Helen Julia Minors

Music and Ultra-Modernism in France: A Fragile Consensus, 1913–1939 by Barbara L. Kelly (review)

academic musicology within the context of its nineteenth-century origins: Guido Adler and the European art music tradition. Midtwentieth-century Ives scholars largely employed methodologies rooted in this tradition, producing scholarship in the forms of compositional analyses, descriptive catalogs, and critical editions. Paul ends his reception history in 2004 with the fiftieth anniversary of Ives’s death. The final chapter, titled “Ives at Century’s Turn,” features a wide range of Ives interpreters and activities. Some of them clearly elaborate upon existing mythologized interpretations of the composer. A prime example is the “American Mavericks” performance series, spearheaded by conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, which excites nationalism reminiscent of the Cold War era to appeal to American audiences. By contrast, Jan Swafford’s 1996 biography aims to clarify rather than perpetuate interpretations of the composer popularized by earlier interpretive communities (Charles Ives: A Life with Music [New York: W. W. Norton, 1996]). Throughout the book, Paul reinforces his authorial design “to remain quiet” and to differentiate various renderings of Ives without implying a value judgment. He saves his personal voice for the postscript, “So What Do You Think about Ives?” Here he personally calls for “broadening the purview of discourse” across institutionalized academia. Paul’s interest in scholarly communities over popular communities is evidenced by his bibliography, which consists almost exclusively of academicallygeared monographs and journals as opposed to primary and archival references. He has clearly embraced the traditional Adlerian approach to musicology in his study of history as criticism via the available published sources. At times, the book reads like a daunting, chaotic whirlwind of intellectual names (people, titles, movements, creeds, venues) that overpowers the chronological structure promised to the reader in the introduction. At its best, it documents with incredible detail the intricately related and dynamic players in American intellectual thought of the past two centuries. Stepping back from Paul’s intention, let us return to the metaphor of the mirror, which, like the Ives legacy, is bound up with many diverse and contradictory interpretations. Sometimes, the concept of the mirror causes us to think about temporality. By nature, the mirror demands the mental focus and physical presence of a selfconscious mind and body. At other times, the concept of the mirror causes us to think about veracity. A mirror can be a signifier of truth in that it functions with technical impartiality, reflecting light according to the laws of physics. Conversely, a mirror can represent an illusion, a ghost, an intangible image not grounded in the physical realm. A mirror can be a trick, showing the inverse reflection of reality or distorting a reflected image through curvatures or irregularities in the glass. In every scenario, the mirror image itself is voiceless, powerless to speak with autonomy. Its meaning is wholly dependent on the subjective gaze of the perceiver. Therefore, there is no single, dominant interpretation of the iconic composer, Charles Ives. Paul’s closing bid for plurality targets the ears of institutionalized aca demics, a community with which Paul clearly identifies. He asks his readers to embrace and even celebrate subjectivity, both in their understanding of Ives as a historical figure and universally in history at large.

La Péri, poème dansé (1911–12): A Problematic Creative-Collaborative Journey

This exploration of the creation of the poeme danse, La Peri (1911–12) for which the score was composed by Paul Dukas (1865–1935) establishes the role played in its development by the premiere danseuse, Natalia (Natasha) Trouhanova (1885–1956) and other artists. It charts the troubled collaboration on the initial project, which Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929) abandoned in 1911 and follows the process of its presentation the following year under the guidance of Jacques Rouche (1862–1957).