View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Edinburgh Research Explorer Edinburgh Research Explorer Evolution versus Authenticity: Johannes Brahms, Robert Franz, and Continuo Practice in the Late Nineteenth Century Citation for published version: Kelly, E 2006, 'Evolution versus Authenticity: Johannes Brahms, Robert Franz, and Continuo Practice in the Late Nineteenth Century' 19th-Century Music, vol 30, no. 2, pp. 182-204. DOI: 10.1525/ncm.2006.30.2.182 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1525/ncm.2006.30.2.182 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Published In: 19th-Century Music Publisher Rights Statement: ©Kelly, E. (2006). Evolution versus Authenticity: Johannes Brahms, Robert Franz, and Continuo Practice in the Late Nineteenth Century. 19th-Century Music, 30(2), 182-204. 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Apr. 2017 19TH CENTURY MUSIC Evolution versus Authenticity: Johannes Brahms, Robert Franz, and Continuo Practice in the Late Nineteenth Century ELAINE KELLY The early-music revival in the second half of debate lay the fact that the nineteenth-century the nineteenth century was a hotbed of contro- preoccupation with the past had its origins in versy. Bitter disputes arose over performing and two diametrically opposed philosophies. Much editorial practices, and throughout the 1860s of nineteenth-century thought was evolution- and 70s, the period during which Brahms was ary in outlook, centering on the concept of most active as a performer, arranger, and edi- progress over time. A new value was placed on tor, the German music press was inundated the past, but it was fueled primarily by the with a barrage of editions, pamphlets, articles, belief that awareness of the past was essential and correspondence—all emphatically staking to understanding the present. This standpoint, positions in the debate.1 At the crux of the articulated most influentially by Hegel in Ger- many, had considerable implications for the early-music revival: if art, like civilization, A shorter version of this article was presented at the Thir- manifested itself in increasingly perfect forms, teenth International Conference on Nineteenth-Century then revivalists were justified in modernizing Music at the University of Durham in 2004. I am very grateful to Jan Smaczny and Margaret Notley for their early art to appeal to the more sophisticated perceptive and helpful comments on this article. demands of nineteenth-century audiences. 1Two of the most valuable sources on the controversy are Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, “Die Bach-Gesamtausgabe und die Kontroversen um die Aufführungspraxis der Vokal- seiner Zeit,” Robert Franz (1815–1892): Bericht über die werke,” Bach und die Nachwelt 2, ed. Michael Heinemann wissenschaftliche Konferenz anläßlich seines 100. and Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1999), Todestages am 23. und 24. Oktober 1992 in Halle/Saale, pp. 227–97; and Dieter Gutknecht, “Robert Franz als ed. Konstanze Musketa (Halle: Händel-Haus, 1993), pp. Bearbeiter der Werke von Bach und Händel und die Praxis 219–47. 182 19th-Century Music, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 182–204. ISSN: 0148-2076, electronic ISSN 1533-8606. © 2006 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/ reprintInfo.asp. DOI: ncm.2006.30.2.182. This content downloaded from 129.215.19.194 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 05:47:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Hegel himself advocated a process of “neces- rise of musicology as a discipline. As height- ELAINE 2 KELLY sary anachronism,” whereby old works should ened scholarly awareness gave credence to Brahms, Franz, be adapted to cater to the cultural requirements Thibaut’s mandate, certain musicians became and the of a modern audience: increasingly concerned with presenting early Continuo music in as unaltered a form as possible. Among Even the most excellent things require adaptation in the first to show a concern for authenticity was view of this. Admittedly, people could say that the Mendelssohn, who, in the preface to his edi- truly excellent must remain excellent for all time; tion of Handel’s Israel in Egypt for the London but the work of art also has a transient, mortal side, Handel Society in 1844, declared: and it is this that requires alteration. For the beauti- ful appears for different people, and those for whom I think it my first duty, to lay before the Society the it is brought to appearance must be able to be at Score as Handel wrote it, without introducing the home in this external side of its appearance. The least alteration, and without mixing up any remarks inner substance of that which is represented remains or notes of my own with those of Handel. In the next the same, but cultural change makes necessary a place, as there is no doubt that he himself intro- conversion of its expression and form.3 duced many things at the performance of his works which were not accurately written down, and which For adherents of the opposing “Romantic” even now, when his music is performed, are sup- school, however, the past represented some- plied by a sort of tradition according to the fancy of thing very different, something to be appreci- the Conductor and the Organist, it becomes my ated for its own sake. In the wake of the French second duty to offer an opinion in all such cases; but Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, a strong sense I think it of paramount importance that all my re- of disillusionment with the present helped fos- marks should be kept strictly separate from the Origi- ter a longing among Romantics for an idealized nal Score, and the latter should be given in its entire past. William Vaughan has perceptively de- purity, in order to afford every one an opportunity of scribed this as “a mythical golden age, an ‘age resorting to Handel himself, and not to obtrude any suggestions of mine upon those who may differ from of faith’ to be contrasted with the degenerate me in opinion.6 atheism and materialism of modern times.”4 For followers of this school of thought, early The founding of the Bach Gesellschaft in music was to be treated with reverence. Anton 1850, with its lofty scholarly aims for the pro- F. J. Thibaut, as James Garratt points out, advo- posed complete edition of the composer’s works, cated performing early church compositions “as firmly grounded the new erudite approach to purely as the master intended” and denigrated the revival of early music. The Gesellschaft’s Mozart’s arrangement of Handel’s Messiah as objective, as outlined in the preface to its first “meddling.”5 volume in 1850, was to offer true representa- This opposition took a new shape in the tions of Bach’s works, based on the original second half of the nineteenth century with the sources and with no changes, cuts, or addi- tions.7 Musicologists including Friedrich Chrys- ander, Philipp Spitta, and Heinrich Bellermann 2Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ästhetik, ed. Friedrich Bassenge, 2 vols. (2nd edn. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1965), I, embraced this ideal in their later scholarly 272. The term is translated by James Garratt in Palestrina endeavors. They found strong opposition, and the German Romantic Imagination (Cambridge: Cam- however, in a faction led by the composer Rob- bridge University Press, 2002), p. 224. 3Ibid., pp. 224–25. ert Franz, whose aesthetic drew heavily on the 4William Vaughan, German Romantic Painting (New Ha- Hegelian premise of progress. Franz and his ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 2. chief supporters, Selmar Bagge and Julius 5Anton F. J. Thibaut, Über Reinheit der Tonkunst (Heidel- berg: Mohr, 1825). Cited in James Garratt, Palestrina and Schaeffer, were largely unconcerned with his- the German Romantic Imagination, p. 224. Garratt touches on the two opposing approaches that affected the early- music revival. For a more general account of the two schools of thought, see the “Progress and historicism” sec- 6Handel, Israel in Egypt (London: London Handel Society, tion of Glenn Stanley’s article on “Historiography” in the 1844), preface. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edn. 7J. S. Bach’s Werke (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1850), London: Macmillan, 2001), vol. 11, pp. 546–61. p. iv. 183 This content downloaded from 129.215.19.194 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 05:47:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 19TH torical performance practices.8 They were clear- ments for a number of Handel’s Italian duets CENTURY 11 MUSIC ly committed to the revival, but maintained and trios. He also allowed Carl Grädener to that music, instruments, and listener expecta- publish his figured-bass arrangement of the cho- tions had evolved since the time of Bach and rale “Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid,” from Handel, a fact that had to be taken into ac- Bach’s Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV count if early music was to find an audience.