Singing Emotions: Voices from History Editors Jane Davidson and Rebekah Prince about this Book About Emotions and History this book amarcord

articles This book is the outcome of an industry partnership launched by the The pre-concert series transpired as follows: Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History • 17 July, Perth Concert Hall The Power of Emotions (CHE) with Musica Viva through July and August 2012. A Jane Davidson and Philippa Maddern of Singing series of pre-concert talks accompanied the German vocal ensemble Singing of Executions: Ballads Amarcord’s touring programs based on the history of song, and the • 19 July, Adelaide Town Hall themes of love and murder. as News Media in Early Modern Europe Katie Barclay Chief Investigators, Postdoctoral Fellows and Associate Investigators of • 21 July, Sydney City Recital Hall Musical Patronage CHE contributed talks, each presentation interpreting a different aspect Alan Maddox and the Dresden Opera of the musical offerings. Lindsay Lovering of Musica Viva referred to the • 24 July, Canberra Llewellyn Hall fascinating array of talks as: ‘informative, entertaining and clearly well Music and Emotions in Merridee Bailey 18th Century Thought researched — all noted and appreciated by the many present.’ • 26 July, Melbourne Recital Centre and Rhetoric and the 1 August, Queensland Conservatorium Performance of Recitative Samantha Owens From Glee Club • 28 July, Newcastle Conservatorium to Concert Hall Rosalind Halton (CHE guest) Singing Fear: Sinophobia and • 30 July, Sydney City Recital Hall Barry Spurr Opera in 19th Century Australia • 31 July, Melbourne Recital Centre Love and Marriage in History: Stephanie Trigg Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal This current volume offers up some of these The Aspirant Body: talks along with additional material from Love, Death and Song associates of CHE, exploring the relationship between singing, emotion and history. contributor biographies

ISBN 978-1-74052-258-8 about this Book Emotions Emotions and History and History amarcord

articles Affective experiences throughout history have been shaped by the culture and The Power context of human engagement. While of Singing the names and meanings ascribed to Singing of Executions: Ballads emotions have changed over time, there are nonetheless common psychological, as News Media in Early Modern Europe physiological and behavioural features Musical Patronage of humanity that remain constant. In the and the Dresden Opera Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Music and Emotions in (Europe 1100-1800) we investigate the 18th Century Thought passions in four research programs that ask: how do understandings, Rhetoric and the expression and performance of Performance of Recitative individual and mass emotions change From Glee Club over time; how do we best understand the roles of nature and culture in the to Concert Hall formation of emotions, both individual Singing Fear: Sinophobia and and communal; and how do emotional Opera in 19th Century Australia understandings, expression and performance affect political, social Love and Marriage in History: and cultural developments even up Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal to present-day Australia? The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book Emotions and History Amarcord amarcord

articles Indeed the group has a rich musical and ‘Music is also about cultural heritage in the city of Leipzig, The Power where they have founded their own emotions, and sometimes of Singing music festival. They remember their it’s hard to keep your Singing of Executions: Ballads shared history, growing up in the St Thomas Boys Choir singing the songs emotions back. So you as News Media in Early Modern Europe of Bach near the tomb where he was have to transport emotions Musical Patronage buried, under the looming threat of by singing, but sometimes and the Dresden Opera East Germany. During this oppressive time in their city’s history the Boys it’s so overwhelming what Music and Emotions in Choir provided them with a unique you do in a nice church 18th Century Thought opportunity for freedom of expression through music, and occasional travels for example - it’s almost Rhetoric and the around the world as representatives sacred music - and then you Performance of Recitative of the German Democratic Republic’s feel this special tension in endorsement of the arts. From Glee Club the air. There’s more than to Concert Hall The people of Leipzig also have a great respect for music and the arts. Unlike you yourself standing. It’s Singing Fear: Sinophobia and the neighbouring city of Dresden, whose something between the Opera in 19th Century Australia musical establishments were funded listeners and we as singers, Amarcord is an a cappela ensemble from by the royal courts, the music of Leipzig Love and Marriage in History: Leipzig made up of former members what we sing. It’s more than Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal was supported by average citizens. of the St Thomas Boys Choir: Daniel The Boys Choir itself, which provided the summary of five.’ The Aspirant Body: Knauft, Wolfram Lattke, Martin Lattke, rigorous musical training, predates Frank Ozimek, and Holger Krause. The Holger Krause, of Amarcord Love, Death and Song even Bach, having been founded in first professional adult ensemble to 1212. Thus, the members of Amarcord come out of the choir after the Fall of contributor biographies had a specialised upbringing in a city the Wall, the group takes its name from abounding in musical tradition. Federico Fellini’s Oscar winning film, whose name means, ‘I remember’. Amarcord now tours internationally, performing unaccompanied vocal music Holger Krause said, ‘It’s more than a ranging from early medieval through to double meaning. We remember our contemporary pieces. They have won childhood, we remember the tradition at numerous awards, and their 2012 tour the time of the music, the periods and in partnership with Musica Viva and the epochs we have on our repertoire.’ ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions was the group’s second time in Australia. about this Book The power Emotions and History of singing amarcord

articles Jane Davidson, Philippa Maddern The University of Western A Australia The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book The power Emotions and History of singing amarcord

articles Jane Davidson These multi-modal interactions are Philippa Maddern crucial to normal human development, The Power The University of Western Australia and all actions occur simultaneously, of Singing organized by a common pulse. In this Singing of Executions: Ballads regard, therefore, the infant, through One of the most compelling theories proto-musical activity, is an active as News Media in Early Modern Europe attempting to account for the participant in the co-construction of Musical Patronage universality of human music-making a positive emotional relationship. The is based on the idea of mutuality and the Dresden Opera mother’s vocalisations and movements — the behavioural and emotional involve repetitions, exaggerations and Music and Emotions in coordination between two individuals elaborations that are quickly assimilated 18th Century Thought who need each other for their own by the infant and responded to with individual reasons (Dissanayake, 2009, like ‘musical’ expressions. It has an Rhetoric and the p. 23). Ellen Dissanayake believes that adaptive value for participants in the Performance of Recitative as hominid babies were extremely relationship, nurturing feelings of love helpless at birth, mechanisms From Glee Club and attachment in both mother and evolved to ensure nurturance. These infant. This idea has been extended by to Concert Hall mechanisms were firstly, and common the archaeologist, Steven Mithen (2005), Singing Fear: Sinophobia and to all mammals, lactation, that not who also suggests that mother–infant only provides nourishment for the Opera in 19th Century Australia interactions offered abilities that were infant, but also produces the release then used for communal singing and Love and Marriage in History: of hormones such as opioids and dancing as core behaviours in human Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal oxytocin that guarantee the mother’s society. These arguments are supported devotion to the infant — producing by findings that even infants in the very The Aspirant Body: feelings of love and trust. The second early days of life show a highly focused Love, Death and Song mechanism is found in the coordination interest in music. Also, a sensitivity to of behaviour that is referred to by the several musical features that are found contributor biographies neurobiologist Colywn Trevarthen as in music across cultures, such as pitch ‘communicative musicality’ (see Malloch and rhythm (Trehub, 2003). & Trevarthen, 2009). The interaction is founded upon a lilting bodily rocking and sung utterances commonly called ‘motherese’, and includes other accompanying special bodily movements and facial expressions. The Power of Singing | Jane Davidson, Philippa Maddern | The University of Western Australia

about this Book Whether or not we accept these heavy rock music to pump themselves How exactly music and/or song can theoretical propositions, music/singing up in battle contexts. So, evidence influence human emotions remains Emotions and History and movement/dance are often regarded reveals that rhythmically strong music a much-debated question.1 At one as the same concept in many cultures. affects us, making us move faster extreme, some theorists (Kivy, 1989; amarcord Thus it is important to recognise the and often in more aggressive actions. Levinson, 1990; Zangwill 2004, 2007) positive and integral relationship Studies of motoring show a significant deny that music can actually make between them: music and movement increase in speed and aggression of the listener feel a true emotion. Their articles literally help to bind us together, and drivers when listening to music with a argument rests largely on the idea that The Power movement is a key component of loud and heavy rock beat. emotion has to have an ‘object’ — to feel emotional reactions to music. This fear, we have to be afraid of something; of Singing Biological research shows that when idea has been recognised since at to feel sorrow, we have to have we are singing in group contexts least the time of Aristotle (Scherer something to be sorry about (a death, a Singing of Executions: Ballads oxytocin, the ‘trust’ hormone, is & Zentner, 2001), and more recently loss, a departure). But there’s no true as News Media in Early Modern Europe produced. Thus, we are given to feeling discussed by Edmund Gurney (1880) life-object in music; therefore, according greater connection to people with whom Musical Patronage and Carroll Pratt (1931). to Zangwill (2004, p. 29) ‘music, in itself, we have sung. This biological outcome and the Dresden Opera has nothing to do with emotion.’ A different theoretical account of early of group singing undoubtedly Music and Emotions in hominids’ use of group singing and offers a context for positive 18th Century Thought dancing proposed by Jordania (2009) social behaviour through also highlights this music/movement singing. But, of course, if we are given to feeling Rhetoric and the relationship. He argues that the music is an evolutionary greater connection Performance of Recitative repetitions and melismatic qualities that adaptation, it may have come appear in music have been developed to about through several other From Glee Club to people with invoke deep emotional experience; for adaptations that we could to Concert Hall example, a communal trance-like state. consider proto-musical whom we have sung Singing Fear: Sinophobia and We know that this sort of behaviour is (Cross, 2009). In his Origin of Opera in 19th Century Australia still observed in cultural practices such Species of 1859, Charles Darwin believed But this theory runs counter to reported as the highly energetic Haitian Vodou that human music came from courtship experience and also completely Love and Marriage in History: song and dance rituals, or the deep song he had observed in primates. contradicts a very long history of Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal meditative, gentle and slow-paced but This argument was taken up in recent musical theory — from Pythagoras highly repetitive rhythms and pitches of years by Miller (2000), suggesting that onwards, classical, medieval and early The Aspirant Body: quiet Buddhist chants. Jordania’s theory music is a technology for fitness-display modern philosophers have accepted the Love, Death and Song proposes that at one extreme of cultural in sexual selection: the singing voice idea that music can directly influence development religious ritual practices signalling control and self-confidence; emotions. Thus, one song form contributor biographies emerged, often contrasting in intention, the rhythmic ability of dance showing expressing triumph or thanksgiving such as the very different examples of complex movement skills and also which first appears in Homer’s Iliad, is Haitian and Buddhist cultures. At the revealing coordination, strength and so the ‘paean’. These were usually intended other extreme, intense fast rhythms health and power. for a chorus but at times were sung in and deep bass sounds were developed monody, and it seems that Pythagoras for war/military practices. For example, and his followers would sing ‘paeans’ American soldiers in the Vietnam War in to improve their moods. In the early the 1960s were encouraged to listen to medieval period, Boethius transmitted The Power of Singing | Jane Davidson, Philippa Maddern | The University of Western Australia

about this Book Pythagorian theories to the western New and unexpected It’s likely that a mix of all world in his De Institutione Musica, these processes operates; Emotions and History (written in the 6th century) — relating harmonies resulted and if so, this would explain the story of how Pythagoras calmed a in shivers or chills in why some emotional amarcord young man who had become distressed reactions to music seem to by the sound of the Phrygian musical the listeners be extremely widespread, mode. The young man, so the story says, if not absolutely universal, articles discovered his ‘harlot’ in the house of while others are clearly The Power another man and was ready to burn as a form of empathy (cf. Darwall, 1997; cultural. Thus, one important study of Singing the man’s house down. This frenzy was Huron, 2008; Levinson, 1996; Molnar- by John Sloboda (1991) identified attributed to his having been listening to Szakacs & Overy, 2006; Vreeke & Van particular musical formations which Singing of Executions: Ballads a flautist playing in the Phrygian mode. der Mark, 2003; and Walton, 1999). Or seem to reliably induce certain as News Media in Early Modern Europe He responded to reason when the music the music may have cultural or personal emotions in listeners. He found that was changed to the slow and rhythmic associations that evoke emotions sequences and appoggiaturas (both of Musical Patronage Spondaic mode, illustrating the great through memory. If a particular piece which can delay an expected harmonic and the Dresden Opera power music was believed to have over of music is continually paired with a resolution) consistently evoked tears in the emotions. particular occurrence or person etc., his participants. New and unexpected Music and Emotions in the listener may develop a conditioned harmonies resulted in shivers or chills More modern psychologists offer a 18th Century Thought response to that music, i.e. the emotions in the listeners. But by contrast, a number of explanations by which originally associated with that person or disastrous cultural misunderstanding Rhetoric and the music and song might affect listeners occurrence will be triggered by hearing is revealed in the musical tale of the Performance of Recitative emotionally (see Juslin & Västfjäll, the music. Of course the association Dutch explorers who landed in New 2008). These span the gamut of purely From Glee Club might be purely personal — the memory Zealand in 1642. The Dutch mistook the biological (and hence probably universal) of a specific event in a person’s life, or the Maori shell trumpet calls they heard to Concert Hall reactions to emotions generated out of phenomenon of ‘Darling they’re playing as their boat came into shore as a cultural, and even personal histories. Singing Fear: Sinophobia and our tune’ (Davies, 1997, p. 69; Kivy, 1989, ceremonial welcome. They responded At one end of the spectrum, it’s very Opera in 19th Century Australia p. 18). This has been supported by studies to the ‘greeting’ with fanfares on their likely that sound — including music in which participants report that music own musical instruments. However, a Love and Marriage in History: — sets off some brain stem reflexes. activates memories of the circumstances bloody attack by the Maoris ensued, as Emotion is induced owing to one or more Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal surrounding a prior hearing of the music, they had perceived the Dutch fanfares fundamental acoustical characteristics memories associated with the content to be war calls to arms. The music’s The Aspirant Body: of the music that are taken by the brain of the words, because the genre of the meaning and affect was different in each Love, Death and Song to signal importance and urgency — music was the same or similar to other cultural context. necessary survival information. Thus, as music connected to particular memories, contributor biographies a form of auditory information, music is Whatever the true origins of music and or even just because the valence of the likely to elicit emotional response like singing, or the mechanisms by which music matched emotions associated with any other environmental event. On the it affects us emotionally, its use as a a particular event or person (Garrido & more cultural level, it’s possible that technology for social coordination is Schubert, 2012). music affects us through emotional powerful, suggesting that singing is at contagion — the listener perceives the the root of the musical/emotional and emotional expression of the music and social sharing experience. No wonder, then ‘mimics’ this expression internally, then, that some cultures regard singing The Power of Singing | Jane Davidson, Philippa Maddern | The University of Western Australia

about this Book to be such a powerful activity that they have stories song forms from every culture and period in history, of human creation indicating that humans were sung offering a structural framework through which to sing Emotions and History into existence (a strong belief in Indigenous Australian specific affective content. The simplest of these forms cultures). And no wonder, either, that if there’s one is reproduced through unison singing. Songs have also amarcord socio-cultural activity we know to be practically been developed by several people singing in parallel universal, it’s singing. We can’t think of a culture motion or with call-and-answer phrases, or drone worldwide in which people don’t sing, and generally bass lines and canon — the staggered entry of different articles sing together (either as performers or listeners). voices imitating an original melody. From these ‘basic’ forms we can trace through historical records an The Power Singing in all human cultures has developed a evolving sense of elaborations in musical structure, of Singing structured core: song. Across cultures and exploring including melodic sequences and harmonic/musical the historical records we know, song is organized in a punctuation that ultimately developed into the musics Singing of Executions: Ballads series of rhythmic and melodic patterns. Indeed, the of Western and Eastern popular and high art traditions. as News Media in Early Modern Europe use of melodic patterns based on several tones — or Thus, the syntax and context of music generally, and a type of scale — is a fundamental characteristic of Musical Patronage song in particular, have become much more elaborate and the Dresden Opera over the course of history, and the emotional meaning has changed over the centuries. Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought But the question we want to reflect on is, what is singing for? What social functions does it serve? Rhetoric and the Particularly in the period from 1500-2000, from which Performance of Recitative Amarcord’s programme was selected. We have said enough already to suggest that the function of singing From Glee Club is not just aesthetic (though of course we do get to Concert Hall aesthetic pleasure out of singing and hearing others Singing Fear: Sinophobia and sing — otherwise we would not attend concerts). In Opera in 19th Century Australia fact, modern theorists have identified many functions for song in human evolution. Daniel Levitin, for Love and Marriage in History: instance, identified six basic functions — knowledge, Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal friendship, religion, joy, comfort, and love (2008). So, songs can be used to pass on vital cultural information The Aspirant Body: — as in many Indigenous communities, where certain Love, Death and Song types of sacred knowledge descend through ‘song lines’. But they also evoke memories, even in those contributor biographies who may suffer dementia with increasing age. Jane Davidson has been carrying out a large-scale study with six choirs of seniors over the past five years in The Power of Singing | Jane Davidson, Philippa Maddern | The University of Western Australia

about this Book Perth, Western Australia. As one elderly usable in almost all situations. From the Sometimes the message is a joke, member of one of the choirs recorded: 16th to 20th centuries, songs were sung pointed by the music. In Ein henlein in the salons of the incredibly wealthy Weiss, Antonio Scandello uses hen Emotions and History I wouldn’t say I got teary, but when and aristocratic, the courts of kings imitations in a quite complex and high- you haven’t heard those songs for so and emperors — and by beggars in level form of music (the madrigal) to amarcord many years and your memory goes the streets. They were sung in taverns, announce the great event — ‘the hen back…to when you sort of…family and in churches, at weddings and at lays an egg!’ But why is that a good articles company and that. funerals, before audiences of two or joke? It’s partly because, in the 16th The Power The carer of a 102-year-old dementia three, or by thousands in public venues, century when that song was written, of Singing resident at a nursing home remarked: by and to women, men and children. In songs were news media. News ballads short, songs were sung everywhere, for would be printed out, on individual She’s so much more engaged Singing of Executions: Ballads every occasion. sheets, with a well-known tune named and engaging when she’s in the at the head. Then they’d be sold in the as News Media in Early Modern Europe singing group. streets (probably with the sellers singing Musical Patronage Songs act to reinforce feelings of ʻWhen I sing, I can them as they went); and the buyers and the Dresden Opera friendship, cohesion, and even intimacy. would sing them on to new audiences. That way, news — or political opinion — Music and Emotions in This quote comes from a senior woman, literally feel new to group singing, who joined a choir could spread like wildfire through even 18th Century Thought for older people: the caress of the an illiterate population. There was a whole genre, for instance, of execution Rhetoric and the Being in a group and singing is breath of others Performance of Recitative ballads. Instead of our TVs telling us a deeply physical and emotional close to meʼ that a major crime figure, like Tony From Glee Club experience. I can feel the hairs rise Mokbel, has been imprisoned for so on the back of my neck as I feel the to Concert Hall many years, there would be a ballad, vibrations of the low male bass voices What better means, therefore, of getting reporting the execution of a notorious Singing Fear: Sinophobia and singing behind me. When people get a message, or an emotion across than criminal, often with what we might think Opera in 19th Century Australia older, they don’t experience physical by putting it in a song? What sorts of of as inappropriate glee (in the 19th contact the way they used to when messages? Again, the range is almost century, for instance, one ballad entitled Love and Marriage in History: they were young. When I sing, I can exponentially wide. Sometimes it’s On y a coupé la tete — ‘They cut off his Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal literally feel the caress of the breath a clever and evocative bit of scene head’ — was sung to a can-can tune). of others close to me; I can feel us all painting, as in the Jean Cras song- So when we hear songs like Ein henlein The Aspirant Body: breathing together, being close and Love, Death and Song cycle, Dans la montagne. In L’appel de la weiss, or Orlando di Lasso’s Bonjour, et intimate in the harmonies. cloche, the voices are deliberately made puis, quelles nouvelles (which ends up to recall the evening Angelus bell; both boasting about the singer’s girlfriends), contributor biographies From the point of view of a social historian, as Philippa is, song is by the text (which has special ‘o’ sounds we have to think that for 16th century particularly fascinating, as a medium incorporated in it by the composer), people, they are a form of satire — a bit accessible to almost all humans, and and by a type of head voice specified. like the spoof newspapers produced by Presumably the song sparks memories students on Prosh day. in the listeners by the processes Jane has outlined above — and with those memories, imaginations of scenery, of places, of experiences, and of emotions. The Power of Singing | Jane Davidson, Philippa Maddern | The University of Western Australia

about this Book Of course satire can be directed Why should songs function this way? Got together in a valley anywhere. We know that individuals I think it’s because they are almost Hébert led the dance in the meadow Emotions and History were satirized in the streets of London impossible to control. In medieval With pipe and tabor and Paris as early as the 12th century. Europe, for instance, the increasingly Robin was not pleased amarcord There’s an Anglo-Norman song about an culturally dominant Catholic church When he saw it unsuccessful lover, for instance: tried to ensure that only certain sorts But out of defiance of music and chants were practised Set himself to dance a better articles Do you want to know the story — the ones that produced the most estampie Of how Little Willy wastes his time moral emotions, or the most devotional So he seized his drone, took up his hat The Power Over a girl who can’t get far enough responses. So the Cistercian monastic Tucked up his tunic of Singing away from him? order, founded in the early 12th century, And danced a fine estampie Night and day he goes begging her and dedicated to reforming both For the love of his sweetheart Singing of Executions: Ballads not to be unkind religion and society, tried to regulate Roger, Billy and Walter are dead as News Media in Early Modern Europe ‘O please, my darling, my sweet little the composition of church plainchant, jealous snubnose Musical Patronage stipulating that melodies were to stay They’re not laughing Please take pity on your lover’ and the Dresden Opera within a range of ten notes in order to They say defiantly Songs are also a fine medium for saying preserve an aura of seriousness and That before nightfall Music and Emotions in what would probably not be said openly devotion (Hoppin, 1978). His pipe will be worn out and broken 18th Century Thought just in speech. Take Matona mia Cara — (Huot, 1997, p. 173; Rothenberg, But what was the result? Even though look at the first lines, and you’d think it’s 2011, p. 67) Rhetoric and the plainchant might be strictly organised, just another decorous courtly love song: Performance of Recitative how could the use of it be controlled? It This uncontrollable characteristic I’m looking for a song wasn’t long before anonymous secular of songs means that they could also From Glee Club To sing beneath your window composers were using religious plainchant express profound political resistance. to Concert Hall as the basis for three-part motets whose We know, for instance, that black But as it goes on, you realize the song upper two voices were anything but slave songs in the southern American Singing Fear: Sinophobia and is more about big-noting the singer, religious. Take the 13th century motet states could be used in several ways Opera in 19th Century Australia probably to the embarrassment of its L’autre jour/Au temps pascour/In seculum — with innocent religious texts while ostensible object. When you get to the Love and Marriage in History: for instance. The lowest voice sings part of the slave owner was by, or, as soon last verse, where the singer decides the Easter service: as he was (almost) out of earshot, Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal he’ll boast to the whole world about his with lyrics that castigated his private sexual prowess (‘I’ll go the whole night This is the day that the Lord made… The Aspirant Body: misdeeds, or words that gave clues long/strong as a ram’), one wonders Praise the Lord… Love, Death and Song to the paths to follow to escape to whether Matona (if she existed) really For his mercy endures forever freedom (Levine, 1977). For how can one wanted anyone singing these lyrics contributor biographies But the second voice recounts a day legislate effectively against song? Most outside her window. of peasant merry-making, with Robin of the slave singers Levine discusses and Marian as principal characters, were deliberately kept illiterate. But and a heavy underlying connotation of illiteracy is no handicap if the source sexual rivalry: of information, and its transmission, is sung. Authorities can prove that At the time of Easter someone owns an illegal printing press, All the shepherds of the countryside or a copy of a banned book — but how The Power of Singing | Jane Davidson, Philippa Maddern | The University of Western Australia

about this Book do they prove that someone knows a There’s a neat little twist on that issue laugh, or reflect, or even weep, that song? Short of 24-hour surveillance to even in the anonymous text of the we’ll also remember we do so because Emotions and History catch someone singing a forbidden tune, dance-song Quand je bois du vin clairet. the song isn’t just an amusing bit of it can’t be done. Regulating singing has Yes, it’s just a drinking song: culture. The song is an essential part of been tried (in Ireland, at times, it was being human; it’s a way of creating and amarcord When I drink claret illegal even to whistle certain melodies arousing social emotions, such as trust, My friend, everything goes round and that might recall anti-government mutual solidarity, intimacy, empathy; of articles round and round and round words) — but never very successfully. achieving religious states, of stimulating But what’s the chorus? memory and establishing communities; The Power Every folksong, then, just by being of passing on political messages, and of Singing a folksong, preserves from the past Let’s sing and drink giving voice to the oppressed. In short, an alternative voice — not just the Let’s make war it’s a whole powerful medium of social Singing of Executions: Ballads pre-occupations or priorities of the rich On whom? the king’s enemies? No — communication on all levels. as News Media in Early Modern Europe and famous, but the reactions of the Musical Patronage ordinary people, to whom, maybe, the ‘on this bottle’. and the Dresden Opera stories of kings and conquests that fill The song is an essential the official chronicles of the day weren’t Songs give us a huge variety of Music and Emotions in at all important or relevant to their lives. entertainment — funny, soulful, part of being human evocative of moods and landscapes, 18th Century Thought witty. But I hope, as we listen and Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative Endnote From Glee Club to Concert Hall 1 The next five paragraphs are based on a piece of writing Huron, D. (2008). Why do listeners enjoy music that makes Mithen, S. (2005). The singing neanderthals: The origins of prepared by Sandra Garrido and Jane Davidson, and them weep? Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on music, language, mind and body. London: Weidenfeld Nicolson. Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Sandra’s contribution is acknowledged here. Music Perception and Cognition, 236-242. Molnar-Szakacs, I., & Overy, K. (2006). Music and mirror Opera in 19th Century Australia Jordania, J. (2009). Times to fight and times to relax: Singing neurons: From motion to ‘e’motion. SCAN, 1, 235-241. and humming at the beginnings of human evolutionary Pratt, C. C. (1931). The meaning of music. New York: McGraw- Love and Marriage in History: history. Kadmos, 1, 272–277. Hill. References Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal Juslin, P. N., & Västfjäll, D. (2008). Emotional responses Rothenberg, D. J. (2011). The flower of paradise: Marian to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms. devotion and secular song in medieval and renaissance music. Cross, I. (2009). The evolutionary nature of musical meaning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 559-621. New York: Oxford University Press. The Aspirant Body: Musicae Scientiae, Special Issue: Music and evolution, 179- Kivy, P. (1989). Sound sentiment: An essay on the musical Scherer, K. R., & Zentner, M. R. (2001). Emotional effects of 200. Love, Death and Song emotions. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. music: Production rules. In P. Juslin & J. Sloboda (Eds.), Music Darwall, S. (1997). Empathy, sympathy, care. Philosophical Levine, L. W. (1977). Black culture and black consciousness: and emotion: Theory and research (pp. 361-392). Oxford: Oxford contributor biographies Studies, 89, 261-282. Afro-American folk thought from slavery to freedom. New York: University Press. Davies, S. (1997). Why listen to sad music if it makes one feel Oxford University Press. Sloboda, J. A. (1991). Music structure and emotional response: sad? In J. Robinson (Ed.), Music and meaning (pp. 242-253). Levinson, J. (1990). Music, art & metaphysics: Essays in Some empirical findings. Psychology of Music, 19, 110-120. New York: Cornell University Press. philosophical aesthetics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Trehub, S. E. (2003). The developmental origins of musicality. Dissanayake, E. (2009). The artification hypothesis and its Levinson, J. (1996). The pleasures of aesthetics: Philosophical Nature Neuroscience, 6(7), 669-673. relevance to cognitive science, evolutionary aesthetics, and essays. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Vreeke, G. J., & Van der Mark, I. L. (2003). Empathy, an neuroaesthetics. Cognitive Semiotics, 9(5), 136-158. Levitin, D. J. (2008). The world in six songs: How the musical integrative model. New Ideas in Psychology, 21, 177-207. Garrido, S., & Schubert, E. (2012). Negative emotion in brain created human nature. New York: Penguin. Walton, K. (1999). Projectivism, empathy and musical tension. music: What is the attraction? A qualitative study. Empirical Malloch, S. & Trevarthen, C. (Eds.). (2009). Communicative Philosophical Topics, 26, 407-439. Musicology Review, 6, 214-230. musicality: Exploring the basis of human companionship. Oxford: Zangwill, N. (2004). Against emotion: Hanslick was right about Gurney, E. (1880). The power of sound. London: Smith, Elder Oxford University Press. music. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 44(1), 29-43. & Co. Miller, G. (2000). Evolution of human music through sexual Zangwill, N. (2007). Music, metaphor, and emotion. The Hoppin, R. H. (1978). Medieval music. New York: Norton. selection. In N. Wallin, B. Merker & S. Brown (Eds.), The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 65(4), 391-400. Huot, S. (1997). Allegorical play in the old French motet: The origins of music (pp. 329-360). Cambridge: MIT Press. sacred and the profane in 13th century polyphony. Stanford: Stanford University Press. about this Book Singing of Executions: Ballads as Emotions and History News Media in Early Modern Europe amarcord

articles Una McIlvenna The University of Sydney The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book Singing of Executions: Ballads as Emotions and History News Media in Early Modern Europe amarcord

articles Una McIlvenna of emotions in the transmission of The University of Sydney fact-based information, and why song The Power is no longer an acceptable medium for of Singing Kind hearted men, a while give eare the conveyance of news. We tend to view Singing of Executions: Ballads And plainly Ile unfold song only as an art form in our modern, Western world, primarily because the as News Media in Early Modern Europe The saddest tale that ever yet, By mortal man was told.1 conjunction of words and music is Musical Patronage perceived as imbuing the words with and the Dresden Opera It would seem odd for us to turn on greater affective strength. Words cannot the TV and hear a newscaster sing therefore be sung if one is conveying Music and Emotions in the news, but in early modern Europe factual material. Song is seen as too 18th Century Thought information about newsworthy events subjective, too emotional. We expect was regularly set in verse and sung news to be impartial and objective; Rhetoric and the through the streets. These ballads, emotions in this context seem to Performance of Recitative often set to familiar tunes, were usually preclude the truth. But was that always printed on single-sheet broadsides From Glee Club the case? What was the role of ballads and sold by itinerant vendors who in the dissemination of information to Concert Hall would sing the song as a means of about public executions, for example? advertising their wares. The songs Singing Fear: Sinophobia and To put these execution ballads into some Opera in 19th Century Australia recounted the news of foreign battles, natural disasters, monstrous births, kind of context, it is helpful to consult Love and Marriage in History: royal scandals and — the biggest seller the engraving by William Hogarth, Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal of all — executions2. Unlike traditional The Idle Prentice Executed at Tyburn songs of love, courtship and marriage, (Plate 11 from his Industry and Idleness The Aspirant Body: these songs about genuine persons series). In it, the unfortunate Thomas Love, Death and Song and events performed a function that Idle is paying the ultimate price for his we do not expect of song today: they descent into vice and we see him drawn contributor biographies related factual information. Usually to the gallows at Tyburn, London’s highly sensational and full of emotive notorious execution site. Pride of place language, the ballads deliberately in Hogarth’s engraving, however, is sought to guide the listener’s responses not given to Idle, but to the female to the often tragic events they depicted. ballad vendor placed centre stage. Carrying a baby and poorly dressed, she This early modern form of news epitomises the stereotype of ballad- media raises questions about the role sellers across Europe, marginal figures Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe | Una McIlvenna | The University of Sydney

about this Book who generally lived at or below the poverty line. Amidst the din of the chaotic crowd, she sings the contents Emotions and History of the pamphlet she holds: The last dying Speech & Confession of --- Tho. Idle. Given that Idle hasn’t quite amarcord reached the gallows yet, this fraudulent claim — obvious to anyone present at the execution — was a regular ploy used by ballad writers and printers to articles heighten the emotional impact of the ballads, which The Power were often on sale on the day of the execution itself. of Singing Often written in the voice of the condemned criminal, the ballads were a powerful warning to listeners and Singing of Executions: Ballads singers of the ballad to eschew temptation so as to as News Media in Early Modern Europe avoid the same fate. Musical Patronage A spectator who bought one of these ballads and sang and the Dresden Opera the tune could therefore imagine themselves in the position of one who stood on the precipice between life Music and Emotions in and death. The emotions of fear, remorse and shame 18th Century Thought could be experienced vicariously, if only briefly, by anyone who chose to sing, for example, Anne VVallens Rhetoric and the Lamentation, For the Murthering of her husband Iohn Performance of Recitative Wallen. This ballad, set to the sombre tune of Fortune My Foe, depicts Anne as a scold, a wife who regularly From Glee Club railed at her husband, eventually murdering him, but to Concert Hall Although the ballad presents Wallen as remorseful, who has seen the error of her ways and enjoins the one witness to her punishment, Sir John Chamberlain, Singing Fear: Sinophobia and spectators at her execution (in particular, wives) to view questioned the justice of the sentence given that Opera in 19th Century Australia her punishment as both just and cautionary: her husband was violent and she had acted only in If ever dyed a true repentant soule, self-defence: Love and Marriage in History: Then I am she, whose deedes are blacke and foule Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal That morning [22 June 1616] early there was a Then take heed wives be to your husbands kinde, joyners wife burnt in Smithfeild [sic] for killing her The Aspirant Body: And beare this lesson truely in your minde, husband. Yf the case were no otherwise then I can Love, Death and Song Let not your tongus oresway true reasons bounds, learn yet, she had summum jus [extreme right, or Which in your rage your utmost rancour sounds: excessive rigor of the law], for her husband having […] contributor biographies brawld, and beaten her, she took up a chesill or In burning flames of fire I should fry, such other instrument and flung it at him, which cut 3 Receive my soule sweet Jesus now I die. him into the bellie, wherof he died.4 Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe | Una McIlvenna | The University of Sydney

about this Book The ballad presents select truths of presents an unequivocal message of the way, ballads both participated in and the case (that Anne’s husband was a state’s power to erase this transgressive reinforced the didactic exercise that Emotions and History turner in Smithfield, that she killed him threat.5 Significantly, framing these public execution existed to provide. As a with one of his tools, that she spent events in a song encouraged the spectacle of deterrence that presented amarcord three days in Newgate Prison before repetition and memorisation of the its viewers with a glimpse of a soul the assizes court came to judge her) moral lesson with each performance. about to enter Heaven or Hell, public but couches them within a moral lesson Moreover, putting the ballad in the voice execution encouraged its audience articles of uxorial obedience which elides her of the condemned, repentant criminal to meditate on their own lives and The Power husband’s violence. This was standard meant that anyone who sang it could chances of salvation. In their communal, of Singing practice for ballads about murderous imagine herself in the place of the performative nature, execution ballads wives, which sought to create an image punished wife, remorseful of her wifely thus also allowed their public to take an Singing of Executions: Ballads of transgression and disorder contained disobedience. active role in the theatre of punishment. and destroyed. A disobedient wife, never as News Media in Early Modern Europe The performative nature of song, and mind a murderous one, presented a its ability to reach a diverse audience, Musical Patronage threat to the early modern patriarchal meant that it was a highly effective and the Dresden Opera society and the ballad therefore execution ballads ... means of delivering information in the Music and Emotions in early modern period when literacy levels allowed their public 18th Century Thought were still low. The standard, formulaic message of warning and repentance in to take an active role Rhetoric and the execution ballads could be transmitted in the theatre of Performance of Recitative to a wide range of people of all classes, whatever their level of education. In this From Glee Club punishment to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies

Endnotes

1 Thomas Dickerson, Iohn Spenser a Chesshire Gallant, his life and repentance, who 3 Anne VVallens Lamentation, For the Murthering of her husband Iohn Wallen for killing of one Randall Gam: was lately executed at Burford a mile from Nantwich. a Turner in Cow-lane neere Smith-field; done by his owne wife, on satterday the To the tune of in Slumbring Sleepe. (London: J. Trundle, n.d.). 22 of Iune. 1616. who was burnt in Smithfield the first of Iuly following. 2 The full text of this and other early modern English ballads can be found, along 4 Cited in Randall Martin, Women, Murder, and Equity in Early Modern England with recordings of many of the ballads, online at the English Broadside Ballad (New York: Routledge, 2008), 20. Archive (EBBA) http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/. See also Ballads and Broadsides in 5 For more on early modern murderous wives see Frances Dolan, Britain, 1500-1800, eds. Patricia Fumerton and Anita Guerrini (Farnham: Ashgate, Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England, 1550-1700 2010). For German ballads, see Tom Cheesman, The Shocking Ballad Picture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). Show: German Popular Literature and Cultural History (Oxford: Berg, 1994); for French ballads, see Thomas Cragin, Murder in Parisian Streets: Manufacturing Crime and Justice in Popular Press, 1830-1900 (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2006) about this Book Musical Patronage Emotions and History and the Dresden Opera amarcord

articles Janice Stockigt The University of Melbourne The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book Musical Patronage Emotions and History and the Dresden Opera amarcord

articles Janice Stockigt The University of Melbourne The Power of Singing The following article sheds light on aspects of early Singing of Executions: Ballads modern German music. Though not strictly related to as News Media in Early Modern Europe singing, German musicians today, such as the singers in the group Amarcord, descend from this rich cultural Musical Patronage heritage. Indeed the great master, Johann Sebastian and the Dresden Opera Bach, who was choir director at St Thomas church in Music and Emotions in Leipzig from 1723 to 1750 also had a presence at the court 18th Century Thought of Dresden where he held an honorary position. From 1738 he was listed in published Dresden court records Rhetoric and the along with the court church composers as ‘Joh. Seb. Performance of Recitative Bach Tit.[ular]’. From Glee Club Whilst acknowledging certain of his numerous to Concert Hall illegitimate children, the charismatic Saxon Elector and King of Poland August II (also known as ‘der Starke’: Singing Fear: Sinophobia and 1670–1733) had one legal heir only: Electoral Prince Opera in 19th Century Australia Friedrich Augustus (1696–1763: See Plate 1). Between 1711 and 1719 this prince, who had been raised at the Love and Marriage in History: court of his pious Lutheran mother and estranged Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal wife of August II, Christine Eberhardine, undertook a Grand Tour of France and Italy. Following his father’s The Aspirant Body: example, the prince converted to Catholicism, thereby Love, Death and Song enabling him to later become a candidate in the elections of 1733 to find a successor to his father. contributor biographies Between 1716 and 1717 the electoral prince was PLATE 1 established in Venice where musical works began to be Nicolas de Largillierre dedicated to him by composers seeking his patronage. French 1656–1746, worked in Belgium 1668–74, England 1674–79 Crown Prince Frederick Augustus of Saxony c.1714-15 Among the compositions offered at this time were oil on canvas twelve sonatas by the violin virtuoso Francesco Maria 140.8 x 107.0 cm 1 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia Veracini (1690–1768) dated ‘Venezia 26 Lugio 1716’, Everard Studley Miller Bequest, 1968 an oratorio La Pace di Kamberga by Johann David Heinichen (1683–1729),2 and the opera Ariodante by Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera | Janice Stockigt | The University of Melbourne

about this Book Carlo Francesco Pollarolo (c. 1653– The manuscript of the offending aria ... 1723), a work performed in Venice in Emotions and History 1716. Resulting from these musical gifts was torn up and thrown at Heinichen’s were the appointments of Heinichen as feet, causing a scandal that brought amarcord personal Kapellmeister to the prince, and of Veracini as a chamber composer and the Dresden opera to a halt violinist to the Dresden court. By 1719 articles each was paid the high annual salary religion, adored both him and his son. aria then being rehearsed was torn The Power of 1200 Thaler. The greatest musical There were some qualms, however, up and thrown at Heinichen’s feet, of Singing initiative of the electoral prince, however, about Maria Josepha and the Austrian causing a scandal that brought the was the employment for a series of Piety she might bring into Lutheran Dresden opera to a halt. The Italian Singing of Executions: Ballads seasons for Dresden of an entire opera Saxony5. Among the month-long singers were discharged,7 August II as News Media in Early Modern Europe company which was organised and celebrations Lotti’s opera Teofane closed the opera (thus finalising his directed by the Venetian composer was produced. Heinichen composed a financial commitments to the imported Musical Patronage Antonio Lotti (c. 1667–1740), who brought serenade titled La gara degli dei which musicians), and Berselli and Senesino and the Dresden Opera a company of singers — including his was performed by the royal musicians were now free to take up Handel’s offer wife the soprano Santa Stella and the Music and Emotions in on the Elbe river, and a French to travel to London. castrati Matteo Berselli and Senesino divertissement titled Les quatre saisons 18th Century Thought Without opera, musical attention in (Francesco Bernardi), instrumentalists, with music composed by the Dresden Dresden became increasingly focused Rhetoric and the and set designers to Dresden. court Kapellmeister Johann Christoph upon the Catholic court church which, Schmidt (1664–1728) was staged in the Performance of Recitative Between 6 October 1717 and 4 March for the following decade, flourished with open air.6 Among the many musicians 1719 the Saxon Electoral Prince strong royal support. Nevertheless, the From Glee Club who came to Dresden at this time to Friedrich Augustus moved to Vienna artistic tastes of the electoral prince to Concert Hall see and hear the musical events were where he engaged in the courtship of and Maria Josepha were beginning to Georg Philipp Telemann (1861–1767) Singing Fear: Sinophobia and the elder daughter of the late Emperor have an impact in Dresden. Their desire and his long-time friend, George Joseph I, Archduchess Maria Josepha for the return of Italian opera led to Opera in 19th Century Australia Frideric Handel (1785–1759). He visited (1699–1757), an alliance long hoped a project that saw the beginnings of 3 the Dresden opera empowered and Love and Marriage in History: for by August II. In September 1719 strong and continuing operatic traditions financed by directors of London’s Royal Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal the newly-wed couple returned to in Dresden: in 1724 seven young Italians Academy of Music to secure singers for Dresden to a rapturous reception. — three women and four castrati — The Aspirant Body: their forthcoming operatic projects in Numerous visitors were attracted to were selected to be trained over the Love, Death and Song London. During this visit Handel gave the city at that time to witness the following years in Venice and Bologna.8 a harpsichord recital for the king and magnificent festivities held to celebrate They arrived in Dresden during June 4 prince for which he was rewarded with contributor biographies this union. These events were planned 1730 and were heard soon after when, the payment of 100 ducats. In the year with meticulous attention to detail accompanied by the renowned court following these events rehearsals of by August II whose subjects, despite orchestra, they sang a now-missing Heinichen’s opera Flavio Crispo began. misgivings caused by his change of cantata on the River Elbe during military Two of the Italian castrati, Berselli exercises organised by August II. In July and Senesino, accused Heinichen of 1731 an Italian-trained German-born incompetence in the setting of Italian composer Johann Adolph Hasse (1699– texts. The manuscript of the offending 1783) and his wife, the brilliant soprano Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera | Janice Stockigt | The University of Melbourne

about this Book Faustina Bordoni (1697–1781), also PLATE 2 Giambattista Tiepolo arrived in Dresden at the invitation of the Italian 1696–1770 Emotions and History court. Together, these two superstars The Banquet of Cleopatra 1743–44 came to earn 6000 Thaler annually — a oil on canvas 250.3 x 357.0 cm huge salary when compared with the amarcord National Gallery of Victoria, wages of the other musicians.9 The Melbourne, Australia production of Hasse’s opera Cleofide on Felton Bequest, 1933 articles 13 September engendered great interest The Power and excitement, not only because of of Singing the ravishing singing: Dresden now heard a new musical style emanating Singing of Executions: Ballads from Naples and Venice known as the as News Media in Early Modern Europe stile galant. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) and his eldest son Wilhelm Musical Patronage Friedemann (1710-1784) travelled to and the Dresden Opera Dresden at exactly that time. On 14 September Johann Sebastian gave Music and Emotions in a recital on the Silbermann organ of 18th Century Thought the Lutheran church of St Sophia in of secular, sacred, and instrumental Imperial Gallery in Prague14. Giovanni Rhetoric and the the presence of the Dresden court 10 compositions came into the royal Battista Tiepolo’s painting The Banquet Performance of Recitative musicians and virtuosi, and it is probable that both father and son collection of the Dresden court, and of Cleopatra which today hangs in the From Glee Club attended a performance of Cleofide, an today this repertoire draws numerous National Gallery of Victoria (Plate 2) to Concert Hall opera based upon the text Alessandro performers, musicologists, and editors was obtained for the beloved hunting nell’Indie (1729) by Imperial court poet to the Saxon State and University Library castle of the royal and electoral family, 15 Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Metastasio (1698–1782).11 in Dresden where much of the collection Hubertusburg , and in 1752 negotiations Opera in 19th Century Australia remains. Here is kept the set of parts began for the acquisition of Raphael’s When August II died on 1 February that were dedicated to the elector in painting known as the Sistine Madonna of Love and Marriage in History: 1733 Dresden had been elevated from 1733 of Bach’s Missa. These formed the c. 1513–14, a work that arrived in Dresden Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal a Saxon city into a major European Kyrie and Gloria from the monumental in 1754 at the cost of 25,000 Roman centre. His son and heir became the work completed late in his life, the Mass scudi.16 In 1772 the Englishman Charles The Aspirant Body: new Saxon Elector Friedrich August II, in B Minor (BWV 232).12 Burney (1726–1814) visited Dresden Love, Death and Song and later that year was elected King during his research into the music in the As King of Poland, August III was in a of Poland. August III (as he was now Low Countries, Austria and Germany. He position to pursue in earnest his great contributor biographies titled) became a powerful patron of the regarded Dresden’s royal art collection passion, the fine arts. Advised and aided arts and Maria Josepha supported the as ‘the first and most considerable by Francesco Algarotti and Ludovico Dresden court music (and particularly in Europe, both for the number and Bianconi13, the king greatly augmented the music of the Catholic court church), excellence of the paintings it contains.’17 eventually arranging for the purchase the art collection of his father. In 1745 of the musical libraries following the he purchased the entire gallery of the deaths of various court composers and Duke of Modena. Three years later, in musicians. Thus, a copious collection 1748, August acquired 56 works from the Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera | Janice Stockigt | The University of Melbourne

about this Book The Venetian artist Bernardo Bellotto Carnival season in Dresden. In 1738 a twelfth performance the ladies of the (1721–1780) who painted in and performance of the newly-composed Dresden court hired the court’s Swiss Emotions and History around Dresden between 1747 and opera La Clemenza di Tito with libretto Guards to reserve their seats until their 1758, recorded the later years of the by Metastasio and music by Hasse (a arrival. For this production the Dresden amarcord construction of a new Catholic court work described as being of an ‘exquisite opera house was illuminated with new church, a building commissioned nature’) drew great applause from lamps which provided brighter light by August III and designed by the the spectators.20 Spectacular ballets and reduced the danger of fire.21 After articles former architect to Peter the Great, performed by French dancers were Burney visited this opera house in 1772 The Power Gaetano Chiaveri (1689¬–1770). incorporated into Dresden’s operas, and he wrote: Today, this Catholic Cathedral of the short comic operas (intermezzi) were of Singing I went to the great theatre, where the Diocese of Dresden-Meissen and the sung between acts. The 19th century serious opera used to be exhibited. It recently-restored Lutheran Cathedral, historian Moritz Fürstenau recounts Singing of Executions: Ballads was built…by Augustus the second; the Frauenkirche,18 constitute the how on 5 February 1753 the opera as News Media in Early Modern Europe but was afterwards decorated, most important elements of the Solimano by Hasse to the libretto of and the stage much enlarged, by Musical Patronage ensemble of buildings that still shape Dresden court poet Giovanni Ambrogio Augustus the third. I was extremely and the Dresden Opera Dresden’s skyline. Migliavacca (c. 1718–c. 1795) was curious to see this celebrated scene performed in the recently-remodelled Dresden’s crowning musical glory of action, where general Hasse, Music and Emotions in and enlarged opera house Am Zwinger. was the opera. Of all performing arts, and his well disciplined troops, had 18th Century Thought Solimano was staged thirteen times opera displayed the magnificence made so many glorious campaigns, during the Carnival season of 1753 Rhetoric and the of a prestigious and cultured ruler. and acquired such laurels; all his and audiences were full of admiration Performance of Recitative The heroic character of a Baroque best works having been expressly for the splendour of the production. opera tended to mirror the patron. In composed, as some of Metastasio’s From Glee Club The especially remarkable sets were Hasse’s opera Cleofide, for example, dramas were written, for its use. No created by Giuseppe Galli-Bibiena to Concert Hall the character of the magnanimous money was ever taken for admission (1696–1757), who also had been Alexander the Great might be seen to be into this theatre, which is nearly as Singing Fear: Sinophobia and responsible for the remodelling of the August II, a role he’d taken in a Carousel large as that at Naples. It has five Opera in 19th Century Australia opera house. Equally admired were the in 1695.19 Maria Josepha probably saw rows of boxes, thirty in each, is of an ballets arranged by the Dresden court herself reflected in the character of the oval form, like the theatres in Italy, Love and Marriage in History: ballet master Antoine Pitrot (1727–post devoted and faithful heroine Cleofide. and has an orchestra capable of Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal 1792), who appeared at the end of From 1734 on, and with few exceptions, containing a hundred performers.22 Solimano as the character ‘Bassa’ with The Aspirant Body: at least one new opera was produced a grand entourage that included four After the arrival of Hasse the Dresden Love, Death and Song annually for the Dresden court. These large elephants (these were puppets) court orchestra more than doubled in were mostly composed by Hasse to texts with towers led by dwarfs. From each size. Players from the ensemble were contributor biographies of Metastasio. After 1733, new operas tower two male and two female dancers heard at intimate court concerts in were usually given during the hunting leapt to the stage. Live elephants, special rooms set aside in the Dresden season at Hubertusburg on the birthday horses, and camels were loaned from palace by Maria Josepha. Here, music of August III (7 October), and during the the royal stables to appear on stage was listened to with close and critical during Act I. A stage orchestra and attention. At her command, operatic numerous silent ‘extras’ were needed. and oratorio rehearsals were held The popularity of this opera was so there in the presence of the queen and great that it was reported that for the invited guests. Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera | Janice Stockigt | The University of Melbourne

about this Book Discipline within the Dresden opera In 1740 a Dresden-based writer Johann In 1763 August III returned to Dresden orchestra was remarkable: before an Gottlob Kittel (d. 1751) published a poem where he died on 5 October, leaving his Emotions and History operatic premiere Hasse discussed in which he dreamt that Apollo called eldest surviving son Prince Friedrich performance details of the new work the virtuosi of London, Vienna, Paris, Christian to succeed as Elector of amarcord with concertmaster Johann Georg Rome, Naples, Madrid, and Dresden to Saxony. But within two months this Pisendel (1687–1755), who then went Parnassus for a musical competition.26 new Elector also passed away. Hasse through the beautifully prepared parts The performances of the winners — the composed the requiem masses for articles (most are now missing from Dresden).23 Dresden musicians — are described the funerals of both August III28 and The Power These were then marked up with by Kittel in wonderful detail. Hasse’s Friedrich Christian, and these were to 29 of Singing bowings and dynamics. A German keyboard playing, Faustina’s glorious be the last of his works for Dresden. contemporary was astonished to see voice, the music of court church In 1772 Burney observed that during Singing of Executions: Ballads this royal orchestra perform in the pit composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679– the reign of August III the city was as News Media in Early Modern Europe of the opera, noting that the violinists 1745), and the virtuosi who sang his regarded as the Athens of modern appeared to have their arms forced sacred music were all highly acclaimed. times, and the arts — especially music, Musical Patronage into parallel movement by a hidden But Apollo’s final praise was reserved poetry, and painting — were loved and and the Dresden Opera mechanism,24 a feature of French for their patron, August III, because cherished by this King with ‘a zeal orchestral playing perhaps, but a this ‘Lord of miraculous gifts’ ruled and munificence greater than can be Music and Emotions in disciplined approach which then seems and governed in a manner that brought found in the brightest period of ancient 18th Century Thought to have been unusual. perfect harmony to his subjects. history.’30 Visitors to Dresden today enjoy remnants of the patronage of these Rhetoric and the New operas were composed for special If only this King and his Prime Electors of Saxony and Kings of Poland, Performance of Recitative occasions in the royal and electoral Minister, Count von Brühl, had paid but do they pause to wonder whether family, especially the celebration of those more attention to military matters! From Glee Club the excessive magnificence of the marriages that created alliances between At the beginning of the Seven Years Elector-Kings led to the distresses that to Concert Hall Saxony and the courts of Naples, Spain, War (the last of the Silesian Wars, came to be suffered by Saxony? Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Munich, and Versailles.25 Numerous 1756–1763) Saxon troops were defeated Opera in 19th Century Australia musical works were written for and by the Prussians during the Battle of dedicated to members of the Dresden Lobositz (1 October 1756). August III Love and Marriage in History: court (particularly to the electors and and his Prime Minister spent the next Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal family members). Saxon princes and years exiled in Poland. Maria Josepha princesses were no mere dilettantes: remained in Dresden, at her wish, with The Aspirant Body: all had received a thorough musical her children. She died during 1757 and Love, Death and Song training. Today the Saxon State and although Frederick II had humiliated University Library holds compositions this queen,27 she was spared the contributor biographies written by August III’s musically- mortification of witnessing her family’s gifted daughter-in-law, Maria Antonia flight to Munich to avoid the horrors of Walpurgis Symphorosa (1724–1780), the the siege of 1760 when Dresden became wife and cousin of Saxon Electoral Prince a major battle ground between Prussian Friedrich Christian (1723–1763). and Austrian forces. Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera | Janice Stockigt | The University of Melbourne

about this Book Endnotes

1 Kept in the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden (SLUB: D-Dl), 17 Burney, son of the portrait painter James Macburney, twice visited the royal Emotions and History Mus. 2413-R-12. picture gallery in Dresden. For his remarks, see The Present State of Music in Germany, vol. 2, pp. 39–44, and 52–4. 2 D-Dl, Mus. 2398-D-4. On this work see Wolfgang Horn, Die Dresdner amarcord Hofkirchenmusik 1720–1745: Studien zu ihren Voraussetzungen und ihrem 18 The Frauenkirche was designed by George Bähr (1666–1738) and built between Repertoire (Kassel, Stuttgart: Bärenreiter, Carus, 1987), pp. 40–46. 1726 and 1743. 3 It has been observed that this marriage represented the culmination of the 19 Representations of August II as Alexander Magnus in the ‘Karussell der Vier articles efforts of August II to command European political power; Saxon politics were Monarchien’ (5 February 1695) are reproduced in Eine gute Figur machen: Kostüm now joined to those of the empire. George Buelow, ‘Dresden in the Age of und Fest am Dresdner Hof, eds Claudia Schnitzer, Petra Hölscher (Exhibition The Power Absolutism’, ed. Buelow The Late Baroque Era: From 1680s to 1740. Man & Music Catalogue. Dresden, 2000), pp. 139–40. August also liked to be portrayed as the Series vol. 4 (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1993), p. 223. Saxon Hercules. See Helen Watanabe O’Kelly (p. 205) in ‘The Saxon Hercules: of Singing August the Strong, Elector of Saxony, King of Poland’, in ed. Watanabe O’Kelly, 4 A thesis by Elizabeth Mikosch titled ‘Court Dress and Ceremony in the Age of the Court Culture in Dresden (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 193–40. Baroque. The Royal Imperial/Imperial Wedding of 1719 in Dresden: A Case Study’ Singing of Executions: Ballads (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University: 1999) provides a wonderfully detailed 20 Reported in the edition of 1739 in the Königl. Polnischer und Churfürstl. Sächsischer as News Media in Early Modern Europe account of the planning by August II of the entertainments to mark the arrival in Hof- und Staats-Calender (HStCal; Leipzig, from 1728, except 1730 and 1734), 14r. Dresden of the Saxon Electoral Prince and Princess. 21 Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik, pp. 275–8. Musical Patronage 5 Austrian Piety (Pietas Austriaca) was the distinctive Habsburg religious expression 22 Burney, The Present State of Music in Germany, vol. 2, pp. 50–51. and the Dresden Opera characterized by Eucharistic devotion, veneration of the Cross, and adoration of Mary as Queen of Heaven. See Friedrich W. Riedel, Kirchenmusik am Hofe Karls VI 23 In 2005 Dr Karl Wilhelm Geck from the Saxon State and University Library (SLUB) (1711–1740) (Munich, Salzburg: Katzbichler, 1977), pp. 26–9. of Dresden was among a group of experts invited to the Russian State Library Music and Emotions in Moscow to view a selection of materials including items of liturgical music 6 For descriptions of these festivities see Mikosch, ch. IV, and Buelow, ‘Dresden in that came from the Dresden Hofkirche to the Sächsische Landesbibliothek, 18th Century Thought the Age of Absolutism’, pp. 223–6. and now missing from Dresden. The visit is reported by Dr Geck in ‘Dresdner 7 ‘Senezino’ was, at the wish of the Royal Academy of Music, to be recruited as Musikmanuskripte in Moskau’, SLUB Kurier: Aus der Arbeit der Sächsischen Rhetoric and the soon as possible. O. E. Deutsch, Handel, a Documentary Biography (London: A. Landesbibliothek- Staats-und Universtitätsbibliothek Dresden, 20/3, pp. 6–8. Performance of Recitative & C. Black, 1955, and later reprints), pp. 89–90. Heinichen was never to see a 24 Reported by Johann Adam Hiller in ‘Pisendel (Johann George): Königl. performance of his opera Flavio Crispo. Polnischer und Churfürstl. Sächsischer Concertmeister’, Lebensbeschreibungen From Glee Club 8 This project and the arrival of the singers are described by Moritz Fürstenau in berühmter Musikgelehrten (1784; rpt. Leipzig, Peters, 1975), pp. 192–3. to Concert Hall Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe and Zur Geschichte der Musik 25 In 1738 the eldest Saxon Princess Maria Amalia (1724–1760) married Charles VII, und des Theaters am Hofe der Kurfürsten von Sachsen und Könige von Polen, 2 King of the Two Sicilies and King of Spain (from 1759); in 1747 a double marriage Singing Fear: Sinophobia and vols. (Dresden, 1862/Reprint with commentary and indexes by W. Reich Leipzig: saw Saxon Electoral Prince Friedrich Christian (1722–1763) and his sister Princess Peters, 1971), pp. 159–66. See also Janice B. Stockigt, Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679– Maria Anna (1728–1797) wed their Wittelsbach cousins, Maria Antonia Walpurgis Opera in 19th Century Australia 1745): A Bohemian Musician at the Court of Dresden (Oxford: OUP, 2000), p. 72. of Bavaria (1724–1780) and Maximillian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria (1727–1777); 9 In 1733, for example, petitions from both the Contra-bass player Georg Kästner in 1752 Saxon Princess Maria Josepha (1731–1767) married the widowed Louis- Love and Marriage in History: and the violinist Augustin Uhlig stated that each was paid a salary of 200 thalers. Ferdinand, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), son and heir of Louis XV. Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal (Sächsisches Staatsarchiv – Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden [D-Dla], 10026 Geheimes 26 Kittel’s poem is kept in the Bibliotheca Ponickaviana (the collection of Count Kabinett Loc. 383 Vol. I. Die Bande Frantzösischer Comoedianten und Orchestra Ponickau), Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt Halle (D-HA K. 33 betr. Ao 1703-1720.). On Hasse’s arrival in Dresden and the performances of F). I am particularly grateful to Dr Szymon Paczkowski of the Musicological Institute, The Aspirant Body: Cleofide, see Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik, pp. 170–78. University of Warsaw, for bringing this document to my attention. A facsimile edition, Love, Death and Song 10 See The New Bach Reader. A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and with epilogue by Gerhard Poppe, is now available (Beeskow: Ortus, 2008). Earlier, Documents, eds Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, revised and enlarged by Kittel, writing under the name ‘Micrander’, had published a poem in praise of the Christoph Wolff (New York: Norton, 1998), Doc. 307, p. 311. organ recital given by Bach on the Silbermann organ of the Sophienkirche in Dresden, contributor biographies 13 September 1731. This is reproduced in translation in The New Bach Reader, p. 311. 11 Apart from Hasse’s setting, other composers who wrote operas upon Metastasio’s libretto for Alessandro nell’Indie were Leonardo Vinci (Alessandro 27 In a letter of 6 December 1756 to his sister, Wilhelmine von Bayreuth, Frederick nell’Indie, 1730), Nicola Porpora (Poro, 1731), Luca Antonio Predieri (Alessandro II wrote: ‘J’ai ici toujours le même spectacle vis-à-vis de moi: une vieille reine qui nell’Indie, 1731), and George Frideric Handel (Poro, 1731). Noted by Winton Dean, empisonne [!] tout s nos actions et qui du matin au soir prie Dieu contre nous.’ Handel’s Operas 1726–1741 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), p. 172. (Here I have the same scene going on around me all the time: an old queen who spreads poison about everything we do, and who from morning to evening prays 12 The set of parts to Bach’s Missa are kept today in Dresden: D-Dl, Mus. 2405-D-21. to God against us. Trans. David Tunley ). Das Geheime Politische Tagebuch des 13 See Giovanna Perini, ‘Dresden and the Italian Art Market in the Eighteenth Kurprinzen Friedrich Christian, p. 337, n. 2. Century: Ignazio Hugford and Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi’, The Burlington 28 D-Dl, Mus. 2477-D-4a. This Missa per li defonti (C major) composed by Hasse for Magazine 135 No. 1085 (August, 1993), pp. 550–59. the exequies of August III, now titled Elector Friedrich August II (d. 5.10.1763), 14 Charles Burney, The Present State of Music in Germany, The Netherlands and was first performed on 22.11.1763. United Provinces (London, 1775/ facsimile repr. New York: Broude Brothers, 1969), 29 D-Dl, Mus. 2477-D-5a. Hasse’s Missa per li defonti (E flat major) performed in vol. 2, pp. 39–40. January 1764 for the funeral exequies of Saxon Elector Friedrich Christian (d. 15 On the history of this painting which now hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria, 17.12.1763) comprises a newly-composed ‘Introit’,‘ Kyrie’, ‘Dies irae’ (1763–4), see Jaynie Anderson, Tiepolo’s Cleopatra (Melbourne: Macmillan, 2003). whilst the ‘Sanctus’ and ‘Agnus dei’ were taken from an earlier Requiem in B flat. 16 Giovanna Perini, ‘Dresden and the Italian art market’, pp. 550–01; p. 555. 30 Burney, The Present State of Music in Germany, vol. 2, pp. 59–60. about this Book Music and Emotions Emotions and History in 18th Century Thought amarcord

articles Katie Barclay The University of Adelaide The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book Music and Emotions Emotions and History in 18th Century Thought amarcord

articles Katie Barclay The role that music played in creating The University of Adelaide emotion was a topic of considerable The Power discussion, written about by Enlightenment of Singing philosophers in their essays and histories The power of music to shape emotion, Singing of Executions: Ballads as they tried to make sense of the world to stir the passions and inflame the through the new lens of scientific enquiry. as News Media in Early Modern Europe mind was commonly recognised by both The power of music was understood Musical Patronage philosophers and the general public to be related to its effects on the body. and the Dresden Opera across the 18th and 19th centuries. As Music generated emotion by producing a the 18th century Scottish writer, James physical response within the body, which Music and Emotions in Beattie, argued in his essays on music, in turn formed the appropriate emotion. 18th Century Thought ‘the end of all genuine music, is to How music affected the body was a introduce into the human mind certain matter of debate. The French philosopher Rhetoric and the affections.’ Jonah Barrington, an Irish Jean-Jacques Rousseau developed a Performance of Recitative judge, made this clear when reflecting popular theory in his ‘conjectural’ history, in his memoirs on his participation in From Glee Club where he used evidence from societies the Irish Volunteer militia in the 1780s. in other countries that he believed to be to Concert Hall He bemoaned that the air chosen as the ‘uncivilised’ to imagine the behaviour of Singing Fear: Sinophobia and march for the Volunteers claimed ‘no his ancestors. He believed that music Opera in 19th Century Australia merit whatever, being neither grand, nor was the original form of expression, martial, nor animating’. He continued predating language in early societies, Love and Marriage in History: that this was most obvious when the as it was best able to communicate the Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal Volunteers’ march was compared to the emotions that drove primitive man: ‘it is music of the revolutionaries in France: neither hunger nor thirst, but love, hate, The Aspirant Body: pity, anger that pulled from them the first Love, Death and Song Though composed to excite enthusiasm in both instances, who utterances’. Music was able to convey the can hear the Marseillais Hymn, Ça Ira singer’s emotion and, in turn, provoked contributor biographies and the other revolutionary music feeling in the listener, allowing them to of France, and consider the frantic communicate. For Rousseau, these first enthusiasm which they excited, utterances were musical, as language without thinking that the sober, required a higher level of cognition and stupid tones of the Volunteers’ march the use of reason. Despite the evolution were more calculated for a soporific of language, music was believed to have than a stimulant. retained its power over the emotions, appealing to primitive instincts. Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought | Katie Barclay | The University of Adelaide

about this Book While the exact mechanics of how its effectiveness in joining lyrics with that excluded all but the very rich. By music evoked emotion was a matter music to express particular emotions. contrast, music that was associated Emotions and History of debate amongst Enlightenment It also led some philosophers to give with more ‘straightforward’ or thinkers, only a few individuals rejected primacy to music with lyrics, arguing everyday emotions, such as love, grief amarcord the idea that music and passion were as Beattie did that: ‘in vocal music, and anger, were played in musical linked. This led to discussion about truly such, the words render the venues aimed at lower social groups the relationship between particular expression determinate, and fix the and found in balladry and popular articles sounds and emotions, with considerable hearer’s attention upon it,’ ensuring song. So, music became a tool for The Power energy invested into exploring and that ‘the hearer is in no danger of demarcating emotional sophistication of Singing charting what tones created what being seduced from the principal air’. and ‘civilisation’. passions in the body. Beattie noted, Lyrics, associated with language and so Singing of Executions: Ballads ‘courage is apt to vent itself in a strong with reason, contained and controlled as News Media in Early Modern Europe tone of voice’, while soft music was the passion of the music. This was The relationship associated with gentle emotions. particularly important in the mid to late between music and Musical Patronage Interestingly, he was sceptical that 18th century when emotional control, and the Dresden Opera music could create negative emotions, or reason applied to passion, became emotion became central arguing that ‘it might be practicable, increasingly prized as a marker of Music and Emotions in by means of harsh tones, irregular ‘civilised’ behaviour. to shaping musical style 18th Century Thought rhythm, and continual dissonance, As a result, musical fashion followed to work the mind into a disagreeable This is not to say that the reception Rhetoric and the emotional trends. As with the literature state, and to produce horrible thoughts of music was not complex. In both Performance of Recitative of the period, the 18th century public and criminal propensity, as well as Britain and Ireland, there was some demanded music that expressed From Glee Club painful sensations. But this would not resistance to opera as a ‘foreign ‘delicate sentiment’, making the strong be music’. By contrast, Irish thinker import’ that provided competition to to Concert Hall tones and passion of the baroque, Edmund Burke acknowledged the local productions. In a context where associated with the composers Singing Fear: Sinophobia and power of a variety of types of sound most opera continued to be performed Bach and Handel, outmoded for a Opera in 19th Century Australia on the body. He divided sound, and at private functions or at restrictively time. Musical forms such as the particularly music, into the ‘sublime’ expensive prices, such resistance opera seria, that were associated Love and Marriage in History: and the ‘beautiful’. The sublime ‘forced’, may also have reflected a democratic with complex emotional states like Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal while the beautiful ‘flattered’ the challenge to a model that associated melancholy or sublime glee, became body into emotional compliance with musical and emotional sophistication The Aspirant Body: highly prized and associated with its sentiment. with access to a form of music that was Love, Death and Song the elites; performances of such unaffordable to those lower down the The relationship between music music commanded entrance fees social ladder. contributor biographies and emotion became central to shaping musical style, so that great consideration was given to the emotional impact when writing music and determining its cultural value. Particular genres of music became prized. Rousseau argued that Italian opera was superior due to Further Reading

Beattie, James (1788), Essays on Poetry and Music as they Language: Theories from the French Enlightenment, Cambridge: Affect the Mind, Edinburgh: Edward and Charles Dilly. Cambridge University Press. Burke, Edmund (1767), A Philosophical Inquiry into the Lang, Paul Henry (1967), ‘The Enlightenment and Music’, Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1:1, pp. 93-108. London: J. Dodsley. Gilman, Todd (2009), ‘Arne, Handel, the Beautiful and the Thomas, Downing A. (1995), Music and the Origins of Sublime’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 42:4, pp. 529-555. about this Book Rhetoric and the Emotions and History Performance of Recitative amarcord

articles Alan Maddox Sydney Conservatorium of Music The Power The University of Sydney of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book Rhetoric and the Emotions and History Performance of Recitative amarcord

articles Alan Maddox Riflessioni pratiche sul canto figurato Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Practical reflections on figured singing, The Power The University of Sydney 1777) is titled ‘On the knowledge of Singing necessary for one who wishes to recite Singing of Executions: Ballads well in the theatre’ or, to paraphrase, When we listen to vocal music by ‘How to perform recitative’. Mancini as News Media in Early Modern Europe 18th century composers like Handel, made it clear that he regarded spoken Musical Patronage Vivaldi or Mozart, we tend to focus on declamation as the appropriate model the beautiful set-piece arias which and the Dresden Opera for recitative delivery: allow singers to show off their dazzling Music and Emotions in coloratura or melting lyricism. But that Now the vocal line of either [secco or 18th Century Thought is only half the story. A large proportion accompagnato] recitatives, although of any 18th century opera or cantata sung, ought always to be free in such Rhetoric and the was taken up with recitative dialogue a manner that it resembles a perfect Performance of Recitative — half-way between speech and song — and simple spoken declamation. which conveyed the plot and set up the Thus it would be a failing if instead From Glee Club emotional trajectory of the drama. of reciting [the Italian word is dire, to Concert Hall literally: ‘speaking’] the recitative So how did early modern singers with a free voice, an actor wanted Singing Fear: Sinophobia and perform their recitatives? The problem to sing it with a constant legato, Opera in 19th Century Australia for musicians trying to understand this without ever thinking to distinguish today is that the written scores provide the periods and the various Love and Marriage in History: very little specific information about Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal meanings of the words by holding how to perform them — for practical back and reinforcing, detaching and The Aspirant Body: purposes, nothing beyond the words sweetening the voice, as an educated and a series of pitches. Even the 1 Love, Death and Song man does when he speaks or reads. notated rhythms are nominal at best, and there are no explicit indications contributor biographies of other crucial aspects of expressive performance such as loudness, phrasing, vocal colour, and pacing. Luckily, some authors from the period have left us important clues about performance practice. The 13th chapter of Giambattista Mancini’s treatise Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative | Alan Maddox | Sydney Conservatorium of Music | The University of Sydney

about this Book Amongst Mancini’s suggestions about from two hundred years before of the soul is comparable to the power the things an aspiring singer should Mancini’s, Cavalcanti’s ideas on delivery of drugs over the nature of bodies’.5 The Emotions and History study is a crucial clue about the way to belong to a classical tradition that leads often-quoted criticism of Gorgias’s style gain the requisite skills in declamation: from ancient Greece through at least as of oratory was that it was so powerful far as the late 18th century. Like other that it was equivalent to ‘putting a knife amarcord …listen to the speech of a good contemporary rhetoricians, Cavalcanti in the hands of a madman in a crowd’.6 orator, and hear how many rests, emphasised the importance of delivery: articles what variety of tones, how many Given the importance of affect to good delivery can make a poor case different emphases he uses to Soarez, it is not surprising that his seem more convincing than a good one. The Power express its meanings. Now he raises treatise devotes considerable attention Indeed, according to Demosthenes’ of Singing his voice, now he lowers it; now he to delivery. He begins by defining the famous aphorism, there are only three hurries a bit, now he grows harsh and elements of pronuntiatio (delivery), really important things in oratory — Singing of Executions: Ballads now gentle, according to the various following the classical tradition of Cicero delivery, delivery, and delivery. as News Media in Early Modern Europe passions that he wishes to stir in and Quintilian:7 the listener.2 Musical Patronage ...it is agreed that all action is and the Dresden Opera Mancini’s description provides some good delivery contained in two categories: the important parameters with regard to sound of the voice and the movement Music and Emotions in can make a poor dynamics and pacing, for example, of the body…In fact these alone move 18th Century Thought but how can we go beyond this case seem more an audience to the greatest degree, Rhetoric and the broad description and gain a deeper convincing than because at the same time the voice Performance of Recitative understanding of the kind of model for has impressed their ears, gestures delivery he had in mind? To answer this a good one. their eyes, and words their thoughts… From Glee Club question we need to understand who At the very beginning of the ‘good orators’ might have been, what to Concert Hall Another book which was extremely Introduction, the orator will narrate in they did, and how they were trained. Singing Fear: Sinophobia and influential throughout the period was a more open tone of voice; he will grow Cypriano Soarez’ De arte rhetorica4 (On Opera in 19th Century Australia In the 18th century, oratory was not more forceful with a sharper tone; he merely good public speaking, it was the Art of Rhetoric), which appeared as will convey grief in a wavering tone; Love and Marriage in History: a specific set of skills taught as the early as 1569, but remained current as the the affective climax having been built Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal culminating stage of training in the chief rhetoric textbook in Jesuit schools up in a subdued tone, he will proclaim art of rhetoric. To put it another way, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. it in an elated one…he will not declaim The Aspirant Body: oratory was classical rhetoric put into Soarez was one of a number of 16th for a long time in the same register, Love, Death and Song verbal, audible practice. The principles and 17th century rhetoricians who nor will he seem to read the speech, of good delivery were set out in treatises drew on classical sources, especially as it were. But he will control the contributor biographies addressed to aspiring orators, such Cicero & Quintilian, but also on other, variation of his voice in accordance as the Retorica (Rhetoric, 1574) by ‘second Sophistic’ authors who placed with a variety of circumstances and the Florentine nobleman Bartolemeo a strong emphasis on Affect — that effects…Neither is sluggishness 3 Cavalcanti. While this treatise dates is, the speaker’s ability to work the pleasing in an oration…nor is an emotions of the audience. This tradition excessive volubility and haste. of rhetoric took its cue from the ancient In order that an oration may be Greek rhetorician Gorgias’s view that distinctive, it should be observed ‘the effect of speech upon the condition where and in what manner it is to be Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative | Alan Maddox | Sydney Conservatorium of Music | The University of Sydney

about this Book broken up or sustained...Where there The significance of Lang’s book is not might be a pause, or a certain small so much in any innovations he makes, Emotions and History emphasis, shorter intervals should rather the opposite — although written be used… more than one hundred and fifty years after Soarez, it is entirely in line with amarcord For the end of the oration, if it is Soarez’s principles, which in turn are designed to be stirring, a restrained closely based on Cicero and Quintilian. articles and more intense tone, with a Equally, Mancini’s description of the rousing enunciation, is appropriate; if qualities of a good orator are perfectly The Power designed to be pleasing, a gentle one; consistent with the principles set out by of Singing if it is for exhortation, a tone both Soarez and Lang. forthright and balanced is suitable; if Singing of Executions: Ballads for grief, let the tone be supple, if for Thus, while the prevailing style of music as News Media in Early Modern Europe rejoicing, let it be fulsome and jovial. changed dramatically between the late 16th century when Soarez was writing, Musical Patronage Similar ideas come through clearly and the appearance of Mancini’s treatise and the Dresden Opera in the Dissertatio de Actione Scenica in the late 18th, the underlying aesthetic (Treatise on Acting, 1727) by another Music and Emotions in principles governing delivery remained Jesuit, Franciscus Lang, which was remarkably consistent through these 18th Century Thought regarded as the textbook on acting in and a whole range of other treatises. 18th century Jesuit school dramas. Rhetoric and the These principles include: Performance of Recitative Lang says that the first virtue of delivery is naturalness, taking into account the • Close attention to the sense of the • This variety is valued across virtually From Glee Club audience and the size of the space. words, which are to be enunciated all of the parameters of vocal Another is to match emotional delivery clearly. Their emotional content is to Concert Hall delivery — pacing, articulation, vocal to the sense of the words, feeling them to be conveyed both generally, with colour, volume. In effect, it is only Singing Fear: Sinophobia and oneself in order to more powerfully regard to the overall affect of the the composer’s specification of pitch Opera in 19th Century Australia move the passions of the audience. passage, and in detail from word (in itself not entirely definitive) that On the variation of the voice he, not to word. Love and Marriage in History: separates recitative from spoken unexpectedly, echoes Soarez: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal • In conveying the words, there is an declamation in the high style. …care should be taken to vary the emphasis on pronounced variety and And above all, the goal of declamation The Aspirant Body: voice, so that it is used vigorously, flexibility of delivery; ugly sounds throughout the early modern period Love, Death and Song then immediately mildly, now are never called for, but on the was to move the audience — to stir the strongly, now softly, now precipitately, other hand in recitative there should passions of the soul. contributor biographies now calmly, according to what reason absolutely not be a continuously and nature seem to ask of one.8 ‘sung’ delivery which concentrates on beautiful sound at the expense of vivid expression. Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative | Alan Maddox | Sydney Conservatorium of Music | The University of Sydney

about this Book above all, the goal of Emotions and History declamation throughout the early modern period was to amarcord move the audience — to stir articles the passions of the soul The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in Endnotes References 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the 1 Giambattista Mancini, Riflessioni Pratiche sul Canto Figurato (Milano: Giuseppe Cavalcanti, Bartolomeo. La Retorica di M Bartolemeo Cavalcanti, Gentilhvomo Galeazzi, 1777; reprint, Facsimile, Arnaldo Forni, n.d.), 239. Translations not Fiorentino. Diuisa in VII Libri. Dove si Contiene Tvtto Qvello, che Appartiene All’arte Performance of Recitative otherwise attributed are my own. Oratoria. Con le Postille di M. Pio Portinaio Giureconsulto, che Dimostrano, Sommariamente Tutto Quello, che Ui si Tratta. Venetia: Camillo e Francesco 2 Ibid., 220. Translation of this passage by Wye J. Allanbrook in Leo Treitler, ed., Franceschini, 1574. From Glee Club Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, Revised ed. (New York: Norton, 1998). Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Cicero on the Ideal Orator (De Oratore), Translated, with to Concert Hall 3 Venetia: Camillo e Francesco Franceschini, 1574 Introduction, Notes, Appendixes, Glossary, and Indexes by James M. May, Jakob Wisse. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Singing Fear: Sinophobia and 4 Cipriano Soárez, S.J., De Arte Rhetorica Libri Tres ex Aristotele, Cicerone et Quintiliano Praecipue Deprompti (Antverpiae [Antwerp]: Viduam Henrici Thieullier, Conley, Thomas M. Rhetoric in the European Tradition. Chicago and London: University Opera in 19th Century Australia 1722). It is perhaps some measure of the longevity of Soarez’ influence that I of Chicago Press, 1990. am told by Adam Harris, to whom I am indebted for help with the translations Durante, Sergio. ‘Alcune considerazioni sui cantanti di teatro del primo settecento e Love and Marriage in History: of Soarez, that he was still being referred to at a Jesuit high school in Australia some twenty years ago). la loro formazione.’ In Antonio Vivaldi Teatro Musicale Cultura e Società: La Tradizione Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal Testuale e le Poetiche Settecentesche nella Drammaturgia Vivaldiana, edited by Lorenzo 5 Helen, 14. Cited in Thomas M Conley, Rhetoric in the European Tradition (Chicago Bianconi and Giovanni Morelli, 427-81. Firenze: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Istituto and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 6. The Aspirant Body: Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, Venezia, 1982. 6 ibid. ———. ‘Condizioni materiali e trasmissione del sapere nelle scuole di canto a Love, Death and Song 7 Soárez, De Arte Rhetorica, 187-90. Translation by Adam Harris. Bologna a metà settecento.’ In Atti del XIV Congresso della Società Internazionale di Musicologia: Trasmissione e Recezione Delle Forme di Cultura Musicale, edited by 8 Franciscus Lang, Dissertatio de Actione Scenica Cum Figuris Eandem Explicantibus Angelo Pompilio, Donatella Restani, Lorenzo Bianconi and Alberto F. Gallo, 175-89. et Observationibus Quibusdam de Arte Comica, Auctore Franciscus Lang, Societatis contributor biographies Torino: E.D.T. Edizioni di Torino, 1990. Jesu. Accesserunt Imagines Symbolicae Pro Exhimitione et Vestitu Theatrali (Monachii [Munich]: Riedlin, 1727), 58. Translation by Adam Harris. Lang, Franciscus. Dissertatio de Actione Scenica Cum Figuris Eandem Explicantibus et Observationibus Quibusdam de Arte Comica, Auctore Franciscus Lang, Societatis Jesu. Accesserunt Imagines Symbolicae Pro Exhimitione et Vestitu Theatrali. Monachii [Munich]: Riedlin, 1727. Mancini, Giambattista. Riflessioni Pratiche sul Canto Figurato. Milano: Giuseppe Galeazzi, 1777. Reprint, Facsimile, Arnaldo Forni, n.d. Rosselli, John. Singers of Italian Opera : The History of a Profession. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Soárez, Cipriano, S.J. De Arte Rhetorica Libri Tres ex Aristotele, Cicerone et Quintiliano Praecipue Deprompti. Antverpiae [Antwerp]: Viduam Henrici Thieullier, 1722. about this Book From Glee Club Emotions and History to Concert Hall amarcord

articles Rosalind Halton The University of Newcastle The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book From Glee Club Emotions and History to Concert Hall amarcord

articles Rosalind Halton the revival of such repertoires differs from one country to another, often The Power The University of Newcastle based around charismatic figures of Singing Modern concert programming offers committed to reviving music of the Singing of Executions: Ballads such a wide variety of music from past — sometimes for reasons openly patriotic, sometimes transcending as News Media in Early Modern Europe centuries past that it is easy to assume such eclectic sampling of the western motives of nationalism. Musical Patronage classical repertoire is a recent habit, In Paris, for example, the Concert and the Dresden Opera part of the culture of our own age. The Society organised from the 1830s by idea of audiences taking pleasure in Louis Niedermeyer was not primarily Music and Emotions in music created in a remote era is not 18th Century Thought focused on promoting French music an obvious form of entertainment, and of the past. The most performed Rhetoric and the it is often said that our current age is composers from the 1840s when the the first to value music of the past over Performance of Recitative Society flourished were anything but that of the present. But increasingly, French: Palestrina, Lassus, Vittoria, From Glee Club research on concert activities and music Marcello, Handel, and Haydn (already to Concert Hall societies of the 18th to 19th centuries considered ‘old music’). The Society indicates a more complex story of revival employed four choir directors while Singing Fear: Sinophobia and and re-creation. How and when did early Niedermeyer edited much of the Opera in 19th Century Australia music, or Alte Musik, start to bounce music, publishing eleven volumes of back into the musical imagination of the Renaissance and Baroque choral music Love and Marriage in History: concert audience? What attitudes have Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal with the Concert Society (Sako, 2002). audiences brought to listening to music By 1845 a religious music journal had The Aspirant Body: not of their own era, and what was the been established with an emphasis on function of ‘old’ music before it reached Love, Death and Song plainsong. The position of Palestrina as the concert platform? the ‘pure’ ideal of sacred music seems contributor biographies Questions of context and perception to have become established round are bound up with the type of program about this time. Consisting of 80 to presented with humour and irony to a 100 members, the choir of the Concert 21st century audience by Amarcord. The program, Music of Love and Murder, dips into a wide chronological range of music born out of very different circumstances from the concert platform. The story of From Glee Club to Concert Hall | Rosalind Halton | The University of Newcastle

about this Book Society appears to have been a massed ʻThere were many excellent voices in the ensemble, far from the one-a-part Emotions and History ensemble exemplified by Amarcord, catch-club … and the easy cheerfulness which in the modern concert scene is which reigned in this select society, amarcord arguably modelled on the string quartet — or at least the 17th century Italian rendered their meetings delightfulʼ idea of the madrigal. articles In the case of England, the restoration of the Madrigal Society, founded in It was of course not only in London The Power of old music and its establishment in 1741 by John Immyns, who acted as that such singing clubs flourished. of Singing the modern repertoire did have a distinct amanuensis to Pepusch (Nettel, 1948, Bath and Edinburgh were among the flavour of pride in the national pool of 99). The Madrigal Society included in cities in which a Catch Club was part Singing of Executions: Ballads creativity. The interest in performing its repertoire madrigals of the great of the musical activities for those who as News Media in Early Modern Europe music from the past was underway at 16th century composers Byrd, Weelkes, wished to participate and not just listen. Wilbye, Marenzio; typically, it was from A contemporary History of Edinburgh Musical Patronage least a century earlier than this 19th its origins a male-only environment, but reports: ‘There were many excellent and the Dresden Opera century French revival. This came about largely through the influence lasting throughout the 19th century, it voices in the catch-club, who sung their Music and Emotions in and efforts of two men: Dean Henry eventually saw the admission of ladies part at sight; and the easy cheerfulness 18th Century Thought Aldrich of Christ Church College Oxford after World War II (Nettel, 1948, 108). which reigned in this select society, rendered their meetings delightful’ (a position he held from 1681-1710), The Nobleman’s and Gentlemen’s Rhetoric and the (Burchell, 1996, 61). In Bath it was a and later by Johann Christoph Pepusch Catch Club — displaying its aristocratic different story: ‘The Catch Club was Performance of Recitative (1667-1752), a German-born musician origins and aspirations in its title — was apparently forcibly dissolved to prevent who took a leading role in shaping the founded in 1761, ‘meeting every other From Glee Club undue competition with the subscription activities and repertoire of the Academy week at a tavern between November to Concert Hall concerts, but it was replaced by the of Ancient Music. The Academy’s and June, [and offering] drinks, dinner, Harmonic Society, which...proved so Singing Fear: Sinophobia and aims were defined as ‘searching after, and singing, ending with catches sung popular that it must have posed a examining and hearing performed the by all’. As time went on, according to Opera in 19th Century Australia far greater hazard’ (Burchell, 1996, Works of the Masters, who flourished Weber (1992, 147-8), it became ‘more 113). Indeed, the large choral festivals Love and Marriage in History: before and about the Age of Palestrina: respectable, less preoccupied with sex generated oratorio performances in Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal however, not neglecting those who and drinking’. The Glee Club, founded regional centres throughout England in in our Time have become famous’ by Samuel Arnold in 1788, was seen as The Aspirant Body: the 18th century. (quoted in Weber, 1992, 62). ‘a kind of poor man’s Catch Club’. And Love, Death and Song As well as subscription concerts, this then there was the Concentores Society, Associations such as the Noblemen’s movement of ‘early music’ revival founded in 1798, in which members and Gentlemen’s Catch Club, and the contributor biographies resulted in the foundation of societies were ‘required to prove their skill in Madrigal Society, fed into the Concerts for active participation. The history of composing of performing music in the of Ancient Music, a central part of this revival itself has been researched antique style’ (Weber, 1992, 193). London concert life throughout the and documented from a comparatively 18th century. Choral Festivals, such as early stage in scholarship on music- the Three Choirs Festival of Worcester, making in England. The Oldest Surviving Hereford, and Gloucester and the English Musical Club by Reginald Nettel Choir Festivals of Manchester, in turn (The Musical Quarterly, 1948) is a study From Glee Club to Concert Hall | Rosalind Halton | The University of Newcastle

about this Book formed the breeding ground for major critic suggested that it was ‘the dead otherwise. John Immyns, founder of the events of national significance such as and monotonous manner of its general Madrigal Society, who provided much of Emotions and History the Handel Commemoration. From its performance’ that was at fault. On a the repertoire by his copying, is said to extraordinarily successful inauguration further performance of the work in have derived his taste for the music of amarcord in May/June 1784, this celebration of 1849, an account mentions its ‘vastness, Gesualdo from Dean Aldrich. ‘[Immyns’] British music-making and the music gloomy grandeur, and ponderous delight in the works of Gesualdo and the of Handel became for a decade at least solemnity’ (Cole, 2008): a far cry from transmission of this delight into practice articles an annual event. Here a new level of the ‘pleasant entertainment and is shown by the fact that up to the end of The Power emotional response to polyphonic singing companionship and good liquor’ which 1750 thirteen Gesualdo madrigals had of Singing seems to have been reached in London had been the incentive to membership received 91 performances in meetings of — produced partly by the massed forces of such convivial societies as the the Madrigal Society’ (Lovell, 1979, 413). of five hundred performers, partly by Madrigal Society and the Nobleman’s Singing of Executions: Ballads Few composers have exerted the the unprecedented size of the audience, and Gentleman’s Catch Club. as News Media in Early Modern Europe fascination of Gesualdo through history. and partly by the attendant discomfort Every biographical treatment, beginning Musical Patronage merging into a sense of exaltation at with the sensationally titled Carlo and the Dresden Opera the ‘power of harmonical combinations’ Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa: Musician (Halton, 2012). These were large-scale and Murderer by Gray and Heseltine Music and Emotions in events designed to create an awe-struck (London, 1926), has apparently relished 18th Century Thought audience response from the sheer size (or at least had to deal with) the fact of performance group — a world away, Rhetoric and the that his fame stems largely from the perhaps, from the hilarity and high spirits Performance of Recitative scandal and violence of his biography: of Catch Club activities, but connected the murder in October 1590 and From Glee Club through some of the key figures and by subsequent display of the bodies of his the delight in polyphonic singing. to Concert Hall wife and her lover in retribution for her Singing Fear: Sinophobia and During the 18th century it seems that infidelity. The jealous husband’s act of Opera in 19th Century Australia sacred music of the 16th century was violence seems at times paralleled by not the focus of the Madrigal Society the uncontained anguish of his music, Love and Marriage in History: or other convivial singing groups — the which does not play with emotions, like Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal Noblemen’s and Gentlemen’s Catch so many of the Elizabethan madrigals: Club, and the Glee Club. But by the it lives the passion and pain of betrayed The Aspirant Body: 1830s interest in the sacred music of Italian madrigals were not unknown love. No fewer than four operas on Love, Death and Song William Byrd and Thomas Tallis started to the Antient Concerts; for example the life of Gesualdo are listed in to exercise an irresistible attraction, the great Luca Marenzio is mentioned Grove Music Online, of which the most contributor biographies particularly the legendary 40-voice among their repertoire (Weber, 1992, notable composer to have attempted motet of Tallis, Spem in alium. Though 178). It would seem unlikely that the the subject is the Russian composer clearly an intellectual marvel, its power chromatically dense, inexplicable music Alfred Schnittke (1995). was not immediately evident as an of Prince Gesualdo of Venosa (c. 1561- auditory experience. When performed 1613) was heard in public performance in 1836, the Tudor masterpiece was in England until the 20th century. The described by Samuel Wesley as music of evidence of a study by Percy Lovell on ‘interminable monotony’, while another the Madrigal Society, however, indicates From Glee Club to Concert Hall | Rosalind Halton | The University of Newcastle

about this Book Despite the tumultuous events of 1590, an echo answer unexpectedly. They Of Gesualdo’s madrigals, it may be Gesualdo moved on in succeeding years accompanied the music and the said that they are extreme in their Emotions and History to publish six books of Madrigals, and sentiment with appropriate facial musical language, with cries of anguish even to re-marry in 1594. This marriage expressions, glances and gestures, and complex chromatic manoeuvres amarcord took him far from Naples to the north with no awkward movements of the to disorientate both performer and of Italy, where he stayed until 1596 mouth or hands or body which might listener, even those familiar with the (his biographer Glenn Watkins points not express the feeling of the song. harmonic and expressive language of articles out that Gesualdo’s ‘reputation as a They made the words clear in such Monteverdi. No lesser a composer than The Power murderer was far less a handicap to a way that one could hear even the Igor Stravinsky penned the Preface to of Singing him than we might imagine’, Watkins, last syllable of every word, which was Watkins’ critical biography Gesualdo: 1972, 39-40). This time the Prince never interrupted or suppressed by the Man and his Music (1973) in which Singing of Executions: Ballads married into the Este family of Ferrara, passages and other embellishments. he tells the story of his own Gesualdo as News Media in Early Modern Europe seat of a magnificent centre of art (Vicenzo Giustiniani, Discorso sopra pilgrimage in 1956 to Ferrara, Modena, and architecture, and the court of la musica (c. 1628), trans. Carol and the composer’s ‘measly castle’ near Musical Patronage Duke Alfonso II, for whom the famous MacClintock (American Institute of Naples. Stravinsky began with these and the Dresden Opera Three Ladies of Ferrara, known as il Musicology, 1962, 69–70) words: ‘Musicians may yet save Gesualdo Concerto delle Donne, performed as the from musicologists...Even now he is The Concerto delle Donne who also made Music and Emotions in regular evening entertainment. This academically unrespectable, still the up a consort of instruments — harp, viola, 18th Century Thought consort of expert women solo singers crank of chromaticism, still rarely sung.’ and lute — is known to have been still —exclusive performers of the new He went on to explain why such music Rhetoric and the active while Gesualdo was in Ferrara, and virtuosic madrigals of Duke Alfonso’s did not yet — at time of writing in 1968 — Performance of Recitative Watkins pictures the composer’s ‘delight resident composer Luzzasco Luzzaschi achieve its potential in performance: with such a rich musical environment’ From Glee Club — created a new performance style (Watkins, 56). He became acquainted with The chief obstacle to the recovery of of sensuous acting and musicianship to Concert Hall Torquato Tasso, the great but emotionally performance style is pecuniary. In a few that caught the imagination of all unstable poet whose famous infatuation hours’ leave of absence from a bread- Singing Fear: Sinophobia and who experienced it. One memorable for one of the singing Ladies, Laura winning routine of taping television Opera in 19th Century Australia description from a visitor to the Peperara, caused ‘melancholy whims and commercials and disposing of seasonal court gives detailed appraisal of the suspicions of malice and persecution’. oratorios, even the most excellent Love and Marriage in History: innovations that enraptured the select Duke Alfonso’s discussion in a letter to singers cannot achieve the blends, the Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal party of listeners. Gesualdo of the poet’s mental condition exactness of intonation, the diction and The Aspirant Body: Furthermore, they moderated or sheds chilling light on his style of articulation that the Prince’s singers Love, Death and Song increased their voices, loud or soft, managing creative genius: would have had to master by edict and heavy or light, according to the as a result of living with the music the For he [Tasso] has a strange notion contributor biographies demands of the piece they were year round. (Stravinsky, Preface to that we wish to put him to death, singing; now slow, breaking off with Watkins Gesualdo, 1973) though we have always been gracious sometimes a gentle sigh, now singing to him and made much of him; and long passages legato or detached, he ought to know that if such had now groups, now leaps, now with been our design nothing would have long trills, now with short, and again been easier than to effect it.’ (quoted with sweet running passages sung in Watkins, 40) softly, to which sometimes one heard From Glee Club to Concert Hall | Rosalind Halton | The University of Newcastle

about this Book Stravinsky’s fascination with the by a few singers than by the crowd of While Stravinsky imagined the power of madrigals of Gesualdo led him to singers in church music’. Stravinsky Gesualdo’s madrigals, who knows if he Emotions and History investigate contemporary thought on makes some memorable comments foresaw that by the late 20th century, performance style. He discovered, of his own on Gesualdo’s music. He specialist vocal chamber groups such amarcord for example, that the relationship was as much taken by the element of as Amarcord would exist to bring this between volume of singing, vibrato rhythmic innovation as by the more music to the concert platform with and precision tuning was discussed obvious harmonic boldness, which subtlety and precision, delivering without articles in treatises from Domenico Cerone Stravinsky felt was always singled out compromise the fierce torment of the The Power (El melopeo y maestro, Naples 1613) by musicologists. Offering his own composer’s message? of Singing to Padre Martini (Esemplare ossia perception of Gesualdo’s rhythmic Saggio fondamentale practico di angularity he writes: ‘In the virtually Singing of Executions: Ballads Contrappunto, Bologna, 1774-5). He metreless beginning of ‘Quel ‘No’ as News Media in Early Modern Europe quotes Padre Martini’s observation (Se la mia morte brami, Book 6), and that ‘madrigals are to be sung softly’ the lashing syncopations with the Musical Patronage and — a surprising insight at this late word “tormenti” in Candido e verde and the Dresden Opera 18th century stage in the evolution fiore, the [rhythmic inventions] are of the madrigal — ‘bold dissonances as revolutionary [as the harmonic Music and Emotions in were permitted in madrigals because inventions]’ (Stravinsky, Preface, 18th Century Thought perfect intonation was easier to achieve Gesualdo, viii). Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: References Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal

Burchell, J., Polite or Commercial Concerts? Concert Nettel, R., ‘The Oldest Surviving English Musical Club: Some The Aspirant Body: Management and Orchestral Repertoire in Edinburgh, Bath, Historical Notes on the Madrigal Society of London’, The Love, Death and Song Oxford, Manchester, and Newcastle, 1730-1799, New York, Musical Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 1, 1948, pp. 97-108. Garland, 1996. Sako, I., ‘Louis Niedermeyer and Early Music Revival in Cole, S., Thomas Tallis and his Music in Victorian England, Nineteenth-Century France’, in Ewans, M., Halton, R., contributor biographies Woodbridge, Boydell & Brewer, 2008. and Phillips, J. (eds.), Music Research: New Directions for a New Century, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Giustiniani, V., Discorso sopra la musica, trans. C. MacClintock, Publishing, 2004, pp. 84-93. American Institute of Musicology, 1962. Watkins, G., Gesualdo: The Man and his Music, Oxford, Oxford Halton, R., ‘From Hailstones to Hallelujah: The First Handel University Press, 1973. Commemoration’, in Arrighi, G. and Emeljanow, V. (eds.), A World of Popular Entertainments, Newcastle upon Tyne, Weber, William, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth- Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012, Century England: a Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology, Oxford, pp. 192-206. Clarendon Press, 1992. Lovell, P., ‘Ancient’ Music in Eighteenth-Century England’, Music & Letters, vol. 60, no. 4, 1979, pp. 401-415. about this Book Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Emotions and History Opera in 19th Century Australia amarcord

articles Esmeralda Rocha The University of Western Australia The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Emotions and History Opera in 19th Century Australia amarcord

articles Esmeralda Rocha Music, and particularly opera, was The University of Western Australia a common feature of the discourse The Power surrounding Australia’s ‘Chinese of Singing Question’, for music was an important The Victorian gold rush resulted in an means by which an ethnic group Singing of Executions: Ballads enormous influx of immigrants. Amongst could situate itself within the social as News Media in Early Modern Europe the mainly British goldrushers, Chinese hierarchy. Anne Doggett has argued immigrants also flocked to the colony and Musical Patronage that racial discrimination was evident established significant communities. Like in song, particularly in the songs of the and the Dresden Opera other gold rush migrants, many of the goldfields and the black-faced minstrel Chinese people who came to Victoria in the Music and Emotions in ballads, and studies by Harold Love 1850s and ‘60s were political and economic 18th Century Thought and Wang Zheng-Ting support her refugees; some had been supporters of the assertions.4 Popular music genres were, failed Taipang Rebellion in 1850s China,1 Rhetoric and the sadly, not unique in this regard, however. others sought asylum from the famine and Performance of Recitative Opera was another cultural space in poverty of life in Qing-dynasty China. Of which Chinese people were demonised. From Glee Club the 313,000 settlers who arrived in Victoria to Concert Hall between 1851 and 1860, approximately Chinese opera was one of the few public 40,000 were from China,2 and, by 1861, the examples of Chinese culture regularly Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Chinese represented between seven and on display to European Australians Opera in 19th Century Australia ten percent of Victoria’s total population.3 during the 19th century. It was also one of the few aspects of Chinese Love and Marriage in History: Whilst White Australia’s attitude towards culture discussed by the Western Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal these Chinese immigrants varied press. Peking opera was, therefore, according to time, place and individual, The Aspirant Body: a sort of ambassador for the Chinese general opinion and policy was hostile people in Melbourne, and the largely Love, Death and Song and grew increasingly so as the century negative reception it found amongst wore on. Indeed, sinophobia and ‘Yellow Anglo-Australians had repercussions contributor biographies Peril’ hysteria reached their apex in the that are difficult to overestimate. In late 19th century, despite the fact that by their dismissive, and occasionally the 1880s Victoria’s Chinese population hostile, reviews of Chinese opera, the had dramatically reduced and the vast Anglo-Saxon press contributed to the majority of Australia’s ethnically Chinese sinophobia of the colony. population, many of whom had been born in Australia, had adopted Western habits, religion, dress, and spouses. Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia | Esmeralda Rocha | The University of Western Australia

about this Book Yet, hostile receptions and reviews were not the only Soprano Sfogato ways in which Chinese culture, and therefore the

Chinese people, were ridiculed and ‘othered’. As the Emotions and History Soprano Sfogato was a musico-theatrical work of popularity of yellow-faced minstrelsy in 19th century about an hour’s duration. It was originally performed in Australia attests, Chinese music was often disparaged amarcord California, whence Bishop had come, but received its in Western art forms. Less documented, but just as first Antipodean performance at Melbourne’s Olympic powerful, is the history of how Western opera singers articles Theatre on 29 June 1856.5 The extravaganza had a thin parodied and mocked Chinese opera, and how these narrative that served to parody opera, its personalities performances, and the positive reception they received The Power and its excesses whilst also serving as a vehicle for from the audiences that patronised them, perpetuated of Singing Bishop’s considerable vocal talents. White Australia’s sinophobia. It began with a potpourri-overture composed by Nicholas Singing of Executions: Ballads One of the first Western artists to caricature Chinese Bochsa, which mostly contained fragments of Linda di as News Media in Early Modern Europe Opera was Anna Bishop (wife of Sir Henry Bishop, Chamounix (Donizetti) and Tancredi (Rossini) but also composer of Home, Sweet Home) who was amongst the Musical Patronage contained sizeable quotations of The Marseillaise and most prolific and important of gold-rush Melbourne’s and the Dresden Opera The Last Rose of Summer.6 The plot centred around the operatic performers. Bishop’s Melbourne sojourn search by an impresario, Mr. Star Hunter, for a new was an interesting part of Melbourne’s cultural Music and Emotions in diva. Auditions are held, and the manager and various development. Bishop was revered as an opera diva 18th Century Thought colleagues are treated to a revolving door of divas, whose very presence was thought to have alchemically all played by Bishop, who assumed different guises. Rhetoric and the transformed Melbourne’s opera scene. She was Amongst her staple characters were a ‘timid, English Performance of Recitative (falsely) credited with establishing grand opera vocalist carolling Home, Sweet Home’; a Neapolitan in Melbourne, and was believed to have endowed From Glee Club prima donna in queenly robes and jewelled crown who the city’s high-art musical culture with a sense of delivered a recitative and cavatina by Mercadante; a to Concert Hall legitimacy. German peasant girl with an appropriate folksong; an Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Bishop, however, did not confine herself to ‘high-art’. opera star from St. Petersburg performing a Russian Opera in 19th Century Australia She created and performed works that combined melody; a Parisian chanteuse trilling Bochsa’s chanson opera with elements of more popular musical and Je suis la Bayadère;7 and, to conclude the extravaganza, Love and Marriage in History: theatrical genres. In blurring the distinctions between Bishop would emerge as an Italian soprano with a Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal high and low art, between performer and author, and brilliantly executed rondo-finale.8 between opera and theatre, Bishop and her operatic The Aspirant Body: Beyond these ‘standards’, Bishop customised her entertainments reached a diverse audience. One of Love, Death and Song extravaganza by including caricatures of non-Western Bishop’s most culturally relevant (and sinophobic) cultures that were of particular relevance to her ‘operatic extravaganzas’ was Soprano Sfogato. contributor biographies audience. In California, Bishop parodied Mexican and African-American music, whilst in Melbourne she Western opera singers imitated Chinese Opera (which was currently being performed by Chinese artists on the goldfields) and parodied and mocked Chinese (to honour the recent British victory in the Crimean War) she also parodied the music of Tartarstan. Just opera ... [which] perpetuated as Bishop shifted between high-art and low-art, so she White Australia’s sinophobia moved between parody and satire. Whilst the majority Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia | Esmeralda Rocha | The University of Western Australia

about this Book of Soprano Sfogato was firmly planted within the realm [Bishop] depicted Chinese of affectionate parody, when she came to portray the Emotions and History Chinese and Tartary singers, Bishop’s approach was music as mere ‘noise’, screeching closer to the barbed-wire of satire. When representing and squawking her way amarcord the European characters, she bore herself with elegance and gentility; admittedly Bishop exaggerated these traits through the ‘Chinese aria’. until they became postures and vanities rather than articles virtues, but the core representation was positive. Vocally, The Power the European songs were presented ‘operatically’. The Chinese Question By contrast, Bishop’s characterisation of a Chinese of Singing opera singer was steeped in the traditions of yellow- Twenty years later, similar notions of the inherent face minstrelsy and ‘low-art’. She adopted grotesque Singing of Executions: Ballads unmusicality and unartistic nature of Chinese lyric postures, made a crude imitation of both pidgin-English as News Media in Early Modern Europe culture were still being repeated in Melbourne’s and Cantonese, and depicted Chinese music as mere theatres, but now allegations of these cultural Musical Patronage ‘noise’, screeching and squawking her way through the shortcomings were accompanied by charges of and the Dresden Opera ‘Chinese aria’. primitivism, immorality and incompetence. The Music and Emotions in It might be argued that Bishop’s decision to lampoon Chinese Question was a farce originally written in 18th Century Thought some ethnicities and not others was a choice of art San Francisco, a city with which Melbourne had long rather than politics; after all, as a peripatetic artist, cultural and demographic ties,10 but it spoke just as Rhetoric and the Bishop had no vested interest in Australia’s demographic well to the racial, social and cultural politics of 1870s Performance of Recitative profile or social culture beyond whether its cities Melbourne; indeed, The Argus admitted that, although furnished her with sufficient audiences to make her of Californian origin, the play was equally ‘descriptive From Glee Club 11 endeavor financially rewarding. Bishop may have been of what is true in this city’. The production was to Concert Hall exploiting issues of race and belonging that were mounted by J.C. Williamson’s theatre company at the Singing Fear: Sinophobia and beginning to become subjects of political and social Theatre Royal, starring Williamson himself (who would Opera in 19th Century Australia debate, but the work was not politically conceived; later become Australia’s most successful operatic Bishop’s operatic extravaganza was a light hour of impresario) and his wife Maggie Moore. comedy, entertainment and music. Love and Marriage in History: The plot of the play centred around an old gentleman, Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal Yet, it is precisely because Soprano Sfogato was created Mr. Freewill, who is a self-described and unabashed The Aspirant Body: as a piece of entertainment, rather than as a piece of sinophile. Against the advice and wishes of his family Love, Death and Song propaganda, that the work is such a good illustration of he sacks his Irish-born domestic servants with the the role of opera in colonial contexts. Soprano Sfogato intent of replacing them with Chinese helpers. Wishing was an operatic caricature, amplifying the stereotype to put an end to the old man’s ‘Chinese Mania’, his contributor biographies of several national musics to the point of amusement, family hatches a plan. They hire two Irish servants, Billy and like all successful caricatures, it resonated with the and Kitty (Williamson and Moore) and request them audience’s perception of truth.9 Chinese Opera, Chinese to disguise themselves as Chinese people, instructing music, and, by extension, the Chinese themselves, were them to adopt stereotypical Chinese behaviours which widely regarded as unmusical, unrefined and undignified. would ‘disgust him forever with the whole Chinese Bishop took these ‘truths’ to ridiculous ends, and created race’.12 The family’s attempt is successful; the play ends a popular work of art. In doing so, she perpetuated the with Freewill declaring his ‘complete renunciation of all racist perceptions of Melbourne’s European population. sympathy for China and the Chinese forever after’.13 Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia | Esmeralda Rocha | The University of Western Australia

about this Book Williamson and Moore adopted the rhythmically simple, very repetitive typical behaviours and stereotypes of melody consisting of five notes either Emotions and History 19th century yellow-face minstrelsy in in step or octave leap. This melody is this project and fused them together underpinned by a homophonic, and at amarcord with traditional English farce to times monophonic, accompaniment misrepresent Chinese behaviours, which uses only two chords (I (Ib) and V culture and customs for comic (Vd)), and a dominant pedal imitating a articles effect. Hence, the Irish-cum-Chinese drone. Both musically and linguistically, The Power characters were given nonsense names: the whole song and dance is an exercise of Singing Billy became Kah Funga Tee Yung Slim in pejorative imitation, designed to make whilst Kitty became Sam See Loo. The the Chinese culture seem backward, Singing of Executions: Ballads Chinese are represented as uncouth, primitive, ugly and ungraceful. clumsy and stupid: they are dirty, they as News Media in Early Modern Europe When combined with the pidgin English, drop plates, they’re seemingly unable the babbling lampoon of the Cantonese Musical Patronage to execute even the most menial of language, the unflattering costumes, and the Dresden Opera household chores, and their poor the taped-back eyes (see Figure 2), and command of English is compounded by Williamson and Moore’s intentionally Music and Emotions in the exaggerated and stereotyped fake ugly singing and unmelodious plucking, 18th Century Thought Chinese accents Williamson and Moore Schultz’s puerile ‘Chinese song’ Rhetoric and the assumed in their roles. Figure 1: First page of ‘Ping-a-ling-a, ching ching, chow chow chong’, written and served not only to disparage Chinese composed by Charles Schultz for Maggie Moore. The song was advertised as a Performance of Recitative One of their most potent weapons, culture, but also to infantilise the genuine song from a Chinese Opera. [SR 782.14 S388] however, was music. The Argus reports Chinese people, and make them seem From Glee Club that Williamson and Moore ‘play[ed] undesirable, worthless, and alien to to Concert Hall upon ear-piercing instruments’ and European society. ‘[sung] until [the old man] stamps Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Such depictions were contrasted his feet with rage and distraction’.14 Opera in 19th Century Australia against the sympathetic depictions of Williamson and Moore’s musical the European characters, which were Love and Marriage in History: representations were advertised as facilitated by the wit of their dialogues genuine ‘Vocal and Instrumental Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal and the popular Irish and English selections from a favourite Chinese ballads they were given to sing. The The Aspirant Body: Opera’.15 Such a claim added legitimacy most important among these British Love, Death and Song to the depiction of Chinese people and songs was Poole’s No Irish Need Apply culture that was conveyed throughout (1862), which not only framed the contributor biographies the play. The claim, however, was narrative well, but also elicited the false. Moore’s Chinese song and dance sympathy of the audience. The musical ‘Ping-a-ling-a, ching ching, chow chow juxtaposition between popular British chong’ (see Figure 1), was written ballads that engendered familiarity and and composed by Charles Schultz, a the denigratory pseudo-Chinese songs minor composer of vaudeville songs that prompted ridicule and contempt Figure 2: J.C. Williamson and Maggie Moore in The Chinese Question, Melbourne in Melbourne. Schultz’s work sets a 1874. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia [SR 782.14 S388]. symbolise the entire message of nonsensical string of syllables to a the farce. Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia | Esmeralda Rocha | The University of Western Australia

about this Book The work’s success may be judged topical in many parts of the Anglo-world opera was a contended from the critical and popular support it at that time, especially in an Australia Emotions and History received, and the level of elite patronage limping towards federation and desiring (and contentious) it garnered. Upon its première, The a cohesive identity. Argus reported that ‘the house was cultural space amarcord Far from being a decadent crowded and laughed more than the entertainment, opera was a contended in colonial Australia conventional “roar of laughter”.’17 articles (and contentious) cultural space in The Governor of Victoria, Sir James colonial Australia, one in which the McCulloch, and the eminent barrister The Power Chinese could be both proven inferior and judge, Sir Redmond Barry (originally of Singing to British people and confirmed as a from Ireland) attended the farce more threat to them. The evidence of Chinese than once. The Chinese Question Singing of Executions: Ballads ‘inferiority’ furnished by works such attracted uniformly positive attention as News Media in Early Modern Europe as Soprano Sfogato or The Chinese from the Melbourne press, and became Question fuelled the increasingly Musical Patronage a popular work in the company’s paranoid political debate about Asian and the Dresden Opera repertory for the next twenty years.18 immigration, a debate that eventually The moral of the story, that the old man led to racist legislation like the White Music and Emotions in learned his lesson and would from now Australia immigration policy and a 18th Century Thought on do the right thing and support white xenophobic culture that has persisted immigration and employment, was very Rhetoric and the into the 21st century. Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia ENDNOTES

Love and Marriage in History: 1 The Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation Project , ‘THE CHINESE IN 8 ‘Coppin’s Olympic’, The Argus, May 30th, 1856, p. 5. AUSTRALIA’, http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au/education/history.htm , Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal 9 ‘The most protean aspect of comedy is its potentiality for transcending itself, accessed 12/12/2010 for responding to the conditions of tragedy by laughing in the darkness.’ – Harry The Aspirant Body: 2 Kathryn Wells, ‘The Australian Gold Rush’, Australian Stories http://australia. Levin gov.au/about-australia/australian-­ story/austn-gold-rush­ , accessed 12/12/2010 Love, Death and Song 10 Esmeralda Rocha, ‘“Yellow Brick Road”: Opera on the Gold Rush Circuit (San 3 Estimates vary between cities and source. See Museum Victoria, ‘History of Francisco and Melbourne, 1851-1861)’, conference paper presented at the Immigration from China’, Origins of Immigrant Communities in Victoria http:// American Musicological Society Annual Conference, 2011, San Francisco. museumvictoria.com.au/origins/history.aspx?pid=9 , accessed 12/12/2010 and contributor biographies 11 ‘Theatre Royal – Mr. and Mrs. Williamson in a new piece’, The Argus, November Keir Reeves, ‘A Nation’s Heritage – The Chinese in Central Victoria’, Electronic 24th 1874, p. 6 Encyclopedia of Gold in Australia 12 Ibid. 4 Anne Doggett, ‘“And for Harmony most ardently we long”: Musical Life in Ballarat, 1851-1871’ (University of Ballarat, 2006).p. 47. Harold Love, ‘Chinese 13 Ibid. Theatre on the Victorian Goldcields 1858-1870’, Australasian Drama Studies, 3/2 14 Ibid. (1985), pp. 47-86. Wang Zheng-Ting, ‘Chinese music in mid-nineteenth-century 15 ‘Amusements – Theatre Royal’ The Argus, December 5th 1874, p. 12. Victoria’, Australasian Music Research, 3/2 (1985) pp. 23-38. 16 The next year, Schultz composed another song for Moore. ‘When the Stars 5 ‘1856’ in ‘Works 1842–1859’, Australian Variety Theatre Archive, 2011. begin to Peep’ was written for Maggie Moore’s 1875 Farewell concert. See 6 Nicholas Bochsa, ‘Medley overture to La sfogato’, (Philadelphia: A. Fiot., 1849). ‘Amusements – a Maggie Moore’s Farewell Concert’, The Argus, August 5th 1875, 7 ‘Je suis la Bayadère’ was composed for Bishop by Nicholas Bochsa. It is about p. 8. a ‘Bayadère’, or Indian nautch girl. The text reads: Je suis la Bayadère dont le 17 ‘Theatre Royal – Mr. and Mrs. Williamson in a new piece’, The Argus, November gai tambourin/ tra la la/ et la danse légère/ tra la la/ bannissent, bannissent le 24th 1874, p. 6. chagrin/ Enfans des bordes du Gange/ le plaisir est ma loi/ venez et qu’on se 18 Moore was still performing the work, to popular and critical acclaim in 1893, range/ en cercle près de moi. [I am a nautch girl, who merry tambourine and when she took the work on tour to New Zealand. See ‘The Lorgnette’, The light dancing banish sorrow. On the shores of the Ganges, pleasure is my [only] Observer, Volume XI, Issue 751, 20 May 1893, p. 7. law, come and arrange yourself in a circle close to me.] about this Book Love and Marriage in History: Emotions and History Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal amarcord

articles Merridee Bailey Australian National University The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book Love and Marriage in History: Emotions and History Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal amarcord

articles Merridee Bailey in history, and through it we can see, and Australian National University hear, for ourselves the way music holds The Power our thoughts and feelings on love. of Singing Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt Madrigals are a form of musical Singing of Executions: Ballads Weiß, was ich leide! expression which embraces these as News Media in Early Modern Europe themes. In the Western world we now Only one who knows longing spend so much of our time trying to Knows what I suffer!1 Musical Patronage understand love; in songs, in fiction, (trans. Lawrence Snyder) and the Dresden Opera in psychological interpretations of Music and Emotions in Written by Johann Wolfgang von relationships, and especially in the 18th Century Thought Goethe (1749-1832) and set to music self-help book. But trying to understand by Schubert in the 19th century, this love is not new. Plato’s Symposium Rhetoric and the passage introduces us to the idea that explores the many different types and Performance of Recitative the emotions of those in love are perhaps meanings of love in the 4th century BC. universal and unchanging. Are they? Can Valerius Maximus wrote on Conjugal From Glee Club we recognise in the past centuries the Love in the 1st century AD in Facta et to Concert Hall ideas of love, and love in marriage, that Dicta Memorabilia (‘Memorable Doings absorb and excite us today? and Sayings’), while the Church Fathers, Singing Fear: Sinophobia and including St John Chrysostom, St Jerome Opera in 19th Century Australia Renaissance madrigals and folk songs and St Ambrose, recurrently wrote about from the 16th to the 20th centuries Love and Marriage in History: love and marriage in early medieval expose the artistic representations of 2 Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal Europe. Many of the madrigals and longing, love and desire. Is it possible songs that modern concert audiences The Aspirant Body: for modern audiences to recognise in listen to were also written to explore this music and lyrics the ideas of love, Love, Death and Song the ideas and feelings associated with marriage and devotion that have been romantic love and longing. captured in the lines of our sources? contributor biographies From initial longing, to expressions of Madrigals flourished in the early 16th devotion, combined with the potential for century, initially developing in Italy. In despair, history is littered with the lives these early decades, madrigals were a of men and women whose love has been mostly serious form of music. In fact, it recorded. The program from Amarcord, was the courtly love poetry of the great The Singing Club – Four Centuries of Petrarch, who is often referred to as the Song, explores the ideas and feelings founder of humanism (which stressed associated with romantic love and longing the value of literature, art and history), Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal | Merridee Bailey | Australian National University

about this Book exploring the ideas and concepts What can we make of emotions in the past and emotions in the present? Emotions and History this music arouses in us by looking Questions around issues of romantic at love and marriage in the past love and emotional bonds between amarcord men and women take us to the core of adds to our enjoyment of it the past. How recognisable are people from previous centuries? Would we articles whose highly prized literary works were in sound. Minor intervals express understand what they mean by love, but The Power set to music. But by the mid-16th century sadder emotions, major ones joy; equally, would they understand what of Singing the form of the madrigal was becoming ascending notes symbolize such we mean by love today? Are we, in fact, looser, and it was these experiments words as ‘heaven’, low registers talking a different language? Some of Singing of Executions: Ballads with different and lighter verses which ‘earth’. Rore uses dissonance and the music of these centuries suggests as News Media in Early Modern Europe developed a different form of madrigal. wide, jagged leaps to express pain that there are points of connection By the mid-16th century, the madrigal’s or struggle…The second section of between the language of love in the past Musical Patronage emphasis on secular topics, the light- his madrigal Mia benigna Fortuna and today. In the 16th century Alfonso and the Dresden Opera hearted take on ideas which often became a classic and much-imitated d’Avalos wrote about anguish, love included pastoral and bucolic imagery example of such music: it opens with and suffering in a way that resonates Music and Emotions in with us: 18th Century Thought — as well as amorous pursuits — found a ‘forbidden’ ascending major 6th, increasing popularity across Europe. its relentless dissonant suspensions Sento che nel partire Rhetoric and the In England it was the lighter madrigal expressing the ‘cruel, bitter, Il cor giunge al morire. Performance of Recitative which found favour towards the end of inexorable death’ of the text.3 Ond’io, misero ognor, ogni momento the 16th century. Significantly, music Here we have a form of music that Grido ‘morir mi sento’ From Glee Club historians have viewed composers as expresses emotion both in its lyrics and the Non sperando di far a voi ritorno. to Concert Hall choosing poetry that was more emotional way the music is crafted with liveliness, as E così, dico mille volte il giorno to set to the music. Singing Fear: Sinophobia and well as in its rhythm and range. ‘Partir io non vorrei’ Opera in 19th Century Australia It is not just the lyric poetry that Se col partir accresco i dolor miei. We can explore some of the ideas of composers chose to set to music which love and marriage that are tied to this In taking leave I feel Love and Marriage in History: suggests there was a new emphasis on music. From Alfonso d’Avalos’ 16th My heart is close to death. Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal heightened emotions in the madrigal. century verse on the suffering he feels As I, always wretched, call out Music scholars argue that the changes The Aspirant Body: on leaving the one he loves, to the At every moment ‘I feel myself dying’ in the way the music itself was Love, Death and Song English poet Edmund William Gosse’s With no hope of returning to you. constructed in the mid-16th century translation of the Greek text, After And thus I say a thousand times a day aroused more emotions in the listener. Many a Dusty Mile, set to the music of ‘I would rather not leave’ contributor biographies Denis Arnold and Emma Wakelin 4 Elgar, audiences are exposed to artistic If by leaving I increase my suffering. have described the mid-16th century representations of love and desire (trans. Susannah Howe ) compositions of Cipriano de Rore, one over the centuries. For that reason, of the most celebrated and influential exploring the ideas and concepts this composers of the madrigal, in this way: music arouses in us by looking at love Almost every significant word seems and marriage in the past adds to our to suggest a corresponding image enjoyment of it. Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal | Merridee Bailey | Australian National University

about this Book Equally, we might also need to ask what role biology plays in these emotions. Some historians such as Emotions and History Linda Pollock have argued that we should take the fundamental aspects of grief, love and emotion as 5 amarcord givens in the historical experience. The question we then confront is how individuals and society expressed these emotions and their ideas about love. Music, both articles in the notes and sounds that are written but also in the The Power lyrics that accompany them, is a record of this. It is, of Singing however, equally important to understand that ideas of romantic love and marriage are changeable. That Singing of Executions: Ballads is, what we perceive today as the core rationale for as News Media in Early Modern Europe marriage was not necessarily spoken of. Exploring the history of marriage in its European context, particularly Musical Patronage focusing on medieval Europe, can lead us through the and the Dresden Opera ways romantic love has been perceived. Music and Emotions in Marriage was a contract made before God. As the 18th Century Thought Church gained authority and power from the early middle to the later middle ages, it assumed more Rhetoric and the control over the prerogative of marriage and, as a result, Performance of Recitative divorce, which had been permitted in Roman and early Germanic law as well as in early Christian law in the From Glee Club 7th and 8th centuries, came to an end. Early Christian to Concert Hall society therefore underwent a change in terms of what Singing Fear: Sinophobia and was seen as permissible in the marriage state. Opera in 19th Century Australia What made a marriage lawful? Marriage was contracted by two people exchanging vows. The Church Love and Marriage in History: did not insist on a formal, established ceremony to Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal accompany a marriage and nor did a marriage have The Aspirant Body: to take place inside a Church. Provided two people Love, Death and Song declared to each other that they considered themselves married, and they then cohabited, such marriages were be pressured into recanting this, her family, the Bishop seen as binding in the eyes of the Church and the wider contributor biographies of Norwich, and the Church were forced to accept the community. While having witnesses made it easier for vows Margery and Richard had made to each other.6 a husband and wife to later declare the truth of what had occurred, as long as both the man and the woman The marriage of Margery and Richard is often swore that they had declared themselves married, the discussed in terms of romantic love. Partly because Church was forced to accept this. Margery Paston for it is, if not unique, then unusual in emphasising example, in 1469, was able to confirm that she believed personal affection, desire and the importance two the secret vows she had made to the family bailiff, people attached to being married to someone with Richard Calle, were binding — and since she could not whom they shared a personal love. It actually suggests Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal | Merridee Bailey | Australian National University

about this Book the distance between the reasons for women’s desire within a legal state, it did pleasantry of his to remark that he marrying that Margery seems to have not mean that Lust, one of the 7 Deadly was a happy man when it thundered.8 had, and the way love was spoken about Sins, could be disregarded. Emotions and History Here, it is the combination of affection in other marriages. However, here we Of course, the literature written in the — and the display of affection — need to be aware of the importance of amarcord medieval period contradicts this view and which is subject to cultural and social the language we use: love and romantic it is possible to see that men and women understandings of what is acceptable love. articles were alive to the possibilities of romantic and unacceptable. The Church itself refers to marital love in entanglements, desire and sexual What though, of the breakdown of The Power later medieval marriage sermons. Marital activity, legitimate and otherwise. Here marriage? By the medieval period, divorce of Singing affection is also referred to in Canon law. we can consider the stories of Chaucer as we know it was forbidden. However, However, historians point out that ‘marital in The Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio’s there were provisions within the medieval Singing of Executions: Ballads affection’ was a legal term which meant Decameron and even Dante’s Inferno — Church for separation a mensa et thoro, as News Media in Early Modern Europe respect, deference and consideration.7 The which in exploring adultery and romantic literally separation ‘from board and bed.’ idea of romantic love can possibly be seen love drew even greater attention to it as Musical Patronage In essence it meant a husband and wife in the endearments husbands and wives part of human nature. and the Dresden Opera did not have to live together as a married used towards each other, for example couple under certain circumstances, Music and Emotions in in letters and also in wills, but it is not usually because of fornication, but also necessarily reflected in the common usage ardour and 18th Century Thought cruelty, or if one partner was a heretic. of the terms ‘marital love’ and ‘marital However, both parties were forbidden Rhetoric and the affection’ in the medieval period. It does passion were seen to remarry until their spouse died. Such Performance of Recitative not necessarily mean the kind of emotional as sinful — even allowances are far removed from divorce highs and lows of romantic entanglements From Glee Club as we now view it.9 we automatically think of today. in a marriage to Concert Hall Yet as we know from the lives of In fact, it is worth bearing in mind for the However, it was not just the medieval medieval people, marriage was not Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Church, and hence for the greater part Church that viewed romantic love static and irreversible. The Church Opera in 19th Century Australia of medieval society, ardour and passion between married couples as somehow granted annulments on certain grounds, were seen as sinful — even in a marriage. Love and Marriage in History: inappropriate and unseemly. It is and sometimes on the flimsiest of A husband and wife, although legally worth thinking of Plutarch’s Life of excuses, based on the argument that Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal married, were not meant to engage in Cato the Elder, in which he talks about the marriage had never been valid, sex for enjoyment or fun, or even as an The Aspirant Body: the Roman distaste for expressions of for example if the two people were expression of romantic love for each Love, Death and Song romantic love and affection between too closely related, if one was already other. The sinfulness of the act was married couples. Plutarch writes: married, if the husband was impotent, based in its association with the sin of contributor biographies or if it had been a forced marriage. temptation. It diverted you from leading Cato expelled another senator who The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine the clean and pure life which the Church was thought to have good prospects and her then husband the dauphin Fathers saw as the highest goal for all for the consulship, namely, Manilius, Louis, later Louis VII, was annulled men and women — even when it was because he embraced his wife in on the grounds of consanguinity in acknowledged that few people would be open day before the eyes of his 1152. Eleanor and Louis were 4th able to follow the rigours of a chaste life. daughter. For his own part, he said, cousins, yet this annulment came after While marriage itself was acknowledged he never embraced his wife unless she had borne Louis two daughters. as being necessary to contain men and it thundered loudly; and it was a Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal | Merridee Bailey | Australian National University

about this Book Annulments, like marriage itself, when Henry writes: the public knowledge of his relationship land and political power were involved, can be seen in what he writes. Yet, he On turning over in my mind the were treated in a particular way both by did continue to write. Emotions and History contents of your last letters, I have society and by the Church. put myself into great agony, not amarcord It is perhaps in the marriages of knowing how to interpret them, the pain of absence Henry VIII that we see the use, the whether to my disadvantage, as articles consequences and the staggering power you show in some places, or to my is already too of annulment and love in marriage to advantage, as I understand them The Power most stunning effect. If history is littered in some others, beseeching you great for me of Singing with the lives of men and women whose earnestly to let me know expressly love has left its mark on the pages of your whole mind as to the love In a later letter, he turns to a theme Singing of Executions: Ballads history, along with their despair and between us two. It is absolutely of absence and longing to be with the as News Media in Early Modern Europe their betrayal, it is in Henry’s actions necessary for me to obtain this woman he loves: with Anne Boleyn that we can see all answer, having been for above a Musical Patronage …so is it with our love, for by absence of these emotions concentrated into a whole year stricken with the dart of and the Dresden Opera we are kept a distance from one period of just 10 years, from Henry’s love, and not yet sure whether I shall another, and yet it retains its fervour, Music and Emotions in initial infatuation with Anne in 1526 to her fail of finding a place in your heart at least on my side; I hope the like on eventual death a decade later in 1536. and affection.10 18th Century Thought yours, assuring you that on my part Rhetoric and the We can turn to this now, in particular Here, Henry’s uncertainty and his the pain of absence is already too Performance of Recitative by looking at Henry’s own words in the agony of not knowing what the woman great for me; and when I think of the collection of love letters he wrote to he loves is thinking is clear. He not increase of that which I am forced to From Glee Club Anne, seventeen of which survive today only feels this but expresses it to Anne suffer, it would be almost intolerable, to Concert Hall in the Vatican Library. These love letters in a letter, a form of communication but for the firm hope I have of your were written over a period of about 18 which Henry himself appears to have unchangeable affection for me: and Singing Fear: Sinophobia and months, between May 1527 and 1528. loathed. His contemporaries reported to remind you of this sometimes, and Opera in 19th Century Australia Only Henry’s letters survive and there that he never enjoyed writing or seeing that I cannot be personally is no record of Anne’s replies. Some reading correspondence, reportedly present with you, I now send you the Love and Marriage in History: are quite beautiful, some betray the impatient with dealing with all letters nearest thing I can to that, namely, Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal arrogance of a king, some are about and detested writing to others in his my picture set in a bracelet, with The Aspirant Body: politics of which Anne was herself a own hand. In fact, the letters to Anne the whole of the device, which you Love, Death and Song part, and some are short and to the appear to be the only single piece of already know, wishing myself in their point in trying to arrange meetings with sustained correspondence written by place, if it should please you.12 her. One of the first in the chronology his own hand which Henry ever entered contributor biographies of surviving letters is from May 1527. into.11 In the Middle Ages letter writing was not a simple medium, or even a private medium. Letters could be, and were, intercepted, as were these letters which were eventually stolen, probably by a Papal Embassy, explaining how they ended up in the Vatican archives. Henry’s fear of interception and fear of Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal | Merridee Bailey | Australian National University

about this Book These letters resonate with emotions, The emotions we can see in this music, kept changing his form: in the end this and with the familiar idea of sending and in history, have ranged from the may be what the Renaissance madrigals, Emotions and History a token of love, in this case a bracelet familiar and the recognisable to the the letters of Henry VIII and the brief with Henry’s portrait. This passage, strange and unfamiliar. The idea that love glimpses into marriage customs in the amarcord and our inevitable knowledge of what was not seemly in marriage, and that classical world and the medieval world would happen to Henry and Anne, affection should not be displayed between show us — that the form of love may reveals perfectly the themes Amarcord husbands and wives, strikes us now as change but these fleeting and transient articles have been exploring in their program strange and perhaps even unnatural. emotions which have left their traces The Power of music: devotion, lust, despair However, I think that perhaps we need to in music and letters are, on the whole, of Singing and betrayal. think back to the Greek god Proteus who recognisable and familiar to us today. Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe the form of love may change but these Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera fleeting and transient emotions which have Music and Emotions in left their traces in music and letters are, on the 18th Century Thought whole, recognisable and familiar to us today Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Endnotes References Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal 1 Franz Schubert, Sehnsucht, D656 (c. 1819). Text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, With Notes, Boston: John W. Luce, 1906. 2 See Alcuin Blamires, ed., Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Arnold, Denis and Emma Wakelin, ‘Madrigal’, in The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. The Aspirant Body: Medieval Texts, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, pp.58-77. Alison Latham. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Love, Death and Song 3 Denis Arnold, Emma Wakelin, ‘Madrigal’, in The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Blamires, Alcuin, ed., Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Alison Latham. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Texts, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. contributor biographies 4 Carlo Gesualdo, Sento che nel partire. Text by Alfonso d’Avalos. Butler, Sara M., The Language of Abuse: Marital Violence in Later Medieval England, 5 Lynda Pollock, A Lasting Relationship, Parents and Children over Three Centuries, Leiden: Brill, 2007. London: Fourth Estate, 1987. Fenn, J., ed., Paston Letters: Original Letters Written During the Reign of Henry VI., 6 Paston Letters: Original Letters Written During the Reign of Henry VI., Edward IV., Edward IV., and Richard III., , 2 vols., London, 1849. and Richard III., ed. J. Fenn, 2 vols., London, 1849, II, 28–30. Lerer, Seth, Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts of 7 Conor McCarthy, Marriage in Medieval England: Law, Literature, and Practice, Deceit, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004, p. 95. McCarthy, Conor, Marriage in Medieval England: Law, Literature, and Practice, 8 Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder, in Plutarch’s Lives, trans. B. Perrin, London: W. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004. Heinemann, 1914, p. 353. Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder, in Plutarch’s Lives, trans. B. Perrin, London: W. 9 Sara M. Butler, The Language of Abuse: Marital Violence in Later Medieval England, Heinemann, 1914. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Pollock, Lynda, A Lasting Relationship, Parents and Children over Three Centuries, 10 The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, With Notes, Boston: John W. Luce, London: Fourth Estate, 1987. 1906, pp. 1-2. 11 Seth Lerer, Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts of Deceit, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 89. 12 The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, p. 8. about this Book The Aspirant Body: Emotions and History Love, Death and Song amarcord

articles Stephanie Trigg The University of Melbourne The Power of Singing Singing of Executions: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe Musical Patronage and the Dresden Opera Music and Emotions in 18th Century Thought Rhetoric and the Performance of Recitative From Glee Club to Concert Hall Singing Fear: Sinophobia and Opera in 19th Century Australia Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song

contributor biographies about this Book The Aspirant Body: Emotions and History Love, Death and Song amarcord

articles Stephanie Trigg cross the centuries and speak to us. It is The University of Melbourne the easiest thing to say that music and The Power poetry are timeless; that we can ‘feel’ of Singing or ‘live’ the unchanging emotions of the Human bodies are standing together past. We often say this of the drama of Singing of Executions: Ballads to sing. They breathe in together, hold Shakespeare or the poetry of Chaucer, as News Media in Early Modern Europe that breath for a moment, then breathe for example, that they are timeless, out in words, sounds and harmonies. Musical Patronage when what we really mean is that we All choral singing is miraculous in a think they are wonderful — and are and the Dresden Opera way, in its capacity to transform the fluffs and stumbles of daily language slightly surprised at finding them so. We Music and Emotions in tend to use timelessness — the capacity 18th Century Thought and speech, the hesitant ums and ahs of our imperfect conversations, of emotional expression to remain Rhetoric and the into communally agreed sounds and meaningful across the centuries — as Performance of Recitative controlled harmonies. Bodies and an uncritical measure of greatness. Not minds work together, weaving complex all the emotions or historical contexts From Glee Club narrative, lyric and harmonic structures make this transition securely, however, to Concert Hall with the entwined, twisted strands of to the formality of our recital halls. We can never take it for granted that we can Singing Fear: Sinophobia and human voices, working and breathing together. In a capella singing, all this reach back into the past and revive every Opera in 19th Century Australia takes place on the high wire, as it emotion and feeling, or that the forms Love and Marriage in History: were, without the safety net of strings, and styles in which we sing the music Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal reeds, pipes and drums. Without that of the past can capture their original supportive infrastructure, without those social contexts. Nevertheless, there is The Aspirant Body: complex resonating instruments, we something about hearing the human Love, Death and Song hear the sound of the human breath voice singing that helps create the floating in between and amongst the illusion that these historical emotions contributor biographies musicians, at once both ethereal and are right here in the room with us. pneumatic. There is something thrilling In the program of music from Amarcord, about such vulnerability, even when the Tales of Love and Murder, the meanings singers are confident and the music they of some of these songs and poems are make is rich and full. deeply historical, particularly those When these songs and voices come that are contingent on medieval and from the past, there is the further renaissance conventions of romantic mystery of the emotions that seem to love. They are ‘tales,’ but the narrative The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song | Stephanie Trigg | The University of Melbourne

about this Book function here is usually subordinated Those conventions admit of endless But love and desire can also be coded in to the lyric, where the story is less reiteration. The short lyric by Nicolas a more popular, or earthy vein. Like the Emotions and History important than the possibility of Gombert (c. 1495-c. 1556), Triste départ, courtly lovers, the singer in Jean-Antoine capturing a moment’s feeling, or explores the sensibility of the lover. In de Baif’s Une puce j’ay dedans l’oreille amarcord contradiction in feeling. these poems, the emotional life of the (I have a flea in my ear) is consumed male singer/poet is of central concern: with love, but it is love in the form of a Carlo Gesualdo’s Io tacerò (I will remain desire, a physical itch. His desire is like articles silent) evokes the medieval courtly idea Triste départ m’avait mis en douleur, a sickness, but he appeals to the old of aristocratic love (amour courtois) as Mon corps était plus froid qui n’est sorceress to heal him with a potion. The Power pain, suffering and joy; the woman is both le marbre. of Singing tormenter and physician (both wound and Transi de deuil et séchant comme Heinrich Marschner’s Liebeserklärung salve). In the beautiful contradictions of is sung by the tailor’s apprentice to Singing of Executions: Ballads un arbre, love poetry, though, the greatest amorous Ma face avait perdu toute couleur. his beloved, expressing love in suitably as News Media in Early Modern Europe suffering produces the greatest poetry, sartorial terms: ‘Let me sew a large Our sad parting caused me Musical Patronage while the best poets and songwriters buttonhole in your feelings… Let me such grief. and the Dresden Opera speak most eloquently about their silence. stand at your side as a slender tailor’s My body was colder than marble; rule… O be my winter coat, the moss Io tacerò, ma nel silenzio mio Music and Emotions in Numbed by sorrow and unfeeling upon my window.’ La lagrime i sospiri 18th Century Thought as a tree, Diranno i miei martiri. My face was drained of all its colour. Orlando di Lasso’s Matona mia cara sets out more deliberately to rewrite the high Rhetoric and the I will keep quiet, yet in my silence (trans. Christopher Abbey) courtly mode. It begins with the old idea Performance of Recitative My tears and sighs These are poems and songs written of the troubadour, singing a seductive Shall tell of my pain. From Glee Club in the high style, a style that loves the song under the woman’s window. But to Concert Hall Gesualdo was not just a poet and detailed exploration of extravagant the song quickly moves into another composer, however. Born into a noble feeling, its effects on the body and its register, avoiding the elevated language Singing Fear: Sinophobia and family in 1566, he married his cousin capacity to generate the most affecting of Gesualdo or Gombert. Opera in 19th Century Australia Maria d’Avalos; but when he discovered flights of rhetoric. This poetry is Se mi non saper dire tante belle rason her affair with the Duke of Andria, he aspirational, written by musicians and Love and Marriage in History: Petrarca mi non saper, ne fonte stabbed them both and fled to northern poets to express a sensibility that is d’Helicon Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal Italy. Such an extreme act puts pressure associated with aristocratic feeling, in Don don don diridiridon don don don The Aspirant Body: on the idea of easy identification with the songs that a noble patron might himself Love, Death and Song poetic conventions of the Renaissance. want to sing, or have sung on his behalf. I cannot tell you many elegant things I know nothing of Petrarch, nor the contributor biographies Fountain of Helicon ‘Let me sew a large Don don don diridiridon don don don buttonhole in your feelings… Love and desire in this song are appetitive and animalistic. ‘I’m as Let me stand at your side as a fond of you as a Greek is of a capon!’ ‘I’ll bring you a woodcock, as fat as a slender tailor’s rule…’ kidney,’ ‘I’ll fuck (mi ficcar) all night long, I will thrust like a ram.’ The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song | Stephanie Trigg | The University of Melbourne

about this Book Orlando’s lyrics are deliberately take with him (his lance, buckler, boots the lover’s suffering shocking, but their verbal sense and shoes) and around its ridiculous Emotions and History cheerfully disintegrates at the end of refrain, ‘La zombero boro borombetta, lo … is so great it each verse into the nonsense refrain: boro borombo.’ ‘Don don don diridiridon don don don.’ cannot be told — amarcord We find a similar pattern of nonsense These are the wordless syllables, the refrains in the boisterous songs that call except in the song he nonsense scatting or non-lexical sounds articles the young men together to celebrate that hold so many of our songs together, their own gallantry, like Baldisserra will now sing for us either written into the refrain like The Power Donato’s Chi la Gagliarda, with its this one, or in the melodies and arias of Singing refrain of ‘Tan tan tan tan tarira, tan Franz Schubert set Friedrich von that are strung out over long musical tan tan tarira, tirarira,’ or the several Matthisson’s poem Der Geistertanz phrases. The Queen of the Night’s Singing of Executions: Ballads drinking songs that are such fun to sing (Spirit Dance) to music in 1816. In this famous aria in Mozart’s Magic Flute as News Media in Early Modern Europe and perform. song the spirits dance gleefully around is an extreme, and familiar, example. the graves, as the ravens fly up and Musical Patronage There is something about these scripted But Amarcord’s program is called Tales around the walls of the deserted abbey. and the Dresden Opera ‘nonsense’ syllables that gets to the of Love and Murder, and it includes heart of what it is to sing, to make the more dramatic Fatal la parte, by Even darker is the song that follows, Music and Emotions in sound, music, without narrative sense. Juan del Encina. This is the story of Felix Mendelssohn’s setting of Goethe’s 18th Century Thought It is the playful nonsense of a jazz singer Cotal, who (much like Gesualdo) killed song of the werewolves, Zigeunerlied. scatting between verses, improvising his lover after finding her alone in his The song begins in the wild woods, in Rhetoric and the winter, and we hear the howl of wolves Performance of Recitative around the tune and the words. It is also house with a Spaniard. As in fiction, the contemporary fun of beatboxing, and in the novel, adultery always makes and owls, the black cat of Anna the From Glee Club producing sound effects, the human good material for narrative and song witch, and see the mysterious visitation of the seven women werewolves. to Concert Hall voice mimicking other instruments — or gossip. Pierre Certon (1500-1572) and effects. makes a great play with the desire to They shook themselves, Singing Fear: Sinophobia and tell stories, in La la la, je ne l’ose dire (La In the realm of popular song, these they gave a shake, Opera in 19th Century Australia la la, I dare not say). This song tells the wordless syllables often appear in And ran howling away. story of a jealous man who is indeed Love and Marriage in History: songs that are designed to accompany Wille wau wau wau! being cuckolded, but the story proceeds the repetitive rhythms of work, or Wille wo wow o! Wito hu! Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal only slowly, piecemeal, while the singer walking or marching. We hear them Wow o wo witu Hu! interrupts himself, ‘La la la, je ne l’ose The Aspirant Body: in the defiantly cheerful Scaramella va dire, La la la, je le vous dirai!’ (La la la, I This last refrain, the song of the Love, Death and Song alla guerra (Scaramella is off to war) by can’t tell, I’ll tell you!). This is like the werewolves, is one of the most dramatic Josquin des Prez. This sounds as if it paradox of the lover’s suffering that is so iterations of the wordless refrains. It contributor biographies derives from or is composed as a kind great it cannot be told — except in the reminds us that the line that separates of game song. Scaramella, also known song he will now sing for us. us from the non-human (whether that is as Scaramouche, is a stock figure of the animal or the ghostly non-human) is early comedies. He is usually a dandy There is also a much darker, gothic not always a rigid or stable one, that our and braggart, though in truth he is often side to this recital, especially in some finely developed lyrics and vocabulary cowardly. There is little narrative context of the 18th and 19th century songs. can quickly fade into breath articulated to this song, which is structured around over syllables that bear no relation to the lists of things Scaramella must poetry and narrative. The Aspirant Body: Love, Death and Song | Stephanie Trigg | The University of Melbourne

about this Book All these songs, whether they express When I first heard my son sing a In their strange, wordless syllables, and the refined and delicate sensibility of the two-line solo — it was James Taylor’s in their shared human breath, these Emotions and History courtly lover’s suffering, or the ghostly That Lonesome Road — I was sitting songs seem to carry forth a trace of this howling of werewolves, are performed in a church next to my husband and pre-linguistic phase. I do not mean in amarcord through the human breath, and in the my parents. A small row of people any sense that they are childish songs; wonderful renditions of Amarcord, collectively holding their breath as the but that they reach into a different level a capella, without instrument. In sound rang up and out into the church’s of consciousness, a level that facilitates articles classical tradition, this style of singing wooden rafters. the cross-over between languages. Even has its origins in church devotional if we do not have translations of these The Power There is something both terrible and music, where the choir sings, as it songs, and even if we cannot hear all of Singing wonderful about hearing the child of were, on behalf of the congregation, the linguistic syllables accurately, we your body sing. Certainly there is a leading them in vocal worship. It is can share this human inhalation and Singing of Executions: Ballads similar anxiety when they do an exam, or as News Media in Early Modern Europe a style of great precision, but also exhalation of breath, shaped around have to speak or play an instrument in sounds that are both language and non- great empathy, a style that calls both public. Your heart is in your mouth, and Musical Patronage for tremendous discipline, and a language. It is no wonder that our songs and the Dresden Opera you want to hold them up and stand by are so often about love and death: the strong sense of community, of bodies them as they talk, or perform, whatever breathing together. intake of breath in desire, the expiration Music and Emotions in it is. And I am sure all parents, not just of breath in our final moments. 18th Century Thought I have a teenage son who sings in a birth mothers, feel this. But when young small vocal group for his school. They people sing, there is something...not Rhetoric and the sing a mixture of jazz and contemporary visceral, but aspirant, about it. There Performance of Recitative music, and much of it is a capella. is something about the vulnerability when young Sometimes they sing under their of a young person singing, drawing in people sing, there From Glee Club their breath with all the mysterious to Concert Hall conductor, but I’ve also sat many times and watched as these seven young movements of bodily organs, muscles is something... Singing Fear: Sinophobia and people, five girls and two boys, stand and bones, all still growing, and moving not visceral, but Opera in 19th Century Australia alone on a dark stage, often dressed all the tiny muscles in the face and throat in simple blacks and greys, with just to make sounds and channel the air into aspirant, about it Love and Marriage in History: their pale faces lit up. They take their music, that simply takes the breath away. Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal notes from the piano or a tuner, and Perhaps it recalls something about the As we listen tonight, we don’t have to stand for a moment before they sing. exchange of breath, when the child is The Aspirant Body: share that anxiety about our children My son described the process of first born: that moment when the newly- performing: but we can capture this Love, Death and Song learning to breathe together. They align born body begins to breathe on its own; when the mother, if she were able, would sense that an a capella group is singing their breathing until they are ready to hold her breath to wait to see if it could, both for us, and also on our behalf, contributor biographies begin the first combined expiration of if she had grown lungs and heart strong celebrating that human capacity to breath across the vocal chords, and enough to hold breath on their own. I make ordered sounds, to breathe then the rehearsed patterns, rhythms know several other mothers of singers together for us. and melodies take over and pick up who feel this exchange of breath, whose that momentum. bodies themselves become aspirant, breathing differently, when they hear their children sing. about this Book Contributor Emotions and History biographies amarcord

articles Merridee Bailey lectures in the School Jane Davidson is Deputy Director of of History and the Research School the ARC Centre of Excellence for the The Power of Social Sciences at the Australian History of Emotions and Callaway/ of Singing National University on historical Tunley Chair of Music at The University Singing of Executions: Ballads methodology. She has also recently of Western Australia. Her research in lectured on medieval European history performance studies centres on emotion as News Media in Early Modern Europe at the University of New England. Her and expression. She is widely published Musical Patronage research interests include ideas about and is former Editor of Psychology of and the Dresden Opera virtue and courtesy in 15th and 16th Music (1997-2001); Vice-President of century England and more recently, the the European Society for the Cognitive Music and Emotions in role of women in urban communities Sciences of Music (2003-2006); and 18th Century Thought in 16th century London. She is an President of the Musicological Society of Associate Investigator for the ARC Australia (2010 and 2011). Rhetoric and the Centre of Excellence for the History Performance of Recitative of Emotions investigating emotive From Glee Club language in legal cases. She is the Rosalind Halton is a harpsichordist to Concert Hall author of Socialising the Child in Late and researcher in the field of Italian Medieval England, c.1400-1600. baroque music, with many editions Singing Fear: Sinophobia and and internationally published essays, Opera in 19th Century Australia particularly on the music of the Scarlatti Katie Barclay is a Postdoctoral family. Her recordings include an award- Love and Marriage in History: Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of winning disc The French Harpsichord for Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal Excellence for the History of Emotions at ABC Classics, and a 3 CD set of cantatas The University of Adelaide. Her research and serenatas by Alessandro Scarlatti, The Aspirant Body: explores how emotion informs and performed by leading Australian Love, Death and Song disrupts power relationships within the baroque specialists. She is an Associate family and between social classes. She Professor at The University of Newcastle contributor biographies has a particular interest in how people and has participated in an ARC Centre use popular song in this process. Dr of Excellence for the History of Emotions Barclay is the author of Love, Intimacy collaboratory on Rhythm, Text and and Power: Marriage and Patriarchy in Gesture in Baroque vocal music. Scotland, 1650-1850 and Lead Editor of the journal, Women’s History Magazine. about this Book Contributor Emotions and History biographies amarcord

articles Una McIlvenna is a Postdoctoral Alan Maddox is a Lecturer in Musicology Research Fellow with the Sydney node at The University of Sydney. His The Power of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the research focuses on rhetoric in early of Singing History of Emotions. She is a cultural modern vocal music, and on Australian Singing of Executions: Ballads and literary historian who explores colonial music. As a singer, Alan has the intersections of orality, literacy, worked with Opera Australia, and as News Media in Early Modern Europe performance and cheap print in early as a freelance artist in Europe and Musical Patronage modern Europe. Having completed Australia. He is musicologist to the and the Dresden Opera her PhD (Queen Mary, University of Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, and London) on scandal and reputation an Associate Investigator with the ARC Music and Emotions in at the 16th century French court, her Centre of Excellence for the History 18th Century Thought current project looks at the history of of Emotions. public execution from the perspective of Rhetoric and the the songs and ballads that were sung Performance of Recitative about condemned criminals. Her work Rebekah Prince is a Research Officer From Glee Club reveals the centrality of music, balladry with Jane Davidson in the School of to Concert Hall and performance to the transmission Music at The University of Western of news and information across early Australia. In the field of psychology, she Singing Fear: Sinophobia and modern Europe. has worked with leading researchers Opera in 19th Century Australia Sandra Trehub at the University of Toronto Mississauga, and Stephen Love and Marriage in History: Philippa Maddern is Director of the Tiffany at the University at Buffalo. Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal ARC Centre of Excellence for the History She holds a Master of Music in Horn of Emotions (1100-1800) and Winthrop Performance from the Eastman The Aspirant Body: Professor of Medieval History at The School of Music at the University of Love, Death and Song University of Western Australia. Her Rochester, and has also worked as research focuses on the social, cultural, a music educator in North America, contributor biographies gender and family history of England in and as a freelance musician in the US the period 1300-1550. She is currently and Australia. working on the history of children in late-medieval England, and the social understandings and expressions of emotions in the late middle ages. about this Book Contributor Emotions and History biographies amarcord

articles Esmeralda Rocha received her in the Dresden Catholic court church. undergraduate and postgraduate Janice is an International advisor The Power degrees from The University of Western to the Australian Music Foundation, of Singing Australia. The research for her PhD and a member of the International Singing of Executions: Ballads thesis (2012) Imperial Opera: The Advisory Board of Hudební Veda, the Nexus Between Opera and Imperialism Musicological Journal of the Academy of as News Media in Early Modern Europe in Calcutta and Melbourne, 1833-1901 Sciences of The Czech Republic. Musical Patronage was supervised by Jane Davidson and and the Dresden Opera Victoria Rogers in Perth, and Stephen Banfield in Bristol. Esmeralda has been Stephanie Trigg, FAHA, is Professor Music and Emotions in an invited speaker at the University of of Literature in the English and 18th Century Thought Bristol and the University of California, Theatre Program at The University of Berkeley, and has presented several Melbourne, and a Chief Investigator Rhetoric and the papers at leading international in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Performance of Recitative conferences. From 2010 to 2011, she sat the History of Emotions (CHE). She From Glee Club on the National Executive Board of the has published books on Chaucer and to Concert Hall Musicological Society of Australia in the medieval literature, and the poetry of position of Membership Secretary. Gwen Harwood. Her most recent book Singing Fear: Sinophobia and is Shame and Honor: A Vulgar History Opera in 19th Century Australia of the Order of the Garter (University Janice Stockigt, FAHA, is a Principal of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). Her Love and Marriage in History: Fellow at The University of Melbourne current research for CHE is focused on Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal and an Associate Investigator with emotions and the human face. the ARC Centre of Excellence for the The Aspirant Body: History of Emotions. She has received Love, Death and Song numerous awards for her writing and research, including the Derek Allen contributor biographies Prize for 2001 by the British Academy, and the inaugural Woodward Medal for a significant contribution in the area of humanities at The University of Melbourne. Her current research relates to music composed, collected, and performed during the lifetime of Johann Sebastian Bach, especially the collection of sacred music once held