Constant Lambert: Dionysian Modernist
Date
2017
Authors
Smith, Anthony Hunter
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Abstract
This thesis considers the music of the English composer
Constant Lambert (1905–51) against the background of European
modernism. It argues that Lambert absorbed influences and
stylistic trends from various strands of the modernist movement,
achieving a unique synthesis that may be termed Dionysian
modernism. Dionysian modernism emphasizes such topics as excess,
transgression, liminality, disruption, and fragmentation, and in
so doing engages dialectically with what were then culturally
dominant notions of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The study
treats Lambert’s works as belonging to three stylistic periods:
his student years (1922–6), during which he experimented with
various modernist approaches, Neoclassicism being the most
prominent; his ‘jazz period’ (1927–31), which produced a
series of concert works combining jazz elements with an angular,
sometimes harsh, Neoclassical language; and his mature period
(1932–51), in which he integrated aspects of his earlier
stylistic experimentation into a coherent, personal modernist
language. The study focuses upon the three major works of the
mature period: the choral masque Summer’s Last Will and
Testament (1932–5) and the ballets Horoscope (1936–7) and
Tiresias (1950–1), all dramatic works that include direct
reference to the notion of the Dionysian. The analytical chapters
of the thesis investigate Lambert’s treatment of form, rhythm,
and melody in these works, with emphasis on the movements that
contain overt titular or textual Dionysian references (e.g.
‘Bacchanale’ or ‘Bacchus’). From this analysis, the study
concludes that these stylistic characteristics combine to provide
a musical embodiment of the Dionysian that entails critical
engagement with the aforementioned notions of race, class,
gender, and sexuality.
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Music, 20th century, England, Constant Lambert, Dionysian, modernism in music, choral music, ballet music
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Thesis (PhD)
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