Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

New London Consort.

English ensemble of singers and instrumentalists, specializing in medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music. Founded by its director, Philip Pickett, in 1981, it has been involved in some of the most colourful and distinctive projects in the resurgence of early music in England. Its repertory ranges from early chant to Bach and encompasses Renaissance dance, early English opera, Italian seconda pratica, especially Monteverdi, and music by Biber. The group has made many recordings, and its musical activities are often sharply defined within a broad historical and educational context. Technical virtuosity and tight ensemble are integral to its reputation, which has been enhanced by a regular team of versatile specialist singers including Catherine Bott and Michael George.

JONATHAN FREEMAN-ATTWOOD

Newman

(fl ? 3rd quarter of 16th century). English composer. Although a number of musicians named Newman were employed at the English court, none of them seems likely to have been this composer. A fancy and a pavan for keyboard survive in the Mulliner Book (ed. in MB, i, 1951, 2/1954); there is also a version for lute of the fancy as well as another two pavans and a galliard (ed. in lute tablature by J. Robinson, ‘The Complete Lute Music Ascribed to Master Newman’, Newsletter of the Lute Society, no.38, 1996, music suppl.).

There is little in Newman's music to distinguish him from other minor composers of his time. It is pleasant and competently written in the traditional forms in a simple polyphonic style. Where divisions are present they are sometimes reduced to virtually a single-line pattern. The keyboard pavan is unconventional in having four strains and no ornamented repeats. It probably originated as a lute piece, while the fancy may have been written first for a three-part instrumental consort.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

D. Stevens: The Mulliner Book: a Commentary (London, 1952)

W.L. Woodfill: Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles I (Princeton, NJ, 1953/R)

J. Ward: ‘The Lute Books of Trinity College, Dublin: I: the so-called Dallis Lute Book’, LSJ, ix (1967), 17–

J. Harley: British Harpsichord Music, ii (Aldershot, 1994)

DIANA POULTON/ANDREW ASHBEE

Newman, Alfred

(b New Haven, CT, 17 March 1900; d Los Angeles, 17 Feb 1970). American composer and conductor. He was a piano prodigy, making his first public appearance at the age of eight. In 1914 he was offered a piano scholarship by Stojowski for a place at the von Ende School of Music, New York. Family poverty, however, compelled him to abandon a concert career while still young; instead, he played in Broadway theatres and on vaudeville circuits. He studied conducting with William Daly and was the youngest conductor ever to appear on Broadway. As well as serving as music director for the 1920 George White Scandals and for the Greenwich Village Follies of 1922 and 1923, he conducted shows by George and Ira Gershwin, Otto Harbach and Rodgers and Hart. In 1930 Newman went to Hollywood where he was soon appointed music director at United Artists. He worked primarily in film musicals but gradually became more interested in original composition, especially after the success of his score for Street Scene (1931). From 1940 to 1960 he was head of the 20th Century-Fox music department and divided his time between composing and supervising and conducting film musicals. Other activities included recordings with the Hollywood Bowl orchestra and guest conducting appearances with various American orchestras. Altogether Newman worked on more than 230 films, winning nine Academy awards and 45 nominations.

As one of the key figures in the history of American film music, Newman was among the first screen composers to establish the romantic symphonic style of Hollywood film scores, prevalent from the early 1930s to the mid-50s. In comparison to composers such as Korngold and Max Steiner, he was essentially self-taught as a composer; the few private lessons he took with Schoenberg in Hollywood had no appreciable effect on his musical style. His genuine musical talents and fine dramatic sensibility, however, enabled him to learn on the job. When he encountered his first truly challenging scores around 1935 he began to show a knack for developing motivic material and an appreciation for the sound track’s potential to incorporate new and interesting musical effects. By 1939 his music had developed into the style with which his name is associated. Well-wrought and full-textured, his scores sometimes (especially in the string writing) attain a high degree of lyrical and dramatic expressiveness. The manner in which certain sequences follow overt or hidden implications of the dialogue resembles the leitmotivic procedures of Wagner and Strauss.

Newman’s scores for Wuthering Heights, The Prisoner of Zenda, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Captain from Castile and The Robe represent Hollywood film music at its best. As a conductor he had a great flair for moulding music to the texture and rhythm of a picture and for coordinating the elements involved in the preparation and recording of a film musical. In his capacity as studio music director he encouraged the development of new ideas for improving the quality and technique of recording; the so-called Newman System for music synchronization, devised at United Artists during the 1930s, is still in use today.

WORKS

(selective list)

all film scores

Street Scene, 1931; We Live Again, 1934; The Dark Angel, 1935; Beloved Enemy, 1936; The Prisoner of Zenda, 1937; Beau Geste, 1939; Gunga Din, 1939; The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1939; Wuthering Heights, 1939; Young Mr. Lincoln, 1939; Brigham Young, 1940; The Song of Bernadette, 1943; Wilson, 1944; Captain from Castile, 1947; The Snake Pit, 1948; Prince of Foxes, 1949; Twelve O’clock High, 1949; The Robe, 1953; The Egyptian, 1954, collab. B. Herrmann; A Man Called Peter, 1955; Anastasia, 1956; The Counterfeit Traitor, 1961; How the West Was Won, 1963; The Greatest Story Ever Told, 1965; Nevada Smith, 1966; Airport, 1969

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DAB(F. Steiner)

H. Brown: ‘The Robe’, Film Music, xiii/2 (1953), 3–17

F. Steiner: The Making of an American Film Composer: a Study of Alfred Newman’s Music in the First Decade of the Sound Era (diss., U. of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1981) [incl. complete list of film scores]

C. Palmer: The Composer in Hollywood (London and New York, 1990)

T. Thomas: Film Score (Burband, CA, 1991)

K. Darby: Hollywood Holyland: the Filming and Scoring of ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ (Metuchen, NJ, and London, 1992), 163ff

CHRISTOPHER PALMER/FRED STEINER