Ezra Pound's Radio Operas: The BBC Experiments, 1931-1933

342 Pages·2002·1.86 MB·English

by  Margaret Fisher

EZRA POUND’S RADIO OPERAS
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EZRA POUND’S RADIO OPERAS
‒
The BBC Experiments,
Margaret Fisher
The MIT Press ~ Cambridge, Massachusetts ~ London, England
© Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or
mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval)
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Copyrights of texts and illustrations reproduced in this book are listed in the Credits,
beginning on page xii.
This book was set in Bembo by Graphic Composition, Inc., and was printed and bound in
the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fisher, Margaret, –
Ezra Pound’s radio operas :the BBC experiments, –/ Margaret Fisher.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN ---(hc. :alk. paper)
. Pound, Ezra, –. Testament of François Villon. . Pound, Ezra, –.
Cavalcanti. . Radio operas—History and criticism. I. Title.
ML.PF
.´—dc

for Bob,
this side

Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Credits xii

Introduction

1 A Dramatic Filter

2 Radio

3 Broadcast of a Melodrama

4 Dramedy

5 Minister of Kulchur in Utopia

Postscript: Archie Harding, 1936–1953

Appendix: BBC Script for The Testament of François Villon

Notes

References

Index
plates follow page 83
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK BEGAN as an incidental chapter for Robert Hughes’s study
of Ezra Pound’s music from the perspective of the last complete large
work, Cavalcanti.My job was to explain why that work was not produced
in Pound’s lifetime. Bob generously granted me access to all aspects of his
research, and spent countless hours in discussion and review of the pri-
mary and secondary music materials, challenging my arguments, and
helping me to formulate better ones. I met Bob in , at a time when
he thought his work with Pound’s music was finished. When he acquired
the Cavalcanti,a new phase of editing, conducting, recording, and writ-
ing began. His pioneering research has produced definitive performance
editions of Pound’s two operas and violin works, world premieres of the
operas as originally composed, numerous recordings, and a recently com-
pleted analysis of the music and of Pound’s composing process. Pound’s
music takes its place as one of the many fascinating and large-scale proj-
ects in Bob’s multifaceted contribution to American music as composer,
conductor, bassoonist, and champion of new music.
R. Murray Schafer’s contributions to Pound’s music and its study
are bedrock to the field. Because he is one of Canada’s foremost com-
posers and was coproducer of the BBC’s broadcast of Le Testament,
friend to Pound and Agnes Bedford, and a producer for the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, his perspective on the radio operas (in-
tended as an accompanying volume to his edition of Pound’s complete
music criticism, Ezra Pound and Music) has an unparalleled basis in re-
search, performance, radio, and personal acquaintance with some of the
persons who first performed his music. I am grateful to Murray for read-
A
ing and commenting on an early manuscript for this book, and for CK
N
O
answering many questions. W
L
E
The performance history of Pound’s operas of course began with D
G
M
Pound and the professional musicians who befriended him—Agnes Bed- E
N
T
ford, Olga Rudge, Yves Tinayre, and Robert Maitland. In the years that S
followed, BBC producers A.E.F. Harding and D.G. Bridson and mu-
sicians Raymonde Collignon and Gustav Ferrari encouraged Pound’s
efforts in music. I wish to acknowledge the artistic contributions of these
persons, apart from the factual information presented in my text. Bob
Hughes introduced me to Olga Rudge, and I am grateful to have known
her as a friend, in Venice and in California. Gavin Bridson generously
provided me with information about the vast scope of his father’s career,
and provided leads to other radio producers. I wish to thank Charles
Mundye, whose production of Pound’s Le Testamentat the University of
York brought forward a fresh interpretation of the opera. I am grateful for
his correspondence and interchange of ideas. I extend special thanks to
Toyoji Tomita, an esteemed performer in his own right, who reviewed
my approaches to some of the more arcane possibilities suggested by the
Cavalcanti.I thank Charles Amirkhanian for permission to review mate-
rials in the George Antheil archives, and for his promotion of Pound’s
music over the years.
I thank Mary de Rachewiltz and Omar S. Pound for furnishing doc-
uments and many factual details, and for their generous permission to
print previously unpublished materials.
Grateful acknowledgment is given to New Directions Publishing
Corporation and Faber & Faber, Ltd., for permission to quote Ezra Pound
materials. Peggy Fox at New Directions has been a mainstay to the field
of Ezra Pound and music, and to this project. She read earlier manuscripts
and guided me through the intricacies of copyright issues regarding the
previously unpublished manuscripts included in this book. I also thank
Declan Spring of New Directions for handling the myriad permissions
issues that arose. I would like to express my appreciation to the British
Broadcasting Corporation, and its agent, the BBC Written Archives
Centre, Caversham, for permission to quote from material under their
copyright. My work has been greatly facilitated by Jacqueline Kavanagh,
~ ix~