Laurie McManus - Brahms in the Priesthood of Art

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

Oxford University Press 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McManus, Laurie, author.

Title: Brahms in the priesthood of art : gender and art religion in the

nineteenth-century German musical imagination / Laurie McManus.

Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2021. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020023553 (print) | LCCN 2020023554 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780190083274 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190083304 (online) |

ISBN 9780190083281 (updf) | ISBN 9780190083298 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Brahms, Johannes, 18331897Criticism and interpretation.

| Brahms, Johannes, 18331897AppreciationHistory. |

Music18th centuryHistory and criticism. | MusicReligious aspectsHistory.

Classification: LCC ML410.B8 M32 2021 (print) |

LCC ML410.B8 (ebook) | DDC 780.92dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023553

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023554

This book has been many years in the making, with input and assistance from many people. First, I would like to thank Suzanne Ryan for her foresight and guidance in bringing the project to fruition. Naturally, my work has benefitted from the numerous conversations with friends and scholars in the area, including Karen Leistra-Jones, Ben Korstvedt, Alex Stefaniak, Katharina Uhde, Kevin Karnes, Dan Beller-McKenna, Marcia Citron, and Kira Thurman, all of whom have also provided moral support during the long process. Others who have read parts of the manuscript and deserve thanks for their time and valuable feedback include Margaret Notley, David Brodbeck, Natasha Loges, John Reef, Matthew Franke, Alanna Ropchock Tierno, and Patrick Domico.

My writing groups, with friends in the field and beyond, have proved invaluable to working out ideas and staying on track. I would also like to thank those friends not aforementioned who have provided encouragement, humor, and sounding boards for ideas: Catherine Hughes, Doug Shadle, Travis Stimeling, Oren Vinogradov, Aimee Slaughter, Mitch Ohriner, and Paul Sommerfeld. I also could not have completed this project without the help from archivists at the Gesellschaft fr Musikfreunde in Vienna, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. A final note of thanks is due to John Romano for the music engravings.

I have explored aspects of this project in previous publications. Some of

In a study of rhetoric, it is necessary to read sources in the original German; however, I have also consulted English translations where available. In each case where I have cited or modified an existing English translation, both German and English versions are cited in the footnote. Otherwise, translations are my own with the input from Katharina Uhde, to whom I am grateful for her advice and insight.

I spared myself no trouble and work to awaken and nurture it [Brahmss talent] in order to raise a priest of art, who would preach afresh, in a new way the sublime, true, and everlasting eternality of art and achieve it in the deed itself.

Eduard Marxsen, 1874

To all appearances, however, this [Brahms] was a very respectable phenomenon; only it remains doubtful how such a phenomenon could be set up in a natural way as the Messiah, or, at least, the Messiahs most beloved disciple; unless, indeed, an affected enthusiasm for medieval wood-carvings should have induced us to accept those stiff wooden figures for the ideals of ecclesiastical sanctity.

Richard

Brahmss early composition teacher, Eduard Marxsen, and his outspoken antipode, Richard Wagner, together offer us a sense of the competing rhetorics of art religion (Kunstreligion) in the latter half of the nineteenth century. They both drew on an older, Romantic notion of the exceptional artist as a quasi-religious figure who was set apart from society by the destiny of great talent and an almost monastic devotion to his or her art. Underpinning this notion was the fundamental belief in musics power to transport the listener to spiritual realms, to the extent that engagement with art might replace confessional religious practice. The occluded nature of this musical discourse created an opportunity for exceptional composers and performers to mediate between the divine and the mundane. Thus, neither Marxsen nor Wagner seemed interested in disputing the art-religious ideology itself, but rather differed in its application to Brahms. They also each had something at stake in Brahmss reception: At nearly seventy, Marxsen looked to Brahms as a lasting legacy of his teaching; Wagner, still at work on his magnum opus Ring cycle, stood to benefit from disparaging the younger composer who in the late 1860s had just achieved national fame with his German Requiem.

As Marxsens and Wagners comments suggest, by the 1870s Brahms and some performers in his circle had garnered the title of priests of music, and even beyond their individual profiles, they collectively formed what influential critic Eduard Hanslick deemed a priesthood of art. This exceptional group included the violinist Joseph Joachim, pianist Clara Schumann (ne Wieck), and singers Amalie Joachim (ne Schneewei) and Julius Stockhausen. Brahms was the unique character among them in that he identified first and foremost as a composer, and his compositions garnered more value than his performances as a pianist. The very juxtaposition on concert programs of Brahms with Beethoven, Schubert, and Bach helped to induct Brahms into the hallowed realm of serious composers. In particular, Brahms supporters consistently spoke of his musical purity, a term heavily laden with long-standing moral and ethical associations, which would figure in a larger cultural conflict against Richard Wagner. Marxsens comments indicate the great extent to which some of these supporters depicted Brahms as a quasi-religious hero, while Wagners demonstrate how the priestly persona could be lampooned as an exaggerated invention of fawning admirers, or worse, a pretentious cover for personal deficiencies.

Why study the rhetoric of artistic priesthood in Brahmss time? Broadly speaking, the perseverance of an art-religious ethos into the period after the failed social revolutions of 1848 and 1849 demonstrates the continued currency of musics supposed mystical power even in the face of technological and scientific progress. Music maintained its ability to transport listeners to safe realms, offer spiritual refuge, and promote moral uplift. Particularly in the circle around Brahms and Clara Schumann, music offered a means of emotional disclosure and interpersonal communication.project an air of aloofness to the general public, reinforcing the image of an artist devoted humbly to their art. Through the turns and gestures of public discourse, the meanings of private musical utterances were translated into art-religious rhetoric that invited interpretation on levels beyond the circles where they originated.