Music Niagara Festival fans will have the chance this week to experience a side of playwright George Bernard Shaw that is rarely on display at the theatre named in his honour. They will also enjoy a set of compositions that they likely will be hearing for the first time.
Before Shaw became one of the most celebrated playwrights in history, he wrote music criticism for various London newspapers. The trademark wit and acerbic humour that modern audiences still love was first brought to the music world.
As one might imagine, his expert use of the English language entertained readers, as he turned the art form on its head. He once said, “I purposely vulgarized musical criticism, which was refined and academic to the point of being unreadable and often nonsensical.”
The Saturday, Oct. 9 online presentation of Shaw and Music focuses on this aspect of Shaw’s writings, matching his words with music from Mozart and another composer, German Hermann Gustav Goetz, who was soon to be forgotten.
Long-time Shaw cast member Guy Bannerman returns to Music Niagara to give voice to words written by Shaw in the early 20th century.
“It was a significant part of his biography,” Bannerman tells The Local, “writing music criticism for a decade and a half before he started catching on as a playwright.”
Bannerman has no doubt that this period of Shaw’s career influenced some of his plays.
“We’d like to think that a lot of his observation and critical faculties were developed through all his music criticism and that’s part of what led him to be so successful as a playwright.”
More specifically, Bannerman adds, “You see some particular scenes in his plays culminate in what amounts to an aria. Someone sums up their whole life and situation in one long diatribe. It’s an interesting way to deal with big emotions and big personalities, which he was certainly drawn to.”
Though not formally trained in music, Shaw was indeed musical. His mother was a singer in Dublin, and became an assistant for her vocal teacher G. J. Lee. With the hope that his sister would embark on a career as a singer, the Shaw women followed Lee to London. Perhaps influenced by them, Shaw taught himself to read scores and play the piano, and convinced a musician friend to teach him the basics of music theory.
As one might expect, when he wrote about music, he pulled very few punches. Take this Dec. 9, 1891 assessment of Mozart on the occasion of the composer’s centenary:
“The critic’s task is not so easy. The word is admire, admire, admire. But unless you frankly trade on the ignorance of the public and cite as illustration of his unique genius, creativity and feats of melody, that also come easily to dozens of organists and whistling choir boys who never wrote or will write a bar of original music in their lives, or representing him as composing spontaneously as a bird sings, because it was his habit to perfect his greater compositions in his mind before he wrote them down, unless you resort to these well-worn dodges, you will find nothing to admire.”
During the hour-long Music Niagara Festival At Home Concert Series performance, Bannerman breathes life into these words and many others written by Shaw. The playwright’s criticism of Mozart follows a performance of the composer’s “Divertimento à 3 for Piano Trio”, played expertly by Music Niagara founder and artistic director Atis Bankas on violin, Victoria Kogan on piano, and cellist Dobrochna Zubek.
Much of the other music, though, will be heard for the first time by Music Niagara fans, coming as it does from the pen of the little-known and rarely-heard Goetz.
Goetz lived a short life, dying in 1876 just four days short of his thirty-sixth birthday. He had moved to Switzerland in 1863, where he worked as an organist and created his compositions. And, like Shaw, Goetz also wrote music reviews.
Shaw was a Goetz admirer. His review of an 1893 performance of the composer’s “Symphony in F” was entitled Goetz Über Alles. In it, he writes that the work “is the only real symphony written since Beethoven died,” placing Goetz above the likes of Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms. Later, Bannerman, as Shaw, wonders why masterpieces such as Goetz’ Taming of the Shrew were shelved for operas by Rossini.
“For better or worse, Shaw thought this was the second coming of Beethoven,” Bankas says. “He (Goetz) was a talented composer. There are a few recordings of Goetz music, but not many. You have to be an aficionado to really take interest in that particular composer.”
Because of that scarcity, says Bankas, not only will viewers of this weekend’s At Home Concert Series be hearing Goetz for the first time, but they may also be experiencing the composer’s work for the last time.
That’s not to say the pieces taken on by Atis and the trio, as well as soprano Inga Filipova, aren’t worth hearing again and again. Juxtaposed as it is in this program with Mozart’s work, Goetz’ compositions hold their own and at times match his beauty and complexity. One could understandably be left to wonder what kept Goetz from enduring in the world of classical music.
Bankas compares Shaw’s writings on music to a document of what was played, who played it, how long the concerts were and how they were structured at the turn of the 20th century.
“It’s quite a bit of information,” Bankas says. “That seriously allows us to bring back forgotten performers, in this case Goetz, sometimes just to show why those composers are forgotten, even though at the time they were very popular for sometimes decades before they disappeared.”
Hearing Shaw’s words along with the music of Goetz, about which he was writing, sheds light on how audiences at the time were reacting favourably to some of the composers who have since been lost to time.
Reading aloud Shaw’s writings on music was a lot of fun for Bannerman.
“It makes you excited to think about what the music scene was like,” the actor marvels. “There were things going on virtually every day. And Shaw is always surprising, sometimes because he is grandiose, and sometimes because he is petty and competitive, and will not let a bone go by that hasn’t been thoroughly chewed.”
The Shaw and Music performance will be available at musicniagara.org and via the Music Niagara YouTube channel.
Music Niagara Festival is also raising funds this month through a 50-50 draw. The
winner will take 50 per cent of all proceeds. The funds raised are intended to allow the organization to continue educating, entertaining and inspiring diverse audiences, while building Niagara’s cultural infrastructure for a more vibrant and artistic tomorrow. The draw will be held Friday, Oct. 29. Visit raffle
box.ca/raffle/musicniagara for information and tickets.
