@halvorkhosar.bsky.social
Musicologist and Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Stavanger (he/him) | Hobby etymologist and aelurophile. Opines too much about eighteenth-century music, most often about Haydn, Wanhal, Dittersdorf or Pleyel.
My Scandinavian friends might have interest in my just-published chronicle, where I explain how German nationalism from the nineteenth century still makes the NRK (Norway's BBC) miss the mark on when the first Norwegian symphony was written by a century:
www.forskersonen.no/kronikk-kult...
#NowSpinning some Grieg, on the occasion of the composer’s 182nd birthday. This is bewitching music, gloriously presented by Andsnes at his considerable peak.
15.06.2025 10:41 — 👍 32 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
I have to work today and can’t attend a protest, but I can suggest Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” as a very appropriate soundtrack for today that absolutely slaps
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxg... Living Colour - Cult Of Personality (Official Video) - YouTube
A friend just texted to congratulate me on a forthcoming project, about which she learned from ChatGPT.
Never mind that I am ... not currently writing a book on the divine feminine... ?
Again, again, again: AI is bad and wrong and won't give you accurate info, friends.
It's not a search engine.
I predict that this footnote will be read as much as the other ones in the article combined.
13.06.2025 19:45 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Yelana, a greyish tabby kitten with spectacularly huge ears at this angle, laying on a bed looking away from the camera. Her sister, a white and tabby cat is staring at me from behind her, wondering why I'm not patting or feeding treats.
Can I interest you in some GINORMOUS kitten ears in these trying times?
03.04.2025 00:40 — 👍 780 🔁 80 💬 16 📌 1#ContemporariesOfHaydn #18
Anton Zimmermann (1741-1781)
🧵 If you love Haydn's E-minor Sturm und Drang masterpiece the "Trauer" symphony, then check out this symphony in similar vein composed by the Kapellmeister at the Pressburg court, not 50 miles away from the Eszterházy Palace.
Huff, han karen der hadde i si tid eit eige program om filmmusikk på NRK Klassisk, der han introduserte meg for Max Richter. Det har eg framleis ikkje tilgjeve han.
30.03.2025 17:17 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0I even own that book. Much obliged!
28.03.2025 17:55 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Calling out early-twentieth-century classical music people on BlueSky:
Do any of you know a reputable source that discusses the story about the 'non-existent' chord in Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht? I have known and shared this story for too long without verifying it.
I'm very happy that you are keeping the Wanhal flag flying in my absence! The names list, by the way, is not exhaustive: in his own birth record he is (so far as I understand) listed as Jan Ignacy Manhal.
18.03.2025 00:23 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Yeah. This guy. A huge fan. These were the very VERY first recordings on Naxos I ever purchased. 20 years ago?!? Long gone but now I have these. Am a huge fan of the Ovid. (Also the orchestra Tafelmusik. A wonderful composer!
17.03.2025 19:11 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
I suppose that the leaders of each group, Balakirev and Tigress, would have to go together.
17.03.2025 20:28 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Tomorrow I'll be teaching Russian romantic music, where I of course include a slide cautioning about the dangers of mixing the Mighty Five with the Furious Five (it works better in Norwegian). Regardless, if one were to pair members from each group, who would be analogous with whom?
17.03.2025 20:25 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0@mogmusic.bsky.social, welcome to BlueSky! Truth be told I am not often here, but I am stoked to have you with us anyway!
12.03.2025 01:46 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Celebrate International Women's Day by interrupting men with your unsolicited opinions and taking credit for their work. If they get upset about it, be sure to tell them that they sound hysterical and should smile more.
08.03.2025 12:07 — 👍 16080 🔁 4031 💬 358 📌 230Coming from an eighteenth-century perspective, this is so weird to hear about. There we have thousands of such documents, and neither the resources, the manpower of the intellectual prestige to see it done.
24.02.2025 22:08 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0This one is truly wonderful. My thanks for giving me a reason to revisit it.
24.02.2025 12:08 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0You are very welcome, and thank you for listening!
15.02.2025 22:51 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0It is hard to say. He was definitely capable of deliberately repurposing material, but the letter does sound more than a little defensive, so I am not 100% sure that is the case here. Then again, I don't really know much about the creation history of these sonatas (I'm not sure if anybody does).
15.02.2025 09:44 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Despite having read the words 'Adagio cantabile' thousands of times, I last night misread an indication in a manuscript as 'Adagio cannibale'. I do not know what this says about me, but if anybody wants to write a composition with that name, it is now up for grabs!
14.02.2025 12:07 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0More interesting are the cases where he draws attention to and deliberately plays with this: symphony 85 quotes 45 in the second theme, but lets the first theme change step by step into this. This is possibly a response to Parisian accusations of #45 being monotonous.
14.02.2025 11:46 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
At other points, Haydn was definitely guilty of this. Just compare the openings of the Salve Regina in E and the third word from the Seven Last Words (both Marian works in E, but 30 years apart):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ8f...
youtu.be/3OBa431xI2E?...
There is one letter from Haydn to his publisher Artaria about a similarity between two themes in a set of piano sonatas. I don't have the source handy, but I have included a screenshot of an article I wish I hadn't written, which quotes it almost in full.
14.02.2025 11:39 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0
In 1763, a ticket for the Académie du Musique during Lent in #Vienna cost up to 1 Gulden 8 Kreuzer -the equivalent of 14.9 liters of wine or 29.8 kg of bread! 🍷🍞 Thanks to the #WienWiki purchasing power calculator,we can put these prices into perspective. #Musicology #MusicHistory
shorturl.at/nox1A
Thank you, I was not aware of this page. This is great!
14.02.2025 10:39 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Alban Berg was born on February 9 1885. His Violin Concerto shows just how beautiful atonal music can be. The tonality hidden within the serialist approach is headspinningly lovely. What are your favourite recordings of Berg’s Violin Concerto?
08.02.2025 21:39 — 👍 71 🔁 7 💬 12 📌 0Calling music(ology) BlueSky! Are there any books that discuss repetition in music as an aesthetic phenomenon? (Any angle thereunder would be interesting.)
08.02.2025 17:28 — 👍 7 🔁 4 💬 5 📌 1From an eighteenth-century perspective, however, the early symphonies of, say, Sammartini, the late symphonies by Haydn and arguably even the opera overture (three movements or one) were all in the same genre. As Mary Sue Morrow wrote, 'To the eighteenth century, a sinfonia was a sinfonia.' 2/2
05.02.2025 21:34 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
