Freedom and the Arts : essays on music and literature

449 Pages·2012·4.456 MB·English

by  Rosen, Charles

Freedom and the Arts

Freedom and the Arts
Essays on Music and Literature

ChArles rosen
hArvArd University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and london, england
2012
Copyright © 2012 by the President and Fellows of harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United states of America
Publication of this book has been supported through the generous provisions
of the Maurice and lula Bradley smith Memorial Fund.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
rosen, Charles, 1927–
Freedom and the arts : essays on music and literature / Charles rosen.—1st ed.
p. cm.
includes index.
isBn 978-0-674-04752-5
1. Music—history and criticism. 2. literature—history and criticism. i. title.
Ml60.r7849 2012
780.9—dc23
2011044591
For Henri Zerner

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
introduction 1
part i. the Weight of society
1 Freedom and Art 7
2 Culture on the Market 15
3 The Future of Music 24
4 The Canon 39
part ii. Mostly Mozart
5 dramatic and tonal logic in Mozart’s operas 51
6 Mozart’s entry into the twentieth Century 64
7 The triumph of Mozart 73
8 drama and Figured Bass in Mozart’s Concertos 79
9 Mozart and Posterity 114
10 structural dissonance and the Classical sonata 121
11 tradition without Convention 135
part iii. Centenaries
12 Felix Mendelssohn at 200: Prodigy without Peer 171
13 happy Birthday, elliott Carter! 178
14 Frédéric Chopin, reactionary and revolutionary 187
15 robert schumann, a vision of the Future 193
part iv. long Perspectives
16 The new Grove’s dictionary returns 203
17 Western Music: The view from California 210
Postscript: Modernism and the Cold War 240
Contents  viii
18 Theodor Adorno: Criticism as Cultural nostalgia 248
19 resuscitating opera: Alessandro scarlatti 264
20 operatic Paradoxes: The ridiculous and sublime 278
21 lost Chords and the Golden Age of Pianism 290
part v. Classical Modernism: Past and Present
22 Montaigne: Philosophy as Process 303
23 la Fontaine: The ethical Power of style 319
24 The Anatomy lesson: Melancholy and
the invention of Boredom 339
25 Mallarmé and the transfiguration of Poetry 353
26 hofmannsthal and radical Modernism 368
27 The Private obsessions of Wystan Auden 383
part vi. Final Cadence, Unresolved
28 old Wisdom and newfangled Theory:
two one-Way streets to disaster 397
Credits 423
index of names and Works 425
Acknowledgments
Above all, i should like to express my gratitude for robert silvers’s
sympathetic and inspiring efforts to make sure that the many reviews of
mine he edited were always accessible to readers without a specialized knowl-
edge of the matters at hand. i have written two new and somewhat technical
essays for this volume, not so much to supplement as to correct what i have
written before, and i must thank Professor robert Marshall of Brandeis
University and Professor scott Burnham of Princeton University for their really
valuable correc tions and their encouragement. i owe a great debt to Professor
Kristina Muxfeldt of the University of indiana at Bloomington for helping me
put the book together and get the music examples in good order, saving me
many hours of labor. i am deeply sensible of the understanding shown by
the harvard University Press, above all the kindness and tact of lindsay
Waters through all the changes of plan, and grateful for the help and patience
of shanshan Wang.