Fact and Value in Contemporary Scholarship Author(s): Margaret Bent Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 127, No.

1716 (Feb., 1986), pp. 85-89 Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/964562 . Accessed: 12/06/2013 18:01
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Musical Times Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical Times.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

require alternative fingerings for certain notes. The alto is

the rarestmember of the family (I know of only three in Britain).It was the firstto deferto a valvedsubstitute,having lastedno more than ten years. Commentators of the period describedits tone as pitiful andits intonationas worse. The one used in the London Ophicleide Ensemble (made by Halari, the inventor)is a lovely instrument, in every way as agile and responsive as its brothers. It is unlikelythatquintetsof keyedbrasswereeverformed in the Victorianperiod. They came into being beforethere
was such a thing as formal band instrumentation. If a band-

he used to import from France. A number of American keyed bugle players became internationally known, travelling the Continent, attracting compositions and drawing vast audiences. In the USA the keyed bugle is enjoying a revival of interest with the enthusiasm for 19th-century martial music. For some years the natural trumpet, cornett and sackbut have been much performed and studied. Perhaps, with 19thcentury architecture, pre-Raphaelite painting and art nouveau decoration and furniture respectable once more, that period's popular music and the instruments that made it could also engender interest. TheLondonOphicleide and Ensemble, of twokeyedbugles consisting threeophicleides, will make its Londondebutat the PurcellRoom on 17 February,whentherewill also be an opportunity to compare thesoundof theseinstruments withsomeof their(alsoextinct)valved successors like the cornopean and balladhorn.

mastercould not find a bassoon, an ophicleide or a serpent would do. It has been suggested that the high tessituraof
early American bands and the prevalence of the E flat bugle

pointedto its assumptionof the E flat clarinet'srole. Nevertheless, greatthings were expected of the instrumentsand players.Jullien had a favouriteophicleide virtuoso whom

Fact

and

Value

in

Scholarship Contemporary
'well, if that'swhatGod is like, responded: I don't believe in him either'.3 The positivistic musicologistis largelyfictive, a straw man. Notions of scientific certainty have changed. Here is a view which has found rather wide acceptance, even among socalled positivists. I quote Karl Popper: Theempirical ofobjective science has basis it. Science 'absolute' about doesnot nothing reston rock-bottom. The boldstructure of itstheories asit were,above a swamp. rises, Itislikeabuilding erected onpiles. Thepiles down from intotheswamp, are driven above or'given' butnotdownto anynatural base; our ourattempts todrive andwhenwecease we it is notbecause pilesintoadeeper layer, havereached firmground. Wesimplystop when we are satisfied that they are firm thestructure, atleast forthe tocarry enough timebeing.4 As to the separategatheringand interfor pretingof material,it is often necessary some observation of data and certain apparentlyroutinetasksto precedeothers that more obviously engage the critical mind. But this is as true for criticism as it is for any other kind of scholarship. reference tools Indeed,sometranscriptions, and lists can be and are produced with relatively little critical intervention. We dependgreatlyon such workto locateour materials,to make our selections, to save time. But a referencetool will lend itself to more critical use when it doesn't pretend to be neutral,but ratheris shapedby

MargaretBent
'Musicology', writes Joseph Kerman, 'is withthe facas dealingessentially perceived tual, the documentary,the verifiable,the analysable,the positivistic. Musicologists arerespectedforthe factsthey knowabout music. They are not admired for their insight into music as aesthetic experience.'1 Kerman argues that we should raise the popular image of criticism; I would like to arguehere that we owe it to ourselves to foster a more generous view of musicology. It has become commonplace to label pejorativelyas 'positivist'certainkinds of pursuitsthatinvolvepatienceand scholarly hardwork. But what is or was positivism? As a late 19th-centuryphilosophy of history, it assertsan absoluteexternalreality, from which facts of objective, scientific statusaregathered empirically by an 'innocent eye'. It mandates a separation between this bedrock of certainty and the independent interpretation of the facts so gained. I have been labelled a positivist myself.2 I must admit I am tempted to takethe role of the priestwho askeda nonbeliever to describe the God he couldn't accept; after listening to the reply he
1 Musicology (London, 1985), 12 2 ibid, 116-20. Incidentally, Kerman has his facts wrong. Thurston Dart specificallyincludedcriticism in the postgraduate curricula he designedat Cambridge and London, and I am not the first woman president of the American Musicological Society.

3 I thank Mary Lewis for this story, as also, together with other friends and especially Ellen Rosand, for helpful reactionsto an earlier version of this paper. 4 Karl Discovery (New Popper:TheLogicof Scienztific York, 1959), 111; cited by ArthurMendel: 'Evidence International and Explanation', Society, Musicological viii: Newz York1961(Kassel, 1962), ii, 2-18. Despite Kerman some quiet qualifications, (115) alleges that Mendel 'assumedthe roleof spokesmanforpositivistic musicology'. I am not concernedhere with the causal aspects of positivism; Kerman's criticism seems to be directed not so much at those who do proceed to an interpretativestageafterapplyingthe two principaltenets,but ofediratherat certaintypesof work:'the preparation

tions and studies of a documentary,archivalsort still make up the dominant traditionin doctoraldissertations. These dissertationswith depressingfrequency determine the type of work musicologists engage in for the remainderof their careers'(115). It is not necessary,for present purposes, to review the parallels between'normal science'andclaimsabout the 'stodgy' character (Kerman, 59) of 'traditional musicology'.The interestedreadercan tracethem for himselfin the discussiongenerated by ThomasKuhn's TheStructure Revolutions of Scientific (Chicago, 1962) in Criticismand the Growthof Knowledge, ed. Imre Lakatos andAlanMusgrave(Cambridge,1970).In the latter volume (p.52), Popper writes: 'The "normal" scientist,as described by Kuhn, hasbeen badlytaught. He has been taught in a dogmaticspirit:he is a victim of indoctrination.He has learneda technique which can be applied without askingthe reasonwhy . . . all teaching should be training and encouragementin criticalthinking ... I believe, however, that Kuhn is mistakenwhen he suggests that what he calls "normal" science is normal'.

85

This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

an experienced,criticalscholaralertto the need for a guidinghandand to the inevitability of bias - preferablyinformed and consciousbias. Ludwig'sRepertorium is a classicillustration.The betterthe scholar, the soonerhis interaction with the material begins to shape it. Observation,selection and orderingof data go togetherwith the formation, testingandrefinementof hypotheses; the questions that arise, in turn, directthe searchfor furtherevidence, the search for a right course rather than the Evidence rightcourseforthatinvestigation. and interpretationare inseparable. Even in the most traditionalsense, facts change,as readily,andforsimilarreasons, as criticalcommonplaces change;we know more music, we have more evidence in hand.Factsarealive. Knowledgeis on the move, dynamic and growing. How much of it is considered objectivefact,hypothesis orvaluejudgment, We changesconstantly. can be sure that some facts will no longer be factsnext yearor next century.Indeed, I hope that some facts have changedsince yesterday; why else are we here, at a The 'fact'thatthe Caput meeting? scholarly mass ascribedto Dufay was by him has given way to a new consensus that it is, instead, an anonymous English work, a ticket that would never have earnedit the

acclaimthatit enjoyedwhile it wasthought to be by Dufay. Much thatwas built upon that certainty must now be reassessed, includingthe attributionof otherworksto Dufayon stylisticgrounds.Most suchfacts are hypotheses, based on data of more or less compellingqualityandquantity.Many of them are apparently so secure that change is almost inconceivable. But we know that some of them, like Caput,will be turned on their heads, and experience teachesus that we would be unwise to predict which of our current'hard'facts will go. We may disagree in individual cases aboutwhereto drawthe line between'relatively hardfacts and relativelydisputable But as IsaiahBerlin coninterpretations'. tinued: Wedodistinguish notindeed from the facts, valuations thatenter intotheir verytexture,
but frominterpretations of them;the borderline ... has, no doubt,alwaysbeenwide and vague; it may be a shifting frontier, more distinct in some terrainsthan in others;but unlesswe knowwhere,withincertainlimits, it lies, we fail to understand descriptive languagealtogether.5 The new chronology of the Bach cantatas

hasunseatedSpitta's.Someof Stravinsky's
claims about the genesis of his works have

been calledin question.New datesfor the initialdrafting andconceptionof manylate works by Mozart have upset our beloved Kochelnumbers.EinsteinjudgedKochel's
chronology to be insufficiently critical and

made substantialrevisions. But when he wrote, for example,that the first theme of Mozart'slast piano concerto, K595, completed in January1791, 'has the resigned
cheerfulness that comes from the know-

he could ledge thatthis is the last spring',6

not have forseen that Tyson would find

reasonto suggestthatthe essentialsof that

movement were already drafted in the summer of 1788, along with the three great symphonies.7 These are dramatic cases where new 'facts' with extensive biographical and critical consequences have superseded older facts that seemed secure enough in their own time. Triumphs of positivism? Surely not. They are simply good scholarship, drawing on all available relevant evidence. That the evidence includes documentation, handwriting and watermarks does not render this or any other investigaozart (London, 1945), 314 -15 'The Mozart Fragments', JAMS, 502- 5 6l

5 in Historical Inlevitability, reprintedin Patrick L. Gardiner:Theories of History:Readings from Classical andContemporary Sources (Glencoe,Ill., 1959),324 - 5

xxxiv (1981),

GERMAN

BAROQUE SONATAS
(Edited by Frans Vester)
the firstpart of a four-partanthology Comprising
entitled the True Art of Baroque Flute Playing, this volume contains sonatas by Telemann, Kleinknecht and Mtithel. The remaining three collections, at present in preparation, will be devoted respectively to the French, Italian and English Baroque.

Price: ?6.00

A catalogue of flute music edited by Frans Vester is available upon request. Fareham Street, London W1V 4DU Trade Dept: 38 Eldon Way, Paddock Wood, Tonbridge, Kent TN12 6BE

UIlLERS.LEDITIO Showroom: 2/3

86

This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

tion positivistic in approach;thus to confuse methodandsubstance wouldbe a most uncritical position. Nor are they better scholarship justbecausethey providespectacular results about well-known music; scholarship is not judged only by such criteria. It requires a little experience to discernthe qualityof interactionbetween thatmay evidence,selectionandjudgments lie behind an archivally-based article, an edition or a bibliographical catalogue. Scholarswho should know better may try to suspend their criticalfacultiesfor such 'menial'tasks. It is hardlysurprisingthat this attitude positively encourages bad scholarship. Relativist historians, such as E.H. Carr,8 pay lip-service to the 'duty of accuracy',of checkingfacts, while permitting the historianto rely for them on his 'auxiliary'sciences, archivalwork, bibliography, paleography.Facts so conceived become the lower level of a positivistic whoseupperlevelis criticalinterhierarchy pretation.The scholarswho providethese facts are usually readyto admit their slippery status - more so than are those who isomakeuse of them as mereappendages, that latedfromthe textureof the argument produced them. It is the anti-positivist historianswho disdain the fact-gathering process while trusting its results. This, placesthem in the position paradoxically, of subscribingto the twin tenets of posibeandseparation tivism:factualcertainty, tween evidence and interpretation.9A of this positionwould see a divicaricature sion of labourin which critics in Valhalla exercise interesting, living judgments of value upon dull, dead facts and artefacts haveprovided. thatNibelungmusicologists
8 What is History? (London, 1961), 10-11. Rose RosengardSubotnikpleadsfor a similarexemptionin in the 1980s, 'Musicology and Criticism', Musicology ed. D. Kern Holoman and Claude V. Palisca (New York, 1982), 154: 'What I do argue is that the kinds of hardworkdemandedby good criticismaredifferent from those requiredby empiricalresearch.What I do challengeis the inhumandemandthatthe criticmaster . . not only the skills ... of his own craft but also those of empiricist musicology ... in orderto assure his work a degree of certaintythat is neither relevant to criticism nor intellectually attainable'.In arguing here that the processes regardedby Carr, Kerman, Subotnik and others as separable from criticism, broadlydefined,are in fact centralto it and it to them, I uphold a musicology, broadlydefined, that is more widely practisedand more often realizedthan either Kerman or Subotnik admit. 9 Carr,p.30, surely does not go far enough in arguing that history 'is a continuousprocessof interaction between the historian and his facts'; he has already canonizedtheir separationas raw material,and therefore their status both as fixed and as independentof interpretation.

Is it not time that we confined the use of 'positivism' to its proper and specific meanings? Performers, analysts and editors can address the artworkdirectly without the mediationof verbalcommentary.Edward Conewritesthat'theperformance criticizes the composition',10 David Lewin that 'the only complete, faithful and properlypremances'.11 The art historian is not expected to paint, though some do. But becauseof the complex collaboration that makesmusic happen,most scholarlywork froma basisin skillsof note gainsauthority manipulation and performance. Music critics and analystswho dissociate themselves from the processby which musical scores are arrivedat may find themselves as vulnerable as the non-performing scholar.
If a performance 'criticizes' a work, so sented analyses of a piece are ... perfor-

it is in the original', 'to tell it as it was'. That does not deter us from trying to get as close as we can to the intentionsbehind ourwrittensources,evenknowingthatperfection is ultimatelyunattainable.Trying to be morefaithfulto the music thanto the can producean editionwhich manuscripts correspondsto no surviving manuscript, an appreciationof French Baroquemusic that may look unpromising on paper, or
a reconstruction of an orally transmitted repertory remote in time or place. We may talk about right and wrong editorial decisions, knowing that these are relative, that they reflect merely a consensus of stylistic knowledge achieved through the editor's own experience and that of his predecessors and contemporaries. We fully expect that those who come after will see it from a different perspective. An edition can embody, as descriptive prose cannot, the whole gamut of judgments ranging from authentic pieces to individual notes. I regard much of my own and my colleagues' best thinking as being of this kind, not necessarily embodied in prose, let alone in narrative history. For not all musicologists who deal with old music do so necessarily with the concerns and orientation of a historian. The new Josquin edition will be an act of cooperative criticism in all matters from authenticity of pieces and versions down to the presentation of details. It will be much more than a correction of the old edition, and will surely stimulate more debate than any conceivable piece of verbal criticism about Josquin. Editors share with analysts a hands-on concern for every note. Good musical editing demands a higher level of integration of data and judgment than almost anything else we do. But if it is not neutral or objective, neither is it unilaterally subjective. The deconstructionist critic Stanley Fish expresses the extreme subjective position thus: 'Rather than restoring or recovering texts I am in the business of making texts and of teaching others to make them'. Fortunately, this has not found much resonance as a model for scholarly musical criticism. Let us have reconstruction, not deconstruction. As Helen Gardner put it:12 The subjectivism andrelativism thataccepts any and every readingof a text as equally to be the personal valid,anddeclares reading importationof meaninginto texts, removes fromallkindsof intellectual criticism enquiry . . . The reader,occupied in 'makingtexts'
12 quoted by Helen Gardner: In Defence of the Imagination(Cambridge,Mass., 1982), 3; her own response is taken from pp'.20, 25

does an edition. Making a good edition is

essentially an act of criticism that engages centrally with the musical material at all

levels, large and small. It underlies and powerfully shapes performance, study, analysis and verbal criticism. These and othercriticalactivitiesin turnfeed into the criticalprocessthatshouldproducethe edition. Given the special nature of musical material,musical criticism does not need to be literaryin orderto be humane. But in his capacityas a teacherand communicator, the critic must use words, and as scholars we all teach and communicate. While some level of music criticismis possiblewithoutsourcecriticism,sourcecriticism can only be done well when it embodies music criticism. It may not show. It may not be spelt out verbally. But the term 'critical edition' should be taken seriously;it must not be assumedto mean
'uncritical edition'.

I have chosen to emphasizeediting and textual criticism here partlybecausethey are among the most frequentlymaligned of musicologists. activities To denythe proper role of criticismin their common process is to disarm criticism of some of its most powerful potential. Surely no-one seriously involved with editing music of any period reallybelieves any longer that
the result can be objective or neutral, or that it is possible to present anything 'as

10 'The Authorityof Music Criticism',JAMS, xxxiv (1981), 7, and passim;he also gives the complementary criticizesthe performance'. 'the composition aphorism:
11 'Behind the Beyond', Perspectives of New Music, vii

(1969), 63 n.4

87

This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

rather than reading them has mislaid . . . intellectualcuriosity, the desire to enlarge his being by learningaboutsomethingother than himself.

This does not deny the inevitable and indeed desirableimaginativepresence of in his work. Imagination the scholar-critic but imaginais crucialto goodscholarship, mustalwaysactas mutual tion andlearning controls on each other; learning is a dynamicand shifting consensus of knowledge that includes aesthetic and musical experienceas well as datain the traditional anddebate sense.Continuing collaboration are a scholar's most effective safeguards Criticism will advance against idiosyncrasy. as scholarshipby strengtheningits input to all musical scholarship,analytical,historical, editorial and so on. Musically informedtextualcriticismis a foundation built upon it - the thatgovernseverything piles in the swamp. Fact andvalue, evidenceandinterpretation are inseparable. It follows that the of aninvestigation doesnot predeternature mineits quality.High-andlow-levelteaching and study are as possible in aesthetics as they are in notation, in medieval as in 19th-centurystudies. Both Dahlhausand Kermanhave slanted their metacriticism towards post-medieval art music in the

West, and it has been suggestedthat early musiclendsitselfless well thanlaterrepertories to certainkinds of critical confrontation. But even within the Westerntradition, the older repertoriesare precisely those where we have most to learn, and wherecriticalengagement,both for establishingmusicaltextsandfortheiraesthetic andcontextual aremosturgent. evaluation, How much moreshouldthose of us whose is predominantly in Westernart experience music be humbled by the equivalent challengeof worldwide,popularand very old musics?We have much to learn from ethnomusicologywhen we face music we think of as 'ours', despite distanceof time and culture. A criticalprogramme oughtto be capable of extensionfrommoreto less familiarterritory if it is to have power to tell us anything new about repertories nearer home. To workonly with certifiedmasterpieces may dull the range of our critical questioning.Mime wastedhis opportunity to questionthe Wanderer becausehe knew the answersalready;in turn he got caught by being unable to answer the one question thathe shouldhaveasked.Or, as a colleague put it:13 'when did you learn
13 ProfessorJ. Marion Levy, Princeton University

anything from someone who agreedwith underlyyou?'.The aestheticassumptions ing our predeterminedcanon of mastercerpiecesderivefromthe sameclear-eyed tainty that producedpositivism;we keep the masterpieces while rejecting, on various grounds,the ideologythatso definedthem. While much teaching necessarilycentres on this canon, we should not allow our researchto be moulded by what we feel appropriateto the classroom.The canon hasgrownto includeolderandnewermusic than it did 20 years ago, but it will grow furtheronly if we continue to encourage ventures into the unknown and the less known, venturesundertakenwithout certainty of what we will find, and without within thatthey will be rewarded certainty our existingrangeof aestheticexperience. It is not only the concept and canon of but the rangeof our aesthetic masterpieces capacity that we should seek to stretch beyond what we and our students already knowandlike. The messagewasembodied in an old Guinness advertisement: 'I haven't tried it because I don't like it'. We should of course keep our eyes on the broader the questionswhile we address narrowones, andattendto the patentneed for better communicationabout what we do, evento peersforwhomwe hadassumed

r~7~

~I~ET

rI 'IV-,q-

--'I

si

i;

Erik

Bergman

andinteresting ofthemostimportant "One alive composers today... inventive, POST &compelling"WASHINGTON imaginative in1911. atSibelius Born inFinland Studied Professor of helater became Academy (where Berlin & Heinz &with Tiessen, Composition) Ascona. Wladimir Vogel, Early reputation ofremarkable choral works. based ona series & His ona highly personal styleis based to certain ofserial colourful aspects response ofhis &hismusic evidence displays technique inunusual musical interest extensive travels, of instruments &hisstudy oftheroots music. European include Other important compositions &instrumental works. vocal orchestral, chamber,
l

To mark our association with this and senior important figure ofScandinavian we music, shall bemaking available many ofhis scores. most significant PUBLICATIONS INPREPARATION
Borealis 2 pianos &perc.

19mins Duration:

score Performing Violin Concerto score Study

violin & orch. Duration: 21mins

inthe Works Fazer and Pan distributed catalogues inthe UK and selected territories only.
..: :' l{i :S~i i

4DN 8 Lower James Novello Promotion St,London, W1R Department, Enquiries: Tel: 01-734 8080Ext203612619
w

88

This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

There is plenty apologiato be unnecessary. of room for improvement.Much editing, for example, is less critical than it ought to be. Many so-calledcriticaleditions are indeed neithervery criticalnor very interesting. But are they worse than bad prose criticismexcept in being moredangerous? For seriousmusic-criticalerrorsare made on the basis of insufficiently critical editions. Our collectivecriticalresponsibility includes the whole spectrum of critical judgments. Nothing will improve if we encouragea climate of thought in which textualcriticismis seen as a jobfor secondratetalents.t4Certainlywe also need more first-ratecritical writing about music, as well as continuingexplorationof music in its cultural and intellectual context. But

1 JeromeJ. McGann: A Critiqueof ModernTextual

Criticism (Chicago, 1983), writes (2): 'At certain times ... the traditional introductory guides will . . . seem . . . problematic, and the field will suddenly erupt with new vigor and activity. This is knowledge fighting for its life; . . . scholars are . . . busy exploring the fault lines of what they already know and experimenting with new models and ideas ... This is partly why the field is so interesting at the moment, and why it is being worked by so many interesting minds ... [with so much] innovative and exploratory worx . .. Textual criticism is in the process ofreconceiving its discipline'. Statements such as this from disciplines outside music should help to counter the notion that musicology can be rescued from its backward status only by emulating the kind of criticism that is, in effect, performed as autopsy on uncritical editions.

these are only partial, if important, responses to the goal of all musical scholarship - to increase and to integrate our of music on as manyfronts understanding as possible. Let us not thin the definition of musicology to what happens to be left of musicalscholarshipaftervariouslimbs have been amputated. One of the saddestriftscurrentlyimpedand is thatbetweentheorists ing integration so-called 'historical' Howard musicologists. Mayer Brown has deplored the present in a trainingthatwas once comseparation mon to theorist-composers andto musicologists; Leo Treitler has called for integration along many lines, above all for the andcollaboration of history confrontation andtheory;Edward Lowinskymadean eloquent case for integration20 years ago,5 andI findmyselfechoingthatmessage.Let us all listen harderto each other, without territorial prejudice, individually and through our societies, as colleagues and teachers.Let us consolidateour common groundwithoutforfeitingthe rigourof our various specialities. Who wants interdisciplinary contact based on diluted us to disciplines?Ourteachingencourages andrelevance, to comdemonstrate breadth municate at many levels. But while of
15 'Character and Purposes of American Musicology: a Reply to Joseph Kerman', JAMS, xviii (1965), 222-34

course welcoming the extent to which teaching and research are mutually enriching,we shouldnot confusethe needs of teachingwith our specificallyscholarly mission. Scholarshipmay be weakenedif we discouragefromdifficultor unpopular into the unknownthe young undertakings researchers who most need the respectand faithof thecolleagues uponwhomtheirsurvival depends. If projects described as narrowratherthanapprovpejoratively ingly as deeparesqueezedout, foundations will be dug too shallow. As I have said elsewhere,. the community of serious musical scholarship is under sufficient pressure from other musicians who are suspicious of scholarshipand from other scholarswho aresuspiciousof music, that we cannot afford to exacerbate mutual disrespect, either between our various societiesor within any one of them. By all meanslet us encouragehealthydiscussion in the interests of improvandself-criticism ing what we do, but not in such a way that we erodethe fragileecology of confidence in ourvariedand often lonely endeavours, lest we destroythe environmentin which fruitful musical scholarshipcan grow.
Thlisarticle is based on Margaret Bent's address, as presidentof the American MusicologicalSociety, to the plenary session at Vancouver last November of the AMS, the CollegeMusic Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Music Theory.

Erik

Bergman:

Words

and

Music
the fun we both had one summerpicking small ads from a randomcollection in the newspapers that eventually became
Annonssidan/Small Ads, for male chorus

Solveig von Schoultz

The Finnish composer Erik Bergman, who is 75 later this year, visits England this month; his wife, a poet, writes about her work with him (translator: Jeremy Parsons).

It is naturalthat a composerand a writer who sharetheirlives shouldexchangeideas on texts for vocal works and should also sometimescollaborate.My husband,Erik Bergman,while busy on one composition, askedme to lookforsomehas occasionally thing suitableon the subjecthe hasin mind forhis next;he hasthussavedprecioustime and been able to concentrateon the work in hand. I havebrowsedthroughbookson my own shelves and others', hunted in libraries,and come up with suggestions. When my finds have been to his taste, as moreoften thannot they havebeen, he has

selected and combined the materialas it suited him. An interesting job - and, in its way, creative. Often it has been a matter of exploringtwo lines of investigationwhich different sidesof his personality. illuminate his humour,one needonlythink As regards of his spiritual affinity with Christian Morgenstern,his friendover manyyears. Their subtle humour perhapsshows best
in the suite Vier Galgenlieder for speaking

chorus, but it was 'Fisches Nachtgesang' from Bim Bam Bum that presenteda real challengeto his powersof invention,with its text of mute typography.Around the onomatopoeicsounds of the male chorus and tenor soloist its watery atmosphere bubbles up from the seashell, flute, jews harpand preparedpiano. I also remember

with hilarioussolo contributions.Thanks to his work as choralconductor,Erik has had at his disposal a laboratorywhere he has been able to try out his ideas, burlesque and otherwise. The second, more important line of investigationrunsin a differentdirection. Although it has surely alwaysbeen there, his inclination towards the meditative, towards existential questions and the silence surrounding them, has come increasingly to the fore. He has.sought sustenancefor these needs in the cultures beyond ancient Greece. The first, I suppose, was the RubaiyatdfOmarKhayyam 89

This content downloaded from 146.155.94.33 on Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:01:02 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions