Page 82 - 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
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glasbena kritika – nekoč in danes | music criticism – yesterday and today
pressed in the writings. Thus, beyond the musical, moral decision-making
competence is claimed, which in the socio-political debate of the time can
clearly be located on the side of modernity. It is no coincidence that the key
words autonomy, rationality, individualisation and secularisation or better
(according to Nipperdey) de-Christianisation can be found in this musical
style.27 The latter is easily recognisable in two prominent representatives,
August Wilhelm Ambros (1816–1876) and Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904).28
Eduard Hanslick strongly influenced German musicology with his
statement that the content of music is the tonally moving form.29 In his
famous essay Vom Musikalisch-Schönen (On Musical Beauty), he exclud-
ed all musical genres “that serve certain external purposes, such as church,
war and theatre compositions,” because he discovered that they were “often
conventional instead of necessary.”30 This is particularly evident in his mu-
sic criticism. For him, the “public concert” is the “main place of music as
such,” which “with the exclusion of the actual theatre, church and ballet mu-
sic, encompasses the entire musical production.”31 Oratorios, for him mere-
ly “a surrogate for opera,”32 are characterised by “an ever stronger tendency
from the ecclesiastical-religious to the profane-historical.” Robert Schumann
“with his secular oratorio (‘Paradise and Peri’ sc.) gave the final blow to the
tradition of this artistic genre.”33 In Franz Liszt’s Christus (1st part: Christ-
mas Oratorio), Hanslick sees the composer’s “leap from brilliant virtuosity
to church music” as nothing more than “sought-after simplicity and naivety,”
“musical frailty and emaciation of the carrier,” “the formal bankruptcy of a
tone poet.”34 In contrast, Johannes Brahms’ Triumphlied and Schicksalslied
“belong to those great tone poems which rank Brahms among the first mas-
27 Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866, 403 – here quoted from the special pa-
perback edition (Munich: Beck, 1998).
28 See: Helmut Loos, “The religious dimension of Beethoven reception in the 19th cen-
tury,” Beethoven 9. Studies and Interpretations, ed. Magdalena Chrenkoff (Krakow:
Akademia Muzyczna), forthcoming.
29 Carl Dahlhaus, Die Idee der absoluten Musik, 4th ed. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2018).
30 Eduard Hanslick, Vom Musikalisch-Schönen. Ein Beitrag zur Revision der Aesthetik
der Tonkunst (Leipzig: wbg, 1854), 8.
31 Eduard Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien 1869 (Vienna: W. Braumül-
ler, 1869), IX.
32 Ibid., 19 and 23.
33 Eduard Hanslick, Concerte, Componisten und Virtuosen der letzten fünfzehn Jah-
re, 1870–1885. Kritiken [Concerts, Composers and Virtuosos of the last fifteen ye-
ars. 1870–1885. critiques], 2nd ed. (Berlin: Allgemeiner Verein für Deutsche Litera-
tur, 1886), 17.
34 Ibid., 41f.
82
pressed in the writings. Thus, beyond the musical, moral decision-making
competence is claimed, which in the socio-political debate of the time can
clearly be located on the side of modernity. It is no coincidence that the key
words autonomy, rationality, individualisation and secularisation or better
(according to Nipperdey) de-Christianisation can be found in this musical
style.27 The latter is easily recognisable in two prominent representatives,
August Wilhelm Ambros (1816–1876) and Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904).28
Eduard Hanslick strongly influenced German musicology with his
statement that the content of music is the tonally moving form.29 In his
famous essay Vom Musikalisch-Schönen (On Musical Beauty), he exclud-
ed all musical genres “that serve certain external purposes, such as church,
war and theatre compositions,” because he discovered that they were “often
conventional instead of necessary.”30 This is particularly evident in his mu-
sic criticism. For him, the “public concert” is the “main place of music as
such,” which “with the exclusion of the actual theatre, church and ballet mu-
sic, encompasses the entire musical production.”31 Oratorios, for him mere-
ly “a surrogate for opera,”32 are characterised by “an ever stronger tendency
from the ecclesiastical-religious to the profane-historical.” Robert Schumann
“with his secular oratorio (‘Paradise and Peri’ sc.) gave the final blow to the
tradition of this artistic genre.”33 In Franz Liszt’s Christus (1st part: Christ-
mas Oratorio), Hanslick sees the composer’s “leap from brilliant virtuosity
to church music” as nothing more than “sought-after simplicity and naivety,”
“musical frailty and emaciation of the carrier,” “the formal bankruptcy of a
tone poet.”34 In contrast, Johannes Brahms’ Triumphlied and Schicksalslied
“belong to those great tone poems which rank Brahms among the first mas-
27 Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866, 403 – here quoted from the special pa-
perback edition (Munich: Beck, 1998).
28 See: Helmut Loos, “The religious dimension of Beethoven reception in the 19th cen-
tury,” Beethoven 9. Studies and Interpretations, ed. Magdalena Chrenkoff (Krakow:
Akademia Muzyczna), forthcoming.
29 Carl Dahlhaus, Die Idee der absoluten Musik, 4th ed. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2018).
30 Eduard Hanslick, Vom Musikalisch-Schönen. Ein Beitrag zur Revision der Aesthetik
der Tonkunst (Leipzig: wbg, 1854), 8.
31 Eduard Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien 1869 (Vienna: W. Braumül-
ler, 1869), IX.
32 Ibid., 19 and 23.
33 Eduard Hanslick, Concerte, Componisten und Virtuosen der letzten fünfzehn Jah-
re, 1870–1885. Kritiken [Concerts, Composers and Virtuosos of the last fifteen ye-
ars. 1870–1885. critiques], 2nd ed. (Berlin: Allgemeiner Verein für Deutsche Litera-
tur, 1886), 17.
34 Ibid., 41f.
82
