A Community of the Imagination

I owe much to those boon companions and lifelong friends, who have accompanied me on this musicological path. I warmly acknowledge a very deep debt of gratitude to Professor Harry White, whose unfailing encouragement has helped me past those occasional times when energies flagged, and whose friendship is of inestimable importance. I owe a very special debt of gratitude to the immensely knowledgeable and very kind, Professor Susan Youens, for being an unstinting support and guide: I am incalculably indebted to her for her unique friendship and stellar example. Two dear friends, Professor Gerard Gillen and Dr Patrick Devine, have helped me immeasurably with their unfailing good humour and gentle encouragement; they have my love and gratitude for their enduring friendship. It is a pleasure to acknowledge in writing Professor Julian Horton’s scholarly certitude and musical resource; at every musicological gathering he is always to the fore, a guarantor of the good cheer and good will that have made our scholarly collaboration such a happy experience. I owe the very existence of this book to Dan Farrelly, General Editor of Carysfort Press and dearest of friends, whose unwavering support has been inimitable. Dan exercised his razor-sharp acumen on this manuscript; the good-humoured assistance of all at Carysfort Press has been outstanding. For the opportunity to share this work with an audience of colleagues and friends, I thank Barbara Dignam. I also found welcome encouragement from Gareth Cox whose biography, Seóirse Bodley, has been revelatory; his first reaction to this apograph mattered greatly. My thanks to Patrick Zuk, who organized the first international conference on Irish music and musicians at the University of Durham in July 2010, at which I presented a paper on Seóirse’s songs, and to Seamus de Barra, for his wisdom and acuity on that occasion.

Numerous colleagues, friends and anonymous individuals in lecture audiences in Ireland, the UK, Germany, and North America have challenged ideas and supplemented information about Goethe’s Gretchen, Mignon and the Harper. The distinguished roster that follows is symbolic rather than exhaustive: given the passage of ten years since my first monograph on Schubert’s settings of these texts appeared, it is impossible to remember all the interesting conversations I have had, all the email messages kindly sent after a lecture or paper, and all the suggestions and advice offered. Thanks, therefore, to Julian Horton (University College Dublin); Denise Neary (Royal Irish Academy of Music); Adrian Scahill, Paul Higgins and Niall Kinsella (NUI Maynooth); Graham Johnson (Guildhall School of Music and Drama); Richard Stokes and Ian Partridge (Royal Academy of Music, London); Crawford Howie (Schubert Institute UK); Amanda Glauert (Royal College of Music, London); Martin Swales (University of London); Alison Browner (Frankfurt); Aylish Kerrigan (Stuttgart); Claus Canisius (Heidelberg); Christiane Schumann (Deutsche Schubert Gesellschaft, Duisburg); Walther Dürr (University of Tübingen); Richard Kramer (City University of New York); Blake Howe (Louisiana State University); Deborah Stein (New England Conservatory); Lisa Feurzeig (Grand Valley State University); Juergen Thym (Eastman School of Music); Laura Tunbridge (University of Manchester); John Michael Cooper (Southwestern University, Texas); Thomas Bauman (Northwestern University); Sharon and Harald Krebs (University of Victoria); Kathryn Whitney (Victoria Conservatory of Music); Marjorie Hirsch (Williams College); Brian Black (University of Lethbridge). The author and publisher wish to thank Ashgate for their permission to develop some of the contextual detail in Lorraine Byrne Bodley, Schubert’s Goethe Settings (Ashgate, 2003).