Musical Inspirations in the Long Nineteenth Century

British Music and Literary Context – Artistic Connections in the Long Nineteenth Century, by Michael Allis, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2012, xii + 320 pages, illustrated, £60 (hardback), ISBN 9781843837305 Reviewed by  Iain Quinn (Western Connecticut State University) ijtquinn1@yahoo.com This book offers an interdisciplinary examination of the relationship between literature and music during the long nineteenth century. Music and literature fulfill defined roles in British life with the paradox that, although Victorian literature has remained popular to the present day,

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Just another old Book of Scottish Tunes?

A posting by Dr Karen E McAulay (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) for JVC Online A decade ago, the library at RSAMD (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) was refurbished.  In preparation for the alterations, an old cupboard had to be emptied, and three music manuscripts came to light, each containing Scottish tunes arranged for the flute; and psalm- tunes.[i] Figure 1: James Simpson’s version of ‘Coolon’, in Simpson MS 2 – probably copied from another source The manuscripts had belonged

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Martin Dubois, ‘Diverse Strains: Music and Religion in Dickens’s Edwin Drood’

In his essay forthcoming in JVC issue 16.3, Martin Dubois challenges recent interpretations of Dickens’s final and unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, arguing that these have neglected the variability in Dickens’s representation of traditional religion. Dickens’s novel centres on the town of Cloisterham, where a spreading moral torpor extends to the heart of community life: the choral worship offered in its cathedral. Fuelled by opium-induced fantasies, the cathedral’s obsessive and unstable choirmaster appears to engineer the disappearance and

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Phyllis Weliver, ‘Oscar Wilde, Music, and the “Opium-Tainted Cigarette”: Disinterested Dandies and Critical Play’

In her recent article in JVC 15.3, Phyllis Weliver reveals how the dandy’s languorous posture, aesthetic writing style, opium smoking, and musical repertoire interact in Oscar Wilde’s literature and criticism. Examining The Picture of Dorian Gray as well as ‘The Critic as Artist’ and The Importance of Being Earnest draws into focus how each of Wilde’s works is organized to create complicated relationships among this grouping, all of which belong to dandyish characters. The essay begins with a discussion of

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Book Reviews (15.1)

Jacky Bratton on Jennifer Hall-Wit’s Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880 (Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2007). To read the full review, visit http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=1355%2d5502&volume=15&issue=1&spage=164. Charlotte Mitchell on Gavin Budge’s Charlotte M. Yonge: Religion, Feminism and Realism in the Victorian Novel (Oxford, Bern & Peter Lang, 2007). To read the full review, visit http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=1355%2d5502&volume=15&issue=1&spage=158. Donna Loftus on James Taylor’s Creating Capitalism. Joint-Stock Enterprise in British Politics and Culture 1800-1870 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Royal Historical Society

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Perspective by Stephen Banfield, ‘What do you think of Stainer’s Crucifixion? Current Victorian musicology’

In his compelling survey of current work on musicology in JVC 15.1, Stephen Banfield considers how far scholars have challenged the popular disdain in which Victorian music held. Contempt for the period’s music, he suggests, is exemplified by the old joke about John Stainer’s cantata, The Crucifixion, first performed in 1887: ‘What do you think of Stainer’s Crucifixion?’ –  ‘I think it would be a very good thing.’ If it disagrees with us, he argues, it is because we perceive

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