Byron's Passovers and Nathan's melodies - Lord Byron and Isaac Nathan

Judaism, Wntr, 2002 by Jeremy Hugh Baron

THIS IS THE STORY OF THE MUSICIAN, ISAAC NATHAN, and his connections with two Passovers, one in the year 701 before the common era, the other in 1816 of this era.

Isaac Nathan (1) was born in Canterbury in 1792, the son of Menahem Mona, a cantor who claimed to be the illegitimate son of the last Polish King, Stanislaus Paniatowski, by his Jewish mistress. In 1805 he went to Solomon Lyon's secular boarding school in Cambridge, the first in Anglo-Jewry, which was based upon Moses Mendelssohn's enlightenment movement in Berlin. Nathan then attended the University but his religion debarred him from taking a degree. A musical prodigy who regularly woke his family by playing the violin and harpsichord at 4 A.M., he went to London to study under Domenico Corri (1746-1825) who, like Haydn, had been trained by Nicolo Porpora. By 1810 Nathan was Corn's chief assistant. In 1812, when 20, he wooed and married against the wishes of her titled family, Rosetta Worthington, aged 17. They had two weddings, one in church, and one in synagogue after her conversion.

It was only in the reign of George the Third (1760-1820) that Jews became socially acceptable in Britain. Isaac had a rapid rise to fame, becoming music master to Princess Charlotte, and musical librarian to the Prince Regent, later King George IV. Nathan tried to rediscover and restore the music of the Temple, and claimed to have adopted some of the ancient Hebrew melodies in his own compositions. However, he needed famous poets to write lyrics to his music or for him to set to music as songs. Nathan approached Walter Scott who declined the invitation. Similar collaborations had recently been pub.. lished of Indian, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh melodies.

He approached a friend and colleague, John Braham, a former cantor, who had been baptized and had become the leading tenor in London. Braham agreed to sing any songs of a Byron/Nathan collaboration at a major theater in London. In June 1814 Nathan sent Byron a musical setting of a poem from his "Bride of Abydos," but Byron did not reply. (2) Byron's friend Douglas Kinneard intervened, and Byron wrote warmly "My dear Nathan" and invited him to dinner. Byron became enthusiastic about the project, and wrote out a 16-line poem "Saul," in less than an hour with no erasures. He then wrote to his fiancee, Annabella Milbanke, on October 20th on how he was going "to write words for a musical composer who is going to publish the real old undisputed Hebrew melodies which are beautiful & to which David & the prophets actually sang the 'songs of Zion'--I have done nine or ten--on the sacred model--partly from Job &c--& partly my own imagination...--it is odd enough that this should fall to my lot--who have been abused as 'an infidel'--Augusta says 'they will call me a Jew next."' (3) Byron's biographer Leslie Alexis Marchand commented: "The sad bewailing complaints of the Old Testament, which he had read through and through before his eighth year, struck a responsive chord in Byron's being. And the Hebraic strain, bound up with his Calvinistic fatalism, was congenial to his present mood." (4)

Byron had the usual ups and downs in composing these poems. The Byron wedding was on January 2nd 1815 and Annabella spent part of their honeymoon-what Byron called their treaclemoon--copying out the poems, "pleased no doubt that he should turn his hand to biblical subjects." Later in January Byron wrote to Hobhouse: "The Melodies--damn the melodies--I have other tunes-or rather tones-to think of...." (5) In February and March he wrote to Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, "Curse the Melodies and the Tribes to boot. Braham is to assist--or hath assisted--but will do no more good than a second physician. I merely interfered to oblige a whim of K's, and all I have got by it was a "speech" and a receipt for stewed oysters." (6)

And in a more irritated vein, he added, "Sunburn N[athan]!--why do you always twit me with his vile Ebrew nasalities?"

Hebrew Melodies Ancient and Modern was published by Nathan in April 1815 in a large folio at one guinea, (7) in a print run of 10,000 and with the frontispiece framed in architectural gothic by Edward Blore. (A year later in 1815 John Murray produced an edition of Byron's poems.) (8) To publicize Nathan's edition John Braham helped with the music, co-authored the book, and was given half the profits. (9) In all there were probably 50 songs in the various editions. (10) Slater calculated that only seven of Nathan's melodies have been identified as synagogal music (four originally non-Jewish) and only two might have been ancient. (11) He commented, "Pious persons who bought the Hebrew Melodies in the expectation of finding sacred poetry by Lord Byron found instead a book almost as secular as the Bride of Abydos. Nine of the poems are Biblical in subject but Byronic in treatment; two are love songs; five are reflective lyrics, neither Jewish nor Christian; and five are expressions of what might be called proto- Zionism." (13)