FMTP22 essay

No.23 April, 2001

Ezra Pound and the Music of John Dowland

Flow my tears, fall from my springs,
Exil'd forever let me mourn,(1)

It is the beginning of John Dowland's famous lute song, "Flow my tears." It was in The Second Booke of Songs or Ayres published in 1600 and became widely known all over Europe. It was cited in many plays.(2)

However, with all his other songs, it was nearly completely forgotten in later years.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Elizabethan music saw its revival and studies on Dowland's life and music were done. But his music was not highly valued by men who did the studies and the revival of his music essentially had to wait until the twentieth century. (3)

In 1933, Ezra Pound was busy with organizing music concerts in Rapallo. The idea came to him when he did research on Sigismondo Malatesta at the Malatestine Library at Cesena. The librarian there, Manlio Dazzi, was an impressive man managing the library, editing Mussato, Dante's contemporary and dramatist-historian, and organizing concert in the city. "The programme was composed of music of very high quality. Both that concert and the librarian have taught me a great deal,"(4) wrote Pound. (5)

Two core musicians who worked together with Pound to organize concert in Rapallo were Olga Rudge and a German pianist Gerhart Münch. Basil Bunting also cooperated in organizing concerts when he was living in Rapallo.

They held Mozart Week in the summer of 1933 and gave, in a series of three concerts, twelve of Mozart's violin sonatas(6). After these concerts, the local authorities granted them the use of Rapallo town hall. Pound organized committee consisted of him, Bunting and German resident named Haas and also organized supporting group of the concert and named it Amici del Tigullio, after the name of the bay on which Rapallo is situated. Among the group were Natalie Barney and Romain Brooks, who was American painter living in Genoa and was friend of Barney and also of Gabriele D'Annunzio. Pound's father, Homer, and wife, Dorothy, were also in the group.(7)

The first concert of the Concerti "Inverno Musicale" was opened on October 10, 1933. In the promotional article printed in Il Mare, September 16, Pound wrote, "we are taking advantage of the favorable circumstances to propose a series of first-rate concerts with programs that would be highly distinguished in any European metropolis."(8)

In this article, he gave a notice of programs that would be held at the first week of each winter month. The programs were composed of music of Ravel, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Scriabin, Satie, Stravinsky, Vivaldi and others, and at the head of each program placed was Chilesotti collection which seems to have been the core of the programs.

Oscar Chilesotti(1848-1916) was an Italian musician and historiographer. He was educated at the University of Padua, studying law and music. He transcribed considerable lute music from the tablature and wrote historical studies of Italian Music.(9)

Chilesotti's unpublished papers were turned over to Gerhart Münch and they formed the basis of the program, Chilesotti collection. (10)

"We have already reported, thanks to Mozart Week, the discovery among us of the musical transcriptions of late Oscar Chilesotti. Having heard a quantity of this music in private audition, I can certify that it did not disappoint my expectations,"(11) wrote Pound in Il Mare, September 16, article.

Among the transcriptions was a piece by John Dowland arranged by Jean Baptiste Bésard.

John Dowland(1563-1626), English composer, is now regarded as the greatest lutenist of his age. He held the position of Court Lutenist to the King of Denmark, and later to Charles I of Britain(12). Jean Baptiste Bésard(circa 1567-circa 1625), French lutenist and composer, was Dowland's contemporary. He lived in Germany and published in 1603 in Cologne a famous international collection of lute pieces under the title Thesaurus of harmonicus(13).

Dowland's lute piece, Chorea Anglicana Doolandi, arranged by Bésard was in the program of the second concert held on November 14. It was a Bésard arrangement of Dowland's "Lachrimae"(Flow, my tears).(14)

Performing Dowland's piece was not an easy task. Pound and his friends read Chilesotti's article in Encyclopédia de la musique et dictionaire du conservatoir (by Lavignac) and were thrust into a discussion. But they could not make a decision "as Bunting would have done, since he has made a specialized study of the lute: but he has left for the Canary Islands." (15)

It seems they at first tried to preserve original sounds, but they learned it very difficult. "The lute had chromatic possibilities, but we don't know whether the twelve or the eight tone scale was chosen," wrote Pound.(16)

So they made a new out of the old. "It was rather analogous to the spirit of Malatesta," (17) wrote Pound. The piece was scored for "a single string instrument" to be performed by Olga Rudge's violin.

After the performance, Pound wrote in Il Mare, November 25, article, "Bésard's reduction of Dowland's admirable serenity, the Chorea Anglicana, in my opinion unsurpassed in the history of music."(18)

In the same article, as for the arrangement work of Gerhart Münch, Pound wrote, "In this way Homer's epic material was born, from unknown forerunners, short narrative poems, ballads, which preceded the epic poems." (19)

Pound and his friends, doing these musical activities in Rapallo, were forerunners in the revival movement of English old music. R. Murray Schafer, who edited Ezra Pound and Music says, in a comment to Pound's letter(20) written to Gerald Hayes of Oxford University Press requesting for information about Purcell, Jenkins and Dowland, "it indicate his intense curiosity about a subject which was interesting few native Englishmen at the time."(21)

According to description by Peter Holman, complete editions of the voice and lute versions of Dowland's songs only appeared in 1922-4, and some of the part-song versions remained unpublished until 1953. "The instrumental music had to wait even longer: Lachrimae first appeared in 1927, but most of the lute music had to wait until the publication of The Collected Lute Music of John Dowland (ed. D. Poulton and B. Lam) in 1974.(22)

Even though Dowland's music was published, performance of it was not easy, for notation used for lute music was in a form called tablature. Instrument, too, was a problem. Holman says, another reason why Dowland's music was neglected so long was, "it requires the lute and the viol, instruments that were largely out of use between the early eighteenth century and the late nineteenth century."(23)

In Pisa, Pound reminisced of Dowland's music and wondered if he played lute. ( Canto LXXXI, 24). In the same Canto, he said assuredly,

What thou lovest well remains, (25).

Note

1) John Dowland: Lute Songs, Steven Rickards ( countertenor) and Dorothy Linell (Lute), NAXOS 8.553381(photo).
2) Pilkington, Michael: Campion, Dowland and the Lutenist Songwriters, Indiana State University Press, 1989. p.85-86.
3) Holman, Peter: Dowland: Lachrimae(1604), Cambridge University Press, 1999. p.78.
4) Pound, Ezra: Impact, essays on ignorance and the decline of American civilization, Edited with an Introduction by Noel Stock, Henry Regnery Company, 1960. p.78.
5) Stock, Noel: The Life of Ezra Pound (An expanded edition), North Point Press, 1982. p.251-252; Schafer, R. Murray in Ezra Pound and Music, The Complete Criticism, Edited with commentary by R. Murray Schafer, New Directions, 1977. p.321-322.
6) Schafer, R. Murray, op.cit., p.331.
7) Stock, Noel: op.cit., p.316; Schafer, R. Murray, op.cit., p336-337.
8) Schafer, R. Murray, op.cit., p.337.
9) ibid. p.487.
10) ibid.
11) ibid. p.337.
12) ibid. p.490.
13) ibid. p.485.
14) ibid. p.348.
15) ibid.
16) ibid.
17) ibid.
18) ibid. p.352.
19) ibid.
20) Selected Letters of Ezra Pound 1907-1941, Ed. by D. D. Paige, Faber and Faber, 1950. p.299-300.
21) Schafer, R. Murray, op.cit., p.326.
22) Holman, Peter: op.cit., p.78.
23) ibid. p.79.
24) The Cantos of Ezra Pound, New Directions, 1986. p.540.
25) ibid.

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