead air' on television and radio.  This ruling was a major contributing factor to the creation of 24-hour news channels as a way to avoid paying these royalties.

[beatusmusicus]

[realmusichistory]

In the days of J.S. Bach, before the advent of electric motors, organ bellows were pumped manually.  This duty was usually only given to fit muscular young men.  They would arouse themselves early in the morning so they could go to the Thomaskirche and blow Herr Bach's organ.

Bach was very particular about which blowers he worked with.  Since he was so fond of his magnificent organ he would play with it for hours at a time.  This required a blower that could match Bach's endurance.  If the bellows were ever allowed to go limp, he would whip his blower with whips until they were once again fully swollen with wind.  Fortunately, the strapping lads of 18th century Leipzig rarely disappointed Bach.  So grateful was he for their strength and skill, he would frequently reward them with a nice long fugue.

[realmusichistory]

Jacob Obrecht, also known as Obrecht-Wan Kenobi, was a composer and Jedi Knight from the 15th century.  He was a Padawan learner of master Qui-Busnois Jinn at the Burgundian court.

Scholar, composer, and swordsman, Obrecht seems to have had a succession of short assignments, two of which ended in less than ideal circumstances.  There is a record of his compensating for a shortfall in his accounts by donating droids he had built.

While most of Obrecht's missions were in the Flanders system, he made at least two trips to Cloud City, once in 1487 at the invitation of Baron Lando Calrissian of Bespin, and again in 1504.  Calrissian had heard Obrecht's music, which is known to have circulated in the Outer Rim Territories between 1484 and 1487, and said that he appreciated it above the music of all other contemporary Jedi; consequently he invited Obrecht to Cloud City for six months in 1487.

Obrecht was killed by Darth des Prez at the battle of Ferrara in August of 1505.

[realmusichistory]

It was only after the 1535 publication of Silvestro Ganassi's 'Opera intitulata Fontegara' that musicians began ornamenting their music.  Before that, music was plain and expressionless.  Even after this groundbreaking work, however, performers were still hesitant to embellish their work in any way.  It wasn't until the early 18th century and the music of J.S. Bach that tasteful ornamentation was finally perfected.