Sunday, February 7, 2016

"Exotic" Airs in Germany - Dalberg's "Ueber die Musik der Indier" (1802)

I. 

In the previous article I have discussed the publication of national airs of the more exotic kind in France by both Rousseau in his Dictionnaire de Musique (1768) and by Laborde in his Essai sur la Musique (1780). The latter had offered - as part of this massive musicological treatise - the largest collection so far with more than 50 tunes. In fact it was at that time the best summary of what was known about foreign musical cultures. Germany - as usual - was a little behind the time in this respect. Johann Gottfried Herder published his groundbreaking anthology of Volkslieder in 1778/9 but this was a multicultural collection of only texts. Of course there were books by travellers, explorers and missionaries about foreign countries and cultures - most of them translated from French or English - and some of them even included notes about music as well as musical examples. 

Some influential pioneers became interested in this genre and made available at least a few assorted "exotic" tunes. Musicologist Johann Nicolaus Forkel for example reprinted the relevant parts as well as some musical examples from two popular travel reports - by Forster and Niebuhr - in the Musikalisch-Kritische Bibliothek (2, 1778, pp. 306-320). He also listed some of the already available literature from France and England in his Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik (1792, see pp. 32-3; pp. 135-6), a useful bibliography, even though in this respect very incomplete. The legendary Abbé Vogler apparently traveled as far as North Africa and brought some tunes back. He published two small collections in the 1790s, Polymelos ou Caractères de Musique de differentes Nations (1791) and Pieces de Clavecin faciles (1798). The latter included melodies from Africa and China. Vogler also performed these kind of tunes in his spectacular organ concerts (see: Polymelos - Abbé Vogler's Collections of National Airs). 

But only in 1802 - also the year the first collection of Scottish songs appeared in Germany: Haydn's Alt-Schottische Balladen und Lieder (available at the Internet Archive) - the first comprehensive anthology of "exotic" national airs was published as a part of Fritz von Dalberg's extended German edition of a 10 year old article about Indian music by the famous English orientalist Sir William Jones. Here the interested reader could find more than 50 Indian, Chinese, Arab and Persian tunes as well as a lot of additional information about oriental music: 
  • Ueber die Musik der Indier. Eine Abhandlung des William Jones. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt, mit erläuternden Anmerkungen und Zusätzen begleitet, von F. H. v. Dalberg. Nebst einer Sammlung indischer und anderer Volks-Gesänge und 30 Kupfern, Beyer und Maring, Erfurt, 1802 (available at BSB, München, 4 Mus.th.723 & at the Internet Archive; also at Universität Wien, Phaidra) [the part with the tunes was also published separately as 'Lieder der Indier und anderer orientalischen Völker', Beyer & Maring, Erfurt, 1802]
Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg (1760-1812; see Embach & Godwin 1998, Embach & Gallé 2012; see also Wikipedia) was a very interesting character but is barely known today. He came from an old and distinguished family. His older brother was the last Kurfürst of Mainz. He himself became capitular in Worms, Speyer and Mainz, typical benefices in these circles. Dalberg studied law, was appointed Geheimrat and became an expert for education but otherwise avoided a career in politics or bureaucracy. Instead he turned his attention to the arts and made himself a name as a musicologist - among his works were for example Blicke eines Tonkünstlers in die Musik der Geister (1787, at UB Heidelberg) and Untersuchungen über den Ursprung der Harmonie (1800, at BSB) - , composer - mostly of songs (see Embach & Godwin, pp. 497-551; see his first collection, 1788, at UB Frankfurt) - , pianist, translator and writer. And not at least he was one of the first German orientalists.
 
At that time intellectuals in Germany were looking east. Herder had proclaimed in 1774 - in his anonymously published Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (p. 147) - the orient - "das Morgenland" - as the "cradle of humanity". Especially India became something like a "dreamland" for everybody who was searching for the sources and origins of Western culture. It was more or less Herder who created what has been called the "mythical image" of India (see Willson 1964, pp. 49-71; also Frank 2009) and he had to rely on the available literature mostly from England and France, being it travel books, translations of Eastern literature or scholarly treatises. In fact German scholars were in this respect completely dependent on their English colleagues who of course were able to do original research. 

Dalberg knew Herder personally, he corresponded and traveled with him and as a faithful admirer felt inspired by his ideas (see Embach & Godwin, pp. 171-202, pp. 367-8; Kovar, pp. 44-5). In the preface he  referred to Asia as "die Wiege unseres Geschlechtes" where music must have been developed first: "the earliest musical knowledge, like the beginning and origin of all arts and sciences, should be searched for" there, especially in India (pp. III-IV). But to learn more about Indian music he had to go to London, at that time something like the multicultural capital of Europe. 

II. 

The '80s and '90s saw "the rapid acceleration of the cultural discovery of India" (Farrell, p. 10) and the key figure of this movement was Sir William Jones (1746-1794; see Cannon 1990; see Wikipedia), from 1783 until his early death judge in Calcutta. Already in 1784 the Royal Asiatick Society of Bengal was founded, with Sir William as the first President. He knew a lot of languages including Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, also learned Sanskrit and was busy as a linguist, translator and orientalist. With an astonishing productivity he produced numerous works. Jones also started and edited a periodical, the Asiatick Researches [see ESTC T149936], that was published in Calcutta since 1789 and regularly reprinted in London. The first volume was even translated into German (Riga 1795, at  BStB). Here the interested reader could find most of the relevant original research. 

Also music from India became a topic of interest (see Bor 1988; Woodfield 1995, pp. 281-95, Farrell 1997, pp. 15-44; Zon 2007, pp. 48-59; Zon 2006; Cook 2007). Until the 1780s barely anything was known about it except some occasional notes by travellers and missionaries (see Woodfield 1995, pp. 276-8; Bor 1988, pp. 52-4). Laborde in his Essai (1780) didn't even mention Indian music. French voyager Pierre Sonnerat wasn't particularly impressed of what he had heard and the short remarks in his Voyage aux Indes Orientales et a la Chine (1782, pp. 101; also German ed., 1783, pp. 78-9) sound rather dismissive:
"La Musique est dans le même état d'imperfection que les autres arts. Les chant est sans harmonie [...] Les Indiens ont plusiers instruments [...] Celui qui fait le plus de bruit, est pour eux le plus beau & le plus harmonieux".
But already the first volume of the Asiatick Researches included an interesting article by Francis Fowke about musical instruments (pp. 295-99, here in the 5th ed., London 1806). Sir William Jones himself also found some time to deal with music and he worked on his article about the "Musical Modes of the Hindus" since 1784. But it only appeared in 1792 in the third volume of the Asiatick Researches (pp. 55-87).
 
This was only a rather short, theoretical and fragmentary treatise. He wrote mostly about the scales and added only one musical example. But it was the first serious discussion of the principles of Indian music based on first-hand knowledge and it became the starting-point for all further research (see Zon 2006, pp. 199-205). This article can be seen as only one of several attempts at a more thorough examination of oriental musical cultures. In 1779 the at that point most comprehensive work about Chinese music had appeared in Paris, the Mémoire Sur La Musique Des Chinois, Tant Anciens Que Modernes (at the Internet Archive)  by French Jesuit missionary Joseph-Maries Amiot. The Austrian officer and scholar Franz Joseph Sulzer added a chapter of more than 100 pages about Turkish Music to his Geschichte des transalpinischen Daciens (3 Vols., 1781-2, here Vol. 2, pp. 430-547). Also Italian scholar Giambatista Toderini wrote about music in his Letteratura Turchesca (Vol. 1, 1787, pp. 222-52; German ed., 1790, Vol. 1, pp. 240-67). Jones' publication closed another gap and put India on the musical map. 

At that time a lively music scene in Calcutta had developed among the new English elite. They imported musical instruments and music from home (see Woodfield 2001). Some of them also started collecting and playing local music. One William Hamilton Bird - who was quite busy there as impresario, conductor and instrumentalist and about whom not much else is known (see Farrell, p. 32) - managed to compile, arrange and then publish the very first collection of Indian tunes - "taken down from actual performances [and] written down in staff notation for performance of Western instruments" (dto., p. 31) - in 1789: 
  • William Hamilton Bird, The Oriental Miscellany; Being A Collection Of The Most Favourite Airs of Hindoostan, Compiled And Adapted For The Harpsichord, &c., Cooper, Calcutta, 1789 (at the Internet Archive)
Here we can find 30 tunes, all arranged for piano, some with variations, as well as an Introduction with helpful explanations about the different genres: Rekhtahs, Teranas, Tuppahs and Raagnies. Especially with the latter he had some problems and noted that they "are so void of meaning, and any degree of regularity that it is impossible to bring them into any form for performance, by any singers but those of their country" ([pp. II-III]). Of course he had to adapt these tunes to Western musical style: "it has cost him great pains to bring them into any form as to TIME, which the music of Hindostan is extremely deficient in" ([p. I]. One should not ask for "authenticity" in a modern sense. The tunes appeared "in a form in which doubtless almost every trace of their original character has been lost, except perhaps their general melodic contour" (Woodfield 1995, p. 294).  
 
But this didn't matter much. It was a start and a first step to a closer acquaintance with original Indian music and here we can see a kind of new "innocent openness to non-European culture" (see Cook, p. 17). Hamilton Bird was no ethnomusicologist. This was music for practical use, for musicians to perform and "for the entertainment of his friends, and the public" (Oriental Miscellany, [p. IV]). 

This collection also became available in London where it initiated a fashion for so-called "Hindostannie Airs". More publications by other editors would follow and Indian tunes became part of the popular music scene (see Zon 2007, p. 50). Some years later composer Edward Smith Biggs tried to make Hamilton Bird's melodies even more digestible. He published 18 of them in modern arrangements and with new poetry by popular writer Amelia Opie (Twelve Hindoo Airs, at Gallica BnF; A Second Set of Hindoo Airs, at at Gallica BnF, [n. d., c. 1800], also available at the Internet Archive). Later, in 1818, even Thomas Moore would use one of Hamilton Bird's tunes for his popular hit "All That's Bright Must Fade" (Tuppah, p. 37; Popular National Airs I, 1818, [No. 3], pp. 9-15). 

III. 

Fritz von Dalberg, eager to find out more about Indian and Oriental music, made his pilgrimage to London. It is not clear when exactly he was there and if he traveled to England one or two times. But he may have spent some time there in 1793-4 and then in 1798 and he may have also met Joseph Haydn there (see Embach & Godwin, pp. 363-6). It is also not clear if he had become familiar with Jones' article already in Germany or if he read it first in London. Of course he couldn't meet Sir William himself who was in India and died there much too early in 1794. But he made the acquaintance of Richard Johnson, "a well-known collector of Indian and Persian manuscripts and miniatures [...] who seems to have had a profound knowledge of Indian music" (Boer, p. 55). Mr. Johnson supported Dalberg with a stunning generosity and made it possible for him to produce more than only a translation of the "Musical Modes". For example he provided him with so-called ragmalas that he used to illustrate his book (pp. 85-100, and Appendix; see Embach & Godwin, p. 367).

Dalberg was not satisfied with Jones' sparse and fragmentary attempt and his more theoretical approach. He widened the perspective by also discussing the music of other oriental cultures - Arabia, Persia, China, the South Sea -, he added more relevant additional research and he also added many more musical examples, ending up with more than 50 tunes (see Kovar, pp. 42-3; Embach & Godwin, p. 369, pp. 372-4). 

For the part about India Dalberg included for example the remarks about musical instruments from Sonnerat's Voyage aux Indes Orientale et à la Chine (Vol. 1, 1782, pp. 101-3; in Dalberg, pp. 78-80), Fowke's above-mentioned description of the Vina from the first volume of the Asiatick Researches (here pp. 74-76) as well as his own "Zusätze und Bemerkungen", a critical discussion of Jones' article (pp. 44-58). Most important was the great number of additional tunes. Mr. Johnson performed one song for him (No. II; see p. IV) and also helped him out with a copy of the Oriental Miscellany. Dalberg reprinted all 30 melodies (Nos. 3-32), but without the accompanying arrangements. He also quoted explanations of the different genres (pp. XI-XIV). Interestingly he was not completely convinced of the merits of this collection, questioned the tunes' authenticity and even doubted if Mr. Hamilton Bird had really the grasped the spirit and the subtleties of Indian music. This critical attitude is characteristic of his work (see Kovar, p. 49-50) and at times he sounded like an early ethnomusicologist. 

Also some of the more recent literature was consulted. Italian missionary and Sanskrit scholar Fra Paolino da San Bartolomeo had published his Viaggio alle Indie Orientali in 1796. Here Dalberg found some songs from Malabar including one with a tune (pp. 325-30, at NB, Oslo; German edition, 1798, pp. 365-70, at the Internet Archive) and this was also dutifully added as an addendum (pp. 80-84; No. 23, p. 29). English orientalist William Ouseley (1767-1842) had started a new ambitious periodical in 1797, the Oriental Collections. Three volumes appeared until 1800 and here the interested reader could find translations of poetry, scholarly articles and the more, even some music. One text with the title "Anecdotes on Indian Music" included four tunes (Vol. 1, 1797, pp. 70-9) and the same volume also offered a "Bengalee tune" (Misc. plate before p. 383; p. 385). These were more welcome additions to Dalberg's collection (Nos. 34-38; 42) .

Besides all these information about Indian music he turned his attention also to the music of other oriental cultures and added musical examples "um sie mit den indischen Gesängen vergleichen zu können" (p. XIV). Chinese music was of course not unknown in Germany. Du Halde's Description Géographique, Historique, Chronologique, Politique, et Physique De L'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise (Paris, 1735) with half a dozen tunes had been translated into German (5 Vols., 1747-56, here Vol. 3, pp. 346-8). Johann Christian Hüttner had recently made available two songs from an English publication (see Der Neue Teutsche Merkur, 1796, 1. Band, pp. 47-63 & "Canzonetta Chinese" with translation, bef. p. 47, at UB Bielefeld; Journal des Luxus und der Moden 11, 1796, pp. 35-40, at UrMEL). Dalberg instead used Amiot's Mémoire Sur La Musique Des Chinois (see there pp. 184-5) and also reprinted the only musical example from this book (pp. 119-24; No. L, pp. 41-3). Some more Chinese tunes were taken from Ouseley's Oriental Collections (Vol. 1, 1797, p. 343; Vol. 2, 1798, pp. 148-9; see Nos. 28-41). 

He also added a chapter about Arab and Persian music based on the available literature (pp. 100-19; Nos. 43-48) and used as examples the one Persian tune from Chardin's Voyages en Perse, et Autres Lieux de L'Orient (1711, here Vol. 2, plate No. 26) and the six pieces from Thomas Shaw's Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant (Oxford, 1738, p. 272, French ed., 1743, Vol. 1, p. 348; German ed., 1765, pp. 180-1). Apparently he wasn't aware of the music collected by Danish traveller Georg Höst in the 1760s and published on Germany in 1781 (plate No. 32, after p. 262). These tunes would have also been a worthwhile addition to his collection. 

Not at least he also expanded to the South Pacific to show examples of the music of the less cultivated - "savage" - people . 25 years ago one Joshua Steele had studied an instrument brought to England by Captain Cooke's expedition and wrote an article for the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society with a very curious title: Remarks on a larger System of Reed Pipes from the Isle of Amsterdam, with some Observations on the Nose Flute of Otaheite (in Vol. 65, 1775, Pt 6, pp. 72-8). This was in fact an interesting treatise and Steele added two tunes. But of course these were his own compositions (see Agnew 2008, p. 114). Nonetheless Dalberg included this article as well as one of the musical examples as a "Melodie aus den Südseeinseln" (pp. 125-131; No. LIII, p. 44). More original were two tunes collected in New Zealand that he borrowed from Forster's book about Captain Cook's voyage around the world (Nos. LI & LII, pp. 43-4; f. ex. in Forster 1784, Vol. 3, pp. 303-4). 

All in all this was an outstanding work and a major contribution to the literature about oriental cultures even though it did not include original research. He "reached India only in Richard Johnson's bureau in London" (Embach & Godwin, p. 375) and had to rely on secondary literature. But it was the best that could be achieved by a German scholar who himself had never been to any of these countries. It was also the largest collection of more or less authentic "exotic" tunes available in Germany. He offered much more than the Abbé Vogler in his two above-mentioned small publications. Outside of Germany only Laborde's Essai with its numerous musical examples came close. Dalberg clearly did his best to understand and appreciate this music not from a viewpoint of European superiority but as an expression of another culture of equal value. With his critical attitude and the multi-cultural approach he may really be seen as a kind of progenitor of later comparative musicologists (see Kovar, p. 47, pp. 49-51). 

On the other hand this anthology also looks like a musical answer to Herder's Volkslieder, notwithstanding the fact no songs from these cultures had appeared there. But Dalberg had adopted - as the faithful Herderian he was - the latter's idea that songs - "Volksgesänge" - reflected a people's "Charakter und Kunstgenius" (p. XV). His reference to the tunes' "simplicity" (see also Kovar, p. 48, pp. 51-2) could have been written by Herder himself: 
"Dem bloß ausübenden Tonkünstler, der allen Reiz der Musik nur in künstliche Wendungen und Schwürigkeiten setzt, werden diese einfachen Volksgesänge nur wenig sagen [...] schätzbar sind sie dem denkenden Musiker, der voll Liebe zum Einfach-Schönen Nationalgesänge und alte Volksmelodien aussucht, um sich mit ihrem Geist vetraut zu machen" (pp. XIV-XV). 
In fact he lifted these "exotic" tunes out of their original context and adapted them anew, on his own terms, for the genre known as national airs or Volkslieder. In another related work from the same year he expressed similar sentiments. Jones had also published a prose translation of the Gitagovinda: Or The Songs of Jayadeva - written in the 12th century - in the third volume of the Asiatick Researches (1792, pp. 185-207). Dalberg translated this "delightful pastoral idyll" - "eine liebliche Hirtenidille" (p. vii) - into German as Gita-govinda oder die Gesänge Jajadeva's eines altindischen Dichters, but cleaned it up even more (p. xv; see Embach & Gallé, p. 79). This legendary poet's songs were reinterpreted as "Volkslieder" and of course he couldn't avoid a reference to MacPherson's Ossian
"Die Gesänge dieses Dichters werden noch heutzutage gleich den Ossianischen Liedern von den rührendsten Melodien begleitet, am Ufer des Ganges gesungen" (p. vii) 
Dalberg's impressive work was mostly well-received by the critics. The reviewer in the Neue Teutsche Merkur (1, 1802, 6. Stück, pp. 130-4, here p. 131) called it "ein Werk [...] von äußerster Wichtigkeit" and recommended it to everybody interested in this topic, not only scholars and composers but also "jedem Liebhaber und Freunde der Geschichte der Menschheit überhaupt". But not everybody shared the enthusiasm for Indian and Oriental music, especially not the more conservative musicologists who were of course convinced of the superiority of European music (see also Kovar, pp. 47-8). 

The anonymous author of a long and detailed review in the AMZ (Vol. 5, 1803, pp. 281-294, pp. 297-303) lauded Dalberg for his efforts to make all this material available. But he rejected the "now so often repeated demand for simplicity", warned not to confuse "Dürftigkeit mit Simplicität und Unbehülflichkeit mit Originalität und sinnvoller Kühnheit" and even accused him of "not doing justice to our own music to promote the interest in Indian music" (pp. 288, 292, 297). Another reviewer in the Neue Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek (Vol. 86, 1804, pp. 49-60, here p. 50) complained that both Jones and Dalberg expressed on occasion an "almost too great fondness for Indian music" and that they therefore even suggested that it had "certain advantages over our own music". This of course was not acceptable.

IV.

Later Dalberg's collection was used by the promoters and admirers of the "Volkslied". Professor Thibaut (1772-1840; see Baumstark 1841) in Heidelberg, influential music theorist and conductor of an ambitious choir, mentioned it in his Ueber Reinheit der Tonkunst (2nd. ed., 1826, p. 91). He also had one later collection at hand, Horn's Indian Melodies (c.1813; see Verzeichnis, p. 43), which was partly based on the Oriental Miscellany. Thibaut arranged some Indian tunes for his choir and they can be found in his unpublished manuscript, Alte Nationalgesänge (1820-40, see RISM, for example No. 27, "Meine Sehnsucht sie endet nimmer", i. e. Dalberg No. 22). Hermann Kestner (1810-1890; see f. ex. Hahn 2003/4) from Hannover, private scholar and collector of songbooks and songs who had spent some time in Heidelberg and had sung with Thibaut, also arranged these tunes and added German texts. Unfortunately his work was never published but at least his manuscripts have survived (see f. ex. RISM, 1831). 

Two other members of the circle around Thibaut, Eduard Baumstark and Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio, were responsible for the very first collection of international national airs published in Germany: Bardale. Sammlung auserlesener Volkslieder der verschiedenen Völker der Erde mit deutschem Texte und Begleitung des Pianoforte und der Guitarre (1829, available at the Internet Archive). They could use his resources and apparently were particularly fond of the copy of Ueber die Musik der Inder. Besides Chardin's Persian tune - here a recent new edition of the Voyages en Perse and Rousseau's Dictionnaire were given as the source - they included five melodies from Dalberg's book, all with easy accompanying arrangements and new German lyrics: three Indian, one Chinese and "Mizmoune", the "Moorish Aria" originally published in Shaw's Travels in 1734 (see p. 75: Nos. 16, 19, 29, 30, 37, i. e. Dalberg Nos. 13, 46, 32, 41, 42). At least one of them (No. 16) had already been part of the repertoire of Professor Thibaut's choir. 

Most interesting among these pieces is an Indian tune originally published by Ouseley in the Oriental Collections that was transformed here into a "Volkslied". In his article "Anecdotes of Indian Music" he reprinted a piece of music from a Persian translation of an Indian book  from the early 18th century (plate after p. 78, see p. 75): 

After an analysis of the scale used here and some theoretical explanations he then attempted a transcription in a quite unusual letter-code (pp. 76-8): 

Dalberg transformed it into then into a tune in modern musical notation and called it "Persisches Lied" (No. 42, p. 37): 

Baumstark and Zuccalmaglio added a new text "nach einer persischen Originaldichtung" - although they didn't tell which one they used - and turned it into a song: "Die Erwartung", to be sung "mit Sehnsucht" (No. 37, p. 67, note, p. 76): 

That way an old Indian tune ended up in German living-rooms. At this point it of course had barely anything to do with the original version but still was regarded as an "authentic" representation of a foreign culture. In the book it was placed between an "Hebrew" song and a "Hirtenlied. Alt-Englisch" and a singer performing these pieces one after another made a trip around half the world and several centuries back into the past. Nonetheless we can see here again - with this this rather naive appropriation of this and the other tunes - still a kind of "innocent openness" to foreign music. 

But on the other hand these songs had a rather self-serving ideological function. They represented - thanks to Rousseau and Herder - a dreamland, a more natural, much simpler world. India - or Persia, Old England etc - in the living-room was the antidote to the "nervous" modern music like Beethoven's and instead offered "pure, and often truly heavenly delights" (Vorrede, p. I). Let's hope it worked. But at least some reviewers didn't take this kindly - especially not the rude attack on Beethoven - and had serious problems finding these "delights" (see AMZ 31, 1829, pp. 733-742; BAMZ 7, 1830, pp. 283-5). 

A couple of years later a rival collection of international national airs appeared, Friedrich Silcher's Ausländische Volksmelodien (4 Vols, 1835-41). Silcher also used some exotic tunes but apparently he didn't know Dalberg's anthology. Instead he borrowed two Indian tunes from Thomas Moore's Popular National Airs, his major source. One of them was "All That's Bright Must Fade", as mentioned above also with a melody taken from Hamilton Bird's Oriental Miscellany ("Alle Lust hat Leid", in Vol. 3, 1839, No. 5, pp. 6-7). This tune was of course already available in Germany since 1802 in Dalberg's book (No. 28, p. 26), but up until then it hadn't made any deeper impression. Only with Silcher's German version of Moore's great hit it became established as well-known Indian song. This shows that the same tune could migrate to Germany on different routes and become popular only with its second attempt. 

But this doesn't mean that Dalberg's Ueber die Musik der Indier was forgotten. In fact it remained on the shelf and was regularly used by orientalists and musicologists. Peter von Bohlen referred to Dalberg in his Das alte Indien (1830, Vol. 2, p. 195) as did Gottfried Wilhelm Fink in Erste Wanderung der ältesten Tonkunst (1831, pp. 56-7, 253, 266). Of course it was mentioned in articles about Indian music in dictionaries, for example in the Encyclopädie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaften (1840, Vol. 3, p. 693) and the Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst (1849, p. 452). Kiesewetter relied on Dalberg's work for his Musik der Araber (1842, see pp. xv, 18, 23, 68, 78) and Ambros mentioned him in the chapter about India in the Geschichte der Musik (Vol. 1, 1862, f. ex. p. 43). Carl Engel in England was still familiar with this book and included it in the bibliography of his important Introduction to the Study of National Music (1866, p. 397), François-Joseph Fétis in France reprinted one tune in the Histoire Générale de la Musique (Vol. 2, 1869, p. 272) and so did Danish composer A. P. Berggreen in his outstanding collection of non-European national airs, the Folke-Sange og Melodier Fra Lande Udenfor Europa (1772, here No. 121, p. 96, see p. 102) although in the latter case it was only Steele's self-made "Melodie aus den Südseeinseln" (Dalberg, No. 53, p. 44). 

At this point most of the content was surely outdated. But at least some of the tunes survived and there is good reason to assume that some of them were still sung and performed in some living-rooms. In 1896 Breitkopf & Härtel published a songbook, a Volksliederbuch (available at the Internet Archive), by the late Victorie Gervinus (1820-1893), wife of historian and politician Gottfried August Gervinus (1805-1871) and also a well-respected music scholar who had edited a collection of vocal pieces from Händel's operas and oratorios and written an instruction book for singing (available at BSB). This collection of international national airs was put together posthumously from her personal manuscripts. From the introductory remarks we learn that these were the songs she used to sing at home, with her friends and family. 

Here we can find "Volkslieder" from Denmark, England, Scotland, France and other countries, but also some of the more "exotic" kind. There are three "Indian" songs of which at least one - with a text apparently added by Thibaut - can be traced back to Dalberg's anthology (No. 37, p. 34, i. e. Dalberg No. 22, p. 20; Thibaut, RISM). Additionally there are also two versions of "Mizmoune", the Moorish aria from Shaw's Travels (No. 55-6, pp. 60; Dalberg, No. 46, p. 39): the one from Bardale (No. 19, p. 33) and another originally from Thibaut's repertoire (see RISM) but most likely received from Kestner (see RISM) whom they knew personally. Not at least she also used to sing "Die Erwartung" (here No. 57, p. 61) as published in Bardale. This means that some of the tunes made available by Dalberg in 1802 were still known by the end of the century: they were part of the singing tradition in an educated household. And by publishing them again in this songbook their life-span as "Volkslieder" was once again prolonged. 

Literature:
  • Vanessa Agnew, Enlightenment Orpheus: The Power of Music in Other Worlds, Oxford & New York, 2008 
  • Eduard Baumstark & Wilhelm von Waldbrühl, Bardale. Sammlung auserlesener Volkslieder der verschiedenen Völker der Erde mit deutschem Texte und Begleitung des Pianoforte und der Guitarre, herausgegeben und dem Herrn Geheimen Rathe und Professor Dr. A. F. J. Thibaut hochachtungsvoll gewidmet, I. Band, Friedrich Busse, Braunschweig, 1829 (available at BSB: Mus.pr. 2623-1, Google Books & the Internet Archive
  • Eduard Baumstark, Ant. Friedr. Justus Thibaut. Blätter der Erinnerung für seine Verehrer und für die Freunde der reinen Tonkunst, Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, 1841 (at the Internet Archive
  • Garland Cannon, The Life and Mind of Oriental Jones. Sir William Jones, the Father of Modern Linguistics, Cambridge & New York, 1990 
  • Joep Bor, The Rise of Ethnomusicology: Sources on Indian Music c.1780 - c.1890, in: Yearbook for Traditional Music 20, 1988, pp. 51-73 
  • Nicholas Cook, Encountering the Other, Redefining the Self: Hindostannie Airs, Haydn's Folksong Settings and the 'Common Practice' Style, in: Martin Clayton & Bennett Zon (eds.), Music and Orientalism in the British Empire 1780s - 1940s. Portrayal of the East, Aldershot & Burlington, 2007, pp. 13-38 
  • Michael Embach & Joscelyn Godwin, Johann Friedrich Hugo von Dalberg (1760-1812). Schriftsteller - Musiker - Domherr, Mainz, 1998 (= Quellen und Abhandlungen zur Mittelrheinischen Kirchengeschichte 82) [pp. 366-375 about 'Ueber die Musik der Indier'] 
  • Michael Embach & Volker Gallé (eds.), Fritz von Dalberg zum 200. Todestag. Vom Erfinden und Bilden, Worms, 2002 [here pp. 59-85: Gallé, Dalberg und die Indische Kultur]
  • Gerry Farrell, Indian Music and the West, Oxford, 1997
  • Johann Reinhold Forster's [...] Reise um die Welt während den Jahren 1772 bis 1775 [...] Geschrieben und herausgegeben von dessen Sohn und Reisegefährten George Forster, Haude & Spener, Berlin, 1784, 3 Vols., at the Internet Archive 
  • Alexa Frank, Sanftes Gefühl und stille Tiefe der Seele. Herders Indien, Würzburg, 2009 
  • Victorie Gervinus, Volksliederbuch. 80 Volkslieder (deutsche, dänische, englische, französische, hebräische, indische, irische, italienische, maurische, persische, portugiesische, schottische, schwedische, spanische, ungarische, wälisische) mit deutschem Text und Klavierbegleitung, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, Brüssel & New York, n. d. [1896] (available at the Internet Archive
  • Gerlinde Hahn, "Ich möchte, Du gäbest alles nach Hannover" - Die "Sammlung Kestner" in der Stadtbibliothek Hannover, in: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter, Neue Folge, Band 67/68, 2003/4, pp. 27-36
  • Helmut Kowar, Einige Bemerkungen zu Dalbergs "Über die Musik der Inder", in: Musicologica Austriaca 12, 1993, pp. 41-58 
  • [Thomas Moore], A Selection of Popular National Airs with Symphonies and Accompaniments by Sir John Stevenson MusDoc; [Henry R. Bishop]. The Words by Thomas Moore, Esq., 6 Volumes, J. Power, London, 1818-1828 (first 3 Vols. digitized by BStB: 4 Mus.pr. 35243-(1-3) [click on Einzelbände])
  • [William Ouseley (ed.)], Oriental Collections. Consisting Of Original Essays And Dissertations, Translations And Miscellaneous Papers; Illustrating The History And Antiquities, The Arts, Sciences, And Literature, Of Asia, 3 Vols., Cadell & Davies, London, 1797-1800 (at the Internet Archive
  • Friedrich Silcher, Ausländische Volksmelodien, mit deutschem, zum Theil aus dem Englischen etc. übertragenem Text, gesammelt und für eine oder zwei Singstimmen mit Begleitung des Pianoforte und der Guitarre gesetzt, 4 Hefte, Fues, Tübingen, 1835-1841 (available at the Internet Archive
  • [A. F. J. Thibaut], Ueber Reinheit der Tonkunst, 2. vermehrte Ausgabe, Mohr, Heidelberg, 1826 (at the Internet Archive
  • Verzeichnis der von dem verstorbenen Grossh. Badischen Prof. der Rechte und Geheimrathe Dr. Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut zu Heidelberg hinterlassenen Musiksammlung, welche als ein ganzes ungetrennt veräussert werden soll, Karl Groos, Heidelberg, 1842 (at the Internet Archive
  • A. Leslie Willson, A Mythical Image. The Ideal of India in German Romanticism, Durham, 1964 
  • Ian Woodfield, The 'Hindostannie Air': English Attempts to Understand Indian Music in the Late 18th Century, in: Journal of the Royal Musical Association 119, 1994[a], pp. 189-211 
  • Ian Woodfield, Collecting Indian Songs in Late 18th-Century Lucknow. Problems of Transcription, in: British Journal of Ethnomusicology 3, 1994[b], pp. 73-88 
  • Ian Woodfield, English Musicians in the Age of Exploration, Stuyvesant NY, 1995 (= Sociology of Music 8)
  • Ian Woodfield, Music of the Raj. A Social and Economic History of Music in Late Eighteenth-Century Anglo-Indian society, New York, 2001 
  • Bennett Zon, From 'very acute and plausible' to curiously misinterpreted': Sir William Jones's 'On the Musical Mode of the Hindus' (1792) and its Reception in Later Musical Treatises, in: Michael J. Franklin (ed.), Romantic Represantations of British India, London, 2006, pp. 197-219 
  • Bennett Zon, Representing Non-Western Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Rochester, 2007

No comments:

Post a Comment