Edited by DANIEL N. THOMPSON ARTICLES MICHAEL VON DER LINN 7 "Durch und durch entartete": Musical Modernism and the German Critics (1900-1936) SPECIAL SECTION MUSIC SURVEY COURSES: APPROACHES TO TEACHING DANIEL N. THOMPSON 35 Introduction: The Ingredients of a Masterpiece ANNALISA SWIG POIREL 70 The Impossible Course: Music in the Core Curriculum SEAN WILLIAMS 82 Ethnomusicology as Interdisciplinary Musicology: A Case Study PETER ROJCEWICZ 97 Noetic Learning through Music and the Arts: A View from the Conservatory COLLECTION DAVID R. A. EVANS 116 A Welsh Collection of R. LARRY TODD Mendelssohniana: Letters JUDITH E. OLSON at Aberystwyth REVIEW-ESSAY THOMAS MCGEARY 141 Gender, Sexuality, and Method in Musicology. A review of Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music, edited by Susan C. Cook and Judy Tsou; and Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, edited by Philip Brett, Elizabeth Wood, and Gary C. Thomas REVIEW STEPHEN BLUM 165 Levon Hakobian. Music of the Soviet Age, 1917-1987 Allan B. Ho and Dmitry Feofanov, eds. Shostakovich Reconsidered David Haas. Leningrad's Modernists: Studies in Composition and Musical Thought, 1917-1932 Corresponding Editors AUSTRAliA Mary Chan University of New South Wales, Kensington Graham Hardie University of Sydney Margaret J. Kartomi Monash University, Clayton Andrew D. McCredie Monash University, Melbourne / University of Queensland, Brisbane AUSTRIA Eva Badura-Skoda Editor-at-Large, Vienna BELGIUM Anne-Marie Riessauw State University of Ghent Philippe Vendrix Universite de Liege CROATIA Stanislav Tuksar University of Zagreb ENGLAND Stephen D. Banfield University of Birmingham George C. BiddlecombeJr. Royal Academy of Music, London Judith H. Blezzard University of Liverpool John Caldwell University of Oxford Tim Carter Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Egham David Charlton Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Egham Geoffrey A. Chew Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Egham Nicholas Cook University of Southampton Barry A. R. Cooper University of Manchester Jonathan M. Dunsby Editor-at-Large, Reading Mark Everist University of Southampton Anthony Ford University of Hull Frederick Hudson University of Newcastle upon Tyne Andrew Jones Cambridge University Christopher Kent University of Reading Nicholas Marston University of Oxford Thomas Messenger University of Surrey, Guildford Susan K. Rankin Cambridge University Nicholas Sandon University of Exeter Benedict Sarnaker Goldsmiths' College, London FRANCE Olivier Delaigue National Conservatory Nasreen Hussein Universite de Paris-Sorbonne GERMANY Jeffery Bossin Technical University, Berlin Albrecht Schneider University of Hamburg Herbert Schneider University of Heidelberg Hubert Unverricht Katholische Universitat, Eichstatt GHANA J. H. Kwabena Nketia International Centre for African Music and Dance HONG KONG Greta Olson Chinese University of Hong Kong ITALY Fabrizio Della Seta Conservatorio "A. Casella," L'Aquila, Rome Gabriel M. Steinschulte Pontificio Istituto de Musica Sacra, Rome NEW ZEALAND Gerald R. Seaman University of Auckland NORTHn"'RN IRELAND Piers Hellawell Queen's University of Belfast PORTUGAL Manuel Carlos de Brito Universidade Nova de Lisboa Salwa EI-Shawan Castelo-Branco Universidade Nova de Lisboa REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Harry White University College Dublin RUSSIA Lev Ginsburg Muzykal'naia Zhizn', Moscow Galina V. Grigorieva Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory Rimma Kosacheva Government Institute of Theatrical Arts, Moscow Nelli G. Shakhnazarova Scientific Research Institute of the Arts, Moscow SCOTLAND Christopher D. S. Field Universilty of Edinburgh Raymond Monelle University of Edinburgh SOUTH AFRICA Winfried Ludemann University of Stellenbosch SWITZERLAND Max Luetolf University of Zurich WALES David R. A. Evans University College of North Wales, Bangor David WynJones University College, Cardiff! Open University, Cardiff Editor's Preface Welcome to Current Musicology #65! This issue is a little bit different from those of the past, in that we have devoted a special section of it to the teaching that constitutes music survey courses. As some readers may be aware, undergraduate education at Columbia University has for many decades been built around its Core Curriculum: Music Humanities, Art Humanities, Literature Humanities, and Contemporary Civilization. The name of the Music Humanities course is Masterpieces of Western Music, and it is, essentially, a historical survey of the music of the Western culti- vated tradition. Why include articles about the teaching of survey courses within the covers of a" musicology journal? I suppose the answer is that as an ethno- musicologist I believe that the study of music comprises the study not only of notated scores and other historical documents, but can instead encom- pass the study of any aspect of human musical behavior, and this includes the teaching of-as well as the teaching about-music. Columbia is a research university, but the teaching of survey courses is also performed at liberal arts colleges and conservatories. Therefore, in addition to the views of our own Annalisa Swig Poirel, we are fortunate to be able to share the perspectives of Sean Williams, who administrates and teaches at The Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington, and Peter Rojcewicz, who administrates and teaches at The Juilliard School, in New York. Once again, thanks are in order. First and foremost, appreciation is ex- pressed to the authors who have contributed to this issue, which, in addi- tion to those already mentioned, includes Michael von der Linn, Thomas McGeary, and Stephen Blum, as well as David R. A. Evans, R. Larry Todd, and Judith E. Olson. I am grateful also to Dieter Christensen, Elaine Sisman, and the rest of the Advisory Board for their continuing support; the anonymous referees on whom this journal depends for accomplished evaluation of submissions; and Maryam Moshaver, Mark Burford, Rebecca Kim, and the rest of the editorial board members for their editorial skills. Finally, thanks once again to Joyce Tsai for computer support. Prost! -DNT "Durch und durch entartete": Musical Modernism and the German Critics (1900-1936) By Michael von der Linn In the 1912 essay "Zuruck zu Mozart?" the noted conductor and com- poser Felix Weingartner claimed that "in general terms something is wrong and somewhere things are rotten in the development of music to- day" (translated in Botstein 1993: 3).1 He had become a confirmed pes- simist by 1926. Indeed, his tone is almost apocalyptic: In today's period of brutalization of artistic feeling there remains only the expectation of a total collapse of all that enlightened minds have held to be great and beautiful. (Weingartner 1969: 301) Adolf Weissmann devoted an entire study, Die Musik in der Weltkrise, to the subject of music's "present crisis" (Weissmann 1922: vii). Even Paul Bekker, an open-minded advocate of the avant-garde, conceded that the era beginning around 1900 was one of "disintegration" [Zersplitterung] (Bekker 1926: 216). These sentiments were shared by a diverse group of prominent critics, scholars, composers, conductors, and music directors (see appendix). Although they debated specific points, these individuals agreed that forces unleashed around 1880 had placed music in a perilous state. This was clearly evident, they argued, in the music of its leading fig- ures: Claude Debussy, Giacomo Puccini, Arnold Schoenberg, Franz Schreker, and Richard Strauss. 2 The terms of this argument and the body of works that were its focal point remained consistent until the end of the Weimar era. Critics were not reacting to the technical complexity of new music or its often rebarbative nature. They did not oppose innovations in form, genre, or harmonic syntax. And they were careful to commend the talent of the composers they were writing about. It was, in fact, taken as granted that they were writing about the most important composers of the day (see, for example, Weissmann 1922: 191). The critics were disturbed, however, by the extra-musical ideas espoused by contemporary music, its manner of expression, and its presumed effect on the listener.3 These issues do not at first seem especially original. They appear, after all, in Plato's Republic, Current Musicology 65 © 2001 Columbia University 7 8 CURRENT MUSICOLOGY Aristotle's Poetics, and the writings of early Christian church fathers like St. Augustine and St. Basil. Equating innovation with decline is an equally venerable tactic; it appeared as early as the fourth century BCE in the writ- ings of Aristoxenus. Other examples include the reception of the ars nova by Jacobus of Liege, G. M. Artusi's criticism of Monteverdi, and Eduard Hanslick's lengthy assaults on Wagner (which inspired a mean-spirited yet brilliant rebuttal: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg). In each case, judgments were based on personal taste and verified by empirical observation. However, a unique form of criticism began to appear in Germany around 1900. Claims that the present was a "period of disintegration" that threatened "total collapse" were informed by an understanding that music had fallen into a state of degeneration, or Entartung. Walter Niemann ar- gued, for example, that Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra was "degener- ate through and through" [durch und durch entartete] (Niemann 1922: 253). Niemann did not use entartete as a general term of disparagement, but as a concept derived from contemporary medicine. In other words, Schoenberg's work was "sick" in a clinical sense.