Aesthetic and Cultural Issues in Schumann’s " Timothy D. Taylor International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Dec., 1990), 161-178. Stable URL htp://links jstor-org/siisici=0351-5796% 28199012%2921%3A2%3C 161%3AAACTIS%3E2,0,CO%3B2-9 International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music is currently published by Croatian Musicological Society, ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hutp:/www jstor.org{joumnals/eroat.himl Each copy of any part of @ JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission. STOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact jstor-info@ umich edu, hupswww jstor.org/ ‘Sun Feb 22 14:37:06 2004‘7. D. TAYLOR, SCHUMANN’S KINDERSZENEN ..., IRASM 2 (80) 2, 18-178 161 AESTHETIC AND CULTURAL ISSUES IN SCHUMANN’S KINDERSZENEN* TIMOTHY D. TAYLOR RG: gaan semua, onterence Paper 450 Cloverdale, ANN ARBOR, ‘Primijena ipso, MI 48105, U.S.A. Brinegeno! Sule ae Abstract — Summary ‘The decline of patronage structures perhaps the first realization by any for musicians during the end of the 18th Composer of the autonomy of the mu- and beginning of the 19th centuries sical work. Schumann compensated for Fesulted in the growing perception of this autonomy by” bringing himself the musical work as an autonomous ob- overtly into the work with that title, as Ject, which necessitated new meanings well as both attaching and detaching {or music. The last movement of Robert _this movement from the rest of Kinder= Schumann's Kinderszenen, op. 15, 1688, _szenen with a variety of effective mu- ‘entitled Der Dichter spricht= marks sical devices. ‘There is a familiar set of cliches we use to describe the changes which ‘occurred in music between the 18th and 19th centuries: this was the time of the rise of the genius, the virtuoso, the increasing importance of extra- musical concerns such’ as words and dramatic programs, and the new ‘emphasis on individuality and originality.t ‘The last movement of Schumann's Kinderszenen, «Der Dichter spricht,.« composed in 1838 exemplifies many of these trends, and I believe that Schumann addressed some of them in this work. »Der Dichter sprichts, after all, raises some questions, such as: Why a poet, instead of a composer? And not only the idea of speech, but speaking music — music as language. And, if Schumann entitled the last movement of Kinder- * A revised version of a paper read at the Irish Chapter of the Royal Musteal Association, ‘The Queen's University of Belfast, 13 May 1060. "Another ramification of the objectification of music is not directly relevant to this discussion but should nonetheless be noted; that 1s the rise of the historical sense, or historical awareness of eatller works, 1 think this occurred because, once music became an object as a result of {ts being sold, it was divereed from its previous Values In use and ritual, so 10th-century artists could view earlier art as an object ‘and remove ft from its former context of use and ritual, as Terry EAGLETON notes In Literary Theory: An Introduction, Univ. of Minnesota, Press, Minneapolis 1983,162 TB. TAYLOR, SCHUMANN'S KINDERSZENEN ..., IRASM 2 (990 2, 18178 szenen »Der Dichter spricht,« what was he doing for the previous twelve ‘movements? In this essay I will offer an overall explanation for these various new trends, and thus the impetus behind Schumann's choice of titles. Many of these and other issues we consider to be typical of the 19th-century have a common source: the changes in society's view of music as a result of music's entry into the marketplace. This idea is explored at length by Jacques Attali in Noise: The Political Economy of Music.? His argument is essentially that when music entered the marketplace it became an object, and this led to many of the values that we now associate with the 19th century. My discussion falls broadly into two parts. In the first, I take Attali's, ideas about music in the marketplace and examine the early 19th-century with them in mind. A large task, so I will confine myself to issues which I believe were specifically raised by Schumann in Kinderszenen. In the second section, I examine Schumann’s thoughts and practices as they relate to the general trends, using »Der Dichter spricht« as an unusually clear example of the changes wrought by music’s entry into the market- place, changes largely unrealized by Schumann's contemporaries, but recognized by him to some extent. ‘Attali argues that music's values before it entered the marketplace were values or meanings in ritual, values in church and court: use-values. But after music entered the marketplace, it had to have a monetary, or exchange-value, since it was going to be sold. He writes that the process of valuation »took place in opposition to the entire feudal system, in which the work, the absolute property of the lord, had no autonomous existence.«? 2 ‘Translated by Brian Massumi, Theory and History of Literature, no. 16, edited by Wiad Godzieh and Jochen Schulte-Sasse, Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1905, Many of Attali's ideas were developed from other Marxist critics, such as ‘Theodor W. ADORNO; his essay ~On the Fetish Character in Music and the Re- gression of Listening, (in The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, edited by Andrew ‘Arato and Elke Gebhardt (Continuum, New York 1982), is particularly relevant to this discussion, + J, ATTALL, Noise, p. 51, Richard PETZOLDT notes that Haydn's 1761 con- tact with the Esternazy family still assigns all rights of authorship over to his employer. Petzoldt argues that this practice was »rejected by musicians who were developing greater consciousness of themselves as artiste~ (~The Economic Conditions of the I8th-Century Musician, In The Social Status of the Professional Musician from the Middie Ages to the 10th Century, edited by Walter Salmen, translated by Herbert Kaufman and Barbara Reisner, Sociology of Music, no. 1 (Pendragon, New ‘York. 1983}, p. 177). This portion of the 1761 contract reads thus: 4. The sald Vice-Chapel-Biaster shall be under obligation to compose such music as His Serene Highness may command, and neither to communicate such compasitions to any other person, nor to allow them to be copied, Dut he shall retain them for the absolute Sse of His Highness, and not compose for any other person without the knowledge ‘and permission of His Highness (quoted by H. C. ROBBINS LANDON and David Wyn JONES, Haydn: His Life and Music, Indiana Univ. Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 1988, p. 118).