AbstractJoseph Joachim, Johannes Brahms, and other members of their circle were important figures in the ascendancy of the Werktreue paradigm of performance in the second half of the nineteenth century. This article explores the ways in which their approach to Werktreue intersected with a broader ideal of “authentic” subjectivity. An authentic performer, according to this ideal, would be true to himself or herself, absorbed in the music, oblivious of the audience, and restrained in gestures and overall expressivity. I examine how these musicians performed authenticity in different types of self-representation, including autobiographical writings, portraits, and musical performances. Furthermore, I explore the connection between the subjectivity modeled in their performances and the aesthetic ideology of nonprogrammatic instrumental music. Concerns about authenticity played an important role in the struggle over the ownership of the Austro-German musical tradition; debates about which performers were “authentic” often hinged on the question of who could claim the cultural and spiritual aptitude necessary to inhabit the thoughts of master composers. In this context, the performative strategies associated with authenticity also evoked social codes associated with gender, nationality, and race during a period in which participation in Germanic culture was being conceived of in increasingly exclusive terms.
Irony and the Question of Presentation in The American Scene
