How "progressive" was Elgar?

I also really enjoyed the Thomson article that we read for Thursday's class this week. I loved that from the beginning of the article it pointed out the contradiction that we see in Elgar's opinion and in addition to the opinion of the critics. I thought that it was so funny that Elgar praised critics and likened their opinion to what we now consider a job of a musicologist to analyze reception history. I also think that it is funny that it was then these well known critics such as Fuller-Maitland who despised Elgar so much. Again the concept of him not being accepted into the upper class due to his lower class birth comes up and this, in the article, really seems to be the argument for all of the criticism that he received from these people. Because personally, even with the well presented argument about his use of leitmotif and chromaticism I still don't hear the "progressive tendencies" in Elgar's music. I think that it is true that maybe it isn't quite as square and in the box as Parry' ultra conservative approach to composition, but I think that maybe it is the slightly more unique sound that really makes us remember Elgar for being a little bit different. I just found it so interesting that during that time Elgar would be lumped together as a progressive such as Wagner or Strauss. Is it maybe just because the full impact that Wagner had on music thought the development of composers like Schoenberg hadn't occurred. It is obvious that the Wagner debate was very important at the time and that it was in the forefront of many people's mind, but I would be interested to see if the criticism would have been similar knowing what we know now. Maybe this is out of the scope of this class, but it is surprising that Schoenberg doesn’t come up when we talk about the progressives of this time. Did this other progressive style not reach as far as England at this time? It would be interesting to see if this influenced any of our Victorians or not.

As a side note...

I found this monologue and I thought it was funny...

Classifieds Advert/Situations Wanted: Victorian Hermit

April 7, 2010 by The Good Ear Review

Dear Country Estate Owners:

I am currently looking for a well-appointed garden shed or cave for hermetic possibilities on your property.

I require very little upkeep as I am partial to voles. I am suitably apoplectic, adequately eccentric, and erudite in my mutterings.
I philosophise.

Let me be your living lawn ornament.

I can be reached at … I am not reachable.

http://thegoodearreview.com/2010/04/07/classifieds-advertsituations-wanted-victorian-hermit/

Gossip Girl

I really enjoyed reading this week's article by Sophie Fuller, "Elgar and the Salons: The Significance of a Private Musical World." As I said in class, it read like a gossip column. I loved that reflecting back on the Victorians and through primary documents such as letters and diary entries. As I was reading the article, I kept checking in on how I felt about Elgar and my opinion of him kept changing. As I was reading about his relationships with the "women of the salon" I felt myself wanting to judge him and his behavior. Then when she discussed the relationship with Schuster I found myself again drawing new conclusions about who I though Elgar actually was. In class though I think Lindsay said it well. Maybe because of his severe insecurities he constantly needed to surround himself with people to stroke his ego and make him feel better about himself. As I was reading the article I was thinking, "Wow, he was a womanizer." or "Wow, I guess he was a homosexual." But it really makes much more sense that in a lot of a ways I don't even think that Elgar knew what he was. He seemed to only want to define himself through societal approval and status. Or maybe he really was too "weak" in his own character to really be able to have an opinion for himself. I also really enjoyed that from the beginning of the article she was tackling the concept of the masculine versus the feminine. Even in the bank note, with the appearance of St. Cecelia it was already softening and confusing who Elgar actually was. I think it was interesting that there was so much pressure on men in society to be "manly" and that music was associated with the feminine. It seemed that for Elgar, he learned to keep up appearances such as the manly and masculine appearance of his dress and mustache or the scolding of Schuster's behavior. But maybe through his private relationships with all of these women it allowed him to indulge in more effeminate behavior. Either way, I think that Elgar is a very interesting character. It would be interesting to be able to take a peek into his psyche. I think Fuller's attempt at understanding him through the "gossip" of the time definitely was able to capture him in another light.

Slumming it

Have we really not changed that much over the last hundred years or so? I really wonder if the Victorians are really that different from you or I? It seems that there are still echoes if the Victorians in today’s culture. For instance the section of the reading this week that discussed the concept of “slumming” that now a days people still seem fascinated by. In today’s culture we see the hipsters of New York slumming it in the East Village. Experiencing the “tough life” through their father’s pocketbook. Is that not the same concept that we have for the Victorians who would only really want to experience another life in order to maybe brag about it, or to live the bohemian lifestyle… without all of the problems, sickness, lack of heat and the conveniences of their privileged lifestyle. Then how appropriate that we would then could even “slum” it in the opera house through the troubled lifestyle of the bohemians in La Bohème or in the article the lucky aristocrat who could slum it in her own upstairs parlor at a spinet piano with some parlor songs. In a way, this reminds me of the first few articles we read in the class where we unveiled the fascination that the Victorians had for mystery and the exotic. The ability to slum it and experience an exotic lifestyle seems to fit directly into this concept. How appropriate it seems that even today we are obsessed with the strange, horrific nature of the exotic. Now we experience it through movies instead of the sideshows of the 19th century. One thing I wish we had also drawn from the Victorians was the interest and knowledge and appreciation for classical music. I guess it may be another study all in itself the culture that has now developed around popular culture and the glorification of these icons and the rejection of classical music from our generation. Maybe if opera became exotic… which it is getting in some productions, we would have the same draw to it that we see in our culture the strange and abnormal that we see in other aspects of our cultural entertainment.

Wish I had been there...

So the only person to blame is themselves. According to the Temperley article an unfortunate series of socially motivated occurrences basically added to the attitude of Victorians having to musical abilities. I thought that it was particularly interesting that the attitude that we now have about the era was born at that time. It makes a lot of sense that if a group of people are not interested in what a country is producing musically why would there be a sudden appreciation and interest in what they had accomplished over a hundred years later. He brought up the idea of the musical genius of the time being Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Verdi. Therefore when there was a movement in musicology to study the artistic aspects of musical history they were drawn to these genius giants of the 19th century thus glossing over the other composers of the era. He makes the argument that at this time England felt as though it was on top of the world. The country then didn’t have the nationalism needed for political gain to drive the musical choices and the genre. Again the excitement of the exotic is echoes in the choices of music that is acceptable in society. The Victorian upper class was once again drawn to the exotic of the foreign land and it was much more accepted for foreigners to be pursuing a musical career than in England. For men he points out that a musical career would make someone effeminate where as for women we see the amateur musician being the encouraged artist. The girl at the parlor piano who is practicing her way to a successful marriage. I loved his concluding thoughts about Victorian music being the “lost chord.” “The chord was heard only faintly by the Victorians themselves, being drowned out by sounds coming across the Channel.” (pg. 21) I think that this is such a great way to put it. How then can we find new life in this music that seems to be lacking because of the lack of interest in it? Or will the British always be too good for Victorian music and the sound of the late 19th century.

What makes something memorable?

Thursday's class brought up a lot of ideas about what we remember from the past. In some of my posts I have mentioned that a lot of my concepts and maybe misconceptions about the Victorians developed from the literary tradition that I know about the time. All off the Jane Austen and Bronte novels of the time have been what for me have become the classics of this era. It was so interesting to hear about another author, George Eliot, who wrote books that challenged society and wanted to bring attention to the faults of the Victorian era. I guess my literary exposure is fairly limited, but it really saddens me that I had never even heard of George Eliot before this article. A female writer, who adopted a pen name in order to be respected as an author and then writes these books that push the envelope so much over 100 years ago. How awesome! I love that through satire she was able to bring to light the issues of society that were "problematic" and should be thought about again. I guess maybe I do just live under a rock because in looking at more information about Daniel Deronda it has been filmed three times, once for silent film and twice for television. But maybe the most notable production of this book occurred back in the 1960s. But it is books like this that raise social awareness and toleration for others that should never be forgotten. I loved that Eliot was able to use social conventions of the time relating to music to further define the characters of the story. I loved the irony of Klezmer's/ the Wagnerian icon character, or the fact that Gwendolyn sung bel canto style opera (basically the furthest thing from Wagner) - terribly. How great to show dynamic and again reiterate the sentiments of the musical scene and how it translates to other aspects of Victorian life. I thought it interesting that George Eliot was unlike the "girled" women that we saw on Tuesday. It is great that her father invested in her education, although it was unfortunate that it was because of her low probability of being marriage material.

"girling"

I really enjoyed this past week's article on "Girling" at the Parlor Piano. I really enjoyed reading the excerpts from the "daughter's" journals in order to gain perspective on how people felt about the daughter of the family functioning in a way to keep the emotional well being of the family. I think for many of the daughters, the piano took on a new life. It really functioned in their world as not just an object but something they could confide in. We talked a lot about escape, and how the piano served as this for the girls. I still think so much of this holds true today. I found myself drawing so many parallels between this article and my own life during class. I too felt as though I was "girled" at my piano. In my house both my sister and I were encouraged to be artists and although my parents probably won't admit it, I think it was almost expected that we would do something in the arts, so that we could "express ourselves." I was always the musician, and my sister was always the visual artist. So when I found my escape in playing my piano, my sister would spend countless hours locked in her room drawing. Through this article, I found it so interesting that this expectation of providing the family with entertainment. And the expectation that as women we would tend to the "softer" more "aesthetic" aspects of life at least for my family has not changed too much. I was always expected to play for the family when we had dinner, and especially if my family had friends over. Me at the piano was kind of a novelty to them. I do appreciate that I was not alone in this experience growing up. In this article there were so many girls who experienced the same things as me. Again another feeling that the Victorian's were maybe not so far off from who we are and what we have developed into today.

Wagner vs Austen

So as I brought up in class I think that part of why I think the Victorians were so confused by Wagner's music was the inaccessibility of the text. In Wagner all of the meaning of the music is carried in the music and explored through chromaticism, larger than life sound (via singer and orchestra), the color of the sound, and the use of leitmotif. In England though, we see a literary tradition that is reaching back hundreds of years and is carried through the Victorian era. There are so many literary icons that were British and wrote in amazing prose that is still worshiped today such as Shakespeare, Donne, and Austen. Therefore how could Wagner expect a society that is so sensitive to the word and the meaning of the text propelling the sound (i.e. the many, many famous chorals written by so many Englishmen) be super receptive to his incredibly new pallet of sound that considers music before the text, or at least music to inform the text.

Speaking of important British voices... I stumbled across the movie of the play The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. This play depicted many aspects of Victorian society that I thought were very interesting. I think its depiction of the workings of the upper class was also intriguing. Although I thought it slightly frustrating that it is a comedy in which we see a woman using her "power" to manipulate people only to attempt to get what she was looking for which was a marriage to the man of her choice. But I think that it is movies where I have taken most of my own prejudices of Victorian society from. I had always assumed that the level of "politeness" that we see meant that there was also an understood conservatism that follows suit. It is interesting to free these characters from my own prejudices. They seem to take on a whole different level of depth and "likability" to me. They seem not so different then from what we still see now... it isn't like we haven't heard a story of a manipulating woman before.

on to February

I really enjoyed this week's reading especially the Sweet article because it really brought new life to my own questions about who are the Victorians. As the article also brought to light, and made me feel better about, was all of the misrepresentation that we see of these people in our history. It appears that (like usual) only selective aspects of society seem to be remembered of this time. The aspects of culture that we do remember reflect sometimes the "uptight" and "conservative" nature of this culture. I loved how Sweet sought to refute this common misconception and refuted it with revealing the thrill seeking nature of the Victorians. I thought it was so interesting the fascination with horror that this society had. Between the mystery novels, horror stories, and the "freak" side shows this society truly knew how to push the envelope. The daredevils who risked their lives for these crazy stunts put all of this horror and adrenaline front and center for the entertainment of these people. I also was very intrigued when we were discussing sexuality as it pertains to homosexuality and the acceptable nature of this in the society. It had me wondering if the "prudeness" of America had something to do with making this curious society change. Maybe it is the spreading influence that America has over the world especially after WWI that causes the world to be held to American social standards? Maybe I'm just ranting about nothing but I at least think it would be interesting to see where these shifts in taboos come from. I also wonder whether it is also our modern day again "prude" view of society that leads to the selective history that we see coming from this period. It seems that the Victorians have been glorified for their highly respectable society and intolerance for "unbecoming" behavior. It would seem like a convenient concept to only remember the structured aspects of society and class and thus making it a standard to which all others seem to fall short. But one would think that maybe a Victorian too would fall short of these idealized views of society.