In 1920, professor of music Arthur Fickénscher was appointed as the first director of the newly formed Music Department at the University of Virginia. Fickénscher was an influential figure in collegiate music history, known for his ambitious polytone experiments, but also devoting himself in “quiet dignity, but tireless energy” (“A Guide to the Arthur Fickénscher Papers” n.d., 5) to the organization and development of the new department. Fickénscher’s collected arrangements of college songs, compiled during his tenure at UVA, offers us a glimpse into the intersections of musical modernism, nationalism, and the issues of race and gender in early twentieth-century America. In this project, Fickénscher gathered a repertoire of UVA tunes popular at the time – songs like “Hike Virginia”, “Virginia Hail All Hail”, and even the still-omnipresent “Good Old Song” – and curated them into a carefully transcribed collection of scores.

The scores, housed today in the University of Virginia Special Collections Library, are surprisingly unassuming; they are contained in just a few pages bound together like any modern piece of sheet music. The front and back pages are left blank, and each page has handwritten musical notation in black ink with lyrics underneath it. Some pages include multiple songs or chants, while others feature longer pieces that take up several staves. Notes added later can be found throughout – most in red pencil, highlighting tempo markings or lyrics, but there is also one spot where a mistake appears to have been blanked out with white. But although the collection may seem simple at first glance, a closer reading of the material and the context surrounding it reveals that it can also be viewed as a sort of artifact that exemplifies the deliberate process of “collecting” folk material, especially music.

Despite this piece’s focus on Fickénscher’s college songs themselves, the collection does not exist in isolation. Rather, they can be put in dynamic conversation with other archival sources and critical discourse of the period. Within the wider Arthur Fickénscher Papers collection, also housed in UVA’s Special Collections Library, music reviews written by Fickénscher’s contemporaries reveal more interesting points about him and about his work within the modernist field. The vast majority of reviews were in strong support of Fickénscher’s work, although it should be noted that this collection was his own personal archive of reviews, and very likely did not include more negative or critical entries. The included critics almost unanimously agreed that his compositions were worthy of celebration for their technical virtuosity, especially when his wife, Edith Cruzan Fickénscher, performed alongside him. One critic wrote that “[Edith Fickénscher’s] exceptionally pure, sweet voice and keen analysis, together with Mr. Fickénscher’s musicianly [sic] piano interpretation made the morning of unusual value” (“Professional Music Reviews” n.d., 8). However, the general consensus also aligned with the idea that Fickénscher’s work is an example of a modernist mindset. For instance, of the piece “Horror’s Realm”, one critic wrote that the piece was “weird, uncanny, but never freakish” (“Reviews” n.d., 6), and another compared his “The Chamber Blue” to works by Wagner (“Reviews” n.d., 20) – directly comparing him to an immensely influential figure in musical modernism.

Fickénscher’s work with college songs also mirrors a broader modernist and nationalist tendency: the belief that the perceived rawness and unrefined nature of popular or folk music could, with scholarly intervention, be sculpted into a refined form of national music. During the early twentieth century, many composers and ethnomusicologists began ambitious projects to document and rework folk music. As historian Philip Deloria notes in his 2004 book Indians in Unexpected Places, at this point in history, the intrigue of national music had long since expanded from its origins in Europe, beginning to preoccupy the minds of American musicians as well (195). In many instances, the aim was to take what was seen as “primitive” and transform it into a high art that could serve as the foundations of a national musical canon. This perspective, however, is inherently problematic, as it relies on a hierarchical valuation of culture. The process of classifying certain musical expressions as primitive and then elevating them through scholarly intervention echoes broader colonial and modernist practices. While college songs and folk music cannot be directly compared to each other, by spending time on arranging these college songs, Fickénscher shows that he viewed these popular, community-sourced pieces as objects worthy of preservation and study. From this perspective, although the exact reasons for the creation of this collection are not known, it is reasonable to argue that Fickénscher’s work with these college songs mirrors the modernist practice of analyzing music within the general population and then, through a more “scholarly” interpretation of the material, elevating it into a version of itself that would foster a sense of identity – in this case at UVA.

A closer look at Fickénscher’s college songs and other archival objects surrounding it also raises several important questions regarding the creation of the collection. As is clear from the collection’s name, one can assume that the target audience was the UVA community – students, faculty, and alumni – who would engage in the performance of these songs during things like athletic events or ceremonies. However, this straightforward interpretation fails to take into account the perspectives that are being brought to the forefront while others are left on the sidelines. The college songs in Fickénscher’s collection portray a notably narrow vision of collegiate identity, one steeped in traditional white, male, middle-and-upper-class values. Particularly through the lyrics, which often reference “boys”, “sons”, and “brotherhood” (Fickenscher 1935, 1-6) while entirely omitting their female counterparts who were not admitted to the university until 1920, the absence of inclusion of diverse groups is underscored. This exclusivity inevitably marginalizes voices and narratives that do not fit one very specific standard, which brings into question who gets to participate in the formation of institutional history and whose stories and ideas are effectively erased. In acts of cultural curation, social hierarchies are reinforced, with the dominant group determining what is worthy of preservation and excluding voices that do not align with its definition of national identity. This curated musical repertoire reinforced a collegiate identity that privileged white male traditions while ignoring the experiences of others.

Ultimately, Fickénscher’s collected arrangements of college songs can be viewed as a microcosm of the modernist and nationalist tendencies to appropriate folk music as a means of constructing a unified national or institutional identity. His work reveals the impulse to preserve cultural expression while simultaneously transforming it into a highly specific, refined repertoire that fits a predetermined narrative. Fickénscher’s detailed annotations, structured organization, and selective curation evident in his collection of scores mirror the underlying desire to convert what was seen as “primitive” into a symbol of institutional pride. This process is deeply political. It involves choices about what is remembered and what is forgotten, whose voices are amplified and whose are silenced. In this way, Fickénscher’s project can be seen not only as an artistic endeavor, but also as a launching point for critical commentary on the dynamics of cultural power and exclusion. By researching these archival objects, one can gain insight into how national and – on the smaller scale – collegiate identities are constructed through the selective preservation of cultural memory. This is a process that continues to influence the legacy of institutions like the University of Virginia. Fickénscher’s collection of college songs serves as a reminder that the creation of national music is never a neutral act; it is a complicated, inherently political process that reflects and reinforces the values and hierarchies of its time.

Bibliography

“A Guide to the Arthur Fickénscher Papers.” n.d. Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library, https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=uva-sc%2Fviu01897.xml. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

Fickénscher, Arthur. 1935. “College Songs.” Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library. Accessed 13 Feb. 2025. MSS 12731.

“Professional Music Reviews.” n.d. Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025. MSS 12731.

Deloria, Philip J. 2004. “The Hills are Alive…with the Sound of Indian.” Indians In Unexpected Places. University Press of Kansas, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb34596.0001.001.