Zwischen Ost und West: Franz Liszts nationale Identität in der Wiener Musikkritik (1857–1900)

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 367-379

Abstract In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Habsburg Monarchy was a political entity giving home to great numbers of people of different nationalities and ethnicities. However, the dominant power in the structure of this multi-ethnic state was reserved for the Germans. Yet, the ever more emphatic demands of ethnic groups of other origins for more autonomy had a serious impact on the political and cultural supremacy of the Germans. Based on this recorded background, I will examine in the context of my paper to what extent Viennese music criticism of Franz Liszt’s symphonic programme music proves to be influenced by the reception of his national facets of identity. To do justice to this concern, the first step is to gain an overview of what statements were made during the journalistic discourse on Liszt’s symphonic programme music regarding its nationality. Building on this, it will be determined what function these statements had in the argumentative mediation of the aesthetic judgement on Liszt’s programmatic compositions. Against the political background outlined above, the question arises as to whether the Hungarian-national facet of Liszt’s identity in particular was instrumentalized by Viennese critics in order to strengthen negative judgments about his œuvre by means of a politically motivated German-nationalist narrative.

Author(s):  
Jan-Melissa Schramm

This chapter traces the rediscovery of the medieval mystery plays which had been suppressed at the Reformation. The texts were painstakingly recovered, edited, and published in the first half of the nineteenth century, by medieval scholars but also by radicals like William Hone who were keen to emphasize the political value of expanding the literary canon. At the start of the nineteenth century, then, vernacular devotional drama was largely unknown; by the 1850s, the genre had been accorded a place in an evolutionary design that privileged the achievements of Shakespeare, and by the early twentieth century, performance was finally countenanced, albeit under the watchful eye of the Lord Chamberlain. This is a narrative of recuperation but also of misunderstanding, as the mystery plays were also positioned as comic burlesque and farce in constructions of the literary canon which stressed the aesthetic and religious superiority of the Protestant present.


2018 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-410
Author(s):  
Markus Klammer

Abstract By exploring the relation between the transcendental functions and the empirical and historical implications of the notion of »ornament« in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the power of judgement, this article argues that Kant tried to establish the concept of ornament as a link between the pure formality of the aesthetic judgement and concrete empirical instances of beauty. Following a discussion of Kant’s emphasis on »exemplarity« and an analysis of his choice of examples of beauty, the article explores the conflict between Kant’s notion of the human body as an »ideal of beauty« and his famous disapproval of ornamental lines in the faces of Maori people. Finally, it considers the modes of representation of leading Maori, their garments, and their facial tā moko in the late nineteenth-century portraits of Gottfried Lindauer and Samuel E. Stuart, and advocates a dual reading of these portraits as both conforming to and contradicting the Kantian model of human beauty.


2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (43) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Kaare Nielsen

Prominent positions in the contemporary theoretical field of the humanities tend to conceptualize late modern communities in general as aesthetic communities of taste. In regard to political communities, this means reducing the political to an implication of the aesthetic discourse. This article argues for addressing the aesthetic and the political as distinct discourses that are, on the other hand, always engaged with each other in a conflictual interplay. Both discourses draw on and appeal to the ability of judgement, but according to their own distinct principles, and depending on their respective weight in the conflictual interplay, this entails quite different perspectives with regards to political practice and community formation.


2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 793-812 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henio Hoyo

In his highly influential work on the “small,” stateless European nations, Hroch seems to assume that patriotic movements have a homogeneous view about the core relations or “ties” that constitute and identify their nations. This assumption seems generally correct for the cases Hroch studies. However, is it correct if applied to the study of those patriotic movements developing in comparatively larger, heterogeneous and underdeveloped societies, comprising several ethnic groups bound together by the colonialist rule of an autocratic empire? I argue that, while the colonial experience can lead to the creation of some ties among the dominated populations, it also affects the way patriotic movements perceive their own nations. As a result, the phase of patriotic agitation can involve diverse movements addressing the same nation, but each having a particular view on the features and history of it. Such contested patriotic doctrines can lead to very important variations in the political agendas and goals of those movements, especially when they reach the mass phase. To exemplify this, the nineteenth century movements in New Spain/Mexico will be used as an example.


Author(s):  
Paolo Bartoloni

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) is invoked several times in the work of Giorgio Agamben, often in passing to stress a point, as when discussing the political relevance of désoeuvrement (KG 246); to develop a thought, as in the articulation of the medieval idea of imagination as the medium between body and soul (S, especially 127–9); or to explain an idea, as in the case of the artistic process understood as the meeting of contradictory forces such as inspiration and critical control (FR, especially 48–50). So while Agamben does not engage with Dante systematically, he refers to him constantly, treating the Florentine poet as an auctoritas whose presence adds critical rigour and credibility. Identifying and relating the instances of these encounters is useful since they highlight central aspects of Agamben’s thought and its development over the years, from the first writings, such as Stanzas, to more recent texts, such as Il fuoco e il racconto and The Use of Bodies. The significance of Agamben’s reliance on Dante can be divided into two categories: the aesthetic and the political. The following discussion will address each of these categories separately, but will also emphasise the philosophical continuity that links the discussion of the aesthetic with that of the political. While in the first instance Dante is offered as an example of poetic innovation, especially in relation to the use of language and imagination, in the second he is invoked as a forerunner of new forms of life. Mediality and potentiality are the two pivots connecting the aesthetic and the political.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-351
Author(s):  
Omar Velasco Herrera

Durante la primera mitad del siglo xix, las necesidades presupuestales del erario mexicano obligaron al gobierno a recurrir al endeudamiento y al arrendamiento de algunas de las casas de moneda más importantes del país. Este artículo examina las condiciones políticas y económicas que hicieron posible el relevo del capital británico por el estadounidense—en estricto sentido, californiano—como arrendatario de la Casa de Moneda de México en 1857. Asimismo, explora el desarrollo empresarial de Juan Temple para explicar la coyuntura política que hizo posible su llegada, y la de sus descendientes, a la administración de la ceca de la capital mexicana. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the budgetary needs of the Mexican treasury forced the government to resort to borrowing and leasing some of the most important mints in the country. This article examines the political and economic conditions that allowed for the replacement of British capital by United States capital—specifically, Californian—as the lessee of the Mexican National Mint in 1857. It also explores the development of Juan Temple’s entrepreneurship to explain the political circumstances that facilitated his admission, and that of his descendants, into the administration of the National Mint in Mexico City.


2018 ◽  
pp. 126-146
Author(s):  
Roza Ismagilova

The article pioneers the analyses of the results of ethnic federalism introduced in Ethiopia in 1991 – and its influence on Afar. Ethnicity was proclaimed the fundamental principle of the state structure. The idea of ethnicity has become the basis of official ideology. The ethnic groups and ethnic identity have acquired fundamentally importance on the political and social levels . The country has been divided into nine ethnically-based regions. The article exposes the complex ethno-political and economic situation in the Afar State, roots and causes of inter- and intra-ethnic relations and conflicts with Amhara, Oromo, Tigray and Somali-Issa, competition of ethnic elites for power and recourses. Alive is the idea of “The Greater Afar”which would unite all Afar of the Horn of Africa. The protests in Oromia and Amhara Regions in 2015–2017 influenced the Afar state as welll. The situation in Ethiopia nowadays is extremely tense. Ethiopia is plunging into serious political crisis. Some observers call it “the beginning of Ethiopian spring”, the others – “Color revolution”


Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari

This chapter examines the lack of continuous tradition of the art of the theatre in the history of Jewish culture. Theatre as art and institution was forbidden for Jews during most of their history, and although there were plays written in different times and places during the past centuries, no tradition of theatre evolved in Jewish culture until the middle of the nineteenth century. In view of this absence, the author discusses the genesis of Jewish theatre in Eastern Europe and in Eretz-Yisrael (The Land of Israel) since the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the rebirth of Hebrew as a language of everyday life. Finally, the chapter traces the development of parallel strands of theatre that preceded the Israeli theatre and shadowed the emergence of the political infrastructure of the future State of Israel.


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