19TH CENTURY MUSIC Julius Stockhausen’s Early Performances of Franz Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin NATASHA LOGES Franz Schubert’s huge song cycle Die schöne mances of Die schöne Müllerin by the baritone Müllerin, D. 795, is a staple of recital halls and Julius Stockhausen (1826–1906), as well as the record collections, currently available in no responses of his audiences, collaborators, and fewer than 125 recordings as an uninterrupted critics.3 The circumstances surrounding the first sequence of twenty songs.1 In the liner notes of complete performance in Vienna’s Musikverein one recent release, the tenor Robert Murray on 4 May 1856, more than three decades after observes that the hour-long work requires con- the cycle was composed in 1823, will be traced.4 siderable stamina in comparison with operatic Subsequent performances by Stockhausen will roles.2 Although Murray does not comment on the demands the work makes on its audience, this is surely also a consideration, and certainly 3For an account of early Schubert song performance in a one that shaped the early performance history variety of public and private contexts, see Eric Van Tassel, of the work. This article offers a detailed con- “‘Something Utterly New:’ Listening to Schubert Lieder. sideration of the pioneering complete perfor- 1: Vogl and the Declamatory Style,” Early Music 25/4 (November 1997): 702–14. A general history of the Lied in concert focusing on the late nineteenth century is in Ed- ward F. Kravitt, “The Lied in 19th-Century Concert Life,” This study was generously funded by the British Academy Journal of the American Musicological Society 18 (1965): in 2015–16. 207–18. 4This study focuses on the unique demands of Die schöne 1See http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/, accessed 11 Novem- Müllerin. Evidence suggests that different approaches were ber 2016. taken to different groups of songs, including Schubert’s 2Liner notes, Robert Murray and Andrew West, Schubert Winterreise, D. 911, and Schwanengesang, D. 957, Robert Die schöne Müllerin, Stone Records Catalogue No: Schumann’s Dichterliebe, op. 48, Myrthen, op. 25, and the 5060192780628, 7. Spanish cycles for vocal ensembles op. 74 and op. 138. 206 19th-Century Music, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 206–224 ISSN: 0148-2076, electronic ISSN 1533-8606. © 2018 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/ journals.php?p=reprints. https://doi.org/10.1525/ncm.2018.41.3.206. then be surveyed; these reveal that a perfor- amination of the collection of concert programs NATASHA LOGES mance of the “complete cycle” meant many preserved in the Stockhausen-Nachlass in the Die schöne different things in his day. Stockhausen’s artis- University Library of Frankfurt (D-Fmi), cross- Müllerin tic idealism jostled against the practical forces referenced with other sources such as the un- that necessarily influenced his approach to re- published archive of concert programs held at cital programming, leading to a multifaceted, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna untidy performance history for this cycle; (A-Wgm) and Stockhausen’s unpublished dia- within Stockhausen’s concert career at least, it ries. Stockhausen doubtless gave more concerts was no foregone conclusion that the complete than those documented in Frankfurt, however cycle should always be performed.5 The same the number of verifiable accounts, and their applies to other song cycles such as Schubert’s temporal proximity, suggests that the record is Winterreise, D. 911, or Schumann’s Dichter- largely complete.8 Where possible, printed pro- liebe, op. 48; each group of songs inspired dif- grams have been cross-checked against other ferent practices because of their varying de- documents such as letters and diaries, as these mands on performers and audiences.6 were not necessarily accurate, especially when An outstanding interpreter and teacher, a concert was organized at the last minute. In Stockhausen was centrally important to Ger- particular, small-scale repertoire like the Lied man song, transforming it into a concert-wor- might be altered on the day of the concert, and thy genre, laying the foundations for a song additional numbers might be included sponta- canon, and through his considerable teaching neously as encores. practice, training the next generation to de- Furthermore, comparisons with diary ac- velop this legacy.7 This consideration of his counts and correspondence help evoke the lived recital practices is based primarily on an ex- career that will be familiar to any musician (with delayed trains, poor weather, colds, dreary hotels, loneliness, haggling over concert fees, and the delicate balance between friendship 5Brahms’s own concert career has been documented in and professional collegiality). Some important Renate and Kurt Hofmann, Johannes Brahms als Pianist questions are only partially answered by sur- und Dirigent: Chronologie seines Wirkens als Interpret, ed. Otto Biba (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2006). For an un- viving documents. For instance, it seems that usual methodological approach to Clara Schumann’s con- only some choral items normally merited cert career, see Reinhard Kopiez, Andreas C. Lehmann, printed texts; in solo song, the audience gener- and Janina Klassen, “Clara Schumann’s Collection of Play- bills: A Historiometric Analysis of Life-span Development, ally had to rely on a singer’s diction. Accompa- Mobility, and Repertoire Canonization,” Poetics 37/1 nists are often unnamed, an indication of their (2009): 50–73. place within the hierarchy of information 6I am currently exploring historic performances of Dichterliebe, particularly Clara Schumann’s practice of in- printed on a concert leaflet. Also, it is likely, terpolating solo piano works. See Natasha Loges, “From given the encore tradition, that the audience Miscellanies to Musical Works: Julius Stockhausen, Clara applauded after each song, and this might there- Schumann and Dichterliebe,” currently in preparation. There is a partial overlap between this topic and the wider aesthetic fore be encored on the spot (indeed, some re- implications of the recital, which has been widely studied views specifically mention this), resulting in within Anglo-German scholarship. For one example, see an experience for both performers and audience Rohan H. Stewart-MacDonald, “The Recital in England: Sir William Sterndale Bennett’s ‘Classical Chamber Concerts,’ that is vastly different from today’s, even if 1843–1856,” Ad Parnassum 13/25 (2015): 115–75. such performances were billed as complete 7I have also explored Stockhausen’s practices with respect cycles. to Brahms’s op. 33 in “The Limits of the Lied,” Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance, ed. Katy Hamilton and Natasha Loges (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 300–23. An invaluable source is the correspondence between 8The study assumes the simplest possible definition of a Stockhausen and Brahms, Johannes Brahms, Johannes concert, namely a public, ticketed event. It thus excludes Brahms Briefwechsel vol. 18: Johannes Brahms im events in private homes and the court appearances Briefwechsel mit Julius Stockhausen (Tutzing: Hans Stockhausen made in cities like Hanover and Stuttgart, in Schneider, 1993). See also Renate Hofmann, “Julius which programming would be shaped by the tastes of an Stockhausen als Interpret der Liederzyklen Robert individual patron and is in any event often poorly docu- Schumanns,” Schumann-Forschungen 9 (2005): 34–46. mented. 207 19TH The MÜLLERIN Songs idea of carefully conceived concert programs.12 CENTURY MUSIC within Miscellany Programs Certainly, this is true to some extent, but in practice, many of their concerts still reflected In the early years of Stockhausen’s performing long-established frameworks, principally the career, the patterned miscellany concert for- idea of a patterned miscellany. Whether the mat still dominated concert halls.9 This con- concert was billed as part of a subscription sisted of a controlled alternation of artists and series, a special event, a “soirée,” “matinée genres, in long programs that might include musicale,” “Novitäten-Soirée,” “Historisches single or paired movements of longer works, Concert,” a student showcase, a “Künstler-Con- improvisations, bravura works, and isolated cert,” or even a “Quartett-Produktion,” it usu- arias from operas or oratorios. The move away ally involved a mixture of genres.13 For this from such concerts to the programming of a reason, the change of approach toward large small number of complete works was mainly cycles like Die schöne Müllerin was gradual associated with a number of artists, concert and not necessarily cumulative; it merits closer venues, and cities in the second half of the scrutiny because these formats afforded the flex- nineteenth century.10 Those artistic ideals and— ibility for continually fresh approaches to the to some extent—concert practices endure in repertoire. concert halls today. When it came to solo, cham- Nevertheless, within this environment, there ber, and song repertoire, chief among these fig- were several reasons why Die schöne Müllerin ures were the members of Johannes Brahms’s was the right work, and Vienna the right city, social and artistic circle, principally Clara for Stockhausen to make his mark as a distinc- Schumann, Joseph Joachim, and Stockhausen.11