A Historiography of Musical Historicism: the Case Of
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A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MUSICAL HISTORICISM: THE CASE OF JOHANNES BRAHMS THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of Texas State University-San Marcos in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of MUSIC by Shao Ying Ho, B.M. San Marcos, Texas May 2013 A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MUSICAL HISTORICISM: THE CASE OF JOHANNES BRAHMS Committee Members Approved: _____________________________ Kevin E. Mooney, Chair _____________________________ Nico Schüler _____________________________ John C. Schmidt Approved: ___________________________ J. Michael Willoughby Dean of the Graduate College COPYRIGHT by Shao Ying Ho 2013 FAIR USE AND AUTHOR’S PERMISSION STATEMENT Fair Use This work is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, section 107). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of this material for financial gain without the author’s express written permission is not allowed. Duplication Permission As the copyright holder of this work, I, Shao Ying Ho, authorize duplication of this work, in whole or in part, for educational or scholarly purposes only. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My first and foremost gratitude is to Dr. Kevin Mooney, my committee chair and advisor. His invaluable guidance, stimulating comments, constructive criticism, and even the occasional chats, have played a huge part in the construction of this thesis. His selfless dedication, patience, and erudite knowledge continue to inspire and motivate me. I am immensely thankful to him for what I have become in these two years, both intellectually and as an individual. I am also very grateful to my committee members, Dr. Nico Schüler, and Dr. John C. Schmidt, for their valuable time, effort, and comments. Dr. Schüler’s guidance and help, especially in matters of reading and translating German publications, is very much appreciated. Dr. Schmidt, in his own ways, has consolidated my knowledge and continuous love for music history during my study at Texas State University-San Marcos. I would like to thank Dr. Jason Kwak, with whom I enjoy having piano lessons, and for his remarkable patience. Many thanks to Dr. Ludim Pedroza as well, for her stimulating seminars and criticism, which helped tremendously in my writings. Certainly my life is not complete without my friends, and I am thankful to all of them for their presence, support, and patience, especially Chuan-Li Ko, Sze Wing Ho, Brandon Stroud, Cheng-Jung Sung, Sheng-Wei Ho, and Clifford Burden, who were always ready to provide listening ears and witty jokes. v Above all, I would like to express my gratitude and love to my family: my father, who brought me into the world of history; my mother, who is loving and supportive; my sister, who soars high with her achievement and makes us very proud; and, my brother, who is perhaps too philosophical for his age. I want to ask for forgiveness from my parents for being so far away from them. My journeys are never without my family, even with the physical distance, because parts of them live with me. It is impossible to describe my gratitude and feelings or what they have done to keep me going. This manuscript was submitted on March 28, 2013. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ ix ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... x CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: HISTORICISM FROM BRAHMS’S TIME TO THE PRESENT ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Musical Historicism: Definitions, Movements, and the Case of Brahms ...................................................................... 1 1.2 Musical Historicism in Brahms’s Era: The Nineteenth Century ......... 12 1.3 Methodology and Selection Criteria .................................................. 16 II. “BRAHMS AS A MUSICOLOGIST” ........................................................... 19 2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 19 2.2 Karl Geiringer: “Brahms als Musikhistoriker” [1933] and “Brahms as a Musicologist” [1983] ................................................... 21 2.3 Paul Mast: “Brahms’s Study, Octaven u. Quinten u. A.: with Schenker’s Commentary Translated” [1980] ..................................... 28 2.4 Imogen Fellinger: “Brahms’s View of Mozart” [1983]...................... 31 2.5 Hans Joachim Marx: “Brahms und die Musikforschung” [1997] ....... 35 2.6 Elaine Kelly: “An Unexpected Champion of Francois Couperin: Johannes Brahms and the ‘Pièces de Clavecin’” [2004] .................... 39 2.7 Conclusion........................................................................................ 45 III. BRAHMS THE HISTORICIST COMPOSER .............................................. 51 3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 51 3.2 Imogen Fellinger: “Brahms und die Musik vergangener Epochen” [1969] ............................................................................... 54 3.3 Bernard Jacobson: “Brahms and Music History” [1977] ................... 62 vii 3.4 Siegfried Kross: “Brahms the Symphonist / Johannes Brahms – der Sinfoniker” [1983] ...................................................................... 68 3.5 Siegfried Kross: “Bach-Zitat oder Schubert-Pasticcio? Die 1. Cellosonate e-Moll op. 38” [1997] .................................................... 73 3.6 Jacquelyn Sholes: “Lovelorn Lamentation or Histrionic Historicism? Reconsidering Allusion and Extramusical Meaning in the 1854 Version of Brahms’s B-major Trio” [2010] .................... 80 3.7 Conclusion........................................................................................ 86 IV. IMMORTALIZING AND HISTORICIZING BRAHMS ............................. 89 4.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 89 4.2 Peter Gay: “Aimez-vous Brahms? On Polarities in Modernism” [1978] .......................................................................... 92 4.3 J. Peter Burkholder: “Brahms and Twentieth-Century Classical Music” [1984]................................................................................... 97 4.4 Christoph Wolff: “Brahms, Wagner, and the Problem of Historicism in Nineteenth-Century Music: An Essay” [1983 / 1990] .................. 103 4.5 Leon Botstein: “Brahms and His Audience: the Later Viennese Years 1875-1897” [1999]................................................................ 107 4.6 Conclusion...................................................................................... 112 V. CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 115 WORKS CITED .......................................................................................................... 121 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Beginning of Hostias. Note the markings of (M.) and (S.) .......................................... 34 2. Kross’s comparison between the subjects of Brahms (5a) and Bach (5b) .................... 78 ix ABSTRACT A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MUSICAL HISTORICISM: THE CASE OF JOHANNES BRAHMS by Shao Ying Ho, B.M. Texas State University-San Marcos May 2013 SUPERVISING PROFESSOR: KEVIN E. MOONEY Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) lived in an epoch marked by the 1848 revolution that precipitated social, cultural, and economical changes. In the realm of music, the extension of concert repertory to music of the past, and the emergence of historical writings reflected a greater awareness of music history. While composers of that era, including Brahms, arguably worked under the growing weight of history, Brahms was able to place himself within the ranks of classical masters by his historicist aesthetics and compositional methodology that synthesized the past, the present, and his individual creativity. Combined with his connection to musicology, a blooming discipline and child of the historicism movement, his historicist practice and thinking continuously receive scholarly attention, especially in the twentieth century up until today. Musical historicism, however, remains a problematic and paradoxical concept, notwithstanding the fact that it x gradually gains importance in both Germanic and Anglo-American Brahms scholarship and historiography, hence, increasing the need for historiographical studies on musical historicism in Brahms. This thesis is a study of the interpretations and writings on Brahms and musical historicism from selected Anglo-American and German Brahms scholars, starting from the late 1960s, when scholars began to use “musical historicism” prominently as a term, up to the 2010s, in order to provide an overview of the usage and development of this term in Brahms scholarship and also to determine the extent to which there is a consensus on how Brahms scholars have employed this concept. With this study, I hope to highlight the importance of continuous reassessment and reinterpretation of writings on Brahms’s musical historicism, and, more specifically, speak to issues related to the reception history of Brahms’s music as well as informing our understanding of Brahms’s place in musical historicism.