The Arts in Victorian Britain

[Serial_Apologist]

Funny thing is some of those Victorian artists who were very successful (and also geniuses IMHO ) were precisely those who showed the harsh reality of Victorian England eg. Dickens , Eliot , Gaskell . Not to mention essayists like Carlyle , Arnold and Ruskin - huge critics of Victorian mores and culture and where untrammelled capitalism was leading. The Victorians were full of contradictions and complexity.

That is quite true.

[ardcarp]

You make some very good points here . But it is still a bit of a mystery as to why ,given the economic conditions were ripe for domestic composers in the 19th century and also that there was a receptive audience , no British composers of the very first rank emerged until Elgar when if anything economic decline had commenced . I have often thought that despite our our pre eminence in fiction the Victorian era was one of general cultural decline with no poets in the early Wordsworth , Blake , Keats league , and no painters up to Turner and Constable standard , and as for drama - nothing really. Why should music be any different ? I wonder whether there was a certain complacency in Victorian England - a tolerance for the mediocre , a conviction that the Germans, Italians and French did that sort of thing better. Or it could just be that , given the rarity of genius it was our turn for a dry period ....

Might it have something to do with our education system? Ruling Empire possibly required a somewhat macho view of life; a view which probably put music in a not-to-do box. I agree that theory doesn't explain our 19th cent authors and poets.

[Serial_Apologist]

Might it have something to do with our education system? Ruling Empire possibly required a somewhat macho view of life; a view which probably put music in a not-to-do box.

Which is more-or-less what I was saying above.

I agree that theory doesn't explain our 19th cent authors and poets.

Books - poetry, but especially romances - comprised a large part of Victorian leisure time, and of course were very effective transmitters of moral values. It does explain to the extent that publishing books takes a lot less effort and time than promoting and funding concerts or, rather, indigenous providers of the music for the same. Members of society's upper echelons were happy for the working masses to be confined to their own entertainments, provided these did not show signs of political subversiveness or, principally, undermine the work ethic. Composers could provide suitable church music.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Which is more-or-less what I was saying above.



Books - poetry, but especially romances - comprised a large part of Victorian leisure time, and of course were very effective transmitters of moral values. It does explain to the extent that publishing books takes a lot less effort and time than promoting and funding concerts or, rather, indigenous providers of the music for the same. Members of society's upper echelons were happy for the working masses to be confined to their own entertainments, provided these did not show signs of political subversiveness or, principally, undermine the work ethic. Composers could provide suitable church music.

Thing is I think all those authors I mentioned were politically subversive . So were G and S themselves in a milder way. We mustn’t think of Victorian culture (whatever that is ) as monolithic . There were plenty of literally ‘dissenting ‘voices. It always makes me laugh when people talk of Victorian values . Whose values ? Those of Ruskin ? Or George Eliot ? Disraeli?
Incidentally the work Eliot put into the Westminster Review or Dickens put into Household Words would I suspect eclipse that of your average 19th century concert promoter but only having dabbled in doing either I can only guess...

[ardcarp]

Which is more-or-less what I was saying above.

Indeed, but I was suggesting that at school level music just wasn't encouraged. Public schools these days have massive lists of music staff, but that was certainly not so even in the early 20th century. On old friend of mine (long since departed) and ex Kings choral scholar went to Marlborough in the early 1920s. Apart from Chapel music (and that no doubt applied even more at schools such as Eton and Winchester) there wasn't much apart from a military-style wind band.

Slight change of tack. One of my most interesting books is "Studies of Great Composers" by Hubert Parry. His chapters are:

Palestrina
Handel
Bach
Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven
Weber
Schubert
Mendelssohn
Schumann
Wagner

So apart from the guy from Italy, no composer outside the Austria/Germany block was 'great' in Parry's eyes.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thing is I think all those authors I mentioned were politically subversive . So were G and S themselves in a milder way. We mustn’t think of Victorian culture (whatever that is ) as monolithic . There were plenty of literally ‘dissenting ‘voices. It always makes me laugh when people talk of Victorian values . Whose values ? Those of Ruskin ? Or George Eliot ? Disraeli?
Incidentally the work Eliot put into the Westminster Review or Dickens put into Household Words would I suspect eclipse that of your average 19th century concert promoter but only having dabbled in doing either I can only guess...

Yes you're right of course. What I would question (because I really don't know) is how much of the population would have got to know or learn about writers such as Eliot and Ruskin, though it seems probable many had Dickens on their shelves.

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed, but I was suggesting that at school level music just wasn't encouraged. Public schools these days have massive lists of music staff, but that was certainly not so even in the early 20th century. On old friend of mine (long since departed) and ex Kings choral scholar went to Marlborough in the early 1920s. Apart from Chapel music (and that no doubt applied even more at schools such as Eton and Winchester) there wasn't much apart from a military-style wind band.

Slight change of tack. One of my most interesting books is "Studies of Great Composers" by Hubert Parry. His chapters are:

Palestrina
Handel
Bach
Haydn
Mozart
Beethoven
Weber
Schubert
Mendelssohn
Schumann
Wagner

So apart from the guy from Italy, no composer outside the Austria/Germany block was 'great' in Parry's eyes.

Quite interestingly, when the teenaqe John Ireland failed to convince Stanford that he had managed to produce anything better than "Brahms-and-water, me boy", he set him onto Palestrina, and learning to write music in that style.

[Master Jacques]

Thing is I think all those authors I mentioned were politically subversive . So were G and S themselves in a milder way. We mustn’t think of Victorian culture (whatever that is ) as monolithic . There were plenty of literally ‘dissenting ‘voices. It always makes me laugh when people talk of Victorian values . Whose values ? Those of Ruskin ? Or George Eliot ? Disraeli?
Incidentally the work Eliot put into the Westminster Review or Dickens put into Household Words would I suspect eclipse that of your average 19th century concert promoter but only having dabbled in doing either I can only guess...

Subversion is key to Browning too - while nobody is more aware of the need for it than Matthew Arnold. I don't agree with you, by the way, that a "classical grounding" is needed to experience the incomparable power and beauty of his Dover Beach or The Scholar Gypsy / Thysis, let alone some of the shorter lyrics. He is a very direct writer. The problem for many readers today is his intelligence, not his learning.

'G&S' have had an influence on theatre which is still potent today, especially in America. Not to allow Sullivan the musical status he so thoroughly deserves is a grave mistake of historical perspective, as well as aesthetic taste (in my opinion, of course!) We really do need to get over our antimacassar complex, when it comes to Victorian art and music. The pre-Raphaelites and Alma-Tadema are only "fake" when examined through the wrong end of the aesthetic telescope.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Subversion is key to Browning too - while nobody is more aware of the need for it than Matthew Arnold. I don't agree with you, by the way, that a "classical grounding" is needed to experience the incomparable power and beauty of his Dover Beach or The Scholar Gypsy / Thysis, let alone some of the shorter lyrics. He is a very direct writer. The problem for many readers today is his intelligence, not his learning.

'G&S' have had an influence on theatre which is still potent today, especially in America. Not to allow Sullivan the musical status he so thoroughly deserves is a grave mistake of historical perspective, as well as aesthetic taste (in my opinion, of course!) We really do need to get over our antimacassar complex, when it comes to Victorian art and music. The pre-Raphaelites and Alma-Tadema are only "fake" when examined through the wrong end of the aesthetic telescope.

Final thought ( from me anyway ) as we’ve been told to stay on topic. Thyrsis can be responded to at a direct level of course but without some knowledge of Virgil and the pastoral tradition some meaning is lost. I don’t think the pre Raph’s are fake but I do think Alma T is. There are quite a few of the former that I wouldn’t mind on my wall but I’d rather have a Turner...

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes you're right of course. What I would question (because I really don't know) is how much of the population would have got to know or learn about writers such as Eliot and Ruskin, though it seems probable many had Dickens on their shelves.

Final, final thought I promise after a bit of googling and out of courtesy to answer your query

Westminster review peaked at 3,000 copies per issue.
Middlemarch was expected to sell 10,000 in first edition but sold 5,000 - that would be ok for first novel (though it wasn’t GE’s first ) these days but not exactly best seller land
All the year round (successorto Household Words) 300,000 for Xmas editions otherwise 100,000 per issue.
So Dickens vastly more popular...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Right! I've moved the posts from the Malcolm Arnold Thread (well - one of them!) so that this fascinating "diversion" can continue in its own terms.

It's late - but to get things (re)-started, I'd just wish to mention Gerard Manley Hopkins - one of the greatest poets in the language, and by far the finest and most interesting working in Britain in the second half of the 19th Century. Interesting that he was completely neglected during his lifetime, and it was only the generation of TS Eliot who "discovered" his significance (the parallels with Emily Dickinson I've always found interesting). An outsider, due to his Catholicism - as Elgar considered himself, but without the keenness to become an "insider"?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Right! I've moved the posts from the Malcolm Arnold Thread (well - one of them!) so that this fascinating "diversion" can continue in its own terms.

It's late - but to get things (re)-started, I'd just wish to mention Gerard Manley Hopkins - one of the greatest poets in the language, and by far the finest and most interesting working in Britain in the second half of the 19th Century. Interesting that he was completely neglected during his lifetime, and it was only the generation of TS Eliot who "discovered" his significance (the parallels with Emily Dickinson I've always found interesting). An outsider, due to his Catholicism - as Elgar considered himself, but without the keenness to become an "insider"?

Thanks Ferney . This must be most all-encompassing thread in the history of the forum .Just to kick things off with some controversy I really wish I liked GMH more than I do . In my heart of hearts I think he’s one of those poets that academics love but that leaves the reading public cold. I think it was F.R Leavis who kick started the GMH revival as part of a long-standing Eliot/ Leavis deprecation of the Miltonic trend in English poetry - a trend that reached its part culmination ( in their view ) in Tennyson . GMH was outside this trend. Forty years ago I completely agreed with them partly on the practical grounds that wading through GMH was a a lot less time - demanding than going through Tennyson and Browning. Now I would rather read Matthew Arnold - absolute heresy I know . There is another sense I which GMH was an outsider in Victorian society so I don’t dispute his significance for a second but I honestly can’t face reading the Wreck Of The Deutschland ever again. I’ll try again with the other stuff this week.

[Oakapple]

I agree with the comments about our education system in the 19th century. We gave the world football, rugby and cricket rather than symphonies. At least Lytton Strachey in Eminent Victorians and Kipling with his "muddied oafs and flanneled fools" had the sense to see through it.

And I'm so pleased that Master Jacques has spoken up for Arthur Sullivan. I'm fed up hearing that nothing happened until Elgar came along. I much prefer Sullivan's wit and invention (even if he does sound like Mendelssohn and Schubert sometimes) to Elgar's occasional Brahmsian stodge. Try the music for The Tempest, the Macbeth overture, the Irish Symphony and parts of Ivanhoe or The Light of the World if you're not convinced.

[Richard Tarleton]

A word about Victorian Ireland, which gave rise to the Irish Ring, 3 operas which were popular at home and abroad - The Bohemian Girl, Maritana and the Lily of Killarney. I used to have an LP with highlights from the three - I Dreamt that I Dwelt in Marble Halls was one of Joan Sutherland's party pieces in her younger years. And here's Eily Mavourneen from The Lily of Killarney, sung by Heddle Nash.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A word about Victorian Ireland, which gave rise to the Irish Ring, 3 operas which were popular at home and abroad - The Bohemian Girl, Maritana and the Lily of Killarney. I used to have an LP with highlights from the three - I Dreamt that I Dwelt in Marble Halls was one of Joan Sutherland's party pieces in her younger years. And here's Eily Mavourneen from The Lily of Killarney, sung by Heddle Nash.

Indeed - and The Bohemian Girl further earns a place in history in that it was a favourite of James Joyce, who makes reference to it in Dubliners and Ulysses (it may also be hidden in a pun in finnegan, too, for all I know).

Sadly, when John Huston came to make his (otherwise rather good) film adaptation of The Dead, he misread "The Bohemian Girl" as a translation of "La Boheme", and gave us tiny frozen hands instead of marble walls!