Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Nāgasvaram [nāgasuram, nāyanam].

Conical shawm of South India. Although the term is mentioned in texts from the middle of the 1st millennium ce onwards it is unclear if this relates to a precursor of the modern instrument and scholars remain divided on the question of the instrument’s origins. It is approximately 95 cm long, and its large double reed, of cane, is fashioned similarly to that of the Śahnāī. The reed is mounted on a short, stubby conical staple, which is inserted into a conical wooden pipe containing seven equidistant finger-holes, and no thumb-hole; five additional holes are bored near the distal end of the pipe, two on each side and one on top. These holes, which may or may not be completely or partially filled with wax, assist in tuning the instrument. A widely flared wooden bell is attached to the distal end of the pipe. Additional reeds, staples and supporting paraphernalia are strung and kept together, to be readily accessible during performance. Although the instrument exists in longer (bāri) and shorter (timiri) examples, with gradations between, the longer variety has become more popular during this century. A metal bell is usually associated with the shorter nāgasvaram.

Three fingers are used in the proximal position and four in the distal position. Normally the left hand is proximal. Skilful lip command of the pliable double reed, virtuoso tonguing and breath control facilitate a wide variation of pitch and tone quality, important features of nāgasvaram technique. The range of the instrument is two octaves.

The exceedingly vibrant, penetrating sound of the nāgasvaram is valued as auspicious. Though also appearing on the concert stage today, historically the nāgasvaram is part of the periya melam which plays mainly in Hindu temples, at yearly festivals and at marriages. It is accompanied by the tavil, the tālam (small hand cymbals of bell metal) and the surudippetti (a bellows-activated drone box containing free reeds).

The tavil (or tavul, davul) is a double-headed barrel drum made of jackwood. The body is 40 cm to 45 cm long and 35 cm in diameter at the centre, about 21 cm at the heads, and the shell is less than 5 mm thick. The two skins are stretched on very thick hoops of bent bamboo bundles, covered with cloth, which project beyond the end of the drum and higher than its centre. The heads are interlaced by leather straps in a V pattern, but these are tightened by straps passing two or three times round the centre. The right head is played by the fingers, encased in plaster thimbles and the left is struck with a stick. The skins are said to be sometimes double, with an interior tuning-load.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

T.V. Pillai: ‘Nāhasvaram’, Journal of the Music Academy, Madras, xx (1949), 110–13 [in Tamil]

V. Raghowan: ‘Nagasvara’, Journal of the Music Academy, Madras, xx (1949), 155–9; xxvi (1955), 149 only

W. Skelton: ‘The Nagasvaram and the South Indian Hindu Festival’, AsM, ii/1 (1971), 18–24

Y. Terada: ‘Effects of Nostalgia: the Discourse of Decline in periya mēlam Music of South India’, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan, xxi (1996), 921–39

REIS FLORA, ALASTAIR DICK

Nagaya, Kenzō.

See Hayashi, Kenzō.

Nagel.

German firm of music publishers. In 1835 Adolph Nagel (1800–73) took over the music shop, music-publishing firm and lending library of Georg Christian Bachmann in Hanover and ran them under his own name. In 1913 the business was acquired from his heirs by Alfred Grensser (1884–1950), who appreciated the stimulus given to music publishing after World War I by the youth music movement. He specialized in editions of early music, and produced performing editions of Baroque and early Classical works in the series Nagels Musik-Archiv, which numbered over 200 issues in the mid-1970s. When the Hanover premises were completely destroyed in World War II the firm moved to Celle and in 1952 was taken over by the Vötterle publishing group; it still trades from Kassel under its own name.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

C. Vinz and G. Olzog, eds.: Dokumentation deutschsprachiger Verlage (Munich and Vienna, 1962, 12/1995)

Musikverlage in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und in West-Berlin (Bonn, 1965), 77–8

THEODOR WOHNHAAS

Nagelgeige [Nagelharmonika]

(Ger.).

See Nail violin.

Nägeli, Hans Georg

(b Wetzikon, nr Zürich, 26 May 1773; d Zürich, 26 Dec 1836). Swiss writer on music, music publisher and composer. He received his first musical instruction from his father, who was a parson, and in 1790 he went to Zürich to study with Johann David Brünings, who gave him special instruction in Bach’s music. About this time Nägeli founded a music shop and lending library, and shortly afterwards a publishing business. His lending library, the first of its kind in Switzerland, flourished in the early years of the 19th century and became known beyond the Swiss borders. Nägeli also made contact with other European music publishing houses, and from 1803 his first editions of works by Beethoven (the op.31 piano sonatas), the Abbé Stadler, Clementi, Cramer and eight other contemporary composers appeared in the series Répertoire des Clavecinistes. He gradually acquired a valuable collection of autographs and copies of works by the old masters and began a subscription edition of keyboard works by Bach and Handel. With his Musikalische Kunstwerke im strengen Stile (1802) he revived some of Bach’s neglected compositions. In 1807 the clergyman J.C. Hug (Nägeli’s creditor) and his brother Kaspar took over the direction of the publishing house; Nägeli left the firm in 1818 to found one of his own.

In 1805 Nägeli founded the Zürich Singinstitut, where he had his own works frequently performed. He also compiled a singing tutor and published various pamphlets; thereby he came into contact with many music teachers, notably Pestalozzi, whose educational theories and views on human nature had a lasting influence on him. He also corresponded with major writers and composers including Rückert, Zelter, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Schubert, Weber, Spohr, and from 1817 with Beethoven. Significantly, perhaps, it was at this time that he contributed to a new, Romantic understanding of the German Lied in which text, voice and instrumental part were to be interdependent. In 1824 he gave ten lectures on musical aesthetics in various German cities; these met with great interest but also with controversy, the severe criticism of Mozart giving particular offence. On returning to Zürich, Nägeli discovered that the Singinstitut had collapsed in his absence; in its place he founded the Sängerverein der Stadt Zürich in 1826 and the Musikalischer Frauenverein two years later. In 1826 his Vorlesungen über Musik, containing the most celebrated of his essays, were published in Stuttgart; in these Nägeli showed himself to be a precursor of Hanslick, the classical exponent of the formalistic view of musical aesthetics. A number of passages in these writings reduce the innovative importance that has been ascribed to Hanslick's ideas, and others show that Nägeli, like Herder, whom he revered, was an early proponent of the idea of musical dynamism, a concept of music as a kind of energy. The same idea is evident in the fact that Nägeli was the first to transfer the scientific term ‘dynamics’ to music (Gesangbildungslehre, 1810; he had already defined ‘dynamic’ qualities in music in AmZ, col.774). The impact of Nägeli’s publications became ever more widespread, and he was invited to lecture throughout Germany and France. The University of Bonn awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1833 for his services to singing and aesthetics.

Some of Nägeli's opinions have turned out to be questionable, arbitrary or prejudiced, for example his criticism of certain composers of his time, including Beethoven and Mozart. Sponheuer has shown that Nägeli's theory ‘is not always easy to understand in its peculiar mixture of ideas, combining as it does phenomenological objectivity, a systematic conceptual construction verging on dogmatism, and a considerable quantity of speculative religiosity tinged with mysticism’. Concepts such as Anschauung (sense perception, intuition or apprehension), assimilation, methods of thinking that aim to make syntactical connections, and the intentionality of consciousness all play a considerable part in his line of argument. While he was a committed proponent of the idea of absolute music, his consistent recourse to sensuousness and concreteness should not be forgotten. He reminded his readers that art gained significance only in its manifestations and effects (Vorlesungen, p.24).

His encouragement of practical performance and his performance theory were sustained by his critical comments on virtuosity and brilliance of manner, and by a principle of order and proportionality derived from medieval scholarship. Musical beauty, he believed, can reveal itself and thrive only in the context of proper performance, in line with the proportions of the musical syntax. One of his central concepts is that of freedom: in performance, he expected a musician to succeed in giving the ‘illusion that everything is welling up spontaneously from within, as if he himself were creator of the work of art’ (Aufsätze, 1978, p.51).

As a composer Nägeli was concerned with ethical considerations and accordingly devoted himself chiefly to choral music. Occasionally his didactic purpose as ‘an educator of the people’ comes all too clearly to the fore, but his choral songs are generally simple and effective, whether straightforward melodies in a popular idiom or motets that are rich in modulation. His solo songs cause him to be counted among the more noteworthy of Schubert’s forerunners. He showed a careful and critical attitude in the selection of texts, revealing a preference for Goethe. He was also gifted as a conductor and was president of several music societies; the honorary title ‘Sängervater’ has remained associated with his name.

WRITINGS

(selective list)

with M.T. Pfeiffer: Gesangbildungslehre nach Pestalozzischen Grundsätzen (Zürich, 1810/R)

Vorlesungen über Musik mit Berücksichtigung der Dilettanten (Stuttgart, 1826/R)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

R. Hunziker: Hans Georg Nägeli: Gedächtnisrede (Winterthur, 1924)

R. Hunziker: Hans Georg Nägeli (Zürich, 1938)

J.J. Hassan: Die Welt- und Kunstanschauung Hans Georg Nägelis mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Musik (diss., U. of Zürich, 1947)

M. Staehelin: Nägeli und Beethoven: der Zürcher Musiker, Musikverleger und Musikschriftsteller in seinen Beziehungen zu dem grossen Komponisten (Zürich, 1982)

B. Sponheuer: ‘Das Bach-Bild H.G. Nägelis und die Entstehung der musikal Autonomie-Ästhetik’, Mf, xxxix (1986), 107–23

LUISE MARRETTA-SCHÄR