The Knot of Human Death and Fate

Posted on August 7, 2024 by leslie

Marc Chagall, Calvary (Golgotha), 1912, credit Wikipedia

The Knot of Human Death and Fate

Dan Stone, Psychoanalysis, Historiography, and the Nazi Camps: Accounting for Survival, Palgrave Macmillan, electronic version, 2024, reviewed by Leslie Jones

In From Death-Camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist’s Path to a New Therapy (1946), (subsequently re-published as Man’s Search for Meaning), Viktor Frankl considered the factors supposedly conducive to survival in the Nazi concentration camps. Paradoxically, certain prisoners “of a less hardy make-up” survived better, in his estimation, than those of “a robust nature’, if the former were blessed with a life of “inner riches and spiritual freedom”. Bruno Bettelheim, in similar vein, conceded that although accident was the primary reason for survival, those endowed with “a rich inner life”, were ipso factor better fitted to survive. As Lawrence L Langer pithily remarked, Frankl and Bettelheim made “physical survival a matter of mental health”. Stone contends that “wishful thinking about the human spirit” vitiated the writings of Frankl and Bettelheim.

Dan Stone is Professor of History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway College. He discerns in the “canonical writings” of Frankl and Bettelheim a classical Freudian perspective in which psychological problems in later life stem primarily from traumatic events in childhood, i.e. from unresolved Oedipal conflicts. In his opinion, the field of psychoanalysis was thereby restricted to what Werner Bohleber calls “the inner world of the human being – [to] the unconscious and unconscious phantasies”. The psychoanalytic notion of “identification with the aggressor”, which Bettelheim borrowed from Anna Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, likewise, entailed regression to an infantile state. In the 1950’s, West German assessors of survivor’s restitution claims doubtless welcomed the conclusion that their psychological suffering was not ultimately attributable to Nazi persecution.

Eindstation Auschwitz, written in 1945, was republished in 2020 and entitled Last Stop Auschwitz: My Story of Survival from within the Camp. The author, Eddy de Wind, was an assistant to the admissions doctor in Block 9 of Auschwitz. After its liberation, he worked as a physician. In contrast to Bettelheim and Frankl, de Wind elaborated a theory of survival based on the concept of “stupor”, which anticipated the concept of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In ‘Confrontation with Death’ (1949), de Wind contended that to survive in the camp, the inmate must neither surrender nor resist. An “inner acceptance  of death” was essential. There are uncanny echoes here of the “death drive”, posited by Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

For Stone, the “more nuanced” theory of survival elaborated by de Wind (and by Elie Cohen, whose notions of “resignation” and “depersonalisation” complement de Wind’s analysis) unhappily gained “little purchase or resonance until recently”. Contra Bettelheim and Frankl, in his later articles, de Wind attributed survivors’ ongoing psychological problems to the massive psychic trauma engendered by Nazi oppression.

In How Did They Survive? Mechanisms of Defence in Nazi Concentration Camps (1948), psychoanalyst Hilde O. Bluhm reviewed twelve books pertaining to this subject for the American Journal of Psychotherapy. Have Bluhm’s ideas stood the test of time? Dr Stone regrets the fact that “the concepts of her profession at that time”, notably the questionable notion that “psychological illnesses relate solely to suppressed problems of childhood” and that “victims of the Holocaust reverted to childhood or identified with their aggressors”, informed her analysis. Nonetheless, Stone rates Bluhm’s concept of “estrangement”, a special mechanism of defence developed by the ego, whereby experiences were depersonalised and “turned into an object of …intellectual interests”, as it prefigures de Wind’s idea of “stupor”. Indicatively, Ernst Wiechert, in The Forest of the Dead (1947), one of the twelve books reviewed by Bluhm, referred to “an ever-growing coldness… that filled his entire being” during his imprisonment in Buchenwald. Dr Stone notes that by virtue of when they were written, none of the twelve books in question addressed the concentration camp qua factory of death.

In our review of Frederick Crew’s Freud, the Making of an illusion (2017), we concluded that “For all his failings, Freud surely deserved a more appreciative and generous biographer” (see ‘White Lines’, Leslie Jones, QR, June 7th 2017). Like Dominick LaCapra, Dan Stone is “one of the few historians who values psychoanalytic vocabulary and insights for understanding history” (quotation, Stone, Psychoanalysis etc p. 94). We unreservedly commend his eloquent and thought-provoking exegesis.

The Charnel House, Picasso, credit Wikipedia

Dr Leslie Jones is the Editor of Quarterly Review

“The Knot of Human Death and Fate” is a phrase taken from Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Endnotes, August 2024

Posted on July 31, 2024 by leslie

Brightest London is best reached by Underground, subway poster 1924, credit Wikipedia

Endnotes, August 2024

In this edition: Bruckner’s String Quintet; From Meadow to Mayfair, with Eric Coates, reviewed by Stuart Millson

200 years ago this year, Anton Bruckner was born — a boy who would be shaped by his rural environment in Upper Austria; a young man preoccupied with church music and his work as an organist; a middle-aged figure, destined to be celebrated as one of the greatest symphonists in the European canon, and yet each step of this ascent, fraught with self-doubt and the criticism of those around him. All the great orchestras of the continent, Britain and the United States now play and record his symphonies — the radiant Seventh and magnificent Eighth guaranteed to fill the Philharmonie, Berlin, the Royal Albert Hall, or Orchestra Hall, Chicago. But we know less about the tiny number of Bruckner’s equally masterful chamber pieces, especially the String Quintet, written when the composer was 54 years of age. Chamber music tends to be something of a passion for a smaller number of concertgoers, but even so, the programmes of our leading chamber venues rarely seem to include Bruckner; and this is a pity, because it would enable listeners who might not yet have warmed to the huge symphonic scores to find a point of entry. And Bruckner’s chamber music can even be a revelation to the devotees of his symphonies: indeed, it is surprising that so many individuals who think that they know the composer are unaware of such works as the Quintet.

Cast in four movements, this work for quartet and additional viola, begins with what can only be described as a deep sigh; a world-weary moment, so soon, but shaping a movement of utter beauty; and one as ‘symphonic’ in scale to please any Brucknerian. In fact, listening to the opening movement, marked by the composer as Gemassigt, brings to mind the hush, the expectation at the beginning of the Second Symphony, or the slow movement of the Third. The massive climb then begins, Bruckner testing his players with long spans of taut time as they follow his paths from foothills to higher altitudes.

We catch our breath in a second movement which has the typical touch of this most Austrian of composers: a trio, marked Scherzo, but with a gentle, jolly, unhurried (‘Langsamer’) feel — as if we have just found a small country inn where someone has struck up a simple country serenade on an old fiddle. Yet we seem to be watching and hearing it from just beyond the village garden: this section, for all its lighter spirit, has a peculiar, dreamy quality. Deeper thoughts, though, overcome the structure and spirit of the Adagio movement: this is the Bruckner of those mighty slow-motion symphonic meditations, often tragic and Wagnerian in character. However, Bruckner in his chamber mode offers us a gentle route out from the intensity, the movement ending in a quiet repetition of the main musical idea; the composer almost saying reassuringly, ‘All will be well, all will be well…’

All these great ideas come together in the Finale: Lebhaft bewegt — nearly nine minutes of purposeful flow for the players, and a peroration for musician and listener, alike, that — if scored for full orchestra — would make for a great ovation in a large concert hall. Our CD recommendation for Bruckner’s Quintet is a classic 1993 rendition, recorded at St. George’s, Brandon Hill, Bristol, and captured on the Helios (Hyperion) label by producers Tony Faulkner and Andrew Keener. Performed by the Raphael Ensemble, the work is three quarters of an hour in length.

Finally, and in complete contrast, Chandos records — with John Wilson at the helm of the BBC Philharmonic — take us to the glittering London ballrooms (and rustic copses of 1930s’ ‘olde England’) in Eric Coates’s Suite, From Meadow to Mayfair. Hearing such dazzling, modern full symphonic sound on this recording immediately takes such pieces for light orchestra out of the crackly world of old radio archives; investing the music, instead, with a grace and style that will put a swing in your step. Coates was the master of great, singable tunes (and deliciously romantic wallows).

The curtain-raiser on the album is the 1948 Rediffusion March — Music Everywhere, a piece that brings to mind that semi-mythical golden age of impeccable pronunciation from radio announcers, and summer days in St. James’s Park. Well done to the art department at Chandos for matching the musical mood in their choice for the album’s cover: a 1927 illustration of Buckingham Palace from a poster issued by the Southern Railway. A perfect production for Eric Coates, ‘the uncrowned king of light music’.

Stuart Millson is the Classical Music Editor of The Quarterly Review

CD details:
Bruckner, String Quintet (with Intermezzo) — Helios, CDH55372.
Eric Coates, Orchestral Works (Vol. 4) — BBC Philharmonic, John Wilson, Chandos, CHAN 20292.

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Mea Culpa

Posted on July 19, 2024 by leslie

York Minster, credit Wikipedia

Mea Culpa, by Bill Hartley

The City of York and County of North Yorkshire now has an elected mayor. The fact that this was going to happen may have come as a surprise to many in the local electorate. Judging by the modest response at the poll, held in May of this year, voters have been underwhelmed by the idea. The total turnout was 29.89 % and around 450,000 people didn’t bother to vote.

The idea isn’t new having first been considered in 2004. Although Tony Blair’s government was big on devolution, North Yorkshire, for sound geographical reasons, didn’t get the treatment; the conclusion being that it was too large an area to be governed by a single authority. This is hardly surprising since England’s biggest county stretches 116 miles from the Lancashire border to the North Sea. Then, in 2022, unnoticed by many, a devolution deal was done between York City Council and North Yorkshire County Council. It seems there is nothing that politicians like better than more political posts. Judging by the recent turnout this is not a view shared by the electorate.

Six candidates put themselves forward for the post. Their manifesto statements might have been written by the same person. They spoke of ‘sustainable economic growth’, ‘building communities’ and ‘people first’. Clichés of remarkable similarity and of course the word ‘strategic’ was also used.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with an elected official having strategic oversight but in the case of York and North Yorkshire geography plays an important part in defeating the idea. Conveniently forgotten at the dawn of the brave new era is the reason why the idea was abandoned a couple of decades ago. Some mayoral fiefdoms, usually city regions, are reasonably cohesive: Greater Manchester for example. In Teesside, too, an elected mayor is thought by many to be doing a decent job.

To create a mayoral post covering such a vast area defies logic as does gluing the county to the city of York. One of the favourite subjects found on the candidates’ election material is a good point to begin considering why. Candidates usually talk about public transport. No-one is likely to challenge the idea that it can be improved. A good way to avoid going into detail about this is to stress the need to make it ‘interconnected’. Presumably none of them bothered to look at a map of the county. A geographer would point out that human interaction is shaped by a hierarchy of services. For example, a village in deepest North Yorkshire may posses such basic amenities as a shop, pub and perhaps a filling station. Should a resident wish for access to more services, for example a supermarket, then they are likely to visit a town. More services equal the need for a larger town and herein lies the problem. Whatever the mayor’s strategy it is unlikely to fit conveniently within the borders of his fiefdom. There is, for example, a long coastal strip in the county with Whitby in the north and Scarborough at the south end. Anyone from these towns wishing to access a greater range of services is likely to head for Middlesbrough. Transport links by road and rail reflect this. Middlesbrough of course has its own mayor. Further west the same applies. The nearest large town is Darlington, which has a main line railway station. It happens to be the largest town in County Durham.

The significance of York to most citizens of North Yorkshire is negligible beyond its immediate hinterland. Even within its own postcode area this is doubtful, since to the west is the more accessible town of Harrogate. The main road linking Leeds, York and Scarborough is the A64, one of the reasons why the city is so awkward to reach. It is an accident black spot and at weekends in the summer can be overloaded with traffic heading for the coast. The new mayor, incidentally, has no powers to upgrade the stretch which badly needs to be turned into a dual carriageway.

Further south the map of the county forms a panhandle. This is the district of Selby, the most southerly part of North Yorkshire. A glance at the map will reveal that though York is closer, most of the main lines of communication run east to west between the two cities of Leeds and Hull. The draw of the largest city in West Yorkshire is likely to overwhelm anything York has to offer.

In the run up to the mayoral election the Conservative candidate set himself the task of visiting all the York and North Yorkshire communities, said to number around a thousand. In contrast, the Labour candidate (who won) didn’t trouble to campaign outside the city. If so, then he showed a greater understanding of political realities than his opponent. York has always been a Labour city, whereas the county leans towards Conservative. This was reflected in the vote. Without the York vote going mainly to Labour, the Conservative candidate would have won.

There are now two administrative centres as announced on the new authorities’ website. One is the county town of Northallerton, the other is York. The former, incidentally, has good transport links by road and rail to …Middlesbrough.

An article in the Yorkshire Post, reflecting on the low turnout at the election, expressed concern about the effect on democracy. Equally it might have been a measure of the distain shown by voters who had no say in the creation of the mayoral post. The new mayor’s role is also combined with that of police and fire commissioner. Just in case anyone was worried that this would prove burdensome, he is empowered to create the post of deputy. Doubtless each will have an office with administrative support. That is not all; eight senior managers at North Yorkshire Council are set to receive salaries of over £100,000 a year to reflect their increased responsibilities. Predictably the council defends this with the usual talk about the need to retain talent. Local government lifers presumably are in short supply and therefore much sought after. The chief executive, for instance, is now paid more than the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

One thing that villages are good at is creating a sense of community. It’s one of the reasons why people like living in them. Most have a village hall which hosts various activities and there are sports teams. The new authority still sees the need for a helping hand to show villagers how to do it. There is to be a post of Director of Community Development on a salary of £139,215. Presumably this figure has been set to reduce the risk of candidates being lured away to direct community development elsewhere.

The people behind this new tier of administration evidently see no reason to let logic get in the way as it goes to work to meet the needs of a largely uninterested citizenry. York (the only city in the county) is to be the flag ship even though its draw is more to do with tourism than as a service provider. People will continue to go elsewhere for their needs; not that this is likely trouble the authority. No matter how effective the new mayor tries to be, he will ultimately be defeated by the realities of geography.

William Hartley is a Social Historian

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

A Curate’s Egg; review of Edgar

Posted on July 10, 2024 by leslie

The Woodman’s Daughter, John Everett Millais, credit Wikimedia Commons

A Curate’s Egg; review of Edgar

Edgar, drama lirico by Giacomo Puccini in three acts (1905 version), libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, director Ruth Knight, City of London Sinfonia and the Opera Holland Park Chorus conducted by Naomi Woo, Opera Holland Park 6 July 2024, reviewed by Leslie Jones

Director Ruth Knight’s new production of Edgar has polarised opinion. Whereas Culture Whisper was excited to see another Puccini rarity being aired (following Opera Holland Park’s 2022 staging of Le Villi), Jessica Duchen was scathing and dismissive. Notwithstanding what Knight in the programme calls Puccini’s “profound impact on western culture…”, Edgar is rarely staged. “Back in the box with it”, Duchen adjures  (Inews, ‘Edgar, Opera Holland Park review; so bad the audience were chortling’).

For the premiere at La Scala in Milan, in 1889, the much-maligned librettist Ferdinando Fontana moved the location of the drama from the mountains of the Tyrol to lowland Flanders. Ms Knight, in turn, has transferred it from medieval Flanders (specifically Bruges, The Dead City evoked in Erich Korngold’s opera) to 19th century England, presumably because it embodies bourgeois religious and sexual hypocrisy, as documented in WT Stead’s The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. In Knight’s reworking of Edgar, Tigrana (played by Gweneth Ann Rand), was abandoned by her parents and forced to become a sex worker. We see her briefly in the Prelude as a child, in the company of a youthful Edgar. Although this is a semi-staged production, there was evidently room for a theatrical prop which presumably represents passport control and the “othering” of illegal immigrants. “It’s become all about racism and misogyny”, complains Duchen. And she is correct if not politically correct – “relevance” cannot redeem it.

Mixing his metaphors, Gary Naylor thinks that Ferdinando Fontana “sold Puccini something of a hospital pass, and [that] no amount of repairs or revisions could get him off that hook”. Edgar was “the difficult child of the canon” (BroadwayWorld.com). Dominic Lowe agrees that there is little evidence here of Puccini’s eventual “… theatrical flair and innate faculty for character development” (Backtrack). But holes in the plot, such as the reconciliation of Frank and Edgar (performed by Julien Van Mellaerts and Peter Auty, respectively), are hardly unusual in opera. The denouement of Rigoletto springs immediately to mind. The audience are invariably forgiving, providing there are what Naylor nicely calls arias “so pleasing on the air…[which] even when expressing the darkest of thoughts, lift one’s soul”. And there is general agreement that although “Puccini’s greatest music was yet to come”, the score is replete with “soaring moments” which “glisten” (Culture Whisper). Opera Holland Park chorus and the City of London Sinfonia, conducted by Naomi Woo, evidently found “the passion and the beauty in the score” (Naylor).

Some reviews of Edgar beg the question “what exactly is the role of the critic?” Is it to help “excavate” obscure lost works that arguably throw light on Puccini’s development? “Without hearing this,” his second opera, Colin Clarke demands, “how can we “know” Puccini?” But Clarke also acknowledges that this is hardly “top-rank” material (Seen and Heard International, ‘Edgar, Opera Holland park’s recent excavation, is a revelation’). Puccini himself eventually concluded that it was “warmed-up soup”, and that its subject was “rubbish” (see Flora Willson, the Guardian, ‘Edgar review-Puccini was right, his biggest flop is a dud’). Let the composer have the last word.

Editorial endnote; indicatively, there were only three performances of Edgar, on the 3rd, 4th and 6th of July

Dr Leslie Jones is the Editor of Quarterly Review

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Physics Envy

Posted on July 5, 2024 by leslie

Jean-Martin Charcot, chronophotography, credit wikipedia

Physics Envy

On the Couch; Writers Analyse Sigmund Freud, edited by Andrew Blauner, Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, 346pp, h.b., reviewed by Leslie Jones

The twenty-five contributors to On the Couch consider the founder of Psychoanalysis from a range of different perspectives. Yet key themes recur. Apropos the vertiginous decline in the scientific status of Freud’s system, a consensus emerges from these pages that many of his leading ideas, notably those concerning homosexuality, child development, the Oedipus complex, “no longer convince us” (Adam Gopnik, p255). Siri Hustvedt,  lecturer in psychiatry, likewise, endorses the earlier feminist critiques of Freud by Kate Millett, Simone de Beauvoir and Karen Horney. And Peter D Kramer evidently speaks for several other contributors when he remarks, “How extraordinary that such implausible theories should predominate in the scientific community, in medical practice, and in popular culture, for decades”. He characterises Freud’s core ideas, such as a link between obsessive compulsive behaviour and overzealous toilet training, as “fantasy”.

So what now remains of Freud’s legacy? For one thing, his undoubted reputation as an essayist. Professor Phillip Lopate, editor of Art of the Personal Essay, reads him “as one does a poet, for his allusive lyricism” and for his “aphoristic sublimity”. Referring to Civilisation and its Discontents (1930), Lopate states “I know of no book that more directly encounters the crucial question: Why is human happiness impossible, except for brief moments?”. Gopnik, in similar vein, contends that both Marx and Freud continue to reach us “as literature reaches us”. He recalls that Harold Bloom considered Freud “the Montaigne of the twentieth century” and praises him for “replacing the pious fictions of received dogma with the human truths of actual behaviour”. Gopnik, another admirer of Civilisation and its Discontents, compares Freud to Dr Johnson and says that no one could be “more succinctly Latinate or depressingly accurate”. Freud’s engaging writing style is also highlighted by Sheila Kohler, who mischievously praises his skill “as a writer of fiction”. She suggests that in Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905), Freud deliberately hid the identity of patient Dora to create a sense of mystery. And Rick Moody thinks that Freud’s Studies on Hysteria (1895) (joint author Josef Breuer) is indebted to the nineteenth century novel in that “he had to have a big ending. A Cure”.

Freud’s first scientific publication, as Mark Solms reminds us, was his ‘Observations on the Configuration and Finer Structure of the Lobulated Organs of the Eel described as Testicles’ (1877). Entering the University of Vienna Medical School in 1873, he studied neuroanatomy for the next eight years. Microscopic staining was invented by Joseph von Gerlach in 1858. Freud excelled in this field, devising new methods. So far, so orthodox. From October 1885 to February 1886, however, Freud attended Jean-Martin Charcot’s lectures on hysteria at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. Like Charcot, the ‘Napoleon of the neuroses’, Freud believed that lesions in the brain caused the symptoms of hysteria. In Viennese medical circles, “Mental events were perceived as “brain events”.  But the inability of neuroanatomy to identify any such lesions led Charcot to devise novel methods, notably hypnosis, to remove these symptoms. Freud, in due course, developed his ‘talking cure’ to elicit the traumatic memories supposedly causing hysteria. “A radical break with the positivist perspective was the sine qua non of the development of psychoanalysis, as the premise of the latter is a mental mechanism of symptom causation, an idea that Freud carried over from Charcot” (see ‘White Lines’, QR, Leslie Jones, June 7 2018, a review of Freud, the Making of an Illusion, Frederick Crews, 2017).

However, Freud never deviated from the view that the ultimate origin of the neuroses was a physical process in the brain. He made statements to this effect in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) and in An Outline of Psychanalysis (1940). In 1895, fearing that his case studies on hysteria “were no more than “short stories”’, Freud began his ‘Project for a Scientific Psychology’. The goal was to uncover the neural underpinnings of psychic states. He discussed this ultimately abortive project with his close friend, the otolaryngologist Wilhelm Fliess, in 1895. “The phenomena of mind”, he averred, “do not belong to psychology alone; they have an organic and biological side as well”. “Freud had physics envy too” (Siri Hustvedt, On the Couch, p 304).

Freud & Fliess, 1890, credit Wikipedia

In ‘Reflections on War and Death’ (1918), Freud opines that “War strips off the later deposits of civilisation and allows the primitive man in us to reappear” (see ‘Freud and the Writers’, by novelist Colm Tóibin, On the Couch). Freud himself temporarily succumbed to the bellicose impulses unleashed by the Great War, celebrating in 1915 the “beautiful victories of the Central Powers”.

In war, “people really die and no longer one by one, but in large numbers, often ten thousand in one day” – death can no longer be denied (Freud, quoted Tóibin, p 92). In ‘Playing the Game’, Michael S Roth elucidates the “sad biographical dimension” that informed Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), in which Freud radically revised his theory of the drives, positing a death instinct or ‘Nirvana principle’. Before its publication, his favourite child Sophie had died in the influenza epidemic. Her second son Heinerle subsequently died in the pandemic, leaving Freud “inconsolable”. He told Oskar Pfister that “Everything has lost its meaning for me”. Indicatively, “In the wake of Sophie’s death”, Freud was reading Schopenhauer (Michael S Roth, On the Couch, p 270).

In the aforementioned review of Freud, the Making of an Illusion, we concluded that “For all his failings, Freud surely deserved a more appreciative and generous biographer”. After all the relentless Freud bashing, herewith a positive assessment of his work.

Arthur Schopenhauer, portrait by Jules Luftschutz, credit Wikipedia

Dr Leslie Jones is Editor of Quarterly Review

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Endnotes, July 2024

Posted on June 28, 2024 by leslie

Fragment of a Crucifixion, Francis Bacon, credit Wikipedia

Endnotes, July 2024

In this edition: rare English String Quartets from Tremula Records * Homage, by Randall Svane, reviewed by Stuart Millson

The more one travels to music venues beyond the metropolitan centres ~ Mid-Wales Opera in Brecon (now de-funded by Arts Council Wales); the English Music Festival at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire (not even a recipient of any state funding) ~ the more one encounters unsung heroes who are instrumental in rescuing parts of our national heritage. One such person is the tall and bespectacled Kenrick Dance, an affable, front-of-house figure at the English Music Festival, busily assisting concertgoers, not least through the Festival’s minibus service which he serves in the capacity of driver. A great advocate of the music of English composer, Walter Leigh, Ken has recently emerged as a record producer in his own right, ushering onto the music and CD scene the label, Tremula Records, dedicated to overlooked masterpieces from these islands.

A recent addition to the Tremula list is a recording of string quartets by Edmund Rubbra, Phyllis Tate and Peter Wishart. All three composers belong to the same generation, and their quartets all date from the early-1950s, an era often thought of as a conservative time for music, but actually a period in which British audiences began to hear a more abstract sound-world: Vaughan Williams’s Eighth Symphony, the works of Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh and the music of Michael Tippett.

Rubbra’s String Quartet in E flat major of 1951 is a strongly tonal work, with a sense of elegy, both in the first movement and in the Adagio tranquillo third section; there is some welcome emotional decompression in a soft-stepping scherzo, but which in its near-25 minutes of life, conveys a clear feeling of twentieth-century and post-war introversion. Rubbra, who made his home in the Chilterns, finds unsettled skies and deeply felt darker chords, beautifully and passionately played on this recording, first committed to disc in 1992 by the English String Quartet (Diana Cummings and Keith Lewis, violins; Luciano Iorio, viola; and Geoffrey Thomas, cello). In fact, the acoustic of the recording venue, Rosslyn Chapel, Hampstead, imbues the slow movements of the Rubbra and Phyllis Tate works with a poignant atmosphere of darkness, shadow ~ even of music that brings forth a palpable physical sense of coldness, remoteness. Certainly, the ethereal, slowly-circling Cantilena section (marked Andantino sostenuto) of Tate’s F major Quartet is a masterclass in taking music and the listener to the edge of unsettled dreams ~ a little like the feelings which gradually overcome you in the Neptune movement of Holst’s The Planets.

For Peter Wishart, who studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and absorbed much from Stravinsky, a spikier more obviously continental framework and style can be discerned ~ in the way that Britten’s very English Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge sounds more at home in a salon devoted to Bartok. Wishart’s String Quartet No. 3 in A dates from 1954 and is the shortest piece in the collection, but the composer doesn’t waste any time on portentous build-ups or grand statements; or indeed any discernible imitation of his overseas teachers and mentors. But his work does sound the more ‘contemporary’ of the three quartets ~ the uncertain, stop-and-start introduction is certainly intriguing. Yet from this, a far-from-unpleasant sequence of less-obviously tonal music begins to dance on and develop into variations, new thoughts, recastings of earlier ideas. The first movement has a definite air of mystery, of tension. The Allegretto and Presto movements have wonderful precision and are most understated (given their ‘presto’ designations), but what is evident from the recording is a sense of each note, each line of this sublime music inspiring its interpreters to a performance of minute clarity, detail and gentle colour.

The QR congratulates Producer, Ken Dance, on reconstituting this attractive, collection. The Wishart is a real gem. We look forward to more great things from Tremula Records: a CD label in the ‘margins’, but actually with something to say ~ and a rival (in terms of imagination and outlook) to the larger commercial labels who seem to be only able to give us yet more symphonic cycles by Brahms or Mahler.

Finally, a preview, private audio file has reached The Quarterly Review of a new orchestral work by American composer, Randall Svane. Entitled Homage, this strongly flavoured Sibelian type tone poem brings a potent, late romanticism once again to our own age of anxiety and cynicism. The composer is already making great headway in the United States (notably in the world of church music) and ~ as he tells us ~ anticipates performances and a commercial recording of Homage; a piece that is meant as a tribute to his teachers, mentors, and musical collaborators through the years. The afore mentioned term ‘Sibelian’ comes to mind because the music grows and gathers in an expansive, well-orchestrated, highly textured tapestry, yet with taut, powerful, to the point arguments and scenes, very much like the Finnish master’s En Saga or The Oceanides. But there is also a tense section, reminiscent of the nervous energy at the outset of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements; and touches in the composition which take the listener to Mahlerian forests, or to the wide, open spaces of Randall’s fellow US symphonist of the 20th century, Roy Harris.

Randall Svane is clearly an heir to the romantic American tradition –  to Harris, Howard Hanson, and the Copland of An Outdoor Overture and the Third Symphony. We look forward to his name becoming a prominent feature of British orchestral programmes.

Head VI, Francis Bacon, credit Wikipedia

CD details: String Quartets ~ Rubbra, Tate, Wishart, played by the English String Quartet. Catalogue reference: TREM 102.

Stuart Millson is the Classical Music Editor of The Quarterly Review

 

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Romans and their Levantine Ways

Posted on June 26, 2024 by leslie

Benjamin West, Cicero & the magistrates discovering the tomb of Archimedes, credit Wikipedi

Romans and their Levantine Ways

Hannah M. Cotton, ROMAN RULE AND JEWISH LIFE, Collected Papers, edited by Ofer Pogorelsky, reviewed by Darrell Sutton

Hannah Cotton is the Shalom Horowitz Professor of Classical Studies Emerita at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Well respected, her published work, whether written by her alone or edited with others, is substantial. This collection of thirty-four papers is divided into four sections: A – ‘Government, Power, and Jurisdiction’; B– ‘Documents, Language, and Law’; C – ‘Land, Army, and Administration’; and D – ‘Law, Custom, and Provincial Life’.

There is a list of publications (XXV-XXXII) that discloses her areas of expertise. Ciceronian language, Roman Republic civil matters and Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic writings discovered in the Judean desert have occupied much of her time. But her work encompasses more. Classicists are rarely acquainted with Semitic idioms. Professor Hannah Cotton (henceforth HC), however, educates the reader on important aspects of Levantine issues. And as stated in the preface, although most of the papers are devoted to ‘legal and administrative issues… Despite the title of the book, some of the articles have nothing specifically to do with the Jews’. That claim is ‘specifically’ true only for section A. In this volume remarkable papers are included. In my opinion, readers will find vital work performed in section B. A small number of specialists will trouble themselves with C; but by far, her best research in this collection appears in the final section, D. A review of a massive first-rate work like this one calls for criticism of points of detail. It is to these issues that I will give attention. Conversely, I want it to be known that all these collected papers are models of precision, containing coherent thoughts and reasonable inferences as she explicates rather difficult-to-construe texts.

HC’s early writings treated Ciceronian texts. Her doctoral work delved into Cicero’s letters of recommendation (p.99). Of the first paper, ‘Cicero, ad Familiares XIII, 26 and 28’, she investigates the meaning of reiectio Romam, and any supposed links to whether provincial citizens needed to apply for a change of court to have better judges in Rome. Roman customs in one ancient text, The Acts of the Apostles, go unstudied. The legal rights of Roman citizens in the provinces are not everywhere locatable in ancient secular documents. Paul’s treatment by hostile Jews (Acts 21:27) and his arrest by Roman soldiers, even his examination by Roman authorities, is recorded in Acts chapters 24-26. In a Palestinian province, Paul chose to appeal his religious case to Rome as a citizen (Acts 25.10,21, 26:32). I agree with HC that ‘In many respects Cicero’s letters of recommendation are the best primary evidence we have for determining the minutiae of provincial government under the Republic, the day-to-day working of provincial administration and jurisdiction as well as certain prevailing attitudes and conventions of conduct’ (p.5). Nonetheless, Acts is of ancillary importance for her discussion but is excluded from her study. In the end, she does not believe Cicero’s letters of endorsement that suggested that Roman citizens ‘possessed a legal right to demand a remittal of their case from the provinces to Rome’ (p.22).

In the paper on ‘Iustitia versus Gratia’, HC controverts J.M. Kelly’s thesis in Roman Litigation (Oxford, 1966). He believed the use of preferential letters for friends to be incompatible with an unprejudiced application of the law. It remains true, though, that the showing of ‘favor’ to individuals whom one knows is standard operating practice in every ancient and modern society. HC may not hold so tenaciously to these views today. In this paper she is a overcautious, trying to embrace too many positions at one time. Eventually she comes down in favor of the idea that ‘The tension we have detected between the two incompatible claims of iustitia and gratia is much reduced when we take into account the emphasis on dignitas and persona in the Roman notion of aequitas’ (p.78).

In ‘The Languages of the Legal and Administrative Documents from the Judaean Desert’, HC asserts that ‘All scholars agree that Aramaic was the dominant language of the Jews in Palestine during the first and second-centuries CE’ (p.129). That assertion, however, is outmoded and misleading. For example, see Uri Mor, ‘Language Contact in Judea: How Much Aramaic Is There in the Hebrew Documents from the Judean Desert?’, in Hebrew Studies, vol. 52 (2011), where he argued persuasively that

‘Hebrew was spoken alongside Aramaic during the days of the Second Temple and ceased to be spoken around the beginning of the third century C.E…. A detailed philological investigation and socio-linguistic inspection of this corpus reveal that it represents a living spoken Hebrew dialect, very close to Rabbinic Hebrew’.

And David Flusser (1917-2000), a member of the Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences, who published over 700 articles, certainly believed Hebrew was the dominant language spoken in first century Palestine and was used for literary purposes also. HC’s examination of the evidence is fulsome, but here explanations are conventional throughout.

Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD) are interpreted variously. Students of inscriptions tend toward conjecture when attempting to tell a story. One should follow closely to see if the DJD facts lead to an author’s conclusions. How can scholars give their consent to the view that ‘It may not be a coincidence therefore that there are no documents in Hebrew which date to the years before the first revolt, or to the period between the two revolts’[?] (p.136). Later she admits that ἑβραϊστί may refer to Aramaic or Hebrew in the correspondence of Bar Khokhba (p.186 – ‘The Bar Khokhba Revolt and the Documents from the Judaean Desert’). Readers might want to find surer ground to stand on, as in the authoritative investigation by R. Buth, C. Pierce, ‘Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean “Aramaic”?’ (The Language Environment of First Century Judaea, Brill, 2014). In their analysis of the term, they illustrate copiously how, in their opinion, the term can only refer to Hebrew.

Likewise, HC is known for her scholarship on the Babatha Archive[i]. It is so named for a Jewish lady from Maḥoza (Maoza). Documents about her range in time over 35 years from c.AD94 to 132. These business records were hidden securely in a cave, which makes sense if one wanted to account for transactions of importance. Why they were placed in the location where they were found is anyone’s guess. More questions are raised upon reading. After the annexation (pp.403-404), how pervasive was Romanization in Arabia? Was the former Nabatean kingdom a new client kingdom or merely an unfortunate province, now hampered by subjugation? HC’s two papers, ‘Some Aspects of the Roman Administration of Judaea/Syria-Palaestina’ and ‘Jewish Jurisdiction under Roman Rule: Prolegomena’, are helpful but not on Arabian questions or on peculiar Nabatean policies. And despite the title, ‘Ἡ νέα ἐπαρχεία Ἀραβία: The New Province of Arabia in the Papyri from the Judaean Desert’, it sheds less light on the ‘province’ than its title implies the papyri will do.

The documentary evidence for contrasting Talmudic legal jurisprudence with Greco-Roman law is problematic. Receipts, deeds of sale, contracts and so forth are often heralded by legal experts in several disciplines. Names indicate Jewishness in these papyri only in so far as it can be demonstrated that non-Jewish persons in the Nabatean world did not use similar nomenclature in their own familial circles, as in the case of Soumaïos’ letter, P.Yadin 52 (pp.183-187). As HC states, the letter could have been written in Greek because Soumaïos was incapable of forming/placing his Nabatean thoughts in print via Jewish letters. As a consequence of the emended Greek text, it also might mean that there was nothing more than an unwillingness on the writer’s part to generate his thoughts outside of Greek, that what could ‘not be found’, or ‘produced’, was an innate wish to write that specific letter in Jewish idiom.

Regarding the custody or guardianship of children (orphans), the Greek word ἐπίτροπος/administrator does not appear to have antecedent forms in Jewish law (p.412); but in a case like this one, the lack of verification to the contrary should encourage classicists to look extensively into ancient near eastern texts and modern scholarship on them: in that part of the Levant the Emar tablets clearly show close similarities despite the lack of a term like ‘guardian’ in Sumerian or Akkadian. See ‘Custody of Children in Late Bronze Age Syria, in the Light of Documents from Emar’, in Edd. U. Yiftach, M. Faraguna, Ancient Guardianship: Legal Incapacities in the Ancient World (2013).

In her excellent last paper on ‘The Conception of Jesus’, she proves that betrothal was a significant part of the marriage process, stating ‘The structure of the story, as related in the Gospels, appears to reflect a very particular context in which the nature and portentous consequences of betrothal were clearly understood… acts of betrothal – and divorce – are decidedly crucial for the legal status of the children born to a couple (pp. 543-4)’. Interesting sidelights are provided as she contemplates Talmudic attitudes. HC devotes little space to supernatural aspects of religion. Her disquiet over the Gospel accounts is overt (p.536). Her remarks regarding Tannaitic comments are guarded (p.457f.), and her belief in ignoring Roman lore is on display in this volume.

Additional Comments:

Everywhere in her administrative research, HC compares Judaea with Egypt. The comparisons do not convince. In numerous instances, she admits a point is true or valid only to resist that consideration in the next line or paragraph. On p.174, in reflecting on papyri from the Judean desert, she says ‘the evidence of these documents cannot be set aside as reflecting the habits of fringe groups or sects, as the documents from Qumran do’. But what group utilized or wrote the Qumran scrolls? Reems of paper have been devoted to research on this topic, and decades later no one knows if they were a fringe group or not.

From what is delineated on page 310 about ου καί, emendations of Greek texts may not be her forte. Additional aid in her work on private international law in the Roman world could have been found in the writings of Arthur Nussbaum (1877-1964), Research Professor of Public Law at Columbia, who is absent from her bibliography. His 1952 paper, ‘The Significance of the Roman Law in the History of International Law’ (University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 100) contains a rich survey of material on this subject. HC, in her study, ‘Some Aspects of the Roman Administration of Judaea/Syria-Palestina’, refers to the title procurator in this way in a footnote: ‘For this designation there is no epigraphic evidence in Judaea’ (p.319,fn.9). Further investigations are needed. HC explores a few on (pp.322-323). How do we construe it all? Was Judaea a public province or an imperial one? The Pilate inscription found at Caesarea Maritima that was discovered in June 1961 refers to Pilate as ‘Praefect’. But HC does not define, nor does she disentangle any classical nuances between the two administrative titles, which in their strictest Latin senses were synonymous – as she avers on page 319. And in relation to those Latin ascriptions, what exactly is implied by her use of the English term ‘governor’? Tacitus referred to Pilate as Procurator of Judaea (Annals 15.44) as do English versions (KJV,NIV,NRSV,REB) of the Matthew at 27.2,11. Her definitions of ‘proconsul, and ‘propraetor’  in the illuminating paper ‘Cassius Dio, Mommsen and the Quinquefascales’ complicate how readers will apprehend her use of ‘governor’. On the other hand, the change of name of Judaea to Syria-Palaestina never suppressed ‘the Jewish identity of the province’ (p.323). If anything, Jews zealously embraced their identity, safeguarded relevant features of it, and by it fostered in them a xenophobia of the fiercest kind. Besides, Rome would have imposed its non-Jewish will upon (the Jewish provinces of) Palestine whatever its name.

HC’s faith in the view that the ‘guardianship by women’ (p.410) was created to satisfy Roman legal restrictions does not persuade, nor does her suggestion that ‘we may have in Arabia the first example for such an adaptation of local custom, and another expression of Romanization’ (loc. cit.). In her article ‘The Rabbis and the Documents’ she writes of an oath formula believing ‘that “the Roman oath ‘by the genius of the emperor’ was not yet familiar in Egypt”. It is doubtful if she is correct. But a corrective to her 1998 article is Kimberley Czajkowski, ‘Jewish Attitudes towards the Imperial Cult’ (SCI Vol. XXXIV 2015).

Certain classicists refer to themselves as ‘historians.’ In not a few cases the label is a misattribution. For Professor Cotton, however, the title is justly deserved. This essay collection provides plentiful data on material records from ancient pasts as well as information on the techniques and guidelines of reliable historical method. Historians of the ancient Levant should take notice. Each paper requires special tools for these literary expeditions, which take readers along the painstaking paths that have occupied HC during her fruitful career. And even if she writes with verve and clarity, numerous journals and volumes still are needed within reach to follow and/or validate the intricate points of her arguments. This collection is of note and deserves close inspection.

N.B These articles were kept in their ‘original form’, aside from ‘references to forthcoming publications’ (p.IV). It would be nice to see each one thoroughly revised. If revision occurs, on page 32, instead of ‘…Pliny in his solicitation of behalf of…’, write ‘…Pliny in his solicitation on behalf of…’.

ENDNOTE [i] For general and reliable information about the Babatha Archive, see N. Lewis, ‘The Complete Babatha: More Questions than Answers’, in SCI 2003, pp.189-192. And, J.G. Oudshoorn, General Introduction – I. The Archives, in The Relationship between Roman and Local Law in the Babatha and Salome Komaise Archives, (Brill,2005)

Darrell Sutton is a Classicist

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Front Loading

Posted on June 16, 2024 by leslie

The Sir Titus Salt, former Wetherspoon pub in Bradford, credit Wikipedia

Front Loading,
by Bill Hartley

It’s not hard to find a Wetherspoon pub in our larger towns and cities. There are more than 800 of them in Britain and Ireland. Last year the company reported its largest ever volume of sales over the Easter weekend. The low price, large scale business model works well and the collapse of so many city centre enterprises has provided lots of premises for the company to choose from, when creating a new branch.

Wetherspoon is noted for breathing new life into buildings by adapting them for the licensed trade. In Liverpool, for example, there are three, the largest of which stands at the front of Lime Street Station and occupies the ground floor of the old North Western Hotel. This vast building was erected by a railway company back in the days of transatlantic steamer travel. Having stood empty for years, the upper stories became student accommodation, with a Wetherspoon below. People joke that it’s possible to complete a degree course without ever leaving the building: transport into the city, food, drink, accommodation, even employment, all being available in the same place.

What the company does is to seamlessly insert a branch into a town giving the impression that it’s always been there. In doing so it creates some significant contrasts. The product may be the same but the delivery points vary enormously. The North East provides some interesting examples.

Richmond in North Yorkshire has the Ralph Fitz Randal, named after an obscure medieval monk. The premises were formerly the post office building, which has since migrated to a big shed on a nearby trading estate. This Wetherspoon is a genteel establishment which caters for the over sixties market. Richmond is a popular destination amongst this age group. They move around the town window shopping, couples wearing the ubiquitous small rucksacks which seem indispensable to this age group. Come refreshment time they head for the Ralph Fitz Randal, which amidst the steep gradients lies conveniently on a flat bit of town. By mid morning the place takes on the air of a rest home where everything moves at a sedate pace. It is of course supposed to be a pub but there’s no scramble for attention. Instead, customers patiently form queues at the bar to order food or acquire coffee cups. The staff are attentive and kindly with a slightly patronising air, which suggests they may need to repeat themselves before being fully understood. Moving around the tables, they present more like care workers than waiters. Unfortunately the building lies close to the local Methodist church and the undertaker’s. Consequently the best dressed people in the place tend to be mourner’s looking for a pre funeral bracer, or the undertaker’s staff having just finished a job. A collection of black clad customers rather spoils the mood.

A few miles north of Richmond there are two branches in Darlington. The Tanner’s Hall is conveniently close to various bookmakers and is a gloomy no frills establishment, catering for what might politely be described as dedicated drinkers. These are people often of indeterminate age who can be found there throughout the day. Wetherspoon opens its premises early in the morning and this seems to be an arrangement particularly welcomed by the Tanner’s Hall clientele. Employment doesn’t appear to make any demands of this group and some are thoughtful enough to leave their mobility scooters at the door. Comments on the Tripadvisor website give as much an indication of what it must be like to work there, as about the standard of service. Here the staff have to deal with collapsing customers and some of the town’s stranger people. One reviewer complained that they were slow in rendering first aid to a customer; another suggested that a member of staff was drunk. There is the sense that a few hours into a shift the staff are rather less cheerful and accommodating than they were at the outset. Dissatisfied customers are prepared to use an online review to seek revenge, by identifying the individual whom they claim caused offence: ‘blonde, hair in a bun’.

If The Tanner’s Hall is a hardship posting for Wetherspoon staff, then a few minutes’ walk away is the William Thomas Stead where the customer base is much different. Named after a former editor of the Northern Echo [Editorial note, and the author of ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’], Mr Stead was unfortunate enough to have gone down with the Titanic. This is a family friendly establishment where the daytime drinking enthusiasts would definitely not fit in. Shoppers and those with young children can seek refreshment here, without sharing space with the ‘strange’ people in the sister establishment across town.

If the Tanner’s Hall has its own particular challenges then for sheer hard work the Milecastle may be the ultimate. Situated in Newcastle city centre, this vast building, which operates over three stories, has the look of a former insurance company premises. The name reflects the cities’ Roman heritage. Hadrian’s Wall is supposed to have run close by; at least until Mr Stephenson drove his railway through the district.

The enormous interior space is augmented by exterior facilities for those rare days in Newcastle when it is warm enough to sit outdoors. The unacclimatised visitor may be reluctant to use these facilities but for the locals a few rays of sunshine seem enough for them to don beach wear and enjoy al fresco drinking in the city centre.

Being on three floors the trade is stratified. The ground floor is the province of pensioners and shoppers. Above this level it is easy to discover why the staff can be worked very hard indeed. Newcastle is very much a party town and at any point in an afternoon the Milecastle may have to cope with a sudden surge. Downstairs life continues at a steady pace, up above there always seems to be a gathering in operation, gradually increasing in size as the afternoon wears on. It reflects a phenomenon known as ‘front loading’ and the staff have to learn how to cope with this. Obviously there are smarter places for the younger element to drink but these tend to be much more expensive. The Research Society on Alcoholism admits that the phenomenon is ‘not well studied’. Anyone from the society wishing to do some fieldwork would find the Milecastle a useful location. The idea is to fill up on cheaper Wetherspoon booze before moving on elsewhere in the early evening. An American study has found that this is a mostly female practise and the Milecastle would seem to bear this out.

With the staff being required to operate the bar and act as waiters it can be quite a challenge to manage both, particularly as the numbers swell and the demand for over the counter drinks increases. Staff have to cope with this, serve meals and move up and down three flights of stairs. It is quite a contrast with the homely atmosphere of the Richmond establishment, or serving the sometimes difficult but largely somnolent types in the Tanner’s Hall.

Wetherspoon is very adaptable and the positives go beyond just the reasonable prices. The company employs over 40,000 people and has brought back to life many large redundant buildings in town centres, which might otherwise have struggled to find a tenant.

William Hartley is a Social Historian

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Tosca Redux

Posted on June 5, 2024 by leslie

Castel SantAngelo, credit Wikipedia

Tosca Redux

Tosca, Opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Luigi Illica & Giuseppe Glacosa, first revival of the 2008 production, directed by Stephen Barlow, City of London Sinfonia conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren, Opera Holland Park, June 1st 2024, reviewed by Leslie Jones

Mario Cavaradossi, depicted in this production as a scruffy, left-leaning street artist, and Floria Tosca, an opera diva dressed to kill, make a somewhat unlikely couple. Sixteen years on, Amanda Echalaz, as Tosca once again, now “brings to the character the added patina of a watchful, maturing woman capable of jealousy” (Claudia Pritchard, Culture Whisper, 20th May 2024). Perhaps it is her age that makes her uncertain of her lover’s loyalty. For as Alexandra Wilson observes, Tosca is “jealous and neurotic, capricious and demanding”, a far cry from Mimi in La Bohème (‘Toxic Machismo and Pungent Irony’, Official Programme). And jealousy is a weakness that Scarpia, chief of the state police and an astute psychologist, is only too eager to manipulate. Iago, as he observes, had a handkerchief with which he befuddled Othello. “I have a fan”, he triumphantly proclaims, to wit, that of the Marchesa Attavanti, the sister of the political fugitive Cesare Angelotti, who Cavaradossi is protecting.

Stephen Barlow, the director of Tosca, notes that given the length of time since this production last appeared, this is “a re-visit rather than a simple revival”. There have been certain changes, accordingly. The performance is set in 1968 during elections and “authoritarian crackdowns”. Populists such as Vitellio Scarpia, “a would-be rapist and ruthless manipulator of a cowed and gullible people”, are “stocking fears while offering easy solutions” (Gary Naylor, Broadway World). Scarpia (Morgan Pearse) is “the champion of cleanliness, order and morality”, “a most commanding creep” (see Boyd Tonkin, ‘Passion and Populism’, the artsdesk.com 29/05/2024). “Thank heavens”, Naylor pointedly remarks, “nobody of so flawed a character could ever run for election in a democracy in 2024”.

In a review of Tosca at Royal Opera in 2014, tenor Roberto Alagna’s underwhelming performance of Mario Cavaradossi was referred to (Quarterly Review, ‘Tosca by Numbers’, May 21 2014). We were reminded of Richard Burton’s comments on acting in his Diaries, edited by Chris Williams. “I am easily bored”, Burton confided, “I am excited by the idea of something but its execution bores me”. On one occasion, Burton relieved the tedium by playing Hamlet as a homosexual. On another, he recited “To be or not to be”, in German. Roberto Alagna is “a prodigiously gifted singer”, but sometimes he seems to only be going through the motions. José de Eça, in contrast, received a warm reception for his rendition of ‘Recondita armonia’ (albeit not the five minute ovation that Franco Corelli once famously enjoyed). A similar comparison could be made between Amanda Echalaz’s spirited performance of the role of Tosca at Opera Holland Park and that of Ukrainian soprano Oksana Dyka, admittedly a technically very accomplished artist, in the afore mentioned production at Covent Garden.

Tosca was one of the first operas that your reviewer attended, at Opera Holland Park, many years ago. In 2024, Puccini’s timeless masterpiece delivers once again.

Dr Leslie Jones is Editor of QR

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Endnotes, June 2024

Posted on May 28, 2024 by leslie

Endnotes, June 2024

In this edition: a farewell to Sir Andrew Davis; rare English works on the EM Records label; Nielsen from Bergen

Sir Andrew Davis, British international conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Toronto, Melbourne, Chicago and Royal Stockholm orchestras, 1944-2024.

Portrait photo of Sir Andrew Davis, credit Wikipedia

For Proms devotees of the 1980s and ‘90s, the conductor Sir Andrew Davis was one of those charismatic presences which shaped that famous summer Festival. Born in Hertfordshire in 1944, Andrew Frank Davis was destined for a prominent career in music. An organ scholar at Cambridge. Sir Andrew later recalled how his tutors told him ‘to specialise’ — a particular form of discipline that he actually wanted to avoid. Hopeful of conducting engagements and of making a name as an exponent of the atonal Second Viennese School, he also remembered how surprised he was to be drafted in, not for Anton Webern, but for a Classics for Pleasure recording of Rule, Britannia! — a work that was destined to travel with him throughout his life, as he went in to conduct the Last Night of the Proms on more than ten occasions.

Music by British composers, especially Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Tippett, drew some of the finest performances from Sir Andrew, yet he turned his hand to Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius, Nielsen, Mahler, Schoenberg with equal dedication and feeling. At the 1990 Proms, in tribute to his late predecessor at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Pritchard, he conducted Mahler’s ‘Resurrection Symphony’; and, like Sir John, delighted in the huge, resonant late-romantic works which could fill the Royal Albert Hall, both in sound and in audience numbers.

Sir Andrew Davis carved out a glittering international career with the Toronto, Chicago and Melbourne Symphony orchestras; and productions, including Gilbert and Sullivan, at the Chicago Lyric Opera. Famously, he once sang the Last Night of the Proms conductor’s speech to a G & S tune and appeared at the 1988 Last Night festivities with a life-size cardboard cut-out of Australian composer, Percy Grainger. (Percy Grainger’s very own piano roll was used in a performance of the Grieg concerto!)

Renowned for his good humour and wit, Sir Andrew was once likened, by a past member of the LPO choir, to a ‘jolly geography teacher’; a description which showed how much this conductor was liked by the musicians who worked with him. The Royal Albert Hall will be an emptier place without him.

Having said goodbye to one of our great conductors, how heartening to see so many talented British conductors now making great strides on the international and national stage. Edward Gardner, for example ~ just like Sir Andrew Davis ~ has earned a fine reputation for his BBC Symphony concerts, and for a cycle of Nielsen symphonies on the Chandos label. Most recently, Gardner has completed a production with one of Norway’s leading ensembles, the Bergen Philharmonic, of Nielsen’s Third Symphony (1910-11), coupled with the ‘Pastoral Scene for Orchestra’ Pan and Syrinx, and the Concerto for Flute and Orchestra ~ with Adam Walker as the (brilliant) soloist. Anyone who remembers this musician’s playing of the flute part in Walton’s Symphony No. 1, third movement, at the Proms a year ago, will understand the use of the word brilliant.

Dankvart Dreyer (1816-1852), view of Funen, 1843

Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, subtitled Sinfonia Espansiva, contains one of the most mysterious and enchanting movements of the early-20th century period: a long, languid meditation ~ filled with summer breezes ~ with a hypnotic vocalise at its height, performed here by Lina Johnson (soprano) and Yngve Soberg (baritone). As ever with Chandos records, the sound-engineering is immaculate, capturing the Bergen orchestra’s rich timbres; yet the ushering in of the two voices at that magical point in the movement is a little jolting ~ not quite as subtle or seamless as it is on another Chandos disc devoted to the same piece from a couple of decades ago, conducted by Rozhdestvensky. Nevertheless, a notable recording of a symphony that is not aired enough.

John Andrews, a regular with the English Music Festival, is another fine British talent who wields the baton on an EM Records disc of rare repertoire: Quilter, Delius, Havergal Brian, Alexander Mackenzie, Cyril Scott, Norman O’Neill’s La BelleDame sans Merci and another ‘scena’, the Norse saga of 1898-1900 by Holst, Ornulf’sDrapa ~ sung by that resonant baritone voice, Roderick Williams. In an essay by music writer, Stephen Banfield (written in 1990 for Deutsche Grammophon), he states that O’Neill, Cyril Scott et al belonged to a ‘doomed milieu’ of ‘lop-sided’, monstrously sized orchestrations, enveloped in theosophy, esoterica and mysticism. Only Holst, argued Banfield, with his suite, The Planets, emerged from this lost world. Yet as we can see and hear from the new disc, it is now clear (thanks to the English Music Festival) that many works, even by Holst ~ thought lost or just beyond salvation ~ can now be given a completely fresh evaluation and appreciation.

The BBC Concert Orchestra plays with strong conviction, especially in Mackenzie’s stirring, romantic Colomba of 1898; and as sensitive accompanists to violinist Rupert Marshall-Luck, whose orchestration of Havergal Brian’s Legend adds further period feel to an important collection.

CD details:
Nielsen, Symphony No. 3, Flute Concerto, Chandos CHSA 5312.
Quilter, Delius, O’Neill et al, EM Records, EMR CD085.

Stuart Millson is the Classical Music Editor of The Quarterly Review

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | 1 Comment