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 MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

Why do we feel justified in using adjectives such as romantic, erotic, heroic, melancholic,
and a hundred others when speaking about music? How do we locate these meanings within
particular musical styles? These are questions that have occupied Derek Scott's thoughts and
driven his critical musicological research for many years. In this selection of essays, dating
from 1995-2010, he returns time and again to examining how conventions ofrepresentation
arise and how they become established. Among the themes of the collection are social class,
ideology, national identity, imperialism, Orientalism, race, the sacred and profane, modernity
and postmodernity, and the vexed relationship of art and entertainment. A wide variety of
musical styles is discussed, ranging from jazz and popular song to the symphonic repertoire
and opera.
 ASHGATE CONTEMPORARY THINKERS
ON CRITICAL MUSICOLOGY

The titles in this series bring together a selection ofpreviouslypublished and some unpublished
essays by leading authorities in the field of critical musicology. The essays are chosen from
a wide range of publications and so make key works available in a more accessible form.
The authors have all made a selection oftheir own work in one volume with an introduction
which discusses the essays chosen and puts them into context. A full bibliography points the
reader to other publications which might not be included in the volume for reasons of space.
The previously published essays are published using the facsimile method of reproduction to
retain their original pagination, so that students and scholars can easily reference the essays
in their original form.

Titles published in the series

Critical Musicology and the Responsibility of Response
Lawrence Kramer

Music and Historical Critique

Gary Tomlinson

Taking Popular Music Seriously

Simon Frith

Music, Performance, Meaning

Nicholas Cook

Reading Music
Susan McClary

Sound Judgment
Richard Leppert

Music, Structure, Thought

James Hepokoski

Musical Belongings
Richard Middleton

Sounding Values
Scott Burnham
Musical Style and Social Meaning

Selected Essays

DEREK B. SCOTT
Professor of Critical Musicology,
School of Music, Leeds University, UK

ASHGATE CONTEMPORARY THINKERS

ON CRITICAL MUSICOLOGY

I~ ~~o~;~~n~~;up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 20 I 0 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OXI4 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright© Derek B. Scott 2010

Derek B. Scott has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Musical style and social meaning : selected essays. -
(Ashgate contemporary thinkers on critical musicology)
I. Music-Philosophy and aesthetics. 2. Music-Social
aspects.
I. Series II. Scott, Derek B.
781-dc22

Library of Congress Control Number: 201093120 I

ISBN 9780754629306 (hbk)

 Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction IX

List of Publications XXV

PART ONE MUSIC, CRITICISM, AND THEORY

1. Postmodernism and Music ( 1998)

Postscript: Modernism, Postmodernism, and Musical Consensus (1998) 3

2. Bruckner's Symphonies- A Reinterpretation (2004) 17

3. Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in Musical Word-Setting (2005) 33

PART TWO JAZZ AND POPULAR MUSIC

4. The Jazz Age in Britain ( 1995) 53

5. Light Music and Easy Listening (2004) 77

6. The Britpop Sound (2010) 107

7. The Challenges of Assessing Popular Music Performance in Higher Education 129

PART THREE ORIENTALISM, NATIONAL IDENTITY, AND IDEOLOGY

8. Orientalism and Musical Style (1998) 137

9. Edward Said and the Interplay of Music, History, and Ideology (2009) 165

10. Imagining the Nation, Imagining Europe 185

PART FOUR POLITICS, CLASS, AND ENGLISHNESS

11. Music and Social Class in Victorian London (2002) 205

12. English National Identity and the Comic Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan (2003) 219
VI MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

13. The Power of Music (2005) 235

14. Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century Popular Song 255

15. Sullivan's Demonic Tea-making Scene: Homage to Weber, or Parody? (2009) 269

PART FIVE ETHNICITY AND RACE

16. The Impact of Black Performance on the 19th-Century Stage (2005) 281

17. A Problem of Race in Directing Die Zauberflate (2007) 295

18. In Search of Genetically Modified Music: Race and Musical Style in the Nineteenth
Century (2006) 303

Index 325
 Acknowledgements

The chapters in this volume are taken from the sources listed below. The editor and publishers
wish to thank publishers and copyright holders for permission to use their material as follows:

Postmodernism and Music. In S. Sim, ed., The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism,

122-32. London: Routledge, 2004. (ISBN 0-415-33359-8) Originally published in S. Sim,
ed., The Icon Critical Dictionary of Postmodern Thought, 134-46. Cambridge: Icon Press,
1998. (ISBN 1-874166-65-X)

Bruckner's Symphonies -A Reinterpretation. In J. Williamson, ed., Cambridge Companion

to Bruckner, 92-107. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. (ISBN 0-521-80404-3
[hbk], 0-521-00878-6 [pbkj)

Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in Musical Word-Setting. In J. Williamson, ed., Words and
Music series, Vol. 3, 10-27. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2005. (ISBN 0-85323-
619-4)

The Jazz Age in Britain. In S. Banfield, ed., The Blackwell History of Music in Britain, Vol.
6, 57-78. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. (ISBN0-631174249)

Light Music and Easy Listening. InN. Cook and A. Pople, eds, Cambridge History of Music,
20th Century, 307-35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. (ISBN 0-521-66256-7)

The Britpop Sound. In A. Bennett and J. Stratton, eds, Britpop and the English Music
Tradition. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. (ISBN 978-0-7546-6805-3)

Orientalism and Musical Style. Musical Quarterly, 82/2 (1998): 309-35. (ISBN 0027-4631)

Edward Said and the Interplay of Music, History, and Ideology. In R. Ghosh, ed., Edward
Said and the Literary, Social, and Political World, I 04-23. New York: Routledge, 2009.
(ISBN 978-0-415-96323-7)

Music and Social Class in Victorian London. Urban History, 2911 (2002): 60-73. (ISSN
0963-9268)

English National Identity and the Comic Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. In B. Zon and P.
Horton, eds, Nineteenth-Century British Music Studies, Vol. 3, 137-52. Aldershot: Ashgate,
2003. (ISBN 0-7546-3614-3)

The Power of Music. In A. Blackwell and D. MacKay, eds, Power, 96-115. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005. (ISBN 0-521-82377-3)
viii MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

Sullivan's Demonic Tea-making Scene: Homage to Weber, or Parody? In U. MUller et a/.,

eds, Die 'Schaubuhne' in der Epoche des "Freischiltz ", 1-9. Anif/Salzburg: Verlag Miiller-
Speiser, 2009.

The Impact of Black Performance on the 19th-Century Stage. In P. Csobadi, et a/., eds,
Das (Musik) Theater in Ex if und Diktatur und seine Rezeption: Vortrage und Gesprache des
Salzburger Symposions 2003, 262-74. Anif/Salzburg: Verlag Miiller-Speiser, 2005. (ISBN
3-85145-094-9)

A Problem of Race in Directing Die Zauberflate. In J. Kuhne!, U. Muller, 0. Panagl, et al.,

eds, "Regietheater": Konzeption und Praxis am Beispiel der Buhnenwerke Mozarts, 338--44.
Anif/Salzburg: Verlag Muller-Speiser, 2007. (ISBN 978-3-902537-07-2)

In Search of Genetically Modified Music: Race and Musical Style in the Nineteenth Century.
Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 3/1, special issue on music and race (2006): 3-23. (ISSN
1479-4098)

Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently
overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first
opportunity.
 Introduction

At one time, what passed for music history was largely a discussion of the supposed
autonomous evolution of musical forms and styles (e.g. from Baroque to Classical to
Romantic) and their associated Great Composers (the kings and queens- well, kings anyway
-of musical history). By the mid-1990s, critical musicology had arisen in reaction to this and
had become a broad term for research insisting on the importance of the social and cultural
context of music making. I was a founder member of the Critical Musicology Group in 1993
along with Eric Clarke, Lucy Green, Dai Griffiths, and Allan Moore. At that time, there was
a similar movement in the USA known as New Musicology. Only recently have American
scholars, like Lawrence Kramer, adopted the UK term. Yet, there was a difference in the
1990s between the British and American varieties: in the UK, for example, the collapse of the
hierarchy of high and low art (classical and popular) received greater attention. The Critical
Musicology Group debated the character and purpose of Critical Musicology and whether
it extended or challenged other forms of musicological inquiry. The term was interpreted
to mean a concern with critique, including a critique of musicology itself. After numbers
attending meetings grew, I organized the first critical musicology conference in the UK
(Goodbye Great Music? 1995) with the help of Stan Hawkins. It attracted delegates from thirty
different universities in Europe and North America. For my pains, I received a letter from
the Royal Musical Association reprimanding me for causing a schism in British musicology. 1
The Critical Musicology Forum, as the group soon renamed itself, met twice a year, and
embraced not only those working in more recent fields, such as film music, music semiotics,
and constructions of gender and sexuality in music, but also researchers in ethnomusicology
and the psychology of music. A Critical Musicology Newsletter appeared 1994-98, edited
by Dai Griffiths more in the manner of a punk fanzine, and a Critical Musicology mailing
list began on the Internet in the late 1990s, but lasted only a year or two. An online Critical
Musicology Journal was put together by Steve Sweeney-Turner in 1999, but never got beyond
one issue. Regular meetings of the Critical Musicology Forum ceased in 2005, but that was
largely because those participating were finding they were able to present their ideas at a
broad range of conferences and, as a consequence, they no longer felt as if they were located
on a musicological margin.
Critical musicologists were determined to show that musical styles did not progress
under some independent natural law but, rather, that they were historically embedded and
possessed socially constituted meanings (the latter most evident, perhaps, in dance music).
It was still common in the 1980s, for example, for musicologists to believe that music had

1 The author was the RMA's President Julian Rushton, and we later became good friends with a
lot more in common than either of us realized at that time. Ironically, 1 was appointed in 2006 to a chair
at the University of Leeds that had fallen vacant on Professor Rushton's retirement.
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X MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

evolved over the centuries in a manner that made the dissolution of the major-minor key
system inevitable, and that recognition of this fact forced Arnold Schoenberg to realize that
atonality was a necessity for the future of any music of artistic value. The theory that music
progressed autonomously rather than embracing particular (and historically locatable) social
values proved convincing until, rather late in the day, musicologists took seriously what
had been happening in jazz. The lesson taught, here, is that you cannot haul music out of its
social context and expect to avoid grave misunderstandings. Once this lesson is accepted
other forms of music -film music, rock, pop - suddenly become ripe for critical evaluation.
However, to examine music in social context it is necessary to have the theoretical tools that
help to shed light on questions of history and culture.
This collection of essays illustrates some of the ways in which I have made use of such
critical tools. Last century, it may have been tempting to speak of them as lying outside of
musicology, but I am increasingly of the opinion that the notion of an inside and outside
is becoming irrelevant, as multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity become the nonn
in the arts and humanities. The danger of a multidisciplinary approach is that the whole
that is produced by sampling a multitude of disciplinary perspectives may end up being
merely the sum of its parts. That is because disciplinary thinking led to the development and
establishment of different theoretical models and methodologies, which were designed to
enable the gathering of particular information that each discipline valued most. The risk of
confusion caused by conflicting theoretical paradigms also lurks within the more selective
interdisciplinary approach, even though the interdisciplinary investigator is more likely to
employ an overarching theoretical framework in order to bring coherence an eclectic mode of
inquiry. To examine anything as multidimensional as cultural artifacts and musical practices,
however, the barriers between disciplines need to come down, and a to-and-fro negotiation
of models needs to take place. It is evident that a postdisciplinary moment was reached some
time ago - media studies or postcolonial studies, for instance, embrace multiple fields of
academic inquiry. I now think of musicology as an intertextual field of inquiry, rather than a
discipline.
In the early 1980s, while writing my first book, The Singing Bourgeois ( 1989), I was
much influenced by the work of E.P. Thompson and Raymond Williams, and by the rise
of British cultural studies associated with Stuart Hall and other scholars at the CCCS
(Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies), University of Birmingham, England. I should
also acknowledge the stimulus given to my work by Music and the Middle Class (1975), a
groundbreaking work by William Weber. 2 I reached an important milestone in my research
around 1990, however, when I began to look more closely at issues of gender and sexuality in
music. Till then, I had leaned heavily on Anglo-American sociological texts when confronting
these matters. The problem I could not resolve was why, if music was expressing something
as fundamental to human nature as sexual desire, it was expressed in many different ways,
both diachronically (changing over the years) and synchronically (changing in the context of
various styles). My theoretical focus now shifted from expression to representation; it was
my poststructuralist tum, if you like. Once I began to examine how sexuality was represented,

2 Published in a second edition by Ashgate in 2004 (orig. pub. New York: Holms and Meier).
 INTRODUCTION xi

it was clear that a familiarity with conventions or codes of representation was necessary, as
well as recognition that these were not the same in all epochs or in all musical styles.
A crucial theorist for my new way of conceptualizing the problem was Michel Foucault,
whose History of Sexuality made me aware that sexual discourse had changed strikingly
over the centuries. It was the impact on music of this discourse that I then set out to study,
guided by Foucault's arguments regarding three productive moments in its proliferation.
My starting point was the representation of eroticism in the seventeenth century. This was
a time, according to Michel Foucault, when the transformation of sexuality into discourse
that began in the previous century was completed. It was also in seventeenth century music
that musical representational devices and techniques were consciously developed into a
stile rappresentativo. It is not surprising that sexual pleasure should be one of the things
composers chose to represent, but such representation related, of course, to contemporary
sexual discourse. Mutual arousal was thought necessary for sexual reproduction in the
seventeenth century, and Susan McClary has discussed how this may be perceived in music,
often involving two voices or instrumental melodies rubbing up against each other, 'pressing
into dissonances that achingly resolve only into yet other knots, reaching satiety only at
conclusions' .3
Foucault locates the second and 'especially productive moment' in the proliferation of
sexual discourse in the nineteenth century, with the 'advent ofmedical technologies ofsex'. 4
In the nineteenth century, sex became 'a matter that required the social body as a whole,
and virtually all of its individuals, to place themselves under surveillance' .5 The absence
of love songs among Victorian publishers' lengthy lists of ballads catering for domestic
music making is symptomatic of this; no respectable family wanted anything that might
incite drawing-room flirtation. Finally, when we reach the early twentieth century, which, for
Foucault, was marked by a deployment of sexuality 'spread through the entire social body',
the birth of the 'theory of repression', 6 and the emergence of psychoanalysis in response, 7
music changed once more in order to illustrate a new variety of characters, from sexual
predators to the sexually 'repressed' .8

3 'Constructions of Gender in Monteverdi's Dramatic Music', Cambridge Opera Journal 1/3

(1990): 203-23, at p. 206, reprinted in Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minnesota,
1991), pp. 35-52, at p. 37.
4 The History of Sexuality: Vol. I, An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (Harmondsworth, 1981,
orig. pub. 1976), p. 119.
5 Ibid., p. 116.
6 For Sigmund Freud, repression is a 'transformation of affect' so that, for example, the fulfilment
of unconscious sexual wishful impulses would generate an effect of disgust rather than pleasure. See
The Interpretation ofDreams [1899] (Harmondsworth, 1976), p. 764. Freud makes repression the main
topic of his second lecture in 'Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis', in Two Short Accounts of Psycho-
Analysis [1910], trans. and ed. James Strachey (Harmonsworth, 1962), pp. 45-54. In challenging
Freud's theory, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari ask, 'what is ''real" desire, since repression is also
desired? How can we tell them apart?' Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia [1972] (London,
1984), p. 116.
7 History ofSexuality: Vol. I, 122, pp. 128-29.
8 I have been drawing upon an article first published in 1993 and revised as the first chapter of
From the Erotic to the Demonic (New York, 2003), pp. 17-32.
xii MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

Of course, it is not solely from twentieth- and twenty-first-century theory that insights
are gained into sexual matters. There is rarely any homogeneity of discourses proliferating
simultaneously, and dissident voices arise in all eras. An example is the old question concerning
female creativity, which may be summarized in a musical context as 'Why has there been
no Linda Beethoven?' If we look for answers by scrutinizing women's music of the early
nineteenth century, we may simply confirm the opinions of those who believed women were
incapable of matching male standards in composition. What we need to do, instead, is to look
at the social context of music making. 9 For a woman of a respectable household, music was
no more than a skill to be displayed for the entertainment of the family, or for visitors during
'at home' functions. Although this was a dominant view, it does not mean that we cannot find
it challenged forcefully.
John Stuart Mill, in The Subjection of Women (1869), attacked the notion of music as a
mere female 'accomplishment', making the point that 'Women in the educated classes are
almost universally taught more or less of some branch or other of the fine arts, but not that
they may gain their living or their social consequence by it' .10 It is important to stress the
lack of social consequence that was to be gained from musical skill in the nineteenth century,
since this accounts for the low standard of amateur performance complained about by many
critics: 'Clever young ladies have been told, "My dear, you don't want to play or sing like
professionals; you only require to know enough to amuse your own domestic circle."' 11 The
female singer alone had a tradition to relate to; the female composer appeared not to exist,
an absence Mill explained as follows: 'Women are taught music, but not for the purpose of
composing, only of executing it: and accordingly it is only as composers, that men, in music,
are superior to women' .12 Yet, music was so much associated with female accomplishments
that many men were anxious about music being too effeminate a subject for them to study.
The situation in British public schools in mid-century was summed up in the comment: 'A
Harrow boy who went in for the study of music in those days would have been looked upon
as a veritable milksop'. 13
My next research interest was the representation in Western music of people from other
-especially Eastern- cultures. Predictably, the work of Edward Said proved influential here,
especially his books Orienta/ism ( 1978) and Culture and Imperialism ( 1993), which were
so important to the rise of postcolonial studies. Said advised us not to bother comparing a
depiction of the Orient to the actual Orient, because there is rarely any desire for accuracy:
'What it is trying to do ... is at one and the same time to characterize the Orient as alien
and to incorporate it schematically on a theatrical stage whose audience, manager, and

9 An article covering these issues was published in 1994 and revised as the second chapter of
From the Erotic to the Demonic, pp. 33-57.
I 0 John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women ( 1869), in Three Essays (London, 1975), p. 513.
II Joseph Verey, 'Women as Musicians', The Monthly Musical Record, vol. 15 ( 1885): 196-97, at
p. 197.
12 Mill, The Subjection of Women, p. 513.
13 From an interview article on Walter Macfarren, in The Musical Times, Jan 1898, quoted in
Percy A. Scholes, The Mirror ofMusic 1844-1944: A Century ofMusical Life in Britain As Reflected in
the Pages of the Musical Times, 2 vols (London, 1947), vol. 2, p. 625.
 INTRODUCTION xiii

actors are for Europe, and only for Europe' .14 Nevertheless, the state of affairs found in a
work like Rameau's Les Indes Galantes (1735) where, for example, Persians are musically
indistinguishable from Peruvians, was to change. Distinctions and differences developed in
the representation of the exotic or cultural Other.
Yet in much of the music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries purporting to represent
Eastern cultures, it remains almost irrelevant whether or not the musical devices that are
employed actually exist in Eastern ethnic practices. As Said explains, 'In a system of
knowledge about the Orient, the Orient is less a place than a tapas, a set of references'Y
Making use of Said's insights and Foucault's 'archeological' method, I set out to trace the
genealogy of musical styles for representing cultural otherness, as can be seen in the essay
included in this collection. John James Clarke speaks of the East being used as a 'mirror in
which to scrutinize the assumptions and prejudices' ofWestern traditions. 16 For Orientalism,
however, the mirror metaphor is too simplistic: it is not a reflected East but a constructed
East that is the issue. Moreover, the use of another culture as critique, no matter how well
intended, can sometimes end up being dehumanizing.
After these investigations into music, sexuality, and ethnicity, I returned to the topic that
had been my first research interest: music and social class. Now, however, I had to try to square
my former brand of cultural sociology with the sometimes conflicting theoretical framework of
poststructuralism. I found that my work on the nineteenth century caused me fewer problems
than the twentieth. It was, after all, in the nineteenth century that the perception arose of
classes as economic social groupings with the capacity to effect social change, and, indeed,
the terms 'lower class', 'middle class' and 'upper class' originated in the period 1770-1840,
the time of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. 17 Economic relations between people became
of paramount importance, even though the new conceptualization of class saw social position
as something that could be, at least partially, attained by anyone. That possibility of social
advancement scarcely seems sufficient in itself to account for the existence of social order.
I found Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony a persuasive development of Karl Marx's
conceptualization of ideology as something that suppresses opposition to those exercising
social dominance. The sociological view I had inherited from CCCS theorists was that class
background influenced and conditioned consciousness, but allowed for relative autonomy:
ideology could be resisted or evaded. Only a few hardliners still clung to a rigid determinism;
for others the economic base determined the superstructure only 'in the last instance' (a
much used phrase at the time). Theorists associated with structuralism and poststructuralism,
however, tended to look at texts rather than social conditions, examining the ways in which
ideological values were constructed and validated. I was very taken for a while with Louis
Althusser's arguments about interpellation and Ideological State Apparatuses, but it did
not last. Foucault's arguments about the way in which power operates through legitimizing
discourses proved more enduring. I now began to understand how texts constructed their own

14 Edward W. Said, Orienta/ism: Western Conceptions of the Orient [1978] (Harmondsworth,

1985), pp. 71-2. Culture and Imperialism was first published in London by Chatto and Windus.
15 Said, Orienta/ism, p. 177.
16 Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought (London, 1997),
p. 28.
17 See Raymond Williams, Keywords (London, 1976), p. 61.
xiv MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

truths (whether the discourse was aesthetics, jurisprudence, or astrology). I also began to see
the value of deconstructing texts, which led to many hours grappling with the work of Jacques
Derrida. This led to the perception of flaws in dialectical reasoning, and an awareness that one
term is able to command another in metaphysical oppositions. I began to see that one concept
could be interpreted as a negative version of another concept: for example, femininity may be
defined as that which differs from masculinity, rather than as an autonomous quality.
To return to music, and to illustrate the relevance of theories of ideology and social
order, we might examine the belief in the moral power of music, which was so pervasive
in the nineteenth century (see my essay on the power of music in this book). 'Let no one',
admonished the great champion of the improving powers of music, the Reverend Haweis, 'say
the moral effects of music are small or insignificant' .18 If this could be shown to be merely
the wishful thinking of the middle class, we would have no great difficulty in explaining it
away. Many have looked expectantly to the music halls in working-class parts of London
for opposition to middle-class values. Yet, speaking to a Parliamentary Select Committee in
1892, Matthew Hanly, a representative of the London United Workmen's Committee, states
that the music halls in the working-class areas of London 'have reached a very high state of
morality, and can compare very favourably with the theatres' .19 Some songs strongly endorse
bourgeois values, as does Harry Clifton's 'Work, Boys, Work and Be Contented'. 20 There
are some historians who would argue that this demonstrates the achievement of a moral
consensus, but, for me, words such as these cannot be adequately accounted for without
a theory of ideology. Ensuring a consensus about public morality is an important part of
hegemonic strategy.
It was while working through questions involving various forms of domination that I
began to draw more than before on the work of Max Weber. He makes a lengthy case for
linking the rise of capitalism to the 'Protestant ethic', with its insistence that people were
individually responsible for perfecting themselves and, therefore, should rationalize their
conduct, work hard, and not waste time. 21 It follows that even recreation should be rational,
designed to be improving, and not merely idle amusement. With this in mind, it should
come as no surprise to any musicologist to find that Nonconformism was a major force
behind English choral music in the nineteenth century. 22 Weber also brings a subtle nuance
to arguments about class antagonism, warning that we should avoid confusing struggles
between status groups with struggles between classes. Indeed, status groups 'hinder the strict
carrying through of the sheer market principle' .23 A status group is united by its adherence to

18 Hugh Reginald Haweis, Music and Morals [1871] (London. 1912), p. 112.
19 Minutes ofEvidence taken before the Select Committee on Theatres and Places ofEntertainment,
minute 5171,23 May 1892,327.
20 London: Hopwood & Crew, c. 1867. Clifton used the music of George F. Root's song 'Tramp!
Tramp! Tramp!' (Chicago: Root & Cady, 1864).
21 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [1904-5], trans. Talcott Parsons (New York.
1992), p. 100. pp. 104-5.
22 See Henry Raynor, Music and Society Since 1815 (London, 1976), p. 93.
23 From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. and ed. by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New
York, 1946), p. 185. The original source is Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. (1922) Part 3, Chap. 4. Weber
designates a 'status situation' as 'every typical component of the life fate of men that is determined
 INTRODUCTION XV

a specific lifestyle and may be willing to form an alliance with the 'wrong' class in defence
of its interests. Barry Faulk has assessed the success of the poet Arthur Symons's efforts to
legitimate the aesthetic experience the music halls offered, suggesting, teasingly, that the
middle class made a subculture of late-Victorian music hall. 24 In fact, even allowing that
this 'subculture' should be attributed more cautiously to a fraction only of the middle class,
the evidence indicates more of a struggle between artistic status groups,Z 5 and a willingness
on the part of the bohemian literati to align themselves with entertainment of a lower-class
character in pursuit of their own aesthetic agenda.
Indications of status (for example, etiquette, or taste in music) can be imitated, and, towards
the end of the nineteenth century, what art was appreciated and what was shunned began to
be an important status marker. 26 The 'three zones of taste' model (highbrow, middlebrow, and
lowbrow) dominated the years 1920-80, and informs Pierre Boudieu's critical treatise on
taste, La Distinction (1979). 27 The zones began to crumble around 1980. High status is more
likely to be obtained in an era of globalization by displaying a cosmopolitan 'omnivorous'
taste than by exclusive adherence to what was formerly categorized as highbrow. 28 While
this adds weight to Norbert Elias's insistence that sociogenesis and psychogenesis are
intertwined, it does not fundamentally challenge Bourdieu's ideas, since the manner in which
different groups consume music continues to be permeated with features that perpetuate the
importance of social distinction in matters oftaste (for instance, consumption may be at face
value, ambivalent, or ironic).
Bourdieu's habitus (the system of dispositions with which a person is invested by
education and upbringing) is, for me, a rich if not entirely unproblematic concept in aiding
understanding of how cultural choices are made. 29 Culture can be used as a marker of
superiority, a taste for the 'refined' over the 'vulgar', which is why Bourdieu remarks that
'art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfil
a social function of legitimating social differences' .30 The increase in urban populations and
rise of the bourgeoisie brought a need for public demonstrations of social standing, since it

by a specific, positive or negative, social estimation of honor' ( 187). This expresses itself in a specific
lifestyle (for example, one that rejects the pretensions brought about by riches). Nevertheless, '[t]he
differences between classes and status groups frequently overlap' (193).
24 See Music Hall & Modernity: The Late- Victorian Discovery ofPopular Culture (Athens, Ohio,
2004), pp. 34-36, 53-74.
25 While cautioning that it over-simplifies matters, Weber describes classes as 'stratified according
to their relations to the production and acquisition of goods', and status groups as 'stratified according
to the principles of their consumption of goods as represented by special ''styles of life"'. From Max
Weber. 193.
26 See Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in
America (Cambridge, MA, 1988).
27 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique ofthe Judgement ofTaste [1979], trans. Richard
Nice (London, 1984).
28 See Richard A. Peterson and Roger M. Kern, 'Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to
Omnivore', American Sociological Review, 61 (1996): 900-07.
29 Bourdieu continually refined his idea of the habitus. For his later thoughts, see The Field of
Cultural Production (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 67-73.
30 Bourdieu, Distinction, 7.
xvi MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

was no longer common knowledge who was important. Attending concerts was an effective
means of displaying status. 31
A sociologist whose work has been of much importance to my recent research is Howard
Becker. In particular, I found his theorization of 'art worlds' extremely useful when I began
to consider the emergence and circulation of new forms of popular music in the nineteenth
century. An art world, in Becker's theorization, exists in cooperative activity rather than as
a structure, and requires those who participate in it to understand its conventions and be
skilled in its routines. 32 This idea enabled me to argue that a popular music revolution had
occurred in the nineteenth century. I showed that new types of popular music had resulted in
the establishment of new musical conventions, new techniques, new organizations, and new
networks of distribution, and that this meant that the understanding of certain conventions
and routines became out of bounds for some musicians. 33 Becker speaks of revolutionary
innovations as those that involve changes of certain conventions, since every existing
convention 'implies an aesthetic which makes what is conventional the standard of artistic
beauty and effectiveness' .34 His arguments then begin to depart from my own, because he
concentrates on revolutions in an art world that lead to new accepted practices, whereas I was
interested in revolutions that left a state of continuing struggle. For example, the tonic chord
with added sixth continued throughout the nineteenth century to be rejected in the musical
high art world as a vulgarism. I conceived of the practices I was discussing as revolutions that
led to the creation of new art worlds. Becker, however, sees an artistic revolution as something
that causes changes in an existing art world, while he conceives of new art worlds as those
which bring together 'people who never cooperated before' and 'conventions previously
unknown'; he regards rock music, for example, as a new art world. 35
Another insight I gained from Becker came from his institutional theory of aesthetics,
which he sums up thus: 'When an established aesthetic theory does not provide a logical
and defensible legitimation of what artists are doing and, more important, what the other
institutions of the art world- especially distribution organizations and audiences- accept as
art, professional aestheticians will provide the required new rationale' .36 This alerted me to
the way in which The Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick helped to 'aestheticize' the Viennese
waltz. Such arguments were to erode the sharp distinction between non-functional 'art'
waltzes (like those of Chopin) and those intended for dancing. Some of Johann Strauss Jr.'s
waltzes have indications for cuts to be made (in their codas) if they are used for dancing.
Aestheticizing the waltz inevitably led to canon formation (a waltz 'family tree'): Schubert-
Lanner-Strauss Sr.-Strauss Jr., and from there branching off to Wagner's Flower Maidens in
Parsifal, Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, and Ravel's La Valse.

31 See William Weber, Music and the Middle Class (Aldershot, 2nd edn 2004), pp. 25-26.
32 See Howard Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley, 1982), p. 35, p. 78. Becker accepts that a number of
specific art worlds may share certain activities and features that allow them to be considered as part of
a more general art world (p. 161 ).
33 Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th-Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York,
Paris, and Vienna (New York, 2008).
34 Art Worlds. 305. 307.
35 lbid.,310,313.
36 Ibid., 162; the institutional theory of aesthetics is discussed 145-62.
 INTRODUCTION xvii

In order to keep this introduction to a reasonable size, I will only mention very briefly
other examples of theoretical and critical work that has had an impact on my research. Georg
Simmel clarified for me how markets work in the metropolis, and helped me to explain the
diverse range of cultural goods that arose in urban environments. Erving Goffman's frame
analysis helped me to understand how blackface minstrelsy presented a special context for
behaviour that inverted bourgeois values by celebrating idleness and mischief. Minstrels
rarely displayed any wild or eccentric behavior when off stage, but the stage offered a social
frame that provided the opportunity to lose control in what Goffman would call 'carefully
controlled circumstances' .37 Jlirgen Habermas's argument that 'public opinion' had by
the mid-nineteenth century started to function as an institutionalized fiction that served to
legitimize dominant values/ 8 made me aware of the significance of the bullying character
called Public Opinion in Offenbach's Orphee aux enfers (1858).
As a final example of influential theory, I will explain how I relied on Jean Baudrillard's
work on simulation when putting forward an argument that from the 1840s to the 1890s
the representation of the Cockney in musical entertainments went through three successive
phases: it began with parody, moved to the character-type, and ended with the imagined
real. 39 When phase three was reached in the 1880s, the performer was no longer thought of as
playing a role, but as being the character. In advancing this argument, I was wary of making
too close a link to Baudrillard's theory of simulacra. I was, certainly, claiming that, just as
in Baudrillard's third-order simulation, this third phase substituted 'signs of the real for the
real itself' ,40 but Baudrillard sees third-order simulation as a feature of twentieth-century
postmodernity: it is a 'generation by models of a real without origin or reality' .41 To the extent
that the music-hall Cockney ceased to relate to the real world and was, instead, generated by
stage models, this phenomenon might be considered to adumbrate the type of postmodern
hyperreality Baudrillard has in mind.
As I re-read what I have written, I realize that there are many writers I am indebted to
whose work I have not even mentioned. I hope, all the same, that I have said enough to
convey a sense of the ways in which historical, critical, and theoretical perspectives have
been, and remain, vital to my musicological research. To conclude, I want to revisit the
comment I made earlier about the difficulties of establishing an inside and an outside in
musicology and point to a similar difficulty in locating an inside and an outside to music.
If, for instance, Vaughan William's music is thought to sound English, is that because he is

37 Erving Gotfman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience [1974] (Boston,
1986), p. 33.
38 Jtirgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a
Category ofBourgeois Society [1962], trans. Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence
(Cambridge, 1989), p. 240.
39 My article was published 'The Music Hall Cockney: Flesh and Blood, or Replicant?', Music
and Letters, 83/2 (May 2002): 237-58. I revised it as Chapter 7 of Sounds of the Metropolis, 171-95.
40 Jean Baudrillard, Simulations ( 1983 ), excerpted in Antony Easthope and Kate McGowan, A
Critical and Cultural Theory Reader (Buckingham, 1992), pp. 203-5, at p. 204. Baudrillard's three
orders of simulation are related to the history of commodities and proceed from counterfeit to industrial
production in the nineteenth century to generation by models in the twentieth century (a recent and
controversial example of the latter would, I suppose, be genetically-modified crops).
41 Ibid., p. 203.
xviii MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

signifYing Englishness through his choice of musical material? Does that material, in itself,
possess an intrinsic Englishness, or is this Englishness an extramusical dimension? What
would it mean to claim that Vaughan Williams was expressing Englishness? I suppose to
many lovers of his music it would suggest a metaphysical presence inside the music -the
English soul, perhaps. Some of the same listeners, however, would not accept that the English
countryside is embodied as an interior quality. Metaphysical interpretations can cope with the
soul, but not with the soil. But why is one more plausible than the other? Perhaps we should
re-think Derrida's warning about locating meaning either inside or outside the text. Music
cannot separate itself from the circulation of meaning in the culture of which it is a part. We
cannot understand any cultural artefacts without implicating other cultural knowledge. What
I'm questioning, here, is the existence of a boundary between interiority and exteriority. Is it
an extrinsic or intrinsic quality that allows us to recognize a composer? We say, 'Ah! That's
Brahms!' Do we believe that Brahms occupies his music as an interior presence because we
don't think of him as being represented in the music as a type of musical personality (along
the lines of Strauss in Ein Heldenleben)? But, then, does happy Brahms or sad Brahms stand
outside the music, because happiness and sadness are considered to be extrinsic meanings? If
sad Brahms were intrinsic, we would surely have to accept heroic Strauss as intrinsic.

Introducing the Essays

Part One contains a varied group of essays on music, criticism and theory. 'Postmodernism
and Music' was first published in 1998 and lightly revised for republication in 2004. I have
appended a 'postscript' excerpted from another postmodernism piece published in 1998.
What ought to be considered in the twenty-first century is the growing tendency of artists of
all kinds to reshape existing material, to make do with what currently exists, rather than to
work from scratch at creating something new. Nicolas Bourriaud has claimed that the 'new
cultural landscape [is] marked by the twin figures of the DJ and the programmer, both of
whom have the task of selecting cultural objects and inserting them into new contexts' .42
From generalities, we turn to specifics in 'Bruckner's Symphonies -A Reinterpretation'
(2004). This is an attempt to tease out some of the extra-musical meanings in Anton
Bruckner's symphonies, and thereby challenge the common perception of Bruckner as a
composer of 'pure' music. It examines, for example, structural choices made in his music
that resist explanation in purely musical terms. Here, rather than looking to the German
hermeneutic tradition, the interpretative strategy adopts ideas from French cultural theory
- without, I hope, getting lost in a dense thicket of poststructuralist jargon. I am seeking to
understand how the sacred character of Bruckner's music is constructed, and how religious
thought may have influenced his compositional practice.
General questions return in 'Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in Musical Word-setting'
(2005), which examines, compares, and contrasts three of the different ways in which words
can be treated musically. 'Gesture' is the overarching term, since it covers anything that
lends emphasis, intensity, or expression to a communicative act. Gesture can often function
mimetically, but can also be distinct from mimesis, and offer different possibilities; it may even

42 Postproduction (New York, 2002), p. 13.

 INTRODUCTION xix

be at odds with mimesis. For this reason, I think it is useful to have a means of distinguishing
mimesis from gesture, even though mimesis is, in fact, a particular kind of gesture. In this
essay, I use 'mimetic' to refer to a composer's attempt to provide a sympathetic expression
of the song text and to reveal its emotional content. Such a setting will contain conventional
musical signifying devices that sometimes operate at the level of individual words. An
example would be Schubert's Der Wanderer. I am describing a song as 'gestural' where there
is an attempt to provide an overall mood vehicle for the words. Of course, there are overlaps,
and there are songs I would place in the gestural category, like Schubert's Die Forelle, that
contain mimetic features. However, a gestural setting need not be expressive of the words
- it may complement or even contradict their meaning. That thought leads me to the special
case of parodic settings in which the coupling of music and words is designed to create an
ironic or satirical effect. For example, the music may appear to add exaggerated expression to
words, or it may deflate the content of the words, adopting a style that is perceived as opposed
to them in character.

Part Two is given over to jazz and popular music. I have omitted an essay I published on
dance bands, because it has already been reprinted in Allan Moore's Critical Essays and
was extended and revised for From the Erotic to the Demonic. In the revision, I incorporated
material from a chapter I had written on the jazz age in Britain ( 1995), and the original
essay is included in full here. It is followed by a general survey of twentieth-century light
music and easy listening published in 2004. The essay on the Britpop sound had its origins
in a Britpop conference in Leeds (1997), was further developed at a Beatles conference in
Jyvaskyla, Finland (2000), and finally reworked as a chapter for Britpop and the English
Music Tradition, edited by Andy Bennett and Jon Stratton (Ashgate, 20 l 0). One of the
things I was trying to do was to challenge the widely-held view that the Beatles have been
shamelessly plagiarized by Oasis. The issue, in a nutshell, is whether Oasis simply copied
the Beatles, or whether Oasis looked to make creative use of those aspects of Beatles' songs
that might, in the new millennium, be regarded as the musical vocabulary of a common pop
language. The second half of the chapter scrutinizes a variety of musical parameters and
structural features in order to clarify the relationship between the Beatles and Oasis.
I have concluded Part 2 with a paper I presented at a conference organized by the National
Association for Music in Higher Education in 2008. Ten years previously I had led a project
investigating the assessment of popular music performance with the support of a national
fund for the development of teaching and learning (the fund was set up before educationalists
decided it was better to speak of 'learning and teaching' in that order). My talk for NAMHE
focused on creativity, and explored the similarities and differences in assessing what may
loosely be described as popular and classical music.

Part Three gathers together essays on Orientalism, national identity, and ideology. My first
foray into Orientalism was a short piece, based on a conference paper, written in 1997 for
the Critical Musicology Journal (1997) a now dormant online publication. I developed this
into an article for the Musical Quarterly (1998), and later revised it for From the Erotic to
the Demonic. I am including the article version here, because it has been cited often. My
argument is that in Western music, Orientalist styles have related to previous Orientalist
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XX MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

styles rather than to Eastern ethnic practices. For the Western audience, knowledge of
Orientalist signifiers took precedence over knowledge of Eastern musical practices.
However, differences developed in the representation of the exotic, and that- along with the
confusion that sometimes results- is the article's concern. In the nineteenth century, Western
composers, especially those working in countries engaged in imperialist expansion, were
distinguishing Western Self from Oriental Other in the way they represented the East, rather
than by imitating Eastern practices. Hence, we learn little about the East, but a lot about the
West's attitude to the East.
In the last twenty years ofhis life Edward Said wrote frequently about music. Musicologists
remain, in general, unfamiliar with much of that work, since it appeared in reviews and non-
musicology journals. As a consequence, the best known of his musical writings are in his
book Musical Elaborations, based on the Wellek Library Lectures he gave at the University
of California, and his essay on Verdi's Aida in Culture and Imperialism. The critical reaction
to Said's musical opinions was often polarized, and my article 'Edward Said and the Interplay
of Music, History, and Ideology' (2009) examines what it was that made critics either love or
hate what he had to say. An idea of what some found objectionable and others enlightening
is gained by looking at his provocative critique of Verdi's Aida, an opera that he relates to
European 'universal' expositions with their exhibiting of subaltern cultures for the eyes and
ears of Europeans. The reception of Musical Elaborations offers another insightful study,
as does a scrutiny of his musical journalism - especially the controversy generated in the
letters pages of the London Review of Books by his review article 'The Importance of Being
Unfaithful to Wagner'. Some of the texts I discuss have now become more accessible in a
Said anthology Music at the Limits (with a foreword by Daniel Barenboim).
Said's analysis of the ways in which philology and colonialist discourse embraced the
ideological values he termed 'Orientalist' was reworked by some musicologists as an analysis
ofthe ideological values embedded within the musical stylistic conventions for representing
the East that developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This essay ends by
exploring the extent to which musicologists writing on these issues have been indebted
to Said, and argues that Said helped to initiate the shift in musicological thinking that led
to greater efforts to situate the history and production of Western music within its social,
political, and imperialist context.
'Imagining the Nation, Imagining Europe' was originally presented at a conference in
Volos, Greece (2008) on the Eurovision Song Contest. I have expanded it, here, exploring the
extent to which the musical styles employed in Eurovision songs attempt to reconcile a desire
to give voice to individual national identity with an ambition to address the values of the
wider European community (for example, human rights, freedom of expression, secularism).
Eurovision songs have rarely been marked with any strong ethnic character beyond the kinds
of images that might appeal to tourism, and they relate to the entertainment ofthe metropolis
rather than rural traditions. They embrace a variety of music I have labelled the third type: this
is neither classical music nor folk music, but the commercial popular music that developed
in urban environments as part of a leisure industry. 43 I focus on four categories of song that

43 'The Popular Music Revolution in the Nineteenth Century: A Third Type of Music Arises', V.
Kurkela and L. Vakeva, eds, De-Canonizing Music History (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009), pp. 3-19.
 INTRODUCTION xxi

became familiar over the years of the contest, and I conclude by asking if there is any recipe for
Eurovision success to be found in the music and lyrics of former winning songs, or if it is all
down to the performers, their costumes and choreographed routines, and the esteem (political
or neighbourly) felt for their countries on one particular night in one particular year.

Part Four is dedicated to politics, class, and Englishness. The essay 'Music and Social Class
in Victorian London' (2002) looks at London in the second half of the nineteenth century,
when features of musical life associated with a capitalist economy and the consolidation
of power of a wealthy industrial bourgeoisie became firmly established. Prominent among
such features, which are all closely related to the rapid increase in urban populations, were
the commercialization and professionalization of music, new markets for cultural goods,
a growing rift between art and entertainment, and the bourgeoisie's struggle for cultural
domination. Each of these four topics grew into full chapter length in my book Sounds of the
Metropolis (2008). 'Music and Social Class in Victorian London' overlaps at one point with
the content of the morality section ofthe 'Power of Music' chapter. I must apologize to John
Kasson, author of Rudeness and Civility ( 1991 ), whom I incorrectly cite as 'Kassan' from a
secondary source.
The next essay explores what the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan tell us about the
attitude ofthe Victorian middle class towards the vexed question of English national identity.
The crew of H. MS. Pinafore praises the young hero Ralph Rackstraw because, 'in spite
of all temptations to belong to other nations', he is an Englishman. Gilbert and Sullivan
themselves, however, were tempted several times to dress their comic operas in the garb of
other nations, Japanese (The Mikado, 1885), Italian (The Gondoliers, 1889), and German
(The Grand Duke, 1896). Their stage works were produced during 1875-96, a period that
witnessed the second wave of British imperialism and the growing threat to English national
identity posed by imperial federation. In them can be found older myths about what it means
to be English (Yeomen of the Guard, 1888), as well as newer constructions of Englishness
(Utopia Limited, 1893). They also contain satire directed at the rise of jingoism and of racial
prejudice.
I was invited to present 'The Power of Music' as one of the Darwin Lectures, Cambridge,
in 2002. The theme that year was 'Power'. I spoke about music in relation to politics,
economics and morality, and ended by looking at the power of music on mind and body
(including reference to 'medical resonance therapy', the 'Mozart effect', and the tunes that
you just can't get out of your head). The published version makes brief use of the Strauss/Rose
comparison already encountered in 'Postmodernism and Music'; it is one of my favourite
means of alerting the listeners to the differing musical codes of eroticism.
Research exploring links between imperialism and music remains undeveloped, and,
because it has been undertaken mainly by social historians, has tended to focus on lyrics. The
reason for a lack of enthusiasm among musicologists is, perhaps, because undervalued genres,
such as popular song, are richest in imperialist reference. My paper 'Imperialism and Anti-
Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century Popular Song' (2005) argues that British 'national' songs
usually meant patriotic songs, and in the later century they often included an endorsement
of imperialism, as songs about Britain, Britons, and Britannia became more common. In
those later years of the decade, efforts were made to whip up imperialist enthusiasm among
xxii MUSICAL STYLE AND SOCIAL MEANING

the working class. Nevertheless, parodies of imperialist sentiment rose in response on the
British stage, and other songs in English were produced that challenged British rule. Whether
imperialist or anti-imperialist, there is a recurring moral bind in songs that call for patriotic
duty to be done: the son owes a debt to his forefather. This short essay offers evidence of
the means by which music provides symbolic support for such ideas, and illustrates how
imperialist or nationalist sentiment has been constructed and valorized by music.
My essay on the tea-making scene that occurs near the end ofAct I ofGilbertand Sullivan's
first full-length comic opera The Sorcerer (1877) is designed to show how Sullivan was able
to rework elements from Austro-German music and transplant them into an English setting.
The sorcerer John Wellington Wells summons up his demonic assistants to cast a spell over
a philtre. It is a love potion that will cause the villagers to fall in love with the first person
they see on waking. Appropriately, since the action takes place in England, he calls for a large
teapot. One by one, three phials are emptied into it, and after each there occurs a dazzling
flash. The brewing of the magic tea may be regarded as a parody ofthe forging ofthe magic
bullets in the Wolf's Glen scene that closes Act 2 of Der Freischiitz, but in many ways it can
be read as homage to Weber's vivid dramatic sense and eerie orchestral imagination. A close
comparison between the two scenes, shows what Sullivan learnt from Weber, and this enables
us to see how he put that musical knowledge to work not only in The Sorcerer, but also ten
years later in Ruddigore, or the Witch s Curse ( 1887).

Part Five is concerned with ethnicity and race, and opens with a paper that I gave at the
Salzburg Symposion of2003. The theme of the Symposion that year was music and exile, and
the idea of exile as a long-enforced absence from one's country of birth prompted me to think
of the musical contributions of diasporic communities. I chose to present a paper looking
at the impact of performers from the African Diaspora on nineteenth-century theatrical
entertainment in North America and Europe. The cultural practices of African Americans
were first seen on stage through the distorting medium of blackface performance. Following
the abolition of slavery after the American Civil War, black minstrel troupes were formed,
and black songwriters like James Bland (1854-1911) became commercially successful.
Yet, minstrel conventions remained and continued to offer a distortion of black culture and
plantation life. Change was possible only in the final decade of the century when black
performers began to appear in vaudeville and the focus shifted from southern plantations to
northern cities. In 1890, Sam Jack produced The Creole Show, paving the way for the future
development of the all-black musical, which was to influence enormously popular music and
popular stage entertainment in the next century.
At a later Salzburg Symposion (2005), I wanted to examine a difficulty concerning the
representation of race that confronts directors of Die Zauber:flate. The problem is how to
represent Sarastro's underling, Monostatos. It requires an understanding of the conflicting
perceptions an audience has of the character. Is he a violent rapist, or is he a clumsy buffoon?
In either case, how does the director negotiate the racial aspects of his being a Moor? I
examined the ways in which directors have dealt with these interpretative difficulties. For
example, in David McVicar's production for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden,
Monostatos is portrayed as a buffoon and his Moorish ethnicity ignored. In the Metropolitan
Opera production conducted by Levine, complex racial nuances result from Monostatos being
 INTRODUCTION xxiii

played by a white singer in blackface and Pamina (the 'fair blond maiden') being played by
an African American. Here, the power of the theatre to signify blackness or whiteness is
subjected to interesting scrutiny.
The title of my final essay, 'In Search of Genetically Modified Music', is intended to be
taken humorously and not as a reference to some earnest quest on my part. I am referring,
with irony, to the idea that genes play a role in music-making. The genetic concept of music
is still current in 2009, as is clear from this remark 'I'm working with a wonderful young
Austrian orchestra steeped in the Viennese tradition that has Bruckner in its DNA' .44 To
have a composer in your DNA means something like this: 'The Talich [Quartet] ... have
Dvorak's music, its rhythms, colours and free ebb and flow, in their blood and bones' .45 I
present a broad, though necessarily selective, overview of racial theories as applied to music
in the nineteenth century. I address issues of nationality, ethnicity, and race and the way
these ideas influence the perception of musical styles and genres. Illustrative references are
made to Liszt's Gipsy, Wagner's Jew, African-American music, American Indian music, and
Celtic music. Two questions then arise: Do theories of race retain any credibility today? Do
they serve any present purpose, other than providing insight into the historical and cultural
contexts of musical reception and the early development of the anthropology of music? This
essay also contains a critique of hybridity as theorized by writers such as Bhabha, Gates, and
Hall, arguing that it tends to neglect already existing stylistic fusions, diasporic multiplicity
and intercultural exchange and, at worst, falls into the trap of hypostasizing the notion of
racial strains.

Bibliography

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. Trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. New
York: Semiotext(e), 1983.
Becker, Howard. Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste [ 1979]. Trans.
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noudattamansa kampa- ja yksi-liikapaita-järjestelmänsä hänestä
näytti tämä huone, joka oli tulvillaan vaatteita ja harjoja, oikealta
Capualta. Ja hän ajatteli: "Ihmeellistä; sitä ei voi oikein käsittää!"
Mutta mitä ei voinut oikein käsittää, sitä hän ei itsekään täysin
tiennyt.

Kun hän seurasi Hallidayta lounaalle ruokasaliin, kääntyivät kolmet

hyvin vaaleat ja sinisilmäiset kasvot äkkiä häntä kohti Hallidayn
lausuessa:

"Tässä on Frank Ashurst — nuoret sisareni."

Tytöistä olikin kaksi aivan nuorta, kymmenen, yhdentoista korvilla.

Kolmas oli ehkä seitsentoistavuotias, pitkä ja myöskin
vaaleatukkainen, posket olivat valkoisenpunaiset, heikosti
auringonpaahtamat, hiuksia tummemmat kulmakarvat kaartuivat
ylöspäin nenän juuresta. Kaikkien kolmen äänet muistuttivat
Hallidayn kirkasta, iloista ääntä. Kaikki kolme nousivat, ojentautuivat
suoriksi, puristivat tulijan kättä nopein tempauksin, katsoivat
tutkivasti Ashurstiin ja taas poispäin ja alkoivat puhua siitä, mitä
aikoivat tehdä iltapäivällä. Diana palvelevien nymfien keskellä!
Maalaiskokemusten jälkeen tuntui tuo kirkas, huoleton, vilkas
puhelu, viileä, puhdas, vaivaton hienostus ensin vieraalta ja sitten
taas niin luonnolliselta, että kaikki se, minkä piiristä Ashurst vasta oli
tullut, muuttui äkkiä oudon kaukaiseksi. Nuorempien tyttöjen nimet
tuntuivat olevan Sabina ja Freda — vanhimman oli Stella.

Se tytöistä, jota sanottiin Sabinaksi, kääntyi Ashurstin puoleen ja

sanoi:

"Tiedättekö mitä, tuletteko pyydystämään äyriäisiä meidän

kanssamme? —
Se on hirveän hauskaa."

Hämmästyneenä tytön odottamattomasta tuttavallisuudesta

Ashurst mutisi:

"Pelkäänpä, että minun täytyy palata takaisin iltapäivällä."

"Kuinka ikävää!"

"Ettekö voi siirtää lähtöänne tuonnemmaksi?"

Ashurst kääntyi Stellaan päin, joka oli puhunut viimeksi, ja pudisti

hymyillen päätään. Kuinka kaunis tuo tyttö olikaan. Sabina sanoi
valittavalla äänellä:

"Teidän täytyy jäädä."

Sen jälkeen keskustelu liukui luoliin ja uimiseen.

"Jaksatteko uida pitkälti?"

"Parisen mailia."

"Niinkö!"

"Todellakin?"

"Kuinka hauskaa!"

Kolme sinistä silmäparia, jotka suuntautuivat Ashurstiin, saattoivat

hänet tietoiseksi hänen uudesta merkityksestään. Tuo tunne oli
varsin miellyttävä. Halliday sanoi:
 "Tiedätkö mitä! Sinun täytyy kerta kaikkiaan jäädä tänne uimaan
merivedessä. Parasta, että jäät tänne yöksi."

"Niin! tehkää niin!"

Mutta Ashurst hymyili taaskin pudistaen päätään. Sitten hän sai

kokea, miten hänen ruumiilliset kykynsä joutuivat tutkistelun alaisiksi.
Hän oli soutanut koulunsa veneessä, kuulunut koulunsa
jalkapallojoukkueeseen, voittanut koulunsa kilparatsastuksen — hän
nousi pöydästä kerrassaan eräänlaisena sankarina! Pikkutytöt
vaativat, että hänen oli tultava katsomaan "heidän" luolaansa, ja he
pysähtyivät menemään hatsattaen kuin harakat ja kuljettaen
Ashurstia keskellään, Stellan ja heidän veljensä seuratessa
kappaleen matkan päässä. Luolassa, joka oli pimeä ja kostea kuten
kaikki luolat, oli erikoisena vetovoimana pieni lätäkkö, missä
mahdollisesti oli erinäisiä pikkueläimiä pyydysteltäväksi ja pulloihin
pantavaksi. Sabina ja Freda, joilla ei ollut sukkia siroissa jaloissaan,
kehoittivat Ashurstia tulemaan mukaan lätäkköön auttamaan heitä
veden siivilöinnissä. Pian hänkin oli riisunut kenkänsä ja sukkansa.
Aika kuluu nopeasti, kun miehellä on kauneudenaistia, lätäkössä
polskuttaa kaksi sievää lasta ja rannalla seisoo nuori Diana, joka
ihastuneena ottaa vastaan kaiken mahdollisen saaliin. Ashurstilla ei
koskaan ollut selvää käsitystä ajan kulusta. Hän säikähti, kun
silmätessään kelloonsa huomasi sen jo olevan yli kolmen.
Maksuosoitusta ei siis voinut enää tänään lunastaa — pankki
suljettiin ennen kuin hän ehti sinne. Havaitessaan hänen
kasvonilmeensä pikkutytöt huudahtivat äkkiä: "Hurraa! Nyt teidän
täytyy jäädä tänne!" Ashurst ei vastannut. Hän näki ajatuksissaan
Meganin kasvot, kuinka hän aamiaisen aikaan oli kuiskannut tälle:
"Lähden, rakas, Torquayhin, hankkimaan kaikkea, mitä tarvitsemme;
tulen takaisin illalla. Jos ilma on kaunis, voimme lähteä jo ensi yönä.
Ole valmis!" Ashurst muisti, kuinka tyttö vapisi kuullessaan hänen
sanansa. Mitä Megan ajattelisikaan? Ashurst koetti hillitä itseänsä
huomatessaan äkkiä, että tuo toinen tyttö, solakka, vaalea "Diana"
tyynesti tarkasteli häntä lammikon rannalta kysyvin sinisin silmin,
jotka katsoivat hiukan vinojen kulmakarvojen alta. Jospa hänen
seuralaisensa tietäisivät, mitä hän oli suunnitellut ensi yöksi —! Hän
olisi varmaan saanut kuulla pienen tuomitsevan huudahduksen ja
ollut pian yksin luolassa. Ja omituisen suuttumuksen, ikävän ja
häpeän sekaisen tunteen vallassa hän pisti kellon takaisin taskuunsa
ja sanoa tokaisi:

"Niin, olen myöhästynyt tältä päivältä."

"Hurraa! Nyt voitte tulla uimaan meidän kanssamme."

Oli mahdotonta pysyä täysin tunteettomana nähdessään noiden

sievien lasten tyytyväisyyden ja Stellan huulien hymyn ja
kuullessaan Hallidayn sanat: "Mainiota, vanha veikko! Voin lainata
sinulle kaikki, mitä tarvitset yöksi." Mutta kaipauksen ja syyllisyyden
tunne kouristi sydäntä, ja Ashurst sanoi alakuloisesti:

"Minun täytyy sähköttää."

Kun lätäkön vetovoima ei enää tehonnut, lähdettiin takaisin

hotelliin. Ashurst lähetti sähkösanoman, osoittaen sen rouva
Narracombelle: "Pyydän anteeksi, jään tänne yöksi takaisin
huomenna." Varmaankin Megan ymmärtää, että hänellä on ollut
paljon puuhaa; ja hänen sydämensä tuntui käyvän keveämmäksi. Oli
ihanan kaunis, lämmin iltapäivä, meri lepäsi tyynenä ja sinisenä, ja
uiminen oli Ashurstin suuri intohimo. Kauniiden lasten ystävällisyys
mairitteli. Oli ilo katsoa heitä, Stellaa ja Hallidayn ruskeiksi
päivettyneitä kasvoja. Kaikki tuntui hieman epätodelliselta, mutta
samalla täysin luonnolliselta — tämä oli kuin viimeinen välähdys siitä
maailmasta, johon hän oli kuulunut ennen Meganin-seikkailuaan!
Hän sai lainaksi uimapuvun, ja sitten lähdettiin liikkeelle. Halliday ja
Ashurst riisuutuivat toisen, tytöt toisen kallion takana. Ashurst oli
ensimmäisenä vedessä ja heittäytyi rohkeasti uimasilleen, niin
vastatakseen kuvaa, jonka oli antanut itsestään. Kääntyessään
katsomaan taakseen hän näki Hallidayn uivan pitkin rantaa ja
tyttöjen hyppivän ja sukeltavan ja ratsastavan pienten aaltojen
harjalla; hän oli ennen aina halveksinut tuollaista, nyt se oli hänestä
kaunista ja järkevää, koska hän siten saattoi esiintyä ainoana
syvänveden kalana koko joukossa. Mutta tullessaan lähemmäksi
hän hieman epäröi; mahtavatko he sallia hänen, vieraan, liittyä
heidän polskuttavaan joukkoonsa; häntä itseään ujostutti
lähetessään solakkaa nymfiä. Mutta Sabina huusi, että hänen piti
tulla opettamaan häntä pysymään vedenpinnalla, ja molemmat
pikkutytöt antoivat hänelle niin paljon askartelun aihetta, ettei hän
ehtinyt edes huomata, mitä Stella ajatteli hänen läheisyydestään,
kun hän äkkiä kuuli tämän kauhistuneen huudon. Stella seisoi
vyötäisiä myöten vedessä hiukan etukumarassa, hänen kaunis,
valkoinen käsivartensa osoitti merelle, hänen märät kasvonsa olivat
auringossa rypistyneet ja ilmaisivat pelästystä.

"Katsokaa Philiä! Mikä häntä vaivaa? Katsokaa!"

Ashurst huomasi oitis, että jotakin oli hullusti. Phil polskutti ja

reuhtoi syvässä vedessä, ehkä sadan yardin päässä heistä; äkkiä
hän huudahti, heilahdutti käsivartensa ylöspäin ja alkoi vajota.
Ashurst näki Stellan syöksyvän hukkuvaa kohti, mutta huudahtaen:
"Palatkaa takaisin, Stella, palatkaa takaisin!" hän lähti itse uimaan
Philiä kohti. Hän ei ollut milloinkaan uinut niin nopeasti ja saapui
Hallidayn kohdalle juuri kun tämä oli seuraavan kerran päässyt
kohoamaan pinnalle. Poika oli saanut suonenvetokohtauksen, mutta
ei ollut vaikea saada häntä maihin, sillä hän ymmärsi pysytellä aivan
hiljaa. Stella, joka oli jäänyt odottamaan, niinkuin Ashurst oli
käskenyt, ryhtyi heti auttamaan, kun tämä oli ehtinyt hänen
kohdalleen, ja kun oli päästy rannalle, asettuivat hän ja Ashurst
Philin kahden puolen ja alkoivat hieroa tämän jäseniä pikkutyttöjen
seisoessa säikähtyneinä vieressä. Halliday hymyili pian. Hän oli ollut,
selitti hän, typerä, kerrassaan typerä. Jos Frank tukisi häntä, hän
hyvinkin pääsisi vaatteittensa luo. Ashurst ojensi hänelle
käsivartensa, ja silloin sattuivat hänen silmänsä Stellan kasvoihin,
jotka olivat kosteat ja punaiset ja kyyneliset; tavanomainen tyyneys
oli niistä kerrassaan tiessään. Ashurst ajatteli: "Sanoin häntä
Stellaksi — mahtoikohan hän suuttua?"

Heidän pukeutuessaan Halliday sanoi tyynesti:

"Sinä pelastit henkeni, vanha ystävä."

"Joutavia!"

Täysin pukeutuneina, mutta ei enää entisessä mielentilassaan he

kaikki menivät yhdessä hotelliin ja istuutuivat teepöytään, kaikki,
Hallidayta lukuunottamatta, joka oli mennyt maata huoneeseensa.
Kun Sabina oli syönyt muutamia leipäviipaleita, joille levitti
marmeladia, hän sanoi:

"Tiedättekö mitä? te olette sankari!"

Ja Freda säesti:

"Se on varma!"
 Ashurst huomasi Stellan luovan katseensa maahan. Hän nousi ja
meni hämillään ikkunaan. Sinne hän kuuli Sabinan kuiskauksen:
"Vannotaan verivala! Missä on veitsesi, Freda?" Ja syrjäsilmällään
hän saattoi nähdä, miten tytöt toinen toisensa jälkeen viilsivät
sormeensa pienen haavan, puristivat haavasta veripisaran ja
piirsivät sillä jotakin paperille. Hän kääntyi mennäkseen ovelle.

"Älkää yrittäkö livahtaa käsistämme. Tulkaa takaisin!"

Tytöt tarttuivat hänen hihoihinsa ja vankina kahden pikkutytön

välissä Ashurst tuotiin takaisin pöytään. Hän huomasi pöydällä
paperipalan, johon oli verellä piirretty jokin kuvio ja sen poikki kolme
nimeä, Stella Halliday, Sabina Halliday, Freda Halliday, — nekin oli
piirretty verellä, viistoon kuvion poikki kuin tähden säteet. Sabina
sanoi:

"Tuo olette te! Meidän täytyy suudella teitä, ymmärrättehän!"

Ja Freda lisäsi innokkaasti:

"Niin, niin! Tietysti meidän täytyy teitä suudella." Ennen kuin

Ashurst ehti vapautua pikku tyttöjen otteesta, hän tunsi märkien
hiusten kosketuksen kasvoillaan, ja nenässään jotakin, joka muistutti
puraisua, tunsi nipistyksen vasemmassa käsivarressaan ja
poskessaan toisen hammasparin kosketuksen. Kun tästä oli
suoriuduttu, sanoi Freda:

"Nyt on sinun vuorosi, Stella."

Ashurst tuijotti punastuen ja kankeana pöydän yli yhtä

punastuvaan ja kankeaan Stellaan. Sabina tirskui, Freda huusi:

"Joutukaa, muuten pilaatte kaiken!"

 Omituinen, raju ujoudentunne valtasi Ashurstin. Hän sanoi
tyynesti:

"Lakatkaa jo, pikku herhiläiset!" Taaskin Sabina tirskui.

"No, olkoon menneeksi, hän voi suudella kättään ja te saatte

painaa sen nenäänne vasten. Se riittää hänen puolestaan."

Ashurstin hämmästykseksi tyttö suuteli kättään ja ojensi sen

hänelle. Hän tarttui juhlallisesti kylmään, kapeaan käteen ja vei sen
poskelleen. Pikkutytöt taputtivat innokkaasti käsiään, ja Freda huusi:
"Nyt on siis meidän velvollisuutemme pelastaa teidän henkenne
milloin hyvänsä — se on päätetty! Saanko lisää kupillisen teetä,
Stella? Mutta ei niin hirveän heikkoa!"

Teen juonti alkoi uudelleen, ja Ashurst taittoi paperin kokoon ja

pisti sen taskuunsa. Keskustelu liukui tuhkarokon valopuoliin,
appelsiineihin, hunajaan, aikaan, jolloin ei tarvitse käydä koulua jne.
Ashurst kuunteli vaihtaen ystävällisiä katseita Stellan kanssa, jonka
kasvot olivat jälleen saaneet tavallisen lievästi päivettyneen,
punertavan ja valkoisen värinsä. Tuntui kovin mieluiselta, kun näin
ystävällisesti otettiin tähän iloiseen perheeseen, oli hauska katsella
kaikkia noita kasvoja. Ja teenjuonnin jälkeen, kun pikkutytöt panivat
meriruohoa kuivamaan ottaakseen sen kasvikokoelmaansa, hän
keskusteli Stellan kanssa ikkunakomerossa ja katseli hänen
vesivärimaalauksiaan. Kaikki tapahtui kuin miellyttävässä unessa,
aika ja tapahtumat tuntuivat pysähtyneen paikoilleen, kaikki tärkeä ja
todellinen oli lakannut olemasta olemassa. Huomenna hän lähtee
takaisin Meganin luo, ja kaikki tämä on silloin hävinnyt, kaikki muu
paitsi paperipala, jossa on noiden lasten verellä piirretyt
nimikirjoitukset. Lasten! Stella ei oikeastaan ollut enää lainkaan lapsi
— yhtä vanha kuin Megan! Tytön puhe — se oli nopeaa, vähän
kovaa ja ujoa, mutta ystävällistä — tuntui Ashurstin pysytellessä
vaiteliaana vasta pääsevän oikein vauhtiin. Tytön ympärillä oli
ikäänkuin jotakin viileää ja neitseellistä — neito ruusutarhassa!
Päivällispöydässä — Halliday pysytteli poissa, koska oli niellyt liian
paljon merivettä — sanoi Sabina:

"Minä aion puhutella teitä Frankiksi."

Freda toisti heti kaikuna:

"Frank, Frank, Franky."

Ashurst nauroi ja kumarsi.

"Joka kerta kun Stella sanoo teitä herra Ashurstiksi, hänen täytyy
maksaa sakko. Se kuuluu ihan naurettavalta!"

Ashurst loi silmänsä Stellaan, joka hieman punastui. Sabina

tirskui,
Freda huudahti:

"Kas vain! Leikitkö sinä sitä, että 'polttaa, paistaa, korventaa'! Kas
vain!"

Ashurst ojensi kätensä oikeaan ja vasempaan ja sai kouriinsa

muutaman vaalean haivenen.

"Kuulkaahan nyt, senkin rasavillit! Jättäkää Stella rauhaan tai

sidon teidät tukasta yhteen."

Freda nauroi:

"Te olette peto. Hyi!"

 Sabina kuiskasi varovasti:

"Teidän pitää sanoa häntä Stellaksi, ymmärrättehän!"

"Miks'ei! Se on sievä nimi."

"Hyvä! Me annamme teille siihen oikeuden!"

Ashurst päästi tyttöjen tukan irti. Stella! Stella! Millähän nimellä

tämä puhuttelee häntä — tämän jälkeen? Mutta Stella ei maininnut
häntä millään nimellä, ennen kuin Ashurst heidän erotessaan illalla
tahallaan sanoi:

"Hyvää yötä, Stella!"

"Hyvää yötä, herra — hyvää yötä, Frank! Teitte kovin kauniisti."

"Mitä turhista!"

Tytön nopea, reipas kädenpuristus kävi äkkiä lujemmaksi ja heltisi

yhtä äkkiä.

Ashurst seisoi liikkumattomana suuressa vierashuoneessa. Vasta

eilen illalla, omenapuiden ja elävien kukkien alla, hän oli painanut
Meganin rintaansa vasten, suudellut tämän silmiä ja huulia. Hän
hengitti syvään tuota muistellessaan. Tänä yönä hän oli aikonut
aloittaa yhteisen elämän tytön kanssa, joka ei pyytänyt muuta kuin
saada olla hänen läheisyydessään. Ja nyt täytyi kulua hukkaan
kokonainen vuorokausi, vain siitä syystä, ettei hän ollut katsonut
kelloaan. Miksi hän olikaan joutunut tutustumaan noihin viattoman
herttaisiin ihmisiin juuri kun hän oli aikeissa sanoa hyvästit kaikelle
viattomuudelle? "Mutta minun tarkoitukseni on mennä naimisiin tytön
kanssa", ajatteli hän, "olen sanonut sen hänelle!"
 Hän otti kynttilän ja meni makuuhuoneeseensa, joka oli Hallidayn
huoneen vieressä. Hänen kulkiessaan ohi kuului Halliday huutavan.

"Sinäkö siellä olet, vanha veikko? Tule tänne!"

Halliday istui vuoteessaan polttaen piippua ja lukien.

"Istahda tänne hetkeksi!"

Ashurst asettui istumaan avoimen ikkunan ääreen.

"Olen vähän ajatellut asioita tänä iltapäivänä, niinkuin ymmärrät",

sanoi Halliday äkkiä. "Sanotaan ihmisen sellaisessa tapauksessa
elävän uudelleen menneisyytensä. Minulle ei käynyt niin. Alanpa
uskoa, etten vielä ollut kypsä."

"Mitä oikein ajattelit?"

Halliday oli hiljaa hetken ajan, sitten hän sanoi rauhallisesti:

"Ajattelin erästä asiaa — vähän omituista asiaa —

Cambridgelaista tyttöä, jonka olisin voinut saada — ymmärräthän!
Hyvä asia, ettei hän nyt ole omallatunnollani. Oli miten oli, sinua,
vanha veikko, saan kiittää siitä, että nyt olen tässä; muuten olisin jo
nyt suuressa pimeydessä. Ei olisi enää vuodetta, ei mitään iloja, ei
mitään! Miten luulet meidän loppujen lopuksi käyvän?"

Ashurst mutisi: "Sammumme kuin kynttilät, niin otaksun."

"Niinpä niin."

"Ehkä läähätämme ja koetamme vielä hetkisen riippua kiinni

elämästä."
 "Hm. Minusta se on aika surullista. Toivottavasti pikku sisareni
ovat olleet sinulle kilttejä?"

"Hyvin kilttejä!"

Halliday laski piipun kädestään, pani kätensä ristiin niskansa

taakse ja käänsi kasvonsa ikkunaa kohti: "He eivät ole hullumpia
tyttölapsia." Kun Ashurst näki ystävänsä makaavan tuossa
hymyilevänä, kynttilänvalon sattuessa hänen kasvoihinsa, häntä
värisytti. Toden totta! Poika olisi voinut maata tuossa jäykkänä,
kylmänä, tuo päivänpaisteinen katse iäksi sammuneena! Olisipa
sekin voinut olla mahdollista, ettei hän lainkaan olisi maannut tuossa,
vaan merenpohjassa, odotellen ylösnousemusta — yhdeksäntenä
päivänä, niinhän se kai oli? Ja tuo Hallidayn hymy näytti hänestä
äkkiä niin ihmeelliseltä, ikäänkuin siinä olisi ollut elämän ja kuoleman
ero — tuo pieni liekki — kaikki. Hän nousi ja sanoi ystävällisesti:

"Luulenpa, että sinun täytyy levätä. Sammutanko puolestasi

kynttilän?"

Halliday tarttui hänen käteensä.

"En voi sitä sanoin selittää. Mutta mahtaa olla kolkkoa olla kuollut.
Hyvää yötä, vanha veikko!"

Mielenliikutuksen vallassa Ashurst puristi ystävänsä kättä ja lähti

huoneesta. Hallin ovi oli vielä auki, ja hän meni ruohokentälle lahden
rannalle. Tähdet tuikkivat kirkkaina syvänsinisellä taivaalla, ja niiden
valossa saivat syreenitertut tuollaisen omituisen värin, jollainen
kukilla on yöaikaan ja jota ei kukaan osaa kuvata. Ashurst painoi
kasvonsa kukkaterttuun ja hänen ummistuneiden silmiensä eteen
ilmestyi Megan, jolla oli sylissään pieni ruskea koiranpentu. "Ajattelin
tyttöä, jonka olisin voinut saada, ymmärräthän. Hyvä asia, ettei hän
nyt ole omallatunnollani." — Ashurst kohotti äkkiä päänsä
syreeninkukista ja alkoi kävellä edestakaisin ruohokentällä kuin
harmaa varjo, joka aina hetkeksi ruumiillistui, hänen ilmestyessään
lyhdyn valoon, ruohokentän jommassakummassa päässä. Hän oli
taas tytön kanssa kukkien elävän, värisevän valkeuden alla,
solisevan puron rannalla, kuun luodessa teräksensinistä valoaan
vedenkalvoon. Hän muisti suudelmat, jotka oli painanut tytön
ylöspäin kääntyneille kasvoille; nuo kasvot ilmaisivat nöyryyttä ja
viattomuutta. Hän muisti tuon pakanallisen yön jännityksen ja
kauneuden. Hän pysähtyi taas syreenien varjoon. Täällä oli yön
äänenä meri eikä puro, meri huokauksineen ja maininkeineen. Ei
kuulunut pikkulintujen laulua, ei pöllön huutoa, ei ruisrääkän narinaa.
Jossakin soitettiin pianoa, valkoiset talot kohottivat juhlallisen rivin
harjaansa taivasta kohti, ja syreenien tuoksu täytti ilman. Yksi
hotellin ylimmän kerroksen ikkunoista oli valaistu; hän näki varjon
liikkuvan uutimien takana. Mitä omituisimmat tunteet risteilivät
mielessä — ne häilähtelivät, kieppuivat, temmelsivät aivoissa; oli
kuin kevät ja rakkaus olisivat hämmentyneinä ja peloissaan tietä
etsiessään joutuneet ahdinkoon. Mitä ajattelisikaan tuo tyttö, joka oli
sanonut häntä Frankiksi, jonka käsi oli äkkiä lujasti puristunut hänen
omaansa — mitä tuo viileä ja puhdas tyttö ajattelisikaan sellaisesta
hurjasta, luvattomasta rakkaudesta? Ashurst istahti nurmikolle,
asettui istumaan jalat ristissä selkä hotelliin päin, liikkumattomana
kuin Buddhan kuva. Murtautuisiko hän todella tuohon viattomuuteen
kuin varas? Aikoiko hän todella hengittää tuon luonnonkukan
tuoksua, heittääkseen — ehkä — sen kerran luotaan?
"Cambridgelaista tyttöä, jonka olisin voinut saada, ymmärräthän."
Ashurst asetti molemmat kämmenensä nurmelle ja painoi niitä
maata vasten. Se oli vielä lämmin, kostea, pehmeä, kiinteä ja
ystävällinen. "Mitä aionkaan tehdä?" ajatteli hän. Ehkä Megan nyt
seisoo ikkunassaan katsellen kukkasia ja ajatellen häntä? Pikku
Megan-parka! "Miksikä ei?" ajatteli hän. "Rakastanhan häntä. Niin,
rakastanko häntä todellakin? vai haluanko saada hänet vain siksi,
että hän on niin kaunis ja että hän rakastaa minua? Mitä aionkaan
tehdä?" Pianonsoitto jatkui. Ashurst tuijotti eteensä, kohti tummaa
merta. Hän oli kuin lumottu. Hän nousi vihdoin kankeana ja
viluissaan. Ainoassakaan ikkunassa ei enää näkynyt valoa. Hän
meni huoneeseensa ja paneutui levolle.
VIII.

Nukuttuaan sikeästi, unia näkemättä Ashurst heräsi seuraavana

aamuna siihen, että hänen ovelleen koputettiin. Kimeä ääni huusi:

"Hei! Aamiainen on valmis."

Ashurst kavahti pystyyn. Missä hän olikaan -? Ah niin!

Hän tapasi seurueen jo ruokailuhommissa ja istuutui tyhjälle

paikalle Stellan ja Sabinan väliin. Hetken tarkastettuaan Ashurstia
virkkoi viimeksimainittu:

"Kuulkaa! ravistelkaahan itseänne hiukan! Me aiomme lähteä

matkaan kello puoli kymmenen maissa."

"Aiomme mennä Berry Headiin, vanha veikko. Sinun täytyy tulla

mukaan."

Ashurst ajatteli: "Lähteäkö mukaan! Mahdotonta! Hankin nuo

tavarat ja lähden takaisin maalle!" Hän silmäsi Stellaan. Tyttö sanoi
nopeasti:

"Voi, tulkaa mukaan!"

 Sabina yhtyi heti pyyntöön:

"Meillä ei ole lainkaan hauskaa ilman teitä."

Freda nousi ja asettui seisomaan Ashurstin tuolin taakse.

"Teidän täytyy tulla, muuten tukistan!"

Ashurst ajatteli: "No niin! päivä lisää miettimisaikaa. Päivä lisää!"

Ja hän sanoi:

"Hyvä! Minä lähden. Ei teidän tarvitse repiä kiharoitani."

"Hurraa!"

Asemalla hän kirjoitti uuden sähkösanoman lähettääkseen sen

maalaistaloon nummelle, mutta repi sen sitten rikki. Hän ei olisi
osannut selittää, miksi hän niin teki.

Brixhamista seurue lähti matkaan hyvin pienissä vaunuissa.

Ashurst oli puristuksissa Sabinan ja Fredan välissä ja hänen
polvensa hipoivat Stellan polvia. He leikkivät seuraleikkiä "Ylös! alas!
Jenkins!", ja se synkkä mieliala, joka äsken oli vallannut Ashurstin,
väistyi hilpeyden tieltä. Tänä ainoana päivänä, joka oli varattu
miettimiseen, ei hän lainkaan tahtonut ajatella. He juoksivat kilpaa,
painiskelivat, soutivat kanootilla — sinä päivänä ei kenelläkään ollut
halua lähteä uimaan — he lauloivat, leikkivät ja söivät eväspussit
ihan tyhjiksi. Pikkutytöt nukahtivat paluumatkalla Ashurstin olkaa
vasten, ja nuorukaisen polvi hipoi taaskin Stellan polvea ahtaassa
vaunussa. Tuntui uskomattomalta ajatella, ettei hän vähän toista
vuorokautta sitten ollut vielä milloinkaan nähnyt noita kolmea
vaaleatukkaista päätä. Junassa Ashurst puhui Stellan kanssa
runoudesta, otti selon tytön mielirunoilijoista ja kertoi omistaan ja
tunsi miellyttävää ylemmyyden tunnetta. Vihdoin Stella sanoi hiljaa:

"Phil sanoo, ettette usko kuolemanjälkeistä elämää olevan

olemassa.
Minusta se on hirveää."

Ashurst sopersi hämmennyksissään:

"En voi sanoa uskovani enkä olevani uskomatta — yksinkertaisesti

en tiedä."

Tyttö sanoi nopeasti:

"En voisi sitä kestää. Mikä olisikaan siinä tapauksessa elämän

tarkoitus?"

Katsellen tytön kauniiden kulmakarvojen poimuja Ashurst vastasi:

"En osaa panna arvoa erinäisten asioiden uskomiseen vain sen

perusteella, että niihin tahdotaan uskoa."

"Mutta miksikä haluaisimme elää kuoleman jälkeen, jollei niin

myöskin todella tapahtuisi?"

Tyttö katsoi Ashurstia suoraan kasvoihin.

Ashurst ei tahtonut loukata Stellaa, mutta ylemmyyden

näyttämisen halu houkutteli hänet sanomaan:

"Joka elää, tahtoo tietysti jatkaa loppumattomiin, se on osa

olemassaolosta, mutta luultavasti ei siinä piile mitään muuta."

"Ette siis usko Raamattua?"

 Ashurst ajatteli: "Nyt minun täytynee todenteolla pahoittaa hänen
mielensä."

"Uskon vuorisaarnan, koska se on kaunis ja soveltuu kaikkiin

aikoihin."

"Mutta ette Kristuksen jumaluutta?"

Ashurst pudisti päätään.

Tyttö käänsi nopeasti kasvonsa ikkunaan, ja Ashurst muisti äkkiä

Meganin rukouksen, jonka pieni Nick oli hänelle toistanut: "Jumala
siunatkoon meitä kaikkia ja herra Ashurstia." Kuka muu kuin tuo
tyttö, joka odotti häntä, saattaisikaan koskaan sillä tavoin rukoilla
hänen puolestaan? Kuka muu kuin tuo tyttö, joka juuri tällä hetkellä
odotti häntä palaavaksi pitkin kujatietä? Ja äkkiä iski häneen ajatus.
"Millainen roisto olenkaan!"

Illan kuluessa tuo ajatus palasi alinomaa mieleen, mutta, kuten

tavallista, kerta kerralta vähemmän tuskallisena, kunnes hänestä
lopulta alkoi tuntua melkein itsestään selvältä asialta olla roisto. Ja
omituista: hän ei tiennyt, oliko hän roisto siinä tapauksessa, että
palaisi, vai siinä tapauksessa, ettei palaisi.

Seurue pelasi korttia, kunnes lapset lähetettiin nukkumaan, minkä

jälkeen Stella asettui pianon ääreen. Ikkunan vieressä olevalta
istuinpaikaltaan, missä jo oli melkein pimeä, Ashurst tarkasteli tyttöä
kynttiläin lomitse — vaaleaa päätä ja pitkää, valkoista kaulaa, joka
taipui käsien liikkeiden mukaan. Stella soitti sujuvasti — ei juuri
tunteellisesti. Mutta millaisen taulun hän muodostikaan keltaisen,
ikäänkuin enkelimäisen hohteen ympäröidessä häntä! Kuka
saattoikaan ajatella intohimoisia ajatuksia tai tuntea kiihkeitä haluja
tuon serafipäisen, valkopukuisen tytön lähettyvillä? Stella soitti
Schumannin "Warum?" kappaleen. Sitten Halliday otti esiin huilunsa
ja lumous särkyi. Sen jälkeen täytyi Ashurstin laulaa Schumannin
lauluja Stellan säestäessä, kunnes keskellä "Ich grolle nicht"-laulua
huoneeseen hiipi kaksi pientä sinisiin yöpukuihin verhoutunutta
olentoa ja koetti kätkeytyä pianon alle. Iltaseurustelu päättyi yleiseen
sekasortoon eli, Sabinan sanoilla puhuen, "suurenmoiseen meteliin".

Sinä yönä Ashurst nukkui tuskin ollenkaan. Hän vain ajatteli

ajattelemasta päästyäänkin ja kääntyili ja kieriskeli vuoteellaan.
Keskeytymätön tuttavallinen seurustelu kahtena päivänä,
Hallidayden ilmapiiri näytti saartavan hänet kehäänsä ja saavan
nummen maalaistalon, vieläpä Meganinkin tuntumaan epätodellisilta.
Oliko hän todellakin tunnustanut Meganille rakkautensa — todellakin
luvannut ottaa tytön mukaansa, elämään kanssaan? Hän lienee ollut
silloin kokonaan kevään, yön ja omenapuun kukkien lumoissa! Tämä
keväthulluus saattoi koitua heille molemmille vain turmioksi! Ajatus,
että hän oli aikeessa tehdä rakastajattarekseen tuon tytön — tuon
lapsen, joka ei vielä ollut täyttänyt kahdeksaatoista — herätti
hänessä nyt aivan kuin kauhua, vaikka se samalla sai veren
kuumenemaan. Hän puheli itsekseen: "Se on hirvittävää! — mitä
olen tehnyt? — se on hirvittävää!" Schumannin musiikin kaiku
sekaantui hänen aivoissaan kuumeisiin ajatuksiin, ja hän näki
taaskin edessään Stellan viileän, valkoisen, vaaleakutrisen
olemuksen, näki hänen hieman taipuneen niskansa, häntä
ympäröineen omituisen, enkelimäisen loisteen. "Lienen ollut hullu, —
ja taidan olla vieläkin. Mikä minuun menikään? Pikku Megan-parka!"
— "Jumala siunatkoon meitä kaikkia ja herra Ashurstia. Tahdon vain
olla teidän luonanne, vain olla teidän luonanne!" Ja painaen päänsä
pielukseen Ashurst tukahdutti huokauksen. Ollako menemättä
takaisin — se olisi hirvittävää! Mennäkö takaisin? — se olisi vielä
hirvittävämpää!

Mielenliikutukset menettävät kykynsä tuottaa kärsimyksiä, jos

henkilö, joka niitä kokee, on nuori ja päästää ne vapaasti
purkautumaan. Ja Ashurst nukahti ajatellen: "Mitäpä koko juttu
merkitsi muuta kuin muutamia suudelmia, jotka unohtuvat
kuukauden kuluttua."

Seuraavana aamuna hän otti maksuosoituksella rahat, mutta sitä

kauppaa, missä oli käynyt katsomassa kyyhkynharmaata pukua, hän
karttoi kuin ruttoa. Sen sijaan hän osti joitakin tarvekapineita. Hän oli
koko päivän omituisessa mielentilassa koettaen ylläpitää eräänlaista
kaunaa itseään kohtaan. Kahden edellisen päivän levottomuutta oli
seurannut pelkkä tyhjyyden tunne — kaikki intohimoinen kaipuu oli
kadonnut, ikäänkuin kyynelet olisivat huuhtoneet sen pois.
Teenjuonnin jälkeen Stella asetti pöydälle hänen eteensä kirjan ja
sanoi ujosti:

"Oletteko lukenut tämän, Frank?"

Se oli Farrarin "Jeesuksen elämä". Ashurst hymyili. Tytön

levottomuus hänen epäuskonsa johdosta tuntui hänestä
naurettavalta, mutta samalla liikuttavalta. Se oli myöskin tarttuvaa,
sillä Ashurst alkoi puolestaan tuntea tarvetta puolustaa itseään
joskaan ei halunnut käännyttää tyttöä. Ja illalla, kun lapset ja
Halliday laittoivat äyriäislippojaan kuntoon, sanoi Ashurst:

"Kirkollisen uskon pohjalla on aina, sikäli kuin ymmärrän,

palkinnon ajatus — ajatus, mitä voi saada palkaksi siitä, että on
hyvä. Siihen sisältyy siis eräänlainen etujen kerjuu. Luulenpa, että
kaiken alkusyynä on pelko."