Schubert's Goethe Settings

LorraineByrne Bodley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351549875
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

The traditional approach to the study of Goethe and Schubert is to place them in opposition to one another, both in terms of their life experiences and in relation to the nineteenth-century Lied. In her introduction to this book, Lorraine Byrne examines the myths that have evolved around these artists and challenges the view that Goethe was unmusical and conservative in his musical tastes. She also considers Schubert's life in relation to his obvious affinity with the poet and links the composer's Goethe settings with the poet's perception of the Lied. Goethe judged the success of a setting by whether the meaning of the text had been realised in musical form. In his Goethe settings Schubert translates the poet's meaning into musical terms and his rendition attains the classical unity of words and music that Goethe sought. The core of this volume is the series of individual analyses of all of Schubert's solo, dramatic and multi-voice settings of Goethe texts. These explore in detail both the literary and the musical dimensions of each work, and Schubert's reading and interpretation of Goethe's writings. This is the first study in English to treat both artists with equal attention and insight. This, together with its encyclopaedic coverage of this important corpus of works, makes this volume an essential reference tool for all those who study Schubert and Goethe.

PART I

PERCEPTIONS OF GOETHE AND SCHUBERT

1 Goethe the Musician?

Goethe and Music

Over the years Goethe’s musicality has been called into question. Ernst Walker calls him ‘the greatest of the few exceptions’ of ‘unmusical poets’;¹ Moritz Bauer describes Goethe as ‘a man of very limited musical understanding’² and Elizabeth Schumann writes about his ‘indifference to music’.³ Calvin Brown speaks about Goethe’s ‘rather severe musical limitations’⁴ and Donald Tovey considers, ‘In the vast scheme of Goethe’s general culture, music had as high a place as a man with no ear for anything but verse could be expected to give it’.⁵ A number of other musicologists are similarly negative in their judgements,⁶ and all have sufficient material to support their arguments.

The term ‘musical’ presents a certain ambiguity in itself. To criticize a person as being unmusical implies that he or she is neither fond of nor skilled in music. However, searching through Goethe’s work, it is easy to trace an apparent love of music in his activities, thoughts and writing. From the early years of his childhood, music played a significant role in Goethe’s life. His love of Lieder was nurtured by his mother, who played the harpsichord and sang. His father, who played lute and flute,⁷ regularly invited musicians to his home. Domenico Giovinazzi enlivened his language lessons with arias such as ‘Solitario bosco ombroso’, while professional musicians and composers such as Carl Friedrich Abel and Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach were frequent visitors to their home.⁸ In Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe fondly recalls his piano lessons with Johann Andreas Bismann;⁹ and the classes referred to commenced in 1763, when he was fourteen. In his memoirs Goethe does not accentuate this late beginning, but informs us that he was too impatient with finger drills to become a really good performer. Nevertheless, he played the compositions and dances of his time, marches, minuets and polonaise, ‘not at all badly’.¹⁰ From 1763, Goethe and Cornelia regularly attended services at Barfüßer- und Katharinenkirche where Telemann had become Director of Music. In Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe records how he studied the texts of the Sunday offerings of Church music zealously and his first parodies were inspired by these chorales. In Leipzig Goethe formed a close acquaintance with Johann Adam Hiller, whose Singspiele captivated him. Through Hiller Goethe was introduced to the oldest German music periodical, Wöchentliche Nachrichten, die Musik betreffend, founded by the composer, and in his final diary extract of 1770, he transcribes an extract on musical declamation. At Leipzig he attended Hiller’s Gewandthaus concerts regularly, where Hiller’s ballad operas and Hasse’s oratorios were performed. While in Strasbourg, Goethe took lessons on the cello (177071),¹¹ and he learned to play well enough to accompany Maximiliane La Roche on the spinet in 1774. Through his association with Herder, Goethe became interested in his native folk music and he agreed with Herder that ‘folk songs that are not sung are not folk songs or only half’.¹² His involvement with folk music not only inspired him to create numerous parodies to the folk tunes collected by Herder; he himself went out into the countryside to listen to folk songs, memorize them and have them transcribed on his return. Goethe’s interest in vocal music led him to compose a rhythmic setting of ‘In te, Domine, speravi et non confundar in aeternum’, for four-part choir. A year later he asked Zelter to set the words to music for the same medium. The composer acquiesced and in comparing the two renditions, Goethe recognized Jommelli’s influence on his own compositional style.¹³ In later years Goethe formed his own Hausgesangsverein¹⁴ and sang the baritone part in their weekly performances.¹⁵

Goethe’s Italienische Reise records a similar enthusiasm for music.¹⁶ There are many references throughout the course of Goethe’s travelogue that bear testimony to a growing familiarity with Italian sixteenth-century church composers and, in particular, Palestrina, Morales, Allegri and Marcelli.¹⁷ While he was in Italy Goethe commissioned Philipp Christoph Kayser to study ancient church music and in Milan they studied Ambrosian chant. In his journal Goethe reflects upon the modal structure of Greek melodies, and the arrangement of voices in Marcello’s psalm setting, ‘Estro poetico-armonico’, which he considers ‘unbelievably original’. Kayser accompanied Goethe as he sang through the music to gain ‘a preliminary conception’ of each work. Inspired by their activities, Goethe considered collaboration with a composer on a work such as Pergolesi’s intermezzo, Serva Padrona, and he compiled extensive notes on early baroque Italian church music. Yet it is not only church music that enchanted Goethe; he was also moved by the native folk music of Italy. In his journal the chorus of the gondoliers beguiles him, as he listens to them at nightfall,¹⁸ and he philosophizes on the folk song of the women of the Lido who sing Tasso to similar melodies.¹⁹ He celebrates the music heard on the streets of Rome²⁰ and analyses it in musical terms.²¹ In the field of opera, Goethe’s appreciation was apparent both in his attendance at the theatre²² and in his collaboration with Kayser in Rome.²³ While in Rome he attended Cimarosa’s comic opera L’Impresario in angustie and a reflection of his father’s hospitality with musicians²⁴ is recognized in his employment of musicians from the local opera company to perform excerpts from the latest intermezzi.²⁵

Goethe’s interest in opera neither began nor ended with his sojourn in Italy; it had, in fact, occupied him for several years. As Director of the Weimar Theatre from 1791 to 1817, Goethe arranged for over one hundred operas and thirty-one Singspiele to be performed. His desire to improve the Singspiel to an artistic level commensurate with the other arts in Germany inspired his collaboration with composers and theoreticians, such as André, Reichardt and Zelter. However, when Goethe heard Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, he realized this aim had been accomplished. His sequel to Die Zauberflöte reveals his desire to work with a composer of such genius, yet after Mozart’s death Goethe believed that his ambition would never be fulfilled. Although he gradually stopped writing libretti, he maintained his position as Director of the Weimar Hoftheater and under his aegis, Mozart’s operas were repeatedly performed.²⁶ In addition to Mozart’s opera, Goethe arranged for works by composers such as Dittersdorf, Benda, Paesiello, Cimarosa, Monsigny, Dalayrac, Grétry, Salieri and Sarti to be staged, while operettas by Paër, Mayr and Spontini were presented in later years. Despite Goethe’s wishes, only two of Gluck’s works were staged:Iphigénie en Tauride in 1800 and Armide in 1832, and he supported Hummel in his direction of Rossini’s operas: Sémiramide, La Gazza Ladra, La Siège de Corinthe, William Tell and Mosé in Egitto. Goethe’s ‘dislike’ of Weber’s and Beethoven’s music is continually cited as proof of his musical conservatism, yet he arranged for Weber’s Silvana and Der Freischütz; and Beethoven’s Egmont and Fidelio to be performed between 1812 and 1816.

Goethe’s collaboration with Zelter, which began in 1799 and lasted until 1832, the year in which both friends died, gives further proof of a lifelong appreciation of music. Goethe’s correspondence with the composer is an important source for his understanding of music, and it testifies to his musical interest and intelligence. In his letters to Zelter, Goethe’s genuine need for music in his life is apparent. He regularly attends concerts and soirées, and when approaching sixty he organizes a Singschule on Sunday mornings in his house to make music under his direction.²⁷ However, constant musical activity alone is not enough for Goethe; we also witness his sincere concern to understand the art. After performances he consults Zelter about the music he has heard, and he seeks his opinion on various composers. The history of music interests Goethe as part of the chronicle of human culture, and he interrogates Zelter constantly on such issues, both in letters and in person.²⁸ Through Zelter, Goethe becomes acquainted with the music of Bach, and the depth of his response is revealed in a letter to Zelter, where he recalls his first encounter with the composer’s music.²⁹ Realizing that Bach had been susceptible to certain foreign influences, Goethe looks up Couperin in a musical dictionary and expresses the hope that Zelter will ‘begin a friendly correspondence with me about Couperin and Bach’.³⁰ He listens ardently to Das Wohltempierte Klavier,³¹ the preludes and fugues,³² and delights in Zelter’s choral performances of Handel and Bach. Inspired by Baroque music Goethe steeps himself in Handel’s ‘spiritual strength’: he studies Samson and Judas Maccabœus, and arranges a performance of the Messiah to take place in his home.³³ His love for the melismatic melodies of Bach and Handel reveals the independence of his musical judgement and suggests how his opinion on setting words to music is not as conservative as is traditionally held. Goethe’s correspondence with Zelter reveals his desire to obtain a picture of musical development in general. In a letter to Zelter dated 4 January 1819, Goethe records a series of instructional recitals in Berka, ‘where the Inspector (Schütz) played to me every day for three to four hours – at my request – in historical sequence selections from Sebastian Bach to Beethoven, including Philipp Emanuel, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Dusseck too, and other similar composers’³⁴ and almost ten years later he recalls these recitals.³⁵ In a similar fashion, he urges the twenty-two year-old Mendelssohn to play him pieces in chronological order and then to explain what each composer had done in order to further the art.³⁶ He records these private audiences in his diary on 24 May 1830³⁷ and his correspondence with Zelter reveals a lifelong appreciation of music.³⁸

Goethe’s relationship with both musicians reveals a certain reliance on an interpreter to bring music alive to him. He was aware of his own incomplete musical education and refers to it in his correspondence with Zelter.³⁹ Yet Goethe’s lack of technical skill in music should not be taken as definite proof that the poet was ‘unmusical’. His lack of technical ability in score reading and performance does not result from a lack of musicality, but arises through his late start in learning an instrument. While Goethe grew up with music, he was fourteen before he learned to play piano; flute and cello were studied in later years. This certainly created a degree of dependence on Zelter’s opinion of modern music and yet, conscious of his inadequacy, Goethe was industrious in acquiring a greater knowledge of the art. In relation to the traditional perception of Zelter as musical mentor, Goethe’s correspondence with the composer is interesting. Frequently it is Goethe who opens up their musical discussion, and as his knowledge grew, his dependence on Zelter diminished. Following a performance of a Greek choir at the Easter services in 1808, he remarks on the close relation between the Russian hymns and Sistine chants, and asks Zelter about the origins of Byzantine music.⁴⁰ Zelter’s reply reveals that Goethe’s musical knowledge had surpassed him in this area, and he corresponds with the philologist F. A. Wolf on this matter.⁴¹

One of the most interesting documents in Goethe’s communication with Zelter is his discussion of major and minor tonalities. That Goethe was the leader in this discussion, and not reliant on Zelter’s opinion, is evident in his letters to Schlosser where the debate is continued. In contrast to Schlosser, Goethe questions the association of the minor mode with melancholy, and he relates major and minor tonalities to the duality in human nature. For Goethe, the major mode was an expression of all that is objective and connects the soul to the outer world, and the minor tonality is the mode of introspection and concentration. The poet’s preoccupation with musical polarity is revealed through his correspondence with Zelter,⁴² and it is clear that he does not always accept the composer’s opinion. While Zelter’s conciliatory response brought the debate to a halt, Goethe reopened the discussion a year before his death, and it is Zelter who agrees with Goethe’s musical opinion.⁴³ Goethe’s first form...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Plates
• List of Musical Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Perceptions of Goethe and Schubert
• Part II: Schubert’s Goethe Settings
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Discography
• Endnotes
• General Index