I Fought the Law... | Part 2
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David Hackett22. March 2023
This is part 2 of 3 in a series about composers who fell foul of authority, by David Hackett. Read part 1 and 3.
It’s always the gentle types you don’t suspect
Behind that soft, angelic face of Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828) – creator of countless beautiful melodies in his songs, symphonies and chamber music – was an often subversive and rebellious young man. He hung out with several other artistic free thinkers in a political regime which could be decidedly repressive. Once arrested for attending an illegal gathering, he did himself no favours by giving the arresting policeman a considerable earful, filled with “insulting and opprobrious language.”
Schubert was probably lucky to be released so quickly – possibly his budding reputation as a composer saved him. But one of his associates that day was accused of plotting against the Austrian government and ended up behind bars for over a year.
He did the crime but did not serve the time
As one of classical music’s most quirky characters, it seems entirely unsurprising that the greatest success enjoyed by Erik Satie (1866 – 1925), his ballet Parade – involving such glittering names as Serge Diaghilev, Leonid Massine, Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso – should have ended up mired in controversy.
With its pioneering inclusion of Parisian street-songs and ragtime, its use of pistols, typewriters, foghorns and milk bottles as extra orchestral “instruments”, and its generally surrealist plotline, the ballet was something of a succès de scandale at its 1917 premiere. Satie was nonetheless upset afterwards by a surprisingly hostile review from one Jean Poueigh, a man whom Satie had previously considered an ally.
Satie responded by sending the music critic a series of furious (and staggeringly foul-mouthed) postcards. A typical greeting read:
Satie to Monsieur Fuckface Poueigh
Famous Gourd and Composer for Nitwits
Lousy ass-hole, this is from where I shit on you with all my force.
Never again offer me your dirty hand.
Poueigh eventually got tired of finding such offerings with his morning mail (which were also being read by his giggling postman and servants) and sued Satie for defamation of character. He won his case, the composer was fined a hefty 1,100 francs and even sentenced to 8 days in prison.
Thankfully for Satie some wealthy friends intervened at this point. They paid the fine and had the sentence firstly suspended and then abandoned.In return, Satie promised not to send any more postcards.
You can still make a nuisance of yourself behind bars
The first female composer to have an opera performed at the prestigious New York Metropolitan, Ethel Smythe (1858 – 1944) was also a committed British suffragette. She is credited with showing Emmeline Pankhurst the most effective way of throwing a stone. She was herself imprisoned for two months in 1912 for putting a brick through the window of a house belonging to a particularly smarmy government minister (he had recently commented that women could only vote if they were “as beautiful” and “as submissive” as his wife).
Although her jail cell was full of cockroaches, Smythe bore her sentence with stoicism. It helped that she was surrounded by like-minded suffragettes. Smythe wrote them a piece entitled March of the Women, which they enthusiastically sang in the prison yard while its composer conducted them with a toothbrush from a cell window. The irritated prison authorities decided it might be best for all parties if they arranged Smythe’s early release, on the grounds that was she was clearly mentally disturbed.
Late in life, Smyth wrote a cantata entitled The Prison, partly based on her own experiences.
To read more from David Hackett, go to www.musicbytheyear.com.