DQ for Watkins, 2-23

[Also watch this space for DQ for Watkins, 24-37]

DQ for Watkins, 2-23

Please be prepared to respond in either seminar meeting or in "Comments" on the course blog. In all venues, you must be prepared to cite specific passages (by page, paragraph, line, and quotation) in support of your responses—and specific works.

The section explores reception and conception of certain Austro-German composers, principally Strauss and Mahler, in the final decade of the 19^th-century, and uses observations about each of these composers’ stylistic development to both demonstrate the continuity of Romanticism-Modernism (Expressionism) and that of Beethoven-Wagner-Mahler (Schoenberg/Berg/1980s Neo-Romanticism).

(1) The conventional/received histories have suggested that the crucial threads of compositional experimentation and development are most legitimately traced through the radical methodological experiments of the Modernists (Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Stravinsky before WWI) and subsequently the German serialists (Schoenberg & Webern) and their post-WWII disciples). Watkins, like Burkholder, wants to problematize the received histories, to suggest that composers like Wagner were more traditionalist—more members of than outcasts from the Austro-German tradition—than the histories have suggested, and that composers like Mahler were more modernist, and influential upon modernism, than the histories have claimed. Explain, cite pieces, describe both procedures and philosophies that rationalize Wagner as a lineage-member and Mahler as a modernist.

(2) Watkins begins his detailed discussion with Strauss, a composer who (with 100 years hindsight) is not conventionally regarded as wielding anywhere near the “lasting influence” of either Brahms (his senior) or Mahler (his contemporary). How does this “hindsight-view” match or contrast with the view of Strauss’s contemporaries? Have critical receptions of Strauss and Mahler shifted over that 100 years? If so, why? How can we know and demonstrate this? Finally, what factors might explain such shifts?

(3) It could be argued (and not only by Watkins) that Strauss was simultaneously a quintessential Romantic (in some works and periods) and a quintessential Modernist (in other works and/or periods)—and that there is not a strict chronological shift from one to the other. Why and on the basis of what works can Strauss be claimed as a Romantic? Why and on what works can he be claimed as a Modernist? Can we understand Strauss’s stylistic diversity, and can that in turn help us understand the questions, problems, or “new ways” that composers were grappling with in this period? [Observation: evidently Watkins thinks so: he begins his history with Strauss]

(4) What is the impact of “lyric”—and specifically “German lyric”—on Mahler and other late-19^th-century composers? What are the roots of this literary influence? What Romantic motives does it reflect? What nationalist motives? Now turn these questions around: how does an emphasis on lyric or narrative song impact upon the musical parameters of harmony and form in this period? Cite specific pieces.

(5) Look closely at the texts of the various Wunderhorn songs Watkins transcribes, listen closely to the specifics of the settings, and be prepared to articulate the philosophical and aesthetic goals which underlie Mahler’s compositional choices.

(6) To go back to Question 1, and to our previous discussions: at the fin-de-siecle, who were the composers believed to be most effectively pointing the way to the future? What elements in those composers’ works shaped that reception? Contrarily, how does Watkins re-order and re-conceive the “Viennese succession”? What, in Watkins’s view, is the significance of the Beethovenian legacy (both stylistic and philosophical) at the fin-de-siecle? Does it impact on the Strauss/Mahler generation? Does it impact later Viennese composers? Did Mahler represent, for these later/younger composers, a model for coping with the issue of this succession?

lilee + want to read some posts

Dear class,
Come on, post something! Aren't we supposed to post something on Watkins? I haven't found any questions from Dr. Smith on the Watkins reading, but I might be missing something. Mahler's songs Der Schildwache Nachtlied and Revelge (on listening week 2) are perfectly suited for this weather; somehow, I have always viewed German/Austrian soldiers in the snow and ice. Seriously, the listening selections are amazing company for this weather. I somehow managed to complete my earlier undergraduate and graduate studies without listening to Mahler; in my twentieth-century music courses, he was accorded recognition for his influence upon the Second Viennese School without much more than passing acknowledgment--his worth was measured in his influence only. In my nineteenth-century music courses, he was accorded worth in his own right, but unfortunately fell into the latter part of the courses, and we always seem to run out of time for latter parts of courses, don't we? One thing that I had never thought about was Viennese fin-de-siecle and early twentieth-century interest in what used to be called "The Orient," although I knew about Bethge's "Chinese Flute," of course; I always thought only about France's/Debussy's interest through the Paris International Exposition for that time period. Watkins had some interesting things to say about Klimt and Loos in this vein. Of course, interest in "the East" (another term not used now because it implies "the other") is an important part of twentieth-century appropriation, similar to the historical appropriation from one's "own tradition," for example, the appropriation that we studied with Brahms' Symphony 4 Mvmt. IV/Bach. Any thoughts? Lisa Lee

lilee + Mass Culture discussion questions

I have written a beautiful Word document that discusses every discussion question in detail, almost five pages of carefully considered response--but how the @#$%^&*! can I copy it to this blog instead of retyping it? Here is my response to the first discussion question.

(1) Weber includes among the factors that contributed to the emphasis upon composers' "names [that] seem [to have been] written into the heavens" the following: 1. the growth of the music publishing industry (p. 6, first full paragraph, line 4), the spread of retail outlets (p. 10, third full paragraph, lines 1 ff), and crafty merchandizing on the part of the publishers (p. 11, first full paragraph, lines 1 ff); 2. the growth of the large-scale concerts which appeared during the middle of the nineteenth century, which brought a new impersonal social structure to concert life (p. 6, second paragraph, lines 8-10), together with their leaders (p. 15, third full paragraph, lines 6-8); 3. the polarization of values between music for entertainment and for serious artistry, shaped by the repertoire of the large-scale concerts (p. 6, second paragraph, lines 10-12); 4. the growth of "highly trained, sometimes semi-professional listeners who poured their energies into advocating the music they regarded as the bastion of serious music culture" who by the mid-nineteenth century had become the "dominant force among the musical amateurs" and who dominated the concert hall (p. 19, the entire third full paragraph). My opinion on the above reasons is that a lot of this is determined by the phenomenon that everyone wants to "be cool"; the publisher, concert entrepreneur, and informed amateur set the standards for "what is cool" for the other, less-informed listeners or "wannabes" and thus for what would be demanded in the concert hall. Particularly, by defining music through the polarity of entertainment and art, or low- and high-brow culture, "informed" listeners could make themselves the artistic and elite standard and the non-informed listeners the "other." Weber seems to say this, as well (p. 19, first full paragraph, .ines 8-13).

DQ for Weber "Mass Culture and the Reshaping of European Musical Taste"

DQ for Weber, “Mass Culture and the Reshaping of European Musical Taste”

[Please read and by prepared to respond by Thurs 1.18 meeting]

Please be prepared to respond in either seminar meeting or in "Comments" on the course blog. In all venues, you must be prepared to cite specific passages (by page, paragraph, line, and quotation) in support of your responses.

(1) Though the model of “great works” and/or “great composers” have been ubiquitous in music history studies for at least the past 100 years, this model is in fact of relatively recent provenance—that is, prior to the 1850s-‘60s, according to Weber, the model of “great composers” did not really exist. Please cite at least four factors, overall, which Weber argues contributed to that period’s new emphasis upon composers’ “names seem written into the heavens.”

(2) Implicit in this article is the idea that perspectives in music historiography, just as is the case with musical style or musical usage, are themselves time- and context-bound. That is, models of music history may be seen as “going in and out of fashion.” What does this emphasis upon “greatness” of individuals or works reveal about cultural values (and arbiters) of the past hundred years?

(3) Despite the fact that the “great works” and/or the “great composers” have typically been associated with high art and social class, with an aristocracy of culture or economics, Weber suggests that the rise of the “great composers” was in fact a direct result of the rise of mass culture in mid-19^th-century Europe. How does Weber explain this paradox? Why did mass culture “need” great composers? What social/economic/class aspirations did this model serve?

(4) Related to (3) above: what other musical innovations or shifts of musical practice and behavior of the 19^th century can similarly be traced to the rise of European mass culture? Can we, in turn, relate these shifts (in “who’s paying,” “who’s playing,” “who’s listening,” “what’s it doing”) to the “great composers” model?

(5) In this great composers model, what were determined to be the markers or indiciators of greatness? In other words, how did a composer (or a composition) for inclusion in the ranks of the great? Did this lead to shifting critical perspectives on certain composers, genres, or SHMRG characteristics? Did it lead to shifts in composers’ own perspectives or approaches?

(6) In what ways can we find the roots of musical “modernism” in the modernist elements of mass culture as a whole? In other words, can we trace modernism in social/cultural/economic spheres to the mid-19^th-century, just as we can so trace it in compositional circles?

(7) How did “modern” mass culture trends change the makeup of orchestras? How did it change the makeup of audiences? What was/were the responses of those groups who had dominated audiences previously? (Hint: look at the implications of Kenner und Liebhaber; what are the literal translations of these terms, and what do those translations imply?)

(8) How were composers implicated in adapting to shifts of audience and of tastes? Which composers catered to these shifts? How and why were they or were they not successful?

(9) What genres were impacted by these shifts? Which went out of compositional favor as a result? Which became more dominant or were more extensively a focus of compositional attention?