Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00300-2 — Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen Frontmatter More Information Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora The German-Jewish émigré composer Stefan Wolpe was a vital figure in the history of modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop, and the kibbutz movement to bebop, Abstract Expressionism, and Black Mountain College. This is the first full-length study of this often overlooked composer, launched from the standpoint of the mass migrations that have defined recent times. Drawing on over 2,000 pages of unpublished documents, Cohen explores how avant-garde communities across three continents adapted to situations of extreme cultural and physical dislocation. A conjurer of unexpected cultural connections, Wolpe serves as an entry-point to the utopian art worlds of Weimar-era Germany, pacifist move- ments in 1930s Palestine, and vibrant art and music scenes in early Cold War America. The book takes advantage of Wolpe’s role as a mediator, bringing together perspectives from music scholarship, art history, comparative literature, postcolonial studies, and recent theories of cosmopolitanism and diaspora. Brigid Cohen is Assistant Professor of Music at New York University. Her teaching and research focus on twentieth-century avant-gardes, questions of migration and diaspora, theories of cosmopolitanism, and relationships between music, the visual arts, and literature. Her work has been recognized with awards from the American Musicological Society, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Paul Sacher Foundation, and the J. Paul Getty Research Institute. She is a recipient of the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00300-2 — Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen Frontmatter More Information New perspectives in music history and criticism General editors: Jeffrey Kallberg, Anthony Newcomb and Ruth Solie This series explores the conceptual frameworks that shape or have shaped the ways in which we understand music and its history, and aims to elaborate structures of explanation, interpretation, commentary, and criticism which make music intelligible and which provide a basis for argument about judgements of value. The intellectual scope of the series is broad. Some investigations will treat, for example, historiographical topics, others will apply cross-disciplinary methods to the criticism of music, and there will also be studies which consider music in its relation to society, culture, and politics. Overall, the series hopes to create a greater presence for music in the ongoing discourse among the human sciences. Published titles Leslie C. Dunn and Nancy A. Jones (eds.), Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture Downing A. Thomas, Music and the Origins of Language: Theories from the French Enlightenment Thomas S. Grey, Wagner’s Musical Prose Daniel K. L. Chua, Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning Adam Krims, Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity Annette Richards, The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque Richard Will, The Characteristic Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Beethoven Christopher Morris, Reading Opera Between the Lines: Orchestral Interludes and Cultural Meaning from Wagner to Berg Emma Dillon, Medieval Music-Making and the ‘Roman de Fauvel’ David Yearsley, Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint David Metzer, Quotation and Cultural Meaning in the Twentieth Century Alexander Rehding, Hugo Riemann and the Birth of Modern Musical Thought Dana Gooley, The Virtuoso Liszt Bonnie Gordon, Monteverdi’s Unruly Women: The Power of Song in Early Modern Italy Gary Tomlinson, The Singing of the New World: Indigenous Voice in the Era of European Contact © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00300-2 — Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen Frontmatter More Information Matthew Gelbart, The Invention of Folk Music and Art Music: Emerging Categories from Ossian to Wagner Olivia A. Bloechl, Native American Song at the Frontiers of Early Modern Music Giuseppe Gerbino, Music and the Myth of Arcadia in Renaissance Italy Roger Freitas, Portrait of a Castrato: Politics, Patronage, and Music in the Life of Atto Melani Gundula Kreuzer, Verdi and the Germans: From Unification to the Third Reich Holly Watkins, Metaphors of Depth in German Musical Thought: From E. T. A. Hoffmann to Arnold Schoenberg Davinia Caddy, The Ballets Russes and Beyond: Music and Dance in Belle-Époque Paris Brigid Cohen, Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00300-2 — Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen Frontmatter More Information Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00300-2 — Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen Frontmatter More Information University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314-321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi - 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06-04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107003002 © Brigid Cohen 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 First paperback edition 2016 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Cohen, Brigid Maureen. Stefan Wolpe and the avant-garde diaspora / Brigid Cohen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-00300-2 1. Wolpe, Stefan. 2. Musicians – Biography. 3. Avant-garde (Music) – History – 20th century. I. Title. ML410.W8355S76 2012 780.92–dc23 [B] 2011049749 ISBN 978-1-107-00300-2 Hardback ISBN 978-1-316-64116-3 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00300-2 — Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen Frontmatter More Information Contents List of illustrations and musical examples page ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Toward a historiography of modernism in migration 1 Modernism, migration, and Wolpe 1 Retheorizing musical modernism 8 Beyond national frameworks and studies of exile and assimilation 12 Migrant cosmopolitanism 22 On the interpretation of modernist works 31 1 Wolpe’s Self-Revelatory Poetics and Critical Reflections, Circa 1951 38 “The real clarification and real-true solution of human particularities” 38 “Held In” 40 Form and broken form 47 “The un-losable friendship of human recognition” 55 Wolpe’s self-revelation and self-narration 64 2 Weimar-Era Montage and Avant-Garde Community 76 Part 1: At the Bauhaus 76 “What would we be in a position to do without school?” 76 Montage: the ethics of estrangement, formalization, and reclamation 88 Part 2: After the Bauhaus 104 Zeus und Elida 105 Shock and experimental form 130 3 “Amalgamated” Musics and National Visions in 1930s Palestine 140 “Amalgamated” idioms and Mandate-era politics 140 Wolpe’s political position in Palestine 145 Wolpe’s “full concern” and pedagogical presence 158 “If it be my fate ...” 169 The “dream-panorama” of Jewish music 183 “But only if it existed: the most spiritual community” 193 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00300-2 — Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen Frontmatter More Information viii Contents 4 The Mid-Century Poetics and Politics of Experimental Community 202 The Oboe Quartet: community life and memory 202 Resisting the “holes of oblivion”: Wolpe, Arendt, and human plurality 212 Transforming “things” into “beings”: Wolpe, Blücher, and “organic modes” 222 Wolpe’s mid-century communities in profile 230 Bebop 232 Eighth Street Artists’ Club 245 Black Mountain College 255 Heterotopia 263 Epilogue: The Witnessing Memory 267 No direction home 267 The self-narrator’s belonging 275 Haunted objects 284 The “discontinuum” of testament 295 Interpretive communities and publics 301 Select Bibliography 304 Index 322 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00300-2 — Stefan Wolpe and the Avant-Garde Diaspora Brigid Cohen Frontmatter More Information Illustrations and musical examples Figures 2.1 Mordecai Ardon (a.k.a. Max Bronstein), Material Study: Composition Made of Different Materials, Bound by Rhythmic Forms. Permission Ora Ardon. page 91 2.2 Paul Klee, Untitled (“Deutschnationaler”),