Page 73 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2024. Glasbena kritika – nekoč in danes ▪︎ Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 7
P. 73
catholic” programme music? franz liszt’s religiosity in the focus of the viennese press ...
ready been given to Wilhelm Ambros22. As for Eduard Kulke, little is yet
known beyond some key biographical facts. In the context here, howev-
er, one thing is rather surprising given his aim, as just discussed, to fo-
cus on the religious aspects of Liszt’s work. Kulke’s father was a rabbi, and
thus it is likely that he felt closer to Judaism and the Jewish culture than he
did to Christian-Catholicism – in stark contradiction to what the passages
quoted above would lead one to believe. After his studies, which included
mathematics, physics, and German language and literature, he worked as
a teacher at an Israeli school in the Hungarian city of Pecs in the late 1850s.
He then settled in Vienna, where he was active for many years writing for
Jewish publications such as Die Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums and the
Wiener Jahrbuch für Israeliten. He also wrote literary stories, humoresques
and sketches throughout his life, most of which revolved around themes re-
lated to rural Jewish life. Considering the full range of his criticism of pro-
grammatic works – not just by Liszt but also his contemporaries who were
also the subject of a lively debate – it is clear that Kulke felt he belonged
to the progressive camp of Inhaltsästhetiker (content aesthetes), which ex-
plains why he would have defended or justified Liszt’s programmatic rep-
ertoire. Given his background, however, it is puzzling why he sought to
exploit Liszt’s religious convictions, of all things, for this purpose. Unfor-
tunately, the information about his acculturation, which is seemingly in
conflict with his stated views on Liszst’s Catholicism, has only been curso-
rily investigated and only exists in lexical, keyword-like form.23 Future cul-
tural studies researchers will need to address such gaps in the biographical
knowledge if they are to make any headway in gaining a deeper under-
standing of the nature of important historical debates, like the one con-
cerning symphonic programme music.
Concluding this brief excursion into the field of biographical research,
it is worth recalling Eva Diettrich’s insight in her study of the reception of
Liszt’s church music compositions that the Liszt oratorios and masses re-
viewed in the Wiener Kirchenzeitung were not primarily treated as “works
of art” – the newspaper did not review any of Liszt’s symphonic program-
matic works as such – but rather “examined individual details to uncover
22 Markéta Štědronská, ed., August Wilhelm Ambros: Musikaufsätze und rezensionen
1872–1876. Historischkritische Ausgabe (= Wiener Veröffentlichungen zur Musikwis-
senschaft 45), 2 vols. (Vienna: Hollitzer, 2017 and 2019).
23 Alexander Rausch, “Kulke, Eduard,” Österreichisches Musiklexikon online, https://
www.musiklexikon.ac.at/ml?frames=no.
73
ready been given to Wilhelm Ambros22. As for Eduard Kulke, little is yet
known beyond some key biographical facts. In the context here, howev-
er, one thing is rather surprising given his aim, as just discussed, to fo-
cus on the religious aspects of Liszt’s work. Kulke’s father was a rabbi, and
thus it is likely that he felt closer to Judaism and the Jewish culture than he
did to Christian-Catholicism – in stark contradiction to what the passages
quoted above would lead one to believe. After his studies, which included
mathematics, physics, and German language and literature, he worked as
a teacher at an Israeli school in the Hungarian city of Pecs in the late 1850s.
He then settled in Vienna, where he was active for many years writing for
Jewish publications such as Die Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums and the
Wiener Jahrbuch für Israeliten. He also wrote literary stories, humoresques
and sketches throughout his life, most of which revolved around themes re-
lated to rural Jewish life. Considering the full range of his criticism of pro-
grammatic works – not just by Liszt but also his contemporaries who were
also the subject of a lively debate – it is clear that Kulke felt he belonged
to the progressive camp of Inhaltsästhetiker (content aesthetes), which ex-
plains why he would have defended or justified Liszt’s programmatic rep-
ertoire. Given his background, however, it is puzzling why he sought to
exploit Liszt’s religious convictions, of all things, for this purpose. Unfor-
tunately, the information about his acculturation, which is seemingly in
conflict with his stated views on Liszst’s Catholicism, has only been curso-
rily investigated and only exists in lexical, keyword-like form.23 Future cul-
tural studies researchers will need to address such gaps in the biographical
knowledge if they are to make any headway in gaining a deeper under-
standing of the nature of important historical debates, like the one con-
cerning symphonic programme music.
Concluding this brief excursion into the field of biographical research,
it is worth recalling Eva Diettrich’s insight in her study of the reception of
Liszt’s church music compositions that the Liszt oratorios and masses re-
viewed in the Wiener Kirchenzeitung were not primarily treated as “works
of art” – the newspaper did not review any of Liszt’s symphonic program-
matic works as such – but rather “examined individual details to uncover
22 Markéta Štědronská, ed., August Wilhelm Ambros: Musikaufsätze und rezensionen
1872–1876. Historischkritische Ausgabe (= Wiener Veröffentlichungen zur Musikwis-
senschaft 45), 2 vols. (Vienna: Hollitzer, 2017 and 2019).
23 Alexander Rausch, “Kulke, Eduard,” Österreichisches Musiklexikon online, https://
www.musiklexikon.ac.at/ml?frames=no.
73
