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E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3-30 REVISITING A. CHANTLER,

E. REVISITING T. A. HOFFMANN'SMUSICALHERMENEUTICS

ABIGAILCHANTLER TrinityCollege DUBLIN,Ireland chantlea@tcd.ie E-mail:

Abstract - Resume
The affinity between the world-view of and Schleiermacher E.T.A. Hoffmann, Friedrich whose cultural as prominent Friihromantiker
milieu was dominated by philosophical idealbetween the multi-faceted thought of each. It the relationship between Schleiermacher's

78.01 E.T.A. UDC: HOFFMANN,

OriginalScientificPaper Received:January 2002 3, 2002. 3. Primljeno: sijeCnja Accepted:April 15,2002 2002. 15. Prihvadeno: travnja

rad Izvorni znanstveni

stemming from different traditions.

Whilst

ism, underpinnedthe complexinterrelationship was however the disparitybetween theirinterpretationsof organicismwhich was reflectedin hermeneutics and Hoffmann's 'musical
hermeneutics', as interpretative methodologies

Schleiermacher's'general hermeneutics' was to conceived in contradistinction the more spein cializedhermeneutics practised theeighteenth
century, Hoffmann's 'musical hermeneutics'

stemmed from an aesthetic tradition inauguratedby thinkersof the SturmundDrangmovement. This is illustrated by the contextualisation of Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' (1810) in relation to the aesthetic and

literarycriticismof Goetheand Herder.

I between the thought of E. T. A. Hoffmann and The complex interrelationship is FriedrichSchleiermacher,as prominent Friihromantiker, a fertile source for an in the history of ideas of the type IsaiahBerlinperfected.' Both men moved essay in the same literary circles in early-nineteenth-century Berlin, although there is evidence of nothing more than a fleeting social acquaintancebetween them.2 The
' See IsaiahBERLIN, Roots Romanticism: A. W.MellonLectures theFineArts,1965,The in The The of National DC, of Gallery Art, Washington, Henry Hardy (ed.), (London:Chatto& Windus, 1999). 2
Hoffmann alludes to Schleiermacher in two letters dating from 1807. See SelectedLettersof E. T. A. Hoffmann, Johanna C. Sahlin (ed., trans.), (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 125-7.

E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 A. CHANTLER, REVISITING

interests of both were extremely diverse, and their respective achievements have proved to be of historicalsignificance. Whilst Hoffmann is probablybest-known as the authorof fantastictales (familiarto musicians throughOffenbach'sTheTales (1881) amongst other works), he was also prolific as a music critic of Hoffmann and composer, and active as a conductor, artist,and designer of stage scenery, in addition to pursuing a highly successful careeras a juristand civil servant.3 The significance of his contributionto romantic aesthetic and literary theory, and to music theory has been widely acknowledged and, in particular,his 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' (1810) heralded as 'an epoch-making account of a musical landmark, and an epoch-making statement of Romantic theory'.4 Schleiermacherwas an erudite Protestanttheologian,whose radicalconception of religion was informed by his engagement with the philosophy of thinkers like Kantand Fichte.s As a philosopher himself, his posthumous reputationhas rested primarily on his seminal contributionto hermeneutics,and arguably somewhat lesser contributionto aesthetics - aspects of his thought that have to be understood as complementary.6 The affinity between the world-view of Schleiermacherand Hoffmann, as members of a cultural milieudominated by philosophical idealism, was reflected in the kinship between Schleiermacher'sconception of religion and Hoffmann's conception of aesthetic experience as a form of spiritual experience.7 Just as Schleiermacherconceived religion as the 'intuitionof the infinite in the finite',8so Hoffmann conceived Beethoven'sFifthSymphony as an embodiment of the composer's 'infinite yearning' with which the recipient of the work engages.9 Their intellectual kinship was also manifest in the notion, they shared with many of
accountof HoffmannremainsHarvey biographical 3 The most comprehensiveEnglish-language Author theTales Waterman Princeton (Princeton: HEWETT-THAYER, of UniversityPress,1948). Hoffmann: 4David Charlton(ed.), E.T.A. Hoffmann's MusicalWritings: The Kreisleriana, PoetandtheComposer, MusicCriticism, MartynClarke(trans.),(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1989),236. This is the most comprehensiveEnglishtranslationof Hoffmann'smusicalwritings,to which I referthroughout this article. see MartinREDEKER, Schleiermacher: and Life 5 For a biographicalaccount of Schleiermacher John Wallhausser (trans.), (Philadelphia:Fortress Press, 1973);Stephen SYKES,Friedrich Thought, Schleiermacher (London:Lutterworth, 1971). translation Schleiermacher's of lecturenoteson hermeneutics whichI referthroughto 6 TheEnglish Hermeneutics: Handwritten The out this article is FriedrichSCHLEIERMACHER, Heinz Manuscripts, Kimmerle(ed.), James Duke and JackForstman(trans.),(Missoula,Montana:ScholarsPress, 1977). Themostrecenttranslation Schleiermacher's of noteson hermeneutics Friedrich is SCHLEIERMACHER, and and Hermeneutics Criticism OtherWritings, Andrew Bowie (ed., trans.),(Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress, 1998). to On 7 SCHLEIERMACHER's Religion: (1799)was writtento demSpeeches Its Cultured Despisers onstrateto his friends in Berlin(who included HenrietteHerz, and Friedrichand DorotheaSchlegel) the kinship between his conceptionof religion and the philosophicalidealism which they embraced. However in the text he also expressedscepticismaboutthe feasibilityof a 'religionof art',as conceived and such by Friihromantiker as W. H. Wackenroder Hoffmann. 8 Friedrich On to RichardCrouter SCHLEIERMACHER, Religion: Speeches Its Cultured Despisers, (ed., trans.),(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,1996),112. MusicalWritings, 238. 9Hoffmann's

A. CHANTLER, E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 REVISITING

their contemporaries,of organic unity as seminal to the creation and interpretation of literatureand art.10 However it was the disparitybetween theirinterpretations organicismwhich of was reflected in the relationship between Schleiermacher's hermeneutics and Hoffmann's 'musicalhermeneutics'.11 polaritybetween Schleiermacher's The conception of the organic unity of a text as the source of its definite meaning, and Hoffmann'sattributionto the organicunity of a musical composition a metaphysical meaning, problematizesIan Bent's coupling of them as 'hermeneuticists',and his suggestion that the 'musical hermeneutic'underpinning Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven'sFifthSymphony' can be understood as a 'sophisticatedapplication of the principlesof Schleiermacher a piece of music'.12 to Schleiermacher conceived his 'general hermeneutics' in contradistinctionto the specialized hermeneutics practised in the eighteenth century to facilitatebiblical exegesis, Classical philology, and juridicialcriticism.13 contrastHoffmann'smusical hermeneuticshave By to be understood as part of an aesthetictradition,inauguratedby the philosophers of the SturmundDrangmovement and developed by the Friihromantiker, which to the concept of organic unity, as a criterionfor the aesthetic evaluation of an art work, was central. II It was Schleiermacher's recognitionof the semanticindeterminacyof language and of the multiple meanings of texts and verbalutteranceson which his formulation of a 'generalhermeneutics'was based. He criticizedthe 'specialhermeneutics'
10On the notion of organicismin eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century thought see M. H. and Romantic and Tradition (Oxford:Oxford UniverABRAMS,TheMirror theLamp: Theory theCritical JamesBENZIGER, sity Press, 1953),167-77,198-225; 'OrganicUnity: Leibnizto Coleridge',PMLA66 Romanticism: Revisited (1951),24-48;Q. S. TONG,Reconstructing Organic Theory (Salzburg: Universityof Salzburg,1997). " lan Bent(ed.),MusicAnalysis theNineteenth in Volume Hermeneutic (CamII: Century, Approaches bridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994),19. Bent refersto Hoffmann's'musicalhermeneutics'to describethe method by which Hoffmanninterpretsmusicalcompositions. A 12 Ibid.,19. Bentsubsequentlydeveloped this thesis in detailin 'Plato-Beethoven: Hermeneutics for Nineteenth-Century in Ian Music?'in MusicTheory theAgeof Romanticism, Bent (ed.), (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1996),105-24. Hermeneutics: Handwritten The 95. 13 SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts, This text contains notes and outlines of lectureswrittenbetween 1805and 1833,and 'TheAcademy Addresses of 1829:On the Concept of Hermeneutics, with Reference to F. A. Wolf's Instructions and Ast's Textbook'. On Schleiermacher's hermeneuticssee ErnstBEHLER, German Romantic CamLiterary Theory (Cambridge: Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as bridge University Press, 1993),260-82;Josef BLEICHER, Contemporary and Bent(ed.),MusicAnalysis Method, (London,Boston,and Henley:Routledge,1980); Philosophy, Critique in theNineteenth Two: Volume Hermeneutic Hermeneutical 1-10; Century, Approaches, David E. KLEMM, Volume One:TheInterpretation Texts(Atlanta,Georgia:ScholarsPress, 1986);KurtMuellerInquiry, of Vollmer(ed.), TheHermeneutics Reader: Textsof theGerman Tradition theEnlightenment thePresent to from BasilBlackwell,1986);Azade SEYHAN, and The (Oxford: Representation Its Discontents: Critical Legacy of Romanticism German (Berkeleyand Los Angeles:Universityof CaliforniaPress,1992),96-104.

E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 A. CHANTLER, REVISITING

practised during the eighteenth century in the disciplines of theology, philology, and law because they were founded on the view that the interpretationof a text 'does not require art until it encounters something that does not make sense' that, for example, whilst the reader of Virgil's Aeneidwill have to confront the philological problems of interpretingancientGreek,thereafterunderstandingwill advocated to In occur automatically.14 contradistinction this view, Schleiermacher 'a more rigorous practiceof the art of interpretationthat is based on the assumption that misunderstanding occurs as a matter of course, and so understanding This was must be willed and sought at every point' when reading or conversing.15 in turn premised on his belief that there is no determinate link between a word and concept or object,other than that which develops through consistent linguistic usage, and that thereforelanguage is inherently ambiguous.'6 He stated that 'language is infinite because every element is determinablein a special way by the other elements' and 'every intuition of a person is itself infinite', from which he deduced that 'the task of hermeneuticsis endless'.'7 By insisting on the necessity for 'artful'interpretation,as that which 'presupposes that the speaker and hearerdiffer in their use of language', Schleiermacher endorsed the basic premise of the radical literary theory of his contemporaries: that language is autonomous and devoid of any definite meaning.'"This view was voiced by FriedrichSchlegel, who suggested that 'words often understand themselves better than do those who use them','9and it underpinned his conception of 'romanticpoetry', not as a specific literarygenre, but as an expression of spirituality which 'embraceseverything that is purely poetic' and the meaning of which 'should foreverbe becoming and never be perfected'.20 was throughthe creation It of literaryforms and the employment of techniqueswhich problematizeinterpretation that the Friihromantiker expression to this conception of language and gave created 'romanticpoetry' as it was conceived by Schlegel. This was illustratedby the collections of literaryaphorisms,or 'fragments',they published, such as those and which appeared in the Athenaeum the 'ExtremelyRandom Thoughts' which Hoffmann included in Kreisleriana (1814-15);and by the frequent punctuation of
The 67, Hermeneutics: Handwritten SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts, 49. 1-Ibid.,110. 16 On Schleiermacher's 'Schematism SCHLEIERMACHER, philosophyof languagesee Friedrich and Bowie (ed., trans.),269-80. and Language'in IDEM,Hermeneutics Criticism, Hermeneutics: Handwritten The 17 100, SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts, 95. 18 The and Behler, Ibid.,110. On romanticliterarytheory see M. H. ABRAMS, Mirror the Lamp; and Romanticism theForms Ruin:Wordsworth, ThomasMcFARLAND, Romantic German of Theory; Literary PrincetonUniversityPress, 1981);Ren6WELLEK, and (Princeton: of Coleridge, Modalities Fragmentation One:TheLaterEighteenth CamCriticism A Historyof Modern 1750-1950,Volume Century (Cambridge: and Aesthetic Literary Criticism: The bridge University Press, 1981);KathleenM. Wheeler(ed.), German and Romantic Ironists Goethe CambridgeUniversityPress, 1984). (Cambridge: and Aesthetic Literary Crititrans.in German 'On FriedrichSCHLEGEL, Incomprehensibility', 19 Wheeler(ed.), 32-41(33). and Ironists Goethe, cism:TheRomantic PeterFirchow(trans.),(Minneapolis: 20 Friedrich SCHLEGE1, Philosophical University Fragments, of MinnesotaPress, 1991),31-2.
1

E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002)1, 3--30 A. CHANTLER, REVISITING

their texts with authorialinterpolations.21 was furtherillustratedin Hoffmann's It musical writings by the florid metaphoricalprose style through which he evoked the metaphysicalmeaning of music, the lacunabetween words and their multiple meaningsenablinghim to expressthatbetween 'thenumericalproportionsof music' and 'the wonderful realm of the infinite' which they evoke in the works of a composer of genius.22 Schleiermacher'sengagement with the literarytheory of his contemporaries has been the focus of recentcriticalcommentarieson his hermeneutics,which have entailed a revision of the view, first expressed by Wilhelm Dilthey, of his hermeneutic methodology as a means to discover the thoughts of an author as These commentarieshave focused on Schleiermacher's inscribedin a text.23 recognition of the inherent ambiguity of language as the basis for postulating a kinship between his hermeneuticmethodology and criticaltheory, a kinship expressed in statementssuch as 'Schleiermacher anticipatescriticalpositions that parallelthose of structuralism and poststructuralism',24 and 'Schleiermacherconverges with Derrida'.25 Whilst such commentaries have helped to promote understanding of Schleiermacher's engagement with the radical literary theory of other and Friihromantiker, of the historical significance of aspects of his thought previously ignored, they have tended to gloss over the underlying premise of his hermeneutic methodology: that inscribed in a text (or verbal utterance)is the intended meaning of the author(or speaker). This was reflectedin Schleiermacher's formulationsof the purpose of his hermeneutics,which he expressed variously as 'the art of finding the precise sense [Sinn] of a given statement';as a means 'to understand the text at first as well as and then even better than its author';and as
21 MusicalWritings, 103-14; Forexamplesof early-romantic SCHLEGEL, fragmentssee Hoffmann's Philosophical Fragments. MusicalWritings, 238,105. Thecontinuumin the historyof ideasbetween the thought 22 Hoffmann's is and of the Friihromantiker that of writersof the SturmundDrangmovement,or Geniezeit, illustrated by the importancethe notion of the artist as a 'genius' assumed in the aesthetic theory of each. For and the Lamp, 184-217; backgroundto the history of the concept of genius see ABRAMS,TheMirror An in Genius: Ideology Literature RobertCURRIE, (London:Chatto& Windus, 1974);John Hope MAand Aesthetics theReconSON, ThinkingAbout Geniusin the EighteenthCentury,in Eighteenth-Century struction Art,PaulMattick, (ed.),(Cambridge: Jr. PenelopeMurray UniversityPress,1993); Cambridge of and MiltonC. NAHM, Genius CreativBasilBlackwell,1989); The (ed.),Genius: History anIdea(Oxford: of ity:An Essayin theHistoryof Ideas(New York:Harperand Row, 1965). HermannMulert(ed.),vol. 1 (Berlin: Leben See Schleiermachers, Vereinigung 23 WilhelmDILTHEY, MartinRedeker(ed.), vol. 2 (Berlin: wissenschaftlicherVerlager,1922);IDEM,Leben Schleiermachers, hermeneuticswas generallyvoiced by Walterde Gruyter,1966). Dilthey's view of Schleiermacher's commentatorsup until the late 1980s. 24 SEYHAN, 100. and Representation Its Discontents, Manchester FromKantto Nietzsche and Aesthetics Subjectivity: (Manchester: 25 Andrew BOWIE, The Romanticism Critical to of Theory: Philosophy GerUniversityPress, 1990),161. See also IDEM,From manLiterary (Londonand New York:Routledge,1997),104-37;TilottamaRAJAN,TheSuppleTheory New Yorkand London: and in mentofReading: (Ithaca, Theory Practice of Figures Understanding Romantic CornellUniversityPress, 1990).

E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 REVISITING A. CHANTLER,

a means to 'grasp the thinking that underlies a given statement'.26 was formulaIt tions such as these which were the point of departure for the interpretationof Schleiermacher'shermeneutics presented by Dilthey and later commentators as the basis for 'the re-cognitionof the sponsoring spiritual source of the work, a recognition made possible by the presence of this same spiritualsource in the interpreter'.27 Notwithstanding the difficulty of reconcilingSchleiermacher'sformulations of the purpose of his hermeneuticswith his acknowledgment of the semantic ambiguity of language - a difficultyexacerbatedby his expressed belief that 'thereis no thought without words' - his hermeneuticmethodology can, as Dilthey suggested, be understood as the counterpartto Schelling'stheoryof unconscious creation.2 As Dilthey commented, both thinkersembraced'the procedureof German transcendentalphilosophy which reaches behind what is given in consciousness to the creative capacity which, working harmoniously and unconscious of itself, producesthe whole formof the world in us'." Thisis suggested by Schleiermacher's emphasis on the necessity to delve into the authoror speaker'spsyche to ascertain the origins of, or motivation for, their thoughts. He stated that 'in speaking something intensive is transformedinto something extensive'," and that: of Sincewe haveno directknowledge whatwas in theauthor's mind,we musttryto become awareof manythingsof whichhehimself except mayhavebeenunconscious, his on as insofar he reflects his own workandbecomes own reader.31 As Bent demonstrates in his exposition of Schleiermacher'shermeneutics,it was Schleiermacher's conception of its purpose, as a means 'to grasp the thinking that underlies a given statement',which was reflectedin the methodology he outlined.32In accordance with his belief in the desirability of empathizing with the author'sunconscious, Schleiermacherpresented 'psychological'interpretationas the complement of 'grammatical'interpretationin the practice of hermeneutics, stating that 'it is necessary to move back and forth between the grammaticaland psychological sides' of interpretationin order to understand a text, 'because lan* SCHLEIERMACHER, The 70, Hermeneutics: Handwritten Manuscripts, 112,97. of E. 2 David E. WELLBERY, T. A. Hoffmannand RomanticHermeneutics:An Interpretation Hoffmann'sDon Juan,Studiesin Romanticism (Winter1980),455-73(455). 19/4 193. 28SCHLEIERMACHER, Hermeneutics: Handwritten The Manuscripts, " WilhelmDILTHEY, Dilthey: Hans PeterRickman(ed., trans.),(Cambridge; W. Selected Writings, and Aesthetics CambridgeUniversity Press, 1976),256. On Schelling'saesthetic thought see BOWIE, The 80-114;FriedrichWilhelm Joseph SCHELLING, Philosophy Art, Douglas W. Stott of Subjectivity, Crea(ed., trans.),(Minneapolisand London:Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1989);GeorgeJ.SEIDEL, A Studies4 (1974),170-80;WELLEK, Historyof Modern tivity in the Aesthetics of Schelling,Idealistic The Two: Romantic (Cambridge: Volume Criticism 1750-1950, CambridgeUniversityPress,1981),74Age

82.

48. The Hermeneutics: Handwritten SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts, 30 112. Ibid., 31 hermeneuticsis given in 'Plato-Beethoven'. 32Ibid.,97. Bent'sexpositionof Schleiermacher's

A. CHANTLER, E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002)1, 3--30 REVISITING

guage can be learned only by understanding what is spoken, and because the inner make-up of a person [...] can only be understood from his speaking'.33 Likewise, he recommended that the 'comparative method', as a means of 'comparing the text with others, and considering it in and for itself', should be practised alongside the 'divinatory method', as that which 'enables us rightly to reconstruct the creative act that begins with the generation of thoughts which captivate the author'.3 The dialectical relationship Schleiermacher postulated between 'grammatical' and 'psychological' interpretation, and the 'comparative' and 'divinatory' methods was premised on his organic view of texts. This found expression through the principle, on which his methodology was based, of the hermeneutic circle: 'that just as the whole is understood from the part, so the parts can be understood only from the whole'.35 In accordance with this principle, Schleiermacher advised his readers to seek to ascertain the meaning of individual words and sentences from the broader context of the paragraphs and chapters in which they occur, and conversely to derive their understanding of an entire text from the interpretation of its constituent elements.36 Schleiermacher also emphasized the importance of the extension of the principle of the hermeneutic circle as a means to understand a text as a part of the author's whole ceuvreand within the broader socio-historical context of its production. As Bent comments: Schleiermachertook a broadly organic view of any text: at all levels of construction there is a whole, comprised of parts;and this relationapplies not only within the organic work itself, but also outside [...], to the work in relation to other works of its class, to that class in relation to some larger class, to some body of knowledge, to a given social context,and so forth.37 Accordingly, in his lecture notes, Schleiermacher emphasized that, in order to 'ascertain the thoughts of an author', 'one must know in which period an author writes', and 'try to become the immediate reader of a text in order to understand its allusions, its atmosphere, and its special field of images'.38 In so doing he expressed the view, held by a number of writers in the late-eighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries, that there is an organic relationship between a text and the cultural-historical milieu in which it was written.39
3Ibid.,100. Ibid.,167, 192. 34 35 Ibid.,196. Bent illustratesSchleiermacher's principle of the hermeneuticcircle in 36 In 'Plato-Beethoven', 108-12. practiceby analyzing his introductionto the Sophist.See BENT,Plato-Beethoven, 37Ibid.,113. Hermeneutic: Handwritten The SCHLEIERMACHER, 183, Manuscripts, 46, 43. 38 39This view was voiced by Herder,who in 1796stated that 'manhas been the same in all ages;but he expressedhimself in each case accordingto the circumstances which he lived'. JohannGottfried in HERDER, Comparisonof the Poetryof VariousAncient and ModernPeoples: Conclusions,trans.in

10

E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 REVISITING A. CHANTLER,

ForSchleiermacherit was the organicunity of texts, as products of their time, the which ensured that,with 'artful'interpretation, inherentambiguityof language could be overcome to reveal the author's intended meaning. Thus even though in Schleiermacherhimself had contributed fragments to the Athenaeum 1799, he condemned texts couched in fragmentaryform as wholly inadequate as the basis for communicating a coherent argument,stating that 'unity is the art of composition'.40This view of organic unity as a criterionfor the evaluation of a text was ambivalencetowards his contemporaries'employindicative of Schleiermacher's ment of fragment form as a means of problematizinginterpretation. Indeed his conception of organic unity as an ideal was completely antitheticalto Schlegel's ideal of 'romantic poetry' which is always 'in the state of becoming' - an ideal realized in many of Hoffmann's writings.4' III hermeneuticsas a methodology Despite the unsuitabilityof Schleiermacher's for the interpretationof Hoffmann'stexts, aspects of Hoffmann'sinterpretationof hermeneutic musicalworks canbe understoodas an applicationof Schleiermacher's principlesto musicallanguage. As Benthas shown, this is illustratedin Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven's FifthSymphony' by Hoffmann'semployment of the principle of the hermeneuticcircleas the basis for evaluating the symphony in relation to those of Haydn and Mozart,and for examining its individual movements and 'the flow of the music from moment to moment' within the context of the entire work.42Evidence that Hoffmann's use of the principle was more extensive than this can be gleaned from a consideration,in accordancewith the spirit of the principle, of his review within the broadercontext of his musical aesthetics. Implicitin the view Hoffmann presented in 'Old and New ChurchMusic' (1814)of the evolution of musical language as a corollaryof the evolution of the human spirit, and of
vol. 11 (New German (ed.), The GermanLibrary, Criticism, TimothyJ.Chamberlain Century Eighteenth York:Continuum, 1992), 164-9 (167). On the relationship between Herder and Schleiermacher's im und Hermeneutik ihreVorgeschichte 18. hermeneuticthought see Harold SCHNUR,Schleiermachers und Herder F. Schlegel zu zur Studien Bibelauslegung Hamann, VerlagJ.B. Metzler, (Stuttgart: Jahrhundert: 1994). 58. The Hermeneutics: Handwritten Manuscripts, In a letterof 16June1799, 40 SCHLEIERMACHER, commented on his contributionto the fragmentspublished anonymously in the AthSchleiermacher enaeum. He wrote: 'The two Schlegels are editing a periodicalcalled the Athenaeum.In the second a collectionof detachedthoughts[... ]. Among numberof this thereare,underthe heading>>Fragments,<< these [...] are several of mine, and I shall leave you to find out for yourself, when you see the paper, as The which of them bear my impress'.Friedrich SCHLEIERMACHER, Lifeof Schleiermacher,Unfolded Rowan (trans.),vol. 1 (London:Smith,Elderand Co., 1859), Frederica and in His Autobiography Letters, to Introduction' his Germantransformin the 'General 216-17. He presenteda critiqueof fragmentary to Introductions theDialogues Plato,WilliamDobson lation of Plato's dialogues. See Schleiermacher's of (trans.),(Cambridge: Deighton, 1836;repr.New York:Arno Press, 1973),6-7. 32. SCHLEGEL, "1 Philosophical Fragments, 42 116. BENT,'Plato-Beethoven',

A. CHANTLER, E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 REVISITING

11

the instrumental idiom of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven as 'a new art, whose earliest beginnings can be traced only to the middle of the eighteenth century',43 was his endorsement of Schleiermacher's view that 'an author is to be understood in terms of his own age'.' Similarly Hoffmann's examination, throughout his musical writings, of Beethoven'ssymphonies,his piano trios and concerti,his Mass in C, and his overtures as constituent parts of the composer's entire weuvre, entailed the employment of Schleiermacher's 'comparativemethod' to facilitatethe evaluation of individual works as expressionsof 'anauthor'sindividuality' and of 'the individuality of the nation and of the era'.45 However Hoffmann'smusical hermeneuticswere not premised on the notion that inscribedin a musical work by the composeris a definite meaning, which can be ascertained through the practiceof hermeneutics. Ratherin accordancewith his recognition of the affinity between the semantic ambiguity of verbal language and the metaphysical meaning of music, and his employment of the former to express the latter,Hoffmann sought to enable the listener to actively engage with the composer of genius's 'infiniteyearning'as expressed in his work. Hence there was a cleardisparitybetween Hoffmann'shermeneuticgoal and Schleiermacher's conception of hermeneutics,as 'the artof finding the precise sense [Sinn]of a given statement'46 a disparity which calls into question Bent's 'hermeneuticistreading' of Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony'.47 Underpinning Schleiermacherand Hoffmann's contrasting aims were their respective conceptions of organic unity. Whilst music theorists of the late-eighteenthand early-nineteenthcenturies, such as H. C. Koch,J. G. Sulzer, and F. N. Forkel,presented unity in diversity as a criterionfor the evaluation of compositions, and acknowledged the organic relationship between related themes in a work, Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' represented the first extended musical analysis of the thematic structureof a work to be based on the conceptof organicism.4" This concept,which has become a criticalcommonplacein musical analysis of the twentieth century,49
MusicalWritings, 372. 43 Hoffmann's The Hermeneutics: Handwritten 171. 44SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts, 45 Ibid.,167,171. 46Ibid.,70. 47BENT,Plato-Beethoven, 118. 4 On the and centuriessee Ian historyof musicalanalysis in the late-eighteenth early-nineteenth BENTand William DRABKIN, Analysis(London:Macmillan,1987),6-36. Bent suggests that, whilst Forkel's ilber Sebastian Bachs KunstundKunstwerke (1802)included 'nothingthatcould be Leben, Johann termed formalanalysis',thathe was 'muchinfluencedby the conceptof >organicism<<' is exemplified by his statementthat Bach's'[genius]enabledhim to develop out of a given subjecta whole family of relatedand contrastedthemes, of every formand design'. Ibid.,32. The Ancient Roots of a Modem 49 On the origins of the notion of organicismsee G. N. ORSINI, Form: Life anIdea, The of Rousseau(ed.),(Londonand Boston: Idea,in Organic GeorgeSebastian Routledge & KeganPaul, 1972),8-23. On its importancein twentieth-century musical analysis and composition see Carl DAHLHAUS,Some Models of Unity in MusicalForm,Journal MusicTheory 19/1 (Spring of 1975),2-30;YorkHOLLER, Compositionof the Gestalt,or the Makingof the Organism,Contemporary MusicReview (1984),35-40;VernonLee KLIEWER, Concept Organic 1 The and of Unityin MusicCriticism

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was embodied in the review by Hoffmann's identification of the opening fournote 'fate' motive as the germ cell out of which the symphony develops into an organicallyunified structure."? However for Hoffmann the concept of organic unity was not merely an analytical premise, but rathera criterionfor the aestheticevaluation of a musical composition, because he conceived the structuralunity of a work of genius as the locus of its metaphysicalmeaning. Justas he subscribedto Schlegel'sview thatthe meaning of a text is always 'in the state of becoming', so he conceived the organic unity of a musical work as a catalyst through which the listener, as a 'passive genius', can actively perpetuate, ratherthan merely recreate,the 'infiniteyearning' of the composer of genius expressed within, and in so doing penetratea higher realm.51 This conception of organicism calls into question Bent's suggestion that, in alternatingbetween technicalanalysis of the music and metaphoricaldescriptions of its meaning, 'Hoffmann[...] shiftsfrequentlybetweenwhat Schleiermacher called the >>grammatical<< >>psychological<<' and sides of interpretationin order to ascertain Beethoven's intended meaning.52 It also problematizes Bent's attempts to contextualize Hoffmann's historically significant musical hermeneuticswithin a hermeneutic traditionhe rejected. To appreciate the significance of Hoffmann's musical thought in the history of ideas, his concept of organicunity needs to be understood within the context of its literaryprehistoryin the aesthetic writings of the Sturmund Drangmovement, and as a product of the philosophical idealism of the Friihromantiker, which the of aesthetic category of the sublime was an expression.

IV
The kinship between the aesthetic conception of organic unity adumbrated by thinkers of the Sturmund Drangmovement such as Goethe and Herder, and that conceived by Hoffmann,was a reflectionof the affinitybetween their respective philosophical outlooks. The attempts of Germanthinkersof the 1770s to forThe Living Work:Organicism Analysis(Ann Arbor:University Microfilms,Inc., 1961);Ruth SOLIE, and MusicalAnalysis, 19th-Century Music4/2 (Fall 1980),147-56. 50 The source of the epithet, the 'fate'motive, as a means to describethe opening thematicidea of Beethoven'sFifthSymphonywas the anecdote,reportedby Schindlerin 1840,accordingto which 'the composerhimself [...] pointed to the beginningof the firstmovementand expressedin these words the fundamentalidea of the work: >ThusFate knocks at the door!<'Anton SCHINDLER, Beethoven I as KnewHim,Donald W. McArdle(trans.),(New York:Norton, 1966),147. 51 MusicalWritings, 238. The term 'passive genius' was coined by Jean Paul in his Hoffmann's School Aesthetics (1804)to describethe recipientof art who, whilst lackingcreativeability, is gifted for with the sensibility to appreciatethe metaphysicalmeaningof the art of genius. See JeanPaul RICHSchool Aesthetics, R. TER,Hornof Oberon: PaulRichter's Jean for Margaret Hale (trans.),(Detroit:Wayne StateUniversityPress,1973),32. Thisidea was widely adoptedby Friihromantiker Hoffmann,who like suggested that 'Beethoven'smighty genius intimidatesthe musicalrabble',for whom 'the entranceto MusicalWritings, his innermostmysteriesremainsclosed'. Hoffmann's 98. 52 118. BENT,Plato-Beethoven,

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mulate a comprehensiveworld-view, accordingto which natureand art,and body and soul are interrelatedphenomena emanatingfrom a common origin, resonated in the philosophical idealism widely subscribed to by the FriUhromantiker. Such attemptswere reflectedin the eclecticintellectualinterestsof thinkersof the Sturm und Drangmovement which informed their conception of organicism. The wide range of Goethe's interests,as an author,criticof art and literature, philosopher, botanist, and evolutionist, placed him in a prime position to appropriatescientific insights as the basis for aesthetic thought. His success in so doing is illustrated by the fact that his conception of organicunity as an aesthetic ideal had its origins in his botanicalstudies. In the 1780s Goethe developed a theory of evolution based on the idea that there are 'several different prototypical forms, or Urtypen',including 'an Urtier for for animal<<) the fauna, and an Urpflanz plant<<) the (>>generating (>>generating As flora',from which all forms of life originate.53 Montgomeryhas demonstrated, this theory was redolent of that expounded in the 1760sby the botanist and evolutionist Jean Baptiste Robinet, who conceived of 'a germ [cell, monad] that has a naturaltendency towards self-development' as 'the generating element of all beings', and who suggested that 'every level of development produces a variationof the prototype' and 'provides passage to a successive level'.M Both Goethe and Robinetwere thereforeconcernednot merely to explore the interrelationshipsbetween diverse naturalphenomena, as the constituent parts of the entire universe, but to create an evolutionary theory by identifying their common progenitor. Indeed, as Montgomery remarks,such theories 'constitutedthe eighteenth-century armchairscientist's answer to Adam and Eve, based on a widely accepted concept of an evolutionary >>chain being< that stretchedfrom the lowest monad in existof ence to God himself'.55 The sense of teleology latent in Goethe's conception of Urtypenrendered his applicationof the results of his botanicalstudies to aestheticsa significantprecursor of Hoffmann's aestheticconcept of organicism. By contrastwith the centrality of the principle of the hermeneuticcircleto Schleiermacher's organicview of texts, the recurrenceof 'the metaphorof the shuttle [and] that of the expressed through circle'in his lecture notes,mGoethe's comparisonsof art works to organisms enabled him to explore the artist's creative process, as the means by which an entire work is developed out of one component part or structure.
The FromBad Science to GreatArt, Musical 3 David L. MONTGOMERY, Myth of Organicism: 76/1 (Spring1992),17-36(18). Quarterly also acknowledgesthe influenceof the work of the Swedish botanistand 54Ibid.,18. Montgomery taxonomer,Carlvon Linnaeus,on Goethe'stheories,and thatof the Swiss biologist,CharlesBonnet,on those of Robinet. Ibid.,20. and its relationshipto their aes5 On the botanicalresearchof Goethe and his contemporaries, Aestheticsand objectivityin the Study of Formin the Life thetic thought see Philip C. RITTERBUSH, Form: Lifeofan Idea,Rousseau(ed.), 26-59. The Sciences,in Organic 114. Plato-Beethoven, 56BENT,

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Whilst this is most clearly illustratedin Goethe's article,'StrasbourgMinster' (1812), the encomium of the Minster as an organically unified whole presented therein had already been expressed by Goethe in an earlier article 'On German Architecture'(1772),which he dedicated to the architectof the Minster,Erwinvon Steinbach. In this he used natural imagery to describe the building as 'whole, great, inherentlybeautiful to the last detail like God's trees',and as that which has 'thousands of branches and millions of twigs and as many leaves as sand by the sea'.57 He admired its 'vast, harmonious masses animated by countless components', and suggested that, 'as in the works of eternalnature,down to the smallest fiber, all is form, all serves the whole'.`5 Likewise in 'Strasbourg Minster'Goetheexpressed his view of the building as 'a work of art whose ensemble is conceived in large, simple, harmonious parts'.59 He admired the symmetry of the basic structureof the Minster,the faqadeof which he divided 'up into nine fields', four either side of 'the great centraldoorway', in which there are doors, windows, towers, and buttresses.6?Accordingly he observed that 'thereis [...] a beautiful relationshipbetween the height and the width of the whole mass' and 'an harmonious relationshipbetween these divisions'.61 Goethe conceived the unified structuralfeaturesof the building as the Urtypen of their decoration,as reflected in his statementthat 'we see each and every ornament appropriateto the partit decorates,subordinateto it and as if growing out of it'.62He suggested that the parts of the building, enumeratedin his descriptionof the faqade, 'have their particularcharacterderiving from their particularfunction', and that 'this characteris communicated step by step to the subordinate parts'.63By way of illustrating this organic relationship between the structural divisions of the building and their ornamentsGoethe described 'the artificialrose growing out of the circle of the window', and 'the way every rib, every boss has the form of a cluster of flowers or a spray of leaves or some other petrified natural object'.64 Moreover,Goethe conceived the unity of the faqadeas the Urtypeof that of its ornamentation. He suggested that since the structuralfeaturesof the Minster,as the 'harmonious parts' of its 'ensemble', are unified, and since 'each and every ornament' grows out of 'the part it decorates', it follows 'that the decoration is Thus he drew to the attentionof his readers 'the links harmonious throughout'.65
trans.in IDEM,Essayson Art and On GermanArchitecture, 57JohannWolfgang von GOETHE, Literature, John Gearey (ed.), Ellen von Nardroffand ErnestH. von Nardroff (trans.),Goethe's Collected Works,vol. 3 (Princeton: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1986),3-10 (3, 5). 5 Ibid.,6. on JohannWolfgang von GOETHE, StrasbourgMinster,trans.in Goethe Art, JohnGage (ed., trans.),(Berkeleyand Los Angeles:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1980),115-17(116).
60 61

115. Ibid.,
Ibid., 116.

63Ibid.,116.

116. 62Ibid.,
" Ibid.,116-17. 116. 65Ibid.,

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between these ornaments,the bridge between one majormemberand another,the interweaving of details similar,yet highly varied in theirform,from saints to monsters, from leaves to scallops'.66By portrayingthe structuralfeaturesof the building as the Urtypenof their ornamentation,and the unity of those features as the Urtypeof that of the ornamentation,Goethe invoked the principle of 'unity in diversity' that was central to his neoclassical aesthetic, stating that 'such variety gives us great enjoymentin that it derives from what is appropriate,and hence at the same time arouses a feeling of unity'.67 As an application of his evolutionary theory to the discipline of aesthetics, Goethe's comparison of art works to organisms was a means of expressing his philosophical outlook, insofar as it formed the basis for a metaphysical aesthetic. as Just as he conceived the Urpflanz a tangible representationof God's intentions, the discovery of which would enable one to 'invent plants ad infinitum that will so eventually come to be',68 he viewed art as 'anothernature, also mysterious like In Minster'he her' and as a manifestationof the infinite in the finite.69 'Strasbourg in the facade of the building there is 'a union of the sublime and suggested that, the merely pleasing', and, in so doing, alluded to the view expounded in 'On German Architecture'of the complexity of the Minster as sublime.70 In the earlier articlehe described how seizedme whenI finallystoodbeforetheedifice!Mysoul was emotions unexpected
suffused with a feeling of immense grandeurwhich, because it consisted of thousands of harmonizing details, I was able to savour and enjoy, but by no means understand and explain. They say it is thus with the joys of heaven, and how often I returnedto savor such joys on earth, to embracethe gigantic spirit expressed in the work of our brothers of yore! [...] It is hard for the mind of man when his brother'swork is so sublime that he can only bow his head and worship.71 style of building<, so rallying cry 'to change the hitherto disparaging term >>Gothic Architectureo'.nHe refuted 'all as to vindicate our nation with the title >>German
66 Ibid.,117. 67 and Culture SociIbid.,116. On Goethe'sNeo-Classicalaestheticsee WalterHoraceBRUFORD, Francis 1775-1806 (London: Weimar, JohnLAMPORT, etyin Classical Cambridge UniversityPress,1962); Drama: and German Classical Theatre, Humanity, Nation,1750-1870 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity and Centre: Goethe Weimar, 1775-1832(London:Crook Press, 1990);TerenceJamesREED,TheClassical Helm, 1980). 6 The Letterof 17May 1787;trans.in MONTGOMERY, Mythof JohannWolfgangvon GOETHE, Organicism,21. 69 JohannWolfgang von GOETHE, Maxims and Reflections,trans. in Art in Theory 1815-1900, Harrison,Wood, and Gaiger(eds.), 74-8 (75). Goethestated: 'Natureworks her effects in accordance with laws she gave herselfin harmoniousagreementwith the creator,art works her effects in accordance with rules she has agreed upon with the genius'. Ibid.,75. StrasbourgMinster,115. I returnto discuss the aestheticcategory of the sublime 7 GOETHE, laterin this article. 6. 71GOETHE, GermanArchitecture, On 72n GOETHE, Minster,117. Strasbourg

Goethe's view of the organic unity of the Minster as sublime supported his

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the synonymous misconceptions' of the term Gothic 'as indefinite, disorganized, unnatural,patched-together,tacked-on,overladen',misconceptionshe associated particularlywith the Frenchand Italians,and defended the aesthetic merit of the Minster, not merely by dint of the harmony of its ornamentationand its inner coherence,but by virtue of its transcendentalmeaning.73In 'StrasbourgMinster' I he recalledhow, 'havinggrown up among the criticsof Gothicarchitecture, nursed a distaste for its frequently overladen and confused ornament, whose arbitrary characterincreased the repugnance I felt for the gloomy religious aspect of the style'.74However he then described how he 'experienceda revelation', and discovered 'greatermerits' in the Minster,the 'smallest detail' of which proved to be 'as meaningful as it was rich'.7sGoethe's portrayalof his aesthetic appreciationof the Minster as a quasi-religious experience that is contingent upon 'revelation' was a reflectionof the metaphysicalmeaning he attributedto the organic unity of art. Like that of Goethe, Herder's conception of the organic unity of a work as a criterionfor its aesthetic evaluation was both an expression of his philosophical world-view and the basis for his vindicationof works of artpreviously denigrated. This is illustrated in his articleon 'Shakespeare'(1773),in which he expressed his admirationfor the dramatist'sability to combine 'the estates and the individuals, the different peoples and styles of speech, the kings and fools, [...] into a splendid poetic whole', and, like Goethe, suggested that the diversity of elements within a work emanate from a common origin.76Thus in his comments on KingLear,he used natural imagery to describe the unity of the play, of which 'the very first scene already bears within its seed the harvest of [Lear's]fate in the dark future', and in which 'all the incidental circumstances,motives, characters,and situations concentratedinto the poetic work' are 'all developing into a whole'.77 Herder's attributionto the organic unity of a work a metaphysical meaning can be understood in relation to his interest in the nature pantheism of Spinoza.78 He identified 'one main feeling prevailing in each drama,pulsing through it like a world soul', and suggested that: Theentireworldis butthebodyto [Shakespeare's] spirit.All thescenesof Nagreat and are turearethe limbsof thebody,evenas all thecharacters stylesof thought the of features this spirit- and the wholemightwell bearthe nameof Spinoza's giant god:Pan!Universum!79
5. On 3 GOETHE, GermanArchitecture, Minster,117. 74GOETHE, Strasbourg 75 Ibid.,117. Criticism: Aestheticand Literary 76 Johann Gottfried HERDER, Shakespeare,trans. in German H. Goethe, B. Nisbet (ed.), (Cambridge: Schiller, Herder, Hamann, Winckelmann, CambridgeUniLessing, versity Press, 1985),161-76(168). 169. 77Ibid., 78Herder's Spinozist sympathies,which he openly declaredin the 1780s,informedevery aspect his of his thought,in particular view of religion,his organicconceptionof nationhood,and his aesthetic sharedhis enthusiasmfor Spinoza'spantheism. and literarycriticism. Many of the Friihromantiker HERDER, Shakespeare,172. 79

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Accordingly Herder presented Shakespeare'sfidelity to the prevailing Zeitgeistas the source of the metaphysicalmeaning of his plays, insofaras Shakespeare created 'a dramaticoeuvre out of [the] raw material'of his age 'as naturally,impressively, and originally as the Greeks did from theirs'." Herder maintained that'when [Shakespeare] rolledhis greatworld events and humandestiniesthrough all the places and times - where they took place', he was 'true to Nature' and expressed his ideas with 'authenticity,truth, and historicalcreativity'.8l Herderconceived the organicunity of the plays themselves- in which Shakespeare 'embracesa hundred scenes of a world event in his arms, composes them with his glance, [and] breathes into them an all-animatingsoul' - and their organic relationship to 'the soil of the age', as the basis for his defence of ShakeHe speare's dramas against the criticismof the French.82 contrastedthem with the neoclassicaltragediesof writerssuch as Corneille,Racine,and Voltaire,who rather than striving to express the 'world soul' of the eighteenth century, merely 'ape ancient drama' by adhering to the Classicalprincipleof the three unities - 'unity of time, place, action' - to create a 'stuffed likeness of the Greek theatre'.83He rejectedthe idea, which he attributedto the French,of ancient Greek tragedy as the yardstick against which to evaluate all drama,and suggested that the organic unity of Shakespeare'splays, as the basis for his expression of the 'world soul', renders them of equal aesthetic merit. V The continuity in the history of ideas between Goethe and Herder's aesthetic conception of organicism and that of Hoffmann is suggested by its 'ideological resonance' in the writings of all three.84Goethe's view of the unity in diversity displayed in StrasbourgMinsteras sublime enabled him to justify his favourable evaluation of Gothic architectureas 'Germanarchitecture', despite its divergence from the 'generalnotions of good taste' of the Frenchand Italians,- and Herder's defence of Shakespeare'sdramasas organicallyunified works of art representeda to riposte those Frenchcriticswho compared them unfavourablyto 'the great classical tragedies of Sophocles, Euripides, Corneille, and Voltaire'.s6 Likewise Hoffmann's view of organic unity as an aesthetic ideal underpinned his justification of instrumental music, and specifically the genre of the symphony, as 'the to This most romanticof all arts'.87 constituteda rejoinder the view, centralto learned
80 Ibid.,167.
8

82 Ibid.,169-70,167. Ibid.,167, 165. 8 7 How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out, Critical Inquiry (Winter Joseph KERMAN, 1980),311-31(315). "IGOETHE, GermanArchitecture, 5. On 8, HERDER, Shakespeare,161. 86 236. MusicalWritings, 7 Hoffmann's

81HERDER, Shakespeare, 172.

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musical taste in the eighteenth century, of instrumental music as 'more an agreeable than a fine art' that lacks any definite meaning.m Hoffmann attributed aesthetic value to the organic unity of compositions because he interpreted the formal coherence of works such as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as a manifestation of the composer's 'rational awareness'.89 In accordance with his view of a genius, as an artist gifted with both 'divine inspiration' and 'rational awareness', Hoffmann stated, in what is possibly an intertextual reference to Herder's article, that: Justas our aestheticoverseers have often complained of a total lack of real unity and shows the splenwhen only profoundercontemplation innercoherencein Shakespeare, did tree, buds and leaves, blossom and fruitas springing from the same seed, so only the most penetratingstudy of Beethoven'smusic can reveal its high level of rational awareness, which is inseparablefrom true genius and nourishedby continuingstudy of the art.90 In comparing Beethoven's music to Shakespeare's dramas, Hoffmann followed Herder in presenting organic unity as a source of aesthetic merit, and, in conceiving such unity as a manifestation of the composer's 'rational awareness', defended Beethoven against those who 'regard his works merely as products of a genius who ignores form and discrimination of thought'.91 In so doing Hoffmann, like Schleiermacher, emphasized the necessity for 'artful' interpretation and, insofar as he conceived the music itself as an embodiment of the composer's 'rational awareness', advocated the practice of both 'grammatical' and 'psychological' interpretation simultaneously. However Hoffmann's suggestion that Beethoven's 'rational awareness' was manifest in 'the way works such as [his] Fifth Symphony seem to grow from a single theme as though from a Goethean Urpflanz', the development of which reveals the composer's creative process, represented a significant point of deparHackettPub8 ImmanuelKANT,Critique Judgment, WernerS. Pluhar(trans.),(Indianapolis: of lishing, 1987), 203, ? 54. On musical taste in the eighteenth century see EnricoFUBINI,Music and BonnieJ. Blackburn A in Culture Eighteenth-Century (ed.), (Chicagoand London: Book, Europe: Source (Cambridge: Haydn:The'Paris'Symphonies University of Chicago Press, 1994);BernardHARRISON, Musicin Aesthetic ViewsofInstrumental Changing CambridgeUniversityPress,1998);BellamyHOSLER, The Inc.,1981); (AnnArbor: JohnNEUBAUER, EmanUniversityMicrofilms Germany Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics (New Haven: from Departures Mimesisin Eighteenth-Century of cipation MusicfromLanguage: Cenin MusicCriticism the LateEighteenth German Yale University Press, 1986);MarySue MORROW, Music (Cambridge: Issuesin Instrumental CambridgeUniversity Press, 1997);William tury:Aesthetic 89 Learnedand GeneralMusicalTaste in Eighteenth-Century France,Past and Present (NoWEBER, Musical Taste, The Contemporaneityof Eighteenth-Century vember 1980), 58-85;William WEBER, MusicalQuarterly 70/2 (Spring1984),175-94. 238. MusicalWritings, 89Hoffmann's by 90Ibid.,238-9. The possibilitythatthis passagewas inspiredby Herder'sarticleis strengthened Hoffmann's use of natural imagery. For a detailed study of referencesto Shakespeare'sworks in and Hoffmann'swritings see FrancisJ. NOCK,E. T. A. Hoffmannand Shakespeare, Journal English of 53 Germanic Philology (1954),369-82. 91 238. MusicalWritings, Hoffmann's

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ture from Schleiermacher'sorganic view of texts.92Whilst, like Schleiermacher, Hoffmann was concerned to examine the 'dialecticalrelationbetween whole and parts' of the work, he followed Goethe in identifying one component part as the germ cell of the whole and in exploring creativityas a teleological process.93 This is clearly exemplified in Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' by his presentation of the opening four-note motive as that 'on which Beethoven has based his entire Allegro'.94In a detailed analysis of the first movement, Hoffmann demonstrated'how [Beethoven]was able to relateall the secondary ideas and episodes by theirrhythmiccontent to this simple theme'.95He drew to the attention of his readersthe imitation of this theme between the violins and the violas throughout the first43 bars,during which 'the bass here and there adds a figure that also copies it', and to the 'tutti' in bar 44, 'the theme of which again follows the rhythmicpatternof the main idea and is closely relatedto it'.96He then went on to describehow, at the commencementof the second subjectin bar59, 'the horn again imitates the main idea' in the key of E flat major,and how from bar 65 onwards 'the cellos and basses interjectthe imitatingfigure previously referredto, He so that the new theme is artfullywoven into the overall texture'.97 noted that 'the second half [of the first movement] begins with the main theme again, in its original form, but transposed up a third and played on clarinetsand horns', and that 'the various elements of the first half follow'.98 In this narrativeHoffmann aimed to show that the organic unity of the first movement can be attributedto Beethoven's development of the opening four-note motive, and that it can therefore be cited as evidence of 'the composer's rational genius'." Accordingly he stated that:
How We Got into Analysis,316. 92KERMAN, 113. 93BENT,Plato-Beethoven, 244. MusicalWritings, 94Hoffmann's 95Ibid.,244. In an article linking Beethoven'suse of 'cell structures'to the music of 'primitive of cultures',SmithBrindledescribesthis movement'asa vast proliferation this single cell, like a widelyliving organism'. He notes that:'Ofthe 502barsof this movement,thereis spreadingself-reproductive only a sparsescatteringof some fiftyor so in which the upbeatmotive is not eitherthe whole coreof the 'Beethoven'sPrimitive musical discourse or an underlying foundation'. ReginaldSmith BRINDLE, MusicalTimes139/1865 (Winter1998),18-24(18-19). Cell Structures', 241. Barnumbersreferto Ludwig van Beethoven,Symphony 5 No. MusicalWritings, Hoffmann's 96 in C Minor,ElliotForbes(ed.), NortonCriticalScore (London:Chappell,1971). MusicalWritings, 241. The organic relationshipbetween the first and second sub7 Hoffmann's jects of the first movement, to which Hoffmann refers, is based on intervallicexpansion. The two descending thirds of the first subject(G-Eflat and F-D) are transformedinto two descending perfect fifths in the second subject(Bflat-Eflat and F-Bflat),with two notes (E flatand F) common to both. In his analysis of the first movementof the symphony in DerTonwille (1921),Schenkersuggests that,in I view of this organic relationshipbetween the first and second subjects,'the main motive of the first movement is not, as has been erroneouslyassumeduntil now, merelythe two pitchesof mm. 1 and 2 of the score,but ratherthe combinationof fourpitchesin mm. 1-5'. HeinrichSCHENKER, Analysis of the No. FirstMovement,in Beethoven,Symphony 5, Forbes(ed.), 164-82(164-5). " 241. See bar 125. MusicalWritings, Hoffmann's
99Ibid., 251.

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Quite apartfrom the fact that the contrapuntaltreatmentbetokens profound study of the art, the episodes and constant allusions to the main theme demonstratehow the whole movement with all its distinctive featureswas not merely conceived in the imagination but also clearly thought through.'00 Hoffmann went on to suggest that Beethoven's four-note motive did not merely serve as the germ cell of the first movement, but that it was pervasive throughout the entire symphony as an organic entity. Thus through the application of Schleiermacher's technique of comparing 'parallel passages' to the interpretation of music, Hoffmann postulated an affinity between the principal themes of the first and third movements. He attributed their kinship to the developmental potential of each, stating that: Justas simple and yet, when it is glimpsed behind laterpassages, just as potent as the theme of the opening Allegro is the idea of the minuet's first tutti.1'0 He also noted that, at the end of the development section of the final Allegro, 'the simple theme of the minuet now returns for fifty-four bars, in the last two of which the transition from the minuet to the Allegro is repeated in a condensed form';102 that in bar 363 of the recapitulation, 'the bass figure is the same as that in the twenty-eighth bar of the first movement Allegro, which vividly recalls the main theme [...] by virtue of its close rhythmic relationship to it';'03 and that the 'detached chords and rests' of the last thirteen bars of the final movement 'recall the separate strokes in the symphony's [first movement] Allegro'.'04 In so doing Hoffmann illustrated 'the close relationship of the individual themes to each other', and the pervasive presence of the opening four-note motive throughout the third and fourth movements.'05 Hoffmann's conception of organic unity as an analytical premise also served as the basis for his 'Review of Beethoven's Piano Trios, Op. 70 Nos. 1 and 2' (1813), in which he suggested that 'a simple but fruitful and lyrical theme, susceptible of the most varied contrapuntal treatments, abbreviations, etc., forms the basis of every movement' of the trios, and that 'all the secondary themes and figures are closely related to the main idea [...] so as to produce the utmost unity between all the instruments'.'" Accordingly in Hoffmann's analysis of the Piano Trio, Op. 70 No. 1, he aimed to show how, in the first movement, 'the genius of the music [...] 100 244. Ibid.,

Ibid., o01 248. Hoffmannrefersto the thirdmovementof the symphony,which Beethovenheaded 'Allegro',as the 'minuet'. For 'the idea of the minuet'sfirst tutti' see bar 27. Ibid.,249. See bars 153-206. 102 '3 Ibid.,250. o Ibid.,250. Charltonnotes that 'hereHoffmannappearsto recallthe first movement progres250. MusicalWritings, sion at bar 196'. Charlton(ed.), Hoffmann's 01, 250. I returnsubsequentlyto consider how Hoffmannjustifies MusicalWritings, Hoffmann's Beethoven'sinclusion of the second movementin the symphony as an organicallyunified art work. 06Ibid.,303.

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emerges in its very diversity of contrapuntaltreatmentsof a short,straightforward theme', which is presented in the first four bars of the work.'07Likewise he suggested that in the second movement, the first 'few harmonicallyfertile bars again contain the material from which the whole movement is fashioned', and that 'the closing movement [...] again has a short, original theme that appears in a constant alternation of various transformationsand ingenious allusions throughout the piece'.'08Similarly,Hoffmannstated that the firstmovement of Beethoven'sPiano Trio, Op. 70 No. 2 'evinces the master's boundless wealth of invention and his penetrationof the harmonicdepths', insofar as 'froma single idea a few bars long so many motives are generated, springing from it like the luxuriantblossom and fruit of a fertile tree'.'" Just as in Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven'sFifthSymphony' he employed naturalimagery to express the rhythmic thematic unity of the work, so in his and 'Review of Beethoven's Piano Trios,Op. 70' he invoked organic metaphors to exand press their harmonic thematicunity. This calls into question Scott Burnham's that within Hoffmann'smusic criticism 'counterpointis treatedas the suggestion element of music most directly amenable to metaphoricalcomparisons with the organic growth of plant life'."0Clearlywhilst Hoffmannreferredto imitationas a source of the unity of the Fifth Symphony, and to 'the most varied contrapuntal treatments'of themes in Beethoven's Piano Trios, Op. 70, he conceived all of the constituent elements of music as sources of musical unity, and Beethoven's manipulation of these elements as evidence of his 'rationalawareness'."' VI The kinship between Goethe and Herder'saesthetic concept of organicunity and that of Hoffmann is derived not merely from its use in their writings as an analyticalpremise which facilitatesunderstandingof the artist'screative process, but also from their invocation of organicismas a criterionfor the aesthetic evaluation of art. Hoffmann viewed the organic unity of a work as the source of its metaphysicalmeaning, a view redolentof that expounded by Goethe and Herder, and contrastedby Schleiermacher's organicview of texts as loci of definite meanings. For Hoffmann, as for Goethe and Herder, the organic unity of an art work representeda tangible embodiment of the kinship between art and nature which was central to the philosophical world-view of all three writers. Hoffmann engaged with the view of nature,as a manifestationof the infinite in the finite, pre'7 Ibid.,308. 108 Ibid.,309-10. MusicalWritings, Music BURNHAM,review of Hoffmann's Charlton(ed.), 19th-Century 14/3 (Spring1991),286-96(294).
"' Hoffmann'sMusical Writings, 303.
110Scott

'09Ibid.., 315.

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sented by contemporarythinkerssuch as Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Schelling,112 and with the concomitantview of artas 'secondnature'presentedby Wackenroder, This view of nature and art as Novalis, and FriedrichSchlegel, amongst others.113 'two wonderful languages through which the Creatorhas permitted human beings to perceive and to comprehendheavenly things in their full force'was articulated by the FrUihromantiker through the aesthetic category of the sublime, and it was this which enabled Hoffmann to justify attributingto the organic unity of a work a metaphysical meaning.'14 In A Philosophical and into Enquiry theOriginof OurIdeasof theSublime theBeautreatiseson the concept,Edmund tiful(1757),one of the principaleighteenth-century Burkeconceived the sublime as a source of 'delight',which he defined as 'the sensation which accompaniesthe removal of pain or danger',as opposed to the 'positive pleasure' to which the experience of beauty gives rise."' Whilst he conceded that 'when danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible',he maintained that 'at certain distances, and with certainmodifications, they [...] are delightful, as we everyday experience'."6Accordingly he suggested that 'whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, [...] is a source of the sublime', because the rationalexperience of 'ideas of pain', as opposed to its physiological reality, enables one to engage vicariously with 'the passions which concern self-preservation'."7 Likewise in the Critique Judgment (1790)ImmanuelKant,the other principal of eighteenth-centurycommentatoron the sublime, suggested that it is 'a negative pleasure' which, by contrastwith the 'positive pleasure'which the beautiful gives rise to, 'is produced by the feeling of a momentary inhibition of the vital forces followed immediately by an outpouring of them that is all the stronger'."8 He conceived the sublime as 'the arousal in us of the feeling that we have within us a
organic view of texts from his view of naturecan be 12The independence of Schleiermacher's of understood as a reflectionof the irreconcilability his aesthetic and hermeneuticthought and his conceptionof religion,discussion of which lies beyond the scope of this article. On and Aesthetic Literary Criticism: Romantic The Ironists Goethe, and 13 NOVALIS, Goethe,German Wheeler(ed.), 102-8(107). 114 Wilhelm and Heinrich Wackenroder's (ed., trans.),(UniConfessions Fantasies, MaryHurstSchubert versity Parkand London:PennsylvaniaStateUniversityPress,1971),18. On the sublime see Andrew A in Ashfield and Peter De Bolla (eds.), TheSublime: Reader BritishEighteenth-Century Aesthetic Theory The (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,1996);PeterDe BOLLA, Discourse theSublime: of Readings in History,Aesthetics, the Subject and Basil Blackwell,1989);Carl DAHLHAUS,Ludwigvan (Oxford: to Beethoven: ClarendonPress,1989),67-76;David Approaches hisMusic,MaryWhittall(trans.),(Oxford: 26 SIMPSON, Commentaryon the Sublime,Studiesin Romanticism (Summer1987),245-58. 115 EdmundBURKE, Philosophical A into and of Enquiry theOrigin OurIdeas theSublime theBeauof tiful,Adam Phillips (ed.), (Oxfordand New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1990),34. "6 Ibid., 36-7. 117 Ibid.,36. 118 98, KANT,Critique ofJudgment, 1 23. On Kant'sconceptionof the sublimesee PaulCROWTHER, From TheKantian Sublime: to Taste,SubMorality Art (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1989);Eva SCHAPER, to Companion Kant,Paul Guyer limity, and Genius:The Aestheticsof Natureand Art, in TheCambridge (ed.), (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1992),367-93.

A. CHANTLER, E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 REVISITING

23

supersensiblepower' and 'of our superiorityto nature',which enables us 'to judge nature without fear and to think of our vocation as being sublimely above nature'.119

Burke and Kant's conception of the sublime as an aesthetic category used to explain our experience of naturerepresenteda departurefrom its origins in Clasof sical antiquity as a categoryof rhetoric.120Burkeidentified characteristics natural phenomena as loci of the sublime, such as 'vastness' and 'littleness', since 'as the great extreme of dimension is sublime, so the last extreme of littleness is in some measure sublime likewise';121 'magnificence', such as that of 'the starry heaven';122 'infinity and eternity',since 'thereis nothing of which we really understand so little';'23 'obscurity',as exemplified by 'how greatly night adds to our and dread, in all cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affectminds'.124 Burkedid concede the possibility of art as a manifestationof the sublime, but only insofaras it assumes the characteristics of the sublime in nature.'2 Thus he interpreted Milton's 'portraitof Lostas a 'sublime description' by virtue of its complexity and Satan' in Paradise attendantobscurity,arguing that 'the mind is hurriedout of itself, by a croud [sic] of great and confused images; which affect because they are crouded and confused'.126

Similarly,Kant focused on 'the sublime in naturalobjects (since the sublime in art is always confined to the conditions that [art]must meet to be in harmony with nature)',and, like Burke,identified naturalphenomena and theircharacteristics as sublime.127 He conceived aspects of nature 'in comparisonwith which eveand, in a sublime','28 rything else is small', such as 'the infinite',as 'mathematically famous passage in which he described aspects of nature which arouse awe and fear, evoked the 'dynamicallysublime': Consider thunderclouds and, bold,overhanging as it were,threatening rocks, piling and volcaup in the sky and movingaboutaccompanied lightning thunderclaps, by noes with all theirdestructive with power,hurricanes all the devastation leave they oceanheavedup, the highwaterfall a mightyriver,and so of behind,theboundless on.'29
KANT,Critique Judgment, ? 25, 123,? 28. 106, of "119 The sublimewas originallycodified in a first-century Greektreatise,purportedlyby Longinus. 120 See Classical on on Criticism: Aristotle theArt of Poetry, Horace theArt of Poetry,Longinus the on Literary T. Sublime, S. Dorsch (trans.),(London:Penguin, 1965). 121 BURKE, A Philosophical into and 66. Enquiry theOriginof OurIdeasof theSublime theBeautiful,

Severalearly-nineteenth-century and (1774-1840) J. M. artists,such as CasparDavid Friedrich '25 W. Turner(1775-1851), sought to evoke the sublime in theirpaintings. A into and 57. Enquiry theOriginof OurIdeas theSublime theBeautiful, of '26BURKE, Philosophical 127 KANT,Critique Judgment, ? 23. 98, of Ibid..,105,? 25, 111,? 26. 128 '" Ibid.,120,? 28.

Ibid., '122 71. 123 57. Ibid., 124 54. Ibid.,

24

E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 REVISITING A. CHANTLER,

However it was Kant'sdeparturefrom Burke's'empiricistaccountof the suband on lime', and from his own empirical Observations the Feelingof the Beautiful of the concept in the Critique JudgSublime (1764), that rendered his exposition of menta significant precursorof Hoffmann'sunderstandingof the sublime.'30Kant stated that, in contradistinctionto 'the beautiful in nature', for 'which we must seek a basis outside ourselves', 'truesublimity must be sought only in the mind of the judging person, not in the natural object the judging of which prompts this mental attunement',because 'what is sublime [...] cannot be contained in any sensible form but concernsonly ideas of reason [...]which can be exhibited in sensibility'.131 with Theengagementof the Friihromantiker the philosophicalidealismof thinkers like Kant,and their endorsementof the view of the vastness and magnitude of natureas awe-inspiring, led them to appropriatethe aestheticcategory of the sublime to justify their view of art as a metaphysical medium which, like nature, facilitates spiritual experience. In particular,the sublime provided a basis for the aestheticjustificationof instrumentalmusic insofar as it legitimized 'the >indeterminacy< of symphonic expression as a sounding symbol of >endless longing< and >intimation of the absolute<<',ratherthan as a weakness inherentin the medium.'32 der Theorie sch6nen In the article on the 'Symphony' in J. G. Sulzer's Allgemeine Kiinste(1771-4), J. A. P. Schulz invoked the sublime to defend the evasion of conceived as the perogative of the compositional rules which the Friihromantiker and to lend aesthetic credibility to aspects of music which many eightgenius, eenth-centurycommentatorscondemned as unnaturaland artificial,such as counSchulz stated that: terpoint.'33 and the of suitedfortheexpression thegrand, festive, the is Thesymphony excellently andboldideas, contain of sublime. Theallegros thebestchamber great symphonies [...] in disorder themelodyandharmony, of freehandling compositions, strongly seeming bass melodiesand unisons,concerted of marked kinds,powerful rhythms different of in oftena themethatis handled themanner a fugue, middlevoices,freeimitations,
'0 Pluhar(trans.),Critique Judgment, Kant,lxix. My reasonsfor identifyingKant'sdeparture of by from a purely empiricalconceptionof the sublime as a significantprecursorof that of Hoffmannwill become apparentlater in this article. '~' KANT,Critique Judgment, 100,? 23, 113,? 26, 99, ? 23. of Music, Roger Lustig (trans.),(Chicago and London: -32Carl DAHLHAUS,TheIdeaof Absolute Universityof Chicago Press, 1989),57. " '3The unfavourableview of counterpointas artificial,widely subscribedto by eighteenth-century musicalcommentators,was reflectedin the articleson J.S. Bach'smusic published in the journal, from 1737to 1740. In one such articleJ.A. Scheibewrote:'Thisgreatman would Dercritische Musikus, be the admirationof entirenationsif he had more plesantness,and if he did not allow a bombasticand confusedstyle to suffocatenaturalnessin his pieces, or obscuretheirbeauty throughexcessive artifice. from sublimityto obscurity'. Johann [...] Pompousness has led both from naturalnessto artificiality, 272. MusicandCulture, 6 Musikus (May 1737);trans.in FUBINI, Der Adolf SCHEIBE, critische

A. CHANTLER, REVISITING HOFFMANN, E.T.A. IRASM (2002) 3--30 33 1,

25

sudden transitionsand digressionsfromone key to another[...] strongshadings of the forte and piano, and chiefly of the crescendo.'3' Hoffmann's endorsement of the new acceptability of counterpoint as sublime was expressed in his comparison, in 'Extremely Random Thoughts', of Bach's music with Strasbourg Minster, a comparison which, as Charlton notes, 'takes up Goethe's eulogy of Gothic style'.135 Hoffmann wrote: I see in Bach'seight-partmotets the wonderfullybold, romanticstructureof the cathedral rising proudly and gloriously into the air,with all its fantasticornamentsartfully blended into the whole.'" This fragment is suggestive of Hoffmann's view of organic unity as sublime insofar as he attributed to the contrapuntal development of a musical motive a metaphysical meaning. This is also suggested in his 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' by his description of how, in the first movement, 'all the phrases are short, consisting of merely two or three bars, and are also constantly exchanged between strings and winds', and how 'it is precisely this overall pattern, and the constant repetition of short phrases and single chords, which maintains the spirit in a state of ineffable yearning'.'37 Likewise he stated that in 'the most varied contrapuntal treatments' of themes in Beethoven's Piano Trios, Op. 70 'the enraptured soul perceives an unknown language and understands all the most mysterious presentiments that hold it in thrall'.138 Moreover, in accordance with Hoffmann's view of all the constituent elements of music as sources of unity, he attributed to the infinite permutations of a motive a metaphysical meaning. In so doing he endorsed the view expressed by Burke, Kant, and, in relation to music, by C. F. Michaelis of complexity as sublime. In his article on 'The Beautiful and the Sublime in Music' (1805), Michaelis suggested that the sublime can be evoked in music in two ways, which correspond approximately to Kant's conception of the 'mathematically' and 'dynamically' sublime: through 'an imitation of the external impact of sublime nature [...], the idea being to affect us the same way as nature does', and through 'the portrayal [...] of our own nature, as we are moved, stirred, roused to emotional change'.'39 He termed
The Symphony,trans.in ElaineSisman,Mozart: 'Jupiter' Sym'3 JohannAbrahamPeterSCHULZ, phony(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1993),9-10. Sismansuggests that 'the Burkeansublime echoes convincinglyin [Mozart's] sublimeis particuoperas;and thatthe Kantian>>mathematical<< The Ibid., larlyrelevantto the >Jupiter<<'. 20. See also BathiaCHURGIN, Symphonyas Describedby J. A. P. Schulz:A Commentaryand Translation, Current 29 Musicology (1980),7-16. MusicalWritings, 104. '35Charlton(ed.), Hoffmann's MusicalWritings, 104. '3 Hoffmiann's Ibid.,244. 137 Ibid.,303-4. 3" 139 ChristianFriedrich The MICHAELIS, Beautifuland the Sublimein Music, trans.in Musicand in Aesthetics theEighteenth Early-Nineteenth and PeterLe Huray and JamesDay (eds.), (CamCenturies, bridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1981),289-90(289).

26

A. CHANTLER, REVISITING E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3-30

these two manifestations of the sublime the 'objectively' and 'pathetically' sublime,'14and stated that: The feeling of sublimity in music is aroused when the imaginationis elevated to the plane of the limitless, the immeasurable,the unconquerable.This happens when such emotions are aroused as [...] completely prevent the integrationof one's impressions into a coherent whole [...]. The objectification,the shaping of a coherent whole, is hamperedin music [...] by too much diversity,as when innumerableimpressionssucceed one another too rapidly and [...] the themes are developed together in so complex a manner that the imagination cannot easily integrate the diverse ideas into a coherent whole without strain.'41 It was this view of the sublime, which Michaelis inherited from Kant, as 'the inadequacy of the imagination' to comprehend nature (and art) 'in those of its appearances whose intuition carries with it the idea of their infinity', that informed Hoffmann's interpretation of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.'42 Hoffmann stated that 'it is particularly the close relationship of the individual themes to each other which provides the unity that is able to sustain one feeling in the listener's heart', and suggested that this 'one feeling', to which the organic unity of the work gives rise, is that of awe and incomprehension in the face of the infinitely diverse permutations of one motive.'43 He interpreted Beethoven's symphony as a manifestation of the 'objectively' sublime because the complexity of the music 'unveils before us the realm of the mighty and the immeasurable', it 'sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain', and it 'awakens that infinite yearning which is the essence of romanticism'.'" Hoffmann's conception of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as sublime was premised on his view of the development of the opening four-note motive not merely as a manifestation of the composer's 'rational awareness', but as an embodiment of his 'infinite yearning'.2' Hoffmann presented the organic form of the music as the source of its metaphysical meaning, the infinite permutations of the motive representing an expression of the 'infinite yearning' of the composer, and thus, to an
289. '14Ibid.,

142 KANT, Critique Judgment, of 112, ? 26. This conceptionof the sublime was also suggested by Goethe who, in his aforementionedarticle 'On GermanArchitecture', describedhow he 'was able to savour and enjoy, but by no means understandand explain'the 'feelingof immense grandeur'which Minsterinspiredwithin him. GOETHE, GermanArchitecture, On 6. Strasbourg MusicalWritings, 250. 14Hoffmann's '" Ibid.,238. Hoffmann'sdescriptionof Mozart'sDonGiovanni a letterto T. G. von Hippel of 4 in March1795, can be understood as evocative of the 'pathetically'sublime as Michaelisconceived it. Hoffmannwrote: 'Theswelling of a gentle melody into a crescendo,into shatteringthunder;the soft, the plaintivesounds; the eruptionof ragingdesperation; majesticelements;the nobilityof the hero;the fearof the villain and the shiftingpassions in his soul - all this you find in this unique music. It is allLetters encompassingand shows you the spiritof the composerin all modificationspossible'. Selected of E.T.A. Hoffmann, 35. 14 MusicalWritings, 238. Hoffmann's

1'1Ibid., 290.

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27

extent, synthesized 'grammatical'and 'psychological' interpretationas the basis for his musical hermeneutics. This calls into question Ruth Solie's statement that 'forthe [Englishand Germanidealist] philosophers,the point of calling something was >>organic<< not to describe the arrangementof its physical attributesbut [...] to elevate it to a status transcendentof the physical'.'46For Hoffmann organicism was simultaneously an analytical premise and an aesthetic ideal because he conceived the physical structureof the music as the source of its metaphysical meaning. Accordingly, Hoffmann's presentationof the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as a development of the opening four-note motive, and his emphasis on the kinship of musical material contained within the third and fourth movements to that of the first, enabled him to justify his view of the whole as the expression of 'one lasting emotion, that of nameless, haunted yearning'.47Thus in conclusion to his analysis of the first movement, Hoffmannsuggested that 'all the secondary ideas and episodes [...] serve to reveal more and more facets of the movement's overall character,which the theme by itself could only hint at' by virtue of their affinity to the opening motive; and that the musical features of the opening of the third movement, the theme of which recallsthe four-notemotive of the first, 'express so strongly the characterof Beethoven'smusic described above, and arouse once more those disquieting presentimentsof a magical spirit-world with which the Allegro assailed the listener'sheart'.'" Similarly,in his analysis of the final movement he stated that, with the entry of the second subject, which presses 'forward like the subjects of the first Allegro and the minuet', 'the spirit returns to the mood of foreboding which temporarilyreceded amid the joy and jubilation',and thatthe 'detachedchordsand rests,which recallthe separatestrokes in the symphony's Allegro [...] place the listeneronce more in a state of tension'.149 Thus by suggesting that the 'relationshipwhich exists between the subjectsof the two Allegros and the minuet' is 'a deeper relationship'than that which is demonstrable in purely musical terms, Hoffmann attributedto the unity of the work a metaphysical meaning.'" It was by appealing to this metaphysical meaning - to the 'deeper relationship' between movements - that Hoffmann vindicated Beethoven's inclusion of
MusicalWritings, 238. Hoffmann's The Living Work:Organicismand MusicalAnalysis, 150. This over-simplifica"6Ruth SOLIE, is tion of the conceptionof organicismof the Friihromantikerfurtherreflectedin Solie's statement'that when in subsequentgenerationsliteralnotions of >organicunity< are applied to the analysisor evaluation of particularworks of art,a paradoxicalreversaloccursof the values originallyat the root of the concept'. Ibid.,150. Although Solie's account of the development of the notion of organicismin the historyof ideas is a preambleto a discussionof its importancein the analysisof Schenkerand Reti,she does not once mention Hoffmann'sreview, notwithstandingits significancein the history of music criticism. 47Hoffmann's MusicalWritings, 250. 48Ibid.,244,246. Ibid.,248-50. 149
'14

251. Ibid., '1-

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E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3-30 REVISITING A. CHANTLER,

the second movement in the symphony as an organically unified art work. He stated that 'the chromatic modulations' of the theme of the Andante 'express the character of the whole work and make this Andante a part of it', and that: It is as though the awful phantom that seized our hearts in the Allegro threatensat every moment to emerge from the storm cloud into which it disappeared,so that the comfortingfigures around us rapidly flee from its sight.t51 Similarly, in referring to 'the restless yearning inherent in the theme' of 'the trio' of the third movement, as that which is musically independent from 'the minuet', and by suggesting that Beethoven's use of the kettledrum at the end of the movement serves to sustain 'the character that he was striving to give the whole work', Hoffmann attributed to unrelated musical features an extra-musical kinship in order to justify their inclusion in the work as an organically unified entity.1'52 In so doing, he articulated the view, expressed in his review of 1813 of Braun's Fourth Symphony and Wilms's Symphony, Op. 23, that: In Beethoven's symphonies, often the apparently wholly heterogeneous individual movements seem, on closer consideration,to be produced from one element-allonly working towards onesingle higher purpose, and blending to express the natureof one inner idea. These movements are like marvellousflowers that spring like leaves from the green branches and though diverse in colour, are the fruit of one and the same seed.'VII Insofar as Hoffmann conceived Beethoven's works 'as products of a genius' and as an expression of the composer's 'infinite yearning', he practised 'psychological' interpretation as Schleiermacher conceived it.'M However, as Bent rightly acknowledges, in his 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' Hoffmann is primarily concerned with 'the effect of [the >grammar(< of the work] on the listener's
Ibid.,245. 151 152Ibid.,247. bei 53'In den Beethovenschen Symphonien,deren oft ganz heterogenscheinendeeinzelne Saitze Betrachtungdoch nur aus einem Elementerzeugt sind - alles nur auf einenvorgesetzten niherer Zweck hinarbeitet,und sich zum Ausdruckeinerinnern Anregung des Gemiits verschmilzt. Diese sind gleich den wundervollen Bliiten,die aus den griinen Zweigen wie die Blitter entspriel3en, Saitze dochein und derselbeKeimgebar'.E.T.A. Hoffmann: seltsamabstechend und die in ihrenbuntenFarben FriedrichSchnapp(ed.), (Munich: zur 1963),153. Winkler-Verlag, Schriften Musik.Nachlese, 238. In presentingBeethoven'sworks as the productsof his diMusicalWritings, '5 Hoffmann's vine inspiration,Hoffmann contributedto the creationin the first half of the nineteenthcentury of what Dahlhaus described as the 'myth of Beethoven'. This involved the projectionof the image of Beethoven'as a Prometheanrevolutionary,as a sorcerer,or as a martyredsaint' onto his music. Carl and LosAngeles:UniRobinson(trans.),(Berkeley Music,J.Bradford DAHLHAUS, Nineteenth-Century versity of CaliforniaPress, 1989),75.

A. CHANTLER, E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 REVISITING

29

Thus to suggest, as Bentdoes, that through his juxtapositionof technical mind'.ss55 of the music and 'emotive', metaphorical descriptions of its meaning, analysis 'Hoffmannintermitsthe grammaticaland psychological' sides of interpretation,'6 in order 'to understand the discourse as a presentationof thought', is to misrepresent the significance of Hoffmann's creative use of language in the review.'57 Hoffmann's synthesis of musical analysis with metaphorical evocations of the meaning of the work can be understood as a reflection of his conception of the metaphysical ontology of a musical composition as the unity of two minds, the metaphoricalevocations representingHoffmann's creative response to the composer's work as a listener. They reflectthe active interpretativer81ehe assigned to the reader seeking to understand the semantic ambiguity of his text, and to the reader as a listener seeking to understand Beethoven's symphony - a r61econtrasted by the re-creativer61le which Schleiermacherassigned to practitionersof his hermeneuticmethodology. It was in accordance with Kant's conception of the sublime, as that which and 'must be sought only in the mind of the judging person',158 in accordancewith Hoffmann's ideal of the recipient of a work as a 'passive genius' who, whilst emphathizing with its spirit as a product of the composer's 'divine inspiration', actively perpetuates the 'infiniteyearning' expressed within, that Hoffmann conceived the organic unity of a work of genius as a catalyst through which 'every sensitive listener' can strive to penetrate a higher realm.'59 He did not view Beethoven'sFifthSymphony as a source from which 'to discover the individuality of an author','16 ratheras music which serves to 'arouse[...] disquieting prebut sentiments of a magical spirit-world',and which 'setsin motionthe machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain, and awakensthat infinite yearning which is the essence of romanticism'(my italics).161 Thus Bent's emphasis upon the methodological kinship between Schleiermacher's'general hermeneutics'and Hoffmann's 'musical hermeneutics' obscures the polarity between Schleiermacher's organic view of texts, as self-contained entities in which a definite meaning is inscribed,and Hoffmann'sview that the meaning of both music and literatureis always 'in the state of becoming'.162 Moreover,it disregards the metaphysicaldimension so crucialto Hoffmann's aesthetic thought, and alien to Schleiermacher's hermeneuticmethodology. By contrast, considering Hoffmann's review in relation to the writings of the Sturmund Drangmovement and to the aesthetics of the sublime, serves to elucidate the importance of his aesthetic concept of organicismas a means of expressing his view of romanticmusic as a metaphysicalmedium.
155 BENT, Plato-Beethoven, 117. Ibid., 117-8. '156

'7 SCHLEIERMACHER, Hermeneutics: Handwritten The 161. Manuscripts, 113,? 26. of '5 KANT,Critique Judgment, MusicalWritings, 250. '5 Hoffmann's '60 Hermeneutics: Handwritten The 162. SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts, 161 MusicalWritings, 238. Hoffmann's 246, 162 32. SCHLEGEL, Philosophical Fragments,

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E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3-30 REVISITING A. CHANTLER,

SaZetak
PONOVNO RAZMATRANJE GLAZBENE HERMENEUTIKE E. T. A. HOFFMANNA

U ovom se dlanku ispituje odnos izmedu Schleiermacherove hermeneutike i Hoffmannove>glazbene hermeneutike< unutarkontekstarazvitkapovijestiidejau kasnom 18. i ranom 19. stoljeeu.Tako se Schleiermacherova hermeneutiCka metodologijarazmatra u odnosu na romantiCku Schlegelte se istraZuje teorijumislilacakao Stoje Friedrich knjiZevnu va2nost sredignjih estetiCkih idejaromantizmau Hoffmannovojglazbenojmisli. Usporedba Schleiermacherovehermeneutikes Hoffmannovom glazbenom hermeneutikom,kakva je u prakticirana njegovu >Prikazu Beethovenove Pete simfonije< (1810),pokazuje da svaka od njih potjete iz razlitite tradicijete da se to odra2ava u polarnosti izmedu zamisli o misli svakoga od njih.Dok je Schleiermacherova organskomjedinstvuu sr2i hermeneutiCke u hermeneuticiprakticiranoj kao hermeneutikabila zamigljena proturazlika specijaliziranoj 18. stoljedu,Hoffmannovaglazbenahermeneutikapotjete iz estetiCke tradicijekojusu uveli
mislioci pokreta >Sturm und Drang<.