Borrowings in Classical Music Between Countries, Composers, Different Ages - Essay Example

A Music Essay The end of eighteenth century was marked by a fairly widespread desire for national originality in literary and music matters in Germany, even though patriotic feeling in the political sense hardly existed. This desire does not seem to have been common in the Middle Ages, when the originality of individual authors too was much less stressed than now, and one is tempted to assume that it arose in Germany mainly through the contagious influence of France. The opera Fidelio was performed in 1805 and was the only opera of L. Beethoven. 1805 was a watershed between German Classicism and German Romanticism marked a new era in German music and artistic movement. The opera Fidelio belongs to German Classic era depicting domestic comedy and high seriousness of social landscape. The artistic movement of this age was open to every foreign idea, new or old, and interested itself in every accessible literature. It was partly because artistic movement was not deeply rooted in the national life that it drew so much of its matter from foreign sources, until as critics have seen a desire for national originality began to arise, in advance of patriotism. It is obvious that the free use of the intellectual and artistic capital of German’s neighbors was an advantage, even a necessity for Germany in her backward condition; these countries themselves had freely plundered superior civilization in their own day as every young literature must; these in their particular made no secret of his immense debt to France and England. That the results of these borrowings were not always fortunate goes without saying; Insel Felsenburg and Die schwedische Gräfin have few of the merits of the work of Defoe and Richardson. But what is perhaps peculiar to Germany in this matter of imitation is that the habit became so deeply rooted that even national pride could not affect it much, and came in fact, by a natural compensation, to claim this very receptivity as a national virtue (Breuilly, 2001). The German nation, narrowly confined geographically and politically disunited, cannot be expected to produce one, and, speaking just after the French Revolution, Goethe hesitates to wish for the upheaval that would be required in Germany to prepare the way for classical works. But his words indicate that it is by no means certain that he would have disapproved of the Nationalism of modern Germany if he could have lived to see it (Gagliardo 1991). He might have looked upon it as a necessary stage in the evolution of a truly classical German literature. Critics (Berman 1986) suppose that German style was spoiled by too much philosophic speculation. They see too that conventions and traditions can have a deadening effect and must be constantly revised if they are not to produce in literature works like those French writings of the age of Voltaire. German writers had both the strength and the weakness resulting from not writing for a clearly defined public in the hope of influencing its views. They lacked the tug from reality that even the most unworldly of French or English authors constantly experienced. Literature then was unsocial, but it had positive qualities too. It was in the first place highly individualistic. If Germany had few literary traditions, it was at the same time comparatively free from the clogging effect. Cosmopolitanism was its ideal. Considered from the point of view of economic and social history, it was essentially the work of free artists, such as could only arise when the possibility existed of writing for a heterogeneous public, without much need of patronage or much fear of persecution. In earlier ages, a writer had not easily secured a hearing for himself as such. It has been pointed out how frequently writers in the Spectator, the Tatler, and their German counterparts, assumed some mask, such as that of a lady or gentleman of quality, instead of writing under their own names (Epstein, 1966). It was not until late in the 18th century that the custom of making the hero of a novel an artist established itself. It is, however, true that whereas in Goethes age the best minds of the nation were absorbed in poetry and philosophy, and a new poem was an event to be interpreted and admired in long letters and criticisms, the energies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been directed far more towards the acquisition and control of material things. The Revolution reminded the world that it was a reason in blinkers, for the foundations of this life, beautiful as it might sometimes be, had long been insecure. The court classes on the other hand were far less moved by considerations of principle. They had a certain code of honor, but they were more self-seeking and opportunist than the middle class. Their consideration for others seldom extended beyond their own ranks. They had however more external polish and elegance, more feeling for style both in art and in the details of ordinary life, though in Germany their forms were usually rather slavishly copied from France. In their wealth and leisure they had at least the prerequisites for a predominantly aesthetic approach to life, and speaking generally the beautiful did even in Germany mean more to them than the good or the true (Dalton, 1973). Beethoven transformation of Leonore into Fidelio involved developing its general political elements at the expense of the personal drama around which the opera is built. The notion that musicians, or composers, are by their very nature apolitical, uninterested in anything but pure music and the processes of composition, is a cosy piece of mythology; more precisely, it is a generalization that fits a few composers no doubt, but not all by any means, and particularly not most opera composers. One genre of opera that was established before the Revolution, but lent itself readily to revolutionary purposes, was the so-called rescue opera. The best-known and most popular pre-revolutionary example was Grétry Richard Coeur-de-Lion of 1784, which has a plot with obvious similarities to that of Fidelio. (Blume, 1970). It is entirely appropriate that it was Beethoven who provided the operatic masterpiece in which the values and vision of the revolutionary age are expressed in their most inspiring and overwhelming form. For Beethoven was not only the greatest composer of the revolutionary age; he was also a musical revolutionary, and the revolutionary changes and expansion he achieved in music are intimately tied to his lifelong identification with the spirit of the political and social revolution inaugurated by the fall of the Bastille (Graf, 1971). In some ways, though, Fidelio is a less revolutionary work than it may appear. It is not a drama of popular liberation or struggle. Heroism belongs only to its central couple. They are isolated in a conformist, collaborationist environment represented by the kindhearted but cringeing chief jailor Rocco. He is the reluctant but nevertheless compliant agent of oppression: the accommodating, subservient underling that all regimes depend on, especially cruel and unjust ones The novel of this period, The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Goethe was influenced by the courts and of rationalism produced only superficial effects on its way of life. As was to be expected in a compact and hard-working society, it took questions of conduct far more seriously than intellectual or artistic matters. It was conservative and provincial in thought and taste, strict and a little pharisaical in its views, as critics have seen from certain gild regulation The new class of brain workers owed its position to its knowledge and intelligence. It tended necessarily to put the intellectual values first. But through its origin it retained much of the ethical rigor of the middle class, especially in regard to the relations of the sexes. It has been mentioned above that its views in this matter were in marked contrast with those of the average courtier, and that from the solid bourgeoisie and the educated middle class a stricter sexual morality, at least for women, gradually spread in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to the class above and the class below, the nobility and the working class. It was much the same with the other virtues which critics still think of as typically middle class, honesty, industry, and sweet reasonableness (Berman 1986). In "An die Parzen" by Schiller poetic reflection (autumn) is presented as a natural development of direct experience (summer), but then reveals itself as contrary in nature to its origin, a dialectical antithesis. The "sweet game" suggests mutual assimilation of thesis and antithesis; but the inevitable question of "right" raises the issue of primacy and so reinstitutes separation and tension. The idea of reflection as a kind of death implies that consciousness incessantly produces radical change in its own object; and this idea is supported by the image of the nether regions ("Orkus," "Schattenwelt"), which suggests a whole world of diminished experiential intensity when the immediacy of the divine has been smothered by consciousness. Portraits, historical scenes and landscapes dominated in painting of this period of time. ‘Goethe in the Campagna” is one of famous works by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein. This painting reflects traditional schemes and ideals followed by painters of this period (Berman 1986; Epstein, 1966). The facts mentioned above allow to say that “music and art are separate” (Susanne Langer). originality was at a premium, and if taste was not critical, it was all the easier for young writers to find a hearing. The result was sometimes eccentricity, paradox, even nonsense, at other times profound and novel ideas and bold literary experiments. The natural fertility of the mind was given full scope in a society where men wrote to express themselves, revelled in hard work and were in no hurry for results. Fidelio is suffused with Beethovens characteristic sense of struggle against the odds. Leonore constantly has to revive her fading hopes of success, and the sense of terror is present not only in her passionate response to Pizarros cruel threats, but also in the darkness of the cell where Florestan lies and to which she, of all people, comes to help dig his grave, in preparation for his murder. Fidelio with its affirmative conclusion, is expressive not only of Beethovens humanism but also of the optimism of its particular historical moment, as is the similarly exultant conclusion to the Ninth Symphony (Einstein, 1947). Cosmopolitanism, it is clear, was attractive partly as an escape from the pettiness of political conditions at home. It was a Utopian ideal natural to men who had been allowed no political schooling and found little in fatherlands like Württemberg or Weimar to satisfy their political idealism. The atmosphere of absolutism and rationalism in which they had grown to maturity, as well as their natural bent as poets towards contemplation rather than towards action, tended to make them more concerned with formulating distant ideals than with practical suggestions for immediate improvements. Goethe, it is true, had some experience of practical administration, but after the disappointment of his first hopes he came to look upon it chiefly as a means of self-discipline. German classical era was not restricted by circumstances to a narrow range of subjects, but could expatiate freely over the whole of nature and history, in an eclectic style influenced by innumerable foreign models. This artistic movement was neither national in sentiment nor expressive of the outlook of any particular class of society. Beethoven, it seems safe to say, hoped to instill in others the passion for freedom and justice that inspired Fidelio. The notion that music is invariably or inherently detached from the public events and politics of their age is a fiction, one to which many people are strongly attached, but which obscures and distorts a proper and full understanding of their work. References 1. Berman R. A. (1986).The Rise of the Modern German Novel: Crisis and Charisma. Cambridge. 2. Blume, F. (1970). Classic and Romantic Music, A Comprehensive Survey, New York. 3. Breuilly, J. (2001). 19th-Century Germany: Politics, Culture, and Society 1800-1918. Hodder Arnold Publication. 4. Gagliardo John G. (1991). Germany under the Old regime 1600-1790. London. 5. Graf, M. (1971) Composer and Critic. Two Hundred Years of Music Criticism. New York. 6. Dalton, D. (1973) "Goethe and the Composers of his Time", Music Review, xxxiv, pp. 157-74 7. Einstein, A. (1947). Music in the Romantic Era. New York. 8. Epstein, K. (1966). The Genesis of German Conservatism. Princeton. Read More