Song and Self: A Singer's Reflections on Music and Performance

by Ian Bostridge

Celebrated tenor Ian Bostridge explores the relationship between identity and performance in three essays based on the Berlin Family Lectures. After examining vocal pieces which blur gender boundaries – Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Trancredi e Clorinda, Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben and Britten’s Curlew River – he focuses on the historical and political roots of Ravel’s Chansons madécasses and then reflects on death, ‘the absence in the face of which all human identity is constructed’.

Genres: Music, Essays, Nonfiction

128 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Gabriela Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I have been forced to question an identity," tenor/historian Ian Bostrige wrote in the preface of this short book, made up of three essays delivered as lectures at the University of Chicago.

The pandemic made all of us do so, but it was especially difficult for those who were effectively silenced, work-less, voice-less for over 2 years.

Who are we, if we cannot say who we are, and act out who we are?

Bostridge chose to question performed identities of vocal actors in the Western classical repertoire by examining works that suited 3 major things that we construct identity around: gender, race, and our attitudes towards death.

What makes Bostridge interesting is that he is not just a staid scholar with index cards from a library. He writes with the lived experience of the performer who has inhabited these sound worlds, who (however briefly) embodied other voices from other centuries. He conjures that kind of performative magic from the layering of a modern man's grasp of history with the attempt at remaining true to the composer's age-tinged intentions.

Can women sing lieder for male voices? Or vice versa?

Can a white male sing Poulenc's Rapsodie nègre, with its anti colonial sentiment?

Bostridge sounds more academic in this one, compared to his previous books. But he still makes one want to listen to all the tracks on Spotify, despite the more professorial tone.

And how convenient that a lot of the tracks he mentions in the book have HIS particular interpretation. 😄 Which makes this fangirl veeeeeeeery happy!

Whether heard, or read, Ian Bostridge's is a voice that is worth listening to.

[Dominic H · Rating 2 out of 5]

How many lecture series actually make important and readable books? One can see why both publishers and authors are keen to leap on the bandwagon but the reality is that many such books are of hugely variable quality and generally forgettable. For me the exceptions are easy to call to mind because there are so few (TS Eliot’s Clark Lectures, Paul Muldoon’s lectures as Oxford Professor of Poetry are my favourites).
I'm afraid Ian Bostridge’s latest book (based on thee lectures he gave in Chicago in 2020) comes towards the lower end of the veritable pile of such books. It’s billed a reflection on some of the pieces Bostridge has performed. The first chapter on the concept of identity in Monteverdi and (Robert) Schumann is ludicrously whimsical, random and difficult to read. The next on a song from Ravel’s 'Chansons madécasses' is odd and largely unrevelatory, whilst I struggled to find anything truly original in the final chapter on Britten and particularly the Holy Sonnets settings. These were probably better as lectures in some ways but further claims to posterity are decidedly dubious.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful academic and at the same time human and musical perspective on topics like gender, imperialism and death in the Lieder tradition. Ian Bostridge uses pieces like Benjamin Britten's operas and Ravel's songs to illustrate how politics, traditions and history shape the performance and perception of Lieder today. I especially liked how the three big topics tied entire chapters together and gave a great introduction into pieces of music and considerations when performing these songs.

[Ellen Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great, super well-informed and v interesting essays. But he doesn’t really settle on any opinions…… so you come away like ???? So what are the answers to the questions as promised ???