ART, EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT: THE STRING QUINTET IN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIENNA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Wiebke Thormählen January 2008 © 2008 Wiebke Thormählen ART, EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT: THE STRING QUINTET IN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIENNA Wiebke Thormählen, Ph.D. Cornell University 2008 This dissertation explores the role of chamber music within Viennese enlightened theories of social and national education (Bildung). As such it confronts the apparent contradiction between music's status as a fine art and music's vibrant presence and vital role within the city's social calendar. Chapter 1 explores enlightened theories of art's role in education as part of the larger demands of forming a unified society, which troubled the European nations towards the end of the eighteenth century. Turning to the repertoire of the mostly unknown string quintets circulating in Vienna in the 1780s and 90s as a case study, Chapter 2 illustrates how an understanding of music as an essentially bildend (formative) social practice infiltrated the compositional make-up; I argue further that composers were writing within a culture that appreciated first and foremost music’s socially educating function. Chapter 3 focuses on music's entertaining function, providing both social documentation and philosophical rationale for the claim that entertainment was an integral aspect of the process of Bildung. Chapter 4 assesses the relevance of musical arrangements for the chamber within music's status as art, illustrating that music's unique promise for sensual experience is as instrumental to music's artistic potential as its potential for active engagement. Chapter 5 documents the shift away from an art that gains its highest potential through its interactive nature to an art that inspires solitary contemplation and reverie. A brief epilogue outlines that this shift is in fact a political move that colonises the aesthetic experience of the individual. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Born in Aachen, Germany, Wiebke moved to the UK in 1991 to commence her University Studies. She studied for the Bachelor in Music at Trinity College of Music London (accredited by the University of London in 1995), where she also pursued her studies as a violinist. She received a postgraduate diploma in performance and a Licentiate Teaching Diploma from Trinity College of Music, before pursuing musicology at King's College University of London, where she wrote her M.Mus Dissertation on the integration of social and compositional aspects in the accompanied sonata in the second half of the eighteenth-century, under the supervision of Dr. Cliff Eisen. In 2000 Wiebke moved to Ithaca, NY to study for the Ph.D. in Musicology at Cornell University. In the fall of 2002 she was a research fellow to Prof. Neal Zaslaw working on the revision of the Köchel catalogue, and she held teaching fellowships during the academic year 2001/2002 and the spring of 2003. She received the Master of Arts degree in 2003 and spent the following three years in Paris, London and Vienna (as a fellow of the Austrian Exchange Service) researching her dissertation. Wiebke holds teaching positions at King's College London and at Trinity College of Music, and she is a visiting fellow at Southampton University. She has published in Early Music, Acta Mozartiana, and Eighteenth-Century Music. She is co-editor of Musikalisches Denken im Labyrinth der Aufklärung: Wilhelm Heinses Roman Hildegard von Hohenthal (1794/96) (forthcoming 2007). Wiebke also pursues an iii active performing career as a Baroque violinist and appears regularly with groups in England and Holland. She lives in London with her husband Joe and their son Oscar. Together they are eagerly awaiting the imminent arrival of Oscar's younger brother. iv Der gebildete Mensch begnügt sich bei dem Genusse des Musik, wie jeder andern schönen Kunst, nicht gern mit diesem Genusse allein. Ungern verschließt er das Wohlgefallen und die Freude in sich, welche ihm zu Theil ward. Er sieht sich nach mitfühlenden Seelen um, welche das Vergnügen mit ihm theilen und in seinen Beifall einstimmen.. ... Der süße Zug der Geselligkeit ist es, welcher den Menschen mächtig bewegt, seine tieffsten, schönsten, edelsten Gefühle in Begriffe und Worte zu fassen. (Wiener allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. No.43. Mittwoch, den 27. October 1813) To my fellow lovers of music v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my special committee, Prof. Neal Zaslaw, Prof. James Webster and Dr. Annette Richards for their continued support during this project. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Otto Biba for his interest and support during my year in Vienna and beyond. Research for this dissertation was generously funded by the Mario Einaudi Centre for European Studies at Cornell University, who awarded me the Michele Sicca Pre-Dissertation Grant in the summer of 2003. I am also indebted to the Austrian Exchange Service (ÖAD) for funding nine months of research in Viennese archives and libraries during the academic year 2004-2005. I would like to thank my inspiring colleagues at Cornell University for their unfailing interest, their conversations and their conference company. My most whole-hearted thanks go to my family particularly my parents, Anne & Uwe Thormählen for their ceaseless belief in me, Joseph Crouch for his infinite enthusiasm for the project, and Oscar Amyas Crouch for keeping my mind and soul on the ground. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch…………………………………………….………iii Dedication………………………………………………………………….v Acknowledgements………………………………………………………vi List of Figures…………………………………………………………….ix List of Tables……………………………………………………………….x List of Musical Examples………………………………………………xi Preface……………………………………………………………………..xiii Enlightened Discourse and the Spirit of Disparity…………….1 1. Diversity in the Viennese Cityscape………………………………..1 2. Historical Interlude: Joseph II’s Enlightened Absolutism and the Idea of the "Common Good"…………………………………………………………..………..17 3. Bildung as Nation Formation in Late Eighteenth-Century Vienna: Ideals of Unity through Reason…………………………………………………………………..21 4. The Communal Negotiation of Reason with Sensuality………35 Instrumental Music and the Performance of Dialogue………49 1. Advertising Music for the Domestic Market: Text and Action…………..………………………………………………………..49 2. Dialogues in Instrumental Music and the Recognition of Meaning: Analytical Approaches…………………………………..57 3. Ears, Fibres and Expression: "Bewegung" as Meaning in Instrumental music…………………………………...66 4. Meaningful Gestures………………………………………………….73 5. Opening Unisons………………………………………………………98 6. Gestures of Individuality: Triplets, Passage Work and Repeated Quavers……………………………………...142 7. Topical Analysis Extended…………………………………………157 vii Viennese Salon Entertainment……………………………………177 1. Feeling the Gestures of Art………………………………………..177 2. The Alliance of Art and Entertainment………………………….201 Empiricism and Rationalism in the Viennese Enlightenment………………………………………………………….213 1. Performing Haydn's The Creation………………………………..213 2. The Question of Meaning in an Instrumental "Creation"…………………………………………………………….227 3. Art as Education – Art as Communal Bildung ………………238 4. Art and the Pleasures of Critique……………………………….248 5. Art as Act and the Education of Taste…………………………256 6. Accounting for the Sublime in The Creation………………….261 The Evaluation of the Musical Work – Analysis, Performance and Value Judgement………………………………………………..278 1. Solitude or Conviviality: George Onslow as Chamber Musician…………………………………………………278 2. George Onslow's String Quintets Op.1…………………………288 3. Pocket Scores: The Correlation between Compositional Styles and Publication Styles…………………305 4. Performance and the Act of Composition in Music Theory Around 1800………………………………………315 5. The Elevation of Art above Nature………………………………329 Epilogue……………………………………………………………….....336 Appendix I: String Quintets offered for sale by J. Traeg in 1799………………………………………………………………………..343 Appendix II: Quintets with movements that feature prominent unison passages ……………………..…………………………………348 Bibliography……………………………………………………………..349 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Appollonion. Ein Taschenbuch zum Vergnügen und Unterricht auf das Jahr 1807. Frontispiece....................12 Figure 2: A. Capuzzi, String Quintet No.1, (i), Exposition – Diagram of Player Groupings………………………………….…..142 Figure 3: The Compositional Process…………………………….321 Figure 4: Momigny – Cours Complète – Chapitre 13, Planche 30……………………………………………………………..334 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1: G.A. Capuzzi. Six Quintetti Concertanti op.3 – movement structure and key schemes…………………………….74 Table 2: A. Capuzzi, String Quintet No.1, (i), Exposition - Harmonic and Melodic Material…………………………………… 82 Table 3: Layers of Signification in Chamber Music…………...168 Table 4: W.A. Mozart. K 515, (i), 1-156 - Topical Analysis………………………………………………………………….170 x LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES String Quintets are scored for 2 violins, 2 violas and Page violoncello unless otherwise stated Ex. 1: A. Capuzzi. Quintet No.1 in Eb major, (i) 75 Ex. 2: A. Capuzzi. Quintet No.1 in Eb major, (ii). Minuet 85 Ex. 3a: A. Capuzzi. Quintet No.2 in c minor, (ii). Minuet 87 Ex. 3b: A. Capuzzi. Quintet No.2 in c minor, (ii). Trio 88 Ex. 4: A. Capuzzi. Quintet No.4 in Bb major, (iii). Adagio 101 Ex. 5a: O.C.E. Kospoth. Quintet No.4 in A major, (i), 105 Exposition Ex. 5b: O.C.E. Kospoth. Quintet No.4 in A major, (i), 108 Recapitulation Ex. 6: A. Zimmermann.