Double IAS Book Launch: Proust's Songbook & Song in the Novel

ABOUT THE BOOKS

In Proust’s Songbook - Song's and their Uses, Jennifer Rushworth analyses and theorises the presence and role of songs in Marcel Proust’s novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). Instead of focusing on instrumental music and large-scale forms such as symphonies and opera, as is common in Proust musical studies, Rushworth argues for the centrality of songs and lyrics in Proust’s opus. Her work analyses the ways in which the author inserted songs at key turning points in his novel and how he drew inspiration from contemporary composers and theorists of song. Rushworth presents detailed readings of five moments of song in À la recherche du temps perdu, highlighting the songs’ significance by paying close attention to their lyrics, music, composers, and histories.

Proust's Songbook is published by Penn Press. 
Read the TLS review here

Song in the Novel investigates the variety of types of songs present in novels, from French romances, ballads, folk songs, opera, and opéra-comique, to café-concert music, blues and jazz, and more recent popular music. Throughout, literary scholars, musicologists, and cultural historians analyse novels written in a range of languages, including English, French, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. Using a range of interdisciplinary and comparative material, Song in the Novel explores the way that songs can be present in novels, from the inclusion of musical scores to broader practices of citation and allusion. It interrogates the function of song in the novel, considering its importance for plot, character, and setting. Finally, it addresses the reader's involvement in these songs - whether through immediate recognition or further research - with the result that they may participate in what Lawrence Kramer describes as a 'song pact' with the author, akin to the intimate connections between characters enabled through song in the novel.

Song in the Novel is published by Oxford University Press.

ABOUT THE EVENT

The book launch will begin with a recital in the Haldane Room and end with a wine reception in the IAS Common Ground.
Participating speakers and performers are:

Jennifer Rushworth (UCL SELCS)
Barry Ife (Guildhall School of Music & Drama)
C. M. Jackson-Houlston (Oxford Brookes University)
Cormac Newark (Guildhall School of Music & Drama)
Hannah Scott (Newcastle University)
Josh Torabi (Queen Mary University London)

Cara Curran (alto) and Melanie Jones (piano) will perform compositions by, among others, Leonardo Vinci, Hugo Wolf and Robert Planqueet.

Originally from Belfast, Cara Curran studied Music at the University of York and Trinity College of Music, where she was awarded the Paul Simm Opera prize. Opera roles include Giustino (Giustino), Florence Pike (Albert Herring) and Marcelina (The Marriage of Figaro). Oratorio work includes Rossini, Petite Messe Solennelle; Handel, Judas Maccabaeus, Messiah, Samson; Bach, St John Passion, St Matthew Passion; Verdi, Requiem; Szymanowski, Stabat Mater. Curran has performed song recitals around the UK, including St Martin in the Fields and the Holywell Music Room.
She is a member of the internationally acclaimed early music vocal ensemble, Stile Antico, where she has performed in venues around the world, and is a regular member of the choir of St Mary Abbots, Kensington. She directs the Chiswick-based choir ‘Canticum Vino’ and is the head of Music at Ravenscourt Park Prep School.

The book launch is a collaboration of UCL's Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL’s Centre for French and Francophone Research, the British Academy and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.