A Taste of Fry
A short presentation of William Fry’s Leonora.
William Fry’s Leonora premiered in 1845 and was the first ever American opera to be written and also the first opera to be written by a Native-born American composer. Leonora also features a libretto that was arranged by the first Native-born American Librettist: William Fry’s own brother. According to Lehigh University “Fry was the son of a prominent Native-born American family. His father was the publisher of the National Gazette, and his mother was the granddaughter of Judge Plunket Fleeson” one of the first appointed civil servants after the revolutionary war. Fry’s music career began when he was very young, he taught himself piano and wrote his first Overture at 14 (Lehigh) He was not primarily a musician. Fry studied journalism at Mt. St. Mary’s College in Maryland and it wasn’t until after his return that he studied with Paris Conservatory graduate, Leopold Meignen. Meignen, former conductor for Napoleon’s army, was now a traveling musician who had just started an orchestra in Philadelphia, Fry’s home-town.
Preliminary research shows that American Colonial music was certainly different from European Classical music but through my examination of Fry’s original score I found many instances of learned, galant and Romantic techniques including Mannheim gestures, nods to French overture, ornamentation, and giant contrasts in dynamics. Fry was very thorough in his writing and included markings for tempo and dynamics following the tradition of Beethoven. Though Leonora was written during the European Romantic period, it is not as well crafted as European Romantic composers. Fry certainly got quite a lot of his European writing style from his mentor, Meignen. Though he definitely pulled inspiration from other operas he had attended in Philadelphia including composers such as Bellini, Rossini, and Puccini.
Evidence:
You can clearly see the notation style of the Romantic period in Fry’s original scores. He has clearly marked expression, tempo, and articulation markings. He also includes Romantic ornamentation as evidenced by the particular patterns of these melismatic sections and fully transcribed Cadenzas (mm 92-94). I have also highlighted some instances of Baroque overture and Mannheim birds from the learned and galant periods respectively. (mm 64) (mm 59)
Taking a quick look at this score comparison provided by Francesco Izzo in their dissertation titled “William Henry Fry’s ‘Leonora’: The Italian Connection” we can see the definite impact of Bellini’s La Straniera in Fry’s score. Fry utilizes the same motifs, key and a similar melody that he changes slightly to fit his score. William Fry actually attended a performance of Norma in Philadelphia in 1841 and published a glowing review in his father’s newspaper: The National Gazette around the same time he began his composition of Leonora. (Izzo) Fry follows the Italian opera tradition of using a sung through score. This is a pretty big deal because German and French opera composers usually used a mix between spoken and sung recitative and Fry’s musical mentor studied in France so Fry likely learned this technique through watching Italian opera in Philadelphia. Furthermore, The recitative is generally Secco recitative which includes a minimal accompaniment while the vocalists were singing over top. This was popularized by Mozart and later Rossini. We know that Fry preferred a bel canto composition style and praised Italian composers through his publishings in The National Gazette through his lifetime.
I still have so much more to learn on this subject. I aim to find out how this changes the way that we, as performers, interact with and interpret colonial American music and also how William Fry’s compositions affected other composers at the time.
Original manuscript download: