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Music Criticism in Vienna C. 1898-1920

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Music Criticism in Vienna C. 1898-1920 Music Criticism in Vienna c. 1898-1920 This work is being undertaken on a University of premiered in Vienna in 1907, Puccini is unsurprisingly Queensland Postdoctoral Fellowship. It follows on the most prominent Italian. Such repertory was in the directly from my doctoral work in which I cut a fifteen- forefront of discussion, and the premiere list was domi- month slice of Viennese musical life, from October nated by other works in the 'romantic' vein, such as 1896 to December 1897. Within this period of time, I Elgar's Tlze Dream of Gerontius (1905) and Schmidt's searched out as near to comprehensive a range of Notre Dame (1914); also, one must not forget the Vien- newspapers as possible, in order to make a survey of nese premiere of Pnrsfnl, which was released from the breadth of activity in music journalism. The results embargo, at the beginning of 1914. Thus the first two of this, an improved version of my thesis, will appear decades of the century appear more as a smooth con- in 1996 as Music Criticism in Vienna, 1896-1897: Criti- tinuation of the last than as something self-consciously cally Moving ~0rms.l new, albeit with a stronger tendency towards deca- Motivated by curiosity as to what happened next, I dence. returned to Vienna. Taking another slice, this time Even 1914, a year traditionally and conveniently from 1907, I discovered some things constant, some used to conclude histories of 'nineteenth-century mu- changes, new issues and a few deaths and disappear- sic', does not appear to be much of a watershed. Mu- ances of critics. The burning issues of the 1890s had sical culture in Vienna continued throughout the war been attitudes to Wagner, to Bruckner and to Brahms. years; any change in the nature of repertory was at best In 1907, the most divisive issue appears to have been gradual. In 1913, the belated premiere of Schoenberg's Gustav Mahler's directorship of the Court Opera. Crit- Gurrelieder was warmly received, the critics expressing ics also hotly debated his symphonies, along with the delight and surprise at 'real music'. The E major compositions of Richard Strauss, Max Reger, Claude Chamber Symphony and D minor Quartet, however, Debussy and Arnold Schoenberg. The idea of deca- had occasioned hissing in 1907, while in 1909 the dence appears with noticeable frequency in critiques Second String Quartet excited a riot in the hallowed not only of music, but also of the age. Despite fears for space of the Bosendorfer-Saal. Despite the occasional the musical future, 1897 had been an altogether more plea for calm, the critical reception generally mirrored confident and optimistic time. the audience response. Among critics seeking to take Having determined the most interesting and prom- Schoenberg seriously, the best response possible ap- ising critics and journals, I then turned to an exarnina- pears to have been acquiescence. Thus Richard Specht tion of ten to twelve of them in the years between 1897 wrote in the journal Der Merker in 1911: and 1907, and then the years after 1907.1904,the year of the death of Eduard Hanslick, emerged as a water- Before Schoenberg's George-Lieder, the Pi- ano Pieces, and a bit before the Quartet with shed year in the annals of criticism. The obituaries voice, I stand as before disturbing, mysteri- reveal more about their authors, who were younger ous, inaccessible pictures; here a foreign lan- critics, than about Hanslick; they say much about their guage is spoken which in many sounds desire to dissociate from the musical aesthetics and arouses confused, dreamy ideas, which just musical politics of the preceding generation.2 Within as often joylessly repels and provokes me, and yet it repeatedly grips me, precisely two years of Hanslick's death, most of the older genera- because the key to these sounding symbols is tion of critics had also died. A new generation of critics missing. Here I must say over again what I had arisen to deal with a new generation of artistic have already had to admit many times in problems. these pages and expressly repeat: that I and In the concert hall, the first decade of this century my ear are to blame if here a music and a listener collide and there is no good sound- was unquestionably the decade of Mahler; less clear is and not this music.3 how to characterise the next decade. In the opera house, Richard Strauss dominated the first twenty Is this a 'watershed remark', demonstrating the years. With La Bohime established in the Court Opera's beg-ing of schoenbergrs acceptance by the critics? I and with Toxu and Maduma Butterfl~ think not. Instead, it shows the emergence into print of 50 Context 10 (Summer 1995/96) that minority of enthusiasts who supported musical beliefs and opinions which were brought to a Schoenberg's works and other 'avant-garde' music to critic's writings about music. Some might call this the present day. It is a fascinating historical phenom- irrelevant. I call it interesting. Only to the most narrow- enon. In the nineteenth century, Wagner was divisive. minded view of musical scholarship does knowing the In the twentieth, the culture of 'art music' is not so critic and the culture appear to detract from the study much divided as fragmented. of the music. It puts music in its cultural context. The literary canon of the day for example is an illuminating Most of my research work has involved investigat- complement to the musical canon. People discussing ing the newspaper holdings of the Austrian National Mahler alluded to Sophocles in those days. They Library and the Vienna City Library. some of these are viewed Elgar through Lessing-coloured glasses, that is on microfilm, while those not on microfilm can still be when not comparing him with Mendelssohn. copied-for a fee. However, in the course of my last Mahler's Sixth Symphony and Strauss's Salome were field trip I discovered something especially interest- still new in 1907. Critics heard them as new music. ing: Max Kalbeck (1850-1921), critic of the Neues Wiener They also regarded them as symbolic of the time. Carl Tagblatt, had kept a diary in 1897. I enquired about this Lafite wrote of Mahler's Sixth: 'One thing is certain: as in all the appropriate archives without success, so in an expression of will, as a cultural product of our time, despair I wrote to Florian Kalbeck, Max's grandson. Mahler's Sixth is of the highest ~ignificance'.~To Grandfather's diary was news to him! He referred me Maximilian Muntz, Salome was 'the epochal musical to the descendants of Kalbeck's daughter, and eventu- artwork of today'.7 In both cases, as in others, no ally an overnight train journey to Hanover resulted in particular sense of approval of 'our time' or 'today' is a meeting with Kalbeck's great-grandson-in-law, the intended. conductor Hans Urbanek. To my delight, he allowed Critics viewed Mahler's huge orchestra with its me to photocopy the whole diary. I have incorporated battery of untuned percussion as revolutionary. Most into my book some of the results of my preliminary disapproved, some more than others. Nevertheless, to struggles with Kalbeck's hand~ritin~.~ uncover even their disapproval serves to remind us of Othmar Wessely writes, rather dismissively I think, characteristics of the work all too easily taken for of Kalbeck's views about music as being influenced by granted. 'bourgeois liberali~m'.~To write off liberals as 'bour- Most critics considered Salome to be in bad taste. geois' [biirgerlich] is common in German-speaking They tended, therefore, not to enjoy it. Were they musicology where it always appears to carry a pejora- wrong? I thinknot. Nearly nine decades later, Salome's tive overtone. But what, in Kalbeck's day, was the 'one-sided love duet with the severed headf8 is no major opposition to liberalism? The answer must be more tasteful, and just as disgusting. Now however, German nationalism. We know too well the results of we enjoy it. We have learned the aesthetic appreciation that. Certainly in his diary and his published writings, of bad taste, to delight in being shocked or disgusted. Kalbeck expresses himself politically in terms of oppo- We have also of course, learned a considerable toler- sition to German nationalism. He also appears to ance for dramatic representations of violence and bru- regard Wagnerian art and ideology as an affront to his tality. Are we any better off for that? sense of German identity. This has rekindled my Finally, a word for those who might be interested in interest in the opponents of Wagnerism among critics following similar lines of enquiry. Viennese music and others. I do not believe that the full complex of criticism is a very rich field. Despite Vienna's status values underpinning this opposition has been taken among historians as a major cultural centre however, seriously. Should art have nothing to do with politics? few works received their world premiere there. Con- Perhaps, but try telling that to Wagner! To follow this sequently, other Austro-Hungarian and German cities line of enquiry will push me back into the nineteenth grow in importance and similar riches ought to be century. expected from their music criticism. Anyone with a The study of music criticism begins with music. knowledge of Czech and German could find signifi- You must know the music to appreciate the opinions cant rewards from an examination of the press in about it, otherwise they are just words uttered in a Prague.
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