In message <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] writes
>
>Is there much evidence about a "reading style" relating to the late 19th
>century? I've heard a Tennyson recording which doesn't suggest that chanting
>style so much as a slow, dignified lugubriousness whose actual nature is
>difficult to guess owing to the poor quality of cylindrical recordings.
"Having opened his second bottle of port and claimed his special
privilege of smoking his pipe in the drawing-room ... hour after hour
Tennyson, in his deep, sonorous, emotional voice had declaimed _Maud_,
commenting from time to time, 'There's a wonderful touch! That's very
tender! How beautiful that is!' And as he read the lyrics and pathetic
passages he let the tears roll unchecked down his cheeks, in complete
surrender to the beauty of sorrow ..."
I just found this by chance, quoted in an old review of Oswald Doughty's
biography of D.G.Rossetti; it seems DGR and an unnamed 'fragile hostess'
were the audience; DGR spent the hours sketching Lord T - 'secretly',
according to Doughty, & didn't dare show it to T who 'would have been
much annoyed'. What a scene. I suppose the source of the anecdote is a
DGR letter? Anybody know?
--
Alan Halsey
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