Chapter 7: Mozart and the idea of absolute music
Treitler begins by referring to 19th-century music critic E.T.A. Hoffman and his characterisation of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as ”Romantic” composers. The new art, born in the second half of the 18th century, was no longer expressive of something outside of itself, such as moods of affections, contrary to the Affektenlehre doctrine. The term "absolute music", originally created by Wagner, was coined for the new aesthetic. It was founded on the belief that instrumental music could stand on its own and free itself non-musical contents or linguistic associations.
Around that time, absolute expression was also an ideal for poetry. This is the reason music came to embody the ideals poetry sought after: the expression of the ineffable, of that which is verbally elusive.
It is not Treitler’s intention to try to pin down a taxonomy of traits that allow us to differentiate ”absolute music”, nor to claim that the new musical aesthetic substituted the Affektenlehre doctrine all of a sudden. Treitler wants to detect the resonance of the absolute music aesthetic in his own apprehension of the works of the time. He calls that "historical" criticism.
Treitler proceeds to a characterisation of Mozart according to Hildesheimer’s biography. Mozart is here the hero of absolute music, a composer who ”sublimates life in its universality”(p.181). Mozart music doesn’t express feelings but is pure musical thought.
But feelings do mark the musical work. When talking about Schubert’s Moment Musicale, Edward T. Cone qualifies the piece of a ”psychic pattern” and equates the musical narrative to the mental reaction Schubert had when he learned he had contracted syphilis. Treitler’s points out how it is exactly this kind of associations what critics of the 19th century would have denounced as impracticable and trivial.
Symphony was the musical genre that appealed the most to the critics. They saw it as a poetic drama played by exclusively musical characters, free from prosaic or material elements. Music as the embodiment of the poetic ideals brings to the front the emancipation of music from language. Just as around 1400 written poetry was freed from the need of being conveyed through the human voice, in the 1800s music disengages itself from verbal signification. But this doesn’t mean it has no effects. It is Wackenroder’s, Novalis’ or Schlegel’s belief that music creates a narrative text which reflects mental life and philosophical thought. 19th century critics make extensive use of terms such as “narrative”, “emotional flux”, “thought”, “discourse”. The difficulty lies in determining what differentiates, for example, musical meditation from fantasy or discourse, easily differentiated in respect to language.
Narrativity results from the interplay from two intersecting fields: between a chronological sequence of events and the order in which they are told, or as Treitler says, between the telling and the telling about (p. 187). Analogically, musical narrativity contemplates the interaction between the aprioristical patterns and constraints conventionally allowed by the grammar of a particular genre and the particular interpretation of these conditionants in the individual work. The first constrains the second, the second interprets the first.
Treitler then takes upon an hermeneutic of the Andante movement of Mozart’s symphony no. 39 in E-flat, K.543 (1788) in order to determine some of the elements that would make possible the kind of reflections that were written around 1800 about this music. Treitler believes it is possible to call the movement a “sonata without a development”, as Tovey does in Essays of musical analysis, if our intention of the locate the piece in some kind of classificatory scheme. But this doesn’t tell us much about our apprehension of the piece. Treitler thinks that the absence of the development in not a characteristic element of this piece. Moreover, the rhetoric of the work includes sections with developmental function, just in unusual places such as the recapitulation. Mozart assumes the vocabulary of the genre but expresses it in its own idiosyncratic way, thanks to which the work is unique.
Treitler finishes by relating the psychological power of Mozart’s symphonies to the views of Hanslick about music. For Hanslick, the essence of music is sound in motion. The idea that the beautiful in music lies in the unfolding of forms in motion is central to his musical conception, and almost synonym with the concept of “absolute music”. He attacked the mimetic powers of music and its capacity to represent feelings or actions. Music is dynamic, form is a consequence of its movement. Music is thus a musical language, whose discoursed is governed by the logical succession of musical elements and sections. Music has meaning but it is strictly musical. It does not represent feelings, even if it conveys them. In this matter he is in total agreement with the general feeling shared by the majority of the critics around 1800.
Bibliography
Hildesheimer, W. 1982: Mozart. New York: Marion Faber.
Cone, E.T. 1982: “Schubert’s Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics”, 19th century music.
Treitler begins by referring to 19th-century music critic E.T.A. Hoffman and his characterisation of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as ”Romantic” composers. The new art, born in the second half of the 18th century, was no longer expressive of something outside of itself, such as moods of affections, contrary to the Affektenlehre doctrine. The term "absolute music", originally created by Wagner, was coined for the new aesthetic. It was founded on the belief that instrumental music could stand on its own and free itself non-musical contents or linguistic associations.
Around that time, absolute expression was also an ideal for poetry. This is the reason music came to embody the ideals poetry sought after: the expression of the ineffable, of that which is verbally elusive.
It is not Treitler’s intention to try to pin down a taxonomy of traits that allow us to differentiate ”absolute music”, nor to claim that the new musical aesthetic substituted the Affektenlehre doctrine all of a sudden. Treitler wants to detect the resonance of the absolute music aesthetic in his own apprehension of the works of the time. He calls that "historical" criticism.
Treitler proceeds to a characterisation of Mozart according to Hildesheimer’s biography. Mozart is here the hero of absolute music, a composer who ”sublimates life in its universality”(p.181). Mozart music doesn’t express feelings but is pure musical thought.
But feelings do mark the musical work. When talking about Schubert’s Moment Musicale, Edward T. Cone qualifies the piece of a ”psychic pattern” and equates the musical narrative to the mental reaction Schubert had when he learned he had contracted syphilis. Treitler’s points out how it is exactly this kind of associations what critics of the 19th century would have denounced as impracticable and trivial.
Symphony was the musical genre that appealed the most to the critics. They saw it as a poetic drama played by exclusively musical characters, free from prosaic or material elements. Music as the embodiment of the poetic ideals brings to the front the emancipation of music from language. Just as around 1400 written poetry was freed from the need of being conveyed through the human voice, in the 1800s music disengages itself from verbal signification. But this doesn’t mean it has no effects. It is Wackenroder’s, Novalis’ or Schlegel’s belief that music creates a narrative text which reflects mental life and philosophical thought. 19th century critics make extensive use of terms such as “narrative”, “emotional flux”, “thought”, “discourse”. The difficulty lies in determining what differentiates, for example, musical meditation from fantasy or discourse, easily differentiated in respect to language.
Narrativity results from the interplay from two intersecting fields: between a chronological sequence of events and the order in which they are told, or as Treitler says, between the telling and the telling about (p. 187). Analogically, musical narrativity contemplates the interaction between the aprioristical patterns and constraints conventionally allowed by the grammar of a particular genre and the particular interpretation of these conditionants in the individual work. The first constrains the second, the second interprets the first.
Treitler then takes upon an hermeneutic of the Andante movement of Mozart’s symphony no. 39 in E-flat, K.543 (1788) in order to determine some of the elements that would make possible the kind of reflections that were written around 1800 about this music. Treitler believes it is possible to call the movement a “sonata without a development”, as Tovey does in Essays of musical analysis, if our intention of the locate the piece in some kind of classificatory scheme. But this doesn’t tell us much about our apprehension of the piece. Treitler thinks that the absence of the development in not a characteristic element of this piece. Moreover, the rhetoric of the work includes sections with developmental function, just in unusual places such as the recapitulation. Mozart assumes the vocabulary of the genre but expresses it in its own idiosyncratic way, thanks to which the work is unique.
Treitler finishes by relating the psychological power of Mozart’s symphonies to the views of Hanslick about music. For Hanslick, the essence of music is sound in motion. The idea that the beautiful in music lies in the unfolding of forms in motion is central to his musical conception, and almost synonym with the concept of “absolute music”. He attacked the mimetic powers of music and its capacity to represent feelings or actions. Music is dynamic, form is a consequence of its movement. Music is thus a musical language, whose discoursed is governed by the logical succession of musical elements and sections. Music has meaning but it is strictly musical. It does not represent feelings, even if it conveys them. In this matter he is in total agreement with the general feeling shared by the majority of the critics around 1800.
Bibliography
Hildesheimer, W. 1982: Mozart. New York: Marion Faber.
Cone, E.T. 1982: “Schubert’s Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics”, 19th century music.
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