Choral Fantasies: Music, Festivity, and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany

284 Pages·2012·3.473 MB·English

by  Ryan Minor

Choral Fantasies
Most histories of nineteenth-century music portray “the people”
merely as an audience, a passive spectator to the music performed
aroundit.Yet,inthisreappraisalofchoralsingingandpublicculture,
MinorshowshowaburgeoningGermanbourgeoisiesangofitsown
collective aspirations, mediated through the voice of celebrity com-
posers. As both performer and idealized community, the chorus
embodiedthepossibilitiesandlimitationsofaparticipatory,national
identity. Starting with the many public festivals at which the chorus
was a featured participant, Minor’s account of the music written for
theseoccasionsbreaksnewgroundnotonlybytakingseriouslythese
often-neglectedworks,butalsobyshowinghowthecontestedidealsof
Germannationhoodsuffusedthemusicitself.Insituatingbothmusic
andfestiveculturewithinthemilieuofGermanbourgeoisliberals,this
studyuncoversnewconnectionsbetweenmusicandpoliticsduringa
centurythatsoughttoredefinebothspheres.
ryan minor
isAssociateProfessorofMusicattheStateUniversity
of New York at Stony Brook. His research focuses primarily on the
musical and political culture of nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century Germany, with special emphasis on opera, choral music,
and music’s participation in the public sphere. He has published
widely on Wagner, and serves as an associate editor of the Opera
Quarterly.

Choral Fantasies
Music, Festivity, and Nationhood
in Nineteenth-Century Germany
ryan minor
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Choralfantasies:music,festivity,andnationhoodinnineteenth-centuryGermany/RyanMinor.
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ISBN978-0-521-76071-3
1. Music–Politicalaspects–Germany–History–19thcentury. I. Title.
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Contents
Listofillustrations [pagevi]
Acknowledgements [vii]
Introduction [1]
1 ChoralfantasiesfromBeethoventotheVormärz [8]
2 MemoryandmultiplicityinFelixMendelssohn’s
“Gutenberg”works [33]
3 ProphetandpopulaceinLiszt’s“Beethoven”cantatas [68]
4 SongsandstatesinBrahms’sTriumphliedandWagner’s
Kaisermarsch [110]
5 OccasionsandnationsinBrahms’sFest-und
Gedenksprüche [163]
Notestothetext [199]
Bibliography [247]
Index [273]
v
Illustrations
Figure1.1 MoritzvonSchwind,EineSymphonie.Reproducedwith
permissionfromtheBildarchivPreußischer
Kulturbesitz [page29]
Figure2.1 Coverpage,KarlPreusker,GutenbergundFranklin.
ReproducedwithpermissionfromtheBayerische
StaatsbibliothekMünchen [54]
Figure4.1 Comparisonof“HeildirimSiegerkranz”and“HeilundPreis”
melodies [122]
vi
Acknowledgements
Thisbook,likemanyofitsilk,hashadalonggestation.Thelistofacknow-
ledgementsthatfollowsiscorrespondinglylong,andhorriblyimpersonal,but
attheveryleastIliketothinkthatthisgestureofcommemoration,aswellas
thecommunalspiritithonors,isinkeepingwiththechaptersthatfollow.
Berthold Hoeckner – equal parts Doktorvater and all-around mensch –
helpedthisprojectincountlesswaysandoncountlessoccasions.Alsoatthe
University of Chicago, Philip Bohlman, Thomas Christensen, and Philip
Gossettnurturedmyworkthroughitsearlierstages.So,too,didanumber
ofstudents:DanielBarolsky,GurminderBhogal,CeliaCain,DonaldChae,
Yonatan Malin, Yossi Maurey, Catherine Saucier, and Marta Tonegutti.
Twomembersofthatcohortarenowclosefriends–CeliaCainandDonald
Chae–andIalsothanktheminthatcapacity,aswellasfortheircontribu-
tionstomanyepicureangatherings.IowesimilarthankstoElizaGarrison,
WayneHeisler,CaseyMcKittrick,andMarkVail.
AtSUNYStonyBrook,Ihavehadthegoodfortunetobesurroundedby
a number of distinguished colleagues: Joe Auner, Andy Eisenberg, Sally
Fuller, Bonnie Gordon, Judy Lochhead, and Ben Steege. In particular,
Mauro Calcagno has proven himself both an indefatigable colleague and a
good friend. Dan Weymouth came to my technological rescue at the last
minute, and Ilari Kaila and Phil Salathé – who presumably did not enter a
doctoralprogramincompositionsothattheycouldspendasummerentering
mymusicalexamplesintoFinale–werealsoenormouslyhelpful.
I thank the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, which
funded a sabbatical year to work on this book (even if most of those funds
wereimmediatelyfunneledbackintotheCambridgeeconomyonceIdiscov-
eredFormaggioKitchen);Radcliffealsoprovidedawonderfulcommunityof
scholars and what has to be the most ideal library situation on the planet.
Closertohome,IthanktheFAHSSresearchinitiativeatStonyBrook,which
funded multiple summer research trips. The DAAD, the American
Brahms Society, and the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the
UniversityofChicagoprovidedcrucialsupportaswell.Perhapsmostofall,I
thank the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, which not only sponsored this
vii
viii Acknowledgements
project – generously – in its infancy, but has repeatedly funded subsequent
researchtripstoGermany.I’mhonoredtoweartheHumboldttie.
This project is also indebted to a number of libraries and archives: the
StaatsbibliothekzuBerlin(Hans-GüntherKlein);theStaatsarchivBremen;
the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn; the Staatsarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt
Hamburg (Dagmar Bickelmann); the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek
Hamburg (Jürgen Neubacher); the Brahms-Institut der Musikhochschule
Lübeck (Wolfgang Sandberger and Stefan Weymar); the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek München; the Bodleian Library at Oxford University;
the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv Weimar (Evelyn Liepsch); and the
ÖsterreichischeNationalbibliothekWien.
Portions of Chapter Three appeared in Franz Liszt and his World, ed.
Christopher Gibbs and Dana Gooley (Princeton University Press, 2005),
and a regrettably early version of Chapter Five was published in 19th-
Century Music 29/3 (2006); I thank Princeton University Press and the
University of California Press for permission to reprint this material. I am
especiallygratefulforallthehelpthatIreneZedlacherandDonGilleroffered
withtheLisztmaterial,bothinitsinitialformandinitsreincarnationforthis
book.AtCambridgeUniversityPress,IthankRebeccaTaylor,aswellasher
patience;IamalsogratefulforalltheworkandsupportthatVickiCooperhas
put into the book. I thank Esther Scheps, who slogged through this entire
manuscriptwithoutcomplaint,andmanagedtofindadistressingnumberof
thekindsofmistakesIdidn’tthinkImade.
Several scholars deserve special recognition: Lydia Goehr, who helped me
focusthebook’sopening;ChristianKaden,whosesupportoftheprojecthas
been particularly gratifying; Gundula Kreuzer, my operatic partner-in-crime
who also happens to know the literature surrounding this book exceedingly
well;AlexRehding,whohasgivenmeinvaluablefeedbackforyears;andJeffrey
Sposato,whosegenerousoffertoreadthroughtheMendelssohnchaptersaved
mefromseveralembarrassinggaffes.Iwould alsoliketothankanumberof
other scholars who have left their mark on various parts of this book: Celia
Applegate, Daniel Beller-McKenna, Marcia Citron, Richard Cohn, John
Deathridge, Christopher Gibbs, Dana Gooley, Arthur Groos, Virginia
Hancock,JamesHepokoski,BrianHyer,David J.Levin,ChristopherMorris,
MichaelP.Steinberg,DavidTrippett,andLauraTunbridge.
AriSammartinoisnolongerapresenceinmylife,butsheisverymuchone
oneverypageofthisbook.IthankherforsharingGermanhistorywithme.
Idedicatethebooktomyparents,LynandGeneMinor,andamhumbled
bytheirunendingsupplyoflove,support,enthusiasm,andgrace.
Introduction
Early in the nineteenth century, Hans Georg Nägeli made a promise.
Writing in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, the Swiss pedagogue
prophesied a coming “age of music,” one in whichart becomes the “com-
mon possession of the people,” and “humanity itself is taken up in the
elementofmusic.”Hisvisionwasassimpleasitwasgrandiose:heforesaw
anageofchoralsinging.1
Nägeli’s eager prognostication was to meet some stiff competition. The
nineteenthcenturymayindeedhavebeenan“ageofmusic,”butthatlaurel
hastypicallybeenplacedontheheadsofvirtuososoloists,theinstrumental
sublime,andthegalvanizingpowerofoperaticrapture.Atbest,“humanity
itself”figuresintothismusicalworldastheaudience,whereitspendsagood
portion of the century sitting down – a passive spectator to the music
performed around it. But Nägeli’s promise amounted to more than high
hopes. For the nineteenth century was also an age of music precisely
accordingtohisterms:anageinwhich“thepeople”participatedinmaking
music, an age in which the burgeoning middle class saw its collective
aspirations embodied and envoiced in the music it itself sang. Choral
Fantasies is concerned with this other side of the “age of music.” And
while its focus is Germany, this book’s story is one of many that remain
to be told about a nineteenth century whose aims, achievements, and
practitionersreachedwellbeyondtheGermaniccontoursofNägeli’simagi-
nation–andwellbeyondthemyopicgenericfrontiersthathavefrequently
limitedmusicology’sengagementwithmusic’spublicspheres.
Nägeli’sinvocationofmusicasa“commonpossessionofthepeople”was
afamiliarthemeinthenineteenthcentury,andassuchitiseasytofileaway
under any number of hyperbolic rhetorics;most obviously, theownership
tropewouldsoonplayastarringroleattheintersectionofGermannation-
alism and nineteenth-century art religion.2 But the kind of possession
Nägeli had in mind is neither a cabinet of scores in the communal imagi-
nary – in fact, it is not an object at all – nor a shrine for hushed, supine
worshipatthealtarofmusicaltranscendence.Rather,Nägeli’spossessionis
participationitself,thepromisethatmusicwouldbelongtothepeopleonly
throughtheirownperformanceofit.Andifchoralperformanceisindeed 1