Migrations of the Lied, 1918-1939

This project grows out of research for my book The Song Cycle, an introduction to the history of the genre through the 19th and 20th centuries. In the course of working on that project I have become intrigued by a tension between the generally accepted historical narrative of Lieder performance in the 19th century, which traces a move from what are usually described as private to public spheres, and the more complex story told by archival accounts of where, which and how Lieder were performed. Instead of a steady migration from domestic, often amateur, music-making to professional performance on the public stage, there continued to be a great deal of crossover, and for a much longer period than is usually stated. While we are usually told that Lieder recitals were fully established in concert life by 1900, they hardly disappeared from other kinds of performances, indeed did not do so until well into the 20th century.

The fact that historical documents throw up a messier version of events will surprise nobody. Where the significance of this project lies is in using the crosscurrents in Lieder performance as a vehicle through which to reassess and nuance our understanding of the relationships between musical culture and society. My focus is on a crucial, although often overlooked, time in the history of the genre: 1918-1939. By this time, the glory days of Lieder composition-of Schubert, Schumann and Wolf-were long past. However, this project proposes to show that in many ways the 1920s and 1930s fixed the dominant approach towards Lieder performance today.

Two developments were key. First, the interwar period saw an increasing number of Austro-German singers touring, and sometimes settling, elsewhere in Europe and in the United States. They brought with them an interpretive tradition that had its roots in the 19th century, helping not only to disseminate but also to preserve, through concerts and teaching, a particular repertoire and style performance. My project will investigate such singers' influence in two centres to which they were often drawn: London and New York. The allure of these cities was partly the vitality and cosmopolitanism of their concert lives. However, for some the assumption of power by the Nazi party in 1933 was also significant. This project will thus offer further insight into the ways in which musicians and the business of music making (concert management, publishing, and criticism, etc.,) were affected by world events. It will also contribute towards our knowledge of concert life in London and New York during the period, as it will be necessary to investigate the constitution of audiences, the venues that were used, and the similarities and differences between the ways in which they responded to particular performers and repertoires.

The second particularly significant development for Lieder performance between 1918 and 1939 was the spread of sound recording and film. This project will take particular interest in the influence of operatic and theatrical styles of delivery on performance practice. Its original aspect is that it will also investigate broader contexts to do with the impact of recording technologies, taking into account changes in the size and breadth of live concert audiences and the influence recording had on the status of amateur performance. Ultimately this project will offer new insight into the ways in which listening, as well as performing, habits were altered by the developments of the 1920s and 30s, enabling us to trace, understand and critique the genealogy of current interpretative practices.

Beyond academic circles, this research will be of benefit to concert venues such as the Wigmore Hall, London, with an interest in their history, and in making use of their archives. Working with such institutions can reach a broader public: namely concert audiences who may be intrigued to find out more about what was being listened to, who performed it, and how it was presented almost a century ago.

The research will also be of use to performers with an interest in historically-informed practice. Although there is some interest among singers about how Lieder were performed in Schubert's day or immediately after, late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century practices are less familiar. As this project will show, however, they have been very influential.

I also plan to build on this research in my teaching and through outreach projects in schools, using my experience of the Adapting Byron project (2008). For that, Level 3 undergraduates were required to set Byron texts as part of their composition module following lectures from English and Music staff. Those new songs were both part of the assessment for the course and performed by the students in a public concert integrated into an international conference I had organised on cross-disciplinary interpretations of Byron. My intention is to devise similar collaborative projects around song history, performance, and composition, thereby bridging disciplines and combining staff research and student projects. These in turn are the kind of creative activities that the department has begun to take into schools in the Greater Manchester area.

Apart from the monograph and the various conference papers this project will produce, I have some experience presenting pre-concert talks (for the Wigmore Hall, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra), writing programme notes (for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Delaware Valley Symphony Orchestra), and working as a consultant on BBC documentaries as well as for orchestras (Seattle and Scottish Symphony Orchestras). Those contacts, and that kind of dissemination of my findings, will be a crucial part of the project, not least because it is an inherently multi-disciplinary and wide-ranging venture, which will benefit from the input of people from many fields and from different backgrounds.