Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Norman, Barak

(b 1651; d London, 1724). English maker of string instruments. He was an important and prolific maker whose work spans the end of the supremacy of the viol (by which instrument he achieved his greatest fame) and the growth in popularity of the violin family in England. Apprenticed in the Guild of Weavers in 1668, he probably received instruction in instrument making from Richard Meares, and his viols are the epitome of the elegant English style of the period. Beautifully made instruments, in the style of Meares, their elegant form is often richly decorated with elaborate double purfing and floral patterns, including his own monogram. The decoration also extends to the fingerboard and tailpiece, which on surviving examples are intricately inlaid. The arched fronts were made in the distinctive English manner, from several bent staves jointed together. The heads are magnificently carved, but frequently an open scroll of very pure form is used instead. The varnish is slightly thinner and harder than is found on the best English work of the 17th century. The earliest known instrument by Norman is a bass viol dating from 1679 (Berlin, Musikinstrumenten-Museum). Early patrons were the Pleydel-Bouverie family of silk merchants; a Norman bass viol of 1691, probably commissioned from the maker, remains in their family collection at Longford Castle, Wiltshire. First established in Bishopsgate, close to Meares, Norman later moved to premises in St Paul’s Churchyard, at the sign of the ‘Bass Viol’ or ‘Bass Violin’, an address previously occupied by Francis Baker, also a viol maker.

Around the turn of the century Norman became more interested in making violins, violas and, particularly, cellos. The latter are among the earliest examples of the English cellos that were to be so well thought of during the 18th and 19th centuries. They are often on a slightly small model, but with strong, full archings and a rich brown varnish. Like the viols, they are readily identified by the ‘BN’ monogram inlaid in purfling in the centre of the back. The somewhat rarer violins and violas are also fine and effective instruments, covered with a fine red varnish and strongly influenced by contemporary Cremonese work. These were probably made by other craftsmen in the workshops, since there is little similarity in workmanship with the viols. The distinctive small-cornered model shows some similarity to violins by Christopher Wise, a neighbour in Bishopsgate, and Joachim Tielke, the celebrated Hamburg maker, both active in the last decades of the 17th century. Some violins and violas attributed to Norman were, in fact, reconstructed from viol parts by later hands.

About 1715 the violin maker Nathaniel Cross became involved in the business, and after Norman’s death in 1724 he took over the workshop, which continued to produce instruments with the joint label of Norman and Cross. The stock of the business was auctioned in 1730, but the workshop of the ‘Bass Violin’ was subsequently acquired by Robert Thompson, a prolific violin and cello maker.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

HawkinsH

Humphries-SmithMP

LütgendorffGL

VannesE

G. Hart: The Violin: its Famous Makers and their Imitators (London, 1875, 2/1884/R)

C. Stainer: A Dictionary of Violin Makers (London, 1896/R)

W. Henley: Universal Dictionary of Violin and Bow Makers (London, 1959–60)

A.H. König: Die Viola da gamba (Frankfurt, 1985)

JOHN DILWORTH

Norman, Jessye

(b Augusta, GA, 15 Sept 1945). American soprano. She studied at Howard University, the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Michigan (with, among others, Pierre Bernac and Elizabeth Mannion). She won the Munich International Music Competition in 1968 and made her operatic début in 1969 at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, as Elisabeth (Tannhäuser), later appearing there as Countess Almaviva. Further engagements in Europe included Aida at La Scala and Cassandra at Covent Garden, both in 1972. The following year she returned to Covent Garden as Elisabeth. For her American stage début she sang Jocasta in Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex and Purcell’s Dido with the Opera Company of Philadelphia (1982); she appeared first at the Metropolitan Opera in 1983, once again as Cassandra. Other roles she has sung include Gluck’s Alcestis, Strauss’s Ariadne, Madame Lidoine (Dialogues des Carmélites), the Woman (Erwartung), Emilia Marty (The Makropulos Affair), Bartók’s Judith, and Wagner’s Kundry and Sieglinde.

Norman has a commanding stage presence; her particular distinction lies in her ability to project drama through her voice. Her opulent and dark-hued soprano is richly vibrant in the lower and middle registers, if less free at the top; although her extraordinary vocal resources are not always perfectly controlled, her singing reveals uncommon refinement of nuance and dynamic variety. Her operatic recordings include Countess Almaviva, Haydn’s Rosina (La vera costanza) and Armida, Leonore, Euryanthe, Verdi’s Giulietta (Un giorno di regno) and Medora (Il corsaro), Carmen, Ariadne, Salome and Offenbach’s Giulietta and Helen. As her many discs reveal, she is also a penetrating interpreter of lieder and mélodies, at her finest in the broader canvases of Mahler, Richard Strauss (whose Vier letzte Lieder she has recorded with distinction) and Debussy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

‘Jessye Norman: la vérité du chant’, Harmonie, no.132 (1977), 46–51

‘Jessye Norman Talks to John Greenhalgh’, Music and Musicians, xxvii/12 (1979), 14–15

M. Mayer: ‘Double Header: Jessye Norman in her Met Debut Season’, ON, xlviii/11 (1983–4), 8–11

MARTIN BERNHEIMER/ALAN BLYTH

Norman, John

(fl ?1509–45). English composer. He has been identified with the John Norman who, according to an 18th-century account, was organist and master of the choristers at St David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire, during the period 1509–22. The John Norman who joined the London Fraternity of St Nicholas in 1521 may be the same man, as may a clerk of St Thomas's Chapel, London Bridge (1528–34), and a clerk of Eton College (1534–45). Only three works by Norman are known to have survived. The Compline antiphon Miserere mihi, Domine (Gb-Lbl Add.5665; ed. in Miller) has the proper plainsong as a cantus firmus in breves, surrounded by two very florid voices: the result is somewhat similar to Taverner's Audivi vocem, but less effective. A five-voice Missa ‘Resurrexit Dominus’ (Ob Arch.f.e.19–24, olim Mus.Sch.e.376–81; ed. in EECM, xvi, 1976) has the Easter antiphon of that name as cantus firmus. The style is broadly similar to that of Taverner's large-scale works, but less imaginative texturally and tonally. Norman's Marian votive antiphon Euge dicta sanctis oraculis (Cu Peterhouse 471–4, lacking the tenor) has greater character and variety than his Mass, and is a little more ornate, with a more controlled and purposeful floridity than is achieved in Miserere mihi, Domine.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

HarrisonMMB

C.K. Miller: A Fifteenth-Century Record of English Choir Repertory: B.M. Add. MS. 5665: a Transcription and Commentary (diss., Yale U., 1948)

H. Baillie: ‘Some Biographical Notes on English Church Musicians, Chiefly Working in London (1485–1569)’, RMARC, no.2 (1962), 18–57

J. Bergsagel: Introduction to Early Tudor Masses, ii, EECM, xvi (1976)

H.R. Benham: Latin Church Music in England c.1460–1575 (London, 1977)

HUGH BENHAM