Description
John Sullivan Dwight (1813-93) was, for much of the nineteenth century, America's leading music critic. Born into a musical family and educated at several premier Boston schools, he fell under the spell of New England Transcendentalism and befriended Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, and others of a similarly progressive mindset. Dwight resided at the socialist/utopian community of Brook Farm where he learned the art of journalism and wrote on many topics--Transcendentalism, of course, but especially on music and musical performance. After the demise of Brook Farm and several years as a journeyman writer, Dwight launched Dwight's Journal of Music: A Paper of Art and Literature in 1852. It was a newspaper that firmly established him as a serious music critic and in its time spoke to America's growing appetite for art music. By charting Dwight's relationships with other writers, musicians, and thinkers, as well as his evolution into a powerful and persuasive writer in his own right, this book situates his story in its nineteenth century and Transcendental contexts and provides the first thorough account of music and the arts at Brook Farm. Dwight's enormous body of essays, reviews, translations, correspondence, and other various writings are illuminated in this biography and reveal the indelible influence Dwight's Journal had on music criticism--the impacts of which resonate today.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgementsIllustrationsIntroductionPART I: Musica sub rosa1. A Lineage so Grandly HistoricThe Dwights of MassachusettsIrrepressible FondnessDwight's Early EducationGenius and Enterprise2. Musical AwakeningsLife at HarvardMusica sub rosaHarvard Divinity School3. The World IdealizedRalph Waldo EmersonGardiner's The Music of Nature (1832)Goethe, Schiller & CarlyleGeorge RipleyEarly Major Writings4. Preaching, The Dial, and the HMANorthamptonThe Dial (1840-1844)The Harvard Musical AssociationPART II: The Music of Transcendentalism5. Dwight at Brook FarmGentleman FarmersThe Arts at Brook FarmThe Emerging Journalist6. The Harbinger, Beethoven, and the End of Brook FarmThe HarbingerBeethoven Storms BostonDwight's Fourieristic WritingsGone Like a Dream7. The Maturing CriticBack in BostonThe Daily ChronotypeSartain's MagazineGraham's MagazineNew ProspectsPART III: The World at Arm's Length8. Dwight's Journal of MusicFounding the JournalModels and InfluencesEarly Reception of the JournalOliver Ditson9. Years in DaysDwight's Grand TourMusic in EuropeThe Great Eastern10. Dwight on the IssuesResponses to the Civil WarDwight contra EnterpriseNative MusiciansMusic of the FutureMurmurs of a Grander FutureMusic Libraries in Boston11. The End of Dwight's Journal of MusicWe Still LiveHowling WolvesThe Journal FoldsCODA12. The Last TranscendentalistLife After the JournalThe Perkins Institution for the BlindLast writingsThe Last TranscendentalistAppendices1. Dwight's Harvard Forensics & Themes Topics2. Selected Original Poems by Dwight3. Musical Repertoire & Guest Artists at Brook Farm4. Selected Song Translations & Adaptations by Dwight5. Dwight's Major Original Essays in the Journal (1852-1881)6. Dwight's European ?Editorial Correspondences? for the Journal (1860-1861)AbbreviationsJohn Sullivan Dwight: A Selected BibliographySelected BibliographyIndex
