As a means of facilitating communication with his audience, Peter Maxwell Davies employs parody technique. His works reflect both the OED definition of "a composition in which an author's characteristics are ridiculed by imitation" and the 16th-century definition, in which a chanson or motet was drawn upon for the Mass setting, either by using its theme as a cantus firmus or by subjecting the material to some more elaborate process of modification and fragmentation. An examination of the musico-dramatic structure of Davies's opera Taverner provides examples of both varieties of the technique.

Works: Peter Maxwell Davies: Taverner, St. Thomas Wake (Foxtrot for Orchestra) (21).

Sources: St. Thomas Wake (21), John Taverner: In Nomine (22), Gloria Tibi Trinitas (25), Davies: Second Fantasia on Taverner's 'In Nomine', Victimae Paschali Laudes (plainsong) (29).

Index Classifications:

Contributed by: Amy Weller

The enthusiasm the young Bartók displayed for the music of Richard Strauss is attested by the extent to which Bartók emulated the orchestral decorativeness as well as the déjà vu effect of Strauss. A deeper relationship also exists, demonstrated by Bartók's incorporation of harmonic and structural elements of Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra into his early operatic works, not so much for the surface effect as to underscore the philosophical kinship both composers shared with Nietzsche.

Works: Bartók: 14 Bagatelles (203), Suite No. 1 (204-5), Bluebeard's Castle (206), The Wooden Prince (207).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

This book examines the development of bebop from artistic, social, and commercial perspectives, beginning in the Swing Era and progressing through the 1940s. The repertory at jam sessions in the early 1940s was based primarily on a few familiar chord progressions, notably the blues, Gershwin's I Got Rhythm, and a handful of other pop song "standards" of which How High the Moon and Whispering were among the most frequently used. The economics of the recording industry promoted the composition of new melodies over existing chord progressions; having a new, colorful title would attract buyers, and by calling it a new work the record company could avoid paying royalties to the copyright owners of the song from which the chord progression was taken. In addition to using existing chord progressions in new songs, bebop musicians often borrowed material from each other and incorporated it into new compositions and arrangements. Moreover, musical borrowing in the form of quotation within improvised solos was both a ubiquitous and a controversial presence in bebop. Charlie Parker frequently inserted clearly recognizable quotations from jazz or popular sources into solos in live performance, but some performers criticized Parker for diluting his music. In other instances, European art music directly influenced jazz: stride pianists used materials from opera or "light classics" in a new idiom. For some bebop musicians, borrowing (or at least recognizing borrowings) was less important. Struggles over the definition of "the work" pervade any discussion of quotation in jazz, and such discussion must recognize the multiple "composers" at work in a jazz performance: the nominal composer who notates a song, and the improviser who re-composes the score in live performance.

Works: Thelonious Monk: The Theme (224), Rhythm-a-Ning (224), 52nd Street Theme (292), Hackensack (403): Dizzy Gillespie: Salt Peanuts (292, 421), Things to Come (433): Coleman Hawkins: Mop Mop (292, 306-7), Rainbow Mist (309), Father Co-operates (326), Bean at the Met (326), On the Bean (330), Stumpy (330), Rifftide (390), Bean Stalking (394), Too Much of a Good Thing (401), Bean Soup (403-5), Hollywood Stampede (404-5); Charlie Parker: Red Cross (307, 374); Benny Harris: Ornithology (323, 382); Howard McGhee: New Orleans Jump (362), Sportsman?s Hop (391, 393); Billy Eckstine: Good Jelly Blues (341-3, 424); Jerome Kern: All the Things You Are (342-43, 424).

Sources: George Gershwin: I Got Rhythm (203, 224, 292, 305, 306-7, 326, 374, 421), Lady Be Good (390, 403); Nancy Hamilton and Morgan Lewis: How High the Moon (305, 323, 326, 382); John Schonberger, Malvin Schonberger, and Richard Coburn: Whispering (305, 330); Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, Frank Eyton, and Johnny Green: Body and Soul (309); Dizzy Gillespie: Salt Peanuts (326-28), Be-Bop (362, 404-5, 433), Groovin' High (403-5); Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C-Sharp Minor (342-43, 424); Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka (360n); Benny Goodman, Edgar Sampson, Clarence Profit, and Walter Hirsch: Lullaby in Rhythm (391, 393); Jesse A. Stone: Idaho (394); Kay Swift and Paul James: Fine and Dandy (401); Ben Bernie, Ken Casey, and Maceo Pinkard: Sweet Georgia Brown (404-5); Benny Harris: Ornithology (404-5); Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar: Tea for Two (405); Billy Eckstine: Good Jelly Blues (424).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Paul Killinger, Amy Weller

In evaluations of Liszt's works his keyboard transcriptions and paraphrases are often ignored or considered only for their advances in pianistic techique. The analyses of three paraphrases, all composed in 1841 and called Reminiscences, reveal Liszt's unique formal approach to each. His results superseded mere objective recounting of popular themes; instead, Liszt produced condensed, subjective interpretations of the original operatic works, expressed in pure keyboard style.

Works: Liszt: Reminiscences de Norma (132-36), Reminiscences de Don Juan (136-39), Reminiscences de Robert le Diable (140-47).

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

Pfitzner's opera about Palestrina's divinely inspired act of composing the Pope Marcellus Mass upholds the musical tradition of the Wagnerian music drama and the philosophical tradition of Schopenhauer. A quotation from the Pope Marcellus Mass, the Kyrie eleison head-motive, provides the structural and philosophical cornerstone of the work. Pfitzner's theory of composition based on divine musical inspiration receives its finest realization in the first act of the opera, which focuses on Palestrina's reception of that head-motive.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

An analysis of Günter Bialas's Meyerbeer-Paraphrasen for orchestra (1970) demonstrates the composer's technique and his ability to infuse it with twentieth-century ideas. References are made to melodic, harmonic, and structural material from Meyerbeer's opera Le Prophète within a tightly organized six-part formal scheme. Bialas intended his piece to be understood as a concert fantasy about the historical kind of paraphrase, a "skeptical apotheosis" of the nineteenth-century model.

Works: Günter Bialas: Meyerbeer-Paraphrasen.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

Falla is distinguished for having brought Spanish music into the 20th century through his move away from the romantic-impressionistic tradition, in which folk elements are merely stylized, to a neo-classic musical language in which folk elements serve as the basis for composition. Falla's innovations include developments in rhythm, harmony and form. Each of these, "internal rhythm," "Harmonic resonance," and modification of classical schemes, is discussed in reference to his Harpsichord Concerto, which treats a 15th-century Castilian folksong, De los alamos vengo.

Works: Falla: Harpsichord Concerto.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

Falla represents both the culmination of Spanish nationalism and the instigation of Spanish modernism. His works are divided into four periods: to 1907, student years and the emergence of national feelings; 1907-1914, Paris influences; 1914-1919, climax of nationalistic tendencies; and 1920-1946, move away from nationalism to new forms based on the Spanish classical tradition. In the first two periods, represented by works such as El amor brujo and the Three-Cornered Hat, Falla demonstrated the possibilities for incorporating Andalusian folk music, of whose Byzantine, Moorish, and gypsy influences he made an extensive study. In the last period, his preoccupation with the realization of the national spirit gave way to a more severe classical idiom, represented by works such as El retablo de Maese Pedro and the Harpsichord Concerto, which incorporated music from the Spanish Renaissance.

Works: Falla: El amor brujo (26-27), Three-Cornered Hat (27-28), Nights in the Gardens of Spain (28-29), El retablo de Maese Pedro (28), Harpsichord Concerto (28), L'Atlantida (28-29).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

Falla's friend Pahissa provides an account of the development of the composer's musical life through a series of anecdotal descriptions of their encounters. Each of Falla's most significant works receives an independent, if brief, descriptive analysis, in which Falla's change from an evocative Spanish idiom to a more severe, abstract universal idiom is noted. The use of folksong quotations (which are mentioned without documentation) changes in accord with style changes. In earlier works, folksongs and folk sounds are used for their picturesque qualities. In the later works, they are subjected to classical developmental techniques.

Works: Falla: Four Spanish Pieces (50-53), Seven Popular Songs (76-79), El amor brujo (87-91), Nights in the Gardens of Spain (93-96), The Three-Cornered Hat (98-104), Hommage pour le tombeau de Debussy (112-13), El retablo de maese Pedro (126-29), Harpsichord Concerto (137-38), Homenajes (145-47).

Index Classifications: 1800s, 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

The formal and spiritual continuity of Davies's style is demonstrated through examination of two works, Worldes Blis and Stone Litany, in relation to their earlier counterparts, Taverner 2 and Revelation and Fall.Worldes Blis, which is based upon the same In Nomine setting by Taverner as Taverner 2, parallels the surface form of Taverner 2 to its halfway point and then "masks" the material from the second half. Discussed in terms of emotional content, Stone Litany provides a cold, hard look at the same image discussed by Revelation and Fall.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

Davies is praised for his use of gesture and for his uninhibited re-use of music of the past, especially that of the medieval period. The existing music that he incorporates becomes increasingly obvious to the ear as his style matures. In his early works, he obscures the borrowed material by fragmentation, serial procedures, and complex canonic techniques. The borrowed material begins to be readily audible with Antechrist. In this work, the 13th-century motet, Deo confitemini, is reorchestrated and stated boldly at the outset. The juxtaposition of it with completely original music of Davies within a single work provides the key to the composer's originality.

Works: Davies: Alma Redemptoris Mater (3), Shakespeare Music (3), St. Michael (3), Ecce Manus Tradentis (3), Taverner Fantasias (3), Antechrist (3), L'Homme Armé (3-4).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

Discusses the methodological change in making "music about music" which was introduced by Stravinsky around 1920. The concept of creating an updated and/or "improved" setting for familiar thematic material is exemplified here by Baroque practice and related to the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century vogue involving both salon pieces and serious variation sets and fantasies. The musical goal of all such works, that is, the exhibition of artistry through inventive development of recognizable material, finds its inversion in the trend, eventually termed Neo-Classicism, of the twentieth-century. Therein new thematic materials, and even new musical languages, could be introduced by placing them within recognizable, traditional structural frameworks.

Works: Bach: Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 579, Organ Pieces on Themes by Corelli, BWV 579, Organ Pieces on Themes by Legrenzi, BWV 574; Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Handel, Variations on a Theme by Haydn; Fortner: Elegies for Piano; Hindemith: Ludus Tonalis, Neues vom Tage; Reger: Prelude and Fugue in G Major for Violin Solo, Op. 117, No. 5, String Trio in A Minor, Op. 77b; Stravinsky: Piano Sonata (1924), Pulcinella.

Index Classifications: General, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

The fundamental distinguishing characteristics of the Andalusian folk tradition are the use of guitar with its unique rhythmic and harmonic possibilities, the use of the cante jondo, especially its la, sol, fa, mi cadential figure, and the use of an internal pedal. Falla, following Debussy's example, imbedded these traits within the fabric of his music to create works which expressed fully the spirit of southern Spain. Falla acknowledged his debt to Debussy by quoting from his piano works in Homenajes.

Works: Falla: Homenajes (149).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

Kodály acknowledged Hungary's musical debt to Debussy in the obituary he wrote for him in the Nyugat. Kodály paid musical tribute to Debussy in certain of his works by adopting modal melodic structures, harmonic turns, and constructural models of specific works of the Frenchman. The deeper significance of Debussy's influence lay beyond these similarities and extended into the nationalistic stance made possible by the non-Germanic methods of Debussy. He inspired Kodály to search for the form and musical language which could reflect his country's folk and historical traditions as distinct from academic Western art music.

Works: Kodály: Seven Piano Pieces (46), Nausikka (48), String Quartet No. 1 (50).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Amy Weller

Though Bach's influence on Mendelssohn has been accepted and documented, the pervasive influence of Handel deserves greater attention. Mendelssohn quoted Handel directly; for example, he took the subject of Handel's overture Semele for his E Minor fugue for piano. He also used Handel's choruses, with their vocally grateful melodies and transparent polyphony, as models for his own works. The intimate connection between the two composers is demonstrated by Mendelssohn's efforts to perform, edit, and publish the music of Handel.

Works: Mendelssohn: Fugue in E Minor for Piano, Op. 35, No. 1 (175), St. Paul (175).

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Amy Weller