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Leopold Mozart, the Rationalist? Humanism and Good Taste in Eighteenth-Century Musical Thought Katherine H

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Leopold Mozart, the Rationalist? Humanism and Good Taste in Eighteenth-Century Musical Thought Katherine H Yale Journal of Music & Religion Volume 3 | Number 2 Article 4 2017 Leopold Mozart, the Rationalist? Humanism and Good Taste in Eighteenth-Century Musical Thought Katherine H. Walker Hobart and William Smith Colleges Follow this and additional works at: http://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yjmr Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Walker, Katherine H. (2017) "Leopold Mozart, the Rationalist? Humanism and Good Taste in Eighteenth-Century Musical Thought," Yale Journal of Music & Religion: Vol. 3: No. 2, Article 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1084 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Yale Journal of Music & Religion by an authorized editor of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Leopold Mozart the prolific voices of the pre-Kantian rationalistic Enlightenment, provides undeniable evidence Rationalist? of secularization. Nonetheless, as recent his- Humanism and Good Taste in toriographies have shown, the assumption that the Philosophes’ writings reflect the broader Eighteenth-Century Musical intellectual climate of the Enlightenment is Thought simply not supported by evidence.3 Notwith- Katherine Walker standing the tenor of those writings, the Enlightenment was, it turns out, deeply and Twenty years after Dale Van Kley’s The broadly informed by religion. Religious Origins of the French Revolution, which The religious turn in eighteenth-century situated Catholic theology, in general, and studies has created opportunities to revisit and Jansenist-related controversies, in specific, at refine some of our most entrenched narratives the heart of French Revolutionary politics, it is about this period in history. Prominent re- now commonplace to acknowledge the re- visionist histories incorporate religion and ligious underpinnings of eighteenth-century anticlericalism, tradition and progress, reason cultural, political, philosophical, and social life and faith into what are now richer and more in Europe.1 To paraphrase Jonathon Sheehan, complex tapestries of the Enlightenment. one of the earliest and most probing examiners One acknowledged point of intersection of this historiography, eighteenth-century among these seemingly tendentious ideologies studies have now richly embraced religion.2 in the age of Enlightenment is the Jesuit This is not to say that the traditional education system. Although The Society of narrative, which identified the Enlightenment Jesus was widely propagandized in the eigh- as the “cradle of the secular world,” was teenth century as obstructive to reason and entirely unfounded. The antireligious posture progress, current scholarship is increasingly of the Philosophes, among the most vocal and attuned to the ways in which the Jesuit education system nourished the progressive tendencies of the Enlightenment. 4 This sys- 1 Dale Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–1791 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996). 3 Sheehan discusses the recent scholarly effort to 2 Jonathan Sheehan, ‘‘Enlightenment, Religion, and de-center the philosophically oriented French En- the Enigma of Secularization: A Review Essay,’’ lightenment, in “Enlightenment, Religion,” 1070. See American Historical Review 108 (2003): 1061–80. See also also Derek Beales, “Christians and Philosophes: The Simon Grote, “Review-Essay: Religion and Enlighten- Case of the Austrian Enlightenment,” in Enlightenment ment,” Journal of the History of Ideas 75/1 (January 2014): and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Europe (New York: I. B. 137–60; Ritchie Robertson, ‘‘Religion and Enlighten- Tauris, 2005), 60–89. ment: A Review Essay,’’ German History 25 (2007): 422– 4 Marc Fumaroli, “The Fertility and the Short- 31; Jeremy Gregory, ‘‘Introduction: Transforming ‘the comings of Renaissance Rhetoric: The Jesuit Case,” in Age of Reason’ into ‘an Age of Faiths’: Or, Putting The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. Religions and Beliefs (Back) into the Eighteenth John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven T. Century,’’ Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 32 (2009): Harris, and Frank Kennedy (Toronto: University of 287–305; Charly Coleman, ‘‘Resacralizing the World: Toronto Press, 1999), 100; Marcus Hellyer, “Jesuit The Fate of Secularization in Enlightenment His- Physics in Eighteenth-Century Germany: Some Im- toriography,’’ Journal of Modern History 82 (2010): 368– portant Continuities,” in ibid., 538–54; Steven Harris, 95; Ulrich Lehner, The Catholic Enlightenment: The For- “Boscovich, the ‘Boscovich Circle,’ and the Revival of gotten History of a Global Movement (New York: Oxford a Jesuit Science,” in R. J. Boscovich: Vita e attività University Press, 2016). scientifica: His Life and Scientific Work, ed. Piers Bursill- Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 64 tem, which was founded on the humanist art,5 there has yet been no effort to situate that neoclassicism that proliferated in the Renais- philosophy within the boundaries of his sance, was philosophically sophisticated, intel- Catholic faith. By reading Leopold’s personal lectually rigorous, and theologically uncom- and professional writings intertextually, through promising. classical authors that formed the basis of his Using Leopold Mozart, father to Wolf- Jesuit education, this study refines his traditional gang Amadeus Mozart, as a case study, my characterization as a rationalist, while offering purpose in what follows is to show, in the new insights into his aesthetics and worldview. domain of music, how the Christian faith In doing so, it not only contributes to the could accommodate and even encourage growing consensus that the turn toward enlightened values. Leopold’s philosophy of enlightened rationalism was not always a turn art and worldview, as exhibited throughout away from Christian faith; it further advances his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (A our understanding of Leopold’s aesthetics in Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of specific and enlightened rationalism in general. Violin Playing) and correspondence, reflect Thus begins a story of Leopold Mozart, the influence of classical authors whom he Catholic, Jesuit, and Enlightenment man par would have studied in the course of his excellence. religious education. Far from manifesting ten- sion, Leopold’s religious education provided the very pathways to his enlightened philosophy. To be clear, I do not argue here that Leopold’s philosophy of art is inherently 5 On Leopold and the Enlightenment, see Rainer Buland, “Leopold Mozart: Prototyp des aufgeklärten religious; to do so would require a separate Bürgers,” Acta mozartiana 58/2 (December 2011): 99– study. I make the more modest claim that 118; Hans Valentin, “‘Was die Bücher anlanget’ . Leopold would not have perceived a tension Leopold Mozarts literarische Interessen,” in Leopold Mozart. 1719–1787. Bild einer Persönlichkeit, ed. Ludwig between that enlightened philosophy and his Wegele (Augsburg: Verlag Die Brigg, 1969), 102–10; Christian faith, and thus neither should we. Josef Mancal, “Neues über Leopold Mozart: Gedanken zum 200. Todestag,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 42/6 Despite many discussions in the literature (June 1987): 282–91. of Leopold Mozart’s enlightened philosophy of On Leopold and rationalism, see Piero Melograni, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 6; David Schroeder, Mozart in Revolt: Strategies of Resistance, Mischief, and Deception (New Haven, CT: Yale Hall (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1993), University Press, 1999), 51; Erich Broy, “Die ‘gewisse 527–48; Maurice Whitehead, “‘Superior to the Rudest gute Art’ zu spielen: Überlegungen zu Ästhetik und Shocks of Adversity’: English Jesuit Education and Methodik in Leopold Mozarts Violinschule,” Neues Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1688–1832,” musikwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 14 (2006): 17–62. in Educating the Child in Enlightenment Britain: Beliefs, On Leopold and humanism, see Walter Kurt Cultures, Practices, ed. Jill Shefrin and Mary Hilton Kreyszig, “‘Leopold Mozart . a man of much . (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009), 131–46; James M. sagacity’: The Revival of Humanist Scholarship in His Byrne, Religion and the Enlightenment: From Descartes to Gründliche Violinschule (Augsburg, 1756),” in Music’s Kant (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, Intellectual History, ed. Zdravko Blažeković and Barbara 1996), 43; Jeffrey Burson, The Rise and Fall of the Dobbs Mackenzie (New York: RILM, 2009), 43–156; Theological Enlightenment: Jean-Martin de Prades and the Eleonora Beck, “A New Reading of the Mozart Family Ideological Polarization of Eighteenth-Century France (Notre Portrait,” Imago musicae: International Yearbook of Musical Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010). Iconography (2017): 29. Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017) 65 Leopold the Rationalist? instance, recommended Leopold’s Versuch to Rationalism is the key word in writings on the “sound and skilled virtuoso, the rational Leopold Mozart, and it is set in frequent and methodical teacher, the learned musician; [for] all of those qualities that make a man of counterpoint to Wolfgang’s perceived genius. 11 Hermann Abert, for example, concludes that worth are developed together
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