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Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha (1911), the “first” black opera. A new ethnoanthropological and musicological analysis

More than one century after its birth and its unlucky efforts to stage it properly, Scott Joplin’s complex and beautiful opera Treemonisha calls for a new, interdisciplinary critical analysis. African-American music needs to be viewed not only as a synthesis of oral and written sources, but also in light of how popular music and the mass media have influenced its development. This requires a revision of the musicological study of jazz and related genres to include ethnographic, anthropological and systematic points of view.

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Ambient sound and onomatopoeia in jazz

The defining feature of the harmonical component of contemporary jazz is sonority that underlines spatiality. In jazz, it first appeared in 1950s, mostly thanks to the progressive approaches of Miles Davis and his innovative principles based on the then-newly rediscovered modal music. In the continuum of jazz style transformations, a new trend appeared at the turn of the millenia. Under the auspices of ECM publishing house, American and European musical traditions amalgamate in a globalised world to create a solid basis for the new, both local and global, trends that form today’s jazz language. This trend also brought new particularities into jazz harmony, which is looked at more closely in this study. One of the most significant personalities who contributed to the formation of the onomatopoeic harmonic language of jazz is American guitar player Bill Frisell. His compositional and improvisational style is analysed, along with a closer look at the musical premises he respected, and related to the music of European descent in order to present a viewpoint on the principles that form the basis of harmonic onomatopoeia in jazz.

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New Art

Listeners’ perceptions of music changed during World War II and the Cold War owing to the political conditions. Musical styles of the nineteenth and twentieth century were appreciated by listeners whereas other alternative modern styles (serialism, punctualism, sonorism, aleatoric music, dodecaphony, contemporary alternative improvised music…) seemed obscure. Modernism has not been publicly accepted but postmodernism which begins with minimal music, retro style, new simplicity, performance art, body art and conceptual art has been accepted. Sociological, aesthetical, philosophical and musical analyses are the foundation for complete understanding of music reception. Marketing is influential and has changed the listener’s perception in the twenty-first century from elite snobbism to cultural omniconsumption.

Die Perzeption des Zuhörers hat sich im Laufe des zweiten Weltkrieges und des kalten Krieges geändert genauso wie sich die politische Bedingungen und Funktionen geändert haben. Die musikalische Stile des 19. und 20. Jahrhundert waren on den Zuhörern anerkannt während die restliche alternative moderne Stile (Serialismus, Punktualismus, Sonorismus, aleatorische Musik, Dodekafonie, gegenwärtige alternative improvisierte Musik…) waren nur wenig bekannt und unbegreiflich für die Zuhörer.  Die Öffentlichkeit hat Modernismus nicht entgegengenommen, doch die Postmoderne, die fängt mit Minimal Musik an, nutzt Retro-Stile, neue Einfachheit, Performance-Art, Body-Art und Konzeptual-Art, war angenommen. Soziologische, ästhetische, philosophische und musikalische Analyse sind die Grundlage für das volle Verständnis der Rezeption und Perzeption der Musik. Marketing beeinflusst stark die Wahrnehmung des Zuhörers im 21. Jahrhundert und ändert diese von dem erstklasse Snobismus zur Kultur des Konsums.

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Between Cultural Alternative and Protest. On the Social Function of Jazz after 1945 in Central Europe (GDR, Poland, Hungary, CSSR)

The author deals with the meaning of the term “protest“during communism in Central European countries: GDR, Poland, Hungary and CSSR. The protest against authoritative regime has been manifested in different forms: from open form of resistance to all forms of internal opposition. The word “protest“ had hybrid character especially in jazz in these four Central and Eastern European countries. It would be better to talk about jazz as a cultural alternative against gradually more powerful socialist regime than to talk about jazz as a way ofprotest. Jazz was forbidden in some places in these four countries. Some of the jazzmen were prisoners; jazz organizations were under control and censored between 1948 and 1989. In the context of American jazz, which had been used as a strong ideological and cultural weapon and as a symbol of free life style and human rights, the Polish and Hungarian national jazz styles had been developed. Comparing to Polish and Hungarian jazz, German jazz left the frame of individuality without folk elements in the context of the new music and German tradition in classical music which reached the avant-garde form of German free jazz.

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