The Intersection of Gender, Religion, and Culture in Nineteenth-Century
THE INTERSECTION OF GENDER, RELIGION, AND CULTURE IN NINETEENTH‐ CENTURY GERMANIC SALONS Jennifer Lauren Psujek A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC August: 2010 Committee: Mary Natvig, Advisor Eftychia Papanikolaou ii ABSTRACT Mary Natvig, Advisor Modern salons began as gatherings for conversation among the French aristocracy in the seventeenth century. By the eighteenth century it had become a bourgeois tradition, with its importance cumulating in the French Revolution. The French salon moved to Germany and Austria in the late eighteenth century, however, its heyday in those lands was in the nineteenth century. The salon became a place where women in both France and the Germanic lands could gain an education and power. What has yet to be discussed in scholarship is the extent to which the salon in the Germanic lands moved away from its French roots and Became its own unique tradition. First, purely musical salons began during the Biedermeier period, as will be seen when examining the German salons of Sara Levy, Amalie Beer, Lea Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn‐Hensel, and Clara Wieck‐Schumann. Second, Germany and Austria saw the first salons hosted by Jewish women. This thesis highlights those of Henriette Herz, Rahel Levin‐Varnhagen, Fanny von Arnstein, Sara Levy, Amalie Beer, Lea Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn‐Hensel, Berta Zuckerkandl, and Salka Viertel. Finally, to demonstrate the benefits of Germanic salon culture, the last chapter focuses on Johanna Kinkel’s involvement with the Berlin salon tradition. Kinkel was a composer, writer, and political activist.
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