Eric Saylor & Christopher Scheer 
The Sea in the British Musical Imagination [PDF ebook] 

For centuries, the sea and those who sail upon it have inspired the imaginations of British musicians. Generations of British artists have viewed the ocean as a metaphor for the mutable human condition – by turns calm and reflective, tempestuous and destructive – and have been influenced as much by its physical presence as by its musical potential. But just as geographical perspectives and attitudes on seascapes have evolved over time, so too have culturalassumptions about their meaning and significance. Changes in how Britons have used the sea to travel, communicate, work, play, and go to war have all irresistibly shaped the way that maritime imagery has been conceived, represented, and disseminated in British music.

By exploring the sea’s significance within the complex world of British music, this book reveals a network of largely unexamined cultural tropes unique to this island nation. The essaysare organised around three main themes: the Sea as Landscape, the Sea as Profession, and the Sea as Metaphor, covering an array of topics drawn from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first. Featuring studies of pieces by thelikes of Purcell, Arne, Sullivan, Vaughan Williams, and Davies, as well as examinations of cultural touchstones such as the BBC, the Scottish fishing industry, and the Aldeburgh Festival,
The Sea in the British Musical Imagination will be of interest to musicologists as well as scholars in history, British studies, cultural studies, and English literature.


ERIC SAYLOR is Associate Professor of Musicology at Drake University.


CHRISTOPHER M. SCHEER is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Utah State University.


CONTRIBUTORS: Byron Adams, Jenny Doctor, Amanda Eubanks Winkler, James Brooks Kuykendall, Charles Edward Mc Guire, Alyson Mc Lamore, Louis Niebur, Jennifer Oates, Eric Saylor, Christopher M. Scheer, Aidan J. Thomson, Justin Vickers, Frances Wilkins

Table des matières

Introduction – Eric Saylor and Christopher Scheer

‘Britannia Rule the Waves’: Maritime Music and National Identity in Eighteenth-Century Britain – Alyson Mc Lamore

Scotland, the ‘Celtic North’, and the Sea: Issues of Identity in Bantock’s
Hebridean Symphony [1915] – Jennifer Oates

Sea Change: A Meditation upon Frank Bridge’s
Lament: To Catherine, Aged 9, ‘Lusitania’ 1915 – Byron Adams

Crosscurrents in the Britten Legacy: Two Visions of Aldeburgh – Christopher Scheer

‘Come away, fellow sailors’: Musical Characterisation of the Nautical Profession in Seventeenth-Century England – Amanda Eubanks Winkler

Jolly Jack Tar: Musical Caricature and Characterisation of the British Sailor, c. 1875-1925 – James Brooks Kuykendall

Fishers of Men: Maritime Radio and Evangelical Hymnody in the Scottish Fishing Industry, 1950-65 – Frances Wilkins

Amanuensis of the Sea: Peter Maxwell Davies’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 and the
Antarctic Symphony – Justin Vickers

Three Journeys, Two Paths: Locating the Lyric and Dramatic in Elgar’s
Sea Pictures – Charles Edward Mc Guire

Political Visions, National Identities, and the Sea Itself: Stanford and Vaughan Williams in 1910 – Eric Saylor

Bax’s ‘Sea Symphony’ – Aidan Thomson

‘Close your eyes and listen to it’: Special Sound and the Sea in BBC Radio Drama, 1957-59 – Louis Niebur

Afterword – Jenny Doctor