This document contains the _original_ draft of Douglas Alton Smith's OP-ED piece for the Lute Society of America Quarterly
at the bottom of this page,
the 2nd version of it edited down by LSAQ editorial board (at top), and this writer's responce edited (diluted) by LSAQ's request,
with original outtakes in brackets.Enjoy,
RT
******************************
Smith Version 2:The Sautschek and Aldobrandini Joke
> In the August 2001 issue (labeled August 2002), the LSA Quarterly printed
> two pieces attributed to fictitious composers, as well as supposed
> biographies of these figures. The issue should have made clear that the
> Sautschecks and their music are the invention of Roman Turovsky. He has
> been joined by Italian lutenist Donatella Galletti, whose website also
> carries fictitious "Sautschek family" biographies and some new pieces
> attributed to "Alessia Aldobrandini." This may seem a harmless prank, but
> in my opinion it has the effect of trivializing musicology. Moreover, it
> can and has confused people who are looking for legitimate information.
>
> The idea of writing music in baroque or rococo style and attributing it to
> several generations of fictitious composers apparently occurred to Mr.
> Turovsky about three years ago. He began writing biographies of them,
> associating these figures with known composers such as Weiss, and posting
> pieces and fictitious family history on a website. Other website authors
> picked up the prank - most prominently Donatella Galletti, who presents
> biographical stories and pieces by "Alessandra Aldobrandini," another
> fiction who purportedly married into the Sautscheck family. It all looks
> like historical reporting. On Turovsky's and Galletti's sites the Sautschek
> names are mixed in with both prominent and obscure 18th- and 19th-century
> figures such as Goethe, Bach, Benda, and Razumovsky. There is even an
> invented quote from Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel.
>
> This all looks like good fun, but until recently the only readers who could
> easily distinguish the real figures from the fictions are those with very
> advanced knowledge of the period and the literature. The real historians
> have to invest time unprofitably, to unravel the mess that the joker has made.
>
> The propriety of this prank has been debated several times on the lute
> email list. Some participants, myself included, objected strongly that it
> ultimately makes fools not only of modern historians and the real
> historical composers with whom Mr. Turovsky's imaginary characters
> purportedly consorted, but also the hapless modern lute enthusiast whose
> knowledge is not detailed enough to notice the clues. Several respondents
> expressed surprise that the Sautscheks were fictional. One informed me that
> Turovsky had told him, when asked directly, that yes, the music was indeed
> old. He was understandably disconcerted.
>
> One might counter for instance that Umberto Eco, a gifted semiologist and
> historian and a remarkable novelist as well, created this same sort of
> fiction in The Name of the Rose. Its prologue relates the fictional
> transmission history of a manuscript upon which the story is allegedly
> based. However, in Eco's case we all know in advance that he is writing
> fiction in his novel, thus no one is misled. Professor Eco would never
> compromise his academic work by mixing fiction into it.
>
> A joke is funny when everybody knows it's a joke. If not, the joke is on
> the audience. If Mr. Turovsky is proud of his music, he should put his own
> name on it. If he wants to write historical fiction, he should label it
> historical fiction.
>
> Douglas Alton Smith
> Editor, Journal of the Lute Society of America
> Founding Editor, Silvius Leopold Weiss: Complete Works for Lute
Turovsky's RESPONSE:
[Removed: To reply to Mr. Smith's "debunking" in a properly musicological manner would
necessitate to resort to a point-by-point analysis of his article, which
would be neither interesting nor creative and it would be something akin to:
"Mr. Smith is not an attentive enough reader, and he fails to see that Mr.
Turovsky is NOT a Ukrainian, (he is an american citizen) and NOT an emigré, even if he was born someplace else; it is also irrelevant to musical matters and it looks like a manifestation of some kind of zoological nationalism.Also Mr. Turovsky has no honor of having anything to do with the works of Alessia Aldobrandini.
Mr. Smith also fails to see that the very grammatical errors he holds against "Musicalische Abendprüfungen" derive directly from many an 18th Century title page, J.S. Bach's included, etc, etc.
And he misquotes:"I have no shame", while RT wrote that he "knew no shame",
an altogether different idea, etc".]
Mr. Smith fails to notice the abundance of clues in the SWV project
pointing to its origins, clues that are noticeable either in the "facts"
provided, or in sentiments expressed in the music which are clearly
uncharacteristic for
the purported epoch, so the misled are only the ones who wish to be such.
Here it would be appropriate to relate a small episode from Michelangelo's
life:
When he arrived in Rome for the first time, without connections or
commissions, he was faced with rather grim prospects. He proceeded to
produce an "antique" statue of a Bacchus, broke off its nose and buried it
in a place where he knew a ditch would be dug shortly (in a place which
also happened to belong to a certain Cardinal known for his aversion to
living talent). Needless to say, the statue was promptly unearthed and taken to the said
Cardinal, who displayed it with great pomp, accompanied by his usual
invective. Then the said Buonarotti turned this well attended occasion on its head by
taking out of his pocket a marble nose that was a perfect fit for the
missing one of the statue. Everyone stood agape, and his reputation was made.
In essence, Mr. Smith misses the point. Art in general is a lie wherein
lies the truth, and there is no Art without mythopoeia (which is the same
thing said differently).
While I DO understand that to a musicologist for whom the historical verifiability of data about a composer is the sine qua non of his professional reputation and whose love of music may well be irrelevant to matters of musical judgment, and such a "prank" must stand as a grave threat to amour propre, I also ask: Is the pedigree of a creative endeavor is more important than its quality?[The original responce stated: If for Mr. Smith the pedigree of a creative endeavor is more important than its quality, then he has no soul]
Anyway, Mr. Smith has no right, moral or otherwise, to demand any attribution of
the music in question other than that which is currently attached to it. It
is the moral and legal prerogative of its author alone, who in this
particular case has all the genealogical rights to the name "Sautscheck",
and who also has a right to attach any kind of mythopoietic data he sees fit
to this music. I hasten to add that Mr. Smith has every right to criticize
the quality of the music, and any comments made in that vein would be
gratefully accepted.
In short, musicologists do not deserve an easy life (at any rate they don't
deserve an easier one than artists), and neither does Magical Realism have
to be confined to Latin America.
Roman Turovsky
The ORIGINAL Smith Article:
> The Sautschek and Aldobrandini Hoax
>
> Two issues ago (labeled August 2002), the LSA Quarterly printed two pieces
> attributed to fictitious composers, as well as alleged biographies of these
> figures. Nowhere in the issue was it stated that all of the Sautscheks and
> Alessia Aldobrandini are figments of the imagination of Roman Turovsky, a
> Ukrainian artist and emigré to New York. He is abetted by Italian lutenist
> Donatella Galletti, whose website also carries fictitious "Sautschek
> family" biographies and some new pieces attributed to them.
> The editor of that issue, a graduate student of music, was obviously fooled
> by the appearance of historicity on the Turovsky websites. He is one of
> many who are deceived.
> Some of us who are not fooled are not amused. Sure, it appears harmless,
> but it has the effect of trivializing musicology and deliberately confusing
> people who are looking for legitimate information.
> The idea of writing music in baroque or rococo style and attributing it to
> several generations of fictitious composers apparently occurred to Mr.
> Turovsky about three years ago. He began writing biographies of them,
> associating these figures with known composers such as Weiss, and posting
> pieces and fictitious family history on a website. Subsequently the hoax
> spread to other websites most prominently Donatella Galletti's, who also
> presents fictitious biographical stories and pieces by "Alessandra
> Aldobrandini," another fiction who purportedly married into the Sautschek
> family.
> It all looks like historical reporting. On Turovsky's and Galletti's sites
> the Sautschek names are mixed in with both prominent and obscure 18th- and
> 19th-century figures such as Goethe, Bach, Benda, and Razumovsky, and even
> include an invented quote from Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel.
> The only readers who can easily distinguish the real figures from the
> fictions are those who have very advanced knowledge of the period and the
> literature. The novice will be completely duped. Caveat websurfer.
> This is all in good fun, it would seem. However, Turovsky has run into
> protests.
> Most recently, this writer and Arto Wikla, a Finnish lutenist who presents
> real, historical information on his website, objected rather strongly in a
> series of exchanges on the LuteNet this past spring. Several respondents
> expressed surprise that the Sautscheks were fictional. One informed me that
> Turovsky had told him, when asked directly, that yes, the music was indeed
> old. He was understandably disconcerted by the deceit.
> With this ongoing prank, Turovsky is ultimately making fools not only of
> modern historians and the real historical composers with whom his imaginary
> characters purportedly consorted, but also the hapless modern lute
> enthusiast whose German is not strong enough to notice the grammatical
> errors (which no German would make) in the title of Turovsky's
> "rediscovered manuscript." Now he has made the American Lute Society look
> ridiculous, when the LSA inadvertently publishes his fiction as though it
> were true history. He had the opportunity to inform the newsletter editor
> that the Sautscheks were fictional when asked for permission to print
> excerpts from his website, but he allowed the editor to believe otherwise.
> This is blatant deceit.
> So now the real historians have to invest time unprofitably, to unravel the
> mess that the prankster has made. No, Silvius Leopold Weiss never met
> "Sautschek." No, "Alessia Aldobrandini" never existed, either. No, the
> "Musikalische Abendprüfungen" manucript isn't old, it is a fabrication.
> One might counter for instance that Umberto Eco, a gifted semiologist and
> historian and a remarkable novelist as well, created this same sort of
> fiction in The Name of the Rose. Its prologue relates the fictional
> transmission history of a manuscript upon which the story is allegedly
> based. However, in Eco's case we all know in advance that he is writing
> fiction in his novel, thus noone is misled. Professor Eco would never
> compromise his academic work by mixing fiction into it. In essence he'd be
> reducing his own scholarship to the level of sophomoric humor, toying with
> his colleagues and mocking their seriousness, and nobody would ever trust
> his work in the future.
> A joke is funny when everybody knows it's a joke. If not, the joke is on
> the audience. If Mr. Turovsky is proud of his music, he should put his own
> name on it. If he wants to write historical fiction, he should label it
> historical fiction.
> "I have no shame," Turovsky wrote last spring in a LuteNet debate about his
> hoax. I think that sums it up.
>
> Douglas Alton Smith
> Editor, Journal of the Lute Society of America
> Founding Editor, Silvius Leopold Weiss: Complete Works for Lute