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In Search of Genetically Modified Music: Race and Musical Style in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2011

Derek B. Scott
Affiliation:
University of Salford

Extract

I should begin by declaring immediately my standpoint that there is no such thing as race. Race and, by extension, racism may have a social reality but they have no sound scientific grounding whatsoever. No convincing biological evidence has ever been produced that establishes the existence of different human races. DNA analysis offers little support to theories of genetic difference, and has revealed that even the most geographically separate social groups vary in only 6 to 8 per cent of their genes. Race does not present a medical problem when it comes to organ transplants. My research questions are, therefore: When and why did the idea of ‘race’ arise, and how did this fiction affect the production and consumption of music in the nineteenth century? In seeking answers, I make illustrative references to Liszt's Gypsy, Wagner's Jew, Celtic music, African-American music and American Indian music.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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References

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28 Gilroy, Paul, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London, 1993), 2Google Scholar . He coined the term ‘black Atlantic’ to avoid respect for national boundaries and to suggest, instead, diasporic multiplicity and the idea of ‘the ship in motion’ as a microcultural system and transporter of cultural artefacts.

29 Wagner, Richard, ‘Das Judentum in Musik’ (1850)Google Scholar . Orig. pub. in Franz Brendel's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 3 & 6 Sep., under pseudonym Karl Freigedank [Karl Freethought] (revd 1869). ‘Judaism in Music’, in Richard Wagner: Stories and Essays, ed. Osborne, Charles (London, 1973), 2339, 25Google Scholar.

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35 Wagner is apparently unaware of Klezmer: ‘The only musical expression his own people can offer the Jewish composer is the ceremonial music of their worship of Jehovah.’ Ibid., 32.

36 Wagner's, immersion in völkisch ideology is evident as early as ‘Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft’ of 1849Google Scholar .

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38 Adorno, Theodor, In Search of Wagner, trans. Livingstone, Rodney (London, 1981), 23Google Scholar . Orig. pub. as Versuch über Wagner (Frankfurt am Main, 19 2). He cites ‘gold-grabbing Alberich’ and ‘locquacious Mime’.

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41 ‘The rhythms and melismata of the synagogue chant dominate his musical imagination in exactly the same way that instinctive knowledge of the modes and rhythms of our folk songs and dances shaped the creation of our vocal and instrumental music.’ Ibid., 33. It should be pointed out that these melismas do have a purpose in lending emphasis to holy words or the vocables that substitute for them.

42 Voss, Egon, Studien zur Instrumentalmusik Richard Wagners (Regensburg, 1970), 173–4Google Scholar , quoted (and translated) in Weiner, , Richard Wagner, 124Google Scholar .

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51 Words by Ernst Moritz Arndt (1813), set to music by Gustav Reichardt in 1825.

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55 Arnold, Matthew, On the Study of Celtic Literature (London, 1900), 75Google Scholar . Orig. pub. 1867).

56 Ibid., 112. One is reminded of a remark made in an interview by comedian John Cleese; he declared that only an English person feels the need to say ‘sorry’ before asking someone to pass the salt at dinner.

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61 Ibid., 136.

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66 Liszt, , The Gipsy in Music, trans. Evans, Edwin (1881Google Scholar ; reprinted London, 1960), 301. Originally published as Des Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hongrie (1859).

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72 See Bartók, Béla, Essays, ed. Suchoff, Benjamin (London, 1976), 29, 206Google Scholar , and Trumpener, Katie, ‘Béla Bartók and the rise of comparative ethnomusicology: nationalism, race purity, and the legacy of the Austro-Hungarian empire’, in Music and the Racial Imagination, ed. Radano, and Bohlman, ,403–34, 10–12Google Scholar .

73 Wagner, , ‘What is German?’,47Google Scholar . This fits the stereotype of the ‘rapacious Jew’, which is how he describes Meyerbeer in a letter to his niece Franziska Wagner, Zurich, 13 October 18 2, in Ellis, William Ashton, Family Letters of Richard Wagner, introduction and notes by John Deathridge (London, 1991), 184–7, 185Google Scholar .

74 Wagner, , ‘Judaism in Music’, 36Google Scholar .

75 Trumpener, , ‘Béla Bartók’,406Google Scholar . Derision for Jewish-Gypsy bands was not new. Wagner referred scornfully to Brahms as ‘jüdischen Czardasausspieler’; see Bellman, Jonathan, ‘“Noble Pathways of the National”: C19 Views of National Music and Their C20 Descendants’, Pendragon Review, 1/2 (2001):50Google Scholar.

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77 Nettl, Bruno, Folk and Traditional Music of the Western Continents (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1973), 116Google Scholar ; quoted in Chapman, Malcolm, ‘Thoughts on Celtic Music’, in Ethnicity, ed. Stokes, , 2944,43Google Scholar .

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81 John Knox Bokwe, a South African black composer, presents another example of this kind of problem in his ‘Plea for Africa’ of c. 189. Towards the end of the verse he writes a Bn passing note of a minim's duration in the bass against a Bf chord. Because we are so familiar with this kind of dissonance in jazz and blues, we may hear it as a marker of cultural difference within what sounds, for the most part, like a Victorian nonconformist sacred song for soloist and choir. Grant E. Olwage, however, is convinced it is a mistake Bokwe would have wished to correct: ‘Music and Post/Colonialism: The Dialectics of Choral Culture on a South African Frontier’ (PhD diss., Rhodes University, 2003)Google Scholar .

82 Gilroy, , The Black Atlantic, 1Google Scholar . The concept of ‘double consciousness’ is clearly indebted to Du Bois' thoughts on the ‘two-ness’ of the African American; see The Souls of Black Folk, 3–4.

83 See Gates, Henry Louis Jr, The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (New York, 1987)Google Scholar , and Floyd, Samuel A. Jr, ‘Ring shout! Literary studies, historical studies, and black music inquiry’, in Signifyin(g), Sanctifyin', and Slam Dunking, ed. Caponi, Gena Dagel (Amherst, MA, 1991), 135–56Google Scholar (reprinted from Black Music Research Journal, 11/2 [1991], 26 -88).

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85 This music has come to be known as waila, and can be heard played by the Native American band Southern Scratch on their album Em-we-hejed (‘For all of you’), Canyon Records, CR-8097.

86 Some examples may be mentioned: the country style of Bill Miller, the jazzinfluenced wooden flautist R. Carlos Nakai, the Cajun style of Redbone, the folky singer-guitarist Sharon Burch, the rappers WithOut Rezervation, the gospel-like style of Walela, the Latin-influenced trio Burning Sky, and the mixture of pop, country and traditional in the songs written and performed by the internationally esteemed Joanne Shenandoah.

87 Russell, Tony, ‘Obituary: Ray Charles’, The Guardian (Sat. 12 Jun. 2004): 27Google Scholar . Charles even showed an interest in country music, rare for black musicians.

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90 See Berliner, Wendy, ‘Not crawling but dancing’, Education Guardian (16 Nov. 2004): 67, 6Google Scholar . The research took place at the Howden Sure Start Centre, Wallsend, North Tyneside.

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94 More recently, filmmaker Gurinder Chadha, in discussing Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice, has said, ‘My work is about not making race matter, but making people matter’. Quoted in Armstrong, Stephen, ‘The Bennets from Amritsar’, The Sunday Times, Culture (18 Jul. 2004): 67, 7Google Scholar .

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99 The description ‘Asian’ has become disliked by some British Asians who would prefer to be identified by religion (for example, as ‘British Hindu’ or ‘British Sikh’). This was a matter explored in ‘Don't call me Asian: cultural differences’, BBC Radio (16 Jan. 2005). Several speakers said that they wished to avoid being mistaken for Muslims.

100 Arlridge, John, ‘Forget black, forget white. The future is Generation EA’, The Observer ( Jan. 2004): 19Google Scholar .

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