Liza Lehmann: One Woman's Expression of a Life through Music
Liza Lehmann was born at the right time in the right place and into the right family.
Born July 11, 1862 in London during the height of Queen Victoria's both her parents were involved in the arts: her father was a painter and her mother a musician. These beneficial circumstances along with her ambition and talent made Liza Lehmann a successful composer. In the course of her life Liza Lehmann composed over 400 vocal works-- over 350 of these works are songs. Even a century after their conception, these songs still exist in great numbers, some still published and performed, and some now regaining popularity with new recordings and publications in progress.
We consider these songs now because the serious study of music by women has moved us to rediscover composers previously ignored by scholars because of their race, class, or gender. It is only in context of her life circumstances that we can make sense of her success as a song composer during a time when women were denied training in composition by many established conservatories. This type of biographical treatment has its predecessors. Joan Wallach Scott states in her book Gender and the Politics of History (1988, p. 29,30) that "the most politically inclusive scholars of women's studies [have] regularly invoked all three categories [class, race, and gender] as crucial to the writing of a new history."
In the past two decades the study of women in music has greatly expanded. The 1988 meeting of the American Musicological Society encouraged serious scholars to take a fresh look at works by women long buried in libraries and attics. Among these newfound works are the many worthy songs of Liza Lehmann. It is the right time to bring them to the foreground because we can learn so much from this Victorian woman's life experiences which she so beautifully and clearly communicates to us through her songs. Her music echoes down to us through the century and arrives here today as a voice of humor, reason, and comfort. Lehmann’s voice is as relevant to us today, straddling the centuries in post 911 America as it was a century ago when she straddled the centuries and survived the devastation of WWI in England.
Transformative events in the composer's life mark three time periods in Lehmann's music. The first period begins with her birth and continues through her years as a professional singer. The songs are in traditional styles of British Folk song, German Lieder, and French Melodie. These songs were mostly written for herself to perform.
The second period begins with the year of Lehmann's marriage and consequent foray into professional composing. It is in the second period that Lehmann finds her own compositional style through exploration. In the middle songs, we hear works with the passion and excitement of a young ambitious composer eager to make her mark on the classical world alongside light-hearted commercial works inspired by children and written for the amateur musician.
Lehmann’s final period begins with her first American tour and ends with her death in 1918. The songs from her final period turn to the inner landscape of a person searching for meaning. These songs are smaller in scale, more economical in writing, and more effective whether in a light or serious vein. Lehmann’s periods are based on the premise that her music will reflect the external circumstances of the composer as well as her personal reactions to those circumstances. This concept comes from a quotation in Lehmann's essay entitled "What Must I do to Become a Composer?" In it she says:
“In no art is the life of a composer more definitely reflected than in that of music. His musical breadth will depend very largely upon his personal breadth. As he has lived, so will his music be.”
Lehmann's use of the masculine pronoun in reference to composers reveals her underlying feeling that women did not ultimately belong in the rarified atmosphere of composition, yet she believed that the concept of music reflecting life did apply to her. This is a paradox that plagued Liza Lehmann--she was a composer but was somehow not accepted as such either by herself or by society at large. The fact that this quotation is published in a volume entitled Great Men and Famous Musicians on the Art of Music simply reinforces this point. To restate Lehmann's concept in more modern and relevant terms: as Liza Lehmann has lived, so will her music be.
Many factors played roles in the spread of music in 19th century England, including the growth of the middle class, the affordability of the upright piano, and the rise of the commercial music business. By the late 19th century many musicians--both professionals and amateurs, men and women alike--became composers of popular parlor songs in England. It was a creative arena in which women could succeed.
Liza Lehmann "worshipped at the shrine" of any woman composer she encountered. Around 1880 Maude Valerie White, composer and pianist, began to write songs that made a marked impression on Lehmann. Since White did not have a performing career, she was viewed as a composer first and foremost. As a friend and as a musician White was a notable influence in Liza Lehmann's career. Our first song today was written as a thank you to Maude Valerie White in German Lieder style, the style Lehmann sang often in her early years as a professional singer. Translation of this song: "Wenn ich an dich gedenke."
Lehmann excelled in writing song cycles. Again taking her lead from German Romantic sources Lehmann set the literature from her own country Edward FitzGerald's Rubiayat of Omar Khayyam for her most lasting cycle entitled In a Persian Garden. Lehmann wrote this after leaving the stage for marriage in 1894. This song demonstrates Lehmann's new-found passion for dramatic works. One can hear her operatic conception of the piece which would work well for orchestra. We can hear Lehmann’s strength and passion in “I sent my soul through the invisible.”
In a Persian Garden along with many other serious cycles and songs were performed at classical recitals all over London. Songs came from a variety of sources and were sung by everyone from the housewife to the operatic diva in Victorian England. Though there were several classifications of song at this time, two general types were prevalent: serious and popular. You have just heard two serious songs and now it’s time for two popular pieces were written for the average housewife or young girl or boy to perform in the living room.
The most popular of Liza Lehmann's sets of songs was called The Daisy-Chain, a set of 12 songs with texts by various authors. A newspaper in Toledo revealed that this cycle "was first written for the amusement of her own children, and it was only through the persuasions of her mother that she offered it for publication." Published in 1900 these songs soon became all the rage in England. Benjamin Britten, a renowned 20th-century British composer, remembered going to Daisy-Chain parties as a child. The song "If No One Ever Marries Me" is from this set and reflects the Victorian moré that women should be married early or be damned to a life of spinsterhood. Lehmann herself was married at the age of 32 and so she knew full well the emotional impact of that unrealistic standard. Lehmann deals with this very serious issue with great humor in this popular song from the turn of the century. Lehmann's two sons were quite influential on her compositions.
The next song, "To a Little Red Spider" may have been inspired by long sleepless nights as a new mother and possibly the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet.” This piece shows Lehmann’s gift for text painting. You can almost see the little red spider’s wiggly legs symbolized by a wiggly repeated piano figure and feel the great height of her ceilings symbolized by the long-held notes in the voice.
Though England could not boast great composers for many years, it certainly had more than its fair share of great poets and authors. William Shakespeare's works were among Lehmann's studies as a child and it is no surprise that she - as well as many of her fellow British composers set this text: "It was a lover and his lass," one of Lehmann’s many art songs using texts by famous British poets.
Thus ends Lehmann's middle period of raising children, honoring her British roots, and writing for the popular commercial market as well as the serious classical musician. Now we enter Lehmann's third period. In 1911and 12 Liza Lehmann traveled to America by herself to promote her works.
In her memoirs she wrote:
"Looking back, I simply cannot imagine how, with my intensely nervous and home-loving temperament, I ever mustered sufficient courage for such an undertaking! But I did; and, as a matter of fact, the first long tour in America was followed by a still longer one in the following season."
In addition to her newfound courage, Lehmann also took on the mantle of leadership. In 1911 she accepted the invitation to become the first president of the Society of Women Musicians and in 1913 she was offered a professorship at the Guildhall School of Music in London.
Lehmann's travels abroad as well as her leadership and teaching positions gave her the confidence to write songs from the depths of her being. Many of these late songs reflect her own heart-felt desires and opinions. Her harmonic language and use of form was forced to expand in order to paint her emotional struggles with the large issues of life and death.
"Magdalen at Michael's Gate," written in 1913, was Lehmann's own proclaimed favorite song. It is one of her only pieces with any reference to religious subjects. In this song she uses several characters (somewhat like Schubert’s “Erlkoenig”) to tell a story with a moral, again reflecting her Victorian upbringing, but with a 20th century twist. It is interesting to note that instead of the word God, Lehmann uses the word ONE. Listen for the musical motives for each character: Magdalen, St. Michael, the blackbird, and the narrator.
This will be followed by a piece that was never published, "Are You Coming Mr. Adkins". On the front of the manuscript, Lehmann wrote "Composed during the 1914-1918 war for a War Pageant by Louis Napoleon Parker. The text is hopeful and inspiring and attempts to describe the struggles of the women back at home even more than those of the men who are off at war. Both of the songs I’m about to sing reveal very strong opinions--one on women and religion and other on women and war. If it were not for the acceptable medium of song, we might not hear this type of strength of an opinion from a Victorian woman.
In 1916 Lehmann's beloved, eldest son Rudolph was killed in the war. Lehmann stopped composing for a period of mourning. Near the end of the war, like many others in Europe, Lehmann was searching for spiritual answers to life's deepest questions, a process brought to a climax after the death of her son. In her memoirs, she gives voice to her thoughts about spirituality, which are strongly reflected in her last songs.
She says, "I have not had the solace of a strong faith; my religion had been of the vaguest; dogma repelled me and clouded my understanding. Shadowy hopes had sufficed me until this terrible time, hopes crossed at times by doubts, to the effect that religion itself might possibly be but an anesthetic evolved by man for his self-protection….There is an Eastern proverb that I have always loved, which runs: The dogs’ bark--the caravan passes. There is not much more for me to say. I have renounced the pleasures of life--but, with the help of my new outlook and my new hope, it is my resolve to spend such days as remain to me in service for others."
With this new hope, Lehmann began to compose again. Many of the songs from this time were not published until recently. Both “Evensong” and “When I am Dead My Dearest” show not only deep grief but also her “new hope” of passing on to the next world and finding her son.
During this full and poignant time in her life and in the England’s grief over WWI, it is surprising to find that Lehmann continued to write for a hungry commercial market. "There are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden," was written in 1917 and became an immediate hit in war-torn England—a bit of light in an otherwise gloomy landscape. The royalties from this song alone supported her living son's tuition to Oxford. It is only when we remember that “A tisket a tasket, a green and yellow basket” was a pop hit sung by Ella Fitzgerald not long ago in this country, that can we possibly see how “There are Fairies at the bottom of our Garden” made it to the top of the charts in post WWI England.
Liza Lehmann was not what we might call a feminist or even a humanist. She was not a great composer with a list of symphonies, operas, or other great masterworks to her credit. She was simply a woman who wanted to write music more than anything else, and wrote in the genres open to her as a woman. She was the product of her times that struggled against many cultural obstacles in order to fulfill her dreams. Through it all she kept her wonderful sense of humor. And the list of credits to her name is substantial: more than 350 songs, including seven song cycles and sixteen sets, two cantatas, one opera, and miscellaneous dramatic, choral, and piano works. She also wrote a pedagogical textbook on singing and two pedagogical song collections. She toured the United States twice with her own works, was a professor of singing, and became the first president of the Society of Women Musicians. She raised two boys and survived the sorrow of burying one of them. She died courageously just two weeks after she had finished her memoirs of "the fatal malady that developed so rapidly" while her husband was away at war. These last words of her memoirs echo the lyrics of her last song—never published: Pot Pourri (Fallen Roseleaves).
"Don't be proud of anything--but don't be proud of not being proud of anything," used to be a favourite nursery maxim; but in memoirs one is compelled to throw bouquets to oneself! It is the expected course…And in the end what remains of all the bouquets? At most, a little petal of dust and for a brief moment the faint odour of potpourri."
