Durham E-Theses Mendelssohn and the Musical Sublime WAGGENER, JOSHUA,ALTON How to cite: WAGGENER, JOSHUA,ALTON (2014) Mendelssohn and the Musical Sublime, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10610/ Use policy This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-ND) Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Mendelssohn and the Musical Sublime Joshua A. Waggener ABSTRACT How does the aesthetic category of the sublime, in its various formulations from the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, assist in explaining the significance of Felix Mendelssohn and his compositions to English and German audiences in his lifetime and beyond? Due to the conceptual proximity of a number of formulations of the sublime to primary traits of his compositional output, Mendelssohn’s life and work can be understood through the categories of sublime aesthetics. Despite challenges in his reception and complexities in modern scholarship, Mendelssohn’s biography and musical accomplishments consistently show conceptual and contextual relations to a wide variety of sublime formulations. Mendelssohn’s early life and works display a prodigious musical talent impacted by multiple sublime influences, including the ‘sublime’ music of George Frideric Handel. His most popular early overtures – Midsummer Night’s Dream, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, and The Hebrides – demonstrate connections with an even wider range of sublime objects and concepts. Although Mendelssohn’s works from the 1830s and 1840s show an increasing appreciation for historical genres and forms, this does not represent a ‘decline’ from ‘sublime’ standards of originality, but an ‘ascent’ to new heights of ‘genius’, according to early nineteenth- century standards. His late works such as the Lobgesang, the Berlin Psalm Introits, and Elijah confirm his ability to create music modelled on sublime predecessors, communicating ‘Grand Concepts’, and expressing ineffable feeling. Overall, this thesis aims to show that the sublime can serve to evaluate the music of Mendelssohn using contextually-appropriate aesthetic concepts, thus offering a new understanding of his compositional accomplishments. Mendelssohn and the Musical Sublime Joshua Alton Waggener Ph.D. Thesis Department of Music, Durham University 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... vi LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES .............................................................................. vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................... viii Preface .............................................................................................................................. 1 1. The Sublime in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Thought ............................. 4 1. Species of ‘the Great’ in Eighteenth-Century English Writing ........................ 6 1.1. The Influence of Longinus’ On the Sublime .......................................... 6 1.2. The Sublime in Literature ...................................................................... 7 1.3. The Sublime as Observed and Experienced in Nature ......................... 10 2. Theories of the Sublime in German Lands ..................................................... 12 2.1. Moses Mendelssohn ‘On the sublime and naïve in the fine sciences’ . 13 2.2. The Kantian Sublime............................................................................ 15 2.3. Hegel and the ‘Symbolic’ Sublime in Ancient History ....................... 19 3. The Sublime in the Mind of ‘Genius’ ............................................................. 23 3.1. Connecting ‘Genius’ to the ‘Work of Genius’ ..................................... 23 3.2. A Kantian Pattern for Genius ............................................................... 25 3.3. A Genius with the Divine Power of Creative Imagination .................. 29 4. Summary ......................................................................................................... 32 2. The Sublime in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Musical Thought ............. 34 1. Searching for the Musical Sublime ................................................................. 35 1.1. The Burkean Sublime and Music ......................................................... 36 1.2. The Mendelssohnian Sublime and Music ............................................ 37 1.3. The Kantian Sublime and Music .......................................................... 38 2. Resorting to Other Sublimes ........................................................................... 40 2.1. ‘Grand Concepts’ and ‘Vastness’ in Art and Music ............................ 41 2.2. ‘Noble Passions’ Expressed in Music .................................................. 45 3. Expressivist Aesthetics and the Sublime ........................................................ 47 3.1. Expressivist Aesthetics in English and German Writings.................... 48 3.2. Connecting Expressivism with the Sublime ........................................ 53 3.3. Continuities in the Early Nineteenth-Century Sublime ....................... 54 4. Summary ......................................................................................................... 56 3. The Handelian Sublime in Mendelssohn’s Early Works ...................................... 59 1. The ‘Greatest’ Prodigy’s Introduction to Handel............................................ 60 1.1. A Student of Sublime Methods and Masterworks ............................... 61 1.2. Exposure to the Handelian Sublime ..................................................... 62 2. Handel, Author of a Sublime Musical Rhetoric .............................................. 64 2.1. The Occasion for Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate ................. 65 2.1. The ‘Biblical Sublime’ in the Utrecht Works ...................................... 66 2.3. ‘Grand Concepts’ and ‘Noble Passions’ in the Utrecht Works ........... 66 2.4. The ‘Expansive Sublime’ in the Utrecht Works .................................. 68 2.5. How Handel Defined the Musical Sublime ......................................... 74 3. Mendelssohn and the Handelian Sublime ....................................................... 77 3.1. Handelian Counterpoint and Quotation in the Octet ............................ 78 3.2. Handelian Themes and Vocal Polyphony in the 1826 Te Deum ......... 81 3.3. Handelian Emulation in Mendelssohn’s Psalm 115 ............................ 86 4. Musical Genius in Handel and Mendelssohn .................................................. 89 4.1. Handel, the First Musical Genius ......................................................... 89 4.2. Mendelssohn as Kantian Genius .......................................................... 92 5. Summary ......................................................................................................... 98 4. Sublimity in Mendelssohn’s Early Overtures....................................................... 100 1. Sublimity in A Midsummer Night’s Dream .................................................. 101 1.1. Shakespeare’s Sublimity .................................................................... 101 1.2. Sublimity in Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream .................. 103 2. Sublimity in Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage ........................................... 106 2.1. Beethoven and the Representation of Sublimity ................................ 108 2.2. Sublime Concepts in Goethe’s Poetry................................................ 113 2.3. Sublimity in Mendelssohn’s Op. 27 Overture ................................... 117 3. Sublimity in The Hebrides ............................................................................ 120 3.1. Sublime Images of Scotland............................................................... 120 3.2. Burkean ‘Obscurity’ in Mendelssohn’s Op. 26 Overture .................. 124 4. Summary ....................................................................................................... 126 5. Genius and Sublimity in the Lobgesang ................................................................ 128 1. Contemporary Recognition of Mendelssohn’s Genius ................................. 131 1.1. German Recognition, Both Elite and Universal ................................. 132 1.2. Victorian Adoration ........................................................................... 133 1.3. German Degradation and English Doubt ........................................... 134 1.4. ‘Is Mendelssohn in Danger?’ ............................................................. 137 1.5. Recognizing ‘Genius’ in Mendelssohn’s Works................................ 139 2. Musical Historicism, Classical Form, and the Ancient Sublime .................. 140 2.1. Goethe’s Influence on Mendelssohn’s Historicism ........................... 142 2.2. ‘The Want of a Well-Defined Form’ ................................................. 144 2.3. Sacred Music and the Ancient Sublime ............................................. 147 2.4. ‘Slavish Imitator’ or Translator of ‘Ancient’ Music Models? ........... 150 3. Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang ...........................................................................