Anno 2024/2

Manuel de Sumaya (c1679–1755) was the most important early-18th-century chapel master active in the Spanish colonies. His stature has been recognized for two centuries, yet only in recent decades has extensive research been carried out on his life and works. 

Morton Feldman began producing graphic scores by the early 1950s, at the dawn of indeterminacy-based compositional practices. Although his experiences in the field partly fell in the shade of John Cage’s, his contribution is vital and profoundly different. According to a widespread belief, no systematic method lies at the foundation of Feldman’s music, hence analysis can unearth no general compositional principle.

We call “deceptive theme” a device used by jazz musicians. It consist in laying down two structures that differ in length and/or chord progression—one for theme statements and another for improvised choruses.

Roque Jacinto de Chavarría (1688–1719) was a composer of Hispanic and Amerindian descent who lived and worked in the Viceroyalty of Peru, particularly at the cathedral of La Plata, now called Sucre in present-day Bolivia.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s music, and especially Souvenir de Porto Rico (1857), displays many traits of the forthcoming ragtime musical style. Rhythmic patterns and variations thereof, use of chromaticism in both melody and harmony and even — partly — form testify to the musical evolution of mid-19th-century New Orleans music, with its Afro-Caribbean influences, towards ragtime and then towards what was to be known as jazz.

George Allan Russell (1923–2009) is a major historical figure in jazz because of his work as a pianist, composer, and theorist. Up to now, though, scholars mostly focused on his theory, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, thus neglecting much of his musical output. This essay discusses the compositional techniques Russell used in Cubano Be, Cubano Bop (1947). It makes use of valuable documents from the composer’s archive and examines all available record- ings and scores.