Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

New Age.

An ideology based on the belief in the ultimate cultural evolution of human societies through the transformation of individuals. New Age thought surfaced in alternative healing communities in the USA during the late 1970s; its manifestations involve a great variety of techniques, including sound and music. A particular link is invoked connecting music, meditation and mind. In many cultures specific musical practices are used in religious ceremonies to induce altered states of consciousness (Bourguignon, Thame, Rouget). New Age offers explanations of such phenomena by merging North American shamanic traditions with the scientific approaches of psychology, neurophysiology and particle physics, as well as Indian mystical theories of perception.

As a contemporary musical genre New Age has generated important revenue for the international record industry. The term was introduced to the industry in 1976 with Will Ackerman’s first release of acoustic guitar solos, In Search of the Turtle’s Navel. Retrospectively the first New Age album was Tony Scott’s Music for Zen Meditation (1964), where, as in so many later New Age albums, Asian and western musical instruments and styles are combined. In other respects the stylistic range is broad. Early New Age pioneers included progressive rock groups (Pink Floyd, Harmonium), jazz musicians (Paul Horn, Paul Winter Consort) and composers of electronic music (Wendy Carlos, Klaus Schultze). New Age also recognizes legacies from French impressionism and minimalism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

E. Bourguignon: ‘Trance and Ecstatic Dance’, Dance Perspective, iii (1968), 1–61

G. Rouget: La musique et la transe: esquisse d’une théorie générale des relations de la musique et possession (Paris, 1980)

J. Aikin: ‘Steven Halpern: Musical Guru and New Age Entrepreneur’, Keyboard, vii/11 (1981), 8–15

D. Thame: The Secret Power of Music: the Transformation of Self and Society through Musical Energy (Rochester, VT, 1984)

P.N. Wilson: ‘Verordnete Harmonie: Musik und Musikphilosophie im Zeichen des “New Age”’, ZfM, Jg.147 (1986), no.9, pp.5–8

R. Garneau: ‘Ritual and Symbolism in New Age Music’, Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology, iv (1987), 57–74

R. Basil, ed.: Not Necessarily the New Age: Critical Essays (Buffalo, NY, 1988) [incl. L. Berman: ‘New Age Music?’, 250–68]

A. Laurrier: ‘Jazz? New Age? Classical?’, Canadian Composer, no.225 (1989), 24–7

H.C. Zrzavy: ‘Issues of Incoherence and Cohesion in New Age Music’, Journal of Popular Culture, xxiv (1990), 35–53

G. Bédard: Au coeur de la musique Nouvel Âge (Montreal, 1991)

D. Schreiner: ‘Trance in a Cellophane Wrapper’, Society for Ethnomusicology: National Conference: U. of Michigan, 1993

DIANE SCHREINER

Newark [Newarke, Newerk], William

(b ?c1450; d Greenwich, 11 Nov 1509). English composer. In 1477 he was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal under Edward IV. On 23 November 1480 he was confirmed in possession of a benefice in St Mary's Priory, Thetford, granted him in the previous year. On 6 April 1485 he received a life grant of £20 per annum from the royal manor of Blechingly, Surrey, again with effect from the previous year, and on 1 September 1487 he received a further corrody, in the monastery of St Benets Holme, Norfolk, after the death of the previous incumbent, Gilbert Banaster. On 17 September 1493 he succeeded Laurence Squier as Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal. He was paid for composing a song (unnamed) for Christmas 1493; he was responsible, particularly from 1503 until his death, for devising the annual Christmas entertainment for the court festivities. His appointment as Master of the Children was renewed on 23 May 1509, soon after the accession of Henry VIII, but he died only six months later. He made his will on 5 November (proved 13 December) and was buried in Greenwich.

Newark's seven known compositions are all secular songs and survive, one incomplete, in the oldest layer of the Fayrfax Book (GB-Lbl Add.5465). Four are for two voices and three are for three, though in one of the latter the third part is optional. A further anonymous two-voice song, Ah my heart, bracketed in the same manuscript, has been ascribed to him by Stafford Smith, an idea supported also by Stevens.

Newark's songs reveal a competent minor composer whose works are often charming, but who lacked the intensity, staying power and structural sense of Cornysh or Fayrfax. He chose amorous complaints for his texts, largely in the English rhyme-royal ballad stanza or its derivatives. As was common in settings of such poems, the vestigial musical rhyme of the old ballad proper often appears at the end of each section. Newark frequently made play with florid sesquialtera passages – which may have been intended for instruments – at phrase endings; he sometimes used simple variation techniques. He was fond of imitation, but did not take up the opportunity for canon offered by the text of The farther I go, the more behind (a poem once attributed to Lydgate but now thought to be the work of John Halsham). Thus musyng, probably his finest song, is also found in two fragmentary manuscripts.

WORKS

all in GB-Lbl Add.5465

Edition: Early Tudor Songs and Carols, ed. J.E. Stevens, MB, xxxvi (1975) [incl. all songs]

But why am I so abusyd?, 3vv; O my desyre, 2vv (inc., but can be reconstructed); So fer I trow, 2vv; The farther I go, the more behind, 2vv; Thus musyng, 3vv, also in GB-Cfm 1005 (frag.) and US-NYp Drexel 4183 (frag.); What causyth me wofull thoughtis, 2vv; Yowre counturfetyng, 3vv

Ah my heart, 2vv, anon., possibly by Newark

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AshbeeR, vii

BDECM

HarrisonMMB

LafontaineKM

B. Fehr: ‘Die Lieder des Fairfax M.S.’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, cvi (1901), 48–70

W.H.G. Flood: ‘Entries Relating to Music in the English Patent Rolls of the Fifteenth Century’, MA, iv (1912–13), 225–35, esp. 234

J. Harvey: Gothic England (London, 1947, 2/1948), 115–16

J. Stevens: Music & Poetry in the Early Tudor Court (London, 1961, 2/1979)

BRIAN TROWELL