Sarah Collins’ study of the life, influences and aesthetics of Cyril Scott (1879–1970) is a valuable illumination of a quieter corner of early twentieth-century cultural life. Heralded in his youth as the emerging ‘English Debussy’, Cyril Scott did not live up to that prediction. He was too much the fin-de-siècle dilettante. His interests and passions were too far-flung— including achievements in poetry, philosophy, the occult and medicine, as well as music—and his life insufficiently disciplined to be able to achieve substantial fame in any one of these areas. It is, then, to the credit of The Boydell Press that it has published Collins’ study of an interesting, sometimes controversial, but ultimately minor figure, who nonetheless grappled with so many of the aesthetic currents of his times; and, as Collins’ book ultimately shows, integrated them in ways not previously exposed. Central to that integration was his faith in ‘unintentionality’ (p. 224). That integration did not, however, lead to a revised recognition of his own talents or heightened impact upon the artistic world. Over a very long lifetime Scott moved from an early expressionist-influenced belief in the artist-autocrat to an occult-influenced belief in the artist-prophet. Yet how much the vicissitudes of his life’s track influenced his aesthetic view, or vice versa, is a recurring feature of debate in Collins’ analysis. Writing of Scott’s final quarter-century, Collins observes ‘an arid, resigned pessimism born of the futility of composing works that were never performed’ (p. 212), but the track towards that ingrained pessimism can be traced well back into the decades between the World Wars, if not sometimes to the years leading up to World War I. After conducting her long review of ‘Theory and Practice’ (Chapter 7), across four periods in Scott’s life, Collins can justifiably observe that ‘the increasingly dogmatic nature of Scott’s aesthetic theorising—coalescing as it did into a theory of musical affect—coincided with the decreasing public interest in his musical output’ (p. 218). So much so that in 1949, when a series of works were performed in celebration of Scott’s seventieth birthday, the critic Hugh Ottway would only see them as further evidence that ‘justified Scott’s continued obscurity’ (p. 170). In final summary, then, Scott was a thorough Romantic, who proved unwilling, if not also incapable, of adapting to an increasingly modernizing world. He died a relic of a long-gone age, and perhaps also a long-gone aesthetic. It is ironic, then, that one of his better known books was The Philosophy of Modernism, in its Connection with Music, published in 19171 when musical modernism’s defining tenets were still in formative flux. The Aesthetic Life of Cyril Scott is unsurprisingly written in two parts: the life, and the aesthetic thinking. It is prefaced by a brilliantly contextualizing Introduction and concludes with a meaty Epilogue, which itself reconsiders context. In fact, you could say that this

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西里尔·斯科特的审美生活

莎拉·柯林斯（Sarah Collins）对西里尔·斯科特（Cyril Scott）（1879–1970）的生活，影响和美学的研究，是对20世纪早期文化生活中一个安静角落的宝贵启示。西里尔·斯科特（Cyril Scott）在年轻时就被预示为新兴的“英语德彪西”，但他并不辜负这一预测。他实在是太无聊了。他的兴趣和爱好太过广泛-包括诗歌，哲学，神秘学和医学以及音乐方面的成就-而且他的生活受纪律不足，无法在这些领域中的任何一个领域获得名望。因此，值得称赞的是，博伊德出版社（Boydell Press）发表了柯林斯（Collins）对一个有趣的，有时是有争议的，但最终是次要人物的研究，尽管如此，他仍在努力克服他那个时代的许多美学潮流。而且，正如柯林斯的书最终显示的那样，以以前未曾公开的方式集成它们。这种融合的核心是他对“非故意性”的信念（第224页）。然而，这种融合并没有导致对他自己才华的重新认可，也没有对艺术界产生更大的影响。在很长的一生中，斯科特从对艺术家专制者的早期表现主义影响转向对艺术家先知的隐性影响。然而，柯林斯分析的一个反复出现的特征是，他一生的经历中的沧桑对他的美学观点有多大影响，反之亦然。柯林斯在斯科特（Scott）的最后一个二十世纪写作中观察到“一种干旱的，悲观的悲观主义，其源于从未进行过的作曲作品的徒劳”（第212页），但是对这种根深蒂固的悲观主义的追根溯源可以追溯到几十年之间世界大战 柯林斯（Colins）在对斯科特一生的四个时期进行了“理论与实践”（第7章）的长期回顾之后，可以合理地观察到“斯科特美学理论的教条主义性质日渐教条化” “就像对音乐情感理论所做的推销一样”，恰恰与公众对其音乐作品的兴趣下降有关（p。218）。如此之多，以至于在1949年为庆祝斯科特70岁生日而进行了一系列创作时，评论家休·奥特韦（Hugh Ottway）只会将它们视为“证明斯科特继续默默无闻”的进一步证据（第170页）。最后，斯科特是一位彻底的浪漫主义者，他证明，即使不是也没有能力，他都不愿意适应日益现代化的世界。他去世的遗物已经逝去很久了，也许也已经逝去了。具有讽刺意味的是，他最著名的著作之一是《现代主义哲学》，该书于19171年出版，当时音乐现代主义的定义宗旨仍在形成中。毫无疑问，西里尔·斯科特（Cyril Scott）的审美生活分为两部分：生活和审美思维。它以引人入胜的情境化导言作为开头，并以多肉的《结语》作为结尾，后者本身重新考虑了情境。实际上，您可以说 它以引人入胜的情境介绍作为前言，并以一本重述情境的丰富的结尾结尾。实际上，您可以说 它以引人入胜的情境化导言作为开头，并以多肉的《结语》作为结尾，后者本身重新考虑了情境。实际上，您可以说