Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXIV, no. 1 (Spring 1998)
Hue and Cry
German Immigrant Composers
Can anyone lead me to any sources or work that may have been done on the question of German
influence in the U.S. musical scene after 1945? I have considered the usual venues, such as
biographies of emigre composers and the extensive work by Germans on "exile research," and have also
found some related articles on the brain-drain influence of composers, conductors, musicologists,
educators, and theorists. I would be especially grateful for any leads to other resources and would
welcome any advice for investigating the commercial aspects of German-American relations in the music
business from 1945 to 1961. Please direct all responses directly to Pamela M.
Potter, University of Wisconsin-Madison (pmpotter@facstaff.wisc.edu).
Copland-Sessions Concerts
I am working on my lecture-recital at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, dealing with
the piano music at the Copland-Sessions Concert Series in NY from 1929-31. I have had
difficulty in locating some of the scores. Can you help me in finding out whether the following
music has been even published or in existence in some other collections: North
Country Suite by Jeffrey Mark, Six Piano Pieces by Henry Brant,
Six Poems, Two Dances, and Three Moods by Leo Ornstein, Second Piano
Sonata by Jerzy Fitelberg, Sonatina for Piano by Israel Citkowitz,
Recitative by Istavan Szelenyi, and Piano Study by Imre Weisshaus?
Hann Yim (hanna@peabody.jhu.edu;
(410) 467-1438).
A Sea Dirge?
I have always wondered why Charles Ives gave the title "A Sea Dirge" to his
setting of Shakespeare's "Full Fathom Five." It's just an appropriate title
but by no means an inevitable one; wouldn't just "Full Fathom Five" have
worked better as a title?
In fact, "A Sea Dirge" is the title under which "Full Fathom Five" appears in
Francis Turner Palgrave's The Golden Treasury, where it is contrasted with
"A Land Dirge," Palgrave's title for John Webster's "Call up the robin-redbreast
and the wren." The Golden Treasure, which first appeared in 1861 and reached
its final form in 1896, was the standard gift-book anthology of English verse for
many years after its publication. (Ezra Poiund hated it; Upton Sinclair loved it
enough to have Lanny Budd read it on sentry duty in the novel Presidential
Mission.
I'm not suggesting that Ives first learned "Full Fathom Five" from The Golden
Treasury. He was, after all, a cultivated reader, who set texts from such poets
as Folgore di San Gemignano, Manilius, and Ariosto. But I do think he got the
title from The Golden Treasury. And Perhaps he was inspired to set the
poem by running into it in Palgrave.
--Wayne Shirley
Updated 4/15/98