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3 - Nina d’Aubigny’s ‘Italian Voice’

A Musical Projection Screen in German National Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2022

By
Carolin Krahn
Edited by
Axel Körner  and
Paulo M. Kühl
Axel Körner
Affiliation:
University College London
Paulo M. Kühl
Affiliation:
University of Campinas, Brazil
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Summary

Around 1800, the human voice was not only considered a musical instrument; it also served as a central motif in the national historiography of music. This chapter investigates a popular source in German-speaking music pedagogy on the systematic education of the (primarily female) voice: Nina d’Aubigny von Engelbrunner’s Briefe an Natalie über den Gesang (1st ed. Leipzig 1803, 2nd ed. 1824). This 'manual' is based on thirty-one fictive letters and is heavily charged with stereotypes of 'the Italian'. The chapter discusses the multiple levels on which the idea of a decidedly Italian voice is constructed and shaped against a transnational background. A close reading shows how the voice served as a wide-ranging projection screen beyond strictly musical topics, tackling anthropological, moral, aesthetic and societal questions, all of them attempting to spread clichés of Italian music into German everyday musical life.

Keywords

Nina d'AubignyItalian musicsingersvoiceitalianitàmusic educationGermanymusicologynational identity
Type
Chapter
Information
Italian Opera in Global and Transnational Perspective
Reimagining Italianità in the Long Nineteenth Century
 , pp. 59 - 76
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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