The past in the present: a Reflection on music in the English reformation

This blog piece is the latest in our New Voices in Social Renewal series and is by Daisy Gibbs, PHD student at Newcastle University and provides a fascinating insight into the music from an evocative period of history.

Photo of singers in Newcastle Universtiy event, featuring early music.

Simon Veit-Wilson Photography

When someone asks me what I study I usually say something like ‘Music in the English Reformation’. It may not be wholly true but people do tend to know what it means! In fact, I’m studying the music collections of Elizabethan amateurs, compiled after England officially became a Protestant country in 1559 but at a time of continuing religious change, negotiation and unrest. These collections survive in dozens of manuscripts scattered in libraries across the country, many of them copied by identifiable individuals. I’m using several case-studies to find out how and where they acquired their music and what encouraged them to choose the pieces that they did.

Helping me in my search is the fact that most of these books don’t just contain music. Many also contain marginal notes, drawings, and even poetry, and their combination of music and paratext carries a huge amount of information. Some copyists seem to have been motivated by concerns which today are all too ominously familiar: a jingoistic pride in Britishness and British art; an ‘island mentality’, and a consequent need to compete with the older and more established music industry of Europe. There are even a couple of references, in the manuscripts of the Oxford don Robert Dow, to ‘our race’, defining the British people not by citizenship but by blood. Sometimes moments like these just make you want to close the books, stop reading, and hope it all goes away. But at other times, even if we know next to nothing about the people who copied the music, we can sympathise with them, because their concerns were the same as ours are now. Among their number we find friends gathering after dinner to entertain themselves with wine and singing, students and schoolchildren copying music to learn before their next lesson, connoisseurs annotating their books with which pieces they thought the best and – in a couple of cases – rather ill-informed criticism.

But that’s not all. Some of the most intriguing books to survive are those which contain music written for Catholic church services, before the accession of Elizabeth I – music which it was now treasonous to perform in public. At this time Roman Catholics were reviled and persecuted: it was illegal even to be a Catholic priest in England and as the reign progressed, the fines for non-attendance at Church of England services were ramped up and up. Some Catholic families lived in constant fear. And yet. Although some of the copyists we can identify were Catholics, others were right at the heart of the conformist establishment, including a schoolteacher, John Sadler, and a singer in the Chapel Royal, John Baldwin. Their books show a love and appreciation for the cultural legacy of Catholicism. Though they might have strongly disagreed with what it stood for, these people could still understand its beauty and value. Even today – especially today – at a time when many are becoming increasingly intolerant of difference, we can learn from such open-mindedness.

My research will not put an end to extremism and it’s not trying to. But, in our study of these Elizabethan musicians, my colleagues and I are uncovering what must surely offer hope in times of change: a deep appreciation of a very different and at times hostile culture, its artistry and sophistication; a quiet love of the past without finding any need to revive or relive it; and the recognition that, however trying the times, those human constants of good music and good company can always provide us with an anchor of sorts; as it were, the calm in the eye of the storm.

Daisy Gibbs, student, Newcastle University

What does participation mean?

Alexia Mellor is a practice-led PhD researcher in fine art, investigating participatory art practices and the local-global discourse. In this blog post, she explores the theme of arts and culture in social renewal following her presentation as part of the ‘New Voices in Social Renewal’ public lecture in Newcastle University. She challenges the valuing of art for its economic or even social benefit, and argues that the way forward is a more active citizenship.

Credit and Copyright ©: Colin Davison +44 (0)7850 609 340 colin@rosellastudios.com www.rosellastudios.com

Credit and Copyright ©: Colin Davison
+44 (0)7850 609 340
colin@rosellastudios.com
www.rosellastudios.com

Participation seems to be the new buzzword, but what do we actually mean by it? What does it mean for social renewal? I am particularly interested in this as an artist and researcher whose practice involves working with people to question ideas and to make meaning.

Participatory art, socially-engaged art, dialogical art – they are all names for a broad spectrum of art practices that involve using the social as both the context and medium for the work. With ‘Big Society’ devolving responsibility, continuing austerity measures, and the arts being asked to make an economic as well as cultural case[1], social arts practices have come even more into the spotlight. There has been a visible push across the arts and cultural sector to focus on social inclusion, reaching out to communities that have been identified as disadvantaged or not engaging with cultural activities[2]. Having been commissioned to work on art projects associated with regeneration programmes and other such initiatives, I have become keenly aware of some of the issues with seeing art as a means to dealing with social problems.

This isn’t to say that art can’t help with social issues, but should it or must it? Of primary concern for me are questions around whose notions of ‘social betterment,’ or cultural engagement, are being acknowledged or furthered with the agendas behind these commissioned projects? What does this mean for the perceived role of the arts in society today? What agency does the participant have – does having access to an art or cultural project mean the same thing as participating in it?

My colleague and frequent collaborator, Dr. Anthony Schrag, and I have written frequently about this trend of using socially-engaged arts practices as an instrument towards particular agendas or targets. Whether these agendas are set by supporting organisations, commissioning bodies, or policy, the instrumentalism of socially-engaged art practice carries risks. Above all, instrumentalism risks losing the very thing that makes socially-engaged practices unique and relevant: their ability to involve participants across art and non-art contexts in critical, interdisciplinary dialogue.

Shop talk in Pontypool

Criticality is the core issue here. It is a myth that consensus necessarily leads to social cohesion. Society is complex and made of difference. What Anthony and I as practitioners and researchers both argue is that embracing a participatory approach that allows for, disagreement, difference and dissensus through critical interrogation is crucial. French theorist, Chantal Mouffe, refers to the need for welcoming healthy conflict and difference in her discussion of agonism. Agonism is not antagonism. Quite the opposite. Agonism sees the value in, and necessity of, respectful disagreement as a way of finding common ground, of finding creative solutions, and of revealing questions we did not know needed to be asked. She argues that agonism is key to true democracy, and ultimately to active citizenship.

Participation in active citizenship requires physical and conceptual spaces for critical reflection that embrace difference and allow for multiple perspectives to be heard. I suggest that socially-engaged arts practices might offer a model for this. Beyond ‘bums on seats,’ this type of art practice sees participants as co-creators in developing a critical space and what happens within it. As opposed to advocating any pre-defined objective, the practice is responsive to the direction participants choose to take the project. This, however, requires a shift in how we think of socially-engaged practice and its role. Artists are not social workers, but we do work with the social. As opposed to fixing social ills, perhaps we are best suited to work collaboratively with participants to shed light on issues and open the forum for how to collectively approach them. This also means challenging the idea that art will ‘do good.’ Sometimes the greatest growth comes after going through something quite difficult. It is our job as artists and researchers to provide the safe and productive spaces for disagreement. By making space for discomfort, by allowing criticality to be at the fore, we just might encourage more active citizenship.

[1] Mirza, Munira. (Ed) Culture Vultures: Is UK arts policy damaging the arts? London, Policy Exchange Limited, 2006

[2] See: http://www.creativepeopleplaces.org.uk/

The North and Northness

What creates a place? In May 2015, Newcastle University’s Cultural Significance of Place Research Group (CSoP) held an event exploring ideas of Northness in culture. The contributions ranged from reflections on the mythical, literary and musical construction of the North, to analyses of the modern romance of the North of England through the eyes of a Sunderland AFC fan. Across disciplines, the question was asked: who created our region? Whether they call up a lost past, or hint at a new political future, ideas of the North are as important today as ever.

Firth of Forth

Different ways to carve up the map

One of the most striking things to be learned from the various studies presented at this event is that there have been many different ways of conceiving of the geographical entity that is the North, whether that be a selection of four towns in England that aren’t London, or a transpennine dragon whose nose points towards St. Petersburg. When we see the geographical uncertainty involved in identifying this region, it helps us to understand the extent to which art and culture have been the agents in forming this space. In fact, as keynote speaker Professor Penny Fielding reminded us, this has had a long history, from the eighteenth-century conceptions of Northern democracy and social unity to nineteenth-century literature of the Industrial Revolution. As such, the associations of the North with these ideas are the product of centuries of story-telling.

North as opposed to South

The strength of Northern identity has by no means diminished, however, which is significant in an age of globalisation and technological advance. The explanation offered at ‘North and Northness’ was that the North has strengthened because it is increasingly defined against the South. In an analysis of Mackem linguistic purism, it was demonstrated that the North is often set against perceived Southern softness and femininity, in the context of a burgeoning capital city. Most starkly, however, North is conceived of as ‘home’ in the very tonality of North East folk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsVfZKB32J8

‘The North Country Maid’ is bi-tonal, offering a sense of hope and joy in the chorus, which is in a different (major) key to the verse. Visit the North East Folk website for more examples from the Social Renewal funded project by Dr Simon McKerrell.

Where next for the North?

This is a pertinent question, given the debates surrounding devolution and decentralisation in the United Kingdom as a whole. Taking even the #takeuswithyouScotland trend as an example, the conversation is on-going. The political, legal and cultural future of the North is by no means certain, given how disastrous attempts to define it have been in the past. Evidence from the attempted artistic construction of the North in Artranspennine98, and from the current confusion over which cities in the UK deserve more devolved powers, suggests that it’s not so easy to make the North in your own image. The conclusion that must be drawn from  the ‘North and Northness’ discussion is that although we can trace its construction, it’s a complicated task to re-mould it now.

Contributors to the North and Northness event:

Professor Penny Fielding, University of Edinburgh – Curating the North
Dr Simon McKerrell, Newcastle University – Musical Metaphors of the North
Derek James, University of Exeter – Can the concept of ‘northness’ be applied to tea smuggling in the eighteenth century?
Dr Michael Pearce, University of Sunderland – Anyone from the North East who says ‘mum’ should be shot
Dr Peter O’Brien, Newcastle University – Decentralisation and devolution in the UK: where next for the North of England?

For more information about the Cultural Significance of Place Research Group, please see their website or email Chris Whitehead.

By Fiona Simmons, NISR