Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Novello-Davies, Clara.

See Davies, Clara Novello.

Novelty piano.

A term, used particularly in the 1920s, that was applied to a variety of piano music based on ragtime. Novelty piano music drew on sources as diverse as popular dance music, folk ragtime and the music of the Impressionists (especially in its use of the whole-tone scale and the parallel 4th). Its most recognizable unifying feature was the ‘novelty break’ – a stylized interruption of the melody and texture. This was often based on the motif of a tritone resolving onto a 3rd, although whole-tone passages and various figures used by dance orchestras and jazz bands of the 1920s were also employed. The novelty style was influenced by piano-roll arrangements, and many works demanded considerable pianistic skill; indeed, their composers were among the most adept pianists in the popular field.

The word ‘novelty’ was used in association with various rags including Scott Joplin’s Euphonic Sounds: a Syncopated Novelty (1909), but it was with the release on piano roll of Zez Confrey’s My Pet in 1918 (published in 1921) that the identity of novelty piano was established. In such works as Kitten on the Keys (published in 1921, though released earlier on piano roll), You Tell ’em Ivories (1921), Greenwich Witch (1921), Poor Buttermilk (1921), Coaxing the Piano (1922) and Nickel in the Slot (1923) Confrey explored familiar territory with an inventiveness that places him among America’s most imaginative composers. Another exponent was Roy Bargy, whose Sunshine Caper, Jim Jams and Pianoflage all appeared in 1922. In New York Rube Bloom, Arthur Schutt and Phil Ohman made contributions to the genre. Billy Mayerl adopted the style successfully and wrote novelties which are still played.

With the resurgence of ragtime in the 1950s the novelty style was revived to some degree. But the appearance in 1950 of the influential ragtime history They All Played Ragtime by Blesh and Janis initiated an attitude of dismissing novelty piano as frivolous and ‘inauthentic’. The efforts of David Jasen, however, have fostered a more objective view of the style.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

R. Blesh and H. Janis: They All Played Ragtime (New York, 1950, rev. 4/1971)

E.A. Berlin: Ragtime: a Musical and Cultural History (Berkeley, 1980/R)

D.A. Jasen: ‘Zez Confrey: Genius Supreme’, Zez Confrey Ragtime, Novelty and Jazz Piano Solos, ed. R.S. Schiff (New York, 1982)

R. Riddle: ‘Novelty Piano Music’, Ragtime: its History, Composers, and Music, ed. J.E. Hasse (New York, 1985), 285–93

DAVID THOMAS ROBERTS/R

Novembergruppe.

German group of artists, formed in Berlin and taking its name from the November Revolution of 1918. It was then formed as an association of visual artists of the Expressionist, Cubist and Futurist schools, with no intention of championing a particular style; rather, it aimed to provide a public forum for modern art and bring it closer to the people of the new Republic. In 1922 it admitted musicians; those who joined included Heinz Tiessen, Max Butting (head of the music section, 1923–6), Philipp Jarnach, Kurt Weill, Wladimir Vogel, H.H. Stuckenschmidt (head of the music section, 1926–7), Stefan Wolpe, Felix Petyrek, Hanns Eisler, George Antheil (a member only in name), Jascha Horenstein and Gustav Havemann. It organized recitals, the ‘Novembergruppenabenden’, in the years 1923–5, which, though generally on a small scale, always attracted the attention of the Berlin press. They followed the principle of the group as a whole in transcending generic frontiers, and representatives of the different arts often held discussions at the concerts. The works performed consisted of contemporary chamber music and songs, particularly from the Viennese School and by representatives of the Berlin avant garde such as Artur Schnabel and Eduard Erdmann, as well as new music by members of the group themselves. Between 1925 and 1927 the recitals took a radical and Dadaist turn, with concepts such as ‘mechanical music’ and ‘static music’ questioning traditional forms of performance and composition. Several composers left, and once those composers who had remained turned their professional interest to such new, modern genres as radio and film music, Zeitoper and worker's music, their activities within the group became superfluous and few recitals were given between then and 1933.

NILS GROSCH

Noverre, Jean-Georges

(b Paris, 29 April 1727; d Saint Germain-en-Laye, 19 Oct 1810). French-Swiss choreographer. Son of a Swiss soldier and a Frenchwoman, he rejected a military career for the dance at an early age; by 1740 he was a pupil of the Parisian dancing-master Marcel, and later of Louis Dupré, first dancer of the Paris Opéra. He probably made his début in a troupe directed by Dupré and J.-B. Lany in Monnet’s Opéra-Comique at the Foire St Laurent in June 1743 in Favart’s vaudeville Le coq de village, and in October he danced at Fontainebleau. His early contacts at the Opéra-Comique with Marie Sallé and with Rameau’s music were seminal. In 1744 he joined Lany in Berlin, where he danced in Hasse’s Arminio (1745) and probably in works by Graun.

Noverre returned to France with Lany about the end of 1747 and became ballet-master at Marseilles (according to his Petite réponse) or at Strasbourg (Tugal), and choreographed his first work, Les fêtes chinoises (1748). It was probably at Strasbourg in 1749–50 that he met the dancer and actress Marie-Louise Sauveur, whom he married. In April 1750 he became principal dancer at Lyons, partnering Marie Camargo. There, in 1751, he staged Le jugement de Paris, his first serious pantomime ballet (ten years before Angiolini and Gluck’s Don Juan). During his engagements at Strasbourg (1753–4) and Paris (1754–5, at the Opéra-Comique) he seems to have been restricted to more conventional entertainments; but with ever-changing asymmetrical patterns, carefully co-ordinated costumes, scenery and lighting and occasional mimed episodes, he considerably altered the effect of traditional entrées. Having failed to gain a post at the Opéra, Noverre arranged with David Garrick to direct a troupe of dancers at Drury Lane Theatre, London, in 1755–7. Unfortunately anti-French sentiment ran high at the time of his visit and his elaborate staging of Les fêtes chinoises (8 November 1755) was a failure and provoked infamous riots.

During convalescence after an illness Noverre wrote a book on dancing and the theatre, Lettres sur la danse, and then put his ideals into practice at the Lyons Opéra where he collaborated with the composer François Granier in 13 new works during 1757–60, including three of a serious nature (though his lighter, colourful pantomime ballets were the most successful). He gained considerable renown with the appearance in autumn 1759 of the Lettres (publication date 1760): esteemed by the literary élite, the treatise was bitterly criticized by Noverre’s colleagues. In 1760 he moved to the Württemberg court at Stuttgart, where he worked with the composers Jommelli, F. Deller and J.J. Rudolph. Of his 20 new ballets there, Médée et Jason (1763) proved his most popular work, and like several of his Stuttgart ballets it was produced all over Europe. He later complained that, when the company dispersed in 1767, 30 dancers became maîtres de ballet, ‘spread out into Italy, Germany, England, Spain and Portugal … and rendered only very imperfectly the products of my imagination’...\Frames/F004750.html

After negotiations for a Warsaw post and, through Garrick, for a London one, Noverre accepted the important position of ballet-master to the imperial family and the two theatres at Vienna. This was the highpoint of his career. He staged at least 38 new ballets and revived many earlier ones, as well as choreographing some operas (including Gluck’s Alceste and Paride ed Elena). Under his supervision Starzer (at the Burgtheater) and Aspelmayr (Kärntnertor-Theater) wrote ballets which, like some of those by Noverre’s Stuttgart collaborators, proved to be their best music: these contained, besides conventional closed forms for the set-piece dances, rhapsodic and overtly programmatic sections to accompany mimed episodes, anticipating developments in other instrumental genres.

Having failed to negotiate contracts with Stuttgart or London, Noverre accepted in 1774 an invitation from Milan’s Regio Ducal Teatro. Gasparo Angiolini replaced him in Vienna. The Milanese had already seen several Noverre ballets in productions by his pupils. His own efforts, however, were poorly received; his notices in printed programmes show his growing bitterness. Angiolini’s critical publications and the barrage of anonymous pamphlets reflect an Italian aesthetic viewpoint that would be echoed in France where, after spending spring and summer 1776 managing a company at the Vienna Kärntnertor-Theater, he took up the long-sought-after position at the Paris Opéra, always the centre of his ambitions and the chief object of his reformist ideals.

He blamed the intrigues against his leadership, instigated by his rivals Gardel and Dauberval, for his failures and eventual resignation; but comments by dispassionate observers were not unlike those voiced at Milan. Apart from a uniquely French disapproval of his insistence on producing independent ballets in preference to dances complementing an opera, criticism centred on the works themselves: his chosen themes were thought unsuited to representation in dance, and his lengthy productions neglecting pure dance for pantomime were often found enigmatic. His pretentious programme notes decrying opposition to his aesthetic ideas aroused hostility. Paris audiences preferred his lighter works including the revival of Les petits riens to music mainly by Mozart (1778); others failed utterly. His employment continued until July 1781, but his resignation had been accepted in November 1779 and he was largely inactive in the interim.

In November 1781, with dancers from Paris, Noverre began a brilliant season’s engagement at the King’s Theatre, London, concentrating on splendid revivals of works which had earned him his reputation during his Stuttgart and Vienna days. He was in retirement from June 1782 until March 1787, when he revived three ballets at Lyons; in London for the 1787–8 and 1788–9 seasons, he again relied mostly on proven successes of earlier years, the few new works being spectacular divertissements of the kind he had long decried.

At the Revolution, Noverre escaped to the French countryside at Triel. But financial necessity forced a resumption of his career: he spent two seasons as a choreographer in London, where his only important new creation was the successful Iphigenia in Aulide (1793). His last known production was an allegorical ballet for Paisiello’s cantata La vittoria (1794) celebrating the English victory over the French. He retired to St Germain-en-Laye and spent his last years revising and amplifying his earlier writings with observations on the rise and decline of pantomime ballet since his Lettres; he sadly viewed the current French taste for virtuosity and spectacle as a relapse into the infantile state from which he had laboured to raise his art.

In his work and his writings Noverre was most immediately influenced by the theories of Louis de Cahusac (La danse ancienne et moderne, 1754) and Denis Diderot (Troisième entretien sur le fils naturel, 1757), as well as the programmatic and individualistic dance music of Rameau, the expressive dancing of Marie Sallé, the realistic acting of Garrick, and the dramatic accompanied recitatives in the Italian operas of Hasse and Jommelli. Although Hilverding, Angiolini and others had worked towards the dramatic pantomime ballet, it was Noverre’s Lettres sur la danse which focussed attention on the function of theatrical dance. He viewed the ballet en action as a union of dance, ballet and pantomime (preface to Euthyme et Eucharis):

Dance is the Art of steps, of graceful movements and of lovely positions. Ballet, which borrows a part of its charms from Dance, is the Art of Design, of forms and of figures. Pantomime is purely that of feeling and of the emotions of the Soul expressed through gestures.

While Noverre fired composers to create forward-looking descriptive music, he detested the practice of fitting choreography to pre-composed music; for Angiolini, who was also a composer, the music dictated to the dance.

Noverre’s writings, which have been many times reprinted, have contributed more than his ballets to a distorted view of his importance: he continues to receive credit for reforms put into practice by several other choreographers at the same time. Nevertheless, the elegance and urgency of his prose and his practical, far-seeing approach make his treatise an undisputed landmark. He demanded an end to repressive traditions like irrelevant and stereotyped, cumbersome costumes, head-dresses and masks, and to the continuing dominance of past musical styles, choreographic routines and all aspects of the ‘marvellous’. He also urged aspiring ballet-masters to obtain a knowledge of great paintings, in order to apply the laws of perspective, lighting and colour gradation; of literature and history, to select interesting subjects for portrayal and to costume them correctly; of contemporary drama, to establish a realistic acting style; of stage machinery and geometry; and of contemporary music, to know what could be expected of composers. The ballet was to be considered as a whole, including the need for diversity, satisfied by the elimination of traditional static, symmetrical groupings, introducing rapidly changing tableaux and using different dancing styles to suit different characters and themes; virtuoso displays had their place only if they did not interfere with dramatic truth. His own productions were so strongly unified that revivals often included not just the original choreography but also the costume designs and musical scores. He saw his work as achieving ‘a revolution in dance as striking and as lasting as that achieved by Gluck in music’. (For a list of Noverre’s ballets see Grove6)

WRITINGS

Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets (Lyons, 1760, 2/1783, enlarged 1803 as vol.i of Lettres sur la danse, sur les ballets et les arts; Eng. trans., 1930/R)

Théorie et pratique de la danse simple et composée, de l’art des ballets, de la musique, du costume … décorations … scenarios (MS, PL-Wn, 1766) [incl. treatise on dance, 18 scenarios, correspondence with Voltaire, 12 MS ballet scores, costume designs by Boquet]

Introduction au Ballet des Horaces … ou Petite réponse aux grands lettres du Sr. Angiolini (Vienna, 1774)

Preface to Euthyme et Eucharis (Milan, 1775)

Preface to Les incidents (Milan, 1775)

Preface to La nuova sposa persiana (Milan,1776)

Recueil de programmes de ballets (Vienna, 1776) [incl. 13 programmes]

Observations sur la construction d’une nouvelle salle d’opéra (Amsterdam and Paris, 1781; repr. in Lettres sur la danse, iii, St Petersburg, 1804)

Réflexions sur le costume (MS, S-Sdt,1791)

Lettres sur la danse, sur les ballets et les arts (St Petersburg, 1803–4, rev. 2/1807 as Lettres sur les arts imitateurs en général et sur la danse en particulier … correspondence … comparison … etc.) [incl. histories of theatre and dance, correspondence with Voltaire, comparison of national musical tastes, ballet programmes etc]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ES (‘Angiolini, Gasparo’, G. Tani)

GroveO (‘Le Picq, Charles’, K.K. Hansell)

J. von Sonnenfels: Briefe über die wienerische Schaubühne (Vienna, 1768/R); ed. H. Haider-Pregler (Graz, 1988)

G. Angiolini: Lettere a Monsieur Noverre sopra i balli pantomimi (Milan, 1773)

G. Angiolini: Riflessioni sopra l’uso dei programmi nei balll pantomimi (London [recte Milan], 1775)

L[ouis] Petit de Bachaumont: Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la république des lettres en France, depuis MDCCLXII jusqu’ à nos jours (London, 1777–89)

H. Abert: ‘J.G. Noverre und sein Einfluss auf die dramatische Ballettkomposition’, JbMP 1908, 29–45

D. Lynham: The Chevalier Noverre: Father of Modern Ballet (London and New York, 1950/R)

P. Tugal: Jean-Georges Noverre, der grosse Reformator des Balletts (Berlin, 1959)

D. Garrick: Letters, ed. D.M. Little and G.M. Kahrl (Cambridge, MA, 1963)

R. Engländer: Preface to Don Juan/Semiramis: Ballets pantomimes von Gasparo Angiolini, Christoph Willibald Gluck: Sämtliche Werke, ii/1 (Kassel, 1966)

M.H. Winter: The Pre-Romantic Ballet (London, 1974)

S.F. Nadel and O. Wessely: ‘Les Horaces et les Curiaces: Bemerkungen zu einem Ballett von Jean-Georges Noverre und Joseph Starzer’, SMw, xxxii (1981), 111–46

R. Angermüller: ‘Jean-Georges Noverre und die Pariser Académie Royale de Musique um 1780’, MJb 1984–5, 147–75

R. Albano: Il corpo in scena: intorno alla polemica Noverre-Angiolini (diss., U. of Bologna, 1988)

K.K. Hansell: ‘Il ballo teatrale e l'opera italiana’, SOI, v (1988), 175–306

S. Dahms: ‘Mozart und Noverres ballet en action’, MJb 1991, 431–7

R.J. Wiley: ‘Jean-Georges Noverre and the music of Iphigenia in Aulis (London, 1793)’, Harvard Library Bulletin, ii/4 (1991), 31–53

S. Dahms: ‘Das Repertoire des “Ballet en action”: Noverre-Angiolini-Lauchery’,De editione musices: Festschrift Gerhard Croll, ed. W. Gratzer and A. Lindmayr (Laaber, 1992), 125–42

H. Schneider: ‘Gluck als “prosateur en musique”’, Feschrift Klaus Hortschansky, ed. A. Beer and L. Lutteken (Tutzing, 1995), 193–209

KATHLEEN KUZMICK HANSELL