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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
ON NATIONALISM AND MUSIC VOLUME ONE
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES rN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
BY BEN CURTIS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2002
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Copyright 2002 by Benjamin Ward Curtis All rights reserved
A CK N OW LEDG EiM EN TS
First, the usual suspects: thanks to my committee, Ronald Suny, William Sewell, and Philip Bohlman, for their involvement in this project. I am also grateful to David Levin for sitting in on my defense. A special thanks goes to Ron for his insights and kindness over the last several years. On bended knee I hereby salute Kathy Anderson, the omni-capable secretary o f the political science department. The research for this dissertation was supported in part by a graduate fellowship from the University o f Chicago, a Mellon travel grant from the Department o f Political Science, a travel grant from the Department o f Germanic Studies, and a Fulbright Fellowship that enabled my study in Norway. For their help during my research phase in Prague I want to thank Dr. Olga Mojzisova and the staff at the Bedrich Smetana Museum and Archive. Karen Falch Johannessen, o f the Grieg Archive at the Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek, also provided invaluable assistance. Also in Norway, I am grateful to Dr. Hans Weisethaunet and the faculty and staff o f the Department o f Music at the University o f Bergen for welcoming a wayward political scientist into their midst for eight months. Next, it would be remiss o f me not to acknowledge three men by the names o f Richard Wagner. Bedrich Smetana, and Edvard Grieg, who kept me company throughout this journey. I hope that this little fruit o f my own creativity at least does their accomplishments some small honor. Finally, thanks also to my mom for being my mom. Mark Ashley, Tyler Colman, and Lynn Tesser all read drafts o f chapters and I am indebted to them for helping to improve the end product. I am even more indebted to them for their friendship during the whole slog o f graduate school. Indeed, without my friends I could never have completed this project, because it is they who make my life
iii
R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .
enjoyable and fun. For that reason, this dissertation is dedicated to all my friends, farflung though you may be: thanks for everything.
T a ble o f C ontents
Volum
O ne
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................I ll LIST OF TABLES..................................................................................................................VII INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................1

D e f in in g N C
t e r m s ..............................................................................................................................................................7 a t i o n a l i s m in m u s i c
............................................................................................................................................1 4 ..................................................................................................................................... 2 3
B io g r a ph ic a l
o v e r v ie w
hapter s u m m a r y
..................................................................................................................................................2 8
CHAPTER ONE: CREATING NATIONAL MUSIC..................................................... 30

D ec l in e , E d u c a t io n , W
and the
Role
of
rt
........................................................................................ 3 3
P r o j e c t .............................................................................................................................................................................5 6
o r k s ..............................................................................................................................................................................6 4
C o n c l u s i o n ...................................................................................................................................................................8 3
CHAPTER TWO: THE ROLE OF FOLK SOURCES IN CREATING A NATIONAL MUSIC................................................................................................................ 87

T
he
n a t io n a l it y
versus
o f f o l k s o u r c e s ........................................................................................................8 8
H ig h W G
l o w .......................................................................................................................................... 1 0 2 V olk
a rt
agner a n d m yth as
................................................................................................................1 13
S m e t a n a s
id e a l iz e d p e a s a n t
.................................................................................................................... 1 2 7
r i e g d a n c e s a s p r i n g a r ................................................................................................................................ 1 3 8
C o n c l u s i o n .................................................................................................................................................................1 4 6
CHAPTER THREE: CONSTRUCTING DIFFERENCE IN THE NATIONAL CULTURE................................................................................................................................149

W G
a g n e r s v i l l a i n s .............................................................................................................................................. 1 5 6 a nd the battles o f m u s ic , a n d
S m etana
r ie g ,
a g n e r ia n is m
........................................................................ 1 6 6
G erman
e r m a n c r i t i c s ..................................................................................1 7 8
C o n c l u s i o n .................................................................................................................................................................1 9 3
VI
V olum e T w o
CHAPTER FOUR: UNIVERSALITY AND THE NATIONAL MUSICS PLACE IN THE W O R L D .................................................................................................................... 197
P r e s t i g e ........................................................................................................................................................................2 0 2 D
i s s e m i n a t i o n ......................................................................................................................................................... 2 1 3
U n i v e r s a l i t y ............................................................................................................................................................ 2 2 4 C o n c l u s i o n .................................................................................................................................................................2 3 9
CHAPTER FIVE: NETWORKS OF NATIONALIST INTELLECTUALS

N G T N
etw ork t h e o r y ermany an d he
243
..................................................................................................................................................2 4 6 .....................................................................................................................................2 5 9
and
agner
Czech La n d s G
S m e t a n a ................................................................................................................ 2 7 2
orway and
r ie g
............................................................................................................................................. 2 8 3
C o n c l u s i o n .................................................................................................................................................................2 9 9
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................... 302
W T
agner,
Smetana, G
r ie g , a n d th en s o m e
........................................................................................3 0 3
he three
c o n s t i t u t i o n s ...........................................................................................................................3 1 2 ........................................................................................................................................3 1 8
Po l it ic s
and c u ltu r e
TABLE 6.1: STRONG AND WEAK TIES BETWEEN NATIONALIST COM POSERS......................................................................................................................... 320 BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................................................................322
P r i m a r y S o u r c e s ..................................................................................................................................................3 2 2 S econdary So u
rces
...........................................................................................................................................3 2 3
L is t o f T a b l e s
Table 6.1: Strong and Weak Ties Between Nationalist Composers
vii
In t r o d u c t io n
Before we plunge into the historical encounter between the nation and nineteenthcentury art, I want to tell a much shorter story from a more recent time. It was a summery day in early May 2000. and I was in Riga. Latvia, strolling through the lovely main park there. Suddenly I glimpsed through the trees the citys gleaming ivory opera house. Drawn like an Italian tenor to an all-you-can-eat buffet, I couldn't resist investigating. They were doing an opera I had never heard of, something called No Rozes un Asinlm (Rose and Blood) but I bought a ticket anyway. What I experienced that night, much to my co-mingled surprise, satisfaction, and befuddlement, turned out to be an eye popping combination o f nationalism and art. The opera, as it happened, was nothing less than a contemporary national opera, a Freischiitz two hundred years tardy, based on an old Latvian folk tale about the tragic love story o f a beautiful maiden known as the rose o f the Turaida region. But as I sat there during the scene changes, in a time-warped reverie plotting how I would mention this in my dissertation. I was at once rudely interrupted by confusing announcements made in Latvian over the PA system. At each of these announcements, people in the audience began cheering. What on earth is that all about, I wondered? At the interval I found an usher who spoke good English, and she told me that the announcements were keeping people apprised o f the latest score in the nights world hockey championship match, which pitted the beloved Latvian national team against the United States. She also told me a bit about the opera, that it was written by Zigmars Liepips, who was known mostly for his pop songs. The opera had premiered the previous year to great fanfare. She agreed with me sotto voce that the music was pretty weak, a sort o f Iowest-common-denominator Disney accessibility, rock banality hungering to be I
taken seriously. To its credit, though, the opera seemed quite popular, and indeed it incorporated so many o f the obligatory features o f any worthy national folk opera that 1 was fascinated in spite o f myself: it was sung in the national language, based on an old legend, set amongst identifiable places in the Latvian landscape, and featured boisterous crowd scenes in a pub as well as a climactic wedding. Rose and Blood was even apparently created with the intent of establishing a Latvian operatic repertoire. So though it didn't measure up to Der Freischiiiz, it was nonetheless a gallant, if anachronistic, effort. When the performance finally ended, I heard that the outcome o f the hockey game had been a tie and that was apparently reason enough for celebration. Walking back to my hotel as the night erupted in cheers, chants, and car horns honking, I reflected on the absurd collision between two expressions o f nationalism: the rejoicing in the national teams non-victory, non-loss, right in the middle o f an opera that disinterred the hoary conventions o f nineteenth-century national opera, all here on the threshold o f the twentyfirst century in a young country still struggling to assert its independence. This dissertation is itself concerned with a combination o f manifestations o f nationalism. I will be examining not just politics, not just art, but the collision of the two. and what resulted from that collision. M y analysis centers on three intersecting constitutions: these are the constitution o f nationalist music, the constitution o f the national culture, and the constitution o f the nationalist intellectual. Nationalist music occupies the focal point of the inquiry into all three phenomena. My examination o f nationalist composers' discourse will show both how music was conceived to be national and how it was made to serve social-political ends. Music, I will argue, was an essential part in the constitution o f the national culture, that is, the symbolic, aesthetic fabric that is supposed to weave national citizens into a unified whole. In turn, the constitution o f the national culture reveals how the category o f nationalist intellectuals those activists who
actually create that culture itself came to be constituted. Both ideas and practice figure in this constitution. I will demonstrate how the intellectual structure o f beliefs about the nation and ideas on nation-building are communicated from nationalist movement to nationalist movement and thereby constrain and enable nationalist activists practice. This practice then defines the category o f the nationalist intellectual. I will argue, in short, that the effort to create a national music illuminates the emergence o f nationalist intellectuals as social actors and lays bare the cultural strategies for building nations. Nationalist composers stand center stage in my inquiry because o f course it was they who were most concerned with producing an art music that would be genuinely and purely national. In nationalist composers' view, art, as a part o f the national culture, would be capable o f producing national citizens. The creation o f a national art, moreover, was an essential means o f rescuing the nation from its historical and cultural decline. The discourse on national music is largely identical in every European nationalist movement. The tools nationalist composers employed to achieve their ends are also essentially equivalent across generations and countries. As I will show, nationalist composers ultimately engage in many o f the same kinds o f activities, and depend on a similar complex of ideas, as nationalist intellectuals in other fields. Within this broadly similar picture, there are o f course differences as well. The variations in how individual composers deployed the strategies o f creating a national music will help reveal the intellectual, artistic, and functional content o f these strategies. Three composers in particular are my subjects: Richard Wagner. Bedrich Smetana, and Edvard Grieg. They have much in common besides the simple fact that they were all just slightly over five feet tall. Each assumed a towering position within the nationalist movements in their own countries, Germany, the Czech lands, and Norway respectively. Each worked closely with other nationalists, sometimes learning from them,
sometimes teaching, often exchanging ideas, and occasionally also collaborating on works o f art. In their artworks. Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg all sought to establish a uniquely national music, a music that would meet the highest standards o f art and hence both enlighten and nationalize the audiences who heard that music. All three o f these composers employed similar means in the production o f these national artworks: they set to music texts in their national language, they evoked their country's landscape, and they incorporated elements from the history and legends associated with their homeland. They also all relied extensively on sources stemming from the peasant classes which were perceived as the purest repository o f the nations cultural values in order to elevate those folk songs, dances, and tales into a high art. As part o f their project, these three composers sought to draw boundaries between their nations art and that o f other nations. They were concerned to create something distinct, different, and unmistakably German, Czech, or Norwegian. At the same time, though, they also wanted to transcend boundaries with their art. They wanted to create music that through its nationality would go out into the world to testify to their nation's great culture, and that would, like all great art, be universal. Many of the themes and strategies for creating a national art music will be familiar to anyone who has studied nationalist discourse. But this discourse has not hitherto been investigated in any detail in the realm o f national music. Further, the similarity o f nation-building strategies, while widely acknowledged, has rarely been explained in a satisfactory manner. We are still lacking an account o f the mechanics o f this similarity, that is, how the strategies came to be similar across movements. My study will explain this similarity by demonstrating the communication among networks o f nationalist intellectuals. This is network communication within countries, o f course, but also between countries: as I will show, nationalist composers had extensive international
contacts with colleagues from other lands. Through these contacts, the ideas and strategies o f nation-building were transmitted from movement to movement. These networks are thus the actual social structure responsible for the modular spread o f nationalism. I will also argue that this network communication accounts for the emergence o f the category o f the nationalist intellectual by supplying the ideational structure that shapes those intellectuals' practices. My analysis thus deals not just with the creation o f a national culture, but also in a sense with the creation o f the culture of nationalism itself, the common ideas and practices o f nationalist activism. I have already sounded the warning that there are a panoply o f themes involved in my discussion over the next five chapters. From the role o f folk sources in national culture, to the discourse on Othering in the national music, to the simultaneous aspirations to cosmopolitaneity and universality that accompany nationalism, all these topics are nonetheless facets o f the larger topic o f creating a national culture. Music is of course only one plank in that culture, but the discourse on music casts a wide light, illuminating the ideas on nation-building more broadly. Nationalist composers, similarly, are just one kind o f nationalist intellectual. But an understanding o f composers discourse, techniques, and network contacts can reveal much about nationalist intellectuals in general. They are all involved in the same project, after all. This dissertation, then, is a work o f cultural and intellectual history written by someone trained as a political scientist. My scholarly dialogue is ultimately always with theories o f nationalism. But the history I will recount can only be told with due attention to the intellectual context in which it takes place, that is, the heritage and environment of ideas that affect my three composers and their ow n social and artistic aspirations. Since my specific subject matter deals with art, a wider perspective on the interaction between politics and culture is also a critical component o f my analysis. Though it is impossible to
please all o f the people all o f the time. 1 hope that my broad embrace o f politics, cultural and intellectual history is sensitive enough so as not to offend: indeed. I hope that the marriage I effect (however temporarily) between these three fields will only serve to enrich each one in turn. Likewise, the diversity o f themes under my microscope has shaped my basic analytical approach. The multi-disciplinary nature o f my inquiry requires me to bridge different disciplines in order to engage the diverse audiences who would be concerned with my themes. This is in fact a goal o f my project: I want to bridge disciplinary boundaries because particularly in topics such as mine, disciplinary confines limit our ability to come to an understanding about the interaction o f high culture, music, intellectual history, and nationalism. It's not that these topics dont go together, but rather that they emphatically do go together: they are very closely linked, intertwined even. But given modem academic disciplinary specialization, it is all too rare to take on subjects like this that do not fit neatly into one discipline. Specialization has its benefits, but a broader analytical perspective, an attempt at analysis that transcends disciplinary boundaries, is also unquestionably valuable, especially in topics such as the present one that positively require a multi-disciplinary perspective. I am also interested in building another kind o f bridge, and this one is between a scholarly and a more general audience. This is an effort based on principle, in that I fundamentally reject the kind o f scholarly writing that willfully ignores "the rest o f the world, rendering through stylistic or conceptual abstruseness the ideas under discussion intelligible only to specialists. I believe that the purpose o f the acquisition o f knowledge should be the communication o f that knowledge, and not communication just to a tiny minority but rather to any person who might be interested in the topic. With a topic like an intellectual history o f nationalist music, I suspect that the potential interested audience
is quite broad, particularly since nationalism and music have not been dealt with cohesively and comprehensively before. That fact. I believe, demands an attempt to communicate with a wide audience. So though at various times in the following chapters I will dive more deeply into theory, my hope is that the story I have to tell will remain compelling and understandable to any intelligent person.
In the remainder o f this introduction I will define the key terms and concepts upon which the dissertation is grounded. After I specify the concepts o f nations and nationalism I will turn to how these concepts have been treated in previous musicological scholarship. I will argue for a re-thinking o f the relationship between nationalism and music based on the understanding o f nationality as a social rather than an artistic concept. Then I will provide some basic biographical information on my three composers as background for my analysis o f their thought and careers. Lastly I offer a brief summary o f each chapters content.
Defining terms
In Pragues National Theater, big gold letters over the proscenium arch proclaim "Narod sobe!" or "the nation to itself." The idea is that the Czech nation has given itself this theater, one o f the most sacred shrines o f the national culture, in which that culture is both created and worshiped. Needless to say, nations do not create themselves or build themselves theaters. Nations should never be reified in this way: they are not things, after all, but only a means o f conceiving o f social community. A nation is defined as a communal grouping in which people conceive o f themselves as united across social divides on the basis of a shared, distinct culture, with common rights and duties for all
s members o f the community. Part o f this self-conception is that the community is entitled to rule itself politically through such means as territorial autonomy or its own state. Throughout this dissertation whenever 1 use the term nation I do so according to this definition. Though sometimes it may seem that 1 am guilty o f the sin o f reification, in fact all that I will be guilty of is occasionally using the term to indicate how nationalists use it, for example if I write that Smetana sought to depict his nation in opera. In such instances, even if it is not immediately obvious, what I mean by nation is what Smetana means by it, though from a scholarly perspective I do not formally subscribe to that meaning. Indeed, if it would not be absurd. I would include quotes around nation every time I use the term just to show that I am self-conscious that the nation is not a thing but a concept. Nationalism, in turn, is the ideology o f the nation. It is the belief that the nation is the central, most legitimate form o f large scale socio-political organization. Nationalism advances the claims and conceptions o f (the concept of) the nation in virtually all realms o f society, including culture, politics, economics, and so on. It will be noted that my definition for nationalism departs from many in that it does not exclusively emphasize a polity-seeking goal. While certainly an aspiration to political autonomy is a typical feature o f nationalist movements, to reduce our understanding o f nationalism to this purely statist standard is to exclude many other ways in which activists advance the idea o f the nation. Since this dissertations focus is the campaign to create a high culture for the nation, it is not surprising that I want to preserve non-state-based understandings o f nationalism. If it is not the nation that builds itself theaters and glorifies itself in art, that must instead be the work of nationalist intellectuals. Given that one o f the principal concerns o f this dissertation is the development o f the category o f the nationalist intellectual, I need to be quite clear on my definition o f this term. Seymour Martin Lipset has defined
intellectuals as those who create, distribute, and apply
culture.'*1 Nationalist
intellectuals, then, are individuals concerned specifically with promoting the nation's culture. Through their discourse and activities, nationalist intellectuals constitute the social, cultural, and political meaning o f their putative nation: they are the creators not only o f nationalisms, but of the more universal discourse o f the nation, o f the very language and universe o f meaning in which nations become possible." as Ronald Suny and Michael Kennedy write.: The applicability o f these definitions to nationalist composers should be obvious. They create, distribute, and apply culture (in the form o f music), and this culture is intended to be both representative and constitutive o f the entire nation. The particular products o f the nationalist composer, his art, is designed to form a fundamental building block o f his nations high culture. It is somewhat surprising, given the enormous growth in scholarship on nationalism, how little nationalist intellectuals themselves have been dissected. While their discourse has been studied extensively, and we have some idea o f their typical activities, there are still wide gaps in our knowledge about their emergence as social actorsgaps that I will seek to address in this dissertation. For example, how did the practices o f this category of activist originate and develop? How can we explain the basic similarity o f nationalist intellectuals practice across nationalist movements? Scholars have been so focused on how nationalist intellectuals construct the nation that not enough attention has been devoted to the construction o f nationalist intellectuals themselves, that is, to tracing the formation o f the role o f the nationalist intellectual. The scope o f scholarly inquiry has been narrow in another way as well: scholars have largely neglected
1Cited in Ronald Grigor Suny and Michael D. Kennedy, eds. Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), p.2. 2 ibid., p.3.
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entire fields o f nationalist intellectual activity such as the non-literary arts. Obviously, however, art is a major area where the elaboration o f the "meaning o f the nation" takes place. When I refer to the category" o f nationalist intellectuals, then. I am referring to a category o f practice: an essential means o f defining what nationalist intellectuals are is by what they do. Their typical practices help determine nationalist intellectuals' socio political role. The intellectual structure that is, the universe o f meanings and ideas about the nation is in turn essential for constituting those typical practices. These are themes I will return to repeatedly in the chapters that follow. For this investigation there were dozens o f nationalist composers I could have chosen. But I chose Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg for three main reasons. First. I wanted to study composers who were generally credited with being the founders of their country's "national style. Such a criterion helped me to focus on composers for whom the national in music was truly a crusade, and in turn such composers would be the best for studying how nationalism and the arts intersected. Smetana and Grieg both count as founders, though Wagner does not since there is no generally acknowledged founder of a German national style. Nonetheless, his rabid support for the foundation o f such a style, and his expression o f that support in his voluminous prose works, identified him as a good candidate for study. Second. I wanted to study major composers. This way I ruled out lesser nationalistic lights such as, say. Moniuszko in Poland or Erkel in Hungary. Third, I decided to focus on nationalist movements that were both state-building and nation-building: this criterion excluded countries such as Russia or England that were already unified and fully independent in the nineteenth century. The motivation behind this stipulation was that it would allow me to observe the interaction between nationalists involved in both sides o f the movement, the more narrowly political and the more
II
broadly cultural. It would also allow me better to study how nations are built via art in the absence o f a national state. Even these criteria, admittedly, did not reduce my choices just to Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg. So perhaps a final, purely subjective criterion was simply that 1 like their music and was interested in their countries. This is an additional explanation for why Wagner figures in my study. Quite probably more has been written about Wagner than any other composer in history, which might make it hard to say something new or interesting about him. But in fact few scholars have taken the care to study Wagner comparatively from a social-political perspective. Situating him within the German nationalist movement, and relating his work to that o f colleagues and contemporaries was still an unexcavated terrain for the most part. In any event, composers beyond these three do figure in my study, since in the conclusion I will expand my analysis into an overview o f a wider sample o f nationalist composers. This will allow me to demonstrate that my findings on Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg are applicable to nationalist composers more generally. The term culture is often used to mean many different things. As regards the national culture, I am relying on Raymond W illiam s last two (of four total) possible meanings for culture: it is both the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic creativity and the signifying system through which necessarily (though among other means) a social order is communicated, reproduced, experienced, and explored.' So artistic works such as W agners Ring or Sm etanas Czech Dances count as culture. as does the larger end they were working towards o f creating a national culture, that is, the social order that would help constitute the nation. 1 will often refer to a high culture
3 Cited in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds. Becoming National (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p.21.
because that is the specific field in which my three composers were engaged. 1 do not wish thereby to reinforce the inaccurate hierarchy o f cultural production by which some is low" while other is high" and hence superior. Nonetheless, as a commonly understood term it is easiest just to continue to use it. Nationalist composers high national culture" is high because it involves the products o f self-conscious intellectual activity resulting from a long, institutionalized and codified tradition that requires a great degree of training to be able to produce and reproduce. While nationalist composers do not reject the need for the lower" elements o f a national culture, it is clear that they attach the most value to the higher realm both for reasons o f prestige and for its supposed power to educate the populace. The national culture plays an absolutely critical role in nationalism because it is what binds the people together. It is the common, shared element that unites individuals into national con-citizens. Ernest Gellners conceptualization o f the role of culture in nationalism is especially relevant to my purposes: in his formula, culture replaces structure as the source o f a person's identity in the modem world. That is to say. with the decline of rigidly hierarchized social structures characteristic o f feudalism, it is instead a culture, as the means o f communication between people, that orients individuals in society and tells them who they are.4 One can bracket his argument identifying nationalism with the rise of the industrial age and still agree that in the modem world people are loyal not to a monarch or a land or a faith... but to a culture.3 This, Gellner argues, is the unifying national culture. To be genuinely national, that culture must be monopolistic it is the exclusive, unified high culture associated with a particular society
4 See Ernest Gellner, Nationalism in idem, Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964). 5 ibid., Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), p.36.
13
and polity. Scholars o f nationalism typically emphasize that the national culture produces national citizens by being transmitted through schools. However, there are other means o f transmitting the national culture, too often neglected. Here music plays a significant role: public and private performances o f nationalist music are also responsible for propagating and inculcating the national culture. The discourse on creating a national culture also exposes how primordialist and constructivist views o f nationality can be inter-related. While most scholars have seen primordialism and constructivism as opposites, Wagner's, Smetanas, and Grieg's ideas exhibit both primordialist and constructivist tendencies. Indeed, in a certain sense these composers' views o f nationality anticipate the accounts o f writers such as Anthony Smith or Alexander Motyl who argue for a pre-existing basis on which the nation is built.6 Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg do believe in an eternal, metaphysical origin o f nationalitythis origin is essentially the Herderian idea o f the Volksgeist. At the same time, however, they also believe that the nation must be constructed. The Volksgeist with its mystical content is not enough to actually constitute the national culture. Rather, that culture must be made , and it must be made specifically into a high culture. The high culture, unlike the national spirit, is not a given. Similarly, then, national citizens are not givens: they too must be made. The simultaneous primordialism and constructivism we will witness in this discourse suggests that too rigid a conceptual boundary has been drawn between these two approaches to understanding nationalism. From a scholarly point of view, acknowledging nationalist intellectuals own constructivism does not entail an acceptance of the primordial bases of nationality. Rather, assuming a
primordialist/constructivist incommensurability actually obscures how nationalists were

6 See Anthony Smith, National Identity (London: Penguin, 1991) and Alexander J. Motyl, Inventing Tradition: The Limits of National Identity Formation in Suny and Kennedy, eds.
14
quite conscious o f imagining" the national community long before Anderson popularized this idea in scholarly circles.
Nationalism in music
Though it has often been ignored in the social science literature, the relationship between nationalism and music has (understandably) received more attention from musicology. However, while the musicological literature has made an excellent contribution to our understanding o f the aesthetic and artistic features o f nationalist music, it has remained somewhat unclear on the broader political and social implications o f such music. For example, nationalism and m usic" in musicology has sometimes been reduced to the topic o f folk songs, as if the incorporation o f folk music into art music is the sum and entirety o f nationalism's interaction with this art form. Such a view, however, is simplistic and reductionist: in the five chapters o f this dissertation I will show the deeper meanings, influences, and results o f nationalism 's interaction with music. This is a cultural and political phenomenon, and it is time that its social significance be more fully understood. My goal in this section, then, is to outline the principles on which my subsequent investigation o f nationalist m usics socio-political implications will proceed. I intend first to unite current theories o f nationalism more closely with musicological scholarship by pointing to some some potential pitfalls in understandings o f nationalist music. Then I will build upon this restatement o f the connections between nationality and music to specify the role and importance that nationalist composers played in creating nationalist art. I will address four specific, problematic areas in conceptualizing nationalist music: these are primordialism, a fixation with stylistics, the role of the nationalist
composer, and the reception of music. The first o f the problem areas, primordialism. refers to the idea that there is some kind o f eternal, innate national spirit" o f a people. Primordialism o f course views nationality as something eternal and natural, as if it were in the blood." In a musical sense, this primordialism is exemplified most influentially by Herder and his idea o f the Volksgeist. The Volksgeist is the immutable national identity o f a people that finds expression through music. In particular. Herder claimed that every people (Slavs. Germans, the Latin races" and so on) has its own unique musical style. So every people has its folk music which stems innately from that peoples national character. The danger o f the primordial idea for musicological accounts o f nationalist music is taking for granted a pre-existent Norwegianness" or Germanness or Frenchness. Scholarship must not buy in to the idea o f these primordial identities, o f the inherent and unchangeable characteristics o f different races o f people. When we understand national identities as social products rather than as metaphysical spirits, we see that the Volksgeist is an insufficient explanation for musical nationality. Contemporary theories of nationalism tell us that there is no pre-existent Volksgeist that motivates Norwegian, or German, or French composers. There is also a second aspect o f this danger: if one were to accept the idea o f the Volksgeist as the root o f national music, then the composer becomes little more than an expressive tool for this vague and mystical spirit o f the people. This spirit speaks through the composer, because he or she is innately Norwegian, and hence the music that the composer writes is this national spirit made audible, so to speak. As I will discuss below, however, such a conceptualization o f the com posers role is clearly untenable. The next potential pitfall in treatments o f national music is a fixation with stylistics. What I mean by this is the endeavor to pin-point certain musical features that
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are uniquely Norwegian, or Czech, and so on. Writers who engage in this endeavor are also iiable to commit the primordial fallacy, and so to claim to identify the unique and characteristic features o f Norwegianness in music. The idea would be that a particular rhythm or harmonic sequence is exclusively a Norwegian feature, and the claim is often made (particularly by nationalists) that it somehow represents the national character. One example would be the insistence that the prominence o f minor keys in Czech music results from an inherent melancholy in the Czech national character. However, even writers who don't necessarily subscribe to the primordial belief can still be sidetracked by stylistics, such as with debates about what genuinely constitutes Czech music. The error is one that Carl Dahlhaus has pointed out: as he says, the bagpipe drone or the sharpened fourths which have been claimed as quintessentially Polish also appear with some frequency in Scandinavian folk music.7 So how can these individual musical features be either natural expressions o f the Polish spirit (according to the primordial idea), or more simply the quintessence of Polish music? The answer, o f course, is that they cannot. I want to suggest that this fixation with stylistics as somehow providing the clue to the national in music is misplaced precisely because individual musical features are incapable o f embodying or independently communicating some kind o f national content. First, obviously, there is no such thing as Polishness or Norwegianness to begin with: these are socially elaborated concepts and not fixed essences. Also, there are no musical features which can be called absolutely and exclusively Norwegian. Again, since the national is merely an idea and not a thing, features such as certain tunes or rhythmic patterns do not automatically qualify as national. Musical style cannot be somehow naturally nationalistic.
7 Carl Dahlhaus, Between Romanticism and Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p.95.
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An end product of all these sorts o f confusions is a misconception o f the role o f the nationalist composer. This misconception has most often taken the form o f describing the composer's task as the awakening o f the national spirit." The idea is that a composer, by writing music with a national character, automatically taps into a reserve o f patriotism that is ready and waiting in the populace. Ralph Vaughn Williams, in his essay National M usic." which amounts to a kind o f compendium o f the primordial understanding o f national music, asks in regard to national composers. Is it not reasonable to suppose that those who share our life, our history, our customs, our climate, even our food, should have some secret to impart to us which the foreign composer, though he be perhaps more imaginative, more powerful, more technically equipped, is not able to give us? This is the secret o f the national composer, the secret to which only he has the key, which no foreigner can share with him and which he alone is able to tell to his fellow countrymen.8 In a similar vein, the German musicologist Otto Brusatti has claimed that national operas awake... the national consciousness o f the listening public" through the latent roots o f a musical understanding for the color o f that opera music."', Instead o f this unconscious, innate expression o f nationality, we should instead conceive o f nationality in music as the product o f intent. A piece o f music is nationalist above all because its composer wants it to be nationalist. A piece o f music is nationalist by design. As Leo Treitler has persuasively argued, in order to understand a work o f art and its place in history, we need to understand what the artists intentions were for the work. This sort o f knowledge allows us to place the artist and his or her work in context.
8 Ralph Vaughan Williams, National Music and Other Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), p.9. 9 Otto Brusatti, Nationalismus und Ideologie in der Musik (Tutzing: Hans Schneider. 1978), p.73.
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to analyze art and the production o f art not in an intellectual vacuum but as inextricably linked to developments in society.1 0 Logically, then, we can identify a work as nationalist by investigating the com poser's intent. Whether he assigns a title to it (like the Md vlast or My Homeland o f Smetana), or a descriptive program, or what he says about it in his diaries or his letters thats where we have to look. An anecdote from Grieg's life I think illustrates what I mean precisely. In Copenhagen in the 1860s. toward the beginning o f his career. Grieg took a copy o f one o f his recent compositions and showed it to the Danish composer Niels Gade. Gade looked it over, grumbled a bit, then asked. So. Grieg, this is supposed to be Norwegian? Grieg replied: Yes. it is. Maestro. My interpretation o f this incident is that there was nothing on the musical page that would tell Gade that this was som ehow national music. He had to be told by Grieg him self that, yes. Grieg intended it to be Norwegian. Nationality resides not in music but in the discourse about music. Undeniably there are some identifiable differences in musical expression: music written by a nineteenth-century Norwegian sounds different from music written by a nineteenth-century Chinese. But simply listening to the music itself, devoid o f any external knowledge about that m usic's creation, does not permit one to identify the music as national. In turn, establishing a national musical style proceeds from the discourse to how the ideas in the discourse are realized in the artwork, and then finally into the reception o f the work as national. My dem otion o f reception in favor of intent may seem surprising. Reception is certainly another w ay we can identify a work as nationalist. Carl Dahlhaus, who has provided a more comprehensive and cogent discussion o f the issues surrounding
10 See Leo Treitler, Music and the Historical Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).
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nationalist music than any other musicologist 1 know of, actually assigns pride o f place to reception. In his formulation, music becomes nationalist when the public regards it as such. Reception o f a piece can even make nationalist a piece that was not intended by its composer to be nationalist. The best example o f this latter phenomenon, and one that Dahlhaus considers, has to do with folk music. As part o f the process o f nationalizing culture in the nineteenth century, local and regional peasant traditions came to be regarded as belonging to the putative nation as a whole. In the realm of music, the various peasant songs and dances were accepted by the public as belonging to their national culture, despite the fact that the origin o f such songs is rooted in local practices and in no way in some mystical, overarching Norwegianness or Czechness. What reception o f music as national really means is that a piece is configured as national in the public perception. The popular acceptance o f a piece as national rarely happened spontaneously, to some kind o f automatic mass acclaim. In actuality there is almost always some behind-the-scenes process by which writers or composers argue for a pieces nationality. It is their discourse that configures the work as national before the public. Mr. and Mrs. Ole Nordmann did not just suddenly start regarding the peasant dances known as slaiter as the cultural inheritance o f the whole Norwegian nation. Why I have chosen to focus on composer intent over public reception, then, has to do with my goal o f relating nationalist music to the larger nation-building project. Obviously, the goal o f this project is to build a national public. Composers, playwrights, journalists, painters, and other politically-minded activists are all engaged in this effort. All these nationalist intellectuals sought to create a fund o f cultural values that would be identifiable as belonging to (and thus constitutive of) the nation. In the musical realm the goal was to establish and elaborate the national musical characteristics and then to celebrate and propagate them in works o f art.
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In order for music to be eventually received" as national, though, there first must be a public that is nationalized. The public has to. on some level, be aware o f and accept the theses on the constitutive characteristics o f their national communality. And before there can be a national public that receives works as national, there must first be a project to construct that national public. A not uncommon feature o f the careers o f nationalist composers this certainly holds true for Wagner, Smetana, and Griegis that early on their national music found very little enthusiasm with their publics. For example, both Smetana and Grieg complained bitterly about the indifference the people o f Prague and Christiania, respectively, showed to the kind o f music they were writing. I suspect the reason for this indifference can be attributed at least partly to the fact that in the 1860s in both the Czech lands and Norway, the idea o f what would constitute the musical characteristics of the nation had barely begun to make in-roads among the populace. That is to say, the national public was still very much under construction." All this is not to claim that composers intent assumes an absolute primacy over reception. There is no reason w hy intent is inherently superior in deciding what makes a work nationalist. Composition, reception, and performance are all part of a social process of understanding; they are by no means mutually exclusive. But we have to think in terms of the historical process by which the theses o f national characteristics (in art as in politics) had to be propagated before a public could then apply these theses to their reception o f works. So reception o f a work as national by a mass public has to come after that public has to some extent imbibed the ideas o f what the national characteristics are. This is not to say that composers start from scratch: even they depend somewhat on pre existing ideas about elements o f the national culture. They rely on certain building blocks often already conceived (if only by other nationalist intellectuals) as national in
creating their larger structure o f a national art. Perhaps the best example is again with folk music, as we will see in the second chapter. In any event, a nationalist composer's acceptance o f the theses about what elements make up the national culture typically predates the mass publics. That is so because the composer, as a nationalist intellectual, is in the vanguard in terms of subscribing to a nationalist ideology and helping to create the discourse o f the nation. Since he is a member o f the activist vanguard, then, the nationalist composers intent merits a historically prior focus over that o f public reception. As a final, practical justification for my approach, let me add that an adequate analysis o f receptions role in the establishment o f a pantheon o f national music would in truth require a second dissertation. So for all these reasons, in what follows I will deal with reception only sporadically. There are o f course other reasons why national elements and tropes appear in music besides the intention to create a national art. Exoticism and originality are two additional motivations, often so closely bound up with nationalistic intent that only this whole complex of ideas can help explain why nationalism so thoroughly penetrated aesthetics in the nineteenth century. For instance, the notion o f artistic worth in W agners, Smetanas, and Griegs day was predicated partly on an artist producing something that was original, that would make some kind o f new or different contribution to musical style. Nationality became a vehicle for this goal. Indeed, as Dahlhaus writes, One o f the characteristic claims o f the nineteenth century is that for individuality to be truly original it must be rooted in the national spirit.' [...] A composer was expected to be original, to bring forth the new in a manner which, at the same time, manifested the origins o f his existence. 1 1 Incorporating regional peasant
1 1 Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p.37.
dance forms, for example, or seasoning one's music with harmonies derived from folk music and hence unusual in the French-Italian-German traditions o f classical' music, would be attempts to satisfy the artistic calling for a composer to be original. Similarly, by referring to these inspirations that were regarded as outside the art music traditions, music could gain a w hiff o f the exotic. Places like Norway or Andalucia seemed far-off and maybe a bit strange to the average educated person in London, Paris, Vienna or St. Petersburg. So music inspired or influenced by those lands might seem similarly striking and new. Even at home, depictions o f the folk in music could appeal to urban audiences on these same grounds. Peasant traditions, while to some extent familiar, were at the same time foreign given the social divisions between rural and urban peoples. From a burghers standpoint, a peasant doing a country dance (or someone pretending to be a peasant, or for that matter, a composer merely incorporating the dance form into a piece) could indeed appear somewhat exotic in comparison with the culture o f the city.1 2 One interesting and amusing example of how the national and the exotic really did go hand in hand is worth mentioning: in 1857 in Norway an exhibition o f a dw arf wearing one o f the national peasant costumes enjoyed enormous popularity.,J While it is impossible to say with certainty to what extent the national elements in my three composers works are there for their colorful value, they undoubtedly were all influenced by these widely-held aesthetic conceptions.
1 2 Marta Ramsten, Ur fomtida djup stige svenskmanna sang in Henrik Karlsson, ed. Hjemlandsk Hundraarig Sang: 1800-talets musik och det nationella (Goteborg: Kungliga Musikalska akademien, n.d.), p.122. 1 3 Harald Herresthal, Med spark i guluet og quinter i bassen (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1993), p.103.
Biographical overview
There can be no doubt about W agner's, Smetana's, and Griegs intent to make their works national, to create a national art music for their respective countries. What some might dispute, however, is the extent to which these three composers activities could be described as a self-conscious program. It is in fact reasonable to ask whether Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg can really be considered social activists with a
cultural/political project of their own. However, Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg do all count as committed and conscious nationalists, as nationalist intellectuals as per the definition above. That said, I will admit that their activism does not take the form o f a program strategically planned out in advance. These three men, after all, were composers and not philosophers or theoreticians. They were not concerned with elaborating a philosophical system. Their ideas are not flawlessly logical nor, in many cases, all that deep. O f the three, Wagner is the most theoretical, the one who thought hardest about what he was doing. But even his thought lacks the internal consistency we find in, say, a Hegel. Nonetheless, it is not only philosophers whose ideas have import. Indeed, it is as practitioners and implementers o f the ideas behind nation-building and national art that W agners, Smetanas, and G riegs thought is worth examining. They practiced what they preached. Further, what they were involved in was a project and not a program : the imagining o f the nation proceeds not according to an inviolable five-year plan, but rather contingently in response to a variety of factors. Together with fellow nationalists in their respective movements, Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg were impacted by the intellectual, artistic, and social developments of their time. They elaborated their ideas and techniques as they went along. M y examination of these ideas and techniques in the following chapters is based on primary-source research into the three composers careers. I rely principally on their
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diaries, letters, and prose writings. Secondary-source work such as biographies and musicological studies have also figured in my research, particularly the latter since my expertise does not extend into formal musical analysis. Translations throughout are mine, unless otherwise noted. But before we turn to Wagners. Sm etanas, and Griegs nationalist projects, it will be worthwhile right now to establish some o f the basic biographical facts about these three composers. It will be easier to tell the story o f their ideas if I have already told briefly the story o f their lives. Reducing the life of as controversial and gigantic a figure as Richard Wagner to two paragraphs may seem impossible, but then again bringing W agner down to size would not be such a bad thing. Bom in Leipzig in 1813, Wagner grew up in a prominent theatrical family and from an early age was inclined to make a career in the arts. His musical training was rather piecemeal and almost haphazard, learning from books and a variety o f teachers, and though he eventually did acquire a phenomenal technique through which to express his genius, his earliest operas Die Feen (1834) and Das Liebesverbot (1836) are today largely ignored. He in fact experienced some difficulty in getting his musical career off the ground, taking a positions in W urzburg, Konigsberg, and Riga before trying his luck in Paris in the early 1840s. There he met with very little success, much to his annoyance, though he wrote Der jliegende H ollander in 1841, now considered his first mature opera. A long-time fascination with German mythology began to bear fruit in Tannhduser (1845, revised 1860). Wagner had also long been preoccupied with politics, and took such an active role in the 1848-9 revolution in Dresden that, once the revolution failed, he was forced to flee Saxony or face a possible death sentence. His years o f exile from Germany he spent mostly in Switzerland, where he busied himself with writing some o f his weightiest philosophical tracts such as Oper und Drama , and then produced Lohengrin in 1848.
With this opera he finally began to win wider recognition. In the mid-1850s he started working on what would become Der Ring ties Nihelungen. the music for which was composed over almost twenty years. Also in the 1850s he began his romance with Cosima von Biilow, a daughter o f Franz Liszt. She was already married to the prominent pianist and conductor Hans von Biilow, though that did not stop W agner from stealing her away and eventually making her his own wife. Thanks in part to his characteristic impecuniousness, Wagner was in a state o f despair about his career when in 1864 a miracle occurred: King Ludwig II o f Bavaria invited him to come to Munich to rely on royal financial support so he could compose his music in relative security. Though also characteristically Wagner managed to sabotage this incredibly lucrative relationship, it was nonetheless thanks to Ludwigs support that he managed to complete Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg (premiered 1868) and the Ring , which was finally performed as a complete tetralogy in 1876 in W agners own theater in Bayreuth, also largely bankrolled by Ludwig. Though at the peak o f his worldwide fame, W agner nonetheless was upset that the newly unified Germany failed to appreciate his music in the way he had hoped for. He composed Parsifal (1882) before dying in Venice in 1883. In comparison with Wagner. Bedrich Smetana's life was in many ways as difficult and ultimately rather tragic. Bom in 1824, he grew up in a rural environment around the brewery his father owned. From a relatively early age he had contacts with Czech nationalists such as his teachers Jo sef Jungmann and Frantisek Jo sef Smetana (the latter was Bedrichs cousin), so by the time he arrived in Prague in the early 1840s he was already a committed nationalist. His earliest musical works are dances for piano, but his ambitions expanded after his musical training in Prague and his meeting with Franz Liszt in 1848. Smetana was actively involved in the 1848 revolution in Prague, and though he avoided any sort o f prosecution, he found the cultural and political climate o f
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the post-revolution reaction so severe that in 1856 he took a job as the music director in Goteborg. Sweden. His most notable compositions from the 1850s include several symphonic poems a form he explored under Liszts influencesuch as Richard III (1858), Wallensteins Lager (Wallensteins Cam p 1861). and Hakon Jarl (1861). none o f which are especially nationalistic. Also during this time his first wife died, wounding him deeply: his second marriage was often unhappy. In the early 1860s repression o f Czech nationalism subsided, and when Smetana learned that there was an opening for the post o f the director o f the Czech opera, he enthusiastically applied and was accepted. In 1864 a competition was held to select the best new Czech national opera, which Smetana entered with his first opera, Branibori v Cechdch (The Brandenburgers in Bohemia), and won. His status as one o f the leading figures in Czech culture rapidly consolidated. Some critics o f Branibori complained that it was too W agnerian, and Smetana responded by turning in his next opera to a decidedly lighter mood, creating what has become perhaps the paragon o f a folk opera: Prodand nevesta (The Bartered Bride) went through several revisions before taking its final form in 1871, but enjoyed enormous popularity almost immediately. Nonetheless, with his third opera Dalibor (1868) his critics resumed their attacks and Smetana found his position at the opera and within Pragues cultural life increasingly embattled. He completed his next opera, Libuse, in 1871, though it did not receive its premiere until almost ten years later because Smetana reserved it for the opening o f a new Czech opera house. Disaster struck in these years as he began to go deaf (a result o f syphilis) and was forced to retire from his theater post. He continued to compose, however, producing what may be his most famous work, the cycle o f patriotic symphonic poems entitled Ma vlast (1874-79), as well as two impressive string quartets, a cycle of Czech Dances for piano, and several more operas including Dve vdovy (The Two Widows 1874) and Hubicka
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("The Kiss 1876). Money worries dogged Smetana for the rest o f his life, and by the time his contribution to Czech culture came to be widely revered he had only a few years left to live. By then he was already suffering from the incipient dementia that would see him committed to an insane asylum, where he died in 1884. Never as storm y as those o f his two predecessors, Grieg's life was on the whole a happy one, despite his often frail health. Bom in Bergen in 1843 to a prosperous merchant family, G riegs early musical talent was such that his parents sent him, on the urging o f the renowned Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, to the Leipzig Conservatory, regarded as the foremost o f its day. Upon his graduation Grieg began associating with young Scandinavian musicians in both Christiania (the former name for Oslo) and Copenhagen, and together they encouraged each others interest in folk music. In Christiania Grieg founded a music school and conducted orchestral concerts, though he was often frustrated by what he saw as Norwegians lack o f interest in art music. The work that first brought him to wide international attention was his piano concerto (1868): chamber works such as his violin sonatas and miniatures for piano also grew popular. The incidental music (1875) he composed to a production o f Ibsen's play Peer Gym enjoyed an enormous fame thanks to his arrangements o f the music into two suites. Grieg also collaborated with a number o f other prominent Norwegian artists of his time, including the w riter Bjomstjeme Bjomson. with whom Grieg had a close though sometimes quarrelsome friendship. Bjomson and Grieg planned on writing a national opera, though their project was never completed. Indeed as he grew older Grieg realized fewer and fewer large scale works and instead focused his productivity on songs such as his cycle Haugtussa (The Mountain Maid published 1898) and shorter works like his various Norwegian dances for orchestra or piano, including the Symphonic Dances o f 1898. Still, his fame continued to grow and Grieg began touring extensively throughout
Western and Central Europe, usually returning home to Western Norway in the summers to compose. His stature as the leading Norwegian musician granted him the opportunity to undertake projects like the music festival he organized in Bergen in 1898. His international fame was such that, besides counting many o f the greatest composers o f his time as friends, he was also a favorite o f figures such as Kaiser Wilhelm II. Among Grieg's last works were an edition o f Norwegian dances known as slatter for violin and piano of 1902 and the Four Psalms for male voice choir o f 1906. He died in Bergen in 1907.
Chapter summary
The first chapter is the real meat, so to speak, o f the dissertation: it deals with Wagner's, Smetanas, and Griegs particular projects to create a national art music. I examine their ideas on the need to remedy the decline o f the arts in their respective countries, and their goals for a truly national culture that would edify the masses. Their own works were created with this goal in mind, and I analyze how they incorporated certain key tropes o f nationalist discourse in order to make their own music national. In realizing their artistic and social goals, Wagner, Smetana and Grieg were also fashioning the particular role that nationalist composers would play in the nation-building movement. The second chapter investigates in more detail one o f the techniques composers used to make national art, namely the reliance on folk sources. I discuss how folk songs, dances, and tales came to be conceived as national, and then how nationalist artists sought to elevate these peasant products into the status o f a high art. Composers treatment o f folk sources, I argue, is an important manifestation o f the nationalist movements attempt to create a unified national community that bridges urban-rural and
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class divides. In the third chapter I turn to the discursive construction o f boundaries between national arts. This discourse involves both Othering and a more general attempt to define difference in order to create uniquely identifiable national styles in music. The fourth chapter looks at the opposite side o f the coin from the third: that is the desire for the national music to be m/emational. for it to go out into the world to secure prestige for the nation. The aspirations to universality for the national art, I contend, demonstrate how nationalism is fundamentally impregnated with cosmopolitanism, despite common views to the contrary. The fifth chapter expands upon the
cosmopolitaneity o f nationalism by examining networks o f nationalist intellectuals both within countries and across countries. These networks are responsible for the modular communication o f the typical strategies and tropes from one nationalist movement to another, and hence they account for the similarity o f these strategies across European movements. In the conclusion I will expand m y above findings from Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg to include a larger sample o f nationalist composers. I will also draw together the various themes from the previous chapters to argue how key intellectual trends shaped the practices o f nation-building. These practices in turn constitute the category o f the nationalist intellectual. I will also offer a few final thoughts on what music's role in the nationalist movement tells us about the relationship between culture and politics.
C h a pter O ne C r e a t in g Na t io n a l M u sic
left bin der deutsche Geist. ( I a m th e G e r m a n s p ir it." ) R ic h a r d W a g n e r . 1 8 6 5 I ' hudbe iivo t Ceclut.' ( In m u s ic th e lif e o f t h e C z e c h s ! " ) B e d f ic h S m e t a n a . 1 8 6 8 Det ska! vcure mil Maitl at arbeide og virke saaledes fo r vor hjemlige Kunst. at del maaske engang skal kunne siges, at jeg dog liar vceret den vcerd. ( It s h a ll b e m y g o a l to w o r k a n d s triv e s u c h f o r o u r h o m e s a rt. th a t o n e d a y it m a y b e s a id I h a v e b e e n w o r th y o f it." ) E d v a rd G rie g . 1866
These quotes are all expressions of the fervor Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg felt for their nations culture. How these three composers translated their fervor into action in an effort to create a national high art is the central subject o f this chapter. We will investigate these three composers' stated commitment to creating a national art, the methods they employed to make their art national, and the musical works that resulted. Wagners, Smetanas, and G riegs plans and accomplishments amount to the first two o f the three constitutions I mentioned in the Introduction, that is, the constitution of nationalist music and o f the national culture. We will be studying the specifics o f how these composers sought to create a national music, the ideas and practices involved with that goal. These ideas and practices are nearly identical in all three o f my cases. In turn, then, we will see how nationalist music is supposed to contribute to the establishment o f a national culture.
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Succinctly speaking, the program for creating a national music has three components. First, nationalist artists react against a perceived decline in the taste and artistic standards o f the public. This decline prevents the public from recognizing both good art and their own true national art. Therefore, nationalist artists demand education for the populace. This is education into the standards o f good art and ultimately into the values o f the new national culture. The second component is institution building: it is part of the educational directive in that new. specifically national institutions such as a theater must be formed in order to enlighten the public. These institutions will also help to establish the national style and to secure glory for the national culture. Thirdly, these three composers assigned to themselves the task o f producing music that would address the previous two needs, i.e., they would create works o f highest artistic quality that would serve as beacons o f the national style. The discourse and practice we study in this chapter will also shed a preliminary light on the third constitution, that o f the category o f the nationalist intellectual. In this case we will be examining the nationalist artist, a specific subspecies o f nationalist intellectual. I will argue that as these composers were elaborating the means o f constructing the national culture, they were simultaneously also fashioning the role that nationalist artists would play in the nation-building movement. W agners, Smetanas, and Griegs discourse and practice thus point to (and result from) a historical development in the social position of artists in the nineteenth century: namely, the emergence o f artists as agents o f social change.1 The potential for artists to become such social actors is very much a product o f the thinking o f the Romantic era. In the Romantic conception, the artist was privileged with a unique perception o f the world and an almost divine creative
1 S e e A lfre d E in s te in . Music in the Romantic Era ( N e w Y o r k : W .W . N o r to n . 1 9 4 7 ) . p . 15 f o r m o re o n th is id e a .
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power.2 With this power he could create artworks that would communicate his unique perception and thereby change society. W hat kind of change he wished to effect o f course depended upon the individual artist. Nationalist artists, obviously, had a specifically nationalist vision o f the change they wanted to bring about. They were concerned with the construction o f the nation. Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg all believed that the artist had both an ability and in a certain sense a duty to assist in the nationalization o f the public: they would accomplish this goal with their works o f art. So this idea o f the artists transformational role in society, and the strategies he developed for achieving the desired transformation, are central to the construction o f a national culture. They are also integral to the formation o f what we understand as the category o f practice o f the nationalist artist. However, the nationalist artists social mission also depends upon two other trends in the nineteenth century, trends which activist artists both respond to and help to produce. These two trends involve the change in the social place and the social function of art. The effort to create a national culture is part o f a process o f the democratization o f art that occurred in the nineteenth century, the ideal o f which was to make art accessible to people o f all social classes. The change in the social function o f art involves artists aspiration for art to be something more than mere entertainment: it, too. would become a force for social change. We will see that these are fundamental assumptions behind Wagners, Smetana's, and G riegs projects to create a national culture. In the conclusion we will return to these two trends to consider in more detail how the program to create a national music reveals the change in the social place and function
' C a r l P lc ts c h . Young Nietzsche ( N e w Y o rk : T h e F r e e P r e s s . 1 9 9 1 ) a n d T ia D e N o ra , Beethoven and the Construction o f Genius ( B e r k e l e y : U n iv e r s it o f C a l i f o r n i a P r e s s . 1 9 9 5 ) b o th o ff e r in s ig h tf u l a c c o u n ts o f n in e te e n th - c e n tu r y c o n c e p t io n s o f a r tis tic c r e a ti v i ty , a n d in p a r t ic u la r its re la tio n to th e n o t io n o f g e n iu s .
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o f art in the nineteenth century a change that is closely tied to the growth o f nationalism. We will begin, however, by examining these three composers' discourse on the decline o f art and culture in their respective nations. In this first section I will also discuss these artists' prescriptions for correcting the decline through education. Music and theater specifically, opera were to play an essential role in both educating and nationalizing the people. In the second section I will demonstrate each composers stated intent to realize this goal o f nationalization. It is this intent, o f course, that makes a composer a nationalist composer. Moreover, their declarations also reveal their understanding o f artists as social actors. In the final section I will show how in their own works Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg employed the three methods o f history, language and landscape for creating national art, and I will devote closer attention to the national operas they composed. I will also examine the institutions they created to showcase the national culture. I have organized the chapter in this way so as best to present the role that these nationalist artists assigned themselves in the nation-building project, and the practices they developed to accomplish their nationalist goals.
Decline, Education, and the Role o f Art
W agners, Smetanas, and Griegs theses on national decline and the role o f art in society are, as to be expected, firmly rooted in previous, prevailing ideas on these topics. Indeed, many o f their theses are common elements o f nationalist discourses more generally. W hat Wagner, Smetana, Grieg, and other nationalist artists contribute, however, is a special emphasis on arts power in creating the nation. So before examining the three composers discourses individually we will first briefly survey the intellectual heritage that served as the backdrop to their own ideas.
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In their laments about national decline. Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg adopt a trope with an established historical pedigree within their respective nationalist movements. Indeed, this is a well-worn strategy o f nationalist discourse: patriots virtually the world over recur to some complaint that while their nation once enjoyed a long-past golden age" in which its nationality flowered, what followed was a dark period o f decline. In this decline, the nation comes to be oppressed and the populace loses touch with its own unique national identity. The discourse on national art posits the decline as leading from a previous, glorious period when the national culture thrived into a contemporary nadir where the culture has become de-nationalized. beset by foreign and/or worthless art. The trope of decline is a particularly powerful one for the Czech movement. Prominent figures such as Palacky and Dobrovsky typically pointed to the early middle ages a span o f time stretching from the independent Czech kingdom up to the life o f Jan Hus as the pinnacle o f Czech achievements, after which Czechs increasingly lost touch with their culture. Though perhaps less preoccupied with the past than the Czechs, the Norwegians also looked back, to the period o f the sagas and the Vikings' zenith, as their era o f greatness. The ancient mythic period o f the Germanic tribes, or the glories o f the German renaissance embracing Diirer. Luther, and Niimberg's height, were German nationalists contenders for the golden age to which the contemporary, unnational period contrasted. As we will see, Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg all refer specifically to these historical golden ages in their discourse and music. The next major theme we will consider, education, is an especially important one in the discourse on creating a national art. It is closely related to claims about what role the theater should play in society. The power o f art to edify is a familiar idea with roots in ancient Greek civilization or even earlier. However, the idea that art must also educate people, to lead them out o f the raw, ignorant state and on to the sublime was especially
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potent during the Romantic era. as Giesen remarks.' What nationalists add to this conception is that art must educate on a national basis. When Fichte stressed the need for education [Bildung] of the populace, for example, this education was supposed to be moral, artistic, and also explicitly national. The people were to be educated into their own nationality.4 While schools were o f course central in that project, many writers beginning in the later 1700s also assigned the theater a major role. Schiller, for one, famously proclaimed that the theater is a school.' In large part, the theaters importance is due to its status as perhaps the principal mode o f mass communication in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when much o f the populace was still illiterate and before the establishment o f nationalized school systems.6 Hence national theaters were widely viewed as essential means o f propagating a national culture and nationalizing the populace. National theater movements in the nineteenth century have received a fair amount o f attention from scholars, so my purpose here is simply to allude to the complex o f ideas and forerunners that influenced my three composers. In Germany, figures such as Schiller and Lessing were some of the most important voices arguing for the power o f the theater to improve the publics morals and taste. Schiller did also conceive a patriotic role here: the national theater should be the teacher o f the Volk,7 and through it, he wrote, we
B e r n h a r d G ie s e n . Die Intelektuellen unddie Nation ( F r a n k f u r t a m M e in : S u h r k a m p . 1 9 9 3 ) . p . 156. 4 S e e J o r g E c h te m k a m p , Der Aufstieg des deutschen N ationalism s (1770-1840) ( F r a n k f u r t : C a m p u s V e r l a g . 1 9 9 8 ) . p .2 3 9 . 5 C i te d in J i n R a k . D iv a d lo j a k o p o s tr e d e k p o litic k e p r o p a g a n d y v p r v n i p o lo v in S 1 9. s t o l e t i . in Divadlo v ceske kullure 19. stoleti ( P r a h a : N a r o d n i g a le rie . 1 9 8 5 ), p .4 5 . 6 F r a n tiS e k C e m y . Id e a n a r o d n ih o d iv a d la . in ibid.. p .2 7 . 7 C ite d in H o r s t S tc in m e tz , I d e e u n d W ir k lic h k e it d e s N a t io n a l th e a te r s . E n tta u s c h te H o f f n u n g e n u n d f a ls c h e E r w a r tu n g e n . in U lric h H e r r m a n n , e d . VolkNation Vaterland. ( H a m b u r g : F e lix M e i n e r V e r la g , 1 9 9 6 ), p . 14 9 .
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will become a nation." s After Schiller, these ideas continue to be espoused by a variety o f figures, such as Wagner's friend, the writer Hermann Laube. who demanded that the theater present the nation on stage."1or Carl Maria von Weber, who was concerned with creating a German opera. Frantisek Palacky. F.L. Rieger. J.K. Tyl. and Karel Sladkovsky are some o f the main figures in the drive for a Czech national theater. They also subscribed to the conception o f the theater as both an educational and a patriotic institution. As another important voice in the Czech movement. Smetanas friend Jan Neruda, wrote, the theater should be the seed bed of all Czech art. the refiner o f the Czech spirit, the guardian o f Czech language, the crystallization o f the purpose of Czech life, a symbol o f our standing on a cultural level with other nations. 10 The drive for a national theater also included an attempt to create a Czech operatic style: Tyl and the composer Skroup were pioneers on that front in the 1840s and 50s. In Norway, the writer Henrik Wergeland and the violinist Ole Bull were two o f the primary promoters of the establishment o f a Norwegian theater. Bull in particular argued for the theaters power to bring people up to a higher level o f culture. 1 1 He also emphasized that the theater could communicate best with the public if it were presenting works based on national themes. G riegs contemporary, the writer Bjomstjeme Bjomson. took over from Bull as the most vocal advocate of a national theater, and wrote many
* C ite d in F r i e d r ic h T o m b e r g . D a s T h e a t e r a ls p o litis c h e A n s ta lt b e t r a c h t e t" in Philosophie und Kunst: Kulturund Asthetik im Denken der deutschen Klassik ( W e im a r : H e r m a n n B o h la u s N a c h f o lg c r . 1 9 8 7 ). p . 1 66 . q H e in r ic h L a u b e . Kritiken. S .D . S t ir k . e d . ( B r e s la u : V e r la e P r i e b a t s c h 's B u c h h a n d lu n e . 1 9 3 4 ). p .2 I . 10 C ite d in C i te d in S ta n le y B u c h h o lz K im b a ll. Czech Nationalism: A Study o f the National Theater Movement, 1845-1883 ( U r b a n a : U n i v e r s i ty o f I llin o is P r e s s . 1 9 6 4 ) . p . 1 4 1 . 11 H e r r e s th a l. p .9 4 .
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plays himself on themes from Norwegian history. The efforts to create a Norwegian national opera were in general quite scattered, though Wergeland was very enthusiastic about that project, and the composer Waldemar Thrane did produce a light opera called Fjeldeventyret (The Mountain Tale ) in 1824. As we will see in the discourse below, opera is in many ways the crux o f the educational and patriotic missions behind national music. This is again due to the theaters critical role as a method o f mass communication. Additionally, though, opera was widely regarded in the nineteenth century as the fusion and pinnacle o f all other art forms. It accordingly became the center o f gravity o f urban cultural life.12 Opera assumed an enormous importance for the nationalist movement because it was able to fulfill the function o f national representation, as Petr Vit suggests.1 On the operatic stage the nations past, future, landscape, and folk life could all be depicted. It w as also a major venue for establishing the use o f the national language in public life. This, then, is how the theaters educational function is also national: the intent o f nationalist artists was for the opera to configure the ideal o f the nation on stage and to communicate that ideal to the envisioned national public. Wagner While one o f the principal impulses behind W agners desire to create a national music is indeed his perception that the cultural situation in Germany languishes in a terrible state o f decline, he actually expands this theme beyond merely G erm an culture, declaring that in fact all of modem art has degenerated. Modem art, he claims, is
12 S e e M a r ta O t t lo v a a n d M ila n P o s p is il . Bedrich Smetana a jeho doba ( P r a h a : N a k l a d a t c l s t v i L id o v e n o v in y .1 9 9 7 ) , p .8 0 . Ij P e tr V it, " H u d b a v p r o g r a m u C e s k e h o n a r o d n ih o h n u ti d o b y p r c d b r e z n o v e a p o R ijn o v e m d ip lo m u . in Povedomi tradice v novodobe ceske /culture (doba Bedricha Smetany) ( P r a h a : N a r o d n i g a le r ie . 1 9 8 8 ), p .5 6 . T o m b e r g a ls o d is c u s s e s th is id e a .
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completely incapable of influencing public life in the sense o f its most noble strivings. 1 4 The fundamental problem is that modem art is no longer natural. it is too artificial, a greenhouse plant so far removed from its real roots that only the artistic class understands it anymore.1 '' Opera, in particular, has ceased to be an art at all and is merely a manifestation o f fashion. 16 W agners critique o f fashion ties directly into his revulsion against all things French, since it is the French taste for the fashionable that has infected contemporary opera. And the French, as I discuss in the third chapter, are the antithesis o f a natural Volk, hence the destructive effect o f the spread o f French tastes throughout Europe. So sorry is the state of the drama in Germany, so infected is it by harmful foreign influences, that the theater must be regarded as the betrayer o f German honor. 1 7 Rather than providing (quite literally) the stage from which the further glorious development o f German culture would proceed following the path set by Goethe and Schiller Germanys theaters are filled with worthless plays and foreign trifles. The result is that contemporary opera falls far short o f the inner ideal that W agner knows it should achieve.1 8 In this gloom and doom, W agner despairs that Germany, in its terrible confusion, now offers the artist no prospect o f a fruitful homeland... 19 This complaint exactly echoes the similar fears shared by both Grieg and Smetana that the cultural situation in
u Kunsrwerk der Zukunft. p . 1 48 . 15 ibid. 16 Oper und Drama P a rt I. p .3 0 8 . 17 Ober die Bestimmung der Oper . p . 15 5 . ,s Zukunftsmusik, p .9 7 . I<) W a g n e r Briefe B a n d II. p .6 6 7 .
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their homelands was too weak to foster them as artists. And like the other two. Wagner laments that the public in his own homeland simply has no taste for good art. French taste rules "almost all European nations so that the Germans have no artistic taste o f their own.20 Indeed, the German public has so lost its good taste in music that it sooner falls into ecstasy over an Italian coloratura soprano than over Bach or Beethoven.21 Besides just the dastardly French, however, W agner reserves a few shots against what he calls the "exploitative imperative of bourgeois commerce [Nutzzweckgesetz des biirgerlichen Verkehrs], which leads the theater to contribute to the ruin o f the people's best moral tendencies.22 W hen it is ruled by profit, the theater cannot work to improve the peoples morals and tastes, which should be its highest calling. The ultimate effect of all these disastrous influences is that the Volk is distanced from its own spirit [Volksgeist], And when that happens, then the chances o f great art including national art coming out o f that nation are very slim. He lambastes the contemporary cultural situation conclusively when he writes: It is clear to everyone that groups o f so many clever minds will never be able to bring a genius or a true artwork into the world: that they, in the contemporary situation o f the public intellectual life in Germany, are not even capable o f presenting to the nation the works o f genius which o f course do not come from their groups is conclusively proven in that the artistic institutions in which the works o f the great masters o f the German rebirth would be presented to educate the people, are entirely denied to exercise their influence and are instead left to the ruin o f German artistic taste. Here on the side o f art, as also on the side o f politics, it is irrefutable how little the German Geist can expect from all these otherwise so thoroughly German groups.2
2U Bericht an Ludwig II, p .5 . 21 Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. p .9 4 . 22 ibid.. p p . 1 1 6 -1 7 . ' 3 ibid., p . 5 1.
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On rare occasions, such as in a letter o f 1851. Wagner despairs so completely about the German public that he declares he doesnt even want to try to appeal to them anymore.24 Still, though, until late in his life when his disappointment in the direction the German Reich had taken finally grew too great, he did retain his hope that German society could be saved. It would be saved through the edifying power o f art. Wagners response to the perceived decline in culture and good taste is to emphasize the power o f art to educate and elevate the public. As Wagner put it. only art is the creator o f the Volk."2' The most important vehicle to this end was the theaters capacity to strengthen and ennoble... the morals and taste o f the public.26 Not just theater alone would accomplish this, though: he thinks that music is also capable o f improving taste and m orals.'' This ennobling" power should always benefit the spiritual needs o f the nation.28 An example o f the theater working this power was in the heyday o f Goethe and Schiller. W agner credits the theater with playing a decisive role in the re-birth o f the German Geist: The most decisive effect o f the spirit o f the German rebirth on the nation was in the end realized through the dramatic literature from the theater. Who would disregard or deny to the theater (as these days impotent literary figures like to do) the most decisive importance for the influence o f the artistic spirit on the moral spirit o f a nation proves that he stands completely outside of this true exchange o f ideas, and deserves to be ignored in both literature and art.29
24 W a g n e r Briefe B a n d IV . p . 7 6 . ' 5 Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. p .5 8 . 26 Uber Devrients Geschichte. p . 2 3 1. ~1 Enrwurf zur Organisation eines deutschen National-theaters Jiir das Konigreich Sachsen, p .2 6 9 . 3 ibid.. p .2 3 5 . :<) Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. p p .4 2 - 3 .
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Based upon the priceless contributions that Goethe and Schiller made through their theatrical works to the development o f German culture, so must the theater again assume a national burden. In the theater lies the seed and nucleus of all national-poetic and national-moral spiritual education... No other branch o f art can come to a truer bloom and populareducational effectiveness until the theaters all-powerful contribution in this area is fully acknowledged and assured. 0 Hence the means he chose for that other branch o f art. music, to work its own influence on spiritual education: in the theater, through the musicdrama, the powers o f both these arts are united, for the moral and cultural benefit o f the national populace. In particular, performances o f quality dramatic w orks (i.e., not French drivel) would bring about the perfect cultivation o f a hitherto com pletely lacking German style in the field o f living drama. 1 Through the regeneration o f this most important force in the German cultural scene the theater in turn the arts will bring the nations recovery. 2 Admittedly, at one point in his voluminous writings W agner did actually deny that the theater should act as an educational institute. 3 But this is an isolated incident, and given the much more frequent references to the theaters pow er and moreover duty to elevate the public, we can regard this denial as just another one o f W agners occasional self-contradictions. In any event, his concerns about education in the arts were strong enough that he at least twice suggested the formation o f national music schools. In 1849, as part o f his plans for the organization o f a German national theater in Saxony, he called also for the formation o f a German National Institute for Music in Dresden.34 Later he j0 ibid.. p .6 0 . 3 1 ibid.. p . 1 2 2 .
C i te d in M a r tin G r e g o r - D e llin . Richard Wagner ( M u n ic h : P ip e r. 1 9 9 1 ) . p .2 4 6 . Ein Theater in Zurich, p .3 6 . Ennvurf :ur Organisation, p .2 7 3 .
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wrote a lengthy report to Ludwig II proposing the creation o f a similar institute in Munich.'"' While neither the Dresden nor the Munich plan was realized, he did regard the eventual establishment o f the music school in Berlin as a success" o f his plan, even though he was not directly involved with that sch o o l/6 Despite the importance o f schools, the real target o f W agners reforms was o f course the theater, and more particularly opera. Opera would be the key to the creation o f the national culture. Though geniuses such as Goethe. Schiller, and Lessing had produced noble, specifically German plays, no one had come along to complete their project through the means o f opera. Instead o f the frivolous French and Italian opera that dominated Germanys stages, Wagner called for the reconstruction o f the German theater in the sense o f the German spirit. 7 His envisioned reform o f the theater would thereby bring about the formation o f a life that would truly bring the appearance o f the German spirit, '8 the national atonement for the national crime o f the current effectiveness o f the German theater. 9 So the German nation could not be truly German without a German theater. For this reason a national theater was essential for the life o f the nation. They needed to honor the achievements o f their own national culture. The national theater as Wagner conceived it would present model performances o f noble German original works, displaying to the German nation the best and noblest works...40 After all, in W agners conception art
5 S e c th e Bericht an Ludwig II. 6 " Z u r E in f u h r u n g (Bayreuther Blatter. E r s tc s S t u c k ) ." p .2 0 . 3' Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. p . 1 17 . K Ober die Bestimmung der Oper.. p . 1 2 3 . 39 ibid.. p . 1 5 6 . 40 Bericht and Ludwig II. p .4 7 .
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is according to its meaning nothing else than the fulfillment o f the desire to recognize oneself in an admiringly represented or loved object."41 Thus the Germans had to see themselves on stage as a nation in order to grasp their own nationality. The particular power o f the musician here is that he is able to show the nation what it in truth is.42 In other words, Wagner, through his privileged perception o f Germanness (see the Project section for more on that) would be able to present the German public with its true. national essence. This idea o f the theaters representative functiondepicting the idealized vision o f the nation back to the nation itselfis the kernel o f Wagner's entire conception o f the national theater. Wagner says explicitly, In the drama transfigured by music the Volk will find both itse lf and every art ennobled and improved."4 A specifically national theater is necessary, though, because at present there are few stages upon which the composer can show a nation to itself."44 Moreover, a national theater would be open to the whole nation, to all classes in society. Wagner explicitly criticizes the earlier period in history when opera was the preserve o f nobility.41 He wants the Gesamtvolk in the theatersthe nations totality, as I will demonstrate below in my treatment o f Bayreuth. Smetana Smetanas view on the perilous situation o f Czech cultural life is first enunciated publicly in his article Regarding our concerts in the periodical Slavoj from October
41 O per und Drama P a rts II a n d III, p p . 3 2 - 3 . 4' Das Braune Buch. p .2 1 0. 43 V o r w o r t z u r G e s a m th e r a u s g a b e . p .v ii . I ta lic s m in e . 44 Uber deutsches Musikwesen. p .8 5 . 45 ibid.. p .9 4 .
R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e cop y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e rm is s io n .
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1862. The Prague concert scene is dismal in part because so few concerts are given but more damagingly, because the music that tends to predominate is o f negligible artistic worth.46 The dearth o f public performances o f music o f true artistic quality has caused a serious crisis in Czech cultural life. Gloomily surveying this wasteland, Smetana writes. If we examine with an impartial but keen eye our current musical conditions, comparing them with the life developing in this direction in the great cities abroad, we must acknowledge even though it is unfortunate that all the activity up to now in the musical field is deplorable, effectively zero. The art o f which we speak declines day by day, and all the more so as floozies tend to use it for diversion and entertainment.47 Art itself is suffering because the public is more interested in entertainment than in an edifying culture. According to Smetana, this is especially shameful given the Czechs' reputation as one o f the most musically talented peoples in Europe. The public's poor musical taste and its mal-education through bad pieces has the further negative result that even when a good, truly Czech artist or work comes along, the public doesnt recognize it. When high quality concerts were offered, attendance was typically poor, as Smetana found on more than one occasion. To his chagrin, such was the case with one o f his first Prague concerts shortly after he returned from his years in Sweden.48 The problem is not just with concerts, however. Opera is also seriously infected. Smetanas article in the Ndrodni listy o f 24 June 1864 lays out the principal complaints against the serious deficiencies o f Pragues Czech opera. Looking objectively at Czech opera as it currently stands, Smetana declared,
46 Kriticke dilo Bedricha Smetany 1858-1865. V .H . J a r k a . e d . ( P r a h a : N a k la d a te ls tv i P r a l s k e a k c io v e t is k a m y . 1 9 4 8 ), p .3 8 . 47 ibid., p .3 7 . 4X Bedrich Smetana: Letters an d Reminiscences. F r a n tis e k B a r to s . e d . ( P r a g u e : A r tia , 1 9 5 5 ), p .6 5 .
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we must recognize that it is incapable of arousing the confidence that it will finally set out on the path assigned to it: that it will justly manifest the heights o f our national artistic activities and our artistic efforts, that it should become the central focus o f the entire domestic artistic world that is that it should fulfill its foremost and most exalted role. Unfortunately, the opera in its present state is completely inadequate for this momentous task. Instead, its function remains the same as in decades past: it serves merely the amusement o f the public, with the sole difference that now it resides in its own home [the Provisional Theater]. The repertoire itself consists mostly of works only few o f which have any worth in the musical literature.49 So even though the Czechs had their own theater building by the time Smetana wrote this, that did not make it a genuinely Czech theater. The operas given were almost entirely French or Italian, and they rarely met Smetana's standards for artistic quality. The few ostensibly Czech operas were mostly just translations from the French or Italian, and poor translations at that. He remarks additionally that quite often these operas were not even well-performed. All this bad, non-national music, Smetana protested, ruinously impacts the public so long that it [the opera] falls victim to its own faulty direction. If our Czech people can only poorly distinguish good music from bad, the public musical production bears the blame, above all the opera and then concerts.50 Presented with so few examples o f a quality national art. the publics taste languished in its predilection for trifles. The institutions that did exist to elevate and educate the public simply failed in that goal, and so the public remained poorly educated artistically /1
49 Kriticke dilo. p .7 7 -8 . 50 ibid.. p .6 9 . 51 L e t te r to O t a k a r H o s tin s k y . a p p a r e n t l y f r o m 9 J a n u a r y 1 8 7 9 . in Z dopisii Bedricha Smetany. ( P r a h a : P o u r o v a e d ic e . 1 9 4 7 ).
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Another example of this failure was the conservatory, o f which Smetana commented that our conservatory firmly holds to its meaning: it remains conservative."'2 The thrust of Smetana's complaint here is that the conservatory was not educating students in the best modem music, instead remaining steeped in styles that were already outmoded. This complaint manifests Smetanas commitment to the most recent international trends in music o f the day, the trends represented by Berlioz, Liszt, or Wagner. Smetanas idea is that if Czech musicians are not educated in the most progressive music (for that is the way Smetana viewed it), then the entire nation would stagnate artistically. For all his interest in national music. Smetana always insisted that such music must correspond to the most advanced compositional styles o f the day. Thus when he reviews works o f a national character in the Ndrodni iisn> o f 5 December 1863, though doubtless he was sympathetic to their national aims, he finds them generally o f low musical worth.55 If a piece was national but weak musically, then it was ultimately o f little worth in uplifting the national culture. As with Wagner, Smetanas response to this perceived rot in the publics artistic taste was to provide opportunities to educate people in what was good, truly national art. In fact. Smetana went even farther than Wagner in organizing groups and institutions to this end. His earliest effort was the music school he founded in Prague in 1848. While the main intent behind the school may have been to help Smetana pay his bills, it also served a social function in that he organized evenings o f chamber music to which the public was invited.54 His idea was not just to give Czech musicians good training, but to have them perform good music for the Czech public. Given his poor opinion o f the concerts already
52 ibid.. p . 16 5 . 53 ibid.. p .4 6 . 54 H a n a S e q u a r d to v a . Bedrich Smetana. (P r a h a : E d itio S u p r a p h o n . 1 9 8 8 ), p .5 1 .
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on offer in Prague, he in fact explicitly assigned to himself the role o f bringing in concerts that according to the composition o f their program and their performance... would meet the highest standards o f art.'' So at various points in his career he organized concerts to showcase what he regarded as the best and highest musical works. In the 1860s, for example, he directed several concerts o f the philharmonic society. These concerts were also designed to advance specifically Czech music. Being a Czech, I will organize Czech concerts, he explained."'6 Obviously, his idea was that these concerts would be uniquely Czech in a way that concerts sponsored by the Prague Germans, or concerts featuring French and Italian music, could never be. Sm etana's educational plans even once included the idea o f giving public lectures to teach other musicians what he had learned throughout his career.57 This idea went unrealized, however, because o f his deafness. Nonetheless, Smetana did achieve the major goal he set for himself in terms o f edifying the public. This goal was becoming the director o f the Czech opera. His view o f the importance o f this job is clear: From the national point o f view the post o f conductor at the Czech Theater is no doubt most important. From here one really has a direct influence on the public in the broadest sense and would be able to influence to the greatest possible extent the refinement o f artistic taste as well as, above all, the trend of art. It is therefore understandable that this post would suit me best.58 In this letter he added that the director o f the Conservatoire, if he is a Czech artist, can also do great things for art at home.
55 Kriticke dilo. p .3 8 . 56 ibid., p .3 9 . 57 B a r to s ( 1 9 5 5 ) , p . 1 82 . 5S ibid.. p p .8 8 -9 .
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The function that Smetana ascribed to the theater in creating a national culture is thus both readily apparent and immense. He wrote that the theater must be a school. in an obvious echo o f Schiller/9 And like Wagner. Smetana stressed the paramount importance o f opera in particular for the national cause. First, however. Prague opera itself had to be reformed. From the amateurish, purely entertainment-oriented institution that Smetana derided, he insisted it must become truly artistic, focused on the execution o f works in a conscientious, faithful, pure artistic spirit. To that end it is necessary for the material to become more sophisticated. Operas cannot be a musical production that one merely sings just to sing, where it suffices that everything follows the same tempo and nothing gets mixed up... Operas must be uplifted on the basis o f drama...60 As a quote cited earlier indicates, opera should teach the public to recognize good from bad music. By presenting works o f the highest artistic quality, and performing them in a true dramatic spirit, opera would be capable not just o f edifying the public, but in fact o f lifting up all o f music.61 The emphasis here on the fusion between music and drama, and the social mission the opera could accomplish thereby, points to Smetanas knowledge o f W agners writings. With the reform o f the theater, however, the Czechs would be able to concentrate on the first and most beautiful role o f our opera which is the cultivation o f our domestic art... for that is its role and even duty. About that there can be no doubt and one could hardly find anybody who would want to dispute it.62 The opera, in Smetanas plan, would present many more works by Czech composers than it did under its current administration. This would include new works by Czech composers, o f course, as well as
59 Kriticke dilo, p . 10 8 . 60 ibid.. p .8 9 . Ita lic s in th e o r ig in a l. 61 ibid., p .3 8 . 62 ibid., p .8 7 .
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neglected works from earlier composers such as Skroup and Kittl. Additionally. Smetana calls for the opera to present the works o f other Slavic composers, our tribal brothers. mentioning specifically Glinka, Moniuszko. and Rubinstein.6' Improving the standards of the opera would also necessitate a new building. Smetana devoted an entire article in 1864 to complaining that the Provisional Theater was too small to do opera properly: there was not enough room for the orchestra, they could only use a reduced chorus, and so on. These limitations prevented them from mounting many operas as they should be seen, and rendered some operas, such as W agners, all but impossible to perform in that theater.64 Voices such as Smetanas calling for a fitting building in which to house Czech opera were vital impulses for the campaign to construct the National Theater, which I will discuss more extensively below. Sm etana's ultimate conception for Czech opera was that it should represent the artistic heights o f the whole nation.65 So we see here again the idea o f the opera's representative power. Indeed, Petr Vit reports that this idea was often discussed in Czech nationalist circles in the 1860s. including in the group Umelecka beseda (literally, artistic discussion group), o f which Smetana was a founding member.66 The Umelecka beseda was in fact another o f Smetanas efforts to improve Czech cultural life; the groups stated purpose was to further the blossom o f our national art.67
63 ibid., p .8 8 . 64 S e e ibid., p .9 3 f f . 65 ibid., p .7 8 . 66 V it ( 1 9 8 8 ) . p .5 9 . 67 C ite d in J a n R a c e k . Idea vlasti. ndroda a slavy r dile Bedricha Smeiany ( P r a h a : N a k la d e m H u d e b n i m a tic e U m S le c k c b e s e d y . 1 9 4 7 ). p .6 9 .
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Grieg G rieg's complaints about the cultural situation in Norway differ somewhat from Smetanas and W agner's in that he is not primarily lamenting the insufficiencies o f Norwegian music, or that Norwegian cultural life is dominated by vacuous foreign forms such as French opera. Grieg's repeated complaint is rather that there is simply no artistic life at all in Norway. He said that in Norway is frost and roughness, in nature as in temperaments.''68 where to be an individual was the same as to be a criminal.6) Norway was just not a place where a creative artist could find his way. In various letters he wrote of the isolation he felt in Christiania in the later 1860s especially, about the mess of pettiness and misunderstanding [an artist has to] wade in daily.70 In the 1880s, during his stint directing the Bergen orchestra, he maintained the same grievances. Here in Norway no man o f intellect can stand it much longer than a short while. A kick from this side and then another kick from that side. But the unfortunate thing is that a Norwegian artists creative activity also becomes spasmodic and unharmonious because o f the inept conditions here. So I can in a way understand those who still have the clarity to turn their backs on Norway and become Europeans. But I couldnt do that. No, never! Unfortunately I have a heart!7 1 A few years later he repeated this theme and it was one that he obviously felt throughout his life as a mature artist that your soul gets as heavy as lead here at home, such that he had to go out into the world for artistic stimulation. Nonetheless,
6-s F in n B e n c s ta d a n d D a g S c h je ld e r u p - E b b e . Edvard Grieg: mennesker og kunstneren (O s lo : A s c h e h o u g . 1 9 8 0 ) , p .l 18. ** ibid.. p . 13 6 . 70 G r i e g Brev B in d II. p . 135: G r ie g Letters. V o l u m e 1. p .4 6 3 . 71 B e n e s ta d a n d S c h je ld e r u p - E b b c ( 1 9 9 0 ) . p .2 5 1 .
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while abroad he was always simultaneously wanting to be home, where the sense of beauty is.7: The heart o f the problem with the cultural life in Norway. Grieg suggests, is that most people just dont care how bad it is. In 1881 he wrote, only with bitterness can I think back to the indifference, even disdain and scorn, that met Norwegian art music. I could tell things... that would sound unbelievable. But there was a complete lack of anything resembling artistic morals.7 He said that people were more interested in dilettantism than in Norwegian art. The public did not seem to appreciate his and fellow composer Johan Svendsens efforts to create a real artistic life by giving concerts o f Norwegian music. Following one o f those concerts at which turnout was especially poor he remarked. Its a dismal thought, but it should nonetheless be said that if the public continues to act, as it has here begun to, in relation to the best o f our own, then in very little time Norwegian art music at home will be only a joke, while abroad, and particularly in enlightened Germany, will it find the recognition it deserves.74 Grieg was also exasperated by the attacks artists working to improve the cultural situation suffered at the hands of the newspaper critics, who were all Philistines. 7" Given that (at least early in his career) most hate my compositions, even musicians, it was perhaps not surprising that Grieg began looking at receiving recognition abroad as the practical way for building his career.76 Nonetheless, he hoped for the possibility that the time
7: ibid., p .2 5 9 . 7j G r i e g Brev B in d I. p .2 4 7 . 74 Edvard Grieg: artiklerog taler. O y s tc in G a u k s ta d . c d . ( O s lo : G y ld e n d a l N o r s k F o r la g . 1 9 5 7 ). p .7 l. 75 B e n e s ta d a n d S c h je ld e r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 8 0 ) , p . 1 35 . 76 ibid.. p . 1 22 .
might come while w ere still alive that a Norwegian artist w on't become homeless in his own country.77 Though often frustrated and discouraged by Norways cultural climate, Grieg was thereby also motivated to improve it. As with Wagner and Smetana, Grieg believed that presenting the best musical works to the public would educate them and teach them the value o f true art. Griegs efforts in this realm included stints leading orchestras in both Christiania and Bergen. In the later 1860s he and his colleague Johan Svendsen organized a series o f philharmonic concerts in Christiania, often featuring Norwegian com posers latest works. Looking back on those concerts, Grieg estimated that they had given the musical sense a powerful impetus, indeed even brought many honorable people who otherwise had no interest in art, to think that good music in a society could actually be something more than a necessary evil.78 It was important to him that even the lesseducated classes would attend these concerts. As he said, art provides spiritual nourishment, and as such should be everyones art, shared across all classes, to benefit the whole o f society.79 Thus he was glad when in a musical respect by no means enlightened public nonetheless enthusiastically enjoyed one o f Johan Svendsens concerts in 1867. That concert, Grieg wrote, was a great triumph for Norwegian art. It was a triumph because even the unenlightened public learned to enjoy a symphony, the arty music, which they tended otherwise to avoid.80 However, Grieg expressly opposed the idea o f performing popular or more accessible" music for the masses. He
77 G r i e g Brev B in d I. p .1 3 6 . 7S G a u k s ta d , p .3 6 . 79 ibid.. p . 1 7 3 a n d 180. so ibid.. p .6 9 .
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stressed that art should never go down" to the people. No and a thousand times no! The people shall go up to art!"8 1 Another significant element in G rieg's educational designs was the music academy he co-founded in Christiania in 1866. With his partner Otto Winter-Hjelm, Grieg co-authored the announcement o f the academys founding, which explicitly advances both the need to educate the public musically and to do so on a national basis. They wrote: The obvious development increasing with every day in our musical life, and the highly legitimate struggle to stand also in this area upon a national basis, makes it constantly more and more evident that we are no longer obliged to defer to foreign countries and their conservatories. [...] We have said above that such an academ y is necessary to support the struggle for nationality in art that has also in a musical direction been awakened. When we wish to have the national element respected, we do not thereby mean any one-sided desire for isolation. We only desire that the music student shall also come to know our own, that which is closest to him and possibly is first and best suited to work fruitfully upon his fantasy. When all that which is great and powerful in foreign music is presented to him, it will not so overwhelm that the domestic m usics impression is supplanted, as unfortunately is now often the case.82 Their theory was to base the education on melodies that the student knew already from the cradle, such as pieces from L.M. Lindemans collection o f Norwegian folk songs. This method o f preserving the national impression" would allow a more rapid development o f the pupil.8j The historical importance o f this music academy, Herresthal comments, is that it was the first in Norway to have a clearly national objective and a group o f musicians who worked together in a joint pedagogical environment.84
sl ibid.. p . 1 7 3 . 82 ibid.. p .2 2 2 a n d 2 2 5 . 83 ibid., p .2 2 5 . 84 H e r r e s th a l. p . 18 7 .
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Grieg was less obsessed than W agner or Smetana by the role of the theater in the national project. That may be because he was never as much a man o f the theater" as were the other two. whose careers were so deeply bound up in the opera house. The relatively weaker tradition o f theater in Norway may also explain whey Grieg was never ensnared by this art form as were W agner and Smetana. Still, though, Grieg did consider the theater important. He lamented that Norwegian cultural life lacked the foundation that resides in a national opera with an orchestra and chorus corresponding to art's and our times requirements.8' Even two years before his death. Grieg saw it as a shame that still so little progress had been made toward creating a Norwegian national theater and a Norwegian musicdrama. The main hindrance, he thought, was our economic misery. which prevented the establishment o f a state-supported national opera house.86 So though Norway did not have a national theater, Grieg fervently believed they needed one, and in his fervor he had always hoped to be able to produce a national opera, as he told his friend Frants Beyer in a letter o f 1886: Now you can understand why I so many times have gone staring up into the heavens, as if I could find there the Norwegian drama in Norwegian music that I have dreamed of, that I always believed I could someday create, but which 1 am now beginnine to believe is destined by Fortunes w 87 wheel to come from another. But it will come. With little prospect for establishing a national opera. Grieg instead tended to focus on the role that national music more broadly had to play in both educating the public and thereby contributing to the nationalist movement. This role is clear from an article from the newspaper Morgenbladei o f 1866:
85 B e n e s ta d a n d S c h je ld e r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 8 0 ) . p . 1 4 3 . 86 G r ie g Brev B in d I. p .6 2 6 . 87 E d v a r d G r i e g . Breve til Frants Beyer 1872-1907. F in n B e n e s ta d a n d B ja m e K o r ts e n . e d s . (O s lo : U n iv e r s ite ts f o r la g c t. 1 9 9 3 ) . p .9 8 .
In a time such as ours, when nationality in all regards plays such a prominent role, one can quickly comprehend the great significance o f the efforts in our country to seek to develop the national element in language, poetry, and art. And as we seek it along different paths, we are all nonetheless working toward the same goal the nations independence, development and improvement. Music, too. is here a battlefield.8 The artists duty on this "battlefield was to hold national sentiment up. as he said on another occasion. He stressed that art can serve politics and more particularly, that a national art serves nationalist politics, as Grieg wrote in I880.90 Since every art that has remained vital has been national,91 then the most lasting contribution an artist can make is to produce national art, an art o f and for his nation. The artist should bring the public nearer to their domestic art.92 Grieg wrote in a letter o f 1896 o f the importance o f improved communications in bringing together the many small nations o f Norway, to produce a unified society.9' For him. music was one element of such communication, to show Norwegians their common cultural heritage. A national art, in G riegs as well as Smetana's and W agners views, teaches the public what is theirs, and teaches them to love it.
S!< C ite d in D a g B r e d a l a n d T e i j e S tr o m - O ls e n . Edvard Grieg: Musikken e ren kanipplass (O s lo : A v e n tu r a F o r la g . 1 9 9 2 ) . p .4 5 . S o m e c o n f u s io n a c tu a lly e x i s t s o v e r t h e tru e a u th o r o f th i s a r ti c le : B re d a l a n d S tr o m - O ls e n a tt r ib u t e it to G r ie g w h ile o th e r s s u c h a s D a v id M o n r a d - J o h a n s e n c r e d it O t t o W in te r - H jc lm . W h a te v e r th e c a s e , t h e id e a s in th e c ite a r e c o n g r u e n t e n o u g h w ith G r i e g 's v ie w s a s w e s e e t h e m th r o u g h o u t th i s c h a p t e r t h a t w e c a n a s s u m e G r i e g s a g r e e m e n t e v e n i f h e w a s n o t th e a u t h o r . s9 G r i e g Brev B in d I. p .4 8 5 . < K > G a u k s ta d , p . 1 0 1 . 1)1 ibid.. p .5 0 . 92 Breve til Frants Beyer, p .2 2 3 . 93 G r i e g Brev B in d I. p .3 1 .
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Project
I have designated this section as the "Project because here I will demonstrate Wagner's. Sm etana's, and Grieg's commitment to participating in their countries' nationbuilding projects. We will also examine their ideas on the role that they as individuals would play in those projects. In that regard, o f the three composers Wagner most directly enunciates the theses o f the artist as an agent for social change. Both Smetana and Grieg, less philosophically predisposed than Wagner, instead tend to frame their contributions more as stemming from a national duty than from a kind o f semi-divine creative power. Nonetheless, their discourse, too. evinces the belief that the artist's public duty is founded upon his power to transform society through his works.
Wagner Wagner was explicit about the role he assigned himself in the battle to improve the arts in Germany and to make them genuinely national. He wrote in 1872 that he was going to "dedicate my activity completely to the carrying out o f an undertaking that first o f all will realize almost solely a national intention. Should my work be completely successful, he continued, then this success would consist in large part in that I can lead the same seed o f a German-national art, whose fostering and cultivation in the field of the musical drama has until now been most damagingly arrested by the influence o f Italian opera, to an independent development. M The role the artist should play in fostering a German national culture is further suggested by a passage from Oper und Drama where Wagner describes the artist's creative power. The artist, he writes, "manages to see in advance the formation o f an as yet unformed
<u Schreiben an das Burgermeister von Bologna, p .2 9 2 .
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world, to enjoy in advance through the power o f his desire to create [ Wercleverlangen] a world not yet created [noch ungewordene]."'*' With this special perception, the artist is then able to create the image o f this as yet unformed world" in his art. to present it to the Volk so that they at last recognize themselves and can then truly embark upon the path to self-realization. Art must express itself most definitely after place, time, and circumstances." Only that way would it achieve its most lively effectiveness.96 Thus art, in W agner's thought, must communicate the nature o f its origin. However, given the artist's capability o f seeing a world that does not yet exist, art can also communicate the ideal toward which society must move. Music, especially, is an idea o f the world that directly presents to the world its own essence.97 M usics special power in this regard means that the musician himself has a capability greater than that o f other artists: the other arts cannot present so immediate a picture o f the world as can music. The specific idea o f the world that Wagner had in his mind came to him while living in Paris in the 1840s. His feelings there o f homelessness wakened in him a longing for Germany. But, he adds, this longing referred not to an old. familiar, regained land, but rather to one foreseen and wished-for, new, unknown, and yet to be attained.98 In short, he began to long for the unrealized Germany o f his imagination, his vision of the nation and its culture. The problem, as the quote above indicates, was that this ideal Germany did not exist. There was no German national culture as Wagner envisioned it. Rather, as we have seen previously. German cultural life was in a dire state, dominated by foreign influences.
15 Oper und Drama P a r ts II a n d III. p .2 2 7 . % ibid.. p .2 3 7 . 1,7 Beethoven, p . 7 2 . <)s Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde. p .2 6 8 .
In Das Braune Buch he alleges that the decline o f German arts since Goethe and Schiller showed that no one since them understood the German spirit. But I have understood it. he declared in this 1865 entry. I am the most German person. I am the German spirit. w Even twenty years earlier, though, he had already stated that he had now set myself the lovely task to continue [Carl Maria von] W eber's work, to help emancipate Dresden and Germany musically, to develop the publics taste for the noble. to reform dramatic music.
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100
His works would constitute the starting point for a genuine German style in musical-dramatic performances, a style o f which at present no trace is extant. he commented.1 0 1 Despite all the hindrances that had prevented the appearance o f a great national music work, 102 Wagner believed that with the performances o f the Ring at the first Bayreuth Festival, he had indeed created such a work. At the end o f the first Gotterdammening at Bayreuth in 1876. he addressed the audience, telling them: You have now seen what we can do: now it is up to you to want it. And if you want it, then we will have an art! What he meant by this address, he later explained, was that the Germans were lacking a national art, but that they could have one it was there on the stage of Bayreuth for them if only they would acknowledge it, take it to their hearts, so that the Ring would truly belong to the nation.10'1 So there the German art was on the stage o f Bayreuth, and it had been created, o f course, by Wagner, through his unique artistic capacities, the unique capacities that allowed him as an artist to reform German culture and society in a national direction.
w Das Braune Buch. p .8 6 . 100 W a g n e r Briefe B a n d II. p .4 3 1 . 101 " V o r w o r t z u r H e r a u s g a b c d c r D ic h tu n g d e s B u h n e n f e s t s p ie l s ." p .2 7 8 . lo: Ober deutsches Musikwesen. p .8 6 . I0' S e e G r e g o r - D e ll in . p .7 2 3 .
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Smetana As in the aforementioned goal o f the Umelecka beseda to bring about a bloom o f Czech art. Smetana boldly proclaimed the patriotic goals of his artistic activities. He declared in a diary entry o f 1843 that I am the instrument of a higher power. 104 In his conception, the higher power he would serve was the Czech nation. He would serve it by creating a genuinely Czech music that would represent his nation at the highest levels o f international art. He insisted that the blossoming o f national art takes precedence over everything, in that I have dedicated all my energies, all my knowledge and abilities to the Czech stage. 10' His desire to create a national art was a matter o f pride to Smetana: his goal was to prove that we Czechs are not mere practising musicians as other nations nickname us, saying that our talent lies only in our fingers but not in our brains, but that we are also endowed with creative force, yes, that we have our own and characteristic music. How far I have succeeded in this hitherto, not I but the world will judge. To judge from the great ovations which I have experienced so many times 1 have at least the consolation that my efforts are being recognised and rewarded and that I am on the right way. I also see how my example draws young and hopeful talents to continue along my path, and how these talents grow, so to speak, out of our earth, to the glory o f our dear country!106 I was the first who had the courage to step onto the battlefield, but I was not defeated and let that be my reward!107 This statement o f Smetana's is reminiscent o f an argument he once had in Franz Liszts circle in W eimar with a German musician who accused the Czechs o f being
104 Smetana ve vzpominkdch a dopisech. F r a n tis e k B a r to s . e d . (P ra h a : T o p id o v a E d ic e . 1 9 4 8 ). p . 16. 105 B S : R u d o lf W i r s i n g . 2 2 S e p te m b e r 1 8 7 6 . M C H # 2 1 4 0 . 106 B a r to s ( 1 9 5 5 ) . p . 2 10. 107 T h is la s t lin e f r o m th e s a m e le tte r is c ite d in S e q u a r d t o v a . p .2 6 4 .
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nothing more than mere fiddlers. i.e.. o f lacking a genuinely creative musical talent.U )x That argument, and Sm etana's desire to defend the Czechs' artistic honor, reportedly played a major role in spurring him on to his career as a nationalist artist. The Czech composer Vaclav Juda Novotny claimed that Smetana once told him the story o f that argument in connection with how the idea o f creating an independent Czech musical style began to mature in him [Smetana] for the first time. 104 At the end o f that evening in Weimar, according to Novotny, Smetana turned moist eyes to the starry heaven, raised his hand, and deeply moved, swore in his heart the greatest oath: that he would dedicate his entire life to his nation, to the tireless service o f his countrys art. 110 Though Novotnys anecdote is evidently romanticized, we know at least that the sentiments he reports Smetana as expressing were genuine. In his ow n words Smetana once declared that he would sacrifice everything to his homeland."11 1 Late in his life, he also summed up his career this way: I am according to my merits and according to my efforts as a composer a Czech and the creator o f the Czech style in the branches of dramatic and symphonic music exclusively Czech. 112 The social role o f the artist is clear from this statement. Smetana saw himself as the man who created for the nation a whole, thoroughly national art form. He gave the Czechs an essential part o f their culture, their own music, transfigured into a high art. Smetana's conception o f his achievement is parallel and virtually identical to Wagners.
I0!i T h is in c id e n t is c i t e d in f u ll in th e fo u r th c h a p te r . loq B a rto s ( 1 9 5 5 ) . p .4 5 . 110 ibid.. p .4 7 . 111 C ite d in S e q u a r d t o v a , p . 1 1 7. B a rto s ( 1 9 5 5 ) , p .2 5 0 .
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Grieg For his part. G rieg's intent to create an art that the Norwegians could consider their own was motivated by his sense that Norwegian culture was an essential part o f his own being. Norwegian folk life. Norwegian sagas and history and above all Norwegian nature have since my youth had a great influence on my works. Grieg stated, succinctly, in a letter to Henry T. Finck.11 The spirit o f m y fatherland." he told Finck. hovers over my entire output. As he says, he felt a special bond to Norway's mountains and Qords. and in particular to the western part o f the country, where he was bom and raised. Western Norway gave me life, enthusiasm for life, and the goal to reproduce it in tones. 114 Grieg evidently believed in the Herderian idea o f national spirits, and that this spirit mystically expresses itself through the individual. Indeed, nationality was not something one could escape, as he suggests in a diary entry: the national you bear with yourself like your joys and sorrows, but you never leave it! 115 But why would a person want to escape his or her nationality? Grieg remarked that I dont understand why everyone in his own way doesnt lay hold o f his fatherland, its nature, history, and folk life... 116 Nationality was a worthy basis for o n es art, and it is apparent that he could imagine no better. With such a font o f inspiration, Grieg made plain his intention to render Norwegian nationality into music. A famous quote has him saying in a letter to Bjomson. To paint Norwegian nature, Norwegian folk life. Norwegian history and Norwegian folk
11J G a u k s ta d . p .4 9 . 114 E d v a r d G r ie g . Dagboker. (B e r g e n : B e r g e n O f f e n t l i g e B ib lio tc k . 1 9 9 3 ). p . 1 5 2 . 115 ibid., p . 1 19. 116 Breve til Frants Beyer, p . 15 3 .
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poetry in sounds stands for me as the area where I believe I can achieve something. 11' In fact, he admitted that after his conservatory education in Germany he felt that the only way he could really develop m yself further was on a national basis.118 He would create national music, and he promised to work and strive such for our hom e's art, that one day it may be said I have been worthy of it. 119 As I will discuss in the fifth chapter, Grieg found him self and was spurred onto his nationalist cultural goals through meeting another young Norwegian nationalist composer. Rikard Nordraak.120 After Nordraak died only his early 20s, in a letter to Nordraaks father Grieg assured him that he, Grieg, would continue down the path Nordraak had set out on: We both hoped to be able to work together for the advancement o f our national art. Since that was not granted to us, I can merely hold faithfully to the promise I gave him, that his cause would be my cause, his goal mine. Dont believe that what he aspired to will be forgotten. I have the great calling to bring his few genial works before the people, our Norwegian people, to fight for their recognition, and to build further upon that great foundation.1 2 1 Or. as Grieg put it much later in his life, on the occasion o f his 60th birthday celebrations, what I have strived for up until now is indeed nothing else than what every good Norwegian does: to lay a little stone to the building called Norway."122 The particular stone he laid was to introduce national music into N orw ay.I2j
G r ie g Brev B i n d I. p .5 7 . 11!< B e n e s ta d a n d S c h je ld e r u p - E b b c ( 1 9 9 0 ) , p .3 3 8 . ,,,, G r ie g Brev B i n d I. p .2 6 . ,;:u S e e th e G r o n v o l d l e t te r in ibid.. p .2 4 6 . 1:1 ibid.. p .5 3 7 . G a u k s ta d . p . 1 9 7 . 'J ibid.. p . 19 6 .
R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of th e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .
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It is evident from these sort o f statements that Grieg believed he had a kind o f mission to fulfill as a nationalist artist. The ultimate goal Grieg envisioned for his art was actually expressed most concisely by Ferdinand Rojahn. who in an autobiographical sketch o f Grieg wrote: it belongs to Griegs own quiet dreams that with his music he might become known in every Norwegian nook, and that the people could be entirely incorporated into a better understanding o f our own uniqueness, with a richer love for a land that possesses all the requirements to sustain every person who loves it enough.124 Though these words are not G riegs own, he said explicitly that he agreed with Rojahns article, so we can take this description as accurate.12' Two notable incidents show Grieg enacting the role o f the nationalist artist in a most public fashion. The first was in 1891, during a debate in the Student Society over whether to fly the Norwegian-Swedish Union flag or just the Norwegian tricolor. Grieg stood up on the stage and spoke in favor o f keeping the tricolor flying, and he closed his impromptu speech by encouraging the gathering to sing the national anthem, which they all did, beginning with Grieg's cue.126 The second was Griegs plan to assemble all o f western N orw ay's singers in Bergen for the rebuilding o f Hakons Hall, a structure dating from the middle ages and a reminder o f N orw ays past independence. His idea was for the singers to perform a cantata on a theme from the sagas, to which Bjomson would write the text.127 This gathering would be a mass assembly to commemorate Norwegian history, and to celebrate the nation through music.
'J F e r d in a n d R o ja h n . E d v a r d G r i e g s o m n a tio n a l to n c d ig te r . Nordisk Musik-Revue. 15 ju n i 1 9 0 3 . n r. 12. 3 . a a r g .. p .9 4 . 125 S e e th e le tte r to O la v A n t o n T h o m m e s s e n o f 21 J u n e 19 0 1 in B rev B in d I w h e r e G rie g a p p r o v e s o f R o ja h n s a r tic le . 126 G a u k s ta d . p . 1 22 . 127 G r i e g Brev B in d I. p . 1 4 7 .
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Works
Griegs efforts with the Student Society and the Hakons Hall are examples o f how an artist could directly stimulate national feeling with his actions. Nationalist composers most typically achieved such goals through their art, howeverit was above all through their works that they w ould build a national culture. Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg employed four key methods to make their own art national. The first will be analyzed in its own chapter: it is the reliance on a folk element. Incorporating features that were conceived as springing from the pure, natural sources o f the relevant national Volksgeist, these three composers sought to elevate such sources into the status o f an authentically national high art. In this section, though, I will focus on the other three methods, namely language, the use o f themes from history and legend, and references to the national landscape. These are all fairly self-explanatory strategies, frequent throughout nationalist discourse. I will consider how they appear in various o f the composers works, and then look in more detail at a specific work, a national opera: Wagners Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg , Smetanas Libuse , and Griegs Olav Trvgvason. Nationalists o f course typically conceive o f language as one o f the paramount marks of nationality. History and legend usually refer back to the golden age o f national greatness, so evoking that greatness in art is supposed to remind audiences of the nations achievements. An attachment to the national landscape is also one o f the sine qua non o f a patriot, and depicting that landscape in art is an obvious way to glorify the nation. These are all means o f linking the artist to the nation through the artwork. Moreover, they also link both the nation to its art and the national citizens to each other by celebrating in
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that art what the nation and the artist have in common, namely the love o f their language, history, and landscape. A final strategy common to all three composers, and that in turn unifies all the above means o f constructing and propagating a national culture, was the creation o f an institution or festival to showcase the nations art. Wagner had his Bayreuth Festival, Smetana worked toward the establishment o f the Narodni divadlo (National Theater) in Prague, and Grieg organized a music festival in Bergen in 1898. The socio-political goals of all three projects were much the same, and as such they can be regarded as the culmination o f each mans project for a national art. Wagner Perhaps the best example o f W agners nationalist intent behind his works was his insistence that with the Ring he had given a gift to the nation. To this popularnational 128 work, the chief work o f my life, he gave the dedication, Devised in confidence o f the German spirit. 129 He even claimed that he would never have conceived of the Ring without the German nationalist movement.10 W ith characteristic modesty, Wagner also once asked rhetorically: Regard the incomparable magic o f my works... You can now say nothing else but they are German."'*1 The Ring, along with Wagners other works, displays the common tropes o f nationalist discourse that were intended to make them uniquely German.
I2S W a g n e r Briefe B a n d V III, p .8 5 . I2q C o s i m a W a g n e r . Tagebiicher V o lu m e II. p .6 4 9 . m ibid.. p .8 1 4 . 131 D as Braune Buch. p .8 6 . I ta lic s in th e o r ig in a l.
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To begin with, like virtually all nationalists W agner attributes an enormous power to language as a talisman o f nationality. When composing Der fliegende Hollander . Wagner recalled, he realized that for the utterances o f the dramatic characters he could not utilize the folk melody style which he used elsewhere in the operas music. Instead. here the speech itself, according to its most full o f feeling content, had to be reproduced, so that not the melodic expression, but rather the expressed feelings would arouse the sympathy o f the listener. The melody must thus entirely o f itself arise out o f speech.1 This statement expresses the technique Wagner claimed to employ throughout his mature operas when setting to music the speech o f his characters. The patterns of language were to be the starting point for dramatic music. In order for that dramatic music to attain the ideals Wagner set out for it. however, it had to be grounded on a language that was still true to its roots and "natural. |J' This language, o f course, is German: "the perfect dramatic artwork, and so the reform o f opera could only be realized through the German language.14 All of Wagners mature operas are drawn from mythical subjects, and Wagner was usually attracted (though not exclusively) to myths that he perceived as German in origin. The Nibelungenlied , for example, on which the Ring is based, was already established as a kind o f "German Iliad or "national poetry by the time Wagner took it as inspiration.13 Wagner claimed it was through his investigations o f the mythical past, such as reading Grim m 's Deutsche Mythologie in the 1840s, that he found both himself and the future course o f his career. Grimms Mythologie spoke from the primeval
l j " Eine Mitteilung an meine Freuncie. p .3 2 4 . 13 4 Oper und Drama P a r ts II a n d III. p .2 1 1 . 134 ibid.. p .2 12. 135 H a g e n S c h u lz e . D er IVeg zum Nationalstaat ( M u n c h e n : D e u ts c h c r T a s c h c n b u c h V e r la g . 1 9 8 5 ). p .7 4 .
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homeland to him. and soon my entire sensory existence was seized by imaginings that ever more clearly formed themselves in me o f the idea o f regaining a long lost but continually searched-for consciousness. He calls this effect nothing less than a rebirth. 16 This long-sought consciousness was that o f a purely and self-consciously German culture. A passage from Eine Mitteilung an meine Frennde further explains the power and role o f W agners mythic subjects: In the effort to give the desires o f my heart an artistic shape, and in the zeal to investigate what impelled me so irresistibly to the ancient saga sources, I reached step by step deeper into antiquity, where I then finally to my delight precisely there in the highest antiquity, encountered the youthfully beautiful human in the most sumptuous freshness o f his strength. My studies brought me thus through the literature o f the middle ages back to the foundation o f the old German myths: from these myths I managed to remove one guise after the other that later writings had thrown deformingly upon them so as finally to glimpse them in their most chaste beauty.1 A major appeal of these old German myths was that they were in a sense authentically and purely German, stemming from before the time that German culture began to be polluted by foreign influences. In the next chapter I will examine Wagners use o f myth more extensively, particularly the way he conceived it as a kind of folk expression. Wagner also evokes a specifically national landscape in his works, though he does so much less than Smetana. Actually, a number o f W agners opera plots are not even set in Germany: Der fliegende Hollander in Norway, Tristan und Isolde in Cornwall and Brittany, and Parsifal nominally in Spain, for example. Regardless, other works do refer to the German landscape. Most o f Tannhauser is set at the Wartburg in Thuringia, a medieval castle that was one o f the high temples o f nineteenth-century German
136 Mein Leben, p .2 7 3 . |J? Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde. p p .3 1 1 -1 2 .
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nationalism. Tannhiiitser and the Ring both make references to deep, dark German forests. Gdtterdammentng also features the famous music o f Siegfried's Rhine Journey." which is as close as Wagner comes to Smetana's glorification o f the quintessential Czech river the Vltava. Die Meisiersinger von Niirnberg fuses all o f these tropes and thus in a sense may be W agners most national" opera, not only in terms o f how it has been received, but also, most importantly, according to the composers intentions. He relied on texts by Grimm and Wagenseil as historical sources in writing the libretto.1'8 Set during N iim berg's Renaissance peak, Wagner is obviously evoking a golden age. The link to Niirnberg is also a reference to the landscape o f Germany, to one o f its most beautiful and formerly culturally important cities. Wagner even had the idea o f premiering the work in Niirnberg, though in the end it was first given in M unich.19 The figure o f Hans Sachs, the last appearance o f the artistically productive Volksgeist, also steps forward from the halcyon days of German culture.140 Wagners identification o f Sachs as a uniquely and genuinely German artist is even more interesting given that during the time he was composing Meisiersinger, W agner took to signing his own letters Hans Sachs.1 4 1 W agner said that with this work he wanted to present the German public with an image o f their own true nature.142 In this sense Meisiersinger corresponds to the idea of representing to the nation its own national self. Particularly the first scene o f the third
ljS Mein Leben. p .6 8 4 . LW J o h n W a r r a c k . Richard Wagner: Die Meisiersinger von Niirnberg ( C a m b r id g e : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i ty P r e s s . 1 9 9 4 ), p . 136. 140 Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde, p .2 8 4 . 141 H a n n u S a lm i. Imagined Germany: Richard Wagner's National Utopia ( N e w Y o r k : P e t e r L a n g . 1 9 9 9 ). p . 1 3 6 . 142 W o lle n w ir h o f F e ri.V p . l 19.
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act the Festwiese (festival meadow ) scene presents a cavalcade o f burghers, peasants, and artists all assembling to hail German art. A classic parallel to other such Volk displays from operas like A Life fo r the Tsar. The Bartered Bride . or Halka , Wagner loads the Festwiese with light-hearted choruses, dancing, and pompous processions. In this scene, he said, resides the entire relationship o f German art. 14' Wagner in fact praised Die Meisiersinger as his actual masterpiece. 144 The operas premiere attracted a lot of attention throughout Europe as the appearance o f a new German national opera. Martin Gregor-Dellin reports.14' W agner him self was convinced that the German public would cheer the workand his perception that this did not happen was the source o f much bitterness for him in his last years.146 The founding o f the Bayreuth Festival could be considered the climax o f W agner's nationalist project. Bayreuth was the ultimate expression o f his goals as a nationalist artist. There can be no doubt about the national intent behind the festival, even if there were other motivations (pecuniary, egotistical) at work as well. In a letter to Ludwig II o f 1871 Wagner suggested that the foundation of a Festspiel could be a German national enterprise. 147 His wife Cosima also reports that Wagner referred to his Bayreuth plans as his German undertaking. 148 Then, laying the foundation stone for his theater in 1873, Wagner proclaimed I trust the German spirit and the spirit o f German
l4j C o s im a W a g n e r . Tagebucher 1 8 8 1 - 1 8 8 3 . p .6 9 2 . ibid.. p .9 1 0 . 145 G r e g o r - D c llin . p .5 8 4 . 146 C o s im a W a g n e r . Tagebucher 1 8 8 1 - 1 8 8 3 . p .6 9 2 . 147 G r e g o r - D e llin . p .6 4 1. I4S C o s im a W a g n e r , Tagebucher 1 8 6 9 - 1 8 7 2 . p .5 1 9 . 149 D a s B u h n e n f e s ts p ie lh a u s in B a y r e u th . p .3 2 7 .
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He explained the idea behind the Bayreuth Festival as follows: It would correspond superbly to the organism of German existence, which presently it is the idea to develop politically in the newly arisen German Reich, since the active powers in it would belong as parts to the whole. It will first o f all offer nothing else but the periodic, place-specific meeting point o f the best theatrical powers o f Germany for the practice and execution in a higher German original style o f its art...1 '0 This national artistic institution11 1 would thus realize its nationality by presenting works (W agner's works, o f course) o f distinct German originality. 1' 2 Such model performances would serve as beacons o f a German style." The Bayreuth theater would also benefit Germany by producing the ennobling of taste that was so important to W a g n e r . E v e n ten years prior to the construction o f the Bayreuth theater Wagner was talking about this plan and how it would present that which is most typical and successful o f the German spirit so that at least in a highly significant branch o f art. the German would thereby begin to be national. 1' 4 This project would lead to "the development o f a genuine, not arrogant national spirit. 1 '' Bayreuth also embodies his idea o f the on-stage representing o f the nation to the nation. An essential element of this aim is thus to ensure that the public who attended the Bayreuth Festival would be a wide one the Festival would not be exclusive. Not belonging to a particular social class, W agner wrote,
150 S c h lu B b c r ic h t u b e r d ie U m s ta n d e u n d S c h ic k s a ic . sv e lc h e d ie A u s f u h r u n g d e s B u h n e n f e s t s p ie l s d e r R in g d e s N ib e lu n g e n " b i s z u r G r u n d u n g v o n W a g n e r - V e r e in e b e g le ite te n ." p .3 16 . 151 ibid.. p .3 1 7 . I5~ Bericht an Ludwig / / . p . 10. 15 S c h lu O b e r ic h t." p .3 1 8 . '"* V o r w o r t z u r H e r a u s g a b c d e r D i c h t u n g . p p .2 7 9 - 8 0 . I5' ibid.. p . 2 8 1.
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but rather penetrating all levels o f society, the new totality will in my eyes represent the actively realized receptivity o f German feeling for the original demonstration o f the German spirit in the same areas which until now have been left to the neglect o f the most un-German cultivation.1 '6 He insisted that the whole German public, far and near." should be invited to the Festival.1 ' 7 Bayreuth was the bearer o f his most noble German hopes" that it would bring about the realization o f a German nation that as yet was only provisional. 1 "8 So he called the foundation stone a magical stone with the power to make these dreams come true. And for good measure, he even expressed his hope that the new building would serve as a monument for a German architectural style."1 ' 9 Though it eventually ended up being built on a hill in Oberffanken, Wagners earliest idea in fact was that his national theater would stand on the banks o f the Rhine and the geographic symbolism o f that idea is obvious.160 The vicissitudes o f W agners thought and career
notwithstanding, his plan remained essentially the same throughout: with this theater Wagner would give people the meaning o f his revolution. It would display the ultimate, instructive spectacle o f German national art. Smetana Influenced partly by Wagner, Smetana placed the same emphasis on languages role in dramatic music. It is the correct declamation that makes the music Czech, Smetana wrote o f his work.161 The rhythm and character o f the Czech language
156 " S c h lu B b e r ic h t." , p .3 2 2 . 157 V o r w o r t z u r H e ra u s g a b e d e r D i c h t u n g . p .2 7 3 . i5X D a s B u h n c n f c s ts p ie lh a u s in B a y r e u th . p .3 2 9 . I?q ibid.. p .3 4 3 . 160 W a g n e r Briefe B a n d IV , p . 1 7 6 . 161 B a r to s ( 1 9 5 5 ) , p .2 4 9 .
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determined the nature o f the music. Hence Czech style comes not just from Czech songs and dances but more importantly from the characteristic declamation o f Czech words. In fact, Czech music o f a higher style... hangs only on the declamation o f the words. making it unnecessary to rely slavishly on folk songs.16' In this way. regardless o f the subject matter or ostensible stylistic influences (such as from non-Czech composers like Liszt or Wagner), music based on a Czech text would inevitably be thoroughly Czech. Smetana also admitted to preferring libretti based on Czech history since they would contribute most to the establishment of a national operatic style.16 Most o f his operas are in fact based on historical and legendary material. The Brandenburgers in Bohemia deals with peasant resistance against a German occupation in the 13th century, Dalibor is the story o f a great tragic hero from Czech history who was imprisoned in Prague Castle, and The D evil s Wall incorporates an old legend about the devil trying to trick a couple o f Czech peasants, for three examples. Outside o f opera, several sections o f the cycle o f symphonic poems Md vlast evoke prominent legends. The first poem, Vysehrad, depicts the golden age o f the independent Czech kingdom and its castle on a promontory overlooking the Vltava river. Three later poems, Sarka , Tabor, and Blanik , are also inspired by legends the last one about a prophecy that Hussite warriors would one day rise again out o f Blanik mountain to defend the Czechs in their hour o f need. Blanik thus also makes reference to a specific point o f the Czech landscape. Md vlast is in fact rich in its landscape evocations, above all in Smetanas famous symphonic poem about the Vltava river and also in the poem entitled Z ceskych luhii a haju , or From the Czech Woods and Meadows. The Vltava poem is almost a travelogue, beginning in the springs that form the Vltavas headwaters, passing through the St. Johns
16: ibid.. p .2 2 0 . 163 ibid.. p .2 0 2 .
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rapids, and continuing all the way to the end o f the piece where the Vltava flows into the Elbe. Z ceskych luhu a hajii Smetana described as a general description o f the feelings which the sight o f the Czech countryside conjures up... everything is remembered in a hymn o f praise. 164 Md vlast as a whole is in fact dedicated to the city o f Prague. The operas also deal with distinct places in the Czech lands, such as Dalihor with Prague Castle. Libuse with Vysehrad, and The D evil's Wall with a rock formation known by the same name on the Vltava. Aside from his operatic and symphonic output. Smetanas works in other fields often express a strong nationalist sentiment as well. Some o f this music is occasional, such as the Jubel-Ouvertiire inspired by the events o f 1848. or the m ens chorus composed for the dedication o f the memorial to fellow nationalist Karel Havlicek Borovsky in 1870.165 Many o f his choruses have patriotic themes, and often they were written specifically for the Prague m ens choir known as the Hlahol, which itself was founded to promote singing in the Czech language. A striking demonstration of the importance o f nationalism to Smetana is his first string quartet, the biographical "From My Life, which contains a movement portraying "the joy upon the recognition o f the path o f national art. 166 Smetana regarded his opera Libuse as his "most perfect work in the field o f higher drama. 167 The story is taken from an incident documented by Palackys history o f the Czech lands, and the librettist Jo sef Wenzig even consulted Palacky on historical
164 ibid., p .2 6 4 . 165 S e q u a r d t o v a . p p .4 6 a n d 1 6 8 . 166 S e q u a r d t o v a . p .2 3 6 . 167 B a r to s ( 1 9 5 5 ) , p . 130.
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details.168 The legendary queen Libuse is a golden age trope, an evocation o f the nation's ' pre-history analogous to Wagner's characterizations o f figures from old Germanic myths. This legend had actually been used before by a variety o f artists: there was an opera in Italian about Libuse in the 1700s, and the Czech composer Skroup also wrote an opera called Libusin snatek (Libuses Marriage) in the 1840s.169 Smetana's version is the most overtly nationalistic, however, integrating the typical panoply o f themes o f nationalist art. He has a section o f dancing peasants to fulfill the folk requirement, for example, and the end o f the opera features a stirring "prophecy" where Libuse foretells the future greatness (and decline!) o f the Czech nation. Thanks to her powers as an oracle, she sees a parade of great Czech figures such as Jaroslav ze Stemberku, the supposed defender o f the Czechs against the Mongol attacks, legendary kings such as Karel IV, the founder o f Charles University, and Jin z Podebrad. the one-eyed general o f the Hussite movement.170 The Hussite reference also provides the musical material for the operas boisterous conclusion. Despite her foreboding about an eventual decline for her nation, Libuse proclaims in her final lines that "the Czech nation will not perish! As the full chorus joins her to assert the Czech nations immortality, Smetana brings in the Hussite hymn "Kdoz jsu bozi bojovnici. typically translated as "Ye Warriors o f God." This hymn had already attained associations o f resistance by the time Smetana used it,1 7 1 but Jiranek credits Smetana with transforming its symbolism into a statement about how the Czech nation would fight forever against oppression in order to stay alive and rise again
l6S J a r o s l a v J ir a n e k . Dilo a zivot Bedricha Smetany: Smetanova operni tvorba / . ( P r a h a : E d itio S u p r a p h o n . 1 9 8 4 ) . p .3 2 2 . IW S e e ibid.. p .3 2 1. 170 S e e ibid., p .3 2 3 . 171 B r i a n L a r g e , Smetana. ( N e w Y o rk : P r a c g e r P u b l is h e r s . 1 9 7 0 ). p .2 1 8.
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to greatness.172 Smetana also used this hymn in Tdhor and Blanik o f Md vlast, influencing many subsequent Czech composers who would take up the melody with much the same symbolic purpose. Fittingly for such a solemn but triumphal festival opera. Libuse was intended specifically for the celebrations o f the whole Czech nation."17' Smetana decided that it should have its premiere once the Czechs finally had their own national theater. So. though he completed the score in 1872, he had to wait until 1881 until it was first performed and at that point, sadly, he was already deaf. Nonetheless. Libuse was indeed the first opera performed in the new national theater. The Narodni divadlo, or National Theater, which opened in Prague in 1883 was what Smetana had always hoped for. The completion o f this building was fraught with tragedy, however: the night after the theater's original, temporary opening in 1881, it burned down. And by the time it was finally rebuilt in 1883, Smetana had only a few months left to live, so he was far enough gone that he could not enjoy the realization o f his dream. Nonetheless, he did lay the foundation for the theater, both literally and figuratively. On 16 April 1868 a ceremony took place in Prague on the banks o f the Vltava for the placement o f the foundation stone o f the Narodni divadlo. At this ceremony, Smetana was the third speaker, following Palacky and Rieger, the two most prominent Czech nationalists o f their day. Smetana was wearing a national costume with the three Slavic colors (i.e.. blue, white, and red), and in laying the foundation stone he declared, "In music the life o f the Czechs!"174 He uttered these words apparently as both a proclamation o f his goal to express in music the life of the Czechs and as a
172 J ira n e k ( 1 9 8 4 ) , p .4 2 0 . 173 B a r t o s ( 1 9 5 5 ) , p .2 7 3 . 174 S e c J o s e f J ir a n e k . Vzpominky a korespondence s Bedrichem Smetanou ( P r a h a : S ta tn i n a k la d a te ls tv i k ra s n e l it c r a t u r y . h u d b y a u m n i. 1 9 5 7 ), p .4 2 : a n d B a r to s (1 9 4 8 ). p .8 8 .
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statement o f the centrality of music to Czech culture. The same night as the laying o f the foundation stone, also as part o f the celebrations. Dalibor had its premiere in the Provisional Theater. Figuratively speaking, Smetana also laid the foundation for the theater. His operatic creations were designed to create a wide and diverse foundational standard for the further development o f Czech musical-dramatic work, as Sequardtova writes.17' For instance, Smetana composed an opera for every genre he could: The Brandenburgers in Bohemia is grand opera. The Bartered Bride is the epigone o f the folk opera, Dalibor is a heroic-romantic opera, Libuse is a solemn festival tableau, The Two Widows is a salon comedy, and so on.176 His evident intent was to create a varied repertoire o f Czech operas for the new Czech theater. And though some o f Smetanas operas never attained wide popularity ( The Devil's Wall, for one), nonetheless his operas even today make up the core o f the Narodni divadlos offerings. At least until 1945, Smetanas operas amounted to a quarter o f the theaters total performances. The Bartered Bride, in particular, has become far and away the most-performed opera at the Narodni divadlo, reaching 1000 performances only sixty years after its premiere.177 As a venue for displaying the spectacle o f Czech nationality to the entire Czech nation, Smetanas wildest dreams for the theater have been fulfilled. Indeed, so firmly implanted is this nationalist conception o f the institution that its programs today continue to insist that the
175 S e q u a r d to v a . p . 1 79 . 176 J a r o s la v S t r it e c k y . " T r a d ic c a o b r o z e n i. B c d r i c h S m e t a n a . in Povedomi tradice vnovodobe ceske /culture (doba Bedricha Smetanv) ( P r a h a : N a r o d n i g a l e r ie . 1 9 8 8 ). p .6 6 . 177 V la d im ir L e b l a n d J itk a L u d v o v a . N o v a d o b a ( 1 8 6 0 - 1 9 3 8 ) . in Hudba v cesh'ch dejindch: od stredoveku do nove doby ( P r a h a : E d itio S u p r a p h o n . 1 9 8 8 ) , p .3 7 2 .
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historical building o f the National Theatre in Prague is the embodiment o f the will o f the Czech nation for national independence." Grieg Griegs idea (mentioned in the last section) to assemble a great gathering of singers at Hakons Hall to celebrate Norwegian history is an excellent encapsulation of many o f the most powerful tropes o f nationalist music: the fascination with a past golden age, a mass performance/celebration, and an artwork to express and stimulate national feeling. Grieg wrote some works, such as his Valgsang (Election Song") with the specific intent to stimulate love o f the fatherland. 179 Interestingly, such works were not necessarily conceived for mass gatherings or even the concert hall. He said o f his Fasdrelandssalme ( Fatherlands Psalm) that it was absolutely for school and home and not for the concert hall.
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Thus national music could work on a variety o f levels,
publicly as with the national anthem in the gathering in the Student Society, or privately just in an individual home, for a family to sing and enjoy. Historical or mythical subjects figure prominently in Grieg's work. He composed incidental music to Bjomsons play Sigurd Jorsalfar , a story o f the crusader Sigurd in 12lh century Norway. Two sections in particular o f G riegs music for this work, the chorus Norrona folket det vil fare (The Northland folk are bom to travel) and the Hyldningsmarsj ( Homage March) are bombastic showpieces of patriotism. This music was particularly good for national days o f celebration, as Grieg found when it was given a gala performance shortly after the coronation o f the new Norwegian king
l71< S o it r e a d in t h e N a r o d n i d i v a d l o s b a lle t p ro g r a m f r o m 1 9 9 9 . I7q G r ie g Brev B in d I. p .2 9 6 . IS0 ibid.. p .3 0 0 .
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Haakon VII in 1905.lsl Grieg also composed a cantata called Land-sighting, about Olav Trygvason, the king who christianized Norway, as well as the melodrama for orchestra" Bergliot to saga-based texts by Bjomson. Two o f Gregs compositions pay respect to more recent Norwegian history, specifically to two figures from the Norwegian nationalist movement. His song Henrik Wergeland" honors that early patriot, and his Funeral March in Memory o f Rikard Nordraak was written for his close nationalist composer friend. In addition to these historical subjects, Grieg often made use o f elements from Norwegian myths and folk tales, such as his famous March o f the Trolls" from the Lyric Pieces , or the lesser-known Den hergtekne (typically called The Mountain Thrall in English), for baritone and orchestra, which tells the story of a man led astray by a trolls daughter. Given G riegs professed love o f the Norwegian landscape, it is perhaps surprising that he never wrote a grand symphonic piece extolling the Hardangerfjord or something similar. Instead, his references to the Norwegian landscape are limited to brief passages in smaller works. The aforementioned Den bergiekne. for example, takes place in a dark wood where the singer was seduced by the troll. The song Langs ei A (Along a Stream) also addresses the mysterious Norwegian forests directly, in fact, since the song opens and closes with the line, You forest! More common in Griegs output are references to the Norwegian landscape through evocations o f rural life. Cow Call from the Lyric Pieces simulates the distinctive cries employed by Norwegian shepherds to gather their herds. The song cycle Haugtussa (The Mountain Maid ) also makes reference to cow calls and other features o f the Norwegian countryside, such as slopes covered in blueberries.
1 X 1 Grieg Brev Bind II, p.410.
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One way that works such as Haugtussa evoke a specifically Norwegian, and rural, milieu is through language. The text o f Haugtussa. by the poet A.O. Vinje. is written in the form o f Norwegian today called Nynorsk. or New Norwegian. This is a variant originating in the rural areas of Norway, distinct from the Norwegian spoken in the cities, which is much closer to Danish. Grieg composed equally to texts in both Nynorsk and Dano-Norwegian. In fact. Grieg was never doctrinaire about what language he would compose music to. Many of his songs are to German texts. So though Grieg did believe in the idea of languages as emblems o f nationality,18' he was never as strict as Wagner or Smetana about the necessity to use only his national language in his music. There is no obvious reason to explain his flexibility on this issue, though it may have to do with Griegs cosmopolitan outlook (his connections to Denmark and Germany, for instance), his recognition that Norwegian was a relatively minor language, or the simple fact that his personality was inherently undogmatic. Griegs unfinished national opera is called Olav Trvgvason, based on the same story as his cantata Land-sighting about the king who brought Christianity to Norway. The text is also by Bjomstjeme Bjomson, marking another collaboration by two o f the most important Norwegian nationalist artists o f their day. The story o f the legendary king is taken from the sagas written by the ancient Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson, and the opera is positively awash in both history and myth. It is set near the town o f Trondheim, where Olav supposedly founded the first Christian church in Norway. The completed scenes portray the reaction o f the pagan hordes to the prophesied coming o f the Christian king, and with it, the downfall o f the gods from Old Norse mythology. Following a solemn rite in which a panoply o f Norse deities are invoked, the pagans erupt in dances
l!C H e s a y s in h is le t te r s th a t w h ile o n e m u s t lo v e o n e s la n g u a g e (Brev B in d I. p . 17 7 ) . n a tio n a lity u ltim a te ly lie s d e e p e r (Brev B in d II, p .3 2 4 ) .
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around a sacred flame, which corresponds to a typical portrayal o f the folk." The opera fragment ends at that scene, though according to Bjomson's plan the conclusion was to feature Olav victorious, surrounded by throngs desperate to be baptized. It is interesting that the opera embraces both the pagan. Old Norse mythology as well as the achievements o f the Christian king as elements o f a total Norwegian national culture. Grieg said that his music to Olav T n g vason was inspired by this "saga enthusiasm." which he defined in parentheses as the national."18'1 With the dark tonal colors he brings out o f the orchestra. Grieg is quite successful in evoking a days-of-yore epic mood. What he was aiming for in this music is suggested by his comments about Wagners Ring. While he admired W agner's use o f saga subjects, he thought that if a Scandinavian had composed to such subjects, then "we would have gotten to hear a bit more o f the Edda-sound." the Old Norse tone. 184 Olav Tn gvason was left incomplete because after a few complications and misunderstandings, he and Bjomson had a falling out, and the text was never finished. The reasons Grieg never attempted another national opera are various. One reason he gave was that he could never get a text that satisfied him. And rather than compose to a bad text, he would just not compose an opera at all.18' Another reason is likely his poor health as he got older, which generally prevented him from being able to concentrate sufficiently on such a large-scale work as an opera. In any event. Grieg returned to the music in the late 1880s and revised it before the opera fragment was first performed in Christiania in 1889, where audiences received it
ISj G r ie g Brev B in d I. p . 1 03 . 154 G a u k s ta d . p p . 8 6 - 7 . 155 S e e Breve til Frants Beyer, p .9 8 .
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enthusiastically.IS < So though Grieg's opera was never finished, it was obviously designed to fulfill a sim ilar national function as W agner's and Smetana's dramatic works. All the themes o f creating a national music, elevating the public, as well as issues o f cosmopolitaneity and networks in other words, the core topics o f this dissertation come together in the music festival Grieg organized in Bergen in 1898. As a summation o f his career, it is not too much o f a stretch to think o f this festival as Griegs Bayreuth. Grieg wanted to call the festival a Norsk Musikfest: it would feature exclusively works by Norwegian composers.
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His intention was to showcase modem Norwegian music, to
show Norwegians that they own a national art music... capable o f speaking to everyone'' i.e., to all members o f Norwegian society, and presumably to people from all nations.188 In this way Norwegian music would come nearer to the peoples heart indeed, he said, this was a national responsibility that the festival would fulfill.180 The festival was not only an artistic experience, though, for it was also a link in our peoples education. 1 The way to achieve these goals, Grieg thought, was through the most ideal possible performance o f the music.11 To that end, he engaged Amsterdams Concertgebouw Orchestra to come to Bergen. That act set o ff a storm o f protest from chauvinists (Griegs term) who thought it an insult that a foreign orchestra would be performing these Norwegian works. But Grieg countered that even the alternative, the
IS6 B e n e s ta d a n d S c h je ld c r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 8 8 ) . p . 166. 1X7 G r ie g Brev B i n d I. p .2 0 2 . Ixx G a u k s ta d . p . 1 7 1 . 1X9 G r ie g Brev B i n d I. p .4 8 6 . 190 G a u k s ta d . p . 17 2 . ,1>I G r ie g Brev B i n d I. p .4 8 6 .
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Christiania orchestra, was made up o f many German musicians, so that it was not "truly" Norwegian. And in any event, it was also an ensemble far inferior to the Concertgebouw. G riegs insistence on hiring the Amsterdam orchestra shows how he could put the goals o f art over more narrowly nationalistic concerns. Beyond that, according to Grieg one additional benefit o f engaging the Concertgebouw was that it would then have these Norwegian pieces in its repertoire, and so Norwegian composers (especially the lesser-known ones) could make greater in-roads into European musical life.1 1 ,3 Finally, by inviting all "decent Norwegian composers to be performed at the festival, Grieg did his own part to bring together the network o f nationalist artists.194 Besides Griegs music, that of Johan Svendsen, Christian Sinding, Johan Halvorsen. Catharinus Elling, Iver Holter, Johan Selmer, and Gerhard Schjelderup was also performed.195 Many o f these composers already knew each other before the festival: Grieg and Svendsen. at least, were good friends. But as an opportunity to bring them all together (minus Selmer, who could not attend), for them to hear each others music actually performed, the festival was unique. Here they had the chance to see how other national composers were writing, to learn from each other. In this sort o f setting they could personally trade ideas about what Norwegian national music could and should be. The festival did turn out to be a resounding success, with extremely enthusiastic audiences. Grieg seems to have regarded those two weeks in Bergen as some o f the most rewarding and happy o f his life.
I O
|1,: ibid.. p .2 0 2 . 1,3 ibid.. p . 3 15. 194 U s e s th e te r m " d e c e n t in ibid.. p .2 0 4 . I<)'' ibid.. p .3 1 5.
Conclusion
The discourse we have examined in this chapter is most directly concerned with creating a national music and thereby a national culture. In response to a perceived decline in their respective nations cultures. W agner. Smetana, and Grieg all demanded that the populace be educated in the values o f high art. This art would be superior not only because o f its aesthetic standards but also because it would be national. It would simultaneously grow from the nation and help construct that nation. These three composers set themselves the task both o f founding the educational institutions to enlighten the people and of creating the artworks that would make the people national. We have seen that the strategies for creating national artworks are effectively identical in all three cases, comprising incorporation o f the national language and aspects from myth or history and the national landscape. Additionally, this discourse has shown how nationalist composers fashioned a role for themselves within the nation-building movement. This role dealt o f course with the creation o f the national music, and it involved the educational and artistic strategies mentioned above. They made this role for themselves in that they identified certain spheres where they perceived their populace as insufficiently national and then set about correcting that deficiency with the educational and creative strategies they devised. In this way they constituted the practice o f the nationalist composer, and showed that artists could play a critical role in effecting social change. This emergence o f artists as agents for social change is further bound up with two phenomena I mentioned in the introduction: the change in the social place and the social function o f art. First, beginning principally in the later 18Ih century we observe that art
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gradually moved avvav from being the preserve solely o f the higher classes (the nobility, in particular) and became democratized. that is. open as well to those outside the aristocracy, from the middle classes all the way to. in theory, the workers and peasants.196 There were o f course several contributing causes to this democratization of art. The decline o f noble patronage for the arts is especially important. The heyday o f noble patronage expired with the French Revolution, and increasingly artists supported themselves through other means, selling their commodities to a much larger public. So the progressive embourgeoisement o f the populace is also responsible for increasing the potential audience for art. There are certain self-preservation motives to the artist's seeking support from the middle classes, then, in that the river o f aristocratic largesse flowed ever more weakly as the nineteenth century proceeded.19' There were ideological motives as well, however, particularly for nationalist artists. We have seen how Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg all insist that their music is for the broad mass o f people equally. In these artists' conception, the audience for their artworks is not a select circle o f aristocrats but rather the entire nation. Even if the middle and upper classes continued to be those who most frequented the theater and the concert hall, the nationalists' rhetorical appeal is to all classes, to the Gesamtnation. It is worth noting that the actual, historically-observable expansion in the audience for high art occurred at much the same time as nationalism was becoming a mass movement. To put it in Miroslav H roch's terms, we see a striking degree o f coincidence between nationalisms transition from phase B to phase C and the growth o f middle-class support
l% S e e f o r e x a m p l e C o n r a d L . D o n a k o w s k i. A Muse fo r the Masses ( C h ic a g o : U n iv e r s ity o f C h i c a g o P re ss . 1 9 7 7 ). I9' T h o u g h t h a t r i v e r b y n o m e a n s d r i e d u p c o m p le te ly : W a g n e r a n d T c h a ik o v s k y , f o r in s ta n c e , b o t h r e lie d o n a r is to c r a tic s u p p o r t a t s o m e p o i n t in t h e ir c a r e e r s . W a g n e r f r o m K in g L u d w ig II. a n d T c h a ik o v s k y f r o m th e C o u n t e s s v o n M e e k .
R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e rm is s io n .
for the arts. This dynamic applies in all three countries of my study, at slightly different periods o f course, with Germany earliest and Norway latest. Without wishing to oversimplify the picture, one can nonetheless observe that as these nationalist movements took on a mass character, simultaneously audiences and public support for the high arts such as music were also expanding. Through their discourse and practice, activist artists were partly responsible for this democratization o f art. Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg made art that they intended to speak to everyone. They wanted all kinds o f people in the opera house or concert hall to hear their music. Part o f the purpose beyond their avowedly democratic approach was so that their art that would effectuate the fusion o f the different classes into one people; we will examine this unifying power of art more closely in the next chapter. But their discourse also reveals that part o f the democratization o f art entails the move away from aristocracy as the artists patron toward the nation becoming the patron. The nation is in fact the patron, audience, and subject o f the nationalist artists work. The nation is the patron because all members o f the national society are supposed to support the artist in his work. It is the audience because the artist intends all members o f the national society to appreciate his work. It is the subject because o f course in his work the artist is celebrating (and constructing) the nations culture. Interestingly, then, nationalist artists were concerned with creating their own patrons, since their project was to create the national populace. One need not see this as an example o f actors rationally maximizing their possible support. Though there was doubtless some element o f selfinterested calculation in W agners, Smetanas, and Griegs designs, we have seen that certain emotional beliefs about the shame o f the nations cultural decline are much more important motivating factors for their actions.
R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e cop y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p ro d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e rm is s io n .
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Nationalist artists were also critically involved in the second phenomenon I mentioned above, the change in the social function o f art. In the nineteenth century art becomes viewed increasingly as something not solely for entertainment or decoration. Instead, artists such as Schiller begin arguing for art as a force for social change. Again, this conceptualization is not wholly without precedent, nor do I wish to suggest that it is ineluctably associated with the rise o f nationalism. However, there can be no question that the work o f men like Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg to utilize art precisely for this purpose o f social change played a role in altering the conceptualization o f arts function more broadly. These three composers all deride the idea that a rts purpose is mere amusement. They insist that art must be edifying, and they append to this edification a specific nationalist goal. As we have seen, in addition to improving a peoples morals and tastes, art is supposed to educate them in the values o f their own nationality. In the nationalist artists conception, art can thereby help create national citizens. Artists first create a national high culture, and through propagation and performance o f their work they educate the populace into that culture. We should regard this idea o f arts power to edify and nationalize as a supplement to the classical model o f nationalism that stresses the educative role o f schools in producing national citizens. Clearly, there are more institutions for national education than just the school: the opera house and the concert hall played a part as well. Moreover, in nationalist artists vision, art was actually able to physically constitute the nation: the national populace is brought together by assembling in the theater or concert hall to view or hear the expression o f their nationality in art. When they are all sitting there to participate in the spectacle o f the nation's culture, the members o f the public are themselves becoming national in the process. In this way, the Gesamtnation is forged by representing it through art, and art thus becomes a force for social change.
C hapter T wo T h e R o l e o f Fo l k S o u r c e s in C r e a t i n g a N a t i o n a l M u s ic
Where would nationalists be without the folk"? W ithout this envisioned group of people to mythologize, romanticize, idealize and extol, the entire nationalist project would perhaps be like a house built without a foundation. Some idea o f the folk, of course, serves as a central subject in virtually all European nationalist discourse. Music in this case is no different. But the example o f music is especially illuminating in terms of how nationalist intellectuals attempted to construct the relationship between the folk and the putative nation in so doing, constructing not just that nation but the folk as well. The folk is constructed in two ways: most obviously, nationalist intellectuals are trying to create a nationalized populace, a Gesamtvolk that shares a unified national culture. Secondly, however, nationalists are constructing an image o f the original folk that is, the peasants who are conceived as the purest bearers o f nationality. Yet this romanticized image o f the peasants occasionally comes into conflict with the harsh reality o f peasant life: the dichotomy between the ideal and the actual is something nationalist intellectuals grapple with in their discourse. The focus o f this chapter is the relationship between the folk" and the national high culture. The key first phase in this relationship is conceiving o f folk sources as national." This conception is a result o f a contingent historical process, contrary to what nationalists (and even some later scholars) have claimed. Rather than accepting an idea of the inherent nationality o f folk sources, I will begin by showing how such sources were nationalized. N ationalists fundamental claim is that folk culture is a kind of inheritance on which the national culture would be built. As the discourse shows, however, the utility o f folk culture is actually somewhat limited. Folk inspirations are
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ss building blocks for the national culture, but in and of themselves they cannot constitute that culture. They must be re-fashioned into an artistically worthy high culture. In this way the effort to create a national music exposes the social tensions between the ostensibly low and high cultures that exist within the envisioned national populace. Nonetheless, the entire nationalist project is one that attempts to bridge these divisions, to produce the unified national culture. Music itself fulfilled this function o f a bridge, in the nationalists' vision: it was a product o f the natural. folk inspirations that would become refined into high art forms. My goal is to demonstrate both the historical and philosophical background in nation-building movements treatment o f peasant culture. After outlining the critical intellectual concepts that impact the effort to produce a national culture, I will then turn to my three composers to examine their own thoughts on folk inspirations. While all three correspond broadly to the intellectual trends I delineate, they also take a few further rhetorical and practical steps on the implementation o f these ideas in their own artistic creations.
The nationality of folk sources
To understand how nationalist artists employed folk sources in their works, we first have to understand how these sources came to be viewed as national. There are several identifiable steps in this nationalization o f peasant culture. First we will examine the growing interest in the folk that was inspired in large part by Herders researches. Then we will see how efforts to preserve the folks culture folk song and folk tale collections, for example began to code this culture as inherently national. Even once the products of peasant culture were identified as national, however, a divide between this low culture and the high culture o f art continued to persist. The focus o f nationalist
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artists' embrace o f folk sources, then, was to raise these low forms up into the realm o f high art. I will show at the end o f this section that the building of this bridge to create a unified national populace is one o f the key tenets in the theory o f nationalism. When nineteenth-century nationalist intellectuals referred to "the folk, to whom exactly were they referring? In the discussion throughout this chapter, I will most often use the English version o f the word i.e.. folk even though it does not convey the full range of meaning behind the German term Volk, whose range o f meaning I do nonetheless wish to imply. Folk in English, with its most frequent connotations o f "old folks or "folksiness simply misses out on the significance o f the people, a community o f shared history, culture, and values, found in the German term. Occasionally I cannot resist relying on the German term, particularly when referencing such specific concepts as the Volksgeist which have no real equivalent in English. The Czechs refer to the ndrod , a term that fuses a variety o f ideas such as folk. people. and nation, making translation also quite complicated. The Norwegian word, though, is fo lk , and fewer translation problems arise with it. When Herder, one of the ultimate prophets o f the Volk, uses that term, he often means the wild, lively, free, sensual [sinnlicher]," unpolished "people o f nature, that is, the uncivilized peoples like the North American Indians.1 Also, however, he suggests it can refer to rural people or even to the ancient Greeks, who had their own folk poets such as Homer.: Subsequent writers take up these various strands, as W erner Danckert discusses, using the term Volk to refer alternately to the "populus (Gesamtvolk), or the "vulgus in populo. The term that best expresses the typical nationalist use o f Volk,
1Johann Gottfried von Herder, Stimmen der Volker in Liedern, in Ausgeiuahlte Werke (Stuttgart: J.G. Cottascher Verlag, 1844), p.301, 305. 2 ibid., p.306, 312.
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though, is Albert Dietrich's phrase soil o f the culture-nation.'" This conception suggests the change in meaning from merely the lower classes (such as the peasants) to an idea o f Volk as nation.4 Carl Engel provides a perfect example o f this association of the peasants with the nation as a whole. In most European countries, Engel wrote in 1866. it is... among the working classes, the artisans, the field labourers, and the country people in general, that we must look out for genuine specimens o f National music.' Here it is the lower classes who automatically produce naturally and inevitablythe truly national. As we shall see, this idea is carried throughout the discourse on national music and the role folk inspirations should play in the national culture. How, though, is the folk national? The move to understand folk sources as inherently national in character involves several steps, historically speaking. Collection efforts form the first step. These collections are then presented as kind o f cultural inheritance o f the whole nation. The idea is that the Volfcsgeist the ethereal, eternal font o f the nations identity endures in peasant traditions long after city dwellers have become de-nationalized. I will discuss these steps in greater detail below. With the example o f folk music, however, what are fundamentally rural, local or regional forms came to be reinterpreted (by nationalist intellectuals and eventually by nationalized publics) as national. Oftentimes, folk dances or tunes are associated with a particular region. In this sense, they are originally sub-national. And as Walter Wiora points out, folk traditions can also be supra-national.6 Before the nineteenth-century
* Werner Danckert, Das Volkslied im Abendland (Bern: Fracke Verlag, 1966), p.25. 4 Dahlhaus (1989), p.110. 5 Carl Engel, An Introduction to the Study of National Music (London: Longman, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1866) p.3. 6 Walter Wiora, Europaische Volksmusik und abendlandische Tonkunst (Kassel: Johann-Philipp-Hinnenthal-Verlag, 1957), p. 163.
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nationalist movements, folk traditions not infrequently consisted o f international" elements, in that some traditions are common across wider territorial boundaries. Hence certain musical features, like perhaps the bagpipe drone common to a number o f peasant traditions, appear in the folk musics o f more than one nation." Contrary to the nationalist understanding o f folk musics which conceptually binds the local peasants and their traditions to an artificial whole in the territory that would eventually become the nation, the European folk song is in no way a multi-colored flower garden o f indigenous national elements... that essentially arose in a particular land and were spread from there, as Wiora writes. Rather, a web o f wide-ranging connections unites folk traditions across what would come to be national or nation-state borders.7 The incorporation o f folk elements into high art is admittedly not new with nationalism. Colorfully costumed peasants were tramping around opera stages long before such peasants came to be regarded as expressions o f the Volksgeist. Indeed, the national treatment o f folk sources builds in some ways upon previous artistic practice of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For example, an "idealizing portrayal o f country life is a popular trope in French comic opera as well as north-German Singspiels prior to 1800. The use o f peasant choruses, dances, and songs figured as an "indispensable element in many operas o f this period.8 Nationalists take up this presentation of traditional peasant life as a kind o f dreamland. They depict the peasants as living in a "cozy idyll.9 But this idyll, in the nationalist conception, is a state o f nature where the springs o f nationality flow freely and purely.
7 ibid. Das echte Volkslied (Heidelberg: Muller-Thiergarten-Verlag, 1962), p.27. 8 Wolfgang Michael Wagner, Carl Maria von Weber und die deutsche Nationaloper (Mainz: Schott, 1994), p.33. 9 Wiora (1962), p.59.
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Only after about 1800. however, with the emergence o f nationalism as a political and cultural force, would the peasant forms be invested with a national meaning. Hence when we find a peasant dance in an opera o f Gretry from, say. 1784. we can be sure there was no nationalist intent behind its use instead, it was most likely meant to evoke a pastoral mood of the countryside. In Smetana, however, the peasant dance becomes a symbol evoking the entire nation. There is both a continuity and a divergence in these two uses of peasant material, then: both the nationalist and the non-nationalist recur to peasant forms to express an idyllic rural life. However, for nationalists this idyll is like a time-warp back to the uncorrupted sources o f the national culture, and the peasants are not just peasants but are rather the consummate preservers o f that culture. Nationalists identify with the peasants, whereas in earlier historical depictions o f the peasantry in opera, there is no assumed unity between the rural people and the spectators in the theater. We will return to this idealizing trope and the notion o f national unity later. Complicating this question, though, is the fact that peasant dances were sometimes, even before nationalist movements gathered steam, called national.' For example, in Norway in 1815 Lars Roverud writes o f the peasants national dances. 1 0 Finkelstein also refers to how musical production in different countries had already taken on national characteristics in the seventeenth century. He mentions, for example, how John Dowlands music stems from English traditions, or that Bachs religious works were suffused with the style and substance o f the German Lutheran chorales. 1 1 The idea is that certain identifiable, country-specific traditions or styles existed prior to
1 0 Lars Roverud, Et Blik paa Musikens Tilstand i Norge (Christiania: Forfatterens Forlag hos Thr. Grondahl, 1815), p.21. 1 1 Sidney Finkelstein, Composer and Nation: The Folk Heritage in Music (New York: International Publishers, 1989), p. 12. Dahlhaus (1980), p.85 also refers to the phenomenon of national styles pre-dating nationalism.
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nationalism and hence music even before the nineteenth-century nationalist movements can be described in some way as national. The problem here is one that Hobsbawm points to in discussing the difficulty o f a Begrijfsgeschichte o f the term national." This term could be and in fact was used simultaneously to mean different things. An early meaning o f nation was simply birth and descent group. 1 2 What nationalism then adds, conceptually, to the pre-existent understandings o f nation would be the idea o f common duties and a shared culture across social divisions. In this way. so nationalism would have it. peasant dances belong just as much to middle-class, urban Norwegians as to the rural dwellers in their isolated hamlets. It seems likely that when Roverud used the term national it was a reference to group distinctiveness, predicated on evident differences between, say, Norwegian and German peasant dances, rather than as a reference to the deeper commonalities uniting a people on the basis o f nationality. In contrast, when the folk musician Knut Dahle wrote to Grieg in 1901 about the need to preserve the "national tunes he knew, Dahle was evidently relying on this nationalized conception o f peasant traditions as belonging to all of Norwegian society.
Nationalizing fo lk traditions One o f the first ways that folk traditions become national is simply through the labeling o f them as such. For instance, in Stimmen der Vdlker in Liedern, Herder identifies the songs he presents as Italian, Spanish, German, Danish, and so on. Very rarely does a song receive any sort o f designation o f a regional or local provenance. This was the typical practice o f the folk song collectors: they went looking for
12 Hobsbawm, p.16.
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specifically German" or Czech" or Russian" songs, and when they published them, they identified them as such. Admittedly, such songs occasionally also received regional identifications, such as specifying where exactly in Norway a particular dance is practiced, or whether a given tune was discovered in Moravia versus Bohemia. But even in such cases, the emphasis is on such objects as national rather than local. They are Norwegian first, and only secondly from, say. the Gudbrandsdal region. The fact that these songs were not in any way originally" national has been too often misunderstood, however. George Herzog reminds us that The main danger in classification is that it leads to assuming that objects in a storeroom were originally created and deposited in that order. 1 ' O f course, the mere labeling o f songs as national is not sufficient for a shared belief in their nationality to take root in the populace. But these classification schemes help establish the idea o f a particular tune or text as German or "Czech. Subsequently, nationally-minded thinkers continue to configure such sources as national, reinforcing this conception both through their discourse and, in the case o f artists, through their own works. This initial, classificatory process is very much akin to Benedict Andersons discussion o f censuses, maps, and museums in Imagined Communities .1 4 Censuses, maps, and museums all help fix an idea o f national boundaries and these can be boundaries in the territorial sense, as in a map, or in a more purely conceptual one, such as by packaging an exhibit o f Indonesian cultural treasures in a museum. Thanks to print capitalism, Anderson writes, a sort o f pictorial census o f the state's patrimony becomes available... l? These folk song editions, while obviously not pictorial per se, help
1 3 Cited in Philip V. Bohlman, The Study of Folk Music in the Modern World (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1988), pp.50-1. 1 4 See Anderson, pp.163-186. 1 5 Anderson, p.182.
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produce a conception o f nationality and national culture simply through the classification of folk songs according to the criteria o f national provenance. Print capitalism plays a role here, too: folk song collection was a movement that penetrated virtually all the comers o f the European continent, and the publication and dissemination o f these collections was a similarly wide-spread phenomenon. Different, though, from Anderson's examples, at least early on in European history the state was not involved in promoting or supporting folk song collection (though in Norway, Lars Roverud thought there should be government funding for such endeavors). Collectors were primarily independent scholars or enthusiastic amateurs interested in promoting their putative nation's culture. Herder is generally credited with sparking the subsequent explosion o f national folk song research. He is followed in Germany by figures such as Achim von Amim. Clemens Brentano. the brothers Grimm, and later others such as Ludwig Christian Erk.1 6 These collections were not always folk songs strictly speaking. Herders collections, for example, rarely included reproductions of any actual melodies. Similarly, von Amim and Brentanos Des Knaben Wunderhorn is a compendium o f texts, and the Grimms works focused primarily on folk and fairy tales. For our purposes, it is important to remember that nationalist music is not based solely on folk songs other folk elements such as legends play an equally prominent role in Wagners. Sm etanas, and Griegs efforts to produce a national music, as we will see. H erders influence and example was a direct inspiration for later collectors throughout Europe, and nowhere was this influence more immediate than on Czech collectors. Herder's Czech counterparts are figures such as Jan Ritter z Rittersberku, Frantisek Ladislav Celakovsky. and Karel Jaromir Erben.17 In Scandinavia, folk song
1 6 See Jan Ling, A History of European Folk Music (Rochester: University of Rochester F*ress, 1997). > See Vft( 1989), p.312.
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collections by the Danes Abrahamsen. Nyerup. and Rahbek and the Swedes Afzelius and Geijer proceeded those o f the paramount figure for Norway. Ludwig Mathias Lindeman. Lindemans collections, which he began publishing in 1840. form the bedrock of all subsequent interest in Norwegian folk music, and his compendium o f melodies would be used by many subsequent composers. Grieg among them.ls Peter Christen Asbjomson and Jorgen Moe's collections o f folk tales (1841-44) are the prose analog o f Lindemans work, in terms o f their centrality in Norwegian culture. A principal stated motivation for all such collections was to preserve" a culture that was perceived as dying out. Herder again provides an early impulse here. He admonished the Germans, saying that the voices o f your fathers" are not faded away, or silenced in the dust. These national folk traditions are still there, but they lie under mud, they are underestimated and despised." Hence his rallying cry: Get to work, my brothers, and show our nation what she is and is not, how she thought and felt, or how she thinks and feels. 1 9 Note how Herder switches tenses here, implying the continuity between the nations past and its present. Von Amim later also lamented the complete extinction o f the folk song in many areas, or otherwise its fall into dirt and emptiness..."20 This call for preservation applied to folk songs, folk tales, and even languages. The effort by men such as Josef Dobrovsky or Josef Jungmann to reconstruct" a modem Czech language out o f its medieval roots not coincidentally takes place almost exactly at the same time as the investigations into folk song. Indeed, the publication o f such folk songs in Czech was an essential part o f the linguistic revival, in that through such collections nationalists hoped to encourage the use o f the Czech language among urban
1 8 See Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p.12, p.52.
1 9 Herder, p.311.
20 Cited in Wiora (1962), pp.56-7.
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dwellers.2 1 These collections were conceived in both a scholarly and patriotic sense, since they were supposed to serve as an archive o f the nation's history and cultural values. An excellent expression o f the ethos o f preservation is a letter Grieg wrote to the Storting (the Norwegian parliament) in 1900. calling for state support o f folk song research: It is absolutely essential at this time that a historical report o f our folk melodies be undertaken. How often 1 receive from the big culture lands requests for information on source material for studies o f Norwegian folk tunes (that is, folk melodies). To my shame I have to say: 1 dont know any such source materials. Or rather: to our nations shame. For there arent any. The guiding idea behind these collections is the conviction that folk songs and tales are an inheritance o f the entire nation, and hence need to be preserved so the nation does not lose its culture. Herder calls folk songs the archive o f the peoples science and religion, its theology and cosmology, ...impression o f its heart, picture of its domestic life in joy and sorrow.2j They are the eternal hereditary and joyful song o f the Volk.24 He admits that the folk tunes may not correspond to the demands o f art per se, but he insists that the music o f a nation, even in its least perfect developments and typical styles, shows the inner character o f the same, that is, the actual disposition o f its sensitivities, more deeply and truly than the longest description o f its outward quirks ever could.2 There are two key claims here. The first is the trans-historical nature o f the folk traditions: they are eternal. Secondly, Herder emphasizes that despite any deficiencies
See Vit (1988), p.55-7. 22 Gaukstad, p.111. 23 Herder, p.311. M ibid., p.301. ' 25 Cited in Walter Wiora, Herders Ideen zur Geschichte der Musik in Erich Keyser, ed. Im Geiste Herders (Kitzingen am Main: Holzner-Verlag, 1953), p. 117.
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in artistic quality, folk traditions are nonetheless the best repository o f the nation's values. These claims are key because upon them Herder builds the idea that a national art must grow out o f folk inspirations. He says that his collections o f folk songs are not so much poetry in themselves but rather materials for poetry."26 He calls for a living German poetry to build upon this folk inheritance, so that the Germans would finally have their own, national style o f poetry.27 Herders bundle o f ideas eternal folk traditions as a cultural inheritance upon which a national art must be built are o f course fundamental for many subsequent thinkers on nationality, within the discourse on national music as well. Goethe, for one, though strictly speaking no nationalist, takes up theconception o f thecountry people as a repository o f cultural values that could refresh art.28 Thus hecalled for folk songs revived and celebrated to return to the Volk and to merge into the life and culture [Bildung] o f the nation.-} Later German writers such as Josef von Eichendorff and W.H. Riehl similarly praise folk traditions as the roots o f national poetry and music. Indeed, these ideas are carried over into the twentieth century by figures such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Hubert Parry. In his essay National Music Vaughan Williams approvingly cites Parry: All things that mark the folk-music o f the race also betoken the quality o f the race and as a faithful reflection o f ourselves we must needs cherish it. Moreover it is worth remembering that the great composers... have concentrated upon their folk-music much attention, since style is ultimately national. [...] The purest product [of communal-based efforts to create a style] is folk-song which... outlasts the greatest works o f art and
26 Herder, p.316.
27 ibid., p.310.
28 Cited in Wiora (1957), p.23. 29 Cited in Wiora (1962), p.9.
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becomes a heritage to generations and in that heritage may lie the ultimate solution o f characteristic national art.'0 As regards individual cases o f nationalist movements such as the German. Czech, and Norwegian, we should understand the research and exaltation o f folk traditions as an attempt to establish the essential and fundamental qualities o f the national identity.'1 With respect to Germany, we have seen how Herder looked to find a uniquely German poetic art in the folk song traditions. Fichte carries on this idea o f Germanness as residing in the Volk, and von Amim and the Grimms similarly locate the German Volksgeist in the folk tales that they p u b lish ed .A d h erin g to the same pattern, collectors such as Celakovsky and others in the Czech lands also regarded the peasants as the bearers of Czechness." Folk poetry and song were the most healthy and most sincere display of all spiritual values" for early Czech patriots. 4 Norwegian nationalists, with their claim that the rural people preserved an untouched or pure Norwegian culture, were accurate in one sense: living snugly tucked away in their remote valleys and fjords, the peasants did indeed largely escape assimilation into the Dano-centric culture that dominated Norwegian towns and e lite s/' Hence it was to those remote peasant settlements that the Norwegian violinist (and all-around nationalist activist) Ole Bull
30 Cited in Vaughan Williams, p.40. 31 Dahlhaus (1980), p.88 refers to this. 32 W.M. Wagner, p.35. 33 Artur Zavodsky, Frantisek Ladislav Celakovsky (Praha: Melantrich, 1982) p.155. M Racek, p.28. 35 Rolf Danielsen, Norway: A History from the Vikings to Our Own Times (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), p. 190.
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looked when he declared that the Norwegian art stands ready and waiting in the mountains. 1 6 One common idea that the Norwegian example clearly emphasizes is the connection between the folk and nature. Peasant culture, as a source o f nationality untainted by foreign influences, acquires a certain natural, almost elemental force. Here, again, is an area where Herder's contribution has a ripple effect on subsequent thought. Herder argued that only a folk that was still close to nature really had a living culture: The farther from an artificial, scientific way o f thinking, speaking, and writing a Volk is, the less must its songs be made only for paper; when they are made only for paper, they are just dead verses. 7 Indeed, to produce culture at all, a Volk must be natural. and not artificial, as he terms i t / 8 Part o f this natural force is a quality o f timelessness, as I remarked upon previously. Folk traditions were, in Herder's and subsequent thought, a remnant o f the world gone by, preserved in peoples who dwell in cut-off comers o f the world where the past still lives. 0 Being cut off in this way, the peasant traditions are true to themselves, true to their authentic nationality, expressing the natural, universal, enduring, individual characteristics o f that nationality, as Erben declared in his A Word about National Songs.40 In this article, Erben tautologically emphasizes that a people can only be truly national if the national spirit still lives in them. This spirit or Volksgeist expresses itself through a peoples songs, stories, and traditions; it is what makes such cultural products uniquely national.
36 Niels Grinde, Grieg as a Norwegian and a European Composer, Studia Musicologica Norvegica 20: 1994, p. 125. 37 Herder, p.301. 38 See Wiora (1953), p.75. 39 ibid., p.91. 40 Karel Jaromir Erben, Proza a diuadlo (Praha: Melantrich, 1939), p.151.
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In order to understand better the role that folk traditions played in constructing national cultures, we need to take a step back from these nationally-rooted conceptions o f peasant culture. The idea o f naturalness, based as it is on the perceived connections between the peasants, the Earth, timeless traditions, and their isolation from the modem world, confers a kind o f authenticity upon the peasant traditions. This authenticity is what makes the peasant traditions suitable as a foundation for the national music. When they are still living they have this kind o f natural, national force (thanks to the Volksgeist) that can create a truly national music. How. though, did the traditions cease being alive or vital? Part o f the answer is that the inherently national traditions could become supplanted by foreign practices. Also, the folk traditions could become de-natured by trivial or outright worthless artistic treatments o f them. Such trivialities subvert the innate dignity of the folks national spirit. Wagner and Smetana both rail against such trivializing treatments, as we will see below. Despite nationalists evident reverence for the folk traditions, they nonetheless considered these traditions in and o f themselves an insufficient base for a national art. Here we come to W ioras useful distinction between first and second existence. The first function o f folk traditions is for the peasants themselves, those who created them and practice them. The second function is then for the nationalist intellectuals such as collectors or composers who seize on these traditions and impute to them a nationalistic meaning.4 1 Folk songs transformed into art music and transported from the rural village into the concert hall exemplify this second function. Contrary to what a nationalist might claim, however, we should regard the artistic, folk-inspired music not as inherently any less vital or authentic, but rather as simply another kind o f socio-cultural expression,
41 See Cesar Bresgen, Der Komponist und die Volksmusik (Vienna: Universal Edition,
1 9 7 0 ).
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different but related to the naturally occurring" folk song. Implicit in the claims about naturalness and vitality is another issue, the divide between high and low cultures.
High versus low
Together with all the paeans to the pristine folk culture, we also see in the nationbuilding discourse a troubled attempt to grapple with alternate, condescending perceptions of the peasants themselves: the mutual embrace between the peasants and the rest o f the populace does not quite amount to a teary-eyed family reunion. The simultaneous exaltation o f the folk combined with the rhetorical attempt to skirt the deep social divisions within the envisioned national populace is a theme that has received too little attention. It is, though, a fundamental theme, above all in the efforts to create a national culture. The tension between ideas o f high and low in the discourse is related to the problem o f the multiple meanings of the term Volk. Though the nationalist aspiration was for a Volk as a Gesamtvolk , that is. a unified, culturally homogeneous national populace, there is also the legacy o f the Volk as the hoi polloi to contend with. Thus even if the peasants, in their idealized form, embody the soil o f the culture-nation, in reality those same peasants were often rather too smelly and coarse for the intellectuals advancing the idea o f nationhood. The folk, though a cultural repository o f nationality, remained politically inert, at least through the early stages o f the nationalist project. That project, though, we must understand precisely as an attempt to motivate the populaceacross social divisions for the theses o f nationalism. The political and cultural goal, after all, is to create a Gesamtvolk. In a certain sense we can see the effort to build a national culture as an attempt to inspire these inert but inherently national peasants to live up to the
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nationalists' claims for them. But just as the masses must be mobilized for the nationalist project to succeed, so the peasant traditions need to be transformed to create a national high culture. Peasant and bourgeois publics The practice and performance o f folk and nationalist musics was fundamentally affected by the processes o f urbanization and embourgeoisement that gradually accelerated throughout the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the influx into the cities hastened a decline o f folk music traditions as they had long been practiced in the rural areas.42 This decline, as we have seen, is often described as the folk traditions becoming less vital or authentic. The other side of urbanization is that a built-in audience for folk music gradually came to exist in the cities. The profile o f the folk music traditions heightened as they came to be practiced in urban areas. They retained their association with rural life, of course, but now a much wider audience would be exposed to the traditions o f various regions and communities, as the people from those regions, along with the more established urbanites, all rubbed shoulders in the city streets. Hence the traditions o f folk music became more familiar across society.4 This development would be crucial in the subsequent creation o f a nationalist art music that relies partially on the incorporation o f folk melodies and styles. The general public, including concert-goers, increasingly had some exposure to folk music. And that music, as we have seen, was being configured in public discourse as national. Herder argued for the appeal o f folk music across society by claiming that the way to the heart is through national melodies: these national melodies have a powerful appeal.44 Musicians of
Wiora (1957), p.136. i:i Dahlahus (1980), p.97 refers to this process. MCited in Wiora (1953), p. 115.
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the time often relied upon such an appeal: they would bridge the gap between their artistic ideals and their public by turning to the folk song. Incorporating folk elements. Einstein says, was a w'ay o f meeting the audience halfway. o f coming to an agreement with [the public] by cultivating the most homely kind o f song."4^ The popular character o f folk music meant that the demands to its understanding or performance were not so high as with art music. Folk music could relatively easily find a place in middle-class homes or informal get-togethers. In this way. folk elements really did act as a bridge, particularly between the publics to which nationalist intellectuals were trying to appeal. The folk traditions appealed to the lower classes who may have recognized those traditions as their own, as well as to the bourgeoisie who were becoming more familiar with these rural forms o f cultural expression.46 Nonetheless, a divide would continue to separate not only peasant and art musics but also the treatment o f the upper and lower layers o f society. This tension underlies the concurrent efforts to produce a unified national culture. The fact is that despite their attempts occasionally to be folksy by relying on some familiarity o f their publics with the peasant traditions, the audience for art composers work was still quite limited to the educated urban classes. People fresh off the family farm in the mountains were not rushing into the concert halls. Similarly, the very notion of artistic worth continued to enforce a deep divide between folk traditions and art music. The conceptual division between folk music and composed art music dates from around the Renaissance.
1 5 Einstein, p.40. Instead of the public, Einstein actually writes the nation, but I chose to subsitute the former so as not to take the existence of the nation for granted, which he teeters close to doing. Vit(1988), p.56.
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according to Danckert, and it would not be overcome in the space o f just a few decades.4' (We could well question to what extent the division has been overcome even today.) The term composed art music to distinguish between this form and folk music comes from Bohlman.48 He also reminds us. importantly, not to accept automatically this dichotomous understanding o f folk music versus art music. The idea that these are two rigidly stratified, non-interacting genres is simply not tenable historically: folk and art music have rarely not influenced each other in some way.49 Nonetheless, in nineteenthcentury thought the stratified conception of folk versus art music does pertain. Acknowledging this fact allows us to examine its consequences for society and culture of the time. For instance, the persistent understanding o f peasant music as low co-exists, contradictorily, with the idealization o f the rural people. Perhaps, in fact, the dichotomy obtains precisely because o f the contradiction between the idealization o f the peasants, on the one hand, with the way they actually lived, on the other. Engel amusingly expressed this dichotomous perception when he wrote, The inhabitants o f Kamtschatka possess music far more expressive and beautiful than their ignorance, and their wretched life in a most ungenial climate, would lead us to expect.00 But even the rhetorical exaltation o f peasants as a cultural repository sometimes collided with the actual judgm ents o f those same peasants culture. Liszt, for one, regarded the Hungarian songs we encounter in our villages as too poor and incomplete ever to win general respect.01 Similarly,
47 Danckert, p.5. 48 Bohlman, p.47.
49 ibid., p.49.
50 Engel, p.4. 51 Cited in Ling, p.11.
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Lars Roverud. who took an early interest in the folk songs o f Norway, regarded the peasant music as practiced as uncultured and o f little actual worth, dismissing the peasant performers with epithets such as they do not know even the slightest bit about harmony.' 2 Most commonly, peasant sources were considered valuable principally as raw materials for a legitimate art. I have mentioned above Herders idea that the folk song texts he published were not art so much art as materials for art. Despite the beauty o f such sources, they really did amount only to "seeds o f high art." as Wiora puts it.' ' These ideas are predictably carried on in the Czech and Norwegian movements. F.L. Celakovsky inscribed on his second volume o f folk songs the motto that "popular poetry should serve todays poet much as the ancient chronicles underlie the historians w ritings.'4 Again showing the influence o f Herder. Celakovsky believed that folk songs should be adapted so as to provide the most perfect model for poets to use.'' Dolansky reports that Erben published his own collections partly with the hope that they would serve as a launching point for higher forms o f art. particularly a Czech opera.'6 Folk song collectors virtually never recorded verbatim the texts or melodies they encountered. Instead, they considered it necessary to tame and improve these folk sources in order to make them edifying to the singer or reader.' 7 The improvement or elevation o f folk materials could be accomplished partly through arrangement: by smoothing off the raw
52 Roverud, pp.21-2. 53 Wiora (1953), p.113. 54 Zavodsky., p. 153. 55 ibid., p. 158. 56 Julian Dolansky, Karel Jaromir Erben (Praha: Melantrich, 1970), p.62. 57 Ling, p. 13.
R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n p rohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .
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edges o f the folk songs, for example, they would conform more nearly to the standards o f art music. Smetana even admits explicitly to idealizing his folk sources. The insistence on the necessity o f elevating in no way implies that these writers disdained folk materials. Indeed, they very often loved them, and that is precisely why they wanted to present the products o f folk culture in the best light possible. As one Norwegian writer put it, through artistically suitable patchwork these folk sources could be given a worthy and appropriate appearance.' 8 The poet A.O. Vinje. a great admirer o f Norwegian folk culture, nonetheless also thought that without scientific development the ingenuity [of folk songs] is an uncut diam ond."'9 Lindeman. the godfather o f Norwegian folk melody collection, in fact expressed this bundle of ideas on elevating" and adapting with an amazing directness and clarity: Norwegian folk music is rich: in its abundance and characteristicness it is second to none. But unless it is artistically arranged and thereby developed into a national art music that can become the property o f all social classes, it will lose its richness with each passing year. Foreign music that the educated classes cultivate will inexorably sink deeper in the populace and either corrupt or supplant the national melodies. Therefore, it is o f great importance that our folk melodies be collected and published as soon as possible, in order to foster the development o f a Norwegian art music and to bring forth a musical life that can become an effective means of education for the masses, since they will find it easy to become familiar with this music. Thereby Norway will also contribute to musical development more generally, in that a large part o f modem m usic's task is to transfer folk music into the educated art forms.60 The aim. as Lindeman claims, is to produce from the example and inspiration o f folk music, a modem music to fulfill its educational role for all classes. Clearly, the uncultured peasant forms cannot attain such an end. according to Lindeman. The call for
58 Cited in Herresthal, p.107. 59 ibid., p.229. 60 From a stipend application to the Storting; cited in Herresthal, p. 150.
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folk sources to be created anew" in order to become an artistic culture" was one that explicitly motivated the work o f several generations o f nationalist artists, including Smetana and Grieg.6 1 Polka-ingfor unit}' For the nationally-minded artists who relied in one way or another on folk sources, the fusing of these sources into art music was a way o f expressing the idealized unity o f the nation. Certainly in practice this unity was more often idealized than actual. For instance, I discussed above how folk sources could serve as a bridge over extant social divisions. In fact, the very idea o f the nation is based on such an idea o f bridging other social cleavages to unite people around a common culture. The common metaphor o f the nation as family assumes this deep, basic shared identity and kinship. But what the nation adds above the mere notion o f a kinship or descent group is the equality (at least in theory) of all members. All the members o f the national body are assumed to have, again at least rhetorically, equal and fundamental entitlements, to be equal bearers o f the national identity. Historically, as nation-states were constructed, a single national language was inculcated through national schooling to which everyone had a right. The use o f a single language was supposed also to eliminate social divisions by giving every member of the nation equal access to communicating within the society. Similarly, other institutions such as a national parliament or a national theater were designed to implement a single, unified national administration and culture to which all citizens would be equally entitled. Most theoretical conceptualizations o f nation-building emphasize the importance o f national integration. Miroslav Hroch, in particular, stresses that the emergence of
61 See Stenseth, p.94.
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modem nations is a process characterized in part by the growth o f social groups integrated in terms o f their economic, political, linguistic, cultural, religious,
geographical, and historical relationships.62 Anthony Smiths idea o f the civic nation also emphasizes the common political, social, and economic rights o f the nation's citizens: part o f the transformation from the pre-national social group (the ethnie in Smiths terminology) into the unified nation involves educating the masses in national values, myths, and memories.6' In other words, an essential element o f nationalizing the masses is the propagation and inculcation o f the national culture, first constructing it and then ensuring that it is shared across the populace. In Ernest Gellners formulation, the very meaning o f nationalization is largely the move away from the rigidly segmented, isolated social strata o f the pre-industrial period, when high culture was exclusively the preserve o f elites, toward a homogeneous, integrated populace where all members have a claim to the high culture. Gellner stipulates, though, that this national culture must not be exclusively high.64 It is high to an extent, but in order to communicate across the various social classes the national culture has to have some kind o f fundament recognizable by all. some characteristics that every member of the nation whether pig farmer or prime ministercan identify with. Andersons discussion o f homogeneous, empty time also depends upon the idea o f a broad socio-cultural unity. At the root of homogeneous time is the idea o f shared activity with other members o f the nation whom you may not actually know, but whom you can comfortably imagine to be doing things not unlike what youre doing at any given
62 Hroch (1996), p.61. 63 Smith, p. 119. 64 Gellner (1983), p.37.
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m om ent/0 Nationalism encourages a belief in culture and even time as a widely-shared social space or possession that unifies across social divisions by belonging equally to every member o f the national community. Musicologists have hinted at a few examples o f art as national unification. Richard Taruskin has written o f the way Russian composers use o f folk sources changes over the course o f the nineteenth century. In composers such as Fomin and to a lesser extent Glinka (as in A Life fo r the Tsar), operatic scenes with folk tunes appear as an example o f rustics." i.e.. the lower, peasant classes. Only later, such as in the works of Musorgsky. do folk tunes become identified as belonging to the entire nation above and beyond social divisions.66 The very process o f the collection o f folk tunes entails a unifying activity, given that these folk tunes that are presented as G erm an. or Czech, and so on, actually come from a variety o f sources within society. T hey are collections of church songs, shepherds songs, school songs, and farmers' songs, for example.6' Michael Beckerman also suggests that the incorporation o f songs from a variety o f time periods entails another kind o f unification: it is the production o f a shared history for the entire nation. Recalling Andersons idea o f homogeneous time is the way Smetana in his operas creates a kind of eternal present o f the Czech nation, by linking the Czech past (through his reliance on legends and historical figures) with the future (through his use of the most advanced" compositional techniques o f his day, as well by creating works that he intended to last forever).68 Ralph Vaughan Williams, himself concerned with creating
65 Anderson, p.26. 66 Richard Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 10. 67 Wiora (1962), p.26. 68 Michael Beckerman, In Search of Czechness in Music, 19,h-Century Music X/l: 1986, p.67.
a national music for England, expressed succinctly the equality and unity inherent in the national culture when he wrote. The greatest artist belongs inevitably to his country as much as the humblest singer in a remote village they and all those who come between them are links in the same chain, manifestations on their different levels o f the same desire for artistic expression, and, moreover, the same nature o f artistic expression.69 Thus in terms of the nation-building project, the use o f folk sources in constructing a national culture fulfills the function o f communication across the rural/urban and class divides. Just as nationalist artists incorporate these folk traditions into their cultural production to create a unified national art, so this art is supposed to unify the national populace by being mutually shared. Since the national art as a unification process is often far ahead o f any such unification within the society, the presence o f folk traditions in high art is largely a symbolic integration. Still, though, by incorporating elements of peasant culture however idealized into high art forms, the peasants are in a sense incorporated into the broader society as well. Given that, in practice, these high art forms communicate primarily to the educated, urban dwellers, the national art thus becomes a means o f imparting to these urbanites some of the cultural traditions o f the rural people. As one example, Derry credits Asbjomson and Moes folk tale collections with introducing the upper classes and the town population in general to a fascinating achievement of the peasant mind. '0 So thanks to the rhetoric and practice o f the national culture, the peasants obtain a role and place in society, perhaps before they are truly integrated in a political or economic sense.71 From a social perspective (as opposed to a more narrowly musical
69 Vaughan Williams, p.7. 70 Derry, p.241. 71 I am indebted to Brusatti, p.45 for this general point.
one), then, we can understand the use o f folk sources as fulfilling both expressive and creative functions. First, obviously, national music (and the national culture more generally) is supposed to express the nationality allegedly inherent in the populace. Also, however, national music is an expression o f the idealized unity o f this populace, across the various social divides. Simultaneously, the national culture performs a creative function of actually trying to construct this unity. The vehicle for unifying the national populace is the broadly-shared culture. The national culture, as the ostensible possession o f all the nation's members, both represents and effects the social unity that is the very basis o f the concept o f the nation.
Case Studies
With this philosophical and theoretical understanding o f folk musics role in nationalist art as our springboard, we can now turn to how our three nationalist composers in particular treated folk sources. First, though, we have to draw a distinction between fundamentally different uses o f such material. What we will be examining is the use motivated by specific nationalist goals. These goals, o f course, are those o f creating a national culture. In the history o f European music, though, an at least equally common usage of folk sources is for local color. Composers follow the local color usage to give a piece of music a characteristic flavor in depicting a certain land or people. This distinction Wiora describes as that between national self-portrayal and musical travel pictures.72 These two modes are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But the critical difference between when, say, Manuel de Falla incorporates Spanish folk elements into a piece and when Glinka does the same is that the former has a nationalist intent behind his
72 Wiora (1957), p. 162.
music while the latter does not. In pieces like the Join aragonesa. Glinka used the Spanish melodies and rhythms above all for their exotic value, and not because he was looking to create a Spanish music based on any sort o f patriotic feelings about Spain. Obviously, not all music based on folk traditions is nationalistic. In the following case studies. I will examine specifically how Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg conceived o f the role o f folk sources in creating a national culture. Broadly speaking, their ideas adhere closely to the trends that I have outlined above. Nonetheless, as individual artists, they each approach folk sources in an individualized manner. After analyzing their own discourse. I will present a brief discussion o f particular works in order to show how these composers realized both their nationalist and aesthetic goals in their treatment o f folk materials.
Wagner and myth as Volk art
Those who know W agners career and thought only superficially might raise their eyebrows at the claim that he was a composer deeply inspired by folk sources. Particularly in comparison with Smetana or Grieg, he doesnt seem folksy. Wagner never wrote a suite of German dances a la Smetanas Czech or G riegs Norwegian ones, for example. But to reduce our understanding o f folk sources role in creating a national music to merely the reliance on folk tunes would be a mistake. In fact, as we shall see, Wagner looks to the folk as the ultimate source o f all art, including his own. We will first examine W agners ideas on the productive, creative capacities o f the folk, which reach their highest expression in the German Volksgeist. Then we will turn to his own implementation o f folk elements in his work, including his difficult, contradictory relationship to folk songs.
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Perhaps surprisingly. Wagner emphasizes the creative and inspirational power of the folk to an even greater degree than do Smetana or Grieg. He follows very much in the tradition o f Herder, von Amim. et. al.. in conceiving o f the Volk in the sense o f the incomparable productivity o f the prehistorical, original community [Urgemeinscliaf't]."7' This idea o f the community is paramount in W agners conception o f the nature o f the Volk. In Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft he returns again and again to necessity (Not in the German) as the motivating force behind the Volk, and in fact behind effectively every worthwhile action. The Volk is the embodiment o f all those who feel a communal necessity.74 Only the Volk acts according to this communal necessity, so only the Volk is irresistible, triumphant, and uniquely true.7? Thus it is to the Volk we must look to find our great benefactor and savior, the representative of necessity in flesh and blood, the actor that will unite everyone through the artwork.76 It is the Volk that acts to bring about the new ;77 in fact, the actual discoverer has always been only the Volk.78 Since the Volk alone acts exclusively correctly,79 we can thus understand Wagner to mean that similarly exclusively correctly is that the Volk only makes its own that which is perfectly native [heimisch ].80 In this way, then its fully natural, irresistible, and inherently native action the Volk becomes the
7 ;i Einleitung zum dritten und vierten Bande, p.5. 7 4 Kunstwerk der Zukunft, p.48. 75 ibid. 76 ibid., p.50. 77 Das Klinstlertum der Zukunft, p.256. 78 ibid., p.258. 79 ibid. 80 Was ist deutsch?, p.86.
artist o f the future/''1 But he also finds that in the V olk's art from the past "in the times o f racial-national communality the Volk was already "the sole poet and artist.82 As such, all material and all form, if they are to have some healthy life, can only be taken from this poetry- and art-discovering Volk...8 This is how Wagner maneuvers to the claim that true art can only come about through national communality, stemming from the ultimately national source o f the Volk. As the above quotes indicate, though, Wagner thinks that the Volk has already created art. His firm belief in the Volk as an artist is suggested by the parallel he draws between the work of art and religion. The artwork is the living, represented religion, he says. But artists do not discover religions they emerge from the Volk.84 The great artwork that the Volk has produced is myth: in myth the Volk becomes the creator o f art.86 Myth constitutes the communal poetic energy o f the Volk.86 The Volk integrates through myth the diverse natural phenomena into god, and from god finally into the hero. In this hero, Wagner says, the Volk recognizes itself through the composite image o f its own being, it celebrates its own deeds in the epos, and in the drama the Volk represents itself to itself.87 Myth is the embodiment o f the Volk celebrating itself in its most characteristic artwork.88 W agner here explicitly references the expressive power o f the national culture: the Volk, through its art, presents its own image to itself.
8 1 Kunstwerk der Zukunft, p.170. ibid., p. 172. Mibid. 84 ibid., p.63. 85 Oper und Drama Parts II and III, p.32. 86 ibid., p.31. 87 Oper und Drama, p.268. 88 Das Genie der Gemeinschaft, p.268.
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Though it is not clear whether Wagner ever actually read Herder, their ideas in this area correspond almost exactly. The most characteristic artwork" Wagner refers to, the highest achievement o f the Volk's art. is actually the theater. Theater is a product o f the Volk and its Geist... to a greater degree than any other art.84 This link between the Volk, myth, and drama is direct kin to Herders idea that, historically, the drama has grown from the folk tale, romance, and song.40 The theater, as a product o f the Volks culture, is the kernel o f Wagners inspiration for making his own art volkisch roughly translated, folky or possibly national. Indeed, as the consummate representation o f the Volk to itself, the theater is the ultimate sphere in which to pursue an art inspired by the Volks own creativity. Only in the sense o f the Volk can one truly compose. Wagner declares.41 Theaters supremacy, in his view, stems from the way it unites all the Volks arts: poetry, dance, and music.42 These are the philosophical underpinnings o f Volk inspiration for Wagner, or (in his view) for any other artist. There is a more metaphysical element o f inspiration as well, however. With his ideas on how an artist's Volk origins are expressed in his creativity, Wagner relies on the common idea o f the national cultural inheritance. Every artist should take jo y in the cultural inheritance o f his fatherland : Wagner praises the immeasurable pleasure... to recognize ones own self through the mother-tongue o f ones forefathers.4 This source o f inspiration is readily apparent in the poet or the visual artist. For the poet, the language in which he writes is an obvious indication of his
89 Uber Eduard Devrients Geschichte d e r d eu tsch en S c h a u s p i e l k u n s t p.231. 90 Herder, p.311.

91 K u n stw e r k d e r Z u k u n ft, p . 1 0 3 . 92 ib id .
93 Ausfiihrungen zu Religion und Kunst, p.272.
origins. For the visual artist, in turn, the nature o f his land and Volk" are decisive "for the form and colors" o f his art.94 For the musician, however, this origin is less obvious. While to some extent a musicians nationality is evident in the kind o f music he composes (such as the Italian's gift for song), the real expression o f his nationality lies deeperWagner suggests it lies in the Geist. Wagner credits the German Geist with bringing about the rebirth o f German culture, in the form o f Schillers plays and Beethovens music.1 5 A particularly miraculous feature o f the German Geist is that it was able to absorb beneficial foreign influences (such as re-discovering the Greeks) but then to develop itself further "out o f its own inner riches.96 W agner implies that Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, or Bach were both German and great precisely because their art proceeded so directly from "German-ness. Admittedly, this is a tautology, but that is allowable in Wagners metaphysics. But in this formula (great art = Germanness + greatness) we find his recipe for the art he himself hoped to produce. "Only that which the Volk, which nature has itself produced, he writes, can serve as material for the poet; through him, though, the unconscious in the Volks product achieves consciousness, and it is he [the artist], who imparts this consciousness to the Volk. Thus in art the unconscious life o f the Volk achieves consciousness...97 Notice how he equates the Volk with nature here. Also, he states once again that the role o f the artist is to represent to the Volk its own, unknown life. Nonetheless, the artist is in
94 Beethoven, p.62. 95 See Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik, pp.78 and 42; and Beethoven, p.106. 96 Was ist deutsch?, p.93. 97 Zu Die Kunst und die Revolution," pp.259-60.
a sense only a means, because as he says, "the poet cannot create., only the Volk can. or the poet can. only insofar as he takes the creation o f the Volk and gives voice to it." )s There can be no question that W agner was conscious o f using "the Volk's art in his own art. In this regard he praised the medieval Nibelungenlied as Volk poetry.'w He similarly explains his own decision to employ Stabreim (an alliterative rhyme scheme) instead o f end-rhyme in his poem o f Siegfried. He praises Stabreim as corresponding to the real speech accents o f the most natural and lively rhythm. declaring that it was with Stabreim that the Volk itself once composed, "when it was still a poet and mythmaker. 100 Dahlhaus suggests that W agners evocation o f myth and "German pre-history corresponds to the "exoticism appeal o f folk motives.1 0 1 Such a calculation may well have played some role in Wagners reliance on mythic sources but such sources real importance, as he conceived it, was as products o f the Volk's own art. In this conception he actually echoes the Grimms, who regarded myth as "nature poetry. the Volks own unconsciously existing truth. 102 Thus the "folksiness in W agners art proceeds above all from his reliance on folk literature, that is, his extensive use o f motives from narratives which he perceived as products o f the Volks creativity. W agners relationship to the other principal basis o f folk inspiration in musici.e.. folk tunes is much more complicated. On the one hand he shares some o f the same general conceptions o f folk music as do Smetana and Grieg, but on the other he takes an even stricter stance on the possibility o f building a national
98 ibid., p.260. 99 Tagebucher 1873-77, p.702. 100 Eine Mitteilung, p.329. 1 0 1 Dahlhaus (1980), p.84. 1 02 Danckert, p. 18.
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art music out o f folk music. To begin with, he does espouse the common idea on the characteristicness o f folk music. In his extended consideration o f folk music in Dus Kunstwerk der Zukiinft he writes. Only that is characteristic which is produced out o f itself. Nowadays only the folk or national dance is characteristic, since in an inimitable way it communicates how it came into being, its particular essence in gestures, rhythm, and tempo. It created spontaneously the laws o f its own being, and these laws become recognizable, communicable, as its abstracted essence, when they appear in the work o f folk art.10 It is the fact that folk music remains true to itself that gives it its power. This power, besides the ability to represent the genuine nature o f the Volk, he somewhat surprisingly describes as salvation for the musical world. 104 This is surprising because Wagner concurrently believed that folk music had itself been largely destroyed. The principal culprit is the opera: Wagner decries the repulsive, indescribably disgusting deformation and distortion o f the folk tune as it appears in the modem opera aria. 10' Wagner lambastes modem composers who have tried to prop up the form o f opera, which he says was expiring as a meaningful art. Their solution, he charges, was to fall upon exotic-seeming, characterful and colorful elements from folk music. A great hunt for these elements went loose, specifically outside o f Germany and the French, in particular, ransacked folk sources for flavor for their operas.106 This terrible trend resulted in the complete pillaging o f folk traditions, sucking the folk source dry. 107 So now, when the volkstiimliche is used in opera, it is not truly volkisch
1 0 3 Kunstwerk der Zukunft, pp.78-9. ,(Mibid., p.89. 1 0 5 ibid. io Oper und Drama, p.264. 10 7 ibid., p.266.
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(that is. not a genuine representation o f the Volk and its art), but is rather just a colorless. artificially revived imitation o f the V olk.l0s Modem opera composers failed to discover or tap into the true sources o f the Volk: instead, they merely paraded around on stage an eye-catching, exotic particularity. This shallow, exploitative use of folk sources is what Wagner sometimes terms the national. How can he here criticize the national when throughout much o f the rest o f his writing he extols its virtues? Part o f the reason may be an unresolved contradiction in his thought, or merely hypocrisy: he praises legitimate depictions o f nationality in art (such as his own) while attacking nationality in art where it is only exploitation, proceeding from no genuine national feeling. Music where the use o f national elements amounts merely to trendy decoration is worthless, which applies to most French operatic music. His criticism is also based on the view that modem opera is artistically degraded, aiming more to be entertainment than art. National decoration is just another attempt at entertainment. Wagners own national music, however, is legitimate because it returns to and grows out o f the Volk. And the Volk is the source o f true nationality, which, he suggests, ultimately transcends itself in the purely human, thus rising above the narrowly particular as found in the cynical French exploitation o f folk-national sources.
100
Distinctions between French and Italian versus German composers illustrate the contrast between the acceptable and the deplorable uses o f folk songs. As I mentioned, it is French and Italian composers above all who bear the blame for destroying the folk tune. Wagner not surprisingly praises how German composers (principally Weber) used
108 ibid., p.269. 109 ibid., p.267. We will return to this theme of the universality of nationality in the fourth chapter.
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the folk tune, though he uncharacteristically even reserves some criticism for Weber in this regard. Wagner regarded W eber's Freischiitz as the ultimate incarnation o f German
Volkstiimlichkeit in music. He saw in it the expression o f all that he loved about the
German character: How must I love the German Volk that loves the Freischiitz , that even today believes in the wonder o f the naivest sagas, that even today, in its manhood, feels the sweet, mysterious shudders that ran through its heart in its youth! Ah, you charming German reverie! You rapture o f the forest, o f evening, o f the stars, o f the moon, o f the village clocktower when it strikes seven! How he is happy, who understands you, who can believe, feel, dream, and fall into raptures with you! How glad I am, that I am a German!110 In this opera, Weber brought the aria back to the original style o f the folk song, after Rossini had sacrificed the aria completely to melody.11 1 Weber, as a German, was able to hear the true source o f melody in the folk song. He found that source on the forest meadow : it was the flower that still grew there on the banks o f the cheerily trickling brook, amongst fragrant forest grass," and so on.112 With this little flower Weber wanted to heal humanity, to deliver it from its insanity, and so he plucked the flower out from its forest meadow and placed it in a precious vase, up in a magnificent chamber. by which Wagner presumably means an artistically worthy setting.1 1 - But in so doing, Wagner says, Weber broke the flowerthough its brief bloom lent itself to his last operas, it soon expired, and upon the forest meadow no more flowers would grow. Wagner uses this enraptured allegory to explain why all reliance on folk music in opera since W eber has been "artificial and disgusting. Part o f his complaint rests on the
11 Le FreischutzBericht nach Deutschland, p.220. 11 1 Oper und Drama, p.258. 112 ibid., p.260. 113 ibid.
distinction he draws between folk songs as originally natural and then what happened to them subsequently. The fad-ish and destructive hunt for folk tunes in opera o f which French composers were guilty W agner poses as an 'unnatural distortion o f these sources.114 One motivation for his uncharacteristic criticism o f W eber (given how much Wagner revered him otherwise) may be that he regarded Weber as launching this hunt as a result o f the success o f Der Freischiitz. Such criticism o f W eber seems to indicate that Wagner thinks no possible future could lie in the incorporation o f folk melodies into opera. The flower did die. after all. he says. Nonetheless, on a few instances he backpedaled, opining that there was still some future in the folk melody. For instance, he remarked that the folk dance could be developed further into a richer, entirely capable art by means o f associating it with music and poetry."' Here the idea that folk sources must be elevated" into the higher forms in order to meet the demands o f true art comes to the fore. Wagner also referenced it in the previous excerpt from Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft when he mentioned the abstracted essence o f the folk artwork. So, regardless o f the extent to which the folk melody might have been destroyed, Wagner held fast to his conviction that the Volkstiimliche has always been the fertilizing source o f all art, as long as it is lifted up into an artwork.116 He even claimed, though, that the opera composer never managed to touch the truly Volkstiimliche." In order to do that, Wagner wrote in Oper und Drama, the composer would have to have created out o f the Geist and ideas o f the Volk. 11' So what is this truly Volkstiimliche? Wagner suggests that it is a complete understanding o f the
1 1 4 Wiora (1957), p.145 makes this point. 1 1 5 Kunstwerk der Zukunft, p.79. 1 1 6 Oper und Drama, p.266. >i' ibid., p.267.
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Volk and its Geist i.e.. not just a convenient cherry-picking o f the fruits o f the Volk's creativity, which is what French composers did. This kind o f cherry-picking amounted, ultimately, only to a parade o f the particular. a mannered striving after effect.1IS Beethoven, Wagner thinks, knew how to use folk music legitimately. Beethoven used folk tunes not for mere entertainment but for a nobler goalhe played them in an ideal sense to the Volk itself. Indeed, he played the folk tune not just for the Volk to dance to, but for all nature to dance, as in his Seventh Symphony.110 He enthuses that Beethoven takes up the folk tune and gives it transfigured back to the Volk. 120 So Beethoven presents a transfigured or idealized version o f the folk melody. For Wagner, the purpose o f idealizing folk songs is not just to elevate them to an artistic level, but also to a level o f universality. Thus the legitimate use o f the folk tune is when the composer transports it beyond the mere particularity that Wagner criticizes and instead reaches back to the purely human nature o f the Volk. In the chapter on universality I discuss in detail how the Volk and particularly the German Volk is in fact universal in its essence. Though it may not seem readily apparent at first. W agner did claim to have used folk music elements quite extensively in his operas. From his own statements, and an examination o f a few moments from his work, we will see how he put into practice his ideas on the role o f folk elements in producing a high art music. Wagner said that when writing Der Jliegende Hollander he found a compensating nourishment for the disease o f the modem opera aria in the folk song. In Sentas quite vividly volkstiimlich " 1 2 1 ballad, he says, the spontaneous content o f the characteristicness o f the national folk
118 ibid., p.267. 11 9Beethoven, p.98. 1 2 0 Tagebiicher 1878-1880, p.479. 1 2 1 ibid., p.201.
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melismus guided me: even more so in the spinning song and also namely in the sailors' song. 12' Wagner wrote in his "Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde" that in Der Jliegende Hollander I drew upon the rhythmic folk melody, but only when the material brought me into contact with the folk elements where they more-or-less revealed themselves in a national sense.1 "' Admittedly, the folk elements in Hollander are nominally Norwegian, given the opera's setting. But the important point is that W agner stresses the "folksiness o f his own work. Interestingly, in the above quote we also witness Wagner attaching a positive valuation to "the national, contradicting his criticism o f it from Oper und Drama that we examined earlier. Wagner also avows that he relied on folk elements in Lohengrin. With the chorus in the second act o f this opera, he said that he wanted to show how a folk song arises. 124 His wife Cosima also relates another, analogous anecdote: We were talking about Lohengrin , and [Richard] told me that in 1848 [his friend] Rockel told him, Now we need this kind o f Volk hymn. "Well, said Richard, "I have that theme, and he sang him the motive from the march in the third act of Lohengrin. Rockel, though, found it too arty, which Richard acknowledged and said, thats how you can tell that this piece belongs in an artwork.125 W agner's suggestion here that a folk song belongs in an opera only when that song is treated in an "artistic manner is an idea espoused identically by Smetana and Grieg. Rather than Der jliegende Hollander or Lohengrin , though, probably W agners most "folky opera is Die Meistersinger. This opera, in fact, is as close as Wagner came to writing something like a "folk opera along the lines o f The Bartered Bride. The third act
1 22 Eine Mitteilung, pp.324-5. 123 ibid., p.325. 1 2 4 Tagebiicher 1869-72, p.456. 125 ibid., p.115.
o f Die Meistersinger. in particular, features the spectacular setpiece of the town gathering, in which the villagers o f Numberg sing, dance, and (the women, at least) wear peasant costume, as Wagner indicates in the libretto. However, since we examined Die Meistersinger in the previous chapter, I will instead focus presently on Tannhduser. This may seem a strange choice, but in fact Tannhduser is an excellent illustration o f how Wagner used the folk sources o f myth and legend as material for his art. The plot of the opera is actually made up o f three separate, semi-legendary stories all taken from German myth that Wagner wove together. The first is the story o f Tannhauser himself, the medieval German poet and musician. Wagner interpolates this figure into the second source, the stories of the singing competitions at the Wartburg castle. Finally, the idea of Venus in her Venusberg seducing knights errant is another mythic element Wagner adds to the m ix.126 The immediate inspirations for the story he fashioned also came from several directions, including Ludwig Tieck, Heinrich Heine, E.T.A. Hoffmann's story Die Bergwerke zu Falun, Jakob Grimms folk tales, and Des Knaben Wunderhorn. In the case of the last two. then, Wagner clearly draws from folk traditions. And in fact he him self referred to the story o f Tannhauser as a folk poem.127 In his account of the genesis of the operas text in Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde," however, Wagner attempts to downplay the impact o f modem sources such as the Tieck story on his own conception o f Tannhauser. Marion Bless explains this by referencing W agners insistence that the music-drama should be inspired exclusively by folk sources so he diminishes Tiecks role and emphasizes that his real inspiration was the old sagas.128 In this way he tried to configure his opera as more truly volkisch.
12 6 Marion Bless, R ich a rd W agn ers O p e r 'T a n n h a u ser im S p ie g e l sein er geistigen E n tw ick lu n g (Eisenach: Verlag der Musikalienhandlung Karl Dieter Wagner, 1997) p.121.
127 E ine M itte ilu n g , p.269.
12 8 Bless, p.70.
126
He also sought to emphasize the specifically German character o f the work. He indeed declared that Tannhauser was a German from head to to e."1 ^ Certainly the setting of the opera in the courtly milieu o f the Wartburg, that fervent symbol o f German nationalism for nineteenth-century patriots, is intended to evoke a past era o f German greatness, when the Minnesiinger such as Wolfram von Eschenbach enjoyed their heyday. The pilgrim s' choruses are also supposed to evoke an old German folk tone, according to Dahlhaus.10 The shepherd boy in the first act. playing his schalmei as the sheep bells tinkle around him. is obviously a common representation o f the rural idyll. But the fact that the shepherd sings a folk-like song about Holda, a goddess from Teutonic mythology, emphasizes the specifically German rustic atmosphere. If we recur to a quote cited earlier where Wagner swoons over the charming German reverie and enumerates the things that the German Volk supposedly loves, we can see that a number o f these elements make their appearance in this opera. For example, we see the rapture o f the forest in the first act when the Landgraf and his hunting party emerge from the woods around the Horselberg, with the horns blaring in the orchestra. The rapture o f evening [and] the stars appears (metaphorically) in Wolframs famous third act aria Wie Todesahnung, Dammerung deckt die Lande/O du mein holder Abendstem. where he serenades Elisabeth in the darkness as she goes off to die. The incorporation o f stories from German myth, along with the reference to these elements Wagner conceived as particular to the German Volksgeist, all place this work within a national framework. But o f course W agner's goal was also to produce a work o f art, and thus into this framework he built his plot o f Tannhausers relationship to
12 9 Wagner Briefen, Band II, p.434. 1 3 0 Carl Dahlhaus, Richard Wagners Musikdramen (Hildesheim: Friedrich, 1971), p.32.
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Elisabeth. This typically Wagnerian spiral o f damnation, redemption, impossible love, and the martyrdom o f a woman reflect the human and spiritual preoccupations that he explores in so many o f his dramas. The ostensibly national features o f Tannhciuser are thereby intertwined with the thematic and artistic ambitions o f his work.
Smetanas idealized peasant
Not unlike W agners. Smetana's artistic career takes an occasionally difficult position towards folk inspirations. While he did appreciate the national-cultural value o f folk sources, he also resisted what he saw as an undue obsession with them. In part he was reacting against the cult o f folk music that developed in the Czech lands in the first half o f the nineteenth century. After the work o f the collectors, folk songs became genuinely popular throughout Czech society, including amongst the bourgeoisie. National dance gatherings attracted a significant following. Concurrently, figures such as Rittersberk were calling for national music to be built upon these folk foundations.11 1 The enthusiasm for folk songs, including among nationalist intellectuals, came to the detriment o f interest in developing other musical forms, however. Folk music took on such a privileged place within the Czech nation-building movement that relatively few people though Smetana was oneexpressed reservations about the value o f that music for a national art. Smetanas early exposure to folk music, though, very much fits into the pattern o f middle-class Czechs encountering the rural traditions. Growing up in a small town where his fathers brewery served as a center for social life, Smetana often had the opportunity to hear living folk music. Hana Sequardtova suggests that in this environment Smetana
1 3 1 See Vit( 1989), p.332.
was exposed to folk life in all its colorfulness: he heard folk songs and dances, and his (still unconscious) sense and feeling for Czech folk-musical expression would have developed early on. "1 So this rural upbringing set the stage for Smetana's interest in folk music. And indeed, most o f his earliest compositions are dances that he probably performed for parties and other gatherings around the brewery. Later, his experience o f the patriotic balls o f the 1840s. where national" dances were performed, directly inspired works such as his Jirinkovd polka} ' ' The polka from The Bartered Bride was reportedly inspired at least in part by Sm etana's experience o f a big dance gathering in Prague in 1864.1,4 Eventually he also began working with some o f the material gathered in the most famous collections o f Czech folk songs. In the early 1860s, while director o f the choir Hlahol, he performed songs from Karel K nzkovsky's collection.1 He also owned a copy o f Erbens Ndpevv prostondrodnich pisni , which he relied on while composing his Czech Dances as well as the operas The Two Widows and The K iss.x'b In fact, prior to composing the Czech Dances Smetana him self investigated some original sources. His son-in-law Josef Schwarz reports that after Smetanas deafness had forced him to retire from active musical life and leave Prague, he discovered in the rural area he moved to an old man who was a kind o f living compendium o f Czech folk traditions. According to Schwarz. Smetana learned some old Czech dances from this m usician.17
1 3 2 Sequardtova, p. 18.
1:1:1 ib id , p.26.
1 3 4 BartoS (1955), p.82. 1 3 5 Large, p. 122.

136 ib id ., p.256.
1 3 7 BartoS (1955), p.203.
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A quick glance at his compositional output emphasizes the importance Smetana assigned to forms broadly conceived as rooted in Czech folk music traditions. He wrote dozens o f pieces based on dance forms, especially for the piano. O f these, the polka occupies a particularly prominent place in his output: polkas even appear in his most serious compositions such as Libuse and Md vlast. In fact, a letter to his friend Dr. Ludevit Prochazka in regard to the latter piece suggests what such dances represented for Smetana. Smetana says that in planning the third section o f Md vlast, he wanted to add a part that depicts Czech life in songs and dances, like what the Germans call Volksweisen or Tanzweisen... 1 '1 8 Interestingly, however, we also gain an idea o f the limits of Smetanas knowledge o f such traditions, since in this letter he is in fact asking Prochazka for advice as to such dances. He requests from him a book by Max Waldau called Bohmische Nationaluinze. Smetana regarded these folk traditions, above all the polka, as an element representative o f Czech life, as the above quote shows. In addition, this quote fairly explicitly refers to the expressive function o f national music, since Smetana is interested in depicting Czech life through these ostensibly national traditions. He used these dances as a form or tool within his compositions to refer to something else, namely the rural sources o f Czech culture. He was probably relying to some extent on the notion of the popularity o f such forms, i.e., that the polka would be familiar to a wide segment of the Czech populace as something already coded characteristically Czech. Karel Jaromir Erben, for example, in the 1840s propounded the idea that the polka was inherently Czech in origin and hence a national dance. 1 But Jaroslav Jiranek actually credits Smetana with being the one who transformed this artificial societal dance o f the 1830s
1 3 8 Smetana-Prochazka vzdjemnd korespondence, p. 13. 1 3 9 Erben, p. 146.
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into a widely-accepted symbol o f the Czech people and nation."140 Indeed, for Smetana the polka's characteristicness" went even deeper, as Hana Sequardtova argues: [the polka was] characteristic as an original manifestation o f the developing Czech society. From the beginning Smetana regarded the polka at first perhaps instinctively as a specific reflection o f Czech life, in which the elements o f popular songs and dances... o f a Czech folk pastorale were remarkably projected. Later, this genre crystallized in Smetana's conception as a form that was the most faithful reflection o f Czech national life, and in that sense Smetana used it in all his work as the bearer o f a distinct meaning and content.1 4 1 However, when we examine Sm etanas ideas on how a national music should be constructed, we see the limits he imposed on the usefulness o f folk sources. Contrary to many o f his contemporaries in Czech nationalist circles, Smetana did not see the future o f a national musical culture as residing solely in the reliance on folk tunes. For Smetana such a reliance was only a first step; as such, operas like Frantisek Skroups Dratenik (The Tinker, o f 1826) while having some value in contributing to Czech culture, did relatively little to further Czech art. Skroups work is for the most part based on folk songs, evinces a rather sentimental tone, and does not strive for lofty dramatic goals.142 Smetanas wariness o f the folk-song route was doubtlessly conditioned by the relatively weak quality o f earlier attempts to express Czechness in opera. The earliest attempts, the popular or folk musicals/operas ( lidove zpevohry" in the Czech) o f the last decades of the 1700s, were very modest productions whose folk character proceeded mostly from a plot set in the countryside. These were entertainments evincing no real musical ambition: they featured perhaps only three solo parts, a small orchestra, and arias
110Jaroslav Jiranek Regarding the Question of Smetanas Originality, in Bedrich Smetana 1824-1884, p.16. 14 1 Sequardtova, p.58. 142 Racek, p.31.
confined to the three-section song form.14 By the time o f Draienik. these popular operas had developed to the point where most o f the forms and musical style were Italian, but the text was in Czech. Nonetheless, for many Czech nationalists pieces like Dratenik provided a template for how Czech opera should be developed. Smetana disagreed: the way his attitude toward folk sources conflicted with that o f others in the Czech movement is well illustrated by an anecdote that, because o f its importance to the present topic, is worth quoting in full. This anecdote comes from the memoirs o f Sm etana's friend Josef SrbDebmov, who, along with Smetana, used to attend the gatherings o f Czech nationalists in Prague in the 1860s. At one such gathering Smetana got into an argument with Dr. Frantisek Ladislav Rieger. one o f the paramount figures o f the Czech nationalist movement, who exercised a great deal o f influence in journalism, politics, as well as the theater. Srb-Debmov recalls: At such evenings the question o f Czech opera, music, drama etc. was also discussed by the prominent personalities. Smetana was then preparing to write the opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia to words by Sabina. During a discussion on this. Dr. Rieger proffered the opinion that it was easy to write a serious opera on a historic theme, but that to write an opera o f a lighter kind dealing with the life o f the (Czech) people, was a thing no one would easily succeed in doing. Smetana took him up on this and said that he intended to do something about that and that he thought that he could make a success of it. Rieger objected that the basis for such an opera would have to be Czech folk songs: Smetana again opposed this, saying that in this way a medley o f various songs, a kind o f quodlibet would come into being, but not an artistic work o f any continuity. The dispute was quite heated until Smetana finally told Rieger that he did not know what he was talking about, but that he. as a musician, would see this thing through. Thus Smetana started work on The Bartered Bride immediately
1 43 Zdenka Pilkova, Doba osvicenskeho absolutismu (1740-1810), in Hudba v ceskych dejindch, p.271.
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after having finished The Brandenhurgers in Bohemia. But that was the end o f Sm etana's friendship with Dr. Rieger.144 Rieger's conviction was that the national spirit" could only be expressed in opera through folk songs: thus he insisted to another composer. Karel Sebor. that such songs must be the soil, from which our new art music shall grow. 14' Rieger specifically rejected a reliance on what he saw as foreign models which is essentially code for rejecting anything that he would consider a German influence on Czech music. The Othering" o f German culture in the Czech nationalist discourse is a topic I deal with in the third chapter, but it is important here to note that these anti-German feelings were part o f what motivated Rieger and his followers in their fixation on folk songs. Smetana's attitude towards this cult o f folk music in the Czech lands is demonstrated by another anecdote, this one from Ales Heller, who relates an incident from his father. Ferdinand Heller's, friendship with Smetana: [Jan] Neruda taught them [the Smetanas and the Hellers] all to dance the Beseda and Smetana danced gaily... After the rehearsal however. Smetana laughed at the jig-jogs as he called the national songs and dances used in the Beseda... My father [i.e., Ferdinand Heller] argued that they were treasures, pointing out their characteristic expression, their spirit, the rhythm o f the Furiant and so on. His opinions found an advocate in Neruda who enthusiastically defended and described Czech national songs and dances, on which, above all, he was an expert... Smetana brought his Polka To Our Girls and wanted to know whether it was any good for dancing... He played it himself. When they had danced it, the unanimous verdict was no good ! Smetana could not understand why. My father pointed out to him that the dance rhythm was lacking here and there. Smetana became angry and said: All right, see to the rhythm yourself, but Im going to dance! 146
1 4 4 Barto (1955), pp.67-8. 1 4 5 Zdenek Nejedly, O Bedrichu Smetanoui (Praha: Academia, 1980), p.109. 14 6 BartoS (1955), p.81.
This quote shows that Smetana was definitely interested in and aware o f the national songs and dances. but equally that he maintained a certain distance from them. This distance means that even when Smetana was composing polkas such as To Our Girls, he was not writing popular dance music he was writing an art music that one would be hard put to dance to. In the same way. it is hard to imagine actually dancing to the third movement o f a Haydn symphony. Smetana obviously assigned strict limits to the value o f the popular in realizing his social and artistic goals. He seems to harbor a suspicion that popular forms can be too cheap to constitute, in and o f themselves, a national art. Smetana's reaction to some Hungarian national musicians (i.e.. folk musicians) he heard in Prague in 1861 points to his view on the limitations o f folk music: he found that some o f the pieces performed lacked refinement and understanding."147 This apparent snobbery is something we will find also in Grieg. Smetana's fear about basing music on actual folk tunes is that the resulting composition would be no more than a pastiche, as his dispute with Rieger demonstrates. Apart from quoting actual folk tunes, he even cautions against too slavish an adherence merely to folk styles or forms. According to Otakar Hostinsky, Smetana declared that the imitation o f the melodic cadence and rhythm o f our folk songs will not create a national style, but at the most a weak imitation of those very same songs. 148 W hats more, Smetana added, there would be no way to create dramatic truth with such imitations. The danger in limiting a national music just to folk songsand this is a danger not just for the artist, but by extension for the envisioned national culture becomes clear in the reminiscence o f one o f Smetanas librettists, Ervin Spindler, who reports the composer as saying,
Denik. 17 July 1861. MCH#1098. 14 8 Racek, pp.74.
Perhaps now that idle talk about it being possible to write Czech operas o f purely national kind only on the basis, i.e. in imitation of folk songs, will cease. I have already written two quite different operas o f this kind [referring to the 'folk operas" The Bartered Bride and The Kiss], but in neither of them will you find a trace anywhere o f an imitation o f folk motives. Yes. for the sake o f proving that. I have used one real folk lullaby and immediately following it my own [in The Kiss]. I hope that in time every Czech will love it just as dearly as the folk lullaby and yet not a single bar has been borrowed from folksongs, let alone whole motives, a thing which would go against the creative originality o f a real artist.144 It is in his ideas for dramatic art that Smetanas resistance to folk tunes is expressed most clearly. Much like Wagner. Smetana intended that the theater should become the central focus o f the entire domestic artistic world. 1' 0 Finkelstein insightfully explains Smetanas position on the incorporation of folk elements into opera: he rejected folk style' if it were only to be a light divertissement, contrasted to serious music. If Czech folk music were to be used for creative composition, it had to show itself as material fit for great emotions, for sensitive character portrayal and organic form.1 51 A true national artist that is. an artist who really aimed at producing works of lasting value for his nation would not be content with mere pastiche or imitation. Smetana obviously sided with the high art" imperative vis-a-vis folk culture. And thanks to an 1879 letter to his publisher, we need be in no doubt about Smetanas own manner of treating folk sources. He wrote, my efforts are directed towards idealising the polka in particular, as Chopin did with the mazurka. 1 ' 2 His music is not a mere imitation o f the polka but a transfiguration o f it, elevating it so that it could serve as a plank in the national high culture. The evolution in Sm etana's conception and treatment o f folk forms
1,9 Barto (1955), p. 174. 150 Kriticke dilo, p.77. 15 1 Finkelstein, p. 163. 152 BartoS (1955), p.203. (italics mine)
R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p ro d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e rm is s io n .
such as the polka is actually easily traceable: from his earliest efforts in this genre, which generally aspire to no more than entertainment pieces, his technique develops on to the 1843 composition Memories o f Plzen, which becomes a kind o f "scherzo-polka" meant as a vehicle for virtuoso display and not for dancing. 1 '' His late Czech Dances then represent the culminating achievement where he transposes the national dance to the highest artistic levels. 1 ' 4 This work is comprised o f ten individual sections, some of which are titled after established dance forms (like the furiant and the skocna). while others bear more abstract titles ("Oats." "Little Onion") and are based on particular folk songs. But though in several o f these pieces he does incorporate folk melodies (from Erbens collection, for example), he quotes them not note-for-note but rather uses them in a theme and variations style, o r as the basis for a kind of fantasy.1' ' Thus he shapes the folk inspirations into larger formal units, creating subsidiary sections, preludes, interludes, codas, and developmental sections. The technical demands are o f a virtuoso order, and Vladimir Tichy argues that in terms o f their formal composition, these dances are as comparably serious as a classical sonata.156 There can be no doubt that Smetana wanted with these pieces to demonstrate definitively how simple folk sources could and should be elevated into a consummate artwork. His other stated intention behind this work is as a kind o f response to Dvorak's Slavonic Dances: Smetana wrote to his publisher that every Czech, at least who loves music, should know these remarkable original dances... Where Dvorak calls
153 Large, p.31. 15 4 Sequardtova, p.252. 155 Large, p.345. 136 Vladimir Tichy, The Structural Role of Kinetics in Bedrich Smetanas Ceske Tance" in Bedrich Smetana: 1824-1884, p.141.
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his pieces by the general name Slavonic Dances without anybody knowing what those are. or even if such a thing exists we will show what specifically named dances we Czechs have! 1 '7 Beyond just the individual musical forms, though. Sm etana's project is one o f idealizing entire genres, such as the popular opera. The Bartered Bride is the prime example in this regard: it perfectly represents how Smetana fuses authentic folk sources with his own. invented, folk-styled material into an organic, sophisticated, dramatic work.158 Smetana purposefully set out to write a folk opera after critics accused his first opera, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia . o f being too heavy and portentous in style. The work that emerged in 1866 (though after a series o f revisions it attained its final form in 1870) can indeed be regarded as the very epigone o f the folk opera: The Bartered Bride managed to achieve the status o f both a great work of art and an immensely popular entertainment. The dance and choral numbers not surprisingly are the central element in effecting the fusion between folk inspirations, the representation o f the folk itself, and Smetanas own artistic ideals. In fact, the only time in the opera that Smetana quotes an actual folk melody is in the furiant dance number yet he arranges this tune with chord structures and dissonances in such a way that, as Brian Large writes, it is unlikely the folk o f Smetanas day had ever heard [this traditional tune] harmonized quite as chromatically as this. 159 Elsewhere, Smetana was able to create a folk flavor without actually quoting folk songs, as in Marenka's first aria, where the irregular three-bar phrase lengths are
157 Cited in Sequardtova, p.254. 158 Jiranek (1984), p.36. 159 Large, p. 186.
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typical o f Czech folk music.1 6 (1 In his instrumentation, such as the strings and woodwinds in the polka, he also evoked a folk sound without relying on a folk tune per se.16 1 The opening o f the second act shows how Smetana could transform a genre convention o f popular opera into a dramatically effective scene. Through a drinking song his scene plays o ff the Czechs fabled love o f beer. But the scene is not just a setpiece. since Smetana also uses it to deepen the characters and motivations o f Jenik and Kecal. Indeed, the entire opera is not merely an excuse for some local color but rather presents a drama about individual characters and their particular social situations. In turn. Smetana gave each o f the major characters a differentiated, personalized musical expression including the folk" itself, who indeed is one o f the main actors in the work.162 Both musically and dramatically the opera aspires to and attains a level o f sophistication greater than that o f any o f the popular Czech musical theater pieces prior to that time. Thus The Bartered Bride exemplifies Smetana's design to create a work o f art out o f the more modest sources that inspired it. Folk sources, in Smetanas conception, were limiting to the kind o f high art music that he wanted to compose. As a committed adherent o f the stylistic directions trailblazed by Liszt, W agner, and Berlioz, Smetana aspired to a "progressive music for which a slavish reliance on folk sources could only be too conservative. Thus he was open to the sort of foreign influences that the likes o f F.L. Rieger rejected. In evident contrast to Rieger, Smetana thought that the best possible national art could only proceed from the most advanced or progressive trends o f the day, and he saw no impossibility in building an authentically Czech music on European-wide trends. Folk music, albeit thoroughly Czech, needed to be transformed according to ibid., p.177.
> 6 > Jiranek (1984), p. 166.
162 ibid., p.202.
sophisticated artistic precepts into musical forms that would establish a Czech high culture.
Grieg dances a springar
Grieg is unquestionably the most obviously folksy" o f the three composers in this study. An enormous proportion o f his compositional output is based in one way or another on folk sources. Also, while he subscribed to the idea o f elevating folk music into high art forms, he did not harbor the same kind o f reservations about less ambitious, popular folk music that Wagner and Smetana did. Despite his deep embrace o f folk forms, though. Grieg actually waffled a bit in his own professions o f how well he really knew Norwegian folk music. In his expansive letter to Henry Finck o f 2 February 1900. Grieg claims that when he wrote his Opp.3 and 6. he knew Norwegian folk tunes hardly at all. 16. In his diaries, however. Grieg reports that in 1865 he was already playing Danish and Swedish folksongs and if he was playing these, then assuredly he was also familiar with Norwegian folk music as w ell.164 His demurral was likely motivated by his concern (which we see repeatedly in this letter to Finck) to refute the accusations o f some German critics that he was nothing more than a copy machine for Norwegian folk tunes. 16'' In any event, it is clear that Grieg's interest and exposure to folk music began quite early in his artistic career. He eventually came to know the major source o f Norwegian folk music, Ludvig Mathias Lindemans collection. Grieg would use melodies
163 Gaukstad, p.49. 16 3 Dagbpker, p.21. 165 Gaukstad, p.49.
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from Lindeman's collection in many works, including the Symphonic Dances and his Four Psalms. Like the folk song collectors. Grieg also shared the preservation ethos. During his trips to the mountains, he copied down the tunes he would hear from local peasants though this was really more for his own personal use than to be included in some kind o f larger collection.166 Probably the most notable example o f Griegs attempts to assure the survival o f the rural musical traditions is his edition o f the sldtter (originally a kind o f peasant dance form) that was published in 1903. The story behind this project reveals both Grieg's interest in and respect for folk traditions. Knut Dahle, a musician who played what is known as a Hardanger fiddle, wrote Grieg a letter suggesting that Grieg, as the most famous and influential Norwegian musician, should publish the sldtter tunes that Dahle knew. Dahle convinced Grieg that these tunes would soon be lost as rural traditions faded. Grieg eventually agreed and got his friend Johan Halvorsen who as a violin player could transcribe for string instruments better than Grieg, whose instrument was the pianoto do the transcriptions. In letters to Halvorsen from around this time. Grieg stresses that the most important thing in producing the transcriptions must be the stamp o f authenticity. 167 When Grieg's piano version of the sldtter was published, he insisted (despite reluctance from his publisher) that the violin transcriptions be published along with the piano version. Grieg stressed both the musicological and cultural-historical interest behind these pieces as a valuable artifact o f Norwegian folk culture.168 Griegs piano version, however, had somewhat different aims, as I will demonstrate below.
166
Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1990), p.320.
167 Grieg Brev Bind I, p.371. I6 HBriefwechsel mit dem Musikverlag C.F. Peters, pp.495 and 513. See also Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1990), p.369 for the Dahle story more generally.
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G rieg's ideas on the role folk sources should play in creating a national culture are very closely connected to the common intellectual trends I discussed in the first part o f this chapter. First o f all, Grieg clearly espouses the Herder-derived idea o f the relationship between the composer and his nation's music. This is the idea o f a national spirit that speaks through each individual and imbues his creative production. Grieg refers to the folkesjael." [folk-soul] which can never be wiped out o f a person or a people; ...it goes together with the people's temperament and nature, he says.164 And this folk-soul is inevitably expressed through a people's art: the folk song reflects musically the inner life of the people."170 Grieg marveled at (fellow Norwegian nationalist composer) Rikard Nordraaks intuitive feeling for the soul in our folk music. suggesting in a sense that what a Norwegian composer has to do to produce Norwegian music is just to look inside him self.1 7 1 This common idea o f the time could be stretched to lengths which today seem absurd. So it was that the Norwegian composer and writer Gerhard Schjelderup describes the natural connection between a composer and his nations music: In Norway, where in many places the cows are called in the morning through the repetition o f the major seventh, it is thus entirely natural that sevenths, ninths and augmented triads sometimes appear where they would seem mannered in a German or French composer.172 According to this conception, Norwegian nature comes out naturally in a Norwegian composer. As Schjelderup suggests, a Frenchman cannot produce truly Norwegian music, and vice versa, o f course. A national spirit will always speak through the music,
169 Grieg Brev Bind II, p.324. 170 Gaukstad, p.54. 17 1 Gaukstad, p.183. 172 Gerhard Schjelderup, Edvard Grieg, in Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, 26 June 1903, vol.30, no.26, p.434.
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inescapably. Schjelderup even claimed. In G rieg's music I occasionally hear a certain Scottish tone, which can be explained by his Scottish descent."17 G rieg's great grandfather w as Scottish, but luckily that Scottish folk-soul didn't speak too loudly, otherwise Grieg would have been the founder o f the Scottish national music, and not the Norwegian. For G rieg, predictably, the Norwegian folk-soul" expressed itself most clearly through folk music. Folk music is therefore an inheritance o f the entire Norwegian nation, and he wanted to see this inheritance preserved and propagated in the national culture. He w rote o f the heaped-up treasures o f unused material 174 and the treasures in our folk music 175 that would form the basis o f the national music. But like his compatriots Lindeman and Vinje, Grieg thought that folk music in itself did not constitute the basis for a national art. Rather, that folk music must be lifted up to A rts level, as Grieg suggested to Percy Grainger so that the latter could thereby create an independent English music.176 Just as Grainger learned from Grieg in this regard, so Grieg was influenced by his forebears. W aldemar Thrane wrote a Norwegian Singspiel in 1824 that incorporated folk tunes, Herman de Lovenskiold in the 1840s worked in a similar way, and particularly Halfdan Kjerulf was the first who emphasized the Norwegian folk-life melodys great significance for the national music, as Grieg put it in an 1879 article.1/7
1 7 3 ibid. 1 7 4 Grieg Brev Bind I, p.76. 17 5 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1990), p.339. 176 Grieg Brev Bind II, p.33. 1 7 7 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p.14; Herresthal, plOO; Gaukstad, p.98.
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Grieg claimed that without a basis in folk music, all forms of art music [are] impossible. 1's Indeed, even Mozart and Beethoven based their compositions on the elevated German folk tune. according to Grieg.179 But the folk forms are only a starting point: thus, as he wrote in his obituary to Kjerulf. Every nation's art has in the course o f time progressed from the folk song through the small forms on to the larger, richer, the more integrated. 1 80 Fittingly, then. Grieg's objective was to artistically elevate folk songs, as he said in his introduction to his Slditer
, l s l
This was how the national music
must be createda Norwegian composer must get into the spirit o f the Norwegian folk music... [he must] make use o f its outer features, o f course idealized and made manifold. ' So here again we see the call to idealize the original folk sources into a true art. Griegs treatment o f folk elements, he insisted, was never a planned imitation o f folk models. His intent was to use folk tunes in a motivic fashion.1 8 In turn, the influence o f folk elements in a piece most particularly in his songs comes to the fore when the subject matter so dictates: Where the Norwegian poets do not describe nature, folk life, or sagas, but rather merely universal human-spiritual events, a national coloring has never entered my mind. 184 Similarly, Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe describe Griegs style in
178 ibidA 1990), p.338. 179 ibid. 180 Gaukstad, p.73. 181 Gaukstad, p. 195. 182 Ferdinand Rojahn, Edvard Grieg som national tonedigter, Norsk Musik-Revue, 15 June 1903, vol.3, no.12, p.90. Though these words are not Griegs own, he said explicitly that he was in complete agreement with everything that Rojahn had written about him in this article; see the letter to Olav Anton Thommessen of 21 June 1901 in Brev Bind I. I8n Gaukstad, p.50. S '1Gaukstad, p.51.
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his second violin sonata as not based on a direct loan from folk sources, but rather as being inspired" by rhythmic-melodic impulses.1 *'' Also, one o f the most notable characteristics o f G rieg's style, his harmonic originality, was inspired by folk music. I have found. he wrote Finck, that the dark depths o f our songs, in all their richness, are grounded on undreamt-of harmonic possibilities... ISb While seeking to distance himself from the copy machine accusation. Grieg nonetheless does admit that he used folk elements extensively and in a variety o f ways. In a letter to Gerhard Schjelderup he commented favorably on the formers intent to write a composition treating folk tunes in a manner suitable for use in a concert. Grieg says that this is what he and his friend and colleague Johan Svendsen aimed for in various o f their own compositions. In this way, he suggests, the folk tune will meld with your own individuality and, through that process, contribute to the artwork. I have also published folk songs in their original form, but harmonized them after my own inclinations. This kind o f treatment, however, is only for gourmets and shouldnt count on a wider dissemination. On the other hand, if you want to harmonize or in general treat folk tunes with the goal o f getting them spread amongst the folk, then the best idea is to hold off on the oysters and caviar and instead to go with the rye bread and butter. One has to let go o f heaven 187 and remain on the earth. In a sense, this quote is the summation o f Grieg's ideas on the role of folk tunes in the national music. He does maintain that the real value o f such tunes is when they contribute to the artwork. However, he also recognizes that tastes differ, and that a too artful treatment of folk material will fail to appeal to the masses. Thus he reserves a place even
185 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p.102.

186
Gaukstad, p.51.
187 Grieg Brev Bind I, p.626.
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for less ambitious treatments of folk music they too have their part in the national culture. Grieg himself said that the spirit o f the fatherland, which has always found expression in the folk song, hovers over all my creations... 188 He unquestionably loved the cultural inheritance o f Norwegian folk traditions. His ideal was always the fairy tale in music. even if he never realized his ambition o f writing one like Engelbert Humperdincks Hansel and Gretel. which he said lived up to that ideal.189 And not surprisingly, just as he idealized the Norwegian folk tunes, like nationalists before and after him Grieg also idealized the beautiful" and noble" peasants themselves.190 However, in Grieg we also see the opposite side o f the coin present in this discourse, where the idealized peasants do not quite correspond to reality. During the time o f the transcription o f the sldtter. Grieg wrote to Halvorsen snide comments such as that he was surprised Knut Dahle wasnt drunk all the tim e.19 1 Likewise, the story Grieg told o f getting a band o f peasants to help him move his composing hut from one part o f his property to another displays a condescending tone, with its descriptions o f the peasants' uncouth and drunken behavior.19 2 So much o f G rieg's compositional output is based in one way or another on folk sources that almost any individual work can demonstrate how he put into practice his goals o f expressing the Norwegian folk-soul in an artistic form. The Sldtter are among his most adventurous compositions musically speaking, in terms o f their forward-looking
188 Gaukstad, p.50. 1 89 Grieg Brev Bind I, p.616. 190 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p.185. 1 9 1 Grieg Brev Bind I, p.372. 192 Gaukstad, p.44.
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harmonization. These stylized harmonics" Grieg specifically pointed to as elevating the slatter to an artistic level.|l>' After they were published, young French composers in Paris swooned over "le nouveau Grieg." and Bartok's later dissonant treatments o f folk music were also influenced by the Sldtter .1 1 ,4 While based on folk melodies. Grieg often departs from them, adding preludes, interludes, and postludes. as well as thematically developing the material. His use o f the piano was also quite unusual for the time, exploring the percussive possibilities o f the instrument and experimenting with other ways o f approximating the sound o f the Hardanger fiddle.,',:' Griegs second violin sonata, which was first performed in 1867. is also an important work for demonstrating his treatment o f folk sources. Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe write that "in no other piece o f chamber music did he make use o f elements drawn from Norwegian folk music to the extent that he did in this work. l% These elements, however, do not include any quotations from actual folk songs. Rather, the folk music character o f the piece proceeds above all from rhythmic and melodic features, such as in the outer movements which recall the traditional dance known as the springar. This sonata is also perhaps G rieg's highest achievement in translating folk inspirations into the classical forms: as such, it is the actual realization o f his stated goal (mentioned above) for folk music to move into the large forms." In a related way, his four Symphonic Dances present folk material (using melodies from the Lindeman collection) in a version for large orchestra. Hella Brock suggests that Grieg was inspired to orchestrate these dances after his experiences in 1898 conducting some o f the world's
1 9 3Gaukstad, p. 195. 1 9 4 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1988), p.369. 1 9 5ibid., p.368. 1 9 6ibid., p. 106.
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leading ensembles such as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics.1 This work was thus conceived symphonically. in that he wanted all four sections to be played in order by a large orchestra, thereby transmuting folk sources into the realm o f the symphony.
Conclusion
While dance forms and folk-song quotes may be largely lacking in W agners output, it is clear that these three composers shared a similar ethos on how folk sources should inspire art. In fact, W agners insistence that the vdlkisch and the volkstiimlich are ultimately the only legitimate sources for art is perhaps even more strict than Sm etanas or Griegs claims for folk inspirations. Wagner located the essence o f the folk primarily in the mystical, ill-defined conception o f Geist. For him these inspirations were more metaphysical and less actual, while for Smetana and Grieg the actual inspirations o f peasant tunes and dances were more significant, even though the metaphysical side is not absent in their discourse. Moreover, we have to acknowledge that Smetana and Grieg also looked to myths and legends as a kind o f folk source, just as Wagner did. Smetanas Libuse , Dalibor, and Ma vlast are all inspired by episodes from Czech history and myth. Similarly, Grieg composed a number o f works such as Bergliot, Landkjenning . and his opera fragment Olav Tiygvason to texts by Bjomstjeme Bjomson that were based on the old Norse sagas. Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg also all agree that folk sources need to be elevated to constitute a worthy base for the national art. Hence they all engage in some degree o f idealizing of their folk inspirations. In fact, this idealizing treatment o f folk sources is relatively common in European art o f this period. We see it, for example, in E.T.A.
197 Brock (1990), p.299.
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Hoffman's retellings o f German legends: in Moritz von Schwind's illustrations evoking a sort of timeless German mythic history: in Bozena Nemcova's and Jan Neruda's tales o f Czech peasant life: and in Hans Gude and Adolph Tidemands famous painting o f a Norwegian bridal procession through the Hardangerfjord. Interestingly, however, it is perhaps in music that the actual practice o f fusing peasant elements with high-art forms is the most clearly traceable, in that we can analyze how a composer actually integrates a given folk melody into, say. a violin sonata. The discourse and practice o f creating a national music is uniquely illuminating o f nationalist intellectuals' somewhat ambivalent embrace o f the peasant classes into the national movement. The goal, o f course, was to create a fully unified nation across social boundaries, but there was a condition o f admission for peasants into that national whole: they had to be uplifted, fully nationalized into modem, educated citizens. Thus the discourse on creating a national music points to a useful conclusion about the periodization of nation-building movements. This is the evolution o f the movement from what might be called a research phase into an "institution-building phase. The research phase is when nationalist intellectuals undertake their investigations o f the "national character, collecting folk songs and tales, writing histories, and reconstructing the national language. This phase aims at generating a basic conception o f the values and attributes o f the national identity. Hroch calls this Phase A in his schema of national movements. Phase B, for Hroch, is agitation to awaken the national consciousness among the populace. But I would argue that nationalist intellectuals understanding o f the envisioned national culture actually undergoes a change in the transition from Phase A to B. The institution-building phase attempts to construct not just a universally-shared culture but a high culture. The founding o f museums, theaters, musical and literary societies, and schools all correspond to the overriding goal o f
I4S
educating the populace. The motives behind institution-building thus go beyond the more limited cultural ideals o f the research phase, where preservation o f the national cultural inheritance is the chief concern. As the discourse o f Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg shows, nationalist intellectuals from later stages o f the movement do not merely want to preserve the national cultural inheritance. They do not approach the Volks culture uncritically but rather seek to elevate it. to make it art. Assuredly, this goal fits into Hrochs conception o f Phase B as the nationalist movements transition to a mass phenomenon. The incorporation o f folk elements into higher art forms is symbolic o f nationalist intellectuals desire to incorporate the folk into the nationalist movement. But again, the discourse makes claims not just about incorporation but also about elevation. From the likes o f von Amim, Celakovsky. and Ole Bull, the discourse about the proper constitution o f the national culture changes in Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg. In moving away from a narrower fixation on folk sources as the ultimate expression o f national culture, a high art becomes the focus o f nationalist artists ambitions. This national high culture is supposed to be the most treasured possession of the populace at home, and the most dignified representative o f the nation abroad. While not completely absent in the earliest stages o f the nationalist movement, this theme becomes much more explicit later on. This historically observable change within nation-building movements, and at the heart o f nationalist discourse, needs to be more widely acknowledged.
C h a pter T hree C o n s t r u c t i n g - D i f f e r e n c e in t h e N a t i o n a l C u l t u r e
When Wagner. Smetana, or Grieg present in one o f their works some vision o f their nation and its culture, they are presenting this national self-image to the envisioned national populace itself. The idea, as I have discussed in the first chapter, is that the nation will recognize itself in its own artwork. This is in its purest sense the creation o f the national idea, the elaboration o f a national culture that would constitute the nation. However, there is another ingredient in constituting the nation, and that is the creation o f boundaries to the nation, o f delimiting in some way the national membership, who belongs and who does not. This is an essential element o f the effort to build a national high culture as well. In order to define what the German, Czech, or Norwegian national culture was, nationalist intellectuals had to define it in relation to something else, most often in relation to another national culture. The goal, after all, was to create a national culture that was distinct from that o f other nations. In this chapter I will examine the discursive production o f difference in the realm o f the national art. I will show how nationalist intellectuals attempted to create boundaries between their envisioned national art and the art and cultural traditions o f other nations. This dynamic is two-fold: first, we see an effort directed specifically at creating these boundaries, that is, at defining the characteristics o f the envisioned national art in relation to the arts o f other nations with the goal o f producing something distinct, unique, and o f course truly national. Secondly, to some extent we also see an Othering of different national cultural traditions. In these latter instances, nationalist intellectuals regard a different national culture as the antithesis o f their own nations culture. They espouse not just an argument for distinctiveness but also a normative
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judgment on the inherent qualities of the Othered cultureand that judgment is always negative. First I will lay out some o f the key concepts behind the ideas o f boundary construction and Othering and their function in creating a national music. I will argue that these discursive practices are motivated by a fetishization of difference that demanded a uniquely identifiable cultural expression for every nation. Then we will turn to the case studies, beginning with W agners thoroughgoing and vituperative Othering o f both the French and the Jews. In the case o f Smetana, he actually accepts German cultural traditions to a significant degree. But then other voices within Czech society in a sense Other Smetana by attacking his perceived Germanic tendencies: they accuse him o f Wagnerianism, which these critics reject as an imposition on a pure Czech musical culture. Not unlike Smetana. Grieg largely accepts the inheritance o f German traditions in music, though he does also espouse a need for Norwegian independence from these traditions. With the case o f Grieg, however, we will see how as his career progresses he is subsequently Othered by German critics, who accuse him o f willfully rejecting universal norms o f art music in favor o f a particularistic obsession with nationalist expression. I will show how these claims o f universality are in themselves nonetheless grounded on German, nationally-biased assumptions. In the conclusion I will situate the discursive construction o f difference in the national music within the nationalist movement more broadly. Boundaries versus "the Other My analysis o f this discourse will examine how national communities are imagined as limited, to use Andersons terminology.1 Nations have inevitably been
1Anderson, p.7.
conceived by their members as inherently exclusionary after all. not everyone is a member o f the same nation. It is through such exclusion that the qualities o f the nation come to be defined. Often, this exclusion takes the form o f what Eley and Suny call systems o f negative distinction.0 This formulation we can equate with the basic idea o f the Other the Othered nation embodies the opposite o f our nation. As the term negative implies, this kind of conceptualization o f group identity typically involves a judgment that the Othered group is in some way inferior to our" group. Yet I would insist that such a claim o f inferiority is not a necessary or a constant element in conceiving group distinctiveness. Indeed, as Frederik Barth has proposed, groups also rely upon a notion of boundaries for their self-definition.' Boundaries do not automatically imply inferiority. Rather, they simply involve an idea o f distinction. Some conception o f boundaries enables a group to distinguish itself from another group, without implying a normative hierarchization o f group status or worth in relation to each other. Prasenjit Duara has elaborated on the boundary idea by pointing to hard and soft boundaries. Duara writes. One or more o f the cultural practices o f a group, such as rituals, language, dialect, music, kinship rules, or culinary habits, may be considered soft boundaries if they identify a group but do not prevent the group from sharing and even adopting, self-consciously or not, the practices o f another. Groups with soft boundaries between each other are sometimes so unselfconscious about their differences that they do not view mutual boundary breach as a threat...4
2 Eley and Suny, p.25. :l See Frederik Barth, Introduction, in Barth, ed. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969). 1Prasenjit Duara, Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When, in Eley and Suny, pp. 168-9.
Hard boundaries, on the other hand, are as Duara says willed" when someone seeks to mobilize a community by privileging a particular symbolic meaning (or set o f cultural practices) as the constitutive principle of the community. The goal is to heighten the self-consciousness o f this community in relation to those around it: boundaries are hardened as part o f a concerted effort to distinguish group difference. Not only do communities with hard boundaries privilege their differences. Duara adds, they tend to develop an intolerance and suspicion toward the adoption o f the Other's practices.5 Barths work dealt in particular with the production o f cultural differentiae between groups, and primarily from an anthropological perspective. In my case studies I am interested in the discursive production o f cultural differentiae in the realm o f high culture, in the effort to produce a distinct national art music. Nationalist composers use such differentiae as a means o f creating boundaries between their national musics. More importantly, these cases will show that difference can be privileged and yet soft boundaries still maintained, as with Smetanas and G riegs attitudes toward German culture. It is clear, though, that Wagners insistence on hard boundaries does also carry with it the intolerant Othering that Duara describes. These examples will demonstrate that nationalist intellectuals can and do advocate both hard and soft boundaries between theirs and other nations. In fact, the relative hardness or softness can be applied with differing standards to different groups. This discourse is thus an excellent illustration o f the varying ways difference is conceived. In particular, it sheds light on the way that the Other is an opposite more than merely an embodiment o f difference. The case o f nationalist music shows that implicit in the conception o f the Other as Wagner, Pivoda, and the German critics will conceive it, below is indeed a notion o f antithesis. For them, the cultures they criticize are not
5 ibid., p. 169.
merely different but. in a sense, wrong. Hence they openly and fully reject these Others. Nonetheless, some conception o f an Other is not absolutely necessary for a sense o f self. That is. our group does not inevitably need some idea o f an "anti-us in order to understand who we are. Smetana and Grieg are both able to formulate a national art without clinging to antitheses. They do discursively construct difference, but they do not portray that difference as somehow inherently wrong. Too often in the scholarly literature, the terms Other and difference are conflated to mean essentially the same thing. Conflating them, however, fails to capture the different dynamic by which Othering and alternative means o f the construction o f difference can operate. The fact that conceptions o f both difference and Othering are observable in nationalist discourse reaffirms that we need to keep practices o f Othering conceptually distinct from those o f boundary creation. They are two closely related, but individual, social phenomena. Others and boundaries in the national music To understand more fully the function o f this discourse in the effort to create a national music, we need to focus on the notion o f discursively-produced identities as relational. Barth suggests that boundaries are created because o f the interaction between groups.6 It is not isolation that spurs attempts to create distinction, but rather a contact or fluidity between ours and theirs. This idea can be linked to Duaras discussion o f national identity as a relational identity. Part o f Duaras project is to examine how distinctions are drawn and differences are privileged among the various Others that exist within the national community.7 Both Barths and Duaras work suggests the possibility that the interplay between differing group conceptions may in some sense be based on a
6 See Barth, p.9. 7 Duara (1996), p.163.
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common fundament over which distinctions are then constructed. That is to say. the desire to construct difference may be motivated by the perception o f commonality a commonality that would seem to undercut the difference that nationalists wish to construct. I argue that we should conceive o f Othering and boundary making in the national art as built precisely upon such relational processes. It will be apparent from m y cases that national arts do interact they are not isolated from each other. The geographical boundaries of high culture are not discrete: French operas were performed in Prague and Dresden, not to mention St. Petersburg and Christiania. Similarly, German symphonies were heard all over Europe. There is no point here to debating whether these art forms are "really French or German what matters is that they were perceived, by the likes o f Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg, as rooted in particular national traditions. These three composers were all familiar with other musical traditions: indeed, they all learned from a wide variety of musical expression, W agner's dismissal of French art notwithstanding. Part of the nature of the relationship between various national arts, though, is that these arts had to be truly national (i.e.. unique) in order to take their place on the European stage, as I discuss in the next chapter. Thus in a sense the interaction o f art on a Europe-wide level is a major motivation for the effort to create national distinction in music. Czech art can leam from German models, for instance, but it must also be different from those models in order to be authentically Czech. Given the diffusion o f widely-shared art music forms across the European continent, composers with a nationalist agenda felt the need to create music that was distinct, to differentiate their own, national, production from that o f other artists.
There is another wav in which the various national" traditions interact, however, and I suspect that this is particular to the realm o f music. Particular, because music has famously been described as the "universal language." and in fact this idea was quite common in the nineteenth century. Though o f course the genuine universality can be questioned, it is nonetheless certain that the musical language that composers as diverse as Auber. Wagner. Meyerbeer. Smetana, Balakirev. Verdi, and Grieg shared is generally the same language. Without ignoring the differences in their individual musical expression, they nonetheless do all speak the same basic language o f European art music as it evolved over the course o f several hundred years, with its particular structural forms, melodic and harmonic conventions, and instrumentation. Metaphorically speaking, if we equate this fundamental musical language with the whole," then the various national musics are the groups within that whole that seek to distinguish themselves from each other. O f course it is nationalist composers and not national musics per se that embark on this process o f differentiation. The point, however, is that even the distinctive musical language that Wagner claims for the Germans includes, in a sense, the Others o f French and Italian musical expression simply because they are all rooted in the same artistic form. It is perhaps doubtful that Wagner himself would have accepted this notion of similarity. Nonetheless, he was certainly conscious o f the mutual imbrication o f his own envisioned national culture with the Otherswhether French, Italian, or Jewish that he sought to discharge from German culture. And indeed, I suggest that even lacking an explicit acknowledgement o f the shared universal language, we can consider such an acknowledgement as a presupposition o f the effort to create a distinct national music. That is because the very commonality o f the musical language would play a major role in fostering the fetishization o f difference that characterizes this discourse. Here, o f course,
I am relying on the assumptions (that can be extrapolated from Barth and Duara) behind the construction o f difference: a perception o f similarity, together with a belief in group distinctiveness, generates the effort to produce markers o f difference. Given, then, the broadly shared characteristics of the musical language, composers recur to a search for totems of difference that will distinguish their artistic production as national and hence distinctive. As we will see. these totems can amount to boundary creation or to a more thoroughgoing Othering with the normative assumptions that implies.
Wagners villains
For Wagner, the French and the Jews are the villains against whom a German culture must fight in order both to realize itself and thereby to save art. They are villains because the tone with which Wagner Others the French and the Jews is so venomous that there can be no doubt o f his antagonistic rejection o f what he saw as their influences on Germany. Wagners anti-Semitism has been written about at great length: here I will treat it only as it relates to his Francophobia. W agners Francophobia relies on a slightly different principle from his hatred o f the Jews: the former posits a clear antinomy between two distinct national cultures, while in the latter case he presents the Jews as having no genuine culture o f their own at all. Regardless, they are both powerful examples o f Othering as a means o f cultural boundary-drawing. My discussion will primarily be directed at my comparative purpose: I will draw the parallels between his treatment o f the Jews and the French, and the role these bugbears play in his discourse on creating a national art, as material for examination in relation to Smetana and Grieg. I begin first with the French, and the background o f anti-French sentiment that informed Wagners own opinions in this area.
Sparked largely by the Wars o f Liberation during the struggle against Napoleon, the idea of the French as the corrupt antithesis o f everything German is a well-established trope in German nationalist discourse, not just in Wagner. Early patriots such as Arndt, Fichte. Schleiermacher. Luden. and Jahn all pounded the drum to stir up resistance to the French. In fact. Arndt called for hatred o f the French to be the religion o f the German people." This hate would be a bright mirror... in which we will be able to see our glory as well as our ruin."* That statement is an obvious expression o f the sort o f ideas behind Othering: the German people would realize its own self through the mirror-image o f its opposite, the French. Thus the French came to be presented as the eternal enemy" [ Urfeind] (as the motto o f the Wartburgfest proclaimed)9 o f the German nation, against which many o f the ostensible traits o f German nationality would be projected by German nationalist intellectuals.10 Dieter Duding summarizes this trend succinctly: To the implied national contrast between Germans and French was attributed a deep power, such that one saw the intrinsic qualities o f the French people, their spiritual-intellectual disposition, as a diametric contradiction o f the natural conceptualization o f the German Volk. Thus this purported antipathy o f the national characters was elevated to a dimension not merely o f a historically-grounded difference, but also to the status o f an ethical opposition." In art, the heritage o f anti-French expressions can be traced back to the numerous patriotic songs written during the years o f the Wars o f Liberation. These were lyrics written by the likes o f Ernst Mortiz Arndt, Max von Schenkendorff. and Theodor Komer, set to music usually by various, generally undistinguished composers. Members of the
8 Cited in Michael Jeismann, Feind und Vaterland in der frtihen deutschen Nationalbewegung 1806-1815, in Hermann, p.288. 9 Johannes Willms, Nationalismus ohne Nation (Dusseldorf: Claassen, 1983), p.115. 1 0Jeismann, p.285. 1 1 Duding (1984), p.29.
Burschenshaften and the Tumvereine. in particular, avidly sang these songs, and they kept both the songs and the sentiments therein alive in the decades following Napoleon's defeat.1 ' These lyrics* attack on welscher Tand (very loosely translated, foreign humbug") finds a direct echo in the speech W agner gives Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger. where the latter berates falsche welsche Majestat. welsch being a euphemism for the Latin cultures generally and the French especially.1 Indeed, we know that Wagner viewed the French as bloodthirsty" and the Wars o f Liberation as a holy cause. 1 4 Thus where Arndt called for an uprising" against the Napoleonic occupation at the beginning o f the nineteenth century. later on Wagner takes up this call for an uprising against the hegemony o f French culture. All the components Duding mentions above the spiritual-intellectual
opposition, the historical foundations, and the escalation o f the antinomy into ethical claims appear in Wagners own discourse. Wagner even adds the idea that German art had to save the world from degenerate French culture. The problem, at least as Wagner framed it late in his life, was one o f a conflict between a pure race versus a mixed race. 1 '' The Germans, as a pure race. enjoyed a still unbroken racial natural power. whereas other races such as the French (or the English, for that matter) were merely degenerate. The entire French civilization developed without the Volk. 16 Given the emphasis Wagner laid on the V olks importance in giving birth to culture (see the second
12 Dieter Duding, The Nineteenth-Century German Nationalist Movement as a Movement of Societies in Hagen Schulze, ed. Nation-Building in Central Europe (Leamington Spa: Berg Publishers, 1987), p.29. 1 3 See Jeismann. 1 4 Das Braune Buck, p.85. 1 5 Ausfuhrungen zu Religion und Kunst: 1. Erkenne dich selbst, p.269. 1 BDeutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik, p.34.
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chapter), this is a very serious charge indeed. It is one Wagner also uses against the Jews, as we will see below. The French, having no "Volk basis to their civilization, could only develop a shallow, hollow culture. From the fact o f their own degeneracy stems the "murderous" damage that the French wreaked upon the world, particularly on the cultures o f other lands.1 7 More than once Wagner accuses French composers o f ruining opera. They made modem opera music not an art but a "manifestation of fashion. 18 Then, when the incorporation o f folk elements into opera became the fashion." the French composers went out and plundered folk sources, sucking the folk-source dry.1 0 This was a crime against humanity in general, but Wagner has a special bone to pick with what he regarded as the French destruction o f German culture in particular. The Italians also played an accomplice role here. The forms o f both the theater and opera came from outside Germany, Wagner says: Germany did n 't have its own forms.20 France and Italy not only had "their own. i.e., uniquely national, forms, but they had their own conservatories as well. These conservatories allowed the French and the Italians to develop their own national styles. And in Wagners day, since France ruled the world in terms o f taste. French taste came to dominate that o f all nations. As a result, the Germans had no national style o f their own all they could do was imitate Italian and particularly French styles.21 These "foreign styles were founded on characteristics that were inherently "unGerman. For example, the entire melodic, virtuosic nature o f Italian opera is based on
X1ibid., p.32. 1 8 Oper und Drama, p.308. 1 3 ibid., p.264. 20 Oper und Drama, Part II and III, p. 18; Zukunftsmusik, p.91. 21 Bericht an Ludwig II, p.5.
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the Italian's preference for so n g .''" The Germans do not have this gift, which means their art should take a different direction.- Regardless, the Germans just imitate. But their imitations are never as good" as the originals (though the originals are by no means good in terms o f their aesthetic value). So the Germans just end up producing bad copies of others' bad art.24 Wagner detested the fact that these foreign styles dominated German society.2' The prevalence o f French (i.e.. bacf) taste in the theater meant that the German public was losing its own good taste. Wagner complained that German audiences more easily fall into ecstasy over an Italian soprano than they would over Bachs or Beethovens m usic.20 The deeper, social effect o f this French domination is that, historically, it caused the German princes to be estranged from the German Volk.27 The ruling classes were Frenchified before the masses, so the masses at least retained a connection to the German Volksgeist. But as the nineteenth century progressed and French hegemony remained unchallenged, Wagner seemed to fear that even the mass German public was losing touch with its Volksgeist. The French were ruining even that most precious element of Germanness. A metaphorical example o f this kind o f ruination is the staging o f Der Freischiitz in Paris in 1841. Wagner complains that the text was translated from German to French by an Italian, that the spoken dialogue was turned into recitative, that the cast was made up entirely o f second-rate singers, and that various dances were added
22Beethoven , p.62. '1Uber deutsches Musikwesen, p.85. 24 Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik, p.94. 25 See his letter to Robert Schumann, in Wagner Briefen Band I, p.577. 26 Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik , p.94. 27 ibid., p.34.
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to the score to satisfy the Parisian mania for ballet music. Far from doing justice to this treasure o f the German Volk's culture. Wagner says, the French used the production to make fun o f German taste and Germans in general.28 It might seem questionable what German taste" would even be, since Wagner didnt think there was much German taste left. What he means in the case o f Freischutz is that it was a pure expression o f the German Volksgeist. and as such represented the true values (what German taste should be) o f German art.< , Also seemingly contradictory are Wagners statements that Germans feel shame at their domination by the French. If French taste has infected the Germans so thoroughly, how would they feel shame in being so dominated? Nonetheless, that is how Wagner characterized German society: in 1870 he wrote that as the mighty German army marched victoriously on Paris, suddenly inside us stirred our shame over our subordination to that civilization.' 0 Surprisingly. Wagner occasionally expressed admiration for some o f the products o f French and Italian cultures. He liked, for instance, Auber's opera La muette de Portici when it was given a production in Leipzig in 1829. 1 He also admired Cherubini, and at one point claimed that the "continuity o f song in Lohengrin comes more from Spontini than from W eber.2 Despite what he called their Pauvretat (a particularly, possibly unintentionally ironic use o f a Germanized French word in this instance), he enjoyed the passion and feeling o f themes from operas such as Romeo and Juliet, La straniera , and Norma , even admitting that that he learned from them melodically. W agner was not so
as Le FreischutzBericht nach Deutschland,passim. 29 See Der Freischutzan das Pariser Publikum.
.to
Beethoven, p.113.
i! Gregor-Dellin, p.69. 32 Cosima Wagner, Tagebiicher 1878-1880, p.289. 33 ibid., p.54.
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hostile towards Italian culture, in part because it did not rule the world. There can be no doubt of his intense hatred for the French, however: statements such as The French are the rot of the Renaissance" are too colorfully descriptive in that regard.'4 Wagners antipathy to the Jews takes broadly similar forms to his Francophobia. in terms o f his portrayal o f the Jews* inherent degeneracy and their lamentable impact on artistic life. Das Judentum in der Musik." written in 1850 but published several years later, is o f course the most infamous document o f Wagners anti-Semitism. In it, he claims that everyone, as a matter o f course, shares an aversion to Jews. '5 This may well be because people feel instinctively that Jews are the bad conscience o f our modem civilization.'06 In addition to this more metaphysical antipathy, however, Wagner is also outraged that Jews rule public taste.7 They rule because m oney is power, and Jews control the flow o f money. Money in turn has come to control art, with the result being the Jewification o f modem art. W agners purpose in this essay is to protest this Jewification," exhorting his readers to emancipate themselves from the oppression o f Jewry.08 Besides the subjection of art to money which in itself is an evil, according to Wagnerthe Jew s control of art is also a disgrace because they are a people absolutely incapable of art. The root of the Jew s inability to produce true art is that the Jews completely lack a Volk commonality [Volksgemeinsamkeit], The Jews are the product o f a splintered, rootless tribe, to which is denied all development out o f its own self.' l) In a
34 ibid., Tagebiicher 1869-1872, p.258. 35 Das Judentum in der Musik, p.66. 36 ibid., p.85. 37 ibid., p.73. 38 ibid., p.68. 39 ibid., p.71.
search for belonging and a basis for his own art. the Jew looks to the Volk of whatever land he resides in. But the Jew is always an outsider he does not actually belong to this Volk or that Volk. The Jew is therefore incapable o f appreciating or expressing any people's Volksgeist. because he is always foreign and lacks any Volksgeist o f his own. And since there is no Jewish Volksgeist. the Jew has no folk art to inspire him. Instead, the only source of inspiration for a Jewish composer is the musical material o f the synagogue service: that is the closest the Jew can come to folksy motives." But this source is repugnant, Wagner claims: Who has not been seized by the repellent feeling, mixed with horror and absurdity, when he hears that mind- and spirit-bewildering gurgling, yodeling, and babbling [in the synagogue service], that no intentional caricature could make more disgusting than it already is presented there with all its naive earnestness?40 This "gurgling, yodeling, and babbling, though, calamitously finds its way into the music of Jewish composers. This is an inevitable result, as Wagner frames it, since Jews must fall back on their own language when composing, due to their inability to compose in the language o f any other Volkagain because the Jews lack a connection to the relevant Volksgeist. However, Jews are o f course unaware o f their inability to produce great art, so they attempt it regardless. But what they create inevitably ends up being cold, strange, unnatural. inevitably foreign imitations o f other peoples' cultures.41 Jewish music ultimately only evinces a striving after effect, a constant search for entertainment, and an impossible attempt to seem natural, which can never amount to art. In this search for effect, Wagners denunciation o f Jewish music echoes his similar charges against French
" ibid., p.76. 4 1 ibid., p.78.
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style. The deficiencies o f both stem from the missing connection between the Volk and the artist. Either the Volk is completely lacking, as in the case o f the Jews, or the artist is so cosmopolitan that he no longer has any Volk to communicate with. This last charge applies to both the French and the Jews, since the latter are scattered all about the world, everywhere foreign, having no actual home. The embodiment o f all these ills are men such as Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer and their trivial music. In fact. Meyerbeer unites both the deficiencies o f the Jews and the French in one. since besides suffering from all the Jews incapacity for art. he also conquered the French operatic scene, the ultimate cosmopolitan who destroys good taste everywhere from his throne in Paris. In this way, Wagner suggests, Jews are capable o f wrecking high culture itself, by substituting their own, uniquely corrupt expression for true art.4' Against the worthlessness o f French and Jewish culture, then, Wagner posits German art. To a significant degree, W agners attempt to outline the definition o f Germanness in the arts depends precisely on what these Othered cultures are not. Indeed, Wagner posits the resistance to the infection o f French culture as one o f the defining features o f the German nationalist movement: the German movement could almost only take the character of a reaction against the foreign, deformed and thus also deforming, Latin model.4 The goal o f this reaction, o f course, would be to produce an art o f real value, not just for Germany but for the world. Wagner enunciated this goal succinctly in 1842: The limp characterlessness o f todays Italians, as well as the frivolous stupidity o f recent Frenchmen, seem to me to encourage the earnest, conscientious German to take control o f the more fortuitously elegant and
ibid., p.71. 43 Zukunftsmusik, p.93.
cultivated resources o f these rivals, thereby resolutely to bring forth true works o f art.4'* According to this conception, the Germans will bring forth true works o f art" because the German Volk is still natural, not just a parasitic creature o f fashion like the French. For Wagners own envisioned artworks, likewise. German was the only language that could bring about the necessary reform o f opera precisely because German, unlike French or Italian, was still natural," tied to its roots.4' Moreover, only the Germans know music as music." that is, as something other than mere accompaniment to "song or dance virtuosity."46 The German, he says, loves music for its own sake, and not as a means to delight or of attaining money and admiration, but rather, because music is a beautiful, divine art...47 As with music, in the theater only Germans (namely Goethe and Schiller) have shown the world the sole possible path for the further development o f the art form. In a half-delirious description o f a portrait he saw o f one Pastor Niemann, a founder o f the Burschenschaft, Wagner overflows with praise for what he calls German ideality: Little movement, no Hungarian, Polish, or French suppleness, somewhat heavy, not dainty: but this piercing mind! The naive look, the marvelous faith therein, the rapture! [...] But what is this Germanness? It must be something wonderful, for it is more humanly beautiful than everything else?48
41 Autobiographische Skizze, p.10. 43 Oper und Drama, Part II and III, p.211. 46 Zur Einfiihrung in das Jahr 1880, p.30. 47 Uber deutsches Musikwesen, p.83. 48 Das Braune Buck, pp.85-6.
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Wagner directly juxtaposes here the German and the Othered cultures, revealing the latter as antitheses that pale in comparison to the pow er o f Germanness. Thanks to the love of art for arts sake, as well as the inherent German qualities o f naturalness, nobility and perceptiveness. and the direct contact to the Volk, the salvation o f art can only be brought about by German art. This salvation, o f course, he locates in his own art. which not surprisingly he also identifies as the epitom e o f Germanness. W agners take on foreign artistic traditions is so thoroughly critical portraying those traditions as the antithesis of German culture that his discourse is the best example o f a true Othering of our three composers. The boundaries between national cultures Wagner seeks to create are not just boundaries, but more accurately fortifications: French and Jewish influences are so deleterious that only completely sealed o ff from them can a German national culture thrive.
Smetana and the battles o f Wagnerianism
Historically speaking, what the French are for German nationalism, the Germans are for Czech nationalism. Czech patriots nationalism was predicated not just on a struggle for greater sovereignty within the Habsburg Empire. Rather, it was resistance to a broader process o f what they perceived as the Germanization o f the Czech lands. Germans dominated economic, political, and social life in Prague. Concomitantly, the supremacy of the German language was viewed as driving the Czech language to nearextinction.49 Of the major figures in the Czech movement. Karel Havlicek was one o f the most ardent anti-German nationalists, portraying all o f Czech history as a permanent fight o f a weak Slavic tribe against the entire German nation always pressing toward
49 Kren, p.48.
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the east."'0 Frantisek Palackv represents a more moderate approach: in the first edition of his history o f the Czech lands (1836. written in German) he emphasized that the civilization there was a synthesis o f Czech and German elements. Later, though, while still relatively tolerant o f the German presence in Bohemia, he instead viewed the Czechs as a bridge" between West and East, thus emphasizing their distinctiveness vis-a-vis the Germans and downplaying the synthesis" idea.'1 Both the antagonistic and moderate positions are represented in the efforts to build a Czech national culture. On the one hand, documents like the forged historical chronicles" o f the Kralovedvorsky and Zelenohorsky manuscripts are decidedly antiGerman.'2 We can view these documents (newly re-discovered" in 1817-18 after being "lost" for centuries) as in a sense the counterpart to Havliceks efforts to portray Czech history as a battle against Germans, since they purported to actually be records o f that history. Their author. Vaclav Hanka. sought thereby to ground Czech national resistance to Germanization all the way back in the early medieval period. In trying to create a Czech verse style, men such as Pavel Josef Safarik explicitly rejected what they viewed as German forms" o f poetry, insisting on the need to create something purely Czech.'J Similarly. Havlicek rejected what he perceived as the "philosophizing" tendencies of German culture he called for the Czechs in contrast to be a nation without philosophy. founding their culture on common sense" instead o f on (implicitly) unhealthy philosophical noodling. In general, the Czech nationalist intellectuals who took this antagonistic attitude toward German culture insisted that in order to liberate" Czech
50 Havlicek, p.347. 3 1 Kren, p.83. 52 Hoensch, p.319. 33 Macura, p.42.
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culture from the Germans. Czech culture had to be built not only from its own" foundations, but that these foundations must be opposite" from those o f German culture. An obvious instantiation o f the Othering idea, the claims of Havlicek and the like are for a Czech culture that is a mirror-image" o f German culture.'4 Never as rabidly anti-German as Havlicek. Smetana was one o f the major figures in the more moderate camp that accepted German influence on Czech culture. Nonetheless, he was a Czech patriot and he did occasionally voice anti-German sentiments, both politically and artistically. For instance, in 1869 he protested against the Imperial governments policies, "which would so dearly like to throw all the nations o f Austria into one potthat o f Germanization in order to rule over all o f them with beaucoup de plaisir. Praise be to God. our nation fights back uncowed and as one man.' ' This theme o f the German-biased rule o f the Habsburgs appears at various times over the years in Smetanas correspondence.56 Artistically, Smetana and his circle sometimes claimed to reject foreign forms in general, and not just German. Smetana criticized the fad-ish jangling o f modem Italian opera music and did not want that style to dominate in Prague. Similarly, his student and supporter Ludevit Prochazka resented the popularity o f Italian trends in music, and called for the Czechs to completely abandon foreign courses little by little and to move toward artistic independence and originality.' 7 Smetana's relationship specifically to German music is quite complicated. On the one hand, he sometimes denied his inheritance from German culture. For example, he said that he could not allow himself to compose to a German text, since apparently it
54 ibid., p.41.
55 BartoS, p. 114. 56 See for example BS: J. Valentin, 24 January 1864. MCH #2117. 57 Ottlova and PospiSil, pp.30-1.
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would be an affront to his Czech patriotism to do so. s This is despite the fact that throughout his life Smetana actually spoke German better than Czech. On one occasion he also explicitly rejected W agner's influence, according to an acquaintance: Speaking o f W agners declamatory style o f composition and his endless melody in orchestration. Smetana once said in the circle o f his friends: We Czechs are a singing people and can't accept those m ethods."''9 He claimed that there is no Wagner in his opera Dalibor.b0 On the other hand. Smetana also acknowledged what he had learned from German examples. The last two quotes in particular seem contradictory given his avowed reverence for Wagner's achievements. For example, a diary entry o f 1862 reads. Insofar as the neo-German school means progress I belong to it.61 The neo-German school was commonly identified with W agner and Liszt. In a letter to a Swedish friend Smetana describes the personal attacks he suffered because o f his artistic allegiances: The Old Czechs made me out as dangerous for the national independence o f art because I recognize the German direction in music Wagnertoo much.62 One likely reason for the seeming self-contradiction is precisely the attacks on Smetana that took place within the context o f the debates on Wagnerianism. The smear campaign to label him a kind o f German spy within Czech culture probably provoked these denials o f German influence as Smetana sought to emphasize his own Czechness. The controversy surrounding this debate is well illustrated by an anecdote from Eliska Krasnohorska, one of Smetana's librettists, that is worth quoting in full for the way it
38 BartoS, p.250. 39 Barto, p. 127.
ibid., p. 130.
61 BartoS, p.65. Italics in the original. 6- BS: Charlotta Valentin, approx. 4 November 1874, MCH #2122.
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captures the spiteful tone and some o f the issues o f the time. Krasnohorska tells o f an encounter with an acquaintance who warned her against working with Smetana. First o f all [Krasnohorskas acquaintance warned her] everybody knows that Smetana is trying to Wagnerize Czech music, that is to say to germanize it, a thing which is not a merit but a crime for which he ought to be generally condemned and not honored! And then that fraud with his pretended deafness! Uncle has asked me to tell you and any sane person would agree with him that a deaf person cannot compose music any more than a blind one can paint pictures.6 As that anecdote suggests. Smetana stood at the center o f the fights about Wagnerianism. It is largely coincidental that the pinnacle o f W agners career came in the later 1860s and early 1870s, which also happens to be the time o f the highest interest in producing Czech national opera. This period is also the peak o f Smetana's own public career, before deafness forced him to retire from the directorship o f the Czech opera house. (Krasnohorskas anecdote evidently dates from after his retirement, but that does not lessen its applicability.) The Wagner debate really exploded with the premiere o f Dalibor in 1868. On one side were those such as F.L. Rieger and especially Frantisek Pivoda who lambasted Dalibor as a Wagnerian affront to Czech art, and on the other were Smetana and his supporters who advocated musical progress on the basis o f Wagners reform o f opera. The epithet Wagnerian in this context is o f course polemical and needs to be explained. In general, as Ottlova and Pospisil make clear, music that was described as Wagnerian could consist of a richer web o f orchestral voices or more developed interludes and gradations.64 Features such as complex instrumentation and unusual harmonies thus sufficed for commentators to label a piece Wagnerian. This view o f
63 BartoS, p.278. 64 Ottlova and PospfSil, p.33.
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Wagner led supporters such as Smetana to accuse W agner's critics of misrepresenting what Wagner had accomplished Smetana in fact even offered to teach Pivoda what Wagnerism "really is.6' In the Czech lands, when a work was accused o f being "Wagnerian." the accusation was indeed based on the stylistic features Ottlova and Pospisil outline and this accusation (for the anti-Wagnerites) also presumes a negative aesthetic judgm ent about those very features. However, another crucial element in the debate was the perception of Wagner and "Wagnerian style as something inherently German, which thus was regarded by anti-Wagnerites as inappropriate for Czech music. In the following discussion of the W agner debate, I will first present the anti-Wagnerian side, in the form o f Frantisek Pivoda's attack on Smetana. Then I will turn to O takar Hostinskys defense o f why Wagnerian style is an acceptable basis for Czech national music. In a letter to Pivoda of 16 June 1870. Smetana mentioned that he was entirely in agreement with Hostinskys article "Wagnerianism and Czech national opera, on which I base my analysis below.66 Thus in this particular area we can safely equate Sm etana's ideas with Hostinskys. Pivoda was a musician known mostly for running a prominent singing school in Prague. He was actively interested in the question of a Czech national music, and in fact quite liked The Bartered Bride since it corresponded to his ideal o f a proslondrodni folk opera.67 The musical direction Smetana took after The Bartered Bride. however, provoked Pivodas ire. Hostinsky, though by no means an impartial commentator, suggests that Pivodas resentment against Smetana may also have been motivated by the
63 Hostinsky, p. 188 reports this. 66 BS: Frantisek Pivoda, 16 June 1870, MCH #273. 67 I explain the prostonarodni idea in the chapter on folk sources in the national music.
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incident when the latter, together with the directors o f the opera, turned down Pivoda's proposal to affiliate his singing school with the theater.6S In any case. Pivoda did take over as the director o f one of Prague's musical journals, the Hiulebni listy, which he turned into the main mouthpiece for attacking Smetana and the threatening "German direction in Czech music. Smetana's supporters, in turn, defended him in the journal not coincidentally named Dalibor, and the pages o f these two publications became the battleground o f the Wagnerianism debates. Pivoda's attack on Wagnerianism in Czech music is two-pronged: first he rejects the music because it is inherently "foreign. and then he criticizes it on aesthetic grounds, arguing that W agner's music and that beholden to it is simply bad art. In this way his critiques take the same basic form as W agners own harangues against the French and the Jews. For Pivoda. Wagner represents the peak o f unacceptable foreign-ness. as Ottlova and Pospisil term it. and that foreign-ness was of course German-ness.69 He was not alone, though, in regarding Wagner as indelibly German W agner was widely conceived as the "summation o f German music in the Czech lands, and even Hostinsky agreed that Wagners music was German through and through.70 Pivoda, however, thought that the only way to create a truly Czech music was if it was exclusively Czech through and through.7 1 Czech music could not be Czech if it was based in some way on foreign
w Hostinsky, p. 196. We have to beware of Hostinskys impartiality because of his recognized status as a champion of Smetana. Hostinsky was also the founder of Czech musicological scholarship, and his biases in favor of Smetana tended to inform the subsequent direction of Czech musicology. Nonetheless, Hostinsky was a serious, intelligent writer, and no crackpot, so his work still represents a valuable historical document of the intellectual/aesthetic concerns of his time. 69 Ottlova and PospiSil, p. 105. 70 Lebl and Ludvova, p.419; Hostinsky, p. 150. 7 1 This is the gist of a Pivoda article of 1870 cited in Hostinsky, p. 180.
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modelsthough Pivoda's objection always seems to have been aimed just at German models, since he in fact taught the Italian style o f hel canto at his singing academy and encouraged that as the proper vocal style for Czech opera. He thought that Smetana's Dalibor was so full o f "indigestible foreign-ness that it should more properly be named Dalibor Wagner.72 Smetana also reports that with Dalibor he was accused o f trying "to outdo Tristan. that [he] was only just beginning where W agner had left off.7 Besides his Germanophobic sentiments. Pivoda simply found Wagners music incomprehensible. He evidently had read Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft and did not necessarily disagree with it. But then when he actually encountered Wagners music. Pivoda found he could not accept the aesthetic principles Wagner had laid out in his writings, if such principles produced this kind o f music Pivoda thought was awful. Thus the acceptance o f such principles which Hostinsky also advocatedwould lead, in Pivodas opinion, to the same incomprehensible standard for a Czech national music. Against this "incomprehensibility, Pivoda juxtaposed his own vision o f the inherent qualities o f the Czech spirit and musical expression. He emphasized the natural qualities of Czech music, that it was gifted "naturally with simplicity and melodicness.74 German art, and particularly Wagner, thus become unnatural. As Ottlova and Pospisil explain, Pivodas emphasis on simplicity, while grounded on the prostondrodni idea that folk songs should be the basis for national opera, involves more than just that. In fact he was insisting on opera that would continue to be based on organized forms, traditional structures such as arias, duets, and choruses as they were found in French and Italian opera and which Pivoda perceived to be missing in Wagner.
1 2 From the article of 1870, cited in Hostinsky, pp. 186-7. 7 3 BartoS, p.112. 1 4 Ottlova and PospiSil, p. 102.
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It was the perceived lack o f these familiar forms o f orientation (including more traditional melodic and harmonic musical language) that provoked Pivoda's complaint o f Wagner's incomprehensibility.7'' In fact. Smetana was not the only composer to be criticized for a W agnerian abandonment o f traditional forms: Pivoda also derided Karel Sebor's (a contemporary o f Smetanas) use o f the orchestra to express emotional content, and the consequent "neglect o f the solo singing parts.76 The importance o f the orchestra was one thing about Wagner that particularly frightened Pivoda. He held to the idea o f opera as a vehicle for discrete numbers that showcased singers, and in this sense he opposed W agner's claims for the Musikdrama which put the principle o f drama before that of virtuosic display. So for Pivoda, not only did German influences scupper the possibility of a truly national opera, but in fact the entire aesthetic direction Wagner proposed could only lead Czech music down the wrong path. Hostinsky (and by extension Smetana), on the other hand, praise Wagner precisely for indicating the direction in which music, as an art form, must progress. In order to found a Czech music, they argued, Czech artists should look to the best examples o f modem art they can find. This model happened to be German. With a conspicuously Wagnerian line o f argument, Hostinsky says that Italian and French models brought about the decline o f opera that he saw as readily apparent in the contemporary period.77 He characterizes these models, disapprovingly, as based on "vocal virtuosity and insignificant, entirely perfunctory music.78 Again like Wagner. Hostinsky criticizes the number-opera form as being a product o f the cult o f virtuosic. empty singing. Hence this
7 5ibid., p.103. 7 6ibid., p. 100.

7 7 Hostinsky, p. 153.
7 8ibid., p. 159.
particular artistic style, which Pivoda argued for. is illegitimate. Hostinsky also rejects following what he terms a "cosmopolitan path. i.e. picking and choosing trends from various artistic traditions. Such an approach would only result in a "colorless music, not Czech, not o f any unified style, and not based on worthy aesthetic principles. '9 Hostinsky specifically denounced eclecticism. which he (following Wagner) identified with Meyerbeer, calling it the "negation o f all principle.80 Instead, opera should have a "rounded form. with sections almost like the movements o f a symphony. Not surprisingly, he also advocated the full use o f the modem orchestra to exploit its potential for polyphony and cqlorand this proposal again ties in to the idea o f not letting opera be solely a vehicle for virtuosic vocal display. Given the deficiencies o f other possible models for Czech music, German music and specifically Wagners example were the highest quality musical expression in the contemporary period, and so the only viable model. One reason why German music had attained its exalted position was because W agner also rejected the debasing Italian and French influences, looking back to the example o f the Greeks to restore dramatic truth to opera. But there was another, critical reason why Czechs should follow W agners example: he showed the world how to express the national in music. As Hostinsky explains. W agners operas are authentically o f a German character through and through, but just for that reason I remain a convinced Wagnerian, even with regard to our opera, to our Czech national opera... Richard Wagner showed us, with his excellent example, where to proceed from, which direction to take and what means we must use if we want our own uniquely Czech national opera, just as a uniquely German national opera is his accomplishment. It goes without saying that the departure point must be different for every individual nationality, natural and appropriate to it,
79 ib id ., p.152. ib id ., p.159.
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its own and particular. And this specific departure point, to which Wagner pointed us, isour national language.8 1 In this way. despite the undeniable German-ness o f W agner's art. it is valuable to Czechs as a kind of recipe for the national opera. And when Czech composers rely on Wagners example, their art is nonetheless thoroughly and exclusively Czech because it is based on the Czech language. The Czech language would automatically determine the music, in Smetanas and Hostinskys formulation, and thereby produce both an original and national m usic." The emphasis on speech is also associated with the subjugation o f absolute melody. In contrast to Pivoda. who emphasized that melody must be primary. Hostinsky and Smetana believed that the dramatic composer must create his sung melodies on the basis o f human speech patterns.8'1 This linguistic basis was the ultimate defense o f the Czechness of a piece despite a Wagner-influenced style. It was also the argument that Smetanas supporters used to defend him against the charges o f Wagnerianism. As Jan Neruda wrote: They say that Smetana is a Wagnerian. Where they are right in principle, is that Smetana watches severely to see that the music should correspond to the words. If you meet Smetana walking along the embankment, you will hear in passing how he declaims under his breath. Preoccupied with a new operatic composition, he declaims the text, repeating it a hundred times until melody flowers from the words in the most natural of chords. That is why his music, in spite o f all "W agnerianism, is so Czech. And because it is so Czech it is so elegiac.84 Interestingly, Neruda here also urges that the character o f the language naturally comes out in the music, insisting that elegiacness is an inherent Czech quality distinct from any
tp
81 ibid., pp.150-1. 82 In the first chapter I demonstrate Smetanas views on the relationship between language and the national music. * ibid., p. 157. 84 BartoS, p. 128.
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German character. Thus the elegiac Czechness in a piece o f music also serves to emphasize its nationality regardless o f German influence. Additionally, however, a national color could be granted to a piece through the use o f Leitmotivs, according to Hostinsky. For example, when Smetana gave the character o f Zdenek in Dalibor a Leitmotiv with a clear national character. as that motive appears throughout the opera the national character o f the work is reaffirmed.s" Moreover, by treating those motives in a truly Wagnerian fashion (i.e.. developing them so that they can express particular dramatic facets o f the work), the composer unites the most progressive" musical techniques with the national melodic elements. Actually. Pivoda would not have disagreed completely with this last claim o f Hostinskys. He, too. was in favor o f incorporating national tunes into Czech opera. He would have rejected, however, treating those tunes along the principles o f W agners musicdrama. This case, then, is a good demonstration o f the distinction to be drawn between Othering and boundary-creation as processes o f the social construction o f difference. As we have seen, the Germans really are the Other for Pivoda. the enemy that Czech art must resist, the image o f which Czech art must be the opposite. For Hostinsky and Smetana, the boundaries between German art and Czech art are not so hard, to use Duaras terminology. Hostinsky and Smetana are not interested in a complete exclusion o f German influences from Czech art. They wish to create a distinctive Czech music, but in order to create a quality art, Czech composers must be open to allegedly "foreign" impulses. In a sense, Hostinsky and Smetana are convinced that the boundaries o f their community are securethat the uniquely Czech character o f music can be maintained even with communication across those boundaries.
85 Ottlova and Pospi'Sil make this point, p.107.
I 7S
Grieg, German music, and German critics
In contrast to the Czechs and Germans, there really is no eternal enem y for the Norwegian nationalist movement. Sometimes nationalists would complain about the Danish influence in Norwegian culture, or about the Norwegian-Swedish Union, portraying the Swedes as aristocratic and autocratic in comparison to the earthy, homey Norwegians. But in general. Othering discourse has a low profile in the Norwegian movement. This does not mean that criticisms o f other peoples were entirely absent in the drive to create a Norwegian national culture. In fact, as a small, peasanty country on the periphery o f Europe. Norwegian patriots often seem to have felt that their culture was in danger o f being squashed by the bigger nations. As good patriots, though, these nationalists believed that Norwegian culture was inherently worthy and deserved to be freed from the domination o f external, less worthy national cultures. An early outburst o f this kind came from Lars Roverud, who, along with various Christiania critics o f the early 1800s, complained about the popularity o f empty and virtuosic Italian music.86 Roverud doubted that Norwegians' ears were made to hear such "southern, luxurious music: instead, he advocated a more simple, natural music that would be in line with Norwegian character.87 In 1830 Henrik Wergeland even wrote a little play called Harlequin Virtuos as a critique o f Italian and French music. Such perceived foreign influence also annoyed Ole Bull in the late 1850s, when he complained that Norwegian theaters, and Bergens in particular, were filled with Danish actors doing French plays, instead of, properly, Norwegian actors in Norwegian plays set to Norwegian music.88
86 Herresthal, p.36. 87 Roverud, p.3. 88 Herresthal, p. 140.
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Nonetheless, the principal adversary in the drive for a Norwegian art came to be the Germans. Herresthal covers in detail anti-German resentment in early nineteenthcentury Norwegian cultural life and I am indebted to his work in this area. In general, it seems that this resentment, though it produced some invective, rarely reached the bitterly divisive levels that it did in the Czech lands. The reason for the more moderate character o f Norwegian resentment is assuredly because Germans did not occupy the same positions o f dominance in Norway as they often did in the Czech lands. Still, though. Ole Bull, Bjomstjeme Bjomson, and A.O. Vinje. among others, decried especially Germans' influence on Norwegian music. Many o f Norways orchestras were made up o f a sizeable number o f Germans, which irritated Bull and provoked Bjomson to declare that these Germans would hinder a national art because they do not understand the Norwegian spirit. In an article o f January 1860. Bjomson pinpointed the danger here: One must remember that effectively all o f our music is still in foreigners' hands, and that m usics wondrous power is not being used towards the awakening o f the national spirit, as it does over the entire civilized world. Thanks to its immediacy, music more than any other art can conquer the great masses by speaking to their fantasy and feeling, and if this happens continually and repeatedly in a particular direction, then there is finally established also something in the listeners mind, upon which he can later, without knowing it, build further.90 This quote also shows the importance Bjomson assigned to musics role in the nationbuilding project: clearly, that role was too critical to let music remain in foreigners hands. Once Edvard Grieg arrived on the scene, he, too, voiced many similar opinions on the potentially pernicious German influence. However, Griegs statements actually reveal a move away from accusations o f the influence only o f German musicians in Norway and
89 ibid., p.144. 90 ibid., p.146.
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towards an indictment o f the broader dangers o f foreign." and particularly German, artistic traditions. By exposing the risks behind foreign influences, he o f course espoused a particular idea o f what "German art" was. We see him characterizing (one might even say caricaturing") German music in order to contrast it to his own view on Norwegian music. One o f the biggest problems, he claimed, was the extent to which German music could adversely affect Norwegian composers' art particularly since most Norwegian musicians, perhaps up until the end o f the nineteenth century, were trained like Grieg in Germany. He wrote in his diary in 1907, The Norwegian artistic nature still has the ability in itself to produce naive, healthy, straightforward art, only so long as it is formed from out o f the national temperament and not out o f the foreign. And just now the Germans music has gotten so far away from a healthy nature that their modem interpreters produce a pure caricature o f their own masters. So badly has the Wagnerians' music... affected todays musicians, that they feel all music Wagnerian (I intentionally don't mean Wagners music) in the sense that they cant create or reproduce four measures in the same 9 1 tempo. Grieg takes a position here not unlike Pivoda's, in the claim that German music has gotten away from healthy nature" which in turn contradicts Wagners own insistence that German music was a paragon o f naturalness in relation to French music. However, Grieg does not apply his criticism to Wagner, which is why he specifies that he is not referring to Wagners music but rather to Wagnerians' music, that is. to those German composers who took W agners innovations but (Grieg thought) used them to excess. Interestingly, Grieg admitted that Norwegians, as Northern Germans, had much in common with Germans and their music, such as a certain propensity toward
91 Dagbpker, p. 176.
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melancholy and brooding."*' But for that very reason Norwegian musicians must be careful with German music, in order to clear and rinse their ideas from the one sidedness that only loses itself in Germanness. * He wrote that a Scandinavian is in his national character so gloomy and reflective that in truth he can find no counterweight in the exclusive study o f German art. * 4 To rinse oneself from German music which had become merely a school-art" that smells like it does in a schoolroom or an anatomy chamber"a Norwegian artist should look home, to Nature, as an antidote. *' As with his accusation o f German music becoming unnatural. Grieg turned Wagner's arguments on their head in another way as well. Grieg accuses German musicians o f being one-sided" because they know only the history o f German music: they are so steeped in their own musical traditions that they never look beyond them. Composers o f other nationalities. Grieg argued, and particularly those from small countries, must have a wider horizon to appreciate the fruits o f a variety o f musical styles and traditions.*6 So an excellent way to broaden ones horizons was to study the great musical traditions o f France and Italy. In fact one o f Grieg's stated justifications for his government travel stipend in 1869 was to go to Italy to take the necessary remedy to an exclusive education o f German music. In an article on French and German Music published in Le Figaro in October 1900, Grieg elaborates on a definition o f Norwegian music in relation to these two other traditions. As he did with his study of Italian music. Grieg here juxtaposes French music
92 Gaukstad, p. 184. 93 Grieg Brev Bind I, p.479.
9 ,1 ibid.
9a Grieg Brev Bind I, p.357. 96 Dagbpker, p.115.
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against the German. But whereas W agner used this juxtaposition to proclaim the worthlessness of French and Italian art. Grieg advocates it as a beneficial element o f musical education. In the process, o f course, he essentializes German. French, and Italian music, underlining the ways in which they are different from each other. In trying to establish boundaries between these national musics, he also advances an idea of what Norwegian music must be. French art. with its light, free form, its transparent clarity, its euphony." will be the Norwegian m usicians salvation." This would be the necessary foil to the Norwegians German inheritance, since Norwegians do not have [the German] races need to express itself in an expansive and exalted manner." Quite the contrary, he claims: We have always loved the short and brief, the clear and concise in expression, as is found in our sagas and which any traveler today can find amongst us. These characteristics are also the goal o f our artistic efforts. But with all our boundless admiration for German arts profundity, we cannot enthuse in the same degree over its modem manner o f expression, which we often find ponderous and overloaded. The Nordic musician has, generally speaking, studied in Germany. One would thus believe that that lands immortal masterworks from its great classical period, with their pure lines and noble architecture, would serve as a lesson for him for his entire life. But alas! That period belongs to the past and youth seeks todays ideals with their merits and mistakes. It is therefore painfully human ttiat he gets intoxicated with German neo-romanticisms color orgies, and acquires its technical weight and vague lines, a ballast which later, when he must find expression for his individual and national particularity, is extremely difficult to cast overboard. As this citation shows, one of Griegs reservations about German music was its present stylistic direction (again, identified with the Wagnerians excesses), which earlier in his life he said possesses no ability for a vigorous progress.l)8 It is necessary to emphasize that Grieg did not reject German music completely, though. He fully acknowledged how
97 All above cites in this paragraph are from Gaukstad, p. 184. 98 Grieg Brev Bind I, p.246.
much he had learned from it. writing for example that "No music and no musicians has [sic] gone to my heart like the Germ an.04 However, as the long passage above makes clear. Grieg did think that "progress in modem music could be attained by composers giving voice to "national particularity in music. Yet this drive towards creating national styles in music seems to have antagonized German music critics, according to Grieg. A number o f times in his correspondence he complains about Germans* attitudes on national music, saying that according to Germans, "other nations are not allowed to write out o f their national feeling. 100 Thus non-German nationalist composers often have to deal with resentment of their national music in Germany. That is how Grieg described D vorak's reception in Germany, where he said that "Germans [can't] digest his [Dvorak's] nationality. 1 0 1 Looking back on his career. Grieg also complained o f bad treatment: "In Germany critics treated me poorly because I didnt fit into the boxes they liked to put composers in. In Germany people like to say: Er norw egert!102 This slur o f "Norwegerei which must have been used against Grieg on more than one occasion also provoked the following complaint: No one would permit him self to use as an insult descriptions like Germanness or "Germanism [Deutscherei] o f a German composer. But it is nonetheless a fact that German music critics take a distrustful and unsympathetic position not ju st towards Norwegian but indeed toward all
99 ibid., p .l ll. Originally written in English. 1 0 0ibid., p.623.

1 0 1 Gaukstad, p.208. 10 2 Benestad andSchjelderup-Ebbe (1990), p.338. Er norwegert! is basically untranslateable, but the sense of it is, Hes doing that Norwegian thing again! This insult seems to be predicated on the idea that if Grieg is making music strongly Norwegian in character, then he is just playing around, indulging in flashy national colors, and not being serious. If hes doing that Norwegian thing, hes not making true art.
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national expressions in music outside o f Germany. How narrow-minded and biased that is!10' Grieg implies that Germans think that all music is really German music because so many o f the greatest composers and masterpieces have come from German Europe. He said as much in a letter o f 1889. originally written in English: ...the great traditions o f German music often make the German musicians and critic unjust in their judge o f the works o f foreign composers. 104 He suggests that the typical, intransigent German position is that any music that departs from Germ an traditions thus isnt really music, or at least isnt really good music. Germans are so wrapped up in their own lofty tradition that they cannot or will not acknowledge other possible directions for art music.l0? This accusation echoes his statement, cited above, about German one-sidedness, and German composers' tendency not to look beyond their own musical traditions. German second-order Othering Grieg's reaction here becomes comprehensible in light of the severity o f German critics' attacks on him, which target not just his art but the idea o f national music in general. I call these attacks second-order Othering because in contrast to the main thrust o f my inquiry into nationalist artists ideas on constructing difference in the national art, these critics are not themselves artists but are rather reacting to nationalist art. These critics, in their responses to the ideas o f constructing difference, themselves Other the nationalist composers who first advanced those ideas. The attacks have three different critical motivations. First, German critiques o f national music are based on a perception that national music cannot be universal indeed that national musics are the
103 Grieg Brev Bind II, p.529. 1 (MGrieg Brev Bind I, p .l ll. 105 This is the gist of his comment in the letter to Finck, Gaukstad, p.50.
rejection o f universality in art. However, as we shall see. the criteria o f universality in music are in fact German in origin. So. secondly, critiques o f national music are often based on a perceived rejection o f German musical forms. The third element in Germ ans critiques is that national music is simply bad art. for the combination o f reasons that it is particular rather than universal, and based on unworthy musical forms. In this way, I claim, German critics Othered non-German national musics, positing them as antithetical to the standards o f high art standards that had been elaborated by Germans but which were nonetheless portrayed as being universal rather than national. These critiques affected not just Grieg but a wide variety o f nationalist composers: I will focus specifically on German treatments o f Norwegian and Czech music, however. The fact is, as Grieg suggests above, that German composers are almost never considered composers o f national music. Somehow, by definition, German music is not national music. This attitude, Leon Plantinga says, is akin to the way nationalism from the center is typically ignored within the history o f the Austrian Empire. The Germanic center o f the Western Habsburg Empire occupied the position o f power throughout the nineteenth century. The fact o f this power has affected musicological and
historiographical understandings, producing different conceptions o f the music that is in (the music o f the powerful center) versus music that is out (the music o f the subordinated parts o f the Empire). Thus in our consideration o f nationalism as a force in the history o f music and art we tend to limit our focus... to cultures o f the powerless and the oppressed, to those where there is a longing to throw o ff rule from elsewhere and establish indigenous nations. 106 So the artistic expressions o f the periphery Poles,
106 Leon Plantinga, Dvorak and the Meaning of Nationalism in Music in David Beveridge, ed. Rethinking Dvorak: Views from Five Countries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p.117.
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Czechs. Hungarians, or, farther afield. Norwegians are "national" while the art o f the centerGermans, whether inside or outside the Habsburg lands is not.10. In recent years, scholars have increasingly recognized the latent German bias o f much previous musicological scholarship.108 The roots o f modem musicology, and hence o f the scholarly understanding o f national music, are firmly grounded in the evolution o f music as an art form in the nineteenth century. The aesthetics o f music in that century were largely a German concern: it was primarily Germans who advanced the major theoretical and philosophical conceptualizations o f music that would come to dominate later understandings.100 Hence, German writers established the paradigms by which music was often measured. A major one o f these paradigms was the idea o f universality. While aspirations to universality in art are not restricted just to German artists (as we will see in the next chapter), the obsessive privileging o f this claim seems largely a product o f German thinking. Another product is the identification precisely o f German music with this universal ideal. Joseph Kerman, for one, has shown how musicological practice, as its methodological underpinnings took shape in nineteenth-century Germany, encouraged the equation of German music with universality.11 0 Similarly. Sanna Pedersons comments on the idea o f absolute musicwhich holds that music must not (and cannot) express anything "extra-musical such as emotions point to the localized origin o f these ideas. She has written that the idea o f
10 7 Dahlhaus (1980) also makes this point. 108 See Celia Applegate, What is German Music? Reflections on the Role of Art in the Creation of the Nation, G e rm a n S tu d ie s R eview , Winter 1992, pp.21-32. 109 Bojan Bujic, ed. M u sic in E u ropean Thought 1 8 5 1 -1 9 1 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p.xii. 110 See Joseph Kerman, How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out, C ritical
I n q u ir y 7 (1980).
absolute music [did not become] the esthetic paradigm o f German musical culture" but rather the idea o f German musical culture... became the paradigm o f absolute music. 11 1 Carl Dahlhaus has also written on how absolute music was regarded by Germans not only as an achievement o f German culture but in fact as the ultimate status that all music should aspire to. In this way German music became identified with absolute music, for which were made normative claims to universal applicability."2 Later commentators who were educated in this belief continued to propagate it. For example. Applegate points to American musicologists writing in the 1940s who claimed that even when German musicians express German traits" in music, these traits come across more as universal than as nationalistic. In fact, this trend is by no means dead: even a 1990 entry in the New Oxford History o f Music treats nationalist music mostly in non-German term s.11 The identification o f German music with universality is a surprisingly evident trend in nineteenth-century writing. This privileging consequently leads to criticism of music that is perceived as not attaining that standard. Nationality is viewed as incommensurate with universality (unless o f course its German nationality, which is inherently universal), and since universality is the requirement for art. nationality in art is wholly inappropriate. Absoluteness (identical in this sense with universality) is again the measuring stick, since non-musical features such as nationality only detract from absoluteness. In this vein Philip Hale, an American critic, criticized Grieg's music: It is doubtful whether that which is first o f all of national interest can ever appeal to the world as a musical masterpiece. We do not first think when listening to the great acknowledged masters o f the nationality o f these
1 1 1 Cited in Celia Applegate, How German Is It? Nationalism and the Idea of Serious Music in the Early Nineteenth Century, 19th-Century Music XXI/3. Spring 1998, pp.278-9. 11 2 Carl Dahlhaus, Die Idee der absoluten Musik (Kassel: Barenreiter Verlag, 1978). 11 3 See Applegate (1998), pp.275-6. She refers to Robert Pascalls entry Romanticism, 1830-1890 in volume IX of the New Oxford History.
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composers: if this thought occurs it is by wav o f digression, completely secondary... The nationality o f Grieg is forced upon the attention by the man. his music and his friends.'1 4 Critics o f Grieg often perceived him as rejecting these absolute/universal standards and hence pursuing only the particularwhich takes the form o f the national in his art. In Hales formulation, since national music is not universal, it cannot speak to a wider human audience: as a result, it fails to meet the aspirations of true art. Similarly, the German critic Riemann said o f Grieg that he imposed on himself the limitation o f national characteristics, and instead o f speaking the musical world language preferred more or less a local dialect. 11 5 What Riemann means by the musical world language is o f course really the Germanic tradition of music. Grieg, though, was not the only composer to be "demerited for not speaking this musical world language. His colleague and friend Johan Svendsen also provoked a German critic's dislike o f his Second Symphony on the same measure. Eduard Bemsdorf, who seems to have been a particularly cantankerous individual, objected to the national features in the symphony, writing that It interests us not in the slightest to be constantly reminded that a composer has been bom and raised in some land that he is now attempting to reflect in music.11 6 Besides his complaint that music should not express something extraneous like nationality, Bem sdorf also particularly objected to national expression in forms such as the symphony and the sonata forms which were exalted above all in the German musical tradition.
Philip Hale, Edvard Grieg, in Famous Composers and Their Works, John Knowles Paine, Theodore Thomas, Karl Klavser, eds. (Boston: J.B. Millet Company, 1892), pp.835-6. 115 Cited in Henry T. Finck, Griegs Influence on the Musical World, The Musician vol. Ill no. 7 (July 1898), p. 191. 116 Cited in Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1990b), p.133.
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With these forms held out as ideals, as in a sense the highest" musical structures. German critics established another standard by which nationalist composers who dared to work in these forms could be condemned. Bemsdorf. writing o f G rieg's sonata for violin and piano (Opus 13) and his string quartet in G minor, spewed venom on the composer and his works: We have felt only displeasure and repugnance toward all the boorish and absurd stuff that is gathered together under the guise o f a Norwegian national stamp, toward the mediocrity o f the compositional inventiveness that lurks behind the rough-hewn and exaggerated Norwegian exterior (something non-Norwegians must accept in good faith), and toward the lack o f any talent for structure and development indeed, the lack o f any ability whatsoever to create adequately, without patchworka continuous whole in a movement (as here in the sonata and the quartet)...117 As we will see below, composers such as Grieg who seemed largely to eschew the classical forms were especially liable to criticism. Alternatively, however, composers who were perceived as adhering to these forms could be praised, even in spite o f their nationality. In her book on music criticism in Vienna in the years 1896-7. Sandra McColl provides a number o f illuminating cites from critics who were judging music on the basis of German norms. These norms, she says, were the musical yardstick by which all other music ought to be measured.1Ix Behind this idea is the belief, apparently widely-shared by the Viennese critics she examines, that the successful construction o f large-scale musical works is a feature o f Austro-Germanic classical heritage. 119 That the perfection o f these formal structures was an achievement particularly o f German
11 7 From an 1878 review in the journal Signale; cited in Benestad and SchjelderupEbbe (1988), p.221. 1 1 8 Sandra McColl, Music Criticism in Vienna 1896-1897 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 107. "s ibid., p. 171.
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civilization is a claim also advanced by Wagner. '
I" * ()
With this as the "yardstick' for
achievement, then, national musics were acceptable in large part to the extent that they "measured up according to these formal standards. Thus one critic, Heinrich Schenker. regarded Smetana's and Dvorak's works as "successful because o f their reliance on German form: Smetana and Dvorak... succeeded more happily in bringing their national music into a system than did the Russian artist [Tchaikovsky]. The system is naturally that of German art. for this is best able to solve the principal problem o f the logical development o f a piece of music. So it was first of all Smetana, who with his brilliant predisposition towards the classical simply applied the German system to Bohemian music, and because he understood the German logic o f music as it were in its necessity and sensibleness as no other, it was granted to him to present Bohemian music in a perfection which will not be surpassed. Since then Dvorak has also succeeded, always with the German system as a basis, in nearly every field o f composition, in the naturalization o f his national tone. His chamber music in particular, with all its Bohemian roots, is blessed with such outstanding German virtues that it justly seems to us most highly attractive.1 '1 This sort o f German "aesthetic chauvinism. McColl suggests, corresponded to similar views held by other prominent writers, Eduard Hanslick among them. It is interesting, though, that whereas Smetanas Dalibor was perceived by some in the Czech lands (such as Pivoda) as formless in a Wagnerian way, later Viennese critics praised Dalibor precisely for its form. One commended the operas "German classical form, indicating that the form is what leant the piece its greatness.122 Making the link between Dalibor and its ostensible German influences explicit, the critic Helm held both Smetana and his opera in high regard precisely because they were indebted to W agner.12 When
120 See Die deutsche Oper, p.9. 1 2 1 Cited in McColl, p. 176. 122 Cited in ibid., p.171. 123 ibid., p.95.
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nationalist. non-German composers were not perceived as rejecting the universal" German forms, then, their music was more acceptable, even potentially attaining greatness, albeit thanks in large part to that form. Ironically for these praiseworthy comments about Smetana, however. German classical form seems to have meant relatively little to him. Apart from his two string quartets, his one completed symphony, and a handful of piano pieces, there are few works in his output that are easily identifiable as corresponding to German classical form. Even in his operas, while the influence o f W agner is indisputable, other models can be detected, such as that o f French grand opera in The Brundenburgers in Bohemia. Erismann suggests in fact that after Sm etanas first, early symphony, he refused to work any more in that form precisely because he considered it Germ an.124 While direct evidence for such a claim is lacking, it is nonetheless clear that many Czech composers (Dvorak not among them) in the last decades o f the nineteenth century saw the symphony form as outm oded and inappropriate for a Czech national m usic.125 While Grieg also never directly voiced any rejection o f German forms, his output, too. is fairly sparse in this area. His one symphony, the piano concerto, the three violin sonatas, and the one completed string quartet are his principle compositions in classical form. Often, the critiques o f national composers unite these above strands the perceived rejection o f universality and the supremacy o f German form into a more wide-ranging attack on the products o f non-German national musical traditions in general. These sort o f critiques do not necessarily appeal to any higher standard o f universality or the like they often just judge national music as bad music in itself. Few critics could top the bile of Martin Roder in this regard, who in an 1884 biographical
12 4 Erismann, p. 144. 1 2 />Lebl and Ludvova, p.403.
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sketch o f Grieg in the Neue Musik-Zeitung took the opportunity to lambaste the entire idea o f national music: Those lands in particular that dont have the prophets [o f universal music, apparently] in their midst wipe o ff as much as possible the accepted universal artistic expression, and they seek with all violence to present us with a kind o f degenerated art [Afterkunst], in which the respective national element steps strongly into the foreground. This moment is usually the mask for their own natural poverty o f invention though thereby for a certain time-span they never fail in their goal o f flinging sand in the eyes o f the honorable public. In music this phenomenon, more than all the other arts... has become most especially prominent. We find almost regularly that in other lands (and since for longer than a century the belief in German music as the standard-bearer holds, we can refer strictly to our neighboring lands), which as a result o f a certain music-chauvinism will not lend the respective ruling prophets their ears. [artists] declare the national side o f art in the most purely outward musical work. One endeavors thereby to give artistic practice something new, unusual, in a certain sense also ethical, in that one creates an art form on the basis o f folk songs and the characteristic melodic, harmonic, and especially rhythmically colored national tunes, so that they will astonish in the first moment. Their right to existence however is highly doubtful, when one judges artistic practice from an ideal standpoint. Namely the so-called Nordic and Slavic art has in this area a lot on its conscience... And from there stems the rather rancid aftertaste that the word Nordic school has in our ideal artistic life...126 Roder here clearly identifies German music as the universal artistic expression to which all music must thus aspire. However, the fact that he perceives national music as rejecting this universal aspiration means that national music has no real right to existence. This is especially so given that such national music is usually poor in its artistic practice, when judged from an ideal perspective. But this ideal is o f course the product o f German musical traditions. What makes this attack so unintentionally
1 2 (5 Martin Roder, Edvard Grieg. Biographische Skizze, Neue Musik-Zeitung, 1 June 1884, funfter Jahrgang, no.11.
laughable is that while Roder derides the "chauvinism" o f national music, his own tirade is just as chauvinistic, based as it is on the privileging o f German aesthetic standards.
Conclusion
The discourse we have examined in this chapter has revealed two particular trends in Othering and boundary drawing. First, it has shown that nationalist artists seek to create distinctions on the basis o f certain aesthetic criteria. This is the elaboration o f cultural differentiae that will permit observers (whether in the "in group" or the "out group) to recognize a particular culture as belonging to a specific group. Second, it is apparent that sometimes there is a normative component to the aesthetic differentiation, and this normative component is the "negative distinction inherent in the concept o f Othering. In these two types o f claims, we see a difference between those who insist on a "pure national music without foreign influences (such as Wagner and Pivoda), and those who are willing to acknowledge or learn from "foreign models (Smetana. Hostinsky. Grieg). The former seek to draw harder boundaries, while the latter are comfortable with softer boundaries between the relevant national artistic traditions. To a certain extent, then, this discourse evinces a very familiar language seen in many nationalist movements about subjugation and resistance. Nationalist intellectuals typically claim that their nation is being threatened in some way. often directly repressed, by another nation.127 A paradigmatic example is W agners complaints about the hegemony o f French music. Yet the discourse on national music actually represents an unusual and quite ironic instantiation o f the subjugation and resistance theme. That is
127 See Mark Ashley, Nations as Victims: Nationalist Politics and the Framing of Identity, presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 2001 .
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because German nationalists' protests against the French eventually ricochet when later nationalists from other movements turn these very same protests against German culture. The Czech and Norwegian cases are only two of many where later nationalist composers attack German musics hegemony: this theme in fact becomes a nearly indispensable weapon for most non-German nationalists.128 Having "conquered French music by the second half o f the nineteenth century, and arrogating to itself status as the one true universal music, German music then becomes viewed as the oppressor o f other national musics. So this is a striking example o f non-German nationalists taking up German nationalists discursive strategies but inverting the target o f the attacks. Finally, I want to offer a few ideas situating the practice o f Othering and boundary making within the history o f nineteenth-century nation-building movements more broadly. My intent is to suggest how we can associate these practices in the realm o f high culture with the rise o f the nation form. Specifically, we can tie these practices in to the production o f a vertically-integrated versus a horizontally-integrated culture, which, as I have discussed in the previous chapter, is one o f the goals o f the nationalist movement. In relation specifically to Othering and boundary creation, though, we see in the nineteenth century a move away from horizontal cultures that are shared transnationally among elites to a vertical culture that is shared m/ranationally among the national populace. This is the production o f distinct national cultures. The Othering/boundary construction dynamic enters here as a means of establishing the boundaries o f this vertical culture that is, as a means to establish boundaries between national cultures. Admittedly, the move away from transnational
128 See Robert Stradling and Meirion Hughes, The English Musical Renaissance 1860-1940 (London: Routledge, 1993) for an excellent account of this theme in the English discourse; and Victor I. Seroff, The Mighty Five: The Cradle of Russian National Music (New York: Allen, Towne & Heath, 1948) for a less in-depth consideration of the Russian case.
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cultures is not a perfect one. since it could well be argued that cosmopolitan elites such as Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg may have more truly "shared" a culture with each other than they did with the respective peasant populations o f their countries. National integration across social divides, and across high and low cultures, was o f course not completebut it was the ideal o f the nationalist movement. This is the ideal o f the unified, verticallyintegrated culture that is differentiated from other national cultures. Othering/boundary construction is part o f the process o f creating this differentiation. In tum. the process o f creating differentiation refers back to the idea of the fetishization of difference that I mentioned above. The fetishization o f specifically national difference is. naturally, also a product o f a particular historical moment. For instance, did J.S. Bach espouse the same kinds o f ideas on the distinctions between national arts that Wagner would, one hundred years later? O f course he did not. Bach's life preceded the rise o f the nation form. He did perceive differences in communal cultural expression for instance, he wrote pieces in what he called French" or "English" style. He assuredly thought that different groups expressed themselves differently. Some idea of communal stereotypes and distinctive communal cultures (the Italians are loud and create happy music. for instance) have been around for ages.129 But the nation idea is absent in these earlier conceptions. That means that Bach did not share the same conception o f a culture vertically-integrated across social boundaries that identifiably belonged to a unified nation. Wagner, in contrast, not only perceives differences in communal cultural expression but elevates that difference to the status o f a norm. Whereas for Bach communal cultural expressions simply are different, for Wagner they must and should be different. Cultural expressions are essential in defining the
129 See, for example, Michael Maurer, Nationalcharakter und NationalbewuBtsein. England und Deutschland im Vergleich, in Herrman, ed.
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nation and its characteristics. In this way. difference itself becomes positively valued, as both the condition and vehicle for a distinctive national art.
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
ON NATIONALISM AND MUSIC VOLUME TWO
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
BY BEN CURTIS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2002
C hapter Fo u r U n i v e r s a l i t y a n d t h e N a t i o n a l M u s i c s P l a c e in t h e W o r l d
Nationalists invariably insist that their nation's culture must be its own," unique to each nation. Yet this claim does not automatically presuppose the rejection o f outside influences on that culture or national identity. Indeed, the particularistic, narcissistic gaze o f nationalism does not preclude aspirations to transcending the nation, o f attaining something that is conceived as universal. So where the previous chapter investigated how nationalist artists seek to create boundaries, this chapter will show how nationalists are also concerned with transcending them, to be both national and international at the same time. How do nationalists try to have it both ways? How do nationalism and cosmopolitaneity both conflict and coincide? How and why does nationalism reject universal transcending authority but itself claim universality? These are the questions that we will examine through the discourse o f Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg. These three composers do have an aspiration and in a sense an audience beyond that o f their own nation they are aiming at the world. They demonstrate that there are international claims to nationalism, that nation-building is not entirely an inward-looking process. These nationalist artists' method of navigating the tensions between nationalism and cosmopolitaneity is through the principles o f the universality o f art, o f art that springs from a national source but that goes out to enrich the whole world. My analysis o f their discourse will reveal that through their ambitions to create great, universal art, Grieg, Smetana, and Wagner did hold to a value that they thought transcended nationality. By adhering to cosmopolitan standards o f what makes art great, an artwork could be both national and universal.
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Nationality versus universality Before we turn to the analysis o f their discourse, however, I need first to explain what I mean by universality and cosmopolitaneity. Universality, obviously enough, is some value that surpasses the national, that is conceived as applying equally and eternally to all o f humanity. A universal is a truth that is absolute, valid regardless o f the particularistic truths or values that individual nations may claim for themselves. As for cosmopolitaneity, in this chapter I am associating it with universality, in part because nationalists often did so and in part because these ideas do have deep conceptual affinities. They both imply a transcending o f particularity. Amanda Anderson has provided a useful definition o f what it means to be cosmopolitan: In general, cosmopolitanism endorses reflective distance from one's cultural affiliations, a broad understanding o f other cultures and customs, and a belief in universal humanity. The relative weight assigned to these three constitutive elements can vary, as can the cultural identities against which reflective distance is defined.1 Cosmopolitanism is sometimes accused o f entailing the complete absence o f nationality, o f any belonging or roots. But being cosmopolitan does not necessarily mean a detachment from ones roots. Kwame Anthony Appiah and others have argued for a rooted cosmopolitanism, by which an individual will belong to the wide world but still remain attached to a home o f her own, with its own cultural particularities... taking pleasure from the presence o f other, different, places that are home to other, different, people.2 In fact, this is the very view that Grieg and other cosmopolitan patriots (Appiahs term) espoused already in the nineteenth century, as we shall see.
1 A m a n d a A n d e r s o n . C o s m o p o li ta n is m . U n iv e r s a lis m . a n d th e D i v id e d L e g a c ie s o f M o d e r n i ty . in Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation. P h c n g C h e a h a n d B r u c e R o b b in s , c d s . ( M i n n e a p o l is : U n iv e rs ity o f M i n n e s o ta P re s s . 1 9 9 8 ). p .2 6 7 . : K w a m e A n th o n y A p p i a h . " A g a i n s t N a tio n a l C u ltu r e ." in Text and Nation. L a u ra G a r c i a - M o r c n o a n d P e t e r C . P fe iffe r, e d s . ( C o lu m b i a , S C : C a m d e n H o u s e . 1 9 9 6 ), p .1 7 5 .
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Nationalism has often been regarded as the antithesis o f universality and cosmopolitanism. When equated with chauvinism, nationalism is typically assumed to demand a blind favoring of one's own communal group at the expense o f other, broader, concerns. Many writers in fact argue that as an ideology, nationalism arose historically in opposition to supranational creeds and cultures. Isaiah Berlin, for instance, describes the growth o f nationalism as a resistance to various forms o f what he calls universalism. such as Roman law, papal authority, natural law, and other claims o f supranational authority.' Historically speaking, the rise o f nations does indeed put an end to what one might call the universalism" o f earlier eras such as the Middle Ages, when there truly was one religion and one elite language. As an opposition to universal truth, the idea o f the nation engenders the claim that no authority other than that of the nation itself should be recognized, Berlin says: There is no over-arching criterion or standard, in terms of which the various values of the lives, attributes, aspirations, o f different national groups can be ordered, for such a standard would be super-national, not itself immanent in, part and parcel of, a given social organism, but deriving its validity from some source outside the life of a particular society a universal standard, as natural law or natural justice are conceived by those who believe in them.4 This is a view that posits nationalism as a historical reaction against the ostensibly universal values of the Enlightenment. Where the Enlightenment (particularly in France and England) trumpeted the equality o f all men, with unity as the ideal o f humanity, nationalism instead exalts diversity and the organic, metaphysical bond to a sort of national/tribal community. Elie Kedourie is most famous for advancing this
I s a ia h B e r lin . The Crooked Timber o f Humanity ( P r in c e to n : P r in c e to n U n iv e r s ity P r e s s . 1 9 9 0 ). p .2 4 3 . 4 ibid.. Against the Current: Essays in the History o f Ideas ( N e w Y o r k : V ik in g P r e s s . 19 8 0 ) . p p .3 4 3 - 4 .
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characterization o f nationalism as based on irrationality and emotion versus the Enlightenment's reason and intellect.' Many scholars, though, have also pointed to Herder as fathering the cult o f diversity, rejecting the "unnatural cosmopolitanism o f the so-called "Age o f Reason.6 It is often alleged that the spread o f nationalism in the nineteenth century historically negates an earlier cosmopolitan ethos, as the world becomes divided into vertically-integrated national societies.7 This account o f nationalism is not purely the creation o f scholars, o f course. Nationalists themselves also sometimes have seen nationalism and cosmopolitanism as incommensurable.8 Certainly a critical component o f nationalist discourse has always been the need to build up a particularistic, unique identity for the nations peoplean identity, usually, that is free from foreign influence. In the realm o f the national art, Wagner lambasted the cosmopolitanism o f the French and the Jews, and Smetana and like-minded Czech nationalists also criticized "cosmopolitan national styles, as we have seen. Their complaint was against music (and composers) who were not rooted somewhere, in some particular, "natural Volk style. So we do see in the discourse on creating a national culture some kind o f resistance to "supranational authority o f the sort Berlin refers to. Nationalist artists rebelled against the idea o f a homogeneous, monolithic, one-size-fits-all aesthetics or artistic style. They obviously desired to create individual "national styles that would be grounded in some unique and uniquely identifiable brand o f cultural expression. Such national styles were seen as an antidote to any sort of cosmopolitan, and thereby "non-national, artistic style.
5 S e e E lic K c d o u r ic . Nationalism ( L o n d o n : H u tc h in s o n . 1 9 8 5 ). 6 S e e H u g h e s , p .2 5 . 7 K fe n . p .4 9 . m a k e s t h i s a r g u m e n t. x S e e G o n t h ie r - L o u i s F in k . D a s W e c h s c ls p ic l z w is c h c n p a t r io ti s c h c n u n d k o s m o p o litis c h u n iv e r s a lc n B e s tr e b u n g e n in F r a n k r e ic h u n d D e u ts c h l a n d ( 1 7 5 0 - 1 7 8 9 ) in H e r r m a n n , c d .. f o r e x a m p le .
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However, this antinomious view o f nationalism and universality/cosmopolitaneity is much too blunt, failing to capture the intricate relationship between these ideas. Bruce Robbins does well to caution against the overly simple binary o f universal and particular.) Nationalist artists aspiration to be both national and universal is one prime example that disproves this supposed incommensurability. In fact, for many nationalists not only were nationalism and cosmopolitaneity not mutually exclusive, but particularism was the vehicle for achieving universality. Nations are part o f a greater whole, the body parts o f humanity as one nineteenth-century German writer phrased it.10 In a passage from his The Ditties o f Man Mazzini passionately formulated how national particularity is a step toward a more universal goal: God gave [the means o f working for the moral improvement, the progress, o f humanity] when he gave you a country, when, like a wise overseer o f labor, who distributes the different parts o f work according to the capacity o f workmen, he divided Humanity into distinct groups upon the face o f our globe, and thus planted the seeds o f nations... Without Country you have neither name, token, voice, nor rights, no admission as brothers into the fellowship o f Peoples... In labouring according to the true principles for our Country we are labouring for Humanity; our Country is the fulcrum o f the lever which we have to wield for the common good... Before associating ourselves with the Nations which compose Humanity we must exist as a N ation.1 1 The appeal to particularity in creating a distinct national community or culture is not an appeal purely to difference for its own sake there is also an appeal to a higher standard, one that transcends nationality and applies to all o f humanity. Nationalism, as Mazzini suggests, is not just about group distinction. Rather, it is a condition for membership in human society at large.
B r u c c R o b b in s , C o m p a r a ti v e C o s m o p o li ta n is m s in C h e a h a n d R o b b in s , c d s . . p .2 6 0 . 10 C ite d in E c h te m k a m p . p .4 3 5 . 11 C ite d in P h e n g C h e a h . T h e C o s m o p o litic a l T o d a y in C h e a h a n d R o b b in s , c d s .. p .2 5 .
In much the same way. nationality could be the criterion for art's place in the world. 1 will be examining the following discourse according to three broad themes, what I have termed prestige, dissemination, and universality. I explain these themes in more detail at the beginning o f each relevant section. Briefly, however, prestige refers to the quest for status for the national culture, to assure it an acknowledged, respected place on the world stage with the cultures o f other nations. In the dissemination section I show how nationalist composers sought to gain for their works an audience beyond their nations boundaries. This was a means o f spreading the national culture abroad precisely so it would achieve the prestige these artists thought it was due. The idea o f universality I have already explained: I place it last in my examination because in an important way it is the ultimate goal o f the drives for prestige and dissemination. All three themes deal with ways nationalists want to transcend the nation, and they assume a varying importance for each o f my three composers. But for all o f them, the universality o f art is what finally grants nationalist music its transcendence.
Prestige
The implicit, and sometimes explicit assumption behind the call for a prestigious national art is that there existed a kind o f race between nations to produce great but distinctively national cultures. The process o f national particularization in nineteenthcentury Europe was viewed by many nationalists as a kind o f competition among nations. 1 2 No nationalist wanted his peoples culture not to be represented on the world stage. The goal was to develop a national culture that would be the equal o f the great
12 O ttlo v a a n d P o s p is il . p .8 3 .
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Kultunuitionen (usually conceived as France. England, and Italy, and later. Germany).1' As one Czech writer urged his fellow poets and playwrights, every nation had to assure itself o f a place on Parnassus. 14 Successive waves o f nationalist movements looked to what were considered to be previously established, prestigious national cultures: as my cases show, the Germans compared themselves to the French, the Czechs to the Germans, and so on. In music, this competition took a somewhat special form, since over the course o f the century a distinctive national style became an important vehicle for international recognition. As I have discussed in the Introduction chapter, folk traditions in music carried a hint o f the exotic with them. They constituted an extremely useful part o f the palette for the artist striving for originality, and so nationality was regarded as a major contributor to artistic value. Nationalistic artworks, then, were very often created with an eye to how they would compare to the products o f other national cultures. There was an audience beyond the artists home nation, and the artwork was to be measured by international standards. In this way the products o f the national culture, though created for the artists nation, were also meant to be in a sense cosmopolitan by contributing to an international high culture. These composers' quests for prestige also involve transcending their nations precisely because they look outside o f their nations borders for models. The idea o f an international standard by which the national culture must be judged encouraged nationalists to create something that would be measured not exclusively on its value to the home nation. Thus their cultural products had to have a value even to foreigners, since others besides the national citizens would be appreciating or consuming what the
13 A g n e w . p . 1 9 8 .
1 4ibid.. p . 12 8 .
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nationalist artists created. Moreover, the very fact that widespread international models such as music festivals or national theaters were employed in the effort to create a prestigious national art means that the national culture was unavoidably im pregnated with a certain cosmopolitanism. These models are imported from outside. after all. By aspiring to have their own theater, though, nationalists did recognize an authority outside of their nation, since it was the example o f how these theaters or festivals promoted national cultures in other lands that motivated the nationalists' desire for their own versions in the first place.
tt'agner It may seem surprising given the fame that many German writers, composers, and painters enjoy today, but in the earlier nineteenth century German patriots worried about the place o f German art in the world. Certainly the likes o f Goethe, Schiller, Bach and Beethoven were often seen as having already achieved renown for German culture. Yet nonetheless many people, inside and outside o f Germany, regarded it as a delayed nation that needed to catch up with others both politically and culturally.1 ' German nation-builders were predictably concerned that a German national high culture had to be competitive with the established national cultures, o f equal value and quality.16 For Wagner, France and Italy were the chief competitors, as these were the tw o lands whose musical styles largely determined the tastes o f the opera-going public in his day. Throughout his writings he laments repeatedly the fact that the French and Italians have their own opera, and hence they and their music are already national.17 To compete,
15 S te in m c tz in H e r r m a n n , e d .. p . 1 4 7 . 16 E c h te m k a m p . p .l I !. 17 S e c th e V o r w o r t z u r H e r a u s g a b c . p .2 7 9 . f o r o n e e x a m p le .
then. Wagner called for the Germans to develop their own "cultural institution" such as the French and Italians have.1 8 Their own institution would free the Germans from the hegemony o f French and Italian opera music. Wagners complaint is neatly summed up by a quote from his report to King Ludwig II, in which he proposed the creation o f a German national theater: The peculiarities o f French taste, together with the collaboration o f the greatest artistic powers o f all nations, founded the style o f the Parisian institution [meaning the Opera de Paris] towards the end o f the last and the beginning o f this century. From there the taste o f almost all European nations has been ruled up until today. The Germans also have not escaped the mere copying and imitation of the stylistic characteristics o f the Italians and French, namely in regard to the current performance style in the theater.1 0 Rather than merely imitating French and Italians, as the Germans presently do, Wagner argues for the establishment o f a style that would be uniquely German. With a truly German national art. the Germans would finally deserve the place they claim for themselves at the peak o f European peoples.20 W agner's argumentation here follows a pattern established by earlier figures such as Schiller, Lessing, and Klopstock, who had all, with much the same motives, called for the establishment o f a German national theater. As the report to Ludwig II demonstrates, Wagner had assigned him self this task of creating a national theater. The specific plan that he outlined in this document to the king was not realized, but Wagners goal did come to fruition in the form o f his Bayreuth theater. As I have shown in the first chapter, Bayreuth embodies virtually all^Vagners ambitions for a German national art. Bayreuth, then, was the ultimate stepping stone to
ls C ite d in G r e g o r - D c ll in . p .2 0 2 . 10 Bericht an Ludwig II, p .5 . 20 V o r w o r t z u r H e r a u s g a b c ." p .2 7 9 .
R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r re p r o d u c tio n prohib ited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .
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the rfnirn o f prestige that the French and Italians enjoyed with their own national arts. Bayreuth would be the vanguard o f a German art that could compete with the more established national traditions. However. W agner was not interested simply in attaining equality with the French and Italians. In fact, his idea o f prestige for the Germans explicitly poses the Germans above the French and Italians. The Germans, as a Volk, are not merely equally endowed artistically as the French, but are actually superior to them. Hence although French was the hegemonic culture o f educated European society, that culture was in fact degenerate. But given this French hegemony, W agner aspired to the Germans becoming the equally powerfully-armed rival to the cultural might o f Paris.2 1 Germanys mission was to save the world from French culture. W agners goal was thus not only to win recognition and prestige for German art, and a place for it at the highest levels of European culture, but actually for German culture to stand supreme amongst the other culture lands. This superiority complex is an integral element o f the messianic impulses within German nationalism and Wagner's own thought that we will investigate in more detail below.
Smetana
Self-consciously one o f the small nations o f Europe, the theme o f prestige took a very prominent place within Czech nationalist discourse. Whereas even early German patriots could exalt the achievements o f Goethe and Beethoven, up into the 1850s Czechs had virtually no works of high art to point to as unique products o f their nation. Czech nationalist intellectuals may have been particularly sensitive about prestige because they, like all educated Czechs, were very often steeped in the colossus o f German culture.
Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. p .3 4 .
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They seem to have felt an especially strong desire to demonstrate that a Czech art could stack up in every way to the German or that o f the other large countries. It was not just the Germans with whom the Czechs were in competition, however. In 1826 Palacky wrote about the Czech language. At a time when nearly all second-class peoples in Europe are, so to speak, vying for their so recently neglected national languages as if to the most holy palladium o f their existence, endeavoring to protect them through impressive, expensively-founded institutions (one need only think o f the Poles, Magyars, Netherlanders, Danes, and Finns among others), it would not be proper for the Czechs to be left behind in their own cause." Palacky is obviously urging the Czechs to attain the same goals (the establishment o f language institutes) that other second-class nations had. He did not want the Czechs to remain second-class in the sense o f falling behind their neighbors in national development. As in the case o f Germany and Wagner, a principal focus o f the drive for a prestigious Czech culture was a national theater. Both the rationale and the exhortations that nationalists employed in the national theater project rely heavily on the ideas o f competition and status, as a pronouncement o f 1850 from the Committee to Build a National Theater illustrates: Since we have been delayed and retarded by fate in our national development, we must now exert our full efforts in order to catch up with others, and to present a good example to all who will, perhaps, follow us and attempt to reach the same goal... The Czech patriot can now view with inspiration and hope the progress which our fresh national spirit has already made in education and culture... Yet we are still lacking something without which Europe will hardly regard us as an educated and cultured nation. We mean an independent national theaterthat school o f both life and morals in which many strands o f culture and education are intertwined to form a living wreath which will testify to our national culture before the
: : C ite d in K o r a lk a . p .5 8 .
20S
world, and which will strike new sparks and plant new seeds o f noble aspirations and undertakings."' Only a prestigious theater would ensure the Czechs national equality with the other nations within the Empire. the Committee added."4 In addition to the themes o f competition and status, this cite also clearly enunciates the idea that a national culture must stand before the world, looking inward but also directed outward. Part o f the program for a national theater naturally was to present Czech works o f art and to this end a competition was held in the early 1860s. This competition, which has become known after the name of its main sponsor. Count Harrach. called for the creation o f a Czech opera that would show the world that the Czechs, known far and wide as virtuosic musicians, were also capable o f great musical compositions.2' Smetana entered the Harrach competition with his first opera. The
Brandenburgers in Bohemia, and won. The goal that the Harrach prize committee promoted in the competition announcement was one that Smetana explicitly shared as well. In a letter he wrote to an old friend in 1880. Smetana said that his goal in his career had been to prove that we Czechs are not mere practising musicians as other nations nickname us, saying that our talent lies only in our fingers but not in our brains, but that we are also endowed with creative force, yes, that we have our own and characteristic music. How far I have succeeded in this hitherto, not I but the world will judge.26 Or, as Smetana wrote in his article outlining the artistic development Czech opera should take, only through developing a Czech opera o f high musical standard would complete
:jl K i m b a l l, p p .3 8 - 9 .
* 4 ibid.
25 S e e t h e Kriticke dilo. p .3 0 3 . :6 B a r to s ( 1 9 5 5 ) . p .2 1 0 .
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the honor that belongs to our nation, as a naturally musical nation, before all of Europe."27 Smetana's reference to honor in particular implies that the Czechs' great artistic talent needed to be more widely acknowledged abroad. If the national theater was the concrete goal, another focus o f this effort to produce a prestigious national culture was the city o f Prague itself. Czech nationalists sought to turn Prague from a provincial, predominantly German city into a world-class capital that was thoroughly Czech. In an article o f 1862, Smetana demanded that musical life in Prague be boosted so that it would compare favorably to that in other cultural capitals such as London or Paris. He says again that the Czechs' honor depends upon them supporting a great musical life in Prague: "I believe that our good name as a musical nation is quite old and renowned; it is the role o f the artist enthused with the true love o f his homeland to edify our name even more. I will make such a step."- When he became the director o f Pragues Provisional Theater, one o f Smetanas primary objectives was to bring its standard o f performance up as much as possible to international levels. He was determined that even though the Czechs were a small nation o f relatively limited resources, their theater would stand on an equal footing, in terms o f its artistic quality and prestige, with the national theaters o f the large European nations. Finally, Czech nationalists preoccupation with prestige is also strongly linked to the originality value o f nationality in art: one reason why their nation should take its place at the table o f great European cultures is because it has something unique and particular to offer. This idea played a role in Smetanas career, as an entertaining anecdote demonstrates. It concerns a debate that took place in Weimar, among Franz
*)o
27 Kriticke dilo . p .8 9 . :s ibid., p .3 7 .
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Liszt's circle of musical brains" (as the relater o f the anecdote. Vaclav Juda Novotny, terms them) regarding national music. In the Weimar music circle o f that time there was. apart from Smetana, the well-known Viennese composer [Johann. Ritter von] Herbeck. who was a confirmed enemy o f everything Czech. They fell to discussing what various nations had done in the great sphere o f music, and Herbeck began, pointedly and maliciously, to attack the honour o f the Czech nation. What have you achieved up to now, he scoffed, turning to Smetana. All that Bohemia can bring forth is fiddlers, mere performing musicians who can brag only o f their perfection in craftsmanship, in the purely mechanical side o f music, whereas on the real artists path o f truth and beauty your creative strength dwindles: indeed hitherto you have not done anything for the dent and progress o f musical art. for you have not a single composition to show which is so purely Czech as to adorn and enrich European music literature by virtue o f its characteristic originality...2 This barb succeeded in riling Smetana, who protested that the Czechs indeed had made important contributions to European music. Herbeck continued to deny it. however, only angering Smetana further. The story concludes: Liszt, who had followed the quarrel with a silent smile, bent slightly forward, took a bundle o f notes from the table, and with the words: Allow me, gentlemen, to play you the latest, purely Czech music, sat down at the piano. In his enchanting, brilliant style he played through the first book of Smetanas character pieces. After he had played the compositions, Liszt took Smetana, who was moved to tears, by the hand and with the words here is a composer with a genuine Czech heart, an artist by the grace o f God, he took leave o f the company. 0 There is more than a trace o f mythologizing here, o f course. But even if the story were not true, it is still valuable for its portrayal o f the periods conceptions o f nationality, originality, artistic quality, and how these elements were supposed to grant a nation cultural prestige.
B a r to s (1 9 5 5 ). p .4 5 . Jl) ibid.. p .4 7 .
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Grieg For Edvard Grieg, the analog to Sm etana's aims for a national theater was the music festival he organized in Bergen in 1898. The desire to put on a festival that met international standards was a guiding impulse behind G rieg's plans. Grieg described as his vision a Norwegian music festival consisting o f Norwegian musical works given the most ideal performance possible, and doubly here, where it concerns an international gathering that Europe will be attending." 1 G riegs intent was not only to showcase Norwegian art but to show Europe that Norwegian art was as good as that o f any other nation. The sam e arguments for the prestige o f Norwegian culture show up in Griegs 1874 application (co-authored with Johan Svendsen) for a stipend from the Storting (the Norwegian parliament). In this document, Grieg and Svendsen take the tone of, other countries support their composers with stipends, so how can Norway not do it too? There is even a hint o f shaming the Storting into supporting them, by exposing the lamentable state o f Norwegian music. Here in our beginning artistic conditions, they write, nothing o f that can be found, which abroad works so fruitfully upon the creative artists fantasy, because we are lacking the fundamental support that lies in a national opera with an orchestra and chorus that corresponds to arts and our times requirements.' Their implication is obviously that Christiania needed an opera and an orchestra that would be at a level equal to that found in other European capital cities. As Wagner and Smetana did, Grieg argues here for the establishment o f a prestigious cultural institution so that Norway could have a thoroughly national culture. Interestingly,
Jl G r ie g Brev B in d I. p .3 1 3 . 32 ibid.. p .4 8 0 .
whether or not we can attribute it to Grieg and Svendsen's insistence, the parliament members did seem to be convinced by the challenge to keep up with other countries. Johan Sverdrup, the Storting president, described how in the debate over whether to award the stipends, the perception that other nations had developed a "well-rounded and complete cultural life through an artistic treatment o f national melodies indeed played its part in the decision in favor o f the stipend. Apart from these two examples, the theme of prestige actually makes relatively few appearances in G riegs discourse. Nonetheless, it was a recurring theme for Norwegian nationalists, including Griegs friends. Ole Bull, for one. was intent that Norway should aspire to the standards o f other countries in forming a national theater. Surveying what he perceived as the sorry status o f theater in Norway, he wrote. Among other nations that can serve as a model for us. one sees... that the national art is also advantageously fostered on the stage, while foreign art finds encouragement only rarely, or in a lesser extent and as a break in routine from the dominant national. 4 Bulls idea is that once Norwegian theater became truly Norwegian, it would merit recognition and prestige. Bjomson was also a major campaigner for developing a high culture that would allow Norway to participate as an independent culture-nation on the world sta g e /5 In his own artistic efforts, Bjomson explicitly acknowledged that other countries provided a model that Norwegian culture had to live up to. 6 If overall Grieg was not as preoccupied as Smetana with the prestige o f the national art, he nonetheless did agree with a
" C ite d in B e n e s ta d a n d S c h jc ld e r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 8 0 ) . p . 14 4 . 34 H e rr e s th a l. p .9 4 . 5 S e e A m d a m . p. 1 2 4 . 6 ibid.. p .2 6 4 .
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biographer who wrote that in his career he secured for Nordic music rank alongside the other culture lands.'"'
Dissemination
In order to attain prestige and recognition it was o f course necessary that the products of the new national culture should go out into the world as evidence o f the nation's creative power. But beyond just the goal of these cultural products achieving a place on the world stage, they were also supposed to communicate to the rest o f the world what the values o f the nation were. Disseminating the nation's art internationally was a further means of both cementing a national style and positioning the artists people as a Kulturnation. Nationalist composers' art was disseminated in three main ways. First, concert tours by the composers allowed them to personally present their works and their nations culture to audiences abroad. Second, their works were obviously performed abroad even without the composer present: Wagner and Grieg especially came to enjoy great fame this way. Lastly, dissemination was also effected through print: sales o f musical scores, and in W agners case the publishing of his prose works, played a major role in the spread o f these composers national art. Much as with prestige, dissemination is accomplished in large part through the application of international forms to the national culture. Where in the drive for prestige these forms are things like a national theater, in the case o f dissemination they are primarily musical forms such as opera, concerti, and piano music. These forms are easily consumable, in that a market existed for them. Opera houses were always looking for new works to produce, performers were seeking new music, and even the general public
J ' R o ja h n . p .9 4 .
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would pay to see performances or to purchase the score for their own enjoyment. This consumability is what really facilitated dissemination. Such works are conceived to be universally communicable: a string quartet, as an established art form, thus becomes an excellent vehicle for disseminating the ostensibly unique national style contained within the form. And for all the particularity or distinctly 'national musical content of these forms as Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg use them, they are still in an important sense cosmopolitan because they come from a wider European culture. Also, as Grieg will suggest, dissemination is predicated on the idea that music itself, as an art. can communicate across borders. It communicates to people regardless o f their national background because o f its universality. We find an instructive variation in the cases o f our three composers as to how well they managed to disseminate their works abroad. We will begin with Smetana, who for the most part is a case o f failed dissemination in that his music gained very little international recognition while he was still alive. Wagners dissemination, as I mentioned above, takes place mostly through the second and third methods: performances abroad where he was not involved, and prose works. Grieg, then, is the paradigmatic case o f dissemination o f national music, making use o f all three methods.
Smetana
Smetana was unquestionably aware o f the utility o f dissemination and early in his career he worked hard to achieve international recognition for his art. He felt that it would have been a benefit to the whole Czech nation if his works became known abroad. 8 As with the other two composers, performance tours played a role here. In a letter to his wife o f 1861 Smetana declares that with his tours ...the intention to become
3S S o r e p o r ts V . V . Z c l e n y in B a rto s ( 1 9 5 5 ) . p .2 2 1 .
known quickly, and to be sent out in all the papers to all the com ers o f the world, is being achieved, and can be o f great use later on. 0 These tours also served a patriotic goal. For instance, before Smetana embarked on one o f his trips, his cousin and former teacher Frantisek Smetana reminded him, for the good o f his country, to travel as a Czech artist and not as a German (Smetana did often go by the name o f Friedrich Smetana when he traveled abroad, though).40 Smetana was sensitive to admonitions such as his uncles, and at his concerts abroad he usually performed his own "Czech compositions side-by-side with pieces by the likes o f Liszt. Chopin, and Schumann. In this way the ambition o f gaining fame for him self and his own works went hand-in-hand with the dissemination o f a Czech art. Once his career was more firmly established. Smetana continued to be concerned with means o f assuring the spread o f his own Czech music. For instance, he insisted on having a decent Germ an text o f The Bartered Bride so that it could be performed in German theaters, "w hich we are striving for in every way possible. as he says in a letter.4 1 Similarly, in 1869 he had the opera translated into French so that it could "go out into the world and gain recognition beyond our frontiers and perhaps earn some money for me too.42 He in fact sent a copy o f the score to the Paris Opera, but was unsuccessful at getting The Bartered Bride performed there during his lifetime. It did, however, reach St. Petersburg as early as 1871. though it was not well-received by Russian critics. Smetana said that the libretto of his final, uncompleted opera had attracted him because
B S : B e ttin a S m c t a n o v a . 3 0 a n d 31 O c t o b e r 1 8 6 1 . M C H # 1 4 6 . 40 B a r to s ( 1 9 4 8 ) . p .2 0 . 41 S e q u a r d t o v a . p . 1 4 4 . 4: L e tte r c it e d in L a r g e , p . 168.
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he thought that with its subject matter it would more easily "reach beyond the frontiers o f Bohemia.4 Though the Paris Opera was not interested in producing Sm etana's operas, later in his life another possibility arose o f having his works performed in Paris, at the so-called "concerts populaires. That prospect spurred him to write to a friend. "But if this venture were successful and he [the producer o f the concerts populaires] accepted and performed my compositions then not only I but also our Czech art would profit, and that is the main thing.44 He was similarly excited by the possibility o f his tone poems Vvsehrad and Vltava being performed in Londonthough not only the prestige o f having his works heard in one o f the major world cities, but also a hope o f significant profits seems to have stoked his excitement.4' Smetana also tried to get Vvsehrad and Vltava published by the Schott firm in Leipzig in 1875 but could not come to an agreement with them.46 Sadly, after various such failures Smetana in his last years became embittered and resigned about the chances o f his music being heard abroad. His friends continued to pressure him to send his works to foreign publishers and not to rely just on Czech ones, since the Czech firms were much too small ever to distribute Smetanas music properly or even to pay him adequately for it.47 As we have seen, his motives were not always exclusively national-political, since he would have seen some financial gain if theaters outside the Czech lands had started performing his operas. In fact, it is in a discussion of the financial situation for Czech composers that Smetana laments that whereas German.
4 L e tte r to K r a s n o h o r s k a o f 3 1 J a n u a r y 1 8 7 8 . c it e d in B a r to s (1 9 5 5 ) . p . 18 8 . 44 B a rto s ( 1 9 5 5 ) . p . 19 4 . 45 L e tte r in ibid.. p . 2 2 1. 46 H o s tin s k y . p . 3 2 6 . 47 Smetana-Prochazka korespondence. p .3 0 .
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French, and Italian composers have many theaters where their works can be performed, we Czech composers have only one stage that can and should encourage the supply o f good works and the elevation o f national a rt/48 Czech composers. Smetana wrote on another occasion, suffer because o f how small their country is, which significantly hindered the possibility o f their works becoming well-known abroad. As he complained in a letter o f 1877. its terrible that our domestic compositions go across the borders with such difficulty, while in Germany every bit o f trash is not only published, but also spread by performances. And o f those foreign composers apart from Wagner. Liszt, and Brahms we Czechs have absolutely nothing to fear.40 The reasons for Smetanas failed dissemination are partly personal. His deafness and the accompanying financial insecurity in which he lived his last years eliminated the possibility o f trips abroad to promote his music. His increasing mental instability in this time also inhibited touring. He was thereby robbed o f the same kind o f peak in fame that both W agner and Grieg enjoyed in their last decades. Even prior to his deafness and mental decline, his directorship o f the Provisional Theater left Smetana little time for guest appearances abroad. He was simply unable to promote his music personally in the way that both Wagner and Grieg did. His failure to secure a contract with a major foreign publisher also hampered the spread o f his works: Griegs contract with the Peters publishing firm in Leipzig proved o f immense importance in furthering his own career. Another difficulty in the dissemination o f Smetanas music was posed by the limitations o f the national language. This is a problem he was aware of, as his concern for good translations o f his operas shows. Ironically, though one goal o f establishing a national art was to demonstrate that the national language was capable o f a full range o f
B S : R u d o l f W irs in g . 2 2 S e p te m b e r 1 8 7 6 . M <I:H # 2 1 4 0 . B S : K a r e l B e n d l, 2 0 D e c e m b e r 1 8 7 7 . M :H # 1 8 4 .
2 1X
emotional and artistic expression, minor" languages such as Czech and Norwegian have been an obstacle to international audiences coming to know vocal music and operas in these languages. Very few performers who are not Czech or Scandinavian can cope with the texts. This is a shame, since it prevents some of Smetana's and Grieg's best works (such as Smetanas operas Dalibor and The Two Widows or many o f Grieg's Lieder. like his song cycle Haugtussa) from being heard outside o f their native lands. So while some o f Smetana's music is internationally known today, much o f the best of it is very seldom heard outside the Czech lands. Dvorak has instead become the most famous international representative o f the Czech national school, despite the fact that Smetana was actually more o f a nationalist and not notably an inferior composer in comparison with Dvorak. But Dvorak succeeded where Smetana failed, namely in securing a foreign publisher and touring widely. Also. D vorak's much greater output in consumable classical forms o f symphonies and chamber music facilitated his extensive dissemination. Wagner Wagner today certainly suffers none o f the recognition problems that obscure many of Smetanas gems. Perhaps surprisingly, however. W agner first became known abroad for his prose writings, as Hannu Salmi demonstrates/'0 It was only later in the 1850s that W agners operas gained world-wide fame. For Wagner, though, his prose and his music were supposed to spread together, as they were closely and essentially linked. A letter o f 1849 indicates that he wanted people to read his philosophical writings early on so that they would understand his music:
50 S e c S a l m i, p .5 .
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It is absolutely necessary for me to complete these [philosophical] works and to send them out into the world before I continue in my immediate artistic production: I must, and those who are interested in my artistic nature must come with me to a precise understanding. Otherwise we will all grope about in a repellant half-light that is even worse than the absolute, narrow-minded night in which one sees nothing at all and only clings religiously to the same old handrail.'1 His aesthetic philosophy was supposed to blaze the trail for his art. Nonetheless, he did also rely on performances o f his works to herald his achievements in the reform" o f dramatic music. He gave concerts throughout the German lands, especially later in his career when he was attempting to drum up support for his Bayreuth plans. To some extent he also took his works abroad, as the Paris production o f Tannhciuser in 1860 indicates. However, his presence was not necessary to secure performances o f his operas, since beginning in the later 1850s they were frequently given in houses throughout Germany. W agners concern with dissemination applies first and foremost to dissemination in his own country in order to establish a national style. In a letter o f 1845 he proclaims an urgent need for such dissemination, announcing that I now consider it very important for the entire future o f our dramatic music that a figure appear from Germanys heart and disseminate itself throughout Germany...' 2 In this regard Wagner saw him self as carrying on Beethoven's achievements: whereas Beethoven had shown to the world the glories o f the German artistic spirit in the realm o f purely orchestral music, Wagner would do the same for dramatic music. The function that the spread o f works such as Tannhciuser and Lohengrin would fulfill would be to form the starting-point to a truly German style for musical-dramatic performances o f which no trace currently exists.5
51 C i te d in G r e g o r - D c llin . p .3 2 5 . 52 W a g n e r Briefe B a n d II. p .4 3 3 . 5j V o r w o r t z u r H e r a u s g a b c . p .2 7 8 .
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To Tannhciuser specifically he assigned the task to win for me the hearts o f my German compatriots to a greater extent than my earlier works have yet been able to!' 4 Wagner thought that thanks to his operas a truly German style would become known, and hopefully take hold, throughout Germany. Once it was firmly established in Germany, then, this national style would take its place in the international operatic world as a beacon for the reform o f dramatic music. Ironically, however, at least earlier on in his career Wagners popularity outside o f Germany was higher than within, as Martin Gregor-Dellin shows.5' One example is with the 1860 performances o f Tannhciuser in Paris, which apparently actually helped increase W agners profile within Germany. The slowness, as he perceived it, o f his works becoming popular in his native land is doubtless responsible for some o f W agners insistence on the need for dissemination o f a German style within Germany. The borders of the many German states first had to be surmounted before the national art could truly travel abroad. Nonetheless, as his fame increased some evidence does suggest that the reception (in both Germany and abroad) o f his works as specifically German also increased. Such, at least, was the case with the premiere o f Die Meistersinger in 1868, which attracted attention throughout Europe as a new German "national opera.56 The way in which his aspirations for art within Germany would transcend borders and go out into the world becomes clear from a passage in his proposal to Ludwig II for building a national theater. The completion o f this important institution o f magnificent model performances o f noble German original works, Wagner writes,
54 ibid.. p .4 3 4 . 55 G r e g o r - D e llin . p .4 6 3 . 56 ibid.. p .5 8 4 .
would thereby, if all the arrangements to this end proved worthwhile, lead to the official opening o f a noble festival theater, which would stand as an exemplary realization o f its goal to the entire cultured world, a monument o f the German artistic spirit.*0 ' This. then, is a paradigmatic expression o f the pow er and purpose of the dissemination o f the national art: not only do the artworks make a national art in the first place, but they serve as ambassadors to the entire cultured world for what the nation is capable o f creatively.
G rieg
Despite the international success his music achieved. Grieg was actually acutely aware o f the difficulties o f his works finding their way to audiences outside o f Norway. As for Smetana, language was an issue: Grieg recognized early on that his Norwegian songs' texts had to be translated (into German, English, French, and so on) in order to make them performable abroad.58 Often, he found the translations were quite bad, which in turn hampered the publics appreciation o f his music. Not surprisingly, then, he was deeply concerned with getting better translations.59 Still, though. Grieg saw a special role for music in the dissemination o f Norwegian culture, particularly music that was not based on a text. Music's power was to communicate beyond any linguistic level, to speak to every person in the universally comprehensible language o f tones. Grieg agreed with the following description o f his efforts to disseminate Norwegian culture: On his many concert tours Grieg has had the opportunity to acquaint the best orchestras and the most gifted musicians with his muses particular national spirit. As he gets across his intentions in a musical sense, at the same moment the national spirit is present and permeates the entire
57 Bericht an Ludwig 11. p .4 7 . 5!t F in c k le tte r in G a u k s ta d . p .5 6 . 59 S e e ibid., p .4 3 a n d Briefwechsel mit Peters, p .6 2 0 .
ensemble. In this way the traveling Grieg has accomplished a quiet mission, since with his tones and his conductor's baton he "spiritualizes" Bjomson's and Ibsen's thoughts and thereby sinks into the depths o f foreigners' hearts the finest and tenderest soul-feelings in Norwegian folk life, that do not allow themselves to be expressed in words.60 As that quote suggests, Griegs concert tours were o f central importance in the spread of Norwegian music much more important, relatively speaking, than either W agners or Smetana's were for their countries. Grieg was a huge concert draw, and in the last 20 years o f his life invitations to come perform constantly poured in.61 On these tours Grieg very often brought other Norwegian musicians along with him. He thereby not only spread his own work and the fame of Norwegian music abroad, but furthered the careers o f his fellow countrymen and -women. There is no doubt that Grieg saw this dissemination as a patriotic project. As he himself said, at the end of a concert abroad when he had lowered the conductor's baton, and the audience was responding with a storm o f a applause, "yes, then they come over me, the tears from the love o f my fatherland...''62 Griegs piano concerto played a major role in establishing his reputation and then in winning him admirers. With this concerto Grieg realized a masterpiece in one o f the major genres o f Western art music, and it was the piece that first brought him into concert halls worldwide. Later most o f his major works became famous in all the musical capitals o f Europe; the incidental music to Peer Gvnt in particular enjoyed enormous popularity. G rieg's fame was such that he and Tchaikovsky were reportedly the two most-performed composers in the world around 1900.6 Beyond the concert hall, however, G riegs
60 R o ja h n . p p .9 3 - 4 . 61 B e n c s ta d a n d S c h je ld e r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 9 0 ) . p .3 0 1. 62 R o ja h n . p .9 2 . 6j C ite d in N ils G r in d e . G r i e g a s a N o r w e g ia n a n d a E u r o p e a n C o m p o s e r . Siudia M usicohgica N onegica 2 0 : 19 9 4 . p . 127.
chamber music also helped disseminate his idea o f a Norwegian art. His solo piano music became very popular even early in his career. On a visit to Berlin in 1866. for example, he went into a music store and found that all the copies o f his Humoresker had sold out.64 Similarly, he once remarked happily that his edition o f Norges Melodier (N orw ays Melodies) had sold many thousand copies by 1905.6' His Lyric Pieces were and remain one o f Griegs most popular compositions, and it was these that really brought Grieg into thousands of homes in Norway and abroad, above all by amateur pianists wanting to play them.66 Thus within his own lifetime Griegs importance in making Norwegian culture known throughout the Western world was already acknowledged. The flood o f tributes to him surrounding his 60th birthday in 1903 often make reference to Griegs role as a sort o f cultural ambassador for Norway.67 Grieg was certainly aware o f the idea that he both presented and represented Norwegian music, and even espoused this idea himself.68 He was conscious of following in the footsteps o f his predecessor Ole Bull, the violinist who had first brought an idea o f Norwegian music to European capitals with his many tours earlier in the century.69 Unlike Wagner, however, Grieg was not a committed self promoter, and so he also worked on behalf o f other Norwegian composers, most decisively perhaps with the 1898 Bergen festival. One o f the greatest accomplishments o f this festival, he wrote, was that the lesser-known Norwegian composers whose works had
64 Dagboker, p .9 1 . 65 B e n c s ta d a n d S c h je ld c r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 8 0 ) . p . 15 5 . 66 ibid.. p . 101. 67 S e c t h e G r ie g trib u te is s u e o f Bergens Tidende f ro m 13 J u n e 1 9 0 3 . f o r e x a m p le . 6X S e c t h e le tte r in G r ie g Brev B i n d I. p .l 10. fo r e x a m p le . 69 S e e G a u k s ta d , p . 10 0 .
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been performed there would receive more artistic recognition abroad, going from Bergen out to Europes concert halls.70
Universality
As we will see. the theme o f universality is closely linked in this discourse with cosmopolitaneity. This is because universality makes cosmopolitaneity possible. The idea that music is a universal language means that it can communicate to everyone. So music can in theory travel anywhere and be understood: it becomes the possession o f all peoples regardless o f nationality. More specifically, nationalist art becomes cosmopolitan when it goes out into the world to proclaim, through the universal intelligibility o f music, the values of the national culture. It is this universal power to communicate to the world at large that makes art both national and cosmopolitan. But nationalist art could only become cosmopolitan in this way when it attained the universal standards o f all great art.
Wagner
In Wagner, the theme o f universality takes a somewhat different tone than it does in either Smetana or Grieg. The demand for universalityand, in its way,
cosmopolitaneity is there, above all as an emphasis on producing dramatic truth. As do Smetana and Grieg, W agner wants to produce art that will speak to everyone, that reveals basic truths about human existence. Similar, also, is the fact that these three composers all couple universality with nationality, in that nationality is the vehicle to achieving the goal o f an audience beyond the composers own nation. Wagner, however, takes a more radical (one might also say a more chauvinistic) step than Smetana and Grieg by insisting
711 G r ie g Brev B i n d I, p .3 1 5 .
that only German nationality is the proper vehicle for achieving universality in dramatic music. Chauvinistic, then, because despite his embrace o f the purely human." he absolutely attributes to the German spirit, and to it alone, the power to overcome the sorry state o f the modem world and its art. On the one hand. Wagner undeniably praises the national in music. He believed that all culture proceeds from nationality.7 1 Hence he rails against the idea o f the absolute artwork. that is. the artwork that is neither bound to place or time, nor presented by particular people under particular circumstances to equally particular people in order to be understood by them is a complete absurdity, a shadow-image o f aesthetic philosophical fantasy.72 The truth is, according to Wagner, that a work o f art must spring from its own place and time in order to be great. This claim is linked with his idea that all art should stem from Volk inspiration. Also, given that Wagners preferred Volk inspiration myth is inherently true." and universal, with a purely human content, these Volk inspirations can be simultaneously national and universal. But W agner (and for that matter, the other two composers as well) also stresses the need for art to rise above the bounds o f nationality. In what might seem a preposterous bit o f hypocrisy, Wagner does even criticize patriotism he says it makes the citizen blind to the interests o f humanity above all, blind to the relations human to human.7'' As we have seen in previous chapters, on a number o f occasions in his writings Wagner actually criticizes national styles in music, which he says amount only to the particular, lacking any true connection to the Volk or any authentic aspirations to
71 C o s im a W a g n e r . Tagebiicher B a n d II. p .8 2 7 . 7 Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde. p .2 3 4 . " O herStaat and Religion, p . 13.
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universally communicable art. '* Given, then, that patriotism prohibits people from communicating with each other on a purely human level, it follows that Wagner rejects patriotism in art. The ideal art form, he wrote, transcends the restrictive moment o f narrower nationality in order to produce an art that is commonly understandable, accessible to every nation.7' Drama can realize this goal, according to Wagner: its purpose is to show society its purely human nature or purely human individuality.76 As he says, in the theater the whole human, with his lowest and highest passions, is presented to himself in alarming nakedness.77 However, the dramatic art in its present form is so degraded (principally through the deleterious French influence) that it must itself be perfected in order to realize its universality. Thus W agners project of perfecting drama aims at benefiting all humanity, based on drama's pow er to reveal the purely human, the universal aspects o f human existence.78 His own means of depicting this naked human is primarily through myth, because as mentioned previously myth is universal, true at all times.79 In this regard, he praises the G reeks' method of using myth in their art, and particularly the self-eradication of their national particularity that they achieved.80 Wagner writes that once he began investigating German myths, he finally found in the German spirit the potential that leads over the narrower barriers o f nationality to a comprehension of the purely human, to me seeming so closely related to the Greek
74 Oper und Drama P a r t I, p .2 6 7 . 75 Zukunftsmusik. p .9 5 . 76 Oper unci Drama P a r ts II a n d III. p p .7 0 -2 . 77 Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. p p . 6 0 - 1. 7S ibid., p .2 12. 79 Oper und Drama. P a r ts II a n d III. p .6 4 . x Kunstwerk der Zukunft. p . 1 42 .
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spirit.81 He sees the German Geist as a kind o f re-birth of the Greek, in that both national spirits were privileged with delivering universality to the world. It is through art. then, that the national and the universal are interwoven so that they become something transcendent. To the extent that the knot o f W agner's thinking on this matter can be untangled, the formula seems to be this: art must be national, but it must also rise above national particularism. It accomplishes this by being based in the Volk, since art stemming from the Volk is in its nature also universal. Though it retains its unmistakable national coloring, that origin in the Volk, its naturalness, is precisely what makes the art universal. He illustrates this idea perhaps most clearly in his description o f the universality of the folk melody. The folk melody, he wrote in Oper und Drama , is free o f all local-national particularity, it contains a broad, general expression o f feeling, it has no other embellishment than the smile o f the sweetest and most natural sincerity, and it speaks thus, through the power o f undistorted grace, to the heart o f a person, regardless o f what national particularity he might belong to, precisely because in that melody the purely human comes so directly to light.82 The folk melody is the authentic language o f the heart, true and unfaked.8' It is able to communicate to everyone regardless o f nationality, precisely because it is purely human, the natural expression o f human creativity. Indeed, this is the great property o f music, that it is the most universal o f the arts, a language equally understandable to all people.84
Sl Mein Leben. p .2 2 1 . x* Oper und Drama P a r ts II a n d III. p p .2 6 1 - 2 . s3 ibid.. p .2 6 2 . 84 Zukunftsmusik. p .9 5 .
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However, this universality is not quite so easy to achieve as it might seem. Not all art, for Wagner, really manages to be universal. Similarly, not all Volk inspirations really attain the purely human." And here is where W agners nationalism collides with his aspirations to universality, in that he privileges the German Volk or spirit as alone capable of delivering artistic universality to the world. A passage from Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik announces this unique property o f the German spirit: Universal, as the destiny o f the German Volk announces itself since its entry into history, is the talent o f the German spirit also for art. The example of the activation o f this universality on the most important fields of art has been shown in the experience o f the rebirth o f the German spirit since the second half o f the previous century...85 Hence the folk melody he describes in the previous paragraph is actually only the German folk melody, as in W ebers operas. Only in the German folk melody is found the happy property o f naive sincerity without the stifling national particularity.86 So in terms o f artistic inspiration, German sources are superior because it is specifically in German myths that one finds the real, naked human... the true human above all.87 Wagners insistence on the German spirits messianic power to achieve universality is one o f the stranger themes in his entire discourse about art and nationality. Strange, but not without precedent: in fact, messianic, universalistic claims for German culture are relatively common themes within German nationalist discourse. Friedrich Meinecke has shown in great detail how a fixation on universality pervaded the German movement, beginning with Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel, and espoused influentially by Fichte as well.88 So this is the intellectual tradition that Wagner inherited and applied to
s5 Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. p .5 3 . 86 ibid.. p .2 6 3 . 87 Eine Mitteilung an meine Frettnde. p .3 1 2 . 88 S e e M e in e c k e : H u g h e s : a n d D u d in g ( 1 9 8 4 ) a ls o .
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his own artistic and social thinking. He was in fact conscious o f the historical pedigree here, attributing to Goethe. Schiller, and the whole German literary rebirth the following mission: the German movement pressed resolutely for the discovery o f an ideal, purely human form that did not belong exclusively to nationality."84 And o f course, what Goethe and Schiller achieved in the literary realm, Wagner aspires to in the musical. In this way he would also follow Mozart's model, since through his music Mozart was able to elevate the Italian form o f opera to universality.40 Within this messianic, universalistic theme we see wrapped up together Wagner's nationalism, his concerns about the decline o f civilization, and his obsession with salvation, all o f which appear throughout both his prose and his dramatic works. The German spirits calling in the council o f peoples" is to create something common" for the entire world.41 The something comm on that the Germans would accomplish is no small task: W agner describes it as nothing less than as a thoroughgoing regeneration of the European peoples blood [des europaischen Vdlkerblutes]," a rebirth o f the spirit of peoples, and "reconciliation" of nations.42 The place to start with this rebirth is the arts. The German spirit will save" not only the "spirit o f European peoples from its artistically-led depravity, but moreover the human spirit from its deep shame.4 Here, though, is where the role o f artists such as him self (and, he claims, Beethoven. Goethe, and Schiller) enters the picture. As I show in the first chapter, the
m Zukunftsmusik. p .9 3 . 10 Uber deutsches Musikwesen. p .9 7 . 01 E i n l c it u n g z u m d r ittc n u n d v ie r te n B a n d e . " p .6 . a n d Uber deutsches Musikwesen. p .9 4 . q: Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. p p . 31 -2 . 'h Beethoven, p .8 4 . T h e r e a s o n s f o r th i s s h a m e a r e s u n d r y , a n d th e y v a r y s o m e w h a t t h r o u g h o u t the c o u r s e o f W a g n e r 's p r o s e . In h is e a r lie r w r itin g s h e la y s th e b la m e o n th e c o r r u p tin g i n f lu e n c e o f p r o p e r ty a n d g re e d , in t h e l a t e r w r itin g s o n th e d e g e n e r a c y o f t h e F r e n c h , th e J e w s , a n d r a c e - m ix in g .
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artist will present the nation with its true nature. So once the German Volk has realized itself through the development of its national character it will also realize the salvationary potential inherent in its spirit.4 Therefore, in helping the German Volk to realize itself, the artist works toward the salvation o f his human brothers across the world. 5 Needless to say, Wagner claimed this as his own goal. In this sense. W agner's own mission is the same as that o f the German Volk as a whole. He insists in Mein Leben that his ideas were for the good o f all o f human society. 6 He wants to save the world from itself, and he can do it because hes a German. And in his seemingly contradictory, chauvinistic way, he claims that the ultimate goal towards which humanity should develop is to the unnational universal.1 7 This is another argument for the dissemination o f German art. then: the greatest, purely human, world-saving achievements o f German culture would educate all o f humanity toward meeting the Germans' high standards in art, and all o f human culture would be miraculously redeemed. He sees this goal realized in Beethoven, whose music is the world-redeeming proclamation o f the most exalted innocence.98 Music is indeed a universal language, one capable o f communicating to all peoples. But German music, in particular, has something special, yes divine. it teaches all the heathens, alone attaining true, transcendent universality.99
'u ibid.. p . 12 3 . 15 Oper und Drama P a r ts II a n d 111. p .2 2 8 . 96 Mein Leben. p .4 0 2 . 1)7 Kunstwerk der Zukunft. p .6 0 . 0 ! < Beethoven., p . 126. <N Z u r E in fu h r u n g in d a s J a h r 1 8 8 0 . p .3 0 .
Smetana While Wagner locates universality ultimately only in the German spirit. Smetana finds it in all great art. Smetana actually had relatively little to say about universality per se. but it is nonetheless clear that a universal standard for high art undergirds his own cultural and social goals. Hence for all the value o f nationality in art. if that art falls short o f the universal measures o f greatness, then it is ultimately worth little. One important manifestation o f Smetana's aspirations to universality, then, was his insistence on being open to wider European influences. Together with his circle of friends, Smetana believed that in order to create a truly valuable Czech art, Czech culture must learn from the best foreign artistic trends. As one example, the writer Jan Nerudaone o f Smetanas closest friends was particularly concerned with orienting Czech poetry after European models.100 This outlook is what makes Smetana and his circle "cosmopolitan. For his part, Smetana rejected a music that was only national, based exclusively on ostensibly national/folk forms, since such forms (and hence the music that would result) did not live up to his conception o f the universal standards o f a high art. In this way, for all his undeniable patriotism, Smetana rejected particularism and did aspire to values that he conceived as transcending those o f the nation. While he said he preferred to set to music stories taken from Czech history, he also envisioned eventually making use o f international subjects for his operas.1 0 1 His last opera Viola was based on Shakespeare, for example. By choosing this subject, Guy Erismann suggests that Smetana wanted to work with material from an author who was "universal. 102 For Smetana there
100 H o e n s c h , p .3 5 5 . " " B a r to s ( 1 9 5 5 ) , p .2 0 2 . lo: E r is m a n n . p .4 0 3 . T h is c o n c lu s i o n c a n b e d r a w n f r o m S m e t a n a s c o m m e n t a b o u t w a n tin g to r e a c h b e y o n d th e b o r d e r s " o f th e C z e c h l a n d s w ith Viola, a c o m m e n t c ite d p r e v io u s ly in th e s e c tio n o n d is s e m i n a ti o n .
was simply no contradiction between nationalism and the cosmopolitan receptivity to foreign trends: The opinion that art in its cosmopolitaneity excludes every national direction is already long since defeated and finished." he wrote.10' A major example o f Smetana's campaign to keep Czech culture open to cosmopolitan trends was his programming as director o f the Provisional Theater. The operas he programmed and his writings on the topic show that he was adamant about bringing the best o f international opera to Prague. From the classics such as Mozart's Figaro and Beethoven's Fidelia to the best recent operas. Smetana wanted to present the greatest works o f art, regardless o f their national origin.10 4 Interestingly. Wagner expressed much the same idea about presenting the greatest international works in his own plans for a national theater.I(b Given the art Smetana wanted to present to Czech audiences, he firmly rejected the notion that Czech art must be purely Czech, free of foreign influences. We have seen in the second chapter how in his own art he resisted the prostondrodni [simple folk"] strategy o f basing Czech music solely on folk forms. Instead, Smetana's own receptivity to neo-German models, and particularly to W agners style, is the best example o f his openness to outside influences in Czech music particularly given that Germans were otherwise the main enemies o f Czech nationalists. However, the ferocious storm o f criticism Smetana suffered for acknowledging W agners influence must be read as evidence o f the extent to which certain key figures in Czech musical life desired to shut o ff Czech art into its own domestic track, to retain
l0j Kriticke dilo. p . 1 65 . I ta lic s in th e o rig in a l. 104 ibid.. p .8 8 . 105 Bericht an Ludwig / /. p .3 2 .
the prostondrodni character o f Czech music, as Petr Vit has written.106 The cosmopolitan attitude o f Smetana. Neruda, and their ilk was one side o f a deep rift within Czech nationalism. On the other side, patriots often from an older generation continued to adhere to this prostonarodni idea that any art that was Czech had a value just for being Czech. They emphasized the self-sufficiency" o f Czech music, whereas the advocates of Europeanness such as Smetana believed that it was the task o f Czech art to open a window to the world."10' Christopher Storck provides an excellent summary o f the dispute: The isolationists" wanted to strengthen the particular character o f Czech music in order to protect it from foreign infiltration: they considered outside influences permissible only when they came from another Slavic culture. Their opponents, for whom there was only a single world-art. pursued instead the goal o f bringing Czech music to equal a western European level. That, however, was only possible if the composers showed themselves to be open to all the important innovations in musical life. Such an attitude brought upon them the accusation o f the national purists" that they were striving for a cosmopolitan" art, hindering the nation in its development toward independence. Conversely, the representatives o f the model o f an open culture wanted to show precisely through the production o f artworks o f an international caliber that the Czechs in this regard were an equal member in the society o f European culture-nations.108 Storck explains that the isolationists" feared that a cosmopolitan art could not be national though Smetana, as we have already seen, denied this incommensurability. The nationalists who feared cosmopolitaneity are in a sense understandable, in that they represent the traditional view that the national culture must be built up entirely from within, that foreign influences are only corrupting. This is the view that has come to
106 V it ( 1 9 8 8 ) . p . 6 l . 107 P ith a rt e t. a !., p . 19 7 . I0,s S to r c k M a g i s te r a r b e i t. p .2 3 .
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be taken for granted in many accounts o f nationalism. However, those nationalists concerned with building a national high culture o f international quality believed, like Smetana, that any sort o f artistic integrity for that culture would be impossible without responding to broader trends the same trends that inspired artists in the great cultural nations o f Europe. 109 So Smetana and his cohort are cosmopolitan both through their receptivity to foreign influences and through their idea that Czech culture properly belongs in the world, where it can be appreciated by all people as Czech. Indeed, these international trends run deep in the program o f constructing a national high culture perhaps above all because many artists maintained a notion that their works, for all their national character, should also be universal. They should say something about the human condition and thereby have a worth not just to Czechs but to everyone. Grieg In much the same way as Smetana, throughout G riegs career we see him trying to find a way to be both thoroughly national and cosmopolitan at the same time. Indeed, the artistic conflict between nationalism and cosmopolitanism in many ways came to stamp his lifes work, as Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe w rite.110 So as much as he loved Norway and desired to contribute to a uniquely Norwegian culture, Grieg also wanted to see Norway open to the world. Small nations, he once wrote, have to have a wider horizon, they must know everything. 1 1 1 The idea o f being open to cultural influences from outside was one Grieg shared with other Norwegian nationalist intellectuals.112 For instance, he and his composer colleague Johan Svendsen both
100 L e b l a n d L u d v o v a . p . 3 4 1. 110 B e n e s ta d a n d S c h je ld e r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 8 0 ) . p . 16. 111 Dagboker. p . 1 1 5 . 1,2 S e e S tc n s e th . p .5 4 , f o r e x a m p le .
espoused the goal o f communicating not just with their nation but with universal humanity," which for them was the mark o f any true artist.11 But as in the Czech lands, there were some for whom being international meant not being national, as if cosmopolitan tendencies were a threat to Norwegian patriotism. This is precisely the sort o f attitude Grieg combated in. among other spheres, his attempt to bring a high-quality concert life to Norway. These battles are direct parallels to Smetanas problems in programming for the Provisional Theater. For example, Grieg rejected the accusation that a Bergen musical group with which he was involved was too cosmopolitan to be o f use for a national-political objective. " 4 In the same way. Griegs insistence on hiring Amsterdams Concertgebouw Orchestra for the 1898 Bergen music festival over a storm o f protest that it was unpatriotic to do so was prompted by his belief that Norwegians would benefit more from a highest-quality performance of their art than they would if an inferior orchestra from Christiania were engaged. Grieg saw here that artistic and national considerations collided and he opted to let the artistic goals take precedence.1'' In this instance, we see Grieg letting narrowly national anxieties (chauvinism, he would have said) be superseded by a greater goal o f securing the best possible display o f Norwegian art. The Bergen festival is thus an excellent representation o f how Grieg's artistic goals transcended narrower national considerations. In an article for the Bergen newspaper summarizing what the festival had accomplished, Grieg stresses that the Norwegian national music the festival showcased was capable of communicating to
" B e n e s ta d a n d S c h je ld e r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 9 0 b ) . p . 108. 114 G a u k s ta d ( 1 9 5 7 ) . p . 1 0 1 . 115 G r ie g Brev B in d I. p . 4 5 1.
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everyone, i.e.. not just to Norwegians."6 In this sense, the festival realized what Grieg on another occasion called his "youthful dream: that art just as in ancient Greece will now go out to everyone, precisely because its calling is to bring a message from heart to heart. 117 Throughout his life, as with the Bergen festival. Grieg drew a line between nationalism and chauvinism. He admitted that he did not know a greater joy than to vex chauvinists, those trolls, whom I hate like the plague. 118 For both Grieg and Smetana, one could perfectly well be a patriot without being close-minded about international influences on the national culture. As his career progressed, Grieg became convinced o f the imperative never to let the national trump the cosmopolitan. In a famous letter that has become known as Griegs cosmopolitan profession o f faith, he declared, in my later works I have more and more sought out a broader, more general outlook on my own individuality, an outlook that has been influenced by the ages great concerns in other words by cosmopolitaneity. 11 9 He wrote this statement in response to a German critics accusation that Grieg viewed himself as Norwegian m usic's messiah. G riegs aspiration corresponded to the way he described Verdis career in his obituary for the Italian composer in 1901. He says that Verdis great triumphs from his earlier period all denote a national perspective. But, he writes, then the remarkable happens, and Verdi as a fully mature man expands his horizon, and still retaining the national in his art he becomes a cosmopolitan. 120 Grieg
" 6 G a u k s ta d . p . 17 1 . 117 ibid.. p . 1 8 0 . m ibid.. p . 1 9 8 . 119 B e n e s ta d a n d S c h je ld e r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 8 0 ). p .3 3 6 - 7 . i :o G a u k s ta d . p . 18 7 .
admires how beginning with Aida Verdi becomes both an Italian and a European, progressing toward the profound universality o f O tello .i:i While never denying the nationality o f his musiceven in the cosmopolitan profession o f faith he admits that the roots that tie me to the fatherland cannot be ripped up he stresses that the real goal o f art should be the universal. This, he insisted, was his goal, too: as a modem artist the universal is my goal..."1 " Side-by-side with his goal of creating a national music, Grieg o f course maintained the ideal o f creating great art. And great art, according to him, is in any case never so national, but rather raised high above the mere national level. It's cosmopolitan. 12' He proclaimed that he never sought only the Norwegian with his music but rather that he always aimed at the great. 12 4 Likewise, Grieg said that in his art, [I] did not want to be ju st Norwegian, and even less so Norwegian-Norwegian but rather myself. I wanted to find expression for something o f the best in me... 125 And this best o f him self was both a product o f his own individuality and o f the social influences upon him. So according to Grieg, one o f the principal reasons his art was both nationalist and cosmopolitan is simply because that is what he was as an individual. My opinion is that just as a person is individual and
social , so the artist is both national and cosmopolitan, Grieg wrote in 1889.126 Grieg
recognized that his background as an artist was in no way purely Norwegian. He
121 ibid.. G r i e g Brew B in d I, p .2 4 8 . 1-3 Dagboker. p . 1 4 4 . 124 Breve til Frants Beyer, p .5 2 . 125 C ite d in B e n e s ta d a n d S c h jc ld e r u p - E b b e ( 1 9 8 0 ) . p .5 1 . 126 C ite d in idem ( 1 9 9 0 ) . p .3 3 8 .
23S
claimed that his familial and social connections to Denmark had impacted his life and art. and also that a good portion o f my individuality is due to my Germanization since he was trained in Leipzig.1 ' 7 All these influences made up his own personality, and together with the fact that he always kept his eyes open for what was going on beyond the borders o f Norway, Grieg saw him self as thoroughly cosmopolitan. He was too aware that national pride can be the most beautiful and the most disgusting, that's for sure, it can make you dum b" ever to be a chauvinist.128 In G rieg's mind, then, the national was a means to an end, but should never be an end in itself: that which was great in the national idea just could be united with what was universal, and it could not have a future by getting lost in the particular. I2) The nationality in his music was, in a way, only a part o f its artistic worth. Grieg wrote that without doubt ...cultural history shows us that every art that remains vital has been national. 10 But it was thanks to the blending o f cosmopolitan and national factors that his work truly won a place for itself in the world.11 Grieg indicates that the particularly national features o f his work made it original and attention-getting, but at the same time his striving for the cosmopolitan standards o f great art enabled his work to communicate with everyone regardless o f nationality. And despite the avowedly local purposes behind his music i.e., the endeavor o f creating a national music G rieg's conception o f the power o f music, even the power o f national music, surpassed any mere localism. Music should belong to everyone, in
127 C i t e d in ibid.. p .3 3 9 . I2S G r i e g Brev B in d II. p .2 4 6 . I ta lic s in th e o rig in a l. 129 G a u k s t a d . p .7 4 . I3U ibid.. p .5 1 . 131 ibid.
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Grieg's view: it should be universal by being human, much as Wagner m aintained.1* In a letter to his close friend Frants Beyer. Grieg dreamily wishes about great music that Even-one could feel these beauties! That would indeed be 'the new heaven and the new earth, in which bliss dwells!' No! It would not be just an earth, since we would all come to embrace each other out o f pure jubilation!"1 He in fact experienced the power o f his music to bring people together, and rejoiced in that. This was especially so in the late 1890s. as tensions in the Swedish-Norwegian Union rose. After a concert in Stockholm in 1896. he wrote. I haveas unbelievable as it sounds fulfilled a national mission in Stockholm, in that I really contributed to bringing the Swedish and Norwegian people nearer to each other."1,4 In much the same way. he described the enjoyment he took at a Prague concert at smoothing over the bitterness however temporarily between Czechs and Germans: How glorious there as a musician to be able to gather the quarreling parties in the same hall and to compel them with the tones' power. 1
Conclusion
As the discourse on creating a national art shows, nationalism and ideas that transcend nationalism universality, cosmopolitaneity need not be contradictory.
Indeed, there is no unavoidable conflict between particularism and universality at all. In this conclusion I will suggest how nationalism in itself is cosmopolitan, a kind o f universal. The universalistic aspects o f nationalism include, first, the assumptions
l ,: S e e h is T a l c til a r b e i d c m e " in G a u k s ta d . p . 180. 1' J Breve til Frants Beyer, p .9 8 . 134 Rontgen Briefivechsel. p . 1 7 4 . b5 G r i e g Brev B in d I. p .6 7 9 .
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justifying national particularity, and second, the assumed universal applicability o f the nation form. The ideology o f nationalism rests on certain basic assumptions and demands, namely for sovereignty and recognition of each individual nation that claims to itself such rights. These demands or rights are assumed to be universal. As Ernesto Laclau explains. 'T o assert... the right o f all ethnic groups to cultural autonomy is to make an argumentative claim which can only be justified on universal grounds. The assertion of ones own particularity requires the appeal o f something transcending it. lj6 So the demand for political or cultural autonomy is predicated on a universal value that everygroup deserves autonomy. Additionally, this demand rests on a belief that particularity is a good, a fundamental o f human existence that is also universal. It is universal because every human social community is conceived to be entitled to some claim to particularity, and to the right to realize that claim. We in fact see such thinking in the drive to create a national culture: the assumptions behind national prestige in art presuppose a benefit to all humanity in disseminating the unique characteristics of each nations cultural expression. Complicating the equation, however. Laclau points out further that even universalisms are particularistic. This is so because in his view there is no such thing as a true universal. Rather, there are various, differing conceptions of universals. Laclau uses this particularity at the heart o f universalist claims to argue that the universal and the particular are not only not opposites but that they actually go together: The particular and the universal are not mutually exclusive, but rather mutually inclusive and in fact, constitutive. The universal requires the demarcation o f its outer limit, or more specifically, that which it does not
lj6 E r n e s to L a c la u . " S u b j e c t o f P o litic s . P o litic s o f t h e S u b j e c t ." differences 7.1 ( s p r in g 1 9 9 5 ). p . 1 47 .
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name [i.e.. the non-universal]... The particular, if it wishes to argue for the freedom to be. must appeal to 'universal* values o f independence as a strategic necessity, even as it forces the recognition o f its particularity. Yet this is not a contradiction within the particular, but precisely the laying open o f the contradictions o f the universal.17 Applied to our examples o f nation-building movements, we can see that indeed the claims o f universality for these national cultures or arts are based on particularity. In Griegs career, for instance, it is the unique nationality o f his music that on the one hand grants it some entree into a broader, international music. On the other hand, Grieg himself always emphasized that his music was not merely particular but that it was also simultaneously universal because it adhered to the transcendent values of great art. The second universal aspect o f nationalism is the privileging o f the value o f the nation form. The equation o f nationalism with religion, which many scholars have made, either implicitly or explicitly acknowledges this universalistic bias. Religions are notoriously universalist. making absolute claims to truth. But the nation has replaced religion as the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time, as Anderson has written.'j8 Nationalism is the new, ostensibly universally-applicable truth system for which people are willing to die. It has become the main principle by which human political communities on a large scale are organized, in the system o f nation states. So nationalism, while once presumed to be opposed to universalisms such as Enlightenment culture, is itself seen to make a universalistic claim as a principle o f human social organization. Nonetheless, it is just one o f multiple competing
universalisms possible nominees for other "truth-systemic modes of human social organization could be fundamentalist Islam, market capitalism, or, formerly, Marxism.
Ij7 C i te d in D a v id P a lu m b o - L iu . U n i v e r s a l is m s a n d M in o rity C u l t u r e in ibid.. p . 199. 138 C i te d in B r u c e R o b b in s . " A c t u a l l y E x is tin g C o s m o p o lita n is m in C h c a h a n d R o b b in s , e d s .. p .4 .
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Yet as Laclau reminds us. multiple universalisms inherently presume particularity. Thus even nationalism is ultimately predicated on both particularity and universality. Moreover, nationalism is itself a cosmopolitan form, as a widespread,
internationally dominant ideology with some local variation. The strategies o f nationbuilding, as I argue in this dissertation, are themselves very often 'foreign. in that they come from outside o f the nation but are applied to constitute the nation from within." In this way, inescapably, the entire nationalist movement is impregnated with a certain cosmopolitaneity. Similarly, nationalist art is in a sense inherently cosmopolitan because it is responding to wide international aesthetic trends. Far from ever being exclusively or purely national, the national culture enshrines particularity in cosmopolitan forms to which are attributed universal validity. It is interesting that Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg seemed to realize the intemationality of nationalism already in the nineteenth century. And though each adopted a slightly different strategy for being both uniquely national and transcendently universal, we can judge all o f them to have succeeded. The fact that they did succeed reinforces the ineluctable association o f particularity and universality: they succeeded because they are all three unique products o f their time and place, but they (or their art) simultaneously belong to the whole world for all times.
C h a p t e r F iv e N e t w o r k s o f N a t io n a l is t In t e llec tu a ls
Nationalist movements, as we have seen, are in a way cosmopolitan because they are cobbled together from forms, ideas, and influences from outside" the nation. Additionally, as I have been concerned to demonstrate throughout this dissertation, these forms and ideas are broadly similar across nationalist movements: the discourse on creating a national music, despite some local variation, is nearly identical in my three cases. In this chapter we will investigate exactly how these outside forms and ideas come into the nationalist movement. In so doing, we will explain the how o f the similarities between nationalist movements, that is. how is it that the strategies o f nation-building are everywhere much the same? What social factors account for the similarity? The why of the similarity why do nationalists adopt the same strategies?is o f less immediate consequence here. The answer is fairly obvious, having to do with nationalist activists belief in the veracity and efficacy o f these strategies. But we will return to the why question in the chapter conclusion. My main focus is instead to explain the mechanism by which the common tropes propagated from nationalist movement to nationalist movement. This mechanism. I will argue, is a wide-ranging network o f social communication. Nationalist intellectuals across Europe mutually interacted, exchanging ideas and learning from each other. My specific case o f this network will o f course be that o f nationalist composers. Yet as I will demonstrate, composers typically have significant links to other nationalists within their own movement, so by studying composers we do gain an important insight into how various kinds o f nationalist intellectuals related to each other. These networks of communication involve not just personal contacts between nationalists, but also what I
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will call impersonal communication." This latter kind o f communication enabled nationalists to learn from other nationalists even without direct contact. When nationalists from one country read tracts or heard music written by a nationalist from another country, ideas were still being communicated across movements. So the task o f this chapter is to study the nature o f the communication, the communication relationship. This is not only the relationship between individuals but also between groups. Hroch has previously studied how higher levels o f social communication contribute to the successful spread o f nationalist mobilization, but his focus was internally on movements.1 I will examine not only individuals relationships to others within their nationalist movement but also with nationalists outside their home movement. The latter is obviously the key to explaining why the ideas behind the national culture are the same across movements. I will show that communication across movements is a consistent and crucial factor for nationalists. Moreover, the international networks o f nationalists are historically the fundamental element o f social structure that made possible the modularity o f nationalism. Modularity, as Anderson framed it, involves the application o f ideas or practices developed elsewhere into a new setting (or movement), where activists use these ideas and practices to equivalent socio-political ends as the people they borrowed them from. Modularity need not presuppose the rote replication o f discourses or strategies: indeed, nationalists have always tinkered with the received ideas, adapting them to their own ends and situations.2 There is o f course some creativity in the application o f the strategies
1See Hroch (1971). Besides his focus on mobilization, Hrochs goal also differs from mine in that he was principally interested in the broader communicative social structure rather than in the precise nature of individual communicative links between nationalists. 2 For a cogent critique of modularity, see Manu Goswami, Rethinking Modularity: Beyond Objectivist and Subjectivist Approaches to Nationalism. Paper presented at the Nations and Nationalism Workshop, University of Chicago, February 1998.
of nation-building, just as there is simultaneously an undeniable similarity in nationalist discourses. In the previous four chapters I have examined both the similarities and variations in the application o f the ideas and practices o f creating a national art music in three different countries. Now we will investigate how the networks o f nationalist intellectuals are responsible for the modular communication o f these ideas and practices across Europe. These ideas, I will argue in the conclusion, form the intellectual structure of nationalism, that is, the set o f beliefs that constrain and enable the practices o f nationbuilding. Networks of communication, as the relational conduits through which the ideas and strategies pass, are essential for constituting and propagating this intellectual structure.
I will preface the examination o f my cases by first discussing the particular concepts from network theory most helpful for elucidating the nature o f the
communication between nationalist intellectuals. These concepts include density, centrality, and strong and weak ties. My intention is to present briefly the meaning of these concepts for readers who are unfamiliar with them, and then to show how they apply to network communication between nationalist intellectuals. After this theoretical summary I will explain the nature o f the two kinds o f communication I am concerned with: personal and impersonal communication. My use o f network analysis eschews the specialized mathematical language developed in this sub-field. Instead, I rely on certain key theoretical concepts for a more descriptively analytic goal. In the case studies I will look first at the nationalist movement as a whole, to trace the communication links within the movement and between it and other nationalist movements. Then I will turn to my composers to demonstrate their own internal and external links to other nationalists. So I
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will begin with Germany, and German nationalists' network links, then focus in on W agners links. The Czech lands and Smetana, then Norway and Grieg will follow.
Network theory
My aim in this section is establish why network theory is a useful means for studying the connections between nationalists and movements, and then to outline the key principles that will serve as the basis for my analysis o f these connections. Network theory, boiled down to its essence, is a way o f studying nodes (which can be individuals, groups, or any kind o f social entity) and the ties that interconnect these nodes/ So the critical data for studies o f networks are relational: the relations between the nodes o f the network. These relations can be any kind o f socially meaningful tie.4 One kind o f tie that has often figured in network studies is ties o f communication, that is, how nodes communicate with each other. This fundamental nature o f networks Jeremy Boissevain has described as follows: Diagramatically, a network is similar to a communication circuit: it indicates that certain persons are in touch with each other, but in its simplest form, it says nothing about how they are in touch. That is, the most basic form of network analysis only establishes links between people. These links are thus potential communication channels, Boissevain continues, but it must be established empirically that messages do in fact flow along them, and what kind o f messages do so... Nonetheless, once the diagrammatic structure of the network is established, and the nature o f the links determined, we are in possession o f a model o f how a given
:i Based on Barry Wellman and S.D. Berkowitz, Studying social structures, in idem , Social Structures: A Network Approach (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1997), p.4. ASamuel Leinhardt, Introduction, in idem, ed., Social Networks: A Developing Paradigm (New York: Academic Press, 1977), p.xiii.
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individual can in theory receive messages and. conversely, how he can send messages, and to whom as well as through whom he can do so/' Since I am above all concerned here with communication or the potential for communication, documenting the ties that make up this basic circuit is my focus. I will show the diversity o f ties nationalists typically had: painters, playwrights, poets, politicians, journalists, historians, and composers all knew and often interacted with each other. Analysis o f the ties also requires that I investigate the different forms of
communication: nationalists communicated via friends, acquaintances, disciplinary colleagues (composers with composers, for example), via talking circles and cafe gatherings, via letters and prose tracts, and also, o f course through their works o f art. It is relatively easy to establish these diverse contacts between nationalists, which as the theory suggests constitute the potential for communication. More valuably, though, in many cases I can demonstrate the communication that actually took place through these channels. In particular, my findings on my three composers allow me to trace specifically what relations they had with whom, and what sorts o f information were communicated through these relationships. Communication through network channels has been an important feature o f a field related to network analysis, diffusion studies. Everett Rogers, the godfather of diffusion studies, notes that the essence o f diffusion is communication relationships between sources and receivers that allow researchers to trace an innovation, an idea perceived as new by potential adopters, and how that innovation is adopted over time among members o f a social system.6 As a precedent for the study o f the transmission of
5 Jeremy Boissevain, Friends of Friends: Networks, Manipulators and Coalitions (New York: St. Martins Press, 1972), p.25. 6 Everett Rogers, Network Analysis of the Diffusion of Innovations, in Paul W. Holland and Samuel Leinhardt, eds. Perspectives on Social Network Research (New York: Academic Press, 1979), p. 140 and 138. Italics in the original.
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ideas through network communication channels, the diffusion paradigm is related to my purposes. Rogers* theorizing has been particularly helpful in conceptualizing
communication relationships as interdependent, two-way relations o f mutual information sharing.7 That said, my own inquiry is not strictly concerned with diffusion because diffusion studies are generally predicated on a kind o f zero point*' at which an innovation is introduced. There is no identifiable zero point in the spread o f the ideas of nationalism: these ideas accrue, build upon each other, and become interwoven into society-wide beliefs about culture. That fact also precludes any one individual from being the key innovator (or opinion leader in diffusion terminology) who propagates these ideas. Since there is effectively no possibility o f pinpointing the first adoption o f the strategies o f nation-building, I focus more restrictively on the communication channels and the social system in which they existed. It will be apparent that apart from my overviews o f the German, Czech, and Norwegian movements 1 am for the most part conducting an egocentric inquiry. I focus in on Wagners, Smetanas, and Griegs web o f personal contacts rather than on all the personal contacts within their network o f relations because the latter would require a gigantic data-gathering enterprise quite beyond the central concerns o f this dissertation. Nonetheless, I will be able to suggest the broader linkages within m y com posers circles, just without the same degree o f detail. Additionally, mine is for the most part an analysis o f non-directional contacts. The communication flows between the individuals I study are two-way, such that they were usually capable o f equally influencing each other. Directionality is not wholly absent, however, since sometimes my three composers were net recipients o f communication flows from certain o f their colleagues. Smetana learned
7 See Everett Rogers and D. Lawrence Kincaid, Communication Networks (New York: The Free Press, 1981).
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more from Havlicek than Havlicek learned from Smetana, for a variety o f reasons. Also, the influence o f earlier nationalist movements on later is naturally one-directional. The Norwegian movement had little formative influence on the German. Lastly, the idea o f impersonal communication (explained below) is inherently directional: when a person reads a book, the author communicates to her but she does not communicate with the author. The three key concepts most useful for my analytical concerns are density, centrality/betweenness, and strong and weak ties. Density, while a fairly self-explanatory concept, has acquired a particular meaning for network analysis. It measures the level o f connectedness or integration in a network. For example, a maximally dense network is one where every node (every individual, say) is directly connected to every other node. A minimally dense network is one with the minimum number o f ties necessary for every node to be reachable by some path (not necessarily direct connection) from every other node. Researchers have found that in larger networks density tends to be less. Typically the reason is that in larger networks there are simply more nodes and hence probably more nodes not connected to each other. The conclusion drawn from this research is that there tend to be more connections in smaller networks.8 We will be asking the question, how integrated or dispersed are networks o f nationalist intellectuals, within a country and internationally? My findings suggest that the density o f the network in the German nationalist movement is rather less than that for the Czech lands or Norway. This corresponds to the principle that larger networks such as the German tend to be less closely integrated than smaller networks such as the Czech or Norwegian.
8 See John Scott, Social Network Analysis (London: SAGE Publications, 1991), p.77.
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Centrality and betweenness are akin concepts that will help identify the relative prominence o f certain nationalist intellectuals within the networks I am studying. Scott's definition o f centrality distinguishes between local centrality and global centrality: A point is locally central if it has a large number o f connections with the other points in its immediate environment if. for example, it has a large neighborhood of direct contacts. A point is globally central, on the other hand, when it has a position o f strategic significance in the overall structure o f the network. Local centrality is concerned with the relative prominence o f a focal point in its neighborhood, while global centrality concerns prominence within the whole network.9 In this chapter, we can conceive o f the entire network of European nationalist intellectuals as the global network, and the networks o f individual countries as the local neighborhoods within that network. I will be studying both the neighborhoods and their connections with the global network. The concept o f betweenness elucidates these localglobal connections. Betweenness measures, logically enough, the extent to which a particular point lies 'between the various other points in the network. Particular points can play important intermediary roles and so be very central to the whole network. A point with a significant degree o f betweenness can play the part o f a broker or gatekeeper with a potential for control over others, or over the flow o f information.1 0 As we will see, Franz Liszt is a paragon o f centrality and betweenness. He occupied a globally central position in the European network o f composers, and served a major in between role o f bringing nationally-minded artists into contact with each other. The idea o f strong and weak ties gained wide attention with Mark Granovetters famous 1973 article The Strength o f Weak Ties. A strong tie is a close social relationship, say within a family or to an individuals most intimate friends. A weak tie,
9 ibid., p.85. 1 0ibid., pp.89-90.
then, is a looser relationship involving less intimacy or less frequent contact between individuals. The power o f weak ties. Granovetter theorized, is in their role o f facilitating the communication o f information: an individual tends to receive new information from those outside his most intimate circle o f associates. Individuals with weak ties are better at spreading information than those with few weak ties or many strong ties. Granovetter proposed that whatever is to be diffused can reach a larger number o f people, and traverse a greater social distance... when passed through weak ties rather than strong. If one tells a rumor to all his close friends, and they do likewise, many will hear the rumor a second and third time, since those linked by strong ties tend to share friends. If the motivation to spread the rumor is dampened a bit on each wave o f retelling, then the rumor moving through strong ties is much more likely to be limited to a few cliques than that going via weak ones: bridges will not be crossed.11 A bridge is defined as a connection in a network which provides the only path between two points. 12 This idea is very useful for conceptualizing the transmission of the strategies of nation-building from nationalist intellectual to nationalist intellectual, and more importantly from movement to movement. For my analysis, I will measure the relative strength or weakness o f a tie based upon the frequency and intensity o f communicative contact.1 3 Frequency can be determined by how much time an individual spends with another, for example, or how often they exchange letters with each other. Intensity needs to be considered to take account o f the range and depth (or intimacy) of individuals' contacts. Emotional intensity is an element here: in Smetanas relationship with Liszt, for instance, their emotional attachment was strong even though they saw less o f each other as the years went on. My
1 1 Mark S. Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, in Leinhardt, ed., p.353. 1 2ibid., p.351. 1 :1This scheme is based partly on Granovetter.
measurements. I will admit, are essentially "impressionistic." I do not attempt to quantify the intensity of emotions. This holds true for my gauging of such factors as centrality as well. I justify this non-formal measurement on the grounds that I am not conducting a quantitative study, and moreover, though my description o f these factors may be impressionistic, the research behind it is not. I have reached my conclusions after a thorough examination and assessment o f the relevant information. As I will show below, the connections between nationalists within a movement are best understood as strong ties. Nationalists from the same movement often (if not always) interact on a more extensive level with their countrymen who are equally enthusiastic about national independence, trading ideas, debating plans, or collaborating on projects. More extensive, that is. than their relationships to nationalists from other movements: while cross-movement contacts between nationalists are very common, these contacts are usually more transitory and superficial than those within a countrys movement. The strong ties within the movement are not really a surprise we would generally expect that. More interesting are the weak ties between movements. These weak ties, according to Granovetters theory, would be most important for explaining why the strategies o f nation-building are the same everywhere. Nonetheless, I would argue that there is also a value in examining the ties within a movement; for my purposes, such an examination will demonstrate the nature o f the contacts between different nationalists, and the place of composers among the other activists. A study by Rosenthal, et. al has previously advanced the claim that strong ties pertain within movements and weak ties between them. This study found that when institutional/governmental routes to influence are blocked, social movement groups find allies among other insurgent groups.14 In other words, movements often depend on other
1 1 Naomi Rosenthal, Meryl Fingrutd, Michele Ethier, Roberta Karant, David McDonald, Social Movements and Network Analysis: A Case Study of Nineteenth-Century
movements, and support networks arise between them. Rosenthal et. al. were studying women's activist organizations in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. They used the individual affiliations o f prominent women reformers to create relational matrices for group-to-group interaction. These matrices then helped map the interconnections between organizations, and they measured the intensity o f these interconnections and identified the groups central to clusters o f proximate organizations.1 ' While Rosenthal and her colleagues were not principally concerned with communication as such, their objectives were much the same as mine. They demonstrated how individual ties can link one activist group to another, or how multiple individual memberships integrate groups across a network and hence serve as communication channels across that network. Another aspect of network theory actually leads us to predict such wide-ranging multiple membership ties. This is the small world phenomenon. Duncan J. Watts has found that large-scale networks tend to be characterized by high local clustering (in other words, groups o f more closely-tied people) and short global links (which means that local groups are often easily connectible to other, more distant groups).16 This idea is popularly known as the six degrees o f separation phenomenon, whereby every person in the world is separated from every other by on average no more than six people. Watts' study primarily dealt with random networks, but his findings on short global links are also relevant to a non-random network such as that o f European nationalist intellectuals. Intent obviously plays a role in these links. Nationalists often sought each other out. naturally within their own country but also when they were abroad. The notion o f social
Womens Reform in New York State, American Journal of Sociology, Volume 90, March 1985, p. 1023. 1 5 ibid., p. 1029. 1 6 See Duncan J. Watts, Networks, Dynamics, and the Small-World Phenomenon, American Journal o f Sociology, Volume 105, September 1999, pp.493-527.
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homophily. whereby people know and associate themselves with others o f similar social attributes, is the most obvious explanation o f such intent. The network o f European composers is in fact an excellent illustration of social homophily in an international network. As we will see. it was common for European composers to know and even be friends with their colleagues in other countries. Very frequently when a composer traveled to a new city, he would look up other prominent local musicians. Admittedly not all the individuals in a com posers wide circle o f acquaintances and friends were nationalists, but their extensive cross-country linkages to each other are significant communication channels in any case. The international links between individuals and nationalist movements were made possible by several developments in European society during the nineteenth century, most o f which served to facilitate communication across long distances. Improved postal service, and the eventual development o f the telegraph, boosted individuals ability to keep in touch with each other. The explosion o f newspapers and other journals, and the growth in their audience in short, the rise o f a mass media were especially important for communicating ideas throughout a country and across its borders. Continued improvements in printing technologies which made books cheaper and more widely available represent a similar contribution. The growth o f the newspaper and journal industry were particularly helpful to Wagner, since he was able at various times (as during the Paris and Zurich years) to support himself at least partially through his journalistic activities. Smetana and Grieg also engaged to a lesser extent in journalism, and W agner and Grieg in particular benefited from the growth o f music publishing companies that helped their works to reach an international audience. The most important development for my study, though, was the growth o f transportation networks, particularly the building o f rail lines, that increased mobility
across Europe. O f course nationalists traveled even without the advantage of rail networks, but in general the ease o f travel enabled them to roam more easily beyond their country's borders and thus to meet nationalists from other lands. In this way face-to-face ties between nationalists from differing countries were established, opening the channels o f communication from one movement to another. I will argue that mobility greatly facilitated the establishment o f the weak international ties through which nation-building strategies were communicated. These weak ties outside of the local nationalist group, as per Granovetter's theory, heightened an individuals exposure to new ideas, bringing him into contact with more influences or inspirations for his own activism. In terms o f composers, mobility seems to have made them more cosmopolitan. that is, it exposed them to a wide range o f information sources, which led in practice to a selection o f strategies and attitudes for their art that were identifiably more international than the less cosmopolitan, more provincial nationalist intellectuals at home preferred. We see this phenomenon most clearly in the Czech case, where the less cosmopolitan nationalists objected to Smetana's ostensibly German-tainted plans for art and culture. But it is also observable in the Norwegian case, in Griegs reaction to protests about the cosmopolitaneity o f his own cultural program. In examining my composers own international ties, I will show how their mobility enabled them to establish these ties. Forms o f communication Network theory helps conceptualize how ideas are communicated between people and groups, but we also need to specify the different communication methods that nationalist intellectuals employed. I will break down these methods according to two broader categories: personal communication and impersonal communication. Personal
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communication
is
self-explanatory.
It
involves
any
kind
of
person-to-person
communication, such as exchanges o f letters or o f course face-to-face interaction. Previous studies have confirmed what may seem a rather obvious point, namely that close interaction with a peer group is conducive to the transmission o f ideas within that group.17 Such closely integrated groups can be thought o f as dense clusters o f information channels. Personal communication, it should be noted, can also take the form o f an indirect relationship, whereby person A is linked to person C because both are in contact with person B. Impersonal communication is a more complex affair. As I am framing it, this form involves the communication o f ideas through non-epistolary texts (i.e., writings not directed at a specific person) such as articles, prose tracts, and so on. Also, a major source of impersonal communication o f ideas on national music were musical scores and performances in short, other, non-textual means by which composers could become aware o f ways o f treating the national in music. The impersonal forms o f communicating nationalist strategies did not even need to stem from nationalists themselves. Biographies of composers, for instance, in which that composers techniques were discussed could also influence other nationalist composers. Texts without a specifically nationalist purpose such as Herders writings also fit in here. Though Herder himself was not directly, personally involved with the German nationalist movement, and had no personal interaction with later generations o f nationalists, nonetheless his ideas were communicated to and adopted by these later generations. W agners influence on subsequent composers is perhaps the best example o f impersonal communication. His writings such as Oper unci Drama transmitted important
1 7 See William Erbe, Gregariousness, Group Membership, and the Flow of Information, in Leinhardt, ed.
ideas to nationally-minded artists with whom he had no individual contact. His musical works also served as m ajor inspirations to other composers looking to create national operas. I do not wish to overstate W agners impact on later nationalist composers, since as I will show there were a variety o f important communication sources. It is nonetheless clear that Wagner's influence (above all in opera) was very widely felt, even among artists who did not particularly admire him such as the Russian Five. For that reason I devote a small section o f the Smetana and Grieg case studies to tracing how their own ideas on national music were influenced by Wagner. Furthermore, this influence constitutes crucial evidence for my contention that nationalist intellectuals learned from their colleagues in other movements. Under the heading o f impersonal communication we should also include widelyheld conceptions about the nation and culture that informed nationalists' own strategies. The nationality of folk music, for one, or the edifying power o f art, for another, were two ideas common enough that they are not really traceable as to how individual nationalists learned o f them.1 8 Such ideas were so prevalent that their communication from node to node o f nationalists is essentially irrelevant. They are part of the intellectual atmosphere o f the nineteenth century, the weft o f shared ideas that most people o f the age believed in. However, there is still communication going on here, in terms o f how ideas on folk m usics nationality or tropes such as that o f national decline were utilized in particular cases. These concrete examples (in literature, music, and so on) o f the utilization of the tropes were then communicated within countries and between them. In this way they could influence other nationalists. In every chapter o f this dissertation I have taken care to point to this intellectual atmosphere that preceded and influenced my composers own
1 8 Certainly the nationality of folk music generally stems from Herder, but so many people were familiar with Herders ideas in this area that one cannot with any accuracy determine exactly who may have passed on these ideas to the individuals I am studying.
ideas. My goal in this chapter is to document their contacts with other nationalists: though we often cannot trace precisely the communication of these most widely-held ideas, nonetheless the communicative contacts I will be demonstrating would be important for my composers' exposure to these ideas. I want to offer a final proposal on the power o f the impersonal form of communication. I suspect that personal communication o f nationalist strategies across movements becomes less important in the later decades o f the nineteenth century. This would be because there was already such a body o f theory about nation-building practice available that, again, the person-to-person communication o f this practice becomes untraceable. In the late nineteenth century (and on into the twentieth), for example, Estonian nationalists would not necessarily have to have contact with, say, a Czech nationalist in order to leam o f these ideas. The Estonian could just look to the body o f theory that resided in notable nationalist works whether textual or otherwise to leam the strategies. These strategies, we might say, eventually pass into the public domain. Examples o f how previous nationalists used them proliferated and were readily available so that impersonal communication o f these ideas outweighs the significance o f personal contacts. Nationalist music is a particularly strong example o f this, since by the last years o f G riegs career he was so internationally famous that there was no need for budding nationalist composers from other countries to actually meet the man to be influenced by his ideas: those ideas were apparent from his widely-available musical scores and indirectly via biographical material. My supposition, then, is that while communication o f the strategies is still important (obviously, nationalists would still have to leam o f the public domain ideas somehow), impersonal communication supplants personal communication as the principal mode o f transmission. For the international
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communication between the three nationalist movements I am studying, conclusive evidence for the increased prominence of public domain transmission is for the most part lacking, but it might be sought in the cases o f other movements that historically postdate my three.
Germany and Wagner
Before looking in detail at Wagners links to other nationalist intellectuals, we will first broadly survey the German movement prior to Wagner. The point o f this survey, as will also hold true for the Czech and Norwegian cases, is to demonstrate how network clusters, personal and impersonal communication, and cross-border contacts influenced the course the nationalist movement took. We will thereby reveal the establishment o f the network structure in which my three composers would come to be situated. Though the German movement is generally considered the source o f many o f the forms employed by later movements, early German nationalists themselves were nonetheless inspired by examples from abroad, above all from the French. German patriots such as Fichte and Gorres took an active interest in the French Revolution as a phenomenon that furthered democracy and advanced the nations central role in politics and society.1 0 A concrete example o f the French Revolutions influence on German nationalism is Jahns advocacy o f festivals to stimulate national feeling, which was directly inspired by French precedents.20 In fact the French use o f festivals exerted a similar influence on nationalists from a variety o f movements, including the Czech and the Norwegian. German nationalists also followed events in Spain, Italy, Greece and
1 9 Nipperdey, p.303. See also Schieder (1991), p.147. 20 Echtemkamp, p.420.
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Poland, viewing the struggles in those countries for democratic government as fights for national independence the links between German and Polish patriots particularly were strong.2 1 As in those countries, nationalists within the German lands were engaged in a dual battle for greater democracy and for national self-determination: as Nipperdey remarks, the German democratic movement and the nationalist movement are essentially identical through much o f the nineteenth century.'2 Not surprisingly, there was considerable personal communication between German nationalists. One important cluster that linked several of the most prominent early nationalists was the circle around the publisher Reimer in Berlin. Fichte. Arndt. Jahn and Amim all communicated with each other in this grouping."' There was also a dense cluster o f nationally-minded artists in Heidelberg in the early 1800s: Brentano. Eichendorff, Riickert. Gottfried Keller, the Grimms and again Amim were all associated with it.24 Since they were in a sense the vanguard o f European nationalist movements. German patriots relied less on impersonal communication sources for ideas. The nationalist body o f theory" was still being elaborated, usually by these men who knew each other, so communication seems most often to have been o f the personal variety. Still, though, most o f these early patriots, including the abovementioned as well as Luden and Schleiermacher, were overtly influenced by reading Herder. Jahn. in particular, expressly acknowledged this influence.25 Few. if any. o f the early generation knew Herder personally, however.
2 1 ibid., 411. 22 Nipperdey, p.308. ' a Echtemkamp, p.346. 2-' John Warrack, Carl Maria von Weber (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p.84. 25 Diiding (1984), p.26.
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German nationalists' cross-border communication took a peculiar form in that many o f the borders they and their ideas had to cross were the borders o f the individual German states. This communication was nevertheless strong: Diiding has written extensively on the contacts between the German patriotic organizations located in the various states.26 These communicative contacts played an essential role in transforming German nationalism into a mass movement, as Hans-Ulrich Wehler explains: Its expansion into a mass movement, which becomes perceptible during the revolution o f 1848, is based upon the fundamental improvement o f communication possibilities. The increasing intensity o f nationalism presupposes an increased density o f the communication network. Included therein is the standardization o f the script and colloquial languages as well as the common norms, symbols, and historical memories as these were transmitted by national historians. Also involved are the growing number o f newspapers in which people discussed common problems, the bloom o f the publishing industry, the high mobility o f students and large parts o f the civil service. Finally, on the most mundane level, highways and above all the railroad which overcome time and space to an extent impossible earlier played an important role.27 All these developments aided the travel o f both people and ideas. One specific German example o f the effect o f increased mobility is that o f wandering students, who played an important role in circulating songs, books, and other political materials that were often banned by the authorities o f the various states.28 Mobility extended o f course to an international dimension. Organizations o f German exiles (not exclusively o f nationalists, but embracing many politically engaged types) became active throughout western Europe in the 1830s. There was a prominent grouping in Paris, in addition to others in Brussels, London, and Switzerland. In the latter
26 See Duding (1984). 27 Wehler, pp.272-3. 28 Echtemkamp, p.391.
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case the group was affiliated with M azzini's "Young Europe" movement, marking an important link between German and Italian n atio n alists/ These international groupings served as vital nodes for communication among exiled German patriots, but also played a role in spreading the Germans' ideas abroad. Not just Germans were associated with these gatherings. The Paris grouping, for example, was a magnet for radicals o f various nationalities as well as for sundry hangers-on who were simply intrigued by the personalities involved. As we will see in the Norwegian case, the group o f German exiles in Christiania also attracted Norwegian patriots. I alluded earlier to the relatively low density o f contacts in the network o f German nationalist intellectuals, at least as compared to the Czech and Norwegian cases. The German movement seems to have been characterized by a higher degree o f density in its earlier stages, when it was relatively small in size. The aforementioned contacts between Amdt. Fichte, and Jahn are an illustration o f that. However, as W ehler pointed out above, the expansion into a mass movement coincided with a higher potential for mobilityand many German patriots' exile is one example o f such mobility. The German case offers valuable evidence of the principle that larger networks tend to be less dense, and that mobility tends to decrease density. It is also worth noting that Germany is simply a much larger and more populous territory than the Czech lands or Norway. Furthermore, it is a polycephalic country, with many prominent cities, compared to the monocephalic nature o f the Czech lands (where everything has always centered on Prague) or Norway (where Christiania increasingly became the center o f political, cultural, and eventually economic life as the nineteenth century progressed). Combining these factors o f a larger movement, the mobility and exile, as well as the lower degree o f centralization, we can understand why the German movement was relatively less dense. Nonetheless, denser local clusters
29 See Nipperdey, p.374 and also Willms, p. 128.
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featuring strong ties did develop in several areas Heidelberg is one example, and Wagner's experience in Dresden provides another. Ties between these clusters seem to have been somewhat weak, however. Wagner In examining the network linkages that would have served Wagner as
communication channels for nationalist ideas. I will first look at person-to-person communication. I will consider his ties with other nationally-minded Germans, next his cross-movement ties, and lastly his ties with other musicians. Then I will turn to the sources o f impersonal communication that influenced Wagner. As to be expected, it is strong ties with a relatively small number o f individuals that were primarily responsible for forming W agners nationalist inclinations. Not all o f these ties were with nationalist activists per se some of these people, such as his uncle Adolf Wagner, never fought on the barricades or authored fiery patriotic tracts. Nonetheless, even less politically-engaged individuals could serve as conduits for ideas about the nation, and that seems to have been Adolf Wagners role. His uncle was a decisive influence on young Richards intellectual development, particularly since Wagner's record o f attending school was rather spotty. Much o f what Wagner learned in his youth about history, literature, theater, and culture in general seems to have come from his uncle. In Mein Leben W agner claimed that at an early age he was already enamored o f Germanness [Deutschtiimlichkeit], and it is logical to assume that his uncle played a part in steering W agners interests in that direction.,0 The next major tie for W agner was with the writer Heinrich Laube, who was one of the leaders o f the amorphous Junge Deutschland grouping that agitated for a renewal
30 Mein Leben, p.32.
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o f German culture. Many o f Laube's ideas on culture and nationalitysuch as his demand for a national theaterare very similar to Wagner's, evidence o f the close contact between these two men throughout the 1830s.1 O f great importance for Wagners knowledge o f certain philosophical and theoretical trends was his friendship with August Rockel. Rockel was a writer and all-around activist, well-read and welltraveled, present at the 1830 revolution in Paris, and familiar with Mazzini, Robert Owen, Lammenais, and Chartist ideas from his time spent in England.2 When Rockel returned to Germany he took up the post o f the theater director in Dresden, where Wagner came to know him. Gregor-Dellin has written that August Rockel made a not insignificant contribution to the fact that everything W agner undertook beginning in Dresden as artist and organizer was pervaded with a national component. As an interesting illustration both o f his own activism and his close connection to Rockel. Wagner took over the editorship o f Rockels newspaper when the latter was thrown in jail for his political views. During his time in Paris in the 1840s, Wagner had strong ties to Samuel Lehrs, a philologist at the Bibliotheque Royale, and Gottfried Engelbert Anders, a would-be painter. Besides being good friends during a very difficult period for Wagner, these two, through their ardent expatriate nationalism, encouraged Wagners own interest in German history and culture. Lehrs in particular, as could be expected o f a librarian, possessed a wide knowledge o f literature and philosophy, and it is apparently through him that
31 See Laube (1934) and Mein Leben. 32 Gregor-Dellin, p.200. 33 ibid., p.202. 34 Mein Leben, p.386.
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Wagner first encountered Feuerbach's w ritings.' Additionally. Lehrs was able to direct Wagner to many sources of German" history, including probably Friedrich von Raumer's Geschichte der Hohenstaufen und ihrer Zeit. which fascinated Wagner, as well as to collections o f m yth.6 Such historical and mythical texts obviously came to play a huge inspirational role in Wagners later artistic output. In 1851 in Zurich Wagner met Georg Herwegh. a politically-active writer o f prose and poetry. Herwegh contributed a number o f songs to the repertoire o f the nationalist singing societies, the Sangervereine.' Herweghs nationalist proclivities also led him to write a series o f political articles about the Italian Risorgimento articles which W agner followed eagerly. 8 Though by the 1850s W agner was already a confirmed nationalist, his contact with Herwegh was significant for furthering his intellectual and philosophical development. For instance. Herwegh introduced Wagner to Schopenhauer's works a philosopher with whom Wagner would carry on a love affair throughout the rest o f his life. More importantly for our purposes here, however, were the many discussions Wagner. Herwegh. and their friends held on questions o f nationality and culture. '9 The architect (and fellow nationalist) Gottfried Semper was another member of this circle in Switzerland.40 It is no coincidence that this period saw the appearance o f some o f W agners weightiest philosophical writing, such as Oper und Drama. Herwegh was also
Gregor-Dellin, p. 166. 36 ibid. See also Mein Leben, p.224. 37 Duding (1987), p.40. 38 Gregor-Dellin, p.452. 39 Mein Leben, p.475. 40 ibid., p.605.
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very enthusiastic about Wagner's poem for the Ring, often encouraging him to finish the work.41 W agner's weaker ties include his contact with the writer Constantin Frantz, whose book Die Wiederherstellung Deutschlands greatly impressed the composer. Wagner approved o f Frantz' recommendations for German politics and dedicated the second edition o f Oper und Drama to him.42 Two other very important clusters o f weak ties stem from W agner's activity in a number o f political groups in Leipzig and Dresden. During the Leipzig uprising o f 1830 he met many young firebrands through his work at the publishing house o f his brother-in-law Brockhaus. Radical students often gathered at Brockhaus home, and Wagner again met up with many o f these same radicals when he later joined the Landmannschaft Saxonia (similar to a fraternity) at the University o f Leipzig.4"' W agners political involvement reached its peak in Dresden in the 1840s, where at the end o f the decade he was an active participant in the failed revolution. W agners closest social circle during his Dresden years included a wide variety o f socially-engaged artists such as the composers Ferdinand Hiller and Robert Schumann, the sculptors Emst Rietschel and Emst Hahnel, the architect Semper, and the writer Karl Gutzkow.44 Gutzkow, in particular, was another o f the leaders of the Junge Deutschland movement. Wagners contacts also included many more fleeting ties to other revolutionaries, including those affiliated with the Vaterlands-Verein.45 While for the most part we know
41 ibid., p.502. 4- Das Braune Buch, p.152. 4 :i See Gregor-Dellin, pp.76-9. 44 Einleitung, Briefe Band II, p.24. 45 Gregor-Dellin, p.239.
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little o f what went on between Wagner and his contacts in these groups, the important point is that he was deeply involved in circles o f other individuals engaged with political and national ideas. Wagner's contacts with non-German nationalists also take the form o f weak ties. One example was his enthusiasm for the Polish struggle for independence, which led him to attend in Leipzig some Polish exiles' commemorations o f their struggle.46 He was even sufficiently sympathetic to write an overture called Polonia and a text for an opera Kosziusku (which was never composed).47 While in Dresden Wagner also came in close contact with another exile, the Russian radical Mikhail Bakunin. The two spent much time together in talks about nationality and the situation o f the Slavs.48 In general, Wagner seems to have had relatively few personal contacts outside the German movement. For him most of the communication o f nationalist ideas would have taken place within the movement. Nonetheless, he did have personal contacts with a few non-German nationalist musicians. These, too, are generally weak links, with one exception. Early in his career W agner met Ole Bull when the latter came to Riga.49 Much later, he spent a good deal o f time in 1869 with the Russian composer Alexander Serov (whom Cosima described as the Russian Richard Wagner).'0 Serov, despite his early death, was a significant figure in the Russian musical scene, and the major exponent of W agners ideas in Russia, which, however, put him at odds with Balakirevs brand of musical nationalism. Then in
46 Mein Leben, pp.67-9. 47 Eine Mitteilung, p.252. Kosziuskcf is Wagner's misspelling of Kosciuszko's name. 48 Mein Leben, p.399. 49 Haugen, p.58. 50 Tagebucher 1869-1872, p.125.
26S
the summer o f 1872 Wagner also came to know Grieg's friend Johan Svendsen when Svendsen and his wife visited Wagners house in Luzern. Apparently the Wagners and the Svendsens got on famously, Cosima referring to them in her diary as really splendid people."1 While in Paris for the 1860 Tannhauser preparations, Wagner met a certain Monsieur Chere, the teacher and director o f a French folk song society. W agner enjoyed Chere and approved o f the latter's intention to bring about the regeneration o f the French Volksgeist through song.32 Wagner also had contact with Arrigo Boito, the composer and one o f Verdis librettists, who was interested in advancing Italian music.3 The exception to these fairly sparse contacts with nationally-minded musicians outside o f Germany is Wagners relationship with his friend (and father-in-law!) Franz Liszt. Liszt, as he did with both Grieg and Smetana, furthered W agners career and gave him support and encouragement when few others would. Though Wagner seems to have participated less as a member o f Liszts extensive social circle than Grieg or certainly Smetana did, we know that Liszt and Wagner did discuss national questions together. In their correspondence we see occasional mention o f ideas to improve the situation o f the arts in Germany. For example, they discussed W agners plans for theater reform.34 Though Liszt was never as nationalistic a composer as Wagner (he was not especially concerned with founding a Hungarian national style), it is nonetheless clear that W agner and Liszt shared a common interest in questions o f national music and frequently exchanged their ideas with each other.
51 ibid., p.535. 52 Mein Leben, p.616. Tagebucher 1869-1872, p.138. 54 Briefe Band IV, p.53.
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Impersonal communication Perhaps as important for Wagner as his personal contacts with other nationalistic artists was what he learned through impersonal channels from nationalists o f an earlier generation. W agner always expressed his reverence for those artists he regarded as his predecessors in creating a German national culture. Chief among these would be Carl Maria von Weber, whom Wagner did actually meet, but at an early age before his own artistic/political aspirations had taken shape. W agner called Weber his progenitor, and believed that it was W eber who first truly gave the public an idea o f what Germanness in opera should be." Wagner praised how in D er Freischutz Weber touched the heart of the German Volk, singing the highly imaginative emotional life o f the German nation. and Wagner aspired to similar goals in his own w ork.'6 Certainly his earliest operas particularly Die Feen owe much both musically and stylistically to Weber. In fact, Wagner even claimed in Mein Leben that W ebers widow Karoline von Weber met with him in 1843 and begged him to take up W ebers former post leading the Dresden opera. She wanted Wagner to continue Weber's work o f creating German national opera/'7 Goethe and Schiller were two other predecessors whose contribution to German culture Wagner revered. He seems to have regarded Schiller, in particular, as a national hero, and his art as an embodiment of the German spirit.'8 Schillers campaign for a national theater, as well as his plays deriving from German history, assuredly impacted Wagners own artistic designs. The Grimms were another extremely important influence. Wagner regarded their work as one of the greatest achievements o f the German spirit
55 Tagebiicher 1878-1880, p.255 and Rede an Webers letzter Ruhestatte, p.47. 56 Rede an Webers letzter Ruhestatte, p.47. 57 Mein Leben, p.259. 58 Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik, p.36.
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since Goethe and Schiller's heyday. All Germans, according to Wagner, owe thanks to the Grimms for the marvelous, newly reviving results of recent German research into language, myth, and history.y, W agner's own interest in German mythology was passionate, and we can be sure that many o f his ideas in this area were inspired by his reading o f Jakob Grimm. He in fact specifically credited Grimm as an important source for his own research and thinking on what Germanness is.60 Wagners other impersonal sources o f communication are significantly less important. He knew the Dane Niels G ades music, for example having heard his Seventh Symphony in 1847.6 1 As we will see below in the section on Grieg, Gade was one o f the first prominent composers to strike a national tone in his music. Wagner also knew V erdis operas, even if he never seemed particularly interested in this composer. He must have been aware o f V erdis position as an Italian national hero, however, since as mentioned above Wagner followed the events o f the Risorgimento. To summarize, W agners contacts with other nationalist intellectuals varied over several periods. They were particularly intense during his time in Leipzig and Dresden, then became more attenuated during his years o f exile. Likewise, the densest clusters o f his experience were in those two Saxon cities, where he moved in relatively tightly-knit and enthusiastic circles. When Wagner left Germany, his network of contacts became somewhat less dense because those to whom he was closest were not always especially close to each other. The size o f W agners network o f contacts was largest in Leipzig and Dresden and then became much smaller during his years o f exile. The dispersal o f his network o f contacts during these exile years thus corresponds to the theoretical prediction
59 Zensuren, p.205. 60 Was ist deutsch?, p.82. 61 Das Braune Buck, p.111.
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o f the impact of mobility on network density. In general. Wagner's mobility was high (though not as high as Grieg's, as we shall see), and everywhere he went he does seem to have had contact with other nationally-minded intellectuals. Interestingly, however, these contacts were most often with other German intellectuals: his contacts outside the movement were rarer, as we have seen. In a way. this is perhaps not surprising given that throughout most o f the first half o f the nineteenth century it was the German movement that set the precedent for other nationalist movements. We can surmise, then, that most o f what Wagner had to learn about nation-building strategies would have come from contacts within the German movement anyway, and not from non-German nationalists. In terms o f centrality, Wagner himself was never especially central in the clusters he was associated with, at least until the 1870s when his fame had grown and a circle of followers attached themselves to him. Wagner was locally central in the denser clusters o f Leipzig and Dresden, and perhaps through his contacts with prominent figures in the German movement such as Laube his position did become somewhat more central relative to other German nationalists. Again, later in his career when he became famous his centrality within German cultural life increased. Nonetheless, it is apparent that many o f W agners channels of communication went through other individuals: he learned of Mazzini through Laube, German history through Lehrs, and so on. This is the betweenness factor: several individuals were critically in between for Wagner and hence put him into contact with other intellectual trends. This reinforces the picture of Wagner as being somewhat peripheral in the network o f German nationalist intellectuals earlier in his career. Personal and impersonal sources o f communication occupy a roughly equal level o f importance for Wagner. Impersonal communication becomes more important with his own influence on later composers, as the case o f Smetana shows.
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The Czech Lands and Smetana
Many scholars have noted that the Czech nationalist movement copied the German in a thoroughgoing manner. Kfen. for one. observes that the Czech nationalists took their entire intellectual nourishment. the overwhelming majority o f the cultural values, from Germans.62 A specific example Kfen cites o f a trope the Czechs took over from the Germans and applied to their own case was that o f Slavic purity. which was modeled on Germ ans ideas o f their own ancient origin. The influence from the German movement was pervasive: Czech nationalists copied the Germans use of symbols, patriotic songs, and national costumes.6j The Czech drive for a national theater followed the German model almost exactly.64 Similarly, the German example of Tumvereine was implemented in the Czech lands in the form o f the Sokol movement, which united nationalist goals with the ethos o f training the populace in gymnastic exercise. Not just German influences inspired Czech nationalists, however. Certain Czech nationalists followed national agitation in Ireland and Greece. The Irish example o f openair mass gatherings to stimulate patriotism was emulated in the Czech lands, even to the point of the Czechs using the English word meetings to describe their own version of these gatherings.65 Impersonal communication was a major transmission source o f these strategies into the Czech movement, since few o f the early Czech patriots had personal contacts with the German figures who were their main inspiration. Herder o f course figured
62 Kfen, p.51. 63 See Bradley, p.44. MAgnew, p.138. 65 Hoensch, p.360.
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prominently: Josef Jungmann is credited as primarily responsible for spreading Herder's ideas in the Czech lands, though Kollar and Safarik also knew and were deeply influenced by his work.66 Kollar was also apparently familiar with A rndt's and Jahn's ideas, and even much later in the century Jan Neruda demonstrated that he, too. had read Jahn.67 By the mid-nineteenth century there were plenty o f nationalist movements across Europe to learn from, and there is evidence that Czech nationalists such as F.L. Rieger avidly kept apace with developments elsewhere by reading foreign newspapers.68 Along with the impersonal sources, Czech nationalists personal connections to nationalists in other countries were in fact very strong. These personal contacts not only played a critical part in the transmission o f ideas from the German movement into the Czech. Subsequently, Czechs and Slovaks contacts with other Slavic nationalists were important for the further spread o f these ideas. Kollar and Safarik in particular had extensive personal contacts with German nationalists. Both spent time at the University o f Jena where they apparently moved in German nationalist circles. Kollar even attended the 1817 Wartburgfest, where he was deeply immersed in the current o f nationalist ideas.69 There are other examples o f less-prominent Czechs who traveled in Germany and then came home to recreate nationalist activities they had witnessed abroad, such as a certain Adolf Pinkas who studied at Heidelberg then returned to the Czech lands to start groups along the lines o f the German Burschenschaften.70 The personal contacts between German and Czech nationalists persisted at least until 1849, when Frantisek Palacky was
66 Koralka, p.68. 67 Pynsent, p.55; Jan Neruda Ceska spolecnost III (Praha: Statni nakladelstvi krasne literatury, hudby a umeni, 1960), p.151. 68 Bradley, p.29. 69 See Pynsent, p.46 and p.55. 70 See Klima, p. 172.
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invited to represent Bohemia at the Frankfurt National Assembly gathering. An early generation o f Czech nationalists also had close relations with Poles, even inspiring many Czechs to go across the border and Fight in the 1830 Warsaw uprising.' 1 Prague eventually became home to a very dense cluster o f personal contacts within the Czech movement and between them and other Slavic nationalists. We will see with the case o f Smetana how virtually all the prominent Czech nationalists o f his time interacted with each other. Even earlier, though, Safarik and Kollar, although both Slovaks, lingered in Prague because it was a hotbed o f nationalists.72 Klima reports that many Slavs went to Prague to experience the nationalist scene therebesides just Czechs and Slovaks, o f course, Russians and south Slavs all passed through.7 As one example. Safarik had personal contact with the Croatian nationalist Ljudevit Gaj, who came to study in Prague.74 Czech folk song collectors also had strong connections to each other and to other Slavs: the Czechs knew the Poles work and vice versa, for example, and they typically also were aware o f collectors in the south Slav lands and Russia.75 These cross-movement links were even institutionalized in a sense via the Slav Assemblies, large gatherings of Slavic patriots and intellectuals that were held in Prague in 1848, 1868 and 1883 (another assembly took place in Moscow in 1867).7 6
7 1 ibid., p.165. 72 Little distinction was made in any case at this time between Czech and Slovak nationalism. 73 Klima, p. 176. 71 Stephen Gazi, A History of Croatia (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1993), p.135. 75 Zavodsky, p. 154. 76 Kimball, p.94.
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So just as the German movement was the model for the Czechs, the Czech movement became the model for many subsequent nationalists in Slavic lands.'7 The national theater movement in Prague is a concrete example o f this movement-tomovement influence, since just as the Czechs copied the Germans, later nationalists sought to emulate the Czechs' success in this area. Such was the achievement o f the Czechs in establishing their own national theater, in fact, that various Slav patriots wrote o f it as a success for all Slavdom.'8 The Czech case also clearly demonstrates the importance of mobility in this cross-movement communication. From early Czech patriots experiencing the bloom o f the German nationalist movement while in Germany, to the later network o f Slav patriots in Prague, the transmission o f ideas was greatly facilitated by these nationalists from different lands coming into personal contact with each other. In comparison to the German movement, the Czech movement remained smaller and more tightly clustered, always centered in Prague. This small size contributed to the fairly remarkable density o f contacts between Czech nationalists that we will see below. One parallel with the German movement is especially worth noting: in the early stages of both movements, before they had developed a mass basis, a dense cluster o f patriots existed with strong communicative ties to each other. For the Germans this cluster would be that between Fichte, Amdt. Jahn, et. al., and for the Czechs it is the one that grew in Prague after about 1860. In both cases it was these clusters that generated many o f the fundamental ideas and texts about their respective nationalities. The same Finding of a pioneering, densely connected cluster will also hold true for the Norwegian case. Lastly, a particular facet o f the Czech movement as a whole was its in-betweenness for other
77 On this point see for example Kfen, p.55.
78 Kimball, p. 100.
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nationalist movements. While virtually all subsequent nationalist movements learn something from German models, they did not necessarily have direct connections to German nationalists. For many Slavic nationalist movements it seems that Czechs were the conduits that transmitted the ideas Germans had generated. In this regard the Czech movement, of our three under study, is the one with the most significant international connections between individuals. Smetana The picture o f Smetanas domestic and international ties is somewhat difficult to reconstruct because unlike Wagner and Grieg he left no autobiographical record o f what he considered his major influences. We are simply lacking testimonial information about whom he interacted with. What data are available come from his diaries, his (relatively sparse) letters, and third-party accounts o f Smetanas social circle. Nonetheless, the picture is probably complete, albeit not as detailed as for Wagner and Grieg. Smetanas ties within the Czech movement include extensive personal contact with some of the other most important figures in nineteenth-century Czech history. Early in his life he had two notable contacts that likely influenced his patriotic feelings, even if he was still too young to take a philosophical position towards his own art. The first was his cousin Frantisek Josef Smetana, an ardent nationalist and the director o f the school Bedrich attended in the town o f Plzen. F.J. Smetana's patriotic feelings, and his attempt to urge such feelings in Smetana, are evident from a letter the former wrote the young musician where he urged him to travel as a Czech artist everywhere he went.79 In his boyhood Smetana was friends with Karel Havlicek Borovsky, who went on to become a vociferous campaigner for Czech nationalism through his journalistic activities: he is
79 See BartoS (1948), p.20.
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generally regarded as a leading light o f the Czech movement. These two attended school together from 1836 to 1838. and Smetana reports that Havlicek often listened to him playing quartets during this time.*0 These sorts o f relations would have primed Smetana to seek out other nationallyminded individuals, which he did when he moved to Prague. There he was a member o f the nationalistic artists group Concordia, many o f whose members were actively involved in the 1848 revolution. Smetana, too. played a role in the 1848 upheavals. He volunteered to be a national guard and was put on duty to protect the Mala strana district o f Prague.81 One of the people he met in Concordia was the writer Karel Sabina, who was jailed for his part in the revolution. Sabina later became the author o f the librettos to Smetanas first two operas. When Smetana returned from Sweden in 1861 to live in Prague full-time, he again became involved with a dense cluster o f other nationalists. The elite o f Czech nationalist circles gathered every Tuesday for dinner: this group included (besides Smetana) Palacky, F.L. Rieger, Pivoda, and the writer Karel Jarom ir Erben, to mention only those whose names have appeared elsewhere in this dissertation.82 Smetana was not necessarily friends with all o f these men (indeed, he quarreled with both Rieger and Pivoda), but their regular get-togethers constitute critical contact between the most important figures o f Czech nationalism. Smetanas circle of closer friends included other significant individuals such as the director o f the National Theater Karel Sladkovsky, the writer and journalist Jan Neruda, the nationalist composer Ludevit Prochazka, and another patriot who also went on to write librettos for Smetana, Josef Wenzig. One important source o f
80 BartoS (1955), p.13. 81 Racek, p.59. 82 Bartois (1955), p.67.
contacts between nationally-minded Czech artists was the group Limeleckd beseda (artistic discussion group ), which Smetana co-founded. Wenzig. Neruda, as well as other composers, writers, and painters all gathered in this group.8' Smetana also knew personally Jindnch Fugner. the founder of the Sokol movement.84 Smetana's relations to other composers and musicians are characterized by both strong and weak ties. Somewhat surprisingly, his ties to many other Czech composers do not seem to have been especially strong. He knew Dvorak, for instance, and even conducted him for a time while Dvorak played in the theater orchestra, but they were apparently never close. He met Frantisek Skroup in Rotterdam in 1860 this may have been their only encounter, but Smetana assuredly already knew Skroups music, since he was perhaps Smetana's most prominent predecessor in attempting to achieve a national style in Czech music.85 Smetana also knew other Czech composers who today are less famous, such as Sebor and Fibich, but similarly never seems to have spent much time with them. Outside the Czech movement Smetanas ties are numerous but predominantly weak, with the important exception o f Franz Liszt. Over the course of several years Liszt and Smetana spent a good deal o f time together, chatting and playing both music and cards. It is evident that Liszt was quite fond o f Smetana, even though they communicated less in their later years.86 Liszts circle in W eimar in fact constituted an important intersection of contacts between Smetana and artists from many other countries. We know just from Smetanas history ' the topic o f national music was discussed among
83 Sequardtova, p. 119.
M Sequardtova, p. 117.
85 Denik 1860. 86 See Denik 1859, and BartoS (1955), passim.
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those gathered in Weimar in the fourth chapter I have cited an anecdote concerning a debate in Weimar about nationality in music. In Liszt's company Smetana also met the aforementioned Alexander Serov, the Russian Richard Wagner.8' He met Mili Balakirev when the latter came to Prague to conduct Glinkas Ruslan and Lyudmila. though as it happened Smetana and Balakirev did not get along.88 Nonetheless, the contact with Serov and Balakirev is a connection to two o f the major figures involved with creating a Russian national music. Likewise. Smetana had a weak tie with Stanislaw Moniuszko. the composer o f the Polish national opera Halka . who came to Prague in 1867. Smetana also spent time with Niels Gade in the last few years o f the 1850s. and he and Ole Bull shared each other's company when the violinist performed in Goteborg in I860.89 Impersonal communication Impersonal sources o f communication played a relatively less important role for Smetanas nationalist development than did the personal sources. Perhaps the biggest impersonal influence on Smetanas ideas for the treatment o f folk music came from Chopin, whose music he knew very well, though he never met the man.90 In any event, Chopins polonaises and mazurkas served as models for Smetanas own pianistic idealizations o f Czech folk forms. Smetana also knew some o f Glinkas work, including the operas A Life fo r the Tsar and the aforementioned Ruslan and Lyudmila.9 1 He was
Denik 1859. 88 Large, p.209. 89 Denik 1857,1859, 1860. 90 BartoS (1955), p.21. 91 Sequardtova, p.171.
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thus aware o f the Russian composer's own efforts to establish a Russian operatic style, and though Smetanas style is very different from Glinka's, he may have learned from G linkas manner o f depicting the folk musically and dramatically. He also o f course knew the various other Czech operas that had been composed both in previous decades and contemporaneous to him. including Skroups work as well as operas by Sebor. Bendl. and Rozkosny.92 This music counts as a potential impersonal source o f communication since Smetana did not always have individual contact with these composers. Finally. Smetana knew some o f Verdi's music, including at least La iraviata and II trovatore. Even more than Chopin, Wagner was an extremely important impersonal source o f inspiration for Smetana on creating a national music. In the third chapter we have examined Smetanas relationship to Wagnerianism in some detail: here the purpose is to describe how Smetana knew o f Wagners ideas and how they influenced him. Smetana knew Wagners music very well, performing it on several occasions and assiduously attending performances o f W agner's operas.9- He heard the world premiere o f Die Meistersinger in 1868. Another example o f Sm etanas enthusiasm is his 1870 trip to Munich, where he went to Die Walkiire twice and Das Rheingold three times in the space o f a little over a week.94 That kind o f binge would be hard to digest for all but the most committed W agner lover. There is also strong evidence for Smetana's knowledge o f W agners prose works. W agners collected writings apparently sat on Sm etana's desk.)We occasionally see in Smetanas own writings direct or indirect traces o f W agners
92 Large, p.237. 93 Erismann, p.163. See also Denik 1860-61. 94 Bartos (1955), p. 117.
95 ibid., p.32.
aesthetic ideas. In an 1864 review Smetana applies W agner's prescriptions for opera to a work by Skuhersky, and criticizes Skuhersky for not following those prescriptions.46 These prescriptions which Smetana said made Wagner indeed the reformer o f opera constitute one o f the major areas o f W agners impact on Smetana.47 Like Wagner, Smetana insisted upon the primacy o f drama for opera, rejecting music that aimed merely at effect or entertainment. As did Wagner, Smetana considered Meyerbeer the embodiment of this kind o f empty music.48 Smetana naturally demanded that his own operas be performed with the emphasis on drama: his detailed instructions to the conductor Adolf Cech for the performance o f Libuse culminates with the demand that each one o f the singers must be more o f the dramatic artist than concert singer, which is very much an echo of W agners aesthetics.44 The role o f language and the choice o f subject matter are the two other areas where the influence o f Wagner in creating a national music is most strongly evinced in Smetana. In the third chapter I have shown how Smetana and Otakar Hostinsky attributed to Wagner the lesson that music based on the national language will thus itself become national. All three Wagner, Smetana, and Hostinsky believed that the national languages natural declamatory patterns are inherently reflected in music. In terms o f subject matter, Smetanas use o f a mythic history is closely akin to Wagners. In fact, Libuse was evidently modeled after certain elements in Die Meistersinger: the crowd scenes where the united Czech tribes salute Libuse correspond to the scene where N um bergs citizens greet Hans Sachs, and Libuses final foretelling o f the Czechs fate is
96 Kriticke dilo, p. 147. 97 BS: Bettina Smetanova, 22 July 1870, MCH #170. 98 See Kriticke dilo , p. 119. 99 BartoS (1955), p.232.
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like Hans Sachs' climactic sermon on German art.100 W hile certainly other examples existed of artists nationalizing the past in such a way. the precedent Wagner established in opera keenly affected Smetana. So though a variety o f sources were important for communicating ideas on national music to Smetana, W agner's influence on him was very deep, as those who knew Smetana testify.1 0 1 Overall, Smetanas network contacts adhere firmly to the pattern o f strong ties within the nationalist movement and weak ties internationally. O f greatest significance is his close integration in a dense cluster with the leading Czechs o f his day. Until the onset o f his deafness, Smetana was also highly central in the Czech nationalist network, as the most prominent nationalist musician. It is these domestic ties that seem most important for his development as a nationalist artist. The one strong international tie with Liszt is also significant, in part for the broader network of artists it brought Smetana into contact with. The weak ties between Smetana and figures such as Bull and Gade undoubtedly played a role in his exposure to a wider range o f national music, and while Smetanas international ties are more extensive than Wagners, they pale in comparison to Griegs, as we shall see. Compared to W agner and Grieg, Smetana also enjoyed a lower level of mobility. His international travel more or less stopped in the late 1860s, and once he went deaf he could not travel much at all. This decreased m obility in his last years helps account for the atrophy in both his domestic and international ties. On balance, personal and impersonal sources o f communication were about equally important for Smetana. Certainly he benefited from the network contacts with other Czech nationalists and his relationship with Liszt. These contacts were critical for
100 Large, p.229 makes this point. 1 0 1 See for example Eliska Krasnohorskas obituary for Smetana in Dalibor, #23, 21 June 1884, year 6.
inspiring his effort to create a national music. But the examples o f composers he never met such as Chopin and Wagner had a major effect on his own work they actually provided the models for realizing a national music. Unlike Wagner and Grieg, Smetana himself never became a major international source o f inspiration to other nationallyminded composers. His music traveled only fitfully beyond the Czech borders. Nonetheless, his influence within the Czech lands was enormous, and effectively every Czech composer o f succeeding generations leaned a great deal on the national style established by Smetana.
Norway and Grieg
In terms o f influences from abroad on the Norwegian movement, the picture is confused somewhat by the fact that early Norwegian nationalists were actually not infrequently based outside of Norway, above all in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen Norwegians cam e into contact with other Scandinavians interested in investigating their own national cultures.102 Grieg and Bjomstjeme Bjomson are two notable examples o f Norwegians with contacts to Swedes and Danes enthused by pan-Scandinavianism in the 1850s and 60s.10' Not surprisingly, nationalists throughout Scandinavia drew inspiration from German sources, and the first generation o f Norwegian patriots began investigating their folk heritage using the same terms and tropes as Germans had done with their ow n.104 This inspiration was partly a result o f impersonal communication:
102 Hodne, p.34. 103 0ystein Sorensen, Bjornstjerne Bjornson og nasjonalismen (Oslo: J.W. Cappelens Forlag, 1997), p.50. 104 See Derry, p.79.
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predictably, Herder was the main influence on Norwegians* interest in folk m aterials.10" ' Henrik Wergeland in particular was deeply impacted by his reading o f Herder, and he also knew the work o f Komer and Arndt, among other German nationalists.106 Personal contacts played a role as well. Several prominent figures had contact with Jakob Grimm, including the historian P.A. Munch. The folk tale collectors Andreas Faye and Jorgen Moe also corresponded with Grimm and admitted that the Grimms* story collection had served as the direct impetus and model for their own Norwegian collections.107 Early Norwegian nationalists also had personal connections beyond Scandinavia and Germany. Henrik Wergeland knew several exiles from the Polish uprising and corresponded with them in 1834. for exam ple.108 Wergeland was also actively interested in Irish resistance to England, although he does not seem to have had any personal contacts with Irish nationalists.100 One important personal communication source for the importation o f nationalist ideas into Norway was the group Germania that existed in Christiania from 1843-51. This group was a meeting place for exiled German patriots and radicals who had fled to Norway, but it also attracted interested Norwegians. Harro Harring, a German painter and member o f this group, had a notable influence on Bjomson and the composer Rikard Nordraak. Harring had fought in Poland and Greece in addition to being an agitator
1 0 5 Hodne, p.20. 10 6 Harald Beyer, Henrik Wergeland (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1946), p.416. 1 0 7 See Oscar J. Falnes, National Romanticism in Norway (New York: AMS Press, 1933), pp.201 and 215. 1 0 8 Henrik Wergeland to Messrs. Dumarski and Jankowski, March 1834, in Wergeland Brev, http://www.dokpro.uio.no/wergeland/WVl/WV1042.html.
109
Beyer, p.412.
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within Germany, and lived in Nordraak's father's house for a time while Bjomson was also living there.110 Within Norway. Wergeland assumed an enormous importance as both a conduit o f information from outside the movement and as an instigator o f various projects to further Norwegian nation-building. He had close personal contacts to many other Norwegian nationalists including Munch and Ole Bull and they in turn served as direct links to later Norwegian patriots after W ergeland's untimely death in 1845. In particular. Bulls own patriotic feelings and activities were first inspired by W ergelands influence.11 1 Bull and Wergeland worked closely together in the early part o f the violinists career, with Wergeland especially wanting to collaborate with Bull on a Norwegian national opera. Bull and Munch then both exercised a major influence on Bjomstjeme Bjomson. Bull offered the young writer the chance to take over as director o f the national theater he had founded in Bergen, for instance.112 In turn, Bjomson introduced Rikard Nordraak to Bull, which set the course for Nordraaks own designs to create a Norwegian national music. Then Grieg became friends with Bjomson and Nordraak, and these two fostered Grieg's own nationalist inclinations (though Grieg had personal contact with Bull him self as well). In this way, Ole Bull and his ties to several generations o f Norwegian nationalists served not only as a living link between Wergeland and the later generations, but also as a critical central point within the whole network of Norwegian nationalist intellectuals."'
110 Herresthal, pp.56-7. 1 1 1 Einar Haugen and Camilla Cai, Ole Bull. Romantisk musiker og kosmopolitisk nordmann (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1992), p.29. 112 Amdam, p.179. 113 Haugen, p.258 makes this point.
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Much as with Prague in the Czech movement. Christiania became the focal point o f clustering for Norwegian nationalists: this centralization also helps account for the density and strength o f ties among them. One of the first important clusters involving a wide variety o f nationalists, including writers, composers, and painters organized in 1849 a festive "tableau" performance designed to depict and stimulate the national in art.114 Later in the 1850s another strongly-connected cluster o f nationalists developed around Bjomson and Ibsen. First a group o f writers, among them notable figures such as A.O. Vinje and Jonas Lie in addition to Bjomson and Ibsen, gathered together to read Wergeland and encourage each others political and social activism.1 1 5 Then towards the end o f the decade Bjomson and Ibsen founded the group Det Norske Selskap ("The Norwegian Association) to further "nationality in literature and art. 11 6 Involved in this group were Vinje. Ole Bull, the folk song collector Lindeman, the historian Sars, and various poets, sculptors, journalists, architects and lawyers. Det Norske Selskap is thus an excellent example o f wide-ranging ties in a relatively small network o f nationalist intellectuals. As we would expect, mobility played its role in Norwegian nationalist intellectuals contacts outside o f their movement. Wergeland went to England and France in the 1830s, where he met with a variety o f politically active individuals. Bull traveled extensively throughout his life, giving concerts all over Europe and even in the United States, and wherever he went he frequently seems to have had contacts with nationallyminded artists. I have already mentioned that Wagner and Smetana knew him, as did Liszt. During his trips around Europe from the late 1850s into the early 1860s.
11 4 Herresthal, p.82.
1 1 5 ibid., p.96. "*ibid., p. 150.
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Bjomstjeme Bjomson also followed this pattern o f meeting with other nationalists. Though most often these contacts seem to have been with other Scandinavians, he was actively interested in nationalist movements throughout Europe. One example is his trip through Italy in 1859-60. where, enthused about the Risorgimento (he dreamed of meeting Garibaldi face-to-face) he dispatched articles on Italian political events to a Norwegian newspaper. And evidently inspired by the national fervor in the air. he wrote works based on Norwegian history while on his trip, including the play Olav Ttygvason.u ' Later in the century, the composer Johan Svendsen also had extensive international contacts, including Gade. Liszt. Wagner. Rimsky-Korsakov. Liadov. Glazunov, and Sibelius.11 8 Via Norwegian nationalists' contacts abroad, the Norwegian movement came to influence other movements. Again, contacts throughout Scandinavia were fairly common. The connections between Norwegian and Finnish nationalists are perhaps the most noteworthy example in this regard.119 Grieg him self corresponded with a Finnish activist by the name o f Neovius. and they discussed things such as the importance o f a national language.1 ' 0 Interestingly, Norwegians are also credited with giving an impetus to the rise of nationally-themed painting as a Europe-wide trend. The Norwegians Gude and Tidemand were teachers at the renowned Diisseldorf academy, where they encouraged generations of students to turn to their own nations' landscapes and folk life as subject
117 Amdam, p.261, 264. 118 See Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1990b). 119 See Stenseth, p. 106. > 2 Grieg Brev Bind II, p.324.
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m atter.1 2 1 Undoubtedly, however, the most important source o f Norwegian nationalism's influence abroad came through the music o f Grieg, and his immense international popularity and network o f contacts. Grieg Grieg was usually very explicit in acknowledging other individuals influence on him. so it is easy to point exactly to the most important communication channels in his own artistic and political development. In terms of his personal contacts, his strong tie to Bjomson is one o f major significance. Grieg and Bjomson had daily contact through the end o f the 1860s and the beginning o f the 1870s, a time when G riegs artistic career was taking its shape.122 Grieg wrote that Bjomson formed my personality in many ways that is to say, he contributed powerfully to it... He gave m e courage to follow my own nature. 12'1 Bjomsons influence was above all a political and social one, and not so much artistic. Grieg once remarked that Bjomson understood little o f music; nonetheless he did value Bjomsons strong support and encouragement for his own designs on creating a national art. Bjomson figures prominently in the cluster o f nationalist artists to which Grieg was connected. This cluster, active from the mid- to the late nineteenth century, is probably the greatest concentration o f artistic talent that Norway has ever produced. Many major figures were concerned at this time with producing a Norwegian high culture, and Grieg was friends with virtually all o f them. This circle included many
1 2 1 Lena Johannesson, 1800-talskonsten. Nationell mobilisering p& intemationella villkornagra strukturer in Hjemlandsk Hundraarig Sang: 1800-talets musik och det nationella. Henrik Karlsson, ed. Goteborg: Kungliga Musikalska akademien, n.d., p.10. 122 Brev Bind II, p.406. 123 Brev Bind I, pp.447-8.
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writers, such as those like Vinje and Garborg whose poetry Grieg set to music, those with whom he worked closely at one point or another such as Ibsen on Peer Gynt. and others whom he merely knew, such as Jonas Lie.1-4 But for all his extensive contacts with writers, it was naturally other musicians to whom Grieg was closest. These ties with the other leading musical figures in Norwegian history were very strong. As for many Norwegian artists o f this period, a crucial figure in Grieg's development was Ole Bull. It was he who encouraged Grieg's parents to send their son o ff to Leipzig to study music. Grieg described meeting Bull, when Bull came to his parents house, as an encounter with his god."1 2 5 Later, as a maturing artist, Griegs contact with Bull in 1864 was important for turning Grieg on to folk music as a necessary element o f a Norwegian art music. G rieg's gratitude to Bull both for his own artistic development and for Bulls contribution to Norway more generally is aptly summed up in Griegs speech from Bulls funeral in 1880: Because you were an honor for our land like no one else. because you lifted our people with you up into the shining heights o f art like no one else, because you were a pathbreaker for our young national music, a faithful, warm-hearted, conqueror o f all hearts like no one else, because you have planted a seed that will sprout in the future and that coming generations shall bless you for...126 In Griegs conception, then, Bull was the man who really planted the seed for what was to become the Norwegian national music, and in a sense Grieg's own career was a fruit o f that seed.
-MIt should be noted that though Ibsen was not as committed a nationalist as was, say, Bjornson, he nonetheless was concerned with fostering Norwegian culture, perhaps most of all earlier in his career. 1 2 5 Gaukstad, p. 18.
1 2 6ibid., p.100.
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The other most important contact for Grieg's development as a nationalist artist was with Rikard Nordraak. Nordraak was a few years older than Grieg, and already full o f fire for creating a national music when Grieg met him. Nordraak, however, died young in 1866. with probably his most significant achievement being the composition o f what would become the Norwegian national anthem, Ja, vi elsker dette landet, to a text by Bjomson. Grieg was explicit about Nordraaks influence on him: Nordraak's significance for me is not exaggerated. [...] He was a dreamer, a seer, without having been bom him self to bring his own art up to the heights with his vision. That is to say, he could accomplish it in small songs, but he was hardly equipped to meet his promises had he lived. For me he was just what I needed. I got to see what Bjomson in Arnljot calls Norway in the suns rise. I was ruined after my time in Leipzig. I didnt know where to begin, but a vague longing drew me to Copenhagen. [...] I wanted to find expression for something o f the best in me, which was 1000 miles away from Leipzig and its atmosphere, but that that best lay in the love o f the fatherland and the sense for the great, melancholy nature o f Western Norway I did not know and might never have known if I hadnt been led to self-examination by Nordraak. This had its first result in the Humoresker op. 6 dedicated to Nordraak, in which my direction o f development clearly shows itself. I would like to admit that the influence from Nordraak was not exclusively musical. But thats just what I am grateful to him for: he got me to see the importance o f that in music which is not m usic.1 *7 Grieg credited Nordraak with stoking his own national enthusiasm and for strengthening his knowledge o f Norwegian folk music. In fact Grieg, in a letter to Nordraaks father shortly after his friends death, promised to continue the path o f creating a national music that Nordraak had set out on: he swore that his cause would be my cause, his goal mine. 128 G rieg's sense of debt to Rikard Nordraak, and his desire to see Nordraak's
127 Brev Bind I, p.446.
1 2 8 ibid., p.537.
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accomplishments acknowledged, motivated him to lead the campaign to erect a Nordraak monument in Christiania. The last Norwegian musician important in Griegs circle o f personal contacts is Johan Svendsen, probably the only other Norwegian composer o f lasting stature from this period in the country's history. Grieg said that though he and Svendsen were very different both personally and artistically. Svendsen has taught me to believe in myself and in the power and legitimacy o f individuality... There are therefore few artists to whom I stand in such a relation o f gratitude as to Svendsen. 129 Svendsen was also concerned with producing Norwegian music, and their close cooperation during the 1860s and 70s in Christiania was vital for both o f them. Griegs contacts outside the Norwegian movement were in certain cases also significant in fostering his own ideas on nationalist music. These contacts for the most part take the form o f weak ties, though there were several Danish artists he was close friends with at the start of his career. Most important as influences were the Danish composers J.P.E. Hartmann and Niels Gade. Grieg testifies that once he had met them, it occurred to me that I could only develop myself further upon a national basis. lj0 Hartmann wrote a national opera entitled Liden Kirsten ( Little Kirsten) in 1846, and a number of his other major compositions have national themes, such as Hakon Jarl o f 1857 and Valky-rien o f 1861. Grieg heard Liden Kirsten and Valkvrien in 1863-4 in Copenhagen, and Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe claim that Griegs fragment o f a national opera. Olav Trygvason , was influenced by Hartmanns work.1' 1
1 2 9 ibid., Bind I, p.248.

i. m Benestad
and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1990a), p.338.
1 3 1 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p.53 and 151.
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G ade's name has already come up in this chapter, since W agner knew some o f his music and Smetana met him several times. Grieg's relationship to Gade is actually somewhat ambivalent, mixed as it is with both admiration and resistance. Gade used Danish folk tunes in his First Symphony (1841). and many o f his works in the following years also have some sort of national coloration, above all the ballad for soloists, choir, and orchestra entitled Elverskud o f 1853.lj" During his lifetime Gade became the grand old man o f Scandinavian music, the m ost famous composer o f the region. It is clear that Grieg knew his music and esteemed it. During his Leipzig years Grieg composed a fugue on the name Gade, for example.1 W hen he moved to Copenhagen and showed Gade his first few efforts at a national music, however. Gades rather cool reception seems to have similarly cooled Griegs enthusiasm for the man. Grieg reported that he and Nordraak swore ourselves against the Gade-esque. Mendelssohn-influenced, effeminate Scandinavianism. 14 He later came to say. though, that this statement was a bit extreme, and in particular, his evident sadness at G ades death makes clear that he was thankful for the mentoring role Gade had played in his life. Both Gade and Hartmann were pioneers in bringing a nordic sound to music, and Grieg respected them as such, having learned much from their work. The closest ties Grieg had with non-Norwegians were in several loose groupings o f Scandinavian artists. Probably the most important was his friendship with a couple young Danes in Copenhagen in the 1860s. There, Grieg said, in association with nordic art and nordic artists, under the study o f nordic sagas and nordic folk-life I learned to find
1 3 2ibid., p.52.
13 3 Gaukstad, p.24. I3- Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe ( 1990a), p.336.
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myself. 1" In this period he had daily contact with Nordraak and other nordic-enthused young people. 16 Grieg and Nordraak. along with several o f their Danish friends, founded in 1865 a music society called Euterpe to promote young nordic music. 17 The scene in Copenhagen was much the same as in Rome, where Grieg spent several months in 1865-6. There he frequented the meetings o f the Scandinavian Association and saw J.P.E. Hartmann fairly often.18 After a later trip to Rome, in 1869-70. Grieg again wrote o f the beneficial effect o f his contacts with other nordic artists in the Scandinavian Association there.19 The visit to Rome in 1870 brought Grieg into contact with another important nationally-minded artist, that nexus o f nineteenth-century musical life Franz Liszt. Upon meeting Liszt in Rome Grieg reported in a series o f letters to his parents Liszts great enthusiasm for his (Griegs) work, above all for his piano concerto. There is a famous anecdote about Liszt performing the piano concerto in Grieg's presence and exploding with joy over a particular passage. In a startling, little-noticed coda to that anecdote, Liszt remarked to Grieg, Smetana has recently sent me something like that. 140 When relating this anecdote to his parents, Grieg explained that Smetana was a gifted Bohemian composer which suggests that he already had some knowledge o f Smetanas music by 1870, quite possibly thanks to Liszt. Grieg had realized early on that Liszt especially liked to hear pieces with a national character, and so on another visit brought along his
135 Brev Bind I, p.246. 136 ibid. 137 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p.68. iis Dagboker, p.38.
139
Brev Bind I, p.479. ibid, p.200.
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second violin sonata. Given both Liszt's interest in the national in music, and what we have learned from Smetana's similar experience in Liszt's company, it is reasonable to assume that in entering Liszts circle. Grieg met many other artists and shared conversations with them about the national in music. Though unlike for Wagner and Smetana Grieg's relationship to Liszt remained a weak tie. he did comment in 1881 that he had not had a warmer friend o f my art than Liszt with his remarkable understanding and sympathy precisely for the particularly national in my music. 1 4 1 These were the most important international contacts for the development o f Griegs own national music. However, later in his life he formed other weak ties with a number o f artists: these ties are significant not only because they demonstrate the density o f the network o f composers in nineteenth-century Europe but also because they suggest how Grieg influenced later generations o f nationalist composers. First, in terms of the international network of composers, one occasion in particular is worth mentioning as an amazing example. At a party in Leipzig in 1887 Grieg. Brahms, and Tchaikovsky all sat right next to each other at the dinner table. Such a concentration o f musical talent seems today almost unbelievable, but it reveals how many o f the major composers actually knew their contemporaries. Another example is Grieg's relationship with Dvorakthey met several times, and Grieg even conducted a concert in Prague in 1903 at which Dvorak's daughter sang.l4: Secondly, among Griegs relationships with a younger generation o f artists naturally figured many Norwegian composers, such as Johan Halvorsen and Gerhard Schjelderup. Griegs style set the precedent for virtually all Norwegian composers well into the twentieth century. Internationally he developed an important tie to Percy
1 4 1 ibid., p.249. 142 Gaukstad, p.209.
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Grainger, with whom he had a close friendship in his last years. Grainger, though an Australian, was interested in English folk songs, and Grieg encouraged him to build upon those songs in order to create an independent" English compositional style.u Grieg was also friends with the English composer Frederick Delius. In their correspondence we see that they exchanged ideas on nationality in music, and Grieg was an important influence on Deliuss artistic career.144 Impersonal communication An important impersonal source for Grieg was the Norwegian Halfdan Kjerulf. a composer from an earlier generation who had died while Grieg was a young man. K jerulf s contribution, according to Grieg, was that he was the first to have emphasized the Norwegian folk melodys great significance for the national music. He has accomplished this in a noble and appealing way, and to him therefore must be attributed a nordic musical-historic mission o f an extent that should not be underestimated.145 Grieg portrays Kjerulf as someone who pointed to the direction the national music should take, without ever actually realizing a major work o f his own. As w'ith Nordraak, Grieg sought to enshrine K jerulf s memory for his service to Norwegian music and so led the campaign to have a Kjerulf monument erected. Grieg also had extensive knowledge o f other artists beyond Scandinavia who worked in a national style. In his conservatory years, Grieg was especially interested in the music o f Chopin, Schumann, and W agner.146 (Griegs relationship to Wagner is discussed separately below.) Thus early on he studied
143 Brev Bind II, p.33. 144 See Lionel Carley, Grieg and Delius: A Chronicle of their Friendship in Letters (London: Marion Boyars, 1993). 145 Gaukstad, p.98. 146 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p.42.
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Chopin's music, and Chopin's treatment o f Polish dances such as the mazurka assuredly made an impression on Grieg's own later stylizations o f Norwegian folk tunes. Grieg also knew Verdis music already in the 1850s. There is no direct evidence that Verdi influenced Grieg in any major way. Nonetheless, the obituary Grieg wrote on V erdi's death shows the very high regard Grieg had for him he in particular praises V erdis status as "first and foremost" a national artist, a "national hero. even.147 Grieg also claimed to be very interested in the "Russian school o f music. He knew some o f Glinkas compositions such as A Life fo r the Tsar, and he was familiar with Borodin's work: he programmed the cavatina from Prince Igor for a concert he conducted in 1889.148 As mentioned above, Grieg had personal contact with
Tchaikovsky, though the nationalism in Tchaikovsky's music is never as prevalent as it is in his contemporaries Borodin's or Balakirev's. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly when Grieg became familiar with the music o f Glinka and his successors, so it is impossible to conclude that it had any real artistic influence on him. As an illustration o f the potential channels o f impersonal communication o f national music, however, G rieg's knowledge o f the "Russian school is still valuable. There is no question that Wagner was another major impersonal source o f inspiration for Grieg. As Grieg himself explained, as far as W agner is concerned, I dont know how a musician with a certain strength o f mind could be constituted so as not to be inspired by his genius. But its obvious that its one thing to be inspired by it, and something else to show it. 149 So, while their artistic output is in general fairly different (W agner never wrote piano miniatures, for example), the national goals of their art are 1 4 7 ibid.
14 8 Brev Bind II, p.384; and Brev Bind I, p. 115. 149 Brev Bind II, p.303.
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analogous, and Grieg did learn from W agner's precedent. He credited Wagner with helping to wake German musics spirit. and since this was Griegs goal vis-a-vis Norwegian music it is clear that Wagner was an inspiration in this regard.130 In his own art, Grieg exhibits W agners influence in several ways. Significantly, immediately after attending the Bayreuth Festival Grieg began more earnestly looking for a libretto to which he could compose an opera, evidently inspired by what W agner had achieved.1 3 1 We have seen in the first chapter G riegs desire to create a national opera: Grieg eventually described the uncompleted Olav Trygvason as both a musicdrama 152 and nothing less than W agnerian. 15 Grieg also admitted to W agners influence on his own songs, particularly through Wagners achievements in musical declamation and technique. Grieg said that in his songs he sought to perfect the declamation in the Wagnerian sense. 134 Grieg once remarked there could hardly be a greater adm irer o f Wagner than he, and he knew W agners music well.133 He attended performances o f a Wagner opera whenever he could and even conducted W agners music on a few occasions.156 Besides attending the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876, Grieg also heard the world premiere o f Parsifal in 1882. He in fact reported on the Bayreuth Festival for a Bergen newspaper, calling the Ring the foremost that our centurys musical-dramatic art has produced, and
150 Gaukstad, p. 147. 1 5 1 So Hella Brock (1999) points out, p. 128.
152 Breu B in d n t p. 1 31.
153 Carley, p.82. 1 5 -1 Gaukstad, p.62.
1 5 5 ibid., p.147.
156 See Carley, p.32 for opera attendance; see Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p. 129 and Brev Bind I, p. 115 for conducting.
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declaring that German art has celebrated in Bayreuth a triumph unique o f its type."1' ' It is interesting, but not surprising, that Grieg does identify the Ring as specifically a German work. Grieg actually had the opportunity to meet Wagner during the Festival, having been invited to the latter's villa one evening. However, he declined to attend because he claimed he was not feeling w ell.158 Grieg also knew W agners prose writings: he owned a copy o f the 1871 edition o f W agners collected works. Occasionally in his letters we see Grieg mention individual aspects o f Wagners writings, such as the latters opinion o f Mozart, or his libretto Wieland tier Schmied .L ' 9 It also seems likely that Grieg at least sometimes read the Bayreuther Blatter (a journal associated with Wagner), judging from his article on Schumann where he critiques the B la tters own critique of Schumann.1 60 Summarizing G riegs network position we see that early on in his career during the years formative to his own national goals he was tightly-integrated into dense clusters o f other patriotic artists. During this time he had strong ties with Norwegian and foreign nationalists. The strong ties within the movement, with the likes o f Bjomson and Nordraak, were most important for determining his course as a nationalist composer. The international connections with his Danish friends also played a role in the communication o f the techniques o f putting the national into art. Grieg always seems to have enjoyed a fairly high degree o f centrality within his network connections: during the 1860s and 70s there were his close connections to the other leading Norwegian nationalists, and then later in his career as the most famous musician in Norway he occupied a central position
157 Gaukstad, p.79 and 96. 158 Bredal and Strom-Olsen, p. 106. 159 Gaukstad, p. 148; Grieg-Rontgen Briefwechsel, p.388. 160 Gaukstad, p. 124.
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within the country's cultural life. For the most part, personal sources o f communication seem to have predominated in Grieg's network contacts. W hile impersonal
communication via Wagner, Kjerulf. and Chopin was critical, his personal contacts with other leading nationalists were so strong that most o f his communication o f the strategies o f nationalist music passed through them. Finally. Grieg's career is an excellent illustration o f how mobility can generate extensive and diverse contacts outside the home nationalist network. As we have seen, already early in his career Grieg spent a lot o f time in Germany. Denmark, and Italy, interacting with other artists everywhere he went. Then when he became famous his tours took him all over Europe, from Warsaw to Manchester. The ties he formed on his travels were generally weak, though occasionally stronger friendships did form, such as with Tchaikovsky and Delius. His mobility also facilitated increased contact w ith impersonal sources o f communication, introducing him to the music o f other composers he never met but who also worked in a national style, such as Smetana. The weak foreign ties Grieg formed span his artistic career, so while early on he had the opportunity to learn from these communication channels, later his travels in turn enabled him to communicate his own ideas on national music to a vast international public.
Conclusion
The evidence we have seen from my three composers demonstrates that networks o f nationalist intellectuals were characterized by dense local clustering and short global links. These global links were critical for the communication o f the strategies o f nationbuilding from movement to movement. As we would predict from network theory, the international connections between nationalists typically take the form o f weak ties, which are most conducive to the wide transmission o f information. These ties were facilitated
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by increased mobility as well as the growth o f media that could further impersonal communication across time and territory. Dense local nodes o f nationalists then were responsible for applying the common strategies to their own countries. The strong local ties between nationalists demonstrate both their close interaction with each other and the broadly-based participation in the movement, since poets, playwrights, journalists, lawyers, composers and so on were all involved. This Europe-wide network o f nationalist intellectuals, with its denser local clusters, can thus account for the modular spread o f the strategies o f nation-building. Let me now return to a question that I ducked in the introduction. The focus of this chapter has been to answer the question o f how nationalists would have learned of the strategies of creating a national culture. My examination o f the networks of communication hence sought to show why these strategies are everywhere essentially the same: nationalists learned from each other, through their personal contacts with other nationalists and through impersonal sources o f communication. But there is another why question that bears inquiry, and that is, why do nationalists all adopt these same strategies? The most obvious answer is that they regard the strategies as effective. Nationalist intellectuals can learn from the example o f other nationalist movements to see how the ideas on creating successful works o f art that would glorify and elevate the national culture were implemented. These ideas and works then build the national culture. There is another, more meaningful answer to the question, however. That is that nationalists regarded the ideas behind these strategies as true. Wagner, Smetana, Grieg, and all their cohorts really believed in the nationality o f folk sources and that such sources were the essential elements in creating a national culture, for example. So on the one hand, there is a kind o f calculation in the employment o f the strategies: they are seen to accomplish
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certain goals. On the other hand, there exists a bounded conception or understanding o f society, culture, and politics by which these ideas are the only valid ones. They are valid because, as I said, they were regarded as true. In this latter sense, nationalists employment o f these strategies is not just a question o f adopting effective techniques but rather o f realizing the ideas of the strategies. That is. given that folk sources are the font o f the nations culture, those sources must be actualized to create a national high culture. Nineteenth-century nationalists were thus limited in the nation-building strategies they might choose. Those strategies were determined by their eras prevailing conceptions o f nationality and its relationship to culture. The prevailing conceptions thereby constitute one component o f what we might call the intellectual structure o f nationalism. The other component is made up o f the strategies o f nation-building themselves. Rooted in the society-wide beliefs about nationality, these strategies form the ideational and practical toolbox that nationalist intellectuals could use to achieve their social and political goals. Like all social structures, then, the intellectual structure o f nationalism is both constraining and enabling. It constrains because the universe of meaning and possibility surrounding nationality determined the ideas and tools that nationalist intellectuals might use to create a national art. It enables because this universe of meaning and possibility simultaneously provided nationalists with the tools they were seeking. The importance o f the networks o f communication whose existence I have demonstrated in this chapter is that they are responsible for actually propagating the ideas and strategies. Network communication between nationalists thus actually helps constitute the intellectual structure o f nationalism. In turn, the content o f this intellectual structure specifically, the practices o f nation-building will constitute the category o f the nationalist intellectual. Elaborating this argument is the task o f the concluding chapter.
C o n c l u s io n
A t the very end o f Gotterddmmening , the final installment in the Ring cycle, as Briinnhilde immolates herself and Siegfried, Wagner brings into the orchestra an incredible, swirling reminiscence o f many o f the leitmotivs from the previous three operas: we hear, for instance, the fire theme as Briinnhilde plunges into the pyre, as well as the Valhalla theme while the palace o f the gods is being consumed by flames, and the Rhines music when it rises from its banks to reclaim the golden ring into its depths. Finally the redemption through love theme swells in the violins as the curtain comes down. In these last moments Wagner ingeniously summarizes what has gone before and crowns it all with his culminating motif. A beauty to equal W agners achievement is o f course far. far beyond my abilities. In this conclusion, nonetheless, I want to bring back in the themes o f the foregoing chapters to demonstrate again the broader cultural, historical, and political significance o f the effort to create a national music. I will begin by expanding the findings from my case studies to encompass a larger sample of nationalist composers; this will serve to confirm my argument about the constitutive elements o f nationalist music. Then I will recapitulate the significant role the different discursive themes and strategies I have examined play in constituting a national culture. The typical ideas and strategies. I argue, also constitute the practice o f the nationalist intellectual, and so from the development o f this practice we gain a greater understanding o f how nationalist intellectuals emerged as a social and political category o f actor. To conclude I will offer a few final thoughts on the need to study culture and politics not as two divorced phenomena but rather as intricately interrelated aspects o f social life.
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Wagner, Smetana, Grieg, and then some
My three case studies have identified the key tropes o f creating a national music as they appear in the German, Czech, and Norwegian nationalist movements. I have also conducted additional research to expand my findings beyond these three cases. Primarily from biographies I have drawn information on a wide number o f other notable nationalist composers, including representatives from England, Spain. Italy. Hungary. Poland. Finland, and Russia. This research has confirmed that the key tropes also make their appearances in the discourse and practice o f nationalist composers from these other countries. O f course different themes hold a different saliency in each individual case, though some attain an almost universal importance. Not all o f these composers espouse a concerted commitment o f the type we see in Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg to building a national culture per se, but a patriotic desire to depict some element o f the nation in music is always present. Glinka and Chopin, for instance, w ere never as deeply involved as was Smetana in a nation-building project, though all three do nonetheless express many o f the same ideas about how the national enters into music. Now I will briefly and broadly sketch how the tropes o f the five foregoing chapters make their appearance in these other nationalist musical discourses. Many nationalist composers complain about the decline o f public taste in their homelands. Isaac Albeniz, for one, repeatedly lambasted urban Spaniards preference for light and worthless music over ambitious art music. Alexander Borodin also lamented the low standards o f taste that predominated in the Russia o f his day, and declared his determination to try to raise those standards.1 The theme o f education, then, is also a common cause for other nationalist composers. Musical training as a means o f improving
1Ernst Kuhn, ed. Alexander Borodin: Sein Leben, seine Musik, seine Schriften (Berlin: Ernst Kuhn Verlag), p.99.
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the general public's appreciation for art was a central, life-long concern o f Zoltan Kodalys career.2 As did many composers, he contributed to the founding o f institutions to realize these educational goals. Mili Balakirev started the Free Music School in St. Petersburg, for example, and Albeniz tried to create a Catalan national theater in Barcelona. Even when they did not directly contribute to institution-building, composers such as Ralph Vaughan W illiams often argued for the utility o f such institutions for the national artistic life:4 to such an end, Giuseppe Verdi called for governmental support for the theaters in Milan, Rome, and Naples.' One o f the most consistent actuations o f the typical tropes I identified are the works that nationalist composers produced. Some, such as Carl Maria von Weber and Cesar Cui, authored prose tracts about the need, respectively, for German and Russian national styles in music. Enshrining the national language through musical setting was a principal tenet here, as we have seen: Mihaly Mosonyi set works by Hungarian nationalist poets. Balakirev set Russian, and Frederic Chopin set Polish poets.6 Ostensibly national myth and history preoccupied virtually every nationalist composer. Balakirev's symphonic work Rus, Borodins and Musorgskys operas Prince Igor and Boris Godunov all evoke Russian history. Several o f Verdis works, such as La baitaglia di Legnano, put Italian history on stage. Jean Sibeliuss choral symphony Kullervo relies on material from
- See Percy M. Young, Zoltan Kodaly (London: Ernest Benn, 1964). 3 Seroff, p.64; Walter Aaron Clark, Isaac Albeniz: Portrait of a Romantic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p.205. 1James Day, Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p.26. 5 George Martin, Verdi: His Music, Life and Times (New York: Dodd, Mean & Company, 1963), p.381. 6 For Mosonyi, see Young, p. 16; on Balakirev see Edward Garden, Balakirev (New York: St. Martins Press, 1967); Tad Szulc, Chopin in Paris (New York: Scribner, 1998), p.360.
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the Kalevalu. Bela Bartok's early symphony Kossuth attempts to depict musically both a great Hungarian patriot and the life o f the entire Hungarian people. National opera was o f course a major concern to generations o f composers, from Weber to Stanislaw Moniuszko to Mikhail Glinka to Ralph Vaughan Williams, and including even Sibelius. The national landscape was often depicted in operas as well as other works. Borodins The Steppes o f Central Asia. Balakirevs On the Volga , Manuel de Fallas Nights in the Gardens o f Spain, Albenizs Iberia, Vaughan W illiam ss London Symphony, M osonyis Puszta-Life, and Kodalys Matra Pictures are just a few o f very many examples. The adoration o f the folk and the translation o f folk culture into the realm o f high art is such a common and obvious trend that little must be done to corroborate other composers ideas and works in this area. What is interesting is how many nationalist composers actually undertook their own collections o f folk materials. Weber, Balakirev, de Falla, Vaughan Williams, and Kodaly and Bartok all gathered folk songs first-hand. And seemingly all composers subscribed to the idea that folk songs must be lifted up into the artwork. Hence rather than directly quoting folk songs, they typically preferred to evoke folk style through imitation. Cui wrote o f the necessity to elevate folk songs, and Borodin agreed that direct quotes were the wrong approach.7 Albeniz and Vaughan Williams also treated folk songs as in themselves insufficient for constituting a national art.8 Bartok, too. though a devoted student o f folk music, insisted that direct quotation was not the ideal way to bring a folk character into a work o f art.9
7Russians on Russian Music, 1830-1880, Stuart Campbell, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p.200; Kuhn, p.83. 8 For Albeniz see Clark; Day, p.26. 9 Bela Bartok: Weg und Werk, Bence Szabolcsi, ed. (Kassel: Barenreiter Verlag, 1972), p.160.
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Almost equally common in the discourse on creating national music is the recurrence to boundary-construction and Othering. Most often this takes the form o f protests against foreign domination o f the national cultural scene, in exact parallel to W agner's complaints against the French and Italians. Indeed. Italian music was the focus o f resistance and scom for composers throughout the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth. Successively. Weber, Glinka, the Russian Five, Albeniz and de Falla all rail against the influence o f Italian music.1 0 In that ironic reversal o f Wagner's complaints, however, many later composers also protest, like Grieg, the way that Germans and their art claimed for themselves the peak o f musical achievement. Balakirev and other leading figures in Russian musical circles such as Vladimir Stasov repeatedly attacked the prominence of German music, fearing attempts to Germanize Russian culture." English composers also resisted the cultural hegemony o f German style and urged their countrymen to avoid being colonized in this w ay.1 2 Even Verdi lived long enough to see German music rise from what Wagner portrayed as its subjugated position earlier in the nineteenth century thus by the 1880s Verdi was himself warning against Germanism infecting students and teachers at Italys conservatories.1 '' The themes o f the fourth chapter are relatively more difficult to substantiate in other composers. I suspect that the difficulty largely stems from the necessity to perform more in-depth research into the discourse in other countries; broad biographical studies generally lack the detail to provide adequate information on composers' thoughts about
1 0 Warrack (1968), p.92; David Brown, Mikhail Glinka (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), p.28; Seroff, p.79; Clark, p.182; Manuel de Falla: Spanien und die neue Musik (Zurich: Verlag der Arche, 1968), p.23. 1 1 Seroff, p.63; Russians on Russian Music, p.199. 1 2 Stradling and Hughes, p.99. 1 3 Martin, p.518.
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prestige, dissemination, and universality. Nonetheless, the prestige component at least is apparent in several cases. De Falla was concerned with securing a place for Spanish music internationally, ju st as Russians sought prestige and recognition for their own culture.14 Likewise, men such as George Grove argued for the need o f English music to attain a standard o f achievement comparable to that o f the great musical nations such as Germ any.1 ' Kodaly had much the same thoughts for Hungarian music, and he was also actively concerned with promoting Hungarians' culture abroad.16 Albeniz, too, did his part for the international dissemination o f Spanish music, much like Grieg always including national" pieces on his wide-ranging tours. Already early in his career. Sibeliuss music was traveling beyond Finland as a representative o f Finnish culture, as with the Helsinki Philharmonics tour around Europe in 1900.17 The belief in the universality o f art was common enough that most nationalist composers probably adhered to it. Liszt certainly espoused it, and Balakirev also believed that national expression could simultaneously be universal, citing Chopins music as an exam ple.18 I am lacking further evidence beyond these two, however. Finally, the patterns o f network communication observed in the cases o f Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg hold true for the majority o f other nationalist composers. Possibly the most famous cluster o f nationalist artists in history is the mighty handful o f Russians who gathered in St. Petersburg in the 1860s and 70s. Balakirev, Cui, Borodin,
1 1 Manuel de Falla , p.136; Russians on Russian Music, p.50. 1 5 Stradling and Hughes, p.21. 1 6 See Young. 1 7 Erik Tawaststjema, Sibelius: Volume 1 1865-1905 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p.225. 1 8 Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years 1811-1847 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), p.339; Garden, p. 135.
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Musorgsky. and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov were also known as the five." and in addition to their strong links with each other they interacted with other nationalists such as journalists and poets.19 Before their time. Glinka also was part o f a nationalist cluster in St.Petersburg.20 During his years in Poland. Chopin had close connections to a number o f other nationalists in Warsaw and maintained many o f these relationships even once he moved to Paris: the nationalist poet Adam Mickiewicz was one o f Chopin's prominent friends.21 Early in his career Sibelius was supported by a small group of enthusiastic Finnish nationalists, among them composers, conductors, and painters.22 Several important clusters o f nationalist musicians in England took shape in the 1860s. There was some conflict and fluidity o f membership among these groups over the decades, but the contact between the leading lights was always significant.2'' A looser grouping o f nationalist artists formed in Spain around the composer Felipe Pedrell. Pedrell's prose output constitutes the most notable Spanish voice o f the typical ideas on national music, and most o f the great Spanish nationalist composers, such as Albeniz, Enrique Granados, and de Falla, studied with him for a time.24 Bartok and Kodaly were also involved with a cluster o f artists in Budapest in the early 1900s; these two men in particular were very close friends. Lastly, Verdi, while never involved in a tight cluster, nonetheless had contacts with the prime movers in the Risorgimento such as Mazzini and Cavour.
19 See Seroff. 20 ibid. 21 Szulc, p.52. 22 Tawaststjema, p. 138. 23 Stradling and Hughes, p.43 and passim. 24 Manuel Orozco, Manuel de Falla (Barcelona: Destinolibro, 1985), p.39.
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Direct and indirect communication with nationalists from other countries was also a common phenomenon. In Table 6.1 (see the appendix) I present a graph o f nationalist composers strong and weak ties to other nationalist composers. This table organizes the 24 composers according to alphabetical country order, and within countries composers are listed chronologically. I organized the table this way in order to best present how composers ties cluster by country. In general, as we would expect according to my conclusions from the fifth chapter, strong ties are more likely to figure between composers from the same country, and weak ties between composers from different countries. The ties between Russian composers are the best example in this regard. One significant reason for both the strength of the ties and the density o f this particular cluster is the temporal coincidence o f these composers' careers: they were all close to each other in age and enjoyed their peak productivity at roughly the same time. Time is actually something o f a problem for this table, in that it charts relations over almost a hundred years, all told.2' Thus distance in years explains why some composers from the same countrysuch as the two Spaniards had relatively weaker ties to each other. It also partly explains why other composers. like Ralph Vaughan Williams, have no significant contact with nationalist composers from other countries. Somewhat surprising is Giuseppe Verdi's complete lack o f contacts: the reason for the dearth is most likely that Verdi spent almost all his life in Italy, with only occasional trips to Paris, and so lacked the mobility that brought others (such as Liszt) into contact with so many colleagues. Overall, though, the graph does provide evidence o f the remarkable extent to which nationally-minded composers were in personal contact with their contemporaries.
25 Carl Maria von Weber was bom in 1786 and Zoltan Kodaly in 1882, at the two extremes.
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I have not charted the international connections between composers and lesserknown nationalists from various fields, but these were also fairly frequent, perhaps especially in the Slavic lands and Scandinavia. For example. Balakirev had contact with various Czech. Serb, and Bulgarian folk song collectors, and Musorgsky knew the Ukrainian nationalist poet Shevchenko.26 The Finnish composer-conductor Robert Kajanus. a good friend o f Sibelius, studied with the Norwegian Johan Svendsen. and Sibelius himself was friends with the Norwegian composer Christian Sinding and in Prague met Dvorak and his son-in-law the composer Josef Suk.2' Earlier generations of nationalist composers served as extremely important indirect sources o f inspiration for many later artists. Sibelius, for example, was influenced early on by Grieg and also Wagner. Wagner's theories in particular directly inspired Sibelius's own ideas for creating a national opera.28 G rieg's piano style was also an influence on Albeniz. as was Chopin's. Bartoks own pianistic treatments o f folk music were similarly influenced by G rieg.29 Albeniz and Felipe Pedrell both leaned heavily on W agner's example when they attempted their own national operas.,0 De Falla acknowledged G riegs and Wagners influence on him as well, especially crediting Wagner as encouragement for other composers to reproduce their nationality in music. 1 Even Wagners contemporaries such as Moniuszko learned from his writings (though there may be little evidence of that in Moniuszko's music). Many o f the Russian Five,
26 Seroff, pp.109 and 91. 27 See Tawaststjema. 28 ibid., p.142. 29 Benestad and Schjelderup-Ebbe (1980), p.340. 30 Clark, pp.180-1. :il Manuel de Falla, p. 107.
like Borodin, claimed to despise W agner but were nonetheless to some extent indebted to his accomplishments in uniting music and drama. ~ Finally, the pattern o f establishing a national musical style as Smetana and Grieg did is evinced in other cases such as that o f Glinka and Albeniz: much as Smetanas and Griegs music did in their countries, Glinka's expression of Russianness" in music and Albenizs o f Spanishness" came to serve as the model that most subsequent composers in their respective lands would leam from and build upon. Perhaps the ultimate confirmation o f my findings on the constitutive tropes o f nationalist music is the validity they evidently still exert today. For instance, many o f the same old arguments about the theater's role as the high temple o f the nations artistic culture were trotted out at the opening o f the new Hungarian National Theater in Budapest in 2002. Or consider the Latvian opera Rose and Blood I saw in Riga that resolutely incorporated so many o f the key features of a national folk opera. Built patently on models like Der Freischiitz and The Bartered Bride , this contemporary national opera demonstrates how composers continue to leam from predecessors in their attempts to create national works o f art. In 2000 for Zigmars Liepips as in 1866 for Bedrich Smetana, the recipe remains the same.
32 See Nikolai Kaschkin, Erinnerung an Alexander Borodin in Kuhn; and Russians on Russian music, p.57. 33 See the article A nemzet eszmei es szellemi bekejenek otthona of 22 March 2002 in Magyar Nemzet Online, http://www.mno.hu/cikk.mno?cikk=64791&rvt=2. For an article in English, see The show goes on, Budapest Sun, vol. X, issue 11, http://www.budapestsun.com/full storv.asp?ArticleId=(4F005A289D134BC386A8105C7F417 264l&From=Stvle.
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The three constitutions"
In the Introduction chapter I referred to the three constitutions" that form the central subjects o f this dissertation. These were, first, the constitution of nationalist music, second, the constitution o f the national culture, and third, the constitution o f the nationalist intellectual. Having examined these phenomena in my case studies, it is finally time to discuss all three together as intersecting elements o f the culture, politics, and history o f nineteenth-century Europe. My aim is to demonstrate how these three elements were to a certain extent mutually constitutive, and thereby to argue for the ultimate significance o f what I have studied in this dissertation. The effort to create a national culture coincides with the rise o f the artist as a major social actor. With the Romantic era comes a new, Olympian conception o f the artist and his creative power. That power was viewed as little short o f divine: creativity and the inspiration behind it were heaven-sent. The artist thus assumed the power to invent a world (whether in music, literature, or the visual arts) and then to give that world form through the artwork. And through his vision as realized in the artwork, the artist could effect social change. This new conception o f the artist was in fact advanced by influential artists themselves, men like Byron and Wagner, who insisted upon the artist's almost mystical ability (even duty) to change society. Geniuses fed the cult o f genius, with their works elaborating for themselves this new social role o f the artist and inculcating such an understanding o f art and the artist among the wider public. In the Romantic understanding, art was to be not a mere pastime or amusement but rather a social force: this is the new place and function o f art that I discussed in the first chapter. Art would be democratic, belonging not just to the aristocracy but equally to all classes. So despite the artists heaven-sent powers, he still belongs in an important way to his community. In the ideology o f nationalism above all, the community that
inspires and honors the artist was the national community. The nation, then, would be the artist's patron, as both the subject and support for his work. Nationalist artists were o f course the ones who most passionately argued for the community (whether the nation state or just the nation) to support their creative endeavors it was these endeavors, after all. that were creating the nations culture. Beyond even that, nationalist artists argued for their ability to create national citizens. We see a striking juxtaposition in this discourse on how the nation would be created, however. To a certain extent, nationalist artists thought that national cultural values already existed: they held to a primordial belief in the Volksgeist that assured each nations inherent, individual uniqueness. At the same time, though, they also thought that the nations culture (and with it, the nations citizens) had to be made. The discourse on the role of folk sources in the national music is one o f the best examples of this simultaneous primordialist-constructivist juxtaposition. Nationalist intellectuals,
particularly in the early stages o f the movement, are obsessed with preservation o f the untainted nationality as found in the peasantry: all the eternal values o f the nation reside there. Subsequently, other nationalists such as artists call not just for preservation but for elevation o f these cultural values. Nationalist artists demanded that the products of the folk culture be raised up into the realm o f a high art. These high art works they produced would then establish an elevated national culture. It was this process o f elevation that would in turn create the national citizens. Effectively all nationalist intellectuals, artists included, stress the need for education. The people would be educated into the rights, duties, and culture o f national citizenship. The national culture was essential here for its unifying power. As the fusion o f the lower but inherently national folk forms with the higher, sophisticated art forms, the national culture would enshrine in the artwork the principal of unity that is the core o f the nation
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idea. The national culture was to bridge the community's social divides by belonging equally to all the people. This mammoth task o f creating the unified and unifying national culture was the paramount goal o f nationalist artists, and thus the defining element o f their social role. In addition to securing the internal unity o f the nation, though, the national culture also faced an external challenge in relation to the cultures o f other nations. The perceived need to situate the national culture internationally gave rise to the discursive strategies on both boundary drawing and the transcendence o f those boundaries through the principles o f cosmopolitaneity and universality. The discourses on boundary drawing and Othering were products o f what I have called the fetishization o f difference, which in turn stems from the Volksgeist belief that each people should and does have a distinct communal cultural expression. Creating boundaries between national high cultures, then, was a means o f securing the distinction o f the culture. These boundaries would serve as the markers for the vertically-integrated culture, that is. the unified culture shared amongst the national populace that would replace the older, horizontally-integrated culture shared transnationally by elites regardless o f country. The desire for boundaries between cultures is an assertion o f particularity. But nationalist artists also expressed a desire for universality: indeed, in their thought, universality would proceed from particularity. With Grieg's as well as many other nationalist composers music, it was the particular nationality of that music that gained it recognition and encouraged its spread internationally. Yet that international
dissemination was ultimately only possible, in these composers' view, when the music adhered to the universal standards o f great art. National particularity was thus the vehicle for a universal artistic expression. In this way art could be both national and cosmopolitan: national, because it originated in a distinct Volksgeist, but cosmopolitan
because it would go out and take its place in the world as the representative o f the nations culture. The deep and simultaneous universality and particularity o f nationalism is quite starkly revealed by the discourse on nationalist music. The claims o f nationalism are predicated on an assumption o f universal validity, that every people deserves independence. There is also the insistence that every culture, universally, has a unique, inherent worth. So particularity appeals to universality as its justification and legitimation. Most obviously, the tropes and strategies o f nation-building are universal because they appear universally, in one form or another in virtually every nationalist movement. Thus these strategies themselves become cosmopolitan, the property not o f any one nation but o f all, applied in this case and borrowed from that one. Cosmopolitan, too, are the networks o f nationalists through which these tropes and strategies pass. The counterpart to the dense communicative contacts between nationalists within a movement is the weaker ties between nationalists from different movements. It is through the latter ties, though, that the strategies o f nation-building are transmitted. The strategies are also transmitted through impersonal communication, as I discussed in the fifth chapter: the way that works by previous nationalist composers can serve as models for later composers is conclusively demonstrated by the example o f W agners influence on other attempts to create national operas. The networks o f communication are the mechanics o f the modular spread o f nationalism. And it is nationalisms very transnational ubiquity, its nature as a set o f tropes and strategies shared across the globe, that make it inherently a cosmopolitan form. Finally, these networks constitute the relational and intellectual social structures that give rise to the category o f the nationalist intellectual. The relational structure situates the individual activist into a particular role within the movement, such as that o f
the nationalist composer versus that o f the nationalist writer. The patterns o f relations between activists in a movement are also responsible for socializing the individual into both the ideology and the practice o f the movement. But perhaps most importantly, these relations communicate the ideas and strategies that these activists employ. These strategies are part of what we should conceive as the intellectual structure o f nation-building. The intellectual structure is made up first o f the beliefs about the nation: the folk is the repository o f the nation's culture, the national spirit is in decline and must be re-awakened, a national culture is necessary to create citizens and a prestigious art that gives the people their identity, and so on. This is the universe o f meaning in which nationalist intellectuals operate the understandings o f life, society, and art that serve as the fundament for their own ideas. The intellectual structure is also made up o f the strategies for realizing the particular social-political goals o f the nationalist. In the case o f nationalist artists, we have seen that these strategies include a national opera, works that figuratively unify the populace by incorporating and elevating folk materials, and the discursive and artistic production o f difference. So by definition such strategies constitute the practice o f the nationalist intellectual. The attempt to build nations, which is the goal o f the nationalist's activism, proceeds according to these strategies. As with all social structures, this ideational universe o f the strategies o f nationbuilding is both constraining and enabling. It constrains because the ideas on the efficacy and validity o f these strategies determine the nationalist intellectuals practice. This practice takes place within the realm o f possibility framed by beliefs about the nation and how nations are built. Simultaneously, o f course, these beliefs actualize the nationalist intellectuals practice, making possible the attempts to realize the promise o f the nationbuilding strategies. Also typically for social structure, the ideational universe results
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partly from nationalist intellectuals* own agency. Nationalists produce and reproduce the beliefs about the nation that become the structure for their activism. This intellectual structure is partially inherited o f course, as the product o f earlier thinkers (whether nationalists or not) or the result o f ideas that are held throughout society. But men such as Wagner. Smetana, and Grieg also contribute to this structure both through their reproduction o f it and through their own works. Again, the works o f earlier nationalist artists serve as models for later artists, amounting to a pantheon o f possibility and inspiration for creating a national musical culture. As these ideas and strategies constitute the practice of the nationalist intellectual, so they inevitably constitute the category o f the nationalist intellectual as well. Nationalist intellectuals are defined by what they think and do. and what they think and do is determined largely by the intellectual structure. As I have shown, the intellectual structure o f ideas and strategies is predominantly a product o f networks o f communication. This, then, is the widest historical and analytical scope o f the dissertation. I have traced the intellectual history o f the meeting between nationalism and music. What resulted from that meeting was a drive to create a uniquely national music. The figure o f the nationalist composer also resulted, with the typical ideas and strategies that nationalist composers relied upon to create national music. As we traced the origins o f these ideas and strategies, so we have also seen the elaboration o f the practice o f the nationalist composer, and from that practice the emergence of the category itself. There is nothing especially unique about nationalist composers in this regard, since they are closely related to and integrated with networks o f other kinds o f nationalist intellectuals. So by documenting how nationalist composers as a category o f practice developed, we recognize the emergence o f the broader category o f the nationalist intellectual.
3 IX
Politics and culture
My findings. I hope, will contribute another salvo in the seemingly yet-unwon battle to convince people that culture is not somehow separate from politics, as if art were some sort o f autonomous, hermetically-sealed realm isolated from struggles for power. Repeatedly throughout my research I have encountered literature as well as other scholars who continue to insist on this isolationist view o f culture. For them, the arts have little or nothing to do with politics. I have read, for instance, that the effort to create a national art is a merely peripheral, almost consolation-prize substitute for nationalists' frustration with actual" politics.4 I was also told point-blank by a leading Czech musicologist that I would be able to write no more than a page on Bedfich Smetana's political activism. Such misconceptions o f the nature o f politics, culture and the relationship between the two need to be corrected by the understanding that art can just as much be the subject o f political struggles as can money, voters, state boundaries, or nuclear weapons. For those involved in them, debates about the content o f the national culture are every bit as heated and vital as a fight over, say, congressional redistricting. Indeed, if we accept as the most basic, pithy definition o f politics that it is about power (how to get it and how to keep it) then the drive to create a national culture is in its very essence also about power. This is the power to establish for a community o f people a particular, unique, ostensibly national set o f symbols, beliefs, works and practices. The national culture is essential in actually drawing the boundaries o f this community, in determining who does and does not belong, and who has the right to rule. Moreover, as a monopoly, the national culture excludes alternatives, perpetuating itself as it delegitimizes contesting
34 Kimball expresses this idea repeatedly.
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claims for what binds the community, and what binds that community to a territory. Art plays a role in all of these things, and all o f them, in short, involve politics as a means o f producing human social groupings. Nationalist artists are both soldiers and generals in this battle: but not only do they erect the fortifications around the community, they also fight amongst themselves over what the content of the culture must be. Politics takes place even within the national culture. And finally, as I have shown, nationalist artists are integrally linked with other nationalists, even those most political who stand and speechify in parliament or who land a blow on the oppressor with their fists, bullets, or words. Those nationalists who endeavor in the cultural realm are thus also concerned with politics, ju st as nationalist politicians are frequently obsessed with culture. Beyond merely preaching to the converted, I hope this dissertation has revealed to the doubters how political art and culture can be. Not isolated, not tangential, but as the examples o f Wagner, Smetana, and Grieg show, the artists national activism is an absolutely fundamental element o f the nationalist movement. So, finally, this dissertation is itself deeply concerned with politics, albeit a region o f politics not often acknowledged by political scientists. If as a study o f art and culture this dissertation is seen as tangential to politics, then, I suggest that the fault lies not in my subject matter but rather with misunderstandings of what is political.
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T a b l e 6 .1 : S t r o n g a n d W e a k T i e s B e t w e e n N a t i o n a l i s t C o m p o s e r s G ade S ib e liu s S m e ta n a V aughan W illia m s W eber W agner L is z t B a r to k K o d u ly V e rd i D v o fa k
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R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

ON NATIONALISM AND MUSIC VOLUME ONE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2002

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m is s io n of t h e cop y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

UMI Number: 3060203

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of th e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n p rohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

Copyright 2002 by Benjamin Ward Curtis All rights reserved

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m is s io n of t h e cop y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m is s io n of t h e cop y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

CHAPTER ONE: CREATING NATIONAL MUSIC..................................................... 30

CHAPTER TWO: THE ROLE OF FOLK SOURCES IN CREATING A NATIONAL MUSIC................................................................................................................ 87

CHAPTER THREE: CONSTRUCTING DIFFERENCE IN THE NATIONAL CULTURE................................................................................................................................149

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m is s io n of t h e cop y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

CHAPTER FIVE: NETWORKS OF NATIONALIST INTELLECTUALS

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

Table 6.1: Strong and Weak Ties Between Nationalist Composers

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

intellectuals as those who create, distribute, and apply

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

primordialist/constructivist incommensurability actually obscures how nationalists were

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n er. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m is s io n of t h e cop y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

1 S e e A lfre d E in s te in . Music in the Romantic Era ( N e w Y o r k : W .W . N o r to n . 1 9 4 7 ) . p . 15 f o r m o re o n th is id e a .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

Decline, Education, and the Role o f Art

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .

R e p r o d u c e d with p e r m i s s io n of t h e co p y rig h t o w n e r. F u r th e r r e p r o d u c tio n prohibited w ith o u t p e r m is s io n .