Music Preferred: Essays in Musicology, Cultural History and Analysis in Honour of Harry White 9783990124024, 3990124021

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Music Preferred Essays in Musicology, Cultural History and Analysis in Honour of Harry White Edited by Lorraine Byrne Bodley

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Music Preferred: Essays in Musicology, Cultural History and Analysis in Honour of Harry White

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Professional Photo: Professor Harry White, DMus (NUI) PhD (Dubl) FRIAM MRIA MAE, UCD School of Music

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Music Preferred:

Essays in Musicology, Cultural History and Analysis in Honour of Harry White Edited by Lorraine Byrne Bodley

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xxxxxxxx Layout and Cover: Nikola Stevanović Printed and bound in the EU Cover image: Harry White at the International Conference, Schubert and Concepts of Late Style, Maynooth University, 22 October 2011

This publication was funded by:

Lorraine Byrne Bodley (ed.): Music Preferred: Essays in Musicology, Cultural History and Analysis in Honour of Harry White Vienna: HOLLITZER Verlag, 2018

© HOLLITZER Verlag, Wien 2018 Hollitzer Verlag a division of Hollitzer Baustoffwerke Graz GmbH, Wien www.hollitzer.at All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, digital, electronic or mechanical, or by photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Web site without prior written permission of the publisher. Responsibility for the contents of the various articles and for questions of copyright lies with the authors. In the case of outstanding, justified claims, we request to be notified by the rights owner. ISBN pdf: 978-3-99012-402-4 ISBN epub: 978-3-99012-403-1

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Acknowledgements I should like to express my sincere gratitude to all contributors to this volume for their invariably instant, universally generous and heartfelt responses to the invitation to contribute. All of us have had the privilege of Harry White’s friendship and these essays bear testimony to the extraordinary depth and warmth of his personality. My deepest thanks to Professor Lorenz Welker (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich) who was a true friend when needed; to Professor Stanislav Tuksar (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb), Professor Philip V. Bohlman (Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History, The University of Chicago) and Robert Gerwarth (University College Dublin), whose generosity helped me to secure seed funding in the early stages of this book’s preparation. Professor Jen-yen Chen (Graduate Institute of Musicology, National Taiwan University) read three essays in section one with sympathy and searching insight and I am profoundly indebted to him for that. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr Shane McMahon who graciously gave too much of his time fine-tuning many nuances of translation and to Dr Adrian Scahill (Maynooth University) I owe more than I can say for his meticulous reading of three ‘Music in Ireland’ chapters. Dr Michael Hüttler, Director of Hollitzer Verlag, offered unwavering enthusiasm from our earliest email. For this I shall be ever grateful, as well as for his keen, steady judgement and compromising support during the long haul of the book. I should like to thank in particular my desk editor, Sigrun Müller, whose sterling work made a real difference to the book’s progress and who guided the manuscript through the final editorial stages with characteristic efficiency and good cheer. The good-humoured assistance of all at Hollitzer Verlag, Vienna, has been outstanding. The editor and publisher wish to thank the following for permission to use copyrighted material: the Sächsische Landesbibliothek for reproduction of Fux, Sonata à 4, MS mus 1–B–98, Figure 1, chapter 2; the International Museum and Library of Music of Bologna for Agostini, title page from the first volume of Spartitvra Delle Messe del Primo Libro di Paolo Agostini and Agostini’s Libro quarto delle messe in spartitura Figures 1 and 2, chapter 5; the Governors and Guardians of Marsh’s Library for reproduction of a page from John Mathew Score Books, Figure 1, chapter 6; the Photographic Archive Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid for the reproduction of Figure 1, chapter 25. For financial assistance I owe a debt of gratitude: Dr Attracta Halpin (Registrar, the National University of Ireland); Professor Orla Feely (Vice President for Research, University College Dublin); Professor Sarah Prescott (Principal, UCD v

xxxxxxxx College of Arts and Humanities); Professor Anne Fuchs (Director, UCD Humanities Institute); Professor Wolfgang Marx and Dr Jaime Jones (School of Music, University College Dublin); Professor Philip Nolan (President, Maynooth University); Deborah Kelleher (Director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music) and Dr Denise Neary (Director of Academic Studies, Royal Irish Academy of Music); Dr Kerry Houston (Director of Academic Studies, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama); John Holland and Henry Gillanders (Pianos Plus); Evonne Ferguson and Linda O'Shay Farren (Contemporary Music Centre); Fr Paul Connell (St Finian's College, Mullingar); the Society for Musicology in Ireland and der Verein der Freunde der Musikwissenschaft München e. V. Lorraine Byrne Bodley Dublin, April 2018

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xxxxxxx CONTENTS NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

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FOREWORD by Gerard Gillen (Maynooth University and Titular Organist, St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral)

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INTRODUCTION by Lorraine Byrne Bodley (Maynooth University) and Robin Elliot (University of Toronto)

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PART ONE: THE MUSICAL BAROQUE Julian Horton (Durham University): J. S. Bach’s Fugue in C sharp minor, Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I and the Autonomy of the Musical Work

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Lorenz Welker (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich): Johann Joseph Fux’s Sonata à 4 in G (K. 347): Further Considerations on its Source, Style, Context and Authorship

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Tassilo Erhardt (Liverpool Hope University): Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music in its Spiritual and Liturgical Contexts

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Jen-yen Chen (National Taiwan University): The Musical Baroque in China: Interactions and Conf licts

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Denis Collins (The University of Queensland, Australia): Canon in Baroque Italy: Paolo Agostini’s Collections of Masses, Motets and Counterpoints from 1627

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PART TWO: MUSIC IN IRELAND Kerry Houston (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama): John Mathews: A specimen of Georgian ignorance?

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Ita Beausang (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama): There is a calm for those who weep: William Shore’s New Edition of a Chorale by John [sic] Sebastian Bach

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Axel Klein (Frankfurt): “No, Sir, the Irish are not musical”: Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality

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xxxxxxxx Adrian Scahill (Maynooth University): “That vulgar strummer”: The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival

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Maria McHale (DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama): “Hopes for regeneration”: Opera in Revivalist Dublin, 1900–1916

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Karol Mullaney-Dignam (University of Limerick): “What do we mean by Irish music?” The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland

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Ruth Stanley (Cork Institute of Technology): “Jazzing the soul of the Nation away”: The Hidden History of Jazz in Ireland and Northern Ireland During the Interwar Years

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Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin (Concordia University Montreal): Sonic Icon, Music Pilgrimage: Creating an Irish World Music Capital

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Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (NUI Galway): “In the mood for dancing”: Emigrant, Pop and Female

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Gareth Cox (Mary Immaculate College,University of Limerick): Aloys Fleischmann’s Games (1990)

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Denise Neary (Royal Irish Academy of Music): The Development of Music Performance as Artistic Research in Ireland

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Michael Murphy (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick): “Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland: Grattan Flood, Bewerunge, Harrison, White

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PART THREE: MUSIC AND LITERATURE

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Declan Kiberd (University of Notre Dame): The New Policeman

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Gerry Smyth (Liverpool John Moores University): Moore, Wagner, Joyce: Evelyn Innes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel

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John O’Flynn (Dublin City University): Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s The Dead (1987)

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Patrick Zuk (Durham University): L’ami inconnu: Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin

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xxxxxxx PART FOUR: AUSTRO-GERMANIC TRADITIONS Michael Hüttler (Don Juan Archiv, Vienna): Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert (1724–1799) and his Singspiele

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Anne Hyland (University of Manchester): Tautology or Teleology? Reconsidering Repetition and Difference in Two Schubertian Symphonic First Movements

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Susan Youens (University of Notre Dame): Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms: An unlikely Conjunction

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Shane McMahon (UCD Humanities Institute): The Moth-Eaten Musical Brocade: Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination

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David Cooper (University of Leeds): Die zweite Heimat: Musical Personae in a Second Home

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Glenn Stanley (University of Connecticut): Brechtian Fidelio Performances in West Germany: 1968 to the New Millennium

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Nicole Grimes (University of California, Irvine): Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the music of Wolfgang Rihm: Ref lections on Klavierstück Nr. 6

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PART FIVE: MUSIC IN BRITAIN Pauline Graham (Griffith College): Intimations of Eternity in the Creeds from William Byrd’s Five-Voice Mass and Great Service

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John Cunningham (Bangor University): “An Irishman in an opera!”: Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid–1770s

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Jeremy Dibble (Durham University): Canon Thomas Hudson, Clergyman Musician, Cambridge Don and the Hovingham ‘Experiment’

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William A. Everett (University of Missouri – Kansas City): The Great War, Propaganda, and Orientalist Musical Theatre: The Twin Histories of Katinka and Chu Chin Chow

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Richard Aldous (Bard College): “Flash Harry”: Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Progress of Music in England

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Notes On Contributors PART SIX: MUSIC HISTORIES WORLDWIDE Philip V. Bohlman (University of Chicago): Worlds Apart: Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History

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Ivano Cavallini (University of Palermo): A Counter-Reformation Reaction to Slovenian and Croatian Protestantism: The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624

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Stanislav Tuksar (University of Zagreb): Musical Prints from c.1750–1815 in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection (HR-Dsmb)

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Vjera Katalinic (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb): Routes of Travels and Points of Encounters Observed Through Musical Borrowings: The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović, an 18th -Century Itinerant Violin Virtuoso

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Jan Smaczny (Queen’s University Belfast): Antonín Dvořák in the Salon: A Composer Emerges from the Shadows

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Jaime Jones (University College Dublin): Singing the Way: Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra

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PART SEVEN: MUSIC AND POETRY

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John Buckley (Dublin City University): A Setting of Harry White’s Sonnet Bardolino from Polite Forms (2012) for Baritone and Piano

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AFTERWORD by Iain Fenlon (King’s College Cambridge)

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HARRY WHITE: LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

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Notes On Contributors

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Richard Aldous the Eugene Meyer Chair and Professor of History at Bard College, New York, is the author and editor of eleven books, including a life of the conductor Malcolm Sargent and, most recently, Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian. His writing appears regularly in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times Book Review, and The American Interest, where he is a contributing editor. He previously taught at UCD for fifteen years. Ita Beausang is a music graduate of University College Cork and Emeritus lecturer at DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama. Her main research interests centre on music education and contextual studies of music in Ireland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Her book Anglo-Irish Music 1780–1830 is the standard work of the period. She acted as research assistant to Professor Aloys Fleischmann for his chapter in the New History of Ireland vol. 6 and has contributed articles to Irish Musical Studies vols. 5 and 9. In 2010 she was awarded honorary life membership of the Society for Musicology in Ireland. She was an Advisory Editor for the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland and her book Ina Boyle (1889–1967): A Composer’s Life will be published by Cork University Press in 2018. Philip V. Bohlman is Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, where he is also artistic director of the New Budapest Orpheum Society. His research ranges widely across religious, racial, and cultural encounter in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and South Asia. He is Honorarprofessor at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. Among his recent books are Jewish Music and Modernity (Oxford University Press), Hanns Eisler – In der Musik ist es anders (with Andrea F. Bohlman; Hentrich & Hentrich), and Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism (with Johann Gottfried Herder; University of California Press), and the CDs, Jewish Cabaret in Exile and As Dreams Fall Apart (Cedille Records). John Buckley was born in Templeglantine, Co. Limerick in 1951. He studied f lute with Doris Keogh and composition with James Wilson, Alun Hoddinott and John Cage. Buckley’s output now exceeds 100 works, which have been performed in over fifty countries worldwide and have been issued on over twenty CDs. He has been awarded both a PhD and a DMus by the National University of Ireland. A monograph on his life and work, Constellations: The Life and Music of John Buckley by Benjamin Dwyer, was published in May 2011 by Carysfort Press. He is a member 1

Notes On Contributors of Aosdána, Ireland’s state sponsored academy of creative artists and was senior lecturer at St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University from 2001 to 2017. Lorraine Byrne Bodley is Senior Lecturer in Musicology at Maynooth University. She is the author and editor of 14 books including: Goethe and Zelter: Musical Dialogues (2009); The Unknown Schubert (2007) and Schubert’s Goethe Settings (2003). Recent publications include Music in Goethe’s Faust: Goethe’s Faust in Music (Boydell and Brewer, 2017); Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Rethinking Schubert (Oxford University Press, 2016), co-edited with Julian Horton, and a special Schubert edition of Nineteenth Century Music Review co-edited with James Sobaskie. She is currently writing a new biography of Schubert commissioned by Yale University Press. Recent awards include a DMUS in Musicology, a higher doctorate on published work (NUI, 2012); two DAAD Senior Academic Awards (2010 and 2014) and a Gerda-Henkel Foundation Scholarship (2014). In 2015 she was elected President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland and Member of The Royal Irish Academy. Ivano Cavallini is associate professor of musicology and past co-ordinator of the PhD in European Cultural Studies/Europäische Kulturstudien at the University of Palermo. After the graduation at the university of Padua and the postgraduate studies at the university of Bologna, he received his PhD at the university of Zagreb. He is a member of the advisory boards of the periodicals Recercare (Rome), Arti Musices (Zagreb), De Musica Disserenda (Ljubljana). His research is focused on the connection between Italian music and Slavic cultures of Central and Southern Europe. Other areas of study are music historiography and incidental music of sixteenth-century Italian theatre. He has written four books: Musica, cultura e spettacolo in Istria tra il Cinquecento e il Seicento, Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1990; I due volti di Nettuno: teatro e musica a Venezia e in Dalmazia dal Cinquecento al Settecento, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1994, selected for the award “Viareggio”; Il direttore d’orchestra: genesi e storia di un’arte”, Venice: Marsilio 1998, awarded the prize “Città di Iglesias”; Istarske glazbene teme i portreti od 16. do 19.stoljeća [Themes and Portraits of Music in Istria from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries] (Pula: Čakavski sabor, 2007). Between 2002 and 2007 he was a member of the Levi Foundation in Venice. In 2012 he was appointed honorary member of the Croatian Musicological Society. Jen-yen Chen received his PhD from Harvard University in historical musicology and is currently Associate Professor of the Graduate Institute of Musicology at National Taiwan University. His research interests include music in eighteenthcentury Austria and the history of musical interactions between Europe and East 2

Notes On Contributors Asia. He has published articles in Eighteenth-Century Music, The Journal of Musicological Research, Musiktheorie, and Ad Parnassum, chapters for The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Music and About Bach (essays for Christoph Wolff ), and volumes of music for the complete works edition of Johann Joseph Fux and A-R Editions. Denis Collins studied Music at University College Dublin where he had the privilege in his final year to take lectures with Harry White who had just started as a Junior Lecturer in the Department (as it was then) of Music. Harry’s warmth and brilliance as an educator and his unstinting support and mentorship were invaluable to an aspiring scholar, while Harry’s research trajectory inspired vigorous and inquisitive musicological enquiry amongst all who came into contact with him. Denis Collins completed a PhD in Musicology at Stanford University and is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia. His research interests are in canon and related contrapuntal procedures in Western music before 1800. He has been an Associate Investigator with the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions in Europe, 1100–1800, and he is a Chief Investigator in an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant that is examining canonic techniques and musical change, c.1330– c.1530. Recent and forthcoming articles are in Music Analysis, Musicology Australia, BACH, and Musica Disciplina. He is the author of the article on Counterpoint in Oxford Bibliographies Online, and he has contributed to the chapter on music and dance in the Bloomsbury Cultural History of Emotions, volume 3, 1300–1600. David Cooper is Professor of Music at the University of Leeds. His research is underpinned by an interest in music’s communicative power, whether considered in relation to film scores by composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Seán Ó Riada, Trevor Jones, Michael Nyman, and Nikos Mamangakis, to the music of Béla Bartók or to the repertoire of traditional Irish music. He is also interested in approaches to music that are inf luenced by science and technology, whether as analytical tools or critical models, in particular through mathematics and computing. Among the nine books he has authored or edited are volumes on scores by Herrmann and Bartok, and the musical traditions of Northern Ireland. His recent monograph on Béla Bartók for Yale University Press has received critical acclaim. He has recently completed a large-scale project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council on the music of film composer Trevor Jones. Gareth Cox is Senior Lecturer in Music and Head of the Department of Music at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick. He is co-editor of volumes 7 and 11 of the Irish Musical Studies series (with Axel Klein and Julian Horton 3

Notes On Contributors respectively), The Life and Music of Brian Boydell (with Axel Klein and Michael Taylor), and author of Seóirse Bodley (Field Day Publications, 2010). He was a subject editor for The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland and is currently Executive Editor of the Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland. John Cunningham is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the School of Music, Bangor University. He completed his BMus and MA at UCD, and PhD at the University of Leeds. His research centres on secular music in Britain and Ireland, c.1600– 1800. He is the author of The Consort Music of William Lawes, 1602–1645 (Boydell and Brewer, 2010), and has written over a dozen book chapters and journal articles. He was the contributing music editor to: The New Oxford Shakespeare Edition, ed. G. Taylor, J. Jowett et al. (Oxford: OUP, 2016, 2017); The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson (Cambridge: CUP, 2014). Among his forthcoming publications is a volume of Restoration Music for Three Violins, Bass Viol and Continuo, co-edited with Peter Holman (Musica Britannica, volume 103). He is a member of the Purcell Society Committee. Jeremy Dibble is Professor of Music at Durham University and Vice-President of the Stanford Society. His specialist interests in the Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian eras are ref lected in the major studies of C. Hubert H. Parry: His Life and Music (1992; rev. 1998) and Charles Villiers Stanford: Man and Musician (2002), both OUP, his volume of Parry’s violin sonatas for the Musica Britannica Trust (2003) and his editions for the RSCM Press. His work on musical criticism, historiography, opera and church music in Britain and Ireland have instigated studies such as John Stainer: A Life in Music (Boydell & Brewer, 2007) Michele Esposito (Field Day Press, 2010), Hamilton Harty: Musical Polymath (Boydell & Brewer, 2013) and British Musical Criticism and Intellectual Thought, 1850-1950 (with Julian Horton, Boydell & Brewer, 2018). Musical editor for the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology (2013), and a contributor to the Cambridge History of Christianity and Oxford History of Anglicanism, he is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music and the Guild of Church Musicians. He is presently working on an analytical study of the music of Frederick Delius. Tassilo Erhardt joined Liverpool Hope University in September 2012 as Professor of Music and Head of the Music Department. As a baroque violinist he has performed around the globe in some of the world’s leading ensembles including The Academy of Ancient Music and The King’s Consort as well as with his own chamber group, Apollo & Pan, winner of the 2001 International Early Music Competition in York. Erhardt’s academic interests focus on period performance practice as well as the overlap between music, theology, and liturgy. His study 4

Notes On Contributors on the theological contexts of Handel’s Messiah received several international awards, including the prestigious Erasmus Research Prize. His current research focuses on sacred music at the imperial court chapel in Vienna, in particular the work of chapel master Antonio Bertali (c.1605–1669), research which was initially funded by a major research grant from the Dutch Research Council. Erhardt came to Liverpool from Utrecht University’s Roosevelt Academy and the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where he taught for eight years. Previously, he studied baroque violin in The Hague and London, Theology at Oxford University’s St Benet’s Hall, and musicology at the University of Utrecht where he gained his PhD with the highest distinction. William A. Everett is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Musicology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, where he teaches courses ranging from medieval music to American musical theater. His books include Sigmund Romberg (2007), Rudolf Friml (2008), and Music for the People: A History of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra, 1933–82 (2015). He is contributing co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Musical (2002; 2nd ed., 2008; 3rd ed., 2017) and The Palgrave Handbook of Musical Theatre Producers (2017). Iain Fenlon has now retired from teaching at the Faculty of Music, but until September 2017 was Professor of Historical Musicology. He is a Fellow of King’s College. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Visiting Professor in Heidelberg, 2016–17. Most of his writing has been concerned with the social and cultural history of music in Renaissance Italy. His books include a twovolume study, Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua (Cambridge University Press, 1980, 1982), a monograph on the early Italian madrigal (with James Haar), and Music, Print and Culture in Early Sixteenth-Century Italy (The Panizzi Lectures, British Library, 1994). In the course of his career he has been affiliated to a number of other academic institutions including Harvard University, All Souls College, Oxford, New College Oxford, the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and the University of Bologna. His most recent books are The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (Yale University Press, 2007); Piazza San Marco: Theatre of the Senses, Market Place of the World (Harvard, 2012) and Heinrich Glarean’s Books: The Intellectual World of a Sixteenth-Century Musical Humanist (Cambridge, 2013). Gerard Gillen is Professor Emeritus in Music at Maynooth University, having retired from the position of Professor and Head of the Music Department of that university at the end of September 2007. He came to NUI Maynooth in 1985, previously having been a lecturer in music for sixteen years at University College 5

Notes On Contributors Dublin Professor Gillen has overseen the expansion of the Music Department in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, for example, new diplomas in Musicology Technology and Church Music. He also directed the University Choral Society from October 1985 until April 2007. Gillen is a first-class honours graduate of University College Dublin and Oxford. Professor Gillen’s interest lie in the areas of Catholic church music, organ building and performance practice. He was honoured as the John Betts Fellow in 1992 at the University of Oxford and since 1993 he has been chair of the Irish Episcopal Commission’s Advisory Committee on Church Music. He is also the general editor (with Harry White of UCD) of the bi-annual Irish Musical Studies. Pauline Graham completed studies in vocal performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow and the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague, followed by a doctorate in musicology at University College Dublin, under the supervision of Professor Harry White, assisted by an Irish Research Council scholarship. Her research juxtaposed and probed questions of meaning and religious identity in the Three Masses and Great Service of William Byrd. Pauline lectures in music education at Griffith College Dublin, and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Limerick. She contributed articles to The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (edited by Harry White and Barra Boydell). Pauline is also active as a performer, with a particular interest in early vocal repertoire, and as a vocal tutor and consultant. Nicole Grimes is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research is focused at the intersection between nineteenth- and twentieth-century German music criticism, music analysis and music aesthetics. She is particularly fascinated by the intertextual relationship between music and philosophy, and music and literature on which she has published widely. Her books include Mendelssohn Perspectives (2012 with Angela Mace), and Rethinking Hanslick: Music, Formalism, and Expression (2013, with Siobhán Donovan and Wolfgang Marx). She is in the final stages of writing a monograph called Brahms’s Elegies: The Poetics of Loss in German Culture and in the early stages of writing a monograph on Brahms’s final published opus, the Vier ernste Gesänge. She serves on the Editorial Board of the journal Music Analysis and is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Brahms Society. Julian Horton is Professor of Music at Durham University and President of the Society for Music Analysis. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and taught in the School of Music at UCD from 2001–2013. His research concerns the analysis of nineteenth-century instrumental music, with particular interests including sonata form, theories of tonality, the piano concerto, the symphony 6

Notes On Contributors and the music of Anton Bruckner. He was recipient of the Westrup Prize in 2012, and in 2016 was appointed Music Theorist in Residence to the Netherlands and Flanders. Kerry Houston was a chorister at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin where he studied organ with W. S. Greig. He took his music degrees at Trinity College Dublin and his degree in theology at Pontifical University of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. He has held positions in the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the music departments of Trinity College Dublin and Maynooth University, where he was a colleague of Gerard Gillen’s. He is head of the department of academic studies at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, where he is also director of the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland. His publications focus on aspects of sacred music in Ireland and on the history of music in Irish cathedrals. He served as joint subject editor for church music with Professor Gerard Gillen in the Encyclopedia of music in Ireland. He is director of chapel music at Trinity College Dublin. Michael Hüttler has taught at Yeditepe University Istanbul (2001–2003) and Vienna University, Department for Theatre, Film and Media Studies (2003–2010). From 2007 to 2010 he was director of Don Juan Archiv Wien, and since 2011 he is General Manager of Hollitzer publishing. His current research focuses on theatre in the eighteenth century and the Turkish trope in European theatre. He has published on Mozart, theatre-ethnology, business-theatre, and experimental theatre in Austria. He is series editor (with Hans Ernst Weidinger) of the Ottomania book series (Vienna, Hollitzer, currently 6 volumes) and editor of TheMA – Open Access Journal for Theatre, Music, Arts. Anne M. Hyland is Lecturer in Music Analysis at the University of Manchester. Her research involves the analysis and reception of early nineteenth-century music of the Austro-Germanic tradition, particularly the instrumental music of Schubert and his contemporaries. Her work has appeared in Music Analysis (2009 – awarded the 25th Anniversary Prize of the journal), Music Theory Spectrum (2016), Rethinking Schubert (OUP, 2016), Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory Style (CUP, 2016), and The String Quartet: from the Private to the Public Sphere (Brepols, 2016). She is the recipient of a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Research Grant. In 2017, she became Critical Forum Editor for Music Analysis. Jaime Jones is Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at University College Dublin, where she teaches courses on ethnomusicology, Indian music, popular music, music and religion, and film music. The research that has grown out of her PhD (University of Chicago, 2009) examines affective publics and Hindu devotional music in West7

Notes On Contributors ern India. Recent publications include a chapter in the Cambridge History of World Music, and a 2016 article on pilgrimage for the Yale Journal of Music and Religion. She is currently working on the monograph Music and Devotion in India for the Routledge Focus series. In addition to her work on Hinduism, Jaime also works with punk and underground rock communities in Dublin, investigating issues of place, network, and self-curation. She served as Chair of the International Council for Traditional Music, Ireland, and she is the co-founder of the National Concert Hall Gamelan Orchestra in Dublin. Vjera Katalinić, is research advisor and director at the Department for the History of Croatian Music, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb, and full professor at the University of Zagreb, Music Academy. Her fields of interest embrace 18th- and 19th-century musical culture, musical collections and archives. She was leader of the HERA project “Music migrations in the early modern age: the meeting of the European East, West and South” (2013–2016) and leader of the national project “Networking through music” (2017–2021). She is author of four books, some 200 articles, editor of 10 proceedings and six music scores. Her most recent book is The Sorkočevićes: Aristocratic musicians from Dubrovnik (2014). She is Editor-in-chief of the journal Arti musices (2009–2017). Declan Kiberd is Keough Professor of Irish Studies at University of Notre Dame. Among his books are Synge and the Irish Language (1979), Men and Feminism in Modern Literature(1985), Idir Dhá Chultúr (1991), Inventing Ireland (1995), Irish Classics (2000), The Irish Writer and the World (2005), Ulysses and Us (2009), and After Ireland (2017). He co-edited (with PJ Mathews) handbook of the Irish revival 1891–1922 (2015). He was Professor of Anglo-Irish literature for many years at University College Dublin. Axel Klein is an independent scholar based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and a Research Associate of the Research Foundation for Music in Ireland (RFMI). He studied at Universität Hildesheim and Trinity College Dublin (1984–90) and received a PhD in musicology from Hildesheim in 1995. Specialising in Irish art music of the 19th and 20th centuries, he has published three monographs and coedited two further publications, besides numerous contributions to symposia and academic journals. He was an advisor to the multi-volume German encyclopaedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (1996–2008) and an Advisory Editor of the Encylopaedia of Music in Ireland (Dublin, 2013) and has contributed to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 2001) and the Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge, 2009). In 2015, he was elected Corresponding Member of the Society for Musicology in Ireland (SMI). 8

Notes On Contributors Maria McHale was an IRCHSS Postdoctoral Fellow in Music at University College Dublin between 2007 and 2009, before moving to the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, where she is now Lecturer in Musicology. Her research interests lie in late-nineteenth and early- twentieth-century Irish and British musical culture. She was joint executive editor of the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (UCD Press, 2013) and has received funding from the Irish Research Council for the projects ‘Music at the Abbey Theatre’ and ‘Music in Ireland: 1916 and Beyond’. With Michael Murphy and Kerry Houston, she is co-editor of Irish Musical Studies 12 (Four Courts Press, 2018), an essay collection on documents of Irish music history in the long nineteenth century. Shane McMahon is a musicologist and historian. His received his PhD from University College Dublin, with a dissertation titled ‘The Fabric of Time: Richard Wagner and the Antinomies of Modernity’, which was supervised by Harry White and funded by the Irish Research Council. He is a Research Associate of the UCD Humanities Institute, where his work, drawing on the perspectives and methodologies of the anthropology and sociology of religion, explores the sacred paradigms and religious narratives underpinning secular 19th-century music. Michael Murphy has lectured in the Department of Music, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick since 2001. He co-edited Musical Constructions of Nationalism with Harry White (Cork University Press, 2001), Music in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Irish Musical Studies vol. 9) with Jan Smaczny (Four Courts Press, 2007), and Documents of Irish Music History (Irish Musical Studies vol. 12) with Maria McHale and Kerry Houston (Four Courts Press, 2018). He was involved in editing and contributing to the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (ed.) Harry White and Barra Boydell (UCD Press, 2013). Since its inception in 2003, he has been a member of the Council of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, and has acted as its Hon. Treasurer and Membership Secretary (2003–2006), and Hon Secretary (2006–2009). He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, and has broadcast many music documentaries on RTÉ lyric fm. Karol Mullaney-Dignam, PhD, is a cultural historian and Lecturer in History at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her interdisciplinary research encompasses social, economic and political explorations of Irish music history across the long nineteenth century. She has been the recipient of an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship (2010–12), a Royal Irish Academy Charlemont Award (2015) and an Irish Research Council New Foundations Award (2016). Her publications 9

Notes On Contributors include Music and dancing at Castletown, Co. Kildare, 1759–1821 (2011), William Despard Hemphill, Irish Victorian Photographer (2014) and Aspects of Irish Aristocratic Life: essays on the FitzGeralds and Carton House (2014). Karol’s research on historic properties also includes public history and heritage interpretation projects, most notably with the Irish Office of Public Works. Denise Neary is Director of Academic Studies for the Doctor in Music Performance programme at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Denise has been a council member of the Society for Musicology in Ireland since 2009 and is currently Honorary Treasurer of the Society. She is also a member of the RILM National Committee of Ireland. Denise was a member of the organising committee for the joint SMI/RMA annual conference at the RIAM in July 2009 and chair of the organising committee for the 9th annual SMI conference at the RIAM in June 2011. Most recently she organised the “Doctors in Performance” festival conference of music performance and artistic research at the RIAM in September 2016. Denise’s research has concentrated on music in late seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury Dublin churches and cathedral music in England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She is also centrally involved in the development of artistic research in Ireland, collaborating with European partners. Méabh Ní Fhuartháin is lecturer/researcher at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, specializing in Irish Music and Dance Studies. Dr. Ní Fhuartháin has contributed articles and reviews to a variety of journals such as Ethnomusicology, Journal of Music in Ireland, Journal of the Society of Musicology in Ireland and New York Irish History Roundtable and was also Popular Music subject editor of the landmark two-volume Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland (UCD Press, 2013). Co-editor with Dr David Doyle of Ordinary Life and Popular Culture in Ireland (IAP, 2013), Méabh is particularly interested in the institutionalization of musical revival in Ireland during the twentieth century, and Irish popular music studies. Recent published articles include work on pop music and emigration; masculinities and Irish popular music; and the interface between organisational culture and traditional music scholarship. Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, MA (UCC), HDE (Trinity College Dublin), MBA (IUA), PhD (QUB) is an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist who specializes in the study in Irish traditional music and folklife. Author of Flowing Tides: History and Memory in an Irish Soundscape (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), A Short History of Irish Traditional Music (Dublin: O’Brien Press, 2017), A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music (Dublin: O’Brien Press, 1998/2003), as well as chapters, articles and academic papers on Irish music and cultural history, his work has 10

Notes On Contributors been featured on PBS, CBC, RTÉ, BBC and TF1. Formerly Jefferson Smurfit Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of Music at the University of MissouriSt. Louis, he is the inaugural holder of the bilingual Johnson Chair in Quebec and Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. Funded by the Quebec government, his research focuses on Irish cultural memory and soundscape studies. An award winning professional musician, his recordings include: Traditional Music from Clare and Beyond (1996), Tracin’: Traditional Music from the West of Ireland (1999) and The Independence Suite: Traditional Music from Ireland, Scotland and Cape Breton (2004). John O’Flynn is Associate Professor of Music at Dublin City University. He previously lectured at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick and at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra where he was Head of Music, 2008–2016. He is recipient of research fellowships from The Irish Research Council (2008), An Foras Feasa (2011) and St Patrick’s College (2015). A Council Member of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, he is also founding chair of the Society for Music Education in Ireland. Publications include The Irishness of Irish Music (Ashgate, 2009), Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond (Ashgate, 2014, co-edited with Dr. Mark Fitzgerald) and numerous journal articles, book chapters and encyclopaedia entries. In 2015–16 he was principal investigator for Mapping Popular Music in Dublin, an applied research project externally funded by Fáilte Ireland (Irish Tourism). He is currently completing the monograph Music, the moving image, and Ireland for publication by Routledge. Adrian Scahill is a lecturer in Irish traditional music and ethnomusicology in the Department of Music, Maynooth University. A graduate of Maynooth, he undertook doctoral research with Professor Harry White at University College Dublin, and after receiving his doctorate returned to Maynooth as a lecturer. He was subject editor for traditional music for The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (2013), and has published on a broad range of topics within traditional music. Jan Smaczny recently retired as the Sir Hamilton Harty Professor of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast, and is now Emeritus Professor of Music. He has published widely on many aspects of Czech music and his books include studies of the repertoire of the Prague Provisional Theatre and Dvořák’s B-minor Cello Concerto; jointly edited volumes comprise Music in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Exploring the B-minor Mass. He was a founding member of the committee that established the Society for Musicology in Ireland of which he was also a two-term president. More recently he has served as a vice-president of the Royal Musical Association. 11

Notes On Contributors Gerry Smyth is Professor of Irish Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University. Several of his books focus on aspects of Irish musical history, including Noisy Island (2005), Music and Irish Cultural History (2009), and Celtic Tiger Blues (2015). At the time of writing Professor Smyth is researching a study of music in the life and literature of James Joyce, and recording an album of settings of the lyrics of W. B. Yeats. Glenn Stanley, Professor of Music at the University of Connecticut, has published extensively on German music, musical life, and thought from the eighteenth through the twentieth century with special emphasis on Beethoven. He has also written extensively on Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Wagner. He contributed articles on historiography and German music criticism to the New Grove Dictionary and edited the Cambridge Companion to Beethoven. Recent publications include essays on the performance and reception history of Fidelio, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, and Wagner’s Faust Overture and Wagner’s engagement with Goethe’s literary work. He is a co-editor of Beethoven in Context for Cambridge University Press (forthcoming 2019). Stanley has written program notes and lectured for Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. Stanley organized international conferences on Beethoven at UConn (1993) and at Carnegie Hall (1996). In 1997 he was Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Humboldt University in Berlin and in 2010–2011 he was a guest professor at the Free University, Berlin. Ruth Stanley is a BMus graduate of CIT Cork School of Music (2000). She was awarded an MA from Mary Immaculate College, Limerick (2003) and a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast (2011). Ruth’s research is concerned with musical culture in twentieth-century Ireland and Northern Ireland, especially pertaining to broadcasting and issues of identity. Her publications include contributions to The Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland, edited by Harry White and Barra Boydell, and Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond, edited by Mark Fitzgerald and John O’Flynn. She was a recipient of funding from the Irish Research Council’s New Foundations Scheme (2016). A member of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, she currently serves as Honorary Membership Secretary on the SMI Council. Ruth lectures in piano at CIT Cork School of Music and is a Grade Examiner with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. Stanislav Tuksar is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Zagreb. He was awarded a BA in philosophy, English and violoncello, MA and PhD in musicology, all at the University of Zagreb where he taught musicology since 1993. He also made advanced studies at the Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne (1974–76) and was research fellow at Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung in West 12

Notes On Contributors Berlin (1986–88). He has participated in c. 130 scholarly symposia in Croatia and abroad, and lectured at 24 universities worldwide. As author, editor and translator, he has published 26 books and authored c. 230 articles. Since 2000 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music; he is member (past and present) of the editorial boards of the journals: Acta musicologica (Basle), Current Musicology (New York), South African Journal of Musicology (Durban); Arti musices (Zagreb); De musica disserenda (Ljubljana); Kroatologija (Zagreb). He was co-founder (1992), Secretary (1992–1997) and President (2001–2006, 2013–2018) of the Croatian Musicological Society in Zagreb, and he is full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (since 2012). His main research areas are musico-cultural aspects and aesthetics of music in the 16th–19th century period. His main works are Hrvatski renesansni teoretičari glazbe (1978; English translation: Croatian Renaissance Music Theorists, 1980); Hrvatska glazbena terminologija u razdoblju baroka (Croatian Music Terminology of the Baroque Era, 1992) and Kratka povijest hrvatske glazbe (Short History of Croatian Music, 2000). Lorenz Welker was born 1953 in Munich. After completing a degree in medicine in Munich he studied musicology at the universities of Basle and Zürich. After working for two years at the MPI of Psychiatry, he was an assistant teacher at the Schola Cantorum of Basle and at Basle University while completing his M.D. at Zürich (1988). In 1990 he joined the department of musicology at Heidelberg and took the doctorate in musicology at Basle in 1992, with a dissertation on Renaissance performing practice, and the Habilitation in 1993 with a study on late medieval music. He was appointed professor at the University of Erlangen in 1994 and became professor at Munich University in 1996. His main areas of expertise are the late Middle Ages; performing practice and instrumental music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. He was awarded the Henry E. Sigerist prize in 1988 and the Dent Medal in 1994. Susan Youens, who received her PhD from Harvard University in 1976, is the J. W. Van Gorkom Professor of Music at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of eight books on German song, including Schubert, Müller, and Die schöne Müllerin; Hugo Wolf and his Mörike Songs; Schubert’s Late Lieder; and Heinrich Heine and the Lied (all from Cambridge University Press), as well as over-60 scholarly articles and chapters. She is the recipient of four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as additional fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the National Humanities Center, and has lectured widely on the music of Schubert, Hugo Wolf, and other songcomposers. 13

Notes On Contributors Patrick Zuk is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Durham and a specialist in Russian music and cultural history. He is co-editor (with Marina Frolova-Walker) of a volume of essays Russian Music Since 1917: Reappraisal and Rediscovery, published in 2017 by Oxford University Press in conjunction with the British Academy. He is currently working on a study of the Soviet composer Nikolay Myaskovsky, and has recently been awarded funding by the Wellcome Trust for a research project examining the role played by personal and collective traumatic experience in shaping the styles and aesthetic outlooks of musical modernism.

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FOREWORD Gerard Gillen My connections with Harry White go back to his pre-birth, as it were, as in my early teenage years I was organist for the boy’s choir directed by his late father, Frank, at the Oblate Church in Inchicore in south-west Dublin. I remember well his father announcing to me that their firstborn were soon to arrive in the form of twins, thus heralding the birth of Harry and his brother John in July, 1958. About a dozen years later I noted with pleasure that the twins had been awarded music scholarships to the newly founded Schola Cantorum of St Finian’s College, Mullingar, where they came under the benign and sensitive tutelage of Father Frank MacNamara, whom Harry generously acknowledges as a prime inf luence on his future development, musically and intellectually. While it is hardly necessary to do so, it is worth reciting Harry White’s formidable litany of academic honours and achievements, and concomitant list of publications. Suffice to say that in the subjects he covers with magisterial authority, ranging from music in Imperial Austria, through a history of Anglo-American musicology since 1945, to authoritative monographs on the cultural history of music in Ireland, he has richly earned the description of him in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) as “the leading Irish musicologist of his generation”. But Harry White is not just a most distinguished musicologist, he is in the fullest sense of the term, the “compleat” man of letters, as he is also a dramatist, a novelist and a poet of no mean accomplishment. While a graduate student at the University of Toronto in 1984 he won the University’s gold medal for poetry, and in 2012 he published his first collection of poetry, entitled Polite Forms. Thus in Harry White we have a formidable combination of first-rate, widelyencompassing musical scholarship mediated to us through the prism of a highly creative imagination, which gives to Harry’s scholarly writings a literary patina which makes him a delight to read and to experience in “live performance”. However (to return to musicology), there are three very important achievements of Harry White which I would like to draw attention to at this seminal moment in his stellar career: (i) his founding of the musicological journal series Irish Musical Studies; (ii) his establishment of the Society for Musicology in Ireland (of which he was the founding president); and (iii) his crucial input into the gestation, birth, and delivery of the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, which was published in October 2013; thus was born the largest research project in music to be undertaken in Ireland to date. Readers can be assured that without Harry’s 15

Gerard Gillen drive, persistence and initiative, and the input of his own considerable intellectual and critical vigour and rigour, none of these three enormously important developments for Irish musical scholarship and its reputation both at home and abroad, would have happened. In a curious way Harry White brings to mind one of his predecessors as Professor of Music at UCD over a century ago, and one of my predecessors as Professor at Maynooth, the German priest and scholar, Heinrich Bewerunge (1862–1923), who in his day was a mover and shaker of formidable inf luence and achievement, just as Harry is today. White is a gifted pedagogue, a forceful, illuminating and prolific writer on many of the musical educational issues of the day, and an internationally acknowledged authoritative scholar. And so I think it is no accident, as it were, that Harry White has had a long-term fascination with Bewerunge and his work, and gave expression to this in a very thoughtful essay on the writings of Bewerunge written in collaboration with Frank Lawrence some 25 years ago in the second volume of Irish Musical Studies (Music and the Church, 1993). Harry White, like Bewerunge 100 years ago, is passionately concerned with music education in Ireland. In Bewerunge’s case he was particularly exercised by the lack of opportunities for the training of church musicians in Ireland which resulted in the importation of a number of German and Belgian organists to fill the various new cathedral Kantor positions as they became vacant. He felt that the only remedy, if Irish musicians were to fill these positions with professional competence, was for the church to set up a special school in Ireland dedicated to their training. However, it was not to be until 1970, some 47 years after the death of Bewerunge, that that proposal received partial implementation with the establishment of the Schola Cantorum at St Finian’s College, Mullingar. And among the first cohort of students admitted to the new Schola was a young 13-year-old Harry White. So this 1970 establishment, founded in a sense at the historical instigation of Bewerunge, was to give Harry White his crucially important early musical education. It’s a great personal and professional pleasure and honour to pay tribute to my distinguished colleague, close friend, and former student, Professor Harry White, on the presentation to him of this Festschrift volume to mark his 60 th birthday. Ad multos annos!

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INTRODUCTION: LIBER AMICORUM

Robin Elliott and Harry White, Dublin, May 2016

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot

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Liber AMICORUM Essays dedicated to Harry White on the occasion of his 60 th birthday Lorraine Byrne Bodley (Maynooth University) and Robin Elliot (University of Toronto) A birthday, and reaching the age of sixty, make an appropriate time to celebrate one of Ireland’s most distinguished musicologits. The title of this book, “Music Preferred”, is from White’s very first publication, a poem written to announce his intention to privilege music as a preoccupation rather than take a purely literary path.1 Since then White has actively built a stellar reputation as an eminent scholar of international stature. His establishment of Irish Musical Studies, The society for musicology in Ireland and general editorship of The Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland not only bear testimony to the kind of goals that he has set himself, but his ability to bring others with him. It is a measure of his gifts and of his energy that in the past three decades he has remained an exceptionally productive scholar, whose work has been transformative. His monographs and edited volumes have been reviewed as being major works of scholarship. The original quality of these publications has led to White’s widespread international acceptance as a leading musicologist specializing in the cultural history of music in Ireland, the music of Johann Joseph Fux and the history of Anglo-American musicology since 1945. The vitality and creativity of his scholarly career is indicated by the fact that he continues to work in all of his fields of interest, cross-fertilizing each of them with questions and insights drawn from the others. As a scholar he represents the tradition of musicology in Ireland at its very best: original, insightful, expansive and yet responsive to public interest, a superb communicator and industrious to a remarkable degree. Aside from honouring to his lifelong commitment to musicology, this book celebrates his extensive European connections and his distinguished record as an inspirational teacher. Born in Dublin in 1958, Harry White was at the earliest age exposed to music at home and at St Finian’s College, Mullingar where he was a Member of the Schola Cantorum from 1971–76. Educated at University College Dublin (1976–81), the University of Toronto (1981–84) and Trinity College Dublin (1984–86), White took degrees in English (BA), Music (BMUS) and Modern English and American Literature (MA) at University College Dublin, after which he took an MA in Mu1

Harry White, “Music Preferred”, Acta Victoriana 106/2 (1982), p. 33.

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot sicology at Toronto. As a graduate student in Toronto he was elected to a Junior Fellowship of Massey College in 1983 and was awarded the university’s gold medal for poetry in 1984. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the oratorios of Johann Joseph Fux (PhD) at Trinity, graduating in November 1986. To work as a musicologist is more than to publish criticism, give public lectures or contribute to panel discussions; it is also to bring the routine labour of these things into a meaningful alignment with the society in which they take place. For White that work began (as now it so commonly does) in the obligations of university teaching and research, in his first teaching appointment as a part-time lecturer in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth (1984–1985). He was subsequently appointed to an assistant lectureship and college lectureship in music at University College Dublin (1985–1993), incrementally establishing himself as a far-carrying voice in musicology. From this auspicious start, he was appointed to the Chair of Music at University College Dublin in January 1993, where he soon became regarded as the foremost Irish musicologist of our generation. His visiting professorships at universities in a number of countries – the University of Western Ontario (1996), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich (1999), King’s College, Cambridge (2005) and the University of Zagreb (2006) – testify to his reputation as an international musicologist of singular versatilty. His most recent short-term teaching appointment abroad (of which he has undertaken several in the course of his career) was in November 2017, when he gave the inaugural seminars in the newly-established doctoral programme in musicology at the University of Zagreb, where he has been a regular and welcome guest. White has been a defining presence at the School of Music, University College Dublin, where he has spent his entire academic career. His teaching has in the main been devoted to European art music, music in Ireland, the relationship between music and literature and the history of Anglo-American musicology. He has contributed importantly not just to academia but also to the wider community through his fifteen-year directorship of the UCD Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir in public performances of Bach, Fux and Mozart. Even more seminal has been his establishment of the first taught MA programme in musicology (subsequently designated as the degree of Master of Musicology) at an Irish university, through which he has attracted generations of younger scholars to University College Dublin to pursue recondite fields of music history. For George Steiner, there is no craft more privileged than the calling of the teacher. ‘To awaken in another human being powers, dreams beyond one’s own; to induce in others a love for that which one loves; to make of one’s inward present their future: this is a threefold adventure like no other’. 2 Harry White’s teaching career bears testimony to this belief. Just as his presence fills the room, his musicology 2

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George Steiner: Lessons of the Masters. Harvard University Press, 2003, pp. 183–184.

L iber A micorum has filled the minds of generations of scholars and students and his reputational excellence as a teacher has grown with each succeeding decade. No Irish scholar has worked harder than Harry White to promote musicology in Ireland in all its variety. His career has spanned over thirty years to date and his services to Irish musicology have been outstanding. This is illustrated by White’s 30-year co-editorship of the book series Irish Musical Studies which he founded in 1990 with Professor Gerard Gillen (published initially by Irish Academic Press and subsequently by Four Courts Press), the first five volumes of which he edited with Professor Gillen and Dr Patrick F. Devine. It is also illustrated in his pioneering and jointly organizing (with Patrick Devine) in 1995 the first international musicological conference to take place in Ireland. In 2003 he founded the Society for Musicology in Ireland (SMI), served as its Inaugural President and has continued to serve as a council member of the Society to the present day. During his tenure as President of the SMI (2003–2006) the Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland (2005–) was established online. He also chaired the first RILM and RISM Irish committees (1994–2005) and actively promoted the presence of musicology as an Irish discipline through the agency of his own research. While his benign inf luence on, and generosity and encouragement of younger musicologists is widely acknowledged, his nurturing of generations of readers has been less remarked. In both respects his achievements in the writing and re-writing of Irish musical history have merited affirmation through his work as joint general editor (with Professor Barra Boydell) of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (EMIR), begun in 2003 and published in 2013, which gathers together 240 contributors and is the single largest research project on music in Ireland to have been undertaken to date. As editor as well as author, White’s work has had an international impact which has been recognised in numerous editorial appointments, notably as a member of the executive board of the Irish University Review (1987–1997), consultant editor in music to The Oxford Companion to Irish History, edited by Seán Connolly (1998), The Blackwell Companion to Modern Irish Culture, edited by W.J. McCormack (1999) and The Encyclopaedia of Ireland, edited by Brian Lalor (2003). It was Professor White’s editorial ability which led to his position as national advisory editor for the revised edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie (2001), which increased the presence of Irish music and music in Ireland in an international context. He has also served as foreign corresponding editor for Current Musicology (New York), and as advisory editor for The International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music (Zagreb), the Journal of the Royal Musical Association (London), the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies (Montreal) and the Dictionary of Irish Biography (Dublin). Another hallmark of White’s work (and character) is his pietas. White, who has built so much himself, has reminded us how much we owe to our musical 21

Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot forefathers and that the way forward in the humanities requires the humility to acknowledge this truth. The effects of this virtue are extended to the long dead, examples of which are his Royal Irish Academy Discourse in 2010: “Aloys Fleischmann and the Development of Musicology in Ireland” and his keynote address “The Enchantment of Authority: Heinrich Bewerunge and the Cultural Discourse of Music in Ireland” at the International Conference on Heinrich Bewerunge in Maynooth University (2012) both of which limn the achievements of scholars who laid the foundations of musicology in Ireland. 3 Further acts of commemoration are White’s establishment of the UCD memorial lectures in honour of John F. Larchet (1884–1967) and the Harrison Medal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland in honour of the ethnomusicologist Frank Llewellyn Harrison (1905–1987).4 In remembering others, White has inadverently brought honour onto himself and his extraordinarly imaginative scholarship has led to a proliferation of national and international awards to date. On home ground these include: a Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship awarded by the Irish Research Council in 2005; election to the Royal Irish Academy in 2006 – he was the first historical musicologist to receive this honour – an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Irish Academy of Music the following year and a DMUS degree for published work from the National University of Ireland also in 2007 – again he was the first person to receive this distinction. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to musicology, the Society for Musicology in Ireland awarded him the Harrison medal in 2014 and life membership in 2015. Further afield he has received the Michael J. Durkan Prize of the American Conference of Irish Studies in 2009; honorary membership of the Croatian Musicological Society in 2012; election to the Academia Europaea in 2015 and to the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2018. As awareness of his importance spread and increased, and his ideas and intellectual engagements continued to deepen and grow, the effects are to be observed in the kind of engagements White has received over the years. A brilliant speaker and raconteur, he characteristically introduces his lectures with anecdotes to put his audience at their ease. Everyone who knows him is in agreement with his immense gift for hilarity, his sharp intelligence then making a smooth transition into the main body of a lecture where he patiently unravels the cultural context of a piece of music until it suddenly explodes into meaning. As a conference delegate, keynote 3

4

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See also: Harry White: “Polite Forms”, in: Aloys Fleischmann, A Musician Remembered ed. Ruth Fleischmann. Cork: Mercier Press, 2000, pp. 262–266 and “Heinrich Bewerunge (1862-1923). Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Caecilianismus in Irland”, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 74 (1990), pp. 41–66 (with a catalogue by Nicholas [Frank] Lawrence). See too Harry White: “Frank Llewelyn Harrison and the Development of Postwar Musicological Thought”, Hermathena 146 (1989), 39–48 and “‘Our Musical State Became Refined’: The Musicology of Brian Boydell”, in: The Life and Music of Brian Boydell, ed. Gareth Cox, Axel Klein and Michael Taylor. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2003, pp. 45–62.

L iber A micorum speaker and guest speaker, White has widely participated in international meetings, research seminars and colloquia in Ireland including multiple keynote lectures at University College Dublin, Maynooth University, Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast; keynote and guests lectures at DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama; the Royal Irish Academy of Music; Dublin City University; University of Limerick; University College Galway; the National Library of Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy. White has matched his national contribution with widespread international activity in the Universities of Edinburgh; Oxford; Imperial College London; Royal Holloway; King’s College London; St John’s College Cambridge; the Universities of Durham and Bangor. In the past decade, invitations of every kind have arrived constantly from all over Europe including: the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Ljubljana; the Universities of Munich and Regensburg; Como, Gorizia, and the German Historical Institute, Rome; University College Roosevelt, the Netherlands; the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Hague; the University of Warsaw and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. An enthralled audience, and their response afterwards, always testifies to White’s unique rapport with readership and audience which has resulted in multiple keynote lectures in the International University Centre Dubrovnik, the University of Zagreb and the Croatian Academy of Music. Venues at which he has delivered papers in North America include: the University of Western Ontario; Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario; University of Ottawa; University of Chicago; University of Missouri at Kansas City and St Thomas’ University, Missouri; and the Julliard School of Music, New York.5 While acting as keynote speaker and as a delegate in many conferences and symposia in Ireland over the past thirty years, he, at the same time, has had the broadest public reach and has maintained an active profile in public musicology as a contributor to radio programmes, as a guest speaker at book launches and as a reviewer of books for The Irish Times. He has also written several programme notes for the Abbey Theatre, Opera Theatre Company, the Gate Theatre, Opera Ireland and for CD recordings of the music of Johann Joseph Fux. These multiple distinguished invitions bear testimony to Harry White’s standing throughout Ireland, Europe and North America as a great authority in the cultural history of music in Ireland and a leading authorty on the music of Johann Joseph Fux (latterly in relation to the music of Bach and Handel). His research and publications embrace an astonishing range of fields and his work has stimulated an unprecedented (and sometimes controversial) degree of public debate in relation to music and musicology in Irish intellectual life. Many musicologists and writers on Irish cultural history have crossed swords with Harry White over the decades, yet his combination of uncompromising critical feistiness, unusually subtle and wide-ranging musical and literary knowledge, and great personal generosity have 5

For a select listing see Music Preferred, Appendix 1.

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot won him the profound respect of his peers at home and abroad. At the heart of his work is a spirited and sometimes sceptical interrogation of the music and cultural politics of Ireland in a series of landmark monographs that are reference points for anyone writing on the field. In many ways he has created Irish musicology in a series of pioneering essays and monographs on music in Ireland – most notably The Keeper’s Recital (1998), The Progress of Music in Ireland (2005) and Music and the Irish Literary Imagination (2008) – all of which have exercised considerable inf luence on the perception of Irish music as a cultural phenomenon (especially in relation to Irish political and literary discourse). Music and the Irish Literary Imagination, for example, is a work of outstanding detail and originality and its impact was felt globally. It was easily the most important book of literary criticism to have appeared in the new century: important as pertaining to Irish musicology (though by no means exclusively so), and important as a fixed point in its articulation of a central and abidingly relevant question. That question is, of course, the question of music in Irish cultural history – a question raised for over a century, one way and another, but raised and treated rhetorically rather than raised and then properly addressed. White not only addresses this question but also courageously raises an even more central one, namely “the extent to which literature has taken the place of music in the emancipation of an art form answerable to Ireland’s sense of self ”.6 To understand the auditory imagination of any of the writers discussed – Thomas Moore, William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel and Seamus Heaney – is the work of a lifetime, doubtless; but to answer that central question with a full comprehension of the meaning of music for the Irish literary imagination from 1800 to the present day, to pursue music as a preoccupation in the poetry from Moore to Yeats to Heaney, to trace Moore’s impact on the development of European musical romanticism in the music of Berlioz and Schumann or explain the significance of Mendelssohn, Chopin and Janáček in Brian Friel’s dramatization of Irish experience is an altogether more daunting proposition. And yet Music and the Irish Literary Imagination did all of this, certainly, definitively, and productively. No book had done these things before and – like all the great critical works – it could have been written by nobody else than its author: timely as the book was, its existence was something other than a function of the time being ripe. That the critic who wrote the book was Harry White is no surprise; more than this, it appears in the best way an inevitability, for White is Ireland’s finest musicologist in a century and a central figure in defining the living intellectual culture in Ireland for the century to come. Such claims are large ones, and may seem unacceptably large in relation to someone who is, at his core, a writer about music. Yet that is to downgrade the 6

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Harry White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 3.

L iber A micorum musical: it is not only in Ireland, of course, that even celebration of the arts has tacitly colluded with their more general marginalisation in society and in the political sphere, but Ireland has been a site of musical and cultural contestation since (at least) the later nineteenth century, where the meaning, function, and possibilities of music and literature have been at issue. To substitute blanket celebration for criticism is to dodge that issue and, in the process, to forego its larger potential and possibility. Consistently, Harry White has lived up to this higher calling of criticism. His work has had a profound inf luence on larger questions of Irish musical culture, identity, and political imagination because it has never shirked them, or made them appear less formidable than they really are. Unafraid to be controversial, White has spoken up about subjects that some have found difficult and has not felt the need to soften the edge of his words. Instead he writes with stringency, shrewd discrimination and his work is valued by musicologists and cultural historians alike, for its fidelity and the utter candour of his writing. He is not only the best known musicologist in Ireland but is also a courageous intellectual leader, ready to question received pieties about nationalism, the Irish canon, and the development of musical thought in modern Irish cultural history. From the beginning this powerful note of certitude is heard in White’s championing of Fux, which first came to general awareness with Johann Joseph Fux and the Music of the Austro-Italian Baroque (1992; reissued in 2016) and has shaped in crucial ways the cultural background against which this composer is read. His early academic writing was of great originality and consequence for his studies of Johann Joseph Fux and forms the principle means of access in English to a composer whose importance has grown steadly among the scholarly commmunity. With authorative sureness of direction, White has recently reapproached this early preoccupation, maturing his ideas into extraordinary resources after a career’s worth of further scholarship and direction. His return to this subject has encouraged a reading of the early eighteenth-century musical imagination that privileges concepts of political and religious authority in relation to the jurisdiction of received (musical) forms in sacred music between 1700 and 1750. His critique of this repertory culminates in The Musical Discourse of Servitude. Authority, Autonomy and the European Musical Imagination, 1700-1750 forthcoming from Oxford University Press. His study of Fux – in relation to Johann Sebastian Bach and George Friedrich Handel – is full of acute observations which focus the reader’s attention on the music and through that on aesthetic possibility more generally. After this book, Fux will no longer need any kind of special pleading from musicologists: he will have moved decisively from the constraints of a reception history centred upon the significance of his famous and enormously inf luential treatise, Gradus ad Parnassum (1725) to the centre of English-language discusion of his compositional practice in relation to his peers. What White has done through his discussion of musical servitude and 25

Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot autonomy is to open a path to a much larger understanding of how demands of the imperial liturgy accommodated (and failed to accommodate) Fux, while also proving (as a critic needs to do) the intrinsic worth and coherence of his subject’s work. His work on this Austrian composer, in particular his exegesis of Fux da capo arias and stile antico is crucially an act of deep attention directed towards Fux in and for itself; and the lessons learned through this were directly applicable to the Late Baroque and recast Bach’s and Handel’s late work in a new light. Here White’s work is as broad and adventurous as it is principled and searching. One of the difficulties in attempting to write about Harry White is that you inevitably end up talking about the themes and concerns of the work he has published to date. This is fine on some levels. There is, after all, a distinct Whitean set of concerns, a distinct trajectory and narrative where each monograph can be slotted, and because the work itself is highly ref lexive, the different stances and arguments are actually embedded in the essays so that you can easily discuss the content and subjects. This can make it easy to miss what is truly valuable and unmissable. We return to White’s essays because we are led by the way a particular configuration of language operates on mind, heart and body, and will not let us go. Everyone has their own favourite essays and poems for their own reasons and there is an astonishing richness of work from which to choose. And yet it is not the gravity of White’s subject matter that lends his writing substance but his level of awareness, his responsibility of answering in some way what is occuring. This book attempts to capture something of the depth and range of the contribution of Harry White to our contemporary world. The carnival of themes in this Festschrift offer a conspectus of issues which relate to, or ref lect upon, White’s contributions to his various scholarly fields, as well as important original research by many authors. While the book has been guarded as a surprise on one level, on another level, to borrow Philip Bohlman’s words: to honour Harry White for his remarkable role as one of the most distinguished and inf luential musicologists in the world is in itself quite obvious, even expected, as the list of forty contributors to the Festschrift bears witness. Moving section by section, even chapter by chapter, the volume travels through the world of music scholarship charted by Professor White in a career that spans that very world, and moves from its honoree to the intellectual landscape he has shaped effortlessly and effectively.7 This book provides eloquent testimony to the focus in depth of Harry White’s research in a wider European context and how his erudition has, for thirty years, stimulated exchange and discussion of the highest order, thus creating the sense 7

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Philip Bohlman, Reader’s Report for Music Preferred: Essays in Musicology, Cultural History and Analysis in Honour of Harry White, November 2016.

L iber A micorum of a continuing international symposium. Bohlman recognizes the scope of this book in which the individual sections: The Musical Baroque, Music in Ireland, Music and Literature, Music and Poetry, Austro-Germanic Traditions, Music in Britain, Music Histories Worldwide: cohere as the parts of a whole that allows us to reimagine what music scholarship can be in the twenty-first century when we really are talking to each other, not least inspired by Harry White’s vision for what music and music scholarship should be … At first glance, it might seem paradoxical that so many contributors actually teach elsewhere in the world— Part I contains two contributors from the United Kingdom, and one each from Germany, Taiwan, Italy, and Australia—but this list of international scholars actually ref lects the reach of Professor White’s inf luence, and it illustrates the position of Ireland’s position in the modern world of music scholarship. 8 Following the lead of the honorand of this volume, Part One, “The Musical Baroque”, offers a collection of articles which aims at contributing to current debates in Fux studies and offering new insights into the music of his contemporaries. Julian Horton’s exegesis of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fugue in C sharp minor from Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Book One offers analytical ref lections on the problems of fugal analysis, paying close attention to what Horton terms as hybridity – the habit of summarising multiple fugal types in a single fugue. Drawing on theoretical frameworks developed by Peter Schubert, Christoph Neidhöfer and William Renwick, Horton traces the interaction of three successive types in Bach’s C sharp minor Fugue – ricercar, combinatorial fugue and stretto – as formal stages in an evolving thematic process which gradually unlocks the cruciform subject’s contrapuntal properties. Horton not only illustrates how Bach’s foregrounding of the interaction of generic subtypes and contrapuntal operations is fundamental to fugal technique, but locates this dialogue between counterpoint and generic typology as a vital locus of the autonomy that White observes as a principle in Bach’s music. Turning to Fux’s instrumental music, Lorenz Welker highlights the unique scoring of Fux’s sonata à quattro for violin, cornett, trombone and bassoon, for which he identifies possible models in works by Habsburg court composer, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, the Viennese court lutenist, Marco Antonio Ferro and the North German composer Matthias Weckmann. In a close reading of the sonata à quattro, Welker identifies Fux revival of already obsolete conventions of instrumental writing in the seventeenth century and proposes that the work may have been written for didactic purposes or as an attempt to don the mantle as Schmelzer’s and Ferro’s successor at the court of Vienna. Tassilo 8 Ibidem.

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot Erhardt outlines the complexities of a detailed examination of Fux’s liturgical music. He explores the spiritual and liturgical framework of Fux’s church music before proceeding to examine representative works written for Mass and the Office (primarily Vespers), using Fux’s own style categories, set out in his Gradus ad Parnassum, as guidelines. Jen-yen Chen’s essay proposes the idea of a musical Baroque in China, approximately contemporaneous with the European Baroque period. The function of music as a political legitimation at the courts of the Holy Roman (Austrian) Emperor Charles VI (reigned 1711–1740) and the Qing dynasty Chinese Emperor Kangxi (1661–1772), two of the most representative Absolutist monarchs, offers Chen the potential for conceiving important parallels between these diverse Eastern and Western contexts, particularly with respect to the ideology of a historicizing universalism which sought to transcend all temporal and geographical boundaries. Chen contrasts how in Vienna this ideology found its musical embodiment in the practice of vocal counterpoint as codified by Johann Joseph Fux, while in Beijing it took the form of tuning based upon the huangzhong or yellow bell, a perfect pitch which helped to engender political and social order through its cosmological significance. He illuminates how the dissemination of European music to the court of the Emperor Kangxi articulates not only the ideological affinities of the two milieus but also their tensions and incompatibilities, especially concerning the matter of whether polyphony or monophony stood higher as the more refined and developed musical art. Denis Collins’s chapter takes its cue from one of White’s earliest publications which drew connections between Bach’s Musical Offering and several collections of counterpoint from the seventeenth century that had previously been treated independently by scholars.9 White’s observations underscored the depth of interrelationships between these diverse works and their significance for deepening our understanding of Bach’s contributions to advanced contrapuntal techniques. Collins traces how subsequent research has continued to tease out the complexity of interactions amongst contrapuntal traditions, with scholars becoming increasingly focussed on the activities of early seventeenth-century Italian musicians, especially those based in Rome where an obsessive interest in all manner of contrapuntal techniques can be observed in the output of many composers. He offers as a case study the work of Paola Agostini (c.1583–1629), whose five books of masses published in 1627 provide a rigorous exposition of different types of canonic writing. Collin contextualises Agostini’s achievements within the Roman intellectual climate that encouraged the most disciplined compositional strategies in much of its church music and demonstrates his achievements in the long line of contrapuntal compendia from the late Renaissance to Bach. 9

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Harry White: “Canon in the Baroque Era: Precedents for the Musical Offering”. BACH: The Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute 15/4 (1984), pp. 4–15.

L iber A micorum Part Two aims to advance studies on a wide range of central issues to “Music and Ireland”. Kerry Houston opens this section with a reappraisal of John Mathews, chief copyist at both Dublin Cathedrals from 1776 until his death in 1799. Although Mathews’s work as a copyist would be criticized by today’s editorial standards, Houston convincingly argues that his “interventionalist approach” was intended to ‘correct’ what he considered corrupt copies and was also informed by his knowledge of ‘modern’ sources that he brought in manuscript form from Britain. By placing Mathews’s work in a broader cultural context, Houston casts new light on the image of Mathews bequeathed to us by the Victorian music historian, John Skelton Bumpus (1861–1913), to reveal a very different image: that of the diligent copyist who took much greater care than many of his contemporaries to ensure that legible and complete copies of the music were preserved for succeeding generations. Ite Beausang’s chapter spotlights early performances of Bach’s vocal music in Ireland, in particular the provenance of a chorale, There is a calm for those who weep performed at the Antient Concerts Society in Dublin in March 1855. Through examining copies of the vocal score held in the Antient Concerts Society music collection in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Beausang identifies the chorale, There is a calm for those who weep, as Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, one of Bach’s favourite hymns, and connects this edition with the contemporary English Bach Revival. Axel Klein’s essay brings us forward twenty years as he documents and examines popular perceptions of the Irish as a musical nation during the period 1875 to 1925. Klein raises this question in the context of a wider cultural debate of Anglo-Irish conf lict in the decades preceding Irish independence. Examining an intense exchange of letters to the editors of English and Irish journals, Klein reveals profound differences in the practice of music between the protagonists of art music and traditional music, and roots the understanding of the term ‘Irish music’ in the popular imagination as largely pertaining to traditional music in this historic debate. Adrian Scahill develops this strand through his identification of how the piano’s use within traditional music contexts began to be established during this period of the Gaelic Revival (c.1890–c.1920). He proposes that the piano acted as a mediator between the different sociocultural classes and repertoires of the period and outlines the various functions it served: as accompaniment to singers and instrumentalists; as a solo instrument; and as part of early ensembles which prefigured the later céilí band. Maria McHale’s article on Dublin’s operatic culture takes its cue from a 1910 article that appeared in the Irish Times. The article entitled “Hopes for Regeneration” presented the need not just for an opera house in Dublin but nothing less than a national opera house that would be the centre of operatic activity in the British Isles. McHale deconstructs this seemingly idealistic assertion to show how opera was not only popular but profitable at the 29

Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot time, but that this was also a period in which Irish opera and operas in Irish came to the fore. Through her scrutiny of performance records, her chapter throws new light onto what is otherwise generally perceived as a somewhat impoverished period in Ireland’s musical history. Karol Mullaney-Dignam’s essay turns to the politics of music publication by the Irish state in the early decades of independence and considers related issues of music education, collection and composition. Mullaney-Dignam examines the roles played by successive governments and state officials in developing these aspects of musical activity, highlighting that, by and large, individual or personal rather than official attitudes resulted in state initiatives for the development of music as a national cultural endeavour. Her chapter traces the responses of various music professionals who continually advised the government of the urgent need to have a comprehensive centralised state policy for the development of all aspects of music in Ireland. One of these aspects was the dance craze during the interwar years when hundreds of dances were held across the island annually. Ruth Stanley traces how the cultural and religious ethos of the new Irish Free State was particularly hostile to jazz: a concerted anti-jazz campaign by the Catholic Church and the Gaelic League resulted in the Public Dance Halls Act (1935) and subsequent pressure to restrict broadcasts of jazz music on Radio Éireann. Although jazz found a more hospitable environment in Northern Ireland where the broader cultural exchange afforded by links with mainland Britain encouraged rather than hindered its development, Stanley avoids a simple polarisation between North and South and explores the deeper complexity underlying jazz reception across the island of Ireland. Continuing the theme of how music, like identity, is metonymically and metaphorically linked to place, Ó hAllmhuráin’s essay explores how musical place making is a perennial feature of Irish traditional music, particularly in Clare, a music mecca in the West of Ireland. He spotlights the Willie Clancy Summer School in Milltown Malbay which every year attracts music pilgrims and aficionados from Jura to Japan, from the Austrian Alps to the pampas of Argentina. Reappraising cultural history in Milltown Malbay from its genesis as an Ascendancy outpost to its emergence as a capital of Irish world music, Ó hAllmhuráin investigates the modalities through which this community mobilised its soundscape to create a vibrant academy of music and folklife. Drawing on a cross-disciplinary palimpsest – cultural geography, music history and social anthropology – Ó hAllmhuráin eschews the false dichotomy of ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ that characterize traditional histories of Irish music, focussing instead on a sonic community that recentred itself away from the stasis of externally imposed marginalisation. Méabh Ní Fhuartháin contemplates the structuring paradigms of emigrant, gender and pop to consider how they inform the reality of performance, identity and reception in a case study of the Irish band of singing sisters, The Nolans. The specific period of 30

L iber A micorum interest in Ní Fhuartháin’s article is the decade 1975–1985, through contemporaneously, and in subsequent popular music discourse, The Nolans never seem to fit. Ní Fhuartháin addresses this repeated dislocation as emigrants, females and pop artists through a reading of their songs, which illustrates how music’s meaning is internally constructed and externally configured in people’s lives. This principle is richly illustrated in Gareth Cox’s exegesis of Aloys Fleischmann’s Games (1990) which observes the eighty-year composer departing from a life-long reliance on Irish folk music and culture to embrace a more dissonant musical modernism in what would be his final work. Composed for the Cork Choral Festival that year and performed by the BBC Singers, Games is a setting of six poems by the postwar surrealist poet, Vasco Popa, for mixed choir, harp and percussion, and one of the very few works by which Fleischmann wished to be remembered. Cox’s close reading not only examines the composer’s shift of musical language within the context of his career but also in the light of Seamus de Barra’s belief that Fleischmann might have been standing on the threshold of a new creative phase. The final two essays of this section turn to contemporary musicology with Denise Neary’s essay exploring the developing relationship between performance and research in Ireland over the past two decades in particular through the establishment of a Doctor in Music Performance programme at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in 2006, numerous national and international conferences hosted in Ireland on the topic, and a significant growth in publications focussed on artistic practice as research. Neary’s chapter demonstrates how the development of music performance research in Ireland interacts with, benefits from and richly contributes to the vibrant musicological research culture and community in Ireland. Micheal Murphy explores the history of this research community as he places Harry White in the pantheon of Ireland’s greatest musicologists: William Henry Grattan Flood, Heinrich Bewerunge and Frank Ll. Harrison. Murphy argues how, despite criticisms of his work, Grattan Flood continues to influence the perception of music and musicology in Ireland and that an examination of the relationship between Grattan Flood and Heinrich Bewerunge – a very different type of scholar whose work accorded with the disciplined musicology of Europe – is essential if we are to understand the early stages of musicology in Ireland. Murphy contrasts White with Harrison, who, through his international profile, had a minimal impact on the development of musicology in Ireland, though his work was of tremendous importance for Irish scholars. Murphy traces White’s impact on the development of Irish musicology as a self-standing discipline, which has not only been achieved through his scholarship but through his vision for the development of musicology in Ireland. In Part Three, “Music and Literature”, Declan Kiberd’s reading of The New Policeman considers Kate Thompson’s text as an example of the ways in which children’s literature is free to deal with social and cultural themes which often elude 31

Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot treatment in ‘adult’ novels. Exploring the relationship between past and present, as mediated through fiddle playing, Kiberd analyses Thompson’s treatment of the uneasy attitudes of official Catholicism to music and dance in the 1930s, comparing these with the equally ambiguous approach of a more secular order in Tiger Ireland. Kiberd’s reading offers a poignant example of how children’s literature, like the musical tradition itself, is at once radical and traditional because it invokes a critique of the status quo by marshalling energies from the half-remembered past and from an imagined future. Gerry Smyth takes up the theme of the role and representation of music in Ireland’s evolving cultural consciousness in Harry White’s Music and the Irish Literary Imagination (2008). Taking as a cue White’s linkage of Joyce and Wagner, and identifying James Joyce as George Moore’s literary heir, Smyth sets out to explore Moore’s obsession with music as a conceptual and formal inf luence on his own literary practice. In particular he traces the inf luence of Wagner on the melodic line Moore began to develop in Evelyn Innes (1898) and explores the role of music as both the central theme of this novel and principal inf luence upon its artistic expression. Smyth contextualises Moore’s developing technique in the musicalization of styles (all inf luenced to a greater or lesser degree by Wagner) developed by such writers as Thomas Hardy in England, Gabriele D’Annunzio in Italy, Thomas Mann in Germany, and JorisKarl Huysmans and Marcel Proust in France. Within this context he recognizes Moore’s ongoing commitment to a prose style approximating at least some of the effects of Wagnerian music-drama as a key moment in the development of Ireland’s “verbal understanding of music”. John O’Flynn’s chapter expands the discussion of the role of music in literature of this period to consider a filmic adaptation in Alex North’s arranged score for James Joyce’s The Dead (Huston, 1987). Taking the original literary form and screenplay into account, O’Flynn revisits White’s identification of the four features of “literary musicianship” that dominate Joycean commentary with reference to the musical components of The Dead and critically appraises Huston’s appreciation of the ‘musicality’ of Joyce’s source text as a starting point for contemplating Alex North’s score. O’Flynn shows how North adopted a scholarly approach in his engagement with the musical texts and references that abound in Joyce’s “The Dead”, researching pre-existing sources as material for original composition or arrangement. In addition to examining the extent and ways in which music features both diegetically and as underscore for literature-film adaptations, O’Flynn argues how the composer’s economical and considered treatment of musical material throughout the film was significant not only in realising Huston’s screen adaptation but also for its poignant exposure at the musicality of Joyce’s oeuvre. Patrick Zuk’s chapter takes us from James Joyce to Michele Espositio, the Italian immigrant composer and pianist who was a key figure in Irish musical life at the turn of the twentieth century. Zuk examines the 32

L iber A micorum intense epistolary relationship between Natalia Klebnikoff, the Russian wife of Esposito, and the Russian writer, Ivan Bunin, who subsequently used these letters as the basis for one of his most powerful short stories “An Unknown Friend”. In Part Four, “Austro-Germanic Traditions”, Michael Hüttler brings to light the little-known eighteenth-century Austrian composer, librettist, singer, Hofand Domkapellmeister: ( Johann) Joseph (Giuseppe) Friebert (1724–1799). Friebert spent thirty-three years as an inf luential Hofkapellmeister at the prince archbishop’s court in Passau, enriching musical life there through his choice of operatic performances but also through his composition of at least six Italian operas between 1764–1774, as well as many Oratorios and Singspiele. One of these Singspiele is explored in this chapter: his so-called “teutsche Operetta” (‘German operetta’), Das Serail (‘The seraglio’, ca. 1778), considered to be a model for Mozart’s Zaide. Susan Youens calls our attention from Singspiele to one of the shortest and most shocking songs Johannes Brahms ever wrote, Kein Haus, keine Heimat, op. 94, no.5, which she describes as “twenty bars of undiluted bitterness”. The Lied is set in D minor, the key that the Schubert-loving Brahms would have surely associated with Gute Nacht at the start of the composer’s winter journey and Der stürmische Morgen later in the cycle. While teasing out such homages to late Schubert songs, Youens also elucidates the text by Friedrich Halm from one of his “story-telling poems”, In der Südsee (‘In the South Pacific’), to unveil Brahms’s knowledge of Halm’s abolitionist sympathies, his fascination with James Cook’s voyages and the German Negermythos, perhaps even grounds for autobiographical regret. Shane McMahon’s essay explores the nature and provenance of temporal narratives underpinning tonal forms of the nineteenth century. He argues specifically that musical narratives are deeply indebted to narratives of theological provenance and illustrates how the sonata narrative in particular is sustained by a theologically-derived sense of time and history. David Cooper’s chapter contemplates Edgar Reitz’s 1992 television series, Die zweite Heimat – Chronik einer Jugend, which focusses on a group of artists in 1960s Munich, a number of actors for which are extremely proficient musicians, most prominently Salome Kammer who plays the cellist Clarissa Lichtbau, Daniel Smith who takes the part of the recorder player and percussionist Juan Ramon Fernandez Subercaseaux, and pianist Armin Fuchs as Volker Schummelpfennig. Cooper draws our attention to this cast of musicians acting as musicians which results in what is one of the most accurate and effective portrayals of musical performance, both technically and aesthetically, in the history of film. His chapter also examines the cultural, social and political context of the diverse score for Die zweite Heimat, written by the film’s composer Nikos Mamangakis to ref lect the mood of the time, and offers parallels with the author’s own experience of being brought up in Northern Ireland through the ‘troubles’ before moving to his own second Heimat of Yorkshire 33

Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot as a student in 1975. Glenn Stanley’s tribute offers detailed analyses of a stream of Fidelio interpretation that emerged on the West-German stage in the late 1960s and established itself as a serious alternative to conventional productions. Stanley outlines the cultural and political context showing how various directors used Fidelio as a means to critique recent German history – not just Fascism and the Holocaust but the cultural values of the German high bourgeoisie – and attack contemporary injustice in Germany and abroad. The range of performances he discusses moves from Furtwängler’s Fidelio in Salzburg 1948 to Brechtian productions of Fidelio in Kassel in 1968, Wuppertal in 1969 and Bremen in 1974. He also traces Brechtian ideas of Verfremdung and epic theatre in Said and Barenboim’s collaboration on a production for Berlin and Chicago in 1990, a production at the Bregenz Festival on the shores of Lake Constance in Austria in 1995 and Michael Gielen’s Brechtian approach in Stuttgart 1998. Nicole Grimes closes this section by proposing a new historiographical methodology for thinking about a repertoire of German music and artworks across two centuries. Her constellation of aesthetic humanism is a temporal process – a spiritual journey which unfolds in time – closely related to the concept of Bildung which resonates and reverberates through the music of composers from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. Grimes takes as an example Wolfgang Rihm’s Symphonie: Nähe Fern (2012), a five-movement work comprising four orchestra pieces written as pendants to Brahms’s Four Symphonies and an interpolated second movement, which orchestrates Rihm’s 2004 setting of Goethe’s Dämmerung senkte sich von oben (1828). Her reading shows how Goethe’s poem sets in motion a series of responses found along a continuum from Goethe to Brahms’s setting of the same poem (op. 59, no.1, 1873) via Brahms’s Four Symphonies (1871–85), through Rihm’s rendering of Goethe’s poem for voice and piano (2004) to Rihm’s 2012 orchestral work. Part Five, “The Music of Britain”, opens with a comparative study of three settings of the Latin Mass Ordinary for clandestine Catholic liturgies by William Byrd (c.1540–1623) and an elaborate large-scale setting of the Morning, Communion and Evening services for the Church of England – now known as the Great Service. Pauline Graham’s essay explores aspects of the Latin Creed from Byrd’s Five-Voice Mass and the English Creed from the Great Service in order to discern intimations of the Christian concept of eternity. In each case Byrd treats the text differently, but both settings exemplify the use of musical closure as a metaphor for the finitude of human existence, and its absence as intimating eternity. Graham’s chapter not only establishes a link between the composer’s Catholic and Church of England output – which has not yet received sufficient recognition in Byrd scholarship – but also provides a new interpretation of the composer’s sacred music grounded in contemporary philosophical and theological thought. John Cunningham and William Everett consider the hermeneutics 34

L iber A micorum of British musical theatre. Cunningham offers George Colman’s dramatic prelude New Brooms! as a lens through which to explore changing attitudes to the role of music in the theatre in the mid-to late 1770s and its implications within the wider context of British nationalism and Imperialism. Commissioned to celebrate the re-opening of the theatre under new management following the retirement of David Garrick, New Brooms! was greeted with initial enthusiasm when it was premiered on 21 September 1776. Cunningham identifies its dual function in paying homage to Garrick’s dominating presence on the London stage for thirty years, while on the other hand being a public statement of intent on behalf of new managers and a satirical response to the popularity of all-sung opera which was to all but disappear from the London stage by the late 1770s. Jeremy Dibble’s chapter brings us forward 100 years to spotlight a unique rural musical festival at Hovingham founded by Thomas Hudson, an amateur cellist, pupil of Piatti and Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge. The festival, which ran from 1887–1907, was founded with the support of the Worsley family of Hovingham Hall and the Rutsons of Nunnington Hall. Using the Worsley’s Riding School as a concert hall, the festival featured not only chamber, orchestral and choral works of the established repertoire but also works by contemporary British composers such as Parry, Stanford, Sullivan and Somervell, and numerous performing ‘stars’ of the time such as Fanny Davies, Emil Kreuz, Agnes Nicholls and Hamilton Harty. Using recently discovered documentary sources, Dibble’s essay sheds light on Hudson’s extraordinary artistic and logistic vision and how the Hovingham Festival embodied the Zeitgeist of musical renaissance in Britain. William Everett’s study of two musicals that appeared during the Great War, the American musical comedy Katinka (1915) and the British extravaganza Chu Chin Chow (1916) ref lect the defining spirit of the times and places in which they are created. Both shows exhibit exotic and politically loaded features of Orientalism – looking to an imagined East – as part of their dramatic and musical personas. As the US had not yet entered the conf lict when Katinka appeared, Everett illustrates how Katinka’s fundamental comic plot about Americans settling international troubles without military intervention could be interpreted as propaganda for the U.S. to negotiate peace in Europe, following President Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy at the time. Chu Chin Chow, which addresses the crucial roles of ordinary citizens in achieving victory over adversity in a popular version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, can be read as an example of Home Front morale building. Everett’s essay further explores the political and cultural context of both shows and illustrates how musical codes accentuate dimensions of plot and character. Richard Aldous’s essay on Malcolm Sargent (1895–1967) contrasts the image of “Flash Harry” – a vulgar popularizer who lacked the seriousness to be considered a musician of any great consequence – with the radical and transformational character he had been 35

Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot earlier in his career. Aldous traces his ascent from a prestigious organ apprenticeship at Peterborough Cathedral to Henry Wood’s mentorship of him as conductor and charts how he revolutionised orchestral life in London. Aldous offers as an example the Courtauld-Sargent concert series which not only transformed interwar programming, but set a new standard of excellence through the unprecendent rehearsal time he demanded. Aldous’s essay furnishes a new perspective as to why Sargent was such an iconic cultural figure in mid-twentieth century Britain and dominated British musical life in the postwar era. Part Six, “Music Histories Worldwide”, opens with Philip Bohlman’s set of historical ref lections on places of music making that are set apart, above all as islands, either geographically or metaphorically. The chapter unfolds as a brief history of the islands of music history and isolation as a condition for sounding self and other. Bohlman’s journey begins 500 years ago in 1516, with Thomas More’s Utopia and the founding of the exile Jewish neighborhood on the ‘Ghetto’ Island of Venice. His tour takes us from one of the very first modern novels, Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Essai sur l’origine des langues before navigating such islands of music history as the French governmentsponsored Dakar-Djibouti expedition from 1931–1933, in which sounding others played the crucial role home. We disembark with Bohlman paying tribute to Moore’s Irish Melodies and other chroniclers of Irish History. Vjera Katalinic and Ivano Cavallini both uncover forgotten composers whose work is central to our understanding of the cultural and musical contexts of their time. Ivano Cavallini’s chapter seeks a way of understanding the broader implications of counterReformation reaction to the Slovenian and Croatian Protestantism through the lens of the Italian composer Gabriello Puliti (1583–1644), an authoritative and prolific composer of early baroque monody in Trieste and Istria. In the turbulent years of the Counter-Reformation, when a great number of Istrian monks and priests were accused of apostasy, Puliti, a Franciscan, dedicated some of his works to the most feared inquisitors and superiors. Cavallini investigates the nature of three dedications in the Psalmodia vespertina, Stella splendida et mattutina and Sacri accenti in the context of the social, religious and aesthetic functions of these works. He singles out Puliti’s Sacri accenti as the composer’s most complete adherence to modern monody and offers Puliti’s mass as an example of cosmopolitan polyphony deprived of its own autonomy. Even though Sacri accenti falls under the auspices of political patronage, Cavallini identifies it as work in praise of the Catholic church of Koper and in particular the Franciscan order. Through his exploration of Puliti’s use of tropes in the Creed, Cavallini shows how in the composer’s appropriation of the Athanasian Symbol, the words “Haec est fides catholica” can only be interpreted in a narrow sense as “universal faith” and proposes that the 1624 Creed functioned as a warning for heretics. Vjera Katalinic introduces to 36

L iber A micorum us the 18th-century itinerant violin virtuoso, Giovanni Giornovichi (1747–1804), today mostly known under the Croaticized name of Ivan Jarnović. In addition to tracing his many performances through Europe, she analyses the conditions of his success through two types of musical borrowings: popular themes on which variations were built upon, which he used to close his concerts, which local audiences could recognize and identify, and which also served as a display of the performer’s virtuosity. Her essay also unfolds engaging layers of musical borrowing in the rondo themes of Giornovichi’s popular 10th, 11th and 14th concerti but also in the slow movement of his 14th concerto. By offering examples of how Mozart, Attwood and Wranitzky in turn cited Giornovichi, Katalinic’s unveils borrowing as a source of inspiration in late eighteenth-century practice, where snatched melodies commonly traverse genre, style, tradition and musical medium. Stanislav Tuksar makes us realize that Giovanni Giornovichi is one of numerous forgotten Croatian composers by drawing our attention to the vast amount of music material collected during 450 years of Dubrovnik’s semi-independent existence (fourteenth to nineteenth centuries). Dubrovnik’s treasury is housed today in eight music collections, encompassing some 11,000 music items in all. Tuksar’s chapter draws special attention to 320 early prints kept in the Priory of the Friars Minor (Franciscan) archives which includes instrumental chamber music and vocal romances by several composers of French origins active mostly at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This musical legacy ref lects the final episode of the art music reception and local performing activities in the Dubrovnik Republic just before it ceased to exist in 1808. Jan Smaczny’s chapter examines a period in Dvořák’s life in the 1860s which to date has been considered one of relative obscurity. He shows how prior to the premiere of Dvořák’s cantata, The Heirs of the White Mountain on 9 March 1873, the composer had been making a distinctive mark in the musical salons of Prague, notably those of Ludevit Prochazka and his wife, the singer, Marta Reisingerová and at the musical evenings of Josef Porges, Edler von Portheim. Smaczny argues that these events gave Dvořák his first chances to meet patrons, critics, musical and literary figures of significance in Prague as well as of presenting new compositions. He closes his chapter looking beyond the early 1870s to consider the role of similar gatherings in Dvořák’s career, where he interacted with such cultural luminaries as Jaroslav Vrchlický, the librettist of his oratorio St Ludmila and his last opera, Armida. Part Six closes with an answering echo to Bohlman’s songs of travels, this time with Jamie Jones taking us to Maharashtra, where devotional songs composed by the singer-saints of the Hindu Vārkarī sect are performed publicly and spectacularly during the vārī, one of the largest annual mass pilgrimages in the world. Jones illustrates how neither the musical repertory nor the ritual journey itself – despite deep associations with tradition and the past – have fixed meanings, and the complex affective 37

Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot experience of pilgrimage does much more than simply reinforce religious ideology. Drawing upon anthropological frameworks developed since Victor Turner’s foundational work in the 1970s, Jones interprets pilgrimage as a dynamic temporal overlapping between people, places, and texts. While songs are often understood as simply one point in this dynamic, Jones argues that music is the medium through which these entities are merged. Pilgrimage comes into existence when people sing through, about and in place. Developing an ethnomusicology of pilgrimage is therefore not just tangential, but fundamental. In conclusion, this book bears testimony to a meaningful, clear trail Harry White has made across the world’s musicological landscape, a trail of celebration and admiration, of high standards and, above all, a trail that has conferred honour and happiness on us all. His reputation is that of an exceptional international musicologist who has managed to retain a firm involvement in his original field of research, and by so doing he has brought the importance and relevance of Irish musicology to scholars in many countries. Honouring his sixtieth birthday is a measure of our high esteem for an extraordinarily imaginative researcher but it is also intended to be a gathering of energies and part of that special literary genre of Festschriften which Irving Louis Horowitz has identified as being “not just retrospective but prospective … a Beruf, a call to further work, effort, and energy, a call to the improvement of learning, of a discipline, a science, an artistic vision, or an intellectual position”.10 This book pays tribute to a scholar who has injected into Irish musicology a new excitement and has exposed questions yet to be tackled, a process stimulated not a little by the breadth of his expertise outside music in Ireland. It not only honours the ideas with which he has inspired Irish music scholarship over the course of his career to date, but also his great gift for language, his gift for laughter and for friendship, a generosity entirely congruent with the qualities of his musicological and poetic accomplishments. This great generosity – the legacy surely of a Dublin upbringing – towards those in the musicological neighbourhood (young budding musicologists and ivied old hands alike) and towards many others who he has befriended, admired or mourned in the larger neighbourhood of scholars and artists, has frequently required him to put life before musicology. The dividend, however, has been writing of immense integrity and compassion: one as empathetic, and unpretentious and undeluded as the man himself, which makes his life’s work a wonderful and humane achievement, as well as a scholarly and artistic one.

10 Irving Louis Horowitz: Communicating Ideas: The Politics of Scholarly Publishing 2nd edn. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1991), p. 237.

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PART ONE: THE MUSICAL BAROQUE

Harry White and Lorenz Welker

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot

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The Autonomy of the Musical Work

J. S. Bach’s Fugue in C sharp minor, Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I and the Autonomy of the Musical Work Julian Horton

Introduction Among the many reasons I have to recall my time at UCD with great affection are the numerous stimulating conversations with Harry White, spanning more than a decade, about the music of J. S. Bach. The fascinating questions of theory, analysis and interpretation generated by Bach’s fugal counterpoint, considered both as a typical feature of his style and a characteristic by which it is distinguished from his contemporaries, formed a recurring theme. Harry consistently argued that Bach’s significance lies in large measure in the autonomous musical imagination that his music expressed. The density of thought embodied in Bach’s fugues in particular exceeds anything evident in the music of his contemporaries, and extends well beyond any functional requirements of the court at Cöthen or the Church in Leipzig. For Harry, this evidences a kind of emancipation of the musical imagination, which preempts the familiar discourses of liberation surrounding Beethoven’s music by more than half a century. Harry formulated this argument in critical opposition to Lydia Goehr’s historicization of the work concept in The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works.1 Goehr inf luentially sought to expose our tendency to think about music before 1800 much as we think about music after 1800 as a kind of false consciousness, which imposes notions of autonomy on Baroque composers who would have found the idea meaningless: Just as a piece of pottery or a pile of bricks can come to be thought of as, or transfigured into a work of art through the importation of the relevant concepts, so, since about 1800, it has been the rule to speak of early music anachronistically; to retroactively impose upon this music concepts developed at a later point in the history of music. Implicit existence has become here essentially a matter of retroactive attribution. 2 1 2

Harry White: “If It’s Baroque, don’t Fix It: Reflections on Lydia Goehr’s Work Concept and the Historical Integrity of Musical Composition”, Acta Musicologica 69/1 (1997), pp. 94–104 and Lydia Goehr: The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Goehr: The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, p. 115.

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Julian Horton Goehr’s argument is apostrophized in the lapidary statement that ‘Bach did not intend to compose musical works’: however abstruse Bach’s contrapuntal engagement becomes, his music’s abstractions are always subservient to their social function, or at least to a notion of composition that does not recognize music’s intellectual separation from church or court. Harry disagrees: No-one can usefully deny that Bach’s cantatas were more immediately indentured to social function than the keyboard compositions of Beethoven, but this does not mean that Wachet auf, ruf uns die Stimme is less emancipated in musical terms than the ‘Waldstein’ Sonata. To suggest otherwise, as Goehr does, is to mistake the social function of music for its meaning. 3 The notion of autonomy prevailing after 1800 names the musical aesthetic of bourgeois emancipation, but this does not demonstrate the impossibility of autonomous musical thought in the absence of that label, or that music’s sociological victory over courtly and liturgical servitude brings autonomy into being as a compositional aspiration. A question naturally arising from this dispute is: if Bach’s music instantiates autonomy, then how do we locate and explain it through analysis? Extensive as the literature on Bach’s music is, a major study addressing this question remains to be written, in part for want of a consensus answer to a second question: what kind of theory best enables the analysis of Bach’s fugues? This raises the attendant issue of whether fugal theory in general is fit to this task, the visibility of structural processes depending upon theory’s capacity to see them. Yet despite the traditions of theorising fugue stretching back behind Bach into the seventeenth century and merging with Renaissance contrapuntal pedagogy, the toolkit available to analysts is considerably less standardized and integrated than that available, for instance, to the analyst of classical form. The stronger inclination towards compositional pedagogy in fugal theory is both a help and a hindrance in this respect: texts that make theoretical statements in the interests of teaching fugal composition are certainly more numerous that pedagogical theories of sonata form, but the pedagogical service that theory performs for fugue acts to the relative disadvantage of analysis. This condition impedes the search for autonomy, because, in order to have traction, the classification of techniques and processes lying beyond the domain of social function requires an orientating body of analytical practice as well as an orientating theory. Recent contributions to fugal theory ref lect a further dilemma, which pervades contemporary music theory in general: should we analyse fugue in terms drawn from eighteenth-century theory, that is to say, according to a historicist attitude, or is it more constructive to move beyond that context, that is, to adopt 3

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White: “If It’s Baroque, don’t Fix It”, p. 100.

The Autonomy of the Musical Work a speculative attitude? Positioned firmly at the historicist end of this continuum we find David Ledbetter, who approaches the Well-Tempered Clavier as a compendium of the fugal techniques and styles that Bach absorbed, and thereby pursues his analyses according to the terms of early eighteenth-century theory.4 Ledbetter’s fugal palette comprises a complex mixture of rhetorical, expressive, stylistic and contrapuntal devices discovered in seventeenth and eighteenth-century theory, ranging across rhetorical schemes found in Mattheson, models of invertible counterpoint as described by Fux and J. G. Walther, concepts of fugal typology indebted to verset traditions, and the contrapuntal ‘genera’ (species) developed by Fux, Berardi and Mattheson. 5 Although taking cognizance of seventeenth and eighteenth-century theories, William Renwick’s mobilization of Schenkerian theory places him at the opposite end of the spectrum.6 Employing Schenkerian linear progressions as a basis for classifying subject types, Renwick’s theory works upwards from the voiceleading modifications that enable real and tonal answers, through principles of invertibility, linear expositional paradigms, sequential treatment appropriate to episodes and stretti, to the Schenkerian analysis of entire fugues. Ultimately, Renwick subsumes the contrapuntal diversity of fugal form as a variant of the undivided Ursatz, at which level issues of counterpoint in the narrow sense give way to problems of identifying the fundamental line and bass arpeggiation: In the final analysis it is the coherence and conviction of the voice-leading connections that validates a fugue as an artistic work in Schenkerian terms. Thus, when we consider the tonal structure and voice-leading of entire fugues …, the considerations of imitative counterpoint … recede in favour of a more traditional Schenkerian focus on the upper voice and bass lines independent of surface counterpoint.7 The pedagogical texts by Thomas Benjamin, and by Peter Schubert and Christoph Neidhöfer can be understood as occupying a kind of middle ground between these approaches. 8 Both blend modern and historical elements, although Benjamin leans more heavily on Schenkerian methods, whilst Schubert and Neidhöfer are 4 5 6 7 8

David Ledbetter: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: The 48 Preludes and Fugues. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2002. Ibidem, pp. 72–103. William Renwick: Analyzing Fugue: A Schenkerian Approach. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995 and also ‘Hidden Fugal Paths: A Schenkerian View of Handel’s F major Fugue (Suite II)’, Music Analysis 14/1 (1995), pp. 49–67. Renwick: Analyzing Fugue, p. 205. Thomas Benjamin: The Craft of Tonal Counterpoint. New York and London: Routledge, 2003; Peter Schubert and Christoph Neidhöfer, Baroque Counterpoint. Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson, 2006.

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Julian Horton orientated towards seventh- and eighteenth-century models (chief ly Mattheson, Kirnberger, Marpurg and Rameau). Schubert and Neidhöfer nevertheless periodically reach beyond their historicist remit, supplying novel theoretical concepts, which analysis might apply. At the same time, Benjamin focuses exclusively on Bach’s instrumental music, whereas Schubert and Neidhöfer embrace diverse repertoire, including Bach, Handel, Scarlatti and a variety of Kleinmeister. The interaction of process, architecture and voice leading constitutes a major concern across this field. Above all, attempts to analyse fugues in terms of a formal scheme susceptible to architectural description seem doomed to inadequacy. The repertoire’s diversity quickly swamps putative ideal types, the standardization of which often conf licts openly with seventeenth and eighteenth-century mentalities, for which the concept of form in the modern sense is anachronistic. The architectonic approach is also largely indifferent to the types of counterpoint that fugues employ, an oversight holding manifest difficulties for a body of practice to which counterpoint is fundamental. We could, at best, identify the alternation of subject entries and episodes as a basic principle, but this alone hardly differentiates fugue from ritornello (Ledbetter’s invocation of the concerto principle to account for this distinction is well-taken).9 On the other hand, the question of form is no less relevant for fugues than it is for ritornello movements or da capo arias: it is never the case that fugues convey no architectural sense apart from the contrapuntal manipulation and elaboration of the subject. And this leaves aside the tricky question of harmonic function: fugues deploy cadences, sequences and prolongational harmony as a matter of course, but the issue of how these functions should be theorized as formal determinants remains problematic. This essay’s central objective is to explore the coordination and interaction of counterpoint, process and form as evidence of a kind of compositional autonomy in the C sharp minor Fugue from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. My immediate task is to account for the Fugue’s design neither as a formal scheme nor a generative response to the subject, but as a ref lection of the types of counterpoint employed. A striking feature exposed by the analysis is however the extent to which the processes overarching or propelling the form are neither generated by the subject, answer and counter-subjects, nor aligned with them in the disposition of material. In effect, the Fugue discloses two parallel narratives, one concerned with the treatment of the subject and its attendant voices, the other with ancillary material or middleground features, which are threaded around the contrapuntal complex. Points where these two narratives converge hold special analytical interest; but more often, the intellectual gauntlet that the Fugue throws down is the task of comprehending both threads at once, notwithstanding their misalignment. I see this as a significant concern for fugal theory, but one for which 9

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Ledbetter: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, pp. 101–103.

The Autonomy of the Musical Work there is currently no consensus vocabulary: how do we describe and explain processes, which cannot be captured by the prevailing discourses on fugal construction building up from subject-answer relations via exposition design to fugue as a whole, but which are apparent under analysis? Finally, I offer ref lections on the Fugue’s hermeneutic implications, mindful of the subject’s chiastic design, as well as larger formal, rhetorical and topical considerations.

Analysis: Fugue in C sharp minor, Well-Tempered Clavier Book I Fugue IV has perhaps the strongest claim amongst the Well-tempered Clavier Book I’s fugues to be described as a hybrid: that is, a fugue, the generic subtype of which changes during its course.10 Properly speaking, I would argue that Fugue IV is not, as is sometimes claimed, a triple fugue, because it comprises three continuous fugues on one subject, rather than one fugue on three subjects.11 The difference can be readily appreciated if we compare W-TC I Fugue IV with W-TC II Fugue XIV, which is a clear triple fugue. In the latter, Bach composes a fugue on S1, a fugue on S2, which ends by combining S1 and S2, and a fugue on S3, which ends by combining S1, S2 and S3. W-TC I Fugue IV does no such thing; instead, each section displays a different fugal practice, signified by textural change, orientated around the same subject: a ricercar, or stile antico fugue in bars 1–35 (hereafter fugue 1); a combinatorial or permutational fugue in bars 36–93 (hereafter fugue 2); and a stretto fugue in bars 94–115 (hereafter fugue 3). As Ledbetter explains, in W-TC I Fugue IV the types of counterpoint are exploited in different fugal styles mediated by a common subject: fugue 1 is a fuga major in the antique manner; fugue 2 is a fuga minor or keyboard fugue.12 Fugue 3 functions synthetically in relation to fugues 1 and 2, returning to the stile antico to accommodate double stretto on the subject and fugue 2’s second countersubject, altogether conceived as a stretto maestrale peroration. Fugue IV is, consequently, not a fugue on three subjects. If we claim that it and W-TC II Fugue XIV are both triple fugues, then we necessarily claim that there is no difference between a multiple fugue and a combinatorial fugue; a triple fugue becomes any fugue with two regular counter-subjects. As such, Fugue IV places considerable strain on any theory committed to establishing a formal paradigm. Distinctions between exposition, counter-exposi10 In fact, W-TC I Prelude VII is the closest comparator: it consists of a toccata and two successive fugues on the same subject, a ricercar and a fugue with a new regular counter-subject. 11 On the definition of ‘multiple’ fugues, see Schubert and Neidhöfer: Baroque Counterpoint, pp. 162–187 and Benjamin: The Craft of Tonal Counterpoint, pp. 258–259. 12 Ledbetter: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, p. 161 and for a general discussion of verset fugues, pp. 96–98.

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Julian Horton tion and middle entries carry variable explanatory weight, and the differentiation of entries and episodes, or even the relevance of distinguishing between subject and answer, is sometimes unclear. These problems become apparent if we consider the entry design of bars 1–17, which could be defined as the exposition, since they encompass the introduction of all five voices in fugue 1. Superficially, the logic of the passage is clear: the voices enter by adjacency, from the bass in bar 1 to soprano 1 in bar 15. As Example 1 reveals, however, the music’s orthodoxy goes no further than this. The tenor responds to the bass with a dominant real answer in bar 3; however there is no subsequent retransition, as Neidhöfer and Schubert term it, but rather a ‘splice’, the alto entering immediately in bar 7 with a variant of S in which the incipit’s note value is halved, labelled S1 in Example 1.13

S1 CS?

A real S

CS?

9

x x

A tonal (S1 variant)

x

x 14

x etc.

S1

x

x

x1

Example 1: J. S. Bach, W-TC I Fugue IV, fugue 1 exposition

An expositional episode follows in bars 10–11, which cannot be described as a retransition, because it separates subject and answer, not answer and subject, and so has the effect of putting distance between the alto entry and its subdominant tonal answer, which finally arrives in bar 12. Soprano 1 then enters in bar 14 with 13 On the concept of the splice, see Schubert and Neidhöfer: Baroque Counterpoint, pp. 93–95; on the retransition, see ibidem, pp. 110–112. This corresponds to what Renwick and Benjamin call the “bridge” (Renwick: Analyzing Fugue, pp. 109–136; Benjamin: The Craft of Tonal Composition, pp. 207–8. In older parlance, the music linking answer and third-voice entry used to be called the codetta, an inadequate term, in view of its use in Formenlehre to describe post-cadential music.

46

The Autonomy of the Musical Work the tonic form of S1, following a splice between answer and subject truncating the answer’s ending. The fact that all voices have now entered suggests that bar 17 brings the exposition to a close, but a summary of its subject properties alone – two variants of S; both dominant and subdominant real and tonal answers; and an episodic bridge between third and fourth, rather than second and third entries – underscores the music’s theoretical evasiveness. Moreover, although all five voices have shared some form of S by bar 17, we still await the full vocal texture, since the tenor drops out for the whole of soprano 1’s entry (in fact, we have to wait until bar 29 before all five voices are in play). Fugue 1’s subsequent entries compound the sense of contrapuntal latitude. Table 1 maps out the entry design. Strikingly, the initial form of S is never recovered: all subsequent entries in fugue 1 employ S1 or a variant thereof. The first middle entry arrives in the tenor in bar 19, initiating an unusual trio of subject entries (6–8 in Table 1). Entries 6 and 7 appear sequentially in the tenor as dominant and subdominant entries respectively, the latter involving a further compression of the incipit, from a minim to a crotchet; entry 8 then restores S1 in the tonic. Fugue 1 is completed with a pair of entries (9 and 10) in bass and alto respectively, both of which negotiate cadential issues: entry 9 supports a clausula in B major, but this is treated deceptively, since the inner voices create a 6–4 on the downbeat of bar 32; entry 10 supplies the alto for a perfect authentic cadence (PAC) in E, the only such cadential progression in fugue 1, and the piece’s first major point of structural arrival. Identifying a regular countersubject is equally problematic. The tenor’s material in bars 7–10 duly reproduces the bass from bars 3–6, but nothing remains of this melody as a counterpoint to subsequent entries save the conjunct crotchet tail labelled as ‘x’ in Example 1. Instead, Bach weaves a contrapuntal texture around the entry structure, to which x is crucial. Its treatment in effect supplies a parallel narrative, appraised in Example 2, which sometimes aligns with S1 and sometimes does not. I describe such situations, in which the functional boundaries of one contrapuntal process are out of phase with another, as non-congruent counterpoint; this technique constitutes a recurrent and strategic feature of the Fugue as a whole. Its first phase occurs in bars 9–11, where x’s duty in the tenor as the countersubject’s end is re-contextualized as the middle of a threefold imitation at a bar’s distance, which is misaligned with the subject entries, beginning in the bass midway through entry 3, and continuing into episode 1, as the alto picks up x as a continuation of S1 in bars 10–11. For entries 4 and 5, the counter-subject is jettisoned altogether. Instead, x is deployed in continuous imitation between bass and alto, a process that is also non-congruent with the entry structure, the alto’s first iteration of x spanning the end of entry 4 and the start of entry 5. In episode 2, the bass generates a new motive, x1, which is spun out of the end of x by inverting 47

48

1

Exposition

1

-

-

-

-

S

C♯

i

Bars:

Form:

Entry no.:

S1:

S2:

A:

T:

B:

Pitch level:

Key:

v

G♯

(CS)

A (real)

-

-

-

2

4

Table 1: Fugue 1, entry design

i

C♯

FV

(CS)

S1

-

-

3

7

⟶

-

x

x

x

-

-

Episode

10

S1

5

14

iv

F♯

x

FV

x

i

C♯

x

-

x

S1 A (tonal) FV

-

4

12

⟶

-

x1

-

FV

x

FV

-

Episode

17

v (IAC)

G♯

x

S1

-

x

FV

6

Entries

19

iv

F♯

-

S1

-

x1

x1

7

22

i

C♯

-

FV

S1

FV

x

8

25

VII

B

S1

x1

FV

FV

FV

9

29

III PAC

E

FV

FV

S1

FV

FV

10

32

Julian Horton

The Autonomy of the Musical Work

4

Subject-answer succession (exposition)

expositional episode S1

A real

Process acting on 'x'

S1

A tonal (S1)

Example 2: J. S. Bach, W-TC I Fugue IV, non-congruent counterpoint in bars 4–17

its downward trajectory in bars 17–18, the diminished form of which supplies a generative element of CS1 in fugue 2. Thereafter, the contrapuntal motivic labour in fugue 1 is shared between x and x1. Thus entry 6 continues the process established with entries 4 and 5, except that the voicing is inverted: soprano 2 initiates x mid-way through bar 18, answered by the bass a bar later, concurrent with S1’s entry in the tenor. As the tenor continues to entry 7, however, x1 takes over, appearing in imitation between alto and soprano 1; and both motives are in effect liquidated with entry 8, being compressed to the scalar quaver figuration in soprano 1 in bar 26, which is immediately imitated in the alto. Elements of x and x1 are woven around entries 9 and 10 in a comparable way. The bass line of bars 17–18 becomes the tenor in bars 31–32, overlapping the end of entry 9 and the start of entry 10. At the same time, soprano 1’s tied semibreve in bar 32 initiates an inversion of x ascending to scaledegree 1, and this in turn sets of an inversion x1’s turn figure to form soprano 2 approaching the final PAC. Fugue 2 engineers a twofold transformation of fugal character. Its technical objective is to provide S with two invertible countersubjects, and therefore to explore the permutational properties of triple invertible counterpoint. Simulta49

Julian Horton neously, its stylistic function is to contrast fugue 1’s archaic, vocal manner with a keyboard style, and so simultaneously to showcase old and new contrapuntal media and to juxtapose vocal and instrumental idioms. Example 3 maps the interacting voice-leading properties of S, CS1 and CS2.

Example 3: J. S. Bach, W-TC I, Fugue IV, fugue 2 S, CS1 and CS2

In effect, the three voices evolve out of the interplay of three schemata. The subject comprises a cruciform  - - - - figure, but the distribution of voicing in effect splits this into two elements: an implied  - -, and a counterpointing  - -, the two converging on the tonic scale degree at the subject’s end.14 The  - - element of S forms parallel tenths with a third schematic element, the  - -  figure comprising CS1. As Example 3 shows, the leading note present in S is notionally resolved by CS2, which picks up the  - -  pattern and completes ’s resolution, in the process forming a discant-tenor clausula with the other voices. Table 2 lays out the grid of relations for triple invertibility and numbers the six possible combinations; Table 3 maps Bach’s treatment of S, CS1 and CS2 across fugue 2 and f lags the combinations as they occur.15 Table 2: Permutational Grid Permutation: Material:

1

2

3

4

5

6

CS2

CS1

CS2

CS1

S

S

CS1

CS2

S

S

CS2

CS1

S

S

CS1

CS2

CS1

CS2

The fugue comprises fourteen entries. Entries 1, 2 and 3 in effect serve as a counter-exposition. Entries 1 and 2 have the character of a subject-answer pair, and entry 3 follows in the tonic after an orthodox sequential retransition in bars 14 A comparable analysis is supplied in Renwick: Analyzing Fugue, p. 38. 15 Bach’s triple counterpoint here is briefly considered in Renwick: Analyzing Fugue, pp. 91–92.

50

C♯ -

G♯

-

iv

-

-

S1

FV

S2:

A:

T:

B:

Entry pitch C♯ level: Permutation: -

Key:

81

Entries

12

CS1

-

CS2

S

-

C♯

2

i

Form:

Entry no.:

S1:

S2:

A:

T:

B:

Entry pitch level:

Permutation:

Key:

FV

A (real)

-

Bars:

i

CS1

CS1 CS1

iv

4

F♯

CS2

FV

FV

S1

CS1

13

85

⟶

-

⟶

-

Episode

88

i

FV

S1

FV

retransition 3

S1:

2

1

44

Entry no.:

41

Exposition

Form:

38

36

Bars:

Table 3: Fugue 2, entry design 49

51

i

-

C♯

CS2

FV

-

FV

S

14

Entry

89

S1

iv

6

F♯

-

-

⟶

1

F♯

-

S1

VI

6

A

CS2

-

CS2 CS1 CS1

(Extension?)

92

6, 7

54

CS2 S

5

CS1 -

S1

4

(Extension?) Entries

47

59

62

66

69

73

76

i

6

C♯

-

CS2

-

CS1

S

8

⟶

-

v

5

D♯

CS1

-

-

CS2

S

9

⟶

-

CS2

S

11

i

2

C♯

S

⟶

5

C♯

CS1

CS2 -

CS1 -

FV

-

10

(Extension?) Entry Episode Entry Episode Entries

57

79 (Extension?)

The Autonomy of the Musical Work

51

Julian Horton 41–43. The sense of an exposition is however problematized by several factors. Primarily, the counter-exposition is restricted to three voices, there being entries of S1 in tenor, alto and soprano 2, and entries of CS1 in soprano 1 (consecutively) and bass. Entries 4 and 5, in bars 49 and 51, both appear in the subdominant, and entry 6 (bar 54) in VI, thereby establishing a series of middle entries before all five voices have participated in the expositional S–A succession. Secondly, even though the S–A–S succession mimics a three-voice exposition, Bach only introduces CS2 with entry 4, and the counterpoint’s triple invertibility only starts to emerge with entry 5, which exploits permutation 1, transferring CS2 from the bottom of the texture to the top, and S1 from soprano 1 to bass. Fugue 2 also ultimately revokes the primacy of S1 established by fugue 1. Variant S1 forms the substance of the exposition, and its incipit is itself compressed approaching entry 4, shrinking to a quaver dovetailed with soprano 1’s episodic treatment of CS1 in bars 47–48. With entry 8 in bar 59, however, S is restored, and excepting entry 12, in which the initial semibreve is compressed to a crotchet, its prime form holds sway for the remainder of fugue 2. In all, Bach exploits five of the six possible permutations in fugue 2 (permutation 3 in Table 2, which treats CS2 as soprano and CS1 as bass either side of S, is omitted). Given that CS2 is absent from the exposition, entries 1, 2 and 3 can be excluded from consideration; similarly, entry 14 of fugue 2 omits CS1, and consequently steps outside the permutational design. Otherwise, the entry groups fall into two larger units, defined by the distribution of permutations. Entries 4–8 consistently apply permutation 6, which accounts for three of the four entries in the group and favours S as soprano (entries 6 and 7 are problematic, since they treat S in stretto above CS1 and CS2). Entries 9–12 alternate permutations 5 and 2, as S is treated as soprano and bass, and entry 13 supplies a lone use of permutation 4. Other aspects of the form are misaligned with this design. The recovery of S’s prime form as entry 8 marks its return in the tonic, both of which properties group it more logically with entries 9–14, which predominantly favour S’s tonic assertion. On the other hand, both the distribution of episodes and the gestural design locate the tonic bass entry in bar 73 as an important downbeat.16 Fugue 3 crowns this long contrapuntal process by unlocking three hitherto suppressed properties of S and CS2: S is susceptible to stretto at the fifth (although realized under inversion as a descent through successive fourths); CS2 is susceptible to stretto at the fifth; and both stretti can be combined, creating a double stretto on S and CS2 simultaneously. Although bar 94 constitutes an important structural downbeat and initiates the double stretto, fugue 3 is dovetailed with 16 This entry comes immediately after the Fugue’s golden section in bars 71–2, an event marked by the concealed statement of the BACH motive, divided between sopranos 1 and 2. See Ledbetter: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, p. 164.

52

The Autonomy of the Musical Work the end of fugue 2 by two means: first, and most obviously, by the harmonic elision that the arrival on i at the start of bar 94 creates; second, and more subtly, by the fact that the stretto on CS2 commences two bars earlier, with the imitation between soprano 1 and soprano 2 in bars 92–93. Bach has, moreover, twice hinted at CS2’s stretto capacity earlier in fugue 2: in bars 63–65, where it imitates at the fourth between tenor and bass; and in bars 85–86, where it imitates successively between tenor, alto and bass across the entry of S on the last beat of bar 85. The S stretto is anticipated once, in fugue 2’s entries 6 and 7, where soprano 1 imitates soprano 2 at a fourth’s distance, while CS1 and CS2 play out in alto and bass. Table 4 elucidates fugue 3’s entry design. It consists of seven entries of S or S1, the first four of which are treated in stretto. Entries 1–3 are vocally adjacent, descending from soprano 1 to alto; entry 4 jumps to the bass. As if to fill the resulting gap, the tenor then picks up entry 5, with the tonic variant of S in bar 100. Scaledegree ^3 is however augmented in this variant, and its descent through ^2 transferred to the alto. The two remaining entries, on C sharp and F sharp respectively, have contrasted formal functions. Entry 6 supplies the soprano line for the piece’s decisive structural PAC. Entering three bars into a seven-bar dominant pedal, its latter stages are distended across five bars, drawing out the ^2– ^ 1 cadential descent, which is finally achieved in bar 107. Entry 7 is post-cadential and also incomplete, discontinuing at its penultimate pitch, a product of its role in the subdominant embellishment of a tierce de Picardie. Recalling the role of ‘x’ in fugue 1, the treatment of CS2 in fugue 3 again develops a parallel, but often non-congruent and in many ways antithetical narrative to that involving S. The stretto process prefigured in bars 92–93 contrasts the treatment of S in bars 94–98 most obviously by travelling in the opposite registral direction, beginning in the tenor in the c register and reaching soprano 1 in the c2 register by bar 95. The processes acting on S and CS2 cross paths in bar 97 with S1’s transfer into the bass, an event serving to explain the disruption of the vocal adjacency of S entries at this point. CS2’s narrative also contrasts that of S in its escalation rather than exhaustion of stretto treatment. The stretti acting on S disperse after bar 98; the stretti acting on CS2 accumulate. From bar 98, the rhythmic distance between stretti shrinks to a half bar, culminating in the soprano 1 entry in bar 99. This turn of events is facilitated by a loosening of contrapuntal regulation, since the three entries of CS2 here have variable anacrusic intervals: soprano 2 in bar 98 retains the perfect fourth of the prime form; the tenor expands the anacrusis to a perfect fifth, which soprano 1 then contracts to a tritone. The remainder of fugue 3 can be understood as an exhaustive attempt to develop, combine and liquidate motivic properties of CS2, appraised in Example 4. This process begins in bar 100, where the top three voices pick up and sequence 53

54

94

Stretti

1

S

FV

-

CS2

FV

E

i

Bars:

Form:

Entry no.:

S1:

S2:

A:

T:

B:

Pitch level:

Key:

vii

B

-

CS2

S1

2

95

iv

F♯

-

CS2

S1

3

96

Table 4: Fugue 3, entry design

i

C♯

S1

CS2

4

97

CS2

CS2

98

FV

CS2

99

C♯

CS2

S

FV

FV

5

100

FV

FV

FV

101

FV

CS2

104

FV

FV

-

FV

FV

CS2

FV

Episode

103

(S continued) CS2

FV

FV

102

FV

CS2

FV

FV

105

FV

FV

FV

FV

106

108

PAC

C♯

FV

CS2

CS2

S

6

FV

CS2

Final entry

107

FV

FV

FV

109

FV

FV

FV

FV

Cadential

110

F♯

FV

FV

CS2

S1

FV

7

Coda

112

Julian Horton

The Autonomy of the Musical Work 99

z

z

z

z1

z1

z1 inv. z1

z1 z1 105

z1 inv.

z

z

z

z

z1 inv.

cadence follows

z1 inv.

z

z2

Example 4: J. S. Bach, W-TC I, Fugue IV, treatment of z and z1 in fugue 3

CS2’s motivic tail, labelled ‘z’ in Example 4, generating a variant described as ‘z1’, which continues z’s downward conjunct motion by a further step. Thereafter, the stretti on CS2 all explore the treatment and variation of z. In bar 103, z1 is counterpointed against its inversion, labelled as ‘z1 inv.’, an event initiating a chain of stretti, which freely employs z, z1 and z1 inv.: bar 106 counterpoints z with z1 inv.; bar 107 places z against CS2’s incipit entering in thirds in alto and soprano 2, which then exploits z and z1 inv. successively in bar 108; and bar 109 includes a new form of z (‘z2’) ending with an ascending fourth, which receives a novel extension as we enter the structural PAC in bars 110–111. Motive z’s last variant is the Fugue’s closing gesture: its augmentation in bars 113–114 supplies the 4–♯ 3 suspension defining the extended tierce de Picardie. Although the whole of fugue 3 essentially prolongs the tonic, Bach builds in various harmonic features, which threaten to destabilize C sharp minor in advance of a structural PAC. The first, and perhaps most striking, is the harmonic chromaticism created by the stretto in bars 94 and 96 between S initiated on ^3 and on ^7, shown in Example 5. Preservation of S’s interval content takes the soprano up to ♮^5, which Bach harmonizes as the 3rd of E minor, reached by reinterpreting VI/i in bar 94 as an approach to V4-2 /iii. The successive stretti then move through a cycle of fifths, which returns to the tonic with the bass entry in bars 97–98. As Example 5 points out, this is marked in soprano 1 by an arrival on ^5 in the c1 register, demarcating a registral transfer through a diminished octave from bar 95. In fact, this transfer interrupts a larger soprano linear progression, which enfolds both S and CS2. The soprano ♮^5 – ^4 in bars 95–96 refers back to the ^5 in bar 92, which initiates the CS2 stretti. The ^4 discarded in bar 96 is in turn recovered in 55

Julian Horton Fugue 3 5 92

!

lament

98

5 102

Example 5: J. S. Bach, W-TC I, Fugue IV, soprano 8-progression in bars 92–105

bar 99, which event facilitates a linear progression towards ^5 in the c1 register attained in bar 105, commensurate with the bass initiating the dominant pedal preparing the structural PAC. In brief, the entire contrapuntal edifice of bars 92–105 is held in place by an octave registral transfer of ^5, made possible by a fourteen-bar soprano 8-progression, which effectively behaves as a giant chromaticized application of the rule of the octave. Voice-leading analysis reveals that fugue 3 resolves several longer-range issues, which are installed but not decisively addressed in fugues 1 and 2. The clearest such resolution is the deployment of S’s  - - schema as the basis, in the c2 register, of the final Urlinie descent in bars 108–112. In a sense, the search for a cadential treatment of this schema in this register constitutes the piece’s overarching drama, an aspiration that tracks back to its frustration in fugue 1. This register is first attained with the exposition’s final entry in bars 14–17, but the expected cadence is def lected both by the bass ascent to ^6 in bar 17, and by the piquant dissonance thus created, as A as the 3rd of iv sounds against the constituents of V 7/ 56

The Autonomy of the Musical Work

16

111

PAC

Example 6: J. S. Bach, W-TC I, Fugue IV, related dissonance treatment in fugues 1 and 3

iv in the upper voices. In advance of S’s final entry in fugue 3, soprano 1 makes three further attempts to install S in the c2 register in the tonic, none of which are cadentially successful. The first is fugue 2’s entry 7, in bars 59–62, the ^2– ^ 1 descent of which is def lected by a 9-8 suspension dovetailed with the appearance of CS2. Bach uses a similar evasion in bars 78–79, where entry 11 treats ^2 as part of a 7-6 suspension above  in the bass. The same dissonance treatment recurs in bar 92 at the tail of entry 14, except that here the bass  on the downbeat of bar 92 picks up the  - - line and continues it downwards to the tonic for the start of fugue 3, while soprano 1 leaps to ^5 and shadows the bass in tenths, thereby completing a double soprano-bass voice exchange between bars 90 and 94, and marking the start of fugue 3 as a soprano return to ^3. The structural PAC in bars 108–112 then finally dispels this frustration, by holding the bass on V and coordinating the c2 descent to ^ 1 with the bass ascent to I in bar 112. Bach however saves one strategic deception for this point; as Example 6 shows, bar 112 retrieves the clash between the 3rd of iv and the constituents of its dominant from bar 17, now using it to qualify the cadential motion of the inner voices over a tonic pedal: ♯ ^3 and ^5 only settle as harmony notes in I, rather than neighbour notes embellishing iv, in the final bar. In this way, the dissonance frustrating the Fugue’s cadential trajectory in its early stages drives a wedge between the function of outer and inner voices in the ultimate structural cadence, critically diluting its force of resolution. A cognate issue for this process, charted in Example 7, is the establishment of a stable Kopfton for the Urlinie. The subject naturally implies an initial ascent to ^3, an impression confirmed with fugue 1’s entry 5, where S’s ^3 – ^ 1 descent serves as ^ the closing gesture of the exposition in the c2 register. Yet 3 is problematic here, thanks to its provisional bass support, which is supplied by E in bar 15, as part of a contrary motion ascending i6-3 –ii6-5 –v progression, and on the weakest beat of the bar. Degree ^3 is more firmly established in bar 44, where S enters as the interior of i, with ^3 in the soprano, above a root position, as the culmination of the linear ascent from ^7 comprising fugue 2’s retransition. This root C♯ however arrives rather late in the day in the overall structural scheme: it strains credibility 57

Julian Horton

3

3

1

15

...

...

3

3

43

3

60

...

90

S

...

S

...

CS2 CS2

3

3

94

1

2

108

...

PAC

Example 7: J. S. Bach, W-TC Fugue IV, Urlinie

to regard the ^3 at this point as the Kopfton; and it is no more plausible to read the bass i at this point as the retroactive consonant support for ^3 in bar 15. For the remainder of fugue 2, tonic support for ^3 becomes a function of triple invertible counterpoint, since it relies on the presence of CS2 in the bass and S in the soprano during a tonic entry. The alignment of these characteristics occurs twice, in bar 60 midway through entry 8 and bar 90 midway through entry 14; the remaining tonic soprano entry of S, entry 11, places CS1 in the bass and thereby treats ^3 as part of a passing 6-4 chord. These events however magnify the initial problem, obviating fugue 1’s failure to supply a stable bass for the Kopfton. Again, fugue 3 seeks restitution. The bass-soprano voice exchange transferring E to the top of the texture by bar 94 aligns i in the bass with ^3 in the soprano in the c2 register, in the process categorically stabilizing ^3 above the tonic. All the contrapuntal and linear 58

The Autonomy of the Musical Work activity between here and the structural cadence in bars 108–112 in effect prolongs the motion from ^3 to ^2, and from i to V. In other words, the structural voice leading now has formal containment: notwithstanding the harmony’s digressive nature and the counterpoint’s burgeoning complexity, fugue 3 comprises a closed voice-leading structure, in which a bass i–V–i counterpoints a soprano ^3 – ^2– ^ 1. In addition to its work with invertibility, fugue 2 also establishes linear progression as a significant structural force in the middleground, introducing fresh issues for fugue 3 to resolve, appraised in Example 8, which beams nested and interlocking descending linear progressions as well as the entries of S and S1. The subject, answer and retransition in bars 36–44 establish two patterns, the extension and combination of which are critical later in the piece: first, the 6-progression descending from ^5 in the soprano, formed from consecutive iterations of CS1; and second, the chromatic ascent from ^5 to ^8 that constitutes the retransition’s bass, counterpointing the conjunct ascent from ^7 to ^3 in the soprano. The former establishes the association between CS1 and descending linear motion, which proliferates across fugue 2; the latter contains the germ of a lament bass (albeit in reverse), which takes on increasing significance as the piece proceeds. In both cases, linear progressions often act without regard for fugal architecture, creating non-congruencies that mirror the non-congruent counterpoint noted in the foreground of fugues 1 and 3 at a deeper structural level. The implications of fugue 2’s initial 6-progression are picked up in bars 47– 65. The transfer of CS1’s  - -schema from the bass to the soprano in bar 47 recovers ^5 in the c2 register, and this initiates an 8-progression transferring ^5 down an octave, which spans 19 bars and enfolds four subject entries. Remarkably, two of these entries are embedded within the linear descent. Bach effectively uses S as a means of embellishing stations of the descent: entry 4 occurs as soon as the soprano has reached ^4, which pitch S elaborates. Scale-degree ^4 is then picked up again by the soprano’s capture of CS2 in bar 52, and the linear descent proceeds as far as ^2, which facilitates the S stretto comprising entry 6. Arrival on ^ 1 in bar 59 occasions entry 8, and the descent is completed with the ^8– ^5 progression in bars 62–65. Widening the field of vision again, we could also regard bars 36–47 as a larger span prolonging ^5 in the soprano, which in turn means that all the music from bar 36 to bar 65 enacts one overarching 8-progression coupling G♯ in the c1 and c2 registers. Other, non-congruent descending lines counterpoint this descent. The ^3 attained in bar 44 is for example passed to soprano 2 in the following bar, who then carries an elaborated 6-progression as far as ^5 in bar 52; as Example 8 shows, soprano 2 retrieves this ^5 by bar 60 and then descends towards ♯ ^7 in the c register, coordinated with soprano 1’s arrival on ^5. Finally, the voice exchange between soprano and bass in bars 45–47, which installs ^5 in the bass, sets off a bass 5-progression concluding on V/iv in bar 49. 59

Julian Horton

35

44 3

36 3

S1

see lament, bars 70–73

S1(A)

S1

54

47

60

S1 S1

S

S1

S1 69

64 S

lament

lament?

77

73

3

S

S

S 90

82 3 S

S1

Example 8: J. S. Bach, W-TC I, Fugue IV, voice-leading analysis of bars 35–94

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94 3

The Autonomy of the Musical Work Bach’s initial tactic in the second half of fugue 2 is to mobilize the lament figure implied by the chromatic ascent in bars 41–44. This is developed as a counterpoint of two voices in bars 67–73, as a method of Fortspinnung connecting entries 9 and 10. The subject’s  - - schema is prophetically chromaticized in bar 68 as part of a descending 7-progression arriving on ^5 at bar 73, pre-empting the lament figure’s full exposure as the soprano descends from ^8 to ^5 in bars 70–73. This descent is also anticipated by soprano 2, who traverses the same chromatic space in bars 68–72, creating a concealed middleground stretto between the two voices. The fact that soprano 2’s line tracks back to the D♯ in bar 67 exposes an additional feature here. Notwithstanding the literal disposition of voices, the linear progressions unlock S’s compound-melodic nature: the D♯ initiating entry 9 in the soprano properly belongs to soprano 2 as an inner voice, above which the real soprano enters with ^4. This implicates bar 66’s ^2 in a much larger inner-voice 8-progression, which is only properly completed in bar 77 midway through entry 11. Fugue 2 exhibits two more long-range linear progressions, both of which involve CS1. The first again sets off from the c2 ^5 recovered in the soprano in bar 82, and is conveyed to the A a seventh below in that voice in bar 88, the full octave descent being completed by soprano 2’s take up of c1 ^5 in the following bar. Simultaneously, the alto’s CS2 in bar 82 acquires c1 ^8, descending as far as ^5 by bar 89, after which the remaining fifth is adopted and completed by the tenor, attaining c ^ 1 in bar 94. Fugue 3 returns to the lament figure, folding it into the approach to the structural PAC by two means, explained in Example 9. Most obviously, it forms the substance of the soprano in bars 102–105, disposed above the complexities of the CS2 stretti in the manner of a cantus firmus. The bass enacts a non-congruent traversal of the same melodic space: the C♯ in bar 100 at the end of entry 4 moves downwards through B, A♯ and A towards V in bars 102–103, but overshoots G♯, coming to rest instead on ♯ 7 of iv, such that soprano and bass converge on V in bar 105 via a wedge progression in the preceding two bars. Before leaving the analysis, it is worth dwelling on the Fugue’s extra-musical connotations. The two most suggestive figures in this regard are the chiastic subject and the lament. Bach’s association of the subject’s schema with the crucifixion is well known. Its most overt affiliation is found in the St Matthew Passion, where it is used in Part II to set the words ‘Laß ihn kreuzigen’.17 Its choice for Fugue IV seems logical, in view of the key: a cruciform key signature demands a cruciform subject. A more ambitious hermeneutic, which takes seriously the theological associations of this figure, might impute a Lenten meaning to the subject and therefore to the Fugue as a whole. Ledbetter suggests that Bach con17 Several commentators have also drawn attention to the figure’s use in the chorale, Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, an association that adds hope of redemption to the melody’s implications. See Ledbetter: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, p. 163.

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Julian Horton lament

100

S

elements of lament pedal begins

Example 9: J. S. Bach, W-TC I, Fugue IV, elements of lament in bars 100–105

ceived the subject and its two counter-subjects as ‘an act of devotion’ in which S represents ‘Christ on the cross’, CS1 stands for ‘the nails and the spear’ and CS2 for ‘streams of healing’, mindful of the use of similar figures to this end in Biber’s ‘Crucifixion’ Sonata.18 Although the via crucis is prominent in the Catholic rather than the Lutheran liturgy, the notion that the Fugue constitutes a narration of Christ’s progress to Golgotha resonates with its strongly discursive character, particularly the mounting intensity of contrapuntal action culminating in fugue 3’s accumulation of stretti and the heavily end-directed construction according overwhelming structural priority to the final (ultimately qualified) tonic PAC. There are traditionally fourteen stations of the cross; and although there are 31 subject entries in total, the grouping of contiguous entries into subject-answer pairs or larger units bounded by episodic treatment or major formal divisions, also yields a segmentation into fourteen units in the main body of the form, mapped in Table 5, ref lecting the fourteen entries of the subject in fugue 2 on a larger scale, plus one incomplete entry after the structural cadence in the coda. The one contentious point in this segmentation is the division between units 4 and 5, which are not distinguished by episodic intervention; but because bar 36 signals the start of fugue 2, its associated entry begs to be included in a new counter-exposition, rather than a larger unit including unit 4.19 The conjunction of the cruciform and lament schemata is also suggestive in this context. The lament’s intrusion introduces a critical element of commentary 18 Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, p. 164. 19 It should also be noted that 14 is the sum of the numbers associated with the letters of Bach’s name using the ordinary number alphabet (B=2, A=1, C=3 and H=8). If we believe the arguments first advanced by Friedrich Smend, it is tempting to propose that the overall entry structure inscribes Bach’s name as a cryptogram, which has theological significance in relation to the chiastic subject. This is however pure speculation, mindful of Ruth Tatlow’s injunction that “the use of the natural-order number alphabet in the analysis of Bach’s music should be applied with caution’, since ‘there is no certainty … that Bach used any eighteenth-century number-alphabet forms, even assuming that he knew about them”; see Bach and the Riddle of the Number Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 129 and 127, refuting Smend: Johann Sebastian Bach: Kirchen-Kantaten; erläutert, 6 vols. Berlin: Christlicher Zeitschriftenverlag, 1966.

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2

3

4

5

6

1

9, 10

Entry units:

6–8

11, 12 13

4, 5

1–3

Entries: 7

8

14–17 18 9

19 10

11

20, 21 22 12

13

14

23, 24 25–29 30

Fugue 3

12–171 19–28 29–351 352–41 44–47 48–57 59–62 66–69 73–79 81–84 85–92 94–103 107–110 Fugue 2

1–101

Large-scale form: Fugue 1

Bars:

Table 5: Entry units

(15)

31 (incomplete)

Coda

112–115

The Autonomy of the Musical Work

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Julian Horton on the crucifixion as an object of tragic theological ref lection. It transmits an expression of grief over Christ’s death; but its presence in multiple voices implies that this is the grief of multiple bystanders. This perception in turn compels us to rethink the meanings of the contrapuntal techniques that define the three fugues. The piece’s hybrid design dramatizes a staged increase in contrapuntal involution, from the ricercar’s free counterpoint, via the permutation of two fixed voices against S in fugue 2 to stretto in fugue 3, where the action dwells on the material’s relationship with itself. The lament however stands outside this contrapuntal action, thereby suggesting that it comments on the process of accumulating strict techniques around S, in the manner of an observer analysing unfolding events. Here, perhaps, is a hermeneutic explanation for the processual non-congruence, of which the lament is one expression. Bach builds the potential for multiple perspectives into his advancing narrative: a central thread of contrapuntal action – the progression towards Christ’s death carried by the subject – interacts with overlaid processes, which transmit extra-musical meanings over and above the narrative carried by S. This reading also gives narrative weight to the startling dissonance marking the culmination of fugue 3. The shocking intervention of A in bar 112’s attempted tierce de Picardie turns cadential progression into an expression of pain rather than release, and as such serves as a forceful signifier of mortality. But this is also the termination point for all of the Fugue’s processes: the lament, the figure of Christ and his attendant counterpoint all converge in this final moment of expiration.

Conclusions The tension between the servitude of the indentured Baroque composer and the autonomy of the musical imagination is keenly expressed in this Fugue. Its meditation on fugal technique moves well beyond any function imputed by the genre, and its burgeoning complexity generates a material and processual excess, which explanations grounded in reconstructions of the genre’s function in the early eighteenth century struggle to contain. The Well-Tempered Clavier’s compendious function – the idea that it, like the Art of Fugue, seeks to appraise the totality of contrapuntal technique – enfolds more of the music’s esoteric surplus; but even this leaves questions unanswered. Fugue IV, for example, clearly seeks to juxtapose three fugal techniques; and this juxtaposition can be understood as an exploration of the idea that their respective applications should be focused on one subject. But this alone hardly accounts for the bewildering thoroughness of the material’s contrapuntal treatment, or for the array of non-congruent strategies that weave around S and its associated materials.

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The Autonomy of the Musical Work We need speculative rather than historicist approaches to explain this music precisely because such processual excess bursts its historical frame. Like many of Bach’s mature fugues, this piece is an exercise in extremism, in combining established procedures in a way that operates at the outer limits of their technical or generic capacity. This is partly a matter of formal expansionism: the sheer scale of Fugue IV, in common with fugues VIII, XII, XV, XX and XXIV in W-TC I, makes fugues by many of Bach’s contemporaries seem short-breathed. But it is also a matter of density, of burdening each moment with a contrapuntal substance that it struggles to support. Like a room that has walls but no discernible f loor, the Fugue creates the illusion of being diachronically bounded but synchronically fathomless: no audition can grasp all at once the inexhaustible complexity of the music’s contrapuntal design, material process and voice-leading structure, even as it apprehends the temporal experience. The material’s hermeneutic resonances only reinforce this perception, adding a theological dimension, the initial clarity of which is progressively obscured by the mounting plurality of perspectives on the chiastic subject that the Fugue accumulates. So here, in sum, is the analytical substance of the emancipatory tendency that Harry so eloquently describes. Any kind of strong historicism committed to the primacy of social function is forced to see Fugue IV as a keyboard exercise for private consumption or tuition, in-keeping with Book I’s purpose ‘for the use and improvement of musical youth eager to learn’ as famously inscribed on the 1722 title page, and with Bach’s habit of using the collection in his own keyboard teaching. 20 But no imaginable concept of keyboard pedagogy necessitates the kind of processual excess that the piece engenders, even if we accept that ‘practise’ has to encompass f luency in the execution of complex contrapuntal relations. It is in this domain – in the gap between utility and intellectual aspiration – that autonomy resides; and it is in the mapping of this territory that analysis, liberated from the tyranny of historical context, proves its worth.

Select Bibliography Benjamin, Thomas: The Craft of Tonal Counterpoint. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Goehr, Lydia: The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Ledbetter, David: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: The 48 Preludes and Fugues. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2002. 20 On the genesis and function of the Well-Tempered Clavier, see Ledbetter: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, 1–12.

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Julian Horton Renwick, William: Analyzing Fugue: A Schenkerian Approach. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995 and also “Hidden Fugal Paths: A Schenkerian View of Handel’s F major Fugue (Suite II)”, Music Analysis 14/1 (1995), 49–67. Schubert, Peter and Christoph Neidhöfer: Baroque Counterpoint. Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson, 2006. Tatlow, Ruth: Bach and the Riddle of the Number Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. White, Harry: “If It’s Baroque, don’t Fix It: Ref lections on Lydia Goehr’s Work Concept and the Historical Integrity of Musical Composition”, Acta Musicologica 69/1 (1997), 94–104.

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Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347)

Johann Joseph Fux’s Sonata à 4 in G (K. 347): 1 Further Considerations on its Source, Style, Context and Authorship Lorenz Welker It goes beyond doubt that Johann Joseph Fux (1660–1741) not only held a most significant post as Hofkapellmeister of the Viennese court, thus in the centre of the Hapsburg monarchy, but also exerted an influence on the following generations of composers which can hardly be overestimated. Of course, the most conspicuous piece of evidence for his influence is the famous counterpoint treatise Gradus ad Parnassum, first published in Latin in 1725 by the Viennese court printer Johann Peter van Ghelen, at the expense of the court, and translated into German, Italian, English and French in the following decades, either entirely or in part. It was used by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, to name just a few, and its approach to counterpoint and composition left traces in many later treatises, from those by Marpurg, Albrechtsberger and Cherubini, close successors to Fux’s original, to works of the 20 th century, by Schenker, Roth and Tittel. To summarise Fux’s influence on his followers in musical theory and practice, one has to follow Harry White’s statement: ‘It is no exaggeration to state that Fux has played a decisive role in the formation of Western musical thought in so far as tonal practice and technique are concerned’. 2 The literary style of the Gradus presents itself as a fictive dialogue between teacher and pupil, in particular and in this case between Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594, ‘Aloysius’) and the author Johann Joseph Fux himself (‘Josephus’), establishing not only a document of deep reverence for the master of sixteenth-century church music, but also initiating a new wave of Palestrina reception in the eighteenth century. However, the musical examples interspersed throughout the text of the dialogue are taken from Fux’s own works not Palestrina’s. 3 Despite the somehow dry and abstract matter which is taught and thouroughly explained in the Gradus, both style and examples render it lively and close 1

2 3

The numbering of Fux’s works given here follows that in Leopold Ritter von Köchel: Johann Josef Fux, Hofcompositor und Hofkapellmeister der Kaiser Leopold I., Josef I. und Karl VI. von 1698 bis 1740. Wien: Alfred Hölder (Beck’sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung), 1872, Beilage X: “Thematisches Verzeichnis der Compositionen von Johann Josef Fux”. Harry White: “Johann Joseph Fux”, in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 2nd Edition, vol. 9. London: Macmillan, 2001, pp. 365–375, here p. 369. See for instance Jen-yen Chen: “Palestrina and the Influence of ‘Old Style’ in Eighteenth-Century Vienna”, in: Journal of Musicological Research, 22 (2003), pp. 1–44.

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Lorenz Welker to actual contemporary teaching practice. And indeed, Fux’s teaching practice in persona can be traced back to the decades immediately before its publication. Documentary evidence shows that in the years 1716–1719 the Dresden court musician Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745) travelled to Vienna at the expense of the court of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, to study with Fux and to improve his compositional skills at the already mature age of 37. Not many details of his journey and the circumstances of his time in the Hapsburg metropolis are known, but we do know that he stayed in the home of one Philipp Troyer, who probably can be identified as the violinist of the same name and member of the Polnische Capelle (Polish orchestra) at the Dresden court from 1723 onwards.4 Even more significant than the few pieces of documentary evidence is an impressive musical document in a hand of the 18th century, Collectaneorum Musicorum libri 4, de diversis Authoribus (‘four books of collected musics, by various authors’), Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, MS mus. 1–B–98, which allows a glimpse into Fux’s counterpoint laboratory, with its selection of historical examples from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from well acknowledged masters of the past as well as from composers who belonged to the previous generation. The examples apparently should lay the foundations of paradigmatic good style. To these examples of masterly compositons by other composers a rather small selection of Fux’s own compositions is added which can be similarily considered as paradigms for contrapuntal exercises. The collection is completed by exercises in the hands of Zelenka, Philipp Troyer and others. Each of the four books was apparently compiled as a separate unit, but all four were bound together as one volume in a contemporary leather binding, probably shortly after Zelenka’s return to Dresden. The volume presents three series of page numbers: (1) an incomplete contemporary ink pagination at the upper left or right corner, (2) a more modern pencil pagination in the middle of the upper page margins, and (3) a complete pencil pagination in the middle of the lower page margins. Page numbers given in this article refer only to this third pagination.5 4

5

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Wolfgang Horn and Thomas Kohlhase: Zelenka-Dokumentation. Band 1: Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1989, pp. 67–86, especially p. 69 on the dates and on the mentioning of Zelenka’s journey in Johann Joachim Quantz’s autobiography; further evidence is discussed in Wolfgang Reich: “Jan Dismas Zelenka als Schüler von Johann Joseph Fux. Belege und Vermutungen”, in: J. J. FuxSymposium Graz ‘91, ed. Rudolf Flotzinger. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1992 (Grazer musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten, Band 9), pp. 121–132, and in Herbert Seifert: “Zelenka in Wien”, in: Zelenka-Studien II. Referate und Materialien der 2. internationalen Fachkonferenz Jan Dismas Zelenka (Dresden und Prag 1995), ed. Günter Gattermann and Wolfgang Reich. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag [Deutsche Musik im Osten Band 12], 1997, pp. 183–192, and Wolfgang Horn: “Nachahmung und Originalität. Zelenkas Studien bei Fux und die Bedeutung der ‘Imitatio’”, in: Johann Joseph Fux und seine Zeit. Kultur, Kunst und Musik im Spätbarock, ed. Arnfried Edler and Friedrich W. Riedel. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1996 (Publikationen der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover Band 7), pp. 137–169. For the three sets of page numbers see Horn, Kohlhase, Zelenka-Dokumente, p. 71.

Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347) The first book (pp. 1–132) is exclusively made of a selection of fifteen Magnificat settings by Cristóbal Morales (c.1500–1553), probably taken from the collection of sixteen Magnificats, published in print by Antonio Gardano, Venice, 1542. The second book is in its first part (pp. 133–224) a manuscript copy of Girolamo Frescobaldi’s (1583–1643) Fiori musicali, printed for the first time by Alessandro Vincenti in Venice, 1635. The second part is a collection of seven four-part ricercari by Alessandro Poglietti (first half 16th century–1683), court and chamber organist at the court of Emperor Leopold I in Vienna; it is likely that the ricercari were intended for keyboard, but are copied in score. The fourth book is a manuscript copy of Luigi Battiferri’s (c.1600–c.1682) op. III: twelve ricercari, Bologna, 1669. Battiferri served as a maestro di cappella in several places in middle and Northern Italy, such as Ferrara and Urbino. The most interesting part of the whole collection with regard to Fux’s teaching, however, is the third book, because it contains on the one hand exemplary vocal polyphony by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the hero of the Gradus, on the other works by Fux himself and exercises by his pupils. The third book starts with a selection of four mass settings by Palestrina, taken from the first and second book of masses, printed for the first time in 1554 by Valerio and Aloysio Dorico, in Rome, and in 1567 by the heirs of Valerio and Dorico, also in Rome. Two keyboard ricercari by Luigi Battiferri and one by Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–1667) follow Palestrina’s compositions. The second half of the third book starts with works by Johann Joseph Fux himself. But instead of displaying another selection of church and keyboard music, the Fux contribution presents a series of four ensemble sonatas, for three and four string and wind instruments with organ accompaniment. Thus, at a first glance, it seemingly does not fit into the supposed educational programme. Only the final section of an otherwise not yet found Gloria, entered before the series of ensemble sonatas, and a Benedictus dalla Messa Ariosa immediately after the series of sonatas are reminders of Fux’s mastership in church music. Here, obviously, instrumental ensemble music was chosen to represent the contrapuntal style of the master of counterpoint. A series of canons by the Viennese court musicians Ragazzi and Bernabei and by Jan Dismas Zelenka conclude the third book.6 The chronology of the four books which form the collection is not easily established. The year 1717 can be found on the title page of book three, the year 1718 on the title pages of books one, two and four. The year 1719 marks the end of Battiferri’s ricercari in book four on page 395. However, also on top of the music entries in book two, the year 1717 can be found below an earlier entry which was cut in half during the process of binding. Thus, a possible – and in my opinion plausible – sequence of copying and chronology would be: the process of compil6

See Horn, Kohlhase, Zelenka-Dokumente, p. 72–86, for the contents of the four books.

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Lorenz Welker ing started with book three, continued with book two (maybe begun at the end of 1717, and continued till 1718), advanced further with book one, and ended with book four. The contemporary pagination in book three – which covers its first 92 pages, but is abandoned on the following pages – could be seen as a confirmation of the hypothetical chronology: the compiler started a pagination but stopped it later. However, this hypothesis is partly contradicted by the partial contemporary pagination in book one, which also starts with a page 1 and covers only the first 28 pages of the Magnificat collection. Only book three offers evidence for an interaction between instructor and pupil, in this case Johann Joseph Fux and either Jan Dismas Zelenka or one of his classmates, for example Philipp Troyer. Troyer was responsible for copying the music pp. 227–296 (Palestrina Masses; the text was entered by Zelenka), possibly also the music on pp. 297–302 and pp. 303–304 (‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’).7 The fivepart ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ is accompanied by a remark in the hand of Zelenka: ‘Del S: Fux Soggetto principato d’un suo Scolare e/ mandato gli da finir, il qual a preso un altro Soggetto/ e l’à condotto in quest maniera./ Pars 5. ad libitum.’ The translation could be: ‘By Signor Fux[,] the main subject is from one of his pupils, and was given to him [i.e. Fux] to finish [the composition], who took up another subject and continued in this manner. Part 5 ad libitum.’ Although it seems clear that this short excerpt from a Gloria setting is a very rare example of teacher–student interaction in Baroque counterpoint instruction, it seems somehow unusual that the teacher encouraged the student to invent a subject and he himself finished the composition, instead of starting the other way round: by offering a subject to the student the teacher encouraged the student to finish the compositon. Only in assuming that Fux wanted to present an exemplary solution of a compositorial assignment, both the remark on top of the little composition and the inclusion in a collection of model compositions seem justified. The collection of ensemble sonatas on pp. 304–318 will be discussed below. On pp. 318–321 Jan Dismas Zelenka copied, as already mentioned above, a ‘Bene­ dictus dalla/ Messa Ariosa’, attributed to ‘istesso Authore’ – ‘the same author’, in the same way as for the four sonatas which precede the Mass movement. The Benedictus is indeed a part of a mass ascribed to Johann Joseph Fux elsewhere; it is a part of the Missa Sancti Michaelis (K. 36), ‘di Gioseppe Fux 1700’, reserved in a MS copy in the monastery library of Göttweig in Austria.8 The remark ‘istesso’ must be seen as a referral to the author attribution for Cum Sancto Spiritu: ‘Del S: Fux’, thus establishing Fux’s authorship also for the sonatas and the Benedic7

On Troyer as a copyist in the Collectaneorum MS see, in addition to Horn, Kohlhase, the remarks on the MS in RISM online, RISM ID no.: 211010570, accessed 11 November 2017. 8 Hellmut Federhofer and Friedrich Wilhelm Riedel: “Quellenkundliche Beiträge zur Johann Joseph Fux-Forschung”, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 21/2 (1964), pp. 111–140.

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Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347) tus. However, Fux’s name appears for the first time on p. 303; the title page of the third book mentions the contribution of Fux only among others and within the formulation ‘accesserunt pauca alia./ variorum autorum’ – which seems a bit strange regarding to the assumed closeness and high esteem on Zelenka’s part towards Fux. High esteem of Fux is expressed indeed on the pages following the sonata collection: a canon by the Viennese court musician Angelo Ragazzi (‘Maestro dei Conserti della S:M:I:/ e Catho:’), copied by a further hand (Ragazzi’s?) on a small additional leaf between pp. 322 and 325, has the text ‘Joannes Joseph Fux excellens musicus’ for the tenor part, whereas all other parts have another text, ‘Inveni hominem secundum cor meum’. And the series of canons by Jan Dismas Zelenka, pp. 329–31, copied by the composer probably only after his return to Dresden (c.1721 according to Kohlhase and Horn), is introduced with the remark: ‘ad imitationem Aestimatissimi sui Magistri’ which is generally accepted as a further reference to Fux.9 To conclude my more general considerations on book three of the Collectaneorum series: one can find more evident traces of Fux’s teaching, and more circumstantial ones. One has to add to the latter category the layout and wording of the title page of book three. It reads: ‘Messe del Palestina. [sic!] / à 4. 5. e 6. /: Detto del Sig: Bernardo Pasquini: / Quello che pretende d’ essere Maestro di Musica / et anche Organista; e non gustira il Nettore [sic!], é / non venera Latte di queste diuine Composizioni del Palestina [sic!], sarà sempre pouerello. / Copiandas accepi à D’no Georgio Reitter Capellae Magistro apud / Sanctum Stephanum Viennae Austriae. 1717. Copiauit D: / Philippus Troyer ibidem me hoc tempore existente, J: Disma Zelenka.’ The metaphorical mentioning of Nettore should most likely be corrected to Nettare (‘nectar’), which combines nicely with Latte, the ‘milk’ of divine compositions. The spelling of the name as Palestina instead of Palestrina, however, was quite common in sources with title pages in Italian, and need not be corrected.10 For example, the first two editions of his first book of madrigals for four voices, printed in 1568 and 1574 in Venice (by Claudio Merulo da Correggio and Giorgio Anglieri, respectively) give the composer’s name as ‘Gio. Pierluigi da Palestrina’, yet all following editions (all Venice; Amadino, 1583, Amadino, 1587, Vincenti, 1588, Gardano, 1594, Scotto, 1596, Gardano, 1605) render it ‘Gio. Pierluigi da Palestina’ (my italics). The same spelling can be found in Giovanni Francesco Anerio’s edition of three masses by Palestrina (‘Papa Marcello’, ‘Iste confessor’, ‘Sine nomine’), reduced to four voices and printed in Rome by Lodovico Grignani, 1646, and, with corrections by Francesco Ganini, by Mascardi, 1689. The contents on the title pages are referred to as 9 See Horn, Kohlhase, Zelenka-Dokumente, p. 78. 10 For an overview of the printing history of Palestrina’s works see Clara Marvin: Palestrina. A Guide to Research. New York etc.: Routledge, 2002, pp. 13–16 (masses), 50 (madrigals) and 54–55 (anthologies).

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Lorenz Welker ‘Messe a quattro voci le tre primi del Palestina’ (1646) and ‘Messe a quattro voci del Palestina’ (1689). The Italian language of the title page of the third book of the Collectaneorum, the spelling of Palestrina’s name, and the quotation of Bernardo Pasquini’s comment point to an exemplar, which was compiled in the seventeenth century in Italy, and possibly in Rome, where Pasquini worked as an organist. It seems likely that Georg Reutter the Elder (1656–1738), who was organist at St Stephen’s cathedral in Vienna and probably spent some time in Rome during the years 1694–1695, came into contact with Pasquini or even studied with him, and was given a collection of Palestrina masses, compiled either by Pasquini himself or by another musician in his circle. Zelenka received the Palestrina collection from Reutter, and gave it for copying to his room- and classmate Philipp Troyer. There is no evidence that Johann Joseph Fux was already somehow involved in the process of copying the Palestrina masses in the third book of the Collectaneorum. And, since Zelenka pointed out later in his life that the period of studies with Fux lasted (only) 18 months,11 it is possible that he started his studies in Vienna with Reutter, and was accepted as Fux’s pupil only later. The four ensemble sonatas copied between the Gloria section and the Benedictus offer a selection of various approaches to instrumental writing for small ensembles. It starts with a mixed combination of two string and two wind instruments with organ continuo: ‘Sonata à 4. violino, cornetto, trombone, fagotto et organo. D’ istesso Authore.’ (K. 347) This sonata is the most extended of all four works; it covers roughly nine pages in the MS, it is copied on five staves – four for the obligato instruments and one for organ, it is organised in four movements (–, allegro, adagio, allegro–[adagio–allegro]12 –adagio) and 154 bars according to its version in the New Fux Edition,13 203 bars in Guido Adler’s DTÖ edition14 (Adler transcribed movements three and four in 3/2 in contrast to Guido Erdmann who transcribed the movements in accordance with the MS source in 6/2-metre). The other sonatas out of the group present a much smaller range: ‘Sonata à 3: 2 violini, basso con fagotto un poco variatto del istesso authore’ (K. 342) covers three pages in the MS, is copied on four staves – three for the obligato instruments, one for organ, and consists of five movements, but only 85 bars. The third piece is a ‘Sonata à 4: 2 violini, viola, et organo, del istesso authore’ (K. 346), it covers less than one and a half page, and is copied on four staves again. It consists of only 11 See Horn, Kohlhase, Zelenka-Dokumente, p. 69. 12 The adagio–allegro in brackets refers to a short ritardando (with a duration of two crotchets) at the end of a soloistic duo for the two violins and the return to the former allegro for the virtuoso duo of trombone and bassoon. 13 Fux, Johann Joseph: Sonaten für größere Besetzungen, ed. Guido Erdmann. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 2014, pp. 27–39. 14 Johann Josef Fux: Mehrfach besetzte Instrumentalwerke. Zwei Kirchensonaten und zwei Ouvertüren, ed. Guido Adler. Wien: Artaria [=Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich 9/II 19],1902, pp. 1–10.

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Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347) two movements (–, piu allegro) and 45 bars: in this case, the organ part is a basso seguente which apparently incorporates also an obbligato bass voice. Finally, a ‘Sonata à 3 del istesso authore’ (K. 341), is actually a Sonata à due in seventeenth-century nomenclature because the two violins are accompanied by a basso continuo organ which has no obbligato function (and even lacks contino figures).15 It covers less than one page, is copied on three staves, consists of two movements (adagio, allegro) and 42 bars. Whereas the sonatas on the second to fourth place can hardly be seen as ‘works on their own’, and rather have the character of musical additions to the liturgy of minor importance, the first is a remarkable piece of music and deserves further consideration.16 One first and extraordinary feature of Fux’s Sonata à 4 is its scoring for violin, cornett, trombone and bassoon together with an organ continuo, which seems rather old fashioned against the background of Fux’s own musical output as well as that of his contemporaries. Especially the cornett part is rather unusual, and the combination of instruments superficially points to traditions of mixed string– wind combinations which were common in the first half and around the middle of the previous century but not in Fux’s lifetime, with noteworthy contributions by Giovanni Valentini (1582/1583–1649), Marco Antonio Ferro (c.1610–1662) and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (1620/1623–1680) in Vienna17 and Matthias Weckmann 15 On seventeenth-century nomenclature for ensemble sonatas see Niels Martin Jensen: “Solo sonata, duo sonata and trio sonata. Some problems of terminology, texture, and genre in 17th-century Italian instrumental music”, in: Festskrift Jens Peter Larsen, ed. Nils Schiørring, Henrik Glahn [og] Carsten E. Hatting. København: Wilhelm Hansen, 1972, pp. 73–101, and my “Die Ensemblesonate von ihren Anfängen bis Corelli”, in: Die Sonate. Formen instrumentaler Ensemblemusik, ed. Claus Bockmaier and Siegfried Mauser. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag [=Handbuch der musikalischen Gattungen Band 5], 2005, pp. 9–34. 16 On Fux’s sonatas in general see Andreas Liess: Die Trio-Sonaten von Johann Joseph Fux an Hand der Manuskripte der Wiener Nationalbibliothek. Eine Studie zum dynamischen Geschichtsbild im süddeutschen Spaätbarock. Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt [Neue deutsche Forschungen. Abteilung Musikwissenschaft Band 9], 1940, Josef-Horst Lederer: “Das Kanzonenprinzip in den Sonate da Chiesa von J. J. Fux”, in: J. J. Fux-Symposium Graz ‘91, ed. Rudolf Flotzinger. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt [=Grazer musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten, Band 9], 1992, pp. 85– 104; and Josef-Horst Lederer: “Zur Datierung der Triosonaten und anderer Werke von Johann Joseph Fux”, in: Johann Joseph Fux and the Austro-Italian Baroque, ed. Harry White. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992, pp. 109–137. 17 For Viennese tradtions see Herbert Seifert: “Eine Krise der Hofkapelle unter den Kaisern Ferdinand II. und Ferdinand III.?”, in: Die Wiener Hofmusikkapelle II: Krisenzeit der Hofmusikkapellen, ed. Theophil Antoniczek, Elisabeth Theresia Fritz and Hartmut Krones. Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau, 2006, p. 99–111, especially p. 106. It should be mentioned, however, that the scoring for four-part sonatas in Ferro’s Sonate a due, tre & quattro, op. 1, Venice: Gardano, calls for “Due Violini, Violetta da Braccio & Viola da Gamba ouero due Cornetti, Violetta da braccio e Fagotto”(Sonata Settima), “Due Violini, Violetta da Braccio & Viola da Gamba ouero due Cornetti, Trombone & Fagotto” (Sonata Ottava, Sonata Undecima) or ‘Due Violini, Violetta da Braccio & Viola da Gamba ouero due Cornetti, Violetta da Braccio & tiorba’ (Sonata Duodecima), thus combining either two violins or two cornetts but not violin and cornett. See Claudio Sartori: Bibliografia della

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Lorenz Welker (1616[?]–1674) in Hamburg18. It is this unusual scoring which made Herbert Seifert express serious doubts in Johann Joseph Fux’s authorship of the sonata ten years ago, and made him assume the authorship of a different composer of the same name Fux, but of an earlier generation: Vinzenz Fux (1606–1659).19 Yet, although I already anticipated Seifert’s doubts in Johann Joseph Fux’s authorship in an earlier article (without reference to Vinzenz), 20 further considerations now make me believe that the sonata is indeed a work by Johann Joseph, and a fine example of his writing for small ensembles, albeit conceived only as a piece for compositional studies. Evidence for Vinzenz Fux’s scoring for the cornett (and the cornettino) is given in Michael Collver’s and Bruce Dickey’s Catalogue of Music for the Cornett. 21 The authors mention a Canzon pro tabula à 10, which uses two cornetts besides two violins, viola, three trombones, and organ, 22 and three mass settings with cornett parts (along with trombones) as well as one mass setting ‘in honorem Sanctae Barbarae’ for five-part choir with accompaniment of two obligato cornettini and organ, preserved in Uppsala University Library, as part of the Düben collection, which present a range comparable to that of the Sonata à 4: e’–d’’’ (‘cornettino I’) and c’–b’’ (‘cornettino II’). 23 The only extant sonata in the stricter sense, attributable to Vinzenz Fux, is a work transmitted as number XX in the Rost Codex (MS Rés Vm7 653 of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris) for two violins and

18 19

20

21 22 23

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musica strumentale italiana stampata in Italia fino al 1700. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1952, pp. 408–409 (1649e). For an edition of Weckmann’s ensemble sonatas see Matthias Weckmann (1619–1674): Gesammelte Werke, ed. Gerhard Ilgner. Leipzig: Henry Litolff’s Verlag [Das Erbe deutsche Musik. Zweite Reihe, Landschaftsdenkmale: Schleswig-Holstein und Hansestädte, Bd. 4], 1942, pp. 1–54. Herbert Seifert: “Die Sonate für Violine, Zink, Posaune und Fagott K 347. Von welchem Fux?”, in: Thomas Hochradner, Susanne Janes (eds.): Fux-Forschung. Standpunkte und Perspektiven. Bericht des wissenschaftlichen Symposions auf Schloss Seggau 14–16. Oktober 2005 anlässlich des Jubiläums “50 Jahre Johann-Joseph-Fux-Gesellschaft”. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2008, pp. 129–137. On Vinzenz Fux see Rudolf Flotzinger: “Vinzenz Fux”, in: Rudolf Flotzinger (ed.): Fux-Studien. Zur Biographie, Forschungsgeschichte, Stilkritik. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, [Grazer musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten Band 6], 1985, pp. 73–109. Lorenz Welker: “Konstitutenten der Form in Zelenkas Triosonaten”, in: Gattermann, Günter, Reich, Wolfgang (eds.): Zelenka-Studien II. Referate und Materialien der 2. internationalen Fachkonferenz Jan Dismas Zelenka (Dresden und Prag 1995). Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag [Deutsche Musik im Osten Band 12], 1997, pp. 201–216. Seifert mentions my earlier opinion referred to in this article. Michael Collver and Bruce Dickey: A Catalogue of Music for the Cornett. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996. See also: Harry M. Bernstein: A Study of the Cornettino and its Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. MA Thesis, University of Chicago, 1978. Kremsmünster, Stiftsbibliothek, MS L14. Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, Vok. Mus. i hs 54:14 (dated 1671). For components of the Düben collection see The Düben Collection Database Catalogue, ed. Lars Berglund, Kia Hedell, Erik Kjellberg and Kerala J. Snyder, http://www2.musik.uu.se/duben/Duben.php (last accessed 23 December, 2017).

Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347) continuo in a A–B–A form (C–3/2–C), of 76 bars (23–30–23 bars), with a second A part identical to the first, thus a repetition form typical for Italian violin music of the first half of the seventeenth century. The author is given as ‘Fuchs’ (‘Auth. Fuchs’); the attribution to Vinzenz Fux is a plausible conjecture. The rather virtuoso interplay of the two violins is characterised by several canonical entries without any sophisticated contrapuntal elaboration. Not one stylistic trait is shared by this sonata and the works attributed to Johann Joseph Fux in the Collectaneorum MS. The same is the case for a comparison of Vinzenz Fux’s vocal music, e.g. his Litaniae Beatae Mariae Virginis for solo soprano, four-part choir (‘capella’) violin, two violas and bass / organ, 24 which presents a post-Gabrielian style as described by Michael Praetorius and a threefold disposition of solo voice, vocal choir, instrumental choir and continuo. Against this stylistic background I am inclined to reject Seifert’s hypothesis of Vinzenz Fux’s authorship Indeed, a second look at the Sonata à 4 reveals that only the cornett part within a work for instrumental ensemble and with a rather soloistic instrumental style is unusual in Fux’s oeuvre. The use of a bassoon as a bass to two violins can be observed several times, and even the trombone is used in Fux’s Sonata (K. 365) for two violins and bass: trombone, cello, violone and organ playing basically the same melodic line. The rather modest instrumental writing of this bass line, however, cannot be compared with the most challenging trombone part in K. 347. But a virtuoso trombone part can be found in Johann Joseph Fux’s setting of the Marian antiphon Alma redemptoris mater, K. 186, for solo soprano, obbligato trombone, two violins and bass: bassoon, violoncello, violone / organ. Already Leopold Ritter von Köchel gave the following remark to his entry of the setting in the work catalogue :25 In der Zusammenstellung des concertierenden Sopranes mit der Alt-Posaune hat diese Hymne etwas Apartes. Der Posaune wird in der Sonatine und neben der Gesangstimme eine nicht gewöhnliche Fertigkeit zugemuthet. (‘in its combination of a concertato soprano and an alto trombone this hymn setting has a fascinating touch. The trombone requires an rather unusual agility in the [introductory] sonatina and in the accompaniment of the soprano.’) The fact that the manuscipt copy of the Alma Redemptoris in Vienna, Archives of the Musikverein, MS 2770, offers evidence of several performances between 1728 and 1736, and the frequent occurrence of virtuoso trombone 24 See Vinzenz Fux (1606–1659): Litaniae Beatae Mariae Virginis, ed. Wolfgang Fürlinger. Altötting: Alfred Coppenrath, 1993. 25 Köchel, Fux, Beilage X, p. 81 (cf. note 1, above).

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Lorenz Welker writing in religious and secular works by Johann Joseph Fux’s contemporaries and colleagues such as Marc’ Antonio Ziani (c.1653–1715) and Francesco Conti (1681/2–1732) is sufficient evidence that a gifted trombone player was available in Vienna in the beginning of the eighteenth century. 26 It is more difficult to find evidence for virtuoso cornett playing in Johann Joseph Fux’s time. On the other hand, according to Collver’s and Dickey’s catalogue, the cornett is required in 134 settings of religious music by Johann Joseph Fux, more often than in any other extant vocal music of contemporary composers. In contrast to the above mentioned obbligato trombone parts, the use of the cornett is restricted to ripieno functions, i.e. colla parte with the soprano voice of the choir. On the other hand, all instruments required for the sonata à 4, violin, cornett, trombone, bassoon and organ, are also required for the performance of Fux’s church music. Thus, although there is no direct evidence for idiomatic cornett playing in Vienna in the second decade of the eighteenth century, there is at least a certain probability that cornett players who were required to perform psalm and mass settings on a regular basis, were also able to achieve more than the accompaniment of choir sopranos. A slightly earlier document for the requirements of a town musician in the central German town of Zeitz in the year 1701 is the Proben Stücke. 27 In ordert o pass the examination the candidate for the post of town musician, Martin Winckler, had to play a cantata Was du thust, bedenke das Ende, for solo tenor, obbligato violin, cornettino, trombone and bass (‘Organo ò Violono’), with an introductory instrumental four-voice Sonata for the aforementioned instruments, and accompanying parts as well as solo ritornellos for all obbligato instruments – apparently, the candidate had to perform on all solo instruments, violin, cornettino and trombone. The cornettino part offers a range of e’–bb’’ and considerably challenging runs, comparable to the requirements of the cornett part in Fux’s sonata except for the top pitch of d’’’, which occurs only once but points also more to the cornettino than to the normal cornett with a normal range of a–c’’’. As Collver and Dickey explain in the introductory study to their catalogue, ‘cornettino is a term which appears to have been used 26 Stewart Carter: “Trombone Obbligatos in Viennese Oratorios of the Baroque”, in: Historic Brass Society Journal, 2 (1990), pp. 52–77. Further information on the use of the solo trombone will be given in Howard Weiner’s catalogue of trombone music prior to 1800, Howard T. Weiner, Charlotte A. Leonard, and D. Linda Pearse: The Early Trombone: A Catalogue of Music (forthcoming). Howard Weiner calls my attention to Fux’s remarks of 1715 on an exceptional trombone player: “Leopoldt Christian Trombonist, welcher in seinem instrument seines gleichen nit hat, vnd dahero die schwäristen executionen Ihn allein treffen” (Köchel, Fux, Beilage VI, N. 18, p. 380; “Leopold Christian trombonist, unrivalled on his instrument, and therefore he alone is entrusted with the most difficult parts”). I am most grateful to Howard; the translation of Fux’s remark is his. 27 Arno Werner: Städtische und fürstliche Musikpflege in Zeitz bis zum Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts. Bückeburg / Leipzig: C. F. W. Siegel’s Musikalienhandlung, 1922.

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Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347) almost exclusively in northern countries, particularly German and Poland’ (p. 23), and ‘despite the small number of indications for the instrument in Austria and Italy, the extremely high tessitura of certain works from these areas would suggest its use in pieces which carry the indication cornetto’ (p. 24). This is certainly the case for Fux’s Sonata à 4. Yet an even more prominent example for the ability of early 18 th century cornett players is the scoring of the earlier version of Johann Sebastian Bach’s motet, O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, BWV 118, for four-part choir and wind instruments, which can be dated 1736–1737 (according to Hans-Joachim Schulze) and includes a cornett (cornetto) part in addition to parts for two litui (possibly French horns) and three trombones. 28 The scoring for wind instruments points to an outdoor performance of this funeral motet. The cornett part has a range of c’–d’’’, which makes the use of a cornettino highly unlikely (lowest note e’ or d’). Both examples, the anonymous piece for Martin Winckler, dated 1701, and Bach’s motet of around 1736 render the assumption plausible enough that despite the apparent absence of idiomatic and virtuoso solo literature for the instrument, some cornett players were still able to use their instrument well beyond the daily requirements of colla parte playing with singers. In contrast to earlier music for the combination of violin, cornett (cornetto or cornettino), trombone and bassoon, usually with organ continuo, the sonata by Fux has a more modern structure in its disposition of four movements different in tempo and character, but all in contrapuntal style. The first three movements end with a cadenza, only the final allegro is closely attached to the foregoing slow movement which in its characteristic 3/2 metre, its short–long rhythms and ist dance-like quality brings to mind the sarabande of the French suite, and the Italian sonata da camera. The final allegro, however, is clearly distinct from all three foregoing movements in the different employment of the organ continuo: only in this movement is the organ part is independent from the upper voices and forms a solid base for those from the beginning of the final allegro (see Example 1). 28 The dating of Bach’s motet and its outdoor performance in Leipzig in 1736 makes the assumption that the entry ‘corno’ instead of ‘cornetto’ in a copy of the Collectaneorum MS in Dresden, Landesbibliothek, 1–B–98a, prepared by the French horn player Johann Gottlieb Haußstädtler in the same year 1736, is due to little knowledge of the cornett and its use in Saxony in this years rather unlikely (see Guido Erdmann: “Kritischer Bericht”, in: Fux, Johann Joseph: Sonaten für größere Besetzungen, ed. Guido Erdmann. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 2014, pp. 89, note 36: ‘S. Voss (Dresden/München) vermutet, dass Haußstädtler mit der Bezeichnung des inzwischen veralteten Instruments nichts mehr anzufangen gewusst haben könnte’ [‘S. Voss (Dreden / Munich) assumes that Haußstädtler could have been no more familiar with the meanwhile old fashioned instrument’]. Furthermore, Haußstädtler as a French horn player would easily have realised that the cornett part is absolutely unidiomatic for the French horn.

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Lorenz Welker

Example 1: Johann Joseph Fux, Sonata à 4 (K. 347), beginning of movement 4

In contrast to that, the continuo part for the first three movements is basically a basso seguente which takes up the relatively lowest part of the obbligato instruments above (see Example 2).

Example 2: Johann Joseph Fux, Sonata à 4 (K. 347), beginning of movement 1

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Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347) The four-movement disposition of the sonata à 4 and its contrapuntal style is more reminicent of the sonata as codified in the four sonata collections opp. 1 to 4 by Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1613), printed for the first time between 1681 and 1694 in Rome, and reprinted many times until well into the eighteenth century, and in many places throughout Europe. Moreover, Corelli’s style of composing ensemble sonatas inf luenced many if not all composers of instrumental music, from his contemporaries to at least the next generation. And it became a standard for beginners in the profession to print a collection of sonatas à tre as an opus primum, sometimes even with the hitherto rather unusual scoring of Corelli’s op. i, for two violins and violone or tiorba / arciliuto with organ accompaniment. Two composers who had ties to the Viennese court can be found in the group of Corelli’s admirers and successors: Giovanni Battista Ruggieri (f l. c. 1690–1720) and Antonio Caldara (1671–1736). Ruggieri published two books of church sonatas (opp. 3 and 4) in Corellian style and dedicated both to Emperor Leopold I. 29 Caldara also published two sonata collections, 30 and was appointed vice maestro di cappella in 1710. It is very likely that Corelli’s works were known in Vienna at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and it is at least possible that Fux himself encountered Corelli on a journey to Italy. Corelli’s contrapuntal style could serve as another paradigm for fugal writing besides the vocal works of Morales and Palestrina, and in addition to the keyboard compositions of Frescobaldi, Battiferri and Poglietti. Thus, it would make absolute sense to include a small collection of instrumental ensemble sonatas, partly inf luenced by Corelli, to round up the educational programme for beginners in the professions and those who, like Zelenka, wanted to improve their skills in counterpoint. 31 A final observation should conclude the considerations on style, authenticity and purpose of Johann Joseph Fux’s sonata à 4. A glance at p. 304 (modern pagination; p. 78 in the earliest page numbering) which offers the end of the Gloria section and the beginning of the sonata à 4, makes it obvious that the sonata was entered on staves which received their bar lines only after the Gloria section was 29 Ruggieri’s Sonate da chiesa are listed in Sartori, Bibliografia, p. 579 (1693i) and p. 601 (1697f ); both prints are now part of the music collection of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, but belong to the Estensischen Musikalien, which were transferred from Catajo to Vienna only in the beginning of the nineteenth century (see Herbert Seifert: “Die ‘Estensischen Musikalien’ der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek”, in: Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 49 (2002), pp. 413–423 (= Festschrift Leopold M. Kantner zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Herbert Seifert). 30 Sartori, Bibliografia, p. 580 (1693j; church sonatas: although there is no ‘da chiesa’ indication in the title the inclusion of an organ part points to the church sonata) and p. 610 (1699c: ‘SUONATE / DA CAMERA’). 31 On the reception of Corelli’s style with his contemporaries and immediate successors see Peter Allsop: Arcangelo Corelli: New Orpheus of Our Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, and Peter Allsop: Arcangelo Corelli und seine Zeit. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2009 (revised and enlarged translation of the former), especially pp. 218–246.

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Lorenz Welker copied. In other cases, bar lines were entered for whole pages, in this case, however, the bar lines of the ‘Cum Sanctu Spiritu’ and those of the sonata cannot be aligned. Furthermore, the beginning of the sonata with its characteristic sequence of notes (d’’–e♭’–d’’–c’’–b♭’) starting on the fourth stave and in a no less characteristic rhythm (minim–crotchet–quavers) appears already on top of the page at the beginning of the first staff, also on the fourth line, but with a c-clef and in slower rhythm (semibreve–minim–crotchets). Also, an octave leap which characterises the melodic line of the second bar of the sonata, can be found at the end of the second bar on top of the page (see Figures 1–3).

Figure 1: Sächsische Landesbibliothek, MS mus. 1–B–98, p. 304

Figure 2: Sächsische Landesbibliothek, MS mus. 1–B–98, p. 304, beginning of stave 2

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Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347)

Figure 3: Sächsische Landesbibliothek, MS mus. 1–B–98, p. 304, beginning of stave 8

These observations might be caused by mere coincidence, but it could very well fit Fux’s strategy of composing and teaching in close cooperation with his pupils, which became apparent in the making of the Gloria section, when Fux had his pupil start the composition with his own subject, but continued with another subject, masterly finishing the already gifted approaches of his pupil. To conclude: The sonata à 4 by Johann Joseph Fux which opens a small collection of instrumental ensemble sonatas is a work which fits well in the educational programme present in the Collectaneorum MS. The structure of the sonata follows models of the Italian late seventeenth century rather than earlier structural conventions. The scoring is less unusual than it appears at first glance: violin, cornett, trombone and bassoon are instruments often used for church music and performances during Fux’s time. The trombone was used as a virtuoso obbligato instrument in several settings of religious music, not only by Fux, but also by his contemporaries and colleagues in Vienna. The cornett is less well documented as a solo instrument, but contemporary examples from central Germany give enough evidence that the demands of the Sonata à 4 were not as uncommon as it seems. Besides the questions around instrumental practice and instrumental usage in the second decade of the eighteenth century, the Sonata à 4 is an important document of stylistic experimentation and reception of Corellian style in early eighteenth-century Vienna. Compositional experiments with instrumental style in Vienna and the experience of new stylistic developments in Vivaldi’s Venice paved the way for Jan Dismas Zelenka’s own approaches to the instrumental ensemble sonata – back in Dresden and only a few years later in the century. With regard to Johann Joseph Fux and his Sonata à 4, one still has to repeat and emphasize Harry White’s statement of 1992: “In short, it is useful to consider two factors in particular in an overall assessment of Fux’s music. First, its dependence upon the conditions of imperial patronage which obtained in Vienna; second, its intrinsinsic relevance to a wider understanding of baroque style in general” (italics are mine). 32

32 Harry White: “Introduction”, in: Johann Joseph Fux and the Austro-Italian Baroque, ed. Harry White. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992, p. xii.

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Bibliography Bernstein, Harry M.: A Study of the Cornettino and its Music ion the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. MA Thesis, University of Chicago, 1978. Bockmaier, Claus: “Die Ensemblesonate von Corelli bis zur Generation der BachSöhne: kanonisierte Besetzungstypen - divergierende Erscheinungsformen”, in: Die Sonate. Formen instrumentaler Ensemblemusik, ed. Claus Bockmaier and Siegfried Mauser. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag [Handbuch der musikalischen Gattungen Band 5], 2005, pp. 35–157. Chen, Jen-yen: “Palestrina and the Inf luence of ‘Old Style’ in Eighteenth-Century Vienna”, in: Journal of Musicological Research, 22 (2003), pp. 1–44. Collver, Michael, and Bruce Dickey: A Catalogue of Music for the Cornett. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996. Erdmann, Guido: “Zum vorliegenden Band”, in: Johann Joseph Fux: Sonaten für größere Besetzungen, ed. Guido Erdmann. Graz: Akademische Druckund Verlagsanstalt, 2014, pp. ix–xxiii. : “Kritischer Bericht”, in: Johann Joseph Fux: Sonaten für größere Beset      zungen, ed. Guido Erdmann. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 2014, pp. 88–89. Federhofer, Hellmut, and Friedrich Wilhelm Riedel: “Quellenkundliche Beiträge zur Johann Joseph Fux-Forschung”, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 21/2 (1964), pp. 111–140. Flotzinger, Rudolf: “Vinzenz Fux”, in: Fux-Studien. Zur Biographie, Forschungsgeschichte, Stilkritik, ed. Rudolf Flotzinger. Graz: Akademische Druckund Verlagsanstalt [Grazer musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten Band 6], 1985, pp. 73–109. Fux, Johann Josef: Mehrfach besetzte Instrumentalwerke. Zwei Kirchensonaten und zwei Ouvertüren, ed. Guido Adler. Wien: Artaria [Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich 9/II =19], 1902.      : Sonaten für größere Besetzungen, ed. Guido Erdmann. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 2014. Horn, Wolfgang, and Thomas Kohlhase: Zelenka-Dokumentation. Band 1. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1989, pp. 67–86. Horn, Wolfgang: “Nachahmung und Originalität. Zelenkas Studien bei Fux und die Bedeutung der ‘Imitatio’”, in: Johann Joseph Fux und seine Zeit. Kultur, Kunst und Musik im Spätbarock, ed. Arnfried Edler and Friedrich W. Riedel. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag [Publikationen der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover Band 7], 1996, pp. 137–169.

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Johann Joseph Fux’s S onata à 4 in G (K. 347) Köchel, Leopold Ritter von: Johann Josef Fux, Hofcompositor und Hofkapellmeister der Kaiser Leopold I., Josef I. und Karl VI. von 1698 bis 1740. Wien: Alfred Hölder [Beck’sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung], 1872. Lederer, Josef-Horst: “Das Kanzonenprinzip in den Sonate da Chiesa von J. J. Fux”, in: J. J. Fux-Symposium Graz ’91, ed. Rudolf Flotzinger Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt [Grazer musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten, Band 9], 1992, pp. 85–104.      : “Zur Datierung der Triosonaten und anderer Werke von Johann Joseph Fux”, in: Johann Joseph Fux and the Austro-Italian Baroque, ed. Harry White. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992, pp. 109–137. Liess, Andreas: Die Trio-Sonaten von Johann Joseph Fux an Hand der Manuskripte der Wiener Nationalbibliothek. Eine Studie zum dynamischen Geschichtsbild im süddeutschen Spätbarock. Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt [Neue deutsche Forschungen. Abteilung Musikwissenschaft Band 9], 1940.      : Johann Joseph Fux. Ein steirischer Meister des Barock. Wien: Ludwig Doblinger, 1948. Marvin, Clara: Palestrina. A Guide to Research. New York etc.: Routledge, 2002. Newman, William S.: The Sonata in the Baroque Era. Third Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972. Reich, Wolfgang: “Jan Dismas Zelenka als Schüler von Johann Joseph Fux. Belege und Vermutungen”, in: J. J. Fux-Symposium Graz ’91, ed. Rudolf Flotzinger. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt [Grazer musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten, Band 9], 1992, pp. 121–132. Riedel, Friedrich W.: “Johann Joseph Fux und die Hofkapelle Karls VI. in ihrer Bedeutung für die europäische Musikhistoriographie”, in: Johann Joseph Fux und seine Zeit. Kultur, Kunst und Musik im Spätbarock, ed. Arnfried Edler and Friedrich W. Riedel. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag [Publikationen der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover Band 7], 1996, pp. 15–23. Sartori, Claudio: Bibliografia della musica strumentale italiana stampata in Italia fino al 1700. Firenze: Leo M. Olschki [Biblioteca di bibliografia italiana xxiii] 1992. Seifert, Herbert: “Eine Krise der Hof kapelle unter den Kaisern Ferdinand II. und Ferdinand III.?”, in: Die Wiener Hofmusikkapelle II: Krisenzeit der Hofmusikkapellen, ed. Theophil Antoniczek, Elisabeth Theresia Fritz and Hartmut Krones. Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau, 2006, p. 99–111. : “Die Sonate für Violine, Zink, Posaune und Fagott K 347. Von wel      chem Fux?”, in: Fux-Forschung. Standpunkte und Perspektiven. Bericht des wissenschaftlichen Symposions auf Schloss Seggau 14.-16. Oktober 2005 an-

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Lorenz Welker lässlich des Jubiläums “50 Jahre Johann-Joseph-Fux-Gesellschaft”, ed. Thomas Hochradner and Susanne Janes. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2008, pp. 129–137.      : “Zelenka in Wien”, in: Zelenka-Studien II. Referate und Materialien der 2. internationalen Fachkonferenz Jan Dismas Zelenka (Dresden und Prag 1995), ed. Günter Gattermann and Wolfgang Reich. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag [Deutsche Musik im Osten Band 12], 1997, pp. 183–192. Suppan, Wolfgang: “The Use of Wind Instruments (excluding Chalumeau) in Fux’s Music”, in: Johann Joseph Fux and the Austro-Italian Baroque. Ed. Harry White. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992, pp. 95–108. Welker, Lorenz: “Die Ensemblesonate von ihren Anfängen bis Corelli”, in: Die Sonate. Formen instrumentaler Ensemblemusik, ed. Claus Bockmaier and Siegfried Mauser. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag [Handbuch der musikalischen Gattungen Band 5], 2005, pp. 9–34.      : “Konstituenten der Form in Zelenkas Triosonaten”, in: Zelenka-Studien II. Referate und Materialien der 2. internationalen Fachkonferenz Jan Dismas Zelenka (Dresden und Prag 1995), ed. Günter Gattermann and Wolfgang Reich. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag [Deutsche Musik im Osten Band 12], 1997, pp. 201–216. Werner, Arno: Städtische und fürstliche Musikpf lege in Zeitz bis zum Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts. Bückeburg / Leipzig: C. F. W. Siegel’s Musikalienhandlung, 1922. White, Harry: “Johann Joseph Fux”, in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition, ed. Stanley Sadie, vol. 9. London: Macmillan, 2001. : (ed.): Johann Joseph Fux and the Austro-Italian Baroque. Aldershot: Scolar       Press, 1992. : “Introduction”, in: Johann Joseph Fux and the Austro-Italian Baroque, ed.       Harry White. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992, pp. xi–xiv.

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Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music

Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music in its Spiritual and Liturgical Contexts Tassilo Erhardt From chorister in Graz to imperial Hofkapellmeister, Johann Joseph Fux built his career almost entirely on his extensive contributions to the liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church. Individual genres within this vast body of compositions, such as the settings of Mass and Vespers, have been the subject of more detailed scholarly studies.1 However, a broader investigation of Fux’ church music as a whole, including its musical aspects as well as its theological and liturgical framework, is still a desideratum. This is hardly surprising: Firstly, the precise extent of this oeuvre is difficult to determine due to numerous false or doubtful attributions. 2 Secondly, a reliable dating of most works, and therefore the establishing of a chronology, is problematic. Thirdly, only relatively few works are accessible in modern scholarly editions. Apart from 17 volumes in the Sämtliche Werke of the Johann Joseph Fux-Gesellschaft, one volume (and four forthcoming volumes) in Johann Joseph Fux – Werke of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and two volumes in the Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, only few works have been published, mostly in practical editions. 3 And lastly, the complex and wide distribution of sources – usually in manuscript sets of parts – is making the production of new editions a slow process. As result, the minor genres in Fux’ work, such as his instrumental music, have received more attention from scholars and musicians than his liturgical vocal works which form the core of his compositional output. The present chapter attempts to offer a minor remedy to this situation by sketching a summary of Fux’ liturgical music within its historical contexts. Key to the appreciation of Fux’ sacred music is the knowledge of his cultural surroundings which were primarily determined by the political and religious 1

2 3

Walter Gleißner: Die Vespern von Johann Joseph Fux: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Vespervertonung. Glattbach, 1982; Franz Brenn: Die Messkompositionen des Joh. Jos. Fux: eine stilkritische Untersuchung. PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1931; Friedrich W. Riedel: Kirchenmusik am Hofe Karls VI, 1711– 1740. Munich, Salzburg: Katzbichler, 1977. Cf. Thomas Hochradner: “Unbestimmbar, zweifelhaft, fehlzugeschrieben. Das Komponistenprofil von Johann Joseph Fux am Rande der Überlieferung”, in: Sakralmusik im Habsburgerreich 1550– 1750, ed. Tassilo Erhardt. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2013, pp. 25–40. Johann Joseph Fux – Sämtliche Werke [hereafter SW], ed. Johann Joseph Fux-Gesellschaft Graz, 1959–2014, vols I/1–9; II/1–4; III/1–4; Johann Joseph Fux – Werke, ed. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015–, vols. A/I/1 (A/I/2–3 and A/IV/1–2 are forthcoming); Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich [hereafter DTÖ], Wien 1894−1959, Graz 1960–, vols 1 and 3 (as well as five solo motets in the anthology of vols 102–103).

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Tassilo Erhardt self-understanding of the imperial family. Descriptions of Fux as “competent but uninspired”4 ignore precisely the point that his main duty as a composer was not innovation, but the musical representation of the societal status quo, in which the Habsburg dynasty, as the defenders of the Catholic Church and rightful rulers, occupied a God-given privileged position. This view, which shaped Fux’ work to a large degree, had formed over generations and had been shaped by both the political turbulences of the seventeenth century and the inf luence of the Jesuits at the imperial court. During his short reign (1705–1711), Emperor Joseph I had distanced himself from some traditions of his ancestors, particularly the spirit of the Jesuits and the Counter-Reformation. 5 However, his successor, Charles VI, returned to this legacy of his family and secured the continuation of the spiritual environment which can be traced back to the reign of Ferdinand II.6 Therefore, Fux’ own training with the Jesuits in Graz and Ingolstadt presumably facilitated his seamless integration into the culture of the imperial court in Vienna.7 The following paragraphs try to sketch this growing inf luence of the Society of Jesus on the spiritual life of the imperial court and on its sacred music. Jerónimo Nadal reported to St Ignatius from sixteenth-century Vienna that there were hardly any Catholics left in the city and that the presence of the Jesuits was therefore nowhere more important than in the Austrian capital.8 However, neither Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) nor Emperor Mathias (1557–1619) were fond of the Jesuit order. Instead, the foundation for the almost fanatical Catholicity of the subsequent emperors came from Bavaria where the Wittelsbach family had introduced the order already in 1549.9 From there, devotion to the order was introduced to Austria in the person of Maria Anna of Bavaria (1551–1608), the mother of the later Emperor Ferdinand II.10 She organized Jesuits as confessors for her children at the court in Graz and sent the young Ferdinand to be educated at the Jesuit college in Ingolstadt. There, he not only enjoyed a thorough musical 4

David Reynolds: Review of Johann Joseph Fux: Requiem, Clemencic Consort/Rene Clemencic (Arte Nova 27777), in: American Record Guide 61/2 (March–April 1998), p. 119. 5 Anna Coreth: Pietas Austriaca; Ursprung und Entwicklung barocker Frömmigkeit in Österreich. Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1959, p. 59. 6 Ibidem, p. 63f. 7 Karl Braunschweig: “Gradus ad Parnassum: A Jesuit Music Treatise”, in: In Theory Only, 12/7–8 (1994), pp. 35–58, here p. 37. 8 Jeffrey Ch. Smith: “The Art of Salvation in Bavaria”, in: The Jesuits, Culture, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. O’Malley SJ et al. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999, pp. 569–599, esp. p. 572. 9 Robert Evans: The Making of the Habsburg Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 41, 44, 60; Elaine Fulton: Catholic Belief and Survival in Late Sixteenth-Century Vienna. The Case of Georg Eder (1523–87). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, pp. 99–137; Smith, “Salvation in Bavaria”, pp. 572f. 10 Fulton: Catholic Belief, pp. 141f.

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Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music training, but also developed a lasting identification with the Jesuits.11 This love for music and the Society of Jesus was passed on to his successors for at least four generations.12 With Ferdinand’s ascent to the imperial throne in 1619, a golden age began for the Society of Jesus in Vienna. By 1660. the number of Jesuits in the city had grown to 270. Around 1700, no less than 15 Jesuits occupied core positions as confessors, preachers, and teachers at the imperial court.13 Therefore, it comes as no surprise that spirituality and religious art at court were strongly inf luenced by the order. In her seminal study, Pietas Austriaca, Anna Coreth identified four spiritual aspects by which the Austrian Habsburgs sought to establish cultural unity throughout their realm: Veneration of the cross, veneration of saints, veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Eucharistic piety.14 The Society of Jesus placed particular emphases on the latter two categories. The focus on Pietas Eucharistica was a reaction to the Protestant challenge to the doctrines of real presence and transubstantiation and became a trademark of Habsburg spirituality. Reportedly, the emperors often spent hours in veneration of the Blessed Sacrament; the imperial family’s daily attendance at Mass became customary during the seventeenth century.15 They also demonstrated their devotion to the Eucharist through public reception of communion and through large-scale Corpus Christi processions.16 A special form of Eucharistic piety was the Forty Hours’ Devotion which was frequently called by the emperors in times of war or epidemics.17 The imperial family also lent generous financial support to the production of Jesuit dramas.18 Titles such as Arma Austriaca eucharistica or Felicitas Austriaca frumento eucharistico stabilita sive Austria […] ope eucharistica defensa underline the idiosyncratic marriage of Jesuit and Habsburg

11 Johann Franzl: Ferdinand II. Kaiser im Zwiespalt der Zeit. Graz: Styria, 1978, pp. 22–24, 30f.; Steven Saunders: Cross, Sword, and Lyre: Sacred Music at the Imperial Court of Ferdinand II of Habsburg (1615–1637). New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 5f. 12 Ibidem; Franzl, Ferdinand II., p. 28. 13 Saunders: Cross, Sword, and Lyre, p. 6; Evans: The Making, pp. 101, 145, 193, 320–322; Bernhard Duhr: Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern Deutscher Zunge. Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1907–1928, vol. 2, pp. 318f.; vol. 3, pp. 789–823. 14 Coreth: Pietas, p. 59. 15 Ibidem, p. 30. 16 Martin Scheuz: “‘… hinter Ihrer Käyserlichen Majestät der Päbstliche Nuntius, Königl. Spanischer und Venezianischer Abgesandter.’ Hof und Stadt bei den Fronleichnamsprozessionen im frühneuzeitlichen Wien”, in: Kaiserhof, Papsthof, 16.–18. Jahrhundert, ed. Richard Bösel et al. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2006, pp. 173–204; Coreth, Pietas, pp. 17–22, 24, 28, 43 (fn 98); Riedel, Kirchenmusik, p. 27. 17 Coreth: Pietas, pp. 17, 28; Charlotte Kostner: Pietas Austriaca Praescripta. Kaiserlich-bischöflich angeordnete Frömmigkeitsübungen in den Bistümern Passau und Wien während des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. MA diss., University of Vienna, 1997, pp. 28, 68–72, 101. 18 Duhr: Geschichte der Jesuiten, vol. 3, p. 462.

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Tassilo Erhardt piety and Austrian national identity.19 Fux’ contemporaries Johann Michael Zacher (1651–1712), Ferdinand Tobias Richter (1651–1711), and Johann Bernhard Staudt (1654–1712) regularly provided music for these ludi caesarei. 20 Although much of the seventeenth-century repertoire of the imperial court is lost, the Distinta specificatione, a detailed music inventory dating from c1684, provides a good picture of the impact which Eucharistic piety had on the court’s musical life which Fux joined. 21 It lists one motet of the Blessed Sacrament by Emperor Leopold I, six each by Antonio Bertali and Giovanni Felice Sances, as well as two litanies of the Blessed Sacrament by the latter. 22 It also mentions c60 Mass settings – undoubtedly only a part of repertoire in use by the Hofmusikkapelle. The fact that Fux alone added c100 Mass settings (not counting Requiems and individual movements) illustrates the great significance which was attached to the Mass within the context of Pietas Eucharistica. A particular expression of this piety were the votive Masses of the Blessed Sacrament which were mostly celebrated on Thursdays and to which Fux contributed eleven settings. 23 This prolific production of new Mass settings also shows that in the renewal of the liturgical repertoire the focus was on the Mass ordinary, whilst the modernization of proper items was a much slower process. 24 The second important aspect of Habsburg piety which was strongly inf luenced by Jesuit spirituality was the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and especially the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception of which the Habsburg emperors and the Jesuits were most ardent defenders. 25 This dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary followed the example of the Wittelsbach family. Already in 1638, Maximil19 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 13023; Cod. 13272; cf Coreth, Pietas, p. 18. 20 Karl Pfannhauser: “Zacher, Johann Michael”, in: Grove Music Online, www.oxfordmusiconline. com; Rudolf Schnitzler: “Richter, Ferdinand Tobias”, ibidem; Walter Pass, “Staudt, Johann Bernhard”, ibidem. The surviving dramas by Staudt can be found in Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 9809–9813, Mus. Hs. 18873, 18971, 18924, 18961 Mus Leopoldina. 21 Distinta Specificatione. Dell’Archivio Musicale per il Servizio della Cappella, e Camera Cesarea, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mus. Hs. 2451. 22 Ibidem, fols 1r, 17v, 47r–v, 49r, 66v. Fragments of two motets of the Blessed Sacrament by Bertali, Quis loquetur potentias Domini and Jesu dulcis amor meus, can be found in Stockholm, Statens musikbibliotek, Musik Rar. 23 K 6, 9, 12, 17, 24, 30, 31, 35, 40, 41, and 42; cf. Riedel, Kirchenmusik, p. 305. 24 Cf. Tassilo Erhardt: “A Longevous Cycle of Introits from the Viennese Court”, in: Erhardt, Sakralmusik, pp. 147–168. 25 Steven Saunders: Sacred Music at the Hapsburg Court of Ferdinand II (1615-1637): The Latin Vocal Works of Giovanni Priuli and Giovanni Valentini, PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 99, 880; Andrew Weaver: “Music in the Service of Counter-Reformation Politics: The Immaculate Conception at the Habsburg Court of Ferdinand III (1637–1657)”, in: Music and Letters 87/3 (August 2006), pp. 361-378, here pp. 362–364; Coreth: Pietas, pp. 45, 50f., 54–58. The doctrine was finally promulgated as dogma in 1854; cf. Heinrich Denzinger and Adolph Schönmetzer: Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum. Freiburg, Basel, Rome, and Vienna: Herder, 1997, nos. 1973, 2324, 1516, 2803.

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Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music ian I had erected a Marian column on the Marienplatz in Munich. Nine years later, Ferdinand III followed suit and erected the Immaculata column outside the Jesuit church Am Hof in Vienna. 26 This occasion also established the Viennese tradition of solemn litanies of the Blessed Virgin being performed at the foot of the column. 27 Two years later he ordered all staff and graduates of the university (which was run by the Jesuits) to swear an oath on the Immaculata and to take part in the procession on the feast of the Immaculate Conception (8 December), an event for which he probably composed his Ave Maris Stella. 28 Also Leopold I composed extensively for the Blessed Virgin: The Distinta specificatione lists 28 Marian works by him. 29 In addition, the inventory contains countless such works by Bertali, Sances, and Schmelzer. 30 The connection between Pietas Mariana, the imperial court, and the Jesuits is also documented in the organization of the venues of liturgical celebrations: Until well into the eighteenth century, the emperors not only attended services at court, but also in churches in and around Vienna, particularly if these had a special relation to a feast day. Various sources, but especially the Rubriche generali by Kilian Reinhardt (1727), provide an insight into this fixed rota in which the Jesuit church Am Hof played a central role. 31 In addition to obvious feasts, such as that of St Ignatius, the emperors visited the Jesuit church for the celebration of Second Vespers on all major Marian feasts. 32 These services concluded with the hymn Ave Maris Stella, during which a procession to the Immaculata column took place, where then a litany was performed. 33 Already the Distinta Specificatione mentions numerous litanies by Bertali and Sances for these occasions, 34 and also Fux composed c26 litanies for such celebrations. Also the large number of newly composed Marian antiphons by Fux – 28 Salve Regina, 24 Alma redemptoris mater, 23 Ave regina coelorum, and 11 Regina coeli – bear witness to the importance of 26 Coreth: Pietas, pp. 48–53. 27 Weaver: Music in the Service of Counter-Reformation Politics, pp. 370f. 28 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mus.Hs. 16049; Weaver: Music in the Service of Counter-Reformation Politics, p. 374; cf. Steven Saunders: “Der Kaiser als Künstler: Ferdinand III and the Politicization of Sacred Music at the Hapsburg Court”, in: Infinite Boundaries: Order, Disorder, and Reorder in Early Modern German Culture (= Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 40), ed. Max Reinhart. Kirkville, MO: Truman State University Press 1998, S. 187–208, here pp. 201–208. 29 Distinta Specificatione, fols 1v–5v. 30 Ibidem, fols 17v–18v, 42v–45v, 80v–82r; note especially Bertali’s trilogy of Mass settings in honour of Mary’s perpetual virginity in Kroměříž, Arcibiskupský zámek - Hudební sbírka, A12, A113, A111, A136. 31 Saunders: Cross, Sword, and Lyre, p. 36; Riedel: Kirchenmusik, p. 46; Kilian Reinhardt: Rubriche generali per le funzioni ecclesiatiche musicali di tutto l’anno, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mus.Hs. 2503. 32 Riedel: Kirchenmusik, pp. 26, 30, 46, 238, 242, 250, 263, 290. 33 Ibidem, pp. 28f, 46, 112, 271, 280f, 286, 291, 294f, 304. 34 Distinta Specificatione, fols 27v–28r, 48v, 65v, 66v.

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Tassilo Erhardt Pietas Mariana at court. Even Fux’ previous engagement from 1705 as Kapellmeister at the Maria Pötsch altar in St Stephan’s Cathedral was an effect of the imperial devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Leopold I had the crying icon transferred from Pócs in Hungary to Vienna in 1697 where it was placed on the high altar of St Stephen’s Cathedral. Considering that every day three Masses were read and three rosaries and one litany prayed in front of the icon – in addition to special devotions lasting three days twice every year – it becomes clear why Fux was appointed as special Kapellmeister to serve at this shrine. The donation of the merchant Michael Kurz from 1707, intended to secure the performances of large-scale musical performances at the icon on every Sunday and major feast day, illustrates the extent of musical activity. 35 Fux’ exact contributions to these celebrations cannot be traced in any detail, but it seems most likely that his Missa Lachrymantis Virginis (E 12) was written for the Maria Pötsch altar. 36

Liturgy and musical style When composing liturgical music, Fux could not solely rely on his inspiration, but had to work within a strictly defined framework in which the liturgy determined the length, scoring, and style of his compositions. This framework was itself a product of regulations of the universal church, peculiarities of the diocesan use, and – in the case of the imperial court – local ceremonial customs. The following paragraphs attempt to provide an overview of these complex circumstances. The principal context of Fux’ work was the liturgy of the Roman rite, which, after the Council of Trent (1545–1563), had undergone a thorough revision. The liturgical calendar, the Breviarum Romanum, and the Missale Romanum provided, with minor variations, the basis for worship until the second half of the 20 th century. The Tridentine calendar purged the liturgical year of numerous feasts and their octaves and subdivided the remaining feasts into the following categories: Duplex primae classis Duplex secundae classis Duplex maius (from 1602) Duplex Semiduplex Simplex 35 Thomas Hochradner und Géza M. Vörösmarty: “Zur Musikpflege am Altar Mária Pócs”, in: Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 41 (1/3), pp. 133–175, here p. 142. 36 Ibidem, p. 149; Rudolf Flotzinger: “Der Stand der biographischen Fux-Forschung 1991. Fragen – Antworten – Möglichkeiten”, in: Johann Joseph Fux und seine Zeit (= Publikationen der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover 7), ed. Arnfried Edler and Friedrich W. Riedel. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1996, pp. 93–110, here p. 102.

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Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music The simplification of the calendar favoured the celebration of the regular weekday ( feria), an effect which wore off when more and more feast days were gradually introduced again. The number of feasts in the categories semiduplex or above grew quickly: 149 in 1568, 176 in 1631, and 275 in 1882. Apart from these feasts in the universal calendar, the Council of Trent also allowed individual dioceses their local feasts, a privilege of which Vienna made ample use. 37 For example, the feast of the Immaculate Conception had already been introduced (and celebrated with much pomp) in Vienna during the 1620s, whilst it only entered the universal calendar in 1693 and was solemnized as Holy Day of Obligation only in 1708. Similarly, feast days of local saints such as St Koloman (13 October) and St Leopold (15 November) were celebrated in Vienna as double feasts whilst there was no mention of them in the Roman Breviary. 38 This entailed growing demands on church musicians such as Fux, as a growing number of feast were to be celebrated with greater musical splendour. At the imperial court, the ranking of feasts went hand in hand with ceremonial customs which determined which type of music was to be employed. This sub-division was threefold: ‘Regular’ (‘gewöhnlich’) occasions were celebrated by the court chaplains and were relatively short. This included Masses and Vespers on Sundays and double feasts in the Hofburgkapelle, but also services on feast days if they were celebrated in the chapels of the other residences (Favorita or Laxenburg). ‘Pontifical’ ceremonies were celebrated by a bishop, abbot, or provost. Most services on higher feast days fell into this category (unless they took place in the country palaces or the Kammerkapelle), as did extraordinary celebrations such as baptisms, weddings, funerals, coronations, and special services of thanksgiving. These were of longer duration than ‘regular’ services and demanded greater musical magnificence. The highest ceremonial level was that of ‘Toison’ services during which members of the order of the Golden Fleece were present. Among these were all Feasts of Jesus Christ, the major Marian feasts, St Stephen’s Day, All Souls, and the Birth of John the Baptist. 39 In the church music at court, this threefold division was ref lected in three stylistic categories: ‘in contrapuncto’

i.e., in a-capella style (Advent, Lent, Pre-Lent, and Offices of the Dead);

37 Leopold Kantner: “Liturgische Gesetzgebung”, in: Musik des 17. Jahrhunderts und Pavel Vejvanovský, ed. Jiří Sehnal. Brno: Österreichisches Ost- und Südosteuropa-Institut, 1994, pp. 241–247. 38 See, for example, Missae de Sanctis ex Proprio Viennensi. Vienna: Matthaeus Cosmerovius, 1668; Johann Ludwig Schönleben: Annus Sanctus Habspurgo-Austriacus. Salzburg: Johann Baptist Mayr, 1696. 39 Riedel: Kirchenmusik, p. 26; Cölestin Wolfsgruber: Die k. u. k. Hofburgkapelle und die k. u. k. geistliche Hofkapelle. Vienna: Maer & Co, 1905, p. 185.

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Tassilo Erhardt ‘mediocre’

i.e., in stylus mixtus, but relatively simple, without trumpets and timpani (Sundays and mid-ranking feasts);

‘sollenne’

i.e., in stylus mixtus, but of longer duration and with richer scoring, including trumpets and timpani (double feast of the first class, services with ‘Toison’ or pontifical ceremonial).40

Fux explains the musical characteristics of these categories at the end of his Gradus ad Parnassum. In his introduction to the ‘ecclesiastical style’, he emphasizes an appropriate treatment of the words as well as the fundamental difference between acapella style and mixed style.41 In his own compositions, he uses these two styles in accordance with the liturgical and ceremonial rank of a service. He sub-divides the a capella style into two groups, one for unaccompanied voices and one with the support of the organ and colla parte instrumental parts. Regarding the former, he warns against extensive use of modulation and chromatic writing, as these would make intonation difficult.42 Furthermore, he differentiates between the musical treatment of short texts which require frequent word repetition, e.g., “Amen” or “Kyrie eleison”, and longer ones, such as the Gloria and the Creed. For the former, he suggests contrapuntal density, for the latter a construction in motet style, i.e., new melodic material and new points of imitation for each phrase of the text.43 For this latter kind of composition, he also recommends heightened musical expression through word painting which he illustrates with his motet Ad te Domine levavi, K 153, where the melody “ascends like the prayer of the faithful” (see example 1).44

& bC w Ad

w

˙™ œ ˙

te

Do - mi - ne

œ œ ˙

&b œ œ w -

-

-

˙

˙

le

˙ vi

˙™ œ ˙ -

va

˙ a

-

œ œ ˙ -

ni - mam

˙ -

˙ -

˙

w me

-

w

˙

-

-

˙

w am,

Example 1: J. J. Fux, Ad te Domine levavi, K 153, soprano, bars 1–8

40 41 42 43 44

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Riedel: Kirchenmusik, p. 68. Johann Joseph Fux: Gradus ad Parnassum. Vienna: Johann Peter van Ghelen, 1725, pp. 242–279. Ibidem, pp. 243f. Ibidem, p. 247. Ibidem, pp. 247f.

Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music

Example 2: J. J. Fux, recitative Domine, ne in furore

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Tassilo Erhardt Finally, Fux mentions chant-based works in a capella style. On the one hand, he is not fond of this form, because it limits the composer’s freedom, causes frequent text repetitions, and hinders the expression of the text. On the other hand, he acknowledges something in chant that intensifies the devotion, “which immediately calls for the listeners’ attention”. As a compromise, he mentions the possibility of newly-composed chant melodies which merely imitate Gregorian chant.45 Fux adds that the a capella style with colla parte instruments allows the composer greater melodic and harmonic freedom as well as the use of smaller note values.46 He prefers doubling the treble with both violins and only allows the common doubling of the treble by the second violin and of the alto at the octave by the first violin in larger scorings with trombones.47 Fux’ explanation of the more common mixed style is considerably shorter: “By mixed style I mean a composition with sometimes one, two, three, or more voices in concert with intermingled instruments, and sometimes the full choir, as it is now common in most churches”. He emphasizes the balance of musical means in this style and warns, on the one hand, against the inclusion of secular elements of the theatrical style or dance melodies and, on the other hand, against an all too sterile style of writing.48 The recitative style plays a relatively minor role in Fux’ liturgical music. Nonetheless, he commends the accompagnato recitative with a static bass as part of the ecclesiastical style, especially for texts of great dignity (see example 2).49 Fux explains that the unorthodox dissonance treatment in this example is partly a result of the inactive bass, which does not allow conventional resolutions, and partly in the nature of the recitative which pays less attention to correct harmony and counterpoint, but only to the expression of the text, “when, in devout prayer, we pour out our heart to God.”50

Compositions for Mass Fux’ approximately 100 settings of the ordinary form the largest part of his works for Mass. The second largest group can be summarized under the term ‘motets’ and contains works for various liturgical purposes, including offertories. However, there are only five introits by Fux, because the Hofmusikkapelle mostly used

45 46 47 48 49 50

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Ibidem, p. 262. Ibidem, pp. 262. Ibidem, pp. 272f. Ibidem, p. 273. Ibidem, p. 274. Ibidem, p. 276.

Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music older compositions for this item. 51 Similarly, there are only eight graduals by him, because these were usually replaced by instrumental sonatas. The communio was either left out or sung in chant in most services, and accordingly, Fux only composed four or five such works. Among the settings of the ordinary, it was particularly the Missa S. Carlo (K 7), also known as Missa canonica, which had a significant impact upon later Fux reception. It was published in print three times during the nineteenth century, first by Kühnel and Peters in Leipzig, then in the first volume of the Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, where it appeared next to the Missa Quadragesimalis K 29, another work in a-capella style. 52 These editions, alongside numerous manuscript copies of the work, confirmed Fux’ status as the “transmitter of the old art of composition”, 53 a reputation which was already established during the second half of the eighteenth century and largely based on his authorship of the Gradus ad Parnassum. 54 Indeed, in his dedication of the Missa S. Carlo to Charles VI, Fux describes as his intention behind this work the rescue of the “sostanza della Musica antica” from its continuous decay. 55 The composition abounds with canonic techniques such as double canons, canons by inversion, and ongoing stepwise reductions of the imitation interval. Similar structures can be observed in Johannes Ockeghem’s Missa prolationum and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Fux’ immediate models, however, were more likely Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s Missa Repleatur os meum and his Missa ad fugam. 56 The over-arching canonic structure shows careful planning: E.g., precisely at the ‘Crucifixus’ of the Creed, Fux reaches the particularly uncomfortable inversion canon at the second which allows for an unprepared entry of a harsh dissonance (see example 3). A few bars later, the imitation by contrary motion leads via some awkward leaps in the tenor into voice crossing with the bass and, simultaneously, to consecutive fifths with the soprano (example 4).

51 See Erhardt: “A Longevous Cycle”. 52 Johann Josef Fux: Messen, ed. Johann Evangelist Habert and Gustav Adolf Glossner, DTÖ 1 (1894). 53 Ibidem, p. ix. 54 Thomas Hochradner: “Das Schaffen von Johann Joseph Fux in klösterlicher Musiziertradition. Eine komparative Untersuchung und ihre möglichen Schlußfolgerungen”, in: Musik der geistlichen Orden in Mitteleuropa zwischen Tridentinum und Josephinismus. Konferenzbericht Trnava, 16. – 19. 10. 1996, ed. Ladislav Kacic. Bratislava: Slavistický kabinet SAV: Academic Electronic Press, 1997, pp. 275–284, here p. 275. 55 Quoted in DTÖ 1, p. 65. 56 Friedrich W. Riedel: “Johann Joseph Fux und die römische Palestrina-Tradition”, in: Die Musikforschung 14 (1961), pp. 14–22.

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Tassilo Erhardt

Example 3: J. J. Fux, Missa S. Carlo K 7, ‘Crucifixus’

Example 4: J. J. Fux, Missa S. Carlo K 7, ‘sub Pontio Pilato’

Considering that the remainder of the composition is free of such grave contrapuntal f laws, one is led to believe that Fux (a) used these transgressions to convey the text’s painful reality (“crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato”), and (b) employed the voice crossing resulting from the imitation by inversion as Augenmusik, representing the cross. Such expressive treatment of the text at the expense of strict contrapuntal rules is more reminiscent of the seconda prattica rather than of Palestrina, and shows that Fux, even in his most archaic works, was not merely an epigone of the Roman master.57 On the contrary, these examples demonstrate that Fux’ relationship to the Roman school, in both technical and stylistic regard, was more complex than the traditional view of the composer – partly established 57 Cf Mattias Lundberg: “What is Really Old in the Stile Antico of Johann Joseph Fux?”, in: Erhardt, Sakralmusik, pp. 41–52.

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Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music through the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ of falsely attributed stile antico works – would suggest.58 In fact, only a very small part of Fux’ Mass settings is written in the unaccompanied a capella style (K7, 9, 19, 29, 34, and 44). This is hardly surprising, for compositions “in contrapuncto” were only required for relatively few days of the liturgical year. Moreover, the Hofmusikkapelle already possessed suitable sixteenthcentury repertoire in this style in the choir books which had been copied by Georg Moser during the seventeenth century and which were demonstrably still in use during the reign of Charles VI. In other words, new compositions in this style were not strictly speaking necessary. By comparison, only very few such Masses had been composed by Kapellmeister and court composers of the seventeenth century. It seems likely that Fux and his contemporaries, such as Marco Antonio Ziani, Antonio Caldara, and Matteo Pallotta, contributed to this genre not so much out of necessity, but rather as demonstrations of their contrapuntal learning.59 The differentiation between unaccompanied and accompanied a capella Mass settings is, in some cases, difficult. Potentially, one and the same a capella composition could have been performed with or without doubling instrumental parts. Semiduplex feasts only called for violone and organ for the bass, whilst duplex feasts demanded full colla parte doubling. Accordingly, the scoring of a work can vary from source to source. For example two copies of the Missa Constantiae (K 9), survive in the holdings of the Hofmusikkapelle: one with organ and violone and one with additional parts for winds and strings.60 ‘Mediocre’ settings of the ordinary for Sundays, Thursdays and duplex feasts could either be such instrumentally reinforced a capella compositions or simple works in mixed style. Naturally, the latter are in the majority because the liturgical year offered considerably more opportunities for their performance. All ‘mediocre’ Masses have in common their relative brevity which is achieved by the avoidance of text repetitions, especially in the Gloria and Creed. They also display a standardized use of the instruments, i.e., colla parte in tutti sections and independent treatment in solo passages. An excellent example is the Missa Sanctissimae Trinitatis (E 113) which tends towards the solemn type, but refrains from instrumental introductions and interludes. The mixed style in Fux’ work is not only characterized by a juxtaposition of different textures, but also of different compositional techniques. E.g., the Missa Confidentiae (K 8) combines learned counterpoint in a fugue with augmentation (Kyrie) and a double fugue (‘Amen’ section of the Gloria), transparent solo pas58 Hellmut Federhofer and Friedrich W. Riedel: “Quellenkundliche Beiträge zur J.J. FuxForschung”, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 21 (1964), pp. 111–140; Hochradner: “Unbestimmbar, zweifelhaft”, passim. 59 Riedel: Kirchenmusik, pp. 132–135. 60 Johann Joseph Fux: Missa Constantiae K 9, ed. Jen-yen Chen, SW I/9 (2006), p. xiv; Riedel: Kirchenmusik, p. 134.

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Tassilo Erhardt

Vl. 1

Vl. 2

° ## 3 Œ & 4 ¢

C.

œ

œ

#3 & #4 ‰ œ œ˙ #3 & #4

‰ œj œ œ œ ‰

˙

œ œ œ#œ œ J

∑

∑

œ Œ

∑

° ## œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ & ¢&

˙

Œ

? ## 3 œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj œ œ œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ#œ œ œ 4œ œ œ J Chri - ste,

Org.

‰ j œ œ œ œœ œ Œ œ œ

‰ œj œ œJ œ J

œ œ

Œ

∑

Œ

## ‰ j œ œ œ œ

# &#Ó

œ

5 6

7 #

Œ

‰

Œ

‰

6

œœ œ

Œ

#œ œ #œ

‰

7 #

Œ

‰

œ #œ

Œ ‰ Œ ‰ œœ œœ œ œœ œ j j j œ #œj œ œ œ ‰ œj œj#œj œ œ œj #œj œ œ J J

Œ

Chri - ste e - lei

son, Chri - ste e - lei

-

? ## œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ 6 7 7 #

œœ œ

° ## œ &

Œ

‰

¢&

Œ

‰ #œ œ #œ

## œ

Chri - ste e - lei - son,

# j & # œJ œ œJ œJ œ

son, Chri - ste e - lei

-

? ## ‰ œ #œ œ œ œ J ´

œ œ œ œ#œ

‰

5 6

œœ œ

Œ

‰

Œ

‰ œ#œ œ

œ œ œœœ J J J J

son, Chri - ste e - lei

œœœ ‰ #œJ œ

-

´

-

son, Chri - ste e - lei

-

‰ œ œ#œ œ œ J œ

Œ

Œ

Œ

Œ

Œ

‰ #œ œ œ

Ϫ

œœœ ˙ J

son,

e - lei - son,

6

œ ‰ œœ Œ

œ œ œ œ#œ œ œœ œ œ‰ ‰ œ#œ œ

6

Example 5: J. J. Fux, Missa Purificationis K 28, ‘Christe’

sages with concertato instrumental parts (Christe) as well as homophonic passages (Osanna).61 In some of the – presumably later – ‘mediocre’ works Fux clearly de61 Johann Joseph Fux: Missa Confidentiae K 8, ed. Jen-yen Chen, SW I/8 (2002), p. viii; cf. Riedel, Kirchenmusik, p. 148.

98

Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music parts from the Mass settings of the seventeenth century by including elements of the Neapolitan style (see example 5).62 The solemn Mass settings differ from the ‘mediocre’ ones primarily through their more lavish scoring and greater duration. The details were determined by the ceremonial categories of the court which could lead to mixed forms such as the Missa brevis solennitatis (K 5) which has a solemn scoring but is ‘mediocre’ in length.63 Trumpets were only demanded for the highest-ranking feasts, but optional for other solemn occasions such as the second and third days of Easter and Pentecost. The Missa Benjamin (K 3) and the Missa S. Caroli (K 33) are examples of this extended type without trumpets. The musical consequence of the use of trumpets and timpani was the tonal limitation to C major. Therefore, Fux employed them sparingly and only in key moments of the composition, such as introductory fanfares, instrumental interludes and certain passages of the text, especially ‘et resurrexit’, ‘pleni sunt coeli’, and the concluding ‘dona nobis pacem’.64 A fine example of this style is the Missa Corporis Christi (K 10, dated 1713), in which archaic traits mingle with Neapolitan elements, daring harmonies, and a rich sound palette, and which poses significant technical demands on singers and instrumentalists.65

Motets and offertories At the Viennese court, the offertory was the only proper item which was always sung and never replaced by instrumental works. Therefore, the motets form a large part of Fux’ liturgical oeuvre. However, the precise liturgical function of many motets is difficult to determine, unless their titles, texts, or wrappers provide unmistakable clues. As far as the texts are concerned, Fux was tied to the words of the liturgy only during Advent and Lent. For the rest of the year, he was free to use alternative texts which offered musically more fertile ground. Fux appears to have shared the labour of producing offertories with Antonio Caldara. The latter wrote a cycle of 34 works, covering the regular Sundays of the year. All these works use the liturgical texts and have a standard scoring of concertato and ripieno singers, winds colla parte, two violins and basso continuo.66 Fux, 62 Rudolf Flotzinger: “Geistliche Musik”, in: Johann Joseph Fux, ed. Rudolf Flotzinger and Egon Wellesz. Graz: 1991, p. 72. 63 Johann Joseph Fux: Missa brevis solennitatis K 5, ed. Josef-Horst Lederer, SW I/3 (1974), pp. viii-ix. 64 Riedel: Kirchenmusik, pp. 173–179. 65 Hellmut Federhofer: GA I/1 (Kassel, 1959), pp. x–xii; Flotzinger, “Geistliche Musik”, pp. 73–75. 66 Rudolf Walter: “Bemerkungen zu den Kompositionen von Johann Joseph Fux zum Offertorium”, in: Johann Joseph Fux and the Music of the Austro-Italian Baroque, ed. Harry White. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1992, pp. 230–255, here p. 233f., cf. Gabriela Krombach: “Modelle der Offertoriumskompositionen bei A. Caldara, J.G. Albrechtsberger und J. Preindl”, in: Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 72 (1988), pp. 130f; Riedel, Kirchenmusik, pp. 156–158.

99

Tassilo Erhardt on the other hand, concentrated on the major feast days and the Sundays in Advent and Lent. Consequently, his works are less uniform in style, scoring, length, and text than Caldara’s. His offertories for Advent and Lent are written in a capella style throughout. Notably, these works filled the third volume of the Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, reaffirming the Fux reception of the nineteenth century which, in turn, led to wrong attributions of stile antico offertories to Fux – e.g., L31 and L32 are in fact works by Palestrina. 67 Only Rudolf Walter’s two volumes in the Sämtliche Werke have provided a more balanced picture of Fux offertory motets.68 Two of Fux’ a capella offertories for Advent appear in his Gradus ad Parnassum.69 Both are good examples of his cavalier approach to chant (see above): Ad te Domine (K 153) only uses the opening motif of the plainchant melody, whilst Ave Maria (K 151) maintains the cantus firmus throughout the composition. However, the melody of the latter is not a known chant, includes uncharacteristic repetitions of text, and is most likely of Fux’ own invention.70 Fux’ motets in mixed style are based on liturgical texts, the Bible, newly written poetry, medieval hymns, and frequently on compilations from several of these categories. The motet Deus in adjutorium (E 99) provides a good example, comprising the following elements: the opening versicle ‘Deus in adjutorium’ a quotation from Isiah 59.1 a quotation from the Dies irae sequence paraphrases of Psalms 50.6; 47.11; 110.4 a paraphrase of the final verse of the Te Deum newly written poetry, adapted from St Augustine’s Confessiones.71 Such eclectic compilations facilitated varied compositions, whereby (Biblical) prose was usually set as recitative, metrical or rhymed texts as (da-capo) arias, and final sections such as ‘amen’ or ‘Alleluja’ were left to the full choir. Texts drawn from the liturgy occasionally inspired the inclusion of the plainchant melodies associated with them, e.g. Deus in adjutorium in E99. Especially motets for duplex feasts (e.g., K 160, 168, 170, 177, 170) grew into multi-movement compositions of 67 Johann Joseph Fux: Motetten I, ed. Johann Ev. Habert, DTÖ 3 (1895); Walter, “Bemerkungen”, pp. 234f; cf. Riedel, Kirchenmusik, p. 122. 68 Johann Joseph Fux: Offertoriumsmotetten für vier Vokalstimmen mit Instrumentalbegleitung, ed. Rudolf Walter, SW III/3 (1992); Johann Joseph Fux: Offertoriumsmotetten für vier und fünf Vokalstimmen mit Instrumentalbegleitung, ed. Rudolf Walter, SW III/4 (1996). 69 Fux: Gradus, pp. 247–254, 256–261. 70 Walter: “Bemerkungen”, p. 246; Riedel: Kirchenmusik, pp. 121f. 71 GA III/4; Walter: “Bemerkungen”, p. 235, 241; cf. Gabriela Krombach: Die Vertonungen liturgischer Sonntagsoffertorien am Wiener Hof. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der katholischen Kirchenmusik im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Munich and Salzburg: Katzbichler, 1986, p. 18.

100

Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music considerable length which could easily cover the duration of the parallel liturgical actions such as the censing of the altar.72 The freedom in the choice of text is mirrored in a greater stylistic freedom. Unlike in his settings of the ordinary, in the motets Fux often smudges the stylistic boundaries, e.g., by not including trumpets or timpani in some motets for Christmas, Pentecost, Epiphany, and Ascension Day; K 163 und 179 use solo voices but no instruments; Laudate Dominum (E158) is generally written in accompanied a capella style, but also features instrumental interludes.73 As a general rule, therefore, Fux’ textual and compositional liberties increase the further he moves away from the core texts of the Mass and from the austerity of the penitential seasons.

Music for Vespers Vespers was, musically, the richest service of the Office. At the Viennese court, it was celebrated on Sundays, Saturdays with duplex rank, and on most feast days. On semiduplex or higher ranking feasts, First Vespers was celebrated on the eve of the feast and Second Vespers on the day itself. Vespers was replaced by Compline on Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent and Passiontide, on feast falling on weekdays and on the first four Saturdays in Lent. Matins and Lauds were only sung on Christmas Day and during the Easter Triduum.74 The form of the Office followed the Breviarium Romanum in the revised version of Urban VIII (1632) and was enriched by local customs such as the litany at the end of Vespers and the opening of services with intradas. For Vespers, Fux had to provide figural settings of the following items: Tantum ergo (in services where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed) five psalms (with figural antiphons for major feast) hymn Magnificat Marian Antiphon Genitori genitoque (in services where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed) Litany Because the rotas of psalms for Sundays and major feasts show some overlap, the entire liturgical year could be furnished with figural settings of only fifteen psalms. Out of these, Fux notably did not produce any settings of Psalms 127, 129, and 131, presumably because each of these appeared only once every year, and because the Hofmusikkapelle already had settings by Ziani, Caldara, Reinhardt, and Predieri.75 72 Walter: SW III/3, pp. vii-viii. 73 Walter: “Bemerkungen”, p. 247, 249f.; Walter: SW III/3, p. vii; Walter: SW III/4, p. viii. 74 Riedel: Kirchenmusik, pp. 61, 73, 87. 75 Ibidem, pp. 235, 262.

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Tassilo Erhardt In addition to settings of individual psalms, the Hofmusikkapelle also knew Vespere intiere for shorter services which required works in a capella or ‘mediorce’ mixed style. These short cyclical Vespers usually consisted of five psalms and a Magnificat (Vesperae brevissimae) or of groups of two or three psalms (Psalmi breves) which could be combined variously.76 Each psalm was framed by an antiphon.77 These were mostly sung in simplified chant.78 Whenever figural antiphons were sung, settings by Giovanni Felice Sances and supplements by Johann Georg Reinhardt were used.79 Fux’ last datable work, and his only Vespers in unaccompanied a capella style is the Vespro con l’hinno (K 68). On Ash Wednesday 1732, the court celebrated Verspers rather than Compline, and Fux provided this cyclical setting of five psalms, hymn and Magnificat. Whilst Fux employs archaic features such as psalm tone cantus firmus, he avoids imitative counterpoint in favour of an essentially homophonic declamatory style.80 Similarly, the remaining a capella compositions for Vespers – three complete Vespers, nine individual psalms, and five hymns, all with standard colla parte instrumental accompaniment – use imitation sparingly and feature a mostly syllabic declamation of the text. The majority of Fux’ compositions for Vespers are written in mixed style. The compact Vesperae brevissimae refrain from melismas and text repetitions and, in some cases, make use of text overlap (see example 6). Unlike in Fux’ Mass settings, musical unity is not achieved by key, but through the conscious use of the varied elements of the mixed style.81 Settings of individual psalms and the Magnificat were of considerably greater length, and therefore suitable for Vespers on major feast days. Accordingly, these works show a richer palette of musical means, from more extensive scorings to detailed word painting, especially in the Magnificat (see example 7).82 Finally, Fux unfolds his skill as a composer in the lesser-known genre of the litany. Since the seventeenth century, the litany had become a trade mark of the Viennese court. Its performance at the end of Vespers was not prescribed by the 76 Ibidem, p. 161. 77 Ibidem, p. 65; cf. Reinhardt: Rubriche generali, fols 27v, 29v. 78 See, e.g., ibidem, fol. 87v. For surviving examples of such sumplified antiphons, cf. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Mus.Hs.15508, Antiphonale ad vesperas per annum. Pro contrapuncto austriacae capellae accomodatum. Serenissimo et reverendissimo principi domino dno. Leopoldo Gulielmo […] humillime dicatum et conscriptum a Georgio Moser, caesareae capellae notista. Anno 1649. 79 Distinta specificatione, fol. 49v; Riedel: Kirchenmusik, pp. 118f. 80 Gleißner: Vespern, pp. 104–106, 117. 81 Ibidem, pp. 128f., 133f.; Riedel: Kirchenmusik, p. 164. 82 Johann Joseph Fux: Laudate Dominum- und Magnificat-Kompositionen, ed. Walter Gleißner, SW II/3 (1989), pp. vii–viii; cf. Geraldine Rohling: “First Vespers of the Titular Feast of the Saint Cäciliabruderschaft in the Domkirche of Saint Stephan in 1726”, in: Erhardt, Sakralmusik, pp. 253–263, esp. pp. 257ff.

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Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music

Example 6: J. J. Fux, K 77,3

Breviary, but rather a local custom, resulting from the strongly developed Pietas Mariana. 83 The text of the Litany of Loreto, with its great length, numerous repetitions (“ora pro nobis”), abstract concepts, and lack of clear emotional contrast, 83 Riedel: Kirchenmusik, p. 198.

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Tassilo Erhardt

°? Ó ¢ °? Ó ¢

œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ#œ œ#œ#œ œ J œj Œ et ex - al

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-

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-

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œ

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Example 7: J. J. Fux, Magnificat, K 98

poses a challenge for any composer. Fux handles this long text efficiently with swift syllabic settings, usually an absence of imitative counterpoint, and sometimes with text overlaps between pairs of voices. Notably, he does not follow the model of his Viennese predecessors who tended to distribute the acclamations and responses across different choirs or voice pairs. Instead, he achieves variety through frequent changes in the scoring, facilitated by the ‘solemn’ scoring available on major feast days. 84 In conclusion: while the preceding pages necessarily fall short of doing full justice to many aspects of Fux’ liturgical music, they have hopefully succeeded in providing an overview of the spiritual and liturgical contexts within which his music is to be understood. Once one begins to see through the proverbial forest of guidelines, processes, and restrictions that shaped his compositions, it becomes possible to appreciate the skill with which he moved within this framework. Undoubtedly, Harry White’s forthcoming book, The Musical Discourse of Servitude, will do much to elucidate this point further.

Select Bibliography Primary Sources Fux, Johann Joseph: Gradus ad Parnassum. Vienna: Johann Peter van Ghele, 1725 Fux, Johann Joseph: Messen, ed. Johann Evangelist Habert and Gustav Adolf Glossner, DTÖ 1 (1894). Fux, Johann Joseph: Motetten I, ed. Johann Ev. Habert, DTÖ 3 (1895). Fux, Johann Joseph: Missa brevis solennitatis K 5, ed. Josef-Horst Lederer, SW I/3 (1974), pp. viii-ix. Fux, Johann Joseph: Laudate Dominum- und Magnificat-Kompositionen, ed. Walter Gleißner, SW II/3 (1989), pp. vii–viii. Fux, Johann Joseph: Offertoriumsmotetten für vier Vokalstimmen mit Instrumentalbegleitung, ed. Rudolf Walter, SW III/3 (1992). 84 Johann Joseph Fux: Vier lauretanische Litaneien mit Trompeten, ed. Hellmut Federhofer and Renate Federhofer-Königs, SW II/4 (1995), pp. viii–x.

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Johann Joseph Fux’ Church Music Fux, Johann Joseph: Vier lauretanische Litaneien mit Trompeten, ed. Hellmut Federhofer and Renate Federhofer-Königs, SW II/4 (1995), pp. viii–x. Fux, Johann Joseph: Offertoriumsmotetten für vier und fünf Vokalstimmen mit Instrumentalbegleitung, ed. Rudolf Walter, SW III/4 (1996). Fux, Johann Joseph: Missa Constantiae K 9, ed. Jen-yen Chen, SW I/9 (2006).

Secondary Sources Brenn, Franz: Die Messkompositionen des Joh. Jos. Fux: eine stilkritische Untersuchung. PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1931. Coreth, Anna: Pietas Austriaca; Ursprung und Entwicklung barocker Frömmigkeit in Österreich. Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1959. Erhardt, Tassilo: Sakralmusik im Habsburgerreich 1550–1750. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2013. Evans, Robert: The Making of the Habsburg Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Fulton, Elaine: Catholic Belief and Survival in Late Sixteenth-Century Vienna. The Case of Georg Eder (1523–87). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Federhofer, Hellmut and Friedrich W. Riedel: “Quellenkundliche Beiträge zur J.J. Fux-Forschung”, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 21 (1964), pp. 111–140. Flotzinger, Rudolf: “Der Stand der biographischen Fux-Forschung 1991. Fragen – Antworten – Möglichkeiten”, in: Johann Joseph Fux und seine Zeit (= Publikationen der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover 7), ed. Arnfried Edler and Friedrich W. Riedel. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1996, pp. 93–110. Gleißner, Walter: Die Vespern von Johann Joseph Fux: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Vespervertonung. Glattbach, 1982. Hochradner, Thomas: “Das Schaffen von Johann Joseph Fux in klösterlicher Musiziertradition. Eine komparative Untersuchung und ihre möglichen Schlußfolgerungen”, in: Musik der geistlichen Orden in Mitteleuropa zwischen Tridentinum und Josephinismus. Konferenzbericht Trnava, 16. – 19. 10. 1996, ed. Ladislav Kacic. Bratislava: Slavistický kabinet SAV: Academic Electronic Press, 1997, pp. 275–284. : “Unbestimmbar, zweifelhaft, fehlzugeschrieben. Das Komponisten      profil von Johann Joseph Fux am Rande der Überlieferung”, in: Sakralmusik im Habsburgerreich 1550–1750, ed. Tassilo Erhardt. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2013, pp. 25–40. Kantner, Leopold: “Liturgische Gesetzgebung”, in: Musik des 17. Jahrhunderts und Pavel Vejvanovský, ed. Jiří Sehnal. Brno: Österreichisches Ost- und Südosteuropa-Institut, 1994, pp. 241–247. 105

Tassilo Erhardt Kostner, Charlotte: Pietas Austriaca Praescripta. Kaiserlich-bischöf lich angeordnete Frömmigkeitsübungen in den Bistümern Passau und Wien während des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. MA diss., University of Vienna, 1997. Krombach, Gabriela: Die Vertonungen liturgischer Sonntagsoffertorien am Wiener Hof. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der katholischen Kirchenmusik im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Munich and Salzburg: Katzbichler, 1986. Lundberg, Mattias: “What is Really Old in the Stile Antico of Johann Joseph Fux?”, in: Erhardt, Sakralmusik, pp. 41–52. Riedel, Friedrich W.: Kirchenmusik am Hofe Karls VI, 1711–1740. Munich, Salzburg: Katzbichler, 1977. Saunders, Steven: Sacred Music at the Hapsburg Court of Ferdinand II (1615-1637): The Latin Vocal Works of Giovanni Priuli and Giovanni Valentini, PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1990.      : Cross, Sword, and Lyre: Sacred Music at the Imperial Court of Ferdinand II of Habsburg (1615–1637). New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Scheuz, Martin: “‘… hinter Ihrer Käyserlichen Majestät der Päbstliche Nuntius, Königl. Spanischer und Venezianischer Abgesandter.’ Hof und Stadt bei den Fronleichnamsprozessionen im frühneuzeitlichen Wien”, in: Kaiserhof, Papsthof, 16.–18. Jahrhundert, ed. Richard Bösel et al. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2006, pp. 173–204. Walter, Rudolf: “Bemerkungen zu den Kompositionen von Johann Joseph Fux zum Offertorium”, in: Johann Joseph Fux and the Music of the Austro-Italian Baroque, ed. Harry White. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1992, pp. 230–255. Weaver, Andrew: “Music in the Service of Counter-Reformation Politics: The Immaculate Conception at the Habsburg Court of Ferdinand III (1637– 1657)”, in: Music and Letters 87/3 (August 2006), pp. 361–378.

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The Musical Baroque in China

The Musical Baroque in China: Interactions and Conflicts Jen-yen Chen The scholar whom this volume of essays honors has offered a valuable formulation, ‘Austro-Italian Baroque’, to express what he regards as a spirit of auctoritas which pervaded the court of the Holy Roman Emperors in Vienna during the career of Johann Joseph Fux (1660–1741).1 Neither Fux nor his contemporaries regarded themselves as exemplifying a Baroque era or style, of course; rather, the notion reflects historiographical activity which took place long afterwards.2 In this essay I engage in my own historiographical endeavor by proposing a musical Baroque in late seventeenthand early eighteenth-century China. The seeming mismatch between an originally European concept and an Asian milieu should not, of itself, engender objections: it is not essentially more fictive than an established construction such as ‘Viennese Classicism’, or even a seemingly neutral one such as ‘eighteenth century’, or, finally, the very idea of a historical period.3 Hence, the cogency of the kind of argumentation presented below lies not in objective factuality, but rather in the meanings and insights generated by the dialectical energies of a heterogeneous linkage. 1 The idea of exploring a musical Baroque in China was first suggested to me by Thomas Hochradner of the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, whom I gratefully acknowledge here. At Professor Hochradner’s impetus, and with the kind support of Judith Suchanek, director of the China-Zentrum, Universität Salzburg, I presented a lecture on the topic of the present essay at this centre on 17 December 2013. Harry White (ed.): Johann Joseph Fux and the Austro-Italian Baroque. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992. 2 The nineteenth-century Swiss art historian Jacob Burckhardt seems to have been one of the earliest writers to conceive of a Baroque style, in his Der Cicerone: Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens, Basel: Schweighauser’sche Buchhandlung, 1855, which contains a chapter titled “Architektur und Decoration des Barockstyls”. 3 The most notable recent critique of a ‘Classical style’ centred on the works composed by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in Vienna between 1780 and 1820 is James Webster: Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: Through-Composition and Cyclic Integration in his Instrumental Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, esp. pp. 335–373. The problematic nature of the eighteenth century (or any century, for that matter) as a sensible historical-temporal unit is evident in discussions of a ‘long eighteenth century’ and its beginning and ending points. With regard to China, this chronological loosening still does not produce a useful interpretive framework: a starting date around the year 1700 splits the reign of Kangxi, China’s longest ruling monarch, into two segments, for no evident reason other than to maintain a rooted habit of organising time; furthermore, even if the ‘eighteenth century’ is extended as far back as Kangxi’s accession in 1661 in order to encompass his entire sixty-one years on the throne, the consequent merging of his reign with those of Yongzheng (1722–1735) and Qianlong (1735–1796) enforces a questionable continuity, as if few changes of note occurred following his death in 1722.

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Jen-yen Chen At the end of the seventeenth century, the French Jesuit missionary Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730), writing from the Chinese imperial court in Beijing, attempted this sort of linkage by drawing a parallel between the Qing-dynasty Emperor Kangxi and King Louis XIV of France (who reigned 1661–1722 and 1643–1715, respectively). In his Portrait historique de l’Empereur de la Chine (‘Historical Portrait of the Emperor of China’), submitted to Louis and published in Paris in 1697, Bouvet compares the two rulers as follows: Les Jesuites, que Vôtre Majesté lui envoya, il y a quelques années, ont été étonnés de trouver aux extremités de la terre, … un Prince, qui comme Vous, SIRE, joint à un génie aussi sublime que solide, un cœur encore plus digne de l’Empire; qui est maître de luy-même comme de ses sujets, également adoré de ses peuples, et respecté de ses voisins; qui tout glorieux qu’il est dans ses grands entreprises, a plus encore de valeur et de conduite, que de bonheur: un Prince en un mot, qui réunissant dans sa personne la pluspart des grandes qualités, qui forment les Heros, seroit le plus accompli Monarque, qui depuis long-temps ait regné sur terre, si son regne non concouroit point avec celuy de Vôtre Majesté … The Jesuits, whom Your Majesty sent upon an embassy to [Emperor Kangxi] a number of years ago, were astounded to have found, at the ends of the earth, … a Prince who, like you, SIR, combines a genius as sublime as it is steady with a heart of even greater dignity than the Empire itself; who is master over himself as over his subjects, is equally adored by his peoples, as respected by his neighbours; who, full of glory in his great endeavors, is more possessed of valour and high conduct than of contentment; a prince, in a word, who unites in his person the majority of the outstanding characteristics which constitute heroes, and who would be the most accomplished monarch to reign on earth since long ago, if his reign did not happen to coincide with that of Your Majesty …4 In the following discussion, however, I shall propose an affinity between Kangxi and a different European monarch, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (reigned 1711–40), partly in acknowledgment of Harry White’s distinguished scholarship on music at the early eighteenth-century Viennese court. The particular feature of this era of Austrian history which echoes that of Kangxi’s rule in China is the function of culture and music in articulating ideological significances of State and Church power, especially through representations of a ceremonial, ritualistic character which often encompassed religious, theological, and/ 4 Joachim Bouvet: Portrait historique de l’Empereur de la Chine. Paris: Michallet, 1697, pp. 6–7. Translation mine.

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The Musical Baroque in China or cosmological dimensions. Thus, for instance, Friedrich Wilhelm Riedel has noted the architectural quality of the deployment of various musical styles to accompany religious observances at Charles’ court. Specifically, he referred to the careful arrangement within the imperial liturgy of musics of an Italianate nature, including the vocal polyphony of the sixteenth century epitomised by Palestrina as well as the modern affective idioms which arose during the early Baroque period, among them the vivid madrigalian brand of vocal music associated with the creation of opera and the new concerted instrumental genres. 5 This appropriation of Italian musical culture served as a potent legitimation of the power of the Holy Roman Emperors, drawing together worldly and divine realms. The aptness of White’s ‘Austro-Italian Baroque’ is evident here, for one may particularly note the universalising historicism in which the reach of one culture towards another, that is, of eighteenth-century Austria towards sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy, symbolically functioned as the expression of an envisioned limitlessness of Austrian political hegemony, both temporally and geographically. Since the Roman Catholic faith could not but be regarded as unbounded both in time and space, as in the concluding text of the Nicene Creed, “Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sacula saeculorum, Amen”, so the linkage of the secular political centre of Vienna with the sacred religious centre of Rome served to buttress a vision of the former’s timelessness. Hence, for example, the Church of St. Charles Borromeo in Vienna echoes the Columns of Emperors Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome, and, within the musical domain, the a cappella vocal works of Fux evoke the so-called Palestrina style. Turning from Vienna to Beijing, we find a notable similarity in the ways music at an imperial court functioned both to legitimate worldly power by enforcing a link with the divine and to express an ideology of universalising historicism. Among Chinese emperors, Kangxi stands out for his exceptional interest in European music, which included not only the playing of keyboard instruments but also the study of music theory; hence, for instance, he commissioned an encyclopedic treatise in three parts on music, titled the Lülü Zhengyi (‘True Doctrine of Music’, 1713), with the third part, the Lülü Zhengyi Xubian (‘Sequel to the True Doctrine of Music’), devoted to a discussion of Western musical principles.6 The precise 5 6

Friedrich Wilhelm Riedel: Kirchenmusik am Hofe Karls VI. (1711-1740). Munich and Salzburg: Emil Katzbichler, 1977, pp. 222–228. The Portuguese Jesuit missionary Tomas Pereira, who was appointed as music master to Kangxi in 1673, compiled notes which later served as the basis for the work, completed by his successor, the Italian Lazarist missionary Teodorico Pedrini. The Lülü Zhengyi Xubian receives mention in virtually all scholarly writings on the dissemination of Western music to the Beijing imperial court during the Jesuits’ China mission; for a comprehensive study, see Gerlinde Gild-Bohne: Das Lü Lü Zheng Yi Xu Bian: ein Jesuitentraktat über die europäische Notation in China 1713. Göttingen: Edition Re, 1991.

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Jen-yen Chen motivation for the apparent outreach towards a foreign culture has been subject to a careful and thorough investigation in a recent dissertation completed by Wai Yee Lulu Chiu, who persuasively demonstrated that Kangxi in fact regarded European music as nothing other than Chinese music, all music having derived from China and then spread to other parts of the globe.7 This highly Sinocentric outlook, broadly embodied in the doctrine of ‘the Chinese origin of Western learning’, held that originally Chinese music had vanished from China itself because of the destructive turbulence which occurred during the founding of the Qin Dynasty, established in 221 BCE; but because of the alleged survival of the music in the West, among other places, Kangxi keenly believed in the possibility of a recovery and restoration. In pursuing this aim, he too exemplified the universalising-historicising project of dissolving temporal and geographical boundaries through an embrace backwards and outwards. Furthermore, as in Vienna, music’s contribution to articulating an ideology of boundlessness at the Chinese court featured a markedly spiritual dimension, in that Confucian thought linked music closely to the cosmological-natural order and thus regarded it as an essential tool in promoting social harmony and effective government. The clearest indication of the heavenly derivation of music’s political force in imperial China was the huangzhong or yellow bell, the fundamental pitch which supplied the basic structuring principle of a good music, without which the orderly society which constituted a primary goal of the Confucian philosophy would never come into being. It thus became a matter of profound State importance to calculate as accurately as possible this yellow bell, and as a result each newly established imperial dynasty performed its own re-calculation under the assumption that the previous one had not done so effectually, leading to a poor music which helped to bring about the eventual decay of the socio-political fabric. The Lülü Zhengyi in fact belongs to an even larger work, the Lüli yuanyuan (‘The Origins of Mathematical Harmonics and Astronomy’), a systematic compilation of learning that had its essential motivation in dynastic legitimation. Through this project, Kangxi aspired towards a unification of the world’s cultures and sciences, with China as the fount of human creativity and the occupant of the Chinese throne as paramount ruler on a global scale. Thus, in one of his own personal utterances, he asserted that music was not differentiated by historical era or geographical region: “The primordial note of earth and heaven, from antiquity to the present, from China to foreign nations, is unchanged. Thus, despising ancient music and only focusing on music of our day, we will not understand both the music of antiquity and the present. Only focusing on the restoration of ancient 7

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Wai Yee Lulu Chiu: The Function of Western Music in the Eighteenth-Century Chinese Court. PhD diss., Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007, esp. ch. 3, “Kangxi’s Attitude Towards Music”, pp. 100–142, which serves as the principal reference for my following discussion.

The Musical Baroque in China music and ignoring music of the present, finally we will not revive ancient music.”8 To my knowledge, Charles VI made no comparable statement, but Fux, his remarkable Hof kapellmeister, expressed a universalism rather like Kangxi’s in his treatise of 1725, the Gradus ad Parnassum, when he wrote, “No one would doubt that, just as sacred things are above worldly ones in dignity, so music offered up for divine worship, destined to last eternally, is much nobler than other music, and special care should be given to it.”9 The key phrase here is “destined to last eternally”, but also significant is the conviction that sacred music stands above secular music as the noblest and most proper form of music, a sentiment which resonates with Kangxi’s conjunction of earth and heaven, the source of the ‘primordial note’ or huangzhong. The analogous ‘Baroque’ ideals of the Holy Roman and Chinese Empires manifested themselves diversely with respect to music: in one instance, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian musical styles associated especially with the Counter-Reformation sonically represented the aspiration to universal sovereignty; while in the other instance, conformity with the perfect note, the huangzhong, produced a cosmologically ordered and hence immutable socio-political fabric. In both milieus, however, music shared the core function of an aural medium by which to transcend earthbound specificities of time and place. In addition to the notion of affinity which this essay has pursued thus far, actual musical exchanges between Asia and Europe took place during the period under consideration. The amount of Chinese music disseminated westwards was exceptionally small, however. It includes melodies recorded in staff notation and printed in the French Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s massive 1735 compendium of then-current European knowledge of Chinese society and culture, Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie […] (‘Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political, and Physical Description of the Chinese Empire and of Tartary […]).10 As purportedly authentic representations, these transcriptions undoubtedly leave plentiful room for 8

Translation from Chiu, The Function of Western Music, p. 134. The remarks originally appeared in the Shengzu ren huangdi tingxun geyan (‘Parental Aphorisms’), compiled circa 1730 during the reign of Yongzheng, Kangxi’s successor (see Chiu, p. 134, fn. 72). 9 Johann Joseph Fux: Gradus ad Parnassum. Vienna: Van Ghelen, 1725, p. 242. Translation from Susan Wollenberg: “‘Gradus ad Parnassum’ (1725): Concluding Chapters”, in: Music Analysis 11/2– 3 ( July–October 1992), pp. 209–243, here p. 217. The original Latin text runs: “Quemadmodum Sacra dignitate profana antecellunt, ita Musicam cultui Divino mancipitam, aeternumque duraturum, longe nobilitate principem obtinere locum, praecipuamque propterea huic operam navandam esse, nemini in dubium venturum existimo.” 10 Jean Baptiste Du Halde: Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie […], 4 vols. Paris: Le Mercier, 1735. The melodies appear as an insert within the section titled “De Leur Musique”, vol. 3, pp. 328–330.

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Jen-yen Chen critique.11 In any case, the first of these melodies turned up later in Carl Maria von Weber’s incidental music for Friedrich Schiller’s play Turandot (1809) and yet again when Paul Hindemith drew upon this work in his Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber (1943). By contrast, a considerable quantity of European musical compositions, instruments, and knowledge had reached China by the eighteenth century, transmitted there primarily through the missionary activities of various Roman Catholic orders. This artistic, intellectual, and technological material provides the opportunity to explore a striking example of transcultural interaction in the early modern period. For the purpose of highlighting the aspect of conf lict that often marks such interaction, I shall particularly consider here the initial reception of Western keyboard instruments in China. The most famous of the Jesuits who reached Beijing, Matteo Ricci (1552– 1610), first brought a clavichord to the imperial court in 1601, following an arduous journey from Macau; three years earlier, he had sent an abundance of gifts including this clavichord to the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (reigned 1572–1620) as part of a petition to obtain tolerance for the Jesuit presence in the Middle Kingdom.12 The gifts were rejected on this earlier occasion, but then accepted when Ricci made his second attempt to offer them to the court. Wanli subsequently instructed four eunuchs to learn the instrument, thereby initiating a longstanding if sporadic practice of clavichord playing in Beijing. Thus, for example, in 1605 Ricci wrote of Masses celebrated to the accompaniment of clavichord music. By the time of Kangxi’s reign, not only do Western keyboard instruments seem to have proliferated, but the emperor had also engaged a number of the missionaries to provide him with musical instruction (Ferdinand Verbiest, Tomas Pereira, and Teodorico Pedrini, successively). The courtier Gao Shiqi related an occasion in 1703 when Kangxi showed him an abundance of European cultural objects, including musical instruments and paintings, and performed the melody Pu’an zou or ‘Incantation of the Monk Pu’an’ on a harpsichord, though it was originally intended for the Chinese guqin or seven-string zither. Other accounts of the emperor playing Chinese tunes on Western keyboard instruments exist, some from the pen of Europeans such as Bouvet and Matteo Ripa (1682–1746), an Italian priest who worked as a painter at the Beijing court and who expressed a rather negative view of what he regarded as the emperor’s limited musical ability: [M]a solo da quando in quando esso imperadore con un sol dito toccava qualche tasto, e questo bastava, secondo l’adulazione, che in superlativo 11 To my knowledge, their original sources remain untraced. 12 Joyce Lindorff: “Missionaries, keyboards and musical exchange in the Ming and Qing courts”, in: Early Music 32/3 (August 2004), pp. 403–414, here p. 405.

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The Musical Baroque in China grado regna in quella corte, per vedersi far dagli altri atti di somma ammirazione … When the sovereign occasionally touched a key with only one finger, it was enough to fill the courtiers with admiration according to the extravagant f lattery of the court …13 Ripa emphasises ‘only’ one finger with a mocking undertone enhanced by the characterisation of praise garnered by such evidently impoverished performing skill as f lattery. Underlying this viewpoint is an assumption of the higher aesthetic value of polyphonic music and the attendant challenges of performing it; however, a sympathetic intercultural consideration of the matter does not allow for a belief that ‘many fingers’ constitutes a self-evident indication of musical superiority. For example, one may point to the ancient Chinese tradition of guqin music, whose defining characteristic is an extreme transparency of expression rendered by a delicate touch employing at most several fingers and frequently only one finger. In playing a guqin melody on the harpsichord, Kangxi likely had recourse to a familiar performing technique, in an understandable instance of applying native cultural habits to foreign material, even when the result demonstrates a marked incongruity. The kind of misunderstanding that helped to engender Ripa’s criticism also occurred in the reverse direction, when the emperor voiced his distaste for music presented to him by an ensemble made up of European priests and consisting of players of the “clavecin, f lute, bass viol, violin, and bassoon.” Kangxi reacted to the unaccustomed density of sound with “Enough, enough … the truth is, I am not accustomed to out-of-tune concerts.”14 A similar incident took place about a century later at the court of the Emperor Qianlong (reigned 1735–1796), during the British diplomatic mission of 1792–1794 headed by Lord George Macartney (1737–1806) which aimed to establish formal relations with the Middle Kingdom. Charles Burney (1726–1814), who served as musical adviser to the mission, remarked in connection with the gift of a barrel organ whose mechanical reproduction of English and Chinese melodies included one, ‘Son of Heaven’, set in polyphonic texture: “The sound of the double bass they detest; yet notwithstanding their dislike of low tones, they seem to like the bassoon better than any other of our wind instruments.”15 Indeed, Burney had anticipated an unfavorable response in earlier comments which reveal a subtly disparaging attitude towards non-West13 Translation adapted in Chiu, The Function of Western Music, p. 104, from Fortunato Prandi (trans.): The Memoirs of Father Ripa during Thirteen Years’ Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1979, pp. 75–76. 14 Lindorff: “Missionaries, keyboards and musical exchange”, p. 408. 15 Joyce Lindorff: “Burney, Macartney and the Qianlong Emperor: the role of music in the British embassy to China, 1792-1794”, in: Early Music 40/3 (August 2012), pp. 441–453, here p. 449.

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Jen-yen Chen ern listeners unable to appreciate what for him represented the essential indicator of musical sophistication: [The musicians] would probably be more admired by the Chinese in the performance of simple melodies, than a complete opera band would be in executing the most artful and complicated compositions: as harmony, or music in different parts, seems to be utterly uncultivated and unknown in any part of the world, except Europe.16 A brief diversion from China to Japan may be in order here, as an apparently contrasting reception of polyphony illustrates much the same point about the alien nature of this musical feature in certain parts of Asia. Reports of singing by Japanese Christian converts of a cappella and double-chorus motets, sent by Jesuit missionaries to their superiors in Europe, require judicious interpretation, as Eta Harich-Schneider has emphasised: […] musical terminology used in the reports – the terminology of amateurs – should be accepted with caution. Neither the instruments nor the style of the vocal performances are ever defined with precision. The ‘Double Chorus’ consisted most probably of two groups singing unison plainchant in alternation. The ‘Motet’ cannot have been any sort of polyphonic composition sung a capella. The frequently occurring term ‘em canto d’orgão’ meant at that time in Europe vocal polyphony; in Japan it was probably just monodic plainchant with organ accompaniment in unison. The Japanese knew only homophonic music; polyphony was completely unknown.17 A useful concept with which to interpret the misunderstandings concerning the relative merits of music in a single part and in multiple parts is centrality, formulated by Bruno Nettl. In Nettl’s view, individual cultures settle upon diverse choices about which stylistic parameters represent the core elements of their musics, as a socio-historical process over long periods of time (and the choices never become permanent and immutable).18 Applying the concept in far too overgeneralised and simplistic a manner, yet with the pragmatic aim of illustration, I might propose that, for Europe, the central element is polyphony or harmony; for sub-Saharan Africa, rhythm; for South Asia, mode; for China, timbre. No parameter can enjoy the status of an objective and universal preference. An undoubted measure of intolerance therefore underlies the claims of a ‘lack’ of harmony in 16 Ibidem, p. 444. 17 Eta Harich-Schneider: History of Japanese Music. London: Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 460. 18 Bruno Nettl: The Western Impact on World Music: Change, Adaptation and Survival. New York: Schirmer, 1985, pp. 20–21.

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The Musical Baroque in China Asian music, as if this were self-evidently an inadequacy, and of the purportedly out-of-tune nature of European music, thereby insisting rigidly on the kind of nuanced timbral variety possible above all in monophonic music. In these conf licts of understanding stemming from encounters among foreign, unfamiliar musics, the philosophical-cosmological ideal of a single universal music common to both Europe and China runs up against the empirical realities of global diversity. Within shared conceptual frameworks such as the ‘Baroque’ worldview, there existed, already to a conspicuous degree in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dynamic individualities of cultural realisation susceptible to intensive negotiation with one another, this negotiation forming, in my view, the essence of interculturalism, rather than any universalism in a homogeneous sense. It should be recalled that, even within the boundaries of Europe, numerous debates took place with regard to competing valuations of polyphony and monophony. Against the valorisation of the former by Johann Joseph Fux and Charles Burney, one may note the frequent trends in favour of a more melodically-inclined brand of church music, whether it be the kind proclaimed by the Council of Trent during the initial phase of the Counter-Reformation, the body of chorale tunes which forms the musical heart of the Lutheran faith, or the movement towards homophonic simplification of Catholic sacred music in Austria during the late eighteenth century, as illustrated by the hymnal Der heilige Gesang zum Gottesdienste in der römisch-katholischen Kirche, published in 1777 and containing a German-language version of the Mass, the so-called Singmesse. Cultural notions of any sort, whether of a Baroque period in Europe, a Baroque period in China, the universal value of a specific musical technique such as polyphony, or the cosmological, political, and aesthetic meanings of art, are necessarily fragile. In a sense, they all must fail, because of their inadequacies and inconsistencies, such as researchers may expose through investigation. Yet these socalled failures ought not to be regarded as negative outcomes; rather, they form the substance of culture’s dynamism and vitality, and delineate an ever-renewing process of formulating conceptions for understanding the world only eventually to revise or reject them, or even to revert to older frameworks. The dynamism has only intensified in recent centuries, as societies such as France, Austria, and China find themselves increasingly unable to pursue an autonomous life in which the existence of foreign peoples is accepted but treated as hardly anything more than an abstract piece of knowledge. In other words, culture and interculture have become virtually synonymous, rendering ever more difficult the challenge of establishing stable modes of comprehension amidst a context of pervasive f luidity. The wish to highlight this f luidity as a paradigmatic modern condition furnished the original impetus for pursuing the fiction of a musical Baroque in China in the present essay. 115

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Select Bibliography Bouvet, Joachim: Portrait historique de l’Empereur de la Chine. Paris: Michallet, 1697. Burckhardt, Jacob: Der Cicerone: Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens. Basel: Schweighauser’sche Buchhandlung, 1855. Chiu, Wai Yee Lulu: The Function of Western Music in the Eighteenth-Century Chinese Court. PhD diss., Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. Du Halde, Jean Baptiste: Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie […], 4 vols. Paris: Le Mercier, 1735. Fux, Johann Joseph: Gradus ad Parnassum. Vienna: Van Ghelen, 1725. Gild-Bohne, Gerlinde: Das Lü Lü Zheng Yi Xu Bian: ein Jesuitentraktat über die europäische Notation in China 1713. Göttingen: Edition Re, 1991. Harich-Schneider, Eta: History of Japanese Music. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. Lindorff, Joyce: “Missionaries, keyboards and musical exchange in the Ming and Qing courts”, in: Early Music 32/3 (2004), pp. 403–414.      : “Burney, Macartney and the Qianlong Emperor: the role of music in the British embassy to China, 1792–1794”, in: Early Music 40/3 (2012), pp. 441–453. Nettl, Bruno: The Western Impact on World Music: Change, Adaptation and Survival. New York: Schirmer, 1985. Prandi, Fortunato (trans.): The Memoirs of Father Ripa during Thirteen Years’ Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846. Riedel, Friedrich Wilhelm: Kirchenmusik am Hofe Karls VI. (1711-1740). Munich and Salzburg: Emil Katzbichler, 1977. Webster, James: Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: Through-Composition and Cyclic Integration in his Instrumental Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. White, Harry (ed.): Johann Joseph Fux and the Austro-Italian Baroque. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992. Wollenberg, Susan: “‘Gradus ad Parnassum’ (1725): Concluding Chapters”, in: Music Analysis 11/2–3 (1992), pp. 209–243.

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Canon in Baroque Italy

Canon in Baroque Italy: Paolo Agostini’s Collections of Masses, Motets and Counterpoints from 1627 1 Denis Collins One of Harry White’s earliest publications drew attention to connections between several collections of counterpoint from the seventeenth century and J. S. Bach’s Musical Offering. 2 In his assessments of collections by Samuel Scheidt, Johann Theile and Giovanni Battista Vitali, 3 White demonstrated how the organization of their contents and the technical resources employed in working out various compositional challenges can be compared to Bach’s preoccupations during his later years with techniques of canon, fugue and invertible counterpoint. Many observations in White’s study have retained their validity since publication, most especially those that show his sensitivity to how composers united artistic expression with often dazzling displays of contrapuntal dexterity. In recent decades, other scholars have traced connections between Bach’s cycles of canons in works such as the Musical Offering, Goldberg Variations or Art of Fugue and compositions by earlier masters that comprise systematic orderings of canonic works. These connections stretch back to Ockeghem, whose Missa Prolationum involves a series of canons at different intervals of imitation,4 and into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries where a great many collections of varying sizes have been identified. 5 Later scholars have affirmed many of White’s conclusions about the collections 1 2 3

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It is my pleasure to acknowledge generous comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this study from Jen-yen Chen and Jason Stoessel. This research was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP180100680). H. M. White: “Canon in the Baroque Era: Precedents for the Musical Offering,” in: BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute 15/4 (1984), pp. 4–15. Samuel Scheidt: Tabulatura Nova, ed. C. Mahrenholz, in Samuel Scheidt Werke, vol. 6. Hamburg: Ugrino Verlag, 1953. – Johann Theile: Musikalisches Kunst-Buch, ed. Carl Dahlhaus, in Denkmäler Norddeutscher Musik, vol. 1. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1965. – Giovanni Battista Vitali: Artificii Musicali, Opus XIII, ed. Louise Rood and Gertrude P. Smith. Northampton, MA: Smith College Music Archives XIV, 1959. Lawrence F. Bernstein: “Ockeghem as the ‘Bach of his Day’,” in: Uno gentile et subtile ingenio: Studies in Renaissance Music in Honour of Bonnie J. Blackburn, ed. M. Jennifer Bloxam, Gioia Filocamo and Leofranc Holford-Strevens. Turnhout: Brepols, 2009, pp. 577–591. Bernstein notes (p. 577) that Friedrich W. Marpurg referred to Ockeghem as the Bach of his day (“der Bach seiner Zeit”). For instance, see Michael H. Lamla: “Musical Books of Patterns in Seventeenth-Century Italy,” in: Musikkonzepte: Konzepte der Musikwissenschaft 2 (2000), pp. 200–205.

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Denis Collins that he singled out for attention in his study, regardless of their different purposes and perspectives in approaching these collections.6 One area that has received increasing albeit sporadic attention in recent years is the proliferation of collections of advanced contrapuntal techniques published in early sixteenth-century Italy. Although this area fell outside the scope of White’s 1984 study, it is a natural avenue for further investigations of Baroque canon. However, the magnitude of materials encompassed in these contrapuntal compendia has been slow to permeate musicological writings on Italian music of this period. A study by Sergio Durante that appeared in 1987 proved to be something of a false dawn,7 and in the meantime these collections have been subject to rigorous examination in only a small number of publications, very few of which have appeared in English. Durante’s study is an excellent entry point to the topic, especially for his discussions of terminology, breadth of contrapuntal techniques, and the broader cultural issues surrounding the production of these works. Particularly helpful is Durante’s use of the term artificioso, which he says can “denote a musical procedure that governed the construction of a piece, but at the same time became both its end and its means.”8 Artificioso, according to Durante, was a term used in seventeenth-century Italy in connection with ‘well-constructed’ or ‘refined’ compositions. Such works may have been intended for secular or religious use, while others may have had no function beyond instructive purpose. A related term, obligo (or obbligo in modern usage), refers to a technical task or problem that the composer must observe for the duration of a composition. These tasks ranged from something as simple as avoiding a particular intervallic progression to a more complex task such as basing an entire composition upon certain solmization syllables. Such works also include all manner of canonic writing. 6

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White’s discussion of Theile’s likely influence on Bach finds resonance in Peter Wollny’s statement that “one can clearly see that there are fundamental parallels between Theile’s and Bach’s approaches to musical composition.” See Peter Wollny: “On Johann Sebastian Bach’s Creative Process: Observations from His Drafts and Sketches,” in: Sean Gallagher and Thomas Forrest Kelly, editors. The Century of Bach and Mozart: Perspectives on Historiography, Composition, Theory, and Performance. Isham Library Papers 7. Harvard Publications in Music 22. Harvard University Department of Music, 2008, pp. 217–238, here p. 236. A through-going study of different contexts for Bach’s counterpoint, including that provided by Theile and his circle, may be found in David Yearsley: Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; see especially chapter 2, “The alchemy of Bach’s canons.” Sergio Durante: “On Artificioso Compositions at the Time of Frescobaldi,” in: Frescobaldi Studies, ed. Alexander Silbiger. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987, pp. 195–217. Other studies have acknowledged the prevalence of canonic writing in Seicento Italy; for instance, Imogene Horsley: Fugue: History and Practice. New York: Free Press, 1966, pp. 17–26, and Renate Groth: “Arcani dell’Arte: Giovanni Battista Vitalis Artificii Musicali (1689),” in: Aspetti musicali: Musikhistorische Dimensionen Italiens 1600 bis 2000: Festschrift für Dietrich Kämper zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Norbert Bolin. Köln-Rheinkassel: Verlag Dohr, 2001, pp. 25–33. Durante: “On Artificioso Compositions,” p. 195.

Canon in Baroque Italy While Durante’s views on terminological issues are still of value, his list of works falls far short of the number now known to exist from this period. A very useful and thorough-going overview of sources can be found in studies by Michael Lamla, especially his dissertation.9 Dedicated studies of individual composers of artificioso or obligo works are a rarity, with the notable exception of Giuseppe Gerbino’s monograph on Pier Francesco Valentini, a composer famous, even notorious, for his polymorphous canons that could have thousands of solutions.10 Many of Valentini’s canons, published or preserved in manuscript, are steeped in iconographical references to hermetical or occult practices.11 Such allusions seem to permeate the entire corpus of early seventeenth-century canonic repertoire, though many questions remain about the role of canonic writing more generally in intellectual life of the period. It is possible, indeed very likely, that canon and other advanced contrapuntal techniques occupied a much more vital position in musical culture of the Seicento than hitherto recognized. Canonic repertoire has been overshadowed in modern scholarship by the prominence given to music associated with the seconda practica, most especially opera, monody, emerging tonality and instrumental music. As Durante observed, musical historiography has generally ignored collections of artificioso works, considering them “rather opaque and unconnected with evolving currents.”12 9

Michael H. Lamla: Kanonkünste im barocken Italien, insbesondere in Rom. PhD diss., Universität des Saarlandes, 2003. 10 Giuseppe Gerbino: Canoni ed Enigmi: Pier Francesco Valentini e l’artificio canonico nella prima metà del Seicento. Rome: Edizioni Torre D’Orfeo, 1995. A shorter study by Gerbino is also very important for providing contextual information especially in relation to music theory of the period; see Giuseppe Gerbino: “Gli arcani più profondi dell’arte: Presupposti teorici e culturali dell’artificio canonico nel secoli XVI e XVII,” in: Il Saggiatore Musicale: Rivista Semestrale di Musicologia 2/2 (1995), pp. 205–36. An earlier study of Valentini is still useful for its detailed list of sources for this composer’s output; see Mariella Casini Cortesi: “Pier Francesco Valentini: profilo di un musicista barocco,” in: Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana 17/3–4 (1983), pp. 529–562. 11 These questions are considered in relation to Valentini’s output in Gerbino, Canoni ed Enigmi, and more generally in Gerbino, “Gli arcani più profondi dell’arte.” Another study that offers a discussion of iconographical and philosophical aspects of seventeenth-century Italian canon is Laurence Wuidar: Canons énigmes et hiéroglyphes musicaux dans l’Italie du 17e siècle. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008. A useful listing of artworks that include notated canons is in Michael H. Lamla: “Musical Canons on Artistic Prints from the 16th to the 18th Centuries,” in: Yearbook of the Alamire Foundation 2 (1997), pp. 479–510. 12 Durante, “On Artificioso Compositions,” p. 199. In a study predating Durante’s article by almost 20 years, Howard Smither remarked on “a neglected facet of the early Baroque, that of the composition of canons with obblighi, or pre-established restrictions, a procedure to which many composers attached considerable pride and prestige even in the period of strongly monodic and anti-contrapuntal tendencies.” See Howard E. Smither: “Romano Micheli’s ‘Dialogus Annuntiationis’ (1625): A Twenty-Voice Canon with Thirty ‘Obblighi,” in: Analecta Musicologica 5 (1968), 34–91, here 34. Micheli was a prominent and somewhat notorious polemicist much preoccupied with advancing the prestige of canonic composition, especially his own contributions to this field. The literature on this figure is surprisingly sparse, although a good overview of his

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Denis Collins Rome stands out as a centre of intense cultivation of canon and related contrapuntal techniques in the early seventeenth century. Rome was also a centre of speculative theory about music and science at this time, most especially in the writings of Athanasius Kircher, who quoted extensively from canonic works by accomplished canonists such as Valentini and Micheli.13 It is perhaps no accident that emerging theories of probability theory and combinatorics that preoccupied natural philosophers such as Kircher coincide with the composition of all manner of canon, many of which have polymorphous solutions through the application of invertible counterpoint.14 To gain insight into the role of canon and counterpoint more generally in Roman musical and intellectual life, it is necessary to first form a clearer picture of the output of canonic composition and the intellectual contexts in which composers operated. Research on these topics is presently in a very underdeveloped state, and this study offers a first step by focusing on the achievements of one of the leading exponents of Roman canon in the opening decades of the seventeenth century. Many composers of canon in early seventeenth-century Italy could trace their pedagogical lineage to Palestrina; several were his students or students of Giovanni Maria Nanino, who may himself have been a pupil of Palestrina. Francesco Soriano studied with Palestrina, while Romano Micheli studied with both Palestrina and Soriano. Valentini and Antonio Brunelli both studied with Nanino, and Paolo Agostini was Nanino’s student and later son-in-law. The last of these composers, Paolo Agositini (c.1583–1629), is one of the most intriguing and prolific composers of canon active in early seventeenth-century Rome, though he is one for whom no in-depth scholarly investigation exists. The present study will focus on Agostini’s contributions to canonic art in early Seicento Rome with a view to assessing the range of contrapuntal techniques he employed, his relationships to contemporary composers and broader cultural inf luences, and also how his encyclopaedic knowledge of canonic technique places his work on a spectrum of contrapuntal compendia that can be traced from the late fifteenth century to Bach’s time. The aim is not to suggest that there is any obvious or direct connection between Agostini and Bach, but to demonstrate for Agostini and his contemporaries the validity of Harry White’s assertion that “within the century and a half which work is in Michael H. Lamla: “Romano Micheli: Zwang und Drang zur Selbstdarstellung,” in: Analecta Musicologica 33 (2004), pp. 393–412. 13 Athanasius Mircher: Musurgia universalis. Rome: Corbelletti, 1650. 14 Other scholars have considered how the longstanding association between music theory and mathematics and cosmology can be useful in situating early theories of combinatorics and probability. See John Z. McKay: Universal Music-Making: Athanasius Kircher and Musical Thought in the Seventeenth Century. PhD diss., Harvard University, 2012; John E. Fletcher: A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, ‘Germanus incredibilis’. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Neither of these authors takes canon into account, a matter that I will investigate in detail in future studies.

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Canon in Baroque Italy encompasses the baroque era and long before Bach’s time, contrapuntal artifice, and more precisely, canon, served as a means of primary artistic expression.”15 Although Agostini was “one of the major representatives of canonic art in Rome,”16 no modern published critical editions exist for any of Agostini’s six books of masses, motets and counterpoints printed in 1627. A similar situation exists for the other representatives of canonic art at this time. Before turning to examine Agostini’s achievements in detail, it is worthwhile to give a brief overview of the few modern transcriptions of the canonic repertoire from this period. Some of the transcriptions appear in doctoral dissertations, mostly unpublished and generally quite old by now. For instance, Agostini’s Missa Ut re mi fa sol, from his first book of masses, may be found transcribed in a dissertation by Lester Brothers from the 1970s,17 whereas Romano Micheli’s Dialogus Annuntiationis18 and some of Pier Francesco Valentini’s canons appear in published studies.19 From a slightly earlier generation, Giovanni Matteo Asola (1524–1609) published a collection of thirty-six two-part canonic madrigals in 1587. This collection, reprinted five times over the following century, is one of the few collections of canons and counterpoints of the period to receive a complete modern edition. 20 Transcriptions of Francesco Soriano’s works, particularly his masses, have appeared in several places. His Missa Ad canones is transcribed in a dissertation from the 1960s, 21 while several of his masses were published by the nineteenth-century Catholic clergyman Karl (or Carlo) Proske in his magisterial two-volume Selectus Novus 15 White: “Canon in the Baroque Era,” p. 4. 16 Klaus Fischer: “Agostini, Paolo.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press [Accessed 30 June 2016]. 17 Lester Brothers: The Hexachord Mass: 1600–1720. PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1973, vol. 2, pp. 1–26. 18 See Smither: “Romano Micheli’s ‘Dialogus Annuntiationis’ (1625),” where the Dialogus is transcribed at pp. 54–91. 19 Despite his prodigious output, very few of Valentini’s canons have been transcribed. See Gerbino: “Gli arcani più profondi dell’arte,” pp. 123–128. 20 See Giovanni Matteo Asola: I madrigali a due voci accomodati da cantar in fuga diversamente, ed. Marco Giuliani. Cles: Scuola Musicale “C. Eccher,” 1993. The collection is discussed briefly in Andrea Bornstein: Two-Part Didactic Music in Printed Italian Collections of the Renaissance and Baroque (1521– 1744). PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 2001, at pp. 97–99, 134. 21 S. Philip Kniseley: The Masses of Francesco Soriano: A Style-Critical Study. PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1964. This dissertation was published, but without any of its mass transcriptions in S. Philip Kniseley: The Masses of Francesco Soriano: A Style-Critical Study. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1967. Kniseley here discusses Soriano’s canonic mass on pp. 15–16 and notes in particular its correspondences to Palestrina’s Missa ad fugam. That Palestrina’s mass settings exerted considerable influence on later generations of composers is affirmed by other studies; for instance, Thomas Day: “Echoes of Palestrina’s Missa Ad fugam in the 18th Century,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 24/3 (1971), pp. 462–69; and Hermann J. Busch, ed.: Two Settings of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli. Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era 16. Madison, WI.: A–R Editions, 1973.

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Denis Collins Missarum. Volume 1 contains the Missa Super voces musicales, whose Agnus Dei II bears the inscription “Justitia et pax oscultate sunt.” This verbal canon refers to a retrograde canon between Tenor I and Cantus II. 22 Apart from isolated examples of short canons from collections by different composers that occasionally appear in anthologies or textbooks, there is little further trace in modern literature of the gargantuan appetite for contrapuntal techniques in the early Seicento. 23 Contemporary accounts of Agostini’s life are scarce, but it seems that he was highly regarded during his lifetime as “one of the most witty and lively musical talents of our time in every kind of harmonic composition, counterpoint and canon.”24 His posthumous reputation was upheld by the eighteenth-century composer and theorist Giovanni Battista Martini, who dwelt on his achievements in a passage from the second volume of his magisterial Esemplare o sia saggio fondamentale: Rarely found, but in all of the works of this celebrated composer, is a certain clarity, naturalness and unique tenderness. Although he introduced into his compositions the most difficult artifices [Artifici] of all types of canon and all kinds of double counterpoint, he nonetheless knew (a rare thing) how to unite such artifices with clarity and naturalness as much in the melody of each of the parts as in the harmony formed by their union. 25 Martini also undertook an index of all of Agostini’s canons, which included a small number of transcriptions, but this task remained incomplete at his death. 26 22 See Carlo Proske, ed.: Selectus Novus Missarum 1. Regensburg, 1855–61, pp. 248–252. The rich and multilayered symbolic usage of this inscription in musical examples from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is explored in Katelijne Schiltz: “La storia di un’iscrizione canonica tra Cinquecento e inizio Seicento: Il caso di Ad te, Domine, levavi animam meam di Philippus de Monte (1574),” in: Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 38 (2003), pp. 227–256. In a more recent study, Schiltz summarizes briefly her thoughts on the topic; see Katelijne Schiltz: Music and Riddle Culture in the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 306–307. A succinct overview of the usage of this inscription appears in Appendix 2 of this book (“Catalogue of enigmatic canonic inscriptions”), written by Bonnie J. Blackburn, pp. 405–406. 23 For instance, see Horsley: Fugue: History and Practice, pp. 20–22 for short examples by Soriano and Ludovico Zacconi. 24 “uno de’ piu spirtosi, e vivaci ingegni, che abbia havuto la Musica a’ nostri tempi in ogni genere di compositione harmonica, di contrappunti e di canoni.” From a letter written in 1684 by Antimo Liberati, maestro di cappella at the church of Santa Maria dell’Anima della Nazione Teutonica in Rome, to Ovidio Persapegi; original Italian text qtd in Brothers: The Hexachord Mass: 1600–1720, p. 81 (my translation above). 25 “Quello, che trovasi di raro in tutte le Opere di questo celebre Compositore, si è una chiarezza, una naturalezza, e pastosità singolare, e abbenchè egli abbia introdotti nelle sue Compositioni gli Artifici più difficoltosi di Canoni, di tutte le Specie, e di Contrappunti doppi di tutte le sorta, ciò non ostante egli ha saputo unire a tali Artifici, cosa molto rara, la chiarezza, e naturalezza tanto nella Melodia di ciascuna delle Parti, che nell’Armonia formata dalla loro unione.” In Martini: Esemplare o sia saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto fugato. Bologna: Lelio dalla Volpe, 1775, p. 302. For an alternative translation, see Brothers: The Hexachord Mass: 1600–1720, p. 83. 26 This index is held at the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna, shelfmark

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Canon in Baroque Italy A native of Vallerano, Agostini moved to Rome in 1615 and held positions as organist and later vicemaestro di cappella at Santa Maria in Trastevere. 27 He held the latter position simultaneously with the position of maestro di cappella at SS Trinità dei Pellegrini until 1618 when he was appointed vicemaestro of San Lorenzo in Domaso. From 17 February 1626 until his death in 1630 he was maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia at San Pietro in the Vatican. Agostini’s output comprises church music only. Complementing his prowess in counterpoint, his motets and psalm settings demonstrate competency in the concertante style with continuo parts going beyond simple supporting accompaniment. 28 Agostini’s six books of masses, motets and canons represent the culmination of his interests in counterpoint. All six books were published in 1627 by Giovanni Battista Robletti (the title page of the first book is reproduced in Figure 1). It is likely that the works assembled in these volumes were composed over several years, and they present a remarkable diversity of ingeniously conceived counterpoints with oblighi. Agostini took great care to specify the oblighi in written directions either accompanying the scores or in separate lists at the end of a volume. 29 Each of the six volumes comprises one or two masses, while some volumes also contain motet settings and short canons or invertible counterpoints. See Table 1 for a listing of the contents of each volume. The dedications (see Table 1) are to senior church figures and institutions associated with Roman confraternities and include the churches where Agostini found employment during his career. Volumes 1, 2 and 3 are dedicated respectively to the brothers of the archconfraternity of the Santissima Trinità de Pellegrini e Convallescenti, the chapter and canons of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and the chapter and canons of the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso. Agostini seems to have maintained connections to his place of birth as seen in the dedication of volume 4 to the community and priors of Vallerano. This dedication also mentions Giovanni Battista Nanino as his teacher and father-in-law. The unnumbered volumes are dedicated to individuals of senior church rank: the Partitura delle Messe … Con 40. Esempi to Teodoro Trivulzio who was a protonotary apostolic (a member of the non-episcopal college of prelates in the Roman Curia), 30 while the Spartitura della Messa et Motetto Benedicam Dominum is dedicated V.39. 27 For Agostini’s biographical details, see Fischer: “Agostini, Paolo,” and Brothers: The Hexachord Mass: 1600–1720, pp. 85–89. 28 Fischer: “Agostini, Paolo.” 29 For a catalogue of Agostini’s works, see Lamla: Kanonkünste im barocken Italien 2, 31–66. Another very useful resource is Stephen Miller’s index of seventeenth-century Roman mass compositions where Agostini’s masses are listed alphabetically with details and comments about extant sources; see Stephen R. Miller: Music for the Mass in Seventeenth-Century Rome: Messe Piene, the Palestrina Tradition, and the Stile Antico. PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1998, Appendix 1, pp. 576–578. 30 Teodoro Trivulzio (c.1597–1656) became a cardinal in 1629 and was later appointed to influential church positions including Viceroy of Aragon, Captain General of the Kingdom of Sicily and

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Denis Collins Table 1: Contents of Paolo Agostini’s Six Books of Masses, Motets and Counterpoints (Rome: Giovanni Battista Robletti, 1627) Title

Spartitura delle messe del primo libro di Paolo Agostini Laus Deo da Vallerano

Dedication

“Alli Venerabili Fratelli dell’Archiconfraternità della SSma Trinita de Pellegrini, et Convallescenti di Roma.”

Works

Messa Pro vigiliis, ac Feriis à 4. voci, in Canone Missa Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, Là Messa Pro vigiliis: no Gloria or Credo. Four voices. No basso continuo. All sections canonic. A setting of the text “Sit nomine Domine benedictum” (pontifical blessing) is included at the end of the mass.

Remarks

Missa Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, Là: five voices and basso continuo. The hard hexachord is used as a cantus firmus or as a freely elaborated motive in all sections. The only canonic writing is in the Agnus Dei II (a triple canon) – transcribed in Martini (1775). The complete mass is transcribed in Brothers (1973).

Title

Spartitura del secondo libro delle messe e motetti a quattro voci Con alcuni oblighi de Canoni. Di Paolo Agostini Laus Deo da Vallerano

Dedication

“Al reverendissimo capitolo, e canonici della basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere.” Missa Ave regina coelorum

Works

Series of canons. Hymn: Ave virgo gratiosa Missa Ave regina coelorum a quattro: Four voices with basso continuo. Based on the motet Ave Regina coelorum by Teofilo Gargari. Non-canonic settings of all mass sections. The Crucifixus is given in 4-part and 3-part versions.

Remarks

Short canons are placed between mass sections. These are based on motives drawn from preceding mass sections, and are sometimes given in contrary motion or retrograde. Hymn: Ave virgo gratiosa: four voices with basso continuo, non-canonic.

Title

Partitura del terzo libro della Messa Sine nomine, a quattro Con due Resurrexit, il secondo tutto in Canone à 4. & il Basso fa resolutione con l’Alto di 8.7.6.5.4.3.2.&1. Li soi Soprani, sempre cantano ad Unisono: & l’Agnus à 7. in canone, con obligo di trè parte, sopra la sol,fa,mi,re,ut. di due battute; con un’ottaua parte si placet. Di Paolo Agostini Laus Deo da Vallerano

Dedication

“Al reverendissimo capitolo, et canonici de SS Lorenzo e Damaso.”

Work

Messa Sine nomine

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Canon in Baroque Italy Four voices and basso continuo. The hard hexachord is used as a cantus firmus or as a freely elaborated motive in all sections. Non-canonic writing is used in all sections except the Agnus Dei II. Remarks

There are two settings of the Et resurrexit section of the Credo: one involves four voices in free counterpoint, the other has two upper voices in canon at the unison and the two lower parts with phrases at successively shorter intervals of imitation from octave, 7th below, 6th below, etc. to unison. The Agnus Dei II is a triple canon involving seven voices with an additional eighth free voice.

Title

Libro quarto delle messe in spartitura di Paolo Agostini Laus Deo da Vallerano

Dedication

“Alli molto Illustri Signori, e Patroni Osservandissimi Li Signori Priori, e Popolo della Communita di Vallerano.”

Works

Messa Si bona suscepimus Series of canons.

Remarks

Five voices and basso continuo. Mass sections are mostly non-canonic. The Christe can be sung either by four or five voices. The three-part Benedictus can be sung four ways (one of which is canonic). The Credo opens with a four-part double canon followed by non-canonic Crucifixus and Et in spiritum settings. The Agnus Dei II can be sung 14 ways by means of a retrograde bass line and an optional sixth voice in canon with it at the 12th above. The top of each page has a canon in closed notation (i.e., one voice only with signs to indicate how other voices are derived).

Title

Partitura delle messe et motetti a quattro, et cinque voci. Con 40. Esempi di Contrapunti, all’Ottaua, Decima, & Duodecima … Di Paolo Agostini Laus Deo da Vallerano

Dedication

“All’Illustriss. & Reverendiss. Sig. e Padron mio Colen. Monsignor Teodoro Trivultio, Prothonotario Apostolico de participanti, e chierico di camera. Prelato della congregatione delli musici di Roma.” Messa Pro ferriis, ad Canones Missa Gaudeamus

Works

Motet Gaudeamus Motet Adoramus te Christe Series of 40 pieces each using invertible counterpoint.

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Messa Pro ferriis, ad Canones: four voices, all sections are canonic, no basso continuo, no Gloria or Credo. There are two versions of the three-part Benedictus. Missa Gaudeamus: five voices and basso continuo. Non-canonic settings apart from Agnus Dei II (canon at 5th above in lowest two notated parts). Remarks

Both motets are non-canonic and have lightly contrapuntal or homophonic textures with basso continuo. The 40 pieces using invertible counterpoint are grouped according to melodies used (including the hard hexachord as cantus firmus). Most examples are non-canonic. Examples 29–40 represent multiple solutions to one two-part example.

Title

Spartitura della messa et motetto Benedicam Dominum ad canones, a quattro voci. E la resolutione delle Ligature à 4. di Gio. Maria Nanino; accomodata per un Motetto; con una quinta parte aggionta. Da Paolo Agostini Laus Deo da Vallerano.

Dedication

“Al reverendissimo P. Generale et a RR. Padri del Sacro Ordine de Predicatori.” Motet Benedicam Dominum

Works

Messa Benedicam Dominum Motet Venite filii audite (resolution of an example by G.B. Nanino)

Remarks

All works are for four voices and basso continuo. The mass and motet on Benedicam Dominum are canonic, the motet Venite filii audite is freely imitative. The mass was misattributed in several 18th-century exemplars to Alessandro Scarlatti.

to the Father General and members of the Dominican Order (Sacro Ordine de Predicatori). Agostini appears not to have taken holy orders, instead marrying the daughter of his mentor, G. B. Nanino. Upon his death in 1629 he left a daughter (it is unknown if his wife survived him). 31 Unlike his contemporary canonists Valentini and Micheli whose compositions are embedded in iconographically rich sources, it is difficult to trace the influence of hermetical or Neoplatonic thought in Agostini’s output. 32 Some clues may be found in the dedications, especially to the first volume where we see brief references Governor of the duchy of Milan. See Salvador Miranda: The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, http://www2.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios1629.htm, accessed November 24, 2017. Agostini’s volume has the variant spelling ‘Trivultio’ of the dedicatee’s name. 31 Brothers: The Hexachord Mass: 1600–1720, p. 84. 32 See especially Gerbino: Canoni ed Enigmi, and Wuidar: Canons énigmes et hieroglyphes musicaux for detailed treatment of Valentini. Durante: “On Artificioso Compositions at the Time of Frescobaldi,” pp. 200–205 suggests associations between canonic techniques and hermeticism in the early seventeenth century and gives a general overview of this branch of spiritual thought at the time.

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Figure 1: Agostini, title page from his first volume published in 1627. By permission of the International Museum and Library of Music of Bologna

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Denis Collins to “il gran Dionisio Areopagita” (the great Dionysius the Areopagite) and “de Beati trionfante in Cielo” (the blessed triumphant in the sky), which bring to mind hermetical symbology. However, much more research needs to be undertaken on the ways in which Agostini’s music could have been used (and heard) by his contemporaries, including dedicatees, sympathetic to the directions of Neoplatonism and other forms of spiritual thought in the early seventeenth century. 33 Agostini’s publications demonstrate a great variety of contrapuntal techniques, ranging from freely imitative textures, sometimes around a long-note cantus firmus, to canonic writing and invertible counterpoint. Of the eight masses listed in Table 1, only three employ canonic writing in every section. Each of these three masses is written for four voices, and two of them, the Messa Pro vigiliis ac feriis in canone and the Messa Pro feriis ad canones omit the Gloria and Credo sections and do not include an organ continuo part, perhaps ref lecting the ferial nature of these works. The canonic Messa Benedicam Dominum recalls Palestrina’s four-voice Missa Ad fugam because each section is structured as a double canon whereby the two upper voices form one canon and the lower two form the other. Furthermore, in most sections of each mass the canonic imitation is at the fourth above, the exceptions being the Benedictus (three voices only in both masses) and the Agnus Dei II where Agostini instead wrote a four-part canon based on one dux (leader) and three comites (followers). Due to misattributions in eighteenth-century exemplars, Agostini’s mass has long been associated incorrectly with Alessandro Scarlatti. 34 Similar problems affect other areas of Agostini’s output and may likely persist until his entire works receive dedicated study by means of a collected edition. 35 Among Agostini’s other five masses listed in Table 1, three employ canonic imitation only in the Agnus Dei II section. Reserving canonic writing for the Agnus Dei II is another feature in common with Palestrina’s mass settings, where there are twenty-three canonic Agnus Dei II sections in masses that otherwise do not use this technique. The Agnus Dei II is treated as a vehicle for display of contrapuntal dexterity and ingenuity, and it often involves more voices than found in the preceding mass movements. The Agnus Dei II of Agostini’s Missa Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la is scored for eight voices plus continuo, whereas the other sections of this mass have five voices and continuo. A triple canon involving three different canonic procedures, the Agnus Dei II stands in contrast to the light contrapun33 A useful introduction to the broader topic of hermetical thought in the early modern period remains Frances A. Yates: The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972. 34 Miller: Music for the Mass in Seventeenth-Century Rome, p. 577. 35 Wolfgang Witzenmann makes a strong case for Agostini’s authorship of two masses hitherto attributed to Frescobaldi and available in the modern complete edition of that composer’s works; see Wolfgang Witzenmann: “Le due ‘Messe Lateranensi’: opere di Paolo Agostini?” in: Studi Musicali 31/2 (2002), pp. 323–348.

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Canon in Baroque Italy tal textures and homophony of the preceding sections of the mass. 36 The Agnus Dei II attracted favourable commentaries from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers: Giovanni Battista Martini, Giuseppe Paolucci, Alexandre Choron, François Joseph Fétis and Raphael Georg Kiesewetter. 37 The Agnus Dei II from Agostini’s Messa Sine nomine (in the terzo libro) is also constructed on the hard hexachord treated as a cantus firmus in all sections. Perhaps equally deserving of critical approval is its Agnus Dei II, which is again a triple canon in which one pair of voices take the hard hexachord in long notes in imitation at the fifth below (giving the natural hexachord), while two other pairs of voices employ different canonic procedures. Agostini’s Missa Gaudeamus (in the Partitura delle messe et motetti) has a more modestly proportioned Agnus Dei II where a canon at the fifth below occurs in the lowest two voices of its five-part texture. Canonic techniques embrace a multitude of procedures, including many that go beyond imitation in similar motion between the voices. Agostini demonstrated his adroitness in a combination of techniques in the Agnus Dei II of the fivepart Messa Si bona suscepimus (from the libro quarto). Fourteen versions of this mass section are possible because of the various ways in which the bass line can be performed either as written in the score or in some form of retrograde motion. None of the other four voices is altered, but there is an optional sixth part that is in canonic imitation with the bass at the twelfth above. The bass line can be read in its entirety from beginning to end or from end to beginning or only to its midpoint marked with a cross in the score. Likewise, it can start at the midpoint and proceed backwards to the start of the movement or as written to the last bar and then retrace its steps to the midpoint. The canonic sexta pars can participate in all of these combinations or it can take the reverse direction to the bass. In other words, the sexta pars can start at the end when the bass starts at the beginning, and vice-versa, or start with the bass at the midpoint but proceed in the opposite direction. The remarkable ingenuity of this piece lies in ensuring consonant outcomes with all of the other voices, none of which should be altered in any of the fourteen presentations. Although no section in the Missa Ave regina coelorum (in the secondo libro) involves canonic procedures, Agostini places short canons before settings of each section of the mass Ordinary. Many of the textures in this mass are quite homophonic, as at the change to filled-in black notation for the setting of “Deum de 36 For a detailed discussion of this mass, see Brothers: The Hexachord Mass: 1600–1720, pp. 94–108. Brothers points to occasional Venetian influences in the use of cadences and the indispensable nature of the continuo part in filling in the texture and frequently participating actively in melodic development. 37 Cf. Brothers: The Hexachord Mass: 1600–1720, pp. 104–105. The Agnus Dei II is quoted in Martini’s Esemplare, pp. 295–301. Martini’s reputation ensured awareness of this mass amongst later writers.

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Denis Collins Deo … facta sunt” in the Credo. The secondo libro begins with a “Canon à 4 sopra le vocale di Aue Regina Coelorum”38 given in closed notation. Closed notation refers to the use of only one line of notated music from which other parts are derived by means of the presa signs placed above certain notes. No resolutions in full score are given, although in a comment following the example Agostini boasts that “si sono cauate da ducento Canoni, senza variar valute di note” (two hundred canons can be sung [carved out] without altering the note values). 39 More typical of the remainder of the book is the presentation of the canonic example following the second Kyrie (see Examples 1a and 1b). This Kyrie II section is based entirely on its opening motive, whose last appearance in the bass forms the basis for the short four-part canon that follows. Notated with a repeat sign, indicating a circle or infinite canon, the text for Example 1b includes the words “Laus Deo,” which Agostini seems to have adopted as a signature to his name (and is given on all title pages of his six publications of 1627). The Kyrie II motive employed in Examples 1a and 1b returns for further canonic treatment between the other sections of this mass. It often forms the basis for one canon in a double canon, with the other constituent canon using a short motive drawn from the preceding section (for example, between the Osanna and Agnus Dei where the Kyrie II motive works against a motive drawn from the last five notes of the Bassus from the Osanna in retrograde). The Messa Si bona suscepimus (in the libro quarto) follows a similar procedure whereby a short canon, notated on a single line with presa signs to indicate entries of the imitating voices, is placed at the top of each page. The setting of the mass Ordinary texts is located on the staves below. There is no correspondence between the text set in the canons and the texts of the mass Ordinary set below them; for instance, above the opening of the Gloria, a “Canon à 4. nel primo libro” sets the Agnus Dei text (see Figure 2). This canon is actually the Agnus Dei from the Messa Pro vigiliis ac feriis in canone in the first book (the primo libro), which is here notated on one line only. Many other canons are likewise drawn from different parts of the collections, and it is difficult to ascertain their purpose. Laurence Wuidar suggests that they may have functioned as glosses on the mass Ordinary texts, although their place in the liturgy remains unclear as does the question of how they would have been performed alongside the mass Ordinary 38 This involves a procedure known as soggetto cavato, popular since the time of Josquin’s Missa Hercules dux ferrariae, which involves deriving melody notes from the solmization syllables implied in the text syllables. 39 This canon is discussed in Laurence Wuidar: Canons énigmes et hiéroglyphes musicaux, pp. 100–102. Wuidar notes that the canon can be resolved with voice entries at the upper fifth and octave but he does not speculate on any further resolutions. A facsimile of the page containing this canon is given on p. 103.

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Canon in Baroque Italy

Examples 1a and 1b: Agostini, Kyrie II and Canon Semper laus Deo, from Missa Ave regina coelorum, in: Spartitura del secondo libro delle messe e motetti, pp. 4–5

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Figure 2: Agostini, Libro quarto delle messe in spartitura, p. 9. By permission of the International Museum and Library of Music of Bologna

sections.40 Overall, there is widespread reuse of motives and often entire canonic complexes throughout Agostini’s six books, with some materials (especially the Kyrie II melody from the Missa Ave regina coelorum) recurring frequently. Although Agostini is often associated with canon, his publications demonstrate an equal if not even greater interest in invertible (also called double) counterpoint. This technique is the basis for numerous short two- and three-part piec40 Wuidar: Canons énigmes et hiéroglyphes musicaux, p. 102.

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Canon in Baroque Italy es that, like canonic examples, are found between settings of mass sections or at the top of pages. Invertible counterpoint is also used for mass sections, which leads to alternative solutions for these sections. The most thoroughgoing exploration of invertible counterpoint is found in Agostini’s Partitura delle messe et motetti a quattro, et cinque voci. Con 40. Esempi di Contrapunti, all’Ottava, Decima, & Duodecima. Beginning with the second mass of this volume, the Missa Gaudeamus, and continuing with the motet setting of the same name, a short piece by invertible counterpoint occurs at the top of each page (numbers 29–40 are grouped on the pages following the motet). These pieces fall into groups according to the melody used: the first ten pieces are each based on a hexachordal cantus firmus with a second part in free counterpoint. Many of the following pieces involves ornamental versions of the hard hexachord to which one or two parts are set. Others are freely imitative for two or three parts, and the last group (29–40) involve one example followed by twelve solutions to it. For numbers 1–28, the pieces are paired with an original version and its solution falling on even- and odd-numbered pages of the book (left- and right-hand sides respectively). As an illustration of the wealth of inventiveness in this collection, Example 2 is a two-part piece composed using invertible counterpoint at the twelfth. The text above Example 2a states “Contrapunto alla duodecima. Questo duo è composto con sesta, negate a detto Contrapunto” (Counterpoint at the twelfth. This duo is composed with a sixth, forbidden in this type of counterpoint). A sixth is normally prohibited in invertible counterpoint at the twelfth because it leads to a dissonant seventh in the resolution. A sixth is found in bar 3 of Example 2a, which becomes part of a 7–6 suspension formula in bar 3 of Example 2b. Likewise, the sixth between the notes G and E in bar 5 of Example 2b can be traced to the 7–6 suspension formula in bar 5 of Example 2a. An example that has two solutions by means of shifting the position of one of the voices is the “Canon à 3 in variati modi, fa ca[n]tera il Tenore, una voce più alta, & una più bassa, & le altre parte non variano” (three-part canon in varied ways in which the tenor can sing a step higher or lower and the other parts are not varied). This rubric is presented above an example in closed notation in the Messa Si bona suscepimus (from the libro quarto) and reappears in open score in the Messa Pro feriis, ad canones from the Partitura delle messe … Con 40. Esempi. Example 3a presents the version in closed notation, while Examples 3b and 3c provide the solutions in full score. In Example 3a, Agostini helpfully indicates the places where the following voices enter by means of letters (T for Tenor and A for Alto). Examples 3b and 3c are found in the Benedictus section of the canonic mass, where Agostini instructs that “Questo Benedictus à 3. si canterà in due modi. Primo come si vede. Secondo, che il Tenore, con aspettare una pause de più, canterà un tono più alto, & le altre parte, non si moueranno, come si vede al secondo 133

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Examples 2a and 2b: Invertible counterpoint at the twelfth including the forbidden sixth, in: Agostini, Partitura delle messe et motetti a quattro, et cinque voci. Con 40. Esempi di Contrapunti, all’Ottava, Decima, & Duodecima, pp. 34–35.

partimento” (This three-part Benedictus is sung in two ways. First, as we see it. Second, the tenor waits an extra rest and sings a tone higher. The other parts are not moved, as can be seen in the second version). The present study’s brief investigation of Agostini’s publications of 1627 reveals a lively and inquisitive mind deeply drawn to a thorough engagement with contrapuntal technique. Many other aspects of this composer’s activities and his position in early Seicento Rome need further research. The contemporary reception of Agostini’s works, for instance, is difficult to assess, notwithstanding the 134

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Example 3a, canon with two solutions by means of shifting the tenor entry, in Agostini, Messa Si bona suscepimus, in: Libro quarto delle messe in spartitura, p. 12.

positive views of later writers such as Martini. The wide range of dedications for his volumes point to Agostini’s confidence in his abilities and the respect due to him from his peers and the most eminent ranks of Roman society. Yet it is unknown to what extent these individuals or institutions would have fostered performance of Agostini’s music in their own churches or at devotional gatherings elsewhere. As noted earlier, questions of performance practice arise in relation to Agostini’s six publications. Likewise, our knowledge more generally of performance practices and traditions associated with other Seicento contrapuntists is limited. Through further research on these issues, it may be possible to build a clearer understanding of the role of counterpoint and canon amongst the communities of musicians, clergymen and laypersons who drew upon diverse musical repertoires in their professional and pastoral undertakings. Recognition of the importance of contrapuntal techniques, especially canon and invertible counterpoint, in early seventeenth-century Rome will assist in opening up new directions for assessing how this music relates to the broader artistic and scientific achievements of the time.

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Examples 3b and 3c: Same canon with partial resolutions in full score, in: Agostini, Benedictus, Messa Pro feriis, ad canones, from Partitura delle messe et motetti a quattro, et cinque voci. Con 40. Esempi di Contrapunti, all’Ottava, Decima, & Duodecima, pp. 5–6.

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Bibliography Agostini, Paolo: Spartitura delle messe del primo libro. Rome: Giovanni Battista Robletti, 1627. : Spartitura del secondo libro delle messe e motetti a quattro voci con alcuni oblighi       de Canoni. Rome: Giovanni Battista Robletti, 1627.      : Partitura del terzo libro della messa sine nomine, a quattro. Rome: Giovanni Battista Robletti, 1627.      : Libro quarto delle messe in spartitura. Rome: Giovanni Battista Robletti, 1627.      : Partitura delle messe et motetti a quattro, et cinque voci. Con 40. Esempi di Contrapunti, all’Ottaua, Decima, & Duodecima. Rome: Giovanni Battista Robletti, 1627.      : Spartitura della messa et motetto Benedicam Dominum ad canones, a quattro voci. E la resolutione delle ligature à 4. di Gio. Maria Nanino; accomodata per un motetto; con una quinta parte aggionta. Rome: Giovanni Battista Robletti, 1627. Asola, Giovanni Matteo: I madrigali a due voci accomodati da cantar in fuga diversamente, ed. Marco Giuliani. Cles: Scuola Musicale “C. Eccher,” 1993. Bernstein, Lawrence F.: “Ockeghem as the ‘Bach of his Day’,” in: Uno gentile et subtile ingenio: Studies in Renaissance Music in Honour of Bonnie J. Blackburn, ed. M. Jennifer Bloxam, Gioia Filocamo and Leofranc Holford-Strevens. Turnhout: Brepols, 2009, pp. 577–591. Bornstein, Andrea: Two-Part Didactic Music in Printed Italian Collections of the Renaissance and Baroque (1521–1774). PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 2001. Brothers, Lester: The Hexachord Mass: 1600–1720. PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1973. Busch, Hermann J., ed.: Two Settings of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli. Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era 16. Madison, WI: A–R Editions, 1973. Cortesi, Mariella Casini: “Pier Francesco Valentini: profilo di un musicista barocco,” in: Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana 17/3–4 (1983), pp. 529–562. Day, Thomas: “Echoes of Palestrina’s Missa ad Fugam in the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 24/3 (1971), pp. 462–469. Durante, Sergio: “On Artificioso Compositions at the Time of Frescobaldi,” in: Frescobaldi Studies, ed. Alexander Silbiger. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987, pp. 195–217. Fischer, Klaus: “Agostini, Paolo.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Fletcher, Alan: A Study of the Life and Works of Anthanasius Kircher, ‘Germanus incredibilis’. Leiden: Brill, 2011. 138

Canon in Baroque Italy Gerbino, Giuseppe: “Gli arcani più profondi dell’arte: Presupposti teorici e culturali dell’artificio canonico nel secoli XVI e XVII,” in: Il Saggiatore Musicale: Rivista Semestrale di Musicologia 2/2 (1995), pp. 205–236.      : Canoni ed Enigmi: Pier Francesco Valentini e l’artificio canonico nella prima metà del Seicento. Rome: Edizioni Torre D’Orfeo, 1995. Groth, Renate: “Arcani dell’Arte: Giovanni Battista Vitalis Artificii Musicali (1689),” in: Aspetti musicali: Musikhistorische Dimensionen Italiens 1600 bis 2000: Festschrift für Dietrich Kämper zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Norbert Bolin. KölnRheinkassel: Verlag Dohr, 2001, pp. 25–33. Horsley, Imogene: Fugue: History and Practice. New York: Free Press, 1966. Kircher, Athanasius: Musurgia Universalis. Rome: Corbelletti, 1650. Kniseley, S. Philip: The Masses of Francesco Soriano: A Style-Critical Study. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1967.      : The Masses of Francesco Soriano: A Style-Critical Study. PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1964. Lamla, Michael H.: “Romano Micheli: Zwang und Drang zur Selbstdarstellung,” in: Analecta Musicologica 33 (2004), 393–412.      : Kanonkünste im barocken Italien, insbesondere in Rom. PhD diss., Universität des Saarlandes, 2003.      : “Musical Books of Patterns in Seventeenth-Century Italy,” in: Musikkonzepte: Konzepte der Musikwissenschaft 2 (2000), pp. 200–205. th th      : “Musical Canons on Artistic Prints from the 16 to the 18 Centuries,” in: Yearbook of the Alamire Foundation 2 (1997), pp. 479–510. McKay, John Z: Universal Music-Making: Athanasius Kircher and Musical Thought in the Seventeenth Century. PhD diss., Harvard University, 2012. Martini, Giovanni Battista: Esemplare o sia saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto fugato. Bologna: Lelio dalla Volpe, 1775. Miller, Stephen R: Music for the Mass in Seventeenth-Century Rome: Messe Piene, the Palestrina Tradition, and the Stile Antico. PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1998. Miranda, Salvador: The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, http://www2.fiu. edu/~mirandas/bios1629.htm Proske, Carlo, ed.: Selectus Novus Missarum, 2 vols. Regensburg, 1855–61. Schiltz, Katelijne: Music and Riddle Culture in the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.      : “La storia di un’iscrizione canonica tra Cinquecento e inizio Seicento: Il caso di Ad te, Domine, levavi animam meam di Philippus de Monte (1574),” in: Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 38 (2003), pp. 227–256. Smither, Howard E.: “Romano Micheli’s ‘Dialogus Annuntiationis’ (1625): A Twenty-Voice Canon with Thirty ‘Obblighi’,” in: Analecta Musicologica 5 (1968), pp. 34–91. 139

Denis Collins White, Harry M.: “Canon in the Baroque Era: Precedents for the Musical Offering,” in: BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute 15/4 (1984), pp. 4–15. Witzenmann, Wolfgang: “Le due ‘Messe Lateranensi’: opere di Paolo Agostini?” in Studi Musicali 31/2 (2002), pp. 323–348. Wollny, Peter: “On Johann Sebastian Bach’s Creative Process: Observations from His Drafts and Sketches,” in: The Century of Bach and Mozart: Perspectives on Historiography, Composition, Theory, and Performance, ed. Sean Gallagher and Thomas Forrest Kelly. Isham Library Papers 7. Harvard Publications in Music 22. Harvard University Department of Music, 2008, pp. 217–238. Wuidar, Laurence: Canons énigmes et hiéroglyphes musicaux dans l’Italie du 17e siècle. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008. Yates, Frances A.: The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972. Yearsley, David: Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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PART TWO: MUSIC IN IRELAND

Barra Boydell and Harry White, Launch of EMIR, Dublin, 4 October 2013

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot

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John Mathews – A Specimen of Georgian Ignorance?

John Mathews – A Specimen of Georgian Ignorance? Kerry Houston Musicologists depend on the work of those working in many professions to provide them with the tools to craft their thinking, analyses and arguments on musical issues. Composers, performers and audiences are essential factors in this collage but other vital roles are filled by librarians, music publishers, those who write for newspapers, compile radio and television programmes, contribute to internet resources and ensure the preservation of administrative and financial records. This essay will concentrate on the contribution of another important profession that is invaluable for musicological research – that of music copyists – and will focus on the work of John Mathews [Matthews] who was the principal musical scribe at both Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral from his arrival in Dublin in 1776 until his death there in 1799.1 A wealth of eighteenth-century sacred music manuscripts have survived in Ireland. Most of these are held in the libraries of the Dublin cathedrals but important collections survive at other cathedrals including Armagh and Cashel. Many prominent cathedrals in England such as Salisbury and Winchester do not curate such well preserved and extensive collections. However, the extant material in Ireland remained largely unexplored until relatively recently. Some essays in Fleischmann’s Music in Ireland refer to extant sources. 2 Richard Andrews examined the manuscripts at the Dublin cathedrals for RISM in the 1960s. Eamonn O’Keeffe, prepared a catalogue of the score books of Christ Church Cathedral which was published in 19973 and more recently, Irish Musical Studies volume 6 presents an anthology of Irish church music with detailed critical apparatus.4 Barra Boydell’s publications on music at Christ Church Cathedral contain important information about the surviving music manuscripts and present editions of a selection of the repertoire. 5 This is complemented by Kerry Houston’s publications 1 In primary documents and secondary critical literature, Mathews is often referred to as “Matthews”, but he almost always used the spelling “Mathews” when signing his name. Accordingly the spelling of his name has been standardized as “Mathews” in this essay. 2 Aloys Fleischmann (ed.): Music in Ireland : A Symposium. Cork: Cork University Press, 1952. 3 Eamonn O’Keefe: “The Score Books of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin: A Catalogue” in Fontes artis musicae, xliv (1997), pp. 43–104. 4 Gerard Gillen and Andrew Johnstone, (eds.): A Historical Anthology of Irish Church Music. Irish Musical Studies, vi. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001. 5 Boydell, Barra, (ed.): Music at Christ Church Before 1800: Documents and Selected Anthems. Dublin:

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Kerry Houston on music at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.6 Further research on individual collections are the subject of articles in The Encylopaedia of Music in Ireland.7 However, the manuscript collections at the Dublin cathedrals were known to John Skelton Bumpus who utilised some of them in preparing his collection in score now held at the British Library.8 His papers entitled ‘Irish Church Composers and the Irish Cathedrals’ delivered to and published by the Royal Musical Association in 1900 are the earliest formal study of this aspect of musical life in Ireland.9 Bumpus conjectures the late eighteenth century music copyist, John Mathews: He was a meddlesome old person and tampered sadly with many of the fine old manuscript services and anthems. He seems to have been a good specimen of Georgian ignorance. He wore a wig and took snuff in quantities. One can picture him hovering over books in the cathedral music libraries, with his penknife and quill, coolly altering all harmonies he did not like, and putting in turns, shakes and grace notes never dreamt of by the worthy composer. Unsurprisingly, this assessment of Mathews’ husbandry was not a catalyst for further research and it is not an encouraging starting point for a reassessment of his work more than 200 years after his death and 100 years after Bumpus’ investigations. Details of Mathews’ early life remain unclear but it is possible that he is the John Mathews recorded as a ‘singing master’ in Winchester in 1751.10 Four score books now held in Marsh’s library contain red letter days in connection with his career before his arrival in Dublin: 16 June 1759 “Winton” [Winchester]; 7 November 1760 “Sarum” [Salisbury]; 4 December 1764 “Durham”; and 30 May 1776 “Dublin”.11 Four Courts Press, 1999.; ‘“Now that the Lord hath readvanc’d the crown’: Richard Hosier, Durham Ms. B.1 and the Early Restoration Anthem Repertory at the Dublin Cathedrals.’” Early Music, xxviii (2000), pp. 238–51; A History of Music at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2004. 6 Kerry Houston: “Music fit for a king: the Restoration of Charles II and the Dublin cathedral repertoire” in Gerard Gillen and Andrew Johnstone, (eds.) in Music, Ireland and the Seventeenth Century Irish Musical Studies, x. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009, pp. 148–67; Raymond Gillespie and John Crawford (eds) St Patrick’s Cathedral: A History, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009, pp. 231–253, 286–307 and 352–382. 7 Harry White and Barra Boydell (eds.): The Enyclopaedia of Music in Ireland. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013. 8 GB-Lbl MS G. 518. B. 1–18. 9 John Skelton Bumpus: “Irish Church Composers and the Irish Cathedrals”, Proceedings of the Musical Association 26 (1899–1900), pp. 79–113, 115–159. 10 Biography Database, 1680–1830. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Avero publications, 1998. 11 Mathews was admitted as a vicar choral at Saint Patrick’s on 21 June 1776. Simultaneously he held a post as vicar choral at Christ Church Cathedral. Hugh Jackson Lawlor: The Fasti of St. Patrick’s, Dublin. Dundalk: W. Tempest, 1930. p. 233.

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Figure 1: Score Books ©The Governors and Guardians of Marsh’s Library

The Chapter Acts at Winchester do not record a John Mathews being there in 1759 or in the preceding period. However, the Chapter Acts dated 26 November 1764 record that “at this chapter John Mathews was admitted […] into the office of Lay Vicar of this Church in the room of John Howstor deceased”.12 Mathews’ name appears in the minutes of the chapter meetings every year after that until 1776. This suggested that Mathews may have held a post at Winchester whilst also holding one at Durham resulting in unrelenting absenteeism at one or other cathedral. This was not an uncommon occurrence at the time although it would have been difficult to continue to hold posts in cathedrals so geographically separated for a period of twelve years. The minutes of the Chapter meeting at Winchester on 8 February 1776 clarifies the matter however noting that “William Bruce was admitted Lay Vicar in the room of John Matthews deceased”.13 Accordingly, this Winchester John Mathews is not the John Mathews who came to Ireland in 1776 bringing with him the score books now held at Marsh’s library; perhaps it was his father. Unfortunately the baptism, marriage and burial registers at Winchester Cathedral do not surrender any clues as to the possible connection between these two John Mathews. 12 GB-WC, Acts of the Dean and Chapter, 26 November 1764. 13 GB-WC, Acts of the Dean and Chapter, 8 February 1776.

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Kerry Houston The situation is clearer at Salisbury however where the Chapter Acts of 20 September 1760 note that “John Mathews was unanimously elected Lay Vicar of the said Church”.14 The minutes of the meeting of 20 November 1764 record that ‘Robert Barrett was unanimously elected Lay Vicar in the room of John Mathews who hath resigned’ revealing that Mathews had remained in Salisbury until his appointment as a lay vicar at Durham Cathedral in 1764 where he remained until 1776 when he moved to Ireland. The confusion regarding the identities of several persons by the name of Mathews is not confined to the two ‘Winchester’ John Mathews. Harry Grindle records that a John Mathews was organist of Cashel Cathedral from c.1791 to c.179915 and suggests that he was the same John Mathews who held posts in the Dublin cathedral choirs and dying in office in 1799. If so, this would be an example of the widespread practice of musicians holding several positions simultaneously. The chapter books of both Dublin cathedrals contain numerous references to the absenteeism of their musicians and therefore the possibility of Mathews holding posts concurrently at Dublin and Cashel is quite plausible. However, the list of subscribers to the first volume of Ebdon’s Sacred Music published in 1790 proves otherwise. This subscription list includes both ‘Mr John Mathews Vicar Choral of Christ Church and St Patricks Dublin’ and ‘Mr John Mathews Jun Organist of Cashel’16 strongly suggesting that the organist of Cashel was, in fact, the son of the Dublin copyist. A part book at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin contains a note to the effect that it was ‘examined by Mr John Mathews and paid for this far Nov 17 1812’.17 This date suggests that John Mathews Junior returned to Dublin after his term as organist in Cashel, was active in music copying, and was the very John Mathews who was appointed organist of Saint Patrick’s in 1810.18 He may also be the John Mathews who was appointed half vicar of the Prebendary of Clonmethan in 1827, holding that post until his death in 1854.19 As mentioned above, Mathews Snr was active in some capacity at Winchester in the 1750s. Unfortunately only one eighteenth-century music manuscript has survived at Winchester dating from about 1720 which does not shed any light on any possible copying by Mathews there. The treasurer’s accounts at Winchester Cathedral do not record any payments to him for music copying. In fact all payments for copying in the 1750s and 1760s were made to James Kent, the cathedral organist. The presence of Kent’s anthem The King shall rejoice in an organ book in 14 GB-SBca, MS CH/1/21, Acts of the Dean and Chapter, 20 September 1760. 15 W. H. Grindle: Irish Cathedral Music: A History of Music at the Cathedrals of the Church of Ireland. Belfast: The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1989. 16 Thomas Ebdon: Sacred Music Composed for the use of the Choir in Durham. London, 1790. 17 IRL-Dpc MS A.1.8 18 Lawlor: Fasti. p. 250. 19 Ibidem, p. 234.

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John Mathews – A Specimen of Georgian Ignorance? Mathews’ hand at Saint Patrick’s is significant. 20 The work lists for Kent in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) and RISM include this anthem noting it as music arranged from Antonio Lotti and citing Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin as the only source. 21 This peculiarity does not appear to have survived outside Dublin and it is likely that this adaptation did not circulate widely; it seems that Mathews is the route by which this anthem arrived in Dublin. Indeed, Mathews’s enthusiasm for adaptations is the most likely reason for its continuation at Dublin. It seems that Mathews made a copy in Winchester in the late 1750s when Kent was organist at the cathedral and brought it with him to Ireland. The representation of works by another minor Winchester composer, Vaughan Richardson, 22 who succeeded Daniel Roseingrave as organist of Winchester in 1692 (holding the post until his death in 1729) is probably a result of Mathews’ travels also; the copies of works by Richardson at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral are all in Mathews’ hand. 23 Attempts to detail Mathews’ copying activities when he moved to Salisbury are frustrated by the lack of archival evidence at the cathedral. No music manuscripts have survived from the eighteenth century at Salisbury and the cathedral accounts are brief in the extreme, being mostly payments to unnamed workmen for unspecified work done providing no information about individual members of the choir. However, Mathews is, without doubt, the route by which the works of minor Salisbury composers Robert Bacon, 24 Edward Blake, 25 Anthony Walkeley26 and John Stephens27 came to Dublin. Mathews’ career in Salisbury postdates 20 IRL-Dpc MS organ book 79. 21 Sadie, Stanley (ed): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 29 vols. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 2001, vol. 13, pp. 479-480. 22 Vaughan Richardson (c. 1670–1729). Organist of Winchester Cathedral 1692–1729. 23 Daniel Roseingrave was appointed organist of both Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral after his arrival in Dublin in 1698. He also acquired positions in both choirs and thereby was able to draw four salaries. 24 Robert Bacon (d. 1759). Bacon held the post of Priest-Vicar at Salisbury Cathedral from 1753. Myles Birket Foster: Anthems and Anthem Composers: An Essay Upon the Development of the Anthem from the Time of the Reformation to the End of the Nineteenth Century, With a Complete List of Anthems (in Alphabetical Order) Belonging to Each of the Four Centuries, A Frontispiece, and Several Rare Portraits, etc. London: Novello, 1901; repr. New York: Georg Olms, p. 107 25 Edward Blake (1708–65) was a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral (1757–65). Foster, Anthems and Anthem Composers p. 110. 26 Anthony Walkeley (?1673–1718) may have come from Wells Cathedral where there are references to one with the same name. He was appointed organist of Salisbury in 1700 holding the post until his death in 1718 at age 45 according to his tomb. Watkins Shaw: The Succession of Organists of the Chapel Royal and the Cathedrals of England and Wales from c.1538: Also of the Organists of the Collegiate Churches of Westminster and Windsor, Certain Academic Choral Foundations, and the Cathedrals of Armagh and Dublin. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. p. 264. 27 John Stephens was probably a chorister in Gloucester Cathedral and was organist of Salisbury Cathedral from 1746 until his death in 1780. Shaw: The Succession of Organists. p. 265.

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Kerry Houston Walkeley, who died in 1718, but he may have known Bacon who died in 1759. He certainly was acquainted with both Blake and Stephens as they held posts at Salisbury Cathedral in the early 1760s. Despite the paucity of evidence at Salisbury, Mathews’ copying activities there can be deduced from material held elsewhere where Salisbury composers’ works are to be found in Mathews’ hand. The vehicles by which some of the repertoire of minor Salisbury composers came to Ireland are three score books in Mathews’ hand now held in the Reid Music Library at the University of Edinburgh. 28 It would appear that two of these three volumes were copied whilst Mathews was at Salisbury29 and the third one seems to have been copied later, possibly in Dublin. It is also very probable that these books are the primary source for some Salisbury repertoire at Durham (Bacon and Stephens). The writing in the Edinburgh volumes is very similar to Mathews’ work in Dublin, although it is less developed than his ‘mature’ late-Dublin style. Mathews’ traits of additional organ figuring and full details of psalm texts are present in these Edinburgh books (see Table 1). Table 1: Salisbury Repertoire contained in the three Edinburgh Books Composer

Anthem/Service

Edinburgh MS

Bacon, Robert (d.1759)

The Lord is King

D 217 and 219.

Blake, Edward (1708–65)

I have set God always before me

D 217.

Blake, Edward (1708–65)

Thou O God art praised in Sion

D 218.

Stephens, John (c.1720–80)

Evening Service in E-flat (Cantate Domino and Deus Misereatur)

D 218.

Walkeley, Anthony (?1673–1718)

O Lord thou hast searched me out

D 218.

Blake was a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral (1757–65) overlapping with the period when Mathews was a vicar choral there. Blake’s known output consists of two anthems which are present in the books at Edinburgh and also Dublin. Edinburgh MS D217 contains a note in Mathews’ hand at Blake’s anthem Thou O God ‘NB: a longer chorus to finish this anthem was originally intended by the author, 28 I am grateful to Dr Brian Crosby for drawing my attention to the existence and unexpected location of these manuscripts. These books have not been catalogued, but have been allocated shelf marks D 217, 218 and 219. 29 “John Mathews Lay Vicar: of Salisbury September 1760” is inscribed on the inside front cover of MS D217 and the following page mentions “Durham November 24th 1764”.

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John Mathews – A Specimen of Georgian Ignorance? had leisure and opportunity permitted him to have done it.’ This comment reveals Mathews’ personal contact with the composer. Stephens was probably a chorister in Gloucester Cathedral and was organist of Salisbury Cathedral from 1746 until his death in 1780. 30 Stephens’ settings of the canticles Cantate Domino and Deus Misereatur in E-f lat are the only representations of his output in the cathedral books at Dublin. However, a volume of Stephens’s music was published in 1805 and part of the preface reads: The editor of these anthems is extremely concerned that they have been so long delayed […] the unfortunate failure of Mr Riley not only occasion’d the delay, but in the confusion of his affairs, the Cantate Domino was lost, and the Editor has not been able to recover it. However, Mathews had copied Stephens’ Cantate into Edinburgh MS D218 suggesting that the work was written before Mathews left Salisbury in 1764. The editor of Stephens’s works was not aware of the existence of this service in the books at Dublin, Durham and other places. Mathews moved to Durham in 1764 having been appointed a lay vicar at the cathedral. Unlike Winchester and Salisbury, Durham Cathedral has an extremely large and important collection of music manuscripts from the medieval period onwards and Mathews’ work is well represented there (see Table 2). 31 Table 2: Manuscripts at Durham in Mathews’ hand MSS

PAGE

MSS

PAGE

A13

126–32

B6

170–92 Rev 19–20, 69–70

A15

104–20

B7

315–34

A17

1–7, 83–198

B8

82–3, Rev 197–202

A18 (sent from Dublin)

B9

172–91, Rev 58–69

A19 (sent from Dublin)

B10

350–end

A24 (while at Salisbury)

B12

1–345

B13

137–62 Rev 148–70

B17

123–46 Rev 167–8, 172–85

A26 A32 (while at Salisbury)

97–106

30 Shaw: The Succession of Organists, p. 265. 31 Brian Crosby: A Catalogue of Durham Cathedral Music Manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

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B21

B19

372, 380–400

B22

206–7

C19

483–90

B23

3–165

C19A

1–24

B28

389–97, 3–67, 79–87, 157–84, 201–4 217–24, 311–88

C21

198–201

B29

209, 270–86

C33

1–117, 317–28

B31

90–122, Rev 100–24

C35

99–14 [sic] 12–4, Rev 27a

B32

94–9, Rev 74–80

B33

139–66, Rev 81–2, 87–110

D7 (while at Salisbury)

B35

154–72, Rev 1, 2, 103–33

D8

B36

119–60, Rev 113–19

Four of these volumes were brought to Durham from Salisbury by Mathews. In fact, Mathews had a considerable library of material which he brought from place to place and which he used to generate further copies and to fill in gaps in repertoire at the various institutions where he worked. Durham MSS A18 and A19 are particularly interesting. 32 Mathews sent these two volumes of music to Durham on commission shortly after he arrived in Dublin. His letter written after the index in MS A18 is dated 30 October 1777: Revd Gentlemen We have another Service of Mr Shenton 33 in G and one of Dr Childs 34 in E f lat Key, and one of Mr Goldwins 35 in F and Dr Murphy36 is Composing a Service in 8 parts which is expected to be a very fine one and those three or four is all we have now more than you have at Durham, and those I could send you a copy of another year if the Dean and Gentlemen of the Chapter of Durham please to commission me so to do, We have many more Anthems now that are not in the Choir Books at Durham viz about 32 33 34 35

GB-Drc MSS A.18–19. Revd Robert Shenton (1727–98). William Child (c.1607–97) was organist of Saint George’s Chapel Windsor ?1630–97. William Goldwin [Golding] (c.1670–1719). Goldwin was organist of Saint George’s Chapel Windsor 1697–1719. 36 Samuel Murphy was organist of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral from 1770 until his death in 1780. His anthem O praise the Lord ye that fear him is his only work to have survived in the books at Saint Patrick’s or Christ Church. This is the anthem contained in the score books that Mathews sent to Durham after his arrival in Dublin.

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John Mathews – A Specimen of Georgian Ignorance? 6 of Dr Boyces, 37 abt. 10 or 12 of Rosingraves, 38 several of Dr Nares’s, 39 Two or Three of Mr Shentons, some few of other Authors, and one of Dr Murphy’s which he has almost finished, those or part of those I could also send a Copy of to Durham if requested so to do – those Anthems I guess would fill abt. 3 to 6 sheets each one with another – Those First 5 Jubilates I thought would be very usefull in the Choir and Church of Durham as well as here in Dublin as the Benedictus of those old authors are in many Cathedrals often thought too long therefore I sent those thinking to serve the Church of Durham thereby. Mathews’ references to Shenton’s Jubilates are adaptations by this Dublin-based composer of service settings by several Tudor composers. He was using this as an enticement seeking another commission to send music from Dublin. Durham MS A1940 contains a comment stating that Shenton wrote the Sursam Corda, Sanctus, and Gloria for his service in E-f lat at Mathews’s request to make his service more useful at Durham.41 However, it would seem that Mathews’ enthusiasm for the music he was sending was not shared by its recipients in Durham – there was no further commission. When Mathews came to Ireland, he quickly established himself as the main copyist at both Dublin cathedrals. At Saint Patrick’s, he received close to £100 in the last quarter of the century – the only other copyist to receive anything approaching that amount in the whole of the eighteenth century was Revd William Taverner who was active as a copyist from the late 1730s. Mathews had a fine hand, and his manuscripts are much more elegant than those of his predecessors. This may be part of the reason that he seems to have taken over as sole music copyist from about 1778. The sums paid to Mathews suggest that he was doing a lot of copying – both replacing older books which had deteriorated with general wear and tear and significantly introducing new repertoire. Mathews’ personal taste had an important inf luence on both repertoire and performance practice at Dublin. As well as the contemporary repertoire he imported from Winchester, Salisbury and Durham, he is also responsible for some earlier music. The representation of Tudor anthems in the eighteenth-century music libraries at the Dublin cathedrals is small but interestingly this repertoire 37 William Boyce (1711–79). Boyce was organist of the Chapel Royal 1758–79. 38 Ralph Roseingrave (c.1695–1747). Ralph succeed his father, Daniel Roseingrave as organist of both Dublin Cathedrals on Daniel’s death in 1727. He had held the post at Saint Patrick’s jointly with his father since 1719. 39 James Nares (1715–83) was organist of York Minster (1735–56) and of the Chapel Royal (1756– 83). 40 GB-Drc, Ms A19, pp. 422–423. 41 Crosby: Catalogue, p. 18.

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Kerry Houston was introduced (or reintroduced) by Mathews. Although some of this repertoire may have been copied by Mathews from older (now lost) books, it seems more likely that he introduced the repertoire himself. This is corroborated by the organ books at Saint Patrick’s – the Tudor repertoire is included in two organ books 77 and 79 which are both in Mathews’s hand.42 He was copying this repertoire in Dublin at a time when there was a revival of interest in earlier music in England encouraged by the publication of the first volume of Boyce’s Cathedral Music in 1760.43 He seems to have identified the absence of Tudor anthems in Dublin and is responsible for remedying this deficiency. John Mathews’ modifications to the manuscript books at Dublin cathedrals which arose the wrath of Bumpus and others provide some interesting insights to performance practice in both Dublin and Cashel. These alterations are mainly present in books where he is not the principal scribe. One type of amendment is his addition of indications ‘Full’, ‘Decani’, ‘Cantoris’. These alterations may indicate that antiphonal singing was introduced in the latter part of the eighteenth century, but it is more likely that antiphonal singing was in place earlier and that the choir sang by side without the indications being written into the books. In many cases the indications have been taken directly from Boyce’s Cathedral Music or other printed scores. Mathews also made alterations to the music itself. In some cases his alterations are to ‘improve’ or ‘correct’ the music by making it correspond with printed editions. Bumpus’ accusation of Mathews “coolly altering all harmonies he did not like, and putting in turns, shakes and grace notes never dreamt of by the worthy composer” is a little harsh – there is, in fact, very little evidence of Mathews altering material at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. His tendency to ‘improve’ is more noticeable at Christ Church where he is responsible for the copying of many of the score books.44 There are a number of instances of Mathews altering the word underlay. In some cases this is to ‘modernize’ the text. The opening words of the Te Deum in Tudor settings are “We knowledge thee to be the Lord”, but if Mathews was replacing a page with the opening of the Te Deum, he changed the words to the 1662 prayer book version “We acknowledge thee to be the Lord”. In the organ books, Mathews provided additional figuring and some inner voices. These amendments often include quite extensive figuring suggesting a fully f leshed out organ accompaniment and whilst this may seem stylistically inappropriate for earlier music, the figuring seldom distorts the harmonic implications of the vocal parts. 42 Irl-Dpc MSS organ books 77 and 79. 43 William Boyce (ed.): Cathedral Music. 3 vols. London: printed for the editor, 1760–1773. 44 No score books have survived at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

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John Mathews – A Specimen of Georgian Ignorance? Mathews received a payment of £3.13s.6½ in 1798 “for new Paper & writing the necessary parts in the Treble short Choir Books & the loft Anthem Book.” This is the only payment for which a detailed bill exists. The reference in the bill to “choir books” and “loft books” suggests that soloists may have sung from the organ loft or perhaps even a separate choir loft. The score books in Mathews’ hand held at the Reid Library in Edinburgh show him comparing performance practice at different cathedrals including Cashel Cathedral. The following table records some of the marginalia from Edinburgh MS D217 Table 3: Examples of Marginalia in Edinburgh MS D217 p. 20

Dr Green

Like as the Hart

“A note higher in Durham and Xch. org and Choir books”

p. 174

[?Tupell]

Deus Misereatur

Page 176–77 have notes “Butcher Bill he left unpaid 31st March 1788 £2.0.3” and “Butcher Bill from 31st March to 29th Sept of 1788 £8.0.6 ¼”

p. 198

[Hall]

[The Souls of the righteous]

Page 200 has notes “NB only a ritornello in the Durham Books’ and ‘Repeat the first verse (Both in Dublin and Sarum books)”

p. 208

[Weldon]

[In thee O Lord]

Page 205 has a note “NB This Cho: is not right with the Durham books”

The note on page 20 “A note higher in Durham and Xch. org and Choir books” confirms that Mathews brought the book to Dublin with him. This is corroborated further by the date 1788 on pages 176 and 177. The notes on pages 200 and 205 show that Mathews compared the slightly different versions of some of the anthems in books at Salisbury, Durham and Dublin. Table 4: Examples of Marginalia in Edinburgh MS D217 p. 15

? Walkley/Roseingrave

Domino Dominus [O Lord Our Governor]

There are numerous references to transpositions at Cashel here. “NB in Cashel in A a 3rd higher” “NB in Cashel in C a 5th higher”

p. 30

Mr John Stephens, Organist of Salisbury

Evening Service

“25m: after 2 o clock 18 Nov 1779: here to E. Easto[n] T[?]. J. Master sent with 5 Guineas Bill in it) put into Dubn. Genl. Post Office. J.M. V.C. Xc Cho. & St Pat: Dubn.” is written on page 30

p. 55

Dr Walkley or Mr Walkley or Mr Roseingrave

[O Lord thou hast searched me out]

p. 56 “At Cashel repeated and 2nd time piano.”

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Kerry Houston The inside back cover of this book contains a note “Mr Remmington virger Kilkenny.” This inscription suggests that the book did not remain in Dublin, but made its way at least to the city of Kilkenny where the cathedral for the Diocese of Ossory is situated. Unfortunately, little is known of the musical foundation at Kilkenny at this time. However, the references to Cashel (e.g. pages 15 and 56) suggest that the book was used there, probably when John Mathews Junoir was organist. The note on page 30 “25m: after 2 o clock 18 Nov 1779: here to E. Easto[n] (T[?]. J. Master sent with 5 Guineas Bill in it) put into Dubn. Genl. Post Office. J.M. V.C. Xc Cho. & St Pat: Dubn.” shows that this book was posted somewhere in 1779. It is probable that it was being sent to Edward Eaton of Salisbury for binding. This is where Mathews had one of the score books held in Marsh’s library bound. These marginalia add weight to the proposition that Mathews had a travelling library of score books which he used to generate further part books and score books. His notes with regard to variant readings and performance practice at different institutions points to his diligence and care as a copyist rather than the scribal rogue conjectured by Bumpus. The amendments and ‘improvements’ he described were common practice in the eighteenth century. Examples of Matthews’ copying activities are found in other libraries in England including the Bodleian Library, Oxford. GB-Ob MS Mus.d.174 is a late eighteenthcentury score book partly in the hand of John Mathews (from folio 26 to folio 105). The book has close connections with repertoire in Dublin, the books in Mathews’ hand in the Reid Music Library in Edinburgh and GB-Ob MS Tenbury 856. GB-Ob MS Mus.d.174 contains John Bumpus’ book plate and it was purchased by the Bodleian Library in 1927. Salisbury composers are represented by Bacon, Blake and Walkely who appear in the Dublin cathedral books in Mathews’ hand. The section of GB-Ob MS Mus.d.174, which is in Mathews’ hand, includes Bacon’s morning service and his The eyes of the Lord which are also present in the Dublin cathedral books and Edinburgh MS D 217. The morning service is also included in GB-Ob Ms Tenbury 856. The Lord is King copied in Edinburgh MSS D217 and D219. It also contains Greene’s I will magnify thee and Like as the Heart which are both present in the Dublin cathedral books and Edinburgh MS D 217. William Boyce is represented by his anthems Give the king thy judgement, Be thou my judge, Teach me O Lord. Some of these are also present in the Dublin cathedral books, Edinburgh MS D217–19 and GB-Ob Ms Tenbury 856. Edward Blake’s Thou O God in Mus.d.174 is also present in the Dublin cathedral books and Edinburgh MS D218. Other shared repertoire includes William Croft’s I waited patiently, Bishop’s I will magnify thee and Anthony Walkeley’s O Lord thou has searched me. The absence of works by Dublin composers suggests that the Mathews’ section of GB-Ob Mus.d.174 was compiled before he came to Ireland and there is no 154

John Mathews – A Specimen of Georgian Ignorance? evidence to suggest that the manuscript was ever in Ireland. However, this volume is probably the source for the common repertoire with the three Edinburgh books which Mathews did bring to Dublin and which were subsequently used to introduce new repertoire (particularly contemporary Salisbury composers) at the Dublin cathedrals. John Mathews work is represented at Marsh’s Library, Dublin by four score books (IRL-Dml MSS Z1.2.25–28).45 Jacob Stone presented these volumes to the library in November 1934 and they have some connections with the manuscripts at the Dublin cathedrals and further afield. These four books appear to have been copied before Mathews came to Dublin. IRL-Dml MS Z1.2.25 records dates from 1759 to 1776, when Mathews was successively at Winchester, Salisbury, Durham and Dublin. It contains one service setting, Purcell’s Te Deum and Jubilate in D, and twenty-nine anthems. All but six of these items appear in the part books at Saint Patrick’s but most of the books in the cathedral library which contain the items pre-date the arrival of Mathews’ score book in Dublin so there does not seem to be any connection. There are no parts for Purcell’s Service at Saint Patrick’s although there are references to performances of the piece at the annual Saint Cecilia’s day celebrations.46 IRL-Dml MS Z1.2.26 is a score of Handel’s Messiah and bears the inscription “John Mathew’s Book, Salisbury 30th December 1761”. Watkins Shaw notes the insertion of a leaf between pages 82–83. Mathews does not take account of this in his index and Shaw suggests that it was added whilst Mathews was in Durham.47 Unfortunately, Watkins Shaw did not examine the manuscripts at the Dublin cathedrals when working on his Messiah research as his observations might have been quite revealing.48 MS Z1.2.26 is bound by Edward Eaton of Salisbury (this information is recorded on the back cover) and it seems that Mathews continued to use this binder after he came to Dublin.49 The spacing in MS Z 1.2.26 suggests that it is a copy of another score book. Donald Burrows has suggested that it may be copied from a score book by Harris. Harris borrowed Handel’s parts for performances of Messiah at Salisbury and he may have made his score book from these parts. 45 A catalogue of the contents may be found in Richard Charteris: A Catalogue of the Printed Books on Music Printed Music and Music Manuscripts in Archbishops Marsh’s Library, Dublin. Kilkenny: Boethius Press, 1982. 46 Brian Boydell: A Dublin Musical Calendar 1700–1760. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998. p. 48, f.n. 3. 47 Watkins Shaw: “John Matthews’s Manuscript of Messiah”, in: Music & Letters 39 (1958), p.116. 48 From the author’s correspondence with Mr Shaw in November 1993. 49 Mathews brought Edinburgh D218 to Dublin and this manuscript has a note on page 30 ‘25m: after 2 o clock 18 Nov 1779: here to E. Easto[n] (T[?]. J. Master sent with 5 Guineas Bill in it) put into Dubn. Genl. Post Office. J.M. V.C. Xc Cho. & St Pat: Dubn.’ shows that this book was posted somewhere in 1779 – probably to Salisbury.

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Kerry Houston IRL-Dml MS Z1.2.27 contains Handel’s setting of Dryden’s Ode on Saint Cecilia’s day. IRL-Dml MS Z1.2.28 is undated and contains fourteen anthems copied by Mathews. Anthems & Church Services by the Late William Jackson of Exeter was published in 1819 and it contains a note “N.B. The rests must not be struck on the organ” – John Mathews has a similar comment on folio 145v of IRL-Dpc MS organ book 77 “NB The author has in his score directed in writing that all rests on both right hand and left hand lines throughout the whole of this his service must be kept and not struck on the organ.” An additional comment has been added by another50 ‘note in the Christ Church books the adjoining inscription “Old Mathews should never have been kept as copyist & ought to have been struck repeatedly for his tampering with harmonies.”51 Mathews introduced new repertoire to the Dublin cathedrals and preserved older material which might otherwise have been lost. He “corrected” what he considered corrupt copies using his knowledge of “modern” sources which he brought in manuscript form from Britain and the crop of printed editions of sacred music which were published in the last forty years of the eighteenth century. Mathews’ interventionist approach would be condemned by today’s editorial standards, but he was a very industrious copyist who took much greater care than many of his contemporaries to ensure that legible and complete copies of music were preserved for succeeding generations. The work of John Mathews yields the most important surviving material establishing the repertoire at the Dublin cathedrals and Cashel Cathedral in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. However, his work which has survived in Ireland is also primary source material for any future assessment of musical establishments at Salisbury or Winchester where contemporary manuscripts have not survived. Musicologists who work on cathedral music are deeply indebted to copyists and scribes such as John Mathews to enable them to trace a picture of musical activity in these institutions and make musicological judgements on them.

50 Possibly Robert Stewart. 51 IRL-Dpc MS Organ 77, p. 286.

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Bibliography Manuscript Sources Dublin, Marsh’s Library, IRL-Dm MSS Z1.2.25–28. Dublin, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, IRL-Dpc MS A.1.8, MSS organ books 77 and 79. Durham Cathedral GB-DRc MSS A.18–19 London, British Library GB-Lbl MS G. 518.B.1–18. Oxford, Bodleian Library GB-Ob MS Mus.d.174; MS Tenbury 856. Salisbury Cathedral, GB-SBca, MS CH/1/21.

Printed sources Boyce, William (ed.): Cathedral Music. 3 vols. London: 1760–1773. Boydell, Barra, (ed.): Music at Christ Church Before 1800: Documents and Selected Anthems. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999.; ‘“Now that the Lord hath readvanc’d the crown’: Richard Hosier, Durham Ms. B.1 and the Early Restoration Anthem Repertory at the Dublin Cathedrals.’” in Early Music, 27 (2000), 238–51; A History of Music at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2004. Boydell, Brian: A Dublin Musical Calendar 1700–1760. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998. Bumpus, John Skelton: ‘Irish Church Composers and the Irish Cathedrals’, in Proceedings of the Musical Association 36 (1899–1900), 79–113, 115–159. Charteris, Richard: A Catalogue of the Printed Books on Music Printed Music and Music Manuscripts in Archbishops Marsh’s Library, Dublin. Kilkenny: Boethius Press, 1982. Crosby, Brian: A Catalogue of Durham Cathedral Music Manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Ebdon, Thomas: Sacred Music Composed for the use of the Choir in Durham. London, 1790. Fleischmann, Aloys (ed.): Music in Ireland : A Symposium. Cork: Cork University Press, 1952. Foster, Myles Birket: Anthems and Anthem Composers: An Essay Upon the Development of the Anthem from the Time of the Reformation to the End of the Nineteenth Century, With a Complete List of Anthems (in Alphabetical Order) Belonging to Each of the Four Centuries, A Frontispiece, and Several Rare Portraits, etc. London: Novello, 1901; repr. New York: Georg Olms. Gillen, Gerard and Johnstone, Andrew (eds): A Historical Anthology of Irish Church Music. Irish Musical Studies, vol. 6, vi. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001.

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Kerry Houston Grindle, W. H.: Irish Cathedral Music: A History of Music at the Cathedrals of the Church of Ireland. Belfast: The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1989. Houston, Kerry: “Music fit for a king: the Restoration of Charles II and the Dublin cathedral repertoire” in Gerard Gillen and Andrew Johnstone (eds.) Music, Ireland and the Seventeenth Century Irish Musical Studies, vol. 10, x. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009, pp. 148–67; Gillespie, Raymond and Crawford, John (eds) St Patrick’s Cathedral: A History, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009, pp. 231–253, 286–307 and 353–382. Lawlor, Hugh Jackson: The Fasti of St. Patrick’s, Dublin. Dundalk: W. Tempest, 1930. O’Keefe, Eamonn: “The Score Books of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin: A Catalogue”, in Fontes artis musicae, xliv (1997), pp. 43–104. Sadie, Stanley (ed). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 29 vols. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 2001. Shaw, Watkins: The Succession of Organists of the Chapel Royal and the Cathedrals of England and Wales from c.1538: Also of the Organists of the Collegiate Churches of Westminster and Windsor, Certain Academic Choral Foundations, and the Cathedrals of Armagh and Dublin. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991; ‘John Matthews’s Manuscript of Messiah.’ Music & Letters, 34 (1958). White, Harry and Boydell, Barra (eds): The Enyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, Dublin: UCD Press, 2013.

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T here is a calm for those who weep

There is a calm for those who weep: William Shore’s New Edition of a Chorale by John [sic] Sebastian Bach Ita Beausang The subject of this chapter is a publication of a Bach chorale, which is located in the Antient Concerts Society Collection in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin. There are also copies of the score in the British Library and the Library of Glasgow University. In addition to exploring the background of the publication the question whether the chorale was the first choral work by J.S. Bach to be performed in Ireland will be investigated. On Tuesday 27 March 1855 the third concert of the season by the Antient Concerts Society in the Antient Concert Rooms, Great Brunswick Street [Pearse St.] was announced in a newspaper notice. “The programme, which appears to have been selected with judgement, comprises many pieces rarely heard in this country, by the most celebrated composers, both antient and modern”,1 The writer then commented briefly on some of the music on the programme by Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Spohr, devoting most space to another item as follows: Bach’s chorale, There is a calm for those who weep, will exhibit the effect of a number of well-trained voices, probably better than anything else that could have been selected for the purpose. Besides, the chorale is the peculiar feature of all this composer’s vocal writings, and he has treated them with harmony so sonorous and skilful that we much doubt if they have ever been improved upon, though Mendelssohn has given them a more popular arrangement. 2 In a lengthy review of the concert in the same newspaper there was another reference to the unfamiliarity of some of the music on the programme: Some other portions of the concert by various authors were noticeable for their newness to a Dublin audience and their own intrinsic merit. There is a calm for those who weep, a chorale by Bach, was exquisitely given by the entire chorus, and was a fine instance of careful training and oneness of thought in the singers. 3 1 Freeman’s Journal, 27 March 1855. 2 Ibidem. 3 Freeman’s Journal, 31 March 1855.

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Ita Beausang The objective of the Antient Concerts Society, which was founded in 1834 by Joseph Robinson, was “the cultivation of Vocal Music, especially the Choral compositions of the Antient Masters.”4 The library of the Society, purchased by Robinson for the RIAM choral class in 1872, has been catalogued by Dr Catherine Ferris. 5 The collection comprises 965 works by 166 composers, including substantial numbers of compositions by Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Spohr and Mendelssohn. It is not surprising that vocal music by Bach was unfamiliar territory for a Dublin audience. Only four works by Johann Sebastian Bach were included in the Antient Concerts Society Music Collection: the chorale, There is a calm for those who weep; an anthem for eight voices, Lob und Ehre und Weisheit and the chorus parts of two motets: Ich lasse dich nicht and Jesu meine Freude.6 The aforementioned anthem, Lob und Ehre und Weisheit “composed by Sebastian Bach Adapted to English words by Alfred Engel”, was published in London as Blessing, Glory, Wisdom and Thanks. It was subsequently discovered that the work had been erroneously attributed to Bach and had been composed by his pupil, Georg Gottfried Wagner (1698–1756). There is no record of a performance of either the anthem or the motets by the Antient Concerts Society. However, when the anthem was performed in Dublin in 1847 at a concert by the University Choral Society it was believed at that time to be the first performance of Bach’s vocal music in Ireland.7 In 1854 it was repeated at a concert by the University of Dublin Choral Society, and was hailed in a newspaper review as “one of the finest compositions of the kind”.8 Although it was proposed for concerts by the Society in 1866 and 1877 it was not included on the final programmes. When William Sterndale Bennett founded the Bach Society in London in 1849, the profile of the composer had already been raised in England through the efforts of Wesley, Crotch and Mendelssohn. In 1851 the Society negotiated publication by J.J. Ewer & Co of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Six Motets for 5 and 8-part chorus. They were translated and adapted by William Bartholomew (1793–1867), who had provided the English text for Mendelssohn’s Elijah and the hymn, Hear 4 Dublin Almanac and General Register of Ireland. Dublin: Pettrigrew and Oulton, 1839, p.175. 5 Catherine Ferris: The music of three Dublin musical societies of the late eighteenth centuries: The Anacreontic Society, The Antient Concerts Society and The Sons of Handel. A descriptive catalogue, M.Litt. diss., Maynooth University, 2005. 6 Ibidem, pp. 22–24. The editions used were: There is a calm for those who weep Manchester: R. Andrews, Manchester, 1854; Lob und Ehre und Weisheit. London: J. Alfred Novello, 1855 and the chorus parts of two Motetts [sic]: Ich lasse dich nicht and Jesu meine Freude. London: J.J. Ewer & Co., London, 1851. 7 Barra Boydell: “‘This most crabbed of all earthly music’ the performance and reception of all earthly music in Dublin in the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries” in: Bach Studies from Dublin Irish Musical Studies 8, ed. Anne Leahy & Yo Tomita. Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2004, p. 230. 8 Dublin Evening Mail, 17 March 1854.

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T here is a calm for those who weep my prayer. In later publications Motet no. 3, I wrestle and pray, was ascribed to Bach’s uncle, Johann Christoph (1671–1721), but following recent research by the American musicologist, Daniel Melamed, it has been reassigned to J.S. Bach.9 The copy of the chorale score, There is a calm for those who weep, in the Antient Concerts Society Collection has a handwritten imprint on the left-hand corner of the title page giving the catalogue number and address of the [not yet Royal] Irish Academy of Music Library. Described as a new edition, priced at 1/6, it is autographed by the printer R. Andrews. It was published, not in London, but in Manchester by Richard Hoffman Andrews (1803–1991), music seller and publisher, who was a well-known musician in the city. The inscription on the title page reads “Composed by John [sic] Sebastian Bach, the words by James Montgomery, adapted and arranged and the music in part composed by William Shore, as sung at the Manchester Madrigal Society”. The name of the city – Manchester – features prominently at the end of the page with the printer’s address, 84 Oxford St., and information that the music “may be had at the principle [sic] music sellers in London, Edinboro and Dublin”. The chorale was scored for four voices; Canto, Alto, Tenore, Basso, with Pianoforte (ad lib), in the key of Eb major. The tempo marking is Moderato and there are profuse dynamic markings throughout. William Shore (1791–1877), adapter and arranger of the chorale, was an amateur musician. A stock and share broker by profession, he was conductor of the Manchester Madrigal Society and the Gentlemen’s Glee Club, and organist of Cross-Street Chapel for forty years.10 He composed and arranged glees, anthems and hymns that were published in London and Manchester.11 His most popular glee, O Willie brew’d a peck o’maut (Robert Burns), ran to four editions.12 There is no extant archive for the Manchester Madrigal Society, which was notable as the first madrigal society to break away from all-male membership.13 A collection of their concert programmes from 1842 to 1864 is located in the Henry Watson Music Library, Manchester. The chorale, There is a calm for those who weep, was performed by the Manchester Madrigal Society at four concerts during that time.14 9 10 11 12 13 14

Daniel Melamed: “The Authorship of the motet ‘Ich lasse dich nicht’” in: Journal of the American Musicological Society 41 (1988), pp. 491–566. I am indebted to Philip Shields, Librarian RIAM, for this information. Mancuniensis.info/chronology/chronology1877FPX.htm (last accessed 22 May 2016). The British Library catalogue lists 39 items. O Willie brew’d a peck o’maut 4th edn. London, Hopwood and Crew, 1840; F 1686a, British Library Printed Music, St. Pancras Reading Rooms. James Hobson: Music Antiquarianism and the madrigal revival in England 1726–1851. PhD diss., University of Bristol, 2015. 29 December 1843; 9 December 1847; 16 December 1851; 21 April 1857. For this information I am grateful to Ros Edwards, Service Development Co-Ordinator (Music) Manchester City Council.

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Ita Beausang James Montgomery (1771–1854), whose poem provided the text for Shore’s setting, was a Scottish poet and journalist who lived in Sheffield. He had Irish connections – his father, an Ulster Scot, became a minister in the Moravian Church and moved to the Moravian settlement at Gracehill near Ballymena, which still exists. Montgomery failed to qualify as a Moravian minister but many of his hymns were published in the Moravian hymn book. The chorale tune which William Shore chose to adapt and arrange was one of Bach’s favourite hymns: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, composed in 1559 by Phillip Nicolai (1556–1608). It appears five times in the 3rd edition of Bach’s fourpart chorales,15 in two organ chorale preludes,16 and in six church cantatas.17 In the cantata, BWV 1, first performed in Leipzig on 25 March 1725 for the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the chorale is sung in both the opening and closing choruses. The harmonizations of three of the four-part harmonizations are identical for nos. 86, 195 and 305. The appoggiatura in bar 2 which occurs only in no.305 and also in Shore’s edition makes it the most likely source. Shore chose the first two verses of Montgomery’s poem for the chorale setting. Verse 1 There is a calm for those who weep A rest for weary pilgrims found They softly lie and sweetly sleep Low in the ground The storm that wrecks the winter’s sky No more disturbs their deep repose Than summer evenings latest sigh That shuts the rose Verse 2 Ah mourner long of storms the sport Condemned in wretchedness to roam Hope thou shall reach a sheltering post A quiet home The sun is but a spark of fire A transient meteor in the sky The soul immortal as its sire Shall never die 15 371 vierstimmige Choralgesänge von Johann Sebastian Bach. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1831, nos. 86, 195, 278, 305, 323. 16 BWV 739, BWV 764. 17 BWV 1, verses 1 and 6; BWV 172, verse 4; BWV 36,verse 5; BWV 37, verse 6; BWV 49, verse 7; BWV 61 verse 7.

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Example 1: J. S. Bach, Chorale no. 305, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, bars 1–16 and William Shore, There is a calm for those who weep bars 1–20

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Ita Beausang In Example 1, Shore has changed Bach’s harmonization in bar 4, where the alto A rises to Bb instead of falling to F. Another change occurs at bar 6 where the notes in the outer parts are repeated for the words “sweetly sleep” and the alto rises to Eb. The next change in Shore’s arrangement of the chorale is at bar 7, where Bach’s two bars are extended to four bars, and a cadence is added at bars 9–10 for the repetition of the line “Low in the ground”. As is evident in Example 1 Shore retains Bach’s harmonization until bar 14 when he inserts two extra chords for the word “repose”. This necessitates a rhythmic change at the beginning of the phrase “Than summer evenings”. Bach’s harmonization is restored for bars 15 and 16. From bars 17–20 Shore added two twobar cadences for the repetition of the final line of the verse, “that shuts the rose”. Following examination of Bach’s harmonization of the chorale no. 305 it is clear that Shore’s amendments to the chorale were not substantial. The most noticeable changes were dictated by the requirements of the text, occurring twice in each verse at the repetition of the fourth and eight lines. However, the melancholy theme of Montgomery’s poem is very different from the joyous text, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How brightly shines the morning star), which Bach used for the first and final numbers of the Chorale Cantata BWV 1 (Leipzig 1725) and elsewhere. Judging from the number of piano, pianissimo and dolce markings on Shore’s score it was intended that the performance of the chorale would ref lect the mournful character of Montgomery’s verses. In 1847 the University of Dublin Choral Society had erroneously claimed the distinction of the first performance in Ireland of a vocal work by J.S. Bach with the spurious anthem Blessing, Glory, Wisdom and Thanks. However it has since been acknowledged that the Crucifixus from the Mass in B minor which was performed at a University of Dublin Society concert on 2 May 1865 was the first genuine vocal music by Bach to be performed in Ireland.18 The Antient Concerts Society concert in 1855 at which There is a calm for those who weep was performed, predated this occasion by ten years. As conductor of the Antient Concerts Society, Joseph Robinson was responsible for the repertoire performed at the concert including “many pieces rarely heard in this country, by the most celebrated composers, both antient and modern.”19 Robinson was an accomplished musician who by 1855 had travelled to Birmingham and London, where he had met Mendelssohn, one of Bach’s greatest champions in England. In considering newspaper advertisements and previews of the concert, it is clear that the audience in the Antient Concert Rooms greeted the chorale as a composition by J.S. Bach. No doubts were subsequently cast on the provenance 18 Boydell: “‘This most crabbed of all earthly music’ the performance and reception of all earthly music in Dublin in the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries”, p. 232. 19 Freeman’s Journal, 27 March 1855.

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T here is a calm for those who weep of the work in newspaper reviews of the concert. In view of these considerations, and taking Joseph Robinson’s role as conductor of the concert into account, it may be claimed that the chorale, There is a calm for those who weep, was the first choral work by J.S. Bach to be performed in Ireland.

Bibliography Ferris, Catherine: The music of three Dublin musical societies of the late eighteenth centuries: The Anacreontic Society, The Antient Concerts Society and The Sons of Handel. A descriptive catalogue, M.Litt.diss., Maynooth University, 2005.      : “The Antient Concerts Society of Dublin (1834–1864) An Examination of its Repertoire”, Catherineferris.com/node/50 [Last Accessed 20 November 2018]. Kassler, Michael; Philip Olleson & Yo Tomita: The English Bach Awakening: Knowledge of J.S. Bach and his Music in England 1750–1830. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004. Leahy, Anne & Yo Tomita (eds.): Bach Studies from Dublin, Irish Musical Studies 8. Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2004. Young, W. Murray: The Cantatas of J.S. Bach. An Analytical Guide. London, MacFarland and Co., Jefferson NC, 1989.

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“No, Sir; the Irish are not musical”: Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality Axel Klein “Are the Irish musical?” asks the writer of a letter to the editor of the Musical Opinion in October 1903. And as may be expected he provides the answer right away: “No, Sir; the Irish are not musical. They may have a sentimental conservative affection for their own melodies and songs, but in the broader sense of the word they lack both taste and appreciation in music.”1 The letter writer identifies himself as ‘an exile’ who claims “knowledge if not […] authority” in this question, derived from “many years’ residence in the country”. His supporting arguments are that there is no permanent orchestra in Dublin, that choral societies only exist because of “the personal inf luence of a few local enthusiasts”, that the undeniable success of the Feis Ceoil merely stems from its competitive character, and that an opera company performing Wagner in Ireland could only make up for their losses in one season by performing Balfe and Wallace in the next – concluding: “but that is a very different thing to allow that the Irish as a nation are musical”. The popular notion of the Irish as a musical nation is, of course, not crushed and destroyed by a single letter to an English music journal, not in 1903 and not today. In fact, one might find a very similar understanding of the musicality of the Irish until the present day. No twenty-first-century tourist to Dublin would doubt that the Irish are musical, and as a proof s/he would point to the pub sessions in Temple Bar or the buskers on Grafton Street. The issue at stake here is that, sadly, the majority of the Irish today would even agree to that understanding. Irish traditional music is often perceived as a marketing argument, from Bord Fáilte to Aer Lingus, whereas it would be hard to find the National Concert Hall represented in the inf light magazine of an airline. A historian or sociologist of music would have interpreted the 1903 statement as a specimen of colonial arrogance, denying the Irish the ability to be musical because they don’t understand the value of ‘classical’ music. Fast forward a hundred years, and the Irish succumbed to their inability. Or so it seems. 1

I should like to thank Dr Adrian Scahill for his close reading and his valuable suggestions relating, in particular, to the role of traditional music in the debate presented in this article. Letter signed by “An Exile: and dated “September 8, 1903”, published in the Musical Opinion & Music Trade Review 27:313 (October 1903), p. 44.

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Axel Klein Musicality as such is a term and a concept that is not bound to any particular genre of music, be it the ‘classical’, the traditional, the popular, or any other. However, this seems to be a rather modern, and perhaps enlightened, understanding. Unfortunately, enlightenment was never a strong point of the ruling classes, and so we find ‘musicality’ as one of many distinguishing aspects between the Gael and the Gall in the history of Anglo-Irish relations. It mostly takes a form like that so succinctly summarized in that brief letter to the editor in 1903: an English (or Protestant Anglo-Irish) writer would dismiss the Irish for their poor musical understanding and appreciation, and an Irish (nationalist, Roman Catholic or otherwise more sympathetic) writer would praise Irish music in enthusiastic terms, but on looking closer at his subject s/he is writing about traditional music only, about “their own melodies and songs”, as the 1903 ‘Exile’ put it. This dichotomy in Irish music inevitably means that art music is part of an Anglo-Irish ‘elitist’ culture and traditional music is often regarded as the true Irish music – a dichotomy that shaped the perception of musical history in Ireland until the present day. That these views are so forceful and enduring has, in fact, its roots in decades of musical partisanship. The object of this article is to document the more candid occurrences on the basis of an analysis of articles and published correspondence in late 19 th and early 20 th century periodicals.

“An Irishman is a perfect musical instrument” – the mid-1870s The equation of the term ‘Irish music’ with the traditional music of Ireland, still so prevalent in twenty-first-century Ireland, is part of this unfortunate debate – unfortunate, because it still hampers the perception of those kinds of music in this country that are not traditional and yet Irish. Interestingly, this understanding comes from various sides of the discussion. While a quote such as the following may remind us today of the many national-minded outpourings of the veteran W. H. Grattan Flood (1857–1928), it was in fact written by an English music historian some thirty years before Flood’s inf luential History of Irish Music (1905): Ireland from a remote period has been celebrated for its cultivation of music, and admitted as one of the parent countries of that art. Thus wrote Edward Francis Rimbault (1816–1876) in an 1875 article for The Leisure Hour; a self-proclaimed “ journal of instruction and recreation”. 2 Less rem2

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Edward F. Rimbault: “The By-Paths of Musical History”; part VII, “The National Melodies of Ireland”, in: The Leisure Hour, no. 1240 (2 Oct. 1875), pp. 636–639, here p. 636.

Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality iniscent of Flood, however, is the ensuing sentence that clarifies what Rimbault’s generous concession was all about: Most of its national airs are so old that their authors and the eras in which they composed them are unknown. A neutral musicologist, unfamiliar with the situation in Ireland, may wonder what the second sentence has to do with the first. But Rimbault then continues in the course of his article to provide evidence to his introductory paragraph merely by highlighting the merits of Edward Bunting, Thomas Moore and George Petrie, without giving any thought whatsoever to serious composers. A passionate 1876 letter by ‘A Musical Fenian’, to the editor The Musical World3 does not do much to balance the situation in favour of art music, although he was incited by “two insinuations, born and bred of Saxon hatred […] against Dublin citizens, the first being, ‘that they are not musical,’ and the second, ‘that they get their music at the expense of Belfast.’” Focusing on the first ‘insinuation’ (the source of which the writer does not reveal), one of his counter arguments is: An Irishman is, in fact, a perfect musical instrument which never wants winding-up, and never gets out of order, but so happily contrived by nature as to send unceasingly forth unfailing song; […] We can imagine, without quoting every single idea of the letter-writer, that he, too, is not talking about art music. Well-meaning though he may have been, he is not far from doing his country a disservice when he, for instance, explains any potential wrong notes in the singing of an uneducated Irish singer with the ‘imagination’ that the listener applies to turn it into perfect harmony: One of the glorious gifts bestowed on an Irishman is imagination, a charm that turns the dullest dross into purest gold and earth into a heaven. Therefore, when he listens in his home of an evening to a sister, wife, or an equally beloved one, singing the lays of his native land, his imagination supplies the hiatus any defect may make. And he does not leave his argument in the private home but then goes on to apply it to church choirs as well. If that was true, it would be nothing but self-deception – and, consequentially, rather in support of the insinuation that the ‘Musical Fenian’ is attempting to refute. And one tends to almost pity the writer when he exclaims: No, sir, no! deny an Irishman truth; deny his patriotism, sincerity, or generosity; but deny not his musical attributes! 3

“A Musical Fenian”: “Music in Ireland”, in: The Musical World, 9 December 1876, p. 823.

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“Ridiculously exaggerated statements” – the mid-1880s Ten years on, a debate in the Musical Times took on a much more factual and objective form, even though it started out initially with a rather polemic article entitled “Musical Talent in Ireland”, signed C. L. Graves.4 The writer is Charles Larcom Graves (1856–1944), younger brother of the poet and friend of Charles V. Stanford, Alfred Perceval Graves. 5 In his introduction, Graves concedes that the “claims of the Irish to a higher rank among the musical races of the world than their neighbours on this side of St. George’s Channel are just as frequently advanced by the latter as by themselves”, acknowledging that the reputation of the Irish as a musical nation is equally prevalent in England as it is in Ireland. The occasion of his article in October 1886 was a report about a recent public lecture in Ireland: I have before me, as I write, the report of a “Lecture on Irish Music,” recently delivered near Dublin, in which the following passages occur, “Ireland was not unjustly called the ‘land of song.’ She alone of all the nations has a musical instrument as her national emblem, while the f lags of other nations were emblazoned with ravenous beasts and birds of prey.”6 Graves does not leave it at the criticism of this statement (inferring that then the intelligence of the Scotch could be disparaged by their “small cottony donkey thistle”), but turns to a number of rather polemic recourses to ancient Irish music – claiming that remnants of this music could still be heard in “performances of peasants in the outlying districts” – or of contemporary fiddlers. Graves somewhat unfairly intermingles the aesthetics of Irish traditional music with that of art music when he writes “[…] I have never yet known an Irish rustic fiddler who produced a tolerable tone, or possessed any knowledge of, or instinct for, harmony” 7, regrets that the “peasant instrumentalist” is restricted to dance music, dismisses local Irish brass bands for their “quite phenomenal badness”, and concurs that if a peasant is asked to sing in Irish, “you cannot pronounce the result attractive”, before he concludes: 4 5

6 7

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C. L. Graves: “Musical Talent in Ireland”, in: The Musical Times 27:524 (Oct. 1886), pp. 579–582. Charles Larcom Graves was born in Dublin and died in Carlisle (England). It is not fully apparent from the article whether he was still living in Ireland at the time of writing in late 1886. He was a very active writer and critic on a wide range of topics, many relating to Ireland and to music, but rarely in their combination as here. Once in England, he became assistant editor of The Spectator and a member of the staff of Punch, a journal notoriously critical of Ireland. He also was the author of the first biographical monograph about Hubert Parry (1926). Graves (1886), p. 580. Both last quotes: Graves (1886), p. 580.

Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality On these grounds, therefore, it is slightly presumptuous to claim for the Irish a superior ‘musical sensibility’ […]. 8 and, after alleging a lack of part-singing in the Irish rural countryside, as opposed to the Welsh: […] in neither of these respects can the Irish of the present day maintain their right to the title of the ‘Land of Song.’9 In contrast to the authors of the 1870s, Graves then turns his attention to Irish composers, acknowledging that Ireland in comparison to Britain “contributes perhaps a larger share than her numbers would warrant us to expect”, giving brief attention to Balfe, Lover, Moore, Sullivan and Stanford.10 Balfe he dismisses for his “imperfect orchestration” and “common-place melody”, Lover for his “infantile accompaniments and conventional melody”, and to Moore he denies “the title of a national poet”. Sullivan and Stanford he does admire for “the achievements of which Irishmen are capable in the field of composition”, but not without pointing out “how the careers of both these distinguished musicians illustrate the dependence of Irish genius on foreign surroundings”. Furthermore, these would be but individual talents in contrast to any “high average excellence”. And the reason for this he sees in the lack of a concert hall, of a good orchestra and of a “first-rate Irish chorus”, in “the notorious cliquishness of Dublin musical society”, and in the poor state of musical education in Ireland, consequentially calling for “a really efficient Musical Academy in Dublin” that could “take practical steps towards confirming and justifying their often-heard claims to be considered a musical people”.11 Graves’ article thus appears as a mixture of downright polemic negation of what he regards as unfounded claims of musicality among the Irish and a justified, albeit not complete, description of the contemporary Irish situation in music. He unfairly compares pears with apples in his juxtaposition of traditional musicians and classically educated ones, and is highly selective in his choice of composers to underscore his arguments. Yet, leaving polemics and a somewhat racist undertone aside, there remains a core of ideas that do sound troublesome. Thankfully, the inevitable reaction from the Irish side does not attempt to turn straw into gold as in the mid-1870s. The responses include a long letter by an 8 This and the three preceding brief quotes: Graves (1886), p. 581. 9 Graves (1886), p. 582. 10 Graves (1886), p. 582. Michael William Balfe (1808–1870), composer of about 30 operas mainly in English and French; Samuel Lover (1797–1868), composer, writer, painter, wrote six operettas and many humorous songs on Irish subjects; Thomas Moore (1779–1852), poet and occasional composer, in music mainly known for his volumes of Irish Melodies; Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), third-generation English composer of partial Irish extraction; Charles Villiers Stanford (1852– 1924), prolific Irish-born, English-resident composer – by 1886 still in his early career. 11 All quotes, Graves (1886), p. 582.

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Axel Klein anonymous ‘Hibernicus’, a clarification from Charles Larcom Graves, and a letter by Joseph Robinson.12 ‘Hibernicus’ is unidentified, but describes himself as one who is “old enough to recollect Dublin for many years”. He begins by declaring his position: There has been some discussion from time to time upon the question whether or not Dublin may be termed, either in the past or present, a musical city. That is a matter which, of course, is open to much difference of opinion, but, for my part, I am inclined to hold the affirmative of the question.13 In his very considerate response, ‘Hibernicus’ agrees that the lack of an adequate concert hall and a permanent orchestra “have long been two great musical needs”. But he points to the recently opened Leinster Hall14 as the institution fulfilling the first of these needs and expresses the hope that the orchestra will soon follow, but that the Dublin Orchestral Society so far has not “been much of a success”. He does not agree to the alleged lack of a good choral society, pointing to the Dublin Musical Society, the University Choral Society and a number of smaller institutions. He also draws the attention to the series of chamber music recitals at the Royal Dublin Society which Michele Esposito had recently commenced. He then makes an important remark: With much of Mr. Graves’s observations I concur, and I think they show a practical acquaintance with the country not possessed by most critics upon Ireland; but I must say I think they are written in anything but a friendly spirit. I do not see why, because one Irishman chooses to make ridiculously exaggerated statements respecting music in Ireland, it is necessary for another to undertake the task of her disparagement in this regard.15 He also regards it as “not fair to compare the artistic progress of music in this poor and distracted land with its progress in wealthy, comfortable England”. In a remarkably enlightened view on Graves’ criticism of Irish composers, ‘Hibernicus’ rightly argues that Balfe, Lover and Moore should be seen in the context of their time, considering that the “same charge might be made against 12 Under the headlines of “Music in Dublin” and “Musical Talent in Ireland”, in: The Musical Times 27 (Nov. 1886), pp. 676–678. 13 ‘Hibernicus’ (1886), p. 676. 14 The Leinster Hall in Hawkins Street was opened in November 1886 and seated more than 2,000 people. It was temporarily closed in 1895 and reopened as the third Theatre Royal in late 1897 (demolished in 1934); see Philip B. Ryan: The Lost Theatres of Dublin. Westbury, Wiltshire: The Badger Press, 1998, pp. 19–37. NB: Ryan speaks of the ‘second’ Theatre Royal, but he disregards the 17th-century one in Smock Alley. 15 ‘Hibernicus’ (1886), p. 677.

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Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality most his [i.e. Lover’s] English contemporaries”. He should also have mentioned Wallace and Rooke16 in his list of composers. Finally, however, he agrees with Graves that musical talent in Ireland is rather coincidental and not the result of a generally high musical standard: That Ireland is more likely to achieve musical distinction by individual eminence than high average excellence I admit; and also that her failure in the latter arises from want of that co-operation which is a necessity of all harmony, not only musical, but social.17 Graves, in his response, then defends some of his statements by explaining that due to temporary absence he had not seen final proofs of his article and that his corrections had not arrived at the editorial office in time. He apologizes for having disregarded the Dublin Musical Society, after several reactions to that effect from “impartial witnesses of unimpeachable authority in such matters”. He also admits “to my shame” never to have heard of the composer Rooke, but had purposely omitted Wallace because “the most recent authorities” had described him as Scottish,18 conceding: With a great deal of what ‘Hibernicus’ has to say about music in Dublin, and in particular as to the high level of amateur talent in that city, I am entirely in accord.19 Much ado about nothing, one is inclined to say, as not much remains of his arguments – except the printed word. Joseph Robinson’s letter appears in the same issue of the Musical Times as Graves’ response. Unsurprisingly, he “would ask Mr. Graves if he has ever heard of the Dublin Musical Society” but he is also doubting the writer’s competence: I have not the pleasure of Mr. Graves’s acquaintance – indeed, I may say, without meaning to give offence, that I have never even heard of that gentleman, nor do I know what his opportunities have been of forming an opinion of the subject of which he treats. To the list of Irish composers, Robinson thinks that Graves had “made more than one strange omission”, and in particular points to his contemporary, Robert Prescott Stewart (1825–1894). However, like ‘Hibernicus’, Robinson agrees with 16 (William) Vincent Wallace (1812–1865), Waterford-born Irish composer of several English operas and virtuoso piano music; William Michael Rooke (1794–1847), Dublin-born composer of several operas and other vocal music. 17 This and the preceding quote, ‘Hibernicus’ (1886), p. 677. 18 He probably refers to James D. Brown’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Paisley & London: Alexander Gardner, 1886, p. 606. 19 C. L. Graves, response to letter by ‘Hibernicus’, in: The Musical Times 27 (Nov. 1886), p. 677.

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Axel Klein a number of fundamental criticisms made by Graves with regard to the general musical culture and the state of musical education: The chief causes which, in my opinion, combine to make it so difficult to maintain a good orchestra in this country are, the indifferent musical education, the poverty of the country, and the utter indifference shown by the aristocracy and wealthy mercantile class of this city in the advancement of musical art in Ireland. Mere patriotism would not remove these obstacles. That a “really efficient Academy of Music” was badly needed is a matter to which he expressly agrees, reporting his own experiences: Since the Dublin Musical Society was founded I have refused admission to several hundreds of applicants, including a large number of the pupils of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, owing to their inability to read music at sight with anything like correctness. Thus, this part of the debate ended on a conciliatory note, one that did not ignore the challenges of the time, but that also gives a fair measure of hope for developments in the right direction. One also gets a first impression of a potential range of neglected Irish composers, that – even though it took another 80 years to become considerably better understood 20 – is still far from being a self-evident part of musical culture in Ireland today.

“The discussion must now close” – the mid-1890s With the debate of the mid-1890s we are in the middle of the increasing calls for Home Rule, the recent establishment of the Gaelic League (1893) and the imminent founding of the Feis Ceoil (1896) and its first festival (1897). This debate is an extended and at times fierce one. It takes place in the pages of the weekly journal Musical News, beginning with a letter to the editor in the issue of 25 May 1895 and lasting until 28 September, covering eleven letters in eight journal issues. 21 Notwithstanding that the letter writers and readers could not be aware that we today would perceive their exchange as the third in a series of 19th -century debates, what is surprising is that the same arguments and misunderstandings continue to prevail. In fact, one cannot but get the impression that the more is at stake (here: the prospects of Home Rule), the less reasonable the debate becomes. 20 I am referring to the path-breaking study by Ita Beausang, née Hogan, Anglo-Irish Music, 1780– 1830. Cork: Cork University Press, 1966. 21 Musical News, vol. 8, issues of 25 May, 8 June, 22 June, 27 July, 17 August, 31 August, 21 September, and 28 September 1895.

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Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality It is impossible (and perhaps unnecessary) to outline all of the arguments in this exchange. It involves anonymous writers, hiding their identities behind suggestive names like ‘Anglicanus’, ‘Hibernus’, and ‘One of the Fianna’, besides writers and composers Annie W. Patterson (1868–1934) and James C. Culwick (1845–1907). The starting point was ‘Anglicanus’’ complaint that the announcement of the Feis Ceoil in a previous issue of the journal contained the statement “that the old Irish music is ‘acknowledged to excel in potency and beauty the national music of any other country with which we are acquainted’”. 22 With such a formulation, of course, the Feis organizers had handed the conf lict on a plate. Not only does the phrase ‘with which we are acquainted’ invite an arrogant reaction, but the nationalist feelings expressed in such hyperbole must inevitably provoke criticism. The statement is typical for the nationalist writing on music in these years, in Ireland bearing the trademark of Annie Patterson, W. H. Grattan Flood, Edward Martyn, and others. ‘Anglicanus’ jumped at it immediately, of course, sardonically remarking that “the acquaintance of these patriots with music, outside the Emerald Isle, must be very small indeed”. 23 He also extended this opinion to traditional music as, in his view, the collections of Bunting, Petrie, and Joyce would not support the argument either. Annie Patterson responded by claiming the Feis Ceoil Committee (in effect, she herself ) had merely reiterated, “in a very quiet way, the strongly expressed opinion of Cambrensis”. 24 The arguments that ran hither and thither in the ensuing exchange are, in the main, not convincing. Either the source of a claim is hidden in some ancient manuscript with unclear meaning or they come across as unfounded postulations – indeed on both sides. Inevitably, the discussion turned at some point to the question of musicality, with one of Patterson’s arguments running that “harp playing was practised as an advanced art among our people, not only at a time when England and Germany were plunged in barbarism, but also centuries before the Christian era”. 25 There evolves a heated and increasingly personal debate, and although ‘Anglicanus’ deals out no less than Patterson & Co., he once remarks “Why cannot the question of the value of Irish music be dealt with on impersonal grounds?”26 22 ‘Anglicanus’: “On Irish Music”, in: Musical News, 25 May 1895, p. 493. 23 Ibidem, p. 494. 24 Annie W. Patterson: “On Irish Music”, in: Musical News, 8 June 1895, p. 541. Giraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald of Wales (c.1146–c.1223), in his Topographia hibernica, had written in very positive terms about the skill and artistry of medieval Irish musicians; for further references see Máire Mac Aongusa: “Gerald of Wales”, in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, ed. Harry White and Barra Boydell. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013, p. 428. 25 Ibidem, p. 541. 26 ‘Anglicanus’: “Irish Music”, in: Musical News, 21 June 1895, p. 589.

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Axel Klein ‘Hibernus’ takes the discussion away from ancient sources and futile mutual degradations to the music of the people: A word or two might fittingly be inserted here on the present relative position of music in Ireland and England among the musically uneducated people, leaving entirely out of account professional and cultured amateur musicians and musical antiquaries. 27 ‘Anglicanus’ had previously quoted the authority of Robert Prescott Stewart’s critical remarks in Grove’s Dictionary on the low quality of temperance bands “and that the people generally are not favourably disposed towards choral classes or associations”, Belfast being the only exception, – to which ‘Hibernus’ responds that “anyone knowing anything about Ireland will at once understand that the true cause for the people’s apathy […] is to be sought in the peculiar religious and political circumstances of the country”. 28 The English-born, Irish-resident conductor and composer James C. Culwick calls the whole discussion “pointless” on account of the fact that both England and Ireland have long histories of ‘national song’ and that the English one was merely currently covered by “the thin dust of undisturbed libraries”. 29 The main difference between the countries’ national music was their “gender”: English music is in the main manly and strong, Irish song is tender, pathetic, and on occasion whimsical. […] if music can be of two genders, here we may find perfect types, and as it is never otherwise than unseemly, and altogether useless to contend about the supremacy of the one sex over the other, so is this present controversy pointless, unless it serve to bring out these facts, that there is room, nay, a necessity, for the music of both sorts, that the one is the complement of the other, and that music could not fulfil itself if either were discarded. Thus, Culwick provides a solution to the conf lict by likening England and Ireland to an old married couple, with the Irish musical character being female. 30 Needless to say, even such a well-meant compromise, even if it, too, rings of colonial arrogance today, did not end the debate. It had to be called off by the editor 27 ‘Hibernus’: “‘Angelicanus’ and Irish Music”, in: Musical News, 31 August 1895, p. 177. 28 Ibidem. 29 James C. Culwick: “National Music”, in: Musical News, 21 September 1895, p. 237. 30 Leith Davis has analysed this analogy and its colonial background in greater depth in her study Music, Postcolonialism, and Gender. The Construction of Irish National Identity, 1724–1874. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006, although her study is also another example for the unquestioned equation of the term ‘Irish music’ with Irish traditional music which I criticise here. I am indebted to Dr Adrian Scahill for pointing out this reference to me.

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Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality of the Musical News after four months, giving the last word to ‘Anglicanus’ and adding “The discussion must now close.”31

“Ireland is the home of the abnormal” – before independence Returning to the 1903 debate quoted at the outset of this contribution (“No, Sir; the Irish are not musical”), this, too, sparked a controversy. Here, contrary to other pseudonyms like ‘Hibernicus’ or ‘Anglicanus’, it is not too difficult to identify the ‘Exile’ who so explicitly expressed his views on the musicality of the Irish, as he expressed them again elsewhere in almost the same words at around the same time. He must have been John Pentland Mahaffy (1839–1919), long-time Professor of Ancient History, Precentor of the Chapel and (from 1914) Provost of Trinity College Dublin. 32 It should perhaps be kept in mind that he is the same Mahaffy who is documented as having said about a famous, originally Roman Catholic, Irish writer: “James Joyce is a living argument in defence of my contention that it was a mistake to establish a separate university for the aborigines of this island – for the corner boys who spit into the Liffey.”33 Born in Vevey, Switzerland, to Irish parents and studying at Trinity College, it speaks volumes that Mahaffy styles himself anonymously as ‘An Exile’ in Ireland. He repeated the very same arguments as in the 1903 letter to the Musical Opinion in a 1905 speech at a Feis Ceoil meeting, which prompted a reply from the Irish tenor Barton McGuckin (1852–1913), who wrote: That Professor Mahaffy is a man of rare general knowledge, of literary distinction, and a musical amateur of credit, is well known. For this reason it is that I cannot allow his statement that the ‘Irish nation is not a musical nation,’ as well as some subsidiary remarks on the subject of Irish musical societies to pass unchallenged. 34 To the claim that Irish audiences preferring Balfe over Wagner was “an example of the debased musical taste of the people of Dublin” he responded: 31 “Irish National Music”, in: Musical News, 28 September 1895, p. 258. 32 For more details on Mahaffy, see W. B. Stanford & R. B. McDowell: Mahaffy. A Biography of an Anglo-Irishman. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971, and Lisa Parker: Robert Prescott Stewart (1825–1894). A Victorian Musician in Dublin. PhD diss., Maynooth University, 2009, p. 360 (fn.) and elsewhere. 33 Gerald Griffin: The Wild Geese. London: Jarrolds, 1938, p. 24; as quoted in Richard Ellmann: James Joyce. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 58. 34 “Music in Ireland. Dr. Mahaffy’s Speech. Reply by Mr. McGuckin”, in: The Irish Independent, 17 Oct. 1905, p. 5. The following quotes from McGuckin are from the same source.

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Axel Klein Strange as the coincidence may seem, I can assure Professor Mahaffy that the same may be said of London and all the principal cities of England and Scotland – such certainly has been my experience when with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. The reason was not the lack of musicality among the people but rather that Balfe, Wallace (and Verdi, for that matter) “appeal to the popular ear”, pointing to education as the real factor leading to the ability of appreciating works like the operas of Wagner: The same in France, Italy, and Germany – one opera strikes the popular ear more than another, and, therefore, becomes a favourite with the less musically educated classes, which at the same time possess strong, if illdefined, musical sympathies. The issue of education remains part of the debate. In another public lecture, now before the National Literary Society on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on 25 March 1907, the violinist Arthur Darley (1873–1929) – one of the rare musicians of the time who effortlessly moved between traditional music and art music – remarked that “melody exists in the minds of the peasant musicians, but it fails to live for want of the means to give it light”. 35 On the other hand, traditional music could be a resource to make Ireland musical: “[…] to make a musical Ireland they must take the ideas of the so-called traditional musicians and unite them to modern technical methods.” This was, in fact, at the very heart of the Feis Ceoil organizers and the many composers of the late 19th and early 20th century in Ireland who believed that a national ‘School of Irish Music’ should be based on traditional music. It is the very idea of nationalism and cultural identity in western art music of this period. The early years of the Feis Ceoil regularly turned attention to the good and the bad in Irish music. In the view of some, the only good was its existence, the bad being the low turn-out and the scant public interest. Combining it with a general critique of musicality in Ireland, A. MacRompian 36 complained on the occasion of the twelfth festival in 1908 that […] the Association has kept to its purpose, with a praiseworthy tenacity, restricted only by the measure of support received from the country. We are a musical people, it is undeniable, in the sense that we love music, but we have only to look at the example set by some other countries to realize how little we do for it. 37 35 “Some Aspects of Irish Music”, unsigned article in The Irish Independent, 26 March 1907, p. 3. 36 Not identified, but he describes himself as one of the members of the original Feis Ceoil Committee. 37 A. MacRompian: “Are we musical? Work of the Feis Ceoil”, in: The Irish Independent, 18 May 1908, p. 4.

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Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality In the course of the second decade of the twentieth century, the public debate about the role of music in Irish life appears to have intensified. Newspapers abound with reports about public addresses to various societies, and there is an increased sense of urgency and impatience. In October 1911, the Reverend Thomas O’Kelly (1879–1924), librettist to Irish operas by Robert O’Dwyer and Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer, reported in the Irish Independent about a speech made by Heinrich Bewerunge at the annual meeting of the Feis Ceoil Association. He wrote that Bewerunge (1862–1923), the German-born professor of church chant and organ at Maynooth and an avid music critic, believed “that musical art in Ireland is not upon the level which […] befits a nation that has done so much for music in the past”. 38 Apart from the low standard of church music, he complained about the quality of concert music and their poor public attention, the lack of an Irish opera company, etc. He also criticized “the presence in Ireland of so many foreign musicians, including Father Bewerunge himself. This he justly regarded as abnormal.” O’Kelly continues: But, then, Ireland is the home of the abnormal. In this country there is hardly anything normal except abnormality. Something stranger than any of the things Father Bewerunge pointed out is the fact that several musicians among us of foreign origin display greater sympathy with and appreciation of Irish music and a greater anxiety for the development of Irish music on native lines than, generally speaking, musicians of native origin. Here, O’Kelly clearly points to composers like Michele Esposito and Carl Hardebeck who produced some of the most outstanding works in an Irish cultural context of the time. In Ireland, he identified “a contrast between the sympathetic interest of foreigners in the peculiarly native element in Irish music, and the apathy and, sometimes, even active hostility of Irish-born musicians to those who plead for the recognition of this native element.”

“At present it is hopeless” – the Free State After the Easter Rising, World War I with its fall of European monarchies, and the Irish Civil War, the world had changed. Hopes that the independent Irish Free State would raise the level of musical appreciation and give an impetus to creative Irish art music were quickly muted. In September 1923, the Cork musician Donn­ chadh Ua Briain (a.k.a. Denis Breen), announcing a visit of the world-famous Irish tenor John McCormack (1884–1945) to Irish schools, warned that “he will 38 Thomas O’Kelly: “Music in Ireland. A New Society”, in: The Irish Independent, 25 October 1911, p. 4. The following quotes from O’Kelly are from the same source.

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Figure 1: The British view of the Irish has always included perceptions of music – not to either side’s benefit. Illustration from Punch, 29 November 1922; author’s collection

not find things as rosy as he imagines. Music under the old regime was in a pretty parlous condition. At present it is hopeless. […] Ireland is probably the most backward country in Europe musically.”39 The ageing tenor Joseph O’Mara (1864–1927) demanded in a speech to the 1925 Father Mathew Feis that the Free State should “make music a necessary part of their educational system”, to which a correspondent to the Irish Independent comments “he ought to have added an appeal to them to cut out their high taxation of musical instruments”.40 In 1929, the composer and conductor Hamilton Harty (1879–1941) complained, after having seen the Dublin Corporation publication A Book of Dublin:41 To a musician at least it seems a strange oversight that no mention of the art of music has been made in what purports to be an official record of the activities of Dublin, both artistic and commercial.42 39 40 41 42

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D. Ua Braoin: “Music in the Schools”, in: The Irish Independent, 22 September 1923, p. 8. “Music in the Saorstat”, letter by R. S. Gray to the editor of The Irish Independent, 17 April 1925, p. 8. A Book of Dublin. Official Handbook. Dublin: The Corporation of Dublin, 1929. Hamilton Harty, letter to the editor of The Irish Independent, 24 July 1929, p. 8.

Some Historic (?) Debates on Irish Musicality Unfortunately, the editors of the 1932 Saorstát Éireann Official Handbook did not read Harty’s letter (or did not care). The same neglect of Irish art music is continued here in much the same way. 43

Conclusion: Are the Irish musical? Is it an exaggeration to say that, with their continued negligence of musical education and the heritage of art music, the Irish Free State and its succeeding independent state were guilty of the poor appreciation of ‘classical’ music in Ireland and therefore for a view of musicality that is still dominated by traditional music? Some would argue that the same is true for traditional music. Certainly, any political responsibility ref lects the wider social understanding of music in Ireland (as being predominantly ‘traditional’) on the one side and the difficult association of art music with British colonialism which is peculiar to Ireland. Art music has never, in any country, been ‘the music of the people’, but – at least for an outsider – it is deplorable to see how little progress in the understanding of art music in Ireland has been achieved since independence. The development of thought in terms of what constitutes ‘Irish music’ is painfully slow. So, are the Irish musical? It is, of course, the wrong question. No nation as such is musical or unmusical. From his colonial perspective, the 1903 letter writer to the Musical Opinion was right. But the arrogance of power that always characterizes colonialism implied that he (and other writers) disregarded different types of musicality than he allowed for with his 19 th -century British background. But for the multi-racial, multi-cultural, and enlightened ‘new Ireland’ of the 21st century, we need a third way to interpret musicality in Ireland, namely not just in the black-and-white categories of English and Irish, of traditional and classical music, but for the many musicians ‘in the middle’, those who neither partake in the ‘either/or’ but who practice the ‘as well as’ and who give less regard to the distinction at all. In these musicians, who effortlessly move between the lines of styles and genres, who play traditional music now and classical music next, who prove that musicality is not limited to any genre, and of whom Ireland has very many, lies hope.

43 Saorstát Éireann Official Handbook. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1932. See this author’s remarks in Michael Dervan (ed.): The Invisible Art. A Century of Music in Ireland 1916–2016. Dublin: New Island, 2016, pp. 55–57.

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Select bibliography A Book of Dublin. Official Handbook. Dublin: The Corporation of Dublin, 1929. Davis, Leith: Music, Postcolonialism, and Gender. The Construction of Irish National Identity, 1724–1874. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Dervan, Michael (ed.): The Invisible Art. A Century of Music in Ireland 1916–2016. Dublin: New Island, 2016. Ellmann, Richard: James Joyce. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Fitzgerald, Mark & John O’Flynn (eds.): Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. Hogan, Ita M.: Anglo-Irish Music, 1780–1830. Cork: Cork University Press, 1966 Parker, Lisa: Robert Prescott Stewart (1825–1894). A Victorian Musician in Dublin. PhD diss., Maynooth University, 2009. Ryan, Philip B.: The Lost Theatres of Dublin. Westbury, Wiltshire: The Badger Press, 1998. Saorstát Éireann Official Handbook. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1932. Stanford, W. B. & R. B. McDowell: Mahaffy. A Biography of an Anglo-Irishman. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971. White, Harry: The Keeper’s Recital. Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998.

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“That vulgar strummer”: The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival Adrian Scahill In his essay on the development of the piano and the preservation of Irish traditional music, David Cooper contends that the collections of the second half of the nineteenth century exhibit a simplification in style of arrangement, whereby “the music begins its return from the sitting rooms of the gentry and middle classes […] to the vernacular of the peasantry and working classes; from the Gaelic enthusiasms of the Anglo-Irish study to the political activism of Conradh na nGaeilge and eventually Sinn Féin.”1 He cites Professor J.W. Glover’s arrangements for P.W. Joyce’s Ancient Irish Music (1872) and the collection of George Petrie’s music arranged by Francis Hoffman (1877) 2 as representing a retreat from the exploitation of the piano’s expressive and musical capabilities which characterised the “highart aspirations” of Edward Bunting’s collections. Cooper’s reading is accurate enough, although it might seem too blunt in its homological association of the simple with the vernacular, and its uncomfortable echo of the ideas of musical evolution which were popular around the turn of the century. And yet both Joyce and Glover clearly expressed their approach in these terms: Joyce was critical of previous arrangements, saying that “the accompaniments ought to be extremely simple; – that in fact abstruse or complicated harmonies commonly destroy the character of Irish melodies”, 3 and Glover was similarly concerned with the tunes’ character, but also with ensuring that the accompaniments “will enable them to be readily caught up by the popular ear, and to be retained there”.4 Even more thought-provoking are the comments by Richard M. Levey on his own collection of dance music from this period: “One word as to the basses of a few of the airs. I tried all possible ways of accompaniment, and found that any other than the piperly harmony – any modern chords – would utterly destroy their nationality.”5 1

David Cooper: “‘‘Twas One of those Dreams that by Music are Brought’: The Development of the Piano and the Preservation of Irish Traditional Music”, in: Irish Musical Studies 9: Music in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, ed. Michael Murphy and Jan Smaczny. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007, pp. 74–93, here p. 93. 2 Cooper curiously omits R.M. Levey’s two dance-music collections of 1858 and 1873, which are similar in character. 3 Patrick Weston Joyce: Ancient Irish Music. Dublin: McGlashan and Gill, 1873, p. iv. 4 Joyce: Ancient Irish Music, p. v. 5 R.M. Levey: The First Collection of the Dance Music of Ireland. London: Charles Jeffreys, 1858, n.p.

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Adrian Scahill Simplicity, popularity and the avoidance of the modern: while they made for a more effective translation, this was certainly not a blueprint for the creation of a high art music, and has an important bearing on how we interpret the music of the following period. Although these printed collections precede the Gaelic Revival (c.1890–1920), they do signal some of the complexities, concerns and attitudes that attend the piano’s developing role during the period. While they (and indeed other collections) emphasise the longstanding interface between the piano and what we now understand as traditional music, this interface was to become utterly transformed through the cultural nationalism and invention of tradition of the revival period.6 In fact, it could also be said that the piano contributed in some small way to what Harry White describes as the invention which underpinned the “quest for identity” in this period,7 facilitating the articulation of a transformed ethnic identity for some, and becoming integral to invented practices (including a new form of ensemble) designed to create a distinct Irish cultural identity through music in opposition to that of the ‘other’ – this was notionally English musical culture, but could also encompass art/classical music, vernacular and popular music, and jazz, depending on interpretation and period. In this chapter, then, I examine the different contexts for the piano’s use during the period of the Gaelic Revival, with a particular focus on instrumental music, the Gaelic League, and on the ceilidh, the archetypal revival event. I contend that the evidence for its use, as discussed in the chapter, implies that the piano was well-established alongside other traditional instruments before the inf lux and inf luence of US recordings of young emigrant musicians. Finally, the chapter considers some aspects of the critical reception of the piano during the Gaelic Revival and beyond. The keynotes of the Gaelic Revival are too well known for lengthy discussion here; the various organizations, particularly the Gaelic League, were generally involved with the rejuvenation of Irish cultural life, including language, music, dance, sport, literature, and dress, as a means of constructing a national identity distinct from English culture. The rejectionist ideology of the movement in itself complicated the construction and identification of an Irish music: as P. J. Mathews observes, “it is easy to pinpoint those forces that are perceived to be threatening native culture, but there is a lack of specificity as to what actually constitutes 6

7

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Many authors have drawn on this concept in their writing on the Gaelic Revival period, including Helen Brennan, Helena Wulff, and Reg Hall. Cf. Eric Hobsbawm: “Introduction: Inventing Traditions”, in: The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 1–14. Harry White: “The Invention of Ethnicity: Traditional Music and the Modulations of Irish Culture”, in: Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond, ed. Mark Fitzgerald and John O’Flynn. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, pp. 273–285, here p. 273.

The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival native culture”. 8 What further complicated this construction of an Irish music based on a repudiation and exclusion of English (or sometimes just foreign) music, was the existence of a competing internal other in the musical traditions of the ‘rural working population’, to use Reg Hall’s term. As Joep Leerssen has noted in relation to language, the leadership of the Gaelic League were confronted with a “dilemmatic choice between the return to the pristine example of antiquity or the vigour of the living demotic tradition.”9 This choice was ref lected in what Philip O’Leary identifies were the key ideologies of the Gaelic League: a progressive stance which argued the need to “draw on and adapt elements from its own tradition”, as well as having to “assimilate from any appropriate source all that the tradition lacked”; and a nativist stance, which was essentialist, inward, and looked back towards the past and the West for traditions to be rediscovered and reproduced as they were without any interference or development.10 At the centre of this tension there are complex issues concerning identity, representation, and how music exists as a discursive space within which these issues are articulated and contested; what I want to consider now is how the piano functioned within this discursive space.

Contexts for Performance The Gaelic League initiated a number of similar forms of social gathering in the late nineteenth century, which first complemented and then began to supplant the organization’s more formal concerts, although some concerts did continue well into the 1930s. As befitting Gaelic Revival ideas of de-Anglicization, self-help and self-reliance, the introduction of new terms for these social events suggest that a deliberate attempt was being made to deliberately avoid the terms concert and ball, because of their English associations. Instead of ‘concert’, then, a number of names were employed by the Gaelic League: scoruidheacht or sgoruidheacht (entertainment), pléaracha (revelry), aeridheacht (an open-air entertainment), and, most

8 P.J. Mathews: Revival: The Abbey Theatre, Sinn Féin, The Gaelic League and the Co-operative Movement. Cork: Cork University Press, 2003, p. 21. 9 Joep Leerssen: Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century. Cork: Cork University Press, 1996, p. 196. 10 Philip O’Leary: The Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival, 1881–1921: Ideology and Innovation. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994, pp. 14–16. Reg Hall interprets three somewhat similar strands: “conservationism (fostering surviving Irish culture); antiquarianism (the revival – or invention – of extinct Irish culture), and the expression of Irish ethnicity through the medium of the Euro-British bourgeois cultural tradition.” Reg Hall: A Few Tunes of Good Music: A History of Irish Music and Dance in London, 1800–1980 & Beyond. London: Reg Hall, 2016, p. 144.

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Adrian Scahill frequently, ceilidh (a social evening or visit).11 These events were also distinguished from concerts by being more participatory than presentational,12 as members of the organizations hosting ceilidhs contributed items, and some reports of ceilidhs emphasised that all the performers were members of the local branch.13 Some of the early reportage of London ceilidhs doubly emphasised this by aligning the term ceilidh with “reunion”. By way of illustration of the participatory nature of these meetings, an early Irish ceilidh held in Dundalk in 1902 was described as “not a ceilidh proper, as the majority of the audience were but passive spectators. But all the same, such entertainments […] help to do away with the low class concerts so slavishly copied from our neighbours across the channel.”14 Early Gaelic League ceilidhs were thus like a more participatory form of concert, with lectures or speeches, solo performances of songs, music, and solo step dancing, with social dancing not a regular feature of the events until later in the period.15

Gaelic Revival Responses to the Piano The programmes of many of the ceilidhs, in the earlier period especially, tended to be dominated by vocal items, usually featuring piano accompaniment. As others have written extensively on this topic,16 this chapter will bypass the discussion of the substance of these performances, instead considering some of the debate on 11 Other revival organizations also adopted the model of and the name ceilidh for their own events; Inghinidhe na hÉireann, the National Literary Society, Sinn Féin, and Cumann na mBan all held ceilidhs during this period. 12 Thomas Turino: Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 23–65. 13 Of the Drumcondra branch sgoruidheacht in 1902 it was noted that “The entertainment, which consisted of songs, choruses, and dances, and selections on the harp, violin, flute, and piano, was, with the exception of some excellent traditional Irish dancing by Mr Doyle, a native of Mayo, exclusively provided by members of the branch.” Freemans Journal, 8 December 1902, p. 13. 14 Dundalk Democrat, 26 April 1902, p. 6. 15 See Hall: A Few Tunes, p. 174. 16 See for instance Lillis Ó Laoire: “National Identity and Local Ethnicity: The Case of the Gaelic League’s Oireachtas sean-nós singing competitions”, in: Sharing the Voices: The Phenomenon of Singing 2, ed. Brian. A. Roberts and Andrea B. Rose. St John’s, Newfoundland: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000, pp. 160–169; Anthony McCann and Lillis Ó Laoire: “‘Raising One Higher than the Other’: The Hierarchy of Tradition in Representations of Gaelic and English Language Song in Ireland”, in: Global Pop, Local Language, ed. Harris M. Berger and Michael Thomas Carroll. Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press, 2003, pp. 233–265; Róisín Nic Dhonncha: “Sean-Nós Singing: Ideological Perspectives on a Native Art”, Ancestral Imprints: Histories of Irish Traditional Music and Dance, ed. Thérèse Smith. Cork: Cork University Press, 2012, pp. 169–168; Éamonn Costello: Sean-nós Singing and Oireachtas na Gaeilge: Identity, Romantic Nationalism, and the Agency of the Gaeltacht Community Nexus. PhD Diss., University of Limerick, 2015; Martin Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society: Historical Perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014; Hall: A Few Tunes, pp. 113–234.

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The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival the suitability of the piano in this context. For although the piano may not have been in the direct crosshairs of most general Gaelic League polemics, its use as an accompaniment to singing did attract strong opinions from contemporary commentators. The title of this chapter comes from one such pronouncement, a report of a singing competition at the Feis of Ardmore, Waterford, in 1899: There were traditional singers, as true to their intervals as a bird […] Others were there who had been taught to sing to the accompaniment of a piano. Here one detected a deplorable falling off. The music was no longer Irish, the subtle melody shrank from the blare of that vulgar strummer as affrighted as the fairies are said to be of the shriek of a locomotive.17 The implied associations in this passage are obvious enough: the traditional singers are portrayed as skilful, naturally musical and authentically Irish; the piano is dangerously modern, crude, and its use robs the music of its identity. (There is an undercurrent of exoticism too in the writer’s association of traditional melody with the fairies, a type of internal othering which was not uncommon in the Gaelic Revival’s conceptualization of Irish music.18) The type of authenticity being claimed here is an oppositional one based on a conception of Irishness as not English, where the piano indexes Western art music, and by extension the coloniser. This is to adapt the contention of Anthony McCann and Lillis Ó Laoire that western art music vocal techniques are unacceptable in sean-nós singing for their associations with Englishness.19 To return to Ó Laoire’s and Éamonn Costello’s identification of this perception as being nativist or nationalistic, Ó Laoire elsewhere emphasises that “the native, separatist element in the Gaelic League would have regarded such ‘development’ as pollution and contamination, and so, the elements of accompaniment and harmonization were stigmatised as impure and inauthentic to the Irish tradition.”20 The critique of the Ardmore Feis also subverts the usual associations of the piano, as for much of this period, the piano was perceived as a symbol of bourgeois attainment, education, and refinement: for instance Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin relates how “daughters of strong farmers […] learned to play piano and read classical scores in convent drawing rooms.”21 Converse to this, the emergent categories of traditional music and song were often dismissed as being primitive and unlearned. 22 17 “Feis of Ardmore”, An Claidheamh Soluis [hereafter ACS], 2 September 1899. 18 See for instance Costello: “Sean-nós Singing”, pp. 79 and 95. 19 McCann and O Laoire: “‘Raising One Higher than the Other’” pp. 233–265. See also the discussion in Costello: “Sean-nós Singing”, p. 62. 20 Ó Laoire: “National Identity and Local Ethnicity”, p. 163. 21 Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin: Flowing Tides: History & Memory in an Irish Soundscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, p. 83. See also Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society, p. 211. 22 Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society, pp. 191–4.

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Adrian Scahill More subtle objections to the piano rested on its inability to reproduce the modal or non equal-tempered quality of sean-nós singing. As Edward Martyn observed, “It is impossible, because of the frequent refinements of intervals, to render this true old music in all its delicacy on a keyed instrument”. 23 The elision of harmony, Englishness, and inauthenticity was also plainly expressed by a complainant quoted by Reg Hall, who not only opposed harmonization, but also the Anglicization of the modality of the music through the adoption of the tempered scale, “for the sake of bringing airs up-to-date and rendering them suitable for the Kensington drawing room.”24 Carl Hardebeck debated at length the matter of piano accompaniments for traditional singing with P.J. O’Sullivan, a teacher from Cork who wrote objecting to his arrangement of what was somewhat of a standard at Gaelic Revival performances, “Siubhail A Ghrádh”. Ignoring here the rather tortuous exchanges concerning setting and modality, Hardebeck was adamant that the piano should be used, taking a progressivist stance on the instrument which he justified by postulating that if the harp and harpers had survived, they would have adapted to the instrument and music of the day; additionally, the music’s modernization was necessary to try to compete with the encroachment of music-hall song: If the piano is not to be used for accompanying Irish melodies, what is? Those melodies were played and sung by the harpers; now the harp, double or single action, or even the old harp which was retuned for each new key, would have to be tuned to either the equal or unequal temperament; which ever method of tuning be adopted the intonation is of course false, so the harp stands in the same case as the piano […] To say that songs with Irish words should not have piano accompaniments is absurd […] Had the Irish school of composers received encouragement they would have lived in an unbroken line till to-day. They would have adopted the harp of today as well as every other instrument […] If we advance, we must take a progressive and not a retrograde view of the musical question; while we hold back our enemy, the music-hall song, is marching forward. 25 O’Sullivan’s response is typical of the nativist position in its utter rejection of the modern, which is inseparable from the foreign in his view:

23 Edward Martyn: “The Gaelic League and Irish Music”, The Irish Review 1 (1911), pp. 449–450, here p. 449. This echoes Richard Henebry’s analyses of Irish music, in which he proposed that the scales used in Irish music were distinct from the diatonic major scale; Richard Henebry: Irish Music. Dublin: An Cló-Chumann, 1903. 24 Inis Fail, February 1906, quoted in Hall: A Few Tunes, pp. 162–163. 25 An Claidheamh Soluis, 1 February 1902, p. 786.

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The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival Was ever a greater insult offered to the music of Ireland than is found in the following remarks of Carl Hardebeck? ‘If we desire to reform in the matter of concerts we must put the Irish songs in a form that will attract the people.’ Ireland, ‘Land of Song’, you had to wait till now for that extraordinary genius, Carl Hardebeck, to dress your melodies in such a garb as to make them even attractive […] If Irish music is to be developed, that development must be entirely on native lines and from within. If an Irish school of music is to be founded, the less foreigners have to do with it the better. There is one – and one only – way in which we must proceed if Irish music is to preserve its individuality – viz., by taking up, as it were, ‘The Broken Melody’ of our country and, working on the material to hand, bring it slowly and carefully to completion. 26 These positions were not to be reconciled, though, as the weight of language, the Romantic ideal of the Gaeltacht and the west, and the concern for authenticity inhibited any possibility (then) of a conciliation between these positions; instead, the outcome of the Gaelic Revival intervention in song led to the construction of sean-nós singing as an “alternative art style as a direct response to, and an implicit critique of, the musical culture of the conservatory”. 27 Instead, as I demonstrate here, it was in the area of instrumental music that a form of hybridity, of the opening up of a liminal space between these positions, was to emerge.

Gaelic Revival Performances of Instrumental Music Solo (and duet) piano performances were regularly included at concerts and ceilidhs, and demonstrate a degree of continuity with the pre-Gaelic Revival period. Indeed, Reg Hall wryly notes that “a selection of Irish airs on the pianoforte seems to have been obligatory” at Irish concerts held in London from the 1870s until the 1890s. 28 For instance, the second ceilidh held by the Gaelic League in May 1897, which marked the festival of Bealtaine, included a performance of Irish airs by Signor Volanti Armitage, 29 and a new composition, “A Bunch of Shamrocks”, performed by its composer, Alicia A. Needham. 30 At the following ceilidh 26 An Claidheamh Soluis, 15 February 1920, p. 823. 27 Ó Laoire: “National Identity and Local Ethnicity”, pp. 162–163. 28 Hall: A Few Tunes, p. 82. 29 Volanti Armitage (c.1867–1906) was active as an organist, pianist and conductor in London from the 1880s. His earlier appearance at a benefit concert for evicted tenants in Clerkenwell shows he had some contact with the Irish community in London. “London Irishmen and the Evicted Tenants”, in: Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 3 January 1893, p. 7. 30 Although called Mrs Cecelia A. Needham ARAM in the report, this is almost certainly a mistake. The Nation, 8 May 1897, p. 13.

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Adrian Scahill in October, Annie Patterson also played her own composition, an “Improvisation on Irish Airs”. 31 More usually, though, the performances were of arrangements; at the 1899 Samhain ceilidh and a later sgoruidheacht, Annie O’Brien played “An Cúilf hionn”, 32 and another prominent and more long-term Gaelic League performer, Agnes MacHale, supplied the requisite old Irish airs at the 1900 London ceilidh. 33 Of these, Needham and Patterson were well-regarded composers known particularly for working with Irish themes and subjects, 34 and are part of the lineage of Irish nationalist composition somewhat entrapped by its beholdeness to traditional melody. 35 This was music which had risen in popularity and prominence in parallel with the growth of a Catholic middle class. 36 For scholars such as Reg Hall, it was relevant only to this constituency, and its basis in artmusic forms, techniques and instrumentation disqualified it from consideration as a form of authentic Irish music. 37 Tainted from this ‘traditional’ perspective for its art-music characteristics, at the same time this music also failed to develop into an art form comparable with the literature produced during the revival: as Harry White lucidly observes, a new art music that drew on Ireland’s musical past could not emerge during the revival due to the Gaelic League ideal of an Irish music “lodged for ever within a hermetically sealed cultural past”. 38 The piano solo remained a fixture within the ceilidh and other social events as they crossed over from London to Ireland, but the pianists were generally not as prominent performers as those featuring at the earlier London events: Dublin pianists who played solos at Gaelic Revival gatherings in 1900 included Miss Duffy, the Misses Fitzharris (Blackrock), Miss McAuley playing The Wearin’ o’ the Green (Milltown), and Miss Scott playing The Coolun [sic] (Gresham Hotel). 39 This could be interpreted as a development of the broader revivalist self-help ideology, which fostered active participation in nationalist forms of culture as a means of identity formation.40 For these urban, presumably classically-trained pianists, 31 “London Correspondence”, in: Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 1 November 1897, p. 5. 32 ACS, 16 November 1899; Irish Examiner, 15 December 1899, p. 3. 33 ACS, 17 November 1900. 34 Jennifer O’Connor: The Role of Women in Music in Nineteenth-Century Dublin, PhD Diss. Maynooth University, 2010, pp. 121–124. 35 White: “Nationalism, Colonialism and the Cultural Stasis of Music in Ireland”, in: Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture 1800–1945, ed. Harry White and Michael Murphy. Cork: Cork University Press, 2000, pp. 257–271. 36 Ita Beausang: “From National Sentiment to Nationalist Movement, 1850–1900”, in: Irish Musical Studies 9, pp. 36–51. 37 Reg Hall: A Few Tunes, p. 166. 38 Harry White: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998, p. 69. 39 ACS, 24 March 1900; ACS, 14 July 1900; ACS, 9 May 1900. 40 Mathews: Revival.

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The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival whose primary repertoire was probably mostly European art music, the practice and performance of an Irish work in public would have given them an invaluable opportunity to assert and display their Irishness. In addition, as the overwhelming majority of these pianists were women, these performances demonstrate how some Irish women had increasing access to and visibility in the public sphere, and raise the possibility that these performances were also empowering for them. This follows Tes Slominski’s assessment of women fiddlers and uilleann pipers of the period, where she argues convincingly that Gaelic League events created a “musical public sphere for women” similar to the political sphere created by Inghinidhe na hÉireann and Cumann na mBan.41 The piano solo also had a wider circulation beyond the major urban centres of London, Dublin and Belfast, even if the environs of these performances could be very prestigious, as was the case of the feis (here probably meaning a concert and not a competition) held at Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare, where: “Mr. O’Hara and Miss Ievers followed with a masterly interpretation on the piano of some of the finest of our old Irish airs which were listened to with sympathetic attention.”42 Other early performances included a Miss Doyle who performed “Irish Diamonds” at a Newry event in 1898;43 Miss Mary Margaret Riordan who performed “Whispers from Erin” and Miss Minnie O’Driscoll Irish airs, in Cahirciveen in 1900;44 a duet of Irish airs by the Misses Maria and Eileen O’Sullivan at a Kenmare concert in 1901; 45 and “The Coulin” by Miss M. O’Kane at an Ancient Order of Hibernians ceilidh in Ballyconnell in 1908.46 Piano players also often provided accompaniments for the solo performances of other instruments in early Gaelic Revival concerts and social events. Although 41 Tes Slominski: “ ‘Pretty Young Artistes’ and ‘The Queen of Irish Fiddlers’: Intelligibility, Gender and the Irish Nationalist Imagination”, Ethnomusicology Ireland 2/3 (2013), http://www.ictm.ie/ wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ICTM-journal-Slominski.pdf, at p. 10. 42 “Feis at Mount Ievers, Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare”, in: ACS, 14 October, 1899. This took place at Mount Ievers Court, an impressive country house belonging to the Ievers family. http://www. ihh.ie/houses/101/Mount-Ievers-Court/index.cfm 43 “Newry Branch”, in: Fáinne an Lae, 5 March 1898, p. 7. This was almost certainly a set of fantasias on Irish themes composed by Willie Pape, an Alabama child prodigy who toured England in the mid-nineteenth century, including many performances in Ireland c1865–66. Amy Chen: “The Willie Pape Scrapbooks: An Antebellum Alabama Child Prodigy”, apps.lib.ua.edu/blogs/ coolathoole/2012/12/12/the-willie-pape-scrapbooks-an-antebellum-alabama-child-prodigy/ 44 “O’Connell Memorial Church: Concert at Cahirciveen”, in: Kerry Weekly Reporter, 25 August 1900, p. 3. “Whispers from Erin” (c.1867) was a fantasy on Irish airs by the English teacher and composer W.S. Rockstro. 45 ACS, January 19 1901. This is a notable concert as it also unusually featured a melodeon, an instrument which was often censured by the Gaelic League, in duet with an ‘ivy leaf ’ (the improvised reed instrument); it is thus a very early example of how the participation in League events was not always restricted in terms of social class. 46 Anglo-Celt, 11 January 1908, p. 11.

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Adrian Scahill the repertoire being performed was rarely specified in reports, the use of phrases such as ‘presided at the piano’ or ‘played the accompaniments’ suggest that these were composed pieces with fully-written out parts, rather than representing an improvised or vamped accompaniment. In line with revivalist hierarchies of instruments, the combination of piano and violin was by far the most common, with far fewer performances by f lute players, and one or two isolated examples of more unusual instruments (mandolin, cello).47 No explicit references to the piano accompanying the uilleann pipes have been found to date, although the instruments did appear together in dance ensembles. To what extent these types of performances might have foreshadowed modern traditional music performances with piano accompaniment is difficult to adjudge, although we can be more definite about performances such as that given by fiddler Frank O’Higgins in 1913, playing “The Coulin” with Miss K. McDermott accompanying on piano, given the high reputation accorded to his later recordings.48 To return to the issue of gender, the hierarchical arrangement of male soloist and female accompanist appears, from the records consulted, to have become more common over the period. This was possibly due to the change in the ceilidh’s form from concert to social dance; the increasing involvement of rural traditional musicians to provide dance music; and the weakening inf luence and power of women in public life after the foundation of the state. Women pianists (or piano players) of the Gaelic Revival thus had a visibility and a prominence within the public sphere at the time, but have since generally been forgotten; they form part of a category of forgotten women musicians that Slominski identifies, and perhaps are even a subset of these, as unlike the musicians Slominski groups together (who were melody players), these were further removed from the narrative of traditional music by their instrument, their subordinate role (when accompanying), and by questions of authenticity.49

Dancing to the Piano A new direction for the piano during the Gaelic Revival emerges when the instrument is treated differently by musicians who were beginning to transition away from the art-music arrangement of airs. The shift to dance music is a significant one, as a harbinger of the piano’s future position as the lynchpin for dance-music ensembles; this is evidenced at an early stage by the description of Agnes McHale at a sgoruidheacht in London: “[She] played some jigs, reels, and battle-marches, 47 Violin and piano performances are noted for instance in: ACS, 17 March 1900; ACS, 14 July 1900; Kerry People, 16 January 1904, p. 8; Irish Examiner, 13 June 1905, p. 3; flute and piano in: ACS, 17 June, 1899; mandolin and piano in the Southern Star, 19 May 1900, p. 8. 48 “Irish Night in Athboy”, in: Meath Chronicle, 3 May 1913, p. 5. 49 Slominski: “‘Pretty Young Artistes’”, p. 2.

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The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival arranged by herself, on the piano […] A varied exhibition of Irish dances taken part in by twelve members was a most enjoyable feature. Ceol go leor was supplied by two fiddlers, a f lutist, and a pianist.”50 The use of the piano for dance music was part of the aforementioned change in the nature of the ceilidh, as social dancing began to form a greater part of these events. 51 There was also a gradual move away from the engagement of solo uilleann pipers to provide concert items and music for dancing, as initiated by the London Gaelic League at their initial ceilidhs. 52 While pipers did not disappear completely from the ceilidh in this period, there are more common references to dance music being provided by other instruments—fiddle/violin and f lute, and later melodeon, accordion, and banjo—particularly in ensemble, and very frequently with piano accompaniment. Smaller ceilidhs were still catered for by one to two musicians, often an instrumentalist with piano. Thus there is evidence around this time of solo pianists playing for dancing at social meetings and at classes in London, including McHale and Patterson. 53 There is less evidence of this happening in Ireland, although a National Literary Society ceilidh in 1913 noted that “Mrs O’Leary Curtis will play a selection of Irish country dances on the pianoforte for the benefit of such members as care to take part in some of our fine old reels.”54 Other pianists in Kilkenny and Banagher, Co. Offaly, played piano for dancing at a ceilidh and scoruidheacht in 1908 and 1909. 55 Reg Hall is particularly dismissive of such attempts to bridge the putative worlds of the parlour and the dance hall, suggesting that: “If any of the legitimate musicians interpreted written notations with any danceable quality by changing the rhythmic stress from the written score – which is very unlikely – it is even more unlikely that they shared any technique with rural players.”56 This is highly speculative, though, and it might equally be hypothesised that more skilled classically-trained pianists, who were being exposed to the music of pipers and other musicians on a regular basis, were able to emulate their playing. For instance, the piano player with the later Ballinakill Traditional Dance Players, Anna Rafferty, played the tune perfectly in unison with the f lutes and fiddles of the band, and improvised a left hand based on her recollection of classical basses. 57 50 “The Gaelic League of London: Sgoruidheacht, Athenaeum Hall”, in: ACS, 15 February 1902, p. 822. Note that this was still an exhibition of dancing, rather than a participatory social form. 51 Catherine Foley: “The Irish Céilí: A Site for Constructing, Experiencing, and Negotiating a Sense of Community and Identity”, Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 29 (2011), pp. 43–60, at p. 48. 52 Hall: A Few Tunes, pp. 166–168. 53 Hall: A Few Tunes, p. 177. 54 Freemans Journal, 27 January 1913, p. 4. 55 Kilkenny People, 11 January 1908, p. 5; ACS, 15 January 1910. 56 Hall: A Few Tunes, p. 177. 57 Hall describes how a similar process of adaptation of classical techniques and figurations was used by London-based piano players. Hall: A Few Tunes, p. 510.

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Adrian Scahill The Ballinakill band were formed in 1926, and in the intervening decades it had become more common for local, amateur, traditional musicians to be documented as providing the music, instead of the amateur ‘classical’ musician, or the more artisan or professional artistes found in the nineteenth century. Again, this is not consistently the case, and some musicians were obviously in demand throughout a wider area, indicating that they were engaged on a professional footing. This area is somewhat beyond the remit of this chapter though, and instead I want to focus on the changing nature of the piano’s presence in the context of the ceilidh. To date, the earliest clear references to the piano being played for dancing date from around the 1900s: The dancing arrangements are on an elaborate scale, and the music will consist of a regular string band of fiddles, pipes, f lutes, and piano. 58 Mrs Kenny and her daughters will keep the dancers’ feet moving as only they can, and will have able assistants in Fiach Ua Broin (1st prize Oireachtas), Michael Adarcanach (f lutes), and Miss Sheela Miley (pianist). […] The intervals between dances will be filled with songs etc. 59 On Monday evening the Kells Gaelic Leaguers held another successful Ceilidh at the Courthouse. […] The company numbered about fifty, all of whom joined with zest in dancing the ‘Rinnce Fada’, ‘The Waves of Tory’, and the ‘Walls of Limerick’. […] Tomas McDomhnaill [sic], district teacher, and ‘a host in himself ’, played the dance tunes, gave a grand selection of airs on the violin, including a clever imitation of the bagpipes, sang a rousing Gaelic song, and danced a hornpipe. Seosamh S. Mac Cunsaidin gave a couple of stirring recitations and danced the hornpipe and jig with rare spirit. Songs were rendered by Misses K. Sheridan, A. Connell, Messrs English, Fitzsimons, and Daly. Splendid accompaniments were supplied by Miss Josephine Mulvany, who also assisted in playing the dance music.60 The dance programme comprised reels, High Caul Cap, Humours of Bandon, Waves of Tory, and Rinnce Fadah [sic]; and the music was excellently supplied by Mrs Kenny’s string band, including Sean O’Gorman (fiddle), Mrs Kenny (do.), J. Rooney (do.), O’Higgins (do.), and James Ryan (at the piano).61 These selected extracts illustrate the early appearance of ensembles at ceilidhs and other dance events; the uptake of the new ceilidh dances by Gaelic League branch58 59 60 61

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“An Ard Craobh”, in: Freemans Journal, 26 December 1904, p. 5. “Ceilidh on St Stephen’s Night”, in: Freemans Journal, 25 December 1905, p. 7. Meath Chronicle, 1 June 1907, p. 5. “Ceilidh at the Mansion House”, in: Freemans Journal, 27 December 1910, p. 4.

The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival es and the concomitant advent of social dancing at ceilidhs; and also show how the “participatory concert” character of the ceilidh persisted alongside these new developments. There are several notable figures who appear in these and other similar accounts of revival events. Tomás Mac Domhnaill was a teacher at Pádraig Pearse’s Scoil Éanna and extremely active in the Gaelic League at this time.62 Mrs Kenny was likely to have been the popular ‘Queen of Irish Fiddlers’ who was profiled by Francis O’Neill;63 her daughter Christina, who was better known as Mrs Sheridan, later played fiddle with the Siamsa Gaedheal Ceilidh Band and the Comerford Trio. Frank O’Higgins was a Meath-born fiddler (1891–1975) whose long career began at Gaelic Revival events; he went on to broadcast on radio, record both solo and with the Fingal Trio, and was active in Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.64 He was also a member of the Kells Orchestra, an amateur ensemble that performed locally for many years.65 Finally, and most germane to this chapter, Higgins is recorded as appearing several times with a noted Dublin pianist, Cathal Ó Broin (Charles O’Byrne), who was also very active at Gaelic events in Meath and Dublin around the same period (c.1910–1920).66 From various reports it is clear that both O’Higgins and O’Byrne were both highly-regarded musicians, particularly for their dance music: After the performance a Ceilidh was held in the spacious concert hall. The company all of whom appeared to be well up in Irish figure dancing, disported themselves with remarkable zest in the lively and graceful movements of “The Rinnce Fada”, “The Walls of Limerick”, “The Bridge of Athlone”, and “The Waves of Tory”. Cathal O’Byrne, at the piano (a 62 Diarmuid Breathnach & Máire Ní Mhurchú: “Tomás Mac Domhnaill”, http://www.ainm.ie/ Bio.aspx?ID=640&xml=true 63 Francis O’Neill: Irish Minstrels and Musicians: With Numerous Dissertations on Related Subjects. Chicago: Regan, 1913; facsimile reprint Darby PA: Norwood Editions, 1973, pp. 387–389. Bridget Kenny was recorded in both the 1901 and 1911 census as a musician, and was 54 in 1911. Four of her children, Bridget (born c1885), Patrick (c.1887), Christina (c.1892) and Josephine (c.1896), also had musician listed as their occupation (Bridget and Patrick were not listed at the family home in 1911). See http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/ Merchants_Quay/Madden_s_Court/1299328/ and http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/ 1911/Dublin/Merchant_s_Quay/Madden_s_Court/71297/ 64 Irish Press, 5 June 1975, p. 4; Treoir, 36:1 (2004), p. 28. 65 Meath Chronicle, 4 February 1956, p. 2. 66 O’Byrne is a less documented figure; he was probably born around 1887, to Thomas and Emily Byrne. His mother’s occupation in 1911 was music teacher, a position she perhaps had due to being widowed. O’Byrne was then a cashier for a jewellers, and was active with the Irish Volunteers in 1916. Interned in Frongoch, he lost his job, and subsequently worked as a warehouseman for Gaeltacht Industries, up to his death in 1939. See http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/ Dublin/Rathmines___Rathgar_East/Mountpleasant_Square/50683/; “Cathal Ó Broin”, in: Irish Press, 28 January 1939, p. 11; Military Services Pensions Collection, File MSP34REF5287, http:// www.militaryarchives.ie/collections/online-collections/military-service-pensions-collection.

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Adrian Scahill “full grand” of magnificent tone and volume) and Frank O’Higgins with his sweet-toned violin, joined in producing such a feast of dance music as is rarely to be heard.67 Frank O’Higgins, Cathal O’Byrne and Mrs Sheridan are examples of musicians whose careers spanned the pre- and post-céilí band periods. O’Higgins later played with the Colmcille Ceilidhe Band; O’Byrne almost certainly featured in some of Dick Smith’s ceilidh ensembles;68 and Mrs Sheridan played with the Siamsa Gaedheal Ceilidh Band. Indeed what is very striking about the reports from this period (c.1897–1920) is how the ceilidh (and other similar spaces) brings into focus the highly f luid soundscape of the time. It was a space which could accommodate the different micromusics which fed into and defined the period, and where elements of these micromusics began to be recombined to produce new ideas and new forms of micromusical practice, some unsuccessful and short-lived, and others which became more clearly defined and attained a degree of permanency (or became traditional).69 The piano’s centrality to this revival soundscape has been established here, and although it is arguably within the new micromusical practices of the céilí band that the instrument became fully established within the broader soundscape of Irish traditional music, in the sense that the piano is essential to the céilí band’s sound and identity, whereas other forms of piano accompaniment are completely replaceable by other instruments (or are dispensable), this was undeniably primed by the consistent inclusion of the piano within pre-céilí band ensembles (such as string bands, orchestras, and trios) and as accompaniment to duet and solo performers. The evidence for the piano’s wide use in this period also demonstrates that the common hypothesis relating the piano’s popularization in traditional music to its use on American 78s is not completely accurate.70

67 “Gaelic Re-Union at Kilskyre”, in: Meath Chronicle, 10 April 1915, p. 1. 68 It seems highly plausible that Cathal Ó Broin and Cathal/Charles O’Byrne were one and the same pianist. The group broadcast, performed and recorded in the 1920s and 1930s under various names: Dick Smith’s Star Ceilidh(e) Band, Dick Smith’s Ceilidh(e) Trio, and Dick Smith’s Ceilidh(e) Band. The trio are named in the Leinster Leader, 26 June 1926, p. 5. Further evidence of the connection is contained in the brief report on his funeral, which notes that a Dick Smith and Frank Higgins attended; see “Cathal Ó Broin”, p. 11. 69 This draws on Mark Slobin’s concept of micromusics, and Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin’s more recent application of these ideas to Irish traditional music. Ó hAllmhuráin: Flowing Tides, p. 10 and passim. 70 For examples see Aileen Dillane et al: “piano”, in: The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, ed. Fintan Vallely. Cork, Cork University Press, 2011, pp. 541–544, here 542; Ciarán Carson: Irish Traditional Music. Belfast, Appletree Press, 1986, p. 40; Hall: A Few Tunes, p. 415. Apart from John J. Kimmel’s output (from c1903–c1920), recordings of Irish musicians on 78rpm records only appeared from c1916 onwards. It is hence very unlikely that pre-1916 recordings had much if any impact on piano playing within the early decades of the Gaelic Revival.

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Critical Reflections In contrast to the debates over the suitability of the piano as an accompaniment to traditional singing, critical assessment of either the appropriateness of the piano within dance context, or indeed of piano playing itself, is much less common. Given the opprobrium often heaped on instruments such as the melodeon and concertina,71 the tacit acceptance of the piano might seem somewhat surprising, but the complex interplay of social class, education, and national identity of this period complicate the treatment of these different instruments. For many of those involved in Gaelic Revival activities, the piano was integral to their musical world, was an important symbol of respectability and class, and was a natural vehicle for the articulation of Irish identity.72 By contrast, the antagonism towards British popular culture was easily extended to instruments which were beginning to be adopted widely by the working and lower middle classes, and significantly by the rural population. However, as Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin shrewdly observes, instruments like the concertina were initially the preserve of the élite, and their democratization was a gradual process.73 Perhaps the same could be said of the piano in this period; its elite associations remained strong, but it was undergoing the same process of democratization, one which (like the concertina and accordion) involved the adaptation of the instrument to an emergent tradition. Reinvoking the idea of the soundscape, then, it seems unlikely that those from the working and lower middles classes never encountered the instrument in any form: after all, it was equally a vehicle for the popular music-hall songs which raised the ire of so many, and which, if reports are to be believed, were thoroughly in the popular ear. As part of the broader soundscape of the time, then, the piano was just as ripe for absorption as were other instruments; indeed, given that it was in this period that the modern sense of ‘traditional music’ begins to emerge, arguably the piano and these other instruments did not ‘enter’ the tradition, but were part of its creation. What Dowling describes as the music’s “hybrid quality of porosity and incubation”, the nature of the modern tradition to absorb and reinvent,74 is surely exhibited in a Sinn Féin Halloween celebration where “Turf fires burned on the 71 Even Patrick Pearse memorably mocked the instruments in a classic anti-popular culture tirade: “In the old days the people gathered round the fire at night to have a ‘ceilid’[sic]. The boys used to hurdle, or dance the old Irish dances at the cross roads. Now there was no ‘ceilids’[sic], no dance at the cross roads. Instead they had got polkas, lancers, and the Lord knows what. For the harp and bagpipes they had the melodeon and concertina, or the jewsharp [sic] (laughter)”, in: Irish Examiner, 30 September 1902, p. 8. 72 Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society, pp. 211–213; Hall: A Few Tunes, p. 120. 73 Ó hAllmhuráin: Flowing Tides, pp. 81–84 74 Martin Dowling: “The Difference of Irish Music”, in: Are the Irish Different?, ed. Tom Inglis. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2014, pp. 188–198, here p. 196.

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Adrian Scahill hearths, and to the music of the pipes and f lutes, aided by the modern piano and many violins, the traditional dances were enjoyed with spirit and zest”.75 On the other hand, a more pedestrian explanation exists, which relates to Fintan Vallely’s contention that the Gaelic League cared little about music (compared to song), and at that time, “music was a matter of either art (Classical) or practical entertainment (Irish music), the first contained in prescriptive texts, ordained as art […], the second simply everywhere, utilised in ritual social occasion, and overwhelmingly oral.” 76 Incorporating the piano with song raised too many intractable problems relating to national identity, musical difference and otherness, and authenticity, whereas in instrumental music, and dance music in particular, these were occluded by the functional nature of the music. For dancing there had to be music, and it seemed to matter less how this music was provided. Some brief assessment of piano playing exists in contemporary accounts, though, sometimes hinting at the adaptation of the instrument, as noted of pianist Eibhlin O’Reilly at a ceilidh, “whose playing invested our music with a native verve too often absent from performances on that instrument”.77 The redoubtable Hardebeck weighed in on the subject in 1917, voicing his displeasure at the poor standard of piano playing at ceilidhs, and the poor treatment of musicians: The question of dance music, he [Hardebeck] held, had been long neglected and it merited serious and immediate consideration. At present it was usual to have no proper piano accompaniment for the other instruments, and all that was expected of the pianist was to vamp or keep time. This was deplorable. […] “turns” of mediocre value at variety entertainments were adequately staged and had good orchestral accompaniment, but we seemed to think that anything was good enough for an Irish dance. [Regarding] the remuneration of the musicians […] many promoters of ceilidhths [sic] presumed that crotchets and quavers nourished the orchestra.78 His criticism of vamping (here meaning improvisation or extemporization rather than the specific musical figure) echoes a much earlier critique by Brendan Rogers of the piano playing at the 1900 Oireachtas: “Another point was that proper accompaniments should be provided. It would not do to be vamping accompaniments to these melodies, which were built on ancient modes which had got into disuse.” 79 Hardebeck’s comments on the piano player only keeping time 75 “All Hallows’ Eve: Sinn Féin Celebration”, in: Freemans Journal, 1 November 1911, p. 10. 76 Fintan Vallely: “Authenticity to Classicisation: The Course of the Revival in Irish Traditional Music”, The Irish Review 33 (2005), pp. 51–67, here p. 67. 77 Meath Chronicle, 13 April 1918, p. 1. 78 ACS, 28 April 1917. 79 ACS, 26 May 1900. Rogers’ stance is progressivist here, as he goes on to exhort pianists to go back

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The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival call to mind a later critic of céilí bands, Seán Ó Riada, and his famous dismissal of their music as “rhythmic and meaningless noise”.80 The extent to which their vision for the music aligned is even more strikingly evident in Hardebeck’s adjudicatory comments on the Tailteann Games, where he enthused: “We want this class of music harmonised for our people”, he concluded. “Our Irish dance music is beautiful, it is classical, and we want to make it classical and not like jazz and the music of the music halls, because it is better than them all put together.”81 Similarly, the collector, musician and dance teacher Frank Roche, who was active in the early decades of the century as organiser and adjudicator at feiseanna, was another who felt that the ceilidh band lacked musical interest and ambition, stating in 1935 that he was “not aware of a single arrangement for them, if he may except his own Quintett [sic] arrangement (yet in MS) for two violins, f lute, cello and piano of the ‘Fantasia on Irish Airs’ for violin and piano by Carl Hardebeck and himself ”. 82 These critiques appeal for a more ‘artistic’ treatment of the music, and highlight that for the old guard of the Gaelic Revival (Hardebeck and Roche were writing in the 1930s) the progressivist yearning for a more developed Irish music based on sources from history still endured.83 But in truth this had already happened, although not in a form that they recognised – the modern céilí band represents this coming together of a traditional repertory and newly-integrated instruments: the piano from the Gaelic Revival; the drums from the more popular dance bands; and a performance style which incorporated aspects of all of these forms. In conclusion, then, this chapter illustrates how the piano occupies a complex position within the soundscape of the Gaelic Revival. It formed an essential part of the space within which a reconciliation between the different sociocultural musical identities could be attempted, and helped facilitate an engagement (even if f lawed) with the emerging traditional music of the rural tradition. More specifically, the piano can be said to have functioned as a modern, known context for the less familiar traditional music, helping to translate it into a musical language intelligible to the League’s members, and therefore mediating between the different sociocultural groups (and their musics) involved in the revival. Finally, underlining the interpretation by P.J. Mathews that the Gaelic League was “a modernizing to these modes in order to produce “something original in musical art”. 80 Seán Ó Riada: Our Musical Heritage. Portlaoise: Dolmen Press, 1982, p. 74. 81 “Tailteann Successes: Irish Traditional Music”, in: Irish Press, 11 July 1932, p. 7. 82 Proinnsias De Róiste: “Irish Music: Aspects of the Present Position”, in: Limerick Leader, 5 October 1935, p. 3. 83 For a Lacanian interpretation of “Irish musical desire”, see Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society, pp. 175–190.

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Adrian Scahill force in Irish cultural life”,84 the piano’s earlier use in ceilidhs could be said to have potentialised its centrality to the céilí band, and indeed potentialised its wider use within twentieth-century traditional music.

Select Bibliography Cooper, David: “‘Twas One of those Dreams that by Music are Brought’: The Development of the Piano and the Preservation of Irish Traditional Music”, in: Irish Musical Studies 9: Music in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, ed. Michael Murphy and Jan Smaczny. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007, pp. 74–93. Costello, Éamonn, Sean-nós Singing and Oireachtas na Gaeilge: Identity, Romantic Nationalism, and the Agency of the Gaeltacht Community Nexus. PhD Diss., University of Limerick, 2015. Dowling, Martin: Traditional Music and Society: Historical Perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Foley, Catherine: “The Irish Céilí: A Site for Constructing, Experiencing, and Negotiating a Sense of Community and Identity”, Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 29 (2011), pp.43–60. Hall, Reg: A Few Tunes of Good Music: A History of Irish Music and Dance in London, 1800–1980 & Beyond. London: Reg. Hall, 2016. Martyn Edward: “The Gaelic League and Irish Music”, The Irish Review 1 (1911), pp. 449–450. Mathews, P.J., Revival: The Abbey Theatre, Sinn Féin, The Gaelic League and the Cooperative Movement. Cork: Cork University Press, 2003. Ó hAllmhuráin, Gearóid: Flowing Tides: History & Memory in an Irish Soundscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Ó Laoire, Lillis: “National Identity and Local Ethnicity: The Case of the Gaelic League’s Oireachtas sean-nós singing competitions”, in: Sharing the Voices: The Phenomenon of Singing 2, ed. Brian A. Roberts and Andrea B. Rose. St John’s, Newfoundland: Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000, pp.160–169. Slominski, Tes: “ ‘Pretty Young Artistes’ and ‘The Queen of Irish Fiddlers’: Intelligibility, Gender and the Irish Nationalist Imagination”, Ethnomusicology Ireland 2/3 (2013), http://www.ictm.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ICTM-journal-Slominski.pdf Vallely, Fintan: “Authenticity to Classicisation: The Course of the Revival in Irish Traditional Music”, The Irish Review 33 (2005), pp.51–67. 84 Mathews: Revival, p. 27.

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The Piano and Traditional Music in the Gaelic Revival White, Harry: “The Invention of Ethnicity: Traditional Music and the Modulations of Irish Culture”, in: Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond, ed. Mark Fitzgerald and John O’Flynn. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, pp.273–285.      : The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770-1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998.

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“Hopes for regeneration”: Opera in Revivalist Dublin, 1900–1916 Maria McHale In June 1910, an article appeared in the Irish Times outlining a proposal for British opera: There is a growing movement in England in favour of a national opera scheme. I should like to see that enthusiasm diverted to the establishment of a British opera-centre in Dublin, where it would find more congenial soil, leaving England to its more natural forms of musical expression, oratorio on one hand, and musical comedy on the other. If there were an opera house here, I believe Ireland would soon prove herself able to supply the majority of the personnel, and that original works by Irish composers would soon take a leading place in its repertoire. 1 The “growing movement in England” was, without doubt, a reference to the national opera debates in Britain that regularly appeared in the musical press in a somewhat cyclical fashion, notably in a cluster of publications at the beginning of the twentieth century. 2 In one fell swoop, the author of this article captured for many the deep-rooted problems of developing opera in England: that of oratorio and the amateur choral tradition, and the propensity for light opera, most obviously in Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Savoy’ operas. For a large number of commentators in England, it seemed, there was little appetite for opera. By refocussing the efforts to create a centre of opera to Britain’s second city, the result would be not only a longed-for national opera house (for Britain) but one that would provide fertile ground for Irish composers. But why should this seemingly unrealistic proposal warrant attention? Rather than dismiss it as nothing more than a f light of fancy, an examination of the musical, cultural and political context of the period allows for a more nuanced reading that opens doors to Dublin’s musical life in the early years of the twentieth century. This was a period of relative stability before the seminal events of Easter week, 1916, would change the political landscape entirely. Indeed, the 1 The Clubman: “Dublin Topics - Hopes for Regeneration” in: Irish Times, 4 June 1910, p. 6. 2 Publications include: William Johnson Galloway: The Operatic Problem. London: John Long, 1902; Charles Villiers Stanford: “The Case for National Opera” in: Studies and Memories. London: Archibald, Constance & Co., 1908; Joseph Goddard: The Rise and Development of Opera. London: William Reeves, 1911; and Rutland Boughton and Reginald R. Buckley: The Music Drama of the Future. London: William Reeves, 1911.

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Maria McHale hope of a Home Rule parliament in the early years of the new century brought with it a sense of confidence. For the vast majority of Dubliners, the aspiration was for self-government for Ireland while remaining within the union. This political optimism, along with an improved material existence for large numbers of middle-class Catholics, gave rise to a thriving cultural life in Dublin that included opera and, in particular, a growing interest in Wagnerism. Meanwhile, the Gaelic Revival and its attendant organizations gave further impetus to this admixture of culture and nationalism. In this light, the ‘hopes of regeneration’ expressed in this article have a firmer footing than might first seem.

Opera in Dublin In order to understand the position occupied by opera at this time, it is necessary to look back brief ly to the previous century when Italian opera held sway with Dublin audiences. The Theatre Royal, which opened in 1821, led the way in this regard. 3 Within a decade, a season of Italian opera was established that would continue for almost fifty years with London-based Italian opera companies making regular appearances. Moreover, some of the foremost singers of the day, including Emma Albani (1847–1930), Jenny Lind (1829–1887) and Adelina Patti (1843–1919), performed there. The last season of Italian opera took place in 1878 with J. H. Mapleson’s Italian Opera Company. However, when the theatre burnt down in 1880, Italian opera faded from Dublin, albeit not entirely with both Mapleson’s Italian Opera Company and the Augustus Harris Italian Opera Company returning in the 1880s and 1890s.4 Despite this, the final quarter of the nineteenth century saw the ascendency of opera in English. This ascendency was firmly in place by the early twentieth century and underpinned by travelling opera companies appearing largely at the Gaiety Theatre, which opened in 1871, and the Theatre Royal, which, by 1897, had reopened as the ‘New Theatre Royal and Opera House’, thus nailing its colours as a venue for opera. Of the travelling opera companies that made their way through the British provinces and onto Ireland, both the Moody Manners and the Carl Rosa companies were particularly successful. 5 Initial appearances in Ireland for both took 3

4 5

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The theatre opened on 18 January 1821 and a performance of The Marriage of Figaro took place just two weeks later. For an overview of the history of opera at the theatre see Maria McHale: “Theatre Royal” in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, 2 vols., ed. Harry White and Barra Boydell. Dublin: University Dublin Press, 2013, vol. 2, pp. 982–83. J. H. Mapleson’s Italian Opera Company performed at the Gaiety in 1886 and 1887 while the same theatre hosted Augustus Harris’s Italian Opera Company in 1888, 1893 and 1894. The Moody Manners Opera Company performed at the Theatre Royal from 1898 to 1910. When the first of the two Moody Manners’ companies folded in 1910 it returned just once more to the Gaiety in 1914 for one season. The company was disbanded completely in 1916. The Carl Rosa

Opera in Revivalist Dublin, 1900–1916 place at the Theatre Royal, with the Carl Rosa Opera Company appearing there in 1875 and Moody Manners in 1898; however, 1880 saw the beginning of a long association of Carl Rosa’s company with the Gaiety Theatre where it would continue to perform until the Second World War. Carl Rosa’s troupes staged popular works alongside those that were new to the repertoire, and the combination of well-received productions, reasonably priced tickets and the performance of operas in English ensured the company’s success for several decades. In the period 1880–1920, it is perhaps not surprising that the ‘local’ operas, Balfe’s Bohemian Girl and Wallace’s Maritana, were performed regularly, although not as much as Carmen and Il Trovatore. The latter was, in fact, performed more times than any of Verdi’s other operas during this period. Undoubtedly, the most frequently performed opera was Gounod’s Faust, perhaps the most popular opera in the British Isles in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.6 While the Carl Rosa Opera Company’s longevity accords it a central place in the history of opera in Dublin, numerous other touring companies made their way to Ireland and were hosted largely by the Theatre Royal and the Gaiety. The diaries and papers of the avid theatre-goer Joseph Holloway (1861–1944) include references to the Elsner-Grime Company, F.S. Gilbert’s Grand Opera Company, Arthur Rousbey’s Opera Company, the Joseph O’ Mara Company, the Quinlan Opera Company and, of course, the Moody Manners Opera Company.7 There were also ad hoc companies, put together for the sole purpose of performing one opera, often for a short run. All of this activity took place in addition to twiceyearly performances of Savoy operas from the visiting D’Oyly Carte Company. Given the range of touring companies and their regular appearances in the city, it is clear that Dubliners enjoyed a substantial amount of opera at the turn of the century. In fact, in the seventeen-year period under discussion here, there were over 1000 performances of opera at the Theatre Royal and the Gaiety combined: an average of sixty nights of opera each year. 8 These figures represent a continuation of the relatively healthy position of operatic performances in Dublin established in the previous twenty years: a prevalence that goes some way towards explaining the pervasiveness of music (more generally) and opera (in particular) in the writings of James Joyce. As Harry White has acutely observed: “The musiCompany’s association with the Gaiety Theatre began in 1880 and continued until the Second World War. 6 The popularity of these works is based on information obtained by the author from the National Library of Ireland’s “Joseph Holloway Collection” (further details in notes below). 7 Holloway attended virtually every first night of Dublin’s theatre scene for a period of some sixty years. His vast collection of notebooks, diaries and theatre paraphernalia the “Joseph Holloway Collection” is housed at the National Library of Ireland. 8 I have drawn this figure from Holloway’s own records of performances (“Joseph Holloway Collection”, Mss. 12, 071-73).

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Maria McHale cal works on which [ Joyce] so memorably depends have an a priori essence, and as iconic symbols of culture, of consciousness, and of the past itself, they attain a new significance in literature”.9 Notwithstanding his own musical ability, Joyce’s summoning of opera, song and singers reveals a musical culture deep-rooted in the city of his youth. The opera companies that visited Dublin ensured perennial performances of popular works which were, of course, vital for financial return. However, in addition to the regular performances of Faust, Carmen and Maritana, they were also responsible for the introduction of new repertoire to Ireland, using popular works to shore up unestablished repertoire. The 1880s and 1890s had seen several premieres including Aida (1888), Otello (1893), Tannhäuser (1893), Falstaff (1894), Die Meistersinger (1894), Rienzi (1894), and La bohème (1897).10 This continued into the twentieth century, with 1901 marking the premieres of both Sieg fried and Tristan und Isolde. While Tannhäuser had been remarkably popular from its inception, the new century marked a growing interest in Wagner more generally.

Wagner: “the music of today”11 The 1901 premieres of Sieg fried and Tristan mark a phase in Wagner reception in Ireland that would reach something of a pinnacle in 1913, the centenary year of the composer’s birth. Both works were positively received, with Tristan being described as “the second great event” of the Carl Rosa season, the first having been the company’s performance of Sieg fried just a few days earlier.12 In discussing the forthcoming production of Tristan, an unsigned writer for the Irish Times drew readers’ attention to the Celtic basis for the story with the added caveat to “concentrate their attention as well on the orchestration as upon the vocal score and the action”.13 The idea of directing theatre-goers in this way often went beyond a simple outline of the plot. Some writers saw it as an opportunity to ‘educate’ their readers. In this regard, there were few to rival Annie Patterson who wrote in 1901: [B]ut there are deeper things to be discovered in Wagner’s music […] there is the inner, philosophic coherency of words, the symmetry and harmony of all scenic surroundings with the deliberate progress and the ultimate 9 Harry White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination. Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 155. 10 In addition there were a number of premieres of operas by British and Irish composers including Cowen, Goring Thomas, MacCunn, Sullivan and Stanford, largely owing to commissioned works from the Carl Rosa Opera Company. 11 “Wagner – Review of Angelo Neumann’s ‘Personal Recollections of Wagner (1908)’” in: Irish Times, 12 March 1909, p. 7. 12 “Tristan and Isolde – First Performance in Dublin”, in: Irish Times, 6 December, 1901, p. 6. 13 Ibidem, p. 6.

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Opera in Revivalist Dublin, 1900–1916 grand climax of the music drama. […] there is a strong protest against triviality, artificiality, conventionality and mere exterior glamour in music.14 That the “deeper things” of Wagner’s music dramas were appreciated by Dublin theatre-goers is apparent from her summary, in the same article, of the reception of Sieg fried’s premiere: ‘Siegfried’ has been received in Dublin with, from a mixed audience’s point of view, an intelligence which does credit to the critical reputation of the city. […] From the rise to the fall of the curtain, the audience quietly and earnestly followed the measured and gradual march of the drama and it was evident that the marvellous restraint of the author-composer – the striking repose of the action – strongly impressed even the most impulsive of listener present.15 The proliferation of Wagner’s music was echoed in the concert hall too when, in the following year, Esposito’s Dublin Orchestral Society presented a virtually all-Wagner programme.16 This prompted one critic to describe the concert as “a Wagner Festival in petto” that marked “a new step in our musical progress”.17 While the music was lauded in no uncertain terms, it is the commentary on musical taste more generally that is worth considering: But at all events it was proved that the steadily growing appreciation of Wagner [sic] music is a reality, and that the love, and still more the knowledge, of all that is best in modern developments of the art, have struck deep roots in the popular mind. What was once called “Wagnerism” has ceased to exist. […] Not so long ago it was the fashion to proclaim that the music of the German master could never find appreciation in a country which had been educated in the school of Balfe and Wallace. But it is a circumstance of the best promise that Irish musical taste has never lost its catholicity. If our tone poets of the elder school have become somewhat passé, they still have lost nothing of their power to charm.18

14 Dr Annie Patterson: “How Wagner won his public”, in: Irish Times, 7 December, 1901, p. 5. For a discussion of Patterson’s extensive writings see, Jennifer O’ Connor: The Role of Women in Music in Nineteenth Century Dublin, PhD Diss., National University of Maynooth, 2010. 15 Ibidem, p. 5. 16 The concert comprised orchestral excerpts from Der fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Die Walküre and Tannhäuser. The exception to the virtually all-Wagner programme was Handel’s Oboe Concerto in G minor, HWV 287. 17 “Dublin Orchestral Society – The Wagner Concert”, in: Irish Times, January 25 1902, p. 7. 18 Ibidem, p. 7.

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Maria McHale What is interesting here is the idea of ‘Wagnerism’ having evolved from that which was perceived as exclusive and elitist to something that, by the turn of the century, had been absorbed into mainstream popular taste. Somewhat shrewdly, the passé figures of Balfe and Wallace, whose perennially popular works continued to be performed by the travelling opera companies, were presented as evidence of a ‘catholicity’ of taste rather than simply old-fashioned. This absorption of Wagner into popular taste is further evident a few years later in a piece published in the Irish Times on Neumann’s Personal Recollections of Wagner (1908). Again, the reviewer takes the opportunity to ref lect on the current status of Wagner in Ireland: [F]or Wagner’s music is no longer merely ‘the music of the future’, but is the music of today. You will find now, wherever and however it is played, packed houses and concert rooms. Here in Dublin this year we saw the ‘Meistersingers’ being given five times in quick succession, and the house fuller at the last performance than at the first one […] The great master’s operas are known and loved even here in Ireland, and he requires no puffing now.19 The tenor of these articles, when combined with the actual record of performances, indicates that in the operatic culture of early twentieth-century Dublin, Wagner ranked highly. Indeed, from 1900 to 1916 Tannhäuser was performed thirty-seven times while Lohengrin had twenty-three performances. 20 The older, established repertoire was joined by newly introduced works and following its 1901 premiere, Tristan was produced a further six times over the next dozen years. Judging by press reactions, performances of Wagner’s works were both well received and well attended, a point that is all the more remarkable given that the Gaiety and Theatre Royal seated 1,800 and 2,300 respectively. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that in this climate, the impresario, Thomas Quinlan, decided to produce the first complete Ring cycle in Dublin in 1913. Quinlan’s opera company had made its first visit to Dublin in December 1911 having been established earlier that year. On Christmas Eve 1912, ahead of the next season, Quinlan gave an interview to the Irish Times in which he talked about the forthcoming tour of his 165-strong company and sixty-piece orchestra. Like the older touring companies, Carl Rosa’s and Moody Manners’, Quinlan’s troupe travelled to the provincial cities of Britain and Ireland. However, in this interview, he indicated a preference for opera that was, he suggested, not quite matched 19 “Wagner – Review of Angelo Neumann’s ‘Personal Recollections of Wagner’ (1908)”, in: Irish Times, 12 March 1909, p. 7. 20 This figure comprises the combined performances at both the Theatre Royal and The Gaiety as recorded by Holloway: “Joseph Holloway Collection”, Ms. 12, 071–73.

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Opera in Revivalist Dublin, 1900–1916 elsewhere in the British Isles, going as far to state: “Dublin, I may say, is the only city in the United Kingdom where I would risk a three-and-a-half-weeks’ season of opera. Consequently much is to be said for Dublin.”21 That “much was to be said for Dublin” is evident by the staging of twenty operas in a little over three weeks. This meant that a negligible number of operas were repeated with the company virtually producing a different work each night: a remarkable feat both logistically and financially. Quinlan was far too adept a businessman to throw caution to the wind when it came to repertory and, more importantly, profit. In a short period of time, he knew his market well enough to realize that Dubliners would make the bumper 1912–13 season worthwhile. Indeed, the return of the company just a few months later, in May 1913 for the season that would include the complete Ring cycle, indicates as much. The event was both greatly anticipated and widely reported. Again, it seems that Quinlan was confident in the Dublin public in this undertaking. After all, half the Ring cycle was already in the repertory since he had brought Die Walküre to Dublin in 1912 while Sieg fried had been performed by both the Carl Rosa and Moody Manners companies in earlier years. Quinlan’s timing was of key importance to the success of the venture. The centenary year lent itself to much coverage of all things Wagnerian. An examination of the press reveals a range of reportage in newspapers across the political spectrum including the Evening Herald, Freeman’s Journal, Irish Examiner, Irish Independent and Irish Times among others. As the great event approached, the tickets sold quickly with “heavy booking” being reported in the Evening Herald along with a notification of only “a few remaining seats.”22 Neither was the interest in the cycle restricted to Dublin since a later report in the same publication remarked upon “the number of applications […] from the provinces such as Cork, Sligo, Derry, and Waterford.”23 The sell-out performances did not disappoint. Indeed, the reporting of a “spontaneous cheer which went up from the crowded house” after the first act of Die Walküre captures the enthusiasm for the cycle as does the comment that “we came away with the joyous feeling of having assisted at a superbly sung performance, a thing of downright beauty.” 24 It seemed that Wagnerism had reached a fever pitch that was unabated even with the four-night cycle being interrupted by a performance of the ubiquitous Faust (between Das Rheingold and Die Walküre). Remarkably, this appears to have prompted no comment in the press whatsoever thus confirming, perhaps, the so-called ‘catholicity’ of taste noted a decade earlier. 25 And yet, in spite of this, there is also sense that 21 22 23 24 25

“Quinlan Opera Company – Coming Season in Dublin”, in: Irish Times, 24 December, 1912, p. 6. “Wagner’s Ring in Dublin”, in: Evening Herald, 26 April 1913, p. 1. “’The Ring’ – Great Music Drama Next Week”, in: Evening Herald, 8 May 1913, p. 7. Jacques: [Untitled], in: Irish Independent, 15 May 1913, p. 4. The dates of performance were: Das Rheingold, Monday 13 May; Faust, Tuesday 14 May; Die Walküre, Wednesday 15 May; Sieg fried, Thursday 16 May, and Götterdämmerung, Friday 17 May.

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Maria McHale the musical landscape of Dublin had changed. After the full cycle had been performed, one writer ruminated: Like the storm in the poem, he has ‘arrived, and roared, and passed’. Of course he was tremendous. The departure of the ‘Ring’ leaves us aff licted and relieved. Wagner is a master. He is not a companion. 26 The proliferation of lectures, book reviews and lengthy features in newspapers indicate a healthy appetite for the composer in the months around the centenary of May 1913. Indeed, in August, shortly after the Ring cycle, there were further opportunities for hearing Wagner’s music. The first of these was two concerts held at Woodbrook in Bray (at a sports hall that had been converted into a concert hall), where an all-Wagner programme was presented by the London Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Hamilton Harty. The Prelude and Liebestod, and particularly Agnes Nicholls’ singing, were declared to be among “the finest items of the concert.”27 Yet more of Wagner’s music could be heard later in the month, this time at the Dame Street Picture House, where the 1913 biopic – The Life and Works of Richard Wagner – ran for a week. The film was shown three times a day with a full orchestra playing selections of Wagner’s music throughout, thus fusing music and biography, with the figure of Wagner further mythologized on the big screen. While the summer of 1913 proved to be something of a Wagner festival, the day of the anniversary itself, 22 May 1913, had seen a lengthy life and times article – “Great German Musician” – in the Evening Herald. 28 Just two days later in the same newspaper, William O’ Leary Curtis wrote a “Centenary Appreciation” ref lecting on the great success of the cycle and observing that the centenary “appropriately enough fell in the middle of our national musical festival, the Feis Ceoil.”29 To align the operatic culture of Dublin together with the Feis Ceoil in this article is revealing at a number of levels because it was alongside the Wagnerism of the early years of the twentieth century that cultural revivalism was gathering momentum. Furthermore, it was in this environment that a number of initiatives evolved to create and to develop Irish opera.

26 “Quinlan’s injustice to Wagner”, in: Sunday Independent, 18 May 1913, p. 6. Incidentally, the ‘injustice’ in the title pertained to the stage sets which were described as “bad” although all other aspects of the performance were praised. 27 Jack Point: “London Symphony Orchestra – Grand Wagner Concert”, in: Evening Herald, 14 August, 1913, p. 4. 28 Annie G. Higgins: “Great German Musician” in: Evening Herald, 22 May 1913, p. 5. 29 W. O’Leary Curtis: “Centenary Appreciation”, in: Evening Herald, 24 May 1913, p. 6.

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The Gaelic Revival and opera The first decade of the twentieth century is remarkable for a cluster of Irish operas that engage directly with Gaelic revivalism: Michele Esposito’s The Post Bag (1902) and The Tinker and the Fairy (1910); William Harvey Pélissier’s Connla of the Golden Hair (1903); Thomas O’Brien Butler’s Muirgheis (1903); and Robert O’ Dwyer’s Eithne (1909). 30 While none of these works enjoyed any longevity, it is notable that each one intersects, whether directly or indirectly, with organizations or individuals associated with the Feis Ceoil, the Gaelic League and the Irish Literary Society. For example, The Tinker and the Fairy was based on a play by Douglas Hyde; Connla of the Golden Hair won a prize at the Feis Ceoil of 1903; and, as might be expected given they are operas in the Irish language, both Muirgheis and Eithne were strongly connected to the Gaelic League. Furthermore, the noted Wagnerism of some of these works situates them in a cultural convergence of opera and Gaelic revivalism which is perhaps not surprising given the prominence of literary Wagnerism in and around the same period. 31 That these works could draw on both cultural inf luences is best illustrated through Eithne, whose composer, Robert O’ Dwyer, was the founder and director of the choir of the Gaelic League (having earlier in his career conducted for both the Carl Rosa and Rousbey opera companies). The popularity of the Gaelic League at the turn of the century cannot be underestimated. Its growth, from its foundation by Douglas Hyde in 1893, was rapid and can be gauged by the circulation figures of a primer, Simple Lessons, often purchased in branches of the League, which had sold 320,000 copies by 1903. 32 As the movement developed and other aspects of revival became important, the significance of music was manifested through processions and feiseanna. The latter were small, local festivals that culminated in an annual Oireachtas and it was in this context that Eithne first appeared. Therefore, in a relatively short period, the musical impetus of the Oireachtas had grown from readings and recitations interspersed with songs and dances, to the staging of a grand opera. O’ Dwyer collaborated with Tomás Ó Ceallaigh on the story of Eithne which is based on an Irish folk tale, Ean an Cheoil bhinn (‘The Bird of Sweet Song’). Abounding in Celtic themes, the plot concerns the love story between Eithne, the daughter of the King of Tir na nÓg, and Ceart, the son of the High King of Ireland. Musically, Eithne demonstrates a variety of inf luences, but it was the 30 For a rich discussion of Irish opera in a broader chronological context, see Axel Klein: “StageIrish, or the national in Irish Opera, 1780–1925” in: The Opera Quarterly 21/1 (2005), pp. 27–67. 31 Connla of the Golden Hair and Eithne were notable in this regard. 32 Timothy G. McMahon: Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893–1910. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 92.

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Maria McHale Wagnerian elements with Irish folk-style material that were readily recognized in the first performances as reviews from the Freeman’s Journal and the Southern Star indicate: That Mr O’ Dwyer possesses the requisite equipment for the task as a composer and one filled with true Celtic spirit will be admitted. But he has something more. […] There are many fine and striking characteristics in the work – some portions are not at all unsuggestive of a tendency to the Wagnerian method by which the voice is made more or less subservient to the orchestra. 33 If the growth of a distinctly Irish civilization had not been arrested it is not unreasonable to expect that we would now have a rich repertoire of operas in the Irish language. That we have the genius capable of producing them there cannot be any doubt. ‘Eithne’ is the indication that another broken thread in our ancient civilization has been taken up and woven in to the fabric modelled by the Gaelic League […] It has been suggested that ‘Eithne’ has a model other than Irish, but had the development of an Irish civilization not been checked it is natural to assume that we would have arrived at the present stage of advancement as soon as other nations had done. 34 The author of the latter article dealt swiftly with any critique of the music; crucially, it was not foreign, but modern. This reading of the work, no doubt, resonated with many of the urban, non-Irish speaking membership of the Gaelic League for whom the musical language of opera, whether Wagnerian or otherwise, was familiar. Indeed, the meeting of these cultures is evident from a newspaper report in 1908, the year before Eithne’s premiere, of a concert in which the choir of the Keating branch of the Gaelic League, under Vincent O’Brien, performed excerpts from both Faust and Muirgheis. 35 In this light, the composition and performance of Eithne in the context of the Oireachtas is a somewhat less surprising development given the close proximity of Dublin’s operatic culture to the cultural revivalism that was growing apace among the urban Gaeilgeoirí. O’ Dwyer, at the heart of the League itself and with a history of working with travelling opera companies, was well placed to understand and respond to this cultural conf luence. Indeed, a couple of years later, Carl Hardebeck would point to the Gaelic League as a beacon to all involved in music:

33 “An Irish Opera”, Freeman’s Journal, 3 August 1909, p. 5. 34 “An Oireachtas”, Southern Star, 7 August 1909. 35 “Muirgheis Irish Opera”, in: Freeman’s Journal, 17 October, 1908, p. 10.

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Opera in Revivalist Dublin, 1900–1916 The Gaelic League movement is now on the way to become a real force for the development of what is best in the country. It is high time that managers of concerts became a part of Irish Ireland, and that a demand be made that all Irish professional singers be paid well on the condition that they must – whatever else they sing – sing at least one song in Gaelic […]36 While a positive reception to the Eithne was unsurprising in the context of the Oireachtas, in 1910, less than twelve months after its first performances, it received similar plaudits after a week’s worth of performances at the Gaiety Theatre. On the day of the first performance, the Freeman’s Journal prepared its readers for the opening night with a tone of unequivocal gravitas: Tonight will enter into the history of the arts in Ireland, into the history of the new Ireland, as the day the first Irish opera presenting itself to be judged by the grand standard, that has ever been performed on the public stage of the capital. […] Ten years ago no one would have believed possible that grand opera written in Ireland by an Irish composer, with a libretto in the Irish language, should be presented as a great first night at a leading Irish theatre. 37 Furthermore, in this report, the language aspect was somewhat downplayed in deference to the music: It is of course interesting that this Opera should be sung in Gaelic […] But of course in an opera the music is the thing […] it is the belief of many that its public success will stir new hopes, sleeping ambitions, and a vigorous general determination towards the creating of a notable and characteristic ‘school’ of modern music in Ireland. 38 Beyond the week of performances at the Gaiety, which again were well received, it appears that the work was never again staged in Ireland. 39 However, the legacy of Eithne was, in many ways, its symbolic value, since it stimulated discussion about the question of ‘native’ opera. That this discussion was often presented against the ongoing initiatives and problems that beset English opera sharpened the focus of the debates. In fact, even before its 1909 performances at the Oireachtas, Eithne had been heralded as the seed of native Irish opera and suggested that 36 Carl Hardebeck: “Traditional Singing”, in: Journal of the Ivernian Society 3/10 (1911), pp. 89-95, here pp. 94–95. 37 “The Irish Opera ‘Eithne’”, in: Freeman’s Journal, 16 May 1910, p. 6. 38 Ibidem, p.6. 39 Although reported in the press, plans for Eithne to be performed in London never materialised. See, for example, “Irish Opera in Dublin – Interview with Mr O’ Dwyer”, in: Freeman’s Journal, 27 May 1910.

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Maria McHale Ireland, as a nation, was far better placed than her neighbour to produce national opera. In a discussion entitled, “Music and the Nations”, Annie Patterson presented Ireland and Eithne as a musical David to England’s Goliath. While pointing to England’s wealth and to the population of London in particular, she presented a new English opera scheme, a “Union of Opera Lovers”, against the backdrop of two previous initiatives that had failed in 1875 and 1892 respectively.40 The latter was D’Oyly Carte’s Royal English Opera House built in 1891 for Sullivan’s grand opera Ivanhoe, but now fallen from grace since, she wrote somewhat waspishly, it was “filled […] nightly for years by the lure of the comico-sentimental soloists and the cigar-smoking monkey”.41 Clearly believing that the latest English opera scheme was doomed to the fate of its predecessors, Patterson contrasted the repeated operatic failures of the “richest of all nations” with the innate musicality of the Irish: This August we shall have in Dublin one Irish opera sprung out of the native spirit of a finely striving people, the work of an Irish composer who gives his time and gifts for pure joy in his art and for the love of the Irish idea, presented by people not highly paid, but finding their reward in their service and the whole unhelped by any far-sought millionaire. Penny for penny, and man for man, and every condition against every condition, who does not see in which of the two countries is the music and the spirit of the arts? 42 Patterson’s Irish-Ireland evangelical tone contrasts with her writing at the beginning of the century when she situated Ireland firmly within the union. As Axel Klein has noted, in 1900 Patterson could refer to “we Britishers” in her call for a”British Bayreuth in Dublin.”43 In the years that followed, Patterson’s ‘Bayreuth’ would no longer be British, but Irish, and its location no longer in Dublin, but at the symbolic Hill of Tara. The decisively nationalistic tone in which she promoted all Irish music is evident in the pages of the Journal of the Ivernian Society where, in the period 1908–09, she wrote of the need to “restore Tara” to cultivate a centre for the arts in Ireland as well as the need for a national conservatoire.44 40 The “Union of Opera Lovers” discussed by Patterson was established by Fanny Moody and Charles Manners. Rather than proceed with a building-based project (as previous failed enterprises had done), their plan was intended to create a body of members that would fund the performance of national opera at cheap prices. An important part of the initiative was to provide lectures to educate and develop audiences. They had inaugurated an earlier scheme in 1903 which also came to nothing. Manners continued to write on the matter in the musical press, for example: “The Financial Problem of National Opera. By the People for the People”, in: Music & Letters, 7/2 (1926), pp. 93-105. 41 Annie Patterson: “Music and the Nations”, in: Freeman’s Journal, 9 July 1909, p. 6 42 Ibidem, p. 6. 43 Klein: Stage Irish: p. 48. 44 Annie W. Patterson: “Tara Restored” in: Journal of the Ivernian Society 1/1 (1908), pp. 21–34, here p. 21.

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Opera in Revivalist Dublin, 1900–1916 The latter was necessary so that in fifty years’ time “it would be safe to prophesy that Ireland would then hold her own, not alone in Folk Song but in orchestral and operatic music as well”.45 Her ideal of an Irish Bayreuth was also presented in this article and was reiterated in 1915 in The Leader, an ultra-nationalistic newspaper for which she wrote both passionately and prolifically.46 Patterson’s ambitious plans for an auditorium, a Hall of Song and lecture rooms included details of costs and management.47 While the historic site of Tara as a centre for opera, music and the arts resonated with Celtic revivalism, evidently, she recognized the need to provide an infrastructure for musical development in Ireland. In the end, neither idealism nor practicality won through, and Patterson’s plans, like those of her British counterparts, remained unrealized.

Conclusion In the article that opened this essay, the idea of “regeneration” was mooted in the context of British opera schemes that sought to promote national opera and to develop audiences. Common to these schemes was a notion of opera for the ‘good’ of the people, for their advancement and education. The fact that the author of this article, and, in her earlier years, Annie Patterson, saw Dublin as a viable centre for British opera says much of the place of opera in Dublin’s musical culture and its audience. And yet in Dublin, it would seem there was a need for “regeneration” less in relation to audiences and more in terms of indigenous opera. The constellation of Irish operas that were composed in the early years of the twentieth century is ref lective of the operatic culture inherited from earlier decades; nonetheless, it was the Gaelic Revival that created the impetus for all these works. Language, folklore and mythology provided a distinctly Irish accent to operas, some of which were noted for their Wagnerism. However, the inf luence of Celticism, in its Irish or any other incarnation, had been notable in British operas for some time and was, in some quarters, regarded 45 Dr Annie Patterson: “The Interpretation of Irish Music” in: Journal of the Ivernian Society Vol. 2/5, (1909), pp. 31–42, here p. 42. 46 Ruth Stanley has revealed the extent of Patterson’s engagement with musical culture in The Leader in two recent papers: “A reading of music and cultural identity in The Leader (1915–16)”, paper presented at the Music in Ireland: 1916 and Beyond Conference, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, 22–24 April 2016; and, “Cultural revivalism in music in Ireland and the battle against British Popular Culture: Voices from The Leader (1915–16)”, paper presented at the North American British Music Studies Association Biennial Conference, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, 4–7 August 2016. My thanks to Dr Ruth Stanley for sharing her papers with me for the purposes of this essay. 47 Stanley: “Cultural revivalism”.

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Maria McHale by a number of composers as a solution to the vexed issue of national opera in Britain. Works like Joseph Parry’s Blodwen (1878), the first opera to be written in the Welsh language, and Hamish MacCunn’s Diarmid (1897), based on two Celtic legends and ‘underwritten’ by the ambitious but ultimately short-lived National Celtic Opera Syndicate, are just two examples.48 The use of Celticism in opera would continue into the next century with Rutland Boughton’s The Immortal Hour (1912), which blended Irish mythology and Wagnerism in a socialist vision at the Glastonbury Festivals. While any discussion of Irish opera in this period needs to be considered in the context of both ‘Britishness’ and ‘Irishness’, a distinct shift can be detected. Although critics could evaluate opera’s infrastructure at a British level, they unequivocally identified native operatic composition as Irish and not British. Furthermore, even the issue of infrastructure would take on a culturally nationalist bent in the ideas later espoused by Patterson. The weight of evidence suggests that Gaelic Revivalism galvanized a number of composers in their writing of self-consciously ‘Irish’ works. Furthermore, as has been demonstrated here, the revivalist culture of this period went hand in hand with an increasing exposure to Wagner’s works, several of which had not been heard in Dublin before the turn of the century. Critics noted the fusion of ‘modern’ music (relatively speaking) with mythology and folklore; consequently, some of these works were identified as both Irish and Wagnerian. Perhaps then, it is worth considering that much of the revivalist culture of the period can be understood through the lens of Wagnerism. Beyond the captivating music, it seems that something of Wagner’s revolutionary zeal resonated with composers, writers and audiences in the pre-independence years.

Bibliography Klein, Axel: “Stage-Irish, or the national in Irish opera, 1780–1925” in: The Opera Quarterly, 21/1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. McMahon, Timothy G.: Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893–1910. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008. White, Harry: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination. Oxford University Press, 2008. White, Harry and Boydell, Barra (ed.): The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, 2 vols., Dublin: University Dublin Press, 2013.

48 Jennifer Oates: Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916): A Musical Life. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2013, p. 159. n.44. My thanks to Dr Jennifer Oates for correspondence relating to the role of the National Celtic Opera Syndicate in MacCunn’s Diarmid.

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The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland

“What do we mean by Irish music?” The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland Karol Mullaney-Dignam This essay considers the politics of music publication by the Irish state in the early decades of independence alongside the prescription of ‘Irishness’ in education, collection and composition. It surveys the roles played by individual government ministers and state officials in developing or thwarting these aspects of musical activity arguing that personal rather than collective attitudes resulted in state initiatives – and these were typically concerned with developing music as an aspect of national culture. Few, if any, steps appear to have been taken in consultation with members of the music profession for the purposes of developing music per se after the establishment of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) in December 1922. Instructive in this regard are the responses of music professionals – composers and members of the Music Association of Ireland especially – who, by direct submission or indirectly through the pages of popular journals, magazines and newspapers, advised successive governments of the urgent need to have a comprehensive centralized state policy for the development of all aspects of music in Ireland. In the context of such commentary, underlying questions of modernism and national identity will be considered using published and unpublished records of Irish cultural history including state department reports and archives, and transcripts of debates in Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland), the lower house of parliament, and principal chamber of the Irish legislature.

Work of national importance Towards the end of the revolutionary period in Ireland (c.1912–c.1922), cultural advancement was deemed necessary for establishing the f ledgling Irish state by a small number of key political and military figures. Among these was the finance minister Michael Collins who approved financial support for the Cork School of Music, just months after the cessation of hostilities in the Irish war of independence in July 1921.1 Founded in 1878 under the administration of Cork Technical 1

The author wishes to express her gratitude to Adrian Scahill for his close reading and helpful comments on the draft text of this essay. Michael Collins: letter to F.B. Giltinan, secretary, Cork Technical Instruction Committee, 2

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Karol Mullaney-Dignam Instruction Committee (CTIC), the Cork School of Music soon had in excess of 150 students, a varied curriculum and examinations arranged in conjunction with the Royal Academy of Music in London. 2 From 1918, the headmaster and professor of Irish traditional music was Carl Hardebeck (1869–1945), one of the instigators in the revival of Irish music in the period before the Irish revolution. Born in London to a Welsh mother and German father, Hardebeck worked as a music teacher and organist in Belfast from 1893. He was best known in Ireland as a composer, with his compositions winning eleven first prizes at Feis Ceoil competitions in Dublin between 1897 and 1908. His works were inf luenced by the traditional music and local songs that he collected upon numerous visits to the Donegal Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking region) and transcribed into braille, for which he devised a particular alphabet later adopted by the Irish Institute for the Blind. 3 The depletion of Cork Corporation’s technical instruction fund by 1921 prompted CTIC’s application to the department of education for a £1,425 grant for the Cork School of Music: £300 to pay Hardebeck’s salary, the remainder the costs of publishing his arrangements of Irish music.4 Hardebeck’s chief concern was the composition of instrumental and vocal music in a traditional idiom for junior examinations and a substantial number of manuscripts were compiled, the printing of which proved to be costly, partly on account of the Gaelic script. Having investigated printing costs in Dublin and London, CTIC petitioned local and national politicians, impressing upon them the national significance of the scheme and of the endeavours of the eminent Hardebeck. 5 Despite receiving the official and personal support of Collins – who died in August 1922 – only a portion of the promised grant was paid; the rest to follow upon the inspection of the ministry of education.6 When the committee applied for the next installment of the grant in December, Prionsias Ó Dubhthaigh, the secretary of the ministry of education wrote to the secretary of the finance ministry, Joseph Brennan, stating: “The minister of education is satisfied that this school is doing work for Irish traditional music which is of national importance, and which is not being done or attempted elsewhere”.7 Brennan informed the ministry of education in June 1923 that “no funds existed for the discharge of any grants previously promised”. It was December 1921; Prionsiais Ó Dubhthaigh, education ministry, to finance ministry, 16 February 1923. Dublin, National Archives of Ireland, hereafter NAI (FIN/1/2795). 2 Bernard B. Curtis: Centenary of the Cork School of Music: progress of the school 1878-1978. Cork: Cork School of Music, 1978, p.15. There was an established and profitable practice by British musical bodies of conducting examinations for certification in urban centres around Ireland; the Royal Irish Academy of Music did not launch its local centre examination system until 1894. 3 Curtis: Centenary of the Cork School of Music, pp. 71–73 4 Prionsiais Ó Dubhthaigh: memorandum to finance ministry, 16 February 1923. NAI (FIN/1/2795). 5 Curtis: Centenary of the Cork School of Music, pp. 73–74. 6 Dáil Éireann parliamentary debates official report, ii, 290 (26 April 1922). 7 Ó Dubhthaigh to finance ministry, 16 February 1923. NAI (FIN/1/2795).

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The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland the view of the new minister of finance, Ernest Blythe, that if a grant did ever become practicable in the future, the state could be expected to share a fraction of the total expenditure. 8 In response, CTIC expressed astonishment “at the attitude of the ministry of finance in endeavouring to justify its action in breaking a distinct and unequivocal promise made”. Enclosing copies of previous correspondence, it requested recognition of “the honourable understanding” upon which the committee had made itself “liable for the expenditure involved in carrying out this work of national importance”, threatening to “organise public opinion on the matter … with its consequent damage to public faith and the creation of an atmosphere so colourful of an old regime”.9 In the interim, an unpaid Hardebeck resigned from his post as professor of Irish traditional music at the Cork School of Music and returned to Belfast in July 1923. Despite continuing frustrations over the lack of funding for the publication of his works, and copyright issues concerning manuscripts that he produced, relations between himself and CTIC continued to be amicable.10 Those between the ministries of education and finance were not as the respective ministers from the governing Cumann na nGaedheal party and, more significantly, senior civil servants in their departments, wrangled over the issue for years.11 The matter was referenced only brief ly by Teachtaí Dála (TDs, parliamentary members) in Dáil Éireann during this time.12

Nothing Irish? In May 1924, Brennan, the finance department secretary, informed Ó Dubhthaigh, his counterpart in education, that another installment of the grant in question would be paid if the minister could give an assurance that “no further liability would be imposed on the state in this matter and that satisfactory work has been done for the total expenditure” involved.13 Details of the extent and cost of traditional music publication by the Cork School of Music were furnished in June 1924 by Giltinan, the CTIC secretary, who reminded Brennan that the only objective was “the furtherance of an appreciation of our national music”, 8 Joseph Brennan: letter to Ó Dubhthaigh, 6 June 1923. NAI (FIN/1/2795). 9 F.B. Giltinan: letter to ministry of education, 10 July 1923. NAI (FIN/1/2795). 10 Curtis: Cork School of Music, pp. 75–76. 11 Eoin Mac Neill, education minister: letter to W.T. Cosgrave, President, Executive Council of the Irish Free State, 30 July 1923; Mac Neill to ministry finance, 4 Oct. 1923; Michael Hayes, former education minister, to Brennan, finance ministry, 20 Oct. 1923. NAI (FIN/1/2795). 12 See Karol Mullaney-Dignam: State, nation, and music in independent Ireland, 1922-51. PhD diss., National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2008, pp. 373–382. 13 Brennan to Ó Dubhthaigh, 5 May 1924; Brennan to Ó Dubhthaigh, 7 May 1924. NAI (FIN/1/2795).

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Karol Mullaney-Dignam not “monetary profit”.14 He enclosed specimen copies of the school’s publications, Nursery rhymes and Examination test music (primary, junior, intermediate, senior and advanced grades), along with three draft publications, Preludes and pieces – primary grade, Preludes and pieces – junior grade and Songs, grade II. The education department evidently had confidence in the merits of these works and had no reservations in forwarding the booklets to the finance department. Conversely, Brennan was of the opinion that there was “nothing Irish in them except the top line of print on the cover”. He added: “I do not know whether it was hoped that we would not look inside the covers!”15 Brennan played a crucial role in creating guidelines for establishing proper financial procedures for the new Irish state and held significant control of the finance department until his resignation in 1928.16 For him, retrenchment and rigid economy took precedence over cultural development. In October 1924, he sought the opinion of Donal J. O’Sullivan, editor of the Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society and, what Brennan termed, “an authority on the subject of traditional Irish music”.17 O’Sullivan responded in a balanced way. On the one hand, he regarded the content of the Examination test music series as the type of music easily obtainable in other publications and at a cheaper rate from Germany or England. He hoped that Songs, grade II would “never get as far as publication” for there were errors in the words of the Irish language songs contained within and the airs themselves were “practically all readily accessible in recently published books”. On the other hand, he praised the draft Preludes and pieces for primary and junior grades, and the published Nursery rhymes, as “genuine Irish” music which had not been previously arranged. He recommended the nursery rhyme book for use in national schools and commended Carl Hardebeck on the excellent arrangements of airs which meant “very little except to the expert, and they have no chance of being popularized except when arranged in this way”. “Work of this kind”, O’Sullivan added, “when well done, deserves all the encouragement it can get”.18 Brennan evidently did not wish to encourage the Cork School of Music publication scheme and used O’Sullivan’s criticisms as a pretext to renegue upon the promised grant. In his correspondence with Ó Dubhthaigh, he highlighted only negative comments, attributing them to “a responsible and well informed quarter”, and advocated disallowing the remainder of the grant in respect of publications 14 Giltinan to dept. of ed., 9 June 1924. NAI (FIN/1/2795). 15 Brennan to D.J. O’Sullivan, 17 Oct. 1924 NAI (FIN/1/2795). 16 Ronan Fanning: The Irish department of finance, 1924-58. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1978, pp. 40–41. 17 Brennan to D.J. O’Sullivan, 17 Oct. 1924 NAI (FIN/1/2795); Donal O’Sullivan: “The Irish Folk Song Society” in: Music in Ireland: a symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, pp. 294–298. 18 O’Sullivan to Brennan, 28 Oct. 1924 NAI (FIN/1/2795).

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The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland which “could not have the slightest pretension to be regarded as Irish traditional music”.19 In the absence of information as to the identity of the critic, the minister for education, Eoin MacNeill, refused to disallow the grant. There ensued for more than a year a heated written argument on the matter with Ó Dubhthaigh warning that “the delay in settling it is calculated to do considerable injury to the government as it is being referred to as an instance of departments refusing to carry out undertakings of the Dáil ministers”. 20 In the meantime, CTIC had outstanding debts to printers which they could not pay without the promised grant. Giltinan, the committee secretary, made several enquiries regarding payment, intimating that they were “heartily sick of this whole transaction” and would be forced to publish “the history of this broken pledge”. 21 In September 1926, the education department was informed that money would not be discharged from public funds because some of the work of the Cork School of Music had “obviously very little merit in it”. 22 However, an ex-gratia grant of £300 was made by the finance minister from departmental savings to the school in 1927. The matter continued as an administrative anomaly for a further two years after a lengthy investigation by the committee of public accounts as to the legality of the original award. The entire issue dissipated when control of funding for the Cork School of Music was transferred from CTIC to Cork Corporation under the vocational education act in 1930. Within a few years “Irish music” by Carl Hardebeck was being published under the auspices of An Gúm (The Scheme), the publications section of the education ministry.

“tolling the death knell of Irish culture” Founded by the Cumann na nGaedheal government in 1926, the initial purpose of the state publication scheme, An Gúm, was the creation of school text-books in the Irish language. 23 It gradually expanded to consider other types of publication in Irish, including “Irish music” which was published for the first time in 1935, by which time Fianna Fáil was the governing party. Shortly after coming to power two years previously, £10,000 was made available for the preparation and publication of “translations of original works in Irish and also for Irish music” but this discharge of public funds was not without controversy.

19 20 21 22 23

Brennan to Ó Dubhthaigh, 4 Dec.1924 NAI (FIN/1/2795). Ó Dubhthaigh to Brennan, 20 Jan.1925 NAI (FIN/1/2795). Giltinan to Ó Dubhthaigh, 13 Nov. 1924 NAI (FIN/1/2795). Memo, dept. of finance to dept. of ed., 30 Sept. 1926 NAI (FIN/1/2795). Report of the department of education, 1928–29, pp. 226–227; Neil Buttimer: “The Irish language, 1921–84”, in: A New History of Ireland, vii, ed. J.R. Hill. Oxford: Clarendon, 2003, pp. 557–559.

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Karol Mullaney-Dignam In a lengthy speech in Dáil Éireann in April 1933, Thomas Kelly, Fianna Fail TD for Dublin South, questioned how this “grant for Irish music” was to be used “in terms of popular interpretation”. He pointed out that he was speaking on behalf of musicians, “a large and very cultured number of our people”, who had been unemployed not on account of the general economic depression, but rather “the change in manners of the people”. According to Kelly, hundreds of people were now “idle” for some time owing to “changes, such as jazz music … a remarkable sort of music even to my unmusical ear”. He added that the “particular type of citizen” for whom he spoke – the musician – suffered an intense poverty because it was a secluded poverty. 24 In Kelly’s opinion, the money set aside for music publication would be better spent on the organization of “civic orchestras inside the five large cities in this country” to be subsidized in three ways: by a grant from the department of education, by a “small rate-in-aid” struck by the local authorities, and by “citizens who are blessed with wealth and have cultured minds”. Kelly felt that such orchestras would “bring about again the popularization of the national music of our country” and he asked that this matter be viewed seriously, not only because of the “unhappy position” of musicians but also “to advance national culture”. He recalled “the enthusiasm of 25 years ago, amongst Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and all the other associations existing then with strong national aspirations, for our native music. That is all gone, or nearly gone”. 25 By the end of the academic year 1935/6, thirty-two pieces of Irish music were published by An Gúm, twenty-five (78%) of which were composed or arranged by Carl Hardebeck, the rest by Liam de Noraidhe and Ernest de Regge. 26 This remained the position until the publication of new works by John Larchet in 1939 and by Éamon Ó Gallchobhair in 1940. 27 Constraints on paper and publishing machinery brought about by the Second World War meant that only about five pieces of music were produced between 1941 and 1945. 28 By July 1951, the total number of publications was 133. All had Irish language titles and consisted mostly of short choral compositions, instrumental orchestrations or arrangements of traditional melodies. A number of more ‘lengthy’ works, such as a symphony and an operetta, were awaiting preparation and approval. 29 The list of names of those 24 Dáil Éireann parliamentary debates official report, xlvi, 2316–2317 (5 Apr. 1933). 25 Ibidem, col. 2316–2317. 26 Report of the department of education, 1935–36, p. 279. These figures differ slightly from those given in a department of An Taoiseach (Prime Minister) file on the work of An Gúm, NAI (TAOIS/S9538A), because the education department reported the numbers of works published within the academic year, while those detailed in the departmental file were based on a calendar year. There is also a lack of clarity regarding the number of musical works to hand and awaiting consideration by the publications committee, those approved but not yet prepared for publication, and those actually published. 27 Report of the department of education, 1938–39, pp. 102–103; 1939–40, pp. 92–93. 28 Department of An Taoiseach: memo, 23 April 1945. NAI (TAOIS/S9538A). 29 Department of An Taoiseach: memo, 28 July 1951. NAI (TAOIS/S9538A).

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The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland whose works were published reveals that it only contained works by composers who believed that the composition of art music in Ireland had to be related to the indigenous repertory and that a national expression of this type could only be achieved by basing compositions on ‘folksong’. 30 This view was not shared by composers like Aloys Fleischmann, Brian Boydell and Frederick May, all of whom commented publicly on the predicaments of the composer in Ireland with regard to the traditional canon. Fleischmann wrote in 1935, for example: “One finds a great deal of complacency on the score of Gaelic traditional music. But that music is not an achievement of this generation but of the last; it is an ancient legacy”. 31 The following year he rebuked the compositional mode that adhered to the propagation of ‘folk music’ saying that it simply did not lead to the cultivation of ‘art’ music. 32 That things had not changed by 1950 is evident from a revealing article written that year by Brian Boydell who stated that the conscientious attempts by the state to maintain insularity and self-sufficiency and to develop “our own pure little culture” meant “tolling the deathknell of Irish culture”, “lest we should be tempted to benefit from any cleansing inf luence from outside”. He pointed out that the character of any individual or nation was formed by “the reaction of that individual to his surroundings” and that it was “not only arrant nonsense” but “an ignorance of historic fact to claim that we can build a great Irish culture by shutting out foreign inf luences”. 33 Boydell suggested that it was time that Irish people “grew up and realized that the individuality of a nation is expressed by the natural activities and thoughts of its people, through the mouthpiece of its artists” and not through any prescriptive sense of Irishness, in music or otherwise: Any artist who is Irish, and is sensitive to the strong and individual atmosphere of his country cannot help expressing the Irish spirit in his work; and it is his peculiar viewpoint which is a contribution to the art of the world. If the artist should become aggressively self-conscious of his nationality, he deceives himself and becomes an impostor; he behaves like a small boy asserting his individuality, and adds nothing to the progress of culture34 30 For treatments of Larchet’s outlook and compositions, see Joseph Ryan: Nationalism and music in Ireland. PhD diss., National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 1991, pp. 350–73, and Harry White: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History, 1770-1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998, pp. 131–132. 31 Aloys Fleishmann: “The outlook of music”, in: Music in Ireland: a symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, p. 129. 32 See Aloys Fleischmann: “Composition and the folk idiom”, in: Ireland Today 1 (Nov. 1936), cited in Ryan, Nationalism and music, p. 419. 33 Brian Boydell: “Culture and chauvinism”, in: Envoy 2 (May 1950), pp. 75–76. 34 Ibidem, pp. 76–77.

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Karol Mullaney-Dignam Boydell advised those who claimed that “Irish musicians should devote their time to the performance of Irish music, and not waste time on ‘foreign products’” should consider the fact that “great nationalist composers” like Greig, Sibelius and Bartok “could never have made such a contribution without their intensive study of the mainstream of European music”. He held that Ireland was “unfortunate” in “having an incomparable tradition of folksong” because this was a “spontaneous expression of national feeling” and therefore “totally different from the organised expression of art music”. Adding that it was “only too easy for unimaginative composers today to hide their lack of imagination by pasting this ready-made national expression all over their music”, he did not see how a musical culture could be built on folksong alone, particularly when “what the average person believes to be the genuine article is nothing more than a shadow, distorted by Victorian musical ideas”. Boydell concluded: “If Irish culture is worthy of survival … it will survive on its own merits as an integral part of the culture of the world. Insulate it from the invigorating inf luences of other countries, and it will surely rot in its own mildew of chauvinism”. 35 Frederick May expressed similar sentiments in Fleischmann’s seminal Music in Ireland survey, published in 1952, writing that “nationalistic considerations would have to be relegated to second place”, particularly in the education system, to ensure that “the talented youth of Ireland should not be denied the same facilities for development” in music as were afforded in countries like Sweden and Finland. May doubted whether any nation “with such a wonderful storehouse of traditional music” had “made such a negligible contribution to art music” as had Ireland. He proposed that “maudlin sentiment and barren theorising” be abandoned and musical criticism not be founded on the premise that “all good music must be demonstrably national in feeling”.36 The demonstration of ‘national’ feeling in music continued to be a concern for Irish politicians who articulated their views on music in Dáil Éireann.

Collecting culture In February 1937, James Dillon, Fine Gael party TD for Monaghan, asked the minister for education, Thomas Derrig, if his department was consulting with any body of artists or recognised authorities on Irish music with a view to selecting authoritative material and with a view to ensuring that whatever 35 Ibidem, pp. 78–79. 36 Frederick May: “The composer in Ireland” in: Music in Ireland: a symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, pp. 164–169. See also Frederick May: “Music and the nation”, in: The Dublin Magazine, 11 ( July to Sept, 1936), pp. 50–56 for an earlier treatment of most of the same issues.

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The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland is printed, with the seal of the government’s approval will truly represent that type of Irish music which we might not expect a publisher, who is seeking nothing but profit, to produce. 37 Richard Anthony, the Independent Labour TD for Cork Borough, agreed that the department should take some authoritative advice because there was “a lot of ‘come-all-ye’s’ coming over the ether which is offered to us as Irish music, but which is not very creditable to the country”. Anthony enquired if anything had been done regarding the publication of the Bunting Collection which he personally regarded as ‘a standard work’. He added, though, that in the view of persons better qualified to judge than he was, the music collection was “beyond the reach of the ordinary school-child and is certainly beyond the reach of many-working class people” and he asked if the minister would ensure a more universally accessible publication. 38 Derrig responded that Bunting’s work was being edited and published by a private publisher, “a gentleman here in Dublin who is well known” but was quick to point out that this work was not being done under government auspices, its chief concerns lying with the publication of music prepared by Carl Hardebeck. Addressing Dillon’s query, Derrig responded that the department had a “small committee of experts to advise the department regarding the suitability for publication of pieces of Irish music” which would consider “any work” offered to it, whether this be original compositions or “the re-editing of Bunting or of the work of other early workers in that sphere”. He added that his department were satisfied with the work done by this committee to date. 39 Dillon pressed the minister to state the names of the department’s music advisory committee members but he declined to answer.40 In a lively debate a year later, Dillon pushed Derrig to explain how exactly the publication of “Irish music” was justified by the department given that the original intention of An Gúm had been to provide Irish texts so that pupils would have adequate learning resources. He asked: What do we mean by Irish music? Surely we are branching out into a very much wider sphere now than the publishing of ordinary Irish texts? Is it proposed to collect traditional airs which have hitherto been unrecorded, and set them down, or is it suggested that we are to publish slip jigs in convenient form?41 37 38 39 40 41

Dáil Éireann parliamentary debates official report, lxv, 234–235 (4 Feb. 1937). Ibidem, col. 236–237. Ibidem, col. 237. Ibidem, col. 243. Dáil Éireann parliamentary debates official report, lxx, 190 (3 Feb. 1938).

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Karol Mullaney-Dignam It was Dillon’s opinion that while the publication of “modern music such as is habitually played by dance bands or the like” would be money wasted, “everyone would be sympathetic with a proposal to collect traditional music on the lines on which Béaloideas is working at the present time”. Dillon was referring here to An Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann, the Irish Folklore Commission, established in 1935, whose work was published in Béaloideas, the journal of The Folklore of Ireland Society. The aim of the commission was the collection, cataloguing and archiving of the “oral traditions and the oral literature of the country”. Collectors and archivists were sent abroad, to Sweden, for example, to learn the methodologies employed there for similar projects. Accounts of local ‘traditional’ musical activities and musicians featured in the material collected in the field as well as the accounts provided by school-children as part of the project.42 The commission also had one part-time collector of music, Liam de Noraidh, between 1940 and 1942, and one full-time collector of music, Séamus Mac Aonghusa, from 1941 to 1947, both of whom collected thousands of dance tunes and songs in the Irish language from all parts of Ireland, and parts of west Scotland.43 Timothy Linehan, a Fine Gael TD for Cork North, asked Derrig what exactly was meant by ‘the preparation and publication of Irish music’, and whether it included: The publication of existing Irish music, publications put into cheap form, of old airs and old collections of Irish music that are not easily available to the public, or whether the phrase ‘Irish music’ would cover some such case as that of somebody here in Dublin composing a tune in the latest ‘swing’ style, called something like ‘The moon rising over pillar’? Would a composition of that kind come under the heading of Irish music?44 Derrig replied that while it was the government’s intention “to publish arrangements or settings of original Irish airs as far as possible”, they were so far confined to the work of a few composers. But he did not rule out ‘new’ music: If a new composer swims into our ken, who is capable of doing for native Irish music what has been done in other countries by composers like the Hungarian composers of the present day or the Russian composers of some time back, it would be a question whether such a composer would be 42 See “Introductory note”, in: Seán Ó Súilleabháin: A handbook of Irish folklore. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970, iii-vi; See also Buttimer, “The Irish language”, pp. 562–563. 43 Seán Ó Súilleabháin: “The music collection of the Irish Folklore Commission”, in: Music in Ireland: A Symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, pp. 308–309. 44 Dáil Éireann deb., lxx, 193 (3 Feb. 1938).

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The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland passed as being really true to the Irish genius or whether he had forsaken the native music for modern modes.45 Dillon gibed about “An Gúm passing judgement on Sibelius!” but Derrig replied that he was quite satisfied that the work published was of a good standard because of the (unnamed) “experienced musical experts, gentlemen of high repute in this country” upon which the department relied.46 Unsatisfied with Derrig’s replies, Timothy Linehan pressed him to define the term “Irish music” which could be taken to mean “music by an Irish composer” or music composed by anyone “in the Irish traditional line”. He asked the minister if An Gúm would consider publishing the work of an Irish composer who composed, for instance, “popular music, not of the Irish traditional style, but rather of the modern style, any of the popular types of modern music” found in Ireland. Derrig clearly replied: “I do not think that the type of music that Deputy Linehan has in mind would be considered suitable for publication”. Linehan retorted: “Therefore, we will never have Irish music” to which Derrig said that such music could be published “by the numerous publishing houses” that dealt with “that kind of work”. Linehan concluded the debate by declaring: “In that case we will have no Irish music!”47

Composers on composition This attitude tied in with what composers like Fleischmann, Boydell and May, founding members of the Music Association of Ireland (1948) had long maintained. Their “Music and the nation” memorandum of 1949, reiterated: “The composer is in fact the centre and the source of all musical activities. In spite of this he is the one kind of musician for whom, in Ireland, absolutely no provision is made … even musicians forget that without composers they would have no material”. The association pointed out that Ireland’s contribution to the world of music would, and could only, be measured “chief ly by the composers she has produced. It is through its artists that the spiritual stature of a nation may be judged, and it is through them that a nation best expresses itself and makes itself understood, both to others and to itself ”. It claimed that other nations realized this and “valued their composers” as a result.48 It pointed to Poland where the government there had appointed Karol Maciej Szymanowski as head of the Warsaw Conservatory and subsidised performances of his works elsewhere in Europe. It pointed to Sweden, 45 46 47 48

Ibidem, col. 194. Ibidem, col. 194–5. Ibidem, col. 196–7. Music Association of Ireland: “Music and the nation”, 15 June 1949. Dublin, National Library of Ireland. MS 40, 610, pp. 61–62.

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Karol Mullaney-Dignam where the government paid pensions to certain composers. It pointed to Finland, where the government had supported Sibelius and therefore “did more than anything else to establish Finland as one of the most civilised European nations of the present day”. The association added that conditions had been propitious at the time of Sibelius’ emergence with the existence of “a musical public, a good orchestra, a publisher, and a number of excellent musicians and teachers, including more than one contemporary first-class conductor […] There was something for which to write music; music that would express the spirit of Finland as a force in Western civilization, and that was received with the enthusiasm of a nation”.49 The fact that there was no composer of Sibelius’ stature in Ireland, then, was not the fault or inability of composers but the result of unfavourable musical conditions and “the general lack of interest in music” which, the association claimed, was “a striking feature of Irish life”.50 The primary problem for the Irish composer, though, remained the lack of “a highly developed art music in Ireland”. The association pointed out that it was “often supposed that Irish composers should base their work upon folk-music; or what is even more narrow-minded, that to qualify as ‘Irish’ composers they must merely arrange folk-songs, or at least introduce a conspicuous folk-song element into the matter or style of their compositions”. There was, the association said, nothing more barren or sterile than these prejudices, which are the cause of some of the obstacles put in the way of our composers. Unfortunately a number of musicians have encouraged such ideas by incorporating Irish folk-tunes into larger works; but by so doing they have at the same time illustrated its fallacies, and failed completely to produce music of the slightest interest. A new idiom will have to be created that will express the Irish spirit and character in relation to the world today, and as a contribution to the future. Such an idiom will perhaps be inspired partly by the cultural traditions of the past, whose strength lies in poetry and language, not music; partly by the landscape; and perhaps to a very limited extent by a familiarity with the folk-music. But inevitably also it will be inseparable from the character and individuality of the composer and must be spontaneous, not a deliberate construction out of arbitrary ideological elements. 51 Referring to Finland, the association pointed out that Sibelius had succeeded in creating an entirely new musical idiom that was “at the same time so Finnish in character that many people imagine it to be based on Finnish folk-music”. It claimed that Sibelius had “in fact never made use of a folk-tune, and his idiom 49 Ibidem. p. 62 50 Ibidem, p. 62. 51 Ibidem, p. 63.

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The Politics of State-Sponsored Music Publication in Independent Ireland is singularly unlike that of Finnish folk-music”. However, it also warned that the composer, while requiring “some form of official recognition and encouragement”, had to be left free to write as he chose. “We do not want the appointment of state composers, under compulsion to produce music according to the dogmas of the ruling régime, as in the U.S.S.R.” 52 The Music Association of Ireland pointed to the possibilities of composing music suitable for school or amateur choirs and orchestras, of which there was “exceedingly little available that is up to a competent standard”. This type of composition, it assured readers of its memorandum, would not be “a handicap to the composer, but on the contrary a stimulus” to the imagination. It claimed that most of the “great works of music were produced to order in this way and would never have come into being if they had not been specially written for some particular player, purpose or occasion”. 53 “It is”, it concluded, “not enough merely to enjoy the music of other people and ages; each society must produce its own. The composer is the end and justification of its musical life, its own realization in music”. 54 The nascent Irish Free State’s involvement with the Cork School of Music publication scheme in the early 1920s prompted important questions about the Irishness of ‘Irish music’ and the necessity of publication. The protracted controversy highlighted the reluctance of the central state department – finance – to support a potentially significant ‘national’ scheme, and the internal divisions within the Cumann na nGaedheal administration. The personalism of Irish politics however allowed individual government ministers and civil servants to develop or thwart aspects of musical activity pertinent to the development and propagation of national culture. It also demonstrated, as Harry White has long contended, that the cultivation and promotion of traditional music was prioritized to the impairment of musical advancement. 55 This situation continued during the Fianna Fáil administrations of the 1930s and 1940s as state-sponsorship of ‘Irish’ music collection and publication aligned with the party’s policies of self-sufficiency and safeguarding ‘Irishness’. The emphasis on ethnic repertory as a raw musical source to be arranged for the concert hall, or for broadcast, promoted the compositions and enhanced the reputations of certain composers – to the chagrin of those who advocated a more outward looking approach. National self-consciousness insulated and polarized not only the art form but also its historiography, so that the question “What do we mean by Irish music?” is as problematic almost a century after independence as it was in the years after the foundation of the state. 52 53 54 55

Ibidem, p. 64. Ibidem, p. 65. Ibidem, p. 62. See Harry White: The Progress of Music in Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005, passim.

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Select Bibliography Boydell, Brian: “Culture and chauvinism”, in: Envoy, 2 (May 1950), pp. 75–79. Briody, Mícheál: The Irish Folklore Commission 1935–1970: history, ideology, methodology. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society (SKS), 2016 (Studia Fennica Folkloristica 17); DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21435/sff.17. Brown, Terence: Ireland: a social and cultural history 1922–2002, London: Harper Perennial, 2004. Comerford, R.V.: Ireland. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003 (Inventing the nation series). Curtis, Bernard B.: Centenary of the Cork School of Music: progress of the school 18781978. Cork: Cork School of Music, 1978. Fitzgerald, Mark, and John Flynn (eds): Music and identity in Ireland and beyond. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. Fleischmann, Aloys (ed.): Music in Ireland: A Symposium. Cork: Cork University Press, and Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1952. Hutchinson, John: The dynamics of cultural nationalism: the Gaelic revival and the creation of the Irish nation state. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987. King, Linda, and Elaine Sisson (eds): Ireland, Design and Visual Culture: Negotiating Modernity, 1922-1992. Cork: Cork University Press, 2011. McCarthy, Marie: Passing it on: the transmission of music in Irish culture. Cork: Cork University Press, 1999. Mullaney-Dignam, Karol: State, nation, and music in independent Ireland, 1922–51. PhD diss., National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2008. Ó Súilleabháin, Seán: A handbook of Irish folklore. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970. Ryan, Joseph: Nationalism and music in Ireland. PhD diss., National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 1991.      : “Music in independent Ireland since 1921”, in: A new history of Ireland vii: Ireland 1921–84, ed. J.R. Hill. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 621–649. White, Harry: “The Preservation of Music and Irish Cultural History”, in: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 27 (1996), pp. 123–138.      : The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998.      : The Progress of Music in Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005.

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“Jazzing the soul of the Nation away” 1 The Hidden History of Jazz in Ireland and Northern Ireland During the Interwar Years Ruth Stanley “The present is an age of that accursed American negro form of music called jazz.”2 Hamilton Harty, 1926 Jazz and dance music were enjoyed by a large swathe of the population during the interwar years in Ireland and Northern Ireland. There was a thriving dance scene across the island, the participants of which represented all but the poorest level of society. For such a pervasive and mainstream activity, however, there is a striking dearth in the historical narrative. 3 Within this currently narrow field of cultural studies, much of the academic discourse centres on the negative reception towards jazz, especially as articulated by members of the Catholic Church and the Gaelic League.4 Their anti-jazz rhetoric escalated into a campaign in 1934, when a pa1

In 1934 Seán Óg Ó Ceallaigh, secretary of the Gaelic League, criticized Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance, Sean McEntee (1889–1984), for “ jazzing the soul of the Nation away.” Quoted in the Ulster Herald, 13 Jan 1934, p. 3, the comments were made at a Gaelic League meeting in Mohill, Co. Leitrim. 2 Harty (1879–1941) claimed that, having listened “with a sincere wish to find out if [ jazz] had any musical attraction whatever”, he had discovered that it “possessed only two qualities which had anything to do with the art of music – rhythm and a certain cynical grotesqueness.” Quoted in Irish News, 1 Sep 1926, p. 7. 3 Sean Shanagher has rightly documented the “historical amnesia” surrounding jazz music in Ireland: “Embodied cultural knowledge, dance-events, and the dances of certain groups have not, it seems, been deemed to be legitimate history. Moreover, in the historical context of nationbuilding of the Irish state, there has been the commemoration of some types of culture, and the ‘active forgetting’ of others.” Shanagher: Recreational Dance in Ireland 1940–1960, PhD diss., Dublin City University, 2014, p. 5. 4 A number of studies document the Irish anti-jazz campaign, offering perceptive insights into racialized and sexualized constructions of jazz in Irish society: Johannah Duffy, “Jazz, Identity and Sexuality in Ireland during the Interwar Years” in: Irish Journal of American Studies Online (2009) 1; Eileen Hogan: ‘“Earthly, sensual, devilish’: Sex, ‘race and jazz in post-independence Ireland” in: Jazz Research Journal, vol. 4/ 1 (2010), pp. 57–79; Barbara O’Connor: “Sexing the Nation: Discourses of the Dance Hall in Ireland in the 1930s, Journal of Gender Studies, 14/2 (2005), pp. 89–105; and Jim Smyth: “Dancing, Depravity and All That Jazz: The Public Dance Halls Act of 1935” in: History Ireland, vol. 1/2 (1993), pp. 51–54. A recent and fascinating paper exploring dance spaces in Ireland is: Méabh Ní Fhuartháin:“Dance halls, parish halls and marquees: Sharing

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Ruth Stanley rade of 3,000 people marched in Mohill, Co. Leitrim in opposition to the “decadent American import”. 5 Cardinal Joseph MacRory (1861–1945) and President Eamon de Valera (1882–1973) offered messages of support, and Canon Michael J. Masterson (c.1877–1960) of the Gaelic League declared that “ jazz was a menace to the very fabric of civilisation as well as to religion.”6 The furore resulted in the Public Dance Halls Act (1935) and subsequent pressure to restrict broadcasts of jazz music on Radio Éireann. While such factors are undeniably essential for understanding the complexities of jazz reception in Ireland and Northern Ireland, few studies seek to provide a detailed account of the actual dance scene at this time.7 This chapter seeks to uncover some of the hidden history of jazz and its associated dance scene in Ireland and Northern Ireland, with a focus on who was taking part, where, what kind of music was performed, and how this music was mediated through cinema, gramophone and radio, as well as by live performances by dance bands. As was the case elsewhere in the western world, jazz and dance music had its fair share of ardent fans, as well as vehement critics. For proponents of jazz, its enormous appeal lay in the fact that it represented a modern, fashionable and metropolitan world. A post-war mentality has, in part, been attributed to the escapist appeal of jazz in the United Kingdom. In Ireland, such a phenomenon may have been further fuelled by the bitter struggles of the Anglo-Irish War and the subsequent Civil War. 8 However, the cultural and religious ethos of the new Irish Free State was particularly hostile to jazz, exposing social sensitivities surrounding issues of morality, sexuality, race, and class. Catholic sexual morality and the ideal of the Catholic family were inextricably linked with the nation’s image and, spaces for music and dance practice in early twentieth century Ireland”, paper presented at “Music in Ireland: 1916 and Beyond Conference”. Dublin Institute of Technology, 22–24 April 2016, pp. 1–13. 5 Leitrim Observer, 6 January 1934, p. 3 6 Ibidem. 7 The last few years have seen a welcome rise in PhD dissertations examining jazz in Irish and Northern Irish society. Aside from Shanagher’s thesis cited earlier, there is: Damien Evans: The Creation of Meaning and Identity in the Dublin Jazz Scene, Past and Present, PhD diss., Dublin Institute of Technology, 2016: and Ruth Stanley: A formative force: the BBC’s role in the development of music and its audiences in Northern Ireland, 1924–39, PhD diss., Queen’s University Belfast, 2011. The latter study provides the basis to this chapter’s section on broadcasting on BBC Northern Ireland. A valuable resource on dance music is Aidan M. Kennedy’s The dance hall and jazz music in Ireland, MA diss., University College Dublin, 1985. Pre-dating the period, though providing important historical context is Douglas C. Riach: “Blacks and Blackface on the Irish Stage, 1830–60”, Journal of American Studies, 7/3 (1973), pp. 231–241. Notwithstanding its comic style, a rare and important primary source is Flann O’Brien: “The Dancehalls” in: Great Irish Writing: The Best from The Bell ed. Sean McMahon. Dublin: O’Brien Press, 1978, pp. 36–43. 8 Contemporary newspaper criticism suggests such a mind-set. See James Cawley’s article: “Athletics in Ireland: Why They have Declined: Dance Halls to Blame”, Ulster Herald, 24 March 1928, p. 7 and District Justice Goff’s comments, “Addicts of Jazz. People not Normal”, ibidem, 14 February 1931, p. 10.

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“Jazzing the soul of the Nation away ” to cite Clair Wills, “were seen as a front line in the battle with the secular materialism of Britain and the United States.”9 It is thus hardly surprising that dancing and jazz met with fierce resistance in Ireland. However, as Sean Shanagher notes, modern dancing remained popular “despite (or even because of ) clerical and state pressures”.10 As this chapter demonstrates, even the Gaelic Athletic Association was unsuccessful in its attempts to ban its members from partaking in “foreign” dances, thus exemplifying the ineluctable tide of modernism that could not be stemmed, even within a highly conservative institution. Arguably, jazz found a more hospitable environment in Northern Ireland, where the broader cultural exchange afforded by links with mainland Britain encouraged rather than hindered its development. Rather than a simple polarization between North and South, however, this chapter explores the deeper complexity underlying jazz reception across the island of Ireland.

Picture houses, gramophone records and the wireless: jazz and modern media The early twentieth century was characterised by enormous technological, cultural, and social changes. Alongside cinema, recording and radio triggered a transformation in the consumption of music, with ever-growing audiences developing more specialised tastes. The cinema played a key role in promoting jazz, with many films featuring soundtracks of jazz music and/or plots evoking characteristics of the Jazz Age. A brief list includes: The Jazz Singer (1927) with Al Jolson in a black-faced rendition of Mammy; Our Dancing Daughters (1928) casting Joan Crawford in the role of a jazz f lapper; The King of Jazz (1930) featuring the celebrated American bandleader Paul Whiteman; Pennies from Heaven (1936) starring Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong; Going Places (1938) with Louis Armstrong and Maxine Sullivan; and Paradise in Harlem (1939), unusual for its predominantly black cast of actors, including blues singer Mamie Smith. Jazz music thus entered the “whistling repertoire of [the] diligent cinemagoer”11 in Ireland, while gramophone recordings further disseminated the genre. The symbiosis of jazz, cinema and gramophone was reinforced, albeit pejoratively, by Fianna Fáil minister, Seán T. O’Kelly during a Dáil Debate in 1931: “The cult of the picture house and the cult of the jazz shop is, I think, affecting very considerably and in a not very pleasant way […] the disposition of our people.”12 9 Wills: That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland during the Second World War, p. 25. 10 Shanagher: Recreational Dance in Ireland 1940–1960, p. 142. 11 O’Brien: “The Dancehalls”, p. 39. 12 Dáil Debates, vol. 46, 5 April 1933, section 2053. Seán T. O’Kelly, (1882–1966), was a member of Fianna Fáil, serving as TD from 1918 to 1945. He subsequently became President of Ireland

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Ruth Stanley The 1920s witnessed something of a vogue for films portraying the putative perils of a jazz lifestyle. The silent film, Daughters of Today (1924), featuring actress Edna Murphy in the role of Mabel Vandergrift, was one such example. A tale about a country girl who went to the city to attend university, only to be drawn into a jazz crowd (whose wild parties included strip poker and revellers in underwear), Mabel narrowly escapes a false murder charge before returning home to marry her country sweetheart. The moral tone was patently a superficial gloss to a film that only served to glamorise hedonism. In June 1928 the Ulster Herald advertised a screening of Daughters of Today with the following endorsement: “A terrific drama of jazz, mad youth – cocktails and kisses – midnight bathing parties. A jazz-mad generation.”13 It is fascinating to note the paradoxical use of the term, “madness”, in both positive and negative discourses on jazz. For opponents of the genre, the feverish and compulsive desire to dance could be inverted and attributed to mental, and even physical, instability. In 1931 District Justice Goff declared: I am afraid that the inf luence of this jazz dancing and the inf luence of the cinema have been very bad; that they have made a terrible number of people abnormal, and that these people, whom I might call jaz [sic] addicts, have lost control of themselves. In fact, you will see them on the streets, in the railway carriages, and on the tramway cars, and they cannot keep quiet. Their bodies are being moved about and are swaying to some imaginary jazz rhythm.14 Above all other media, the gramophone was central to the propagation of “hot” jazz among enthusiasts in Ireland and Northern Ireland, especially through informal gatherings of gramophone clubs.15 While the BBC made little provision for listeners who wished to hear the latest dance music from America and other forms of “hot” jazz, on the rare occasions that it did, it relayed gramophone recordings.16 For all degrees of jazz, whether “hot” or otherwise, gramophone re-

13 14 15

16

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(1945–1959). It is not entirely clear from the quotation what defines a “ jazz shop”. However, it seems reasonable to assume that gramophone records were sold there. Dáil is the Irish word for parliament. First screened in 1924, it was advertised in the Ulster Herald 4 years later. Ulster Herald, 9 June 1928, p. 4. Ulster Herald, 14 February 1931, p. 10. Solly Lipsitz observed that “As a means of studying jazz the gramophone record proved to be important in Ulster as elsewhere”, in “Jazz” in: Michael Longley (ed.): Causeway: The Arts in Ulster. Belfast: Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1971, pp. 131–137, here p. 131. Evans also records the presence of rhythm clubs in Ireland, The Creation of Meaning and Identity in the Dublin Jazz Scene, Past and Present, p. 56. In 1936 the editor of Swing Music magazine, Leonard Hibbs, declared that, were it not for the gramophone, swing music would never have reached Britain: “it is the only means we have in this

“Jazzing the soul of the Nation away ” cords were highly affordable, with cheaper records available for less than €4 by today’s monetary standards.17 The high yield of music, mostly of a transient nature, led to constant shifts in popularity and, thus, a thriving business for record labels. In a parliamentary diatribe on jazz in 1932, Fianna Fáil Minister, Seán MacEntee, painted a fascinating picture of the gramophone-buying public, their tastes, economic circumstances and propensity to aggravate the rest of Irish society: I think the people who buy shilling records in the greatest numbers are people in fairly comfortable circumstances. They buy may be [sic] two or three a week. As soon as one jazz tune becomes popular they buy the record with that tune and make the lives of their neighbours a misery, playing it daily to the end of the week.18 Radio had a profound effect on the dissemination and evolution of jazz in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The BBC was founded in 1922, while the regional station of BBC Northern Ireland began broadcasting two years later. Largely an independent enterprise, the BBC’s principal source of income accrued from the sale of radio sets and licence fees purchased from the British Post Office. In 1926 the Irish Free State established Radio Éireann as a state service under direct control of the Irish Post Office. To cite Martin McLoone, “the lack of autonomy which characterised Irish broadcasting under Post Office control laid it open to more direct governmental pressure than the BBC arrangement did”.19 It is not surprising then, that the Dáil Debates record far more political discussions on music broadcasts than the Stormont Papers. Certainly, there were many debates within the Dáil about how Radio Éireann could be made more national in character. Much of the discourse relating to jazz in particular centred on the question of music tastes and the degree to which the government should be entitled to exert its inf luence in controlling broadcasts of jazz music. Notwithstanding some of the more conservative viewpoints, there was a notable lack of consensus among politicians, the more liberal of whom resisted any authoritarian approach to broadcasting. country of hearing inspired jazz. While I could give the names of scores of records, I cannot think of any band currently heard over the British air that I can recommend to those who wish to know what is meant by swing music.” Radio Times, 2 March 1936, p. 11. 17 Throughout this chapter I endeavour to supply approximately comparable values for the modern day. Using the online resource http://measuringworth.com, I derived data for the Retail Prices Index (RPI). These are based on the value of the British pound at the time, since there is no equivalent means to calculate the old Irish pound. I converted RPI data to Euros, using the conversion rate €1=£0.85. Except in lower value calculations, I have rounded numbers to the nearest whole figure. 18 Dáil Debates, vol. 42, 1 July 1932, sections 2048–2049. 19 Martin McLoone: “Inventions and Re-imaginings: Some Thoughts on Identity and Broadcasting in Ireland” in: Martin McLoone (ed): Culture, Identity and Broadcasting in Ireland: Local Issues, Global Perspectives. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1991, pp. 2–30, here p. 13.

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Ruth Stanley While there was never a formal government ban on jazz on Radio Éireann, in 1943 the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, P. J. Little, placed severe restrictions on broadcasts of “modern music” encompassing swing, jive, hot jazz, and “crooning”. 20 Fine Gael politician, James Dillon, condemned Little for his attempts to control music broadcasts on Radio Éireann. 21 Insisting that he did not wish his taste in “musical or other matters to be raised or depressed by anything that the Minister or his Department may decree”, 22 Dillon further condemned Little’s view, that because he or his advisers do not like “swing” music, or because the seagreen, incorruptible followers of Cathleen ní Houlihán do not like “swing” music and are prepared to put up with the endless caterwaulings of certain céilidhe bands, other people must put up with it. Why should I not be allowed to listen to “swing” music, if I wish to do so, or why should I not be allowed to listen to céilidhe band music, if I wish to do so? I think it is just ignorant narrow-minded bigotry, on the part of those who want to hear one type of music, to deny the opportunity to others to hear a different type of music […]. 23 Interestingly, the BBC also imposed constraints on jazz, although these were motivated by aesthetic rather than political ideals. There were frequent tensions between the BBC’s Music Department and freelance musicians regarding repertory choices and stylistic presentation, including the use of vocals in performances. Musicians were also critical of the BBC for its proscriptions on dance music, including a temporary ban on vocals (in order to combat the spread of “crooning”), the barring of certain dance tunes, and, in 1935, the prohibition on “scat singing”. 24 Such restrictions on the BBC and, to a greater extent, on Radio Éireann must be viewed as having had a stif ling effect on the evolution of jazz across the island. Even so, and as detailed in the following section, radio was a powerful medium for circulating a rather sanitised form of jazz, which had enormous appeal among listeners in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

20 The limitations lasted until 1948, coinciding with Little’s remaining term in office. For more on the nuances of restrictions on jazz broadcasting, see Evans: The Creation of Meaning and Identity in the Dublin Jazz Scene, Past and Present, pp. 49–50. 21 James Dillon (1902–1986); Patrick John (“P. J.”) Little (1884–1963) was a Fianna Fáil TD (Teachta Dála, a minister of Irish parliament), who served as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (1939– 1948). 22 Dáil Debates, 9 November 1943, vol. 91 no. 13, sections 1789–1790. 23 Ibidem, section 1792. 24 James J. Nott: Music for the People: Popular Music and Dance in Interwar Britain. Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 65.

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The Wearin’ o’ the Green and the “Black Bottom”: the “Dance Craze” in Ireland and Northern Ireland The “dance craze” was certainly in evidence in Ireland and Northern Ireland in the twenties and thirties with dance music performed at many urban venues, including concert halls, hotels, theatres, cinemas, and restaurants. The ‘better’ dance venues typically provided first-class dance f loors, orchestras, and other amenities, such as cafés and restaurants. Clothed tables and chairs surrounded the dance f loor and the orchestra or band performed on a raised platform. As was the case elsewhere in Britain, the interiors of dance halls were often opulent and decorated extravagantly, in order to emphasize glamour. 25 The most fashionable hotels in cities in Ireland and Northern Ireland had resident dance bands. In addition, dance musicians toured to various venues. Writing in 1941, Flann O’Brien asserted that in the city of Cork, most of the fun was “concentrated in the spacious and well-run Arcadia.”26 Dublin, meanwhile, had “six or seven hotel-halls where the all-important “refreshment” facilities are available and some sixty other halls where there is dancing several nights a week.”27 The principal and most fashionable dance halls in Belfast in the twenties and thirties were the Carlton on Donegall Place and the Plaza Palais de Danse on Chichester Street. Dance music was regularly relayed by BBC Northern Ireland from these locations. The Carlton comprised a spacious ballroom in addition to a café and restaurant. The ballroom, which could accommodate at least 500 dancers, was a popular venue for both modern dancing as well as the more traditional tea dances. A sense of the atmosphere and the social importance of dancing at the Carlton are revealed in a newspaper review dating from 1925, in which the Belfast News-letter remarked on the growing popularity of the weekly tea dances held there: Yesterday afternoon there were seventy tables, and the guests included, in addition to many all known in social circles in Belfast, a number of principals from the Carl Rosa Opera Company. […]. Overhead opalescently tinted globes give charm and colour to the light. The scene altogether was a charming one, with the dainty tea tables round the walls, at which sat smartly-dressed people, and in the centre, the moving figures of the dancers. 28 25 Ibidem, p. 170. 26 O’Brien: “The Dancehalls”, p. 42. 27 Ibidem. 28 Belfast News-Letter, 5 December 1925, p. 11.

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Ruth Stanley The Plaza Palais de Danse similarly attracted Belfast’s high society. A newspaper account of the Plaza’s St Patrick’s Day carnival dance in 1927 reported that “many members of Parliament and business and professional gentlemen” were in attendance. 29 Indeed, at a parliamentary meeting in Stormont in 1928, independent Unionist, Thomas Henderson (1887-1970) criticised a weak response from the Minister of Labour, asserting that, “He should not dance the Yale Blues as strongly as he did last night at the Plaza.”30 With a capacity of more than 800 people, the Plaza’s ballroom was considerably larger than that of the Carlton. While the Carlton hosted both traditional tea dances and modern dances, the Plaza was principally a venue for modern dancing. In general, the dance bands in residence at the Plaza throughout the twenties and thirties had more distinguished reputations than those at the Carlton. Nevertheless, the Carlton proved itself to be an important centre for the current trends in modern dancing. Just as professional dancing partners were often hired by dance halls elsewhere in Britain, 31 so too, the Carlton employed specially trained dancers. In 1928 the St Patrick’s Day celebrations at the Carlton featured a demonstration of “the latest ballroom dances” by Arthur Hamilton and Colette Garland. The dances, which included the Baltimore, the heebie jeebies, the rhythm step, and the Yale Blues, received “a splendid reception” and “each number was enthusiastically encored.”32 Derek Scott records that the most popular dances in Great Britain immediately following WWI were the foxtrot, one-step, shimmy, blues, and Charleston and that the tango retained its popularity despite being pre-war. 33 Popular dances performed in Belfast in the twenties include the Baltimore, black bottom, Charleston, foxtrot, heebie jeebies, one-step, rhythm step, shimmy shoes, tango, and Yale blues. 34 Likewise, southern Irish newspapers provide a record of the Baltimore, black bottom, foxtrot, heebie-jeebies, rhythm step, waltz, and Yale blues. 35 The hosting of dance contests in Northern Ireland and Ireland are a further indication 29 Northern Whig, 18 March 1927, p. 5. 30 Stormont Papers, vol. 8 (1928), sections 3519–3520. 31 Nott: Music for the People, p. 169. 32 Northern Whig, 19 March 1928, p. 9. 33 Derek B. Scott: “The ‘Jazz Age’” in: Stephen Banfield (ed), Blackwell History of Music in Britain: Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, pp. 57–78, here p. 59. 34 Accounts of such dances appear in articles in the following newspapers: Belfast News-Letter, 5 December 1925, p. 11; Northern Whig, 18 March 1927, p. 5; and Northern Whig, 19 March 1928, p. 9. 35 In Dublin, Mr Val North and Miss Eileen North offered evening classes in the ‘latest steps’, including the black bottom, quick foxtrot and the Yale blues. Evening Herald, 6 December 1927, p. 4, while Miss Rock gave lessons at in the Baltimore, Rhythm Step and Heebie-jeebies, Evening Herald, 24 March 1928. The Irish Examiner advertised a dance with a demonstration of the Yale Blues and the black bottom at the Arcadia Ballroom in Cork. Irish Examiner, 8 October 1927, p. 8.

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“Jazzing the soul of the Nation away ” of the popularity of dancing at this time. 36 Dance competitions could provide an attractive broadcasting opportunity, such as in 1939, when BBC Northern Ireland relayed the Northern Ireland Dance Championships hosted at the Plaza Palais de Danse in Belfast. Traditional dance forms (including minuets, waltzes, barn dances, lancers, and the military two-step) were not entirely supplanted by modern dancing in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where they retained a following among both middle and working classes throughout the twenties and thirties. 37 Regarding céilí dancing in particular, its ratio to modern dancing in Ireland may have ranged from 1:10 to as much as 1:20. 38 It is fascinating to note the occasional stylistic hybrid between modern dances and traditional music. 39 In Northern Ireland, the practice of mixing jazz and traditional music was in evidence from at least as early as 1927,40 when the St Patrick’s Day carnival dance held in the Plaza featured Irish dancing and Irish music performed by Jack Elms’ Plaza Dance Band. Also in 1927, the St Patrick’s Day celebrations at the Victoria Hall featured Sibbald Treacy and his Orchestra in adaptations of a number of old Irish airs to modern dances.41 Similarly, at the St Patrick’s carnival held in the Plaza in 1929, Bob Dryden and his Rivoli Rhythm Boys performed a medley on a number of Moore’s Irish Melodies, including Oft in the Stilly Night, The Wearin’ o’ the Green, St Patrick’s Day, and The Minstrel Boy, in addition to renditions of Come Back to Erin, Kathleen Mavourneen, 36 An amateur dancing competition was advertised in the Plaza in Dublin in 1928, taking place over three nights. Dancers competed in the Yale blues and the foxtrot on the first evening, and the waltz and the foxtrot on the following evening. The first two competitions were judged by popular vote, while the final night was adjudicated by professional dancers. The judges were Mrs Palmer, Leggett Byrne, and Val North. Evening Herald, 25 February 1928, p. 6. 37 Examples of old-time dances performed at the Plaza and Victoria Hall in Belfast were minuets, waltzes, barn dances, lancers, the military two-step, and the valeta. See accounts in: Northern Whig, 18 March 1927 p. 5, Irish News, 19 December 1927; and Irish News, 20 December 1927, p. 6. 38 O’Brien stated that there was “perhaps one céilí held for every twenty modern dances”, “The Dancehalls”, p. 42. In his research on Recreational Dance in Ireland 1940–1960, p. 129, Shanagher has calculated that in 1930, the Roscommon Herald advertised a total of 304 dances, 89.9% of which were modern dances and 10.1% of which were céilí dances. 39 A fascinating blend of jazz and Irish music includes Louis Armstrong’s version of Tiger Rag (1930) with its seven choruses, including a quotation of the traditional tune, Irish Washerwoman as well as excerpts from Singing in the Rain and Pagliacci. See Joshua Berret: “Louis Armstrong and Opera”, The Musical Quarterly, 76/2 (1992), pp. 216–241, here, p. 224. The interwar years also saw the composition of popular dance tunes with an Irish flavour, including Just a Rose in Old Killarney and My Irish Home-Sweet-Home by Frank Swain, and Debroy Somers’ arrangement, Savoy Irish Medley. Of further interest is the jazz composition Donegal Cradle Song (c.1933) by ‘Spike’ Hughes (1908–1987), son of Northern Irish composer, Herbert Hughes (1882–1937). 40 Scott notes that the jazz-folk fusion was in evidence in mainland Britain in the thirties. Derek B. Scott: “Incongruity and Predictability in British Dance Band Music of the 1920 and 1930s”, The Musical Quarterly, 78/2 (1994), pp. 290–315, here p. 292. 41 Northern Whig, 18 March 1927, p. 5.

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Ruth Stanley and Believe Me if all those Endearing Young Charms.42 The Northern Whig remarked that it was amusing to watch the effect of Irish music on the dancers […] for the spirit of the function was similar to the traditional céilidh in an old barn or farm kitchen. The merry lure of the Irish tunes filled the dancers with a reckless abandon which found expression in unorthodox steps of a jig or reel.43 There is some evidence of similar stylistic fusions south of the border. O’Brien recorded that, at very cheap dances, a céilí band occasionally attempted a performance of a modern dance without syncopation, which sometimes found itself “mysteriously transformed into ‘Terence’s Farewell to Kathleen’.”44 In general, however, he insisted that “The foxtrot and the Fairy Reel are mutually repugnant and will not easily dwell under the same roof.”45 A more detailed study may, in fact, reveal a process of hibernicization of jazz in Ireland. A tantalising indication of such is evident from a debate held in 1928 at the Little Theatre, Dublin under the auspices of Cumann na mBan. According to the Ulster Herald in its report, “To Dance or Jazz”, “a pro-jazz supporter stated that ‘the Irish people were putting their own national character into jazz.’”46 Throughout the twenties and thirties, there was a continuous stream of “ jazz” bands touring throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland. Firstly, and more rarely, there were visiting American bands, many of which featured African-American musicians. It was not unusual to advertise these musicians as “black” or “coloured”, thus suggesting a greater degree of authenticity to the performances. Notable visits included Will Marion Cook’s Southern Syncopated Orchestra to Belfast’s Ulster Hall in November 1921. The visit lasted a fortnight with performances twice daily.47 The Orchestra performed again at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre the following year.48 The American musician, Noble Sissle, also visited Ireland with his orchestra. Promoted as “The Ace of Syncopation”, Sissle’s Orchestra gave twice-nightly performances at the Theatre Royal in Dublin in 1928 and 1929 and performed at Belfast’s Empire Theatre in 1929.49 42 Bob Dryden was probably the drummer of the same name, who was a member of Nat Gonella’s band, “The Georgians”, formed in 1935. 43 Northern Whig, 18 March 1929, p. 10. 44 O’Brien: “The Dancehalls”, pp. 40–41. 45 Ibidem, p. 42. 46 Ulster Herald, 3 March 1928, p. 6. 47 Will Marion Cook (1869–1944) was an American composer, conductor and violinist. In 1919 he organized the all-black Syncopated Orchestra which toured America and Europe. 48 Evening Herald, 18 September 1920, p. 5. 49 Advertisements for Dublin shows appeared in the Irish Independent, 3 Oct 1928, p. 6 and the Evening Herald, 15 January 1929, p. 4.

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“Jazzing the soul of the Nation away ” British dance bands were frequent visitors to the island of Ireland, both north and south of the border. Beginning in the twenties, there was a surge in popularity of touring dance bands during the mid to late thirties. According to Solly Lipsitz, these bands were significant “mainly because of the fine American musicians who worked with them, and the jazz arrangements which were often included in the programme.”50 The distinctive orchestrated sounds of British dance bands owed their origins to the American development of “symphonic syncopation”, most famously championed by American bandleader, Paul Whiteman (18901967), and characterized by careful arrangements in which the soloists’ parts often featured prepared “improvisations”. As Mark Hustwitt observes, these “lush arrangements, steady tempo and smooth solos were preferred by audiences dancing in the high society hotels, restaurants and nightclubs”. 51 Nott records how the international idiom of “ jazz” and dance music underwent a transformation in Britain during the interwar years, when it was Anglicized and shaped to local conditions, assimilating some of the nation’s traditional playing techniques. British tastes tended to be simpler with a strong emphasis on tunefulness and British dance bands typically developed a gentler style of presentation, favouring “sweet” music over “hot”. The smooth and relaxing playing of the British style produced “a very domesticated sound that made for comfortable domestic enjoyment.”52 The BBC played a major role in propagating this gentler form of jazz. To quote Catherine Parsonage: [T]he American roots of popular music were hidden beneath a façade of Britishness […]. Together with the BBC’s commitment to providing suitable entertainment, this inf luenced not only the way in which the music was presented (formally announced, as bandleaders were not permitted to announce their own numbers to prevent ‘song plugging’), but the generally restrained nature of the performance and the music itself, as there was little room for spontaneous displays of improvisation in the carefully scored arrangements. 53 Despite the somewhat predictable and refined nature of broadcast British dance bands, they were nevertheless significant in that they provided an introduction to “hotter” jazz music. Poet and critic, Philip Larkin, recalled that while such bands were in almost no sense “ jazz” bands, about every sixth piece performed was a “hot” number, “in which the one or two men in the band who could play 50 Lipsitz: “Jazz”, p. 131. 51 Hustwitt: “‘Caught in a Whirlpool of Aching Sound’: The Production of Dance Music in Britain in the 1920s”, Popular Music, vol. 3, Producers and Markets (1983), pp. 7–31, here p. 16. 52 Nott: Music for the People, p. 201. 53 Parsonage: The Evolution of Jazz in Britain, 1880–1935. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, p. 49.

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Ruth Stanley jazz would be heard.” Larkin stated that the classic “hot” number was Tiger Rag and that “trombonists and tuba-players became adept at producing the traditional tiger growl.”54 These sounds would have been familiar to the ears of many Irish and Northern Irish listeners, especially through the medium of radio. From October 1923 onwards the BBC relayed live dance music several times a week from the Savoy Hotel in London. 55 In addition, Radio Éireann paid a fee to the BBC to relay broadcasts of the Savoy Bands during the late twenties and thirties. The Savoy Bands had a dedicated following across the United Kingdom and Ireland. One Northern Irish listener enthused that they were “wonderfully enjoyable in their brisk and brilliant style”. 56 For dance musicians in Northern Ireland, broadcasting provided large audiences for those lucky enough to earn contracts with the BBC. Aside from regular relays of dance music from fashionable restaurants, clubs and hotels in Belfast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland, 57 there were occasional broadcasts of celebrated British bands that travelled to Northern Ireland. British dance bands often had considerable celebrity status and were enthusiastically received by their fans when touring Ireland and Northern Ireland. One such band was Jack Hylton’s Dance Band, which became the English equivalent of Paul Whiteman’s American dance band and achieved phenomenal commercial success during the late twenties and early thirties. Melody Maker recorded that in 1929 Hylton and his Orchestra had performed 700 performances that year, travelled over 63,000 miles on tour, and sold records at an average rate of over seven a minute. 58 Hylton’s Dance Band was relayed from the Carlton in Belfast in 1926. Promoted as the “King of Syncopated Music” in Dublin, Hylton and his dance band performed at the Hotel Metropole in 1930 and at the Theatre Royal in 1933. 59 Likewise, the visit of Roy Fox’s Dance Band to Dublin in 1935 drew much public attention. The Evening Herald reported that

54 Philip Larkin: All What Jazz: A Record Diary. Faber & Faber: 2nd edn, 1985, pp. 15–16. 55 The bands were the Savoy Orpheans and Havana Bands and their repertoire included popular tunes of the day including several from America. Other popular bands of the twenties were Sidney Firman and his London Radio Dance Band which was replaced by Jack Payne’s BBC Dance Orchestra in 1928. Payne’s successor at the BBC was Henry Hall, whose first broadcast was on 15 March 1932. 56 Belfast Telegraph, 18 September 1924, p. 10. 57 Nott: Music for the People, p. 61. 58 Melody Maker, April 1930, p. 327, quoted in Nott: Music for the People, p. 197. 59 Evening Herald, 18 August 1930, p. 2. The Hotel Metropole (The Met) was a notable landmark in Dublin. It was located next to the General Post Office building in O’Connell Street. It was destroyed during 1916 Rising and rebuilt afterwards. Evening Herald, 19 May 1933, p. 6.

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“Jazzing the soul of the Nation away ” Long queues of people carrying copies of the “Evening Herald,” together with its free souvenir autographed photograph of Roy Fox, waited outside the Gaiety Theatre for the second house performance of the Roy Fox Band last night.60 Fox travelled to Dublin again in 1937, when he drew a large crowd at the Theatre Royal. According to the Irish Press, there was an attendance of about 700 and the band’s visit attracted people from all over the country.61 Other well-known dance musicians who travelled to Ireland included Hal Swain and his Café Royal Band, which performed at the Everyman Palace in Cork and the Plaza in Dublin in 1928.62 In 1935 the Irish Press recorded that crowded audiences had enjoyed the lively entertainment provided by Jack Payne and his band at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. American “talented coloured pianist and singer”,63 Garland Wilson, performed with the band. Renowned English trumpeter, Nat Gonella, also toured Ireland and Northern Ireland in the thirties.64 Promoted as “one of the leaders of modern ‘swing’ music”,65 he performed with his Georgian’s Band (‘Britain’s Hottest Quintette’) at Dublin’s Theatre Royal in 1937 and at Dublin’s Metropole Hotel in 1938.66 In response to audience demand, and reflecting a similar trend in Britain during the 1930s, larger cinemas in Ireland and Northern Ireland began hosting fashionable dance bands in stage shows, held prior to the screening of films and during intervals in the programme.67 English bandleader, Billy Cotton, was especially renowned for his stage shows and, in September 1938, gave performances at the Ritz Cinema in Belfast and at the Theatre Royal in Dublin.68 Regarding the latter engagement, the Irish Independent reported that the band “held the attention of the audience and 60 Evening Herald, 16 July 1935, p. 8. A “pictorial special” was featured on page 4. 61 Irish Press, 16 October 1937, p. 4. 62 Saxophonist, Hal Swain, led the Toronto Band at Prince’s Cabaret, Piccadilly and at Café Royal in Regent St, London. He composed the dance number, My Irish Home, Sweet Home. Irish Examiner, 8 September 1928, p. 11. Swain’s gig in Dublin was advertised in Evening Herald, 7 September 1928, p. 7. 63 Irish Press, 2 April 1935, p. 2. 64 While Lipsitz does not state in which dance hall Gonella was resident, my research suggests that it was most likely the Plaza Palais de Danse on Chichester Street. 65 Irish Press, 26 February 1938. 66 Evening Herald, 4 September 1937, p. 8. Irish Press, 2 March 1938, p. 6. 67 Nott: Music for the People, pp. 141–142. 68 Cotton (1899–1969) was a highly successful bandleader, drummer and entrepreneur, whose contribution to jazz and later radio and television broadcasting in Britain was immense. The Theatre Royal in Dublin first opened in 1662 and had numerous incarnations. The fourth and last of these was a large art deco building on Hawkins Street, first opened in 1935. It had a seating capacity of 3,700 and standing room for 200. It was used as both a theatre and cinema at this time and housed the Regal Rooms, a restaurant in which dancing took place. The building finally closed in 1962.

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Ruth Stanley the applause was loud and sustained.”69 Special mention was accorded to Clem Bernard’s jazz piano arrangements of Danny Boy and The Mountains of Mourne.

“Decadent alcoholics in pumps?” 70: jazz dancing in provincial and rural society Meanwhile, primary sources suggest that dancing was thriving in provincial Irish society. Writing in 1928, Louis J. Walsh asserted that in many towns throughout the Irish Free State, there were, “during the dancing season, enough allnight dances to give an average of one a week.” 71 By 1941 O’Brien estimated that there were approximately “1,200 licensed halls in the 26 Counties accounting for perhaps 5,000 dances in a year.” 72 Since golf clubs, tennis clubs, volunteer halls, and similar venues did not require a licence, O’Brien suggested that a net total of 10,000 dances were hosted per year, averaging thirty a day.73 Méabh Ní Fhuartháin’s research highlights the profusion of dance venues in rural Ireland, as well as “pop-up” dances organized at temporarily constructed marquees.74 Ticket prices varied considerably, ref lecting the hierarchical nature dancing in Ireland. In 1928 one commentator stated that admissions ranged from five shillings (€ 16) to a guinea (€ 67).75 O’Brien recorded similar values in 1941 and observed that there were three or four kinds of dances in rural Ireland (including the provincial towns). For any dance over five shillings (€ 13), “immaculate evening dress” was required. According to O’Brien, a person was economically “on the border-line” if s/he could only afford a dance priced at 3/9 (€ 10).76 Degrees of economic hardship in Ireland are evident in the fact that working classes attended significantly cheaper dances, ranging from to 1/6 (€4) down to 3d. (€ 0.70).77 Likewise, in his reminiscences of working-class Belfast during the thirties, Leo Boyle recalled that admissions for dances were priced at 2d. (€ 0.60) or 3d. (€ 0.95).78 While more 69 Irish Independent, 6 September 1938, p. 12. 70 In his article on “The Dance Halls”, O’Brien sardonically queried whether Ireland was peopled by “decadent alcoholics in pumps”, p. 36. 71 The article entitled “Why Some People Live Above their Means” by Louis J. Walsh (1880–1942) was originally published The Standard and reprinted in the Ulster Herald, 15 September 1928, p. 9. Walsh was a Northern Irish lawyer and writer, who later worked as a District Justice in Co. Donegal. 72 O’Brien: “The Dancehalls”, p. 36. 73 Ibidem. In O’Brien’s text, the average is stated as three a day; this is clearly a misprint. 74 Ní Fhuartháin: “Dance halls, parish halls and marquees”, pp. 7 and 10. 75 Louis J. Walsh: Ulster Herald, 15 September 1928, p. 9. 76 O’Brien: “The Dancehalls”, p. 39. 77 Ibidem, p. 40. 78 Leo Boyle in Ronnie Munck and Bill Rolston: Belfast in the Thirties: An Oral History. Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1987, p. 87.

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“Jazzing the soul of the Nation away ” detailed research is needed here, preliminary findings suggest that more traditional forms of dancing prevailed at cheaper venues.79 Regarding ‘respectable’ dress dances in rural Ireland, O’Brien stated that they were organized: by those of the white collar and the white soft hand – clerks, merchants, doctors – and [are] usually taken locally to be a proof of progress or culture. When the plain people see handsome men in ‘immaculate’ evening clothes alighting from fine motor-cars and disappearing into a Town Hall that seems temporarily glorious and reborn, they know well from their cinema that there is city devilry afoot. 80 Inside these dance halls, however, a familiar scene greeted its dancers. Poor lighting and ventilation were typical in rural venues; neither were they equipped with modern f looring: “The f loor is of thick planks (it was put there to accommodate a welcome for Parnell) and the knots will tell through the city man’s shoddy pumps.”81 O’Brien insisted that rural dress dances bore “scarcely any relation to ‘the dance hall scandal,’ ‘the jazz mania,’ or any other popular explanation of the decay of our country at the present time.”82 The quality of dance bands appears to have varied enormously. To quote O’Brien: What is regarded as a good band in the country will have ‘own electric amplification’ but may lack a piano. Their tunes will be old and grey […]. ‘Good-night, Sweetheart’ is still a rage in the west. 83 In what O’Brien defined “the great immutable law that determines the local prestige of every event”, 84 thus, “a dance is regarded as successful according to the distance the band has to travel.”85 Likewise, and in a fascinating incidence of cross-cultural exchange in post-partition Ireland, Louis J. Walsh asserted that in Donegal – and I suppose the like is true all over Ireland – the most unsophisticated […] will not condescend to dance at all unless a “Jazz band” has been imported from Derry City across the Border. 86 79 For example, Boyle recalled that “It was the old figure dancing, then”. Ibidem. O’Brien writes that the music at cheaper dances was supplied by “a solitary melodeon or piano-accordion, with possibly a fiddle and drums”, instrumentation suggestive of a céilí band. He further stated that modern dancing was “almost unknown” at cheap dances. O’Brien: “The Dancehalls”, p. 41. 80 O’Brien, ibidem, p. 39. 81 Ibidem. 82 Ibidem, p. 40. 83 Ibidem, p. 39. Goodnight, Sweetheart was composed a decade earlier. 84 Ibidem. 85 Ibidem. Original quotation in italics. 86 Louis J. Walsh: Ulster Herald, 15 September 1928, p. 9.

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“The hallmark of shoneenism” 87: jazzing within the Gaelic Athletic Association For many Gaelic revivalists, it was reprehensible to uphold Gaelic values on the one hand while supporting British imported culture on the other. Indeed, considerable control was exerted to preserve the alleged purity of Gaelic culture, as exemplified in the Gaelic Athletic Association’s prohibition on playing or even being a spectator of “foreign” games such as tennis, golf, cricket and soccer.88 A topic that has received scant attention in academic discourse, however, is the fact that the GAA also attempted to impose a ban on “foreign” dancing among its members. In particular, the GAA sought to prohibit its member clubs from hosting foreign dances at GAA functions. While the subject deserves more detailed and nuanced research, it is apparent that there was a remarkable degree of non-compliance by GAA members in regard to the ruling. In 1930, for example, when a motion was passed at the annual congress of the GAA declaring it illegal for any club to promote foreign dancing, representatives of the Gaels Hurling and Football Clubs in Derry City refused to accept the ruling, even at the cost of their expulsion from the GAA. A special meeting of the Derry County Board of the GAA was convened in order to consider the matter. The Ulster Council Secretary, Mr B.C. Fay, appealed to the Gaels Club to return to the GAA and abide by its rules. The Ulster Herald reported that Mr P. Fox, who headed the deputation from the Gaels Club, insisted that if things were going to be made intolerable for them by the County Board enforcing a rule that was not, they contended, in operation elsewhere, it could be taken for granted that they would remain aloof from the Board. His instructions from the club were that they were to continue jazzing. 89 Regarding the weekly jazz dances organised under the auspices of the Gaels Club, Fox stated, “I cannot see how it can have any detrimental inf luences on the morals of those patronising it.”90 He further asserted that the GAA’s ban was ineffective in many parts of the South, and until such time as it was made effective throughout Ireland, his club would not be bound by the rule. He suggested that the Derry Board suspend the ban for six weeks [;] at the end of that time, if it was found that the rule was being rigorously enforced in other parts of Ireland, Gaels Club would willingly be bound by it.91 87 Ulster Herald, 5 March 1932, p. 9. 88 The GAA was founded in 1884 by Michael Cusack (1847–1905) to promote amateur Gaelic games, including hurling and Gaelic football. The ban on “foreign” sports was finally lifted in 1971. 89 Ulster Herald, 22 February 1930, p. 9. I have been unable to obtain biographies for B.C Fay or P. Fox. 90 Ibidem. 91 Ibidem.

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“Jazzing the soul of the Nation away ” It is evident that the GAA was unable to compel its member clubs to obey the ruling, especially when there was a perception that there was widespread infringement. At the Ulster Council’s convention of the GAA two years later, a number of its delegates complained again about the incidence of “foreign” dancing at GAA clubs. Mr Tobin asserted that while not all GAA members were able to speak Irish, “surely they should all be able to keep jazz out of their social gatherings.”92 Mr McNamee stated that he preferred “a man who goes to Irish dances and plays Soccer to the man who plays Gaelic football and goes to jazz dances. Jazz dances are the hall-mark of shoneenism.”93 A month later, representatives at the annual congress of the GAA reiterated the ban, insisting that any GAA clubs hosting “foreign” dances would be expelled. According to one spokesperson, “there was no use in upholding the Gaelic ideal on the field if later it was violated in the dance hall.”94 In spite of such decrees, complaints of jazzing within the GAA continued. Preaching on the “Baneful Effects of Foreign Dances” at his parish church in Swinford, Co. Mayo in 1940, Rev. J. Gildea, declared that it was past time for the G.A.A. and the Gaelic League to tackle seriously, vigorously and determinedly the matter of foreign dancing which had a much greater denationalising effect upon the Irish people than all other foreign inf luences put together. Apart from the national aspect, […], there was the moral and therefore the more important viewpoint. It seemed to be very absurd and self-contradictory on the part of the G.A.A. to suspend members who looked on at a soccer match, and would not inf lict a similar penalty for taking active part in jazz dancing.95 It is surely an indication of the pervasiveness of jazz dancing in Irish and Northern Irish society, that such a staunchly conservative institution as the GAA failed to suppress the activity within its own ranks. Throughout the interwar years, both political entities of Ireland and Northern Ireland were engaged in a complex process of nation building, with their cultural identities increasingly typified by Gaelic Catholic Nationalism, on the one hand, and British Protestant Unionism, on the other. Notwithstanding these degrees of cultural essentialism, there was a notable tone of defiance within society regarding jazz. Northern Ireland’s broader cultural links with Great Britain may well have afforded a more positive reception of jazz. However, it is striking that Northern Irish Catholics, many of whom felt alienated within the Unionist state, did not 92 Ibidem, 5 March 1932, p. 9. 93 Ibidem. 94 Ibidem, 2 April 1932, p. 6. 95 Ibidem, 9 November 1940, p. 6

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Ruth Stanley reject modern dancing in spite of decrees by the Gaelic League, the GAA and the Catholic Church, whose control extended across the island. Indeed, while much of the current academic discourse relating to jazz has focused on aspects of institutional control during this period, the surprising discovery is the amount of resistance within the institutions themselves. In 1928 Father Lorcan O Muireadhaigh asserted that, “The disease of jazz is not confined to any class or party. Jazz has its devotees in every political camp and every social grade.”96 He further criticized the “bad example […] set by political organizations, Civil Servants, Catholic Societies, colleges, convents and even by some priests themselves” in organising dances.97 Likewise, the Ulster Herald featured the following report in 1928: In spite of all that has been said about the dangers and evils of jazzing, we notice that all the Catholic re-unions, diocesan dances, and most of the political parties’ dances are “ jazz affairs” […].98 In 1934 Fianna Fáil Minister, Seán MacEntee, was accused by the secretary of the Gaelic League, of “ jazzing the soul of the Nation away, and encouraging others to follow his bad example.”99 It is certainly intriguing that numerous politicians, priests, and members of the GAA were involved in organising and/or participating in jazz dances. While the cultural purist may have perceived that others were guilty of “ jazzing the soul of the Nation away”, for those participating in this immensely popular social activity, nationality does not appear to have been at stake. Moreover, this chapter has provided examples of hybridity and suggested a process of hibernicization of jazz in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The complicated reception of jazz within a censorious society is consistent with Edward Said’s observation that the restoration of culture and tradition within a society accompanies “rigorous codes of intellectual and moral behaviour that are opposed to the permissiveness associated with such relatively liberal philosophies as multiculturalism and hybridity.”100 Even so, Said insisted that “all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and unmonolithic.”101 Although rather exploratory in nature, this chapter has revealed fascinating aspects of the hidden history of jazz in Ireland and Northern Ireland, inviting further detailed research and, ultimately, perhaps, a more nuanced appraisal of cultural history across the island during this period. 96 Ibidem, 8 September 1928, p. 6. The newspaper was reporting on a paper on foreign dances, games and literature delivered by O Muireadhaigh to the Maynooth Union. O Muireadhaigh (1883–1941) was a Catholic priest, Irish language educator and cultural nationalist. 97 Ibidem. 98 Ibidem, 25 February 1928, p. 6. 99 Quoted, ibidem, 13 January 1934, p. 3. 100 Edward Said: Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage, 1994, p. xiv. 101 Said: Culture and Imperialism, p. xxix.

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Bibliography Baxendale, John: “‘…into Another Kind of Life in which Anything Might Happen…’ Popular Music and Late Modernity, 1910-1930”, Popular Music, vol. 14/ 2 (1995), pp. 137–154. Berret, Joshua:“Louis Armstrong and Opera”, The Musical Quarterly, vol. 76/ 2 (1992), pp. 216–241. Briggs, Asa: The Birth of Broadcasting: The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, 1961.      : The Golden Age of Wireless: The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, vol. 2. Oxford University Press, 1965. Dáil Debates: Houses of the Oireachtas: http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/. Duffy, Johannah: “Jazz, Identity and Sexuality in Ireland during the Interwar Years” in Irish Journal of American Studies Online (2009), http://ijas.iaas. ie/index.php/jazz-identity-and-sexuality-in-ireland-during-the-interwaryears/ [Accessed 1 September 2016]. Evans, Damien: The Creation of Meaning and Identity in the Dublin Jazz Scene, Past and Present, PhD diss., Dublin Institute of Technology, 2016. Ferriter, Diarmaid: Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland. Profile Books, 2009. Hogan, Eileen: “‘Earthly, sensual, devilish’: Sex, ‘race’ and jazz in post-independence Ireland” in Jazz Research Journal, vol. 4/ 1 (2010), pp. 57–79. Hustwitt, Mark: “‘Caught in a Whirlpool of Aching Sound’: The Production of Dance Music in Britain in the 1920s”, Popular Music, vol. 3, Producers and Markets (1983), pp. 7–31. Kennedy, Aidan M.: The dance hall and jazz music in Ireland, MA diss., University College Dublin, 1985. Larkin, Philip: All What Jazz: A Record Diary (Faber & Faber: 2nd edn, 1985). Lipsitz, Solly: “Jazz” in Michael Longley (ed.), Causeway: The Arts in Ulster. Belfast: Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1971, pp. 131–137. McLoone, Martin: “Inventions and Re-imaginings: Some Thoughts on Identity and Broadcasting in Ireland” in McLoone, Martin (ed), Culture, Identity and Broadcasting in Ireland: Local Issues, Global Perspectives. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1991, pp. 2–30. Munck, Ronnie, and Rolston, Bill: Belfast in the Thirties: An Oral History. Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1987. Ní Fhuartháin, Méabh: “Dance halls, parish halls and marquees: Sharing spaces for music and dance practice in early twentieth century Ireland”, Paper presented at “Music in Ireland: 1916 and Beyond Conference”. Dublin Institute of Technology, 22–24 April 2016, pp. 1–13. 249

Ruth Stanley Nott, James J.: Music for the People: Popular Music and Dance in Interwar Britain. Oxford University Press, 2002. O’Brien, Flann: “The Dancehalls” in Sean McMahon (ed.), Great Irish Writing: The Best from The Bell. Dublin: O’Brien Press, 1978, pp. 36–43. O’Connor, Barbara: “Sexing the Nation: Discourses of the Dance Hall in Ireland in the 1930s”: Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 14/2 (2005), pp. 89–105. Parsonage, Catherine: The Evolution of Jazz in Britain, 1880–1935. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Pine, Richard: 2RN and the origins of Irish Radio. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002.      : Music and broadcasting in Ireland since 1926. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005. Riach, Douglas C.: “Blacks and Blackface on the Irish Stage, 1830-60”, Journal of American Studies, vol. 7/3 (December, 1973), pp. 231–241. Scott, Derek B.: “Incongruity and Predictability in British Dance Band Music of the 1920s and 1930s”, The Musical Quarterly, vol. 78/2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 290–315.      : “The ‘Jazz Age’” in Stephen Banfield (ed), Blackwell History of Music in Britain: Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, pp. 57–78. Shanagher, Sean: Recreational Dance in Ireland 1940-1960: Politics and Pleasures, PhD diss., Dublin City University, 2014. Smyth, Jim: “Dancing, Depravity and All That Jazz: The Public Dance Halls Act of 1935” in: History Ireland, vol. 1/2 (Summer, 1993), pp. 51–54. Stanley, Ruth: A formative force: the BBC’s role in the development of music and its audiences in Northern Ireland, 1924–39, PhD diss., Queen’s University Belfast, 2011. Said, Edward: Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage, 1994. The Stormont Papers: 50 Years of Northern Irish Parliamentary Debates Online: http://stormontpapers.ahds.ac.uk/

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Creating an Irish World Music Capital

Sonic Icon, Music Pilgrimage: Creating an Irish World Music Capital Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin Music, like language, religion and other signifiers of identity is metonymically and metaphorically linked to place. Facilitating the sensory, experiential and expressive modes through which places are known, contested and imagined, music fills space with moods and emotions and encodes it in individual and collective memory. From lesser known shrines of Sufi saints in India and Pakistan where ancient music is performed daily, to globally renowned shrines of sonic remembrance like Salzburg, Cremona, New Orleans and Memphis, music shapes its own acoustic topographies that seldom align with the fixed Cartesian topographies of political and economic space. Musical place making and its attendant dinnsheanchas (place lore) are perennial features of Irish traditional music; particularly in Clare, an old world soundscape in the West of Ireland. In the market speak of Irish cultural tourism, “Clare for the Music” is a mantric calling card that beckons people west from the nation’s capital to the sessions and festivals of this coastal sanctuary. Every summer, its small towns and chapel villages become make-shift academies of tradition, none more so than Miltown Malbay, where the Willie Clancy Summer School attracts music students and pilgrims from across the globe. Unpacking the cultural history of Miltown Malbay from its genesis as an Ascendancy outpost to its emergence as a capital of Irish world music, this chapter investigates the modalities through which this small community mobilized its soundscape following the death of its piper Willie Clancy in 1973 to create an autonomous and vibrant academy of music and folklife. Deploying a palimpsest of cross-disciplinary perspectives – cultural geography, social history, ethnomusicology – this exposé eschews the false dichotomy of ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ that characterize traditional histories of Irish music, focusing instead on a sonic gemeinschaft that slowly but surely recentered itself away from the stasis of externally-imposed marginalization.

A Periphery on the Edge of a Periphery Bordered by water on three sides, Ireland’s western county of Clare sits with its back to the Shannon and the Old World, its front facing west across the Atlantic and the New World beyond. Home to celebrated novelist, Edna O’Brien and

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Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin her historic neighbour Brian Merriman, Ireland’s Rabelaisian poet, the area is not particularly renowned as a cradle of Irish writing. Its reputation lies beyond text in the domain of sound, in particular, music that has garnered an international reputation for the region. Birthplace of Irish avant-garde composer, Gerald Barry, whose work is renowned worldwide, Clare – to paraphrase philosopher, Paul Ricoeur – is also consecrated by more traditional genres.1 Its traditional, or world music masters, Sharon Shannon and Martin Hayes, are the global faces of Clare today. Similarly, its iconic Kilfenora Céilí Band, the oldest céilí band ensemble in Ireland, has performed Clare’s traditional repertoires in symphony halls and folk festivals throughout the world. While these performers sustain a diasporic, vicarious, and prosthetic sense of Clare overseas, Clare’s own sites of musical pilgrimage like Doolin, Feakle and Kilfenora act as nodal points, or homing centres for thousands of (new and returning) music tourists every year. Miltown Malbay is the most enduring of these sites. Narrated time is deeply interwoven in the soundscape of Miltown Malbay and constructed space is encoded in its music memory – both of which bestow a rich phenomenology of place on the town and its hinterland. Postcard images of West Clare on a fine summer’s day tend to romanticize the heathery splendor of Mount Callan, its dark Doolough Lake, (home to a monster banished by St. Senán) and its stone-bed dolmen, where the lovers Diarmuid and Gráinne reputedly spent a night on their mythological tryst around Ireland. Topping the Hand Hill and driving west into the setting sun, the traveler is treated to a sparkling panorama of Atlantic blue, with Miltown Malbay, Spanish Point and Quilty spread out blissfully along the coast. To the west lies Mutton Island and beyond, its mythic neighbour, Cill Scoithín buried like Hy Brasil beneath the waters of the Atlantic. A deeper perusal of this cultural history and geography, however, reveals a more nuanced canvas than that portrayed by idyllic tourist images. According to the Annals of the Four Masters, an earthquake shook West Clare on 16 March 804 that split the landmass between the Cliffs of Moher and the Cliffs of Baltard. 2 The resulting tidal wave submerged the land between these two points and drowned a thousand people. This may well account for the prominence of the drowned village of Cill Scoithín in the oral history of the region. By the end of the first millennium of the common era, the area was dominated by the Uí Brecáin dynasty who ensconced themselves, possibly with the help of the Dál Cais, between the Corcu Modruad to the north and the Corcu Baiscind 1 2

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Paul Ricoeur: Memory, History, Forgetting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 149. “There happened great wind, thunder, and lightning, on the day before the festival of Patrick of this year, so that one thousand and ten persons were killed in the territory of Corca-Bhaiscinn, and the sea divided the island of Fitha into three parts.” John O’Donovan: Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters: From the Earliest Times to the Year 1616, vol. 1. Dublin: De Búrca, 1990, p. 411.

Creating an Irish World Music Capital

Figure 1: Miltown Malbay and its West Clare hinterland

to the south. 3 The spiritual masters of the region were St. Brecán, an associate of St. Enda of Aran, and St. Laictín who is also venerated in West Cork. Local nomenclature underwent further transformations in the centuries that followed. According to the Papal Taxation of 1302-07, the region that would eventually become Miltown Malbay is referred to as Kellinfearbregay, from the Irish, Cill Fearbuidhe. Conversely, there is a tradition that this toponym derived from fear buí, “yellow” or “sallow” men, from the Spaniards who perished there during their ill-fated Armada expedition in 1588. Survivors of Spain’s scattered f leet received a lethal welcome in West Clare in September 1588. Under orders from Elizabeth I, Sir Boetius Clancy, high sheriff of Clare, rounded up and hung Spaniards who survived shipwreck off the Clare coast. Clare’s most famous Armada site is Spanish Point, a mile from Miltown Malbay, final resting place of the Portuguese galleon, the San Marcos that perished with 446 souls on board on 20 September 1588.4 3 4

Donncha Ó Corráin: Ireland before the Normans. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972, p. 7. Seán Spellissy: A History of County Clare, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2003, pp. 25–28. Clancy was less sanguine about tackling a small flotilla that weighted anchor off Scattery Island after

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Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin Two centuries passed before this hostile coast gained further notoriety. By now, the toponym Malbay had entered the lexicon, so called because a witch named Mal had been drowned in the bay. By 1750, Edmond Morony acquired a sizable tract of land between Spanish Point and Miltown Malbay. An Ascendancy family, the Moronys were settled in Clare by the Earl of Thomond following the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. 5 By the end of the century, the proverbial Big House was built and dominated the region until the Moronys were relieved of their station following the War of Independence. An older Gaelic milieu remained remarkably intact in the hinterland around the landlord town of Miltown Malbay. Throughout the Penal Era and the half century leading up to the Great Famine (1845–1850), the area housed bardic schools, poets and a coterie of professional pipers; among them, Michael Comyn, (an Irish-speaking Ascendancy poet), Aindrias and Séamus Mac Cruitín, Seán Lloyd and Hugh Curtin.6 In 1826, fourteen hedge schools were active in West Clare, four of them in Miltown Malbay.7 If sociocultural intercourse between Catholic and Protestant was f luid in the region in the eighteenth century, the same cannot be said for local political culture a century later. In the twenty years prior to the famine, the population of Clare had grown at twice the national average and more rapidly than any other Irish county. By 1841, there was hardly a part of Clare with a population density of less than 300 people per square mile. In parts of west and north west Clare, the figure was as high as 400 per square mile. (Compare this with a population density of 70 people per square mile in 1966). According to the 1841 census, forty five percent of Clare holdings were between one and five acres. 8 Housing conditions were equally abysmal. Almost 25,000

5 6 7 8

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safely navigating the mouth of the Shannon. According to an account left by Nicholas Cahane, son of the last coarb (ecclesiastical overlord) of Scattery, four large Armada ships and three smaller vessels arrived into the estuary in 1588. One of the vessels (possibly, the Annunciada from Dubrovnik) was damaged. After attempting to sell it to Cahane, the Spaniards burned the ship rather than have it fall into hostile hands. Fed, rested and equipped with supplies, they eventually left Scattery and made their way home to Spain. Tony Kearns and Barry Taylor: A Touchstone for the Tradition: The Willie Clancy Summer School. Dingle: Brandon, 2003, p. 20. Seosamh Mac Mathúna: Kilfarboy: A History of a West Clare Parish. Dublin: Lucan, 1975, pp. 108–115. Second Report from the Commissioners of Education Inquiry, 1826–7. Cited in Pat Mitchell: “Willie Clancy: Some Reflections on his Life and Music,” Dal gCais: The Journal of Clare and its People, 9. Miltown Malbay: Ennistymon Printers, 1988, pp. 84–86. See T.W. Freeman: Pre-Famine Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1957. Useful contemporary sources include: Hely Dutton: Statistical Survey of Co. Clare. Dublin: Royal Dublin Society, 1808; Samuel Lewis: Topographical Dictionary of Ireland. London: Lewis, 1837, the reports of the select committee appointed to enquire into the condition of the poorer classes in Ireland (1835–36), and the report of the Devon Commission of 1843. See Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh: “Aspects of the Economy and Society in nineteenth century Clare,” Dal gCais: Journal of Clare and its People, 5. Miltown Malbay: Ennistymon Printers, 1979, pp. 110–114.

Creating an Irish World Music Capital families lived in one-roomed cabins with inadequate ventilation and little or no protection from the elements. This accounted for sixty percent of all listed houses in Clare in the mid 1840s. The Great Famine rocked this fragile society to its foundations. Its clachan based peasantry was decimated by hunger and disease. Emigration became a f light from a stricken land. In the grim decades that followed, the population of Clare fell by twenty-five percent. Thirteen thousand homes became uninhabited in the period 1845–1855.9 The distress was exacerbated by chronic overcrowding in the work houses and penny-pinching by Poor Law Unions. It was no great surprise that Fenianism took hold in the region. The movement proved particularly visceral in Miltown Malbay, enough to merit serious mention from a resident magistrate in his report to Dublin Castle in 1867, the year of the abortive Fenian Rising. The dye of political disaffection, however, had been well cast in Miltown Malbay prior to the 1860s. During the famine, the Moronys had alienated themselves from their tenants by their heartless bigotry and evictions. Their journey down the slippery slope continued in the 1870s and 1880s. Charles Stewart Parnell made a historic visit to Miltown Malbay on January 27, 1885, his presence adding to the alchemy of political upheaval. His mission was to turn the first sod for the new West Clare Railway. However, his “Great Miltown Meeting” proved to be a lighting rod for major civil disobedience. The press described the gathering as “the largest meeting ever to assemble in Clare during the present generation.”10 In 1888, Mrs. Burdett Morony rack-rented her tenants and was duly boycotted by local shop-keepers and publicans. The boycotters were subsequently imprisoned for refusing to serve her. For these for whom emigration was an option, the new Republic of Argentina offered attractive terms in the 1880s. Oral sources recall emigrants walking 120 miles from Miltown Malbay to Cork to take advantage of assisted emigration offered by Argentina in the wake of its independence in 1880.11 A group of Irishspeaking emigrants had already left the region in the 1850s and settled in a remote part of the Argentinian pampas, (west of the Salado river), where they spoke Clare Irish until the 1930s.12 Other emigrants chose other well-trodden paths to the New World – New York, Boston, San Francisco. Emigration is still an ongoing reality in this part of West Clare as are its support networks overseas. Established in 1896, the Miltown Malbay Social Club, for example, is one of the oldest Irish 9 Ó Tuathaigh, ibidem, p. 111. 10 Mac Mathúna: op. cit., p. 72. 11 The Free Emigration Act offered to pay the £8 passage fare for emigrants on condition that they worked for two years in Argentina to repay the fare to the government, after which they were free to stay in the country, or move elsewhere. See Spellissy, op. cit., p. 54. 12 Patrick McKenna: “Nineteenth Century Irish Emigration and Settlement in Argentina.” Unpublished MA thesis in Geography, St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, 1994, p. 150.

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Example 1: Garrett Barry’s Jig

associations in New York City, where it continues to welcome and integrate new immigrants to the United States.13 Social and economic life in Miltown Malbay improved in the decades before World War I; not least, as a result of the West Clare Railway that brought new consumer goods and Victorian tourists to the town; the Congested Districts Board that fostered local cottage industries, and Scottish Laboratories, a chemical company that bought kelp from farmers and fishermen along the West Clare coast. If Miltown Malbay was an Anglophone hub, its hinterland of fishing villages and mountainy clahans was still Irish-speaking by 1900, with a lively caste of folk poets and pipers, fiddlers and dancers. Its most celebrated piper was Garrett Barry from Inagh. Born in “Black 47,” Barry contracted small pox as a child and remained blind for the rest of his life. In keeping with the old Gaelic custom of encouraging children born with a blemish to learn poetry, or music, Barry learnt the uilleann pipes as a young man and became a quasi-professional piper patronized by the people of West Clare until his death in 1899. It was into this milieu of old world piping and new world railways that Willie Clancy was born in 1918.

Willie Clancy: An Unlikely Global Villager The musical odyssey that became the life of Clare’s most illustrious piper and, ultimately, the school that bears his name, began very much in the heartland of the ordinary, in a country house in Islandbawn, outside Miltown Malbay on Christmas Eve 1918. Born as the world emerged from the killing fields of Flanders and the Treaty of Versailles and Bolshevik Revolution redrew the contours of the twentieth century, Clancy grew up in a place far removed, yet not untouched by events on the European mainland, nor indeed, the Irish War of Independence that reaped a heavy toll in West Clare. By 1918, Miltown Malbay was a hotbed of republicanism and cultural nationalism. The Gaelic League won popular endorsement in the area and language classes were organized by timirí (traveling teachers) from as far south as Cork. Local language activist, Tomás Ó hAodha rose to 13 See (No Author): Miltown Malbay Social Club of New York 1896–1996: Centennial Celebration, Lovely Old Miltown. New York: Miltown Malbay Social Club of New York, 1996.

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Creating an Irish World Music Capital prominence as an Irish language cartographer. His maps graced the school rooms of the nation for most of the twentieth century. Clancy’s parents were musicians. His mother, Ellen Killeen from Ennistymon played concertina. His father, Gilbert was a f lute player and singer who also played concertina, an instrument that was now a stable in many Clare homes. Gilbert Clancy had been a friend of the piper, Garrett Barry, whose reputation and music were very much part of the folklife of the region when Willie Clancy was a child. Barry’s tunes and settings were carefully handed down to him by his father. At the age of five, Willie began playing whistle, however, when his fingers were long enough to span the larger instrument, he moved on to f lute. He learned step dancing from Thady Casey who had danced as a barefoot youth to Barry’s music.14 Casey, a popular dancing master, also taught Clancy the fiddle. To add to his talent, Willie also learned songs from his father, which he sang in the jovial style of the older singers. If Clancy’s name become synonymous with uilleann piping, it was not until he was in his late teens that he saw and heard the instrument played. Although, he knew Garrett Barry’s music intimately and was aware of other West Clare pipers, the first piper he heard was Johnny Doran whose seasonal travels around the West of Ireland brought him to the races in Miltown Malbay in the summer of 1936.15 Mesmerized by Doran’s skill, Clancy became captivated by the uilleann pipes. In 1938, he got a bag, bellows and a Rowsome chanter from Johnny Doran’s brother Felix and began his thirty-five-year piping career. By 1947, his playing had improved sufficiently for him to win first place at Oireachtas na Gaeilge in Dublin. By now, he had met Seán Reid, John Potts and Séamus Ennis, all key figures in the Irish piping world. In the late 1940s, Clancy joined his neighbors, Bobby Casey and Martin Talty for a brief spell with the Tulla Céilí Band. Not being tied to the daily, or seasonal rituals of farming, Clancy had time to “travel out” (a local expression for distant peregrinations), meet other musicians and learn their music. Lacking the security of land or farm, however, economic necessity forced Clancy to migrate to Dublin in 1951. There he found work as a carpenter and played with the Leo Rowsome Quartet.16 Within two years, his search for work took him to London where he joined his friend Bobby Casey. England, however, failed to hold 14 Pat Mitchell: The Dance Music of Willie Clancy. Cork: Mercier Press, 1977, p. 9. 15 While Hugh McCurtin (Clochán Mór), John Carroll (Freagh), Pat Burke (Miltown Malbay) and Tom Hehir (Freighruisk) are documented figures, West Clare pipers, Michael Riordan (Knockera who lived in the US in the late nineteenth century), Paddy Murphy (a traveling piper who frequented the coastal villages of north Clare in the early 1900s), and the female piper, Margaret Downes (Mullagh) are not. Several professional pipers plied their trade on steam packets traveling the Shannon from Limerick to Kilrush in the decades after the Great Famine. Peadar O’Loughlin, Personal Interview, Kilmaley, May 2000. 16 This ensemble included Tommy Reck, Seán Seery, as well as Leo and Leon Rowsome.

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Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin him and, in 1957, after the death of his father, Clancy returned permanently to Miltown Malbay, where he spent the rest of his life working as a carpenter. He also tinkered with the idea of making pipes and set up a lathe in his workshop at home. The experience of living and playing in diverse music communities in Dublin and London in the 1950s exposed Clancy to an array of styles and idioms. Pipers Tommy Reck, Séamus Ennis and Leo Rowsome with whom he associated in Dublin, all fueled his repertoire, as did players he met in London. Blessed with a sharp ear and good memory, his repertoire was overf lowing when he returned home to Clare in 1957. Much of this treasury found its way onto a series of milestone recordings that spanned the end of 78 rpm era and the start of the LP age. In 1957, he made his legendary 78’s for Gael Linn, using a B f lat chanter crafted by the Moloney brothers in 1860. These discs are now sacrosanct in the canon of Irish piping. In the 1960s, he made two records for the new Claddagh label, and one for Topic – all of which are still in print fifty years later. While prosperity came to Clare and Miltown Malbay in the 1960s, in the form of mass tourism, lounge bars and music festivals, Clancy continued to gravitate towards the smaller pubs in the town and in the hinterland around Miltown Malbay. Friel’s pub on the Mullagh Road was one of his sanctuaries and he held court in the small kitchen behind the bar. These druidic gatherings where he was surrounded by friends and devotees, students and aficionados are now the stuff of legend, not least, his roguish exchanges with piper and broadcaster, Séamus Ennis who was a frequent caller. In 1968, Clancy traveled to Bettystown, Co. Meath for a special convention of uilleann pipers. In an effort to halt the decline of piping, Na Píobairí Uilleann (Irish Pipers Association) was launched at this meeting with the express mission to promote the playing and making of uilleann pipes. As a founding member, Clancy played a key role in launching and legitimizing the new body at a critical juncture in Irish piping. His impact proved strategic and decisive. Subsequently, his home in Miltown Malbay became a mecca for young pipers who came in pursuit of tunes and songs, as well as Clancy’s extensive musical lore. Among these were Liam Óg O’Flynn (1945–2018) from Kill, Co. Kildare who introduced uilleann pipes to a new audience with Planxty; Dubliner Pat Mitchell, Clancy’s future biographer, and Seán McKiernan from Carna who has meticulously safeguarded Clancy’s style for the past four decades.

Local Sound—World Soundscape: Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy Willie Clancy’s death following a heart attack on 24 January, 1973 shocked the Irish music world at home and abroad. Writing in An Píobaire, his student and

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Creating an Irish World Music Capital protégé Seán McKiernan expressed the sentiments of a generation who admired Clancy and his music: Apart from the permanent sense of loss which is overwhelming, we suffer the loss of more than just an artist. For me, Willie represented the old way of life (a thing I value beyond words), and this “bealach an tsean-nóis” came through so strongly, not only in his piping, whistling or singing, but in conversation with him, in his hospitality even, and in this day and age when what he stood for tends to become so watered down and artificialised through bright lights, his loss is so much greater. From the beginning, no other music could interest me as fully as Willie’s, and now he is dead and we starve.17 Clancy’s legacy, however, proved one of the most enduring in Irish traditional music, not only for musicians in Clare but for Irish musicians worldwide. The school that was founded in his honour was a pedagogical crucible that globalized Irish traditional music in the 1970s and 1980s and, in the process, rescued and resuscitated the fragile art of Irish uilleann piping. The decision to commemorate Clancy’s life with a music school was not an instant one. Nor was its maiden voyage devoid of political bickering, (not least, between Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and local organizers in Miltown Malbay). In the months after Clancy’s death, a committee was set up and a subscription list announced in the Clare Champion newspaper. However, there was no clear plan, or initial strategy. Many of Clancy’s friends felt that a statute, or a once off tribute would not be enough to venerate a man who had played such a dynamic role in the world of Irish music. Rather than creating a passive monument, many felt that a dynamic living monument that epitomized Clancy’s life and music and that brought musicians to West Clare to learn about the culture he personified would be more appropriate. By Easter 1973, a summer school seemed like the most tangible option. The possibility of such a school had occurred to Muiris Ó Rócháin, the founding director, some years earlier but it might have been forgotten had it not resurfaced again in the wake of Clancy’s death. In the short window between April and July 1973, plans were laid and an ad hoc committee set to work. While they were determined to avoid the dry academic timbre of established summer schools, (like the Yeats and Merriman schools), they were equally determined to make musicians their primary focus. They were also adamant that their school would not become another corporate-sponsored event on the roster of Irish commercial tourism, which was then gaining traction throughout the West of Ireland. After four months of intense preparation, the first Willie Clancy Summer School convened in Miltown Malbay on Saturday, July 28, 1973 and continued 17 Cited in Mitchell, op. cit., 1976, p. 11.

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Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin until the following Saturday. It is a tribute to its pedagogical planners, Muiris Ó Rócháin and Séamus MacMathúna that the format they devised still remains in place four decades later. After the opening ceremonies and keynote lecture on the Saturday evening, the school gathers at Clancy’s grave on the Sunday afternoon to pay tribute to his memory. The main work begins on Monday morning with classes in all major traditional instruments, as well as song, dance and folklore. Afternoon sessions are devoted to lectures on Irish music culture and practice, from stylistic aesthetics to music history. Evenings feature instrumental and vocal recitals, céilithe and informal sessions in Miltown Malbay and in surrounding villages. Reed-making workshops hosted by Na Píobairí Uilleann run concurrently with morning classes and afternoon lectures, as well as exhibitions, broadcasts, archive projects, and seminars on music history and folklore for students not registered in instrumental classes. During its first decade, the school expanded its programme to include concertina and set dancing classes, which was then a thriving social activity in towns and cities across the nation. Since its inception, its master teachers and performers have been carefully selected from a cross-section of the Irish music world. Many are unassuming tradition bearers from rural and urban communities, others are public figures from institutes, universities and professional circuits that span the globe. Over the years, the Willie Clancy Summer School has welcomed performers from Irish-speaking communities in Coolea, Connemara, and Tír Chonaill, as well as Gàidhlig-speaking singers and musicians from the islands and highlands of Scotland. While most of its student body is Irish, it has become increasingly transnational in recent years.18 It is not unusual to meet uilleann pipers who have found their way to the school from the pampas of Argentina, the fjords of Norway, or the ultra modern cities of Japan – all of which makes Miltown Malbay a cultural and linguistic Babel every July. What began as a modest, if ambivalent forum with eighty students and twelve faculty in 1973 has now risen to fifteen hundred students and a hundred plus teachers. As the population of this small market town increases tenfold, the sound of music spills into the streets and surrounding countryside bolstering a sense of indigenous cultural pride and global awareness among locals and guests alike. Unlike other cultural institutions in Ireland, the Willie Clancy Summer School has an uncanny ability to function successfully without bureaucratic baggage, corporate brokers, or political handouts. Hawk-eyed drink companies and other business sponsors have been consistently denied access to the school, as have 18 Records indicate that approximately forty percent of registered students (and possibly an equal percentage of informal visitors to the town) originate outside of Ireland, mainly, in North America, the European mainland, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. See Kearns and Taylor, op. cit., p. 148.

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Creating an Irish World Music Capital tourism planners and media conglomerates. Director Muiris Ó Rócháin (1944– 2011) insisted that the mission of the school from the onset be uncompromisingly educational and cultural. We kept the school away from the political arena. It was either going to be successful by providing high standards, or it was going to fail. But it was not going to become a political marketing stunt. Even when we invited people to open the school, some of whom were national and international political figures, we always selected people who made intellectual or cultural contributions to Irish life. That is why the school has continued to thrive for so long.19 Ó Rócháin and his co-director, Harry Hughes drew on precedents established by the Scandinavian folk school movement in creating their school. They both saw indigenous culture and heritage as key components in their project and agreed that their remit in developing the school was much broader than mere cost-effective exercises in cultural economics. When I was directly involved in setting up the school, I remember reading material from the Danish folk schools. The guiding philosophy of the Danish folk schools was that anything which was set up purely on the basis of economics may work, or it may not work. Setting up a school or an enterprise which is based on culture, or a set of indigenous beliefs that a community shares in common has a far greater chance of surviving and succeeding. I think it is fair to say that we have proven this principle at the Willie Clancy Summer School. As a matter of fact, when we were starting off, we didn’t even ask the local people for financial subscriptions. We established the school on a skeleton budget. In fact, the financial aspect is still probably our weakest link. Money is not the driving force. There is something deeper here, something in the communal identity of the people that makes this school function so well. You can create a school anywhere but if it is peripheral to the lives of the people in the local community, it functions in a vacuum. Whereas, here in Miltown Malbay, we didn’t try to impose the summer school on anyone. The local community were wonderful. They have come out fully in support of the school because it ref lects their lifestyle and their cultural priorities, and the musicians who come here from all over the world feel that sense of respect from the people of West Clare – simply because there was no one creaming off the commercial spoils of indigenous culture here. 20 19 Muiris Ó Rócháin: Personal Interview, Miltown Malbay, December 1993. 20 Ó Rócháin, ibidem, 1993.

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Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin As this rare habitus continues to share its culture with the music pilgrims who throng to West Clare every year, it is evident that Willie Clancy is as much a totemic figure in death as he was in real life. His memory continues to permeate his native place, as well as the real, virtual and vicarious places where his music is played and appreciated. To suggest that Miltown Malbay is a mere provincial town in the West of Ireland is now something of a misnomer. In truth, it is an epicenter in an Irish soundscape that extends throughout the globe. In redressing its historical and geographic isolation, it has unravelled an arcane sense of the periphery in Irish rural culture and, in the process, brought Irish traditional music to a brave new world.

Bibliography Anon: Miltown Malbay Social Club of New York 1896-1996: Centennial Celebration, Lovely Old Miltown. New York: Miltown Malbay Social Club of New York, 1996. T.W. Freeman: Pre-Famine Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1957. Hely Dutton: Statistical Survey of Co. Clare. Dublin: Royal Dublin Society, 1808. Samuel Lewis: Topographical Dictionary of Ireland. London: Lewis, 1837. Seosamh Mac Mathúna: Kilfarboy: A History of a West Clare Parish. Dublin: Lucan, 1975. Patrick McKenna: “Nineteenth Century Irish Emigration and Settlement in Argentina.” Unpublished MA thesis in Geography, St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, 1994. Pat Mitchell: “Willie Clancy: Some Ref lections on his Life and Music,” Dal gCais: The Journal of Clare and its People, 9. Miltown Malbay: Ennistymon Printers, 1988, pp. 84–86.      : The Dance Music of Willie Clancy. Cork: Mercier Press, 1977. Donncha, Ó Corráin : Ireland before the Normans. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972. John O’Donovan: Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters: From the Earliest Times to the Year 1616, vol. 1. Dublin: De Búrca, 1990. Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh: “Aspects of the Economy and Society in nineteenth century Clare,” Dal gCais: Journal of Clare and its People, 5. Miltown Malbay: Ennistymon Printers, 1979, pp. 110–114. Paul Ricoeur: Memory, History, Forgetting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Seán Spellissy: A History of County Clare, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2003 Tony Kearns and Barry Taylor: A Touchstone for the Tradition: The Willie Clancy Summer School. Dingle: Brandon, 2003.

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“In the mood for dancing”: Emigrant, Pop and Female Méabh Ní Fhuartháin

Introduction This essay examines the intersection of three broad categories or conditions, that of emigrant, pop artist and female, analysed through the particular case study of a band of singing sisters, The Nolans. The constitutive and complicating whole which the layering of this trio of structuring (cultural) paradigms produces, informs realities of performance, representation and identity, and offers an insight into the practice of pop music during the period 1975 to 1985 (with a brief nod to contextualizing performances at either side of that). In the case of The Nolans, this essay additionally argues that the band encounters a subsequent and continuous process of occlusion in popular music discourse, experiencing a repeated dislocation precisely because of the interlocking conditions of being emigrant, pop artist and female. Pirkko Moisala’s and Beverly Diamond’s ref lection that those who write about music should “disrupt the presumed naturalness about who or what is important”, informs the discussion throughout.1 In the words of The Nolans themselves, it is time (and timely), to “give a little bit of attention” to them. 2 The thesis (and impetus) for this essay was prompted initially by the publication, in 2013, of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland (EMIR), a publication for which I was one of two primary editors in the subject area of popular music. 3 Hundreds of EMIR entries fell under the banner of popular music and the list of entries expanded and contracted, with inclusions and exclusions debated and discussed over the course of a long, editorial gestation period. Other layers of finetuning (!) entry lists took place at consultant-editorship and general-editorship level. Notwithstanding all these editorial strata and safety nets, an encyclopedia of anything is fraught with the danger of “inadvertent exclusion” and equally perilous acts of critical consecration.4 Post-EMIR, panicked realizations of editorial 1 2 3 4

Pirkko Moisala and Beverly Diamond: Introduction to Music and Gender. Chicago: University of Illinois, 2000, pp. 1–19 here p. 7. The Nolans: “Attention to Me”. UK: Epic, 1981, 45rpm. The first version of this essay was presented as a seminar at University College Dublin, where I received feedback from Prof. Harry White. I am grateful for all critical commentary offered on earlier versions. Harry White and Barra Boydell (eds.): Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013. Harry White: “Introduction”, in: Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, pp. xxi–xxxiii, here p. xxix.

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Méabh Ní Fhuartháin oversight have resulted in no small degree of academic guilt on my own part and The Nolans were victim to one such “inadvertent”, yet telling, exclusion in the original publication. They are nowhere to be found within the covers of EMIR and this essay seeks to examine, in part, why and how that happened. This research also serves as an act of recovery, a mea culpa for and counterbalance to that exclusion.

The Nolans The extended Nolan family’s performance career stretches from the 1940s to the twenty first century, across two generations and continues today through solo careers in the wider field of entertainment on stage and small screen. The heyday of their ensemble music success as The Nolan Sisters (and simplified as The Nolans latterly) was between 1975 and 1985, and that period is the focus for this discussion. Mater and pater familias, Maureen and Tommy Nolan, were both singers from Dublin and met while performing at Clery’s Ballroom. 5 They married in 1948 and subsequently formed the musical duo “Tommy and Maureen, Sweethearts of Song”. Seven of eight Nolan children were born in Ireland between 1949 and 1960 and the older (though still young) children were on stage with their parents from an early age. In addition to his day job as a bookkeeper, and his evening performance schedule, Tommy also secured part-time work as a radio broadcaster.6 The Republic of Ireland in the 1950s is one which is described in socio-economic terms as desperate, and though there has been a more nuanced interpretation of the decade in recent scholarship, the picture is still one of an “existence so grey, so monotonous and cheerless” as to be culturally, as well as economically, impoverished.7 Emigration from Ireland, driven by harsh economic realities, was at its highest rate since the Famine period of the previous century. As a response to labour needs across the Irish Sea, the cardinal point for Irish emigrants was east, to the cities of London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Coventry, among others. And while the historical pattern of single female emigration from Ireland is well documented, this does not discount the many females who emigrated as wives and daughters of male emigrants. 8 It is in this context that the Nolan fam5 6 7

8

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Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever. London: Hodder, 2013, p. 8. Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, London: Arrow Books, 2008, p. 22. Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 9 and Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 22. Joe Cleary: “Introduction: Ireland and Modernity”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture, eds. Joe Cleary and Claire Connolly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 1–21, here p. 14. For a (marginally) less bleak interpretation, see Diarmaid Ferriter: The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000. London: Profile Books, 2005, p. 464. Bronwen Walter: “Irish Women in the Diaspora: Exclusions and Inclusions”, in: Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004), pp. 369–384, here p. 370. Mary Lennon, Marie McAdam and Joanne O’Brien: Across the Water: Irish Women’s Lives in Britain. London: Virago, 1988, p. 12.

Emigrant, Pop and Female ily’s move to Blackpool, in 1962, may be situated, and comes at the shoulder end of a tsunami of Irish emigrant displacement. Despite improving conditions in Ireland, with T.K. Whitaker’s and Seán Lemass’s economic policies bearing positive economic results, the elder Nolans had already decided that to achieve their goal of broader music success, this move was essential.9 In this regard, the family’s motivations were simultaneously typical, migration to Britain being “treated as if it was some kind of natural occurrence” and atypical, moving a whole family to expand a music career.10 The initial move from Dublin to Blackpool (“the centre of showbiz”), and another later move closer to London, were predicated on the promise by their future manager of musical success for the growing family on stage and in the field of recording.11 Initially, Tommy envisaged the sound and look of the band as a family one, with himself included (and sometimes, though not always, Maureen). They began by singing on the men’s club circuit and in various tourist hotspots, and the base in Blackpool made strategic sense with numerous venues right on the doorstep. Though some of the family was still very young (the eldest was only thirteen years old), all participated at different times in various band configurations and they quickly earned a reputation as Blackpool’s own Von Trapp family.12 During the 1960s and early 1970s, their performance profile expanded through extensive live performance and most of the family moved to Ilford, East London in 1974 when a residency for the five eldest girls was booked.13 By then, they were signed to EMI, but chart success continued to evade them despite their television and touring profile.14 The name of the band also responded to changing combinations of sibling members (and parents) as time passed, with different nomenclatural incarnations of the band occurring. They called themselves The Singing Nolans up to 1973/4, when the band included one or other of the two boys in the family; The Nolan Sisters from 1974 to 1980; and finally settled on simply The Nolans thereafter.15 The line-up changed at various times too, but it was the female siblings Maureen, Anne, Denise, Bernie, Linda and Coleen (the youngest, born in 1965 and the only 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Brendan M. Walsh: “Economic Growth and Development, 1945-70”, in Ireland 1945–1970, ed. J.J. Lee. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1979, pp. 27–70, here p. 26. Mary Hickman and Bronwen Walter: Discriminations and the Irish Community in Britain. London: Commission for Racial Equality, 1997, p. 7. Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 11. Coleen Nolan: Upfront and Personal. London: Pan Books, 2009, p. 11. Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 62; Nolans, Survivors. London: Pan Books, 2011, p. 33. Coleen Nolan: Upfront and Personal, p. 31. Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, pp. 94–95. Coleen Nolan: Upfront and personal, p. 29. Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, pp. 23–25. Maureen Nolan, their mother, also performed with the band in the 1960s, but less and less as that decade passed, and their father Tommy Nolan continued singing with the band in the early 1970s. Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 13.

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Méabh Ní Fhuartháin sibling born in Britain) in different permutations, that made the breakthrough to wider pop music and chart success. Maureen holds the record for being the longest serving member (thirty-one years with the band) and the moveable configuration of Anne, Bernie, Linda, Coleen and Maureen was most successful. Between 1974 and 1979, The Nolans were ubiquitous guests on UK television, appearing on TV specials with Cliff Richard (first, in 1974) and others.16 They also played support to Frank Sinatra on his 1975 European tour, which Anne remembers as a career highlight.17 The sound of The Nolans consistently relied on tightlayered harmonies, with a lead vocalist (most often Bernie) and they developed a disco-lounge sensibility in arrangements and repertoire selection, which became their signature sound.18 Though The Nolans recorded eight singles between 1974 and 1978 (entering the British Eurovision Song Contest the latter year), significant album chart success eluded them until Twenty Giant Hits, an album of covers, was released in 1978.19 Finally, triumph in the singles charts arrived when I’m in the mood for dancing, released in December 1979, reached no. 3 in Britain and no. 2 in Ireland. 20 Their fame stretched far beyond UK shores and The Nolans sustained popularity in Japan long after the halcyon days of their European achievements had faded. 21 By 1985, The Nolans’ heyday was over. Though permutations of the band continued touring, individual siblings moved on to other careers outside of The Nolans and in 2005 a formal disbandment was announced. 22

Popular (Irish) (emigrant) music discourse The dynamic potential of music as a tool deployed by the Diaspora is, by now, a familiar idea. Most frequently in the case of the Irish Diaspora, it is Irish traditional music that is the subject of academic engagement in the field of Irish

16 “Nolan Sisters on the Cliff Richard Show”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yMVgPahf1U, (last accessed 23 February 2017). – “Cliff and Nolan Sisters”, https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=WbUkUaiDKtw, (last accessed 23 February 2017). 17 Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 110. 18 Ibidem, p. 106. 19 Twenty Giant Hits, Target, 1978, LP. 20 The Nolans: I’m in the mood for dancing, Epic, 1979. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UZY XFgQnAo, 20 Feb. 2017. 21 The Nolans won the Tokyo Music Festival in 1981, and reputedly earned £50,000 royalties each while on tour. Coleen Nolan: Upfront and Personal, p. 63. Irish Examiner, 30 March 1981, p. 1. Bernie Nolan claims they sold over nine million records in Japan, see Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 45. Their continued popularity in Japan echoes Johnny Logan’s longevity in Germany. 22 Following this, there were several reunion performances between 2005 and 2011, and a reunion tour in 2009 that was the subject of a film documentary: The Nolans’ Story: A Farewell Tour, dir. Mark Turnbull. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TotiHn82Dck, (last accessed 13 February 2017).

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Emigrant, Pop and Female emigrant music studies. 23 There is a certain logic to this as the literature is concerned with ideas of the sonic representation or legacy of ‘home’ in the Diasporic world. 24 More recently, popular music and second generation Irish abroad have elicited commentary and the research is concentrated in two specific areas. The first area is Irish emigrant contributions to the emergence and development of American popular music. 25 The second area of note is research which pays attention to the place of Irish artists in popular music, predominantly in the UK, in the latter part of the twentieth century. In his 2011 monograph, Sean Campbell lists notable artists of Irish extraction in British popular music, and writes “Musicians of Irish descent have played a long-standing role in the history of British popular music, through figures such as Lonnie Donegan, [Paul] McCartney and [ John] Lennon, Dusty Springfield (Mary O’Brien), John Lydon, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello (Declan McManus), Shane MacGowan, Kevin Rowland, Boy George (George O’Dowd), Morrissey, Johnny Marr (born Maher), and Noel and Liam Gallagher”. 26 Far fewer females than males of Irish descent are to be seen (or heard). Noel McLoughlin and Martin McCloone subsequently centre their critical discourse on a hagiography of males and when females are included, they are, in Julia Downes’ terms, “exceptional history”. 27 In what is still, admittedly, a small field of study, the absence of popular music narratives foregrounding females is stark and Campbell himself comments on the lacuna in a later article. 28 It prompts a question asked in a different Irish musical context “Where’s the women?”. 29 The examination herein of The Nolans’ success (and demise) responds to this question and expands the field of study.

23 Mick Moloney: “Irish Traditional Music in America”, SING OUT!, 25/4 (1980), pp. 3–5. Rebecca Miller: “‘Our Own Little Isle’: Irish Traditional Music in New York”, New York Folklore, XIV/3– 4 (1988), pp. 101-115. 24 Tim Collins: “Tis Like They Never Left: Locating Home in the Middle of Sliabh Aughty’s Diaspora”, in: Journal of the Society of American Music, 4/4 (2010), pp. 491–507. 25 Christopher Smith: “Blacks and Irish on the Riverine Frontiers: The Roots of American Popular Music”. Southern Cultures, 17 (2011), pp. 75–102. Mick Moloney, Irish Music on the American Stage. Cork: Irish Traditional Music Society, 1993. 26 Sean Campbell: Irish Blood, English Heart: Second Generation Irish Musicians in England. Cork: Cork University Press, 2011, p. 1. 27 Noel McLoughlin and Martin McCloone: Rock and Popular Music in Ireland: Before and After U2. Dublin: Irish Academic Press (2012), pp. 231-252. Julia Downes: “Introducing the All-girl Band: Finding Comfort in Contradiction”, in Women Make Noise: Girl Bands from Motown to Modern, 2011, pp. 7–16, here p. 11. 28 Sean Campbell: “Reflections of a London-Irish musician: An interview with Cáit O’Riordan”, in: Irish Studies Review (2013), pp. 1–9, here p. 2. 29 Verena Commins: Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy: Transmission, Performance and Commmemoration of Irish Traditional Music, 1973–2012. PhD diss., NUI Galway, 2014, p. 204.

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Emigrant The Nolans were continually identified as Irish in Britain and by default, subject to the complexities and dislocations of that identity. Unlike many Irish emigrants in Britain, the family eschewed the typical “cluster[ing] around formal structures, institutions and organizations” of the emigrant experience. 30 The ultimate aspiration for the Nolans’ move to Britain was never going to be fully realized within ethnic community boundaries. Rather (and unlike Irish traditional musicians) their socio-musical goals were wholeheartedly ‘pop’ and borrowing Angela Means’ term, aimed at a “constitutively” intercultural place. 31 Rather than any overarching musical legacy from Irish music genres, The Nolans are closer in terms of musical, structural and organizational heritage, to the girl groups of 1950s and 1960s Motown: all-female groups that depend on vocals with choreography; do not play instruments; and don’t have authorial legitimacy, as they perform covers (or have music written for them). 32 The Nolans did not foreground any identifiable Irishness through genre, lyrics or interpretation so there was nothing sonically demarcating them as Irish, nor were they directing their music at an exclusively ethnic listenership. Notwithstanding the mid-sonic sea in which The Nolans resided, they were continually identified as “Irish” in the press and in reviews, and their Irishness was deemed apparent and appropriate in a variety of respects. 33 This is constructed in key ways, not least of all, as a family band, The Nolans represented wholesomeness, something noted in relation to family bands in other music spheres as well. 34 But in the case of The Nolans it is an Irish (family) wholesomeness that is proposed; at that time seen as conservative and drawing on the authenticating capacity of that feature. Anne comments that “our main attraction was that we were all one family”. 35 The Nolans were jobbing singers making a living, carving out a life for themselves and displaying a typical sub-ethnic profile of Irish in Britain. Marcella Buckley writes that “Irishness appears in British media only sporadically and 30 Kathy Burrell: Moving Lives: Narratives of Nation and Migration among Europeans in Post-War Britain. England: Ashgate, p. 141. 31 Angela K. Means: “Intercultural political identity: Are We There Yet?” in: Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders and Gender, ed. Seyla Benhabib et al. New York: NYU Press, 2009, pp. 380–409, here p. 382. 32 Elizabeth K. Keenan: “Puppets on a String? Girl Groups of the 50s and 60s” in: Women Make Noise, pp. 37–61, here p. 39. 33 As recently as 2015, widespread coverage of a story on Linda Nolan referred to her as “Irish”, see “Shame of Nolan Sister”, in: Daily Mail, 11 May 2015, p. 7. 34 Victoria Yeulet: “Female pioneers in American Old-time and Country”, in Woman Make Noise: pp. 17–36, here p. 25. Ed Kahn: “The Carter Family on Border Radio”, American Music, 14/2 (1996), pp. 205–217, here p. 210. 35 Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 69.

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Emigrant, Pop and Female problematically. Officially, Irishness is something which happens elsewhere and which periodically erupts [. . .] to demand a response” and she goes on to describe “an active unseeing” in popular culture. 36 The Nolans, however, are in the public eye, not unseen, and are presented as Irish, even if that identity is not heard in their own performance. The continuous reference to the Irishness of The Nolans as public figures in Britain, is one that draws on constructions of conservatism and naïvety and offers an image of the band with its feet (or certainly one foot) firmly in an innocent past. They were a lodestone of purity and Coleen writes that “the press constantly printed stories about how sickly sweet and goody-goody we all were”; it seemed as if they “were under attack simply from being too nice”. 37 There is a corollory with the representation of other successful Irish figures in the public sphere in the UK during this period, for example, radio and television star, Terry Wogan, and Val Doonican, a singer also with a high television profile. 38 This version of Irishness is non-threatening, placable and has an undefined pastness. Throughout The Nolans’ career and indeed thereafter, the commentary in the English press has a particular correspondence with this image. In many ways, and in an odd temporal juxtaposition, before they ever reached the acme of their success, the image of The Nolans was already a dated one. The girls attended Catholic school in Blackpool, where they were in the school choir, learning to sing, among other things Brahms’ Lullaby in Irish and Anne remembers specifically wearing green costumes when singing an Irish medley on the club circuit in the 1960s. 39 Maureen recalls her childhood in Dublin as a “time of pure joy” and in 1977, while on tour on a cruise ship, Tommy introduced Bernie to Mike Callahan as a prospective suitor, telling her he would be “perfect for you. He’s from an Irish family in Derby”.40 Notwithstanding these individual testimonies, and though privately, their father “was fiercely patriotic about Ireland”, Irishness as expressed by the Nolans themselves, about themselves, is reminiscent of Clair Wills’ recollections that “Apart from the fact that we were Catholic, and nurtured a sentimental attachment to our Irishness [. . .] we seemed entirely integrated”.41 36 Marcella Buckley: “Sitting on Your Politics: The Irish Among the British and the Women Among the Irish”, in: Location and Dislocation in Irish Society, ed. Jim McLaughlin. Cork: Cork University Press, 1997, pp. 94–132, here p. 97. 37 Coleen Nolan: Upfront and Personal, p. 50 and Nolans: Survivors, p. 74. An article in the Meath Chronicle, on 14 August 1982, declared that Kate Bush “with her new flower girl look, could easily join The Nolans” demonstrates how endemic the catergorization was. 38 In one of his final interviews, Terry Wogan was described thus, “Where the BBC is our kindly Auntie, Sir Terry is the reassuring Uncle”, The Telegraph, 31 Jan. 2016. 39 Nolans: Survivors, p. 23 and 1. Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 66 and p.74. 40 Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 35. 41 Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 126. Clair Wills: The Best Are Leaving: Emigration and Post-War Irish Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2015, here p. xii.

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Méabh Ní Fhuartháin When compared to other Irish music artists (or those with a recognizable and recognised Irish tag) who enjoyed success during the same period, there are distinct comparisons to be made. Some bands positioned themselves in a (masculine) performance space, identifying Irishness often in a polemical or reluctant way. For example, the Boomtown Rats (identified as a punk band but operating “at some distance from the punk ideal”) frequently rail against Ireland in bandauthored lyrics.42 Though trying to escape Ireland, Ireland is often present in the Rats songs: “Banana Republic, Septic Isle/ Screamin’ in the sufferin’ sea/ sounds like cryin’ [. . .] everywhere I see/ The black and blue uniforms, police and priests”.43 Irishness is demonstrated by other bands of the same period in nonlyrical ways. One of the key successes of U2’s Irish identity, also contemporaries of The Nolans, has been their commitment to being domiciled in Ireland and even though members of Thin Lizzy, another key Irish rock band of the period, lived in Britain for extended periods, the band nonetheless articulated their strong Irish ties through Phil Lynott, lead singer and song writer, and through some of the band’s repertoire. The Nolans’ presentation of Irishness was different in execution.44 As emigrants, The Nolans were positioned (and positioned themselves) outside recognizable circles of ethnic engagement and binding. When the family decamped to England, it destabilised the authenticating ties of locale, similar to other women’s experiences presented in Across the Water: Irish Women’s Lives in Britain.45 In literature and cultural history, Ireland (and therefore Irishness) is frequently interpreted as feminine and Rita Wall notes that the limited available identities for Irish women in Britain were “Mother Ireland” and “Irish mother”.46 This can be understood within the parameters of the colonial to colonised relationship, and the convenient linguistic reality of Éire (Ireland) as grammatically feminine. In conjunction with the evocation of family and family values as part of the band’s Irishness, the overwhelming feminine presentation of self in the band from the early 1970s compounds their Irish emigrant identity. The Nolans, not uniquely, were a combination of first and second generation emigrants, with siblings born both in Ireland and in Britain. They thought of themselves as Irish (and retained their bilocated accents as proof ) but their lives were lived in the hybrid intercultural space of the dominant. As The Nolans 42 Sean Campbell and Gerry Smyth: Beautiful Day: Forty Years of Irish Rock. Cork: Atrium Press, 2005, p. 64. 43 “Banana Republic”, Ensign Records (1980). 44 Mary Hickman and Bronwen Walter: Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain, Commission for Racial Equality, 1997, p. 7. 45 Lennon: Across the Water, p. 10. 46 Rita Wall: Leading Lives: Irish Women in Britain. Dublin: Attic Press, 1991, pp. 9–10. Breda Gray: Women and the Irish Diaspora. London: Routledge, 2004, pp. 40–59.

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Emigrant, Pop and Female moved to the centre (literally from) the post-colonial, Dublin, to the colonial centre London), performatively and culturally speaking, they left the periphery behind, but in so doing missed out on (some) essentialist markers of authenticity.47 The balance of hybridity in The Nolans’ music-making is distinctly non-Irish and it occludes them from a particular kind of Irishness, not just in Britain but in Ireland too. Though non-ethnically quarantined through text or subtext musically, the family name of the band, which they chose to retain, is a powerful identifier of the band as Irish (and is doubly signified through the family configuration).48 Other artists such as Boy George (George O’Dowd) adopt stage names that consciously or not, obscure ethnicity.49 The sustained use of the Irish surname “The Nolans” as the name of the band, rebinds them as Irish over and over, and their first names, Maureen and Bernie for example, do the same. Breda Gray suggests that Irishness in Britain as an identity is produced through displacement and hybridization. 50 A potent symbolism is apparent in the naming of the youngest sibling, ‘Coleen’, the anglicised form of ‘cailín’, meaning ‘girl’ in the Irish language: “a good Irish name”. 51 As the only one of the family born in Britain, Coleen’s name perpetually ties and reties her displaced self (and that of the band) to the image of the comely Irish girl, innocent and youthful, representing Ireland herself.

Pop In academia, popular music is an umbrella term that includes many subcategories, including the category of ‘pop’ itself: a genre specifically directed at young (often female) teens (and increasingly pre-teens), which has its beginnings in the Motown era of girl groups of the mid-twentieth century. 52 Diane Railton observes in relation to pop music, “One of the ironies of popular music studies is that the music that is the most popular, in terms of contemporary chart success, is rarely discussed by academics writing in the field”. 53 Echoing Railton, Chris Washbourne and Maiken Derno note that due to “canon construction”, there is a discrepancy 47 McLoughlin and McCloone: Rock and Popular Music in Ireland, p. 194. 48 The ‘family’ Irish image though family names is used by other bands, such as early twentieth century American-based bands like The McNultys and The Flanagans. The pop band The Dooleys were contemporaries of The Nolans in the 1970s, but they were a mixed-gender band, not at all as successful as The Nolans, and despite the name, had non-Dooleys in the band. 49 Campbell: Irish Blood, English Heart, p. 64. 50 Breda Gray: “Gendering the Irish Diaspora: Questions of Enrichment, Hybridization and Return”, in: Women’s Studies International Forum 23/2 (2000), pp. 167–185, here p. 173. 51 Nolans: Survivors, p. 20. 52 Downes: “Introducing the All-girl Band”, pp. 7–16. 53 Diane Railton: “The Gendered Carnival of Pop”, in: Popular Music, 20/3 (2001), pp. 321–331, here p. 321.

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Méabh Ní Fhuartháin between what music scholars focus on and what people routinely listen to, and this is especially the case in terms of popular and pop music. 54 Academic writings on popular music became entrenched early on in a binary of authentic and inauthentic. Within popular music studies, pop as a genre, in all its guises, is deemed not quite as ‘authentic’ as its popular music cousins such as rock, punk or rap and hiphop, for example. Genres are authenticated through a process of classicization and historicization, creating a “retrospective consecration” whereby rock and more recently, rap/hiphop become the authentic arts of the popular music world. 55 These genres are perceived as having an autonomous integrity tied to (or at least the potential for) disruption and resistance, a characteristic adjudicated to be sorely lacking in the f luffy ubiquity of pop. 56 Noel McLoughlin and Martin McCloone’s discussions of Sinéad O’Connor are only possible due to her “subversion of – even a detonation of – the dominant female archetype in Irish music”, as a proto-disruptive diva. 57 The Nolans, on top of dislocation and occlusion of identity by virtue of being Irish in Britain, are occluded by what they were doing musically, so long as the sphere of pop continues to be a critically disenfranchised genre, disregarded, inauthentic and therefore less valuable. The “pleasures of pop” after all are something we “need to grow out of ”. 58 Bernie Nolan recalls that at The Nolans first performance on Top of the Pops, she bumped into the lead singer of Scottish punk band, The Skids, who spat on the f loor beside her feet and growled “Urgh, The Nolans”. 59 In this architecture of authenticity in popular music, U2 equals good; The Nolans, equals bad, even though as Moynagh Sullivan points out pop also has the capacity to produce the experience of authentic. 60 Commercial success is a complicating factor in this aesthetic framework; a spanner in the authenticating works, as it were. In Burns and Lafrance’s words, “we win” when performers “infuse us with a sense of oppositional solidarity”, but “we lose” when buying records of those same performers simply re-inscribes “exploitative, capitalist

54 Chris Washbourne and Maiken Derno: “Introduction” in Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate. NY: Routledge, 2004, pp. 1–16, here p. 4. 55 Vaughan Schmutz and Alison Faupel: “Gender and Cultural Consecration in Popular Music”, in: Social Forces 89/2 (2010), pp.685–708, here p. 689. 56 Even within research focused on women in popular music, disruption is often the focus. Lori Burns and Melissa Lafrance: Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity and Popular Music. London: Routledge, 2002. 57 McLoughlin and McCloone: Rock and Popular Music in Ireland, p. 9. Burns and Lafrance: Disruptive Divas, p. 18–19. 58 Railton: “The Gendered Carnival of Pop”, p. 330. 59 Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 41. 60 Moynagh Sullivan: “Boyz to Menz-(own): Irish Boy Bands and the Alternative Nation” in: The Irish Review, 34 (2006), pp. 58–73, here p. 61.

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Emigrant, Pop and Female relations of consumption”.61 In this way, even The Nolans’ commercial success disenfranchises them critically. If The Nolans operate in a parallel aesthetic sphere to other successful Irish bands of the period, how do they compare to other artists within the genre of ‘pop’ itself during that time? They were an anomalous model of pop music in 1980, the year of their biggest UK hit I’m in the mood for dancing (a track which remains their most memorable number). Surrounded by (post-) punk bands and solo artists, the Irish Osmonds had little in common with other chart acts. At the height of their fame (between 1979 and 1983, they had twelve top twenty hits in a row), The Nolans were constructed as already being old-fashioned, and as demonstrated this was tied into their Irishness and a kind of female-ness. The Nolans shared the lounge disco soundscape of their chart hits with some other bands, but were clearly different in that other comparable ensembles were almost exclusively male (Dr Hook) and often fronted by black artists (Hot Chocolate). The everpresent conundrum of being post-colonised but white, and therefore dislocated in popular music culture of the late twentieth century, is part of the de-authenticating process The Nolans face in terms of critical acceptance. In the post-1970s disco sphere (1979 is widely perceived as the year that disco died) The Nolans were neither black, nor male, nor American, all defining authentications of disco. Emphatically white and Irish, but in Britain, it is a confusing pop-disco identity, at sea somewhere in the musical mid-Atlantic or Irish Sea, indebted to “intercultural positionality” but a-located, for the same reason.62 The Nolans challenge narratives of what ‘good’ music is, when pop, put in opposition to the ‘high’ end rock, is a source of “horror and fascination” in the critical interpretive scheme.63 The observation that the “public were great, but we never got the respect from the industry” is not surprising: The Nolans remain not even at the bottom of the critical heap, but outside of it altogether.64

Female The final condition through which I would like to examine The Nolans is that of female, which cuts through and intersects with The Nolans as emigrants, and The Nolans as pop artists. The oppositional binary of rock versus pop is underpinned with a gendered binarism, where rock is interpreted as the authentic within the overarching conceit of popular music, and is variously read as autonomous, mature, 61 62 63 64

Burns and Lafrance: Disruptive Divas, p. 18. Means: “Intercultural political identity”, p. 382. Railton: “The Gendered Carnival of Pop”, p. 321. Coleen Nolan: Upfront and Personal, p. 49.

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Méabh Ní Fhuartháin real and inescapably (and increasingly since the 1960s) masculine.65 This is in clear contrast to ‘pop’ as feminine, feminized, feminizing, and therefore an immature, soft and less authentic practice. The aesthetic value attributable to each is as one might expect with this binary in mind and there is a corollating value transferred to the performers themselves. Downes writing about all-girl bands comments that “the all-girl band is always in a precarious position of opportunity, marginalization, devaluation and erasure from history”, and the same is true for The Nolans.66 Patricia Coughlan’s dissection of female representations in the poetry of Séamas Heaney and John Montague offers some useful nodes of exploration in the case of The Nolans and echoes Gray’s work in so far as both commentators ask questions about available female Irish identities.67 The ideology of the Irish female at home, not just domestically, but located physically in Ireland at home, as described by Bronwen Walter, is twice rejected by the emigrant singing Nolans.68 The Nolan sisters are neither in place at home in Ireland, nor at home in a domestic sense, in their emigrant female experience in Britain. Their public career sees them traversing Britain, and travelling the wider world to perform and their mobility is intrinsically dangerous, especially when they leave the cultural security of their (male) father as chaperone. If the role of the emigrant Irish female is to replicate and secure the ideology of ‘the home’, The Nolans did not comply. Arguably, the sustained image of the band of siblings, ‘the family’ albeit not at home, but united on the road, partially mitigates the transgressions of mobility and nondomestication. The kind of conf lict which Buckley describes between emigrant parents and their offspring, where the home is a conf licted site of contested cultural engagement, was not straightforward in the Nolan family.69 As they grew up, the binds of the family band kept both generations unified for longer than might otherwise have been the case. With chart hits came appearances on Top of the Pops (TOTP), the most important indicator of (commercial) success across all genres in popular music at that time. Having a Top 40 single was one of the few conditions of securing a spot on the TOTP and The Nolans first appeared on TOTP in 1979, singing Spirit, body and soul (the first hit single they had with the CBS label). It was the first of many appearances. BBC regulations at that time decreed that a designated number of acts had to be live on TOTP each week and The Nolans reaped the benefit of their long experience singing live, being based close to London, and inevitably 65 Keenan: “Puppets on a String?”, p. 44. 66 Downes: “Introducing the All-girl Band”, p. 11. 67 Patricia Coughlan: “Bog Queens: The Representation of Women in the Poetry of John Montague and Seamus Heaney” in Theorizing Ireland, ed. Claire Connelly. UK: Macmillan, 2003, pp. 41–60. Also, Gray: “Gendering the Diaspora”, here p. 173. 68 Bronwen Walter: Outsiders Inside. London: Routledge, 2001, pp. 197–198. 69 Buckley: “Sitting on Your Politics”, p. 111.

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Emigrant, Pop and Female being available for performance. For these reasons, the number of appearances they made on TOTP was above average.70 With simple, coordinated choreography, a “mechanical perfection of movement” (something which Keenan quoting Jacquline Warwick describes as “disciplining the body” in reference to Motown groups) and sartorial cohesion, The Nolans were carefully managed to avoid any overt suggestion of their sexual selves.71 Indeed, Anne believes that “we were seen as a family act and somehow were never allowed to grow up in people’s eyes as individual women”.72 Already performing within a feminized genre (‘pop’), The Nolans had an additional feminizing “super sweet image” compounded by how they dressed (or more accurately, were instructed to dressed).73 The costumes they wore were chosen by producers and managers and initially, their father Tommy, as patriarch, needed to approve any changes. Each sister was dressed in identical, modest outfits, emphasizing the conservative family unit. The singing sisters frequently objected to costume choices: Coleen recalls being forced to wear “awful green matching satin dresses” for an early TV appearance, and from a young age Bernie “hated everything” which she believed “created a sweet sickly sweet image” that they “struggled for years to get rid of ”.74 Though a source of tension, Anne wryly notes that despite the bad press always being directed at their image “there are worse fates than being branded as virginal”.75 Being allowed to wear trousers at an appearance on TOTP in 1979 was (perhaps) a victory for agency, but they all wore matching blouses.76 In the early 1980s, the sisters begin to have greater control over how they would appear on stage, and on album cover design and merchandise, but the earlier image already embedded was difficult to escape, even as they gained limited autonomy. An obvious and revealing contrast arises between The Nolans, as an all-girl singing group appearing on TOTP, and Legs and Co., the resident, all-female dance troupe on the chart show from 1976 to 1981 (the only other female ensemble who appear more often than The Nolans on the show during the period). Legs and Co. provided regular weekly dance routines on TOTP and were functionally important to the show at the time prior to music videos being the norm.77 70 Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 42. 71 George D. Hodnett: “The Nolans at the Olympia”, in: The Irish Times, 22 August 1985, p. 10. Keenan: “Puppets on a String?”, here p. 46. 72 Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 128. 73 Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 26. 74 Coleen Nolan: Upfront and Personal, p. 33. Bernie Nolan, Now and Forever, p. 26. 75 Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 106. 76 Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 42. 77 For an example of Legs and Co. on TOTP in 1981 see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJM 2x6xJ9hQ, (last accessed 23 February 2017).

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Méabh Ní Fhuartháin When top selling artists were not available for live performance (as was frequently the case with American acts), Legs and Co. filled the visual space to the sonic back track of the in absentia weekly chart topper. They performed choreographed, often highly sexualized routines and were more often than not, scantily clad. On a continuum of female cultural ensemble representation during the decade under consideration, The Nolans and Legs and Co. are at obvious polar ends. If The Nolans were cast as virginal, (Catholic), Irish lounge interlopers, Legs and Co., thrusting and suggestive, were the vampish anti-Nolan. But both were locked into particular gendered roles, and are bounded by those roles, albeit in vastly different ways. For The Nolans tensions extended to decisions on choosing what songs to release. Attention to me, recorded on the 1980 album Making Waves and released successfully as a single in 1981, prompted a major disagreement between band members and their label, as The Nolans felt another song was a better choice as a contemporary, pop song.78 The band was overruled by the producer, illustrating the continued intention (now by their record label) to perpetuate a particular kind of image of The Nolans, sonically as well as in other ways. None of the band members wrote songs for the band, and songwriters were selected by the label du jour to compose for the group: Ben Finden, Mike Myers and Bob Puzey were the most successful song-makers the group had. Given the overall image being constructed, the lyrics are not always as innocent as might be presumed. “I don’t wanna be a star attraction/ Just need some action” (Attention to Me) and “Ooh, from head to my toe/ take me again/ And heaven who knows/ Where it will end” (I’m in the Mood for Dancing) are blatantly sexual, and “Who’s gonna rock, gonna rock you now, Who’s gonna put out your fire [. . .] Who’s gonna fill your desire?” leaves little to the imagination.79 Lyrics, while not authored by band members, do allow the (by now, almost all) adult women to articulate something about their lived experience. The complexities of this are not unusual in the world of pop, “the music of the all-girl groups emerges from a complicated network of relationships between the musicians, songwriters and producers, between performer and audience, and between teen girls and society at large”, and so it is the case with The Nolans.80

Conclusion In 1983, The Nolans single, Dressed to Kill offered an “edgier, more grown-up” image, as they donned men’s jackets and fishnet tights, “fingerless gloves and wilder hair” on the sleeve. 81 Some band members felt that for the public “it was 78 Coleen Nolan: Upfront and Personal, p. 48. 79 The Nolans: Whose Gonna Rock You?, Epic, 1980. 80 Keenan: “Puppets on a String”, p. 39. 81 Coleen Nolan: Upfront and Personal, p. 66.

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Emigrant, Pop and Female too big a change from our sweet image”. 82 Bernard Purcell, writing in 1985, declares that The Nolans “had switched from a so called wholesome image to that of a band of sexy vamps” calling into question the veracity of the “so-called” wholesomeness in the first place. 83 Purcell notes that during his interview with them, that they donned leather jackets (surely a descent into the dark side), yet the band members deny any change of image. 84 If The Nolans were given a rating, it would be a General Cert and as long as The Nolans benignly fulfilled expected roles, a degree of success was sustainable and they themselves understood this. As the inevitable effects of simply living their lives (not to mention living life in the public eye) began to take their toll, separations, divorces, sibling fall-outs and scandals reared their heads. While the band was still together, information and privacy was strictly guarded, but in a high-octane tabloid environment, that was increasingly difficult. On her first photo shoot after she left the band in 1983, Linda Nolan had semi-nude photographs taken for promoting her solo career. The photos soon appeared in the tabloids and ever after she was deemed the ‘naughty Nolan’. 85 Significantly, Linda waited until after she left the band, mindful that the identity which was projected and protected by The Nolans in the UK, necessarily presented purity encoded through/as the Irish ‘cailín’ (literally and metaphorically). When affairs, divorce, and acrimony between the siblings became tabloid fodder, the death knell had been rung for The Nolans, regardless of any other changes in musical taste and topicality. 86 Walter ref lects on the ways in which female, emigrant identities are variously suppressed, constructed and interpreted. 87 Expanding these identities to include that of pop artist points to a triumvirate of occluding categories that The Nolans experienced. The Nolans don’t fit the received narratives neatly and they experience a repeated dislocation through emigrant, female and pop music identities. To recognise that is to acknowledge The Nolans, finally, as disruptive divas after all.

82 Ibidem, p. 67. 83 Bernard Purcell: “We’re No Sexy Vamps: Singing Sisters”, in: Irish Independent, 17 August 1985. 84 Ibidem. 85 Nolans: Survivors, p. 105. Linda subsequently turned down a substantial offer to pose fully nude for Penthouse Magazine as reported in the Evening Herald 3 December 1987, p. 3. 86 Accounts of abuse by Tommy Nolan (father) were later aired in newspapers and in autobiographies, but the band had already fallen out of favour by that time. Coleen Nolan, Upfront and Personal, pp. 17–22. Bernie Nolan: Now and Forever, p. 16–18. Anne Nolan: Anne’s Song, p. 37–39. Nolans, Survivors, p. 39. 87 Bronwen Walter: “Personal lives: Narrative Accounts of Irish Women in the Diaspora”, in: Irish Studies Review (2013), pp. 1–13.

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Bibliography Cliff Richard Special. BBC, 1974. “Cliff and Nolan Sisters”, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=WbUkUaiDKtw, (last accessed 23 February 2017). Cliff Richard Special. BBC, nd. “Nolan Sisters on the Cliff Richard Show”, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yMVgPahf1U, (last accessed 23 February 2017). “Shame of Nolan Sister”, in: Daily Mail 11 May 2015, p. 7. Buckley, Marcella: “Sitting on Your Politics: The Irish Among the British and the Women Among the Irish”, in: Location and Dislocation in Irish Society, ed. Jim McLaughlin. Cork: Cork University Press, 1997, pp. 94–132. Burns, Lori and Melissa Lafrance: Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity and Popular Music. London: Routledge, 2002. Burrell, Kathy: Moving Lives: Narratives of Nation and Migration among Europeans in Post-War Britain. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Campbell, Sean and Gerry Smyth: Beautiful Day: Forty Years of Irish Rock. Cork: Atrium Press, 2005. Campbell, Sean: “Ref lections of a London-Irish musician: An interview with Cáit O’Riordan”, in: Irish Studies Review (2013), pp. 1–9. : Irish Blood, English Heart: Second Generation Irish Musicians in England.       Cork: Cork University Press, 2011. Cleary, Joe: “Introduction: Ireland and Modernity”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture, eds. Joe Cleary and Claire Connolly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 1–21. Collins, Tim: “Tis Like They Never Left: Locating Home in the Middle of Sliabh Aughty’s Diaspora”, in: Journal of the Society of American Music, 4/4 (2010), pp. 491–507. Commins, Verena: Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy: Transmission, Performance and Commmemoration of Irish Traditional Music, 1973–2012. PhD diss., NUI Galway, 2014. Coughlan, Patricia: “Bog Queens: The Representation of Women in the Poetry of John Montague and Seamus Heaney” in Theorizing Ireland, ed. Claire Connelly. UK: Macmillan, 2003, pp. 41–60. Downes, Julia: “Introducing the All-girl Band: Finding Comfort in Contradiction”, in Women Make Noise: Girl Bands from Motown to Modern, 2011, pp. 7–16. Ferriter, Diarmaid: The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000. London: Profile Books, 2005. Gray, Breda: “Gendering the Irish Diaspora: Questions of Enrichment, Hybridization and Return”, in: Women’s Studies International Forum 23/2 (2000), pp. 167–185. 278

Emigrant, Pop and Female Gray, Breda: Women and the Irish Diaspora. London: Routledge, 2004. Hickman, Mary and Bronwen Walter: Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain, Commission for Racial Equality, 1997. Hodnett, George: “The Nolans at the Olympia”, in: The Irish Times, 22 August 1985, p. 10. Kahn, Ed: “The Carter Family on Border Radio”, American Music, 14/2 (1996), pp. 205–217. Keenan, Elizabeth K.: “Puppets on a String? Girl Groups of the 50s and 60s”, in: Women Make Noise, pp. 37–61. Legs and Co: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJM2x6xJ9hQ, (last accessed 23 February 2017). Lennon, Mary, Marie McAdam and Joanne O’Brien: Across the Water: Irish Women’s Lives in Britain. London: Virago, 1988. McLoughlin, Noel and Martin McCloone: Rock and Popular Music in Ireland: Before and After U2. Dublin: Irish Academic Press (2012), pp. 231–252. Means, Angela K.: “Intercultural political identity: Are We There Yet?”, in: Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders and Gender, ed. Seyla Benhabib et al. New York: NYU Press, 2009, pp. 380–409. Miller, Rebecca: “’Our Own Little Isle’: Irish Traditional Music in New York”, New York Folklore, XIV/3-4 (1988), pp. 101–115. Moisala, Pirkko and Beverly Diamond: Introduction to Music and Gender. Chicago: University of Illinois, 2000, pp. 1–19. Moloney, Mick: “Irish Traditional Music in America”, SING OUT!, 25/4 (1980), pp. 3–5.      : Irish Music on the American Stage. Cork: Irish Traditional Music Society, 1993. Nolan, Anne: Anne’s Song. London: Arrow Books, 2008. Nolan, Bernie: Now and Forever. London: Hodder, 2013. Nolan, Coleen: Upfront and Personal. London: Pan Books, 2011. Purcell, Bernard: “We’re No Sexy Vamps: Singing Sisters”, in: Irish Independent, 17 Aug. 1985. Railton, Diane: “The Gendered Carnival of Pop”, in: Popular Music, 20/3 (2001), pp. 321–331. Schmutz, Vaughn and Alison Faupel: “Gender and Cultural Consecration in Popular Music”, in: Social Forces 89/2 (2010), pp. 685–708. Smith, Christopher: “Blacks and Irish on the Riverine Frontiers: The Roots of American Popular Music”, in: Southern Cultures, 17 (2011), pp. 75–102. Sullivan, Moynagh: “Boyz to Menz-(own): Irish Boy Bands and the Alternative Nation”, in: The Irish Review, 34 (2006), pp. 58–73. The Boomtown Rats: Banana Republic, Ensign Records, 1980. 279

Méabh Ní Fhuartháin The Nolans: Attention to Me, UK: Epic, 1981, 45rpm.      : I’m in the mood for dancing, Epic, 1979, 45rpm. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=4UZYXFgQnAo, (last accessed 20 February 2017).      : Whose Gonna Rock You? Epic, 1980, 45rpm.      : Twenty Giant Hits, Target, 1978, LP. The Nolans’ Story: A Farewell Tour, dir. Mark Turnbull. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=TotiHn82Dck, (last accessed 13 February 2017). Wall, Rita: Leading Lives: Irish Women in Britain. Dublin: Attic Press, 1991. Walsh, Brendan, M.: “Economic Growth and Development, 1945-70”, in Ireland 1945-1970, ed. J.J. Lee. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1979, pp. 27–70. Walter, Bronwen: “Irish Women in the Diaspora: Exclusions and Inclusions”, in: Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004), pp. 369–384.      : “Personal lives: Narrative Accounts of Irish Women in the Diaspora”, in: Irish Studies Review (2013), pp. 1–13.      : Outsiders Inside. London: Routledge, 2001. Washbourne, Chris and Maiken Derno (eds.): Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate. NY: Routledge, 2004. White, Harry and Barra Boydell (eds.): Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013. White, Harry: “Introduction” in Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, pp. xxi–xxxiii. Wills, Clair: The Best Are Leaving: Emigration and Post-War Irish Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2015. Yeulet, Victoria: “Female pioneers in American Old-time and Country”, in Woman Make Noise: pp. 17–36.

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Aloys Fleischmann’s G ames (1990)

Aloys Fleischmann’s Games (1990) Gareth Cox The compositions of Aloys Fleischmann (1910–1992) display, in general, a lifelong reliance on the folk music and cultural heritage of Ireland, a most fruitful and creative resource for him. Much has been written about this aspect of his music,1 but just as Fleischmann served Irish music so well in so many productive ways (including his archival and philological undertakings) 2 , reciprocally, the compositional potential of Irish music and culture also provided Fleischmann with a deep reservoir to trawl given that he had an antipathy towards compositional systems and methods. However, his more modernistic choral work, Games of 1990, constitutes an intriguing aesthetic f lourish to his output and it prompted Séamas de Barra to suggest that Fleischmann “may have been standing on the threshold of a new creative phase in which the expressive potential of his late style would be more fully realised”. 3 I chose Games to discuss in this Festschrift partly because Harry White and I were guest speakers on a roundtable at the Fleischmann Centenary Day in University College Cork in 2010 and we both noted this work in particular as being worthy of closer examination. Although Harry met Fleischmann only once, he enjoyed a professional correspondence with him and responded to Ruth Fleischmann’s call for reminiscences of her father for a celebratory publication with a most heartfelt memoir. In it he hailed Fleischmann as a “seminal figure in the modern history of music in Ireland” and highlighted in particular his “magisterial” Music in Ireland of 1952 which he felt “marked the beginnings of a professional musicology in Ireland”. 4 1

2 3 4

See, for example, Axel Klein: Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996; Philip Graydon: “Modernism in Ireland and its cultural context in the music of Frederick May, Brian Boydell and Aloys Fleischmann” in: Irish Music in the Twentieth Century, Irish Musical Studies 7, ed. Gareth Cox and Axel Klein. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003; Séamas de Barra: Aloys Fleischmann. Dublin: Field Day Publications, 2006. See his magnum opus: Aloys Fleischmann: Sources of Irish Traditional Music c.1600–1855. New York and London: Garland, 1998. de Barra, p. 153. Harry White: “Polite Forms” in: Aloys Fleischmann (1910-92): A Life for Music in Ireland Remembered by Contemporaries, ed. Ruth Fleischmann. Cork: Mercier Press, 2000, pp. 285–289, reprinted with revisions in Harry White: The Progress of Music in Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005, pp. 167–170. See also Harry White: “Aloys Fleischmann and the Development of Musicology in Ireland”, Royal Irish Academy Discourse, Dublin, 15 February 2010, unpublished manuscript. Polite Forms was also the title for Harry White’s first collection of poetry. Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2012.

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Gareth Cox Games, a setting of six poems by the post-war surrealist poet, Vasko Popa, for mixed choir, harp and percussion, was commissioned for the 27th annual Seminar on Contemporary Choral Music at the 37th Cork International Choral Festival in 1990. In previous vocal works, Fleischmann had shown his ability and desire to write music that was also utilitarian and capable of being sung by amateurs. For instance, in his short Festival Song for choir and orchestra which he wrote in 1978 for visiting massed choirs to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Cork International Choral Festival, Fleischmann writes in a moderately modern style, letting the choir find security on a line while juxtaposing diatonic triads in a dissonant manner underneath. In it, the Irish poet John Montague pens the lines, “from that world of music to which we all belong” (sung in a simple and sweeping diatonic passage), ref lecting a heartfelt belief of Fleischmann’s, that music belonged to the people. Thus in many ways he was the quintessential community composer and he celebrated their music by ref lecting their culture directly in his works, but also practically, by including them as audience participation in some of his compositions. 5 But now he had at his disposal a professional choir, the vastly experienced BBC Singers. So at the age of eighty, Fleischmann embraced the opportunity to eschew Irish references, departed from modal-diatonicism and free chromaticism, and employed a more modernistic musical language. Having heard and analysed a wide range of twentieth-century choral music during the many years of the Festival, he was clearly keen to show what he could do. Born near Vršac north east of Belgrade in what is now northern Serbia, the poet Vasko Popa (1922–1991) spent the war years studying in Bucharest and Vienna, but was interned in 1943 for his political sympathies when he returned home. He was, however, released after a few months and resumed his activities in Vienna where he worked subsequently as an editor. He published many cycles of poetry, most of which have been widely translated,6 and he is well-known to English-speaking readers through Anne Pennington’s translations of seven poems from Games in Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes’s Rattle Bag anthology of 1982.7 Recognized as one of the most important twentieth-century Yugoslav poets, Popa 5 Michael Murphy traces this feature to Fleischmann’s teacher in Munich, Joseph Haas, who included congregational involvement in his ‘folk oratorios’. Michael Murphy: “Aloys Fleischmann (1910–1992)” in: Creative Influences: Selected Irish-German Biographies, Irish-German Studies 4 ed. Joachim Fischer and Gisela Holfter. Trier: WVT, 2009, pp. 120–121. Clonmacnoise with audienceparticipation was commissioned to mark Fleischmann’s retirement in 1980 from University College Cork’s chair of music, and was premiered at the same Festival as Games just a few days earlier on 3 May by the UCC Choir and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under Fleischmann’s erstwhile colleague, Geoffrey Spratt. 6 See Vasko Popa: Complete Poems, 1953–1987, trans. Anne Pennington, ed. Francis R. Jones. London: Anvil Press, 1997. There are also translations by others including Morton Marcus and Charles Simic. 7 Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes (eds): The Rattle Bag. London: Faber & Faber, 1982, pp. 171–174.

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Aloys Fleischmann’s G ames (1990) is regarded more specifically as being Serbian, writing in the Serbian vernacular and with numerous allusions to Serbian folklore and cultural heritage. In his early works he deals, as Anita Lekić explains, “with striking insistency on man’s continual confrontation with annihilation … in his poetry there are essentially only two forces—man and death—locked in eternal combat [revealing] the essential aspects of this antagonistic relationship between man and the void”. 8 Lekić further states: ‘In Popa’s work there is never despair, only rebelliousness and an extraordinary sense of human indomitability [and he is absorbed] with man’s role in time as well as with the transcendent dimensions of human existence. His poetry resolves the antithesis of destruction and creation, finitude and duration, life and death. In his work the temporal and the transcendent coexist in fragile harmony, eternally opposing and complementing each other … Popa’s poetry sings of the unquellable energies of human existence and represents a testament to man’s continual victory over time and death’.9 Popa groups his poems within cycles: Nepočin-polje (Unrest-Field, 1956) comprises four cycles of poems: Igre (Games), Kost kosti (Bone to Bone), Vrati mi moje krpice (Give Me Back My Rags) and Belutak (The Quartz Pebble). Fleischmann set six of the Games cycle: Before Play, The Nail, Hide-and-Seek, The Rose Thieves, He and Ashes.10 His source was the above-mentioned Rattle Bag anthology where these six and The Seed were published. Fleischmann originally considered setting something by Heaney, but on reading through the almost 400 poems in the anthology, he recalled that Popa’s poetry “seemed to leap from the page”.11 He does not appear to have considered The Seed, or maybe he did and rejected it. There are no 8

Anita Lekić: The Quest for Roots: The Poetry of Vasko Popa. New York and Berlin: Peter Lang, 1993, p. 11. Quotes by her in this article also appear (sometimes slightly altered) in her earlier dissertation, Anita Lekić-Trbojević: The Poetry of Vasko Popa. PhD diss, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, 1989. 9 Lekić (1993), pp. 155–157. 10 The Irish composer, Ian Wilson (b. 1964) set all thirteen poems of the cycle in his Games of 2003. It was premiered by Jeremy Huw Williams (baritone) and Nigel Foster (piano) that year (a recording of the premiere is available at https://soundcloud.com/wilsonkul/games). Published by Universal Edition, UE 21251 for mezzo-soprano and piano. Wilson noted in a short programme note that Games “combines an almost surreal surface impassiveness with the most telling examination of human life and suffering, while retaining an uncomfortable sense of detachment [and his] resulting song-cycle combines ‘objective’, carefully wrought and lyrical vocal lines with piano parts that attempt to relate to the deeper, more fundamental inspiration behind the writing”. See also Ivo Petrić, Igre (1966) and Vladan Gecin, Before the Game (2013). 11 Aloys Fleischmann: Seminar Talk (5 May 1990), transcript and recording available at Cork City Library website. www.corkcitylibraries.ie/music/corkinternationalchoralfestival/1990 (last accessed January 2017). Published in Cork International Choral Festival 1954–2004: A Celebration, ed. Ruth Fleischmann. Herford: Glen House Press, Cork 2004, pp. 309–313.

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Gareth Cox extant sketches for Games. In any event, by setting six poems he exceeded by far the usual time limitations allowed to commissioned composers. In his seminar talk he confessed to this “grave act”12 rather tongue-in-cheek, and also for the expense of adding three performers to the committee’s budget. It is possible that he was also inf luenced by the Serbo-Croat composer, Milko Kelemen (b. 1924) who was the guest composer at the 1980 Festival seminar in Cork. Kelemen’s Spiele for baritone and strings of 1958 is a setting of six poems from the Games cycle, four of which are the same as Fleischmann’s choice.13 It is not unreasonable to suspect that Fleischmann, when he was musing over his compositional plans for the 1990 Festival and the all-important selection of an appropriate and challenging text, might well have recalled Kelemen recommending the poetry of his fellow-countryman, Popa. Whatever the genesis, Fleischmann would write one of his only vocal works to have no Irish connection in the text.14 In Games, each ‘game’ or poem starts with the instructions for the players, outlines the rules of the game, and relates the action and the outcome. Ronelle Alexander explains that the descriptions are “reminiscent of the actual children’s game, but also evocative of the deeply serious, ritualized nature of the conf licts, the ‘games’, that make up human existence”.15 Vasa Mihailovich sees these bleak poems as Popa’s “answer to the frightening games of war [and stem from his] war experiences in his impressionable years, when the language spoken around him was blunt, terse, bloody, and final”.16 They “resemble an eerie pantomime of creatures beyond the natural and comprehensible [defying] logical explanation. To him they symbolically ref lect the cruelty, grotesqueness, and fatuity of human existence”.17 Instead of innocent childish games, these disturbing and harrowing contests are dark and violent, but significantly, as Charles Simic has noted, “the creator of the games, the one who first made us play them, is absent”.18 For Ted Hughes they evoke a “universe of grim evil”19 and Lekić sees the poems in 12 Ruth Fleischmann (2004), p. 312. 13 Published by Universal Edition, UE 13926. Kelemen set The Nail, The Seducer, Hide-and-Seek, Ashes, He and After Play. 14 See de Barra, p. 152 15 Ronelle Alexander: The Structure of Vasko Popa’s Poetry. Columbus: Slavica Publishers, 1985, pp. 29–30. 16 Vasa D. Mihailovich: “Vasko Popa: The Poetry of Things in a Void” in: Books Abroad 43/1 (1969), p.25. 17 Ibidem. 18 Charles Simic: “A Suspect in the Eyes of Super-Patriots”, a review of Collected Poems of Vasko Popa trans. Anne Pennington. London: Anvil, 1998. https://zokstersomething.com/2011/10/23/ charles-simic-a-suspect-in-the-eyes-of-super-patriots/ [Accessed January 2017]. For Simic “the entire cycle is a pretend game built out of the submerged and multiple meanings that lurk in idiomatic phrases”. 19 Ted Hughes: “Introduction: in: Vasko Popa: Complete Poems, p. xxxi. Hughes (who only read Popa in translation) continues: “It could well be protozoa, or mathematical possibilities, playing these

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Aloys Fleischmann’s G ames (1990) Games as representing “the eternally recurring games of the adult world, the consequences of which, with few exceptions, range from loss of self hood to death”. 20 The poems themselves are aphoristic in their terseness and are structured mostly in short couplets and tercets and without punctuation. As Francis Jones notes, Popa also “eschews rhyme and rigidity of rhythm, his verse is highly crafted in sound terms.”21 He uses constant repetition of words (or variations thereof ) and phrases, for instance in Ashes where the three words ‘night’, ‘star’ and ‘dance’ are repeated so often as to constitute almost a third of the 71 words in the short poem. He uses pronouns for the characters in the poems such as ‘one’, ‘someone’, ‘each’ so that “the players are reduced to faceless anonymity, their existence defined by a fixed set of roles to which they must submit within the sequence of games”. 22 Fleischmann’s Games lasts about twelve minutes comprising five short settings of one to two minutes and a final lengthier one of about five minutes. The percussion section (for two players) of vibraphone, conga drums, cymbals, glockenspiel, triangle, whip, side drum, tam-tam, maracas, xylophone, wood block, and bass drum, serves as a colouristic and energetic accompaniment for, and ref lection on the text. 23 The complete score (both manuscript and printed) is available on free access on the Cork City Library website. 24 In the first song, Before Play (Pre igre) the player must first shut his eyes (and the outside world), direct his vision internally by peering into “every corner” of himself and checking that that there “no spikes no thieves no cuckoos’ eggs”, before jumping to the heights, plummeting desolately “to the bottom of one’s abyss”, and finally surviving through, what Michael Parker has called, the “Plathian concept of regeneration through self-annihilation”. 25 The text is set syllabically throughout and is divided into three sections, the first quatrain (bars 1–25), a second quatrain and a tercet (bars 26–64) and a final tercet (bars 65–76), with the sections separated by fermatas. Fleischmann opted to open the piece with vibraphone and harp to portray what he discerned as the “quasi-comical introspection” of the first games, as anything in humanity. They are deeper than our reality as puppets are deeper than our reality: The more human they look and act the more elemental they seem”. See also Ted Hughes: “The Poetry of Vasco Popa” in: Critical Survey 2 (1966), pp. 211–214 and Bernard Johnson: “Fertile Fire: The Poetry of Popa” in: Journal of the British-Yugoslav Society 2 (1979), pp. 11–13. 20 Lekić (1993), p. 31. 21 Francis R. Jones in: Complete Poems, p. xxxviii. See also a detailed study of themes, motives and formal structure in Popa’s cycles generally in: Vesna Cidilko: Studien zur Poetik Vasko Popas. PhD diss., Göttingen 1987. 22 Lekić (1993), p. 29. 23 At the seminar, Fleischmann announced that he had substituted bongos with conga drums “as being far more effective” and maracas with tambourine rolls. 24 http://www.corkcitylibraries.ie/music/aloysfleischmann/ 25 Michael Parker: “Hughes and the Poets of Eastern Europe” in: The Achievements of Ted Hughes ed. Keith Sagar. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983, p. 44.

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Gareth Cox verse. 26 He juxtaposes major seconds (an interval which will be used prominently throughout the settings and which will begin and end the work) with major thirds, displays a judicious use of unison passages, and adds some scalar f lourishes in the harp accompaniment. There is predictable yet effective word painting on leaping “‘ jumps”, repeated ascending “high”, “high”, “high” and descending, “drops by one’s own weight, for days one drops deep deep deep to the bottom of one’s abyss”, the extremes of both upper and lower registers of the voices and harp being exploited. The setting ends optimistically for the survivor with a unison f lourish and crescendo to a final sustained fff (plus cymbal clash) C major chord with added major second (“He who remains whole and gets up whole/ He plays”) in eight parts. In The Nail (Klina), the players are divided up in the opening couplet: “One be the nail another the pincers/The others are workmen”. The workmen use the pincers, which have human physical features (teeth, jaws, hands, arms) to tug the nail (‘him’) unsuccessfully from the f loor, and then, blame the bad pincers. The workmen get violent and “smash their jaws and break their arms”, before throwing them out of the window. The game then starts again with new pincers, a new nail and the others are again workmen. Helen Ivory suggests that “the roles are interchangeable and that once the pincers have been defenestrated (a bad workman always blaming his tools) it can be just as easy for any of the nameless mass to take on the role of the pincers, and another to ready themselves to be a decapitated nail”. 27 ‘The Nail’ (marked ‘Joviale’) opens with the xylophone, the only movement omitting vibraphone or glockenspiel (presumably to ensure a dryer sound), playing a quartal ostinato and the basses pick up on the perfect fourth motif with “One be the nail” in bars 3–4. The tenors follow and the whole choir then uses minor third/perfect fourth intervallic material leading through a melismatic setting of ‘pincers’ on busily running scales of G-f lat major to a climax in bars 23–25. Here the harp (and side drum) punctuates the brutish force of the words, “Grip him” with fortissimo minor sevenths against the accented quartal sonorities in the choir. This builds to another fortissimo climax on “Tug” in bars 40–41. Over a sustained sonority, a solo soprano (bars 48–53) bewails that “it’s hard to get a nail out of the f loor”, this passage recalling the same pitch collection as the opening. A woodblock strike heralds a dramatic pause in bar 55, a unison bar opens the quatrain where the pincers are rejected and destroyed, and, after another brief pause, the final tercet settles on a pianissimo sustained “Ah” for ten bars of a major second in the tenors and basses over which the sopranos and altos describe what happens next. At the end, the choir “nonchalantly” speak the words, “the others 26 Ruth Fleischmann (2004), p. 312. 27 Helen Ivory: “When is a Riddle not a Riddle” in: The Portable Poetry Workshop ed. Nigel McLoughlin. London: Palgrave, 2017, p. 228.

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Aloys Fleischmann’s G ames (1990) are workmen”, a miscalculation perhaps in a setting which overlooks the violence of Popa’s poem and the implied references to Fascist henchmen and their victims, as nothing is learnt from history. Hide-and-Seek (Žmure) is the shortest of the movements and is comprised of two couplets framed by two tercets. In the poem a person looks inwardly for himself as the opening and closing lines suggest (“Someone hides from someone’ … ‘And looking for him loses himself ”). Fleischmann combines the major second and perfect fourth intervallic material from the previous two movements and climaxes in bar 10 (“He looks for him in the sky”) on a quartal/quintal fortissimo chord accompanied by diatonic f lourishes in the harp. A glockenspiel then sweeps down from G in a semiquaver passage over three octaves, to meet the harp on G#. The words “looks for him” are sung repetitively and insistently to a dotted compound rhythm (bars 15–23) within a dense divisi texture. The movement ends a cappella with a unison passage in the full choir fading away on major seconds as he “loses himself ”. In The Rose Thieves (Tatovi rož), Fleischmann decided to employ “somewhat rich, even romantic harmony”28 to ref lect the rose motif that features throughout the poem. The narrative of the five tercets is carried forward (with multiple changes of time signatures) by an opening sweeping unison gesture which settles on a minor seventh chord in the second half of bar 2, slightly awkward melismatic word painting (“wind’s daughters”), the thieves are then introduced with a sustained fortissimo major chord with added second, lyrical dialogue between the vocal parts (“The rose thieves creep up on the rose tree/ One of them steals the rose/Hides it in his heart”), and a vigorous stringendo chase by the wind’s daughters (again with liberal use of unison). The a cappella sections with which he begins and ends the movement ensure a vocal richness while the glockenspiel, vibraphone and harp either sustain sonorities or punctuate moments with glissandi and arpeggiations. The final chord is a luxuriant major seventh held ppp in divisi parts accompanied by the vibraphone to represent the stolen rose uncovered in one heart. Even though Fleischmann only perceived a thief who stole a rose and was exposed, it does not detract from the energetic quality of much of the movement and its exalted conclusion. He ( Jurke) 29 is marked Il più presto possible, Fleischmann taking as his cue the line, “run off as quick as they can” from the second stanza. It opens with a glockenspiel fortissimo call to attention on E f lat, a note which will serve as the central pitch in the opening dozen or so bars, then f lies along at breakneck speed with 28 Ruth Fleischmann (2004), p. 312. 29 Lekić points out that Jurke in English is the popular children’s game known as tag and questions why Pennington translated the title as He. Lekić notes that critics have often misinterpreted many or all of the poems as being related to children’s games. Lekić (1993), p. 50.

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Gareth Cox complex imitative entries: “some bite off the others’/arm or leg or whatever”. Overall a comparison of the printed score with the manuscript shows that he made significant changes to the tempo indications to four of the six pieces after the performances, raising the original metronome markings by between 12 and 30; not so in ‘He’ which is quite fast enough at minim = 120. There is a brief 6/4 section in bars 20–23. The intervallic content overall displays major seconds and perfect fourths dominating. From bar 30 a cymbal roll grows in volume and intensity (from pianissimo) through the last ten bars, helped along by an energetic xylophone line, both accompanying an increasingly frantic melismatic singing of ‘bite’, followed by syllabic passages repeating “as long as there are arms/as long as there are legs”, culminating in a crashing fff on “or anything whatever”. Fleischmann described the text as being “quite daft”30 although the underlying gruesome fight for survival would seem apparent. He also confessed that he was unsure about the effectiveness of these final few pages, but the inclusion of some palindromic contours aid the singers in bringing it off. The final song, Ashes (Pepela) is marked Largamente and is the most substantial movement of the set. After the first performance at the seminar, however, Fleischmann declared himself to be unhappy about its length and slow tempo and asked for it to be dropped from the forthcoming concert. He was overruled by the conductor, Simon Joly who deemed it most effective and declared firmly, to applause, that all six would be performed. The poem comprises an opening single line (“Some are nights others stars”) followed by four tercets. The players take on the roles of nights and stars, the nights extinguish the stars, “Some become stars/Others remain nights”, they divide themselves further until the last night (i.e. player) “becomes both star and night” and “sets fire to itself/And dances the black dance around itself ”. J. G. Clure is “chilled by the actions [and sees] some version of ourselves in this ritualized, frightening, exuberant violence and selfdestruction”. 31 Fleischmann read ‘Ashes’ as an astronomical description “dealing with the evolution of the universe, with the dance of the planets, amid the immensity of space [describing the poem as being] so full of magical imagery, so potent in its evocation of the immense distances of the universe”. 32 The movement opens atmospherically with harp and vibraphone which Fleischmann used “to portray night and the lighting up of each star, while the undulating tone of the vibraphone produced by its fan is meant to give a sense of timelessness”. 33 This dichotomy of star/night and light/dark is also ref lected in some pentatonic runs 30 Ruth Fleischmann (2004), p. 312. 31 http://www.cleavermagazine.com/in-a-spray-of-sparks-emotion-sincerity-and-the-skitterypoem-of-our-moment-by-j-g-mcclure/ (last accessed January 2017). 32 Ruth Fleischmann (2004), p. 313. 33 Ibidem.

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Aloys Fleischmann’s G ames (1990) on ‘white’ and ‘black’ notes. When the nights split up, some become stars on a loud sustained sonority consisting of two major chords superimposed a tritone apart and accompanied by cascading heptatonic f lourishes, before “the others remain nights” very quietly. The third tercet is the same as the first as “Again each night lights up its star” and the “black dance” resumes the syncopated rhythm of its appearance earlier, but this time more intensely and molto ritmico. The movement ends hardly audibly with the last night and star expiring in sustained secundal sonorities, accompanied by very subtle harp and vibraphone interjections, as major thirds turn in on themselves semitonally becoming major seconds. Lekić describes how: the last remaining player, pursuing the logic of the game to its inexorable end, assumes the dual role of executioner and victim [and] all succumb to the relentless drive to annihilation ruling the universe of Igre. The pervasiveness of irony, both in this poem and in the cycle as a whole, arises largely as a result of the discrepancy between the tragic implications of the deadly rituals and the utterly simplified terms appropriate to the naïve world of child’s play in which the order is represented. 34 The first official performance was by the BBC Singers conducted by Joly with Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert (harp) and James Hynes and Noel Heraty (percussion) at the Closing Gala Concert of the Festival on 6 May 1990 in Cork’s City Hall. It was preceded by an open rehearsal and afternoon performance of the piece the day before at the seminar along with a formal introduction by Fleischmann where he discussed and played recordings of some key vocal works from his career: Clare’s Dragoons (1945), The Planting Stick (1957), Songs of Colmcille (1964) and Poet in the Suburbs (1973). Unfortunately he announced that he had decided to dispense with detailed analysis of the music and text of a commissioned work, as had been his habit at the seminars from their establishment in 1962 until his retirement as Festival Director in 1987, but “merely to offer a sort of personal apologia” with a few short descriptive comments about his settings. Boydell had always admired Fleischmann’s “outstanding ability to analyse new music in a constructively critical way”35 and so his reluctance on this occasion resulted in him only dedicating a third of his allotted time to Games and thereby passed up on an excellent opportunity to discuss the musical language and his reading of Popa’s poetry in more depth. He would state later that composing Games came easily to him 36 and

34 Lekić (1993), p. 32. 35 Ruth Fleischmann (2000), p. 238. 36 See Tomás Ó Canainn: “Aloys Fleischmann in Conversation with Tomás Ó Canainn”, in: The Cork Review. Cork: Triskel Arts Centre, 1992, p. 16.

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Gareth Cox it is one of four works by which he wished to be remembered. 37 The second main composer and work featured in the seminar was John Tavener with Eonia. The BBC Singers also sang a selection of other works by both composers to provide a compositional context, in Fleischmann’s case, Poet in the Suburbs, a setting of texts by Thomas Kinsella, written to celebrate the Festival’s 21st anniversary in 1974. Games and Eonia were recorded on the night and broadcast on 2 August the same year on RTÉ FM3. There is also a recording of the performance at the seminar the day before which is now available on the Cork City Library’s website. 38 Games does not appear to have received any further performances or airings. In contrast, Tavener’s Eonia was published and recorded and has enjoyed widespread international exposure. Games has attracted positive responses from Irish composers and musicologists. Gerard Victory adjudged the settings to be “immensely forward-looking, futuristic, one might say, and at the same time very direct and accessible [and] immensely moving emotionally”. 39 Philip Graydon considered that they were “perhaps, his way of indicating where his true stylistic leanings lay after a compositional career characterized by a public/’private’-populist/modernist dichotomy”.40 De Barra discerned “a renewed sense of commitment and confidence”, “a marvellous sense of forward propulsion”, and he felt that Popa’s surrealism allowed Fleischmann “to project those darker aspects of the psyche which his late manner opened up for exploration”.41 Patrick Zuk deemed Games to be one of Fleischmann’s “finest achievements, alternating moods of smouldering lyricism with passionate outbursts of a furious and explosive vehemence”.42 Although Fleischmann seems to have taken Popa’s poetry at face value and often does not go beyond utilizing the poems simply for their word painting possibilities, it still represents an assured piece of challenging vocal writing displaying variety across all six movements whilst unifying them with similar intervallic material. There are many fearfully dramatic moments balanced by sublime sonorities and they show very clearly just what he had absorbed assiduously from his 37 See Axel Klein: “Aloys Fleischmann: An Inspiration” in: Ruth Fleischmann (2000), p. 312. The other three are Sinfonia Votiva, Poet in the Suburbs and Five Dances from the Táin. 38 A recording of the RTÉ FM broadcast is available from the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland. 39 Ruth Fleischmann (2000), pp. 291 & 293. 40 Graydon, p. 75. Sarah M. Burn, quoting de Barra from New Music News in 1992 noted its “virtuosity, vigour and vehemence” in Ceoltóirí Éireannacha – Irish Musical Portraits: A Series of Performers, Composers and Collectors, p. 5. Aloys Fleischmann’, NCH Calendar, May 1993. 41 De Barra, pp. 152–3. De Barra argues further: ‘This combination of the seemingly forthright with the radically unstable lends the music a nightmarish quality’. Michael Dervan’s report of the Festival notes that Fleischmann had described Games in the seminar as being “a commentary in sound” on the texts, Irish Times, 9 May 1990. 42 Patrick Zuk: “The Composer and the Problem of Modern Choral Music”, in: Ruth Fleischmann. (2004), p. 329.

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Aloys Fleischmann’s G ames (1990) many decades at the coal face of choral music in Cork as a conductor, adjudicator and seminar analyst of the commissioned works for the Festival. Marie McCarthy summed up his multifaceted career by suggesting that Fleischmann’s compositions are perhaps “the most enduring artifact” of his legacy.43 There is no doubt that he served his community generously by providing it with assured craftsmanlike scores which often ref lected the heritage of his adopted country. And even if Games would not, or could not, lead to a new aesthetic direction for him, it serves nonetheless as an appropriate, professional and captivating swan song to a distinguished compositional career which stretched over half a century.

Select Bibliography Alexander, Ronelle: The Structure of Vasko Popa’s Poetry. Columbus: Slavica Publishers, 1985. de Barra, Séamas: Aloys Fleischmann. Dublin: Field Day Publications, 2006. Fleischmann, Aloys: Cork International Choral Festival, Seminar Talk (5 May 1990), transcript and recording, Cork City Library, www.corkcitylibraries. ie. Published in Cork International Choral Festival 1954-2004: A Celebration, ed. Ruth Fleischmann (Herford: Glen House Press, Cork 2004), pp. 309–313. Fleischmann, Ruth (ed.): Aloys Fleischmann (1910–92): A Life for Music in Ireland Remembered by Contemporaries. Cork: Mercier Press, 2000.      : Cork International Choral Festival 1954–2004: A Celebration. Herford: Glen House Press, Cork 2004. Graydon, Philip: “Modernism in Ireland and its cultural context in the music of Frederick May, Brian Boydell and Aloys Fleischmann”, in: Irish Music in the Twentieth Century, Irish Musical Studies 7, ed. Gareth Cox and Axel Klein. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003. Heaney, Seamus and Hughes, Ted (eds.): The Rattle Bag. London: Faber & Faber, 1982. Hughes, Ted: “The Poetry of Vasco Popa”, in: Critical Survey 2, 1966, pp. 211–214. Johnson, Bernard: “Fertile Fire: The Poetry of Popa”, in: Journal of the BritishYugoslav Society, no. 2 (May), 1979, pp. 11–13. Klein, Axel: Die Musik Irlands im 20. Jahrhundert. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996. Lekić, Anita: The Quest for Roots: The Poetry of Vasko Popa. New York and Berlin: Peter Lang, 1993. 43 Marie McCarthy’s review of de Barra, in: Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland 3 (2007–08), p. 110.

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Gareth Cox Mihailovich, Vasa D.: “Vasko Popa: The Poetry of Things in a Void”, in: Books Abroad, vol. 43 no. 1 (Winter 1969), pp. 24–29. Murphy, Michael: “Aloys Fleischmann (1910–1992)”, in: Creative Inf luences: Selected Irish-German Biographies, Irish-German Studies 4, ed. Joachim Fischer and Gisela Holfter. Trier: WVT, 2009, pp. 109–123. Ó Canainn, Tomás: “Aloys Fleischmann in Conversation with Tomás Ó Canainn”, The Cork Review. Cork: Triskel Arts Centre, 1992, pp. 13–18. Pennington, Anne (trans.): Vasko Popa: Complete Poems 1953–1987, ed. Francis R. Jones London: Anvil Press, 1997.

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The Development of Music Performance as Artistic Research in Ireland

The Development of Music Performance as Artistic Research in Ireland Denise Neary

Introduction The idea of formalizing performance research is a relatively new concept born out of university reforms made during the 1990s in the United Kingdom and in Scandinavia. Ireland acknowledged the development of these ideas with the establishment in 2006 of a formal programme in performance and research – the Doctor in Music Performance programme – at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. This chapter offers an overview of current activity in what is often referred to as ‘artistic research’, an insight into the anticipated future development for music performance research in Ireland and, in particular, promotes its interaction with the existing strong research structure in musicology. Although artistic research is a recent concept, development has been rapid over the last two decades with Nicholas Cook recently claiming that “the viability of practice as research is now taken for granted in all except the most benighted circles”.1 The need to define what is meant by artistic research has been a priority during this period and there have been challenges in gaining respect for the discipine. Huib Schippers believes that “If we are to establish artistic research as a mature and broadly respected (sub)discipline, there is a pressing need to be critical ourselves in marrying creative integrity and academic rigour”. 2 Schippers explains that: the challenge is to robustly position this type of research in the academic landscape, and to define its parameters and processes more precisely. That requires self-critical, nuanced, collaborative work. Through systematic, practice-based study of artistic processes from concept to performance, there is the opportunity to test innovative methodologies and deliver frameworks that brings greater clarity in the field of artistic practice as 1 2

Nicholas Cook: “Performing Research: Some Institutional Perspectives”, in: Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice ed. Mine Doğantan-Dack. London and New York: Routledge, 2015, p. 11. Huib Schippers: “Practitioners at the Centre: Concepts, Strategies, Processes and Products in Contemporary Music Research”, in: Research and Research Education in Music Performance and Pedagogy ed. Scott D. Harrison. New York: Springer, 2014, pp. 5–6.

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Denise Neary research for the benefit of practice-based researchers, research students, and institutions. That is groundbreaking, exploratory, and exciting work: exactly what research should be all about. 3 This type of work is taking place in Ireland, particularly at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where there is a focus on critically-ref lective work that integrates creativity and high academic standards within the wider context of musicological research that exists in the country. In developing a definition of artistic research there has, in the past, been a confusing array of terminology: ‘practice-based research’; ‘practice-led research’; ‘practice-driven research’; ‘research through practice’; ‘performance research’; ‘practice research’; and ‘artistic research’. The expression ‘artistic research’ is increasingly popular, disseminated by, for example, Mika Hannula, Juha Suoranta and Tere Vadén in their volume Artistic Research – theories, methods and practices published by the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki and the University of Gothenburg in 2005. This is also the term that is used by the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC) who set up the European Platform for Artistic Research in Music (EPARM) in 2011 with the aim of “creating environments for sharing and discussing work at the forefront of artistic research in music, helping to focus and coordinate activity, enhance quality and raise the profile of this emerging branch of musical research”.4 The AEC believes that there is a need for agreed definitions and, in their “White Paper” on artistic research published in 2015, artistic research is defined as “a form of research that possesses a solid basis embedded in artistic practice and which creates new knowledge and/or insight and perspectives within the arts, contributing both to artistry and to innovation”. 5 Whatever terminology is used, it is clear that this type of research offers new opportunities in the field of musical and artistic development. This has important implications on the research questions, research methods and research outcomes that are part of this type of investigation.6

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Ibidem, p. 6. AEC: “European Platforms for Artistic Research in Music 2011-2013” http://www.aec-music. eu/events/event/european-platforms-for-artistic-research-in-music-2011-2013#.UcOSsVZOPIU (last accessed 22 May 2017). 5 AEC: “Artistic Research: An AEC Council White Paper” (2015) https://www.aec-music.ed/ userfiles/File/Key%29Concepts/White%20Paper%20AR%20-%20Kry%20Concepts%20for%20 AEC%20Members%20-%20EN.pdf (last accessed 19 May 2017). 6 Ester Tomasi and Joost Vanmaele: “Doctoral Studies in the Field of Music – Current Status and Latest Developments” (2010), pp. 2–3.

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Recognition of music performance as artistic research The acceptance of music performance as artistic research as a legitimate area of academic endeavour is witnessed by the substantial increase in activity, for example, conferences and publications, over the past twenty years. Nicholas Cook believes that within the academic context, the best starting point for examining the developing relationship between performance and research is perhaps the ‘performative turn’ that impacted many arts, humanities, and social science disciplines from c1970.7 He states “It is paradoxical that, with a few exceptions such as opera studies, musicology was one of a relatively small number of disciplines in which the performative turn was not felt in any direct way”. 8 Cook writes that “while there were important interactions between musicology and performance during the closing decades of the twentieth century, the terms within which they took place were fundamentally different from those of the performative turn”.9 He describes historically-informed performance (HIP) as an example of these interactions and states that it “was, and is, based on an iterative method in which knowledge f lows in both directions between musicologists and performers. Not only is this an example of performance as research: HIP may be said to have established beyond doubt the viability and the value of performance as research”.10 The working group on practice-based research in the arts established by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC, Ireland) wrote, in 2010, that “the last two decades have seen an expansion of provision of practice-based arts research degree programmes at both master’s and doctoral levels. The number of major national and international conferences on the topic attests to this expansion.”11 The HETAC working group also noted that there had been a significant growth in publications on the topic by academics, practitioners, quality assurance agencies and other organizations.12 In relation to music, Mine DoğantanDack has observed that the National Association for Music in Higher Education in the UK (NAMHE) organized a conference at Oxford Brookes University entitled “Practice-as-Research: Towards Consensus” in 2004, but no major publications resulted. In 2007 the Dutch Journal of Music Theory devoted a special issue to ‘Practice-based research in Music’, which was a first attempt to initiate debate about topics and themes within the field of artistic practice as research in music from a North 7 8 9 10 11

Cook: “Performing Research: Some Institutional Perspectives”, p. 13. Ibidem, p. 14. Ibidem, p. 14. Ibidem, p. 15. HETAC: “Good Practice in the Quality Assurance of Arts Research Programmes by Practice” (2010), p. 5. 12 Ibidem, p. 5.

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Denise Neary European perspective. Since then, the number of national and international seminars and conferences, as well as electronic platforms devoted to artistic research in music has been growing steadily.13 Several journals dedicated to this area have also been established, for example, Music Performance Research, founded in 2007 and based at the Royal Northern College of Music, is an international peer-reviewed journal that disseminates theoretical and empirical research on the performance of music; the Journal of Artistic Research, founded in 2011 and complemented by the Research Catalogue, is a searchable, documentary database of artistic research; and the American Journal of Research in Music Performance, founded in 2009 and based at Teachers’ College, Columbia University, presents a broad range of research that represents the breadth of this emerging field of study. A special issue on artistic research in music in the Swedish Journal of Musicology was published in June 2013. In addition to these journals, recent years have seen the publication of a number of books on artistic research. These include Henk Borgdorff’s monograph The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia;14 Darla Crispin and Bob Gilmore’s edited volume Artistic Experimentation in Music: An Anthology (Leuven University Press, 2014);15 Mine Doğantan-Dack’s Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice;16 Robert Burke and Andrys Onsman’s Perspectives on Artistic Research in Music (Lexington Books, January 2017)17 and Jonathan Impett’s Artistic Research in Music: Discipline and Resistance (Leuven University Press, November 2017).18 This increasing body of work further underlines the growth and recognition of the discipline.

Artistic research in higher education The development and direction of performance as research has been inf luenced by institutional contexts and through research funding. In the UK funding in the arts was principally provided by the Humanities Research Board (HRB) up until 1998 but practice was excluded from its remit. The replacement of the HRB by the AHRB (Arts and Humanities Research Board) was highly significant. Nicholas Cook writes that: 13 Doğantan-Dack, “Introduction”, in: Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice, p. 2. 14 Henk Borgdorff: The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2012. 15 Darla Crispin and Bob Gilmore (ed.): Artistic Experimentation in Music: An Anthology. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2014. 16 Mine Doğantan-Dack (ed.): Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice. London and New York: Routledge, 2015. 17 Robert Burke and Andrys Onsman (ed.): Perspectives on Artistic Research in Music. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017. 18 Jonathan Impett (ed.): Artistic Research in Music: Discipline and Resistance. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2017.

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The Development of Music Performance as Artistic Research in Ireland The addition of the ‘A’ to its acronym amounted to a recognition of practice as research, in this way marking a departure from the principle adopted by the HRB that artistic practice might in certain contexts be regarded as equivalent to research, but could not be regarded as research in its own right. Instead, the AHRB took the view that practice could be conceptualised in terms of aims, objectives, questions and methods, and as such was essentially no different from other forms of research.19 A number of research groups has been founded in the field of music performance research including the Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice at the University of Cambridge; the Centre for Music Performance Research at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester; the Centre for Early Music Performance and Research at the University of Birmingham; the Orpheus Research Centre in Music (ORCiM) research centre at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium; the Observatoire Interdisciplinaire de Création et de Recherche en Musique at the Université de Montréal; and the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre in Brisbane, Australia. Music is also pertinent to the work of the international Society for Artistic Research which was founded in 2010. The establishment of these research centres in addition to the growth in the number of publications indicates the acceptance of this type of research as a discipline that is relevant, structured and equal to that of other forms of research. A further validation of artistic research as a discipline is the development of doctoral programmes in the field of music at many institutions throughout Europe during the past two decades. New approaches to structure and content have been developed because, as Ester Tomasi and Joost Vanmaele point out, “music, as an academic discipline of a highly artistic nature, may have different points of departure in relation to research than other academic disciplines”. 20 The Bologna Declaration, signed in June 1999 by the education ministers of twenty-nine European countries, ushered in a series of reforms in European higher education, the impact of which, Darla Crispin points out, was relatively slight in the UK, but profound elsewhere in continental Europe. 21 There is a greater focus now than there has been in the past on doctoral programmes in general in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) where, in 2005, the ministers of the Bologna countries underlined, in the Bergen Communiqué, the importance of higher education in further enhancing research. 22 They extended the Bologna system to include a third cycle or doctoral degree. Formerly, doctoral studies were typi19 Cook: “Performing Research: Some Institutional Perspectives”, p. 18. 20 Tomasi and Vanmaele: “Doctoral Studies in the Field of Music”, p. 1. 21 Darla Crispin: “Artistic Research and Music Scholarship: Musings and Models from a Continental European Perspective”, in: Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice, p. 54. 22 Tomasi and Vanmaele: “Doctoral Studies in the Field of Music”, p. 1.

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Denise Neary cally offered exclusively at universities and principally associated with scientific research. It is a challenge for music institutions to offer to musicians, in addition to instrumental training and practice, a ref lective environment that encourages creativity, extension of knowledge and artistic understanding. Music institutions are now more interested than ever in bridging the gap between theoretical research and instrumental practice. 23 The award of masters or doctoral degrees to artists (composers, architects, designers) on the basis of their art work has been possible for decades in the United States, where a degree of this kind is often a prerequisite for appointments at professional arts institutions. However, Nicholas Cook describes the original Doctor of Musical Arts as practice and research rather than practice as research “unlike the modern DMA in which there is generally a much closer relationship between practice and research”. 24 A new development, at least in terms of the European context, is that the current institutional integration of research into professional art schools has made the distinctive nature of this ‘practice-based research’ into an item of debate. 25 The Polifonia project, in association with the AEC, which investigated third cycle or doctoral studies in music throughout Europe, published their report in September 2010. They found that third cycle studies in music are a rather new phenomenon in Europe within the conservatoire environment although some institutions already have a long tradition in offering them. As institutions that train musicians at the higher education level, conservatoires traditionally offer vocational training that leads to a career as a professional musician, composer, or, in some cases, also as a music teacher, either as a school music teacher or an instrumental/vocal teacher for special music schools or higher education. Offering third cycle or doctoral studies has historically been the preserve of universities. Universities have been seen as the home of research activity, not only in terms of programmes but also in terms of the institutional environment, while conservatoires have been dedicated to providing an appropriately rich and professionally well-connected artistic training on the instrument/voice. But practical training in music is not devoid of inquiry, theory and reflection. Therefore it has been a logical progression to enable performers to research music from their perspective within institutions that deal most specifically with music rather than confining this activity to those institutions that offer musicology as a scientific study field. For this reason, amongst many others, professional music training institutions have started to offer doctoral studies. 26 23 Ibidem, p. 1. 24 Cook: “Performing Research: Some Institutional Perspectives”, p. 13. 25 Henk Borgdorff: “The debate on research in the arts” http://www.ahk.nl/fileadmin/download/ ahk/Lectoraten/Borgdorff_publicaties/The_debate_on_research_in_the_arts.pdf (last accessed 10 June 2017), pp. 3–4. 26 Tomasi and Vanmaele: “Doctoral Studies in the Field of Music”, pp. 4–5; AEC, Guide to Third Cycle Studies in Higher Music Education. Brussels: AEC Publications, 2007, p. 9.

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The Development of Music Performance as Artistic Research in Ireland Henk Borgdorff points out that research in higher professional education differs from that in university education in the manner in which it is oriented to application, design and development. Research at theatre and dance schools, conservatoires, art academies and other professional schools of the arts is therefore of a different nature to what generally takes place in the academic world of universities and research institutes. 27 Celia Duffy and Stephen Broad write that “Given the practical focus of conservatoires, it is no surprise that they have played a role in the developing field of practice as research. This has taken the form of discussion at national and international levels and through support for particular projects that have pushed forward thinking in this area.”28 They give as examples Stephen Emmerson’s 2004 project Around a Rondo which documents the preparation and performance by Stephen Emmerson, from the Queensland Conservatorium, of Mozart’s A minor rondo29 and Beethoven Explored, a collaboration between Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Aaron Shorr and colleagues, in which the music of Beethoven’s time was explored in a series of recitals at St John’s Smith Square, London in 2004, supported by the Royal Academy of Music and the London College of Music. 30 What these and other projects share is a focus on creative practice without recourse to extended metadiscourses – an approach that stands in contrast to that adopted by, for example, the Practice As Research In Performance (PARIP) project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK (2001–2006). While such theoretical deliberations seemed necessary in the process of establishing the credentials of practice as research, they have to some extent been superseded by a renewed focus on the practice itself, a development characterized by Kathleen Coessens, Darla Crispin and Anne Douglas as the ‘Artistic Turn’. 31 Concomitantly Duffy and Broad argue that “it seems natural that the more practically-focussed approaches find their home in the conservatoire, which has traditionally had little time for grand metanarratives.”32

27 Henk Borgdorff: “The debate on research in the arts”, p. 1. 28 Celia Duffy and Stephen Broad: “Practising Research, Playing with Knowledge”, in: Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice, p. 36. 29 Stephen Emmerson: The Art of Interpretation: Around a Rondo [2 DVD set]. Brisbane: Griffith University, 2006. 30 Peter Sheppard-Skaerved: Beethoven Explored http://www.peter-sheppard-skaerved.com/2009/ 12/beethoven-explored (last accessed 10 June 2017). 31 Kathleen Coessens, Darla Crispin and Anne Douglas: The Artistic Turn: A Manifesto. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009, cited in Duffy and Broad: “Practising Research, Playing with Knowledge”, p. 36. 32 Duffy and Broad: “Practising Research, Playing with Knowledge”, p. 36.

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International and national contexts Although Europe has been a focal point, Australia is becoming increasingly important in the field of artistic research in music. A conference entitled “Perspectives on Artistic Research in Music” was held at Monash University, Victoria, Australia on 23–24 July 2015 and offered a rich range of papers on the nature of artistic research and its relevance for studies in music. A resulting publication Perspectives on Artistic Research in Music, edited by Robert Burke and Andrys Onsman, was published by Lexington Books in January 2017. The “Best Practice in Artistic Research in Music Symposium” took place at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney on 27–29 September 2017. The Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre at Griffith University is now one of the main centres for practice at the core of research. It focuses on understanding what goes on “Behind the music” through a cluster of research projects leading primarily to creative outputs and hosting a strong cohort of practice-based doctoral students. 33 Huib Schippers wrote in 2007 that in Australia, where all conservatoires have amalgamated with universities during the past two decades, there is a strong desire to bring practice and research closer together. 34 It is within this international context that the Royal Irish Academy of Music has played a role, specifically through its Doctor in Music Performance programme. The Doctor in Music Performance at the RIAM began in 2006 with 2 candidates. It has grown steadily since then and in the academic year 2017–2018 there are 23 candidates registered on the programme. To date there have been ten completions. 35 All of these graduates have progressed to professional performing careers as well as teaching posts at such institutions as the Royal Irish Academy of Music; 33 Schippers: “Practitioners at the Centre”, p. 5. 34 Huib Schippers: “The Marriage of Art and Academia: Challenges and Opportunities for Music Research in Practice-based Environments”, in: Dutch Journal of Music Theory 12 (2007), p. 34. 35 Imelda Drumm: Roles for leading ladies: Investigating the influence of ovarian hormones on performance anxiety and vocal impairment in elite singing. DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2017; Marie-Charline Foccroulle: Final thoughts? Interpretation of the first movements of Beethoven’s and Schubert’s last three piano sonatas, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2017; Tham Horng Kent: Interpretation and performance: an investigation into Franz Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A major D 959, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2016; Archie Chen: Towards a historically informed performance of Chopin’s Op. 10 Études, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2016; Gavan Ring: Performance considerations for Robert O’Dwyer’s “Eithne” (1909): a contextual study and edited vocal score, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2016; Dimitri Papadimitriou: An exploration of the key characteristics in Beethoven’s piano sonatas and selected instrumental repertoire, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2013; Desmond Earley: French basso continuo performance technique: a study of the arpeggiated gesture in the prélude non mesuré c1650–c1720, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2012; Orla Flanagan: Music, text and context in Felix Mendelssohn’s choral works for Berlin Cathedral, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2012; Annette Cleary: The process of preparing Irish cello sonatas (1968–1996) for performance, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2010; Fionnuala Moynihan: Considerations for a modern performance of John Field’s Piano Sonata, op 1 no 1 in E flat major, DMusPerf diss., RIAM, 2009.

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The Development of Music Performance as Artistic Research in Ireland Trinity College Dublin; University College Dublin; Dublin City University; Carnegie Mellon University, USA; and Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia. Their contribution to performance research is significant and they now add to the growth of the artistic research community in Ireland and internationally. The Doctor in Music Performance programme at the RIAM aims to equip students with a range of knowledge and skills that will fully prepare them to participate in raising international standards in both performance and scholarship. Before embarking on the programme, candidates must demonstrate performance at a high international level. Their artistic experience will have raised questions or problems that can be further articulated and analysed only through research. Hence, by posing and resolving such issues, the candidates alter their creative or performing processes. In addition to six recitals over the duration of the programme, candidates are required to write a thesis and present a lecture recital which integrates effectively scholarship and practice. These two aspects must be fully interconnected with each giving support and substance to the other. Henk Borgdorff writes that it is in the emergent field of artistic research that the domains of art and academia meet and intersect. 36 The lecture recital symbolizes the successful integration of scholarship and performance and is a core component of the degree. For doctoral studies to be successful it is vital to create a vibrant and supportive research culture in which students may develop their full potential. This environment has been part of the development of the Doctor in Music Performance at the RIAM over the past number of years. Integrating research into the fabric of conservatoire life constitutes a natural continuation of musicians’ perpetual search for the best way of resolving the many intriguing questions and issues that arise throughout the course of their artistic lives. The AEC believes that “If we open up institutional space for ref lection and analysis at very high levels and in relation to the conservatoire’s core activities, then we help not only those directly involved in research, but we help create a culture of research, a climate of questioning, analysing and experimenting which will in the end benefit all members of the conservatoire and serve as a catalyst to the institutions’ development as a cultural engine”. 37 This culture of research is being actively developed at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. As the AEC points out in its handbook, Researching Conservatoires: Enquiry, Innovation and the Development of Artistic Practice in Higher Music Education, incorporating guest teachers/presenters with specific expertise is essential

36 Henk Borgdorff: The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2012, p. 6. 37 AEC: Guide to Third Cycle Studies in Higher Music Education. Brussels: AEC Publications, 2010, p. 104.

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Denise Neary for extending knowledge and experience. 38 The guest lecture series at the RIAM, which has included many renowned scholars over the last decade, has a particular focus on performance studies but also covers a wide range of musicological issues, including reception history, pedagogy, opera studies, theory and analysis, gender issues, ethnomusicology and historical musicology. The RIAM has also hosted a number of conferences including the joint RMA/ SMI conference in 2009;39 the SMI ninth annual conference in 2011; the Women in Music in Ireland conference in 2012; and the Doctors in Performance festival conference in September 2016, a collaboration between the RIAM, the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.40 This central role in hosting leading conferences in Ireland is due to continue with a major conference on music in Ireland in the eighteenth century being planned for 2019. Research at the Royal Irish Academy of Music is integrated into all its activities and the RIAM is committed to supporting research, as outlined in its strategic plan 2020.41 The AEC states that “research does not necessarily have to be a practice set apart in the institution, implemented largely by ‘research’ staff and students whose connection to practice is tenuous”42 and many members of staff at the RIAM are actively engaged in research. The aim is to amplify the range and visibility of research in the RIAM and encourage staff to give prominence to artistic research in their professional activities.43 An example of the artistic research projects undertaken by staff is Kevin O’Connell’s ‘Responses to Pierrot Lunaire’ project where RIAM student composers reset the poems of Albert Giraud. The students, who each recomposed one of the songs, set the poems in English (with the exception of one student whose first language is German). The songs were then sung by RIAM student singers who also sang the corresponding Schoenberg song.44 In addition, a collaborative artistic research project devised and led by f lautist, Bill Dowdall, has resulted in a CD of eighteenth-century music for f lute and continuo. The CD features three RIAM staff: Bill Dowdall (f lute), Lisa Dowdall (Baroque viola) and David Adams (harpsichord), as well as guest performer, Malachy Robinson (viol). The project was inspired by a reading of Brian Boydell’s A Dublin Musical Calendar, 1700-1760 which led Bill Dowdall to visit the National 38 AEC: Researching Conservatoires: Enquiry, Innovation and the Development of Artistic Practice in Higher Music Education. Brussels: AEC Publications, 2010, p. 104. 39 This was the first time in its history that the RMA held its annual conference outside the UK. 40 https://sites.google.com/site/dipriam2016. This partnership will continue with the third Doctors in Performance conference which will take place in Vilnius in September 2018. 41 Royal Irish Academy of Music, Strategy 2020. Dublin: RIAM, 2015, p. 13. 42 AEC: Researching Conservatoires, p. 10. 43 RIAM: Strategy 2020, p. 13. 44 “Responses to Pierrot Lunaire”, Royal Irish Academy of Music, 5–7 May 2015.

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The Development of Music Performance as Artistic Research in Ireland Library of Ireland in the hope of uncovering forgotten eighteenth-century music. Further research revealed a wealth of repertoire and information of a musicological and iconographical nature, culminating in the production of the CD entitled Airs and Dances from Dublin Castle. Another research interest led by Bill Dowdall is organology, dealing with the history and construction of the f lute. This has resulted not only in the study of extended techniques for f lute, but also in a pioneering collaboration with Robert Dick, working on the development of the f lute with glissando head joint, an instrument for which Dowdall has commissioned and performed a number of works. Other examples of artistic research projects by RIAM staff include Jonathan Nangle’s ‘Pause’ project, which is a composition and installation for quartet of violin, viola, cello and double bass and video ballet, and Thérèse Fahy’s ‘Handprint’ project which commissioned six major Irish composers 45 to write new works for her, enhancing the piano repertoire with a highly innovative collection of piano pieces specifically designed for smaller hands. The background and creative process from composition and pianistic perspectives were explored in a series of public workshops in association with the Contemporary Music Centre. The project continued at the Huge Lane Gallery with ‘Handprint: Before and Beyond’, a three-part concert series which explored not only the commissioned music, but the repertoire that inspired it. Thérèse Fahy has also recently been awarded a ‘Music Project Award’ from the Arts Council as well as an RIAM ‘Amplify Research Award’ for a new project entitled ‘Ireland’s Tombeau to Debussy’ which, in honour of the 2018 centenary of the death of Claude Debussy, has commissioned seven Irish composers 46 to write solo and chamber music works inspired by Debussy, thereby creating a uniquely Irish collection of pieces to be performed alongside the pieces of the original 1920 Tombeau de Debussy. Other members of the Royal Irish Academy of Music staff publish regularly in academic journals and books and present their work at conferences nationally and internationally.47 Thus the RIAM is fostering an active, fertile research environment. 45 Siobhán Cleary, Raymond Deane, Benjamin Dwyer, Michael Holohan, Grainne Mulvey and.Bill Whelan. 46 Sebastian Adams, Siobhán Cleary, Raymond Deane, Roger Doyle, Benjamin Dwyer, Grainne Mulvey and Jane O’Leary. 47 For example, David Adams: “From p to ff: a German organ crescendo”, in: A Musical Offering: Essays in honour of Gerard Gillen ed. Kerry Houston and Harry White. Four Courts Press, 2017, pp. 193–203; Majella Boland: “Contrasts in John Field Reception: The Parisian ‘Images’”, in: Piano Culture in 19th-Century Paris ed. M. Sala. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015, pp. 359–384; Jennifer McCay: “‘From inside my head’: Issues of identity in Northern Ireland through the music of Kevin O’Connell”, in: Music and Identity in Ireland and beyond ed. Mark Fitzgerald and John O’Flynn. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, pp. 121–135.

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The future So where do we go from here? For many years the Royal Irish Academy of Music has been unique in offering doctoral programmes in music performance in Ireland. It is likely that in the future prospective artistic researchers will have a wider choice of such programmes in different institutions. Indeed, currently the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick offers a PhD Arts Practice which is not specific to, but can include, music. It is a fouryear, structured PhD programme, designed to meet the needs of professional performing artists who wish to engage in academic and practice-based ref lection on their own artistic practice.48 Thus Ireland has a place in the development of performance research and an exciting future in this area. It is necessary to expand on the solid foundations already in place by, for example, establishing research groups specifically focused on artistic research, to create knowledge and research outputs that will enable Ireland to lead throughout Europe in the creation of new knowledge and ideas and provide a new focus for research investment. The creation of new appointments in this area – as seen recently at the Sibelius Academy with the appointment of a Professor of Artistic Doctoral Studies and in the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz with the establishment of a Professorship in Artistic Research in Music – the support of new endeavours – for example, Harry White’s proposal for Musica Hibernica 49 that seeks to recover and represent Irish musical experience over a very long period – may be a possibility for an integration of different disciplines of musicology including performance research. The Royal Irish Academy of Music already has a strong reputation throughout Europe for its work in performance and artistic research, a reputation that can be expanded both nationally and internationally. Ireland is in a very strong position to develop and strengthen its position in an international context. There is a very strong musicological research culture and the Society for Musicology in Ireland has become known throughout the world for the quality and standard of the work of its members. There is also a very strong performance tradition in Ireland and Irish musicians are increasingly taking their place on the world stage in both classical and traditional performance. Performance or artistic research can build on this research and performance infrastructure and integrate disciplines or subdisciplines as well as institutions. In many ways, we have fulfilled Nicholas Cook’s 1999 wish

48 http://www.irishworldacademy.ie/postgraduate-programmes/phd-arts-practice/ (last accessed 15 June 2017). 49 Harry White: “Musica Hibernica: A Proposal”, paper presented at the Society for Musicology in Ireland Annual Plenary Conference, Queen’s University Belfast, 16 June 2017.

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The Development of Music Performance as Artistic Research in Ireland to ‘put the music back in musicology’50 and we need, in John Butt’s words, to continue interrogating our interests and our culture. 51 With the wealth of its culture and musical heritage, Ireland is ideally placed to do this.

Bibliography Association of European Conservatoires (AEC): Guide to Third Cycle Studies in Higher Music Education (AEC publications, 2007).      : Researching Conservatoires: Enquiry, Innovation and the Development of Artistic Practice in Higher Music Education (AEC publications, 2010).      : ‘European Platforms for Artistic Research in Music 2011–2013’ http:// www.aec-music.eu/events/event/european-platforms-for-artisticresearch-in-music-2011-2013#.UcOSsVZOPIU (last accessed 22 May 2017).      : ‘Artistic Research: An AEC Council White Paper’ (AEC publications, 2015). https://www.aec-music.ed/userfiles/File/Key%29Concepts/White%20 Pa p e r % 2 0A R % 2 0 -% 2 0 K r y % 2 0 C o n c e p t s % 2 0 fo r % 2 0A E C % 2 0 Members%20-%20EN.pdf (last accessed 19 May 2017). Borgdorff, Henk: “The debate on research in the arts” http://www.ahk.nl/fileadmin/download/ahk/Lectoraten/Borgdorff_publicaties/The_debate_ on_research_in_the_arts.pdf (last accessed 10 June 2017). Borgdorff, Henk: The Conf lict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2012. Cook, Nicholas: “What is Musicology?”, BBC Music Magazine 7 (1999), pp. 31–33      : “Performing Research: Some Institutional Perspectives”, in: Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice ed. Mine Doğantan-Dack. London and New York: Routledge, 2015, pp. 11–32. Crispin, Darla: “Artistic Research and Music Scholarship: Musings and Models from a Continental European Perspective”, in: Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice ed. Mine Doğantan-Dack. London and New York: Routledge, 2015, pp. 53–72. Doğantan-Dack, Mine: “Introduction”, in: Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice ed. Mine Doğantan-Dack. London and New York: Routledge, 2015, pp. 1–8.

50 Nicholas Cook, “What is Musicology?”, BBC Music Magazine 7 (1999), p. 33. 51 John Butt, “Playing With History Yet Again”, Keynote Address, Society for Musicology in Ireland Annual Plenary Conference, Queen’s University Belfast, 17 June 2017.

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Denise Neary Duffy, Celia and Broad, Stephen: “Practising Research, Playing with Knowledge”, in: Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice ed. Mine Doğantan-Dack. London and New York: Routledge, 2015, pp. 33–51. Emmerson, Stephen: The Art of Interpretation: Around a Rondo [2 DVD set]. Brisbane: Griffith University, 2006. HETAC, “Good Practice in the Quality Assurance of Arts Research Programmes by Practice” (2010). Schippers, Huib: “The Marriage of Art and Academia: Challenges and Opportunities for Music Research in Practice-based Environments”, in: Dutch Journal of Music Theory 12 (2007), pp. 34–40.      : “Practitioners at the Centre: Concepts, Strategies, Processes and Products in Contemporary Music Research”, in: Research and Research Education in Music Performance and Pedagogy ed. Scott D. Harrison. New York: Springer, 2014, pp. 1–7. Peter Sheppard Skaerved: “Beethoven Explored” http://www.peter-sheppardskaerved.com/2009/12/beethoven-explored (last accessed 10 June 2017). Tomasi, Ester and Vanmaele, Joost: “Doctoral Studies in the Field of Music – Current Status and Latest Developments” (AEC publications, 2010).

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“Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland: Grattan Flood, Bewerunge, Harrison, White Michael Murphy Van Solkema: Could you distinguish for us the styles of German, French, English, and American musicology as you see them? Blume: I can certainly attest that national styles of musicology do exist. Please believe the editor of an encyclopedia, who has worked for twenty-five years with almost 2,000 collaborators from more than forty nations, when he tells you that the differences are very great! The demands of courtesy must prevent him from characterising these individual differences.1 That exchange between Friedrich Blume and Sherman Van Solkema occurred during the lecture series that marked the inauguration of the doctoral programme in musicology at the City University of New York during the academic year 1968–69. One wonders if Blume, in his editorial work on Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart ever countenanced the notion of a specific “Irish” style of musicology. 2 It is fair to say that such a proposition would have been as incongruous to Blume as the term “musicology” itself was to the non-specialist in 1915 when it appeared in the title of Waldo Selden Pratt’s article “On Behalf of Musicology” and which was published in the inaugural issue of the Musical Quarterly. 3 In this chapter, I want to offer some thoughts on the development of musicology in Ireland from the early 1900s to the present day with specific reference to William 1 2 3

Friedrich Blume: “Musical Scholarship Today”, in: Perspectives in Musicology, ed. Barry S. Brook et al. New York: Norton, 1972, pp. 15–31, here p. 30. To my knowledge Walter Beckett was the only Irish scholar to have contributed to the first edition of MGG, completed in 1968, the time of the New York lecture series. Waldo Selden Pratt: “On Behalf of Musicology”, in: The Musical Quarterly 1:1 (1915), pp. 1–16. Brook, in his Introduction to Perspectives in Musicology (see note 1), noted the derision with which the term “musicology” was greeted in the early twentieth century, a reaction that was anticipated by Pratt.

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Michael Murphy Henry Grattan Flood (1859–1928), Heinrich Bewerunge (1862–1923), Frank Ll. Harrison (1905–1987) and Harry White. Ita Beausang recently recalled that the term “musicology” was practically unheard of as she conducted her first major research in the early 1960s.4 However, one relatively early reference to musicology in Ireland occurred in Aloys Fleischmann’s Music in Ireland (1952) in which Seán Neeson lamented the almost total absence of funding for “musicological research” in Ireland. 5 Just over two decades later the Capuchin Annual published an article entitled “William Henry Grattan Flood: Renowned Irish Musicologist” written by Grattan Flood’s son”.6 Given its wide readership both in Ireland and among the Irish diaspora in America and Australia, the Capuchin Annual was an inf luential popular journal. While this was surely the most significant reference to Irish musicology in the public arena, the article does not deal with musicology per se and therefore the title was no more than an example of purple prose for the general reader. However, in 1985 the state publisher, An Gúm, provided an Irish-language translation of “musicology” as ceoleolaíocht in its Foclóir Ceoil – A Dictionary of Music, an indication that the term was recognized if not in currency.7 Due to Harry White’s commitment, the terms “musicology” and ‘Ireland’ began to appear in specifically scholarly contexts from the 1980s onwards: initially in a series of scholarly publications which he authored or (in the case of the Irish Musical Studies series) edited jointly with Gerard Gillen,8 then in the title of The Maynooth International Musicological Conference (1995) which he organized jointly with Patrick Devine,9 and later in the establishment of the Society for Musicology in Ireland/Aontas Ceoleolaíochta na hÉireann [SMI] to which he was elected inaugural President in 2003.10

4

Ita Beausang: “Musicology in Ireland: Back to the Future?”, paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University, 10–12 June 2016. I am indebted to Ita Beausang and Hilary Bracefield for sharing documents from their personal archives and for responding so generously to my many queries in preparation for this chapter. I am grateful also to Axel Klein for his responses. 5 Seán Neeson: “The Place of Irish Music in Education”, in: Music in Ireland: A Symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Oxford & Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, pp. 54–58, here p. 57. 6 Rev. William Grattan Flood: “William Henry Grattan Flood: Renowned Irish Musicologist”, in: The Capuchin Annual. Dublin, Capuchin Publications, 1974, pp. 56–62. 7 Foclóir Ceoil – A Dictionary of Music. Baile Átha Cliath [Dublin]: An Gúm, 1985. 8 Harry White: “Musicology in Ireland”, in: Acta Musicologica 60/3 (1988), pp. 290–305; Harry White and Gerard Gillen (eds.): Musicology in Ireland. Irish Musical Studies, vol. 1. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1990. See also Ann Buckley: “Developments in Irish Musicology”, in: Bullán 2:1 (1995), pp. 101–108. 9 Patrick Devine and Harry White (eds.): The Maynooth International Musicological Conference 1995: Selected Proceedings. vols. 4 and 5: Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995. 10 To date, the Presidents of the SMI have been Harry White (2003–2006), Jan Smaczny (2006– 2012), Kerry Houston (2012–2015), and Lorraine Byrne Bodley (2015–2018).

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“Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland But musicology was practised in Ireland long before it was so named. By 1915, the year of Pratt’s Musical Quarterly article, Grattan Flood’s A History of Irish Music was already in its third edition.11 The centrality of that text, and of its author as a figure of enduring significance, resulted in a reprint of the third edition in 1970,12 two years after Blume gave his lecture in New York. With reference to the notion of “national” styles of musicology then, it is in relation to Grattan Flood that we can countenance an “Irish” style of musicology as Blume might have recognized it. Given the pluralism of musicology in Ireland today, evident in the many activities generated by, and associated with (but not limited to) the SMI, this notion is, thankfully, anachronistic. However, if we consider the dubious prestige which Grattan Flood’s legacy (as distinct from his musicological writings) continues to exert to this day, the issue of an “Irish” style of musicology needs to be addressed in its wider context. For the purpose of this essay, that context is provided by Heinrich Bewerunge, Grattan Flood’s contemporary and erstwhile collaborator. Although Bewerunge was a musicologist of international standing, his reputation as a scholar is overshadowed by his association with Cecilianism in Ireland, despite, as White has noted, the “remarkable synthesis of scholarly endeavour and practical musicianship” that characterized that movement “during its heyday”.13 I would agree with Darina McCarthy, who has recently assessed Bewerunge’s work and career in her doctoral dissertation, that his reputation was also seriously diminished by Grattan Flood. 14 I would argue, therefore, that if we want to understand the early development of musicology in Ireland better, we need to address the contrasting musicological objectives of Grattan Flood and Bewerunge, an exercise which offers a clear distinction between “Irish” musicology and musicology in Ireland. Before moving on, it is worth stating that a thorough-going biographical and musicological study of Grattan Flood is necessary if we are to understand the history of musicology in Ireland to say nothing of the history of music in Ireland. Barra Boydell’s entry on Grattan Flood in the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland [EMIR] lists in excess of 200 publications issued between 1880 and his death in 1928.15 Boydell’s use of the term “dazzling” is quantitative not qualitative, and he 11 William Henry Grattan Flood: A History of Irish Music. Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1905; 2nd edn. 1906; 3rd edn. 1913; 4th edn. 1927. 12 Grattan Flood: A History of Irish Music. Shannon: Irish University Press, 1970 [repr. 3rd edn.]. 13 Harry White and Frank Lawrence: “Towards a History of the Cecilian Movement in Ireland: An Assessment of the Writings of Heinrich Bewerunge (1862–1923) with a Catalogue of His Publications and Manuscripts”, in: Harry White and Gerard Gillen (eds.): Music and the Church. Irish Musical Studies, vol. 2, ed. Harry White and Gerard Gillen. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993, pp. 78–107, here p. 79. 14 See Darina McCarthy: Heinrich Bewerunge (1862–1923): A Critical Reassessment of His Life and Influence. PhD diss., National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2015. 15 Barra Boydell: “Flood, W[illiam] H[enry] Grattan”, in: Harry White and Barra Boydell (eds.), The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland [EMIR], 2 vols., Dublin: UCD Press, 2013, vol. 1, pp. 394–398, here p. 395.

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Michael Murphy notes the many overlaps that feature within the bibliography. While it is clear that Grattan Flood’s legacy is not contingent on the quality of his work so much as its rhetorical value, his prestige shines brightly. Similarly, Robin Elliott, in his entry on “Musicology” in EMIR, states that Grattan Flood’s History “is a landmark work that remains the only historical survey of music in Ireland: furthermore, it did much to palliate the antagonism between folk music and art music.”16 Martin Adams’s extensive commentary on Grattan Flood in his chapter on the history of musicological writing in Ireland in The Invisible Art bears the inf luences of both those EMIR entries: no matter what f laws musicologists have found in Grattan Flood, “he cannot be ignored” because he is “one of the few to attempt a synthesis of Ireland’s parallel histories of music”. 17 Neither Elliott nor Adams refer to Bewerunge in their surveys, a legacy, in some respects, of the agenda which Grattan Flood set for musicology in Ireland. When Grattan Flood’s History of Irish Music was reprinted in 1970, Seóirse Bodley wrote an Introduction in which he repeatedly warned the reader of “approaching much of this work uncritically”.18 Nevertheless, he sustained the notion that it was a “possible starting-point for further research”. 19 When White reviewed the state of musicology in Ireland from the 1950s onwards, he stepped over his self-imposed chronological starting point to refer to Grattan Flood’s History, a fact which suggests that it was still a significant presence in the late 1980s. 20 Notwithstanding the important studies of Irish traditional music conducted in the nineteenth century which were predominantly antiquarianism in nature, 21 and the undoubted importance of Grattan Flood’s research, Bewerunge can be regarded as the first Irish-based musicologist whose work adhered to professional scholarly standards. If we return to 1915, the year of Pratt’s Musical Quarterly article, and the year in which Bewerunge lost his professorship of music at University College Dublin (see below), we can see that Grattan Flood’s History was the epitome of “Irish” musicology while Bewerunge’s research was an irrelevance in Ireland. In Frank Lawrence’s entry on Bewerunge in EMIR we read the following 16 Robin Elliott: “Musicology”, in: EMIR, vol. 2, pp. 713–716, here p. 714. 17 Martin Adams: “History in the Writing”, in: The Invisible Art: A Century of Music in Ireland 1916– 2016, ed. Michael Dervan. Dublin: New Island, 2016, pp. 198–211, here p.199. 18 Seóirse Bodley: “Introduction”, in: Grattan Flood, A History of Irish Music, [repr. 3rd edn.], ix. 19 Ibidem, v. 20 White: “Musicology in Ireland” p. 295. See also White: “The Invention of Irish Music: Remembering Grattan Flood”, in: Vjera Katalinic and Stanislav Tuksar (eds), Franjo Ksaver Kuhac (1834–1911): Musical Historiography and Identity. Zagreb, Croatian Musicological Society, 2014, pp. 207–215. 21 See Jimmy O’Brien Moran: “Irish Folk Music Collectors of the Early Nineteenth Century: Pioneer Musicologists”, in: Music in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Irish Musical Studies, vol. 9, ed. Michael Murphy and Jan Smaczny. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007, pp. 94–113. See also Elliott: “Musicology”.

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“Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland assessment of three articles which he published in 1906 in which he criticized the recently published Vatican Edition of plainchant: These articles display his commanding knowledge of manuscript sources together with a rigorous critical and philological approach: indeed they represent much of the best of the newly emerging disciplines of musicology in continental Europe. 22 In addition to this assessment of Bewerunge’s research on plainchant, we must acknowledge the enduring value of Bewerunge’s translations of two of Hugo Riemann’s texts, Cathechism of Musical Aesthetics and Harmony Simplified: or The Theory of the Tonal Function of Chords, both of which are still in use as standard reference works by Anglo-American musicologists. 23 By contrast with Grattan Flood’s exuberance, Bewerunge’s solid positivism has no purchase on our perception of musicology in Ireland. Fleischmann passed over Bewerunge in the “Historical Survey” which he published in Music in Ireland (1952). 24 When Fleischmann mentioned Grattan Flood it was to point out the “unreliable” nature of his historical claims with specific reference to his unsubstantiated conclusions on plainchant, a topic on which Bewerunge was an acknowledged expert. 25 The only mention of Bewerunge’s scholarship in Music in Ireland appeared in John F. Larchet’s laconic characterization of him as “a German priest and a musician of scholarly attainments.”26 It was another four decades before White referred to him as a “scholarly critic of outstanding ability”, and disclosed in detail the impeccable musicological thinking that attended his Cecilianism. 27 More recently, Bewerunge’s scholarship on Irish traditional music has attracted positive attention from Martin Dowling who discussed Bewerunge’s “courageous attempt” to deal with the subtleties of Irish traditional vocal performance. 28 So how should we now regard Bewerunge as a musicologist? At the very least, his translations of 22 Frank Lawrence: “Bewerunge, Heinrich [Wilhelm Joseph]”, in: EMIR, vol. 1, pp. 88–91, here p. 90. 23 See Hugo Riemann: Catechism of Musical Aesthetics, trans. H. Bewerunge. London: Augener & Co., 1895 cited in Alfred Cramer: “Schoenberg’s Klang farbenmelodie: A Principle of Early Atonal Harmony”, in: Music Theory Spectrum, 24:1 (Spring 2002), pp. 1–34, here p. 33; see also Hugo Riemann: Harmony Simplified; or, The Theory of the Tonal Functions of Chords. trans. H. Bewerunge. London: Augener & Co. 1900 cited in Jeremy Day-O’Connell: Pentatonicism from the Eighteenth Century to Debussy. University of Rochester Press, 2007, p. 478 and p. 510. In 2013 Cambridge University Press reissued Cathechism of Musical Aesthetics. 24 Aloys Fleischmann: “Historical Survey”, in: Music in Ireland: A Symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Oxford & Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, pp. 1–9. 25 Ibidem, p. 9. Fleischmann put “Unreliable” in brackets after the title of Grattan Flood’s book in his bibliography. 26 John F. Larchet: “Music in the Universities”, in: Music in Ireland, pp. 13–20, here p. 17. 27 White: “Towards a History of the Cecilian Movement in Ireland”, p. 96. 28 Martin Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society: Historical Perspectives, London and New York: Ashgate, 2014, p. 240.

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Michael Murphy standard theoretical texts, along with his research into chant, polyphony and Irish music can be regarded as the normal kind of work in which musicologists engage. But musical life in Ireland at the start of the twentieth century was not normal by international standards, and neither was the conduct of musicology. In direct contrast to Bewerunge’s stolid scholarship, Grattan Flood over-reached himself in attempting to write a universal history of Irish music. However, Grattan Flood’s over-determined narrative caught the mood of the time. 29 For him, one way of de-Anglicizing Ireland was to claim that some English composers were in fact Irish. 30 Ironically, if there was one thing worse than being English in Ireland in 1915, it was being German. It is clear from the controversy over Bewerunge’s UCD appointment that he was repeatedly singled out as more “other” than others. Consider the nationality of some of the other candidates for the posts of Professor of Music and Professor of Irish Music: Carl Hardebeck was born in London to a German father; Robert O’Dwyer was born in Bristol to Irish parents; C. H. Kitson was born in Yorkshire; Johanna C. Bonfils was a French music teacher active in Dublin; and Jan Baptist Van Craen was a Dutch organist active in Carlow and Dublin. In early 1914 Bewerunge, along with Kitson, O’Dwyer, Bonfils, Van Craen, Brendan J. Rogers and Annie W. Patterson applied for the post of Professor of Music. Bewerunge, who had been appointed chair of chant and organ at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth in 1888, was the successful candidate. O’Dwyer, Patterson, and Rogers also applied for the post of Professor of Irish Music along with Grattan Flood, Carl G. Hardebeck, Thomas O’Brien Butler, P. J. Griffith, and Geoffrey Molyneaux Palmer: O’Dwyer was successful on that occasion. 31 Bewerunge’s appointment provoked a xenophobic rant in a letter to the Freeman’s Journal written by Edward Martyn who argued that Bewerunge was ineligible for the post simply because he was a cleric and a foreigner. 32 The ensuing correspondence focused on the nature of “Irish” music and musicians in a subjugated country. 33 If Martyn and certain correspondents such as Arthur Darley argued 29 Grattan Flood expressed his wish to add to the body knowledge about “holy Ireland”: see “Preface”, History of Irish Music, [4th edn., 1927], viii. 30 Grattan Flood: “Irish Ancestry of Garland, Dowland, Campion and Purcell”, in: Music and Letters, 3:1 (1922), pp. 59–65. 31 See Wolfgang Marx: “A Very Short History of Music at UCD”, in: 100 Years of Music at UCD: A Centenary Festschrift, ed. Wolfgang Marx. Dublin: UCD School of Music, 2014, pp. 18–30. The Musical Times stated that Kitson and Grattan Flood were the only candidates holding music degrees, but Annie Patterson also held a doctoral degree in music: see “University College Dublin”, in: Musical Times (1 May 1914), p. 3. 32 [Edward Martyn]: “The Professorship of Music in the National University – Mr. Edward Martyn on Father Bewerunge’s Appointment”, in: Freeman’s Journal [FJ], 3 March 1914, p. 9. 33 See inter alia [Me Fein]: “Father Bewerunge’s Appointment”, in: FJ, 4 March 1914, p.5; [Sealy Jeffares]: “The Boundaries of Music”, in: FJ, 5 March 1914, p. 5; [Arthur Darley]: “The Chair of

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“Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland that only “Irishmen” should be employed in Irish universities, others, such as Sealy Jeffares, argued that those who were born outside Ireland were sometimes more qualified, more experienced and had contributed more to Irish musical life. Unsurprisingly, Michele Esposito was regarded by Jeffares as the main witness for the defence. A year later the controversy entered a new register when Bewerunge found himself unable to return to Ireland from Germany where he was visiting family. While the Catholic Church authorities in Ireland petitioned for his safe return – and retained his Maynooth post until he did return in 1920 – the situation was very different in UCD. In June 1915 the Irish Times published a letter highlighting Bewerunge’s “alien” status and his unexplained absence from the university. 34 UCD eventually declared the position vacant, and Kitson, who had been passed over in 1914, was appointed after another public process in 1915. Bewerunge’s reputation suffered another blow at the hands of Grattan Flood and Richard R. Terry, organist and director of music at Westminster Cathedral. 35 In The Musical Times, Grattan Flood dismissed Bewerunge’s “sophistries and crude theoretical knowledge of plainchant” while accusing him of “a carefully-planned campaign of commercialism in music and musicians”. 36 His unsupported attack on Bewerunge’s scholarship was combined with an equally unfounded allegation of favouritism towards German organists. On the inf luence of foreign musicians in Ireland Grattan Flood is inconsistent in denouncing “time and again the importation of German organists into Ireland”37 for which he blamed Bewerunge, while otherwise claiming that John Garland, John Dowland, Thomas Campion and Henry Purcell had Irish ancestry. 38 In view of Grattan Flood’s awareness of the importance of immigrant musicians in the history of music in Ireland, it seems his attack on Bewerunge was not motivated by the issue of nationality alone. As McCarthy has shown, while Bewerunge’s reputation was undergoing a public drubbing in Ireland, he was busy publishing his latest researches into chant

34 35

36 37 38

Music in University College – Mr. Martyn and Fr. Bewerunge’s Appointment”, in: FJ, 5 March 1914, p. 5; [Graduate NUI]: “Why Not Appoint the Best Man”, in: FJ, 5 March 1914, p. 5; [P. P.]: “Mr. Edward Martyn and Fr. Bewerunge’s Appointment”, in: FJ, 7 March 1914, p. 9; [Seághán T. O Ceallaigh, and Another Graduate of the NUI]: “The Chair of Music in University College – Fr. Bewerunge’s Appointment”, in: FJ, 9 March 1914, p. 9. “A German Professor”, in: Irish Times, 5 June, 1915, p. 6. The letter included a response from UCD. The item was reprinted verbatim on 12 June 1915. See Richard R. Terry: “Sidelights on German Art: The Great Church-Music Imposture”, in: The Musical Times, 56:870 (August 1915), pp. 457–461, and Grattan Flood: “Sidelights on German Commercialism: The Cecilian Movement in Ireland”, in: The Musical Times, 57:875 ( Jan. 1916), pp. 28–29. For a fuller discussion of Flood’s attack on Bewerunge see McCarthy, Heinrich Bewerunge, pp. 306–316. Grattan Flood: “Sidelights on German Commercialism”, p. 28. Ibidem, p. 28. See note 30.

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Michael Murphy and Renaissance polyphony in various German periodicals. 39 When Bewerunge returned to Ireland in 1920, Kitson had already resigned from UCD. Bewerunge applied for his “old” job when it was advertised, as did Patterson, Rogers and Larchet. As Wolfgang Marx has shown, Bewerunge received no more than a single vote from the various boards in UCD and the NUI.40 Larchet, who was unanimously elected to the post, was an important composer, teacher and music director who was deeply involved in musical life in Dublin. It would have been difficult not to appoint him, and UCD was fortunate to have a musician of Larchet’s calibre and experience. But in terms of musicology, Bewerunge had an unsurpassed record. When Bewerunge died in 1923 his reputation as a scholar was interred with him. When Grattan Flood died five years later, his legacy was on the rise. Even though he was never appointed to a university position, his inf luence on university education and musicological thinking was significant. Ironically, it was Grattan Flood’s failings as a musicologist that set the agenda for historical musicology in Ireland for decades to come. In his Foreword to Anglo-Irish Music, 1780–1830 by Ita Beausang (née Hogan), Fleischmann noted that it was “the first of a series of research projects recently undertaken by the Music Department of University College Cork, to reach completion.” 41 It is worth contemplating the significance of what he said next: Before Grattan Flood’s History of Irish Music can be revised and rewritten, a whole series of localised studies of this kind will be needed, not only of music in Dublin, but of music in Belfast, Cork and the chief provincial centres as well. Only from such surveys can a general history be drawn up with any pretensions to accuracy, which will trace the development of music in the country as a whole.42 Given his broad range of musicological interests (medieval Irish manuscripts, traditional music, analysis of contemporary composition) Fleischmann could have fostered research in a number of areas had he the resources, the time, and a critical mass of research students.43 Despite the presence of Fleischmann and others, both 39 For details of sixteen hitherto unknown articles published between 1915 and 1917 see McCarthy: Heinrich Bewerunge, pp. 300–306. 40 See Wolfgang Marx: “A Very Short History of Music at UCD”, p. 24. 41 Aloys Fleischmann: “Foreword”, in: Ita Hogan: Anglo-Irish Music 1780–1830, Cork: Cork University Press, 1966, ix. The doctoral dissertation was Anglo-Irish Music 1780–1830 (UCC, 1962). 42 Fleischmann: “Foreword”, in: Hogan: Anglo-Irish Music, ix. 43 Fleischmann: Sources of Irish Traditional Music c.1600–1855: An Annotated Catalogue of Prints and Manuscripts 1583–1855, 2 vols., New York, 1998 [posthumous]. Annette de Foubert, who graduated in 1949, worked with Fleischmann on the Sources. Another of Fleischmann’s students, Ryta Mulcahy Gleeson, who also graduated in 1949, co-authored “Music in Ancient Munster and Monastic Cork”, in: Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, 70: 212, 1965, pp. 79–98. See Charles Acton: “Irish Music through the Years”, in: Irish Times, 26 July 1966, p. 8 which

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“Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland within the Irish universities and without, musicology was a peripheral activity in Ireland at that time. It is worth contemplating, therefore, Frank Ll. Harrison’s career and scholarship in this regard. Notwithstanding the subsequent inf luence he would exert on many Irish scholars, his polymath scholarship and the international span of his career was far removed from the condition of musicology in mid-twentieth century Ireland. For example, around the time of his appointment to the newly established Department of Music at Washington University he made the following statement which appeared in a St Louis newspaper (the Star Times, September 1947): “my own feeling about university music – that it should be a study in the humanities rather than a study of professional music as it is approached in conservatories … at least at present we will approach it from the liberal arts cultural standpoint”.44 Furthermore, his own subsequent research into music in Ireland was informed by his archival research on the one hand and his sociological approach on the other.45 Nevertheless, it is worth contemplating his marginal role in Irish musicology around that time as it was he, by proxy, who put Grattan Flood’s scholarship in context. Harrison was the Special Examiner for Beausang’s 1962 doctoral dissertation on which her monograph was based.46 His report on the dissertation was positive without exception. Unsurprisingly, he neither referred to the course of musicology in Ireland nor to Grattan Flood. Given Harrison’s impact on musicology in Britain and America, one wonders what he might have thought of the enduring presence of Grattan Flood in Irish Musical Studies at that time. As it happens, we can readily surmise his thoughts because of his contribution (“Music and Cult: The Functions of Music in Social and Religious Systems”) to the aforementioned New York City University lectures which took place just two years after Beausang’s Anglo-Irish Music was published. 47 Harrison, along with Blume, Paul Henry Lang, Georg Knepler, Gilbert Chase, Milton Babbitt, and H.C. Robbins Landon among others, was invited to discuss current trends in musicology with particular reference to lacunae in current research practice. If we extrapolate from Harrison’s lecture, we can imagine how musicology in Ireland could have been so different had he been a central presence in Irish academia. In that lecture, he moved

44 45 46 47

contains a review of Beausang’s Anglo-Irish Music as well as a mention of Fleischmann’s and Gleeson’s joint article. Quoted in D.F.L Chadd: ‘Francis Llwellyn Harrison, 1905–1987, Proceedings of the British Academy, 75, 1989, pp. 361–380, here pp. 364–365. See Chadd: ‘Francis Llewellyn Harrison, 1905–1987. See also White: ‘Frank Llewelyn Harrison and the Development of Postwar Musicological Thought’, in: Hermathena, 146 (Summer, 1989), pp. 39–47. See note 41. The External Examiner was the composer Edmund Rubbra (1901–1986). Frank Ll. Harrison: “Music and Cult: The Functions of Music in Social and Religious Systems”, in: Brook, Perspectives in Musicology, pp. 307–334.

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Michael Murphy from a discussion of ancient Irish polyphony to the political function of music in Northern Ireland. (Bearing in mind that the ‘Troubles’ in the North were underway at the time, this was an extraordinarily modernist approach.) His thoughts on historical musicology should bring Fleischmann’s words on Grattan Flood into sharp focus: As far as traditional musicology is concerned, we may defend the position that it should continue to be the same interminable scratching around in a selected patch on the Western cultural pile; alternatively, we may suggest valid approaches to a kind of musicology that bears more relation to the realities of human behaviour in the present as well as in the past.48 Harrison raises two pertinent issues here for the development of musicology in Ireland: the dominance of “traditional musicology” (by which he means historical musicology), and the relationship between the past, present and future. We can explore this latter issue further if we consider the opening of his lecture wherein he questioned the framework that American universities provided for musicology: “What does the future need from, or have to do with the past?”49 A more important question could not be asked of musicology in Ireland at that very time. How would Harrison have answered that question in relation to Ireland? After he delivered his “Music and Cult” lecture, an exchange took place between Harrison and a Mrs Hampton. If we substitute “Irish” for “American” we surely have his answer: Mrs Hampton: Professor Harrison, you propose the term “anthropomusicology” to shift attention from the work of art itself to the musical occasion of that work, and I find this thought-provoking, particularly as applied to nineteenth-century American music. Here, we do not have masterpieces so much as musical occasions […] Yet almost no one considers nineteenthcentury American music as being of any significance, simply because there is no Mozart or Beethoven among its composers. Would you not say this is a particularly relevant field for the anthropomusicologist? Harrison: Indeed, yes. The word that seems to get in the way is value. What is the interest in making value judgments. […] Musicology, and other fields as well, until recently, seem to be based on judgments of what we ought to like or value highly from the past. […] North American music in the nineteenth century is as valid a subject to study as any other, if the purpose is to establish and understand what actually happened, without regard to a hierarchy or values. 50 48 Ibidem, p. 308. 49 Ibidem, p. 308. 50 Ibidem, p. 308.

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“Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland While Beausang’s Anglo-Irish Music accorded with Harrison’s value-free approach, it was to be a relatively lone publication such was the lack of support for research in Ireland. We might speculate that had Harrison’s academic appointments included Ireland as well as North America, Oxford and Amsterdam, then musicology in this country might have progressed sooner than it did. Nevertheless, when the SMI established the Frank Ll. Harrison Medal, it did so to acknowledge not only Harrison’s scholarship, but equally to affirm the growth of musicology in Ireland, and furthermore to signal that development to the international musicological community. 51 Perhaps musicology in Ireland would not have developed to the extent it did without the existence of a dedicated scholarly society. The first significant attempt to engender a collective identity for musicologists in Ireland came in 1979 when Patrick Devine and Rev Noel Watson organized The Irish University Music Teachers Conference in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, on 30–31 March. The contributions of Brian Boydell (Trinity College, Dublin), Aloys Fleischmann (University College, Cork), David Greer (The Queen’s University, Belfast) and Peter Williams (Edinburgh University) indicated that the practice of musicology in Ireland was not conceived in parochial terms. Despite the stated hope that this was to be the first of many such conferences, no further events were organized. However, the Maynooth conference had a direct inf luence on the establishment of the Irish Chapter of the Royal Musical Association. In February 1985 Don Cullington (University of Ulster, Jordanstown) wrote to all the heads of music departments in Ireland reminding them of the ‘pioneering’ meeting in Maynooth with a view to reconvening a similar conference. In February 1986, Cullington, along with his department colleagues, Hilary Bracefield and Michael Russ sought permission from the RMA to form an Irish Chapter along the lines of the Northern (Scottish), Midlands and North Midlands Chapters which had been established during the 1970s and 80s. Bracefield chaired the Irish Chapter from 1987 to 2003. The inaugural meeting of the Irish Chapter, held on 16 May 1987 in Jordanstown, featured just four papers by Brian Boydell, David Rhodes, Michael Russ, and Anthony Carver. The next meeting, which took place a year later in UCD, was the first to be held in the Republic. It was hosted by Anthony Hughes, and again four papers were given, including Harry White’s important report on recent developments in musicology in Ireland which he published in Acta Musicologica.52 Henceforth, subsequent meetings were held alternately north and south, an ethos which is at the heart of the SMI’s mission “to promote and foster musical scholarship in all its 51 To date, the SMI’s Harrison Medal has been awarded to Christoph Wolff (2004), Margaret Bent (2007), Kofi Agawu (2009), Christopher Hogwood (2011), jointly Harry White and Barra Boydell (2013), and Susan Youens (2016). 52 See note 8.

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Michael Murphy forms throughout Ireland, north and south”.53 The subsequent development of Ireland’s pluralist musicology, stimulated in no small part by the RMA Irish Chapter and the establishment of SMI in 2003, can be measured in a number of ways. The expansion of conferences from four-paper events to triple-paper sessions ref lects the diversity of research interests. This is to say nothing of the many other types of research “outputs” aimed at academic peers and the public alike, delivered and archived in a variety of traditional and new media. If White remarked “I watched it grow” ,54 he was no passive onlooker. His article “Musicology in Ireland” was not just a critical survey of musicology in Ireland, it also set out his vision for the future of musicology in Ireland. Given the limitations of the discipline in Ireland in the 1980s, the fact that all of his stated predictions came to pass is remarkable. When he wrote “It may seem a truism to observe that the history and criticism of music in Ireland is the responsibility of scholars who live and work there”,55 he was not stating a truism so much as setting out his stall. He attracted the attention of those same scholars by holding up a mirror to their activities. That he published his findings in Acta Musicologica indicated the seriousness of his intention to do something more than just offer a report. Before he gave his “Musicology in Ireland” paper he had secured Irish Academic Press as the publisher for the first volume of the IMS which would represent the spectrum of musicological interests in Ireland.56 Two years later, when making the case for an encyclopaedia of music in Ireland, White invoked the “patronage of a learned society” which would be instrumental in “determin[ing] the success of this kind of venture.”57 That EMIR was published in 2013, a decade after the establishment of the SMI, testifies to the fact that White galvanized many of the energies that he encountered on his return to Ireland from Canada in 1984. White had Canada in mind for the development of musicology at least with regard to the publication of an encyclopaedia of music.58 In 1988, White issued another futuristic statement, albeit with a degree of cautiousness: “To propose a journal of musicology in Ireland would not be justified by the size and present scope of the field”. 59 When the Journal of the Society for 53 Harry White: “Constitution of the Society for Musicology in Ireland”, http://www.musicologyireland.com (last accessed 3 January 2017). 54 White: “‘Variations on an Air’: The Discourse of Musicology in Ireland”, in: Harry White, The Progress of Music in Ireland, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005, p. 145. 55 White: “Musicology in Ireland”, p. 4. 56 The series is published “in association with the SMI” (since its eighth volume), and is now in its eleventh volume. 57 White: “Musicology, Positivism and the Case for an Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland: Some Brief Considerations”, in: Musicology in Ireland, Irish Musical Studies vol.1, ed. Harry White and Gerard Gillen. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1990, pp. 295–300, here 300. 58 White: “A Canadian Model of Music in Ireland”, The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 16/2 (Dec. 1990), pp. 1–6. 59 White: “Musicology in Ireland”, p. 303.

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“Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland Musicology in Ireland [ JSMI] was launched in 2005 it was further evidence of the significant developments that had occurred in musicology in Ireland. In conclusion I want to consider another of White’s prophetic statements. In 1990 when he asked “Would the preparation of an Irish encyclopaedia distract scholars from other, more (individually) challenging musicological pursuits?”60 he was, in fact, advocating the role which positivism would play in the development of musicology in Ireland at a time when musicologists in Ireland were embracing a diverse range of methodologies and topics. Five years later he introduced Joseph Kerman as the keynote speaker at the Maynooth International Musicological Conference: Kerman’s address, “Musicology in Transition”, reinforced his commitment to critical musicology.61 White’s call to arms for an encyclopaedic endeavour (positivism on a national scale) seemed at odds with Kerman’s discourse (criticism at the individual level). When White voiced his awareness of that tension (in 1990), he framed it as a question. More correctly, we can regard it as an invitation in which he addressed his colleagues, acknowledged their specialisms, and encouraged them to collaborate. Many scholars – from Ireland and abroad – responded, and White has acknowledged the seminal involvement of Gerard Gillen and Barra Boydell in Maynooth University.62 Collaborative positivism occurred on an unprecedented scale in Ireland for over a decade in the preparation of EMIR. During that same period, Ireland produced an unprecedented number of musicological publications on a diverse range of topics, employing a wide variety of methodologies. If EMIR can be regarded as the epitome of modern “Irish” musicology, then, in this case at least, it was no distraction from any other type of musicology in Ireland.

Bibliography Adams, Martin: “History in the Writing”, in: The Invisible Art: A Century of Music in Ireland 1916–2016, ed. Michael Dervan. Dublin: New Island, 2016, pp. 198–211. Beausang, Ita: “Musicology in Ireland: Back to the Future?”, paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University, 10–12 June 2016.

60 White: “Musicology, Positivism, and the Case for an Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland”, p. 299. 61 Joseph Kerman: “John F. Larchet Memorial Lecture: ‘Musicology in Transition’”, in: The Maynooth International Musicological Conference 1995: Selected Proceedings, Irish Musical Studies vol. 4, ed. Patrick Devine and Harry White. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995, pp. 15–33. 62 For a comprehensive discussion of the origins and progress of the encyclopedia see White: “Introduction”, EMIR, vol. 1, pp. xxi–xxxiii.

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Michael Murphy Blume, Friedrich: “Musical Scholarship Today”, in: Perspectives in Musicology, ed. Barry S. Brook et al. New York: Norton, 1972, pp. 15–31. Boydell, Barra: “Flood, W[illiam] H[enry] Grattan”, in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland ed. Harry White and Barra Boydell, 2 vols. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013, vol. 1, pp. 394–398 Bodley, Seóirse, “Introduction”, in: W. H. Grattan Flood, A History of Irish Music. Shannon: Irish University Press, 1970 [repr. 3rd edn.], pp. v–x Buckley, Ann: “Developments in Irish Musicology”, in: Bullán 2:1 (1995), pp. 101–108 Chadd, D. F. L: “Francis Llewellyn Harrison, 1905–1987”, in: Proceedings of the British Academy, 75 (1989), pp. 361–380 Cramer, Alfred: “Schoenberg’s Klang farbenmelodie: A Principle of Early Atonal Harmony”, in: Music Theory Spectrum, 24:1 (Spring 2002), pp. 1–34 Day-O’Connell, Jeremy: Pentatonicism from the Eighteenth Century to Debussy. University of Rochester Press, 2007 Dowling, Martin: Traditional Music and Irish Society: Historical Perspectives. London and New York: Ashgate, 2014 Elliott, Robin: “Musicology”, in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, ed. Harry White and Barra Boydell, 2 vols. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013, vol. 2, pp. 713–716 Fleischmann, Aloys: “Historical Survey”, in: Music in Ireland: A Symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Oxford & Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, pp. 1–9 Fleischmann, Aloys: Sources of Irish Traditional Music c.1600–1855: An Annotated Catalogue of Prints and Manuscripts 1583–1855, 2 vols. New York, 1998 Flood, William Henry Grattan: A History of Irish Music. Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1905; 2nd edn. 1906; 3rd edn. 1913; 4th edn. 1927 Flood, Grattan: “Sidelights on German Commercialism: The Cecilian Movement in Ireland”, in: The Musical Times, 57: 875 ( January 1916), pp. 28–29 Flood, William Henry Grattan: “Irish Ancestry of Garland, Dowland, Campion and Purcell”, in: Music and Letters, 3:1 (1922), pp. 59–65 Ceoil, Foclóir: A Dictionary of Music. Baile Átha Cliath (Dublin): An Gúm, 1985 Harrison, Frank Ll.: “Music and Cult: The Functions of Music in Social and Religious Systems”, in: Perspectives in Musicology, ed. Barry S. Brook et al. New York: Norton, 1972, pp. 307–334 Hogan, Ita: Anglo-Irish Music 1780–1830. Cork: Cork University Press, 1966 Kerman, Joseph: “John F. Larchet Memorial Lecture: ‘Musicology in Transition’”, in: The Maynooth International Musicological Conference 1995: Selected Proceedings, Irish Musical Studies vol. 4, ed. Patrick Devine and Harry White. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995. pp. 15–33 320

“Irish” Musicology and Musicology in Ireland Larchet, John F.: “Music in the Universities”, in: Music in Ireland: A Symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Oxford & Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, pp. 13–20 Lawrence, Frank: “Bewerunge, Heinrich [Wilhelm Joseph]”, in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, ed. Harry White and Barra Boydell, 2 vols. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013, vol. 1, pp. 88–91 Marx, Wolfgang: “A Very Short History of Music at UCD”, in: 100 Years of Music at UCD: A Centenary Festschrift, ed. Wolfgang Marx. Dublin: UCD School of Music, 2014, pp. 18–30 McCarthy, Darina: Heinrich Bewerunge (1862–1923): A Critical Reassessment of His Life and Inf luence. PhD diss., National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2015 Mulcahy Gleeson, Ryta, and Aloys Fleischmann: “Music in Ancient Munster and Monastic Cork”, in: Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, 70: 212 (1965), pp. 79–98 Neeson, Seán: “The Place of Irish Music in Education”, in: Music in Ireland: A Symposium, ed. Aloys Fleischmann. Oxford & Cork: Cork University Press, 1952, pp. 54–58 O’Brien Moran, Jimmy: “Irish Folk Music Collectors of the Early Nineteenth Century: Pioneer Musicologists”, in: Music in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, Irish Musical Studies vol. 9, ed. Michael Murphy and Jan Smaczny. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007, pp. 94–113 Pratt, Waldo Selden: “On Behalf of Musicology”, in: The Musical Quarterly 1:1 (1915), pp. 1–16 Riemann, Hugo: Catechism of Musical Aesthetics, trans. H. Bewerunge. London: Augener & Co., 1895; repr. Cambridge University Press, 2013 Riemann, Hugo: Harmony Simplified; or, The Theory of the Tonal Functions of Chords, trans. H. Bewerunge. London: Augener & Co. 1900 Terry, Richard R.: “Sidelights on German Art: The Great Church-Music Imposture”, in: The Musical Times, 56:870 (August 1915), pp. 457–461 White, Harry: “Musicology in Ireland”, in: Acta Musicologica, 60: 3 (1988), pp. 290–305. ‘Frank Llewelyn Harrison and the Development of Postwar Musicological Thought’, Hermathena 146 (Summer 1989), pp. 39–47      : “A Canadian Model of Music in Ireland”, The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 16:2 (Dec. 1990), pp. 1–6      : “Musicology, Positivism and the Case for an Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland: Some Brief Considerations”, in: Musicology in Ireland, Irish Musical Studies vol.1, ed. Harry White and Gerard Gillen. Dublin Irish Academic Press, 1990, pp. 295–300 321

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Progress of Music in Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005      : “The Invention of Irish Music: Remembering Grattan Flood”, in: Franjo Ksaver Kuhac (1834–1911): Musical Historiography and Identity, ed. Vjera Katalinic and Stanislav Tuksar. Zagreb, Croatian Musicological Society, 2014, pp. 207–215 White, Harry and Frank Lawrence: “Towards a History of the Cecilian Movement in Ireland: An Assessment of the Writings of Heinrich Bewerunge (1862–1923) with a Catalogue of His Publications and Manuscripts”, in: Music and the Church, Irish Musical Studies vol. 2, ed. Harry White and Gerard Gillen. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993, pp. 78–107.

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L iber A micorum

PART THREE: MUSIC AND LITERATURE

Susan Youens and Harry White, Late Schubert Conference, Maynooth University, 2011

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot

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The New Policeman

The New Policeman Declan Kiberd Tiger Ireland emerged in the mid-1990s and lasted for about a decade. In its earlier, heroic period, before 2002, useful industries were created and reliable goods made – artisan foods, quality furniture, and so on. The incomers from Britain, mainland Europe and Africa took a pride in the culture which they brought with them and showed a real desire to learn about the traditions of the land in which they had settled. One of these was Kate Thompson, a daughter of the English Marxist historians Edward and Dorothy Thompson. Kate Thompson had for a time trained horses in England and later meditated in India, but her final resting-point was the west of Ireland, where she studied traditional music and wrote children’s books (though, like many children’s classics, they were never confined to children in their appeal). Of these The New Policeman (2005) is the finest: a steady, beady but loving meditation on the ways in which Ireland’s present was now almost wholly separated from its past. For, after 2002, a new kind of incomer arrived into a very different ‘bling’ economy, devoted to quick profit and endless business. A virtual world of consultants and computers had replaced honest manufacture with spin; and the incomers, though condescendingly dubbed ‘new Irish’, cared little for the native culture and even less for that which they brought with them. If there were to be a rescue-job on jeopardized traditions, it would as likely as not come from one of the more serious-minded first band of incomers – much as T.S. Eliot, after his arrival in London almost a century earlier, had invoked the great old lyrics of Spenser, Donne and Marvell in the act of saving contemporary poetry. E.P. Thompson and Dorothy Thompson had long had an English radical’s interest in Ireland as a crucible of republican modernity: but they were first and foremost keen to repair the polity of their own country, restoring the traditions of levelers, diggers and leftist radicals. Edward had for many years edited a journal with an agenda implicit in its very title: Past and Present. Their daughter’s finest novel centres on a fiddle-playing policeman, Larry O’Dwyer, who may be a fairy from another world and who feels a troubling sundering between tradition and modernity – except when he plays his music, which has the effect of happily “linking his past to his present”.1 The New Policeman concerns itself with the half-conscious attempt by a fifteen-year-old boy, J. J. Liddy, to provide a similar 1 Kate Thompson: The New Policeman. London: Bodley Head, 2005, p. 91.

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Declan Kiberd linkage for the entire community. His mother, complaining that there is never ‘enough time’ in the new Ireland, asks her son for the ultimate birthday present which will provide her with more. Tiger Ireland’s diminished sense of the past is clear in J. J. Though his parents are thoughtful anti-nuclear bohemian types, not formally married and happy to give their son the surname of the mother’s family, J. J. knows next to nothing about his grandparents. Like other Tiger cubs, he lives in a depthless present: “How was it that in his fifteen years of his life his mother had never spoken to him about her father? Even more amazing was that he had never thought to ask”. 2 Perhaps his silence was due to a suspicion that the answer might be complicated. One day, a school-friend blurts out the widespread local belief that the grandfather, also J. J. Liddy, murdered a local priest named Doherty, because the cleric had waged a campaign to abolish traditional dancing, which the family loved but which he saw as an occasion of sin. The young J. J.’s response is panicky: he wants to change his surname to that of his father, Byrne. He is in most respects a typical Tiger teenager: he goes clubbing with fiends, chats with girls and generally feels powerless to effect anything much. Although he is a skillful Irish dancer, his friends find the activity ‘nerdy’-– Father Doherty has had some inf luence. Music they are more tolerant of, but would prefer rock lyrics to the old jigs and reels. Nevertheless, the tradition has persisted in the face of clerical and communal disapproval. The 1935 Dance Halls Act had banned private dances in people’s homes, as the clergy, ever-growing in power, sought to police public entertainments with a strict supervision of ethical behavior. 3 The priests feared a sexually-provocative element in traditional dances (and some of the itinerant teachers and musicians had indeed left more than slides and polkas in their wake). They were also anxious that a people whose Catholicism was a matter of superficial obedience to mere rules might, when lured by the hypnotic music, return to a more pagan set of practices.4 The ambiguities surrounding all this were deep. For every Father Doherty, there was a sympathetic priest who loved the old music and tried to organize a céilidhe, in place of the commercial popular music taking over in dancehalls. Traditional musicians had no sense of ‘profit’ and played for love; and the dances themselves allowed young people to mingle in a free and open way, quite different from the more furtive and fumbling couplings which occurred outside the dancehalls. One of the effects of the 1935 legislation had been to drive rural couples into the surrounding hills and fields. “There was not a haystack safe within 2 Thompson: The New Policeman, p. 115. 3 Helen Brennan: The Story of Irish Dance. Kerry: Brandon Press, 1999, and passim. 4 Louise Fuller: Irish Catholicism Since 1950: The Undoing of a Culture. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2004, and passim.

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The New Policeman two miles of each hall”, recalled John McGahern, “and the whole crowd of them seemed to be going off like alarm-clocks”. 5 Even within the ranks of nationalism, there had long been uncertainty about all these questions. As far back as the days of the Land League many radicals treasured traditional music, but one of its clerical leaders, Conor McFadden of Donegal, had musicians beaten up and their instruments destroyed. Dances allowed company-keeping, which endangered the purity of young men and women. The music left many ‘astray in the head’ and those who played it might even be fairyfolk, who would leave a girl with child and then steal another. Father Doherty himself has taken the strange precaution of going to live in fairyland, in order to police its borders and combat such vice, but his efforts seem in vain. Yet they may have had some effect, for when J. J. happens upon him in Tír na nÓg, he confides in the priest that nobody sees fairies any more. The holy man did not expect this to happen so soon: but the speech in which he offers J. J. an account of his ideal country sounds (almost) like a vision of a Tiger Ireland, in which over eighty-five percent of potatoes are imported by a people too busy making money to grow their own food: I see a God-fearing Catholic nation peopled by industrious citizens, each one of them determined to put the old, feckless ways behind them. I see an Ireland where every man has a motor-car and spends his time improving his lot and the lot of his family, instead of wasting his days growing potatoes and his nights drinking and dancing. I see an Ireland that has grown wealthy andits place among the great states of Europe. 6 This is in fact a cunning construction on Thompson’s part: a counter-version of Éamon de Valera’s 1943 radio broadcast, which imagine, less than a decade after the Dance Halls Act, a land of roadside dances and of frugal comfort rather than heedless consumerism: The Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis of right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit - a land whose countrywide would be bright with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should have.7 5 John McGahern, lecture at University College Dublin, 7 February 1999. 6 Thompson: The New Policeman, p. 357. 7 Eamon de Valera: “On Language and the Irish Nation”, Radio Éireann, 17 March 1943.

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Declan Kiberd That speech was initially aimed at the Irish, at home and overseas, in the lead-up to an election – but it has often in later decades been cited as an instance of reactionary pastoral. However, its deep, underlying radicalism shines through in the wider Tiger context of materialist individualism sketched by Thompson. How does J. J. end up having this conversation in Tír na nÓg? The old music has never fully died, despite the fact that few people now have time for such things; and, in the face of clerical disapproval, musicians have kept coming to the family home to play. Helen Liddy shows her son photographs of the famous old artists, taken in the fateful year of 1935. The fairy faith had by then been largely erased, but not the music that went with it. Father Doherty removed the f lute played by grandfather Liddy; and neither it nor the priest was ever seen again. The grandfather, Helen explains at last, was a wild rover who came and went—and then never came back at all. He left her mother big with child (Helen, presumably) and he also left the fiddle which young J. J. plays and which connects him to the fairy folk. Anne Korff, one of the immigrants from Germany who ‘believes’ in the tradition, suggest to young J. J. that by placing himself in a souterrain (an underground building), he can gain access to Tír na nÓg – and so he does. Through the charm of his unearthly music on the magic fiddle, he has gained authority, much like his female author who discovers her narrative gift by linking each short chapter to a piece of sheet music. If all art aspires to the condition of music, one way to tell a story is through a sequence of scores, which serve to place music and text on an equal footing (in much the same manner as the Gaelic bards, whose words were recited to the plucked strings of psalteries).8 In a book about the insufficiency of time in a consumer-driven world, the ‘time’ of music may be the best way of transcending all time. The use of text may seem to have a vaguely antiquarian ring – would most fiddle-players use sheet-music at all? – but the story is cutting-edge post-modern. And Kate Thompson, by telling it, joins a series of previous English artists, radicals and scholars (Robin Flower, George Thompson, Tim Robinson, Micheál MacLiammóir, Arnold Bax and Derek Hill), who all sought to repair the ‘loss of tradition’ and to restore Irish culture to itself. While her predecessors might have seemed like Jacobite princes in an aisling poem hoping to prod a wan, wilting maiden named Ireland back into life, this rescue-mission is quite different: it is done by a woman. Fairyland is different in J. J.’s perception from contemporary Ireland. Its houses are fewer and farther between, growing naturally out of the earth as if they were organic. The clothes of the people ref lect the fashions of successive centuries, as if all times are one time here and everyone partaking in “some kind of fancy dress party”.9 The dances are less drilled and disciplined, more instinctual 8

See Declan Kiberd: The Irish Writer and the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 79–89. 9 Thompson: The New Policeman, p. 171.

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The New Policeman and individualized. But in other ways Tír na nÓg recalls Tiger Ireland. The only time is the present, for the sense of the past and future is strictly subordinated by a people who insist on living in a perpetual now. Yet already there have been leaks in the membrane and time is starting to overtake the fairy folk. Flies have been found dead. The paucity of the houses suggests that many fairies have been exterminated in a past war. Even more strange to J. J., however, are the socks found everywhere, each marking the spot where a worthless, unnecessary new house has been erected in Tiger Ireland. Fairyland is not really “elsewhere”, though it takes – as Anne Korff warned J. J. – courage to pass over into it. Each world is a version of the other. The room which J. J. leaves and re-enters in the souterrain is one and the same: the difference lies not in the surroundings so much as in his perception of them. His absence for a while evokes telltale Tiger fears of yet another teenage suicide, another possible victim of child bullies or of inner loneliness. But Tír na nÓg is not prefect either: the injured hound Bran can receive no medical attention and so his wound can in all likelihood neither improve nor get worse. If Tiger Ireland is unhealthily obsessed with “growth”, Tír na nÓg is winding down into a charming but futureless stasis. Fairyland seems less like an alternative to this world than a recognizable version of it, with many compensatory virtues but also some dire f laws. If Tiger Ireland knows little of its past, Tír na nÓg lacks any sense of a future. If the former has too little time, the latter may have too much. Both states in themselves seem somewhat creepy, even unhealthy –as if one is a necessary condition and creation of the other. The very voyage of various characters between them suggests a half-conscious longing for connection, as if each seeks completion in the other, a zone in which modern state and ancient nation might more finally fuse. Garda Larry O’Dwyer, the new policeman, feels ill at ease administering state law and taking down false names of after-hours revelers in his notebook; but he himself is a split person, who goes by quite another name in fairyland. The self and shadow in each person cries out for integration. If only the membrane between past and present had not been created, all would be well. In a sense, the leaking of time through the membrane, which discomfits the inhabitants of Tír na nÓg, may be a sign of hope. Yet they are described as trying to hold back leaks everywhere, even in the Bermuda Triangle, as if their mission were the rather Pearsean aim of saving spirituality in the modern world. Even though airplanes and jets f ly in the sky, and washing-machines permit socks to get disconnected – an image of all the bifurcated, half-people in this tale – there is little sense of contemporary Kinvara being in the grip of technology. (Some younger Irish readers have found this a little stage-Irish, but such readers voice no objection to the use of quill pens at J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts.) 329

Declan Kiberd It does indeed take audacity to cross between worlds. Genius is the related ability to connect the buried self with the everyday mind. Each zone contains within itself some essential criticisms of the other: but the hope for spiritual recovery lies in those, like J. J., who can hold both codes simultaneously in the head without losing the capacity to function. Garda O’Dwyer finds his new posting such a strain that he attempts to resign it. For related reasons, Anne Korff urges J. J. not to stay too long in Tír na nÓg, lest he know the fate of the legendary Oisín and return, bent and broken, to a wholly different world. In ancient times people could move more freely between conscious and unconscious worlds, but after the fairies lost the great war with the Danu, their reduced population was permitted to go to Tír na nÓg only on condition that they stay there. Yet some still manage to come and go, and to meet an old acquaintance in the modern world after, say, a lapse of forty years. As in the fairytales of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, one can commute between worlds and each migration reinforces the strangeness of being both ‘home’ and ‘away’. One can spend many years away from the human world and yet find that no time has elapsed at all, because there is plenty of time, a super-abundance, in fairyland. But the leaks which have torn the membrane mean that humans never have enough time. In Tiger Ireland the delivery of children to every event is scheduled by protective parents, who don’t allow kids to wander the streets as J. J. wanders through Tír na nÓg. But the fairies’ refusal to submit to time means that they have no growth. They are happy to give J. J. something in return for the tune called Dowd’s Number One, which they have all somehow managed to forget. J. J. offers them a tune of his own composing, but when they hear it, they say that he just thinks he made it. It’s really theirs, but they don’t regard the inspiration which humans get from them as stealing. In folk tradition all tunes are communally owned. Angus, king of the fairies, admits that they sometimes stole babies and left one of their own in its place. The possibility that J. J. may himself be such a figure still has not crossed his mind, though his lineage is vague and his musical gifts otherworldly. But that thought may strike the reader. “It’s not so easy these days, of course”, says Angus meaningfully, “what with hospital beds and burglar alarms and baby monitors, and all that malarkey. But we still get the odd few across”.10 The socks have a particular use: by marking new houses they warn the fairies where not to come through into someone’s kitchen. J. J., as if intuiting something, asks whether the fairies steal back their children, only to be told that they return (when ready) of their own volition, “usually about your age”.11 Perhaps that is the very utterance which makes J. J. want to return to Kinvara; but the reason which he gives is to find a vet who can cure Bran’s wound. Angus 10 Thompson: The New Policeman, p. 250. 11 Thompson: The New Policeman, p. 267.

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The New Policeman says that cannot be done. J. J. is asked instead to play his fiddle for the Dagda, the warrior king who led the lost tribes of Tír na nOg in their doomed battle. A little later, he loses contact with Bran. In the frenzied search, he stumbles into a chamber where the hound is baying beside a terrified man in black clothes and a dog-collar: Father Doherty, still in possession of the fabled f lute. A short time later, urged by the priest, J. J. manages to stop the time leak. This is the precise moment when Tiger Ireland comes to an end. People resume hobbies or discover “that there was room in their lives for their families as well as their jobs”.12 Still in Tír na nÓg himself, J. J. hears how Father Doherty had been commuting between worlds, anxious only to persuade the fairies to stay away from his parish. Angus, who relates all this, is amazed at the discovery of the old f lute. When the body of a decomposed priest is found near the souterrain, the village assumes it is that of the murdered cleric. J. J. returns to Kinvara after his month-long unexplained absence, but Bran cannot be helped, turning instantly to dust. J. J. brings with him the f lute, like those sacred objects brought back by wanderers from mythic lands to attest to the honesty of their claims. Despite Father Doherty’s aversion, the f lute also functions as a radiant relic of old Ireland. As with other religious relics, the power which it evokes may be waning, so there is a compensatory wistfulness about its production, as if it conveys the hints of a code not yet completely rejected. The policeman is brought to quiz J. J. about what exactly happened, but some instinct causes the teenager to clam up. Only when the others have left does he speak with him alone, realizing that the garda is at once the Angus of fairyland and his own grandfather. This is a mind-bender: the idea of “having parents who are younger than you”.13 In primitive religions it was believed that children often ‘chose’ and begat their own parents, as if setting for themselves in their next incarnation a new set of problems and challenges to be solved. J. J. knows better than to tell these things to his mother, who is in some ways more youthful and bohemian than he, but who might not understand. As for the new policeman, that closing conversation with J. J. seems like his signal to pass over. Neither he nor Anne Korff is seen in Kinvara again. But somehow, whenever J. J. plays his fiddle, he is harmonizing with the music played by Angus, as they share across worlds in a performance of Dowd’s Number One. Who is the New Policeman? Thompson’s title evokes Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman with its dystopian nightmare world in which every moment is like the next among the undead. Is the policeman Larry O’Dwyer, who hates his job? Or Father Doherty, who patrols his parish in this world and the other one? Or should that name be reserved for J. J., the one who can truly police the borders 12 Thompson: The New Policeman, p. 369. 13 Thompson: The New Policeman, p. 423.

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Declan Kiberd once O’Dwyer has disappeared, following their last conversation? J. J.is, after all, the central character of the book. The crises of Tiger Ireland were often narrated through images of an endangered childhood, whether abused, abducted, lost or trafficked. All of those fears shadow The New Policeman. Traditional Ireland, in its religious iconography and notions of holy childhood, may have over-invested in the symbol and been then doomed to disappointment and frustration. The rather adolescent qualities of many adults in the Tiger culture meant that some teenagers felt burdened by premature responsibilities. It’s hardly surprising that someone like J. J. might seek instruction from a tradition associated with much older generations. The poignancy of the attempt by distinct groups to communicate across a chasm is clear, but there may be something unconvincing about a declaration that the attempt will always be a success. If childhood’s moment of passing is being pushed back by perma-adolescence to eight or nine years of age, adolescence can endure until people are well into their sixties. One result is that genuine adults are disappearing, or decreasing in number, for much the same reason as real children are vaporizing. There is little enough evidence that the adults depicted in The New Policeman know who they are. The simplification of the word “adult” in the wider community, as a warning of explicitly sexual content, is a further sign of this impoverishment. A figure such as J. J., poised between childhood and adolescence, is placed like a litmus-paper into the ‘solution’ of Tiger Ireland, in order to demonstrate how incomplete and immature are many of the standards by which it lives. But the figure, too kind and too sophisticated to judge – because he really is anyway the parent of his own parents – can expose the fact that adults will never control all forms of knowledge. If Kate Thompson has written a Tiger Ireland version of The Wizard of Oz, her story suggest that there is no place like home, because home is no place, no where. It is who you are and what you bring. The journey becomes a stage in the growth of its protagonist who, by being confronted by various characters not fully capable of growth or change, is made to understand the meaning of such transformation. In an Ireland apparently enjoying the material fruits of development, while still enduring the after-effects of emotional and economic under-development, that is a telling form of bildungsroman. In the Tiger years children’s literature often expresses ideas which might not have been welcomed in the mature world. The child, still connected with much that the community had buried below the level of consciousness, functioned as a symbol of the despair of intellectuals about all that seemed lost and also as a promise of a more humane future. The music of The New Policeman, like stories told to help children sleep, achieves its mesmeric moments in the hours of darkness, when people can explore their shadow-side and process the challenges of the workday, 332

The New Policeman rational, world. It used to be said that the spread of electric light put an end to the fairies, but this book suggests that a story told ostensibly for children may have hidden messages for adults too.

Select Bibliography Brennan, Helen: The Story of Irish Dance. Kerry: Brandon Press, 1999. Fuller, Louise: Irish Catholicism Since 1950: The Undoing of a Culture. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2004, and passim. Kiberd, Declan: The Irish Writer and the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Thompson, Kate: The New Policeman. London: Bodley Head, 2005.

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E velyn I nnes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel

Moore, Wagner, Joyce: Evelyn Innes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel Gerry Smyth

Introduction In the epilogue to The Keeper’s Recital, Harry White summarised his book’s central thesis by suggesting that: narrative, poetic and dramatic modes of literary discourse reanimated the idea of ‘Irish music’ throughout the nineteenth century, so that the metaphorical power of music imaginatively eclipsed any real concern with the cultivation of music per se.1 Professor White spent the following decade researching the implications of this thesis for an understanding of the relationship between music and literature in modern Ireland. In the introduction to Music and the Irish Literary Imagination he argued: that the quest for the Irish Omphalos entails a consideration of music not simply as a striking absence but as a vital presence in the Literary Revival and in contemporary Irish literature. It rests on the premise that music is the ‘sovereign ghost’ of the Irish literary imagination. Wallace Stevens’s tantalizing formula for the imagination itself seems particularly expressive of that ambiguous but enduring relationship between music and literature which has been formative in Irish writing at least since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and which strongly inheres in the poetry and drama of Irish writers for two centuries afterwards. 2 Professor White goes on to focus upon a number of figures whose work addresses this thesis in various ways and degrees: Thomas Moore (1779–1852), W.B. Yeats (1865–1939), J.M. Synge (1871–1909), Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), James Joyce (1882–1941), Samuel Beckett (1906–1989), Brian Friel (1929–2015) and Seamus Heaney (1939–2013). During the course of the study, the writing of each of these canonical figures is revealed to be deeply engaged with a series of issues 1 2

Harry White: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998, p. 152. Harry White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 3–4.

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Gerry Smyth emerging from a musical apprehension of the (Irish) world and its amenability (or not) to representation. Joyce is the joker in this particular pack for, as Professor White goes on to point out: [it] is a striking feature of music in the Irish literary imagination that it finds expression so frequently in poetry and drama, and that these generic models tend to take precedence over fiction in this respect (as in others). The simple explanation for this preference is that these genres more intimately neighbour musical genres than does fiction, and it is certainly not too difficult to consider poetry in relation to song, and drama in relation to operatic and symphonic genres, if only because this consideration has been so (variously) evident in the minds of the writers themselves. When Irish fiction explicitly aspires to the condition of music, as it does in Joyce, the musical correlatives are so extreme and so (proverbially) Wagnerian, that Joyce subverts the narrative conventions of prose in direct proportion to his synthetic and contrapuntal address on music (9). 3 The conjunction of fiction, Joyce and Richard Wagner (1813–1883) in this final sentence represents my point of entry to the debate inaugurated and so elegantly enjoined by Professor White. For if the Joycean oeuvre represents in some senses an anti-narrative, perhaps even an anti-fictional, impulse operating at large across modern Irish literature, this does not exhaust fiction’s (or more pointedly, the novel’s) address to music as a seminal component within the modern Irish cultural imagination. One of the most compelling and inf luential engagements of this kind is discernible in the work of George Moore (1852–1933) who, although featuring as an important personage within most viable accounts of modern Irish literature, tends on the whole to be denied a place at the top table. Such a condition is all the less understandable given the depth and extent of Moore’s particular inf luence on Joyce – in so many such accounts (including Professor White’s), the doyen of modern Irish fiction. In no aspect is that inf luence more observable than in Joyce’s assumption and continuance of Moore’s obsession with music as a conceptual, and more significantly a formal, inf luence on his own literary practice.

George Moore’s Music Moore’s significance emerges in the first instance from three plain facts: his longevity, his productivity, and his cosmopolitanism. His sixty-year career straddled 3

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Ibidem, p. 9.

E velyn I nnes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the first three of the twentieth; he was, therefore, active across a period which witnessed the waning and demise of a particular Victorian world view, the emergence of recognizably modern perspectives within a range of social, political and cultural arenas, and the coming to aesthetic dominance of the discourse (or rather, array of discourses) that would come to be known as ‘modernism’. During this period Moore adopted and assumed a range of identities: Mayo Catholic landlord, Parisian aesthete, the ‘English Zola’, born-again Celt, memoirist, yesterday’s man. As part of the same process, he also developed a range of styles which enabled him to adapt and articulate this motley cast of characters: late Romantic, naturalist, decadent, protomodernist, modernist. Moore was already an important and well-established writer by the time he commenced work during the mid-1890s on the novel that would become Evelyn Innes.4 In the English literary arena which was his principal milieu at this time, Moore’s acquaintance with many of the leading figures in contemporary French culture garnered him the reputation of exemplary man of modern letters. In novels such as A Modern Lover (1883), A Mummer’s Wife (1885) and Esther Waters (1894) he had established a reputation as a ‘dangerous’ contemporary writer; but he also experimented with a variety of genres including poetry, drama, short fiction, social commentary, autobiography and cultural criticism. Written during the same post-Paris period, the novel A Drama in Muslin (1886) is regarded by some as the take-off point for a properly modern Irish literature. 5 Moore’s was a restless muse; with no ‘proper’ university education to fall back on, he worried constantly about matters of style and technique.6 Extended domicile in different countries (Ireland, France and England) and settings (rural Mayo and the great metropolises of Paris and London) afforded him a keen appreciation of the symbiotic connection between environment, experience and representation. His developing career comprised a series of exercises characterised by the search for appropriate styles with which to articulate a variety of contemporary socio-cultural ‘problems’ – chief among them, gender relations, religion and art. 4

Moore worked on Evelyn Innes for about three years before it was published in 1898. He was an inveterate reviser, however, and plagued his publisher T. Fisher Unwin with constant letters demanding corrections and changes and new editions; see Helmut E. Gerber (ed.): George Moore in Transition: Letters. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1968, p.144 and passim. He was still revising the text a decade later, and it remained the least favourite amongst his many books. The present essay is based on the first edition. 5 Adrian Frazier: “Irish Modernisms, 1880-1930”, in: The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel, ed. John Wilson Foster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 113–132, here p. 116. 6 In Confessions of a Young Man (1888), ed. Susan Dick. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1972, Moore wrote: “I did not go to either Oxford or Cambridge, but I went to the ‘Nouvelle Athènes’” (102) – the latter being a café on the Place Pigalle frequented during the 1870s by the Parisian avant garde.

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Gerry Smyth The ongoing issue of style eventually encountered the example of music. Inspired in particular by his friendship with the painters Edgar Degas (1834–1917) and Édouard Manet (1832–1883), and by his own aborted career as a painter, Moore had cultivated a ‘pictorial’ aesthetic throughout the 1870s and 1880s. In some senses, this inf luence fitted well with what might be described as the ‘hegemony of the gaze’ which prevailed in contemporary artistic discourse. Such a dispensation comprehended the work of the French literary realist tradition, including the work of recent masters such as Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) and Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880), and found its apogee in the naturalist style of Émile Zola (1840–1902). Like so many other artists in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, however, Moore also came under the inf luence of the period’s dominant artistic voice – that belonging to the German composer Richard Wagner. Thus the seeds were sown for the new generation’s scepticism towards ‘vision’ as an adequate means of artistic exploration, and the concomitant elevation of music as primus inter pares when it came to the transformation of the modern world into artistic form. Moore’s active career more or less entirely coincides with Wagner’s pre-eminence within the world of western culture. The latter’s mature work revolutionised the idea of opera, certainly, but also and more significantly revolutionised the idea of an aesthetic method through which artistic meaning could be constructed and articulated. Wagner’s monumental shadow lay across all artistic endeavour, including literary endeavour, in the late nineteenth century; as Thomas Mann (1875–1955) put it, the German composer epitomised the nineteenth century;7 given his interests and his experience, I suggest, it would have been unusual if Moore had not fallen under his sway. In fact, Moore’s Wagnerism was primarily literary in the first instance, learned from the example of Parisian acquaintances such as the poets Stephane Mallarmé (1842–1898) and Paul Valéry (1871–1945), and the novelist Edouard Dujardin (1861–1949, vide infra). It was only in the early 1890s, long after his return from Paris, and under the inf luence of his Mayo friend Edward Martyn (1859–1923), that Moore became enamoured of the music itself and revealed himself as a fullyf ledged Wagnerian devotee. 8 Such was Moore’s position within the Irish, British and European artistic community that he was uniquely endowed to be able to identify and understand Wagner’s inf luence, and to begin to formulate a response to it in his own work.

7 8

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Thomas Mann: Pro and Contra Wagner, trans. Allan Blunden. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 91. Moore attended the Bayreuth Festival on four occasions: 1894, 1897, 1899, and 1901.

E velyn I nnes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel

Evelyn Innes Before going on to consider that response in more detail, allow me to summarise the plot of the novel in question. Evelyn is a young woman living in the south London suburb of Dulwich with her widowed father; the precise date is unmentioned but the action would appear to take place sometime during the decade before the book’s publication in 1898. Mr Innes and his daughter are Catholics: he is an instrument maker and a devotee of early modern church music, much in vogue during this period, and represented in the text by composers such as Palestrina (1525–1594) and Vittoria (c. 1548–1611).9 Evelyn’s deceased mother had been an opera singer, and at the outset of the novel Evelyn is depicted as a good, although untrained, singer. Mr Innes feels a degree of guilt over this, because he realises that his daughter could be as great a singer as her mother. She comes under the inf luence of a wealthy middle-aged bachelor, Sir Owen Asher, who visits her father’s workshop to find out more about the early music movement. When he hears Evelyn sing at a religious concert Owen realises that she has the potential to be a successful opera singer – at least: a successful singer of a certain kind of opera: Wagnerian opera, which, as the novel makes abundantly clear, is not at all the same thing. Evelyn is increasingly conf licted during the opening half of the novel: she is depressed by the curtailed life she leads with her father in the appropriately named suburb of Dulwich, and at the same time dazzled by Owen’s wealth and culture. She loves her father, and realises that a liaison with Owen will compromise the Catholic strictures within which she has been raised. Personal ambition and sexual desire win out over paternal devotion and Catholic morality, however, and she elopes with Owen to Paris to begin her training. Seven years later Evelyn is an internationally acclaimed Wagnerian diva. She and Owen are back in London where she is engaged to sing the part of Princess Elizabeth in Wagner’s Tannhäuser at Drury Lane. She makes the acquaintance of a young Irish composer named Ulick Dean, a character modelled (at least in the first couple of editions) on W.B. Yeats, with whom Moore had become acquainted and to whom (along with Arthur Symons {1865–1945}) the novel is dedicated. Ulick is working on an opera based on the Celtic legend of Grania, the leading role of which he hopes Evelyn will sing. Like Yeats, Ulick is a mystic and an idealist: like Owen he rejects the dogma of organised religion, but he also opposes Owen’s 9

The Innes family is modelled to a significant extent on the Dolmetsch family with whom Moore deliberately cultivated an acquaintance as part of the research process for the novel. Arnold Dolmetsch (1858–1940) was a French-born musician and instrument maker who spent much of his working life in England and established an instrument-making workshop in Haslemere, Surrey. He was also a leading figure in the revival of interest in early music.

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Gerry Smyth arid rationalism with a keen sense of his own Celtic spirituality. He is, in other words, redolent of the Celtic revivalism so associated with Yeats in the closing decades of the century.10 Helmut E. Gerber suggests that: [the] contrasting portraits of Sir Owen Asher and Ulick Dean in part seem to ref lect two aspects of [Moore’s] literary character, the [Moore] who still clings a little to the esthetic, superficially witty, clever young dandy he sometimes viewed himself as being in Confessions and the [Moore] who had discovered greater depths in himself and in the depiction of the psychology of his fictional characters.11 Be that as it may, Evelyn’s affaire with Ulick precipitates a moral crisis as she realises that worldly success on the stage has not brought her inner happiness or self-respect. Under the inf luence of a Jesuit priest, Monsignor Mostyn, Evelyn returns to the bosom of the Catholic Church, breaks with her two lovers, retires from the stage and enters a convent in Wimbledon on a retreat. That is the point at which Evelyn Innes ends and where the second part of the story, Sister Theresa, commences. A full treatment of Moore’s vision for this ambitious novel would have to take cognizance of the second part, as it is replete with echoes and reassessments which qualify the action of the first. But in this essay I am more interested in addressing some of the thematic and aesthetic issues bearing upon Moore’s practice in Evelyn Innes – in particular, the role of music as both the central theme of the novel and the principal inf luence upon its artistic expression.

Working out the Allegory I have already indicated that Moore was profoundly inf luenced by his exposure to the work of Symboliste poets such as Mallarmé and Valéry, and contemporary novelists such as Dujardin, Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) and Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863–1938). Each of these writers was interested (some to the point of obsession) in the idea of music in general, and the idea of Wagnerian music in particular. Looking back on French literature in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Paul Valéry wrote: “We were nourished on music, and our literary minds dreamed only of extracting from language the same effects, almost, as were produced on our nervous systems by sound alone” (quoted in Bucknell 10 In later editions, and for reasons concerning his complex professional relationship with Yeats, Ulick is modelled more closely on the writer George Russell (commonly known as AE, 1867– 1935). A later edition of the novel featured an Irish episode in which Evelyn and Owen visit Chapelizod – the legendary home of Isolde, as well as the primary location of Finnegans Wake. 11 Gerber: George Moore in Transition, p. 171.

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E velyn I nnes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel 2001: 11). Different writers responded differently to the power of music. While in England Walter Pater (1839–1894) could maintain that “all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music” (1910: 35), for the continentals it seems that music was attractive for its allusive, suggestive power, and its ability to render modern life opaque – its ability, that is, to problematize the dominant modes of representation and to upset the balance (upon which so much depended) between outward reality and inward perception.12 Given the breadth and the depth of his immersion in contemporary French literature, Moore was aesthetically primed to develop his own particular version of the ‘Wagnerian novel’. More pressingly, music offered Moore a new approach to some of the aesthetic problems with which he was struggling at the outset of the 1890s – as Richard Cave writes: “It was his deepening understanding of the literary possibilities of Wagner’s ideas and method which saved Moore from the imaginative poverty into which he had sunk.”13 And so it is that the music of ‘the Meister’ came to feature as both the central conceit and the informing methodology of his new novel. As always with Moore, moreover, conceptual and formal elements were locked together in pursuit of an aesthetic coherence which would in itself (to employ Pater’s formulation) aspire towards the condition of an art form (which is to say: music) in which form and content were, apparently, symbiotically locked. Evelyn grows up in a household that cherishes early modern religious music – especially the music associated with the great Catholic cultures of Italy and Spain. Her elopement to Paris with Sir Owen Asher represents a rejection of that upbringing, as does her implicit rejection of the music of Palestrina and Vittoria (the music associated with her father) in favour of Wagner. For seven years Evelyn lives the life of a Wagnerian diva: immersing herself in the great roles, studying the music and the libretti, absorbing the entire culture that surrounded the late nineteenth-century Wagner cult. The novel, as the critic William Blisset says, “is full of Wagnerian discussion, all of it topical in the heyday of English Wagnerism, and much of it skilfully integrated with the theme of the book and the life of its characters.”14 Richard Cave suggests that Evelyn Innes is built “out of thinly 12 In Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics: Pater, Pound, Joyce, and Stein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, Brad Bucknell points out that “[poetry] calls for its own claim to the ‘Ideal’ in the same way that music does – by its untranslatability, in the silence of its ‘noiseless flight.’ Mallarmé opposes the ‘speech’ of Wagner’s verbal / orchestral art with the silent potentials, and mysteries, of the poetic written word … [He thus] joins music and literature not so much at the level of their transcendence, but at the level of their obscurity, in precisely the place where they do not speak”, pp. 31–32, original emphases. 13 Richard Cave: A Study of the Novels of George Moore. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1978, p. 137. 14 William F. Blissett: “George Moore and Literary Wagnerism”, in George Moore’s Mind and Art, ed. Graham Owens. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1968, pp. 53–76, here p. 55. The first Bayreuth Festival was held in 1876, a date representing the take-off point for the Wagnerian cult in England.

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Gerry Smyth disguised parallels with situations, relationships and characters in Wagner’s operas. The various conf licts that trouble Evelyn Innes’s psyche are deliberately modelled by Moore on the tragic predicaments that face Wagner’s heroines”;15 while Timothy Martin points out that the heroine’s musical and sexual careers are “mirrored in a chronological succession of the operas, including The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, and Parsifal.”16 Late in the narrative Evelyn recalls the misery of her last days in Dulwich, and she does so in order to re-experience the emotions necessary to create the role of Isolde. Later still, apropos her performance in Tannhäuser, Ulick Dean thinks: In Elizabeth she had gone back to the Dulwich days before she knew Asher, and was acting what she then felt and thought. She believed she was living again with her father, and so intense was her conviction that it evoked the externals. Even her age vanished; she was but eighteen, a virgin whose sole reality has been her father and her chatelaine, and whose vision of the world was, till now, a mere decoration – sentinels on the drawbridge, hunters assembling on the hillside, pictures hardly more real to her than those she weaves on her tapestry loom.17 At the same time, and in a kind of reciprocal movement, Evelyn begins to perceive her life in terms of those same roles. After her return to London as a successful diva, Evelyn is faced with the problem of reconciliation with her father: Her plans were to talk to him about his choir, and, if that did not succeed, to throw herself on her knees. She remembered how she had thrown herself on her knees on the morning of the afternoon she had gone away. And since then she had thrown herself at his feet many times – every time she sang in the ‘Valkyrie’. The scene in which Wotan confides all his troubles and forebodings to Brunnhilde had never been different from the long talks she and her father used to drop into in the dim evenings in Dulwich. Wotan had always been her father; Palestrina and the stupid Jesuits, what were they? She had often tried to work out the allegory. It never came out quite right […] The scene in the third act, when she throws herself at Wotan’s feet and begs his forgiveness (the music and the words together surged upon her brain), was the scene that now awaited her. She had at last come to this long-anticipated scene; and the fictitious scene she had acted as she was now going to act the real scene.18 15 Cave: A Study of the Novels of George Moore, p. 142. 16 Timothy Martin: Joyce and Wagner: A Study of Influence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 12. 17 George Moore: Evelyn Innes. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1898, p. 188. 18 Ibidem, p. 201.

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E velyn I nnes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel Although she cannot “work out the allegory”, Evelyn has moved towards an implicit appreciation of music’s ability to negotiate the relationship between ‘the fictitious’ (which is to say, the representation) and ‘the real’ – something which music, as an apparently non-denotative signifying system which yet retains the ability to invoke powerful meanings, is signally endowed to achieve. Wagner’s principal recurring theme might be regarded as the clash of sacred and profane love – “of the conf lict and combination of religion and sensuality”;19 and it is a version of this conf lict that Evelyn experiences in her own life when she encounters, buried deep within her own psyche, a profound Catholic suspicion of worldly pleasure. The irony in this instance, of course, is that such worldly pleasure is associated with Evelyn’s career as an international Wagnerian diva. This theme was very much in Moore’s mind during this period, for at the same time as he was researching his novel, he was writing the three novellas which would comprise Celibates (1895) – a collection which (as Seamus Deane puts it) articulates Moore’s “preoccupation with the fate of a cloistered sexuality in a sensual world”, and which features characters (Mildred Lawson, John Norton and Agnes Lahens) who “def lect their natural desires into religious cravings.”20

A Move towards Modernism Wagner’s address to the relationship between sacred and profane love is at the same time an address to the relationship between human and divine registers. After Wagner, such issues grow in significance, until they become the bases of a recognizably modernist aesthetic, figuring centrally in the work of writers such as T.S. Eliot (1888–1965), W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound (1885–1972) and James Joyce. With the latter figure, of course, we also observe the emergence of an identifiably modernist attitude towards narrative; but this also has its roots in the Wagnerian revolution of the preceding generation, and it is a technique that once again finds its first major Anglophone practitioner in Moore. Joyce famously claimed to have taken the idea of stream of consciousness from the example of the French writer Édouard Dujardin, whose novel Les Lauriers sont coupés (‘The laurels are cut’, 1887) focuses on a few hours in the life of a naïve Parisian student named Daniel Prince. Dujardin claimed that he had developed his version of the stream of consciousness as a reaction against the naturalistic novel which, under the dominion of Zola, held such sway in France in the opening decades of the Third Republic; but also as an example learned from the musical practices characteristic of later Wagnerian opera – in particular, the use of leitmotif 19 Blissett: “George Moore and Literary Wagnerism”, p. 58. 20 Seamus Deane: A Short History of Irish Literature. London: Hutchinson, 1986, p. 173.

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Gerry Smyth to identify particular characters or relationships, and, more importantly, the widespread use of chromaticism (which also meant a move away from traditional notions of tonality) and also the downplaying of aria (a staple of Italianate bel canto opera) in favour of recitative and extended through-composition. This means that the musical score represents an attempt to follow the contours of the character’s changing psychological profile without recourse to traditional form or to overt compositional direction. As mentioned above, Moore and Dujardin were close friends in Paris during the 1870s and 1880s (the latter was editor of Revue wagnerienne between 1883 and 1886), and the two writers enjoyed a prolonged correspondence after the former relocated to London. This correspondence was in full f low when Moore was researching and writing Evelyn Innes and Sister Theresa. Moore was impressed by Les Lauriers sont coupés, and worked hard to develop his own version of the effects that Dujardin had achieved in his novel. In a critical essay of the period Moore wrote about listening to music and thinking how, like music, “a story might be woven from start to finish out of one set of ideas, each chapter rising out of the preceding chapter in suspended cadence always, never a full close.”21 He also described how, just as Wagnerian mature opera was continuous melody, so the novel should be unbroken narrative. He saw in Dujardin’s novel “the daily life of the soul revealed for the first time; a kind of symphony in full stops and commas”22 – held together by recurring phrases employed as motifs. The experiences of the characters of whom he writes may be disconnected and exterior so long as the melody of his narrative is unbroken. The goal in both instances is an organic artwork in which the consumer (listener / reader) is fully engaged in the meaning-making process. Graham Owens has demonstrated the various ways in which Moore attempted to achieve ‘the melodic line’ in narrative. Amongst the many techniques thus deployed, the principal one identified by Owens is ‘f low’ – “the enormous care expended on the joining of phrase to phrase, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and chapter to chapter, in one continuous f low.”23 Gone is the raft of effects and techniques developed over a century and more of English fiction – Austen’s irony and humour, Dickens’ caricatures and melodrama, Eliot’s poise and psychological complexity, and so on. Instead we have pattern, rhythm and movement, with character, narrator and reader oriented towards the continuously f luctuating relationship between outward impression and inward expression. 21 Quoted in Blissett: “George Moore and Literary Wagnerism”, pp. 73–74. 22 Quoted in Adrian Frazier: George Moore, 1852–1933. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000, p. 155. 23 Graham Owens: “The Melodic Line in Narrative”, in George Moore’s Mind and Art, ed. Graham Owens. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1968, pp. 99–121, here p. 106.

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E velyn I nnes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel Although all Moore’s writing after Evelyn Innes rehearses this technique, it was in The Lake (1905) – “an entirely new form of fiction in English”, according to Adrian Frazier24 – that he came closest to realising a fully successful transposition of Wagnerian discourse into literary form. In an essay of 1919 Moore wrote: “Evelyn Innes” is externally musical as “Carmen” is externally Spanish; but the writing of “The Lake” would not be as it is if I had not listened to “Lohengrin” many times […] the pages in which the agitated priest wanders about a summer lake recall the silver of the prelude. The sun shining on the mist, a voice […] heard in vibrant supplication, is the essence of the prelude. 25 Moore’s developing technique was recognizably related to the musicalized styles (all inf luenced to a greater or lesser degree by Wagner) developed by the likes of Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) in England, Gabriele D’Annunzio in Italy, Thomas Mann in Germany, and Joris-Karl Huysmans and Marcel Proust (1871– 1922) in France. It was, more pointedly from an Irish literary perspective, also related to the musical style developed by the figure who – at least in terms of his cosmopolitan imagination and his highly ambitious pan-aestheticism – was Moore’s natural literary heir: James Joyce.

Moore, Joyce and Wagner The relationship between Moore and Joyce evolved over the extended period of their acquaintance. 26 The first volley in the ongoing battle of their talents was fired by Joyce in “The Day of the Rabblement” (1902), a self-published pamphlet decrying the parlous state of modern Irish letters. Moore came in for particularly harsh judgment on that occasion, being denied by the younger man any role in “the future of art.”27 Moore riposted by dismissing Joyce’s early poems (those eventually published in Chamber Music in 1907) as in thrall to the Symboliste aesthetics associated with Arthur Symons. 28 Thereafter their paths continued to 24 Adrian Frazier: “Irish Modernisms, 1880–1930”, in The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel, ed. John Wilson Foster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 113–132, here p. 125. 25 Quoted in Blissett: “George Moore and Literary Wagnerism”, p. 70. 26 Although my focus here is on Joyce, William Blissett traces an alternative genealogy of Irish Wagnerism through figures such as W.B Yeats, Edward Martyn, T.W. Rolleston and Annie Horniman (ibidem, pp. 63–4). This tradition awaits full scholarly explication. 27 James Joyce: “The Day of the Rabblement” in: Occasional, Critical and Political Writings, ed. Kevin Barry. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2000, pp. 50–52, here p. 51. 28 As reported in Richard Ellmann: James Joyce (1959). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 135.

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Gerry Smyth cross periodically, as the indexes of their respective biographies reveal, 29 until they reached a rapprochement of sorts during Joyce’s London sojourn in 1929. For all his resistance to Moore, however, it is clear that Joyce was profoundly inf luenced by the older writer’s example, and that his oeuvre follows the contours of Moore’s in some important respects. 30 In his memoir My Brother’s Keeper, Stanislaus Joyce (1884–1955) mentions Evelyn Innes as one of the novels that his brother devoured during his student days in Dublin as part of his self-education in modern European letters. 31 Richard Ellmann suggests that even in 1902, “in English there was no one writing […] fiction whom [ Joyce] admired more.”32 Adrian Frazier points out that Joyce’s “Trieste library included eleven books by George Moore, and Joyce read others before and after his Trieste period […] deeply and with profit.”33 Another figure whose work was strongly represented in Joyce’s Trieste library was Richard Wagner. 34 Timothy Martin has pointed out the extent of Joyce’s fascination with Wagner, not only as a composer who profoundly inf luenced the scope and function of western art, but also as a figure who in some senses embodied the values of a century from which Joyce departed so radically in his own work. According to Martin, Wagner’s presence may be discerned in Joyce’s work in a number of ways, including the recurring figures of the artist-hero and the Wandering Jew; the deference to the female anima; the turn to mythic structure; and the interior monologue which characterises Joyce’s mature work and which represents his most significant contribution to the evolution of a recognizably modernist literary aesthetic. 35 We should not be surprised to find all these traits prefigured in Moore’s work, including Evelyn Innes – according to Martin, “the most thoroughly Wagnerian 29 Ellmann: James Joyce, p. 861; Frazier, George Moore, pp. 589–590. 30 In his article “Some Contrasts and Parallels between George Moore and James Joyce”, in: George Moore’s Paris and his Ongoing French Connections, eds. Michel Brunet, Fabienne Gaspari and Mary Pierse. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015, pp. 57–70, Brendan Fleming has drawn attention to “the ways in which Moore’s life and work anticipates, in so many ways, the themes and concerns of Joyce and the formal and generic ways in which Moore’s multifarious writings influenced, and prepared for, Joyce’s modernist experiments”, p. 58. The parallels routinely pointed out are between Confessions of a Young Man and A Drama in Muslin with Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; The Untilled Field with Dubliners; and Hail and Farewell with Ulysses. 31 Stanislaus Joyce: My Brother’s Keeper. London: Faber & Faber, 1958, p. 112. This may have been the heavily annotated copy that found its way into Joyce’s personal library in Trieste; see Martin: Joyce and Wagner, p. 13. 32 Ellmann: James Joyce, p. 98. 33 Frazier: George Moore, p. 455. Timothy Martin claims that Joyce’s library in fact contained fourteen titles by Moore, Joyce and Wagner, p. 13. 34 Richard Ellmann: The Consciousness of Joyce. London: Faber, 1977, p. 132. 35 Martin: Joyce and Wagner, p. 32 and passim.

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E velyn I nnes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel of Moore’s novels.”36 Evelyn is an artist who, anticipating Stephen Dedalus, has to negotiate a role for herself in relation to various ‘nets’ that would tether her to a mundane non-creative, non-expressive life. Her artistic career sets her wandering, which in turn precipitates within her an equally strong ‘homing’ impulse, and which in turn eventually manifests as a spiritual sensibility. Evelyn is also a precursor of all those Joycean women whose presence gives the lie to received phallocentric thought and the traditions (social, cultural and philosophical) to which it gave rise. 37 The mythic resonances Evelyn discerns in her own life – Senta, Elizabeth, Elsa, Isolde and Kundry – prefigure the cast of mythic figures shadowing the roles of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom in Ulysses, and Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker and Anna Livia Plurabelle in Finnegans Wake. And finally, the ‘melodic line’, which Moore began to develop in Evelyn Innes and which he brought to such a high level of achievement in The Lake, is directly linked (most obviously through the example of Dujardin, but also through a complex web of inf luences and sources) to the narrative technique Joyce honed through Dubliners and A Portrait, and which he utilised to such powerful effect in Ulysses. That technique, although perhaps inspired by the stream of consciousness patented by Dujardin, also relied heavily on the related technique of free indirect discourse which Moore deployed throughout The Lake. It is a technique which, as Luke Gibbons has suggested in a recent book, enabled Joyce to articulate “an open-ended relation with the lost object” – which is to say, with the Ireland of the past – that yet “offers a presentiment of hope”. 38 And this, perhaps, is ultimately the most significant bequeath from Moore to Joyce: a recognition that the past had to be accommodated before the future could be fashioned, and an acknowledgement that the role of the modern artist was to develop a style in and through which that complex aesthetic manoeuvre could be achieved. Such musings return us to turn-of-the-century Ireland, and to a country priming itself – politically, culturally and psychologically – for a generation of revolutionary activity. They also returns us to Professor White’s thesis regarding the role and representation of music in Ireland’s evolving cultural consciousness, and his suggestion that, under the aesthetic hegemony of Yeats, “a verbal understanding of music […] as the unheard melody of the literary imagination attained far more significance than music itself.”39 George Moore’s ongoing commitment to a prose style approximating at least some of the effects of Wagnerian music36 Ibidem, p. 12. 37 Insofar as this is the case, Evelyn functions a transitional figure between nineteenth-century woman – exemplified by the like of Emma Bovary, Thérèse Raquin and Hedda Gabler – and the recognizably modern(ist) profile of Molly Bloom. 38 Luke Gibbons: Joyce’s Ghosts: Ireland, Modernism, and Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015, p. xv, original emphasis. 39 White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination, p. 6.

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Gerry Smyth drama represents a key moment in the development of that “verbal understanding of music”. Moore’s project endured, moreover, through the work of James Joyce, and his installation of music as a key resource for the representation of modern Irish identity in fictional form.

Bibliography Blissett, William F.: “George Moore and Literary Wagnerism”, in: George Moore’s Mind and Art, ed. Graham Owens. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1968, pp. 53–76. Bucknell, Brad: Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics: Pater, Pound, Joyce, and Stein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Cave, Richard: A Study of the Novels of George Moore. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1978. Deane, Seamus: A Short History of Irish Literature. London: Hutchinson, 1986. Ellmann, Richard: James Joyce (1959). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.      : The Consciousness of Joyce. London: Faber, 1977. Fleming, Brendan: “Some Contrasts and Parallels between George Moore and James Joyce”, in: George Moore’s Paris and his Ongoing French Connections, eds Michel Brunet, Fabienne Gaspari and Mary Pierse. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015, pp. 57–70. Frazier, Adrian: George Moore, 1852-1933. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000.      : “Irish Modernisms, 1880-1930”, in: The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel, ed. John Wilson Foster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 113–132. Gerber, Helmut E. (ed.): George Moore in Transition: Letters. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1968. Gibbons, Luke: Joyce’s Ghosts: Ireland, Modernism, and Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Joyce, James: “The Day of the Rabblement”, in: Occasional, Critical and Political Writings, ed. Kevin Barry. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2000, pp. 50–52. Joyce, Stanislaus: My Brother’s Keeper. London: Faber & Faber, 1958. Mann, Thomas: Pro and Contra Wagner, trans. Allan Blunden. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Martin, Timothy: Joyce and Wagner: A Study of Inf luence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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E velyn I nnes and the Irish Wagnerian Novel Moore, George: Confessions of a Young Man (1888), ed. Susan Dick. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1972.      : Evelyn Innes. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1898. Owens, Graham: “The Melodic Line in Narrative”, in: George Moore’s Mind and Art, ed. Graham Owens. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1968, pp. 99– 121. Pater, Walter: “The School of Giorgione” (1877), in: The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873). London: Macmillan, 1910, pp. 130–54. White, Harry: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998.      : Music and the Irish Literary Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead

Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s The Dead (1987) John O’Flynn

Introduction Based on James Joyce’s short story from Dubliners in 1914, The Dead is a 1987 international film production directed by Irish-American (and later, Irish citizen) John Huston with an adapted screenplay by his son, Tony Huston.1 Many of Huston’s prior films were adapted from literature, with several others again interpreted as containing autobiographical elements, 2 including the widely-held view that The Dead represented Huston’s epitaph, given that he was terminally ill during production and died shortly before the film’s release. Composer Alex North, who had collaborated with Huston in five previous Hollywood productions, 3 had considerable experience in responding creatively to adaptations of diverse literary sources 4 by the time he had begun working on his score for The Dead in 1986. Preferring to become holistically and emotionally involved in each project he undertook, 5 one of the hallmarks of North’s approach was the investment he made in researching musical texts and associated contexts, and this included an empathetic view of ‘non-Western’ musics that would distinguish him from many of his contemporaries.6 Scoring for The Dead, however, would represent North’s only foray into an Irish-themed sound world, and as such would inevitably have presented him with many challenges, not least, the need to negotiate the many contestations surrounding music in Ireland in Joyce’s time – debates that have not entirely abated at the time of writing. Joyce’s celebrated short story has been extensively explored in literary scholarship from its first publication in 1914 to the present day, with Huston’s adaptation also receiving substantial critical and academic attention over the past four 1 An earlier, extended version of this chapter was published in American Music, 36/2 (2018). 2 Kevin Barry: The Dead. Cork: Cork University Press, 2001, p. 6. 3 The films in question are The Misfits (1961), Wise Blood (1979), Under the Volcano (1984), Prizzi’s Honor (1985) and The Dead (1987). 4 Sanya Shoilevska Henderson: Alex North, Film Composer: A Biography, with Musical Analyses of a Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus, The Misfits, Under the Volcano, and Prizzi’s Honour. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, 2003, p. 85. 5 George Burt: The Art of Film Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994, pp. 233–234. 6 Annette Davison: Alex North’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003, p. 13.

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John O’Flynn decades. Given its prominence in Joyce’s original text, music in and of “The Dead” has also come under close scrutiny by several scholars including Paul Barolsky, Martin Dowling, Hugh Shields, Gerry Smyth, Harry White and Milos Zatkalick. Against this, relatively little attention has been given to music in and for Huston’s The Dead, with most analysts of the film reverting to the musical, textual and intertextual references that abound in the original Joycean text. Arguably, Joyce’s allusions to music and wider cultural associations should form a vital layer in any reading of music produced as part of the film adaptation, particularly when considering what would appear as a close fidelity in Huston’s film. But I also contend that – as with any investigation of soundtrack in literature-to-film adaptation – the analytic approach here also needs to consider overall sound design and film score as they relate to the entirety of the film text. The essay that follows is premised on an expectation that most readers will be acquainted with both texts: Joyce’s short story and Huston’s film.

Alex North’s score and overall sound design in The Dead John Huston would go to great lengths to reproduce the visual dimensions of Joyce’s story by assembling a ‘period piece’ that was lovingly detailed with Edwardian artefacts in a Hollywood set that was built to the exact proportions of the home to Kate and Julia Morkan at 15 Ussher’s Island7 (although the film’s exterior scenes of arrival, departure and a coach journey to the Gresham Hotel were shot on location in Dublin). Similarly, we can recognise a largely comprehensive approach to musical sources and performance style in both the film’s diegesis and underscore, although I later qualify and discuss the perceived qualities of authenticity for both types of film music. This attention and apparent faithfulness to detail notwithstanding, it can be noted that several aspects of the film’s screenplay, cinematography, and sound design (including music) involved several omissions, modifications and additions in relation to the source text. One of the most notable inclusions to the screenplay was a scene with a recitation of Broken Vows (a translation of the Gaelic poem Dónal Óg by Lady Augusta Gregory) which thematically and structurally links to The Lass of Aughrim, as listened to and imagined in both story and film,8 and as subtly woven throughout the soundtrack by Alex North. From a vantage point of rigid textual fidelity, all of the above might be appraised in negative terms; alternatively, these compositional devices could be considered 7 Barry: The Dead, p. 28. 8 Ann Pederson appraises this as a successful cinematic addition that foreshadows later emotions of the film, notably, Gretta Conroy’s final declaration. Ann Pederson: “Uncovering The Dead: A Study of Adaptation”, Literature/Film Quarterly, 21/1 (1993), pp. 69–70, here p. 70.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead as ‘faithful’ mediations insofar as they combined to present an integrated and ‘tactful’ reading of ‘The Dead’.9 Regarding Joyce’s text as analogous to musical form, Paul Barolksy considers Hustons’ adaptation as: … a performance of the original, in which we recognize the composer’s [ Joyce’s] music, notwithstanding the performer’s [Huston’s] interpretation, including even his modifications of the score [text], which are tactful, if not Joycean.10 As already suggested above, Huston’s appreciation of the ‘musicality’ of Joyce’s source text11 provides an important starting point for what can be imagined as the film adaptation’s initial sonic storyboard, a conceptual framework that includes textual and inter-textual musical allusions, references to musical activities and dispositions, and a narrative structure redolent of lyrical musical forms. This then comes to be realized in an overall sound design that successfully integrates dialogue, sound effects, silence and music, both diegetic and non-diegetic. The Dead’s sound design and score can therefore be seen to be in dialogue with Joyce as much as with the work of the two Hustons. Musical references and qualities of the literary source that are either translated or reworked into the film most obviously include The Lass of Aughrim song, conversations about musical life in Dublin and beyond, both past and present, and the piano and vocal music performed by various characters, whether for the dancing of waltzes, lancers and quadrilles or as ‘party pieces’. Less conspicuous but no less significant are those aspects that include the sombre yet serene tonal quality of Joyce’s text12 that appear to imbue North’s restrained arrangements as much as the chiaroscuro effects of the film’s interior scenes. These include: the short story’s ‘rhetorical lyricism’, punctuated by ‘leitmotifs of anxiety’13 along with ‘an ostinato of references to mortality’;14 Joyce’s focus on listening to (often distant) music15 that is transmediated in cine9 Barry: The Dead, p. 2. Barry, however, also considers Huston’s film to be a “strong misreading” (ibidem.) considering it ironically to be “ … unJoycean in its formal procedures precisely because it is faithful to the Irish milieu of Joyce’s text”, p. 46. 10 Paul Barolsky: “Joyce’s Distant Music”, in: The Virginia Quarterly Review, 65/1 (1989), pp. 111-116, at p. 114. 11 Eric Meljac: “Dead Silence: James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ and John Huston’s Adaptation” in: Literature/Film Quarterly, 37/1 (2009), pp. 295–304, here p. 302. 12 Luke Gibbons: “‘The Cracked Looking Glass’ of Cinema: James Joyce, John Huston, and the Memory of ‘The Dead’”, in: The Yale Journal of Criticism, 15/1 (2002), pp. 127–148, at p.128. 13 Harry White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 157. 14 Jim LeBlanc: “‘The Dead” Just Won’t Stay Dead”, in: James Joyce Quarterly, 48/1 (2010), pp. 27–39, here p. 32. 15 LeBlanc: “The Dead”, pp. 33–34; Gerry Smyth: Music in Irish Cultural History. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2009, pp. 44–45.

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John O’Flynn matic form not only by the addition of synchronized sound and music, but also through its intricate cinematography; the medial role of the piano in both literary and filmic texts;16 a heightened and sometimes other-worldly sense of sound in the original literary source that comes to ref lected in the amplified sonic details of the film, particularly during its closing sequences;17 and, subtexts of individual and broader cultural oppositions (traditional/classical, east/west, and so on) that come to be apprehended through ‘real time’ musical performance.18 The above is not an exhaustive list of musical inferences from Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, but is put forward here to underline the text’s inherent musicality, an idea that can be linked to broader theories of “literary musicianship” in Joycean scholarship and as summarised by Harry White.19 The original text also suggests multiple biographical resonances with Joyce’s musical and personal life, along with an ethnographic perspective that, however interpreted in contemporary criticism, 20 would arguably have had a strong bearing on an adaptation such as Huston’s, which in most respects can be regarded as a translation of the original. All of this would present significant challenges for Alex North whose score was conceived in dialogue with Joyce as much as with Huston. The first general observation that might be made about North’s arrangements, and indeed about the film’s overall sound design, is that while story and 16 In a comparison of various screen productions of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Deborah Cartmell considers “the foregrounding of [instrumental] media”, very often the piano, as one of the hallmarks of ‘period’ adaptations. Deborah Cartmell, “Pride and Prejudice and the adaptation genre”, in: Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, 3/3 (2010), pp. 227–243, here p. 230. In The Dead however, the piano can be regarded in ambivalent terms. While its assumed domesticity and associated cultural capital are celebrated and mostly enjoyed in the first part of the film, by contrast, its absence from the diegesis and overall sound design for the second part can be interpreted as a form of cultural critique. 17 Luke Gibbons: “‘Ghostly Light’: Spectres of Modernity in James Joyce’s and John Huston’s ‘The Dead’”, in: A Companion to James Joyce ed. Richard Brown. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008, pp. 359–373, here p. 363. 18 Martin Dowling: “‘Thought-Tormented Music’: Joyce and the Music of the Irish Revival”, in: James Joyce Quarterly, 45/1 (2008), pp. 437–458; Smyth: Music and Irish Cultural History, pp. 39–43. 19 White lists “four features of literary musicianship that dominate the landscape of Joycean commentary: the empirical retrieval of allusions to musical works by Joyce; the extent to which Joyce relies upon or adapts structural models of musical discourse; the extent to which Joyce’s fiction is a literary re-creation of opera; and the significance of music in Joyce as an expression of modernism”. White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination, pp. 153–154. 20 Martin Dowling comments on an “omniscient” and informed ethnography that he reads throughout Joyce’s Dubliners in Dowling: “Thought-Tormented Music”, p. 444 whereas Harry White, while acknowledging that Joyce was abreast of musical trends and debates of the time, speaks of the “contrivance” of the musical world imagined in “The Dead”, particularly in its representation of a vibrant operatic scene in Dublin of the early 1900s. White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination, pp. 158–159. See Maria McHale’s chapter in this volume for a detailed account of operas staged in Dublin from 1900–1916.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead film are replete with source music and with dialogue often focussed on music, a total of just twenty-nine minutes of non-diegetic music is scored throughout a film lasting one hour and twenty minutes. That said, in addition to orchestral underscore, North sourced and arranged much of the piano music heard diegetically and played by Mary Jane (the younger Miss Morkan) and her adult pupils throughout the evening’s entertainment at 15 Ussher’s Island. It would be tempting to interpret North’s overall restraint or even conservatism as a failure of sorts, as an uncritical acceptance of one side of what White appraises as Joyce’s “modernist ambiguities” concerning literature and music. 21 Indeed one might also be tempted to ask if North became unknowingly sympathetic to a particular articulation of an Irish modernist viewpoint, that is, to view music in the “old Irish tonality” as radically interruptive of bourgeois adherence to received colonial and/or European expressions of cultural capital. 22 Under such scrutiny, North might appear to have succumbed to the fate of his predecessors participating in ‘Irish’ literature-to-film adaptations, notably, the composers Eamonn Ó Gallchobhair and Séan Ó Riada, by providing folk-infused, arranged scores that were mainly supportive of, or even incidental to ‘primary’ literary sources. 23 It could be further speculated that the renowned Hollywood composer’s creative response to The Dead provides a retrospective and ‘outsider’ example of the paradoxical tendencies detailed extensively by Harry White in The Keeper’s Recital wherein the modernity advanced by Irish literary forms failed to translate into equivalent artistic developments or nationalist sensibilities in the case of Irish music; rather, the radical rejection of European classicism and the concomitant fetishization of “ethnic” repertoires and practices would lead to a “cultural stasis” for much of the twentieth century. 24 Most of all, perhaps, it could be argued that North missed a valuable opportunity to propose a cinematic and modernist-inspired counterpoint to the original Joycean text. I propose an alternative reading. Firstly, North was largely limited by Huston’s overall artistic vision which set out to achieve a ‘faithful’ cinematic mediation of the short story25; in this sense it might be Huston’s and Joyce’s approach that ought to be critiqued, were it considered in light of White’s thesis. 26 Sec21 White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination, p. 156. 22 Dowling: “‘Thought-Tormented Music’”, pp. 436–438. 23 Ó Gallchobhair (as Eamonn O’Gallagher) was composer for The Rising of the Moon ( John Ford, 1957) while Ó Riada composed for Brian Desmond Hurst’s 1963 adaptation of J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. 24 Harry White: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998. 25 John D. Shout: “Joyce at Twenty-Five, Huston at Eighty-One: THE DEAD”, in: Literature/Film Quarterly, 17/2 (1989), pp. 91–94, at p. 94. 26 White interrogates these themes in relation to Joyce’s text in Music and the Irish Literary Imagination, pp. 153–160.

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John O’Flynn ondly, and as I explore below, North would adopt a scholarly approach in his engagement with the musical texts and references that abound in Joyce’s “The Dead” most especially through his considered reworking of a version of The Lass of Aughrim ballad before settling on the variant heard in the film. Finally, the composer’s economical and considered treatment of musical material throughout the film was significant not only in respect of its key collaborative role in realizing Huston’s screen adaptation, but also for its poignant exposure of the very musicality of Joyce’s oeuvre. North’s understated underscoring throughout The Dead needs to be considered in the film’s holistic context. I have already noted Tony Huston’s introduction of the recitation Broken Vows into the screenplay; as well as providing a structural counterbalance with, and premonition of the perceived cultural and tonal Otherness of The Lass of Aughrim, the recitation provides a striking contrast in overall sound design, set as it is in between constant streams of source music on piano that mostly function as accompaniment to waltzes, quadrilles and lancers. Similarly, stories told and speeches delivered throughout the evening’s entertainment and ensuing supper have no supporting underscore and are framed by silences. Dialogue and music only come to be combined rhythmically during the final sequence when Gabriel Conroy (Donal McCann) experiences a moment of revelation and broader ref lection. The adapted screenplay presents this as an internal monologue, expanded on and elaborated for the audio-viewer through a cinematographic montage of selected scenes of Ireland under snow, in tandem with an orchestral set comprising arrangements of The Lass of Aughrim and Silent O’Moyle, the latter from Thomas Moore’s Melodies. 27 Elsewhere, non-diegetic music is used sparingly: for the film’s opening and closing credits, and brief ly, in scene dissolves and transitions that are suggestive of remembrance and death, or of spectral spaces between interior and exterior settings of the film’s sound world. Arguably, the greatest challenge facing North in scoring for The Dead was that the screenplay’s epiphanic turn would signal a transformation in the film’s narrative pace, focalization and overall potential meaning(s). The ‘moment’ in question begins with Gretta Conroy (Angelica Huston) hearing and then listening28 to a ‘distant’ rendition of The Lass of Aughrim sung in a room above her by Bartell D’Arcy (Frank Patterson.) From this point in the story, Joyce would expound one of the most celebrated literary endings through describing Gabriel’s consciousness of the evening past, the anterior past and of future pasts. It is here also that an authorial yet spectral musical presence establishes the overall tone of the text, a modal entity from which North’s score and its interplay with dialogue and other 27 The edition of the Thomas Moore song collection used by North appears to have been Moore’s Irish Melodies, Dublin: M. H. Gill, 1891. 28 See Smyth: Music in Irish Cultural History, pp. 44–50.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead sounds is conceived and developed. As Paul Barolsky writes in relation to both literary and film texts: Bartell D’Arcy’s song not only stirs the sad memory of Gretta’s former passion but deepens Gabriel’s gloomy consciousness, the sad ref lections on himself, on Gretta, on the Misses Morkan. Reading Dubliners [sic] we experience a music filled with nostalgia, regret, and homesickness, a ‘thought-tormented music’. 29 This unexpected narrative and focal shift would have implications not just for the succeeding and final scenes, but also for what preceded that moment in the reader and/or audio-viewer’s present and retrospective experiences. In contrast to Joyce, Huston did not employ anterior consciousness or ‘f lashback’ techniques, resulting in a largely linear narrative in the film’s diegesis. However, the film adaptation succeeds in keeping largely to the ‘spirit’30 of Joyce’s text by presenting alternative intertextual layers, through the interplay of overall sound design, cinematography and adapted screenplay.

The Lass of Aughrim, Joyce and ‘authenticity’ Joyce’s usage of The Lass of Aughrim as a central narrative device in ‘The Dead’ has been well documented and celebrated in critical commentary. The origin of the song itself has to some extent also come under scrutiny, given that it does not appear in the ubiquitous Moore’s Melodies, with which the various characters of ‘The Dead’ seem well acquainted, or in other well-known collections of Irish folk song of the time. However, Joyce reports being captivated on first hearing and learning this song from the mother of his partner, Nora Barnacle in Galway;31 later correspondence further reveals that The Lass would continue to hold special significance for Joyce throughout his life. 32 Irish music scholar Hugh Shields traces the song text to an original Scottish ballad named Lord Gregory that was also known as The Lass of Loch Royal. 33 The song travelled to Ireland during centuries of plantation in Ulster, gradually migrated southwards and was textually reworked, not only in 29 This is a reference to ‘The Dead’ when Gabriel Conroy contemplates the impact of using a phrase for his after-dinner speech that he has earlier coined in a review of Robert Browning’s poetry (a further example of musical analogy in Joyce). Barolsky: “Joyce’s Distant Music”, p. 115. 30 Gibbons: “‘Ghostly Light’”, p. 367. 31 Richard Ellmann: James Joyce. Oxford: Oxford University Press, rev. 1982, p. 286. 32 James Joyce: Selected Letters of James Joyce, ed. Richard Ellman. London: Faber and Faber, 1975, pp. 164–165. 33 Hugh Shields: “History of the Lass of Aughrim”, in: Musicology in Ireland ed. Gerard Gillen and Harry White, Irish Musical Studies 1, Dublin: Irish Academic Press: 1990 pp. 58–73, here pp. 59–63.

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John O’Flynn song title, lyrics and melody, but also in local traditional performance style, or in what Joyce in “The Dead” refers to as “the old Irish tonality”. 34 Field recordings of Irish variants of the ballad, including the oft-cited rendition by seventy-year-old Elizabeth Cronin recorded by American folklorist Alan Lomax in 1951 in West Cork 35, reveals a melody that would not immediately strike the listener as a variant of the original Lord Gregory tune, but according to Shields, this or a similar version would be closer to that which Joyce would have heard the mother of Nora Barnacle sing at her home in Galway some years before writing ‘The Dead’. 36 Noting this, and referring to the milieu of revivalist and nationalist appropriations of folk and traditional music of the time, Martin Dowling states: “In light of all the debate and confusion surrounding the definition of authentic traditional singing, Joyce’s own sonic and textual practices can be viewed as an authentic engagement with tradition”. 37 Joyce’s familiarity with an ‘authentic’ version is also considered by Gerry Smyth, who considers that any evidence of Joyce’s engagement with the song in living tradition is at best inconclusive. 38 Smyth, who also refers to Joyce’s allusions to traditional music authenticity is similarly less convinced than Dowling that Bartell D’Arcy’s version and rendition would have approximated that of an Irish traditional singer. 39 While both Shields and Dowling suggest that the inclusion of the ‘Scottish’ version of the song into The Dead’s film score was ill-informed40 – a charge that I will shortly question in light of North’s research – Smyth suggests that the variant sung by Frank Patterson as Bartell D’Arcy in Huston’s film comes close to representing the stylistic contradictions of a trained singer engaging with unfamiliar repertoire and vocal delivery: Leaving aside … the ‘authenticity’ of the song-text itself, Patterson gives a good impression of what D’Arcy’s performance of the [song’s] fragment would have sounded like, in so far as his voice (like that of the fictional character he plays) has been trained in the bel canto techniques of the western art tradition.41 While Dowling’s insightful historical-sociological analysis rightly warns against received contemporary positions concerning the authenticity or other34 James Joyce: Dubliners. London: Jonathan Cape, 1950, p. 240. 35 The recording can be streamed at http://research.culturalequity.org/get-audio-ix.do?ix=recording& id=1527&idType= performerId&sortBy=abc (last accessed 2 September 2016). 36 Shields: “The History of The Lass of Aughrim”, p. 63 37 Dowling: “Thought-Tormented Music”, p. 452. 38 Smyth: Music in Irish Cultural History, p. 35. 39 Ibidem, pp. 41–42. 40 Martin Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014, p. 238. 41 Smyth: Music in Irish Cultural History, p. 42.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead wise of traditional singing at the time, it is still something of a stretch to consider that as a young trained singer, Joyce’s own “fragile” and “expressive” vocal qualities (presented in binary opposition to those with accomplished classical technique) were somehow akin to “authentic” traditional music sensibilities, as Dowling argues.42 I suggest, rather, that Joyce was at the very least ambivalent in relation to singing and Irish tradition, however more ‘real’ his personal engagement with that tradition would have been in comparison with many of his literary and intellectual contemporaries. He without doubt recognised a cultural value and human vitality in the traditional singing that he heard, especially when compared with music such as Mary Jane Morkan’s technically proficient and unmoving ‘Academy’ piece. At the same time, it could be argued that this admiration of an Irish ‘Other within’ came from the vantage point of Joyce’s own background as a trained classical singer. In ‘The Dead’ we encounter an idealization of deceased youth Michael Furey whose ghostly presence is poignantly removed in time, place and emotional expression from the bourgeois anxieties of Joyce’s characters gathered at 15 Ussher’s Island. And yet, this ennoblement of an Irish ‘Other within’ somehow seems at odds with Gretta Conroy’s memory that her former lover once aspired to “study singing”.43 Furthermore, it is not clear from Joyce’s prose that it is Gabriel Conroy who (incorrectly) imagines the singing to be “in the old Irish tonality”, as Martin Dowling asserts,44 since a strong possibility remains that it was at least partially imagined as such by Joyce, notwithstanding the latter’s rejection of the essentializing Celticism avowed by Yeats, Gregory and others. A further interruption of authenticity based on cultural oppositions in ‘The Dead’ is provided through Aunt Kate’s memory of the English tenor, Parkinson, a personal recollection that the reader can retrospectively link to the greater intensity felt by Gretta in her memory of Michael Furey’s singing. The two cases could not be further apart in terms of time, place, ethnicity and musical style, and yet it is the ability of the singer to evoke the listener’s emotional response that unites Aunt Kate and Gretta’s very different memories. Joyce leaves us in no doubt that Aunt Kate was deeply moved by Parkinson: “For me … there was only one tenor. To please me, I mean”.45 Huston’s direction highlights this point of genuine musical and personal engagement through a rare close-up shot combined with one of only a few diegetic music cues in the first part of the film. For the scene entitled “Parkinson” North chose to arrange the air My Lover has Gone – My Heart is Sore from Moore’s Melodies (see Example 2 below); in so doing, he did not allude to the 42 Dowling: “Thought-Tormented Music”, p. 452. 43 Joyce: Dubliners, p. 252. 44 Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society, p. 238. 45 Joyce: Dubliners, p. 228.

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John O’Flynn English or Continental sources Parkinson might have performed, but rather to a further example of historically-mediated Irish folk music. Instead of reading this choice in terms of irony or even as cultural juxtaposition, I propose that the serenity of North’s arrangement here acts to underline the elder Miss Morkan’s genuine re-engagement with a cherished musical and personal past. What Aunt Kate’s memory shares with Gretta’s more profound revelation later on in the text is its accentuation of inner hearing and feeling in phenomenological response to music, rather than to musical source or style. The contrast of such immediacy with the more socially mediated musical actions and discourses that are referenced throughout “The Dead” support Dowling’s argument that “ … [ Joyce’s] authenticity comes from the experience of inauthenticity”.46 Although somewhat restricted by Huston’s largely faithful approach and interest in re-creating period detail, this example shows how North made a subtle and significant contribution in suggesting moments of heightened awareness of music throughout the film, though ironically, not of his own music.

The Alex North Papers The remainder of this chapter discusses music for The Dead in light of an examination of files held in the Alex North Papers at Margaret Herrick Library, Los Angeles. As previously broached, North’s compositional involvement in The Dead stands out in a celebrated film career spanning almost three decades, insofar as the music is almost entirely arranged, and is mainly drawn from Irish folk and traditional material. However, we can consider the term ‘arrangement’ as creative act here, since the work of North and his colleagues involved much more than any simple reproduction of existing tunes; in addition to the technicalities of cueing music in a production that largely adhered to the formal structure and dialogue of the original Joycean text47 along with the orchestration of carefully selected material in collaboration with Richard Bronskill, North’s score was an integral part of the translation of short story to film. Some examples of this have already been presented, illustrating the composer’s deep engagement with, and consideration of sources and stylistic aspects of Irish folk and traditional music, as it might have been in the lived experiences of Joyce, as well as in the years of the film’s production. In late 1986 North requested his Hollywood-based production colleagues and their New York associates to gather printed sources of Irish songs and tunes for 46 Dowling: Traditional Music and Irish Society, p. 246. 47 The archive includes detailed timing notes according to music breakdown for the cues “Goose”, “Parkinson”, “Gretta’s Reaction” and “Grim Gabriel”. Alex North Papers, 6–79, The Dead, “Music Breakdown”: r.5/1, p.1; r.5/2, p.2; r.7/1–8/1a, p.1; r.8/2, pp.1–2.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead possible use and arrangement for the film, ranging from the nineteenth-century collections of Thomas Moore and George Petrie to songbooks published from the 1960s and 1970s, the latter category bearing the inf luence of ‘insider’ scholarly and practitioner approaches. Much of the photocopied material contained in the Alex North Papers research file for The Dead was taken from books stamped as the property of Lincoln Library, New York, although other sources were so extensive and up-to-date for the time that they possibly arrived via Irish-based informants. Whatever the sources, the number of melodies and dance tunes collected and contained in North’s research file was extensive, totalling just under fifty. Several of the tunes selected from the older collections would feature in the film’s diegesis as played by Mary Jane Morkan and her adult pupils throughout the pre-dinner dancing scenes and for which North arranged complete piano parts (mostly, from Moore, Petrie and Goldene Wiener Musik: 100 Jahre Wienerlied, a book of 94 Viennese waltzes originally published in 1870). Tellingly, the film’s co-producer Wieland Schulz-Keil wrote to North on 6 December 1986 reporting that he had located a reprint copy of the 1891 edition of Moore’s Melodies, adding that, “… this 1891 edition was very popular at the time and is probably the one Joyce knew and used when he was a young aspiring singer”. It would appear that having considered a comprehensive range of Irish folk music sources, including heavily edited nineteenth-century arrangements, and mid-twentieth publications and recordings that had the benefit of more ‘authentic’ modes of scholarship and recording technologies, North consciously chose the earlier sources of dance tunes, airs and melodies that would have constituted a major part of Joyce’s sound world. The range of photocopied materials suggest that he would also have consulted scholarly publications from around his own time, including the highly inf luential Folk Music and Dances of Ireland by Breandán Breathnach, as well articles on Irish traditional and folk music published in the early twentieth century. One such essay was Cathaoir O’Braonain’s foreword to The Roche collection of Traditional Irish Music, published in 1909, with the following sentence underlined, presumably by North: “The harp was the most characteristic instrument of old Irish music” (North’s score would eventually make considerable use of concert harp, and also featured the Irish harp as part of the musical texture for a number of cues). This strongly suggests that the composer was not only researching musical sources available at the time of Joyce’s “The Dead”, but was also actively seeking to understand the socio-political and cultural milieu of early twentieth-century Ireland. Occasionally however, the aesthetics of a more modern folk arrangement style was adopted – albeit with orchestral instruments - such as in his arrangement of the hop (or slip) jig, The Splashing of the Churn from the Petrie Collection.48 The musical cue 48 George Petrie: The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, vols. 1 and 2, London: Gregg International, 1967, p. 81.

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John O’Flynn in question, “Party’s Over”, acts to underscore a transition from dining room to the exterior of the Ussher’s Island house, marking the end of the Misses Morkans’ party. In addition to songs and tunes photocopied from published collections, North’s research file for “The Dead” includes several pages of melodies and phrases in the composer’s own hand; mostly, these are approximations of a ‘Scottish’ version of The Lass49 always in Ionian mode (in F) as eventually heard throughout the film. This, however, was no straightforward exercise in transcription but rather ref lects North’s studied approach to phrase length, word setting and rhythm in adapting the melody to a screen version of Joyce’s story. Without having the benefit of investigating North’s research notes as I did, sometime shortly after The Dead’s release in 1987, folk music scholar Hugh Shields made an accurate transcription of North’s version while watching the film on screen. This version, he ascertained, “… followed the Scots original closely except in tending to avoid closed cadences”. 50 However, in light of North’s melodic sketches, his use of open phrases could be considered as both a technical device for the thematic treatment of melodic material, as well as part of a strategy that would slowly reveal the song’s central narrative role in the screenplay. It was John Huston who elicited regret from Dowling and Shields for apparently including a ‘Scottish’ rather than an ‘Irish’ version of The Lass of Aughrim in his film adaptation, and it is perhaps telling that North is rarely mentioned in this regard, even by musicologists. This criticism, while understandable to some degree, is ill-founded however, since the composer’s research file also includes a pencil transcription of an alternative ‘Lass’ that in both its melody and E♭ Mixolydian tonality51 is quite distinct from that eventually used for the soundtrack. In fact, this version corresponds closely with Lomax’s field recording of Elizabeth Cronin’s singing in 1951 Although it was not ultimately selected for the scene depicting Gretta’s listening to the ‘distant’ singing of Bartell D’Arcy, its opening figure and melodic shape have more than passing resemblance to the second phrase of My Lover has Gone – My Heart is Sore from the Moore collection. The latter melody is adapted by North to announce an earlier cue entitled ‘Parkinson’ before dovetailing with a metrically varied Lass of Aughrim opening phrase in E♭ Ionian (Example 2). 52 These melodic references are largely hidden to the ear and as suggested above, the inclusion of modal, ‘traditional’ fragments could be viewed as ironic, given 49 North’s sketch corresponds with a version of the ballad “Lord Gregory” in F.J. Child: The English and Scottish popular ballads. 10 vols. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1882–985. Volume 2, pp. 213, 219. See Shields, “The History of The Lass of Aughrim”, pp. 58, 63. 50 Shields: “The History of The Lass of Aughrim”, p. 63. 51 Significantly, North marked this version as ‘modal’, North Papers 1: Production Files. 52 Elsewhere, North adheres to a 4/4 version in F Ionian (see Example 3 for opening phrases).

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead

Example 1: The Lass of Aughrim in E♭ Mixolydian mode as transcribed by Alex North

Joyce’s reference to an English tenor whose operatic singing is fondly remembered by Aunt Kate. Against this, and as previously discussed, both Huston and North articulate a particular reading of Joyce by suggesting an emotional resonance between Aunt Kate and Gretta’s respective musical memories, just as My Lover has Gone and The Lass of Aughrim can be textually and melodically linked.

Example 2: The Dead, ‘Parkinson’ cue

All in all, the contemplation of multiple sources here illustrate, first, how meticulously North would strive to rework The Lass of Aughrim to the adaptation project and, second, how in the main he would intentionally select historical collections of music that were mediated through antiquarian and revivalist interests, rather than focussing on materials informed by late twentieth-century folk music scholarship and aesthetics, that were in turn informed by oral tradition, field recordings and analytic methods. Having viewed the available options, North 363

John O’Flynn settled for what might have been considered authentic within the diegesis of the film, perhaps surmising that Joyce’s own knowledge of what “the old Irish modality” actually sounded like would not have been too far removed from that of the very characters he drew. This suggests to me an informed reading of the original story – and to a lesser extent, of Joyce’s biography – by which the consideration of music style is one conduit through which bourgeois interests and social mores come to be negotiated and articulated. There is the restraint of the character Bartell D’Arcy, a trained parlour singer, and yet the ‘Other Within’, at once suggestive of the indigenous and the passionate, is hinted at through his performance, while never fully attainable. Above all, North’s arrangement of diegetic material presents a unique and sympathetic recreation of early twentieth-century parlour music in Dublin, not only through his painstaking attention to the syntactic as well as semantic possibilities of The Lass of Aughrim but also through his suite of meticulously selected and originally arranged dance tunes performed by Mary Jane and her pupils. Huston’s The Dead does not shy away from exposing how music and dance are largely codified in the social conventions of those gathered at the Misses Morkans’ party, but North’s continuous stream of diegetic music during the opening series of shots (as guests arrive, and as they partake in waltzes, lancers and quadrilles) also exudes a comfort and nostalgia that later comes to be abruptly questioned by a music of the “thought-tormented” kind, and in achieving this, the composer remains in dialogue with Joyce’s text as well as actively realizing Huston’s adaptation. North went to the detail of writing original piano arrangements for all of the dance tunes featured, including Bendemeer’s Stream and Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms from Moore’s Melodies. The audibility of these varies within the film’s sound design depending on levels of dialogue and on sound localization, and perhaps for the very reason that they sound ‘natural’ in the film’s diegesis, these original arrangements have received little attention to date. One of these tunes, Bendemeer’s Stream later comes to be considerably reworked in a non-diegetic cue linking the final images from the Morkan household to a series of various angled shots of Gabriel and Gretta’s carriage journey along and across the River Liffey. The fact that North appears to conscientiously recreate or at least negotiate the sound world of Joyce, in spite of being well informed of ‘authentic’ Irish traditional music scholarship and practice, needs to be considered along with the more general thematic use of The Lass of Aughrim, which acts as underscore at key points in the screenplay, albeit for relatively short cues in places. As already noted, North worked through several versions of the full tune. Eventually, he settled on an extended 7-phrase version in F major, giving the effect of through-composed form in spite of the song’s obvious repetitions. The Alex North papers include a full 364

Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead

Example 3: The Dead, The Lass of Aughrim, opening A and B phrases

version of this melody that was later included in the film’s subsequent soundtrack recording, featuring the voice of Frank Patterson closing with a high A, accompanied by the renowned ‘Hollywood harpist’ Ann Stockton. 53 This differs from the film version (see Example 3) where there is no accompaniment until a celestial sounding string accompaniment subtly dovetails with Frank Patterson’s final F4 pitch (the lower ending note as a gesture perhaps to Bartell Darcy’s protestations of ill health and/or a nod to folk song authenticity) followed by a mellow sounding codetta led by cellos. It is this quasi-diegetic moment that bridges the two parts of the film, and that also signals the beginning of a more extensive diegetic section of the score, as discussed below. Under a basic melodic analysis, North’s version of The Lass of Aughrim, the opening of which is transcribed in Example 3 above, can be seen and/or heard as comprising ‘A’ and ‘B’ phrases with variants and repetitions, amounting to seven phrases or twenty-eight bars. We hear this exact version just once more on bass clarinet during the film’s closing scene; elsewhere the opening and end title cues feature a melodic variation (of North’s ‘Lass’) played on solo harp, with ‘sentimental’ secondary dominant chords and chromatic passing notes, and the higher ending on A5 that likely would have been well received in parlour performance style. In an earlier moment during the first part of The Dead, the song’s opening A phrase is used to mark the time elapsed between main course and dessert at the Misses Morkan’s supper, combining with a scene dissolve from the dinner table to external street view, and back again to the dining room. Scored for alto f lute, strings, harp and emulator, this technical use of arranged film score seems relatively unremarkable until we consider that the music also functions as a premonition of events and thoughts to come. Moreover, the cues’ lack of cadence that 53 The full version of the melody with optional harp or keyboard accompaniment appears in the ‘Oversize Scores File’ of the Alex North papers. Writing over his 31 bar melodic arrangement the composer would humorously comment, “no 32 bar song!” making an obvious reference to standardised Broadway hit songs in the early decades of Hollywood production. More poetically he added the following instructions for the song’s performers: “‘Reflective, wistful and tenderly, subliminally”. North Oversize Scores, 1.

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John O’Flynn tapers into an upward harp glissando coincides with a reverse dissolve from house exterior that gradually comes to focus on the carcass of a goose, adding to the numerous references to death that abound in both literary and filmic texts. The A and B phrases of North’s Lass come to combine in reverse order during the carriage scene to the Gresham Hotel cued as ‘Remembrance of Michael Furey’. This involves the full B phrase followed by a redacted A phrase played on strings and featuring oboe d’amore, with an open ending over a dominant C chord. In both narrative and cinematography, this is a moment that represents Gabriel’s (and the audio-viewer’s) uncertainty concerning Gretta’s reaction to Bartell D’Arcy’s distant singing, and North’s reversal of the question and answer implied by the A and B phrases (in lyrics as well as in music) underline the feelings of confusion and anxiety that appear to occupy Gabriel in this scene. It would be something of a push to claim that these snippets from The Lass are motivically or thematically used in a systemic way. Rather, they can be considered as part of a greater textual translation, and as a central collaborative contribution in the overall film adaptation. In a way that parallels the process whereby the seemingly random, albeit formal, visual descriptions and dialogues of the Misses Morkans’ party assume significance in the closing epiphanic and ref lective scenes, music that is subtly underscored throughout, acts to foreshadow a later and central revelatory moment, an ambivalent denouement that however is rooted in the anterior past. The scoring of a full version of The Lass of Aughrim on solo concert harp for the opening credits might be considered as a radical move (although less likely to be heard as such) in that it appears to reveal ‘the resolution of the story’54 through sonic means. Such use of the material brings to mind Guido Heldt’s application of narrative theorist Gérard Genette’s terms of prolepsis and analepsis, reminding us how, in sound design, ‘nondiegetic music is often used … [for] … advance evocation’. 55

From Aughrim to Moyle and Beyond While the first thirty minutes or so of The Dead’s sound design is characterised by diegetic source music arranged by North, this comes to be contrasted towards the end with almost seventeen minutes of original or arranged orchestral score by the composer. Critically, the point where we experience the only diegetic (sung) iteration of ‘The Lass of Aughrim’ melody portends a major emotional shift from the longer, first part of the film that is replete with source music and with discursive references to music. As Harry White comments on the original Joycean text, 54 White: Music and the Irish Literary Imagination, p.159 55 Guido Heldt: Music and Levels of Narration in Film: Steps Across the Border, Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, 2013, p. 230.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead it is a revelatory moment that “… comes out of nowhere, as though offstage”. 56 Of particular note for this analysis is how that epiphany also appears to act as a cue towards more prominent and more original scoring on the part of North. The final seventeen minutes also comprise a much more intricately woven sound design involving development of The Lass melody, an original pseudo-Baroque cue entitled “Grim Gabriel” (a musical prelude to the internal monologue that follows) and a beautifully subdued orchestration of Silent O’ Moyle from Moore’s Melodies, a further example of Irish song that occupies a ghostly presence in Joycean musical-literary allusions, 57 with particular significance in another short story from Dubliners, “Two Gallants”. It is in this second part of the film that we find a heightened rhythmic interplay of dialogue, music and sound effects (including horse and carriage sounds58 and the reception bell at the Gresham Hotel where Gabriel and Gretta had booked a room rather than make the long journey back to their South Dublin home). Most striking of all in this regard is Gabriel Conroy’s internal monologue for the film version, which represents an abridged translation from Joyce’s original third person narrative. Here, the rhythms, vocal timbres and cadences of Gabriel’s speech combine polyphonically with Huston’s celebrated cinematic montage and with North’s film score. Both words and music begin as Gabriel’s gaze pans from the image of Greta crying softly in her bed, to the snow falling on the Dublin side street outside. However, as the monologue adapted from Joyce’s most elaborate prose from the story assumes increasing significance for Gabriel and for us in terms of revelation and memory, the film’s imagery suggests wider geographical, human, and political significance in its montage of snow-covered scenes across an Ireland of the early twentieth century. This is delicately mirrored in North’s orchestrations of The Lass of Aughrim and Silent O’ Moyle which combine into a ternary form. Opening with a shortened orchestral rendition of The Lass (initial A and B phrases) there follows an expansive yet contained rendition of Silent O’ Moyle that retains key aspects of Moore’s melancholy and “inauthentic” harmonic minor arrangement. North’s orchestration of its first “verse” is scored for strings with the melodic foregrounding once 56 Harry White: “Music in ‘The Dead’”, Joyce’s Dublin: An Exploration of ‘The Dead’. Dublin: Athena Media, 2010, online resource at http://www.joycesdublin.ie (last accessed 3o January 2017). 57 For a discussion on Joyce and Moore see Emer Nolan: “‘The Tommy Moore Touch’: Ireland and Modernity in Joyce and Moore”, Dublin James Joyce Journal 2/2 (2009): pp. 64–77. 58 North gave relatively few instructions for the use of click tracks by recording musicians for the film, but one exception to this was during the carriage scene to the Gresham Hotel. This was in order for the music to align with the rhythms of horse trots/canters and moving tackle. Sound balance was also of the utmost importance, depending on whether the carriage shots were exterior or interior. For example, North wrote the following notes relating to overall sound production: “G. looks at Greta … Sound Effects? Carriage? If so change dynamics”. North Oversize Score, 10: “Greta’s Reaction to Song”.

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John O’Flynn again of oboe d’amore. In its second iteration, and as both word and image expand to wider existential concerns, he employs fuller orchestral forces with a solo violin carrying the melody an octave higher, but this (gently) ends halfway through an open cadence, giving way to the full twenty-eight bar version of North’s Lass that is now heard on unaccompanied bass clarinet. This musical soliloquy dovetails with a partial focal return to Gabriel ref lecting on his own predicament, reinforced through reverse shots of his gaze on the snowf lakes falling outside the windowpane. Original text and screenplay finally accord in Joyce’s closing words: “… falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead”. 59 The ensuing silence demanded by this prose ending, is successfully translated to cinematic form with a gradual zoom into large snowf lakes falling and blowing across a blue-grey sky, echoed by a final ghostly reiteration of The Lass of Aughrim.

Postlude Alex North was active as a film score composer from 1951 to 1993, receiving fifteen Academy Award nominations over this period. While none of these proved ultimately successful, in 1986 he became the first composer to receive an honorary Academy Award. North was disappointed not to receive a nomination for his adapted score for Huston’s The Dead. This is recorded in correspondence between his agent Michael Gorfaine and John Addison on behalf of the Academy Board, the latter stating that music based on work by other composers could not be included in nominations for best original score. 60 As Sanya Shoilevska Henderson records in her monograph on North’s life and music, the composer would suffer the same form of disqualification following his score for Prizzi’s Honor, an earlier collaboration with John Huston that was released in 1985.61 Indeed, throughout the 1980s North and other Hollywood composers publicly expressed their concern that the Academy did not recognize the category of musical adaptation in film.62 The term “adaptation” merits some consideration here since both The Dead and Prizzi’s Honor were adapted screenplays of literary works, the latter after Richard Condon’s 1982 novel. Although the correspondence referred to 59 Joyce: Dubliners, p. 256. 60 Alex North Papers, 5, Correspondence. The file includes a letter by Michael Gorfaine of the Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency to the Board of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, dated 18 January 1988, and a reply from John Addison on behalf of the Academy Board on 22 January of the same year. 61 Sanya Shoilevska Henderson: Alex North, Film Composer: A Biography, with Musical Analyses of a Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus, The Misfits, Under the Volcano, and Prizzi’s Honor, Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, 2003, p. 86. 62 Ibidem.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead above more obviously relates to musical ideas of adaptation (and especially so in the case of the soundtrack for Prizzi’s Honor which features overtures by Rossini and arias by Donizetti and Puccini) negative or indifferent appraisals of North’s “originality” in these films failed to take into account the composer’s intellectual and creative engagement with the literary sources and adapted screenplays involved – and this chapter has highlighted North’s consideration of Joyce alongside his response to Tony Huston’s screenplay and John Huston’s overall direction. Moreover, in the case of The Dead, the assertion that North had simply arranged other composers’ material could be robustly challenged. The historical Irish music sources he consulted would include Moore’s Melodies – settings that themselves “borrowed” extensively from traditional tunes first notated by Edward Bunting in his first publication, A General Collection of the Ancient Irish Music 63 – as well as George Petrie’s collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland.64 Compared to previous and subsequent forays by American composers into imaginary Irish sound worlds – from Max Steiner to Victor Young to John Williams – North’s score is singular in its combination of historical ethnography, literary associations and understated compositional craft; furthermore, and in a manner very much in keeping with the overall spectral tonality of Joyce’s “The Dead”, the American composer has occupied what up to the point of this published article can be described as an anonymous presence in Irish cultural history – a double irony perhaps, given the origins of most of the melodic materials he would use for the film. In fact, North’s studied arrangement of The Lass of Aughrim has retained its own ghostly presence by way of its becoming the preferred, performed version of a song that has undergone many variations in Ireland following its original migration from Scotland in the seventeenth century. Through what might best be described as contemporary oral tradition, his version of the tune can now be heard in both classical recital and traditional performance, the latter embracing perhaps the kind of sean nós or “old Irish tonality” to which Joyce referred.65 All in all, it could be said that in addition to producing one of the most artistically sensitive soundtracks for a literature-to-film adaptation, Alex North’s score for The Dead has itself entered the realm of cultural memory and translation.

63 Edward Bunting: A General Collection of the Ancient Irish Music, vol. 1. London: Preston & Son, 1796. 64 George Petrie: The Ancient Music of Ireland. London: Gregg International, 1967. 65 A traditional rendition very close to North’s setting is performed by Sandra Joyce on https:// soundcloud.com/michael-fortune-10/the-lass-of-aughrum-sandra?in=michael-fortune-10%2Fsets%2Fsandra-joyce-and-hammy-hamilton, last accessed 2 September 2016. In 2015, North’s version was sung a cappella in the chamber opera adaptation of The Dead which was composed by Ellen Cranitch with a libretto by Tom Swift, and first staged at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, in 2015.

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Select Bibliography Barolsky, Paul: “Joyce’s Distant Music”. The Virginia Quarterly Review, 65/1 (1989), pp. 111–116. Barry, Kevin: The Dead. Cork: Cork University Press, 2001. Burt, George: The Art of Film Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994. Cartmell, Deborah: “Pride and Prejudice and the adaptation genre”. Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, 3/3 (2010), pp. 227–243. Child, F.J.: The English and Scottish popular ballads. 5 vols in 10 parts. Boston: Houghton, Miff lin & Co., 1882–98. Volume 2. Davison, Annette: Alex North’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003. Dowling, Martin: “‘Thought-Tormented Music’: Joyce and the Music of the Irish Revival”. James Joyce Quarterly, 45/1 (2008), pp. 437–458. : Traditional Music and Irish Society. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014.       Ellmann, Richard: James Joyce, revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Gibbons, Luke: “‘The Cracked Looking Glass’ of Cinema: James Joyce, John Huston, and the Memory of “The Dead””. The Yale Journal of Criticism, 15/1 (2002), pp. 127–148. : “‘Ghostly Light’: Spectres of Modernity in James Joyce’s and John Hus      ton’s ‘The Dead’”, in Richard Brown (ed.), A Companion to James Joyce. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008, pp. 359–373. Heldt, Guido: Music and Levels of Narration in Film: Steps Across the Border. Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, 2013. Henderson, Sanya Shoilevska: Alex North, Film Composer: A Biography, with Musical Analyses of a Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus, The Misfits, Under the Volcano, and Prizzi’s Honour. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, 2003. Joyce, James: Dubliners. London: Jonathan Cape, 1950.      : Selected Letters of James Joyce, ed. Richard Ellman. London: Faber and Faber, 1975. LeBlanc, Jim: “‘The Dead’ Just Won’t Stay Dead”. James Joyce Quarterly, 48/1 (2010), pp. 27–39. Meljac, Eric: “Dead Silence: James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ and John Huston’s Adaptation”. Literature/Film Quarterly, 37/1 (2009), pp. 295–304. Moore, Thomas: Moore’s Irish Melodies. Dublin: M. H. Gill, 1891. Nolan, Emer: “‘The Tommy Moore Touch’: Ireland and Modernity in Joyce and Moore”. Dublin James Joyce Journal 2/2 (2009), pp. 64–77.

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Alex North, James Joyce, and John Huston’s T he D ead Pederson, Ann: “Uncovering The Dead: A Study of Adaptation”. Literature/Film Quarterly, 21/1 (1993), pp. 69–70. Petrie, George: The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, Volumes I and II. London: Gregg International, 1967. Shout, John D.: “Joyce at Twenty-Five, Huston at Eighty-One: THE DEAD”. Literature/Film Quarterly, 17/2 (1989), pp. 91–94. Shields, Hugh: “History of the Lass of Aughrim”, in Gerard Gillen and Harry White (eds): Musicology in Ireland: Irish Musical Studies. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, pp. 58–73. Smyth, Gerry: Music in Irish Cultural History. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2009. White, Harry: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770-1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998.      : Music and the Irish Literary Imagination. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Zatkalik, Milos: “Is There Music in Joyce and Where do We Look for it?” Joyce Studies Annual, 12 (2001), pp. 55–63.

Filmography Huston, John: The Dead. USA and Great Britain: Liffey Films / Zenith Entertainment Ltd., 1987.

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L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin

L’ami inconnu: Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin Patrick Zuk In spite of occupying a central place in Irish musical life for over four decades, the Italian immigrant composer and pianist Michele Esposito (1855–1929) remains a rather shadowy figure. His professional activities can be reconstructed in outline from contemporary newspapers and institutional records (principally, those of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he taught for many years1), but we have little sense of him as a person. The sole source of information about his early life is a slim volume of essays assembled by Giuseppe Aiello, an Italian local historian from Esposito’s birthplace of Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples, which was published to mark the centenary of his birth. 2 It is an amateurish production – superficial and of dubious reliability. For the rest, all that has come down to us are a few brief reminiscences and scattered references in the diaries and letters of contemporaries. The Esposito family archive, such as it may have been, has disappeared, and with it, the manuscript scores of two piano concertos, substantial chamber works, and other compositions for Esposito which did not manage to find a publisher during his lifetime. 3 Sadly, this state of affairs is far from untypical with many persons of note in the history of Irish music: again and again, one finds that source materials have been destroyed or lost, and that valuable testimony went unrecorded. The exiguous discourse on music in Ireland and its culturally impoverishing consequences is, of course, a major theme of Harry White’s work, and he has done much to encourage the exploration and preservation of what remains of the fragmentary historical record of our art music tradition, which, for much of our history, struggled to establish itself in unpropitious circumstances. In the cases of important 1

2 3

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Richard Davies (Leeds Russian Archive, University of Leeds), Jeremy Dibble (Durham University), Andrey Issarov (Russian Academy of Sciences), and the staff of the Turgenev Museum in Oryol (OGLMT) for supplying source materials and answering enquiries. The original texts of the letters are preserved in Bunin’s personal archive, OGMT, №3209/1-10 оф. Marianna Taymanova provided specialist advice on linguistic points. All translations are my own. See Richard Pine and Charles Acton (eds.): To Talent Alone: The Royal Irish Academy of Music 1848– 1998. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1998, and passim. Giuseppe Aiello: Al musicista Michele Esposito nel primo centenario della nascità. Castellammare di Stabia, Naples: M. Mosca, 1956. For a discussion of the available source materials and the fate of Esposito’s papers, see Jeremy Dibble: Michele Esposito. Dublin: Field Day Publications, 2010, pp. xiii–xviii, and p. 186.

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Patrick Zuk pioneers such as Esposito, the dearth of documentation is particularly poignant, given the difficulties that they faced and what they managed to accomplish in spite of them. As the celebrated Roman legal precept reminds us, quod non est in actis, non est in mundo – what is undocumented may as well not exist. But the undocumented is not always unimportant. Esposito’s friends and acquaintances included prominent political and literary figures of the day, including Douglas Hyde, John Millington Synge, and Padraic Colum. His daughters acted in productions at the National Theatre in its early years; Bianca, the eldest, taught the young Samuel Beckett Italian. His son Mario, who became a distinguished scholar of Hiberno-Latin, seems to have been involved with Sinn Féin. The entire family is thus of considerable interest to the social and cultural historian as well as the musicologist – but little trace of his wife and children’s activities survives either. One by one, they left Ireland for Italy in the 1920s, Esposito himself being the last to do so after he retired in 1928. Before long, it seemed as though they were all but forgotten in the country where Esposito had lived for forty-six years. If the paucity of source materials often creates insuperable difficulties for historians of Irish music, they are occasionally rewarded when chance occurrences bring surprising information to light. In late 2015, a Russian colleague, Professor Andrey Isserov, drew my attention to an article published in 1973 by the Soviet critic Leonid Afonin which details a remarkable episode in the life of Ivan Bunin (1870–1953), one the greatest writers of his age and the first Russian recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.4 Amongst Bunin’s papers preserved in the Turgenev Museum in the city of Oryol, some 200 miles south of Moscow, Afonin discovered a cache of letters sent to Bunin between 1901 and 1903 by a Russian woman living in Dublin who was an admirer of his work. She was a complete stranger, but Bunin was sufficiently intrigued by her eloquent missives to reply. As their correspondence progressed, she came to treat him as a distant confidant (an ami inconnu, or “unknown friend”, in her phrase) to whom she could unburden herself and speak of painful matters that she felt unable to discuss with anyone else – her overwhelming loneliness and isolation in Dublin, which she found dull and provincial, and her unhappy marriage to a prominent local musician. The woman in question was none other than Esposito’s Russian wife Nataliya. These letters afford a unique and tantalizing glimpse into the Espositos’ daily lives. Regretfully, Bunin’s replies have been lost, together with the remainder of the Esposito family’s papers. But coming as it did out of the blue, from distant Ireland, one can certainly understand why her first communication might have produced a vivid impression on him: 4

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Leonid Afonin: “O proizkhozhdenii rasskaza Neizvestnïy drug” [On the genesis of the short story ‘The Unknown Friend’], Literaturnoye nasledstvo, 84, 2 (1973), pp. 412–423.

L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin St Andrew’s, Ballsbridge, Dublin. Ireland As you see, I live far, far away from you, on the westernmost margin of Europe, and we are separated not only by mountains and rivers, and lands and seas, but also by the entirety of the lives that we have lived, and our tastes and habits; nevertheless, the words that your hand committed hastily to paper have winged their way to me and set my soul ablaze. Why? Who knows? Perhaps because in my life I have faced many a rough and lonely pass, and had to resign myself to what life has sent my way, telling myself: “We’ll plod on, we shan’t give up yet. If we get through it – good; if not – well, no matter.”5 Perhaps, too, because on occasion an alluring shape has beckoned momentarily from the gloom, and I have passed it by, leaving happiness behind! I write to you because you think and feel as I do. I have not the talent to express my thoughts in as elegant and refined a manner as you; but I know you will understand even what is poorly expressed and will see immediately what prompted my letter. If I am not mistaken, you will reply to me; if not … then in any case, please accept my gratitude for the pleasure that your Three Short Stories have afforded me. Nataliya Esposito 12 September 1901 Bunin evidently replied to this communication, which emboldened her to write again at greater length: 31 December 1901 I wish you happiness and well-being for the forthcoming New Year. You letter gave me much joy: it is exactly what I would have expected from you – kind and warm. I have formed an idealised impression of you, about which I shall write another time if you do not find it wearisome to correspond with me. I still have not received the books that you promised. Why? […] Have you noticed that I find it difficult to write in Russian? I correspond with my relatives rarely, for I have little to say to them: our lives have gone separate ways and we have nothing in common. I am the only Russian not merely in Dublin, but in all of Ireland – so have no-one with whom I can speak Russian. Nataliya’s anxieties about her deteriorating command of her native tongue were quite unfounded: she writes stylishly in a high literary register, employing a sophisticated vocabulary. She comes across as an intelligent and cultured per5

A quotation from Bunin’s short story “The Pass”.

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Patrick Zuk son with a decidedly unconventional cast of mind. After these preliminaries, she went on to relate the chain of events that brought her to Dublin. She had been born in Russia and was the only child of Pyotr Alekseyevich Khlebnikov, formerly Professor of Physics at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St Petersburg and a person of some note in the Russian scientific community. When she was six, her parents divorced, and he took charge of her care. In 1874, Khlebnikov retired on health grounds and moved abroad, taking his fifteen-year-old daughter with him. They successively resided in Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy: “I speak and write four languages, I read six”, she informed Bunin. In describing how she came to be married to Michele Esposito, Nataliya glided over a few inconvenient facts that emerge from other sources. She had taken piano lessons from Esposito as a teenager in Naples, which led to a relationship of greater intimacy. In 1878, she appears to have persuaded him to try his luck in Paris, travelling ahead to arrange a concert for him. Esposito duly joined her. Soon after their move Nataliya discovered that she was pregnant. They left for London, where they married on 27 April 1879, returning to Paris before the birth of Bianca on 13 July. They remained in the French capital for another three years, but Esposito failed to make his mark on its fiercely competitive musical scene. When an Italian friend living in Dublin informed him early in 1882 of a vacant teaching position at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Nataliya urged him to accept: reading between the lines of Aiello’s account, which was largely based on information provided by Mario, the young couple were in dire financial straits.6 As Jeremy Dibble observes, Esposito probably viewed the post as a stopgap until he managed to obtain a better position elsewhere, perhaps in England.7 But by the time of Nataliya’s first letter to Bunin, they had been living in Ireland for almost twenty years, and the attractions of both her husband and their adopted country had long since palled. Her letter continued: He is a music professor in the conservatoire here and conducts the local symphony orchestra. He also writes music. In brief, he is at the head of the music profession in Dublin, which means that I have to lead a twilight existence, receiving and returning visits, attending soirées, dinner parties, and so on – which I find very tedious. I have four children. My two eldest daughters are almost fully grown. When they were small, I tended them constantly; now that they are older they no longer have need of me, so I have much free time, which I spend reading. I read a lot and think a lot, and I write – but only for myself. I have no friends, and could have none: I am too different from the ladies here; and as for the men – I do not believe 6 Aiello: Al musicista Michele Esposito, p. 38. 7 Dibble: Michele Esposito, p. 42.

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L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin that men and women can be friends. Except, perhaps, when one is in the farmost east and the other in the farmost west? I have not been in Russia since I married, but I am nonetheless wholly Russian in my tastes and temperament, even if I am out of practice at writing. […] Let us turn to a more interesting subject – that is, to you. Who are you? From your three short stories, I can discern something of your inner life, but I know nothing of your outer life. Every month I look forward to reading Russkaya mïsl′ 8 , and since July alone it had contained two poems by you and three short stories. You have a lot of talent, and your style is so beautiful and simple. Apart from talent, you have a soul, heart, and mind, and I understand you so well. When writers write, do they know that their words sink straight into the souls of their readers, as if addressed directly and solely to them? So your three stories seemed to me to be three letters written for me alone, and I have replied to you plus ou moins mal. […] Do you like Heine, Alfred de Musset, Shakespeare? Do you want me to send English books, those that I like – do you read English? You see, so many questions: do not delay, answer me, and I will tell you about Ireland and the books I am reading, about you and about everything else that fills my life. Do you like music? Have you already written a great deal? At the start of April, Bunin forwarded a volume of his poems. She sent a postcard to thank him, followed by a long letter a month later. 10 May 1902 Did you receive my carte illustrée? I was delighted by your book as a sign that you had remembered me, and even more by the short stories themselves, in which I recognise myself and feel that you have experienced the things of which you write, and that, notwithstanding all the moments of bitterness, the disappointments, and sufferings, you believe in beauty, in love, and in poetry, of which our lives are full if only we have the gift of seeing it. If you are being honest in your stories, than I know you well, and like you. One of these days I will summon the energy to visit a photographer, but for the time being I will send you a photograph taken six years ago in which I am wearing old-fashioned mittens. I have changed little since then: my coiffure and toilette are different, I have grown somewhat thinner and have more grey hairs, but my general appearance is unchanged. However, it is difficult to tell what an unknown person is like from a photograph: the play of the imagination is missing, there is no smile, no sound of a voice; one cannot discern the colour of the hair or 8

Russian thought – a prominent Russian literary journal founded in 1880.

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Patrick Zuk the eyes. Hence, I almost fear to ask you for a portrait photograph: I have formed an idealised image of you, and would be sad if you were not as I wished you to be. Please answer my letter quickly. Just think how far away you are, and how long our letters take to reach each other: this is now my third letter to you, but I have only received a few words from you; and I so want to get to know you more closely and directly, not through the medium of your writings. I would like to write to you often and at length about everything, just as you write your stories under the inf luence of a moonlit sky, a spring day, a stormy sea, a book that you have read. I want to write to you as though writing to myself: you do not know me and will never meet me; you will never enter my life, and therefore I can be myself with you as nature made me, with all my inanities and dreams and illusions. It is pointless to fear your misprision or seek your approval. You will be my ami inconnu. Do you want this? A few weeks later, without waiting for a reply, she sent him another letter – this time in the form of a diary. Tuesday, 27 May [1902] Why do you not write? I am impatient and do not like to be kept waiting, especially as the rules of good breeding dictate that I ought not to write again until I receive a reply – and I want to write to you so very, very much. About what? – you will ask. I do not know … About you, about me, about Ireland, about life, about the stars, about the moon, about the sea, about books … For the whole world is so interesting and beautiful and sad, and we carry it within ourselves, and we are only such a nugatory part of it, yet it is ours all the same; we possess it and derive pleasure from it, although it can destroy us in a moment with the breath from one of its volcanoes: it is eternal, and we live but for a day, but all the same it belongs to us and not we to it. Ours are the azure of the sky and the fragrance of the lilies-of-the-valley adorning my escritoire; ours are the caressing murmur of the waves and the majestic thunderclap; ours are the moonlit frosty night and the scorching June noonday. Yes, it is good to be alive, full of the life of nature, to experience even suffering, if only that there should be 9

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Much thought in the head, Much fire in the heart … 9

A celebrated couplet from the poem “The Way” [Put′], by the nineteenth-century Russian poet Aleksey Kol′tsov.

L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin In essence, what is suffering? … Does not suffering serve to demonstrate the possibility of happiness? And the brief minutes of true happiness – do they really not deserve to be earned at the price of tears and sorrows? Of course, life is full of disappointments: we expect so much and receive so little; but for all that, there are moments of bliss which are beyond even our imaginings, and the trace of such moments never disappears. After them, we become better and kinder, and the pettifogging things of life no longer have such an overwhelming effect on us – one is raised above them. If you have not had such moments in life, then what I am writing will mean nothing to you; but if you have experienced them, then you will understand me. I am sending you this letter immediately after receiving your reply, and if I must wait as long again for the next, you can imagine what proportions it will assume, since I will write to you often. Why you, and not someone else? Because in front of friends and acquaintances, one wears a mask of reasonableness and nonchalance, and one would be ashamed to repine and pour forth one’s soul – for they have nothing in their souls; but I am not ashamed in front of you: in your stories, you have revealed your whole soul, and I find it sympathetic and kindred to my own. I am particularly close to “Silence”, “Fog”, “Hope”, “The Pass”, “The Bonfire”, “The New Road”, “In Autumn”, because in them, I see you being as I once was: I myself have thought and experienced the things that you describe. I even rowed on Lake Geneva, taking the oars myself, as you did. I paused and looked long into the pellucid deep blue depths that ref lected the deep blue of the heavens. Except that I lived at the eastern corner of the lake where the water is deeper, the mountains are higher, and Italy is closer. Ah, Italy! “Kennst du das Land, wo die Citronen blühen …”.10 It is probably not so much a question of the lemons, for they also grow in Nice and Monte Carlo, but of something unique to Italy. How many reminiscences, desires, and regrets are connected with that name: I also sailed around the Bay of Naples of a wonderful moonlit night – thinking, waiting for something to happen. And now, I am waiting for the very same thing, although I live in a country where the scenery is not so alluring, and where there are neither hot summers nor icy winters – merely six months of mild and rainy autumn, and six more of chill and rainy spring. Mournful, tedious, and eternally green Ireland …

10 “Do you know the land where the lemon trees grow?” – the opening lines of one of Goethe’s most famous poems, from his Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.

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Patrick Zuk Wednesday, 28 May Do you know what thought suddenly came into my head? That if I write to you much and often, I will inevitably repeat myself. … What’s to be done? Content myself only with answering your letters? But I like to write to someone. Heretofore I have only written for myself: now I have a reader, and this pleases me. I would like to write as you do – that is, beautifully, and clearly. I would like to tell you about life in Ireland, about its literature, its history; I would like to describe to you the wild existence on the rocky western isles, where the raging ocean cuts off all contact with the rest of the world for weeks at a time, and where the inhabitants speak Gaelic, and can neither read nor write; I could describe life in the turf bogs, where nothing grows except potatoes. I could tell of many things, if only I had the talent, but I am unable to do anything except be a woman with all her weaknesses and defects. […] Thursday, 29 May Still no letter from you. Why? Every morning I open the letter box in hope, but as yet in vain. Do you really not understand what it means to wait for a letter? I am angry with you and want to say horrid things to you, but as I have not the slightest inkling of your weaknesses, I am not able to guess what might irk you; moreover, my Russian is too poor and I have too paltry a quantity of words at my disposal to attain the result that I desire. I have not spoken a word of Russian to anyone since 1898 […] Sunday, 1 June Today is 1 June, and what a horrid autumnal, cold, and miserable day it is. A fine persistent drizzle is falling for the third day in a row, and the entire sky is lined with heavy grey clouds, the wind is soughing in the tress and rocking their dripping branches. Where is the sun? Where is happiness? My soul is oppressed; I would like to close my eyes and fall asleep, and put an end to this long drawn-out grey summer day. Where is the summer? The bright, scorching summer; where is the deep blue sea?.. Where is the breeze laden with the fragrance of orange blossom? Where is youth, hope, and desire? Not here! I am sitting in front of a lighted fire, fretting and feeling sorry for myself. Was it for this that I was endowed with health and strength, and a mind and heart, in order to languish here, far away from all that is dear to me …? I completely forget that I am no longer my own mistress and do not have the right to my own life. Since the birth of my eldest daughter, I have renounced my own tastes, 380

L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin inclinations, and joys, all for her and for the other children. […] And all the same, to live without desires is impossible, and when one no longer grieves for something or someone, it means that one is no longer alive; and when we cease longing … what remains?.. And the drizzle still falls, the sky is even more overcast; it is only three o’clock, but we have had to light a fire … Some guests are coming for dinner tonight: we always have guests on Sundays, and I dislike them so much. They will talk about the weather, about the war in Africa, about Martinique, and everyone will express their opinions, all garnered from the latest newspapers – and I will be bored, so bored. Nataliya broke off her diary on 2 June and only resumed weeks later after she at last received Bunin’s long-awaited reply and further volumes of his writings.

16 July I have only just received your letter and will answer it soon, but for now I will send you the pages of this diary which I stopped writing over a month ago. […] Thank you for The Fall of the Leaf and for New Poems. Do not forget me. On 19 July 1902, she started another letter in the form of a diary. I am glad that you like my letters. I have long sought someone with whom I could share all the things that transpire in my soul, and till now, I have had no-one. Like you, I am alone. And now, I have you, and writing to you affords me much pleasure. Those three short stories of yours that I read last year made a powerful impression on me, as you already know; and this impression is caused precisely by the fact that you are writing about yourself. Your constant striving towards the unattainable and the sublime; your thirst for a boundless and hitherto unexperienced joy; your isolation amongst men who do not understand your desires; your sorrows and aff lictions resulting from ethical and moral constraints; the unbearable awareness of being at the mercy of others and of circumstances – all of this I have endured, and by some instinct divined and discovered in your stories. I know what you seek in love and know that you will never find it, as no woman could ever combine the physical and spiritual qualities that would wholly satisfy your needs. […] You live through

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Patrick Zuk sentiment rather than sensibility, and for you happiness is unthinkable, except for those brief minutes when external conditions harmonise with your spiritual needs … I have expressed all this so unclearly that you may not understand me properly. […] You lament your spent youth, and you are only thirty years of age! I am much older than you, but feel myself to be young and strong; people interest me as before; and sorrow affects me as strongly as it did twenty years ago. I have lost no illusions, and I still believe in happiness and love, though I have yet to find them and know that love and happiness are impossibilities for me. Nevertheless, I live in hope and expectation, and seize the joyous f leeting moments: I pay dearly for them, but they are worth it; and I console myself with the thought that one easily grows accustomed to continued happiness and it ceases to be such. Your youth is in your hands: it is yours to retain if you are to love and toil. Toil and love, love everything: women and Russia, people and animals, nature and peasants – and receive their love in return. Inspire love and know your own power: to arouse it at will is not always easy, but victory could be yours to savour! Struggle and attain. This will bring you happiness and help you to live. You are young and overf lowing with life: do not succumb to despair. Be passionate about everything, if only your correspondence with me, even – unless it does not engage your interest? Nataliya did not resume this epistolary diary until July 1903 and ceased writing to Bunin for eight months. However, in April 1903, she sent him a letter that she herself described as “crazed”. Where are you? What are you doing? Have the waves of the Black Sea yielded up your long-awaited Aphrodite? Or are you still on the shore, with arms outstretched towards your elusive love? I have not written to you. I do not know why: there is no reason in particular, except, perhaps, first, because you are so negligent in answering, by the time your letters reach me I do not remember what I wrote to you; and secondly, you reveal little of yourself in your letters – you are unable to talk freely about yourself to an acquaintance; it is easier for you to address yourself to a faceless public than to me, a person who knows you … Yes, but do you know me? Oh, I know you so well, and like you exceedingly well: your stories and poems describe you, and I love you. I love your strength and goodness; your tenderness towards all who are weak and who suffer; your intellectuality and your understanding of everything that is beautiful and good; and your kinship to me. We feel identically about many things, and – who knows? – if we were to meet, perhaps we would find in one another that which we have sought vainly in others … Yes, we will love 382

L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin one another, across the mountains, across the rivers and deep seas. It will be dangerous, yet diverting. An incorporeal union of two hearts! […] Ah, do not tarry to respond: I am so sorrowful here, so lonely, in spite of the love with which I am surrounded – but what is the good of it if I am unable to love in return? She received a reply on 28 June. She replied on the same day: No, I am not angry, neither because of your long silence or because you look like Sienkiewicz11: he has a kindly, intelligent, and sad face. Let me start from the beginning. I was waiting a long time for your letter: morning and evening I remained in wait for the postman and examined the letters myself; but yesterday, as I was dressing for dinner (we were to spend an evening at the house of acquaintances), I forgot about you and about the post – so that when I came downstairs and saw your letter at my place on the dining-room table, it came as a surprise, though I had long been anticipating its arrival. I did not open it after dinner, but folded it into a large envelope and put it in the small bag in which I carry my headscarf … The dinner dragged on, and when we eventually rose from the table, we had to go out immediately, so I took your letter with me and it spent the entire evening in the house of the editor of the Irish political newspaper The Freeman Journal [sic].12 There, we drank vile-tasting English tea and talked on all manner of subjects. […] I mostly remained silent and listened, and sometimes did not even listen at all, but opened my little bag and looked at your letter. When we finally returned home and dispersed to our separate rooms I remained alone and at last took it out – but I did not open it immediately: I waited until the house had grown quiet and I could no longer hear anything except the nocturnal silence; only then did I open the envelope and read it. I sat for a long time afterwards, thinking … And now, I am sitting thinking, pen in hand – once more, a sunny day, a pale blue sky; roses and carnations are in bloom in the garden; the strains of a melancholy Chopin Nocturne make their way to me from the drawingroom; and I somehow feel happy and sad at once. Today I procured copies of Quo Vadis? and works by Byron. My copy of Quo Vadis? is in English translation and has a portrait of Sienkiewicz: it will remain on my table until I receive your photograph, which I await impatiently. Before your next letter, I am re-reading Manfred and Cain: when I was young, I was 11 Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916), the Nobel-prize winning Polish writer whose historical novel Quo vadis? (1896), set in Nero’s Rome, was widely translated and won international acclaim. 12 Recte: The Freeman’s Journal, the oldest nationalist newspaper in Ireland, founded in 1763.

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Patrick Zuk greatly fascinated by Lucifer.13 In general, I like all demons. Are you familiar with Milton? He too has good devils. Why are you translating Byron? For pleasure or as a commission? I will devote myself to you: I will write to you every day, I will read what you are reading, and also what you write to me … We shall be friends, shall we not? A week later on 4 July, Nataliya returned to the diary that she had abandoned almost a year previously: As you see, this letter was commenced about a year ago, and for some reason remained uncompleted and unsent, but I did not destroy it because I always intended to continue corresponding with you. In April, I wrote to you under the spell of a wonderful spring day which kindled in my soul an irrepressible desire to share with you the feelings that animated me at that time. For me, you are something unique, new, unprecedented – and also infinitely kind and dear … Why you, and not another? Because the other is here, opposite me, and I can see all too clearly the weaknesses of his physical and moral nature; but you are far away, and I can adorn you with all the qualities that he lacks. Ah, how boring he is, this man that loves me! How commonsensical and materialistic he is: for him, roses and the sun, the sea and the moon all mean nothing; and I too am so commonsensical when I am with him: I listen so attentively to all his political views, his thoughts on literature, his opinions about life and about people; he talks about everything under the sun, and it never enters his head that perhaps I too could perhaps have something to say – but if I were to talk, he would find it wearisome and I would bore him, and as I do not like to bore people, I simply listen. And because of that, he loves me and considers me to be an intelligent woman. It is, of course, pleasant to be loved: sometimes he too falls silent, and his heart beats faster and love gleams in his eyes; and I know that I am dear to him, and that when I leave him, it will distress him. How it would distress him if he knew that I have a distant friend14 , to whom I write about him cold-bloodedly and dispassionately, without love, critically … Today, a cold drizzle is falling, and a drizzle fell yesterday, and will fall again tomorrow, and forever, without end, until death itself. I read Manfred and Cain, and found it pleasant to read them: they rekindled my love for demons, and I also read Lermontov … Do you like Tolstoy’s Resurrection? I find it very interesting, but Tolstoy does not write for me. He would not like me: I am not like 13 Lucifer features as a personage in Byron’s closet drama Cain (1821). 14 These words were underlined by Bunin.

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L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin his female characters – neither Katyusha nor Anna nor Natasha.15 I cannot understand how she could be transformed into a stout slatternly wet-nurse to her children. It is possible to love without turning oneself into a cow. Farewell, my friend. I will write again soon. I am thinking of you a lot and writing novels. Shall I send them to you? Votre amie N. Esposito Do you want to know anything of Irish legends, the history of Ireland, its literature, legends, writers, leading figures? It is somehow hard to part from you, but it is time, however – and so, adieu! I re-read this exceedingly long letter. Lord, how I have repeated myself – but you are to blame for that. Why do you now answer me promptly, for I cannot recall from year to year what I write to you? It is almost two years how since I made your acquaintance. On 9 July, Nataliya started another letter: A cloudless moonlight night perfused with a mysterious magic that penetrates one’s soul like a love potion. This wan half-light reposes like a caress on everything that it illumines: the white lilies glisten like silver, and their sweet intoxicating parfume is borne on moonbeams into my room. The night sleeps, it is quiet all around, and a light breeze gently shakes the muslin drapes, bringing fresh air from the fields bearing the scent of mown hay. All are asleep, and how I enjoy the silence after a day filled with noise and people. How good it feels: I am with you; I see you as you are in your stories, your features melded with those of Sienkiewicz’s expressive face. Yes, I love you, I talk to you so tenderly and sincerely, and you listen to me and are not bored: you cannot be bored with me, for I am she16 whom in life you did not find. […] She resumed ten days later: The air is warm and redolent of the scent of sweet-pea; the sky is blue, it is quiet all about, and there is love in my heart. For whom, for what, I do not know, but it is somehow joyful: I feel young and strong. The awareness of my strength rarely leaves me: even in the most sorrowful moments, my confidence in myself remains unshaken. I always know what I want and I 15 The heroines respectively of Tolstoy’s novels Resurrection, Anna Karenina, and War and Peace. In the course of the latter, Natasha undergoes a transformation from a spirited, headstrong young girl into a rather dowdy plump matron, whose interests focus narrowly on her husband and four children. 16 Underlined by Bunin.

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Patrick Zuk do not spare any efforts to attain my desire. This may strike you as boastful: perhaps you are right, and I hold too high an opinion of myself. I do not know – it is difficult to judge oneself. I do not like false modesty. But neither do I like excessive self-regard. Why I am writing this to you? You have nothing to do with any of it. What am I to you? I am not writing to you, but rather to myself about myself … It is interesting to analyse oneself and to describe what one would like to be. Shall I send you this letter or not? Yes, let it go to distant Russia just as it was sent, with all its repetitions, contradictions, and its offences against logic and the Russian language. On 25 July 1903 Nataliya received a letter and photograph from Bunin. In the days that followed, she wrote a a remarkably frank account of her unhappy marriage to Esposito and the breakdown of their sexual relations: Shortly after our marriage I arranged to have a separate bedroom under the pretext that I was breastfeeding my children myself and they slept with me. I did not allow my husband to come to my room, but went to his once a week. These periodic visits to my husband’s bedroom were terrible for me: sometimes I started to feel nauseous for two days before the appointed day. The main thing was that I felt very sorry for him. He loved me and to a certain extent I had to conceal what I was feeling. But he knew all the same that I did not like these visits, though he attributed this to the coldness of my Russian nature and insisted on his rights. Even a hot scented bath did not seem sufficient ablution after these visits. Now all of that has stopped and I have been free for five years. My husband and I are friends and there is a complete entente cordiale between us, but I no longer belong to him and that is already something akin to happiness. She “diverted herself ” with affairs, but these too left her unfulfilled: Somehow they always turn out to be platonic, perhaps because deep down I am virtuous; perhaps because I am in reality cold, or because a suitable opportunity never presented itself, or simply because I did not love any of my heroes sufficiently. In essence, being an adulterer is inartistic: one must lie, deceive, live in fear; and none of that is to my taste – only a powerful, passionate love can excuse deception and lies; but in its absence, it is better to live virtuously as I do, notwithstanding my letters to you and the engineer’s visits. How dreadfully all this has turned out: when I started to write to you this morning, I intended to answer your questions, but instead I have told you things that I have never told anybody. I like to write to you precisely because I follow the promptings of my fancy, and not according to a preconceived plan. […] 386

L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin I am glad that you told me how you spend your time. At the moment, you, like me, are sitting at your desk writing. I want to know more about you. Why do you write so little about yourself? What are you like, what do you like? Pierre Loti?17 I also like him, although everything that he writes is the same. I am about to obtain a copy of Fantôme d’Orient: I will read it, knowing that you have read it too. If I find that I particularly like something in it, I will make a note of it and ask you about it. Ah, why are you so far away! […] Today I will send you this letter and resume my diary, which you will receive in time. I am writing to you a great deal: my inspiration will soon run dry, and then I will take my leave of you forever. For it would be impossible to sustain such a correspondence for a long time: you would find it wearisome, and it would start to bore me. […] I was very pleased to receive your carte postale.18 Now I know you better and am not offended by it. In general, I am slow to take offence, but I often get angry with you. Today is a delightful day, but you are sitting at your desk translating Cain: I do not envy you. Lucifer’s philosophy and scientific speculations are very old-fashioned. He is in no wise an original demon, but I loved him in my youth. Now I prefer Mephistopheles. No further letters from Nataliya Esposito to Bunin have come to light: it is not known whether they continued write to one another or whether the correspondence petered out at this point. However, as Bunin’s underlinings and notes on the texts of the letters make apparent, he studied them closely and re-read them several times. Over twenty years later, after emigrating from Russia in the wake of the 1917 Revolution and settling in Paris, he used their contents as the basis for a powerful short story entitled “An Unknown Friend” [Neizvestnïy drug], which was published in the Berlin-based émigré almanac Zlatotsvet in 1924.19 It takes the form of a series of letters sent by a Russian woman living in Ireland to a noted Russian writer whose work she has read: she pours out her unhappiness to him, desperately hoping to elicit his sympathy and understanding – but he never replies. As Aforin demonstrated through a close textual comparison, Bunin evidently remembered Nataliya’s letters with remarkable accuracy, though he had left them behind in Russia – the resemblances between many passages are strikingly close, down to the details of Nataliya’s evocations of the Irish weather and landscape. However, the story ends on a note of tragedy, leaving the reader 17 Pierre Loti (1850–1923) was a French writer, principally renowned for his novels set in exotic locations. His novel Fantôme d’Orient (Phantom of The Orient) was published in 1892. 18 That is, Bunin’s photograph. 19 The story was published in English translation in Ivan Bunin, Night of Denial: Stories and Novellas, trans. Robert Bowie. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2006, pp. 313–323.

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Patrick Zuk with a disturbing intimation of unassuageable loneliness and despair. Whatever unhappiness she experienced, Nataliya seems to have continued to find life worth living. We shall probably never know whether she happened to come across Bunin’s short story but her contact with him may well have roused her to literary activity of her own. In a letter of 19 June 1904, John Millington Synge reported to Stephen MacKenna: ‘Madame Esposito is translating “Riders to the Sea” into Russian and French, her Russian I cant [sic] judge, in French it loses a good deal as she has put it into standard healthy style – but hasn’t managed to give it any atmosphere or charm. She hopes to get in into a Russian review, and we are thinking of trying the Mercure de France, they like young movements.’20 In his study John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre 21, which appeared in 1913, Maurice Bourgeois reported that both had yet to be published. The French version seems never to have appeared in print. The literary magazine Russkaya mïsl′, to which Nataliya subscribed and in which she had read Bunin’s poems and stories, published Russian translations of Synge’s Riders to The Sea and In The Shadow of The Glen in 1915 which are attributed to one ‘Ye. Odïnets’. One piece of evidence suggests that these may be Nataliya’s handiwork: the title Riders to The Sea is translated rather oddly as Zhertvï morya, ‘Victims of the Sea’ – rather than the more obvious (and now customary) equivalent, Skachushchiye k moryu – which Bourgeois records as being the title of Nataliya’s Russian version. Thereafter, Nataliya all but disappears from view. She may have finally resolved to separate from Esposito: Aiello records that she was the first of the family to move to Florence in 1920, leaving him behind in Dublin. She survived her husband by fifteen years, dying on the 5 January 1944. 22

Bibliography Afonin, Leonid: ‘O proizkhozhdenii rasskaza Neizvestnïy drug’ [On the genesis of the short story ‘The Unknown Friend’], Literaturnoye nasledstvo, 84/2 (1973), pp. 412–423. Aiello, Giuseppe: Al musicista Michele Esposito nel primo centenario della nascità. Castellammare di Stabia, Naples: M. Mosca, 1956. Bourgeois, Maurice: John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre. London: Constable & Co., 1913. 20 Ann Saddlemyer (ed.): The Collected Letters of John Millington Synge. Volume 1: 1871–1907. Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 88. 21 Maurice Bourgeois: John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre. London: Constable & Co. 1913, p. 261. 22 Aiello: Al musicista Michele Esposito, pp. 60 and 68.

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L’ ami inconnu : Nataliya Esposito and Ivan Bunin Bunin, Ivan: Night of Denial: Stories and Novellas, trans. Robert Bowie. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2006 Dibble, Jeremy: Michele Esposito. Dublin: Field Day Publications, 2010. Pine, Richard and Acton, Charles (eds): To Talent Alone: The Royal Irish Academy of Music 1848–1998. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1998. Saddlemyer, Ann (ed): The Collected Letters of John Millington Synge. volume 1: 1871– 1907. Oxford University Press, 1983.

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PART FOUR: AUSTRO-GERMANIC TRADITIONS

Reinhard Strohm and Harry White, Warsaw 2016

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot

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Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert

Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert (1724–1799) and his Singspiele Michael Hüttler ( Johann) Joseph (Giuseppe) Friebert,1 Austrian composer, librettist, singer and Hof- and Domkapellmeister, was born about sixty kilometres north of Vienna in Gnadendorf (Lower Austria), on 5 December 1724, and died on 6 August 1799 in Passau. There are different variations in the spelling of his name. 2 Hence, he and his works have often been mixed up with his brother (Franz) Carl (Karl) Friebert (Wullersdorf, Lower Austria, 7 June 1736 – 6 August 1816 Vienna). 3 Joseph Friebert was first educated as a tenor at Melk Abbey (Lower Austria) from 1743 to 1745 before coming to Vienna as a pupil of Giuseppe Bonno (1710– 1788) and starting a career as a singer. For ten years he performed quite successfully in various popular opera productions, singing among other roles the part of Silango in the 1754 premiere of Christoph W. Gluck’s (1714–1787) “componimento drammatico per musica” Le Cinesi in Schlosshof palace, and Tirsi in the 1755 premiere of Gluck’s “componimento drammatico pastorale” La Danza in Laxenburg castle. From 1755 to 1764 Friebert was employed as a singer at Vienna’s Theater nächst der Burg and the Kärntnertortheater – even performing together with his brother Carl in the 1761/1762 season.4 Carl Friebert, also a composer, singer and librettist, worked from 1759 to 1776 at the Esterházy court in Esterház and Eisenstadt as Hof Musicus and as a singer under Kapellmeister Joseph Haydn (1732–1809). There, among others, Carl sang many leading roles including the part of Sempronio in the premiere of Haydn’s 1

This text is the result of ongoing research. An earlier version has been published in: Michael Hüttler: “Joseph Friebert’s Singspiel Das Serail (c.1778) in the Don Juan Archiv Wien: Provenance and State of Research”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 4: Seraglios in Theatre, Music and Literature, ed. Michael Huettler and Hans Ernst Weidinger, Vienna: Hollitzer, 2016, pp. 115–130. Furthermore, I would like to thank Jen-Yen Chen and Tatjana Marković for their invaluable support. 2 Fribert, Friberth, Frieberth, Friewerth, Freidberg, Frübert, Frühewert. 3 For biographical data on Carl Friebert cf. Ingrid Fuchs and Leopold Votruba: “Studien zur Biographie von Karl Frieberth” in: Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 34 (1983), pp. 21–59. 4 Cf. Franz Hadamowsky: “Leitung, Verwaltung und ausübende Künstler des deutschen und französischen Schauspiels, der italienischen ernsten und heiteren Oper, des Ballets und der musikalischen Akademien am Burgtheater (Französisches Theater) und am Kärntnerthortheater (Deutsches Theater) in Wien 1754–1764”, in: Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Wiener Theaterforschung 12 (1960), pp. 113–133, here p. 121.

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Michael Hüttler “Turkish operas” Lo speziale (The apothecary, 1768)5 – where Sempronio’s rivals in love disguise themselves as Turkish pashas in order to trick Sempronio into selling his shop to them. He also sang the role of Prince Ali in Haydn’s abduction opera L’incontro improvviso (The unexpected encounter, premiere 29 August 1775).6 For this opera Carl was also the librettist. It is interesting to note that L’incontro improvviso has, like Joseph Friebert’s Das Serail, a seraglio plot with an unexpected encounter.7 From 1776 onwards Carl worked again in Vienna. He became Kapellmeister of the Jesuits and the Minorites, a member of the Wiener TonkünstlerSocietät and, at the end of his life, was awarded the Order of the Golden Spur by Pope Pius VI (1717–1799). 1763 was Joseph Friebert’s lucky year. He followed a call by Prince-archbishop Joseph Maria von Thun-Hohenstein (1713–1763) and moved to Passau where, from 11 March 1763 onwards, he was Hof- und Domkapellmeister. This was a prestigious position that was held earlier by Georg Muffat (1653–1704) and Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter (1165–1742) among others. 8 In this position he inf luenced and dominated the musical life of Passau for thirty-three years, until his retirement in 1796. He was the one who introduced the Passau audience to Mozart’s operas in German language, staging Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The abduction from the Seraglio, KV 384) in 1785, Die Hochzeit des Figaro (The marriage of Figaro, KV 492) and Don Juan oder das steinerne Nachtmahl (Don Juan or the stone dinner, KV 527) in 1789, as well as Der Schauspieldirektor (The impresario, KV 486) and Die Zauberf löte (The magic f lute, KV 620) in 1793. Friebert not only chose the music and operas for performances at the Passau court,9 but from 1764 composed a number of Italian operas, Singspiele, oratorios, masses and instrumental music himself. This includes six Italian operas10 – 5

For more on Carl Friebert’s “Turkish encounter” and Haydn’s opera, cf. Caryl Clark: “Encountering ‘Others’ in Haydn’s Lo speziale (1768)”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 2: The Time of Joseph Haydn: From Sultan Mahmud I to Mahmud II (r.1730–1839), ed. Michael Hüttler and Hans Ernst Weidinger. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2014, pp. 291–306. 6 For an in-depth analysis of Carl Friebert’s L’incontro improvviso libretto and a description of the spectacular Eszterház festival where it was premiered in 1775 cf. Matthew Head: “Interpreting ‘abduction’ opera: Haydn’s L’Incontro Improvviso, sovereignty and the Esterház festival of 1775”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 2, ibidem, pp. 315–330. 7 Both brothers worked on different seraglio operas, one writing libretti, the other music … 8 cf. Markus Eberhardt: “Georg Muffat und seine Zeit”, in: Georg Muffat. Ein reichsfürstlicher Kapellmeister zwischen den Zeiten, ed. Heinz-Walter Schmitz, 2nd edition. Passau: Stutz, 2006, pp. 7–69; Markus Eberhardt: “Musarum es modulaminis aemulis arte. Leben und Werk des Passauer Hof- und Domkapellmeisters Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter (1665–1742)”, in: Musik unter Krummstäben. Zur Kirchenmusik des 18. Jahrhunderts im Fürstbistum Passau, ed. Heinz-Walter Schmitz. Passau: Stutz, 2009, pp. 23–92. 9 Among others he bought 323 new symphonies until 1774. 10 Cf. [Joseph Friebert:] Erläutterungen deren sich in meinen Handen befündenden Musicalien. (Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Hochstift Passau, Repertorium 113/I, Folders 1, 4 1/3); Gottfried

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Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert La Galatea (1764); Il componimento (The composition, before 1774); Dafne vendicata (Daphne avenged, before 1774); Angelica e Medoro (before 1774); Il natale di Giove (The birth of Jupiter, before 1774; libretto Pietro Metastasio [1698–1782]); La Zenobia (before 1774, libretto Metastasio) – and six Singspiele: Die W(ü)(i)rkung der Natur (The virtue of nature, 1774), Die beste Wahl oder das Los der Götter (The best choice or The fate of gods, 1778), Das Serail (c. 1778), Nanerl bey Hof (Nanerl at court, ca. 1779), Adelstan und Röschen (Adelstan and Röschen, ca. 1779), Die kleine Aehrenleserinn (The little gleaner). Friebert also composed four oratorios: Pietro penitente; Aggar; Caino ed Abelle; Il Giuseppe riconosciuto, two masses: Missa Pastoritia in D; Missa Pastoitia in C and an adaptation of Joseph Haydn’s Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze (The seven last words of Christ, 1792) for which he became rather famous. He also composed instrumental music and some other works whose authorship has not been yet confirmed.11 Not many printed text booklets or music compositions by Friebert have been handed down, nor are many records of performances available. In the case of his Italian operas, only a printed libretto (1764) of the early Passau composition La Galatea is preserved.12 Performances of Friebert’s Singspiele have been verified for Die Wirkung der Natur and Das Serail. Die Wirkung was premiered in 1774 at Rechnitz Castle at the invitation of Archbishop József Count Batthyány (1727–1799), with the royal audience of Archduchess Marie Christina, Duchess of Teschen (1742–1798) and Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen (1738–1822), as F. X. Garnier reports in his Nachricht von der im Jahre 1758 von Herrn Felix Berner errichteten jungen Schauspieler-Gesellschaft.13

Das Serail Das Serail is the one outstanding piece among Joseph Friebert’s Singspiele: The manuscript, a copy from 1779, was acquired by the author for the founder of the Schäffer: Beiträge zur Theaterkultur in der fürstbischöflichen Residenzstadt Passau und deren Nachwirkung im 19. Jahrhundert. Das fürstbischöfliche und königliche Theater zu Passau 1783–1883. PhD, University of Munich, Passau: Verein für Ostbairische Heimatforschung, 1973 (= Neue Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Ostbairische Heimatforschung no. 33), pp. 41–48. 11 For further details about Joseph Frieberts life in Passau cf. Markus Eberhardt: “Joseph Friebert als Hof- und Domkapellmeister in Passau (1763–1795)”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 6: A Model for Mozart: Das Serail by Joseph Friebert, ed. Michael Hüttler, Tatjana Marković and Hans Ernst Weidinger, Vienna: Hollitzer (forthcoming). 12 Staatliche Bibliothek Passau, S nv/Lf (b) 58. 13 „Nun wurde die Gesellschaft von Fürsten von Bathiani nach Rechnitz beruffen, um vor Sr Königl. Hoheit Christina und Herzog Albert, 3. Vorstellungen aufzuführen. […] 2ten Tag […] Würkung der Natur […]“, in: Franz Xaver Garnier: Nachricht von der im Jahre 1758 von Herrn Felix Berner errichteten jungen Schauspieler-Gesellschaft […]. Vienna: Jahn, 1786, p. 10.

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Michael Hüttler Don Juan Archiv Wien, Hans Ernst Weidinger, at the auction “Art Mozart”, held on the occasion of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s (1756–1791) 250 th anniversary at the Salzburg Dorotheum on 28 January 200614 (Lot No. 82) together with two more Singspiel manuscripts by Friebert: Nanerl bey Hof 15 (Lot No. 83) and Adelstan und Röschen16 (Lot No. 84). Prior to 2006, Friebert’s stage music was considered lost. “Too little of Friebert’s music has been uncovered to permit a fair assessment of him as a composer”, The New Grove17 states. Until today the Singspiel Nanerl bey Hof was almost completely unknown and is not even listed in the The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.18 In 2016 an international and interdisciplinary conference on the Singspiel Das Serail, as well as on Joseph Friebert and his time was organized in Salzburg.19 Its proceedings will be presented in a detailed publication in the near future. Furthermore a critical edition, including both piano and orchestra scores, are currently being prepared by Tatjana Marković as well as a facsimile edition of the manuscript by Michael Hüttler. As Das Serail is most likely the model for Mozart’s Zaide, KV 344, this research on Friebert’s Singpiel will also provide deeper understanding of the origins of Mozart’s work, but also of his subsequent Die Entführung aus dem Serail (KV 384, 1782). The manuscript of Das Serail consists of 240 handwritten pages, size 23.5×29.5 cm. The title page reads: “Das Serail, | Eine | Teutsche Operette. | Auth:re Gius: Friebert. | M. d. C: in Passavia | 1779”. Ninety-two pages are bound together including the aforementioned title page, vocal parts and basso continuo (cembalo part), thirty-eight pages of the violin I part with title page (“Das Serail. Violino 14 Actually one day after Mozart’s birthday, which is on 27 January. 15 [Joseph] Friebert: Nanerl bey Hof [manuscript]. s.l., [c.1779]. Vienna, Don Juan Archiv Wien; two acts, twenty-one numbers, handwritten. Characters: Nanerl, Niclas, Astolf, Dorinda, Emilie; piano score (vocal parts and bass), ninety pages and title page, 23.5×30 cm, bound; violino two (forty pages and title page), alto viola (thirty-two pages and title page), oboe/altern. flute one + two (four pages each), horn one + two (six pages each); all approx. 23.5×30 cm. 16 [Joseph] Friebert: Adelstan und Röschen [manuscript]. s.l., [c.1779]. Vienna, Don Juan Archiv Wien; two acts, ten numbers, handwritten part (eighteenth-century copyist), violino primo (twenty-one pages), 23.5×29.5 cm, bound by thread-stitching, nine lines of music per page with key words of the text, characters: Adelstan, Röschen, Lyda, Werner, Coro. 17 Robert N. Freeman: “Friebert”, in: Grove Music Online; http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com. grovemusic.han.onb.ac.at/subscriber/article/grove/music/10257?q=Friebert&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit (last accessed 2 February 2015). 18 Cf. Robert N. Freeman: “Friebert”, in: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 2, ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1997, p. 304. 19 Das Serail (1778) by Joseph Friebert in historical, sociopolitical and cultural context(s). International Interdisciplinary Symposium of Don Juan Archiv Wien, University Mozarteum Salzburg / Mozart Opera Studies Institute, Salzburg Global Seminar; Salzburg, Leopoldskron palace and Frohnburg castle, 19–21 May 2016. Cf. http://www.donjuanarchiv.at/de/veranstaltungen/symposia/symposia-2016.html

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Figure 1: [ Joseph] Friebert: Das Serail, Eine Teutsche Operette. Passavia, 1779. (Vienna, Don Juan Archiv Wien) First page of the manuscript

Primo”), twenty-eight pages of the oboe I and II with title page (“Das Serail. Oboe Primo et Secondo”), thirty-four pages of horn I and II with title page (“Das Serail. Corno Primo et Secondo”) and the sketches of different individual vocal parts of Zaide (sixteen pages), Comaz (fourteen pages) and Renegat (ten pages). 20

Provenance The manuscript – together with other historically important musicalia – was part of the estates of an old and prestigious family, the Lidls from Bad Ischl (Upper Austria). The Lidls’ history can be traced back about 300 years. They were 20 [Joseph] Friebert: Das Serail, Eine Teutsche Operette [manuscript]. Passavia, 1779. Vienna, Don Juan Archiv Wien. For a further description and an in-depth analysis of the music, see the article by Tatjana Marković: “Das Serail (c.1778) by Joseph Friebert as an Embodiment of Enlightened Absolutism”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 4: Seraglios in Theatre, Music and Literature, ed. Michael Huettler and Hans Ernst Weidinger, Vienna: Hollitzer, 2016, pp. 131–144.

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Michael Hüttler Salzfertiger (‘salt-producers’), and their members included local judges and mayors. 21 Members of the Lidl family also fought in several battles against the Ottoman Army before 1717, according to a local chronology. 22 Curiously enough, the ancestoral home of the family in Bad Ischl was an old inn called “Zum Türkischen Kaiser” (At the Turkish Emperor) in the eighteenth century. In the possession of the Lidl family since 1647, when the progenitor of the family, Elias Lidl (1624–1691) took it over, the inn was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1865, after which it became the Hotel “Victoria”. The Friebert manuscripts were part of a much larger music collection in the Lidl estate. Wolfgang Götz, Musicalia-expert of the Dorotheum auction house in Salzburg, asserts that a good deal of the material came on the market already in 2003, probably even earlier, after the liquidation of the household of a family member, and was bought by flea-market traders. 23 Unfortunately those marketers were not aware of the value of the manuscripts, and therefore probably destroyed some of them, while others (which appeared more attractive to them) were sold at flea-markets in Germany. Consequently, only part of the family legacy came into the hands of the experts of the Dorotheum’s Salzburg branch. In 2004 the main part of it was sold to the Archiv der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, and finally in 2006 certain manuscripts, including Friebert’s, were sold at the auction “Art Mozart”.

Performances Since it was dedicated to one of the directors of the travelling theatre troupes that frequently visited Passau, Das Serail was probably never staged at the court-theatre. Two directors that we can connect directly to performances of Das Serail with Friebert’s music are the principal Franz Joseph Sebastiani (1722–d. after 1778) and Felix Berner (1738–1787). Both were travelling with troupes of children and both had Das Serail in their repertoire. Sebastiani’s troupe performed the Singspiel “mit Kinder deutsche Operetten, z.B. das Serail” by 1765 in Mainz at the inn “Römischer König” (Roman King), as recorded in the Theater-Journal für Deutschland vom Jahre 1777 (Theatre-Journal for Germany in the year 1777). 24 In his Chronologie des deutschen Theaters (Chronology of German theatre, Leipzig 1775), Christian Heinrich Schmid (1746–1800) had a rather negative opinion 21 Cf. Christoph Bandhuber: “Musik im Blut. Die Ischler Salzfertigerfamilie Lidl”, in: Mozart-Jahrbuch 2014 der Akademie für Mozart-Forschung der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg. Kassel et al.: Bärenreiter, 2015, pp. 139–148. 22 Cf. Friedrich Schmidt: Die Geschichte der Ischler Salzfertigerfamilien Lidl [typescript]. Salzburg, 1973. 23 E-mail correspondence with the author, April 2010. 24 Theater-Journal für Deutschland vom Jahre 1777. Erstes Stück. Gotha: s.typ., s.a., p. 67.

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Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert of Sebastiani and his performances. Schmid called him “ein Mann von gar keiner Erziehung”25 (a man with no education at all), who earns his money with children-pantomimes and performed in Strasbourg, Mannheim and Mainz “schlechte Übersetzungen, noch schlechtere Originale und Opern aus dem italienischen”26 (bad translations, even worse originals and Italian operas). From Schmid we also learn that Sebastiani had up to thirty actors in his company. Felix Berner’s troupe performed Das Serail in Erlangen 27 and in Nuremberg in 1778, and the Nuremberg playbill (Theaterzettel) from 20 April mentions for the first time “Die Musik ist vom Herrn von Frübert” (The music is by Herrn von Frübert [sic]) and even indicates a “Büchlein von der Opera” (booklet of the opera) for six Kreutzers. 28 In 1782 we again have playbills, from performances in Erlangen (22 April) and Nuremberg (7 November). The name of the opera had changed to: “Der Renegat, oder die unerwartete Grosmuth […] Die Musik ist von Herrn von Frübert, Hofrath und Musikdirector in Passau”29 (The Renegade, or the unexpected generosity […] The music is by Herrn von Frübert [sic], privy councillor and music director in Passau). An earlier performance of Das Serail by Berner’s troupe in Wels in 1777 is mentioned by different authors, such as Gilbert Trathnigg (1958 and 1970), Fritz Fuhrich (1968), Karl Maria Pisarowitz (1976/1989), Ernest Warburton (1992). 30 However, there is, to date, absolutely no evidence that Das Serail was ever performed in Wels. 25 Christian Heinrich Schmid: Chronologie des deutschen Theaters. [Leipzig]: s.typ., 1775, p. 231. 26 Schmid: Chronologie, pp. 231–232. 27 After 4 April: “[…] beschlossen ihre Bühne den 4. April; dann reißte diese junge Schauspielergesellschaft, wiederum nach Erlang zum zewytenmale, debutirte in Gegenwart der Frau Marggräfin und der ganzen Noblesse mit dem Serail, spielte abwechselnd in Nürnberg und Erlang […]” (‘closed down their stage on 4th of April; afterwards the troupe of young actors travelled for the second time to Erlangen, had their debut with the Serail in front of Madame Margravine and all her noble company, and performed in Nuremberg and Erlangen […] ’) in: Garnier: Nachricht von der im Jahre 1758 von Herrn Felix Berner errichteten jungen Schauspieler-Gesellschaft, p. 12. 28 Das Serail. Oder Der Renegat. […] Die Musik ist vom Herrn von Frübert. Playbill of a performance in Nuremberg, 20 April 1778. Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg (Nor. 2 1307.1778.027.002). 29 Playbills of performances in Erlangen (22 April 1782, Universitätsbibliothek Nürnberg Erlangen, HIST 617aa10 1782 April 22) and Nuremberg (7 November 1782. Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Nor. 1307.1782 f. 15). 30 Gilbert Trathnigg: “Das Welser Biedermeiertheater (1833–1840)”, in: 5. Jahrbuch des Musealvereines Wels 1958/59. Wels: Welsermühl, 1958/1959, pp. 157–169, here p. 158; Gilbert Trathnigg: “Zur Geschichte des Welser Theaters”, in: Oberösterreichische Heimatblätter 24/1–2 (1970), pp. 29–38, here p. 38; Fritz Fuhrich: Theatergeschichte Oberösterreichs im 18. Jahrhundert, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1968 (= Theatergeschichte Österreichs, vol 1), p. 78; Karl Maria Pisarowitz: “Joseph Friebert”, in: Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 16, ed. Friedrich Blume. Kassel et al.: Bärenreiter, 1976/1989, col. 368; Ernest Warburton: The Librettos of Mozart’s Operas, vol. 7: The Sources, vol. 2. New York: Garland, 1992, p. ix.

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Text-versions Two printed books of the libretto for Das Serail exist, both of which indicate Friebert as the composer. The libretto Das Serail. Oder: Die unvermuthete Zusammenkunft in der Sclaverey zwischen Vater, Tochter und Sohn. (The seraglio, or: The unexpected encounter of father, daughter and son in slavery) was printed in Bozen at Weiß in 1779. 31 The text was probably written by Franz Joseph Sebastiani. On page four, “Agierende Personen” (acting persons), is clearly indicated: “Die Musik ist vom Herrn Joseph v. Friebert, Kapellmeister Sr. Eminenz des Cardinal und Fürst-Bischofen zu Passau” (The music is by Joseph Friebert, Kapellmeister of His Exc. Cardinal and Prince-Archbishop of Passau). A so-called Arien-Druck (‘printed arias’ or ‘Aria Booklet’) by Felix Berner was printed in Nuremberg: Arien welche gesungen werden in der Opera genannt Das Seraile, in zwey Aufzügen aufgeführt von den jungen Schauspielern unter der Direction des Herrn Felix Berner. Die Musik ist von Herrn Fribert (Arias, which where sung in the opera called Das Seraile, in two acts, performed by the young actors of Herr Felix Berner. The music is by Herr Fribert). For Berner’s play bill no print date is indicated. In light of the aforementioned performances and playbills, the booklet was most probably printed for the performances in Nuremberg and Erlangen in 1778. It includes arias, ensembles, a choir and one recitativo, but no further text. In contrast, the 1779 Das Serail book is complete with dialogues. As Thomas Betzwieser writes, both publications clearly deal with the same piece. Although Berner’s printed arias have the same musical-numbers as the Sebastiani libretto from Bozen, there are some variations in the text. 32

Text – Authorship It is not quite clear who the author of the original text of Das Serail is. In its third edition of 1786, Franz Xaver Garnier’s Nachricht von der im Jahre 1758 von Herrn Felix Berner errichteten jungen Schauspieler-Gesellschaft […] (News about Felix Berner’s young actors-society established in the year 1758 […]), written by a member of the troupe, probably on Berner’s order, includes a repertoire of Berner’s performances. An entry indicates that the Principal Sebastiani was the librettist of Das 31 [Franz Joseph Sebastiani]: Das Serail. Oder: Die unvermuthete Zusammenkunft in der Sclaverey zwischen Vater, Tochter und Sohn. Bozen: Weiß, 1779. 32 Thomas Betzwieser: “Mozarts Zaide und Das Serail von Friebert. Genese und Datierung von Mozarts Singspiel im Licht neuer Quellen”, in: Mozart-Jahrbuch 2006 der Akademie für Mozart-Forschung der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, ed. Henning Bey and Johanna Senigl. Kassel et al.: Bärenreiter, 2008, pp. 288–290. The aforementioned proceedings of the Friebert 2016 conference will among others present new research results related to that question.

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Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert Serail: “Das Seraile, v[om] H[er]rn Sebastiani, Musik vom Herrn Fribert”33 (The seraglio, by Mister Sebastiani, music by Mister Fribert). Interestingly enough, in the earlier, first (Erlangen, 1782) and second (Bozen, 1784) editions of Garnier’s repertoire, Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747–1822) is indicated as the author instead of Sebastiani. 34 Bertuch was the famous Weimar publisher and editor of the Journal des Luxus und der Moden (‘Journal of luxuries and fashion’, 1786–1827) which is considered the first pictorial periodical in Europe. In this journal Bertuch published several critiques of performances of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and also articles about “Das Serail zu Konstantinopel. Eine Skizze”35 (The seraglio at Constantinople. A sketch) in 1809; he did the same in July 1812, for “Der Harem des Großherrn zu Constantinopel”36 (The harem of the Grand Turk in Constantinople), about the adventures of the painter and architect Antoine Ignace Melling (1763–1831), the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) and others. But Bertuch made no mention of Friebert, Sebastiani or Berner. The correction of the authorship in Berner’s repertoire list is rather strange. Why did Garnier or Berner indicate first Bertuch as author, who was later replaced by Sebastiani? Was the reason that Bertuch was better known to a German audience than Sebastiani? The question remains open.

Content of Das Serail The plot of Das Serail is quite simple and has a rather surprising last scene: Zaide and Comaz, both Europeans, are slaves of the sultan. The sultan is in love with Zaide, but she is secretly in love with Comaz. In order to win him over, she puts a bag of gold and a portrait of herself on the sleeping Comaz. When he wakes up, he discovers them and immediately falls in love with Zaide. A renegade called Renegat, also a European and in the sultan’s service for fifteen years as the keeper of slaves – including the female ones (!) – helps the couple f lee. 33 Garnier: Nachricht von der im Jahre 1758 von Herrn Felix Berner errichteten jungen Schauspieler-Gesellschaft, p. 35. 34 “Das Seraille, v. Hrn. Bertuch, die M. v. Hrn. Fribert.” [Franz Xaver Garnier]: Nachricht von der Bernerischen jungen Schauspieler Gesellschaft, von der Aufnahme und dem Zuwachse derselben, mit einigen Anhängen, und 24 am Ende beygefügten Silhouttes mit Verwilligung und Beytrag des Herrn Berners zusammengetragen von M.I.R. Einem Zögling derselben. [Erlangen]: s.typ., 1782, p. 31. and [Franz Xaver Garnier]: Nachricht von der Bernerischen Schauspieler Gesellschaft. Zusammengetragen von einem Zögling derselben. Bozen: s.typ., 1784, p. 31. 35 Friedrich Justin Bertuch and Joseph Eugène Calmet de Beauvoisin: “Das Serail zu Konstantinopel. Eine Skizze”, in: Journal des Luxus und der Moden (December 1809), pp. 755–762. 36 Al Gasa-Kis [= Friedrich Justin Bertuch]: “Der Harem des Großherrn zu Constantinopel”, in: Journal des Luxus und der Moden ( July 1812), pp. 429–449.

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Michael Hüttler At the same time the renegade buys a new female slave for the sultan from Osman, a slave-trader. She is unbelievably beautiful, speaks all languages, and dances and sings – which is the source of some rather comic scenes, as her speech and singing are in a local Upper Austrian countryside dialect. The sultan turns towards her as soon as he hears that Zaide has disappeared. After Zaide and Comaz escape, the renegade tries to f lee, too, but is captured immediately; not much later Zaide and Comaz are also brought back. Together they await the death sentence. But suddenly it turns out that the renegade is the very person who once saved the sultan’s life, and he is set free. It transpires that Comaz and Zaide are brother and sister, and moreover both of them are the lost children of the renegade (which raises the question of how all of them lived together for many years in the seraglio of the sultan without recognizing each other). And of course, in the end, the sultan shows clemency and sets all of them free. 37

The Language The language of the new slave girl indicates the audience for which the piece might have been written. The slave girl employs a certain Austrian countryside dialect 37 The plot of Das Serail is a typical European eighteenth-century story, which includes European slaves held at an Ottoman / “oriental” court – in the Mediterranean kidnapping for ransom payments was a common business until the early nineteenth – a a love story that includes the unrequited love of the oriental ruler for one of the western slave women; an (unsuccessful) abduction or escape from the seraglio, and an Ottoman ruler or noble man who shows clemency. For further reading on the subject, indepth analyses of exoticism and orientalism in music and drama or the question of authenticity, see among others the studies of Matthew Head: Orientalism, Masquerage and Mozart’s Turkish Music. London: Royal Musical Association, 2000 (=Royal Musical Association Monographs 9); “Interpreting ‘abduction’ opera: Haydn’s L’Incontro Improvviso, sovereignty and the Esterház festival of 1775”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 2: The Time of Joseph Haydn: From Sultan Mahmud I to Mahmud II (r. 1730–1839), ed. Michael Hüttler and Hans Ernst Weidinger. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2014, pp. 315–330; Jonathan Bellmann, The Exotic in Western Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998; Ralph Locke, Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009; Music and the Exotic from the Renaissance to Mozart. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015; Larry Wolff, The Singing Turk. Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016; and the book series “Ottoman Empire and European Theatre”, vol. 1: The Age of Mozart and Selim III (1756–1808), ed. Michael Hüttler and Hans Ernst Weidinger. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2013; vol. 2: The Time of Joseph Haydn: From Sultan Mahmud I to Mahmud II (r.1730–1839), ed. Michael Hüttler and Hans Ernst Weidinger. Vienna Hollitzer, 2014; vol. 3: Images of the Harem in Literature and Theatre, ed. Michael Hüttler, Emily M. N. Kugler and Hans Ernst Weidinger, Vienna: Hollitzer, 2015; vol. 4: Seraglios in Theatre, Music and Literature, ed. Michael Hüttler and Hans Ernst Weidinger, Vienna: Hollitzer, 2016, which provides an extensive insight into the subject. For the actual harem life see Leslie P. Peirce’s groundbreaking study: The Imperial Harem: Women and Soverignty in the Ottoman Empire. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert (Landlerisch) that can be located in the Hausruckviertel region (Landl) of today’s Upper Austria. When asked by the renegade where she comes from, she says: I bin aus dem Landl zu Haus, und da bin I mit aim Floß auf der Donau nacher Wien gefahren, der Floß aber ist mit mir in Würbl eingeschlüpft, und im schwarzen Meer ist er wieder mit mir heraus gangen, da haben sie mich gefangen, […]38 (‘I am from Landl, and took a raft on the danube towards Vienna, but the raft went down in a whirl and came back up again with me at the Black Sea. There they captured me, […]’) This dialect and its location at the Hausruckviertel imply that the libretto might have been written for an audience familiar with that dialect, which might find its rural origin funny. This points to the area around the Hausruckviertel: towns like Linz and Wels. Also Passau is not far away of the region, only a few miles up the Danube, and in Salzburg too, people would probably have recognized this dialect. This fact actually speaks against Bertuch as the author, as the Weimar-based publisher probably was not as accustomed to that language tradition as Sebastiani would have been, having travelled in that area for a long time.

From Friebert’s Serail to Mozart’s Zaide There seems to be a direct connection between Friebert’s Das Serail and Mozart’s Zaide, but it is not easy to unravel. Neither Mozart nor his librettist Johann Andreas Schachtner (1731–1795) tell us anything about the work with Zaide. The music manuscript was discovered by Mozart’s widow Constanze (1762–1842) only in 1799, eight years after Mozart’s death and four years after Schachtner’s. No precise composition date is known. A comparison of the text is difficult, because the existing work is fragmentary – we only have the text of the musical numbers, no dialogues. In 1936 Alfred Einstein (1880–1952) discovered Sebastiani’s Serail libretto and was the first to identify it as a possible model for Mozart’s Zaide. 39 Since then scholars have tried to compare the text from Friebert’s and Mozart’s Singspiele, although without much success. Only recently Thomas Betzwieser analysed the Friebert manuscript at the Salzburg Dorotheum and also later at Don Juan Archiv Wien, and compared Mozart’s unfinished Zaide with the two existing Friebert Serail prints. His conclusion is that the librettist of Mozart’s work, Schachtner, most probably used Sebastiani’s version (Bozen 1779) as a model for his own text. 38 [Sebastiani]: Das Serail, Vierter Auftritt (‘fourth scene’), pp. 22–23. 39 Alfred Einstein: “Die Text-Vorlage zu Mozarts ‘Zaide’”, in: Acta Musicologica 8 (1936), pp. 30–37.

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Michael Hüttler Schachtner used some key words that occur only in Sebastiani’s text, not in Berner’s printed arias for Nuremberg.40 The vocal parts of the manuscript are comparable with their counterparts in Mozart/Schachtner’s Zaide. If we can learn more about the provenance of these parts, we might be able to determine how Schachtner came into contact with Friebert’s Singspiel. In conclusion: Joseph Friebert, today almost forgotten, was one of the most important persons in south German music history of the second half of the eighteenth century. Especially through his work as Hof- and Domkapellmeister at the Passau court he significantly inf luenced the music production and reception of that area. Unfortunately not many of his own compositions have survived. Recently rediscovered manuscripts of three of his Singspiele – Das Serail, dated Passau 1779, Nanerl bey Hof and Adelstan und Röschen – shed new light on Friebert’s work as a composer and, at the same time, as a model to Mozart’s Zaide.

Bibliography Archival Sources Das Serail. Oder Der Renegat. […] Die Musik ist vom Herrn von Frübert. Playbill of a performance in Nuremberg, 20 April 1778 Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg (Nor. 2 1307.1778.027.002). Der Renegat, oder die unerwartete Grosmuth […] Die Musik ist von Herrn von Frübert, Hofrath und Musikdirector in Passau. Playbill of a performance in Erlangen, 22 April 1782. Universitätsbibliothek Nürnberg Erlangen (HIST_617aa10_1782_April 22). Der Renegat, oder die unerwartete Grosmuth […] Die Musik ist von Herrn von Frübert, Hofrath und Musikdirector in Passau. Playbill of a performance in Nuremberg, 7 November 1782. Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg (Nor. 1307.1782 f. 15).

Primary Literature Bertuch, Friedrich Justin, and Joseph Eugène Calmet de Beauvoisin: “Das Serail zu Konstantinopel. Eine Skizze”, in: Journal des Luxus und der Moden (December 1809), pp. 755–762. Al Gasa-Kis [= Friedrich Justin Bertuch]: “Der Harem des Großherrn zu Constantinopel”, in: Journal des Luxus und der Moden ( July 1812), pp. 429–449. Berner, Felix: Verzeichniß, der Opern, Comoedien, Pantomimen und Ballets. s.l.: s.typ., [1777]. 40 Betzwieser: “Mozarts Zaide und Das Serail von Friebert”, pp. 285–286.

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Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert      : Arien

welche gesungen werden in der Opera genannt Das Seraile, in zwey Aufzügen aufgeführt von den jungen Schauspielern unter der Direction des Herrn Felix Berner. Die Musik ist von Herrn Fribert. [Nürnberg]: s.typ., [1778]. Universitäts und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt (41/1259). [Friebert, Joseph:] Erläutterungen deren sich in meinen Handen befündenden Musicalien. (Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Hochstift Passau, Repertorium 113/I, Folder 1, 4 1/3).      : Das Serail, Eine Teutsche Operette [manuscript]. Passavia, 1779. Vienna, Don Juan Archiv Wien. [Garnier, Franz Xaver]: Nachricht von der Bernerischen jungen Schauspieler Gesellschaft, von der Aufnahme und dem Zuwachse derselben, mit einigen Anhängen, und 24 am Ende beygefügten Silhouttes mit Verwilligung und Beytrag des Herrn Berners zusammengetragen von M.I.R. Einem Zögling derselben. [Erlangen]: s.typ., 1782.      : Nachricht von der Bernerischen Schauspieler Gesellschaft. Zusammengetragen von einem Zögling derselben. Bozen: s.typ., 1784.      : Nachricht von der im Jahre 1758 von Herrn Felix Berner errichteten jungen Schauspieler-Gesellschaft […]. Vienna: Jahn, 1786. Schmid, Christian Heinrich: Chronologie des deutschen Theaters. [Leipzig]: s.typ., 1775. [Sebastiani, Franz Joseph]: Das Serail. Oder: Die unvermuthete Zusammenkunft in der Sclaverey zwischen Vater, Tochter und Sohn. Bozen: Weiß, 1779; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Slg. Her 1617) http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0005/bsb00054219/images/index.html?id=00054219&fip=qrsfsdrwyztseayaxdsydeneayaxsen& no=9&seite=5, 03.12.2014. Theater-Journal für Deutschland vom Jahre 1777. Erstes Stück. Gotha: s.typ., s.a.

Secondary Sources Bandhuber, Christoph: “Musik im Blut. Die Ischler Salzfertigerfamilie Lidl”, in: Mozart-Jahrbuch 2014 der Akademie für Mozart-Forschung der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg. Kassel et al.: Bärenreiter, 2015, pp. 139–148. Bellmann, Jonathan: The Exotic in Western Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. Betzwieser, Thomas: “Mozarts Zaide und Das Serail von Friebert. Genese und Datierung von Mozarts Singspiel im Licht neuer Quellen”, in: MozartJahrbuch 2006 der Akademie für Mozart-Forschung der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, ed. Henning Bey and Johanna Senigl. Kassel et al.: Bärenreiter, 2008, pp. 279–296. 405

Michael Hüttler Clark, Caryl: “Encountering ‘Others’ in Haydn’s Lo speziale (1768)”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 2: The Time of Joseph Haydn: From Sultan Mahmud I to Mahmud II (r.1730–1839), ed. Michael Hüttler and Hans Ernst Weidinger. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2014, pp. 291–306. Eberhardt, Markus: „Georg Muffat und seine Zeit“, in: Georg Muffat. Ein reichsfürstlicher Kapellmeister zwischen den Zeiten, ed. Heinz-Walter Schmitz, 2. Auf lage. Passau: Stutz, 2006, pp. 7–69.      : „Musarum es modulaminis aemulis arte. Leben und Werk des Passauer Hof- und Domkapellmeisters Benedikt Anton Aufschnaiter (1665– 1742)“, in: Musik unter Krummstäben. Zur Kirchenmusik des 18. Jahrhunderts im Fürstbistum Passau, ed. Heinz-Walter Schmitz. Passau: Stutz, 2009, pp. 23–92.      : “Joseph Friebert als Hof- und Domkapellmeister in Passau (1763-1795)”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 6: A Model for Mozart: Das Serail by Joseph Friebert, ed. Michael Hüttler, Tatjana Marković and Hans Ernst Weidinger Vienna: Hollitzer, 2018 (forthcoming). Einstein, Alfred: “Die Text-Vorlage zu Mozarts ‘Zaide’”, in: Acta Musicologica 8 (1936), pp. 30–37. Freeman, Robert N.: “Friebert”, in: Grove Music Online; http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.grovemusic.han.onb.ac.at/subscriber/article/grove/music/1 0257?q=Friebert&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit (last accessed 2 February 2015).      : “Friebert”, in: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 2, ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1997, p. 304. Ingrid Fuchs and Leopold Votruba: “Studien zur Biographie von Karl Frieberth” in: Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 34 (1983), pp. 21-59. Fuhrich, Fritz: Theatergeschichte Oberösterreichs im 18. Jahrhundert, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1968 (= Theatergeschichte Österreichs, vol 1), p. 78. Hadamowsky, Franz: “Leitung, Verwaltung und ausübende Künstler des deutschen und französischen Schauspiels, der italienischen ernsten und heiteren Oper, des Ballets und der musikalischen Akademien am Burgtheater (Französisches Theater) und am Kärntnerthortheater (Deutsches Theater) in Wien 1754–1764”, in: Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Wiener Theaterforschung 12 (1960), pp. 113–133. Head, Matthew: Orientalism, Masquerade and Mozart’s Turkish Music. London: Royal Musical Association, 2000 (=Royal Musical Association Monographs 9).      : “Interpreting ‘abduction’ opera: Haydn’s L’Incontro Improvviso, sovereignty and the Esterház festival of 1775”, in: Ottoman Empire and Eu406

Hof- and Domkapellmeister Johann Joseph Friebert ropean Theatre, vol. 2: The Time of Joseph Haydn: From Sultan Mahmud I to Mahmud II (r.1730–1839), ed. Michael Hüttler and Hans Ernst Weidinger. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2014, pp. 315–330. Hüttler, Michael: “Joseph Friebert’s Singspiel Das Serail (c.1778) in the Don Juan Archiv Wien: Provenance and State of Research”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 4: Seraglios in Theatre, Music and Literature, ed. Michael Huettler and Hans Ernst Weidinger, Vienna: Hollitzer, 2016, pp. 13–130. Hüttler, Michael and Hans Ernst Weidinger (ed.): Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 1: The Age of Mozart and Selim III (1756–1808), Vienna: Hollitzer, 2013 Hüttler, Michael and Hans Ernst Weidinger (ed.): Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 2: The Time of Jospeh Haydn: From Sultan Mahmud I to Mahmud II (r.1730–1839), Vienna: Hollitzer, 2014 Hüttler, Michael, Emily M.N Kugler and Hans Ernst Weidinger (ed.): Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 3: Images of the Harem in Literature and Theatre. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2015. Hüttler, Michael and Hans Ernst Weidinger (ed.): Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 4: Seraglios in Theatre, Music and Literature. Vienna: Hollitzer, 2016. Locke, Ralph: Musical Exoticism: Images and Ref lections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.      : Music and the Exotic from the Renaissance to Mozart. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Marković, Tatjana: “Das Serail (c.1778) by Joseph Friebert as an Embodiment of Enlightened Absolutism”, in: Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 4: Seraglios in Theatre, Music and Literature, ed. Michael Huettler and Hans Ernst Weidinger, Vienna: Hollitzer, 2016, pp. 131–144 . Pisarowitz, Karl Maria: “Joseph Friebert”, in: Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 16, ed. Friedrich Blume. Kassel et al.: Bärenreiter, 1976/1989, col. 368. Schäffer, Gottfried: Beiträge zur Theaterkultur in der fürstbischöflichen Residenzstadt Passau und deren Nachwirkung im 19. Jahrhundert. Das fürstbischöfliche und königliche Theater zu Passau 1783–1883. PhD, University of Munich, Passau: Verein für Ostbairische Heimatforschung, 1973 (= Neue Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Ostbairische Heimatforschung no. 33) Schmidt, Friedrich: Die Geschichte der Ischler Salzfertigerfamilien Lidl [typescript]. Salzburg, 1973. Trathnigg, Gilbert: “Das Welser Biedermeiertheater (1833–1840)”, in: 5. Jahrbuch des Musealvereines Wels 1958/59. Wels: Welsermühl, 1958/1959, pp. 157– 169. 407

Michael Hüttler Trathnigg, Gilbert: “Zur Geschichte des Welser Theaters”, in: Oberösterreichische Heimatblätter 24/1–2 (1970), pp. 29–38. Warburton, Ernest: The Librettos of Mozarts Opera’s, vol. 7: The Sources, vol. 2. New York: Garland, 1992. Wolff, Larry: The Singing Turk. Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.

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Tautology or Teleology? Reconsidering Repetition and Difference in Two Schubertian Symphonic First Movements Anne M. Hyland A witticism heard for the second time will almost fail of effect; a theatrical performance will never make the same impression the second time that it did on the first occasion; indeed it is hard to persuade the adult to read again at all soon a book he has enjoyed. Novelty is always the necessary condition of enjoyment.1 Novelty is exhaustible. The search for novelty leads in the end to boredom. We are bored when we have run out of ‘interesting’ things to do, or when our own lack of vital energy disgusts us. We are not bored with our personal obsessions … no matter how familiar to us they may be. 2

Introduction The principle of repetition is subject to a curious paradox: in life, we cherish those ‘once in a lifetime’ experiences, but are also wont to relive our most enjoyable hobbies and fascinations, or listen (over and over again) to the same recording of our favourite work. The incongruity in the above-quoted statements arises from the fact that repetition induces both negative (‘not again’) and positive (‘encore!’) responses, and possesses what might be called destructive and constructive elements; how we respond to these is largely a matter of individual taste and experience. And that experience can be inf luenced by many factors, not least of which, according to Freud, is our level of maturity: deriving pure pleasure from repetitive acts is, for him, a child’s prerogative. 1 2

Sigmund Freud: Beyond the Pleasure Principle. London: The International Psycho-Analytical Press, 1922, p. 43. Bruce F. Kawin: Telling it Again and Again: Repetition, in Literature and Film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972, pp. 3–4.

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Anne M. Hyland As a compositional device in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music, repetition is often met with a distinct sense of unease. On the most general level, few would disagree that repetition is the “fundamental organizing principle of all tonal music” and the basis of musical form. 3 Yet on another, localized contiguous repetition can be viewed as evidence of a lack of inventiveness on the composer’s part: “why does the composer merely repeat the phrase rather than transform or develop it into something new?” Large-scale repetitions and additive structures are potentially equally dubious, being a mark of formal redundancy and suggestive of compositional incompetence; recall, for instance, Jan LaRue’s memorable description of variation form as a “musical link-sausage”.4 Indeed, in her pioneering work on the Classical variation, Elaine Sisman reminds us that in the “eighteenth-century musical realm, choppy or episodic forms like variation and rondo were considered hierarchically lower than rounded or recapitulatory forms like sonata form”. 5 The dramatic or rhetorical function of repetition, used to create emphasis (as analogous to King Lear’s “Never, never, never, never, never!”) fares little better, being viewed as naïve or superficial. Arnold Schoenberg espouses this viewpoint when he observes, “repetition alone often gives rise to monotony. Monotony can only be overcome by variation”.6 Even Heinrich Schenker, whose theory of the Ursatz is, in essence, a search for the same amid difference, begins his inf luential treatise Der freie Satz with the motto “semper idem sed non eodem modo”: always the same but not in the same way.7 This desire to avoid literal repetition is manifest in the marked decline in the usage of formal repeats in the early nineteenth-century sonata. In a valuable study of 347 first-movement sonata forms composed between 1780 and 1810, Michael Broyles reveals that the practice of repeating the second half of a sonata (the development and recapitulation) had almost completely fallen out of use by 1800. Where it did occur, such as in the Finale of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 57 (the Appassionata), its use was exceptional and marked for interpretation. As a general rule, sectional repeats were found to be incompatible with the inherent drama of the sonata. Along with the episodic forms mentioned above, they were also fundamentally at odds with the early-nineteenth-century turn away from the Classical ideal of formal balance towards a goal-directed conception of 3

V. Kofi Agawu: The Structural Highpoint as Determinant of Form in Nineteenth–Century Music, PhD diss., Stanford University, 1982, p. 40. 4 Jan LaRue: Guidelines for Style Analysis. New York: W.W.Norton, 1970, p. 174. 5 Elaine Sisman: Haydn and the Classical Variation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2nd edn 1993, p. 9. 6 Arnold Schoenberg: Fundamentals of Musical Composition, ed. Gerald Strang and Leonard Stein. London: Faber and Faber, 1967, p. 8. 7 Heinrich Schenker: Der freie Satz translated and edited by Ernst Oster as Free Composition. New York: Longman, 1979.

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Tautology or Teleology? dynamic form. As drama replaced symmetry, so too teleology replaced repetition, and “the abandonment of sectional repeats”, as Hugh MacDonald rightly notes, was a “necessary preliminary step”. 8 Uniting these criticisms is an overriding suspicion that musical repetition without difference is monotonous, static, and formally redundant.9 If music merely repeats, it cannot progress, it cannot transform in new and significant ways, and, consequently, it cannot develop organically or teleologically. The insistence on change and development of material in the above statements from Schoenberg and Schenker is indicative of this organicist mindset. The threat that repetition poses from this perspective is one of aesthetic and intellectual redundancy, and what it places in jeopardy is ultimately “music’s potentiality”.10 As such, additive or repetitive designs are deemed incapable of sustaining an overarching form, of creating genuine development or of articulating a sense of pre-determined, inevitable closure: in short, they are understood as non-teleological. But, where does one draw the line between form-generating repetition, and repetition that is detrimental to formal structure? In other words: how does one distinguish between a dynamically charged repeat and saturating repetitiousness? It is patently clear that to recognize the use of repetition in a work is not to imply tout court that the work is therefore repetitious; but the point at which repetition begins to saturate the musical material and suppress its potentialities is not universally constant, nor is it an inevitability in all cases.11 The same lack of consensus surrounds the effect of large-scale formal repeats. What has been continually overlooked in our quest to rescue music’s potentiality from repetition, then, is repetition’s own potentiality, or the role it might play within a goal-directed structure. To put this differently: is it really the case that repetition is anathema to teleology? The ensuing pages represent an attempt to address that question via a close reading of two Schubertian symphonic movements: the first movements of his Symphony No.2 in B♭ major, D.125 (1814–15; hereafter, D.125/i), and Symphony No.5 also in B♭ major, D.485 (1816; hereafter D.485/i). Both of these movements display a specific class of large-scale repetition that has been subject to claims 8

Hugh MacDonald: “To Repeat or Not to Repeat?”, in: Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 111/i (1984), pp. 121–138, here p. 137. 9 The importance granted to the idea of difference in the work of Gilles Deleuze calls for reflection here. Deleuze distinguishes between two different types of repetition: “bare” repetition which reiterates its original verbatim, and “clothed” repetition which departs from its original thereby imparting difference (and hence significance) to it. See Gilles Deleuze: Difference and Repetition, transl. by Paul Patten. London: Continuum, 2001, p. 27. 10 Naomi Waltham-Smith: “Towards a Theory of the Refrain”, paper presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, University of Southampton, 2010. 11 On this, see Leonard B. Meyer: Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965, especially pp. 135ff.

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Anne M. Hyland of formal redundancy: their recapitulations begin in the subdominant key. The manner in which such recapitulations are constitutive of repetition requires some ref lection. Although every sonata-form recapitulation is in some respects a representation of expositional materials, the return of these in the recapitulation normally plays a transformative role; as Karol Berger rightly emphasizes, a recapitulation “is not simply a return; it is, rather, the necessary outcome, the final act of closing gaps and reconciling differences”.12 Conversely, the return of primary material in the subdominant can render the sonata recapitulation a mere paraphrase of the exposition, particularly if the recapitulation replicates exactly the tonal path of the exposition. The subdominant recapitulation is therefore often understood as a short cut to retrieving the secondary material in the tonic key: it is the “lazy man’s recapitulation”.13 As Malcolm Boyd has shown, however, both of these symphonies introduce an element of difference or rewriting in their recapitulations.14 This strongly undermines the assumption that the practice invariably leads to an identical formal and tonal design in the recapitulation. This chapter expands upon Boyd’s work by revealing not only that Schubert made alterations to his expositional material in these recapitulations, but also that these changes held significant ramifications for the manner in which a teleological plot is outlined. Indeed, this has implications for Schubert’s symmetrical tonal designs more broadly, a point we shall return to by way of conclusion. First, the ensuing section outlines the background to this scholarly debate.

Schubert’s Subdominant Recapitulations “Did Schubert seriously expect his players to repeat the first half of this movement?”15 With this one exasperated question, posed only in a footnote, Boyd neatly captures the frustration with which Schubert’s large-scale symmetrical tonal plots have been met. The problematic movement to which Boyd is referring is the Finale of the Trout Quintet in A major, D.667. If performed as indicated on the 12 Karol Berger: Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, p. 14 13 William Mann: “Franz Schubert (1797–1828)”, in: Chamber Music, ed. Alec Robinson, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1957, pp. 141–174, here p. 149. It ought to be noted that Mann’s description of this technique in Schubert’s music is actually passed in the context of praise: “With this music, the lazy man’s recapitulation is everybody’s delight; nothing is more welcome than a second bite at these irresistible cherries”, p. 149. 14 Malcolm Boyd: “Schubert’s Short Cuts”, in: The Music Review 29, 1968, pp. 12–21. 15 Boyd: “Schubert’s Short Cuts”, p. 13, note 2.

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Tautology or Teleology? score, with the exposition repeat, this movement amounts to 756 bars of music: the exposition’s 252 bars (replete with internal repetitions) are themselves twice repeated, the first time literally, and the second with a change of tonality (beginning in the dominant). The movement is structured in two symmetrical halves (I–IV // V–I) such that it resembles a sonata form with no development, not unlike the second movement of the work. It can also be understood as a kind of sonatarondo hybrid in which the return of an internal phrase is a central feature. Boyd’s discomfort with Schubert’s indication to repeat the exposition stems from the fact that to do so would result in a hugely protracted movement which is already “among the weakest of all Schubert’s better-known instrumental movements”.16 The ostensible formal ‘weakness’ associated with the dominant recapitulation in this movement, as with Schubert’s subdominant recapitulations, is threefold. First, as mentioned above, it minimizes the amount of rewriting necessary for the movement to end in the tonic, and thus seems like a mere compositional convenience. Indeed, Alfred Einstein’s remark that the practice might be “admissible in ‘Italian Overtures’ and similar works but [is] an unpardonable piece of laziness in a sonata” is illuminating for the correlation it draws between subdominant recapitulations and less ‘serious’ genres.17 Second, the practice denies the moment of ‘double return’ of primary theme and tonic harmony which is essential to the divided sonata-form structure.18 Third, and perhaps most significantly, the usual sense of tonal balance or resolution created by the sonata principle – whereby the second half of the recapitulation answers that of the exposition – is downplayed, since there already exists a symmetrical relationship between the first parts of each. The fact that Schubert employed subdominant recapitulations in his sonatas chief ly between 1815 and 1819 (his last such excursion was the first movement of the ‘Trout’ Quintet), has been taken to suggest that they are a feature of a juvenile, as yet undeveloped style – the “young man’s recapitulation” to rephrase Mann’s 16 Ibidem, p. 13. 17 Alfred Einstein: Schubert, translated David Ascoli, London: Cassell, 1951, p. 95. 18 The question of whether these sonatas ought to be viewed as interrupted or uninterrupted structures requires more space than is here available. Schenker’s own stance on this is reflected in his analysis of Mozart’s C-major Piano Sonata K.545, first moment, in Der freie Satz. There, he clearly identifies the return of the Kopfton supported by tonic harmony as the beginning of the recapitulation, and marks an ‘interruption’ symbol at the end of the exposition. A lively critique of this reading appears in Suzannah Clark: Analyzing Schubert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 209–228. For further explorations of this issue from a specifically Schubertian perspective, see David Beach: “Schubert’s Experiments with Sonata Form: Formal-Tonal Design versus Underlying Structure”, in: Music Theory Spectrum, 15, 1993, pp. 1–18, and Gordon Sly: “Design and Structure in Schubert’s Sonata Forms: An Evolution Toward Integration”, in: Keys to the Drama: Nine Perspectives on Sonata Forms, ed. Gordon Sly, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009, pp. 129–155.

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Anne M. Hyland epithet. Writing on the subdominant recapitulation of D.485/i, for instance, Donald Francis Tovey criticized Schubert’s “early forms” as being “stiff ”.19 But, two factors speak against such a judgment: first, Schubert’s off-tonic recapitulations are not confined to the subdominant, nor to any kind of symmetrical design (such as the dominant reprise found in D667/v), and second, they are a feature of his music both before and after the watershed year of 1820, from which came the Quartettsatz, thus spanning virtually his entire career. Champions of Schubert’s music have sought to justify his practices in a variety of ways. Brian Newbould, for instance, argues that a subdominant recapitulation affords the listener a second hearing of Schubert’s particularly idiosyncratic expositional tonal plots. Newbould’s well-chosen example is the first movement of the Piano Sonata in B major, D.575 (1817) the exposition of which establishes four separate keys (B major, G major, E major and F♯ major). The recapitulation begins in E major (IV), according to Newbould, so “that the idiosyncratic and complex key-chain of the exposition (B–G–E–F♯) can be preserved for further hearing, being literally transposed as E–C–A–B in the recapitulation”. 20 The tonality of each of these sections is readily observed since Schubert includes new key signatures for each, and indeed the tonal progression I – ♭ VI – IV – V which skirts either side of the dominant before arriving there is a highly unusual expositional scheme. But, D.575/i is the exception that proves the rule: it is one of the only movements in which Schubert preserves the exposition’s tonal plot in the recapitulation exactly, with no alteration to the material. As such, it is almost unique among Schubert’s off-tonic recapitulations, the majority of which involve some element of rewriting. Newbould’s point is therefore well made, even if it is rather limited in scope. That in virtually none other of Schubert’s off-tonic recapitulations does the composer leave the expositional material completely untouched, but finds ways of adding interest to its reappearance (often by adding fresh harmonic colour), offers perhaps a more profitable rationalization of Schubert’s practice. Gordon Sly’s work presents some of the most valuable engagements with this Schubertian practice from a Schenkerian perspective. 21 In his 2009 article, Sly analyses five of Schubert’s off-tonic recapitulations in order to demonstrate the development in the composer’s handling of individual design and harmonic-contrapuntal structure, one which he convincingly argues moves from “uneasy coex19 Donald Francis Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis: Symphonies and Other Orchestral Works. London: Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 456. 20 Brian Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, p. 106. 21 See Sly: “Schubert’s Innovations in Sonata Form: Compositional Logic and Structural Interpretation”, in: Journal of Music Theory 45/i, 2001, pp. 119–150, and Sly: “Design and Structure in Schubert’s Sonata Forms”.

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Tautology or Teleology? istence to balanced integration”. 22 Throughout his career, Sly suggests, Schubert shows a preoccupation with recapitulatory designs that complicate the structural division basic to sonata form. Over time, these tonal designs became assimilated into this harmonic-contrapuntal structure to varying degrees, such that by 1828 the two find integration. Part of the importance of Sly’s work is that it considers the factors which encourage a listener to hear a recapitulation as a recapitulation, and the implications of this for the dramatic unfolding of the work. This concern with a sense of progress or purpose through a work is also germane to my own case studies. To that end, the ensuing analyses seek to demonstrate two things: first, that what is often thought to be a repetition of material belies a level of rewriting that brings further significance, and second, that this ostensibly decorative reimagining of expositional material fosters a fundamentally teleological orientation.

A Subdominant Recapitulation With A Difference: Symphony No. 2 In B♭, D.125 In order to explore the recapitulation of D.125/i, it is first necessary to outline its expositional tonal plot. The Allegro Vivace tonicizes three thematically stable keys: B♭ (I), E♭ (IV) and F major (V). As Table 1 illustrates, the first-subject group, A, comprises a 12-bar theme, A1, that is repeated and cadences in the tonic, via a new rhythmic idea, at bars 38–9. The repetition of this phrase denies a second cadence and instead moves to the dominant of C minor, coming to a close on a half cadence medial caesura in that key (ii: HC MC) at bar 47, followed by a one-bar silence. The ensuing transition, TR1, develops material from A1 and moves from C minor through A♭ towards B♭ major as the dominant of E♭ (bar 76). The presentation of the second, lyrical, theme (B1) coincides with the tonicization of E♭ at bar 80, and after a repeat of B1 in the woodwind and an elided perfect authentic cadence (PAC) in IV, it is followed by what initially sounds like a closing group (bars 126ff ). This, however, becomes transitional, leading to a second medial caesura, this time a V:HC MC (half cadence in F major) in bar 180. The eventual arrival of the dominant, F major, after a three-bar caesura fill, unexpectedly reinstates A1 at bar 184. A variant of this leads to a V:PAC at bars 222–23 which is elided with the genuine closing group based on A1, and articulating a series of PACs in the dominant before the first-time bars re-interpret F as V/I. The exposition therefore ends in the expected key, although articulated by the ‘wrong’ theme or agent: its tonal and thematic plots are incongruous. 22 Sly: “Design and Structure in Schubert’s Sonata Forms”, p. 131. The movements explored by Sly are the first and last movements of the Symphony No. 4 in C minor, D.417, the first movement of the Piano Trio in B♭, D.898, the third movement of the String Quintet in C major, D.956, and the Quartettsatz in C minor, D.703.

415

416

Exposition

Large-scale Function

80–126 B

49–79 TR1

C => TR2

126–80

Structural Cadence

43–7 ii:HC MC

38–9

I:PAC

V/IV

76–9

Elided IV:PAC

125–26

V:HC MC

176–80

80–96 97–109 110–26 40–47 Intrathematic 11–22 23–39 A1 material B1 Linking B1 repeat B1 material Function A1 A1 repeat Linking passage Period passage Period

Interthematic 11–48 Function A

11–268

Bars

Table 1: Schubert, Symphony No. 2 in B♭ major, D.125/i, Exposition

184–223

222–23

Cadential

V: IAC Elided V:PAC

204–05

A1

184–205 205–23

Caesura A Fill

181–83

on V/I

267–68

A1 material

C

223–68

Anne M. Hyland

Tautology or Teleology? As the reduction of the movement’s tonal plot in Example 1 demonstrates, the recapitulation begins at bar 334 with the A1 theme in the key of the subdominant, E♭ major. If Schubert had followed his expositional design faithfully, the return of the B1 theme, in bar 403, would be heard in the key of A♭ major, or IV/IV, mirroring the E♭ presentation of B1 in the exposition. Schubert instead rewrites the transitional passage originally at bars 41–5 such that the bars now tonicize G minor (en route to B♭ major), rather than C minor (which led to E♭ major in the exposition). B1 and the repeat of A1 are then recapitulated in the tonic, B♭.

Example 1: Schubert, Symphony No. 2 in B♭ major, D.125/i, harmonic reduction

This alteration to the expositional material is tonally unnecessary – the movement would have ended in the tonic with the return of the A1 theme without any rewriting. The change instead restores the tonic at a much earlier point than expected, and this serves three distinct, but related ends. First, it upholds the sonata principle, whereby all expositional material heard outside of the tonic (in this case, B1 and the second statement of A1) returns in the tonic in the recapitulation (bb. 403ff ). A strict repetition of the exposition would have meant that B1 is never heard in the tonic; Schubert’s alteration avoids this. Second, it means that the harmonic relationship between TR1 and the secondgroup key is maintained. In the exposition, C minor is retrospectively understood as the relative minor of the second group’s E♭ major. When G minor is established in the recapitulation, again via a medial caesura and treatment of A material, it therefore arouses expectation of the tonic via the same relative transformation: thus, Schubert’s alteration allows him to maintain the process by which one key moves to the next – it is this relationship between the keys (rather than the keys themselves) that is paramount. As a result (and thirdly), the recapitulation avoids an over-emphasis on subdominant relationships. Instead of moving to E♭’s subdominant (IV/IV) for B1, the recapitulation instead reinterprets E♭ as VI/vi, which then moves to D as V/vi in bar 366 for TR1 which (as previously mentioned) brings about the return to the tonic. 417

Anne M. Hyland This level of rewriting suggests that the subdominant recapitulation is informed by something other than a sense of convenience. It illustrates an awareness of, if not a slavish adherence to, the sonata principle, and, while unconventional in terms of Classical sonata form, brings about a double return of A1 theme and tonic harmony at the very end of the movement. This deferral of the double return is decidedly end-orientated: the dramatic highpoint of the sonata is withheld until the last moment.

The implications of small-Scale changes: Symphony No. 5 in B♭, D.485 The first movement of Schubert’s Fifth Symphony, D.485, is at once less complicated and more elaborate than the Second. As can be seen in Table 2, the exposition of this movement establishes two main keys, tonic and dominant, with a brief excursion to ♭ III in bars 79–80 during the B group, which nonetheless cadences in the dominant in bars 109–10. Indeed, the dominant is further stabilized by a closing group from bar 110. Table 2: Schubert, Symphony No. 5 in B♭, D.485/i, Exposition Bars

4–117

Large-scale Function

Exposition

Interthematic 4–411 Function A Intrathematic 4–24 Function A1: Ant. Structural Cadence

41–64 TR 25–411 A: consq.

22–23 40–411 63–64 I:HC elided I:PAC V:HC MC

65–1101 B

110–17 C

65–72 73–80 B1: Period B1 repeat 71–72 V:PAC

79–80 Deceptive cadence into bIII

81–1101 Continuation of B 109–10 V:PAC

113–17 V:PAC

Unlike D.125/i, the large-scale tonal plot of this exposition is maintained exactly in the recapitulation. Example 2 makes this explicit by tracing the tonal design of the movement. Only local harmonic events are subject to change, but the combined effect of these changes is vital for the manner in which the return of the tonic is prepared and sustained. Indeed, the rewriting undertaken in this movement has informed its positive reception in the secondary literature, which makes it quite exceptional within the corpus of Schubert’s subdominant recapitulations. Even Tovey, despite some hesitation, is ultimately impressed by the

418

Tautology or Teleology?

Example 2: Schubert, Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, D.485/i, harmonic reduction

work’s uniqueness which is misunderstood, he writes, only by strict “upholders of musical orthodoxy”. 23 Boyd, too, describes this movement as “one of the most famous and most successful of Schubert’s so-called short cuts”, and identifies three passages in this movement where Schubert recomposes his expositional material. 24 Exploring the implications of these alterations in greater detail highlights Schubert’s attention to the transformative role of the sonata recapitulation. In this movement, despite the subdominant recapitulation, the expositional materials are fundamentally reimagined by Schubert’s small-scale rewritings. The first change occurs at bar 185 of the recapitulation where the six bars corresponding to bars 19–24 in the exposition are cut to just two bars of music. The original harmonic progression, shown in Example 3, juxtaposes the dominant with a common-tone diminished seventh chord above a dominant pedal, with an augmented sixth (F–D♭) between bass line and viola. This serves to prolong the dominant in the lead-up to the thematic repeat. As can be seen by comparing Example 3 with Example 4, the two-bar version of this passage in the recapitulation approaches the cadence more directly: there is no prolongation of the dominant for five bars as in the exposition; here, the dominant is reached immediately in bar 185 and bar 186 moves straight to the linking passage originally heard at bar 23. This omission therefore renders the passage more goal-directed than in the exposition.

23 Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis, p. 456. 24 Boyd: “Schubert’s Short Cuts”, p. 18.

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Example 3: Schubert, Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, D.485/i, bars 19–24

A second significant change involves the substantial rewriting of TR material between the two subject groups. As Example 5 demonstrates, in the exposition, these transitional bars (bb. 53–64) involve the prolongation of an overarching diatonic chord, C major, functioning as the dominant of F. The first half of this progression is governed by a chromatically descending bass line from G (ii) to C (V). The arrival on D f lat in bar 58 articulates a pre-dominant augmented sixth chord leading to V of F major in bar 59. This is followed by the prolongation of the dominant of F major (via its juxtaposition with the augmented sixth) and a half cadence medial caesura (V: HC MC) in bar 64. The B1 theme enters in F at bar 65. Once again, Schubert’s adjustment in the recapitulation renders the passage (which is extended from 12 to 16 bars) more goal-directed: bars 215–230, shown in Example 6, articulate a progression of fifths from A♭ major to E♭ minor, to B♭ minor, F minor, C minor and finally (via an augmented sixth chord on G♭) to F major as the dominant of the home tonic. This new harmonic excursion has the

420

Tautology or Teleology?

Example 4: Schubert, Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, D.485/i, bars 185–86

effect of taking the music further away from the dominant of B♭ before reasserting it with a goal-directed progression of fifths, thus, as Boyd remarks, resulting in “a stronger feeling of return when S [B1] returns in B f lat at bar 231”. 25 What is more, the series of ascending two-bar motives (marked ‘x’) in the woodwind and strings – each spanning a compound fifth and overlapping with the next entry – heightens the effect of a build-up of tension; there is a distinct sense of anticipation in these bars, one that was wholly absent in the exposition’s TR. Thus, the return to the home tonic in this movement, although it occurs mid-way through the recapitulation, and with B material (bar 231), is strongly emphasized and granted the harmonic and rhetorical build-up we might expect of RT; it is presented in the manner of a re-beginning. 25 Boyd: “Schubert’s Short Cuts”, p. 18.

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Anne M. Hyland

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Example 5: Schubert, Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, D.485/i, bars 53–64

422

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ii

423

Anne M. Hyland

Example 6: Schubert, Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, D.485/i, bars 215–30

The final modification to this movement is that Schubert adds fifteen bars of new material towards the end that reinforce the tonic in the manner of a coda. What is of greatest interest here is that this new material at bar 276 – shown in Example 7 – interrupts the return of the closing material, which is now delayed until the very end of the movement, from bar 292. As with the preparation of the tonic return, this new material therefore heightens the expectation of something to come. This time, it is closure: the ascending lines coupled with the chromatically charged harmonies and use of dominant ninth chords at bars 280 and 288 strengthen the sense of an ending created by these perfect authentic cadences in the tonic key. The addition of this material might therefore be understood as a compensatory act for the subdominant recapitulation: it balances the movement by reinforcing the tonic – the ultimate tonal goal – in these final bars.

424

Tautology or Teleology?

Example 7: Schubert, Symphony No. 5 in B♭, D.485/i, bars 276–84

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Anne M. Hyland

Analytical Conclusions Taken together, the readings presented here of these two symphonic movements summarize the ways in which Schubert recreates expositional material in his subdominant recapitulations. The analysis of D.485/i, too, illustrates Schubert’s alertness to issues of tonal balance in his addition of a coda which reinforces the tonic and creates a sense of tonal equivalence between the two halves of the sonata (typically reserved for the second group in the recapitulation). But the significance of these subdominant recapitulations is fully realized only by considering why Schubert might have engaged in revisions that were superf luous to the tonal schemes. The answer to this resides, I believe, in the particular caste of teleology that his music articulates. The deferral of tonic affirmation to a later point in Schubert’s off-tonic recapitulations has wide-reaching consequences for the status of the home key, making it, as Beach and Sly recognized, serve “as goal, rather than as source, of the tonal motion”. 26 This results in directed, rather than conformational, tonal schemes. I call this change in perspective – from tonic affirmation as resolution to the importance of motion or progress towards that moment – ‘progress as resolution’: it is the process by which the tonic is regained, not the end result of its retrieval, that is vital to understanding Schubert’s sonata forms. These large-scale tonal plots, to recall Schenker, might be outwardly the same, but – crucially – they are never realized in the same way. Herein lies the key to the issue raised by Schubert’s off-tonic recapitulations: they treat tonal and thematic parameters independently, and, in so doing, reimagine the all-important moment of double return. In both of these movements, the attainment of the tonal goal is deferred past the point of thematic recall, which occurs with the return of A material. In D.125/i, the retrieval of the tonic is accompanied by both B1 and A1 themes, thus Schubert retains a double return, even if it appears very late in the form. In D.485/i, the build-up to the tonic statement of B1 is treated with the level of expectation that would be indicative of a retransition, thus drawing attention to this moment of vital import for the movement. In neither case does this non-congruence of tonal and thematic elements complicate the moment of thematic return, which is clearly identifiable. Contra Schenker, I would therefore not advocate identifying the beginning of the recapitulation in these movements as the point of tonic return, at bars 403 and 231 respectively, given that we have already returned to the first group of the exposition. But, it is equally problematic to refer to the moment of thematic return as the work’s point of “release” or “triumph”, terms which have been used to refer to 26 On this see Beach: “Schubert’s Experiments with Sonata Form” and Sly: “Schubert’s Innovations in Sonata Form”, p. 210.

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Tautology or Teleology? the double return. 27 That moment is deferred until the retrieval of the tonic. What these works question fundamentally is therefore the existence of a single telos: a specific “goal toward which the entire sonata-trajectory has been aimed”. 28 Instead, they replace this notion of a telos with a progressive teleological journey. The continuous nature of that journey is underscored by the many elided cadences noted in the analysis. This mentality imbues every level of Schubert’s music, from the articulation of phrases and thematic closure, to a movement’s large-scale tonal events, such that the persistent denial of tonal closure amounts to a form in which progression towards a goal, rather than affirmation of that goal, serves as the underlying compositional force. Whether we are likely to think of this as a highly strategic move or as juvenile experimentation is a matter of critical judgment; what is clear is that in both examples, the symmetrical tonal design has far-reaching ramifications beyond that of mere convenience: it serves a greater purpose than has hitherto been acknowledged.

Postlude Schubert was, in many respects, a composer of repetitions. His re-use of thematic material from composition to composition; his adherence to the same dactylic rhythmic patterns in his compositions across diverse genres; his appeal to strophic and paratactic structures in vocal and instrumental music, and, perhaps most crucially, his proclivity for employing variation techniques across music of different forms and genres – all of these collectively point to a composer for whom the reuse of material in different contexts was a defining aspect of his idiom. Moreover, the specific manner in which Schubert recalls his material tends to emphasize, rather than downplay, the repetition, suggesting that for him the linear development of material was not of foremost concern. This essay seeks neither to deny nor downplay this feature of his music. It does, however, aspire to distance such concerns from Schubert’s practice of commencing his recapitulations in a key other than the tonic, here, specifically, in the subdominant. The equation of this strategy with ‘mere’ repetition is problematic. A next step in furthering this work would be to place Schubert’s categories of unorthodox recapitulation within the broader context of his own output. In so doing, it would be possible to acknowledge the collective part they play in a larger compositional issue raised particularly by the late instrumental works: that is, the 27 Boyd: “Schubert’s Short Cuts”, p. 15. 28 James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy: Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 232.

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Anne M. Hyland persistent manipulation of the parameters of closure on both a local and global level. This chapter makes no grand claims of having resolved (absolved?) Schubert’s “besetting sin of ‘vain repetitions’”, as Tovey had it, but if it has equipped the reader with new tools for understanding – and appreciating – this characteristic feature of his music, then it will have succeeded in its aim. 29 For it is only by stepping once again into the depths of Schubert’s instrumental music with renewed curiosity, that the difference and meaning behind these large-scale repetitions can be discovered. If nothing else, it offers an opportunity to (re)hear Schubert differently.

Bibliography Agawu, V. Kofi: The Structural Highpoint as Determinant of Form in Nineteenth–Century Music PhD diss., Stanford University, 1982. Beach, David: “Schubert’s Experiments with Sonata Form: Formal-Tonal Design versus Underlying Structure”, in: Music Theory Spectrum, 15, 1993, pp. 1–18. Berger, Karol: Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Boyd, Michael: “Schubert’s Short Cuts”, in: The Music Review 29, 1968, pp. 12–21. Clark, Suzannah: Analyzing Schubert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Deleuze, Gilles: Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patten. London: Continuum, 2001. Einstein, Alfred: Schubert, trans. David Ascoli. London: Cassell, 1951. Freud, Sigmund: Beyond the Pleasure Principle. London: The International PsychoAnalytical Press, 1922. Hepokoski, James and Warren Darcy: Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Kawin, Bruce F.: Telling it Again and Again: Repetition in Literature and Film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972. LaRue, Jan: Guidelines for Style Analysis. New York: W.W.Norton, 1970. MacDonald, Hugh: “To Repeat or Not to Repeat?” in: Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 111/i, 1984, pp. 121–138.

29 Tovey: “Franz Schubert”, in: Essays and Lectures on Music ed. Hubert Foss. London: Oxford University Press, 1949, pp. 103–133, here, p. 122.

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Tautology or Teleology? Mann, William: “Franz Schubert (1797–1828)”, in: Chamber Music, ed. Alec Robinson. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1957, pp. 141–174. Meyer, Leonard B.: Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Newbould, Brian: Schubert: The Music and the Man. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Schenker, Heinrich: Der freie Satz transl. and ed. Ernst Oster as Free Composition. New York: Longman, 1979. Schoenberg, Arnold: Fundamentals of Musical Composition, ed. Gerald Strang and Leonard Stein. London: Faber and Faber, 1967. Sisman, Elaine: Haydn and the Classical Variation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2 nd edn 1993. Sly, Gordon: “Design and Structure in Schubert’s Sonata Forms: An Evolution Toward Integration”, in: Keys to the Drama: Nine Perspectives on Sonata Forms, ed. Gordon Sly. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009, pp. 129–155.      : “Schubert’s Innovations in Sonata Form: Compositional Logic and Structural Interpretation”, in: Journal of Music Theory 45/i, 2001, pp. 119–150. Tovey, Donald Francis: Essays in Musical Analysis: Symphonies and Other Orchestral Works. London: Oxford University Press, 1981.      : “Franz Schubert”, in: Essays and Lectures on Music ed. Hubert Foss. London: Oxford University Press, 1949, pp. 103–133. Waltham-Smith, Naomi: “Towards a Theory of the Refrain”, paper presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, University of Southampton, 2010.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms

Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms: An Unlikely Conjunction Susan Youens

Introduction Johannes Brahms’s song Kein Haus, keine Heimat (No home, no homeland), Op. 94, No. 5, published in 1884 when its creator was fifty-one years old, is twenty measures of undiluted bitterness, over almost before we can take in what has just hit us.1 There is no taint of melodrama or self-indulgence in this single skeletal page of music, only a terse cri de coeur beyond any hope of redress. In a letter to Brahms of 6 August 1884, his friend Theodor Billroth characterized the whole opus as “songs for men, a sort of autumn or winter journey … the poems of Halm have a particular melancholy bitterness. The most poetical is Steig auf, geliebter Schatten …”2 Billroth was not sure that others would take to such somber musings, although they were to his liking: “As one gets older”, he wrote, “one becomes a little satiated with love songs and enjoys other poems that lend themselves to composition. But as old age does not sing any longer, the singing youth will always favor the love songs”. 3 Brahms was not entirely pleased with Billroth’s assessment, writing to him the very next day to say: A word of thanks for your letter. I had better write right away – as perhaps if I didn’t, I wouldn’t say anything. Your friendly praise, of course, makes me happy. But curiously, one has heard in one’s mind the trumpets of praise as not being powerful enough, and after that, one would rather like to contradict even the most modest and pleasant mezzo forte! Now 1

2

3

See Margit McCorkle: Johannes Brahms. Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis. Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1984, pp. 385–388. According to Max Kalbeck, in Johannes Brahms, vol. 3: 1874– 1885. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1976, p. 428, the first two songs of Op. 94 (Mit vierzig Jahren and Steig auf, geliebter Schatten) were composed in April 1883 (Brahms’s pocket-calendar records their genesis), and the other songs followed the next year. See Otto Gottlieb-Billroth (ed.): Billroth und Brahms im Briefwechsel. Berlin: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1991, repr. from 1935), p. 362. See also Hans Barkan (trans. and ed.): Johannes Brahms and Theodor Billroth: Letters from a Musical Friendship. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957, p. 144. Billroth und Brahms im Briefwechsel, p. 362.

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Susan Youens comfort yourself, because for the critic, as well as for the composing fellow, there comes the time when one is just to him.4 Billroth clearly preferred the ‘poetic’ to the ‘dramatic’, Brahms’s characteristic expansive melody and rich tonal-harmonic palette to the terse brusqueness of the other Halm song, which he does not even name. One initial shocked reaction to this song, after all, is to shudder away from it. But his designation of the entire opus as both autumnal and wintry hints at a link backwards in time between Schubert’s Winterreise (especially songs such as Der stürmische Morgen and Mut, similarly defiant, terse, dramatic works) and Brahms’s later creation. Winterreise, after all, begins in D minor, the key of Kein Haus, both haunted by Mozart’s D minor Requiem and Schubert’s own Der Tod und das Mädchen. 5 Death-songs do not, of course, have to be in D minor, but it helps. Kein Haus, in Siegfried Kross’s apt formulation, is an ‘Un-Lied’, an anti-Lied: a refutation of song coupled with a refutation of life.6 Schubert’s willingness to abjure conventional Lied loveliness for novel mergers of recitative/declamation/ hints of melody, as in Der Doppelgänger, finds its response in Brahms here. Brahms’s confidante Elisabet von Herzogenberg does not so much as mention this song, although she condemns another lied on a text by Friedrich Halm in a long letter written 21–22 May 1885. Brahms had sent her some of his newest works, writing that he hoped she “will not keep me waiting many hours for songs and opinions!”, and she wrote back four days later to praise the Heine song Meerfahrt to the skies; she even begged for a copy of it as a Christmas present. But then she adds near the end of the letter, “Halm’s Winternacht makes me sad. Those dry verses never deserved that you should set them to music. Singing them makes one shiver for a fur coat!”.7 No wonder the poem made Elisabet shiver: in two terse stanzas, Halm invokes ice-coldness in the heart as well as the landscape, coldness that neither 4 5

Billroth und Brahms im Briefwechsel, p. 363. Hartmut Krones: “Der Einfluß Franz Schuberts auf das Liedschaffen von Johannes Brahms”, in: Susanne Antonicek and Otto Biba, Brahms-Kongress Wien 1983. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1988, pp. 309–324, points out numerous instances in Brahms’s songs of influence from Winterreise, for example, patterns and motives from Rückblick and Auf dem Flusse, in Sind es Schmerzen from the Magelone-Lieder, Op. 33; the octave figures of sudden awakening in Frühlingstraum reinterpreted in Wir müssen uns trennen also from the Magelone-Lieder; and Letzte Hoffnung cloaked in Abendregen, Op. 70, no. 4. 6 Siegfried Kross: “Brahms – der unromantische Romantiker”, in: Brahms-Studien 1, ed. Constantin Floros. Hamburg: K. D. Wagner, 1974, p. 38. 7 See Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mit Heinrich und Elisabet von Herzogenberg, ed. Max Kalbeck, vol. 2. Berlin: Deutschen Brahms-Gesellschaft, 4th rev. edn 1921, p. 65. Kalbeck was bemused by the source of the text, incorrectly identifying it as Halm’s poem Schneegestöber. Margit McCorkle, in: Johannes Brahms. Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, pp. 664–5, correctly identifies the poem as Winternacht, the second in a poetic cycle entitled Auf der Wanderung; see Gedichte von Friedrich Halm. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1850, p. 40, and Friedrich Halm’s Werke, vol. 1, p. 40.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms poetry nor starlight can warm. Brahms’s dear friend would not have wanted to see him drawn to a poem in which art can do nothing against the grief of existence. Such was Brahms’s respect for his friend’s opinion that he apparently cast the song out, and there is now, alas, no trace of it. But there were from the beginning those who could appreciate how extraordinary Kein Haus, keine Heimat is, including the artist Max Klinger in the 1890s. Yonatin Malin has written beautifully and insightfully about Klinger’s Brahms-Phantasie, in which the artist selected five late Brahms songs – in order, Alte Liebe, Op. 72, no. 1; Sehnsucht, Op. 49, no. 3; Am Sonntag Morgen, Op. 49, no. 1; Feldeinsamkeit, Op. 86, no. 2; and Kein Haus, keine Heimat – for a cycle he plucked from different opuses to join company with his engravings. The thought-provoking images, with their encyclopedic synthesis of inf luences, techniques, and forms, appear both wreathed around the songs and as full-length works with their own titles.8 Of the five songs by Brahms that Klinger chose, only Kein Haus, keine Heimat has no accompanying picture; instead, an empty space hovers above and below the two stark staves containing Brahms’s music, a néant (see Figure 1). Other images follow the song (Evocation, Prometheus, and an illustrated text of Hölderlin’s Schicksalslied, which Brahms, of course, had set to music), but this is the end of the Klinger-created song cycle, and the emptiness above and below seems, paradoxically, more expressive than any image anyone might devise. It is as if the song itself has obliterated whatever might once have been above and beneath, that the music has blotted out everything pictorial, everything once living and meaningful. Could Klinger, I wonder, have known the source of Brahms’s words for this song, or did he only know the song?9 The latter would, of course, have been suf8

See Yonatan Malin: “‘Alte Liebe’ and the Birds of Spring: Text, Music, and Image in Max Klinger’s Brahms Fantasy”, in: Heather Platt and Peter H. Smith (eds.), Expressive Intersections in Brahms: Essays in Analysis and Meaning. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2012, pp. 53–79. See also Max Klinger: Brahms-Phantasie. Einundvierzig Stiche/Radierungen und Steinzeichnungen zu Compositionen von Johannes Brahms. Leipzig: Selbstverlag, 1894; Yonatan Malin and Wesleyan University have made the entire work available on www.wesleyan.edu/dac/view/brahmsphantasie. 9 Klinger wrote a delighted letter to his parents on April 20, 1894 to tell of his trip to Vienna to meet Brahms, who he describes as “anspruchslos und so nett und lustig” (modest and so nice and good fun). Evenings at the Wurstelprater amusement park and the Musikverein followed. See Hans Wolfgang Singer (ed.): Briefe von Max Klinger aus den Jahren 1874 bis 1919. Leipzig: A. Seemann, 1924, pp. 70–71. See also Jan Brachmann: ‘Ins Ungewisse hinauf –’: Johannes Brahms und Max Klinger im Zwiespalt von Kunst und Kommunikation. Kassel & New York: Bärenreiter, 1999. Music was enormously important to Klinger, who studied piano as a child and who dedicated his series of fifteen engravings entitled Rettung Ovidischer Opfer, Opus II of 1898, to Schumann’s memory. Klinger trafficked in his own version of Gesamtkunstwerk, declaring, “Der große, gesammelte Ausdruck unserer Weltanschauung fehlt uns. Wir haben Künste, keine Kunst” (The great, complete expression of our philosophy of life is missing. We have the arts, not art), and he wanted to unite the arts); see Dieter Gleisberg: “Max Klinger – Sein Werk und sein Wirkung”, in: Max Klinger: Wege zum Gesamtkunstwerk. Mainz: Philipp von Zaberen, 1984, p. 14.

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Figure 1: Max Klinger, Kein Haus, keine Heimat, from Brahms-Phantasie: Einundvierzig Stiche, Radierungen und Steinzeichnungen zu Compositionen von Johannes Brahms (Amsler & Ruthardt, 1894)

ficient for his purposes, since artists, poets, and musicians have different agendas, even where they intersect. The text by Friedrich Halm (the pseudonym for Eligius Freiherr von Münch-Bellinghausen, 1806-1871) is carved from within a fascinating source. Brahms invites us to explore further when he adds the laconic subtitle ‘Aus einem Drama’ (From a play) to his song upon its publication, telling us that these gall-laden words have a larger context but not identifying what that context is. Max Friedländer recalls Brahms saying that this song was an experiment in dramatic writing: perhaps the composer sought to justify its stylistic departure from his more customary songwriting manner by labeling it as ‘drama’, not the lyric verse customary to lieder. Brahms did not, one notices, specify which ‘drama’.10 The words are not, as it happens, from any of Halm’s plays, popular in nineteenth-century Vienna, but from one of his lengthy ‘storytelling poems’ or ex10 Max Friedländer: Brahms’ Lieder. Einführung in seine Gesänge für eine und zwei Stimmen. Berlin & Leipzig, 1922, p. 159.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms tended ballads entitled In der Südsee (In the South Pacific).11 The crowded backdrop of Halm’s words includes the German-speaking world’s ‘Negermythos’ in the late eighteenth- and nineteenth centuries, Georg Forster’s travelogue of Captain James Cook’s second and third voyages and other contemporaneous accounts of distant peoples in distant lands, myths of cannibalism and anthropophagy in the South Pacific, and the enlistment of European sympathy for Africans as human beings. But not one iota of this sensational outer envelope – not negritude, not the South Seas, not cannibalism – is evident in the two terse stanzas Brahms set to music. Instead, he excised all trace of Halm’s surrounding story from this, the shortest, most shocking song he ever wrote. But he knew it, and his awareness of the larger context was, I believe, implicated in his attraction to these words for music and his manner of setting them. If this was an experiment in dramatic writing, metamorphosed into strophic composition-with-a-difference, it is because these words, to which he was evidently drawn for more than one reason, did not accord with his more usual style. He did not thereafter return to this manner, and that too was surely multiply determined: an experiment to be made once, and once only.

I. Halm and the Other: Slaves and cannibals in German literature A brief word about Friedrich Halm Halm was an important personage in the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century in Vienna, but his fame did not endure, with the exception of his posthumously-published novellas Die Marzipanliese and Das Haus an der Veronabrücke, still anthologized and translated into English.12 He was born in Cracow (then under Austrian rule) on 2 April 1806, the son of a prominent statesman, Cajetan Freiherr von Münch-Bellinghausen, and was apparently groomed from youth to take a similar position in adult life. But his boyhood love of the stage put an end to the parental project; the Schubert poet Johann Gabriel Seidl, who knew Halm in their shared youth, tells us that the young Eligius acted Schiller’s heroes on a modest home stage and that the two young men worked together on Pindaric poems, fables, Anacreontic odes, novellas, and more.13 During the years 11 See Friedrich Halms Werke, vol. 7: Neue Gedichte. Vienna: Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1864, pp. 219–234. 12 Die Marzipanliese is an 1856 ‘Kriminalerzählung’ (the murder of an old woman for her money, with fate stepping in to punish the murderer multiply). A similarly morbid atmosphere holds sway in the 1864 tale Das Haus an der Veronabrücke. See Friedrich Halm: Das Haus an der Veronabrücke. Novellen. Berlin: Buchverlag Der Morgen, 1968 and also Richard Hacken (ed.): Into the Sunset: Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Austrian Prose. Riverside, California: Ariadne Press, 1999, which includes ‘Marzipan-Lisa’ on pp. 159–195 13 See “Friedrich Halm” by Johann Gabriel Seidl, in: Album oesterreichischer Dichter. Vienna: Verlag

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Susan Youens from 1819 to 1821, Halm audited philosophy courses at the Wiener Hochschule, whose students included Johann Vesque von Püttlingen, Lenau, Ludwig Halirsch, and Eduard Bauernfeld. Seidl and Halm, who Seidl describes as “ein schmächtiger, stiller Jüngling . . einfach, in sich verschlossen, wortkarger, aber einnehmend in seinem anspruchslosen Äußeren”, were very different personalities and soon drifted apart; Halm then formed a much more enduring friendship with one Michael Enk von der Burg, a Benedictine monk at Melk Abbey, who guided Halm to Spanish language and literature and gave him his pseudonym. (Halm’s drama König und Bauer of 1841 is based on a work by Lope de Vega, and his Donna Maria de Molina was an adaptation of Tirso de Molina’s Prudencia en la mujer.) “Those who rejoice in Halm’s talent”, wrote Seidl, “have Enk to thank for it”.14 By age twenty, Halm had both written his first play and married Reichsfreiin Lilly von Schloisnigg from an old and distinguished family. His twenty dramas include Der Fechter von Ravenna, Der Sohn der Wildniß, Imelda Lambertazzi (a warmed-over version of Romeo und Juliet), König Wamba, König und Bauer and Griseldis, which was his first great success. This Arthurian drama, which interested Schumann as a possible source for an opera libretto,15 was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre on 30 December 1835, 16 and subsequent dramatic works also met with von Pfautsch & Voss, 1850, pp. 140–149. Seidl’s jealousy of his former friend – who he describes as very reserved, “half buried in books, half in a poetic dream” (p. 142) – is evident on occasion, as when he scolds Halm on p. 146 for the sentimentality on display in Der Sohn der Wildniß (far more famous in its day than anything Seidl ever produced). See also Rudolf Gottschall: Porträts und Studien, vol. 3: Literarische Charakterköpfe. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1871, pp. 85–129 in which we find out more about Halm’s friendship with the melancholiac Michael Enk von der Burg, twenty years his senior. See also Briefwechsel zwischen Michael Enk von der Burg und Eligius Freih. von Münch-Bellinghausen (Friedrich Halm), ed. Rudolf Schachinger. Vienna: Alfred Hölder, 1890; Faust Pachler, “Jugend- und Lehrjahre des Dichters Friedrich Halm”, in: Österreichisches Jahrbuch (1877), p. 245; Hans Hoppen: Streitfragen und Erinnerungen. Stuttgart: s. n., 1876; and Anton Schlossar’s introduction to vol. 1 of Friedrich Halms ausgewählte Werke in vier Bänden. Leipzig: Max Hesse’s Verlag, 1904, for more on Halm. 14 Seidl, ‘Friedrich Halm’, p. 143. 15 Schumann on 19 October 1838 – he was in Vienna – wrote of seeing Halm’s Griseldis at the Burgtheater and being massively impressed. After reviewing the major performers, he writes that “Oft war ein Schluchzen im ganzen Haus. Ich werde es nicht vergessen. Auch für mich fand ich Einiges – Schreckliche – aus meinem Leben” (Often the whole house was sobbing. I will never forget it. I also recognised something terrible from my own life). One wonders exactly what links he saw between his own young life and the events in the drama. See Robert Schumann: Tagebücher, vol. 2: 1836–1854, ed. Gerd Nauhaus. Basel & Frankfurt: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1987, pp. 75–76. 16 Percival, newly-arrived from Wales, asks who a particular woman is and is told that she is Morgane, the king’s sister and versed in black arts. Percival replied, “Es wär’ ihr besser, wenn sie Kochkunst triebe! / Vom Weib verlang’ ich schweigenden Gehorsam, / Ergebung in des Mannes Machtgebot: / Denn Weisheit, so wie Kraft, ist unser Erbtheil, / Und nur ein Spielzeug in des Weibes Hand” (It would be better if she engaged in the art of cooking/ I demand silent obedience from women/submission to man’s powerful command/ Because wisdom, as well as power, is our

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms acclaim. He served as the General Intendant of the Viennese theaters from 1869 until his death on 22 May 1871; given his lifelong association with drama, it was not until after his death that his greater talent in prose was revealed in the 1872 Erzählungen.17

In der Südsee Of the twelve small volumes in my complete works of Halm, three contain his lyric poems and large ballads.18 Perusing his poetic output, one finds many of the stock themes and inherited topoi one might expect in the second and third quarters of the century: pseudo-Persian ghasals, love poetry, cycles, poems on ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Ganymed’ (clearly following in Goethe’s wake, but nothing like Goethe’s radical content and poetic genius), the customary sprinkling of wanderers, pseudo-medieval and Renaissance tales, Nature poetry, epigrams, poetry on Spanish themes, and moralizing or religious poems.19 His editors Emil Kuh and Faust Pachler conclude each volume of verse with a compilation of ‘storytelling poems’, some of them quite lengthy (Charfreitag is over 100 pages long!). Halm was far from being a great poet, but he had great ambitions, and he wanted to do original things with his chosen subjects, even if the results were sometimes disconcerting or awkward or both. One remembers an anecdote in which the poet Hermann Rollett gave Halm a copy of his tragedy Dido, at which Halm inquired whether it might not work better as a comedy. Rollett, nonplussed, shelved his drama permanently. 20

17 18 19

20

inheritance/ and is only a plaything in a woman’s hand’). Modern readers might well wince. See Eligius Freiherrn von Münch-Bellinghausen, Friedrich Halms Werke, vol. 2: Dramatische Werke, vol. 1. Vienna: Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1856, pp. 11–12. See also Rudolf Peltz: Halms und die Bühne. Hattingen-Ruhr: C. Hundt sel. Wwe., 1925, and Peter Skrine: “Friedrich Halm and the Comic Muse”, in: W. E. Yates, John McKenzie, and Lesley Sharpe (eds.): The Austrian comic tradition: Studies in honour of W.E.Yates. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998. Friedrich Halm’s Werke, vol. 11: Erzählungen. Vienna: C. Gerold’s Sohn, 1872. Friedrich Halm’s Werke, vol. 1 (1877), vol. 7 (1864), and vol. 9 (1872). ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Ganymed’ come from the Neue Gedichte, in: Friedrich Halms Werke, vol. 7, pp. 23–27; a group of eight Ghaselen are in the same volume, pp. 69–76 and a cycle of fourteen Lieder der Liebe, pp. 40–60. In the Werke, vol. 1, pp. 106–109, one finds ‘An den Kaiser. 1849’, in which the politically conservative poet swears allegiance to the new Emperor Franz Joseph I and hopes that the emperor, in the wake of revolutionary disorder, might still believe in his subjects’ goodness; in vol. 9, pp. 24–25, he uses the figure of “der deutsche Michel” to his poem ‘Wie Michel grasen ging. 1840’, to critique the ‘freiheitstollen’ songs of those wanting revolution in Germany. He had a penchant for poems and cycles about men betrayed in love, including the two poems of An Mathilde, vol . 9, pp. 75–77. See Hermann Rollett: Begegnungen. Erinnerungsblätter (1819–1899). Vienna: L. Rosner, 1903, pp. 184–186 for an account of his meeting with Halm in 1857: “Ich hätte ihn eher für einen aussichtsvoll-ehrgeizigen adeligen Streber in irgend einem Fiskal-Bureau, als für einen Dichter gehalten” (I would have taken him for a promising, ambitious, noble person in some kind of revenue

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Susan Youens What is the larger poetic framework around Brahms’s song text? The narrative of Halm’s In der Südsee is compressed, typical of balladry and its descendants; what follows is a summary of an already skeletal tale. At the beginning of the first part, we are told of a splendid ship called the John Gay, and we immediately think of the author of The Beggar’s Opera, the 1728 ballad-opera that shattered Italianate operatic conventions by satirizing aristocratic power-mongers (Horace Walpole first and foremost) as robbers and thieves. Taking satiric aim at social inequities, the drama by Gay is an implicit attack on the growing power of the conservative Whig party and also hints at a Lockean ideology of natural liberties. 21 This author’s name is the first hint of an anti-authoritarian world-view and a stance on behalf of the dispossessed, as well as inf luence from England, famously a center of abolitionist endeavors. 22 The first character we meet is ‘ein Neger’ named Jupiter, a giant of a fellow at his midday rest. We are told that his body, which the poet compares to black marble, bears the marks of earlier slavery and that he somehow escaped enslavement and became an able-bodied seaman. With his tobacco and his grog, he leans against the mast and sings a song in three stanzas. Meine Jacke ist ganz noch Und mein Glas noch voll Gin! Welt, geh deiner Wege, Ich frag’ nicht, wohin?

I still have a coat and a glass full of gin! World, go your way— I won’t ask where!

Kein Haus, keine Heimat, Kein Weib und kein Kind, So wirbl’ ich, ein Strohhalm, In Wetter und Wind!

No house, no homeland, No wife and no child, Thus am I whirled about, like a straw, In the wind and weather!

Well’ auf und Well’ nieder, Bald dort und bald hier; Welt, fragst du nach mir nicht, Was frag’ ich nach Dir? 23

Waves rising, waves falling, now there and now here; world, if you don’t ask about me, why should I ask about you?

With his minimal creature comforts at hand, he proclaims his removal from and defiance of a world that has mistreated him. This inset-song occurs three office instead of a poet), Rollett tells us (p. 184). We know Clara Schumann’s six Op. 23 songs on inset-poems from Rollett’s novel Jucunde, both the novel and the songs dating from 1853. 21 See John Gay: The beggar’s opera: As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Lincolns-Inn-Fields. London: John Watts, 1728, and Peter Elfed Lewis: John Gay: The beggar’s opera. London: Edward Arnold, 1976. 22 See Manisha Sinha: The slave’s cause: A history of abolition. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2016; David Brion Davis: The problem of slavery in the age of revolution, 1770–1823. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998; and Howard Temperley: British antislavery 1833–1870. London: Longman, 1972. 23 ‘In der Südsee’, in: Halm’s Werke, vol. 7, pp. 220–221.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms times in the poetic tale, the second and third times truncated. It is the final occurrence near the end of the tragedy, with only the second and third stanzas, that Brahms turned into song. That this poem belongs to the ongoing German dialogue in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries about the nature of black people and the slave trade is clear from the start, and Halm promptly raises the stakes by introducing sexual desire across lines of race and class into the mix. The next character we meet is ‘Miß Lucy’, a name that on this ship instantly recalls Lucy Lockit from The Beggar’s Opera – but this is an inversion of a parody, as John Gay’s Lucy is far from innocent (she tries to poison the hero/anti-hero Macheath’s secret wife Polly Peachum). Halm’s Lucy is an adorable blond ‘Kind’; although her characterization is extremely sketchy, we have the vague impression of a mid-nineteenth-century German Lolita-type, partchild, part-budding woman and already aware of her powers of sexual attraction. Inverting the Garden of Eden scenario, Jupiter offers Lucy an apple, and her smile and sweet chatter in response drive the ‘Furcht und Graus’, ‘fear and terror’, from his brow. This fear and terror are, Halm implies, a lifelong condition, ingrained in his very being. Diverted by the treat, she allows him to hold her; when she is called away by her mother, he asks for a kiss. ‘A little kiss?’, she replies, ‘No, you are black!’ and goes away, leaving Jupiter enveloped in his former gloom. 24 As the first section ends, he sings again the final verse of his earlier song: ‘Well ‘ auf und Well’ nieder; bald dort und bald hier’. 25 The stage is already set for catastrophe. The second section also begins with an encomium to the John Gay, a reminder that the personae are f loating on the Homeric sea of Time and Life. In the airy ocean of the sky, a small cloud f loats like a swan, then swells and becomes a gigantic storm that sinks the ship. 26 Jupiter, Lucy, her mother, and a dozen others crowd onto a lifeboat and drift for ten days on the open seas. Two of the passengers, driven to madness, leap from the frail bark into the ocean, one dies of sunstroke, and the remaining survivors are desperate. A fellow named Atkins delivers an impassioned speech in which he asks for a volunteer to die so that the others might assuage their thirst with blood and their hunger with f lesh. Jupiter seconds the idea, saying that someone “must be our pelican” – he is described as gnashing his teeth like a madman and brandishing a knife as he says those words –, and the survivors draw cards. When Lucy’s mother picks the fateful card, she begs to be spared for her child’s sake, but the desperate Atkins orders the black man to wield his machete on the woman. Instead, Jupiter embraces Lucy and tells her, “I will help you, Lucy! Just sit quietly by your mother’s side”. Going to the side of the boat, he sings Brahms’s two stanzas and then stabs himself to 24 Ibidem, pp. 221–222. 25 Ibidem, p. 223. 26 Chapter II of the poem, ibidem, pp. 224–227.

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Susan Youens the heart, saying, “Take me instead of the woman! More blood will f low from my body —you will have more to drink”. 27 Two hours later, a fresh breeze fills their sails, and before evening, a ship appears to rescue the survivors. Miss Lucy returns home and never thinks of the horrific voyage without weeping for the “faithful black man”. What strong brew this is! In a single poem, we encounter black male desire for a young, blond, British girl, coupled with an implied anti-slavery tract, a polemic about blacks as full-f ledged human beings capable of noble sacrifice, and shipwreck anthropophagy. It is as if Halm, who was considered a great writer in his day, was laboring overtime both to raise fraught socio-political issues and to compress as much shock-value into a single narrative as he possibly could. If In der Südsee is very far indeed from being great poetry, it does an astonishing amount of cultural work in its sixteen pages and three chapters. In particular, the ways in which knowledge of other races, other cultures, as a result of exploration in distant lands and the mythification of those encounters profoundly disturbed the Eurocentric image of humanity are on display here. The result, both for Halm and Brahms, is a new image of what utter alienation and despair can be.

The backdrop: Captain Cook, cannibalism, and the myths of black men in German literature At one level, this song is a latter-day offspring of those eighteenth-century voyages of exploration by Captain Cook, Samuel Wallis, Philip Carteret, Louis-Antoine de Bougainvilles, and others, as the Enlightenment encountered other cultures, other lands. Halm is recognizably in the tradition of Bougainville when he names his protagonist ‘Jupiter’, since the French explorer saw Tahiti as Cythera, the mythical Greek island of love (we remember that Cook was sent to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus), and gave native men names from classical mythology – Ajax, Achilles, Nestor. 28 Back in England, Cook had worried about the truth-value of any account of Pacific cultures where language was so limited; impressions skewed through European mentalities had, he recognized, every likelihood of error, and his ghost-writer John Hawkesworth confirmed his fear by engaging mightily in ‘adjustments’ to Cook’s own accounts. The appropriation of the South Pacific to 27 Chapter III of the poem, ibidem, p. 233. 28 See Louis Antoine de Bougainville: A Voyage Round the World . . . in the Frigate ‘La Boudeuse’ and the Store Ship ‘L’Etoile’, trans Johann Reinhold Forster. London, 1772; John Dunmore: Storms and Dream: The Life of Louis de Bougainville. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2007; the same author: French Explorers in the Pacific. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965–9; and Béatrice Élizabeth Waggaman: Le voyage autour du monde de Bougainville: droit et imaginaire. Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1992.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms European projections of many kinds began immediately on his return. 29 The German botanists Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg had accompanied Cook on his second voyage and thereafter published their journals and travelogues; it was Georg Adam Forster (1754–1794) who made cannibalism a leitmotif in German fact and fiction about Pacific islanders, since his tales alleging its ubiquity are fraught to a degree. For example, the younger Forster tells of meeting poverty-stricken native peoples stinking of rancid hair oil and so dirty that no one could determine the real color of their “ugly, yellow-brown” skin in the islands off of New Zealand. 30 When they disembarked at Indian Cove, the first thing they saw were human intestines lying in a heap near the shore and other body parts, from which the natives said they had eaten. “We can now no longer have any remaining doubt that the New Zealanders are truly cannibals”, Forster writes, adding that the British crew acquired the victim’s head – they were always in pursuit of curiosities that would provide evidence of human possibilities unknown to British and European sensibilities – and that it is now in “Joh. Hunter’s anatomical cabinet in London”. 31 The Forsters’ three-volume tome, Reise um die Welt, während den Jahren 1772 bis 1775, published in Berlin in 1784, was a literary sensation;32 Goethe marveled at it, and he was not alone among Germans to do so. 33 These and numerous other accounts spawned poetry, novels, plays, a market in indigenous artifacts, an explosion of travel literature, and more;34 to cite just two examples, the Schubert poet Karl Lappe in Pomerania wrote a poem enti29 There is a vast bibliography on this subject. Readers new to the topic might want to consult John Cawte Beaglehole (ed.): The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995–1967; the same author: The Life of Captain James Cook. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1974; Johann Reinhold Forster: Observations Made during a Voyage round the World, ed. Nicholas Thomas, Harriet Guest, and Michael Dettelbach. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1996; Bernard Smith: European Vision and the South Pacific. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988; Brian W. Richardson: Longitude and Empire: How Captain Cook’s Voyages Changed the World. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2005; and Gananath Obeyesekere: The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. 30 Georg Forster: Reise um die Welt, p. 279. 31 Ibidem, pp. 287–288. 32 The most recent edition of this work is Georg Forster: Reise um die Welt. Illustriert von eigener Hand, with a biographical essay by Klaus Harpprecht and “Afterword” by Frank Vorpahl. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag, 2007. The volume includes splendid reproductions of Forster’s watercolors of plants, animals, and, most spectacularly, the aurora borealis over the Antarctic ocean. 33 See Detlef Rasmussen (ed.): Der Weltumsegler und seine Freunde: Georg Forster als gesellschaftlicher Schriftsteller der Goethezeit. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1988, and ed. by the same author: Goethe und Forster: Studien zum gegenständlichen Dichten. Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1985. 34 See Jürgen Goldstein: Georg Forster: Zwischen Freiheit und Naturgewalt. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2015; Ludwig Uhlig, Georg Forster: Lebensabenteuer eines gelehrten Weltbürgers. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004; and Ulrich Enzensberger: Georg Forster: Ein Leben in Scherben. Frankfurt: Eichborn, 1996.

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Susan Youens tled Forster und Wales auf der Südsee (Forster and Wales in the South Pacific) and translated a Swedish account of a journey to the West Indies. 35 And of course, another hugely important factor in the cannibal leitmotif in late eighteenth- and nineteenth century German literature was the Puritan moralist Daniel Defoe’s The Life and strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner of 1719, including an episode in which his protagonist discovers cannibals who visit the island on occasion to kill and eat prisoners. When one of those prisoners manages to escape on a Friday, Crusoe aids him, names him Friday, teaches him English, and converts him to Christianity. When another party of natives arrive for a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday manage to kill most of the natives and free two prisoners, one of them Friday’s father and the other a Spaniard who tells of other Spaniards shipwrecked on the island. Cannibalism is front-and-center in this and subsequent Robinsonades as an identifying feature of so-called ‘primitive peoples’: black Africans, red Indians, brown South Pacific islanders and Aztecs. 36 Scholars distinguish between cannibalism – fantasies that the Other is going to eat us – and anthropophagy, or actual consumption of human f lesh, 37 with one sub-category of anthropophagy having to do with civilized people who eat others’ f lesh in situations of shipwreck and starvation; throughout the centuries 35 See Karl Lappe: Blätter von Karl Lappe, vol. 2. Stralsund: In der Königl. Regierungs-Buchdruckerei, 1829, pp. 47–50, beginning “Wer sind Jene dort im kleinen Kahne, / Auf dem ungeheuren Ozeane, / An des Südpols niebeschifftem Saum? /Auf den mast- und steuerlosen Brettern / Ausgestoßen von erzürnten Göttern / In dem lebenleeren Schauderraum?” and ending, “Wendet, Helden, die verwegnen Pfade! / Flieht an Polynesiens Gestade. / Unschuldeiland, nimm die Müden auf. / Gastlich blühn Tahiti’s güldne Matten. Schlummert, schlummert in dem Kokoschatten!--- / Doch euch weckt ein neuer Heldenlauf.” See also Carl August Gosselman: Reise zwischen Nord- und Südamerika. Ein Skizzenbuch auf der See, trans. Karl Lappe. Rostock: Oeberg, 1834. 36 See Ter Ellingson: The Myth of the Noble Savage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001; Christian Werner Thomsen: Menschenfresser in der Kunst und Literatur, in fernen Ländern, Mythen, Märchen und Satiren, in Dramen, Liedern, Epen und Romanen: eine kannibalische Text-Bild-Dokumentation. Vienna: C. Brandstätter, 1983; Heidi Peter-Röcher: Mythos Menschenfresser: Ein Blick in die Kochtöpfe der Kannibalen. Munich: Beck, 1998; Marie Lorbeer and Beate Wild: Menschenfresser, Negerküsse: Das Bild vom Fremden in deutschen Alltag. Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1991; Sabine te Heesen, Der Blick in die kannibalische Welt: Anthropophagie in Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe, den Reisebeschreibungen zu James Cooks Weltumsegelungen und bei Marquis de Sade. Freiburg: Rombach, 2008 and Reinhard Stach: Robinson und Robinsonaden in der deutschsprachigen Literatur: Eine Bibliographie. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1991. I own a copy of Die wunderbare Lebensbeschreibung, und erstaunliche Begebenheiten des berühmten Helden Robinson Crusoe: welcher 28 Jahre auf einer unbewohnten Insel wohnete, die er nachderhand bevölkert hat printed in Philadelphia in 1788 by Carl Cist. 37 William Arens, in the pioneering The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, argues that the idea of savage cannibalism has little basis in empirical reality, that it is imputed to the Other, the Savage, the Alien and provides a justification for colonialism, conquest, even extermination, while Gannath Obeyesekere argues in Cannibal Talk: The Man-Eating Myth and Human Sacrifice in the South Seas. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2005, that anthropophagy existed in several human societies as a religious rite associated with human sacrifice.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms of seafaring exploration, both were subjects of great fascination throughout Europe. In Nicholaus Tulpius’s 1641 Observationem medicarum, we are told of seven Englishmen who set out from St. Kitts sometime before 1640 and were driven out to sea; lots were cast, and the victim was, by his own consent killed, his blood drunk and his body divided and eaten. 38 In December 1710, the Nottingham Galley was shipwrecked, and eleven survivors barely managed to exist on a raft by eating the ship’s carpenter after he died on board. In 1775, there was the shipwreck of the sloop Peggy, returning to New York after trading in the Azores; the crew, after eating the cat, tobacco, candles, and leather, cast lots for who should be killed and eaten. The fatal straw fell to a black slave, who became their source of food for nine days. The next year, the Tiger was shipwrecked, and – this time, without recourse to lots – the black youth on board was killed and eaten. 39 By the time Halm wrote his narrative, the ghastly real-life tale of the Medusa, shipwrecked off the coast of Mauritania, had played out in 1816 and had been immortalized in Théodore Géricault’s famous painting, displayed at the Paris Salon of 1819. Of the 147 people crowded onto that infamous raft, only fifteen survived, and some of those who died were victims of cannibalism. For those familiar with the painting, the apex of the giant triangle formed by Géricault’s design for this work is the beautifully heroic body of a young black man who has just spotted the distant rescue ship on the horizon (see Figure 2). These shipwreck tales were eventually so ubiquitous that survivors at times had to prove that they did not engage in anthropophagy. While we do not know what accounts Halm might have read, we can see that the core narrative of In der Südsee borrows mightily from history, indeed, seems a compilation of elements from various tales of shipwreck cannibalism. Halm turns Jupiter into a willing ‘pelican-like’ sacrifice for white men and women to eat. In medieval animal symbolism, the pelican represents Christ shedding his own blood for the sake of the world, analogous to legends of female pelicans nourishing their young with the blood from their breasts and one might expect the deeply pious Halm to give his hero just such a Christlike trait.40 To stage a black man as the protagonist is, of course, the most daring aspect of Halm’s poem; from this and other hints, we can discern that abolition and claims of full humanity for Africans fascinated him. Faust Pachler tells us that the older Halm began a drama about John Brown and the 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry but did not live to finish the work41 and that he planned to write a tragedy on ‘Hayti’, 38 See Obeyesekere: Cannibal Talk, p. 36. 39 Ibidem, pp. 36–37. 40 The Physiologus, written in Greek in Alexandria, Egypt in the second century A.D. by an unknown author, records legends of animals and gives each an allegorical interpretation, including the Christlike pelican. 41 Emil Kuh and Faust Pachler: “Vorwort der Hausgeber”, in: Friedrich Halm’s Werke, vol. 9: Neueste Gedichte. Nachlaß (1872), p. xi.

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Figure 2: Théodore Géricault, Le radeau de la Méduse/The Raft of the Medusa, 1818–1819, Musée du Louvre

presumably about the famous slave uprising from 1791 to 1804 that overthrew French control over the colony and inspired Heinrich von Kleist’s Die Verlobung in St. Domingo of 1811.42 In der Südsee also confronts other aspects of ‘Negermythos’, among them the notions of primitive sexuality that musicians will associate with Monostatos in Die Zauberf löte. Mozart, ever determined to create three-dimensional characters, enlists our qualified sympathy for the slave who lusts after Pamina by making clear Monostatos’s enslaved condition, his longing for the love others enjoy, and the self-hatred born of prejudice; he has taken onto himself the fear and loathing of black skin felt by many Europeans. “I know that your soul is as black as your face”, Sarastro tells him before condemning him to the bastinado. The scene in Halm’s first chapter in which Jupiter tries to woo Miss Lucy with an apple and then solicits her permission for a kiss, only to be rebuffed specifically for his blackness, both revives the earlier literary slave’s poignant assertion that he too, like everyone else, wants love and yet turns aside from Monostatos’s repeated attempts at rape. In der Südsee belongs to the ongoing project in European liter42 Ibidem, p. ix.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms ature – witness Herder’s Neger-Idyllen – to assert that Africans had sensibilities, ethics, morals, feelings, and beauty both of body and soul.43 Jupiter was formerly a slave: where he came from originally and how he escaped is not part of the narrative. By the time Halm’s poems were published, there was a considerable accumulation of European works pertaining to the slave trade: historical chronicles, newspaper accounts galore, travel literature, fiction, and autobiographies, such as the famous life story of Olaudah Equiano, the freed slave from what is now Nigeria who became an important figure in the British abolitionist movement.44 One of the earliest comprehensive accountings of the slave trade in the German-speaking world was Albert Hüne’s Vollständige historisch, philosophische Darstellung aller Veränderungen des Negersclavenhandels von dessen Ursprunge an bis zu sein gänzlichen Aufhebung, published in 1820 in Göttingen; in this mammoth compendium in two volumes Huné traces the world-history of slavery from antiquity onwards.45 A subject so germane to the contemplation and understanding of human nature soon found its way into poems with abolition at their white-hot hearts, works such as Christian Fürchtegott Gellert’s Die beiden Schwarzen, Matthias Claudius’s Der Schwarze in der Zucker-Plantage, and Adelbert von Chamisso’s Die Neger und die Marionetten, adapted loosely from a French poem by Pierre-Jean de Béranger. In Chamisso’s ballad, the owner of a slave ship, concerned that his cargo was dying and that his profits might be lost, puts on a marionette show to amuse them; every stanza ends with the owner’s refrain, ‘Gute Sklaven, seid vergnügt’.46 Heine’s late masterpiece, Das Sklavenschiff, begins with a Dutch slave-owner similarly fretting about saleable human merchandise dying before it can be sold and forcing the wretched captives to dance (based on historical 43 Johann Gottfried Herder: Neger-Idyllen in Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität, vol. 2. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1971, pp. 2348–2367. See also Willfried Feuser: “The Image of the Black in the Writings of Johann Gottfried Herder”, in: Journal of European Studies 8 (1978), pp. 109–128; Ursula Wertheim: “Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubarts Artikel zum Kolonial- und Sklaverei-Problem und Herders ‘Neger Idyllen’”, in: Herder Kolloquium 1978: Referate und Diskussionsbeiträge, ed. Walter Dietze. Weimar: Böhlau, 1978; and Marian Musgrave: “Herder, Blacks, and the ‘Negeridyllen’: A Study in Ambivalent Humanitarianism” in Studia Africana 1 (1977), pp. 89–99. . 44 See Olaudah Equiano: The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, written by himself. London: Printed for the author, 1789. The work was promptly translated into German as G. F. Benecke (trans.): Olaudah Equiano’s oder Gustav Wasa’s, des Afrikaners merkwürdige Lebensgeschichte von ihm selbst geschrieben. Göttingen: Johann Christian Dieterich, 1792. 45 Albert Hüne: Vollständige historisch, philosophische Darstellung aller Veränderungen des Negersclavenhandels von dessen Ursprunge an bis zu sein gänzlichen Aufhebung. Göttingen: J.F Roewer, 1820. 46 See Christian Fürchtegott Gellert: “Die beiden Schwarzen”, in: Sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 1. Hildesheim: Olms, 1968, reproduction of Leipzig, 1769 edn, p. 23; Matthias Claudius: “Der Schwarze in der Zucker-Plantage”, in: Werke, ed. Urban Roedel. Stuttgart: Cotta, 6th edn 1965, p. 20; and Adelbert von Chamisso, “Die Neger und die Marionetten”, in: Werke, vol. 2, ed. Hermann Tardel. Leipzig and Vienna: Bibliographisches Institut, 1907, p. 141. There are many other such works; I cite only a few.

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Susan Youens fact). And one cannot forget the enormous inf luence of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin of 1852, which appeared in Germany in at least 75 different editions in the last half of the century and in forty-one distinct versions. For despairing and disillusioned Europeans in the post-1848 revolutionary years, this work was a Brennpunkt, a burning focus of liberal passions. And not just in Germany: one edition from 1900 proclaims the novel “das weltberühmte Buch über das Elend der Negersklaven”, and it was indeed world-renowned.47 Certain German reviewers, while recognizing what was American and even female about the book (“Only a woman with the most feeling heart could have written this”, one of them declares), eagerly assimilated it to Germany’s literary tradition, comparing little Eva to Goethe’s Mignon, with Topsy her opposite. There was even a set of Lieder entitled Gesänge zu Onkel Tom’s Hütte, composed by one Georg Linley, published by Weber in Leipzig, and advertised in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik for 1853, although I have not been able to locate a copy.

II. Brahmsian appropriation and transformation of Schubert But everything summarized above is backdrop to Halm’s poem, not Brahms’s music composed decades later, well after both Halm’s death and the last slave ships. What, I wonder, drew him to this inset-song for musical setting? Sympathies for black emancipation did not drive his enterprise as it did a small number of Halm’s works, but Jupiter’s song binds together an entire complex of themes important to Brahms as age encroached more and more, and it invited a particular and radical musical treatment, with nods to those perennial Brahms inf luences: Baroque music and Schubert. Most crucial of all, it is a death-song. By 1884, for all his pleasure in the summer expedition that year to the shores of Lake Como, Brahms had already been affected by the mounting death toll among his circle of friends, with the painter Anselm Feuerbach dying in 1880 (Nänie is Brahms’s eulogy for him), Gustav Nottebohm in 1882, and the composer Karl Grädener in 1883. Furthermore, his relationship with Joseph Joachim, one of his longest-standing friends, was severely strained after the great violinist divorced his wife, the contralto Amalie Schneeweiss/Weiss in 1881, with Brahms caught in the middle—but taking Amalie’s side. We know that childlessness had very recently been on Brahms’s mind, given the death of his friend Friedrich Chrysander’s eldest son in a military hospital in April 1884. Elisabet von Herzogenberg’s letter of 10 April conveying the sad news included her observation, “The sight of such grief makes one almost – but only almost! – wonder whether those superficial people are right who say it is bet47 See Grace Edith Maclean: ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ in Germany. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1910.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms ter to have no children to lose”.48 Brahms wrote back, saying, “Don’t you see now that it is a trif le to the Deity to inf lict worse punishment than childlessness! And this poor man had no happiness except his work and his home”.49 Add to all of this the lifelong love for Clara Schumann, with whom he could never live for whatever tangled complex of reasons, and one might expect a poem that unites in one wormwood-and-gall nugget the looming presence of death and bitterness at the lack of family to attract his gaze in the last phase of his life. Jupiter’s isolation is far more total than Brahms’s, but awareness of what he lacked in life might account in some indeterminate measure for what drew him to this poem. Anger, terror, defiance, misery, and most of all, a sense of the irrevocable are compounded here. Even supposedly pure and abstract musical matters have their psychological components: there are reasons deeply, if sometimes inexplicably, bound up with a composer’s personality that makes him or her gravitate to particular composers and works and grapple with them. Brahms conducted a sometimes covert, sometimes overt dialogue with Schubert’s songs throughout his life, his Schubertian hommages always transformed, made his own and fitted into a new poetic and musical context. For example, even when he appropriated Schubert’s Der Leiermann virtually wholesale for his six-voice double canon Einförmig ist der Liebe Gram, Op. 113, he converts song into counterpoint, assigns the music to multiple female voices rather than a single male voice (although now women also sing the winter journey), interweaves elements of both Schubert’s vocal line and piano part into the canonic arrangement, and thereby makes us hear the prior work very differently indeed. It is as if the hurdy-gurdy tune-and-response had multiplied and was echoing contrapuntally through the corridors of the mind. According to Kalbeck, this capstone of a set published in 1891 was perhaps composed “after 1888, most probably in Ischl”, although 1877 was also proposed as a date by the conductor Franz Wüllner. 50 ‘Der Leiermann’, we realize, has an afterlife in which such a singular song can be re-made in a manner uniquely Brahmsian. When we look at the text to which he attaches the world’s most famous hurdy-gurdy lied, we realize that Brahms used a Persian paraphrase from Friedrich Rückert’s Die Makamen des Hariri to comment on his own relationship to the earlier masterpiece: “The grief of love is monotonous, / A song with one note; / yet whenever I heard it, I had to hum softly along with it”. 51 No wonder he thought of Der Leiermann: that song is ‘einförmig’ (but in an immense way), fixed on the single harmony of A minor 48 Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mit Heinrich und Elisabet von Herzogenberg, vol. 2, pp. 25–26. 49 Ibidem, p. 27. 50 See Max Kalbeck: Johannes Brahms, vol. 4: 1886-1897, pp. 217–219 and Margit McCorkle: Johannes Brahms: Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, pp. 451–459. 51 Friedrich Rückert: Friedrich Rückert’s gesammelte poetische Werke in zwölf Bänden, vol. 5. Frankfurt: J. D. Sauerländer’s Verlag, 1868, p. 357. Maqamah are an Arabic prosimetric literary genre which alternates rhymed prose known as Saj’ with intervals of poetry characterized by rhetorical extravagance.

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Susan Youens (and the later composer kept the key of Schubert’s first edition), frozen in place. But recollecting it, he had to hum along, in the most elevated way (see Example 1). Many people have observed the out-in-the-open quotation of the famous ending of Schubert’s ‘Der Doppelgänger’ at the close of Brahms’s Herbstgefühl, Op. 48, No. 7, on a death-haunted poem by Adolf Friedrich von Schack – Brahms’s song itself becomes a Doppelgänger of Schubert’s creation from forty years earlier –, 52 but the workings of Brahms’s absorption of that model and the presence of a Goethe poem and other Schubert songs have not been discussed, nor have the appropriations from Schubert in Brahms’s Dämmrung senkte sich von oben, Op. 59, no. 1. Because the first thing one hears in Kein Haus, keine Heimat is, I believe, a potent reference to Schubert’s Ihr Bild, one of the most inf luential songs in the entire nineteenth century, a brief look at these two predecessors in Schubert-homage and appropriation might stand in good stead before we return to the late years. Looking at the refined art-patron Adolf Friedrich von Schack’s poem, one can readily understand why Brahms thought not only of Der Doppelgänger but of several other Schubert songs as he devised the music for his Op. 48, no. 7. 53 Herbstgefühl

Autumn feeling

Wie wenn im frostgen Windhauch tötlich Des Sommers letzte Blüte krankt, Und hier und da nur, gelb und rötlich Ein einzles Blatt im Windhauch schwankt,–

As when summer’s last flower falls fatally ill in the freezing wind, and only here and there, yellow and reddish, a solitary leaf stirs in the breeze.

So schauert über mein Leben Ein nächtig trüber kalter Tag, Warum noch vor dem Tode beben, O Herz, mit deinem ewgen Schlag! Sieh rings entblättert das Gestäude! Was spielst du, wie der Wind am Strauch, Noch mit der letzten welken Freude? Gib dich zur Ruh, bald stirbt sie auch.

So there shudders over my life a darkly cold and somber day; why do you still tremble at the thought of death, O heart, with your eternal beating! See the shrubs all stripped of leaves! Why still trifle, like the wind in the bushes, with the withered happiness that remains? Surrender to rest, soon that happiness too will die.

52 See Hartmut Krones: “Der Einfluss Franz Schuberts auf das Liedschaffen von Johannes Brahms”, p. 323; Max Friedländer, p. 58; and Konrad Giebeler: Die Lieder von Johannes Brahms. Ein Beitrag zur Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Münster, 1959, p. 49. 53 Margit McCorkle: Johannes Brahms: Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, pp. 188–195.

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Example 1: Johannes Brahms, Einförmig ist der Liebe Gram, Op. 113, bb. 1–9

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Susan Youens Schack, in a didactic manner one would never see in Heine, makes evident his recourse to analogy: we are given the image in Nature in the first stanza, the inner shudder and the question “Why?” in the second stanza, and finally another rhetorical question (or is it?) to the inner self, culminating in a blatant variation on Goethe’s closing lines for Wandrers Nachtlied. Instead of Goethe’s self-injunction “Warte nur, balde / ruhest du auch”, we find Schack’s “Gib dich zur Ruh, bald stirbt sie auch”. What the great poet clothes in his signature acceptance, his love of Nature even as one grows weary and the light dims, becomes something far more infused with Weltschmerz in Schack, the poem couched in un-Goethean darkness before the admonition in the last line; one notes the ‘question’ in stanza 2 that culminates, not with a question mark but an exclamation point. And the poem has other tendrils connecting to past poetry for music. I agree wholeheartedly with Graham Johnson that one attraction for Brahms in Schack’s poem was the “last leaf ” trembling in the wind quite in the manner of Wilhelm Müller’s imperiled leaf in Letzte Hoffnung from Winterreise.54 “Last hope” in Müller becomes “last withered joys” in Schack; Müller’s wanderer has long been devoid of joy by the second half of the cycle and instead does battle with almost-ineradicable human hope. If Schack was speculatively inspired by Müller and Goethe, Brahms was inspired by Schubert. The earlier composer who understood that the horror of Heine’s scenario in Der Doppelgänger has to do with Time and repetition – the ingredients of Hell –, makes of the words “so manche Nacht, in alter Zeit” the huge, howling climax of Der Doppelgänger, followed immediately by the return to bleakness in the form of the grim ground bass progression we heard at the beginning and thereafter (see Example 2). 55 Heine’s masterpiece of a poem ironizes loss of identity and anagnorisis; recognition in this instance is not knowledge. Furthermore, lost time and past times are at the heart of the matter, hence Schubert’s choice of an antique mirroring pattern borrowed from Bach. Its principal ingredients are semitones transposed and mirrored, incomplete simultaneities that do not form full triads, and circular motion, potentially trapping us in a hell of repetition and telling us before a word is sung that the news will not be good, that horror is in the offing. As Brahms shifts from ¾ meter to 6/4 meter for the solemn conclusion in bb. 80–92 (see Example 3)

54 Graham Johnson: The Songs of Johannes Brahms, vol. 1, p. 14 of the notes for Hyperion CDJ33121 (2008) with Angelika Kirchschlager, mezzo-soprano, and Graham Johnson, piano. 55 Recent scholarly works on ‘Der Doppelgänger’ include Jürgen Thym: “Invocations of memory in Schubert’s last songs”, in: Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 383–403 and Benjamin Binder, “Disability, Self-Critique and Failure in Schubert’s ‘Der Doppelgänger’”, in: Rethinking Schubert ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 418–436.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms he twice quotes and varies the two Schubertian sources: at Schack’s words “Gib dich zur Ruh”.56 Brahms takes Schubert’s contrary motion mirroring on the scalewise

Example 2: Franz Schubert, Der Doppelgänger, in: Schwanengesang, D. 957, no. 13, bb. 51–56

Example 3: Johannes Brahms, Herbstgefühl, Op. 48, no. 7, bb. 81–92 56 There is a subtle difference between surrendering, giving oneself to death/repose and waiting for it, as in Goethe.

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Susan Youens interval of a third between the inner voices in the piano and the vocal line at the words “Warte nur, warte nur, balde” (we first find the procedure in bars 3–4 in the piano intertwined with the cadential words “Gipfeln ist Ruh”) and begins his final passage with a clear reminiscence of these famous measures (see Example 4). The phrase markings in the piano make clear the relationship between D E F-sharp in the bass and F-sharp E D in the topmost voice and vocal line. We have encountered the gesture earlier in the song, but without the emblematic words that point to an earlier masterpiece of poetry and an earlier masterpiece of song: in bars 22–23 and bar 24–25 at the words ‘einzles Blatt’ (see Example 5). From the reminiscence of Wandrers Nachtlied, we slip into the devastatingly slow Baroque mordent by which Schubert prolonged ‘olden times’ in Der Doppelgänger, where the mouth is held open on the vowel ah- (‘al-ter’) after the fashion of a frozen scream or moue of horror. In Brahms, the mordent sustains the verb at the heart of it all, ‘stirbt’ (percussive t’s at the beginning and end of the word, the later poet replacing Goethe’s open a- with something that bites). 57 Now the quotation is apparent: earlier, in bars 29–34 at the words ‘im Windhauch schwankt’, at the close of stanza 1, Brahms first recalled this same gesture from Der Doppelgänger, but perhaps because there is no tonic closure in the vocal line at b. 32 and no distinctive rhythmic treatment to set the vocal gesture apart as a mordent, we only become fully aware of the Schubert reference at the end. The realization that it was there all along is retrospective. At the end of Herbstgefühl, the ‘Gibt dich zur Ruh’ mirrored thirds in the piano sound underneath the Doppelgänger citation in the voice: the two Schubertian references are thus conjoined in the most moving and clever way. Both in the opening section and here at the end, Brahms links successive rising third patterns in the bass so that the left hand on crucial occasions traces a scalar span of a sixth (an inverted third), for example, the cadence in F-sharp minor at bars 30–34, with the span from C-sharp to A traced in the left hand. At the final cadence, rather than the dotted rhythm by which Schubert emphasizes the motion to the percussive t’s and z’s of ‘[al]-ter Zeit’, Brahms proceeds in duplet quarters in the wake of triplet quarters, a built-in ritardando en route to descent into the piano’s bottommost depths in the final measure (Schubert too sinks into the depths at the close of his Heine song). For those who know their Schubert, listening to the end of Herbstgefühl is a singular and, for me, unsettling experience. A multiple musical palimpsest of this sort acts as a corridor of mirrors, a memory palace, the later composer remembering his predecessor and the predecessor looking both back in time to the eighteenth century and forward to future death. 57 See Clemens Goldberg: “Vergänglichkeit als ästhetische Kategorie und Erlebnis” for a discussion of tonal and harmonic aspects of this song, in: Brahms als Liedkomponist ed. Peter Jost. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992, pp. 199–202.

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Example 4: Franz Schubert, Wandrers Nachtlied, D. 768, bb. 9–14

Example 5: Johannes Brahms, Herbstgefühl, Op. 48, no. 7, bb. 21–28

Nor are these the only twists and turns on the Schubertian model in Brahms’s song. Schubert’s ground bass consists harmonically of incomplete triads and melodically of two ‘sighing figures’ (B A-sharp, D C-sharp) contained within the 453

Susan Youens interval of a Monteverdi diminished fourth – one could hardly ask for a more consummate musical compound to symbolize mournfulness, ref lections and mirroring, dubiety about identity, and ghostliness/loss of substance. Brahms too creates a four-bar introduction filled with incomplete simultaneities, but with his trademark thirds throughout, sans Schubert’s hollow fifths at the start and close of the ground bass pattern (see Examples 6). Brahms’s top voice also traces two ‘sighing figures’ A G-sharp, F-sharp E-sharp, contained within the span of a diminished fourth from A to E-sharp, although they are differently disposed than Schubert’s evocative semitones. In fact, Brahms’s scalewise descent within the Monteverdi fourth calls up Schubert’s predilection in many of his works for the lamento descending tetrachord, as in the first movement of the Quartettsatz. Already, we are in a tonal no-man’s land, with the voice-exchange that turns E-natural (b. 2) into E-sharp (b. 4) and a studied avoidance thereafter of root position tonic, as noted. Going back and forth as Brahms does between a wispy D-G axis and an equally wispy F-sharp C-sharp axis, we hardly know where we are – and how brilliantly Brahms alludes both to these wavering harmonies and to Schubert’s transposed semitones in Der Doppelgänger at the very end. The bass line creeps up to sound the fragmentary third A C-sharp in b. 89 and then sustains the interval across the barline . . . at this late date, are we going to the relative major? No, says Brahms, emphasizing F-sharp and C-sharp with their lower semitone neighbor note pitches: E-sharp/F-sharp, B-sharp (previously C-natural)/C-sharp, ascending rather than descending as in Schubert. It is as if Brahms were both acknowledging Schubert, making the Schubertian gestures his own, and seeing whether he could perhaps outdo his predecessor in fragmentation and tonal uncertainty as sounding analogues of alienation. Five years after the publication of Herbstgefühl, Brahms again alludes to various Schubert models in his setting of Goethe’s Dämm’rung senkte sich von oben. It is fascinating to watch later nineteenth-century composers search through Goethe’s works for poems not set to music by their famous predecessors, and it is difficult to imagine a poem more beautifully suited to Brahms than this one, drawn from the Chinesisch-Deutsche Jahres- und Tageszeiten of 1827. Dämm’rung senkte sich von oben is the eighth poem in the cycle of fourteen and, justly, the most famous. 58 Dämmrung senkte sich von oben, Schon ist alle Nähe fern, Doch zuerst empor gehoben Holden Lichts der Abendstern.

Dusk has fallen from on high, All that was near now is distant; But there the evening star appears Shining on high with its lovely light!

58 See Elizabeth Selden: China in German Poetry from 1773 to 1833. University of California Publications in Modern Philology, vol. 25, no. 3, 1942, and Meredith Lee: Studies in Goethe’s Lyric Cycles. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978.

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Example 6a: Johannes Brahms, Herbstgefühl, Op. 48, no. 7, bb. 1–4

Example 6b: Franz Schubert, Der Doppelgänger, in: Schwanengesang, D. 957, no. 13, bb. 1–4

Alles schwankt in’s Ungewisse, Nebel schleichen in die Höh’, Schwarzvertiefte Finsternisse Widerspiegelnd ruht der See.

All sways in an uncertain blur, The mists creep up; Ever blacker depths of darkness Are mirrored in the silent lake.

Nun am östlichen Bereiche Ahn’ ich Mondenglanz und Glut, Schlanker Weiden Haargezweige Scherzen auf der nächsten Flut.

Now in the eastern reaches I sense the moon’s light and glow. The branching hair of slender willows Frolics on the nearby water.

Durch bewegter Schatten Spiele Through the play of moving shadows, Zittert Lunas Zauberschein, The moon’s magic light quivers down, Und durch’s Auge And coolness steals through the eye schleicht die Kühle Sänftigend in’s Herz hinein. Soothingly into the heart. Gathering darkness, impending moonlight, reflections in the lake, shifting and uncertain atmospheres, everything awash in uncertainty that could potentially turn 455

Susan Youens menacing but does not, is instead beautifully consolatory at the close: everything in this exquisite evocation of peace at the end of day/life beckoned to Brahms’ contrapuntal mind and tonal language. It also called up multiple memories of Schubert and his setting of an earlier Goethe poem, Auf dem See, D. 543b, the poem written when Goethe was on holiday at Lake Zurich in 1775, as well as Schubert’s Der Winterabend, D. 938. Both in Auf dem See and the pseudo-Chinese poem written over fifty years later, the poet’s sensibility is a living thing in its own right, cradled in Nature’s loving arms, but the earlier lake poem tells of a younger man’s ripening into life while the later one tells of the approach of death’s darkness – but a darkness still illuminated by the moon and stars – for a much older man. Acceptance of death, continued love of life, join forces in best Goethean manner. In Brahms’s setting, the Schubertian reminiscences are perhaps not as evident as they are in Herbstgefühl (in fact, some might accuse me of Chinese whispers for a pseudo-Chinese poem). In Auf dem See, Schubert animates the waves in the left hand of bb. 20–33 (“Die Welle wieget unsern Kahn im Rudertakt hinauf ”) by means of a syncopated rhythmic pattern in the right hand, contained within each barline of 6/8 meter: the harmonic waves rise and fall beneath a gently swaying boat (see Example 7).

Example 7: Franz Schubert, Auf dem See, D. 543, bb. 19–23

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms It is at the first invocation of light in bb. 13–20 of Brahms’s song that we find a variation on the same compound of gestures, with simultaneities in the right and a moving bass line in the left, the same recurring in bb. 33–40 and thereafter in the song. It is also a Schubertian fingerprint to go from minor to parallel major or back; for the final stanza and the moon’s consolatory glow, Brahms goes to G major and he does so via stages. We depart the possibility of menace in tonic G minor when the first hints of moon rise are detected in the east; from the depths of dark G minor (the cadence completed at the peaceful lake in bb. 40–41), we rise to E-f lat major through its dominant in bb. 41–45. The change from the A-natural supertonic of G minor to the A-f lat belonging to E-f lat major is beautifully emphasized in b. 44: we expect A-natural in the topmost line, so both the f latted pitch and its downbeat dissonance – a poignant pinprick to make the moment of change stand out – are quietly affecting (see Example 8).

Example 8: Johannes Brahms, Dämmrung senkte sich von oben, Op. 59, no. 1, bb. 13–21

The moonrise – “Nun am östlichen Bereiche ahn ich Mondenglanz und Glut” (bb. 46–53) – is located at first in the ethereal treble register but with the voice and bass line doubling one another for the first three bars, rising through the new 457

Susan Youens tonic triad. “Listen, pay heed, this arrival matters,” Brahms hints in a fashion borrowed from Schubert and made new here. Where Schubert’s instances of voicebass doubling tend to the maximally forceful, this is a hushed, awestruck passage that blossoms into a radiant crescendo, which is then muted almost immediately. 59 While the resemblance is far from exact, Schubert’s moonrise in the Leitner song Der Winterabend, at the words “Nur der Mondenschein kommt leise zu mir in’s Gemach”, also traces a quietly ecstatic melodic ascent contained within an octave and featuring a mordent, Schubert’s at the end of the vocal phrase and Brahms’s a slowed-down figure at the words “ahn ich Mondenglanz” (see Examples 9).

Example 9a: Franz Schubert, Der Winterabend, D. 938, bb. 40–43

59 Michael Spitzer: “Axial Lyric Space in Two Late Songs: ‘Im Freien’ and ‘Der Winterabend’”, in: Rethinking Schubert, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 264–272, points out Schubert’s axial spaces and his proclivity for rising arcs.

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Example 9b: Johannes Brahms, Dämmrung senkte sich von oben, Op. 59, no. 1, bb. 46–53

The moonlight even arrives in E-f lat major in both of these songs, from G major in Schubert (one of his loveliest common-tone sudden modulations) and G minor in Brahms, and in both poems, the moon is a consolatory premonition of death, of dying as anyone would wish it to be. Brahms’s moon-rise is a far more cloaked hommage à Schubert than in Herbstgefühl and elsewhere, especially as both Der Winterabend and Dämmrung senkte sich von oben are songs for connoisseurs, but I still sense Schubert’s drifting away to peaceful death as the precursor for the elderly Goethe’s ‘soothing coolness’. That Brahms ends his song with one of his trademark profoundly consoling plagal cadences – the combination of the leading tone diminished seventh chord in the right hand of the penultimate measure (b. 93) with the hollow open fifth for the subdominant in the left hand is another of Brahms’s marvelous dissonances – is the perfect ending, especially given the poignant contrast between triumphal C major chords and the downward trajectory to C minor in bb. 84–87 (another Schubertian fingerprint, of course). The word “sänftigend” in this passage is at the crux of it all, its major mode manifestation the climax of the song: that the death announced by moonlight should be “soothing” is the miracle here. Schubert’s winter evening has an open ending, Brahms’s a closed ending, but they are still, I believe, sisters under the skin. 459

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III. An anti-Lied: Kein Haus, keine Heimat Schubert’s Ihr Bild begins, of course, with the famous two bars of octave B-f lats that Schenker compared to eyes, and Brahms’s Kein Haus – more than half a century later – begins similarly with two bars of octave D’s, the tonic pitch in a D minor song (as we only discover later).60 Where Schubert softly sustains the B-f lat pitches, Brahms sends a jolt of staccato electricity through pitches sounding across two octaves in the bass clef, rather than Schubert’s one, Brahms typically separating himself from Schubert in the hushed violence and percussive bite of his later gesture – and yet, the relationship is clear. In neither song can we know that those doubled pitches are ‘tonic’: they come out of nowhere, with no harmonic or tonal garb to identify them, only an emptiness that already tells us of dire matters to follow. They are musical mystery incarnate, and both Schubert and Brahms proceed to compound that mystery, not lessen it, when the voice enters. Like Schubert, Brahms sounds the initial low bass pitch on the downbeat, with no anacrusis, and then immediately echoes it on the weak half of the first beat and two octaves higher, thus wrong-footing us rhythmically from the outset. How to interpret Brahms’s ‘wedge’-accent/decrescendo markings in bb. 1–2 is only the beginning of the song’s complexities: do we place more emphasis on the lowest bass pitch directly on the downbeat and make the echo softer, or do both the single bass pitch and the octave echo share a similar soft ‘punch’, a like intensity? Before we hear a word, we sense immanent and terrible fatality (see Examples 10). Further savagery ensues when the piano and singer join forces.61 The poem, as we have seen, begins with a catalogue of all those cherished things that give us roots, identity, and a raison d’être. It is not that this speaker once had the felicities of home, wife, and child and then lost them: they have never been his. Therefore Brahms devises a way to make the nouns that follow each of four negations (“kein”, “keine”) memorably emphatic, to group them as equivalent causes of pain. A novice music theory student or mediocre composer, given Brahms’s first vocal phrase and told to harmonize it in D minor, would almost certainly set the word “Haus” on the downbeat of b. 3 as the first fully f leshed-out D minor tonic chord of the song, in the wake of those skeletal tonic pitches, telling us in retrospect that they were indeed the key center. Not Brahms: he sets the F in the 60 Brahms was not the only the only fin-de-siècle composer haunted by ‘Ihr Bild’. At the beginning of the Mörike masterpiece ‘Denk’ es, o Seele!’ by Hugo Wolf, we hear soft octave B-flats (the same pitch as in Schubert’s song) sustained as a rhythmic tocsin in 6/8 meter. Two different open-ended cadential passages in the treble then try to decipher the meaning of those runic pitches; see Susan Youens: “Mörike’s Mozart, Wolf ’s Schubert: ‘Denk’ es, o Seele!’”, in: Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, Neue Folge 24 (2004), pp. 83–114. 61 I am grateful to Heather Platt for her prior excellent analysis of this song in Text-music relationships in the lieder of Johannes Brahms, PhD dissertation, City University of New York (1992), pp. 316–321.

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Example 10a: Franz Schubert, Ihr Bild, in: Schwanengesang, D. 957, no. 9, bb. 1–2

Example 10b: Johannes Brahms, Kein Haus, keine Heimat, Op. 94, no. 5, bb. 1–2

vocal line to what sounds like an augmented triad on F, in second inversion with C-sharp in the bass – an unexpected, harsh, and very arresting choice of something to do with the leading tone of the key (see Example 11). Is it a beefed-up C-sharp to D appoggiatura to the tonic chord, which appears on the ordinarily weak second beat of the measure (still more deliberate wrong-footing)? Is the whole bar a prolongation of D minor with the III+ chord a Riemannian “substitute” for the dominant? But the diminuendo works against this interpretation because it de-emphasizes the tonic arrival. (Importantly, every two-bar or four-bar unit in this song is a decrescendo . . . until the final phrase.) There is no dominant harmony until b. 9, although the A and C-sharp pitches in this oft-repeated simultaneity are shared in common with the dominant chord of D – but there is no E anywhere in sight until the end of the first verse. Tonic and dominant are remarkably unstable in this song: a powerful symbol from within the fundamentals of harmonic and tonal laws of the utter upheaval of Jupiter’s psyche on the brink of death. The repeated gesture first heard in bb. 3–4 only 461

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Example 11: Johannes Brahms, Kein Haus, keine Heimat, Op. 94, no. 5, bb. 2–10

emphasizes how chained we are to an unconventionally (to put it mildly) defined D minor, to the one harmony. Eight times in a song only twenty bars long, we hear this (non)-progression; lest we miss its importance, Brahms marks its first occurrence sforzando, this in the wake of the first two soft measures. We have heard this before: in yet another Schubertian reminiscence, this blurring of tonic chord and augmented mediant will make anyone familiar with their Schubert recall the piano introduction to the Heine song Der Atlas (see Example 12).62 Given Jupiter’s mythological identification with the Roman king of the gods, I wonder whether Brahms thought of Schubert’s prior Titan bearing the world’s suffering on his shoulders and availed himself of that potent musical emblem of unbearable pain. How much more epigrammatic can a musical stanza be than here? The song is essentially a single period, an antecedent-consequent in the form of two ‘sentences’, 2 + 2 + 4, that do not behave as one might expect: they both end on the tonic (highly unusual in a first phrase in particular). All those C-sharps in bb. 3 and 5 are cancelled by C-natural in b. 7 at the emphatic start of a sequence in which the vocal line descends the Phrygian tetrachord D C B-f lat A, with all its tradition62 I am grateful to the brilliant Loretta Terrigno for reminding me of this at a recent conference on “Text and Music in Song” at the University of Rochester.

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Example 12: Franz Schubert, Der Atlas, in: Schwanengesang, D. 957, no. 8, bb. 1–3

al imputations of mournfulness. We would ordinarily expect this tetrachord to culminate on the dominant (the normative ending), but very little obeys rules of normativity in this hell of the mind; instead, the soprano descent to the dominant is harmonized by an insistent tonic. The second phrase, beginning on b. 11, ends in the vocal line on the dominant – but is harmonized by the insistent tonic in prolongation, emphasized by the crescendo that is so shocking at the end. Furthermore, Brahms, that consummate master of rhythmic and metric intricacies, seized upon Halm’s bitter depiction of human existence as a straw blown about in stormy weather to make 3/8 metre a matter of maximum instability. In the 2 + 2 half-phrases, the piano underscores the triple meter in the voice, but the combined rhythmic-motivic gesture in the piano whereby the bass pitch sounds on the stronger first half of the beat and its echo in the right hand on the second half, is tossed about like a straw in the wind throughout the last four bars of each mini-stanza: “So wirbl’ ich, ein Strohhalm” indeed. Brahms begins the two curt lines of poetry on the third beat of the measure, but treats it like a downbeat, the start of a two-leg sequential descending progression with each leg comprising three beats (“So wirbl’ ich, / ein Strohhalm, /”); he shifts the expected strong beat to happen one beat earlier. In a remarkable drive-to-cadence, the wrong-footing figure that dominates this song then sounds on every other beat: the third beat in bb. 6-8, the second beat in b. 9 (rhythmic compression and an accelerando en route to cadence), and finally the downbeat of b. 10, with its stark arrival at the unharmonized tonic pitch in the piano and voice, elided with the return of bb. 1-2. The emphasized third beat at the end of b. 7 overlaps with the very Brahmsian hemiola that brings the phrase to its cadence; the last beat of b. 8, the second beat of b. 9, and the first beat of b. 10 produce a 3/2 bar that overlaps with the prevailing 3/4 metre. Never was a straw in the wind more strictly patterned to sound chaotic. If bb. 8-10 are the only iv-V-i cadence in the song, the vocal line complicates matters with its passing tone E. Vocal line and piano are disjunct, at odds with each other. 463

Susan Youens In Halm’s narrative, this song is the last moment of Jupiter’s life, seconds before his pelican-like sacrifice. Brahms, aware of the entire story, creates a Lied pinned to D minor, to Death, a song that goes nowhere and yet refuses to define that ‘nowhere’ in conventional ways. One wonders whether Brahms had Der Leiermann– even more restricted in its musical means – in mind when he composed his own song of utmost alienation. This song, however, ends with a Picardy third conclusion to a final plagal cadence that could not sound less churchly than it does here. (These Picardy third endings are, by the way, a hallmark of op. 94: three of the five songs end with them.) The Schubertian feat of making parallel major bespeak a mixture of bitterness and defiance within the context of minor mode is on display here at the end of Kein Haus, keine Heimat– the appearance of C major at the words “auf dieser ganzen Reise” near the end of Der greise Kopf from Winterreise is one example. The previous cadence at the end of stanza 1, at the words “in Wetter und Wind”, is a strong authentic cadence complete with tonic closure in the vocal line, albeit eerily soft, but the final cadence is different-– as it would have to be. Jupiter’s question, “ . . . was frag ich nach dir?” is both a rhetorical query/proclamation and a cry of despair, and Brahms compounds every element of his music to heighten the final declaration in every detail. Instead of tonic closure, Brahms transposes the prior written-out trill in the vocal line on E and F, falling to D, up a step to F and G, resolving upwards to A. Harmonically, this second cadence is weaker than the first, with the sudden violent crescendo compensating for the lack of harmonic strength at the close. Furthermore, the 3/2 hemiola continues right to the very end, with the 3/2 bar then followed by 2/2; as before, the ending seems like an incomplete bar in which the last beat arrives early. The final bass tone-and-chord pair sounds just after the singing stops, and it is difficult not to hear it as the final blow, as both the character’s and Death’s grim triumph. Weakness and strength are here conjoined. This is surely among the most shocking, surprising endings in all of nineteenth-century song (see Example 13).

Example 13: Johannes Brahms, Kein Haus, keine Heimat, Op. 94, no. 5, bb. 15–20

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms * * * What might it mean that Brahms was drawn to this text, of all texts, for what became the ‘last word’ in his 94th opus? Brahms angrily batted away any inferences of autobiography in his art, but that does not mean that they are not there, however buried, encoded, and complex, as Paul Berry has so movingly demonstrated.63 We make art both out of what we are and what we know; songs contain both the abstract ordering of pitches, chords, and rhythms and the Jacob-wrestling-withthe-angel of existence that each of us undergoes in one way or another. And it was not just Schubert who is at work in these songs, but Schumann too. Yet another lost Halm song was originally conceived for this set and was meant to precede Kein Haus: a setting of the eighth and last poem, Was weht um meine Schläfe, taken from Halm’s poetic cycle Hochzeitlieder.64 Schumann had set this same poem to music in 1850 as Geisternähe, Op. 77, no. 3. Halm’s entire cycle is spoken in the embittered voice of a man unable to let go of obsessive fantasies about a woman he loved, someone who barely noticed him and married another man. Without the gall-laden seven preceding poems, Schumann could and did fashion something wistful, poignant, and sweet from the cycle’s ‘last thought’. By 1884, however, it had been a very long time indeed since Brahms engaged with a poem previously made into music by Schumann, and it sets all my capacities for speculation whirring into action that he did so at this juncture in his life. Certainly the poem’s themes of an irretrievably vanished past, of memory, longing, desire, and regret are shared with the other songs in op. 94, but the ‘ghostly nearness’ of Schumann to Brahms is another truly intriguing aspect of the genesis of these songs. Sapphische Ode, the poem that replaced Was weht um meine Schläfe, is a memory of bygone nocturnal kisses from a beloved who reciprocated the persona’s deep emotions; that the love was in the past and is now gone is evident. This song in D major, with a few telltale touches of D minor and G minor harmonies, is then followed by Kein Haus, keine Heimat, in which D minor is made harsh and minimal. If you perform the opus as a set, as Brahms once said was his wish, you are ambushed by this tonal connection between what seems like two incongruent works. Brahms would hate psychobabble tenuously linked to biography, but he did, of course, experience profound love with a prolonged, often difficult aftermath in renunciation. I wonder whether that aftermath might have entailed moments of especially galling alienation, of Kein Weib und kein Kind bitterness . . . never mind that he turned away from any prospect of marriage and children. But aside from such fruitless speculation, the song itself remains in all its singularity. 63 See the extraordinary Paul Berry: Brahms among Friends: Listening, Performance, and the Rhetoric of Illusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 64 Friedrich Halm’s Werke, vol. 1, p. 260. See also Margit McCorkle: Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, pp. 386 and 666.

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Susan Youens That Brahms would thus remove Halm’s creation from its context of slavery and shipwreck, that he would make of Jupiter a nameless universal representative of the rawest sense of human alienation (male alienation), that he would allude to Schubert as he did so, is forever an astonishing act of artistic metamorphosis. In the end, the ‘drama’ to which Brahms alludes in his subtitle is much bigger than any play or poem by Halm: it is the drama of existence on the brink of death.

Select bibliography Arens, William: The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Barkan, Hans (trans. and ed.): Johannes Brahms and Theodor Billroth: Letters from a Musical Friendship. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957. Beaglehole, John Cawte (ed.): The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995–1967. Beaglehole, John Cawte: The Life of Captain James Cook. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1974. Berry, Paul: Brahms among Friends: Listening, Performance, and the Rhetoric of Illusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Binder, Benjamin: “Disability, Self-Critique and Failure in Schubert’s ‘Der Doppelgänger’” in Rethinking Schubert, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 418–436. Brachmann, Jan: ‘Ins Ungewisse hinauf –’: Johannes Brahms und Max Klinger im Zwiespalt von Kunst und Kommunikation. Kassel & New York: Bärenreiter, 1999. Brahms, Johannes: Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mit Heinrich und Elisabet von Herzogenberg, ed. Max Kalbeck, vol. 2. Berlin: Deutschen Brahms-Gesellschaft, 4th rev. ed. 1921. Davis, David Brion: The problem of slavery in the age of revolution, 1770–1823. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Defoe, Daniel: Die wunderbare Lebensbeschreibung, und erstaunliche Begebenheiten des berühmten Helden Robinson Crusoe: welcher 28 Jahre auf einer unbewohnten Insel wohnete, die er nachderhand bevölkert hat. Philadelphia: Carl Cist, 1788. Dunmore, John: French Explorers in the Pacific. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965. Ellingson, Ter: The Myth of the Noble Savage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms Enzensberger, Ulrich: Georg Forster: Ein Leben in Scherben. Frankfurt: Eichborn, 1996. Equiano, Olaudah: The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, written by himself. London: Printed for the author, 1789. Feuser, Wilfried: “The Image of the Black in the Writings of Johann Gottfried Herder”, in: Journal of European Studies 8 (1978), pp. 109–128 Forster, Georg: Reise um die Welt. Illustriert von eigener Hand. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag, 2007. Forster, Johann Reinhold: Observations Made during a Voyage round the World, ed. Nicholas Thomas, Harriet Guest, and Michael Dettelbach. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1996. Friedländer, Max: Brahms’ Lieder. Einführung in seine Gesänge für eine und zwei Stimmen. Berlin & Leipzig, 1922. Goldstein, Jürgen: Georg Forster: Zwischen Freiheit und Naturgewalt. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2015. Goldberg, Clemens: “Vergänglichkeit als ästhetische Kategorie und Erlebnis”, in: Brahms als Liedkomponist, ed. Peter Jost. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992, pp. 199–202. Gottlieb-Billroth, Otto (ed.): Billroth und Brahms im Briefwechsel. Berlin: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1991, repr. from 1935. Gottschall, Rudolf: Porträts und Studien, vol. 3: Literarische Charakterköpfe. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1871, pp. 85–129. Halm, Friedrich: Friedrich Halms ausgewählte Werke in vier Bänden. Leipzig: Max Hesse’s Verlag, 1904.      : Friedrich Halms Werke, vol. 2: Dramatische Werke. Vienna: Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1856.      : Friedrich Halms Werke, vol. 7: Neue Gedichte. Vienna: Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1864.      : Friedrich Halms Werke, vol. 11: Erzählungen. Vienna: C. Gerold’s Sohn, 1872.      : Gedichte von Friedrich Halm. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1850. Herder, Johann Gottfried: Neger-Idyllen in Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität, vol. 2. Berlin: Auf bau-Verlag, 1971, pp. 2348–2367. Hoppen, Hans: Streitfragen und Erinnerungen. Stuttgart: s. n. 1876. Hüne, Albert: Vollständige historisch, philosophische Darstellung aller Veränderungen des Negersclavenhandels von dessen Ursprunge an bis zu sein gänzlichen Aufhebung Göttingen: J.F Roewer, 1820. Kalbeck, Max: Johannes Brahms, vol. 3: 1874–1885. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1976. Klinger, Max: Brahms-Phantasie. Einundvierzig Stiche/Radierungen und Steinzeichnungen zu Compositionen von Johannes Brahms. Leipzig: Selbstverlag, 1894. 467

Susan Youens Krones, Hartmut. “Der Einf luß Franz Schuberts auf das Liedschaffen von Johannes Brahms”, in: Brahms-Kongress Wien 1983 ed. Susanne Antonicek and Otto Biba, pp. 309–324. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1988. Kross, Siegfried: “Brahms – der unromantische Romantiker”, in: Brahms-Studien 1, ed. Constantin Floros. Hamburg: K. D. Wagner, 1974. Maclean, Grace Edith: ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ in Germany. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1910. Malin, Yonatin: “‘Alte Liebe’ and the Birds of Spring: Text, Music, and Image in Max Klinger’s Brahms Fantasy”, in: Heather Platt and Peter H. Smith (eds.): Expressive Intersections in Brahms: Essays in Analysis and Meaning, pp. 53–79. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2012. McCorkle, Margit: Johannes Brahms. Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis. Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1984. Obeyesekere, Gananath: The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Peltz, Rudolf: Halms und die Bühne. Hattingen-Ruhr: C. Hundt sel. Wwe., 1925. Platt, Heather: Text-music relationships in the lieder of Johannes Brahms, PhD dissertation. City University of New York, 1992. Rasmussen, Detlef (ed.): Der Weltumsegler und seine Freunde: Georg Forster als gesellschaftlicher Schriftsteller der Goethezeit. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1988. Richardson, Brian W: Longitude and Empire: How Captain Cook’s Voyages Changed the World. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2005. Rollett, Hermann: Begegnungen. Erinnerungsblätter (1819-1899). Vienna: L. Rosner, 1903. Seidl, Johann Gabriel: ‘Friedrich Halm’, in: Album österreichischer Dichter, pp. 140– 149. Vienna: Verlag von Pfautsch & Voss, 1850. Singer, Hans Wolfgang (ed.): Briefe von Max Klinger aus den Jahren 1874 bis 1919. Leipzig: A. Seemann, 1924. Sinha, Manisha: The slave’s cause: A history of abolition. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2016. Spitzer, Michael: “Axial Lyric Space in Two Late Songs: ‘Im Freien’ and ‘Der Winterabend’”, in: Rethinking Schubert, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton, pp. 264–272. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Stach, Reinhard: Robinson und Robinsonaden in der deutschsprachigen Literatur: Eine Bibliographie. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1991.

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Of Anthropophagy, the Abolitionist Movement, and Brahms Thomsen, Christian Werner: Menschenfresser in der Kunst und Literatur, in fernen Ländern, Mythen, Märchen und Satiren, in Dramen, Liedern, Epen und Romanen: eine kannibalische Text-Bild-Dokumentation. Vienna: C. Brandstätter, 1983. Thym, Jürgen: “Invocations of memory in Schubert’s last songs”, in: Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton, pp. 383–403. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

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Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination

The Moth-Eaten Musical Brocade: Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination Shane McMahon A Misreading of Harry White, Mentor and Friend. Those who have only empty space above them are almost inevitably lost in it, if no force restrains them. Émile Durkheim

Finite Worlds [D]uring the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man […] In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.1 Hobbes’ ‘state of nature’ is perhaps one of the most desolate inventions of the human imagination. Hobbes can only conceive of it as a sequence of absences or a succession of privations culminating in a picture of utter solitude unique in the Western political and cultural repertoire of didactic images. The root cause of such a condition is the absence of “a common power to keep them all in awe.” Effectively, the state of nature or, “that condition which is called war” is that which constitutes the imagined human experience of the world in the absence of regulatory political mechanisms and cultural practices. That common power may take 1

Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, ed. with an Introduction and Notes by J.C.A. Gaskin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 84. The title of the present essay is taken from Phillip Larkin’s 1977 poem “Aubade”.

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Shane McMahon several religious or political forms, but its specific nature is ultimately immaterial: what is critical is the security that such symbolic power creates – the security of law, faith, custom, and convention. The condition of being ‘in awe’ before a common power is not one which post-war Western political cultures have sought to cultivate or sanction, and we have become accustomed to treat with suspicion the idea of subordination to an omnipotent temporal or spiritual authority. Such ideas of authority have become emblematic of a restriction of freedom, however the latter may be construed and understood. Yet the abiding didactic value of Hobbes’ argument lies precisely in its recognition that freedom comes at the price of security. The security enjoyed by the individual is the result of common cultural forms, custom, tradition; tokens of the all-enveloping presence of symbolic power and authority before which, throughout millennia, humans have submitted in order to partake of any meaningful social bond. For Hobbes, there are several consequences to the absence of such a common power, among them “no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society”, and – we may add – no music, not even the echo of war drums: instruments of convocation have no function in the context of a way of life which knows nothing of ceremony, ritual, or assembly. Music cannot exist in the state of nature, in conditions of absolute freedom, because musical culture too cannot grow in the absence of law, faith, custom and convention. Indeed, the absence of music in Hobbes’ propaedeutic scheme invites us to ref lect upon the question of music and freedom and on the limits of both musical invention and the musical imagination. As George Kubler postulates, the individual inhabits a finite world bounded and protected by a series of concentric circles of routine and habit, and as such it is a world in which it is “almost impossible […] to stumble into an inventive act.”2 The “cage of routine” seals off the individual from the possibility of potentially corrosive acts of inventive transgression: “Every society functions like a gyroscope to hold the course despite the random private forces of def lection”, and in the absence of this common power and its system of regulatory mechanisms and practices, “existence would f loat as if unbound by gravitation in a world without friction from precedent, without the attraction of example, and without the channelled pathways of tradition. Every act would be a free invention.” Such common codes of discourse and practice both bind and shelter the individual, allowing for limited variations upon common modes of understanding and thereby guarantee the longevity of the contracts of intelligibility which sustain and regulate social, political, and cultural discourse. “The universe keeps its form by being perpetu2

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George Kubler: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962, p. 66.

Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination ated in self-resembling shapes. Unlimited variation is a synonym for chaos.”3 John Gray summarizes many of the essential elements of this line of thought thus: [T]hough human beings need a sphere of independent action, and so of liberty, if they are to f lourish, their deepest need is a home, a network of common practices and inherited traditions that confers on them the blessing of a settled identity. Indeed, without the undergirding support of a framework of common culture, the freedom of the individual so cherished by liberalism is of little value, and will not long survive. Human beings are above all fragile creatures, for whom the meaning of life is above all a local matter that is easily dissipated: their freedom is worthwhile and meaningful to them only against a background of common cultural forms. Such forms cannot be created anew for each generation.4

Defining the Imagination For Kubler, a historian of the art and architecture of Mesoamerica, artistic creation too is not a story of an “expanding universe of forms” but of the ongoing exploration of “a finite world of limited possibilities”, 5 or the navigation of “a sea occupied by innumerable forms of a finite number of types.” Invention is closely bound to variation, repetition and replication. The idea of ‘genius’ has little meaning in Kubler’s scheme; the determining factors are those of disposition and temperament combined with the timing of an individual’s entrance into a given tradition. Invention largely arises from “new confrontations” among pre-given, inherited forms and conventions, “rather than from fresh questions aimed at the center of being.”6 Kubler conjectures that “the potentialities of form and meaning in human society have all been sketched out at one time and place or another, in more or less complete projections” 7 although by this he does not mean to say that the possibilities of the cultural imagination have all been played out. Rather, Kubler’s non-teleological conception of history and his sensitivity to what we now term deep time, suggest that in the finite reservoir of the human cultural imagination, forms and patterns are not lost or made obsolete, but alternately surface and sink across vast stretches of time. Such a perspective on the nature of artistic creation and cultural transmission has been echoed in recent decades by cognitive scientist Merlin Donald. For Don3 4

Ibidem, pp. 62 and 66, respectively. John Gray: “Enlightenment’s Wake” in: Enlightenment’s Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age. London: Routledge, 1995, p.309. 5 Kubler: The Shape of Time, p. 115. 6 Ibidem, pp. 29 and 62, respectively. 7 Ibidem, p. 112.

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Shane McMahon ald, narrative and allegorical reasoning are hardwired into human cognitive architecture, and even if the inf luence of religion has ceded to secular forms of thought over the past two centuries or more, the world views each express inevitably draw upon “the same basic representational components, because the human mind can work only within the parameters of its own biological and cultural evolution.”8 This applies equally to art, and though the decoupling of art from religion is central to the history of art in the modern world, to assume that secular art has shed its reliance on religious modes of thought is to overlook the long-standing role in the context of human evolution which art has maintained in the construction, advocacy, and regulation of world views. In this understanding, art and music are permanently indentured to a narrative, allegorical, and symbolic mode of thought, and have attained an unprecedented and fragile position in the modern world in the attempt to negotiate what Donald identifies as the deep structural incompatibility between narrative and scientific modes of cognitive governance.9

Frontiers of Meaning Kubler’s close contemporary Theodor Adorno sensed that “the absolute boundary of the historical tone-space of Western music has evidently been reached; every conceivable particular tonal event is strikingly predictable and prefabricated while at the same time no strong impulse stirs to break out of the boundaries of this tone-space, nor is there any evidence of people having the ability spontaneously to hear outside of that tone-space.”10 His reliance on a modernist rhetoric of rupture aside, what Adorno describes is not merely the debilitation or the exhaustion of a relatively homogenous stock of conventional motifs, but the closing of the frontier itself; the arrival at the outermost boundary of the common frameworks of understanding shaped by tradition. For Adorno, it seems that Western music drifts in the wake of a historical conjuncture in which it became apparent, to borrow again from Kubler, that “the inherited repertory of forms no longer corresponded to the actual meaning of existence.”11 8

Merlin Donald: “The Roots of Art and Religion in Ancient Material Culture”, in: Becoming Human: Innovation in Prehistoric Material and Spiritual Culture, ed. Colin Renfrew and Iain Morley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 100. See also Donald’s essay “Art and Cognitive Evolution”, in: The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity, ed. Mark Turner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 3–20. 9 Merlin Donald: “An Evolutionary Approach to Culture: Implications for the Study of the Axial Age”, in: The Axial Age and Its Consequences, ed. Robert N. Bellah and Hans Joas. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2012, p. 70. Donald terms these modes ‘mythic’ and ‘theoretic’, respectively. 10 Theodor W. Adorno: “The Ageing of the New Music”, in: Essays on Music,ed. Richard Leppert. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002, p. 190. 11 Kubler: The Shape of Time, p. 63.

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Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination This fissure becomes most apparent when considering the status of conventions, specifically with the estrangement Adorno identifies in late Beethoven of those very syntactical elements around which musical discourse is structured. The subject is unable to assimilate those conventions as second nature; they become opaque and extraneous to the substance of expression, fossilizing into what Adorno termed Floskeln – empty gestures, clichés. The continued presence of conventional gestures and formulas nevertheless suggests that they cannot be so easily shed, that even when their purpose is in doubt their presence is still considered somehow mandatory as the only true guarantors of intelligibility. The inability to hear, as Adorno remarks, outside the boundaries of tonality does not imply a lack of imagination; rather it shows that the Western musical imagination has so far developed a limited set of conventions with which to convey, in Hobbesian terms, an “account of time”: the common articulation of an ordered experience of the world and a pattern of thought and action around which a culture’s value systems are erected. Such an account is above all a narrative account, and it is only when the centrality of narrative as such is brought into question that conventions become opaque or fall into desuetude. There is no need for inaugurating, transitional, or terminating motifs when there is no narrative pattern to articulate. Nevertheless, such motifs persist or resurface, even in music where their function is forfeited and in which they appear to f loat like foreign bodies. Harry White contends that “the vital contradiction between a rigorously atonal language and the retention of tonal forms and genres is a major aesthetic problem in our perception of serial music.”12 White’s judgement accords with Adorno’s who writes that “the available materials, right up to the present, have all grown out of the soil of tonality. When they are transferred to non-tonal material, certain inconsistencies result, a kind of break between musical subject matter and the forming of the music.”13 On this point, for example, White draws attention to the redundancy of the description of a particular texture as ‘canonic’ in the context of a serial composition in the same way that Adorno highlights the redundancy of the idea of ‘transition’ as applied to serial works where, “stripped of its harmonic task” it ceases to be a transition. Conventions such as the transition have a formal function to fulfil in the course of a musical-narrative trajectory; bereft of those functions they become a “formal reminiscence.”14 Richard Taruskin too, in commenting on a work by a prominent academic serial composer, draws attention to the redundancy of the presence of expressive gestures in music in which such gestures, and indeed the very category of ‘expressiveness’ as such, are “unsupported 12 Harry White: “The Holy Commandments of Tonality”, in: The Journal of Musicology 9/2 (Spring 1991), pp. 254–268, here p. 257. 13 Adorno: “The Ageing of the New Music”, p. 186. 14 White: “The Holy Commandments of Tonality”, p. 256; Adorno: “The Ageing”, p. 186.

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Shane McMahon by the music’s syntax or semantics”, in which “there is no structural connection between the expressive gestures and the twelve-tone harmonic language.”15 For Stanley Cavell, it is axiomatic that shared meaning is enabled through an inherited “inventory of conventions” and “within contexts fully defined by shared formulas.”16 “Paradoxically”, writes Cavell, “the reliance on formula should allow the fullest release of spontaneity”, echoing, consciously or not, a central tenet of Stravinsky’s conception of artistic freedom as elaborated in the Poetics of Music.17 Paralleling Adorno, Cavell intuited that over the course of Beethoven’s oeuvre an incipient crisis regarding the legitimacy of conventions emerged, intensifying over fifteen decades to the point where, in 1965, Cavell felt compelled to write that “[n]othing we now have to say, no personal utterance, has its meaning conveyed in the conventions and formulas we now share.” For the composer (or for creative individuals generally), Cavell saw three options to this impasse, all of them essentially Hobbesian: silence; the rejection of these conventions and formulas entirely (and thereby “the denial of the value of shared meaning altogether”); or the cultivation of artistic languages or statements “so personal as to form the possibility of communication without the support of convention – perhaps to become the new source of convention. And then, of course, they are most likely to fail even to seem to communicate.”18 On the latter point, Cavell was and is correct. “Artists must work within a tradition” writes Merlin Donald: “Images, technologies, and cultural archetypes do not spring forth fully formed from artists (if they did, they would not work, since the audience must share them). Total originality is an illusion, even in cases of great genius.” It is an illusion, Donald tells us, because “[t]he human brain is the biological constraint on, and ultimate source of, creativity.”19 Illustrative of Cavell’s and Donald’s perspective is the well-known exchange between Karlheinz Stockhausen and Adorno in Darmstadt in 1951. During the course of a composition class where Stockhausen and Karel Goeyvaerts performed a movement from a new work for two pianos by the latter, Adorno began to inquire about issues such as “motives, antecedents and consequents” to which the 22-year-old Stockhausen pertly replied “Professor, you are looking for a chicken 15 Richard Taruskin: “How Talented Composers Become Useless”, in: The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009, p. 87. 16 Stanley Cavell: “Music Discomposed”, in: Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, 2nd Updated Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 186. Cavell’s essay was delivered as a lecture in 1965 and first published in 1967. 17 Igor Stravinsky: Poetics of Music In the Form of Six Lessons. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1970. See in particular the fourth lecture, “Musical typology”, pp. 67–90. 18 Cavell: “Music Discomposed”, p. 187. 19 Donald: “The Roots of Art and Religion in Ancient Material Culture”, p. 100. These issues of the illusory nature of originality and the understanding of musiscal forumlas and conventions as common property is aptly illustrated by Professor Vjera Katalinić in her essay in the present volume.

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Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination in an abstract painting.”20 What Stockhausen’s disdainful remark implied was not simply a rejection of tradition and convention, but the utter irrelevance of narrative as such to the project of integral serialism being developed in the early 1950s. Viewed as a mode of ‘research’, musical composition was forcefully disassociated from the allegorical and the symbolic precisely by means of its divestment from the contracts of conventional musical understanding and its shedding of all reference to a narrative configuration of musical events. Some years later, Adorno would remark sardonically that: The reproach that critics have not understood the most recent compositions of unchecked rationalization can hardly be maintained because such musical reasoning wants only to be demonstrated mathematically, not understood. If one asks after the function of some phenomenon within a work’s total context of meaning [Sinnzusammenhang], the answer is a further exposition of the system. 21 Adorno’s remark indeed succinctly expresses the nature of the deep structural conf lict between narrative and scientific modes of cognitive governance proposed by Merlin Donald. 22 For Adorno, as for many before and since, music demands to be encountered and understood as a mode of allegorical or narrative thought. At issue here is not necessarily the nature of the musical language (tonal or serial), but the capacity of its associated set of conventions to convey an ordering of experience and an account of time. As Kubler and Donald suggest, such conventions cannot be created de novo. It is not, in other words, an issue of musical aesthetics, but an issue of the nature of human cognition.

Towards a Deep History of Narrative The inherited repertory of forms, including tonal conventions and the rules of tonal syntax – “the holy commandments of tonality” as White, borrowing from Berg, terms them – deeply ref lect a human need, for better or worse, to resolve ambiguity and doubt, and to shape the experience of time and decay into meaningful narrative trajectories. As such, they are part of what John Gray, quoted above, refers to as “a network of common practices and inherited traditions” which confers “the blessing of a settled identity.” It is difficult to over-estimate how central narrative has been to the course of human evolution. Michael Witzel argues for the presence of two main mythological systems underpinning the 20 I draw on the account given by Michael Kurtz in Stockhausen: A Biography, trans. Richard Toop. London: Faber and Faber, 1992, pp. 34–36. 21 Adorno: ‘The Ageing’, p, 195. 22 See note 9, above.

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Shane McMahon development of the world’s mythologies: the ‘Gondwana’ scheme which emerged around 65,000 years ago and persists today in sub-Saharan Africa and among the aboriginal populations of Australia and New Guinea and its neighbouring islands; and the ‘Laurasian’ scheme which underpins the Eurasian and American mythologies which emerged over the past 40,000 years. 23 The Laurasian storyline is essentially that of the creation, destruction, and rebirth of the world, arraying the basic facts of existence as the earliest humans understood them – emergence, death, and rebirth – into a meaningful pattern. 24 Witzel argues that variations of the Laurasian storyline are attested in the earliest figurative parietal art from the Stone Age, survive in indigenous mythologies across the globe, and that more than ninety-five per cent of the world’s population today still adheres to some form of sacred or secular belief which elaborates the basic Laurasian narrative type as religious belief, philosophy of history, political ideology, and so on. Witzel tells us that “once established, motifs persist in given civilizations over enormous time spans”25 and attributes this to what he terms the “path dependency” of cultures on the Laurasian narrative scheme as well as to their individual processes of “secondary elaboration” of the basic narrative motifs. “Every culture”, writes Witzel, “has subjected older myths to continuous reshaping and reinterpretation”, 26 and the results of such secondary elaborations are evident in the major narratives of the Abrahamic religions, the Enlightenment, and the governing secular ideologies of the modern world. 27 Indentured for much of its history to sacred contexts, this path-dependency naturally applies to Western music too. In the broadest sense, that dependency is patent in the centrality of narrative conventions (inaugurating, transitional and terminating motifs, or initiating, medial and concluding functions), to the identity of Western musical practice considered as an expression of high culture in the sense understood by Donald: Viewed strictly in terms of its function vis-à-vis the individual mind, [traditional ‘high culture’] may be construed as a level of culture that endows its members with an articulated world-view that goes beyond the pragmatics of mere survival. World-views provide the imaginative engines that determine a great deal about how people live, what they value, and how they view reality. They take time, measured in many generations, and considerable communal effort to build. 28 23 E. J. Michel Witzel: The Origins of the World’s Mythologies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 24 Witzel’s major point is that the elements of the Laurasian scheme, in contrast to the Gondwana scheme, are arrayed successively and form a narrative structure. 25 Witzel: The Origins of the World’s Mythologies, p. 437. 26 Ibidem, p. 24. 27 Ibidem, pp. 421–439. 28 Donald: “The Roots of Art and Religion”, p. 95.

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Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination The purpose of such conventions is to articulate a pattern of beginning, middle, and end, and in so doing to elaborate a meaningful ‘story-like’ narrative. This indeed may seem so self-evident that it hardly bears stating: narrative is so ubiquitous in human cultural expression that, as Hayden White suggests, it should be considered a “a metacode, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted.”29 But the wider point at issue is that the human capacity for, and reliance upon, narrative did not emerge magically: it emerged incrementally in the context of the coevolution of human cognition and culture, and for millennia served the principle purpose of articulating and maintaining the worldviews of traditional societies. Such a legacy is not easily shed, although the effort to do so constitutes one of the principle threads in the story of Western music in the twentieth century. Again, as Hayden White writes: So natural is the impulse to narrate, so inevitable is the form of narrative for any report of the way things really happened, that narrativity could appear problematical only in a culture in which it was absent – absent or, as in some domains of contemporary Western intellectual and artistic culture, programmatically refused. 30 That programmatic refusal is undoubtedly central to music of the past century, when narrative forms no longer maintained their status as metacode and instead became one code among many.

The Widening Gyre Harmony is avoided because it produces an illusion of the unity of many voices. 31 We begin to grasp more clearly what binds our basic categories of musical understanding to the network of tonal conventions if we pursue the analogy between tonal harmony and religious observance in Adorno’s remark that “[h]armony suffers the same fate in late Beethoven as religion in bourgeois society: it continues to exist but it is forgotten.” Harmony, he writes, “takes on something masklike or husk-like. It becomes a convention keeping things upright, but largely drained of substance.”32 Woven since Antiquity from an inherited Judeo-Grecian 29 Hayden White: “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality”, in: Critical Inquiry 7/1 On Narrative (Autumn, 1980), pp. 5–27, here p. 6. 30 Ibidem, p. 5. 31 Adorno: Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music, ed. Rolf Tiedemann. London: Polity, 1998, p. 157. 32 Ibidem, pp. 158 and 156, respectively.

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Shane McMahon fabric, the great brocade of Christian harmony sheltered the common cultural forms of the West until its fall into desuetude at the turn of the twentieth century. It furnished an entire cosmos of permanence and meaning, allaying the fear of death and drawing a protecting veil between the individual and the brutality and chaos of a world ruled by time and decay. And if our categories of musical understanding have grown “out of the soil of tonality” as Adorno suggests, it is also true that tonality as we understand it is deeply embedded in the JudeoChristian moral and existential universe. Harmony, in other words, is a theological idea, not a musical one. Christianity is the most enduring legacy of what Karl Jaspers called the Axial Age, the period between c.3000–1000 BCE in which the great religions of human civilization emerged. 33 For Jaspers, the common factor among these new religions, cultures, and modes of thought was their transcendental orientation: the idea that the phenomenal things of this world are illusory or false, shadows of a higher, noumenal reality of which we can partake only through the renunciation of the phenomenal world, or through death. For our purposes, it is important to remark on how often the distinctions between phenomenal and noumenal were communicated using musical analogy: the Christian imagination created didactic theological images of harmony and discord long before these found musical embodiment, and in so doing furnished the West with concepts of truth and falsehood, purity and impurity, beauty and ugliness, and most importantly, the distinctions between harmony and cacophony, consonance and dissonance, music and noise. Our categories of musical understanding, in other words, are rooted in a culture oriented towards transcendence in which a compound of ideas on ‘music’ served the primary pedagogical role in explaining the very nature of that transcendence. The Axial foundations of Western music remained solid well into the nineteenth century, when the noumenal categories of truth, harmony, consonance and purity began to disperse. These categories of understanding are illustrated by the Hell panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights triptych (c.1500) by Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450–1516). Musical instruments and various perverted acts of music making form the core of its repertoire of rhetorical images. In her study of medieval musical iconography, Kathi Meyer-Baer states that Bosch’s Hell panel appears to be the only medieval painting to feature musicians and music making, as Hell was traditionally conceived of as a place without music. 34 For all that, the painting is as much an aural as a visual entity and critics have responded to it as such. Meyer-Baer hears “the gruesome sound of untuned instruments” in “a hideously dissonant concert” 33 Karl Jaspers: The Origin and Goal of History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1953. 34 Kathi Meyer-Baer: Music of the Spheres and the Dance of Death: Studies in Musical Iconology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970, p. 322.

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Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination Figure 1: Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450–1516): Hell panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights, triptych

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Shane McMahon and Hans Belting writes of the “unbearable din” of the painting, of “the torment of cacophony as punishment for misusing music as a means of seduction and temptation.”35 The instruments and noise function however in the wider symbolic economy of the painting. Hell is a night scene, it contains no horizon, and our vantage point on the scene is such that our eyes are drawn downwards into the earth. Indeed, no figure in the painting lifts their head to the sky: all are drawn into the immediate corporeal and material world of the present. As one critic writes, “[t]here is no horizon there. There is no continuity between actions, there are no pauses, no paths, no pattern, no past and no future. There is only the clamour of the disparate, fragmentary present.”36 In other words, there is only the clangour and meaningless noise of a world without spiritual horizons, or a horizon of transcendence which enables its parts to cohere. Although the work is commonly accepted as a moralizing image of human folly, for our purposes it is important to recognize the work done by music and noise in the interlinked set of discursive fields which cumulatively depict a world without transcendence, without narrative, and for that reason without an account of time itself. In the absence of such an account, familiar images and types appear deracinated, grotesque, and perverse. Within the horizon of the Christian cultural imagination, cacophony, discord, and noise function as analogues of anti-transcendence, as agents of the gravitational pull of the f lesh, the earth, and the darkness and allegorical blindness of the night. 37 Above all, music here prominently figures in the portrayal of world infused with ambiguity: instruments do not function as they are supposed to (with a man crucified upon a lyre); the depictions of music making as a social practice do not conform to our understanding of the term, with their displays of torture and perversity (with, for example, a choir sight-reading from a score inscribed upon a man’s buttocks). Such images provoke what Leon Festinger famously named cognitive dissonance:38 ambiguity and cognitive dissonance are precisely the result of acts of inventive transgression and it is the principal function of convention to provide a bulwark against these; to establish boundaries and discrete classifications to contain the potential for corrosive invention. Ambiguity erodes often hard-won cognitive and semantic distinctions on the one hand, yet on the other is formative to the process of artistic creation, which in the broadest sense for much of Western history has been coextensive with the 35 Ibidem, p. 322; Hans Belting: Hieronymus Bosch: Garden of Earthly Delights. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2012, p. 38. 36 John Berger: “Against the Great Defeat of the World”, in: The Shape of a Pocket. London: Bloomsbury, 2002, p. 210. 37 As Stravinsky remarked, “Ever since it appeared in our vocabulary, the word dissonance has carried with it a certain odor of sinfulness.” Poetics of Music, p. 34. 38 Leon Festinger: A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957.

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Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination secondary elaboration of the Laurasian narrative. Such destabilizing forces have a central aesthetic role and a primary formal function in the music of the Classical style, yet until the end of the eighteenth century their deployment is always strictly contained: the so-called ‘development’ section of a Type 3 sonata-form movement, for example, deploys certain standard conventional devices such as thematic liquidation, accelerated harmonic rhythm, and temporary modulation to remote keys as a deliberate strategy of disassembly or estrangement, but always with the purpose of the ultimate reaffirmation of the stability which had been eroded. In other words, such a liminal zone of ambiguity and cognitive dissonance has a precise structural and expressive purpose, from a wider perspective akin to the metaphorical death or the dissolution of the identity of the subject prior to its rebirth or reaggregation in the stages of the ritual process. In this way, the corrosive power of ambiguity is strictly contained and harnessed to broader purposes which are ultimately social in their derivation and meaning. Elements of the Laurasian storyline govern these strategies: the metaphorical death (‘liquidation’) and descent into the underworld symbolically enacted as the thematic material enters the zone conventionally governed by minor modality and Sturm und Drang textures, exploring tonal regions at increasing remove from the tonic, assuming different identities (through temporary tonicization), before the tonic’s final ‘rebirth’ and the consequent renewal of the harmonic order which had been temporarily suspended. 39 Ambiguity however emerges from its confines, that is, from the array of formal junctures and expressive devices in which it was conventionally contained, to being an all-encompassing premise of the formal and harmonic design of much nineteenth-century music. Indeed, this fact largely accounts for our abiding fascination with it. All the same, the compelling heterogeneity of music in the nineteenth century might also be understood as a consequence of the emergence of precisely those dispersive, destabilizing, centrifugal forces which underpin Hobbes’ nightmarish scenario, and which Kubler argues that it is the function of convention and the cage of routine to protect against. With reference to comparable developments in the literature of the nineteenth century, George Steiner writes: Reading only these novels, one should have sensed much of the void that was undermining European stability. One should have known that ennui 39 As may be clear from the foregoing, I maintain that elements of Laurasian myth animate sonata form structures at a deep level, and thus the form could be considered an example of a ‘purely musical’ secondary elaboration of Laurasian narrative. This approach aligns in significant respects with the narrative understanding of sonata form pursued by James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy in Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. For their treatment of the sonata’s developmental space, see pp. 195–230.

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Shane McMahon was breeding detailed fantasies of nearing catastrophe. Most of what has occurred since has its specific origins in the tensions of nineteenth-century society, in a complex of attitudes which, in hindsight, we think of too readily as a model for culture itself.40 The gradual decline of tonality as the legitimate language of music is intimately related to the uncoupling of the Laurasian narrative and its associated plot devices and conventions from the sacred contexts to which it had been indentured for many thousands of years. A broader appraisal of aspects of the nineteenthcentury Austro-German musical tradition might suggest that what accounts for the inf lux of ambiguity and centrifugal tendencies on the one hand, and for the unparalleled heterogeneity and ingenuity of the repertoire on the other, is the incipient erosion of faith in transcendent design. We perceive a drawing back of the brocade which had sheltered the individual from the vast expanses of time and space and the “immemorial misdirection of life”41, and if composers since Schubert have laboured under the knowledge of the death of God as Maynard Solomon suggests,42 it is equally true that faith, and the search for meaning in its absence, is the abiding concern of nineteenth-century symphonists. The retreat of God from the world, what Matthew Arnold described as the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” of the “sea of faith”, left the age-old narrative pattern intact, but its purpose unclear in a world of new, multidimensional, and seemingly incompatible experiences of time and space.43 The dispersal of the guiding idea of harmony in Western culture, and the fall into desuetude of tonality at the turn of the twentieth century are thus parallel phenomena: in a seminal article, Leo Spitzer termed these developments the “demusicalization” of the universe.44 At the end of the nineteenth century and some years before his death, a German philosopher had too recognized this condition and began to sketch out its contours, pointing to the fact that if faith in noumenal reality had been lost, so too had faith in phenomenal reality. Borrowing from the literary and political vocabulary of 1860s Russia, he gave this condition a name: Nihilism.45 40 George Steiner: In Bluebeard’s Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture. London: Faber, 1971, p.26. 41 Robert N. Bellah: Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Cambridge, MA & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011, p. 36. 42 Maynard Solomon: “Some Images of Creation in Music of the Viennese Classical School”, in: Musical Quarterly 89/1 (Spring 2006), pp. 121–135, here pp. 132–133. 43 Matthew Arnold: “Dover Beach”, cited in Theodore Ziolkowski: Modes of Faith: Secular Surrogates for Lost Religious Belief. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 9. 44 Leo Spitzer: “Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony: Prolegomena to an Interpretation of the Word ‘Stimmung’”: Part I, Traditio, 2 (1944), 409–464 and Part II: Traditio, 3 (1945), 307–364, here, p. 364. 45 Friedrich Nietzsche: Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, trans. R.J. Hollingdale. London: Pen-

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The Retreating Tide Now and in the past, most of the time the majority of people live by borrowed ideas and upon traditional accumulations, yet at every moment the fabric is being undone and a new one is woven to replace the old, while from time to time the whole pattern shakes and quivers, settling into new shapes and figures.46 The recent history of Western music is in several important respects the history of the negotiation of the possibilities of musical freedom and invention, as Western societies themselves negotiate the difficult path of establishing shared meaning while assimilating to their identities the centrifugal forces of modernity and individual aspiration. With the dispersal of the idea of harmony, its associated set of moral and existential categories, and its traditional forms of musical expression, what remained perhaps was Durkheim’s “empty space”,47 Cavell’s Hobbesian “silence”, and the gravitational force of aesthetic nihilism. Yet, perhaps another kind of silence gradually emerged from the void: the “roaring silence” of John Cage and with it a new context for the unprecedented exploration of the musical imagination emerging from experiences of time and space unassimilable to traditional narrative conventions. 48 Indeed, latent in Arnold’s melancholy image of the receding waters which expose the “drear/And naken shingles of the world” are metaphors of lustration and new creation, albeit negative ones: earthly matter and the objects of the phenomenal world, denuded of transcendental meaning, loom up before us in their sheer materiality and naked banality as no more than the detritus which remains when the tide retreats. It is from such detritus nevertheless that new landscapes of the musical mind have been formed, and the debitage of individual and collective musical memory is sifted and explored in highly individualized ways in the works of composers from Charles Ives to Luciano Berio, Alfred Schnittke and Wolfgang Rihm. Yet, it is perhaps the very idea of ‘material’ itself which has become the central issue in composition of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The concept of ‘material’ from which new narratives are being woven now accommodates not only Kubler’s “borrowed ideas and traditional accumulations” or Adorno’s concept of material as the second-nature of inherited musical conventions, but also – and most significantly in the context of the longue durée of the guin, 1990, pp. 50–51. See also “European Nihilism” in: The Will to Power, ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1968, pp. 9–62. 46 Kubler: The Shape of Time, p. 14. 47 I refer to the epigraph to the present essay from Émile Durkheim: Suicide: A Study in Sociology. London: Routledge, 2002, p. 219. 48 I borrow the phrase “roaring silence” from the beautifully-titled biography by David Revill: The Roaring Silence: John Cage: A Life. 2nd Edition. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2014.

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Shane McMahon Western musical tradition – Cage’s natural conception of musical material, one which effectively abolished conventional musical distinctions between nature and culture, between raw and cooked forms of music, so to speak. The admittance of base matter (untreated ‘natural’ material in contrast to Adorno’s ‘historical’ material) into the rarefied and spiritualized world of Western musical culture and the exploration of its sensuous auditory nature violated the central tenet of the Christian pedagogy upon which the Western musical tradition ultimately rests and from which it devolved: the absolute separation of matter and spirit, partly manifested in time-honoured distinctions between high and low styles, the learned and the demotic. A profound ambiguity regarding this distinction was already central to the musical imaginations of both Mahler and Ives, and the distinction effectively collapsed in the wake of the perfusion of Cagean aesthetics (or anti-aesthetics) and the distension of the idea of material to accommodate the conventionally non-musical: noise, ‘found’ acoustic objects, and musical procedures resulting from chance operations. From Edgard Varèse’s steam boat whistle and New York Fire Department sirens in Amériques (1921 version), the various nuts and bolts which litter Cage’s prepared pianos, and Steve Reich’s musical modelling of demotic speech, the exploration of the musical and timbral properties and possibilities of banal objects and a new absorption in the complexity of phenomenal, terrestrial experience are undoubtedly among the distinguishing musical characteristics of the gathering narratives of our time: urban experience and its temporal and spatial qualities; memory and its erasure; the body and its decay; environmental and cultural fragility.49 In these narratives, heroic or tragic trajectories of tension and resolution have had little or no purchase, yet they remain indentured to allegorical and symbolic modes of thought; what has changed is how their musical expression is conceived. The material of music has mutated and Western musical physiognomies have become alloyed and heterogeneous: Bosch’s Hell has perhaps lost its terror.

Select Bibliography Adorno, Theodor W.: “The Ageing of the New Music” in Theodor W. Adorno, Essays on Music, ed. Richard Leppert. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002, pp. 181–202.      : Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music, Ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Edmund Jephcott. London: Polity, 1998. 49 On the last of these, I have in mind works such as Julia Wolfe’s Thirst (2008) and Anthracite Fields (2014), Become Ocean (2014) by John Luther Adams and Meredith Monk’s On Behalf of Nature (2015).

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Narrative and the Limits of the Musical Imagination Belting, Hans: Hieronymus Bosch: Garden of Earthly Delights. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2012. Cavell, Stanley: “Music Discomposed”, in: Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd Updated Edition 2002, pp. 167–196. Donald, Merlin: “The Roots of Art and Religion in Ancient Material Culture”, in: Becoming Human: Innovation in Prehistoric Material and Spiritual Culture, ed. Colin Renfrew and Iain Morley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 95–103.      : “An Evolutionary Approach to Culture: Implications for the Study of the Axial Age”, in: The Axial Age and Its Consequences, ed. Robert N. Bellah and Hans Joas. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2012, pp. 47–76. Durkheim, Émile: Suicide: A Study in Sociology. London: Routledge, 2002. Gray, John: “Enlightenment’s wake”, Enlightenment’s Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age. London: Routledge, 1995, pp. 145–185. Hepokoski, James and Warren Darcy: Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late Eighteenth-Century Sonata. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Hobbes, Thomas: Leviathan, Edited with an Introduction and Notes by J.C.A. Gaskin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Jaspers, Karl: The Origin and Goal of History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1953. Kubler, George: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962. Meyer-Baer, Kathi: Music of the Spheres and the Dance of Death: Studies in Musical Iconology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970. Nietzsche, Friedrich: “European Nihilism”, in The Will to Power, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage, 1968, pp. 9–62.      : Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, trans. R.J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin, 1990. Solomon, Maynard: “Some Images of Creation in Music of the Viennese Classical School”, Musical Quarterly 89/1 (Spring 2006), pp. 121–135. Spitzer, Leo: “Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony: Prolegomena to an Interpretation of the Word ‘Stimmung’”: Part I, Traditio, vol. 2 (1944), pp. 409–464 and Part II: Traditio, vol.3 (1945), pp. 307–364. Steiner, George: In Bluebeard’s Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture. London: Faber, 1971.

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Shane McMahon Taruskin, Richard: “How Talented Composers Become Useless”, The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009, pp. 86–93. White, Harry: “The Holy Commandments of Tonality”, The Journal of Musicology 9/2 (Spring 1991), pp. 254–268. White, Hayden: “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality”, in: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 7, No. 1, On Narrative (Autumn, 1980), pp. 5–27. Witzel, E. J. Michael: The Origins of the World’s Mythologies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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D ie zweite H eimat : Musical Personae in a Second Home

Die zweite Heimat: Musical Personae in a Second Home David Cooper

Introduction In a paper which opens with a critique of Nicholas Cook’s notion of musical performance, Philip Auslander argues that “to be a musician is to perform an identity in a social realm”.1 Furthermore, he suggests that “what musicians perform first and foremost is not music, but their own identities as musicians, their musical personae”. 2 The thirteen-part series of two-hour television films, Die zweite Heimat – Chronik einer Jugend (Heimat 2: Chronicle of a Generation), written and directed by Edgar Reitz, and released in 1992, focuses on a diverse group of young artists and their friends living in 1960s Munich. Across the broad sweep of its canvas, the intellectual, emotional and political rites of passage of late adolescence and early adulthood are played out against the backdrop of the social and political developments within post-war West Germany. A number of the actors in Die zweite Heimat are extremely proficient musicians, the most prominent in narrative terms being Henry Arnold, who takes the role of the composer, guitarist and pianist Hermann Simon. Arnold had been a piano student at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich and had studied conducting in Berlin at the Hochschule der Künste. The cellist Salome Kammer, who plays Clarissa Lichtblau (with whom Herrmann has an ongoing if erratic romantic relationship), is an alumna of the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, where her cello professors were Maria Kliegel and Janos Starker. Armin Fuchs, who graduated from the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, under the tutelage of the composer Bertold Hummel and pianists Erich Appel and Arne Torger, is cast as the pianist and composer Volker Schimmelpfennig. And the recorder player, percussionist and acrobat Daniel Smith, whose student days were spent in Santiago de Chile, where he was a member of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Santiago, appears as Juan Ramon Fernandez Subercaseaux. Thus in Die zweite Heimat we observe musicians playing out their own identities as musicians, resulting in an unusually faithful and effective screen portrayal of the acts of musical composition and performance – technically, aesthetically and socially. 1 2

Philip Auslander: “Musical Personae”, in: TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies 50/1 (Spring 2006), pp. 100–119, here p. 101. Auslander: “Musical Personae”, p. 102.

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The Cultural Context of Edgar Reitz’s Die zweite Heimat Edgar Reitz (born 1932) directed three extensive television series between 1984 and 2004, the narratives of which collectively explore the theme of ‘Heimat’, especially in relation to the fictional village of Schabbach in the area of Germany bordering Luxembourg called the Hunsrück in the period from 1919 to the end of the millennium. 3 According to the critic and film journalist Karsten Witte, the German noun Heimat, which can loosely be translated as ‘home’, ‘home country’ or ‘home town’ in English (though these by no means completely cover its subtle range of meanings):4 always implies a totalizing grasp, whether directed towards a territory or towards the integration of those who speak a common language. At the same time, ‘Heimat’ is conceivable as the locus of a diversity which has succumbed to unification, a non-territorial space which no longer asserts a presence but remains as a trace of the past. ‘Heimat’ then would signify an elsewhere, a memory of origin for those who went away. 5 The music of the second series, Die zweite Heimat, which traces out the decade from 1960 to 1970, is notably diverse, moving through a range of genres, ‘serious’ and ‘popular’, from the jazz played by Clemens, Hermann Simon’s drummer roommate, through Clarissa and Volker’s performance of Chopin’s Polonaise Brillante, Op. 3, to the impromptu rendition of Lehar’s Zigeunerliebe by the expatriate Hungarian Frau Moretti accompanied by Hermann. However, a crucial element of the musical identity of the series as a whole and in particular the first episode, is the modernism and experimentalism of the European and North American avant-garde, with music specially written by the composer Nikos Mamangakis (1929–2013) to ref lect the mood of the time. If the late-Romanticism of Munich-born Richard Strauss (who had presided over the Reichsmusikkammer from 1933–5) was in the immediate post-war years and indeed for several decades after, tainted by its association with National Socialism, the radical modernism of the German avant garde represented 3

The three core series are Heimat: Eine Deutsche Chronik (1984), Die zweite Heimat: Chronik einer Jugend (1992) and Heimat 3: Chronik einer Zeitenwende (2004). Reitz subsequently directed two cinematic treatments of the theme, Heimat Fragments: The Women (2006) and Die andere Heimat (2013). Reitz was himself born in the Hunsrück, in the municipality of Morbach. 4 Langenscheidt Pocket German Dictionary. Berlin and Munich: Langenscheidt, 2000, p. 147. 5 Karsten Witte: “Of the Greatness of the Small People: The Rehabilitation of a Genre”, in: Die Zeit, September 14, 1984. Reprinted in Miriam Hansen, Karsten Witte, J. Hoberman, Thomas Elsaesser, Gertrud Koch, Friedrich P. Kahlenberg, Klaus Kreimeier and Heide Schlüpmann: “Dossier on Heimat”, in: New German Critique 36 (Autumn 1985), pp. 3–24, here p. 7.

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D ie zweite H eimat : Musical Personae in a Second Home by composers such as Stockhausen (whose mentally-ill mother had fallen victim to the Nazi euthanasia policy) was widely perceived as its absolute antithesis. In the spirit of Adorno’s provocative remark that “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” (if Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder of 1948 is taken to exemplify what Adorno implied by ‘poetry’), works written less than a decade later such as Stockhausen’s Gruppen (1955–7) presented an new musical aesthetic and innovative approaches to the manipulation of the basic parameters of pitch, duration, timbre and form.6 Writing in 1960, the year in which the narrative of Die zweite Heimat opens, Adorno commented that: Bourgeois music was decorative, even in its greatest achievements. It made itself pleasant to people, not just directly, to its listeners, but objectively, going far beyond them by virtue of its affirmation of the ideas of humanism. It was given notice to quit because it had degenerated into ideology, because its ref lection of the world in a positive light, its call for a better world, became a lie which legitimated evil. The effect of cancelling its contract reverberates in the most sensitive sublimations of musical form. Hence the right to speak of new music.7 In the concluding paragraph of the same essay, Adorno asserts that “The concept [of the new music] has become irrelevant because by the side of the new music all other music production has become impossible. It has degenerated into kitsch.” The annual International Summer Course for New Music established in Darmstadt by Wolfgang Steinecke in 1946, at which Stockhausen, Boulez, Nono, Berio, Pousseur, Maderna and (from 1958) Cage held court, and which Mamangakis attended while a student in Munich, became one of the primary centres of the European musical avant-garde. It is the ‘new music’ that spawned from this extraordinary generation of composers and the philosophy that surrounded the music they produced, which lies at the heart of Die zweite Heimat. But is the account of Hermann Simon and his fellow musicians, or the score substantially composed by Mamangakis, intended to recreate a precise musical chronology of 1960s Munich? I would argue that it does not, but instead suggests something of the excitement which surrounded the ground-breaking music of the period from the late 1940s up to the mid 1970s and illustrates how musical personalities are forged within their social and cultural milieu. Indeed the musical 6

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Theodor Adorno: “Cultural Criticism and Society”, in: Prisms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983, pp. 17–34, here p. 34. For a discussion of ‘barbarism’ in this context see Anna-Verena Nosthoff: “Barbarism: Notes on the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno”, http://criticallegalthinking. com/2014/10/15/barbarism-notes-thought-theodor-w-adorno/ (last accessed 22 October 2015). Theodor Adorno: “Music and New Music”, in: Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music. London: Verso, 1994, pp. 249–268, here p. 257.

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David Cooper developments of the 1950s (when Reitz studied German, theatre, journalism and art in Munich) and the 1960s are to some extent conf lated in the score.

Herrmann Simon’s Musical Roots Hermann Simon’s experience of moving from rural Schabbach to metropolitan Munich has a personal resonance for me, albeit at the remove of half a generation, for in 1975 I left Belfast to study music at the University of Leeds where Alexander Goehr (one of the progressive “Manchester Group” of composers) was the Chair of a fairly conservative Department of Music which he sought to radicalize. As a young composer I shared many of the issues that Hermann faced on his arrival in Munich. My ambiguous Heimat was the very troubled Northern Ireland I was brought up in, and my accent at the time set me apart in England not just as simply being from the periphery of the United Kingdom, but as a potential terrorist. Like Hermann in Die zweite Heimat, I had to learn to soften my brogue (in my case partly to avoid the threat of physical violence); the rising intonation of my “pohut” was inverted to a falling /ˈpəʊɪt / just as Hermann’s “Dishter” turned into the Hochdeutsch “Dichter”. At the same time I developed a more complex and thoroughly contemporary musical dialect of my own; my musical personality was developed through the interactions of the cultural and social spaces of my own ‘first’ and ‘second’ homes as Hermann’s was in his zweite Heimat. Hermann is the composite construction of the screenwriter and director Edgar Reitz, the composer Nikos Mamangakis and the actor Henry Arnold. 8 Mamangakis, who was born in Crete into a family of folk musicians, was himself a student at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Munich between 1957 and 1964 (having previously studied at the Hellenic Conservatoire in Athens from 1947-1953). His teachers in Munich included Carl Orff and Harald Genzmer, both of whom were interested in practical and didactic music, and were inf luenced in equal measure by Stravinsky’s neoclassicism and Hindemith’s neue Sachlichkeit. Mamangakis and Reitz created the musical world of Hermann Simon and his contemporaries from the residue of Webern, Bartók, Pousseur, Stockhausen, Berio and Cage, and many of the other figures who dominated the contemporary musical landscape. Mamangakis studied electronic music from 1961 to 1962 with Josef Anton Riedl, the artistic director of Siemens Studio, Munich (where Boulez, Cage, Kagel, Ligeti, Pousseur and Stockhausen had all composed new pieces). The Siemens Studio was originally established to create a film score, Orff having persuaded the electrical engineering corporation in 1955 that such a facility would be invaluable for a documentary that they were producing. Titled Impuls unserer Zeit (impulse of our 8

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And indeed of Jörg Richter who played the role of Hermann in the first series of Heimat.

D ie zweite H eimat : Musical Personae in a Second Home time), the film was completed in 1959 and achieved considerable critical success.9 As Die zweite Heimat progresses we find Hermann becoming increasingly drawn to electronic music – in a position that mirrors that of Riedl in the Siemens Studio. In the eleventh episode, “Zeit des Schweigens” (time of silence), Consul Handschuh (the head of the Isar Film Studio) explicitly tells Hermann, that: “I’d like you to set up a studio for electronic music here. . . . I’d like you to be able to explore the potential of electronic composition free from commercial constraints. . . . My vision is of an entirely new tonal language. A completely unprecedented acoustic approach to advertising on radio and television. I want you to be free as a bird.”10 Riedl had collaborated with Reitz from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, creating the experimental documentaries Baumwolle (cotton) in 1959, and Yucatan (a film about Mayan culture) in 1960.11 These were followed in 1961 by an extraordinary eleven-minute film titled Kommunikation – Technik der Verständigung (communication – technology of understanding) and in 1962 by Geschwindigkeit (speed) and Post und Technik (post and technology). In this latter year Reitz had nailed his colours to the mast of the cinematic avant garde as a signatory, along with twenty-six other young German directors, of the so-called Oberhausen Manifesto in which they had declared their right: to create the New German feature film. This new film needs new freedoms. Freedom from the conventions of the established industry. Freedom from the outside inf luence of commercial partners. Freedom from control by special interest groups. We have concrete intellectual, formal, and economic ideas regarding the production of the new German film. Together, we are prepared to take economic risks. The old film is dead. We believe in the new one.12 If the slogan associated with the Oberhausen Manifesto was “Papas Kino ist tot” (father’s cinema is dead), the claim was implicitly being made by the musical avantgarde that “Papas Musik” was equally moribund. Reitz found in Riedl a radical collaborator who sought new freedoms for his music, through his use of electronics, 9

Alexander Kinter comments that Impulse of our Time became “the standard documentary of the electrical engineering sector, and for years it had no competition”. http://www.siemens.com/ history/en/news/impulse_of_our_time.htm (last accessed 14 June 2016). 10 Transcribed from the English subtitles of Episode Eleven (“Zeit des Schweigens”) of Die zweite Heimat, DVD, directed by Edgar Reitz. Berlin: StudioCanal GMBH, 2004. 11 There is a direct autobiographical connection drawn between Hermann and Riedl, for in chapter eleven Hermann discovers by chance that he has won a prize at the Cannes Festival for his score to a film about cotton. 12 http://www.moma.org/calendar/film/1287?locale=en (last accessed 8 January 2016).

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David Cooper percussion and the potentialities of the human voice. Perhaps by way of tribute, a Lautgedicht (sound poem) by Riedl is performed in Episode Two of Die zweite Heimat at Fuchsbau (foxhole) – the bohemian Schwabing villa of the wealthy bourgeois patroness Fraülein Cerphal, in which she ‘collects’ artists. Such sound poems look back to an approach established by the Dada movement half a century earlier, Hugo Ball’s “gadji, beri bimba” of 1916 providing the model for a form later adopted by Kurt Schwitters in his extensive ursonate, and many subsequent concrete poems. As for Riedl’s sometime student Mamangakis, Ross Lee Finney remarked in 1965 that the title of his Konstruktionen (1960) for f lute and percussion, “ref lect[ed] his concern for the conventions of central Europe”, and the score certainly recalls the sound world of Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maître (1953–4).13 A survey of contemporary Greek music published in 1965 by Nicolas Slominsky in Musical Quartely reveals that 1962 found him adopting modernist techniques such as the use of a numerical series as a compositional determinant in his Monologos (monologue) for solo cello, the tonal and durational parameters of which are based on the sequence of numbers 7, 5, 8, 9 and 2.14 This was the first of a larger cycle of pieces based on numbers (Kýklos Arithmón): the second in the sequence Antagonismoí (Competitions) was scored for cello and percussion, the percussionist moving through an arc in the course of the performance; the third, Trittýs (trittus), was written for the unusual ensemble of guitar, two double basses, cimbalom and percussion (1966); and the fourth Tetraktýs (Tectractus), composed for string quartet between 1963–6, draws on the number four as a structural determinant. One of his most radical works of the 1960s, that displays the influence of Riedl, was Senário gia dyo aftoschédious technokrítes (Scenario for two improvisational art critics), completed in 1968. Of thirty-five minutes duration, it combines electroacoustic tapes, solo soprano and various instruments including electric guitar. A sequence of virtuoso trombone and trumpet solos against which the eponymous critics make their appearance commenting on the performance is striking for the use of extended instrumental techniques. Perhaps most significantly, Mamangakis’s Anarchia for percussion and orchestra (1963) – a work later taken up by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra – was performed at the Donaueschinger Musiktage in October 1971, on the evening before the premiere of Stockhausen’s Trans. Mamangakis had evidently served his time as a modernist composer and had a firm grasp of contemporary musical techniques. Simultaneously, though, he had been developing a separate career in the Greek film industry, beginning in 1964 with his score for Yiorgos Sarris’s romance Monemvasi. His music for Raviros Manthoulis’s political satire Prosopo me Prosopo (face to face – 1966) combines avant 13 Ross Lee Finney: “Music in Greece”, in: Perspectives of New Music, 3/2 (1965), pp. 169–70, here p. 170. 14 Nicolas Slonimsky: “New Music in Greece”, in The Musical Quarterly 51/1 (1965), pp. 225–235, here p. 234.

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D ie zweite H eimat : Musical Personae in a Second Home garde techniques with folk-, jazz- and pop-inspired material, and demonstrates his ability to straddle multiple musical worlds. During the 1960s alone he would score more than twenty films, drawing increasingly on Greek and especially Cretan, traditional music.

Mamangakis’s Score for Die zweite Heimat In music biopics, the elements of the score that may be described as diegetic (at least potentially audible as part of the action as live or recorded music), non-diegetic (music apparently having no logical source within the film’s narrative and inaudible to its protagonists) and metadiegetic (music that is mentally heard or imagined by one or more of the characters) can often be particularly difficult to disentangle and may interlace and interact with each other. For instance, in the cue “Hermanns Gebet” (Hermann’s prayer) heard near the beginning of the first episode of Die zweite Heimat, with its sustained cello line and vocalize supported by pointillistic bursts of timbre from synthesizer and piano, are we listening to the music that Hermann Simon imagines as he prays, or is the music intended to provide a rather unsettling commentary on his words? The prayer sets out Hermann’s mission: Dear God. You are in me. So I know you can hear me. Therefore I now make the following solemn vows. First. I shall never love again. Because if love exists it can only exist once and I would rather bite my tongue off than saying to another woman “I love you”. And I can well do without the second, the fourth and the fifteenth love because I think they are ridiculous. Second. I swear that I will leave Schabbach and the horrible Hunsrück. In particular, I will leave my mother’s house and I will never come back. Not even when I am famous and they all want to see me. Especially not then. Third. Music shall be my only love and my only home. Where there’s freedom, there’s music. I know no one will understand me but I learn from the great composers for they too were always lonely. Dear God. I solemnly swear to do all this as soon as I’m 19 and my exams are over. Amen15 15 Transcribed from the English subtitles of Episode One (“Die Zeit der ersten Lieder”) of Die zweite Heimat, DVD, directed by Edgar Reitz. Berlin: StudioCanal GMBH, 2004). The cue is titled “Hermanns Gebet”.

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David Cooper Several layers of intertextual literary and musical reference can be detected in Hermann’s devotion. Firstly, one might observe an allusion to the renunciations of love by Alberich in Wagner’s opera Das Rheingold and by the composer Adrian Leverkühn in Thomas Mann’s novel Dr Faustus. Secondly, an inference might be drawn to Joseph Joachim’s motto “Frei aber einsam” (free but lonely) which spells out the musical pitches F–A–E used as the basis of the violin sonata jointly written for him by Schumann, Brahms and Albert Dietrich. Thirdly, it is difficult to escape the malign inf luence of the expression “Arbeit macht frei” (work makes free) adopted by the Nazis from the title of the novel by Loren Diefenbach and placed on the gates of several of the concentration camps.16 And finally, of course, there is the central theme of the series that, as well as Munich, music will become Hermann’s ‘zweite Heimat’. What we hear, however, does not appear to be quite the music that Hermann could have conceived at this stage of his development. Its neo-Webernian soundworld arguably preempts and betokens the inf luence of the Young Turks at the Munich Hochschule für Musik. It speaks of experiences yet to be tasted and augurs another relationship – with the cellist and singer Clarissa Lichtblau. The sonority that forms its opening gesture is fundamentally a pentatonic chord (C#– D#–F#–A#) that has been pierced by a dissonant F natural (which collectively can alternatively be understood as the pitches of a D#min9 chord) and similar dissonated pentatonic structures can be found throughout the cue. And if the descent through the pitches D–C–Bb–G–F of the cello’s opening melodic line might be taken to connote the loathed rural Schabbach through its pentatonicism, the rest of the cue seems to pull away from the mode’s inf luence, just as Hermann will from that of the region. The cue “Hermanns Gebet” appears once more, later in the episode when Hermann is observed in the bedroom of his newfound friend, Renate Leineweber. In a parallel gesture to the earlier scene (in which Hermann had turned towards his monochrome image in the mirror in his bedroom) the music begins as we, and then he, catch his ref lection in Renate’s mirror. Here the music supplements the construction of Hermann in various ways. Structurally it links back to the previous scene, bringing with it the meanings established there – the renunciation of love and religion, the assertion of music and freedom, and the expression of the composer’s solitude (Einsamkeit). At the same time, it takes on a distinctly ironic aspect in this potentially erotic context as it is retrospectively undercut later in the scene – as he tells her of his vow – with Renate’s curt comment “you twerp”. As before, it is not clear whether the music lies in the nondiegetic or metadiegetic spaces and this ambiguity offers an important supplementary semantic element. 16 See Lisa Graham: Musik macht frei: choral music composed and performed in the Nazi concentration camps, 1938–44. PhD diss., University of Southern California, 2001.

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D ie zweite H eimat : Musical Personae in a Second Home In its first manifestation, “Hermann’s Gebet” moves seamlessly into the following cue – “Orgel Toccata” a rhapsodic piece for organ played by Hermann, which was originally heard at the end of the ninth episode of the first series of Heimat. Its material is related to the “Klärchenlied” for solo guitar (discussed below), exploiting an accelerating melodic figure contained within the latter cue (see Example below), which is repeated and punctuated by Messiaenic dissonant chords.

The accelerating figure from the cue ‘Klärchenlied’ Here what at first appears to be nondiegetic (or possibly metadiegetic) music eventually becomes overtly diegetic – we see and hear both instrument and performer as Hermann virtually attacks the organ in his anger. In narrative terms this cue performs the function of tying together Hermann’s rage about his family’s treatment of his lover Klärchen with the scene concerning his viva in religious studies that follows, under which the ghostly residue of the toccata is heard. The organ as a symbol of Christianity straightforwardly links to Hermann’s subsequent disquisition on free will and predestination to his examiners. The successful conclusion of the viva-voce examination leads to the performance of Hermann’s high school graduation piece, his Canto Triumphale, a setting of a sonnet 26 from Rilke’s Das Buch vom mönchischen Leben (The Book of Monastic Life, 1899), part of Das Stunden-Buch (The Book of the Hours). We discover that Hermann composed the work rather than delivering a valedictory speech on behalf of his fellow students and he comments in the voice-over that he was secretly thinking of Klärchen, who had cried when he once read the poem to her in the attic room in which they clandestinely met and made love.

Werkleute sind wir Werkleute sind wir: Knappen, Jünger, Meister, und bauen dich, du hohes Mittelschiff. Und manchmal kommt ein ernster Hergereister, geht wie ein Glanz durch unsre hundert Geister und zeigt uns zitternd einen neuen Griff. 497

David Cooper Wir steigen in die wiegenden Gerüste, in unsern Händen hängt der Hammer schwer, bis eine Stunde uns die Stirnen küßte, die strahlend und als ob sie Alles wüßte von dir kommt, wie der Wind vom Meer. Dann ist ein Hallen von dem vielen Hämmern und durch die Berge geht es Stoß um Stoß. Erst wenn es dunkelt lassen wir dich los: Und deine kommenden Konturen dämmern. Gott, du bist groß.17 [We are workmen: squires, disciples, masters, and construct you, thou high nave. And sometimes an earnest traveller comes, goes like a gleam through our hundred spirits and shows us, trembling, a new grip. We climb the vast scaffolding, in our hands the hammer hangs heavy, until an hour has kissed our foreheads, which radiantly comes from you, like the wind from the sea. Then resonates a banging sound of the many hammers and through the mountains it comes, with each passing blow. Only when it darkens do we let you go: and the dusk of your contour descends. God, you are great. (Transl. Frank Finlay] Peter Rickman has argued that “Rilke’s God is the spirit of creativity most highly articulated in linguistic creation. This is the forest in which we are wandering, the tower which we are circling, the movement which inspires, the heir to whom we give our devotion, but also the cathedral which we are constructing.”18 That Hermann’s miniature Canto Triumphale – a work of youthful exploration of new sonic opportunities – should set a text that brings together religion and creativity suggests that perhaps he may already see himself as one of those ‘earnest travellers’ who will offer the discipline of music ‘a new grip’. Mamangakis’s realization of Hermann’s Canto Triumphale is scored for for piano, chorus and orchestra, referencing the forces of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with its paean to Music and harmony. While the musical language recalls to some extent that of Mamangakis’s teacher, Orff, echoes of the didactic music of Weill (for example, Der Jasager) and of Eisler can perhaps also be detected. The overall structure of the cue is simple:

17 Rainer Maria Rilke: Das Stunden-Buch. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1918, pp. 20–21. 18 Peter Rickman: “Rilke’s God”, in: Philosophy Now 101 (2014), https://philosophynow.org/issues/101/Rilkes_God (last accessed 20 July 2016).

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D ie zweite H eimat : Musical Personae in a Second Home 1. An introduction played by the solo piano entailing the fivefold presentation of an idea with the ‘gleaming’ arpeggiation of the pitches C–D–F–Ab–B–G in the upper register followed by a hammer-like figure that lands on Bb2 and Db3. A sixth version of the arpeggio leads into a brilliant cadenza. 2. A rather sour brass fanfare overlapping the pitches G5 –Ab 4 –D 4 –F#3, the section being brought to a close by the piano and orchestra. 3. The choral setting of Rilke’s text, which occupies three-quarters of the cue. Each of three subsections begins with homophonic writing that contributes to the ‘didactic’ character of the setting. The final line of Rilke’s poem, “Gott, du bist groß”, is set twice, first to a chord of A9 (#11) and then the parallel chord a semitone higher on Bb9 (#11), harmonies which create a suspenseful ending to the piece and appear if anything to undermine the ecstatic sentiment of the text. Hermann’s persona as a composer is again constructed as the brilliant if unpolished young musician who has not yet come into contact with metropolitan modernism. Through the mediation of Henry Arnold who was, it will be recalled, a trained pianist and conductor, he is seen to perform plausibly on screen in both these roles. Indeed his accomplished performance in Die zweite Heimat can be compared with that of an equivalent character in the 1951 sentimental Heimatfilm Wenn die Abendglocken läuten (when the evening bell rings) directed by Alfred Braun, with music by Willy Schmidt-Gentner. In the latter film, the simulation of musical performance by Hans Holt (one of the most prolific of Heimatfilm actors) taking the part of Michael Storm is deeply unconvincing and there is an appreciable lack of synchronization between the music and the actor’s movements. By contrast, whether actually playing or simulating performance, Arnold presents a postural and gestural accuracy that reinforces Hermann’s authenticity. A crucial element of the construction of Hermann’s youthful identity that draws on Arnold’s ability as a performer is the cue “Klärchenlied”. This is scored for solo guitar and is first heard in Die zweite Heimat as he leaves his home in Schabbach, bound for music college in Munich with his guitar case and suitcase in his hands. Hermann, Klärchen (his first love) and his departure from the hated Schabbach are conjoined in a cue which ends as Hermann talks of his second birth and his chosen home in Munich and suggests the pain of lost adolescent love. The primary musical reference in “Klärchenlied” is to classical guitar repertoire and in particular to the works of Villa-Lobos. It shares an ambience with the latter composer’s first, second and fourth Preludes, first Etude, and first Chorôs; and it recalls Villa-Lobos’s reinvention of Bachian preluding in the fifth of his Bachianas Brasilieras series. As well as in its classical manifestation, of course, it is worth remembering that the guitar existed in Germany in an alternative form known as the Gitarrenlaute, Wandervogellaute or Bastardlaute, an instrument primar499

David Cooper ily used to accompany folk singing. It brought together the archaic shape of the lute with the familiar stringing of the modern guitar (in a similar way that the so-called Irish bouzouki has transformed the Greek instrument). This ‘German lute’ became associated with the Wandervogel movement, much of whose ethos and symbolism was borrowed by national socialism through the Hitler Youth. And the Heimat that is potentially represented by the rural Wandervogel lute is transformed to the second Heimat through the cosmopolitan guitar. The material that forms the basis of the cue was published in 1984 as the fifth movement (“Epilogue”) of Mamangakis’s Romantic Suite for guitar and it was originally used in Episode 9 (“Hermännchen: 1995–6”) of Heimat – Eine Deutsche Chronik (1984). It provides the diegetic score for scene 923 of this episode, in which we see the fifteen-year-old Hermann lying in his bed, dreamily shining his torch around the walls of his bedroom, prior to joining the two young women, Lotti and Klärchen (who are employees in the family firm, Simon Optik), in the neighbouring bedroom they share – which will become the site of his non-coital sexual initiation in the following scene. The cue is performed in a two-part arrangement, with a solo violin taking the upper voice and a clarinet providing harmonic and contrapuntal support. It is subsequently performed on the guitar by Hermann in scene 936 in the attic of his mother’s house, after he and Klärchen have made love. Beginning from the second part of “Epilogue”, which opens with the accelerating figure discussed above in relation to the toccata for organ (Example 1), it provides the accompaniment to Klärchen’s rendition of a song that was (within the narrative of the film) written and composed by Hermann (“Die Halme stehen rechts und links wie Wände”). The lyrics, translated into English, read as follows: The blades of grass stand left and right like walls bounding the narrow paths. Secretly to the most beautiful lanes. And our hands made brown by summer’s sun happily welcome the many steep tracks which lead over waters filled with light. And marbles amid small stones – in the field where we then hide [ourselves] afraid. Snails crawl red in the shade past our naked legs. (Transl. Frank Finlay) The song melody, which is embedded in the second part of ‘Epilogue’, appears in several other cues from Episode nine of Heimat, scored variously for f lute, violin and clarinet: in scene 942, in their attic hideaway as Hermann describes Klärchen’s skin as being ‘more beautiful than music or poetry’; in scenes 946, as Hermann waits for Klärchen at the side of the road and 947 as they sit together between the blades of grass that are like the walls of Hermann’s song and she tells him that she must leave Schabbach; and finally in scene 956, after her abortion, in a tent in the woods in the pouring rain as she describes her terrible experience. 500

D ie zweite H eimat : Musical Personae in a Second Home By the end of the episode, the cue has taken on a powerful semantic weight, representing sonically Hermann’s feelings for Klärchen and in retrospect the love that he vows he will renounce if he is not permitted to remain in a relationship with her. Towards the end of the first episode of Die zweite Heimat he tells his landlord, Kohlen-Josef, who has asked him to play his guitar for him, proposing a piece by Villa Lobos, that this composition of his own fits well with the pouring rain outside and feelings of loneliness (Alleinsein). In the discrete guitar composition published as “Epilogue”, the two sections of the piece can be regarded as forming a freestanding prelude or introduction ending with a cadence and a double bar, followed by the idiomatic instrumental setting of Hermann’s song and its accompaniment. After twelve bars of preluding, the first section of “Epilogue” exposes a brief melodic idea that rises through a E Dorian mode to the seventh before dropping back to B. A slow arpeggiated descent through a dominant minor chord brief ly pauses on an augmented sixth chord (E#–B–C#–G) and the section ends with a Neapolitan-inf lected cadence of F maj7 - B min b6 - E min 9. The second section of “Epilogue” (demarcated by an indentation in the printed score) begins with the accelerating ‘toccata’ figure shown in Example 1, which summarizes in polymodal form the disparate contributing tonal elements. This is succeeded by further introductory material and the song (the melodic structure of which can be described as A B C A’ B’ C’ D D’ A’’ coda) is introduced after the sixth bar of the section. Bars 7–12 (A–C) alternately employ the lower hexachord of the ‘Gypsy scale’ (E –F# G–A#–B–C) and that of a Dorian mode on E (E–F#– G–A–B–C#) and these subsections are repeated in a varied form an octave higher in bars 13–18. Functioning as a kind of punctuation mark, a truncated version of the ‘toccata’ figure appears in bar 19, closing on a half-diminished chord on E. In the second half of the section, the melodic material of the D subsections that set the words “Und Murmeln unter kleiner steiner / im Feld, wo wir uns dann verstecken” (and marbles amid small stones – in the field where we then hide [ourselves] afraid) brief ly moves the tonality into G major, before a modified reprise of the material from the opening restores the Gypsy mode on E. “Epilogue”, in sundry versions as the cue “Klärchenlied”, frames the main narrative events of Episode 1 of Die zweite Heimat, connecting Hermann’s departure from Schabbach and arrival in Munich with the point of closure at the end of the episode when Klärchen reveals to him by letter that she is now happily married and they will never meet again. The material, which never entirely reproduces “Epilogue” in any of the versions, is distributed across the episode as follows: 1. Scene 107 (as Hermann leaves his home in Schabbach) – section 1 and section 2 as far as the end of bar 14 (A’). 501

David Cooper 4. Scene 109 (as the train arrives in Munich) – the whole of section 1. 5. Scene 110 (as Hermann leaves the station and enters the city) – the final part of section 2, starting from bar 19 (the organ ‘toccata’ figure). 6. Scene 149–152 (as he plays for his landlord, Kohlen-Josef after discovering from his room mate Clemens that Klärchen had called on him; and through the following scenes showing him posting a card that includes the expression ‘long live freedom’ to his Schabbach music teacher and the latter reading the contents to his female students) – section 1 and section 2 up to the end of bar 19 (the ‘toccata’ figure). 7. Scene 154 (as Hermann reads the letter from Klärchen in which she tenders her final farewell) – the whole of section 2. At the beginning of the episode, “Klärchenlied” signifies the pain of love and loss, and the desire for freedom to be achieved by separation from family and community and the establishment of a second home. This sense of freedom is encoded through a variety of means, including the use of the so-called ‘Gypsy’ scale and heavy rubato. But when we observe Hermann playing it in scene 149 to Kohlen-Josef, it has taken on an additional aspect. In the screenplay there is a note that Josef ’s voice and the cosy warmth of the shed give Hermann an almost forgotten feeling of Heimat, and in the context of the experiences of his early student life in Munich, “Klärchenlied” now intimates a degree of nostalgia for the despised Schabbach.19 By the end of the first episode of Die zweite Heimat Hermann has begun to undergo a kind of renewal which, as Proust, comments, “nature performs from time to time, as by the decay and refashioning of our tissues, but we notice this only if the former self contained a great grief, a painful foreign body, which we are surprised to find no longer there, in our amazement at having become another self to whom the sufferings of his precursor are nothing more than the sufferings of a stranger, of which we can speak with compassion because we do not feel them”. 20 Through these four cues – “Hermanns Gebet”, “Orgel Toccata”, “Canto triumphale” and “Klärchenlied” – the musical persona of the young Hermann is powerfully established by Mamangakis, just as his identity as a performer and his character as an individual are created by Henry Arnold through his interpretation of Reitz’s screenplay. The fuller realization of Hermann’s development over the decade depicted by Die zweite Heimat, as he completes his advanced musical edu19 Edgar Reitz: Die zweite Heimat – Drehbuch, Erstes Buch, “Die Zeit der ersten Lieder” (1960), http://edgar-reitz.de/spielfilme/98-die-zweite-heimat-drehbuch/132-film-1-drehbuch.html (last accessed 27. August 2016), p. 30. 20 Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Things Past, vol. 11: The Sweet Cheat Gone, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff. London: Chatto & Windus, 1969, p. 248.

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D ie zweite H eimat : Musical Personae in a Second Home cation, establishes himself as a modernist composer and takes up a position at the Isar Film Studio before disillusionment sets in, is equally dependent on this dual construction by composer and actor. The identity performed by Arnold relies both on his own technical skill (dramatic and musical), and the authenticity of the music composed by Mamangakis, which was forged through a set of cultural experiences in his own second home of Munich (including those with his teacher, Riedl) that to a greater or lesser extent can be seen to have run parallel to those of Hermann.

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor: “Cultural Criticism and Society”, in: Prisms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983, pp. 17–34.      : “Music and New Music”, in: Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music. London: Verso, 1994, pp. 249–268. Anon, “Oberhausen Manifesto 1962: Short Films by the Signatories, 1958–67”, http://www.moma.org/calendar/film/1287?locale=en (last accessed 8 January 2016). Auslander, Philip: “Musical Personae”, in: TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies 50:1 (Spring 2006), pp. 100–119. Finney, Ross Lee: “Music in Greece”, in: Perspectives of New Music, 3/2 (1965), pp. 169–170, here p. 170. Graham, Lisa: Musik macht frei: choral music composed and performed in the Nazi concentration camps, 1938-44. PhD diss., University of Southern California, 2001. Kinter, Alexander: “October 16, 1959 – Premiere of company film ‘Impulse of our Time’”, http://www.siemens.com/history/en/news/impulse_of_ our_time.htm (last accessed 14 June 2016). Nosthoff, Anna-Verena: “Barbarism: Notes on the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno”, http://criticallegalthinking.com/2014/10/15/barbarism-notes-thoughttheodor-w-adorno/ (last accessed 22 October 2015). Proust, Marcel: Remembrance of Things Past, vol. 11: The Sweet Cheat Gone, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff. London: Chatto & Windus, 1969. Reitz, Edgar: Die zweite Heimat – Drehbuch, Erstes Buch, “Die Zeit der ersten Lieder” (1960), http://edgar-reitz.de/spielfilme/98-die-zweite-heimatdrehbuch/132-film-1-drehbuch.html (last accessed 27 August 2016). Reitz, Edgar: “Die Zeit der ersten Lieder”, Die zweite Heimat, DVD. Berlin: StudioCanal GMBH, 2004. Rickman, Peter: “Rilke’s God”, in: Philosophy Now 101 (2014), https://philosophy now.org/issues/101/Rilkes_God (last accessed 20 June 2016).

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David Cooper Rilke, Rainer Maria: Das Stunden-Buch. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1918, pp. 20–21. Slonimsky, Nicolas: “New Music in Greece”, in The Musical Quarterly 51/1 (1965), pp. 225–235. Witte, Karsten: “Of the Greatness of the Small People: The Rehabilitation of a Genre”, in: Die Zeit, September 14, 1984. Reprinted in Miriam Hansen, Karsten Witte, J. Hoberman, Thomas Elsaesser, Gertrud Koch, Friedrich P. Kahlenberg, Klaus Kreimeier and Heide Schlüpmann: “Dossier on Heimat”, in: New German Critique 36 (Autumn 1985), pp. 3–24.

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Brechtian Fidelio Performances in West Germany: 1968 to the New Millennium Glenn Stanley “In Harry Kupfer’s production [of Fidelio] for the Komische Oper, Berlin, in1997, the figures stood on an empty stage before music stands and sang from pianovocal scores. With this Kupfer took another step away from the drama of illusion to Brechtian epic.” Sybille Mahke, “Ein Beethoven, der nach Brecht geht”, in: Der Tagesspiegel, 8.11.1997, p. 25

Introduction Martin Kušej, the director of the Stuttgart Opera’s 1998 production of Fidelio, dressed his characters in contemporary clothing, had snow fall during the quartet canon, and turned Florestan’s cell into a tawdry boarding-house room in which the hero staggered around like a pathetic drunkard. During the stand-off in the dungeon, Pizzaro shoots Florestan dead, and Leonore kills Pizarro. The stage goes black, gongs peal mournfully. The stage lights go back on, a bloody Florestan stands up and sings the ecstatic duet, “O namenlose Freude,” with Leonore, and the finale begins. How should we understand this? Weapons are used with terrible results; the “principle of hope” (Ernst Bloch) is a utopian illusion. And theater is make-believe, a world of mere appearance (Schein) illusion in which a corpse can sing. It is a show, as revealed by the entrance of the chorus clothed in evening attire suitable for attending an opera. The truth content of this Fidelio consists in its negation through the production. And this negation is an act of rescue; only in this form is Fidelio relevant and meaningful in a world that is worlds apart from that of its origin. However extreme, this production belongs to a stream of Fidelio interpretation that emerged on the West-German stage in the late 1960s and established itself as a serious alternative to conventional productions. Instead of re-affirming the opera’s celebrations of love and courage and the triumph of justice, human rights, and freedom, such productions offered a critical reexamination of Fidelio 505

Glenn Stanley as a work of art and ideas. And they used Fidelio as a means to critique recent German history – not just Fascism and the Holocaust but the cultural values of the German high bourgeoisie – and attack contemporary injustice in Germany and abroad. This revisionist approach to a canonical opera did not arise in a vacuum. The leftist political orientation of much of the intellectual and artistic elite of the Federal Republic in the 1960s was a critical factor, when opposition to the war in Vietnam and a perceived failure on the part of Germany to confront its past encouraged a strong protest movement that penetrated literature, spoken theatre, and more, slowly, that last bastion of high-bourgeois culture, the opera. Directors and dramaturges found a stimulus and theoretical basis in the plays and essays of Bertolt Brecht, whose inf luence in both German states – he emigrated to the German Democratic Republic in 1949 – remained extremely potent after his death in 1956. Brecht never directed a classical opera and, after an initial fascination with the genre became strongly critical of it, comparing it, contemptuously, to a culinary experience for the rich.1 However, his inf luence was frequently acknowledged by opera directors and dramaturges – rarely conductors! – involved in the reform of opera production. Fidelio was certainly not the only opera subjected to revision, but its symbolic importance as an affirmation of freedom and liberal values and everything that was ‘good’ about German culture lent it a status and significance that no other German opera could claim. Fidelio was the perfect target. Fidelio has been valorized by thinkers across the ideological spectrum and, since the Congress of Vienna, performances have served state ceremony and propaganda in the most diverse political regimes. The ambiguous political content of the opera makes this possible: its critique of injustice and evocation of human-rights and freedom is counterbalanced by its valorization of non-republican state authority in the person of Fernando, who represents an enlightened but authoritarian monarchy. After the Second World War, Fidelio reception mirrored the ideological differences between the Soviet Zone/German Democratic Republic and the Western Allied Zones/Federal Republic of Germany. The recent calamities required the reconstruction of national identity, and in the two German states and Austria high art had a crucial role. East-German criticism and performances emphasized the “revolutionary” nature of Beethoven’s music and the progressive ideology of the story in productions largely conforming to socialist-realist aesthetics. In the West, ceremonial performances celebrated infant democracies whose values Fidelio symbolized. And the recent past? Wilhelm Furtwängler espoused a mis-en-scène that acknowledged recent history, and the set of his production in Salzburg, 1948, evoked a 1

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See Joy H Calico: Brecht at the Opera. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Calico traces his change in attitude, and argues for the importance of his pre-occupation with classical opera as a major stimulus towards the development of his dramatic theories and the writing of his own opera librettos.

Brechtian F idelio Performances in West Germany concentration camp. But this was the exception: Fidelio in post-war West Germany and Austria was largely treated as a work of bourgeois idealism, a ‘pure’ artwork unsullied by recent history, and an advertisement for their f ledgling democracies and cultural legacy. Productions subscribed to the traditionalist nature of post-war theatre aesthetics, and harmonized with the conservative political culture and cultural politics of the Adenauer era, providing upper-middle class audiences with a comfortably uplifting experience that satisfied their expectations of high art. This situation began to change – primarily in the Federal Republic – in the mid-1960s. New forms of street and informal theater engaged in political agitation. New plays in more traditional venues took on political topics, such as Rolf Hochhuth’s extremely controversial Der Stellvertreter (premiere 1963 in Berlin), an attack on the failure of the Vatican to protest against the Holocaust. Most important for this study is the re-emergence of a leftist, revisionist approach to the production of classical stage work that first arose in Germany during the Weimar Republic. 2 Brecht, and the author and director Erwin Piscator (1893–1969), who directed the premiere of Der Stellvertreter, were the leading figures in this movement and, after 1945, both men returned to Germany after years in exile. Brecht acknowledged Piscator’s revolutionary work and his debts to it; nevertheless Brecht was the major figure, despite initial widespread West-German opposition to his decision to settle in the GDR. (Piscator went to West Berlin.) Nevertheless, by the 1960s Brecht was one of the most performed playwrights in West Germany and his techniques had been adapted by stage directors in theatres across the country, with or lacking his Marxist orientation. 3 The ‘Brechtian’ approach to a classic play approached it critically, challenged and instructed its audience, sought means to make the classic play relevant and to redefine the function of theater in modern society. Brecht’s ideas were crucial for the development of the so-called ‘Director’s Theater’ (Regietheater). The term arose in the 1950s and has often applied negatively, especially to opera. Many Regietheater productions share little with Brecht’s and Piscator’s political and aesthetic ideas, yet this misappropriation of techniques only affirms the extent of their inf luence.

Brecht on the Theater: A very short sketch Brecht’s theoretical writings are elusive: fragmentary, self-referential, often discursive or polemical rather than systematic. I take a synthetic approach, drawing 2 Jost Hermand: Die Kultur der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: 1965–85. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlag, 1988. 3 For a detailed account of Brecht’s position and influence in the Federal Republic see John Rouse: Brecht and the West German Theatre: The Practice and Politics of Interpretation. Ann Arbor and London: UMI Research Press, 1989.

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Glenn Stanley on four seminal essays: “Notes to the Opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny” (1930);4 “Theater for Pleasure or Theater for Instruction” (1936);5 “A Short Organum for the Theatre” (1948);6 and “Classical Status as an Inhibiting Factor” (1954).7 Two of the most important Brechtian concepts are ‘Alienation’ and ‘Epic Theatre’. ‘Alienation’ is an unfortunate translation of the German Verfremdung which translates better as a phrase, “to be made strange or unfamiliar”. (A better single-word translation is the sometimes used ‘Estrangement’, but I will retain the more familiar term.) In the “Short Organum”, Brecht describes alienation as “a representation that alienates is one which allows us to recognize its subject, but at the same time to make it seem unfamiliar”. 8 Brecht mentions, in diverse writings, techniques of alienation and alienation effects, which include: •• •• •• •• ••

revisions of the original text; insertions of new spoken texts and songs into the theatrical discourse; projections of text on stage, non-traditional stage designs and costumes; projected and constructed images; f lat, ‘matter-of-fact’ mode of delivery and gesture.9

All of these techniques, and also the positioning of actors, musicians, and even the crew on stage, combine to remove the illusion of dramatic realism from the theatrical experience and expose the material components of a production. The application of these techniques to classical plays (Brecht often discusses Goethe and Shakespeare) transforms them from their original mode of Aristotelian dramatic theatre into the mode of epic theatre. Dramatic theatre, predicated on the illusion of realism, was, per Brecht, once valid, because new plays addressed contemporary issues and hence were relevant to the society in which they created and performed. Over time, they lost their potency and relevance, as the historical conditions changed and contemporary audiences lived and experienced different4

“Anmerkungen zur Oper Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny”, in: Bertolt Brecht: Werke: Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, ed. Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, Klaus-Detlef Müller, vol. 24. Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag and Suhrkamp Verlag, 1991, pp. 74–86. Translation in Brecht on Theater, ed. and trans. John Willet. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964, pp. 33–42. 5 “Vergnügungstheater oder Lehrtheater”, in: Bertolt Brecht: Werke vol. 22, part 2 (1993), pp. 106– 112. Translation in Willet, Brecht, pp. 69–76. 6 “Kleines Organon für das Theater”, in: Bertolt Brecht: Werke vol. 22 (1993), pp. 65–97. Translation in Willet, Brecht, pp. 179–205. 7 “Einschüchterung durch die Klassizität“, in: Bertolt Brecht: vol. 23. Berlin and Weimar: AufbauVerlag and Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, pp. 316–318. Translation in Willet, Brecht, pp. 272–273. 8 Willet: Brecht, p. 192. 9 Brecht writes about these effects in more than one essay. They are outlined in the “Organum” beginning on p. 194 in Willet’s translation.

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Brechtian F idelio Performances in West Germany ly than the original ones. They became artifacts in the museum of German nineteenth-century idealistic theatre, which Brecht associated with the cultural elite of the German high-classical and romantic epochs. This social group had misappropriated – while canonicizing – classic plays, but now, in the twentieth century, its social position and values have lost the progressive vitality they originally possessed. In the essay “Classical Status as an Inhibiting Factor”, which he wrote in East Berlin for a production of the Urfaust (the original version of Goethe’s Faust, 1772–1775), Brecht criticized interpretations of classic plays that preserve a conservative “historically conditioned” style. Such productions undermine the original critical function of these plays, and produce “boring, dusty” performances.10 His call for a new approach commingles the rhetoric of class struggle with warnings against formalism in the context of the soviet-led anti-formalism campaign of the late 1940s and 1950s: We must see the classic work with new eyes. We must not hold on to the degenerated way – dictated by convention – that we have seen it in the degenerate theater of the bourgeoisie. And we must not strive for purely formal and external innovations that are foreign to the work.11 The new way is epic theatre, ‘modern theatre’. Through their alienation effects, plays in the epic mode make viewers reconsider their position towards these works by forcing them to think about the issues they present, rather than just empathize with the characters and to enjoy them on a purely aesthetic plane. Alienated classical plays can engage with problems in contemporary society rather than simply reproducing traditional performances that no longer represent and critique existing conditions and social relationships. Moreover, plays in the epic mode provide a richer and more meaningful theatrical experience than traditional ones and enable theatre to play a significant role in political education. Brecht first developed his ideas on epic theatre in the essay on Mahagonny. The essay, and the composition of the opera, express his love for music and the importance he attached to music in the theatre. Songs in spoken plays serve as alienation effects in two ways: they interrupt the action and comment on it; and singing is an artificial mode of expression – people don’t usually sing their thoughts – and hence an element of alienation in and of itself.12 Opera as the basis for epic theatre derives from his contempt for traditional opera, a perspective that was shared by many left-leaning thinkers during the Weimar Republic and then again after 1945. In the “Short Organum” he comments on the “decadence of entertain10 My translation, compare to Willett: Brecht, p. 272. 11 My translation, compare to Willet: Brecht, p. 272. 12 See Christoph Nieder: “Bertolt Brecht und die Oper. Zur Verwandschaft von epischem Theater und Musiktheater,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 61 (1992), pp. 262–283.

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Glenn Stanley ment emporiums” that have “degenerated into branches of the bourgeois narcotics business”.13 If opera could be transformed, what better proof of the efficacy of his method? In the essay on Mahagonny Brecht wrote about “transforming the means of pleasure into an object of instruction and certain institutions from places of entertainment into organs of mass communication”.14 This formulation anticipates the theme of the essay “Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction”, in which he further develops his thoughts about the functions of epic theatre in modern society. The title is a straw man; Brecht argues that there can be pleasure without instruction, but instruction does not exclude pleasure. ‘Culinary theater’ is not necessarily a bad thing if it includes instruction. The instruction is ‘moral’ in character: Brecht asks rhetorically if the theater is, as Friedrich Schiller argued in 1784, an “institution of morality”15 and distinguishes between the bourgeois morality of Schiller’s time (a positive force in its historical contest) and a morality based on observation and thought. This distinction mirrors the one between feeling/empathy in the dramatic theater and reason/intellect in epic theater. Brecht’s critical morality seeks: not just to arouse moral objections […] but to discover means to eliminate the circumstances [e.g. hunger, cold, and oppression …] that gave rise to observations. These truly are two distinct matters for the victims are often told that they ought to be contented with their lot, for moral reasons. Morality of this sort sees man as existing for morality, not morality for man. At least it should be possible to gather from the above to what degree and in what sense the epic theatre is a moral institution. 16 Brecht demands a great deal from the theatre; his vision is as utopian as that of eighteenth-century enlightenment thinkers like Schiller on the role of the stage.

Alienating Fidelio Brecht explains, in the “Short Organum”, how he decides which techniques to apply for producing alienation effects in a particular work: “What needs to be alienated, and how this is to be done, depends on the exposition demanded by the entire episode; and this is where the theatre has to speak up decisively for the in13 Willet, Brecht: p. 179. 14 Ibidem, p. 42. 15 Schiller gave a lecture, ‘Die Schaubühne al seine moralische Anstalt betrachtet’ (The Theatre considered as a Moral Institution) to the ‘Deutsche Gesellschaft’ in Mannheim in June 1784. He published it in 1785 in the first issue of his journal ‘Rheinische Thalia’ ‘Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubühne eigentlich wirken?; (What can a theatre of good standing actually achieve?’ 16 Ibidem, p. 75

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Brechtian F idelio Performances in West Germany terests of its own time.”17 Brecht chose Hamlet to provide an example of an exposition: “Given the dark and bloody period in which I am writing [1948] – the criminal ruling classes, the widespread doubt in the power of reason, continually being misused – I think that I can read them thus: It is an age of warriors.”18 Hamlet’s father killed the King of Norway in battle; Fortinbras, the son of the Norwegian King is re-arming; the murder of Hamlet’s father by his uncle is a political act; a war against Poland is launched that leads to power struggles in Denmark and Norway. Hamlet’s actions lead to further deaths, and in the vacuum of power, Fortinbras the Norwegian, occupies Denmark. “These events”, Brecht concludes: show the young man […], making the most ineffective use of the new approach to reason which he has picked up at the University of Wittenberg. In the feudal business to which he returns it simply hampers him. Faced with irrational practices, his reason is utterly unpractical. He falls a tragic victim to the discrepancy between such reason and such action. This way of reading the play, which can be read in more than one way, might in my view interest our audience.19 The personal relationships and acts of violence in Hamlet are not just personal; they are politically conditioned and motivated: they play themselves out in the context of the grand historical conditions and problems that are, for Brecht, the proper subject of the play. (These remarks were not written in conjunction with a production of Hamlet under Brecht’s direction.) In Autumn 1968, the audience for a production of Fidelio in Kassel, a second tier opera company in a city with a progressive cultural and political tradition, was presented with a “Documentation” that explained the concept behind the production; it is nothing less than a short Brechtian “exposition”: We are aware of the extraordinary difficulty of finding a solution for the production of Fidelio that is valid today. It seems too easy to us to settle on the repetition of cherished, traditional forms of interpretation. We want to concentrate on [the opera’s] fundamental themes of violence, oppression, political murder on the one hand, [and] freedom on the other. 20 This is a crystal clear statement about “what needs to be alienated and how this will be done” and, although the programme notes do not cite the “Short Organum”, they do contain most of the essay “Classical Status as an Inhibiting Factor.” 17 18 19 20

Ibidem, p. 201. Ibidem, pp. 201–202. Ibidem, p. 202. Gerd Albrecht, Ulrich Melchinger, etc.: Fidelio – Kassel 1968. Eine Dokumentation, in: Programmheft zu Fidelio. Kassel: Staatstheater Kassel, 1968/1969, pp. 8–13.

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Glenn Stanley Fidelio in Kassel 1968 presents alienations of every aspect of the opera that can be studied – unfortunately there is no tape. Two early numbers found insufficiently integrated into the “true content of the work” were cut: the opening duet between Jacquino and Marzelline and Rocco’s “gold aria” about the virtues of money. Both are in a comic opera mode. The “mediocre, sentimental, petit-bourgeois” spoken dialogue was replaced with poems by that were recorded and played from a tape. All the authors except Apollinaire had been victims of twentieth-century state oppression: the German Jew Nelly Sachs, the Czech Jew Jírí Orten, the German Marxist Walter Bauer, whose work was banned during the Third Reich, the Algerian Henri Krea, who in the 1960s in Paris participated in the protest movement against French colonial policies, and Brecht. The first poem was by Sachs, a Holocaust survivor and prize-winning author (she shared the Nobel Prize for literature in 1966 with the Samuel Josef Agnon). Her “Chor der Geretteten” serves as a prologue before the dramatic Leonore Overture No. 2 (not the lighter Fidelio Overture) and, in the first verse, music is specified as a language of suffering: Wir Geretteten, Aus deren hohlem Gebein der Tod schon seine Flöten schnitt, An deren Sehnen der Tod schon seine Bogen strich Unsere Leiber klagen noch nach Mit ihrer verstümmelten Musik. We, the rescued, From whose hollow bones death had begun to whittle his f lutes, An on whose sinews he had already stroked his bow – Our bodies continued to lament With their mutilated music. 21 A sympathetic critic compared the poems to the functions of songs in Brecht’s plays: “they are like inserts, isolated moments of ref lection and moral appeals.”22 An elevated platform on the stage f loor, bare and abstract, illuminated with hard white light (even in the dungeon scene) comprised the set for the entire opera. The platform was framed by an oversized image of a woman’s face in a series of quietly menacing repetitions inspired by Andy Warhol. The costumes are not historical, with the exception of the Minister’s. The chorus sat on stands in plain view throughout the performance; the protagonists sat further to the sides in shadow, but they were seen entering and leaving the stage. In the Short Organum 21 Nelly Sachs: O The Chimneys: Selected poems, including the verse play, Eli trans. Michael Hamburger, Christopher Holme, Ruth and Matthew Mead, and Michael Roloff. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967, p. 25. 22 Gerhard R. Koch: “Ein neuer Fidelio”, Musica 11 (1968), p. 471.

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Brechtian F idelio Performances in West Germany Brecht writes of the role of the set designer, who “no longer has to give the illusion of a room or a locality when he is building his sets. It is enough for him to give hints, though these must make statements of greater historical or social interest than does the real setting.”23 The oppressive set negates the jubilant music and text of the conclusion, the visual components provide the alienation. It is the set that forces us to ask – what happens after the celebration – will the surveillance system be dismantled? How will life go on in a society that created such terrors? Fistfights and a near riot marked the premiere, which unleashed a storm of controversy in the German press. Scandalized opponents objected to every aspect of the production as a defamation of a canonic work that represented everything good about Germany and its tradition; supporters hailed it as a necessary rescue of the opera in post-Nazi Germany. As Regietheater established itself in West Germany and left-wing thinking penetrated the nation’s cultural institutions, productions of Fidelio with Brechtian critical elements f lourished, at first in smaller opera houses (Wuppertal, 1969; Bremen, 1974), more gradually in the theatres of international standing: Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart. (Munich was timid.) They have provoked outraged responses and spirited defense, whereby musicologists have often been in the forefront of the opposition. 24 There had been isolated precedents for some aspects of the production in Kassel: Mahler cut Rocco’s aria in Vienna, 1904; in 1954 (Stuttgart and Paris) Wieland Wagner created an abstract circular set in the newBayreuth style and cut all the spoken text except the act-two melodrama, replacing it with three short texts that were spoken. But Kassel was truly a model for its time. Replacing all or most of the original dialogue became a key element in productions of this nature: narrative and poetic inserts, some by prominent contemporary literary figures such as Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Walter Jens, commented on contemporary issues or recent history, always with a focus on poltiical oppression and violence. 25 Jens, professor at the University of Tübingen and a prominent politial activist, wrote a long set of monologues, spoken by Rocco, for productions at a summer festival in Ludwigsburg in the mid-1980s. Four years after the events of the opera, Rocco, now in private service in Cordoba, relates the events from his perspective 23 Willet, Brecht: p. 203. 24 See, for example, Laurenz Lütteken: “Wider den Zeitgeist der Beliebigkeit. Ein Plädoyer für die Freiheit des Textes und die Grenzen der Interpretation”, in Wagnerspectrum 2/1 ed. Udo Bermbach. Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, 2005, pp. 23–30. Lütteken acknowledges the Brechtian basis to Regietheater, condems alienation as a technique, and notes that a once revolutionary approach has become a self-satisfied convention. 25 See Glenn Stanley: “Fidelio Rescued: New Texts for a ‘bad’ Singspiel”, in: Beethoven: Musik und Literatur ed. M. Tomasewski. Cracow: Akademia Muzyczna, 2009, pp. 209–224. Programme notes also served this purpose.

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Glenn Stanley and ref lects on his role. He expresses his feelings of guilt and engages in self-criticism: he is a “Dummkopf ” and a “Schurke” (scoundrel), yet he justifies his actions (“An order is an order”) and remembers with pride his refusal to kill Florestan. Rocco ref lects on the nature of courage, which “is something for big people and not for little ones like us. We have to kneel and grovel on the earth until the storm has passed. Yes, Sir, as you command.”26 This nuanced psychological portrait and Jen’s motivation to plead a case Rocco, who has almost universally seen as an entirley subservient opportunist, may well have had personal motivations. Jens, whose severe asthma freed him military service during the Second World War, was a member of the Hitler Jugend and a Nazi Party member as of 1942. Jens denies having willingly joined the party, claiming that he was registered without his knoweldge as an automatic result of his membership in the Jugend. This assertion has not been universally accepted. Jens describes his text as “gut brechtisch”, but he does affirm the positive outcome of the work. Another prominent substitute text is less optimistic. Edgar Said and Daniel Barenboim collaborated on a production for Berlin and Chicago in the 1990s. In the statements that provide a commentary on the events of the opera and narrative for the missing spoken text Leonore remembers, from an undefined place and time. This alienation is strengthened in that her tetxs were only displayed, not spoken. Leonore does not engage in self-analysis and when she speaks of Rocco she is entirely negative. There is no document to the effect that Said critiques Jens, but I think that this must have been the case. The other significant aspect of Said’s work is his balancing act between utopian idealism and realism. Her first statement begins triumphantly but soon turns dark: There was never a day like it before, or again. […] I pulled my beloved husband Florestan out of the darkness into the light. For a brief ecstatic moment, we stood there together. […] We sang, we celebrated the tyrant’s downfall, we were transported by a nameless joy. And yet […] our victory was all too brief, and now I find it hard to grasp what happened, hard to accept or imagine that our idealism and faith left so few traces, lasted for so short a time. 27 Said has taken a very Brechtian approach to Fidelio. In this statement she has already presented its outcome: she invites us to think about the events, as she thinks about them – the emphasis is on ref lection rather than unmediated emo26 Walter Jens: Roccos Erzählung: Zwischentexte zu ‚Fidelio‘ von Ludwig van Beethoven. Stuttgart: Radius-Verlag, 1985, p. 23. “An order is an order” etc., p. 20; earlier citations on pp. 13 ff. 27 The texts have been printed in the notes to a recording of the opera conducted by Barenboim: Teldec 25249. Hamburg, 2000, pp. 21 ff. Neither the substitute nor the original texts are included in the recorded performance.

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Brechtian F idelio Performances in West Germany tion. The passage also highlights the passage of time, the historical distance between the original work (the action of he plot) and its current audience. The process of history transforms the nature of the opera, because it is framed within a new historical circumstance and the contemporary audience receives it from a perspective that is very different from that of the original one. With respect to sets and costumes, two essential interpretative approaches to Fidelio since 1968 can be discerned; abstract ones as in Kassel that nevertheless represent prisons, total surveillance, social alienation, and oppression, and those that present realistic or near-realistic scenarios of contemporary or near-contemporary life. The latter, which depart from Brechtian principles, have been far more numerous and have often presented settings evoking concentration camps and prisons. A production in Bremen in the 1980s unfolds in a shipyard, at a time when the German ship-building was in rapid decline. The conclusion of Fidelio has been the most thoroughly alienated part of the opera in Brechtian performances. Two examples illustrate the extremes that alienation techniques could take. One wants to makes us laugh; the other wants to make us cry. At the 1995 Bregenz Festival on the shores of Lake Constance in Austria, the domestic scenes at the beginning are set in a tidy row house complete with a Volkswagen Beetle and window-box plantings; the prison looks like a modern business tower, in which the cells = offices are illuminated with blinding light as oppressive as the darkness of the original dungeon. As the director David Pountney explained in a TV interview at the time, there is horror in our daily lives; life itself can become a prison. 28 In the finale, Don Fernando arrives on a boat, accompanied by a camera crew, American-style cheerleaders waving pompoms, and a living statue of liberty. The row houses are hung with tri-coleur banners and the grandes paroles – liberté, egalité, fraternité are displayed. A reporter describes the scene and asks if this is cynical political theater. The entire scene is a caricature and a commentary on the debasement and exploitation of cherished positive ideals. The most extreme alienation that I know of occurs in a production in 2004 in Dortmund that was co-sponsored by Amnesty International. The set has two levels: Leonore, Florestan, and the other individuals, dressed in modern formal attire, stand drinking champagne on a raised platform, below them, the prisoners, dressed in orange uniforms, sing along. Soon enough, the ominous large pipes and valves behind the prisoners begin to issue noxious gasses: the prisoners gag, fall, and die. Above them the protagonists also begin to choke, and the curtain falls. The director, Christian Pade explained in an online interview, that the soldiers under Pizzaro’s command have committed murder in order to conceal 28 An interview and roundtable in Bregenz during the festival was televised by the German television station 3sat. The translations of citations are mine from the broadcast.

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Glenn Stanley injustices under his regime. 29 This extreme, perhaps heavy-handed, take on the finale applies Brechtian means to non-Brechtian ends; it appeals to audience empathy rather than ref lection. 30 I have not yet written anything about the musical performance. This ref lects the priorities of the current musicological discussion (and journalistic criticism) of contemporary opera performance, which in turn ref lects the dominating presence of non-musical elements in Regietheater productions. Nevertheless, musicologists and critics should feel obligated to address musical interpretation. The focus must be on the conductor, who theoretically at least, has a position analogous to that of the dramatic director, defines an interpretative concept and that with the singers and orchestras to realize it in performance. Can every musical performance legitimately claim to be an interpretation in this sense of the term? By no means; in German the useful distinction is made between Wiedergabe (simple reproduction) and Interpretation.31 Although there is a fair amount of musicological theory on such issues as performativity, persona, and voice, we lack a holistic hermeneutics of opera performance. Musical interpretation is particularly acute in the case of a production with a distinct interpretative character in its stage dramaturgy. In a critical production, disjunctions are created between the dramaturgy and the musical text and its performance (and, of course the verbal text, if it is retained). Production teams can eliminate numbers from Fidelio, as we have seen, but the music of the finale cannot be recomposed. Brecht espoused such disjunctions as positive results of the relative autonomy of different and potentially conflicting dimensions of a work and its performance. In Fidelio, the disjunction between music and mis-en-scène can be viewed as legitimate in light of the disjunctions between the art and ideology of the opera and the social reality of the societies, then and now, in which it is presented. But some directors and conductors seem to have been uncomfortable with the disjunction and have tried to minimize it. Pountney, for example, defended his finale by contending that Beethoven, no friend of authoritarian regimes, composed the introductory march as a caricature that disqualifies everything that follows. 29 Http://www.opernnetz.de/seiten/backstage/pade-htm. The site is no longer active. 30 Joy Calico cites several authors who feel that many dramatic productions are Brechtian in a superficial, rather than methodical, conceptual sense. In criticism the term is broadly and casually applied; Brechtian theatre has become a watered-down common denominator. Calico cites Michael Patterson: “in a world where all progressive forms of theatre are ‘Brechtian’, none is”, in: Brecht at the Opera, p. 143; the citation is from Patterson’s essay, “Brecht’s legacy”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Brecht ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 282. 31 See, for example, the relatively early and extremely thorough and thoughtful critique of the role and treatment of music in Regietheater operatic productions by Wolfang Osthoff: “Werk und Wiedergabe als Akutelles Problem”, in: Werk und Wiedergabe. Musiktheater exemplarisch interpretiert ed. Sigrid Wiesmann. Bayreuth: Mühl’scher Universitätsverlag, 1980, pp. 13–47.

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Brechtian F idelio Performances in West Germany There is no documentary evidence for this, and there is nothing in the score to support explicitly the claim. Did the performance of the march distort it in a way that made hearing a caricature possible? Not in my view, although I can imagine that this could be done, through hyperbolic exaggerations that produce a caricature. (The march that introduces Pizarro in the first act is a different story. I find that its orchestration and stilted rhythms are bizarre and undermine his authority.) The more common approach, according to the unfortunately rare statements by conductors and directors, and the more frequent remarks by critics, is to purge the music of the opera of the sentimentality and pathos that ostensibly characterize traditional performances. The most often mentioned element is tempo; fast tempos avoid falling into the traditional trap. This purging comprises the musical estrangement that correlates to the estrangements in the scenic dramaturgy and solves the problem of disjunction. The estrangement is effected through a musical interpretation that breaks with performance tradition. In positive reviews of critical Fidelio productions critics invariably praise breaks with performance tradition, leaving us to wonder, exactly which tradition is being broken? Furtwängler or Toscanini? Bernstein or von Karajan? Michael Gielen spoke at length about his very Brechtian approach – without invoking Brecht – to conducting the Stuttgart Fidelio of 1998. Citing Mahler’s epithet “Tradition ist Schlamperei” (tradition is sloppiness) in the context of his epochal Fidelio production in Vienna, 1904, Gielen described his work with the orchestra as a “retraining” consisting largely of getting rid of old habits. 32 Tempos are fast and strict (he sharply criticizes the traditional slow tempo for the quartet canon of the first act); phrases end abruptly; changes in dynamics and tempo are abrupt. Phrases are not rounded off, cadences are not prepared by retardandi, and movements do not broaden out before they conclude. All of these traditional elements of style are “superf luous” in this “aggressive music”, which demands “hardness” as the essential interpretative approach. 33 While Gielen would perform Fidelio in this way in any production, he expressed his admiration for Jusek’s interpretation, and the principle, as Gielen defined it, of “entering into a dialogue with the original work, with the music.” Productions that only reproduce the libretto are “dead”. Fidelio comes “alive” only through an “opposition to its original form”. Gielen wonders whether “the screaming” in “Namenlose Freude” reveals Beethoven’s need to convince himself where there was (and is) so much evidence to the contrary: “No one believes in so much joy”, Gielen says, “you just have to look around.”34 32 On the occasion of a broadcast of the production in the Third Programme of the south-west station (SWR) of the First German Radio and Television (ARD), 29.3.1998. 33 Ibidem. 34 Ibidem.

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Glenn Stanley Whatever position one takes about these controversial productions, one must acknowledge that they provoked thought about the art and ideas of Fidelio. And they have forced – or at least provided the opportunity for – individuals to examine their assumptions both about the meaning and function of art and their complacent acceptance of ideological sacred cows. We might not like all their results, there has been junk: arbitrary application of Brechtian techniques lacking any apparent meaning (I don’t understand the point to Jusek’s stage designs nor his portrayal of Florestan), but many productions deserve consideration as serious, historically-conditioned engagements with a problematic masterpiece. In his review of the Stuttgart production of 1998, Claus Spahn, the distinguished music critic for Die Zeit, wrote that Fidelio is the one opera that “will never lose its validity”; but only because it will remain “the eternal object of German self-questioning”, 35 in performances (like the one in Stuttgart he is reviewing), which question its original suppositions. Brechtian ideas about the theatre motivated the urge to critically engage with the opera and provided the means to ask the questions that must be asked.

Select Bibliography Albrecht, Gerd and Ulrich Melchinger: “Fidelio – Kassel 1968. Eine Dokumentation”, in: Programmheft zu Fidelio. Kassel: Staatstheater Kassel, 1968. Bodek, Richard: Proletarian Performance in Weimar Berlin. Columbia (South Carolina): Camden House, 1997. Brecht, Bertolt: Brecht on Theater, ed. and trans. John Willet. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964.      : “Anmerkungen zur Oper Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny”, in: Bertolt Brecht: Werke: Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe 24, ed. Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, Klaus-Detlef Müller. Berlin and Weimar: Auf bau-Verlag and Suhrkamp Verlag, 1991, pp. 74–86.      : “Vergnügungstheater oder Lehrtheater”, in: Bertolt Brecht: Werke 22/2, ed. Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, Klaus-Detlef Müller. Berlin and Weimar: Auf bau-Verlag and Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, pp. 106–112. Translation in Willet, Brecht, pp. 69–76.      : “Kleines Organon für das Theater”, in Bertolt Brecht: Werke 22/1, ed. Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, Klaus-Detlef Müller Berlin and Weimar: Auf bau-Verlag and Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993. pp. 65–97. Translation in Willet, Brecht, pp. 179–205 35 Claus Spahn: “Klopfzeichen im Kerker”, Die Zeit, 3.19.1998. Online edition: http://www.zeit. de/1998/13/Klopfzeichen_im_Kerker.

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durch die Klassizität“, in: Bertolt Brecht: 23, ed. Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, Klaus-Detlef Müller. Berlin and Weimar: Auf bau-Verlag and Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, pp. 316– 318. Translation in Willet, Brecht, pp. 272–273 Burde, Wolfgang etc.: “Meinungen über Fidelio“, in: Opernwelt 11 (1970), No. 10, pp. 15–20, No. 11, pp. 14–20, No. 12, pp. 14-17 Calico, Joy H.: Brecht at the Opera. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Claussen, Horst: “Folterkammer und Idylle. Bühnenbilder zu Fidelio 1805–1986”, in: Beethoven und die Nachwelt. Materialien zur Wirkungsgeschichte Beethovens, ed. Helmut Loos. Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1986, pp.157–186. Csobádi, Peter, Gernot Gruber, Jürgen Kühnel, Ulrich Müller, Oswald Panagl, Franz Viktor Spechtler eds.: Fidelio/Leonore – Annäherungen an ein zentrales Werk des Musiktheaters, Vorträge und Materialien des Salzburger Symposions 1996 (Wort und Musik – Salzburger Akademische Beiträge 39), Anif/Salzburg: Verlag Ursula Müller-Speiser, 1998. Curjel Hans: Experiment Kroll-Oper. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1975. Dean, Winton: “Beethoven and opera”, in: Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio, ed. Paul Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 22–50. Dennis, David B.: Beethoven in German Politics 1870–1989. New Haven und London: Yale University Press, 1996. Eckert, Nora: Von der Oper zum Musiktheater: Wegbereiter und Regisseure. Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 1998. Henze-Döhring, Sabine: “Ein Singspiel aus dem Geist der Restauration”, in: Oper und Musikdrama im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Sieghart Döhring. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1997, pp. 43–54. Hermand, Jost: Die Kultur der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: 1965–85. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlag, 1988. Herz, Joachim: “Klassiker-Rezeption und epische Spielweise auf der Musikbühne”, in: Jahrbuch der Komischen Oper Berlin 12 (1971–72), pp. 27–35. Jäger, Manfred: Kultur und Politik in der DDR. Cologne: Deutschland Archiv, 1995. Jens, Walter: Roccos Erzählung: Zwischentexte zu Fidelio von Ludwig van Beethoven. Stuttgart: Radius-Verlag, 1985. Jungheinrich, Hans-Klaus, ed.: Musikalische Zeitfragen 17: Musiktheater. Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 1986. Kaiser, Joachim, Henning Rischbieter, Kurt Kahl, “Wie inszeniert man heute Klassiker”, in: Theater Heute 2/5(May 1961), p. 3. Koch, Gerhard R.: “Ein neuer Fidelio”, in: Musica 11 (1968), p. 471. Lütteken, Laurenz: “Wider den Zeitgeist der Beliebigkeit. Ein Plädoyer für die Freiheit des Textes und die Grenzen der Interpretation“, in: Wagner-

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Glenn Stanley spectrum 2/1, ed. Udo Bermbach. Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, 2005, pp. 23–30. McGowan, Moray: “Fidelio and Faust in the German ‘Wende’ of 1989/90”, in: Goethe, musical poet, musical catalyst ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2004, pp. 126–155 Melchinger, Ulrich and Albrecht, Gerd: “Der ‘Kasseler-Fidelio’: positive Wirkung eines Theaterskandals”, in: Leonore: zur Urfassung des Fidelio: Programmheft zur konzertanten Leonore-Aufführung in Zürich, 1978. Zurich: Tonhalle-Gesellschaft, 1978, pp. 24–27. Nieder, Christoph: “Bertolt Brecht und die Oper. Zur Verwandschaft von epischem Theater und Musiktheater”, in: Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 61 (1992), pp. 262–283. Osthoff, Wolfgang: “Werk und Wiedergabe als Akutelles Problem”, in: Werk und Wiedergabe. Musiktheater exemplarisch interpretiert, ed. Sigrid Wiesmann. Bayreuth: Mühl‘scher Universitätsverlag, 1980, pp. 13–47. Patterson, Michael: “Brecht’s legacy”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Brecht, ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 283–87. Peusch, Vibeke: Opernregie – Regieoper. Avantgardistisches Musiktheater in der Weimarer Republik. Frankfurt: Tende Verlag, 1984. Robinson, Paul, ed.: Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Rouse, John: Brecht and the West German Theatre: The Practice and Politics of Interpretation. Ann Arbor and London: UMI Research Press, 1989. Sachs, Nelly: O The Chimneys: Selected poems, including the verse play, Eli, trans. Michael Hamburger, Christopher Holme, Ruth and Matthew Mead, and Michael Roloff. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967. Said, Edward W.: Music at the limits. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Schaefer, Hansjügen: “Fidelio im Beethoven-Jahr”, in: Musik und Gesellschaft 21 (1971), pp. 157–164. Schmid, Viola: Studien zu Wieland Wagners Inszenierungskonzeption und zu seiner Regiepraxis, PhD diss. University of Munich 1973, Chapter 1: “Die Inszenierung von Beethovens Oper Fidelio 1954 in Stuttgart und 1965 Brüssel,” pp. 12–45. Schläder, Jürgen: “Die sinnfällige Anschaulichkeit des Regietheaters oder: Über die Notwendigkeit der modernen Interpretationsgeschichte des Fidelio”, in: Bayerische Staatsoper: Beethoven, Fidelio: Programmbuch zur Premiere FIDELIO von Ludwig van Beethoven am 29. Oktober 1999 im Nationaltheater München. Munich: Bayerische Staatsoper, 1999, p. 40.

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Brechtian F idelio Performances in West Germany Schreiber, Ulrich: “Ein Auftakt zum Beethoven-Jahr: Überprüfung der Tradition: Kurt Horres inszenierte in Wuppertal eine Neufassung des Fidelio”, in: Opernwelt 11 (1970), pp. 18–19. Spahn, Claus: “Klopfzeichen im Kerker”, in: Die Zeit, 3.19.1998. Online edition: http://www.zeit.de/1998/13/Klopfzeichen_im_Kerker. Stanley, Glenn: “Fidelio-Rezeption in Deutschland und Österreich: Schrifttum und Inszenierung im Wandel der Zeit”, in: Die Vokal- und Bühnenmusik, ed. Birgit Lodes and Armin Raab. Das Beethoven-Handbuch 4. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2014, pp. 54–98.      : “Fidelio Rescued: New Texts for a ‘bad’ Singspiel”, in: Beethoven: Musik und Literatur, ed. Mieczysław Tomaszewski. Beethoven: Studien und Interpretationen 4. Cracow: Akademia Muzyczna, 2009, pp. 209–24.      : “Gesellschafts- und Werkkritik in Fidelio-Inszenierungen um 1968. Inhalt, Rezeption und Einf luss”, in: Musikkulturen in der Revolte. Studien zu Rock, Avantgarde und Klassik im Umfeld von ›1968‹, ed. Beate Kutschke. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008, pp. 76–90. Tusa, Michael: “Beethoven’s Essay in opera: historical; text-critical, and interpretative issues in Fidelio”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, ed. Glenn Stanley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 200–217. Wiesmann, Sigrid, ed.: Werk und Wiedergabe. Musiktheater exemplarisch interpretiert. Bayreuth: Miihl‘scher Universitatsverlag, 1980.

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm: Reflections on Klavierstück Nr. 6 Nicole Grimes

Introduction: Brahms and Rihm – Elective Affinities For many years, the composer Wolfgang Rihm has engaged in writing new works in response to the music of Johannes Brahms. There are very good reasons why he might do so. These two German composers, living and writing more than a century apart from one another, share a strong historicist approach to music. Whereas the sphere of Rihm’s allusions stretches from Bach to Varèse, and from Gesualdo to Stockhausen, a significant part of his œuvre responds to a number of prominent German composers from the long-nineteenth century. Amongst them are Schubert, Schumann, and Mahler. Rihm’s Erscheinung: Skizze über Schubert (1978) for nine string players, Ländler (1979) arranged for 13 string players, and his many Goethe-Lieder are strongly evocative of Schubert. “Eine Art Traumbild” from the seventh scene of the chamber opera Jakob Lenz (1977/78) responds to Schumann’s Kinderszenen,1 whilst the third movement of his Piano Trio Fremde-Szenen I–III (1982–84) called “Charakterstück” also conjures up thoughts of Schumann. Rihm’s Abgesang of Morphonie, Sektor IV for string quartet and orchestra (1972/73), the large orchestral adagios Dis-Kontur (1974) and Sub-Kontur (1974/75), and Symphony No. 2 (1975) and No. 3 (1976/77) are strongly suggestive of Mahler. 2 Rihm’s compositions that respond directly to the music of Brahms do so in manifold ways (see Table 1). The title of the 1985 composition Brahmsliebewalzer conjures up Brahms’s Liebesliederwalzer. Written for solo piano, however, Rihm’s 1

2

On Rihm and Schumann, see Alastair Williams: “Swaying with Schumann: Subjectivity and Tradition in Wolfgang Rihm’s ‘Fremde-Szenen’ I–III and Related Scores”, Music & Letters 87/3 (2006), pp. 379–397. For a description of the seventh scene of Jakob Lenz, see Laura Tunbridge: “Deserted Chambers of the Mind (Schumann Memories)”, in: Rethinking Schumann ed. Roe-Min Kok and Laura Tunbridge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 395–410, here pp. 403–404. On Rihm and Mahler, see Thomas Schäfer: “anwesend/abgekehrt: Notizen zu Wolfgang Rihm’s Komponieren der 1970er Jahre mit Blick auf Gustav Mahler”, in: Wolfgang Rihm, ed. Ulrich Tadday. Munich: Richard Boorberg Verlag, 2004, pp. 99–108, quoted in Alistair Williams: Music in Germany Since 1968. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

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Nicole Grimes dance movement is more akin to one of Brahms’s Sixteen Waltzes, Op. 39, than it is to a work for two pianos with vocalists intoning witty poetry3 Brahmsliebewalzer was inspired by Rihm’s reading of Richard Heuberger’s Brahms-Erinnerungen.4 Some years later, Ernster Gesang was commissioned by Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Responding to his prolonged immersion in Brahms’s last published opus, the Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121, Rihm confessed that the mysteries of those Lieder gradually revealed themselves. This prompted him to prioritize the “primary tone colour of clarinets, horns, and low strings” in Ernster Gesang and to explore Brahms’s “harmonic constellations”. The composer ref lects on the ephemeral nature of this Brahmsian enterprise:5 As I composed it during the last days of the year 1996 in Badenweiler, I was both filled with and empty of Brahms. The repercussions, the constellations that existed in my memory, disappeared when I wanted to grasp them or force them into a concrete form. Their appearance is thus always their immediate disappearance as well. What remains is an intonation, a turning of events that wavers between arrival and departure.6 Table 1: Rihm’s Brahms compositions 1977/78*

Klavierstück Nr 6 (Bagatellen), contains many self-quotations, and allusions to the music of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms

1985*

Brahmsliebewalzer, an homage to Brahms’s late piano pieces

1996

Ernster Gesang, responds to Brahms’s Vier ernste Gesänge

2001/2002

Das Lesen der Schrift comprises four pieces for orchestra intended to be incorporated between the movements of Ein deutsches Requiem.

2004/2012

Symphonie “Nähe Fern”, Four orchestral pieces written as pendants to Brahms’s four symphonies

3

4 5 6

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Brahmsliebewalzer was orchestrated in 1988 and included in Rihm, 3 Walzer, commissioned for the Schleswig-Hollstein-Musikfestival. In this setting, the Brahmsliebewalzer is flanked on either side by the Sehnsuchtswalzer (1979/1981), a piece that conjures up Schubert, whose piece of the same name is itself nostalgic for an earlier time, and the Drängender Walzer (1979/1986) dedicated to Karsten Witt. Rihm, annotation to the score, Brahmslieberwalzer. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1985. See Richard Heuberger, Erinnerungen an Johannes Brahms. Tutzing: Schneider, 1976. On these and other Rihm works, see John Warnaby, “Wolfgang Rihm’s Recent Music,” Tempo 213 (2000), pp. 12–19. Rihm, on the Universal Edition webpage for Ernster Gesang http://www.universaledition.com/composers-and-works/Wolfgang-Rihm/composer/599/work/2335 (last accessed 30 May 2017).

Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm A further Brahmsian work by Rihm ensued in 2012. Symphonie “Nähe Fern” is a five-movement work that comprises four orchestral pieces written as pendants to Brahms’s Four Symphonies. Between the first and second of these orchestral movements, Rihm interpolates an orchestration of one of his own earlier Goethe Lieder composed in 2004, “Dämmrung senkte sich von oben”. Taken as a whole, therefore, Symphonie “Nähe Fern” includes allusions not only to the artistic output of Brahms but it also enfolds layers of cultural reference to Goethe and, through that poet, glimpses further back to an imaginary realm of the ancient world of China, for which Goethe was inspired by the English translation of Chinese novels.7 The multifarious layers of allusion in Rihm’s output speak to a preoccupation with art and literature that Rihm shares with Brahms, evident in their diaries and notebooks containing excerpts of favourite passages, or recording their thoughts on artists and writers.8 Both composers, moreover, have a propensity toward philosophical ref lection in their music, and both were largely preoccupied with the poetry of the New Humanists at the turn of the nineteenth century, that is, Goethe, Schiller, and Hölderlin. Brahms was one of very few musical figures to have set Hölderlin in the nineteenth century, intuiting the complex poetic and philosophical meaning of Hölderlin’s Hyperion in his 1871 composition Schicksalslied, Op. 54.9 Brahms’s artistic sensitivity to Hölderlin’s poetry was not to be equalled until the late twentieth century compositions of Benjamin Britten, Hans Werner Henze, Luigi Nono, and Rihm himself.10 Amongst Brahms’s major pieces for choir and orchestra are his setting of Schiller’s poem “Auch das Schöne muß sterben” as Nänie, Op. 82, and Goethe’s Harzreise im Winter as the Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53. 7

See U. C. Fischer: “Goethe’s ‘Chinese-German Book of Seasons and Hours’ and World Literature’,” Orenta http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/pics/uploads/600100.pdf (last accessed 5 January 2016). 8 On Wolfgang Rihm’s preoccupation with art, see Ulrich Mosch: “Zur Rolle bildnerischer Vorstellugen im musikalischen Denken und Komponieren Wolfgang Rihms”, in: Musikwissenschaft zwischen Kunst, Ästhetik und Experiment, ed. Reinhard Kopiez. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1998, pp. 387–392; and Wolfgang Rihm: “Vor Bildern”, in: Intermedialität: Studien zur Wechselwirkung zwischen den Künsten, ed. Günter Schnitzler and Edelgard Spaude. Freiburg im Bresigau: Rombach Verlag, 2004, pp. 95–129, in which Ulrich Mosch has collated excerpts from Rihm’s diaries concerning art, and argues that art became more and more important for Rihm’s output from 1980/81 onward. On Brahms’s preoccupation with art, see my forthcoming Brahms’s Elegies: The Poetics of Loss in German Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018; Reinhold Brinkmann: “Johannes Brahms und die Maler Feuerbach, Böcklin, Klinger und Menzel”, in: Vom Pfeifen und von alten Dampfmaschine: Essays zur Musik von Beethoven bis Rihm. Munich: Paul Szolnay Verlag, 2006, pp. 108–39; and Leon Botstein: “Brahms and Nineteenth-Century Painting”, 19th-Century Music 14/2 (1990): pp. 154–68. 9 Although Schumann’s original title for Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133, was An Diotima, he never set any of Hölderlin’s poetry. See Laura Tunbridge: Schumann’s Late Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 137–38. 10 See Nicole Grimes: “Brahms’s Ascending Circle: Hölderlin, Schicksalslied, and the Process of Recollection”, Nineteenth-Century Music Review 11/1 (2014), pp. 1–36.

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Nicole Grimes Rihm also composed a Harzreise im Winter in 2012 for baritone and piano as the most extended of his Goethe Lieder, along with an array of Lieder after Schiller and Hölderlin, the most extensive of these being the Hölderlin-Fragmente.11 Perhaps the strongest affinity between Brahms and Rihm is the degree to which their instrumental music is coded by German literary history. In this respect, Rihm and Brahms join Mahler as composers who have a capacity to entirely reimagine their Lieder in instrumental music (and vice versa). One thinks, for instance, of the new life that Brahms’s Regenlied and Nachklang, Op. 59, are given in the Violin Sonata in G major, Op. 78; or the manner in which his Second Piano Concerto in B-f lat Major, Op. 83 has close ties with the songs Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer, Op. 105/2 and Todessehnen, Op. 86/6.12 Rihm’s Klaviersstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen), a piece for solo piano composed in 1977–78, is likewise coded by German literary history. This piece marks the end of an immensely productive period in Rihm’s creative output. The years 1976–78 had given rise to the composition of the Hölderlin-Fragmente (1976/77) for voice and piano, Musik für drei Streicher (1977) for string trio, the second chamber opera Jakob Lenz (1977/78), and Erscheinung: Skizze über Schubert (1978) for nine string instruments and piano. Klaviersstück Nr. 6 culminates this period of composition and is replete with references to and recollections of these very works. Through his own self-allusion, Rihm alludes secondarily to the literature on which these compositions are based, that is, the poetic fragments of Hölderlin and the novella Lenz by Georg Büchner (1836; published posthumously in 1839). The realm of allusion in this piece for solo piano also reaches beyond Rihm’s own music, extending to Beethoven in the first instance and then to Schubert and Brahms. Schubert is summoned at the very end of the piece when the self-standing piano piece that opens Rihm’s Erscheinung: Skizze über Schubert (bars 1–36) is quoted verbatim as the final bars of Klavierstück Nr. 6, bars 171–208. Beethoven is conjured up in a brief allusion to the String Quartet No. 13 in Bb major, Op. 130 whilst his spirit seems to preside over the large-scale form of Klavierstück Nr. 6. Subtitled “bagatelles”, Rihm attributes the inspiration for the large-scale structure of this composition to Beethoven’s “associations-technique”, which he defines as a technique in which concentrated fragments form an affinity. By referring to this composition as “cycle of bagatelles”, Rihm allows us to understand a succession of moments as a formal principle, moments that re-use earlier material, 11 Relevant here is also the fact that Rihm has reflected in writing on the poetry of the new Humanists, most prominently in an essay that explicitly evokes Goethe’s Iphigenie. See Wolfgang Rihm: “Verzweifelt human. Neue Musik und Humanismus?” in Rihm: Offene Enden: Denkbewegung um und durch Musik, ed. Ulrich Mosch. Munich: Hanser, 2002, pp. 225–244. 12 On the relationship between Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83 and the songs “Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer” and “Todessehnen”, see Julian Horton: Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83: Analytical and Contextual Studies. Leuven: Peeters, 2017, pp. 310–313.

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm offering a renewed gaze on musical matter that has already been formulated, but is now notated “in seismographic fashion”.13 Rihm has provided two written commentaries on Klavierstück Nr. 6.14 Of the musical “moments” that he argues comprise this composition, there is one that is not indicated by Rihm in either of these accounts of the piece: the opening gesture of Brahms, Intermezzo in E f lat minor, Op. 118/6. Several commentators have referred to the Brahmsian allusion, including Wilhelm Killmayer who notes its presence and traces its significance for what he argues is the motivic coherence of this piece.15 Assuming the veracity of this allusion, we might understand Rihm’s omission to stem from its ephemeral nature, a f leeting vision that dissolves as soon as it appears. And yet its brevity and effervescence belies its significance for the composition as a whole. In this chapter, by borrowing a metaphor from the visual arts, I will make the case that this Brahmsian allusion functions as a theoretical vanishing point in Klavierstück Nr. 6. In other words, its function is analogous to a representational gap that organizes a visual field, the point where all lines of sight come together at the horizon, and where all things fade into infinity. Acknowledging the presence of a passage from Brahms’s Op. 118/6 in this score does more than enhance our understanding of the repertoire from which Rihm has drawn his musical allusions. It provides a focal point for the German literary allusions and musical historical references that are embedded in this composition. A vanishing point constitutes the background of a dominant image. It is the almost visual material that allows for the foreground in a painting. The visual metaphor also assumes philosophical significance that is relevant to Rihm’s composition: in Klaveirstück Nr. 6 that which is mostly unseen gives rise to that which is seen, that which is named. In keeping with the aesthetic of allusion in this piece, the vanishing point provides the threshold between the seen and the unseen, between the real and the imagined, the rational and the non-rational. In examining the context of the Brahmsian allusion in particular, and exploring how it acts as a unifying agent in the score, we open up a new perspective on Klavierstück Nr. 6 and gain new insights into Rihm’s mode of composition. Along with the spirit of Beethoven’s late 13 Wolfgang Rihm: “Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen) (1977–1978)”, Ausgesprochen 2, ed. Ulrich Mosch. Winterthur: Amadeus, 1997, p. 315. 14 Rihm: “Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen) (1977–1978)”, p. 315; and Rihm: “Tasten”, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (1981), pp. 456–458, here pp. 457–458. 15 Wilhelm Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, in: Klaviermusik des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Killmayer, Siegfried Mauser und Wolfgang Rihm, Melos: Jahrbuch für zeitgenossische Musik 51 (1992), pp. 102–129. See also Wilhelm Killmayer: “Klangstrukturen bei Hölderlin und in Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück 6 ‘Bagatellen’”, in: Wolfgang Rihm, ed. Ulrich Tadday. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik, 2004, pp. 51–60. The Brahms allusion is also mentioned in Markus Bellheim: “Das Klavierwerk von Wolfgang Rihm”, sleeve notes in Wolfgang Rihm, Piano Pieces, hr2 Kultur NEOS 10717/18 (2007), pp. 3–4.

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Nicole Grimes style, Brahms’s intermezzo has a marked presence in this piece’s large-scale structure and its expressive trajectory. This amounts to a great deal more than mere quotation. Instead, it is the ineluctable communication of artistic works with one another. In its referential (and self-referential) character, Klavierstück Nr. 6 is music about music, and it is music about time.

Rihm and the Lyrical Impulse The mere label of piano “bagatelles” as a subtitle for Klavierstück Nr. 6, as Reinhold Brinkmann avers, seems inadequate, if not misleading, given that most of these bagatelles have a vocal origin in Rihm’s Hölderlin-Fragmente and Jakob Lenz.16 They therefore occupy the realm between speech and music. In a study of Rihm’s Hölderlin-Fragmente, using Hegel’s aesthetics of the lyric as a theoretical foundation, Brinkmann has sensitively shown how poetry allows Rihm to develop an intensely lyrical form of musical language. Brinkmann defines the lyric, as distinct from the dramatic or the narrative, as a specific utterance and representation of subjectivity.17 What delineates its representational character is its inwardness and sense of ref lection. The moments of inwardness that Brinkmann observes in the Hölderlin pieces for voice and piano are “virtually equidistant from an imaginary middle point,” they are “arranged in a concentric and not a linear manner”18. As such, “neither the lines of text nor the musical moments use pre-existing forms, rather they justify their respective individual forms by the specific situation, from the lyrical state and its ref lection”19. Brinkmann considers Rihm’s Hölderlin-Fragmente to exemplify Hegel’s conception of lyrical poetry: There is no naïve immediacy in this self-conscious art, and also nothing fabricated. The ref lexivity brings about the brevity and concentrating awareness of the moment. The “contracted concentration” of Hegel speaks as a sign of the lyrical work of art, it meets precisely the sense of form of Rihm’s fragments, the linguistic character of the fragment itself guarantees the shrunken form, the lyrical aphorism, to use a seemingly paradoxical formu16 Reinhold Brinkmann: “Musikalische Lyrik oder die Realisation von Freiheit. Wolfgang Rihms Hölderlin-Fragmente”, in: Brinkmann, Vom Pfeifen und vom alten Dampfmaschinen: Aufsätze zur Musik von Beethoven bis Rihm. Vienna: Zsolnay, 2006, pp. 273–296, here p. 296. 17 See Brinkmann: “The Lyric as Paradigm: Poetry and the Foundation of Arnold Schoenberg’s New Music”, in: German Literature and Music: An Aesthetic Foundation, ed. Claus Reschke and Howard Pollack. Munich: Fink, 1992, pp. 95–129. 18 Ibidem, p. 288. 19 Ibidem, p. 281.

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm lation. The aesthetic demands, however, lead consequently to a sequence – the cycle as the binding unit. 20 Brinkmann’s analysis of how Rihm’s concentration on lyrical forms (predominantly the Lied) leads to a self-referential musical lyric has implications for the relationship between literature and music in Rihm’s Klavierstück Nr. 6. Rihm ref lects on his own relationship to the literature of Hölderlin. This has a bearing on the significance of the “lyric as paradigm”21 in both the Hölderlin cycle and Klavierstück Nr. 6 for the degree to which he considers the very essence of these fragments to be musical: One may consider texts which readily lend themselves to dissolution, extract fragments from these texts and thereby strengthen their adequacy for musical treatment. This process already seems inherent in Hölderlin’s work. The fragments he left us … appear to stem from larger contexts … I can speak of a “process of fragments” because to me they are not finished constructions which lack something. Instead it is as if the whole text is in motion but has sporadically lost itself while searching for itself. These Hölderlin fragments allow us to deal with non-literary, musical language. 22 Just like the music of the Hölderlin cycle, the concentrated “moments” in Klavierstück Nr. 6 do not tell a story, nor are they arranged in linear fashion. Instead, a “musical network-technique” leads to a series of differently outlined states (Zustände). 23 This network is closely related to Hegel’s category of Zuständlichkeit (‘state’). In Brinkmann’s formulation, “Hegel speaks of ‘internal situations as states’”, in which “neither dramatic development nor epic continuity is declared”, rather an event occurs which signifies “a lyrical pause [or a lyrical linger], the beginning of time, contemplation, thinking ahead (‘nachdenken, weiterdenken’).”24 In drawing on Hegel’s concept of Zusammengezogenheit (contracted concentration) as a compositional category to coincide with Rihm’s aphoristic statements, Brink20 “Es gibt keine naïve Unmittelbarkeit in dieser sich selbst bewußten Kunst, auch nicht eine fingierte. Und die Reflexivität führt auch die Knappheit und Konzentrierheit der Momente herbei. Die “Zusammengezogenheit” von der Hegel als Signum des lyrischen Kunstwerks spricht, trifft genau den Formsinn der Rihmschen Fragmente, bereits der sprachliche Fragmentcharakter selber garantiert die geschrumpfte Form, den lyrischen Aphorismus, um [289] eine scheinbar paradoxe Formulierung zu gebrauchen. Der ästhetische Anspruch aber führt consequent zur Reihung, zum Zyklus als der verbindlichen Einheit.” Brinkmann: “Musikalische Lyrik oder die Realisation von Freiheit”, pp. 288–289. 21 I borrow this term from Brinkmann: “The Lyric as Paradigm”. 22 Wolfgang Rihm, “… zu wissen”, an interview of 1985 with Rudolf Frisius, in: Der Komponist Wolfgang Rihm, ed. Dieter Rexroth. Mainz: Schott, 1985, pp. 17–59, here pp. 55–56, this translation in Nielinger-Vakil: “Quiet Revolutions”, p. 260. 23 Brinkmann: “Musikalische Lyrik oder die Realisation von Freiheit”, p. 281. 24 Brinkmann: “Musikalische Lyrik oder die Realisation von Freiheit”, p. 287.

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Nicole Grimes mann provides some sense of how these intense moments of inwardness are actually contracted, compressed long ones. The literature that underpins Rihm’s “bagatelles” not only has a propensity toward incompleteness. It is also literature that is concerned with the fracturing of the artistic mind, or, as Carola Nielinger-Vakil observes, literature that is bound up with schizophrenia as a possible force behind artistic creativity. 25 A number of recent studies have focused on the space between fantasy and insanity in the music of Rihm, with a principal focus on the relationship between music and madness in Rihm’s Schumann- and Hölderlin-related compositions. 26 The figures of Brahms and E. T. A. Hoffmann bring a further dimension to this facet of Rihm’s output, neither of whom suffered from insanity, but both of whom were concerned with exploring the Romantic concept of madness as an agent for artistic creativity. As with many of his Schumann compositions, Rihm’s Brahms compositions inhabit the boundary between the rational and the non-rational. The abstract notion of madness, therefore, serves well as a stimulus for composition in his allusive works. 27 Hölderlin, for instance, was largely viewed with scholarly scepticism in the second half of the nineteenth century because of the madness that isolated him from society for the last forty years of his life, until his death in 1843. 28 Similarly, the mental condition of the poet J. M. R. Lenz is central to Rihm’s Jakob Lenz. “Büchner’s Lenz is a description of states with a random process”, Rihm writes. “Moments of disturbance that are already completed, but not yet accepted.”29 The events of Lenz’s outer world are mere projections of an inner world. It is precisely these “states” that give rise to the expressive ruptures within the chamber opera and, subsequently, to the Lenz scenes in Klavierstück Nr. 6. Clarifying the nature of the inspiration behind this choice of text, Rihm states that he came to understand the “historical figure” Lenz as “a cipher of mental disturbance.”30 Consideration of 25 Carola Nielinger-Vakil: “Quiet Revolutions: Hölderlin Fragments by Luigi Nono and Wolfgang Rihm”, Music and Letters 81/2 (2000): pp. 245–274, here p. 267. 26 See, for instance, Laura Tunbridge: “Deserted Chambers of the Mind,” and Alastair Williams: Music in Germany Since 1968. 27 Ian Pace has questioned whether such a view of Rihm’s output serves “to reinforce the neo-romantic conception of the composer”, see Ian Pace, Review of Alastair Williams: Music in Germany Since 1968, Tempo 68/268 (2014): pp. 119–121, here p. 121. 28 Michael Hamburger provides a compassionate account of what he refers to as Hölderlin’s “self-alienation” in the “Preface” to Friedrich Hölderlin, Friedrich Hölderlin, Poems and Fragments. Fourth Edition. London: Anvil Press Poetry, 2004. See in particular, p.14. A number of recent studies have focused on the space between fantasy and insanity in the music of Rihm, with a principal focus on the relationship between music and madness in Rihm’s Schumann- and Hölderlin-related compositions. 29 Wolfgang Rihm: “Chiffren von Verstörung: Anmerkungen zu Jakob Lenz”, Ausgesprochen vol. 2, pp. 314–315, here p. 314. 30 “Die historischer Figur trat, je genauer sie datisch und atmosphärisch in meinem Intellekt anwesend

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm such inwardness, subjectivity, and mental states informs the context and the significance of the Brahms allusion, and its kinship with the other lyrical fragments in Rihm’s “bagatelles”, that is, the musical moments. I will outline each moment individually before considering how we might understand them in relation to one another and in the context of the work as a whole.

The Musical Moments of Klavierstück Nr. 6 Rihm’s longtime composer friend, Wilhelm Killmayer (b. 1927), undertook a detailed analysis of Klavierstück Nr. 6 in 1992. His analysis is dense with musical detail, accounting for events at several structural levels, if not providing detailed bar-by bar insights, and a formal context for the earlier musical material to which Rihm alludes. Killmayer considers the large-scale form to be cyclical, consisting of “six parts, divided by breaks and pauses”, framed by a prologue and an epilogue with the main section divided into four parts. Table 2 provides a formal outline of Klavierstück Nr. 6. Table 2: Rihm, Klavierstück Nr. 6, Formal Outline 31 Bar

Large-scale function

Inter-thematic function

Allusion/Quotation

1–29

Framing Function: Prologue

“Gesangsszene”

17–29, Rihm, Jakob Lenz, Scene 12, bars 150–61.

30–46 46–85

Transition Main section

1. Allusions Phase I

86–1253

2. Vibration Phase I

126–140

3. Allusions Phase II

141–70

4. Vibration Phase II & Transition

171–208

Framing Function: Epilogue

“Abgesang”

47– Hölderlin-Fragment 4, “Wie Wolken um die Zeit legt”; 57–60, chorale fragment; 72–73, Musik für drei Streicher; 76–78, Brahms Op. 118/6 127–29, Hölderlin-Fragment 2, “Aber nun ruhet er eine Weile”

Erscheinung: Skizze über Schubert*

war, aber zurück zugunsten einer Chiffre von Verstörung, als die ich Lenz dann Begriff.” Rihm: “Chiffren von Verstörung”, p. 314. 31 This table is based on (although it also departs from) the detailed analysis in Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)” It also draws on Alastair Williams: Music in Germany since 1968. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 136, for the information in the allusions/quotations column marked with an asterisk.

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Nicole Grimes Given Rihm’s preoccupation with the German literary tradition in his musical output, and the degree to which these “bagatelles” are underpinned by both earlier music and a body of literature, one might expect Killmayer’s analysis to be carried out in dialogue with Rihm’s ref lections on the relationship between the music and the text, and to consider the aphoristic nature of these literary allusions. This is not the case, however, with Killmayer instead concentrating on the elements of Rihm’s composition that relate directly to the score. We will consider each of these “moments” in turn and, as we do so, observe their relationship with time. §. Jakob Lenz, “Gesangsszene” The opening of Klavierstück Nr 6 comprises an expositional phase (bars 1–16) followed by a “Gesangsszene”, containing Rihm’s first self-allusion to Jakob Lenz. Drawing on Büchner’s novella, this chamber opera depicts an incident in the life of Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751–92) – a friend of Goethe’s – who suffered a mental breakdown in 1777 and was sent to Johann Friedrich Oberlin’s vicarage in the Steintal. The opera is made up of thirteen scenes in which six voices represent the protagonist who moves from being an outsider to a state of psychosis. The libretto mentions “voices that can only be detected by Lenz”, which “stand in dialogue with him, [and] represent nature”32 . Bars 17–29 of Klavierstück Nr. 6 are an arrangement of bars 150–61 of Scene 12 of Jakob Lenz. By this stage in the chamber opera, the voices in the protagonist’s psychotic mind call out the name “Friederike” (that is, Friederike Brion, at once his beloved who he feared might die, and the name of a child who died in a nearby village), whilst the most prominent voice in his mind also laments his own condition, now perilously verging in and out of consciousness: “Eyes bloodshot from being awake, will it never be night? Am I dreaming or am I awake?”33 In Klavierstück Nr. 6, this material is distilled down to a lyrical fragment which observes the rhetoric of classical phrase structure, if not its harmonic language. The cadential points at bars 20 and 24 each bring an incremental degree of closure but, in each case, this is disrupted by accented notes in the left hand that Killmayer conceives of as “disturbances.”34 Examples 1a and 1b show the source and site of allusion.

32 “Die Stimmen, die, nur für Lenz erfaßbar, mit ihm im Dialog stehen, stellen die Natur dar.” Wolfgang Rihm: Jakob Lenz, Kammer Oper Textbuch. Vienna: Universal, 1978, p. 1. 33 “Augen wund gewacht, wird es denn niemals wieder Nacht? Traum ich oder wach’ ich? Ich will es untersuchen … ” Rihm: Jakob Lenz, p. 22. 34 Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 104.

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Example 1a: Rihm, Jakob Lenz, Zwölftes Bild, bars 150–161

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Example 1b: Rihm, Klavierstück Nr. 6, bars 17–29

§. “Wie Wolken um die Zeit legte”, Hölderlin-Fragmente When Rihm composed the Hölderlin-Fragmente, he chose 9 fragments from the 92 numbered fragments of the Stuttgart edition of Hölderlin’s complete works, selecting only those poems in the most incomplete and fragmentary state and avoiding Hölderlin’s more developed poems. Hölderlin’s Fragment 14 becomes Rihm’s second Hölderlin-Fragmente, and the poet’s Fragment 92 becomes Rihm’s fourth fragment, which returns in an altered fashion in the ninth and last fragment in this Hölderlin cycle. 35 In Klavierstück Nr. 6, this latter fragment, “Wie Wolken um die Zeit legt” (“like clouds wrap around time”), forms Rihm’s second self-allusion which enfolds the expressive meaning of voice and piano into a keyboard texture. Nielinger-Vakil sensitively notes how, in Rihm’s original setting for voice and piano, “time takes on the sound of Db,” for “the pitch Db appears only once in the vocal line, setting the crucial word ‘Zeit’.”36 In revisiting the Hölderlin cycle for piano alone, Rihm’s Klavierstück Nr. 6 looks to the past (both that of his earlier works, and that of Hölderlin’s time) whilst also intoning the concept of time through the hypnotic repetition of the pitch Db in the piano. (See Examples 2a and 2b.) 35 Friedrich Hölderlin: Friedrich Hölderlin: Sämtliche Werke, ed. Friedrich Beissner & Adolf Beck, vol. ii/1 Stuttgart: J.G. Cottascher Buchhandlung, 1951, pp. 315–341. All of the fragments used in Rihm’s Hölderlin-Fragmente are provided in Nielinger-Vakil: “Quiet Revolutions”, Appendix II, pp. 272–274. The final order for Rihm’s fragments, with reference to the Stuttgart Hölderlin edition, is 57, 92, 19, 14, 27, 17, 38, 22, and 4. 36 Nielinger-Vakil: “Quiet Revolutions”, p. 263.

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Example 2a: Rihm, Hölderlin-Fragmente, Fragment 4, “Wie Wolken um die Zeit legt”

Example 2b: Rihm, Klavierstück Nr. 6, bars 47–56

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Nicole Grimes §. Beethoven, String Quartet in B f lat, Op. 130 and Rihm, Musik für drei Streicher Rihm’s Musik für drei Streicher, the String Trio of 1977, recalls classical formal models in its instrumentation, yet it opens onto a vast landscape in its scope, which uses reminiscences or particles from late Beethoven for its large-scale form. In this composition, as Seth Brodsky suggests, Rihm “seems to perform an autopsy on the new expressive world opened up by Beethoven’s last quartets, especially the obsession with expressive rupture, the notion that the moment of greatest expression is also the moment of tearing, of rip and rift in the musical fabric.”37 Bars 72–73 of Klavierstück Nr. 6 recall Musik für drei Streicher and, in doing so, allude further back to the opening of the third movement (Andante con motto, ma non troppo) of Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13, Op. 130. 38 (See Examples 3a and 3b.) These two bars of music give way to two bars of silence. It is instructive at this point to consider one of Rihm’s written commentaries on this piece: Klavierstück Nr. 6 is a cycle of bagatelles, movements of already-processed material notated in a seismographic fashion. For four days I was very isolated […]. With the very constant rhythm of life I was able to work exclusively around material that had for some time been in use and seemed almost haggard: I improvised for hours on the harmonic progressions and melodies from a number of my pieces. The piano movement gained an ever-stronger life of its own. Finally, I succeeded in freely composing a unified piano movement from contemporary inf luence. I began to write down fragments and also rests. Through ever more exact observation, I finally came to recognize the self-direction of the fragments. 39 37 Seth Brodsky: Programme Note for Wolfgang Rihm, Musik für drei Streicher, http://www.allmusic.com/composition/music-for-3-strings-for-string-trio-mc0002387942 (last accessed 28 August 2016). 38 Reinhold Brinkmann notes the presence of this Beethoven passage in Rihm’s Musik für drei Streicher. See Reinhold Brinkmann: “Wirkungen Beethovens in der Kammermusik”, in: Beiträge zu Beethovens Kammermusik: Symposion Bonn 1984, ed. Sieghard Brandenburg and Helmut Loos. Munich: Henle Verlag, 1987, pp. 81–84, and pp.105–108. 39 “Das Klavierstück Nr. 6 ist ein Zyklus von Bagatellen, seismographische notierte Bewegungenen in bereits verarbeitetem Material. Vier Tage lebte ich sehr isoliert, hatte nur meinem Hund bei mir. Bei sehr konstantem Lebensrhythmus war ich in der Lage, ausschließlich mit dem Material umzugehen, das schon längere Zeit in Gebrauch war beziehungsweise fast schon ausgezehrt schien: Ich improviersierte stundenlang über Harmoniefolgen und Melodien aus verschiedenen meiner Stücke. Der Klaviersatz gewann immer stärkeres Eigenleben; schließlich gelang es mir, vom Einheitsklaviersatz zeitgenössischer Prägung frei zu komponieren. Ich begann, Fragmente aufzuschreiben, auch Pausen. Durch immer genaueres Beobachten kam ich schließlich dazu, die Eigenrichtung der Fragmente zu erkennen. Ich deutete diese Richtungen nur an. Eine große

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Example 3a: Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13, Op. 130, Andante con motto ma non troppo, bars 1–2

Example 3b: Klavierstück Nr. 6, bars 72–73

Given the significance that Rihm attaches to the fragments and the rests pursuing their “self-direction”40, we might conceivably perceive the two bars of silence in bars 74–75 – one of many instances of silence in Klavierstück Nr. 6 – “not as a void, but as a state of saturation”. This would align Rihm with Luigi Nono for whom silence can be “a space where processes, longings and states of anxiety come to an absolute standstill.”41 Whatever the expressive purpose of these bars of rest, out of this silence emerges the Brahmsian allusion with which we are concerned. Imaginationshilfe, besonders durch ihre ungeheuer offene und radikale Sehweise, war mir Kurt Kocherscheidts Art zu zeichnen. Ihm ist der kleine Zyklus gewidmet. Für mich bedeuten diese Bagatellen das Schlaglicht auf ein atemlos erschöpftes Aufraffen am Ende eines gewaltigen Productionsschubs.” Wolfgang Rihm: “Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen) (1977–1978)”, Ausgesprochen 2, ed. Ulrich Mosch. Winterthur: Amadeus, 1997, p.315. All translation from the German are my own, unless otherwise noted. 40 Rihm: “Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen) (1977–1978)”, p. 315. 41 Nielinger-Vakil: “Quiet Revolutions”, p. 254.

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Nicole Grimes §. Brahms, Intermezzo Op. 118/6 The only one in the succession of “moments” in Klavierstück Nr. 6 for which we are given no indication in either of Rihm’s written accounts of the piece, and the only “moment” which does not have a relationship to his earlier compositions, is a brief yet potent allusion to the pregnant opening motif from Brahms, Intermezzo in E f lat minor, Op. 118/6. Rihm’s single-line melody emanates from the ethereal upper register of the piano in bars 76–78. Like the other musical moments in this series of bagatelles, it too opens onto an earlier time, for it recalls the archaic Dies Irae melody that forms the basis of Brahms’s composition (to which we will return below). (See Examples 4a and 4b.)

Example 4a: Brahms, Intermezzo in E f lat minor, Op. 118/6, bars 1–4

Example 4b: Rihm, Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen), bars 74–78

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm Four of the six sections of Klavierstück Nr. 6 outlined on Table 2 look to the past by way of the rich network of allusions employed by Rihm. The large-scale form of the composition also accommodates two “Vibration Phases” – (bars 86–125 and 141–70). Neither of these explicitly refers to the music of the past and, in each case, these passages contain the most extreme writing for piano in this composition. These passages seem mechanical by comparison with the “Allusions Phases” of Rihm’s “bagatelles”. The first “Vibration Phase” comprises an extended series of extreme trills and tremolandi marked feroce, con tutta la Sforza trem., reaching a sffffz dynamic. Built around Eb and Gb, these trills alternate and resonate with the pitches E and F, before opening up to a wider harmonic texture in bar 117 that reinforces the Eb and Gb in the right hand with D# and F# in the left, whilst adding the pitches G natural, A natural, B natural C natural. From here onward, the same chord is repeated 23 times, acting “as an extremely dense, frenzied repetitions-vibration, which is greatly reduced in tempo and audible in single beats”42 . Killmayer uses the image of a “clamour beneath glass” to describe the extraordinary effect of this passage.43 Certainly, the repeated activity in the piano gives the impression of the harmonic activity being trapped in time. Having been played 23 times, this chord effectively vanishes, leaving in its wake “the crystallized, prosperous core” Eb–Gb in both hands which now “escapes from the mechanics” and embraces the sarabande rhythm of the chorale section that follows.44 (See Example 5.)

Example 5: Rihm, Klavierstück Nr. 6, bars 118–119 42 “Die folgenden 23 Schläge (ab T. 117) wirken wie eine äußerst dichte, rasende Repetitions-Vibration, die in der Geschwindigkeit stark gesenkt in Einzelanschlägen hörbar wird.” Killmayer: ‘Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)’, p. 111. 43 “Toben hinter Glas”, Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 111. 44 Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 111.

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Nicole Grimes §. “Aber nun ruhet er eine Weile”, Hölderlin-Fragmente Rihm’s Klavierstück Nr. 6 also alludes to the second of his Hölderlin-Fragmente at bar 126. This chorale section from bars 126–140 provides some of the most explicitly tonal music in the entire composition, moving from an Eb major to an Eb minor chord before again embracing dissonance and venturing into non-tonality.45 The Hölderlin fragment reads “Aber nun ruhet er eine Weile” (“But now he rests for a while”). (See Examples 6a and 6b.)

Example 6a: Rihm, Hölderlin-Fragmenten, Fragment 2, “Aber nun ruhet er eine Weile”

Example 6b: Rihm, Klavierstück Nr. 6, bars 127–131 45 The question of Rihm’s treatment of tonality is significant, but any attempt to deal with it far exceeds the confines of this chapter. I note in brief that Killmayer suggests that “The classical balance between the horizontal and the vertical in old counterpoint no longer applies, for it assumes a strictly regulated mutual subordination. Rihm always seeks to venture from the beaten path and therefore ‘leads out’ to one in which he shows other locations, but not objectives. In this sense, tonality is open towards non-tonality, and vice versa. This becomes a very un-theoretical matter of course.” Killmayer: ‘Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)’, p. 103. Rihm has written on this topic in numerous places, giving it most sustained attention in “Neo-Tonalität?”, in: Wolfgang Rihm: Ausgesprochen 1, pp. 185–93. The opening sentence is indicative of the degree of complexity, ambiguity, and intended contradictions in this essay: “Actually there is no tonality. Only harmony. Tonality is an accident, a constellation of harmony”.

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm These musical “moments” are brought together by what Rihm refers to as Beethoven’s “associations-technique”, from which, he asserts, the large-scale form of Klavierstück Nr. 6 arises: Beethoven’s associations-technique also inspired and excited me in Klavierstück 6. This piece consists of shorter sections – bagatelles – whose origin refers to later and to earlier pieces. A linking piece, then, in which ref lection on that which has just been composed initiates future plans.”46 Such temporal designations are typical of Rihm’s writings on his Brahmsian compositions. He asserts that “music answers music”47, he speaks of being “filled with and empty of Brahms”48, of a “turning of events that wavers between arrival and departure,”49 “no quotations, only echoes”, “original configuration[s] reconfigured”, “particles” that appear in his own music which he claims are Brahmsian but have “not yet taken on the shape they will have in Brahms”.50 Rihm, therefore, is concerned with the manipulation of memory and the manipulation of time. The Brahms reference stands apart from the other allusions in Klavierstück Nr. 6 because it is the only musical reference that does not, either primarily or secondarily, refer to Rihm’s earlier compositions. Yet the Brahms allusion has a singular significance with regard to the musical coherence of the piece as a whole. For Rihm’s “bagatelles” and Brahms’s intermezzo both take an approach to form that is based on the juxtaposition of starkly contrasting materials. 51 Brahms’s intermezzo is widely considered to exemplify the compositional process that Schoenberg described as the principle of developing variation. The entire piece is built upon an obsession with a single motive: the archaic Dies Irae melody heard at the outset – inherent in which is a longing for a resolution that would see the F of this melodic motif fall to an E flat above a V–I harmonization, thus fulfilling its role in a perfect authentic cadence. Against the opening Dies Irae gesture (itself a lyrical aphorism), Brahms places a sweeping diminished seventh arpeggio in the bass, first heard in bar 3. 46 “Beethoven’s Assoziationstechnik regte mich auch im Klavierstück 6 an und auf. Dieses Stück besteht aus kürzeren Abschnitten – Bagatellen – deren Herkunft auf spätere und frühere Stücke verweist. Ein Nachstück also, in dem Reflexe des gerade Komponierten in zukünftigen Pläne einzucken.” Rihm: “Tasten”, in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (1981), pp. 456–458, here pp. 457–458. 47 Wolfgang Rihm in conversation with Tom Service, Rihm Composer in Focus Day, Wigmore Hall, 28 February 2015. 48 Rihm, on the Universal Edition webpage for Ernster Gesang. http://www.universaledition.com/Wolfgang-Rihm/composers-and-works/composer/599/work/2335 (last accessed 16 June 2014). 49 Rihm, on the Universal Edition webpage for Ernster Gesang. http://www.universaledition.com/Wolfgang-Rihm/composers-and-works/composer/599/work/2335 (last accessed 16 June 2014). 50 Wolfgang Rihm, Symphonie “Nähe Fern,” Lucerne Symphonieorchester, James Gaffigan (Harmonia Mundi HMC902153, 2012), pp. 5–6, here p. 6. 51 I am not referring here to the counterbalancing duality of tonal music, but rather to the juxtaposition of apparently irreconcilable materials.

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Nicole Grimes Performer and listener alike must continuously readjust their timeframe if they are simultaneously to inhabit the two worlds presented in the temporal, metrical, and expressive oppositions between these two sound worlds in the opening three bars of Op. 118/6. As the piece progresses, Brahms fuses these disparate elements into one, engaging in an elaborate series of evasive tactics to frustrate the sense of harmonic resolution. The effect, as John Rink remarks, is that “the music’s tonal foundations are threatened to the very core”, epitomizing and taking to an extreme the harmonic ambiguity that characterizes Brahms’s late pieces. 52 Indeed, Rink’s description of Op. 118/6 is also evocative of the larger aesthetic that governs Rihm’s Klavierstück Nr. 6: “Past and future are therefore united in this piece, its apparently idiosyncratic audacities part and parcel of the piano style practiced for some fifty years, while paving the way for the revolution in the musical language to come”. 53 Brahms’s compositional process, moreover, can also be understood in relation to Hegel’s category of Zuständlichkeit (‘states’). Op. 118/6 puts one in mind of the eccentric Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler of Hoffmann’s Kater Murr, Brahms’s alter ego in his youth. 54 The internal fusing of disparate elements into one novel that characterizes Kater Murr provides a compelling model for understanding and interpreting Op. 118/6 with its opening Dies Irae pitted against a diminished seventh arpeggio. Moreover, it is redolent of the harmonic ambiguity and the instability by which this intermezzo is characterized. In looking for a possible model for such a literary dimension to Brahms’s intermezzo, we might well consider John Daverio’s writings on Schumann. He makes a convincing case for the inf luence of the Romantic fragment on Schumann’s larger, more self-contained works, identifying the “Kater Murr principle” – that is, “an organizational mode based entirely on the principle of incompletion”55. This further resonates with the elements of incompletion of the multi-piece that Jonathan Dunsby discerns in Brahms’s Seven Fantasien, Op. 116, elements “that find their completion later in the collection”56. Dunsby recognizes this set as “reviving from Brahms’s earlier life the Kreislerianian world of the expressively bizarre”. 57 52 John Rink: “Opposition and Integration in the Piano Music”, in: Cambridge Companion to Brahms, ed. Michael Musgrave. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 79–97, here p. 94. 53 Rink: “Opposition and Integration”, p. 94. 54 I have made a similar argument in Nicole Grimes: “Brahms’s Poetic Allusions through Hanslick’s Critical Lens”, in: American Brahms Society Newsletter 29/2 (2011), pp. 5–9, here p. 7. 55 John Daverio: Nineteenth-Century Music and the German Romantic Ideology. New York: Schirmer, 1993, pp. 61–62. 56 Jonathan Dunsby: “The Multi-piece in Brahms: Fantasien Op. 116”, in: Brahms: Biographical, Documentary and Analytical Studies, ed. Robert Pascall. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 167–189, here p. 176. 57 Dunsby: “The Multi-Piece in Brahms”, p. 176.

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm E. T. A. Hoffmann’s characters frequently succumb to madness, not least Johannes Kreisler who the author describes as a “maniac”58. Kater Murr, as Siegfried Kross asserts, is concerned with “a state of stress felt by the artist between an external reality and an inner artistic one”. 59 Daverio goes on to explore the manner in which Hoffmann’s tales delve into “the terrors of the divided self ” and notes the way in which “quotidian reality can turn, at any moment, into a terrifying, fantastic world”. Daverio further notes that Hoffmann “links this contingency directly to the person of the artist, whose access to the darker side of being is more a curse than a blessing, for it can lead, in the most extreme cases, to madness”. 60 Returning to Klavierstück Nr. 6, there is a strong kinship between the musical material of Rihm’s self-allusions explored earlier in this chapter and his choice of Brahms’s archaic Dies Irae melody. For all of this musical material, as I have argued, is coded by German literary history. Each musical moment is a “contracted concentration” of a larger artwork, rendering Rihm’s musical allusions pregnant with possibilities for musical development. Each of the musical works to which Rihm alludes, moreover, is related to the fracturing of the artistic mind in literature. This opens out onto further literary kinships, for Hoffmann’s spirit realm (Geisterreich) is closely related to Hegel’s Zustände (states) on account of both concepts imbuing literature with poetic depth through inwardness and self-ref lection. In the context of Klavierstück Nr. 6, the ethereal Brahmsian quotation becomes an example of what Nielinger-Vakil (paraphrasing Rihm) refers to as the “individual event” that tends to drive Rihm’s compositions, the “‘self-contained unit which deifies development’ which is set free, unleashed and placed in space, it is further regarded as a possible ‘core’ to what may follow”61. In this instance, the “individual event” is mostly unseen, and yet it gives rise to that which is seen. This “vanishing point”, as I refer to it, is situated along a horizon. That horizon forms a background against which the subject fixes their gaze on the objects in the foreground, with the vanishing point becoming a blur. It is the contents of this blur – the evasive Brahmsian allusion – that provides the threshold between the real and the imagined, the rational and the non-rational, the past and the future. Husserl’s writings on the horizon as a representation of phenomenological time illuminate Rihm’s Klavierstück Nr. 6 when considered from the perspective of the Brahmsian allusion: 58 E. T. A. Hoffmann: “The Life and Opinions of Kater Murr”, in: Selected Writings of E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. and trans. Leonard J. Kent. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969, p. 114. 59 Siegfried Kross: “Brahms and E. T. A. Hoffmann”, 19th-Century Music 5/3 (1982), pp. 193–200, here at p. 197. 60 John Daverio: Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age”, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 72. 61 Nielinger-Vakil: “Quiet Revolutions”, p. 261.

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Nicole Grimes As it is with the world in its ordered being as a spatial present […] so likewise is it with the world in respect to its ordered being in the succession of time. This world now present to me, and in every waking “now” obviously so, has its temporal horizon, infinite in both directions, its known and unknown, its intimately alive and its unalive past and future. Moving freely within the moment of experience which brings what is present into my intuitional grasp, I can follow up these connexions of the reality which immediately surrounds me. I can shift my standpoint in space and time, look this way and that, turn temporally forwards and backwards; I can provide for myself constantly new and more or less clear and meaningful perceptions and representations, and images also more or less clear, in which I make intuitable to myself whatever can possibly exist really or supposedly in the steadfast order of space and time.62 The potent Brahms allusion might further be related to the early Romantic notion of the fragment as a seed. Although “the aphoristic seed” would seem to defy systematization,63 and although the musical “moments” in Klavierstück Nr. 6 are arranged in a concentric rather than a linear fashion, there is a case to be made that the Brahmsian Dies Irae melody is the imaginary middle point around which all other lyrical “moments” are arranged. Rihm acknowledges the “self-direction of the fragments”.64 Killmayer’s analysis, in turn, speaks to a musical coherence that pervades Rihm’s “bagatelles”. Such coherence in this piece is redolent of a Brahmsian mode of composition. Killmayer questions how we may categorize the Brahmsian allusion, such is its ethereal nature. “Is this a theme?” he asks, this elegiac figure that results from the improvisatory movement of fingers that “circle three notes within the close proximity of a third”65. Despite its seemingly innocuous presence, Killmayer attaches great structural significance to these two bars of music, otherwise consistently referring to it as “the theme”. The basic premise of his analysis is that the interval of a minor third from Eb to Gb that circumscribes Brahms’s circling figure is fundamental to every large-scale function (or “moment”) in the piece. In fact, just like Op. 118/6, we might make the case that Rihm’s entire piece is also built upon an obsession with a single motive. From the outset, the interval Eb–Gb that marks the boundary of the Brahmsian allusion (alternately spelt enharmonically by Rihm as D#–F#) plays a pivotal role in the structure of the piece, as Killmayer’s analysis outlines. (See Example 7.) 62 Edmund Husserl: Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson, foreword by Dermot Moran. London and New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 52–53 63 Nielinger-Vakil: “Quiet Revolutions”, p. 261. 64 Rihm: “Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen) (1977–1978)”, p. 315. 65 Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 109.

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm It is heard as early as bar 4 in the expositional material, encircling the tension between the pitches D and Db that pervades the entire work. It remains a constant presence amidst the limited semitone movement of bars 10–11, it forms the basis of the first “disturbance”, the F# in the bass in the antecedent of the Jakob Lenz “Gesangsszene” from bars 17–20 (see also Example 1b), and it provides a premonition at bar 42 that prepares the ear for the intervallic content of the Dies Irae figure when it emerges as “the theme” after two bars of silence.

Example 7: Killmayer’s summary of the pervasive nature of the E f lat–G f lat interval in Rihm, Klavierstück Nr. 6 from the outset until the Brahms quotation at bar 76 66

Following the prologue, the first “bagatelle” (bars 46–85) begins and ends with significant events that relate to the Brahmsian allusion and to the movement of time. The first of the two Hölderlin-Fragmente quotations fuses the contrasting compositional impulses found in the opening of Brahms’s intermezzo. The figure in the right hand is at once a diminished seventh arpeggio and a gesture that encircles the generic Eb–Gb interval.67 Rihm then subjects this unified motif to a further degree of opposition by placing a dissonant Db in the left hand – the pitch that, as we recall, intones the concept of time. (See Example 2b.) It is at the end of this same developmental section that the single Brahms reference in Klavierstück Nr. 6 occurs. Killmayer refers to this “theme” alternately as “visionary”, and a “dream sequence”, considering its presence to be more “bestowed” on Rihm’s work “than expected”.68 This resonates with what Rihm himself categorizes as Traumlogik (“dream logic”), material that is (otherwise) distinguished by “a strikingly modern lack of connecting links”.69 66 This example is taken verbatim from Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 109. 67 Of course, there are other ways of interpreting this gesture, and certainly the chord C–Eb–Gb–B is an important one for Rihm. Brinkmann, for instance, notes that it is a variant of a reminiscence of Bach from the end of the St Matthew Passion, and that of the Webern version of “Ich fühle Luft” from the fourth movement of the String Quartet, Op. 10. See Brinkmann: “Musikalische Lyrik oder die Realisation von Freiheit”, p. 283. 68 Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 109 (and p. 111 for the “dream sequence”). 69 Nielinger-Vakil: “Quiet Revolutions”, p. 260.

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Nicole Grimes Killmayer’s analysis highlights the paradoxical nature of Rihm’s engagement with Brahms: “This setting and formulation, which is not thought of as historic or literary, represents no quotation in the strict sense”, he argues. “It should have been invented here, had it not already been there”.70 It is out of time, therefore. “Retrieved from memory”, he suggests, “it then adapts to a shape, as it has refined in carrying around the theme over time. The theme is discovered here, not quoted”.71

Example 8: Rihm, Klavierstück Nr. 6, bar 82

Just as the Brahmsian allusion appeared as a “vision”, to recall Killmayer’s imagery, immediately after it is heard, it vanishes. Emerging from nothing it returns to nothing. The attempt to recapture it in bar 82 by employing identical pitches shows that “the moment” is no longer within our reach, it is not repeatable.72 (See Example 8.) It therefore becomes an illusion, mediating between fantasy and reality, between the rational and the non-rational. When considered from this perspective, it is entirely fitting that Rihm should refrain from noting this allusion in his written ref lections on Klavierstück Nr. 6. This omission, if anything, heightens the elusive nature of an allusion that resides on the threshold between the seen and the unseen. As is the case in the visual arts with which Rihm is so deeply preoccupied,73 the vanishing point in this collection of bagatelles marks the very site of disappearance and forgetting.

70 “Sicher ist, daß in dieser Setzung und Formulierung, in der es weder historisch noch literarisch gedacht ist, kein Zitat im Eigensinne darstellt; es hätte hier erfunden werden müssen, wäre es nicht schon dagewesen.” Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 109. 71 “aus der Erinnerung geholt stellt sich dann eine Ausformung ein, wie sie sich im Herumtragen des Themas im Lauf der Zeit gebildet hat. Das Thema is hier entdeckt, nicht zitiert.” Killmayer: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 109. 72 Killmayer, “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, p. 110. 73 On Rihm’s preoccupation with art, see footnote 8 above.

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Bibliography Bellheim, Markus: “Das Klavierwerk von Wolfgang Rihm,” sleeve notes in Wolfgang Rihm, Piano Pieces, hr2 Kultur NEOS 10717/18 (2007), pp. 3–4. Botstein, Leon: “Brahms and Nineteenth-Century Painting,” 19th-Century Music 14/2 (Autumn 1990): pp. 154–168. Brinkmann, Reinhold: Vom Pfeifen und von alten Dampfmaschine: Essays zur Musik von Beethoven bis Rihm. Munich: Paul Szolnay Verlag, 2006. : “The Lyric as Paradigm: Poetry and the Foundation of Arnold Schoen      berg’s New Music”, in: German Literature and Music: An Aesthetic Foundation, ed. Claus Reschke and Howard Pollack. Munich: Fink, 1992, pp. 95–129. : “Wirkungen Beethovens in der Kammermusik”, in: Beiträge zu Beethov      ens Kammermusik: Symposion Bonn 1984, ed. Sieghard Brandenburg and Helmut Loos. Munich: Henle Verlag, 1987, pp. 81–84. Brodsky, Seth: Programme Note for Wolfgang Rihm, Musik für drei Streicher, http://www.allmusic.com /composition/music-for-3-strings-forstring-trio-mc0002387942 (last accessed 28 August 2016). Daverio, John: Nineteenth-Century Music and the German Romantic Ideology (New York: Schirmer, 1993), pp. 61–62. : Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age” Oxford: Oxford Univer      sity Press, 1997. Dunsby, Jonathan: “The Multi-piece in Brahms: Fantasien Op. 116”, in: Brahms: Biographical, Documentary and Analytical Studies, ed. Robert Pascall. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 167–189. Fischer, U. C.: “Goethe’s ‘Chinese-German Book of Seasons and Hours’ and World Literature’,” Orenta http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/pics/uploads/600100. pdf (last accessed 5 January 2016). Grimes, Nicole: “Brahms’s Ascending Circle: Hölderlin, Schicksalslied, and the Process of Recollection,” Nineteenth-Century Music Review 11/1 ( July 2014): pp. 1–36.      : “Brahms’s Poetic Allusions through Hanslick’s Critical Lens”, American Brahms Society Newsletter 29/2 (2011): pp. 5–9.      : Brahms’s Elegies: The Poetics of Loss in German Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Heuberger, Richard: Erinnerungen an Johannes Brahms. Tutzing: Schneider, 1976. Hoffmann, E. T. A.: The Life and Opinions of Kater Murr, in Selected Writings of E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. and trans. Leonard J. Kent. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969 547

Nicole Grimes Hölderlin, Friedrich: Friedrich Hölderlin: Sämtliche Werke, ed. Friedrich Beissner & Adolf Beck, vol. ii/1 Stuttgart: J.G. Cottascher Buchhandlung, 1951.      : Friedrich Hölderlin, Poems and Fragments. Trans. Michael Hamburger. London: Anvil Press Poetry, 4th edn 2004. Horton, Julian: Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83: Analytical and Contextual Studies. Leuven: Peeters, 2017. Husserl, Edmund: Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson, foreword by Dermot Moran. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. Killmayer, Wilhelm: “Zu Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück Nr. 6 (Bagatellen)”, in: Klaviermusik des 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Killmayer, Siegfried Mauser und Wolfgang Rihm, Melos: Jahrbuch für zeitgenossische Musik 51 (1992): pp. 102–129.      : “Klangstrukturen bei Hölderlin und in Wolfgang Rihms Klavierstück 6 ‘Bagatellen’”, in: Wolfgang Rihm, ed. Ulrich Tadday. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik, 2004, pp. 51–60. Kross, Siegfried: “Brahms and E. T. A. Hoffmann”, 19 th-Century Music 5/3 (1982): pp. 193–200 Mosch, Ulrich: “Zur Rolle bildnerischer Vorstellugen im musikalischen Denken und Komponieren Wolfgang Rihms”, in: Musikwissenschaft zwischen Kunst, Ästhetik und Experiment, ed. Reinhard Kopiez. Würzburg : Königshausen & Neumann, 1998, pp. 387–392. Nielinger-Vakil, Carola: “Quiet Revolutions: Hölderlin Fragments by Luigi Nono and Wolfgang Rihm”, Music and Letters 81/2 (2000): pp. 245–274. Pace, Ian: Review of Alastair Williams, Music in Germany Since 1968, Tempo 68/268 (2014): pp. 119–121. Rihm, Wolfgang: “Verzweifelt human. Neue Musik und Humanismus?”, in: Rihm, Offene Enden: Denkbewegung um und durch Musik, ed. Ulrich Mosch. Munich: Hanser, 2002, pp. 225–244. : “Vor Bildern”, in: Intermedialität: Studien zur Wechselwirkung zwischen       den Künsten, ed. Günter Schnitzler and Edelgard Spaude. Freiburg im Bresigau: Rombach Verlag, 2004, pp. 95–129.      : Ausgesprochen 1 & 2, ed. Ulrich Mosch. Winterthur: Amadeus, 1997.      : “Tasten”, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (1981): pp. 456–458.      : “… zu wissen”, an interview of 1985 with Rudolf Frisius, in Der Komponist Wolfgang Rihm, ed. Dieter Rexroth. Mainz: Schott, 1985, pp. 17–59 Rink, John: “Opposition and Integration in the Piano Music”, Cambridge Companion to Brahms, ed. Michael Musgrave. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 79–97.

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Brahms as a Vanishing Point in the Music of Wolfgang Rihm Schäfer, Thomas: “anwesend/abgekehrt: Notizen zu Wolfgang Rihm’s Komponieren der 1970er Jahre mit Blick auf Gustav Mahler”, in: Wolfgang Rihm, ed. Ulrich Tadday. Munich: Richard Boorberg Verlag, 2004, pp. 99–108. Tunbridge, Laura: “Deserted Chambers of the Mind (Schumann Memories)”, Rethinking Schumann ed. Roe-Min Kok and Laura Tunbridge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 395–410.      : Schumann’s Late Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 137–38. Warnaby, John: “Wolfgang Rihm’s Recent Music”, Tempo 213 (2000): pp. 12–19. Williams, Alastair: “Swaying with Schumann: Subjectivity and Tradition in Wolfgang Rihm’s ‘Fremde-Szenen’ I–III and Related Scores”, Music & Letters 87/3 (2006): pp. 379–397.      : Music in Germany Since 1968. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

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PART FIVE: MUSIC IN BRITAIN

Harry White with Peter Maxwell Davies

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot

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Intimations of Eternity

Intimations of Eternity in the Creeds from William Byrd’s Five-Voice Mass and Great Service Pauline Graham For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday, seeing that is passed as a watch in the night. Psalm 901

Introduction William Byrd’s Three Masses, dating from the 1590s, and his Great Service – which may well date from the latter part of the same decade – stand out from the composer’s considerable body of vocal music for several reasons. Composed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of whose Chapel Royal Byrd was a distinguished member (holding positions as organist, composer, and probably singer – at least in his first decade there), they appear to present conf licting, even contradictory viewpoints and to evince political stances that are diametrically opposed. The Masses were composed for clandestine and officially proscribed Catholic liturgies, conceived for small forces (no more than three to five voices), concise, set the Latin Ordinary of the Mass, and proclaimed allegiance to the Roman Church – by the composer as much as by any potential owners of the editions which were printed by Thomas East. The Great Service, by contrast, comprised music for the Morning, Communion and Evening Services of the Church of England, was almost certainly intended for the Chapel Royal of Queen Elizabeth herself, was scored for a ten-part choir with organ, and was as f lamboyant and elaborate as that Church’s strictures on liturgical text-setting would allow. 2 At first glance, they would seem to have little in common, were it not for the fact that they were both composed by William Byrd. Yet a closer look at aspects of text-setting, compositional choices, and their religious and political contexts reveals that they both demonstrate a composer grappling with complex eschatological issues by virtue 1 2

Psalm 90, translated by Miles Coverdale (1535, rev. 1539) in: Psalms: The Coverdale Translation, ed. W. S. Peterson and Valerie Macys, http://synaxis.info/psalter/5_english/c_psalms/CoverdalePsalms.pdf (last accessed 18 August 2016). The implications for church musicians and composers of Elizabeth’s religious reforms are discussed in some detail by Roger Bowers: “The Chapel Royal, the First Edwardian Prayer Book, and Elizabeth I’s Settlement of Religion, 1559”, in: The Historical Journal 43 (2000), pp. 1–28.

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Pauline Graham of the texts which he set to music. This essay aims to explore intimations of the Christian concept of eternity as found in the Credo from Byrd’s Five-Voice Mass and in the Creed from his Great Service, through historical contextualization and analysis of compositional features, considered alongside recent theological and critical work by Jeremy Begbie and Daniel Chua, as well as philosophical ideas advanced by Gaston Bachelard, John Cottingham and Roger Scruton. 3 By its very nature, the Christian concept of eternity has been described and understood in very different ways from the time of the early Church fathers to the present day. It has also been a source of controversy, given that its existence – if accepted – appears to contradict mortality – the defining characteristic of humanity, and indeed all forms of life on earth. According to New Testament accounts, the Jewish Sadducees effectively denied the possibility of an afterlife, thus bringing them into direct conf lict with Christ’s teachings.4 While it would be difficult to claim that Byrd’s personal understanding of an eternal Christian afterlife can be recovered for present-day scholars, his settings of the Creed in the Five-Voice Mass and Great Service, can, in the context proposed here, offer us some insights into his view of “the life of the world to come”, to use the wording found in the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer. It is difficult for mortals to conceive of a form of existence which transcends their temporal lifespan. Despite the fundamental transformations in philosophical outlook between Byrd’s time and our own – taking into account the Enlightenment era and the complete gamut of modernist and postmodernist thought – the ultimate meaning of human existence is a question with which every generation has grappled.

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Jeremy S. Begbie: Theology, Music and Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Daniel K. L. Chua: “Music as the Mouthpiece of Theology”, in: Jeremy S. Begbie and Steven R. Guthrie (eds.): Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2011, pp. 137–161; John Cottingham: Philosophy of Religion: Towards a More Humane Approach. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014; Gaston Bachelard: Intuition of the Instant [1932], trans. Eileen Rizo-Patron. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2013; Roger Scruton: The Soul of the World. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014; Richard Turbet: “Greatness thrust upon ’em: Services by Byrd and Others Reconsidered”, in: The Musical Times 146/1891 (2005), pp. 16–18. William Horbury: “The Wisdom of Solomon”, pp. 650–667, at pp. 655–656; Eric Franklin: “Luke”, pp. 922–959, at p. 953; Dale C. Allison Jr., ‘Matthew’, pp. 844–886, at p. 873–874 in: John Barton and John Muddiman (eds.): The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Intimations of Eternity

Doctrinal changes in Elizabethan England and Byrd’s settings of the Creed The Credo, as the primary statement of faith for English recusants as for all members of the Roman Church, served to differentiate them from other religious denominations in the wake of the English reformations. Byrd’s Three Mass Ordinaries set the text from the Roman Missal of 1570, issued after the Council of Trent had concluded. Byrd’s three Mass settings were distinctive not simply because they were composed in opposition to the established Church of England, but also because he set the entire text of the Credo, unlike most of his English predecessors. 5 They constituted the first Counter-Reformation Mass settings by an English composer. The 1559 Book of Common Prayer, published in the reign of Queen of Elizabeth and with her approval, prescribed the Nicene Creed in English for the service of Holy Communion. This was recited in English and used largely the same equivalent text as the Latin Credo, but the use of the vernacular signified allegiance to the Church of England, and a number of critical doctrinal differences. These included the number of recognised sacraments, the nature of the Eucharist, the training of clergy, and the hierarchical structure – the Queen of England was designated Supreme Governor of its Church, with no acknowledgement of the papacy. The holding of divine services in the vernacular constituted an important aspect of reformed worship in England, as it did on the continent. This had been argued by the reformer Thomas Cranmer in Henry VIII’s time, and was reiterated by Article 24 of the Thirty-Nine Articles: It is a thyng plainly repugnant to the Word of God & the custome of the primative Church to have publique prayer in the Church or to minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understanded of the people.6 This emphasis on the use of the vernacular was particularly significant in the context of the Creed, which the congregation was expected to recite aloud together.7 In the Creed from the Great Service Byrd treats the final portion of the text with particular attention. He sets the initial three words of this part of the text 5 6

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Denis Stevens: Tudor Church Music (London: Faber, 1961), pp. 26–27. “Of the sufficiency of the scripture”; Article 6 of the 39 Articles: Articles whereupon it was agreed by the Archbishoppes and Bishoppes of both provinces … in the yere of our Lorde God 1562 … for the stablishying of consent touching true religion. Put foorth by the Queenes auchtoritie. London: R. Jugge & J. Cawood, 1571, p. 15. Ramie Targoff: Common Prayer: The Language of Public Devotion in Early Modern England. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 29.

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Pauline Graham “And I look” homophonically in five parts, while the “Amen” is set imitatively in six parts. “And life of the world to come” is handled in an unusual way compared with the rest of the Creed (which is primarily homophonic). It is scored for five voices (soprano, alto I, alto II, tenor, bass) with the lower four voices moving largely in homophony and the soprano part seemingly following its own path one and a half breves later. Along with this temporal dislocation, Byrd establishes a tonal conflict between the soprano part and the other voices. The two parties seem unable to agree on which degree of the ‘key’ they should close.8 The lower parts close on C in bar 112, but the soprano entry in this bar overlaps with the close in the lower voices, and through its contour evades closure (bars 112–114). Meanwhile, the lower voices begin another homophonic passage at the end of bar 113, closing onto G in bar 115 (Example 1). In the same bar, the soprano enters, again overlapping with the close onto G in the lower voices, but avoiding a close in its own part. At the end of bar 117 the soprano reiterates the figure it had at bar 112 (with the same text), once more ignoring the close effected by the lower voice in bar 118, this time onto F. This passage could be interpreted as ref lecting the disjunction between the nature of life on earth and the eternal life to come. In the same vein, it could suggest that mortal efforts to follow the right path that leads toward eternal life are often misdirected, since inappropriate aims (represented here by the closes by the lower ‘earthbound’ voices onto the ‘wrong’ degrees, in contrast to the tonal centres highlighted by the soprano voice) are frequently chosen. From a different perspective, this passage from Byrd’s Creed could be understood as a musical metaphor of the Christian ideal of eternity; the highest and most prominent voice – the soprano – avoids closure onto any degree of the ‘key’ (implying that heavenly life is eternal), while the lower voices close onto C, G and F successively (the first, fifth and fourth steps of the key), without paying any heed to what the soprano is doing, thus indicating the finite, temporally circumscribed nature of life on earth.

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This essay draws on the concept of ‘triadic key’ in Byrd’s music, developed by Mark Yeary from theoretical works by Byrd’s contemporaries, including Thomas Morley; see Mark Yeary: “‘In Their Own Native Keys’: Tonal Organisation in William Byrd’s Published Motets” in: voiceXchange, 4/1 (2010), pp. 1–24, https://letterpress.uchicago.edu/index.php/voicexchange/article/ view/44 (last accessed 15 March 2011).

Intimations of Eternity

Example 1: William Byrd, Creed from The Great Service, bars 105–1239 9

This example is based on the edition of Craig Monson, for The Byrd Edition: Vol. 10b. London: Stainer and Bell, 1982. In this example the music is shown at its original notated pitch, and not transposed up a minor third, as in Monson’s edition. (TD: Tenor Decani; TC: Tenor Cantoris).

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Example 1 (continued)

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Intimations of Eternity Given the nature of tonal organization in Byrd’s time, the introduction of some form of musical closure is a prerequisite at the end of each section or movement. In the Creed from the Great Service Byrd achieves this by introducing an ascending motif for the word “Amen” (bars 112–113).10 In order to create a convincing musical conclusion for a movement as lengthy as this Creed, Byrd relies on an extended close in six real parts, involving a series of suspensions (bars 119– 123); the slowing pace of the harmonic rhythm and the use of longer note values reinforce the sense of closure. The prominent melismas for the first syllable of the word “Amen” are in marked contrast to the predominantly syllabic declamation heard throughout most of the Creed. This manner of text-setting suggests a correspondence in Byrd’s Great Service between syllabic composition and the human dimension of religious belief, whereas melismatic passages are often associated with transcendent and immutable concepts.

Some Christian Perspectives on Eternity One could, of course, question any attempt to read Byrd’s music in the manner outlined here. All music has a temporal dimension, yet some philosophers and critics dispute music’s ability to bear the weight of such profound concepts as temporality and eternity. However, Jeremy Begbie, Daniel Chua and more recently Roger Scruton have acknowledged the validity of engaging with music’s wider ramifications for both modelling and enacting complex theological and temporal concepts. Jeremy Begbie’s work relating music to Christian theology draws on some modern philosophical traditions, as well as on scriptural sources, and early Christian writers such as St Augustine of Hippo. Augustine wrote that “past and future are present in the mind, in memory and expectation respectively”.11 An equally important aspect of Augustine’s thought on this topic is the disjunction he posits between the “transient, temporal order” we experience on earth and “unceasing nature of eternity”.12 In Augustine’s understanding it is the mind that is responsible for our sense of temporality, through the functions of memory, attention, and expectation. Attention relates to our perception of the present moment, whereas memory constructs our sense of past events; expectation relates both of these to the future. One further complication is the concept of distentio animi (the “distension 10 This musical figure resembles the “ecstatic rising scales” which Kerry McCarthy has identified in the concluding section of Optimam partem, the Communion motet for the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Byrd’s first book of Gradualia (1605); Kerry McCarthy: Byrd. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 189–190. 11 Begbie: Theology, Music, and Time, p. 77. 12 Ibidem, p. 76.

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Pauline Graham of the mind”) which Augustine describes in terms of these three faculties working in opposition to each other.13 Memory and expectation can both inf luence perception in the present, and may transmit conf licting suggestions to the mind. Although Augustine’s theories of temporal perception have not won universal favour with later scholars, his inf luence on the late medieval and early modern worlds was considerable, and his theories seem amenable to discussion in relation to musical perception.14 Moreover, Augustine’s concept of memory is broader than our current understanding of the term, and resembles the modern idea of ‘mind’ itself.15 Augustine’s concept of the self involves the idea of a ‘soul’, comprising two elements: the intellect, concerned with eternal truths, and an inferior part controlling temporal and bodily matters. Augustine termed the latter scientia, which he defined as “the cognition of temporal and changeable things that is necessary for managing the affairs of this life”.16 It should be noted that this does not correspond to ‘science’ in our modern understanding of the term. Augustine denotes the superior part of reason as sapientia; although this could be literally translated as “wisdom”, a more accurate translation, for Augustine’s purposes would be “contemplation” – “the contemplation of eternal truth in this life and the contemplation of God in the life of the blessed”.17 On this analysis, Byrd’s compositional strategies in both the Creed from the Great Service and the Credo from the Five-Voice Mass could be thought of as engaging the listener’s scientia in order to lead them towards sapientia – contemplation of the divine. Attentive listening in the context of the Tridentine celebration of the Mass or in the Church of England service of Eucharist (which involved a greater degree of congregational participation) could focus the listener’s attention quite specifically on particular words from their respective rites. In the close confines of a recusant chapel or small domestic room, the assembled participants would, of necessity, have been standing or kneeling near the five singers singing the Creed, along with the other sung portions of the liturgy. This immediacy, heightened by the ever-present threat of interruption or arrest by Elizabethan authorities must have led to an intense awareness of the significance of the sung texts. In Elizabeth’s Chapel Royal, by contrast, there was no fear or interruption or intrusion. In these more formal courtly surroundings, the Great Service, with its virtuosic ten-part scoring, represented a public and aesthetically refined image of 13 Ibidem, pp. 77–78. 14 Kerry McCarthy: “Byrd, Augustine and Tribue, Domine”, Early Music 32 (2004), pp. 569–576, here p. 570. 15 Anthony Kenny: Medieval Philosophy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 217, with reference to Augustine’s Confessions, X.13. 16 Quoted in translation by Kenny: Medieval Philosophy, p. 219. 17 Quoted in translation by Kenny: Medieval Philosophy, p. 219.

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Intimations of Eternity Church of England worship. The Great Service, then, was as carefully calculated for this context as the Five-Voice Mass was for clandestine Catholic liturgies in domestic settings. The idea that music can function as a transcendent path to contemplating the divine has informed Western philosophical discourse for several centuries.18 More recently, Roger Scruton and John Cottingham have further developed this topic. Scruton, who references Kant’s aesthetic theories, describes what he terms the “sacred space of music”. He advances this concept as part of a more wide-ranging discussion of “cognitive dualism”, which is based on the “over-reaching intentionality of our interpersonal states of mind”.19 Scruton’s argument builds on previous aesthetic theories but refuses to explain away human artistic achievements by means of “conducting surveys and experiments” which could provide scientific or purely acoustic data, for example. 20 Instead, he believes that the visual arts, literature and music arise from a world shaped by human consciousness, and that their true significance lies in what they mean for others. Attempts to relate artistic endeavours to humanity’s evolutionary development may be interesting byways bridging the arts and the sciences, but Scruton claims that they fail, in the end, to tell what us what artistic works can ultimately mean for us. He argues that great works of music can bring us to an experience of “sacred” moments which are “outside time” as we usually experience it, and in which the “anxiety of the human condition is overcome”. 21 Scruton distinguishes between music which implies an attentive form of listening, and music which serves a purely functional purpose, such as dance music or military music. Although Byrd’s Great Service and Five-Voice Mass can be regarded as functional liturgical music, the evident detail in their compositions, the level of skill required by the singers involved, and their respective contexts – one public, functioning as a display of royal prestige and ecclesiastical self-sufficiency, and the other private, intimate, and underground – all elevate them from any category of routine, pedestrian music-making.

Byrd’s Creeds and Intimations of Eternity Taking these perspectives into account, one could argue that encountering Byrd’s Five-Voice Mass and Great Service in their respective liturgical contexts can evoke a transcendent experience, rising above quotidian occurrences. John Cottingham 18 Although outside the scope of this essay, similar attitudes concerning music’s transcendental potential obtain in other religious traditions too, including those of central Africa and South America. 19 Roger Scruton: The Soul of the World, p. 140. 20 Ibidem, p. 141. 21 Scruton: “The Sacred and the Human” (2007), quoted by Cottingham, Philosophy of Religion, p. 62.

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Pauline Graham has described such moments as “an intensification” of our perceptual sensibilities “that transforms the way in which we experience the world”. 22 Cottingham advances the case for a broader understanding of such transcendent experiences; he proposes that heightened perceptual encounters – which may be engendered by music, visual arts, literature, or poetry, can transmit this sense of transcendence without it being tied to a specifically religious outlook. Cottingham offers a philosophical perspective on religious thought, which is broad-minded and open enough to consider the significant role of the arts in shaping our understanding of the divine. He recognises that the arts can, in fact, function as some of the most powerful “modes of access” that we posses to enable us to reach this realm of experience. 23 This is not to deny the place of logical argument and established philosophical method when examining questions of religious belief, but Cottingham wisely recognises that issues such as the possibility of an afterlife “cannot finally be decided on philosophical grounds alone”. 24 Similarly, in facing the eschatological question of eternity, he proposes that it seems more fruitful to relate a putative connection between meaning (from a human perspective) and eternity to God’s everlasting presence, than to the human soul’s immortality. Cottingham is writing his study from the perspective of a present-day Christian philosopher; Byrd was working as an Elizabethan musician in the midst of doctrinal and political conf licts in the late sixteenth century. Yet there is a sense in which the two worlds coalesce; the enduring quality of Byrd’s Five-Voice Mass and Great Service seems to transcend not simply the intervening centuries, but the very compositional materials and techniques employed. This claim is not motivated by the idea of a musical “golden age” now confined to the past. The world in which Byrd lived was a shifting and unstable one, beset by domestic and foreign political intrigues, doctrinal and liturgical conf licts, along with threats and actual cases of fines, imprisonment and even execution for those who refused to conform. As a composer and recusant Catholic, Byrd negotiated the severe challenges posed by writing for a proscribed church on the one hand, and providing music for Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel Royal, on the other. The outward differences between Byrd’s Masses and his Great Service can be easily identified: a Latin text versus an English one; primarily polyphonic writing contrasted with mostly homophonic; concision versus prolixity; intensity versus f lamboyance. At a deeper level, though, both the Five-Voice Mass and Great Service bear the imprint of a composer who had ref lected deeply on the liturgical texts that he was setting, and their universal, as well as their personal significance. The conclusion of the Agnus Dei of the Four-Voice Mass, with its heartfelt 22 Cottingham: Philosophy of Religion, p. 61. 23 Ibidem, pp. 50–51, 64–65. 24 Ibidem, p. 126.

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Intimations of Eternity reiterated pleas for peace (“Dona nobis pacem”/ “Grant us peace”) and intensely personal character with which Byrd imbues the final passage of his Te Deum from the Great Service (setting the text “Let me never be confounded”) bespeak a composer who had genuinely contemplated the ‘last things’ – the earthly struggle and inevitability of human mortality. This accords with the verdict of the distinguished musicologist and Byrd scholar, the late Joseph Kerman, in his magisterial study of the composer’s Masses and motets: Byrd’s eye was not on history, however, but on eternity, and certainly in his own mind the music that he consecrated to his Church was the most important. 25 Kerman’s comment, which concludes his monograph, contrasts Byrd’s achievements in the realm of instrumental music (keyboard and consort) with his distinguished output of Latin sacred music. While not detracting from Kerman’s claim, it seems appropriate to regard the Creed from the Great Service, like the Credo from the Five-Voice Mass, as belonging to an elevated compositional plane which can offer us intimations of the transcendent and eternal. For Byrd’s contemporaries, issues of religious doctrine were not merely arbitrary personal choices; religious divisions had fractured English society from the latter part of Henry VIII’s reign through the reforms of Edward VI’s time and the Catholic restoration of Mary Tudor to the compromises of Elizabeth. Religious divisions inevitably acquired political associations. This had been the case with Henry VIII, who sought to limit papal inf luence on English affairs, for political as much as for religious reasons. It was evident, too, during Elizabeth’s reign, when Jesuit priests ministering secretly in England were regarded as political subversives, not just religious dissidents, and were consequently condemned for treason against the Crown. The Spanish Armada of 1588, launched by Philip II, was viewed in England as an attempt to reimpose Catholicism as much as an attempt to overthrow Elizabeth’s sovereignty. The same was true of Mary, Queen of Scots; a Catholic, and first cousin to Queen Elizabeth, she was treated as an ongoing threat to English political stability. After twenty years of imprisonment, during which time there were several unsuccessful plots attempting to place her on the English throne, she was executed in 1587. Recent research by Jeremy Smith has shown how English recusants made use of the biblical figure of Susanna as a coded reference to Mary, Queen of Scots. 26 Byrd, too, was aware of this association and set a text on the theme of Susanna in his 1588 publication, issued the year after Mary’s execution. Smith posits the intriguing suggestion that Byrd’s inclusion of 25 Byrd. London: Faber, 1981, p. 350. 26 Jeremy L. Smith: “Mary Queen of Scots as Susanna” in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Society 73 (2011), pp. 209–220.

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Pauline Graham a ‘Susanna’ setting could have denoted “an alternative, or double, meaning for the whole Psalmes collection”, prompting a re-evaluation of seemingly innocuous texts. 27 In the same publication of 1588, Byrd included a setting of a poem commemorating the execution of a noted Jesuit priest, Edmund Campion, at the hands of the Elizabethan authorities. Why do I use my paper, ink and pen was a poem – written by Henry Walpole – which had incurred official censure on its publication, on the grounds of inciting treason. Byrd’s decision to have his setting printed was fraught with danger, even with the more controversial stanzas omitted. However, publishing music for the Latin Mass Ordinary – a rite which was officially forbidden – in the early 1590s was equally perilous, yet Byrd was bold enough to include his name on the printed editions of the Three Masses, issued by Thomas East. 28 A further connection between the 1588 collection and the Five-Voice Mass can be identified. The clandestine priests, many of whom were Jesuits, who ministered to Elizabethan recusants, did so at great personal cost, and several sacrificed their lives for their faith. Catholic devotional manuals of this time, whether published secretly in England or smuggled into the country from continental presses, related the dedication of these priests to the self-sacrifice of Christ – a connection that was readily apparent to persecuted Catholics. For those who had willingly chosen such a path in order to defend and nurture the faith in which they believed, the “life of the world to come” was surely viewed as their just reward. The desire to celebrate Catholic liturgies and where possible to adorn them with music permeated English recusant culture, and this must have been a motivating factor for Byrd’s three distinctive Mass Ordinary settings, and for his comprehensive and elaborate Mass Propers. The Five-Voice Mass which, like the Four- and Three-Voice Masses that preceded it, sets forth the unchanging structure of the Catholic rite, can be understood as an expression of sacrifice in the Tridentine theological tradition, and as a means of sanctifying time. This represented an attempt by English recusants to maintain an unbroken cycle of continuity with the faith and religious practices of their ancestors, despite the fact that England had officially followed the path of Protestantism. The celebration of the Eucharist, following the Catholic rite, and the marking of saints’ days and 27 Jeremy L. Smith: Verse and Voice in Byrd’s Song Collections of 1588 and 1589. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016, p. 108. Smith has also identified a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots in which she is shown with a rosary incorporating a miniature picture of Susanna (Smith: op. cit., pp. 120–121). 28 Kerman: Masses and Motets, pp. 188–189; Peter Clulow: “Publication dates for Byrd’s Latin Masses”, Music and Letters 47/1 (1966), pp. 1–9; the dating of Byrd’s Mass prints, with analysis of paper stocks and watermarks, has been further investigated by Jeremy L. Smith: Thomas East and Music Publishing in Renaissance England. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 100–105.

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Intimations of Eternity other feasts such as Corpus Christi, permitted the isolated recusants to perceive a spiritual link with the papacy and the wider Roman Church. 29 This was in contradistinction to Church of England practice, which had led to the prohibition of Eucharistic processions and a systematic revision of the public calendar, resulting in the removal of several overtly Catholic festivals and many saints’ feast-days; some new holidays, of political rather religious significance, such as the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession on 17th November (the “Queen’s Day”) were introduced. 30 Certain local events emerged; Norwich and Salisbury, for example, held an annual “triumphing day” to commemorate the English victory over the Spanish Armada of 1588. 31 In view of these politically motivated alterations to the calendar, it is worth noting that the 1559 Book of Common Prayer which codified the Elizabethan religious settlement came into effect from the feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist (24th June) 32; this feast-day, together with the Nativity of Christ (25th December) marked the twin chronological pillars of the Christian liturgical year. 33 Byrd’s completion of three Mass Ordinaries and Propers for the entire church year established – albeit within a small community of recusants – a firm connection between the composer’s sacred music and the unchanging, perennial celebration of the Eucharist, the sacrament which nourished and united the faithful. The Mass Propers complemented the Ordinaries, and followed the cycle of the entire church year, from Advent and Christmas through to Lent, Holy Week, Easter and the feast of Ascension. Major Catholic feasts such as Corpus Christi (which celebrated the sacrament of the Eucharist) and the feast-day of Saints Peter and Paul (the former being closely identified with the papacy by both Catholics and reformers) drew forth profound and elaborate motet-writing from Byrd’s pen. The Credo from the Five-Voice Mass, therefore, should be understood in the context of Byrd’s larger-scale project to provide a comprehensive corpus of sacred music which was truly worthy of the liturgy for his fellow English Catholics. From the perspective of personal advancement or prospective commercial gain, Byrd’s composition and publication of his Gradualia and three Mass Ordinaries would 29 McCarthy: Liturgy and Contemplation, pp. 72–74. 30 David Cressy: “The Protestant Calendar and the Vocabulary of Celebration in Early Modern England”, The Journal of British Studies 29/1 (1990), pp. 31–52, at pp. 34–35 and p. 51. 31 Ibidem, p. 36. 32 The Book of Common Prayer, 1559, ed. John Booty. Charlottesville, Virginia and London: University of Virginia Press, 1976; reprinted with a new preface, 2005, p. 8. 33 Michael Alan Anderson examines the use of canonic techniques to symbolize John the Baptist as precursor of Christ in selected fifteenth- and sixteenth-century motet repertoires in “The One who comes after Me: John the Baptist, Christian Time, and Symbolic Musical Techniques”, Journal of the American Musicological Society 66/3 (2013), pp. 639–708. Anderson also notes that 24 June and 25 December fall close to the summer and winter equinoxes, respectively, and therefore find parallels in the natural world.

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Pauline Graham seem to have been a risky venture, both personally and financially. 34 There must have been some demand for the Mass Ordinaries, as although they were printed without title pages or dates, they were issued in a second edition by Thomas East, who had printed the first edition. 35 One must look elsewhere, though, in trying to ascertain Byrd’s motivation for devoting so much time and effort to composing these works, and then having them printed in accurate and reliable editions. Byrd evidently valued the zeal of English recusants for their faith. His patrons included the Petre family – aristocratic recusants who had estates in Essex. It seems likely, as Joseph Kerman and Philip Brett have argued, that Byrd moved with his family to Stondon Massey in about 1592 in order to live near the Petres. Although he only visited London occasionally after this time, Byrd remained a Gentleman of Elizabeth’s Chapel Royal and continued to receive his salary. 36 The absence of title pages from the printed editions of the three Mass Ordinaries could have enabled them to be bound with some inoffensive publication for the purpose of concealment, should a house be searched. 37 There were no dedications included for the three printed Mass editions, either, presumably to avoid directly incriminating any member of the nobility. However, the iconographic significance of the decorated initial ‘K’ – featuring an image of St Peter with his traditional symbol of a key – which appears at the beginning of the Kyrie for each Mass, could be interpreted as a covert dedication to his patron John Petre. 38 Byrd’s work, then, in his Masses and Gradualia may have been intended as a personal contribution to the body of sacred music for the Catholic rite by English composers, possibly with a view to future generations, and a time when the Catholic faith could be more openly recognised and celebrated in England.39 This latter claim is difficult to prove, but the manner in which Byrd set sacred texts concerned with a future world – and by extension the eternal world to come – provides some support for it. Further evidence that Byrd saw himself as part of a ongoing tradition of 34 Byrd’s first publication, issued jointly with Thomas Tallis in 1575, the Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur (“Songs which, on account of their subject matter, are termed sacred”) was not a commercial success. See Jeremy Smith: “Music and the Cult of Elizabeth: The Politics of Panegyric and Sound” in: Jessie Ann Owens (ed.): “Noyses, sounds and sweet aires”: Music in Early Modern England. Washington, DC: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 2006, pp. 62–77, at pp. 64, 66. 35 Smith: Thomas East, pp. 101–102. 36 John Harley: William Byrd, Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Revised edition to Aldershot: Ashgate, rev edn 1999, p. 109, pp. 126–126. 37 Smith: Thomas East, p. 66. 38 Pauline Graham: The Keys of the Kingdom: An Exegetical Reading of William Byrd’s Three Masses and Great Service. PhD diss., University College Dublin: 2012, pp. 133–135; Philip Brett: “Prefaces to Gradualia”: in Brett (Kerman and Moroney, eds.), p. 201. 39 David Trendell: “Byrd’s Masses in Context” [2006] in Richard Turbet, ed., A Byrd Celebration: Lectures at the William Byrd Festival. Richmond, Virginia: Church Music Association of America, 2008, pp. 95–101.

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Intimations of Eternity English Catholic composers can be found in the allusions to the ‘Meane’ Mass of John Taverner (c.1490–1545) which he incorporated into his own three Mass Ordinaries.40 The conclusion of the Credo of the Five-Voice Mass employs a particular contrapuntal complex which Joseph Kerman has described as an example of ‘cell’ technique.41 Intriguingly, Kerman observes that this particular ‘cell’ combination was used by Byrd for two earlier motets, both of which conclude with doxologies, Tribue, Domine (published in 1575) and O quam gloriosum (published in 1589). The doxology text is Trinitarian, like the Creed, and also concerned with the theme of eternity. Tribue, Domine is one of Byrd’s lengthiest motets, with a tripartite structure and a text drawn from the Meditationes [‘Meditations’] attributed to St Augustine of Hippo. This expansive six-voice work includes several passages for reduced scoring, as does the Credo from the Five-Voice Mass. The third part of the motet sets a troped version of the doxology, referring to the “most high and undivided Trinity … whose kingdom is without end” (summae et individuate trinitati … cuius imperium sine fine manet).42 Byrd set this text in Latin, but it is interesting to note that contemporary English translations were in circulation among Protestant members of Elizabeth’s court; the 1575 Cantiones … sacrae collection – issued jointly by Tallis and Byrd – in which this motet was published was in fact dedicated no less a personage than Elizabeth herself. The other connection identified by Kerman, with the motet O quam gloriosum, also relates to the eternal kingdom of heaven, since it sets a text for the feast of All Saints, celebrating the lives and pious achievements of those who had been granted the reward of a blessed eternal life, according to Catholic teaching. This motet is scored for five voices (like the Five-Voice Mass) and features some of the characteristically English 6­– 5 progressions also found in Byrd’s Mass Ordinaries.43 In this case, Byrd wrote for two sopranos rather than the two tenors found in the Five-Voice Mass. Kerman notes that this later motet demonstrates a more refined contrapuntal technique and more effective rhetorical declamation than Tribue, Domine. Also relevant in connection with the theme of time and eternity is the text for the second part of this motet, drawn from the Book of Revelation; it is the heavenly host’s hymn of praise to the risen Christ, symbolically represented by a lamb.44 In the concluding passage of the Credo of the Five-Voice Mass, for the text “Et vitam venturi saeculi” (‘And the life of the world to come’), Byrd emphasises the word “vitam” (‘life’) agogically (bars 187–196), initially with the 40 Philip Brett: “Homage to Taverner in Byrd’s Masses” in Brett, ed. Kerman and Moroney, pp. 8–21. 41 Kerman: Masses and Motets, p. 212. 42 McCarthy: Byrd, Augustine, pp. 569–570. 43 Kerman: Masses and Motets, pp. 155–156. 44 Ibidem, p. 156.

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Pauline Graham upper three voices, and then through the introduction of successive ascending vocal entries (bars 189–194).45 For the English texts of the Great Service Byrd also set doxologies as part of the Morning and Evening Canticles. Rather than reusing the same doxology setting, Byrd took the trouble to compose a rhetorically appropriate conclusion for each canticle by writing four separate doxology settings, for the Venite, Benedictus, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis; in the case of the Nunc Dimittis, the doxology is particularly lengthy and elaborate. The Nunc Dimittis, which brings the Great Service to a close, is the ‘Song of Simeon’, the priest of the temple in Jerusalem who witnessed the presentation of the child Jesus; recognising Jesus as the promised Messiah, Simeon understood his life to be complete and willingly acknowledged the impending end of his own mortal life. The doxology with which Byrd concludes this Nunc Dimittis has a resigned and calm mood, as befits the import of the canticle. Simeon’s recognition of the child Jesus and the manner in which this realization profoundly transforms and illuminates his entire life thus far could be compared to the philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s concept of “the instant” as presented in his 1932 study, The Intuition of the Instant (L’intuition de l’instant). Bachelard’s publication on temporality arose initially as a response to a drama by Gaston Roupnel. Bachelard’s thesis was conceived in opposition to the then prevailing idea of durée – a temporal continuum, as advocated by Henri Bergson.46 Bachelard argues that our human perception of time can be understood most satisfactorily as a series of discrete moments or “instants”, which of their nature are perceived as being discontinuous: Life does not f low along a slope on the axis of objective time that would serve as its channel … when intense attention concentrates life’s focus upon a single isolated element – then we will become more aware that the instant is the truly specific character of time. The more deeply penetrating our meditation on time, the more minute it becomes.47 Drawing on this concept of “the instant” as Bachelard defines it, we can comprehend its relevance for the message of the Nunc Dimittis, and for the more universal message of the Christian faith. Simeon stands on the cusp of a new era; raised in the Jewish tradition, he recognizes that another epoch is coming into being, signified by and enacted through Christ’s incarnation. He is therefore a 45 Bar numbers refer to William Byrd: The Masses, edited by Philip Brett. London: Stainer and Bell, 1981, which forms part of The Byrd Edition (General editor: Philip Brett). 46 Eileen Rizo-Patron (ed. and trans.): Bachelard: Intuition of the Instant. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2013, Preface, p. xi. 47 Quoted from Bachelard: Intuition of the Instant, p. 12.

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Intimations of Eternity bridge between the Old Testament and the New, a figure who assists with Christ’s ritual acceptance into the Jewish faith, but who would not live to witness his ultimate mission, his suffering, death, resurrection and ascension. For Bachelard, the human experience of temporality was not simply a philosophical abstraction – it had a clear moral dimension.48 This finds a parallel in the Christian understanding of time, since the limitation of lifespan imposed by our mortality renders our decisions and actions all the more significant. It also relates to the broader path of Christian salvation, in which a God who is beyond time enters our mortal world in the person of Christ, in order to redeem humanity. Christ’s second coming – which the New Testament states will mark the end of earthly time – seemed imminent to the early disciples, and was, in fact, (inaccurately) predicted on several occasions in medieval times. Working in the late sixteenth century, Byrd was no doubt inf luenced by the Catholic theologians of his time, especially the Jesuit authors and other Counter-Reformation writers whose work found its way into recusant circles. Despite the persecution of Catholics in Elizabethan England, English recusants who had made their way to the continent took courage from the ultimately hopeful message of Christ’s life and teaching, and related it directly to their straitened circumstances. Bachelard’s emphasis on meditation also suggests a parallel with the devotional manuals and the Ignatian spiritual exercises promoted by Jesuit priests in England in Byrd’s time. We can respond to Byrd’s settings of the Creed and the Five-Voice Credo in such a way that his music becomes what Daniel Chua has termed ‘the mouthpiece of theology’49 – drawing attention to the texts, parsing them, exploring and intensifying nuances of meaning, and effectively interpreting them for us. For a present-day listener, Byrd’s Five-Voice Mass and Great Service offer rare insights into the personal expression of a composer who had lived through turbulent times and who had relied on his compositional prowess to balance antithetical religious, political and artistic demands. As Philip Brett has remarked, the recognition and manifestation in artistic terms – through the medium of music – of this inner psychological conf lict render Byrd a thoroughly modern figure, despite the centuries which separate his world from ours. 50 His music still evidently possesses the power to move and delight us, but also to surprise and unsettle us – and given the unsettled times in which he lived, his music would have little meaning 48 This attitude may well have been shaped by Bachelard’s experiences while serving in the French army during the First World War; Eileen Rizo-Patron, (ed. and trans.): Bachelard, Intuition of the Instant, p. 72. 49 Daniel Chua: “Music as the Mouthpiece of Theology” in: Jeremy S. Begbie and Steven R. Guthrie, eds., Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2011, pp. 137–161. 50 Philip Brett: “William Byrd: Traditionalist and Innovator”, in: Brett (Kerman and Moroney, eds.): William Byrd and his Contemporaries, pp. 1–7, at p. 2.

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Pauline Graham for us if it did not do so. Yet Byrd’s music, especially his sacred vocal music of an overtly confessional nature, such as the Creed from the Great Service and the Credo from the Five-Voice Mass, as argued here, confronts us directly, its lapidary doctrinal certainties standing firm against the ever-mutable postmodern f lux of our digitally-saturated contemporary Western culture. But facing this cultural dissonance or “iarre” (to use a term with which Byrd himself forewarned the performers of his 1588 printed collection of the discordant sounds that they might encounter) 51 should not cause us to pass silently over the ultimate significance of its theological message; it should, rather, challenge us to engage directly with it, however disturbing the result.

Bibliography Anderson, Michael Alan: “The One who comes after Me: John the Baptist, Christian Time, and Symbolic Musical Techniques”, in: Journal of the American Musicological Society 66/3 (2013), pp. 639–708. Articles whereupon it was agreed by the Archbishoppes and Bishoppes of both provinces … in the yere of our Lorde God 1562 … for the stablishying of consent touching true religion. Put foorth by the Queenes auchtoritie. London: R. Jugge & J. Cawood, 1571. Bachelard, Gaston: Intuition of the Instant, trans. Eileen Rizo-Patron. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2013 (Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy). Original French edition: Gaston Bachelard, L’intuition de l’instant. Paris: Éditions Stock, 1932. Barton, John and John Muddiman (eds.): The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Bowers, Roger: “The Chapel Royal, the First Edwardian Prayer Book, and Elizabeth I’s Settlement of Religion, 1559” in: The Historical Journal 43 (2000), pp. 1–28. Begbie, Jeremy S.: Theology, Music, and Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Begbie, Jeremy S. and Steven R. Guthrie (eds.): Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2011. 51 William Byrd: Preface to Psalmes, sonets & songs of sadnes and pietie (London: Thomas East, 1588), quoted by Jeremy Smith, Thomas East and Music Publishing, p.63; the full quotation is as follows: “In the expressing of these songs, either by voyces or Instruments, if ther happen to be any iarre or dissonance, blame not the Printer who (I doe assure thee) through his great paines and diligence, doth heere deliver to thee a perfect and true Copie.”

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Intimations of Eternity Brett, Philip ( Joseph Kerman and Davitt Moroney, eds.): William Byrd and his Contemporaries: Essays and a Monograph. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2007. Chua, Daniel K. L.: “Music as the Mouthpiece of Theology”, in: Jeremy S. Begbie and Steven R. Guthrie (eds.): Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2011, pp. 137–161. Clulow, Peter: “Publication Dates for Byrd’s Latin Masses”, in: Music and Letters 47/1 (1966), pp. 1–9. Cottingham, John: Philosophy of Religion: Towards a More Humane Approach. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Cressy, David: “The Protestant Calendar and the Vocabulary of Celebration in Early Modern England”, in: The Journal of British Studies 29/1 (1990), pp. 31–52. Graham, Pauline: The Keys of the Kingdom: An Exegetical Reading of William Byrd’s Three Masses and Great Service. PhD diss., University College Dublin, 2012. Harley, John, William Byrd: Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Revised edition, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. Kenny, Anthony, Medieval Philosophy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. (A New History of Western Philosophy, vol. 2) Kerman, Joseph: The Masses and Motets of William Byrd. London: Faber, 1981. McCarthy, Kerry: “Byrd, Augustine and Tribue, Domine”, Early Music 32 (2004), pp. 569–576.      : Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd’s Gradualia. New York and Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2007.      : Byrd. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 (Master Musicians Series). Psalms: The Coverdale Translation [1535, rev. 1539], ed. W. S. Peterson and Valerie Macys, http://synaxis.info/psalter/5_english/c_psalms/CoverdalePsalms.pdf (last accessed 18 August 2016). Smith, Jeremy L.: Thomas East and Music Publishing in Renaissance England. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. : “Music and the Cult of Elizabeth: The Politics of Panegyric and       Sound”, in: Jessie Ann Owens, ed., “Noyses, sounds and sweet aires”: Music in Early Modern England (Washington, DC: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 2006), pp. 62–77. : Voice and Verse in Byrd’s Song Collections of 1588 and 1589. Woodbridge,       Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2016 [Imprint of Boydell and Brewer, Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, New York]. 571

Pauline Graham Stevens, Denis: Tudor Church Music (London: Faber, 1961). Targoff, Ramie: Common Prayer: The Language of Public Devotion in Early Modern England. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Trendell, David: “Byrd’s Masses in Context” [2006], in: Richard Turbet, ed., A Byrd Celebration: Lectures at the William Byrd Festival. Richmond, Virginia: Church Music Association of America, 2008, pp. 95–101. Turbet, Richard: “Greatness thrust upon ’em: Services by Byrd and Others Reconsidered”, in: The Musical Times 146/1891 (2005), pp. 16–18.      : (ed.): A Byrd Celebration: Lectures at the William Byrd Festival. Richmond, Virginia: Church Music Association of America, 2008. Yeary, Mark: “‘In Their Own Native Keys’: Tonal Organisation in William Byrd’s Published Motets”, in: voiceXchange, 4/1 (2010), pp. 1–24, https:// letterpress.uchicago.edu/index.php/voicexchange/article/view/44 (last accessed 15 March 2011).

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“An Irishman in an opera!” Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s John Cunningham On 10 June 1776, in the role of Don Felix in Susanna Centlivre’s The Wonder, David Garrick (1717–1779) – the English Roscius – retired from the London stage. After a sensational London debut as Richard III in October 1741, Garrick almost single-handedly revived interest in Shakespeare’s works.1 He assumed management of the Drury Lane Theatre in April 1747, and by his retirement Garrick’s half-share in the patent and leases was valued at £35,000. First refusal was given to his friend George Colman the elder (1732–1794). He declined. Instead, after protracted negotiations, Garrick’s share was sold to the playwright (and later politician) Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816), the composer Thomas Linley the elder (1733–1795), and Dr James Ford (1720–1795), court physician to King George III. 2 Thus one era in English stage history ended, and another began. With the opening of the new season at Drury Lane, on 21 September, Garrick’s legacy was publically acknowledged by the new management. Fittingly the mainpiece was Twelfth Night, Garrick’s Drury Lane production of which in January 1741 – with Charles Macklin (1690–1797) as Malvolio – was a landmark event; it became one of the most frequently performed of Shakespeare’s plays throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. 3 The afterpiece was Garrick’s 1747 farce Miss in her Teens. The evening’s fare was prefaced by a one-act “Occasional Prelude” entitled New Brooms!4 Newly-written by George Colman, New 1

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The literature on Garrick is extensive; for a comprehensive introduction, see Philip H. Highfield Jr, Kalman A. Burnim and Edward A. Langhans: A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, 16 vols. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973–1993, vol. 6, pp. 1. See also, Vanessa Cunningham: Shakespeare and Garrick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. For a detailed account, see “The Theatre Royal: Management”, in: Survey of London: Volume 35, the theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, ed. F. H. W. Sheppard. London: The Athlone Press, 1970, pp. 9–29. The shares were split shares seven ways (£5,000 per share): Linley and Sheridan, two each; Ford, three. In 1778 the group completed the purchase of the full patent. See, Charles Beecher Hogan: Shakespeare in the Theatre, 1701–1800, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952 and 1957, passim. New brooms. An occasional prelude, performed at the opening of the Theatre-Royal, in Drury-Lane, September 21, 1776. London: Thomas Beckett, 1776; it was reprinted in The Dramatick Works of George Colman, vol. 4. London: Thomas Beckett, 1777, pp. 323–348; the playbook was also published in

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John Cunningham Brooms! itself was peppered with laudatory nods to Garrick, but its main purpose was as a public statement of intent on behalf of the new managers and an attempt to reassure audiences that the greatness of the English dramatic tradition would continue to f lourish despite the exit of Garrick. In doing so, this short satirical play entered a wider discourse on Italian opera as it sought to address concerns about the role of music in spoken plays on the English stage. New Brooms! thus presents a case-study through which to explore attitudes towards opera and the role of music in the London theatres in the mid–to late 1770s and its implications for constructs of national identity. The principal new broom at Drury Lane was Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 5 Born in Dublin, Sheridan was sent to Harrow in 1762. In 1773 he eloped with Elizabeth Linley, daughter of Thomas Linley; much to the chagrin of both families. On 17 January 1775, Sheridan’s first play, The Rivals, was withdrawn after the opening night; he quickly re-wrote it, however, and it became widely popular and enjoyed enduring success. He followed this with the English comic opera The Duenna (Covent Garden; 21 November 1775).6 Now reconciled, much of the music was composed by Sheridan’s father-in-law and his ill-fated son, Thomas Linley the younger (1756–1778). A number of the songs were fitted to Scottish and Irish tunes and to popular Italian opera arias. For obvious reasons, Sheridan withheld these lyrics from the Linleys as they pertained to a couple eloping in the face of opposition from their parents (a central theme of the work). The Duenna was hugely popular, largely because of its music, and was given a remarkable seventy-four times in the first season alone; it was frequently revived into the middle of the nineteenth century. Typical of English operas, The Duenna included spoken dialogue. All-sung continental operas could be heard at several venues in London in the eighteenth century, but the genre was generally viewed with mistrust; while popular operas were translated and adapted into English, the development of an all-sung vernacular tradition was made impossible by the strength of the spoken dramatic tradition. As Michael Burden notes: “To say that the greater part of the English audience was suspicious of continental opera is an understatement. They found an entirely sung ‘play’ difficult to accept, disliked recitative, thought the plots ludicrous and treated opera with suspicion because it was ‘foreign’.” 7 NevertheDublin in 1777. All are available on Historical Texts (http://historicaltexts.jisc.ac.uk/). All references here are from the 1776 playbook, using the through-line-numbers (TLN). 5 An excellent account is Fintan O’Toole: A Traitor’s Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751– 1816. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998. 6 For The Duenna, see Roger Fiske: English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973, especially pp. 412–419. 7 Michael Burden: “Opera in the London theatres”, in: The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre,

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Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s less, audiences enjoyed the music and spectacle, and were intrigued by the celebrity performers. While the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres generally gave spoken plays as the mainpiece, the taste for musical entertainments was often sated with shorter operatic entertainments (in English, with spoken dialogue) as afterpieces. 8 Indeed, the appetite of London audiences for music and spectacle at times encroached on the spoken dramatic tradition. We can perhaps get a snapshot of this from the reaction to Garrick’s patriotic entertainment from the winter of 1771: Arthur’s Roundtable Restored (music by Charles Dibdin), inspired by the real-life investiture of George III’s eldest sons with the Order of the Garter. It was roundly criticized as being a showcase for Garrick’s “avaricious views” subsidized by the production of “the most insipid plays and contemptible actors” instead of having “the expense of three or four new plays” performed by a stellar cast.9 The riposte was that such entertainments achieved their popularity precisely because of the lack of good drama: managers are […] forced to acquiesce in the reigning and popular taste for music’s charms, and shewy exhibitions. […] and can we blame an audience for preferring good music to dull writing, and brilliant shews to uninteresting plays? – But so highly do we deem of the public taste and discernment, that we have not the least doubt, were another Shakespeare or Dryden to arise, that geniuses like theirs would soon banish pantomime and pageantry from the stage […].10 It was against this backcloth that Sheridan took over the management of Drury Lane. Moreover, while critical voices were frequently heard during Garrick’s often vainglorious reign, there were many who thought that the new enterprise was doomed to failure. Sheridan thought it best to tackle such issues head-on by commissioning New Brooms!, even if it meant subjecting his own recent operatic success to satiric analysis. The plot (such as it is) of New Brooms! need only be brief ly summarized here.11 The play opens with the exterior of Drury Lane, with the audience on their way to an evening’s entertainment. After the exit of a sailor (Charles Bannister) singing “Britons strike home, &c.” (TLN89),12 the central char1730–1830, ed. Jane Moody and Daniel O’Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 205–217, here p. 205. See also, Fiske: English Theatre Music; Suzanne Aspden: “‘An Infinity of Factions’: Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain and the Undoing of Society”, in: Cambridge Opera Journal 9/1 (1997), pp. 1–19. 8 See Burden: “Opera in the London theatres”, pp. 207–210. 9 General Evening Post, 2–5 November 1771. 10 The Monthly Review: Or, Literary Journal, vol. 45. London: R. Griffiths, 1772, p. 411. 11 For biographies of the players, see Biographical Dictionary of Actors. 12 This was the first line from Henry Purcell’s rousingly patriotic number originally written for

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John Cunningham acter, Phelim O’Flaherty ( John Moody), enters and is spotted by the critic Catcall ( John Palmer). Phelim tells Catcall of his ambition to become an actor, who then brings Phelim to the house of Mr Crotchet ( James Dodd), for the purpose of an introduction. As they enter, Crotchet is teaching Miss Quaver (Mary Ann Wrighten) to sing an aria for his new opera.13 There follows a series of satirical exchanges concerning the forthcoming opera, including the introduction of the deaf music critic-cum-composer, Sir Dulcimer Dunder (William Parsons). Sprightly (Thomas King) concludes the play with an epilogue, making the analogy of the theatre and a stagecoach; the theatre managers are the coachmen, steering the passengers through the transition but ensuring the continued greatness of the English stage. New Brooms! received mixed (and often extensive) reviews in London newspapers. The main fault was that it was felt to be too long. When it was given for the second time (24 September) the prompter William Hopkins noted that it was “shortened, and is much the better for it”.14 The prelude ran for a total of ten nights, to 10 October, including a Royal Command performance on 9 October.15 Simply put by one reviewer: “The principal intent of this Broom-stick is to assure the Public, that the new Managers mean to offer a variety of the most classical performances to the public, with a few operas, &c.”16 In essence, Colman sought to do this principally by satirizing the concept of opera, which throughout the play is presented as inferior to spoken drama and as being contrary to the English nature. Thus in New Brooms! music itself is used as a principal means of constructing identity and meaning.

13 14 15 16

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the 1695 adaptation of John Fletcher’s Bonduca. The tune was used in The Beggar’s Opera (air 59); Purcell’s original song remained popular into the early nineteenth century, especially during times of war. This song and other similarly patriotic numbers were commonly heard in entr’acte entertainments throughout the eighteenth century. See also, Suzanne Aspden: “Arne’s Paradox: National Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain”, in: Word and Music Studies 4, ed. Suzanne Lodato, Suzanne Aspden and Walter Bernhart. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002, pp. 195–215. Wrighten (née Matthews) (1751–1796) made her Drury Lane debut in 1770 as Diana in Charles Dibdin’s The School for Fathers, a challenging high soprano role. She remained a leading singer at Drury Lane into the mid-1780s. See Biographical Dictionary of Actors, vol. 16, pp. 288–297. Quoted in The London Stage, 1660–1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments and Afterpieces. 11 vols. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, Part 5, vol. 1, p. 19. The sources of the play reflect the first night; it is not known how the play was truncated. New Brooms! was given several times at Crow Street, Dublin, in 1777 and 1778. See John C. Green: Theatre in Dublin, 1745–1820: A Calendar of Performances, 6 vols. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2011, vol. 3, pp. 1691, 1707, 1708 and 1791. Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 23 September 1776.

Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s The play includes three formal songs.17 The tunes of two were taken from popular Italian operas; the third was newly composed. Upon being accosted by Catcall, Phelim declares (in his brogue) “I intind to go upon the stage / myself ” (TLN145–146), claiming that he had previously been prevented from doing so by Garrick’s greatness. Catcall offers to introduce Phelim to his composer friend, Mr Crotchet, “who is now writing for the house” (TLN219), with the purpose of facilitating an introduction to the new managers. The scene changes to Crotchet’s apartment and we discover “Crotchet / at his harpsichord, accompanying Miss Quaver” (TLN233–234). Miss Quaver is singing a song beginning The realms of Drury (Example 1), which we are told in the playbook is set to Qualche d’amore by “Piccinni” (TLN236).18 Niccolò Piccinni (1728–1800) was one of the most popular opera buffa composers of the second half of the eighteenth century. The aforementioned aria was taken from La buona figiuola (1760), first heard in London on 25 November 1766 (King’s Theatre, Haymarket). It was one of several comic operas to librettos by Carlo Goldoni, which were well received in London. As Roger Fiske observed, “Audiences enjoyed the contemporary plots, the Italian-style galante music, and the absence of castrati singers.”19 La buona figiuola was by far the most successful opera of the day; it was given twenty-seven times in the 1766/7 season and frequently revived thereafter. By December 1766 Edward Tom translated La buona figiuola (with most of Piccinni’s music and the addition of spoken dialogue) as The Accomplish’d Maid (Covent Garden; 3 December 1766). 20

17 Formal songs are succinctly described by David Lindley as “explicitly called for and performed as complete wholes to an audience on-stage and off. […] They are ‘framed’ events, and often the way they are situated and commented upon may be as important as the direct effect they have as musical performance”: Shakespeare and Music. London: Arden, 2005, pp. 168–169. 18 Matters are complicated by some newspaper accounts. In brief: the texts of the three formal songs were reproduced in several newspapers (presumably from the song texts distributed at performances). However, they give the songs in a different order to that in the playbook, and allocate them to different singers: Air 1: When your passion you’d discover, (Mrs Wrighten); Air 2: The realms of Drury (Mr Dodd); Air 3: When the Breezes (Mrs Wrighten). While this kind of error could easily be explained, confusingly it is corroborated by some of the reviews of the performances. 19 Fiske: English Theatre Music, p. 266. 20 See The London Stage, 1660–1800; also, Fiske: English Theatre Music, especially p. 325.

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Example 1: The realms of Drury from New Brooms! (tune: Niccolò Piccinni, Qualche d’amore from La buona figiuola, arr. Thomas Linley the elder) 21

The music of another Piccinni aria was also used later in the scene, for the song beginning When your passion you’d discover (TLN466–485), the words of which we are told were “altered from Suckling” and set to La Schiavetta (TLN463–464). This is presumably Nerina’s aria La schiavetta ha gli occhi neri from, another Piccinni comic opera popular in London, La Schiava. Written for Naples in 1757, it was first heard in London a decade later (King’s Theatre, Haymarket; 7 November 1767) and revived frequently thereafter. 22 The text of the song in New Brooms! is adapted from one of the best known lyrics by the Cavalier poet and playwright, Sir John Suckling (1609–1641), Why so pale and wan, found as a song in his 1637 play Aglaura, where it was set by William Lawes. 23 In New Brooms! Suckling’s text was adapted by the deaf music critic Sir Dulcimer Dunder who also composed a tune for it, intending the song to be heard in Crotchet’s opera. Miss Quaver is invited to sing the song but protests: Miss Quaver.

Lord, I can’t sing his frightful tune, sir – but the words will go very well to another – and I dare say he won’t know the dif­ference. (TLN456–459)

She then signs the words to the tune of La Schiavetta with Sir Dulcimer beating time as he follows the performance through an eartrumpet. Dulcimer eventually realizes that the song was not in fact sung to his tune. He then leaves in a huff. As one newspaper review put it: “A Sir Dulcimer – is introduced, who sits in raptures to hear a song of his own composition; and is afterwards told, through an ear trumpet, that they had played another tune; he retires in a rage. This was under21 The unique source is GB-Birmingham, University Library, MS 5008, folios 98r–99v. MS 5008 is of great significance: it largely comprises individual songs associated with James Dodd, which appear to be personal performing parts, i.e. the copy he used to learn his songs. An article discussing MS 5008 is in preparation by the present author. 22 See The London Stage, 1660–1800. 23 It has been suggested that Why so pale and wan is an example of a pre-existing popular song that was incorporated into the play: see, Julia K. Wood: “William Lawes’s Music for Plays”, in: William Lawes (1602–1645): Essays on his Life, Times and Work, ed. Andrew Ashbee. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 11–67.

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John Cunningham stood as personal satire, and excited strong marks of disapprobation.”24 A chance to satirize (music) critics it may have been, but it seems that Colman introduced the character of the deaf music critic also to reclaim some plaudits for creating several characters that had lately been popular on the London stage in an Italian opera. As he notes in the “Advertisement” of the playbook: [Sheridan’s] laurels being yet green from the fame of the Duenna, revived in my mind the idea of two characters, Crotchet and Sir Dulcimer Dunder, which it is well known that I had in contemplation about twelve years ago, and which were then intended to serve as an introduction to a Comick Opera. The thought proposed for the subject matter of the Prologue, was kindly worked up by a friend [Garrick], who desired to remain concealed, but whose stile and manner are too familiar to the Stage, not to betray him to the Publick, who will doubtless be pleased to see him disposed, even in his retirement, to contribute to their amusements. 25 The point was also taken up by some critics, for example: notwithstanding that Badini brought a deaf musician forward last winter in his comic opera of Il Baccio, yet there is something so apropos in the deaf connoisseur’s making one at Crotchet’s levee, that we consent to overlook the want of novelty in the character, and indeed if the Publick knew, as we do, that fourteen years ago, the author gave Mr. Garrick a hint not only of a deaf amateur de Musique, but of a musical Bayes, they would join with us in paying him as large a share of approbation as is due to the writer who first starts such characters as Crotchet and Sir Dulcimer. 26 Carlo Francesco Badini’s comic opera Il bacio was set by Mattia Vento, who in the 1775/6 season was listed as a director at the King’s Theatre, in the Haymarket. Il bacio premiered there on 9 January 1776 and became the favourite opera of the season. 27 Colman’s comic afterpiece The Musical Lady premièred at Drury Lane on 6 March 1762; inter alia, it also satirized the fashion for Italian music. Between the two Piccinni adaptations – both intended for Crotchet’s forthcoming opera – we hear a song from Crotchet himself, When the breezes. This appears to be the only original song in the play, set by Thomas Linley the elder; the 24 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 23 September 1776. 25 New Brooms!, pp. v–vi. 26 Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 23 September 1776. Not all critics were as knowledgeable, for example: “His character is borrowed from the Italian opera Il Baccio; but like most imitations, is not to be compared with the original.”: Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 23 September 1776. The “musical Bayes” is a reference to the central character in the 1671 satirical play The Rehearsal by George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham. The central character is a playwright, Bayes, who is putting on a play. 27 See The London Stage, 1660–1800.

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Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s music is lost. 28 The song is not taken from Crotchet’s opera but instead satirizes opera and its conventions. His exposition of the performing conventions for opera singers was equally applicable to songs in plays at this time, and we can imagine a comically exaggerated delivery:29 And why not, sir! – Operas are the only real entertainment. The plain unornamented Drama is too f lat, sir. Common dialogue is a dry imitation of Nature, as insipid as real conversation; but in an Opera, the dialogue is refreshed by an Air every instant. – Two gentlemen meet in the Park, for example, admire the place and the weather; and, after a speech or two, the orchestra take their cue, the musick strikes up, one of the characters takes a genteel turn or two on the stage, during the symphony, and then breaks out – When the breezes Fan the tree-es, Fragrant gales The breath inhales, Warm the heart that sorrow freezes. [Singing and walking, as described in his speech.] Phelim. Oh! these airs are mighty refreshing indeed, as you say. (TLN315–335)

Crotchet.

Crotchet’s song deals literally with nature, but throughout the play nature is used to underpin the satiric exposition of Italian opera, which in turn can be understood as part of a wider discourse on the development of a ‘national’ music in Britain. As Suzanne Aspden has noted (the emphasis is mine): Certainly, from Dryden onwards, all-sung opera was disowned in favour of spoken theatre: it was thought contrary to the English nature. Increasingly, not only foreign musicians, but foreign music itself – particularly over28 The sources of the play make no reference to Linley as the composer, but one critic noted that “The music […] is the composition of Mr. Linly [sic], and does that master great credit.”: Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 23 September 1776. 29 See, David Lindley: “‘Sounds and Sweet Airs’: Music in Shakespearian Performance History”, in: Shakespeare Survey 64 (2011), pp. 59–73.

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John Cunningham ornamented, extravagant and exclusive Italian opera – was rejected as effeminate, morally corrupt and corrupting, antithetical to the manly, straightforward, British spirit. 30 This was a common argument against opera throughout the eighteenth century. It is precisely these ideas that Colman was broaching in New Brooms!, particularly in his use of music and musical idioms. In Crotchet’s song, for example, we particularly note the obvious emphasis on the representation of (actual) nature; he is also punning the fact that the words are being literally refreshed with an air (breeze) – i.e. a tune. The text also conveys the sense of the whole endeavour being light, or rather as lacking in weight and gravitas. Thus, the song functions as a microcosm of the type of comic opera popularized by Piccinni. Indeed, it is a discourse on nature that is fully realized towards the end of the scene as Crotchet describes his new opera – which Colman has in fact been gradually unveiling to us in stages. At the end of the scene – after we have heard all of the songs – Crotchet tells us that his forthcoming opera is to be titled Topsy-Turvy, and that it is about a world in which ‘nature’ is reversed, or rather subverted or indeed perverted: 31

Crotchet.

[…] Nature has nothing to do with an Opera – nor with the stage neither, now little Roscius has left it – we shall go quite upon another plan now, sir. (TLN347–351) He goes on to outline the plot of his opera (before being interrupted by the entry of a servant): Crotchet.

Yes, sir – Topsy-Turvy – that’s the title of it – the scene, an island in the Antipodes, where the women are paramount, and the men are in subjection. – The ladies judge, fight, swear, drink, ravish, et cetra; and the gentlemen knit, spin, scold, pout, and so forth. At the opening of the piece, after a soft overture, the curtain rises to slow musick, the Lady Chancellor and the Field Marshall being just brought to-bed: upon which – (TLN364–373)

30 Aspden: “Arne’s Paradox”, p. 211. 31 For example, John Dennis: An Essay on the Opera’s After the Italian Manner. London: John Nutt, 1706. Dennis argued, inter alia, that the sensuality of Italian opera was inimical to the public spirit and had the power to turn men to homosexuality, and that Italian women tended towards licentious behaviour because they listened to opera. See also, Mita Choudhury: Interculturalism and Resistance in the London Theater, 1660–1800: Identity, Performance, Empire. Bucknell: Bucknell University Press, 2015, especially pp. 35–60; also, Aspen: “‘An Infinity of Factions’”.

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Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s In a similar way to the song When the breezes, the whole business of Topsy Turvy thus symbolizes and satirizes the very concept of opera; more specifically, it situates opera as being alien – and inferior – to the English dramatic tradition, as represented by Garrick. Through Crotchet’s opera, Colman presents a world literally and figuratively upside-down, but it is one that we have already encountered in the two songs intended for the opera. Retrospectively we understand the full force of their satire. 32 For example, in When your passion you’d discover Colman imbues Suckling’s original (which questions the utility of love sickness) with additional vitriol and sexual power on the part of the rejecting woman: “Girls laugh at a raw beginner […] She’ll scorn such a whining lover” (TLN474, 481). Just as the imagined antagonist of the song has the power to dominate and humiliate her weak lover, so too does Miss Quaver dominate and humiliate Sir Dulcimer Dunder. Even in the performance of the song, it is Quaver who decides which tune to sing – presumably a nod to the reputation of the prima donna. In her rejection of the hapless Dunder and his music, Quaver subjugates the would-be composer. She is also figuratively rejecting – or assuming to know better than – the opinion of the music critic. But her behaviour is entirely in line with the topsy-turvy world of opera. To paraphrase Crotchet’s summation of his own opera, she judges and fights while Dunder spins and pouts. The usurpation of femininity over masculinity also seems to relate to the wider discourse concerning the feminizing effects of opera in general. In a sense, Dulcimer is publically emasculated by Miss Quaver. But he was on the back foot from the off: his lack of power is directly a result of his physical defect. He is a music critic – and composer – who cannot hear. While the comedic and satiric value is obvious, we must also understand it as another cruel perversion of nature and the natural order. On another level there is also a distinctly nationalistic bent to this exchange. In the eighteenth century the dulcimer became strongly associated “with ‘native’ music, rather than the more prestigious and fashionable Italian music”. 33 Indeed, Dunder’s deafness seems to inhibit his ability to compose the kind of music that London audiences wanted to hear – Italian music: of his own (unheard) tune he notes, “I know it is a very difficult Air” (TLN500). Thus (Sir Dulcimer) Dunder’s “difficult” and “frightful” (English) tune is rejected in favour of an Italian one, already popular with audiences. 34 Dunder’s words are, 32 The point was, however, missed by some, for example: “This occasional Prelude is an incoherent rhapsody, totally destitute of invention and wit. We cannot describe it better than by giving it the definition Mr. Crotchet gave of an opera, that is was properly a Topsy Turvy. […] after some little preliminary [Miss Quaver] sings an air [“The realms of Drury”], which […] has no connection with this, or any prelude since Adam.” Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 23 September 1776 33 Paul M. Gifford: The Hammered Dulcimer: A History. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001, p. 218. 34 Indeed, Colman had a similar point in The Musical Lady, ridiculing “horrid English ballad singing”. As the character Mask exclaims: “English ballad-singing! O the ridiculous idea! To hear a

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John Cunningham nevertheless, retained. They, however, speak to the long-standing dramatic tradition of the seventeenth century. Colman was well versed in the literature of the seventeenth century, 35 and here he appears to be reinforcing the concept that the tradition (and nature) of the English stage is not music but words. We see a similar expression of female dominance in the text of first song, sung by Miss Quaver (see Example 1), The realms of Drury. Within the song the character of Nelly Jones could be understood as the personification of Crotchet’s plot in which “the men are in subjection. – The ladies judge, fight, swear, drink, ravish, et cetra”. But here the actual performance of the song in New Brooms! leads to somewhat of a reversal of the gender roles expressed in the song. After the song it seems that Miss Quaver must accede to be ravished by Crotchet to advance her career: Crotchet.

I’ll recommend you in the strongest terms to the new Managers; you shall certainly be engaged at a handsome salary, and play a capital part in my new Opera. Miss Quaver. You are very good, Mr Crotchet; and I shall think myself infinitely obliged to you for your kindness. Crotchet. Not at all, my dear; one kindness brings on another; it will be in your power to shew me a few little civilities in return. You understand me, my love! And I make no doubt but our acquaintance will be mutually agreeable. [Smiles, chucks her under the chin, and kisses her hand.] (TLN243–257) Here – stepping from the opera (within the play) to the play itself – Colman temporarily restores the “natural order” through the implied sexual transaction. 36 huge fellow, with a rough horrible voice, roaring out, ‘O the roast-beef of old England!’ or a palefaced chit of a girl, when some country neighbour asks her in company, ‘Pray, ma’am, could you favour us with ‘Go rose!’ ‘No, Sir, not that, but another, if you please;’ and then begins screaming, ‘If love’s a sweet passion,’ squalling to the antient British melody of the bagpipe, the Welch harp, and the dulcimer”. Dramatick Works, vol. 4, pp. 67–106, here p. 86. 35 One example: his patriotic all-sung masque The Fairy Prince (1771; music: Thomas Arne) was compiled largely from the works of Ben Jonson, Shakespeare and John Dryden. For a modern edition, see Thomas Augustine Arne: The Fairy Prince, ed. John Cunningham, in: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, ed. Martin Butler, Ian Donaldson and Martin Bevington. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014: (online publication: http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/benjonson/) 36 One is brought in mind of the discourse through with the public feud between the prime donne Faustina and Cuzzoni was played out following their on-stage altercation in Bononcini’s Astianatte (1727). See also, Aspen: “‘An Infinity of Factions’”.

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Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s In this we see visibly the “morally corrupt and corrupting” power of Italian opera, through the characterization of Miss Quaver and Mr Crotchet as lascivious entities willing to trade sexual favours for commercial opportunities. In its supposed realism, the scene seeks to confirm the suspicions of the London public about private machinations, behind the curtain. Moreover, given that New Brooms! was commissioned by the Drury Lane management, it assumes a level of authority. Commerce is of course at the heart of the eighteenth-century theatre. The adaptation of the Piccinni songs places Crotchet’s forthcoming opera firmly in the realms of commercial reality. Fundamentally playwrights wrote and houses produced works intended to attract paying audiences. And much as it was often satirized, music was yet another element in the commercial exchange. Theatre composers likewise endeavoured to meet the expectations of the audiences, who were also the primary market for purchasing printed music. In microcosm the above songs mirror the typical construction of many English comic operas, with English texts adapted to existing tunes, whether popular Italian arias or simple ballad-like numbers. The Duenna is an excellent example of this. Indeed, Colman also directly references The Duenna, which had been hugely popular – and financially rewarding – in the previous season. But in satirizing Sheridan’s opera (and thus the entire genre), Colman is careful to remind the Drury Lane audience of their complicity in the economic realities of cultural production: Crotchet.

No other chance for success now, I promise you, sir. – The Managers know that well enough – they know how many thousand pounds were got last year by the Highland Laddy, and Gramachree, sir! – a-a-a (quavering) And brothers in the young! – that’s the mark, sir. (TLN336–341)

The reference to these songs reminds us that in addition to Italian songs London audiences also had a taste for the locally exotic – or the supposed music of the colonized. Beginning with The Beggar’s Opera (1728), ballad operas did much to popularize the use of Irish and Scotch tunes on the London stage; regional songs were also, of course, often used to reinforce national stereotypes in spoken plays. 37 The taste for (and commercialization of ) Irish and Scotch music in eighteenth-century London is also ref lected in the many printed collections published throughout the century. 38 The Highland Laddie is a tune of Scottish origin, 37 The most detailed account remains J. O. Bartley: Teague Shenkin and Sawney Being An Historical Study of the Earliest Irish Welsh and Scottish Characters in English Plays. Cork: Cork University Press, 1954. 38 See, for example, Leith Davis: Music, Postcolonialism, and Gender: The Construction of Irish National Identity, 1724–1874. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006, especially pp. 24–53.

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John Cunningham “If thou’lt play me fair play”; it acquired several lyrics the most famous of which was the Robert Burns (1759–1796) poem “Highland Laddie”, 39 by which title it became well known in the eighteenth century.40 The song achieved great popularity in The Duenna, as Ah, sure a pair were never seen. Gramachree Molly (also Molly Asthore; first line, “As down on Banna’s banks I stray’d, one evening in May”) was written by the Irish Tory politician and poet George Ogle (1742–1814).41 The earliest published version of the song appears to be the September 1774 issue of the London Magazine.42 In The Duenna Gramachree was used for Don Carlos’s song Had I a heart for falsehood fram’d. In New Brooms! Crotchet sings the last line from the song, “And brothers in the young!”. He does so “quavering” (i.e. singing a trill) on the word “And”, suggesting a comically exaggerated cadenza (see Example 2), which was clearly intended as a personal satire. The role of Don Carlos was created by the male alto Michael Leoni. A German Jew (Myer Lyon) (c.1750–1796), he was brought to England as a child, making his debut on the London stage in 1760.43 He sang falsetto, and played Don Carlos to great success. Colman’s satire must have been based in some truth; it drew comment from one reviewer: “Throughout the whole great pains are taken to contradict the idea, that musical pieces will take the lead; but the scene where music is ridiculed, as tedious and insipid, is itself very f lat. Nor was it perhaps very grateful to attempt to ridicule Leoni’s peculiar trill.”44 The ornament emphasis on the syntactically inconsequential conjunction, seems to ridicule the perception of Leoni not just as a singer, but as a foreign singer lacking linguistic understanding. Indeed, while he received glowing reviews as Don Carlos, he was understood to be an 39 See, D. G. MacLennan: Highland and Traditional Scottish Dances. Edinburgh: Scotpress, 1952, pp. 30–31 and 58–59. 40 Aloys Fleischmann: Sources of Irish Traditional Music, c.1600–1855, 2 vols. New York: Garland, 1998, no. 3936. It became popular particular in the arrangement by Michael Arne in 1750 and was included in his The Flow’ret: A New Collection of English Songs Sung at the Public Gardens. London: John Walsh, 1750. 41 Robert Burns inaccurately attributed it to “a Mr Poe, a counseller [sic] at law in Dublin”: “Remarks on Scottish Songs and Ballads, &c.”, in: The Works of Robert Burns, 2 vols. London: Blackie and Son, 1844, vol. 2, p. 335: the full text of the song is given. A detailed account of the tune Gramachree – upon which the present account is largely based – may be found in James Hogg: The Forest Minstrel, ed. P. D. Garside and Richard D. Jackson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006, pp. 249–253. 42 The song was addressed to Miss Mary Moore; the refrain is “Ah, gramachree, ma colleen oge, me Molly Asthore”. It is perhaps best known in the arrangement by Thomas Moore, The harp that once through Tara’s halls. The song was popular on the London stage, referenced specifically (as “Gramachree”) in various advertisements in the 1770s and 1780s and beyond. There is even a detailed literary analysis of the song in the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 5 July 1780. 43 See, Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson: “Leoni, Michael”, Grove Music Online (last accessed 29 July 2016). 44 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 23 September 1776.

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Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s outsider: “The managers very judiciously had given him [Leoni], as a foreigner, but few words to speak”.45 This is a ref lection of a basic expectation held of the players, in the opera house and in the playhouses: “while the ‘foreign’ performers were held to be stylized and to strike attitudes (and were expected to do so), the English singers were required to be ‘natural’.”46 Indeed, the perception of Leoni’s otherness was presumably underlined by his singing style. Singing falsetto, he perhaps also represented the ambiguous figure of the castrato: an embodiment of the female voice in the male form, again a perversion of nature.

Example 2: Ending of Had I a heart for falsehood fram’d from The Duenna (tune: Gramachree, arr. Thomas Linley the elder) 47

The embodiment of otherness in New Brooms! is nowhere more apparent, however, than in the character of Phelim O’Flaherty.48 Like Michael Leoni, Phelim too is trapped in, and contained by, his nature, as expressed through his performance. For example, as an impromptu exhibition of his acting talent, Phelim goes on to read (in a brogue) a passage from Richard III (p. 16), another nod to Garrick; it was the play in which he made his London debut: Phelim.

“As in a Theatre the eyes of min, “After a well-grac’d actor laves the stage, “Are idly bint on him that inters nixt – ”. (TLN189–191)

If we accept that Colman posits spoken drama as the true expression of English nature – and the great Shakespearean Garrick is symbolic of the English stage tradition – Phelim is here linguistically subverting nature. When he quotes Shakespeare he must do so by reading, and when he does he selects a passage which he describes as “rather mal-a-propos” (TLN192). It is a compliment to Garrick but we understand Phelim as a pale imitation of his genius and the natural style of performance for which Garrick was renowned. Phelim further subverts nature when 45 46 47 48

London Evening Post, 23–25 November 1775. Burden: “Opera in the London theatres”, p. 206. The Duenna or Double Elopement [vocal score]. London: C. and S. Thompson, [1776], p. 21. Space precludes a discussion here; however, the play also includes the dancing master Monsieur Mezzetin, who speaks with a heavy French accent.

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John Cunningham he sings. After Miss Quaver has sung The realms of Drury, Catcall and Phelim enter the apartment of Mr Crotchet who proceeds to persuade him that “plays are worn out” now that Garrick has retired (TLN288); instead, he proclaims that opera is “our only dependence now” (TLN296) and enquires of Phelim’s vocal abilities. If Phelim can sing, Crotchet will write a part for him in his opera: Voice! oh, by my fowle, voice enough to be heard across the channel, from the Gate or the Hid, to ould Dublin: – and then I can sing, Arrah my Judy, Arrah my Judy! and the Irish howl – Hubbub-o-boo! (howling) – oh, it would do your heart good to hear it. Crotchet. Should be glad of that pleasure, sir; a little song now by way of specimen! Phelim. Oh, you’re as welcome as the f lowers in May, my jewel. Him! him! (sings.) (TLN301–310) Phelim.

Typical of Irish songs in plays, no text for Phelim’s song is given.49 His preamble perhaps offers some clues, which also serve to further underline his lack of sophistication – and, indeed, his nature. The Irish howl was composed c.1710 by George Vanbrughe; the tune was first used with a lyric beginning “Remember Damon you did tell”. By the 1770s it was much better known as Polly’s song No Power on Earth can e’er divide from the end of Act 2 of The Beggar’s Opera. 50 According to Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language, “Hubbub-boo” is “The cry or howling of the lower sort of Irish at funerals”, 51 though in general it appears to have also acted as a war-cry. 52 It is commonly found as a linguistic signifier in eighteenth-century plays that include a stock Irishman. The song beginning “Arrah my Judy” was known at Drury Lane since the late 1730s. 53 The 49 Such songs are often called ‘blank’ songs in scholarly literature, though Tiffany Stern argues convincingly that a more appropriate term is ‘lost’ songs: Documents of Performance in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 120–173. Stern discusses many practical reasons why song texts are omitted from printed playbooks – language is only one possible explanation, but typically Irish song texts are not given in playbooks. 50 Fleischmann: Sources of Irish Traditional Music, no. 557. For The Beggar’s Opera, see Fiske: English Theatre Music, pp. 94–126. 51 Samuel Johnson: A Dictionary of the English Language. London: C. and J. Rivington, 1827, p. 360. 52 OED: “A confused crying or yelling; esp. as a savage war-cry; hence, a tumult, turmoil” (www. oed.com; last accessed 3 August 2016). 53 Fleischmann: Sources of Irish Traditional Music, no. 3045. The song seems to have been first introduced by the Cork-born actor John Barrington (1715–1773): Biographical Dictionary of Actors, vol. 1, pp. 309–311. It was also particularly associated with the Irish tenor Michael “Honest Mick” Stoppelaer (c. 1710–1777): Biographical Dictionary of Actors, vol. 14, pp. 291–294; Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson: “Stoppelaer, Michael”, Grove Music Online (www.oxfordmusiconline. com; last accessed, 3 August 2016). See also, Susan Cannon Harris: “Mixed Marriage: Sheridan,

588

Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s context seems to suggest that Phelim sings one of the songs previously mentioned in full after giving the incipit a few lines earlier. One suspects that the song was ‘Irish’ though the linguistic medium was English. Newspaper reviews offer a little more detail but do not aid identification of the song: “as a specimen of his vocal abilities, [Phelim] roars out a Teague’s song”54 and “Phelim […] bawls out a tune not altogether entertaining”. 55 However, we immediately note that the perception of the reviewers – conveyed by the performance – is that Phelim does not “sing”, he “roars” or “bawls” the song, befitting the character’s low status. Crotchet’s reaction underlines the comic value: CROTCHET PHELIM

Well, sir, that may do very well introduced into a Comic Opera. An Irishman in an Opera! Oh, my dear! (TLN311–314)

As Helen Burke notes, “Philim’s linguistic incompetence and ‘howling’ are meant to demonstrate the foolishness of his declared ambition to go on the English stage”. 56 At Drury Lane, Phelim was played by John Moody (formerly Cochran) (1726/7–1812). Born in Cork, Moody disavowed his origins in an attempt to be accepted as an English gentleman. He was hired by Garrick, making his London debut on 12 January 1759; he remained largely at Drury Lane until his retirement in 1796. Moody specialized in the dialect of the low-bred Irishman and was responsible for creating several great Irish characters. 57 He was also known for singing “Teddy Wolloughan’s whimsical oratorical description of a man o’ war and sea fight, with Hibernian notes on the whole”, first introduced to London audiences in 1761. Moody was, however, not a trained singer. 58 Thus, we can take the comment that he bawled the tune, not just as a characterization of the low value of the material but also as a fair description of his singing style. 59

54 55 56 57 58 59

Macklin, and the Hybrid Audience”, in: Players, Playwrights, Playhouses: Investigating Performance, 1660–1800, ed. Michael Cordner and Peter Holland. London: Palgrave, 2007, pp. 189–212, here p. 197. Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 23 September 1776. ‘Teague’ was a generic synonym for an Irishman; it was not until the twentieth century it acquired a derogatory connotation of Roman Catholicism. Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 23 September 1776. Helen Burke: “Acting in the periphery: the Irish theatre”, in: Moody and O’Quinn: The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre, pp. 219–232, here p. 227. Moody was nonetheless at his best in low comic characters and was well known for his Irish characters: as one reviewer of New Brooms! put it, “Moody follows in his usual manner, an Irishman”: Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 23 September 1776 For Moody, see Biographical Dictionary of Actors, vol. 10, pp. 288–294, upon which the present biographical account is based. Bartley identified three stages in the development of stock characters: “the realistic, the indifferent, and the false”: “The Development of a Stock Character I. The Stage Irishman to 1800”,

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John Cunningham The manner of deliver of Phelim’s song has an undoubted comic value and pandered to the appetites of the London audiences, but Colman’s choice of an Irishman here appears to have been quite deliberately chosen to ref lect the musical satire. Ireland, like Italy, was understood as a nation for whom music was aligned with the nature of the people, in the same way that the spoken dramatic tradition was aligned with the English nature, as we are reminded towards the end of the play: Sprightly

Englishmen, Mr. Crotchet, Englishmen consider their eyes and ears as the inlets of instruction, as well as entertainment. (TLN586–588) Shew and sing song may be admitted as garnish – the mere lace and fringe of the theatre – but the main body of the stage entertainments should be wrought out of the loom of Shakespeare and his noble assistants. (TLN590–594)

Garnish perhaps but Italy and Italian music was fashionable and sophisticated. And we understand a clear contrast between the ‘art’ songs of the Italian tradition sung via the medium of English and Phelim’s “howling” song. Contrariwise, Ireland and Irish music is here portrayed as unsophisticated and barbaric – thus befitting the colonial construction of Irish identity. These constructs began in the twelfth century with Giraldus Cambrensis who found that the sole exception to the barbarity of the Irish people was their skill on musical instruments.60 It is no coincidence that around the same time in iconography the harp came to symbolize Ireland. By the sixteenth century the musical tradition that is signified became increasingly problematic, politically.61 With the decline of the harping tradition, in: The Modern Language Review 37/4 (1942), pp. 438–447, here p. 438. In the development of the stock Irishman Bartley equates these stages with the following periods: 1587–1659, 1660–1759, and 1760–1800; the last of which corresponds with the Drury Lane debut of Moody. In this period, “the convention has become established […] characteristics, exaggerated or false, have become inseparable from the character, and it looks as if audiences would not have found satisfaction in any representation of an Irishman which omitted these. […] Voices were sometimes raised in protest, but they were the voices of critics or Irishmen or both, who did not speak for the general run of theatre-goers. Some of these, indeed, appear to have taken their notions of Ireland and Irishmen from the stage”. loc. cit., pp. 446–447. Bartley notes that there was a sharp increase in the number of Irish characters in the period 1760–1800: Teague Shenkin and Sawney, especially pp. 166–205. 60 See, Harry White: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998, especially pp. 1–12; the relevant passages from Topographia Hiberniae (c.1187) are quoted on p. 1. 61 See John Cunningham: “‘Irish harpers are excellent, and their solemn music is much liked of strangers’: The Irish harp in non-Irish contexts in the seventeenth century”, in: Music, Ireland and

590

Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s by the eighteenth century ‘Irish’ music was in a sense (re-)invented and came to be represented by tunes in printed collections. But in terms of creating a cultural construct the development of the stock Irish character and his songs was significant. At the risk of a gross over-simplification: over a long period of cultural assimilation, by reducing the once noble and civil aspect of the Irish (the harping tradition) to a general element of caricature (music, in its broadest sense) the only cultural characteristic that initially stood outside the colonial construct of barbarism became an essential part of it. Moreover, this construct helped to establish a cultural paradigm wherein a clear contrast could emerge between the Phelim’s song and the sanitized – and commercialized – ‘Irish’ song Gramachree, which (like the Italian music) had been ‘Englished’. In essence, the low-brow stock Irishman further underlined the satire of high-brow Italianate opera. To a London audience, both were, of course, ‘foreign’ and the use of a brogue and other linguistic signifiers allowed Colman to cleverly underscore the cultural disruption. The character of Phelim was trying to cross the dividing line between British and Irish cultures. But in a similar way to Sir Dulcimer Dunder, Phelim’s very nature – and his natural expression – confined him to the fringes, and confirmed him as an outsider. Phelim’s thick brogue rendered serious Shakespeare comical. When he sang – or “howled” – he evoked a deeper sense of otherness at which Colman was aiming; natural to the Irishman but alien to English nature. Crotchet understood the Italian operatic tradition so well that he could churn out his own satiric simulacrum – whether the opera Topsy-Turvy or the song When the breezes. Phelim, however, is outside of both the Italian and the English traditions, trapped by his linguistic signifiers and by his lack of cultural intelligence and sophistication. In a similar way to the deaf Sir Dulcimer Dunder, Phelim is destined to be an outcast because of his limitations, which are fundamental to his nature. It is this that makes him so apt for the forthcoming opera. From the off, the very idea that Phelim sees himself as becoming an actor is ridiculed. But not even he can contemplate traversing the greater cultural divide represented by opera. In this, the Irishman partly redeems himself through self-consciousness, or perhaps simply confirms his status as a sanitized colonial cultural relic.62 the Seventeenth Century, ed. Barra Boydell and Kerry Huston. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009, pp. 62–80. 62 When New Brooms! was given in Dublin the role of Phelim was taken by another Irish actor, Robert Owenson: see Biographical Dictionary of Actors, vol. 11, pp. 127–130. Reputedly one of Thomas Arne’s pupils, he was apparently described by the composer as having “one of the finest baritone voices he had ever heard, particularly susceptible of that quality of intonation then so much admired and now so out of fashion, the falsetto”: his daughter, Lady Morgan, quoted in Fiske: English Theatre Music, p. 270. In May 1777 he debuted his speciality Irishman Phelim O’Flanagan, in A Prelude, his hit of the season. It included popular Italian and Irish songs, including Carolan’s Receipt for Drinking in Irish, and Pie Raca na Ruarka in Irish (Carolan) and English (translation by Dean Swift): Lady Morgan: her career, literary and personal. London: C. J. Skeet, 1860, p. 23; see also

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John Cunningham New Brooms! is part of a long tradition of play about plays.63 While its literary value could be debated, it marked an important juncture in the stage history of the late eighteenth century and was sophisticated in its commentary on opera. As Lisa A. Freeman points out, “Eighteenth-century plays about plays were, in point of fact, marked to perform important cultural work, articulating a cultural and aesthetic politics that would reshape the limits and contours of authority, police the privilege of professional authorship, and proscribe certain forms of entertainment.”64 In New Brooms! the new managers sought to reassure the public of their commitment to the continuation of the great tradition of the English stage. The objections to opera were long-standing and well aired on the stage, and off it; as one unimpressed reviewer put it, Colman was simply airing “a great number of common-place sarcasms on Operas”.65 While such debates continued, opera became more popular in London in the last quarter of the century than it had been during Garrick’s tenure; however, the all-sung variety was to all but disappear from the London stage by the late 1770s. The new brooms would prove to be successful at Drury Lane, though by 1782 Sheridan was focussing on his political career, leaving the day-to-day duties of managing Drury Lane to Thomas Linley. Fittingly, with hindsight, we can perhaps even see something of Sheridan himself in New Brooms!: just as Phelim was doomed by his nationality to containment on the fringes of the English stage and culture, so too ultimately was Sheridan, no matter his efforts.66

63 64 65 66

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Burke: “Acting in the periphery”, especially p. 227. When New Brooms! was given at Crow Street on 20 April 1778, Owenson was listed as giving “several Irish songs”: John C. Green: Theatre in Dublin, 1745–1820: A Calendar of Performances. Dublin, 2011, p. 1791. Given that much of the force of Colman’s satire comes from the juxtaposition of a tame but uncouth Irishman attempting to traverse a cultural gap that is simply too wide, linguistically and musically, one imagines that such a curious melange of traditions – and an expansion of the role—must have complicated greatly, and diluted – any such interpretation. Dane Farnsworth Smith and M. L. Lawhon: Plays about the Theatre in England, 1737–1800. London: Associated University Press, 1979; New Brooms! is discussed on pp. 91–93. Lisa A. Freeman: Character’s Theater: Genre and Identity on the Eighteenth-Century English Stage. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, p. 83. Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 23 September 1776. See also O’Toole: A Traitor’s Kiss.

Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s

Bibliography Periodicals (all published in London) Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser. General Evening Post. London Evening Post. Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser. Morning Post and Daily Advertiser. The Monthly Review: Or, Literary Journal, vol. 45. London: R. Griffiths, 1772.

Books, articles, and music Arne, Michael: The Flow’ret: A New Collection of English Songs Sung at the Public Gardens. London: John Walsh, 1750. Arne, Thomas Augustine: The Fairy Prince, ed. John Cunningham, in: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson, ed. Martin Butler, Ian Donaldson and Martin Bevington. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014: (online publication: http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/benjonson/) Aspden, Suzanne: “‘An Infinity of Factions’: Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain and the Undoing of Society”, in: Cambridge Opera Journal 9/1 (1997), pp. 1–19. : “Arne’s Paradox: National Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain”, in:       Word and Music Studies 4, ed. Suzanne Lodato, Suzanne Aspden and Walter Bernhart. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002, pp. 195–215. Bartley, J. O.: “The Development of a Stock Character I. The Stage Irishman to 1800”, in: The Modern Language Review 37/4 (1942), pp. 438–447.      : Teague Shenkin and Sawney Being An Historical Study of the Earliest Irish Welsh and Scottish Characters in English Plays. Cork: Cork University Press, 1954. Burden, Michael: “Opera in the London theatres”, in: The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre, 1730–1830, ed. Jane Moody and Daniel O’Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 205–217. Burke, Helen: “Acting in the periphery: the Irish theatre”, in: Moody and O’Quinn: The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre, pp. 219–232. Burns, Robert: The Works of Robert Burns, 2 vols. London: Blackie and Son, 1844. Cannon Harris, Susan: “Mixed Marriage: Sheridan, Macklin, and the Hybrid Audience”, in: Players, Playwrights, Playhouses: Investigating Performance, 1660–1800, ed. Michael Cordner and Peter Holland. London: Palgrave, 2007, pp. 189–212. 593

John Cunningham Choudhury, Mita: Interculturalism and Resistance in the London Theater, 1660–1800: Identity, Performance, Empire. Bucknell: Bucknell University Press, 2015. Colman, George, the elder: New brooms. An occasional prelude, performed at the opening of the Theatre-Royal, in Drury-Lane, September 21, 1776. London: Thomas Beckett, 1776.      : The Dramatick Works of George Colman, vol. 4. London: Thomas Beckett, 1777. Cunningham, John: “‘Irish harpers are excellent, and their solemn music is much liked of strangers’: The Irish harp in non-Irish contexts in the seventeenth century”, in: Music, Ireland and the Seventeenth Century, ed. Barra Boydell and Kerry Huston. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009, pp. 62–80. Cunningham, Vanessa: Shakespeare and Garrick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Davis, Leith: Music, Postcolonialism, and Gender: The Construction of Irish National Identity, 1724–1874. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Dennis, John: An Essay on the Opera’s After the Italian Manner. London: John Nutt, 1706. The Duenna or Double Elopement [vocal score]. London: C. and S. Thompson, [1776]. Farnsworth Smith, Dane and M. L. Lawhon: Plays about the Theatre in England, 1737–1800. London: Associated University Press, 1979. Fintan O’Toole: A Traitor’s Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751–1816. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998. Fiske, Roger: English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. Fleischmann, Aloys: Sources of Irish Traditional Music, c.1600–1855, 2 vols. New York: Garland, 1998. Freeman, Lisa A.: Character’s Theater: Genre and Identity on the Eighteenth-Century English Stage. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Gifford. Paul M.: The Hammered Dulcimer: A History. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001. Green, John C.: Theatre in Dublin, 1745–1820: A Calendar of Performances, 6 vols. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2011. Grove Music Online (www.oxfordmusiconline.com). Highfield, Philip H., Jr, Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans: A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, 16 vols. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973–1993. Historical Texts (http://historicaltexts.jisc.ac.uk/)

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Music and Nationalism on the London Stage in the Mid-1770s Hogan, Charles Beecher: Shakespeare in the Theatre, 1701–1800, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952 and 1957. Hogg, James: The Forest Minstrel, ed. P. D. Garside and Richard D. Jackson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. Johnson, Samuel: A Dictionary of the English Language. London: C. and J. Rivington, 1827. Lindley, David: “‘Sounds and Sweet Airs’: Music in Shakespearian Performance History”, in: Shakespeare Survey 64 (2011), pp. 59–73.      : Shakespeare and Music. London: Arden, 2005. MacLennan, D. G.: Highland and Traditional Scottish Dances. Edinburgh: Scotpress, 1952. Owenson, Sydney: Lady Morgan: her career, literary and personal. London: C. J. Skeet, 1860. Oxford English Dictionary (www.oed.com). Sheppard, F. H. W. (ed.): Survey of London: Volume 35, the theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. London: The Athlone Press, 1970. Stern, Tiffany: Documents of Performance in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. The London Stage, 1660–1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments and Afterpieces. 11 vols. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968. White, Harry: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998. Wood, Julia K.: “William Lawes’s Music for Plays”, in: William Lawes (1602–1645): Essays on his Life, Times and Work, ed. Andrew Ashbee. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 11–67.

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Canon Thomas Hudson, Clergyman Musician, Cambridge Don and the Hovingham ‘Experiment’ Jeremy Dibble “Not one note of inferior stuff was heard; whatever was done, and happily there was not too much, was done well even to the most exacting ear and taste.” Charles Villiers Stanford1 The nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of musical festivals in Britain owing to a multitude of artistic, social and economic reasons. Many, like the oldest festival of them all, the Three Choirs Festival, were founded for charitable reasons, to aid local institutions such as hospitals, schools and educational foundations and the local aristocracy and gentry acted as guarantors for any financial loss. Over time, these arrangements changed, as the festivals gained prestige; artistic standards rose and aspirations increased as more and more organizations based their reputations not only on a high standard of musical performance but on the commissions of contemporary composers. In this way, the festivals at Birmingham and Leeds (as well as other cities such as Norwich and the Yorkshire conurbations such as Sheffield and Huddersfield) f lourished through their associations with composers and conductors such as Mendelssohn, Sullivan, Parry, Stanford, Elgar and Hans Richter and their occurrences became major events in the national musical calendar. Unique in this milieu of collective music-making, however, was one festival which, unlike its urban counterparts, did not depend on the traditional hub of a cathedral or a large city town hall as the principal focus for its concerts, nor on the social certainties furnished by larger urban populations to assure economic survival. Contrary to these factors, the village at Hovingham in north Yorkshire hosted a rural festival, founded and managed by an amateur musical clergyman. It became a distinctive and inimitable artistic occasion between 1887 and 1906 which, defying intuition, caused its critics to marvel at its entrepreneurial audacity and self-assurance.

1

Stanford, C. V.: Interludes, Records and Reflections. John Murray: London, 1922, p. 151.

597

Jeremy Dibble The founder of the Hovingham Festival, Canon Thomas Percy Hudson, may have been de facto an amateur, but he was, as Stanford so aptly described, “an all-round musician”. 2 The son of the Dean of York, Hudson was one of two musical brothers to pursue music seriously. Both sought careers in the church, yet both loved to participate in chamber music. Francis William (1840–1901), the younger brother, possessed a Stradivarius violin and was (teste Stanford) a brilliant sight-reader; after his undergraduate studies and ordination in 1864, he spent his career as a vicar in the quiet village of Great Wilbraham, seven miles to the east of Cambridge. Though perhaps technically less brilliant, Percy (1833–1921), as he was known to his close friends, was nevertheless highly accomplished as a cellist. A Fellow of Trinity between 1856 and 1870, he was ordained in 1862 and taught mathematics, though music was always his main preoccupation. At Trinity he struck up a friendship with William Sterndale Bennett who, in visiting the university in his capacity as Professor of Music, often occupied rooms in Trinity. Hudson also took cello lessons in London with Alfredo Piatti from whom he purchased his Amati cello in 1867 and with Grützmacher in Dresden. In June 1870 he married Patience Frances Sophia Pemberton of Trumpington Hall and for legal reasons adopted her surname after she succeeded to the property of Trumpington in 1900. To many of his friends and colleagues, however, he was still known and addressed as “Hudson”. After his marriage in 1870 his fellowship at Trinity ceased and he moved to one of the college’s livings in North Yorkshire where he became rector of the parish of East Gilling, a position he held until 1901. In addition he held other appointments as a Prebend and Succentor of York Minster and Rural Dean of Helmsley. In 1901 Hudson moved back to Trumpington where he died in January 1921. Although Hudson’s academic duties at Trinity meant that he was responsible for tuition in mathematics (he published his own Elementary trigonometry in 1862 with the Cambridge publishers Deighton, Bell & Co.), his chief preoccupation, other than his ecclesiastical calling, was music. Matriculating as an undergraduate at Trinity in 1851, he joined the Cambridge University Musical Society (CUMS) in 1853, ten years after the Society had been first founded and was an active member. Surviving correspondence between Hudson and Sterndale Bennett also informs us that the two men played chamber music together, and that Hudson was a key figure in mounting the performance of Bennett’s Installation Ode for the new Chancellor of Cambridge, the Duke of Devonshire, in 1862. 3 Hudson also retained a special devotion to Bennett’s music, performing his Cello Sonata in A major for CUMS as well as promoting his orchestral overtures and his cantata The 2 3

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Ibidem, p. 149. See letters from William Sterndale Bennett to Thomas Hudson, Trumpington Hall, Cambridge (GB-Cth).

The Hovingham ‘Experiment’ May Queen.4 Additionally, such was the respect that Hudson commanded in terms of his abilities and knowledge as a cellist, Grove invited him to provide articles for his new Dictionary of Music and Musicians during its preliminary stages in the 1870s. Indeed, such was Hudson’s zeal and enthusiasm that much of his research had to be curtailed, as is evident from the following letter written from the offices of Macmillan: My dear Hudson, I have been taking a few days at home to work at the Dictionary and often carefully reviewing the work as a whole. I am forced to the alternative of sacrificing a large number of biographies … I can easily imagine that you will be annoyed to find that you had all the trouble of making that exhaustive list for nothing and I am very sorry for it, and beg you to believe that I am and to accept my sincere apologies. On the other hand I can’t but believe that you will not be sorry to find yourself relieved of such a mass of trivial and uninteresting personages. I send you the list herewith and should be much obliged if you would scratch through all the names who under the rule would be excluded … I am afraid your good nature will hardly bear up against so rude a trial – but pray don’t throw up the work. What are the prospects at Cambridge? I heard from Gauntlett that he was going to stand and see in the papers that Barnby is also a candidate. I wish Stanford could have been elected. His age and present obscurity are of course drawbacks but I have real faith in his earnestness and personal inf luence. Goodbye. Please let me have one line by return. 5 Grove’s comment about Stanford was auspicious. Even though Hudson was by this time the occupant of his substantial rectory in East Gilling, he was a regular visitor to Cambridge for the CUMS concerts and witnessed the meteoric rise of Stanford within the Society, first as a pianist, then as Assistant Conductor (from 1871) and finally as Principal Conductor (in 1873) after the departure of John Larkin Hopkins. Moreover, Hopkins’ resignation as organist at Trinity provided an opening for Stanford who was appointed to the post in 1873 and held it for the next nineteen years. Stanford’s arrival at Trinity undoubtedly helped to cement 4

5

Hudson performed Bennett’s Cello Sonata with Stanford at the piano on 8 November 1878. This performance numbered among many instances of both Hudson’s and Stanford’s enthusiastic promotion of Bennett’s music by CUMS which included songs, The May Queen (which Bennett conducted himself on 27 May 1873), The Wood-nymphs (8 March 1877) and the late Symphony in G minor (21 May 1878). Letter from George Grove to Thomas Hudson, 25 February [1877], GB-Cth 7/23.

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Jeremy Dibble his close relationship with Hudson, and Hudson’s support was surely crucial in securing the younger man’s annual absences of leave from the college to study in Leipzig and Berlin between 1874 and 1876. Perhaps even more significant, however, was the artistic collaboration which the two men enjoyed during the 1870s and 1880s at CUMS, particularly in the Society’s chamber concerts. During this period, Hudson, his brother Francis and Stanford, regularly performed together in a broad range of chamber repertoire including solo sonatas, string quartets, piano trios, quartets and quintets (including a number of Stanford’s own works) together with other amateurs such as W. F. Donkin and Charles Abdy Williams (then a Trinity undergraduate), London professionals such as Ludwig Straus and Alfred Burnett, and the resident Cambridge violinist, Richard Gompertz.6 To this earnest band of pioneers (for CUMS had hitherto not witnessed such a blossoming of fecund musical programmes) should also be added the name of Joseph Joachim. At the request of the CUMS committee in 1875, Stanford had been empowered to negotiate with Joachim while he was in Germany for a concert in Cambridge during the Lent Term of 1876. Writing from Tours in France in 1875, Stanford communicated his deliberations to Hudson: in the course of a delightful day I spent with Joachim at Berlin on Sunday week, he promised me to come down and give another concert at Cambridge this year for the Bach memorial. This time I think we had better organize with our C.U.M.S. committee, and have a regular quartett always supposing you can come, as then we shall engage Straus for viola. … It will be about the 1st or 2nd week in March. We could have a string quartett and perhaps the Schumann quintett again which is never too old for repetition and make the great man play all the rest - with perhaps a partsong or two for chorus, or better still a solo quartett if we can work one. … He seemed to like the idea of a quartett with Frank and you immensely. J. is longing to see F.’s fiddle again which made a great impression upon him.7 Joachim did indeed make his first appearance in Cambridge on 7 March 1876 which included Haydn’s Quartet Op. 76 No. 1 in G (with Burnett, Hudson and his brother) and Schumann’s Piano Quintet (with Stanford at the piano) as well as Bach’s Chaconne in D minor, his well-known signature piece. It was the first of many annual concerts which Joachim gave at Cambridge, both in his capacity as soloist and also with the Joachim Quartet. Hudson’s appearances in the CUMS concerts with Stanford continued into the 1880s though, as time went on, professional players from London were employed 6 7

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Hudson’s library of chamber music is still extant at GB-Cth. Letter from Stanford to Hudson, n.d. [1875], GB-Cth 7/23.

The Hovingham ‘Experiment’ more regularly. As a Vice-Patron of CUMS he naturally took a great interest in the fortunes of CUMS, not least in the conferring of Joachim’s honorary doctorate at the university in March 1877 when the Hungarian appeared in the capacities of performer (in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto), conductor (in the English premiere of Brahms’s First Symphony) and composer (in the Elegiac Overture in Commemoration of Kleist); moreover, after the death of George Macfarren in 1887, he was one of the panel members which unanimously elected Stanford to the vacant Professorship of Music. A reduced practical participation in the CUMS concerts was, nevertheless, an arrangement that suited Hudson. The journeys from Gilling to Cambridge were long and arduous; besides, his musical attentions were increasingly concentrated closer to home. During the autumn of 1886, Hudson had occasion to attend a Harvest Thanksgiving Service at All Saints Church, Hovingham, a village close to East Gilling and about 17 miles north of York. After the service members of the choir removed to the School in Hovingham Hall, a rural estate in the heart of the Howardian Hills (now reserved as an area of outstanding beauty) owned by the Worlsey family for over 450 years, in order to sing portions of Handel’s Messiah with piano accompaniment directed by the local physician. “It could not be expected”, Hudson recalled, “under these conditions that the result, judged from a musical point of view, could be other than very faulty”.8 Some parts, indeed, such as the final “Amen”, were considered too difficult to perform. Nevertheless, Hudson, impressed by the space of the Hovingham Riding School,9 and by the ability of some of the voices in the chorus, was infused with an alacrity and vision for the possibilities of introducing performances of a higher class to the rural communities of North Yorkshire. Early the following year, on 5 January 1887, a performance of the entire Messiah was staged in the Riding School under Hudson’s direction and it came about by the conf luence of several important factors. First, the resource of good singers in the neighbourhood and in the larger region of York meant that a capable chorus (dubbed the Hovingham Choral Union) could be established and trained. More significantly, however, Hudson was able to bring to bear his network of professional contacts, notably from western Yorkshire (especially from Leeds) where the reservoir of musicians was more abundant. He was able to garner a string or8 9

In a bound volume where all the programmes of the Hovingham Festival concerts were preserved, Hudson provided a handwritten recollection of the Festivals’ history between 1887 and 1906 from which this information is taken passim. Hovingham’s Palladian house was constructed between 1750 and 1770. The sixth Thomas Worsley was Surveyor General to George III and entertained two passions: architecture and horses. Owing to the excessive costs of building the house and separate stable block, the house was instead planned around the stables which is why the unique entrance to Hovingham is formed by the substantial Riding School.

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Figure 1: Hovingham Hall across the meadow and cricket field

chestra of about sixteen players led by a Herr Eckener of Leeds and an obbligato trumpeter (for The trumpet shall sound), Trumpet Major White from the 9th Lancers (based at York); John Naylor, the organist of York Minster (where Hudson had strong ecclesiastical ties, agreed to fill in wind parts on a harmonium, and Naylor’s son, Edward (later organist of Emmanuel College, Cambridge), provided continuo on the piano.10 Two female soloists were hired from London (of which Miss Manisty, the soprano, was the daughter of a local judge) while the tenor and bass solo parts were covered by members of the York Minster choir. But fundamental to all these arrangements and logistics was the financial support of Hudson’s old friend at Trinity, John Rutson, who resided at the nearby family seats of Newby Wiske and Nunnington Hall. Rutson, slightly older than Hudson, had entered Trinity in 1849.11 Rutson’s love of music manifested itself in part by his support for music-making in his native Yorkshire. For a while he supported the York Musical Society,12 and was always ready to give financial aid to promising young musicians in the county. He also invested a great deal of money in antique stringed instruments, and, after becoming a director of the Royal Academy of 10 York Herald, 7 January 1887. 11 Venn, J. A.: Alumni Cantabrigiensis vol. 5. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1953, p. 391. 12 Griffiths, D.: ‘Musical Place of the First Quality’: A History of Institutional Music-Making in York c. 1550–1989, York University. PhD Diss., 1990, p. 236.

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Figure 2: Hovingham Hall: entrance to the Riding School

Music, donated his collection to the institution.13 Hudson described Rutson as a “staunch supporter of our efforts both with the most liberal gifts of money … and without his liberal and lavish help the undertaking could never have been carried on or brought to the pitch of excellence which it gradually more and more assumed”. Hudson was suitably delighted with the standard of performance of Messiah and this was endorsed by the York Herald who noted that 258 people filled the Riding-School space (capable of accommodating over 500). Encouraged by the 13 The Rutson Collection forms part of the RAM’s major instrument collection and contains two violins, 1694 Rutson and 1718 Maurin, the magnificent 1696 Archinto viola all by Antonio Stradivari, and several instruments made by the Amati family.

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Figure 3: Hovingham Hall: interior of the Riding School

result, he immediately conceived the idea of performing Mendelssohn’s Elijah in spite of the apprehension of the local vicar, the Rev. R. J. Thorp. But rapidly his ambition extended to the notion of several concerts which might then assume the status of a festival. From the outset, the venture had the unbridled backing of Sir William Cayley Worsley and, after his death in 1897, by his successor Sir Wil604

The Hovingham ‘Experiment’ liam Henry Arthington Worsley. They were happy to make available the Riding School not only for the time of the festival itself, but also for the week beforehand for the purposes of preparation; moreover, the house was filled with guests who were both private friends and artists for whom it was vital to find adjacent accommodation. Together with the Worsleys, a team of local people also helped to provide and serve refreshments during the intervals. And fully to accommodate the audience which attended from across North Yorkshire and beyond, the full co-operation of the railway was procured in order to secure trains from Hovingham station directly after the evening performances to Gilling, Helmsley and Malton. For later festivals, Hudson also engaged special trains in order to connect with trains arriving from York, Scarborough, Driffield, and Pickering in order to facilitate prompt arrival at Hovingham for the afternoon concerts. Hudson was determined that one principal musical dimension of the proposed festival at Hovingham should be choral, and from the previous success of Messiah, he had learned important lessons about how a chorus could be engaged and rehearsed given the time restraints and the rural location of the festival itself. Most of the ladies of the chorus were taken from local districts. Tenors and basses, however, had to be obtained elsewhere. As before, a few voices were recruited from York Minster, but to this was added a more substantial contingent from the Leeds Choral Union, thanks to the co-operation of its honorary secretary and treasurer, H. C. Embleton. Rehearsals for the local singers were taken by Hudson in the schoolroom at Hovingham (and later in the splendid Ball Room of Hovingham Hall). Some sectional rehearsals also took place in York and at nearby Malton. Through the assistance of Embleton, the Leeds singers learned their music a few weeks before the festival thanks to the help of Alfred Benton (organist of Leeds Parish Church) in the Church Parish Room, and as the festival drew nearer, Hudson took over the rehearsals there. Such careful organization by Hudson had one purpose in mind, as he himself articulated: “that before the final Rehearsals with the Orchestra which could only be held on the actual days of the performances I felt confident that the Chorus, as a whole, could be absolutely, relied upon. It would otherwise have been quite impossible to get the good results with only one final general Rehearsal”. As it transpired, for the first festival, it proved impossible to rehearse Elijah but because chorus, band and soloists knew their music thoroughly, the performance was carried off with aplomb. “It astonished us”, remarked the critic of the York Herald, “to find such a chorus from the limited district over which the Canon had gone. He had trained them well, however, and having done that, with the wisdom of an old teacher who knew his pupils, he properly placed confidence in their powers. Both band and chorus were in sympathy with him, and he with them”.14 The chorus of between 80 and 90 singers 14 “Musical Festival at Hovingham Hall”, York Herald, 28 October 1887.

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Jeremy Dibble was joined by an orchestra of 45 to 50 players; some were capable amateurs, others were hired, mainly from York, Leeds, London and Manchester. Some of them, as one critic remarked, were ‘well known in metropolitan circles’.15 As for the professional soloists, many of them gave their services gratis, viewing their participation in the unique setting of the hall, the surrounding woods and hills, as a form of retreat. Johann Kruse, the Australian violinist and former pupil of Joachim, expressed the particular atmosphere at Hovingham in a letter to Hudson in 1898: Dear Canon Hudson, … I duly received your very kind letter shortly after the Festival, which I ought to have answered long ago. I am very sorry that I cannot possibly manage to come to Gilling just now as much as I should like to. I can assure you that I think and always shall think of the delightful time that I spent at your house, of all the kindness shown to me, a stranger, by you, Mrs Hudson, Miss Hudson and Master Hudson with the greatest pleasure of gratitude. It was delightful to find so many people going in for good music in such an earnest way, not for the fashion, not for show, no merely for the love of it. This is the right way to make and to listen to music. I have always preferred playing with first-rate amateurs to professionals with very few exceptions. The latter seem to so easily lose all real enthusiasm for their art. I little knew what a musician you are when I was superficially introduced to you some years ago at Bonn!16 Kruse may have initially been unaware of Hudson’s true ability as a musician, but he, like many others, would not have foreseen that the experiment on which he was soon to embark would have the capacity to attract not only regional but national approbation and possess the potential to develop from its modest beginnings into a festival of serious artistic merit. The First Hovingham Festival took place on Wednesday and Thursday, 26 and 27 October 1887 and the two main works to feature was Elijah which opened the festival on the Wednesday evening and Messiah which closed proceedings the following day. In between these two staple pillars of the English choral repertory was a miscellaneous concert on Thursday afternoon at 2.45 p.m. in which instrumental and solo vocal pieces featured together with other choral music, though of a less extended kind. The orchestral part of the concert was framed by two overtures, Beethoven’s Leonora No. 3 and Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor in between which was Hatton’s well known glee When evening’s twilight, the second and third movements of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (played by Hudson’s friend and former RAM Scholar, William Sutton), arias from Le nozze di Figaro and Tancredi and Stanford’s choral ballad The Revenge. The nature of this concert established 15 “Hovingham Musical Festival”, Musical Times, xxxv (December 1894), p. 817. 16 Letter from Johan Kruse to Hudson, 18 August 1898, Gb-Cth 7/23/172.

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The Hovingham ‘Experiment’ an important model for the festival. First and foremost, the orchestra and soloists were given greater limelight in a programme of more stylistic and generic variety. Equally important, however, was Hudson’s desire to feature a modern British choral work, and in this instance, Stanford’s The Revenge, recently premiered at the Leeds Festival on 14 October 1886 and taken up rapidly by provincial choral festivals, was still ‘hot off the press’. Urged to continue the festival by the press, Hudson planned a second festival at Hovingham the following year on 16 and 17 October 1888. The Mendelssohn-Handel axis continued with the Hymn of Praise and Judas Maccabaeus, though in the opening concert Hudson also included Bennett’s May Queen which he had helped promote for CUMS. With the same characteristic ambition he had shown in the endorsement of The Revenge, he included two new British choral works in the afternoon concert which also featured Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, Beethoven’s Second Symphony and the serenade for two f lutes and harp from Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ. The first of these new works was Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens, first performed by the Bach Choir under Stanford’s direction in 1887. Like The Revenge, it had enjoyed immediate acclaim. Parry, who knew Hudson well from his interaction with CUMS, was delighted. “I am so glad you are going to do ‘the Sirens’ at your Festival”, he wrote to Hudson. “I don’t suppose ‘Novellos’ have reserved to themselves any rights or restrictions as to performance: if they do I shall speedily protest. They did not send the full score I suppose because there is only one and I was using it on Thursday at Hereford, where we had a very good performance. We had some Leeds people there, so they will be already familiar with it if you get the same lot.”17 The second work, by the 21-year-old Edward Naylor, was a setting of Charles Kingsley’s The Weird Lady, specially commissioned for the festival. Such novelties, and the encouragement of local talent, would continue to be a feature of Hovingham’s future. For the Third Festival, Hudson elected to have a pause for a year owing to the occurrence of the Leeds Triennial Festival. Expectations for the 1890 festival were high and Hudson did not disappoint. Parry’s oratorio Judith, given at Birmingham for the first time in 1888, and by the York Musical Society earlier in 1890, was still unfamiliar to many. Performed on the opening night, it required a fine array of soloists (including Anna Williams, Mary Munro and David Ffrangcon-Davies), a chorus of near 100 singers and a larger band to accommodate Parry’s orchestration. To maintain the sympathy of his audience Hudson adroitly counterbalanced the contemporaneity of Judith with the familiarity of Elijah, sung ‘by desire’ to close the festival, while the intervening miscellaneous concert included favourites such as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and overtures to Weber’s Oberon and Rossini’s Guillaume Tell. The new commission was a setting of Thomas Campbell’s The 17 Letter from Parry to Hudson, 16 Sept 1888 GB-Cth 7/23/107A.

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Jeremy Dibble Battle of the Baltic by Alexandra Thomson, daughter of the Archbishop of York. Well-known to audience and performers alike, she was given a rapturous ovation.18 The two key works of the Fourth Festival in October 1891 were Mendelssohn’s St Paul and Hear my prayer (using the composer’s orchestration) and Handel’s Samson (slightly abridged). The RCM student Isabella Donkersley (later the wife of Augustus Jaeger), locally born at Holmfirth, gave two movements of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and the principal symphonic work was Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony. The focus, however, was the first part of Stanford’s 1885 Birmingham oratorio, The Three Holy Children, but which also included a recently-added aria for tenor not heard before in public. Stanford was invited to conduct. For both Stanford and Hudson, the performance of The Three Holy Children had a special significance beyond their obvious friendship, for Hudson had played a central part in the initial stages of the oratorio’s conception, acting as a theological and biblical authority on Stanford’s choice of words from the Book of Daniel and the Psalms. “I have more belief in you with your dramatic instinct than anyone for putting together a libretto of this description,’ he wrote to Hudson, ‘and I should take it as a great favour if you would help me in it”.19 It was one of many indications of Stanford’s high regard for Hudson’s intellect and musical perspicacity. Another interregnum took place before the Fifth Hovingham Festival was produced in October 1893. Hudson’s ambition had in no way diminished and in response to the clamour for Sullivan’s Golden Legend, which had been performed many times since its premiere at Leeds in 1886, he agreed to open the Fifth Festival with the work. Rutson, who had unstintingly given his financial support was a little perturbed: When you came here, you mentioned that very many in your neighbourhood had expressed a strong wish that, if The Hov: Mus: Fest: be continued, the “Golden Legend” be performed. As you said at the time, and I have heard elsewhere since, it is a very laborious work to undertake, and [moreover] a very expensive performance also. Those who expressed themselves so much in favour of that work being undertaken should get up a Guarantee Fund to meet the additional expense and to those it should be so suggested. 20 Indeed Rutson felt strongly that, while he agreed to continue to lend his support, a Guarantee Fund ought to become a fixture of the Festival’s financial infrastructure. Nevertheless, Hudson was not to be deterred. Again, there was a balance 18 “Musical Festival at Hovingham”, The York Herald, 25 October 1890. 19 Letter from Stanford to Hudson, n.d. [1884] GB-Cth 7/23. 20 Letter from Rutson to Hudson, 21 February 1892 GB-Cth 7/23.

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The Hovingham ‘Experiment’ between the popular and the new. The Golden Legend opened the festival and to close, by request, was Mendelssohn’s Hymn of Praise. For the afternoon concert, he persuaded the young up-and-coming pianist, Leonard Borwick, to appear as soloist in Schumann’s Piano Concerto (the work with which he made his debut in London in May 1890); there was room for Mackenzie’s popular Benedictus (first heard in 1888) and The Rock-Buoy Bell, a ballad for chorus and orchestra by Alan Gray. Gray, a native of York, was yet another connection with Trinity. Hudson had known him since Gray’s days as undergraduate at the college. The connection had continued, moreover, after Gray returned to Trinity as the organist after Stanford’s resignation in 1892. The dedication of Gray’s new work was to Hudson. For the Sixth Festival in October 1894, Hudson became bolder still in his choice of programming, spurred on perhaps by the fact that, with Herbert Thompson’s positive review in the Musical Times, 21 Hovingham had now begun to enjoy a national reputation. Although Elijah was repeated as the closing work of the festival, Hudson chose to depart from his original model. The opening concert was divided into two parts, the first of which was taken up with Dvořák’s cantata The Spectre’s Bride. A Birmingham commission of 1885, the work was probably still fresh in Hudson’s memory from the extract in CUMS’s special concert in Cambridge to mark Dvořák’s honorary doctorate in 1891. The second half began with Mackenzie’s new overture Britannia which had received its premiere under Richter in May of that year; this was followed by Borwick in solo music by Bach, Scarlatti and Chopin (on a Steinway piano supplied from London) and the prologue from Edward Naylor’s cantata, Arthur the King. And for the ample afternoon concert the following day, the orchestral focus became stronger, not only with the habitual overtures (in this case Beethoven’s Egmont and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro) but also with Wagner’s Sieg fried Idyll, Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E minor (with Borwick as soloist) and the premiere of Emil Kreuz’s Suite for Strings, set alongside Parry’s 1889 Leeds commission, the Ode to St Cecilia. In 1896, for the Seventh Festival, Hudson moved the festival back to September, but continued with the model established in 1894. Mendelssohn’s St Paul was the grand finale. Dvořák’s Stabat Mater occupied the first half of the opening concert, Borwick played Chopin and Liszt and the closing work was Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the brilliant young Canadian violinist, Nora Clench. For the afternoon programme, Hudson paid homage to Sterndale Bennett in directing his overture The Naiads, Borwick appeared as soloist in Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, Clench performed some unaccompanied Bach and there were two new commissions, Somervell’s setting of Robert Bridges’ Elegy on a Lady whom Grief for the Death of her Betrothed Killed for alto, chorus and orchestra, and Gray’s scena The Vision of Belshazzar to words by Byron. 21 “Hovingham”, Musical Times 34 (November 1893), p. 660.

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Jeremy Dibble Although the poor weather at the 1894 festival had the effect of diminishing the audience, Hudson felt increasingly emboldened by the artistic reception he had received in the press. Undeterred by the 1898 Leeds Festival, which had hitherto caused him to postpone the next festival for a year, and perhaps by the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of 1897, he decided to hold the Eighth Festival in 1898, though bringing it back to June to avoid any conflict with Leeds. On this occasion, both evening concerts were divided into two halves and there was less choral music in order to make way for a glittering firmament of soloists. In memory of Sir William Cayley Worsley, Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem (with no applause), Part One of Haydn’s The Creation and Stanford’s The Revenge were the main choral items, but the majority of works were there to favour the visiting professionals. Chief among these were Borwick (who appeared in Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 488 and Schumann’s Concertstück Op. 92), the young soprano, Agnes Nicholls (who sang in Brahms’s Requiem) and the celebrated Irish baritone, Harry Plunket Greene (who not only sang in The Creation but also with Borwick, his favoured accompanist, in several solo selections of Schubert, Stanford and folk-song arrangements). The main attraction of the 1898 festival, however, was the attendance of Joseph Joachim whose 67th birthday took place on 28 June, the first day of the festival. Joachim, who like many of the soloists, gave his services without payment, was lionized. Appearing in all three concerts, he played his favourite Bach Chaconne, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and, with his one-time pupil, Johann Kruse, Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. Moreover, as a festival tribute, Thomas Tertius Noble, the newly-appointed organist at York Minster, composed A Birthday Greeting, setting the last stanza by Arthur PureyCust, Dean of York, specially written for the occasion. The model of the 1898 festival set a new precedent at Hovingham and provided the template for future programmes, although Hudson was always seeking to experiment. In 1899, when the festival was held in July, Stanford attended to conduct his masterly and highly challenging Te Deum Op. 66 which had been premiered at Leeds the previous year. There were performances of Brahms’s Song of Destiny, Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D played by Carl Fuchs and Charles Wood’s setting of Whitman’s ‘Ethiopia saluting the colours’ sung by Plunket Greene in the composer’s orchestration. There was a rare hearing of Weber’s overture 1813 and, perhaps most ambitious of all, a concert performance on the second evening of Acts II and III of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, taking the festival into newer territory. In 1900 Joachim (who travelled over directly from Berlin) visited for a second time and in the days leading up to the festival on 18 and 19 September, he, his cousin and son-in-law, Harold Joachim, Hudson and others gathered in the rectory at Gilling to play together. At the festival itself, which this time consisted of one evening and two afternoon concerts, Joachim appeared in Mozart’s Violin Concerto K. 219, Beethoven’s Romance Op. 50, Brahms’s Violin Sonata 610

The Hovingham ‘Experiment’ in G Op 78 with Fanny Davies, and the Second Brandenberg Concerto, which, being so enthusiastically received at the evening concert, had to be repeated the following afternoon. 22 There were no new commissions, but, with performances of ‘Onaway! Awake, beloved’ from Coleridge-Taylor’s immensely popular Hiawatha and Stanford’s orchestration of Goring Thomas’s The Swan and the Skylark, the programme continued to ref lect Hudson’s appetite for contemporary works. Reverting to the normal template of (two) evening and (one) afternoon concerts, the Ninth Festival took place at the height of summer on 7 and 8 August 1902. Parry’s Judith was revived with Agnes Nicholls in the main role, Stanford’s Last Post marked the end the South African War, and Charles Wood’s setting of Scott’s The Song of the Tempest received its first performance with Nicholls as soloist. As Ian Copley has remarked, given that Wood’s score is dated 14 July 1902, the Hovingham chorus must have learned their parts in an extraordinarily short time. 23 In addition, Joachim gave a second performance of the Beethoven Concerto, was part of a trio of soloists in Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto with the f lautist Eli Hudson and Fanny Davies, and, entering into the spirit of the festival, joined the orchestral violinists in the rest of the programme. The Twelfth Festival, held on 23 and 24 September 1903, proved to be the last festival under Hudson’s direction. In 1901, upon retirement, Hudson (now Pemberton) had returned with his wife to Trumpington Hall. Illness and the distance between Cambridge and North Yorkshire also served to increase his resolve to resign the Conductorship and management of the festival after it was over. Perhaps with this sense of valediction in mind, the occasion was the most ambitious of all, in that it consisted of four concerts – two on each day. Among the popular items were the Hymn of Praise, Ffrangcon-Davies singing Gounod’s There is a green hill far away (which he had sung to great acclaim in an earlier festival), Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, Bruch’s First Violin Concerto (with Johann Kruse) and the Introduction to Act III of Lohengrin. To add spice to this familiar element, however, were several new orchestral items, notably Noble’s overture to his incidental music to The Wasps written for Cambridge in 1897, Saint-Säens’ Fourth Piano Concerto with Fanny Davies and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the celebrated cellist Herbert Withers. Among the new choral items was Bach’s cantata O Light Everlasting, a ref lection of the growing interest in this little-known branch Bach’s music, S. S. Wesley’s The Wilderness in the composer’s orchestration and last performed at Birmingham in 1852, and, to mark the recent death of Verdi, his Requiem was given as the opening work. While the first three concerts of the festival followed the format of earlier festivals, the fourth marked a new departure as a ‘chamber 22 Hudson, who had heard the Second Brandenburg Concerto at the Brahms Festival at Meiningen in 1899, believed the performance at Hovingham to be the first in England. 23 Ian Copley: The Music of Charles Wood. London: Thames Publishing, 1978, reprinted 1994, p. 51.

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Jeremy Dibble concert’, and for this Davies, Withers and Kruse performed an instrumental repertoire of Beethoven, Bach, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms, combined with songs by the celebrated partnership of Agnes Nicholls and Hamilton Harty. Nicholls had been a true friend to the festival through her appearances as a soloist. By 1903 she was already well known as a star of the operatic stage as well as in oratorio; nevertheless, she, like Joachim, was happy on occasion to join the ranks of the chorus. Hamilton Harty, whom Nicholls would marry the following year, also enjoyed the approbation of the nation’s finest and most sought-after accompanist. After the 1903 Festival Herbert Thompson paid tribute to Hudson’s legacy in the Musical Times, 24 but there was some unease about whether the festivals would continue. Three years were allowed to pass before it was decided that Noble would direct the Festival on 17 and 18 October 1906 with the support of Hudson. An additional blow occurred in July of that year when the death of John Rutson was announced, but Rutson’s regular subsidy for the forthcoming Festival was assured before his death as were free tickets to all the concerts for his tenants. 25 The Thirteenth Festival, like the Twelfth, consisted of four concerts, though the chamber concert (given by Nicholls, Harty and the Kruse Quartet) opened proceedings. The majority of the choral and orchestral programme was directed by Noble and included yet more works new to Hovingham ears among which were Bach’s Sleepers Wake, Elgar’s Black Knight, Coleridge-Taylor’s Kubla-Khan (conducted by the composer) and Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel. Hudson took the baton on three occasions, for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (with Kruse), Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony and the ‘Marche Funèbre’ from Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony performed in memory of Rutson. The Thirteenth Festival, however, proved to be the last in the cycle of festivals at Hovingham, and though there were attempts latterly to revive it, it never again achieved the momentum that it enjoyed under the aegis of Hudson. Although William Worsley enquired whether a festival might take place in 1908 (thereby avoiding the Leeds Festival in 1907), 26 without Hudson’s energy and impetus, and the guarantee of further financial support, North Yorkshire’s rural music festival came to an end. In residing back in Cambridge, Hudson turned down the post of Master of Magdalene College on the grounds that he found Trumpington Hall more comfortable and convenient. In retirement he accepted the role of President of CUMS in 1905 and took a keen interest in the Society’s activities as well as in the career of Stanford, his closest musical friend. During the war he, like many, had to endure 24 “Hovingham Festival”, in: Musical Times 44 (1903), pp. 739–741. An additional note in the December issue (p. 792) paid tribute to Hudson’s musical imagination by listing the musical works performed. 25 Musical Times 47 (1906), p. 628. 26 See letter from William Worsley to Hudson, 29 October 1906, GB-Cth.

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The Hovingham ‘Experiment’ tragedy when his son, Francis (who had married into the Worsley family in 1912), was killed in action in Belgium on 19 October 1914. The war also placed pressure on the finances of CUMS which he and Stanford campaigned to alleviate, particularly among former members of the Society. One of Hudson’s last gestures was to take part in the vote to admit women to the university in 1920, needing to be wheeled to Senate House in a bath chair. Aged c.88, he died at Trumpington on 31 January 1921. A memorial brass in the ante-chapel of Trinity College chapel acknowledges his connection to the college but omits to note that this extraordinary amateur clergyman was responsible for one of the most unique enterprises in the history of musical festivals in Britain, and that through his magnetism as a personality, his undeniable musical abilities, his network of friends both amateur and professional, and his organizational skills he was able to bring music to the most unlikely of venues for a golden period of nineteen years. This in itself was a remarkable achievement. But more than this, Hudson’s all-round musicianship meant that Hovingham was a crucible not only for the improvement of taste (a didactic aspiration he himself freely admitted) but also a ref lection of his catholic outlook, his desire to support local talent and the promotion of new British music.

Select Bibliography Copley, Ian: The Music of Charles Wood. Thames Publishing: London, 1978; reprinted 1994. Griffiths, David: ‘Musical Place of the First Quality’: A History of Institutional Music-Making in York c. 1550–1989, York University PhD Thesis 1990. Stanford, Charles Villiers: Interludes, Records and Ref lections. John Murray: London, 1922. Venn, J. A.: Alumni Cantabrigiensis vol. 5. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1953.

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The Great War, Propaganda and Orientalist Musical Theater

The Great War, Propaganda and Orientalist Musical Theater: The Twin Histories of Katinka and Chu Chin Chow William A. Everett Works for the popular musical stage remain strongly connected to the times and places of their creation.1 They mirror political, social and culture attitudes of the day and function as both proactive and reactive in terms of how they address contemporary issues. These assertions are evident in two musicals that appeared during the Great War, the American musical comedy Katinka (1915, music by Rudolf Friml, book and lyrics by Otto Hauerbach) 2 and the British extravaganza Chu Chin Chow (1916, book by Oscar Asche, music by Frederic Norton). 3 The twinned themes of propaganda and Orientalism infuse both works and enhance their potencies as monikers of cultural attitudes during the Great War. At the time, many popular songs appeared in direct response to the conf lict, including ones that were meant to inf luence public opinion, in other words, to function as propaganda. American hits included the pacifist I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier (1915) from before the U.S. entered the conf lict, and George M. Cohan’s patriotic march Over There (1917), after it had. Other songs ref lected on the lives of soldiers, including Irving Berlin’s Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning from Berlin’s all-soldier show Yip, Yip, Yaphank (1918). In London, the alliterative musical hall hit Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers (1914), which Al Jolson popularized in America, and Ivor Novello’s Keep the Home Fires Burning (1914) championed the efforts of the civilian populace, the Home Front. Since the U.S. had not yet entered the conf lict when Katinka appeared, its fundamental comic plot about Americans settling international troubles without military intervention could be interpreted as propaganda for the U.S. to negotiate peace in Europe, following President Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy at the time. On the other hand, as an example of Home Front morale building, Chu Chin 1 2 3

For more on this assertion, which is now regarded as commonplace, see Bruce Kirle: Unfinished Show Business: Broadway Musicals as Works in Progress. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. Hauerbach later changed his surname to Harbach. For more on Katinka, see William Everett: Rudolf Friml. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008, pp. 23-25. For more on Chu Chin Chow, see William A. Everett: “Chu Chin Chow and Orientalist Musical Theatre in Britain during the First World War”, in: Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s-1940s: Portrayal of the East, ed. Martin Clayton and Bennett Zon. Aldershot, U.K. and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2007, pp. 277–296.

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William A. Everett Chow provided a spectacular allegory on the crucial roles of ordinary citizens in achieving victory over adversity in its retelling of an audience favorite, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Middle Eastern scenes, brimming with lavish costumes and exotic sets, had been mainstays of the musical stage for centuries. (Consider, for example, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail [The Abduction from the Seraglio, 1781] or Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila [1877].) They provided escapist entertainment, and their tropes of escapism and spectacle remained popular in the early twentieth century. Irving Berlin’s song In My Harem from 1913 is one example, and in terms of musical theatre, the Omar Khayyam sequence in The Passing Show of 1914 is another. Such allusions, which fall under the broader of Orientalism, infuse both musicals under consideration here. Following the tenets of Edward W. Said, whose Orientalism remains a central text in the field (though not uncontested), the Orient was a Western creation that was comparatively primitive in its development (according to Western standards).4 From a Western perspective, it was also a sexualized, feminine realm that existed in some sort of non-temporal stasis. Musical codes accentuate and problematize these Orientalist dimensions in both shows. For example, Allah’s Holiday from Katinka is exotic and benign, providing a startling contrast to real-world events in the Ottoman Empire, namely the tragic Gallipoli Campaign and the catastrophic Armenian Genocide. In Chu Chin Chow, the eponymous villain’s music is largely pentatonic, while that of the various heroic characters resides squarely within a familiar tonal realm. Fundamental moral differences are thus depicted through musical means.

Katinka Katinka was the third collaboration of composer Rudolf Friml (1879–1972), lyricist-librettist Otto Hauerbach (1973–1963) and producer Arthur Hammerstein (1872–1955). 5 The show, called “a musical play in three acts”, opened on 22 December 1915 at the 44th Street Theater, where it ran for a respectable 220-performance run. Set in the years just before the Great War, the story takes place in Yalta (Act 1), Old Stamboul (Act 2), and Vienna (Act 3). Katinka, whose name means “pure”, is forced to marry Boris Strogoff, the Russian ambassador to Austria, though she really loves Ivan, Boris’s attaché. Thaddeus Hopper, an American friend of Ivan’s, helps Katinka escape and secrets her to Constantinople for safekeeping. Ivan is already in the Ottoman capital with Boris’s servant Petrov. They are searching 4 5

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See Edward W. Said: Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1978. The triumvirate’s first two collaborations were The Firefly (1912) and High Jinks (1913).

The Great War, Propaganda and Orientalist Musical Theater

Figure 1: May Daudain as Katinka and Sam Ash as Ivan from the original Broadway production (Public domain)

for Olga, Boris’s first wife, who is rumoured to be living disguised as a slave in a Turkish harem in order to escape life with her boorish husband. If Olga can be found, Boris’s marriage to Katinka would have to be annulled on grounds of bigamy. Mrs. Helen Hopper arrives on the scene, much to the surprise of her husband, 617

William A. Everett who is protecting Katinka under his roof. Mr. Hopper has arranged for someone to come during the night and take Katinka to a harem until things can get sorted, but when that person arrives, he takes Mrs. Hopper by mistake. Suspecting her husband of harboring a mistress, she is all too happy to embark on an Orientalist adventure. Herr Knopf, who is opening a Turkish café in Vienna, comes to the harem looking for girls to employ at his establishment, and Mrs. Hopper is among those who leave with him. In Act 3, which takes place at Knopf ’s Turkoise-in-Vienna café, Olga appears and reveals her true identity as Boris’s first wife. The romantic entanglements quickly unravel and all ends happily for everyone except Boris, who is left alone in his misery. Katinka closed on Broadway on 1 July 1916, though it continued to appear on stages throughout the U.S. It opened in London on 30 August 1923, seven years after its Broadway run ended and nearly five years after the Armistice. The musical played at the Shaftesbury Theatre for a modest 108 performances, but with its engaging music and Orientalist élan, Katinka remained popular with amateur acting societies throughout Britain.

Chu Chin Chow No one predicted the enormous success of the Orientalist musical extravaganza Chu Chin Chow when it opened at His Majesty’s Theatre in London on 31 August 1916. By the time it closed on 22 July 1921, the show had amassed an astounding record-setting run of 2,235 performances. Billed as “A Musical Tale of the East told by Oscar Asche”, Chu Chin Chow was meant to provide distraction from the Great War, yet its popularity extended well beyond the Armistice. Even when London authorities closed theatres at night because of air raids, Chu Chin Chow still played to sold-out audiences in special morning and matinee performances.6 Chu Chin Chow was the creation of Australian-born Oscar Asche (1871–1936), who wrote, produced, and starred in the spectacle alongside his English-born wife, Lily Brayton (1876–1953). Asche’s and Brayton’s performances in Edward Knoblock’s Kismet (1911) had garnered the pair tremendous reputations as practitioners of theatrical Orientalism, and Asche, ever the impresario, capitalized on the success of Kismet to promote Chu Chin Chow. He hired Frederic Norton (1869–1946), a composer known for his children’s shows and ability to write light and wholly engaging music, to create the musical score. Norton also had experience with English panto, the effervescent retellings of fairy tales and other children’s stories with engaging music, slapstick comedy, stock character types, and plenty of audience participation that still remain popular around Christmastime in Britain. 6

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“The Record of ‘Chu Chin Chow’”. New York Times, 10 August 1919, sec. XX, p. 2.

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Figure 2: Oscar Asche as Chu Chin Chow (Public domain)

Asche based the story of Chu Chin Chow on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (a popular panto story), but with some added dimensions. To give a brief plot description: The Chinese merchant known as Chu Chin Chow (Asche’s role), who really is the thief Abu Hasan of Arabian Nights fame, has murdered the real Chu Chin Chow and assumed his identity. Abu Hasan/Chu Chin Chow arrives in Baghdad with plans to rob the wealthy Kasim Baba. Ali Baba is Kasim’s poor brother, and Alcolom is Kasim’s head wife. Nur Al-Huda Ali, son of Ali Baba, and Marjanah, a slave, are in love and need money to buy Marjanah’s freedom. Ali Baba discovers the cave where Abu Hasan keeps his treasure, the one that is opened with the magic words “open oh sesame”. The entire cast eventually finds their way to the treasure trove. While Abu Hasan’s thieves are hiding in barrels, Zahrat, Abu Hasan’s former slave and spy (played by Brayton), pours hot oil into the barrels and destroys the evildoers. Abu Hasan ends up killing Kasim Baba, after which Zahrat mortally stabs the murderer, thus defeating the source of the villainy. Marjanah secures her freedom, and all ends well. The show ref lected the idea of good defeating evil, and audiences could share in this vicarious victory. The show offered both an escapist fantasy for a war-weary public and a message that good would ultimately defeat evil, though it may come at a cost. Asche revised the show several times during its epic run, advertising the addition of new songs, scenes, dances, and costumes. The clever entrepreneur wanted audiences to return to the show again and again. Chu Chin Chow opened in New York on 22 October 1917 at the Manhattan Opera House and transferred to the Century Theatre on 14 January 1918. The extravagant sets and costumes delighted audiences and critics alike. London-born

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William A. Everett Tyrone Power, Sr. (1869–1931) played the title role, and Florence Reed (1883– 1967), an actress known for her method acting, monologues, and histrionics, appeared as Zahrat. The musical was filmed twice, first in 1925 as a silent film with Betty Blythe as Zahrat, and second in a sound version from 1934 with the legendary Anna May Wong as Zahrat and Austrian-born Fritz Kortner giving a malicious, nearly expressionistic quality to his role as the title character. British music hall comedian George Robey played Ali Baba, delighting audiences with his rendition of Anytime’s Kissing Time.

Music in Popular Styles: Songs of the Home Front Despite the exotic settings of Katinka and Chu Chin Chow, the majority of the music in both shows fits comfortably into early twentieth-century popular styles. Most songs are in verse-refrain form and exhibit a standard tonal harmonic palette, melodies that generally fall within the range of an octave, and occasional syncopations, metric anticipations, and dotted rhythms. Verse-refrain form was the standard for popular song of the day; its often speech-like verse established a basic context for the song, which was followed by the refrain, the big tune that everyone (hopefully) goes out singing. Much of the music for both productions was tied to the popular sheet music industry. Sheet music publishers were keen to have people buy copies of the music they enjoyed in the theatre, on the radio, and on recordings and play it in their homes. The style thus had to be such that amateur singers and pianists could enjoy reveling in its joys in the comfort of their own homes. This notion of creating what could be termed “popular standards” resulted in music that was immediately accessible to the theatre-going public. The music publisher G. Schirmer, for example, furthered the dissemination of Katinka’s appealing songs through sheet music sales. (See figure 3.) Notable songs from Katinka included the title song, whose f lowing melody and convivial lilt gave it tremendous public appeal. Others included Mrs. Hopper’s Your Photo and Katinka’s Rackety Koo, both of which appear in act 2 and whose reprises constitute the show’s finale. Mrs. Hopper sings Your Photo to remind herself how much she loves her husband when they are separated. Being a modern American woman, she sings in the slightly syncopated, jaunty style very much in vogue at the time. The refrain of Your Photo is filled with second beat emphases that enliven the song’s metric distinctiveness. Rackety Koo, which Katinka sings to prove her worth in Arif Bey’s harem, boasts a refrain in an unequivocal

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Figure 3: Sheet music cover for Allah’s Holiday from Katinka (Public domain)

ragtime style, most notable in the pronounced metric anticipation on the second word of the song’s title. (See example 1.) Importantly, Your Photo and Rackety Koo both appear during the “Old Stamboul” sequence. Friml does indeed provide some exotic-tinged music to evoke a sense of place (as will be discussed below), but equally important is the appearance of these two songs in a recognizable American popular style. They not only emerged as two of the show’s most memorable numbers but also accentuate the

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Example 1: Friml and Hauerbach, Rackety Koo from Katinka, refrain, bars 7–8

idea that American culture and ideas can find acclaim in foreign lands. When Mrs. Hopper joins a male quartet to deliver the perky I Want to Marry a Male Quartet in Act 3, she offers another example of a song in an American popular style with characteristic dotted rhythms and second-beat emphases. This straightforward approach to popular song was especially important in Britain, where it was part of morale building. Songs such as If You Were the Only Girl in the World and Keep the Home Fires Burning ref lected the sensible and sociable world that British troops were defending.7 Such examples of propaganda “from below” (originating with the citizenry and not the government) dominated the sounds of wartime Britain. 8 Such is the case with much of the music in Chu Chin Chow. Anytime’s Kissing Time, the biggest hit from Chu Chin Chow, quickly became popular precisely because of its immediately accessible and resolutely tonal style. Through its repeated two-measure pattern of three quavers ascending to a dotted crotchet followed by a drop of a perfect fourth and return to the long note, the refrain exuded a sense of gentle regularity and order that appealed to war-weary audiences whose lives were filled with anything but regularity and order. (See example 2.) Similarly, Marjanah’s expansive I Love Thee So, with its distinctive perfect fifth leaps in the refrain, emerged as another audience favorite. The male choral march sung by the forty thieves, Robbers of the Woods, likewise took on its own life outside the theatre. Its resolutely tonal domain, functional bass line, and unison choral melody make it sounds as if it could just as easily come from a play about Robin Hood as one about Ali Baba. This is a typical 7 8

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Jay Winter: “Popular Culture in Wartime Britain”, in: European Culture in the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda, 1914–1918, ed. Aviel Roshwald and Richard Stites. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 334–335. Ibidem, p. 330.

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Example 2: Norton and Asche, Anytime’s Kissing Time from Chu Chin Chow, refrain, bars 1–4

case in which exotic characters sing conventional, non-exotic music and thus blur the line for the audience between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Such familiar-sounding music brought the exoticism home, so to speak. Although the visual and plot dimensions suggested far-away locales, the music – the aural component – rooted the show in the popular musical styles that audiences enjoyed. Indeed, it was even rumoured that the band that accompanied the first detachment of victorious troops to enter Germany at the end of the Great War was playing Robbers of the Woods,9 thus transforming what began as a song sung by Ali Baba’s collaborators into a heroic British march.

Music with Orientalist Features Since Katinka and Chu Chin Chow both included settings outside of Western Europe, it should come as no surprise that musical numbers in both shows attempted to create atmosphere through musical style. These examples of musical Orientalism emerged as some of the most recognizable music from their respective scores. Authenticity was not a paramount concern; suggesting a world of an exotic and alluring Other was the driving force here. In Katinka, the opening of Act 2 establishes the otherness of Old Stamboul through a prevalence of open fifths, upward f lourishes in the orchestral complement and grace notes along with an emphasis on the minor mode. All of these features were common musical tropes to indicate exoticism in the years surrounding 1900. Olga’s Allah’s Holiday further establishes the atmosphere of Old Stamboul. In the song, Olga, disguised as Nashan, wants us to think that she has spent her entire life in a harem; she is not yet willing to reveal her true identity. The refrain displays many Orientalist musical tropes, including a predominantly pentatonic melody generated through repetition and characterized by ascending sweeping 9

Brian Singleton: Oscar Asche, Orientalism, and British Musical Comedy. Westport, Conn., and London: Praeger, 2004, p. 110.

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William A. Everett motifs, cascading parallel fourths in the accompaniment, and a relatively static harmony that includes an alternation between scale degrees 5 and 6. It is not just the music but also the lyrics that suggest this sense of Otherness. Hauerbach’s opening lyric, “Sounds of silver cymbal, tambourine and timbal”, makes specific references to three percussion instruments associated with Orientalist music. (See example 3.)

Example 3: Friml and Hauerbach, Allah’s Holiday from Katinka, refrain, bars 1–4

Allah’s Holiday became one of Katinka’s most famous songs. It was recorded numerous times, arranged for various solo instruments and ensembles, and enjoyed tremendous popularity outside its original theatrical context. Its distinctive Orientalist f lavor was emphasized by its placement in the show, soon after Helen Hopper’s Your Photo, a song in a decidedly American ragtime vein. The most overtly Orientalist music in Chu Chin Chow is that of its title character. A salient feature of Chu Chin Chow is that its two dramatic principals, Chu Chin Chow/Abu Hasan and Zahrat, are basically non-singing roles created expressly for Asche and Brayton. Asche gave himself only two solos, one in each act, and both are more atmospheric and exotic than they are lyrical. Brayton did not have any solo musical numbers; hers was exclusively a speaking role. Asche’s entrance number, I Am Chu Chin Chow of China, is intoned as a pentatonic melody (see example 4), while the opening of Act 2’s The Scimitar is intensely chromatic and its range encompasses only an enharmonic major third (written as a diminished fourth; see Example 5). Neither fits into the fundamentally tonal sound world that operates as the norm for not only this show but likewise for popular musical theater in general. Chu Chin Chow’s songs are aurally distinctive, and audiences at the time would have associated its discernable non-tonal melodic features with the idea of an Orientalist Other.

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Example 4: Norton and Asche, I Am Chu Chin Chow of China from Chu Chin Chow, bars 1–3

Example 5: Norton and Asche, The Scimitar from Chu Chin Chow, bars 1–3

Orientalism The non-diatonic dimensions of songs such as Allah’s Holiday and I Am Chu Chin Chow of China provide the visual and aural cues for the socio-political dimensions of Orientalism that saturate both shows. Following the tenets of Edward W. Said, the Orient in both musicals functions as a Western creation that was comparatively primitive in its development (according to Western standards). In the early twentieth century, according to Said’s observations, the British – and the Americans – saw themselves as having a moral responsibility to help those who were unable to help themselves.10 Furthermore, harems are prominent in both shows, endorsing the Orientalist trope of the Middle East as being a region associated with rampant female sexuality. This tenet was reinforced in Chu Chin Chow as the female costumes became increasingly scant during the show’s long run. 10 Said: Orientalism, pp. 214–215.

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William A. Everett Act 2 of Katinka takes place in “Old Stamboul”, according to the playbill – a carefully chosen descriptor for a picturesque area in Constantinople (now Istanbul). Although action takes place in the recent past, the moniker “Old Stamboul” creates distance between the play and its audience. It not only allows for the removal of all references to Turkey in 1915 and the real-world situation there but also furthers the Orientalist notion of non-European locales being old (that is, underdeveloped) when compared to their European – or American – counterparts. The depiction in Katinka is engagingly fanciful and echoes Robert Hichens’s view of Stamboul that appeared in the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine in 1913: Romance seems brooding over it, trailing lights and shadows to clothe it with f lame and with darkness. It holds you, it entices you. It sheds upon you a sense of mystery. What it has seen, Stamboul! What it has known!11 This is in direct contrast to the reality of the Ottoman Empire at the time. The Armenian Genocide, in which 1.5 million died under the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination plan, is conventionally said to have begun on 24 April 1915. The Gallipoli Campaign began on 19 February 1915 and resulted in tremendous loss of life for forces from the British Empire (especially Australians and New Zealanders) and France on one side and Ottomans on the other. The reality of the land of “Old Stamboul” in 1915 was much different and far more dangerous than the one imagined in Katinka. In some ways, Chu Chin Chow portrays its Baghdad setting as a mirror for the West, one where Western attitudes and behaviours can be safely challenged. For instance, Abu Hasan and his robber band, as well as Kasim Baba, can be viewed allegorically as greedy capitalists. They want to amass great wealth, and this obsession leads to their deaths. As Niall Ferguson suggests in his book Empire, part of the British Empire’s agenda at the time included the encouragement of monetary investment in developing economies for financial gain.12 Chu Chin Chow offers a warning concerning such endeavors – Chu Chin Chow’s unscrupulous fortune hunting leads to his ultimate demise; perhaps savvy British investors may want to take note. Baghdad also had a real-world purpose. During 1916 British forces in Mesopotamia under Major General Charles Townshend were pushing toward Baghdad, the capture of which, according to historian Keith Jeffery, would “help restore British prestige in the East”.13 The British succeeded in occupying Baghdad in March 1917, seven months into Chu Chin Chow’s run. Zahrat’s victory that ends the musical had a real-life corollary. 11 Robert Hichens: “Skirting the Balkan Peninsula: From Trieste to Constantinople. Fifth Paper: In Constantinople.” Century Illustrated Month Magazine 86 (1913), pp. 377–379. 12 Niall Ferguson: Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. London: Penguin, 2002, pp. 359–361. 13 Keith Jeffery: 1916: A Global History. London: Bloomsbury, 2015, p. 203.

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The Great War, Propaganda and Orientalist Musical Theater While Chu Chin Chow’s Orientalism implied that Britain could defeat any form of tyranny, it also continued many negative Chinese tropes. In Chu Chin Chow, Abu Hasan’s disguise as a Chinese merchant reinforced the wider cultural and musical theatrical image of Chinese characters as being untrustworthy and even treacherous, a depiction observed in several shows from the late nineteenth century, including Sidney Jones’s The Geisha (1896) and San Toy (1899). The image of an evil Chinese character was also being created in literature: Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu made his first appearance in the 1913 novel The Mysterious Dr. Fu-Manchu, only three years before Chu Chin Chow.

Katinka, Chu Chin Chow and International Politics Katinka ref lects President Woodrow Wilson’s policy of neutrality and his interest in negotiating peace in Europe. It is an American, after all, whose peaceful, non-military interventions resolve the plot’s international conf licts. Russians, Austrians, and Ottomans appear in the musical, all in relatively benign depictions, except for Boris, the Russian ambassador, who is the work’s villain. There is no evidence to suggest that Russia’s real-life ambassador to Vienna, Nikolai Schebeko, was a model for the musical’s antagonist, although Russia was fighting against both Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire at the time the musical appeared. If anything, the musical is more sympathetic to the Central Powers than to the Allies, for both Constantinople and Vienna are portrayed as places where Americans can travel safely and be welcomed. For Americans of German or Habsburg ancestry in 1915, the Great War posed tremendous challenges when it came to deciding which side to support. The power of a shared language and culture led many to lean toward the Central Powers, which included Germany and Austria-Hungary. Among those caught in these cultural-political crosshairs were the creators of Katinka, Otto Hauerbach, the lyricist-librettist with the unmistakable Teutonic name, and Rudolf Friml, the Prague-born composer who was a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (Friml became a U.S. citizen in 1923.) Considering these overt potentials for sympathies toward the Central Powers, it comes as no surprise that several aspects of Katinka celebrate Viennese culture, including Ivan and Katinka’s sweeping waltz duet, I Want All the World to Know. The expansive melody and occasional hemiola figures contribute to the opulence of this grand Viennese waltz, a musical symbol of the city. The second number in the entire show is the celebratory Vienna Girls, a lively galop that is reprised at the beginning of Act 3. The male chorus sings that no matter what kind of girl a man

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William A. Everett desires, he can find one in Vienna, for “In Vienna girls are brightest/ Their hearts are lightest/ Their eyes are ever fair.” Though certainly gendered in its outlook, the song is an ode to the glories of the Viennese character. In Act 3, Helen Hopper sings I Can Tell By the Way You Dance, Dear in order to explain to Herr Knopf that a couple can realize their compatibility by agreeing on how they dance. Here is an American woman talking to a Viennese proprietor. The refrain of the song is, tellingly, a waltz. An American is singing a Viennese waltz refrain and ending it with the words “I can tell by the way you dance, dear, that you were meant for me!” The context here is not romantic but rather political. A cooperative agreement between Mrs. Hopper and Herr Knopf to resolve the plot complications concerning various nationalities could be viewed as an allegory for the U.S. to work with Austria-Hungary in resolving the conf lict that was spreading across Europe and beyond. Furthermore, it is Thaddeus Hopper who instigates Katinka’s escape from an unwanted marriage (‘purity’ is being wrongly treated) and who is likewise depicted as someone who promotes justice and human rights. Hopper’s actions could allude to those of Henry Morgenthau (1856–1946), the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916. Not only did Morgenthau publicly condemn the Armenian genocides taking place at the time, events that are not mentioned in Katinka’s libretto, but he also arrived in the Ottoman capital without his wife. Turkish journalists suspected him of having a mistress, though this was not the case.14 In Katinka, Thaddeus’s wife suspects her husband of harboring a mistress, Katinka. But, just as in the case of Morgenthau, this assumption proved untrue. In Chu Chu Chow, Zahrat, the story’s heroine, defeats villainy almost single-handedly, and when viewed in the context of wartime Britain, according to Brian Singleton, the fact that Lily Brayton played the role licensed Zahrat to become English.15 This transference was possible because Brayton was native-born English, unlike her Australian-born husband, Oscar Asche. Zahrat, the ordinary person, destroys the evil in her midst. She embodies the principle that everyday people – including women – can make a difference. This was a very important assertion for the show’s Home Front audience. The conf luence of Lily Brayton the actress and Zahrat the harbinger of freedom was cemented at the performance of Chu Chin Chow that took place on the night of the Armistice, 11 November 1918. At the end of the evening, Asche, dressed as John Bull (a visual representation of England from the eighteenth century that appeared many times on WWI recruiting posters), led a parade of nations. The Allies entered first, followed by the nations of the Empire. Occupying 14 Peter Balakian: The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response. New York: Harper Collins, 2003, p. 223. 15 Singleton: Oscar Asche, p. 133.

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The Great War, Propaganda and Orientalist Musical Theater central position was Brayton dressed as Britannia, personifying the triumph of England over any enemy, real or imagined. The tableau remained in the show for nearly a year.16 When viewed in tandem, Katinka and Chu Chin Chow offer complementary yet distinctive views of propaganda and Orientalism during World War I. In Katinka, an American helps bring about resolution to an international conf lict, while in Chu Chin Chow, Zahrat is made English and defeats evil-doers through her valor. Because of these plot points, both shows can be viewed as propagandistic, since they are meant to inf luence public opinion. Orientalist features infuse both works in terms of physical setting, implicit cultural attitudes, and musical tropes, whether more benignly in Katinka or more colonial in Chu Chin Chow. The shows demonstrate not only two examples of how Orientalism appeared in book musicals of the early twentieth century but also how such discourse could be used to ref lect and shape public attitudes in the years surrounding World War I.

Select Bibliography Balakain, Peter: The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response. New York: Harper Collins, 2003. Everett, William: “Musical of the Month: ‘Katinka’”, New York Public Library Blog, 21 November 2011. https://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/11/21/ musical-month-katinka      : Rudolf Friml. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008.      : “Chu Chin Chow and Orientalist Musical Theatre in Britain during the First World War”, in Music and Orieintalism in the British Empire, 1780s-1940s: Portrayal of The East, ed. Martin Clayton and Bennett Zon. Aldershot, U.K., and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2007, pp. 277–296. Ferguson, Niall: Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. London: Penguin, 2002. Jeffery, Keith: 1916: A Global History. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. “The Record of ‘Chu Chin Chow’”, New York Times, 10 August 1919, sec. XX, p. 2. Said, Edward W.: Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1978. Singleton, Brian: Oscar Asche, Orientalism, and British Musical Comedy. Westport, Conn., and London: Praeger, 2004. Winter, Jay: “Popular Culture in Wartime Britain”, in European Culture in the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda, 1914–1918, ed. Aviel Roshwald and Richard Stites. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 330–348. 16 Ibidem, pp. 132–33.

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Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Progress of Music in England

“Flash Harry”: Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Progress of Music in England Richard Aldous Sometime in the spring of 2000, I spent the best part of an entire day with Harry White in a Dublin pub. The bar in question was Goggins of Monkstown, which was chosen not just as a good halfway point between where we both lived, but because in the days before the smoking ban came into effect in Ireland, such a venue meant that Harry could smoke his pipe at will. While we drank and ate, and Harry smoked, he had the full manuscript of my biography of the English conductor Malcolm Sargent before him, which he proceeded to go through page by page, offering suggestions and amplifications. Needless to say these all improved the book beyond measure when it was published by Random House the following year. The seriousness with which he had undertaken the task was typical of his immense generosity as a scholar and a colleague, even if his reward at the time was a longish walk home after I pointed out that it was better not to bring the car round given the circumstances of where we had spent the day.1 Harry told me how Sargent had been an important inf luence in his life growing up in Mullingar in the 1960s. BBC radio was easily picked up in Ireland, so he listened regularly to Third Programme broadcasts of Promenade Concerts from the Royal Albert Hall, where Sargent still reigned supreme with audiences. He vividly remembers as a nine-year-old hearing Sargent’s famous farewell at the 1967 Last Night of the Proms a month before the conductor died. In truth though, by the time Harry was born in the summer of 1958, Sargent’s reputation was already in decline in ways that would have a major impact on his legacy. The musical establishment in London, of which Sargent, despite his fame and success, was always curiously an outsider, thought him shallow and old-fashioned. He was “Flash Harry”– a vulgar popularizer who lacked the seriousness to be considered a musician of any great consequence. Malcolm Sargent, sniffed Michael Kennedy, a music critic at the Daily Telegraph and acolyte of John Barbirolli, was “bargainbasement”. 2 Certainly by 1958 the tide seemed to have turned against Sargent. Partly this reverse was the inevitable march of time. Composers with whom he had previously been associated either died or went out of fashion. Vaughan Williams, 1 2

This essay draws on my biography of Sargent: Richard Aldous: Tunes of Glory: The Life of Malcolm Sargent. London: Hutchinson, 2001. Michael Kennedy quoted in Gramophone 95, no. 1150 ( July 2017), p. 56.

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Richard Aldous whose works he had premiered since the the 1930s and whose ninth symphony he launched in April 1958, died that summer. Shostakovich’s eleventh symphony (‘The Year 1905’), whose London premiere Sargent conducted that same year, did not enjoy as much popularity outside the Soviet Union as earlier symphonies. Another favourite composer, William Walton, had long seemed in decline, arguably never having recovered the creative dynamism and originality of the 1920s and 1930s. And Sibelius, perhaps the living composer Sargent revered beyond all others (although he had not written a symphony since the 1920s), had died a year earlier. Sargent had been in Finland at the time, had seen the composer the previous day, and was conducting the fifth symphony around the moment of its creator’s death. Sibelius’s son put the live broadcast of the concert on the radio to raise his father’s spirits at the end, leading to the unfortunate newspaper headline, “Sibelius Dies After Hearing Sargent Conduct Fifth Symphony”. 3 Other moves against Sargent were generational. In 1959 the BBC appointed William Glock as controller of music to shake up the Proms. Although the younger man came to like Sargent personally, his view of him both as a musician and as chief conductor of the Proms was scathing. “I never went to a Prom in the whole of the 1950s, because they were so unattractive and there was nothing new”, he recalled dismissively. One of his first actions was to tell Sargent that he would be conducting fewer concerts; after three seasons with Glock in charge, audiences at the Proms dropped by ten per cent.4 Part of the problem for Sargent was that by the late 50s he had come to seem old fashioned to an extreme. With his starched wing-collared shirt, a white carnation habitually in the lapel of his immaculate tailcoat, and his clipped, inter-war elocution, he seemed the personification of the conductor as an English gentleman of another era. His social standing (social climbing some called it) with members of the Royal Family reinforced this image. While his fans applauded the sense of style and occasion that he brought to concerts, increasingly those like Glock who ran music in London rejected him as stuffy and out of date in an age of “Angry Young Men”. It was no coincidence that Colin Davis, whom Glock promoted in Sargent’s stead at the proms, ostentatiously junked a formal tailcoat in favour of a more modern and casual white dinner jacket. (“Gin and tonic, please waiter”, quipped the leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra when Davis wore it for the first time.) If Sargent seemed past it by 1958, this was to some degree because most had forgotten what a radical and transformational character he had been earlier in his career. Not the least of these transformations was personal. For all his grand manner, Sargent was in fact a quintessential working class boy made good. Born 3 Aldous: Tunes of Glory, p. 208. 4 Sir William Glock, interview by author, 15 April 1998.

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Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Progress of Music in England in 1895, he grew up in a grim workers cottage on the outskirts of Stamford, Lincolnshire, near factories and delivery yards. The house was in the shadow of the town’s twin gas towers where the pungent smell of coal gas always lingered in the air. “Wharf Road was not a nice place to live”, one contemporary sums up. 5 Sargent’s rise came through ability facilitated by scholarship awards. In 1907 he was awarded one of six ‘free’ places to Stamford Grammar School. When he left the school in 1910, aged fifteen, the Church of England took over. For more than a century, the organ loft had provided a structure for music-making and social advancement in England. Throughout the nineteenth century, cathedral organists including John Clarke, William Crotch, Samuel Sebastian Wesley and Frederick Ouseley had dominated performance and teaching. Organists were supreme at Oxford and Cambridge universities and the new conservatories of music in London and regional cities. When Ouseley became Professor of Music at Oxford in 1855, he established a system of degree examinations that drew explicitly on the keyboard skills of the organist. The best players directed prestigious societies such the Royal Choral, Bach Choir and Three Choirs Festival Chorus while church organists conducted local choral societies. Success in the organ loft could also bring prominence in society. To be appointed organist at the Chapel Royal or the royal peculiars, Westminster Abbey and St George’s Chapel, Windsor, ensured not just a life of “grace and favour” but also friendly acquaintance with royalty. The Church could educate a boy in its choir schools, offer employment in the great cathedrals and propel the most gifted or tenacious into the realm of the “great and the good”. The nineteenth century church provides one of the most potent examples of an enabling organization giving boys of natural ability from all backgrounds an opportunity to show their mettle. Turn-of-the century England offered greater social mobility than any country in Europe with an elite to which those clever or skilful enough to force their way in might reasonably aspire. For young Malcolm Sargent, living next to the gas works, the organ loft promised a means to achieving respectability and a tantalizing sight of eminence. In 1912 Sargent took the first step on this road when he secured a prestigious organ apprenticeship at Peterborough Cathedral. Two years later he was appointed organist at St Mary’s Church, Melton Mowbray, which meant he was able to earn his living from music. Two pieces of luck now came his way. First and most obviously, Sargent avoided the fate of many in his generation in the first world war. Although he enlisted in 1916, he only joined up with the Durham Light Infantry in 1918, thereby missing out on the horrific experiences that regiment endured on the western front. Sargent’s closest brush with death was surviving a bout of “Spanish f lu” during the pandemic that killed millions worldwide in 1918/19. 5

Marjorie Gesior, interview with author, 23 February 2001.

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Richard Aldous Sargent’s second piece of luck was being taken up by Sir Henry Wood, the most important English conductor of his day. “It is all very well to say conductors are born not made”, the composer Edward Elgar had complained in 1905, “but have we ever seriously attempted to make them?”6 Henry Wood agreed and made it a personal crusade to seek out potential wielders of the baton. He was mentor to Adrian Boult and encouraged John Barbirolli to make the transition from cello section to the podium. His discovery of Malcolm Sargent was just as inf luential. In February 1921, Wood took the famous Queen’s Hall Orchestra to Leicester to perform a charity concert. Sargent, as a local composer, was asked to write a new work, Impressions on a Windy Day, which he also conducted. Afterwards, Wood told him he would like to programme the piece in London. Sargent assumed Wood might now take over the baton, but Sir Henry was not interested in Sargent as composer. What he had seen was a promising conductor. “You shall conduct it”, Wood told the astonished younger man. When Sargent stepped onto the stage of the Queen’s Hall to make his London debut that October, he did not look like “Flash Harry”, but what he already had was stage-presence that combined dynamism and poise. Introducing Sargent to another protégé, Adrian Boult, and the composer Herbert Howells, Wood remarked cheerfully: “here’s a young man who may not be one of our next composers, but is certainly one of our next conductors!” 7 Over the course of almost half a century, Sargent more than fulfilled Wood’s faith, becoming without question the most famous conductor in England, and among the most recognizable English conductors in the world. But if Sargent reinvented himself from working class boy to international maestro, he also reinvented – revolutionized in fact – orchestral life in London. Throughout his career Sargent was a great popularizer for classical music, but crucially he did not see such an approach as a barrier to quality; in fact he used the first to improve the standard of the second. A good example of this dynamic was the Courtauld-Sargent concert series, which transformed interwar orchestral programming and standards in the capital. Samuel Courtauld was among the most significant artistic benefactors Britain has known, spending the vast sums he made from the mass production of nylon and rayon on French Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings, which he subsequently bequeathed to the nation. Courtauld’s wife Elizabeth had a passion 6 7

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Norman Lebrecht: The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power. London: Citadel, 1997, p. 155. Leicestershire Record Office: Leicester Philharmonic Society (DE 2969): Neil Crutchley: “Sargent’s early years in Leicestershire”, in: Leicestershire and Rutland Heritage (1989–90) pp. 28–30. Charles Reid: Malcolm Sargent. London: Hodder & Staughton, 1968, pp. 99–101, here 113. British Library, Music and Rare Books, Add. Ms. 56421, Wood Papers, vol.3: Sargent to Wood, 25 October 1943.

Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Progress of Music in England for music that he enthusiastically supported. In the early 1920s she saved the profligate Royal Opera House from extinction, but after tiring of its political squabbling, she resolved to start her own ‘concert club’ to bring music to ordinary people at affordable prices. Her inspiration came from her friend, the great Austrian pianist Artur Schnabel, who held advanced views about the social role of music. Together their elevated aim was to explain modern music to the ‘Common Listener’, whom they believed had been left bewildered by the effects of Modernism in music. Schnabel persuaded Elizabeth Courtauld that Sargent had the podium charisma and presence to get the job done. 8 Sargent’s programming was radical for the times. “Those who bought cheaply in order to enjoy Beethoven and Mozart had to accept, and probably learn to enjoy, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Walton and other contemporary composers when their turn came up”, he wrote early on.9 It was an expectation that was more than met: such was the demand for subscriptions that concerts had to be repeated to accommodate even a fraction of those who wanted to attend. In total, there would be a hundred and thirty-two Courtauld-Sargent concerts in London’s Queen’s Hall. Performances of Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart were coupled with new works. Sargent conducted the premiere of Delius’s complex Songs of Farewell for eight-part chorus, as well the first performances in England of Paul Hindemith’s Viola Concerto no. 2 and Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, both with the composers as soloists. In 1931, an English audience heard Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms for the first time, conducted by the composer himself. Continuing until the Blitz in 1940, they offered English audiences varied repertoire of the highest quality. Sargent conducted first performances of works by Bax, Delius, Jean Francaix, Eugene Goossens, Hindemith, Honegger, Kodaly, Martinu, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Vaughan Williams. He invited artists such as Vladimir Horowitz, Nathan Milstein and George Szell to make their first appearances in England. The world’s finest conductors – Fritz Busch, Erich Kleiber, Klemperer, Bruno Walter – and soloists – Edwin Fischer, Rachmaninov, Carl Flesch, Joseph Szigeti, Pablo Casals, Gregor Piatigorsky and Suggia – performed.10 Sargent’s revolution was not restricted to programming. Performance practice too was turned upside down, which said the New Statesman, “set a magnificent example to young English musicians”. A new standard of excellence was the result of the unprecedented quality of preparation that Sargent demanded. The London 8

AKZO NOBEL (UK) Ltd. (formerly Courtaulds PLC) Archives Department: “Notes on the Courtauld-Sargent Concerts” by Cicely Stanhope. César Saerchinger: Artur Schnabel: A Biography. London: Dodd, Meade & Co., 1957, p.187. Daily Telegraph, 23 October 1929. 9 AKZO NOBEL (UK) Ltd. (formerly Courtaulds PLC) Archives Department: “Notes on the Courtauld-Sargent Concerts” by Dorothy Middleton. 10 AKZO NOBEL (UK) Ltd. (formerly Courtaulds PLC) Archives Department: “Notes on the Courtauld-Sargent Concerts” by Cicely Stanhope.

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Richard Aldous Symphony Orchestra had been engaged under strict conditions. Each concert had three or four 3-hour rehearsals not the usual run-through on the day itself. Every player had to attend all rehearsals and the actual performance; this counter-acted the ‘deputy’ system whereby a player would attend rehearsals, collect a fee and then pay (less) to a colleague to play in the concert. When visiting conductors such as Otto Klemperer (who conducted the first performance in England of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony) or Bruno Walter (who gave only the second English performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde) arrived for their first rehearsals, they found an orchestra already prepared by Sargent. These radical working conditions were central to his pledge to give performances of a quality never before heard in London. As so often in Sargent’s career, his cosmopolitan radicalism also drew fire from the establishment he challenged. In the autumn of 1931 a manifesto, signed among others by Sir Hugh Allen – Director of the Royal College of Music, London and Professor of Music at Oxford – was published in the Musical Times that denounced overseas musicians and Courtauld and Sargent for promoting them. They castigated them for apparently believing “that only a foreigner can possess the true qualities of a musician; that a foreign composer must of necessity be superior to our own musicians”. The signatories demanded to know why “foreign artists of no repute and of mediocre attainments should be employed in this country when there are so many of our own musicians who lack employment?” Supporters of Courtauld-Sargent pointed out the obvious: English talent of the highest quality such as Malcolm Sargent had been encouraged and integrated with the world’s finest.11 Undeterred by the controversy, Sargent continued to push on with his radical programme. Despite promising not to use the ‘deputy’ system, the LSO had persisted in changing personnel during rehearsal periods, meaning that playing did not meet the exacting standards demanded by Sargent. Unable to find an established orchestra to meet those expectations, Sargent asked Elizabeth Courtauld in 1931 if they could form their own. The result was the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO). Sargent understood that English orchestral playing did not come close to reaching the quality of the best orchestras in America and Germany. His inspiration was Toscanini’s European tour with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1930. George Szell declared himself in “Toscanini shock” after seeing the Italian conduct in Berlin. Sargent was similarly mesmerized in London. After a performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations in the Queen’s Hall in June, he wrote of being left “in such a ferment that I walked by the Thames until three in the morning”.12 11 Musical Times, 1 December 1931. Daily Telegraph, 11 November 1931. 12 Joseph Horowitz: Understanding Toscanini, London: Faber & Faber, 1987, pp. 112–113. Reid: Malcolm Sargent, p. 107.

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Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Progress of Music in England The problem in England was not a lack of good musicians but a stable environment in which they could work. Orchestral musicians were paid for each rehearsal and concert but received nothing when a season ended. The formation of the salaried BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1930 had been a step in the right direction, but the uninspiring platform personality of their chief conductor, Adrian Boult, ensured that they failed to capture the public imagination. It was the Courtauld-Sargent Concerts, observed the Daily Express, which had accomplished “what the BBC with its strong educational inclinations might have done” and while these concerts were sold out, “the BBC Symphony Orchestra plays to row upon row of empty seats”.13 Sargent was determined that the new venture, drawing on the cream of English orchestral players, would become, in effect, London’s ‘super orchestra’. The Courtaulds gave Sargent a £30,000 start up fund (more than £1m in today’s money) to handpick players for a permanent orchestra and promised to meet any losses the orchestra might sustain each season. Sargent’s vision for the new orchestra was as the final piece in the jigsaw that would re-establish London as a great music capital. In addition to the Courtauld-Sargent Concerts, the new orchestra would be resident at Covent Garden, the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Royal Choral Society, as well as recording exclusively with HMV (where Sargent had secured the support of Louis Sterling). Once such an ensemble was founded, this portfolio of commitments would ensure playing of the highest calibre in all areas of London’s musical life. Over the course of the summer of 1932, Sargent put arrangements in place to form the orchestra. He presided over hundreds of auditions for the new orchestra, finally assembling 106 players for a cohort that blended youthful talent with proven experience and which comprised the finest collection of orchestral players in England. To share conducting duties, Sargent invited Sir Thomas Beecham, who had failed in his efforts to take over the LSO, to join him. The first season was divided equally between the two conductors, with both men taking the orchestra into the recording studios for HMV. Sargent’s professionalism ensured that the orchestra was on top form at its public debut. Thirteen rehearsals were called in the early autumn of 1932 with Sargent taking the majority. Beecham conducted the opening concert on 7 October 1932. It was immediately apparent that the quality of playing was superior to anything heard before from an English orchestra, yet the Queen’s Hall was only half full, which caused Beecham to rage that London was “a bloody disgrace”. Three days later, the same hall was sold out for Sargent’s first performance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra that opened the 1932–33 Courtauld-Sargent season.14 13 Saerchinger: Artur Schnabel, p. 206. 14 The origins story of the LPO is not without competing claims. Edmund Pirouet, the official historian of the LPO, wrote to me, “When in September 1939, the existing company was put into voluntary liquidation, and the members of the orchestra formed a new company, turning the

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Richard Aldous Sargent’s ferocious commitment to raising standards in British musical life was something repeated time and again throughout his conducting career. In the 1920s he had already revitalized Gilbert and Sullivan productions at the famous D’Oyly Carte Opera, which had fallen into the doldrums. In the 1940s he transformed the Liverpool Philharmonic into arguably Britain’s best orchestra and where, according to the BBC Music Department, Sargent and the orchestra performed more contemporary music than the combined output of all other British orchestras with the exception the BBC Symphony Orchestra.15 His exacting standards did not always win him friends among orchestral musicians, who christened him “Flash Harry” (his unused first name was Harold) and chafed under his meticulous, uncompromising preparation. Amateur singers on the other hand adored him, rising to the challenge of the demands he made upon them. The unprepossessing Huddersfield Choral Society became under his direction England’s finest choir, whose HMV recordings of works such as The Dream of Gerontius (made in 1945) remain the benchmark for other recordings to this day. For Toscanini in 1939, Sargent was simply the greatest choral conductor in the world. Sargent’s commitment to excellence goes a long way towards explaining why he was among the most successful British conductors of his generation, but it does not account for why he was also its most famous beyond the concert hall. To explain this success we need to look beyond the usual reach of classical to the national wartime experience to understand why Sargent became an iconic cultural figure in mid-twentieth century Britain and throughout the empire. Sargent had shown a determination to bring classical music to a wider, nontraditional audience throughout the 1920s and 1930s. That objective found its apotheosis in the experience of the second world war. On the outbreak of hostilities he returned from Australia, where he had been offered a safe berth for the duration of the conf lict, in order to commit his musical abilities to the war effort. He led the London Philharmonic in a “Blitz Tour” in cities around Britain, giving concerts that often took place during air raids and continued until the early hours when the all-clear sounded. Sargent and the orchestra risked their lives playing on London Philharmonic into a self-managed orchestra, their only inheritance was the orchestra’s name. Out archive for this period is sketchy in the extreme, consisting of no more than a very few pre-war concert programmes. […] In the absence of satisfactory evidence such as minutes, letters or other documentary evidence, it has been impossible to determine who bears the ultimate responsibility for the formation of the orchestra. There are many conflicting claims and attributions but a lack of hard evidence.” (Edmund Pirouet, letter to the author, 23 September 1998). See also Pirouet’s fine history of the LPO: Heard Melodies Are Sweet. Lewes: The Book Guild 1998. EMI Archives (Hayes), Sir Malcolm Sargent, Correspondence 1929–49: Harold Holt to Louis Sterling, 4 May 1932. A. Susan Williams: Ladies of Influence: women of the elite in interwar Britain. London: Penguin 2000, p. 18. Lord Boothby: Recollections of a Rebel. London,: Hutchinson, 1978, p. 189. 15 BBC Written Archives, RCONT1, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Chief Conductor File 1: Wilson to Howgill, undated (September, 1950).

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Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Progress of Music in England while incendiary devices exploded around them and firefighters clambered on the roof with water hoses trying to stop f lames from spreading to the theatre. “We played in one town that suffered terrific bombardment after our concert started”, he recalled. “There was no advance alarm. I announced that anyone who wanted to leave could do so but that we would remain and play something that Hitler could never kill, Beethoven’s Seventh [Symphony], and not a person left”. In November 1940 Sargent was conducting the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester on the night the Free Trade Hall was destroyed. The following year he conducted in the famous Queen’s Hall on the night London suffered its worst bombing raid of the war. Three hundred bombers pounded London with incendiaries and high explosives, killing 1436 people and injuring 1792. There were 2000 fires and 5000 houses were destroyed. Every mainline railway station was hit. Westminster Abbey suffered damage, as did the British Museum, the Law Courts, the Mint, the Mansion House and the Tower of London. The debating chamber of the House of Commons was gutted. Queen’s Hall, where Sargent had performed The Dream of Gerontius hours earlier, was completely destroyed.16 Sargent’s defiance in the face of bombing and destruction captured a popular mood. Box office takings broke records and often a third concert at lunchtime had to be scheduled to meet the demand for tickets. “How shall we explain the queue of more than a hundred people that renews itself all day long at the theatre box office?” asked one correspondent to the local newspaper. The answer was that Sargent’s LPO concerts had become an essential part of the Blitz Experience. Even an episode of the BBC’s popular wartime soap, Frontline Family, took place at a Blitz Tour concert. Sargent himself appeared in cameo, re-enacting a scene when the orchestra played on throughout heavy bombing.17 Sargent by 1941 was a well-known figure in Britain who for thousands during the Blitz tour had come to personify what classical music meant. Three days after the Queen’s Hall bombing the BBC invited him to join a panel discussion show that would see the conductor transformed from a minor celebrity to among the most famous men in the British Empire. Any Questions?, first broadcast in January 1941, aired throughout the UK and to the armed services across the world. Almost immediately it became the preeminent national forum for high-minded debate and witty, waspish banter. With a primetime slot on Sunday evenings, it attracted an audience of almost thirteen million, was heard by 30 % of the adult population, and received over four thousand 16 Lewes: A People’s War, p.105. Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth: Duet. London: Stanley Paul, 1951, p.138. NBC Trade News, 15 February 1945. Robert Elkin (foreword by Dr Malcolm Sargent): Queen’s Hall, 1893–1941. London, New York: Rider & Co., 1944, pp. 6 and 128. 17 BBC Written Archives, RCONT1, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Artists File 2, 1940–41: Frontline Family, episode 79, transmitted 31 July 1941. Alan Melville to Empire Programmes, 22 June 1941. Peter Lewes: A People’s War. London: Metheun, 1986, p. 189. Pirouet: Heard Melodies, p. 38.

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Richard Aldous letters a week. BBC Listener Research found that the audience was “easily the greatest for any regular spoken word programme, other than the News”.18 Sargent shone from the outset on Any Questions? He was not an intellectual, but endless hours spent travelling from concert to concert had afforded him plenty of time to read, particularly on politics, science and religion, and by nature he was quick on his feet. By 1942 he was a regular on the programme, appearing every fortnight. Listener research showed him to be one of the best-loved performers on Any Questions?, second only to the scientist Julian Huxley in popularity with listeners. The show propelled Malcolm Sargent into an entirely new realm of stardom.19 Sargent went on to dominate British musical life in the immediate postwar era. Even as his powers began to wane in the late 50s and the 60s, he remained the most recognizable conductor of the day, enjoying both fame and social cachet. But his life and career illustrate that the figure viewed as old fashioned and out of date today often turns out to have been yesterday’s radical. Although critics later portrayed Sargent as a gentleman-amateur, his ascent came as a fierce professional who, like his hero Toscanini, established new standards of excellence in performance and ruthlessly exploited the new mediums of broadcasting and recording to expand the outreach of classical music to new, non-traditional audiences. Seen from today’s perspective, in the world of Dudamel, Rattle, and Nézet-Séguin, Sargent looks the very model of a modern maestro.

Select Bibliography Malcolm Sargent Archive, MS Mus. 1784, British Library, London. Aldous, Richard: Tunes of Glory: The Life of Malcolm Sargent. London: Hutchinson, 2001. Boothby, Lord: Recollections of a Rebel. London: Hutchinson, 1978. Briggs, Asa: The War of the Words. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Crutchley, Neil: “Sargent’s early years in Leicestershire”, in: Leicestershire and Rutland Heritage (1989–90) pp. 28–30.

18 BBC Written Archives, RCONT1, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Artists File 2, 1940–41: Thomas to Sargent, 14 May 1941. Asa Briggs: The War of the Words. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pp. 318 and 560. Robert Hewison: Culture and Consensus: England, Art and Politics since 1940. London: Metheun, 1995, p. 25. Nick Tiratsoo: From Blitz to Blair: A New History of Britain since 1939. London: Phoenix, 1997, pp. 35–37. Curran et al (eds.), Impacts and Influences, 160. 19 BBC Written Archives, RCONT1, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Artists File 2, 1940–1: Thomas to Sargent, 28 August, 1941. Peter Sargent, interview with author, 31 August 2000. Howard Thomas: Britain’s Brains Trust. London: Springer US, 1944. Briggs, The War of the Words, p. 562.

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Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Progress of Music in England Elkin, Robert: Queen’s Hall, 1893-1941. London, New York: Rider & Co., 1944. Hewison, Robert: Culture and Consensus: England, Art and Politics since 1940. London: Metheun, 1995. Horowitz, Joseph: Understanding Toscanini, London: Faber & Faber, 1987. Lebrecht, Norman: The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power. London: Citadel, 1997. Lewes, Peter: A People’s War. London: Metheun, 1986. Mauceri, John: Maestros and Their Music: The Art and Alchemy of Conducting. New York: Knopf, 2017. Pirouet, Edmund: Heard Melodies Are Sweet. Lewes: The Book Guild 1998. Reid, Charles: Malcolm Sargent. London: Hodder & Staughton, 1968, pp. 99–101 Sachs, Harvey: Toscanini: Musician of Conscience. New York: Liveright, 2017. Saerchinger, César: Artur Schnabel: A Biography. London: Dodd, Meade & Co., 1957. Tiratsoo, Nick: From Blitz to Blair: A New History of Britain since 1939. London: Phoenix, 1997. Thomas, Howard: Britain’s Brains Trust. London: Springer US, 1944. Williams, A. Susan: Ladies of Inf luence: women of the elite in interwar Britain. London: Penguin 2000.

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L iber A micorum

PART SIX: MUSIC HISTORIES WORLDWIDE

Harry White, Stanislav Tuksar and Ivano Cavallini, Warsaw 2016

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot

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Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History

Worlds Apart: Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History Philip V. Bohlman

Avant propos “Is any aff liction like mine?”1 With this question in Chapter 9, Robinson Crusoe frames the issues of selfness and otherness that are central to his life as an English sailor castaway, at the time in his fourth year on an island apart from the European history he had known and from which he had f led. Resigned to his life on the desert island and thankful for the gift of providence, which he believes, after four years, has come to bless him, Crusoe ref lects on the conditions of that other world and that world of otherness he has left behind, in which he was unable “to hear anything that was good or tended towards it”. The mirror in which he views the providential differences between self and other was fragile, and it refracted in ways both familiar and foreign, not least when Friday enters the narrative of Crusoe’s world and undermines the very possibility of the island apart from history. 2 “Is any aff liction like mine?” The question itself belies any single answer, perhaps any answer whatsoever. How, where, and with whom do we experience the aff lictions of life? Alone or together, apart from the world or conjoined by the common hope that we might “hear anything that was good or tended towards it?” The common hope that provides the narrative of this chapter converged and then f lowed beyond a common moment of history. The common hope emerged clearly in the year 1516, five hundred years prior to the moment in which I now write. It was in 1516 that Thomas More published his book, Utopia, and the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s established a new settlement in the district of the iron foundry in Venice, the Ghetto. The common subject of both events was the opportunity to inhabit new worlds on the islands that gave their very names to the settlements that formed on them. The island of Utopia and the parcel of land known as ghèto in Venetian dialect, an island in the midst of islands, lay separated from the shores of Europe, and as worlds apart they drew themselves toward the shores of an uncharted modernity. In different ways, More’s 1516 Utopia and Venice’s 1516 Ghetto have become allegories for the modernity in which 1

Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. London: W. Taylor, 1719, p. 154. 2 Ibidem.

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Philip V. Bohlman selves and others confronted each other in ways that radically rerouted history in its many forms, not least among them music history. On the islands of history that travelers, missionaries, and conquering armies settled, the world sounded different as difference itself resounded. 1516 marked a moment of new beginnings that held new promise for the ways worlds apart could be drawn together. As this chapter sets out in search of these new beginnings, seeking ways to weave them into my own larger concern for the intellectual history of music globally, a concern that has particularly drawn me into conversation with Harry White over many years, I follow a journey that navigates among the many islands upon which the questions about selfness and otherness are posed. It is with music, echoed between self and other, that I chart the conditions of landfall on these “islands of history”, as Marshall Sahlins called them (Sahlins 1985). 3 These islands of history spread across a vast ocean, the sonic Polynesia and polyphony of modern music history. As music scholars, we traverse the islands of music history in our various ways, paradoxically as selves seeking to re-sound the others we encounter, variously in the utopias and ghettoes we inscribe upon the music histories of worlds apart. Historically, ethnographically, philosophically, and theologically, it is the paradox, rather than the paradise, of the islands of history that leads us on the journeys, real and in f lights of fancy, in search of sounding selves and others.

Sounding the Silence between Self and Other “O happy desert!” said I, “I shall never see thee more. O miserable creature! Whither am I going?” Then I reproached myself with my unthankful temper, and that I had repined at my solitary condition; and now what would I give to be on shore there again! Thus, we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by want of it. – Robinson Crusoe, Chapter 10 This chapter unfolds as a brief history of the islands of music history and of isolation as a condition for sounding self and other. When the themes of isolation occur, they do so in superabundance, they overf low, they f lood the very island from which they issue, they form the paradox and possibility of isolation in a world made modern. Themes of isolation form the historical sea upon which islands of music history appear. These themes form coevally with the birth of utopian thought, thus leading me here again to 1516 and the formation of early modern music historiography in the Age of Discovery. It is hardly surprising that islands of music history in the early sixteenth century bore witness to theological, 3

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Marshall Sahlins: Islands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History if not religious, bounds. Thomas More, after all, was himself a theologian, eventually canonized as a saint in 1935. The Venetian Ghetto, too, entered diasporic Jewish history as a community in exile, an early modern variant of the Babylonian captivity captured in scriptural songs replete with the metaphors of sacred music, as in Psalm 137, By the Waters of Babylon. The Judeo-Christian theological concept of being “out in the world” was itself one of paradox. In early modern Europe, decisively as Europeans pushed the boundaries of worldliness beyond the known limits of the known world, Thomas More (1478–1535), both a martyr and a saint, proposed the dimensions of a new lived-in world, located on the island of Utopia. Theologically, More was entering the boundary regions shared by European Christianity’s multiple worlds at the beginning of the sixteenth century, for he coined the word, utopia (οὐτόπος), to mean “no place,” whereas the island he called utopia resulted from a f light of literary fancy (More 1965 [1516]). Multiplying the meaning of utopia, however, is its similarity to the word, eutopia (εὖτόπος), which means “good place,” the most common understanding of the term. Utopia that is “real”, therefore, exists only at another time and place. In the centuries of European expansion that followed the charting of Utopia, countless groups of European travelers would strike out into the world to find the places upon which they could found the real utopia. In the course of subsequent centuries of European expansion, these places appear in a music history of encounter, of others shaping the awareness of selves. Music becomes the cipher of such music histories and the discourse networks that connected them. Missionary accounts were among the earliest forms of such networks, particularly the representations of singing others, for example, the Tupinamba melodies from the Bay of Rio de Janeiro published by the Calvinist missionary, Jean de Léry in 1578.4 European letters, too, often formed around the themes and networks of encounter. One of the very first modern novels, Robinson Crusoe, as was itself never an isolated narrative, rather it formed a link in a long tradition of writing – fictional and non-fictional, scientific and theological – that converged upon the island and then departed from it. The impact of Defoe’s novel was so sweeping across world literature that it gave its name to a genre in the eighteenth century, the “robinsonade”. Image and imagination moved across the narratives formed around islands of music history, and we can read eighteenth-century music history against Robinson 4

Jean de Léry: Histoire d’un voyage faict en la terre du Bresil. La Rochelle: Antoine Chuppin, 1578. For more extensive descriptions of missionary accounts and early music history, see Philip V. Bohlman: “Missionaries, Magical Muses, and Magnificent Menageries: Image and Imagination in the Early History of Ethnomusicology”, The World of Music 30/3 (1988), pp. 5–27, and idem, “Sound, Soteriology, Return, and Revival in the Global History of Christian Musics,” in: Suzel Ana Reily and Jonathan M. Dueck, eds.: The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 675–693.

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Philip V. Bohlman Crusoe, but so could we read the history of utopian settlement and its literature, colonial expansion and its polity, and ethnographic encounter and its musical sounding of alterity. By the eighteenth century encounter had produced a discourse and intellectual history in which the world was parsed between those like us and those who are not like us. Encounter came to play a critical role in the Enlightenment, providing, for example, a central narrative thread in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Essai sur l’origine des langues, in which moments of encounter appear with some frequency: As soon as one man was recognized by the other as a being similar to him with feelings and thoughts, the desire or need to communicate his own thoughts and feelings to the other made him seek out the means to do so. These means could only have come from the senses, the only instruments by which one man could stimulate the other. Thus were perceivable signs instituted to express thoughts. The inventors of language did not follow this reason; rather, instinct suggested its consequences to them. 5 Encounter between self and other itself became a source – a moment of origin – for generating musical knowledge, hence spreading through the world in counterpoint with the rise of new ontologies of music.6 We witness these, for example, in the German Enlightenment in the New Zealand accounts of Georg Forster as he accompanied Captain Cook in his journey around the world at the moment New Zealand entered the Enlightenment imagination. In Forster’s diary from early June 1773 as the Cook expedition anchors in Queen Charlotte Sound and brings Māori on board the Endeavour we read: Because a few of these people were in particularly good spirits, they took to the quarterdeck and began to dance what they called a heiva. To do so, they removed their filthy jackets and organized themselves in a row. One of them then intoned a song, and the dancers began alternately extending their arms and stomping powerfully on the deck, using their feet furiously. All the others imitated the leader’s movements and occasionally repeated the final words in the phrases of his song, in a way that we might describe as a refrain or canon. We were able to discern something of the metric organization of the song’s syllables, but were unable to understand whether there was any rhyme.7 5 6 7

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Essai sur l’origine des langues, ed. Catherine Kintzler. Malesherbes: GF Fammarion, 1993, 55, trans. Peter Mondelli in idem, “The Phonocentric Politics of the French Revolution”, Acta Musicologica 88/ 2 (2016), pp. 143–164. Vanessa Agnew has written extensively about the impact of encounter on Enlightenment musical thought; see especially Vanessa Agnew: Enlightenment Orpheus: The Power of Music in Other Worlds. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Georg Forster: Reise um die Welt. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1967 [1777], pp. 213–214; trans. Philip V. Bohlman from the journal entry of 2 June 1773.

Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History Difference is so great that Forster is unable to account for the otherness he encounters. Still, he seeks to find language – refrain, canon, rhyme – that will allow him to understand the Māori also as musical selves. The question this history of encounter raises – and which is central to my ref lections in this chapter – is why does the island of music history become the site for the superabundance of difference? Another question then follows: why does the journey to the place of isolation reveal the music of an other who is so uncannily like and unlike our selves?

Islands of Music History – Discovery and Discourse From the polysemous themes of discovery and discourse that historiographically connect self to other, four have particularly sweeping affordances as we navigate the islands of music history. In figure 1 I plot the four processes historically and geographically so that they expand across time and global cultures, and so that they contain some of the most important ways in which others are sounded on the islands of history. The themes and topoi that dynamically give shape to these discourses are chronotopes of paradox and contrast.

Figure 1: Islands of Music History – Four Discourses

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Philip V. Bohlman In Table 1, I expand the ways in which difference forms specific forms of contrast in these processes, locating two parts or forms in each of the four discourses. Utopia, for example, is contrasted with dystopia. I multiply the four historical discourses, then, by two, yielding a total of eight conditions of isolation that sound the history of isolation. Table 1: Eight Processes within the Four Historical Discourses Sacred sounding 1) Sounding others 2) The oracular Utopia 1) The island 2) Dystopia Journey 1) Sacred journey 2) Flight from modernity Ethnographic encounter 1) Sounding selves 2) Sounding others

The four discourses contrast the sacred and the secular in various ways, which I might summarize in the following ways. Sacred soundings: Taking concepts of music’s origins as my point of departure, I examine the isolation sought by many to experience the voice of God or the sound of the universe, harmonia mundi or the oum of Hinduism and Buddhism. It is in sacred soundings, moreover, that we witness the call for sacrifice in the Judeo-Christian tradition, often accomplished through revelation of the sacred voice. In the passages that follow I turn to the sound of the universe in Indian musical thought, especially in the Nātyaśāstra. 8 ˙ Revelation and the oracular are critical for sacred soundings, for example in the sounding of the Qur’ān on the Prophet Muhammad’s body. ˙ Utopia: The island becomes a site for remaking human society – combining the cities of the spirit and the f lesh as they are formulated in Saint Augustine’s Civitas Dei. When considering utopia, it is also necessary to understand the contrast with dystopia, which leads me to the early modern utopias of Thomas More and J. G. Schnabel, as well as Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen’s Sim8 Bharata-Muni: The Nātyaśāstra, 2 vols., trans. Manomohan Ghosh. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, ˙ 1961. (Bibliotheca Indica, 272)

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Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History plicius Simplicissimus, literary works in which the struggles of the real world are resolved in fictional world’s apart.9 Journey: Journeys, both sacred and worldly, afford the possibility of starting life anew. The castaway in the robinsonade not only escapes from society to live in isolation, but remains in constant motion, one journey followed by another. Pilgrimage offers a particularly vivid case of sacred journey, as do the travels of the Buddha, or Christ in the Wilderness, or the ethnomusicologist traveling to the field. Ethnographic encounter: With the fourth discourse we travel ourselves to enlightened thought and the formations of modern science. The island offers the possibility of experiencing origins anew, music rendered authentic in its isolation. We see this already in the journey that took Johann Gottfried Herder on the sea journey that led eventually to what he would call Volkslied, folk song.10 The journeys of the natural scientists, Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin, enhance the reach of ethnography to the places in which the past is isolated. On the ethnographer’s or the ethnomusicologist’s island, beginnings are sounded again, the pasts of sounding others joined to those of sounding selves. Together, the larger set of discourses that I consider in this chapter form a history of searching for mediated revelation in isolation, in the first instance as a search for the self. This search inevitably leads to an encounter with a mediated otherness, which, however, transforms the self.

Eight Islands of Music History Sounding Selves and Others Journey – historical, ethnographic, discursive – is crucial if one is to reach the islands of music history in order to witness the sounding of selves and others. In the section that follows here I embark upon eight such journeys in order to chart a more expansive historiography of modern music history. Each journey may seem to draw us toward isolation, but together these eight journeys, and the multitude of others that music scholars have undertaken, form the dense global network of modernity.

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Thomas More: Utopia. Self-published, 1516; J. G. Schnabel: Wunderliche Fata einiger See-Fahrer, absonderlich Alberti Julii (= Insel Felsenburg), 4 vols. Nordhausen: Johann Heinrich Groß, 1731–1743; Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen: Der abenteuerliche Simplicius Simplicissimus. Das ist: ausführliche unerdichtete und sehr merkwürdige Lebensbeschreibung eines einfältigen, wunderlichen und seltsamen menschen, Melchior Sternfels von Fuchsheim. Monpelgart: Johann Fillion, 1669. 10 Johann Gottfried Herder: Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1997; orig. manuscript from 1769 unpublished.

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Philip V. Bohlman 1) Sacred Soundings 1 – Hearing Sacred Voice in Isolation In the Hebrew Bible it was Elijah, the prophet who wrestled with the angel of God, living in isolation, who heard the still small voice of God:

1 Kings 19: 11–13 King James Version (KJV) 11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: 12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? 2) Sacred Soundings 2 – The Oracular and the Embodied Voice John Cage, of course, turned inward to the body for the experience of sound – voice and music – emerging from silence. Isolation, embodied and situated in sonic space, becomes the chronotope of one of Cage’s most famous passages about music and silence: For certain engineering purposes, it is desirable to have as silent a situation as possible. Such a room is called an anechoic chamber, its six walls made of special material, a room without echoes. I entered one at Harvard University several years ago and heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation. Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.11 3) Utopia 1 – The Island In his 1516 Utopia Thomas More charted a fictional world, to which those seeking an ideal world must travel and within which they would create an egalitarian society.12 More projected a fundamentally Christian vision on utopia, not by chance in the immediate wake of the first voyages of discovery to the Americas and Asia. Utopia was the product of human hands, which together transformed nature to ref lect God’s image. There were many reasons for journeying to the utopian is11 John Cage: Silence: Letters and Writings. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, p. 8. 12 More: Utopia.

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Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History

Figure 2: The Island of Utopia – Frontispiece to Thomas More (1516)

Figure 3: J. G. Schnabel, Insel Felsenburg (1731), map of the island

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Philip V. Bohlman land, but it was almost always the case that utopian islands offered the alternative of escaping from an earthly world in decay or at a moment of self-destruction. The f light from self-destruction provides the narrative for Hans Jakob von Grimmelshausen’s 1669 novel, Der abenteuerliche Simplicius Simplicissimus, claimed by some literary scholars as the first novel in the German language.13 Even as the settlement of other worlds expands during the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the island will achieve even greater potential as the other world that can sound utopia. We witness such transformation of the island in the best-known German-language utopian novel of the early eighteenth century, J. G. Schnabel’s 1731 Insel Felsenburg [The Island of Felsenburg]. Sacred music in particular would sound the other world of Felsenburg, as the utopian community brings with them 200 German Bibles and 100 English Bibles, but 400 songbooks.14 4) Utopia 2 – Utopia/Dystopia The history of dystopia parallels that of utopia. Indeed, they are inseparable one from the other, heterophonically related, rather than polyphonically. Dystopia enters the music history of isolation at many points. It is always present in the Jewish diasporic journey in search of the “New Jerusalem,” the reminder of the destruction of the Old Jerusalem in the form of pogrom and holocaust. On the discursive journey upon which I have embarked in this chapter, however, I draw attention to the passage on dystopia that marks the very conclusion of Johann Gottfried Herder’s Enlightenment project on folk song, for it is in his remarks on Madagascar that he closes the 1807 posthumous edition of his monumental Volks­lieder by turning to an island:

“On the Songs of Madagascar” Have no pity for the white people, you who live along the coasts! The white people landed on our island in the time of our fathers. One said to them: here is the land your wives want to build; be just, be good, and be our brothers. The white people made their promise and then turned nonetheless with their tails in the air. A threatening fortress appeared; the thunder was trapped in perpetual abyss; their priests wanted to give us a god we did not know; they spoke incessantly about obedience and servitude. Death would be preferable! … The massacre was long and dreadful; but despite the thunder they unleashed to crush entire armies, they were not all destroyed. Have no pity for the white people.15 13 Grimmelshausen: Simplicius Simplicissimus. 14 Schnabel: Wunderliche Fata. 15 Translated in Johann Gottfried Herder and Philip V. Bohlman: Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017, p. 101.

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Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History The island of Madagascar is criss-crossed by an infinite number of tiny regions, each one with its own prince. These princes incessantly raise arms against each other, with the only real goal of their wars being that of taking prisoners, whom they will then sell to the Europeans. Without us, therefore, these people would live peacefully and happily.16 5) Journey 1 – Sacred Journey Journey assumes a remarkable number of forms underway to the islands of music history, even more to the originary moment at which music comes into being at a site of isolation. We might follow the journeys of the pilgrims of many faiths. We might turn to the musical narratives from the life journeys of religious figures – the Buddha, Paul on the Road to Damascus, the Prophet Muhammad. Instead, let us follow ˙ a Brahmanic hermit as he journeyed to the point at which nature gave way to music. The journey of this monk, an ascetic, appears in the Nātyaśāstra. The Nātyaśāstra is a ˙ ˙ vast work on the performing arts – dance, drama, and music – which both situates the arts against the sacred narratives of their mythical ontologies and examines the materiality of their physical ontologies by drawing upon the exact observations of the “sages”, many of whom live entirely in isolation. In the six chapters explicitly devoted to music, for example, we clearly see a substantive music theory (chapters 31 and 32) and an elaborate model for organology (chapters 28 to 30, and 33). When read carefully, the Nātyaśāstra documents the ways in which music’s materiality forms in isola˙ tion, indeed, through the journeys to the sites of sounded otherness. Such materiality is clearly evident in the account of the “Origin of Drums” in the thirty-third chapter: 4 Now following Svāti I shall speak briefly about the origin and development of musical instruments called Puskaras (drums). 5 During an intermission of studies in the rainy season, Svāti once went to a lake for fetching water. 6 He having gone to the lake, Pākasāasana (Indra) by [sending] great torrential rains commenced to make the world one [vast] ocean. 7 Then in this lake, torrents of water falling with the force of wind made clear sounds on the leaves of lotus. 8 Now the sage hearing suddenly this sound due to torrents of rain, considered it to be a wonder and observed it carefully. 9 After observing the high, medium and low sounds produced on the lotusleaves as deep, sweet and pleasing, he went back to his hermitage … 10 Then he who was a master of reasoning of the positive and negative kind, covered these and Mrdanga, Dardura and Panava with hide, and bound them with strings.17 16 Ibidem, p.99 17 Bharata-Muni: The Nātyaśāstra, vol. 2, pp. 161–162. ˙

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Philip V. Bohlman 6) Journey 2 – The Flight from Modernity

Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler Das Solidaritätslied / The Solidarity Song 2. Black and white and brown and yellow, End the rule of force and violence! For when you together raise your voices, All people shall be one. Forward and never forget! Our strength must be firm. In famine and in plenty: Whose tomorrow is tomorrow, Whose world is the world?18 Wem gehört die Welt? – Who owns the world? – ask the settlers returning to Berlin from the shores of the utopian community of Kuhle Wampe. In the 1931 movie of the same name, directed by Slatan Dudow, with a script by Bertolt Brecht and musical score by Hanns Eisler, the question served as a clarion call for the modern response to dystopia, which took the form of journey from modernity itself. The question in the famous Solidarity Song, is insistent, as is the song with which those journeying back to modernity answer it. “The world belongs to those to whom it does not belong”, exclaims one fellow-traveller as the film reaches the end of its journey. For the socialists Brecht and Eisler, and for those who have heeded their call, the travelers reached that world as one, not alone or as an individual self, but as the one who joins with others, even as the shores of modernity at once drew near and retreated. 7) Ethnographic Encounter 1 – Sounding Selves I offer a single example here, critical to the Enlightenment turn toward a modern history of music, in which Johann Gottfried Herder becomes the “Enlightenment 18

Brecht and Eisler: “Das Solidaritätslied.” 2. Schwarzer, Weisser, Brauner, Gelber! Endet ihre Schlächterein! Reden erst die Völker selber, Werden sie schnell einig sein.



Vorwärts und nie vergessen Und die Frage konkret stellt Beim Hungern und beim Essen, Wessen Morgen ist der Morgen Wessen Welt ist die Welt?

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Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History Orpheus”, to borrow the title from Vanessa Agnew’s marvelous book on music and ethnographic encounter.19 This passage will not be particularly well known to even those who read Herder, for it comes from his Journal meiner Reise im Jahre 1769, which was not published until some four decades after his death. It was on this sea journey that he likened himself to one castaway upon the sea, the Baltic and North seas. Within only three years after landfall – in France before Germany – he had transformed the experiences that sounded for him a multitude of worlds apart into the volumes of music he called, for the first time, Volkslieder, “folk songs”, thereby laying the foundations for the modern history of vernacular music. Oh, soul, what will happen to you when you depart from this world? The narrow, bounded center has disappeared as you f litter through the air or swim upon the sea. The world disappears from you; it disappears from under you! What an amazing way of thinking!20 8) Ethnographic Encounter 2 – Sounding Others I might close this historiographical journey with any number of ethnographic studies of encounter on the islands of music history. Of particular interest at this moment in my work on the intellectual history of Jewish music research is Robert Lachmann’s 1940 posthumous study, Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Island of Djerba, which provides critical ethnographic evidence in the early twentieth century that Jewish music had not survived isolated from the world, but became part of the many worlds of the millennia of diaspora. 21 I close instead with a brief comment on French government-sponsored Daka-Djibouti expedition from 1931–1933, in which sounding others played the crucial role. André Schaeffner (1895–1980) was one of the music scholars accompanying the expedition, and it was part of his experimental plan to bring recordings of jazz with him to play them for Africans in the most remote and isolated villages. He was convinced that, with this experimental method, his African listeners would recognize recorded jazz as their own, calling attention to those elements that were truly sounds of selfness. Schaeffner recounted, much to his continuing amazement, that there was no recognition of jazz’s Africanness in Africa, for by and large his listeners turned away, finding Schaeffner’s discs terribly unpleasant. 22 The jazz Schaeffner brought with him on his ethnographic journey, meant to contain selfness, sounded an inescapable otherness.

19 Agnew: Enlightenment Orpheus. 20 Herder: Journal, p. 12; translated in Herder and Bohlman: Song Loves the Masses, p. 261. 21 Robert Lachmann: Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba. Jerusalem: Archives of Oriental Music, the Hebrew University, 1940. 22 The most detailed account of the expedition is Michel Leiris: L’Afrique fantôme. Paris: Gallimard, 1934.

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Oh! Had We Some Bright Little Isle of Our Own – Disembarking in Irish Music History Oh! Had we some bright little isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone, Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers, And the bee banquets on through a whole year of f lowers … – Thomas Moore, from Irish Melodies, vol. 5 The many journeys that would form the navigation network connecting the islands of music history necessarily pass through Ireland. As an island, Ireland has consistently generated the full range of discourses and journeys that I have charted during the course of this chapter. Utopia and dystopia unleash the counterpoint that channels Irish folk and popular song; diaspora insistently shapes the music borne on the journey from one homeland to another; colonial encounter has long ago been transformed to global encounter; the sounds of selves and others are more often indistinguishable from each other than not. If Ireland is the locus classicus in an intellectual history of musical islands, it far too often falls victim to a process of isolating reductio ad absurdum. Ireland’s precarious position of insularity, nonetheless, has persistently captured the imagination of great chroniclers, and it is not by chance that music resonates in the accounts of those chroniclers. Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies chronicle a vast ocean filled with islands of music history, many utopian, many more dystopian. Francis O’Neill’s volumes of Irish music, gathered from diaspora musicians in Chicago and published there and in Dublin, are gathered again in the anti-modern modernity of Irish traditional music. As Herder, Haydn, and Beethoven looked to the margins of European history for song capable of fueling the Romanticism and nationalism of the nineteenth century, they turned, too, to the far shores of Ireland. Such accounts have never transpired only in the past, but have drawn the bards of Irish music to the expansive histories of Irish music that f low through the present. How great is our debt to the chroniclers in our midst, not least among them Harry White. As we return in this chapter to the shores of Ireland as an island of music history, we also encounter the very paradox that accompanies searching for music in isolation. Ireland’s music history, formed from and about an island, has been remarkable for the ways it has never been isolated. Irish music has never been music of a world apart. At the most intimate moments of its selfness, it has always sounded the otherness all about it. Its inf luences resonate like those of the images of utopia and dystopia that have grown around the More’s island of Utopia or the refuge of the Venice Ghetto. The music history of Ireland resonates far be-

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Resounding Selves and Others on Islands of Music History yond any island, and its conf luence with global history has been all the richer for sounding selves and others worldwide.

Bibliography Agnew, Vanessa: Enlightenment Orpheus: The Power of Music in Other Worlds. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Bharata-Muni: The Nātyaśāstra. vol. 2. trans. Manomohan Ghosh. Calcutta: The ˙ Asiatic Society, 1961. (Bibliotheca Indica, 272). Cage, John: Silence: Letters and Writings. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. Defoe, Daniel: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. London: W. Taylor, 1719. Forster, Georg: Reise um die Welt. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1967 [1777]. Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoph von: Der abenteuerliche Simplicius Simplicissimus. Das ist: ausführliche unerdichtete und sehr merkwürdige Lebensbeschreibung eines einfältigen, wunderlichen und seltsamen menschen, Melchior Sternfels von Fuchsheim. Monpelgart: Johann Fillion, 1669. Herder, Johann Gottfried: Volkslieder. 2 vols. Leipzig: Weygandsche Buchhandlung, 1778/79.      : Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769. Ed. by Katharina Mommsen. Stuttgart: Reclam 1976 [1769].      : and Philip V. Bohlman: Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017. Lachmann, Robert: Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba. Jerusalem: Archives of Oriental Music, the Hebrew University, 1940. Leiris, Michel: L’Afrique fantôme. Paris: Gallimard, 1934. More, Thomas: Utopia. Self-published, 1516.      : Utopia. Trans. by Paul Turner. London: Penguin, 1963. Sahlins, Marshall: Islands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Schnabel, J. G: Wunderliche Fata einiger See-Fahrer, absonderlich Alberti Julii (= Insel Felsenburg). 4 vols. Nordhausen: Johann Heinrich Groß 1931 [1731–1743].

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Harry White and Ivano Cavallini, Warsaw May 2016

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The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624

A Counter-Reformation Reaction to the Slovenian and Croatian Protestantism: The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624 Ivano Cavallini Considering the long-lasting cultural connections between Slovenia, Croatia and Italy, in particular via the Adriatic sea during the Venetian administration of Istria and Dalmatia, the categories of subordination, adaptation and autonomy, routinely employed by twentieth-century music historiography, present a set of issues still to be adequately addressed. Until the cold war, these categories were often defined by a fluid and fluctuating national point of view, and for this reason it seems to me more adequate to the present topic to tackle the relationship between the two coastal areas within the alternative framework of the categories of cosmopolitan and domestic music, and in the context of their social, religious and aesthetic functions. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, professional music was imported from Italy or composed in loco either by Italian, or Slovenian and Croatian composers, who were employed as chapel masters in the towns of the Eastern littoral and Inner Austria. Even though it is almost impossible to quote examples of either the complete subordination or the complete autonomy of composers, the aforementioned categories are always lying in wait as long as they are not viewed in the context of the wider net of experience. Sometimes, supranational models are the basis for the unpredictable development of original scores which show less reliance on primary sources. This stickier web enables musicology either to recognize the meeting point of different patterns, or the overlap of diverse strata of two or more combined traditions. In this regard, some examples demonstrate not only a dissemination of cosmopolitan art music from Italy to Slovenia and Croatia, but also a process of recreation on the basis of the language and mentality of the audience. Frequently the shape of works can be similar, yet it is equally evident that different musical meanings are the effect of social habits. From this viewpoint any classification becomes ephemeral when dealing with widely disseminated music that should be considered only in term of its functions. Considering the case of the Slovenian Protestants, whose music involved either simple hymns in their national language or refined polyphony written by German, Flemish and Italian composers, is the first step on the way to constructing the cultural identity of a people. On the one hand, the role played by the Croatian reformers in Istria, who translated the Slovenian sacred books into different 661

Ivano Cavallini Slavic languages and alphabets, provoked a clash with the Roman Church. On the other hand, after the collapse of Lutheranism it achieved a secondary effect of great importance, which was the right to officiate the Catholic liturgy according to the Croatian version of the Old Church Slavonic language written in Glagolitic or Latin script, with the wider intention of protecting the borders from the penetration of Protestant, Orthodox and Islamic faiths. In fact, from the parishes of mid-Dalmatia to Istria, Glagolitic plainchant survived as an oral tradition, while some fragments of liturgical drama with music, known as prikazanje, have been recovered. This is the case of Prikazanje od muke Spasitelja našega (The Passion of Our Redeemer, 1556) from the North Adriatic area (which may have been written in the Franciscan monastery of Novi Vinodolski). The music of this mystery play ref lects both the inf luences of Gregorian chant and local tradition, and, most importantly, there is no doubt that the verses were set to singing or acting.1 Therefore, this kind of plainchant still survives in form of popular diaphony in some places of the Kvarner gulf, like the island of Krk. 2 Two issues need to be raised about such a topic. Firstly, although the success of the Counter-Reformation prevented the spread of musical culture launched by Protestantism in sixteenth-century Slovenia, the new religious movement at least gave it a characteristic imprint. Secondly, the struggle for the new religion in the southern part of the Hapsburg territories differed in one essential aspect from the similar struggle, which took place in a large part of Germany – a phenomenon which also involved musical culture. The Hapsburgs remained faithful to Roman Catholicism, whereas the nobility, as a follower of the new faith and thus in opposition to the sovereign, was neither willing nor able to relinquish the support of the Protestant movement in Germany. However, in spite of these unstimulating conditions, musical culture still received some impulse. As shown by Andrej Rijavec in his pioneering book on the music of Protestants in Slovenia, on the one hand “the Catholic Church of Ljubljana could neither keep up its own professional instrumentalists nor rely on the town musicians. On the other hand, these were employed by the town government, which had a Protestant majority and so performed at Protestant services in the church of the town hospital”. 3 1

2 3

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It is my pleasure to acknowledge Dr. Shane McMahon’s comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this essay. Vinko Žganec: “Pjevanje u hrvatskoj glagoljaškoj liturgiji” [Plainchant in Croatian Glagolitic Liturgy], in: Sveta Cecilija 40 (1970), pp. 16–19, Salvatore Perillo: Le sacre rappresentazioni croate. Bari: Quaderni degli Annali della Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere dell’Università degli Studi di Bari, 1975. Ennio Stipčević: Renaissance Music and Culture in Croatia. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015, pp. 105–108, Jerko Bezić: “Approaches to the People’s Musical Life in Dalmatia (Croatia) in the Past and Present”, in: Narodna Umjetnosti 33 (1996), pp. 75–88. Andrej Rijavec: Glasbeno delo na Slovenskem v obdobju protestantizma [Music in Slovenia in the Protestant Era]. Ljubljana: Slovenska Matica, 1967, pp. 215–227, here p. 217.

The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624 As attested by the visitations of the Patriarchate of Aquileia in 1581 and 1593, Protestantism had spread not only among the nobility and the burghers, but also among the peasantry. The best proof of this trend is the first Slovene Catechismus (1550), published by Primož Trubar (1508–1585), the founder of the Slovenian Reformation. The notable gap in the musical life of the Protestants was filled once more by Trubar with Eni psalmi. This hymn-book of 1567, containing thirtyfive songs, was so popular that it was republished several times between 1574 and 1595.4 The utilitarian bias in the regions without political support, like Venetian and Hapsburg Istria, was the first but unique step of the musical culture of local Protestants. They were never able to rise to the level of the musical achievement of those countries where the movement was born and f lourished. This was also a result of the efforts of the Roman Church to protect Croats and Italians from the ideological advances of the Slovenian Protestants. Nevertheless, in the midsixteenth century the activity of Protestants coming from Germany to Istria was noteworthy. According to the Peace of Augsburg, signed on 25 September 1555, the Imperial Diet legalized the co-existence of Catholicism and Lutheranism, which allowed the princes to select their state religion. The religion chosen by the prince was made obligatory for his subjects, and those who adhered to the other church would have to sell their property and migrate to a territory where their denomination was recognized. Only the free imperial cities, which had lost their religious homogeneity a few years earlier, were exceptions to the rule known as cuius regio eius religio. In these centres Lutherans and Catholics were free to exercise their own faith as they wished. One year later, in 1556, the Ausschuslandtag of Vienna granted relative freedom to the Lutheran nobility of Austria, where the Roman Inquisition did not have jurisdiction. 5 Some details on this phenomenon in Istria are necessary. The peninsula was administrated both by Venice, which was under the religious jurisdiction of the Roman Church, and by the Hapsburg archdukes, who, in contrast, admitted Protestants. However, the boundaries of the dioceses did not coincide with the state borders and the ambiguous policy of Austria was only occasionally completely favourable to the evangelicals. Less favourable was their situation in the Vene4

5

Eni Psalmi, ta celi Catehismus, inu tih vegshih Gody, stare inu Noue kerszhanske Peisni, od P. Truberia, S. Krelia, inu od drugih sloshene, druguzh popravlene inu pobulshane. Der gantz Catechismus, ettlich Psalm Christliche Gesäng, die man auff den fürnembsten Festen singet, in der Windischen (Slovenian) Sprach zum andern corrigirt unnd gemechret. Tübingen: Morhart, 1567. Silvano Cavazza: “Bonomo, Vergerio, Trubar: propaganda protestante per terre di frontiera”, in: “La gloria del Signore”. La riforma protestante nell’Italia nord-orientale, ed. Gianfranco Hofer. Mariano del Friuli: Edizioni della Laguna, 2006, pp. 91–158: 141–142, Idem, “Libri luterani verso il Friuli: Vergerio, Trubar, Flacio”, in: Venezia e il Friuli: la fede e la repressione del dissenso, ed. Giuliana Ancona and Dario Visintin, Montereale Valcellina: Circolo Culturale Menocchio, 2013, pp. 31–55.

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Ivano Cavallini tian coastal shores. Inf luenced by Trubar, the bishop of Koper, Pier Paolo Vergerio Jr. (1498–1565) f led to Tübingen. Baldo Lupetina (1503–1556) from Labin, his nephew Matija Vlačić/Flaccius Illyricus (1520–1575), editor and co-author of the famous Centuriae Magdeburgenses (1569–1574), and then Giambattista Goineo (c 1515–after 1579) from Piran were persecuted by Catholics.6 Stjepan Konzul (1521–after 1579) a glagoljaš (Glagolitic priest) in Buzet, was also active in Pazin, the core of Istrian Protestantism. He sought refuge first in Ljubljana and later in Regensburg, acting as a kantor and organist, and he spent the end of his life in Eisenstadt, at the border of Hungary, working as a preacher for the Croats. Together with Anton Dalmatin (?–1579) Konzul translated at least six books into Italian not only for the inhabitants settled in the Venetian side of Istria, but also for wider dissemination in Italy. Under the mentorship of Trubar, the two aforementioned reformers printed a large number of prayer books, psalms, gospels, catechisms and, last but not least, the Old and New Testaments. In the Windische, Crabatische und Cirulitsche Thrukeray (the Slovenian, Croatian and Cyrillic Printing House) of Urach, a city nearby Tübingen in the Duchy of Württemberg, they worked as translators using the alphabets of Istria, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Serbia, translating Slovenian and Italian into Latin script, German into Gothic script, Croatian into Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Latin scripts.7 This undertaking was carried out with the financial support of Baron Hans Ungnad von Sonneg, who for many years was the captain of Varaždin in North-east Croatia and then the founder of the aforementioned “South Slavic Bible Institute” of Urach. According to recent research on the Slavic Reformation, between 1561 and 1565, Konzul and Dalmatin, with the help of other colleagues, translated and transliterated fourteen books into Croatian with Glagolitic script, eight or nine into Cyrillic, six into Croatian with Latin script, four into Slovenian, six into Italian and one into German. Given that Urach press was responsible for printing more than 30,000 copies, it is reasonable to affirm that Trubar and Ungnad’s 6 7

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Silvano Cavazza: “Umanesimo e riforma in Istria: Giovanni Battista Goineo e i gruppi eterodossi di Pirano”, in: L’umanesimo in Istria, ed. Vittore Branca and Sante Graciotti. Florence: Olschki, 1983, pp. 91–117. For instance: Register und summarischer […] aller der Windischen [Slovenian] Bücher, die von Primo Trubero [Primož Trubar] bis auff diss 1561 […] in der Crobatischen Sprach mit zweyerley Crobatischen Geschrifften, nämlich, mit Glagolla [Glagolitic] und Cirulitza [Cyrillic], werde getdruckt (dise Sprach und Buchstaben, brauchen auch die Turcken) (Tübingen, 1561); Ena molitov [a prayer] […] Oratione de perseguitati e forusciti per lo Evangelio (Tübingen, 1555); Artikuli ili deli prave krstianske Vere, is Svetoga Pisma […] sada vnove is Latinskoga, Nemskoga i Kraiskoga jazika va Hrvacki verno stimačeni. Po Antonu Dalmatinu i Stipanu Istrianu (Articles or Parts of the Authentic Christian Faith from the Saint Scrolls […] now Faithfully Translated into Croatian by Antun Dalmatin and Stipan [Konzul] from Latin, German, and Slovenian Languages) […] auss dem Latein und Teütsch in die Crobatische Sprach verdolmetscht, und mit Glagolischen Buchstaben getruckt (Urach, 1562). Oliver K. Olson: “Mathias Flacius and the ‘Bible Institute’ in Urach”, in: Kairos. Evangelical Journal of Theology 2 (2008), pp. 181–188.

The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624 aim was to cover not only the regions of Inner Austria (present-day Slovenia and Croatia), but also the Balkans as far as the Black sea. 8 As the bookseller Ambros Frölich from Vienna wrote in a letter to Ungnad (16 June 1561), the transliteration into Cyrillic could open new prospects for the spread of Lutheranism in Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and the European domains of the Ottoman Empire: “Es wer guet, das der catechismus in der ziruliza vertollmetscht wer. Dieselb, wie ich gewisslich erinndert, geet durch Littaw, Keyssen, Moscovittern, Moldaw, Walachia, Sirfei, Dalmatien, Constantinopl vnd auch an des turkhischen khaiserhoff wurd mit gottes hilff vnd segen vill guets schaffen”.9 A central undertaking of the Protestant effort was the Slovenian translation of the Bible by Jurij Dalmatin, printed in Wittenberg in 1584. Unfortunately, after the closure of the Institute in 1565, following the death of Ungnad in 1564, Dalmatin and Konzul could no longer work in Urach. At the end of the sixteenth century, when the nobility was obliged by the Archdukes of Inner Austria to embrace the Catholic faith, Protestantism gradually disappeared from the provinces of present-day Slovenia and Istria. The sovereign decree of 1598 enjoined Protestant teachers and preachers to leave the country. This provision may be also considered a result of the Jesuits’ engagement in restoring Catholicism, for which they obtained the consent of the Archduke Karl and Ferdinand, the future emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The Jesuits were charged with creating a cordon sanitaire of schools and colleges at the Austrian fringes from the Alps to the sea: in Graz (1574), the residence of archduchy, and then in Ljubljana (1597), Klagenfurt (1604), Gorizia (1618), Rijeka (school 1627, college 1633), and the port of Trieste, where the first settlement of two Jesuits from Bohemia dates back to 1619.10 Further, with the aim of educating young priests and spreading Catholicism in Dalmatia and Bosnia, the Jesuits established a Collegium Illyricum (Illyricum means South Slavic) in 1578 in Loreto, an Italian town close to Dalmatia. In the territories of the Hapsburg crown one of the most feared threats was the arrival and circulation of Protestant books via Villach, a city completely devoted to Luther, and Venice in which the German community was very active. In this regard, the dissemination of books from Tübingen and nearby Urach to Vienna, Ljubljana, the region of Friuli, Trieste and Rijeka, is noteworthy. From Württemberg numerous books were sent through Salzburg to Villach, and from Villach to 8

Alojz Jembrih: “Od uspjeha do izjave ‘Viel falsch’ o Uraškom Novom Zavjetu (1562/63)” [From the Success to Declaration of ‘Viel falsch’ on Urach’s New Testament (1562/63)], in: Prilozi 63–64 (2006), pp. 35–67, here p. 37. 9 Ivan Kostrenčić: Urkundliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der protestantischen Literatur der Südslawen in den Jahren 1559–1565. Wien: Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1874, p. 39. 10 I gesuiti e gli Asburgo. Presenza della Compagnia di Gesù nell’area meridionale dell’Impero Asburgico nei secoli XVII–XVIII. ed. Sergio Galimberti and Mariano Malý, Trieste: LINT, 1995.

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Ivano Cavallini Italy; another safe route included Ročinj’s itinerary through the Isonzo-river valley (in Slovenian Soča) to the county of Gorizia, and through the Wurzen pass via the high Sava river to Ljubljana. In this context the trading of Protestant books for thirty years by Nikolaus Buchler is extraordinary. Married to the daughter of Agostino Sereni, a follower of Vergerio Jr., and already in contact with Konzul during the years 1553–1554, Buchler delivered thousand copies of reformers’ works from Villach. As an example, of the Croatian Catechism in Latin script, printed in four hundred copies, he received three hundred and thirty.11 After the Council of Trent, during his visitation to Dalmatia and Istria in 1579–1580, the bishop Agostino Valier detected a series of dangerous contacts between Catholics and Protestants. Some groups of Protestants were still in the cities of Labin, Vodnjan, and Pula.12 Despite trials held in some parts of Istria, aiming to eradicate the reformation and any other non-Roman liturgy, Croatian people were still devoted to the Glagolitic traditions. To avoid misunderstanding, it should be pointed out that since the middle-ages Croatian priests of Istria, the Kvarner gulf and part of Dalmatia were free to hold religious services in Glagolitic. On the other hand, before Luther and Trubar, in some German and Slovenian lands the sole use of Latin was required. Besides, not all the Istrian glagoljaši became Protestants. At the Council of Udine in 1596, bishop Francesco Barbaro was able to remove the Aquileian rite, which was judged to be a schismatic liturgy; in contrast, the bishop of Poreč, Cesare de Nores, was a supporter of Glagolism and he persuaded the participants to tolerate the use of the Old Slavonic liturgy within the frame of Catholicism.13 This is the reason why the Propaganda Fide Officium was charged by the Roman Curia to prepare revised copies of sacred books in sclavica lingua (Slavic language), superseding any obstacle to reaching a definitive conversion of Slavic/Croatian people. The Mass book, the Ritual and the Liturgy of hours were later corrected and printed both in Latin and in Glagolitic scripts, e.g. the Missale romanum slavonico (1631), Rituale romanum slavonico (1648), Ritus celebrandi ex latina in illyricum linguam (1592), Breviarium romanum slavonico […] editum illyrica lingua (1640). After these general considerations, I would like to address one specific issue concerning the activity of the chapel master Gabriello Puliti, and his relationship 11 Cavazza: “Bonomo, Vergerio, Trubar”, pp. 151–153; on this book cf. the Afterword of Alojz Jembrih (“Dodatak pretisku”), enclosed in the facsimile of Katehismus, ed. Anton Dalmatin and Stipan Istrian [Konzul], Tubingen (i. e., Urach), 1564, pp. 21–22. 12 Antonio Miculian: “La controriforma in Istria”, in: Prispevki z mednarodne konference Peter Pavel Vergerij ml. Polemični mislec v Evropi 16. stoletja ob 500-letnici rojstva/Contributi dal convegno internazionale Pier Paolo Vergerio il giovane un polemista attraverso l’Europa del Cinquecento nel V centenario della nascita. Acta Histriae 8 (1999), pp. 215–230, here 221–222. 13 Giuseppe Trebbi: “Il Concilio provinciale aquileiese del 1596 e la liturgia slava nell’Istria”, in: Prispevki, pp. 191–200.

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The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624 with the Counter-Reformation in Istria and also the nearby Trieste and Krajnska region (Carniola). From 1604 until his death in 1644, the Italian Gabriello Puliti spent most part of his life working as an organist and chapel master in Trieste (now in Italy), Koper (now in Slovenia), Labin and Pula (both now in Croatia). Puliti was an authoritative and prolific composer of early baroque monody in Trieste and Istria. He published at least thirtysix works of sacred and secular music and he was also highly regarded in present-day Slovenia and, perhaps also in Poland.14 Together with the first opera Euridice of Giulio Caccini (second edition, 1615), four titles of his own work are recorded in the catalogue of the Ljubljana Cathedral, written around 1624–1628, during the period of the patronage of bishop Tomaž Hren.15 Further, the Alto partbook of the second book of masses (1624), and two part-books of five-voices psalms Vespertina psalmodia (1618), are kept in the Archives of Wawel Cathedral in Cracow (Poland).16 Furthermore, five of Puliti’s printed collections were originally housed in Fugger’s library in Augsburg, before being transferred to Vienna, where they were catalogued in 1655 by the imperial librarian Matteo Mauchter.17 Today only Ghirlanda odorifera (1612) can still be found in the National library of Vienna.18 In the turbulent years of the Counter-Reformation, when a great number of Istrian monks and priests were accused of apostasy, Puliti, as a Franciscan, was compelled to dedicate some of his works to the most feared inquisitors and superiors.19 In 1614 he addressed his four-voice Psalmodia vespertina to Jakob Reinprecht, 14 Ivano Cavallini: “Puliti, Gabriello”, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, 85 (2016), pp. 672–675. 15 See the items «Madrigalia Gabrielis Puliti a 5 Vocum», «Fantasie Gabrielis Puliti a 2», «Lunario Harmonico Gabrielis Puliti a 3», «Missae Gabrielis Puliti cum Parti[tura] a 4», all quoted in the Inventarium librorum musicalium, cf. Janez Höfler: Glasbena umetnost pozne renesanse in baroka na Slovenskem [Art Music of the Late Renaissance and Baroque in Slovenia]. Ljubljana: Partizanska knjiga, 1978, pp. 134–177, here pp. 134–156. 16 Marta Pielech: “Do repertuaru kapel wawelskih. Starodruki muzyczne zachowane w archivum Katedry Wawelskiej” [On the Repertoire of Wawel Chapel. Ancient Printed Music Kept in the Archives of Wawel Cathedral], in: Muzyka 46/2 (2001), p. 75. 17 Catalogus bibliothecae Fuggerianae (Bibl. Pal. Vind. Cod. 12579 [Suppl. 363]). The recorded works are: «Psalmi Vesperarum | Puliti | in VI. libr:»; «Gabrielis de Pulitis Vesperae 4. et 5. vocum in lib. VIII.», «Gabriele Puliti Ghirlanda. 1°», «F. Gabrielis de Pulitis sacri concentus. 1.2.3. vocibus», «Lunario Armonico perpetuo à 3. di Gabrieli Puliti»; cf. Metoda Kokole: “Early Sacred Monody and Its Journey from the Eastern Shores to the Adriatic to the Austrian Lands North of the Alps”, in Italian Music in Central-Eastern Europe: around Mikołaj Zieleński´s Offertoria and Communiones (1611), ed. Tomasz Jeż, Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarminska, Marina Toffetti, Venice: Fondazione Levi, 2015, pp. 295–323, here pp. 303–304. 18 Gabriello Puliti: Ghirlanda odorifera di vari fior tessuta, cioè mascherate a tre voci. Venice: Vincenti, 1612 (RISM 5650), ed. Ivano Cavallini, Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 2004 (series Monumenta Artis Musicae Sloveniae, 46). 19 Metoda Kokole: “Servitore affetionatissimo Fra’ Gabriello Puliti and the Dedicatees of his Published Music Works (1600–1635)”, in: De Musica Disserenda 3/2 (2007), pp. 107–134.

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Ivano Cavallini abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Stična, and a fervent Counter-Reformer of the Carniola region (Krajnska region in present-day Slovenia), which enclosed the Pazin county of Inner Istria, where the reformer Stjepan Konzul worked. 20 The subtitle of the collection of psalms specifies that it was composed “iuxta ritum Sacrosanctae Romanae Ecclesiae”, and the author remembers the friendship of the dedicatee with the bishop of Trieste Ursino de Bertis. De Bertis, who served as a secretary of the Archduke Karl Hapsburg, contributed to the banishment of the indigenous Aquileian rite and its related books after the Council of Udine. In 1618 Puliti dedicated one motet of his solo-voice book Pungenti dardi spirituali (namely, Stella splendida et mattutina), 21 and in 1620 one of his motets Sacri accenti (namely, O quam pulchra est virginum) to Gregorio Dionigi da Cagli, a Franciscan appointed “Grand Inquisitor” of Istria in 1616. 22 Consequently it is necessary to outline the role of Franciscan order, which was involved in the Dalmatian Province of St. Jerome, with the aim of reaffirming the Catholic faith in Istria. From 1559 to 1806, the monastery of Koper hosted a tribunal of inquisition, under the control of Roman Holy Office so as to avoid any interference of local church. 23 From a stylistic perspective, the book Sacri accenti represents the composer’s complete adherence to modern monody, after tentative steps taken in Sacri concentus unis, binis, ternisque vocibus (1614), 24 and Pungenti dardi spirituali a una voce sola (1618). A glance at the publication dates of Lilia convallium and Sacri accenti – respectively the third and fourth books of monody printed in 1620 – leads us to believe that the author split a set of scores into two parts to honour two eminent figures in Koper: the signature of Lilia convallium is dated 20 February, and Sacri accenti is marked 24 February 1620. 25 The first work is dedicated to Barnaba Brati (also known as Bruti), a descendant of an ancient Albanian family of Durrës (It. Durazzo), who served for seventeen years as a dragoman at the Venetian embassy in Istanbul. His father, 20 Gabriello Puliti: Psalmodia vespertina omnium solemnitatum totius anni iuxta ritum Sacrocanctae Romanae Ecclesiae quatuor vocibus paribus concinenda. Venice: Vincenti, 1614 (RISM P 5651). 21 Gabriello Puliti: Pungenti dardi spirituali a una voce sola. Venice: Vincenti, 1618 (RISM P 5654), ed. Metoda Kokole, Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 2001 (series Monumenta Artis Musicae Sloveniae, 40). 22 Gabriello Puliti: Sacri accenti libro quarto delli concerti a una voce. Venice: Vincenti, 1620 (RISM P 5656), ed. Metoda Kokole, Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 2002 (series Monumenta Artis Musicae Sloveniae, 42). 23 Ljudevit Maračić: Franjevci konventualci u Istri [Conventual Franciscans in Istria]. Pazin: Istarsko Književno Društvo, 1992, pp. 34–35. 24 Gabriello Puliti: Sacri concentus unis, binis, ternisque vocibus. Venice: Vincenti, 1614 (RISM P 5652), ed. Metoda Kokole, Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 2001 (series Monumenta Artis Musicae Sloveniae, 40). 25 Gabriello Puliti: Lilia convallium Beatae Mariae Virginis. Libro terzo delli concerti a una voce. Venice: Vincenti, 1620 (RISM 5655) ed. Metoda Kokole, Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 2002 (series Monumenta Artis Musicae Sloveniae, 42).

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The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624 Giacomo, was appointed “capitano delli schiavi”, namely the captain of the Slavic militia, a kind of magistrature over the Slovene, Croatian and Vlach inhabitants, who originally settled in Rašpor fortress, and from 1511 onwards in Buzet. The second book is dedicated to Pietro Pola, an administrator and playwright of Koper. In recognition of his merits Pola received a knighthood from Duke Antonio Priuli on 5 September 1618; almost a year later, on 19 August 1619, the “doge” knighted Brati. It is likely that Puliti was charged by a local to edit both books and to use the same sentence: “dedicati al molto illustre signor il Signor Cavaliero Barnabà Brati”, “dedicati al molto illustre signor il Signor Cavaliero Pietro Pola”. 26 Even though Sacri accenti falls under the auspices of political patronage, from another perspective it is a work in praise of the Catholic church of Koper and in particular the Franciscan order. To this end, Puliti composed three motets in honour of St. Francis, St. Ursula, and St. Nazarius. Aiming to celebrate the protector of minors, the friar uses the antiphon Salve, sancte Pater, which is a part of St. Francis’s liturgy. The text of the so-called transitus, set to music also by Orazio Vecchi in 1590, 27 is a prayer to the saint, who allows minors to ascend to heaven: “Salve, sancte Pater,/patriæ lux, forma Minorum:/virtutis speculum, recti via, regula morum;/carnis ab exilio, duc nos ad regna polorum” (“Hail holy Father/ light of our homeland, form of minors;/mirror of virtue, right way, and rule of conduct;/lead us from exile of the f lesh to the kingdom of heaven”). As a pictorial metaphor, the music shows the difficulty in maintaining a spiritual life, which is the key to the kingdom of heaven. The figure is depicted by interruptions to the melodic f low, whose range falls within an octave. In other words, the first note of each group of four notes shapes a complete scale, and the vocal line, characterized by the rhythm of dotted quaver and semiquaver, mirrors the poetic content of the verse “ad regna polorum”. 28 The piece for St. Francis, the antiphon for St. Ursula, commissioned by the aforementioned Dionigi da Cagli, falls into the category of virtuoso singing. O quam pulchra est virginum, written in honour of the protector of Koper, emphasizes the key words “pugnavit” and “triumphat”, thus evoking the martyrdom of the virgin and other maidens captured by the barbarians. 29

26 Pietro Stancovich: Biografia degli uomini distinti dell’Istria. vol. II, Trieste: Marenigh, 1829, pp. 230– 233; Metoda Kokole: “Servitore affetionatissimo Fra’ Gabriello Puliti’ and the Dedicatees of his Published Music Works (1600–1635)”. 27 Motecta Horatii Vechii mutinensis, canonicus corigiensis quaternis, quinis, senis, & octonis vocibus. Nunc Primum in lucem edita. Serenissimo Principi Guglielmo, Palatino, Rheni Comiti, & utriusque Bavariae Duci. & c. Dicata. Venice: Gardano, 1590 (RISM V 1005): motet number 31 of this collection. 28 Puliti: Sacri accenti, pp. 35–36. 29 Ibidem, pp. 45–46.

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Ivano Cavallini Proceeding to a more detailed consideration of the political imprint on the music for St. Nazarius, it is worth remembering that its verses are taken from the antiphon for the feast of St. Geminian. Furthermore, according to plainchant tradition, the embellishments are confined to the adjective “noster” whereas the music for the term “protector” – like the key words Deus, Maria, Virgo, Jesus – is featured in a simple syllabic rhythm. A second issue, which cannot be ignored, involves the request to Nazarius for the protection of Koper, enunciated with a stationary melody for the verse “Egida per te tuta ab hoste vivat”. 30 On the contrary the plea for peace, “perpetua pax letetur”, is emphasized by a tripola in virtuoso style. In this case, the unusual term “Egida” for Koper is immediately noticeable in lieu of the more common Latin Iustinopolis, Capris or Caput Histriae. “Egida” is a toponym adopted by Girolamo Muzio to entitle his unfinished poem of 1572 on the mythological origins of Koper. 31 Probably, the Latin lemma Aegis is grasped from the Greek αἰγίς -ίδος or more likely from αἴξ αἰγός, meaning goat, and goat is in turn an allusion to Capris, the other name for Koper (It. Capodistria). The protective Aegis – as employed by Homer in his Iliad – is an epithet of Amalthea’s skin, or that of her goat taken by Zeus in honour of her when she died – a trope which is found and varied in other similar legends. On the one hand the term is translatable as goat (Capris-Koper), on the other hand it literally means “under the aegis” of Nazarius. The choice of Egida, a word in which two meanings co-exist, is not a coincidence. Actually, it reaffirms the strong ties established by Puliti with the municipality of Koper and with Istrian Church hierarchy. As already quoted, the verses for St. Nazarius are the same as the Tuscan composer used in his earlier five-voice motet to St. Geminian, printed in the book Sacrae Modulationes (1600) when he was appointed “magister chori” in Pontremoli. 32 In short, the poems for Francis, Ursula and Nazarius, indicate a political choice that precedes the liturgical function. The glory of Franciscans, in tracing a correct approach to the religion, is emphasized by the first motet. The sacrifice of Ursula is the subject of the second motet, whose topic was appreciated by the inquisitor Dionigi, who was engaged in an ongoing campaign against heretics. Fi30 Ibidem, “In festo Sancti Nazzarii Protectoris Nostris”, pp. 47–48. 31 Cf. Nives Zudič Antonič and Kristjan Knez: Storia e antologia della letteratura italiana di Capodistria, Isola e Pirano. Capodistria – Koper: Edizioni Unione Italiana Založnik Italijanska unija, 2014, p. 107, and L’Egida del signor Girolamo Muzio Giustinopolitano, ed. Giovanni Quarantotto, Trieste: Hermannstorfer, 1913. 32 See the text: “Protector noster Geminiane,/qui in te confitentibus semper ades,/respice Appuam tibi devotam,/per te tuta ab hoste vivat,/perpetua pace letetur/et vitam denique consequatur aeternam”. Cf. Gabriello Puliti: Sacrae Modulationes. Parma: Viotti, 1600 (RISM 5646) ed. Nikola Lovrinić, Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 2006 (series Monumenta Artis Musicae Sloveniae, 50).

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The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624 nally, the paean for peace addressed to St. Nazarius, the other protector of Koper, is enunciated in the third motet. Even the edition of the Secondo libro delle messe a quattro voci (1624) must be taken into account as a case study of the inf luence of the Counter-Reformation. 33 This book consists of two four-part masses, both with a continuo part-book in the form of basso seguente, respectively entitled Messa concertata and Messa da choro. The first is a motto mass and the second an imitation mass on the madrigal Là ver l’aurora (Petrarch: Canzoniere, 239), enclosed in Palestrina’s Primo libro di madrigali a quatro voci (1555, RISM P 752). Instead of a cantus firmus, the head motif of Messa concertata is written down by Puliti and it appears in each movement sustaining the structure of the polyphony, as it is evident in the following incipitarium: Kyrie: Gloria: Credo: Sanctus: Agnus Dei:

Tenore Basso Tenore Tenore Tenore

f g a b flat c’ the same from bar two c’ b flat a g f f g a b flat c’ agfed

The motif recurs not only at the beginning of each of the five mass movements, but also within the Credo, where it is repeated as a separate monody before each verse on the words “Haec est fides catholica”. This sentence is drawn from the creed of St. Athanasius of Alexandria (fourth century). The so-called Symbol of Athanasius, well-known by Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran churches, is one of the three ecumenical creeds placed at the beginning of the Book of Concord (1580), the collection of doctrinal statements of the Lutheran Church. Its last line contains the words Puliti uses as a memento in his creed: “Haec est fides catholica, quam nisi quisque fideliter firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit” (“This is the Catholic faith; which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved”). In antiquity, the Symbol was associated with the creed and it became a hymn within the Ambrosian rite. Since the sixth century, the Athanasian creed has been the first Christian statement of belief focusing on the Trinitarian dogma, in which the equality of the three persons of the Trinity is explicitly stated. Today, it is used in the Western Church once a year on Trinity Sunday. Puliti’s creed is unusual in other respects as well. As a simple descending or ascending one-voice melody, the head motif on the Symbol of Athanasius is con33 Gabriello Puliti: Il secondo libro delle messe a quattro voci una concertata e l’altra da choro, con il basso continuo per sonar nell’organo. Venice: Vincenti, 1624 (RISM 5658). Cf. the Introductory word of Ennio Stipčević in Gabriello Puliti, Il secondo libro delle messe (1624), ed. Ennio Stipčević, Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 2006 (series Monumenta Artis Musicae Sloveniae, 48).

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Ivano Cavallini ceived as a refrain that alternates the verses of the creed featured in chordal blocks or contrapuntal passages. Only at the end, as a logical conclusion of the narrative, the voices come together homophonically in joyful triple mensuration. The layout below gives the antiphonal shape of the music, in which the words of St. Athanasius appear eleven times as monody (on the left side), while most verses of the prayer are in polyphony (on the right side). head-motif, monody Haec est fides catholica Id. Id. Id. Id. Id. Id. Id. Id. Id. Id Id

Tenore Alto Canto Tenore Canto Tenore Alto Tenore-Basso Alto Tenore Canto C.A.T.B.

four-voice polyphony Credo Credo Credo in unum Deum etc. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine etc. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto etc. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis etc. Et resurrexit etc. Et in Spiritum sanctum, Dominum etc. Et unam sanctam catholicam etc Confiteor unum baptisma etc. Et vitam venturi saeculi amen Amen

Gabriello Puliti, Credo from Messa concertata (1624) for four voices with Bc (canto, alto, tenore, basso, basso per l’organo)

This is an unusual kind of tribute to the Catholic profession of faith, both before and after the Council of Trent, that together with other interpolations was definitively prohibited by diocesan synods held in several bishoprics. Even though it was normal to add some Marian tropes to the Gloria from the time of Johannes Ciconia and Guillaume Dufay, or to the Kyrie in the sixteenth-century masses of Cristobal de Morales, the Counter-Reformation prohibited the insertion of unofficial lines in the Credo, and declared contrapuntal imitation unacceptable, with the aim of emphasizing the dogmatic value of the Professio fidei “Credo in unum Deum”. Why did Puliti insert a ‘trope’ to his creed? Was he perhaps charged by any prominent figure of the Catholic Church of the littoral? Neither the mass dedicatee, nor other documents help us to clarify who induced the friar to do this. In my opinion, it is beyond doubt that it was not a free choice. Nevertheless, any answer can only take the form of a hypothesis, because there is nothing except the name of Francesco Corelio that links the dedicatory letter of Messa concertata to some renowned local Counter-Reformer. 672

The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624

Figure 1: Symbol of Athanasius in Glagolitic script (Catechismus 1561)

A Croatian translation of the Athanasian Symbol can be retraced in a Cathechism, published in Latin script by the aforementioned reformers Stjepan Konzul and Anton Dalmatin in Urach (1564). They had already adapted the same Catechism to the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts in 1561, containing the Athanasian Symbol, along the lines of the Slovenian version by Trubar (1550). 34 The text of 1564 is the final result of a fruitful comparison between the original Latin version and the others in Slavic languages. Its importance is also outlined on the title page written in the Latin alphabet: Katehismus. Iedna malahna kniga v’koi yeszu vele potribni i koristni nauczi i artikuli prave ksrtianske vere s kratkim tlmatsenyem […]. I ta prava vera od stana Bosyega, ili bitya u svetoj Trojczi, od svetoga Atanasia […] sada najprvo iz mnozih yazik v’harvaczki iztumatsena (Catechism. A little book in which there are necessary and useful precepts and articles of the authentic Christian faith with short comments […]. And the authentic faith in God’s existence, or his existence in the Holy Trinity, of St. Athanasius […] now, accord34 Original copies of both Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Latin versions are digitalized, cf. http://idb. ub.uni-tuebingen.de/diglit/172/0005; http://idb.ub.unituebuingen.de/diglit/172/0004; https:// books.google.it/books/about/Katehismus.html

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Figure 2: Symbol of Athanasius in Cyrillic script (Catechismus 1561)

ing to several languages, for the first time explained [translated] into Croatian). 35 This book was printed in four hundred copies, three hundred and thirty of which were sent to Villach to the aforementioned bookseller Nikolaus Buchler. 36 The three editions of the Catechism, each of them written in different alphabets and printed from 1561 to 1564, and the controversy that arose in 1561 between Trubar and Konzul regarding the earlier Glagolitic version, are even today an open problem from a linguistic viewpoint. First of all, it would be wrong to treat the Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Latin versions as literal translations in Old Church Slavonic, Serbian and Croatian languages, respectively, because these are transliterations from the Croatian. Obviously, it is not matter of a simple change of script. The phonetics linked to different alphabets, and the lexical and mor35 Anton Dalmatin and Stipan Istrian [Stjepan Konzul] (eds.): Katehismus. Tübingen (i.e. Urach), 1564. 36 Jembrih: “Dodatak pretisku”, pp. 21–22.

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The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624

Figure 3: Symbol of Athanasius in Latin script (Catechismus 1564)

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Ivano Cavallini phological choices of the two reformers do imply some different outcomes among these books. 37 Meanwhile, with the help of collaborators from Istria and Qvarner gulf ( Juraj Cvečić, Matija Žvičić, Ivan Fabijanić, Ivan Lamella from Pazin, Vinko Vrnković and Matija Pomazanić from Beram, Frano Hlej from Gračišće, Juraj Juričić from Vinodol, Leonard Merčerić from Cres), the two reformers had prepared a Glagolitic version of the Old and New Testament in Urach, with Croatian (in Latin script) and German titles: Prvi del Novoga testamenta, va tom jesu svi četiri evanđelisti i dijanje Apustolsko, iz mnozih jazikov, v općeni sadašnji i razumni hrvacki jazik, po Antunu Dalmatinu i Stipanu Istranu, s pomoću drugih bratov, sada prvo verno stlmačen. Die erste halb Theil des neuen Testamentes, darinn sein die vier Evangelisten, und der Apostel Geschichte, jetzt zu ersten mal in die crobatische Sprach verdolmetscht, und mit glagolitischen Buchstaben gedruckt. V Tubingi, leta od Kristova rojstva (1562), Drugi del Novoga testamenta v kom se zadrže Apustolske Epistole, po ordinu kako broj na drugoj strani ove harte kaže. Der andere halb Theil des neuen Testaments, jetzt zum ersten in die crobatische Sprach verdolmetscht, und mit glagolitischen Buchstaben gedruckt (1563). The language of the Glagolitic Bible is akin to the original sources. As testified by the foreword, the editors made a comparison among the best translations in Latin, Italian, German and Slovenian: “Začeli jesmo Novi testament iz najbolega latinskoga, vlaškoga (i. e., Italian), nemškoga i kranjskoga tlmačenja u hrvacki jezik tlmačiti” (“We are beginning the translation of the New Testament into the Croatian language from the best versions in the Latin, Italian, German and Slovenian languages”). 38 Very different is the issue of the quoted third edition of the Catechism (1564). This work in Latin script is addressed both to the young and to the common people, “za mlade i priposti lyudi”, as written on the title page. The resolution to publish it in Latin script was probably due to the meagre success of the two previous versions. It repeats the attempt to create a new kind of popular language as happened with the Bible. The language of the Katehismus is a supra-dialectal koinè as well, or rather a mixture of language systems. Its ćakavjan underground 37 Gordana Čupković: “Jezik odlomka reformacijskoga glagoljskog katekizma 1561 i glagoljaška književna tradicija” [The Language of a Part of the Reformation Glagolitic Catechism from 1561 and the Glagolitic Literary Tradition], in: Čakavska rič 38 (2010), pp. 209–226. 38 Jembrih: “Od uspjeha do izjave”, p. 58. The two works are available both in reprint and in modern transliteration from the Glagolitic into Latin script; (reprint) Novi testament 1562/1563. Zagreb: Teološki fakultet “Matija Vlačić Ilirik”, 2007; (transliteration) Novi testament I dio, 1562. Latinički prijepis glagoljskog izvornika [The New Testament, First Book of 1562. Transliteration into Latin from the Original Glagolitic Script], ed. Vesna Badurina Stipčević et al., Zagreb: Adventističko teološko visoko učilište Maruševec, Filozofski fakultet, Školska knjiga, 2013; Novi testament. II dio. 1563. Latinički prijepis glagoljskog izvornika [The New Testament, Second Book of 1563. Transliteration into Latin from the Original Glagolitic Script], ed. Vesna Badurina Stipčević et al., Zagreb: Adventističko teološko visoko učilište Maruševec, Filozofski fakultet, Školska knjiga, 2015.

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The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624 is intermingled with lemmas and other elements drawn from Old Slavonic and Slovenian languages, without any relationship to any particular dialect of Istria. The blend of diverse linguistic strata emphasizes the aim of spreading Protestantism throughout all the Croatian lands, and in particular in the regions where Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets were unknown, like in the Northern Croatian territories. At the same time, Catechism enhanced the danger for the Roman Church of losing these lands, which were considered the antemurale christianitatis against Turkish invasions. To this extent, it is necessary to specify the important role played by the language also for the Roman Church. After the Council of Trent, an important Croatian Catechism was edited by the Spanish Jesuit Diego Ledesma, with the help of an unknown translator (Dottrina christiana. Composta per il P. D. Lesdesma della Compagnia di Gesù, et tradotta di lingua italiana in lingua schiava [Slavic language] per un padre della medesima Compagnia, 1578). 39 Written in the local štokavjan of Dubrovnik, this book was required by the government of the Adriatic Republic through the offices of bishop Vincenzo Porticus. Apart from the untraceable copy of Catechism after the visitation of bishop Agostino Valier in the 1580s, another meaningful version in ikavjan-štokavjan is due to the effort of Aleksandar Komulović (Nauch charstianschi za slovingnschi narod u vlastiti iazich. Dottrina christiana per la natione illirica nella propria lingua, 1582).40 The book of the future Vatican ambassador from Split has the same structure as Pietro Canisius Summa doctrinae christianae per quaestiones cathechisticas (1571).41 Probably, it was written for the visit to Bosnia by the bishop Augustin Kvincije (It. Quinti) from Korčula. Its language is the ikavjan-štokavjan, a variant spoken by all the inhabitants of this region submitted to the Ottomans along with Catholic Croatian people of Herzegovina. After his very successful work as a diplomat in Transylvania, Moldova, Poland and Russia, Komulović translated and edited a new Catechism based on the version of Roberto Bellarmino’s Dottrina christiana breve perché si possa imparare a mente (1597).42 On the title page Komulović emphasizes the source of his inspiration: Nauch charstyanschi chratach. Sloxen po naredyenyu Svetoga oca papa Clemente VIII. Po posctavonamu ocu Roberto Bellarminu popu od druxbe Isusove sada prisvitlomu gospodinu chardinalu S. R. C. Istumacen po ocu Alexandru Choyazmulovichia popu iste druxbe u yazich slovinschi (A short Christian Learning. Composed according to the order of the Holy Father, pope Clemens VIII, by the esteemed father Roberto Bellarmino, Jesuit priest and now his eminence, the cardinal of the S. R. C. Translated into Slavic [Croatian] language by Father Aleksandar Komulović of the same 39 Printed in Venice by Bonifacio Zanetti. Cf. Tonči Trstenjak: “Hrvatski katekizmi u razdoblju tridentiske obnove” [Croatian Catechisms During the Sixteenth-century Tridentine Renewal], in: Obnovljeni Život. Časopis za Filozofiju i Religijske Znanosti, 69/3 (2014), pp. 339–352. 40 Printed in Rome by Francesco Zanetti. 41 Printed in Dillingen by Sebald Mayer. 42 Printed in Rome by Zanetti.

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Ivano Cavallini order, 1603).43 On this occasion, the translator used another kind of language, the ćakavjan-štokavjan of Dalmatia and partly of Istria. Another question must be raised about the use of expression “Croatian language” on the title pages of the three Protestants Catechisms (“v’harvaczki”), and vice versa the use of Slavic language (“lingua schiava”, “yazich slovinschi”) in the Catholic Catechisms.44 This is paradoxical when we consider that Protestant books were conceived for all Slavs of the Balkan regions, not only for the Croats, whereas any Catholic Catechism was written in favour of the inhabitants of Dubrovnik, Bosnia, and Dalmatia. The failure of reformers’ utopia in spreading the new religion in a supranational Croatian language was due to the lack of Lutheran preachers in a dangerous terrain under the control of Orthodox, Catholics and Islamic faiths. On the contrary, the success of Roman Church was the result of a concrete policy in spite of linguistic and cultural diversities.45 In addition to this linguistic difference, a comparison of different ways in spreading the Christian faith by Protestants and Catholics in Croatia, and of course in Slovenia, reaffirms two irreconcilable viewpoints of human nature. A self-sufficient reading of Holy books represents a significant stepping stone, which led Konzul and Dalmatin to edit the same invented supranational Croatian Catechism in three alphabets. The diverse kinds of Croatian language in the Catholic area are not in contrast with the idea of supremacy of Latin for sacred books, which had to be explained only by clergymen. In other words, all Protestants had the right to learn in the vernacular the principles of the Christian faith. On the contrary the Roman Catholic church granted a limited opportunity to understand the Christian faith through the vernacular without denying the essential function of Latin; it was considered a mistake to place at the same level the use of Latin books and the catholic catechisms for Bosnian, Dalmatian and Istrian people. Only in the 1630s, the Roman Curia began to print sacred books in Glagolitic alphabet for priests of Istria, but not for all Croats or Slovenes. As has been said, perhaps Puliti was forced to insert the “Haec est fides catholica” by an important figure of the Roman Church, or the dedicatee Francesco Corelio utriusque legis doctor (i. e., doctor of both laws, canon and civil), whose work in favour of the Counter-Reformation still remains unknown. Lutherans 43 Printed in Rome by Zanetti. 44 Alojz Jembrih: Stipan Konzul i “Bibliski zavod” u Urachu. Rasprave i građa o hrvatskoj književnoj produkcjij u Urachu (1561.–1565.) i Regensburgu. Prilog povijesti hrvatskoga jezika i književnosti protestantizma [Stipan Konzul and the “Biblical Institute” in Urach. Questions and Works about the Croatian Books Production of Urach (1561–1565) and Regensburg. A Contribution to the History of the Croatian Language and to the Literature of Protestantism]. Zagreb: Teološki Fakultet Matija Vlačić Ilirik, 2007, pp. 256–263. 45 Slobodan Prosperov Novak: Slaveni u renesansi [Slavs in the Renaissance]. Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 2009, pp. 659–661, and pp. 793–795.

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The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624 believed in the self-sufficient reading of the text via the Holy Spirit, refusing both the authority of the Pope and the Church hierarchy. Probably, the ‘trope’ is given as a reaction to the ‘incorrect approach’ of the Croatian followers of Luther in Istria and Croatia proper. With regard to the Athanasian Symbol, accepted by Christianity, the words “Haec est fides catholica” must be interpreted only in a narrow sense, i. e., as “universal faith”. This is the etymology both of the Greek term katholikos and the Latin catholicus. Nevertheless, during the Council of Trent the Roman Church misappropriated the word catholic and appointed itself as the one and only Catholic Church. In other words, Puliti’s mass is an example of cosmopolitan polyphony deprived of its own autonomy. Charged with a new meaning through the words of St. Athanasius, that is, the supremacy of the Roman Church transformed into Catholic (i. e., universal), the Credo functions as a warning for heretics. Probably, the fear of a new censorship led the Franciscan to avow submission to the Vatican’s policy through this contradictory manipulation of the Professio fidei. His aim was to reaffirm the Roman Church’s power over the multilingual society of rebellious Italian, Slovenian, and Croatian Protestants, who were settled from Styria to the coastal area. Obviously, it is not easy to produce evidence for this hypothesis. Unfortunately, this kind of creed is a unique specimen within the context of sacred repertoire published by Istrian and Dalmatian composers during the first half of the seventeenth century. Furthermore, through the agency of the Athanasian Symbol, other disciplines, more popular than polyphony, were engaged to protect the tenets of Catholicism. One thinks, for example, of the Italian preacher Francesco Panigarola (1548–1594), whose homiletic eloquence was useful to explain the ‘mistakes’ of Calvin. In his book Lettioni sopra i dogmi (1582) he remarks that penance is of no value for Christians without a concrete penalty before death, thus justifying the traditional selling of indulgences.46 This petty factionalism is associated with St. Athanasius’ words, which reappear also in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia. The second edition of this famous book, printed in 1603,47 introduces the figure of Faith, depicted as a young woman in a white tunic with a helmet on her head, a heart topped by a candle in her right hand, and the stone of the Old Testament in her left. As Ripa says, the helmet represents the need for intellect to prevent 46 Francesco Panigarola: Lettioni sopra dogmi fatte […] alla presenza e per comandamento del serenissimo Carlo Emanuele di Savoia l’anno MDLXXXII in Turino. Nelle quali, da lui dette calviniche, come si confondi la maggior parte della dottrina di Gio. Calvino. E con che ordine si faccia, dopo la lettera si dimostrerà. Venezia: Dusinelli, 1584 (second ed.), pp. 172v–173r. 47 Cesare Ripa: Iconologia overo descrittione di diverse imagini cavate dall’antichità et di propria inventione, trovate et dichiarate […]. Di nuovo revista et […] ampliata di 400 et più imagini […]. Opera non meno utile che necessaria a poeti, pittori, scultori et altri per rappresentare le virtù, vitii, affetti, et passioni umane. Rome: Lepido Facii, 1603, pp. 150–151.

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Ivano Cavallini the sophistry of heretics, and the heart designates sentiment as the unique tool to gain true faith. Finally, from a social point of view, the revolt of miners in Süd Tyrol led by Michael Gaysmair (1525), the German peasants war against feudal oppression, the evangelical society of the Anabaptist movement and the revolt of Croatian and Slovenian peasants headed by Matija Gubec (1573), represented for the Roman Curia and the Hapsburgs the danger arising from a literal reading of the Gospel. Frightened by these events, the Archdukes and the nobility in Inner Austria, through the policy of the Catholic clergy, restored the earlier order over the dissatisfied burghers and poor peasants.

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Harry White and Stanislav Tuksar, Athlone, 2012

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Musical Prints in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection

Musical Prints from c.1750–1815 in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection (HR-Dsmb) Stanislav Tuksar Although the notion of ‘circulation’, derived from the Latin term ‘circulatio’, originally implies the idea of movement in space from one point to another and then a return to the initial starting point, here we shall consider those musical phenomena that followed a kind of straight or more or less meandering line of movement, with different points of departure and arrival. Namely, the existence of music sheets – especially those preserved in printed form – in musical collections and archives in what is now the Republic of Croatia, indicates that their present storing location was the final point of their imagined journey, which started somewhere else. That is due to the simple fact that – taking into account the period under consideration, i. e. 1750–1815 – no music printing offices existed in the Croatian historical provinces (Croatia proper, Slavonia, the Military Frontier, Dalmatia with Dubrovnik, and Istria) until the mid-19 th century. Consequently, everything covering this period and prior to that point in time must had been imported from abroad, meaning that each printed musical artefact preserved in Croatia started its circulation (or better, migration) elsewhere. Consequently, this is the case with all late 18 th - and early 19 th -century musical prints, kept in Croatian musical collections and archives, including those which exist in the town of Dubrovnik. Historically regarded, Dubrovnik was a tiny eastern-Adriatic semi-independent state (called Respublica Ragusina – the Ragusan Republic) from 1358 until 1808,1 being the only part of the old mediaeval Croatian political area with this status, because the rest of the country’s historical provinces were attached to stronger socio-political entities in its immediate vicinity – Hungary, Venice, and the Habsburg Empire – since the early 12th , 15th and 16th centuries, respectively. Dubrovnik – governed by its Duke called Rector/Rettore and three councils (Consilium maius, Consilium rogatorum, the Senate, and Consilium minus) – was economically, politically, socially and culturally in its apogee during the 15th and 16th centuries, as one of the Mediterranean centres serving as an intermediary between the East and the West. The basis of its prosperity was the trade between 1

I should like to thank Dr. Shane McMahon for his close reading of this chapter. Cf. Robin Harris: Dubrovnik. A History. London: Saqi, 2006, pp. 62–76, 101–122, 374–401.

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Stanislav Tuksar the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Balkans, along with maritime affairs and handicrafts. 2 In this, commercial privileges, sometimes exclusive ones, were granted to the Ragusan Republic by the Turkish Sultans, Spanish and French Kings, Austrian Emperors and the Holy See, but one of the main reasons for the Republic’s survival and success was its most strictly neutral politics. The greatest turning-point in Dubrovnik’s history was produced by the catastrophic earthquake of 1667 (and the devastating fire which followed it), in which one third of the population perished and the whole town – except for some palaces, churches and the Town Walls – was destroyed. 3 The town recovered only at the beginning of the 18th century, when it assumed today’s Baroque architectural appearance (the Cathedral, Jesuit College with the church, St Blasius church, numerous town houses), and when maritime commerce was revived. After the fall of Venice in 1797, Dubrovnik became jammed between the political interests of Austria, France and Russia, and – in order to escape Russian occupation – surrendered to Napoleonic troops in 1806. Consequently, the French authorities finally abolished the Ragusan Republic on January 31, 1808. For a very short period (1809–13) it formed part of the so-called Illyrian Provinces. According to the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Dubrovnik with its surrounding territory remained directly attached to Austria, and that continued until 1918. In general, over the course of seven centuries (from the 12th to the 18th) of development and growth with its ups-and-downs, the Ragusan Republic created a social, cultural and scholarly network, which produced an impressive series of outstanding personalities and artefacts in the fields of literature, visual arts, architecture and music, as well as hundreds of books with titles on natural sciences, humanities, theology and philosophy.4 More specifically, the period under our consideration represents the last decades of Dubrovnik’s independence, and its musical legacy today bears witness at large to the last historical opportunity it experienced in managing its own cultural destiny, including the free choice of musical types to be performed according to the taste of its musical connoisseurs, and the purchase of the correlating music material from abroad at its own convenience. Today, Dubrovnik’s eight music collections are housed in the following locations:

2 3 4

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Cf. Harris: Dubrovnik, pp. 152–184. Cf. Harris: Dubrovnik, pp. 319–340. Cf. Harris: Dubrovnik, pp. 244–286.

Musical Prints in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection

The Present-day Music Collections kept in Dubrovnik i.

the Priory of the Friars Minor (Franciscans)

ii.

the Cathedral Archives

iii.

the Jesuit Collegium

iv.

the Bishopric Seminary

v.

the Dominican Monastery

vi.

the State Archives

vii.

the Town Museum

viii.

the Scientific Library

In addition, some of them maintain smaller collections gathered from private sources (the Dragičević-Gozze family, the organist Luigi Bizzarro), other sacred institutions (the Franciscan Monastery in Badija) or secular institutions (the Sloboda singing society). That forms less than 5 % of more than 200 locations in Croatia which keep music sheets in their collections and archives, 5 but it exceeds them by far both in quantity and quality. Namely, c. 11,000 music items preserved in Dubrovnik collections form about 20 % of all music material kept in Croatian archives and approximately the same amount of music created prior to the 1820s (two out of ten thousand).6 Regarding the presence of the Franciscans in Dubrovnik, according to legend, the founder of the Order, St Francis of Assisi, visited Dubrovnik twice (certainly in 1212, and possibly in 1223), and this is how the history of the Franciscans in Dubrovnik began.7 However, the first written document testifying to the Franciscan presence for the first time is dated to 1235, 8 and thus the Dubrovnik mon5 6 7

8

Cf. Stanislav Tuksar: “Music Research Libraries, Archives and Collections in Croatia”, in: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 23/2 (1992), pp. 119–140. Cf. Stanislav Tuksar: ‘”Glazbena kultura Dubrovačke Republike”, in Pavica Vilać, ed., Luka & Antun Sorkočević. Diplomati i skladatelji. Dubrovnik, Dubrovački muzeji, 2014, pp. 35–38. Cf. Justin V. Velnić: “Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku – povijesni prikaz života i djelatnosti [The Little Brethren Monastery in Dubrovnik. Historical Presentation of Life and Activities]”, in: Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku, Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Kršćanska sadašnjost – Samostan Male braće, 1985, p. 95. Several earlier authors quoted different years of St Francis’ sojourn in Dubrovnik: Rastić – 1212; Lukarević – 1223; some others – 1212 and 1219. Tade Smičiklas: Codex Diplomaticus III. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1905, pp. 435–438, n. 379: “… et presentibus fratribus minoribus fratre Xysto temporis in Dalmatia fratrum minorum ministro …”. Velnić: Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku, p. 175.

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Stanislav Tuksar astery seems to be one of the first established in Dalmatia and in the whole of Croatia. Concerning Franciscan musicians, all their earlier compositions disappeared in the 1667 earthquake and fire, and we owe our knowledge of them only to secondary documentation. It also seems that in the second half of the 18th century intensive collaboration existed between Franciscan musicians and the Duke’s Chapel orchestra: it is documented that Franciscans participated as singers in festive performances of Masses in the Cathedral and in the St Blasius church, while musicians-composers from the Chapel composed music for the needs of the Franciscan choir, especially for the services in honour of St Francis.9

Musical collection of the Franciscans (RISM siglum: HR-GAMB) The Dubrovnik monastery is one of the 34 Franciscan monasteries in Croatia with registered music collections;10 its archives contain the greatest Franciscan music collection in the whole country and the second largest overall kept in Croatia. The last inventory from 2011 reached 6,830 catalogued items with many more individual compositions in all.11 Thus, according to this estimation, the Dubrovnik Franciscan collection keeps about 80 % of all ancient music preserved in Dubrovnik and about 13 % of all music preserved in Croatian archives and collections. This collection is a very complex and non-typical in comparison with other ecclesiastical collections in Croatia. Except for some later smaller additions, its current contents and scope is due to the efforts of the Franciscan monk Ivan Evanđelist (Vanđo) Kuzmić (1807–80), who was a natural scientist, pharmacist, historian, and church organist. Its hitherto identified items were composed by 9

Miho Demović: Glazba i glazbenici u Dubrovačkoj Republici od polovine XVII. do prvog desetljeća XIX. stoljeća. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1989, p. 67, mentions one Santoro antiphon (shelf-mark 45/1292) and a composition by Resti Si quaeris (shelf-mark 71/1860), kept in the monastery’s musical archives. 10 Other collections are kept in the Croatian Franciscan monasteries at: Cres, Crikvenica, Hvar, Ilok, Klanjec, Kloštar Ivanić, Koprivnica, Krk, Košljun, Makarska, Našice, Omiš, Orebić, Osijek, Pazin, Požega, Pula, Rab (Kampor), Rijeka (Trsat), Rovinj, Samobor, Sinj, Slavonski Brod, Split (Poljud, and St Francis on the Shore), Šibenik, Varaždin, Virovitica, Visovac, Vukovar, Zadar, Zagreb and Zaostrog. Cf. Stanislav Tuksar: “Pregled rukopisnih i tiskanih muzikalija u franjevačkom samostanu u Koprivnici [An Overview of Music Manuscripts and Prints in the Franciscan Monastery in Koprivnica]”, in: Podravski zbornik 1996. Koprivnica, 1996, pp.105–110. 11 Cf. Stanislav Tuksar: ‘”Franciscans and the Musical Heritage of the Ancient Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik)”, in: Plaude turba paupercula – Franziskaner Geist in Musik, Literatur und Kunst, Konferenzbericht, ed. Ladislav Kačic. Bratislava: Slavisticky ustav Jana Stanislava SAV, 2005, pp. 257–269.

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Musical Prints in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection some 1,800 composers in all. Among them, 80 % of all authors are foreigners, with their international music having obviously been imported to Dubrovnik.12 In all, about one third (more than 2,600 items) consists of church music – half of which are manuscripts, the other half prints13 – and about two thirds contain secular music in a similar manuscripts-prints ratio. The collection consists of about 1,700 manuscripts composed before 1820 (according to the initial RISM criterion). Secular music encompasses about 70 %, and church music about 30 %, and the majority belongs to instrumental music (more than 50 %). Former owners are indicated on about one third of the units (over 530 units), among which one half used to comprise part of former collections owned by four Ragusan patrician families: Gozze/Gučetić, Colombo, Natali/Božičević and Ragnina. Of special interest is the part of the older manuscript collection that houses opera music sheets. There are 24 overtures and a series of vocal-instrumental numbers from 63 operas in all, composed by some 20 composers, among whom are D. Cimarosa, Ch.W. Gluck, A.E.M. Grétry, J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart, G. Paisiello, as well as a series of the so-called ‘kleinmeister’, such as G. Farinelli, D. Fischietti, J. Gelinek, F. Gnecco, P.C. Guglielmi, J.S. Mayr, S. Nasolini, N. Piccinni, MA Portogallo, A. Rolla, G. Sarti, V. Trento and N.A. Zingarelli.14 Most of these 39 vocal-instrumental numbers were performed in the Venetian theatres of S. Benedetto, S. Samuele, S. Moisè and La Fenice, but there are also those from the Neapolitan Teatro dei Fiorentini, Teatro S. Agostino from Genova (probably), the Roman Teatro L’Argentina, and an unidentified theatre from Bologna. Vjera Katalinić has exhaustively reported on this repertoire and published an analysis of it in 1985.15 Concerning the music prints kept in the collection under consideration, it can be stated that – at the present level of insight – 320 early prints have been registered, among which 215 have been registered within the RISM A/I project and 105 could be considered as unique world copies, not registered by RISM A/I project.16 12 Cf. Stanislav Tuksar: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Opći pregled fonda i popis ranih tiskovina”, in: Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Kršćanska sadašnjost – Samostan Male braće, 1985, pp.755–756. 13 Cf. Tuksar: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Opći pregled fonda”, pp. 756– 766. 14 Cf. Vjera Katalinić: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Rani rukopisi od početka 18. stoljeća do oko 1820” [Music and Musicians in the Dubrovnik Republic from the Mid-17th to the Beginning of the 19th Centuries], in: Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Kršćanska sadašnjost – Samostan Male braće, 1985, pp. 654–658, where a detailed description of all these operatic items can be found. 15 Cf. Katalinić: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Rani rukopisi”, pp. 658–60. All this data was taken over from the analysis published in the article by V. Katalinić, mentioned in footnote 14, pp. 652–653. 16 Cf. Tuksar: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Opći pregled fonda”, pp. 667–668.

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Stanislav Tuksar The 215 already known editions are works by 87 composers.17 Since this article is derived from a paper delivered at a French University, it might be of special interest to point out here that nine among these 87 composers are considered to be French or to be closely connected with France: Pierre Antoine Cesar (?–?), Nicolas-Marie Dalayrac (1753–1809), Joseph Fodor (1751–1828), Antoine Frédéric Gresnick (1755–1799), Etienne Nicolas Méhul (1763–1817), Joseph Momigny (1762–1842), Jean Michel Pfeiffer (?–?), Jean Baptiste Phillis (?–?), and naturalized Austria-born Ignace Joseph Pleyel (1757–1831). The 105 hitherto unregistered and therefore uknown editions are works by 64 composers. It is noteworthy to point out that among them are four unknown editions of works by Joseph Haydn and even 21 works by Wolfgang A. Mozart. And again, let us single out nine composers of French origin: Louis Aubert (1720–c.1780), Jean-Baptiste Bédard (1765–1815), Joseph-Denise Doche (1766– 1825), Fasquel (?–?), again Joseph Fodor (1751–1828), Louis-Emmanuel Jadin (1768–1853), Charles-Henri Plantade (1764–1839), again Ignace Joseph Pleyel (1757–1831), and Nicolas Séjan (1745–1819). As the presence of such a number of French composers and their works in Croatian music collections of that period is a unique phenomenon, the legitimate question arises as to why and how they arrived in Dubrovnik. The answer to the question ‘why’ undoubtedly lies in the complex circumstances regarding the specific presence of French culture in Dubrovnik history during the entire 18 th century and at the beginning of the 19 th century. To speak the French language, to read French books and to follow French fashion in general was already so popular in Dubrovnik in the 1720s that even a domestic word in the Ragusan dialect was coined for this phenomenon – „frančezarija“.18 In addition, French theatrical works were translated into the Ragusan dialect, such as Corneille’s Le Cid, and as many as 24 out of 34 of Molière’s works. However, the preserved French music in Dubrovnik belongs exclusively to the last three decades of the 18 th century and to the first two decades of the 19 th century. While the pre-revolutionary music was imported to Dubrovnik owing to the ever-lasting French fashion in Ragusan intellectual circles of, for example, Antonio Sorgo/ Antun Sorkočević (1785–1841), the naturalized French poet Marko Bruerević (1765–1823), son of the French consul in Dubrovnik René Charles Bruere Desrivaux, and some others, the repertoire of the revolutionary and Napoleonic era, on the other hand, must have been the result of the direct presence of French armed forces and civil administration in Dubrovnik between 1806 and 1808, 17 For the complete list of these composers and their works see: Tuksar, “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Opći pregled fonda”, pp. 763–768. 18 Cf. Marin Franičević, Franjo Švelec, Rafo Bogišić: Povijest hrvatske književnosti, vol.3: Od renesanse do prosvjetiteljstva. Zagreb: Liber-Mladost, 1974, pp. 350–352.

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Musical Prints in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection and during the short-lived so-called “Illyrian Provinces” under French guardianship from 1809 to 1813. The answer as to ‘how’ this material reached Dubrovnik will be complex, rather incomplete and somewhat vague. Prior to becoming part of the Franciscan collection, the great majority of this secular music was owned and used by the town nobles and other wealthy citizens. For example, the Gozze/Gučetić family, one of the most inf luential ones in the whole history of the Ragusan Republic, compiled an Elenco della musica vocale e istrumentale, a booklet with 233 entries in all, among which are some 70 early prints.19 This material was brought to Dubrovnik by sea, being purchased or obtained through private journeys of the nobility abroad, by trade arrangements of printed material by professional merchants, or through diplomatic channels owing to some of the 64 Ragusan consulates in Europe in the 1780s. The members of the Gozze family, occupying 306 public offices in all during the 1751–1807 period, were surely among those who abundantly used these services. 20 For the precise data on this French repertoire see: Louis Aubert (1720 – after 1783)

Le Bonjour. Romance. Le musique d’Aubert fils avec accompagnement de guitare par Edourad D. Paris: Frère, No. 596. – P.

Unknown composer ( Jean-Baptiste Bédard?)

Partant pour la Syrie. Romance. Avec accompagnement de lyre ou guitare par J.B. Bédard (1765–1815). Paris: Frère, s.n. – P.

Joseph-Denise Doche (1766–1825)

Romance de Segur. Chanson morale. Musique de Doche. Paris: Louis (?), No. 39C. – P.

Joseph-Denise Doche (1766–1825)

Vaudeville des deux lions. Musique de J. D. Doche. Avec accompagnement de lyre ou guitare par J. B. Bédard. Paris: Jouve, s.n. – P.

Fasqu(i)el (?–?)

Plus on est de foux plus on rit. Chanson Bachique. Par Armand Gouffée. Musique de Fasquel artiste de l’Academie Imp.ale de Musique et membre de plusieurs Logos. Paris: Decombe, No. 138. (etiquette: Chez Frère, Passage du Saumon, rue Monmartre)

19 Among them, Vladislas Paul Gozze owned 35 Viennese musical prints and Paolo Gozze 23 Italian ones. 20 These data were cited in: Vjera Katalinić: “Imported Music Scores in the Possession of the Gozze Family in Dubrovnik”, paper held at the international conference in Ljubljana, 20–21 October 2014.

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Stanislav Tuksar Joseph Fodor (1751–1828)

Airs varies pour deux violons, Livre 2. Paris: Pleyel, No. 1343. – P.

Louis-Emmanuel Jadin (1768–1853)

Scene imitative pour le piano … par Louis Jadin. Vienna: Thadé Weigl & Paris: Mme Duhan, No. 1119 (piano part).

Charles-Henri Plantade (1764–1839)

Romance de Mr. Ch. Plantade. Chantée dans le Cercle, par M.r Gavaudan. Avec accompagnement de lyre ou guitarre, par Lemoine. Paris: Frère, (etiquette), s.n. – P.

Ignace Joseph Pleyel (1757–1831)

Trois trios concertants pour flûte, violon, et violoncelle (3. livre de trios de flûte). Trio III. Vienna: T. Mollo, No. 1494 (parts: fl, vl, vc).

Nicolas Séjan (1745–1819)

Vive Henri quatre! A M. le Duc de Duras, Premier Gentilhomme de la Chambre du Roy. s.l., No. 350 (part: piano/harpsichord).

Late 18 th - and early 19 th -century Prints of Compositions by French Authors Kept in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Monastery Collection Among these ten compositions there are four chamber music pieces (by Fodor, Jadin, Pleyel and Séjan), four romances (by Aubert, Bédard, Doche and Plantade), one chanson (by Fasquel) and one vaudeville song (by Doche). Instrumental chamber music pieces make up part of the long previous tradition of chamber music-making in Dubrovnik, revealing no features of special interest except for the uniqueness of their preservation and time span bridging almost 40 years immediately before and after the Revolution. The Dutch violonist Fodor’s Airs variés obviously originate from his Paris years (1780–1792). Jadin’s Scene imitative pour le piano might belong to his piano music from his 1805–15 period as Professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire. Pleyel’s Trois trios concertants pour f lûte, violon, et violoncelle is the only preserved copy of the third book of trios for f lute, arranged for the above-mentioned instruments, in the context of trios by Pleyel otherwise published in innumerable variants. 21 Séjan’s Vive Henri quatre!, 21 The first book of these trios has been preserved as published by André in Offenbach (5 copies in various collections), by Pleyel in Paris (5 copies) and T. Mollo from Vienna (2 copies). Cf. Répértoire international des sources musicales (RISM) A/I, ed. Karlheinz Schlager, vol.6: Individual Prints before 1800 documents printed music of works by a single composer published between 1500 and 1800,

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Musical Prints in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection one among many ‘Hymns of the Restoration’, arranged for piano/harpsichord, belongs to the period of his return after 1815, when he regained his position as professor at the Royal Chapel. Vocal romances by four composers add another small yet unknown chapter to the “frančezarija” phenomenon in Dubrovnik. However, the identity the male or female singer(s) for whom this material was privately purchased remains unknown. There is a possibility that it was used in the French school which existed in Dubrovnik in the early 19 th century. The precise indication “Aubert fils” points undoubtedly to Louis Aubert, the outstanding violinist of the Opéra orchestra in Paris (1756–74), known up to now only by his published violin music (sonatas, symphonies, trios). The romance Le Bonjour seems to be the first indication that he was also a composer of vocal music. The romance, Partant pour la Syrie – the authorship of the text and melody of which has not yet been identified by the present author – had been supplied with guitar accompaniment by Jean-Baptiste Bédard, the “premier violon et maitre de musique au théâtre de Rennes”, who settled in Paris in 1796. 22 Joseph-Denise Doche’s “chanson morale”, entitled Romance de Segur, was probably part of his numerous collections of songs and romances, published in Paris between 1796 and 1812. It was the Romance by Charles-Henri Plantade for which, very probably, the founder of the publishing firm Antoine-Marcel Lemoine (1763–1816), a guitarist himself, wrote the lyre or guitar accompaniment. 23 An interesting case seems to be the “chanson Bachique” Plus on est de foux plus on rit, with lyrics by Armand Gouffée and music by a certain Fasqu(i)el. Gouffée was the co-author of several texts for light theatrical pieces as divertissement, opéra comique and mélodrame, as well as a composer of études and concertinos for the double bass. The composer Fasqu(i)el, “de la chapelle du roi, professeur de solfége à l’Ecole royale, chef du chant adjoint et répétiteur des choeurs de l’Opéra”, 24 has been less known as a composer, with only two more titles published in all.

Kassel-Basel-Tours-London: Bärenreiter, 1976, pp. 573–578. Up to now, not a single copy of the second book has been registered either. 22 11 more titles by various publishers have been identified where Bédard figured as author of guitar accompaniment. Cf. Répértoire international des sources musicales (RISM) A/I, ed. Karlheinz Schlager, vol.1. Kassel-Basel-Tours-London: Bärenreiter, 1971, pp. 250–251. 23 Plantade was among the most prolific and well-known French authors of romances at the turn of the century, starting to publish one receuil de romances et chansons after another from 1796 on. 24 It was announced in the chapter Musiciens de Paris of the book Bibliographie musicale de la France et de l’étranger published by Duport in Paris in 1822. Additional data on Fasqu(i)el is given on the title page as „artiste de l’Academie Imp.ale (Impériale) de Musique (i.e. Théâtre de l’Académie Impériale de Musique or Théâtre National de la rue de la Loi, active in1804–1815) et membre de plusieurs Logos”.

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Stanislav Tuksar Doche’s air from the Vaudeville des deux lions, supplied again with a guitar accompaniment by Jean-Baptiste Bédard, is cited in La clé du caveau 25 published in Paris in four editions up to 1848. 26

Publishing Houses The 320 titles of early prints (with 331 copies in all) preserved in this Dubrovnik collection had been published by 81 publishing house from the following eight European countries (for 16 titles the publisher remains unidentifed to date): 27

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Austria: 137 titles printed by 20 publishers; England: 8 titles printed by 5 publishers; France: 42 titles printed by 20 publishers; Germany: 31 titles printed by 10 publishers; Italy: 83 titles printed by 23 publishers; The Netherlands: 1 title printed by 1 publisher; Russia: 1 title printed by 1 publisher; Switzerland: 1 title printed by 1 publisher. 27

And this is the more detailed list of French publishers mentioned above: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Paris: Pleyel (10 titles); Paris: Imbault (5); Paris: Frère (3); Paris: Sieber / Sieber fils (3); Paris: Boyer, Mme Le Menu (3) Paris: Mlles Erard – Lyon: Garnier (3); Paris: August Le Duc (2); Paris: Venier – Lyon: Castaud (1); Paris: Bureau d’abonnement musical (1); Paris: Eckard (1); Paris: Huellmandel (1);

25 The full title reads: La clé du caveau à l’usage des chanconniers français et étrangers, des amateurs, auteurs, acteurs, chefs d’orchestre. 26 Paris: P. Capelle, 1848 (4th ed.). 27 Cf. Tuksar: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Opći pregled fonda”, p. 768.

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Musical Prints in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Paris: Jacques-Joseph Frey (1); Paris: Momigny (1); Paris: Bernard Viguerie (1); Paris: Jouve (1); Paris: Decombe (1); Paris: Bailleux (1); Paris: Mme Duhan et Co. (1); Paris: Naderman (1); Paris: Louis (1). 28

28

One of the characteristics of this collection of early prints is that as many as 48 publishing houses, i.e. 59 % of their total number, are represented by only one title. The interpretation of this fact might point to various conclusions; for example, this could mean that the majority of these titles were purchased on an individual basis, thus revealing the fact that it was mostly musically cultivated families who ordered this material; furthermore, it might also point to the fact that the reasons for their purchase in numerous cases might not have been due simply to well-established connections with particular publishing houses, but rather the intentional ordering and purchase of specific musical works. Further, this might lead to the conclusion that what counted most was the publisher’s aesthetic judgement and their individual appraisal of single compositions rather than any other extra-musical reasons inf luencing their purchase.

Genres If analysed according to the represented genres of music, the early prints under consideration reveal a very characteristic structure. Only four titles (1.3 %) belong to vocal music, 38 titles (11.9 %) to vocal-instrumental music, and as many as 278 titles (86.8 %) to purely instrumental music. Vocal music consists of four sacred music titles; among 38 vocal-instrumental pieces there are 13 operatic titles, 18 solo songs and 7 sacred music titles; and among 278 instrumental titles there are 112 titles for solo instrument, 58 duets, 41 trios, 28 quartets, 9 quintets, 4 sextets, 1 septet, 6 concertos and 19 orchestral compositions. Taking into account the relative preponderance of instrumental music in Europe during the Classical and early Romantic eras in all, it is no surprise to encounter such a situation in Dubrovnik. On the other hand, if we consider that the early prints collection is to a certain extent a statistically representative pattern 28 Cf. Tuksar: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Opći pregled fonda”, pp. 768–769.

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Stanislav Tuksar for the whole repertoire at large, some conclusions concerning genres might be drawn out in this way: 1) Vocal music – both sacred and secular – was significantly less purchased in manuscript form than in prints; this would change only in the second half of the 19 th century. 2) The preserved vocal-instrumental music – including integral operas or their individual numbers, and solo songs – point to an average presence in the musical culture of Dubrovnik at the time. 3) Along with accompanying contemporary European trends concerning the absolute superiority in number of the preserved instrumental music pieces, another aspect seems to be of special interest; namely, 239 out of 278 titles in this category, forming 86 % of all its titles, belong to soloist and chamber music genres, and only 39 titles or 14 % belong to the genres of larger chamber or orchestral music. This insight might lead to some plausible hypotheses regarding the reasons for the nature of this collection in particular and in general terms. Namely, the great amount of music for solo instruments and smaller ensembles, including the quartet, speaks to the fact that towards the end of the Republic’s existence music-making circles suffered from a lack of the kind of money needed, for example, for the purchase of the great symphonic literature of late Classicism and early Romanticism, in spite of the Rector’s orchestra being at the Republic’s disposal. On the other hand, the penchant for house music-making in aristocratic and middle-class private salons was not suffocated as a socio-cultural phenomenon, but was confined to smaller, domestic arenas and small-scale ensembles, in which the financing of these activities was feasible. Of course, this does not mean that the questions of taste and the aesthetic level of the music performed decreased. In fact, the preserved music, which includes works composed by the foremost composers of the epoch – such as Mozart, Haydn, Boccherini, Cimarosa, Pleyel, Vaňhal, and many others – fully testifies that this was not the case. Indeed, this historical imperative did not only help in strenghtening the sense of individuality and elevated self hood, well-known from earlier times within the Dubrovnik socio-political and musico-cultural elites, but made it more delicate and difficult to accept the fall of their Republic as an independent entity during the period of transition towards the Habsburg world. More especially if one takes into account that the direct surrounding areas belonged for centuries to another socio-cultural universe – that of the Islamic world of the Turkish-Ottoman Empire with its borders only a couple of miles far from the town itself. Thus a relatively small segment of musical heritage, the musical prints from the 1750–1815 period – and the analysis and interpretation of its structure and 696

Musical Prints in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection provenience within a plausible socio-psychological context – could point to a better understanding of cultural situations and processes in a given environment at large.

Select Bibliography Brlek, Mijo I.: “Knjižnica Male braće u Dubrovniku”, in: Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Kršćanska sadašnjost – Samostan Male braće, 1985, pp. 587–614. Demović, Miho: Glazba i glazbenici u Dubrovačkoj Republici od polovine XVII. do prvog desetljeća XIX. stoljeća. Zagreb: JAZU, 1989. : “Orgulje katedrale kroz vjekove”, in: Katedrala Gospe Velike u Dubrovniku,       ed. Katarina Horvat-Levaj. Dubrovnik-Zagreb: Gradska župa Gospe Velike Dubrovnik – Institut za povijest umjetnosti Zagreb, 2014, pp. 381–395. Franičević, Marin; Franjo Švelec; Rafo Bogišić: Povijest hrvatske književnosti, vol. 3: Od renesanse do prosvjetiteljstva. Zagreb: Liber-Mladost, 1974. Harris, Robin: Dubrovnik. A History. London: Saqi, 2006. Katalinić, Vjera: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku: rani rukopisi od početka 18. st. do oko 1820”, in: Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Kršćanska sadašnjost – Samostan Male braće, 1985, pp. 623–664.      : “Die Werke W.A. Mozarts und einiger seiner Zeitgenossen in kroatischen Sammlungen bis ca. 1820”, in: Internationaler musikwissenschaftlicher Kongress zum Mozartjahr 1991, Baden bei Wien, vol.2: Free Papers, Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1993, pp. 685–691.      : “Torna la bella aurora (1816): Ellena Luisa di Pozza Sorgo (1784–1865), oder das Schicksal einer Komponistin nach der Auf hebung der Republik Dubrovnik”, in: “Ein unerschöpf liches Reichtum an Ideen …”, Komponistinen zur Zeit Mozarts, ed. E. Ostleitner & G. Dorffner. Vienna: 4/4 Verlag, 2006, pp. 117–124.      : Imported Music Scores in the Possession of the Gozze Family in Dubrovnik, paper read at the international conference in Ljubljana, 20–21 October 2014.      : Sorkočevići – dubrovački plemići i glazbenici / The Sorkočevićes – aristocrats and musicians from Dubrovnik. Zagreb: Music Information Centre, 2014. Katalinić, Vjera; Stanislav Tuksar: “Musical Collections and Archives in Dubrovnik. General Review, Manuscripts and Prints from 1600 to 1900”, Fonti musicali in Italia 4 (1990), pp. 7–30.      : (ed.): Glazbene kulture na Jadranu u razdoblju klasicizma / Musical Cultures in the Adriatic Region During the Age of Classicism. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society: 2004. 697

Stanislav Tuksar      : “Glazbena

zbirka katedrale”, in: Katedrala Gospe Velike u Dubrovniku, ed. Katarina Horvat-Levaj. Dubrovnik-Zagreb: Gradska župa Gospe Velike Dubrovnik – Institut za povijest umjetnosti Zagreb, 2014, pp. 381–395. Smičiklas, Tade: Codex Diplomaticus, vol. 3. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1905. Tuksar, Stanislav: “Glazbeni arhiv samostana Male braće u Dubrovniku. Opći pregled fonda i popis ranih tiskovina”, in: Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Kršćanska sadašnjost – Samostan Male braće, 1985, pp. 665–773.      : “Imprimés musicaux européens anciens et rares dans les archives croates”, in: Les Croates et la civilisation du livre, Croatica Parisiensia 1. Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1986, pp. 67–74.      : “Music Research Libraries, Archives and Collections in Croatia”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 23/2 (1992), pp. 119–140.      : “Stage Music, Italian Opera Performances, and Librettos in Dubrovnik from 1670’s to 1800”, in: Giovanni Legrenzi e la Cappella Ducale di San Marco, Atti dei convegni internazionali di studi, Venezia, 24–26 maggio 1990 – Clusone, 14–16 settembre 1990, ed. Francesco Passadore & Franco Rossi. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1994, pp. 207–213.      : “Pregled rukopisnih i tiskanih muzikalija u franjevačkom samostanu u Koprivnici”, in: Podravski zbornik 1996. Koprivnica, 1996, pp. 105–110. : “Music by Eighteenth-Century German and Austrian Composers Pre      served in Venetian Dalmatia and Dubrovnik. Differences and Similarities”, in: Relazioni musicali tra Italia e Germania nell’età barocca / Deutsch-italienische Beziehungen in der Musik des Barock, Atti del VI Convegno internazionale sulla musica italiana nei secoli XVII–XVIII, ed. Alberto Colzani, Andrea Luppi, Maurizio Padoan. Loveno di Menaggio, Como: A.M.I.S., 1997, pp. 447–461.      : “Les éditions rares de Mozart – jusqu’en 1815 – conservées en Croatie”, in: Mozart: Les chemins de l’Europe. Actes du Congrès de Strasbourg 14–16 octobre 1991, ed. Brigitte Massin. Strasbourg: Editions du Conseil de l’Europe, 1997, pp. 179–187. th      : “Le cappelle musicali in Split (Spalato) and Dubrovnik (Ragusa) in the 18 Century – Repertoires, Cultural Missions, and Social Importance”, in: Barocco padano 1. Atti del IX Convegno internazionale sulla musica sacra nei secoli XVII–XVIII, Brescia 1999, ed. Alberto Colzani, Andrea Luppi, Maurizio Padoan. Como: A.M.I.S., 2002, pp. 361–377.

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Musical Prints in the Dubrovnik Franciscan Music Collection      : “Franciscans

and the Musical Heritage of the Ancient Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik)”, in: Plaude turba paupercula – Franziskaner Geist in Musik, Literatur und Kunst, Konferenzbericht, ed. Ladislav Kačic. Bratislava: Slavisticky ustav jana Stanislava SAV, 2005, pp. 257–269.      : “The Presence of Italian Music in the Croatian Lands in the 1600– 1800 Period – A General Survey”, in: Early Music – Context and Ideas II. Kraków: Institute of Musicology, Jagiellonian University, 2008, pp. 372–388.      : “Glazbena kultura Dubrovačke Republike”, in: Pavica Vilać, ed., Luka & Antun Sorkočević. Diplomati i skladatelji [with a summary in English: ‘The Musical Culture of the Dubrovnik Republic’]. Dubrovnik: Dubrovački muzeji, 2014, pp. 26–59. Velnić, Justin: “Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku – povijesni prikaz života i djelatnosti “, in: Samostan Male braće u Dubrovniku. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Kršćanska sadašnjost – Samostan Male braće, 1985, pp. 95–184. Vilać, Pavica (ed.): Luka & Antun Sorkočević. Diplomati i skladatelji. Dubrovnik: Dubrovački muzeji, 2014.

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Harry White and Richard Taruskin, Zagreb 2017

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The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović

Routes of Travels and Points of Encounters Observed Through Musical Borrowings: The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović, an 18 th -Century Itinerant Violin Virtuoso Vjera Katalinić

To Harry, whose private library was so helpful at the right moment During the 18th century many artists were “on the move”, searching for a better job or a benevolent benefactor, and touring towards attractive centres: noble palaces, rich churches, bustling towns and market places. Although their means of travel were often reduced to a bumpy peasant’s wagon or even their own feet, their search for a better life urged them to continue their journeys. No smoothsurface carriage connections between cities existed and the rare roads were mostly in bad shape, dangerous because of the bandits on the land and pirates on the sea who preyed on travellers.1 That age gave birth to more developed and fashionable tourism, partly overlapping with educational journeys of noble youngsters; it is the time when the first travel advisors and Baedekers were published and the first souvenirs were produced. Their writers suggested the voyager to bring both his own bed sheets and “some iron machine to shut his door on the inside” and advised further that “‘Tis proper also to travel with arms, such as a sword and pair of pistols, and likewise with a tinder-box in order to strike a fire in case of any accident in the night.”2 Furthermore, a person who was on a personal or professional tour, or intended to succeed in higher social circles, had to be supplied with letters of recommendation and a passport that would allow him to move smoothly 1 2

The author wishes to express her gratitude to Dr Shane McMahon for his close reading and helpful comments on the draft text of this essay. Patrick Marchand: Le Maître de poste et le messager. Les transports publics en France au temps des chevaux, Paris: Belin, 2006. The best advice was given by the Anglo-Irish travel writer Thomas Nugent in his book The Grand tour, London: S. Birt, 1749, undoubtedly one of the most widely used European guides at that time. Nugent’s citations are taken from the introduction by H. Edmund Poole to the diary of Charles Burney: Music, Men and Manners in France and Italy 1770. London: Eulenburg books, 1969, pp. xviii–xix.

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Vjera Katalinić from one territory to another, or from one state, duchy or kingdom to another, trying not to be kept, accused or imprisoned under the suspicion of being a spy, delinquent or even an enemy of the state or the ruler. An attentive researcher could trace not only the timeline of such an artist, but also the intersections and meetings the artist had with other important persons as well as the process of acculturation which such contact with local (musical) culture engendered, thus discovering a network of migrations and encounters that undoubtedly left traces on its participants’ life and oeuvre. 3

The Case of Giornovichi/Jarnović (1) and his borrowings One of many such experienced traveling virtuosi was a violinist, popular throughout Europe under the name of Giovanni Giornovichi, and today mostly known under the Croaticized name of Ivan Jarnović. His life and travels were adventurous, his temper quite unrestrained and many anecdotes on his peculiar character and wit have survived in journals and books. A brief reminder of his timeline reads as following: Baptized in Palermo in 1747, presumably coming from a family of itinerant entertainers of Croatian origin, he emerged in Paris in the mid-1760s, already a trained violinist, which is confirmed by his initial success at the Concert spirituel in 1773, when his first violin concerto was published by Sieber. His alleged violin teacher was Antonio Lolli – as indicated at the first pages of Woldemar’s Sonate Fantô-magique,4 even being one of his “disciples favoris”, probably inconsistently during Lolli’s tours to Paris (1764 and 1766). On the other hand, it seems that in the field of composition, he was (at least partly) self-taught. Thus, in his compositions, his favourite instrument played the leading role: in early Classicist violin concerti, string quartets and violin duos (both of them either of the “concertant” or of the “dialogué” type), as well as other “small-scale” compositions. 5 He combined traditional employment at private aristocratic courts with public concerts 3 4 5

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Part of this research was carried out within the EU project “Music Migrations in the Early Modern Age: The Meeting of the European East, West and South” (http://www.musmig.eu/home/), sponsored by HERA (www.heranet.info). See: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b90574890/f1.zoom. Quite an accurate list of his output is published in: Chapell White: “Giornovichi, Giovanni”, in: The New Grove Encyclopaedia of Music and Musicians, vol.9. London: Macmillan etc., 2001, pp. 890–891, as well as in some other encyclopaedic sources. The list of his violin concerti with incipits and the dating of various publications can be found in: Vjera Katalinić: Violinski koncerti Ivana Jarnovića. Glazbeni aspekt i društveni kontekst njegova uspjeha u 18. stoljeću [Violin Concerti by Ivan Jarnović. Musical Aspect and Social Context of their Success in the 18th Century]. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 2006.

The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović in Paris and Lyon, as well as during his stays in German-speaking countries, Great Britain and in Russia. In between, he performed in public or in private circles, usually remaining in place for a couple of weeks, as in Warsaw 6 and Vienna (1786), Dublin (1797),7 Copenhagen (1802), or in Stockholm (1803). 8 Some 30 variants of his family name are recorded ( Jarnovick, Giornovichi, Žarnovik, Zarnovitty etc.), the use of which often depended on the country he was visiting. The press followed his successful appearances, but his name also occurs in letters, diaries and memoires of his contemporaries.9 However, some local musical details – above all the current operatic repertoire and various local popular tunes – also gave impetus for his output and left traces in some of his compositions. Already during his sojourn in Paris in 1775 Sieber published his collection of Airs variées.10 Such pieces were usually small oeuvres for chamber ensembles, where popular tunes served as the basis for more or less developed variations, and might have been used for pedagogical as well as for concertante purposes. In Jarnović’s case there are sets of usually six themes with (mostly) four variations for violin and basso (sometimes defined as violoncello), preserved as prints and manuscripts. Sieber obviously published such small sets repeatedly, because at the very end of the 1770s he released the Airs Varies [!] pour violon et violoncelle par Mr. Giornovichi.11 The same edition can be found at Schmitt’s in Amsterdam. This small series is based on French popular songs, which were also used as themes for variations by some other composers of the time. There is, for example, Lison dormait 6

On Giornovichi’s connections with Warsaw and Poland, cf. Alina Żórawska-Witkowska, “Ivan Mane Jarnović alla luce delle fonti polacche”, in: Zagreb and Music 1094–1994, ed. Stanislav Tuksar. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 1998, pp. 243–251. 7 On his concerts in Dublin and their context cf. Vjera Katalinić: “Ponovno o jedinom pismu ‘nepismenog’ Jarnovića: koncerti u revolucionarnom Dublinu” [Again on a Letter by the Illiterate Jarnovick: Concerts in Revolutionary Dublin], Arti musices, 35/1 (2004), pp. 21–30. 8 His stay in Stockholm was proved in 2015, through research within the project “Music Migration in the Early Modern Age: The Meeting of the European East, West and South”, and presented in: Vjera Katalinić: “Giovanni Giornovichi / Ivan Jarnović in Stockholm: A Centre or a Periphery? In: Music Migration in the Early Modern Age: Centres and Peripheries – People, Works, Styles, Paths of Dissemination and Influence, eds., Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak and Aneta Markuszewska. Warszawa: Liber Pro Arte, 2016, pp. 127–138. 9 He was mostly praised as an outstanding or even one of the best violinists of his time, as in the autobiographies and reminiscences of Dittersdorf, Michael Kelly, Michał Teofras Ogińsky, the letters of Leopold Mozart, etc. 10 It seems that his first set of Airs variées appeared in 1775; cf. “Notice de tous les ouvrages de musique vocale ou instrumentale .., qui ont paru en 1775”, Almanach musical. Tome III, Année 1777. Paris: C. J. Mathon de la Cour, reprint: Geneve: Minkof, 1972. It was listed on p. 74 (500) as: “86. Air avec variations pour le violon, par M. Jarnovick. Chez M. Sieber.” 11 The attached catalogue of his publications enables approximate dating. Namely, among the listed concerti for violin, nos. 1, 3, 4, and 6 are available. The latter appeared in c1779, cf. Cari Johansson: French music Publishers’ Catalogues of the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century. Stockholm: Publications of the Library of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, 1955.

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Vjera Katalinić from the opera Julie by Nicolas Dezède,12 a romance from the vaudeville L’Aveugle de Palmire,13 Ronde d’Henri IV from the opera Henri IV, ou La bataille d’Ivry by J. P. A. Martini,14 an Air de chasse by an unidentified author,15 and a romance Je suis Lindor by Antoine-Laurent Baudron from Beaumarchais’ Le Barbier de Seville.16 Secondary sources point to several further airs treated by Giornovichi, such as the aria La ra la ra, che filosofo buffon from Salieri’s La grotta di Trofonio, which appeared in Vienna in 1786.17 One copy was preserved in parts in a private collection in Prague.18 This opera by Salieri, premiered at the Viennese Burgtheater on 12 October 1785, was still popular during Giornovichi’s sojourn in Vienna in spring of 1786. At that time it could be purchased as a score19 and also in arrangements by various composers such as Johann Nepomuk Vent (Went), 20 or Jan Křtitel Vaňhal. 21 The “Cavatina – Menuett: La ra La ra, che Filosofo Buffon” was, as announced in the advertisement, “die Lieblingsszene” from that opera. 22 Furthermore, newspaper announcements often report on Giornovichi’s popular encores – variations on popular tunes which he used to close his performances: “It is a remark due to Giornowichi to say, that when his Solo passages are expected to terminate, he gives them an extent of Air, that surprises and delights”. 23 The 12 The song was used by Mozart, Steibelt, Mme Krumpholtz etc.; cf. RISM search. 13 Many songs from that stage piece were used as themes for variation sets. The same romance can be found also at J. J. Rudolph. 14 The French cellist Tissier also used the aria “Pour un peuple aimable” for his variations (RISM ID no.: 240005128). 15 The same melody can be found in an anonymous manuscript in Rome (RISM ID no.: 850035465). 16 Clementi, Mozart and some unidentified composers also used the same theme for variations. 17 In the Wiener Zeitung, 17 May 1786, p. 15, the publisher Johann Traeg announced a series of “neue geschriebene Musikalien zu haben” at his address “am Hohen Markt Nr. 423”. Among them is “Variazioni in B à Violino Principale, mit Accompagnement vom Giornovichi aus der Oper: La Grotta di Trofonio (la ra, la ra) / 1 fl. 30 kr.” 18 Národní knihovna České republiky in Prague (RISM ID no. 550504072). 19 Wiener Zeitung, 18 January 1786, p. 12: “In der Lauschischen Musikalienhandlung in der Kärntnerstraße Nr. 1085 ist zu haben: La Grotta di Trofonio, Opera des Herrn Salieri in Partitur, 20 fl. – im Clavierauszug 14 fl. – in Quartetten a 2 Violin, Viola e Violoncello, 6 fl. 30 kr.” 20 Wiener Zeitung, 21 January 1786, p. 15: the announcement of the publisher Artaria & Comp. names a manuscript “Von Herrn Kapellmeister Salieri, die Oper La Grotta di Trofonio, in Quartetten gesetzt für 2 Violin, Viola und Baß, von Hrn. Vent gut übersetzt, und korrekt geschrieben. 7 fl. 45 kr.” It had already been announced in the Wiener Zeitung, 18 January 1786, p. 12. 21 Wiener Zeitung, 26 April 1789, p. 13: “Bey Christoph Torricella, Kunst- Kupferstich- und Musikalienverleger am Kohlmarkt nächst dem Milano, ist gestochen, mit einer zur benannten Oper passenden Titelvignette, zu haben die beliebte Cavatina – Menuett: La ra La ra, che Filosofo Buffon, dell’Opera, La Grotta di Trofonio, del Sig. Salieri. (…) Auch sind die 7 Variazionen aufs Klavier, oder Piano-Forte vom Herrn Vanhall über den aus eben dieser Oper gezogenen Text: Venite o Donne meco &c, in eben dieser Kunsthandlung zu haben.” 22 Ibidem. 23 Thomas B. Milligan: The Concerto and London’s Musical Culture in the Late Eighteenth Century. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1983, p. 122.

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The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović themes had to be carefully chosen to please the audience and sometimes they were even advertised in advance. Thus, in Dublin in 1797, during his benefit concert, it was announced that in the second part of the concert the virtuoso would play one of his violin concerti “after which will be introduced the favourite Airs ‘With lowly suit’, ‘Rule Britannia’.”24 The song With lowly suit was probably taken from the popular afterpiece opera No song, no supper by Stephen Storace, 25 while Rule Britannia was a patriotic song, set to music by Thomas Arne. Its choice might have been due to the fact that Giornovichi’s protectors – present at the performance – were the Count of Camden, the viceroy of Ireland, and his spouse, on the eve of the French-British war of 1798. During an especially festive patriotic gathering with King George and the highest nobility at the King’s Theatre in London on 19 June 1794, on the occasion of the glorious British naval victory over the French, Brigida Banti sung in Paisiello’s La serva padrona and Giornovichi “introduced into his Concerto the simple but heroic air of ‘Hearts of Oak’, which elicited universal applause.”26 Such an improvisation – probably a set of variations on the Royal Navy anthem with the same name – was aimed to display the virtuosity and raise the popularity of the performer as well as to show his loyalty to the nobility. Giornovichi’s variations on such “borrowed”27 themes – very common among performers at the turn of the century28 – were mostly intended and performed for the respective local community, who would have recognized the executed tune. On the other hand, he never included a variation movement in his solo concerti. They are mostly classically built in a three-movement pattern (Allegro – Andante – Allegro), where the first movement was always a type of early classical sonata form and the last one was a rondo of a French type. His central movements were often romances, 29 articulated in two or three parts, in a cantabile style, and a vocal template could have often been felt or even recognized in its (main) theme. Although the Romance in his fifth concerto, published for the first time in Paris around 1775, has opening bars similar to the Marche patriotique by an anonymous author, 30 it is probably a mere coincidence and the character of the piece is completely different. 24 Freeman’s Journal, 2 March 1797. 25 Its premiere was at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, on 16 April 1790 at the benefit for Michael Kelly, when Stephen’s sister Nancy sang the role of Margaret. 26 Morning post, 20 June 1794. 27 On the subject of musical borrowing, cf. J. Peter Burkholder: “Borrowing”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 4. London: Macmillan, 20022 , pp. 5–41. 28 Elaine Sisman: “Variations”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 26. London: Macmillan, 20022 , pp. 284–326, here p. 284. 29 The vocal line could already be felt in the second movement of his fourth concerto, but from the fifth concerto his slow movements carry the title “Romance”. It is said that Giornovichi introduced the romance into the violin concerto. 30 This piece for a small ensemble is kept in Munich in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (RISM ID no.: 454016573).

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Vjera Katalinić The first hint of the musical borrowing of a theme occurs in the seventh concerto published in Paris in the late 1770s or early 1780s, where the last movement is a Rondeau Russe. However, the theme has not yet been precisely identified. It is peculiar how Giornovichi came across this melody, because he gave (documented) concerts in Paris until March 177731 and perhaps stayed there for a further year or two. It is possible that he took the melody over from some performers who were acquainted with such music or from a musical stage work performed in Paris at that time. It is also possible that he might have heard it during his sojourn in German towns, as, for example, from the Ukrainian community settled by Frederick the Great near Potsdam after the first partition of Poland in 1773. The first melody that sounds familiar and indicates a possible borrowing is the Rondo theme in the 10 th concerto, published in Paris in 1784 by Sieber, with some later editions by Hummel in Berlin (mid-1780s) and Clementi in London (probably c.1805):

Example 1: Giornovichi’s rondo theme from the 10 th concerto

The 10 th concerto seems to have been very popular and was transcribed as a sonata for piano/harpsichord and violin published by Longman & Broderip’s in London (1791) and re-published again in a series Étrennes pour les dames by J. André in Offenbach (1793). This concerto was first published while Giornovichi stayed for the first time in Russia, although it had probably already been conceived and composed in Germany. In fact, as early as September 1779 his two public appearances were announced in Frankfurt’s local press: “Herr Giornovichy, erster Violonist von Franckreich und Concertmeister Ihre Durchlaucht des Prinzen von Rohan Guimenée wird die Ehre haben, künftigen Sonntag den 12. dieses Monats abends um 6. Uhr, in dem rothen Hauß ein grosses Vocal- und Instrumental-Concert zu geben. [Mr. Giornovichy, first violinist of France and concert master of his Highness the Prince Rohan Guimenée, is honoured to give a grand vocal and instrumental concert next Sunday, the 12th of this month at 6 pm in the Red house.]”32 However, by 31 There is a short report on a “Concert des amateurs”, when “MM. de St. George & Jarnovick” gave a brilliant performance on 18 March 1777; cf. Journal de Paris, 20 March 1777, p. 2. 32 Frankfurter, Frag- und Anzeigungs-Nachrichten, no. 76, 11 September 1779. His second concert was on 17 September, announced in the same newspaper on 16 September 1779 (no. 78).

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The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović the end of the year he was already in Berlin, leading the court orchestra of Prince Frederick William, 33 and performed there in private and in public concerts for almost three years, when he left for Russia, with a short sojourn in Warsaw in September 1782. 34 Therefore, the impulses for his rondo theme for the 10 th concerto could have originated in his Berlin period. I addressed this issue some time ago35 but here I offer some new ideas. The characteristic initial motive can be found in some compositions of that time, and Hyatt King highlighted them (and pointed towards some other authors) when researching the sources for Mozart’s Magic f lute, 36 and specifically the theme of Papageno’s aria. Thus, “Jahn remarked that the melody of a chorale by Scandello (1517–80) was the counterpart, in long note values, of Papageno’s Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen. Chantavoine has noted an even more interesting parallel in Haydn’s Mondo della luna.”37 On the other hand, Sternfeld also points to J.S. Bach’s choral melody Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, more precisely its second part, “a treatment of the third stanza of the chorale Nun lob mein Seel den Herren”, 38 as well as to the traditional tune Es freit ein wilder Wassermann, published in 1902 by Max Friedländer in his collection Das deutsche Lied im 18. Jahrhundert. 39 He also lists some other possible sources of melodic inspiration, mostly from popular operas of the late 1770s and 1780s.40 However, we are to investigate some possible inf luences, inspirations, or even direct borrowings for Giornovichi’s Rondo theme, partly by putting together some facts and partly by eliminating others. As mentioned before, Giornovichi could have come across the melody which aroused his interest during his sojourn in Germany at the beginning of 1780s. Therefore, it does not seem likely that he could have heard that particular Haydn Singspiel, composed and performed in 1777 for the wedding festivities of the younger son of Count Nicholas Esterházy.41 Of course, Giornovichi might have heard Grétry’s opera Amant jaloux, premiered in Versailles in November 1778 (since there is no information on his whereabouts at that time), 33 Prince Frederick William became Prussian King after his uncle Frederick the Great passed away in 1786. 34 On Giornovichi’s performances in Warsaw, cf. the aforementioned article by Alina ŻórawskaWitkowska: “Ivan Mane Jarnović alla luce delle fonti polacche”. 35 Cf. Vjera Katalinić: “Zu einigen Popularthemen im Jarnovick’s Violinkonzerten”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 18/1 (1987), pp. 19–30. 36 Alexander Hyatt King: “The Melodic Sources and Affinities of ‘Die Zauberflöte’”, Musical Quarterly, 36/2 (1950), pp. 241–258. 37 Ibidem, p. 252. 38 Frederick W. Sternfeld: “The Melodic Sources of Mozart’s Most Popular Lied”, Musical Quarterly, 42/2 (1956), pp. 213–222; pp. 215–217. 39 Ibidem, pp. 219–220. 40 Ibidem, pp. 220–221. 41 Ludwig Finscher: Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2002, p. 39. The early performance history of Il mondo della luna after its premiere remains quite murky.

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Vjera Katalinić with an aria containing such a motive, but it is more likely that it was the German folk song that gave him ideas on the possibilities inherent in such a simple melody with a very common harmonic progression. Giornovichi was not a learned person who would analyse Baroque written scores, but rather a practical musician who would prefer to use melodies that he had heard. However, owing to the RISM database, the spectrum of possible models becomes quite impressive: with only eight initial notes (GCCDDEDC) entered into the advanced search keyboard, 55 possible results occur. Therefore, it might be presumed that Giornovichi could have had a model for that theme, but no one can be sure today that he used it consciously or deliberately. He definitely stuck to the theme, and a modified version occurred again a few years later in his Duo concertante in D major, published during his sojourn in England.42 The next case of Giornovichi’s borrowings is an unusual Rondo – the only one in triple meter – entitled Air en rondeau, which points to the melodic source of its theme in his 11th concerto published by Sieber by the end of the 1780s. The result of the search was again the aria La, ra, la, che Filosofo buffon from Salieri’s opera La grotta di Trofonio. Giornovichi obviously first composed variations on that theme and performed them in Vienna and later used it as the rondo theme for his concerto. The last known case of his borrowing is the 14th concerto, again with a Rondeau Russe. Back in the 1960s, the Russian musicologist Boris Solomonovich Steinpress identified the popular Russian folk-tune, known as Kamarinskaya, in the works of several composers (independently),43 among whom, beside Giornovichi, there were Joseph Haydn (in his movement Der Dudelsack, Andante cantabile, within the series of movements for the mechanical instrument Die Flötenuhr) 44 and Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. A fragment from Kamarinskaya was introduced in the opera Dobrïye soldatï ( Добрые солдаты [Good soldiers]) by Hermann Raupach, a German composer active in St Petersburg, on a libretto by Mikhail Kheraskov.45 The opera was performed posthumously in 1780, and Giornovichi might have heard it during his first visit to St Petersburg or later in some other piece. 42 It was published as the first duo in his third series of Trois duos concertants pour deux violons by P. Porro in Paris and dedicated to “Milord Belingktonn”. 43 Boris Solomonovich Steinpress: “K tvorcheskoj istorii ‘Kamarinskoj’”, Sovjetskaja muzyka, 4 (1962), pp. 63–65. 44 In Steinpress, the date of Haydn’s movement was 1772. Cf. Wolfgang Maria Uhl: ‘Airs russes’ und ‘thèmes russes’ in der Musik Westeuropas bis um 1900, PhD diss., Kiel 1974. In Georg Feder: “Joseph Haydn” (work-list), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 11, London: Macmillan, 20022 , p. 250, that movement is listed under Appendix Y.4: Spurious arrangements, and the possible new dating is 1796 (not 1772). It opens the possibility that Haydn, who had befriended Giornovichi and could have heard his performance of the 14th concerto, was inspired by his theme in Rondeau Russe. 45 Cf. Gerald Seaman: “Folk-song in Russian Opera of the 18th Century”, The Slavonic and East European Review, 41/96 (1962), pp. 144–157; pp. 151–152.

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The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović Still, the idea of the incorporation of popular/folk tune in a slow movement – as did, for example, John Field in his first piano concerto with a Scottish tune – can also be traced in the slow movement of Giornovichi’s 14th concerto: the initial theme in Amoroso con espressione is the Russian folk tune – Kak u nasheva shiro­kova dvora (Как у нашева широкова двора [As in our wide yard]) – a tune published by Vasily Fyodorovich Trutovsky in his collection Sobranie russkich prostych pesen s notami (Собрание русских простых песен с нотами [Collection of Russian folk tunes with music]),46 in the second volume (1778, no. 28). However, as mentioned earlier, Giornovichi was not a learned man interested in studying such sources. Therefore, the much more probable solution is that he did not use the tune from the collection as an inspiration, but heard it in the theatre. Namely, one of the first, and probably one of the most popular comic operas in Russian, Meljnik-koldun, obmanshik i svat (Мельник-колдун, обманщик и сват [Miller-Magician, Fraud and Matchmaker]) by Mikhail Matvejevich Sokolovsky (c.1750–?), was premiered in Moscow in 1779,47 and soon afterwards gained considerable success in St Petersburg. A work of modest quality, it was based on a collection of popular and folk tunes, among which was the melody that Giornovichi used in his slow movement. Later, in 1790, he chose to perform that piece for his first presentation to London audiences, in the Crown and Anchor tavern for the Anacreontic Society. The London Chronicle reported that: “The last movement [of the 14th concerto] was a simple Russian melody, which the composer has treated with great ingenuity. The uncouthness of the Air presents the idea of a Bear dancing, and the frequent introduction of the Air among the different instruments, had a most novel and ludicrous effect. It was impossible to resist laughing at the contrast between the Russian and Italian schools.”48 Here, two types of musical borrowings in Giornovichi’s oeuvre were presented: themes on which variations were built upon, (usually) serving as encores, (mostly) used for the specific/targeted audiences which could recognize the melodies and identify themselves with them. It also served as a display of the performer’s virtuosity; since they belonged to the constant-bass variations 49 (as observed in his preserved, printed or copied material), usually on popular and well-known 46 A collection with 80 tunes with a simple bass was published in St Petersburg in four volumes: in 1776 (nos. 1–19), 1778 (nos. 20–37), 1779 (nos. 38–57) and 1795 (nos. 58–76), and in 1796, he published a revised/expanded first volume. 47 Richard Taruskin: “Mikhail Matveyevich Sokolovsky”, The New Grove Encyclopaedia of Music and Musicians, vol. 23, London: Macmillan, 2002, p. 628.“The music was arranged in the first instance (in accordance with Ablesimov’s directions) by Sokolovsky, a violinist of the Moscow Russian Theatre, but has come down to us only in the popular version.” Cf. Seaman: Folk-song in Russian Opera, p. 148. 48 Milligan: The Concerto and London’s Musical Culture, p. 122 and footnote 24. 49 Elaine Sisman: “Variations”, in: The New Grove Encyclopaedia of Music and Musicians, vol. 26, London: Macmillan etc., 2002, pp. 284–326; here p. 300.

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Vjera Katalinić themes, 50 they could have been easily improvised and only rarely composed with orchestral accompaniment. 51 It seems that Giornovichi did not consider them to be a “serious compositional output”, because he never used them in his concerti. On the contrary, the borrowings in his concerto movements were applied within larger compositional frames, mostly in final rondo movements. At that point, Giornovichi was somewhat following the ideas of a cheerful happy-ending of a cyclic three-movement form, as suggested in some contemporary writings. 52

The Case of Giornovichi/Jarnović (2) and borrowings of his music In 2002 I gave a lecture on Giornovichi at University College Dublin at the invitation of Professor Harry White and presented some of these possible borrowings. When mentioning Giornovichi’s 10 th concerto and the famous rondo-theme, Professor Julian Horton drew my attention to Mozart’s 25th piano concerto in C, precisely to the second theme of the first movement, that sounds very similar to Giornovichi’s. Of course, one could immediately think of Giornovichi citing Mozart. However, when analysing it later, I could connect them in an inverse way: the violin virtuoso came to Vienna in the Spring of 1786, on his way from Russia to Paris. According to Dittersdorf, seven outstanding violinists visted Vienna that Spring and upon the request of Joseph II, he highlighted “Jarnowick” and Ignaz Fränzl senior. 53 Leopold Mozart wrote to his daughter about the fine violinists in Vienna in April 1786: father and son Fränzl, Johann Friedrich Eck and “Giarnovich”. Adalbert Gyrowetz writes in his memoires that “Giarnovichi” was kindly received in the home of the counsellor von Käss, where he met with local musicians and leading Viennese composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Dittersdorf, Hoffmeister, Albrechtsberger and others. “Mozart used to play the piano, and Giarnovichi, at that time the most prominent violin virtuoso, usually played one of his concerts, while the lady of the house sung …”. 54 The outcome of such a speculation would be that Giornovichi, logically, played one of his rather new pieces, like his 10 th concerto. Therefore, it was possibly Mozart who was inspired 50 It is a type of variation-form similar to those mostly composed by W. A. Mozart. 51 The Viennese announcement by Traeg of Giornovichi’s variations on Salieri’s theme (cf. footnote 17) and the material preserved in Prague (cf. footnote 18) point to an exceptional orchestral accompaniment. All other preserved variations are composed “pour violon et violoncelle” or “per violino e basso”. 52 For example, in Johann Nikolaus Forkel: Über die Theorie der Musik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1777, following the ideas of Affektenlehre. 53 Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf: Lebensbeschreibung. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel 1801, reprint: Leipzig: Reclam, 1908. 54 Adalbert Gyrowetz: Biographie des Adalbert Gyrowetz. Wien: Mechitaristen-Buchdruckerei, 1848.

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The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović by Giornovichi’s concerto as a source, which he later used either intentionally or unconsciously. Finally, a special case of musical borrowings is related to Giornovichi’s movements (or their parts) taken over into pasticcio operas by other composers. Undoubtedly, Giornovichi could have experienced such a testimony to his popularity after his sojourn in Vienna, and especially during his stay in London. Thomas Attwood (1765–1838), Mozart’s pupil in composition in 1786, incorporated into his opera The Prisoner (1792) a part of Giornovichi’s Favorite rondo printed at the very beginning of the 1790s in London. As the title of the composition suggests, it was undoubtedly a favourite concert piece. In the same opera, Attwood also expressed his gratitude to his Viennese master, citing his famous aria Non più andrai farfallone amoroso from Le nozze di Figaro (which Mozart completed in April 1786, when Attwood was still studying with him). On 9 March 1793, the London newspaper Diary or Woodfall’s Register announced that there will be a performance of the play King Henry the eighth in the same evening in the Theatre Royal at Haymarket, “To which will be added, a new Musical romance in Two Acts (never performed) called OZMYN AND DARAXA. The Music principally composed by Mr. ATWOOD [sic] with Airs selected from the Works of GIORNOVICHI and the late MOZART.”55 The libretto, printed at C. Lowndes and “to be had at the Theatre”56 lists the performers with songs and choruses with indications of the composer. Thus, there was an aria (Daraxa, p. 5) as well as a fandango (“probably from Figaro”) 57 and a chorus (p. 7) performed on Mozart’s music; in the same act Atwood used one “French Tune” (Air of Elvira, p. 7); in the second act a duetto of Orviedo and Laida (Will your heart be constant till then?) was sung to Giornovichi’s music (p. 12); the ballad of Ozmyn is taken from Kelly (p. 13). 58 This piece by Attwood received diverse reviews and was obviously not very successful, as did his other afterpieces and musical plays. 59 One of Giornovichi’s most popular concerti was no. 16, also printed in 1795 or 1796 in London and Paris as Concerto favori. Its last movement – a rondo again – was incorporated as a Finale already in the same year into the very popular pasticcio opera Abroad and at home by William Shield, along with excerpts from the 55 Diary or Woodfall’s Register, 9 March 1793. 56 The title page of the libretto indicated that the premiere was on 7 March 1793, but I did not find any adequate announcement in the newspaper. 57 Theodore Fenner: Opera in London: Views of the Press, 1785–1830. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994, p. 402. 58 Songs and choruses, in Ozmyn & Daraxa. A musical romance in two acts. Frist performed at the King’s theatre, Hay-Market, on Thursday, March 7th 1793. Printed by C. Lowndes, No. 66, Drury Lane, to be had at the Theatre. (price six-pence). (https://books.google.hr/books/about/Songs_and_Chorusses_in_Ozmyn_and_Daraxa.html?id=ehNXAAAAcAAJ&redir_esc=y). 59 Fenner: Opera in London, p. 402.

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Vjera Katalinić operas Andromaque, Colinette a la cour and Raoul barbe-bleu by A. E. M. Grétry, as well as with the aria Ah, divinité! from Gluck’s Alceste, connected by Shield’s own compositions.60 This opera was performed many times in and outside London, including, for example, in Dublin in 1797, not long before Giornovichi came to this town and gave a series of concerts there. In 1796, the Viennese audience could attend the performance of the ballet Das Waldmädchen by Paul Wranitzky (1756–1808), a then popular composer of Moravian origin, which aroused much appreciation. One of the results of its popularity was the incorporation of a theme in the newly composed variations by Ludwig van Beethoven, dedicated to Madame La Comtesse de Browne née de Vietinghoff in the same year, entitled XII Variations pour le Clavecin ou piano-forte sur le danse Russe dansée par M.lle Cassentini dans le Ballet Das Waldmädchen (WoO 71). This “danse Russe” can be found in Wranitzky’s ballet under the title: “Russe par Jarnovich”, and can be identified as the rondo-theme in Giornovichi’s 14th violin concerto. One can only assume how Wranitzky came across Giornovichi’s concerto: this popular piece was published already in the early 1790s at various printing offices: Sieber and Imbault in Paris, J. Dale and C. Wheatstone in London, Hummel in Berlin and André in Offenbach, all of them prior to 1795. In addition, its popularity led to its arrangement for violin and piano and its publication with the 10 th concerto in London at Longman & Broderip’s, as well as in the aforementioned piano version by Johann André. During the mid-1790s, Giornovichi was mostly giving concerts on the British Isles, and Wranitzky could have come across his printed concerto or some of its arrangements, or could have heard some virtuoso playing Giornovichi’s concerto. In the case of Giornovichi’s music, borrowed by other composers, here again two types of procedures can be found: a borrowed theme (like the Russian one from the Rondeau movement in the 14th concerto), was used again and incorporated into ballet music (Wranitzky), but with different instrumentation; furthermore, Wranitzky’s version was taken over again by Beethoven in a piano composition (i.e. again with a change of genre) as an Air with variations. On the other hand, it seems that Attwood used whole parts, as did William Shield, who took the entire theme from the rondo movement in Giornovichi’s Concerto Favori (including its instrumentation); both of them retained the original key and harmonization.

60 For more detail on that topic cf. Vjera Katalinić: Pasticcio i Jarnovićev prilog toj scenskoj formi [Pasticcio and Jarnović’s Contribution to This Stage Form], in: Arti musices 25/1–2 (1994), pp. 238–242.

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The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović

Crossroads and meeting points observed through borrowings Borrowing somebody’s melody as a theme for a movement or a smaller chamber piece undoubtedly offered an inspiring basis for the development of one’s own compositional output. Genuine melody can originate from various sources, but in the late 18th century, the most frequent cases were either a popular folk-tune, an aria from a recently performed opera or a theme that was gladly accepted on the concert podium. It was re-used either in another opera (as a citation or in a pasticcio), a concerto movement or some other orchestral piece, as well as in chamber music, often as a basis for variations. That means that the melody/tune/theme could be used in various ways – it could switch from one genre to another, or it could change the medium (for example, from vocal to instrumental), the genre itself, the style, the musical tradition, and so on.61 However, in this article, such changes and the various means of modifying the borrowed material were not the main research focus which was concerned with the interactions between composers and their respective musical environments, either in direct contacts with other composers, or with works by other authors or other traditions. On the one hand, the simplicity of a folk tune was inspiring in itself: its uncomplicated periodization and the possibilities for its harmonization which might add a touch of exoticism. All this was immanent to the Classicist ideal and, at the same time, satisfying for the performer who desired and needed such public success. Thus, the results of a compositional output that followed the discourse of the folk tradition, i.e. melodies that were composed “in the spirit of the folk tradition”, are today sometimes difficult to distinguish from borrowed, genuine or modified folk songs.62 On the other hand, the psychology of reception played a significant role. Knowing and recognizing the tune used was an important aspect of the composer-performer’s success – the audience was led to identify itself with a tune, not in the sense of a national identification, important in national issues of the later periods, but in local, political or class discourses. In that sense, national or military anthems can be included in that group. Besides such traditional songs/tunes, the presence of borrowed themes or even parts of compositions created by known authors, bear testimony to their popularity on stage, although many of them are today considered unimportant. The audience, 61 A thorough table with elements of a typology of musical borrowings is presented in the appendix of the paper by J. Peter Burkholder: “The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field”, in: Notes, 50/3 (1994), pp. 851–870; pp. 867–868. 62 Cf. also Koraljka Kos: “Die angeblichen Zitate von Volksmusik in Werken der Wiener Klasiker”, in: Bericht über den internationalen musikwissenschaftlichen Kongress zum Mozartjahr, Baden – Wien 1991, ed. Ingrid Fuchs, vol. 1. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1993, pp. 226–240.

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Vjera Katalinić on becoming familiar with them, very often used their arrangements in domestic music making. On the other hand, a f lood of pasticcio operas had the task of filling in a steady change of operatic repertoire; furthermore, many young or amateur composers have created such pastiche as a current practice in their learning process, especially when the fact of a lack of time or lack of inspiration or talent had to be blurred. However, connecting such borrowings, and being aware of their use and impact, can point to the broader phenomenon of the migrations of composers and, above all, discover and follow their meeting points. Furthermore, the investigation of a compositional output of a composer or the impacts of some musical creations, combined with the awareness of such meeting points” can lead to some conclusions on the possible effects and the inf luences that extend their importance beyond the fact of mere borrowing.

Bibliography Books and articles Burkholder, J. Peter: “Borrowing”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 4. London: McMillan, 2002 2 , pp. 5–41. Burkholder, J. Peter: The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field, in: Notes, 50/3 (1994) pp. 851–870. Ditters von Dittersdorf, Carl: Lebensbeschreibung. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1801, reprint: Leipzig: Philipp Reclam jun., 1908. Feder, Georg: “Joseph Haydn (work-list)”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 11, London: McMillan, 2002 2 , pp. 204–263. Fenner, Theodore: Opera in London: Views of the Press, 1785–1830, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. Finscher, Ludwig: Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit, Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2002. Forkel, Johann Nikolaus: Über die Theorie der Musik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1777. Gyrowetz, Adalbert: Biographie des Adalbert Gyrowetz. Wien: Mechitaristen-Buchdruckerei, 1848. Hyatt King, Alexander: “The Melodic Sources and Affinities of ‘Die Zauberf löte’”, Musical Quarterly, 36/2 (1950), pp. 241–258. Johansson, Cari: French music Publishers’ Catalogues of the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, Publications of the Library of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. Stockholm: Kungl. Musikaliska akademien, 1955. Katalinić, Vjera: “Giovanni Giornovichi / Ivan Jarnović in Stockholm: A Centre or a Periphery?”, in: Music Migration in the Early Modern Age: Centres and Peripheries – People, Works, Styles, Paths of Dissemination and Inf luence, ed. 714

The Case of Giovanni Giornovichi/Ivan Jarnović Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak and Aneta Markuszewska. Warszawa: Liber Pro Arte, 2016, pp. 127–138.      : Pasticcio i Jarnovićev prilog toj scenskoj formi [Pasticcio and Jarnović’s Contribution to This Stage Form], in: Arti musices 25/1–2 (1994), pp. 238–242.      : “Ponovno o jedinom pismu ‘nepismenog’ Jarnovića: koncerti u revolucionarnom Dublinu” [Again on a Letter by the Illiterate Jarnovick: Concerts in the Revolutionary Dublin], in: Arti musices, 35/1 (2004), pp. 21–30.      : Violinski koncerti Ivana Jarnovića. Glazbeni aspekt i društveni kontekst njegova uspjeha u 18. stoljeću [Violin Concerti by Ivan Jarnović. Musical Aspect and Social Context of their Success in the 18th Century]. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 2006.      : “Zu einigen Popularthemen im Jarnovick’s Violinkonzerten”, in: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 18/1 (1987), pp. 19–30. Kos, Koraljka: “Die angeblichen Zitate von Volksmusik in Werken der Wiener Klassiker”, in: Bericht über den internationalen musikwissenschaftlichen Kongress zum Mozartjahr, Baden & Wien 1991, vol. 1, ed. Ingrid Fuchs. Tuzing: Hans Schneider, 1993, pp. 226–240. Marchand, Patrick: Le Maître de poste et le messager. Les transports publics en France au temps des chevaux. Paris: Belin, 2006. Milligan, Thomas B.: The Concerto and London’s Musical Culture in the Late Eighteenth Century. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1983. Nugent, Thomas: The Grand tour. London: S. Birt, 1749. Poole, H. Edmund: “Introduction”, in: Charles Burney: Music, Men and Manners in France and Italy 1770. London: Eulenburg books, 1969. Seaman, Gerald: “Folk-song in Russian Opera of the 18th Century”, in: The Slavonic and East European Review 41/96 (1962), pp. 144–157. Sisman, Elaine: “Variations”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 26, London: McMillan, 2002 2 , pp.284–326. Steinpress, Boris Solomonovich: “K tvorcheskoj istorii ‘Kamarinskoj’”, in: Sovjetskaja muzyka, 4 (1962), pp. 63–65. Sternfeld, Frederick W.: “The Melodic Sources of Mozart’s Most Popular Lied”, in: Musical Quarterly 42/2 (1956), pp. 213–222. Taruskin, Richard: “Sokolovsky, Mikhail Matveyevich”, The New Grove Encyclopaedia of Music and Musicians, vol. 23, London: Macmillan, 2002, p. 628. Uhl, Wolfgang Maria: ‘Airs russes’ und ‘thèmes russes’ in der Musik Westeuropas bis um 1900, PhD diss., Universität Kiel, 1974. White, Chapell: “Giornovichi, Giovanni”, in: The New Grove Encyclopaedia of Music and Musicians, vol. 5, London: McMillan etc., 20012 , pp. 890–891. 715

Vjera Katalinić Żórawska-Witkowska, Alina: “Ivan Mane Jarnović alla luce delle fonti polacche”, in: Zagreb and Music 1094–1994, ed. Stanislav Tuksar. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 1998, pp. 243–251.

Newspapers Diary or Woodfall’s Register Franckfurter Frag- und Anzeigungs-Nachrichten Freeman’s Journal Journal de Paris Morning post Wiener Zeitung

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Antonin Dvořák in the Salon

Antonín Dvořák in the Salon – a Composer Emerges from the Shadows Jan Smaczny Biographies of composers understandably develop a considerable part of their substance from major events in the careers of their subjects. Where Dvořák is concerned, a primary focus, if not quite a starting point, is the highly successful premiere of his cantata the Hymnus, the Heirs of the White Mountain (Hymnus z básně Dědicové bílé hory, B27), a setting of patriotically stirring words by Vitězslav Hálek, one of the most important writers of the Czech national revival,1 at a concert of Prague’s Hlahol society conducted by Karel Bendl on 9 March 1873. While this was certainly a highly significant event for the thirty-two year old Dvořák, he had been making his mark on Prague’s musical scene in rather different fora. 2 Alongside the more public opportunities afforded by performances in the Czech Provisional Theatre and in Smetana’s Philharmonic Concert series, begun in 1869, the developing musical infrastructure of Prague’s Czech-speaking population included semi-private music making in a number of salons. The history of music in the Czech national revival is resonant with the success of signal operas and determinedly major public statements, inevitably choral or orchestral, such as Smetana’s symphonic poem cycle, My Country (Má vlast). The development of Dvořák’s career after the premiere of the Heirs of the White Mountain is usually plotted in terms of landmarks in his initial national and later international recognition, the main staging posts being the publication of the Moravian Duets (Moravské dvojspĕvy, 1877) the first set of Slavonic Dances (Slovanské tance, 1878) and the Slavonic Rhapsodies (1878), followed by his early successes in Vienna, the visits to England (nine in all, from 1884–1897) and finally his directorship of the National Conservatory of America in New York (1892–1895). Punctuating this were the successes, mostly triumphant, of his operas, notably The Cunning Peasant (Šelma sedlak, 1877), Dimitrij (1882), The Jacobin ( Jakobín), The Devil and Kate (Čert a Káča, 1899) and Rusalka (1901). 1 2

Hálek (1835–1874) was hugely active as a poet, writer, journalist and dramatist in the 1860s and 1870s. His tragedy Král Vukašín (King Vukašín) was given on the opening night, 18 November 1862, of the Provisional Theatre. This contribution derives from a paper delivered to the International Bilingual Conference, The European Salon: Nineteenth-Century Salonmusik held at NUI Maynooth from 2 to 4 October 2014. I am very grateful to the conference committee for accepting my paper and the opportunity the event afforded both to share its conclusions and the benefit gained from the views of colleagues.

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Jan Smaczny While tempting as it is to see Dvořák’s career as a march down the “Great White Way” of the Czech national revival, the resonance of this historical narrative inevitably drowns out what might be described as his hidden musical life. The mechanics of how his career emerged rather fitfully in the early 1870s in the salons of Prague has taken a backstage roll. For a developing artist in the 1860s with very little substance behind him in terms of financial or intellectual support, let alone recognition, the chance of becoming noticed in the circles of an engaged and increasingly prosperous intelligentsia, many of whom considered themselves primarily Czech by the late 1860s and early 1870s was one to be seized. Major events, such as the premieres of operas, have extensive coverage in the critical literature of the time and, of course, epistolary evidence and later biographical commentary can tell us much about occasions and the major players involved. But understanding how composers related to one another in perhaps more mundane surroundings is rather harder to comprehend owing to the lack of evidence. When did composers such as Smetana, Dvořák, Fibich, Bendl, Šebor and Rozkošný, to name but some of the most prominent, meet and how did they interact? In the case of all the aforementioned, there would have been professional contact relating to rehearsals and operatic performances in the Provisional Theatre. 3 However, in the period 1866–1871 during which Dvořák and Smetana worked together in the theatre, the former as a viola player in the pit band, the latter as conductor, to what extent did they communicate beyond the mechanics of rehearsal? Perhaps, as Otakar Šourek suggests, Smetana and Dvořák met over a glass or two of liqueur offered in the grocery shop run by the wife of one of their colleagues in the orchestra, the double bass player Martin Matějka,4 though what they talked about, if anything, we cannot know. We do know for certain that the two men were in the same room when in April 18785 a private premiere of Smetana’s first string quartet was given in the f lat of Josef Srb-Debrnov in which Dvořák took the viola part. Presumably Smetana thanked Dvořák for opening his quartet with the now famous heart-stopping falling fifth on the viola, but if he said anything else, we do not know. Dvořák’s letters, of course, provide a rich seam of information. For example, from New York to family and friends in Prague he offered a vivid picture of 3

4 5

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The full title of the Provisional Theatre was the Royal Provincial Provisional Theatre of Prague (Králové zemské prozatímní divadlo v Praze); this was the precursor of the National Theatre standing on the banks of the Vltava which first opened in 1881, and the first theatre in the Czech lands devoted exclusively to the performance of plays and opera in Czech. Otakar Šourek: Antonín Dvořák: život a dílo [Antonín Dvořák: Life and Works], vol. 1, 3rd edition. Prague: Státní nakladatelství krásné literatury, hudby a umění, 1954, pp. 175–176. The exact date is uncertain; Burghauser suggests either 17 or 24 April, see Jarmil Burghauser: Antonín Dvořák: Thematický katalog [Antonín Dvořák: Thematic catalogue]. Prague: Bärenreiter Editio Supraphon, 1996, p. 573.

Antonin Dvořák in the Salon his life in the New World.6 But letters can also tease us with hints of something major to be followed up by a personal meeting. In the case of Dvořák’s communications with the librettist of his grand opera Dimitrij and comedy The Jacobin ( Jakobín), Marie Červinková-Riegrová, the correspondence is sporadically fascinating, though equally frustrating when Dvořák does not respond or his replies do not survive. Some f lavour, however, of the collaboration between Dvořák and Červinková-Riegrová may be gleaned from the engagingly garrulous memoirs of her sister Libuše Bráfová, indicating a spontaneous rather than rigorous approach to opera on the part of the composer: “Every so often Dvořák would say: ‘you see I need this kind of rhythm’ – and rather than saying: iamb, trochee, dactyl etc. he began to whistle a melody, or took some paper and wrote the melody on it”.7 Frustratingly, Dvořák, an avid train enthusiast, sent short messages worrying over details of travelling to her country house in Maleč, south east of Prague, by train. 8 Thus we are often forced to fall back on conjecture and the circumstantial to build a picture of how creative lives were lived in an often febrile cultural environment. Here the salon comes into its own; it was clearly vital in creating networks and is a fruitful subject for conjecture, based on relatively sound circumstantial evidence, where more concrete detail is lacking. What is undeniable is the fact that they provided an environment for composers, librettists, patrons, entrepreneurs and performers, not to mention those who just to stand, stare and listen to both conversation and music. To understand the nature of this growing Czech-speaking intellectual society it is necessary to consider a few details concerning the political and social circumstances that impelled its development in the Czech capital. The shift from Prague being a predominantly German-speaking city to a majority Czech-speaking metropolis by the early 1870s was contingent on a large inf lux of a predominantly rural population. Historically, since the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 a move on the part of the Habsburgs to dominate the Czech lands in both religion and culture meant that the Czech language was largely confined to the provinces. The abolition of serfdom by Josef II in 1781 had removed the compulsion for many to stay on the land, but it was not until the industrial revolutions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries provided an economic reason for gravitating toward the capital and other major centres such as Beroun, Plzeň, Brno and Ostrava that the demographics began to shift seriously.9 6 7 8 9

Cf. Milan Kuna (ed.): Antonín Dvořák: korespondence a dokumenty; korespondence odeslana, vol. 3 [Antonín Dvořák: Correspondence and Documents; Correspondence Dispatched]. Prague: Editio Supraphon, 1989. Libuše Bráfová: Rieger, Smetana, Dvořák. Prague: František A. Urbánek, 1913, p. 82; also quoted in John Tyrrell: Czech Opera. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 282. Cf. Kuna, vol. 1, pp. 247–348, here p. 302. There are several accounts of the dynamics of these changes from a social and cultural point of

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Jan Smaczny Dvořák and members of his family were good examples of this new social and economic mobility. While Dvořák himself came to Prague to study at the Organ School in 1857, he lodged for a while in these early days with members of his extended family. Among these were his aunt Josefa and uncle Václav Dušek, who had come to Prague to work on the relatively new railway network. Their circumstances were decidedly modest in a f lat which comprised hardly more than a living room and kitchen. But along with social advance, inevitably housing provision in Prague was also beginning to change. As with opera being celebrated in its new “temple of the arts” on the banks of the Vltava, it is tempting to see the developing city mainly from the point of view of the grand architectural statements of the national revival. In many ways the heart of the new Czech Prague was National Street (Národní třída) which stretches down from the northern end of Wenceslas Square (Václavské náměstí) to the river Vltava. Workaday brickworks and warehouses were replaced in fairly short order between 1858 and 1862 by a suite of self-confident buildings such as Ignác Ullmann’s graceful neo-Renaissance Czech Savings Bank and the Provisional Theatre.10 Stretching along the banks of the river on either side of National Street were apartment buildings, soon followed by others in Vinohrady and across the river in the developing suburb of Smíchov. From the 1860s the construction and specifications of apartments improved rapidly as competition among developers increased. External décor could include frescoes, Sgraffito and even balconies. Internally, the entrance hallways could be of a reasonable size and the internal living rooms generous, although kitchens, bathrooms and space for the maid remained limited in size.11 Through the 1870s Dvořák’s material circumstances were steadily improving. He married Anna Čermáková on 16 November 1873 and with the birth of a child only four months away there was a need to find a home. In the spring of 1874, a month after the birth of their son Otakar on 4 April, the new family moved into a small f lat at 14 Na rybničku in the New Town. In November 1877, commensurate with greater financial prosperity, the Dvořáks moved to more spacious accommodation in a block of f lats surrounding a courtyard at no. 10 Žitná ulice (Korngasse), a pleasant boulevard running down to Prague’s largest urban open space, Charles Square (Karlovo náměstí ). While the exact location of the f lat in the block is unknown, view. Among the most illuminating and readable are Peter Demetz: Prague in Black and Gold. London: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1997, and Tomáš G. Masaryk: The Meaning of Czech History [edited with an introduction by René Wellek, translated by Peter Kussi]. Chapel Hill: the University of North Carolina Press, 1974. 10 Cf. Jaroslava Staňková, Jiří Štursa and Svatopluk Voděra (eds.): Prague – Eleven Centuries of Architecture: historical guide, trans. Zdeněk Vyplel and David Vaughan. Prague: PAV publishers, 1992, pp. 226–227. 11 Staňková et al., pp. 240–241.

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Antonin Dvořák in the Salon it is thought to have been at the back near the stables. In May 1880 the family moved to a much more substantial f lat on the first f loor of the block overlooking the street. In size it was big enough to accommodate evenings of modest-scale chamber music and deemed grand enough to invite Tchaikovsky to dinner on 15 February during his first visit to Prague.12 If any decade in Dvořák’s life could said to have been decisive in shaping his future, it was the 1870s. The 1880s and 1890s saw a career of international significance blossom and mature, but the foundations for what was by any standards in the nineteenth century a remarkably sustained record of success were laid in the decade prior to these in which Dvořák made a number of life-changing decisions. Within the space of three or four years, not only did he emerge from nearobscurity to become a figure of substance in local terms, important aspects of style crystallized and crucial friendships and artistic relationships were cemented, all at a time of increasing vigour in Prague’s musical and political infrastructure. One of the life changing decisions Dvořák made at this time was to resign from the orchestra of the Provisional Theatre, where he had been a viola player since its opening in 1862, at the end of the 1871 season. Shortly after his resignation, he began to take part in evenings of chamber music at the home of the industrialist, Baron Josef Porges von Portheim. Although his reputation as a composer was still, as far as many in Prague’s musical life was concerned, barely in its infancy, Dvořák was well known as a professional viola player. Von Portheim (1817–1904) was one of the most interesting and representative figures in Prague’s cultural life in the mid to late nineteenth century. To give him his full title, he was Josef Porges, Edler von Portheim, the son of Moses von Portheim, a successful industrialist who had impressed the emperor Ferdinand sufficiently by installing steam in his cotton print workshop to gain the family a hereditary title in 1841.13 Although the factory of Moses was not immune to industrial unrest as mechanical efficiency increased, notably in the strikes of 1844 when wages were lowered owing to the improved working of new presses, the family was noted for its philanthropy and interest in music. Josef himself was an estimable amateur cellist and took great interest as both performer and patron in chamber music, founding Prague’s Chamber Music Society (Kammermusikvereins), and opera in the German Theatre. His Prague home was a charming summer palace in Smíchov built in the 1720s by the renowned Prague architect Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer which the Porges family, who ac12 It seems that Tchaikovsky was particularly charmed by Anna Dvořáková describing her as ‘modest and sympathetic’, see Šourek, vol. 2, p. 311. 13 See Isidore Singer and Alexander Kisch on members of the Portheim family in the Jewish Encyclopaedia on 1906 at Jewish Encyclopedia.com; accessed 30 December 2016. Also Demetz, p. 285.

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Jan Smaczny quired the property in 1828, restored and extended. Many of Prague’s best-known cultural figures passed through its doors, not least the colourfully-raffish Karel Sabina – not only the librettist of Smetana’s operas The Brandenburgers in Bohemia (Braniboři v Čechách) and The Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta), but a convicted revolutionary from the insurrections of 1848 and 1849. Dvořák is known to have taken part in several of the Portheim soirées14 and his connection was sufficiently advanced for him to dedicate his first genuinely successful string quartet to Josef, the F minor op. 9 (B 37) of 1873. The gem of the quartet is the slow movement (Andante con moto quasi allegretto) whose attractively vocal main melody gracefully straddles F minor and A f lat major. The movement is better known, in a revision made in 1877, as the Romance for violin and orchestra, op. 11 (B 39). The quartet performing the work, led by Antonín Bennewitz (1833–1926) took the view that it lacked “true quartet style”,15 a judgement that clearly irked the composer whose rage simmered on into the late 1880s. In a list of works he prepared in 1887 for a biographical article by V. J. Novotný published in The Voice of the Nation (Hlas národa) on 8 January 1888, he added a note to the citation concerning the F minor quartet stating “I thought I had written a work which would bowl over the world – and it came to nothing – rage”.16 Of particular significance to Dvořák’s improving prospects as a composer was his developing relationship with Ludevít Procházka and his wife, the singer Marta Reisingerová. Though a lawyer by profession, Procházka came from a musical family and had studied music theory and piano with Smetana. He wrote music reviews in The National Newspaper (Národní listy) and was editor of The Musical Newspaper (Hudební listy) from 1870 to 1872 as well as Prague’s other major musical periodical, Dalibor, from 1873–1875. Very much at the heart of Prague’s musical life – among much else Procházka had brought Smetana together with Karel Sabina – his backing for composers was important and his advice inf luential; Dvořák benefitted from both. Along with his wife, Procházka organized ‘free musical soirées’ in their own apartment and those of friends, and later in the Konvikt Hall. These provided opportunities for Dvořák to get to know significant musical figures, including the young Zdeněk Fibich and the virtuoso pianist Karel ze Slavkovských (Slavkovský)17 whose repertoire not only included contemporary 14 Cf. Šourek, vol. 1, pp. 178–179, here p. 189. 15 Cf. Jarmil Burghauser and Antonín Čubr, preface and crucial notes to Antonín Dvořák, Quartet no. 5 in F minor. Prague: Editio Supraphon, 1980. The Bennewitz Quartet took the same view of Smetana’s first string quartet ‘From my life’. 16 Cf. Burghauser: Thematický katalog, p. 770. 17 Slavkovský proved a steadfast champion of Dvořák’s music premiering a number of his works including the piano concerto in G minor (op. 33, B 63) on 24 March 1878; he also received the dedication of arguably Dvořák’s most substantial single piano work, the Tema con variazioni (op. 36, B 65) of 1876.

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Antonin Dvořák in the Salon piano works, but also compositions from much earlier in the century by Tomášek and Voříšek. Most important of all, Dvořák was given a platform for new compositions, among them the slow movement of one of two lost piano trios (B 25 and B 26) at the sixth of Procházka’s soirées on 5 July 1872. Alongside musical figures there were also prominent and rising literary personalities with whom he had the opportunity to interact such as Eliška Krásnohorská. From many points of view Krásnohorská was a pioneering and remarkably courageous figure. At the age of only twenty-three she provided a template to facilitate the way in which Czech composers should go about effective declamation in their native language – through the 1860s and early 1870s a decidedly problematic area – in a highly inf luential series of articles in The Musical Newspaper.18 She went on to write four libretti for Smetana, The Kiss, The Secret, The Devil’s Wall and Viola (Hubička, Tajemství, Čertová stěna; Viola remained unfinished), and one for Fibich, Blaník. Although Dvořák did not develop a relationship with her as a librettist, he made settings of some of her poetry two of which he had the chance to hear when Remembrance (Vzpomínání), from his set of songs to words by Eliška Krásnohorská (Písně na slova Elišky Krásnohorské, B 23) was performed at one of Procházka’s soirées on 10 December 1871. The Reason (Proto) from the same set and The Orphan (Sirotek, B 24) to words by Karel Jaromír Erben were given on 10 April 1871. As a musical animateur, Procházka did much to promote Dvořák’s music, arranging a performance of the A major piano quintet (op. 5, B 28) at a matinée in the Konvikt Hall with Slavkovský playing the piano part on 22 September 1872. As a critic and editor Procházka made it his business to stimulate song composition and raised his banner in the pages of The Musical Newspaper in an article entitled “Let us zealously cultivate Czech song!”19 The material result of Procházka’s resolve was a series of “original Czech songs for one or more voices with piano accompaniment” printed as a supplement to Dalibor in March 1873. 20 This included Dvořák’s very first publication, The Lark (Skřivánek), the third of his Songs from the Queen’s Court Manuscript (Písně z rukopisu královédvorského, op. 7, B 30). Although there is no firm evidence, it seems reasonable to suppose that Procházka’s support and attention were key factors in Dvořák’s decision to resign from the Provisional Theatre orchestra in July 1871 in order to spend more time 18 Eliška Krásnohorská: “O české deklamaci hudební” [Concerning Czech musical declamation], Hudební listy, Nos. 1–3, March 1871. See also Jan Smaczny: ‘Dvořák’s Cypresses: a Song Cycle and its Metamorphoses’, Music & Letters 72/4 (1991), p. 560–561. 19 “Pěstujme horlivě českou píseň”, Hudební listy, November 1871. See also Jarmil Burghauser, introductory notes to Antonín Dvořák: Sirotek – Rozmarýna [Orphan – Rosemary] Songs, op. 3. Prague: Artia, 1962. 20 “Sbírka původních českých zpěvů jedno i vícerohlasých s průvodem piana”, Dalibor, March 1873, volume 8.

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Jan Smaczny on composition. Another of the benefits of entry into Procházka’s circle was the chance to meet and be taken up by other inf luential figures, among them the wealthy shop owner and amateur musician, Jan Neff, who became the source of much needed funds when he employed Dvořák to teach his children the piano from early in 1873. Even in slightly more aff luent times when Dvořák was in receipt of an Austrian State Grant in support of his efforts as a composer, he was forced to rely on Neff for financial help. In a letter of 20 January 1877, Dvořák requested a loan of 15 f lorins as “emergency money”. 21 1873, as has been observed above, also proved momentous for Dvořák’s reputation from other points of view notably with the Bendl’s performance of his patriotic cantata Hymnus, The Heirs of the White Mountain. The réclame of this public triumph raised Dvořák’s profile decisively in Prague. In the summer, owing in part to Procházka’s prompting in the pages of Dalibor, his opera The King and the Charcoal-burner (Král a uhlíř, version I, B 21) went into rehearsal in the Provisional Theatre in August and September. The complexity of Dvořák’s first setting of this libretto, for orchestra, chorus and soloists, led to insurmountable problems in rehearsal. Dvořák admitted that the opera was written when his passion for Wagner was in full spate: “The inf luence of Wagner was strongly shown in the harmony and orchestration” adding ruefully that “It was infinitely worse than Wagner”. 22 The crashing embarrassment of having to withdraw the work was in the long run far preferable to the inevitable fiasco that would have resulted from any attempts to stage such a problematic score given the limited resources of the Provisional Theatre. Despite the setback over the opera, Procházka remained supportive: though by inclination sympathetic to Wagner, he greeted the wholly recomposed, and almost entirely un-Wagnerian, second version of The King and the Charcoal-burner (B 42) premiered the following year with enthusiasm, greeting it as a work “… in the main stream of pure Czech art and in the Czech mould.”23 In a somewhat classically-crafted panegyric, Procházka summed up, undoubtedly with personal knowledge of Dvořák’s situation in the previous three years, the genesis of this success: “The journey to the temple of self-sufficient musical art is made up of long years of wandering. The more bravely the composer bears the struggle, the greater his strength will be. In building his work, Dvořák will become still more emancipated from foreign inf luence.”24

21 Kuna vol. 1, p. 129. 22 Interview with ‘Paul Pry’ in The Sunday Times, May 1885, p. 6. Reprinted in David Beveridge (ed.): Rethinking Dvořák: views from five countries. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, pp. 281–288. 23 Dalibor, December 1874, p. 398. 24 Ibidem.

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Antonin Dvořák in the Salon Musical gatherings in domestic circumstances continued to be a major part of Dvořák’s life in Prague. Frustratingly, in the case of his collaboration with the eminent poet Jaroslav Vrchlický on the opera Armida, the fact that they moved in similar social circles and would have met frequently at soirées seems to have obviated the need for extensive correspondence concerning the opera’s problematic libretto. 25 Nevertheless in his early years, it is no exaggeration to say that his experiences at Portheim’s regular salons and in Procházka’s even more fruitful soirées with all their opportunity for patronage and extending his musical reach were crucial in moulding Dvořák’s career as a composer at a decisive stage.

Select Bibliography Beveridge, David (ed.): Rethinking Dvořák: views from five countries. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Bráfová, Ludmila: Rieger, Smetana, Dvořák. Prague: Urbánek, 1913. Burghauser, Jarmil: Antonín Dvořák: Thematický katalog [Antonín Dvořák: thematic catalogue]. Prague: Bärenreiter Editio Supraphon, 1996. Demetz, Peter: Prague in Black and Gold. London: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1997. Kuna, Milan (ed.): Antonín Dvořák: korespondence a dokumenty: korespondence odeslaná [Antonín Dvořák: correspondence and documents; correspondence dispatched]. Prague: Editio Supraphon, 1989. Smaczny, Jan: “Dvořák, his Librettists and the Working Libretto for Armida”, Music & Letters, 91/4 (2010), pp. 555–567. Šourek, Otakar: Antonín Dvořák: život a dílo [Antonín Dvořák: life and works], vol. 1, 3rd edition. Prague: Státní nakladatelství, 1954. Tyrrell, John: Czech Opera. Cambridge: CUP, 1988.

25 See Jan Smaczny: “Dvořák, his Librettists and the Working Libretto for Armida”, Music & Letters, 91/4 (2010), pp. 555–567.

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Jen-yen Chen and Harry White, Ranelagh, 15 July 2017

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Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra

Singing the Way: Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra 1 Jaime Jones Every year during the monsoon season, crowds approaching one million people leave their homes and their work to go on the vārī 2 – the yearly pilgrimage which devotees of the Hindu Vārkarī sect 3 undertake to Pandharpur, in Southern Maharashtra. For nearly a month, they process en masse from a variety of starting points throughout the state, singing the songs of the great saints of the tradition as they move. The towns and cities of the Marathi-speaking heartland bear witness to these pilgrims, lining the streets to see (and more importantly to hear) a spectacle of faith. For the pilgrims themselves, the vārī is a more complex experience, one that ultimately is contingent upon the real-time experience of moving with and towards the divine. Music is essential to the journey that the Vārkarīs undertake, and comprises both the private experience and the public display of pilgrimage. As an individual devotee, the songs and words of the saints map onto the physical progression towards Pandharpur, and constant singing works to focus the pilgrim’s mind inwards. For the audience of the vārī in the many cities and towns which the Vārkarīs pass through, music is an equal counterpart to the visual spectacle of the masses of people processing. The concept of pilgrimage is common to most of the world’s major religious practices. Whether pilgrimage manifests as metaphor or ritual, and whether movement is real or symbolic, music almost always figures prominently in the constellation of activities that comprise pilgrimage experience. In many traditions, specialized song repertories document places and people; these songs are also used as a catalyst for new experiences on singular or repeated journeys. Par1 2

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A version of this essay first appeared in Ethnomusicology 3 (2015). I am grateful to the editors of the journal for their permission to reproduce it. Vārī: the annual pilgrimage taken by the Vārkarīs to Pandharpur. Last year, nearly 1,000,000 were estimated to have participated. This journey takes 22 days, and is carried out on foot, with pilgrims traveling between 15 and 20 kilometers per day. The pilgrims travel from 43 different saint-locations spread throughout Maharashtra, carrying the relics of the saints. They all meet and converge on Pandharpur, in the southern part of the state, on the same day during July. The Vārkarī tradition is the largest and oldest bhaktī tradition of Maharashtra. It began in the 13th century when the first saint, Santa Jnanadev, translated the Bhagavad Gita into Marathi, the vernacular language of the region. Centered around devotion to the god Vitthala, or Vithoba, an incarnation of Vishnu, it flourished until the 17th century. While its ‘golden’ age is commonly understood to have ended with Santa Tukaram, the last great poet of the tradition, there are hundreds of thousands of practicing Vārkarīs in Maharashtra today.

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Jaime Jones ticular instruments, melodies and rhythms further mark pilgrimage experience as extra-ordinary, and are used to trigger emotional and spiritual movement, corresponding to the physical movement of pilgrim’s bodies. In this chapter, I argue that music is more than a support or even an artefact of pilgrimage; it often constitutes and directs the spiritual journey in multiple and complex ways that correspond with the complex ways that pilgrimage itself exists. This work is part of a larger project that examines pilgrimage on three levels: as an activity, as an event, and as a mass-mediated product. Here, I focus on activity, or the pilgrim’s experience, in order to highlight (and really only scratch the surface of ) the constitutive role that music plays in the great Maharashtrian pilgrimage. This focus is a direct result of my research methodology. I lived in India between 2003 and 2006, conducting fieldwork with a group of Vārkarī devotees located in the city of Pune. I was principally engaged with a community of pakhawāj (double-headed barrel drum) players who were central participants in the rituals and daily practice of devotionalism.4 It was through sustained work and contact with these musicians that I began to become particularly interested in the idea of musical affordances in the context of ritual and pilgrimage (two similar, but not identical, areas of heightened sacred activity). In the summer of 2005, I traveled with some of these musicians on the vārī and took part in the pilgrimage myself. During this time, it became clear that music constituted much more than an accompaniment to spiritual and physical movement. The concept of affordance stimulated particular questions that centred around music’s primacy. What does music bring to pilgrimage that nothing else could? What kind of experience is it when walking is also singing? The Vārkarīs’ pilgrimage as an activity is inherently musical in a number of ways, which I will explore below. To what extent, then, does music afford pilgrimage, just as surely as pilgrimage affords music? I also assert a primary place for music in response to analyses of pilgrimage where it is occasionally mentioned but never examined closely. For a time, studies of pilgrimage favoured the silence of exegesis over the din of experience. With anthropological and cognitive approaches more recently returning to the realm of the body, it is strange indeed that music continues to be sidelined. I examine anthropological approaches in the first section of this chapter in order to suggest how music might fit in. I then turn my focus to specific examples from my fieldwork, examining the presence of music within the ritual framework of the Maharashtrian pilgrimage. The vārī is perhaps an atypical example of pilgrimage in 4

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Pakhawāj: double-headed barrel drum used in both Hindustani classical music (particularly in dhrupad) and in a number of sacred traditions. Pakhawāj players within the Vārkarī sect are musical specialists who spend years learning their craft and who engage with music as a primary means of access to God.

Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra certain ways. It is extraordinary not only in terms of basic qualities such as size (it is the largest annual mass pilgrimage in the world), geographical spread, duration, and regularity of the journey, but also in terms of the public nature of the event, and the fact that the repertory that is sung by the pilgrims is both vernacular and deeply familiar to its audience. Drawing upon my own pilgrimage experience, public notions and representations of the same, and the words and songs of devotees, I conclude by considering the multifaceted ways in which music constitutes pilgrimage.

The Anthropology of Pilgrimage Pilgrimage, once avoided by anthropologists due to its temporary and translocational nature, came to the fore of anthropological theory through the work of Victor Turner, who examined the subject in a series of texts in the 1970s (1974, 1978, 1979). In these texts, Turner locates pilgrimage as a “liminal phenomenon which betokens the partial, if not complete, abrogation of [secular social] structure” (Eade and Sallnow 1991: 4). This abrogation of structure is achieved, from Turner’s standpoint, largely through communitas, the “spontaneity of interrelatedness”5 that pilgrims move towards on their journey. What pilgrimage produces, through the enactment of ritual over an extended period of time across space(s), is an embodied perception of acute togetherness, a sense of a self dissolving into a collective. This conceptualization of communitas has a certain intuitive weight, which is part of what made it so significant at the time, however it was difficult to pin down. In the years following Turner’s initial formulation, anthropologists who went out looking for communitas as the pilgrimage experience seem to have had some trouble finding it. In 1991, in their introduction to Contesting the Sacred: the Anthropology of Pilgrimage, anthropologists John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow overtly rejected Turner’s paradigm, defining pilgrimage instead as “a realm of competing discourses”.6 Pilgrimage was still understood as a liminal period, but the contributors to the edited volume argued that ritualized pilgrimage allowed for multiple interpretations of sacred ideologies to exist in the same space (the shrine), brought together by the individual pilgrims who travelled to that space. Pilgrimage is above all an arena for competing religious and secular discourses, for both the official co-optation and non-official recovery of religious meanings, for conf lict between orthodoxies, sects, and confessional 5 6

Victor and Edith Turner: Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978, p. 32 John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow: Contesting the Sacred: the Anthropology of Pilgrimage. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1991, r2013, p. 5

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Jaime Jones groups, for drives towards consensus and communitas, and for countermovements towards separateness and division. The essential heterogeneity of the pilgrimage process, which was marginalized or suppressed in the earlier, deterministic models of both the correspondence theorists and those who adopted a Turnerian paradigm, is here pushed centre-stage, rendered problematic.7 The concept of communitas was dismissed largely because it was interpreted as privileging the collective over the individual, creating, for Eade and Sallnow, an analytical gap that failed to recognize multiple ideologies competing within the “area” (a spatial metaphor) of pilgrimage. Yet for many scholars, there is still a great deal to be recovered from Turner’s analytical viewpoint, overtly or covertly;8 this is the emphasis he, and especially his wife Edith, placed on pilgrimage as experience. Whether or not ‘spontaneous communitas’ is out there to be discovered, analysed, and defined, the Turnerian perspective is one that fundamentally relies upon temporality, and locates pilgrimage not at a particular site, but rather as something that is constructed as multiple bodies move together in time. As Turner states, “… the limen of pilgrimage is, characteristically, motion, the movement of travel, while that of initiation is stasis … The former liminalizes time, the latter space …”.9 The emphasis on time rather than space suggests a correlated emphasis on experience over ideology. It is precisely this emphasis that is lost in Eade and Sallnow’s 1991 text. While contestation is an important element of pilgrimage, there is a danger in placing too much analytical value on it, particularly because it only seems relevant in terms of very self-conscious forms of ideological positioning. Moreover, pilgrimage frameworks that incorporate liminality and communitas, either explicitly or implicitly, do not necessarily exclude the possibility for multiple interpretations of religious meaning to co-exist. As Alan Morinis suggests: Pilgrims need not, and seldom do, understand a great deal of the symbolism and meaning packed into the churches, shrines, and temples they seek out. Social structure, cultural configurations, and symbolism are only the building blocks out of which the creators of culture fashion the pathways that participants follow. For pilgrims, their experiences while following the stipulated path loom significant. I call attention to the interaction 7 8

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Eade and Sallnow (1991): pp. 2–3 Alan Morinis: “Introduction: The Territory of the Anthropology of Pilgrimage”, in: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, ed. Alan Morinis. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992, pp. 1–28; Coleman, Simon: “Do You Believe in Pilgrimage?: Communitas, Contestation and Beyond”, Anthropological Theory 2 (2002), pp. 355–368; Andreas Nordin: “The Cognition of Hardship Experience in Himalayan Pilgrimage”, Numen 58 (2011), pp. 632–673. Victor Turner: Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974, p. 132.

Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra of individuals (with their given structure of physical and psychological responses) and cultural frameworks that incorporate a meaningful code but, at the same time, serve to induce specific, direct experiences in those who follow the steps of the conventional procedure.10 Rather than focus on the meaning(s) produced by the rites and symbols of a sacred journey, Morinis suggests that there is something else altogether going on in what we might call the prilgrimage process. This is echoed by Simon Coleman when he argues that “[g]roups sometimes contend for ideological hegemony, but sometimes simply look (and walk) past each other in embodied confirmation of discrepant imaginaries which have been pre-formed at home”.11 In a more recent article that examines the role of hardship in the experience of pilgrimage using a cognitive approach, Andreas Nordin puts it even more starkly when he argues “[t]here are other things than meanings that matter, and meanings are indeed quite unimportant for some explanatory purposes”. 12 There are, indeed, “other things than meanings that matter” for a pilgrim traveling over real or imagined terrain; while the symbolic systems that are reinforced (or contested) are important, I found that pilgrims themselves most often described the sights, sounds, and feelings of pilgrimage, not the ideological framework underpinning it. In this sense, Nordin’s use of the concept of “sensory pageantry” traverses the realm of experience in a way that is perhaps more satisfying, or at the very least less opaque, than Turnerian communitas. He refers to the “split intuitions”13 that pilgrims seem to have, largely stemming from the fact that they are simultaneously performing and performed upon. In other words, they themselves are the creators of the daily ritual activities of pilgrimage, but these activities are intensified through a number of factors. Nordin explores, in particular, the role that hardship plays in the intensification process. Here, I suggest that, during pilgrimage, music is as important an intensifying agent as hardship, producing a key meeting point where person, place, and text coalesce. The idea of pilgrimage as convergence of person, place and text is a framework that has developed over the past twenty years.14 As with communitas, there is a certain amount of intuitive strength in this particular analytical lens. The observers of and participants in pilgrimage (including, of course, fieldworkers) know from experience that pilgrimage consists of a self-conscious and inherently 10 11 12 13 14

Morinis (1992): p. 17. Coleman (2002): p. 359. Nordin (2011): p. 636. Nordin (2011): p. 646. Simon Coleman and John Elsner: Pilgrimage: Past and Present: Sacred Travel and Sacred Space in the World Religions. London: British Museum Press, 1995; Simon Coleman (2002); Eade and Sallnow (2013).

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Jaime Jones active coalescence, a process of bringing together people, places, and texts (understood in the broadest sense). In this formulation, the verbs used to describe pilgrimage turn away from interpretive and towards operational terms, marking a return to Turner’s privileging of time as the medium of pilgrimage (rather than space). Here, I would simply add that music has something important to say about these matters, which I will return to in the final section of this article.

Music and Devotion in Vārkarī Practice The Vārkarī Sampradaya, or tradition, of Maharashtra is a regionally-specific set of practices, stories, and beliefs that comprises a way of life for hundreds of thousands of devotees throughout the Marathi-speaking region of India. It is also a manifestation of bhaktī, a wider formulation or way of being Hindu that exists in different forms throughout the subcontinent.15 The basic tenet of bhaktī traditions is the idea that by committing oneself entirely to (usually) one particular god, a devotee may achieve Bhagavan, or an idealized reciprocal relationship of love with the divine being.16 This basic idea had important implications for the lower castes, who typically were not powerful or wealthy enough to afford the ritual sacrifices required by more orthodox forms Hinduism, and who were not literate and therefore had no access to the Sanskrit texts that made up the esoteric body of knowledge guarded by Brahmins. This had two major effects on the ways in which devotion was and is practiced. First of all, due to the large number of illiterate or non-Sanskrit speaking devotees, and the general principle that anyone should have access to god, the literatures that now comprise the core texts of individual bhakti traditions are vernacular literatures. These consist almost entirely of devotional songs, written in local, everyday language. In many regions, these songs mark the beginning of any kind of non-Sanskrit literary tradition, and as such continue to hold positions of high cultural importance. The other important effect that the population of devotees had on practice was the development of sets of rituals meant to do the work of both achieving a sense of union with god and serving a pedagogical function in terms of spreading liturgy. Towards both of these ends, music became an important component of ritual performances, as 15 Bhaktī: literally ‘devotion,’ a form of Hinduism that began to spread northwards from Tamil Nadu from the 7th century, and which focuses on the path of devotion (bhakti-marga) advocated by Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita. In essence, bhakti can be characterized as a reaction against brahminical Hinduism(s) and the hierarchical structures that these practices imposed. Bhaktī is focused on one god, to whom the disciple constantly strives to meet through prayer, song, and chanted ‘naming’ of the god. Nearly all bhaktī movements in India have a vernacular poetic tradition that also encompasses the musical performance of these texts. 16 This idea emphasizes individual experience and interaction with god.

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Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra evidenced in the specific history of the Vārkarī sect, which was founded in the 13th century. The various saints who wrote devotional poetry (called abhangas) were also always singers and sermon-givers;17 the poetry was intended always to be sung rather than read, heard rather than studied, and repeated rather than guarded. The early saints incorporated different kinds of musical performance in order to transmit the messages of their songs, and many of the same rituals hold a central place in Vārkarī practice today. The kīrtan allows charismatic leaders to expound or sermonize upon a particular theme, and to use verses of the abhangas to punctuate crucial moments in their exposition. More informal bhajans allow a kind of egalitarian participation, in which the choice of song and song-leaders varies without a reliance on hierarchy. Bharud combines elements of sermon with drama and song, using stock folk characters to enact morality plays. As I will explore below, during the vārī, music plays an especially crucial role in structuring the experience of pilgrimage. It is no exaggeration to say that music constitutes the Vārkarī tradition, yet, despite its centrality, scholars in and outside of India have often treated Vārkarī abhangas not as songs, but rather as a set of texts, as ‘works’ that comprise a body of literature that can be asserted as both historical and as canonic. This perspective is evidenced in the ways that these poems have been treated and disseminated. In Maharashtra, there is a long history of scholarship that tends to focus on either the philosophical writings of Jnaneshwar, the founder of the tradition, or on the interpretation of the abhanga poetry of the saints. Abhangas from the Vārkarī tradition are taught in schools as a central part of regional culture; they are also anthologized in collections of pan-Indian bhakti poetry and distributed to a national audience as text. In part this relates to the fact that the tradition has transformed from a religion based on charismatic leaders (who used song and sermon to proselytize) to a hereditary practice that seldom initiates outsiders. Over the past two hundred years, the tradition has become substantially more codified, and it is now the case that charismatic performers no longer compose their own songs but rather rely upon the fixed texts collected and affirmed as canon. In this sense, the Vārkarīs are seen, and often see themselves, as culture-bearers, representatives of a long-standing tradition and preservers of a great literary and devotional heritage. As culture-bearers, Vārkarīs necessarily engage with the abhanga repertoire as a set of texts, with relatively fixed and stable meanings that have accumulated over time through discourse. Yet the abhanga is also music, and as music it does things other than mean! In the person/place/text triad discussed above, ‘text’ is often understood as a fixed entity that produces multiple interpretations or re17 Abhanga – the poetic song form of the Vārkarī tradition. This is a strophic form with rhymed couplets of 7–15 syllables, and a flexible number of stanza. One stanza typically acts as a refrain in performance.

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Jaime Jones sponses. Music-as-text, I would suggest, contains multiple responses within it already. When Vārkarīs move musically as pilgrims, they rely upon the inherent qualities of devotional songs not only to perform devotion through the citation of authoritative texts, but also to be performed upon through the dynamism inherent to music-as-text. This has a particularly strong effect on the idea of place. During the vārī, nearly a million individuals make the pilgrimage from sacred sites all over the state to Pandharpur, which is roughly 200 miles southeast of Mumbai. The devotees travel in large groups (some reaching numbers approaching 500,000), called pālkhīs, after the ‘palanquin,’ or carriage upon which they carry relics of the tradition’s saints from (at least) 43 different sites.

Figure 1: Map of the various processions to Pandharpur18 18 G.A. Deleury: The Cult of Vithoba. Pune: Deccan College Press, 1960: Plate 4.

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Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra The length of the journey and its movement across the state render the Maharashtrian vārī exceptionally effective in situating the region as sacred. The songs, the abhangas, which are identifiably Maharashtrian through language, mode, and meter, incorporate the names of real individuals and places from the history of the Vārkarī tradition, frequently invoking Pandharpur itself as both a metaphor and a real place. When these songs are performed on the road, music inscribes these places with people, as the pilgrims retrace not only their own steps, but also those of the saints of the tradition and their ancestors. The importance of these kinds of associations is evident in the ways that the villages, towns, and cities of the pilgrimage choose to identify themselves. Certain sacred sites such as Pandharpur and the birth/death places of the saints are more overtly connected to the Vārkarī tradition. But even the sites merely passed through by the procession retain some kind of physical link to this act. Memory, in both the personal/ experiential and the collective/historical sense, is employed actively during the journey, as the Vārkarīs literally ‘remember’ the names of god and the saints, as they sound the words of the abhangas, and as they meet one another on the road. There is a constant interaction between the active process of memorialization (a process which involves not only memory but also an act of marking and remarking) sounded through the sung repertoire of the pilgrims and the artifacts of this process (the song texts themselves) which constitute a record of the journey. The song-as-music is the key operator of pilgrimage, while the song-as-artifact preserves the tradition as a history that is substantiated during the pilgrimage by the sights and sounds of the countryside through which the pilgrims pass. Another way of putting this distinction would be to differentiate between the multiple journeys acted out over time by individuals – the act of forming, and the journey to Pandharpur – a static, recognizable structure. In what follows, I focus on thinking about journeys – individual experiences of pilgrimage that rely upon the fixed structures that render the vārī both meaningful and feelingful. The notion of the meta- and historical journey, however, is never fully divorced from individual journeys. For pilgrims going to Pandharpur, time is largely structured through the dindī, the smaller sub-groups of pilgrims (roughly 80–100 people) that make up the larger pālkhī processions outlined above. Each dindī has a certain number of musical specialists (singers and drummers) who lead and accompany the slow daily procession from town to town, which typically ranges approximately 15–20 kilometers and begins as early in the day. Upon arriving at each day’s destination, an aarati, the arrival ceremony that includes all of the dindīs of each palkhi19, takes place. It serves ceremonially to lay the saint’s pālkhī to rest and 19 Palkhi: from ‘palanquin,’ literally refers to the carriage that holds the relics of the different saints.

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Jaime Jones practically as a kind of daily meeting of the group, where pilgrims can air grievances and make announcements. As the procession continues and the pālkhīs near Pandharpur, special ceremonies called ringan (derived from the Marathi word ‘rangan,’ which literally means an circus, or more loosely an ‘arena’, but possibly affected here by the closeness of the English term ‘ring’) begin to take place. These ringans, which are ritually centered around the horses that accompany the pālkhī, are also created musically, as each dindī performs gymnastic feats of dance and drumming, and as all the participants break up and play dance ‘games’ such as phugadi, for several hours. After settling into a night’s resting spot, one could participate in any of the major forms of Vārkarī music-rituals: bhajan, kīrtan, and bharud, which would go on late into the night. Upon waking, one hears the abhangas of the pilgrims as they start to walk as early as 4:00 a.m. Song, dance, and drumming permeate nearly every waking moment of the journey; music thus constitutes the individual’s experience of pilgrimage, allowing them to move through both space and time.

Song as Person, Place, and Text The multiplicity of genres and modes of musical performance enacted during the vārī consistently bring about the convergence of person, place, and text. I want to examine some of these connections more deeply here by looking at the most fundamental of the many performance types listed above: the group singing that takes place within the dindī during the daily procession. In addition to the abhangas themselves, which of course consist of words written by the saints, invocations in the form of chanting the names of the saints and the gods are also utilized during the journey. The most common invocation is Jnanoba Tukaram, which not only calls upon the two most important saints for the Vārkarīs, but also encapsulates the entire lineage of the saints – with Jnanoba, or Jnaneshwar, being the first and Tukaram being the last of the great Vārkarīs. Of note is the fact that the saints are invoked with much greater frequency than the god (Vitthala, Vithoba, or sometimes the more generic Hari), which falls in line with the emphasis on human divinity common to bhaktī throughout South Asia. In the procession, abhangas and invocations are sung continuously within each dindī during the daily fifteen-twenty kilometer walk. Many dindīs organize the order of the abhangas ahead of time, and distribute this order to participants through pamphlets. If not, the order is determined on the spot by one of the musical experts in the group, who may also consult a text. The repeated performance of the abhangas on the road resembles a liturgy in this sense. For the most part, the “Palkhis” also refer to the processions that accompany each saint on pilgrimage.

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Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra same songs are repeated each day, and certain groups of songs are used to mark particular points of the journey. Invocations, on the other hand, are more spontaneous. They can be used to ‘fill time’ while stopped, or are interjected before an important sequence of abhangas as a kind of marker. There is a practical element to both modes of performance here; it is common wisdom that singing and walking in rhythm to the pakhawāj (drum) make the journey go by faster. This becomes increasingly important as the weeks wear on and people grow tired. When the abhangas are sung on the vārī, they are sung using the most straightforward melodic patterns and a relatively simple system of rhythmic accompaniment. This does contrast with the kind of performance that one might hear at a bhajan or a kīrtan, in that there is little room for ornamentation or elaboration. The text is the focus during the pilgrimage, and the mode of performance used while walking is one that emphasizes singability (so that all may participate) and intelligibility (so that all may understand the words of the saints). One example of this style is taken from a recording I made on the eighteenth day of the journey, only a few days outside of Pandharpur. In the recording, which is indicative of the most common melodic and rhythmic form used during the vārī each day, the pilgrims sing “Sundara te dhyan …” which is an abhanga by Tukaram, the last great saint of the Vārkarīs. This abhanga is one of the most famous and popular in Maharashtra. Its language is relatively simple, and it is focused on the image of the god Vithoba. The perspective is clearly first-person (see translation, figure 3). Tukaram’s seventeenth-century Marathi, while still removed from the modern vernacular, is relatively easy to understand here, in part because of the simplicity of the sentiment. Tukaram’s abhanga serves here as a lead-in to the performance of Jnaneshwar’s Haripath, a set of 28 abhangas that are performed towards the end of each day’s journey. The texts that comprise the Haripath, which can be translated as ‘the lesson of Hari’, or even ‘Hari, by heart’, are much more philosophically complex than the Tukaram example. Jnaneshwar, born a Brahmin, was an educated thinker. His goal as a bhakta was to render the mysteries of the Vedic and Puranic literature clearly, in the vernacular. Here, he is clearly referencing the Gita. It is also important to note that his thirteenth-century Marathi is quite far removed from the modern idiom. While the Vārkarīs do indeed learn the Haripath ‘by heart’, the extent to which all of the literal meanings of the poetry are understood is unclear. Instead, certain lines, in this case, “Hari mukhe mhana” or “chant the name of god,” receive more attention.

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Figure 2: Texts of “Sundara Te Dhyan” and the first abhanga of the Haripath 20

One obvious element of the formal structure used during the procession is its participatory nature; the abhanga is ‘called’ by lead singers, and the rest of the diņd· ī responds by repeating the strophe. The first half of each line is repeated one time, while the second half is repeated twice. The general downward-moving melodic contour of both abhangas are similar, however the mode usually changes from song to song (or from song group to song group). The melodic material, furthermore, is not bound to the text specifically. Rather, a group of stock tunes that fit the metric pattern are employed, making performance relatively f lexible. This combination of a f lexible melodic structure and a stable pattern of call and response contribute to a form that is simultaneously improvised, repetitive, and interactive. By far the most fixed element of the performance of abhanga in this context is the system of rhythmic accents instituted by the metric pattern of the drum and imitated by the voice, which groups the ten to twelve syllables of each line into smaller groups of three. This basic rhythmic framework allows the singers to move f luidly from one abhanga to the next, whether or not there is a shift in melody. The tempo also remains constant, and so the temporal structure remains a secure and stabilising element throughout the day’s procession. The only kind of intensification that we see in this structure is the textual one through the rep20 Tukaram translation adapted from G.A. Deleury: The Cult of Vithoba. Pune: Deccan College Press, 1960, p.149, and Haripath translation adapted from S Abhayananda: Jnaneshvar: The Life and Works of the celebrated 13th Century Indian Mystic. Naples, Florida: Atma Books, 1989, p. 221.

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Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra etition of the second line. In the case of the second abhanga above the line which becomes the refrain for the entire performance translates as “Chant the name of Hari”. This line is both the most intelligible (as most pilgrims would not fully understand the medieval Marathi) and also, of course, the most performative. The line does as it says, and vice versa. The singing of the abhangas on the road is the central activity of the pilgrimage; one’s temporal experience of the vārī is largely structured through this ‘sung movement’. While the vārī does represent the most important public manifestation of bhaktī in Maharashtra, it also literally comprises the identities of the practitioners themselves (as the word Vārkarī itself suggests). Although the Vārkarīs are aware of themselves as performing to a public throughout certain parts of the journey, the emphasis while walking, and in particular while cycling through the important abhangas handed down by the saints, is on the simultaneous processes of internalization of the texts and embodiment of the saints through song. Both of these acts do more than simply invoke the presence of the saints on the journey. There is an important glossed meaning of the Marathi word sant, which is usually translated into the English word saint, as I have been doing here. While the two terms are mostly equivalent, I want to highlight the second meaning of sant, which is air, breeze, or current. The Vārkarī saints are considered to be ‘in and of the air’, 21 and this usage denotes the importance of presence in the ideology, typified not only by the fact that the canonized saints of the tradition continue to make the yearly pilgrimage through the symbolic act of being carried in the pālkhī, but also through the saint-hood bestowed upon each Vārkarī on the road to Pandharpur. The centricity of the literature to Marathi culture, the use of music historically to disseminate and circulate the ideals of the bhaktī tradition, and the characteristic mode of performance during pilgrimage all contribute to a configuration of music that is simultaneously text and more-than-text. The spiritual efficacy of song relies not only upon saying the words of the right people in the right place, but also on the combination of a set of musical effects common to tranceinducing practices and the clear articulation of the words of the saints. This first set of qualities line up with those that, according to Judith Becker, induce a state of what she has called “deep listening” which is described as an embodied state, in which the mind is focused only on the present. 22 This state is centred on the body as the site of affective emotion, and on the first-person experience of moment21 This distinction is also found in Christianity, as in the Holy Ghost, but in that case has more to do with the godliness of the spirit than with the human-ness of the saint. In other words, the idea is that some essence of the sant’s body remains in the air. 22 Judith Becker: Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

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Jaime Jones to-moment circumstance. The entrainment that is a result of this phenomenon renders in the singer/listener a state of openness that allows music to act. The repetitive rhythm and melody and the intense timbre of the tāl (hand cymbals) work to induce this state. Yet at the same time the text is still paramount, ref lecting the importance of an aural and musical rendering of the words of the saints. The simple declamation allows the words to work, so to speak. Music, which is rooted in temporal experience, particularly in a genre that is essentially participatory, opens up the space for agency by allowing the Vārkarīs to re-utter and make new the words of the saints, ultimately allowing the devotee to become the saint. Music acts here to turn ideology into feeling, as in the Vārkarī Sampradaya, it is believed that those on the road are temporarily divine. The collective nature of musical synchrony and the call-and-response structure of the abhangas form work to underline bhaktī’s egalitarian philosophy, while the embodiment of emotion, experience, and text through “deep listening” exemplifies bhaktī’s orientation towards the self. Invocations also use repetitive rhythmic structures and a call-and-response style to unify, synchronize, and encourage deep listening. Yet the most remarkable feature of invocation is the emphasis placed on intensification, marked through increased tempo, rhythmic density, and dynamics and also through dance, which work actively to ‘call’ upon the presence of the saint. From a strictly musical perspective, invocation utilizes a much simpler formula. For example, in the very common Jnanoba-Tukaram invocation mentioned above, the repetitive call of the saints’ names is declamatory rather than melodic. It is recited over one pitch, with a marked accent (occasionally with a slightly raised pitch) on the first syllable of Jnanba. The pakhawāj echoes this accent with a resonant strike on the rim of the right drumhead. The recitation begins quite slowly and almost solemnly. The leader of the chant, usually one of the older members of the dindī situated near the pakhawāj player, begins by playing the tāl, and calling the line. The drummer and the rest of the dindī join in with the response. As they continue, both tempo and dynamics increase, as does the rhythmic density of the percussion. Towards the end of the invocation, the tempo of the invocation is often so fast that only the accented syllable of “Jnanoba” can be heard, along with the resonant drum stroke. This is most intensely evident while standing towards the back of the dindī, with the musicians – the singers and pakhawāj players. The rest of the men form rows at the front and dance in synchrony as the chant intensifies. During invocation, music’s phenomenological characteristics, its synchronization and intensification through the gradual increase in volume and speed, contribute to the efficacy of the ‘call’. Considered from a South Asian perspective, it is important to bear in mind the fact that speech/sound, or vāk, has been a primary agent for the sacred throughout the Indian subcontinent, not only for Hindus, but 740

Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra also for Buddhists, Jains, and Muslims. In each of these traditions, and arguably in most religious traditions of the world, the recitation of sacred text is a kind of ‘speech act’, to use Austin’s term, 23 that derives its power simply by being voiced. ‘Saying something’ becomes equivalent to ‘doing something’. Vedic recitation, for example, is only ritually efficacious when chanted; as mere text, the vedas are only useful to scholars and philosophers. An important characteristic of this efficacy is its dependence upon proper pronunciation and performance – hence Vedic recitation has remained within the domain of the Brahmin priests who preserve the ‘correct’ articulation of the Sanskrit verses through an intense pedagogical process of rote memorization. For the Vārkarīs, the ‘correct’ enactment of invocation relies upon a musical framework that locates the affective power of the call within the body of the participating devotee, dancing collectively in the places of pilgrimage. The texts of the abhangas are filled with symbolism, with images and meanings that can be interpreted in various ways. However I would argue that when we think of these texts as music, the glosses and meanings of the words are less important than the musical deployment of song as a strategic mode of experience. In a similar vein, the invocations to the saints are questions that are answered as they are performed – the saints are called to be present, and are present through the music. In both cases, pilgrims rely on a transformative efficacy that rests within their own bodies. Some of the early observers of the Vārkarī sect 24 were perplexed by the daily performance of song and chant on the road to Pandharpur, because, as the journey wore on, it seemed to become repetitive, and, from the outside, mundane. This was especially so when compared with the more spectacular modes of performance that also take place during the journey. However, most of the Vārkarīs with whom I spoke suggested that the daily journey, as sung, was the moment at which devotion was the most heightened internally. This feeling is augmented by the physical space of the road. Walking straight ahead, one experiences only one’s immediate group, which often includes only the few rows in front of you and not even the whole of the dindī. One hears the pakhawāj loudly only if situated nearby, so nearby voices and the ringing of the tāl are the most audible aspects for many. One could extend this to realize that the musical parameters of abhanga performance during the vārī produce ideal circumstances for communitas – the “spontaneity of interrelatedness”, to return to Turner. Taking all of this into consideration, it would be difficult to see how such a state would be possible without music.

23 J. L. Austin: How to do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962. 24 G.A. Deleury: “Irawati Karve: On the Road: A Maharashtrian Pilgrimage”, Journal of Asian Studies 22 (1962): pp. 13–29.

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An Ethnomusicology of Pilgrimage When I was traveling on the vārī, I unintentionally made a division between the social interactions that I experienced and the musical performances carried out by the pilgrims during the journey. This division was usually marked by whether or not I was holding my video camera. Every morning, as we took up the journey and embarked, singing, on the road, I became an ethnographer, diligently looking for opportunities to get a decent recording, keeping eyes and ears peeled for anything remarkable or extraordinary. In the evenings, and for brief periods during the day when we would come to rest outside a restaurant or tea stall, or sitting underneath a truck, I allowed the ethnographer to relax. Instead I chatted with the women whom I was sharing a tent with each night, answering their questions and my own, none of which had to do with my research. Over the course of the nights I spent with these women, I grew close with them. They were, of course, interested in me because I was a novelty, and derived huge amounts of pleasure in teaching me how to get on, giggling whenever I made a mistake. I came to rely on them for guidance and support, and, in the shared space of the tent, a kind of social intimacy developed between us. It was in the tent one night that I witnessed the performance of an abhanga that drove home for me the absolute centrality of song to Vārkarī practice. After a long day of walking, singing, and dancing, I lay in the tent as the women giggled and talked around me, looking at a collection of the abhangas in English translation, Shindubai, an illiterate vegetable seller with whom I had struck up a particular friendship, started teasing me about my Marathi, asking if I could write in it. After my weary answer in the affirmative, she asked me to write down her favourite abhanga by Tukaram, (“Kahi jano naye Pandurangavina”, see text and translation, below), and she began to recite it to me as prose. Halfway through the first line, she paused, forgetting what came next. She started over, this time singing the words to a common tune. Her memory thus jogged, she continued, line by line, waiting for me to catch up with the written word, each time singing the line all the way through first, repeating the second couplet, and then slowly speaking the line again, as I wrote:

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Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra Kahi jano naye Pandurangavina

Know nothing without Pandurang;

  Pavijela sina sandehane

  Doubt will only exhaust you.

Bhalatiya nave alavila pita

Even if you remember Him by any other name,

  Tari to janata kalavala

  Your Father understands why you pine.

Alakar jato guaravita vani

Praise Him and you are no more vain;

  Sarvagatra dhani harikatha

  Listen to his story and wishes come true.

Tuka mhane epaje vilhale awadi

Says Tuka, you will suddenly fill up

 Karava to ghadi ghadi laho

  With the feeling of love without end.

Figure 3: Transliteration and translation of “Kahi Jano Naye …” by Tukaram 25

Tuka mhane’ which translates as ‘Tuka says’ is the most common closing device for the abhangas of Tukaram, the beloved seventeenth century Vārkarī. Tukaram’s image pervades the landscape of Maharashtra, and his abhangas continue to be the most popular. Tukaram was a Shudra, a low-caste Hindu who renounced worldly affairs in favor of composing abhangas and spreading the word of god through song and sermon. The act of singing one of his abhangas today brings the saint present. The poem itself acts a virtual definition of bhaktī itself: know nothing but god, and you will attain Bhagavan. The last line, ‘you will suddenly fill up with the feeling of love without end’, transforms an abstract or studied idea of Bhagavan into a personal feeling of liberation and love. I could understand why this abhanga was Shindubai’s favourite. When I was finished with my writing, I read my version to her. She immediately pointed out that I hadn’t repeated the second half of each couplet, as she had sung it. At this point, one of the wealthier, higher-caste women in my tent spoke up, saying that I had written it correctly, and that the repetition only happens “when you sing”. Shindubai, however, was not appeased. She insisted that I write it out again and read it back to her with the repetition. I willingly obliged and read it back to her, and this time she was satisfied. I was struck by the disparity, though minor, between Shindubai’s knowledge of the particular abhanga and mine, or the other devotee’s, for that matter. One might say that from my own perspective and from the perspective of ‘educated’ Maharashtrians, performance of the abhangas was a live rendering of a textual tradition, but for Shindubai, writing was merely transcription of words experienced and learned as sound. I conclude with this extended anecdote for a number of reasons. First, it demonstrates the role that the abhangas play in the everyday experience of Vārkarīs, in 25 Tukaram translation adapted from Dilio Chitre: Says Tuka: the selected poetry of Tukaram. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1991, p. 72.

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Jaime Jones this case not during ritual performance but in a more relaxed (and indeed sociable) mode. Second, this example demonstrates a kind of sacred knowledge beyond the ideological, and a liturgical knowledge beyond the text. Shindubai’s performance of this abhanga, particularly in the slippage between speech and song that resulted when she forgot how simply to ‘say’ the words, also exemplifies the primacy of music as a mnemonic device. Finally it demonstrates the importance of performed versions of the abhangas in the lives of devotees. Shindubai learned this song through the simultaneous acts of listening and singing abhangas throughout her lifetime, and her faith is constituted by these acts, not through their explanation. The abhangas of the saints are more than vehicles for the representation of a history or of an ideology. They act through the individual, allowing for the expression of affective and personal devotion. The songs performed during the Vārkarīs’ pilgrimage have always been more then text: they were conceived and disseminated in musical, sung form. The vast majority of Vārkarīs who participate in the pilgrimage do not understand this body of work as words only. Instead, music allows devotees to remember, access, and express the liturgy, actively contemplating using the voice and the ears. Returning to the anthropological approaches discussed in the first section of this article, it has been suggested that pilgrimage produces a liminal experience of time, that pilgrimage creates the circumstances necessary for spontaneous communitas, that pilgrimage produces multiple meanings that can be contested, and that during pilgrimage, meaning is not always the most important thing happening. Given all of this, I can’t help but be struck by the fact that music remains peripheral to the study of pilgrimage, despite certain obvious connections to the perspectives discussed above. Music is the temporal art bar none. Music produces intense feelings of togetherness. Music constantly produces “other things than meaning”, even while it also fixes meaning through the merging of words and tune. If pilgrimage is the dynamic convergence of person, place and text, than music is the site of convergence; pilgrimage comes to be when people sing through, about and in place.

Select Bibliography Abhayananda, S: Jnaneshvar: The Life and Works of the celebrated 13th Century Indian Mystic. Naples, Florida: Atma Books, 1989. Austin, J. L: How to do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962. Becker, Judith: Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

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Music as Pilgrimage in Maharashtra Chitre, Dilip: Says Tuka: the selected poetry of Tukaram. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1991. Coleman, Simon and John Elsner: Pilgrimage: Past and Present: Sacred Travel and Sacred Space in the World Religions. London: British Museum Press, 1995. Coleman, Simon: “Do You Believe in Pilgrimage?: Communitas, Contestation and Beyond”, Anthropological Theory 2 (2002), pp. 355–368. Eade, John and Michael J. Sallnow: Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage. Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 1991, r2013. Deleury, G.A.: The Cult of Vithoba. Pune: Deccan College Press, 1960. Karve, Irawati: “On the Road: A Maharashtrian Pilgrimage”, Journal of Asian Studies 22 (1962), pp. 13–29. Mokashi, D.B.: Palkhi: An Indian Pilgrimage trans. Philip C. Engblom. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987. More, Sandanand: Tuka Mhane. Pune: Utkarsh Prakashan, 2001. Morinis, Alan: “Introduction: The Territory of the Anthropology of Pilgrimage”, in: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, ed. Alan Morinis. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992, pp. 1–28. Nordin, Andreas: “The Cognition of Hardship Experience in Himalayan Pilgrimage”, Numen 58 (2011), pp. 632–673. Turner, Victor: Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.      : Process, Performance, and Pilgrimage. New Delhi: Concept Press, 1979. Turner, Victor and Edith: Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

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PART SEVEN: MUSIC AND POETRY

Harry White, Launch of Polite Forms, Royal Irish Academy of Music, 2012

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Bardolino

for Baritone and Piano

Text: Harry White Music: John Buckley

Bardolino ‘Bardolino’ was the word I borrowed From the bottle of wine my parents drank on Sunday. I loved its comical, concertina-sound, Its f lavoured surge of vowels my private code For happiness: a childlike chant unsorrowed By experience, the wine-dark gloom that one day Would lie behind these sounds, as when I found Myself in Bardolino. She first showed Her Mediterranean splendour, and the word Acquired for me, at last, its primary meaning: An aff luent haven of streets and vistas seeming To confirm that childhood mantra I’d procured. But my Italian summer was to fade And lose possession of the word I’d made. Harry White from Polite Forms. Dublin: Carysfort Press 2012.

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Harry White and John Buckley, launch of The Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland

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Afterword

Harry White Iain Fenlon I have been recalling my first lively meetings and conversations with Harry. What we talked about: poetry, literature, music, our personal lives, friends in common, scholarly projects for the future. What we didn’t talk about: politics, claret vintages, anything practical. No mention of sport. ‘Harry, what do you think of Ireland’s chances at Twickenham next Saturday’ was not a question that came even close to the surface. From the start the accent was always upon the topics of Ireland and musicology, though initially not always in synthesis-this was something that we arrived at only gradually. Our common interest in the international panorama of musicology, and in particular the challenges presented by its ever-expanding horizons and multiplying varieties, came on rapidly in endless discussions usually in pleasant surroundings, sometimes liberally lubricated. Outdoors conversations were usually articulated by Harry’s pipe, when deep meditation was conveyed by soulful inhalation, arguments countered with an adroit motion of the stem with the bowl cupped in hand, while clouds of sweet-smelling exhaled smoke provided a protective veil for the delivery of considered opinion and ( just occasionally) lapidary pronouncements. For Harry the pipe is a rhetorical instrument. It was only gradually that I came to realise the complexities of Harry’s relationship to some of his predecessors, and their contributions to the academic study of music in Ireland. Elsewhere in this volume, Gerard Gillen has written tellingly of the impact of one his own predecessors at Maynooth, the German scholar Heinrich Bewerunge, who passionately believed in the value of musical education. Another strong inf luence of similar views was surely that of John F. Larchet, Professor of Music at University College Dublin for over thirty-five years, whose presence I only became properly aware of when invited to give the occasional lecture named after him. Larchet’s tenure at UCD, beginning just before the establishment of the Irish state in 1922, coincided with a bleak period in the musical life of Dublin. Of this he was both conscious and critical: A dispassionate analysis of the present position of music in Dublin is rather discouraging. It possesses no concert hall, good or bad, and no permanent orchestra which could be called a symphony orchestra … In such circumstance it is inevitable that Dublin should contribute nothing to the support or progress of music.1 1

John F. Larchet: ‘A Plea for Music’, in The Voice of Ireland ed. W. Fitzgerald. Dublin and London: Virtue, 1924, p. 508.

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Harry White in Bodley’s court in King’s, Cambridge, Millar Cole Photography

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Afterword As the arts in general became increasingly politicized, and policies which favoured protectionism became the norm, classical repertories were increasingly viewed as a colonial residue associated with a privileged and now rejected elite. And as the cultural spaces previously occupied by Schubert and Beethoven in the drawing rooms of Merrion Square were vacated, their place was rapidly occupied by folk or traditional music which, together with the Irish language, was powerfully welded into a national identity, vigorously fertilized by the Catholic religion. The negative effects of all this, perceptively recognized by Larchet, was welded into a more historically dimensioned argument by Harry for whom Irish musical life in these years travelled along a clear trajectory from antiquarianism to nationalism with much else along the way. Of this long and complex development he wrote: The contingent relationship between music and Irish political and cultural history in the nineteenth century was of such intensity that it may be said to have determined the central aesthetic difficulties of music as an emancipated art in Ireland. The art tradition collapsed into mediocrity or silence. In its stead, the preoccupation with an identifiably ‘Irish’ music was such that a bifurcated development (music as folklore, music as political propaganda) endured in the Irish mind to the extent that the Celtic Revival of the 1890s for the most part accommodated not music per se, but music as a symbol of renascent Irish culture. 2 In this scheme of things neither the appreciation of the classical canon, nor the activities of musicology as they might be understood in Berlin or Vienna, nor even contemporary composition based on the European aesthetic, had much of a place. Larchet actually disliked most of the new music that came his way, but on the question of the place of both the performance and study of ‘art music’ he was both eloquent and inf luential, while insisting that the remedy lay in education: “The real cause of the failure to appreciate good music in Dublin’, he wrote, ‘is that people have never been taught to do so … Our system of musical education is not merely wrong, it is fundamentally unsound”. 3 This message, with its clear call to action, is one that has fundamentally inspired Harry’s time at UCD, as I was able to witness on a number of occasions. But beyond the local and national, his remarkable determination to secure an international outlook for Irish musicology took matters beyond questions of the national curriculum and its implementation. There could be no better demonstration of this determination at work than the organisation of the Maynooth International 2 3

Harry White: The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press, 1998, p. 53. John F. Larchet, ‘A Plea for Music’, p. 509.

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Iain Fenlon Musicological Conference, held in St. Patrick’s College, and designed, in Harry’s words, ‘to mark the coming of age of musicology as an intellectual discipline in Ireland’.4 There was no doubting its international reach-that scholars from Great Britain, Canada and the United States should have attended is not that surprising, but that they also came from Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Ukraine signalled a decisive move along the road from cultural isolation. It is fair to say that it was not until the 1990s that the intertwined subjects of music and social and cultural history came to maturity in Ireland as proper material for serious academic consideration. That they did so was substantially due to Harry White’s pioneering historical work, and above all to the inf luence of The Keeper’s Recital which, in its connection of music to the dynamics of a political environment that was constantly shifting in its emphases, so convincingly argues for the place of music as a cultural motor in recent Irish history. That would be a considerable achievement in itself, but combined with all the rest it constitutes an extraordinary achievement which, on Harry’s 60 th birthday, gives great cause for festivity. Carpent tua poma nepotes.

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Harry White: “Maynooth International Musicological Conference, St Patrick’s College Maynooth, Co. Kildare (Ireland), 21–24 September 1995”, in: The Journal of Musicology 14/4 (1996), pp. 579–589, here p. 579.

List of Publications

Professor Harry White DMus (NUI) PhD (Dubl) FRIAM MRIA MAE Chair of Music, University College Dublin

~ List of Publications~ I Books (Monographs and Edited Volumes) 1. Musicology in Ireland. Irish Musical Studies, vol. 1. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1990 [edited with Gerard Gillen], 312 pp. 2. Johann Joseph Fux: Il Trionfo della Fede. Graz: ADEVA, 1991 [editor], xxiii + 277 pp. 3. Johann Joseph Fux and the Music of the Austro-Italian Baroque. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992 [editor], 330 pp. Paperback edition: London and New York: Routledge, 2016. 4. Music and the Church. Irish Musical Studies, vol. 2. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993 [edited with Gerard Gillen], 354 pp. 5. Music and Irish Cultural History. Irish Musical Studies, vol. 3. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1995 [edited with Gerard Gillen], 236 pp. 6. The Maynooth International Musicological Conference 1995: Selected Proceedings Parts One and Two. Irish Musical Studies, vols. 4 and 5. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1996 [edited with Patrick F. Devine], 444 pp; 409 pp. 7. The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970. Cork: Cork University Press and Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998, 227 pp. 8. Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture, 1800–1940. Cork: Cork University Press, 2001 [edited with Michael Murphy], xi + 284 pp. 9. The Progress of Music in Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005; 208 pp. 10. Music and the Irish Literary Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, xiv + 260 pp. 11. Musicologie sans Frontières. Essays in Honour of Stanislav Tuksar. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 2010 [edited with Ivano Cavallini], 558 pp. 12. Musical Theatre as High Culture? Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 2012 [edited with Vjera Katalinić and Stanislav Tuksar, 166 pp. 761

List of Publications 13. The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013 [edited with Barra Boydell], Two vols., xxi +1152 pp. 14. A Musical Offering. Essays in Honour of Gerard Gillen. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017) [edited with Kerry Houston], 416 pp. 15. The Musical Discourse of Servitude. Authority, Autonomy and the Work-Concept in the Music of Fux, Handel and Bach. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

II Articles and Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Journals and Collected Volumes 1. “The Need for a Sociology of Irish Folk Music”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 15/1 (1984), pp. 3–13. 2. “Erhaltene Quellen der Oratorien von Johann Joseph Fux: Ein Bericht”, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 67 (1984), pp. 123–131. 3. “Canon in the Baroque Era: Some Precedents for the Musical Offering”, Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute 15/4 (1984), pp. 4–14. 4. “Zwei Oratorientextbücher in der Thomas Fisher Library, University of Toronto”, Music und Kirche 54/3 (1984), pp. 191–195. 5. “A Collection of Oratorio Libretti, 1700–1800, in the Thomas Fisher Rarebook Library, University of Toronto”, Fontes Artis Musicae 32/2 (1985), 102– 113 (with Robert Elliott). 6. “The Sanctuary Lamp: An Assessment”, Irish University Review 17 (1987), pp. 71–81. 7. “Musicology in Ireland”, Acta Musicologica 60, Fasc. 3 (1988), pp. 290–305. 8. “Frank Llewelyn Harrison and the Development of Postwar Musicological Thought”, Hermathena 146 (1989), 39–48. 9. “Carolan and the Dislocation of Music in Ireland”, Eighteenth-Century Ireland 4 (1989), pp. 55–64. 10. “The Case for an Encyclopedia of Music in Ireland”, The Irish Review 6 (1989), pp. 39–45. 11. “The Critical Focus of American Musicology”, Journal of American Studies 23/3 (1989), pp. 453–459. 12. “Ireland and the Irish in Pinter”, Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 14 (1989), pp. 161–165. 13. “A Canadian Model for Music in Ireland”, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 16 (1990), pp. 1–6. 14. “Musicology, Positivism and the Case for an Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland”, in: Musicology in Ireland ed. Gerard Gillen and Harry White, pp. 295–300. 15. “Music and the Perception of Music in Ireland”, Studies 79 (1990), pp. 38–44. 762

List of Publications 16. “Heinrich Bewerunge (1862–1923). Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Caecilianismus in Irland”, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 74 (1990), pp. 41–66 (with catalogue by Nicholas [Frank] Lawrence). 17. “Brian Friel, Thomas Murphy and the Use of Music in Contemporary Irish Drama”, Modern Drama 33, no. 4 (1990), pp. 553–562. 18. “The Holy Commandments of Tonality”, Journal of Musicology 9, no. 2 (1991), pp. 254–269. 19. “Mozart: The Second Centenary”, Studies 80 (1991), pp. 41–47. 20. “The Sepolcro Oratorios, an Assessment”, in: Johann Joseph Fux and the Music of the Austro-Italian Baroque, ed. Harry White, pp. 164–230. 21. “Towards a History of the Cecilian Movement in Ireland”, in: Music and the Church ed. Gerard Gillen and Harry White, pp. 78–107 (with F. Lawrence). 22. “Church Music and Musicology in Ireland”, in: Music and the Church, ed. Gerard Gillen and Harry White, pp. 333–338. 23. “Music and the Irish Literary Imagination”, in: Music and Irish Cultural History, ed. Gerard Gillen and Harry White, pp. 212–227. 24. “The Oratorios of Johann Joseph Fux and the Imperial Court in Vienna”, Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario 15 (1995), pp. 1–16. 25. “Some Canonic Variations”, Studies, 85 (1996), pp. 271–277. 26. “The Preservation of Music and Irish Cultural History”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 27/2 (1997), pp. 123–138. 27. “If It’s Baroque, Don’t Fix It: On the „Work-Concept“ and the Historical Integrity of Musical Composition Before 1800”, Acta Musicologica Fasc. III (1997), pp. 94–104. 28. “The Conceptual Failure of Music Education in Ireland”, The Irish Review 15 (1997), pp. 44–48. 29. “‘Something is taking its course’: Dramatic Exactitude and the Paradigm of Serialism in Samuel Beckett”, in: Samuel Beckett and Music, ed. Mary Bryden Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 159–171. 30. “American Musicology and ‘The Archives of Eden’”, Journal of American Studies 42/1 (1998), pp. 1–18. 31. “‘A Book of Manners in the Wilderness’: The University as Enabler in Music Education”, College Music Symposium 38 (1998), pp. 47–63. 32. “Strange Intimacies: Music, Politics and the Irish Imagination”, in: Music in Ireland, 1798–1998, The 1998 Thomas Davis Lecture Series, ed. Richard Pine (Cork and RTE: Mercier Press, 1998), pp. 29–37. 33. “Et in Arcadia Ego: Fux and the Viennese Sepolcro”, in: Il teatro musicale italiano nel Sacro Romano Impero nei secoli XVII e XVIII, ed. Alberto Colzani, Norbert Dubowy, Andrea Luppi, Maurizio Padoan. Como: Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi, 1999, pp. 213–228. 763

List of Publications 34. “Brian Friel and the Condition of Music”, Irish University Review 29/ 1 (1999), pp. 6–15. 35. “Irish Art Music in the Twentieth Century”, The Irish Review 24 (1999), pp. 139–143. 36. “Polite Forms”, in: Aloys Fleischmann, A Musician Remembered ed. Ruth Fleischmann. Cork: Mercier Press, 2000, pp. 262–266. 37. “Music and Cultural History in Ireland”, Historični Seminar 1998–2000. Ljubljana: Slovenian Academy for Arts and Sciences, 2001, ed. Metoda Kokole, pp. 187–204. 38. “Nationalism, Colonialism and the Cultural Stasis of Music in Ireland”, in: Musical Constructions of Nationalism, ed. Harry White and Michael Murphy, pp. 257–272. 39. “‘De Stylo Ecclesiastico”: Sacred Music at the Imperial Court Chapel in Vienna c.1700–1730 and the Inf luence of Northern Italy”, in: Barocco Padano, Atti del X Convegno Internazionale sulla Musica Sacra nei Secoli XVII–XVIII, ed. Alberto Colzani, Andrea Luppi and Maurizio Padoan. Como: Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi, 2002, pp. 265–283. 40. “Is This Song About You? Some Ref lections on Music and Nationalism in Germany and Ireland”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 33/2 (2002), pp. 131–147. 41. “The Divided Imagination: Music in Ireland After Ó Riada” in: Irish Music in the Twentieth Century, ed. Gareth Cox and Axel Klein, Irish Musical Studies, vol. 7. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003, pp. 11–28. 42. “‘Our Musical State Became Refined’: The Musicology of Brian Boydell” in: The Life and Music of Brian Boydell, ed. Gareth Cox, Axel Klein and Michael Taylor. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2003, pp. 45–62. 43. “‘I am the very model of a modern musicologist’: The Savoy Operas and British Cultural History”, in: Mladi Zajc/Young Zajc ed. Vjera Katalinić and Stanislav Tuksar. Rijeka: Izdavački centar, 2003, 85-93 (in Croatian), pp. 193–201 (in English). 44. “An Archive for Art Music in Ireland”, Brio: Journal of the International Association of Music Libraries (UK & Ireland), 40/2, pp. 37–41. 45. “The Afterlife of a Tradition: Fux, Vienna and the Classical Style”, in: Musical Cultures in the Adriatic Region During the Age of Classicism, ed. Vjera Katalinić and Stanislav Tuksar. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 2004, pp. 23–32. 46. “Johann Joseph Fux and the Question of Einbau Technique” in: Bach Studies from Dublin, ed. Anne Leahy and Yo Tomita, Irish Musical Studies vol. 8. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004, pp. 29–49. 47. “Musicology”, in: Nineteenth-Century Ireland. A Guide to Recent Research ed. Laurence Geary and Margaret Kelleher. Dublin: UCD Press, 2005, pp. 165–181. 764

List of Publications 48. “Art Music and the Question of Ethnicity: The Slavic Dimension of Czech Music from an Irish Perspective”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 35/1 (2004), pp. 29–46. 49. “Aidan Carl Mathews”, in: The UCD Aesthetic ed. Anthony Roche. Dublin: New Island Press, 2005, pp. 239–245. 50. “‘Paltry, scented things from Italy’: Ireland the Discourse of Nationalism in 19 th -Century European Musical Culture”, Musica e Storia, XII/3 (2006), pp. 649–662. 51. “The Sovereign Ghosts of Thomas Moore”, in: Print Culture and Intellectual Life in Ireland, 1660-1941. Essays in Honour of Michael Adams, ed. Martin Fanning and Raymond Gillespie. Dublin: The Woodfield Press, 2006, pp. 164–185. 52. “The Afterlife of a Tradition: European Music and Irish Literature in the Nineteenth Century”, De Musica Disserenda 11/2 (2006), pp. 107–119. 53. “The Rules of Engagement: Richard Taruskin and the History of Western Music”, Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland 2 (2006-7), pp. 21–49. 54. “Cultural Theory, Nostalgia and the Historical Record: Opera in Ireland and the Irishness of Opera during the Nineteenth Century”, in: Music in Nineteenth-Century Ireland ed. Michael Murphy and Jan Smaczny, Irish Musical Studies, vol. 9. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007, pp. 15–35. 55. “The Invention of Ethnicity: Traditional Music and the Modulations of Irish Culture”, De Musica Disserenda 14/2 (2009), pp. 85–95. 56. “Riverdance: Irish Identity and the Musical Artwork”, New Hibernia Review 13/2 (2009), pp. 63–69. 57. “‘A Better Form of Drama”: Tom Murphy and the Claims of Music”, in: Alive in Time: The Enduring Drama of Tom Murphy. New Essays ed. Christopher Murray. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2010, pp. 139–154. 58. “The Musical Afterlives of Thomas Moore” in: Musicologie sans Frontières ed. Cavallini and White, pp. 175–188. 59. “Synge, Music and Edwardian Dublin”, in: Synge and Edwardian Ireland ed. Brian Cliff and Nicholas Grene, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 84–101. 60. “Wien: Kirchenmusik am kaiserlichen Hof im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert”, in: Enzyklopädie der Kirchenmusik, II: Zentren der Kirchenmusik ed. Matthias Schneider and Beate Bugenhagen, Laaber, Laaber Verlag, 2011, S. 287–315. 61. “Johann Joseph Fux and the Musical Discourse of Servitude”, in: Sakralmusik im Habsburgerreich ed. Tassilo Erhardt. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2013, pp. 11–24. 62. “Cultural Theory, Literary Reception and the Question of ‘Irishness’ in Nineteenth-Century Opera”, in: Musical Theatre as High Culture?, ed. Katalinić, Tuksar and White, pp. 9–24. 765

List of Publications 63. “The Invention of Ethnicity: Traditional Music and the Modulations of Irish Culture” in: Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond, ed. Mark Fitzgerald and John O’Flynn. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2014, pp. 273–286. 64. “The Invention of Irish Music: Remembering Grattan Flood”, in: Franjo Ksaver Kuhač (1834–1911). Musical Historiography and Identity ed. Vjera Katalinić and Stanislav Tuksar. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 2014, pp. 207–215. 65. “Johann Joseph Fux and the Imperative of Italy” in European Musicians in Venice, Rome and Naples (1650–1750) ed. Gesa zur Nieden and Anne-Madeleine Goulet. Rome: Analecta Musicologica, 2015, pp. 575–586. 66. “The Imperium of Music” in: Voices on Joyce, ed. Anne Fogarty and Fran O’Rourke. Dublin: UCD Press, 2015, 107–118 67. “Citation, Narrative and Meaning: Woody Allen and the Late Schubert”, in Schubert’s Late Music. History, Theory, Style, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 77–88. 68. “The Lyre of Apollo: Thomas Moore and the Irish Harp” in: Harp Studies. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2016, ed. Sandra Joyce and Helen Lawlor, pp. 90–104. 69. “Courtyards in Delft”, in: Ireland and Quebec. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on History, Culture and Society, ed. Margaret Kelleher and Michael Kenneally. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2016, pp. 197–210. 70. “The English Resistance to Opera” in: Ivan Zajc (1832-1914). Musical Migrations and Cultural Transfers ed. Stanislav Tuksar. Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 2016, 175–184 71. “Macpherson, Ossian and the Bardic Ideal”, De Musica Disserenda 12 (2016), pp. 109–120. 72. “The Lexicography of Irish Musical Experience: Notes towards a Digital Future”, Fontes Artis Musicae, 63/3 (2016): pp. 192–201. 73. “‘Attending His Majesty’s State in Ireland’: English, German and Italian Musicians in Dublin, 1700-1762”, in: Music Migration in the Early Modern Age, ed. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak and Aneta Markuszewska. Warsaw: Argraf, 2016, pp. 53–64. 74. “Evangelists of the Postmodern: Reconfigurations of Bach since 1985”, Understanding Bach 12 (2017), pp. 85–107. 75. “The Imagined Unities of Thomas Moore”, in: Thomas Moore and Romantic Inspiration ed. Brian Caraher and Sarah McCleave. London and New York: Routledge, 2017, pp. 31–42. 76. “‘A priest of eternal imagination’: Joyce, Music and Roman Catholicism” in: A Musical Offering, ed. Kerry Houston and Harry White, pp. 373–386. 77. “‘Making symphony articulate’: Bernard Shaw’s Sense of Music History”, in: British Musical Criticism and Intellectual Thought, 1850–1950, ed. Jeremy Dibble and Julian Horton. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, in press. 766

List of Publications 78. “Affordances of the Piano: A Cinematic Representation of the Victorian Salon”, in: Closed Doors and Open Minds: Perspectives on the Salon ed. Anja Bunzel and Natasha Loges. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, forthcoming. 79. “Thomas Moore: Letter on Music (1810)”, in: Documents of Irish Musical History ed. Kerry Houston, Maria McHale and Michael Murphy, Irish Musical Studies, vol. 12. Dublin: Four Courts Press, forthcoming. 80. “Das Land ohne Musik? Ireland in the European Ear”, in: Ireland in the European Eye, ed. Gisela Holfter and Bettina Migge. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, forthcoming.

III Notes, Prefaces and Reports 1. “Handel in Dublin: A Note”, Eighteenth-Century Ireland 2 (1987), pp. 182–186. 2. “Maynooth Conference Report”, Journal of Musicology, 14/4 (1996), pp. 579–589. 3. “Music and Sister Disciplines: Past, Present and Future”, Current Musicology 63 (1999), pp. 150–169 [with David Fallows, Helen Greenwald, Andrew D. McCredie and Honey Meconi]. 4. „Gefühl und Wissen: Axel Klein und die irische Musik“, Irland Journal XI (2000), pp. 25–27. 5. Afterword to Lorraine Byrne and Dan Farrelly (eds.): Goethe and Schubert. Across the Divide. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2003, pp. 234–236. 6. Foreword to Siobhan Donovan and Robin Elliott (eds.): Music and Literature in German Romanticism. London: Camden House: 2004, pp. ix–x. 7. Foreword to Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland 1 (2005) [inaugural issue], pp. 1–3. 8. Foreword to The Musicology Review, Vols. 1–8 (2005–2014). 9. Introduction to Cavallini and White (eds.): Musicologie sans Frontières, pp. 11– 21 (with Ivano Cavallini). 10. “Conference Report: Sacred Music in the Habsburg Empire 1619–1740 and Its Contexts: Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg, 5–8 November 2009”, Eighteenth- Century Music 7 (2010), pp. 229–332. 11. “Musicology”, in Nicholas Canny (ed.), The Appropriateness of Key Performance Indicators to Research in Arts and Humanities Disciplines. Ireland’s Contribution to the European Debate. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2011, pp. 48–51. 12. Preface to Gareth Cox and Julian Horton (eds.): Irish Musical Analysis. Irish Musical Studies, vol. 11. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014, pp. 11–13. 13. Foreword to Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin: Flowing Tides. History and Memory in an Irish Soundscape. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 2016, ix–x. 767

List of Publications 14. Foreword to Una Hunt: Sources and Style in Moore’s Irish Melodies. New York: Routledge, 2017, pp. xii–xiii. 15. Introduction to Houston and White (eds.): A Musical Offering, pp. 1–8 (with Kerry Houston).

IV Entries in Lexica and Contributions to other Works of Reference 1. “Ballads”, “Belfast Harp Festival”, “Dancing”, “Ethnic Music”, “Music”, “Musical Institutions and Venues, 1700–1990”, “Opera”, “Popular Music” in: The Oxford Companion to Irish History, ed. Seán Connolly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 34, 43, 135–136, 179–180, 373–375, 375–376, 414, 453. 2. “Fux, Johann Joseph”, in: The Oxford Companion to J. S. Bach, ed. Malcolm Boyd. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 184–185. 3. Consultant editor (Music): The Blackwell Companion to Modern Irish Culture, ed W. J. McCormack. Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley, 1999. 4. National advisory editor (Ireland): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 2001 [Revised Edition]. 5. “Bewerunge, Heinrich”, “Deane, Raymond”, “Harrison, Francis Llewelyn” [with David Scott], “Larchet, John Francis”, “Ó Riada, Seán”, in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley SadieLondon: Macmillan, 2001 [Revised edition], vol. 3, pp. 498–499; vol. 7, pp. 90–91; vol. 11, pp. 611–612; vol. 14, pp. 271, vol. 18, pp. 698–699. 6. “Fux, Johann Joseph”, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 2001 [Revised Edition], vol. 9, pp. 365– 375 [with work-list by Thomas Hochradner]. 7. “Ireland (1)”, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 2001 [Revised Edition], vol.12, pp. 556–560. 8. Consultant editor (Music), The Encyclopaedia of Ireland, ed. Brian Lalor. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2003. 9. “Fux, Johann Joseph”, in: The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopaedia ed. Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keefe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 186–187. 10. „Bunting, Edward“, in: Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Kassel: Bäreneiter, 2008, col. pp. 1267–1268. 11. “Bunting, Edward”, “Carolan, Turlough”, “Moore, Thomas”, “Ó Riada, Seán”, in: The Dictionary of Irish Biography ed. James Maguire and James Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2009.

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List of Publications 12. “Introduction”, “Beckett, Samuel”, “Byrne, Anthony”, “Friel, Brian”, “Heaney, Seamus”, “Houston, Kerry”, “Irish Musical Studies”, “Music and Literature”, “Nationalism”, “Ó Riada, Seán”, “Synge, John Millington”, “Yeats, W. B.” in: The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, ed. Harry White and Barra Boydell. Dublin: UCD Press, 2013, pp. xxi-xxxiii, 72–73, 146–145, 410–411, 479–480, 501, 533, 699–702, 728–731, 803–806, 973–974, 1077– 1078.

V Reviews (Selected) 1. A. V. Beedell: The Decline of the English Musician 1788–1888: A Family of English Musicians in Ireland, England, Mauritius and Australia. Oxford, 1992, in: Eighteenth-Century Ireland 7 (1992), pp. 182–184. 2. Helmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin, Mark Miller and Robin Elliott (eds.): Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, second edition. Toronto, 1993, in: Irish University Review 23 /2 (Autumn/Winter 1993), pp. 353–355. 3. “Conjectural Tradition: Review of Hugh Shields: Narrative Singing in Ireland, Lays, Ballads, Come-All-Yes and Other Songs. Dublin, 1993, in: The Irish Review 15 (Spring 1994), pp. 145–148. 4. Steven Saunders, Cross, Sword and Lyre: Sacred Music at the Imperial Court of Ferdinand II of Habsburg (1619-1637). New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, in: Music & Letters 77/4 (November 1996), pp. 601–603. 5. Pieter C. Van den Toorn: Music, Politics and the Academy (University of California Press, 1995), in: Music & Letters 78/11 (February 1997), pp. 129–132. 6. Richard Pine and Charles Acton (eds.): To Talent Alone: The Royal Irish Academy of Music, 1848–1998. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1998, in: Irish University Review 30/ 1 (Spring/Summer 2000), pp. 189–191. 7. Leith Davis: Music, Postcolonialism and Gender. The Construction of Irish National Identity, 1724–1874. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006, in: Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland 3 (2007–8), pp. 141–143. 8. Lorraine Byrne Bodley (ed.): Proserpina. Goethe’s Melodrama with Music by Carl Eberwein. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2006, in: Germanistik in Ireland 3 (2008), pp. 204–207. 9. Matthew Gelbart: The Invention of ‘Folk Music’ and ‘Art Music’. Emerging Categories from Ossian to Wagner. Cambridge University Press, 2007 in: Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland 4 (2008–9), pp. 75–77. 10. Joseph P. Cunningham and Ruth Fleischmann: Aloys Fleischmann (1880–1964): Immigrant Musician in Ireland. Cork University Press: 2010, in: Irish Historical Studies 37 (November 2011), pp. 650–651. 769

List of Publications 11. Simon P. Keefe (ed.): The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Music. Cambridge University Press, 2009, in: Music & Letters 93/1 (February 2012), pp. 132–136. 12. Ronald Schuchard: The Last Minstrels: Yeats and the Revival of the Bardic Arts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, in: Music & Letters 93 /3 (August 2012), pp. 438–441. 13. Yo Tomita, Robin A. Leaver and Jan Smaczny (eds.): Exploring Bach’s B-minor Mass. Cambridge University Press: 2013, in: Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland 10 (2014–15), pp. 47–56. 14. Alison Dunlop: The Life and Works of Gottlieb Muffat. Vienna: Hollitzer Verlag, 2013, in: Eighteenth-Century Music 12/1 (March 2015), pp. 91–94. 15. Johann Joseph Fux, Missa Sancti Joannis Nepomucensis K 34A, eds. Ramona Hocker and Rainer J. Schwob. Vienna: Hollitzer Verlag, 2016, in: EighteenthCentury Music 14/2 (September 2017), pp. 307–310. 16. Thomas Hochradner: Thematisches Verzeichnis der Werke von Johann Joseph Fux, Band 1. Vienna: Hollitzer Verlag, 2016, forthcoming in Eighteenth-Century Music 15/1 (March 2018).

VI Venues of Selected International Meetings, Keynote and Guest Lectures 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996

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University of Oxford University of Edinburgh University of Toronto University of Edinburgh University of Western Ontario University College Dublin [Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Music] National University of Ireland at Maynooth: The Maynooth International Musicology Conference: joint organizer Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario University of Ottawa Dublin Institute of Technology: Music Education National Debate [Keynote Address]

Venues of Selected International Meetings, Keynote and Guest Lectures 1997 1998 1999

University of Limerick, Royal Musical Association Irish Chapter Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi Conference, Como International Musicological Society Congress, Imperial College, London Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Ljubljana Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin (1998) Conference on Nationalism and Music [Keynote Address] Munich University Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi Conference, Como Tenth International Conference on the Enlightenment, University College Dublin

2000 King’s College, London, Institute for Advanced Musical Studies Trinity College Dublin: Biennial Conference on Baroque Music 2001 International University Centre, Dubrovnik Academy of Music, University of Zagreb 2002 Munich University University of Limerick: International Wagner Conference, Chair and respondent keynote address 2003 Trinity College Dublin, Conference on Schubert and Goethe in Perspective and Performance [Closing Address] National Library of Ireland, Launch of NLI Music Archive [Keynote Address] Royal Holloway, Institute for Advanced Musical Studies University of Toronto 2004 Croatian Academy of Music International Association of Music Librarians Conference, Trinity College Dublin [Keynote Address] 2005 International Irish Studies Conference, University of Chicago [Keynote Address] Dublin International Music Analysis Conference, UCD

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Venues of Selected International Meetings, Keynote and Guest Lectures 2006 2007

International Conference on Music in 19th-Century Europe, Ljubljana International Conference on Opera and Operetta in Europe, University of Zagreb The Synge International Summer School, Wicklow [Plenary Address] Mid-west Chapter of the American Conference for Irish Studies Conference, University of Missouri at Kansas City [Plenary Address] St Thomas’ University, Missouri

2008 Patrick McGill Summer School, Glenties, Donegal 8th Biennial Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, UCD St John’s College, Cambridge International Symposium on Thomas Moore, University College Galway [Plenary Address] 2009 “Synge and Edwardian Ireland”, Trinity College Dublin (plenary address) International Symposium on Thomas Moore, Queen’s University, Belfast [Plenary Address] International Conference on Sacred Music in the Habsburg Lands, Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg [Plenary Address] Doctoral Seminar, University of Regensburg National Library of Ireland, Yeats Lecture Series 2010 Royal Irish Academy Discourse, “Aloys Fleischmann and the Development of Musicology in Ireland” Seminar on Johann Joseph Fux, Royal Conservatory of Music, the Hague 14th Biennial Conference on Baroque Music, Queen’s University, Belfast First International Conference on Irish Music, Durham University [Keynote Address] Foreign Musicians in Rome, 1660–1740, German Historical Institute, Rome [Plenary Address] 2011 Maynooth University, International conference on “‘Thanatos as Muse’: Schubert and Concepts of Late Style” [Plenary Session] Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, International conference on Franjo Ksaver Kuhač (1834–1911): Music Historiography and Identity [Plenary Address]

772

Venues of Selected International Meetings, Keynote and Guest Lectures 2012

Queen’s University Belfast, Eighth Biennial Conference on Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain [Plenary Session] Trinity College Dublin, International Association of Music Libraries Congress [Plenary Address] Inaugural International Conference on Celtic Studies, University of Bangor [Keynote Address] Maynooth University, International Conference on Heinrich Bewerunge [Keynote Address] Munich University International Summer School: opening lecture, with Lorenz Welker International Conference on Nationalism and Irredentism in Central Europe, Gorizia, Italy [Plenary Address]

2013 Maynooth University, Plenary Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland [Keynote Address] St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, International Conference of the Society for Music Education in Ireland [Keynote Address] 2014 John F. Larchet Memorial Lecture, University College Dublin Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, International Conference on Ivan Zajcz [Plenary Session] 2015 Julliard School of Music, New York, International Musicological Society Conference International Conference on the European Salon, Maynooth University [Plenary Session] 2016 Durham University International Conference on Music and Migration, Warsaw University [Plenary Session] University of Poznan 2017 Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Association of Franco-Irish Studies Plenary Conference [Keynote Address] University of Zagreb, Department of History, International Conference on Music and the First World War [Keynote Address]

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Lorraine Byrne Bodley & Robin Elliot

Harry White, January 2016

www.hollitzer.at

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