Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword by Sir Charles Mackerras
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Glasgow: Kailyard or Coal Yard?
- 2 The Active Society: Bringing the Heroes of Modernism to Glasgow
- 3 Chisholm's Scottish Inheritance
- Interlude: The Love of Sorabji
- 4 A Trojan Horse in Glasgow: Berlioz, Mozart and Gluck
- 5 The Ballet & The Baton as Weapons of War
- Centre-Piece Pictures from Dante & Night Song of the Bards: A Journey from West to East
- 6 From Italy to India and Singapore
- 7 Under Table Mountain
- 8 On Tour in the USA and Europe
- 9 Soviet Ambassador: Chisholm behind the Iron Curtain
- Interlude: The Love of Janáček
- 10 Chasing a Restless Muse: The Heart's Betrayal
- 10 Chasing a Restless Muse: The Heart's Betrayal
- Appendix 1: The Active Society for the Propagation of Contemporary Music
- Appendix 2: Patrick Macdonald Sources for Chisholm's Piano Works
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Discography
- Selected Compositions
- Index
3 - Chisholm's Scottish Inheritance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword by Sir Charles Mackerras
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Glasgow: Kailyard or Coal Yard?
- 2 The Active Society: Bringing the Heroes of Modernism to Glasgow
- 3 Chisholm's Scottish Inheritance
- Interlude: The Love of Sorabji
- 4 A Trojan Horse in Glasgow: Berlioz, Mozart and Gluck
- 5 The Ballet & The Baton as Weapons of War
- Centre-Piece Pictures from Dante & Night Song of the Bards: A Journey from West to East
- 6 From Italy to India and Singapore
- 7 Under Table Mountain
- 8 On Tour in the USA and Europe
- 9 Soviet Ambassador: Chisholm behind the Iron Curtain
- Interlude: The Love of Janáček
- 10 Chasing a Restless Muse: The Heart's Betrayal
- 10 Chasing a Restless Muse: The Heart's Betrayal
- Appendix 1: The Active Society for the Propagation of Contemporary Music
- Appendix 2: Patrick Macdonald Sources for Chisholm's Piano Works
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Discography
- Selected Compositions
- Index
Summary
If there was one thing the Active Society for the Promotion of Contemporary Music did not do for contemporary music, it was to support Erik Chisholm. It did occasionally focus on Scottish composers, but there was no attempt to pursue a Scottish agenda, whether in terms of native composers or native idioms. Chisholm redressed the balance through his own compositions and by resurrecting the Dunedin Association (see Chapter 4).
Scotland had, and has, highly distinctive native idioms, and no one was more aware of this at the time than Chisholm himself. The latter half of this chapter is given over to discussion of several of the works in which he explored the Scottish idiom, but it is useful to begin with the background from which his unique and challenging contribution emerged.
There are those who, thinking to prove themselves cosmopolitan, consider any focus upon particular national styles a kind of offence against internationalism – a word rendered meaningless if there is no such thing as nationalism. In most sophisticated cultures this is not an issue: unfortunately, in Scotland it was and remains a major issue, and it was one which Chisholm himself had to confront.
There are two attitudes generally adopted … to native composers: the first is summed up as follows: when the great Scottish composer does come along we will welcome him – we will play his work and acclaim him and do honour to his genius but so far Scottish music has only had talents and frankly we are not interested in anything but the very best.
And the second point of view is that unless we are willing to encourage what creative talent we do possess we are extremely unlikely ever to produce great musical composers. … Such an attitude is not likely to exist unless it is evolved and matured over a fairly long period and generally arrives as part of a rising national consciousness in the people. Take the case of the Bohemian and Finnish peoples towards their composers. The Czechs did everything possible to encourage their own musicians … and in a century they produced at least two men of outstanding genius in Dvorak and Smetana, besides a host of other important composers. At the time of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia I am told that in the programmes of many concert organisations the predominance of native music was as high as 80%.
- Type
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- Information
- Erik Chisholm, Scottish Modernist (1904-1965)Chasing a Restless Muse, pp. 36 - 58Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009