Listening to Reason : Culture, Subjectivity, and Nineteenth-Century Music

This pathbreaking work reveals the pivotal role of music--musical works and musical culture--in debates about society, self, and culture that forged European modernity through the "long nineteenth century." Michael Steinberg argues that, from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, music not only reflected but also embodied modern subjectivity as it increasingly engaged and criticized old regimes of power, belief, and representation. His purview ranges from Mozart to Mahler, and from the sacred to the secular, including opera as well as symphonic and solo instrumental music. Defining subjectivity as the experience rather than the position of the "I," Steinberg argues that music's embodiment of subjectivity involved its apparent capacity to "listen" to itself, its past, its desires. Nineteenth-century music, in particular music from a north German Protestant sphere, inspired introspection in a way that the music and art of previous periods, notably the Catholic baroque with its emphasis on the visual, did not. The book analyzes musical subjectivity initially from Mozart through Mendelssohn, then seeks it, in its central chapter, in those aspects of Wagner that contradict his own ideological imperialism, before finally uncovering its survival in the post-Wagnerian recovery from musical and other ideologies. Engagingly written yet theoretically sophisticated, __Listening to Reason__ represents a startlingly original corrective to cultural history's long-standing inhibition to engage with music while presenting a powerful alternative vision of the modern. This pathbreaking work reveals the pivotal role of music--musical works and musical culture--in debates about society, self, and culture that forged European modernity through the'long nineteenth century.'Michael Steinberg argues that, from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, music not only reflected but also embodied modern subjectivity as it increasingly engaged and criticized old regimes of power, belief, and representation. His purview ranges from Mozart to Mahler, and from the sacred to the secular, including opera as well as symphonic and solo instrumental music. Defining subjectivity as the experience rather than the position of the'I,'Steinberg argues that music's embodiment of subjectivity involved its apparent capacity to'listen'to itself, its past, its desires. Nineteenth-century music, in particular music from a north German Protestant sphere, inspired introspection in a way that the music and art of previous periods, notably the Catholic baroque with its emphasis on the visual, did not. The book analyzes musical subjectivity initially from Mozart through Mendelssohn, then seeks it, in its central chapter, in those aspects of Wagner that contradict his own ideological imperialism, before finally uncovering its survival in the post-Wagnerian recovery from musical and other ideologies. Engagingly written yet theoretically sophisticated, Listening to Reason represents a startlingly original corrective to cultural history's long-standing inhibition to engage with music while presenting a powerful alternative vision of the modern.Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions. "This pathbreaking work reveals the pivotal role of music-musical works and musical culture-in debates about society, self, and culture that forged European modernity through the "long nineteenth century." Michael Steinberg argues that, from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, music not only reflected but also embodied modern subjectivity as it increasingly engaged and criticized old regimes of power, belief, and representation. His purview ranges from Mozart to Mahler, and from the sacred to the secular, including opera as well as symphonic and solo instrumental music. Defining subjectivity as the experience rather than the position of the "I," Steinberg argues that music's embodiment of subjectivity involved its apparent capacity to "listen" to itself, its past, its desires. Nineteenth-century music, in particular music from a north German Protestant sphere, inspired introspection in a way that the music and art of previous periods, notably the Catholic baroque with its emphasis on the visual, did not. The book analyzes musical subjectivity initially from Mozart through Mendelssohn, then seeks it, in its central chapter, in those aspects of Wagner that contradict his own ideological imperialism, before finally uncovering its survival in the post-Wagnerian recovery from musical and other ideologies."--Book Jacket Staging Subjectivity In The Mozart/da Ponte Operas. Staging Subjectivity ; Don Giovanni And The Scene Of Patricide ; Le Nozze Di Figaro And The Scene Of Emancipation ; Cosi Fan Tutte And The Scene Of Instruction -- Beethoven: Heroism And Abstraction. Heroism And Abstraction ; Heroism And Anxiety ; Fidelio ; The Symphony No. 9 -- Canny And Uncanny Histories In Biedermeier Music. Biedermeier Music ; Mendelssohn's Canny Histories ; Schumann's Uncanny Histories ; Back To Schubert -- The Family Romances Of Music Drama. The Family Romances Of Music Drama ; Siegmund's Death ; Subjectivity And Identity -- The Voice Of The People At The Moment Of The Nation. People And Nations ; Brahms, 1868 ; Verdi, 1874 ; Dvořák, 1890 -- Minor Modernisms. Music Trauma, Or, Is There Life After Wagner? ; Three Fins-de-siècle ; The Road Into The Open -- The Musical Unconscious. Michael P. Steinberg. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Preface 12 INTRODUCTION 18 CHAPTER ONE Staging Subjectivity in the Mozart / Da Ponte Operas 35 CHAPTER TWO Beethoven: Heroism and Abstraction 76 CHAPTER THREE Canny and Uncanny Histories in Biedermeier Music 111 CHAPTER FOUR The Family Romances of Music Drama 150 CHAPTER FIVE The Voice of the People at the Moment of the Nation 180 CHAPTER SIX Minor Modernisms 210 CHAPTER SEVEN The Musical Unconscious 243 Index 254