Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXIV, no. 2 (Summer 1998)
Letters from . . .
Letter from Paris
Fans of Agatha Christie mysteries, either the novels or the popular televsion sereies, will be familiar
with the irritation of the Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, when is is mistaken for being French.
Canadians know how he feels when we are mistaken for "Americans," that is, for citizens of the United States. This
"Letter from Canada" actually comes from Paris where I have been for the past few months. Among many things that I
have been watching out for is a Canadian musical presence, especially in a season where the American, i.e., USA,
presence has been particularly strong.
We Canadians are not easy to find on the crowed Paris musical scene, and when we are, the national
origin is likely to be overlooked. One of the problems is that, although "America" is taken the world over
to refer to the United States, the word is also commonly used inclusively to mean the North (but not
usually the South) American Continent. When IRCAM, the centre for contemporary music attached to the Centre
Georges Pompidou had a series of lectures and concerts on "La musique nord-américaine" and invited its
audiences "to explore the American continent," however, it really meant composers from the United States. There
were token inclusions of music by Silvestre Revueltas and Colin McPhee on one of the concerts. McPhee was
a Canadian by birth, but he spent all his creative life in the USA nad was probably in this context thought of
as being representative of that country. Nevertheless, we Canadians, and probably the Mexicans, might be
forgiven if we think the directors of IRCAM could use a good atlas. When the Toronto baroque orchestra
Tafelmusik appeared at the Théatre de la Ville, the brochure described them as "the best Amerian orchestra
of period instruments," which I guess is a compliment, but the same item goes on to point out that the orchestra
is financially supported and its members salaried without saying who puts up the money, the implication is
clearly being that it comes from the USA.
Music by Canadian composers has been virtually non-existent in Paris this year; performers are rather better
represented. Russell Braun and Michael Schade are both familiar figures a the Opéra, and both achieved
particular attention by being the soloists on a recording of French opera excerpts with the Canadian Opera
Company, a recording that won the Gabriel Fauré Prize among the Grand Prix awared by the Académie du disque
lyrique. The St. Lawrence Quartet gave a concerrt and included the one major piece by a Canadian to be heard
in Paris this season, R. Murray Schafer's new Quartet no. 6. The very busy Montréal musician
Lorraine Vaillancourt appeard, but as a director of the Nouvel ensemble moderne. THe Vancouver pianist
Jane Coop gave a recital, as did the young violinist from Brandon, Manitoba, James Ehnes, both of them
in major halls. Christopher Jackson from the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal conducted a
number of performances of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in the Paris area. And in a series of films about
pianists at the Louvre, no fewer than three of them were about Glenn Gould, who seems to hold unlimited
fascination for the French and is probably the best-known Canadian musician in the country.
Not surprisingly, popular stars form Qu7#233bec have great successes here in an area where language counts
for a lot. Singers such as Gilles Vigneault, Louise Forestier, Carole Laure, and Diane Dufresne, names
probably unknown in the USA, performed here this winter.
The USA, on the other hand, even allowing for the French fascination for your country, has clearly been fully
admitted to the select group of major cultural nations. Artists, ensembles nad repertoire abound, and pop
groups of every imaginable stripe stream through the city. In addition to the "North American" series at
IRCAM, the Cité de la musique, which includes a concert hall, an information centre, the instrument
museum and, nearby, the Conservatoire, had an extensive sereis of concerts grouped under "L'Amérique."
There were about fifty concerts, films, and dance events that included music ranging from Stephen Foster
and Ives to Duke Ellington and Gospel singers. In the preface to the program book for the season, the Cité
director wrote that the series was devoted to "the discovery of a musical sensibility quite different
from our European categories."
The different musical sensibility that marks North American from Europe, and probably Canada from the
United States, still has the problem of being undervalued in some quarters precisely because it is
different from the European sensibility. If the French treated it this past season as a kind of curiosity
in much the same way as they mounted an exhibition of Scandinavian painting, at least they treat it seriously.
From my own national bias, I wonder what it is that is needed to get the attention of the international artistic
market. There seems to b a marked relationship of political power and geographical position with artistic
importance. Is it really the case that the only interesting music comes chiefly from western Europe and the United
States? Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, or Norway, to take but five random cases, count for virtually nothing in
accounts of twentieth-century music, yet those of us who live in those countries know that there
is much that goes on in them that is vital and original. But perhaps the lesson is in the old admonition that the first
knowledge is to know ourselves. For a long time, the United States looked to Europe for standards and sources of
musical creativity and activity, until finally it valued what it did for itself. It would be nice to be
acknowledged on the Paris stage, but the important thing is to make music for ourselves and to value what we do
for ourselves.
--Carl Morey
University of Toronto
Letter from Virginia
As readers of the most recent Letter from Britain (vol. xxiv, no. 1) will be aware that, since mid-January, Kitty Preston
and I have been, to all intents and purposes, exchanging lives. Until August, Kitty is based at Keele and I am here at
The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. We have swapped offices and teaching duties, houses and cars; each of our
familities has come with us, and so my wife and two children are also enjoying the experience of
being temporary Americans. This Letter from Virginia is thus written at least in part as a second
installment in the documenting of our exchange.
A a superficial level, our two institutions couldn't be more different. Keele was founded less than fifty years ago
and, as Kitty noted, is located in pleasant rolling countryside, two miles outside Stoke on Trent, the
conurbation known as "The Potteries." With the exception of nineteenth-century Keele Hall, the Clock House, and
a few other buildings, Keele's architecture is decidedly twentieth-century; the contrast with the landscaped
estate is at times startling. Like almost every other British University, Keele is a public institution
and as a consequence grossly underfunded; its students come mainly from blue collar and white collar backgrounds,
probably in equal proportions. William and Mary, meanwhile, has the feel of an Oxbridge college -- in age (chartered
1693, its alumni include presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe), in position (right in the center of
Williamsburg), in layout, in look (the older part of campus is particularly fine), and in apparent wealth;
its students seem primarily middle class. From the "user" point-of-view, there are also significant
differences: Keele was founded on the premise that staff as well as students should live on campus, and this still
holds true for over half of academic faculty. Thus, back home, I have a five-minute walk to work, and a range
of shops are located between the students' union and the main library. Here at William and Mary, unless you
live near the center of town (and in my experience most faculty don't) there's the enevitable commute in--which in my
case means a twenty-minute drive--and the even more inevitable small travel for shopping. However, I'm enjoying
the new-found luxury of haveing real time in which to adjust mentally between work and home.
Beyond these gross generalizations, however, I have been pleasantly surprised by both the similarities
between the two institutions, and a number of more subtle differences. Keele was the first university in Britain
to require students to study more than one subject; typically, students take what in America would be termed two majors,
and one minor. Another requirement is that all students study both arts and sciences -- so someone majoring
in (say) Music and English has to take a science minor. As a consequence, the Keele regime is analogous to that
of a liberal arts college like William and Mary. Admittedly, students here tend to take a number of Music electives,
rather than majoring (or, in W&Mese, concentrating) in Music; but the broad parameters are similar. The
principal difference lies in the degree to which faculty can assume prior knowledge on the part of the student:
at Keele, students have either to meet matriculation requirments (by possessing prior qualifications in both
the theoretical and practical aspects of hte discipline) or take a special pre-degree program bringing them
up to that level. In America, as readers will be well aware, this is not the case.
The impact of this subtle difference has been felt in my teaching. More by change than design, the two
courses I have taught this semester are essentially re-runs of courses I gave at Keele in the autumn:
"Music in the United States" and "British Rock." In each case, back at home, it was possible to launch into
technical analysis of particular pieces without a second thought: the students had the necessary knowledge
to follow the line of arument. My classes at William and Mary, apart from being significantly larger thn back home, have
included students with a wide range of musical interests and abilities. As a consequence, I had to
rethink almost every lecture to ensure that no-one was disadvantaged through the use of non-common
terminology, etc. I actually found this to be a very positive experience, as I have always maintained
a theoretical belie in communicating to as wide an audience as possible; this time I had no option.
Another pairing of similarity and subtle differnece appeared in the levels of interest and understanding shown by
the students in the two classes. Not unexpectedly, the Keele students came to "British Rock" assuming
they knew it all beforehand, and to "Music of the United States" in supposed ignorance. In fact,
neither self-analysis was true; the "rockers" came quickly to realize that listening to Sergeant Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band or The Dark Side of the Moon three times was not the same as analyzing in
considerable detail those albums' lyrical, musical, visual, and historical contexts. Meanwhile, the "AmMus-ers,"
once they had listed all the American music they had previously heard -- both vernacular and cultivated, in
Wiley Hitchcock's splendid terms -- became overnight experts.
One might not unreasonably have expected the reverse to have been true at William and Mary; certainly, as I stood
up to give my first "Music in the US" lecture, I (and presumably the students) wondered what on
earth an Englishman was doing, telling young Americans about their own heritage. The reality proved otherwise, as
quickly became apparent from the looks of surprise (and indeed disbelief) that surfaced when I suggested
that hte first Europeans to explore Virginia had been Spanish, rather than English. (Saying this a metaphorical
stone's-throw from Jamestown was potentially suicidal, but it's true: see Carl Bridenbaugh's fascinating
essay "O-pe-chan-can-ough: A Native American Patriot" in his book Early Americans (OUP, 1981).) IN the
"British Rock" class the surprise was mine; we had to increase the enrollment limit for the class twice (from an
original 40 to a final 57) to accomodate all those who wished to take the course. Nor was it merely
enthusiasm for the subject which was surprising; the depth of knowledge possessed by many of the students was
formidable. Once cool customer, for instance, regularly (but quite politely) ponted out various inaccuracies of
dating, etc., in my presentations. Several spoke to me at length after class about their devotion to
British bands and albums I might otherwise have dismissed -- indeed, the shape of the course was altered to
deal with such input from the class. Ultimately, I found myself wondering what it might be about British
rock from the 1960s and 70s, that a group of American students in their late teens and early
twenties should find so fascinating. (I've come up with some answers, but won't bore you with them here.)
At the time of writing (mid-May), teaching and grading have finished, and I am looking foward to the experience
of this weekend's Commencement celebrations. I realize, though, that the hectic schedule fo the last four months has
prevented me from experiencing the rich Ameircan musical life of the peninsula area (regarding which, an unnecessarily
concientious W&M senior briefed me, some time back). So I shall try to ensure that by the time I write my next Letter--
back in Keele in September--I have properly acquanted myself with the Tuesday night bluegrass jam sessiosn at the
Meridian Coffee Hosue, the historically-informed performances around Colonial Williamsburg, and the cult
local ska band, The Velveteens. Whether I'll also venture down to Virginia Beach--to see, for the first time in
twenty-five years, British progressive rock Band Yes--is another matter. My students want me to, but can I
face coming to terms with my own memories of teenage angst? We'll see.
--David Nichols
Keele University
Updated 8/31/98