Hoffmann’s Musical Modernity and the Pursuit of Sentimental Unity
E. T. A. Hoffmann is widely known as the leading champion of musical romanticism, as exemplified by his review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Yet his relation to new music is far more complex. Four years after the review, in an article titled “Old and New Church Music,” he condemns recent musical efforts. Turning to the bygone age of Palestrina for comparison, he claims it harbored the most glorious music ever. Hoffmann, that staunch Beethovenian, laments that the high point of music has passed.
This paper argues for a new reading of Hoffmann that encompasses both his championing of the new and his grieving for a lost musical antiquity. His concerns were central to an elegiac discourse of musical modernity, whose contributors ranged from critics of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and other journals to the literary figures of early German romanticism. My narrative bridges scholarship on turn-of-the-century music criticism and the discourse of aesthetics to reveal a wide-ranging social project. Resonating with writings from Schiller to Hegel, the elegiac moderns worried that new music was in danger of losing its social relevance. They saw it severed from religious practices which had formerly provided its purpose, recognized that its newfound mercurial style threatened its intelligibility, and hence feared for its ability to find a new role in the world. One thing was clear: the modern musical work required rehabilitation. As Hoffmann’s review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony demonstrates, music now compelled a significant analytical attempt to secure its meaning. I argue that Hoffmann’s celebrated essay belongs with many neglected journalistic writings of the period. Charged with making modern music intelligible, these texts developed methods of criticism and analysis foundational to music discourse today.
E. T. A. Hoffmann is widely known as the leading champion of musical romanticism, as exemplified by his review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Yet his relation to new music is far more complex. Four years after the review, in an article titled “Old and New Church Music,” he condemns recent musical efforts. Turning to the bygone age of Palestrina for comparison, he claims it harbored the most glorious music ever. Hoffmann, that staunch Beethovenian, laments that the high point of music has passed.
This paper argues for a new reading of Hoffmann that encompasses both his championing of the new and his grieving for a lost musical antiquity. His concerns were central to an elegiac discourse of musical modernity, whose contributors ranged from critics of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and other journals to the literary figures of early German romanticism. My narrative bridges scholarship on turn-of-the-century music criticism and the discourse of aesthetics to reveal a wide-ranging social project. Resonating with writings from Schiller to Hegel, the elegiac moderns worried that new music was in danger of losing its social relevance. They saw it severed from religious practices which had formerly provided its purpose, recognized that its newfound mercurial style threatened its intelligibility, and hence feared for its ability to find a new role in the world. One thing was clear: the modern musical work required rehabilitation. As Hoffmann’s review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony demonstrates, music now compelled a significant analytical attempt to secure its meaning. I argue that Hoffmann’s celebrated essay belongs with many neglected journalistic writings of the period. Charged with making modern music intelligible, these texts developed methods of criticism and analysis foundational to music discourse today.