editor’s note

5

There is a nice scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen’s character, standup 
Alvy Singer, meets Carol Kane’s character, stage manager Allison Portchnik. 
Waiting in the wings at a variety show, Singer remonstrates with Portchnik 
over the scheduling. “What do you mean, ‘next’?” he asks with amazement. 
“I’m not going after another comedian . . . because they’re laughing . . . so 
what are you telling me? They’re gonna laugh at him for a couple of minutes 
then I’ve gotta go out there and get laughs too? How much can they laugh? 
They’re laughed out!” I know how he feels. Our previous special issue—
Experimental Writing about Music, edited by David Gutkin—is impossible 
to follow. But only in that sense do I relate to Singer: although Experimental 
Writing has its laugh–out–loud moments, it is also possibly the most 
ambitious and unique volume of Current Musicology to date. (If you haven’t 
already, find it at our website or order a hard copy). For the present issue, 
general operations resume: the articles collected here continue the journal’s 
unabating commitment to diverse content, high–quality scholarship, and 
rigorous peer review. 

In “A Psychological Approach to Musical Form: The Habituation–
Fluency Theory of Repetition,” David Huron investigates the psychological 
experience of musical repetition. As well as usefully reviewing research in 
psychology, Huron posits by way of an original thought experiment the sweet 
spot of repetitive form. Lindsay Johnson explores the historical meanings of 
a seventeenth–century composition by nun Alba Tressina in “Experiencing 
Alba Tressina’s Anima mea liquefacta est through Bodily Humors and the 
Sacred Erotic.” Weaving together historical research, hermeneutics, and 
flourishes of creative writing, Johnson stresses the importance of the body 
and the sacred erotic for music making and expression in Early Modern 
convents. In “Judging Performance, Performing Judgments: Race and 
Performance in Weimar Germany,” Brendan Fay addresses the nationalistic 
and racist politics surrounding performance practice in Weimar Germany 
by drawing on an array of sources involving contemporary critics. The 
relationship between Charles Ives and Elliott Carter is the subject of David 
Thurmaier’s “‘A Disturbing Lack of Musical and Stylistic Continuity’? Elliott 
Carter, Charles Ives, and Musical Borrowing.” Thurmaier offers a case study 
of a hardcore modernist (in this particular case, Carter) confronting anxieties 
of influence, quotation, and borrowing.



The book reviews section reflects the coincidence of a number of 
centenaries occurring in 2013; Wagner turns 200 this year, Britten 100. 
(Incidentally, Current Musicology is soon to celebrate its own half–century—
expect news on this in the near future!). Jeremy Coleman provocatively 
reviews two books dealing with issues of gender and sexuality in Wagner’s 
operas: Laurence Dreyfus’s Wagner and the Erotic Impulse and a translation 
from German of Eva Rieger’s Richard Wagner’s Women. Nina Penner expertly 
reviews Heather Wiebe’s Britten’s Unquiet Pasts: Sound and Memory in 
Postwar Reconstruction. Stravinsky would have been 131 in 2013, which 
contains 13 twice (read forwards and backwards); is a palindrome; and is 
also a Sophie Germain prime (you’ll have to look that up). More significantly, 
of course, The Rite of Spring received its first performance 100 years ago; for 
that reason, Maeve Sterbenz’s review of Charles Joseph’s Stravinsky’s Ballet’s 
is especially apt.

Two issues back, the then editor–in–chief and I signed off the introductory 
note thanking Benjamin Hansberry for his work as subscriptions manager 
here at Current Musicology. I reiterate the sentiment as Ben steps down 
after years of loyal service and welcome his replacement, Lucie Vágnerová. 
I would also like to thank the journal’s editorial board for their efforts in 
reviewing submissions; Elliott Cairns for organizing and editing the book 
reviews; and Thomas Smith for his assistance in every aspect of producing 
this issue. Finally, many thanks to the authors featured in this issue.

Thomas Fogg