Serenatas for Dublin Johann Sigismund Kusser (1660–1727), ed. Samantha Owens Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2020 pp. xxviii + 262, ISBN 978 1 9872 0450 6

Abstract

Johann Sigismund Kusser got around. His peregrinations across Europe brought him into contact with a vibrant and ever-changing cast of sovereigns, musicians and librettists – yet none so mutable as Kusser himself. Though he was known to be a difficult character, somehow he managed to thrive, acquiring important positions wherever he ended up. Kusser’s success, evidenced in part by the volume under review here, might just be attributed to his political flexibility. Put simply, Kusser knew how to cultivate power by composing on-trend music in line with the desires of the authorities. Whether that music stands the test of time remains to be seen. This volume is the latest product of Samantha Owens’s long-standing engagement with Kusser (or Cousser), thoroughly detailed in her monograph The Well-Travelled Musician: John Sigismond Cousser and Musical Exchange in Baroque Europe (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017). The three serenatas stem from Kusser’s lengthy affiliation with the Dublin viceregal court, a relationship he cultivated from the time of his arrival in Ireland in July 1707. Controlled by the Protestant Ascendancy, the largely English and exclusively Protestant ruling class of Ireland, the court confirmed its authority by celebrating British interests. Topically, the serenatas immortalize the memory of William III (a still-controversial subject in Ireland), Queen Anne herself and the British triumph at Utrecht. While a firm date is lacking for the ode to William III (No! He’s Not Dead!; more on this below), evidence uncovered by Owens reveals that The Universal Applause of Mount Parnassus dates from Anne’s birthday celebrations in 1711, while An Idylle on the Peace was premiered at Dublin’s Theatre Royal on 16 June 1713. The serenatas are products of their time. Each exists in a single manuscript source: the odes for Anne and William are both autograph manuscripts (Bodleian Library (GB-Ob), Ms. Tenbury 765, and Hamburg, Staatsund Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, Musiksammlung (D-Hs), M A/836), while An Idylle on the Peace was copied by someone close to Kusser (D-Hs ND VI 2892). Owens’s edition, based on these unique sources with additional textual confirmation from librettos printed in 1711 and 1713, helpfully provides three plates demonstrating the hands. All three works typify the mixed style practised by Kusser and many of his contemporaries: a ‘French’ overture opens the action, followed by Italianate recitative–aria pairs for solo singers interspersed with choruses, dances and the occasional duet, all accompanied by four-part orchestra. An edition of the texts updates the spelling and punctuation; however, some additional glosses on characters’ names, events referred to and even vocabulary (including the luscious word ‘truckle’) would have been desirable. The poetry rarely rises above mediocre and sometimes descends to offensive, at least to modern sensibilities. Like many composers of his day, Kusser and his unknown librettists liberally drew upon preexisting work when constructing these serenatas. According to Owens, the text for An Idylle on the Peace is modelled on an English translation of the prologue to Lully’s Proserpine. Further,