Schubert In The European Imagination: V. 2, Fin-De-Siecle V

Description:
'Schubert in the European Imagination: Fin-de-Siecle Vienna' examines the composer's historical and cultural reception by Viennese modernists. By 1900, issues of gender had crossed with those of nationalism, especially in the city that came to consider Schubert as its favorite musical son. As Messing here explains and explores in rich detail, composers, writers, and visual artists manipulated the conventions of the composer and gender in ways that critiqued the very culture that had created this image.In order to expose the hypocrisy of social relationships, painter Gustav Klimt and writers Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Peter Altenberg exploited the collision between innocence and sexuality, and Schubert was a readily familiar sign for the former. The composer Arnold Schoenberg substituted his own formulation of Schubert in place of the older, popular conceptions of the composer, adding him to an illustrious list of figures whose significance he sought to redesign. Scott Messing is Charles A. Dana Professor of Music at Alma College, and author of 'Neoclassicism in Music' (University of Rochester Press, 1996).

Review:
This is cultural history at its best -- 'thick' history that uncovers the multiple, fascinating forces at work between the centennial celebrations of Schubert's birth and death. A dazzling work of reception history, Messing's book illuminates Schubert's role in the politics of gender, race, and cultural identity in fin-de-siecle Vienna. In so doing it provides the long-awaited musical counterpart to Carl Schorske's classic study Fin-de-siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture. -- Glenn Watkins, Earl V. Moore Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, and author of Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War A graceful, far-ranging, important study of fin-de-siecle perceptions of the Viennese composer as they affected national politics and cultural self-definition in the early twentieth century. The conceptual legacy of a feminine Schubert is scrutinized through the lens of political history, art, literature, music, and the inquisitive but choosy new science of sexuality. Proceeding with the contagious tempo of a fine mystery novel, this is 'reception history' at its broadest, yet most exacting, often surprising best. -- Alessandra Comini, University Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita, Southern Methodist University

Author Biography:
Scott Messing is Charles A. Dana Professor of Music at Alma College.