Summary of the impact

The musicology group's research on modernity, tradition, cultural identity and narrative has had an impact on the media, cultural industries and performers. As a result of a wide range of acclaimed and award-winning publications, they have established sustained relationships with the BBC, major orchestras, museums and national bodies, which draw on their work and engage them in public activities on a local, national and international level. Due to the key role members of the group play in shaping radio and concert programmes and commemorative events, the group's beneficiaries are concert and Festival organisers, radio broadcasters, local arts organisations, as well as audiences, listeners and readers. The group's activities demonstrate an awareness of music's ability to reflect and express identity, tradition and commemoration for the benefit of society and cultural enrichment beyond academia.

Underpinning research

The group, which comprises Kelly, Reyland and Williams, publishes major research outputs on the cultural history, theory and analysis of European music, opera and film since c. 1900. These outputs share a number of interlocking themes: the group's work elucidates the wider cultural meaning of artistic creation and production, exploring the impact of identity, tradition and politics on musical creativity in Europe over the past 100 years. The group employs a distinctive range of methodologies to interrogate these underlying themes, including historiography, hermeneutics and analysis. Indeed, all members of the group have made significant contributions to methodological debates in their area.

The group's focus on national identity and tradition permeates their published work. Kelly's work on identity and tradition is dealt with most fully in her monograph on Milhaud, Tradition and Style in the Works of Darius Milhaud (Ashgate, 2003). Here she explored the composer's religious and national identity, showing how Milhaud challenged prevailing discourses in an effort to place himself within French traditions. Williams tackles issues of national identity and tradition in relation to post-WWII modernism in Germany, showing how composers, such as Rihm, animate their Austro-German past. In his article, 'Swaying with Schumann: Subjectivity and Tradition in Wolfgang Rihm's Fremde Szenen I-III and Related Scores', Music and Letters (2006), he analyses the complexities of German cultural and musical identity, contributing to recent debates about the place of Germany in Europe. Since the publication of his award-winning Music & Letters article `Lutoslawski, 'Akcja', and the Poetics of Musical Plot' (2007), Reyland has developed his interest in the relationship between Lutoslawski's music, Polish history and cultural identity and, in his recent chapter in Music and Narrative since 1900 (2012), he has begun to contest the composer's claim that his music has nothing to do with the politics of his time.

Reyland's research on Preisner, which came to fruition in his substantial study Zbigniew Prieisner's Three Colors Trilogy: A Film Score Guide (Scarecrow, 2011), is concerned with narrative, symbolism, politics and post-communism's engagement with capitalism and late modern consciousness. It shows how artists respond to their times, tracing those events and responses in their creative work. The study unpicks shifts in identity during the journey from communism into democracy and western consciousness. Kelly's collaborative and interdisciplinary edited collection, French Music, Culture, and National Identity (2008), explores music's link to the politics of its time, contributing to timely debates about the extent to which music can respond to and reflect political events, particularly at times of national crisis, such as war.

The group's research is concerned with the nature, scope and meaning of modernism and postmodernism. Williams' first book, New Music and the Claims of Modernity (Ashgate, 1997) proposed a more inclusive understanding of modernism. He developed this idea in `Ageing of the New: the Museum of Musical Modernism', in The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music, eds. Cook and Pople (2004), where it is argued that modernism underwent significant expansion after 1975. Kelly's research on Ravel and Les Six challenges narrow definitions of modernism that exclude composers who resist Austro-Germanic notions of musical progress. Reyland's work on narrativity is also revisionist by examining the continuities between music before and after modernism, while his book on Preisner deals with films chronicling the postmodern human condition.

Dates at Keele: Kelly has been Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and is now Professor; Reyland has been Lecturer and is now Senior Lecturer; and Williams has been Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and is now Reader.

References to the research

Books:

Book Chapter:

Journal articles (peer reviewed):

This research was supported by Keele's Research leave scheme. Reyland's Music and Letters article won the Westrup Prize; Williams' Music and Letters article was supported by a prestigious Humboldt Fellowship (Williams, 2002), and Kelly's 2003 book benefited from a British Academy grant. Kelly's and Williams' publications formed the basis of successful AHRC applications (2010-2011).

Details of the impact

The group's research has had an impact on broadcasters, other media, orchestras, and international, national and regional cultural organisations. The group members contribute to broadcasts in an advisory role and as participants, and shape an understanding of orchestral and operatic repertoire through talks, programme notes and articles.

Kelly and Reyland have an on-going relationship with the BBC on topics relating to their specialist areas. Kelly's research on identity in French music has resulted in regular invitations to present, interview and take part in discussions on BBC Radio 3 on a number of early twentieth-century French composers. Most significant was her invitation to design and present a 20-minute Proms interval feature on Ravel's Paris in August 2010 [Source 1]. The Proms is the most prominent annual event in the UK for communicating classical music to a diverse non-specialist audience. Kelly interviewed Ravel experts and international performers, designed the programme and selected the music. In tracing the Parisian locations with Ravelian associations, she argued for the significance of place to an understanding of his musical identity. In her three appearances on Radio 3's flagship magazine programme Music Matters, to talk about Debussy (2009), Ravel (2011) [source 2] and Poulenc (April 2013) [source 3], she discussed the composers' relationships to modernism and tradition. She was academic advisor and contributor for the Poulenc programme, establishing themes, questions and identifying specialists in France. Inviting Kelly to be interviewed for the programme the Radio 3 researcher asserted that `we could of course shape it round the areas you're most interested in', adding in another email that `the producer was keen to speak to you before going to Paris with a view to you being the person that makes it all hang together!' [source 4]. BBC Radio 3 has an average listening audience of over 2 million people per week, each of whom listen to an average of over 6 hours of coverage per week [source 5].

Reyland made a substantial contribution to an edition of Radio 3's Music Matters devoted to Lutoslawki in January 2013 [source 6]; here Reyland's research on narrative contributed to the discussion. As with Kelly, the value the BBC place on Reyland's expertise is evident in repeat invitations, such as for Reyland to give a pre-concert Proms Plus talk on this same theme at the BBC proms this year to a lay audience of 249 people. Reyland's talk drew on his research, offering the audience an insight into the music they were to experience in live performance that evening. He also contributed a programme note on the Cello Concerto for a BBC Prom on 17^th July.

The publication of Reyland's book led to calls from Guardian readers, as part of the newspaper's focus on The Three Colours Trilogy that month (Nov, 2011), to contact Reyland to discuss his research further. As a result, he was commissioned to write a 1000-word article communicating his research into the music's contribution to the films' narratives and symbolism to a lay audience. After publishing the article, Reyland discussed the films and his ideas in the comments' section (23 comments) with various readers [source 7]. He also participated in a live blog on the films over the next few nights. Critics, readers and bloggers regularly referenced and quoted his research in positive terms throughout the week. It led to wider engagement through social media platforms, with 157 shares on Facebook, 4 on Linkedin and G+, and 31 tweets on Twitter, showing continued impact of Reyland's work on the readership. In a review of the French version of Kelly's chapter within French Music, Culture and National Identity book by French popular interest magazine Forum Opera, Kelly's chapter is singled out as being especially informative [source 8].

The group has enabled the BBC to make lesser-known composers known to a wider audience, reaching both creative arts organisations and their audiences. In 2010 Williams chaired a study session as part of the BBC `Total Immersion: Wolfgang Rihm' programme, one of a series of high-profile events in which the BBC Symphony Orchestra engages with a wider public. The Symposium included an interview with Rihm and a presentation by a member of the Arditti Quartet [source 9]. Williams also presented a paper on Rihm and the French surrealist writer Antonin Artaud; here he was able to draw links between concerts in the programme given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. Kelly was invited to interview Mme Christine Jolivet-Erhlih in front of a live audience of c.200 people at Hoddinett Hall, BBC Wales in a pre-concert talk during a `Discovering Jolivet' day. She tackled themes of cultural identity and response to WWII in his musical oeuvre.

Through participation in commemorative Festivals and anniversary events, the group makes an impact on national and international cultural life. Kelly responded to a French Ministry of Culture invitation to participate in national celebrations of the 150^th anniversary of Debussy. The focal point of these celebrations was a festival, L'Esprit Debussy, at the Cité de la Musique in Paris in February 2012, which included performances of Debussy's works by leading orchestras and discussions of the composer's significance. Kelly's talk focused on Debussy's legacy, drawing directly on her work on Debussy and legacy in publications from 2003, 2008 and 2012 [source 10]. She also contributed to the festival's prize-winning publication (Paul Marmottan prize, Académie des Beaux-Arts), which is aimed at a wider readership [source 11]. Kelly's chapter is one of five (out of thirty-six) which is singled out by a music critic in a public oriented website Musicologie.org. Here her chapter is described as `virtuosic', helping the reader discover new elements of the composer's legacy [source 12]. She also received an invitation to contribute to national French commemorations of Poulenc, which took place at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris in January 2013 [source 13]. Dr Reyland participated in Lutoslawski centennial celebrations throughout Europe in 2013. He wrote a specially commissioned essay on narrative, meaning and drama in Lutoslawski's music for the Philharmonia Orchestra's Woven Words festival. The aim was to explain musical meaning and how it relates to Lutoslawski's work in non-technical language, while showing to a diverse audience how Lutoslawski's work relates to wider social and cultural ideas. With the title of Essences and Essentials: Lutosławski's Musical Stories, it appears, translated into several languages including Polish, as one of five commissioned essays on the orchestra's `Woven Words' website, celebrating the life and work of Lutoslawski [source 14]. As part of the festival he also spoke at a public study day at London's South Bank Centre in March 2013 [source 15]. Williams took a leading role in organising and programming Rihm 60^th birthday celebrations in 2012; this Grove Forum Plus event entitled `Wolfgang Rihm's Constructions of Subjectivity and Tradition', which was a Royal College of Music and the Goethe-Institut, London collaboration, explored key themes of Williams' research on the role of the past in constructing contemporary German traditions in front of a diverse audience [source 16].

Sources to corroborate the impact

Source 1: BBC Radio Three Twenty Minutes, `Ravel in Paris', 2^nd August 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t1zg7

Source 2: BBC Radio Three, Music Matters, `Peter Brook, Ravel Biography, Tinnitus', 2^nd April 2011: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0100j24

Source 3: BBC Radio Three, Music Matters, `Poulenc's Legacy', 13^th April 2013: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rw067

Source 4: Corroboration from BBC Radio 3

Source 5: BBC Radio 3 audience data for June 2013 to September 2013 from Media UK website: http://www.mediauk.com/radio/311/bbc-radio-3/listening-figures

Source 6: BBC Radio Three, Music Matters, `Witold Lutoslawski Centenary', 19^th January 2013: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pyffp

Source 7: The Guardian, `Three Colours: shades of greatness to listen out for in Zbigniew Preisner's musical score', 14^th November 2011: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/14/three-colours-zbigniew-preisner-music

Source 8: Review of French version of chapter in French Music, Culture and National Identity book by Forum Opera, 22^nd January 2013 (this volume won the Prix des Muses du document (2013)): http://www.forumopera.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=4701&cntnt01origid=57&cntnt01lang=fr_FR&cntnt01returnid=55

Source 9: Institute of Musical Research, Symposium on the Music of Wolfgang Rihm, Williams, 10th March 2010:
http://events.sas.ac.uk/imr/events/view/7120/Symposium+on+the+Music+of+Wolfgang+Rihm

Source 10: L'Esprit Debussy Festival, Cite de la Musique, Paris, February 2012: http://www.citedelamusique.fr/francais/evenement.aspx?id=11525

Source 11: Chimenes, M. and Laederich, A. (Eds.) (2012) Regards sur Debussy. Fayard, Paris. Winner of Beaux Arts prize 2013. http://www.fayard.fr/regards-sur-debussy-9782213672588

Source 12: Musicologie.org, Estang, F. `Regards sur Debussy', 24th August, 2013: http://www.musicologie.org/publirem/regards_sur_debussy.html

Source 13: Colloque Poulenc, Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, Paris, January 2013 http://www.conservatoiredeparis.fr/voir-et-entendre/lagenda/tout-lagenda/article/colloque-poulenc-1/

Source 14: Reyland, N. 2013, `Essences and Essentials: Lutosławski's Musical Stories', Woven Words:
http://woven-words.co.uk/essays/essences_and_essentials_by_nicholas_reyland

Source 15: Woven Words Festival, http://woven-words.co.uk/

Source 16: Grove Forum Plus Poster, Royal College of Music, with William's Wolfgang Rihm's Constructions of Subjectivity and Tradition talk listed: http://www.rcm.ac.uk/research/featuredprojects/groveforum/groveforumpastevents/GF%20Spring%202012.pdf