Music and History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Music and History - Essay Example Tower's works, moreover, evoke an energy, a use of color and texture which are uniquely her own, and which make them not only exciting to listen to, but continue the traditional lineage of Western art music (Scholes, 1979). Conductor Leonard Slatkin states that Tower's works come from the "roots" of the "traditional playing repertory. "He describes her work as being "a continuation of historical musical line, but late twentieth century work" (Slatkin, 1984, p. D3). As will be illustrated through reference to her works, with particular focus on Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, although Tower's music has strong ties to much of the music which came before her, through her use of orchestration, form and musical materials, her final product which combines these elements is not simply a repetition or imitation of what has been written, but an intertwining of these characteristics into the context of her own new musical work. Tower's practical process of dea... Her hands-on compositional process continued as she worked at the Greenwich Music School after she had graduated from Bennington, and with the Da Capo Chamber Players, a group which she co-founded, performed with and composed for from 1969 to 1984 (O'Brian, 1982; Tower, 1984; Humphrey, 1988). The sounds she heard were an ever present sound source for her own works. As she experienced music with the Da Capo players through study and performance of numerous pieces, these sounds came to be present in her own works, several of which were written especially for members of the ensemble whose performances and the sounds she heard them making in these performances were inspirational. Andre Emelianoff, a cellist from the Da Capo players for whom she wrote Music for Cello and Orchestra (1984), worked in close collaboration with Tower, allowing her to hear and work with the sounds of the instrument and the player making these sounds. She states, "We spent six months together meeting, working on bowing, on register. We really created this piece together" (Tower, 1984, n.p.). Wings is an excellent example of how the sounds to which Tower was listening affected her composition. As Humphrey (1982) explains, there is nothing new or revolutionary in her writing a solo clarinet piece. Rather, this work clearly shows the influence of Messiaen's well known piece for solo clarinet, "Abime des Oiseaux," the third movement of the Quatuor Pour La Fin Bu Temps. Although Wings was written many years after Messiaen's work, Tower acknowledges her debt to Messiaen stating that "his use of slow time is astounding in that piece. It is really quite a brilliant piece, and it's [a] very risky piece because of its slow terrain" (Humphrey, 1988) As well as drawing some of her

Waldseemller map Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Waldseemller map - Article Example r maps recorded in the 1500s such as Henricus Martellus or Martin Behaim maps that used the Geography (Ptolemy) and the Caveri planisphere, the Waldseemà ¼ller 1507 map gets right most of the mapping of the world mapping and tells us much about European knowledge of the world in the early sixteenth century. While the other maps during that time are ambiguous in representing the eastern coastline for Asia and Europe, the Waldseemà ¼ller 1507 map gets right by making a distinction those coastline from the American coastline (Hessler 63).The Waldseemà ¼ller map designates the existence of the trans-Atlantic region in Spain and the Asian Ptolemy as displayed on the Behaim globe representation in 1492. The Waldseemà ¼ller map of 1507 is today credited basically as the mother of all the other maps we use today as it has been used as a credible source for those maps. Waldseemà ¼ller’s world map is an important product of research effort that spans from the sixteen century. It was developed using resourceful data gathered during the era of the Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages between 1501 and 1502. Waldseemà ¼ller christened the "American" land in recognition of Vespucci’s data by uncovering a new continent namely America as a result of the Columbus voyages and other late fifteen century explorers (Hessler 75). The Waldseemà ¼ller’s map therefore, supported Vespucci’s revolutionary concept by portraying the New World. This is what the map tells us about European knowledge of the world in the early sixteenth because prior to it, the separate continent which the map represents was unknown to the Europeans. The map was the first manuscript that was printed clearly depicting a separate Western Hemisphere which it distinct from the Pacific Ocean and the African coastline (Hessler 76). The map gets all these aspects right and represents a huge spring forward in knowledge across Europe and it forever changed the European understanding which still remains today that the world is