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Continental and English Foundations of J. S. Dwight's Early American Criticism of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Ora Frishberg Saloman
Ora Frishberg Saloman*
Affiliation:
Baruch College, The City University of New York
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Extract

The reception history of Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies in America offers striking evidence of multiple, previously unidentified, Continental and English connections to the musical thought of John Sullivan Dwight (1813–93), the first American-born critic of art music, and therefore to early American conceptions of the symphony in the 1840s. These direct links illuminate the history and criticism of the first performance in America of Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 in D minor, op. 125, which took place in New York in 1846. From the many sources associated with Dwight's musical learning and aesthetic education, I have chosen in this article to examine Dwight's literary interest in Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller's poem ‘An die Freude’ and in Thomas Carlyle's biography of Schiller, to document his knowledge of commentary on the symphony by the German critic Adolf Bernhard Marx, and to describe Dwight's response to the initial American performance of the Ninth Symphony.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 119 , Issue 2 , 1994 , pp. 251 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Royal Musical Association

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References

I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for its generous award of a Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars enabling me to undertake initial archival research for this study. My thanks to Charles Sens, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington DC; Giuseppe Bisaccia, Curator of the Rare Book Room, Boston Public Library; and to the staffs of the Interhbrary Loan Service, Baruch College Library of The City University of New York, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington DC, the Rare Book and Special Collections Library, Columbia University, New York, and the New York Historical Society for their assistance I am indebted to Dr Steven J Ledbetter, Musicologist, Boston Symphony Orchestra, for his gracious encouragement of this area of researchGoogle Scholar

1 For further pertinent information, see Saloman, Ora Frishberg, ‘Fink, Hach, and Dwight's Beethoven in 1843–44’, The Musical Quarterly, 76 (1992), 488–501, and Saloman, ‘American Writers on Beethoven, 1838–1849. Dwight, Fuller, Cranch, Story’, American Music, 8 (1990), 12–28 My forthcoming book, entitled Dwight's Beethoven European Foundations of his Symphonic Criticism before 1847, describes in detail the European connections to Dwight's Beethoven criticism.Google Scholar

2 Boston, 1852–81, repr. New York and London, 1968 See also Walter L. Fertig, ‘Dwight, John Sullivan’. The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (London, 1986), i, 667–8Google Scholar

3 The New-England Magazine, 8 (May 1835), 380–1Google Scholar

4 Boston, 1839 Page numbers cited below follow the published edition The editor's manuscript is MS G 38 25, Dwight Papers, Rare Book Room, Boston Public LibraryGoogle Scholar

5 Select Minor Poems, ed Dwight, 203–6 and (for notes to the translation). B, 435–7Google Scholar

6 Ibid., A, 427–35 (p 428) Schiller himself considered it a bad poem, see Solomon, Maynard, ‘Beethoven and Schiller’, Beethoven Essays (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1988), 205–15 (p 209)Google Scholar

7 Select Minor Poems, ed. Dwight, 207–23 and A, 429Google Scholar

8 Abrams, Meyer Howard, Natural Supernaturalism Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York, 1971), 172–312 (pp. 215–16)Google Scholar

9 Select Minor Poems, ed. Dwight, A, 434–5 See [Thomas Carlyle], The Life of Friedrich Schiller Comprehending an Examination of his Works (London, 1825), 303–4 Dwight could have used either the first English edition or a Boston edition made from it in 1833. See also Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in a Series of Letters, ed and trans Elizabeth M Wilkinson and Leonard A Willoughby (Oxford, 1967), Letter 9, 56–9.Google Scholar

10 See the use of this term in Solomon, ‘Beethoven and-Schiller’, 214 Art must not merely restore the memory of a lost innocence but also envision particularly a future Elysium whose joyous state could transcend the alienations of the present in civilization See also Lawrence Kramer, Music as Cultural Practice, 1800–1900 (Berkeley, 1990), 22–30Google Scholar

11 Select Minor Poems, ed. Dwight, translator's preface, x.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., x-xi.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., B, 435–7Google Scholar

14 See Moyer, Birgitte, ‘Marx, Adolf Bernhard’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), xi, 739–41. See also Robin Wallace, Beethoven's Critics Aesthetic Dilemmas and Resolutions during the Composer's Lifetime (Cambridge and New York, 1986), 45–64.Google Scholar

15 ‘ABM ’ (Adolf Bernhard Marx), ‘Beethoven, Ludwig von’, Encyclopȧdie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaften, oder Universal-Lexicon der Tonkunst, ed Gustav Schilling (Stuttgart, 1835–8), l, 513–20 It would have been possible for Dwight to see Marx's essay as early as 1837, since the first of the six volumes had appeared in 1835Google Scholar

16 ‘ABM’ (Marx), ‘Beethoven’, 519–20 Portions that Dwight omitted from his translated excerpt are placed in brackets here ‘Wie im ȧussern Leben er sich fruchtlos nach dem su̇ssbefriedenden Familienbande sehnt [und sein Herz mit väterlichem Antheil an übelgerathenen Verwandten tȧuscht und gern immer wieder zur Täuschung zuruckkehrt,] so wendet er in seiner Kunst mit Sehnsucht Erinnerung und Wünsche der Liebe hin zu den Menschen, so wächst ihm das Verlangen nach Menschen-Musik, nach Gesang, und führt ihn auf den Gipfel seines Schaffens. Die neunte Sinfonie, mit Chor, wird geschrieben [Schon einmal, in seiner “Fantasie mit Orchester und Chor”, hatte er spielend die Bahn vom Ciavier zum Orchester und Verein von Gesang und Instrumentale sich vorgezeichnet, – um von da erst in die tieferen Kreise seiner Instrumentenwelt zu dringen] Jetzt fasst er im h⊙chsten künstlerischen Selbstbekenntniss alle Resultate seines Lebens zusammen Riesengewaltig beschw⊙rt er die riesigen Mächte des vollsten, bewegtesten Orchesters, sie mussen, dürfen ihn umscherzen, – und ihr tief-aufjährender Sturm, wie der leichte Tanz ihres Scherzes, trägt nur sein Verlangen, dass sich in zarteste Sehnsucht, in den wehmuthigsten, schmelzendentsagenden Abschied lost Das alles kann nicht ferner genügen. Es zertrümmert, und die Instrumente selbst ergreifen (in Recitativform) die Weise menschlichen Gesanges Noch einmal wehen traumhaft alle jene Gestalten vorüber, menschliche Stimmen ergreifen jenes Recitativ, und sie fuhren zu Schillers Freudengesang, Ihm ein Bundeslied aller Menschen Nichts kann rührender seyn, nichts lässt uns so tief schauen in seine Brust, als wie erst Basse, dann Sänger das “Freude schöner Götterfunken” so einfältig, so volksmässig anstimmen, so hingegeben in das sanfte Verlangen und Lieben, das nur Menschen, Menschen! sucht, nur der Gemeinschaft mit Menschen bedarf, und nichts höheres mehr kennt und will‘Google Scholar

17 Select Minor Poems, ed. Dwight, B, 436–7. There are no substantive changes in the manuscript, B, 459–61Google Scholar

18 Marx's connection of the poem to Beethoven's symphony was clear in 1835 but he was more ambiguous about that relationship in 1859, see Ruth A. Solie, ‘Beethoven as Secular Humanist. Ideology and the Ninth Symphony in Nineteenth-Century Criticism’, Explorations in Music, the Arts, and Ideas Essays in Honor of Leonard B Meyer, ed Eugene Narmour and Ruth A. Solie (Stuyvesant, 1988), 1–42 (p. 33)Google Scholar

19 Bonds, Mark Evan, Wordless-Rhetoric Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1991), 169–70Google Scholar

20 ‘ABM’ (Marx) ‘Beethoven’, 519Google Scholar

21 Burnham, Scott, ‘Criticism, Faith, and the Idee. A. B Marx's Early Reception of Beethoven’, 19th Century Music, 13 (1989–90), 183–92 (p. 192). I wish to thank Dr Burnham for kindly providing me with a copy of the manuscript before its publicationGoogle Scholar

22 Ibid., 184.Google Scholar

23 Guarneri, Carl J, The Utopian Alternative Fourierism in Nineteenth Century America (Ithaca and London, 1991), 239Google Scholar

24 [John S Dwight], ‘Musical Review Great Concert in New York – The Philharmonic Society – Beethoven's Choral Symphony’, The Harbinger, Devoted to Social and Political Progress, 2 (16 May 1846), 361–3Google Scholar

25 [Anton Felix Schindler], The Life of Beethoven, Including his Correspondence with his Friends, Numerous Characteristic Traits, and Remarks on his Musical Works, ed Ignaz Moscheles (London, 1841)Google Scholar

26 [Dwight], ‘Musical Review Great Concert in New York’.Google Scholar

27 The Albion or Brittsh, Colonial and Foreign Weekly Gazette, 5 (16 May 1846), 240. See also Vera Brodsky Lawrence, Strong on Music The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875, i, Resonances; 1836–1850 (New York and Oxford, 1988), 366–9.Google Scholar

28 ‘Original Day Book’, New York Historical Society, Castle Garden Manuscript Folder, New York City, 1843–51.Google Scholar

29 The Albion or British, Colonial and Foreign Weekly Gazette, 5 (23 May 1846), 252Google Scholar

30 Gazette and Times, 21 May 1846Google Scholar

31 There were several ‘trials’ before the London première, however See Levy, David Benjamin, ‘Early Performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony A Documentary Study of Five Cities’ (Ph.D dissertation, Eastman School of Music, The University of Rochester, 1980), 155, 160–2, 166, 173 Levy traces the performance history of the Ninth Symphony in Vienna, London, Paris, Leipzig and Berlin.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., 202–37, 241Google Scholar

33 William Henry Channing, ‘Notice to the Associationists of the United States’, The Harbinger, 3 (13 June 1846), 14–15Google Scholar

34 (John S Dwight], ‘Musical Review The Festival Concert in New York – Beethoven's Choral Symphony’, The Harbinger, 3 (13 June 1846), 9–11Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 11Google Scholar

36 Solomon, Maynard, ‘The Ninth Symphony. A Search for Order’, Beethoven Essays, 3–32 (p 30)Google Scholar

37 John S. Dwight, A Lecture on Association, in its Connection with Education, Delivered before the New England Fourier Society, in Boston, February 29th, 1844 (Boston, 1844), 11–22Google Scholar

38 Ibid., 3–10 (p. 5)Google Scholar

39 [Dwight], ‘Musical Review The Festival Concert in New York’, 11Google Scholar

40 [John S Dwight], ‘Musical Review The Prospects for the Season’, The Harbinger, 3 (17 October 1846), 301Google Scholar

41 Ibid See also [John S Dwight], ‘The Boston Academy of Music’, The Harbinger, 3 (21 November 1846), 381Google Scholar