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  • IntroductionShaw and Music
  • Brigitte Bogar (bio)

This issue of the SHAW journal is dedicated to the late professor Christopher D. Innes, who was a Distinguished Research Professor at York University, Toronto, and Research Professor at Copenhagen University. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of Arts (UK) and a Killam Fellow, he held a Canada Research Chair in Performance and Culture. He was the author of sixteen books—translated into eight different languages—and over 130 articles on various aspects of modern drama. He was also General Editor of the Cambridge "Directors in Perspective" series as well as Co-Editor of the quarterly journal Modern Drama. He held a senior Canada Research Chair and at the time of his death was the incumbent of a York Research Chair. Having given papers at over 150 conferences, he developed a new form of public presentation together with his wife, singer Brigitte Bogar. They performed invited lectures in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark as well as presenting plenaries at various international conferences. As a Shavian, he edited three books, wrote the liner notes for the Shaw CD, co-organized an International Shaw Society conference, wrote five book chapters, fourteen articles, and six reviews, and gave fourteen conference presentations and nine invited public lectures. The journal opens with a tribute to Christopher Innes by long-standing friend and colleague Don Rubin, followed by the articles focusing on Shaw and Music.

Few would challenge the proposition that the soundscape (including music) heard in the background of a television commercial is vitally important [End Page 1] in conveying the message and creating the kind of both emotional and behavioral responses an advertiser seeks. The same holds true on a much larger and economically significant basis for motion pictures. In contrast, playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw had to create their own detailed guidance, for each production soundscape, on paper only. Therefore, to the extent that details and directions originally mandated by the playwright are later altered or omitted in reproduction or translation, the authenticity of the original soundscape cannot help but become blurred and weakened.

Music has historically been seen as expressive of motion, tension, identity, and beauty, but if music is to communicate anything it requires, first, that there is an intention to express a specific emotion and, second, that this emotion is recognized by the listener. However, in the theatrical setting, where the music is being put into the storytelling context, the emotions that the music conveys have to be viewed in combination with the circumstances in the script of the play, which gives a context for the musical subtext. It then makes sense to describe music as representing basic emotions, and therefore music can be used in text-based theater as a universal language of the emotions, which will enhance the dramatic structure and enhance the storytelling. This highlights the importance in plays of examining authors, function, intended effects, production, context, message, and transmission modes, as well as how to code/decode music and how musical meanings are generated through effective stimulation or through semiotics.

Inexplicably, the acute skill and consideration necessary to craft the huge array of audible components contributing to some plays is underappreciated. More specifically, the extent and depth of the musical expertise necessary to articulate specific musical selections and performance directions appears to have been mostly ignored. Furthermore, the musicality of a playwright like George Bernard Shaw is unknown to later researchers. If music was an important (if unknown or underappreciated) part of a playwright's life, to which he has devoted years of effort and study, does it seem reasonable that musical references in his works are assumed to be casual or unimportant? The importance of music in many plays becomes patent, even blatant, when considered in this light.

The function of music is to set the scene. Music also helps the playwright to define intended audience responses. Text and music cannot be separated without changing the author's artistic vision, since the total structure of a play exists as an expression of artistic unity—similar to Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, a concept very familiar to...

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