Showing papers in "Nineteenth-century music review in 2008"

Process and Product in Theology and Musical Aesthetics: Improvisation as Interdisciplinary Topos

Abstract: In the course of the development of Western culture, the ideas of Plato have wielded enormous influence. One of Plato's most influential ideas is his particular conception of truth. For Plato, truth exists in a different realm of reality from ourselves, a realm unlike the things we see around us in space and time. Truth consists of ideal being or ideal essences, subsisting in what he called the world of the forms.

The Entrepreneur-conductors and their Orchestras

Abstract: The story of the orchestra in the nineteenth century usually focuses on two types of orchestras: theatre orchestras – such as La Scala, the Queen's Theatre (London), and the Paris Opéra – and concert societies – such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire (Paris), and the New York Philharmonic. It concentrates on the conductors who led these orchestras, many of whom were also famous composers, such as Weber, Spontini, Berlioz, Mendelssohn and Wagner, whose works form a large part of today's ‘classical’ music repertory. This story is not wrong, but it is incomplete.

A Surfeit of Musics: What Goethe's Lyrics Concede When Set to Schubert's Music

Abstract: Of the many possible relationships between music and poetry, which are but a small subset of the possible relationships between music and text, I have chosen a still narrower focus for inquiry. I will investigate two independent, lyric poems whose musically poetic language and form was fully conceived without any expectation that a composer might use their texts as structural scaffolding and expressive inspiration for related, and emergent, musical and artistic ends. Two lyric poems by Goethe, each set by Schubert, will serve to illustrate the conflict between poetic and instrumental/vocal musics, in which the lyric poems inevitably concede something of their music to an appropriation by, and not merely a translation into, another artistic medium. Even when Schubert succeeds in exemplifying, or expanding upon, the symbolic richness of meaning embodied in the poem, we should consider the fate of overwritten meaning embodied in the musical language and form of the poem by itself.

Schubert's Self-Elegies

Abstract: The later music of Franz Schubert confers a remarkable blend of impact and intimacy. Some masterpieces, such as Die schone Mullerin and Winterreise, capture striking images of despair and loneliness. Others, such as the String Quartet in A minor, the Piano Trio in E major and the String Quintet in C major, carry stirring impressions of struggle culminated by success. Yet all captivate us with sensitivity and sincerity, the products of considerable self-investment.

‘In dunklen Träumen’: Schubert's Heine-Lieder through the Psychoanalytical Prism

Abstract: Why – one might be tempted to add: why again – the Heine-Lieder? And why psychoanalysis? Like most of Schubert's music and especially the late works, yet with a distinctive nuance, Schubert's set of six songs to texts from Heine's Buch der Lieder has been regularly discussed in the musicological literature of the last decades. Among those writings, the articles by Harry Goldschmidt and Richard Kramer, the collection of essays on Schwanengesang edited by Martin Chusid, and the latter's publication of the facsimile of the autograph and first edition of the cycle are of particular interest to us here. The reason for it has to do with the nuance referred to at the beginning of this paragraph. While some authors are inclined to discuss Schubert's understanding of the poetry (notably in terms of the celebrated Heinesque ‘irony’), others choose to address the set from another perspective, namely that of the order of the songs. Indeed, the following questions inevitably arise in considering the Heine songs: Why did Schubert alter the order of the poems from that in which they appear in Heine's original collection, therefore (seemingly) destroying the logic of the sequence? Did Schubert actually conceive the text as a sequence – that is to say, a cycle? In dealing with those issues, Goldschmidt and Kramer have suggested a provocative and radical solution, which consists in reordering the songs to match the succession in Heine. This, of course, has occasioned much eyebrow-raising in the musicological community, and has led to successive refutation and counter-refutation.

Wackenroder and the Doctrine of the Soul

Abstract: The writings of Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (1773–1798) constitute perhaps the most powerful and original source in the early German Romantic discourse on autonomous music, itself a spearhead of a European trend that matured at he turn of the eighteenth century. Wackenroder's perfervid yet strangely lucid and insightful observations on art and music are founded on the notion of Kunstreligion (‘art religion’), which he uses to replace the rational explanations of art, based on knowledge and representation of the external world, and derived from classical philosophy.

Swan Songs: Schubert's ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’

Abstract: The following inquiry began as an echo of my preoccupation long ago and far away with settings of late nineteenth-century French poetry. Mallarme's ‘le cygne/signe’ arrives too late (involuntarily, I recall the immortal line ‘What time's the next swan?’) to be a player in the creation of Schubert's songs, but the great French poet had recourse to some of the same signifying swans at work in this composer's chosen poem by Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg. Struck by an analogy in the words for D. 774 (published in March 1827 as op. 72), I dug a little deeper and discovered multiple specimens of these emblematic creatures from Greek and Roman literature, medieval lore, Reformation iconography and Romantic art.

A British Child's Music Education, 1801–1810: G.B. Viotti, Caroline Chinnery and the French Influence

Abstract: Broadly speaking, the British reception of foreign musicians appearing in London at the end of the eighteenth century was one of adulation. Most of these artists had arrived via Paris, where some had acquired a mantle of sophistication unknown in London. Paris was a city of fashion, which, if it could not rival London in economic clout, was the acknowledged European capital of culture, of refined taste and manners. British amateurs were therefore happy to admit these foreign artists into their homes both for private concerts, and in the capacity of music teachers for themselves and their children. One of the most alluring – not to mention gifted – of the performing artists to arrive in London from Paris was Giovanni Battista Viotti, whose public concerts in the last decade of the eighteenth century were among the most popular of the many that were on offer.

Discs 7–12

Abstract: It would be easy to continue extolling these performances and the insights they stand to incite. In ceding now to the reviewers of the 34 remaining discs, I applaud Johnson and his band of marvellous singers for serving Schubert well. But they have done more. Despite enormous recent progress, the walls that too often have divided musical performance and scholarship in the past still stand. HSE2 lays down an imposing gauntlet. Above, I barely scratched the surface of a number of issues awaiting further scrutiny. Hyperion deserves our gratitude; backed by the vision (and bankbook) of Ted Perry and magnificently presided over by Graham Johnson, the full measure of their gift only partially has begun to sink in.

Discs 13–19

Abstract: ever setting of this evocative poem of longing (D. 310 and 310a, both dating from 18 October 1815: tracks 1 and 2 respectively, most sensitively sung by Elly Ameling, responding to Schubert’s markings of ‘mit Ausdruck’ for D. 310 and ‘mit höchstem Affekt’ for D. 310a, and with the first version transposed from A to G major, presumably for greater comfort, the second in its original key of F major). A few days later, on 23 October 1815, Schubert produced his only setting of that other famous expression of longing, Mignon’s ‘Kennst du das Land?’ D. 321 (CD 11, track 12: also sung by Elly Ameling), notable for the early appearance of the questioning motif (augmented sixth to dominant) which was to form such a significant part of Schubert’s musical language in the later vocal and instrumental works. Like so many nineteenth-century song composers, Schubert was also fascinated by the quasi-ancient atmosphere evoked in the poems of ‘Ossian’ (James MacPherson). Most of his Ossian settings date from this period, and they evoke some fine performances on these discs. Certain other poetic themes recurring in Schubert’s oeuvre make an early appearance here. Several genuinely titled ‘swansongs’ appear before the famous collection of D. 957 published under that title posthumously; these include two from among altogether seven Kosegarten settings composed on one day, 19 October 1815, the lover’s farewell (in 17 verses) ‘Idens Schwanenlied’ D. 317 (CD 11, track 8 sung by Elly Ameling) and the solemn seven-verse ‘Schwanengesang’ D. 318 (CD 11, track 9: Michael George), both reasonably enough performed with a selection of their verses only. If ever we needed reminding, this collection makes us vividly aware of the richness of Schubert’s song production. In many of these early songs the later Schubert can be seen emerging, for example in the freely ranging tonal structure of ‘Adelwold und Emma’, and in the adventurous exploration of key incorporated even into some of the much shorter settings. The accompaniments cover a wide range of styles, and the use of meaningful, brief piano preludes, interludes and postludes is already present. The vocal range and word-setting often stretch the voices but equally often provide distinctively grateful material for the expressive lied singer – a species most splendidly represented on these discs.

Elgar's Recordings

Abstract: Elgar as conductor of his own music on record has been one of the principal agents whereby the study of recordings has become a respectable adjunct of musicology. The reasons are straightforward. For twenty years Elgar worked for The Gramophone Company (the full title was ‘His Master’s Voice’ Gramophone Company) as both an advocate of his music and advocate of the gramophone. During this period, recording technology changed from the cramped conditions of the acoustic studio of 1914 to the specialized recording studio of Abbey Road using the electrical system of 1933, in which year Elgar conducted his last recordings, with the extraordinary appendix of Elgar supervising a recording by telephone connection from his death bed in 1934 (Elgar started making electrical recordings in 1926 and he formally consecrated Abbey Road in 1931 with the first recording of his Falstaff).1 As a conductor of his own music – we cannot comment from direct experience on his success with the music of others, for nothing was recorded – he was as fine a conductor as Furtwängler in Wagner and Mengelberg in Brahms.2 His ability as a conductor extends to every aspect of the art, from the purely technical quality of the playing he repeatedly drew from orchestras to the inexhaustible fascination of the interpretations themselves. Few who have heard, for example, his performance of the Prelude to The Dream of Gerontius are likely to be entirely satisfied with Barbirolli, Boult, Handley, Rattle or any other:3 it is Elgar who brings us closest to the soul’s agony and exultation at the heart of the oratorio.4 Aware of the neglect by musicologists of recordings, and anxious to point out a strange anomaly in the self-styled ‘authentic performance’ movement, Robert Philip wrote a pioneering article for Early Music that drew upon Elgar’s recordings for evidence that the gramophone had a great deal to tell musicologists about performance.5 As this is a review of the recordings, it is worth surveying the commercial scene before, of necessity, including in the discussion one or two recordings

Susan Rutherford, The Prima Donna: 1815–1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 394 pp. $105.00

Abstract: Brigg Fair also invites us to contemplate Grainger’s creative relationship with Grieg in a new light. The setting becomes an expression of his anxiety of influence, like David Monrad Johansen’s folk-tune arrangements. The adoption and transformation of a Griegian compositional model, in Brigg Fair, suggest a simultaneous attraction and resistance, and (in Bloomian terms), a fear of creative isolation that is in some senses unconsciously desired. The tension in the central sections of Brigg Fair, particularly the wordless transition between the fourth and fifth strophes, therefore takes on the Freudian character of an Oedipal struggle. (p. 218)

Charles Youmans, Richard Strauss's Orchestral Music and German Intellectual Tradition: The Philosophical Roots of Musical Modernism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005). 294 pp. $39.95

Abstract: changes, as must be obvious, but what becomes ultimately clear is that the prima donna’s loss of prominence was partly because she chose to be less. Rutherford sums it up by stating: ‘At the beginning of the period, Pasta had impressed by her stamp on a role, by adapting each part to her own artistic supremacy and authority; now, at the end, Garden sought to submerge her identity completely within the fictional casing’ (p. 274). In spite of what might have been lost, it is hard not to see these changes as positive ones. Although these women were striving for fame and financial security, they were also striving sincerely to sing beautifully and to give pleasure to their audiences. In the course of this, their individual demands changed the way operas were composed, produced and sung, and their behaviour gave it a level of attraction that it arguably might not have possessed otherwise. Rutherford’s interaction with their histories offers a delightful reading of these individuals as both themselves and as prima donnas.

Of ‘Bumps’ and Biography: A Response to Marcia Citron

Abstract: My article, ‘The Suppression of Fanny Mendelssohn: Rethinking Feminist Biography’1 has been a topic in two articles by Marcia J. Citron: ‘Feminist Waves and Classical Music: Pedagogy, Performance, Research’, published in Women and Music in 2004, and her keynote address to the Fanny Hensel Conference at Oxford in 2005, recently published in this journal.2 My article treats a story about Fanny Hensel that has been central to biographical representations of her: