Jack Gibbons Blog

In praise of Bach (7)

2012-01-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

When posting my 6 previous blogs 'in praise of Bach' I was struck yet again by the frequency of over-the-top phrases spoken through history in praise of the music of this one man:

"one of the most influential works in the history of western classical music"
"a pinnacle of the solo violin repertoire"
"one of the greatest achievements of any man in history"
"one of the most important examples of variation form in music"
"there are many great composers, and then there is J. S. Bach"
"Bach pierces to the heart like no other"
"the greatest artwork of all times and all people"
"some music is so good it needs no introduction"

How can one describe Bach to those who don't know his work? His position in the music world is easy to describe: Bach is frequently compared to Shakespeare in literature. Isaac Newton in science, Michelangelo in art [see the foot of this blog for a recording of one of Bach's most moving choruses (from the St. John passion) combined with a slide show of Michelangelo's incomparable Pietàs]. Revered by all the greatest composers that came after him, even music critics whose daily published opinions reveal their ignorance feel obliged to genuflect in front of Johann Sebastian (if only out of peer pressure). Bach's position in musical history is unassailable, unarguable. I remember, when I was too young to appreciate just who Bach was, a teacher at my school being asked who they thought was the greatest composer of all. A ridiculous question needless to say, but the teacher's answer was immediate: "Bach of course". As a small child I didn't forget that answer because of the confidence of the teacher's response. But how is it that one man could have been so gifted, had so much wisdom and sense of humanity - that's much harder to explain. Listening to the inferior quality of the music written by his own children (some of whom became more famous than their father as composers during their lifetimes) or the poverty of the music by the long line of Bach ancestors who came before him (music was a family business for the Bach's stretching back centuries) doesn't strengthen the argument that it can all be explained by genetics. The composer Walton once quipped that you have to have something truly appalling happen to you in order to write music. Certainly Bach's personal life story is filled with sad events that surely must have deeply affected him: the loss of 11 of his children and the unexpected death, in his absence, of his youthful first wife Maria Barbara. But not every one who has suffered similar tragedies starts writing the most beautiful music of all time. If I could travel in time I would so love to go back 300 years to meet Johann Sebastian - just glimpsing him walking out of his building and perhaps through the neighbouring 'Little Thomas Gate" would leave me in a state of euphoria, let alone hearing him speak, watching him conduct, or best of all being a fly on the wall in his Componierstube (his Composing Study, from where he had views over ornamental gardens and the surrounding countryside) when he was creating his immortal masterpieces! To others who don't understand my passion this might seem as exciting as watching paint dry. To me it's the meaning of life!

Sadly there is only one authenticated picture of the composer (painted in 1746, see above), and one that really doesn't give much away (apart from the bags under his eyes that clearly show a lack of sleep). The description of Bach left by its painter, Elias Gottlob Haussmann, writing of how Bach was in a tremendous hurry and did not want to sit too long for the portrait, says more about Bach than the portrait itself. But there are other written descriptions of Bach that help to shape a clearer portrait of the man, from his children and from his friends, all of whom describe his wonderful humanity, his love for his family, his gregariousness (his son said his house was like a beehive so constantly filled with visitors, and that his presence was always "edifying"), his kindness to those he taught (one pupil writing that he could not adequately describe his excitement when the hands of the composer overlapped with his when being shown a passage on the keyboard), Bach's sense of fun (digging his son in the ribs when listening to a new composer's music and suggesting in a whisper what the piece should do next if the composer was any good), Bach's down-to-earthness (telling someone that his success was due to his industriousness, something anyone else who worked as hard could also achieve). Bach was a stubborn man too, someone who had little patience with unreasoning authority - this attitude frequently got him into trouble from the ignorant and petty-minded officials who had authority over him, and who probably wanted more than anything to take him down a peg or two. Yet for all those ignoramuses there were just as many kind, intelligent and thoughtful friends who loved and appreciated Bach. One ex-pupil recalled years after Bach's death how he had a portrait of Bach on the wall in his house, and how a friend called by and, on seeing the portrait, said words to the effect of "that old bore Bach", this distressing Bach's ex-pupil so much that ever afterwards he always hung the picture facing the wall to prevent anyone else saying an unkind word about a man he clearly adored and of whom he had nothing but the fondest memories.

Perhaps the last words of this short eulogy to J.S. Bach should be left to Johannes Brahms, a man not known for giving empty praise, who wrote the following words to Clara Schumann describing Bach's Chaconne for solo violin: "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind".

J.S.Bach's deeply moving final chorus from the St John Passion, conducted by Karl Richter, accompanied in this video by photographs of the Pietàs, drawings and buildings of Michelangelo (1475 - 1564). Pietàs shown include the Pietà from St Peter's Basilica in Rome (1499), the Florentine Pietà (1547 - 1555), Palestrina Pietà (1555, unfinished) and the Rondanini Pietà (1564, his last work, unfinished), as well as the Madonna of Bruges (1501 - 1504).

Pietà from St Peter's, Rome (1499):

Michelangelo was in his early twenties when he completed his most famous Pietà of St Peter's Rome. According to legend he overheard someone praising the work as by another artist so returned to the sculpture and carved his name on it - the only work of his on which he carved his name.

Florentine Pietà (1547 - 1555):

Michelangelo began the Florentine Pietà (also known as 'The Deposition') in his 70s and was originally intending it for his own tomb. Unfortunately the marble he used was faulty, unknown to Michelangelo when he began the sculpture, and it often drew off sparks as he worked. Finally the left leg of Christ broke off while he was working on it. Michelangelo was so furious he attempted to destroy the whole sculpture, beginning with Christ's left forearm and hand and right forearm, but was prevented by his pupils from completing the destruction. It was later repaired and completed by his pupil Tiberio Calcagni - the inferior quality of Tiberio's work is obvious in the finishing of the figure of Mary Magdalene; fortunately Tiberio Calcagni didn't attempt to 'finish' the remaining figures. The tall figure of Joseph of Arimathea (also credited as Nicodemus) is according to legend supposedly a self portrait of Michelangelo himself.

Palestrina Pietà (1555):

The unfinished Palestrina Pietà has no documented history in Michelangelo's lifetime. However it was added to the Michelangelo collection in Florence in 1939. Most likely Michelangelo began the work, and possibly one or more of his pupils attempted more work on it, though it remained incomplete.

Rondanini Pietà (1564):

Michelangelo was apparently working on his last Pietà, the unfinished Rondanini Pietà, only days before he died in 1564, at the age of 89.

Before his death Michelangelo attempted to have all his drawings burnt, regarding them as inferior work, drawn purely for the purpose of preparation for his sculptures and paintings. Fortunately for us Michelangelo was unable to complete the destruction and many of his beautiful drawings (many done in red chalk) have survived.

In praise of Johann Sebastian Bach (6)

2012-01-24T01:36:00.000-08:00

The joy of his keyboard music

Since my teens I have had a deep love of Bach's music, and as a pianist have enjoyed playing much of his work, such as the Preludes and Fugues, Partitas and Suites, and the Goldberg Variations. As a young teenager I was also very passionate about the organ and even considered the idea of becoming a professional organist for a while, so naturally I played a large number of Bach's organ works, some of which I have since arranged for the piano. It would have been unthinkable for me not to include the music of Bach in my Queen Elizabeth Hall debut recital in London in 1984, when I played Bach's Goldberg Variations alongside music by Chopin (Funeral March Sonata) and Ravel (Gaspard de la nuit).

Here is a series recordings from my own archives, beginning with the earliest recording I have of my Bach playing. As those of you who have attended my concerts will know, I enjoy talking about music as well as playing it, and in the penultimate video below I give a brief spoken introduction to Bach's Goldberg Variations, followed by an excerpt from the work recorded live at one of my concerts.

J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in E flat minor, BWV 853

Here is Johann Sebastian Bach's incomparable Prelude and Fugue in E flat minor, BWV 853, no.8 from Book One of 'The Well-Tempered Clavier'. This ground-breaking first set of 24 Preludes and Fugues in all the major and minor keys was completed in 1722 and written, in Bach's own words, 'for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study.' Unusually the fugue of this work is written out in D-sharp minor, the enharmonic key of E-flat minor.

J.S.Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E flat minor, BWV 853, played by Jack Gibbons, recorded live in concert, July 1980, Oxford England

J.S. Bach: Gigue from Partita no.4 BWV 828

Bach wrote six Partitas for keyboard, published from 1726 to 1730 (the 4th Partita, the largest of the six, was published in 1728). All six were then published as a set in 1731 under the title Clavier-Übung (or Keyboard Exercise). Eventually Bach would produce four such collections. The title page of the first Clavier-Übung bears the following words of encouragement: ‘Keyboard practice, consisting of Preludes, Allemandes, Courantes, Sarabandes, Gigues, Menuets, and other Galanteries, composed for the agreeable diversion of enthusiasts by Johann Sebastian Bach'.

Gigue from J.S.Bach's Partita no.4 BWV 828, played by Jack Gibbons, recorded live in concert, September 1981, Oxford England

J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue No.18 in G sharp minor BWV 887

Bach wrote two sets of Preludes and Fugues in all the major and minor keys. They are known collectively as the 'Well-Tempered Clavier', a title Bach used because of the need for a new and more careful tuning system in order for the pieces to work in all 24 keys. This iconic collection is regarded as "one of the most influential works in the history of Western classical music". Many composers, including Beethoven and Chopin, were brought up on the Well-Tempered Clavier, and it is as beloved today as the day the first volume appeared in 1722.

The Prelude and Fugue BWV 887 featured here is from the second set, completed by Bach in 1742. The fugue is known as a double fugue because it has two fugue subjects which in the course of the piece are developed simultaneously (for the layman: it's almost like having two separate pieces which can then be laid on top of each other). As usual Bach's compositional 'sleight of hand' can easily go unnoticed in the general enjoyment of the piece!

On the front page of the first set of Preludes and Fugues Bach wrote out a long and elaborate title, which in full reads: 'The Well-Tempered Clavier, or Preludes and Fugues through all the tones and semitones both as regards the tertia major or Ut Re Mi and as concerns the tertia minor or Re Mi Fa. For the Use and Profit of the Musical Youth Desirous of Learning as well as for the Pastime of those Already Skilled in this Study drawn up and written by Johann Sebastian Bach'. For the second set Bach opted for the shorter title 'Twenty-four Preludes and Fugues'!

Jack Gibbons plays Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude and Fugue in G sharp minor, from 'Das Wohltemperierte Klavier' ('The Well Tempered Clavier') Bk 2, no.18 (BWV 887), recorded live, June 1987, St John's Smith Square, London

J.S. Bach: Gavotte from French Suite no.5 BWV 816

The only manuscript that exists of the erroneously titled French Suites can be found in the Clavierbüchlein of Bach's second wife Anna Magdalena. Bach gave his wife this little instructional music book as a gift soon after their wedding in December 1721. The image of Bach coaching his much younger new bride with simple keyboard pieces (his first wife having died tragically young two years earlier) is a touching one. Listening to these pieces it is easy to imagine a new happiness in Bach's life, and romance that, like everything in Bach's life, revolved around music and his family.

Jack Gibbons plays the Gavotte from Bach's French Suite no.5 BWV 816, recorded live, April 1988, Cheltenham England

J.S. Bach arranged Ferruccio Busoni: Chaconne from Partita no.2 for solo violin BWV 1004

This Chaconne, in its original form, is considered "a pinnacle of the solo violin repertoire" and "one of the greatest achievements of any man in history". Many composers have made arrangements of the work for piano, including Johannes Brahms who wrote of the piece, in a letter to Clara Schumann: "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind". The Italian composer Busoni, a life-long champion of Bach's music, made his own beautiful arrangement of the work in 1893.

It is thought by some Bach scholars that Bach may have written the work in 1720 as a memorial to his first wife Maria Barbara, who died tragically young at the age of 35.

Jack Gibbons plays Busoni'a arrangement of the Chaconne from J.S.Bach's Partita no.2 for solo violin BWV 1004, recorded live, April 1988, Cheltenham England

J.S. Bach: Partita no.1 BWV 825

In 1726 Johann Sebastian Bach published his Opus 1, the Partita no.1 in B flat BWV 825. Bach dedicated the six movement partita to the new born Prince Emanuel Ludwig (born 12 September 1726), son of his former employer at Cöthen Prince Leopold. Bach clearly retained an affection for the prince and for the happy years spent at Cöthen. He further celebrated the arrival of the prince's new born heir by writing a dedicatory poem to accompany the Partita Opus 1:

Serene and Gracious Prince, though cradle cov’rings deck thee,
Yet doth thy Princely glance show thee more than full-grown.
Forgive me, pray, if I from slumber should awake thee
The while my playful page to thee doth homage own.
It is the first fruit of my strings in music sounding;
Thou the first son round whom thy Princess’s arms have curled.
It shall for thee and for thy honour be resounding,
Since thou art, like this page, a firstling in this world.
The wise men of our time affright us oft by saying
We come into this world with cries and wails of woe,
As if so soon we knew the bitterness of staying
E’en this short time in weary travail here below.
But this do I turn round about, instead proclaiming
That thy sweet childish cries are lovely, clear, and pure;
Thus shall thy whole life be with gladness teeming -
A harmony complete of joys and pleasures sure.
So may I, Prince of all our hopes, e’er entertain thee,
Though thy delights be multiplied a thousandfold,
But let, I pray, the feeling evermore sustain me
Of being, Serene Prince, Thy humblest servant,
BACH

1. Praeludium

Jack Gibbons plays the Praeludium from J.S.Bach's Partita no.1, recorded live in concert, Oxford England, 23 March 2005.

2. Allemande

Jack Gibbons plays the Allemande from J.S.Bach's Partita no.1, recorded live in concert, Oxford England, 23 March 2005.

3. Courante

Jack Gibbons plays the Courante from J.S.Bach's Partita no.1, recorded live in concert, Oxford England, 23 March 2005.

4. Sarabande

Jack Gibbons plays the Sarabande from J.S.Bach's Partita no.1, recorded live in concert, Oxford England, 23 March 2005.

5. Menuet I & II

Jack Gibbons plays Menuet I & II from J.S.Bach's Partita no.1, recorded live in concert, Oxford England, 23 March 2005.

6. Gigue

Jack Gibbons plays Gigue from J.S.Bach's Partita no.1, recorded live in concert, Oxford England, 23 March 2005.

An introduction to J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations BWV 988

A short lecture at the piano, recorded in concert, describing the many wonderful aspects of this work of Johann Sebastian Bach, first published in 1741, and which makes up Bach's fourth Clavier-Übung (or Keyboard Exercise).

Jack Gibbons talks about Bach's Goldberg Variations before his performance of the work, recorded in concert, August 2007, Oxford England

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations part 1, BWV 988

Considered one of the most important examples of variation form in music, Bach published his Goldberg Variations in 1741, under the long heading "Keyboard exercise, consisting of an ARIA with diverse variations for harpsichord with two manuals. Composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits, by Johann Sebastian Bach, composer for the royal court of Poland and the Electoral court of Saxony, Kapellmeister and Director of Choral Music in Leipzig. Nuremberg, Balthasar Schmid, publisher".

Jack Gibbons plays Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, part 1 (Aria and Variations 1-15), recorded live in concert, July 1983

In praise of Johann Sebastian Bach (5)

2012-01-23T22:53:00.000-08:00

Two excerpts from J.S. Bach’s St John Passion

1. Chorale: ‘O große Lieb’ (‘O mighty love’)

For Bach it was very important that the music expressed accurately the sentiment of the words that were set. In this short excerpt from the St John Passion (first performed 1724) we hear one of many chorales placed throughout the work that the congregation was possibly expected to join in singing. Bach's sensitivity to the words is very apparent; interestingly the music increases in pathos and anguish with the dissonance Bach uses to express the 'sins' of pleasure and joy but returns to a calmness (albeit of a resigned kind) in reference to the need to suffer for those sins - quite the opposite to how those words would likely be interpreted in music today!

The chorale ‘O große Lieb’ (‘O mighty love’) from Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion, performed by the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra conducted by Karl Richter (recorded 1964). Background images are of the Thomaskirche amd Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, where Bach’s Passions were first performed.

2. Peter's Denial

Recitative: 'Und Hannas..'
Chorus: 'Bist du nicht...'
Recitative: 'Er leugnete aber...'
Aria: '‘Ach, mein Sinn’

In this second excerpt from the St John Passion we hear Bach's extraordinary sensitivity to the text, from the spitefulness of the rabble chorus ('Bist du nicht seiner Jünger einer?' - 'Aren't you one of his disciples?') to the torment of Peter's mind after his realization of what has just happened ('und weinete bitterlich' - 'and he wept bitterly'). The tremendous emotion of this last recitative passage acts as a spring board into the anguished aria ‘Ach, mein Sinn’ ('Ah, my soul'), one of Bach's noblest creations. The amazing expressiveness and sensitivity of the music in this aria clearly shows how Bach identified with Peter's condition.

Bach later cut the aria ‘Ach, mein Sinn’ from the St John Passion, presumably because Christian Weise’s words related to text taken from the St Matthew Gospel - in strict Lutheran Leipzig it's inclusion was no doubt seen as a terrible faux pas. However he reinstated it in the work's third and final revision of 1749, the year before his death.

From J.S.Bach's St John Passion: the recitative and chorus leading up to Peter's Denial, followed by the aria "Ah, mein Sinn", performed by Ernst Haefliger and the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra conducted by Karl Richter (recorded 1964). Background images are of the Thomaskirche amd Nikolaikirche in Leipzig (where Bach’s Passions were first performed) as well as a variety of famous paintings depicting Peter's Denial

In praise of Johann Sebastian Bach (4)

2012-01-23T22:09:00.000-08:00

‎"Bach pierces to the heart": it's a phrase that's regularly encountered describing the incomparable music of Johann Sebastian Bach. One can try to rationalise why this is so, presumably a product of his exceptional genes, and his own life experiences. Reading about Bach's life one is immediately aware that death was a regular occurrence in his immediate family. He outlived 11 of his 20 children, 10 of whom died in infancy:

Johann Christoph (died 23 February 1713, aged 1 day)
Maria Sophia (twin of Johann Christoph, died 15 March 1713, aged 21 days)
Leopold Augustus (died 29 September 1719, aged 10 months and 14 days)
Christiana Sophia Henrietta (died 29 June 1726, aged 3 years)
Ernestus Andreas (died 1 November 1727, aged 2 days)
Christian Gottlieb (died 21 September 1728, aged 3 years)
Christiana Benedicta Louise (died 4 January 1730, aged 4 days)
Christiana Dorothea (died 31 August 1732, aged 1 year)
Regina Johanna (died 25 April 1733, aged 4 years)
Johann August Abraham (died 6 November 1733, aged 3 days)

Another son, Johann Gottfried Bernhard, died at the age of only 24 (27 May 1739), and Bach's first wife Maria Barbara died unexpectedly aged only 35 (7 July 1720).

Whether this terrible toll accounts for the incredible depth and pathos within Bach's music can only be a matter of conjecture, but someone of Bach's intelligence and sensitivity must have undoubtedly lived constantly with mental anguish and pain, out of which his music must surely have provided solace and direction. Karl Richter, the greatest Bach scholar of the 20th century bar none, here conducts Julia Hamari in one of Bach's most moving arias from the St Matthew Passion, the famous song of anguish following Peter's denial: "Erbarme dich" ("Have mercy").

'Erbarme dich' from J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion, sung by Julia Hamari with The Munich Bach Orchestra conducted by Karl Richter (recorded May 1971)

In praise of Johann Sebastian Bach (3)

2012-01-23T22:02:00.000-08:00

As someone recently said: "there are many great composers, and then there is J. S. Bach". Bach composed this beautiful aria, "Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust" ("Contented rest, beloved inner joy") in 1726. It opens his solo cantata BWV 170. Evidently he had an excellent alto soloist in his choir to be able to devote a whole cantata to one soloist (here it's sung by the incomparable Janet Baker). This poignant cantata was first performed in Leipzig on 28 July 1726, just 27 days after the death of his 3 year old daughter Christiana Sophia Henrietta. One can only imagine the emotions Johann Sebastian and his young wife Anna Magdalena must have been feeling at such a sad time as this wistful song rung out for the first time at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

Janet Baker sings 'Vergnügte Ruh', beliebte Seelenlust' from the Cantata BWV 170 with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Neville Marriner (recorded in London, January 1966)

In praise of Johann Sebastian Bach (2)

2012-01-23T21:15:00.001-08:00

Bach's B minor mass (of which this Agnus Dei is a part) was hailed in the 19th century as "the greatest artwork of all times and all people". To this day it is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest monuments of western culture. The work was completed in 1749, a year before the composer's death, and is one of Bach's last works, though much of the music was written earlier or adapted from his other works. It was not performed in its entirety until over 100 years after Bach's death. In Beethoven's lifetime the work was already so legendary, despite not having yet received any performance, that Beethoven tried twice (unsuccessfully) to acquire a score. This performance, by Janet Baker, is for me one of the most moving.

J.S. Bach's Agnus Dei from his B minor mass, sung by Janet Baker with the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer (recorded October 1967).

In praise of Johann Sebastian Bach (1)

2012-01-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

Having used my Facebook music page as a blog for the past year or so I have decided to copy some of those posts to this blog, to make it easier for people to look back over certain subjects, rather than having them lost in the Facebook ether. I will begin with a collection of posts on J.S. Bach, one of my great idols and a key figure in my 'pursuit of happiness'.

Some music is so good it needs no introduction... pure beauty of accompaniment, pure nobility of melody in this extract from Johann Sebastian Bach's secular Cantata BWV 208, composed in 1713. Needless to say I choose my recordings with great care: in the following example we have a truly wonderful rendition by the soprano Gillian Fisher, whose beautiful voice can also be heard, along with that of her husband Brian Kay, on the soundtrack of the 1984 movie Amadeus (in the rôles of Papageno and Papagena).

Johann Sebastian Bach's "Schafe können sicher weiden" (Sheep may safely graze) from his Cantata BWV 208 (composed 1713), sung by Gillian Fisher with the King's Consort conducted by Robert King (recorded 1987).

Scenes from childhood

2011-04-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

(Schumann awakens my love of music)

From 1958 the BBC introduced a children's radio series featuring "The Lost Noises Office" (created by Desmond Leslie, and narrated by his wife Agnes Bernelle). This strange fictitious establishment kept 'noises' safe until they were claimed by their owners (from whistles, to musical boxes to all manner of curious sounds courtesy of the BBC's sound effects department). When the bossy owner of this store (called Mr Bosseyman) was away the office was the soul charge of a young character called Pickles. My parents had a children's 45 RPM record featuring young Pickles dealing with a visit from a bossy and rather temperamental "Grand Piano" who had lost one of his notes (his middle B). Eventually, after searching through many unrelated noises, young Pickles finds the missing note and as 'Grand Piano' leaves the store he reminds Pickles to tune in to the radio that evening and that if he listens carefully he will hear the piano. At the conclusion of this record Pickles tunes in to the radio in time to hear the closing minute of the Schumann Piano Concerto. I adored this record and without doubt those final bars of the Schumann Piano Concerto, which I listened to over and over again, were the first serious music I ever heard. So you can imagine how emotional I became when eventually, for the first time, I got to play that work as a young concert pianist in May 1983. When I reached that point at the conclusion of the concerto (as heard by Pickles in the Lost Noises Office) I thought of how I had dreamed this music since the age of 4 and now I was truly, and incredibly, living my dream. It's hard for me to remember experiencing a more elated feeling during one of my concerts. I still adore this work and find Schumann a deeply moving and inspiring composer. Interestingly Elgar (one of my musical heros) described Schumann as his ideal. Brahms (who of course had known Robert Schumann and who was very close to Schumann's widow Clara in the years following Schumann's tragic death) thought the same.

Jack Gibbons plays the 3rd movement of Schumann's Piano Concerto Op.54, recorded live in concert, London, May 1983.

It's well known that many composers lived unhappy lives, or had tragic ends, but I think Schumann's is surely, and sadly, one of the most wretched. Ravaged by mental illness he spent the last two and a half years of his life locked away (inititially at his own insistence) in a mental asylum in Endenich, seeing his beloved Clara only once the whole time he was incarcerated, two days before his death (it was considered at the time to be injurious to his recovery to have contact with his family). By the time Clara did see her husband he was so sick he barely recognised those around him, including the hospital staff (Schumann's suffering and the continual deterioration of his mental state while in hospital is meticulously recorded and preserved in the notes of Dr Franz Richarz, the hospital's director, and makes distressing reading today). At that final meeting, two days before his death, Clara offered her husband what had been his only nourishment for weeks - wine and jellied consommé - and for a very brief moment she received a look from him that told her he knew it was her. In her diary she wrote "he took it [his nourishment] with the happiest expression. He licked the wine from my fingers"

Apart from my very early introduction to great music through Schumann's wonderful piano concerto, another seminal moment in my musical awakening took place when I was 12 or 13 years old. I decided to attend, on my own, a piano recital in my hometown of Oxford, England. The pianist (a lady whose name I haven't so far been able to trace) included in her recital Schumann's Kinderszenen. I had never heard these charming, nostalgic and magical pieces before, or any solo piano music of Schumann for that matter. The music had an immediate and powerful impact on me. I rushed out and bought a score and immediately began learning the pieces and in fact included the set in my first full length public solo recital a year later (March 1976) alongside Liszt's B minor Sonata, Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor, and music by a little known French composer called Alkan. Later, while still a teenager, I fell in love with Schumann's incomparable songs, beginning with Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben. My love of his music and appreciation of his art only continues to grow with the passing years.

Sadly, Clara Schumann had to endure a further occurence of mental illness in her family after her husband's death when her son Ludwig became sick. Ludwig's tragedy is another sad untold story in the history of mental illness. It's impossible to imagine the suffering poor Ludwig had to endure, in the days when even enlightened doctors had little understanding of his illness. Ludwig Schumann spent the last 29 years of his life incarcerated against his will in the asylum in Colditz (later famous as the German POW camp in WWII), and there are no records of any family visits for the last 23 years of his life. His sister Eugenie Schumann wrote of Ludwig in 1927: "The shadows closed more and more around him, and at last he became, as my mother often said in deep distress, 'buried alive'". Since Robert Schumann's large family is often overlooked I have put together a slide show of photographs of Robert and Clara's seven surviving children, together with the first of Schumann's Scenes from Childhood ("Of Foreign Lands and Peoples") played by the wonderful and much underrated French pianist Jacqueline Blancard, who has made some lovely and intensely musical recordings of Schumann's piano music.

Schumann's children: A slide show of photographs of Robert and Clara Schumann and their 7 surviving children (together with "Of Foreign Lands and Peoples" from Schumann's Kinderszenen played by Jacqueline Blancard): of their 8 children, one (Emil) died in infancy, while 3 others predeceased Clara along with her husband Robert. Most tragic of all is the case of Ludwig, who, like his father, was committed to a mental asylum (the famous Colditz castle) where he was kept against his will for 29 years, dying there in 1899.

Finally, here is a link to an interesting article from the New York Times, January 16 1921, going into detail on the fate of Schumann's children: The children of Schumann. The article starts off on a very sad note, trying to raise money from the readers for two of Schumann's children (Marie and Eugenie) who were, at the very end of their lives, living in desperate poverty in Europe. Though their mother, Clara Schumann, had to cope with more than her fair share of grief in her lifetime she typically once said that she may not have been the best parent for her children because of her devotion to music, her frequent concert tours, and above all her devotion to Robert and the promotion of his music. On her death-bed the very last piece she heard, at her request, played to her by her grandson Ferdinand, was Robert Schumann's Romance in F# Major, Op.28 No.2.

The 1921 New York Times article (a PDF copy of the original New York Times page) also lists concerts of the week, one of which, on January 18th 1921 at Carnegie Hall is a piano recital by Rachmaninoff!! N.B. this article was published one year after Gershwin's Swanee had become a hit and 3 years before the premiere of the Rhapsody in Blue!

In praise of Wilhelm Kempff

2010-10-05T06:05:00.000-07:00

As a music student I didn't appreciate Wilhelm Kempff. I based my opinion on just a couple of his recordings, and on my own musical prejudices at the time. Also I only heard him live once, at his very last London recital at the Royal Festival Hall, when he was clearly infirm, and his playing was marked by a continuous slowing down of the tempo and difficulty in playing. Like many music students today (if the comments on YouTube are anything to go by) I measured pianists in those days as much by their technique as by their soul. Now I am ONLY interested in their soul.

I remember the amazing ovation the audience gave Kempff at that concert at the Festival Hall in London and didn't fully appreciate at the time that that ovation was for his life's work, and not for that concert. Most of all what I didn't hear, because my ears were closed at the time (reference Oscar Wilde's comments in his wonderful 'De Profundis' on the importance of meekness in an audience in order to be moved), and what I now hear SO CLEARLY is the deep and extremely sincere warmth and honesty of Kempff's playing. His interpretations are are about as far removed from the typical virtuoso as it is possible to get, characterized by the lack of any intention to 'show off' and instead filled by just a deep, a serious, and at times humble appreciation of the beauty of the music he is playing. It's a 'quiet' approach (not literally of course), and a different universe to the 'in your face' interpretations that so easily seem to capture the musical headlines (to any historian of music that should immediately recall contemporary descriptions of Chopin's performances). For what it is worth (which is not much) Kempff was never known for his technique, and in his occasional finger slips he shares a kinship with Edwin Fischer - another wonderful pianist whose recordings I admire so much- funny that! If only music students today (and the establishments that nurture them) would realise that while audiences may forgive a wrong note they can never forgive a cold heart.

The Bach recording below is a perfect example of Kempff's warm heart. Today, for me, he is one of the very few pianists who move me and whose music making I always look forward to hearing. Thanks to the abundance of his recordings on the internet I can appreciate his art so much more now than sadly when I was lucky enough to have sat in his last London recital counting wrong notes instead of warm hearts. That's a thought to keep me humble...

And for those who know how particular I am about the way pianists play Chopin (or I think the correct phrase is 'murder Chopin') then they may be surprised by my putting a Chopin performance here. In my opinion most pianists suffocate Chopin with completely misguided 'rubatos' (that huge Chopin misnomer) and terrible affectations, so out of place for a composer who was above all, totally honest in his musical expression. Above all, Chopin's music needs an 'honest' interpretation, the ability to let the music speak for itself. Listen to the completely unaffected, deeply serious and moving performance Kempff gives in this 1959 live recording with conductor Karel Ancerl of the slow movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto in F minor. Perhaps you'll agree with me that here Kempff is far closer to the composer's spirit than so many so-called 'Chopin specialists'!

Zimerman’s anti-American tirade

2010-03-10T10:27:00.001-08:00

This blog is off my usual topics but I couldn’t let it pass without a mention. A few years ago I used to travel with my large, expensive and unwieldy Yamaha keyboard to and fro from the UK to the US, and all this just post 9/11. Needless to say the huge container containing my full-size keyboard that I carried with me got strange looks, questions and constant investigation from the US customs and security officials, and on at least three occasions the instrument was completely damaged and rendered unusable during the searches in transit, leaving me with expensive repairs that I could ill afford. Of course I wasn’t the least bit happy about it, but decided it was the price I had to pay for the increased terror surveillance that had been put in place.

Of course I could have taken a different tack and given a speech at one of my Carnegie Hall concerts exclaiming “I will never play in this country again... I cannot play in a country to a people for whom I have no respect”.

A bit extreme perhaps don’t you think?

Well that’s the line the pianist Krystian Zimerman took not long after his pianos were similarly damaged by US customs officials. Perhaps I could also have got angry at US foreign policy, citing the US military bases that have been in the UK as long as I have lived, and shouting out “Keep your hands off my country” as Zimerman also did from the concert platform [see the reference at the foot of this blog]. But then I have a longer memory than Zimerman and as my parents suffered through WWII I’m not going to easily forget the hand of friendship the US offered the free side of Europe against the oppression of fascism, and nor can I forget how Churchill spent months agonising about what would happen to Europe if the Americans didn’t get involved in the war.

But it’s not just in the world of politics where Zimerman’s memory seems to be deficient. Only a few years ago I heard Zimerman discussing Chopin in a television interview, describing how sick the composer was in Majorca and then saying "to think that he died soon after his return from Majorca". There’s one slight problem with what Zimerman said: Chopin didn’t die soon afterwards. In fact he had yet to write all his major works, which were ALL completed many years after he left Majorca (where he was indeed very sick). Strange that a pianist who pretends to be so interested in Chopin should have so little knowledge of the man’s life!

But then I’m not really surprised. You see, I’ve heard Zimerman play Webern, and his support for and belief in the validity of some of the worst artistic post-Schoenbergian developments of 20th century 'classical music' is as passionate as his anti-American speeches. Anyone who has even the slightest true feeling and understanding for Chopin and everything he represented would not give any credence to artistic mistakes that left such a terrible scar on the music of the 20th century, let alone perform and promote it and treat it as ‘great music’. For those unfamiliar with Webern and his subsequent followers don’t worry: I’m saving them up for a future blog!

I also recently read that Zimerman has also come out against the internet, stating it is a danger to mankind, as dangerous as the atom bomb even! Obviously Zimerman is unaware that there isn’t a single invention of mankind that hasn’t been used equally for both the greatest and the worst possible purposes - that is the sad fact about mankind, and the internet is no exception. On it you’ll find the worst of humanity, and the very best (rather like Chopin’s description of Paris when he first arrived there in 1831, but that’s a detail of Chopin’s life I wouldn’t expect Zimerman to know anything about!). Both Chopin and Elgar (another remarkable composer whose life and work I will be examining in a future blog) were fascinated by technology, and would never have turned their back on such a modern and vital invention as the internet the way Zimerman has.

To look at the good side of the internet, rather than the dark side, it has given ordinary people a huge voice in the world that they could never have had before its existence. To take my own narrow field: a case in point is the fate of the music of Charles-Valentin Alkan, a friend and neighbour of Chopin in Paris (and a composer with whom Zimerman may not be too familiar as I am not aware of any performances by him of Alkan’s music). Chopin clearly was fond of Alkan, to judge by their surviving correspondence, and also concerned about him (rather like an elderly brother). Alkan was, in case you weren’t aware, Jewish. I make special mention of that because some people (e.g. the writer Jessica Duchen in one of the most vitriolic attacks on Chopin I have ever read in my entire life, in an article published by the ‘Independent’ last December which I think is taking the name and philosophy of that newspaper to an indefensible extreme) have decided that Chopin was an ‘anti-Semitic’ not far short of Adolf Hitler (one of many crazily false facts about Chopin to come out during his bicentenary which I will be discussing in a future blog).

Back to my original dialogue: without the internet Alkan would be nowhere today. Despite the wonderful and almost single-handed efforts of the pianist Ronald Smith, the music establishment (by which I mean the critics of course) could never take Alkan seriously. Then along came YouTube, and ordinary people had the chance to hear his music, and surprise surprise, they loved it. The response to his music (which admittedly needs more repeated listening than perhaps ordinary concerts can allow in order to appreciate its riches) has been amazing. It’s almost as if Alkan’s music had been waiting for the invention of the internet for it to be finally truly appreciated! And through the ‘power to the people’ nature of the internet, people are able to voice their opinions BEFORE the critics can tell them what to think. Is THIS what Zimerman finds so frightening? And is it the same ‘power to the people’ nature of democratic U.S. politics that bothers Zimerman so much about that country (see another recent anti-American blog by the pianist Stephen Hough? What is it with pianists?!!) [N.B. I've deliberately not put in a link to Hough's blog as I'm not inclined to support his worrying and ill-thought-out Tom Tancredo style views but Hough's blog is easy to find!]. Having spent many years living and working in the US (I am British, if you’ve stumbled into this blog by accident!), and with so many of my best friends being American, I have really come to appreciate and love a country about which I knew virtually nothing before I first visited its shores almost 20 years ago, with it’s remarkable history, and history of altruism and heroism (and if you think I’m glossing over civil rights and slavery you haven’t read my previous blogs!). It hurts me equally hearing people’s ignorance, whether it’s concerning Chopin, or America.

Zimerman may not have been happy with the foreign policy of George W. Bush; many in the world weren’t! But I’d like to point out that even in the US elections that Bush won, such is the size of the United States, that many more people than the ENTIRE population of Poland voted AGAINST George Bush in both his Presidential elections. So what does Zimerman mean when he says he has no respect for his American audience? Does he want to exclude as many people as live in his native Poland (where incidentally HE doesn't live, preferring the tax haven Switzerland) from his survey of people worthy of his ‘respect’?

You know, you only need to change one word and the statements by Zimerman, and others that join the anti-American bandwagon, become quite chilling. Next time you hear an anti-American rant try replacing the word ‘American’ with the word ‘Jewish’.

* * * * *

You can read an original report from the Los Angeles Times of one of Zimerman's many anti-America tirades here

* * * * *

Chopin’s photograph?

2010-03-01T16:15:00.001-08:00

Well now we’ve established when his birthday is (or not!), how about what he looked like. Have you noticed how in almost every picture of Chopin he looks completely different? His face and character were without question too subtle and mobile for painters to capture, and I can imagine, with the constant changes of expression on his face, he would have looked very different to every artist that tried to paint him. Certainly that is the impression created by all the myriad of different likenesses of him. The paintings that feel more accurate (whether they are or not) are always the ones that concentrate not on his appearance but his personality. Luckily there are one or two irrefutable pieces of evidence to show what Chopin actually looked like, namely two photographs and a death mask. Yes you heard me correctly, two photographs.

There is a famous photograph of Chopin, taken in Paris at the home of Chopin’s publisher Maurice Schlesinger by the photographer Louis-Auguste Bisson in 1849, just a few months before Chopin's death. In it Chopin’s deteriorating health and the signs of lack of sleep are clearly evident, though the often quoted description of his face being swollen as a result of his disease (TB) is actually a mistaken observation. What people are seeing (and mistaking for a swollen face in poor reproductions of the photograph) is the angular shape of his jaw line, which matches perfectly his death mask (a life size copy of which I have in my possession). Chopin did complain of a swollen face at times during his final illness and someone (Arthur Hedley) made the connection with Chopin's description and what he interpreted as swollen features in the 1849 photograph and the description seems to have stuck. The most striking feature of this famous picture is of course Chopin’s expression in his eyes. To some observers his expression might simply convey the anguish of someone suffering in extreme ill-health. I see it differently, and it might explain why I find this picture so inspiring. What I feel we are really seeing is Chopin without any front. He was too ill to hide his feelings in any way (even though Chopin was well known for being a very private person) and what we are indeed seeing is the composer of the Polonaise-Fantaisie, the Barcarolle, the B minor Sonata, etc.. Chopin’s gaze is penetrating, deeply intelligent, scientific as much as artistic (even Liszt noticed this aspect) and filled with an amazing combination of extreme wisdom and extreme distance. Without doubt it’s one of the most extraordinary pictures ever taken.

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): one of only two photographs of the composer, this one taken by L.A. Bisson at the Paris home of Chopin's publisher Schlesinger in 1849. Also in the photograph is a score of Chopin's music, carefully placed in view on a piano positioned next to the composer

Now to the second photograph of Chopin. I first became aware of this picture in 1990 when I saw it reproduced in John O'Shea’s excellent 'Music and Medicine: Medical Profiles of Great Composers' (London, Dent, 1990). According to Dr O'Shea his source was the Fryderyk Chopin Society in Warsaw. Back in 1990, having thought I’d seen every known reproduction of the composer’s likeness I was staggered when I saw this picture. Sadly the photograph is extremely deteriorated (I believe the original was destroyed in WWII) and the photographer is unknown. Although it’s very hard at first to see anything in the photograph, if you keep looking you begin to see more detail. It was my belief that the picture had been printed the wrong way round in John O'Shea's book (I had no proof, only that Chopin’s hair parting, assuming it is Chopin, was on the opposite side of his head compared with the famous 1849 photograph of Chopin). But close scrutiny of this 2nd photograph did indeed show that this person had the exact physical likeness of Chopin from the other photograph, from the death mask, and even from one or two of the portraits done of the composer. Although it’s hard to make out the expression in the face because of the picture’s deterioration, what does come across is the extreme tension of the subject, like a coiled up spring, something that makes sense if you think that at the time this photograph was taken (1846 or 1847 according to who you believe) Chopin was still composing, possibly still working on some of his greatest music. Chopin always found composing a huge struggle; initially when he was ensconced at Nohant for the summer, George Sand’s country retreat near Châteauroux south west of Paris where Chopin did most of his writing, George Sand was able to entice him away from the piano when he was stuck and unable to proceed. After an outing in the countryside he usually came back with his equilibrium restored and was able to resume his composing with renewed enthusiasm. But as the years went by even George Sand was worried about interrupting Chopin in his room, as his hypercritical nature laboriously reexamined every bar of his music with an increased passion and commitment as his music became more and more intense. To quote George Sand:

1st August, 1841: George Sand to P. Gaubert
“Maurice [her son] and I are spending eight hours a day together, drawing and painting... Meanwhile Chopin gets on with his own things and gets cross with the piano. When the keyboard does not carry out his orders he aims such a powerful blow at it with his fist that the poor instrument groans!... He thinks that he is slacking if his back is not breaking under a load of work”

It’s a pity that the earlier photograph of Chopin is so deteriorated, as it would be amazing to see more clearly the expression of this “incomparable genius” [Eugène Delacroix] at such a crucial time of his life, perhaps while still working on some of his last masterpieces, or perhaps the photograph was taken a little later, around the time of his acrimonious split with George Sand that left him so devastated.

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): one of only two photographs of the composer. This one is rarely reproduced due to its deteriorated state. The photograph was taken in 1846 or 1847.

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): 1846 or 1847 photograph (reversed image).

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): 1847 pencil drawing my Franz Winterhalter, described by Chopin himself as "a very good likeness".

Personally I have never understood why this 2nd photograph of Chopin has not been taken more seriously. True it's terribly damaged, but for anyone devoted to Chopin's music any photograph of him, no matter how deteriorated, has huge value. Over the last two decades I have regularly reproduced it in concert programmes, CD sleeves, etc. and recently began including it in the photo montages that accompany many of my own Chopin videos on YouTube. I was still mystified as to why the picture was so completely ignored on the internet. Detailed internet searches always failed to turn up anything other than the 1849 photograph and Wikipedia contributors proudly claimed there was only one known photograph of Chopin. Had I been hoodwinked all these years by John O’Shea’s inclusion of the picture in his 1990 'Music and Medicine'? Was the picture not even of Chopin? Quite recently a screen shot of the photograph taken from one of my YouTube videos appeared on Wikipedia and before long everyone was talking about the ‘2nd photograph’ of Chopin. So we must thank Dr O’Shea for helping to make the picture more accessible back in 1990, and I feel very proud that my efforts helped to get the photograph better known on the internet and into people's awareness.

As for Chopin’s death mask, it’s truly remarkable (as well as the death mask, another of my most cherished possessions is a life size cast of Chopin's left hand). Chopin’s friends stated that after his death the muscles in his face relaxed and his face resumed a more youthful quality minus all the strain of his last illness. This is certainly evident in the death mask, taken by Auguste Clésinger on the morning of 17 October 1849. Clésinger also created the funeral monument over Chopin’s tomb (of which Chopin’s close friend the painter Delacroix was so disparaging). It’s amazing when viewing this death mask to realise we are looking at Chopin’s exact profile, that so many people must have gazed at at his concerts. I'll never forget the first time I saw the mask: having no idea what Chopin really looked like, I was stunned. I was surprised at the level of expression in the face, considering it was a death mask, and I was equally stunned by the fact that he looked exactly as I had expected him to look, just like his music in fact, even though that's an irrational thing to say (interestingly a century later Kay Swift said the same thing of George Gershwin's appearance). At the same time it’s impossible not to forget the words of Solange Clésinger, George Sand’s daughter and Auguste Clésinger's wife, who was present at Chopin’s death bed. She later wrote of the absolute horror after he passed away, as she looked into his eyes (that so movingly stare back at us in that soul searching way in the 1849 photograph) and saw “that the soul had died too”.

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): death mask front view (from Jack Gibbons' own collection)

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): death mask side view (from Jack Gibbons' own collection)

* * * * *

Chopin’s birthday?

2010-03-01T05:44:00.000-08:00

Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin was born on 1 March 1810, according to all the statements of both Chopin, his friends and contemporaries, and his family including his mother. But in 1892, 43 years after his death, a baptismal record was found that gave his birth date as 22 February, exactly one week earlier. The baptismal certificate was written nearly two months after his birth, on 23rd April, when the infant was presented at the local church by his father (also oddly enough ‘22 February’, the date written on this document, happened to be the birth date of Chopin’s godfather, who was supposed to be at the baptism but didn't make it). If you’re the kind of person who favours the ‘status quo’ then you’ll probably side with the ‘official’ church document. And if your approach is more emotional you’re more likely to favour the date that Chopin and his mother gave for his birth!

This is why I am a little disappointed with Jessica Duchen, who favours 22 February for Chopin’s birth in her music blog, sighting as her reference the London Chopin Society’s position which in turn bases its position on the views of its founder Lucie Swiatek. Rose Cholmondeley from the Society tells an interesting, though hard to verify, story that Jane Stirling, Chopin’s pupil, was told by Chopin that she was the only one to know Chopin’s ‘real’ birthday. This is odd, because the same Chopin Society article also sights confusion between ‘name-days’ and ‘birthdays’ being the reason for the discrepancy of dates over Chopin’s birth, even though Chopin and his family also celebrated his name-day separately on 5th March, and even went to some trouble to celebrate and acknowledge birthdays and name-days within the family. And why would Chopin, one of the most down-to-earth and rational people to have existed in this world (who even initially refused ‘last rights’ on his deathbed ‘to avoid being a hypocrite’ because of his atheistic views) try to knowingly hide his ‘real’ birth date from everyone, including presumably George Sand, his mother and family, and closest friends, but not from Jane Stirling, a pupil to whom Chopin was not particularly close. Jane Stirling’s position makes this story, assuming it to be a true Jane Stirling recollection, unreliable to say the least: her fanatical devotion to Chopin was such that she would have done everything she could to preserve a story about Chopin to which she alone held the key! Having had the pleasure of meeting Lucie Swiatek and bearing in mind Jane Stirling’s partisan position, I can safely say that neither of these sources should be considered trustworthy when it comes to facts regarding Chopin (to put it mildly!). If one day it is proved I am wrong I will be prefuse in my recantation! Jane Stirling however does deserve considerable credit for keeping everything in her possession connected with Chopin after his death (including music scores with Chopin’s annotations, letters, etc.) and which now serves as a very valuable study source. Unfortunately Jessica Duchen is so swayed by Lucie Swiatek and the London Chopin Society’s position that she doesn’t wish Chopin a 200th birthday greeting today, 1st March, on her blog, even though Chopin’s own mother wrote these words to her only son:

“Dear Fryderyk, The 1st and the 5th of March [Fryderyk’s birthday and name-day] are approaching and I am prevented from embracing you… “
[Chopin’s mother (Justyna Chopin) to Fryderyk in Paris;
Warsaw, end of February 1837]

Of course we still have the problem of the date written into the church baptismal document of 23 April 1837 (which remember is also, coincidentally, the date of birth of Chopin’s godfather – it should also be pointed out that there are other mistakes on Chopin’s birth document, such as wrong form of employment given to the co-signatories and so on). So let me put this to the test. Do YOU know when your birthday is? And does your MOTHER know when your birthday is? If you or your mother cannot remember your birth date then I would suggest you go with the 22 February date for Chopin’s birth. If on the other hand you have, during the course of your life, come across a document from a government official or civil servant with a mistake on it (and presumably Lucie Swiatek and Jessica Duchen never have!) then you should go with the 1 March date for Chopin’s birth. Problem solved! Personally I favour trusting myself and especially my mother for confirmation of my birthday!

So HAPPY 200th BIRTHDAY CHIP-CHIP!
1st March 2010

* * * * *

On ‘originality’ and ‘self-consciousness’

2010-02-21T21:46:00.000-08:00

There is an obsession that has been prevalent in all the arts for almost a century, and is largely responsible for a creative stifling over several generations. It is something that has been promoted and encouraged, and still is, at art and music colleges and university art and music departments throughout the world and indeed is one of the main philosophies of arts education. It is the idea that the goal all creative artists should strive towards is ‘originality’ – “originality, at all costs, originality” as the head of one of the major London art colleges recently proudly described his college’s mantra. But it’s not that simple: the ‘originality’ in question is something that is measured by predetermined criteria of what is and what isn’t ‘original’. The emphasis of this philosophy, together with its questionable definitions, has created havoc for the creative artist.

The striving for ‘originality’ is a strangely 20th century, and now 21st century, self-consciousness. This self-consciousness in the arts has been encouraged by a technological revolution that has enabled artists to hear and see, and by extension therefore to worry about, their place in artistic history like never before, thanks to recorded sound, photography, film, etc.. And the criteria for what constitutes ‘originality’ comes from a false sense of perspective gleaned from a mythological history of music that bears little resemblance to reality, but which is taught at all schools and universities, such an important topic that I am saving it up for a blog all to itself.

In order for ‘originality’ to become a standard with which to measure artistic worth and ‘progress’ (another artistic misnomer which will be the subject of a separate blog!) parameters had to be set for what was and wasn’t ‘original’. To those waking up to the new self-consciousness of the early 20th century, the only possible way to be ‘original’ was to break with the past. The biggest sin of all in culture, it was soon widely regarded, was to ‘rehash’ the things of the past. To this day this remains the key philosophy dictating everything in the creative arts, music criticism and music education.

Now even a cursory glance at this philosophy shows it to be a fallacy. Two of the most original minds in all music, Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin, both had their hearts and minds rooted firmly in the past, and though through the power of their imaginations they couldn’t help but write something uniquely their own, they saw no contradiction between that and assimilating, learning from, and even emulating what had gone before them. Bach was even openly criticized for having his head stuck in the past, fascinated with a previous generation of contrapuntal composers when his contemporaries where moving in a different direction. And when Chopin appears to be at his most revolutionary closer examination shows he is simply and wisely applying knowledge acquired from a careful study of Bach and others before him.

Then there are composers such as Brahms, or Schubert, who on the surface appear less revolutionary in the sense than Chopin or Bach were, but who is to say their music is any less valid, or less ‘original’, than a more ‘revolutionary’ composer?

The simple answer to being ‘original’ is this: every human being IS original, it’s written into our genetic code. If you are true to yourself, and create something that is an honest reflection of your own feelings, it WILL be original, regardless of its superficial ‘style’ ‘idiom’ or ‘form’, and regardless of what age you live in. Whether it’s any good or not is another matter, and usually time has a very good way of sorting out the good from the not so good. But self-consciously trying to be original has been the death knell of creativity in the 20th century. It has introduced a whole new level of negative self-awareness that has had the effect of stifling true expression. It has given rise to a manic desire by artists to shock (as if that was something ‘original’! - as Chopin once said: “You can be struck dumb with astonishment at unexpected news equally whether it is shouted out loud or barely whispered in your ear”) and has provided all manor of excuses for what, by every other criteria, would simply be described as rubbish (to not beat about the bush!). For examples of rubbish in the name of art please wait for a future blog! Of course taking the word literally, being ‘original’ is not a difficult task at all, providing you have no care over the quality of what you create. This kind of originality can be achieved with the greatest of ease and the least ability (as has been proved frequently in the last century).

As for the parameters widely used in music institutions in the last half century or more to define ‘originality’ in music, they are based largely on the theories of one man, to such an extent that this person could easily be described as one of the most influential figures in 20th century classical music: Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg was a composer of intense and dramatic romantic music at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, who later became famous for his open rebellion against traditional tonality in music (though he himself was convinced he was "a natural continuer of properly-understood good old tradition"). In the 1930s he emigrated from Europe to the United States and actually became a good friend (and admirer ironically enough – as will be explained in a future blog!) of George Gershwin. His eulogy to Gershwin following the latter's early death is moving, heartfelt and generous. Gershwin had shown his typical broad-mindedness and generosity by helping to sponsor the first recordings of Schoenberg's string quartets just a few months before his own death. But unlike Gershwin, Schoenberg had felt he had reached a dead end in creativity that was forcing him to rethink his whole approach to music. Like Picasso, who represented a similar - though not as ‘revolutionary’ – approach in art, Schoenberg felt restricted by what he saw as conventional methods of musical construction. In searching for a way out of these strictures (which oddly enough other composers with greater imaginations did not feel were strictures) and to avoid simply ‘rehashing’ music that had already been written by previous generations of composers, he began to theorise a compositional method that opposed the basic laws of nature and sound (though he had no scientific background on which to base his radical ideas) and as a consequence developed a whole new set of rules dictating how music could be written.

[One of Gershwin’s 1937 home movies, featuring Arnold and Gertrud Schoenberg, Gertrud’s brother Rudi Kolisch (of the Kolisch string quartet), Doris Vidor, and a few brief glimpses of Gershwin himself. The musical extract accompanying the video is the beginning of Schoenberg’s String Quartet no.4 Op.37, written in 1936, in a 1937 recording by the Kolisch Quartet that was sponsored by George Gershwin. Also included in the short video is a still of Gershwin at work on his famous oil painting portrait of Schoenberg, and a very moving eulogy uttered by Schoenberg the day after Gershwin’s untimely death in July 1937.]

In reality Schoenberg, like Picasso and many others, was taking the intellectually easy way out of a constant problem for all artists: using and developing the imagination. The struggle to create is far from easy and usually comes with intense self-doubt and self-criticism; even after a lifetime of trying many talented and gifted artists may not be happy to discover they had nothing interesting to say after all! Perhaps not surprisingly then, Schoenberg avoided the struggle altogether by simply developing a new set of rules, to replace the old ones (a bit like solving the problems of tsarist Russia by replacing it with communist Russia). But the thing with great art is you can’t manufacture it on a production line, no matter how good the rules are. Being the world’s greatest expert at writing a piece of music in sonata form may be no match for the humble jottings of a novice who has a greater imagination! Johann Sebastian Bach’s most technically accomplished fugues may not be his best (and in any case, Bach was a great one for breaking the so-called ‘rules’ of music). But Schoenberg felt he had found a way out of his writer's block, and even told his friends, once he had arrived at his new method, that he was composing with the enthusiastic excitement again of a young composer. Of course in the literal sense of the word Schoenberg’s work after his ‘road to Damascus’ conversion was ‘original’ but there was nothing natural about this self-conscious cerebral approach, which is why it ultimately failed. Sadly, and this is the much more important issue, the repercussions of his experiment changed the face of ‘classical’ music for decades and are still felt in music to this day. Arnold Schoenberg's work and theories, which after all even Gershwin had shown a curious interest in, were not as damaging as the huge machinery that went into place after him to try to turn what he had started into the 'norm' in new classical music.

For those unfamiliar with Schoenberg and his work, I’ll just summarize what he’s most famous for: basically he decided the traditional key structure and tonality of music, and the way harmonies related to one another, could be jettisoned (the composer Liszt had experimented a little with this idea a few decades earlier but went on to conclude that anyone who came up with music without any tonality would be a “crazed idiot”). While the system of 12 major and 12 minor keys in western classical music was fairly new (by which I mean had been around for a mere few hundred years) the idea of a tonal centre to music (a kind of hierarchy where some notes, and usually one in particular, are more important than others) had been around for much longer, certainly as far back as 200BCE when we have some of the earliest evidence of musical notation, and presumably even earlier, right back perhaps to the moment the first musical sounds could be created. This is not surprising since the way tones relate to one another is a matter of pure physics and the make-up of sound waves that no cerebral, if well meaning, professor from Vienna/California can change.

[The Seikilos epitaph, recreated on this video, is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. Both words and musical notation were found carved on a tombstone not far from Ephesus in Turkey, dated anywhere between 200 BCE and 100 CE]

But Schoenberg was convinced that eventually a 'musical evolution' would occur (again with no scientific basis to back up his argument) in which there would no longer be a discernible difference between consonant and dissonant sounds (see below for my description of dissonance in music). A hundred years later we are still waiting for Schoenberg's predicted 'musical evolution'! Strangely enough, Schoenberg’s rebellion with the past didn’t extend to abolishing the 12 notes of the western chromatic scale (later 'Schoenberg disciples' saw to that). Instead he seems to have cherry picked which aspects of the past he would keep and which he would jettison. It wasn’t long before Schoenberg’s ‘atonal’ approach, as it became known, was seen by the music establishment elite as a 'serious’ development in music, and it was eventually adopted with a real a passion by figures in the music establishment around the world once the old guard of 19th century professors had eventually died off! It seemed the perfect foil to the ‘easy listening’ of the now fast growing pop industry of the 20th century.

It is hard to over-emphasize the dominance the Schoenberg approach has had over classical composers in the 20th century. Although still referred to today as ‘avant-garde’ in truth the Schoenberg ‘atonal’ approach has been enthusiastically embraced by music establishments (universities, BBC, major orchestras, etc.) for many decades and thus, far from being a “pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo” (wikipedia definition of avant-garde) the Schoenbergian approach has actually been the status quo for several generations! Even those not supporting it out-right would half adopt some if it’s theories. And woe betide any young creative mind wanting to avoid this path. To give an example of the peer pressure exhorted on musicians the pianist Alfred Brendel recently went so far as to suggest that after Schoenberg Ravel’s music could only be seen as kitsch. Presumably Brendel would have applied this expression to any number of post-Schoenbergian works not taking into account Schoenbergian ideals, such as works by Elgar, Fauré, Gershwin, etc.. Interestingly, I haven’t heard Brendel describing Mozart’s music as sounding kitsch after the revolution in harmony that came before him from Johann Sebastian Bach, even though an equally ‘valid’ parallel intellectual argument (using Brendel’s ludicrous criteria) could be made in that case.

Brendel’s comments are very much in step with Stalin’s approach to the arts, though I doubt that Alfred Brendel would see it that way! But in the same manner that Stalin forced his narrow cultural ideas on the artists around him, in the west a similar psychological battle was taking place, but in exactly the opposite direction. Powerful establishments such as the BBC literally dictated musical style policy, exactly as Stalin had done in the Soviet Union. To reject these ideals was to be seen as ‘backward’ ‘lacking in intellectual rigour/imagination’ etc etc.. Composers and artists that failed to meet these mostly (but not exclusively) Schoenbergian stylistic requirements fell by the wayside (I have direct experience of the BBC’s ‘listening panel’ that chose works suitable for broadcast back in the early 1980s - any work failing the panel’s criteria was banned from broadcast by the network). Even composers as highly regarded, successful and established (but more tonal) as William Walton and Samuel Barber felt the pressure, and tried (in both cases, and with equally disastrous results) to change their own compositional style. A new composer, even if he didn’t adopt Schoenbergian ideals, could only be considered ‘bona fide’ if a certain proportion of ‘dissonance’ was present in his work.

Since not all readers of this blog will be familiar with musical terminology a brief description of dissonance, and its importance in music, is needed here. To put it crudely dissonance is the sound of two or more simultaneously struck notes that don’t ordinarily appear to fit together and seem to clash (again it’s a matter of pure physics). To the ear the sound can be almost jarring, and certainly noticeable. To some uneducated ears dissonance might often simply sound like wrong notes or mistakes. Yet dissonance is vital to music. Without dissonance music would be intolerably bland and dull, like a meal that has no seasoning, or a spice dish with no spice (or a blog with no controversy!). But just as too much seasoning or spice can actually dull the palate to the excitement of the flavour, so too much dissonance in music, without any contrasting consonance, becomes meaningless. In truth dissonance can be a thing of great beauty, but when overused can begin to sound not just ugly, but dull even. With no relevance to its surroundings, a constant over repetitive dissonance dulls the aural palate to such an extent that all sounds, dissonant and non-dissonant, begin to lose their meaning. Perhaps this was what Schoenberg was referring to in his 'musical evolution' description of consonances and dissonances eventually becoming indistinguishable in this 'wonderful' new world of no tonality and keys; if so it's a recipe for music for the brain dead. Composers throughout the ages have used dissonance with great effect, heightening the emotional intensity of their work in a way that is very special. Used with great skill it becomes one of music’s most powerful tools. By contrast, in Schoenberg (and his followers) all the dissonant knives have become dull, all the sharpness is gone, and gone is the tension that is the life blood of so much great music.

As Schoenberg’s school of thought gained ascendancy in music establishments the general public, by and large, soon began to forget about the existence of contemporary ‘classical’ music, as the many genres of pop speedily engulfed the world, the airwaves, and every form of sound reproduction. This only increased the desire of classical music ‘hard-liners’ to be even more zealous in their search for so-called ‘originality’. A new characteristic was added to this mix: the ‘unpopular’. It became something to be proud of if no one liked your work. To be truly original meant being extremely ‘unpopular’ and so it provided ample excuse for the continuation of anything that was failing, such as the BBC’s classical radio station Radio 3, whose audience until very recently was dwindling at an alarming rate as it became increasingly irrelevant to most people. Yet its existence continued, funded ironically enough through the UK government’s taxation of its own population, most of whom never tuned in to the station.

It should be pointed out here that there is nothing to be gained on either side of the argument for and against 'popularity'. The oft-repeated criticism of the ‘popular’ side of this debate (that ‘unpopular’ artists are always very keen to point out) is that the artist has sold his soul to the devil and is high bent on achieving maximum popularity and maximum financial gain for his terrible (implied) work. As I said, either point of view is unsatisfactory, and ridiculously over-simplistic in any case. Strangely enough, those who represent the ‘unpopular front’ never adequately explain, during their arguments against commercialism, the dichotomy of the many hundreds of ‘unpopular’ artists who have made a very comfortable living from government sponsored commissions, university positions, music college tenures, etc..

If you keep your ear to the ground you will frequently hear an argument that has often been made in defense of ‘unpopular originality’ – the ‘starving artiste syndrome’ you might call it, the implication being that the artist’s work can only be measured in inverse proportion to its success. But again past examples are being ignored. In a survey of past works of art it’s possible to find works revolutionary and conservative, popular and unpopular, yet there is no consistent match between conservative and popular or revolutionary and unpopular, or the other way round for that matter. Yes, it’s true that Johann Sebastian Bach offended a few narrow-minded town councilors with his bold harmonies, and one German critic in particular became obsessed with knocking what he saw as the nonsensical originality of Chopin’s music. Yet at the same time both composers enjoyed tremendous popularity from their listeners. A concert featuring Chopin’s newest works was even more eagerly attended than a concert featuring works he had played previously. The same was true in the public response to Mozart’s new and old works, with his new works being much more keenly anticipated, so much so that Mozart actually felt the public pressure to write and present something new each time he performed.

Yet in the 20th century a whole new development arose as a result of the ‘unpopular originality’ psychology: the ‘unpopular’ new music concert was born. Putting ‘newly composed classical music’ into a concert became a guaranteed way of depleting the audience in the 20th century. Never before had this situation existed: it was truly a phenomenon of the 20th century. But of course as audiences ‘stayed away’ so classical composers became ‘encouraged’ by this lack of support, as it seemed to only justify their position as truly ‘original’ (and therefore unpopular) creative artists.

By necessity I must point out yet again, as it can’t be emphasised enough, that just because I am attacking on one side of this argument doesn’t mean the opposite is true. The fact that a work is popular is in no way a badge of its quality. Quite apart from anything else, the reasons why a work is popular have to be called into question. One reason people often say they enjoy a piece of music is simply because they ‘recognise’ it. For example the slow movement of Beethoven’s 'Moonlight' Sonata is easily more popular than the equally moving (and immediately attractive) slow movement of his Sonata in C Opus 2 no.3, for no other reason than people ‘know’ the 'Moonlight' Sonata; they recognise it, therefore they think they ‘like’ it. But it would be foolish to draw the conclusion from this that Beethoven's 'Moonlight' sonata slow movement is therefore better than the slow movement of his Op.2 no.3 (just as it would be equally foolish for the musical ‘elite’ to decide the Moonlight is less good because it is more popular).

I will be exploring the whole theme of ‘originality versus popularity in art’ in future blogs. This is just to wet people’s toes.

The only conclusion for an artist is to create what they believe in, “without regard to praise or blame” (as an astute contemporary of Chopin, Sophie Leo, observed when listening to him). If you are true to yourself what you create will be original (you don’t have to try to do anything). And if you have nothing to say, there’s unfortunately nothing in the world that will help you say it!

* * * * *

ADDENDUM TO THIS POST

New composers of tonal classical music

An excellent and extremely erudite article by the composer David Arditti on the plight of ‘tonal classical music’ in a century dominated by atonality, minimalism and other 20th century musical trends can be found here. Arditti's succinct article is a must read for anyone seriously interested in this topic.

Sophie Leo's description of Chopin

Sophie Leo was the wife of Chopin's banker Auguste Leo. Auguste Leo was a close friend of Chopin, as well as his financial advisor and intermediary in the composer's dealings with foreign publishers. The couple held regular musical soirées at their Paris home and Chopin dedicated his Polonaise Op.53 to Auguste. Sophie Leo's wonderful description of Chopin, first published anonymously, is worth quoting at length:

“No one who has not known Chopin will ever be able to imagine a being like him or to conceive to what exaltation the soul, before its release from its mortal shell, can attain; no one who has not heard Chopin’s compositions played by their composer will ever have an intimation of how, quite without regard to tradition, or to praise or blame, the purest inspiration may be carried along on the wings of the spirit. Chopin was himself, surely the first, probably the eternally unique manifestation of his species… He appeared hardly to touch the piano; one might have thought an instrument superfluous. There was no suggestion of the mechanical; the flute-like murmur of his playing had the ethereal effect of Aeolian harps. Yet despite these gifts, to which there was nowhere in the wide world a parallel, Chopin was gracious, modest, and unassuming. He was not a pianist of the modern school, but, in his own way, had created a style of his own, a style that one cannot describe. Whether appearing in the private salon or in the concert hall he stepped quietly and modestly to the piano, was satisfied with whatever seat had been provided, showed at once by his simple dress and natural bearing that all forms of affectation and charlatanry were distasteful to him, and, without any sort of introduction, at once began his soulful and heartfelt performance. He was above setting off his talent by appearing before the public with long, disheveled hair, or with a lorgnette, or with coquetry. He offered art, not artifice, and gave it a dignified setting, not a grotesque one”.

* * * * *

Is classical music dead?

2010-02-05T22:36:00.000-08:00

I’ll be exploring this theme on a regular basis in future blogs, meanwhile here’s something with which to whet your appetite.

Paul Driver in the Sunday Times has described his music as "impressive, thoughtful, entertaining and extremely varied".

Paul Griffiths, writing in the London Times, has said of Fox's work that "he takes simple ideas but he makes them sound quite wonderful".

Eager to hear what they're talking about? Wait, there's more:

Tom Service in his Guardian Classical Music blog writes "I'm missing my fix of new music in Huddersfield this year; but if, like me, you can't get up north, there are other options to stop you going cold turkey. Tomorrow at the Warehouse, the British Music Information Centre's consistently innovative Cutting Edge series closes this year's season with a mouth-watering concert: a programme from new new music ensemble Kürbis (it's German for pumpkin), and world premieres from James Weeks, Christopher Fox, and John Habron."

Now it's time to listen to that "mouth-watering", "impressive, thoughtful, entertaining", "quite wonderful" music. Here's a portion of Silver Jubilee March (from 'My First Century' 1997-99) by British composer Christopher Fox:

For comparison, here's another march also by a British composer, written only 96 years earlier, at the beginning of Christopher Fox's 'century':

Still think classical music isn't dead?

* * * * *

This blog resumes with a significant Gershwin video

2010-02-05T02:36:00.000-08:00

This blog came to a dramatic halt some time ago, and with the demands of facebook, twitter etc. it has been demoted to a 2nd class citizen. But the frustration of 140 characters on Twitter, and the 1800 of my 'closest friends' on facebook, has made me think blogging isn't so bad after all - at least for the serious minded, if there's any such person left in today's world. So for now, this blog continues with...

Gershwin... a composer who today is still not taken seriously in the way he should. I am shocked at the level of ignorance of his music, and most entries on him in dictionaries and encyclopedias of music should be scrapped! Here is a video that begins to address this issue: it's over an hour long, a talk I wrote and presented for the BBC some years ago, aided by the actor Sir Ben Kingsley who read Gershwin's letters. It's a fairly detailed look at Gershwin's music (within the confines of an hour's radio programme, plus a piano for musical examples, and a superb archive of rare recordings) in that I try to explain some of Gershwin's compositional methods, as well as explanations of his amazing piano skills, in a chronological and psychological survey of his all too short life. I have also added helpful video images (rare stills and movies of Gershwin, musical examples etc.) to this recently posted YouTube video. So if you have the time (and as my extremely busy father once said: "You should always have time to look out of the window") take an hour out of your schedule and find out why Gershwin still manages to make so many people happy over 70 years after his untimely death, and why he will continue to do so as long as there are people still interested in real and fine artistic expression.

Gershwin in Focus with Jack Gibbons and Sir Ben Kingsley

Even Nature is by Art surpassed

2008-11-20T05:45:00.000-08:00

(Michelangelo Buonarroti: Sonnet to Vittoria Colonna)

For fans of Michelangelo's incomparable art, here is a video of photographic images of his inspiring Pietàs (combined with a synthesized recording of my 'Lament' for string orchestra). Below are a few words on each of Michelangelo's four famous Pietàs.

The Pietàs of Michelangelo

In the above video is a collection of photographs of the Pietàs and drawings of Michelangelo (1475 - 1564). Michelangelo Buonarroti was the foremost artist of the Italian Renaissance and is regarded today as having without question one of the greatest creative minds of all time.

The Pietàs featured in this video are the Pietà from St Peter's Basilica in Rome (1499), the Florentine Pietà (1547 - 1555), Palestrina Pietà (1555, unfinished) and the Rondanini Pietà (1564, his last work, unfinished) as well as the Madonna of Bruges (1501 - 1504).

Pietà from St Peter's, Rome (1499):

Michelangelo was in his early twenties when he completed his most famous Pietà of St Peter's Rome. According to legend after he had completed the sculpture he overheard someone praising the work as by another artist so returned to the sculpture and carved his name on it - the only work of his on which he carved his name.

Florentine Pietà (1547 - 1555):

Michelangelo began the Florentine Pietà (also known as 'The Deposition') in his 70s and was originally intending it for his own tomb. Unfortunately the marble he used was faulty, which he didn't realise when he began the sculpture; the stone was very hard to work with and often drew sparks as he chiseled. Finally the left leg of Christ broke off while he was working on it. Michelangelo was so furious he attempted to destroy the whole sculpture, beginning with Christ's left forearm and hand and right forearm, but was prevented by his pupils from completing the destruction. It was later repaired and completed by his pupil Tiberio Calcagni - the inferior quality of Tiberio's work is obvious in the finishing of the figure of Mary Magdalene; fortunately Tiberio Calcagni didn't attempt to 'finish' the remaining figures. The tall figure of Joseph of Arimathea (also credited as Nicodemus) is according to legend supposedly a self portrait of Michelangelo himself.

Palestrina Pietà (1555):

The unfinished Palestrina Pietà has no documented history in Michelangelo's lifetime. However it was added to the Michelangelo collection in Florence in 1939. Most likely Michelangelo began the work, and possibly one or more of his pupils attempted more work on it, though it remained incomplete.

Rondanini Pietà (1564):

Michelangelo was apparently working on his last Pietà, the unfinished Rondanini Pietà, only days before he died in 1564, at the age of 89.

Drawings of Michelangelo:

Before his death Michelangelo attempted to have all his drawings burnt, regarding them as inferior work, drawn purely for the purpose of preparation for his sculptures, paintings and architecture projects. Fortunately for us Michelangelo was unable to complete the destruction and many of his beautiful drawings (many done in red chalk) have survived. The above drawing (dating from c.1532) is of Andrea Quaratesi (1512-85), the only known 'portrait drawing' of Michelangelo's to have survived. Andrea Quaratesi was a young Florentine nobleman and possibly a student of Michelangelo as the artist wrote on a drawing now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford the words: "Andrea, have patience".

The long march of those who came before us

2008-11-10T06:06:00.000-08:00

(Barack Obama, A More Perfect Union address, Philadelphia, March 18th 2008)

The election of Barack Obama represents the victory of a remarkable politician and brilliant orator who also happens to be the first African American president in the history of the nation. The historical nature of the win has electrified the world and represents a momentous step along a long and hard road in search of equality and true democracy in America. The victory is even more poignant when one remembers that it took place in a nation whose very philosophy, as written by Jefferson in the words of the Declaration of Independence, is “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

But if only it were that simple. Taken at their face value Jefferson’s words present a noble ideal. Yet how does that square with the fact that Jefferson himself owned nearly two hundred slaves? Presumably he didn't expect those ideals to apply to them. Yet not only was Jefferson said to be very fond of many of his slaves, he actually had an intimate long term relationship with one of them, Sally Hemings, with whom he had 7 children. Annette Gordon-Reed's famous book 'Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy' brought the issue to the world's attention, subsequently proved by DNA testing of Hemings' descendants (more information on Jefferson's 'other family' can be found here). Both Jefferson and his colleagues in those early days of government for the large part spoke out against the evil of slavery, but the fact is of the founding fathers of America only two, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, didn’t own slaves. Furthermore, of the first 18 presidents of the U.S. i.e. up to the abolition of slavery in the U.S. in 1865, 12 owned slaves (8 of whom owned slaves while serving as president); they include Washington (317 slaves), Jefferson (187 slaves), Madison (106 slaves), Monroe (35 slaves), Jackson (150 slaves), Van Buren (1 slave, named Tom, who ran away but who was later found and ‘sold’), Harrison (7 slaves), Tyler (70 slaves), Polk (25 slaves), Taylor (100 slaves), Johnson (8 slaves), and Grant (1 slave, eventually freed).

[N.B. slave numbers are taken, where figures are available, from the presidents’ final estates. For a break down of President Monroe’s 35 individually named slaves, as recorded in his will, and the price President Polk paid for his 25 slaves, see the addendum at the foot of this blog.]

It’s almost as if there are two Americas here. One begins with the most noble of concepts and the country becomes a shining beacon of enlightenment. The other inherits the worst aspects of the European empires, in a story filled with hypocrisy, that leads down a long tortuous road filled with suffering and injustice. The two countries seem to proceed with their separate histories side by side and depending on your perspective and point of view either history seems to ring true. And so perhaps the reason the election result of November 4th 2008 is so symbolic - for it changes nothing of the past, and as yet of the future – is that for the first time in the country’s history all the hypocrisy, all the original sin of slavery can be wiped away, and all the goodness and greatness of the nation, as embodied in Jefferson's famous words, can now finally ring resoundingly true for everyone, and President-elect Barack Obama can say, with more sincerity and real meaning than any President before him, as he did on election night:

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

Civil rights legislation

Frederick Douglass, the great 19th century African American orator, writer and statesman, and a former slave, felt there was no need to rewrite the words of the American Constitution for the benefit of the freedom of African Americans. This might strike us as odd bearing in mind in three places in the original Constitution biases in favour of slavery are actually codified:

In Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 representation apportioned between the states is measured by one vote per free man and “three fifths of all other Persons” (i.e. those who aren’t free). The ironic thing here is that this was a compromise put in to please the southern plantation states as it obviously boosted their representation since they had the largest slave population; the north on the other hand didn’t want to give any representation at all to those held in slavery! The irony of this point, of course, is that if the north had had their way, though their position was as offensive as the south's 'three fifths' position, then the north might have had more sway in government and perhaps therefore slavery might have ended earlier, or without a civil war; as it was the south was given greater representation by this three fifths ruling.

In Article I, Section 9 Clause 1 “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”. In other words, for economic reasons, because the wealth that slavery brought into the country was recognised and regarded as an important factor in maintaining the security and independence of the nation, slavery would be allowed to continue for a further 20 years, and that a taxation would be imposed on slaves imported during that time, thus providing further revenue for the government out of slavery.

Acticle IV, Section 2, Clause 3: “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.”. This dealt with the problem of escaped slaves fleeing to other states, and put an onus on those states to return the slaves to servitude if discovered by their former ‘owners’, i.e. that an escaped slave would not be safe anywhere within the union.

One of the great strengths of the U.S. form of government is it’s ability to evolve and change. And as people gradually ‘wisened up’ to the evil of slavery so they were able to amend the Constitution and also bring in new laws to fight the prejudice and bigotry that have sadly played a major role in the suppression of democracy and justice in states within the United States.

First and foremost of these would be Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation of January 1st 1863 which was a first step in committing the Union to ending slavery. Then, during Reconstruction following the Civil War, came three amendments to the Constitution: the Thirteenth Amendment (December 6, 1865) banned slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment (July 9, 1868) defined U.S. citizenship overruling Dred Scott v. Sandford which had excluded slaves and their descendants from possessing Constitutional rights, and the Fifteenth Amendment (February 3rd 1870 ) banned race-based voting qualifications. At the same time in 1866, 1871 and 1875 a series of Civil Rights acts were introduced; these were necessary to counter the racist Black Codes that all confederate states had adopted after the Civil War in an attempt to keep the African American population in a form of quasi-slavery, even after emancipation.

Unfortunately things were to take a turn very much for the worse once Reconstruction ended and Federal troops ceased their post-war occupation of the south in 1877. In particular two Supreme Court decisions, the 1883 Civil Rights Cases ruling and the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, opened the door for institutionalised segregation and allowed the ‘separate but equal’ philosophy to flourish. In both Supreme Court rulings only one justice dissented, John Marshall Harlan, who in the latter case made the famous statement “The Constitution is color-blind: it neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” These two Supreme Court decisions seemed to give a green light to the south to reintroduce all kinds of racist legislation that took southern states back to a pre Lincoln era of civil rights (or rather lack of civil rights).

Not till 1954 with Chief Justice Warren’s Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education did things begin to change when the first nail was put in the coffin for segregation with the ruling "separate facilities are inherently unequal". But more was needed to restore full democracy and equal rights. On July 2nd 1964 the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came into law, which ironically contained many of the same points as the failed Civil Rights Act of 1875, introduced 89 years earlier! Then came the still necessary Voting Rights Act of 1965.

None of these extra laws and amendments, from 1854 to 1965, should have been necessary if the sentiment of Jefferson's words in the 1776 Declaration of Independence had been taken literally and seriously, or perhaps written into the Constitution. Though in any case, laws in themselves are not enough to turn around people’s prejudices. The recent Jena Six case of 2007 in Louisiana shows that, even with all these laws in place, removing prejudice through legislation alone is an impossible task.

Studying American history it’s shocking to realise that African Americans had less freedom, and were more disenfranchised, in the 1950s and early 1960s than in the brief era of Reconstruction of 1866-1877, following emancipation of slaves after the Civil War and the three ‘civil rights’ Constitutional amendments. This doesn’t mean it would have been a barrel of laughs for African Americans living in southern states between 1866 and 1877 needless to say. But it’s a tragedy that the freedoms won at such a high price in the Civil War and in the abolitionist movement which preceded it, were subsequently reversed by a stream of racist legislation, the result of which was to institutionalise racism and basically create an apartheid government in the southern states of the U.S.. And it’s hard to grapple with the fact that almost a century before Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I have a dream' speech Frederick Douglass, an African American born into slavery in 1818, had in 1872 achieved the remarkable honour of becoming the first African American nominated as vice-presidential candidate. Clearly between the 1870s and the 1960s the high ideals of Lincoln and others were trampled on with disastrous consequences.

Frederick Douglass (1818 - 1895)

Some of the most eloquent words written or spoken during “the long march of those who came before us’ came from Frederick Douglass, a former slave, U.S. statesman and, as already mentioned, the first African American nominated as vice-presidential candidate. On December 3rd 1847 he launched his North Star newspaper, which among many other issues promoted the anti-slavery movement from its columns. The funds that enabled Douglass to found his newspaper were raised by him during a lecture tour he gave in Britain, where he enjoyed tremendous support, in the 1840s. In his autobiography Douglass points out that he had a clear purpose and goal in founding the newspaper, as he explained to his fund-raising gathering in England:

“I told them that perhaps the greatest hinderance to the adoption of abolition principles by the people of the United States, was the low estimate, everywhere in that country, placed upon the negro, as a man; that because of his assumed natural inferiority, people reconciled themselves to his enslavement and oppression, as things inevitable, if not desirable. The grand thing to be done, therefore, was to change the estimation in which the colored people of the United States were held; to remove the prejudice which depreciated and depressed them; to prove them worthy of a higher consideration; to disprove their alleged inferiority, and demonstrate their capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and prejudice had assigned to them. I further stated, that, in my judgment, a tolerably well conducted press, in the hands of persons of the despised race, by calling out the mental energies of the race itself; by making them acquainted with their own latent powers; by enkindling among them the hope that for them there is a future; by developing their moral power; by combining and reflecting their talents--would prove a most powerful means of removing prejudice, and of awakening an interest in them. I further informed them--and at that time the statement was true--that there was not, in the United States, a single newspaper regularly published by the colored people; that many attempts had been made to establish such papers; but that, up to that time, they had all failed.”

In other words, Douglass realised how important it was to change people’s mindset if there was to be any hope to ending slavery.

In the editorial of the first day’s edition, addressed to fellow African Americans, Douglass wrote: “We have drunk to the dregs the bitter cup of slavery; we have worn the heavy yoke; we have sighed beneath our bonds, and writhed beneath the bloody lash; - cruel momentos of our oneness are indelibly marked on our living flesh. We are one with you under the ban of prejudice and political disenfranchisement. What you suffer, we suffer; what you endure, we endure. We are indissolubly united, and must fall or flourish together.”

Douglass later became an important advisor to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War though he was initially critical of what he saw as Lincoln’s slowness in embracing full and comprehensive emancipation. Douglass recalled, in his autobiography, the tension and anxiety he and others felt on the night of December 31st 1862 as they anxiously awaited the announcement of Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation: “We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky...we were watching...by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day...we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries." Lincoln held Douglass in high regard, as witness the following account, which was verified by more than one eye-witness: on greeting Douglass in the East Room of the White House, following his second inaugural address on March 4th 1865, Lincoln is recorded as saying: “Douglass, I saw you in the crowd today listening to my inaugural address. There is no man's opinion that I value more than yours; what do you think of it?”

In 1841, just three years after escaping from slavery, and eight years before founding the North Star newspaper, Douglass was recruited by William Lloyd Garrison to lecture on abolition for the Anti-Slavery Society. He travelled a great deal around the U.S. and acquired a remarkable reputation for his powerful speeches. According to the Concord Massachusetts Herald of Freedom: “as a speaker, he has few equals…He has wit, arguments, sarcasm, pathos - all that first rate men show in their master effort."

In 1845 Douglass travelled to Britain to escape the fugitive hunters who were on his tale following the publication of the first of his three autobiographies. Even in northern states escaped former slaves were not safe from being recaptured and returned to servitude in the south. Douglass spent nearly two years in Britain, arriving there in March 1845. He lectured across the country, from London to Belfast, and was extremely successful. As well as lecturing on the subject of abolition he also took up and supported other causes including the growing movement for Irish independence from British rule.

In January 1846 he wrote to William Lloyd Garrison from the U.K.: "Instead of the bright blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft gray fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe and lo! The chattel becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as a slave, or offer me an insult." He was astonished to encounter so little racial prejudice among the British during his trip:

“I can truly say, I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country. I seem to have undergone a transformation. I live a new life. The warm and generous co-operation extended to me by the friends of my ‘despised’ race; the prompt and liberal manner with which the press has rendered me its aid; the glorious enthusiasm with which thousands have flocked to hear the cruel wrongs of my down-trodden and long-enslaved fellow-countrymen portrayed; the deep sympathy for the slave, and the strong abhorrence of the slaveholder, everywhere evinced; … the spirit of freedom that seems to animate all with whom I come in contact, and the entire absence of everything that looked like prejudice against me, on account of the color of my skin--contrasted so strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States, that I look with wonder and amazement on the transition.”

While in Britain two English friends raised the one hundred and fifty pounds sterling ($710.96) necessary for Douglass to ‘buy his freedom’ in the U.S. so that he would no longer be a target of the fugitive hunters. Some of Douglass’s supporters in the U.S. felt this was selling out in that it seemed to acknowledge the legitimacy of slavery and slave ownership. Douglass on the other hand saw it as a purely practical measure so that he would be free to mount a truly effective anti-slavery campaign in the U.S.. On his return to America he moved with his family to Rochester New York where he launched his newspaper, the North Star.

J.M.W. Turner (1775 - 1851): "The Slave Ship"

Below is a reproduction of J.M.W. Turner's "The Slave Ship" or "Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhoon coming on". The 19th century English artist Turner, one of the greatest landscape painters of all time, completed this dramatic painting in 1840, just 5 years before Frederick Douglass made his successful trip to Britain.

The subject of the painting is the horrific practice of 18th century slave traders who would throw the dead and dying human 'cargo' overboard during the Atlantic passage from Africa to the Americas in order to claim the insurance for 'drowning'. By choosing such an emotive subject Turner was firmly aligning himself with the abolitionist movement. In the painting's foreground the shackled limbs of the drowning slaves can be clearly seen.

For this painting Turner was also inspired by lines from 'The Seasons: Summer' by the Scottish poet James Thomson (1700-1748):

Increasing still the Terrors of these Storms,
His Jaws horrific arm'd with threefold Fate,
Here dwells the direful Shark. Lur'd by the Scent
Of steaming Crrouds, of rank Disease, and Death,
Behold! he rushing cuts the briny Flood,
Swift as the Gale can bear the Ship along;
And, from the Partners of the cruel Trade,
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her Sons,
Demands his share of Prey, demands themselves.
The stormy Fate descend: one Death involves
Tyrants and Slaves; when strait, their mangled Limbs
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple Seas
With Gore, and riots in the Venegeful Meal.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

Some of the most powerful words uttered against slavery came, of course, from Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s first significant recorded speech was given in Peoria Illinois on October 16th 1854, uttered during his senatorial campaign against the racist pro-slavery senator Stephen Douglas. At stake were the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which gave settlers in those territories the right to decide for themselves whether or not to own slaves. An eye witness to Lincoln’s Peoria speech was the journalist Horace White, then working for the Chicago Evening Journal: “It was a warmish day in early October, and Mr. Lincoln was in his shirt sleeves when he stepped on the platform. I observed that, although awkward, he was not in the least embarrassed. He began in a slow and hesitating manner, but without any mistakes of language, dates, or facts. It was evident that he had mastered his subject, that he knew what he was going to say, and that he knew he was right.”

Lincoln’s words that day, as recorded by him shortly after giving the speech, include the following famous lines: “Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a 'sacred right of self-government.' These principles cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever holds to the one must despise the other.”

The following year, 1855, Lincoln wrote to Joshua Speed: “How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be take pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.”

Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, so eagerly awaited by Frederick Douglass, was finally issued on the first day of the year 1863: “I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States … do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.”

Harriet Tubman (c.1820 - 1913) and the Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was an elaborate network of secret routes, established to help slaves escape to freedom, either to northern states, or to Canada where escaped slaves enjoyed complete safety under protection of Great Britain; unlike the northern states of the U.S. Canada had no legislation in place to force the arrest and return of fugitive slaves. By the 1830s the Underground Railway was firmly established in all parts of the north. In Ohio alone, from 1830 to 1860, as many as 40,000 fugitive slaves were helped to freedom. The number of local antislavery societies increased at such a rate that by 1838 there were about 1,350 in existence with a membership of perhaps 250,000, even though most white northerners held themselves aloof from the abolitionist movement or even actively opposed it.

Many of the names of those whose brave and selfless actions saved so many lives during this dark period in U.S. history have not been recorded for posterity. But one name that stands out is Harriet Tubman. Her heroic deeds and remarkable determination made her a legend even within her own lifetime. Born into slavery in c.1820, she suffered serious seizures throughout her life as a result of a severe head injury inflicted on her by a slave owner while still a child. After several failed escape attempts she eventually managed to escape to the north in 1849. Almost immediately she risked her own freedom again by travelling back to the south to rescue her family and other slaves. Unfortunately she was too late to rescue her three sisters who had already been transferred to a plantation further south making their fates unknown. Time and time again, from 1850 onwards for a period of 11 years, Harriet crossed between northern and southern states guiding at least 300 slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Her heroic efforts became so well known she was nick-named the ‘Black Moses’.

During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union forces, as both a nurse, and commander of several scouts; she also more importantly conducted spying operations on behalf of the Union forces, and was, according to evidence presented to the House of Representatives “virtually in charge of the intelligent services in the Department of the South”. But in a sign of the inequality of the times her frequent applications for veteran status after the war, in order to qualify for a war pension, were all denied. Her feisty spirit is evidenced in the following story: On being asked to vacate her seat on a train at the end of the war by a white train conductor she refused and explained that her government service entitled her to sit where she liked; the conductor then brutally removed her from her seat, and she was thrown violently into the baggage compartment, sustaining several broken rips and an injured shoulder in the process. All the while though she let the white conductor know in no uncertain terms what she thought of him!

Despite her severe childhood head injury Harriet Tubman lived a long life and died in 1913 at the age of c.93. She spent the latter part of her life working tirelessly for the poor, the elderly and disabled, and raised money for schools and for former slaves, despite not having much money herself. She also became involved in the women‘s suffragette movement. In 1908 she opened the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People in Auburn New York, where she died on March 10th 1913. Today Harriet Tubman is hailed as a true American hero, and one of countless thousands of individuals who helped shape the true character and destiny of the nation.

Elijah Lovejoy (1802 - 1837)

In a previous blog I highlighted the life and tragic death of newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy, regarded by many as one of the first martyrs of the abolition movement, as well as an important advocate for freedom of speech. On November 7th 1837 he was brutally murdered by a pro-slavery mob who objected to his ‘radical’ abolitionist views. You can read more about Lovejoy at my previous blog here.

Todd Duncan (1903 - 1998) and Anne Brown (b.1912)

A less dramatic act of defiance, but no less courageous, took place in Washington D.C. in March 1936 when Todd Duncan and Anne Brown, two previously unknown African American singers chosen by Gershwin himself to sing the lead roles in Porgy and Bess, refused to perform to a segregated National Theater during the first tour of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in 1936. At the time the National Theater wanted to exclude African Americans from all performances with the exception of a ‘blacks only’ evening. Under pressure the theater managers then suggested African Americans could attend all performances as long as they were seated separately in the balcony. However Duncan and Brown bravely stuck to their guns. Duncan stated that he would never perform in a theater that barred him from purchasing tickets to certain seats because of his race. Todd Duncan and Anne Brown led the entire African American cast in a stand-off that could have potentially ruined their careers. Anne Brown later recalled the events of March 1936:

“As expected we were told that the National Theater would be a segregated house. Todd and I refused to perform and were threatened by the Theater Guild who said we had to sing or there would be reprisals. We cared less. We were adamant. With help from other cast members and political figures like Mary McLeod Bethune and Ralph Bunche, we succeeded and the National Theater admitted African Americans to a desegregated house. But after our performance, it returned to its original policy of segregation.”

This important performance of Porgy and Bess, the first time that the National Theater in Washington D.C. had a desegregated audience, was the last performance of the opera attended by Gershwin himself. He died the following year, July 11th 1937 at the age of 38. Gershwin was not trying to make any statement about race in writing his opera, which was based on Dubose Heyward’s novel Porgy. Gershwin simply saw it as a great story and a perfect vehicle for his music. But his unselfconsciousness about the subject, and the portrayal of the opera’s characters as real people with real, heartbreaking emotions, was significant in 1935, when the opera was written, as the country was still severely divided racially.

Anne Brown (chosen by Gershwin to sing Bess) here reenacts the original 1935 Porgy and Bess production as part of the Hollywood biopic of Gershwin, 'Rhapsody in Blue', filmed in 1945:

Martin Luther King Jnr. (1929 - 1968) and the civil rights movement

The “long march” against inequality and social injustice continued long after the Civil War generation had passed away. In addition to the racist so-called ‘Jim Crow laws’ that former confederate states adopted to restrict the rights of African Americans other laws not directly connected with racial issues were equally pernicious in their impact on race. One example was the Social Security Act of 1935 which the NAACP at the time described as “a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through”. In this act excluded from receiving social security benefits were domestic and agricultural labourers many of whom were African Americans. The perpetuation of conditions that kept people in poverty or from being able to advance their economic condition was seen by Martin Luther King Jnr. and others as a major obstacle to freedom and social justice in the African American community.

Things came to a head in the 1950s and 60s with the rise of a more organised civil rights movement. The death of Emmett Till and subsequent farcical trial, and Rosa Park’s stubbornness in refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery Alabama in 1955 became the catalysts for the American civil rights movement; John Lewis’s quiet determination to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge toward Montgomery in 1965 before encountering the full force of racist law was a similarly defining moment in the civil rights struggle. Sadly the “long march” continued to claim innocent lives including Addie Mae, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Jimmie Lee Jackson, James Reeb ... the list is in fact endless: for example in a recent apology issued by the U.S. Senate in 2005 (proposed by Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and George Allen of Virginia) for failing to enact federal anti-lynching legislation in the first part of the 20th century, the figure of 4742 was quoted for the number of recorded lynchings in the U.S. between 1890 and 1960, with the actual numbers believed to be much higher.

On April 4th 1968 less than 24 hours after delivering his famous ‘I've been to the mountaintop’ speech in Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King Jnr., Nobel Peace Prize laureate, world respected advocate of non-violent action to overcome oppression, became the latest victim of racial hate crime. The words of his last speech seem almost prophetic:

“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Martin Luther King Jnr. is now recognised as one of the most important people of his era. In London England his image has been carved in stone into the west face of Westminster Abbey, the country’s most revered medieval cathedral, as part of the cathedral’s statues of great Christian martyrs. In his lifetime King was admired around the world for his non-violent stance against injustice, just as Gandhi – one of King’s mentors – had been admired for his stance against the British in India. On December 10th 1964 Martin Luther King Jnr. was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in Oslo Norway. Within weeks of receiving the award he was once again arrested by the apartheid government forces of Selma Alabama. Today he is remembered as much for his inspiring words as for his brave actions. Like others before him, Douglass, Lovejoy, Lincoln, Martin Luther King’s use of language was a powerful force within the civil rights movement.

On August 28th 1963, one hundred years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. … I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream.”

Barack Obama (b. 1961)

Forty-five years later, on November 4th 2008, Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of over 100,000 people in Grant Park Chicago Illinois following his election as the 44th President of the United States:

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

On Tim Russert’s Meet The Press on NBC on May 4th 2008 Barack Obama was equally uplifting and eloquent: “I'm somebody who is born to a white mother and an African father. It's in my DNA to believe that we can bring this country together, that people are the same under the skin. And that's what I've been fighting for all my life, and to a large degree everything that I've done as a community organizer, everything that I've done as a state legislator and a United States senator embodies those ideals: that we can get people who look differently or speak differently or come from different experiences to recognize what they have in common.”

In his famous 'A More Perfect Union' speech in Philadelphia on March 18th 2008 Obama spoke of the long march to freedom: “What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time. This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.”

The last time a politician went from Illinois to the White House was in 1860. His name was Abraham Lincoln. There are many people in the US today who now believe that “the pursuit of Happiness” is more than just a dream, it’s an actuality.

If your view of the world is like mine you may have noticed how often some of the happiest moments in life seem balanced by some of the saddest on the other side of the coin. Even in Obama’s triumph, everyone was surely aware that the greatest moment of his life, his great achievement, could not be witnessed by his parents or his maternal grandmother. This strange contradiction of feelings and duality of emotions - perhaps not unlike the contradictions of American history - is, in my opinion, at the very heart of what makes music such a profound form of human expression. It’s a topic I will be expanding on in future blogs, because it goes to the very core of the “pursuit of happiness”.

* * * * *

ADDENDUM TO THIS POST

Slaves of James Monroe

From the will of James Monroe here is a list of the 35 slaves still in his keep when he died. After his death, in May 1836, they were ‘sold’ to one Samuel L Gourvernaur. Unusually the slaves in this list have surnames, which doesn’t make the reading any less horrific:

Date of will 22 Jan 1836

Slaves:
Negro man Natus Berryman 24y old
George Harris 55y old
Samuel Jackson 46y old
boy Anderson Harris 16y old
James Carr 63y old
Samuel Love 49y old
George William 50y old
Harry Short 36y old
Peter Maloney 72 y old
Zachariah Boot 45y old
Joseph Short 30y old
Jno. Harford (crippled) 25y old
Alfred Gantt 16y old
Ralph Gantt 14y old
Molly Jackson 65y old
Judy Gantt 36y old
& her 5 children James (Catherine has fits) Henry, Edmund & Washington (crippled)
Nancy Gantt 18y old & her infant child
Mema Baker 22y old & her 2 children Jno. & Sally
Nancy Harris 42y old & her 2 children Priscilla & Cornelia
George Harris 18y old crippled in the knee
Betsy Thompson 40y old too fat for any use
Solomon Green 45y old
Nancy Green 75y old
Scy Harris 60y old
Tamory derry 60y old (crippled)

Inventory of the Slaves of James Polk

According to the inventory of Polk’s slaves, Polk, with his brother-in-law, Dr. Silas M. Caldwell, purchased a lot of slaves for $8,025.00 in 1833; men were valued at $600 each, women $450 each, and children $75 each; Polk purchased more slaves while President of the United States between 1845 and 1849. Slaves were often offered and sold in lots. In 1833, for example, the New Orleans slave house of Hewlett and Bright conducted the sale of a lot of valuable slaves on behalf of the owner who was leaving for Europe; these slaves were all sold at half cash down, the other half payable a month later with a mortgage offered on the slaves until the final payment was complete.

* * * * *

In honor of Elijah Lovejoy

2008-11-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

(November 8th 1802 – November 7th 1837)

"The man who, with nothing to gain but the approval of conscience, and everything to lose but honor, stands forth against overwhelming odds in defense of a great and precious principle, and finally lays down his life in that defense, surely deserves from his fellow-men, at least, grateful and everlasting remembrance." Thomas Dimmock, Lovejoy – Hero and Martyr, New England Magazine, May 1891

"But, gentlemen, as long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, to publish whatever I please on any subject--being amenable to the laws of my country for the same." Elijah Lovejoy

"I have sworn eternal opposition to slavery, and by the blessing of God, I will never go back." Elijah Lovejoy

On November 4th 2008 history was made in America with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, the first African American President of the United States. If you happen to live close to Alton Illinois, just east of St Louis on the Mississippi River, I can think of no finer a way of celebrating this historic win than to place a bouquet of flowers on the grave of one Elijah Lovejoy at the Alton cemetery.

Who was Elijah Lovejoy?

Elijah Lovejoy was one of many thousands of brave men and women who stood by his principles and attempted to make a difference in the long and difficult struggle for social justice and equality in the U.S.. Elijah Lovejoy was killed by an angry pro-slavery mob on this day, November 7th, in the year 1837, for no other reason than because he opposed the evil of slavery and was bold enough to promote the abolition cause through his newspaper the Saint Louis Observer. Lovejoy had showed tremendous defiance in the face of constant threats and danger and his death had a profound effect on both freedom of speech and the abolition movement.

Lovejoy was born on November 8, 1802, in Albion, Maine. After graduating with first class honors from Waterville College (now Colby College) in Waterville, Maine in 1826 he decided to seek a living in the Midwest as a school teacher. With no funds of his own he apparently walked much of the distance from his native Maine to St Louis, finally arriving in the city of St Louis where he founded his own private high school. He also became interested in journalism and by 1830 had become editor and part-owner of the St. Louis Times. However, in 1832 Lovejoy decided to head back east to enroll in the Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey.

In 1834, now an ordained Presbyterian preacher, Lovejoy was persuaded by a group St Louis businessmen to return to St Louis to edit a newspaper with a strong moral slant, the St. Louis Observer. In his editorials Lovejoy advocated freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom from slavery. Lovejoy’s editorials became increasingly radical and began to incense the pro-slavery lobby within Missouri (which was then a slave state), as well as the Missouri Senator and slave owner Thomas Hart Benton. In May 1836, Lovejoy was run out of town by his opponents after he chastised Judge Luke E. Lawless, who had chosen not to charge individuals linked to a mob murder of a free black man Francis J. McIntosh, who had been horrifically burned to death while tied to a tree. Judge Lawless even tried to switch the blame to Lovejoy’s newspaper in his summing up, as he held up a copy of the St Louis Observer and said: "It seems to me impossible that while such language is used and published as that which I have cited from the St. Louis Observer, there can be any safety in a slave-holding state". There is no question that Judge Lawless’s inflammatory language led directly to the tragedy of Lovejoy’s death.

As mob violence increased over the issue, Lovejoy, together with his family, decided to move across the Mississippi River to Alton, in the free state of Illinois, and he continued to print his newspaper, now under the name the Alton Observer. Mobs had destroyed Lovejoy's printing presses on three previous occasions, but undeterred Lovejoy had ordered new presses which were secretly delivered to the press’s new location in Alton in the early hours of November 7th 1837.

By 10 p.m. the same day, November 7th 1837, a pro-slavery mob had gathered outside the newspaper building in Alton, having heard about the secret delivery of new printing presses. The violence escalated, shots were fired by the mob and in the return fire a member of the mob was killed. Ignoring requests by the mayor of Alton to disperse, the mob then began setting fire to the newspaper building. Lovejoy and his colleagues, still inside, stood their ground. Then when Lovejoy emerged from a doorway at one point, attempting to repel another arson attack, he was shot five times.

He died in the arms of his friend Thaddeus Hurlbut only a few moments later. Even as he lay dead the mob stormed the newspaper building and began demolishing the printing press around him.

Elijah Lovejoy was buried on his 35th birthday, November 8, 1837, in an unmarked grave in the Alton City Cemetery, the location known by an African American, William "Scotch" Johnston, who assisted in the burial. Members of the mob from the night before, feeling no shame for their actions, laughed and jeered as the funeral wagon moved slowly down the street toward Lovejoy's home.

Years later, through the generosity of Thomas Dimmock, Lovejoy's body was exhumed and reinterred at the present site. Dimmock purchased New England granite for the grave and had inscribed on the marble scroll over the tomb the Latin words which translate: "Here lies Lovejoy - Spare him now the grave"

Following Lovejoy's death membership of anti-slavery societies increased sharply in northern states. Yet in Illinois the silence from government officials was deafening, with one exception: a twenty-eight year old State Representative by the name of Abraham Lincoln spoke at an address before the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield Illinois a few weeks later, on January 27th 1838:

"The innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with the guilty, fall victims to the ravages of mob law… Let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own, and his children's liberty … There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law."(Abraham Lincoln, Address before the Young Men's Lyceum, Springfield Illinois, January 27 1838)

Through the tragedy of his death on November 7th 1837 Elijah Lovejoy came to be seen as the first martyr of the abolition movement. As a consequence, the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution of 1865 (banning slavery in the United States) was drafted in Alton.

So if you happen to live near Alton Illinois, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, not far outside of St Louis on the Illinois side, perhaps you could take some flowers to Aston’s city cemetery where Elijah Lovejoy is buried, and where a modest monument was erected in his memory by local citizens in the late 1890s, and lay them on his tomb (perhaps even today, the anniversary of his death, or tomorrow the anniversary of his birth) in silent recognition of his selfless contribution to a cause that on November 4th 2008 reached fruition in the election of the first African American President of the United States. Truly Elijah Lovejoy did not die in vain, nor the countless others, known and unknown, who gave their lives in pursuit of justice and freedom. America’s history is filled with darkness as much as light, but even in the years of greatest darkness individuals such as Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jnr. and Elijah Lovejoy have shown the true spirit of the nation.

More information on Elijah Lovejoy

An account of Lovejoy’s death by the Alton Observer

Information on Elijah Lovejoy from the Illinois State Historical Library

A blog that also mentions a visit to the Lovejoy grave

Lovejoy’s alma mater, Colby College, Waterville, Maine

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

2008-10-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Thomas Jefferson, draft of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, USA, June 1776

When Jefferson penned these words another man, over 3,000 miles away on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, was beginning his own pursuit of happiness and search for independence. Despite the all too brief and arduous existence that was the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, no composer has presented a happier persona to the world. As Johannes Brahms wrote of Mozart: "It is a real pleasure to see music so bright and spontaneous expressed with corresponding ease and grace."

Mozart's attitude to life was a reflection of the enlightenment spirit that was sweeping the world at that time. By stubbornly standing up to his employer Archbishop Colloredo, and then building up an enviable reputation as a freelance musician in Vienna, he showed tremendous self assurance, self confidence and self determination. Between the years 1776 and 1783, as the American colonies fought for and finally won their independence from Great Britain, Mozart at exactly the same time emerged from under the domination of his Salzburg employer Archbishop Colloredo and his father Leopold, and with the new found love shared between himself and his wife Constanze (they married on August 4th 1782) began an exciting and frenetic life in Vienna; in the space of less than ten years, from his marriage in 1782 to his untimely death in December 1791, Mozart wrote a breathtaking number of mature masterpieces that have now immortalised his name, including 6 operas, 19 concertos, 6 symphonies, a requiem, 15 quartets and quintets, 12 keyboard sonatas, plus a large selection of songs, choral works (including the Ave Verum Corpus), miscellaneous chamber works etc.. But while others extolled Mozart's unique gifts, Goethe writing: "Mozart is the human incarnation of the divine force of creation", Mozart himself remained determinedly and rebelliously down to earth: "I write as a sow piddles" he once wrote! His choice of subject for the opera The Marriage of Figaro should come as no surprise then, Lorenzo da Ponte's libretto being based on the 1784 play by Beaumarchais that was at first banned in Vienna because of its satire of the aristocracy.

In this new blog I'll occasionally be posting my own thoughts on the subject to which I am so devoted, that often elusive and seemingly contradictory pursuit of happiness in music and the arts. Meanwhile, as a curtain raiser listen to the excitement of Mozart's famous Overture to the Marriage of Figaro and tell me if this isn't a remarkable example of the pursuit of happiness: