John Sullivan Dwight (1813-93) was, for much of the nineteenth century, America's leading music critic. Born into a musical family and educated at several premier Boston schools, he fell under the spell of New England Transcendentalism and befriended Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, and others of a similarly progressive mindset. Dwight resided at the socialist/utopian community of Brook Farm where he learned the art of journalism and wrote on many topics--Transcendentalism, of course, but especially on music and musical performance. After the demise of Brook Farm and several years as a journeyman writer, Dwight launched Dwight's Journal of Music: A Paper of Art and Literature in 1852. It was a newspaper that firmly established him as a serious music critic and in its time spoke to America's growing appetite for art music.
By charting Dwight's relationships with other writers, musicians, and thinkers, as well as his evolution into a powerful and persuasive writer in his own right, this book situates his story in its nineteenth century and Transcendental contexts and provides the first thorough account of music and the arts at Brook Farm. Dwight's enormous body of essays, reviews, translations, correspondence, and other various writings are illuminated in this biography and reveal the indelible influence Dwight's Journal had on music criticism--the impacts of which resonate today.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
The subject comes vividly to life through careful contextualization but is not reduced to context or explained by context. * Anne Davenport, Boston Musical Intelligencer * This book finally offers an answer to the question of who this Dwight of Dwight's Journal really was. Constituting the last word on John Sullivan Dwight, this book will interest those in music and/or American studies. * Choice *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Fadenheftung
Gewebe-Einband
Maße
Höhe: 229 mm
Breite: 165 mm
Dicke: 43 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-19-768418-4 (9780197684184)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Bill F. Faucett is the author of Music in Boston: Composers, Events, and Ideas, 1852-1918 and George Whitefield Chadwick: The Life and Music of The Pride of New England, among other volumes.
Autor*in
Director of Development at the Center of the ArtsDirector of Development at the Center of the Arts, University of South Florida
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Introduction
PART I: Musica sub rosa
1. A Lineage so Grandly Historic
The Dwights of Massachusetts
Irrepressible Fondness
Dwight's Early Education
Genius and Enterprise
2. Musical Awakenings
Life at Harvard
Musica sub rosa
Harvard Divinity School
3. The World Idealized
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Gardiner's The Music of Nature (1832)
Goethe, Schiller & Carlyle
George Ripley
Early Major Writings
4. Preaching, The Dial, and the HMA
Northampton
The Dial (1840-1844)
The Harvard Musical Association
PART II: The Music of Transcendentalism
5. Dwight at Brook Farm
Gentleman Farmers
The Arts at Brook Farm
The Emerging Journalist
6. The Harbinger, Beethoven, and the End of Brook Farm
The Harbinger
Beethoven Storms Boston
Dwight's Fourieristic Writings
Gone Like a Dream
7. The Maturing Critic
Back in Boston
The Daily Chronotype
Sartain's Magazine
Graham's Magazine
New Prospects
PART III: The World at Arm's Length
8. Dwight's Journal of Music
Founding the Journal
Models and Influences
Early Reception of the Journal
Oliver Ditson
9. Years in Days
Dwight's Grand Tour
Music in Europe
The Great Eastern
10. Dwight on the Issues
Responses to the Civil War
Dwight contra Enterprise
Native Musicians
Music of the Future
Murmurs of a Grander Future
Music Libraries in Boston
11. The End of Dwight's Journal of Music
We Still Live
Howling Wolves
The Journal Folds
CODA
12. The Last Transcendentalist
Life After the Journal
The Perkins Institution for the Blind
Last writings
The Last Transcendentalist
Appendices
1. Dwight's Harvard Forensics & Themes Topics
2. Selected Original Poems by Dwight
3. Musical Repertoire & Guest Artists at Brook Farm
4. Selected Song Translations & Adaptations by Dwight
5. Dwight's Major Original Essays in the Journal (1852-1881)
6. Dwight's European
