Ivanhoe, my thoughts.

I am happy to say that I was actually able to listen to a decent amount of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Ivanhoe. If I hadn’t known that this opera had been composed by Sullivan I’m not sure I would have guessed that he was the composer. However, because I did know that Sullivan was the composer of this work, it makes it rather difficult for me to be entirely objective, but I shall try.

First of all, I can absolutely hear a difference in the way the text of this opera was set compared to the way the text was set in his various other operettas with Gilbert as the librettist. I think Gilbert had a very distinct way of writing; he puts a premium on rhymes and the rhythm of the English language. There is always something very ‘English’ about his lyrics, and I think Sullivan reflects this in the operettas the two collaborated on together.

When listening to Ivanhoe it is immediately apparent that the classic Gilbert and Sullivan speech pattern is absent. The text is much less campy and more like natural speech, not necessarily in their delivery, but in the words themselves. And Sullivan no longer plays up the campiness of the lyrics because it’s not there.

However, there are still moments in which I can totally identify the composer as Arthur Sullivan. I’m not sure what it is about his compositional style that makes him so identifiable, but there are certain pieces that I hear and I think, “oh yeah, that is totally Sullivan.” For example, “But hark! What sound is in mine ear?” But I don’t know why. The overall orchestration sounds so much more sophisticated as is the vocal writing, perhaps it is the syllabification of the text, still I don’t know. Perhaps what I am hearing is just what Sullivan felt was an English sound and the way the language would be delivered in England.

Ivanhoe so much more dramatic than his operettas with Gilbert, obviously it’s a grand opera, but I am really impressed. I can’t say that I am particularly a fan of this opera, if I’m to be completely honest I still feel like the opera is a little redundant; by the third act I feel like I’ve heard this all before. I still think it’s cool to hear what Sullivan sounds like without Gilbert, although I don’t think it makes his music any better or worse, it’s just different.

Gilbert and Sullivan

I have to say right away that I totally loved the movie Topsy Turvy. I’m sure a great deal of liberties were taken but I still found the movie really entertaining. I have always been a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan but I’m not incredibly familiar with many of their operas. I understand the style and I know the Gilbert and Sullivan Classics, “Poor Wandering One,” “A Simple Sailor Lowly Born,” and the basic plot lines of the operettas, but I never really gave them much thought. I enjoy the music and I think the stories are quite humorous, but it wasn’t until watching Topsy Turvy that I really had a moment in which I realized how similar a lot of their operettas are to one another.

I felt like I could take one aria or chorus from all of their operettas and fashion a new opera, and if everyone just disregarded the words, everything would fit together just fine. Perhaps naively, I’m thinking of them as a type of Lerner and Lowe, Rogers and Hammerstein duo. And this duo supplies the audience with a plethora of typical characters with each character having typical character songs about typical character problems. I really don’t mean this to be belittling towards these composers or librettists at all, I am a fan of their works, but I think they definitely had a formula in place that worked for them. However, in regard to Gilbert and Sullivan it’s not difficult to see why Sir Arthur Sullivan began to grow weary of these reoccurring themes and librettos. I have not listened to Ivanhoe but I would be really interested in discovering what a grand opera by Sullivan sounds like. Does it retain that classic Gilbert and Sullivan sound, is there a new sort of maturity and seriousness to the opera?

This question is particularly interesting to me because it was Sullivan, at least in the movie, who complained that Gilbert’s librettos were holding him back creatively. I wonder if going with a new librettist for Ivanhoe allowed Sullivan to blossom artistically. If not, then poor Gilbert, Sullivan’s lack of compositional creativity was really not Gilbert's fault at all. Maybe I’ll have a chance to listen to at least some of Ivanhoe tonight and tomorrow and can include my thoughts in my next and final blog.

Umm...Tableau Vivant?

I know someone mentioned in class the other day about Tableau Vivant being featured in pop culture, a specific episode of the Gilmore Girls was mentioned and I totally remember that episode. Not to go off on a huge tangent but the reason I bring this up is because… that is the type of art that comes to mind when I think of Tableau Vivant; famous paintings being portrayed by live human beings in costume with scenery and lighting. This was a family show however so there were no nude pictures portrayed in the episode I’m referencing.

Again, I mention this because I had a set idea in my mind of what Tableau Vivant was, and although this isn’t the most scholarly way to go about finding information on a topic, I was surprised at what I found after doing a Google image search for Tableau Vivant. I found very few pictures that matched the image I had in my mind. I was expecting to mainly see very elaborate and well known works of art portrayed by live people. I found a few of these, but mostly what I discovered were either very modern interpretations of Tableau Vivant, and by that I mean taking a famous painting and reinterpreting it in a different setting and with completely different characters, or a lot of what I’m going to call, very interesting poses.

A lot of these interesting poses came from a photographer called Sarah Small. I tried to find out more about her but her biography was rather limited. I would post some of the photos I am referring to but I’m not quite sure how I feel about them myself. I’m a pretty open minded individual but now I’m feeling, to my horror, a little like Lady Summerset! I’m not sure if it’s art or something else. I checked out her web site and some of her pictures are beautiful, but others, the more elaborate photos taken of people holding some rather interesting and sometimes suggestive posses in the nude, are a little questionable for me. I’m not quite sure what purpose they are serving. It wasn’t only her photos, I was surprised by how many people had similar images. This certainly shows the evolution of Tableau Vivant, but if the purpose is to take a photo, and not for live entertainment, is it still Tableau Vivant?

Living Pictures

The readings for class these past two weeks have been some of my favorites for the entire course. The articles were so intriguing and I really enjoyed exploring the evolution of entertainment and especially womens involvement in that entertainment. Even though our last class discussion took an interesting turn and ended up on Playboy for a short time, it shows that many of the issues people had over the living pictures exhibits are still present today.

It brings up the question of what is art. Is something art because I say it is art, are there specific requirements, a list of criteria something must meet in order to be considered art, what is nude and what is naked? These questions were clearly just as prevalent 100-150 years ago. Granted there is definitely a line between something being truly lewd and disgustingly misogynistic, but there really can be a lot of gray when it comes to various aspects of taste.

The women involved in these living picture shows clearly bothered people. There was something about the female form being shown live as opposed to in a painting that made people uncomfortable, or rather, some people uncomfortable. Even though these women were representing works of art, the reason they were met with such resistance may have been because this was seen as entertainment. But can art not be entertaining?

People like Lady Summerset who were so opposed to this form of entertainment went on to paint these women as voiceless victims who had no way out and were forced into this work. It’s funny that the women themselves did not feel that way at all. As Faulk’s article shows, the women in the shows suggested she help people actually in need of help, like the poor and hungry; as they didn’t believe what they were doing was at all immoral.

There was a quote on page 175 of the Faulk article by Frederick Wedmore that I really liked, “…the nude in Tableau Vivant, with all its associations, is no longer an undressed woman, but the nude in art…” I think this was what was missing, or ignored by those people who were so opposed to these shows. Tableau Vivant was simply women portraying works of art, which portrayed women, that was all.

A Pretty Sweet Blog on Victorian Life

I forget how exactly I stumbled upon this blog, but it’s pretty sweet! “Victorian History: An idiosyncratic selection of short bits about elements of Victorian history,” is written by Bruce Rosen, a retired professor who has taught at a number of universities and colleges. His blog covers a wide range of topics, the railway, London fog, men’s clubs, the West End Club, the aristocracy, the middle class, etc…

Many of these posts are extremely interesting and offer little snippets of information about various aspects of Victorian life and culture. The two posts that brought me to this blog are from 2007; “Music Halls” and “Penny Gaffs.” I love stumbling across things that back up what we have already learned in class, it makes me feel like we’re all on the same page

. In regard to the Penny Gaffs, Rosen includes some scholarly sources including a quote by Mayhew. He describes who its target audience was, the types of entertainment, but what I found particularly interesting was his description of the inside of the Gaffs. They appeared dirty, smelled and were just kind of all around gross, and it doesn’t sound like that is only by today’s standards.

I also really enjoyed his post on the Music Halls. He mentions how they emerged from the Penny Gaffs, the target audience, and lists many of the performers of the day. He even includes a link to a You-tube video of a performer called Little Tich and his “famous shoe dance.” I had never heard about this performer before so I watched the clip which is from around 1900, and it was really pretty interesting. I can totally see the influence of this type of entertainment in a lot of the old Hollywood movies that portray Vaudeville or Broadway acts from around the turn of the century through the 1920’s and 30’s.

This blog is awesome because it offers such a wide array of topics; it’s a little random, but still interesting. I’m not exactly sure how reputable this blog is only because anyone can make a blog and say they’re a professor of something, but he does seem to include a number of scholarly sources in his blog so although I may not use this in any papers, it’s still cool to look through.

The Music Hall

I was pretty much brought up on musicals and old Hollywood movies that featured musical numbers. My dad has a soft spot for Lerner and Loewe, Rogers and Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber, etc…and it’s funny because he seems so serious and stereotypically male, but I totally caught him singing and dancing to Jesus Christ Super Star once upon a time. And as a family we were always watching movies starring Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Donald O’Connor, Ethel Merman, and so on.

The whole point of this is that Ethel Merman and Donald O’Connor stared together in No Business Like Show Business, a movie about a family who makes a living doing Vaudeville shows and eventually Broadway. With all of the articles we’ve been reading for class I keep thinking of this movie as I try to trace the evolution of the Victorian Music Hall. And I think Vaudeville is probably the most direct link between the English Music Hall and America, but from there, its influence spreads out in so many different directions.

The Music Hall progressed to film, but it also remained a form of live entertainment with night clubs and dance clubs. Today we see comedy clubs; someone mentioned last class or two classes ago about the Cirque du Soleil. Having been to the Cirque du Soleil I can attest to that fact that it is live, there is often singing and other forms of music, acrobatics, a comedic portion to the show, it uses live animals and special effects; many of the same things included in the Victorian Music Hall shows. I don’t think there is really one performance venue that can be looked at as the final descendant of the Music Hall.

The more I read the more I realize what a huge cultural entity the Music Hall was to the English, and as such, I think it evolved in a multitude of different directions. But it is just so incredibly fascinating to me that I can look at these movies I have loved for so long and see a the influence of the Music Hall tradition. And it doesn’t end at movies, as I mentioned above, it’s theater, the circus, night clubs, comedy clubs, etc…I actually thought that this was more of an American art form, but I clearly stand corrected.

Oh the Woes of Writing a Paper.

I’ve been doing research for my paper, and now I feel like I have hit a wall. I’ve been able to find a great deal of information on Ethel Smyth, her early years, some of her better known compositions, how she learned to compose, who she studied with, etc… She is an extremely fascinating woman and a woman way ahead of her time. She was outspoken, independent, she worked, had affairs with other women; things no proper lady of the Victorian era should do.

However, my paper is going to discuss Ethel Smyth’s development, very general information just to give some background and set up who Ethel Smyth was. But the main focus is going to be on her part in the Women’s Suffrage movement and her Suffrage music. I have been able to find a lot of background information and a fair amount of information on her role in the Suffrage Movement, but I haven’t been able to find as much information as I would like to on her Suffrage music. I was hoping to find more, the woman devoted two years of her life to this movement and I find it hard to believe that she only composed a handful of pieces for this cause.

I have found one song, “The March of the Women,” which is great, it actually became something of a theme song for the movement, but I have had trouble finding scores, lyrics, analysis of any of her other suffrage pieces. I would like very much to be able to interweave her life before her involvement in this movement and her life during this movement, with her suffrage music. Why was each piece specifically written, the words/message of the piece, how/why was it performed, what was its reception like? It is the answers to these questions that I am struggling to find.

I am continuing to do research through the databases and journal holdings through the rider web site and finding a lot of useful information, it’s just not exactly what I had hoped for. Unfortunately it seems as though on Monday I may have to make an emergency meeting with one of the reference librarians. However I have to say that although the annotated bibliography is not my favorite assignment, it is forcing me to make sure I have useable sources for this paper before it’s too late, so I appreciate that.

A Cool Web Site

I was looking for the list of websites we had discussed earlier in the semester and I couldn’t find it, so I began looking for some sites myself. I found this one that is a little ridiculous, it’s just incredibly frilly, but it does have a great deal of information about the Victorian era. It tends to be more focused around America during the Victorian era but it does have some information on England as well and some cross over facts.

The site is: http://www.victoriaspast.com/

It has tons of links to different aspects of Victorian living. There are descriptions and pictures of different rooms a house may have, including the ‘music room,’ it has links to music of the time, a song book, some Gilbert and Sullivan operas, a commentary on Jenny Lind, etc… The site even includes some midi files.
I spent probably around 45 minutes looking through this site. Each link you click on gives you a variety of other links related to that topic. For example, by clicking on the link for the ‘ball room,’ you are given links about dancing, etiquette, dress, when to arrive, reasons not to dance and so on.

I’m not sure if this site is particularly reputable, it does include a number of citations and quotes but I’m guessing this particular site shouldn’t be featured in anyone’s bibliography for their research paper. However, it is an extremely well organized web site with lovely pictures and great basic information on life in the Victorian era. Whoever put this site together took a great deal of pride in what they were doing.

I think I’ve been doing so much research on Victorian music I forgot to think about the culture, although the two really are related. I think Victorian music reflects the culture of the time in which it is written, and music often influences culture. This is even true today, I think part of the reason opera isn’t particularly ‘main-stream’ is because people have a hard time relating to it; Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, and Puccini operas don’t necessarily represent our current culture, but they were popular back when they were originally produced. But in looking a ‘Pop’ music of today, Britney Spears for example, was able to set trends in music and fashion and influence tons of middle schoolers, myself included, when she appeared on the scene.

Anyways…it’s a cool site to check out.

Holst

Gustav Holst is one of my favorite people to have read about thus far in class. At least from what I was able to gather from the essay by Vaughn Williams, Holst had no ulterior motives in regard to composition or teaching, he did what he did because he loved it and he wanted to.

In regard to Holst as a teacher I’m really quite inspired by him. He took only those students who shared his passion to learn and express, and had little patience for those who were lazy or indifferent. He demanded excellence of himself and of his students, and it sounds as though he was very devoted and almost took on a roll as a mentor to many of his students. So often we hear of people whose performing careers failed to really takeoff, and so they were ‘reduced’ to teaching, but Holst enjoyed teaching and actually revamped the music program at Morely College.

In regard to his life, I loved the quote on page 133, “Life and art to Holst are not enemies but the complements of each other; and as time goes on and his life gets busier and more varied, his artistic production becomes larger and finer, his style more mature, pronounced, and individual.” I just love that music was so much a part of him and such a source of joy, that life never hindered what he was able to accomplish as a composer, it simply inspired him.

I also thought the different musical inspirations were interesting and quite eclectic, that’s probably why I found them so interesting. But Holst’s modernity wasn’t random or modern for the sake of being modern, there is a clear progression of the past in his present ‘modern’ state. For example, he was a great lover of Bach, and Bach’s influence appears in his music. He also employs the use of folk song which Vaughn Williams I’m sure was very happy about when writing this essay, and Holst was inspired by mysticism which can be heard in his choral music from the Rig Veda.

Clearly, Vaughn Williams very much respected Holst and admired his style as a composer, teacher, and it sounded to me like he even admired the man.

Reflecting

I was feeling very stumped as to what to write my second blog on. Sooooo I started thinking about all of the things we've discussed in class since the semester began, and how the various readings and new information I’ve received compare to any preconceived notions I had about Victorian Music. I think I had Victorian music pegged as something out of a Jane Austin book, just very sweet, refined and contained. In my opinion there is some truth to that. The readings on 'girling at the piano' and the ideas in regard what is appropriate in upper class Victorian society certainly seem to be more restrictive; women should not perform in public, men shouldn't play the piano, no one performed music professionally unless they had to, ect...

However, there is this whole other side to Victorian Music that I overlooked, and over the last few weeks I even forgot we were discussing the same time period as mentioned above. The music of Vaughn Williams, Elgar and now Holst is not at all what I expected from Victorian England. It really sounds, for lack of a better word, modern. I can absolutely hear the influence of Wagner in the music of Elgar, and Vaughn Williams with his use of folk song makes me think of Copland. However, maybe it is Copland who should make me think of Elgar, and at the same time it is the use of folk song that seems to give his music a sense of English landscape and atmosphere. Then there is Holst who is inspired by Bach, Purcell, folk song, and mysticism. This mixture of different influences along with all the stimulation Holst gathered from life made his music so incredibly unique.

There truly was innovation going on musically during the Victorian period in England. We’ve focused on three composers thus far, with the exception of Wagner (because he was German and that’s the only reason I’m not including him), all of whom have vastly different compositional styles and reasons for composing. Edgar was criticized for “selling out,” I don’t agree with that but it sounds as though there were times when his heart wasn’t in what he was doing. And on the other end of the spectrum is Holst who seemed to have loved everything he was doing, he accepted life, allowed it to inspire him, and gave all that inspiration to his music.

I feel so incredibly naïve to have not been familiar with this music, but very glad to have been exposed to these composers.

Another Paper Blog

Ok, yet another research paper update! So I think I am going to focus on the suffrage music of Ethel Smyth. I still want to examine her early life and look at what exactly influenced her involvement in the women’s suffrage movement in England.

I’m excited because I’ve already found some helpful articles as well as a copy of her memoirs from the library. Within those articles I also found some of the songs that Ethel Smyth wrote for the women’s suffrage movement, mostly songs for various events and protests. I think these would make for a very interesting part of the presentation part of my project. I’m not exactly sure how yet, maybe I can find recordings of them or record them myself, but I find them really interesting and hope other people will as well.

From the research I have done thus far, Ethel Smyth was really a woman ahead of her time, extremely strong willed and defiant. She completely disobeyed her father and continued to protest until she was allowed to go to Leipzig to study music. Finally he gave in and she was allowed to go. She was also an acquaintance of Brahms, he referred to her as das Kind, and later in her life fell in love with Virginia Wolf.

I have a lot of information to sort through, but I am actually very interested in this topic and that is exciting to me. Imagine writing a paper that is actually intriguing! I’m really hoping there’s enough information out there as to how this woman, born in the Victorian era, became such an outspoken and rebellious individual. I think I came across something when I was exploring paper topics about Smyth having been arrested at some point due to her involvement with the women’s suffrage movement.

These sorts of topics are always fascinating to me, why or how people become what they become; looking back in history and retracing the events and steps taken in an individual’s life to make them who they were. And for someone as bold as Ethel Smyth I’m sure this is going to be especially interesting.

The Songs of Vaughn Williams

The past week’s readings on Vaughan Williams were for one, extremely enlightening, and two, rather comical. I got the biggest kick out of his writing style. I thought he was very direct in his thoughts, but had this very entertaining way of throwing in little sarcastic jabs here and there. I feel like so often when learning about composers I think of them as stiff and lacking any sort of sense of humor, it’s just rare that I’ve read anything by a composer that I feel really shows light hearted aspects of their personalities.

With that said, I also found the readings themselves fascinating. Up until this point much of the readings for class have discussed the lack music in England, or rather, the lack of English music in England. But here we have Vaughn Williams who revived what he felt was England’s national sound, the sound of English folk song. I absolutely loved this about the Sir John in Love and clips of Hugh the Drover.

It’s difficult to really have an opinion about Hugh the Drover because like I said, I could only find little clips of the work. But I thought Sir John in Love was beautiful! Even though his use of folk song was at times rather subtle, it added so much to work. I felt like I could really see where these characters were, it added so much to the setting and over all atmosphere of the opera. I agree with Vaughn Williams’ belief that there is an elegance to their simplicity.

When listening to this music I was reminded a great deal of American folk songs, which are probably inspired by the folk songs Vaughn Williams sought to preserve and incorporated into his works. I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t been so driven to locate and compose music that either uses or was influenced by folk song. What would the music of Aaron Copland sound like, would Rodeo and Appalachian Spring have the folk like quality, that American sound that is so closely associated with his compositions, or would they have never been written at all? It would be interesting to explore and trace the influence Vaughn Williams had on composers that followed him.

Oh Paper Topics

I had originally thought about writing my paper on Alva Belmont and her operetta which was composed as way to increase awareness about the women’s suffrage movement. I’m not so sure this is going to be possible. I am having trouble finding adequate source material for my paper, as I suspected I might.

Now I am thinking about expanding upon this topic and giving it a broader scope. If I research the use of music in the women’s suffrage movement in both England and America I think I may have more luck. I could discuss the importance of music as it relates to this cause; and hopefully find some of the lyrics or tunes that were used. It may also be interesting to see if any amateur and or professional female musicians of the day contributed any of their time to help with benefit concerts for this cause.

I would also be looking into the social structure of the time, what was going on that really propelled this movement, as well as other movements women were heavily involved with, for example, the temperance movement. In opening up the scope of my paper I hope to have more access to resources. I would also be able to include information I have found about Alva Belmont and her operetta in my paper, but not have that be the main focus.

I certainly have more research to do and I seem to change my mind about topics every time I begin actually doing research. I think this is topic idea number 5. I would really like to do something on female musicians but I am also very interested of the politics of the time. I thought music and its role in women’s suffrage would be a good way to encompass both of those ideas. I’ve had some success with research thus far in a very broad way, just more overview information. I’m wondering if this will almost become a paper on propaganda music.

If this idea doesn’t seem to have enough source material, I think my back up paper topic will be on a specific female musician of the age, preferably someone who kept a diary I can have access to. That paper would deal with the music, struggles, experiences, and the overall quality of life for a female musician.

I was so excited to actually read something about female musicians! And not just amateurs. I thought it was extremely fascinating to get a little background on the growth of female musicians during the Victorian era. Up until this point all that women were really allowed / were encouraged to do was to play the piano and perhaps sing. In the readings from this past week I was pleased to read about the increase in the number of women playing string instruments during that time. In the reading by Sophie Fuller, we even got to learn a little bit about the professional female musician and composer.

I realize that the article was focused on Elgar, but I would have loved to have read more about what life was like for these professional female musicians. Who hired them, how were they regarded in society, how did their lives change once they were married, were they disappointed to give up their careers once they were married (for those who did give up their careers)? I think it would be really interesting to read some diary entries from a professional female musician. I would love to hear a firsthand account of what it was like, hopes/fears, disappointments, greatest joys and successes.

Although Elgar seems to have used a lot of these women as his muses at times, and didn’t really regard them as much more, at least we know that there were some talented female performers and composers. Even the growth of the amateur female musician is exciting to me, we’re beginning to see women form these musical groups and banding together to do something traditionally very male.

I also love it when I read articles that restate what I’ve read in other articles, it makes me feel like we’re all on the same page and helps to emphasize how important certain aspects of music, life, society, etc… really were back in that time period. For example the ways in which many of these talented female musicians, who probably could have been professionals, played only at charity events so they could “retain their genteel status as amateurs (Fuller p.229).” I would love to read more articles, specifically about and from the perspective of professional and amateur female musicians.

What could have been

I was thinking about this idea of England being a land without music, specifically in regard to the reading by Nicholas Temperley, The Lost Chord. It sounds like the potential careers of so many musicians and potential composers were never even allowed to get off the ground, completely stifled in child hood. As was mentioned in class today, it really is sad to think about what could have been. England could have been known for its music during the Victorian era if there hadn’t been such a stigma about gentlemen and music/performance, even women and music/performance.

And those individuals who were able to study music and compose, were left abandoned by their mother country. For whatever reason England just couldn’t get behind their own music. As the reading by Christina Bashford points out, it’s not that music wasn’t being composed, it absolutely was, but many of the English composers were forced to turn to popular music and teaching because of a lack of support from the people. There is now such a void in the music history of England and no one will ever know what great budding musical gifts this country may have had.

In regard to amateur music making and performing, England sounds like a lovely place to have been. The reading made it sound so picturesque, sitting outside in the spring and playing chamber music. What a delightful way to enjoy an afternoon. It makes me wish we had a similar tradition today. How wonderful would it be to socialize in that way? Neither one of my parents are particularly musical so I was never really encouraged to play an instrument, but I imagine it would be so fulfilling to be surrounded by such a large group of relatively proficient musicians; proficient enough to sit down and play Mendelssohn or Haydn, and just play the day away.

Clearly the British were musical people; I don’t think it’s really all that common today to find in a typical social gathering 2 violinists, someone to play viola and another to play the cello. There are too many other things that take our attention away from musical studies, for example, standardized tests, video games, TV, etc… I think it would be charming if this practice of making chamber music was to come back in style. But history does tend to repeat itself, even music history, so maybe one day it will.

Paper Thoughts

I’ve been brainstorming some possible paper topics, and I’m not sure if this will be appropriate/possible, but this is my favorite idea thus far. My very dear friend/roommate visited an old mansion that once belonged to Alva Belmont, a member of the Vanderbilt family; the house has since been turned into a museum. Alva Belmont was quite a pioneer of the age, living from 1853-1933. She was an enormous advocate for women’s rights. So much in fact that she wrote a libretto for an operetta entitled Melinda and Her Sisters, which was presented in 1916.

I’m not sure if this an appropriate topic because it is slightly after the Victorian era and deals with the women’s suffrage movement from an American perspective rather than English. I’m also having trouble finding an actual score, but I have found, online, the lyrics and story of the libretto. The music was also written by a female composer, Elsa Maxwell who was from London.

As far as the paper is concerned, I’m not quite sure where my focus will be. I thought if I can’t find the score, I could potentially find reviews of how the work was received. My other thought was to focus on the libretto and how it reflects the culture of the times. I haven’t done enough research on this to know how possible it will be, but I’d like to try and contact the museum and see what sorts of resources and guidance they have, as well as search for biographies and possibly a diary. Until I know for sure what kinds of resources are out there, this idea is still rather up in the air, if it is even an acceptable paper/project topic.

I was hoping for the presentation portion of the project to find a score and potentially perform a portion of the work. I don’t believe there are any copy rights for the work so I’m not sure if that means it will be easier to find it or not. But I know that my friend Katherine would totally be up for performing a portion of this opera with me since she was the one who brought it to my attention in the first place.

Wagner and Liszt, I don't get it.

First of all… I was never a very big fan of Wagner, probably because he was a raging anti-Semite and I just didn’t want to give him the satisfaction even though he’s been dead for a number of years now. However, over the past couple of years I have listened to more of Wagner’s operas, and I have to say that I find his music quite beautiful. I think it’s probably because I fell in love with Strauss, who also uses all of these very lush and fairly ambiguous harmonies in his compositions, so my ear was prepared for Wagner when I really began to listen to his music. Even with all of this said, I’m continuously blown away that so many people took such a disliking to Wagner. Or rather his music, Wagner the man I don’t really care if people don’t/didn’t like him, but the music is different. I am especially surprised by how many people disliked Wagner but loved Liszt.

In the chapter on “Daniel Deronda as Music Historiography,” George Eliot is said to have not really cared for Wagner, but was a huge fan of Liszt. Liszt was one of Wagner’s big influences, and Liszt’s later music contains a great deal of hazy harmonies and he actually used the Tristan chord before it was the Tristan chord. I just find that really interesting and should probably do some research into why Liszt was so accepted and Wagner not so much.

Wagner was extremely revolutionary but still very much a product of what had come before him, which brings me to my next point. Darwinism. One of the most fascinating parts of this chapter for me was reading about how evolution was perceived at that time. I had it in my head that everyone hated Darwin and there was a huge uproar and people were absolutely appalled! I never knew that evolution itself was generally an excepted concept; it was the idea of natural selection that people took issue. The fact that it was all chance and there was no process involved, perhaps that is a big reason why people disliked Wagner so much, they failed to see his process, but I still don’t understand why they all loved Liszt. The End.

More on the Piano

I think in regard to the chapter “Girling at the Parlor Piano,” I neglected until our class discussion to truly appreciate the importance, or rather the value a piano was to a household. Aside from the possibility of a woman finding a husband as a result of her piano skills, music in the home was an extremely important part of what made it a home. It fell on the shoulders of these women to raise the mood of the entire house hold, when their fathers came home upset or tired, it was their job to try and uplift them. And it sounds as if for some, it was even more than a responsibility, but a duty.

I feel a little guilty that my immediate reaction was to dismiss this as some sexist stereotype that has no place in today’s society. Although I do wish I knew how to play the piano, I’m still glad it was never forced upon me by my parents. But I believe as I’m sure many people do, especially musicians, that music does have a very powerful and profound effect on people’s emotions. Whether it’s hearing the most beautiful aria sung at the Met or the uncanny way in which that perfect song always comes on the radio when you’re upset, people connect to music.

I think this is even further reflected in what was referred to in the chapter as “Romance and Sexuality,” even back then there was a sense of the power of music, and in this chapter it almost becomes the danger of music; one must be cautious not to get carried away by the music. I also appreciated the section on the piano as a “Companion and Confidant.” I found it slightly sad that a piano had to fill the role of companion and confidant, I’m not sure why, I just picture a very lonely young girl playing piano while everyone else is outside playing. But it also serves to further show how special a young lady’s relationship with her piano is, which probably also adds to the ‘romance and sexuality’ of playing the piano. It’s almost as if the piano became a vehicle which allowed for women to express and bare their souls, in public. There were just so many roles the piano filled in the Victorian Era, it really is fascinating.

Maybe it's not so bad I can't play Piano.

Part of me almost wishes I was one of these girls, only because I cannot play the piano, my piano skills are really rather abysmal. I have always secretly wished my parents had made me take piano lessons and forced me to practice so that today I could have some piano skills beyond ‘piano 214’ my sophomore year of college. However, reading many of these accounts I’m grateful my parents never forced me to play an instrument I had no interest in. Many of the accounts in this chapter of the Solie book, “”Girling” at the Parlor Piano,” are quite sad.

These young women seem aware of their musical responsibilities but disheartened by the fact that that is all they are allowed to do. They wake up, go to school, come home for dinner and then practice (every day). I can’t imagine being forced to practice something every day, I feel like that would suck the joy out of any activity. But the extraordinary amount of pressure that these young women were under is crazy to me, it’s as if all of the joy of the family unit, and especially that of the father, is wrapped up in the young women’s ability to play piano and entertain. Wow, life before TV, who knew?

I did however enjoy all of the diary entries that were included in this chapter. I think it’s fascinating to read actual accounts of life from any time period, but this one especially. There were so many well known women mentioned, all of whom were made to learn the piano, and it really drives home how prominent and revered this skill was.

I totally disliked the segments that listed all of the ways in which boys and girls, men and women were believed to be different. Men were daring, had good reasoning skills, strong, and powerful. But women were soft, weak, loving, caring, blah blah blah. That’s only because that was all they were allowed to be, (in my opinion). Today men and women are much closer to equality than they were 150 years ago, but it still really bugs me to read things like this. It’s just very interesting to discover how sexism crept its way into so many aspects of society back in the day.

Old values, some ahead of their time.

I found the reading on “Macmillan’s Magazine in the Grove Years” pretty interesting. Although I am familiar with Grove, the name, I always thought of Grove, the person, as some mystical figure somewhere out there in music land that gathered all of this information and published it online for my personal use.

But anyways… I just found this chapter to be quite telling about the role music played in the lives of the Victorians. Part of the chapter seemed to be describing the roots of music therapy. Music was used to bring people together and keep them out of trouble, for example, the ways in which choirs were used to teach young kids, or to keep unmarried women from being alone and getting into the “wrong sort of behavior.” But music was also used to help calm the criminally insane and help improve the health of those suffering from physical diseases.

One aspect of the book I found particularly funny, was the section that mentioned how wonderful and useful music is as part of a woman’s education; how it allows her to express her feelings, because women are soooooo emotional. However, a man playing the piano or singing was viewed as too feminine, and therefore inappropriate. It was the role of the woman to entertain the guests at parties with her piano skills or to express herself musically while the man goes off to work and do other manly things.

Despite how utterly ridiculous I found this thought process to be, it is what it is and those were the ideals of the time. However, there is such a deep regard for music in this time that it’s hard not to feel, at least for me, that as a society we’ve lost that. Music was honored and cherished in the Victorian era, and that’s not to say that it is no longer special, but the value of music seems to get lost today. Every time I hear of a music program being cut or underfunded and people complaining about other countries being ahead of the U.S. in math and science, it’s these same countries that still value and encourage the learning of music. Can we get some of this back?

Progressive Victorians? I Had NO Idea.

I have to say that I found the reading by Matthew Sweet, Inventing the Victorians, very interesting. I am totally guilty of stereotyping the Victorian era and buying into the ideas that it was a boring, conservative and repressive time in history. It was actually quite eye opening to read about how progressive these people were. The author debunked many misconceptions about this era, from the covering of piano legs, entertainment, gender and race issues (however, I’m not going to be buying into the idea that discrimination didn’t exist, just because there was an Asian member of parliament and a female journalist documenting WWI, anytime soon), but they were significantly more open minded than I ever knew. I think it was this reading that actually made the point that America at this time appeared to be more conservative than England.

I thought the reading by Wilson was rather dull in comparison to the reading above, however, after reading Inventing the Victorians, it made me appreciate Wilson’s piece all the more, and the section on Gilbert and Sullivan almost comical. Here you have Sweet pointing all of the falsities in regard to stereotypical Victorians, but flash back over a hundred years and Gilbert and Sullivan are not only perpetuating this stereotype, but helping to create it. They point out and make light of such things as corrupt politicians and the role of women. The author even points out that “The downside of Gilbert and Sullivan mania-as an expression of the English character and attitude to life generally-is that it can make large sections of the populace who ought to think a bit harder snigger instead.” The point is even made that the progression of feminism suffered as a result of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

It’s obvious while seeing these operettas that they are meant to be funny, and I get the joke, but it seems as though the people who lived during that time failed to realize what a statement Gilbert and Sullivan were actually making, whether they meant to or not. I just find it comical that Sweet is making an argument for the respect and appreciation of Victorian people, but he’s fighting against a stereotype that the Victorians did in fact to a certain degree create. Granted I think the modern age has taken advantage of that stereotype, but perhaps the Victorians were not all as progressive as Sweet would have us think.