tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34993991.post116179109331563878..comments2023-10-05T07:46:44.392-04:00Comments on And Now the Screaming Starts: Event: "But then maybe a spiritless age deserves a spiritless death. It is not for me to judge."CRwMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07896615209770501945noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34993991.post-1162075430293820342006-10-28T18:43:00.000-04:002006-10-28T18:43:00.000-04:00Thank you for writing Ms. Vogt. Your insights are ...Thank you for writing Ms. Vogt. Your insights are provocative and well worth further research. <BR/><BR/>Did you not find it interesting that <I>An Incomplete History</I> failed to mention the irony that brother of one of the greatest proto-modernists was one of the last links to this most pre-modern of traditions?<BR/><BR/>However, I must take issue with an idea you've been promoting on your own otherwise excellent web site. I'm referring to the notion that New Orleans's funerary musical traditions represent a thriving preserve of somewhat evolved, but still essentially "original stock" funerary violin music – a sort of musical "lost world," if you will. I believe a close re-reading of Hugo Leichtentritt's posthumously published <I>Music of a Western Nation</I>, a book I'm certain you are already familiar with, puts paid to that idea quite definitively.CRwMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07896615209770501945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34993991.post-1162019196264888302006-10-28T03:06:00.000-04:002006-10-28T03:06:00.000-04:00Jim Harris at Prairie Lights Books recently sent m...Jim Harris at Prairie Lights Books recently sent me an advance copy of AN INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF THE ART OF FUNERARY VIOLIN and I must take issue with his colleague Paul Ingram’s assessment that the book is a hoax. My belief is that the Rohan Kriwaczek hoax is itself a hoax. <BR/><BR/>Let me explain. I am the director of MuseumZeitraim Leipzig and a former curator at The Wassmann Foundation, Washington, D.C. Research and scholarship at both institutions confirms that the Leipzig composer Hugo Wassmann, brother of the renowned artist Johann Dieter Wassmann, was an active member of the Lutheran wing of Leipzig’s Guild of Funerary Violinists in the 1890s. Hugo’s ultimate falling out with the Guild came in 1901 over his efforts to introduce the saxophone to funerary rights, a practice that would eventually take hold in the city of New Orleans with great success, although not among Lutherans. Hugo was a former captain in the Prussian army and regularly composed military marches inclusive of the saxophone. <BR/><BR/>Here in Leipzig, the funerary violin has a long and crucial history, most often associated with Heironymous Gratchenfleiss. Gratchenfleiss’s extensive archives were in the care of <BR/>Musikinstrumenten-Museum der Universität Leipzig, part of the Grassi Museum, but lost forever when the complex was gutted by fire in an Allied bombing raid on 3 December 1943. <BR/><BR/>The un-sourced (and poorly translated) letter Kriwaczek quotes referencing Gratchenfleiss, dated 14 September 1787 (pp 62-63), which he simply describes as “by an unknown man named Fredrik,” is in fact by the pen of Fredrik Wassmann, grandfather of Johann and Hugo, describing the funeral of their great-grandfather, a funeral Gratchenfleiss performed. An original copy of the letter is in the archives of The Wassmann Foundation. The liberties Kriwaczek takes with his facts would appear to be part of a larger narrative strategy to make it appear he has created a hoax, when he hasn’t. What a dull book it would have been otherwise.<BR/><BR/>Intriguing.<BR/><BR/>Tschüss,<BR/><BR/>Sophie Vogt<BR/>Director<BR/>MuseumZeitraum LeipzigSophie Vogthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02517715291227455648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34993991.post-1161795896775560482006-10-25T13:04:00.000-04:002006-10-25T13:04:00.000-04:00On behalf of the bookstore, thanks for spreading t...On behalf of the bookstore, thanks for spreading the word. I have it on good authority from Overlook that Rohan is charismatically odd and charming on the subject of funerary violin, and as a musician and performer. Should be a strange, great evening. He may drop in around 5:00, so come early for more funerary violin music.<BR/><BR/>I've never gotten to say and write the word "funerary" so much as I have in the past week. I'm not even sure if it's a real word, but I kind of like it.Book Nerdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02896226559142059293noreply@blogger.com