Canonbury Masonic Research Centre
The Canonbury Papers
Volume 2
Freemasonry in Music and Literature
Western music and literature have had some strong and clearly delineated influences on freemasons and likewise the ideas underpinning the Craft have found fascinating expression in various artistic forms from the earliest decades of the the 18th century, that formative period when speculative Freemasonry really began to flourish in most of the Western European cultural centres. These papers reflect that amazing diversity and, like those in the previous volume, demonstrate the clear impact in both form and content which Freemasonry has had in Western European culture over the generations.
These papers range, in their subject topics, from England, Germany, Russia, France, Holland, Austria, Scotland and Sweden; the time scale represented here runs from perhaps the mid-15th century to the present time.
» printable order form
This book, the second volume in the series Canonbury Papers, contains nine papers delivered at the 2003 Fifth Canonbury International Conference Freemasonry in Music and Literature, and is edited by Trevor Stewart, Prestonian Lecturer for 2004. Equally divided between the topics of music and literature, it is well laid out, with clear illustrations. The footnotes and references appear at the end of each paper with double spacing between notes, which does make them easy to locate, even though — and I have to confess a personal preference for footnotes — one is obliged constantly to be turning sheaves of pages to take in the full facts of the article.
This is a most valuable addition to the corpus of masonic publications dealing with what has certainly been a major influence on Freemasonry, especially during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The papers cover the topics: masonic songs in the eighteenth century; the Victorian composer and conductor, Sir Michael Costa; a reconsideration of the Regius and Cooke manuscripts; Russian Freemasonry seen through its literature from the late eighteenth century to the present day; an examination of masonic songs, marches, odes, cantatas, oratorios and operas from 1730-1812; the evidence for Jacobitism in the work of Hogarth and Edgar Allan Poe; a reconsideration of the masonic membership of James Boswell; and a paper on the overlooked literary sub-genre of eighteenth century masonic songbooks.
A well-balanced and most readable collection from a range of masonic and non-masonic scholars (Andrew Pink, Edward Batley, Diane Clements, Andrew Prescott, Lauren Leighton, Malcolm Davies, Marie Mulvey-Roberts, David Stevenson, and Andreas Onnerfors), from England, Scotland, Sweden and the United States, I heartily recommended this book not only to the Freemason who is keen to make a daily advancement in his knowledge, but also to the student of the arts who will discover some fascinating ways in which these have influenced the Craft. It is no doubt somewhat unusual for a contributor to a volume to be asked to write a review of the same, so I shall obviously make no comment about the tenth and final short paper on Mozart's contribution to the Craft.
John Wade
Freemasonry is rich in music and literature, and this book contains nine papers in the second volume of The Canonbury Papers given at a conference in 2003.
The papers range from the mid-15th century to the present and are international in perspective with subject topics from England, Germany, Russia, France, Holland, Austria, Scotland and Sweden.
The extensive references and index will be of particular interest to those interested in pursuing further studies into this fascinating area of Masonic research.
One taster is the paper on James Boswell, biographer of Dr Samuel Johnson. Boswell was a Scottish Mason, but a womaniser and heavy drinker. He tried to claim virtue in that he was a Mason. His wife was unimpressed, describing the Masons as “an indiscriminate, confused rabble.”
There is a paper on the manifestation of Freemasonry in the works of Goethe, songs of 18th century English Lodges, some literary contexts of the Regius and Cooke MSS, and on Masonic songs, marches, odes, cantatas, oratorios and operas in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
The 18th century was a prolific period in Masonic songbooks, as another paper reveals, while Hogarth’s Masonic narratives and Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado are examined.
Michael Costa, a 19th-century director of music at Covent Garden, is studied to show how his career in music and Masonry might be an indicator of changing perceptions to Freemasonry in the latter part of that period.
A study of Russian Freemasonry, which can trace its origins back to the 1730s, is a fascinating insight, and inevitably no such book would be complete on music and Freemasonry without Mozart.
This is a gem of a book and does full credit to the hard work of the Canonbury Masonic Research Centre which, since its foundation as a charitable trust in 1998, has done so much pioneering work.
John Jackson
Design Lambent Technology
