Arrangements and Outrages: Lieder in the Jazz Age

This study day, led by Laura Tunbridge, gives a fascinating insight into the presentation, performance and reception of song in 1920s New York, London and Germany.

Song culture in the 1920s was very different from today. There was a much freer approach to performance, with pianists improvising interludes between songs in recitals, and concert programmes that mixed Lieder with opera arias, folksongs, instrumental sonatas, and more. Audiences were more overt in their approval or disapproval of concerts, with singers greeted with protests or ovations accordingly. This study day explores the ways in which composers and performers approached Lieder in London, New York, and Germany: from the experimental to the conservative, the celebrity concert to the dedicated Liederabend. Against the backdrop of the Jazz Age, Lieder performances were being transformed into what we can recognise as our own attitudes.
 

11.00am   Laura Tunbridge (University of Oxford) – welcome and introductory talk ‘Transatlantic connections’

The circulation of musicians between Europe and America was vital in shaping interwar attitudes to Lieder, in terms of both performance and composition. There was some mixing of genres, with singers such as Canadian Eva Gauthier notoriously programming Schubert alongside George Gershwin, while German mezzo Elena Gerhardt advocated dedicated Lieder recitals. A Viennese composer like Alexander von Zemlinsky might pay homage to jazz while the ‘British Musical Renaissance’ looked back to previous centuries. The transatlantic circulation of ideas about how art-song could and should reflect its times opened up debates about national identities and international politics.

11:45am    Carson Becke (University of Oxford)  Pre-concert talk - 'In the free manner': Strauss as a lied accompanist

12:15pm    Lunch break

1pm           Concert: 'Strauss in America, 1921: A Touring Recital Programme'

2pm           Coffee break (tea and coffee will be available to purchase in the foyer)

2:30pm      Alexandra Wilson (Oxford Brookes) ‘Singers in 1920s Britain’

Professor Alexandra Wilson looks at the singers who performed in 1920s Britain, the repertoire that they sang, and the institutions and contexts in which they performed both in London and further afield. She will consider a tension between respected jobbing singers and star singers who attracted critical opprobrium for their crowd-pleasing "celebrity concerts", in which Lieder jostled alongside operatic arias and popular songs.

3pm          Nicholas Attfield (University of Birmingham) ‘Pfitzner’s Song Cycles’

This talk examines Hans Pfitzner’s relationship with the Romantic song cycle: in his performances as (improvising) accompanist for Schumann’s famous cycles, his creation of a cycle from a selection of Schumann’s choruses, and his composition of the cycle Alte Weisen (Op. 33, 1923; after Gottfried Keller). There will be live musical examples by Lavinia Dames and Carson Becke.

3:45pm     General discussion

PLEASE NOTE: The price of this ticket includes entry to the lunchtime concert (Strauss in America, 1921: A Touring Recital Programme). Please contact the Box Office for any questions.