Nr 34 (3/2017) ISSN: 2353-7094 Advisory Board Dr Vaclav Kapsa (Akademie Věd České Republiky) Dr Hab

Home , Boulevard Solitude, Der junge Lord, Elegy for Young Lovers, Emanuel Schlechter, Feminism in Poland, Joachim Stutschewsky

nr 34 (3/2017) ISSN: 2353-7094 advisory board dr Vaclav Kapsa (Akademie věd České republiky) dr hab. Aleksandra Patalas (Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie) prof. Matthias Theodor Vogt (Institut für kulturelle Infrastruktur Sachsen) dr hab. Piotr Wilk (Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie) editorial staff Katarzyna Babulewicz Jolanta Bujas Marek Dolewka (Editor-in-Chief) Agnieszka Lakner Martyna Rodzeń Hubert Szczęśniak Justyna Szombara cover design and typesetting Agnieszka Bień proofreading Jolanta Bujas KMM UJ Editorial Staff abstracts’ translation Jolanta Bujas address Koło Naukowe Studentów Muzykologii UJ ul. Westerplatte 10 31–033 Kraków [email protected]

This publication is supported by the Council of Scientific Students’ Organisations of the Jagiellonian University (Rada Kół Naukowych UJ).

The participation of foreign reviewers in the evaluation of the publication was financed under the agreement No. 613/P-DUN/2017 from the funds of the Minister of Science and Higher Education for popularisation of science. Table of Contents

Introduction 5

Federica Marsico 7 A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth of Phaedra in Music

Marta Beszterda 29 At the Intersection of Musical Culture and Historical Legacy: Feminist Musicology in Poland

Barbora Kubečková 51 Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900) and his Songs to Goethe: Forgotten Settings?

Clare Wilson 75 From the Inside Out: An Analytical Perspective of André Caplet’s Harmonic Evolution Through Selected Mélodies, 1915-1925 Nana Katsia 97 The Modification of the Genre of Mystery Play in the Wagner’s, Schoenberg’s and Messiaen’s Compositions

Michał Jaczyński 115 The Presence of Jewish Music in the Musical Life of Interwar Prague

Sylwia Jakubczyk-Ślęczka 135 Musical Life of the Jewish Community in Interwar Galicia. The Problem of Identity of Jewish Musicians

Katarzyna Babulewicz 159 Contemporary Music Publishing for Children in Poland

Bionotes 175

Noty biograficzne 179 Introduction

“The International Conference of Young Musicologists: Young Musicology Today: tendencies, challenges and perspectives” was held at the Institute of Musicology of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow from the 7th to the 9th of November, 2016. The event attracted BA, MA and PhD students from 10 academic centres, including Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Georgia, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and The United Kingdom. This particular issue of “The Jagiellonian University Young Musicologists Quarterly”, No. 34 (3/2017), combines some of the papers presented at the Conference, bringing them to the attention of wider public. Musicology is not only the study of music—it begins to perform social functions too, becoming not only a field of scientific inquiry but one of actual use to society. The aim of “The International Conference of Young Musicologists. Young Musicology Today: tendencies, challenges and perspectives” was to integrate the musicological community through the creation of an international forum for exchanging ideas and research experience. We encouraged young musicologists to present the results of their ongoing studies, and to engage them in discussion of the future of musicology, its role and place in contemporary culture. During the conference, young musicologists considered new avenues of research, new methodologies for musicologists’ work, and the challenges and career prospects faced by musicologists entering the labour market. It was also an opportunity to consider the areas of interest of young musicologists, such as new research perspectives in musicology, music and science (for example, the psychology of music),

5 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017) as well as challenges of modern ethnomusicology, source studies and music editing, the issues and challenges of music librarianship, and history and theory of music. In addition, the conference programme included a discussion panel entitled “A musicologist on the labour market”. It was an opportunity for an in-depth discussion with Dr. Artur Szklener (Executive Director of The Fryderyk Chopin Institute), Andrzej Kosowski (Director of Institute of Music and Dance), Dr. Magdalena Wąsowska (The Krakow Opera), and Ewelina Mikluszka (Capella Cracoviensis). The topics covered included the current employment situation for musicology graduates in Poland and abroad, and a presentation of experiences in this area. The conference was also a chance to discuss and exchange opinions with experienced music practitioners, including Jerzy Stankiewicz, who gave his Master’s lecture on the Polish contexts of Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps. The programme also included events such as the concert by the ensemble O CTAVA, a sightseeing trip around historic Krakow, and special exhibitions dedicated to the life and work of Ignacy Jan Paderewski (curated by Justyna Szombara at The Ignacy Jan Paderewski Center for the Documentation of 19th and 20th Century Polish Music), as well as to the collection of music manuscripts in the Jagiellonian Library (curated by Michał Lewicki at The Jagiellonian Library). As the organisers of the conference, we would like to thank all of the participants and partners who helped us organize this event for their hospitality, kindness and the unique atmosphere.

Agnieszka Lakner Justyna Szombara Marek Bebak Federica Marsico

University of Pavia

A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth of Phaedra in Music

The Topic

In the second half of the 20th century, the myth of Phaedra, according to which the wife of King Theseus of Athens desperately falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus, was set to music by three homosexual composers in the following works: the dramatic cantata Phaedra for mezzo- soprano and small orchestra (1976) by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) after a text by the American poet Robert Lowell, the opera Le Racine: pianobar pour Phèdre (1980) by Sylvano Bussotti (1931) after a libretto drafted by the Italian composer himself and consisting of a prologue, three acts, and an intermezzo, and, last but not least, the two-act concert opera Phaedra (2007) by Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012) after a libretto by the German poet Christian Lehnert.1

1 In the second half of the century, other musical adaptations of the myth were also composed, namely the one-act opera Phèdre by Marcel Mihalovici (1898–1986) after a text by Yvan Goll and consisting in a prologue and five scenes (1951), the chamber opera Syllabaire pour Phèdre by Maurice Ohana (1913–1992) after a text by Raphaël Cluzel (1968), and the monodrama Phaedra for mezzo-soprano and orchestra by George Rochberg (1918–2005) after a text by Gene Rosenfeld (1976).

7 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

This paper summarizes the results of a three-year research project (2013–2015)2 that has proved that the three above-mentioned homosexual composers wilfully chose a myth consistent with an incestuous—and thus censored—form of love in order to portray homoerotic desire, which the coeval heteronormative society of course labelled as deviant and hence condemned.

Theoretical References

The theoretical references of this research are gender studies and queer theory. When gender studies was developed in the United States mid- way through the 70s, it led to the further evolution of gender-related research tendencies of cultural studies. The latter introduced the academic reflection on the relationship between individual and social normative structures. The creative dimension can also be interpreted as a result of confrontation between collectively shared values and individual visions. Gender acquired particular significance among those factors playing a crucial role in the conflict between the individual and the dominant culture. As a consequence, gender studies annihilated the essentialist vision of sexual identities and began to consider them as complex socio-cultural formations. Queer theory developed from gender studies in the 90s in the United States. It redefined the previously pejorative term “queer”, and used it as a term that embraces all non-heterosexual identities. Teresa de Lauretis, one of the pioneers of queer theory, explains the new mean- ing of the word in a famous article from 1991:

Today we have, on the one hand, the terms “lesbian” and “gay” to designate distinct kinds of life-styles, sexualities, sexual practices, communities, issues, publications, and discourses. […] In a sense, the term “Queer Theory” was arrived at the effort to avoid all of these fine distinctions in our discursive protocols, not to adhere to anyone of the given terms, not to assume their ideological liabilities, but instead to both transgress and transcend them—or at the very least problematize them.3

2 F. Marsico, Una lettura queer del mito di Fedra. Gli adattamenti di Britten, Bussotti e Henze, PhD dissertation, University of Pavia 2016. 3 T. de Lauretis, Queer theory. Lesbian and gay sexualities. An introduction, “Differences” iii (1991), 2, pp. iii-xviii: v.

8 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth…

Together with de Lauretis’ definition, the writings by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Judith Butler represent the theoretical grounding of queer studies. In her book Epistemology of the Closet (1990), Kosofsky Sedgwick displays the dynamics of “the closet”, i.e. the condition of a homosexual who must continuously renegotiate their individual needs with the sur- rounding heteronormative context.4 Kosofsky Sedgwick underlines that the condition of secrecy of homosexuality does not end with the act of coming out of the closet, but can persist in the individual also afterwards. As a consequence, literary writing can offer expression to the homosexual identity through the use of an intentionally ambiguous language. In the same year, Butler published a book titled Gender Trouble,5 in which the American philosopher delved into the debate about the social construction of gender. In her successive book, Bodies That Matter (1993), Butler further explained her ideas: she affirms that chauvinist hegemony is the consequence of the heterosexual hegemony that defines male and female norms. This hegemony causes the condemnation of the sexualities that transgress the norm, and the emergence of a homophobic regime. The existence of all excluded sexualities is, however, essential for the subsistence of heterosexuality. Namely, they define the boundaries within which the bodies that materialize the norm can be considered as “bodies that matter”, that is, as bodies that are socially recognized.6 In the 80s, American musicology opened up to gender studies and began to consider musical discourse as a space for the narration of identities. Various pioneering studies prepared the ground for the consolidation of this new critical approach. Among these, two are universally known: the papers by Philip Brett about the opera Peter Grimes (1945) by Britten, interpreted as the allegory of the oppression of a homosexual,7 and by Maynard Solomon about the dissemination of homoeroticism in the Viennese milieu frequented by Franz Schubert.8 Research outcomes in the field of the queer musicology have abundantly demonstrated that the queer approach permits shedding light on some aspects of the musical work that would be otherwise ignored by both

4 E. Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet, Berkeley 1990. 5 J. Butler, Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York 1990. 6 J. Butler, Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”, New York 1993, p. 16. 7 P. Brett, Britten and Grimes, “The Musical Times” cxviii (1977), 1618, pp. 955-1000. 8 M. Solomon, Franz Schubert and the peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini, “19th-Century Music” xii (1989), 3, pp. 193-206.

9 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

scholars and the audience.9 A gender-oriented approach has not yet been applied to Henze’s and Bussotti’s works. On the contrary, the expression of homosexuality in Britten’s oeuvre was deeply investigated not only by Brett who, after the above-mentioned essay, wrote other numerous essays on this topic,10 but also by other scholars. In many writings about music and gender, there is evident lack of a univocal and systematic approach. Regarding this aspect, Brett proclaims one of the cornerstones of the queer musicology in his presentation to Queering the Pitch (1994), the first collection of essays that aim to eliminate the latent homophobia in the musicological research.11 Brett states that:

A reader who expects a new kind of musicology, moreover, must inevitably be disappointed by the lack of a unified approach, a single or even systematic method. To queer the pitch is to get rid of such notions.12

It is possible, however, to identify some common ideas on which queer musicology is founded. Firstly, the musical work is considered as a result of a cultural process and, consequently, the analysis of it is extended to the context in which the work is produced. Secondly, great importance is given to the subjectivity of the composer and to the ex-

9 The musicological literature on the topic is substantial. See, among others: S. McClary, Feminine Endings. Music, Gender, and Sexuality, 2nd ed., Minneapolis- London 2002; L. Kramer (ed.), “19th-Century Music” xvii (1993), 1: Schubert. Music, Sexuality, Culture; id., Franz Schubert. Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song, Cambridge 1998; R. A. Solie (ed.), Musicology and Difference. Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1993; P. Brett, Piano four hands. Schubert and the performance of gay male desire, “19th-Century Music” xii (1997), 2, pp. 149-176; P. Brett, E. Wood, G. C. Thomas (eds.), Queering the Pitch. The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, 2nd ed., New York 2006; J. Kallberg, Chopin at the Boundaries. Sex, History, and Musical Genre, Cambridge-London 1996; E. T. Harris, Handel as Orpheus. Voice and Desire in the Chamber Cantatas, Cambridge MA 2001; N. Hubbs, The Queer Composition of America’s Sound. Gay Modernists, American Music, and National Identity, Berkeley 2004; P. Attinello, D. Osmond-Smith, Gay Darmstadt. Flamboyance and rigour at the summer courses for new music, “Contemporary Music Review” xxvi (2007), 1, pp. 105-114. 10 Some of them are collected in: P. Brett, Music and Sexuality in Britten. Selected Essays, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 2006. 11 P. Brett, E. Wood, G. C. Thomas (eds.), Queering the Pitch, op. cit. 12 P. Brett, Are you musical? Is it queer to be queer? Philip Brett charts the rise of gay and lesbian musicology, “The Musical Times” ciiiv (1994), 1816, pp. 370-376: 373.

10 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth… pression of it in their works. Finally, musical discourse is considered as more favourable in comparison to the external world for the expression of queer identities, and for bringing into question social prejudices.

Preliminary Observations

Some preliminary observations on the myth of Phaedra proved very useful in analysing the three works from a homosexual perspective. A careful review of the myth’s most famous literary elaborations makes it possible to identify the aspects of it that affect gay sensibi lity.13 For instance, the fact that Euripides links Phaedra’s desire with

13 In this phase of the research the reference literary studies have been: R. Barthes, Sur Racine, Paris 1963; L. Spitzer, Linguistics and Literary History. Essays in Stylistics, 2nd ed., Princeton 1967, pp. 87-134; F. De Sanctis, La Fedra di Racine, in: G. Contini (ed.), Scelta di scritti critici e ricordi, Torino 1969, pp. 71-91; J.-P. Vernant, P. Vidal- -Naquet, Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne, Paris 1972, and Mythe et tragédie deux, Paris 1986; B. Snell, Die Entdeckung des Geistes. Studien zur Entstehung des europäischen Denkens bei den Griechen, 4th ed., Göttingen 1975, pp. 95-110; R. Uglione (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 33-54 (M. Guglielminetti, La Fedra di d’Annunzio, e altre Fedre), 55-77 (G. Paduano, Ippolito. La rivelazione dell’eros), 79-96 (O. Longo, Ippolito e Fedra fra parola e silenzio), 113-131 (G. Rosati, Forma elegiaca di un simbolo letterario. La Fedra di Ovidio), 143-212 (F. Giancotti, Poesia e filosofia in Seneca tragico. La Fedra), 213-236 (A. M. Scarcella, Gli amori di Fedra fra tragedia e romanzo), 241-254 (D. Dalla Valle, Classicità della Phèdre di Racine), 257-261 (G. Raboni, Lo statuto della reticenza); D. Dalla Valle, Il mito cristianizzato. Fedra/Ippolito e Edipo nel teatro francese del Seicento, Bern 2006; N. Fusini, La Luminosa. Genealogia di Fedra, Milano 1990; F. Orlando, Due letture freudiane. Fedra e Il misantropo, Torino 1990; V. Di Benedetto, Euripide. Teatro e società, Torino 1992; J. Starobinski, L’œil vivant. Corneille, Racine, La Bruyère, Rousseau, Stendhal, Paris 1999, pp. 71-92; M. Bettini, L’incesto di Fedra e il corto circuito della consanguineità, “Dioniso” (2002), 1, pp. 88-99; F. Carpanelli, Frammenti tragici. Euripide e l’incesto, in: G. Guidorizzi (ed.), Legami di sangue, legami proibiti. Sguardi interdisciplinari sull’incesto, Roma 2007, pp. 31-52; S. Mattiacci, Da Apuleio all’Aegritudo Perdicae. Nuove metamorfosi del tema di Fedra, in: R. Degl’Innocenti Pierini, N. Lambardi, E. Magnelli et al. (eds.), Fedra. Versioni e riscritture di un mito classico. Atti del convegno AICC (Firenze, 2-3 aprile 2003), Firenze 2007, pp. 131-156; G. Nuzzo, La Dea Bianca e il Cacciatore. Fedra tra Seneca e d’Annunzio, in: M. Blancato, G. Nuzzo (eds.), La tragedia romana. Modelli, forme, ideologia, fortuna, Palermo 2007, pp. 77-107; V. Borghetti, Fedra. La Grecia modernista di d’Annunzio e di Pizzetti, in: G. Sandrini, M. Natale (eds)., Gli antichi dei moderni. Dodici letture da Leopardi a Zanzotto, Verona 2010, pp. 139-168.

11 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

pernicious illness (νόσος) and insanity (ἄνοια) makes Phaedra similar to a homosexual whose sexuality is viewed as a disease in many modern cultures. On the other hand, in Jean Racine’s version of the myth Euripides’ vision of Phaedra’s mistaken desire connects to the Christian reading of her desire as a sin, which in turn equates the protagonist to the epitome of a homosexual as demonized by homophobic Christianity: as in the case of Phaedra, homosexuals embody a sinful deviance and shall thus be guided through a path of penitence and redemption. The myth’s fortune throughout the centuries is fully consistent with its representation of an erotic theme transgressing bans—both ethical and legal. Phaedra’s love and homosexual love are tragically unutterable; both are viewed as obscene and indecorous, and can thus not even be mentioned. Before the three works were analysed at all, I investigated how Britten, Bussotti and Henze experienced their own homosexuality and gave utterance to it in their other compositions.14 Britten began reckoning with his homosexuality after his twenties. His decision to embark on his first and only relationship with an adult man, namely the famous tenor Peter Pears, did not extinguish his attraction to adolescents that was constant during his life. In a letter from 1942, the poet and Britten’s close friend Wystan Hugh Auden reflected on Britten’s self-censure of his homosexuality and defined his attraction to young boys as a symptom of it.15 Britten’s sexual prudery, which caused the breaking up of his friendship with Auden, emerged also in his relationship with Pears. Britten was so prudish that he did never use in public the term “gay” and avoided socializing with homosexual

14 The following works have been considered: L’Enfance from Quatre chansons frança- ises (1928), Antique from Les Illuminations (1940), Hymn to St. Cecilia (1942), The Trees They Grow So High (1943), The Turn of the Screw (1954), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1968), and Who Are These Children? (1971) by Britten; Boulevard Solitude (1951), König Hirsch (1956), Der Prinz von Homburg (1960), Elegy for Young Lovers (1961), Gogo no eiko (1963), Der junge Lord (1965), The English Cat (1983), and Die Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe (2003) by Henze; Nottetempo con lo scherzo e una rosa (1953-57), Due voci (1958), Pièces de chair II n. 1 (1958), La Passion selon Sade (1965), Mit einem gewissen sprechenden Ausdruck (1965), Syro Sadun Settimino (1974), Nudi per flauto e fiati gravi (1981), and Nuit du faune (1990-1991) by Bussotti. 15 D. Mitchell, P. Reed (eds.), Letters from a Life. The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten 1913-1976, vol. 2, London 1998, pp. 1015-1016. On the relationship between Britten and children see: J. Bridcut, Britten’s Children, London 2006.

12 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth… couples. Pears, on the other hand, was more uninhibited and showed himself often annoyed at Britten’s vulnerability about sexual matters (for this reason, he sometimes satisfied his sexual desires elsewhere, during his tournées far from his partner).16 The overcoming of Britten’s sexual inhibition was not favoured by the coeval social context. While he was emerging as British composer, homophobia was very widespread within English public opinion, and the discriminatory law prosecuting homosexuality—that was in force until 1967—supported it. In the 50s, Britten, who was born less than twenty years after Oscar Wilde’s sentence, fell victim to homophobia of some English composers envious of his success and of some managers of nationally important cultural institutions. When he began to deal with the theme of sexuality in his operas, he was aware of the fact that he acted in a minefield. The government censorship was in force until 1968, and the composer had to obtain Lord Chamberlain’s approval for all his operas from Peter Grimes (1945) to Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960). Only after the decriminalisation of homosexuality Britten felt more free to deal with that theme, also by virtue of the fact that he was awarded the Order of Merit in 1965 by the Royal Family, who in 1967 attended the inauguration of the new theatre of the festival founded by the composer in Aldeburgh. Moreover, Britten’s collaboration with homosexual writers (such as Edward Morgan Forster, the author of Billy Budd’s libretto) enabled him to treat controversial themes through a cryptographic language in order not to incur censorship. Henze experienced his adolescence during the consolidation of the Third Reich, when the pre-existing homophobic law (the debated paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code) was tightened, and during the war many homosexuals were identified with a pink triangle and deported to the concentration camps. The penalisation of homosexuality was in force in West Germany until 1969 (in East Germany until 1948) and during the postwar period the composer happened to be interrogated together with his Calabrian partner by Constance’s police after their householder lodged a complaint against them.17 Henze’s

16 P. Kildea, Benjamin Britten. A Life in the Twentieth Century, London 2013. 17 The episode happened during the winter of either 1948 or 1949. See: H. W. Henze, Die Schwierigkeit, ein bundesdeutscher Komponist zu sein. Neue Musik zwischen Isolierung und Engagement (interview with Hubert Kolland), in: H. W. Henze, Musik und Politik. Schriften und Gespräche 1955-1984, new ed., Munchen 1984, pp. 300-331: 323.

13 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

choice to definitively move to Italy in 1953 was therefore closely related to his desire to escape homophobia in his native country, according to what he explained in his autobiography, when he recalled the first hours spent in his new house on the island of Ischia in southern Italy.18 Henze’s need to live freely his homosexuality underpinned his choice to collaborate for his operas with writers sensitive to gender matters (in some cases declared as homosexual, i.e. Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Gastón Salvatore Pascal, Wystan Hugh Auden and Chester Kallman), and to opt for literary subjects that lend themselves to being read from a queer perspective (such as Yukio Mishima’s romances and Heinrich von Kleist’s dramas). Henze himself in an interview of 1991 explained that the theme of homosexuality is constantly present in his works.19 Moreover, he lived openly his long-lasting relationship with Fausto Moroni, his partner since the 60s. However, because of the lack of sources we can reconstruct very little about it. At the Paul Sacher Foundation of Basel, where the composer’s archive is stored, very little of the correspondence between him and his partner survives. Bussotti differs from his two colleagues because since his debut he centred his art on the expression of erotic sphere. One example will be sufficient to clarify this aspect. His operatic debut wasLa Passion selon Sade (1965), defined by him as a “mystère de chambre avec tableaux vivants”.20 Its title’s reference to the Marquis de Sade, and the use of an erotic sonnet by the sixteenth-century poetess Louise Labé21 as libretto are only some of the aspects through which the eroticism that pervades the whole composition expresses itself. In Bussotti’s reworking of the female love lament that the poem deals with, the in-love woman takes on the traits of some sadomasochistic romances main characters, namely Ô, the young sex slave of Pauline Réage’s erotic romance Histoire d’Ô, edited in France eleven years before La Passion selon Sade,22 and the two sisters Justine and Juliette, who symbolize respectively virtue and vice in De Sade’s romances. Thanks to the overlapping of different fe-

18 H. W. Henze, Reiselieder mit böhmischen Quinten. Autobiographische Mitteilungen 1926-1995, Frankfurt am Main 1996, p. 151. 19 D. Daolmi, Henze ovvero della coerenza (interview with the composer), “Babilonia” 89 (1991), pp. 42-44. 20 S. Bussotti, La Passion selon Sade. Mystère de chambre avec Tableaux vivants, précédé de Solo avec un couple Rara et suivi une autre Phrase à trois (score), Milano 1966. 21 L. Labé, Œuvres complètes, ed. by E. Giudici, Genève 1981, p. 142. 22 P. Réage, Histoire d’O, preface by J. Paulhan, Paris 1954.

14 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth… male roles linked to eroticism, La Passion’s main character embodies different sexual instincts that the singer interprets through different inflections of her voice. When she enters wrapped up in a cape, she is not able to pronounce words in full, but then she gradually shows her sensuality and gives free play to her rising erotic desire, while she looks lasciviously for her beloved’s body.23 The close connection between musical gesture and eroticism, as well as the theme of homoeroticism investigated in relation both to its hedonistic component and to the repression of it within the hetero normative social context, feature many other Bussotti’s compositions. Moreover, the artist showed a strong interest for the writings of some homosexual artists and intellectuals of his age, who often are either the dedicatees of his works or the authors of the texts set to music. Among them, we can mention Alain Daniélou (a guru of the relation between religion and eroticism in the Oriental civilizations), Aldo Braibanti (an Italian writer who was a victim of judicial persecution in 1968 because of his homosexuality), and Filippo de Pisis (pseudonym of Luigi Filippo Tibertelli, a writer and a painter who never made secret of his homosexuality, and flaunted it also during the Fascist era, when many homosexuals were interned since considered as “invert”).

The Works

Before undertaking the musical analysis of the three works, all compositions of the three artists were examined from the perspective of connections between the mythical subject and the theme of homoeroticism as well as of the sphere of sexuality coming to expression.24 They were compared to their historical context, marked by widespread homophobia and utterly homophobic legislation.25 In order to most

23 S. Bussotti, La Passion selon Sade, op. cit., pp. 6ff. 24 The following works have been considered:Young Apollo (1939), Calypso from Cabaret Songs (1939), Six Metamorphosen after Ovid (1951), and Death in Venice (1973) by Britten; Apollo et Hyazinthus (1949), Labyrinth (1952), The Bassarids (1966), Orpheus (1979), and Venus und Adonis (1997) by Henze; Früher Apollo from Quattro ricordi di Rilke (1950), Rara Requiem (1969), Nottetempo (1976), Voliera (1986-89), and Ermafrodito (1999) by Bussotti. 25 On historical context see: J. Weeks, Coming Out. Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present, London-New York 1990;

15 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

accurately detect the three artists’ longing to out their homosexual sensibility, we put the adaptations of Phaedra’s myth into the perspective of artistic production in its broader sense, thus including both mythical and non-mythical subjects.

BRITTEN'S PHAEDRA

The text of Britten’s Phaedra, taken from Lowell’s translation of Racine’s tragedy Phèdre,26 consists of four confessions of Phaedra, while all other characters of the tragedy are eliminated. After the archival ma- terial from the Britten-Pears Foundation was inspected, special care was devoted to the theme of the repressed love that engenders the protagonist’s pain. Various musical motives were identified that help define the protagonist’s inner conflict between her instinct to follow her feelings and the inhibition imposed by her rationality. The motives are first presented in the prologue, where Phaedra tells how she fell in love with her stepson, and further employed in her love declara- tion to Hippolytus. One of these motives is, for instance, a five-note descending one, which is associated to the self-censure of desire and is highlighted in a box in the examples that follow:27

Ex. 1: B. Britten, Phaedra, bb. 62-65.

G. Goretti, T. Giartosio, La città e l’isola. Omosessuali al confino nell’Italia fascista, Roma 2006; M. Schwartz (ed.), Homosexuelle im Nationalsozialismus. Neue Forschungsperspektiven zu Lebenssituationen von lesbischen, schwulen, bi-, trans- und intersexuellen Menschen 1933 bis 1945, München 2014. 26 R. Lowell, Racine’s Phèdre. Phaedra, Faber 1961. 27 The musical examples are taken from: B. Britten, Phaedra. Dramatic Cantata for Mezzo-Soprano and Small Orchestra Op. 93. Words from a Verse Translation of Racine’s Phèdre by Robert Lowell (score), London 1992.

16 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth…

Ex. 2: B. Britten, Phaedra, bb. 92-97.

Ex. 3: B. Britten, Phaedra, bb. 129-134.

A musical analysis performed on those motives warranted suggesting that the composer identified with the character of Phaedra. The words of the protagonist, who is in love with a man who is much younger than she is, may have given utterance to Britten’s difficulty in freeing himself from the dynamics of the closet, which in turn fostered his interest in men much younger than himself. However, the mythical subject is a well-suited topic for drawing a universal message from Britten’s individual experience. Some obser vations by the French semiotician Roland Barthes proved useful in construing the myth accordingly.28 Barthes defines Racine’s hero as one who refuses his fathers’ will, and aims to establish a new nomos where each individual wish is within reach. This liberating effort is achieved through the logos, just as in the cantata, where Phaedra resorts to no tangible action, but merely gives voice to the interior conflict between her impulse to speak about her desire, and the frustration thereof. It was possible, therefore, to read Phaedra’s monologue as an expres sion of what Barthes defines “conscience parlée de la division”29 between the instinct to experience her sexual desire freely on the one hand, and self-censure on the other. This “drame panique de l’ouverture”30 unraveling within Phaedra relates her to a homosexual individual who struggles between concealing his feelings and letting them loose through the logos, i.e. through the action of coming out. 28 R. Barthes, op. cit. 29 Ibid., p. 1014. 30 Ibid., p. 1066.

17 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

In the cantata, however, the expression of gayness is much more veiled compared to the ones that can be found in the operas deemed most indicative of Britten’s homosexual aesthetics, such as Billy Budd (1951), The Turn of the Screw (1954), or Death in Venice (1973),31 focusing on the ambiguous relationship between two men. On the contrary, in Phaedra a single female character experiences a forbidden heterosexual love. The important study by Lloyd Whitesell on Britten’s homosexual aesthetics highlights, however, Britten’s cryptographic approach to include the theme of queer sexuality into his operas, the approach aiming to extend the chance of reflecting on homosexuality to those ignoring or downplaying its existence. He writes:

I propose that Britten’s music dramatizes a deviant or marginal perspective in fundamental and unforeseen ways. […] Even if certain listeners remain unaware of the specific queer meanings encoded in the operas, I argue, they must still come to grips with the general structures of deviant subjectivity that make the works so compelling in the first place. As I hope to show, central preoc- cupations for Britten are the confrontation of different perspectives and the possibility of creating bonds of identification across incompatible positions.32

It could therefore be maintained that the composer’s choice to encrypt his discourse on gayness in the cantata was aimed at eliciting two possible interpretations among its audience, which may either fully grasp the analogy between Phaedra’s condition and that of a gay individual, or ignore this reading but still become acquainted with the feelings of a person whose sexuality is judged as deviant.

BUSSOTTI’S PHÈDRE

As to Bussotti’s opera, also based on Racine’s tragedy, the press review of the premiere was analysed first.33 Its explicit reference to the theme of homosexuality is the main reason why the opera was little appreci- ated by its critics. Three aspects of the opera were examined in order to understand how the artist’s sexual identity comes to expression in

31 See: P. Brett, Music and Sexuality in Britten, op. cit., passim. 32 L. Whitesell, Britten’s dubious trysts, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” (2003), 66, pp. 637-694: 643. 33 It is stored in the Archivio storico documentale of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

18 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth… it: the setting, the elaboration of the literary source, and some aspects of the twelve-note composition. In the opera, Racine’s tragedy unravels in a small Parisian piano bar called “Le Racine”, which is actually a brothel for male clients, Madame Phèdre being its owner and Hippolyte an alluring gigolo. Analysis of the libretto shows Racine’s verses as being de-contextualized, and acquiring a new significance within the opera.34 This elaboration is designed for various purposes: firstly, to portray Hippolyte’s character as being desired not only by his stepmother, but all of the brothel’s male clients; secondly, to describe homoerotic pleasure (for instance, the words with which Phèdre accuses Hippolyte of raping her are used in the second act to describe a male sadomasochistic orgy);35 finally, to turn the original tragedy’s heterosexual incest into a homosexual one. The latter result is achieved by adding the character of Hippolyte’s father, who is in love with his son. His name however is not Theseus, but Jean Racine, just as the author of the tragedy. Moreover, Bussotti employs some dodecaphonic devices to describe Hippolyte’s distance from women on the one hand, and his being attracted to his father and men in general on the other. For instance, Phèdre’s musical row imitates Hippolyte’s one at the beginning of the opera only to gradually distance itself from it in the episodes that follow.36 Based on the analysis of the work, it can be argued that in his elaboration of the myth, Bussotti portrays the carnality of homoerotic desire, and, more generally, a utopian universe where homosexuality is free to express itself. In the opera, the brothel clients’ desire towards Hippolyte takes on much greater importance in comparison to Phaedra’s desire. Moreover, homoerotic desire is represented there without any reference to the ideas of abnormality or guilt. The opera Le Racine therefore

34 The libretto was never published by the composer. It is now available in: F. Marsico, Una lettura queer del mito di Fedra, op. cit., pp. 219-252. 35 Act II, scene 1. 36 For instance, if we compare Hippolyte’s row (Act I, scene 1: [C’-D’-A]-[E’-G’-F’]-[B flat-G flat-D flat-E flat-A flat-B]) with Madame Phèdre’s first row (Act I, scene 2: [A’ -D’-C’]-[E’ flat-G’ flat-F’]-[B-A’ fl a t -D’’ flat-B’ flat-G’-E’]), the derivation of the latter from the former is evident. Madame Phèdre’s row can be subdivided into two groups of three notes (a and b) and one group of six notes (c). The groupa is the retrograde form of the first group from Hippolyte’s row, while the group b derives from the second group of Hippolyte’s row, but with the first two notes lowered of a halftone. The group c links up to the previous group through a triton instead of a fifth like in Hippolyte’s row. Its opening interval (B-A’ flat) seems to herald the retrograde form of the group c from Hippolyte’s row, but it actually introduces four sounds from the diminished seventh of E minor.

19 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

belongs to Bussotti’s musical aesthetics, focused on the visual exaltation of the carnality of desire as well as on the uninhibited exhibition of the body and its passions.37

HENZE’S PHAEDRA

Henze’s opera offers yet a third possible interpretation of the myth from the homosexual point of view. After the study of the opera’s genesis and the libretto’s sources, the feelings of the character Hippolytus were drawn from the analysis of the poetic and musical discourse, and his character was identified as the expression of a queer identity. Although the opera is called Phaedra, Hippolytus is the main character. Over the course of the story, he experiences a process of emancipation. Initially, he presents himself as a hunter who loves the woods, serves the goddess Artemis and is indifferent to love;38 yet in the second act but he is born to a new life, affirms his own autonomy, and is crowned king of the woods. Neither the tragedy of his stepmother’s guilt nor her erotic desire towards her stepchild is in the foreground here; the focus is rather put on Hippolytus’ homosexuality. Euripides’ characterisation of Hippolytus as a misogynist who is also devoted to Artemis presents Henze with an opportunity to portray an individual whose sexuality does not conform to the norms. Hippolytus’ experience as a gay man is, however, positive, as he understands his gayness and manages to assert it in front of others. The happy ending (an original twist if compared to the myth) sanctions the achievement of this goal. Artemis ushers the man through this journey of self-discovery, and contributes to defin- ing her protégé’s sexuality, as her role is performed by a countertenor. The vocal role not only reflects the goddess’ masculine traits, but also highlights the fact that the relationship between her and Hippolytus is featured on stage as one between two men. Their close relationship is proved by the fact that during his first solo (Act I, scene 2) Hippolytus describes himself as deeply attached to the goddess, whose eyes follow

37 On this aesthetics see: L. Scarlini (ed.), Corpi da musica. Vita e teatro di Sylvano Bussotti, Firenze 2010. 38 His first words in the opera are the following: “Ich trete in die Schatten der Akazienbäume, | in ihre ersten langgestreckten Schatten am Morgen, | um me- inen Fluchtpunkt zu finden: den fließenden | Atem des Waldes und die Gerade des Pfeils” (Act I, episode 2).

20 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth… him everywhere (he says “Sie schaut mich an von allen Seiten”); then, in the second act Artemis reassembles in her temple the torn pieces of Hippolytus’ body and brings him back to life, but hard upon she cages him in order to keep him close to her for ever. As in other works by Henze,39 gayness is represented in this opera by means of cryptographic language. Those among the audience who don’t understand it will interpret the opera as a mere adaptation of Phaedra’s myth. If this double interpretation seems to link Henze’s opera to Britten’s cantata, it is however clear that the former is devoid of any reference to a sexuality judged as deviant, as the purpose of the German composer, different from Britten’s, is to present gayness in rather positive terms.

Final Observations

The examination of the three works shows that the three composers chose different ways to develop the queer potentialities of the myth. Brit- ten centred his adaptation around the figure of Phaedra and, therefore, around the theme of love considered as deviant. He selected the episodes from Racine’s tragedy where Phaedra confesses her guilt to her nurse, to Hippolytus, to herself, and to Theseus, as he wanted to focus on Phae- dra’s difficulty to out her feelings because of the social condemnation of them. Differently from Britten, Bussotti wanted to give prominence to homoerotic desire in his adaptation of the myth rather than to Phaedra’s grievous inner conflict; Henze, on the other hand, chose the myth of the Cretan queen to focus on the figure of her stepson, and to deal with the theme of the heterosexual procreative love’s refusal. The examination of the musical language of these three works has revealed that the aspects of the musical scores that concur in defin- ing a homosexual dramaturgy are barely perceivable to the audience. Instead, they will most likely become apparent to a scholar actually

39 On queerness in other Henze’s operas see: F. Marsico, Il poeta e la sua elegia del desiderio inappagato, “La Fenice prima dell’opera” (season 2013-2014), 4, pp. 11-30; ead., Il conflitto fra sogno e realtà in Der Prinz von Homburg di Hans Werner Henze, in: N. Amendola, G. Sciommeri (eds.), Conflitti, vol. 2: Arte, Musica, Pensiero, Società, Roma 2017, pp. 137-147; F. Marsico, Boulevard Solitude di Hans Werner Henze. Una lettura intertestuale del libretto, “Rassegna musicale Curci” lxvii (2014), 3, pp. 37-43.

21 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

looking for them. In the three works at issue, the discourse about gayness namely takes shape through the interplay of numerous aspects. The elaboration of the literary sources, the organization of the libretto, the characters’ definition, and the mise-en-scène, together with the music, put the myth into that very perspective. Moreover, the research has highlighted that the three composers came to understand semantic potentials of the myth that had not yet been investigated in its previous musical elaborations, and that they developed these in a way as to give utterance to their own gay identity. This study makes a contribution to the knowledge of the expression of homosexuality in the music of the 20th century. However, further studies on this topic in dialogue with other disciplines, with the aim to define the features of the queer musical aesthetics in the 20th century, would be desirable. Brett, twenty years ago, highlighted the importance of such survey, when he wrote:

In the 20th century, homosexuality becomes such a tremendous presence in music that its obliteration by silence constitutes one of the most crushing intellectual indictments of positivistic musical scholarship.40

40 P. Brett, Musicality, essentialism, and the closet, in: P. Brett, E. Wood, G. C. Thomas (eds.), Queering the Pitch, op. cit., pp. 9-26: 15.

22 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth…

Abstract

Three musical adaptations of the myth of Phaedra, in which the wife of King Theseus of Athens desperately falls in love with her stepson Hip- polytus, were composed in the second half of the twentieth century by three homosexual composers: the dramatic cantata Phaedra for mezzo- soprano and small orchestra (1976) by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) after a text by the American poet Robert Lowell, the opera Le Racine: pianobar pour Phèdre (1980) by Sylvano Bussotti (1931-) after a libretto drafted by the composer himself and consisting of a prologue, three acts, and an intermezzo, and, last but not least, the two-act concert opera Phaedra (2007) by Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012) after a libretto by the German poet Christian Lehnert. The aim of this paper is to prove that the three homosexual composers chose a myth about an incestuous—and thus censored—love in order to represent homoerotic desire, labelled as deviant by the coeval heteronormative society and hence condemned by it. The study sheds light on the aspects of the most famous literary elaborations that affect gay sensibility, and on how the three composers experienced their homosexuality and gave utterance to it in their other works. The analysis of the three works at issue demonstrates that the discourse about gayness takes shape through the interplay of numerous aspects. The elaboration of the literary sources, the organization of the libretto, the characters’ definition, and the mise-en-scène, together with the music, put the myth into that perspective.

Keywords

Benjamin Britten, Sylvano Bussotti, Hans Werner Henze, homosexuality, myth of Phaedra

23 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

Abstrakt

Mit o Fedrze w muzyce a teoria queer

Trzy adaptacje mitu o Fedrze – żonie króla Aten Tezeusza, która fatalnie zakochuje się w swoim pasierbie Hipolicie – zostały skomponowane w drugiej połowie XX wieku przez trzech kompozytorów-homoseksuali- stów. Były to: kantata dramatyczna Fedra na mezzosopran i małą orkiestrę (1976) Benjamina Brittena (1913-1976) do tekstu amerykańskiego poety Roberta Lowella; następnie opera Le Racine: pianobar pour Phèdre (1980) Sylvano Bussottiego (ur. 1931) do libretta naszkicowanego przez samego kompozytora i składającego się z prologu, trzech aktów i intermezza, oraz dwuaktowa opera koncertowa Phaedra (2007) Hansa Wenera Henzego (1926-2012) do libretta niemieckiego poety Christiana Lehnerta. Celem tego artykułu jest udowodnienie, że trzech homoseksualnych kompozytorów wybrało mit o kazirodczej – a przez to zakazanej – miłości, aby ukazać homoerotyczne pragnienie uznawane przez współ- czesne im społeczeństwo heteronormatywne za zwyrodniałe i przez to potępiane. Niniejsza praca rzuca światło na ukazane w najsłynniejszych literackich opracowaniach aspekty wpływające na wrażliwość gejów, oraz wykazuje, jak trzech twórców pojmowało swoją seksualność i wyrażało ją w swoich kompozycjach. Analiza trzech utworów pod tym względem wykazuje, że dyskurs o homoseksualizmie kształtuje się poprzez wzajemne oddziaływanie na siebie różnych aspektów dzieła, które obejmują opracowywanie źródeł literackich, uporządkowanie libretta, charakterystykę bohaterów czy inscenizację dzieła, które wraz z muzyką składają się na jego określoną interpretację.

Słowa kluczowe

Benjamin Britten, Sylvano Bussotti, Hans Werner Henze, homosek- sualizm, mit o Fedrze

24 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth…

Bibliography

Attinello P., Osmond-Smith D., Gay Darmstadt. Flamboyance and rigour at the summer courses for new music, “Contemporary Music Review” xxvi (2007), 1, pp. 105-114. Barthes R., Sur Racine, Paris 1963. Bettini M., L’incesto di Fedra e il corto circuito della consanguineità, “Dioniso” (2002), 1, pp. 88-99. Borghetti V., Fedra. La Grecia modernista di d’Annunzio e di Pizzetti, in: Sandrini G., Natale M. (eds)., Gli antichi dei moderni. Dodici letture da Leopardi a Zanzotto, Verona 2010, pp. 139-168. Brett P. , Are you musical? Is it queer to be queer? Philip Brett charts the rise of gay and lesbian musicology, “The Musical Times” ciiiv (1994), 1816, pp. 370-376. Brett P., Britten and Grimes, “The Musical Times”cxviii (1977), 1618, pp. 955-1000. Brett P., Music and Sexuality in Britten. Selected Essays, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 2006. Brett P. , Musicality, essentialism, and the closet, in: Brett P., Wood E., Thomas G. C. (eds.), Queering the Pitch. The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, 2nd ed., New York 2006, pp. 9-26. Brett P., Piano four hands. Schubert and the performance of gay male desire, “19th-Century Music” xii (1997), 2, pp. 149-176. Brett P., Wood E., Thomas G. C. (eds.), Queering the Pitch. The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, 2nd ed., New York 2006. Bridcut J., Britten’s Children, London 2006. Britten B., Phaedra. Dramatic Cantata for Mezzo-Soprano and Small Orchestra Op. 93. Words from a Verse Translation of Racine’s Phèdre by Robert Lowell (score), London 1992. Bussotti S., La Passion selon Sade. Mystère de chambre avec Tableaux vivants, précédé de Solo avec un couple Rara et suivi une autre Phrase à trois (score), Milano 1966. Butler J., Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”, New York 1993. Butler J., Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York 1990.

25 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

Carpanelli F., Frammenti tragici. Euripide e l’incesto, in: Guidorizzi G. (ed.), Legami di sangue, legami proibiti. Sguardi interdisciplinari sull’incesto, Roma 2007, pp. 31-52. Dalla Valle D., Il mito cristianizzato. Fedra/Ippolito e Edipo nel teatro francese del Seicento, Bern 2006. Dalla Valle D., Classicità della Phèdre di Racine, in: Uglione R. (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 241-254. Daolmi D., Henze ovvero della coerenza (interview with the composer), “Babilonia” 89 (1991), pp. 42-44. Daolmi D., Senici E., “L’omosessualità è un modo di cantare”. I contributi queer all’indagine sull’opera in musica, “Il Saggiatore musicale” vii (2000), 1, pp. 137-178. De Lauretis T., Queer Theory. Lesbian and Gay Sexualities. An Introduction, “Differences” iii (1991), 2, pp. iii-xviii. De Sanctis F., La Fedra di Racine, in: Contini G. (ed.), Scelta di scritti critici e ricordi, Torino 1969, pp. 71-91. Di Benedetto V., Euripide. Teatro e società, Torino 1992. Fusini N., La Luminosa. Genealogia di Fedra, Milano 1990. Giancotti F., Poesia e filosofia in Seneca tragico. La Fedra, in: Uglione R. (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 143-212. Goretti G., Giartosio T., La città e l’isola. Omosessuali al confino nell’Italia fascista, Roma 2006. Guglielminetti M., La Fedra di d’Annunzio, e altre Fedre, in: Uglione R. (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 33-54. Harris E. T., Handel as Orpheus. Voice and Desire in the Chamber Cantatas, Cambridge MA 2001. Henze H. W., Die Schwierigkeit, ein bundesdeutscher Komponist zu sein. Neue Musik zwischen Isolierung und Engagement (interview with H. Kolland), in: Henze H. W., Musik und Politik. Schriften und Gespräche 1955-1984, new ed., Munchen 1984, pp. 300-331: 323. Henze H. W., Reiselieder mit böhmischen Quinten. Autobiographische Mitteilungen 1926-1995, Frankfurt am Main 1996. Hubbs N., The Queer Composition of America’s Sound. Gay Modernists, American Music, and National Identity, Berkeley 2004.

26 Federica Marsico, A Queer Approach to the Classical Myth…

Kallberg J., Chopin at the Boundaries. Sex, History, and Musical Genre, Cambridge-London 1996. Kildea P., Benjamin Britten. A Life in the Twentieth Century, London 2013. Kosofsky Sedgwick E., Epistemology of the Closet, Berkeley 1990. Kramer L., Franz Schubert. Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song, Cambridge 1998. Kramer L. (ed.), “19th-Century Music” xvii (1993), 1: Schubert. Music, Sexuality, Culture. Labé L., Œuvres complètes, ed. by E. Giudici, Genève 1981. Longo O., Ippolito e Fedra fra parola e silenzio, in: Uglione R. (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 79-96. Lowell R., Racine’s Phèdre. Phaedra, Faber 1961. Marsico F., Il conflitto fra sogno e realtà in Der Prinz von Homburg di Hans Werner Henze, in: Amendola N., Sciommeri G. (eds.), Conflitti, vol. 2: Arte, Musica, Pensiero, Società, Roma 2017, pp. 137-147. Marsico F., Una lettura queer del mito di Fedra. Gli adattamenti di Britten, Bussotti e Henze, PhD dissertation, University of Pavia 2016. Marsico F., Boulevard Solitude di Hans Werner Henze. Una lettura intertestuale del libretto, “Rassegna musicale Curci” lxvii (2014), 3, pp. 37-43. Marsico F., Il poeta e la sua elegia del desiderio inappagato, “La Fenice prima dell’opera” (season 2013-2014), 4, pp. 11-30. Mattiacci S., Da Apuleio all’Aegritudo Perdicae. Nuove metamorfosi del tema di Fedra, in: Degl’Innocenti Pierini R., Lambardi N., Magnelli E. et al. (eds.), Fedra. Versioni e riscritture di un mito classico. Atti del convegno AICC (Firenze, 2-3 aprile 2003), Firenze 2007, pp. 131-156. McClary S., Feminine Endings. Music, Gender and Sexuality, 2nd ed., Minneapolis-London 2002. Mitchell D., Reed P. (eds.), Letters from a Life. The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten 1913-1976, vol. 2, London 1998. Nuzzo G., La Dea Bianca e il Cacciatore. Fedra tra Seneca e d’Annunzio, in: Blancato M., Nuzzo G. (eds.), La tragedia romana. Modelli, forme, ideologia, fortuna, Palermo 2007, pp. 77-107. Orlando F., Due letture freudiane. Fedra e Il misantropo, Torino 1990. Paduano G., Ippolito. La rivelazione dell’eros, in: Uglione R. (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 55-77.

27 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

Raboni G., Lo statuto della reticenza, in: Uglione R. (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 257-261. Réage P., Histoire d’O, preface by J. Paulhan, Paris 1954. Rosati G., Forma elegiaca di un simbolo letterario. La Fedra di Ovidio, in: Uglione R. (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 113-131. Scarcella A. M., Gli amori di Fedra fra tragedia e romanzo, in: Uglione R. (ed.), Atti delle Giornate di studio su Fedra (Torino, 7-9 maggio 1984), Torino 1985, pp. 213-236. Scarlini L. (ed.), Corpi da musica. Vita e teatro di Sylvano Bussotti, Firenze 2010. Schwartz M. (ed.), Homosexuelle im Nationalsozialismus. Neue Forschungsperspektiven zu Lebenssituationen von lesbischen, schwulen, bi-, trans- und intersexuellen Menschen 1933 bis 1945, München 2014. Snell B., Die Entdeckung des Geistes. Studien zur Entstehung des eu- ropäischen Denkens bei den Griechen, 4th ed., Göttingen 1975. Solie R. A. (ed.), Musicology and Difference. Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1993. Solomon M., Franz Schubert and the peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini, “19th-Century Music” xii (1989), 3, pp. 193-206. Spitzer L., Linguistics and Literary History. Essays in Stylistics, 2nd ed., Princeton 1967. Starobinski J., L’œil vivant. Corneille, Racine, La Bruyère, Rousseau, Stendhal, Paris 1999. Vernant J.-P., Vidal-Naquet P., Mythe et tragédie deux, Paris 1986. Vernant J.-P., Vidal-Naquet P., Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne, Paris 1972. Weeks J., Coming Out. Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present, London-New York 1990. Whitesell L., Britten’s dubious trysts, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” (2003), 66, pp. 637-694. Marta Beszterda

University of Amsterdam

At the Intersection of Musical Culture and Historical Legacy: Feminist Musicology in Poland

At the time when feminist critique has been present in Poland in both literary and art history studies for at least 20 years, feminist perspectives in the field of musicology are still not only very rare, but also hold a highly problematic status. As it will be shown in this essay, the problem within Polish feminist musicology is two-sided. On the one hand, there is a great disregard for the study of intersections between sex, gender and music, and, on the other hand, significant controversy over the appropriate approach to the subject that has actually been acknowledged. I will argue that the reasons behind that issue are deeply immersed both in Polish musical culture and in the recent sociopolitical history of the country. Different historical, political and social factors, reaching back as far as the communist era, will be discussed in order to present how they have influenced the discourse upon women and gender in Polish musicology and rendered its status problematic. As a result, I am going to provide a critical reflection on the state of Polish feminist musicology, which could be useful for the future development of this field in the country.

29 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

In The Grove Dictionary of American Music, the influence of feminism on musical culture1 is identified by Suzanne G. Cusick as:

(…) sparking historical and cross-cultural research on women’s participation in musical culture; spurring a body of critical texts that analyze gender, sexu ality, and embodiment in relation to musical practices; and instigating the emergence and implementation of compositional, performative, and institu tional strategies that interrogate or transform hierarchical relationships based on sexual difference.2

More specifically, the feminist scholarship in musicology, music theory and ethnomusicology is characterized by Ruth A. Solie in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as:

• dedicated to the understanding of women’s roles, experiences and contributions as well as the various ways in which gender as social construct has defined those roles in different cultural settings (…),

• concerned with the retrieval of women’s compositions and the study of their activities as composers, performers and users of music (…),3

as well as

• a body of scholarship that sees music as both product and promulgator of a gendered social order.4

During my research, I have aimed to involve and examine all available Polish literature focusing on any of the problems mentioned above.5 It

1 In the context of the United States. 2 S. G. Cusick, Feminism, in: Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online [online] http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/A2240908 [accessed: 7.07.2017]. 3 R. A. Solie, Feminism, in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrell, vol. 8, London 2001, pp. 664-667. 4 Ibid., p. 664. 5 It should be noted here that the vast majority of available relevant literature discusses the field of classical music (which is also the focus of this paper). This might be a very meaningful fact itself, revealing another challenge within Polish contemporary musicology which would be to direct more attention towards both world and popular music.

30 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture… should be noted that, while the amount of adequate literature within Polish musicology is quite small, most positions focus solely on the first two points (they aim to expound the knowledge about female composers, their works and their role in the music history or current musical culture and only occasionally include references to their private lives). Taking a critical stance with regard to the interplay between music and social order is still almost non-existent in Polish literature. The subject is generally very young in Poland. The best-known major work discussing links between music, sex and gender—Danuta Gwizdalanka’s Music and sex—was published in 2001 and is considered to be the first work in this field.6 The undeveloped state of feminist studies is also visible in the context of musicology departments and limited attention given to these issues during university classes and conferences. Furthermore, the subject is very often discredited as unnecessary, non-scientific or unserious. The existing literature also reveals several weaknesses, such as: methodological confusion of the scholars (unfamiliarity with feminist theory), miscomprehension of the feminism itself and a significant reluctance towards it, or (very often unaware) perpetuating gender stereotypes when addressing gender.7 Despite this fact, certain works should be mentioned here as the examples of a successful and insightful contribution to expanding our knowledge and raising the awareness with regard to the importance of female artistic activity in both Polish and global history of music, as well as the existence, roots, role and aim of the feminist perspective in musicology studies. For example, between 2003 and 2005, Magdalena Dziadek and Lilianna M. Moll organized three exhibitions (followed by post-exhibition publications) dedicated, respectively, to Polish female classical music composers between 1816 and 1939, women in the life of Fryderyk Chopin and female music criticism in Poland between 1816 and 1939.8 The publications mention many—usually forgotten—female

6 In fact, the first reflection on women in music comes from the article published in “Ruch Muzyczny” in 1997 where Anna Maria Harley—living in North America at that time—comments on International Congress for Women in Music in Los Angeles. 7 A. Brzezicka-Kamińska, Polskie kompozytorki na Festiwalu Warszawska Jesień, MA thesis, Uniwersytet Waszawski 1998, pp. 126-129. 8 See: M. Dziadek, L. M. Moll, Odrodźmy się w muzyce! Muzyka na łamach polskich czasopism kobiecych i “kobieca” krytyka muzyczna 1881-1939, Katowice 2005; eaed., Oto artyści pełnowartościowi, którzy są kobietami… Polskie kompozytorki 1816-1939, Katowice 2003.

31 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

artists, composers, musicians, critics and other active participants in the Polish musical culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Another valuable contribution to cataloguing important female figures of musical culture is Anna Brzezicka-Kamińska’s master thesis Polish Female Composers at the “Warsaw Autumn Festival” from 1998, in which the author provides an exhaustive overview of all female composers’ output in the Festival between 1956 and 1997. Unfortunately, the work did not resonate in Polish scholarship as any point of reference and remained unknown to the wider audience.9 Furthermore, the person who has so far done the most to familiarize Polish audiences with feminist musicology as it is in the West is a young scholar Karolina Kizińska. Her merits to Polish musicology are twofold. First, thanks to the knowledge she gained during her scholarship program at the University of California, she was able to provide a Polish reader with a comprehensive overview of the roots and aims of the field and its most important representatives (such as Susan McClary, Ruth Solie or Marcia J. Citron).10 Second, she is an author of a mini-guide called The female side of music, published in a Polish online magazine Meakultura, where she briefly presents the history of music created by women, from the Ancient times up to nowadays.11 Moreover, in her 2015’s doctoral thesis, she discusses the problem of a composer’s voice vis-à-vis gender using Francesca Caccini as her case study. Finally, one should not overlook the importance of Danuta Gwizdalanka’s aforementioned book Music and sex.12 It is the first mainstream musicological work in Poland discussing several dimensions of how music, sex and gender intersect throughout history. It provides a condensed yet quite thorough overview of the emancipation move-

9 The work has never been published and most probably the author did not proceed with an academic career. 10 K. Kizińska, Rola płci kulturowej w badaniach muzykologicznych – zarys pola badawczego muzykologii feministycznej, “Kultura i edukacja” 94, No. 1 (2013), pp. 22-41. 11 Kobieca strona muzyki, parts 1-7 [online] http://meakultura.pl/tagi/kobiety-w- -muzyce [accessed: 2.06.2016]. 12 The translation of the original title, “Muzyka i płeć”, is problematic. While the Polish “płeć” for the most part means biological sex, it might also indicate gender, as there is no particular word in Polish that would signify gender understood as a culturally constructed identity (instead, one can say “a culturally constructed sex” or simply use the English term “gender”). This is important to note as the book discusses gender identities as much as it discusses sex.

32 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture… ment in music in the West during the 19th and 20th centuries, which has a great value for Polish readers, unfamiliar with Western literature. However, major controversies connected with the work should be pointed out. For instance, the author claims that feminism in musicology is no longer needed, since the contemporary classical music scene does not experience any sort of gender inequalities. At the same time, the arguments she proposes to support this statement remain rather inconsistent. For example, she attempts to answer the well-known question of why there have seemingly been “so few female composers”. On the one hand, she recognizes historical determinants such as inaccessibility of professional music education for women, social constraints, class factors and internalization of gender stereotypes. On the other hand, some statements she makes reveal a reserved, not to say reluctant, attitude towards feminists pointing out a systematic nature of social and musical exclusion. For example, she writes: “For an unprejudiced reader, the monographs of female martyrdom are as much interesting as they are deterring, as usually regardless of the abundance of documents, they are hampered by an ideological corset”.13 She continues by bringing up the arguments suggesting that feminist scholarship is no longer necessary for musicology: “Perhaps the very phenomenon of female creativity’s discrimination is already a historical phenomenon?”14 Later, she contradicts herself once more by stating that “The repertoire canon (…) is almost exclusively male, but is this mono-gendered character even recognized?”15 Recognized by whom? By men? By women? Artists? Audience? This is something she does not explain. Not to mention that if it is indeed not recognized, would it not make the need for feminist scholarship anything but historical? All in all, while the merits of Gwizdalanka to the field of women’s (and gender) studies in Polish musicology should not be discredited, the controversies marking some of her statements are crucial for understanding the main issues that feminist musicological studies face in Poland. As mentioned previously, I will present here that both low interest in the subject of women in music and the problematic nature of some scientific attempts made in the field trace their roots back to the complex and very often ambivalent way in which classical music culture

13 D. Gwizdalanka, Muzyka i płeć, Kraków 2001, p. 126. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.

33 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

and feminist discourse have been shaped during the communist era in Poland. Three intertwined and equally crucial issues should be investigated in order to fully understand the problematic status of feminist musicology in Poland: 1) the challenges Polish musicology has had to face due to communist propaganda; 2) the way in which communist reality has shaped the attitude to feminism in everyday society; and 3) the way in which history of Polish classical music is influenced by the figure of Grażyna Bacewicz. In the following sections, I will characterize each of these phenomena, and present the ways in which they may have contributed to the problematic status of feminist musicology in Poland today.

Sociologizing Music

It is common to date the beginnings of feminist musicology in the West back to the second-wave feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, with its noticeable rise in late 1980s and early 1990s.16 Among other events, the 1988 annual meeting of American Musicological Society (AMS) featured a significant amount of feminist contribution,17 while Susan McClary’s groundbreaking book Feminine Endings was published in 1991. Ever since, both musicological and ethnomusicological Western research have been regularly influenced by women’s studies and feminist, gender and queer theory. The fact that musicologists started to shed light on intersections between musical culture and women/gender/sex/sexuality in this particular epoch seems to be a result of the development in women’s studies (and later in postmodern feminist and queer studies) since 1960s. Moreover, the phenomenon inevitably became, next to other critical approaches, an integral part of the sprouting New Musicology. During that time, the musicology field in non-Western academia, including Poland, was following its own path. In general, Polish musi cologists recognized the most important trends and shifts taking place in the mainstream Western musicology. Nevertheless, the state of

16 However, The Grove Dictionary of American Music mentions Sophie Drinker’s book Music and Women from 1948 as an example of a pre-second wave contribution to the field. See: S. G. Cusick, Feminism, op. cit. 17 M. Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon, Cambridge 1993, p. 15.

34 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture…

Polish musicology and its attitude towards addressing non-musical contexts were inevitably marked by communist propaganda, which is particularly conspicuous in musicological literature written in the post-war period (especially in the 1950s18). Under the communist regime, it was required to interpret reality—including music history, aesthetics, musical styles etc.—through the lens of class conflict and Marxist rhetoric. The abstract dimension of music was disassembled in official scholarship and any evaluation of a musical work was sub- jugated to strict rules of socialist realism aesthetics. This resulted in the problematic status of the increasingly sociological nature of the twentieth-century musicology—due to a certain backlash in musicology, scholars started to specifically avoid referring to any non-musical aspects of interpretation. Mieczysław Tomaszewski described this situation in his article Musicology vis-a-vis contemporary times from 1979:

The sociological aspect (…), despite all the reservations, can (and should) be included in the scope of an artwork’s interpretation. The situation both here and in the East seems to resemble the “better safe than sorry” attitude, due to the memory of the years when the sociologizing was vulgar and all- -embracing. It is however difficult to imagine the history of music and the theory of the work without the sociological aspect. Social function is, obviously, a directly constitutive element of musical genres and types. It simply creates them (…). We live in the age when the mainstream musicology’s scope of interest still encompasses music dominated by only one function: the aesthetic one. Other aspects come to the fore of the research rather accidentally and marginally. Of course, sociology of music—and above all ethnomusicology— are developing very well, but they are usually practiced as separate disciplines, not methodologically coordinated with the mainstream.19

What is crucial to emphasize, this call is unfortunately not an outdated one in Polish musicology. The deep wariness with which Polish scholars approach the sociological aspect of music, despite their alleged awareness of its importance in musicology, is still very much existent in contemporary scholarship. Karolina Kizińska addresses

18 For instance, works by Zofia Lissa. 19 M. Tomaszewski, Muzykologia wobec współczesności, in: Intepretacja integralna dzieła muzycznego, ed. W. Berny-Negrey, H. Oleschko, Kraków 2000, p. 14.

35 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

this general reluctance to acknowledge sociological factors in Polish musicology by saying:

I get the impression that the New Musicology is generally treated with scepti- cism in Poland, whether it is about the connection between music and political matters, or it is for instance about music and women’s studies. Generally speaking, we are traditionalists, and most musicologists in Poland are closely related to the mindset typical for music theory (…). They usually like to lean solely on “music itself” and have an allergic reaction to any attempts to explain music through its cultural context, gender, politics or anything else that is not purely musical (…). It is caused by the allegedly “soft” character of these non-musical factors, but interestingly it is not such a big problem to address them in other artistic fields. I have the impression that most of the issues that could be cat- egorized as New Musicology are taken with a grain of salt, they are perceived as a sort of light, and not necessarily serious, “humanizing music” (…).20

The citation clearly shows how omitting non-musical context, first as a kind of a backlash reaction to communist propaganda, has trans- formed into an internalized distrust towards New Musicology perspectives among musicologists in Poland, although not necessarily an explicitly acknowledged one.

Whose Feminism?

Another crucial factor that influenced the state of feminist musicology in Poland is the specific historical context through which feminism has been interpreted in the country. As I mentioned above, the 1970s were the time when women’s studies in Western scholarship flourished. Dur- ing this time, the way of approaching issues of sex, gender equality and feminism was utterly different in Poland, again, mostly due to the influence of communist propaganda. While the Western world witnessed the second-wave feminism, Polish women lived under the dictatorship of an official, institutionalized, yet deeply delusory, gender equality rule. The policy of communist authorities resulted in a mass entrance of women into the labor market. The assumption that both men and women should have equal rights as workers was inseparably linked to

20 K. Kizińska, interviewed by the author, April 2016.

36 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture… the communist definition of citizenship—all citizens should contribute while building the great new communist state. In that sense, the policies aiming to level out the position of women were very remote from what motivated Western feminism. In fact, the very notion of feminism was denied in the communist reality, as a product of “capitalist degenerated West”, a phenomenon specific to capitalist societies.

During the communist times the emancipationists got forgotten because their views were bourgeois and had nothing to do with the class conflict. (…) Accord- ing to the party, feminism only had a raison d’etre in capitalist—not socialist— societies, because in the latter equal rights have already existed for a long time.21

At the same time, the official political line was no guarantee of real- world emancipation. While having their rights on the labor market, women’s roles in the family still remained very traditional. Moreover, their actual agency in the public sphere was limited:

The experience of realist socialism shows that what legalizing emancipation postulates is not a clearly unequivocal emancipatory action. It may even influence emancipatory discourse in a constricting, repressive way. This was the case with the common labor rights, but without the possibility to get promoted on an equal footing with men (…); abortion rights not complemented by sexual education (…); legal prohibition of discrimination against women, but without the possibility of grassroots forms of protest in cases where the ban was being breached.22

Furthermore, the trap that women were caught into was two-sided, as the main alternative space within this society was anti-communist Catholic church. And it was the church that attributed traditional family roles of a wife and a mother to women.

It was a symbol of freedom manifestation, (…) it created the opposing pole in relation to the official system. It was close to its walls where the political opposition was based. (…) This tradition, however, carried the pathetic image of the “Polish Mother”, a guardian of the Polish home and national values. The Church, with its profound impact, perpetuated the pattern of a passive women (…).23

21 M. Ksieniewicz, Specyfika polskiego feminizmu, “Kultura i Historia” 6 (2004), p. 98. 22 Ibid. 23 I. Kowalczyk, Wątki feministyczne w sztuce polskiej, “Artium Quaestiones” 8 (1997), p. 136.

37 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

The consequences of this situation for feminism in Poland were twofold. First of all, both communist system and the traditional gender roles promoted by the Catholic church did not leave the space for feminist awareness to emerge—not only due to the fact that the political regime generally disabled most of the grassroots activity, but also because feminism in its Western incarnation simply was not applicable to the situation and needs of women trapped between the communist regime and the prominent Catholic tradition. The general absence of feminist movements in the country obviously also found its reflection in the realm of art.24 Magdalena Dziadek and Lilianna M. Moll have pointed it out by writing:

The principles of socialism, carried out in Poland after 1945, required both creators and interpreters of the art to keep up the appearance of gender equality; in the communist period it was not in good taste to differentiate art according to gender—after all they were both doing great, and this is why no single initiative analogous to the Western “women’s movement” in music appeared between 1945 and 1989.25

Furthermore, the described situation resulted in a deeply problematic attitude towards feminism in Polish society, which is still present nowadays. The common, stereotypical approach to the second-wave feminist movement, women’s rights, or even to gender equality in general, is a combination of two different, partly contradictory patterns of thinking inherited from the communist era. The first one is a legacy of the communist imposed “obligatory” gender equality and is built on the conviction that feminism is a part of a communist ideology and, as a symptom of the past era, should be avoided or even suppressed. This pattern also strongly leans on the opposition between the foreign, imposed, enforced communist regime and the national, familiar, “our”

24 Analogies can be traced between music and visual arts in this matter. Izabela Kowalczyk in her article Wątki feministyczne w sztuce polskiej from 1994 describes similar conditionings as a source of a late appearance of feminist critique in visual arts in Poland. She mentions for instance that for the most part art critics treat feminist art as a harmless oddity rather than a serious artistic expression and that in their utterances feminist artists cut themselves off from feminism or even sabotage it fully. 25 M. Dziadek, L. M. Moll, Oto artyści pełnowartościowi, którzy są kobietami…, op. cit., p. 8.

38 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture…

Catholic order. This opposition, deriving directly from the past political situation, clearly presents the traditional role of women as the right one. The second pattern is in turn a legacy of the long-lasting propaganda proliferated by communist authorities, saying that feminism is an irrelevant and unnecessary invention coming from the degenerated West. It is built on a conviction that “we”, Polish people, do not need it. In brief, the subliminal message about feminism presents it as an invention that is above all alien, external, not “ours”, and therefore should never be trusted. As a result, two attitudes usually emerge when taking a position towards women and their roles in society, both of them present in the field of musicology. One of them is a great reluctance or even hostility towards feminism and, at the same time, a fear of being called a feminist and the urge to reassure the reader that the attempt to address “women’s subjects” is not a part of any radical and dangerous ideology (usually it results in an obligatory disclaimer “I am not a feminist, but...” before making any feminist statement). The second attitude is a trivialization of the field of women’s studies and arguing that feminism is outdated, irrelevant and unnecessary, at least in our country. Anna Maria Harley wrote in 1997:

The feminist movement or the matter of women in music is often, especially in Poland, acknowledged by a shrug or a sarcastic smile, not to mention an outright hostility. In Poland, the reluctant attitude toward Western feminism is the heritage of socialist ideology: in the communist state media used to mock the excesses of aggressive and funny Americans, stressing that only in the communist movement a woman has all the rights and full equality.26

There are several cases in Polish musicological literature that these two attitudes are expressed. For instance, there is a very common practice to address the role of women in music, but at the same time to cut oneself off from the term “feminism” very explicitly. A very evident example of how some writers feel the urge to literally excuse themselves for addressing questions about female contribution to musical culture is the following fragment from the article by Agnieszka Nowok, reviewing female compositions performed during Warsaw Autumn Festival in 2012. The author writes:

26 A. M. Harley, Po polsku i po babsku, “Ruch Muzyczny”, September 21, 1997, p. 15.

39 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

The question I encountered was: How did female composers mark their presence in the program of this year’s “Warsaw Autumn”? (…) What images (including the images of themselves) did they create through their works? (…) I emphasize that I have not graduated from any sort of gender studies and I am far from a feminist radicalism. That is not what interests me and not what I want to address.27

As if it was not enough for the author to emphasize her non-feminism in the beginning of the article, she makes sure it is clear once again in the course of her text by writing:

When Krikku [a piece by Kaija Saariaho] was floating across the stage carried by a wave of thunderous applause, one of the listeners noticed with genu- ine enthusiasm: “No man would write something like that”. I do not know whether it is true, because, as I indicated at the beginning, I have no intention to practice any feminist critique (…).28

Another scholar who expresses a clearly ambivalent attitude towards feminism is Danuta Gwizdalanka. One can clearly see that this fact may not be separated from the generation she represents. She writes about feminism in music:

The martyrized image of women can be easily (and not accidentally) associated with the Marxist rhetoric, which depicts the exploitation of the working classes in a similar way. What equally wakes up the ghosts of the past is a ruthlessly negative evaluation of music from patriarchal past, a rejection of any aesthetic evaluation for the sake of the sociological one.29

Moreover, in response to one of her book’s blog reviews published in 2011, where the reviewers accused her of a reserved attitude towards feminism, she wrote:

Let me explain the source of this declared distance towards feminism. My generation was studying history of the world as the history of class conflicts; even the literature classes would serve the purpose of debating the injustices

27 A. Nowok, Warszawskiej Jesieni portrety kobiece, “Klucz” 12 (2013), p. 20. 28 Ibid., p. 26. 29 D. Gwizdalanka, Muzyka i płeć, op. cit., p. 204.

40 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture…

experienced by peasants and proletariat. We would laugh at it, but these sorts of accents were popping up even in the music history (just take a look at some books about Bach, Beethoven and other musicians published in the 1950s). Do not be surprised then that later on so many of us felt reluctant to use another conflict, this time the gender one, as a basic tool of interpretation.30

Much harm has also been done by scholars continuously trivial- izing any feminist endeavors. Those who address feminist issues in music very often experience a significant lack of understanding from their colleagues. Gwizdalanka writes: “(…) by some colleagues, my attempt to look at the history of music from a gendered perspective was acknowledged by a sceptical and clearly disavowing question: You are not going to become a militant feminist, are you?”31 Karolina Kizińska recalls how she felt when she discovered feminist studies in musicology during her scholarship in the United States and compared it to what she had experienced during the education in Poland:

After many years of music education and so many music history classes you wouldn’t question the shape of curriculum, you take it for granted. Yes, I remember that I was shocked when I realized that no curriculum, either at school or at university, included female composers. Even the most famous ones, even Barbara Strozzi… No one would say that it was she who created cantata. This was partly why I wrote two master’s theses and then my doctoral dissertation on this subject. (…) I had the impression that this is an unpopular subject in Poland. (…) I remember how my speech about female composers was considered terribly controversial… For me it was so different from what I experienced in the States (…). It is a problem coming from, I don’t know, from such little understanding of this topic’s importance? I still don’t know where does it come from… Apart from a few people who were aware that the subject is not in any way controversial, that it is just another important topic to explore (…), most people really treated my interest as made up, enforced. (…).32

30 D. Gwizdalanka, June 22, 2011 (12:26 p.m.), comment on P. Szkudlarek, Danuta Gwizdalanka, “Muzyka i płeć, Dwie poważne damy”, May 28, 2011, [online] http://dwiepowaznedamy.blogspot.nl/2011/05/danuta-gwizdalanka-muzyka-i- -pec.html [accessed: 1.05.2016]. 31 D. Gwizdalanka, Muzyka i płeć, op. cit., p. 205. 32 K. Kizińska, interviewed by the author, April 2016.

41 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

In the light of these words, it becomes clear that general lack of interest in the feminist standpoint among musicologists is only self- perpetuated by their noticeable unreadiness to open up for new perspectives that they are perhaps not yet familiar with. Last but not least, in some writings focused on female musicians one can observe a great confusion in terms of how the scholars are try- ing to achieve their goal of shedding light on female composers. They make women the object of their studies, but in the end only serve to perpetuate pre-existing, detrimental gender stereotypes. I believe that this is a result of lack of the adequate methodological tools and very often unfamiliarity with feminist theory and women’s studies. These scholars seem to widely ignore that in order to do justice to women it is necessary to not only shed light on them, but most importantly to discard patriarchal perspectives and patriarchal categories of analysis.

The Legacy of Grażyna Bacewicz

The lack of will to critically reflect on female contribution to the musical culture of the country seems to have one more reason. Paradoxically, it is possible that the relatively good conditions for female composers’ professional activity after 1945 have assured many musicologists that the feminist perspective on music history would prove useless in Poland. For example, Danuta Gwizdalanka admits that she only became interested in the topic of women in music when she moved to Cologne, Germany and noted a great masculinization of musical academia there, unlike what she was used to in Poland. She suggests that living in a communist country made the composer’s profession much more accessible to women than it was to their colleagues from across the Iron Curtain. In her book Music and sex she wrote: “The gender equality rule declared by the communist regime fostered Polish women with artistic aspirations”.33 She also recalls that Polish women composers professionally active at that time were generally reluctant to identify themselves through the prism of gender. At the same time, one figure that is inevitably evoked by Polish scholars and women composers whenever the topic of gender emerges as

33 D. Gwizdalanka, Muzyka i płeć, op. cit., p. 203.

42 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture… someone who “set certain standards” is Grażyna Bacewicz. Paradoxically, she might be the reason why the evident masculinization of the postwar Polish composers’ canon is not addressed as problematic and the feminist perspectives in music are being overlooked. Grażyna Bacewicz, who was already a fully-fledged artist and composer in the postwar period, continued her career during the communist times and is considered to be one of the most important twentieth-century creators, next to the prominent male composers such as Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Krzysztof Penderecki or Andrzej Panufnik. While initially her figure might appear as a perfect take-off point for a discussion about gender in Polish musicology, it seems that instead it has become an excuse for not addressing it at all. Taking the above into consideration, two crucial arguments are usually given by Polish representatives of the feminism-sceptic approach in music. One of them is that successful Polish female composers always emphasize the unimportance of their gender in their professional life. The other one is presenting the splendid compositional career of Grażyna Bacewicz as a self-explanatory proof for gender equality among composers in the country. As a result, some writers (like Kłaput-Wiśniewska or Gwizdalanka) risk statements like this:

It is simply a characteristic of Polish musical culture which, in the sphere of the participation of women in such an exceptional field as composition, has special position amongst European countries (…). That is why the artistic activity of women is treated here as self-evident. (…) In the 20th and 21st centuries, Polish women composers were fully acknowledged as participants in many spheres of musical culture (…).34

or:

Talking about the need for women’s emancipation in music might seem in- comprehensible to a Polish reader35 (…). Nowadays the presence of female composers in the official artistic life is only surprising to those who are also surprised that the composer is not a dead “classic” from a distant past.36

34 A. Kłaput-Wiśniewska, Artistic Work of Women – Female Works in Self Reflection of Grażyna Bacewicz, Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar and Agata Zubel, in: The Musical Work and Its Creators, ed. A. Nowak, Bydgoszcz 2015, p. 58. 35 D. Gwizdalanka, Muzyka i płeć, op. cit., p. 187. 36 Ibid., p. 24.

43 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

This way of thinking—taking the statements of successful female composers as an ultimate truth about the accessibility of the profession to women—is unfortunately very misleading. The relatively good situation of female composers in Poland (or to be more specific, of a few of them, as we do not really know any testimonies from those who did not make it to the top) should not free musicologists (especially the ones already interested in the subject of women in music) from the responsibility to ask certain questions. For instance, representatives of the discussed approach do not make an effort to ask themselves why the alleged lack of discrimination is in no way illustrated by the proportions between female and male composers in Polish and international classical music canons. And the Polish canon is very clearly masculinized, to the point that Grażyna Bacewicz is indeed the only woman included in the “top of the top” group. “Women who themselves are in a great professional position usually completely overlook the problem, because they believe that, equally to how they managed to do it, any other woman can. This is absolutely not true”.37 While the group of elite classical music composers might indeed be seen as inclusive once a woman is in it, further questions need to be asked about what was there to overcome on the way to get there. There is another reason why the example of Grażyna Bacewicz is not so self-explanatory after all. If one takes a closer look at the “standards set by Grażyna Bacewicz”, as something that allegedly redefined the perception of female composers in Poland, one can easily see that this idea is to some extent a construct rather than a fact. For instance, in 1950, Stefan Kisielewski, one of the leading figures of musical life in post-war Poland, reviewed the premiere of her Concerto for String Orchestra by writing:

One can say with a clear conscience that this time the dignity of the Pol- ish composers was saved by a woman, Grażyna Bacewicz. Her Concerto for String Orchestra, written with gusto and energy, brimming with fluent inven- tiveness and excellent instrumentation ideas, has finally woken us up from lethargy. (…) Here we have at last tasted a “red-blooded piece” of healthy and tasty music written with a male-like creative power.38

37 D. Gwizdalanka, interviewed by the author, April 2016. 38 Grażyna Bacewicz, “Koncert na orkiestrę smyczkową” [online] http://culture.pl/pl/ dzielo/grazyna-bacewicz-koncert-na-orkiestre-smyczkowa [accessed: 2.06.2016].

44 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture…

It is probably not necessary to add that what Kisielewski intended to achieve through these words was undoubtedly his great apprecia- tion for the piece and its composer. But paradoxically, he attempted to express it by reassuring that all the creative power to compose actually comes from men. I particularly like to think about this quote whenever I encounter statements about how in Poland the musical activity of women has always been “self-evident” and “obvious”39 and therefore the feminist perspective has never been relevant to the interests of Polish musicology. I am not questioning Grażyna Bacewicz’s immense role in the shifting of attitudes towards female composition in Poland, or her position as a great inspiration to the following generations of young female composers. Instead, I am arguing that her phenomenon might have unfortunately made Polish musicology wash its hands of the responsibility to take a critical stance towards the shape of the musical canon from the gender perspective.

A Look into the Future

The essential question is of course not only how to get away from this impasse we found ourselves in, but perhaps even more—why to do it in the first place. Or, to put it more bluntly—why do we, Polish musicologists should care about incorporating feminism into our studies. First of all, by perpetuating the silence, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to create a space for debate about how we want to place the issues of feminism and gender in Polish music scholarship. It seems that it is time to finally open this closet full of demons of the past—as much for the sake of all forgotten and omitted female musical activity, as it is for the contemporary musicology to be insightful and capable of keeping up with most recent questions. I believe it is time to start addressing feminism and applying feminist perspectives, and it is not about just unreflectively copying Western scholarship. The sociological aspect of music, women’s studies, the post-communist legacy—they are all charged in a particular country-specific way—and the variety of meanings they hold is an integral part of Polish musical and political culture. Those meanings need to be faced instead of being systematically

39 A. Kłaput-Wiśniewska, Artistic Work of Women…, op. cit., p. 58.

45 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

ignored. Only in this way can our musicology provide a perspective to effectively explain contemporary musical culture. But it is also something we simply owe to composers. Another generation of young composers is about to start their careers, many women included. I believe it is our obligation to influence the way they perceive gender and the narrative they choose to describe their professional life, as well as to make them challenge the role models they follow and choose consciously what they include into the field of their inspirations. Susan McClary’s words from 1990 seem particularly valid here:

For women writing and performing music today, the impact of feminist critical methods is invaluable. Simply being able to identify where gender difference has been located in music (past and present) facilitates the development of other modes of composing. I do not believe in essentialism, and thus I do not think that women compose differently automatically by sheer virtue of being female. But it seems desirable to me that at least occasionally women negotiate within their inherited discourses differently—that they have the in- formation with which to make choices and to explore alternative strategies.40

Finally, musicology is not solely accountable to the musical realm itself. It is a part of the humanities and in that sense it needs to take the responsibility for how it influences society. Scholarship holds the potential to subvert and redefine social orders—and if social justice is being threatened, all scholars, musicologists included, become respon sible for acknowledging it. In 1997 Izabela Kowalczyk stated:

I believe that (…) feminist art can play an important role in Poland because it can arouse interest into women’s issues among wider audience. Vis-à-vis the discrimination against women by Polish patriarchal culture, it can contribute to the deconstruction of meanings generated within it. It can also lead to breaking the modernist categories, still valid in Poland, through undermining the prevailing categories of art, images about the universality of art, and the myth of the artist standing above the society.41

It is already 2017 and I truly believe it is high time Polish musicologists take these words to heart.

40 S. McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality, Minneapolis 1991, p. 16. 41 I. Kowalczyk, Wątki feministyczne w sztuce polskiej, op. cit., p. 137.

46 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture…

Abstract

In Poland, feminist perspectives in the field of musicology are still not only very rare, but also hold a highly problematic status. Both an overview of relevant Polish literature and scholars’ experiences reveal a two- sided problem within Polish feminist musicology, where there is on the one hand a great disregard for the study of intersections between sex, gender and music, and on the other hand a significant controversy over how to approach the subject once it is acknowledged. The challenges which today’s feminist musicology in Poland needs to confront, are connected with complex and very often ambivalent way in which classical music culture and the feminist discourse have been shaped since the beginning of the communist era (1945-1989). Reaching back to that period, various historical, political and social factors have influenced the study of women and gender in the contemporary Polish musicology. Three equally crucial issues are investigated in order to understand the status of feminist musicology in Poland: 1) the challenges Polish musicology has had to face due to the communist propaganda; 2) the way in which communist reality has shaped the attitude to feminism in the society; 3) the way in which history of Polish classical music is influenced by the figure of Grażyna Bacewicz. The essay characterizes each of these phenomena and presents how they may have contributed to the problematic status of feminist musicology in Poland nowadays.

Keywords

Feminist musicology, Polish musicology, women composers, communist regimes, politics and music, gender, Grażyna Bacewicz

Abstrakt

Pomiędzy kulturą muzyczną a dziedzictwem historycznym: muzykologia feministyczna w Polsce

Przyjmowanie perspektyw feministycznych w badaniach muzykologicznych nie tylko jest w Polsce nadal wielką rzadkością, ale też ma głęboko problematyczny status. Zarówno istniejące w Polsce prace

47 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

naukowe, jak i doświadczenia badaczek i badaczy, ujawniają podwójny problem istniejący w polskiej muzykologii feministycznej: z jednej strony powiązaniom pomiędzy muzyką a płcią biologiczną i kulturową poświęca się niezwykle mało uwagi, a z drugiej strony, gdy temat już się pojawia, uchodzi za bardzo kontrowersyjny. Wyzwania, przed którymi stoi współczesna muzykologia feministyczna w Polsce, mają swoje źródło między innymi w złożonym i często bardzo ambiwalentnym sposobie, w jaki kultura muzyczna i dyskurs feministyczny w Polsce kształtowały się już w czasach PRL (1945-1989). Sięgając aż do okresu komunistycznego, można zaobserwować jak rozmaite czynniki historyczne, polityczne i socjologiczne wpłynęły na badania nad statusem kobiet i płcią we współczesnej polskiej muzykologii. W celu wyjaśnienia statusu muzykologii feministycznej w Polsce omówione zostały trzy istotne zagadnienia: 1) wpływ propa- gandy komunistycznej na polską muzykologię; 2) wpływ rzeczywistości komunistycznej na recepcję feminizmu w polskim społeczeństwie; 3) sposób, w jaki na historię polskiej muzyki wpłynęła postać Grażyny Bacewicz. Artykuł charakteryzuje każde z tych zagadnień i omawia, w jaki sposób każde z nich mogło przyczynić się do aktualnego stanu muzykologii feministycznej w Polsce.

Słowa kluczowe

muzykologia feministyczna, muzykologia w Polsce, kobiety- -kompozytorki, komunizm, muzyka i polityka, gender, Grażyna Bacewicz

Bibliography

Brzezicka-Kamińska A., Polskie kompozytorki na Festiwalu “Warszawska Jesień”, MA thesis, Uniwersytet Warszawski 1998. Citron M. J., Feminist Approaches to Musicology, in: Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music, ed. S. C. Cook, J. S. Tsou, Urbana and Chicago 1994, pp. 15-34. Citron M. J., Gender and the Musical Canon, New York 1993. Covach J., Popular Music, Unpopular Musicology, in: Rethinking Music, ed. N. Cook, M. Everist, Oxford 1999, pp. 452-70.

48 Marta Beszterda, At the Intersection of Musical Culture…

Cusick S. G. Feminism, in: The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition, ed. Charles Hiroshi Garrett, Oxford 2013. Czerska T., Kobiety i twórczość muzyczna w prozie autobiograficznej, “Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica” 16 (2012), s. 194-204. Dziadek M., L. M. Moll, Chopin i kobiety, Katowice 2004. Dziadek M., L. M. Moll, Odrodźmy się w muzyce! Muzyka na łamach polskich czasopism kobiecych i “kobieca” krytyka muzyczna 1881-1939, Katowice 2005. Dziadek M., L. M. Moll, Oto artyści pełnowartościowi, którzy są kobietami… Polskie kompozytorki 1816-1939, Katowice 2003. Grażyna Bacewicz, “Koncert na orkiestrę smyczkową” [online] http:// culture.pl/pl/dzielo/grazyna-bacewicz-koncert-na-orkiestre-smyczkowa [accessed: 2.06.2016]. Gwizdalanka D., Muzyka i płeć, Kraków 2001. Harley A. M., Po polsku i po babsku, “Ruch Muzyczny”, 21 September 1997. Kizińska K., Głos kompozytorski i płeć w kulturze muzycznej siedem- nastowiecznej Italii. Przykład Francesci Caccini, PhD dissertation, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu 2015. Kizińska K., Rola płci kulturowej w badaniach muzykologicznych – zarys pola badawczego muzykologii feministycznej, “Kultura i Edukacja” 94, nr 1 (2013), pp. 22-41. Kizińska K., Gender a kultury muzyczne – kulturoznawcze spoj- rzenie na badania etnomuzykologiczne i historyczne, “Przegląd Kulturoznawczy” 4, nr 14 (2012), pp. 382-390. Kizińska K., Kompozytorka a społeczne hierarchie – próba ujęcia kul- turoznawczego, in: “Zeszyty Naukowe Centrum Badań im. Edyty Stein” nr 8, Fenomen muzyki, red. A. Grzegorczyk, Poznań 2012. Kłaput-Wiśniewska A., Artistic work of women – female works in self reflection of Grażyna Bacewicz, Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar and Agata Zubel, in: The musical work and its creators, edited by A. Nowak, Bydgoszcz 2015, pp. 55-69. Kowalczyk I., Wątki feministyczne w sztuce polskiej, “Artium Quaestiones” 8 (1997), pp. 135-152. Ksieniewicz M., Specyfika polskiego feminizmu, “Kultura i historia” 6 (2004), pp. 90-100. McClary S., Towards a Feminist Criticism of Music, “Canadian University Music Review / Revue de musique des universités canadiennes” 10, No. 2 (1990), pp. 9-18.

49 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

McClary S., Feminine endings: music, gender and sexuality, Minneapolis 1991. „Kobieca strona muzyki”, parts 1-7. [online] http://meakultura. pl/tagi/kobiety-w-muzyce [accessed: 2.06.2016]. Misiak I., M. Tytuła, red., Encyklopedia gender. Płeć w kulturze, Warszawa 2014. Nowok A., Warszawskiej Jesieni portrety kobiece, “Klucz” 12 (2013), pp. 20-26. Solie R. A., Feminism, in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie, J. Tyrell, vol. 8, London 2001, pp. 664-667. Tomaszewski M., Muzykologia wobec współczesności, in: Interpretacja integralna dzieła muzycznego, red. W. Berny- -Negrey, H. Oleschko, Kraków 2000, pp. 9-17.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Barbara Titus, Rutger Helmers, Karolina Kizińska and Danuta Gwizdalanka, who contributed in various ways to the creation of this article. Barbora Kubečková

Palacký University Olomouc Maynooth University

Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900) and his Songs to Goethe: Forgotten Settings?

Goethe’s Reception among Bohemian Composers

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, considered as one of the most prolific writers of all time, stood as a literary inspiration for numerous music composers throughout the long 19th century.1 Although the largest tribute to Goethe’s words was made by German-speaking composers, attention to the poet was paid also by musicians from the Czech lands.2 Hitherto, this area of research has been neglected and yet there is need to examine how Goethe has been received in the Czech lands and perhaps also how art song developed here in comparison to Austria and Germany. All composers mentioned in this paper are primarily connected with Prague, the Bohemian capital. Jan Theobald Held (1770–1851), a reputable doctor in Prague and amateur musician was the first Czech resident that musically engaged with Goethe’s poems Nähe des Geliebten and Der Fischer. Fifteen years later in 1815, Václav Jan Tomášek (1774–1850) began working on forty-one musical settings published privately around 1818

1 This research paper could not be presented without the financial support of Student’s grant FF UP Olomouc, IGA 2016, “Osobnosti druhy a žánry novější české a evropské hudby”. 2 By the Czech lands I mean Bohemia and Moravia, areas constituting the state from the 11th century.

51 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

as Gedichte von Goethe für den Gesang mit Begleitung des Piano-Forte, ops. 53-61. Interest in Goethe’s work marginally appears in compositions by Václav Jindřich Veit (1806–1864),3 who was inspired to set Totentanz (op. 14)4 and Der König in Thule (op. 37).5 The composer I will discuss more carefully, Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900), was for a long time seen as the last Bohemian composer who had undertaken Goethe’s literary legacy in the 19th century. Nonetheless, a few months back I came across a reference to settings of Heidenröslein (sine opus) and Gefunden (sine opus) by Otakar Ostrčil (1879–1935) composed in 18986 and Bohuslav Martinů’s (1890–1959) Goethe settings7 from 1914, forgotten for a long time, which bear testimony to the prevailing 19th century mood.

Fibich’s Goethe Settings

Zdeněk Fibich, born in the year of Tomášek’s death and whose name is strongly associated with opera and melodrama, made his first compositional attempts with songs, a genre which he wrote all his creative life. Like Schubert, Fibich was inspired by German poets during his teenage years. The first song Das Hüttental wird stiller (H. 806) was created in 1863 to the text by Christoph Tiedge soon followed by those of Rückert, Heine and Eichendorff. Fibich produced almost three dozen of songs before his enrolment into Leipzig Conservatoire in October 1865. However, only four preserved songs document Fibich’s dynamic compositional activities that time. Apart from Ich will meine Seele tauchen (H. 77) published in 1901,8 manuscripts of Rückert’s Wunsch (H. 15) and two Heine settings König Wiswamitra (H. 18) and

3 A. Hnilička, Vácslav Jindřich Veit, “Světozor” 1898-99, vol. 33, No. 8, p. 92. 4 The ballade set for a low voice and piano was dedicated to a bass singer Strakatý, who also premiered the setting. Hoffman’s Publishing House in Prague released the setting. 5 The song, most probably originating from 1840s, was published in a collection Six Songs for Mens Chorus (6 vierstimmige Gesänge für Männerst), Breitkopf und Härtel, Leipzig 1854. 6 O. Ostrčil, Písně na texty německý básníků, ed. M. Kratochvílová, Academus Edition, Praha 2015. 7 Čtyři malé písně na Goethův text (Four little songs on Goethe’s texts), Opus No. H. 94, 1914 (unpublished), sig. PBM Ab 84. 8 Z. Fibich, Zwei Gesänge, F. A. Urbánek, Praha 1901.

52 Barbora Kubečková, Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900) and his…

Ende (H. 22) are to be found in the book of songs dated between 1865 and 1871.9 The composer’s interest in Goethe can be traced as early as 1865 to the duet Gefunden (H. 816).10 The song is one of the first that were written during his musical studies in Leipzig, a place famous at the time for a great amount of public song concerts. The Leipzig period further prompted Fibich’s interest in German Lied.11 Apart from settings to Heine which can be traced throughout Fibich’s life, three songs for voice and piano, two duets and a composition for solo and choir to Goethe’s texts were created until the spring 1867. Regrettably, all these settings have been lost.

Date of Place of Title Form Opus No. Manuscript Composing Composing Soprano, Gefunden Bass and 1865 Leipzig Hud. 816 Unknown Piano Lebt wohl, Soprano 4 June 1866 Leipzig Hud. 820 Unknown geliebte Bäume and Tenor Incidental music Voice and 24 November to the Drama Leipzig Hud. 829 Unknown Choir 1866 Clavigo Voice and 27 February Am Flusse Leipzig Hud. 838 Unknown Piano 1867 Es ist ein Schnee Voice and 1 March 1867 Leipzig Hud. 839 Unknown gefallen Piano Voice and Erster Verlust May 1867 Libáň Hud. 846 Unknown Piano Voice and Zigeunerlied mixed 3 June 1869 Žáky Hud. 115 Unknown Choir Museum Voice and of Music An den Mond 10 June 1869 Žáky Hud. 116 Piano Prague, S80/443

9 Z. Fibich, Písně, manuscript, sig. HHO ČMH S80/433. 10 V. Hudec, Zdeněk Fibich Tématický katalog, Edition Bärenreiter, Praha 2001, p. 667. 11 Id., Fibichovo skladatelské mládí. Doba příprav, SPN, Praha 1966, p. 41.

53 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

Voice and Nachtlied August 1869 Jilemnice Hud. 887 Destroyed Piano Voice and Von den Bergen August 1869 Jilemnice Hud. 119 Unknown Piano Nähe des Soprano 1872 Unknown Hud. 172 Unknown Geliebten and Alto Wanderers Choir 1873 Unknown Hud. 185 Unknown Nachtlied II. Sketch; Museum Melodram Mignon 1900 (?) Unknown Hud. 524 of Music (?) Prague, XLII D 221

Table 1: Fibich’s Settings to Goethe.

After a brief and for Fibich musically disappointing stay in Paris between July 1868 and March 1869, the composer returned to live with his parents at the hunter’s lodge. Situated at the edge of a forest in the village of Žáky, this place offered the young musician the perfect habi- tat to compose his works. In this environment, he returned to Goethe’s literary legacy. The creation of Zigeunerlied (H. 115), a gypsy song for a solo and choir from the play Götz von Berlichingen, was followed by the setting of An den Mond (H. 116). Songs Nachtlied (H. 887) and Von den Bergen (H. 119), dating back to August 1869, correspond with Fibich’s encounter with his first wife Růžena Hanušová. During his summer vacation of 1869, the young composer stayed with the family of a miller and baker Josef Hanuš in Jilemnice, a village located at the foot of the Krkonoše Mountains. Here, Fibich met Hanuš’s daughter Růžena (1851–1874) whom he married in 1873. The stay in Jilemnice prompted Fibich’s compositional activities. Apart from number of vocal pieces, Fibich composed two piano Bagatelles, Serenade and Overture Krakonoš. All the compositions are believed to have been destroyed by the composer most probably during the time he was revising his work in 1897.12 The apex of Fibich’s song settings to Goethe

12 Id., Zdeněk Fibich, SPN, Praha 1971, p. 19.

54 Barbora Kubečková, Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900) and his… arose in 1871. Fibich was well aware of the impending relocation of his family to Prague following his father’s retirement. Therefore, the young musician intensively worked on his compositions to be able to demonstrate to Prague’s audience his abilities and musical knowledge gained abroad.13 Just before the departure of Fibich’s family to Prague in May 1871, the composer set to music nine poems from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (H. 134), dated between 16 and 21 April.

Title First line Date Book and Main Chapter Key Lied der Mignon Heiß mich nicht reden 16 April Book 5, Chap. B♭ major 16 Lied der Mignon So lasst mich scheinen 17 April Book 8, Chap. 2 G major Lied der Mignon Kennst du das Land 17 April Book 3, Chap. 1 A♭ major Lied der Mignon Nur wer die Sehnsucht 18 April Book 4, Chap. C major kennt 11 Lied des Harfners An die Türen will ich 18 April Book 5, Chap. F# minor schleichen 14 Lied des Harfners Wer nie sein Brot mit 19 April Book 8, Chap. 8 E minor Tränen aß

Philines Lied Singet nicht in 19 April Book 5, Chap. D major Trauertönen 10 Des Harfners Wer sich der Einsamkeit 20 April Book 1, Chap. 3 F# minor Lied ergibt Des Harfners Was hör‘ ich draußen von 21 April Book 1, Chap. 8 B♭ major Ballade dem Tor

Table 2: Fibich’s Settings Aus Goethes Wilhelm Meister Lehrjahren, 16-21 April 1871.

13 Ibid., p. 13.

55 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

As Fibich’s first encounter with Goethe reflects the beginning of his concentrated musical studies abroad, the creation of Fibich’s first song cycle matches his farewell to these years. Only two more settings to the German poet appeared after the cycle. Song Nähe des Geliebten better known in its Czech translation Myslím na Tebe (H. 172/7),14 produced in 1872, and the second Wanderers Lied “Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh” (H. 185). The latter setting, for male or mixed choir, composed at the year of Fibich’s marriage to Růžena Hanušová in 1873, concluded the composer’s adolescent life and his musical adaptations to Goethe’s poems for good. Overall, twenty-one Fibich’s vocal pieces were inspired by Goethe’s literary work. Among them are fifteen songs, four duets, two settings for voice and choir and one piece for mixed choir. For his settings Fibich chose mostly intimate lyrical texts, already set to music by Schubert, Schumann and Robert Franz.15 14 out of 21 vocal compositions to Goethe were set by Schubert and 11 by Schumann. The inspiration from these two composers is noticeable in two aspects: firstly, in the choice of poems and secondly, in the compositional approach which I will discuss later. Initially, poems with regular strophic patterns were chosen to train Fibich’s early compositional approach. Fibich also worked with a wide range of poems by diverse authors, what taught him to musically differentiate various genres of songs. He often chose lyrical and love themes, poems celebrating nature as well as folk motives, literary themes which were characteristic for his time. Throughout the song settings, Fibich broadened his melodic invention and imaginative thinking, alongside his understanding of the need for unity between words and music. Like his predecessors, Fibich inclined to express melodically poetic meanings, and set out to capture the pinnacle of the mood and poetic atmosphere. According to Fibich himself, this was “the highest task of a modern composition in the genre of song”.16

14 The Czech translation corresponds to the first line of the verse “Ich denke dein”, a title under which this song is known even in the Fibich’s Thematic Catalogue ed. by Vladimír Hudec, p. 220. 15 V. Hudec, Zdeněk Fibich…, op. cit., p. 25. 16 Z. Fibich, V Přírodě, “Dalibor” 1860, III., No. 16, pp. 123-4, in: V. Hudec, Zdeněk Fibich…, op. cit., p. 41.

56 Barbora Kubečková, Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900) and his…

Aus Goethes Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahren

To show some examples of Fibich’s Lieder, I am going to talk about Fibich’s settings to Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister Lehrjahre. As already mentioned, Fibich chose to compose nine songs from Goethe’s Bil- dungsroman as he drew to the end of his student years. His decision to first set a unified group of songs to Goethe was not unusual among composers in the 19th century. For example, Schubert and Wagner composed their opus 1 to texts by Goethe. Like Schumann more than two decades earlier, Fibich selected the same poems for his series and omitted the Spottlied as a part of the novel. The settings, with the exception of two Mignon’s songs, were never published before or after the composer’s death nor are there any audio recordings of the settings. Only the handwritten transcript by Fibich leaves us with hope that these songs might have been performed in public, perhaps by a soprano singer Betty Hanušová-Fibichová, the composer’s wife, and the bass singer Karel Čech, who often performed Fibich’s music.17 Nonetheless, unlike characters from his operas which were often written for particular performers, none of the settings to Wilhelm Meister reveal a dedication or a comment suggesting an intended performer. Furthermore, the composer never effusively enforced his work. In fact, to publish or compose at any cost was a feature truly unfamiliar to Fibich who believed that quality would reveal itself.18 His afore mentioned comment, “unsuitable for print”, from the transcript of his collection of Songs, does not suggest any intentions to perform it widely or distribute these settings even in his later days. Lied was a form highly popular at the time which provided Fibich with the unnecessary intermediate step on his journey to the creation of more extensive vocal compositions, most notably opera. Fibich was aware of the need to compose greater compositions to Bohemian themes and in the original language in order to be able to approach Prague, the veritable musical centre, and more importantly define his identity as a Czech composer. Therefore, as a part of a first opera to Czech libretto

17 V. Hudec, Fibichovo skladatelské mládí…, op. cit., p. 39. 18 J. Kopecký, Fibich, Zdeněk, in: Český hudební slovník osob a institucí, [online] http://www.ceskyhudebnislovnik.cz/slovnik/index.php?option=com_mdictiona- ry&action=record_detail&id=7521 [accessed: 20.10.2015].

57 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

Bukovín, also appear songs composed to their initial Czech texts or to translations from German.19 The first question to be raised in relation to the Wilhelm Meister settings is whether Fibich meant to create a song cycle as claimed by the Czech musicologist Vladimír Hudec or it was intended as a song set. As obvious from the table two, the timeline of the creation of these settings does not follow the order of the poems in Goethe’s book. In fact, first of the Mignon’s songs were set followed by the four settings of Harper. Philines Lied was placed between the four Harper’s settings. Additionally for Lied der Mignon “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt”, written as a duet sung by Mignon and Harper in the novel, Fibich set it for solo voice and piano as with the rest of the songs. The song was published in Sborník skladeb skladatelův českoslovanských in 1883.20 In the 1890s, when preparing a selection of songs The Spring Rays (H. 300), the only one to be chosen from Wilhelm Meister song set was Mignon’s Lied “Kennst du das Land”. 21 By publishing these songs outside the cycle, Fibich made it clear that he valued these Mignon’s Lieder more than the others and that he did not intend to rework the series in order to publish it as a cycle. On the other hand, the song set is unified by Bb major key employed for the initial and final songs. Fibich composed the three Harper’s songs, which speak about his sorrow and guilt, with minor keys, while his female counterpart Mignon is represented in major tonalities as a means of creating contrast between both characters. Two Harper’s songs are set in the F# minor, a key in the 18th century related with death and afterlife22 as “peace in a silent grave” is what Harper wishes for in Wer sich des Einsamkeit (Ex. 1).

19 Ibid. 20 Z. Fibich, Sborník skladeb skladatelův českoslovanských, F. A. Urbánek, Praha 1883–1884, No. 1. 21 Id., The Spring Rays (H. 300), F. A. Urbánek, Praha 1893. 22 S. Youens, Mendelssohn’s Songs, in: The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn, Cambridge 2011, pp. 189-205.

58 Barbora Kubečková, Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900) and his…

Ex. 1: Z. Fibich, Wer sich des Einsamkeit, bb. 1-6.

Fibich employs an ostinato accompaniment to show Harper’s constant rumination from which he cannot escape. In a similar manner is a repetitive pattern in piano employed in Mignon’s song So lasst mich scheinen (Ex. 2).

Ex. 2: Z. Fibich, So lasst mich scheinen, bb. 10-12.

59 Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, nr 34 (3/2017)

Song, set in G major key, pinpoints Mignon’s reconciliation when she speaks of leaving all her toil and sorrow behind. As a mantra or a prayer repeats the ostinato pattern which carries Mignon’s hope to be as untroubled as a child again once her life’s pilgrimage reaches its end. Another aspect Fibich uses to underline the simplicity of a setting is doubling the vocal melody in the piano part as is demonstrated on the earlier song of An den Mond (Ex. 3).

Ex. 3: Z. Fibich, An den Mond, bb. 1-10.

Although the poem is not a part of the Wilhelm Meister’s book, the setting deserves a note. Here Fibich set to music only first three out of the nine stanzas, a sole feature in his Goethe settings.

60 Barbora Kubečková, Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900) and his…

The best known and very often set Lied der Mignon “Kennst du das Land” proves Fibich’s major strength; his ability to combine musical drama with a lyrical melody (Ex. 4).