Festival International d’Art Contemporain

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Festschriften

A publication of essays and other contributions usually issued to celebrate the birthday of a distinguished scholar, as a memorial volume, or on the occasion of an important anniversary. While Festschriften are described by a German word (and the custom of publishing them began in Germany), the phenomenon of producing such collections is an international one, with numerous series or individual volumes in English, French, Italian, and, indeed, in almost every other language used for scholarly writing. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest use of the word in an English-language publication was An English Miscellany (Oxford, 1901), a collection of essays presented to the literary scholar F.J. Furnivall on his 75th birthday, which was subtitled ‘a Festschrift’.

The Festschrift has been a feature of music literature since the 19th century and in addition to honouring academics, Festschriften have also been dedicated to the work of composers, performers and others involved in music such as librarians and publishers. The scope and usefulness of such publications varies widely, and the contents are sometimes too disparate to make a satisfying whole. But in many cases Festschriften contain a coherent group of contributions (sometimes in more than one language) on, for example, a particular aspect of music or musicology, or a particular composer. Others are affectionate but usually less enduring collections of short tributes from friends and colleagues, more in the tradition of the Birthday Book.

Though musical Festschriften have been roundly condemned by Nicolas Slonimsky as a ‘wasteland of depressing dullness’ (Lectionary of Music, London, 1989, p.165), a number of them have been planned and compiled with a clear focus which gives them a lasting value. These include volumes devoted to the detailed exploration of a subject closely associated with a particular scholar. Examples of this kind of ‘thematic’ Festschrift include historical performance practice in Source Materials and the Interpretation of Music: a Memorial Volume to Thurston Dart (London, 1981); aspects of music bibliography in Musik und Verlag: Karl Vötterle zum 65. Geburtstag (Kassel, 1968), Music and Bibliography: Essays in Honour of Alec Hyatt King (London, 1980), and Music Publishing & Collecting: Essays in Honor of Donald W. Krummel (Urbana, IL, 1994) and studies related to the holdings of a major library such as Sundry Sorts of Music Books: Essays on the British Library Collection presented to O.W. Neighbour on his 70th Birthday (London, 1993).

There are many volumes devoted to single composers such as Beethoven (Divertimento für Hermann J. Abs: Beethoven-Studien dargebracht zu seinem 80. Geburtstag, Bonn, 1980; Beethoven Essays: Studies in Honor of Elliot Forbes, Cambridge, MA, 1984), Handel (Georg Friedrich Händel: ein Lebensinhalt: Gedenkschrift für Bernd Baselt, Kassel, 1995), Bruckner (Bruckner-Studien: Leopold Nowak zum 60. Geburtstag, Vienna, 1964) and Delius (A Delius Companion: a 70th Birthday Tribute to Eric Fenby, London, 1976); more particular aspects of research on a composer have also produced useful publications such as Bach-Interpretation (Göttingen, 1969, in honour of Walter Blankenburg's 65th birthday) and Franz Schubert: Jahre der Krise, 1818–1823; Arnold Feil zum 60. Geburtstag (Kassel, 1985).

Specific national or regional styles are examined in A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock (Ann Arbor, 1990), Musical Canada: Words and Music Honouring Helmut Kallmann (Toronto, 1988), Russian and Soviet Music: Essays for Boris Schwarz (Ann Arbor, 1984) and Slavonic and Western Music: Essays for Gerald Abraham (Ann Arbor and Oxford, 1985).

A clearly defined period in music history has been the concern of Festschriften such as Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood (Warren, MI, 1997), Jean-Baptiste Lully and the Music of the French Baroque: Essays in Honor of James R. Anthony (Cambridge, 1989), Studies in Eighteenth-Century Music: a Tribute to Karl Geiringer on his Seventieth Birthday (New York and London, 1970), Eighteenth-Century Music in Theory and Practice: Essays in Honor of Alfred Mann (Stuyvesant, NY, 1994), and the more nationally orientated Music in Eighteenth-Century England: Essays in Memory of Charles Cudworth (Cambridge, 1983).

Other Festschriften have been devoted to a particular genre such as opera (Music and Theatre: Essays in Honour of Winton Dean, Cambridge, 1987) or to a more specialized area of opera as in New Looks at Italian Opera: Essays in Honor of Donald J. Grout (Ithaca, NY, 1968); and the musical life in a particular city or region has sometimes provided a helpful focus, such as Beiträge zur Musikgeschichte der Stadt Köln: zum 70. Geburtstag von Paul Mies (Cologne, 1959). Aspects of ethnomusicology and organology have also been the subject of important Festschriften. Several longer-lived German-speaking scholars have been honoured with more than one Festschrift: Otto Erich Deutsch, for example, was the recipient of volumes published to celebrate both his 75th and 80th birthdays (in 1958 and 1963) and others with two or more Festschriften dedicated to them include Alfred Orel, Karl Gustav Fellerer, Hellmut Federhofer and Joseph Schmidt-Görg.

Other Festschriften are devoted to consideration of an individual's life and work, either as a celebration or as a memorial. Of the publications of this kind offered as tributes to composers, the most remarkable include the special numbers of the Revue musicale devoted to – among others – Debussy (1920), Dukas (1936), Roussel (1937) and Ravel (1938), each following their deaths, and the numbers produced in honour of Fauré (1922) and Roussel (1929). In most cases these included not only extensive essays, reminiscences, correspondence and tributes, but also a substantial supplement of music composed especially for the volume. All these publications are of considerable and lasting value (the Ravel issue was reprinted in 1987, with the addition of an introduction by Marcel Marnat and a chronology by Jean Roy, as Maurice Ravel: Qui êtes vous?). Other periodicals such as Tempo and the Österreichische Musikzeitschrift have regularly produced similar special issues to celebrate or commemorate important composers and Tempo, in particular, has continued the tradition established by the Revue musicale of including new music as well as writings.

Among performers, it is perhaps conductors who are most often the subject of Festschriften: Furtwängler, Karajan, Mengelberg, Nikisch and Weingartner have all had anniversary or memorial volumes devoted to them, as have pianists such as Dinu Lipatti and Clara Haskil. As with volumes dedicated to individual scholars or composers, these are of variable quality, ranging from significant essays to short contributions of a kind more often encountered in a Commonplace Book. Not only composers, performers, scholars and music librarians, but also publishers have been the subject of Festschriften, such as the volume of tributes to Jacques Durand from many of the composers associated with his firm (Jacques Durand 1865–1928, Geneva, 1929) and the collection of essays in Musik, Edition, Interpretation: Gedenkschrift Günter Henle (Munich, 1980).

Musical organizations such as orchestras, concert societies, opera companies and publishing houses have all been the subject of volumes produced to celebrate important landmarks. Performing organizations have sometimes used an important anniversary as the opportunity to produce a Festschrift which consists of detailed documentation of their activity: useful examples include the 50th anniversary publications of the Vienna PO (Richard von Perger's Denkschrift zur Feier des Fünfzigjährigen unterbrochenen Bestandes der Philharmonischen Konzerte in Wien 1860–1910, Vienna and Leipzig, 1910) and of the Vienna Opera (50 Jahre Wiener Operntheater, ed. A. Przistaupinsky, Vienna, 1919). Among publishers, Universal Edition used their 25th anniversary in 1926 as an opportunity to launch their first yearbook, 25 Jahre neue Musik (Vienna, 1926), a Festschrift in all but name, which includes not only a chronology of the firm's activities, but also essays on a range of musical subjects by several of its most distinguished composers: Berg, Hauer, Krenek, Malipiero, Schoenberg, Wellesz and Weill, among others. The great Leipzig music-printing firm Röder published a handsome Festschrift on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (Festschrift zur 50jährigen Jubelfeier, 1846–1896, des Bestehens des Firma C.G. Röder, Leipzig, 1896) which included an important essay by Hugo Riemann, ‘Notenschrift und Notendruck’. The same firm's 75th anniversary was celebrated with a more unusual (though very appropriate) volume: Walter von zur Westen's Musiktitel aus vier Jahrhunderten: Festschrift anlässlich des 75jährigen Bestehens der Firma C.G. Röder, Leipzig (Leipzig, 1921), a magnificently produced iconography. The contents of musical Festschriften up to the late 1960s have been indexed in Walter Gerboth's An Index to Musical Festschriften and Similar Publications (New York, 1969).

NIGEL SIMEONE