Charles Garland Verrinder and Victorian Anglo-Jewish Music
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From Lineage to Legacy: Charles Garland Verrinder and Victorian Anglo-Jewish Music Danielle Louise Padley Jesus College July 2020 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy DECLARATION This thesis is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared below and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or is being concurrently submitted, for a degree or diploma other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution. I further state that no substantial part of my thesis has already been submitted, or is being concurrently submitted, for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution. Elements of the second half of Chapter Two, in which I explore vocal and organ techniques used at the West London Synagogue in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, features in Danielle Padley and Susan Wollenberg, ‘Charles Garland Verrinder: London’s First Synagogue Organist’, Ad Parnassum Studies 12 (2020). Material from the middle section of Chapter Four, which discusses Verrinder’s Hear my cry O God, along with some factual information from Chapters One, Two and Three, have been published in ‘Tracing Jewish Music beyond the Synagogue: Charles Garland Verrinder’s Hear my cry O God’, Nineteenth-Century Music Review 17/2 (2020; online 2019). This submission does not exceed the prescribed word limit for the Degree Committee of the Faculty of Music (80,000 words excluding notes, bibliography, and appendices). ABSTRACT Danielle Louise Padley From Lineage to Legacy: Charles Garland Verrinder and Victorian Anglo-Jewish Music The work of Charles Garland Verrinder (1834-1904) provides an unusual insight into the world of Jewish music in Victorian Britain. An Anglican musician trained as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral and with Royal Organist Sir George Elvey, Verrinder’s forty-five-year career as the first organist of the West London Synagogue (Britain’s first ‘Reform’ synagogue) overlapped with his work for the church as well as with many significant professional and amateur music societies in London. Across his career he composed and arranged numerous Hebrew liturgical settings, some with English translation, and took the opportunity as a respected organist and Doctor of Music to present lectures on Jewish music to the wider Victorian public. This dissertation uses Verrinder’s career as a case study through which to examine the multifaceted nature of Anglo-Jewish music in Victorian Britain. Based within a period of Jewish history rarely examined in detail by musicologists, this area of nineteenth-century musical life has long been associated with standard narratives of Anglo-Jewish political emancipation and religious reform, with a vague and often critical focus on the ‘anglicisation’ of synagogue music for purposes of British assimilation. Providing a new, music-focussed approach to this framework, I examine examples of Verrinder’s liturgical settings to shed light on how such an anglicisation was achieved and on its Jewish and non-Jewish reception. Verrinder’s status as an ‘outsider’ in the Jewish world both complements and complicates accusations of ‘otherness’ which subtly (and unsubtly) pervade Victorian opinion on Jews and Judaism, making him a powerful example of Jewish-Christian musical interaction. To that end, the objective of my dissertation is to loosen the bond between Victorian Anglo-Jewish music and the ‘grand narratives’ of British Jewry, reframing the topic within the context of music-making in Victorian Britain. Exploring Verrinder’s work in comparison with that of other musicians and musical educators, I suggest that the widespread publication and performance of ancient Jewish melodies, contemporary compositions and Jewish-related choral works brought this music into line with the broader opus of Victorian sacred repertoire, blurring the distinction between the synagogue, home, and concert hall. i TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………………..i LIST OF FIGURES………………...……………………………………………………………......…iii LIST OF APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………………..v NOTE ON THE TEXT..……………………………………………………………………………….vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...……….……..………………………………………………………......ix DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………………………....xi INTRODUCTION...……….…….…………………………………………………………..................1 Others and Othering: Anglo-Jewry in Context CHAPTER ONE...……….……..…………………………………………………………..................35 Music for ‘British Jews’: Policy and Practice CHAPTER TWO.………..……..…………………………………………………………...................67 Introducing the other ‘Other’: Verrinder as the ‘double man’ CHAPTER THREE.………..……..………………………………………………………….............113 From Ancient to Modern: Published Collections of Synagogue Music CHAPTER FOUR..………..……..…………………………………………………………..............157 Beyond the Synagogue: Cantatas and Choral Societies CONCLUSION..………..……..…………………………………………………………..................199 The Anglo-Jewish Legacy APPENDICES…...………..……..…………………………………………………….…….............223 BIBLIOGRAPHY..………..……..…………………………………………………………..............241 ii iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Image of Charles Garland Verrinder, late-nineteenth century. Courtesy of Joanna Newland …………………………………………………………………………………………………...xii Figure 2: Detail of map of ‘Jewish East London’ by George Arkell, published in Charles Russell and H. S. Lewis, The Jew in London. A Study of Racial Character and Present-Day Conditions. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1900. Showing the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Bevis Marks (1) and the Great Synagogue, Duke’s Place (2). British Library Collection Items (accessed 14 May 2020) https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/jewish-east-london .……………………...….............11 Figure 3: Poem by ‘S. S.’. Voice of Jacob, 16 September 1841 ………………………………………..16 Figure 4: Detail of ‘Watkins Commercial & General London Directory Map’ by J. Cross & Son, Engravers, London, 1852. Showing the three locations of the West London Synagogue, and All Saints’ Church. Dictionary of Victorian London (accessed 26 June 2017) https://www.victorianlondon.org/1852map/1852map.htm …………………………………...…64 Figure 5: Illustration of the interior of the West London Synagogue of British Jews, Upper Berkeley Street. Illustrated London News, 27 January 1872 ……………………………………...……....65 Figure 6: Image of Charles Garland Verrinder, mid-nineteenth century. Courtesy of Joanna Newland …………………………………………………………………………………………...………67 Figure 7: Table showing the percentage of Alto and Contralto settings in The Music used… ……....136 Figure 8: Table showing settings for Alto not featured in The Music used… Volume 1 ……………137 iv v LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Declaration signed 15 April 1840, on the foundation of the West London Synagogue of British Jews……………………………………………………………………………………..223 Appendix 2: Details of the organs at Margaret Street and Upper Berkeley Street…………………..224 Appendix 3: Table showing variations between editions of The Music used in the Services of the West London Synagogue, as found in different libraries and archives .………...…..................227 Appendix 4: Comparisons of traditional melodies across The Ancient Melodies, The Music used… and the ‘Blue Book’ ………………………………………………………………….………...229 Appendix 5: Verrinder’s appointments, public engagements, and publications……………………... 233 vi vii NOTE ON THE TEXT All sources from the West London Synagogue archives are part of the Anglo-Jewish Archive, held at the Hartley Library, University of Southampton. These sources are distinguishable by the code MS 140. Where dates are given in full (as in letters and other correspondence), I have included them; others I have identified by month and year or by the description given on the document. Due to library closures since March 2020, I have not been able to acquire high-quality images for certain musical examples; in lieu of these, photographs taken early on in my research are currently provided. All words in Hebrew are transliterated according to personal practice (such as using ch instead of h or ḥ) and italicised, unless used in quotations where transliterated Hebrew is kept in standard type. English translations or definitions follow the Hebrew on their first occurrence. Plurals of Hebrew words take the endings ‘-im’ (masculine) and ‘-ot’ (feminine); unless the meaning is unclear, translations are not provided for words in the plural where the singular has already been used. The words ‘Sephardi’ and ‘Ashkenazi’ (and their plurals), given their relative familiarity and the frequency with which they feature in this dissertation, remain in standard type. Other assimilated words and expressions (such as Bar/Bat Mitzvah) are italicised. Pieces of music with Hebrew titles which form part of larger musical collections will be referred to in inverted commas, while allusions to the text to which they are set will remain italicised (for instance, Leon’s ‘Yigdal’; the Yigdal text; the Yigdal melody). All newspaper, magazine and periodical titles have been standardised without the definite article, aside from instances where this would be grammatically erroneous. I have standardised the spelling of certain words and names in my text, with variations retained if they appear in quotations from other sources. These include (possible variations in parentheses): Arthur Friedländer (Friedlander) Chazan (Chazzan, Hazan or Hazzan) Kol Nidre (Nidrei or Nidréi) Myer Leon (Meyer