Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Full download Audubon at Sea: The Coastal and Transatlantic Adventures of John James Audubon Christoph Irmscher (Editor) file pdf all chapter on 2024
Full download Audubon at Sea: The Coastal and Transatlantic Adventures of John James Audubon Christoph Irmscher (Editor) file pdf all chapter on 2024
https://ebookmass.com/product/tenacious-of-life-the-quadruped-
essays-of-john-james-audubon-and-john-bachman-john-james-audubon/
https://ebookmass.com/product/tempting-james-mysterious-
adventures-book-1-elizabeth-lennox/
https://ebookmass.com/product/lost-at-sea-erica-boyce/
https://ebookmass.com/product/mean-curvature-flow-proceedings-of-
the-john-h-barrett-memorial-lectures-held-at-the-university-of-
tennessee-knoxville-may-29-june-1-2018-theodora-bourni-editor/
Rugged & At-Risk (Quinn Romance Adventures Book 4) Cami
Checketts
https://ebookmass.com/product/rugged-at-risk-quinn-romance-
adventures-book-4-cami-checketts/
Red Star Over the Black Sea. Nâzim Hikmet and his
Generation James H. Meyer
https://ebookmass.com/product/red-star-over-the-black-sea-nazim-
hikmet-and-his-generation-james-h-meyer/
https://ebookmass.com/product/shipboard-literary-cultures-
reading-writing-and-performing-at-sea-susann-liebich-editor/
https://ebookmass.com/product/out-of-the-studio-the-photographic-
innovations-of-charles-and-john-smeaton-at-home-and-abroad-john-
osborne/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-last-days-of-john-lennon-james-
patterson/
Audubon at Sea
Edited by Christoph Irmscher
and Richard J. King
Audubon
at Sea
The Coastal & Trans Atlantic
Adventures of
John James Audubon
T h e Un iv er siT y of C h iC ag o Pr e ss
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2022 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. For more information, contact the
University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL
60637.
Published 2022
Printed in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 1 2 3 4 5
I
Journal of a Sea Voyage from New Orleans to
Liverpool aboard the Delos (1826)
33
II
Ornithological Biography (1831– 1839)
75
s o U T h e r n WaT e r s
A Long Calm at Sea 86 | The Florida Keys 91
The Florida Keys (Part 2) 98 | The Brown Pelican and
The Mangrove 103 | The Turtlers 113 | Black Skimmer or
Razor-billed Shearwater 122 | Death of a Pirate 129
The Frigate Pelican 134 | The Sooty Tern 142 | The Wreckers of
Florida 148 | American Flamingo 152 | Wilson’s Plover 156
St John’s River in Florida 159
m iD - aT L anT iC WaT e r s
The American Oyster-Catcher 168 | The Fish Hawk or Osprey and The
Weak Fish 172 | Little Guillemot 179 | The Long-billed Curlew 181
W e sT e r n WaT e r s
Black-footed Albatross 188 | Gigantic Fulmar 191
III
Journal of a Collecting Voyage from Eastport
to Labrador aboard the Ripley (1833)
267
xi
xii | F o r e w o r d
That the Creator should have ordered that millions of diminutive, ten-
der creatures, should cross spaces of country, in all appearance a thou-
sand times more congenial for all their purposes, to reach this poor,
xiv | F o r e w o r d
But I have also witnessed mass species die-offs, including two over-
lapping ones when I lived along the Salish Sea. In 2013, news arrived
that starfish (or sea stars) were dying in large numbers along the Pacific
coast of the Olympic National Park. Within a year, more than twenty
species of starfish, from Alaska to Mexico, had been devastated. By 2017,
scientists assessed that the mass die-off of starfish was unprecedented
in scale and scope. In many sites the population decline was more than
99 percent. At the same time, masses of seabirds were also dying along
the Pacific coast, in what the US Geological Survey assessed as the larg-
est die-off of seabirds ever recorded in the Pacific Ocean. These two
simultaneous events broke my heart. In April 2020, I founded the Spe-
cies in Peril project at the University of New Mexico, which involves
support for creative production, public scholarship, and grassroots initia-
tives to bring attention to the intensifying biodiversity crisis.
While the havoc wrought on seabirds has renewed interest in Audu-
bon’s work, the recent racial awakening and movements for racial justice
are drawing attention to him for a very different set of reasons and aims.
Irmscher and King address this sensitive subject in the coda to this vol-
ume. Here is my own brief assessment: The National Audubon Society
was established in 1905, fifty-four years after Audubon’s death— a mon-
ument no less significant than a marble or bronze statue, perhaps even
more so because of its wide public reach. One hundred sixteen years
later, in its Spring 2021 issue, Audubon magazine, the flagship publica-
tion of the National Audubon Society, ran a significant reevaluation of
Audubon’s legacy by the Black ornithologist J. Drew Lanham, which
opens with an illustration that includes at the bottom right a severed
head of John James Audubon lying on the ground— a monument fallen.
While Audubon did not ask that white conservationists who came half
a century after him build a monument in his honor, he certainly would
have appreciated the intense admiration his art has generated over the
past two centuries. And while he couldn’t have anticipated the fury his
personal failings have provoked, even that may be seen as part of a vigor-
ous and necessary debate about a shared, sustainable future.
Audubon at Sea shines a bright light on, and makes visible, three over-
looked but significant aspects of Audubon’s work and legacy: his writ-
ings on waterbirds as they evolved from imperfect to polished and lyrical
xvi | F o r e w o r d
prose; his seabird drawings, like the unforgettable “Gannet” (plate 12);
and a new focus especially on the seabirds that are now in peril even if
they remain out of our sight. The book adds a significant new chapter
in our understanding and appreciation of Audubon as an imperfect and
troubled nineteenth-century polymath— an artist, ornithologist, writer.
Audubon’s work will live on in new debates and conversations, in which
Audubon at Sea will play an important role.
— Subhankar Banerjee
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sources for the Texts
Part I of this book comprises excerpts from John James Audubon’s 1826
journal aboard the Delos, transcribed directly from the original manu-
script, held at the Field Museum in Chicago, with permission. To pre-
serve the flavor of the original, we have retained Audubon’s inconsistent
punctuation and spelling. His erratic capitalizations are a feature of his
style, and we have not attempted to fix them, although the difference
between lower- and uppercase letters is not always clear, and we have
occasionally had to rely on conjecture. Spellings that seem particularly
counterintuitive are followed by [sic]. Where Audubon deleted a word
or phrase or inserted or moved a passage, we have reproduced only his
final wording. Later additions in pencil, if they seem likely to have been
written by Audubon, appear in square brackets, as do our own edits or
conjectures. Otherwise, our interventions have been light, limited to
making dashes all the same length and converting underlined words and
phrases to italics. Sections removed are indicated by bracketed ellipses.
The biographies and stories in part II are from the first editions of the
five volumes of Ornithological Biography, or, An Account of the Habits of
the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the
Objects Represented in the Work entitled The Birds of America, and Inter-
spersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners (Edinburgh:
xvii
xviii | S o u r c e s
Adam Black, 1831– 1839), abbreviated in the introductory essay and notes
as OB. The anatomical sections added in volumes 4 and 5, written by his
collaborator William MacGillivray, are not included here, except for the
one that accompanied “Black-footed Albatross.” We have edited only
words that were obvious typographical errors and made cuts in Audu-
bon’s texts only when he is quoting another author or observer at length;
those instances are mentioned in the notes.
The original manuscript journal from Audubon’s expedition up to
Labrador in 1833 is lost. The excerpts in part III follow the sections
included in the first published American edition of Lucy Audubon’s The
Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist (New York: G. P. Putnam and
Sons, 1869). Omitted entries are indicated by ellipses; editorial inter-
ventions are limited to obvious typographical errors or misspelled place
names. As Peter Logan has pointed out, Lucy (or her nemesis, editor
Robert W. Buchanan) misdated several of the entries and occasionally
had trouble deciphering Audubon’s handwriting (Audubon: America’s
Greatest Naturalist and His Voyage of Discovery to Labrador [San Fran-
cisco: Ashbryn Press, 2016], 442n18). Such obvious mistakes, including
garbled species names, have been silently amended.
The plates chosen for this edition are from the double elephant folio
set of The Birds of America originally owned by Robert Ray, which was
purchased, in the early 1940s, by J. K. Lilly and is now held by the Lilly
Library, Indiana University Bloomington. In the notes, we occasionally
refer to Audubon’s original watercolors, held by the New-York Histor-
ical Society.
The introduction, headnotes for parts I, II, and III, and coda were
written by Christoph Irmscher; Christoph Irmscher and Richard King
co-authored the explanatory notes; and the selections from Audubon’s
work were made by Richard King. Despite some basic division of labor,
the final product is the result of a true collaboration, extending to every
detail in the volume.
The history of Audubon’s artwork, including the watercolors and
the various published editions of his prints, has been well documented
by scholars such as Susanne M. Low, in A Guide to Audubon’s Birds of
America, 2nd ed. (1988; New Haven, CT: William Reese Co. and Don-
ald A. Heald, 2002), and Roberta J. M. Olson, in Audubon’s Aviary: The
S o u r c e s | xix
E. K.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Distinction between church music and chamber music, as far as can be
ascertained, was first made by Nic. Vicentino in 1555 in a work entitled L’antica
musica ridotta alla moderna. The term chamber music had its origin in the practice
of rich citizens and princes who regularly kept in their service musicians to provide
private concerts in their chambers (camera) for the delectation of their friends. The
musicians thus employed were given the title of chamber musicians, or chamber
singers. The official title of chamber musician—suonatore di violino da camera—
was probably used for the first time by Carlo Farina (1627) in the service of the
court at Dresden.
[61] Trio sonatas for two oboes and bassoons (1693), Chamber duets (1711), Trio
sonatas for two violins (or two oboes or two flutes) and bassoon (1732), Sonatas
or Trios (1737), four Chamber Duets (1741), two Chamber Duos, Chamber Duets
(1745).
CHAPTER XV
THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE STRING
QUARTET
The four-part habit of writing in instrumental forms—Pioneers of
the string quartet proper: Richter, Boccherini and Haydn; Haydn’s
early quartets—The Viennese era of the string quartet; Haydn’s
Sonnen quartets; his ‘Russian’ quartets; his later quartets—W. A.
Mozart; Sammartini’s influence; Mozart’s early (Italian) quartets;
Viennese influences; Mozart’s Viennese quartets—His last
quartets and their harmonic innovations.
The greater part of the vocal music of the fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries was written in four parts, masses and motets as
well as chansons. Only the madrigal was normally in five. After the
middle of the sixteenth century, however, composers inclined to
increase the number of parts, until four-part writing became rare.
I
Franz Xaver Richter (1709-1789), Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809),
and Luigi Boccherini (1743-1804) brought the string quartet into
popular favor. Richter was, next to Johann Stamitz, the most
significant of the composers at one time or another associated with
the orchestra at Mannheim, who may properly be called the founders
of the classical symphony. Six of his string quartets were published
in London between 1767 and 1771. These were probably written
much earlier. One finds in them the now clearly defined sonata-form;
a careful writing for each of the four instruments (two violins, viola,
and 'cello), which, of course, marks the disappearance of the figured
bass from music of this kind; finally an intimacy of sentiment rather
distinct from the hearty music of the young Mannheim symphonies.
Luigi Boccherini, for many years supposed to have created the string
quartet out of his head, is now generally recognized as a disciple of
the Mannheim reformers. He was himself a brilliant 'cellist. In 1768
his performances at the Concerts spirituels brought him and his
compositions into fame. He held court positions at Madrid, later was
chamber-composer to Frederick Wilhelm II, of Prussia; and after the
death of this king in 1797 went back again to Spain, where,
unhappily, in spite of the friendly patronage of Lucien Buonaparte,
the French ambassador, he was overtaken by poverty and misery.
It would seem, then, that Haydn wrote his quartets just to suit the
requirements of a happy circumstance; that he had no idea of
creating a new art form; that he applied to music for four instruments
the principles of form with which he was already familiar through the
works of Emanuel Bach, and which, moreover, were becoming more
and more familiar to the world by reason of the popular fame of the
Mannheim symphonies. But by this happy circumstance he came
upon the special branch of music which to the end remained wholly
fitting to his genius.
As to the special form of these first quartets there is little to say. The
first twelve, with one exception, have five movements apiece. Of
these, two are usually minuets. The first is usually in the sonata-
form. The fifth quartet has three movements. It was undoubtedly not
only originally conceived as a symphony, but was actually so played,
and may, therefore, be called Haydn’s first symphony. Of the last six
quartets four have four movements; the fourteenth has three and the
sixteenth is the only one of Haydn’s quartets with but two
movements. In this very first series, written for the pleasure of a
music-loving young nobleman, Haydn found himself. They show
each after the other a steady progress in the treatment of
instruments, in the management of form; and, finally, seem to show a
decision, henceforth maintained almost without exception, to limit the
number of movements to four.
All are full of that spirit of joy and healthiness which has ever been
associated with Haydn’s music in general. They introduced a new
spirit into the art of music—the spirit of humor, sunny and naïve. On
account of this they were welcomed in all the countries of Europe,
and spread such general delight that before the middle of the ‘sixties
Haydn was among the best known of all musicians. A Parisian
publisher named Vénier included the first six of Haydn’s quartets in a
series of works di varii autori which were published in Paris about
1764 with the motto: Les noms inconnus bons à connaître. In this
series there were forty-six numbers, of which Haydn’s quartets
formed the sixth. Other composers represented were Jomelli,
Stamitz, Christian Bach and Boccherini.[65] By 1765 editions had
appeared in Amsterdam and in London as well.
II
During the years Haydn lived at Esterhazy he composed between
forty and fifty string quartets. These were published usually in groups
of six, after 1781 by Artaria; and the appearance of a fresh set of
Haydn’s quartets was announced in the papers of Vienna and Berlin,
and was occasion for enthusiasm among the amateurs of most of
the great capitals of Europe. It was the age of the string quartet, a
time when amateurs and dilettanti, men of wealth and influence,
often of culture, met at least once a week to play together. Musicians
were everywhere in demand.
Haydn wrote six quartets (opus 9, Nos. 1-6) in the year 1769,
numbers 21-26, inclusive, in Pohl’s index, and six more before 1771,
numbers 27-32. In both these series the treatment of the first violin is
conspicuous, and it is noteworthy that during these years he wrote
most of his concertos for the violin. The first and last movements of
the quartet in C major, No. 21 (opus 9, No. 1), seem to be almost
solo music for the first violin, which not only introduces all the
principal themes, but which in many pages adds brilliant ornament.
In the first movement of No. 24 (opus 9, No. 4), in D minor, again
one is reminded of a violin concerto. Likewise in the first movement
of No. 22 (opus 9, No. 2), in E-flat major; and before the end of the
slow movement in this quartet, which here, as in most of these two
series, is the third movement, following the minuet, an elaborate
cadenza is written out for the first violin. In the quartets Nos. 27-32
(opus 17, Nos. 1-6), such a brilliant treatment of the first violin is
even more conspicuous. The other instruments play for the most part
the rôle of accompaniment. The quartets are all in four movements
and in the majority, as has been said, the minuet is the second
movement and the slow movement is the third.
Over all there is the delightful play of Haydn’s humor. Perhaps the
best known and loved of the series is that in G major, No. 31 (opus
17, No. 5).
The next series of six quartets, Nos. 33-38 (opus 20, Nos. 1-6), were
written about 1774 and were known in Berlin as the Sonnen
quartets. In 1800 they were published by Artaria in Vienna and
dedicated by Haydn to Nicolaus Zmeskall von Domanowecz, one of
the earliest admirers of Beethoven, to whom, by the way, the latter
dedicated his own quartet in F minor, opus 95. The earlier quartets,
for all they were generally hailed with praise and admiration, had not
gone wholly scatheless. There were conservatives, especially in the
north of Germany, who looked askance at the entrance of humor into
music, who felt the art was in danger thereby of degradation, who
regarded Haydn as a musical joke-maker. These quartets, Nos. 33-
38, may have been written by Haydn to prove his command of what
was considered the indisputably serious and dignified art of
composition. All are contrapuntal in style, intricate and serious in
manner if not in mood. In the first movement of the first (opus 20, No.
1), in E-flat major, the style is compact and full of imitations. The
minuet is short; the slow movement, affettuoso et sostenuto, closely
and richly woven, distinctly polyphonic music.
The second of the series in C major (opus 20, No. 2) has for its final
movement a fugue with four subjects, and the last movements of the
fifth and sixth are both fugues, the former on two, the latter on three
subjects. The entire series at once became currently known as the
‘great’ quartets.
In 1781 another series of six (opus 33, Nos. 1-6) was published by
Artaria in Vienna. A female figure on the carefully engraved title-
page gave to the set for some time the name of Jungfern Quartette;
but they are now more generally known as the Russian quartets.
They were dedicated to Archduke Paul of Russia, and had been
played at the apartments of the Archduchess during a visit to Vienna.
They have also gone by the name of Gli Scherzi, for the reason that
in each the place of the minuet is taken by a scherzo.[66] They bear
the numbers 39-44 in Pohl’s index. No. 41 (opus 33, No. 3) is
perhaps the best known; and has often been called the ‘Bird
Quartet.’ The first movement suggests the twitter and song of birds,
partly by the nature of the principal theme, with its four long notes
and their graces, and the descending turning figures which follow
them; and partly by the nature of the accompaniment, which is
staccato or half staccato throughout, now in naïvely repeated thirds
shared by second violin and viola, now in figures that imitate the
chirping of the principal theme. The trio of the second movement
suggests birds again. It is a dialogue between first and second
violins, staccato and chirping throughout, in effective contrast with
the main body of the movement, which is legato, and sotto voce as
well. The Adagio is wonderfully calm and hushed. The last
movement, to quote Pohl, brings the cuckoo with fresh life and all the
forest folk answer him. ‘The merry figures fly from voice to voice,
after each other, against each other, in twos and threes, all with the
“springing” bow.’
Such a gain shows in the six quartets (opus 50, Nos. 1-6) published
in 1787 and dedicated by Haydn to the king of Prussia. These are in
Pohl’s index, Nos. 45 to 50. The first movements are all distinctly
Haydn in treatment, though a touch of seriousness in No. 48 (opus
50, No. 4) suggests Mozart. The second movements are all slow;
and in all six quartets the minuet has come back to its regular place
as third in the group. The last movement of No. 48 is in the form of a
fugue. The last movements of Nos. 45, 46, 47, and 49 (opus 50,
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5), however, are in Haydn’s inimitable manner. In the
last movement of No. 46 (opus 50, No. 2) there is a suggestion of a
theme from Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute.’ No. 50 (opus 50, No. 6) has the
nickname ‘Frog Quartet.’
III
Mozart and Haydn are in no regard more different than in their
approaches to mastery of their art. Haydn received almost no
training. He developed his powers unaided and without direction.
The circumstances of his life at Esterhazy cut him off from general
musical intercourse and he was, as he himself said, practically
forced to be original. The string quartet offered him one of the
happiest means of self-expression; and to that end in general he
used it, putting his kindly humor and fun freely into music.
Mozart, on the other hand, was carefully guided, even from infancy,
in the way which custom has approved of as the proper way for a
musician to travel. Surely before he was ten years old he was no
mean master of the science of harmony and counterpoint, thanks to
the strict attentions of his father; and he was hardly out of his
mother’s arms before he was carried about Europe, to display his
marvellous genius before crowned heads of all nations, and, what is
even more significant, before the greatest musicians of his age.
One by one the influences of the men with whom he came in contact
make their appearance in his youthful music. In London there was
Christian Bach, in Paris, Jean Schobert, in Vienna, old Wagenseil;
and at the time he wrote his first string quartet—in March, 1770—he
was almost completely under the influence of Giovanni Battista
Sammartini, organist at Milan, once teacher of Gluck, and always
one of the most gifted of Italian musicians.
Mozart’s next ventures with this form are the three divertimenti
written at Salzburg early in 1772 (K. 136, 137, 138). In these there
are traces of the influence of Michael Haydn at work on the Italian
style of which Mozart had become master. The first is distinctly in the
style of Haydn. The second is again predominantly Italian, notably in
the equal importance given to the two violins, as in the quartets of
Sammartini. The third, the most effective of the three, seems to
represent a good combination of the two other styles. The final rondo
is especially charming and brilliant. These three quartets were
probably of a set of six. The remaining three have disappeared. In
Köchel’s Index they are numbers 211, 212, and 213, in the appendix.
In the fall of the same year Mozart was again in Italy, and to this
period in his life belong six quartets (K. 155-160, inclusive). The first
seems to have been written, according to a letter from Leopold
Mozart, to pass away a weary time at an inn in Botzen. The very first
quartet of all had been written at Lodi, with much the same purpose,
two years before. This quartet in D major is, on the whole, inferior to
the five others which follow in the same series and which were
probably written within the next few months at Milan. The quartet in
G major, K. 156, was probably written in November or December,
1772. It is strongly Italian in character. Notice in the first movement a
multiplicity of themes or subjects, instead of the development of one
or two, which was the German manner. Notice, also, that among the
thematic subjects the second has the greatest importance; not, as in
German quartets of this time, the first. The second movement, an
adagio in E minor, has a serious and sad beauty.
The two quartets which follow in the series (K. 157, 158) are
masterpieces in pure Italian style. The slow movements of both, like
the slow movement in the preceding quartet, are worthy of the fully
mature Mozart. An enthusiasm for, or even an appreciation of, this
style which lends itself so admirably to the string quartet is now
unhappily rare. These early quartets of Mozart are passed by too
often with little mention, and that in apologetic vein. We may quote a
passage from the ‘Life of Mozart,’ previously referred to. ‘This (K.
157), we say, is the purest, the most perfect, of the series; also the
most Italian, that which is brilliant with a certain intoxication of light
and poetry. Of the influence of Haydn there is but a trace here and
there in the scoring. The coda, with new material, at the end of the
andante may likewise be regarded as an echo of the recent Salzburg
style. But for the rest, for the invention of the ideas and the treatment
of them, there is not a measure in this quartet which does not come
straight from the spirit of Italy (génie italien), such as we see
transformed in the quartets of a Tartini, and yet again in the lighter
and easier works of a Sacchini or a Sammartini. Numerous little,
short, melodious subjects, the second of which is always the most
developed, an extreme care in the melodic design of the ritornelles,
a free counterpoint rarely studied (peu poussé), consisting especially
of rapid imitations of one voice in another; and all this marvellously
young, and at the same time so full of emotion that we seem to hear
the echo of a whole century of noble traditions. * * * Incomparable
blending of gaiety and tears, a poem in music, much less vast and
deep, indeed, than the great quartets of the last period in Vienna, but
perhaps more perfectly revealing the very essence of the genius of
Mozart.’ And of the quartet in F major (K. 158): ‘This quartet is
distinguished from the preceding one by something in the rhythm,
more curt and more marked, which makes us see even more clearly
to what an extent Mozart underwent the influence, not only of Italian
music of his own time, but of older music belonging to the venerable
school issued from Coulli. * * * From the point of view of
workmanship, the later quartets of Mozart will surpass immeasurably
those of this period; but, let it be said once more, we shall never
again find the youthful, ardent, lovely flame, the inspiration purely
Latin but none the less impassioned, of works like the quartet in C
and in F of this period. Let no one be astonished at the warmth of
our praise of these works, the beauty of which no one hitherto seems
to have taken the pains to appreciate. Soon enough, alas! we shall
have to temper our enthusiasm in the study of Mozart’s work, and
regret bitterly that the obligation to follow the “galant” style of the
time led the young master to forget his great sources of inspiration in
years passed.’
The remaining two quartets in the series (K. 159, 160) were written,
one in Milan in February, 1773, the other probably begun in Milan
about this time but finished a few months later in Salzburg.
IV