Academic literature on the topic 'Popular songs Arrangements for piano solo Collections'

Introduction. The given paper is devoted to questions, which make up the dissertation research section upon the genre semantics of the Chinese composers’ solo piano creations. The general theoretic background for the vast amount of the musical artifacts studying is specified in the current section. Theoretical background. In his studying of the Chinese composers’ piano creative work the author follows the research trend, originated by G. Schneerson, Lui Ji, Wei Tinge, Liu Fuan, Zhang Xiaohu, Zhang Qian and others. In particular, the current research is based upon the works by Bu Li, Bian Meng, Wang Ango, Wang Yuhe, Cheng Xu and other authors, devoted to the problem of the European and national music traditions interaction in the Chinese composers’ piano artifacts. The insufficient readiness of this thesis is mentioned. Namely, it is still the point of discussion and analyzing, to what extend and in what quality the genre system of European piano music is mastered by the Chinese composers. It is another point of investigation if their compositions are the result of the surface signs borrowing, taken from the most widely spread European genres or the Chinese composers were able to comprehend the genre semantics profoundly and develop some genres creatively, basing on the national musical tradition. Objectives. The main objective of the current article is the essential theoretical background specification for the Chinese composers’ piano creations genre peculiarities research; in particular, the polygenicity, the borrowed material usage principle, the composer’s genre stylization method. Methods. The task setting and developing is based upon the functional and morphological approaches to the musical genre comprehension, on the terminological analysis of the musical genres and styles understanding, on the upto-date philological and musicological conceptions of composition poetics, artistic genre and stylization method. Results and discussion. The concept of musical genre is defined as the type of the creation or the musical creative activity. Here the category of genre involves not only the formal but also the substantial musical compositions properties, their typical semantics. The musical genre genesis is specified by three factors: 1) the functional creations similarity, the identity of their assignment; 2) the similarity of the conditions of the composition creating and performing; 3) artistic and contextual affinity. The given factors specify the occurance of common musical form properties among several compositions, and these properties are defined as genre style. The composition style properties quite definitely “indicate” some kind of genre “prototype”, and in this sense they are the sign-index of the genre. The typical artisticcontent properties of musical creations and performing are also the index of the genre. These typical properties and designated as genre image (or genre semantics). The genre style and the corresponding images reflect the real type relations of the musical practice phenomena. It enables the composers to use the formal signs of a certain genre as an artistic attribute well recognized by the audience. In the musical genres system, the areas of interactive and independent music are conventionally separated. The first group includes the numerous kinds of every day musical performing, where music interacts with the riot, dance, poetic verbal speech, theatre performance and other types of a person’s artistic activity. Meanwhile, the main and specific function of the independent music is its being the object of artistic perception. The independent music artifacts don’t need any interaction with the expressive means of other arts. The piano music can belong to both spheres. A lot of independent sphere piano music compositions are bear the names of the genres belonging to the folklore, theatre music, church rituals, urban life. We mean such as piano “lullabies”, “ballads”, “minuets”, “waltzes”, “marches”, “arias”, ”love songs” etc. there is still another phenomenon: the piano music pieces, the name of which is not connected with the interactive music genres, are often profoundly connected with them on the levels of the language and artistic text. Quite often, the piano pieces are built on certain composition, borrowed from the sphere of folklore, popular or church music. In all the alike cases we can notice the artistically justified synchronous (non consequent) interaction of several musical genres signs and properties in the form of the definite composition. This phenomenon is characterized as polygenicity. Two main approaches to achieve the polygenre artistic expressive effect are defined: a) the use of the “exterior” (non native, another’s, alien) musical material; b) the genre style characteristic properties reproduction (genre stylization). The given work gives the definitions for the methods of different musical genres properties combination by means of borrowing and of the “exterior” material use in the frames of the original composition: quotations, arrangements, edited versions, fantasies and transcriptions. The genres, originated by these composing methods, are characterized. The essence of the genre stylization method in the Chinese composers’ creations is revealed. It is the reproduction of tonal and compositional peculiarities of the certain traditional Chinese music genre style into the composition text belonging to the European piano music genre system. The wide range of this method implementation is mentioned: from total style imitation to allusion. Conclusions. The existence of the great amount of the piano music compositions in the today’s Chinese musical culture motivates the overall and profound scientific analysis of this phenomenon, in particular, it stimulates the given sphere genre features revelation in both synchronous and diachronic (historic-evolutionary) aspects. The piano music genre sphere researcher needs the clearly formulated, capacious and non-contradictory categories of musical genre, genre style, genre system, genre semantics, as well as of the notions, derivative and connected with them. As it was mentioned by numerous specialists, the Chinese piano music distinctive feature consists in its lasting connection with the national music tradition. The task, set for the musicologists, is to define the nature, the principles, the variants of the interaction between the European piano music genres and styles and the traditional Chinese music genres and styles ( folklore, theatre, popular song). The given article states that the first artistic method, leading to the combination of the European and Chinese traditions in the frames of one composition consists of the composer’s borrowing and using some “alien” material, a fragment of the famous musical creation in his artifact. Thus, using serves as a general notion, embracing a number of certain musical text composing methods, which include quoting, arranging, creating versions, fantasies and transcription. The second artistic approach, leading to European piano music and the Chinese traditional music interaction, consists in the artistic method of stylization. This method implies the reproduction of tonal and compositional peculiarities of the certain traditional Chinese music genre style into the composition text belonging to the European piano music genre system. This method reveals the unlimited possibilities to create the bright vivid effects for genre dialogue, conflicts, interaction, as well as very delicate conceptual modus, allusions, hints, promoting the remarkable enrichment of the compositions genre figurativeness. Basing on the given theoretical background the author is going to analyze the genre-style contents of the seven-volume edition “A century of Piano Solo Works by Chinese Composers”. This content may serve as a working model for the studying of the whole thesaurus of piano music artifacts, created by the Chinese composers.

Problem statement. The pedagogical activity of the Merited Artist of Ukraine, Professor O. I. Nazarenko is more than fifty years old. The maestro’s name will become history of the Department of Folk Instruments of Kharkiv I. P. Kotliarevskyi National University of Arts. It is impossible to disregard O. Nazarenko’s creative achievements and multifaceted activity, first, because his enormous contribution to the development of the academic accordion in Kharkiv and his authority reaches far beyond Kharkiv and Ukraine. Well-known modern accordionists and orchestral ensembles perform the composer’s works with great respect and persistence. The artist’s pedagogical activity, his talent as a teacher and mentor was found itself in students who achieved outstanding success thanks to high-quality professional training. The object of the research is O. Nazarenko’s musical activity. The aim is to determine characteristic features of O. Nazarenko’s authorial style in the context of Kharkiv Accordion School traditions. Methodology. This study is based on historical, genre and stylystic as well as interpretive method. The methodological basis is formed by the works of Yu. Diachenko (2012), M. Pliushenko (2017), I. Sniedkov (2016), A. Strilets (2018), which partly appeal to O. Nazarenko’s work and the history of Kharkiv Accordion School. Presenting the main material. One of the brightest representatives of Kharkiv Accordion School is the teacher, performer, composer and conductor O. I. Nazarenko. In the context of Kharkiv Accordion School formation and development, O. Nazarenko was remembered for his networking with famous Kharkiv composers. From 1967 to 1987 O. Nazarenko performed many authorial programs of such Kharkiv composers as V. Bibik, F.Bogdanov, O. Zhuk, V. Zolotukhin, D. Klebanov, I. Kovach, T. Kravtsov, G. Finarovsky, S. Faintukh and N. Yukhnovska. Working as a solo accordionist and accompanist, O. Nazarenko gained richer experience and recognition of stage colleagues; he accompanied the People’s Artists of the USSR such as Ye. Chervoniuk, M. Manoilo, Yu. Bogatykov and N. Surzhina, People’s and Merited Artists of Ukraine as V. Arkanova, A. Rezilova, Yu. Ivanov and others. While setting piano vocal works by Kharkiv composers, O. Nazarenko made editions for accordion and enriched the texture of his own works in every possible way. Materials of arrangements, settings, transcriptions were periodically published in such publishing houses’ collections as “Music” (Moscow), “Musical Ukraine” (Kyiv). We cannot ignore the maestro’s creative contacts with V. Podgorny, who influenced his further activity and made a contributive mark on the path of his professional development. Mastering the technique of influencing the listener through emotional and expressive accordion playing was important for O. Nazarenko. V. Podgorny who possessed a brilliant technique of working with sound, was mentioned by O. Nazarenko as “the artist of sound”. It was communication and creative contact with V.Podgorny that enriched the professional background and stimulation of the composer’s talents in young Olexandr’s soul. O. Nazarenko’s specific performing and composing style was formed under V. Podgorny’s influence also. As one of his brightest students, he collaborated with him, was interested in new creative ideas and imitated the teacher’s manner. O. Nazarenko’s work is more connected with singing and folklore; Ukrainian, Russian, Gypsy, Georgian and Latin American motives became the basis of his musical compositions. Based on folk and authorial melodies, he created largescale complex structures with vivid musical images. A typical feature of topics for adaptation, transcription and arrangement was the idea of taking unfamiliar works, which no one had previously addressed to. This attracts performers to search for their own interpretations without imitating already known performer interpretations. Many works in the maestro’s interpretation are characterized by a waltz manner. During his life, from childhood, all the memories and experiences accumulated and became the basis for many of his works. According to his words, he actively attended music evenings in a village club and school after the war, where he could listen to modern waltz-like music by Soviet composers. The first author’s melody, “Elegy Waltz”, which represents lyrics and romantic images as memories, was a dedication to his brother Volodymyr. The author comments that it was his brother who showed him waltz and taught him to dance it in his childhood. Many accordion works by O. Nazarenko are characterized by symphonic principles of development, which are also used in fantasia genre. In this genre, a dramatic and deeply psychological work interpreting Russian folk song “Thin Rowan” was written, which absorbed the emotions of the author’s inner experiences (being a dedication to his mother Alexandra Monakova). Being an excellent accordionist, he is aware of the instrument’s possibilities and implements this knowledge in working on musical works. He pays much attention to image intonation and the specifics of imitation of other instruments. His performance methods were based on the works by S. Richter, E. Hilels, L. Kohan, Ya. Heifetz and many other maestros. These ideas gave him, as a performer, an extremely subtle feeling of timbre. In the manner of his performance, he made the audience not only listen, but also hear, which is very important for perception of musical work. O. I. Nazarenko managed to raise a large number of students for many years of pedagogical activity. They represent his name not only in Ukraine but also abroad. Conclusions. O. Nazarenko’s authorial style is original and multifaceted, it consists of composition, performance and pedagogical activities. The authorial style formation was greatly influenced by Kharkiv cultural environment, creative connection with V. Podgorny and performing traditions of Kharkiv Accordion School in general. O. Nazarenko’s original compositional style is manifested in the genres of transcription, fantasia and arrangement of folk songs for accordion. O. Nazarenko’s works include a number of ones written and dedicated to people who left a great dramatic imprint in his life. Works dedicated to his mother, father, wife and brother are a musical word where dramatic images emphasize the expression and specificity of addressing close people. Due to the bright timbres, rich texture and registers, the composer’s musical compositions become symphonic, going far beyond the basic thematic material. Based on folk and authorial melodies, he created large-scale complex structures with vivid musical images. O. Nazarenko’s works require a performer’s high level of technical training, an intellectual approach to understanding all the musical text details, fastidious work on the sound. These components of performing skills are inherent in the maestro as a representative of Kharkiv Accordion School.

This study will help you examine the classical music knowledge of school pupils and faculty. We analyzed the musical form and religious mood in this article. Christian Furchitegot Gelato, a German pastor, poet, and hymn writer, composed the poem "God's Glory from Nature." In 1757, it was initially published in Gellert's collection of odes and songs. The words were published as part of a collection of songs in 1803. They are best known for their solo vocal and piano setting by Ludwig van Beethoven ("Die Himmelrühmen der Ewigen Ehre," beginning with Op. 48, No. 4), and for which they are best remembered. The song by Beethoven is commonly known as "Die Himmelsrühmen," which translates to "Heaven speaks" in English. Popular in the United States is Virgil Thomson's organ and choir arrangement of "Heaven Talks" (1925). Beethoven's vocal pieces are occasionally neglected or overshadowed due to his substantial contributions to large-scale instrumental genres such as sonata, symphony, and string quartet. Nonetheless, he had a lifelong passion for literature and poetry, as proven by countless direct and indirect allusions from the literary works that peaked his attention in his collection, correspondence, Tagebuch, and discussion books. Between 1783 and 1826, he created several vocal works illustrating his passion for and connection to the language. Most of Beethoven's vocal compositions have not been exposed to the same level of scrutiny as his instrumental works. This study examines the relationship between lyrics and music in Beethoven's solo songs and other vocal compositions. The intersections between literary and musical expression are analyzed within four dimensions of text setting: structure, rhythm, meaning, and story. To begin, the components of derivation and deviation are analyzed to determine how he built musical structures in response to the poetic (and semantic) patterns of each source text.

The article gives insight into a specific component of the work of Baltic enlightener Gotthard Friedrich Stender (1714–1796) that has heretofore been almost unexplored — the transfer of German musical traditions to the Latvian cultural space. Even though there are no sources that claim that Stender was a composer himself, and none of his books contain musical notation, the texts that had been translated by Stender and published in the collections “Jaunas ziņģes” (New popular songs, 1774) and “Ziņģu lustes” (The Joy of singing, 1785, 1789) were meant for singing and, possibly, also for solo-singing with the accompaniment of some musical instrument. This is suggested, first, by how the form of the translation corresponds to the original’s form; second, by the directions, oftentimes attached to the text, that indicate the melody; and third, by the genres of the German originals cantata and song. Stender translated several compositions into Latvian including the text of the religious cantata “Der Tod Jesu” (The Death of Jesus, 1755) by composer Karl Heinrich Graun (1754–1759); songs by various composers that were widely known in German society; as well as a collection of songs by the composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann (1741–1801) that, in its original form, was published together with notation and was intended for solo-singing (female vocals) with the accompaniment of a piano. This article reveals the context of German musical life in the second half of the 18th century and explains the role of music as an instrument of education in Baltic-German and Latvian societies.

Introduction One of the ways in which ‘country’ is made to work discursively is in ‘country music’ – defining a genre and sensibility in music production, marketing and consumption. This article seeks to excavate one small niche in the historical geography of country music to explore exactly how discursive antecedents emerged, and crucially, how images associated with ‘country’ surfaced and travelled internationally via one of the new ‘global’ media of the first half of the twentieth century – sheet music. My central arguments are twofold: first, that alongside aural qualities and lyrical content, the visual elements of sheet music were important and thus far have been under-acknowledged. Sheet music diffused the imagery connecting ‘country’ to music, to particular landscapes, and masculinities. In the literature on country music much emphasis has been placed on film, radio and television (Tichi; Peterson). Yet, sheet music was for several decades the most common way people bought personal copies of songs they liked and intended to play at home on piano, guitar or ukulele. This was particularly the case in Australia – geographically distant, and rarely included in international tours by American country music stars. Sheet music is thus a rich text to reveal the historical contours of ‘country’. My second and related argument is that that the possibilities for the globalising of ‘country’ were first explored in music. The idea of transnational discourses associated with ‘country’ and ‘rurality’ is relatively new (Cloke et al; Gorman-Murray et al; McCarthy), but in music we see early evidence of a globalising discourse of ‘country’ well ahead of the time period usually analysed. Accordingly, my focus is on the sheet music of country songs in Australia in the first half of the twentieth century and on how visual representations hybridised travelling themes to create a new vernacular ‘country’ in Australia. Creating ‘Country’ Music Country music, as its name suggests, is perceived as the music of rural areas, “defined in contrast to metropolitan norms” (Smith 301). However, the ‘naturalness’ of associations between country music and rurality belies a history of urban capitalism and the refinement of deliberate methods of marketing music through associated visual imagery. Early groups wore suits and dressed for urban audiences – but then altered appearances later, on the insistence of urban record companies, to emphasise rurality and cowboy heritage. Post-1950, ‘country’ came to replace ‘folk’ music as a marketing label, as the latter was considered to have too many communistic references (Hemphill 5), and the ethnic mixing of earlier folk styles was conveniently forgotten in the marketing of ‘country’ music as distinct from African American ‘race’ and ‘r and b’ music. Now an industry of its own with multinational headquarters in Nashville, country music is a ‘cash cow’ for entertainment corporations, with lower average production costs, considerable profit margins, and marketing advantages that stem from tropes of working class identity and ‘rural’ honesty (see Lewis; Arango). Another of country music’s associations is with American geography – and an imagined heartland in the colonial frontier of the American West. Slippages between ‘country’ and ‘western’ in music, film and dress enhance this. But historical fictions are masked: ‘purists’ argue that western dress and music have nothing to do with ‘country’ (see truewesternmusic.com), while recognition of the Spanish-Mexican, Native American and Hawaiian origins of ‘cowboy’ mythology is meagre (George-Warren and Freedman). Similarly, the highly international diffusion and adaptation of country music as it rose to prominence in the 1940s is frequently downplayed (Connell and Gibson), as are the destructive elements of colonialism and dispossession of indigenous peoples in frontier America (though Johnny Cash’s 1964 album The Ballads Of The American Indian: Bitter Tears was an exception). Adding to the above is the way ‘country’ operates discursively in music as a means to construct particular masculinities. Again, linked to rural imagery and the American frontier, the dominant masculinity is of rugged men wrestling nature, negotiating hardships and the pressures of family life. Country music valorises ‘heroic masculinities’ (Holt and Thompson), with echoes of earlier cowboy identities reverberating into contemporary performance through dress style, lyrical content and marketing imagery. The men of country music mythology live an isolated existence, working hard to earn an income for dependent families. Their music speaks to the triumph of hard work, honest values (meaning in this context a musical style, and lyrical concerns that are ‘down to earth’, ‘straightforward’ and ‘without pretence’) and physical strength, in spite of neglect from national governments and uncaring urban leaders. Country music has often come to be associated with conservative politics, heteronormativity, and whiteness (Gibson and Davidson), echoing the wider politics of ‘country’ – it is no coincidence, for example, that the slogan for the 2008 Republican National Convention in America was ‘country first’. And yet, throughout its history, country music has also enabled more diverse gender performances to emerge – from those emphasising (or bemoaning) domesticity; assertive femininity; creative negotiation of ‘country’ norms by gay men; and ‘alternative’ culture (captured in the marketing tag, ‘alt.country’); to those acknowledging white male victimhood, criminality (‘the outlaw’), vulnerability and cruelty (see Johnson; McCusker and Pecknold; Saucier). Despite dominant tropes of ‘honesty’, country music is far from transparent, standing for certain values and identities, and yet enabling the construction of diverse and contradictory others. Historical analysis is therefore required to trace the emergence of ‘country’ in music, as it travelled beyond America. A Note on Sheet Music as Media Source Sheet music was one of the main modes of distribution of music from the 1930s through to the 1950s – a formative period in which an eclectic group of otherwise distinct ‘hillbilly’ and ‘folk’ styles moved into a single genre identity, and after which vinyl singles and LP records with picture covers dominated. Sheet music was prevalent in everyday life: beyond radio, a hit song was one that was widely purchased as sheet music, while pianos and sheet music collections (stored in a piece of furniture called a ‘music canterbury’) in family homes were commonplace. Sheet music is in many respects preferable to recorded music as a form of evidence for historical analysis of country music. Picture LP covers did not arrive until the late 1950s (by which time rock and roll had surpassed country music). Until then, 78 rpm shellac discs, the main form of pre-recorded music, featured generic brown paper sleeves from the individual record companies, or city retail stores. Also, while radio was clearly central to the consumption of music in this period, it obviously also lacked the pictorial element that sheet music could provide. Sheet music bridged the music and printing industries – the latter already well-equipped with colour printing, graphic design and marketing tools. Sheet music was often literally crammed with information, providing the researcher with musical notation, lyrics, cover art and embedded advertisements – aural and visual texts combined. These multiple dimensions of sheet music proved useful here, for clues to the context of the music/media industries and geography of distribution (for instance, in addresses for publishers and sheet music retail shops). Moreover, most sheet music of the time used rich, sometimes exaggerated, images to convince passing shoppers to buy songs that they had possibly never heard. As sheet music required caricature rather than detail or historical accuracy, it enabled fantasy without distraction. In terms of representations of ‘country’, then, sheet music is perhaps even more evocative than film or television. Hundreds of sheet music items were collected for this research over several years, through deliberate searching (for instance, in library archives and specialist sheet music stores) and with some serendipity (for instance, when buying second hand sheet music in charity shops or garage sales). The collected material is probably not representative of all music available at the time – it is as much a specialised personal collection as a comprehensive survey. However, at least some material from all the major Australian country music performers of the time were found, and the resulting collection appears to be several times larger than that held currently by the National Library of Australia (from which some entries were sourced). All examples here are of songs written by, or cover art designed for Australian country music performers. For brevity’s sake, the following analysis of the sheet music follows a crudely chronological framework. Country Music in Australia Before ‘Country’ Country music did not ‘arrive’ in Australia from America as a fully-finished genre category; nor was Australia at the time without rural mythology or its own folk music traditions. Associations between Australian national identity, rurality and popular culture were entrenched in a period of intense creativity and renewed national pride in the decades prior to and after Federation in 1901. This period saw an outpouring of art, poetry, music and writing in new nationalist idiom, rooted in ‘the bush’ (though drawing heavily on Celtic expressions), and celebrating themes of mateship, rural adversity and ‘battlers’. By the turn of the twentieth century, such myths, invoked through memory and nostalgia, had already been popularised. Australia had a fully-established system of colonies, capital cities and state governments, and was highly urbanised. Yet the poetry, folk music and art, invariably set in rural locales, looked back to the early 1800s, romanticising bush characters and frontier events. The ‘bush ballad’ was a central and recurring motif, one that commentators have argued was distinctly, and essentially ‘Australian’ (Watson; Smith). Sheet music from this early period reflects the nationalistic, bush-orientated popular culture of the time: iconic Australian fauna and flora are prominent, and Australian folk culture is emphasised as ‘native’ (being the first era of cultural expressions from Australian-born residents). Pioneer life and achievements are celebrated. ‘Along the road to Gundagai’, for instance, was about an iconic Australian country town and depicted sheep droving along rustic trails with overhanging eucalypts. Male figures are either absent, or are depicted in situ as lone drovers in the archetypal ‘shepherd’ image, behind their flocks of sheep (Figure 1). Figure 1: No. 1 Magpie Ballads – The Pioneer (c1900) and Along the road to Gundagai (1923). Further colonial ruralities developed in Australia from the 1910s to 1940s, when agrarian values grew in the promotion of Australian agricultural exports. Australia ‘rode on the sheep’s back’ to industrialisation, and governments promoted rural development and inland migration. It was a period in which rural lifestyles were seen as superior to those in the crowded inner city, and government strategies sought to create a landed proletariat through post-war land settlement and farm allotment schemes. National security was said to rely on populating the inland with those of European descent, developing rural industries, and breeding a healthier and yet compliant population (Dufty), from which armies of war-ready men could be recruited in times of conflict. Popular culture served these national interests, and thus during these decades, when ‘hillbilly’ and other North American music forms were imported, they were transformed, adapted and reworked (as in other places such as Canada – see Lehr). There were definite parallels in the frontier narratives of the United States (Whiteoak), and several local adaptations followed: Tex Morton became Australia’s ‘Yodelling boundary rider’ and Gordon Parsons became ‘Australia’s yodelling bushman’. American songs were re-recorded and performed, and new original songs written with Australian lyrics, titles and themes. Visual imagery in sheet music built upon earlier folk/bush frontier themes to re-cast Australian pastoralism in a more settled, modernist and nationalist aesthetic; farms were places for the production of a robust nation. Where male figures were present on sheet music covers in the early twentieth century, they became more prominent in this period, and wore Akubras (Figure 2). The lyrics to John Ashe’s Growin’ the Golden Fleece (1952) exemplify this mix of Australian frontier imagery, new pastoralist/nationalist rhetoric, and the importation of American cowboy masculinity: Go west and take up sheep, man, North Queensland is the shot But if you don’t get rich, man, you’re sure to get dry rot Oh! Growin’ the golden fleece, battlin’ a-way out west Is bound to break your flamin’ heart, or else expand your chest… We westerners are handy, we can’t afford to crack Not while the whole darn’d country is riding on our back Figure 2: Eric Tutin’s Shearers’ Jamboree (1946). As in America, country music struck a chord because it emerged “at a point in history when the project of the creation and settlement of a new society was underway but had been neither completed nor abandoned” (Dyer 33). Governments pressed on with the colonial project of inland expansion in Australia, despite the theft of indigenous country this entailed, and popular culture such as music became a means to normalise and naturalise the process. Again, mutations of American western imagery, and particular iconic male figures were important, as in Roy Darling’s (1945) Overlander Trail (Figure 3): Wagon wheels are rolling on, and the days seem mighty long Clouds of heat-dust in the air, bawling cattle everywhere They’re on the overlander trail Where only sheer determination will prevail Men of Aussie with a job to do, they’ll stick and drive the cattle through And though they sweat they know they surely must Keep on the trail that winds a-head thro’ heat and dust All sons of Aussie and they will not fail. Sheet music depicted silhouetted men in cowboy hats on horses (either riding solo or in small groups), riding into sunsets or before looming mountain ranges. Music – an important part of popular culture in the 1940s – furthered the colonial project of invading, securing and transforming the Australian interior by normalising its agendas and providing it with heroic male characters, stirring tales and catchy tunes. Figure 3: ‘Roy Darling’s (1945) Overlander Trail and Smoky Dawson’s The Overlander’s Song (1946). ‘Country Music’ Becomes a (Globalised) Genre Further growth in Australian country music followed waves of popularity in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, and was heavily influenced by new cross-media publicity opportunities. Radio shows expanded, and western TV shows such as Bonanza and On the Range fuelled a ‘golden age’. Australian performers such as Slim Dusty and Smokey Dawson rose to fame (see Fitzgerald and Hayward) in an era when rural-urban migration peaked. Sheet music reflected the further diffusion and adoption of American visual imagery: where male figures were present on sheet music covers, they became more prominent than before and wore Stetsons. Some were depicted as chiselled-faced but simple men, with plain clothing and square jaws. Others began to more enthusiastically embrace cowboy looks, with bandana neckerchiefs, rawhide waistcoats, embellished and harnessed tall shaft boots, pipe-edged western shirts with wide collars, smile pockets, snap fasteners and shotgun cuffs, and fringed leather jackets (Figure 4). Landscapes altered further too: cacti replaced eucalypts, and iconic ‘western’ imagery of dusty towns, deserts, mesas and buttes appeared (Figure 5). Any semblance of folk music’s appeal to rustic authenticity was jettisoned in favour of showmanship, as cowboy personas were constructed to maximise cinematic appeal. Figure 4: Al Dexter’s Pistol Packin’ Mama (1943) and Reg Lindsay’s (1954) Country and Western Song Album. Figure 5: Tim McNamara’s Hitching Post (1948) and Smoky Dawson’s Golden West Album (1951). Far from slavish mimicry of American culture, however, hybridisations were common. According to Australian music historian Graeme Smith (300): “Australian place names appear, seeking the same mythological resonance that American localisation evoked: hobos became bagmen […] cowboys become boundary riders.” Thus alongside reproductions of the musical notations of American songs by Lefty Frizzel, Roy Carter and Jimmie Rodgers were songs with localised themes by new Australian stars such as Reg Lindsay and Smoky Dawson: My curlyheaded buckaroo, My home way out back, and On the Murray Valley. On the cover of The square dance by the billabong (Figure 6) – the title of which itself was a conjunction of archetypal ‘country’ images from both America and Australia – a background of eucalypts and windmills frames dancers in classic 1940s western (American) garb. In the case of Tex Morton’s Beautiful Queensland (Figure 7), itself mutated from W. Lee O’Daniel’s Beautiful Texas (c1945), the sheet music instructed those playing the music that the ‘names of other states may be substituted for Queensland’. ‘Country’ music had become an established genre, with normative values, standardised images and themes and yet constituted a stylistic formula with enough polysemy to enable local adaptations and variations. Figure 6: The Square dance by the billabong, Vernon Lisle, 1951. Figure 7: Beautiful Queensland, Tex Morton, c1945 source: http://nla.gov.au/nla.mus-vn1793930. Conclusions In country music images of place and masculinity combine. In music, frontier landscapes are populated by rugged men living ‘on the range’ in neo-colonial attempts to tame the land and convert it to productive uses. This article has considered only one media – sheet music – in only one country (Australia) and in only one time period (1900-1950s). There is much more to say than was possible here about country music, place and gender – particularly recently, since ‘country’ has fragmented into several niches, and marketing of country music via cable television and the internet has ensued (see McCusker and Pecknold). My purpose here has been instead to explore the early origins of ‘country’ mythology in popular culture, through a media source rarely analysed. Images associated with ‘country’ travelled internationally via sheet music, immensely popular in the 1930s and 1940s before the advent of television. The visual elements of sheet music contributed to the popularisation and standardisation of genre expectations and appearances, and yet these too travelled and were adapted and varied in places like Australia which had their own colonial histories and folk music heritages. Evidenced here is how combinations of geographical and gender imagery embraced imported American cowboy imagery and adapted it to local markets and concerns. Australia saw itself as a modern rural utopia with export aspirations and a desire to secure permanence through taming and populating its inland. Sheet music reflected all this. So too, sheet music reveals the historical contours of ‘country’ as a transnational discourse – and the extent to which ‘country’ brought with it a clearly defined set of normative values, a somewhat exaggerated cowboy masculinity, and a remarkable capacity to be moulded to local circumstances. Well before later and more supposedly ‘global’ media such as the internet and television, the humble printed sheet of notated music was steadily shaping ‘country’ imagery, and an emergent international geography of cultural flows. References Arango, Tim. “Cashville USA.” Fortune, Jan 29, 2007. Sept 3, 2008, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/01/22/8397980/index.htm. Cloke, Paul, Marsden, Terry and Mooney, Patrick, eds. Handbook of Rural Studies, London: Sage, 2006. Connell, John and Gibson, Chris. Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place, London: Routledge, 2003. Dufty, Rae. Rethinking the politics of distribution: the geographies and governmentalities of housing assistance in rural New South Wales, Australia, PhD thesis, UNSW, 2008. Dyer, Richard. White: Essays on Race and Culture, London: Routledge, 1997. George-Warren, Holly and Freedman, Michelle. How the West was Worn: a History of Western Wear, New York: Abrams, 2000. Fitzgerald, Jon and Hayward, Phil. “At the confluence: Slim Dusty and Australian country music.” Outback and Urban: Australian Country Music. Ed. Phil Hayward. Gympie: Australian Institute of Country Music Press, 2003. 29-54. Gibson, Chris and Davidson, Deborah. “Tamworth, Australia’s ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rural narratives and resident reactions.” Journal of Rural Studies 20 (2004): 387-404. Gorman-Murray, Andrew, Darian-Smith, Kate and Gibson, Chris. “Scaling the rural: reflections on rural cultural studies.” Australian Humanities Review 45 (2008): in press. Hemphill, Paul. The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. Holt, Douglas B. and Thompson, Craig J. “Man-of-action heroes: the pursuit of heroic masculinity in everyday consumption.” Journal of Consumer Research 31 (2004). Johnson, Corey W. “‘The first step is the two-step’: hegemonic masculinity and dancing in a country western gay bar.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 18 (2004): 445-464. Lehr, John C. “‘Texas (When I die)’: national identity and images of place in Canadian country music broadcasts.” The Canadian Geographer 27 (1983): 361-370. Lewis, George H. “Lap dancer or hillbilly deluxe? The cultural construction of modern country music.” Journal of Popular Culture, 31 (1997): 163-173. McCarthy, James. “Rural geography: globalizing the countryside.” Progress in Human Geography 32 (2008): 132-137. McCusker, Kristine M. and Pecknold, Diane. Eds. A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music. UP of Mississippi, 2004. Peterson, Richard A. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1997. Saucier, Karen A. “Healers and heartbreakers: images of women and men in country music.” Journal of Popular Culture 20 (1986): 147-166. Smith, Graeme. “Australian country music and the hillbilly yodel.” Popular Music 13 (1994): 297-311. Tichi, Cecelia. Readin’ Country Music. Durham: Duke UP, 1998. truewesternmusic.com “True western music.”, Sept 3, 2008, http://truewesternmusic.com/. Watson, Eric. Country Music in Australia. Sydney: Rodeo Publications, 1984. Whiteoak, John. “Two frontiers: early cowboy music and Australian popular culture.” Outback and Urban: Australian Country Music. Ed. P. Hayward. Gympie: AICMP: 2003. 1-28.

Abstract Albeniz appeared in a concert on 7 March 1889 at the Teatro de la Comedia in Madrid with the orchestra of the Sociedad de Conciertos conducted by Tomas Breton. The programme included his Suite caracteristica for orchestra, made up of arrangements of three piano works: the Scherzo from his Sonata No. 1, ‘En la Alhambra’ (‘inspired by Arab legends’), and ‘Rapsodia cubana’ (‘an exact transcription of the rhythm and melodic design of Cuban songs’).1 Albeniz also performed his Piano Concerto No. 1, or Concierto fantastico. Despite its title, the work is conservative and straight forward in nature. The lengthy Allegro first movement is in sonata form with a principal theme in A minor and a secondary theme in E major. Much of the melodic inspiration, in addition to the tonality, seems indebted to Schu mann. The second movement supposedly expresses ‘the vagueness of a dream’ (‘la vaguedad de un ensueiio’), and it is probably this ‘fantasy‘ element that inspired the concerto’s title. It is divided into two sections: the Andante‘s principal theme is clearly derived from the opening theme of the Allegro, while the second section, marked ‘presto’, is a scherzo in the style of Mendelssohn. The final movement, Allegro, is dominated by the piano and is once again based on themes related to those of the first move ment. Albeniz‘s Escenas sinfonicas catalanas (‘Symphonic Catalan scenes’) also appeared on the programme. This work depicts a country fiesta in the mountains of Catalonia and consists of four sections. The first is in sonata form and includes a third theme of a popular character that recurs as a leitmotif in the third and fourth sections of the work. The ‘Idilio’ (‘Idyll’) paints a picture of two lovers. The ‘Serenata‘ features a quartet of strings with violin solo. The final movement presents two separate themes of a popular character, and the work concludes with reminiscences of the leitmotif and the