Composition History and Copyright
a singular collaboration
Aguilar’s Goblin Market: Cantata is unique among the many musical settings of "Goblin Market" in a number of ways: it is the first musical adaptation of Rossetti’s famous poem; Rossetti met with and collaborated directly with the composer in adapting her poem for the libretto; and it is the only nineteenth-century setting, because Rossetti granted Aguilar exclusive rights to set “Goblin Market.” The first-hand collaboration between poet and composer is particularly significant from a textual perspective. Rossetti met personally with Emanuel Aguilar to discuss the textual revisions to her poem, and she gave her explicit approval to the adapted and abridged text of “Goblin Market” that serves as Aguilar's libretto. Rossetti's authorial approval to the significant textual changes is clearly stated on the published score’s title page: “The words adapted by permission of the Authoress Christina Rossetti.” There is no known record indicating which of the textual changes were proposed or written by Aguilar and which changes were authored by the poet herself.
William Michael Rossetti's diary records on 21 November 1879 that Christina was working with Aguilar amending the text of her poem for his musical setting: “Christina is now engaged with a Mr. Aguilar in *settling* a text of Goblin Market wh. he has set to music. He is looking out for a publisher, & I believe with a fair prospect of success” (WMR diary). Christina Rossetti engaged in written correspondence with Aguilar, as her comment in a letter of January 1880 to her brother William Michael Rossetti confirms: “Please let bearer know whether the announcement of Mr. Aguilar’s music is in this week’s Athenaeum: I have to write to him, as it happens” (Letters, no. 835, vol. 2, p. 224). However, Rossetti’s correspondence with Aguilar remains unrecovered. Meanwhile, William Michael Rossetti suggests a different composition date for this cantata in his note on “Goblin Market” in the 1904 edition of The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti, where he writes that, “A cantata was made of the English words towards 1872 by Mr. Emanuel Aguilar” (p. 459). Unfortunately, there is nothing in either William Michael’s diary or in the family letters that corroborates this earlier date, and so it remains possible that 1879-80 is in fact the period of composition and that William Michael’s memory was faulty as he prepared The Poetical Works, leading him to attach an incorrect date to events of thirty years earlier.
It is not clear whether Rossetti had been consulted earlier than this recorded 21 November 1879 meeting, or whether Aguilar had already composed a setting for an adapted text that he only afterward and shortly before publication asked Rossetti to approve. William Michael’s comment that Aguilar “has set” “Goblin Market” to music would suggest that the bulk of the cantata had already been composed before this November meeting. Indeed, following Rossetti’s 21 November 1879 meeting with Aguilar, the cantata moved very quickly to publication. Its forthcoming publication was advertised in the Athenaeum on 13 December 1879: “Mr. E. Aguilar recently set to music the rather long poem which gives a name to the first volume published by Miss Christina Rossetti, ‘Goblin Market.’ It forms a cantata for treble voices, and is to be brought out by Mssrs. Hutchings & Romer. The words have been abridged and adapted by permission of the author” (Announcement, Athenaeum). It would appear that Aguilar drafted a paragraph for this announcement, both Christina and William Michael Rossetti suggested some changes, and William Michael approached the Athenaeum to publish the announcement (see Letters, no. 824, vol. 2, p. 215).
a first hearing
Rossetti writes of the forthcoming publication to her friends Caroline Gemmer and Amelia Barnard Heimann. Her letter to Gemmer on 9 December 1879 makes if clear that Rossetti had not at this point actually heard the music played: “The claim you kindly put in for my musicability (!) has already been honoured by Mr Aguilar, who has been setting an abridged & adapted “Goblin Market” to concord of sweet sounds!! & I believe a publisher has been found, & that the work will shortly appear. I hope it is well set, but I have not yet heard it, & I cannot realize a tune by glancing at the score” (Letters, no. 826, vol. 2, p. 217). Rossetti attended a small private performance in Aguilar’s home on 10 January 1880 at which the composer performed the cantata’s piano score and his daughter sang some of the music. Afterward, Rossetti writes to Heimann that she had still not heard a full vocal performance of the choral work and so could not yet assess the overall effect of the new composition (Letters, no. 836, vol. 2, p. 225).
a possible lost original version
There was also quite possibly a lengthier original score—now lost—that was edited down by Aguilar for publication. Following the above-mentioned private performance of the work by the composer on 10 January 1880, William Michael Rossetti reports that Aguilar’s “Publishers require A. to cut his work short by just about a half—wh. will certainly, I think, be no advantage to it artistically, but the contrary” (WMR diary, qtd. in Ives 265). It is not presently known if the score of Goblin Market: Cantata was edited following its January 1880 performance for the Rossetti family, or if the published score incorporates any changes as requested by the publishers.
copyright and royalty
Interestingly, Rossetti did not ask Aguilar to pay any royalty or fee for the right to adapt and abridge her poem and republish it as a cantata setting. In fact, Rossetti regularly refused payment from composers requesting permission to set her poems to music. It was only years later that Rossetti realized that, since she co-owned copyright for many of these poems with her publisher Alexander Macmillan, she was inadvertently denying him remuneration as well: “But I suddenly wake up to the fact that I have heretofore refused payment on more than one occasion. Was this, done without your concurrence, fair towards your Firm? If unfair, my worst error perhaps was when I arranged Goblin Market for music & made an agreement that my friend alone should set that particular piece, long since published by him. What shall I now do? If aggrieved by my vagaries, please set me a lump sum and I will honour your bill” (Letters, no. 1611, vol. 4, p. 107). It is worth noting that Rossetti’s confession that “I arranged Goblin Market for music” makes it sound like she was more active in the textual revisions than is apparent in the surviving record. Also, granting Aguilar exclusive rights to set "Goblin Market" was a significant decision that meant that another musical setting of Rossetti's signature poem would not be published until the next century, when Vittorio Ricci's Goblin Market (Der Gnomen Markt): Cantata would appear in 1901.
Sources:
Announcement. The Athenaeum, 13 December 1879, no. 2720, p. 772.
Ives, Maura. Christina Rossetti: A Descriptive Bibliography. New Castle, DE, Oak Knoll, 2011.
Rossetti, Christina. The Letters of Christina Rossetti. Edited by Antony H. Harrison. Charlottesville, UP of Virginia, 1997-2004. 4 vols.
Rossetti, Christina. The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti. Edited by William Michael Rossetti, Macmillan, 1904.
Rossetti, William Michael. Unpublished diary, Angeli-Dennis Collection, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.