The Concert Hall as a Medium of Musical Culture: The Technical Mediation of Listening in the 19th Century by Darryl Mark Cressman M.A. (Communication), University of Windsor, 2004 B.A (Hons.), University of Windsor, 2002 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Communication Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology © Darryl Mark Cressman 2012 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2012 All rights reserved. However, in accordance with the Copyright Act of Canada, this work may be reproduced, without authorization, under the conditions for “Fair Dealing.” Therefore, limited reproduction of this work for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, review and news reporting is likely to be in accordance with the law, particularly if cited appropriately. Approval Name: Darryl Mark Cressman Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) Title of Thesis: The Concert Hall as a Medium of Musical Culture: The Technical Mediation of Listening in the 19th Century Examining Committee: Chair: Martin Laba, Associate Professor Andrew Feenberg Senior Supervisor Professor Gary McCarron Supervisor Associate Professor Shane Gunster Supervisor Associate Professor Barry Truax Internal Examiner Professor School of Communication, Simon Fraser Universty Hans-Joachim Braun External Examiner Professor of Modern Social, Economic and Technical History Helmut-Schmidt University, Hamburg Date Defended: September 19, 2012 ii Partial Copyright License iii Abstract Taking the relationship between musical culture, media history, and the philosophy of technology as its starting point, this dissertation situates the concert hall as a musical technology designed to mediate attentive listening. Recognizing that the technical mediation of listening to music is rarely considered by media historians prior to the invention of recorded music, this dissertation draws together elements of the cultural history of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Western musical culture, musical aesthetics, social history, architectural acoustics, and the history of musical venues to explore how listening to music was technically mediated in the nineteenth century. Using Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw (opened in 1888) as a case study, I trace the process by which abstract ideas of romantic music aesthetics shaped the design and meaning of Amsterdam’s concert hall. This requires examining how the ideal of attentive listening was articulated in early nineteenth-century Dutch music criticism. Next, I examine how the Amsterdam bourgeoisie acted upon these ideas and how their patronage led to the funding and organization of the Concertgebouw. Finally, I examine how the design of the Concertgebouw embodied the ideal of attentive listening and the conventions of bourgeois patronage that had inspired its construction. Keywords: musical culture; media history; philosophy of technology; sound studies; concert halls; Amsterdam iv Dedication For Deanne v Acknowledgements I am grateful to the following people for their contributions to this dissertation: Andrew Feenberg, Gary McCarron, Shane Gunster, Barry Truax, Hans-Joachim Braun, Martin Laba, Myles Ruggles, Roy Bendor, Norm Friesen, Ted Hamilton, Rob Prey, Neal Thomas, Ben Woo, Scott Timcke, Deanne Beattie, Silvie van der Zee, Laurien Morsink, Anne Roetman, Wouter Mensink, Koos Bosma, and Freek Schmidt. vi Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii Partial Copyright License .................................................................................................. iii Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication .......................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. vii 1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 1.1. Building Musical Culture ........................................................................................ 1 1.2. The Technical Mediation of Listening and Nineteenth-Century Musical Culture ................................................................... 11 1.3. The Making of Classical Music Culture in Amsterdam ........................................ 15 1.4. The Concert Hall as a Medium of Musical Culture: An Overview of the Following Work .................................................................... 17 2. The Technical Shaping of Musical History .......................................... 20 2.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 20 2.2. History, Technology, and Listening to Music ....................................................... 25 2.3. The Impossibility of a Non-Mediated Listening Experience and the Reasons Why this Idea Persists ......................................................................... 34 2.4. Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 39 3. From Listening to Technology: The Technical Code of Attentive Listening ................................................................................. 42 3.1. Introduction: Towards a Theory of Media and Musical Culture ........................... 42 3.2. The Social Study of Technology: Impacts and Origins ....................................... 52 3.3. Andrew Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology ............................................. 61 3.4. Conclusion: The Technical Code of Listening ..................................................... 75 4. The History of Attentive Listening: Musical Romanticism and the Sacralization of Instrumental Music ....................................................................................................... 77 4.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 77 4.2. In Search of the Listener ..................................................................................... 78 4.3. The History of Attentive Listening ....................................................................... 87 4.4. Attentive Listening and Musical Romanticism as a Horizon of Expectation ........ 92 4.4.1. The Sacralization of Absolute Music and Devout Listening .................... 98 4.4.2. The Symphony as a Musical Work amd the Deification of the Composer .................................................................. 105 4.5. Conclusion: The Technical Mediation of Attentive Listening ............................. 108 vii 5. Listening and the Idea of Musical Romanticism in Amsterdam ...... 110 5.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 110 5.2. Frisia Non Cantat .............................................................................................. 111 5.3. Nineteenth-Century Music Criticism .................................................................. 119 5.4. Learning How to Listen: Early Music Criticism in the Netherlands .................... 123 5.5. What to Listen For: Taste & Performance ......................................................... 129 5.6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 137 6. Building Musical Culture: The Amsterdam Bourgeoisie and the Concertgebouw .................... 139 6.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 139 6.2. Het Concertgebouw NV .................................................................................... 142 6.3. From the Opera Houses of the Aristocracy to the Concert Halls of the Bourgeoisie: Patronage and Buildings for Music .............................................. 153 6.4. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 164 7. Designing Listening: The Concertgebouw and the Technical Code of Attentive Listening ............................................................................... 166 7.1. The Concert Hall Before and After Science ...................................................... 166 7.2. Eyes or Ears? Düsseldorf’s Tonhalle, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, and Amsterdam’s Felix Meritis as Models for Amsterdam’s new Concert Hall ........ 177 7.3. The Design Contest .......................................................................................... 183 7.4. Amsterdam Becomes a Musical City ................................................................ 188 7.5. Conclusion: Media, Listening, and the Meaning of Music ................................. 192 Coda: Attentive Listening, High Fidelity, and the Future of Music ................................ 193 References ....................................................................................................... 204 viii 1. Introduction Most people of artistic tastes share the widespread distrust and dislike of machinery and argue that anything pretending to be art cannot