Lessons in Harmony
by Jonathan Coe
After a momentary dip in his popularity in the decades following his death in 1958, at the venerable age of 85, the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams has regained its prominence, and he can now be considered one of the best-known, most-performed and most emblematically British of composers. His love of and deep knowledge of Tudor motets, hymn tunes (he edited The English Hymnal between 1904 and 1906), and English folksongs (which he collected and recorded in a manner comparable to Bartók and Kodály’s contemporary ethnomusicological efforts in Hungary) profoundly influenced his development and style as a composer and led to memorable works such as his cycle of nine symphonies and, just to mention my favourite RVW composition, the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
Yet it took quite a while for RVW to find his own voice. Ironically, it was another – and quite different – composer who would help set him on the path to self-discovery. In 1907, wishing to rid himself of the “lumpy and stodgy” facets of his music, remnants of the heavy Romantic and Germanic style of his teachers, Vaughan Williams considered taking lessons from the French composer Vincent D’Indy. Music critic Edwin Evans introduced RVW to a fellow critic, Dimitri Calvocoressi, who came up with a different suggestion: Calvocoressi’s close friend Maurice Ravel, more progressive in outlook and musical style, would, in his view, be a better fit for what Vaughan Williams had in mind.
RVW, who was the older composer by three years, spent three months as Ravel’s student in Paris – not a terribly long time, but long enough to infuse the English composer with a mastery of a more transparent “Gallic” approach to harmony and orchestration and, more importantly, to give him the freedom to forge a style rooted in English tradition while remaining recognisably personal. Vaughan Williams’s works tap into the same strand of English mysticism that gave us John Bunyan and William Blake (both, incidentally, writers whose works RVW set to music) and, in this regard, seem worlds away from the refined and world-savvy Parisian elegance of Ravel. No wonder, then, that the latter himself admitted that RVW was “the only one of my pupils who doesn’t try to write my music”. Yet those three months left a permanent mark on the older composer, besides giving rise to a musical friendship that would last for much longer.
From
the bare bones of this episode of musical history, Jonathan Coe fleshes out his
latest novel, Lessons in Harmony. And what a delightful book I found it
to be. Coe leaves the key biographical facts about both composers intact but,
in true postmodern fashion, has the story narrated through the memoirs and
journals of Ravel’s close friend Pierre Vicente “Mylo” Mylonas, a heavily
fictionalised version of the real-life Calvocoressi. The novel is based on the
conceit that Mylo’s fictional journals are discovered, edited and published by
the also fictional Justine La Chasse, granddaughter of the housekeeper of the
Tavernes, who did exist and were the heirs of Maurice Ravel’s music.
Mylo is an inspired creation, because he becomes the voice through which we are given a glimpse into both composers’ private and family lives, taking us well beyond the momentous three months they spent together. We see them navigate personal and public tragedies at first hand – both men were on the front lines in the First World War, an experience that leads Ravel to state that “we’re all different people now”.
A particularly poignant aspect of the narrative is the loving yet challenging relationship between Ralph and his ailing first wife, Adeline, which becomes more complicated when, in his later years, he falls in love with the much younger Ursula (whom Adeline would invite into their home, and who would eventually marry Ralph after Adeline’s death).
The fictional narrator Mylo himself becomes a key character – and an interesting one at that – as we see him coming to terms with his attraction towards Ravel. This is not simply a novel about two famous composers, but also one about love, friendship and community.
Indeed, without becoming overly technical, political or philosophical, the novel addresses some deeper themes: whether there can be a “national” school or style of composition; whether patriotism is, by definition, parochial; and whether art and music have any role to play in advancing ideas of peace and fraternity.
Wisely,
Coe rarely tries to evoke or describe the composers’ actual music – a
notoriously difficult endeavour in fiction. Instead, readers are directed to a
playlist containing all the music mentioned in the novel, available on Spotify,
Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz and other streaming platforms. The author also
provides an afterword detailing those aspects of the novel that are actually
documented. A detailed bibliography at the end tantalisingly lists several
reference and biographical works for those interested in further exploring the
lives of both composers and their cultural milieu.
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