Not Another Music History Cliché!: The Myth of the Canon's Invisible ... https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-myth-of-...

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Not Another Music History Cliché!

Debunking myths and calling out lazy writing in published articles about classical music.

#MeToo19th century fabrications artist-hero Bach Beethoven Brahms fake news How to fix classical music
Mendelssohn Mozart popular culture science snobbery Wagner What is musicology? women composers

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2017 LINDA HAS A PHD IN

MUSICOLOGY FROM UC SANTA
BARBARA, SPECIALIZING IN
The Myth of the Canon's Invisible Hand (Guest post by Anne C. RECEPTION HISTORY.
Shreffler) Linda Shaver-Gleason

From Linda: Hello, everyone! This year has been remarkable for (among other View my complete profile
things) public debates about women's experiences in our society, from the
Women's March to the #metoo campaign. Just as the previous two posts on this LIKE WHAT YOU SEE?
blog have featured a multitude of voices, this post comes from someone else:
Harvard musicologist Anne Shreffler. Many thanks to Dr. Shreffler for Buy Linda a Coffee!
contributing to our continued discussion of the classical music canon.
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“But isn’t musical quality more
important than gender?”

Anyone who has ever proposed a greater

inclusion of women composers and GET UPDATES ON TWITTER

composers of color—into a curriculum, a Follow @MusHistCliches

concert program, or an archive—is familiar
with this kind of response. One of the most
persistent myths in music history is that the SUBSCRIBE
classical music canon came about as the Beethoven, the disembodied name of a Posts
result of a rational, inevitable process that musical deity, in Boston's Symphony Hall

ensured the preservation of only the "best" Comments

works, those that "stood the test of time." An influential proponent of this view
was the German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus, who maintained in 1977 that the SEARCH THIS BLOG
musical canon was not made but "found." According to Dahlhaus, we can't
Search
shape or change the canon, since it was created long ago by the invisible hand
of tradition.
BLOG ARCHIVE
How exactly is this selection process supposed to have worked? One imagines ► 2019 (4)
a fictional court of justice in the heavenly spheres, presided over by—whom? ► 2018 (15)
(God? St. Cecilia? Herbert von Karajan?), that conducts annual reviews of ALL
▼ 2017 (11)
the compositions by ALL the people, and hands down impartial judgment on
▼ December (4)
their "musical quality." The verdict: Sibelius, yes; his contemporaries Amy Beach
and Will Marion Cook, no. The Myth of the Canon's
Invisible Hand (Guest
post...
In the wake of recent conversations about the egregious underrepresentation of
The "reception and perception
women and people of color in the classical repertory, we are confronted yet
of women composers" ...
again (for example in this blog: here, here, and here) with the deep-seated belief
If we've never heard of
in the “invisible hand” selecting for musical quality. The minuscule numbers of
women composers from
women composers programmed by major symphony orchestras last year (as past ...

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reported by Ricky O’Bannon and Sarah E. Baer) are depressing, and at the Did Bach raise 20 children?
same time—like the recent revelations about sexual misconduct by conductors Writing composer biogr...
and teachers—they are totally unsurprising to anyone familiar with the classical
► April (1)
music world.
► March (1)

Why, if "everyone" already knew, are we only now having this larger ► February (2)
conversation about representation, responsibility, and repertoire? Why are we ► January (3)
still fighting this battle, after so many skirmishes, and 24 years after the
publication of Marcia Citron’s groundbreaking book, Gender and the Musical ► 2016 (27)
Canon?

Obvious reasons include institutional inertia, career ambitions, intellectual

laziness, and individual bias. But there is another, less well understood reason
why a virtually all-white, all-male repertory has been tolerated for so long: the
widespread preconception that music has no gender, or much of anything else.
German philosophical idealism, which flourished in the 19th century
simultaneously with the rise of the (mostly Germanic) musical canon, valorized
Geist, mental and spiritual modes of experience and thought over embodied
ones. The masculine was firmly associated with the realm of ideas and
transcendence, while the feminine represented bodily limitations and drives.

Music's incorporeality and semantic imprecision have lent themselves to an

aesthetic of absoluteness or purity, and to the fiction of an automatically self-
regulating canon. In this sense the names of the famous composers who
populate our concert program (and peer over the audience in Harvard’s Paine
Hall) were originally to be understood not as men, or even as actual humans,
but as prophets and high priests of music, unencumbered by distasteful
residues from the real world and therefore beyond physical characteristics like
gender.

The problem is that only male attributes,

and males themselves, are allowed to be
beyond gender. In this sense,
"Beethoven"—the name engraved over the
proscenium at Symphony Hall in Boston,
the 7-foot tall statue in the hallway of New
England Conservatory—does not have
gender, but Louise Farrenc does.

Feminists are often accused of "reducing"

everything to gender. But we as a society
have been judging music on the basis of
gender all along, by privileging specific
cultural notions of masculinity in the guise of
gender neutrality.

Bronze statue of Beethoven at the New

A fascinating 2015 article in Science has
England Conservatory of Music, looming
showed that women are underrepresented
larger than he did in his mortal life.
in domains that are believed to require
talent or brilliance as opposed to hard work. These include philosophy, math,
music composition, and, one might add, orchestra conducting. When quality and
achievement are hard to measure, and governed by subjective notions of
genius, then men will always win out.

It turns out that the invisible hand of the classical music canon works much like

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Adam Smith’s invisible hand of capitalism: as a conscious perpetuation of the

interests of powerful people (mostly men), with the whole process disguised as
natural and inevitable. When the mask of a gender-neutral objectivity is
removed, we are suddenly confronted with the pink and wrinkled reality of
classical music.

This is a liberating moment, and it could be transformative for a field for which
"conservative" is far too mild a word. Let's recognize the compositional
achievements of women and people of color, expand the repertory, diversify our
ensembles, and hire more women conductors. While we're at it, let's rethink why
we want to listen to music in the first place. We need to reimagine our musical
institutions as places of discovery and wonder, rather than ritual celebrations of
an ossified repertory, and reshape them as places centered in our communities
rather than in the abstract realm of Art.

Since the imaginary court of musical justice does not exist, it’s up to us to create
a more diverse and equitable canon.

Thanks to J. Andrés Ballesteros, Shaw Pong Lui, Linda Shaver-Gleason, Henry

Shreffler, and Barbara White.

Anne Shreffler is a musicologist who writes about the musical canon, the
political and ideological associations of music, and the European and American
avant-garde after 1945. She teaches at Harvard University.

Posted by Linda Shaver-Gleason at 8:45 AM

Labels: Amy Beach, Anne Midgette, Anne Shreffler, artist-hero, Beethoven, canon, Carl
Dahlhouse, feminism, guest posts, How to fix classical music, invisible hand,
meritocracy, Symphony Hall, Will Robin, women composers

14 comments:

zarafa December 27, 2017 at 11:57 AM

With greatest respect, and not wanting to stir a controversy, I would like to
complicate a thought that Dr. Shreffler expresses in this post:

“German philosophical idealism, which flourished in the 19th century

simultaneously with the rise of the (mostly Germanic) musical canon, valorized
Geist, mental and spiritual modes of experience and thought over embodied
ones. The masculine was firmly associated with the realm of ideas and
transcendence, while the feminine represented bodily limitations and drives.”

Within the German idealist tradition of “absolute music,” Joseph Joachim

certainly takes pride of place. It was he, more than anyone, who established
instrumental music, and particularly chamber music, as a quasi-religious art,
with the Joachim Quartet concerts in the Berlin Singverein. In his youth,
Joachim was an outstanding, but fairly run-of-the-mill virtuoso. His
transformation to the well-known “Priest of Art” took place at mid-century, in his
late teens, with his introduction to the Salonnière and noted “Friend of Goethe
and Beethoven,” Bettina von Arnim (who, together with E. T. A. Hoffmann, was a
prime mover in the establishment of the Beethoven myth, the foundation of the
canon, exemplified by the statue pictured in this post). Joachim lived with
Bettina for two summers, and was obsessively infatuated with her daughter
Gisela. I have just written an article, (“For we are all born to the ideal”)
chronicling their eight-year relationship, which was one of a very powerful
mentor with a very vulnerable mentee.

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Shortly after meeting Bettina, Joachim came under the influence of another
idealist, the “Priestess of Art,” Clara Schumann, with whom he was to perform
for many years. The effect of these two powerful women on the young and
impressionable Joachim was transformative. Their influence was to valorize
Geist, and simultaneously to “use” the young Joachim (I employ that word
advisedly) as an agent to establish a (mostly Germanic) musical canon,
grounded in Beethoven, and including Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn
and Robert Schumann (much as Bettina used sculptors and others to promote
her idealized image of Goethe). Before meeting Bettina, Joachim was an
associate and partner of Liszt in Weimar; he was a virtuoso who often performed
works by, for example, Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst. After meeting Bettina, his solo
repertoire shrank to a handful of “transcendent” works, including the Beethoven
concerto and the Bach Chaconne, which he continued to perform, more-or-less
ad nauseam, for the rest of his career.

I think to say that in 19th-century Germany “The masculine was firmly

associated with the realm of ideas and transcendence, while the feminine
represented bodily limitations and drives” is to stand the whole notion of the
Romantic salon, and consequently the influence of women, on its head. A large
part of the reason that women were constrained to the home and the salon is
precisely that, within that culture, they were looked upon by men as spiritual and
intellectual guides — the keepers of the flame — and were therefore to be kept
sacrosanct, away from the world of occasional concerns. Bettina emerged from
the Goethe-worshipping, neo-Platonic "Geselligkeit" of Rahel Varnhagen’s
celebrated salon. Another of Rahel’s protégés was Alexander von Humboldt, the
founder of the Berlin University and a principal architect of the idealist German
idea of "Bildung," from which our notion of a liberal education, also divorced
from the world of occasional concerns, derives.

Such women enjoyed something of a privileged position. Bettina could speak

with impunity, and even in a time of harsh censorship could publish a book,
“Dies Buch gehört dem König,” lecturing the King of Prussia on his
responsibilities. Who was an adolescent Joachim to stand up to such a powerful
woman? In my opinion, Joachim listened to her, and to Clara Schumann, much
to his detriment. Imagine if he had stayed where he was, in the middle way
between Liszt and Brahms?
Robert Eshbach
Reply

Replies

Anonymous December 28, 2017 at 10:25 PM

Thank you for your criticism. I think it's very apt to the discussion of
Shreffler's piece above and helps put her argument into a more sound
perspective.

Gender is complicated, especially in our current society with its

heightened attention to normative standards. I second your thoughts
and think a macro perspective of gender, race, etc. in the musical
cannon allows for a greater investigation. I find that the problem lies
not so much in sociological factors as ones pertaining to institutional
power, and standardized "rules" that allow for a sort of heirarchic pass
through the gambit towards class security. However, I become more
abstract than is necessary.

Programming should be based on interesting compositions,

regardless of a composer's identity, of any variety. I am not a
proponent of iconoclasm, which aims to tear down statues and busts
of venerated composers, among other figures whose ideology socially
offends us. The problem lies in programming practices that are aimed

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at ticket sales, power-interests with boards, corporate structures that

have infringed on any freedom in creative license. Small
organizations are where real innovation in the realm of "canonic
tradition" are actually occurring. These groups are highlighting
composer's of interest based on their identities, not to mention the
merit of their works, not-withstanding. Again, all programming should
be based on the aesthetic merits of a composition, not putting a
composers identity first. It is much more difficult to change the
programming habits of large institutions which have become so jaded
within their brand that expansion becomes difficult, if not impossible.

Linda Shaver-Gleason December 29, 2017 at 7:44 AM

The final paragraph of your comment is exactly the statement that
Anne is addressing: "It should be based on merit, not identity!" The
issue is that there is no "neutral" or "objective" way to determine what
you call "aesthetic merit." Our aesthetics have already been shaped
by historical biases.

It would be lovely if male and female (an non-binary, and so on)

composers started on a level playing field so that equal opportunity
would be a matter of maintaining the status quo, but that's not the
reality we inherited. It takes some work to expose audiences to music
with other "identities" so they can become as familiar with their
aesthetics as they are with the ones we've been hearing for hundreds
of years.

zarafa December 29, 2017 at 9:59 AM

Anonymous brings up an important point in mentioning programming
practices that are aimed at ticket sales, etc. It is no mere coincidence
that the canon came into existence at the same time as the music
‘business.’ Nineteenth-century concert-givers were well aware of the
drawing-power of ‘genius,’ and of the ‘big name,’ and exploited it fully.
Liszt told of a moment of revelation for him, that occurred while giving
a series of concerts: “Without alerting the audience, we substituted a
trio by Pixis for the programmed work by Beethoven. The bravos
were more numerous and vigorous than ever, but then when the
Beethoven trio was performed in place of Pixis’s piece, the audience
found it cold, mediocre, and even boring to the point that many
people became incensed, declaring that it was most impertinent of
Pixis to present his composition to the audience who had come to
admire the great composer’s masterpieces. By telling you this story I
do not mean to imply that it would have been wrong for them to
applaud Pixis’s trio, but even he could only manage a smile of pity
when he heard the bravos of an audience capable of confusing two
such completely different compositions and styles, because it is
certain that people who can make such a crass error are totally
unqualified to appreciate the true beauties of his own works.”

The existence and makeup of the ‘canon’ is an exceedingly complex

and messy matter, it seems to me — comparable in every way to the
mechanisms of political power. It is not always the ‘deserving’ whose
voices are heard — or appreciated — and the voice of the people is
not always the voice of God. For me, the most interesting music in
any style has always been a niche market. The way to ensure its
survival is through education, and the sharing of enthusiasms. If you
love something, promote it!

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zarafa December 29, 2017 at 12:17 PM

At the risk of making myself tiresome (it may be too late!) I’d like to
add one more thing, and then I’m out…

I suppose one should make a distinction between repertory and

canon. That is, Wieniawski’s Concerto No. 2 in D Minor is a central
work in the repertory of any violinist of a certain level of attainment,
and is applauded wherever it is heard; it will never be ‘canonic.’ We
are not talking here about Justin Bieber’s “Baby Baby.” To become a
part of a reified canon, a work must be more than a beautiful and
well-made piece; it must be viewed as somehow ‘important,’ and for
that it must pass through something akin to peer review, not by
audiences, but by the gatekeeping profession. Just as a scholarly
paper may be perfectly well-written and interesting (a ‘repertory’
paper), it is the discussion that it raises, and the further work that it
inspires, that determines whether it is considered ‘important.’ For
anyone who, like me, has ever thought “I could drip paint on canvas
just as well as Jackson Pollock,” this may be a painful, but significant
realization. A work’s importance is only partially inherent.

In the nineteenth century, people like E. T. A. Hoffmann and Bettina

von Arnim made the case for Beethoven’s importance, at a time when
the public was gaga for Paganini and Rossini. They made it on the
basis of Geist: “mental and spiritual modes of experience and thought
over embodied ones.” Schumann, who was considered by Liszt to be
“too Leipzigerisch” — i.e. too academic — and was not generally liked
by the public, was not a ‘Schu-in’ for the canon. Clara Schumann, as
Dr. Shaver-Gleason has pointed out on this blog, devoted much of
her later life to making the case for her husband’s works, through
performances, editing, and other forms of advocacy. Joachim
performed Schumann’s works, knowing that they would ‘fail’ in
concert. Even Liszt advocated for the works of the man who heartily
resented him. The case for Schumann was made on the basis of
‘poetry’ — ‘Geist’ — the only possible case to be made in a milieu of
professionally written, but banal, commercial music.

There are many fine, and even inspired, works that are not canonic. I
would mention in one breath the works of Amy Cheney Beach and my
Grandfather’s teacher George Whitefield Chadwick. Performers and
presenters may wish to take the risk of making those works more
frequently-played repertory items. Scholars and tastemakers may
wish to argue for their greater importance in the canon — and a case
can surely be made. These are not the same things. But neither
happens simply because the works exist and are ‘worthy.’ Both
require advocacy and persuasion. If you can make the case that the
‘Gaelic’ Symphony is ‘important,’ do so. It is certainly beautiful. But
remember, it took Joseph Joachim his whole long career to make the
case for the Beethoven Violin Concerto, which was not even a
repertory item when he began. And not even Joachim dared to tackle
the Grosse Fuge.

Linda Shaver-Gleason December 29, 2017 at 12:38 PM

More fantastic points, Robert! (Are you sure you don't want to write a
guest post? Something on Joachim, perhaps?) Based on what you
wrote, I'm wondering--who can we consider to be the tastemakers in
classical music today? I don't know that any individual critic wields
that power right now.

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Gustavo Dudamel might qualify, as he's been championing Marquez's

Danzón No.2 to the point that I've heard it on KUSC and I've played it
with the UCSB orchestra, but I don't know whether it's "made it" in the
US beyond SoCal. Also, can we think of any soloists who are
representing non-standard repertoire as persistently as Joachim did?

Reply

Jessica December 28, 2017 at 1:54 AM

Many thanks for this very interesting and pertinent article and comment. To
Robert: I would love to read your article about Joachim and Bettina von Arnim -
where may I find it, please?
Reply

zarafa December 28, 2017 at 7:52 AM

This comment has been removed by the author.
Reply

zarafa December 28, 2017 at 11:23 AM

This comment has been removed by the author.
Reply

zarafa December 28, 2017 at 11:24 AM

Dear Jessica, thank you. The article isn't quite finished yet, but if you send me
an email, I will send you a draft upon completion... reshbach@unh.edu

"If you are suffused with a higher impression of a person’s nature, do not doubt
that it is the true one; for all are born to the ideal, and wherever you suspect it in
a person, you can make it manifest, for he surely has the capacity for it.

He who denies the ideal in himself cannot understand it in others, even if it were
fully expressed. He who perceives the ideal in others causes it to flourish in
them, even if the other does not suspect it in himself."

— Bettina von Arnim, an epigraph from "Die Günderrode" later quoted in

Brahms’s commonplace book, "Des jungen Kreislers Schatzkästlein."
Reply

Lisa Hirsch January 6, 2018 at 10:36 AM

I want to throw in the fact that the "Western canon" was largely established by
Germans with German repertory, because 1) they were central to the revival of
old works (Bach and others) 2) they were central in the development of
musicology as a discipline 3) they chose certain composers for complete-works
editions in the late 19th century 4) Many important publishers were German.

I vaguely want to add something here about who established orchestras in the
US and conducted in the opera houses, but I hesitate.
Reply

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Kyle Gann January 20, 2018 at 8:00 PM

The Great Man paradigm that the Germans saddled Classical Music with
disempowers every living composer, of every gender, color, and orientation. It
should be destroyed by any means necessary.
Reply

David Young April 27, 2018 at 7:52 AM

After an almost heated discussion on this subject with my classical music lover,
capitalist economist roommate, I'm curious as to your (Linda's, the author's, the
readership's) thoughts on the purpose or moral impetus of the issue - Why is
important to diversify and tear down the "cult of Beethoven"? If Beethoven sells
tickets, why should an orchestra take a huge financial risk and program
contemporary or historically "fringe" composers? If people like Beethoven, why
should composers expect praise when they write outside of what the public
enjoys? Are we guilty of some moral superiority complex when we suggest that
musical diversity is a necessity?
I do agree with the ideas expressed here, but this conversation got me
questioning my own motives - how much of this is based on objective values
that can reasonably be expected to be universal; how much may be attributed to
personal ideals that can't be generalized; and how much is due to the "classical
music snobbery" and "superior taste" ("the public is wrong for only wanting
Beethoven") that we claim to oppose on this blog?
I suspect many of you have thought this through and have good answers, but as
I'm rather new to this conversation, I haven't grappled with it myself yet.
Reply

Unknown May 9, 2018 at 11:29 AM

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Reply

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