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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
Derek B. Scott
Affiliation:
University of Salford
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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.

Type
Articles
Information
Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , June 2006 , pp. 3 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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References

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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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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 .

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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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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 .

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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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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.

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