Thirty-three Dialectics on a Theme: Hegelian Philosophy Vis-à-vis Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations, Op. 120 Max Schmeder Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Max Schmeder All rights reserved ABSTRACT Thirty-three Dialectics on a Theme: Hegelian Philosophy Vis-à-vis Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations, Op. 120 Max Schmeder The “Diabelli” Variations, Op. 120, have long fascinated and repelled musicians and audiences alike. They refuse listeners the chief pastime afforded by the genre, offering little opportunity to track pleasant musical ideas through different guises. The delights of bourgeois spectatorship are confounded by non-parallelisms and motivic complexities that embarrass our customary framework for understanding variation form. Arnold Schoenberg’s dictum that “in classical music every variation shows a unity which surpasses that of the theme” has never been more patently contradicted. Most of the variations are rhythmically and harmonically warped, few follow the theme in their sequential disposition of motifs, and almost all of them exhibit a granularity of design without precedent in Beethoven’s oeuvre. Diabelli’s threadbare waltz is not the sole progenitor of its strange children. I propose that the Variations represent an experimental application to music of an intellectual method used by German philosophers and writers of the time for deconstructing dualities and unities. In form and function the “Diabelli Principle” most closely approaches the Dialectic of Beethoven’s exact contemporary G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), and is construed here in a Hegelian framework. Most variations juxtapose a pair of contrasting Antitheses whose differences are overcome in a summary conclusion amounting to a Sublation. In many cases, Antitheses emerge directly from formerly undivided Theses. As in Hegel’s philosophy where the Dialectic is manifested through a wide-ranging variety of forms, the “Diabelli” Variations similarly realize a diverse range of dialectical structures. Moreover, by destabilizing musical objects through pervasive shifts of meter, melodic groupings, and motivic identities, the Variations undertake a Hegelian critique of musical perception and its underlying categories. I contend that their dialectical meaning is not intended to be decoded hermeneutically through score analysis, but directly apprehended through listening. As scholarship on the Kantian and Burkean Sublime implies, early nineteenth-century listeners understood peak musical experiences as unmediated, intellectual revelation. I suggest that music’s engagement with spatial and gestalt reasoning introduced into music perception standards of physical logic and bestowed musical events with ontological significance. A reassessment of works by Beethoven reveals manipulations of implied topographies and objects that bring about “impossible” transformations. These acts of transcendent rationality may underlie the triumphant glory and intellectual significance of musical climaxes for Beethoven’s audiences. In becoming sensitized to these phenomena, we may perhaps recuperate a nineteenth-century Idealist mode of listening that apprehended music as a primary ontological experience taking place in the higher reality of mental forms. Approached in this manner, the morphological games of the “Diabelli” Variations emerge vividly in perception and consequence. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF EXAMPLES AND TABLES .......................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................ vii Introduction: Towards a Reconstruction of Idealist Listening ....................................................... 1 German Idealism and Musical Ontology ................................................................................. 7 Idealist Listening: Thought-Sensations, Gestalts, and Visualizations ................................... 15 Impossible Transformations .................................................................................................. 25 Antinomy ............................................................................................................................... 29 The Limit of Logic Experienced ........................................................................................... 32 Chapter 1 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................ 36 Hegel’s Dialectic ................................................................................................................... 39 Dialectic as Musical Structure ............................................................................................... 48 Dialectic as Musical Experience: Dialectical Gnosis ............................................................ 49 Musical Collaborators............................................................................................................ 58 German Dialectics: Philosophical Methodology and Aesthetic Outlook .............................. 60 The Ramifications of the “Diabelli” Principle ...................................................................... 70 Possible Initial Exposure ....................................................................................................... 76 Dialectical Precursors ............................................................................................................ 79 Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 81 Beethoven as seen through Dialectical and Hegelian lenses ................................................. 85 i Chapter 2 The Waltz and Opening Variations .............................................................................. 90 The Waltz: Germinal Dialectic .............................................................................................. 90 Variation I: Gestalt Flips ....................................................................................................... 92 Variation II: Background/Foreground (Dematerializations) ................................................. 97 Variation III: Unloosed descents/Tightly knotted ............................................................... 101 Variation IV: Homophonic Tyranny ................................................................................... 106 Variation V: Blunderer/Savior ............................................................................................. 109 Variation VI: Anticipations ................................................................................................. 110 Variation VII: Upholder/Goal-Setter ................................................................................... 113 Variation VIII: Jungian Shadow .......................................................................................... 118 Variation IX: Ineptitude Self-Remedied .............................................................................. 122 Variation X: Pedal Point Black Hole ................................................................................... 124 Chapter 3 The Middle Variations ............................................................................................... 131 Variation XI: Dialogue Declined/Self-Constituted ............................................................. 131 Variation XII: Solutions/Solutes ......................................................................................... 133 Variation XIII: Commander/Private .................................................................................... 136 Variation XIV: Foreground Figures/Backdrop Canvass ..................................................... 137 Variation XV: Surface/Subterranean ................................................................................... 139 Variation XVI: Reckless Abandon/Pretense of Self-Restraint ............................................ 141 Variation XVII: Checked Steps/Unobstructed Winged Impetus ......................................... 145 ii Variation XVIII: Galant Symmetries Liquidated ................................................................ 147 Variation XIX: Densifications/Expansions ......................................................................... 149 Variation XX: Cadence as Catharsis ................................................................................... 152 Variation XXI: Clunking/Swishing ..................................................................................... 155 Variation XXII: The “Master-Slave” Dialectic ................................................................... 157 Variation XXIII: Movement/Matter (Energy/Mass) ........................................................... 161 Variation XXIV: Setting out on a Journey/Homecoming ................................................... 163 Chapter 4 The Concluding Variations ........................................................................................ 166 Variation XXV: Prolation Dialectic (or Horse/Rider) ......................................................... 166 Variation XXVI: Compounding Complications .................................................................. 167 Variation XXVII: Sharp Tips/Sealed Tubes .......................................................................