Writing Women In: Andalusia Grant, and the year was 1824
Only eleven new students joined the Royal Academy of Music community in 1824. The institution, now in its second year, was already finding its finances squeezed, and almost all the students from the previous year were still in situ. In this year, the boys were clearly chosen for their ability to swell the ranks of the orchestra – they comprised a violinist, a bass player and three flutes – while of the six girls, two went on to teach (very successfully), two retired on marriage (including the youngest of the famed Bellchambers sisters), and the remaining two became the extremely well-known Madame Anna Bishop and Lady Molesworth. I have written in other places of Anna Bishop and her colourful life, so today’s focus is on Andalusia Grant, also known in later life as Mrs Temple West and eventually as Lady Molesworth.
Andalusia Grant was born in Ireland in December 1809, and thus was fourteen when she entered the Academy in June 1824. Her obituary in 1888 wrote that ‘her father, Mr. Bruce Carstairs, was a Scotchman, her mother was of Spanish descent. Their means were small, and the education of their child would have been a difficulty but for her early shown musical gifts. These were cultivated at the Royal Academy of Music, and it was hoped that a brilliant career on the lyric stage or in the concert-room would be the result.’ The fees were rescinded for Grant, who later would donate £300 to the Academy as acknowledgement of having ‘received her gratuitous professional education in the institution.’ Her principal study was singing, for which she gained a prize in 1825. She also of course had the extra subjects such as harmony that meant that like her older contemporary Susannah Collier, she was permitted to inscribe some of her compositions into the community volumes (although their brevity suggests that this was not where her main interests lie!).
GB-Lam MS 204, Vol II, Student Compositions. Royal Academy of Music Special Collections.
Grant sang in many of the Academy monthly exhibitions from 1825 to 1827, always to good reviews. As was the norm for singers, she started in ensemble performances such as the sextet from Don Giovanni, moving on to duets and eventually solos. In November 1826 she sang an aria from Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito and a serenata by Ferdinando Paer, in which she ‘displayed a mingled strength and melody of voice, guided by a pure taste, and combined with a degree of ease and spirit, which hold forth more than a promise of first-rate excellence.’ The Handel she performed the following month was approved of for its ‘very chaste and effective manner’. By 1827, she was taking leave of absence from the Academy to sing at Covent Garden, where again the reviews were excellent. The Mozart she sang in June ‘was rapturously encored; her voice is remarkably powerful and sweet, aided by science and taste; and she may be considered to have made, what is termed a complete hit.’
Andalusia Grant left the Academy in December 1827. The next few years were busy performing-wise, both in Britain and abroad. She was a regular at the Drury Lane Theatre, where she appeared in new and lighter works such as John Davy’s Rob Roy Macgregor and James Cobb’s Paul and Virginia, a Romeo and Juliet-esque story that included shipwreck and exotic islands. One review in particular described her both physically and vocally:
“In person Miss Grant is tall and elegant; her face is well formed, her head well set, and ornamented with a quantity of auburn hair. She appears to be about eighteen years of age. Her voice, which is the more important point with a singer, is a soprano, generally clear and fine, without, however, very great compass. Her upper notes are very rich, but lower in the scale her tones become thick and husky. She has, however, a composite knowledge of music and most scientific execution, joined to great skill in the management of her voice. Upon the whole she deserves the favourable reception she met with. Her acting was not goof, and as this is a matter to which since the excellence displayed by Miss Paton the public expect that a singer will carefully attend, she will do well to make it her particular study.”
This lack of stagecraft appears in other reviews and is an indication of a lack in the syllabus of the Academy at the time.
Grant’s success continued over the next few years, in both public and private performances. Then, in 1831, ‘whilst she was trying a song at the house of Mr. Loder, the music-master, at Bath, Mr. Temple West, an elderly virtuoso, who had come in for his violoncello lessons, caught the tones, looked over the curtain of the glass door, saw the singer, and asked for an introduction.’ Little is known of their relationship, which was cut short by Temple West’s death in 1839. Six years later, Grant married William Molesworth of the Pencarrow seat in Cornwall. This marriage was to set the tone of the rest of Andalusia’s life, as it afforded her both the income and the space to host salons, mount concerts, and preside over diverse social gatherings of many hues. This social life has borne much scrutiny over the years, especially the famous men who dined at her table, such as Charles Dickens, Arthur Sullivan and Napoleon III. She has come under fire for driving her husband’s parliamentary career, although this comes with an admission that had she not done so, it is unlikely that the Pencarrow MP would have risen to Cabinet rank. His family had not been in favour of the marriage, probably in part given the whirlwind courtship of three months, but certainly also because of Lady Molesworth’s background – as her obituary observed, ‘she was not one of those born In the purple’ – and her age, which was not conducive to producing an heir.
Pencarrow House.
William Molesworth passed away in 1855, leaving the Pencarrow seat and his wealth to his widow. Musically, Andalusia continued to be active with the concerts she mounted and performed in, appearing in the audience of other salon events, patronising public performances of young female musicians, and attending the opera. While the social side of this has been made very clear, what is less highlighted is the large part this all plays in supporting networks of women in music, both financially and emotionally. Although we know little of the content of Andalusia’s concerts in both Cornwall and London, there is enough information to show that she was generous in her support. Having been a well-trained singer herself, she had a discerning ear as well as a musical excitement and curiosity over a wide array of new and old repertoire. There were many mentions in newspapers of her ‘largeness of heart’, and, interestingly, of her capacity to make any sacrifice for ‘a friend of her own sex.’
Andalusia Grant died in 1881, causing ‘a gap in London society which will not readily be filled up.’ One obituary suggested that she was the only true proponent of ‘l’art de tenir salon’ in England, another pointed to her house as ‘the resort of statesmen, artists, men of letters, and all manner of distinguished persons.’ Hers had been a full life, and often as musically fulfilled as any of the performers and composers who passed through the doors of the Royal Academy of Music.
Writing Women In: Susannah Collier, and the year was 1823
The Salon is starting a new blog series, on women musicians of the nineteenth century who were students of the Academy, and who went on to have interesting and often varied careers. Starting in 1823, with the first intake of students, we will choose one student per year. Occasionally there is a year where there are fewer in the intake who went on to musical lives that have left a trace; other years, it’s hard to choose only one amongst a veritable tranche of performers, composers and writers.
Why are we doing this? The reason is both historical and current. In 1866, the Society of Arts held an inquiry into the state of music education in Britain. One of the men (it was all men) who gave evidence at the inquiry was Henry Chorley, one of the biggest music critics of the time. Chorley was known for his forthright views, both positive and negative, with a style of writing that caused composer Clara Macirone to uncharacteristically lose her cool and term him ‘ugly’. Often sharply perceptive in his observations, Chorley could also come across as petulant, as he does in his evidence when he complained that ‘there has not been one commanding English artist turned out of the Academy in the past twenty-five years.’ Someone on the listening committee challenged him on this, whereupon he reluctantly conceded that perhaps Madame Charlotte Dolby should make the cut, but otherwise he stood by his statement. And so, unfortunately, have many writers since – there is an ingrained belief in many versions of music history that if a canonic person says something about a non-canonic person, it must be true. It’s an easy way of rendering women invisible.
We start with Susannah Collier, one of the first ten girls to enter the new Royal Academy of Music in March 1823. Collier was 13, having been born in 1809 to parents Richard and Susannah. Her mother had died in 1821, and in October of Susannah’s first year at the Academy, her father remarried. Collier’s entry to the Academy, at this point a boarding school, and with a concentration on moral standards through the presence of a governess, was thus perhaps even more meaningful to her than for most of the others.
Collier was a first study pianist, although she also studied singing and harmony, rapidly becoming top of the class for the last subject. Her teacher, principal William Crotch, wrote to the Academy founder Lord Burghersh, ‘As to my own Pupils, I beg leave to inform your lordship, that I am satisfied with them all. Lucas and Mudie amongst the boys, and the Misses Chancellor and Collier, are the most advanced, being employed at present in writing canons.’ July of her first year she won first prize in harmony, following this up the next year with a first prize in composition. One of the direcotrs, Sir Arthur Barnard, reported that ‘Miss Collier gained the prize amongst the girls for a canon. There were no faults in it.’ This piece along with seven others from her pen were entered into the two volumes of compositions written by the early students of the Academy. To be permitted to write one’s piece in these books was a great honour, only accorded to a few, who had been given express approval by a professor. Collier’s contributions, the most of any of the girls, ranged from fugues to vocal canons on English and Italian texts.
Susannah Collier’s Canon 2 in 1, 15th above, ‘Viva Otello’: Royal Academy of Music Students’ Compositions, GB-Lam_MS204, Royal Academy of Music Special Collections
Collier also took part in several Academy ‘exhibitions’, or concerts. These were given at the Hanover Square Rooms, just down the road from the premises at Tenterden Street. She played organ, accompanied singers, sang in a quartet, and even had an overture of her own composition played, a rare occurrence for a female student. She left the Academy in 1827, coming back later to join the chorus for the 1832 Royal Festival.
A list of ‘pupils received into the Academy since its foundation in 1822-3’ that was published in 1837 catalogued Collier as ‘Distinguished as a Composer, also in other professional acquirements; An Associate Honorary Member.’ It is clear that she became an active member of the London musical scene, but other than composing, her presence is difficult to find. She published songs, several in The Harmonicon and some as stand-alone publications, receiving good reviews. This 1836 review of the song ‘Spirit all Limitless!’ is an example:
“An invocation to the genius of Shakespeare in the Ettrick Shepherd’s happiest vein of poetic inspiration, has called into action a corresponding feeling on the part of the composer, who, in the music before us, has displayed a pure and elegant taste, beautiful in its simplicity, combined with a degree of judgment and scientific tact, highly creditable to herself and the institution (the Academy) to which she is an honor, and of which she has been one of the worthiest ornaments. Here are no borrowed Rossinian passages, thrust in without sense or reason, but precisely the notes and the chords appropriate to the subject, and aptly fitted for the more especially legitimate object of vocal music—a direct appeal to the sympathies of our nature, and the noblest feelings of the heart.”
Collier also wrote several large-scale works for the Philanthropic Society, where her father was the Superintendent. The purpose of the Society was to support ‘the offspring of convicts and criminal male children,’ so they gave several fundraising concerts. Susannah’s works appeared annually from 1828 to 1833, starting with a setting of verses from Corinthians, ‘Though I Speak with the Tongues of Men,’ and culminating in her final multi-movement work, ‘Bless The Lord, O My Soul’, which included recitatives, arias quartets and choruses.
It seems clear that Susannah Collier thought of herself foremost as a composer, and who knows where this might have led her if she had not died at the early age of 29, on 25 April 1839? In 1922, when Frederick Corder wrote the centenary history of the Academy, he echoed Chorley’s sentiments when he wrote that ‘Nearly all the boys [of the first intake] distinguished themselves in after life, but not one of the girls, a fact for which I offer no explanation.’ This is a statement that can be unpicked to demonstrate many undercurrents, but here we only point to its supreme inaccuracy, allowing Collier to resurface as the “shining star” she was described as during her lifetime.
Susannah Collier, ‘The Swiss Cowherd’s Song’, in The Harmonicon 1830.
Kate Loder and the Brahms Requiem
In my reflective biography of Kate Loder last week, I talked briefly about the performance of the Brahms requiem that she mounted in her living room on 10 July 1871. The account of this event, which was first published in The Musical Times in 1906, seemed to find it slightly scandalous that such a great work might be “first performed in a private house”, the italics of the original faintly pulsating with genteel outrage. Still, the review, much as it comes thirty-three years after the event, is a positive one, drawing on the recollections of Lady Natalia Macfarren, who had sung alto in the chorus.
Although Macfarren is the voice chosen to describe the performance, doubtless chosen at least in part because she remained a well-known name through her translations of vocal works, the list of other performers is equally illustrious:
“The chorus that assisted on that interesting occasion included such well-known names as Lady Macfarren, Miss Macirone, Mrs Ellicott (wife of the late Bishop of Gloucester), Miss Sophie Ferrari (Mrs Pagden) and her sister, Miss F. J. Ferrari, Canon Duckworth, and William Shakespeare. Madame Regan-Schimon sang the soprano solo, and an English version of the text was used.”
This is a fascinating list, for many reasons. Not only does it make clear just how extraordinary those women’s networks were – and it should be noted that some of these names are well-known enough that it is deemed unnecessary to include first names – but it also shows the long tendrils of influence extending from “salon” events of this sort. Let’s go through the names of the women in the chorus mentioned above:
Natalia Macfarren herself was a singer, translator, arranger, editor, librettist, and teacher, Her output was enormous in the world of opera, oratorio, song and choral works, particularly for Novello editions, mainly encompassing translations from Italian and German, including operas by Verdi and Wagner, Beethoven’s symphony 9, and letters between Mendelssohn and Devrient. She also worked on the music of her husband George Macfarren, providing “text adaptation” and a piano arrangement for his cantata Lady of the Lake. There were several genuinely admiring obituaries for her, commenting that “Her linguistic attainments made her sought after for translations.” She was already known as a translator of Brahms works – in fact the translator into English. She had already published several of his lieder, as well as part-songs such as the Liebesliederwälzer, and so It feels likely that her hand is on the tiller of the English translation, based though it is on bible texts. Her translations were in use well into the twentieth century, even Bing Crosby singing her version of the Lullaby.
Clara Macirone has of course already featured in these pages. Four years Loder’s senior, her studentship coincided with the younger woman’s almost exactly. Macirone had a long association with the Academy, having also been a professor there, but this event took place five years after she left (or rather, was ejected from) her post. Like so many of her contemporaries, she was especially busy in the 1870s, being financially responsible for her parents and siblings as well as herself. Her entry in the early twentieth-century American History and Encyclopedia of Music, published during her lifetime, reads:
“Composer of songs, pianist and teacher. Was born at London, and educated at the Royal Academy of Music as the pupil of Potter, Holmes, Lucas and Negri. She was made a professor of the Academy and an associate of the Philharmonic Society, and was for several years the head music-teacher at Aske’s School for Girls, and later at the Church of England High School for Girls, and during this time she also conducted a singing society called The Village Minstrels. She has now retired. Her Te Deum and Jubilate, sung at Hanover Chapel, were the first service composed by a woman ever sung in the church. She has published an admirable suite for the violin and piano, and many part-songs, some of which have been sung at the Crystal Palace by choruses of three thousand voices; she has also written anthems and many solos for the voice.”
Mrs Ellicott: It is not composer Rosalind Ellicott who takes part, but her mother, singer Constantia Becher, now known as Mrs Ellicott, wife of the Bishop of Gloucester. She had been a fairly well-known and in-demand singer prior to marriage, leaving the public stage but remaining active in music, both as a performer and behind the scenes. That she remained in good voice is evident in reviews that spoke of her performances of her daughter’s songs, well into the 1890s. She was an important force in the founding of such illustrious groups as the Handel Society and the Gloucester Choral Society. Like so many such drivers, she feels absent from public view, though a letter to the editor of the Gloucestershire Chronicle in 1867, putting right a piece of incorrect information, gives us a glimpse into both her activities and her musical priorities.
Sophie Ferrari is another name that appears regularly in concert information of the 1870s, before she became the “Mrs Pagden” of the above brackets. A fellow Royal Academy of Music alumna, she took the stage with collaborative musicians ranging from RAM teachers and pupils to visiting performers from the Continent. Even more telling, she was a soloist at the performance of the Requiem for the Philharmonic Society on 2 April 1873, the first known public performance of the entire work. From the outset, reviews were good: “Miss Ferrari quickly gained the favour of the audience, and the appreciation that she won increased to enthusiasm when her powers had been fully exercised. Miss Ferrari has before her a promising career, for while as yet she cannot be described as a brilliant singer, she is young, charming in feature and manner, she possesses some essentials of success of which better known vocalists are devoid, and her cultivated voice is apparently under perfect command. […] The lady was twice encored.” Sadly, by 1880 she has all but vanished, only reappearing occasionally in local music events under her married name, sometimes singing solo and sometimes performing duets with her husband.
Sophie’s sister, Francesca Ferrari, remains known by her initials F.J. for her entire professional life. She appears on occasion in the papers during the 1870s, for a wealth of musical activity from singing to translating to composing. The most telling entry, however, is one from 24 May 1873, a review of one of Sophie’s concerts for the Bedford Amateur Music Society:
“Miss Ferrari then sang “Placido Zeffiretio,” which had been composed expressly for her by F. J. Ferrari, and, to say the least, the composer has not been far out in his estimate, for to us, and doubtless to most of the audience, this was the gem of the evening in the vocal part; an encore was demanded and accorded.”
Did F.J. Ferrari remain known by initials so that she could compose unburdened by her sex? (It might be noted that she was already known as the composer of this particular piece, but clearly this reviewer hadn’t caught up.)
Of course, Loder herself and her relationship with a wider contemporary music scene is also interesting. This was not a time when Brahms was yet a “canonic” composer, particularly in Britain, so the selection of repertoire points to a musical curiosity and excitement that never left her. Clara Schumann would later write in letters of Loder’s need for musical sustenance; many of her students would play privately for the elderly and disabled Loder, who wrote back to Schumann of her delight and thankfulness for such events. And thus she remained connected to new music.
The Case of the Disappearing Networks
“A composition first has to be written, then it has to be published in order to be circulated, at least after ca.1780. It has to reach public consciousness by a first performance and then remain there through some regularity of performance. This is less likely to happen without some critical attention in print and a positive assessment at least sometime near the work’s debut. Although these steps seem the most basic stages on the road to permanency and potential canonization, they actually take place well into the process.”
We are all aware of the Bechdel test – the requirement for a film to have two named women have a conversation on a topic other than a man. We are also well aware of how badly the film industry still fares under the application of this test. Disney is particularly culpable on this – heaven forbid any woman should exist for a reason beyond the male sphere.
I am now applying the Bechdel test to the stories of women in music, with depressingly familiar results. I have written this month in some detail about composer Rosalind Ellicott and her relationship in particular with the Three Choirs Festival. She started by singing with them, moving quite swiftly to being a regular on their roster of contemporary composers. Several of her cantatas earned their fame here, though she doesn’t make the abbreviated list on the festival’s own website (Ethel Smyth is the only historical woman here):
“The festival has always prided itself on bringing new works to its audiences, and over its 300-year history has included premieres by Edward Elgar, Arthur Sullivan, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Hubert Parry, Ethel Smyth, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius, Camille Saint-Saëns, Judith Weir, Judith Bingham, James MacMillan and Cheryl Frances Hoad, many of which were conducted by the composers themselves. Numerous celebrated composers, conductors and soloists have been welcomed to the festival [...]”
There has been considerable speculation in the admittedly small literature on Ellicott as to how she succeeded in attaining this relationship. Let’s leave aside the fact that this is under the microscope at all, and look at this assertion, put plainest on Wikipedia: “It has been suggested that her father's position as a bishop enabled her to have some of her works performed at the Three Choirs Festival.”
Why do I take issue with this? It’s because not only is there the obvious assumption that Ellicott could not possibly have accrued a commission by her own merit, but that it must be a male figure in her life that facilitated her career. Why must it be the father, whose interest in music was small, and not the mother, a singer who sat on several committees and was known for a considerable number of her own public performances? To call her mother an amateur singer is to underestimate her sphere of influence, which included the festival. Another route in may have been via Hilda Wilson, the well-known and successful singer who was a fellow student of Ellicott’s, and taught her singing; in the younger musician’s words, “She instructed me in the best way of producing my voice. I should like to say that I owe more to her than I can ever repay.” Wilson often sang with the Festival in the 1880s and -90s. Surely it is just as likely, if not more, that these female networks were the ones that enabled Ellicott’s inclusion?
Alice Verne-Bredt, who came more to my current attention via the album of trios I reviewed last week, is another case in point of a member of a professionally important female network. She belonged to a German family that emigrated to the UK in the 1850s, anglicizing their name in the process. The sisters, however, each chose a different version. Alice double-barrelled her name with her husband’s, Adela and Mathilde remained known as Verne, and Mary, who spent much of her performing life in German-speaking countries, reverted to the original Wurm, although without the umlaut. The sisters performed each other’s works, as well as giving concerts together in their respective countries of residence. Wurm was a conductor as well as a pianist, thus giving a useful – and rarer – opportunity to have larger works heard.
Of course, there are many more of these – I am always particularly taken with the connections between the women at the Academy in the 1830s, singers, pianists, composers, and how they supported each other in both public and private spheres. Both peer and intergenerational support is evident in the stories and concert reviews that start appearing from the next decades. Indeed, Ellicott herself in turn does her part for the next generation of Academy students.
The Bechdel test perhaps isn’t quite the analysis to be applied here, but there is certainly the feeling that if a man doesn’t play a defining role in a woman’s career, we’d better shoehorn one in somehow. This has far greater ramifications than just to rewrite women and their creative authority – it also demonstrates what little impact we afford teaching, family, student community, and all the other networks that arise from the business of simply living.
The Dappled Life of Agnes Zimmermann
This week’s offering is the third in an Agnes Zimmermann triptych. After a biography (rectifying some incorrect information elsewhere on the internet), and a reflection on a 2020 recording of her three violin sonatas, today’s blog post is about the ways in which her life as a 19th-century female musician still resonates today, with me, a 21st-century female musician.
Zimmermann has walked with me for the past few weeks. I find this with the women I research, that they become companions in more than performance or writing. Evangeline Livens did for a while, followed by Clara Macirone. Now, I find myself drawing on Zimmermann when talking about musical space, about chamber music, about manuscripts. I co-adjudicated the Historical Women Composers Prize at the Academy last week, alongside Diana Ambache. It is a requirement that every entry for this prize is chamber music, so we had from duos to quintets. Zimmermann was a consummate chamber musician, so this was right up her alley - and I found that I share her passion for space and light in the texture of a collaborative performance. It was an image of her manuscript that I had in my head for this realisation, that perfectly structured writing that allows light between the notes of even the thickest textures. It isn’t necessarily about literal silence, although breath is of course essential, but about the play of transparency through to opaqueness in the performance as well as in the writing. This, Zimmermann has made explicit for me some of the musical priorities I hold, but that I had not put words to.
The other way in which Zimmermann feels very present to me currently is in her life as she lived it. I wrote last week about imagining the composer in the act of writing, but this goes even further, in part fueled by this:
There’s a lot written on mental load, and second (third/fourth) shifts, but it’s not quite these areas that strike a chord for me when I think of women composers of the past. Classical composition – or, to be frank, life as any kind of classical musician – has never been kind to other obligations, not least in how it is written about. The idea of the composer renouncing all else for his (pronoun chosen carefully) art is so entrenched, so removed from everyday life, that the woman who manages to find a few minutes to write a song in between loads of laundry and feeding the children, must necessarily have less of the sublime in her writing. I see that race not just as running towards the goal of a complete artwork, but also running towards the goal of recognition.
Many of Zimmermann’s works were written in the years immediately after her time at the Academy. This is very common, not just for women composers, and I wonder how much it is because of the support and recognition that comes with a successful studentship, which tends to start to fall away as new students take their place. And for composers who do not have recourse to other systems, this can prove fatal to a career. Zimmermann was luckier than many women, as her performing life kept her in the public eye, but what happens to women for whom the printed page is their main way of disseminating creativity?
From 1890-1908, Zimmermann did take a step back from public music. This was during her time living with Lady Louisa Goldsmid, activist for education, both for women and for children. In Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity, Sophie Fuller wrote of this relationship, of which little is known, causing Fuller to reflect:
“However I, living and working in a different century, decide to name Agnes Zimmermann and Louisa Goldsmid’s relationship, the facts of the devotion, the interrupted career, and the shared home remain a powerful reminder that women’s varied relationships with each other have always played a vital, if often neglected, role in their histories. Despite what can seem like overwhelming attempts to show otherwise, not all women can be defined by their relationships with men and male institutions […].”
In the eighteen years that the two women lived together, Zimmermann performed little and published nothing. This was not due to domestic necessity; Lady Goldsmid’s will leaves money to many loyal servants, including a butler, housekeeper, cook, coachman, and several housemaids. It is a reminder, though, that creativity has often been enabled by women; and Fuller’s question of what women-living-with-women does to their “artistry and creativity” is a far-reaching one. From Zimmermann and Goldsmid, to Macirone and her sister, or Dolby and her mother, or Mathilde Kralik and Alice Scarlat, and even to the servants that tended them and their houses, women pave the way for recognition, not just of creative genius, but of the manifold threads that make up creative work. Several months ago I mentioned the mothers who start their talented daughters on their instruments; the idea of a muse, “A person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist,” suddenly becomes one of great power and agency. What caused Zimmermann to write certain works? To play them?
Zimmermann remains a role model for me, and a source-to-come of rich possibility. In the meantime, I finish with a quote from philosopher Gilles Deleuze, of which Sophie Fuller’s reflections on Zimmermann remind me:
“Difference is not a negation of sameness. Difference may have a meaning that is independent of sameness, and repetition may be independent of the sameness of any given events or actions.”
