Music History

Alfred Uhl at Neumarkt

/ Tom Ingram

I’m currently preparing for a concert where I’ll be performing Alfred Uhl’s Divertimento for clarinet quartet, a piece written during the Second World War. I discovered, after already having programmed the piece, that Uhl was in the army during the war and served as the commander of a prison camp in France. To put it lightly, this is not a quality we typically admire in our composers, so I thought it was necessary to learn more.

Not much is written in English about Alfred Uhl, and information on his activities during the war is even sparser. I was, however, able to find a biography in German. Below is my rough-and-ready translation of the passage concerning Uhl’s time as the head of a prison camp.

And then the war seized Uhl and solved all problems for him. On 24 Feb. 1940, six weeks after the birth of his son Peter, Uhl was drafted into the military; three months later he moved to Gmunden, where he underwent a hard military training. And the same musician, who once wrote to his sister from Switzerland the passionate words: “such a war is just about the worst thing that people have invented,” carried now his military duties with utter serenity: “I have just shifted into a state of desirelessness, as Schopenhauer understands it.”

The lance-corporal was assigned as the leader of a French detention camp in Neumarkt on the Ybbs, a task he received thanks to his ability to speak French, and with the help of music he imparted a humane accent to it. He accompanied church services for the prisoners on the organ French church songs, which he learned by ear and during the mass gave impromptu harmonizations. His organ preludes and improvisations lured the local residents in droves toward the church, where they were not allowed to enter, and shook the prisoners to tears. In 1960 a former camp inmate, now a priest, wrote to him a touching note of thanks from France.

On 13 Sept. 1941, Uhl was summoned to the Russian front…

Alexander Witeschnik, Alfred Uhl: Eine biographische Studie (OĢˆsterreichischer Bundesverlag, 1966), 28.

(As a bit of context: very shortly after being moved to the Eastern front, Uhl stepped on a mine and was severely injured. He spent the rest of the war out of commission.)

For the most part I’m reserving judgment on this issue. My impression is that Uhl was mostly wrapped up in musical matters, was drafted into the army with a low rank, ended up where he did solely because he was able to speak French, and tried to treat the prisoners well during his short time in charge of the camp. However, this is from a source obviously well-disposed toward Uhl, which does not investigate the details very closely or ask any inconvenient questions. I also don’t know what the camp conditions were like at Neumarkt. So it’s hard to draw much of a conclusion from this. But I wanted to make this passage available in English for any others who may have similar concerns.

Investigating an inscription: Margaret Vaughan Williams on the Canadian prairies?

/ Tom Ingram

Book of Mozart sonatas held at the Eckhardt-Gramatte Music Library, University of Manitoba.

You turn up all kinds of strange things working in a library. Earlier in 2017, in the course of working on a project to audit and improve our holdings of Mozart sonatas, I found an old book with an interesting inscription.

First leaf of a book of Mozart piano sonatas held in the Eckhardt-Gramatte Music Library at the University of Manitoba.

And a closer view:

Mozart piano sonata book, first leaf inscription, detail.

If you can’t see the image, here’s what it says:

Margaret Vaughan Williams
June 6th, 1903
Haus Hugo Richter
Davos Platz
Suisse

From Auntie

In itself, this book is the kind of junk that accumulates in music libraries everywhere: an old, bad edition of standard repertoire in deteriorating condition. The textual value of a hundred-year-old book of Mozart piano sonatas is questionable, and under ordinary circumstances it would probably be withdrawn. But the name of a close relative of a major composer written on one of your library’s items is hard to ignore. At the request of our music librarian, I started to look into the matter to see what the story was behind this book. Continue reading →

The Manitoba University Consort: Medieval music from Canada’s heartland, 1963-1970

/ Tom Ingram

It’s hard to imagine, but one of the centres of the Early Music movement in the 1960s was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on the Canadian Prairies. Manitoba is not often thought of as a place with its finger on the pulse. Sitting in the middle of the country, with a long distance (not to mention Lake Superior and a lot of rocky hills) separating it from the traditional centres of Canadian culture, it’s usually considered a backwater.

However, the province has long punched above its weight musically. Winnipeg, the capital, has played host to three important orchestras (one sadly defunct) and a world-renowned ballet company. There’s a strong history of chamber music, opera, musical theatre, and Gilbert & Sullivan productions. The province is served by three university music schools of solid reputation, three university-adjacent schools offering lessons to children and amateurs, and countless private schools and teachers. For decades, the province has played a key role in Canada’s musical development.

An important but little-studied example comes from the Manitoba University Consort, a group founded in the early 1960s by Winnipeg musician and bassoon teacher Christine Mather and featuring Peggie Sampson, the prominent Canadian cellist and professor of music theory. Aside from intersecting with important moments in the country’s musical history and touring internationally to unanimous acclaim, the consort was a pioneer of the performance of medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque music using replica instruments, authentic performance practices, and transcriptions from scholarly editions.

Although the consort was a professional ensemble, it was centred in Winnipeg and drew its strength from the vibrant local musical ecosystem that existed at the time – which included the University of Manitoba’s new School of Music. The consort disbanded in 1970, but it set the stage for the ensembles that would develop in Canada in the 1980s, when the Early Music revival kicked into high gear.

The Manitoba University Consort with an array of instruments. Photo from the “Old Music from the New World” pamphlet.

The group played on replica instruments built by artisans in Germany, Switzerland, England, and a few from the United States, after originals mainly in European museums. Their impressive collection of instruments included around 20 recorders of various sizes, a lute, a psaltery, a portative organ, bells, crumhorns, a dulzian, a racket, shawms, and several viole da gamba.

“Most of the instruments belong to me and I believe they must be one of the largest and most complete collections in the world,” Mather said in an interview with the Ottawa Journal.1

Some of the other members owned their own instruments as well – particularly Peggie Sampson, who largely abandoned the cello after 1970 and launched a new career as a viola da gamba soloist.

The ensemble’s repertoire covered the 12th to 18th centuries, and featured music by the big name medieval and Renaissance composers (Machaut, Landini, Dufay), some more obscure figures (Oswald von Wolkenstein, Louis de Caix d’Hervelois), and even a few Baroque stalwarts (Bach, Telemann, Buxtehude). They covered the gamut from instrumental music to accompanied songs, and from solo works to full ensemble pieces. The majority of their repertoire is represented on their four CBC recordings (see Discography). Continue reading →