Areopagus Volume LXXXIX

Seven short lessons every someday.

Welcome one and all to the eighty ninth volume of the Areopagus — and we're back! It has been two months since you last heard from me, an unplanned interlude that was the result of one happenstance after another. No longer. From now on you can expect the Areopagus on a far more regular basis.

Anyway, enough time has passed — there is a whole world out there waiting to be wondered at! So let us do some wondering together at last; another Areopagus begins...

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I - Classical Music

Die Tote Stadt: Act III, Scene III

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1920)

Performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

In 1892 the Belgian poet Georges Rodenbach published a novella called Bruges-la-Morte. It was inspired by Bruges, a place he had only visited but never lived in, and had as its goal turning the city itself into a sort of protagonist. Bruges was then a sleepy Medieval town, overshadowed by its long-lost Gothic splendour, and Rodenbach sensed in this ghostly atmosphere a wonderfully unique kind of sadness. He was a Symbolist, after all, and Symbolism was all about elusive, introspective, almost mystical storytelling, whether in painting or music or literature. Making the city of Bruges into a character, then, was a suitably Symbolist endeavour. To aid this Rodenbach made the unusual decision to include several dozen photographs of the city's streets and canals in his book; the image above is one such example.

Bruges-la-Morte worked; its author's reputation was sealed and the definitive Symbolist novel had been written. Rodenbach later tried adapting it for the stage, under the title Le Mirage, and this play was published posthumously in 1900. Two decades later, in 1920, the twenty-three year old Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold turned Le Mirage into an opera. Its title is Die Tote Stadt, meaning "The Dead City" in German, and what we hear now is its finale. The opera was a huge success, although certain critics said its style was rather too Romantic, and therefore too rousing and dramatic. Perhaps these critics were right. A more haunting, impressionistic style — think of Satie, Ravel, or Debussy — would surely have better suited Rodenbach's strange and melancholy story.

The original 1938 poster for The Adventures of Robin Hood; notice Korngold's credit, just above the Warner Bros. crest

For you might sense that this finale, and Die Tote Stadt in its entirety, feels very cinematic. But this is no surprise: in 1934 Korngold left Europe for the United States, where he established himself as a successful and highly influential Hollywood composer, even winning two Oscars for his work on the films of Errol Flynn. So Die Tote Stadt does sound cinematic, but not because it was influenced by cinema. Rather, Korngold was an early pioneer of film music and his work, beginning with operas like this before he wrote for the silver screen, ended up shaping what we think of now as cinematic soundtracks. Just one more example, I suppose, of how difficult it is to draw any hard lines between classical music and the music of film.

What fascinates me about Die Tote Stadt, above all, is how it represents a city that became a feeling that become a novel that became a play that became an opera. Quite the journey — and one wonders how much of Rodenbach's original impression of Bruges has survived through these transformations. But so much music, and art in general, is like this, as feelings or moments move like ripples through successive peoples and times and artforms.

II - Historical Figure

Jean de Froissart

Medieval Tour Guide

Jean de Froissart kneeling before the Count of Foix, from a 15th century manuscript

Jean de Froissart is a man I have quoted before in the Areopagus, always in relation to other people. Time, perhaps, to give him some recognition of his own! He was born in the County of Hainault (in modern France) in 1337. What his origins were have always been a mystery, but we know at least that by the age of twenty four he had entered the court of Philippa of Hainault, wife of King Edward III of England. There he composed poetry and started work on an all-encompassing history of his age. Over the next four decades he spent time in the courts of countless more kings, queens, and dukes, both in Britain and on mainland Europe, working tirelessly on his grand chronicle.

Froissart's history focussed largely on the Hundred Years' War between England and France, but included much else besides, such as the Peasant's Revolt and the famous duel between Jacques le Gris and Jean de Carrouges, recently turned into a film by Ridley Scott. What made Froissart uniquely well-placed to write this chronicle was his constant travelling, his restless interviewing of eye-witnesses, and his familiarity with nobility all across the continent. Here he describes journeying to see the Count of Foix, on the border between Spain and France; a perfect example of Froissart's extensive connections and a curious insight into travel during the Middle Ages:

At the time I undertook my journey to visit the Count de Foix, reflecting on the diversity of countries I had never seen. I set out from Carcassonne, leaving the road to Toulouse on the right hand, and came to Monteroral, then to Tonges, then to Belle, then to the first town in the county of Foix; from thence to Maisieres, to the castle of Sauredun; then to the handsome city of Pamiers, which belongs to the Count de Foix, where I halted to wait for company that were going to Béarn, where the count resided. I remained in the city of Pamiers three days; it is a very delightful place, seated among fine vineyards, and surrounded by a clear and broad river called the Liege. Accidentally, a knight attached to the Count de Foix, called Sir Espaign du Lyon, came thither on his return from Avignon: he was a prudent and valiant knight, handsome in person, and about fifty years of age. I introduced myself to his company, as he had a great desire to know what was doing in France. We were six days on the road travelling to Orthès. As we journeyed, the knight, after saying his orisons, conversed the greater part of the day with me, asking for news; and when I put any questions to him he very willingly answered them.

It was for his portrait of chivalry, above all, that Froissart's Chronicle enjoyed such enduring popularity right through to the 19th century. He explains with splendid clarity the nature of Late Medieval warfare and the codes of honour that governed knightly combat, along with colourful descriptions of tournaments and hunts and other events we now think of as typically Medieval. One of Froissart's most famous episodes relates to King Edward III's siege of Calais in 1347, when Edward said he would spare the city's population if six of its citizens, or burghers, surrendered to him. Froissart tells us what happened in the city: