Research Paper P Crane

What key developments in the first half of the nineteenth century resulted in a new aesthetic status for instrumental music? A successful work of art is comprised of three distinct, discrete yet interlocking components. The success of the particular work requires that each of these components be in itself successful. Each of these components is a product of its time and influences and each component may, on the whole, be static, vary a little or vary a lot. Within this matrix lie the three components: the author, the work, the receiver. The time under review is the period approximating the first half of the 19th century. Material changes in society and less corporeal extrusions of philosophic thought had combined in those times to provide a context which encouraged, even provoked, an augmentation of art theory which saw instrumental music achieve a status higher than in previous times and one which it holds today. Significantly, this new aesthetic preceded,1 if briefly, the music with which it is most usually associated, yet the aesthetic has also been applied retrospectively with some success. This emphasizes the notion that although the new aesthetic resulted from developments outside music, the musical matrix responded quickly to the new situation giving rise to the movement in music known as Romanticism. The division of the response into the three components of author, work and listener is to make plain the main areas affected by the large number of influences that

Mark Evan Bonds, Idealism and the Aesthetics of Instrumental Music at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century, Journal of the American Musicological Society 50/2-3 (1997):389.

wrought the new music.2 Of the developments taking place around the beginning of the 19th century that saw the rise of instrumental music some were consequences arising from a general perception of failures of previous belief systems to place man within his changing world. Other influences were of a more intrinsically musical nature. The rise in the standards of musicianship and the enthusiasm with which this was supported allowed for the possibility that music could rise to any demands made of it. This was soon to be. Theology based on many gods had been displaced by a monotheism which was coming under increasing pressure as a comprehensive explanation for mans position in his world. A principal inheritor of theology, the duopoly of empiricism and rationalism, generally incorporated as philosophy, was itself having limited success as the century drew to a close. One reason for the difficulties being faced by philosophy was its reliance on language. Immanuel Kant in particular had predicted boundaries beyond which language could not proceed 3 and as philosophy required language in its own enquiries it was apparent that language was being stressed to the point where it was becoming virtually incomprehensible. Added to that was the problem of the minds ability to consider itself objectively. Philosophy had reached an impasse. Alternatively it was possible that Kant had taken philosophy to the extent of its reach. The situation, when viewed as the ideas generated by one mind pitted against those of another and the two running out of language, was disconcerting.

For example theologian Friedrich Schleiermachers work in hermeneutics, while important in articulating the artreligion idea which definitely influenced writers and composers, would be better placed as an influence in the area of reception as the musical import of a Romantic composition would need to be actively sought by the listener. 3 Bonds, Aesthetics of Instrumental Music , 398.

This incompleteness, which had been articulated by Kant, created a zone of low pressure in that most sensitive area of humankind that of aspiration. Kant had noted mans religious nature4, his aspiration to transcend his everyday world and seek higher realms. This had not been extinguished by the current failure of theological and philosophical models. Art, its creators, its creations and its contemplators came forward and in combination as art-religion and art-philosophy offered itself as the new way. The incompleteness of the universal explanation of mans position was reflected in an idea known soon as the Romantic fragment. Man does not exist as a whole, but only in parts. Man can never be present as a whole5. So wrote the influential poet Friedrich Schlegel. But against this the Romantics were at heart optimists. . the tendency towards a greater synthesis, towards the Absolute, is always also present, articulating itself as hope and Sehnsucht. 6 The endless longing or seeking, the Sehnsucht, became a pillar for the Romantics. That traditional theological models were experiencing difficulty was a given and the problems came from a variety of areas. But the trouble that plagued philosophy was largely due to the failure of language. As philosophic enquiry deepened language was unable to capture the content felt to lie beyond. The language became vague and incomprehensible. Instrumental music had long been viewed similarly7. Without text as a guide it, too, was taken to be vague

John Butt, Choral Music, in The Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Music, ed. Jim Samson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chapter 8,233. 5 Beate Julia Perrey, Fragments of Desire: Schumanns Dichterliebe, Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Chapter2, 26. 6 Ibid., 31. 7 Bonds, Aesthetics of Instrumental Music, 392.

and indefinite, capable of diverse interpretation. As a result the prevailing aesthetic ascribed to it had been that of a craft albeit a beloved one. Technically, instrumental music had been improving apace. Superior instruments, players, education and performing opportunities had ensured musics remaining a vital functioning entity. Some thought that this text-less nonrepresentational art form, the only non-representational art form, could be the art to best express the areas intimated by the Sehnsucht, the area where language cold not go. Friedrich Schlegel in lectures he delivered in 1804-5 made the connection when he pointed out Now if feeling is the root of all consciousness, then . Language has the essential deficit that it does not grasp feeling deeply enough . Music . as the language of feeling . is the only universal language.8 The seeds for the interpenetration of the arts . were sown by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. To him, and to a lesser extent the writers of the French Encyclopedie, can be credited the virtual mania for writing about music that arose around 17709. The developments that produced the new aesthetic for instrumental music were taking place in disciplines other than music. Longyears assertion is important in forging the vital connection between the work done by philosophers and writers and the application of their work to music. The writers associated with the movement known as Weimar Classicism . had a lively . interest in music. Herder collaborated with J.C.F.Bach, one of J.S.Bachs sons .10 It was the work of poets, writers, academics and journalists who had this abiding interest in music that oversaw the application of the Romantic aesthetic to music. Around the year 1800 a society of Romantic thinkers began to

8 9

F. Schlegel, Philosophische Vorlesungen, II (Munich, Paderborn and Vienna,1964),57. nd Rey M. Longyear, Nineteenth Century Romanticism In Music 2 ed.(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 8. 10 Ibid.

coalesce into what became the Romantic school. This was centered in Jena and Weimar. Members of this circle included the Schlegels, Tieck, Novalis, Fichte and Schelling. The actual usage of the term Romantic is usually attributed to Friedrich and August Schlegel and Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (Jean Paul) who were leading members of this group. 11 Wilhelm Wackenroder had died in 1789 but his writings, which were assisted by Tieck, were influential far into the 19th century12. Wackenroders position allowed for the possibility of an art-religion where the transcendence customarily associated with religious experience could be achieved in a similar way through art. The writings of the Jena and Weimar circle were taking root. Influenced by this outlook a broader philosophical program of romantic idealism was developed at the newly established University of Berlin by Fichte, Schleiermacher, Hegel and . Schelling.13 Arguably before a note of music had been written in its name, with direct links to Kants work at Koenigsberg University, with articulate and educated exposition by the Jena and Weimar circle and with Berlin University taking up its cause, Romanticism received a boost to its musical cause that was the equal to all. In 1798, Breitkopf and Hartel Leipzig, commenced publication of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (AMZ), a weekly general music journal. The notion of the AMZ as the

Jim Samson, Romanticism, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2 ed. Accessed 23/09/2009. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.au/subscriber/article/grove/music/23751 12 Peter Branscombe, Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. Accessed 23/09/2009. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.au/subscriber/article/grove/music/29753
13

11

nd

James Gutmann, Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy, http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhiana.cgi?id=dv4-28.

cradle of music hermeneutics is appealing in that Rochlitz hand-picked his reviewers .14 The Oxford Music Online places its examination of the editorial quality of AMZ within its entry on Hermeneutics. The AMZ was crucial in providing a public forum for the dissemination of ideology concerning music and the new aesthetic. Significantly the editorial directives implicitly accepted the new aesthetic and the romantic viewpoint was seen as a natural tool of the reviewer. The guidelines that Rochlitz provided indicate the extreme quality expected from all contributors and he published these as emphasis. The editorial position taken had the AMZ see itself as a literary-artistic institute and a tribunal of artistic judgment15. Journalistic strictures included Rochlitzs schema involving [(1) the sense and spirit, (2) the means, (3) the grammar16 of the work under examination.] Expanding on this, an AMZ writer Hans Georg Naegeli in 180217 [outlined a horizon . of pure objectivity from which to determine the purely artistic content of an absolute instrumental work. The horizon has four vantage points . (1) technical, (2) psychological, (3) historical and (4) idealistic.] This depth of analysis would be required in the reviews to come of what would be termed Romantic music. E.T.A. Hoffmanns journalism was notable then as now as exemplary and spanned the divide from technical, philosophical, aesthetic and entertainment with no apparent difficulty. His review of Beethovens 5th symphony of 1810 remains current. He detailed the new aesthetic through his reviews and noted Beethovens18 setting in motion the

14

Jim Samson ed. Hermeneutics, Oxford Music Online.p.4. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/subscriber/article/grove/music/12871.

15 16

Ibid. Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Gerhard Allroggen, Hoffmann, E.T.A., Oxford Music Online. P.5.

machinery of awe, fear, horror and pain, awakened that infinite yearning which is the essence of Romanticism. Elsewhere he speaks of Romantic talent as that which opens up the wondrous realm of the Infinite.19 In Hoffmanns series in AMZ the Kreisleriana his article titled Beethovens Instrumental Music marks the end of the old-fashioned doctrine of the Affections in music aesthetics20. That this should include mimesis becomes clear when Hoffmann writes Music reveals to man . a world in which he leaves behind all precise feelings in order to embrace an inexpressible longing. Were you even aware of this . you poor instrumental composers who have laboriously struggled to represent precise sensations, or even events.21 Hoffmann, a student at Koenigsberg University during Kants tenure, in his writings for AMZ, outlines explicitly or implicitly the connection that runs from Rousseaus early mention of composer self expression, through Kants transcendental idealism, and Wackenroders artreligion, until he places the work of instrumental music as that best suited to describe the philosophical longing that is to remain beyond language. This unequivocally raises the status of the music to a position of self sufficiency. In responding to the question of the forces extant at the time instrumental musics aesthetic took its current form I have invested the greater part of the reply with the philosophers and the commentators. The creators of the music, the composers, pose problems. It has been said that Wackenroder was taking the role of prophet in describing a music that would soon be written. Hoffmann, whose awareness of the Romantic aesthetic was fully
Http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/subscribe/article/grove/music51682.
19 20

Ibid. Ibid. 21 David Charlton, E.T.A. Hoffmanns Musical Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 96.

formed, looked back through Mozart, Haydn and even to Palestrina to see evidence of Romanticism yet the concept there is out of time, anachronistic. Beethoven, seen by Hoffmann as an exemplary Romantic, was a participant and keen observer of the dynamic and drew pleasure from it. In a conversation book Beethoven had written The moral law within us and the starry sky above us Kant!!!22 Ironic it would be if the pleasure drawn by a philosopher in contemplation of a work of art should be as the pleasure drawn by an artist from the work of a philosopher. Beethovens observation may be seen as the moment when the musicians themselves had been fully drawn into the dialogue. The early 19th century saw the rise of the travelling virtuosi such as Paganini, Liszt and Chopin. The virtuoso, as the romantic artist achieving transcendence through his personal struggle with his instrument became iconic. That those musician-composers chose the path of predominantly instrumental music demonstrated the self sufficiency of music minus text. The post-feudal subject, finding himself in a new society, one less rural and more industrialized, who could work for pay or aspire to improvement through business, had been empowered. Self expression was emerging as an attainable option. The philosophical movement had also been toward the individual with Kants work emphasizing the unique subject and laying further emphasis on the imagination of that individual in interpreting his world. If that individual were a musician the opportunities afforded by a move toward self expression and the use of imagination were in the area of creating the new, not recreating the old. Kant had advised that the hallmark of genius would be originality. Other philosophers had
22

John Butt, Choral Music, in The Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Music, Chapter 8,233.

stressed that the move should be in the direction of instrumental music and to leave, for now, the vocal work. Given that, the direction for the composer was to produce expressive, original, instrumental music of the highest caliber of which he was capable. All that was needed now was the audience to appreciate the artists work. The Jena and Weimar writers had done their work in outlining the situation and offering their insights into the way ahead. The AMZ and the impresarios now were to complete the circle by providing educated or prepared audiences to receive the works. The rise in the aesthetic status of instrumental music then was an amalgam of the work done by the philosophers, the commentators, the communicators and then the musicians themselves. How that work impacted on the three elements of music, the composer, the work and the audience, describes the process.

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