Göteborg Organ Art Center (GOArt)

A Festschrift for Prof. Kerala J. Snyder

Our growing digital Festschrift for Prof. Kerala J. Snyder, who holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Gothenburg, currently has the following table of contents.

Prof. Snyder helped establish a decades-long fruitful collaboration between her home institution – the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York – and the Academy of Music and Drama at the University of Gothenburg. She was awarded the honorary doctorate for her research on seventeenth-century music by composers like Buxtehude and Düben, each with important connections to Sweden, as well as for her contribution to the organ research at GOArt at the University of Gothenburg, and her much appreciated engagement in teaching and advising of a generation of doctoral candidates here. This Festschrift is edited by two of those former students, Joel Speerstra and Johan Norrback, in collaboration with her colleague from Eastman, the musicologist Ralph P. Locke.

Prof. Snyder established the first peer-reviewed online journal of musicology, “The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music,” and in that spirit, we honor her with a digital Festschrift that will be published serially throughout her entire 80th birthday year, starting today February 28, 2016. This Festschrift will contain tributes from friends and colleagues as well as articles from the following authors (among others!):

Edoardo Bellotti, Professor of Organ at the Hochschule für Künste, Bremen
"'La Notte' by Antonio Vivaldi"

Edoardo Bellotti offers his transcription of "La Notte" by Antonio Vivaldi (Op. 8, no. 3), created for the Italian Baroque organ in Rochester, dedicated to Kerala, with gratitude and in testimony of his esteem and friendship.

Hans Davidsson, "Organ Plus: Developing New Audiences for Organ Music through Collaborative Arts."

Michael Dodds, Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts
"A Congratulatory Canon for Kerala Snyder"

Michael Dodds presents his canon in honor of Kerala Snyder, connecting it to the tradition of friendship canons in the social circle around Dieterich Buxtehude.

Mary E. Frandsen, Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana
"The Anthologies of Ambrosius Profe (1589–1661) and Lutheran Spirituality"

Mary Frandsen examines Lutheran sacred art music of the seventeenth century using anthologies published by Ambrosius Profe as a lens, and casts new light on the close relationship between devotional music and devotional literature in early modern Lutheranism.

Frederick K. Gable, Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of California, Riverside
"A Favorite Magnificat for Kerry"

Fred Gable discusses aspects of performance practice in one of Kerala Snyder’s favorite motets: Heironymous Praetorious’ Magnificat 5. toni, and presents a recording by Prof. Manfred Cordes and the Bremer Baroque Consort.

Sverker Jullander, Professor in Musical Performance at Luleå University of Technology
"Fantasia and fantasy: Some Notes on Two Homonymic Genres of German Chorale-Based Organ Music"

Sverker Jullander explores the origins of the large-scale chorale fantasias for organ, and surveys the development of modern Chorale Fantasies and Fantasias in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ralph P. Locke, Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York, and senior editor, Eastman Studies in Music (University of Rochester Press)
"Exotic Elements in Kapsberger's Jesuit Opera (Rome, 1622) Honoring Saints Ignatius and Francis Xavier"

Ralph Locke presents a detailed exploration of the unique and rarely studied sacred opera by the Venetian composer Giovanni Kapsberger.

Hans van Nieuwkoop, "The Importance and Context of Seventeenth-Century Organ Registration Practice."

Johan Norrback, Associate Professor and former Director of GOArt, University of Gothenburg
"The Pinned Barrel as Music Archive"

Johan Norrback presents new research on the Swedish eighteenth-century flute clock maker Pehr Strand, including a survey of the music contained on the surviving barrels at Årsta Castle.

Ibo Ortgies, independent music historian
"Gottfried Frietzsch and the Subsemitones in the Large Organ of Hamburg, St. Catherine's"

Ibo Ortgies revisits the final important phase of Gottfried Frietzsch’s organ-building career. Frietzch worked intensely in the principal churches of Hamburg in the last decade of his life, and Ortgies asks new questions about how broadly the Hamburg organs were equipped with subsemitones during this period.

Paul Peeters, Editor of The Organ Year Book and an Organ Consultant, Gothenburg
"The 'Carillon' Organ Stop: A Short History – with a Special Focus on Cavaillé-Coll"

Paul Peeters explores the 18th-century origins and 19th-century development of a particular organ stop called the Carillon. This unusual mixture stop was designed to imitate the sound of small bells being struck.

Marjorie Roth, Professor of Music at Nazareth College, Rochester, New York and Amerigo Fabbri, Professor of Humanities and the History of Art at Yale, New Haven, Connecticut
"Theology and Theatre in the Poems of Orlando di Lassos's Prophetiae Sibyllarum"

Marjorie Roth offers new scholarship on Lasso's Prophetiae Sibyllarum, while Amerigo Fabbri provides new translations and commentary on preserved fifteenth-century theatrical writings and engravings of the Sibyls cycle.

Sally Allis Sanford, professional singer, voice teacher, and independent scholar
"A Re-Examination of Port de Voix in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries: Possibilities in Vocal Performance" (The file is large because it contains audio.)

Sally Sanford investigates the port de voix in French vocal music and demonstrates her results in nine sound examples.

Alexander Silbiger, Professor Emeritus of Music at Duke University, Durham, NC
"The Notation of Meter and Tempo ca. 1620–1670: Theory and Practice."

Alexander Silbiger leads us through the complex seventeenth-century landscape of meter and tempo notation that lies between the old mensural system and modern practice.

Joel Speerstra, "Georg Muffat's Apparatus Organisticus – an Emblem Book Fit for an Emperor."

Jürgen Thym, Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York
"A Tribute to Kerry Snyder."

Jürgen Thym's personal reflection on Kerala J. Snyder launches our Festschrift and begins our celebration of her jubilee year.

Ruth Tatlow, Bach Researcher, author of the recently published Bach's Numbers: Compositional Proportion and Significance (2015) and co-founder of Bach Network UK
"An English Paragram for Professor Emeritus Kerala Snyder."

Ruth Tatlow's paragram is a celebration of Kerala. It is based on historical models like those of Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander), who was one of the most important poetic sources for J. S. Bach's vocal compositions

Joris Verdin, Head of the Organ Department at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp and professor emeritus at the University of Leuven, Belgium.
"New Light on the Use of the Metronome in Organ Music by Lefébure-Wely, Lemmens, and Franck"

Joris Verdin asks us to re-evaluate what we think we know about the dialog between metronome markings and subjective performance instructions in 19th-century French organ music, and invites us to renew our approach to its...

Harald Vogel, "Aspects of Communion Music Practice in North German Churches in the Seventeenth Century."

Paul Walker, "Johann Rosenmüller and the Rehabilitation of Vocal Fugue in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century."

Daniel Zager, Associate Dean for Sibley Music Library at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York
"Vespers Hymnody as a Context for Organ Composition and Improvisation in Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Italy."

Daniel Zager introduces us to an interesting repertoire for the organ  composed specifically for liturgical use. His study of the rich tradition of Italian Vespers versets opens a new window onto a long and stable historical improvisation and composition practice.