Music and German Literature: Their Relationship Since the Middle Ages by James M.McGlatheryReview by: Emery SnyderNotes, Second Series, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Sep., 1993), pp. 146-147Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/898720 .

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NOTES, September 1993

Music and German Literature: Their Relationship since the Middle Ages. Edited by James M. McGlathery. (Studies in German Literature, Lin- guistics, and Culture, 66.) Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1992. [x, 352 p. ISBN 1-879751-03-8. $57.00.]

Music and German Literature presents pa- pers read at a symposium held at the Uni- versity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. They have apparently not been heavily altered for publication, with the ex- ception of footnotes, and often retain a col- loquial style. Several are provided in read- able, if occasionally awkward translations from the original German (almost all Ger- man citations are translated for the non- Germanophone).

Three types of approach are used here in juxtaposing text and music: (1) exam- ining texts that take music as their theme; (2) examining the literary context of a par- ticular composer (here J. S. Bach); and (3) examining works like song and opera that include text and music.

Among those of the first sort, Hubert Heinen's contribution studies depictions of music-making in German songs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, coming to the conclusion that poets did not use tech- nical terms out of regard for ignorant au- diences, and that some poets avoided ref- erences to music lest their audiences assimilate them to lower-class minstrels. More work on this topic would be useful, on such questions as why audiences were not interested in music but apparently heard with relish technical terms for such disciplines as hawking. Was music a purely professional activity? How then to explain its place among the arts? And what to do with the elaborate word-play involving fiddle-playing and swordsmanship in around the figure of Volker in the Nibe- lungenlied or the fact that Gottfried of Strassburg's Tristan includes musicianship among his many courtly accomplishments?

Several essays concern themselves with the important role of musical imagery in modern German literature. Albrecht Rieth- muiiller places a long and careful reading of the poem "The Bust of Beethoven" by Ni- kolaus Lenau (1802-1850) within the con- text of Beethoven Rezeption in the nine-

teenth century. Walter Salmen investigates dance symbolism in music and art around 1900. Marc A. Weiner shows how in the first decades of the twentieth century, and in the wake of Friedrich Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy, many thinkers project onto mu- sic their social ideologies, and how conflicts between different styles of music are made to symbolize ideological conflicts between conservatives and malcontents, Germans and foreigners.

Three essays involve theoretical ques- tions. John Neubauer's piece on Goethe's music-theoretical fragments forms a foot- note to his other work on eighteenth- century theory. Helmut Gobel's essay on the language of E. T. A. Hoffmann's mu- sical reviews attempts to generalize points made by recent scholarship into a more general theory about Hoffmann's lan- guage. Stephen Paul Scher's thought- provoking essay attempts to summarize and reinterpret recent work on the rela- tionship between music and literature in the history of German aesthetics. All these works will prove valuable to musicologists interested in the social context of nine- teenth-century music, not least for their references to recent literary work.

Two offerings concentrate on individual writers. George Schoolfield discusses Rainer Maria Rilke's views on music, which differ from the mainstream of German lit- erature in that he did not particularly ad- mire it; and Albrecht Duimling investigates the extremely important oral component (speaking and singing) in Bertolt Brecht's methods of work and notions of literature.

The two essays on Bach's literary envi- ronment are less satisfying. Hans Joachim Kreutzer sketches the literary world of Leipzig; his account of the minor literary figures whose texts Bach set may prove use- ful to musicologists. Gloria Flaherty's sur- vey covers similar ground, but gives an en- tirely different picture; it ranges much farther back in time and stresses popular genres such as itinerant theater. Neither article will suffice as an introduction to the literature of the period; neither gives a clear account of the two most important figures in Bach's Leipzig, the author- educators Johann Christian Gottsched and Christian Fiirchtegott Gellert.

Among those works dealing with musico- literary genres, Ronald J. Taylor summa-

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Book Reviews Book Reviews

rizes his previous work on the melodies of medieval German secular songs. He raises interesting points about manuscript trans- mission, but insists on an absolute dichot- omy between secular and sacred music, and reiterates his theories on the central im- portance and medieval origins of the major mode, which no musicologist is likely to adopt.

Dianne M. McMullen provides informa- tion on the fascinating genre of the texted galliard around 1600, concentrating largely on the accent patterns of the verses and how they are set by the composers to the pronounced rhythms of the dance form. McMullen is probably right in saying that this genre helped the acceptance of dactylic meter in seventeenth-century Germany, but her discussion would make more sense if she dealt with the several competing metrical theories of the period (see Chris- tian Wagenknecht, Weckherlin und Opitz: Zur Metrik der deutschen Renaissancepoesie [Mtinchen: Beck, 1971]).

Judith Aiken's piece on opera librettos surviving without scores brings to attention a fascinating unpublished translation of the Pomo d'oro in the original aria forms by Kaspar Stieler, but her suggestion that we can imagine lost operas by singing Stieler's words to Cesti's music offers little to the study of German opera. Gary C. Thomas's essay on "Musical Rhetoric and Politics in the Early German Lied" concentrates on Constantin Christian Dedekind's Aelbani- sche Musen-Lust of 1650, asserting its debts to the seconda prattica.

Ulrich Weisstein's discussion of Heinrich Marschner's 1833 opera Hans Heiling offers a solid overview of the work's dramatic structure and the composer's modifications of the libretto; any opera where the over- ture comes after the first scene must be a fascinating work. Marschner's is placed within the tradition of Romantic opera from Hoffmann to Richard Wagner. Don- ald G. Daviau discusses the wrangling between Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Ri- chard Strauss over the adaptation of Mo- liere's Bourgeois gentilhomme in the wake of their collaboration on Ariadne auf Naxos.

As is usual in such volumes, there is very little continuity between the essays, and only those interested in particular articles are likely to consult the volume. It is some- times difficult to guess at the intended au-

rizes his previous work on the melodies of medieval German secular songs. He raises interesting points about manuscript trans- mission, but insists on an absolute dichot- omy between secular and sacred music, and reiterates his theories on the central im- portance and medieval origins of the major mode, which no musicologist is likely to adopt.

Dianne M. McMullen provides informa- tion on the fascinating genre of the texted galliard around 1600, concentrating largely on the accent patterns of the verses and how they are set by the composers to the pronounced rhythms of the dance form. McMullen is probably right in saying that this genre helped the acceptance of dactylic meter in seventeenth-century Germany, but her discussion would make more sense if she dealt with the several competing metrical theories of the period (see Chris- tian Wagenknecht, Weckherlin und Opitz: Zur Metrik der deutschen Renaissancepoesie [Mtinchen: Beck, 1971]).

Judith Aiken's piece on opera librettos surviving without scores brings to attention a fascinating unpublished translation of the Pomo d'oro in the original aria forms by Kaspar Stieler, but her suggestion that we can imagine lost operas by singing Stieler's words to Cesti's music offers little to the study of German opera. Gary C. Thomas's essay on "Musical Rhetoric and Politics in the Early German Lied" concentrates on Constantin Christian Dedekind's Aelbani- sche Musen-Lust of 1650, asserting its debts to the seconda prattica.

Ulrich Weisstein's discussion of Heinrich Marschner's 1833 opera Hans Heiling offers a solid overview of the work's dramatic structure and the composer's modifications of the libretto; any opera where the over- ture comes after the first scene must be a fascinating work. Marschner's is placed within the tradition of Romantic opera from Hoffmann to Richard Wagner. Don- ald G. Daviau discusses the wrangling between Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Ri- chard Strauss over the adaptation of Mo- liere's Bourgeois gentilhomme in the wake of their collaboration on Ariadne auf Naxos.

As is usual in such volumes, there is very little continuity between the essays, and only those interested in particular articles are likely to consult the volume. It is some- times difficult to guess at the intended au-

dience. There is virtually no technical dis- cussion of music, and almost no music examples. Although some of the essays summarize material with which any ger- manist would already be familiar, the vol- ume overall seems to offer more to ger- manists than to musicologists.

EMERY SNYDER

Princeton University

Anton Bruckner und Leipzig: Die Jahre 1884-1902. By Steffen Lieber- wirth. (Anton Bruckner Dokumente und Studien, 6.) Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1988. [143 p. ISBN 3-201-01440-0.]

Bruckner-Ikonographie. Teil 1: Um 1854 bis 1924. By Renate Grasberger, with Uwe Harten. (Anton Bruckner Dokumente und Studien, 7.) Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsan- stalt, 1990. [250 p. ISBN 3-201- 01519-9.]

Anton Bruckner und Leipzig: Die Jahre 1884-1902 and Bruckner-Ikonograpie are the sixth and seventh volumes of the on- going series Anton Bruckner Dokumente und Studien edited by Othmar Wessely and published under the auspices of the Anton Bruckner Institut, Linz. The value of both volumes is found in their substantial factual and documentary content.

Anton Bruckner und Leipzig proves of in- terest for three reasons: it documents a cru- cial episode in the composer's career, it of- fers a glimpse into the musical climate of Leipzig, and it chronicles the slow, often fractious, acceptance of Bruckner's music in this conservative city. On 30 December 1884 Leipzig was the site of the world pre- miere of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. This was also the first performance of any of Bruckner's works outside of Austria. Late nineteenth-century Leipzig, with its Conservatory and Gewandhaus Orchestra, was both one of the most important musical centers in Europe and the home of a con- servative musical establishment. This estab- lishment was resistant to Bruckner's music: it was not until 1902 that a Bruckner sym- phony was played by the Gewandhaus Or- chestra at a regular subscription concert.

dience. There is virtually no technical dis- cussion of music, and almost no music examples. Although some of the essays summarize material with which any ger- manist would already be familiar, the vol- ume overall seems to offer more to ger- manists than to musicologists.

EMERY SNYDER

Princeton University

Anton Bruckner und Leipzig: Die Jahre 1884-1902. By Steffen Lieber- wirth. (Anton Bruckner Dokumente und Studien, 6.) Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1988. [143 p. ISBN 3-201-01440-0.]

Bruckner-Ikonographie. Teil 1: Um 1854 bis 1924. By Renate Grasberger, with Uwe Harten. (Anton Bruckner Dokumente und Studien, 7.) Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsan- stalt, 1990. [250 p. ISBN 3-201- 01519-9.]

Anton Bruckner und Leipzig: Die Jahre 1884-1902 and Bruckner-Ikonograpie are the sixth and seventh volumes of the on- going series Anton Bruckner Dokumente und Studien edited by Othmar Wessely and published under the auspices of the Anton Bruckner Institut, Linz. The value of both volumes is found in their substantial factual and documentary content.

Anton Bruckner und Leipzig proves of in- terest for three reasons: it documents a cru- cial episode in the composer's career, it of- fers a glimpse into the musical climate of Leipzig, and it chronicles the slow, often fractious, acceptance of Bruckner's music in this conservative city. On 30 December 1884 Leipzig was the site of the world pre- miere of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. This was also the first performance of any of Bruckner's works outside of Austria. Late nineteenth-century Leipzig, with its Conservatory and Gewandhaus Orchestra, was both one of the most important musical centers in Europe and the home of a con- servative musical establishment. This estab- lishment was resistant to Bruckner's music: it was not until 1902 that a Bruckner sym- phony was played by the Gewandhaus Or- chestra at a regular subscription concert.

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