I recall having a discussion with a professor of mine (while I was still a master's student) about why certain composers get studied more than others. I happened to bring up Respighi for some reason or another (I was probably playing Pines of Rome somewhere).
I've had Pines of Rome stuck in my head (wait... that sounds painful! The music--not the actual trees) for weeks now. I've played that stinkin' piece so many times. I've played Pines who knows how many times; Ancient airs and dances once; Gli Uccelli once; Fountains of Rome once; and maybe even Rossiniana (I can't remember).
In the few minutes I had before administering a doctoral exam this morning, I decided to test my theory (and to attempt to exorcise Pines from my head). I logged into RILM and did a keyword search for Respighi with no other limiters. The search returned 100 results, most of which were Italian. Limiting the language to English narrowed the list down to 23 results. I then entered "Schoenberg" as a keyword and the search returned 1,708 records. In English. (I had forgotten to clear the "Language" field).
I then went to the American Symphony Orchestra League's website where you can get all kinds of information about who's playing what during a season (look under "Research and Statistics"). I found out that there were 55 performances of Respighi's music during the 2005-2006 season compared to 16 performances of Schoenberg's music.
It's interesting to me that the music we study isn't always the music that we play (or that gets played). I wonder if there's a Barthes-ian distinction between music that's good to play (or listen to) and music that is for study. Why are there so few dissertations on Respighi? Why is there so much written about Schoenberg?
By the same token, there's been plenty written about Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, et al. and they get played quite a lot as well. I would wager, though, that their scholarship-to-performance ratio is a bit closer to 1:1 than the Respighis or Schoenbergs of the world...
I've had Pines of Rome stuck in my head (wait... that sounds painful! The music--not the actual trees) for weeks now. I've played that stinkin' piece so many times. I've played Pines who knows how many times; Ancient airs and dances once; Gli Uccelli once; Fountains of Rome once; and maybe even Rossiniana (I can't remember).
In the few minutes I had before administering a doctoral exam this morning, I decided to test my theory (and to attempt to exorcise Pines from my head). I logged into RILM and did a keyword search for Respighi with no other limiters. The search returned 100 results, most of which were Italian. Limiting the language to English narrowed the list down to 23 results. I then entered "Schoenberg" as a keyword and the search returned 1,708 records. In English. (I had forgotten to clear the "Language" field).
I then went to the American Symphony Orchestra League's website where you can get all kinds of information about who's playing what during a season (look under "Research and Statistics"). I found out that there were 55 performances of Respighi's music during the 2005-2006 season compared to 16 performances of Schoenberg's music.
It's interesting to me that the music we study isn't always the music that we play (or that gets played). I wonder if there's a Barthes-ian distinction between music that's good to play (or listen to) and music that is for study. Why are there so few dissertations on Respighi? Why is there so much written about Schoenberg?
By the same token, there's been plenty written about Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, et al. and they get played quite a lot as well. I would wager, though, that their scholarship-to-performance ratio is a bit closer to 1:1 than the Respighis or Schoenbergs of the world...