Editorial: Musicology Australia

Abstract

What can we read in (and into) a score? It is a question that is approached from varying perspectives by our contributors. Simon Perry argues that, in selected scores, an investigation of the ways in which composers choose to spell notes can become an 'analysis of the composer's analysis'. Denis Collins searches in organ chorale settings by Sweelinck, Praetorius and others for evidence of a relationship between Zarlino's canonic theory and seventeenth-century compositional practices. Victoria Rogers, in reconstructing the aesthetic of Glanville-Hicks, combines study of Glanville-Hicks' scores with the composer's reflections as recorded in her letters and other archival documents, and Anne Power examines the musical scores and libretti of two operas by Andrew and Julianne Schultz as sites for the exploration and expression of gender and race politics and national identity. As these articles and as other review contributions make clear, score-based music research is here to stay-at least for now. Yet musicology has also extended its reach into other domains: the themes of national and cultural identity introduced in Power's article, for instance, arc taken up in Margaret Kartomi's review essay on recent scholarly writing on Australian culture, in which Kartomi focuses on the effects of globalisation on music and music making in Australia. Threads of identity and identification also run through several of the reviews: for instance, Greg Anderson's review of a recording by Allan Marett of the 'wangga' repertoire of the late Bobby Lane and accompanying commentary by Marett, Linda Barwick and Lysbeth Ford, touches on issues of genre, song ownership, authenticity, place and the contexts of performances and recordings.