Tears came into my eyes when you said that it’s worth composing if your piece is meaningful to you. Absolutely! Music is a language and don’t we all speak someone else’s language? It’s what you have to say and how clearly you can express it that makes it meaningful or not. Thank you for addressing and clarifying this topic which has been sorely needed for the past one hundred years!
To use your language analogy, a person today writing music 'in a baroque style' is a bit like a person today speaking 17th century English, or writing a novel in that style. It's very difficult to believe you're being sincere, and you can't blame people for thinking you're joking or being pretentious.
@@paranoidlawyer Music is transparent. It (generally) does not rely on preconceived ideas like a language. For example, in the English language, the word "grape" means a very specific thing, whereas in music a G minor chord sounds a certain way (and composers have used that sound in certain contexts to convey certain emotions and ideas), but the G minor chord does not have a specific symbolic meaning assigned to it. While music is based on established forms such as sonatas, concertos or symphonies, that is like how writing uses established forms like essays, novels etc. And while the style of music has changed over time, it is the same that the style of writing (even in using the same words) has changed over time. So, the original commenter is correct. Just because music is old-fashioned does not mean it is outdated and incomprehensible in the same way that 17th century English speaking practice is today, since music is primarily aesthetic and not implied in meaning. THIS is why music is called "a universal language"--because even if there are many things that are helped by specific cultural context, it still stands that the basic meaning of a piece can be perceived independently of any previous knowledge based on time in history or location. A foreigner does not need a dictionary to understand music, unlike someone would need a dictionary to understand a foreign language.
Thank you EarlyMusicSources particularly ElamRotem. I learned so much! Fascinating the clash of formula and deviation, practicality and poetry. I now re-watch and sometimes re-re-watch. a real junkee..😂
As a period composer, primarily of Latin liturgical music, and primarily in 16th century polyphonic style (Palestrina) with occasional travels into 18th century Austria (Mozart/Salieri), I can attest to what can be learned from composition in a given manner and how that then informs and transforms the way one looks at old music: For one, it seems somehow less old and foreign and more contemporary, since one can, if you will, speak with the composer in his own language, without the aid of a translator.
When I was an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Purchase (now Purchase College) we had a wonderful and well known organist/composer/professor - Anthony Newman. He designed a series of courses that I've never seen at any other college - known as MODELS I-IV. For Models I all the students would study the works of the Medieval period from Plainsong through Machaut and compose works in the style. Models II would focus on composers of the Renaissance and early Baroque etc. It is something that I still employ as a Professor of Harmony - study works from the literature and then compose pieces in the style. It has turned many of my students from performers to performer-composers.
Anthony Newman was one of my favorite interpreters of Bach when I was growing up in New York. If for nothing else, the way he would thumb his nose at ridged twentieth century performance dogma. This is something us early music performers still often have to deal with. He was also briefly our choir director after our organist passed away, way too early. Unfortunately for me, this was after I had left NY. I would have loved to sing under his direction.
'Joseph and his Brethren' sounds gorgeous! I can vouch for the educational value, for a student, of composing in a period style. With the guidance of a knowledgeable teacher it can be a real revelation of how the music of that period worked and hence is useful knowledge for compositions in any style.
It is a supremely gorgeous and expressive piece, I agree. I was in tears when I first heard it. I could not believe at first that it was written by a person living in this century. Thank you, Elam!
I am reminded of the popular Oboe Concerto by Domenico Cimarosa in C major/C minor that is actually an arrangement by Arthur Benjamin. In AllMusic, Rita Laurance writes: "In 1949, Arthur Benjamin took four of his favorite keyboard sonatas of Cimarosa and combined them into the larger concerto form. He rewrote the pieces, scoring them for oboe and string orchestra, keeping most of the melody in the solo voice."
Another exquisite episode, thank you! When I was younger, I wanted to compose in the styles - roughly speaking - of Ockeghem, Byrd, and Monteverdi, three of my favourite 'pre-Bach' composers. And I did dabble a bit along those lines, but at the time many of my colleagues ridiculed my 'little projects' as a waste of time or even that I was being disingenuous. And to be clear, I never had any intention of wishing to pass off any of this work as original to that period. So I did compose sections of pieces that I never shared with anyone. As you suggest here, one of the many benefits of having done so was experiencing a blessed surprise when I realised I had actually come to understand original period pieces far better than I had before. It was like spending time in a beautiful building with many rooms, but then suddenly coming upon a door that opens onto a magnificent landscape that provides a setting the makes the building all the more beautiful and contextually meaningful. Cheers!
For the audience to captivated by the composition... isn't that what so many of us wish for? Both as composers and performers, to enchant our listeners, to bring them with us into the music and to share with them our joy? I feel like every musician throughout the ages has had that hope, sought that joy and enchantment. Wonderfully done as always! I have been very pleased to introduce your work, and this channel, to friends of mine who are also "music nerds" as we like to call ourselves. Especially my friend who understands Hebrew; she told me your music made her weep.
I'm glad to see a non-judgmental treatment of this subject. What is sometimes deprecated by the derogatory term "pastiche" is, in my opinion, just as valid as compositions that were written between the years of the original period. Why a particular piece's value should be limited to its historical authenticity is a mystery. If, for example, Elam wrote what we know as Haydn's Seasons oratorio yesterday (and Haydn never had), I would enjoy it just as much as I do the actual oratorio we know. It would be very strange if I didn't. Music is music. Aesthetics and biography are two different things.
Another period composer I can really recommend a listen to, is Italian flutist and musicologist Federico Maria Sardelli. He’s written some absolutely fabulous works in a baroque Italian style that reminisces of Corelli, Tartini and Vivaldi❣️
I started studying period composition in late French baroque style on my own. I bought some books, picked early scores, listened to Dieupart, Rameau, Francoeur, Philidor, Corrette, and others. Now I have some pieces for traverso and alto recorder solos that include a couple of French suites, some passacailles, chaconnes, allemandes, ouvertures, courantes, marches, vaudevilles totally made from scratch. Now I am studying Italian galant style and partimento.
Elam, I have been to your performance of Josef and his brethren at the early music festival in Utrecht and was utterly blown away. I really see what you mean with seeing the composition for itself and not the hype, to paraphrase it, because that was what it was for me too. Nobody telling me it was good, and me telling everyone it was awesome afterwards. If you're ever performing nearby again I'll be sure to get a ticket, especially if it's your own composition.
I think it’s a vastly important thing to do today, why should people be ashamed to compose in timeless style? New composition brings life to these beautiful styles!
Yes, the volume of compliments this has already attracted is fully justified. I really like this channel for its professionalism tinged with a little fun. This video I thought was particularly good - full of interest and offering a new angle on aspects of early music. I particularly liked the comparisons with literature and art: IMO. we don't get enough comparative work on the different arts.
I can say from experience that period composition is an extremely enriching exercise. I had not thought so much of the performance aspects of such endeavors until now. Thank you, Elam! Especially for the encouragement to "go for it" :)
Such an enlightening and informing video. Last year I had the great pleasure to hear Elam Rotem with the Profeti della Quinta in francophone Switzerland. It was just stunning dedication and musicianship.
You read my mind! I woke up this morning thinking "it's about time EMS puts out a video". An hour later there you are! I have coffee and half an hour to spare. Lovely!
Very interesting content as always! I would like to add Vladimir F. Vavilov to the list, who composed in different old stiles in post war Soviet Union. His album «Lute Music from the 16th-17th centuries» deeply impressed me in my youth and was an important factor for my interest in Early Music - only to learn much later that most of the pieces were composed by Vavilov himself.
Thank you for a fantastic overview of the history of period composition and of many of the issues surrounding it. I gave a couple of conference talks on this some years ago, but yours is a much more detailed and better researched summary. I will certainly share this video with my students (German subtitles would be great at some point) as I believe the historical segment gives much insight on the context of 19th-century historicism which has had such a fundamental impact on Western musical culture, not just on the repertoire played in most concert halls but also on the composition of new music since at least the late 19th century. In that sense I do feel that there is a continuum or spectrum which ranges from period composition as you define it, all the way to the creation of new compositional styles and techniques, whether these sonically refer back to the "époque classique" (as in much French Neoclassicism including some Stravinsky) or not, as in the radically new interpretation of Baroque dance forms in Schoenberg's Suite op. 25 or even in the consistent adoption of constructivist techniques from early Renaissance music and Bach, such as the use of intervallic inversion and retrograde in the Second Viennese School (the name of which is also a clear backward-looking reference of course). I have certainly encountered knee-jerk reactions along the lines of "it's just copying, not composition" countless times, including after one of my conference talks. The term "composition" (from Latin "componere" = put together) is, however, wonderfully vague. The commentator and amateur musician Roger North in the early 18th century rather reflects the prevailing attitude of his time when he writes that "it is not to be expected that a master [at improvisation] invents all he plays in that manner. No, he doth but play over those passages that are in his memory and habituall to him ... [so it] will appear as a new work of a good composer, of whom the best ... more or less borrows ayre from those that went before him". Of course, composers in the tradition of Webern and the Darmstadt School often use the term "composition" not just to describe an activity (the act of composing) but as a synonym for what could often also be deemed a piece or musical "work" all the while attempting to avoid the baggage of the "work concept". If "period composition" is not composition, what about so-called "arrangements" such as those in Stravinsky's Pulcinella or Michael Nyman's film music for The Draughtsman's Contract, or even Giazotto's Adagio? What about music that straddles the lines, so to speak, such as Schnittke's 1st symphony or, much more extreme, George Rochberg's Music for The Magic Theater? Does "Act 2" of the latter start as merely a copy of Mozart (perhaps with the vague uncertainty of whether it actually is Mozart, an arrangement of Mozart or something else) and only becomes a "composition" ("real music"?) after more than six minutes, with barely a minute left to play, ironically announced by a muted trumpet and a quotation of the iconic start of Webern's Konzert op. 24? Again, thank you for your wonderful contribution, which I believe serves as an excellent introduction to this fascinating and complex topic.
As always, a fabulous video. So many leads to now follow up... Your ideas have me cheering yes yes yes! A complete breath of fresh air. One other example is those composers who got so old that their music became 'period composition' in later life - as in Richard Strauss, and perhaps Saint-Saens.
Thank you, Elam. This episode brought you, as a person and as artist, nearer to the audience and therefor is one of the best and most interesting episodes in my opinion. You are a treasure.
This fascinating topic puts composition, improvisation, musicology, the early music movement, pastiche, facsimile etc and even forgery with reference to period styles on it's head. A wonderful presentation YET AGAIN from Elam Rotem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I could imagine that writing in an old style could be a task someone sometimes faces when he is asked to write music for a movie. Because when the story takes place in another century this could be expected.
As a so called "period composer", I have seen that the majority of living composers are desperate to find their own original style and contribute to the future of music history. I have personally never found this mindset appealing. Of course I'm going to write the same kind of music as the one I like to perform and listen to, that makes sense, does it not? I have had some people call my works "pastiches", but I believe it's important for oneself as a composer to ignore these claims and continue writing the things one wants to write. Copying others to any degree is inevitable, and even alright if done properly. If I lived in the 18th century my music would have been regarded as original, so why shouldn't it be considered as original today too? Regardless of style, a composition is one's original handiwork! Thank you for this most relevant and fantastic video, Elam! I suggest you to perhaps analyse one of your hebrew sacred works in a future video (perhaps the lamentation of David), because they are absolutely gorgeous!
Well said :). I think being original is also inevitable. This preoccupation with "originality" is a form of short-sightedness. People mistakenly believe this is what will make them famous and they even more mistakenly believe it is what makes music great.
Wow... feel a strong affinity for your own period compositions❤. Did not realize now many musician composers choose period style compositions. Certainly not the case 30 years ago at university when and a composition student had to be more avant garde. I rejected that then and still do, letting my ears and mind decide.
One could add Mozart's re-orchestration of Handel's Messiah which can still be found. Also, there were a large number of compositions in 'prima prattica' by such diverse late Baroque composers as A. Scarlatti and Buxtehude. In fact I see Buxtehude's 'Membra Jesu Nostri' as a homage to the slightly older Carissimi. Then there's Monteverdi's six part parody Mass (after Gombert) in 16th c. style included in the publication of 1610 along with the 'seconda prattica' Vespers.
What a contentious topic. My favorite. I compose music in the late French Baroque style, but I have leaned back to Lully when requested to. I consider French Baroque music my “mother tongue,” and if I were asked to compose in any other style I, presently, would be unable to. I do not care for the word “pastiche,” as applied to my music, as I am not imitating a composer or style. Rather, I have absorbed the style and am creating music as a French Baroque composer. I make French Baroque music because I believe it is the best, highest quality music that exists, in melody, harmony, and form. Because once I ran out of Rameau operas, I needed another source. It’s not an addiction guys!
I believe the reason why period composing commonly applies to baroque or renaissance music is that it was deeply different from ours (modal music, different conception of rhythm, different conception of harmony in general). It's not that baroque "evolved" into classical music, it just died. So some people just want to revive that lost tradition.
Yes!! I call it the “great simplification,” great in scale, not in goodness. Classical music took the contrapuntal melody and bass, and discarded the other voices, making the textures as simple as possible, thus destroying the richness that was present in the music. The classical minuet, for example, is a shadow of what it once was. I got briefly confused when reading your comment, as I consider my music to be French Baroque music, and modern music, be it pop, jazz, or something else, to be not my own at all. Perhaps it is that so few other people want to claim Baroque music that I feel like it can be my own. ;)
I’m glad to see period composition being accepted by performers and audiences. I have always been irritated by the, ‘above the rest of the world’ contemporary composers, who immediately turn their noses up at anything remotely tonal. As if all art should be paint randomly splashed on canvas. In music school, I was taught that we move from one period to the next, when all the possibilities of the current period have been exhausted. This is why Colleges keep music and science majors in separate buildings. Why do some people compose beautiful music? Because they can!
As a Baroque lover, it's such a precious gift to be provided with examples of living composers creating music inspired by the era of music I cherish! Might I add that I am a big fan of Matthias Maute's compositions as well!
An excellent upload - from all aspects: history, musicology, performance vs. composing (past and now), comparison to the art world, etc. But the most important advantage of this upload is in the thought and philosophical challenge that Elam Rotem poses to us: that of the essence and justification (or non-justification) of the periodic composition. Bravo!
One period composition that I performed in many years ago was Domenico Scarlatti's Missa for 4 Voices aka Misa de Madrid, which mostly proceeds in an older style (I thought at the time that it being a capella it was imitation Renaissance, but on a re-listen, it's maybe inspired by Schütz?) while occasionally jumping forward a century to nearer Scarlatti's day, catching out the unwary chorister!
Fantastic video, Elam. it's a fascinating topic! The period composer that came to my mind while watching was Willem Ceuleers. I love his Renaissance Style compositions.
Fascinating and beautiful music. I do wish my sister were still alive. She received her degree inusicology and focused on the German works. She certainly would have been following your scholarly presentaments. Creating (composing) and making new music in a traditional way was what she wanted to do, but she was suddenly taken away on a trip to Germany in 2012. It is interesting to observe the shredding of the present plagiarists in academic circles who do so with great abandon. Let us hope that those who study and use the knowledge in music history are more careful to credit the source of the beautiful works they create. May you guide the effort for all to follow.
As an amateur period composer myself, you put into words my exact thoughts on it's value as a tool for a better understanding of music styles from "within". A knowledge that has later been proven useful for me when it comes to musical analysis on actual period pieces. Amazing content as always Elam!
Elam, I saw your group in San Diego last year. I loved your composition! Nuova Pratica is another group I came across recently. There are still so many fugues yet to be written!
Rolfgang Bamadeus Pozart - man I love the humor sprinkled in to all your videos! Pretty obvious someone grew up with Futurama, and dare I assume, Simpsons
I really appreciate your work, Elam! In that sente my PhD is demonstration of the necessity and how to compose brass parts for 18th century first half music. תודה!
Just like Alessandro Parisotti, who actually composed some of the old Italian songs he published. They are luscious. Frankly, the increase in period composition may well be a key of promise that might help revivify “classical” music.
Wonderful episode, Elam! I've been a composer for as long as I can remember. In my early years, I wrote many pieces in the style of 15th, 16th, and 17th century composers. Most of my work is for church choirs and small early music ensembles. I still prefer to write in renaissance and baroque styles; but, lately, I've had to write in more contemporary styles for some choirs. I enjoy your videos very much. Thanks so much for sharing your incredible talent.
This is right up my alley! I compose for fun and not a professional by any means but very inspired by the 17th & 18thC. I definitely use elements from those eras but made a conscious decision not to make 'copies' of the styles. But now I'm learning proper counterpoint so that may change hehe. Thanks for a another great video Elam!
How interesting that you uploaded this the very day that I premiered with a viol consort, a piece that I had composed in the style of the Renaissance while combining it with the Indian raga system.
I very often delve into writing music in Renaissance or Baroque style - I've arrived to the point of writing an entire Mass in the style of the late Flemish School ( ruclips.net/p/PLQAlFumYxVd4-7-s6PiGUCIj4IZqBb4U- ), and once a set of organ Intonations by mine ( ruclips.net/p/PLQAlFumYxVd4J9zMNaqfstVVvwoaTSecP ) even made it into an Early Music Playlist! Sometimes I ask myself if this isn't more akin to "fan fiction"/"fan art". But I actually think this style is the one I'm best at, and that writing in style teaches about the music of the period like nothing else.
Very interesting and very informative! Finally I know who wrote the Adagio attributed to Albinoni! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Your composition is beautiful and rich!
Great work. Thanks! I wish you reviewed also Parisotti's Arie Antiche. His Se tu m'ami is falsely attributed to Pergolesi, and many still mistake it for a real aria by Pergolesi.
That was both entertaining, educational and uplifting! Congrats for the time you spent on this. The 3 excerpts in the end could even have been a tiny bit longer, but maybe you have to juggle with copyrights and fair use I guess. I can simply investigate each of the authors (including you) you mentionned.
The operatic excerpt near the end was rather “Mozart by numbers” with strong Schauspieldirektor notes, but this was an excellent post! Really liked the other two examples - your Joseph excerpt comes off beautifully.
Two challenging and delightful solo viola concerti were composed by the brothers Casadesus, yet were published as “Handel” and “JC Bach” despite not having anything to do with the two. The two brothers were VERy active in the early instrument movement in the late 19th century in paris, founding the society of ancient instruments there. It is yet undetermined whether one should commend them or simply tip their hats for their efforts.
Interesting video! It reminds me the many attempts to complete unfinished symphonies , for example bruckner attempts to complete the four mouvement of his nine symphony.
The first period composer I remember is Miguel Andrade Gomes back around the year 2000. His midi files are unfortunately now very hard to find. There is some of his music on soundclick. I haven't heard his music in more than 20 years but going to soundclick I still remember his works like yesterday.
Great video!! I think that it's now time for Kunst der Fugue video to be next:)
7 месяцев назад
Thank you for yet another masterful video! One point that I expected to hear about more is the use of period composition in the teaching of music theory. The first example that comes to my mind is Renaissance counterpoint, and the many generations of students that were (and are) tasked with writing music according to some version of the rules of that style. The video does mention Palestrina as the first composer to be explicitly imitated by later admirers - it seems that the practice has endured to this day. More broadly, I would love a video on how composing has been taught over the centuries. How did Machaut learn music? Who taught Palestrina counterpoint? I want to know!
Thanks for sharing. A few comments: 1. Cassado's attribution claim of his Toccata for Cello and Piano to Girolamo Frescobaldi is particularly egregious, because the work bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to Frescobaldi's actual style. Frescobaldi was a Renaissance composer, yet that Toccata is written in a remarkably Romantic-influenced pseudo-Baroque idiom. Furthermore, Cassado has produced a "concert edition" of Schubert's "Arpeggione" sonata, originally for arpeggione (an obsolete instrument that is essentially a bowed guitar) and piano, but dramatically rewritten as a Romantic-styled concerto for cello and orchestra. 2. I used to believe Giazotto's "reconstruction" claims had at least some truth to them, until I learned about how his "biography" of the Italian Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella was later discovered to entirely consist of fabricated information, which definitely puts his claims about Albinoni in hot water. 3. There have been other fascinating modern-era attempts at reconstructing unfinished works in a... (ahem) highly liberal manner, such as Schnittke's Piano Quartet (after the unfinished second movement of Mahler's Piano Quartet), Schnittke's "Moz-Art a la Haydn" (after music written for a pantomime by Mozart for which only the first violin part survives), or Berio's "Rendering" (after the sketches for Schubert's Symphony No. 10 in D major), which nonetheless make no effort to claim them as an authentic reconstruction of what would've been the original. What are your thoughts on those, and have you listened to them? 4. The late Peter Schickele (RIP) went an entire step further and parodied the entire concept of reconstructing / rediscovering earlier music with his fictitious composer "P.D.Q. Bach", an alleged long-lost son of Johann Sebastian.
Great video as always!! Hayne's book is great (and fun) for period practice enthusiasts. Especially when he goes on his rants against the canonic overplayed repertoire and other rigid conservative practices.
You may enlarge this video with a section of "formerly attributed to ...." pieces. It doesn´t take anything from the music when we finally find out that it was not written by the composer we thought it was. It only makes it an occasion for conversation, if it´s not useless knowledge all together. With my choir we are learning "Ave Maria" (not) by Giuilo Caccini. It´s a lovely piece of music!
Very informative and enthusiastic program on Period MC, Elam Rotem !!! When talking about a piece of music written in a historical style, some people use the term "pastiche," despectively, as if saying such work is a "poor imitation" of a given style. But, if there is no autonomous "style police" to judge period pieces, then I wonder if no meaningful difference between "pastiche" and period composition exists, only perhaps, degrees of "purity." We don't have Zarlino, Fux, or Albrechtsberger, in person, critiquing our work, so I guess our current skillset (craft) and comparison to historical models stand (as intimated by Erik Schroeder) as the only valid viewpoints. One of my old professors of 18th-century counterpoint liked to use the term "approximatura" to make us realize we unknowingly "deviated from practice" by writing a NCT "foreign" to 18th-C. music .... There are many great reasons for writing Period MC and I especially like what you list as #4 (deepening knowledge). Also, taken together, modal and tonal polyphony account for hundreds of years of cultural heritage and thus their "historical weight" (importance) is huge. Learning about the partimenti and solfeggio tradition has shown that music is composed of both, artesanal (e.g. schemes "in stock") as well as artistic (how a skeletal pattern is used) elements. Therefore, "saving" these modal and tonal traditions is as important as preserving an old pottery tradition .... Though, I understand your argument that, in the end, the attributes of devotion, expressiveness, meaning, audience, etc., are more important than stylistic correctness ....
I love to compose using various early music styles as well. I have a canon on soundcloud called "my end is my beginning" (by geof morgan). It is a bi-modal retrograde canon in 3 voices.
Tears came into my eyes when you said that it’s worth composing if your piece is meaningful to you. Absolutely! Music is a language and don’t we all speak someone else’s language? It’s what you have to say and how clearly you can express it that makes it meaningful or not. Thank you for addressing and clarifying this topic which has been sorely needed for the past one hundred years!
I don’t think you made any points.
To use your language analogy, a person today writing music 'in a baroque style' is a bit like a person today speaking 17th century English, or writing a novel in that style. It's very difficult to believe you're being sincere, and you can't blame people for thinking you're joking or being pretentious.
@@paranoidlawyer Music is transparent. It (generally) does not rely on preconceived ideas like a language. For example, in the English language, the word "grape" means a very specific thing, whereas in music a G minor chord sounds a certain way (and composers have used that sound in certain contexts to convey certain emotions and ideas), but the G minor chord does not have a specific symbolic meaning assigned to it. While music is based on established forms such as sonatas, concertos or symphonies, that is like how writing uses established forms like essays, novels etc. And while the style of music has changed over time, it is the same that the style of writing (even in using the same words) has changed over time. So, the original commenter is correct. Just because music is old-fashioned does not mean it is outdated and incomprehensible in the same way that 17th century English speaking practice is today, since music is primarily aesthetic and not implied in meaning. THIS is why music is called "a universal language"--because even if there are many things that are helped by specific cultural context, it still stands that the basic meaning of a piece can be perceived independently of any previous knowledge based on time in history or location. A foreigner does not need a dictionary to understand music, unlike someone would need a dictionary to understand a foreign language.
Thank you EarlyMusicSources particularly ElamRotem.
I learned so much! Fascinating the clash of formula and deviation, practicality and poetry.
I now re-watch and sometimes re-re-watch. a real junkee..😂
As a period composer, primarily of Latin liturgical music, and primarily in 16th century polyphonic style (Palestrina) with occasional travels into 18th century Austria (Mozart/Salieri), I can attest to what can be learned from composition in a given manner and how that then informs and transforms the way one looks at old music: For one, it seems somehow less old and foreign and more contemporary, since one can, if you will, speak with the composer in his own language, without the aid of a translator.
When I was an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Purchase (now Purchase College) we had a wonderful and well known organist/composer/professor - Anthony Newman. He designed a series of courses that I've never seen at any other college - known as MODELS I-IV. For Models I all the students would study the works of the Medieval period from Plainsong through Machaut and compose works in the style. Models II would focus on composers of the Renaissance and early Baroque etc. It is something that I still employ as a Professor of Harmony - study works from the literature and then compose pieces in the style. It has turned many of my students from performers to performer-composers.
Anthony Newman was one of my favorite interpreters of Bach when I was growing up in New York. If for nothing else, the way he would thumb his nose at ridged twentieth century performance dogma. This is something us early music performers still often have to deal with. He was also briefly our choir director after our organist passed away, way too early. Unfortunately for me, this was after I had left NY. I would have loved to sing under his direction.
@@ralphmarshall1000He is the gentlest of souls.
Hey, and what about models III and IV? You left us cliff-hanging..
'Joseph and his Brethren' sounds gorgeous! I can vouch for the educational value, for a student, of composing in a period style. With the guidance of a knowledgeable teacher it can be a real revelation of how the music of that period worked and hence is useful knowledge for compositions in any style.
It is a supremely gorgeous and expressive piece, I agree. I was in tears when I first heard it. I could not believe at first that it was written by a person living in this century. Thank you, Elam!
I am reminded of the popular Oboe Concerto by Domenico Cimarosa in C major/C minor that is actually an arrangement by Arthur Benjamin. In AllMusic, Rita Laurance writes: "In 1949, Arthur Benjamin took four of his favorite keyboard sonatas of Cimarosa and combined them into the larger concerto form. He rewrote the pieces, scoring them for oboe and string orchestra, keeping most of the melody in the solo voice."
Wonderful video, Elam! Thank you very much for letting me be a part of it!
Another exquisite episode, thank you! When I was younger, I wanted to compose in the styles - roughly speaking - of Ockeghem, Byrd, and Monteverdi, three of my favourite 'pre-Bach' composers. And I did dabble a bit along those lines, but at the time many of my colleagues ridiculed my 'little projects' as a waste of time or even that I was being disingenuous. And to be clear, I never had any intention of wishing to pass off any of this work as original to that period. So I did compose sections of pieces that I never shared with anyone. As you suggest here, one of the many benefits of having done so was experiencing a blessed surprise when I realised I had actually come to understand original period pieces far better than I had before. It was like spending time in a beautiful building with many rooms, but then suddenly coming upon a door that opens onto a magnificent landscape that provides a setting the makes the building all the more beautiful and contextually meaningful. Cheers!
For the audience to captivated by the composition... isn't that what so many of us wish for? Both as composers and performers, to enchant our listeners, to bring them with us into the music and to share with them our joy? I feel like every musician throughout the ages has had that hope, sought that joy and enchantment.
Wonderfully done as always! I have been very pleased to introduce your work, and this channel, to friends of mine who are also "music nerds" as we like to call ourselves. Especially my friend who understands Hebrew; she told me your music made her weep.
I'm glad to see a non-judgmental treatment of this subject.
What is sometimes deprecated by the derogatory term "pastiche" is, in my opinion, just as valid as compositions that were written between the years of the original period.
Why a particular piece's value should be limited to its historical authenticity is a mystery.
If, for example, Elam wrote what we know as Haydn's Seasons oratorio yesterday (and Haydn never had), I would enjoy it just as much as I do the actual oratorio we know. It would be very strange if I didn't.
Music is music. Aesthetics and biography are two different things.
Another period composer I can really recommend a listen to, is Italian flutist and musicologist Federico Maria Sardelli. He’s written some absolutely fabulous works in a baroque Italian style that reminisces of Corelli, Tartini and Vivaldi❣️
Also, harpsichordist Michele Barchi 😊
I started studying period composition in late French baroque style on my own. I bought some books, picked early scores, listened to Dieupart, Rameau, Francoeur, Philidor, Corrette, and others. Now I have some pieces for traverso and alto recorder solos that include a couple of French suites, some passacailles, chaconnes, allemandes, ouvertures, courantes, marches, vaudevilles totally made from scratch. Now I am studying Italian galant style and partimento.
I would love to be able to listen to your pieces! I also compose in French Baroque style, so I’m very interested!
Elam, I have been to your performance of Josef and his brethren at the early music festival in Utrecht and was utterly blown away. I really see what you mean with seeing the composition for itself and not the hype, to paraphrase it, because that was what it was for me too. Nobody telling me it was good, and me telling everyone it was awesome afterwards.
If you're ever performing nearby again I'll be sure to get a ticket, especially if it's your own composition.
I think it’s a vastly important thing to do today, why should people be ashamed to compose in timeless style? New composition brings life to these beautiful styles!
Yes, the volume of compliments this has already attracted is fully justified. I really like this channel for its professionalism tinged with a little fun. This video I thought was particularly good - full of interest and offering a new angle on aspects of early music. I particularly liked the comparisons with literature and art: IMO. we don't get enough comparative work on the different arts.
The Viola Concerto in the Style of J. C. Bach by Henri Casadesus is one of my favorites
Wow. This was just fascinating. I love how period composition can be a source of freshness and inspiration.
I can say from experience that period composition is an extremely enriching exercise. I had not thought so much of the performance aspects of such endeavors until now. Thank you, Elam! Especially for the encouragement to "go for it" :)
Such an enlightening and informing video. Last year I had the great pleasure to hear Elam Rotem with the Profeti della Quinta in francophone Switzerland. It was just stunning dedication and musicianship.
You read my mind! I woke up this morning thinking "it's about time EMS puts out a video". An hour later there you are! I have coffee and half an hour to spare. Lovely!
Very interesting content as always! I would like to add Vladimir F. Vavilov to the list, who composed in different old stiles in post war Soviet Union. His album «Lute Music from the 16th-17th centuries» deeply impressed me in my youth and was an important factor for my interest in Early Music - only to learn much later that most of the pieces were composed by Vavilov himself.
His Ave Maria is very famous. I used to sing it in choir in late 80s as a piece by Caccini
Thank you for a fantastic overview of the history of period composition and of many of the issues surrounding it. I gave a couple of conference talks on this some years ago, but yours is a much more detailed and better researched summary.
I will certainly share this video with my students (German subtitles would be great at some point) as I believe the historical segment gives much insight on the context of 19th-century historicism which has had such a fundamental impact on Western musical culture, not just on the repertoire played in most concert halls but also on the composition of new music since at least the late 19th century.
In that sense I do feel that there is a continuum or spectrum which ranges from period composition as you define it, all the way to the creation of new compositional styles and techniques, whether these sonically refer back to the "époque classique" (as in much French Neoclassicism including some Stravinsky) or not, as in the radically new interpretation of Baroque dance forms in Schoenberg's Suite op. 25 or even in the consistent adoption of constructivist techniques from early Renaissance music and Bach, such as the use of intervallic inversion and retrograde in the Second Viennese School (the name of which is also a clear backward-looking reference of course).
I have certainly encountered knee-jerk reactions along the lines of "it's just copying, not composition" countless times, including after one of my conference talks. The term "composition" (from Latin "componere" = put together) is, however, wonderfully vague. The commentator and amateur musician Roger North in the early 18th century rather reflects the prevailing attitude of his time when he writes that "it is not to be expected that a master [at improvisation] invents all he plays in that manner. No, he doth but play over those passages that are in his memory and habituall to him ... [so it] will appear as a new work of a good composer, of whom the best ... more or less borrows ayre from those that went before him".
Of course, composers in the tradition of Webern and the Darmstadt School often use the term "composition" not just to describe an activity (the act of composing) but as a synonym for what could often also be deemed a piece or musical "work" all the while attempting to avoid the baggage of the "work concept".
If "period composition" is not composition, what about so-called "arrangements" such as those in Stravinsky's Pulcinella or Michael Nyman's film music for The Draughtsman's Contract, or even Giazotto's Adagio? What about music that straddles the lines, so to speak, such as Schnittke's 1st symphony or, much more extreme, George Rochberg's Music for The Magic Theater? Does "Act 2" of the latter start as merely a copy of Mozart (perhaps with the vague uncertainty of whether it actually is Mozart, an arrangement of Mozart or something else) and only becomes a "composition" ("real music"?) after more than six minutes, with barely a minute left to play, ironically announced by a muted trumpet and a quotation of the iconic start of Webern's Konzert op. 24?
Again, thank you for your wonderful contribution, which I believe serves as an excellent introduction to this fascinating and complex topic.
As always, a fabulous video. So many leads to now follow up... Your ideas have me cheering yes yes yes! A complete breath of fresh air. One other example is those composers who got so old that their music became 'period composition' in later life - as in Richard Strauss, and perhaps Saint-Saens.
Thank you, Elam. This episode brought you, as a person and as artist, nearer to the audience and therefor is one of the best and most interesting episodes in my opinion. You are a treasure.
This fascinating topic puts composition, improvisation, musicology, the early music movement, pastiche, facsimile etc and even forgery with reference to period styles on it's head. A wonderful presentation YET AGAIN from Elam Rotem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you, Elam! You should have 1 million subscribers!
composing and performing period style music: story of my life - since 1978 🙂
'78? you're a disco composer! 🤣😂🤣
@@Marcel_Audubon ha-ha! Well, as a matter of a fact, last month I arranged Abba's 'Mamma mia' for female choir and wind band 😁
And you are probably the very best one, in this Ceuleers' fan's opinion ;)
My favorite thing in the world is to listen to young composers on RUclips compose fugues in the Baroque style 😊
I could imagine that writing in an old style could be a task someone sometimes faces when he is asked to write music for a movie. Because when the story takes place in another century this could be expected.
As a so called "period composer", I have seen that the majority of living composers are desperate to find their own original style and contribute to the future of music history. I have personally never found this mindset appealing. Of course I'm going to write the same kind of music as the one I like to perform and listen to, that makes sense, does it not? I have had some people call my works "pastiches", but I believe it's important for oneself as a composer to ignore these claims and continue writing the things one wants to write. Copying others to any degree is inevitable, and even alright if done properly. If I lived in the 18th century my music would have been regarded as original, so why shouldn't it be considered as original today too? Regardless of style, a composition is one's original handiwork!
Thank you for this most relevant and fantastic video, Elam! I suggest you to perhaps analyse one of your hebrew sacred works in a future video (perhaps the lamentation of David), because they are absolutely gorgeous!
Well said :). I think being original is also inevitable. This preoccupation with "originality" is a form of short-sightedness. People mistakenly believe this is what will make them famous and they even more mistakenly believe it is what makes music great.
Wow... feel a strong affinity for your own period compositions❤. Did not realize now many musician composers choose period style compositions. Certainly not the case 30 years ago at university when and a composition student had to be more avant garde. I rejected that then and still do, letting my ears and mind decide.
One could add Mozart's re-orchestration of Handel's Messiah which can still be found. Also, there were a large number of compositions in 'prima prattica' by such diverse late Baroque composers as A. Scarlatti and Buxtehude. In fact I see Buxtehude's 'Membra Jesu Nostri' as a homage to the slightly older Carissimi. Then there's Monteverdi's six part parody Mass (after Gombert) in 16th c. style included in the publication of 1610 along with the 'seconda prattica' Vespers.
What a contentious topic. My favorite.
I compose music in the late French Baroque style, but I have leaned back to Lully when requested to. I consider French Baroque music my “mother tongue,” and if I were asked to compose in any other style I, presently, would be unable to. I do not care for the word “pastiche,” as applied to my music, as I am not imitating a composer or style. Rather, I have absorbed the style and am creating music as a French Baroque composer. I make French Baroque music because I believe it is the best, highest quality music that exists, in melody, harmony, and form. Because once I ran out of Rameau operas, I needed another source. It’s not an addiction guys!
I believe the reason why period composing commonly applies to baroque or renaissance music is that it was deeply different from ours (modal music, different conception of rhythm, different conception of harmony in general). It's not that baroque "evolved" into classical music, it just died. So some people just want to revive that lost tradition.
Yes!! I call it the “great simplification,” great in scale, not in goodness. Classical music took the contrapuntal melody and bass, and discarded the other voices, making the textures as simple as possible, thus destroying the richness that was present in the music. The classical minuet, for example, is a shadow of what it once was.
I got briefly confused when reading your comment, as I consider my music to be French Baroque music, and modern music, be it pop, jazz, or something else, to be not my own at all. Perhaps it is that so few other people want to claim Baroque music that I feel like it can be my own. ;)
I’m glad to see period composition being accepted by performers and audiences. I have always been irritated by the, ‘above the rest of the world’ contemporary composers, who immediately turn their noses up at anything remotely tonal. As if all art should be paint randomly splashed on canvas. In music school, I was taught that we move from one period to the next, when all the possibilities of the current period have been exhausted. This is why Colleges keep music and science majors in separate buildings. Why do some people compose beautiful music? Because they can!
As a Baroque lover, it's such a precious gift to be provided with examples of living composers creating music inspired by the era of music I cherish! Might I add that I am a big fan of Matthias Maute's compositions as well!
An excellent upload - from all aspects: history, musicology, performance vs. composing (past and now), comparison to the art world, etc. But the most important advantage of this upload is in the thought and philosophical challenge that Elam Rotem poses to us: that of the essence and justification (or non-justification) of the periodic composition. Bravo!
Loved the personal touch on this one!
One period composition that I performed in many years ago was Domenico Scarlatti's Missa for 4 Voices aka Misa de Madrid, which mostly proceeds in an older style (I thought at the time that it being a capella it was imitation Renaissance, but on a re-listen, it's maybe inspired by Schütz?) while occasionally jumping forward a century to nearer Scarlatti's day, catching out the unwary chorister!
Fantastic video, Elam. it's a fascinating topic! The period composer that came to my mind while watching was Willem Ceuleers. I love his Renaissance Style compositions.
Fascinating and beautiful music. I do wish my sister were still alive. She received her degree inusicology and focused on the German works. She certainly would have been following your scholarly presentaments. Creating (composing) and making new music in a traditional way was what she wanted to do, but she was suddenly taken away on a trip to Germany in 2012.
It is interesting to observe the shredding of the present plagiarists in academic circles who do so with great abandon. Let us hope that those who study and use the knowledge in music history are more careful to credit the source of the beautiful works they create. May you guide the effort for all to follow.
As an amateur period composer myself, you put into words my exact thoughts on it's value as a tool for a better understanding of music styles from "within". A knowledge that has later been proven useful for me when it comes to musical analysis on actual period pieces. Amazing content as always Elam!
What an episode! And, I liked your "Go For It" approach in the continuation of historical based composition.
This was truly a gift. I couldn't think up a more interesting episode if i tried. You have a new patron. Thank you.
Elam, I saw your group in San Diego last year. I loved your composition!
Nuova Pratica is another group I came across recently.
There are still so many fugues yet to be written!
Rolfgang Bamadeus Pozart - man I love the humor sprinkled in to all your videos! Pretty obvious someone grew up with Futurama, and dare I assume, Simpsons
I always appreciated knowledge and intelligence, and the artistry of combining them into practice. This channel is such a case. Thank you, Elam!
This video was awesome. Best classical music content on the internet, for sure. Thanks!!
I really appreciate your work, Elam! In that sente my PhD is demonstration of the necessity and how to compose brass parts for 18th century first half music. תודה!
I've learned so much. I've enjoyed so much. Thanks again for a wonderful video.
@elamrotem, I admire the work that you do. Thank you so much for doing all of these!
So glad you shared one of your compositions! I had no idea and that was amazing. Love the videos way to go man great stuff
As a fellow period composer (18th century), what a lovely video this has been.
Great Video! looking forward to hear more Compositions from you!
Just like Alessandro Parisotti, who actually composed some of the old Italian songs he published. They are luscious.
Frankly, the increase in period composition may well be a key of promise that might help revivify “classical” music.
Wonderful episode, Elam! I've been a composer for as long as I can remember. In my early years, I wrote many pieces in the style of 15th, 16th, and 17th century composers. Most of my work is for church choirs and small early music ensembles. I still prefer to write in renaissance and baroque styles; but, lately, I've had to write in more contemporary styles for some choirs. I enjoy your videos very much. Thanks so much for sharing your incredible talent.
I had gooseflesh listening to your piece, Elam. WOW.
thank you elam! commenting & liking before watching
Thank you very much for your clear and excellent explanation!
This is right up my alley! I compose for fun and not a professional by any means but very inspired by the 17th & 18thC. I definitely use elements from those eras but made a conscious decision not to make 'copies' of the styles.
But now I'm learning proper counterpoint so that may change hehe. Thanks for a another great video Elam!
How interesting that you uploaded this the very day that I premiered with a viol consort, a piece that I had composed in the style of the Renaissance while combining it with the Indian raga system.
I was just thinking about this earlier today and now this video pops out in my feed, I've got the feeling somebody's watching me 🎵🎶
See also the RUclips videos of N. Canzano (Nuova Pratica), who composes new pieces in Baroque style
I actually uploaded clementi’s parodies (op.19) onto musescore!
I very often delve into writing music in Renaissance or Baroque style - I've arrived to the point of writing an entire Mass in the style of the late Flemish School ( ruclips.net/p/PLQAlFumYxVd4-7-s6PiGUCIj4IZqBb4U- ), and once a set of organ Intonations by mine ( ruclips.net/p/PLQAlFumYxVd4J9zMNaqfstVVvwoaTSecP ) even made it into an Early Music Playlist!
Sometimes I ask myself if this isn't more akin to "fan fiction"/"fan art". But I actually think this style is the one I'm best at, and that writing in style teaches about the music of the period like nothing else.
Great content as always!
Very interesting and very informative! Finally I know who wrote the Adagio attributed to Albinoni! Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Your composition is beautiful and rich!
Very inspiring video, I will have to try my hand at it again. Also shout out to Iason! ❤
Great work. Thanks! I wish you reviewed also Parisotti's Arie Antiche. His Se tu m'ami is falsely attributed to Pergolesi, and many still mistake it for a real aria by Pergolesi.
That was both entertaining, educational and uplifting! Congrats for the time you spent on this. The 3 excerpts in the end could even have been a tiny bit longer, but maybe you have to juggle with copyrights and fair use I guess. I can simply investigate each of the authors (including you) you mentionned.
27:00 i call these "caricatures". THe last looks veryy good. Great video and contribution Elam!
I love parallel fifths. Bring them on.
Everything in its right place.
What an amazing episode, as always. THANK YOU
A delightful video as always, thank you Elam
The operatic excerpt near the end was rather “Mozart by numbers” with strong Schauspieldirektor notes, but this was an excellent post! Really liked the other two examples - your Joseph excerpt comes off beautifully.
Great presentation and thank you for the excellent excerpt of your oratorio! It sounds amazing!
Thanks Elam for this awesome essay , I'm always looking forward to your videos .
Wonderful video!
Great video, and perhaps one of the ways to revive interest in classical music to a new audience.
Congratulations. Incredible video and so explanatory 👏🏻👏🏻
Excellent and a lot of fun. I always wondered why composers don’t write polyphonic music based on all the lessons Bach gave us.
Two challenging and delightful solo viola concerti were composed by the brothers Casadesus, yet were published as “Handel” and “JC Bach” despite not having anything to do with the two. The two brothers were VERy active in the early instrument movement in the late 19th century in paris, founding the society of ancient instruments there. It is yet undetermined whether one should commend them or simply tip their hats for their efforts.
Interesting video! It reminds me the many attempts to complete unfinished symphonies , for example bruckner attempts to complete the four mouvement of his nine symphony.
'Joseph and...' - lovely, Elam.
The first period composer I remember is Miguel Andrade Gomes back around the year 2000. His midi files are unfortunately now very hard to find. There is some of his music on soundclick. I haven't heard his music in more than 20 years but going to soundclick I still remember his works like yesterday.
Great video!! I think that it's now time for Kunst der Fugue video to be next:)
Thank you for yet another masterful video! One point that I expected to hear about more is the use of period composition in the teaching of music theory. The first example that comes to my mind is Renaissance counterpoint, and the many generations of students that were (and are) tasked with writing music according to some version of the rules of that style. The video does mention Palestrina as the first composer to be explicitly imitated by later admirers - it seems that the practice has endured to this day. More broadly, I would love a video on how composing has been taught over the centuries. How did Machaut learn music? Who taught Palestrina counterpoint? I want to know!
Thanks for sharing. A few comments:
1. Cassado's attribution claim of his Toccata for Cello and Piano to Girolamo Frescobaldi is particularly egregious, because the work bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to Frescobaldi's actual style. Frescobaldi was a Renaissance composer, yet that Toccata is written in a remarkably Romantic-influenced pseudo-Baroque idiom. Furthermore, Cassado has produced a "concert edition" of Schubert's "Arpeggione" sonata, originally for arpeggione (an obsolete instrument that is essentially a bowed guitar) and piano, but dramatically rewritten as a Romantic-styled concerto for cello and orchestra.
2. I used to believe Giazotto's "reconstruction" claims had at least some truth to them, until I learned about how his "biography" of the Italian Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella was later discovered to entirely consist of fabricated information, which definitely puts his claims about Albinoni in hot water.
3. There have been other fascinating modern-era attempts at reconstructing unfinished works in a... (ahem) highly liberal manner, such as Schnittke's Piano Quartet (after the unfinished second movement of Mahler's Piano Quartet), Schnittke's "Moz-Art a la Haydn" (after music written for a pantomime by Mozart for which only the first violin part survives), or Berio's "Rendering" (after the sketches for Schubert's Symphony No. 10 in D major), which nonetheless make no effort to claim them as an authentic reconstruction of what would've been the original. What are your thoughts on those, and have you listened to them?
4. The late Peter Schickele (RIP) went an entire step further and parodied the entire concept of reconstructing / rediscovering earlier music with his fictitious composer "P.D.Q. Bach", an alleged long-lost son of Johann Sebastian.
Very elegant work, maestro.
Wonderful Episode, I enjoyed it!
Great video as always!! Hayne's book is great (and fun) for period practice enthusiasts. Especially when he goes on his rants against the canonic overplayed repertoire and other rigid conservative practices.
An excelent video, as always. Congratulations!
Take any class with a jazz professor = instant 'Style Police'.
wonderful... this already made my day, though here in Korea it is 8 am.
Very good and interesting -- thank you very much! 😊👏
Great work! learnt a lot. Your oratorio in Hebrew is definitely interesting!
You may enlarge this video with a section of "formerly attributed to ...." pieces. It doesn´t take anything from the music when we finally find out that it was not written by the composer we thought it was. It only makes it an occasion for conversation, if it´s not useless knowledge all together.
With my choir we are learning "Ave Maria" (not) by Giuilo Caccini. It´s a lovely piece of music!
Very informative and enthusiastic program on Period MC, Elam Rotem !!! When talking about a piece of music written in a historical style, some people use the term "pastiche," despectively, as if saying such work is a "poor imitation" of a given style. But, if there is no autonomous "style police" to judge period pieces, then I wonder if no meaningful difference between "pastiche" and period composition exists, only perhaps, degrees of "purity." We don't have Zarlino, Fux, or Albrechtsberger, in person, critiquing our work, so I guess our current skillset (craft) and comparison to historical models stand (as intimated by Erik Schroeder) as the only valid viewpoints.
One of my old professors of 18th-century counterpoint liked to use the term "approximatura" to make us realize we unknowingly "deviated from practice" by writing a NCT "foreign" to 18th-C. music ....
There are many great reasons for writing Period MC and I especially like what you list as #4 (deepening knowledge). Also, taken together, modal and tonal polyphony account for hundreds of years of cultural heritage and thus their "historical weight" (importance) is huge. Learning about the partimenti and solfeggio tradition has shown that music is composed of both, artesanal (e.g. schemes "in stock") as well as artistic (how a skeletal pattern is used) elements. Therefore, "saving" these modal and tonal traditions is as important as preserving an old pottery tradition ....
Though, I understand your argument that, in the end, the attributes of devotion, expressiveness, meaning, audience, etc., are more important than stylistic correctness ....
Your most inspiring video - so far - I think. Thanks! And you didn't need to mention Mozart's homages to Bach's keyboard works.
Your Joseph was extremely convincing and beautiful!
I love to compose using various early music styles as well. I have a canon on soundcloud called "my end is my beginning" (by geof morgan). It is a bi-modal retrograde canon in 3 voices.
Great video with good information. Tnx!