Stockhausen, Imbrie, Hitchcock Obituaries

All in all, Dec. 5 was a difficult day for modern music.

Two major composers passed from the scene on Dec. 5: Karlheinz Stockhausen and Andrew Imbrie. The distinguished musicologist H. Wiley Hitchcock also died at the age of 84.

Here is Imbrie’s NYT obituary (may not work for non-Cornell users) and one from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Stockhausen’s numerous obituary notices include one from the Times Online and the New York Times. A representative list of Stockhausen obituaries from newspapers and music blogs can be found here.

H. Wiley Hitchcock, past president of the American Musicological Society and a pathbreaking scholar of American music also passed away last week; his NYT obituary can be found here. Hitchcock’s official obituary from the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, provided by Warren Stewart, is posted on Stewart’s blog.

Cornell starts trial of World Pop Music database

From now to Feb. 5, 2008, the Music Library is making Alexander Street’s World Pop Music database available to all Cornell registered users on a trial basis. Please check it out at http://womu.alexanderstreet.com/ and let any of the Music Library staff know what you think.

Here’s a description from Alexander Street’s press release:

Contemporary World Music will contain 50,000 tracks that deliver the sounds of all regions from every continent. The database will contain important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music – Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more. A complementary database to Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries – it includes a blend of contemporary and traditional world music recordings from many labels throughout the world. The focus is concentrated on contemporary genres, such as fusion and world beat.

Many of the titles are encyclopedic in their breadth of coverage. For example, The Voice of the People from the Topic label, a 20-volume series of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh traditional music, will be here in its entirety, as will be the Passage to India Series from Navras.

The first release includes 446 albums — over 6000 tracks from many labels, including: Topic, Playasound, Budamusique, Air Mail Music, Manuiti, Crossing Records, and Lyrichord World Music. Bela Lakatos & The Gypsy Youth Project, Etran Finatawa, Daby Balde, Sukke, Nuru Kane, Don Shiva, Moussa Sissoko, Musafir, Lulendo, and Yan Kadi Faso are just a few of the artists and ensembles contributing to the collection. Future additions include music from Blue Flame Records and World Music Network. Sample albums include:

Andalusian Flamenco Song & Dance
Didgeridoo-Mania
Folk music of Albania
Guinée: Chants & Percussions Des Femmes Baga (Guinea: Songs and Drums of Baga women)
Hindustani Classical Vocal: Shruti Sodolikar
Indian World Music Fusion
Vocal Music of Contemporary China, Vol. 1: The Han People
Spirit of Polynesia
Russian Balalaika Orchestra
A Taste of Ireland: Irish Traditional Music
Africa-New York
Best of Yiddish, Klezmer, and Sephardic Music- The Burning Bush

Liner notes to all the albums are included (in PDF format) as well as static URLs to each track and album in the database.

Library Staff perform with Petits Violons de Cornell

Two library staff members, Ken Fung and Dorian Bandy, will be performing with the Petits Violons de Cornell under the direction of Neal Zaslaw in a noontime concert today at 12:30 (!!) in B20 Lincoln Hall. The program will include works by Handel and Telemann.

The Music Library has laptops to loan!

The CU Library System has expanded the laptop loan program, and we have three laptops (Dells) available for use in the Music Library. They have wireless access and the same standard productivity software as our desktop workstations. They must remain in the music library; the loan period is for 3 hours (renewable); they are available on a first-come/first-served basis, as the library has no reservation system. The full policy is posted at the circulation desk. Please contact Lenora Schneller or call 5-4011 for more information.

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music available online

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, long a staple of basic research and bibliography for all aspects of world music, is now available online through the Music Library. It can be accessed from the links page of the music library web site or directly, for enrolled Cornell students, faculty, and staff at http://encompass.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/checkIP.cgi?access=gateway_standard%26url=http://glnd.alexanderstreet.com

Note that the interface is both pretty basic and a little confusing, so if you have any heavy research to do, the handy nine-volume set is always available at the Music Library (Ref  ML100 .G23 1998). Also, the main page of the url above adds to the confusion by showing only the “featured” volumes, which can be accessed by clicking on the cover images. All 9 volumes are available, but to get to the list, the intrepid user has to select “browse” from the toolbar under the title. The site features a search bar, which is primarily useful for searching geographic areas or ethnic groups. Because of the way the encyclopedia is structured, searching for (e.g.) instruments produces large numbers of hits of questionable value (unlike the New Grove and many other such works, the Garland Encyclopedia does not have individual articles on instruments; it discusses them within the context of the tradition, geographic area, or ethnic group in which they are used). Despite these quibbles, the Garland Encyclopedia is a phenomenal resource and having it available online makes this trove of information more widely accessible to the Cornell community.

Music Library staff perform in “Harlequin’s Capers”

Music Library staffers Beth Kelly (recorder, baroque flute) and Ken Fung (baroque violin) will be performing with members of NYS Baroque and the New York Baroque Dance Company in “Harlequin’s Capers,” a performance of French baroque dance inspired by commedia dell’arte at 3:00 pm Sunday, Nov. 18 in Bailey Hall.  Beth also performed in the lunchtime lecture/performance with members of the dance company on Thursday. Kudos to Ken and Beth for helping to make these exciting performances happen.

Inaugural Lenore Coral Memorial Lecture a success

In addition to Prof. Will’s wide-ranging and thought provoking talk, which I will not try to encapsulate here (except to note that he makes an interesting preliminary stab at problematizing Taruskin’s construction of “modernism” in 20th century performance practice), David Yearsley gave a generous introduction explaining the reasoning behind the Lenore Coral Memorial Lectures. He said that each lecture will feature a distinguished Cornell alumnus, and the lectures were named for Lenore because of her unstinting support for graduate music education at Cornell. She served as an adviser, as director of graduate studies, and for many years as chair of the musicology colloquium series. Yearsley also noted the Lenore Coral Festschrift, “Music, Libraries and the Academy (A-R Editions, 2007) edited by Jim Cassaro. Most flattering for us in the music library (and for her) he described her active role in the redesign of Lincoln Hall, making it into a “music library with a music school around it,”  which Yearsley noted was just fine with him.

Music Lib. Blog progress

Thus far, we’re getting Music Library staff started on the whole blogging idea. We’re working on ideas for content, including CD reviews, discussions of new audio and video formats, news in the music library, staff news, and musical staff participation in outside musical events. Also, I’ve got some learning to do in order to make the whole “moderation” process easier for myself; I have no interest in having to OK every post multiple times before it’s added to the list.

Other music library developments in no particular order:

• The inaugural Lenore Coral Memorial Lecture will be given today by Cornell alumnus Richard Will.  Prof. Will will deliver a talk entitled “Mozart’s _Topoi_ in Performance” in LH 124at 4:15 pm (the usual colloquium time and place.)

• Ken Fung, music tech. services supervisor extraordinaire, will be playing with the Petits Violons de Cornell, participating in the “Harequin’s Capers” performance, Sunday, Nov. 19, 3:00 at Bailey Hall.

• Cataloging of the Stasolla gift of mainly-Capitol LPs from the 50s-60s is progressing faster than we anticipated. Many thanks to Cayenna Ponchione for keeping up with the physical processing of these items. Given what I’ve been cataloging lately, I foresee Cornell becoming a 21st-century center for the study of Jackie Gleason’s musical output; what with the whole interest in space age lounge music, imagine the possibility of articles on e.g. Gleason’s appropriation of the sitar and tabla for his “Music for Today’s Lovers” project… . In all seriousness, we now have a large and growing trove of LPs that will interest practically anyone with a research interest in American popular music, from Dixieland to commercial folk groups like The New Seekers and The Kingston Trio, along with a substantial chunk or Frank Sinatra’s recorded output and unreleased live recordings, radio checks, and alternate takes.

Thanks for setting up the blog

This is a great idea, and I hope it works!

Welcome to the Cornell Music Library blog…

This should be a forum for announcements relating to the Music Library, reviews and review/essays of new (and older) Library materials of interest, and upcoming events. Also, I’d like the Music Library staff and possibly students in the Music Department to drive content and use this as a resource for news about the Music Library.