Staging Authenticity

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Leistra-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Johannes Brahms ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Aesthetic Ideology ◽  
Joseph Joachim ◽  
The Aesthetic

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.

The Aesthetic Conflict

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-52
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Program Music ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Open Question ◽  
World Premiere

An aesthetic conflict between advocates of abstract instrumental music (or “absolute music”) and advocates of instrumental music that tells stories (or “program music”) raged throughout Europe and the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century. American critics assessed Dvořák’s Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Symphonies through the lens of this conflict as they premiered throughout the 1880s and 1890s. But listeners could not reach a consensus about where along the aesthetic spectrum his music fell. Which direction the composer’s new symphony might take therefore remained an open question until its 1893 world premiere in New York, when the results surprised everyone.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Laurie McManus
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Johannes Brahms ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Gendered Space ◽  
Music Aesthetics ◽  
Joseph Joachim ◽  
And Gender

This introductory chapter establishes foundations of the book: who formed the priesthood of art (Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann, Amalie Joachim, Joseph Joachim) and the birth of artistic priesthood from the art-religious spirit of German Romanticism in the early nineteenth century. In particular, this chapter introduces the notion that the artistic priesthood occupied a kind of alternative gendered space—neither fully masculine nor feminine—and that desirable characteristics of an artistic priest (devotion, humility, spiritial leadership) could be gendered in various ways in musical-critical discourse. After midcentury, changes in music aesthetics and gender roles created pressure to understand Romantic notions of musical priesthood as antiquated and outmoded. In short, Brahms offers a case study in the intersection of art-religious values with a gender dichotomy that became increasingly prescriptive over the second half of the nineteenth century.

Beethoven's String Quintet in C major, Op. 29, and Brahms's String Sextets: A Wallflower Blooms

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
William Horne
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Chamber Music ◽  
Johannes Brahms ◽  
Close Friend ◽  
Chamber Works ◽  
String Quintet ◽  
Joseph Joachim ◽  
Formal Design ◽  
Similar Elements

Beethoven's String Quintet, Op. 29, has been described as a ‘wallflower’ work that, without enough suitors, remains on the sidelines of the string chamber music repertoire. But in the nineteenth century it had a prominent champion, Joseph Joachim, whose performances of the quintet must have attracted the attention of his close friend, Johannes Brahms. The opening theme of Brahms's String Sextet, Op. 18, is clearly reminiscent of the beginning of Beethoven's quintet. Evidence from Donald Francis Tovey's recollections of Joachim, Joachim's correspondence with the Brahms biographer Max Kalbeck, and the manuscript of Op. 18 shows that Joachim influenced an important revision that aligns the beginning of Brahms's sextet closely with the opening of Beethoven's Op. 29 also in terms of texture and formal design. The striking tremolo opening and virtuosic scale passages in the finale of Beethoven's quintet prefigure similar elements in the last movement of Brahms's Op. 36 sextet. But the deeper relationship between these movements lies in certain shared formal elements: a common emphasis on sound, texture and sharp contrasts between agitato and pastoral elements as defining features of the overall form – and several distinctive similarities of contrapuntal strategy, form and tonal design between the substantial fugatos that dominate the development sections of both movements. It is often observed that Brahms wrote chamber works in pairs. Scholars have often posited that his two string sextets form such a pair, but the separation of four years in their inceptions and his extensive use of Baroque-style materials composed in the 1850s in the later sextet have made this argument tenuous. It now emerges that an unusual pairing feature of Brahms's string sextets is that both works respond to Beethoven's ‘wallflower’ masterpiece.

The Role of Understanding on Architectural Beauty: Evidence From the Impact of Semantic Description on the Aesthetic Evaluation of Architecture

2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412110021
Author(s):  
Sizhe Liu ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Xianyou He ◽  
Xiaoxiang Tang ◽  
Shuxian Lai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Aesthetic Evaluation ◽  
Abstract Description ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Appearance Design ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Impact

There is evidence that greater aesthetic experience can be linked to artworks when their corresponding meanings can be successfully inferred and understood. Modern cultural-expo architecture can be considered a form of artistic creation and design, and the corresponding design philosophy may be derived from representational objects or abstract social meanings. The present study investigates whether cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design is perceived as more beautiful and how architectural photographs and different types of descriptions of architectural appearance designs interact and produce higher aesthetic evaluations. The results showed an obvious aesthetic preference for cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design (Experiment 1). Moreover, we found that the aesthetic rating score of architectural photographs accompanied by an abstract description was significantly higher than that of those accompanied by a representational description only under the difficult-to-understand design condition (Experiment 2). The results indicated that people preferred cultural-expo architecture with an easy-to-understand architectural appearance design due to a greater understanding of the design, providing further evidence that abstract descriptions can provide supplementary information and explanation to enhance the sense of beauty of abstract cultural-expo architecture.

Vitalistic Discourses of Violin Pedagogy in the Early Twentieth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-190
Author(s):  
Stefan Knapik
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Final Word ◽  
Collaborative Activity ◽  
Violin Pedagogy ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Joseph Joachim ◽  
Violin Playing

Abstract The pedagogical treatise is generally understood to be a manual of singing or instrumental techniques that is largely practical in approach, yet a critique of violin tutor books dating from the early twentieth century, especially those written by the renowned violinists Joseph Joachim (writing in conjunction with Andreas Moser), Leopold Auer, and Carl Flesch, reveals an extensive engagement with a range of wider ideologies. In a bid to trump the supposedly deadening effects of both a historicism resulting from the availability of earlier treatises, as well as the overly scientific approach taken by contemporaneous treatises, these violinist-authors embrace metaphysical ideals of mind or vitality, and the result is a model of violin playing founded on the concept of “singing tone,” an idea developed out of nineteenth-century notions of song/melody as embodying a vital essence. As did Wagner, in his 1869 essay Über das Dirigiren, writers play with the idea that theoretical and performative categories, such as tempo, phrasing, dynamics, vibrato, and types of bow stroke, both conflict with each other and find a deeper unity in a subjectivist ideal of tone. The approach of these texts is not explorative, however, so much as a rather defensive championing of the idea of mind or vitality: ideologies of self, health, and nationalism ultimately prevail over an engagement with historical evidence in Moser's discussion of ornaments, and Auer's intolerance of any mitigating influence that might qualify the artist's final word on aesthetic matters is reminiscent of a reductive, Nietzschean ideal of vitality. Nevertheless, writers struggle to reconcile it with the messier realities of performing, as an embodied and collaborative activity, and subsequently what speaks louder in their texts are anxieties over affronts to notions of self, expressed using pathological notions common to the era. Whereas at times writers encourage students of the violin to share in their lauding of vitalistic ideals, more often than not they try to impose disciplinary measures as a means of inculcating them.

Revisiting the relationship between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain from the manufacturer’s perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52
Author(s):  
Ann Compton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Drawing Board ◽  
Public Exposure ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Two Sectors

The mid-nineteenth century critical discourse compartmentalized art and industry by crediting each with specific powers. Manufacturing was identified with the development of technologically advanced processes, materials and products, while fine artists were given authority over the aesthetic aspects of industrial design. The idea that the two sectors had separate areas of responsibility has proved extremely enduring, and continues to influence our perceptions of Victorian manufacturing. This article contributes to the wider task of re-evaluating the relationship between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain by examining the role of design in potteries and art metalworking firms from the manufacturer’s perspective. It shows that contrary to the picture painted by Victorian critics, design was central to the ambitions and commercial operations of manufacturing businesses. Crucially, decisions about the recruitment of design staff were shaped by the close connection between the creation of new products at the drawing board, and their fabrication in the workshop. Since each branch of manufacturing had its distinctive characteristics, there were significant practical, aesthetic and commercial advantages for manufacturers in employing experienced designers who knew the trade, and were fully conversant with production practices. Unless a professional sculptor joined a firm, they were unlikely to have this inside knowledge, which made commissioning one-off designs from artists a riskier proposition. Manufacturers found that one of the best ways to get around this was to make reductions of sculptures, and initial demand for statuettes in Parian suggested they would be profitable for all concerned. In the end, the market did not live up to its early promise, but the publicity given to Parian statuettes compensated manufacturers and sculptors. Overall, it was this increased public exposure for art manufactures that was the prime benefit of the mid-nineteenth century critical discourse for the industrial sector.

"[...] über die outrirte, willkürliche Bezeichnung"

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Vasiliki Papadopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Popular Medium ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Joseph Joachim

Instructive editions from the late 19th and early 20th century include various annotations regarding musical and interpretative aspects, such as articulation, bowings, fingerings, dynamics, note values, or vibrato As a popular medium at the time, instructive editions were often in the centre of contemporary discussions and attracted the attention of musicians and music teachers, bequeathing us a wide corpus of valuable sources. Joseph Joachim was arguably the most prominent violinist and a sought-after pedagogue in the German-speaking world at the time. Hitherto unknown letters as well as revisited statements by Joachim lead to new insights regarding his attitude towards instructive editions: he viewed them - despite his (few) publications in this genre - very critically, as he was convinced that detailed instructions would limit the freedom of the performer. He instead preferred editions without annotations, but interpreted the music freely andd variably in what he considered the spirit of the composer. Joachim's attitude thus poses general questions as to the role and freedom of performance and interpretation in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Treating Afro hair loss: signs, symptoms and specialist interest

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 190-197
Author(s):  
Ingrid Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Hair Loss ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Hair Care ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Symptoms And Signs

This article explores the different types of hair loss that black women may experience more than other groups of patients. Properties of African hair and the impact of hair care practices are discussed, as well as factors affecting the presentation of other hair loss conditions. It is important for the aesthetic practitioner to be able to distinguish between the temporary forms of hair loss that they can help to treat and the permanent or scarring forms of hair loss, which need a prompt referral to a dermatologist with a specialist interest in hair. Prompt recognition and referral can help to delay the progression of hair loss. The symptoms and signs that patients and practitioners should be alerted to are explored, as well as the treatments that can help and where referrals may be necessary. Recent developments and gaps in knowledge are summarised.

scholarly journals Evolution versus Authenticity: Johannes Brahms, Robert Franz, and Continuo Practice in the Late Nineteenth Century

2006 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Johannes Brahms ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Music ◽  
The Past ◽  
Baroque Music ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
High Level ◽  
Early Music Revival

The early-music revival provoked much heated debate in the second half of the nineteenth century. The leading scholars of the era, Philipp Spitta and Friedrich Chrysander were keen to encourage performances and editions of early music that presented it in the spirit in which it was conceived. This approach met with vociferous opposition from Robert Franz and his supporters, who embraced a Darwinian aesthetic. Although committed to reviving the past, Franz believed that the tastes of nineteenth-century listeners had become too sophisticated to enjoy early music in its original state and modernized it accordingly. The source of the most heated debates was the issue of continuo realization, a topic in which Brahms, through his performing and arranging activities, had a vested interest. Franz, who dismissed the musicologists as artistic philistines, found a difficult adversary in Brahms. Brahms's scholarly inclinations have been well documented, and predictably, his approach to reviving Baroque music reflected a high level of historical awareness. He was, however, first and foremost a creative musician, and as a consequence, aesthetic issues were paramount in his performances and publications. Considerable tensions arose between Franz, and Brahms, and Chrysander, which are explored here in relation to the latter's editions of Handel's Italian duets and trios. The difficulties surrounding continuo practice were not confined to opposition from Franz; even among musicologists there was much disagreement about how the music should be performed. Brahms's approach to continuo realization is considered in this context.

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