I love your reply.
What I like about Britten is that he wrote 'music', as in the tradition of the 18th and early 19th century composers. I don't recall any note of 'Londoness, Land of Hope and Glory - excuse me while I shudder - in any of his titles. And, by the way, I love his transcriptions of English folk songs...
And, like I said, Tallis, Byrd, Avison, Purcell, Campion, Boyce etc wrote pure music. The nationalistic element, the aspect of glorification of things specifically British, began to infiltrate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It kind of resembled the notion that the British had problems with facing the fact they were not the masters of a shrinking universe, a kind of turning inward as seen once again by the absurdity of the Brexit fiasco. Sorry to get 'political' but in the end, we live in an age where every breath we take is commandeered by the liars and fakesters who want to take us on their ride to oblivion. It's interesting, I would think, that, for example, the reign of German music began to ebb after Bismark, and that despite Schoenberg's pathetic 12 tone attempt to preserve the dominance of German music for the next century, it led to a total nadir.
Many great composers wrote music which has a patriotic - or even nationalistic - flavour and purpose but that music rarely represents the best of their oeuvre. For example, it would not be reasonable, I think, to assert that Elgar's ceremonial music - enjoyable though it is - is superior to his cello concerto or "Alassio", the first of which is clearly universal in its depiction of human emotion, while the second has nothing to do with Englishness but is an amalgam of the Strauss "tone poem" genre infused with Italianate joie de vivre (or maybe that should be "gioia di vivere...). Likewise. Berlioz wrote some big patriotic numbers - including an OTT arrangement of La Marseillaise - but no-one would place that above his masterpieces. Wagner rounds off Die Meistersinger with a paean to "Deutsche Kunst" but that hardly compromises the "exportability" of the opera (sorry - "total music drama/"Gesamtkunstwerk") - and he, along with Bach, is surely both the most German yet universal and influential of composers. The great English polyphonic choral composers (Tallis, Byrd et al) were clearly of their time and place and even bequeathed us things like "the English cadence" but nothing limits their broader appeal, any more than Palestrina is confined to within Italian borders.
In other words, I am reluctant to ascribe any composer's worth to some kind of geographical or cultural limitation. Nor have I actually ever heard speak of "the British sound"; "English, yes - and that is often a sneer indicating a kind of mimsiness or "cow-pat school" quality.
As an aside, I have trouble getting my head round the idea that Britten is any kind of "Universal Genius"...but that's just me....
Regarding the 'Transportability of Musical Sensibility', what I'm trying to get my head around is that Pre Bach after which the German/Austrian (same thing) composers ruled the waves, and then came the Berlioz-led French resurgence, the rise of the music of the Slavic nations, the scintillating refusal of Italians to be anything other than Italian - I head the great Semiramade Overture today and it put a big smile on my face - there was a kind of homogeneity of purpose. In other words, composers wrote sonatas, chamber music, symphonies, oratorios, operas, etc and it all combined with the musical ether. In the late 19th century the dread of politics took over, music became 'Nationalistic' hence what is known as 'The British sound', typified by Elgar and Pomp and Circumstance.
I'm listening as I write to Purcell, Arise My Muse, Z320. Apart from the language, there is nothing 'English' about this music. In other words, it's pure and simply resonates with Purcell's genius.
It seems to me, then, that music only got roped into the Nationalistc paradigm when the Industrial Revolution took over and nations competed not in trade or cultural interchange, but mainly on battlefields.
What I find great about the music of say, Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, and Mahler, is - like Purcell - its Univeritalty. The music of these composers is full of compassion for human suffering, it rejoices, it opens our hearts to each other.
This may explain why Bruckner, Bach and Beethoven are played in Japan and China, and Malaysia, but not VW or Elgar.
These are random thoughts, from the top of a bald head, brought on by wondering why Purcell and Britten are Univeral Geniuses and VW and Elgar are considered to be 'simply' English - apart from the handful of outstanding works of genius produced by both of them.
I hope readers were pleased with the collection of reviews celebrating the birth sesquicentennial. I wonder if anyone shares my irritation at the constant references to Vaughan Williams as a primarily "pastoral" composer. For all that he was a collector of folk songs, loved the English countryside and expressed that love in his music, so much of it is far more challenging than the justly famous "lollipops" like Dives and Lazarus , the Lark Ascending and Greensleeves - all of which which I love, but they are not the bulk or core of his work. The "Pastoral" symphony and the Romanza of the Fifth (which does not actually have much to do with the English countryside) notwithstanding, you have only to listen to his symphonies as a whole - especially nos. 4, 6 and 9 - to hear why the composer was irked by that label.
Message Thread | This response ↓
« Back to index | View thread »
Thank you for taking part in the MusicWeb International Forum.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb