German modernism : music and the arts

333 Pages·2005·3.022 MB·English

by  Frisch, Walter

German Modernism
california studies in 20th-century music
Richard Taruskin, General Editor
1. Revealing Masks: Exotic Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist
Music Theater,by W. Anthony Sheppard
2. Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement,by Simon Morrison
3. German Modernism: Music and the Arts, by Walter Frisch
German Modernism
music and the arts
Walter Frisch
university of california press
berkeley los angeles london
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the
generous contribution to this book provided
by the Ahmanson Foundation Humanities
Endowment Fund ofthe University of
California Press Associates.
University ofCalifornia Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University ofCalifornia Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2005 by The Regents ofthe University ofCalifornia
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frisch, Walter, 1951–.
German modernism : music and the arts / Walter
Frisch.
p. cm. — (California studies in 20th-century
music ; 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-24301-3 (cloth : alk. paper).
1.Music—Germany—19th century—History and
criticism. 2.Music—Germany—20th century—
History and criticism. 3.Modernism (Art)—
Germany. 4.Art and music. I.Title. II.Series.
ML275.F75 2005
780'.943'09034—dc22 2004012678
Manufactured in the United States ofAmerica
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements ofANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997)
(Permanence ofPaper).
for my family
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contents
acknowledgments
ix
introduction
1
1 / Ambivalent Modernism:
Perspectives from the 1870s and 1880s 7
Wagner and German Modernism . Crosscurrents in
Wilhelmine Germany . Nietzsche and Wagner . Nietzsche’s
Neoclassical Turn . Nietzsche’s “German Depth,” “Music of the South,”
and the “Grand Style” . Wagner’s Parsifaland
Ambivalent Modernism
2 / German Naturalism 36
Naturalism: Definitions and Perspectives . Naturalism and Wagner .
Declamatory Naturalism . German Verismo . Tiefland .
Mona Lisa . Der ferne Klang . Salomeand Elektra
3 / Convergences: Music and the Visual Arts 88
Adorno’s “Convergence” . The Total Artwork .
Max Klinger . The Brahms Fantasy . Symbolism, Abstraction,
Jugendstil . Music and Jugendstil . The Theories of August Endell .
The Blue Rider . The Schoenberg Concert of January 2, 1911 .
Schoenberg’s Music . Kandinsky’s Impression III . Thoughts in Conclusion
4 / Bach, Regeneration, and Historicist Modernism 138
Bach as Healthy, Bach as Healer . Bach Reception around 1900 .
Bach and Music Theory . Reger’s Historicist Modernism . Reger’s Organ
Suite, op. 16 . Reger’s Bach Variations,op. 81 . Reger’sPiano Concerto,
op. 114 . Busoni’s Bach . Toward Irony: Mahler and Bachian Counterpoint
5 / Ironic Germans 186
Thomas Mann, Wagner, and Irony . Buddenbrooks .
Mann’s Tristan . Parody . Blood of the Wälsungs . Mahler’s Irony
6 / “Dancing in Chains”:
Strauss, Hofmannsthal, Pfitzner, and Their Musical Pasts 214
Strauss and Hofmannsthal . TristaninDer Rosenkavalier .
Ariadne auf Naxos . TheAriadne Year 1911 . Mozart, Wagner,
and Ariadne . The Character of Ariadne . Ariadneas Hypertext . Pfitzner’s
Regressive Modernism . Epilogue: “Our Play Has Long Ago Finished Its Run”
notes
257
bibliography
293
index
309
acknowledgments
Work on this project began as long ago as the late 1980s, in various gradu-
ate seminars and an undergraduate course (called Music in Fin-de-Siècle
Europe) taught at Columbia University. It continued during a sabbatical
year in Germany in 1990–91 under the auspices ofthe Alexander von Hum-
boldt-Stiftung, and reached near-fulfillment during a rewarding year spent
as a Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public
Library in 2000–2001. The director of the Center at that time, Peter Gay,
is far more than an éminence grise in German cultural-historical studies;
he might justly be called the éminence platinée,so authoritative have been
his achievements and his insights. Peter proved a wonderful interlocutor
and counselor for me during my year at the Center. I also profited greatly
from discussions with the other fourteen fellows, several ofwhom were both
enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the musical repertory treated here.
The staª at NYPL, at both the Humanities and Social Sciences Library and
the Performing Arts Library, was always responsive and helpful; and these
collections are without equal in the United States for their richness in the
area of Austro-German modernism.
I am grateful to Columbia University for the release time over many years
and perhaps even more for the “engaged” time spent in stimulating dis-
cussions with students and colleagues, both within and outside the class-
room. As sometime chair and long-standing board member of Columbia’s
ix