 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-03-30 20:45
I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm using the great 19th century clarinetist, Henry Lazarus, as a character in some fiction set in 1888. Henry Lazarus entered the Royal Military Asylum, a residential school for orphans of military families, at age six. The RMA brought him up and gave him his earliest musical education. Technically, both of his parents were alive at the time, but his father, Private Joseph Lazarus, had been wounded out of the twenty-seventh Foot Guard in 1815, the same year Henry Lazarus was born. Henry Lazarus entered the Asylum under the auspices of the twenty-seventh Foot, as did his elder brother, John. That unit deployed to two different campaigns in 1815. I need to know whether Private Joseph Lazarus was wounded out of the occupation of Paris or from the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium.
I've already looked in Pamela Weston's "Clarinet virtuosi of the past" and "More clarinet virtuosi of the past," as well as "British Musical Biography," Lewis and Susan Foreman's "London: A Musical Gazetteer;" the 1896 Times of London obituary; the obituary in The Musical Times (April 1896); several other obits in various music journals from 1896; the perfunctory Wikipedia article; Colin Lawson's article, "The British clarinet school: Legacy and legend;" the biography in Grove's; George Bernard Shaw's "Music in London" (early reviews) and "London Music in 1888-89 as Heard by Corno di Bassetto;" and the anonymously-written "A seed bed of musicians" (an article about the Royal Military Asylum) on the Duke of York Royal Military School website.
Unfortunately, I have not succeeded in tracking down a copy of Jack Brymer's article, "Henry Lazarus," in "The Clarinet," Summer 1950 and/or Autumn 1956. (I've seen conflicting dates in bibliographical citations.) The Library of Congress doesn't collect that magazine. If anyone's got the article, it's possible that it may contain the information I need. Or do any of you know the answer from any other source? Thank you!
lelialoban@earthlink.net
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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Post Edited (2015-04-01 18:22)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-03-30 23:17
Gotta love this website! Thanks to one of you who filled in a bad gap in my research, I now have a copy of the Jack Brymer article. The article does not give information on the military career of Henry Lazarus's father (Brymer is mistaken in calling the clarinetist an orphan, according to information on the Duke of York Royal Military School website), but the article does help me in other ways. Thank you!
Still trying to find out whether the father got wounded in Paris or at Waterloo.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-03-30 23:52
It is possible that the French military archives in the Paris area at Vincennes may be of some assistance on the Waterloo battle. I found information there on my great grandfather, born 1793, who was a 2nd lieutenant in Napoleon's army.
As I also have the small Clarinet magazines from the late 40's and early 50's, I was going to try to find that article, but do not need to now.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-03-31 16:04
Wes, thank you! It hadn't occurred to me to check French archives, but yes, it's possible they might have stored information on their former enemies' soldiers, even down at the level of privates. Worth a try.
I guess I could fudge the information (I'll admit to being an obsessional researcher; at some point I need to declare the homework done and finish the bleeping novel), but of course if I do pick a battle and get the wrong one, the correct answer will appear on an unimpeachable British military website a nanosecond too late for me to fix my mistake.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: crnichols
Date: 2015-03-31 22:17
If your research lacks a definitive answer (it sounds like this is a distinct possibility), I recommend detailing your findings rather than fudging it. Research by nature is not always totally conclusive. It can be maddening! I think it's important to realize that your findings, even non-concrete aspects, are significant and will be of future assistance in our field.
Christopher Nichols, D.M.A.
Assistant Professor of Clarinet
University of Delaware
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2015-04-01 14:00
Lelia,
I will respond to you email. I have info that might help as I'm researching that includes Lazarus. I have his probate documents and the Shaw review of his last concert and other things. I made a discovery that is significant to the clarinet community...
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-04-01 16:14
Peter -
Please tell us about your significant discovery.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-04-01 17:57
Peter, I'm intrigued!
Christopher Nichols wrote,
>>If your research lacks a definitive answer (it sounds like this is a distinct possibility), I recommend detailing your findings rather than fudging it. Research by nature is not always totally conclusive. It can be maddening! I think it's important to realize that your findings, even non-concrete aspects, are significant and will be of future assistance in our field.
>>
I agree with you, and that's why I've added an "Author's Note: Fact or Fiction?" at the end of the novel, where I admit to any monkey business with historical facts and list which characters are fictional. I've also annotated the novel (a tradition in this specialized genre of detective story). But although I'm writing fiction, I'm determined never to falsify the biographies of real people except to the extent that they participate in the particular events of this novel.
Thank you again for the help!
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2015-04-01 18:44
Yeah, come on Peter, spill the beans! (Or at least let us know when all will be revealed).
Vanessa.
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2015-04-02 13:42
Can't say yet, until the premier performance is sorted ;-) I will also write an article for CASS and ICA when time allows.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2015-04-03 16:21
I have a copy of Pamela Weston's More Clarinet Virtuosi, and she mentioned that Lazarus also played the saxophone. The article mentions all of the instruments he owned during his lifetime, and his collection included two E-flat (alto?) saxophones.
Weston points out that the saxophone was introduced to England "some time after 1850." She goes on to say that Lazarus "almost certainly would have played one of them at Covent Garden in 1869 when Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet, which requires 3 saxophones, was staged."
(p. 157)
It would be very interesting to know what was going through Lazarus' mind when he picked up one of these newly-invented instruments for the first time. It would also be interesting to know the reaction of the English public and his fellow musicians when Lazarus performed on it for the first time. Finally, the big question we're all wondering: How did one obtain saxophone reeds in England in the 1850s?
Pam Weston also quoted Jack Brymer in her article, who had heard quite a mouthpiece story from a Lazarus student. According to Weston's book, Lazarus had a table with "... not less than fifty mouthpieces, all complete with reeds, which the great man used in turn as he felt necessary." (p. 155)
I don't know if the saxophone or the mouthpiece collection fits into your story, but if time travel was possible, it certainly would be interesting to go back and visit Henry Lazarus. Good luck with your book!
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-04-03 20:04
I'm using the report of 50 mouthpieces, yes! Unfortunately Brymer doesn't tell which of Lazarus's students reported that number; and I think Pamela Weston had no source for that anecdote except the Brymer article. Brymer's article is sketchy about source materials -- no bibliography and inadequate citations within the text. Lazarus doesn't play saxophone in my story, although I've alluded to him playing it by having a sax in its case sitting open in his parlour.
I've found everything I need for the scenes he's in (even his street address!) except for the information about whether his father was wounded in Paris or at Waterloo. I couldn't find a French site with that information. I may have to refer to "that Napoleonic business" instead of specifying, but the problem with being so vague is that I'd like the subject to come up in the context of the narrator noticing a war medal propped against a photograph of Lazarus's father. The narrator, a generation younger than Lazarus, walks with a limp as a result of being wounded during the Battle of Maiwand. (And for those of you who read a certain genre of detective fiction, I just revealed what I'm writing.) The narrator asks about the medal; then Lazarus says he's noticed the limp and asks about that. It's such an obvious opportunity for an empathetic connection between the two men that I'd love to keep it; but I can't have the narrator notice the medal and then have to ask Henry Lazarus what it's for, because if it turns out that Joseph Lazarus got wounded at Waterloo, then the narrator would certainly recognize the medal. It was a special medal, the first the British issued with the soldier's name on it.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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