Beethoven in National Socialist Political Culture (original) (raw)
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“Beethoven in National Socialist Political Culture,” paper for the “Musicology Colloquium Series
1997
We will constantly achieve success if we stride forward on the highpoints of [our] spiritual heritage...: if we stride forward from Beethoven to Hitler. Eugen Hadamovsky, (1934)[1] Sometime in 1934, shortly before emigrating from Germany, the photo journalist Alfred Eisenstaedt did a story on the Beethovenhaus in Bonn. Having climbed the narrow steps of the apartment, he prepared to take a shot of the cramped attic room where the great composer had been born. "By sheer coincidence," in his words, "the Nazis came into the room.. . and laid a wreath with a swastika at the base of [Beethoven's] bust in honor of the Führer's birthday. After they left, I took the picture both with and without the swastika. I was a little afraid to remove it, but I was willing to take a chance for a good picture."[2] Beyond the action of the few Nazis involved or the risky counteraction of Eisenstaedt, this appropriation of a Beethoven icon belonged to was part of a grand propaganda scheme undertaken by the cultural politicians of National Socialism. Their purpose was to persuade the German public to revere Ludwig van Beethoven not only as a great composer, but as a man who had held views comparable to those of Nazi leaders. In fact, people were expected to believe that he had attempted to express them in his music.
2020
Beethoven is moving steadily rightwards. After a century or so of criticism that has taken Beethoven's revolutionary convictions and Enlightenment utopianism for granted, the last decade of Beethoven scholarship has wit-nessed the beginnings of a revisionist trend. Most importantly, several schol-ars have given unprecedented critical attention to the neglected group of compositions that Beethoven composed in the reactionary political climate of the Congress of Vienna-the notorious Wellingtons Sieg foremost among them. 1 With Stephen Rumph's splendid new book, this revisionist sensibil-ity has finally blossomed into a thesis: Beethoven's late music, argues Rumph, partakes of the counterrevolutionary politics, nostalgic medievalism, and anti-Enlightenment attitudes of German "political Romanticism." Rumph gives us a Beethoven more at home with Friedrich Schlegel than Immanuel Kant.
Beethoven “in drei Charakterbildern:” Three Beethoven Images from the Interwar Hungary
Studia Musicologica
In my study, I show how three different figures of the interwar Hungary saw Beethoven. The first of them, Dénes Bartha (1908–1993), was a musicologist and became an international specialist of Viennese Classicism. In the context of contemporary Hungarian literature, his first Beethoven monograph (1939) represents an emphatically anti-Romantic attitude. In the second part, I examine the popular image of the composer, on the basis of the planned operetta Beethoven (1929–1931) by Zsolt Harsányi, an author of popular biographical novels, and Mihály Nádor (1882–1944), a successful operetta composer. This piece follows the example of Das Dreimäderlhaus, and its music was compiled from Beethoven’s melodies by Nádor. In the third part I examine an essay about Beethoven by an important musician of the period, Ernst von Dohnányi (1877–1960), who was, according to Bartók, a leading Beethoven performer of his age. Although the text of his “Romanticism in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas” was written d...
Beethoven — the Zeus of Modernity
The Culturology Ideas, 2020
A large part of German musicology sees itself as a science of art in the emphatic sense and is committed to quite different principles than historical-critical approaches in the discipline. The latter seek to gain a realistic picture of the history of music, including contemporary ways of thinking, and allow for historical actors to make meaningful, free will decisions within anthropologically determined circumstances. The emphatic science of art, on the other hand, claims to be able to prove and scientifically determine the objects of great art music and their nature. It originated during the Enlightenment, when philosophy took the place of religion and created ever new theoretical constructs of thought presented as scientifically proven and binding. In music, Beethoven rose to the ideal of the ingenious creator, who embodied the progress and achievements of mankind on the path toward perfection. Thus, in the course of the 19th century, a Beethoven cult developed using philosophy a...
The Sanctification of Beethoven in 1827-28
The New Beethoven: Evolution, Analysis, Interpretation, 2020
In the year following Beethoven’s death, performances of his music increased dramatically in number. The extraordinary public response began in Vienna with the prescribed rituals of public grief, as surveyed by Christopher Gibbs (2000). Grillparzer’s eulogy depicted a saintly figure, a pure soul in a harsh world. The portrayal of Beethoven in Christ-like terms was more overtly articulated by Gabriel Seidl in his poem, “Beethoven.” To estimate the impact of his death on performances of his music, I survey reports of concerts from those reviewed in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and The Harmonicon, comparing the numbers of performances from the year preceding his death to those from the year after. The figures leap from eighty-one performances in the year before to 177 in the year after. If more people heard more Beethoven in the year after he died, the works offered them were also more likely to be from before 1814. Beethoven’s death altered existing Viennese customs. The Fifth Symphony became matched with the closing chorus of Christ on the Mount of Olives, creating a C minor to C major frame that was repeated also in Paris. Perhaps the influence (and the difficulty) of the Ninth contributed to the success of this simpler pairing; a pastiche begun by the Fifth and closing with the oratorio finale recreated Beethoven’s aims on a smaller, more approachable level. Whatever musical reasons existed for this programming, in 1828 there were other reasons why a concert that celebrated the victory of Christ would take precedence over one whose theme was the brotherhood of man. I am suggesting that poems that described Beethoven in Christ-like terms and concerts that began in C minor and ended with a chorus from Christ on the Mount of Olives were just two ways in which Beethoven was depicted as a religious figure.
The American Historical Review, 1996
Music in the Third Reich Music is one of the most powerful entities in the universe. It has the ability to speak to the deepest part of the human psyche. Because of this ability, music can be used in countless ways to bring about the desired effects of anyone from a televangelist attempting to elicit an emotional response from an audience to a business professional endeavoring to sell more of his products to a dictator scheming to change the course of history. As has been clearly demonstrated throughout the history of civilization, music has been a driving force in the development of culture, society, and religion, and this was no exception in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Music had a direct impact on the character and beliefs of Hitler himself, and those beliefs and views affected the policies that he implemented during his reign of horror. His beliefs in the greatness and purity of the Aryan race were directly displayed in his policies regarding art and entertainment. The government of the Third Reich implemented strict policies on 'acceptable' music, composers and performers, and they also made extensive use of music in the media, public life of the individual citizen, and the Hitler Youth movement. Music played a prominent role in the rise of Nazi politics and culture in Germany and was used extensively by the party in propaganda and indoctrination of the entire country. Hitler's views on music and art were the product of his life experiences, circumstances, and the influence of specific individuals. To understand the mindset of Adolf Hitler, one must look back into the formative years of his childhood. In her book entitled Adolf Hitler: A Psychological Interpretation of His Views on Architecture Art and Music, Sherree Owens Zalampas emphasizes the role that art played in the life of Hitler. He desperately wanted to be an artist, and he immersed himself in artistic pursuits-it was almost as if he was completely