Author: Marie Sumner Lott

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 750

ISBN-13:

This dissertation examines the reciprocal relationship between receivers and producers of chamber music in the nineteenth century and the effect of that relationship on composition and musical language in the interim between the last works of Beethoven and Schubert and the mature works of Brahms. Although modem histories propagate the assumption that one notion of "true" chamber music prevailed in this period and that composers struggled first and foremost to "live up to" the late works of Beethoven, I propose that multiple chamber-music styles developed in response to the specific tastes ofaudience niches within a diverse musical culture. A reevaluation of the surviving scores, publication records, and journalism indicates that several distinct niches of avid chamber musicians developed within this half century, each with its own expectations and social and musical conventions. Taking each of these (playing- )audiences in turn, the dissertation portrays a cross-section of the world of chamber music between 1830 and 1880, showing a dynamic mixture of styles and ideas that coexisted and cross-pollinated, and creating a model for the exploration of an ongoing dialog between composers and their audiences throughout the history of Western music. Chapter 1 addresses the notion of "audience" as a broad term encompassing both the traditional definition (listening audiences, i.e., groups gathered for the live presentation of a musical work) and, more generally, all potential recipients of music, including purchasers of sheet music and scores, who came to dominate the musical consumer market in this period. Historians and musicologists have yet to embrace this "unseen" audience in their assessments of musical life in the nineteenth century, favoring instead the "seen" audience represented by public concert attendance and series subscriptions. Each of the middle three chapters describes a particular chamber-music audience and the musical style that addresses it. Chapter 2 focuses on the domestic sphere of the middle classes, with a discussion of works by Friedrich Kuhlau, George Onslow, and Louis Spohr, ending with an examination of Schubert's late chamber works and their distinctive use of the domestic style. A brief interlude between Chapters 2 and 3 introduces the notion of "progressive" chamber music, a term that seemed antithetical to mid-nineteenth-century music-political writers who, like modem-day commentators, often deemed chamber music inherently conservative. Chapter 3 examines four programmatic works that offer distinctive approaches to the incorporation of extramusical texts or programs in the string quartet (including works by Onslow, Gade, Raff, and Smetana) and the audiences these composers sought to cultivate. Although Onslow's "Bullet" Quintet addressed an exclusive body of friends and family, the other three composers clearly aligned themselves with the avant-garde musical establishment of their day: a Copenhagen-based circle of Schumann disciples, in Gade's case, and the "New German" supporters, in the case of Raff and Smetana. Chapter 4 presents another approach to "progressiveness" in the string quartet, analyzing works that enter into dialog with the past and with each other as composers such as Mendelssohn, Norbert Burgmtiller, Schumann, and Berwald experimented with form, texture, and thematic content, often alluding to well-known and enigmatic works by Beethoven (especially his op. 132 quartet in A minor). The final chapter reevaluates a few seminal works in Brahms's chambermusic output in light of the variety of venues and audiences, the aims and considerations, that informed his development as a consummate chamber musician and composer. The dissertation ends with a call to rethink our notions of composers' intentions in writing music during an age that saw the rapid rise and fall of a highly literate, passionate, and invested musical culture far removed from the worlds of the aristocratic court and of the concert stage. By changing our own perspective slightly, we may come to a fresher and more meaningful understanding of the musical language used in today's well-known chamber works, and we might discover "new" works ready for a revival.