The Tragedy of German Music

[Tarantella]

"They put the spokes in the wheels of the carriage of barbarism". I must be a bit thick, Felix, so could you explain that metaphor to me please? (I still can't use that quote function!).

I'm still a little confused about the term "Tragedy" of German music: are you deliberately using that term paradoxically, ironically or literally? I suspect you are speaking about the extra-musical environment in your interesting discussion. In which case, I pre-empt your response by suggesting it could be "German music and tragedy".

What you have to say is of great interest, however, especially all your background knowledge. This is the first I'd heard of the Schubertiade being the object of suspicion and I've read a couple of books on Schubert. Very interesting.

[ReinerTorheit]

Originally Posted by Felix

Torheit, Torheit, what a laugh! - we were taliking about centuries of music! Today we have our Canadian composer and Others.

But where's the triumph?

An attempt to answer the question seriously would be appreciated.

[Tarantella]

With respect, I think Mambo's term was "triumph" - not Felix's. The latter was referring to centuries of great German music. Just saying.

[Felix]

Tarantella, I have never been happy with those terms 'tragedy' and 'glory' but was trying to make some sense of the original title. I suppose there is something undeniably glorious about the music Germany and Austria offered to the world for some centuries. I think the person who started this thread saw the tragedy in the decline of this music more or less from Wagner onwards and in particulr in atonality. Obviously I don't agree with this.

About the Schönbergers putting spokes in the wheels, I meant that as the door closed on great music either thanks to increasing commercialism or the Nazis in person, they managed still to slip in and lodge a protest which can no longer be dislodged.

Best wishes

[Tarantella]

All great points, thanks Felix. Now I'm clearer on your thesis. The 'radical" shift from the Schonbergers: I wonder if this would have happened in France if not in Vienna, as time went on. I mean, tonality contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

[Felix]

Thanks, Tarantella

Nobody has yet noticed a mistake I made in my all too brief summary of German genius. I'm surprised that no one has clobbered me for it - when I wrote that fortunately none of of the great composers was involved with the mania about the German Reich and anti-semitism, and forgot the ghastly example of Richard Wagner. An interesting slip, as I went through the composers in my mind and left him out.

I also thought, if I love a piece by Schubert the last thing I think of is 'the glory of German music.'

Yours

[Tarantella]

Refreshing honesty!! As to Wagner: I still think his 'role' was enigmatic, since he was long dead when the Third Reich reared its ugly head. Wagner wouldn't be the first creative artist to long for a return to 'utopia' or a 'golden period'?

Schubert would have been offended if we referred to him as German and not Austro-Hungarian!!

[ReinerTorheit]

Originally Posted by Tarantella

All great points, thanks Felix. Now I'm clearer on your thesis. The 'radical" shift from the Schonbergers: I wonder if this would have happened in France if not in Vienna, as time went on. I mean, tonality contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

In fact the battleground was more Berlin than Vienna. Schoenberg found himself and his music unwanted in Austria, and moved to Berlin. There he gave composition lessons - his pupils orginally included Kurt Weill, who soon dropped such lessons - realising that the music that resulted from them was antithetical to his beliefs that music ought to appeal to common people. Weill (and others) therefore studied with Busoni instead - Busoni had also moved to Berlin by that point.

Busoni hated Wagner's music - and Wagner personally - so far that he refused to even name Wagner, referring to him only as "Herr W" when occasion demanded.

It would be wrong to make any claim that Wagner's music 'served' the Nazis - however it may have been used by them subsequently. And in fact several of Wagner's operas were banned by the Nazis.

It is also worth noting that Schenkerian analysis - which was devised quite purposely to trumpet the alleged 'superiority' of German tonal music over atonality - was in fact utilised by the Nazis as a supposed 'yardstick' of acceptability. When devising their insane judgments of 'corrupt' music, they used Schenkerian analysis as a tool! Of course, works by Weill, Schoenberg and Hindemith failed this test.

[Tarantella]

That's very interesting RT.

I wonder who these musical functionaries were during the Nazi period who could scrutinize the music of Hindemith et al. according to Schenkerian Analysis and then transpose their "findings" into meaningful language to convince those Nazi brutes. It seems paradoxical to me. Same with Stalin and his 'rules' about music in Russia. In short, there must have been many in league with the devil!!

(This all reminds me of "Dead Poet's Society", the Peter Weir film: Mr. Keating, the English teacher, scornfully dismisses an academic's writing in the Introduction to the boys' poetry book - "measuring poetry.....begone J. Evans Pritchett - we won't have any of that here! I want you rip, rip, rip boys: tear it up. What's the matter? You're not going to go to hell for doing this!)

PS: I heard Stephen Fry tell a joke tonight. He was recalling one made by Sid Caesar, the famous American comic writer, "The man who invented the first wheel was an idiot! The one who invented the next 3 was a total genius!" Raucous laughter in our house!! Sorry; just saying...

[ReinerTorheit]

Originally Posted by Tarantella

That's very interesting RT.

I wonder who these musical functionaries were during the Nazi period who could scrutinize the music of Hindemith et al. according to Schenkerian Analysis and then transpose their "findings" into meaningful language to convince those Nazi brutes. It seems paradoxical to me. Same with Stalin and his 'rules' about music in Russia. In short, there must have been many in league with the devil!!

I'd entirely agree there I think there was little difference between the way the Nazis stigmatized music by 'perverted' composers (who, err, just happened to be Jewish, with the exception of Hindemith) and the methodology used by Stalin's henchmen to wreck the careers of composers they didn't care for... mysteriously both groups of thugs felt they needed 'expert opinion' to somehow 'justify' the decisions which they'd already pre-taken? Peculiar why they felt they needed to do so? The only difference, I suppose, is that the USSR carried on attacking composers for 'formalism' until the 1980s They were still persecuting even fine mainstream composers such as Schnittke

Now Schnittke's Viola Concerto is one of those works which I wouldn't like to be without for long