Heinrich Schenker and Musical Thought in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna

264 Pages·2001·14.063 MB·English

by  Kevin C. Karnes

Heinrich Schenker and Musical Thought in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna
A Dissertation
Presented to
The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Brandeis University
Department of Music
Allan Keiler, Advisor
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Kevin C. Karnes
May 2001
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UMI Number: 3004964
Copyright 2001 by
Karnes, Kevin Charles
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Copyright by
Kevin C. Karnes
2001
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This dissertation, directed and approved by Kevin C. Karnes’s committee, has been
accepted and approved by the faculty of Brandeis University in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of:
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
^Yv>g-
Dean of Arts and Sciences
Dissertation Committee:
Allan Keiler, Committee Chair
-
Jessie Ann Owens
* , % y
Ian BentTt? olumbia University
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Acknowledgements
Of all the debts I have accrued while preparing this dissertation, the greatest by
far are owed to my advisor, Allan Keiler, and my principal reader, Jessie Ann Owens.
Over the course of the past several years, these two have been a constant source of
advice, inspiration, and support, both academic and personal. I do not think that a young
scholar could hope to fmd better mentors than these. I also owe much to my outside
reader, Professor Ian Bent, without whose advice and enthusiasm this dissertation would
have been somewhat different, and far weaker. In addition, I have had the good fortune
of benefiting, at various times and in a variety of ways, from the ideas of many other
scholars and friends. Among them, four have offered much-needed advice and assistance
at just the right moments: Eric Chafe, Bonnie Gordon, Lowell Lindgren, and Harry
Zohn. I am grateful to the staffs of the Special Collections Library at the University of
California, Riverside (and especially Sidney Berger), and the Osterreichische
Nationalbibliothek in Vienna for providing me with unrestricted access to their
collections. 1 am thankful for the generous financial support of the American Brahms
Society and both the Music Department and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at
Brandeis University, without whose assistance my research would not have been
possible. I must acknowledge the tireless work of department administrator Nancy
Redgate, without whose guidance I could never have navigated through the maze of my
graduate studies. Finally, I am ever grateful for the love and support of friends and
family (the latter, of course, including Conny).
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Abstract
Heinrich Schenker and Musical Thought in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna
A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Brandeis
University, Waltham, Massachusetts
by Kevin C. Karnes
Although there has recently been a significant rise of interest in late nineteenth-
century music criticism, the early essays of Heinrich Schenker, one of the most
prominent Viennese music journalists, have previously received little scholarly attention.
In this dissertation, I examine Schenker’s critical writings—100 essays and reviews
published between 1891 and 1898 in five journals—for the insight they provide about
both the early stages of Schenker’s thinking and the critical culture of Vienna and
surrounding cities during this period. I argue that Schenker’s critical writings are
especially valuable for our understanding of late nineteenth-century criticism in that they
introduce us to several forms of journalistic reporting, including the analytical review and
the biographical portrait, that have previously been overlooked in studies of the subject.
Such essays, I suggest, in turn encourage us to examine the ways in which critics drew
upon a wide array of ideas discussed and debated by figures active in a number of other
branches of the intellectual discourse on music, including analysis, philosophical
aesthetics, and the study of music history. In order to illustrate this point, I describe how
Schenker makes use of analytical means to defend the effectiveness of Brahms’s vocal
music; how his discussions of both musical coherence and the creative process draw upon
the ideas of Eduard Hanslick, Friedrich von Hausegger, and other important nineteenth-
century writers on music aesthetics; and how his biographical studies confront some of
the same methodological problems debated by Guido Adler and other pioneering music
historians. I conclude by arguing that Schenker’s early writings introduce us to the
previously unacknowledged intellectual richness of the critical discourse in this time and
place, and by suggesting that a detailed examination of the work of his many neglected
peers may likewise enhance our understanding of this field.
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Contents
Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................iv
Abstract..............................................................................................................................v
Abbreviations Used in this Dissertation..........................................................................viii
Introduction.......................................................................................................................1
Chapter 1. Beyond the Feu i He ton: Reconstructing a Context for Schenker’s
Early Work within the Late Nineteenth-Century Critical Discourse.................8
The Critical Culture of Schenker’s Vienna
The Early Career of Heinrich Schenker
Chapter 2. Music Analysis as Critical Method: Schenker’s Reviews of
Brahms’s Vocal Music, 1891-1892 ....................................................................... 66
Schenker’s Work and the Analytical Traditions of Music Criticism
Schenker’s Reviews of Brahms’s Vocal Music
The Turn-of-the-Century Reception of Schenker’s Reviews
Chapter 3. Music Criticism and Speculative Aesthetics I: Bruckner’s
Symphonies and the Problem of Musical Coherence...........................................115
The Problem of Coherence and the Music of Anton Bruckner
The Subject of Coherence in the Nineteenth-Century Aesthetic Literature
Aesthetic Theory in Schenker’s Review of Bruckner’s Eighth
Symphony, 1896
Chapter 4. Music Criticism and Speculative Aesthetics II: Theories of
Compositional Process and the Creative Personality............................................155
The Creative Process in Schenker’s Reviews of Bruckner’s Music
Theories of Compositional Process and the Creative Personality in the
Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Aesthetic Literature
Brahms, Bruckner, and the Creative Personality as a Subject of Critical Debate
Changing Theories of Creativity in Schenker’s Early Writings, 1893-1897
Schenker’s Theory and Brahms’s Practice: A Study of the Relationship between
Critical Speculation and Compositional Experience
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Chapter 5. Musicology and Criticism: Journalism, Historical Research,
and the Advent of Mi/sikwissenschaft......................................................................197
Music Criticism and Historical Research
Critical Biography and the Methods and Goals ofMusikwissenschaft
Bibliography......................................................................................................................237
vii
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Abbreviations Used in this Dissertation
DBA Bernhard Fabian, ed. Deutsches Biographisches Archiv. Eine {Cumulation
cuts 254 der wichtigsten biographischen Nachschlagewerke fur den dentschen
Bereich bis zum Ausgangdes neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Microfiche ed.
Munich: K. G. Saur, 1982.
EK Heinrich Schenker. Heinrich Schenker als Essayist undKritiker. Gesammelte
Aufsdtze, Rezensionen und kleinere Berichte aus den Jahren 1891-1901.
Edited by Hellmut Federhofer. Studien und Materialien zur
Musikwissenschaft, vol. 5. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1990.
MGG Friedrich Blume, ed. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Allgemeine
Enzyklopadie der Musik. 17vols. Kassel: Barenreiter, 1949-1986.
NTB Hellmut Federhofer. Heinrich Schenker. Nach Tagebiichern undBriefen in
der Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection. Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, vol.
3. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1985.
OJMC Unpublished document located in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection at
the Special Collections Library of the University of California, Riverside.
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Introduction
In recent years, there has been a significant rise of interest both in the music
criticism of late nineteenth-century Vienna and in Heinrich Schenker’s earliest writings.
Strangely, however, Schenker’s critical essays have been largely neglected by students of
Viennese musical life, and those scholars who have studied Schenker’s work in detail
have most often overlooked the relationship between his essays and the events occurring
within his own musical culture. While the causes of this situation are perplexing and
undoubtedly complex, its effects are clear. By ignoring the intellectual context in which
they appeared, we have so far failed to ascertain the true meaning and significance of
Schenker’s early writings. Moreover, our understanding of Viennese musical culture has
suffered because of the neglect of one of its most important journalists. Over the course
of this dissertation, I will attempt to address this situation. By examining Schenker’s
critical writings alongside the work of his peers and the cultural events that inspired
them, I hope to portray a sense of the significance that Schenker’s early work had within
the Viennese musical community. Furthermore, I hope to show that a detailed
examination of Schenker’s writings—like those of many other presently neglected
critics—can enhance our understanding of musical life and thought in late nineteenth-
century Vienna.
With remarkable consistency, Schenker’^ work has received little attention in the
many important studies of Viennese criticism that have appeared in recent years.
Although he was a prolific writer, and despite the fact that, for a time, he contributed
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