Er Hat Geschmack’: Shifting Connotations of Taste in the Discourse Surrounding W
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‘ER HAT GESCHMACK’: SHIFTING CONNOTATIONS OF TASTE IN THE DISCOURSE SURROUNDING W. A. MOZART A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Katherine H. Walker May 2014 © 2014 Katherine H. Walker ‘ER HAT GESCHMACK’: SHIFTING CONNOTATIONS OF TASTE IN THE DISCOURSE SURROUNDING W. A. MOZART Katherine H. Walker Cornell University 2014 On 14 February 1785 Leopold Mozart wrote to his daughter in Vienna: “On Saturday evening Herr Joseph Haydn and the two Barons Tindi Came to see us and the new quartets were performed. … Haydn said to me: ‘Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest Composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, beyond that, the most profound knowledge of Composition’.” Despite many interpretations of Haydn’s remark, no one has heretofore considered that it supports multiple, concurrent readings. There were three primary agents involved in the transmission of Haydn’s statement—Leopold Mozart, the addressee; Wolfgang Mozart, the subject; and Haydn, the speaker—and each adhered to a distinct set of ideas associated with the concept of taste. Viewed from the perspeCtives of its three respective agents, this single remark may be seen to ripple aCross many deCades of the eighteenth century, highlighting the ideologies and tensions that characterized the ConCept of musical taste in this period. Following a survey of major eighteenth-Century texts devoted to musiCal taste (chapter one), chapter two uses Leopold Mozart’s frequent references to taste in his correspondence and treatise, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (1752), to interrogate his over-articulated status as an arch-rationalist. Leopold’s concept of taste, which reflects the influence of his deCade-long Jesuit education, identifies him as a neo-Renaissance humanist; one that promotes reason beyond rules—reason born of wisdom and experienCe and fitted to navigate unCertain situations that may defy a predetermined ideal. Chapter three situates Wolfgang Mozart’s concept of taste within the culture of sensibility. Drawing on recent literary critical theory, this chapter characterizes taste by a paradoxical emphasis on the “moment” and the “modern”: Wolfgang and his North German Contemporaries, Johann Quant and C. P. E. BaCh, grappled with the tensions between immediaCy of aesthetiC response, on the one hand, and the importanCe of history and progress to emerging notions of modernity, on the other. Chapter four reads Haydn’s concepts of taste and knowledge through Alexander Gerard’s theories of genius and taste. Gerard’s system conflicts with the Young-driven Geniezeit, whose exponents subordinated Creative proCess to an emphasis on unConsCious, unmediated inspiration. Gerard’s emphasis on proCess defined alternative terms of value, transCending the Cultish allegianCe to the “idea” to explore how such ideas were treated in support of the Gestalt creation. The conclusion outlines directions for future researCh, emphasizing the need for a study of the role of gender in eighteenth- Century ConCepts of musiCal taste. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Born in 1976 in Baltimore, Maryland, Katherine Walker attended Saint Mary’s College of Maryland, where she graduated in 1999 with a BaChelor of Arts degree in psychology. Turning her attention to musiC full time, Walker earned a performanCe Certificate in double bass in 2001 from the François Rabbath Institute at the Nadia Boulanger Conservatoire de Paris, and spent 2003 studying musiC of AfriCan diasporas as a Rotary Ambassadorial Fellow in Cape Town, South AfriCa. She earned her seCond BaChelor of Arts degree in musiC from Stony Brook University, graduating magna cum laude in 2004. Walker began her graduate studies at Cornell University in 2006, where she worked with James Webster, Annette RiChards, and Neil SaCCamano. Her researCh interests include eighteenth-century musiCal aesthetiCs and interseCtions of raCe and popular musiC in the U. S. since 1920. Walker began a position as assistant professor of musiC at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Geneva, NY) in the fall of 2013. iii for my family iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The British author, William Somerset Maugham onCe wrote, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” If Maugham’s statement is true of the novel, it is doubly true of the dissertation. I Could never have Completed this daunting project without the tremendous support that I reCeived from mentors, friends, and family, only a few of whom I have the space to acknowledge here. I would like to express my sinCerest gratitude to my advisor, James Webster, whose deep knowledge and sharp editorial eye lie behind every Cogent argument in this dissertation. Although he is best known as a world-class scholar, he is also a dedicated pedagogue, and I feel very fortunate to have worked with him. I also owe a great debt to Annette RiChards, whose musiCality, Creativity, and depth of insight provided the model for everything I produced; as well as Neil SaCCamano, who supported me equally with his great intelleCt and great humanity. Among my many mentors at Cornell, I would like to extend a further note of gratitude to Steve Pond and Judith Peraino, both of whom riChly supported my intelleCtual growth and offered experienCes that shaped me as a sCholar and teaCher. I thank Udo Fehn for his invaluable help with the German translations. I thank my parents, my sisters, my aunt Sharon, and my parents-in-law for always believing in me and Cheering me on the whole way. Finally, I thank my husband, NiCholas, who taught me that anything is possible. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: Musical Taste in Eighteenth-Century Treatises 21 Le Cerf de la Viéville 21 Johann Mattheson, Johann SCheibe, and Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler 30 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Adam Hiller, and Johann Georg Sulzer 45 Chapter Two: Humanism and Taste in Leopold Mozart’s Writings about MusiC 59 Leopold the Rationalist 59 Leopold and the Limits of Reason 64 The “AusgleiChsformel” Between Reason and Faith 71 Leopold’s Humanist EduCation 75 Taste and the Rule 79 The EthiCal Dimension of Taste 85 Moderation as a Tenet of Taste 90 Taste and the Classical Virtues of Style 94 Style and SubstanCe in W. A. Mozart’s “Neoclassical” Die Entführung aus dem Serail 100 Chapter Three: Sensibility and Taste in the Music and Writings of W. A. Mozart 137 Temporal Doubleness in the Culture of Sensibility 137 Wolfgang Mozart in the Culture of Sensibility 144 MusiCal Taste and the Moment 149 MusiCal Taste and the “Modern” 164 Taste in Mechanical Modernity: W. A. Mozart’s ArtifiCial Sentiment in K.616 171 Chapter Four: Genius, Taste and the “Many-Headed Monster” in Haydn’s Music and Writings 192 “GesChmaCk und … CompositionswissensChaft” in the Geniezeit 192 The MagiCian and the ArChiteCt: Young’s Subordination of Creative ProCess and its Bearing on W. A. Mozart’s Contemporary ReCeption 198 vi The “Grand ArChiteCt”: Gerard’s Theory of Genius and Haydn’s AesthetiCs of Process 205 Process and Taste 210 Genius, Taste, and the “Many-Headed Monster” 213 Framing the Diegesis: Genius, Individualism, and the “Multiple AudienCe” in W. A. Mozart’s Don Giovanni 220 Ball Scene 225 Supper Scene 233 Epilogue: Directions for Future Research 246 Bibliography 253 vii Introduction On Saturday 12 February 1785, in Vienna, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart organized a private performanCe of the last three of his just-Completed set of six string quartets, in the presenCe of his father Leopold (who was visiting from Salzburg) and Joseph Haydn, among others. On this occasion, according to Leopold (writing a couple of days later to Mozart's sister Nannerl), Haydn enlisted the concept of taste in one of the most famous remarks in musiC history: “Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest Composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, beyond that, the most profound knowledge of Composition.”1 There were three primary agents involved in the transmission of this remark: Leopold Mozart, the addressee; Wolfgang Mozart, the subject; and Haydn, the speaker (who later that year also functioned as dediCatee of these quartets, Mozart's Opus 10). These three Composers, owing to both their generational differences and their divergent aesthetic orientations and career paths, understood the concept of taste in different ways. The present study contextualizes Haydn's ostensibly straightforward remark, by interpreting it three times, from the perspeCtives of its three central agents.2 In doing so, this dissertation demonstrates that musiCal taste was inherently variable, depending on the user, his motivations, and the Contexts in whiCh it was employed. In the proCess, it sheds new light on a Central Canon of musiC and musiCal thought in the eighteenth century. 1 Leopold Mozart, to his daughter, 16 February 1785: “Haydn sagte mir: iCh sage ihnen vor Gott, als ein ehrliCher Mann, ihr Sohn ist der gröβte Componist, den iCh von Person und den Nahmen nach kenne: er hat GesChmaCk, und über das die gröβte CompositionswissensChaft.” Wilhelm A. Bauer, Otto FriedriCh DeutsCh, Joseph Heinz Eibl and UlriCh Konrad, eds., Mozart. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen. Gesamtausgabe, 8 vol. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2005), 3:373; trans. in Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and his Family (1966); Cited from the 3rd ed. (New York: Norton, 1989), 885. (Given translations here and throughout sometimes depart from the Anderson edition.) 2 This study does not Call into question the authentiCity of Haydn’s reported statement. Rather, it uses the quotation to launch a broader discussion of taste with respect to its three central agents. Nor does this study grapple with Haydn’s relative valuations of taste and knowledge.