This is the third blog post in a projected series reviewing The Legacy of Elise Hall: Contemporary Perspectives on Gender and the Saxophone, edited by Kurt Bertels and Adrianne Honnold, published by Leuven University Press, 2024.
This post focuses on the second chapter by Kurt Bertels titled: Paying and Playing? Elise Hall and Patronage in the Early Twentieth Century.
Two additional resources were consulted for this review: William H. Street’s 1983 Doctoral Dissertation, Elise Boyer Hall, America’s First Female Concert Saxophonist: Her Life as a Performing Artist, Pioneer of Concert Repertory for Saxophone and Patroness of the Arts and Debussy’s Rapsodie pour orchestre et saxophone Revisited by James R. Noyes, published in The Musical Quarterly, Volume 90, Issue 3-4, Fall-Winter 2007.
The second chapter in this book is titled, “Paying and Playing? Elise Hall and Patronage in the Early Twentieth Century” (emphasis mine). I am struck by the use of the question mark. Is the author questioning whether or not Elise Hall paid-to-play?
It seems odd to be questioning this established fact. We know she was extremely wealthy. We know she funded various organizations and initiatives in Boston. We know she paid Debussy for a piece. The ancillary evidence around all the other commissions strongly suggest that she paid to have this music composed. Did Elise Hall pay-to-play? Yes, she did. There is a plausible suggestion that Hall’s social capital might have operated as an alternative to monetary payment. But, as Bertels confirms, there is no way of knowing if this was the case.
In the Abstract, the author states that, “The overall objective of this chapter is to study Elise Hall’s patronage in early twentieth-century saxophone music.” (page 57) I agree that Bertels has studied the subject carefully and he presents a solid understanding. Unfortunately, no new evidence is presented in this chapter. While claiming, “…to go beyond the clichés…” (page 57) none of which are made explicit, Bertels simply presents information previously gathered and assembled by other scholars. The re-packaging or re-branding of Elise Hall’s patronage story falls flat.
Works Attributed
What do we know? There are twenty-two pieces associated with Elise Hall. The collection is divided between sixteen composers, fourteen of whom were French, one who was Belgian, and one, having been born in Germany and studied in Europe, immigrated to the United States. Several of these composers had won the Prix de Rome indicating their stature and potential. Most of them knew each other and interacted as colleagues.
Bertels provides a listing of these pieces. Table 2.1 Elise Hall’s musical score collection (page 63) lists each composer, composition, year and the place of preservation. The format and content of this table seemed familiar. Indeed, it is almost an exact replica of the listing in William Street’s dissertation, where it appears as: Appendix II “Works Attributed to Elise Hall’s Patronage” (WS, page 125). The composers are listed in the same order and Street provides the title, publisher, location of manuscript, date of composition and date of performance. Table 2.1 is not properly attributed, but earlier in the text Bertels does mention that, “…Street was the only one to provide an overview of the composers who dedicated works to Hall and of the manuscripts still available today based on the inventory of the Elise Hall Collection of Saxophone by 20th-Century Composers…” (page 59)
Bertels does make a couple of small changes to the listing. For instance, he adjusts the “year” of the Debussy Rapsodie to 1903-1908. Street, who is more specific, lists the “date of composition” as 1903. According to Noyes, the Rapsodie was completed in the summer of 1903. Debussy finished his four-stave short score, as was his process, leaving the orchestration and individual parts to be written out sometime later. At some point, Debussy changed the date of Rapsodie, adding a time-frame of 1901-1908. In this instance, the printed score and Debussy himself cannot be trusted!
In the finicky world of academia, details matter. Street’s original date of 1903 is correct and is confirmed by Noyes. Bertels lists a time-frame of 1903-1908, (instead of 1901-1908) which, confusingly, mixes up the two pieces of information we have about when the piece was composed. Street’s listing is also more comprehensive, including the publisher or unpublished status of each piece and the first performance dates.
Those first performance dates are important. They contain the essence of why Elise Hall’s patronage is so remarkable: She was the performer! (With the Debussy Rapsodie, the Schmitt Légende and the Gilson Concerto being the three exceptions.)
Imagine a millionaire paying to build and outfit a new wing in a hospital. Instead of showing up for the ribbon-cutting and a glass of champagne, she attends medical school, gets certified and starts performing surgeries. Implausible is the word that comes to mind. But the scenario outlined is similar to what Elise Hall accomplished: She commissioned the pieces, took lessons, practised, completed all the work required in her role as President of the Boston Orchestral Club, and then, having truly earned her just deserts, performed with the ensemble.
Elise Hall joined us in the trenches. Her total engagement in the projects she funded is remarkable. We couldn’t ask for a better patron. She raised hundreds of people up as she pursued her own dreams. Undoubtedly she had a strong sense of self-worth and believed in her mission. She made Boston’s musical environment significantly more interesting and opened doors for people like her, people who wanted to participate! Her atypical presence in all these spheres speak volumes. Her direct involvement represented the changes coming to professional music-making.
Although this aspect of her patronage is noted, Bertels seems less concerned with Hall’s astonishing role as patron-participant. In this chapter he is more exclusively focused on the repertoire. It left me wondering if he was more interested in Elise Hall or the music she commissioned.
He notes, “To this day, it is almost impossible to retrace Hall’s precise steps in generating new music. Such research is hampered in part because no personal notes or diaries—often crucial sources in patronage studies—have so far been recovered from her estate. As a result, for the time being, we do not know how Hall conceived of her own role and how she intended to fulfill that role.” (page 64)
Later, a question: “Was she following a deliberately sophisticated strategy or was she unintentional in her approach to creating repertoire?” (page 64)
And a conclusion: “The evidence presented here indicates that Hall’s relationship with the composers and the works is complicated, and there is not condusive (sic) (I believe he means to use the word conclusive) evidence to confirm the exact nature of her role in the production of the musical scores.” (page 67)
Without any new evidence, the author’s analysis simply re-affirms the established narrative. Nor does he offer a new perspective. Perhaps, on reflection, he may agree with both Hemke and Street who describe Hall as enigmatic. Elise Hall is an enigma.
Influential Actor
Bertels introduces an excellent quote by Linda Whitesitt, taken from her chapter, “Women’s Support and Encouragement of Music and Musicians,” in Women and Music: A History, edited by Karin Pendle:
“Far from the Romantic ideal of art as the product of individual and isolated genius, music culture is the outcome of actors in socially defined roles playing parts in socially constructed institutions. It is the result of performers, listeners, teachers, instrument makers, publishers, critics, ticket purchasers, managers, helpmates, fundraisers, administrators, and volunteers interacting in private and public institutions—family, church, court, salon, concerts, symphony orchestras, festivals, and conservatories. By transcending the myth of the great artist and looking at systems rather than individuals as the architects of art, women become visible as starring actors in the institutional creation (of) (sic) musical culture.” (page 58)
Bertels states, “I soon learned that the French-American Hall was exactly this type of influential actor…” (page 58) (emphasis mine). Imagine a cast of characters on stage: Hall is the diva at the centre, surrounded by all sixteen composers. She is the instigator—the glowing nucleus—of what Bertels describes as the “third phase” of saxophone repertoire: “In a third phase, the impetus of the French-American Elise Hall expanded the saxophone repertoire between 1900 and 1920. In doing so, she realized a break with the nineteenth-century repertoire composed mainly for saxophone solo or saxophone and piano.” (page 73)
Placing Hall within an artistic team helps to explain why she was so successful. We know she had an excellent and productive collaborative relationship with Georges Longy who served as her intermediary. Wealth was the springboard, allowing her to become a performer, listener, manager, administrator, entrepreneur, and yes, patron. She built the social capital she needed to realize her ambitions.
Dividing or splitting up the early repertoire for the saxophone into three phases helps clarify how differently Hall envisioned the saxophone and its role. Bertels provides some useful context as to how the earliest repertoire for the saxophone got started:
“In general, one can divide the nineteenth-century saxophone repertoire into two main successive phases. Until the 1870s, in the first two decades after the presentation of the saxophone in 1841, composers such as Jules Demersseman and Jean-Baptiste Singelée created some of the very first saxophone scores. These composers were mainly active as performers who were close acquaintances of Adolphe Sax and wrote music to support his new invention. Both composers were responsible for a great deal of early saxophone repertoire. Demersseman and Singelée, respectively a flutist flautist (sic) and violinist, were neither saxophone specialists nor players and created the first saxophone music from their own instrumental practices. Thus, the saxophone’s unique characteristics did not necessarily serve as an inspiration during the compositional process.” (page 62)
Unsurprisingly, the first phase is centred in France, around people Adolphe Sax knew. These professional musicians simply shifted melodic lines that would have been suitable on a violin or a flute to the saxophone, creating music that must have been familiar to audiences.
“In the second period—in the last decades of the nineteenth century—the very first teachers and professional saxophone players published music scores and instructional methods not solely to help saxophone students, but also to augment their own concert repertoire. Important figures among them include Louis Mayeur, Charles Soualle, and Edouard Lefebre. These saxophonists were mainly active as teachers in France and Belgium and as professional practitioners of the instrument, and therefore this music was not created solely to function as pedagogical material. Soualle, Lefebre, and Mayeur, who significantly contributed to the early saxophone repertoire, were primarily performers.” (page 62)
In the second phase, most of the repertoire is still being developed in France, even as the performers are beginning to strike out to new corners of the globe. These pioneering professionals are soloists, requiring a repertoire that reflects their new skills. They begin using these pieces to teach their students. In other words, soloists teaching future soloists. The instrument’s technical possibilities are realized even more fully than in the first phase.
Then, seemingly out-of-nowhere, without any connection to the inventor, or to any other professional saxophonists, a woman picks up the instrument in Santa Barbara, California and the course of history shifts. No one in her immediate circle was associated with the saxophone. We do not know what methods or pieces Elise Hall used to develop her skills. But it appears, right from the start, that she knew what she was looking for. She wanted to play in the orchestra. She wanted to play chambre music. She was most decidedly not interested in becoming a soloist. The repertoire she wanted didn’t exist. She decided to create it. And she did.
The pieces that result from her efforts are often subtle, spartan and mature. They emphasize the tone quality of the saxophone in tandem with other instruments. In my opinion, these pieces are truly valuable and unique because they speak to another way of being a performer.
Today, when one studies the saxophone at an advanced level, the primary focus is on solo repertoire. Flautists, clarinetists, oboists and bassoonists seem to have more leeway in their training. There is space for them to concentrate on becoming excellent ensemble players, perhaps because there is enough suitable repertoire. And yet, surely, there are saxophonists who are just like Elise Hall—people who strive for excellence but feel little desire or need to perform as soloists.
What would things have looked like for classical saxophone performance today if Elise Hall’s vision had been more widely taken up?
Hall’s career was not normal in any sense; not in her own time, and nor would it be today. But her example resonates. Many of us can see how concepts she embraced could be a much larger part of the discourse. Is this the time to reconsider how our repertoire is developing? Should we use Hall’s example to chart a new course? Can the saxophone collaborate rather than dazzle? Can virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake be set aside for something more noble, more expressive and more contemplative? I say yes.
Conclusion
Some of the existing scholarship around Elise Hall is poor (Léon Vallas) but most of it is good and can be trusted. With few hard facts, almost all scholars on this file offer hypothetical explanations or suggestions which sometimes fall short or are too openly biased. But it’s clear to this reader that the musicians looking into Elise Hall’s career appear intrigued and impressed with her achievements. Bertels must agree with their findings; his chapter largely supports the scholarship undertaken in years past. The author asks a lot of questions but offers few answers. No new evidence is provided.
The text is victim, in several instances, to sloppy editing where final word selection was not taken (see emphasis): “Hall’s productive combination of patronage and performance thus offers food for thought food for reflection on complex practices of patronage which go beyond the classic model of a wealthy woman who supports artists financially; throughout her activities, Hall invested in others, in saxophone music, and in her own musical career.” (page 74)
There are also two quotations left untranslated from the original French. (page 70)
The author does a good job of expanding two established concepts: That Hall was a major player within an artistic team, and that she had a distinctly different vision for how the saxophone should be put to use. Alas, this is not new territory. Observers in her own time understood the impact of her actions, as have scholars after the fact. Overall, this chapter felt more like a study project. Without new evidence or a truly new interpretation of the information surrounding Elise Hall’s patronage, the lasting feeling one gets after reading this chapter is one of disappointment.
Impressionant!