Franz Liszt, a different sort of piano virtuoso

It appears that the most famous and notorious of these Philistine virtuosos had tremendous skill at the keyboard, but not particularly well-rounded musical training. They churned out sets of variations on popular tunes that all seemed to be based on stock formulas. Liszt had studied composition and theory with Antonio Salieri, Fernando Paer, and others. They are not highly regarded composers today, but were excellent teachers.

Still, the kind of people who succeeded on the touring virtuoso circuit and the salons of Paris rarely ventured far from writing piano music. Liszt wrote his share of (much better) variations and fantasies. He also made piano transcriptions of orchestral music in order to introduce it to audiences that might otherwise have no opportunity to hear it.

He eventually came to an artistic crossroads when someone challenged him to perform Beethoven sonatas. Philistines, or partisans of what can more kindly be called high-status popular music, had long waged a war of words against partisans of what was already called classical music. Liszt’s embrace of Beethoven coincided with the eventual merger of these two audiences.

Franz Liszt develops the symphonic poem

Franz Liszt conducting

As composer of orchestral music, Liszt invented the symphonic poem, a single movement work intended to convey a literary idea. Structually, his 13 symphonic poems are based loosely on sonata form, but Liszt had never studied with sonata form composers.

As someone long on the other side of the popular/classical divide, he saw no reason to use old forms and procedures just because Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven had. That attitude brought on a new war of words between followers of Brahms on one hand and Wagner and Liszt on the other.

Lizst developed procedures for combining all of the tempos, meters, and key-relationships of a four-movement symphony into a single movement. He had to find a way to preserve the unity of such a complex movement. He developed a method of using thematic transformation to derive all of the material traditionally used in later movements from the opening theme.

Franz Liszt’s symphonic poems and artistic controversy

Although Liszt composed a baker’s dozen of symphonic poems, only Les Préludes became part of the standard orchestral repertoire. All of them remained puzzling, difficult, and controversial music during his lifetime.

First, audiences were not used to hearing such complex music. Generally speaking, audiences like new music to be reasonably familiar at first hearing. Audiences for any kind of popular music demand it. Audiences for classical music have always preferred the music of older masters.

In part to help the audience along, Lizst usually wrote prefaces to his symphonic poems. He knew that audiences of his time liked to attach stories to music. The prefaces enabled him to prevent anyone else from attaching a different narrative.

For a long time, most musicians believed that these prefaces explained Liszt’s intentions in composing the music, or as they were called, the program of the music. As it turns out, though, he composed the music long before he wrote the supposed programs.

Second, the orchestras and conductors had trouble learning the music. They found all of those tempo changes and innovative chromatic harmonies difficult to learn. Although he wrote for a large orchestra, Liszt often used chamber music textures. He wrote extended solo passages with very light accompaniment and other extended passages that used only a small number of instruments.

In these places, the players had to navigate the technical difficulties without the safety net of the rest of the orchestra covering up any mistakes they made. Most small-town orchestras were not capable of playing Liszt’s symphonic poems at all, and that introduced another very practical difficulty.

The market for purchasing Liszt’s symphonic poems was so small that most of them were not available in printed parts until the 1880s. Lizst composed all but one of them between 1848 and 1858. Therefore he had to pass out manuscript parts for every performance. After a while, those parts had so many annotations written by previous performers that reading them at all became another big headache for the musicians.

It is no wonder, then, that only one of Franz Liszt’s symphonic poems became a staple of orchestral music. It’s only because of the efforts of younger conductors in his orbit that any of them survived at all.

Illustration credit: Unknown artist, ca. 1918. Public domain, from Wikimedia

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God Save the South, Halphin setting

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The Library of Congress Civil War Sheet Music Collection has five different items called “God Save the South!” These are attributed to three different composers. Not all of them name the author of the words.

I have searched the collection by the keyword “Confederate,” obtaining a list of 493 items sorted by title. As it is impossible to resort that list, I have been working on a spreadsheet that I can sort in whatever ways are necessary. I am at the step of determining whether items with the same titles represent the same music or not. This post is only a preliminary report.

Two of these five items turn out to be different copies (with slightly different covers) from the same publisher (Baltimore: Miller & Beacham, 1861), with words and music by Earnest Halphin. The music and the text of the first verse fit on a single page. Verses 2-8, without music, occupy another page.

A different arrangement has only five verses, printed on a single page. This copy has no cover and no copyright statement. Therefore it is impossible to determine any publication data. The caption merely says “by Earnest Halphin.” That appears on the side of the page usually reserved for the composer. In the absence of “words and music by Earnest Halphin,” the author appears not to be acknowledged.

God Save the South, Ellerbrock setting

Another edition, which appeared two years later, has music by Chas. W.A. Ellerbrock and words by Earnest Halphin. The cover identifies no publisher, but the copyright notice says that it was entered in the District Court of Maryland. While I am no expert on printing, it appears to me to be another Miller & Beacham publication.

It would be interesting to know why a Baltimore publisher, especially if it was Miller & Beacham, saw fit to issue a new tune instead of simply reprinting the earlier song. The two tunes are very similar in character. Both are in 3/4 time. To my taste, neither piece is any more interesting than the other either in terms of melody or harmony. They’re both in the same key, and share the same high note. The lowest note in Ellerbrock’s tune is a fifth lower than Halphin’s lowest note, so we can rule out trying to get a more singable tune as reason to issue a new one.

Meanwhile, in 1862, the Charleston, South Carolina firm of Geo. F. Cole issued a piece of the same by a Mrs. F.L.R., arranged by M.L. Reeves with words by “A Baltimorean.” Halphin was a Baltimorean. And sure enough, the Charleston publication is a third tune, this time in common time, to the same text.

God Save the South, Mrs. F.L.R. setting

Here is the first verse

God save the South,
God save the South,
Her altars and firesides,
God save the South.
Now that the war is nigh
Now that we arm to die
Chaunting our battle cry,
Freedom or Death!

If you want, you can read the other verses here

Source and photo credit: results page from a search of the Library of Congress Civil War Sheet Music Collection

RGMP March 31, 1872, detail

If people know only one thing about Adolphe Sax, it’s that he invented a lot of new instruments in the nineteenth century. Today, the saxophone is the most successful. That basically amounts to an ophicleide (a forerunner of the tuba with keys instead of valves) fitted with a clarinet reed. His redesign of the trombone with six independent valves, first introduced in 1852, was much more radical than any of the new instruments he invented. I’d like to look at at least part of his marketing campaign for that instrument as an illustration of his business methods.

The important journal Revue et gazette musicale de Paris (RGMP) shows a number of activities he undertook to promote his new trombone, among other instruments. These include

• Obtaining good press through friendly writers in a leading journal
• Buying journal advertisements
• Hiring a skilled soloist to demonstrate the instrument’s capabilities. For the trombone, it was a Mr. Hollebecke. A different specialist represented other instruments.
• Presenting concerts in various venues, notably including his own concert hall, very likely in or near his factory
• Persuading influential foreign visitors to promote his instruments back home
• Commissioning new music by respected composers. The name Demersmann (see the article from July 12, 1863 below) may not mean much today, but he was a prolific composer of music for wind instruments. He composed the required contest piece for the trombone class at the Paris Conservatory in 1863 and provided 17 more by the end of the century.¹
• Having the trombones participate as featured members of the orchestra only after about three and a half years of a sustained publicity campaign
• Taking his instruments and soloists on a foreign tour.
• Rivals considered Sax’s successful bid to reorganize French military music to be a marketing ploy. They initiated legal action that ultimately bankrupted everyone involved. I mention the reorganization and rivalries here only because the articles below occasionally allude to them.

¹Constant Pierre, Le Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et de Déclamation / Constant Pierre (Paris: Imprimérie nationale, 1900), p.652

Below the illustration are translations of several articles or parts of articles (and another ad) from Revue et gazette musicale de Paristhat describe these aspects of Sax’s marketing campaign in greater detail. I have divided the longer articles into paragraphs and omitted some passages of the longer ones.

RGMP, March 31, 1872

v. 26, no. 37. Sept. 11, 1859, p. 306

Read in the Belgian Independence of September 1: At the concert on Tuesday in the zoological garden, a new instrument was heard, the invention of Alphose (sic) Sax, Jr., our skillful maker, currently resident of Paris. This instrument, named the saxonmitonic trombone, was played in a remarkable way by Mr. Hollebecke, also Belgian. A second hearing is promised for Thursday.

v.29 no.32, 1August 10, 1862, p. 262

The brother of Gen L’vov, distinguished composer and director of music of the emperor of Russia, knowing the excellence of French military music, organized according to the system and with the instruments of Mr. Adolphe Sax, resolved to introduce this useful reform into his country.

Much progress in this direction is already realized; a certain quantity of Sax’s instruments were sent to Russia and put into the hands of the most intelligent artists among the military musicians, who, after a few months of study, performed for the emperor. His Majesty was so satisfied with this first test and the results already obtained, that he did not hesitate to continue with the already-started plan. To this end, the director of the band of the Russian guard was sent to Paris in order to hear the best regimental bands of this capital.

The first audition for this band master, along with two senior Russian officers, kindly joined by Gen. Mellinet, took place last Tuesday in the attractive hall of Mr. Adolphe Sax. The excellent band of the 1st regiment of the grenadiers of the guard, directed by its able chief, Mr. Léon Magnier, was called to do the honors, and it can be said that it acquitted itself to general satisfaction.

Between the two parts of the program, Mr. Hollebecke played with infinite success an air with variations on the new trombone with six ascending valves, designed by Sax. The distinguished audience appeared entirely satisfied with the test of it that they attended. On several occasions they complimented the instruments as well as the music, nearly all of it composed by Magnier.

The second performance of music took place Wednesday in Sax’s hall in the presence of the same people. This time they heard the splendid band of the guard of Paris. It is made up largely of artists who are the most distinguished soloists. Mr. Paulus, the eminent conductor, has always had an excellent band, but today what one heard was even more beautiful and more perfect.

Since the piano part for Mr. Hollebecke’s trombone solo was missing, Mr. Ambroise Thomas agreed to improvise an accompaniment. Gen. Mellinet offered to turn pages.

RGMP, April 28, 1872

Last Tuesday, the music of the 11th mounted artillery guard, under the skillful direction of its conductor Mr. Klosé, gave a remarkable concert in the hall of Adolphe Sax. A pas redouble and a march from The Cries of Paris, score by Mr. G. Kastner, and The Dream of Oswald, parts of another excellent work by the learned member of the Institute, in turn excited the interest and elicited the applause of an elite audience, in which were noticed General Mellinet, A. Elwart, Emile Jonas, Laurent de Rillé, Jules Simon, etc.

The concert ended with a fantasy on the Pardon of Ploermel and the Coronation March of the illustrious Meyerbeer. In the form of interludes, Mr. Adolphe Sax had a trombone and bass saxhorn performed, made according to a system as new as it is clever. When it was time to leave, at the request of the general and his company, the pas redouble and the march by Kastner were performed a second time, and a charming piece of inspection by Mr. Klosé for a closing obtained a true success.

[Although this article does not name Hollebecke, he must have played the trombone solo mentioned in the second paragraph.]

v. 30 no. 28, 12 jul 1863, p. 220

We have already had occasion to speak bout the latest instruments of Adolphe Sax with a mechanism of independent tubes. A new experience has just shown in a most conclusive way that this system joins together all desirable qualities, and reached, so to speak, ideal perfection in the making of brass instruments. The many listeners at the concerts in Champs-Elysées on Tuesday could be convinced of that by hearing a duet on motifs from Guillaume Tell, composed by Mr. Demersmann for trombone and bass saxhorn.

Beautiful sonority, accuracy, purity, incomparable agility: such are the principle merits of these exceptional instruments, to which the composer can now entrust all the passages reserved up to now for the violin or the voice; that he can, in a word, look forward to faithful interpretations of his entire thought in whatever form it comes to be produced.

And let us not forget to point out that with the invention of independent tubes, the instrument keeps its special timbre with all sincerity, that is, there is no longer the slightest difference in relation to the voice between the simple instrument and the piston instrument. This remark is important, because one of the favorite arguments proposed by defenders of the old system is precisely that the addition of any mechanism always results in deterioration of the quality of sound of the simple instrument. With the new invention of Adolphe Sax, this charge is reduced to nothing, and it becomes impossible for it to prevail with any man of good faith.

>snip<

It would be an injustice to forget the protagonists of the new inventions of Sax: Hollebecke (trombone) and Robyns (bass saxhorn), whose intelligent ability can put forward so well the creation of the master, and who must indisputably count among the best soloists of Arban.

v. 30 no. 30. July 26, 1863, p. 237

It is said that one is not a prophet in his own country. M. Adolphe Sax has just provided a bright contradiction to this old proverb. There is no sound in Brussels except about the triumph obtained by the recent inventions of the able maker: his instruments with revolving bells, six valves, and independent tubes. We reported two weeks ago the extraordinary effect produced by the trombone and bass saxhorn in the hands of Hollebecke and Robyns; they are the same artists who undertook to introduce the people of Brussels to the accuracy, sonority, and agility of these incomparable instruments, and again in the beautiful duet on themes of Guillaume Tell by Mr. Demersmann was played by these excellent virtuosos to impress Mr. Adolphe Sax’s compatriots.

>snip<

We are assured that Messrs. Hollebecke and Robyns did not obtain any less success the next day in the presence of several distinguished artists, amateurs, principal professors of the Conservatory, and of its illustrious director, Mr. Fétis; although less noisy than that in the zoological garden, this ovation indoors was certainly quite as pleasant to Mr. Sax. Neither the worth nor the number of the audience, nothing will have failed the clever inventor.

v. 31 no.12, March 20, 1864, p. 94

Until now, the new instruments of Mr. Adolphe Sax have mainly been heard in solo pieces or otherwise concerts intended to emphasize their exceptional qualities. Henri Litolff has just used them with the orchestra. At the time of the benefit for Arban , he wrote a gallop titled Une orgie aux enfers with obligatory Sax trombones with six independent valves. Among other interesting passages, these three trombones carry out in unison a series of ascending chromatic scales, then ascending and descending chromatic scales with striking effect. In a movement so quick, this brass rolling thunder does not result in confusion, but on the contrary offers a feature as clean, free, and arresting as the nimblest instrument could do.

One should not receive this first test born of circumstance with indifference or regard it as unimportant. It solves the question resolutely and shows the most obvious utility of the introduction of the new system into the symphony orchestra, the richness and originality of the new effects that it makes possible. A fantasy on themes from Chalet also put the new bass saxhorn with six independent valves in a most favorable light, singing the part of Max in the challenge duet. We repeat: these two examples appear conclusive to us and are likely to convince the most incredulous.

v. 31 no. 37, September 11, 1864, p. 291

[last paragraphs of a letter to the editor, signed S. , from Brussels, September 6, 1864]

I should speak to you about more satisfactory things of the musical world, for example, the contests of the Brussels Conservatory, which were splendid in all branches of teaching; but it has been a long time since then, and you could reproach me for sending old history. I must, however, tell you something of the artists send by Mr. Adolphe Sax to Belgium to make his new instruments heard, because he really acts in a new and important creation, of a sound world introduced to art, where it will soon cause very considerable changes.

Sax’s instrumentalists, the most distinguished of whom, by the way, are Belgian and educated at the Brussels Conservatory, initially gave a concert in the hall of La Grande harmony, where experts and specialists of the profession were highly impressed by the novel effects made possible by these new sound agents.

The program comprised a duet on Guillaume Tell for trombone and bass saxhorn, both with six valves and independent tubes; a fantasy for trumpet with piano accompaniment on Robert le Diable, in which the extraordinary speed of articulation and the perfect accuracy of the new instruments was highlighted, in which the inventor kept intact its strident and special character; a triumphal march of Mr. Demerssmann; a quartet of trombones on Le comte Ory; solos with piano accompaniment by four different members of the saxophone family; a funeral march for six instruments in memory of Meyerbeer by Henri Litolff, a remarkable composition of original character; finally, several other pieces which all demonstrate the excellence of all aspects of Sax’s new instruments.

The beauty of the sounds, their accuracy, their easy production of the fastest passages, the softness of their timbre, all joined together with power, received the applause and praise of all the assistants. The beautiful sonority of the bass and contrabass saxophones was particularly admired, whose low range exceeds everything that had been produced so far and whose sounds occur with the same facility in soft and loud dynamics.

The next day, Sax’s instrumentalists gave another performance at Vauxhall Garden; the repercussion of the success of the day before attracted a great number of elegant ladies, amateurs, and artists, who for nearly two hours did not cease to give the performers testimony of their admiration for the beautiful effects produced by their skill and their instruments.

After this second session, Sax’s artists left for Holland and Germany. On their return, they stopped again in Brussels and gave a third free concert in the park one Sunday morning, after the customary concert of one of the military bands of the garrison. What these artists wanted was popular success; never did they obtain it more completely, because the people who surrounded the bandstand did not cease their resounding applause, exclamations, and hurrahs. Excitement still reigned in this crowd long after the music ceased to be heard.

Regards, etc. , S.

v.32 no.9. 26 Feb. 1865 p. 68

We extract from the Monitor of 6 February the following correspondence:

The Philharmonic Club of Bordeaux had the good idea, on the initiative of the mayor of the city, to invite Mr. Adolphe Sax to give, in one of the meetings of the society, an audition of the new instruments with which Mr. Sax has enriched the science of music.

Mr. Sax responded to the invitation of the Philharmonic Club by sending his best soloists: MM. Monsen, Hollebeck, Robyns, and Clayette, armed with instruments recently created or perfected by him, such as the bass saxhorn, the contrabass saxhorn, the trumpet and the trombone with independent tubes.

>snip<

The trumpets and the Sax trombones have the immense advantage over the old ones in being able to modulate in all the keys, to play with as much agility as the flute or violin, and to be played safely, without having to fear those bad notes to which the best players are exposed, even those of the Société des concerts du Conservatoire.

Among the pieces most applauded by the Philharmonic Club, we cite a solo for trumpet on motives of Meyerbeer; a duet for bass saxhorn and trombone on Robert le Diable; an Ave Maria for tenor voice, accompanied by saxophone, trombone, and bass and contrabass saxhorns; and finally, what carried off success, variations on Carnival of Venice, for the instruments just named, with the addition of a trumpet. The agility of all these instruments of bizarre and unusual appearance filled the audience with enthusiasm. Mr. Mayeur was charged with initiating the audience into the beauties of the saxophone, and he acquitted himself in a most delicate manner.

In sum, this meeting was a triumph for Mr. Sax, for his students, for his instruments, which have demanded for their creation the talent of a musician, the ability of a manufacturer, and the persistence of an artist.

George Frederick Handel

The composer of Messiah loved to eat. At one tavern he ordered way more food than any one person would normally eat–that is, at least before today’s super-sized restaurant portions. Then he waited. And waited. After a very long time, he demanded to know why he had to wait so long. The host told him the cook was waiting until his company arrived. Handel responded, “Then bring up the dinner prestissimo. I am the company!”

He once hired a singer named Francesca Cuzzoni. She had a reputation for begin very spoiled and impossible to get along with, but she also had a beautiful voice. Later, the English historian and critic Charles Burney wrote that she was “short and squat, with a doughy cross face, but fine complexion; … not a good actress; dressed ill ; and was silly and fantastical.”

Sure enough, at the very first rehearsal, she loudly refused to sing her big aria until Handel rewrote it to make her sound more spectacular. After some scowling and shoving, Handel told her, “I know you’re a she-devil, but I want you to know that I am Beelzebub himself!” He hoisted her by the waist, took her to a window, and threatened to throw her two stories down to the ground. She decided maybe his way wasn’t so bad after all.

Some time, maybe I should write about the trouble Cuzzoni and another diva named Faustina Bordoni caused by their running feud. They started fighting–not just arguing, fighting and drawing blood–in the middle of a performance of one of Handel’s operas. There were no tabloids in those days, but pamphleteers served the same purpose. So of course there was a pamphlet about that fight. Their rivalry also inspired the names of the race horses Cuzzoni and Faustina.

Joseph Haydn

As a young man, Haydn fell madly in love with a woman who decided she preferred someone else. Haydn decided that her sister would be the next best thing, so they got married. Big mistake. She didn’t like music much and tended to nag. Eventually they started living in separate houses.

One day a friend visiting Haydn noticed a pile of unopened letters on his desk. Haydn explained that they were from his wife. She wrote to him once a month, and he wrote to her once a month. He never opened her letters and was sure she never opened his.

For many years, Haydn worked for Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, but when the prince died, his successor didn’t care much for music. Haydn still had a job, but nothing to do. He had already been writing music on commission from all over the world, so it seemed like a good situation. Then Johann Peter Salomon showed up, unannounced, and said, “I am Salomon from London, and I have come to fetch you. Tomorrow we shall conclude an agreement.”

Haydn could think of all kinds of reasons why a man of his age who spoke no English shouldn’t go to London. Salomon offered a large sum of money for an opera, six symphonies, and 20 other pieces. Haydn realized that this offer of a paid vacation was for him alone. His wife was not invited. He decided to go.

Guillaume de Machaut

Don’t worry if you can’t place Machaut. He lived almost 800 years ago. His music was wonderful, and revolutionary in its own way. After this long, however, it’s definitely an acquired taste.

We know nothing of Machaut’s birth, childhood, musical education, or lots of other things that ought to go into a proper biography, but we do know that he sold a horse in 1340.

When Machaut was in his 60s, blind in one eye, and gouty, he received a love poem from a teen-aged girl named Peronnelle. She had never seen him, but loved his poetry and his music. Machaut, an ordained priest, was bashful about meeting her, concerned with what she would think of his looks. She didn’t mind, and they had a wonderful conversation.

Eventually, she fell asleep with her head on his knee. Machaut was very happy. His secretary placed a leaf over Peronnelle’s mouth and asked Machaut to kiss it. It took him a while to overcome his bashfulness, and of course when he finally bent down to kiss the leaf, the secretary pulled it away. That was his first kiss, but not his last. At later meetings, Peronnelle had to ask for kisses. After a while, the old man started to like them.

Nothing much came of it, though. In those days, wealthy parents arranged marriages for their daughters. Peronnelle’s parents found a much younger man for her to marry, and I suppose she didn’t have to insist on kisses from him. Anyway, Machaut later wrote a long poem about their relationship.

Richard Wagner

Wagner was a great composer, but a perfectly dreadful human being. He must have had a lot of personal charm, because he always seemed to have friends no matter how badly he betrayed them.

He tried for a long time to ditch his wife. Three different women inspired him to run off with them, but after brief affairs, they all decided not to leave their husbands. Then, when desperately trying to arrange for a production of Tristan und Isolde, he enlisted the great conductor Hans von Bülow. Bülow was enchanted with the opera, and Wagner, of course, was fascinated by his wife Cosima.

Bülow presented the premiere of Tristan at about the same time his wife presented Wagner’s baby. Cosima soon took husband number two and became wife number two for Wagner. The odd thing? Bülow loved the opera so much he didn’t mind having his wife stolen! He said that he would have shot anyone else but Wagner.

The former Cosima von Bülow, by the way, was the daughter of Franz Liszt. Liszt didn’t exactly approve of his daughter’s behavior, but figured that since he was still a bachelor himself, he had no right to complain.

Photo credits: Public domain, from Wikimedia
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In the first half of the twentieth century, so-called Tin Pan Alley composers, who mostly lived in New York, produced the bulk of America’s popular music. Their sophisticated, urban music did not satisfy all the musical needs of the entire country. The singing and fiddling of rural musicians made no impression on the country’s city and town dwellers until the appearance of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Moses Asch, the dreamer, had made it his life’s goal to compile an encyclopedia of sound through his Folkways Records. Harry Smith, the eccentric, had amassed a huge collection of folk music recordings and needed money.

Asch and Folkways Records

Asch opened his first recording company in 1940. It and his second company both failed, but he achieved success with the establishment of Folkways Records in 1948. Unlike almost any other record producer in the country, he did not chase huge profits and had no interest in finding and promoting popular stars. Instead, believing that all voices deserve to be heard and all sounds are equally valuable, he wanted to preserve recordings of everything the more commercially-minded companies ignored.

The Folkways catalog grew to more than 2000 albums by Asch’s death in 1986. It issued recordings of music from all over the world, spoken word recordings (political speeches, among other things) in various languages, sounds of various machines, and natural sounds (from land, sea, and even outer space.) Asch arranged for the Smithsonian Institution to take over the company at his death, thus ensuring that each album would always be available for sale.

From the beginning, Asch recorded and sold blues, bluegrass, and other kinds of American folk music. His personal relationships with the artists he recorded helped him shape his vision. Harry Smith, who moved to New York in 1950, tried to sell his substantial record collection to Asch. Instead, Asch asked Smith to select some recordings for an anthology. Smith chose 84 songs, which Asch released in three volumes of two LPs in 1952.

Harry Smith and his record collection

Smith had begun to study anthropology at the University of Washington in 1943. After completing five semesters, he visited Berkeley, California for a weekend. While there, he was introduced to San Francisco’s intellectual and artistic community, Woody Guthrie’s music, and marijuana. He dropped out of college and became something of a San Francisco hippie well before that term was ever coined. Professionally, he became a highly regarded maker of experimental films. He also began collecting records. Most record collectors of the time gravitated either toward classical music or jazz. Smith instead concentrated on “hillbilly” and “race” records, terms he despised as much as he loved the music.

By the time he moved to New York, he had acquired thousands of 78s. Meanwhile, Guthrie and others had traveled the country performing folk music for years. Alan Lomax, working for the Library of Congress, had produced many field recordings of folk musicians who had never recorded commercially and brought them to public attention. In other words, the recording industry had developed categories of “hillbilly” and “race” records, and both traveling artists and scholars had worked hard to present the music to a wide audience.

Smith compiled the anthology according to very different views of how to package and sell folk music. In his then rather subversive view, the rigid separation of the races was something not to acknowledge, but demolish. He carefully selected music that showed black and white musicians influencing each other.

The notes he wrote for the Anthology of American Folk Music provide important historical information about the recording industry in general. It also displays both his scholarship and his eccentricity. In addition to his notes on each selection, he points out that folk music was first issued on wax cylinders, the earliest format for commercial recording. The perfection of the disc in 1888, being less expensive, opened the market to a larger audience.

It was not until 1927, though, that the development of electronic recording resulted in really accurate sound reproduction. Therefore, Smith did not consider any earlier recordings for the anthology. He likewise explained that he chose not to include recordings made after 1932, when the Great Depression jolted record sales and especially reduced the production of folk recordings.

Within these limitations, Smith served up a world of folk music stranger and more exciting than anything Guthrie, Lomax, and others had ever made public. Young people especially seized on this new music. Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music directly inspired the “folk music revival” of the 1950s. That, in turn, helped launch the rock revolution and break Tin Pan Alley’s domination of American popular music.

Meanwhile, because the Smithsonian Institution acquired the entire Folkways catalog, the Anthology of American Folk Music is still available. The Smithsonian reissued it on CD in 1997, with pitch correction and elimination of surface noise. In this form it won two Grammy awards.

Sources:
Harry Smith Archives
Smith’s foreword and some of his annotations can be found in Judith Tick (ed.) Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion (Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 9780195139884), pp. 502-05.

This post originally appeared in Factoidz

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Ellington composition didn’t usually come about that way. He didn’t compose for instruments. He composed for people, and he needed those people around him. Composers rarely share their procedures with the public, but Ellington briefly described his in a magazine article.

Sometimes he wrote out a melody, worked out the arrangement, and presented it to the band. That’s traditional composition, but not Ellington’s usual procedure. Sometimes he wrote a melody and simply played it for the band. Other times (not often), he’d sit at the piano after a gig and make up a melody on the spot. He’d play a little, talk about it some, and play a little more. The finished product came from all the band members contributing ideas.

Then the boys will start making suggestions in a “free-for-all.” One of them might get up and demonstrate his idea of what a measure should be like. Then another one of the bous will pick it up and maybe fix it a little. Sometimes we’ll all argue back and forth with our instruments, each one playing a couple of bars his own way.

Duke Ellington, “Swing Is My Beat!” New Advance (October 1944): 14 in Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion, Judith Tick, editor with Paul Beaudoin, assistant editor (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008): 535.

Ellington’s article says nothing about the harmonies. If he supplied chords along with the melody, they changed during the free-for-all. If he supplied only the melody, the harmonies emerged during the free-for-all. It is, of course, impossible to present a melody without rhythm, but that, too, evolved as everyone in the band “argued back and forth.”

Once they came to an agreement, someone wrote out the arrangement. But the written arrangement was not the end of the matter. Ellington’s band had as many as half a dozen different arrangements of many pieces in the book.

An Ellington composition, is therefore a result of a group collaboration. Even the most carefully notated sections amount to written improvisations. It’s still an Ellington composition, though. He provided the original idea. He assembled the people who collaborated with him–and kept the same core group much longer than any other band leader did. He talked through the moods and colors that he had in mind.

Actually, Duke Ellington’s idea of composing an ensemble piece collaboratively and then writing it down later isn’t all that new. That’s how Medieval and Renaissance music came about! And it’s no longer unusual. Most rock music starts out with similar procedures.

One-man band, ca. 1865

Historically the one-man band has been a form of low entertainment with one person playing multiple instruments at once. It dates back to the combination of pipe and tabor (a three-holed flute played with one hand and a drum with the other) in the 13th century. Nowadays, clever performers can make contraptions combining a dizzying array of different instruments, using their knees and armpits to play some of them. No one has ever considered such a one-man band to be art.

As soon as recording studios began to record separate tracks and mix them together, ambitious performers began to record multiple tracks in order to perform ensembles by themselves. Colloquially, the term one-man band is often applied to this kind of recorded performance.

The recorded one-man band is every bit as artistic as the performer and genre of music as a whole. In rock, performers including Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Prince, and many more have issued recordings on which they sing and play all the instruments. My local classical music radio station loves to play a Wynton Marsalis record on which he plays all eight trumpet parts of a Biber sonata. The technique has become so commonplace I would be surprised if any of my readers can’t think of multiple other examples.

James Morrison has recently issued his own recording, called Snappy Too, playing multiple instruments. He plays trumpet, trombone, saxophone, piano, guitar, and bass very well and decided to issue a recording of himself playing almost an entire 17-piece big band. Apparently he forgot to learn drums along with everything else, so he’s not quite a one-man band.

This new jazz CD demonstrates Morrison’s impeccable musicianship. The sound, ensemble, rhythm, intonation, and balance are all anyone could ever expect from any recording. He accompanies his own very well-conceived solos with suitably unobtrusive background playing.

So how is a person who wants to introduce a new one-man band recording supposed to set himself apart from all the others? Morrison came up with a truly breathtaking answer. He issued a promotional video. We see five different saxophones, four different trombones, four different trumpets, rhythm instruments, and except for the drummer, one face.

As Morrison stands to play a solo, Morrison, seated next to him, gazes at him admiringly. Visually, the band looks every bit as tight and together as it sounds. If you haven’t seen this amazing tour de force, take five minutes to look at it now. If you’ve already seen it, look again!

Photo credit: Wikimedia commons.

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Having written about the songs of one of the leading Northern songwriters of the American Civil War, Henry W. Work, it seemed a good idea to write about Southern writers, but I didn’t know who they were. The Library of Congress has put a large collection of Civil War sheet music online, and it is possible to filter it in a number of ways. Unfortunately, once a filtered list comes up, it is impossible to resort it. The only way I could identify the leading composers was to create my own spreadsheet. The collection now includes 493 Confederate items, sorted by title. (There were “only” 490 when I started.) It didn’t take long to recognize that La Hache’s name appeared frequently.

Here are the songs and piano pieces by La Hache in the Library of Congress online collection so far:

• Keep step to the music  1856
• Carrie Bell  1861
• Grand parade march of the 5th Company Washington Artillery  1861
• Parade polka march  1861
• Confederates’ polka march  1862-64 (5 editions)
• Improvisation on the bonnie blue flag 1862
• Quickstep of the 5th Company Washington Artillery  1862
• The Alabama  1863
• Popping the question (Risquer la demande)  1864
• Yes! (Oui!)  1864
• Happy contraband schottisch  1865
• The Conquered banner  1866, 1894 (3 editions)
• I would like to change my name  1866 (2 editions)
• Let us have pease, ha, ha  1868
• My Maryland (Improvisation) 1892

Multiple editions at this time usually means that more than one publisher issued a piece, a sign of its popularity. In the 1890s, publishers began to issue collections of Civil War music as a commemorative. Naturally, they republished only music that had somehow stood the test of time, or at least that they thought a new generation of customers would enjoy. Again, the fact that the Library of Congress has editions from that time of two of La Hache’s pieces indicates their popularity. The fact that the Library of Congress has the 1892 edition of LaHache’s improvisation on My Maryland but not a contemporary one indicates that this list of his Civil War music is by no means exhaustive.

However many war songs and piano pieces La Hache wrote, they make only a small fraction of his output, and certainly not his most important works. After his death, the important German publisher B. Schott published a number of his masses. How much American music did European publishers consider worth issuing in the late 19th century? The posthumous publication of La Hache’s music by such a prominent publisher indicates that Americans should have kept his memory alive.

Sources:
Theodore Felix von La Hache When you visit this site, you will hear one of La Hache’s masses.
Library of Congress Civil War Sheet Music Collection
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In 15th-century England, during the reign of Henry VI, there was a song called “The Contest of the Ivy and the Holly.” It’s not much of a contest. The refrain goes, “Nay, Ivy, nay. It shall not be, ywis. Let Holly have the mastery as the manner is.” Holly, obviously masculine, defeats Ivy in every comparison. It appeared in a few 19th-century collections and remains in The New Oxford Book of Carols more as a historical curiosity than anything seriously likely to be performed very much.

According to this song, holly reigned in a comfortable house while ivy clung to the outside of the house, wishing she were inside. What does that have to do with Christmas?

For one thing, the Medieval mind easily spiritualized the symbolism. Jesus is Lord of the heavenly mansion, to which humans are not yet admitted but hope to be allowed in some time. (Biblically, Jesus is the bridegroom and the church is the bride. Jesus is the masculine to which all else is feminine by comparison.)

For another, both holly and ivy are evergreen. As such, they were symbolically important decorations at Christmas (a winter holiday) for being visibly alive while most plant live appeared dead. The prickle of the holly leaf looks forward to Christ’s crown of thorns, and the red berry to his blood.

In fact, the symbolism of holly and ivy as male and female may date from England’s pagan past. The number of medieval carols that spiritualize the pairing indicates how much it became assimilated into the Christian message.

As to “The Holly and the Ivy,” the earliest reference I have seen is to a broadside printed in about 1710. The carol might be much older than that, contemporaneous with “The Contest of the Ivy and the Holly” or even earlier. In any event, the words must be older than the familiar tune. It appears that what we know as the first verse was the original refrain and that the refrain we sing nowadays was added much later.

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Herry Lawford.

The movie that introduced the song, “Meet Me in St. Louis,” the exemplary 1944 MGM period musical, takes place in 1903, when St. Louis was preparing to host the world’s fair. While two songs from that period have prominent places in the movie, composer Ralph Blane and lyricist Hugh Martin produced three songs that became instant hits, including “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

The story concerns the Smith family, long-time St. Louis residents: Alonzo Smith, a lawyer, his wife, and their five children. As the movie opens in June, the three oldest children pursue their dreams of romance and getting their education. The two younger ones enjoy their own mischief. The entire household eagerly looks forward to the opening of the fair. Everyone, it turns out, except Mr. Smith.

The second vignette takes place around Halloween. The family dynamic continues much as before, with Mr. Smith always being the odd man out. He’s more concerned with his profession than developing relationships within his own family. And so when he comes home from work, he announces that he has accepted a promotion that will require the entire family to move to New York right after Christmas. The announcement devastates all of the children.

So it is a sad Christmas, when all of the children prepare for their last in St. Louis. The youngest child, Tootie, played by Margaret O’Brien, looks out the window at a family of snowmen. When the second-oldest daughter Esther, played by Judy Garland, reminds her that she can’t take the snow family to New York with them, Tootie becomes distraught. That is the point at which Esther sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” trying to comfort Tootie:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away
Once again, as in olden days, there’ll be golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us, will be near to us once more
Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Margaret O'Brien and Judy Garland in "Meet Me in St. Louis"

It doesn’t work. Tootie immediately runs out to the yard in her nightgown and angrily destroys all of the snow men, declaring that no one else could have them. If they couldn’t go to New York, she’d rather kill them. Mr. Smith, watching from his bedroom window, finally realizes how relocating to New York has put his entire family in disarray. He calls the family together and announces that he has decided to refuse the promotion and stay in St. Louis. So in the final scene, the entire family enjoys the fair, and all the romances have turned out wonderfully.

One reason the movie struck such a deep chord was that, while set in forty years earlier, the looming troubles that hung over most of it had the same emotional character as the country’s mood. In fact, Martin’s original lyrics were not so much melancholy as pessimistic:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last
Next year we may all be living in the past
Have yourself a merry little Christmas, pop that champagne cork,
Next year we will all be living in New York.
No good times like the olden days, happy golden days of yore,
Faithful friends who were dear to us, will be near to us no more.
But at least we all will be together, if the Fates allow,
From now on we’ll have to muddle through somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Judy Garland, having spent time entertaining the troops, persuaded Martin that people–and especially military families–needed to nurture hope that everybody would be able to return home. The revised lyrics kept the deep sense of yearning, but balanced it with just enough affirmation.

Nowadays, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is often sung at a faster tempo than Judy Garland sang it. At that tempo, the original sadness disappears, as the song’s popularity has long outlasted the war conditions under which the country first heard it.