German Music Criticism in the Late Eighteenth Century: Aesthetic Issues in Instrumental Music

by Mary Sue Morrow

• ISBN13: 9780521582278
• ISBN10: 052158227X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-09-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Music aesthetics in late eighteenth-century Germany has always been problematic because there was no aesthetic theory to evaluate the enormous amount of high-quality instrumental music produced by composers like Haydn and Mozart. This book derives a practical aesthetic for German instrumental music during the late eighteenth century from a previously neglected source, reviews of printed instrumental works. At a time when the theory of mimesis dominated aesthetic thought, leaving sonatas and symphonies at the very bottom of the aesthetic hierarchy, a group of reviewers were quietly setting about the task of evaluating instrumental music on its own terms. The reviews document an intersection with trends in literature and philosophy, and reveal interest in criteria like genius, the expressive power of music, and the necessity of unity, several decades earlier than has previously been supposed.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi	(2)
Author's note	xiii
Introduction: terms of discourse	1	(3)
1 What does instrumental music mean?	4	(15)
2 Answering with a unified voice	19	(26)
3 Answering with a German voice	45	(21)
4 Answering with aesthetic criteria	66	(13)
5 The importance of being correct	79	(20)
6 The reign of genius	99	(35)
7 A call to order	134	(17)
8 Epilogue: segue to the nineteenth century	151	(7)
Notes	158	(77)
Bibliography	235	(11)
Index	246