On 26 September 1835 (note today’s date), Donizetti’s tragic masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor premiered at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy. 

Much of this opera’s enduring popularity rests on the climax of its third act, the so-called “Mad Scene,” in which the heroine Lucia, who has been coerced into an arranged marriage, kills her new husband on their wedding night, and reenters the accompanying celebratory festivities disoriented, and covered in blood.

Singing the title role in the work’s premiere was Italian soprano Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani (1812-1867).

Strenna Teatrale Europea, Vol. 3 No. 1 (1840): [1p] 81/82. 

Tacchinardi Persiani received much attention in the musical press for her creation of the role of Lucia. Tracking the reception of her performances in the work’s premiere in Venice at the Teatro Apollo, in Paris at the Théâtre-Italien, and in London’s Her Majesty’s Theater, reveals some interesting inconsistencies and difficulties she confronted in some performances.

In fact, as reported in an extensive review of the 1837 Venice premiere, the soprano apparently encountered stress-related struggles, or possibly stage-fright, that led to the critic to describe her performance as nerve-wracking.

Another understandable insult to fortune was the presence in Tachinardi’s spirit of an uncontrollable nervousness…[This was] produced by her concern about the great task of meriting the reputation that she, in her modesty, has depicted as exaggerated.

Censore Universale dei teatri, Vol. 9 No. 2 (7 January 1837): 7. 

Also in the Venice premiere review, one reads that Tacchinardi Persiani’s Mad Scene “did not rise to the level of her reputation” (non si alzò al livello della sua rinomanza nell’aria), but, as the reviewer continues with comments concerning subsequent performances, the singer appears to have improved dramatically.

…that aria which she had [previously] performed ineffectively, [now] struck the audience with such surprise that they were constrained to applaud the cabaletta most enthusiastically, and [gave] its repetition a most resounding reception, and then demanded that she take a curtain call. To such an extent has she risen in the public’s esteem.

Ibid., 8. 

There are of course no recordings of Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani’s performance, but the longstanding popularity of Lucia di Lammermoor has obviously led to numerous recordings of prominent sopranos past and present taking on the role.  How about listening to forty-nine of them singing the high Eb (its only thirty-six minutes long…) in the famous aria from the Mad Scene, “Spargi D’amaro Pianto”? Which do you prefer?

If one were to judge Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani from reviews of her first Venetian and Parisian performances, one would gain a less than a favorable impression.  However, reading accounts of subsequent performances clearly alter an appreciation of her talents.

The moral of the story: do not necessarily limit your perception of a singer’s talents to reviews of premieres.  Where can you find others? In RIPM, of course! 

 

RIPM search tip: For more on Lucia di Lammermoor, access RIPM’s Combined Interface and keyword search “Lucia di Lammermoor.”

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RIPM is an international non-profit organization preserving and providing access to music periodicals published in more than twenty countries between approximately 1760 and 1966, from Bach to Bernstein.  Functioning under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres, RIPM produces four electronic publications: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, RIPM European and North American Music Periodicals (Preservation Series), and RIPM Jazz Periodicals (Preservation Series, forthcoming).

American jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane was one of the most influential artists in jazz history. Coltrane’s music flowed from mainstream accessibility to the avant-garde, as heard in his more than fifty recordings as a leader, and as a sideman for, among others, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.

Metronome, Vol. 78 No. 12 (December 1961): 34. 

Over the course of his career, Coltrane’s music expressed a heightened spiritual dimension. Recorded in 1965 and released in 1966, the album Ascension represents a remarkable example of this spirituality, signaling a departure from more structured forms into an expanded, free jazz setting. The album is a continuous 40-minute uninterrupted performance with solo and ensemble passages.  Ascension‘s eleven-piece ensemble was anchored by members of Coltrane’s “Classic Quartet”—McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums)—alongside a roster of then mostly young, up-and-coming horn players, including Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp (tenor saxophone).

In order to better capture the difference in Coltrane’s styles, compare this example, Blue Train, released in 1958, with Ascension, further below, recorded about seven years later.

Gripped by Ascension‘s artistry and spirituality, three writers attempted, in their own way, to encapsulate in words what Coltrane and his colleagues captured with sound. Their writings appeared in the avant-garde jazz journal Change, a product of the Detroit Artists’ Workshop.

Listen to Ascension as you read selected portions of these reviews.

Currently Professor at the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Ron Welburn was an active jazz critic (and poet) during the 1960s and 70s. He reviewed jazz recordings for JazzTimes and Down Beat, as well as founded his own jazz journal, The Grackle: Improvised Music in Transition, published in Brooklyn, New York from 1976 to 1979.  He also coordinated the Jazz Oral History Project at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University.

Change, Vol. 1 No. 2 (1966): 92.

Dave Sinclair is perhaps best known as the brother of John Sinclair, leader of the 1960s counterculture movement in Michigan, and an organizer of radical social and political ventures in the areas of music, poetry, graphic design, and community welfare projects. During the 1960s and 1970s John Sinclair founded or was active in a variety of political and cultural groups including the Artists’ Workshop in Detroit, which founded Change, and the White Panther Party. Dave Sinclair was also the manager of The UP, a proto-punk rock band founded in 1967 which, for a time, lived in John Sinclair’s commune.

Ibid., 93. 

Jerry (J. B.) Figi was a Chicago-based writer, poet, and jazz critic. In an obituary published in 1999, John Litweiler wrote, “He was not a prolific writer, but he certainly was an influential one. His work first began appearing in small magazines in the early 1960s. He also wrote for John and Leni Sinclair’s short-lived Change, which was devoted to the new jazz of the mid-’60s.” Figi would later serve as one of the directors for the Jazz Institute of Chicago, working on, amongst other things, the Chicago Jazz Festival.

Ibid., 94. 

John Coltrane was born on 23 September 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. He died on 17 July 1967 in Huntington, New York.

 

Happy Birthday, Mr. Coltrane, and thank you! 

 

RIPM search tip: Be on the lookout for more posts dealing with jazz, with subjects drawn from the forthcoming RIPM Jazz Periodicals collection; stay tuned!

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***

RIPM is an international non-profit organization preserving and providing access to music periodicals published in more than twenty countries between approximately 1760 and 1966, from Bach to Bernstein. Functioning under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres, RIPM produces four electronic publications: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, European and North American Music Periodicals (Preservation Series), and RIPM Jazz Periodicals (Preservation Series, forthcoming).

WWW.RIPM.ORG

In the post “Want to become a better pianist? Grow your hands!” RIPM’s Curios, News, and Chronicles explored the perception in the musical press that small-handed people, under the supervision of “hand specialists,” could increase their hand size and, thereby, increase their potential for becoming a piano virtuoso, or at least improve their piano technique.

A “hand specialist” advertisement claiming to increase the size of one’s hands
Musical America, Vol. 16 No. 23 (12 October 1912): 99.

But, as this above advertisement suggests, having small hands was just one of many perceived obstacles preventing pianists from reaching the heights of true mastery.  A lack of finger elasticity and strength was also seen as an impediment.  To address these issues, several contraptions specifically designed for pianists were invented during the nineteenth century.  Today, these now antiquated devices are likely to strike fear into the hearts of many pianists.

Pianist and composer Henri Herz (1803-1888), a professor at the Paris Conservatoire for more than thirty years and himself a virtuoso, invented a device called the dactylion.

A bilingual advertisement for Herz’s dactylion
Cäcilia, Vol. XVIII, Supplementary pages ([1836]): [35].

Once the dactylion was affixed to the keyboard, the pianist placed each finger inside one of the corresponding ten rings.  These rings were attached to adjustable springs that permitted the student to regulate the amount of pressure required to strike the piano keys. This, in theory, would strengthen a pianist’s fingers, and presumably, gradually permit one to obtain a technique more akin to Herz.

Ibid.

German by birth and French by domicile, pianist, composer, teacher, and piano manufacturer Friedrich Wilhelm Michael Kalkbrenner invented a piano contraption called the guide-mains, or “handguards.” The device was essentially a long bar of wood attached several inches from the keyboard, coupled with an extension that allowed the keyboard cover to rest a few inches above the hands. This kept student wrists even, eliminated excessive vertical motion, and forced reliance on the strength of the fingers instead of the arms.

Musica, Vol. 9 No. 89 (February 1910): 30.

Once the teacher trusted that the student minimized any excessive motion, the keyboard cover could simply be lifted off of the guide-mains, as seen below, and easily returned as needed.

Ibid. 

Featured in an 1846 issue of the French newsweekly L’Illustration was another such device.  Its name, l’appareil destiné à faciliter l’étude du piano, or “the device intended to facilitate the study of the piano,” sounds reasonable enough, except for the fact that it resembles a medieval device designed for the removal of fingers. The machine was developed by an apparent scientist named “M. F. d’Urclé” and endorsed by the celebrated piano virtuoso Sigismond Thalberg. The hand was first secured by a vice-grip.  Next, an individual finger was isolated, and then, to improve its dexterity, gradually stretched further and further backwards.

L’Illustration, Vol. VII (11 July 1846): 304.

Invented in 1897 and pictured in the pages of the Gazzetta musicale di Milano was a finger device called the metròmano-piano, a “very effective instrument to develop the articulation, the independence of the fingers and to increase their force, ensuring together a correct position of the hand.” [third paragraph] How the contraption functions is not explained.

Gazzetta musicale di Milano, Vol. LII No. 12 (23 March 1897): 176. 

 

Lastly, French piano manufacturer Casimir Martin invented a series of little devices which were collectively dubbed, the chirogymnaste.

La France musicale, Vol. 6 No. 5 (29 January 1843): 40. 

These devices were designed so that in principle “the joints of the hand may be gradually relaxed, with each finger obtaining free play both perpendicularly and horizontally.”[1]

The Magazine of Science and School of Arts, Vol. VI (1845): 177. 

A number of advertisements for the chirogymnaste, including the one above published in La France musicale, can be found in the RIPM databases.  Some, like those featured in the London music journal, The Musical World, boast a more than impressive list of apparent supporters, and along with it, some apparent hyperbole.

The Musical World, Vol. XX No. 1 (2 January 1845): 8.

 

RIPM search tip: For more information about the dactylion, guide-mains, and chirogymnaste, keyword search those terms in the RIPM databases. To access the related previous post, find the “Archives” on the right side of RIPM’s Curios, News, and Chronicles page, and click on “October 2017.” Note as well that all previous posts are available here.

Click here to subscribe to RIPM’s Curios, News, and Chronicles! 

When is our next posting? To find out, follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

***

RIPM is an international non-profit organization preserving and providing access to music periodicals published in more than twenty countries between approximately 1760 and 1966, from Bach to Bernstein.  Functioning under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres, RIPM produces four electronic publications: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, RIPM European and North American Music Periodicals (Preservation Series), and RIPM Jazz Periodicals (Preservation Series, forthcoming).

WWW.RIPM.ORG

[1] The Musical Examiner, No. 81 (18 May 1844): 583.

Our scene opens with the PROFESSOR beginning one of his tri-weekly music history lectures.  It is early September, and morale is high.  The STUDENTS, miraculously, are all on time.

PROFESSOR leans casually alongside the right of his podium.

PROFESSOR
“Class, this week marks the 227^th anniversary of the birth of
Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most celebrated and
important composers of opera in the nineteenth century.”

The majority of the students immediately raise their hands, all to ask the same question. PROFESSOR motions to one of the students.

PROFESSOR
“Yes?”

STUDENT ONE
“Professor, who is Giacomo Meyerbeer”

PROFESSOR, freezes, his face expressing incredulity.

PROFESSOR
“What?!”

STUDENT ONE
“Huh?”

PROFESSOR regains his composure, and asks…

PROFESSOR
“Who here has heard of the name Giacomo Meyerbeer?”

The hall is silent. This time, no hands are raised. PROFESSOR, with a coy half-grin, senses a singular opportunity for a pedagogical moment of hallmark importance. 

PROFESSOR
“Well, instead of telling you about him,
why don’t I show you using RIPM.”

STUDENTS look confused.

STUDENTS
(together)
“RIPM? What’s RIPM?”

PROFESSOR smiles as he presses “start” on his computer and projector.

PROFESSOR
“RIPM provides access online to rare, primary
source music periodicals and a view of musical life
as seen by those who lived it for more than 200 years,
from Bach to Bernstein. As written in RIPM’s promotional
materials, its databases offer access to over 300 music
journals and more than 1,100,000 full-text pages. Just
imagine the immense possibilities for original research.”

STUDENTS are wide-eyed and extremely impressed.  One calls out.

STUDENT TWO
“So, how does this RIPM thing work, and
what’s Meyerbeer have to do with it?”

PROFESSOR smiles, opens for display RIPM’s databases, and enters Meyerbeer in the keyword search field.

PROFESSOR
“Expect to be overwhelmed with the results. For, as you can see,
there are 9,763 annotated records in RIPM with Full Text, and,
over 24,426 references to the composer in the RIPM European and
North American Music Periodicals. In fact, Meyerbeer was so popular
that his opera Les Huguenots (1836) was the first opera ever to
be performed at the Paris Opéra more than 1,000 times.”

STUDENTS
(collectively)
“Good grief! What are we suppose to do with all of this!”

PROFESSOR
“The magic phrase here is: B O O L E A N operators!
Be prepared to define it in your next exam. With boolean,
you can easily refine your search results. Now, let’s take an
example, and look for illustrations of the composer.”

“First, we’ll access RIPM with Full Text.
Then, select Advanced Search.
In the Keyword(s) Field, enter “Meyerbeer.”
In the Type field, select “Illustration.”

PROFESSOR clicks “Search” and glances up at the lecture hall.

PROFESSOR
“As you see, in RIPM with Full Text alone,
there are 28 illustrations of Meyerbeer.”

STUDENT THREE
(calling out)
“You mean, RIPM does all this work for us?”

PROFESSOR smiles and nods knowingly.

STUDENT THREE high-fives student next to him.  PROFESSOR notes that two students, previously dozing off, suddenly wake up.

STUDENT FOUR
“You mean, I could search for “Meyerbeer
and Verdi, or Meyerbeer and Wagner?”

PROFESSOR
“Yes; your searches are only limited by your imagination.”

“Now, returning to our initial Meyerbeer illustrations search,
let’s click on the first record, which brings up a lovely lithograph
of Meyerbeer published in 1825 in The Harmonicon.” 

 

The Harmonicon, Vol. 3 No. 31 (July 1825): [1p] 118/119. 

*          *          *

STUDENTS
(together, stunned)
“Oooooooooo!”

PROFESSOR
“Clicking on the next citation reveals another lithograph, this one
published in 1836 in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, one of the
most influential German music journal of the early nineteenth century.”

Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung,Vol. 37 supplementary page(s) (January 1836): [1] 872/1.

*          *          *

STUDENTS
(together, with surprise)
“Wow!”

PROFESSOR
“The next illustration is from a French journal, Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris.”

La Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, Vol. 5 No. 44 (4 November 1838): [1p] 448/449.

*          *          *

STUDENTS become increasingly curious, which you can see in their faces.

PROFESSOR
“So we’ve already seen an illustration from an
English, German, and French journal. Now here’s
one from an Italian journal, Strenna Teatrale Europea.”

Strenna Teatrale Europea, Vol. 3 No. 2 (1840): [1p] 35/36. 

*          *          *

STUDENTS are almost speechless.

PROFESSOR
“As you review your search results, you will
find that the 28 illustrations span Meyerbeer’s
entire career.  This illustration published in the Revue musicale
for example, depicts Meyerbeer in his later years.”

La Revue musicale, Vol. 4 No. 2 (15 January 1904): 61. 

*          *          *

PROFESSOR
“Now that we’ve indelibly imprinted in your
memory the maestro’s physiognomy, let’s
look at a few images related to his operas.”

STUDENTS, now properly adjusted to RIPM’s seemingly endless amount of rich primary source materials, look on with wonderment.

PROFESSOR
“Meyerbeer’s operas were extremely popular and
much appreciated for their staging and scenery”

STUDENT ONE
(calling out)
“Well, that’s interesting, but what did
these lavish productions look like?”

PROFESSOR continues.

PROFESSOR
“Fortunately, some of the 3,350 engravings dealing with music that
appeared in L’Illustration, France’s first illustrated newsweekly, offer
a glimpse into the opulent productions of Meyerbeer’s grand operas
during the height of their popularity in Paris.  For example, here’s
an engraving depicting the Coronation Scene in the Münster Cathedral
from Act IV of the premiere of Le Prophète (1849).”

L’Illustration, Vol. XIII (28 April 1849): 131.

*          *          *

PROFESSOR
“When viewing this illustration and listening
simultaneously to the famous Coronation March
from this scene, one begins to get a sense of just
how “grand” a Meyerbeer opera must have been!”

STUDENTS listen and look on in amazement.

PROFESSOR checks watch, thinking, “time flies when you’re molding minds.”

PROFESSOR
“We have only a few more minutes. So let’s look at just two more
engravings, that also appeared in L’Illustration, of scenes from Meyerbeer’s
L’Africaine (1865), which deals with the fictitious events of Portuguese explorer
Vasco de Gama. It was premiered one year after Meyerbeer’s death, in 1864.”

L’Illustration, Vol. XLV (6 May 1865): 281.

Ibid.

*          *          *

STUDENT FIVE
“It’s hard to believe that these engravings are of
an opera stage. They look like scenes from movies!”

PROFESSOR
“The sheer spectacle was an integrated and expected part of
the French grand opera experience, as was the success of this lecture.“

STUDENTS laugh collectively.

PROFESSOR
“As you now know, these illustrations offer only a
glimpse into what RIPM has to offer on Meyerbeer.”
“And now that you know how RIPM functions, your
next assignment should not be a difficult one.”

“For next week, please write a ten-page essay on a topic of your
choosing related to Meyerbeer based on your research in RIPM.”

The PROFESSOR tightens his grip on the podium anticipating low, audible grumbles from the dark corners of the lecture hall. But what he hears instead pleasantly surprises him…

STUDENT ONE
(calling out)
“Now that we know about RIPM, can we make it fifteen pages?”

PROFESSOR is overcome with emotion. His eyes well up.

PROFESSOR
“Ok, fifteen pages it is.”

STUDENTS collectively cheer.

PROFESSOR
“And next week, you can look forward to learning about
Berlioz and Meyerbeer, about Wagner and Meyerbeer,
Verdi and Meyerbeer, about the latter’s instrumentation
and orchestration, the construction of his large scale scenes,
his inventive harmonic language, and all of this in just the first
fifteen minutes of the next class. See you on Wednesday.”

 

FIN

 

RIPM search tip: RIPM is currently scanning some 3,350 engravings dealing with music that appeared between 1843 and 1899 in L’Illustration, France’s first illustrated newsweekly. RIPM plans to make them freely available, via its website. This undertaking is deeply indebted to the ground breaking three-volume publication, Les Gravures Musicales dans L’Illustration (Québec, 1983), by H. Robert Cohen, Sylvia L’Écuyer (Lacroix) and Jacques Léveillé, published under the auspices of RIdIM, with a preface by Barry S. Brook. The availability of the images will be announced in a future Curio.

Click here to subscribe to RIPM’s Curios, News, and Chronicles! 

When is our next posting? To find out, follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

***

RIPM is an international non-profit organization preserving and providing access to music periodicals published in more than twenty countries between approximately 1760 and 1966, from Bach to Bernstein.  Functioning under the auspices of the International Musicological Society, and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres, RIPM produces four electronic publications: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text, RIPM European and North American Music Periodicals (Preservation Series), and RIPM Jazz Periodicals (Preservation Series, forthcoming).

WWW.RIPM.ORG