ABSTRACT
In 1967, the composer William Walton was commissioned to write a new piece for the San Francisco Symphony. Rather than create something from scratch, Walton asked permission to use a theme from Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto. Entitled “Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin Britten,” Walton's work has been praised not only for paying tribute to Britten but also for moving in new directions, described as “a fascinating product of the contact between two musical minds.” 1 In the spirit of Walton's “Improvisations,” Early Modern Improvisations brings together new voices around old texts, new methodologies for old themes, and fresh visions for a “theme and variations” on the harmony between history and literature. By viewing literature and history as both improvisational spaces, we allow them to be not separate enterprises but rather complementary modes of inquiry, an approach to historicism that is less about travel (time-travel or otherwise) to urge a historicism that generates something to speak both in and with the present.
