okay, but random question that got into my mind: do we know if Lafayette had an accent?? 'cause like, I always imagine him talking with this strong french accent even after spending some good time on the US, so, did he had an accent? or at least some that we know about??
And thank you very muchh <3
Hello msrandonstuff,
random question are the best questions if you ask me :-)
Sadly, there are normally not too many information about the voice and accents of persons from the past. La Fayette obviously lived in the pre-recording age (the first time a human voice was recorded was April 9, 1860 in France) and we therefore have rely on descriptions.
There is little about La Fayette’s sound of voice, but "much more" about his accent. He started learning on his sea voyage to America. Given the relatively short time and his seasickness, his English still needed a lot of fixing as he arrived in America. He was gifted with languages and as one of the few French members of the Continental Army (especially at the time of his arrival) forced to speak and learn. His English improved rapidly, his accent grew less noticeable.
When he returned to America for one final time in 1824/1825, he had more than 40 years of experience speaking English and people noted his fluency and command of the language. A reporter of The Saturday Evening Post noted that:
He speaks the English language with fluency, and when animated, with eloquence; his pronunciation alone betraying that he is by birth a Frenchman.
Fredrick Butler recalled in his book “Memoirs of the Marquis de La Fayette, Major-general in the Revolutionary War” a meeting between La Fayette and the 85-year old Revolutionary War veteran William Russell. Butler wrote:
The General shook both the veteran’s hands in a most affectionate manner, and in an annunciation, that slightly marked a foreign accent, said he was extremely happy to take his old friend by the hand once more, as it as it recalled to his memory the delightful association of his youth.
I however have read accounts stating that his accent was still very heavy. In the paper “Departure of the Nation’s Guest” they write with regard to a meeting between President John Quincy Adams, La Fayette and some other guest:
Pausing for a few moments, while all was silence, he [La Fayette] retired a few paces, and delivered his reply. The beloved sounds, marked as they were by the strong French accent, fell with electric power upon the ears of all who heard it.
Despite this last account, most sources claim that, while still there, his accent was barely noticeable. In general, his accent appeared to have always sounded quite pleasant to the ear. It was also noted that his accent did not always sounded French – he could have passed for an Italian or Spaniard as well with his accent.
These reports are all from later in La Fayette’s life and I never really stumbled over a description of his way of speaking when he was a younger man.
I hope that answered your question and that you have/had a wonderful day!
Hey! I love your work about Lafayette and I'm slowly going through your posts,there are so many! :D I have 3 random unrelated questions that you might have already answered somewhere, so feel free to ignore them if you have. 1) what's your reasoning behind choosing to use "La Fayette" rather than "Lafayette" as he mostly styled it himself? I know the (possible) reasons why he did that, just curious about you. 2) where does your URL come from? And 3) have your ever written about the Hermione?
Hello echo-bleu,
it is always great to hear that what I am doing here is not merely for self-amusement but that people enjoy it :-)
You asked three questions so you shall receive three answers.
First - the spelling. I mainly spell La Fayette the way I do out of habit. The first book I ever read about La Fayette (Memoirs of the Marquis de La Fayette, Major-General of the Revolutionary Army of the United States of America, 1825 by Fredrick Butler) spelled him in two words and that somewhat stuck with me. Furthermore here in Europe he is quite often still referred to as “La Fayette” instead of “Lafayette”. “La Fayette” is furthermore the “original” spelling of the name. His ancestors spelled themselves this way (although it should be noted that we have letters from his grandfather that probably say “Lafayette”) and it is also the name that appears on official records (La Fayette’s marriage contact for example). He himself spelled his name any way he wanted. Many editors of his papers have unified the spelling but a look at the handwritten originals shows you that he wrote “Lafayette”, “LaFayette” and almost any other variation one can think of. Some people say that there is no letter that has a space between the La and the Fayette while other people (myself included) would argue that there are letters with such a spacing. Same goes for his friends and acquaintances - you see different spellings in their writings and sometimes even different spellings in one and the same document. “Lafayette” in one word though is definitely more time efficient to write and easier to remember, especially for his English speaking friends. The Marquis also often used abbreviations of his name, in that case it was most often “LA”, “L.F” or “L.F.” and the placing of the dots can be used as an argument that La and Fayette were intended to be separate. Some of the most well regarded La Fayette-scholars could not agree on the spelling. It seems that that now and then many people were unsure of the spelling and that La Fayette himself more or less did not care and with all this confusion going on I stick to what I initially learned and came in contact with - although I am aware that it is not the most traditional choice to say the least.
You sometimes also see the theory that the purposely changed the spelling of his name with the onset of the French Revolution but this theory is mostly discarded now. I just recently read an essay by Louis R. Gottschalk on the whole spelling matter (an article I only partial agree with, but then again, who am I to disagree?) and he explained that there is not really much evidence for such a statement. There is the writing of one rather questionable biographer to back this up and the circumstance that apparently Adrienne purposefully changed the spelling from “la Fayette” to “Lafayette” during the Revolution.
Second - I chose the URL “nordleuchten” because it reminded me of my home, northern lights and lighthouses (and because that one was still available ;-))
Third - yes and no. I have a number of pictures from Hermione here on the blog and also mentioned the ship several times in my posts but there is no post solely dedicated to this special ship. If you would like, I could make one in the future :-)
thank you for your question. I assume you meant “Memoirs” (by all means, correct me if I am wrong with this assumption). In that case first on my list would be the Memoirs that La Fayette wrote himself. He wrote them in French (Memoires, correspondance et manuscrits du general Lafayette, Publies par sa Famille) and his family published them after his death. To absolutely no ones surprise, they were translated into English in record time (Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Published by his Family). They are split into several volumes and the French originals as well as the English translations can be “bought” for free via Google Books, they can be read via places like the Internet Achieve and they are also still in print (although it is sometimes a bit tricky to find them as prints). If you are reading his memoirs, do not be confused by the fact that La Fayette wrote the vast majority in the third person. He started with the first person and just changed it mid paragraph for no apparent reason.
Next up would be a book that La Fayette’s wife Adrienne and his youngest daughter Virginie wrote in cooperation. It is titled The Life of Madame de Lafayette by Mme de Lasteyrie, her daughter, preceded by the Life of the Duchess d’Ayen by Mme de Lafayette, her daughter. A great book with many interesting letters and family insights that is often overlooked. It can as well be read for free through different sources.
For me, a memoir is per definition written by the person in question but I think the “official” definition is broader. Therefor let me recommend a few other books. Memoirs of General Lafayette by Samuel Lorenzo Knapp as well as Recollections of the private life of General Lafayette/Souvenirs sur la vie privée du général Lafayette by Jules Germain Cloquet. Cloquet was La Fayette’s friend and physician. An honourable mention goes to Memoirs of the Marquis de La Fayette, Major-General in the Revolutionary Army, together with His Tour through the United States by Frederick Butler - the first book I ever read about La Fayette.
There are many more books that fall into the category of “Memoirs”. I once made a list with all the books that I could find in order to one day read them all and let me tell you – it was a long list. Many of these books are also quite repetitive. They have the same sources, the same structure and similar narratives. It is however quite interesting to look at the personal connection between the authors and La Fayette. Some of them knew La Fayette personally and were friends with him, some of them served with him, some of them actually disliked him but still write about him, some of them were commissioned to write about La Fayette – there is a wide variety.
I hope that helped and I hope you have/had a gorgeous day!
Music for Glassblower’s Studio and Broken Toy Piano dissolves the idea of the field recording until it is almost nothing. Fields, Richard Kamerman seems to suggest, cannot be captured or reproduced without adding something to their capture and reproduction. Worse still (or maybe better still), fields and recordings can lie and deceive and create their own environments. Kamerman has been recording and releasing music since at least 2006, if not under his given name, then as Frederick Butler, Trace Being, or Extreme Light Infrastructure. He's collaborated with Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg in Delicate Sen, with Reed Evan Rosenberg in Tandem Electronics, and with Steve Flato and Corey Larkin in Fyxzis. He's also the person behind Copy For Your Records, which has released music by Manfred Werder, Jason Kahn, Howard Stelzer, Keroaän (that's Ian M. Fraser with Reed Evan Rosenberg), and, most recently, The New York Review of Cocksucking, Kamerman's collaboration with Brooklyn-based saxophonist and improviser Michael Foster. His approach to music and sound is all-inclusive, as open to noise and unintended consequences as it is to location, habitat, and biography, all of which make an appearance in his list for this week as well.
1. Door does impression of Miles Davis
2. Max Neuhaus – Times Square
Since 1977 (with the exception of one lost decade from '92 to '02 when it wasn't running here), this Neuhaus installation has been producing these harmonic bell-like tones from below a subway grate on a pedestrian island in the middle of Times Square almost continuously. It's a strange moment of peace in the middle of all of the midtown chaos, but if you don't know it's there you might easily walk across it without a second's thought. As fleeting as it is beautiful if you don't stop to listen. I hate passing through Times Square most of the time but since I work only about five blocks from this piece, I sometimes like to visit it late at night to clear my head.
3. Greg Kelley – Live in Ghent, Belgium 5/2007
4. Tamio Shiraishi & Sean Meehan – Summer Concert 2013
Sean and Tamio used to do these annual outdoor sets. Hopefully it's something they'll pick up again. They'd pick an obscure location with interesting acoustics that played into their unique approaches to their instruments. And with a certain limited notice, they'd set up to play. After the sets, I remember Sean cutting up a watermelon to share among the crowd. My friend Barney posted this footage of their 2013 show which took place in the Willets Point neighborhood in Queens right behind Citi Field where the Mets play. Known as "The Iron Triangle" for all the auto-repair junk shops. Back then it didn't even have paved roads, sidewalks, or sewers. It's all been cleaned up now. Everything's been demolished and they're busy building up a new housing development. Part of it seems to have already become part of the ballpark's parking lot.
5. M.I.A. – “Borders”
To be completely honest, I've been listening to nothing but M.I.A.'s new album AIM since it came out a couple weeks ago. So. Here's the opening track from the current soundtrack of my life.
6. Vagina Dentata Organ – Un Chien Catalan (”Chant Septième”)
Jordi Valls and his Vagina Dentata Organ project were definitely my introduction to the concept of "antimusic"—maybe even (or especially) before I'd heard his work. When it was all abstract concept to me. This was a guy who had released records consisting of the (supposed) last moments of everyone's lives at Jonestown or a recording made in the middle of some annual festival at a small Spanish village where people violently beat thousands of drums nonstop for two days. Or records of just a growling dog. Or this one which was nothing but a howling Harley Davidson motorcycle. For Valls it was all about some kind of metaphysical brutal eroticism. And I could get behind that.
7. Damion Romero – Idle
Nine years after a the above VDO album, Damion Romero decided to drop a little 3" CD-R of a car enginge recording. What I think makes this distinct though, and why it meant something very different to me when I stumbled on it, was that this time it clearly is about music. Not some erotic death drive or even engine roar as industrial noise. The deliberate long single take makes you focus on the fluctuating rhythmic patterns of the 1968 Plymouth Road Runner idling in the driveway. And even without layers of phasing patterns like a Steve Reich tape piece, it's totally hypnotic.
8. Lizzo – “Phone”
Before the current musical myopia that consists of listening to M.I.A. all the time, it was Lizzo and her album Big GRRRL Small World. But this new video just dropped more recently, and it reminded me I actually got to see her do this song live at a show at the Mercury Lounge a few months back. Just play it through and thank me later.
9. The Gerogerigegege – “1991年3月2日 川崎クラブチッタ”
Other people probably got into Gero for the short-track harsh guitar/drums/screaming grind-noise of most of the catalog. Seven-inches like Yellow Trash Bazuka. Five-second freakouts at a time. Then do it again. But I fell in love with the confusing ones. Like The Sexual Behavior in the Human Male EP where the titular centerpiece track is total dad rock overlaid with narration about Kinsey's research about male sexuality (followed by a recording of a prank call with Juntaro jerking off on the phone). Or the one this cut comes from: Live Greatest Hits. This track is almost nothing but one goofy drum machine preset speeding up or slowing down and a lot of orgasmic moaning that sometimes forms words I don't understand for 17 minutes followed by some equally cheesy Japanese pop song that blasts on and turns into a singalong. Or at least I assume it's probably actually a live set since there's audience cheering in the background. But they cut out a couple times too, so I don't even know that for sure.
10. Gilius van Bergeijk – Sonate (1970)
I first discovered this piece on a compilation disc called International Live Electronic Music Incorporated released by the label X-OR. So, although the Youtube video doesn't have as much info, I can tell you it's a recording from June 6, 1970, at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague featuring the composer Gilius van Bergeijk on Cor Angalis, Dick Raaijmakers on electronics, and Annelies Dieudonné on piano. I wish I could see how the score is written out. It's a really wacky piece. In three distinct movements. All honking and thumping and banging and scraping around. Then suddenly piano-led, quite traditional and, frankly, quite pretty. Until someone starts breaking things again or setting off firecrackers or something. And it sounds like a door has been opened to let in the hubbub of a crowd outside the concert hall. There's even mid-movement applause from the distance while they play. And I wonder whether all of these crowd sounds are really coming from nearby or if they are triggered samples as part of the "electronics" in the work (noticing themes in my list yet?). Then the third movement kicks off like a wind tunnel and we're off again into a hybrid world of lovely piano arpeggios and angry honking reeds that sound like they're being run through the dirtiest ring modulator.
I think the first time I heard this one, I had to listen to the whole thing all over again right away. And it's a 50 minute investment just to listen once. Like I knew I found something special but I hadn't been able to process it. It just overwhelmed my system. Needed to try again and understand why. But from the opening orchestral tune up into these rolling cinematic looping patterns (that my boyfriend referred to as my Philip Glass alarm clock when it woke us up in my stereo one morning) that's met with screaming wailing female vocals and the sounds of physical violence—objects being thrown around, something is slammed, a male voice declares, "pass the microphone!"—that just keeps getting increasingly ragged until its abrupt end. To the silence that follows (or near silence, as there's still someone shuffling around, breathing occasionally, in the dark) to the extended mysteries of repetitive off-sync looping of what sound like mostly human body noises and like comedy violence sound effects to the smashed piano chords that lead the listener to the album's final shotgun blasts. Younger me wanted to form a narrative; imagine a story being told. But I don't think there is any "understanding" this one. There's just letting it drag you through all the feels.
12. Vince Staples – “Lift Me Up”
I came to Vince Staples's Summertime '06 a little later than other people I think. Like I guess he'd been getting attention as a friend of Earl Sweatshirt's before this first album came out? So there was buzz and excitement. But I missed his prior mixtapes and the hubbub. So when this suddenly hit me, it hit me hard. This whole album is incredibly bleak. The lyrical content and its deadpan delivery as much as the beats. This is not a record that fills anyone with hope. It is a record that connects with your most repressed pain. And for that, I love it so much more.
