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Cinquante Ans de Modernit Musicale: De Darmstadt
IRCAM. Contribution historiographique une musicologie
critique by Clestin Delige. Sprimont: Mardaga,
Collection Musique/Musicologie, dir. Malou Haine.
E65.00.
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For me, that one insight is worth all the argument of Vaughan Williams and the Symphony.
Then in Julian Onderdonks chapter Hymn
Tunes from Folk-songs: Vaughan Williams and
English Hymnody, there is a detailed and fascinating examination of how that same folkderived originality of thinking is reflected in
Vaughan Williamss adaptations of traditional
tunes for The English Hymnal. In doing so,
Onderdonk helps us understand how Vaughan
Williams could have concluded that there is no
difference in kind but only in degree between
Beethoven and the humblest singer of folk-song.
Granted, not all the chapters in Vaughan
Williams Essays are as stimulating as these two. I
would have liked more detailed probing into how
Vaughan Williamss film music works with cinematic images (Music Film and Vaughan
Williams), but Daniel Goldmarks central thrust
that the film music is worth taking at least as seriously as the concert works that grew from it is
well made. Walter Aaron Clarks examination of
the clash and cross-fertilization of modes espe-
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Without his approval no public musical performance could take place. He did not allow
Dohnnyi to perform at the Salzburg Festival
because of the artists war criminal activities.
Following Dohnnyis energetic request for
proof, the cornered bureaucrat declined to
specify the accusations. Neither he nor anyone
else could produce any evidence: the truth was
that Dohnnyi, not wanting to enforce antiJewish regulations, resigned from his position of
President of the Academy of Music and
disbanded the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra.
He also signed many petitions and applications
that helped people leave Hungary and escape
from deportation or persecution.
He saved hundreds of people whose names he never
even cared to know. To act in this way required not
only generosity but also immense courage and even
audacity. To express any contrary opinion could easily
cost someones life. Dohnnyis principle, however,
was to never be afraid: the greater the danger, the less
one should withdraw from it. Dohnnyi loved
standing up to people and telling them his opinion
frankly and openly (p. 124).
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perhaps, why). In this regard, of course, the situation in Britain differed greatly from that in the
States, where film composition was far more a
semi-industrial specialism in which concert
composers did not dabble; and it is indeed by
means of comparison with Hollywood that the
book proceeds. At its heart, however, are four
chapters concerned with more or less detailed
discussion of a number of British films and their
scores and the fact that several of these titles
are so far from any mainstream recognition or
prominence that they appear not to have been
examined before is a highly important feature of
the book and one for which it deserves some
credit, whatever else one has to say about it.
By which, of course, I mean that while this
study is obviously a labour of love (or, at any
rate, ambivalence: Swynnoe is the kind of writer
who cannot praise Caesar unless simultaneously
burying him), its inadequacies are so manifold
that from its very opening discussions of the
differences between British and American films;
of formulae in the classical Hollywood score;
and of how American and British composers
compare in their approach to film scoring the
book undermines itself in every conceivable way.
The most immediately apparent of these inadequacies is the presence of the old genetic
fallacy in a version with which every A-level
examiner will be depressingly familiar: the belief
that in order to properly understand what something is and isnt, we first need to hear all about
where it came from and how it might have come
about. Thus we at once encounter a deal of
historical perspective whose sheer irrelevance
means that it contributes more to the studys
length than to its depth. Secondly, it turns out
that the discussion itself not only rests upon
historical, sociological and social-psychological
musings of a distinctly homespun kind, but also
employs some worryingly stereotypical and
monolithic ideas of national character and
culture. In short order, for example, we read that
Passionate conviction was a quality which Korda
had probably found sadly lacking in the British
character (p.xii); of qualities that are unique to
the British people (p.xiii); and of the way Our
[sic] culture, including our native literature, our
very way of viewing ourselves, is deeply influenced by the unconscious recognition that we
inhabit a very compact and relatively unthreatening terrain (this in contrast to something
called the American psychological inheritance,
which apparently results from the background
of continuous battling with the unimaginably
vast and hostile landscape that is the lot of many
Americans [p.xiv]). We also learn about The
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that Diatonic stepwise melodies were the fingerprint of a Steiner melody [sic] (p.92) or that The
electronic score for Escapement (1958), a sciencefiction thriller, is another rare fugitive from the
orchestral score [sic] (p.190). Or in which we find
at least three references to a film-maker supposedly named D. W. Griffiths (see after sedation
pp.231 and 232). Or, indeed, in which William
Waltons score for a film erroneously said to be
called The [sic] Battle of Britain (pp.186, 213, 231,
238) is incorrectly described as lost (p.213), and
its single retained cue wrongly referred to as the
Battle of [recte: in] the Air (p.231).
One might, however, have found it possible to
forgive or, at any rate, to overlook some of the
above-described failings had the books technical
and analytical investigations reached a significantly higher level. Unfortunately (and greatly as
I wish I could say this were not so) too much of
the musical discussion and analysis is either
misguided, superficial, or flawed far too much,
when one considers that this book will be considered a reference work for students and others
who are unlikely to have access to obscure and
unobtainable titles like The Halfway House (Lord
Berners, 1944) and Blue Scar (Grace Williams,
1949). To be frank, however, the discovery of
analytical inadequacy hardly comes as news:
ones sheerly musical faith in the author has been
eroded long before the central chapters are
reached. For one thing, there have been simply
too many pronouncements that seemed determined to present one-and-a-half musical
untruths in the smallest possible space (In the
final analysis, Strausss orchestration could never
realistically be described as sweet, any more
than Wagners music could be called tuneful
[p.24]; The overall sound of a Hollywood score
approximates more to something like a cross
between Tchaikovsky and early Schoenberg [p.24;
incredulity added]). For another, the authors
musicianly sensibility seems to have enjoyed a
restful slumber during the selection of many a
would-be supportive or illustrative quotation. In
need of a statement about Wagners conception
of the aesthetic possibilities of the leitmotif , for
example, she turns neither to Wagners writings
nor to anything in his actual music but instead
quotes three sentences from (of all slanted
things!) Adorno-Eisler (p.27). And requiring a
description of what was considered the appropriate approach to the composition of music for
main titles in Hollywood, she looks no further
(or deeper) than a discussion by Kathryn Kalinak
in which Korngolds non-modulating, secondsubject-less, development-free curtain-raiser to
Captain Blood is actually said to be a variation of
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provide is any support whatsoever for the inference which doesnt derive from Parlett that the
decades-old tune was used merely because Bax
was running short of time. He may have been, of
course; or he may not (one gathers that the score
as written is around 60 minutes in length, thus
constituting Baxs longest orchestral work; on the
other hand he did have ten weeks to do it in, and
not all of it is densely written). What is more, we
have no reason to assume that Bax scored the first
scenes first and the last scenes last and if we are
expected to believe that he did, Swynnoe really
ought to have informed the virginal reader that
some of the films earliest music was also derived
from a pre-existing score. In short, the text ought
at the very least to have presented the equally plausible possibility that for the Dawn music Bax
utilized an existing tune because he thought it worked
well there (Swynnoes worry about questions of
stylistic consistency [p.86] is not the only manifestation in the book of that noisome aesthetic redherring) and unless the author can produce some
actual evidence that was not presented in the book,
her assertion must be viewed as an example of just
the sort of unsupported storying that gives musicology a worse name.
But then, there seems to be something in the
very nature of the topic that causes people to see
things as they are not. And as proof I can do no
better than cite Colin Matthews whose review of
this book (actually less a review than a condensed
recapitulation) develops part of its argument with
the help of a rather despairing quotation from Bax
which apropos the tension between music and
dialogue reads: It is impossible to pay attention
to two things at the same time if they appeal to
different parts of the intelligence (TLS, 16 August
2002). My regard for one of Britains foremost
living composers must not prevent me revealing
that he has thereby misrepresented the thought of
one of its foremost dead ones by precisely
reversing the meaning of a statement which actually proceeds via the significantly more optimistic
it is possible to pay attention .4
No, I dont know why this sort of thing
happens; but since it plainly does and since the
study of film music is unlikely to come of age
until everyone takes the trouble to ensure that it
doesnt happen any more I propose to examine
another of Swynnoes analyses: her 8-page
discussion5 of Vaughan Williamss contribution
to Michael Powells 49th Parallel (1941).
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We also find that the characters Vogel and Lohrmann are miscalled Fogel and Lohrman (p.146).
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