Rubbra on Future Radio

Among the delights in store for listeners to Bob Shingleton's Future Radio show on April 20th will be Edmund Rubbra's sixth symphony played by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Norman del Mar. Those wanting to learn more about this and other symphonic works by Rubbra need look no further than Leo Black's recent book on the composer.

Berlioz? Encore!

The University of Rochester Press has published a cluster of books on Berlioz, including the first full English translation of the composer’s Les Grotesques de la musique (The Musical Madhouse) and a study of his “semi-operas”. This month sees the publication of Berlioz: Scenes from the Life and Work; its editor, Peter Bloom, thinks back over the Berlioz “renaissance,” as he puts it, that has occurred in the last decade.


I will always remember the words “Berlioz? Encore!” (Berlioz? not again!) as articulated by François Lesure, the very distinguished and famously cynical director of the music department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, when I told him I was doing another book on the French composer. François headed the music library from 1970 to 1988, the years during which I molted from graduate student to “scholar” and became what the French would call a berliozien pur et dur. He was himself a — I should say the — great Debussy specialist. His various articles, biography, and catalogue remain the standard works in the field. But he did come around to seeing something in Berlioz, he did welcome me and other Berlioz buffs to the library, he did participate in the publication of Berlioz’s Correspondance générale, and he did join the Comité International Hector Berlioz that became the motivating force of the second Berlioz renaissance, which took place during the approach to and aftermath of the celebrations of Berlioz’s bicentenary (2003).

The first Berlioz renaissance is the one sparked by the publication in 1950 of Jacques Barzun’s great cultural history, Berlioz and the Romantic Century, and the brilliant performances in England of Les Troyens, under Rafael Kubelik (1957) and Colin Davis (1969). The second one, which I would assign the dates 1997 to 2007, saw the completion of the New Berlioz Edition and of the Correspondance générale d’Hector Berlioz, another epoch-making performance of Les Troyens (under John Eliot Gardiner, at the Châtelet, in 2003), and the publication of the papers from five conferences — at Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts; in Bayreuth; in London; in Grenoble and La Côte-Saint-André; and in Paris. I edited the Smith College conference papers for the volume University of Rochester Press brought out in 2003 under the title Berlioz: Past, Present, Future.

After attending all the other conferences and hearing the results of so much good research, I felt that there was plenty of material for another volume of essays on Berlioz, and set about compiling what has now become Berlioz: Scenes from the Life and Work. Not wishing to blow my own horn (I gave up my career as an oboist some years ago), I do nonetheless think that some aspects of this new collection are worth touting. The volume opens with an essay by my much-honored friend Jacques Barzun, whose one-hundredth birthday was celebrated world-wide on and around 30 November 2007. It brings into English three essays written for the occasion by French scholars of great renown in their home country. It also includes essays by two German scholars and one Dutchman (who, when not flying around Europe as a professional flutist, may be found digging in the archives of the towns were Berlioz walked the walk). Finally, the volume presents four essays by scholars born and educated in the United Kingdom. Which makes me, the twelfth contributor, the only “true” American — which is no longer completely true, since I added French citizenship to my own more than a dozen years ago, thanks to Berlioz and my French wife!

In the new collection, Hugh Macdonald, who miraculously brought the New Berlioz Edition to completion in 2005, offers a bit of surprising speculation about Berlioz’s initial musical reaction to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Joël-Marie Fauquet paints a troubling portrait of Berlioz’s imaginary musical utopia, Euphonia. Gérard Condé turns on its head our usual image of Berlioz the reluctant journalist. And Jacques Barzun finds a new way to tell us, as he has in countless other ways over countless decades, how we ought to write about music. Other essays, we trust, offer equally appetizing food for thought.

I wrote “Berlioz buffs” in my opening paragraph after rejecting the expression “Berlioz freaks.” In his own day and long afterwards, Berlioz himself was seen as something of a freak. But thanks in part to the performances, books, and scholars I have mentioned, he has resumed his rightful place as one of the B’s — one of the boldest, one of the best.

Sterndale Bennett at the RCM

Last month, Peter Horton, musicologist and Deputy Librarian at the Royal College of Music, organised a Sterndale Bennett Study Day with the pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi, Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellow at the RCM. Here is his report for From Beyond the Stave:

Despite being hailed by Mendelssohn and Schumann as one of the most promising composers of his time, William Sterndale Bennett (1816-75) never achieved the greatness they believed he was capable of. Were their claims inflated, or were there other reasons for his failure? Combining talks and performances, the recent Sterndale Bennett Study Day at the Royal College of Music explored the life and music of this fascinating musician and attempted to place his work in its historical context.

But how did Mendelssohn and Schumann come to be promoting the career of a forgotten English musician? The answer can be traced back to a fateful day in June 1833 when the seventeen year-old composer and pianist played his first piano concerto at the Royal Academy of Music end-of-year concert. The audience included Mendelssohn who promptly invited him to Leipzig, not as a pupil but as a friend. It was not until 1836 that Bennett was able to take up his offer, but the eight months he spent in Germany (October 1836 to June 1837) had a profound influence on his career. Supported by a small legacy, he immersed himself in the city’s invigorating musical environment, so far removed from that of the commercially-orientated concerts that dominated London’s musical life. No less significantly, he recorded his impressions in a diary that provides a fascinating insight into his life in the city – his first sight of a Christmas tree, his thoughts on the music and musicians he heard, the evenings spent drinking beer or champagne with Schumann, German lessons, his 21st birthday, his debut at the Gewandhaus concerts. But there are also regular hints of homesickness and from this time onwards he was caught between two stools – the artistic satisfaction and encouragement that he found in Germany, or the ties of nationality, family and friends that bound him to his homeland. Here, in a nutshell, we find one reason for Bennett’s failure to develop the immense achievement of his youth.

The key to understanding Mendelssohn and Schumann’s excitement over Bennett’s prospects is to be found in the substantial body of music he had composed before the age of 21 – four piano concertos, four symphonies, four concert overtures and several substantial works for solo piano – and, after an aptly-titled ‘A family perspective’ by Barry Sterndale-Bennett (his great, great grandson), this was explored by Peter Horton. A lunchtime recital of piano music by Bennett and Schumann served as a reminder of the former’s links to Leipzig – Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques were dedicated to Bennett, while Bennett’s Piano Sonata in F minor was written as a wedding present for Mendelssohn. Bennett’s German connections surfaced again in Basil Keen’s study of his role in the foundation of the Bach Society in 1849 and in Bettina Mühlenbeck’s examination of the cultural significance of his two sets of bi-lingual songs. Stephen Varcoe and RCM students later offered a practical demonstration of how these works, together with songs by Mendelssohn, Schumann and their English contemporaries, fitted into the contemporary musical landscape. In his inimitable way David Owen Norris explored Bennett’s writing for the piano, and later, in the concluding concert, gave a thrilling performance of the Three Romances. Other works heard in the evening were a further selection of songs from Stephen Varcoe, the Cello Sonata – one of Bennett’s few works to date from the early 1850s – and the Sextet for piano and strings. The pianist in the last was Hiroaki Takenouchi who, together with Peter Horton, organised the Study Day, and his inspired playing brought proceedings to a very satisfying close.

No one who attended could have been left untouched by this intriguing, contradictory, figure, about whom so many questions remain to be answered. How, for example, does one connect the academic Bennett of the Lectures on Musical Life with the young man who so enjoyed champagne with Schumann? Or reconcile the superb pianist with the reluctant player, always on the lookout for an excuse not to perform? But perhaps the most sobering thought to emerge from a fascinating day was the fact that the majority of the music heard had been written before he reached the age of 22. But thoughts about what went wrong are another story!

Peter Horton and Bettina Mühlenbeck are currently working on an edition of Sterndale Bennett's Leipzig Diaries.

Beecham and the Pastoral

One of the highlights of our Autumn 2008 publication programme will be a new biography of Thomas Beecham by John Lucas, who has written about Reginald Goodall and Otto Klemperer in the past. Informed by substantial new research, Lucas’s life of the conductor is certain to become the standard work. In this Vaughan Williams anniversary year, let us look at Beecham conducting the composer’s Pastoral Symphony at the 1928 Leeds Festival, notorious for its concerts of mind-numbing length.

Mishaps caused by tiredness were inevitable. In the first movement, Beecham, conducting without a score, had an all-too-obvious memory-lapse and was only saved from having to call a halt by quick thinking on the part of the leader, Willie Reed, who kept the orchestra on track. For the rest of the performance Beecham used a score. To some, the incident seemed, if not divine, then certainly musical retribution, for at the final rehearsal, keen to score a point off a composer for whose music he did not care that much, Beecham had deliberately continued to beat time after the work had reached its peaceful conclusion. ‘Why aren’t you playing?’ asked Beecham, who had conducted the whole rehearsal from memory. ‘Because it’s finished,’ said Reed. ‘Thank God,’ said Beecham. The orchestra enjoyed the joke, but others present thought it in dubious taste. Not that Beecham cared. Vaughan Williams would always resent Beecham’s lack of interest in his work. In the course of his career Beecham conducted four performances of the Vaughan Williams Pastoral in all. At the end of the last one, given at a studio concert in 1951 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he is reputed to have leant down to the leader, Paul Beard, and commented, ‘A city life for me.’

More from this new Beecham biography over the coming months.

Drowned in ink

“I wish people would drown themselves in ink and let me alone,” wrote Edward Elgar to his daughter. This is quoted in a lively review by Hugh Wood of several books on Elgar in today’s Times Literary Supplement.

The anniversary year came and went with a couple of special issues in the consumer glossies, some new recordings and a flurry of concerts (although a glance at the events pages of the Elgar Society’s web site reveals a healthy selection at any time). There was no major new biography, but the books mentioned in Wood’s article look at Elgar’s world and his music from a number of different viewpoints. It was satisfying for us to read his conclusion that Diana McVeagh’s Elgar the Music Maker was “one thoroughly good result of this Elgar year.”

“Diana McVeagh has been a devoted Elgarian all her life and her previous book on the composer was written, as already mentioned, more than fifty years ago,” Wood continues. “This is neither a biography nor a technical analysis, but McVeagh has hit on the perfect way of combining the best features of both. No biographical fact appears unless it is directly related to Elgar’s music; no piece is discussed without consideration of its context…There is no superimposition of alien theories or of special interests, and there are no perverse reinterpretations. The last few pages deal with Elgar’s posterity and end with a beautifully balanced study of Elgar’s personality. This is a worthwhile, useful book; and in five years’ time when the other four are forgotten, it will still be bought and read.”

Amusicology

Our colleague Ralph Locke has drawn our attention to a marvellous blog which has just celebrated its first year online: amusicology (also included in our links, below left). Directed from the keyboard by two Harvard PhD candidates, Ryan Bañagale and Drew Massey, we are told the ”a” could stand for amusing (which it often is), abrupt (no entry is longer than 1,000 words) or even anarchic. Recent posts have included one about getting published as a young scholar, another about scaling the musicological walls (warning: contains material on the Grateful Dead) and a fascinating review of just two sentences from Alex Ross’ new book (sadly not one of ours) by Drew Massey himself. This delightful blog is worth fifteen minutes of anyone’s time.

Staking Out the Territory

We are pleased to distribute the publications of Plumbago Books whose latest, Hugh Wood’s Staking Out the Territory and Other Writings on Music has just been published in both cloth and paperback editions. Our music editor, Bruce Phillips, attended its launch:

A goodly selection of composers, performers, critics, art lovers and just ordinary chaps like me assembled on Tuesday 26^th February at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Rutland Gate, London to mark the publication of a new book in the Plumbago Poetics of Music series entitled Staking Out the Territory and other Writings on Music by the English composer, teacher and writer Hugh Wood. The book was being launched in combination with an exhibition of drawings and paintings by Milein Cosman, whose instantly recognisable portraits of musicians and artists included one of her late husband Hans Keller, thus neatly encompassing the other sponsoring body behind the publication, the Cosman Keller Art and Music Trust. The speeches were short and witty: Julian Hogg speaking on behalf of the Trust, Christopher Wintle on behalf of Plumbago Books, and Hugh Wood on behalf of himself and of the many individuals who had contributed to the book, not least the William Scott Trust who had enabled the group of eight of the late William Scott’s paintings to be reproduced in colour within the book — Scott having been a favourite artist of Hugh Wood’s. The book itself, edited by Wintle, is a collection of Hugh Wood’s articles, reviews and other writings on music culled from various sources and written at various times over the last 40 or so years.

Wood’s writing is attractively pellucid, clear minded and sane, whether he is writing about the satisfactions of composition, composers and musicians he has known, books he has read, music he has heard. The tone is humane, humorous, witty, civilised, unpretentious and mercifully free of the jargon of music analysis or music theory. The book is full of apt quotations, strong opinions, and insights into musical history. Although Wood quotes with evident approval a couple of scurrilous remarks about publishers, we can all be grateful to Plumbago for bringing forth this happy compilation marking Hugh Wood’s 75^th birthday.

Christopher Wintle’s speech, which can be read in full by clicking on the link here, concluded thus:

Anyone who’s spent time in Hugh’s excellent company knows how happily and tirelessly he dances along the highways and byways of culture: he loves all sorts of books and music; he has an appetite for good stories; and he shows a Krausian relish for the ironies of modern life. Indeed, the sheer scale of the book’s index might almost have impressed Michael Tippett. But as we talk to Hugh, we gradually realize we are being observed. For there, standing in the shades, unmoving and unblinking, is an emissary from the underworld, equipped by Zeus with mighty thunderbolts, ready to punish us for hubris, falsehood and any excursion into phoneydom. No composer to my knowledge has ever walked so tight a rope, or so gone out of his way to make sure that the furies start at home. Hugh startles us with the truth of circumstances that we can all recognize but few can bear to admit. On the very first page of the book, for instance, we meet the undergraduate of New College, Oxford trying to rehearse his music. He describes the

“long-suffering singers or instrumentalists at last convened in one place and now attempting to decipher their manuscript parts as indefatigably as any Foreign Office clerk, while trying to follow the erratic beat and wild grimaces of a nervous composer-conductor; and the final scene – recording session, of course always under-rehearsed, or disastrous performance to a little group of kindly-disposed acquaintances and the freshman who thought it was all the Scandinavian Society [p. 3].”

Later in the book he turns his beady eye on his composing colleagues past and present. How much time did those French composers who embraced Iberian eroticism actually spend in Spain? As little, it seems, as possible. And whatever happed later in life to the young Tippett who had yearned for Hitler to win the war so that he could eradicate the Empire he hated as he ‘hated nothing else’? Why, Companion of Honour, Order of Merit and … Commander of the British Empire. In Hugh’s hands, truth-telling is itself an Aristotelian rite of purgation.