Newsletter Vol 8 No 1 January 2004
Editorial
Welcome to our first newssheet of a new year! Along with my good wishes, can I remind those few of you who have not yet renewed subscriptions to reach for your cheque books, or better still to fill out your Standing Order Mandate! And an apology to all of you that we've had to adjust the dates of our Stirling Study days by one day - now starting on the Saturday (June 19th). A shift of 24 hours has allowed us access to a much better space for our activities: a wonderful new studio, free of extraneous noise (we hope!) and adjacent to the café-bar, restaurant and other facilities of the MacRobert. I know many of you have your sights set beyond Stirlingshire this year: New York and Adelaide spring to mind. For those of you who are ever urging us to organise foreign visits there is good news for 2005: read on!
Forthcoming Events
Sunday 25th January 2004 at 7.30pm: Schopenhauer and Wagner. A lecture by Kenneth Hutton
It is well known that one of the greatest influences on Wagner's life
and works was the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and that this influence
directly affected the composition of Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal and Götterdämmerung.
Schopenhauer's philosophy also influenced Wagner's young friend Friedrich
Nietzsche, as well as Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Freud and Wittgenstein. This
talk will explain the main tenets of his philosophy. Our member Kenneth
Hutton's main areas of philosophical interest are Greek, German and Buddhist
philosophy. He currently teaches philosophy part-time at Glasgow University
whilst researching a PhD on Schopenhauer and Buddhism.
Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 3 Belford Road (by Dean Bridge).
Admission; members £5, guests £6.
Sunday 29th February at 7.30pm: 'Wagner, Schoenberg & the Dissolution of Tonality', a lecture by Dr Ian Robertson
From the chromaticism of Wagner's mature operas, notably Tristan
und Isolde, to the conscious abandonment of the tonal system by
Arnold Schoenberg is a path traced by many music historians. Ian Robertson
guides us on that journey to reach his own conclusions, with the help
of copious music examples.
Edinburgh Society of Musicians (address and entrance prices as
above)
Die Feen & Das Liebesverbot: A Study Weekend at the University of Stirling, June 2004
Following six years of detailed study courses on the later Wagner - the Ring, Tristan and Parsifal - our aim next is to look at his earliest dramas. Although immature in various obvious ways, his first two operas are full of musically rewarding passages. In dramatic terms they are profoundly interesting and point to many things he explored in work after work thereafter. The weekend will also consider musical and literary influences on the young Wagner which shaped the musical dramatist he became. A brochure with application form is enclosed with this Newsletter.
Scholarship News
The Wagner Society of Scotland Scholarship for 2004 has been awarded
to the 28-year-old Scottish soprano Shuna Scott Sendall.
A graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, Shuna
holds its performance diploma and the degree of Master of Music in performance
and opera. She has previously distinguished herself as winner of the
Margaret Dick Award, the RSAMD Governors' Prize, the Bill Dewer Memorial
Prize, the Ramsay A. Calder Debussy Prize, the David Frame Memorial Prize
and the Hugh S. Roberton Prize for Scots Song. Her current teacher Jane
Irwin, who is well known to most of you from the recent Scottish Opera
Ring and other distinguished contributions to the 2003 Edinburgh Festival,
endorsed Shuna's talent with the view that she bears all the vocal qualities
for a future Wagnerian career. We wish her a happy trip to Bayreuth in
August and look forward to hearing of her experiences there.
The field of candidates was small but strong, including conductors and
a composer as well as singers, all of whom submitted impressive applications,
thus making the choice a hard one for the subcommittee formed to adjudicate
the entries.
The Committee wish to express their gratitude to all those who have sent generous sums to our Scholarship fund either in separate donations or along with their subscriptions. These greatly appreciated gifts have not only ensured the future of the Scholarship but allow the hope of its expansion to others, such as through the scheme of contributions towards scholars attending from the poorer countries of eastern Europe. Thank you all.
Charitable Donations
From April 2004, people who complete a Self Assessment tax return will be able to nominate a charity of their choice to receive all or part of any repayment due to them. The payment will be made directly to the charity's bank account, and for the first time charities will benefit from gift aid on anonymous donations.
The list of participating charities showing their name and address together with an identification code will be available on the Inland Revenue website. The code for the Wagner Society of Scotland is KAA4 2YG. Please note that this cannot be used before the 2003/2004 Self Assessment returns issued in April 2004.
This new scheme does not replace the existing Gift Aid Scheme which currently provides an income of about £500 a year to the Bayreuth Scholarship Fund.
Mrs Rose Doherty
Members will be sad to learn of Rose's death just before Christmas. One of our earliest members, she hardly missed an event, be it a talk in Edinburgh or Glasgow, a study weekend at Newbattle, a Ring in San Francisco, a trip to London or Bayreuth to catch longed-for performances. Only last year did her illness slow her down. Her canny sense of humour, her enthusiasm and the warmth of her support will be much missed. We send our best wishes and sympathy to her family.
News in Brief
- Our Bayreuth Ballot for tickets for this year's Ring will be drawn at the meeting on 25th January.
- Members in or visiting London can attend an ongoing series of lectures
by Laurence Dreyfus on Wagner and the Erotic Impulse.
Sponsored by the department of music of Royal Holloway, University
of London, these take place at the British Library , 93 Euston Road
(next to St Pancras station) on Tuesdays from 6pm to 7pm. The remaining
lectures in the series are:
Erotic Harmonies 10 February
Politics, erotics, and the Jews 16 March
Homoerotics and other forbidden desires 4 May - Our member Nisbet Cunningham and his St Fillans Music Circle are presenting Wagner's Ring in Perthshire. Over the 4 Sundays of March 2004 [7,14,21,28th] the New York Met production of the Ring will be shown on a big screen with cinema quality sound at Sandison Hall, St Fillans. The starting time each Sunday is 2.30pm. For full details & tickets contact Nisbet on 01764 670 576
- Derek Watson resumes his Introducing Opera class for 6 Wednesday evenings at 7pm from January 21st; alternatively Thursday afternoons at 2pm from 22nd January. The venue is Riddle's Court, 322 Lawnmarket, Edinburgh. To book ring the WEA on 0131 225 7772. Or just come along to the first meeting on either day.
- The Richard Wagner festival in Wels, Austria, presents Parsifal on 20 & 23 May. Information from Frau Rupp on 00 43 7242 239 111 (fax 00 43 7242 239 935) or on the net: www.trodat.net/Wagner
- Ian Beresford Gleaves directs a Tannhäuser appreciation course, 17th-19th February with Benslow Music Trust at Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Telephone 01462 459446 for more details & booking information.
- The death of the great German baritone Hans Hotter on December 6th, aged nearly 95, has been marked by extensive tributes in the press. Some members will recall hearing him in Wagner performance. Those less fortunate might recall him in Berg and Schoenberg roles, at Edinburgh Festival performances until quite recently, and all of us can enjoy the great good fortune that Hotter left many fine recordings. So many of our recent guests knew him: Pauline Tinsley, whose Brünnhilde he admired; Penelope Turing, his friend and biographer; more than one Scottish Opera Ring singer who told us of the experience of studying with him. In The Guardian Penelope Turing recalled 'his Wotan, magnificently sung, and acted with a blend of human pride, anger, tenderness and godlike anguish... the yardstick by which all other exponents of the role would be measured.' The Times noted that his farewell to that role, at a concert performance of Die Walküre Act 3 was in Paris with the conductor - Alexander Gibson.
The Ring in Manaus
The notion of a Society excursion up the Amazon has been nurtured with growing ardour ever since your chairman talked to director Aidan Lang a couple of years ago about his Ring production at the legendary opera house in Manaus, Brazil. I hoped at the very least to invite him to address our Society about this extraordinary project which will be presented as a complete cycle in May 2005. I was thus very pleased to receive a letter from Ian Robertson of the Friends of Scottish Opera suggesting most practically a joint excursion. Ian has masterminded trips to New York, Florida, Prague and places nearer to home. We look forward to planning South America together!
Chairman and Newsletter editor: Derek Watson, Deanfoot House, West Linton, Peeblesshire EH46 7EA Tel 01968 660339 Fax 01968 661701; e-mail derek@lintonbooks.plus.com
Secretary: W S Scott, 83 East Claremont Street, Edinburgh EH7 4HU; Tel 0131-556 2617; Fax 0870 0568159; e-mail will@elgar1.plus.com
Treasurer & Membership Secretary: John Holcombe, 4 Galleon Court, Lamer Street, Dunbar, East Lothian, EH42 1GX; e-mail john@holc.wanadoo.co.uk
