James William Sobaskie

Conversations within and between two early lieder of Schubert

Biographical background and musical analysis reveal a remarkable relationship between Franz Schubert’s early lieder ‘An die Geliebte’ and ‘An die Nachtigall’. In ‘An die Geliebte’, tonal ambiguity underscores the indeterminate nature of its narrative, permitting multiple coexistent and contrasting expressive meanings while favouring an ironic interpretation and an intriguing subtext. In ‘An die Nachtigall’, whose introduction and first phrase are similar to the opening of ‘An die Geliebte’, multiple expressive meanings also may be discerned, including an ironic interpretation that emerges when the song is considered in the context of its predecessor. Proceeding from a prior discussion of these lieder by Susan Youens, this essay will reveal unsuspected layers of meaning and a contextual process that unfolds in these unassuming yet engaging songs of Schubert, which uniquely converse with one another and frame an important episode in the composer’s life.

Gabriel Fauré: The Songs and Their Poets (review)

Stated differently, the historian’s challenge is to find that happy balance. For a variety of reasons, the gauntlet Goethe throws down in “the living union” of “opposing qualities” eludes both writers. It is a shame Bodley’s book did not spend more time under the eye of a vigilant editor. Given that she expends a good deal of worthwhile discussion arguing for a more balanced appraisal of Goethe and Zelter, it is ironic that Ashgate unwittingly pulls the rug from beneath that hard work when, on the dust jacket, one takes in the volume’s only illustrations. The handsome reproduction of Karl Begas’s 1827 portrait of Zelter faces Joseph Karl Stieler’s 1828 painting of Goethe, yet the latter is so shadowy as to make it all but impossible to discern whose image it is. Whatever their quality, both illustrations are in black-and-white and, for the volume’s six hundred pages, there is not a single picture of any of the many subjects Goethe and Zelter mention or the many places they evoke. Errors, typographical and factual, are a bit too numerous. Christian Gottfried Körner, Schiller’s friend and the first to set to music his “An die Freude” (in 1786), was not born in 1796 as given on page 293 and the index, but in 1756 (the same year as Mozart). Franz Xaver Süßmayr’s surname is spelled as it is here (or Süssmayr) and not, as it is eight times by Bodley (pp. 378–90, index) “Süßmeyer.” A last example: Maria Anna (“Nannerl”) Mozart’s birth year is not 1749 (p. 425 and index), but 1751. When I quoted Zelter’s 14 September 1812 letter on Beethoven, I did so from Coleridge’s translation. Oddly, Bodley states that “these letters have never been published in English” (p. 2). While in her next sentence she mentions Coleridge’s efforts, she also declares that he provides “excerpts from 250” of the letters; one can be a bit more precise—the number is 382. Using Coleridge’s translation as a starting point proves instructive. For example, in the 1812 letter, of the fifty-five words I reproduce above, Bodley, verbatim, repeats fifty-one. Of the remaining letters—Bodley adds 213 beyond what Coleridge did—the resemblance of the newer volume to the older is uncanny.

The Early Works of Niels W. Gade: In Search of the Poetic (review)

pain, however, since in my eagerness to get a better seat I had leapt over the row in front of me and broken the fourth toe of my right foot just as the film was starting. The sensation of watching this severe and illuminating version of the opera while being in intense—if strangely remote—pain has stayed with me. Somehow feelings of sacrifice, the sense that there is a cost to things, intimations that understanding and beauty do not come easily, have adhered, not inappropriately to my feelings about this work. (pp. 227– 28)

Marguerite Long: A Life in French Music, 1874-1966

Preface Acknowledgments PART ONE: THE ARTIST 1. Marguerite LongOs Youth 2. Marguerite Long and Gabriel Faure: 1902-1912 3. Other Musical Collaborations 4. Marguerie Long and Claude Debussy: 1914-1919 5. The Postwar Years and the 1920Os 6. The 1930s: Marguerite Long and Maurice Ravel PART TWO: PEDAGOGUE AND AMBASSADOR OF FRENCH MUSIC 7. Portrait of a Pedagogue 8. The War Years: 1939-1945 9. The Concours Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud 10. The Postwar Decade: 1946-1955 11. Ambassador of French Music 12. The Last Ten Years of LongOs Life: 1956-1966 Notes Glossary Discography Bibliography Index

Henri Sauguet: A Bio-bibliography

Introduction Biography Worklist Bibliography Discography Appendix I: Alphabetical List of Works Appendix II: Programme of the Concert Given in Messagers Memory at the Salle Gaveau, 24 February 1930 Appendix III: Messagers Memoirs Index