Fall was a busy semester for music history professor Dr. James Parsons. His review of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s completed works was published in “Early Music,” and he presented his paper “Hanns Eisler’s ‘Nightmare’” at the International Tyranny and Music Conference.
‘Small things can also enchant us’
In November 2015, the music history journal “Early Music,” published Parsons’ review of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s more than 250 lieder in two volumes edited by Christoph Wolff.
The review’s title, “’Small things can also enchant us,’” was borrowed from Hugo Wolf’s opening selection from his 1892 “Italienisches Liederbuch.” In the review, Parsons wonders, “…is it possible for these lieder to enchant us nowadays?”
He goes on to encourage further performance and study of Bach, the second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach, though he remarked of Wolff’s work: “One could quickly run out of superlatives in praise of Wolff ’s two volumes. Both are pleasures to behold (and to hold), printed as they are on high-quality paper and featuring generous margins and handsome bindings. What they contain reflects a commitment to scholarship at the highest level.”
Hanns Eisler’s ‘Nightmare’
Parsons presented his paper, “Hanns Eisler’s ‘Nightmare,’” on Nov. 21, 2015, at the International Tyranny and Music Conference in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
In the paper, Parsons drew together a number of mid-twentieth-century flashpoints through the unfortunate story of German-born composer Hanns Eisler.
Eisler settled in the U.S. after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933, but as World War II ended, another conflict took its place: the Cold War, which Eisler found himself caught in the middle of when he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC ).
Thanks in part to his sister who testified against him at the HUAC hearings, Eisler was forced to leave the U.S. in 1948, after which he settled in East Germany. The composer memorialized his brush with the despotic HUAC in his lied (or song) “Nightmare.”
In his presentation, Parsons’ principal point was that Eisler was not a victim of either Nazism or HUAC repression. Rather the song expresses a cleverly thought-out indictment of tyranny that remains as valid today as when it was composed in 1947.
More about Parsons
Parsons joined the MSU music faculty in 1995. A frequent speaker at conferences in the United States, England, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, and Ireland, he has written on the music of Mozart, Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Beethoven, Schubert, Hanns Eisler, and Ernst Krenek for numerous publications.
He is at work on a book-length study of twentieth-century German song, a body of music known in German-speaking countries as the Lied. His research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Senior Fulbright Research Fellowship.
Parsons teaches a wide range of courses at MSU, including Music 345 and 346 (Music in Western Culture and Society I and II), Music 700 (Introduction to Graduate Study in Music), and upper-level music history seminars covering topics from the Middle Ages to the present.