Musical Salon Culture in The Long Nineteenth Century-Boydell Press (2019)

T HIS COLLECTION EXPLORES the idea of music in the salon during the
long nineteenth century, both as a socio-cultural phenomenon, and

as a source of artistic innovation and exchange. Drawing on a wide
range of scholarly approaches, the authors use the idea of the salon as a Min usical Salon Culture
in the Long Nineteenth Century ß

Musical Salon Culture
the
springboard to examine issues such as gender, religion, biography and
performance; to explore the ways in which the salon was represented in
Long Nineteenth Century

different media; and to showcase the heterogeneity of the salon through a
selection of case studies. It offers fresh considerations of familiar salons in
large cultural centres, as well as insights into lesser-known salons in both
Europe and the United States. Bringing together an international group of
scholars, the collection underscores the enduring impact of the European
musical salon.
ANJA BUNZEL gained her PhD in

ß
Musicology from Maynooth University
and has published on Johanna Kinkel
EDITED BY
and nineteenth-century salon culture in
both English and German. ANJA BUNZEL
NATASHA LOGES is Head of &
Postgraduate Programmes at the
Royal College of Music, London. Her
NATASHA LOGES
publications include Brahm s in the
Home and the Concert Hall (Cambridge,
2014) and Brahms and his Poets
(Boydell Press, 2017). She is a pianist,
ANJA BUNZEL & NATASHA LOGES

EDITED BY
broadcaster and critic.
Contributors: Maren Bagge, Péter Bozó,

Anja Bunzel, Katie A. Callam,
Beatrix Darmstädter, Mary Anne Garnett,
Harald Krebs, Clemens Kreutzfeldt,
Veronika Kusz, Natasha Loges,
Jennifer Ronyak, Kirsten Santos Rutschman,
R. Larry Todd, Katharina Uhde,
Michael Uhde, Harry White,
Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger, Susan Youens.
Cover image: Der Adelsstand, handcoloured pen

lithograph by Josef Trentsenky, Vienna, c. 1830.
Sammlungen der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
in Wien.
Musical Salon cvr_proof04.indd 1 04/10/2018 16:22

Musical Salon Culture in the
Musical Salon Culture in the
Edited by
Anja Bunzel and Natasha Loges
the boydell press

© Contributors 2019
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
First published 2019

The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978 1 78327 390 4
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd

PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy

of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Typeset in Adobe Arno Pro by

Sparks Publishing Services Ltd—www.sparkspublishing.com
Contents
List of Illustrations vii

List of Music Examples x
List of Tables xiii
Notes on Contributors xiv
Acknowledgements xvii
Introduction 1
part i concepts and contexts

1
Johanna Kinkel’s Social Life in Berlin (1836–39): Reflections on
Historiographical Sources 13
Anja Bunzel
2
Accidental Aesthetics in the Salon: Amateurism and the Romantic
Fragment in the Lied Sketches of Bettina von Arnim 27
Jennifer Ronyak
3
Salon Culture in the Circle of Joseph Joachim, or, Composing
Inwardness: C. J. Arnold’s Quartettabend bei Bettina von Arnim
Reconsidered 43
Katharina Uhde and R. Larry Todd
Reading, Singing, Becoming: The Mädchenlieder of Paul Heyse and
4
Johannes Brahms 65
Natasha Loges
part ii representations of the salon

5
Fridays with Malla: Musical Repertoire in the Swedish Salon of
Malla Silfverstolpe 79
Kirsten Santos Rutschman
6
Observing Musical Salon Culture in England c. 1800 through the
Lens of the Caricature 95
Maren Bagge and Clemens Kreutzfeldt
7
The Salon Singer as Subject of Satire in France during the
July Monarchy 109
Mary Anne Garnett
vi Contents
8
The Instruments of the Vienna Biedermeier Salon:
Diversity in Design, Sound and Technology 123
Beatrix Darmstädter
9 Offenbach and the Representation of the Salon 139
Péter Bozó
10
Affordances of the Piano: A Cinematic Representation of the
Victorian Salon 153
Harry White
part iii case studies

11
‘Der Mensch ist zur Geselligkeit geboren’: Salon Culture,
Night Thoughts and a Schubert Song 167
Susan Youens
12
Traditions, Preferences and Musical Taste in the Staegemann-
Olfers Salon in Nineteenth-Century Berlin 185
Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger
13 Josephine Lang and the Salon in Southern Germany 199
Harald Krebs
14 Jessie Hillebrand and Musical Life in 1870s Florence 211
Michael Uhde
15
An Invitation to 309 Beacon Street: Clara Kathleen Rogers and
her Boston Salon 225
Katie A. Callam
16
‘Too Much Playing Four Hands!’: Ernst von Dohnányi’s European
Salon in the United States of the 1950s 239
Veronika Kusz
Select Bibliography 255

Index 271
Illustrations
2.1 Scale in Arnim’s sketchbook with note names

© The Morgan Library & Museum 35
2.2 C-major scale with fingering for both hands in Arnim’s sketchbook
© The Morgan Library & Museum 35
3.1 Carl Johann Arnold, Quartettabend bei Bettina von Arnim (1854/56)
© Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum 46
3.2 Bettina von Arnim’s sketch for a Goethe-Denkmal, side view

© Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum,
photograph by David Hall 58
3.3 Carl Steinhäuser, Goethe mit der Psyche (1851), photograph by Concord
(Wikimedia Commons), 2016 59
3.4 Joseph Joachim’s letter seal, ‘F-A-E’ © Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek

Carl von Ossietzky, Musikabteilung Hamburg, Brahms-Archiv,
BRA:Be4:49 60
3.5 Gisela von Arnim’s letter seal with the Head of Psyche (‘Psycheköpfchen’)
© Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum 61
6.1 James Gillray, Very Slippy-Weather (London, 1808)

© The Trustees of the British Museum 95
6.2 James Gillray, ‘A Little Music’ or the Delights of Harmony (London, 1810)
© Melanie Unseld 98
6.3 James Gillray, A Country Concert; – or – an Evenings Entertainment

in Sussex (London, 1798) © Melanie Unseld 101
6.4 George Cruikshank, Princely Amusements or the Humors of the Family

(London, 1812) © The Trustees of the British Museum 103
7.1 Albert Cler, ‘Le mélomane’, Les Français peints par eux-mêmes
© Bibliothèque nationale de France 112
7.2 Albert Cler, Physiologie du musicien

7.3 Louis Reybaud, Jérôme Paturot à la recherche d’une position sociale

viii Illustrations
7.4 Honoré Daumier, ‘En train de charmer toute une société avec la
romance du Beau Nicolas’, Le Charivari, 8 April 1852
© Daumier-register.org DR Number 2244 121
7.5 Honoré Daumier, ‘Cherchant à fasciner une riche héritière avec son
ut de poitrine’, ‘Croquis musicaux’, Plate 4, Le Charivari, 14 February
1852; Lithograph Delteil 2232 © Bibliothèque nationale de France,
Estampes et Photographie, Rés. Dc-180b (46)-Fol. 121
8.1 Cabinet Piano, Seuffert & Seidler, Vienna c. 1830 (SAM 718)
© Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 125
8.2 Fortepiano, Franz Dorn, Vienna c. 1820 (SAM 1077)

8.3 Carl Agricola, portrait of the young Sigismund Thalberg playing the
physharmonica, Vienna 1827 (SAM 1201)
8.4 Guitar, Georg Leeb, Pressburg 1806 (SAM 479)

© Beatrix Darmstädter 133
8.5 Guitar, Johann Ertl, Vienna 1821 (SAM 469)

8.6 Guitar, Peter Teufelsdorfer, Budapest post 1822 (SAM 492)

8.7 Lyra-bass guitar, Friedrich Schenk, with pedal-based transposition

device by Rudolph Knafl-Lenz, Vienna, c. 1848 (SAM 372)
9.1 Henriette Sontag, lithograph by Léon-Alphonse Noël, 1850, after a

painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
9.2 Antonio Tamburini, lithograph by Alexandre Lacauchie, c. 1830–49

9.3 Giovanni Battista Rubini, lithographed caricature by Benjamin, 1840

10.1 Sullivan and Mrs Ronalds at the piano in Sullivan's apartment,

photograph by Simon Mein © Thin Man Films 158
10.2 Mrs Ronalds, Sullivan and Simmonds from the perspective of

the audience, photograph by Simon Mein © Thin Man Films 160
Illustrations ix
13.1 Wilhelm Kaulbach, portrait of Josephine Lang © Archiv der

Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien 205
14.1 Jessie Laussot Hillebrand’s salon, Lungarno Nuovo, Florence

© Technische Universität Munich, Architekturmuseum
(hild-672-1002) 213
14.2 Sophie Wilhelmj and Jessie Laussot Hillebrand © Technische

Universität Munich, Architekturmuseum (hild-692-1000) 218
15.1 Studio portrait by Parkinson of Clara Kathleen Rogers, [c. 1910],

Rogers Memorial Collection: Photographs, prints, and drawings,
MS Thr 470 (1185) – (1501), (1330), Houghton Library,
Harvard University 226
16.1 Ernst and Ilona von Dohnányi c. 1955

© Hungarian Academy of Sciences 240
16.2 Ernst von Dohnányi’s Tallahassee house

16.3 Ernst von Dohnányi and Albert Spalding, c. 1957

The editors, contributors and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and per-
sons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright.
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for
any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledge-
ment in subsequent editions.
Music Examples
2.1 Transcription of Bettina von Arnim’s sketch of

‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II 29
2.2 Carl Friedrich Zelter, ‘Ruhe’, bb. 1–9 40
2.3 Franz Schubert, ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II D. 768, bb. 1–6 41
2.4 Franz Liszt, ‘Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’ S. 306, bb. 1–10 41
3.1 Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10,
Theme, bb. 1–4 49
Variation 1, bb. 1–2, the Gis-e-la motive 51
Variation 2, bb. 1–2 51
Variation 6, b. 1 51
3.8a Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10,
3.8b Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10,
Variation 3, second half, bb. 11–12 53
Music Examples xi
4.1 Johannes Brahms, ‘Mädchenlied’ Op. 95 no. 6, bb. 1–15 73
5.1 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Erster Verlust’, bb. 1–3 85
5.2 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Den Bergtagna’, b. 1 85
5.3 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Liten Karin’, bb. 1–8, variation

in phrase endings 85
5.4 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Nachtwächter Lied’, melody 88
5.5 Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, ‘Sullivan och Vallivan’, bb. 1–9 91
5.6 Richard Dybeck, ‘Kulleri tova’ 92
6.1 Johann Baptist Cramer, Sonata II, second movement (Vivace),

Op. 35 [extract: ‘Beviamo Tutti tre’] (London, [1805]), bb. 1–8 102
6.2 Felice Giardini, Glee ‘Beviamo tutti tre’, bb. 1–8 103
8.1 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony no. 38, D major, KV 504,

arranged for piano by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, beginning of
the first movement 126
8.2 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony no. 38, D major, KV 504,

arranged for piano by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, third movement,
bb. 145–50 126
8.3 Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 4, B-flat major Op. 60,
arranged for four-hand piano by Friedrich Mockwitz, first movement,
bb. 121–36, ‘secondo’ 127
8.4 Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 4, B-flat major Op. 60,
arranged for four-hand piano by Friedrich Mockwitz, first movement,
bb. 339–47, ‘primo’ 127
9.1 Jacques Offenbach, Monsieur Choufleuri, ‘Trio italien’, bb. 19–34

(vocal part only) 148
9.2 Vincenzo Bellini, Norma, ‘Casta Diva …’, bb. 26–30 (vocal part only) 148
9.3 Vincenzo Bellini, Norma, Act 2, Finale, ‘Io più non chiedo …’
(vocal part only) 148
xii Music Examples
9.4 Jacques Offenbach, ‘Trio italien’, bb. 47–52 (vocal part only) 148
9.5 Jacques Offenbach, Monsieur Choufleuri, no. 4 Trio, bb. 1–15 150
9.6 Giacomo Meyerbeer, Robert le diable, no. 15 Finale, Évocation,

bb. 4–14 150
9.7 François-Adrien Boieldieu, La dame blanche, no. 5, bb. 296–304 151
11.1 Franz Schubert, ‘Der Unglückliche’ D. 713, bb. 1–7 176
11.2 Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata in A major D. 664, Andante,

second movement, b. 1 176

Tables
1.1 Confirmed Berlin performers of Johanna Kinkel’s works 16
1.2 Social gatherings attended by Johanna Kinkel 17
formal plan 49
5.1 Songs and sources in Lindblad’s Der Norden-Saal 86
9.1 Rubini’s and Tamburini’s leading roles: selected premieres in

Italy and Paris 145
9.2 The structure of the ‘Trio italien’ cabaletta 149

Notes on Contributors
Maren Bagge studied mathematics, music and musicology at the Leibniz University
of Hanover and the Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg. She is currently a
research assistant at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, as well as
at the Research Centre for Music and Gender, while completing her doctoral studies.
Her thesis examines English female song and ballad composers of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, their career strategies and their support networks.
Péter Bozó is a research fellow at the Institute of Musicology of the Research Centre
for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Editor-in-Chief of
Studia Musicologica. As a Bolyai Scholar (2014–17), he has researched the Hungarian
reception of Offenbach’s music. He is editor and co-author of Space, Time, Tradition,
published in English in 2013. His doctoral dissertation (2010) on the Liszt estate in
Weimar was published as A dalszerző Liszt (Liszt as a Song Composer) in 2017.
Anja Bunzel was awarded a PhD from Maynooth University in 2017. Both her post-
graduate and postdoctoral studies were supported by the Irish Research Council
(2013–16 and 2017–18). She is researching Johanna Kinkel’s compositions within
the socio-cultural context of the nineteenth century and is interested in nineteenth-
century private musical culture. Anja has presented her research at conferences
in Ireland, the UK, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Austria and Germany. Her publications
include articles in North American and European journals and edited volumes. Since
April 2019, she has held a research position at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague.
Katie A. Callam is completing a PhD in historical musicology at Harvard University.

Her dissertation, ‘“To Look After and Preserve”: Curating Musical America, 1901–
1945’, constructs a historiography of music in the United States during the early
twentieth century, focusing on the ways in which marginalised music histories were
articulated through performance. She is the recipient of the Pforzheimer Fellowship
from the Harvard University Library and the Mark Tucker Award from the Society
for American Music.
Beatrix Darmstädter is Curator at the Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente

(Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien/Vienna) and an associate lecturer for music
history and organology at the Richard Wagner Konservatorium (Vienna). Her
research interests include performance practice and wind instruments at the fin de
siècle, and musical instruments and instrument-makers at the Viennese court in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She has published more than fifty academic
articles, four monographs and fifteen dictionary entries, and has edited three books.
Mary Anne Garnett is Professor Emerita of French and former Chair of the
Division of International and Second Language Studies at the University of
Arkansas at Little Rock (USA). She received her PhD in French literature from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison with a doctoral dissertation on Marie d’Agoult
(‘Daniel Stern’). A specialist in nineteenth-century French literature, she has served
Notes on Contributors xv
as Vice-President of the George Sand Association and as President of Women in

French (both in USA).
Harald Krebs is Distinguished Professor for Music at the University of Victoria,

Canada, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has published widely on
the tonal and rhythmic structure of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century music.
His book Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs (co-authored with Sharon Krebs)
appeared in 2007 with Oxford University Press. Harald has edited the first volume
of a critical edition of Lang’s collected songs for the series Denkmäler der Musik in
Baden-Württemberg (2008).
Clemens Kreutzfeldt studied musicology with an emphasis on cultural history

(Master of Arts), alongside music and art pedagogy (Master of Education), at the
University of Oldenburg. He graduated with a thesis on the British composer, pia-
nist and founding member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, Charles Neate (1784–
1877). Since 2016, he has held a research position at the University of Cologne,
where he is involved in a project on nineteenth-century music-related competitions.
Veronika Kusz is a senior research fellow of the Institute for Musicology of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences. A former Fulbright fellow (2005−6), she has
conducted research at the American Dohnányi collection in Tallahassee, Florida.
Her research has appeared in American Music, Notes, Studia Musicologica and other
journals; her monograph on Dohnányi’s American years appeared in Hungarian
in 2015. The revised English edition of this book is forthcoming from University of
California Press (2019).
Natasha Loges is Head of Postgraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music,

London. She is the author of Brahms and His Poets (2017) and coeditor of Brahms
in the Home and the Concert Hall (2014). She has published chapters and articles in
the volumes Music and Literature in German Romanticism and the Cambridge History
of Musical Performance, and the journals Music & Letters, Nineteenth-Century Music
Review and 19th-Century Music. She is a pianist, broadcaster, public speaker and critic.
Jennifer Ronyak is Senior Scientist in Musicology at the Institut für Musikästhetik

of the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz. She is the author of
the book Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century. Her
work on the German Lied has also been published in The Journal of the American
Musicological Society, 19th-Century Music, Music & Letters, The Journal of Musicology
and the Jahrbuch Musik und Gender.
Kirsten Santos Rutschman recently completed her PhD in musicology at Duke

University, USA, where she was a recipient of the James B. Duke Fellowship.
Her work has been supported by the Fulbright Commission of Sweden and the
American-Scandinavian Foundation. Kirsten’s publications include the article
‘Swedish Opera in Translation: Gustaf Adolf and Ebba Brahe’ in Ars Lyrica (2013)
and score reviews of works by Sibelius and song composers of the Munich school in
Nineteenth-Century Music Review.
xvi Notes on Contributors
R. Larry Todd is Arts & Sciences Professor at Duke University in Durham, North
Carolina. His books include Mendelssohn: A Life in Music and Fanny Hensel:
The Other Mendelssohn. A fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and National
Humanities Center, he edits the Master Musician Series (Oxford University Press).
He studied piano at the Yale School of Music and with the late Lilian Kallir, and has
recorded, with Nancy Green, the complete cello/piano works of the Mendelssohns
for JRI Recordings.
Katharina Uhde is Assistant Professor for Violin and Musicology at Valparaiso

University in Indiana. As a violinist she has won prizes in international competitions.
She is author of The Music of Joseph Joachim (Boydell Press, 2018), the first study of
the compositions of Joseph Joachim. She is the recipient of the 2017 Delma Coovert
Peterson Award (Valparaiso University), a 2016 Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, a
2013 Richard Wagner Stipendium and a Karl Geiringer Award from the American
Brahms Society, 2013.
Michael Uhde is Professor for Piano and Chamber Music and Vice-Rector at the
University of Music, Karlsruhe. As a chamber musician, he has given concerts with
instrumentalists such as Antonio Meneses, Wolfgang Meyer, Sergey Kravtchenko
and Antonio Pellegrini, touring extensively through many European countries, the
United States and Brazil. He has also given courses in piano and chamber music in
many academies and universities in the US, Norway and Brazil.
Harry White is Professor of Music at University College Dublin, a Fellow of

the Royal Irish Academy of Music and inaugural President of the Society for
Musicology in Ireland. He is General Editor (with Gerard Gillen) of Irish Musical
Studies (1990–) and General Editor (with Barra Boydell) of The Encyclopaedia of
Music in Ireland (2013). His study of the early eighteenth-century European musical
imagination, entitled The Musical Discourse of Servitude, is forthcoming from Oxford
University Press.
Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger is a historian who has published widely on topics of

cultural, literary and political history. Her first monograph Der Berliner Salon im 19.
Jahrhundert (1780–1914) appeared in 1989, and she has provided articles for hand-
books and dictionaries and as well as regular contributions to the Mitteldeutsches
Jahrbuch für Kultur und Geschichte. She has taught history of pedagogy at the
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich since 1996 and is a board member of the
Stiftung Mitteldeutscher Kulturrat.
Susan Youens was the J. W. Van Gorkom Professor of Music at the University of
Notre Dame, USA, until her retirement in January 2018. She is the author of eight
books and more than sixty articles in scholarly journals and book chapters. Her
research focuses on the music of Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf. A popular speaker,
she has delivered lectures in Germany, France, England, Canada, Spain, Austria,
Poland, Switzerland, Ireland, Scotland and thirty states in the USA.
Acknowledgements
T his book was inspired by a desire to foster research in domestic music-mak-

ing across Europe and beyond, including the exploration of hitherto unknown
salons, salon repertoire and the artistic diversity nurtured in particular salons.1 We
would like to thank our authors for their collaboration during the early stages of
putting together this compilation, for their responsiveness to various editorial sug-
gestions along the way, and finally, for their patience and attention to detail later on.
It was a pleasure to work alongside these generous scholars from the fields of music
history and theory, performance, organology, and film, literary, historical media and
cultural studies.
Publications like this also rely heavily on financial and administrative support
from a number of institutions and individuals. We would like to take this oppor-
tunity to express our gratitude to the following institutions for their financial sup-
port, without which neither this volume nor the conference which inspired it would
have been possible: AIB; the Austrian Embassy Dublin; Failte Ireland; the Goethe-
Institut Ireland; the Embassy of Finland in Dublin; the Embassy of the Republic of
Poland in Dublin; the Embassy of Switzerland in Ireland; Kildare County Council;
the Mariann Steegmann Foundation; Maynooth University Bookshop; Maynooth
University Research Development, Graduate Studies, German and Music
Departments and Faculty of Arts, Celtic Studies, and Philosophy; and the Society for
Musicology in Ireland. For their friendly and professional administration of repro-
duction requests for this volume, we thank the Architekturmuseum at Technische
Universität Munich; Bibliothèque nationale de France; Brahms-Archiv at Staats-
und Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, Musikabteilung Hamburg; Freies
Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum; Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
in Wien; Houghton Library at Harvard University; Kunsthistorisches Museum
Vienna; the Morgan Library and Museum; the Hungarian Academy of Sciences;
the Daumier Register; the Trustees of the British Museum; Simon Mein, Thin
Man Films; and Professor Melanie Unseld and Dr Beatrix Darmstädter for allow-
ing us to reproduce images from their private collections. Moreover, the Maynooth
University Music Department’s administration staff, Dorena Bishop, Marie Breen,
Emily Cook and Marguerite Lohan, are to be thanked for their patience in deal-
ing with reimbursement forms and invoices in relation to visual materials printed
in this book. We thank Douglas Matthews for preparing the index and bibliogra-
phy of this volume, and Shelagh Aitken for proofreading the manuscript. We also
thank Dr Megan Milan and Dr Michael Middeke from Boydell & Brewer for their
helpful input on editorial and administrative questions throughout our journey
as co-editors of this volume, as well as our anonymous readers for their insightful
suggestions.
We are grateful to Professor Lorraine Byrne Bodley (Maynooth University) for
her never-ending patience, her enthusiasm for nineteenth-century musical culture,
1
Many of the contributions in this book emerged from the international bilingual
conference ‘The European Salon: Nineteenth-Century Salonmusik’, held at
Maynooth University, 2–4 October 2015.
xviii Acknowledgements
and her generosity with time and knowledge. Also from Maynooth University, we
thank the current Head of Music, Professor Christopher Morris, and the former
Head of Music, Professor Fiona Palmer, for supporting this project. Furthermore,
we thank Professor Richard Wistreich, Director of Research at the Royal College
of Music, London, for his continual support and interest. We also acknowledge
the input on aspects of salon culture and editorial matters which we received from
Professor Sabine Meine (Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Cologne), Professor
James William Sobaskie (Mississippi State University) and Professor Glenn Stanley
(University of Connecticut, now in Berlin).
Finally, we both wish to extend our sincere gratitude to our families and friends for
their understanding and patience during the preparation of this book. Anja thanks
her parents and brother for their support, as well as Brigitte Bark, Dr Patrick Devine
and her colleagues in the Iontas Building for acting as sounding boards whenever
needed. She is grateful to her canoeing friends in Ireland and Germany for challeng-
ing her in other areas of life, and to Francis for taking her seriously enough to make
her feel understood and unseriously enough to keep her sane. Natasha thanks – as
always – Stephan, Hans and Raphael.
Introduction
Despite my intent to cut back a bit, we seem to have accumulated a full pro-
gramme for the autumn. It is hard to say no to so many attractive and deserving
requests … we have the usual mix of both the familiar and the new, with a par-
ticular highlight being the celebration of an opera anniversary on 30 November. I
much look forward to receiving you into our home.1
T his is an extract from a recent email received by one of the editors of this
volume. Although the word ‘salon’ was never used in many years of corre-
spondence between the hosts and guests, the evenings always included live music
by a mixture of professionals and proficient amateurs, framed by convivial conversa-
tion, set in a spacious, beautiful room lined with books and artworks, accompanied
by light food and wine, and involving a wide social mix ranging from music students
to wealthy patrons – in other words, a salon. Despite the recent rapid shift of enter-
tainment and human interaction to the internet, this combination has lost none of
its appeal, and the evenings were both well attended and greatly appreciated.2
Indeed, salon-like gatherings have existed in one form or another since the sym-
posia of Ancient Greece.3 But as with all evolving social practices, the salon resists
clear-cut definitions; at its simplest, the term is synonymous with a space in a home
for receiving guests (itself no straightforward description, as discussed below).
However, ‘salons’ also frequently denoted formal associations of artists, writers and
other members of the cultural professions, arguably the most famous of which is
the Paris Salon, the annual exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In musical
composition, the word ‘salon’ in a work-title bore specific, often pejorative, stylis-
tic connotations. Equally, many regular social events with salon-like attributes did
not use that term; ‘social gathering’, ‘tea’, ‘soirée’, ‘matinée’, ‘afternoon tea’, ‘musi-
cal circle’, ‘Teeabend’ or ‘société’ abounded, and such names evoke the almost
inevitable provision of food and drink, no matter how modest. More established
gatherings were given distinctive, often whimsical names, like Fanny Hensel’s
Sonntagsmusiken (Sunday Musicales), Johanna Kinkel’s Maikäferbund (May Beetle
1
Private email communication to Natasha Loges, here anonymised and undated.
2
Regarding sociability and the internet, see R. Simanowski, ‘Die virtuelle
Gemeinschaft als Salon der Zukunft’, in Europa – ein Salon? Beiträge zur
Internationalität des literarischen Salons, ed. R. Simanowski, H. Turk and T. Schmidt
(Göttingen: Wallstein, 1999), 345–69.
3
Greek symposia and nineteenth-century salons share an emphasis on conviviality
and discussion, but differ in the almost exclusively male participation. For the role
of women within symposia, see J. Burton, ‘Women’s Commensality in the Ancient
Greek World’, Greece & Rome 45/2 (October 1998), 143–65.
2 Anja Bunzel and Natasha Loges
Association), Caroline and Wilhelmine Bardua’s Kaffeter (Coffee Club), Hedwig

von Staegemann’s Donnerstag-Jugend (Thursday Youth), Marquise du Deffand’s
bureau d’esprit (Room of Esprit) and Marquise de Rambouillet’s chambre bleue (Blue
Room). In other words, many diverse phenomena may utilise the term ‘salon’, and
many differently named phenomena may merit the term ‘salon’ as it is understood
within this collection of essays (the volume bibliography lists a selection of signif-
icant and recent scholarship). However, beyond specific meanings or parameters,
the salon can be understood as an iterative process around culture and sociability,
undergoing continual reshaping through the emergence of new practices born of
new structures, media and technologies.
This collection aims to explore aspects of that reshaping in the European salon
during the long nineteenth century (roughly between the French Revolution and
the outbreak of the First World War), as well as a few of its progeny further afield.
The first of three sections uses the salon as a means of examining broad consider-
ations of gender, religion and biography; amateurism and performance; intimacy,
ephemerality and permanence; repertoires and spaces; and the act of researching
the salon itself. As such, it not only answers questions, but seeks to provoke new
ones, or stimulate new ways of seeing familiar material. The central section shows
how structures, media and technologies shaped the ways in which the salon was
both enshrined and critiqued, by considering representations of the salon in print,
poetry, operetta, cinema and organology. Finally, the collection contributes to our
ever-expanding historical picture of the salon by offering case studies which enable
us to understand more fully the heterogeneity of cultural practices related to the
salon, re-evaluate already familiar salons based in large cultural centres and encoun-
ter salons in relatively unknown regions, including two European-inspired salons
in the United States. Collectively, the essays show that, despite sweeping changes
across virtually all aspects of everyday life, the salon adapted within and beyond
Europe with astonishing agility, blending seamlessly with newly emerging media,
social structures and institutions.
Why the nineteenth century? The salon’s roots as most commonly recognised
in Western scholarship lie in the seventeenth century, during which salons were
established among the aristocratic strata in Paris. However, the transformed status
of the bourgeoisie triggered by the French Revolution significantly reshaped the
public reception and practice of culture. Elements which remained largely constant
included the salon’s delicate balance between entertainment and edification, as
well as its intimacy, in that attendees were usually limited to a circle of people who
were already acquainted. And while the image of the cultivated amateur is central to
the salon, money could and did change hands, and professionals had the chance to
showcase their work and cultivate professional networks, thereby transforming the
salon into a bridge between amateur and professional settings.4
Virtually all nineteenth-century salons involved music in one way or another. For
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, music was the ‘most innocent and most comfortable
4
J. Seigel, in his seminal study Modernity and Bourgeois Life: Society, Politics, and
Culture in England, France and Germany since 1750 (Cambridge: CUP, 2012), has
argued for the centrality of the widening and thickening of social networks in this
century, and its impact on commerce, politics, family life, gender and other areas.
Introduction 3
mediator in a society’, suggesting a role for music as social emollient, a welcome dis-
traction in a fractious moment, or an appealing subject for focus should conversation
flag.5 In 1847, an article in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung defined suitable reper-
toire for the salon context as music ‘during which one can talk, play and drink tea’.6
In his 1812 satire ‘Des Kapellmeisters, Johannes Kreislers, Dissertatiuncula über den
hohen Werth der Musik’ (‘Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler’s Little Dissertation on
the High Value of Music’), E. T. A. Hoffmann presented this mischievous account:
One enters the room; the steaming teapot is the focal point around which the
elegant ladies and gentlemen move. Gambling tables are moved, but the piano lid
also flies up, and here too, music serves as a pleasant entertainment and distrac-
tion. If well chosen, [music] is not a disturbance, because even the card players,
although occupied with the higher matters of wins and losses, will tolerate it.7
Although many chapters include close readings of repertoire, the primary concern of
this volume is not the detailed discussion of specific repertoire for its own sake, but
to read ‘through’ music in order to try to understand its world. In any case, notwith-
standing Hoffmann’s ironies, ‘music’ within the salon implied a bewilderingly wide
range of possible repertoire. In 1844/45, Hermann Hirschbach (1812–88) observed
that ‘everybody plays the piano, and a bunch of bad composers is rushing to satisfy
the desires of the lowest of dilettantes’.8 Yet, the full gamut of styles existed through-
out the century. Salon-appropriate works range from the male-voice choral works
of Schumann or Mendelssohn; Liszt’s operatic paraphrases; much of the piano
oeuvre of Chopin, Clara Schumann, and Fanny Mendelssohn; Brahms’s waltzes,
Hungarian dances and popular vocal quartets; and, in France, the smaller-scale
works of Cécile Chaminade and Augusta Holmès, to name but two figures from
later in the century. Anthologies frequently juxtaposed unashamedly trivial salon
music alongside ‘serious’ works by highly respected composers.
In their seminal study, Ballstaedt and Widmaier have attempted to identify three
major expectations of salon music, namely: it had to be technically accessible; it
5
Cited in P. Gradenwitz, Literatur und Musik in geselligem Kreise: Geschmacksbildung,
Gesprächsstoff und musikalische Unterhaltung in der bürgerlichen Salongesellschaft
(Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1991), 181.
6
‘Salonstücke sind solche, wobei man reden, spielen und Thee trinken kann.’
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 49 (1847), 834.
7
‘Du trittst in den Saal; die dampfende Thee-Maschine ist der Brennpunkt, um
den sich die eleganten Herren und Damen bewegen. Spieltische werden gerückt,
aber auch der Deckel des Fortepiano fliegt auf, und auch hier dient die Musik zur
angenehmen Unterhaltung und Zerstreuung. Gut gewählt hat sie durchaus nichts
störendes, denn selbst die Kartenspieler, obschon mit etwas Höherem, mit Gewinn
und Verlust, beschäftigt, dulden sie willig.’ E. T. A. Hoffmann, ‘Des Kapellmeisters,
Johannes Kreislers, Dissertatiuncula über den hohen Werth der Musik’, Allgemeine
musikalische Zeitung 31 (29 July 1812), 50.
8
‘Alles klimperte, und ein Haufen der schlechtesten Tonsetzer beeilte sich, die
Lüsternheit des niedrigsten Dilettantismus zu befriedigen’. H. Hirschbach,
‘Musikzustände der Gegenwart’, in Musikalisch-kritisches Repertorium aller neuen
Erscheinungen im Gebiete der Tonkunst: 1844, cited in R. Pessenlehner, Hermann
Hirschbach: Der Kritiker und Künstler (Regensburg: Bosse, 1932), 199.
had to offer opportunities to showcase the performer’s technical skills; and it had to
be entertaining to its listeners.9 However, the first two categories do not align well;
that which is technically impressive is, more often than not, technically demand-
ing. Furthermore, the definition of ‘technically difficult’ is predicated entirely upon
the individual performer.10 The limitations of these categories suggest that a differ-
ent framework is needed; early commentators already suggested that it would be
more meaningful to concentrate on ideas of function (what is the music for) and
craft (whether it is well suited to that function).11 Others took a different approach;
Robert Schumann dismissed one instance of salon music as a ‘combination of senti-
ment and piano passagework’, but this did not mean he rejected such traits outright;
on the contrary, he absorbed them and imparted to them his own poetic values,
as evident in works like Papillons Op. 1 and Kinderszenen Op. 15.12 In 1853, Johann
Christian Lobe (1797–1881) defended ‘good’ salon music, under which category he
listed Beethoven’s Bagatelles, Weber’s Aufforderung zum Tanze Op. 65, Schubert’s
marches for four-hand piano, Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte and Schumann’s
Kinderszenen. Lobe questioned whether it was right to despise such works just
because they were first composed for performance in salons. ‘Nobody would deny
that there are cheap and inelegant compositions among Salonmusik’, he continues,
‘but we must not disregard the entire genre because of such indifferent composi-
tions’.13 Lobe’s advice could be applied not only to the music of the salon, but also
to its protagonists.
Nevertheless, within a relatively well-documented century, the salon, its music
and its musicians, present some unique research challenges to researchers. Questions
of elusive, fragmentary and contradictory source materials are foregrounded in Anja
Bunzel’s opening essay (Chapter 1). This draws on such ideas as manipulated biog-
raphy and self-construction, applying them to the composer and pianist Johanna
Kinkel’s (auto)biographical accounts of her salon life in 1830s Berlin. Examining the
seemingly exaggerated appraisals of Kinkel’s cultural involvement in her own and
9
A. Ballstaedt and T. Widmaier, Salonmusik: Zur Geschichte und Funktion einer
bürgerlichen Musikpraxis (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1989), 257–72.
10
For a discussion of the issue of technical accessibility with respect to the Lied, see
N. Loges, ‘The Limits of the Lied’, in Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall:
Between Private and Public Performance, ed. K. Hamilton and N. Loges (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2014), 300–23. According to Hanson, the technical
demands of salon music grew during the century, as witnessed by Beethoven’s and
Schubert’s publishers’ pleas to keep salon music simple. She identifies an emergence
of a distinct and technically demanding ‘salon’ repertoire by 1840. A. Hanson, Musical
Life in Biedermeier Vienna (Cambridge: CUP, 1985), 119.
11
See, for example, J. C. Lobe, Fliegende Blätter für Musik: Wahrheit über Tonkunst und
Tonkünstler (Leipzig: Baumgärtner, 1855), I, 156. Lobe argues that artworks should be
evaluated according to their suitability for their usage.
12
In a review of Robert Müller’s Poésies musicales Op. 5. See R. Schumann, Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik 30/15 (12 October 1841), 118.
13
‘Daß es unter Salonmusik gar mancherlei Erscheinungen giebt, die nichts bedeuten
und völlig werthlos sind, wer wollte das läugnen? Aber um solcher Nichtigkeiten
willen dürfen wir nicht sofort die ganze Art verwerfen.’ Lobe, Fliegende Blätter für
Musik, 155–6.
Introduction 5
her early biographer Paul Kaufmann’s accounts, Bunzel shows that biased docu-
ments can serve as useful historiographical sources because, if scrutinised critically,
they provide valuable insight into an artist’s perception of his- or herself, their envi-
ronment and their public reception. As Susan Youens states in Chapter 12, ‘the self
is always made’; but Bunzel also ultimately encourages us to re-examine the ways
in which the reader is made, i.e. how we use seemingly less or more reliable source
materials, especially when left by less or more famous figures.
A related question is how we define value in research topics. A fundamental
and often-cited appeal of the bourgeois salon was that it not only facilitated fruit-
ful encounters between thinkers, artists, writers and musicians of different genders,
and social and educational backgrounds, but that it tolerated different degrees of
musical (or other) proficiency. ‘Unpolished’ performance such as sight-reading or
rehearsal, followed by discussion, was common. Nevertheless, an aesthetic preju-
dice can often be perceived in discussions of salon repertoire, and this is challenged
by Jennifer Ronyak in her study of the musical fragments left by Bettina von Arnim
(Chapter 2). While scholars have interpreted small-scale, salon-appropriate works
as fragments in the spirit of Friedrich Schlegel’s definition, Ronyak explores whether
actual fragments – incomplete works – might potentially share some of the signifi-
cance afforded to fragments by design, rather than being dismissed as incomplete,
and therefore ignored, especially when they stem from amateur, often female, musi-
cians. One might compare the close attention which is devoted to every scrap of
music, no matter how trivial, by composers regarded as canonical; as with Bunzel’s
essay, Ronyak tacitly encourages us to reappraise how we judge fragments, and why.
Ronyak’s and Bunzel’s studies both touch upon issues of gender, which are cer-
tainly not restricted to women, and which are far from resolved, even at a seemingly
safe historical distance. For example, it was only after much discussion that the edi-
tors decided to accept individual authors’ wishes concerning the ostensibly straight-
forward issue of the naming of the women discussed in this book, hence some are
referred to consistently by their first names and others by their surnames; not every
reader will agree with this decision. Musical salons were certainly a symbol of the
‘flourishing female culture’, but they naturally involved many male protagonists
(as hosts, attendees, musicians, composers and philosophers, for example). Louis
Spohr’s Kassel circle and Joseph Joachim’s Quartettabende are just two significant
examples of salons with male hosts.14 The duality of private and public utterance for
a male musician with a significant professional career is the focus of Katharina Uhde
and R. Larry Todd’s chapter on Joachim (Chapter 3). In particular, they explore
Joachim’s relationships with members of Bettina von Arnim’s circle in relation to
the music he composed in the mid-1850s as a means of understanding the concept
of intimacy in the salon.
Perhaps less contentious, but no less stimulating, is the challenge of negotiat-
ing the multimedial nature of the salon. The range of salon activities was always
diverse, embracing music-making, dramatic interpretations of opera and excerpts
14
A recent study of masculine, private music-making is M. Sumner Lott, The Social
Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music (Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
2015).
from plays, tableaux vivants, the declamation of poetry, dancing, literary and musi-
cal improvisation, focused discussions, quizzes, board games, card games and, most
importantly, conversation (a volume which focused on the long twentieth cen-
tury would embrace a different set of activities, not least listening to automated
and recorded music).15 As Leon Botstein has observed, a history of reading long
preceded a history of listening; similarly, the literary salon has received more schol-
arly attention than its musical counterpart.16
Natasha Loges’s essay closes the section by weaving together issues of gender
and more permanent print culture (Chapter 4). She explores how published songs,
novels and poems might open up new possibilities in the construction of women’s
identities in the salon. Concentrating on Johannes Brahms’s Mädchenlieder (girls’
songs) to poems by Paul Heyse (1830–1914), she also touches on questions of fash-
ionability and the exigencies of the marketplace in an era during which, according to
Derek Scott, the expansion of sheet music sales and salon culture initiated the birth
of popular music.17 Through their specific focuses, these opening essays all touch
on large-scale concepts and contexts, such as how we deal with problems of surviv-
ing source material, what biases we ourselves bring to them, how we privilege one
aspect of a musician’s identity over another and how we might negotiate overlap-
ping scholarly disciplines. They also stimulate a fresh examination of how we nav-
igate seeming opposites like ‘fragments/wholes’, ‘public/private’ and ‘permanent/
ephemeral’.
If the opening section of the book reflects on how we look at the salon, the cen-
tral section is dedicated to examining how the salon was seen in the past, in a range
of often tongue-in-cheek representations. Kirsten Santos Rutschman’s chapter on
the musical repertoire in the Swedish salon of Malla Silfverstolpe (Chapter 5) con-
siders Adolf Fredrik Lindblad’s folksong settings and Carl Jonas Love Almqvist’s
collection Törnrosens bok (The Book of the Briar Rose), the latter of which evokes a
literary narration of actual salon gatherings. Her detailed consideration of the rep-
ertoire, which drew heavily on the music of a nascent Swedish folk culture, points
to a national identity being built upon a German model, as well as the commercial-
isation and urbanisation of folk culture. If nation underpins Santos Rutschman’s
chapter, class is the next focus, in Maren Bagge and Clemens Kreutzfeldt’s examina-
tion of caricatures of Victorian domestic and aristocratic music culture (Chapter 6).
Their focus is the leading late eighteenth-century British caricaturist James Gillray,
famous for his etched political satires, which appeared internationally in the German
cosmopolitan journal Paris und London, accompanied by commentaries. Their close
reading of selected etchings traces more explicitly the themes of amateurism, with
15
For the early incorporation of the phonograph into private listening, see E.
Thompson, ‘Machines, Music and the Quest for Fidelity: Marketing the Edison
Phonograph in America, 1877–1925’, The Musical Quarterly 79/1 (Spring 1995), 131–71.
16
See L. Botstein, ‘Towards a History of Listening’, The Musical Quarterly 82/3–4
(Autumn–Winter 1998), 427. He offers ideas on functions, space, performance,
ephemerality, spontaneity, organology, contemporary criticism, visual and
intertextual representations, and cross-continental transformations of European
salon culture.
17
D. B. Scott, Musical Style and Social Meaning (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 210.
Introduction 7
its implication of poor musical quality, as well as social aspiration and its commer-
cial undertow. Satire and gender are combined in Mary Anne Garnett’s essay on the
physiology of the salon singer – both male and female – in 1840s France (Chapter
7). Garnett argues that, as a result of the suppression of political satire after 1835,
the caricature of the salon singer was linked to a perceived transgression of social
boundaries during a period of social change. Chapter 8, by Beatrix Darmstädter,
considers the materiality of salon representation through her discussion of Viennese
Biedermeier instruments, many of which were purpose-built, ranging from key-
board and stringed instruments to walking-stick instruments for sociable outdoor
excursions. However, her starting point is the ‘instrument of the century’, the piano,
which came second only to religious instruction in the education of girls.18 Beautiful,
bespoke instruments were a signifier of status and cultivation; it has been argued
that the mid-century salon was a means by which the bourgeoisie could present
their homes, wealth and cultivation to a select audience.19
Péter Bozó then considers how the salon was represented onstage, specifically
in Jacques Offenbach’s operetta Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le…, which fea-
tures a parodied salon evening (Chapter 9). Not only does Bozó’s chapter remind
us of musical caricatures of singers and composers, but it also parodies the aristo-
cratic salon and its etiquette itself. Bozó encourages us to recognise the close affini-
ties between operetta and French private musical culture, and thus to acknowledge
the porosity between different entertainments within a cultivated, sociable exist-
ence. The closing chapter of this section makes a transition from stage to screen in
an essay by Harry White, who examines how the salon has been treated in cinema
(Chapter 10), focusing on scenes around the ubiquitous piano. Through a consid-
eration of Mike Leigh’s film Topsy-Turvy (1999), this examination examples a more
recent overlaying of late twentieth-century reception onto nineteenth-century cul-
tural practice, a topic which would merit further study.
New case studies continually add to the comprehensiveness of our knowledge
of the salon; elsewhere, recent studies have embraced not only familiar centres like
Berlin, Paris, Vienna and London, but also Hanover, Genoa, Kassel, Bonn, Prague,
Milan, Uppsala, Florence, Boston, Tallahassee, St Petersburg, Warsaw, Rome,
Leipzig and Cahir, as shown in this volume’s bibliography. The closing section of
the book offers six case studies of salons, in Vienna, Berlin and Paris as well as less-
er-known salons in Uppsala, South Germany and Florence. The first five focus on
women for whom the salon offered an opportunity to develop an independent intel-
lectual life, as well as considerable networks of power, despite restrictions of both
class and gender. The opening chapter, by Susan Youens, is a wide-ranging consid-
eration of the writings and the Viennese salon of the cultivated author and patriot
Caroline Pichler (1769–1843), shedding light on practices, audiences and repertoire
(Chapter 11). Through a close reading of Franz Schubert’s extended setting ‘Der
Unglückliche’ D. 713, Youens shows how the words (sung as part of an evening’s
entertainment in Pichler’s novel) reflect on Romantic immersion in nature, a phe-
nomenon which merges with salon culture by way of literature, philosophy and
18
L. Plantinga, ‘The Piano and the Nineteenth Century’, in Nineteenth-Century Piano
Music, ed. R. L. Todd (New York: Routledge, 2004), 1.
19
Gradenwitz, Literatur und Musik in geselligem Kreise, 13ff., 184.
music (as touched upon in Chapters 2 and 4 of this book) and also through social
gatherings outdoors.
A different approach is taken in the following chapter, in which Petra Wilhelmy-
Dollinger examines the transformations of a single Berlin salon over more than a
century (Chapter 12).20 Drawing on such concepts as musical sociability and music
as a contribution to Persönlichkeitskultur, this longitudinal study of the Staegemann-
Olfers salon shows that, although the general tone cultivated in this salon was rela-
tively conservative, newer ideas such as contemporary reinterpretations of the Lied,
Liszt’s performances and Wagner’s compositional aesthetics were also considered
and discussed.
Pichler and von Staegemann remained within their own socio-cultural contexts
as musical housewives, but the sharper, professional end of salon life is explored by
Harald Krebs in his discussion of social gatherings as experienced by Josephine Lang
in several South German salons (Chapter 13). The socio-cultural circumstances of
the nineteenth century led to the professionalisation of musicians of all genders.
The salon gained a special role in musical protagonists’ lives following the irrevo-
cable shift in their working conditions after the French Revolution. The decline of
court patronage forced them to develop entrepreneurial strategies, including tour-
ing, teaching and publishing. In a society where word of mouth was still a powerful
advertisement, the salon was central to their success, even if many leading musi-
cians still maintained court posts late into the century, e.g. Joachim in Hanover,
Brahms in Detmold, Liszt in Weimar and, most famously, Wagner in Bayreuth. In
this context, the salon enabled musicians to mix not only with one another, but also
with potential patrons, including students and their parents, publishers, critics and
impresarios.21 Structuring his chapter according to Lang’s biography, Krebs sheds
light on the interplay between musical professionalism and promotion on the one
hand, and conventional artistic modesty on the other. He also points to nuances
of socio-cultural etiquette and social circumstances in northern and southern
Germany by taking into account the records of travelling artists.
Thanks to the networking opportunities they afforded, salons could be spaces of
considerable power. This is the focus of Michael Uhde’s essay on Jessie Hillebrand’s
salon in Florence during the 1870s (Chapter 14).22 However, rather than focusing
on actual music or events in her salon, he explores how she used connections forged
therein to promote her pupils, influence professional musical appointments, foster
her own musical activities as a pioneering conductor and cultivate powerful political
allies. Thanks to her connections to Liszt, Wagner and Hans von Bülow, Hillebrand
20
See also P. Wilhelmy-Dollinger, ‘Musikalische Salons in Berlin 1815–1840’, in Die
Musikveranstaltungen bei den Mendelssohns – Ein ‘musikalischer Salon’? Die Referate des
Symposions am 2. September 2006 in Leipzig, ed. H.-G. Klein (Leipzig: Mendelssohn-
Haus, 2006), 17–33.
21
Aristocratic salons maintained social divisions until well into the nineteenth century,
but this was not the case in bourgeois homes. See Hanson, Musical Life in Biedermeier
Vienna, 109–26.
22
For other scholarship on German salons in Florence, see C. Ujma and R. Fischer,
‘Deutsch-Florentiner: Der Salon als Ort italienisch-deutschen Kulturaustauschs im
Florenz der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in Europa – ein Salon, 127–48.
Introduction 9
has always been treated as a pendant to these prominent personalities; through an

examination of hitherto unpublished correspondence, Uhde encourages us to see
her for her own achievements.
This collection closes with two case studies exploring how the European salon
model was adapted to musical life in the United States well into the twentieth cen-
tury, recalling the pull of nostalgia and national self-identification.23 European salon
culture faded at the beginning of the twentieth century, as its bourgeois drive was
dissipated by the First World War. Yet some of its traditions lived on in North
America, developed by the immigrant population’s emulation of European models,
or transplanted by emigrés. Elsewhere, Philipp Löser has argued for strong cultural
differences between Europe and America in his account of nineteenth-century
American offshoots of literary salons, citing the differing ideals of education, the
representation of women in society, sociability and politicisation.24 Nevertheless,
social patterns similar to nineteenth-century European salon culture can be
traced in American twentieth-century musical salons, an aspect which is taken up
by Katie Callam and Veronika Kusz. They offer detailed insight into two specific
salons: the gatherings of the English singer Clara Kathleen Rogers (1844–1931) in
Boston (Chapter 15), and Ernst von Dohnányi (1877–1960) in Tallahassee (Chapter
16). Despite their shared location in the USA, these two salons exemplify a stark
cultural-demographic contrast. Rogers was trained as an opera singer in Leipzig
before she established herself and her salon in the musically busy city of Boston; the
highly regarded Hungarian musician Ernst von Dohnányi recreated European salon
culture in rural Tallahassee during the 1950s. As research on these two figures is fairly
recent, their salons have not been explored in any great depth – partly on account of
historiographical challenges around the documentation of private musical culture
(as outlined in Chapter 1). Yet these closing chapters remind us that the study of
nineteenth-century European salons transcends the realms of nineteenth-century
Europe, and that salon culture is shaped largely by local circumstances, while retain-
ing the essential features of human exchange and artistic innovation.
•••••
As a whole, this collection reflects the diversity of both the nineteenth-century salon
and twenty-first-century salon research. Regarding the former: while salons were
established in both well-known cultural centres and relatively unknown provinces,
their audiences and repertoire were international and mixed. Visitors to Berlin,
Parisian and Viennese salons could reappear in Sweden, southern Germany or Italy.
While some salons utilised music as background entertainment, others fostered
high-quality and well-structured musical performances featuring a wide range of
23
This has recently been considered in R. Leppert, ‘The Cultural Dialectics of
Chamber Music: Adorno and the Visual-Acoustic Imaginary of Bildung’, in Brahms in
the Home and the Concert Hall , 346–65.
24
See P. Löser, ‘Der amerikanische Salon am Beispiel der Achse Boston-Paris bis 1850
oder Warum die Salonkultur in den USA nie Fuß fassen konnte’, in Europa – ein
Salon?, 106–26.
genres, including recorded music and music played on instruments purposely built
for the spatial needs of social gatherings. The actual music embraced songs, dances,
Singspiele, opera extracts, virtuosic paraphrases, the full range of chamber music
and, frequently, new works of all kinds, while ‘old works’ (e.g. Beethoven’s piano
sonatas and chamber music) were revived in salons too. Musicians who gained pro-
fessional experience in such European countries as Germany or Hungary imported
their fondness for sociability to their new emigré homes in the United States. With
the middle classes increasingly taking public responsibility for music and the arts,
and the ‘home’ becoming the prescribed field of action for women, most female
musicians were restricted to domestic (unprofessional) music-making if they
wanted to retain their respectability within their own families and social environ-
ment. By offering a semi-private platform for aspirational women to liaise with pos-
sible students, critics and publishers, the salon opened a back door to a professional
world. There is still more work to be done to redress the lack of scholarship on
women as creative agents in their own right, as opposed to facilitators of encounters
through their salons, and the vastly larger scholarship on male composers. Thus,
nineteenth-century salon culture is characterised by a blurring of boundaries at
geographical, cultural, temporal, technological and aesthetic levels.
Turning to the latter point, salon research today takes many forms and perspec-
tives. Not only are genre and style discussed and reconsidered here from a musi-
cological standpoint, but other far-reaching considerations continually enrich
research: organology including music technology and recording practice, recollec-
tion studies, cultural studies, media studies and critical historiography bear witness
to the historical and socio-cultural potential salon research still has to offer. As early
as 1997, Hartwig Schulz argued that we need to:
supplement and differentiate general ‘salon research’ by means of meticulous

examinations of the individual salons and salonnières. The information which was
hastily established and generalised by means of seemingly precise memoirs and
definitions needs to be challenged, supplemented, revised, and specified now.25
While Schulz’s use of scare quotes might reflect an uncertain attempt at establishing
salon culture as an independent research strand, it seems that both his pleas were
heard. This collection draws together some threads, and also hopes to stimulate
more such examinations in the future.
25
‘… die Notwendigkeit, die allgemeine “Salon-Forschung” durch gründliche
Untersuchungen zu den einzelnen Salons und Salonnièren zu ergänzen und zu
differenzieren. Was etwas vorschnell durch Definitionen und vermeintlich präzise
Memoirenberichte festgeschrieben und verallgemeinert wurde, muss nun hinterfragt
und ergänzt, revidiert und präzisiert werden.’ H. Schulz, ‘Vorwort’, in Salons der
Romantik: Beiträge eines Wiepersdorfer Kolloquiums zu Theorie und Geschichte des
Salons, ed. H. Schulz (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1997), v–vi.
part i
concepts and contexts

Chapter 1
Johanna Kinkel’s Social Life in Berlin (1836–39):

Reflections on Historiographical Sources *
Anja Bunzel
P erhaps more than other topics, salon scholarship entails the study of diverse
and fragmentary sources, primarily individual protagonists’ own accounts of
themselves and others, within otherwise poorly documented private circles.1 It thus
invites historiographical reflection, for example, when an author chooses to con-
struct an idealised life through a personal memoir, when recollections or corre-
spondence by other, similarly self-constructing authors choose to privilege differing
information, or when sources are downright conflicting. This chapter explores such
sources around the composer, music pedagogue and pianist Johanna Kinkel (1810–
58), presenting a series of conflicts and quandaries. While Kinkel continues to be
unknown to many musicologists today, her image among scholars of gender, music
and literature is that of a prolific composer and writer, whose oeuvre is strongly
coloured by her own and her husband’s political activities in 1840s Germany. This
image stems from her link with Gottfried Kinkel (1815–82), whom she married in
1843. However, Kinkel published a major part of her musical output before that
marriage, namely during her years in Berlin (1836–39). Focusing on this period, this
chapter offers a perspective on Kinkel as a versatile participant in Berlin salon cul-
ture. Both Kinkel’s own autobiographical documents and her early biographer Paul
Kaufmann’s accounts suggest that, as a close friend of Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny
Hensel, she was right at the top of the Berlin musical scene. I will show that not all
of Kinkel’s and Kaufmann’s statements can be verified by way of historical evidence,
including the actual number and musical standards of salons she claimed to have
attended, and perceptions of her relationship with the Mendelssohns. On the other
hand, Kinkel’s contemporaries’ writings reveal that, while she may have idealised
her relationship with the Mendelssohns, she concealed contacts with other Berlin
protagonists. It is not the aim of this chapter to expose Kinkel as a liar, but rather to
offer an insight into Kinkel’s network in Berlin by bringing to light some contradic-
tions revealed by hitherto unconsidered primary materials. It is up to the reader to
shape their own image of Kinkel, although, as in any historiographical writing, my
own position, namely that of a musicologist with a focus on Kinkel’s compositional
*
I wish to acknowledge the support of the following institutions and individuals:
Society for Musicology in Ireland; Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz; Irish Research
Council; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; Landesbibliothek und Murhardsche Bibliothek
Kassel; Nikolaus Gatter, Varnhagen-Gesellschaft; Katja Georg, Stadtarchiv Bonn;
Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger and Monica Klaus for their helpful thoughts. Furthermore,
I would like to thank Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Natasha Loges for their support in
completing this chapter.
1
S. Meine and M. Schwartz, ‘Einleitung’, Die Tonkunst: Magazin für klassische Musik
und Musikwissenschaft: Thema: Der Musiksalon 1 (2010), 14.
14 Anja Bunzel
activities, might not go unnoticed. Following a brief biographical sketch of Kinkel,

I will elaborate on the challenges of reconstructing Kinkel’s social life in Berlin,
including the gaps in knowledge about performers who supported Kinkel’s works
and the salons she visited. The second section is devoted to Kinkel’s relationship
with Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Hensel. I will close with some considerations of
musical historiography and private musical culture.
Born in Bonn, Kinkel married the Catholic bookseller Johann Mathieux in
1832.2 The marriage proved unhappy, but he refused to divorce her. In 1836, Kinkel
escaped to Berlin in order to garner support for her divorce petition and further
develop herself musically.3 On the way she passed through Frankfurt, where she met
Felix Mendelssohn and Clemens Brentano, both of whom gave her letters of recom-
mendation.4 Kinkel’s stay in Berlin from 1836 to 1839 was her springboard to musical
professionalism. Not only did she find enough students to support herself finan-
cially, but she also established contacts with the renowned publisher Trautwein,
gained a reputation as a pianist and composer by making appearances in Berlin’s
most prestigious salons and performed publicly in the Königliches Schauspielhaus
on 26 November 1838.5 Her divorce was finally granted in 1840. Together with her
second husband Gottfried and her four children, she emigrated to London in 1851.
In the 1850s she completed her memoir, a short document first published posthu-
mously by her son Gottfried Kinkel (Jr) in Zeitgeist: Beilage zum Berliner Tageblatt
(1886).6 Kinkel also produced a number of reflections on her London daily routine
and wrote some music-historical lectures, none of which were published during her
lifetime. These form the basis for my historiographical reflections, as Kinkel thema-
tises her own time in Berlin in many of those writings.7
Little is known about her social network during her time in Berlin, although there
exist some early publications centring on that era of Kinkel’s life. Kaufmann was
one of Kinkel’s first historians; his biographical sketch from the 1930s draws on a
2
I refer to her as ‘Kinkel’ throughout this chapter, although many of Kinkel’s
contemporaries referred to her as ‘Mathieux’ even after her second marriage in 1843,
possibly because some of her post-1843 compositions were still published under the
name ‘Mathieux’.
3
M. Klaus, Johanna Kinkel: Romantik und Revolution (Cologne: Böhlau, 2008), 29.
4
During this stay in Frankfurt, Mendelssohn introduced Kinkel to Ferdinand Hiller;
for further details on Kinkel’s short time in Frankfurt see Klaus, Johanna Kinkel, 24–6.
5
[Anon.], concert announcement, Vossische Zeitung (24 November 1838), 7–8; and (26
November 1838), 8.
6
G. Kinkel ( Jr), ed., ‘Aus Johanna Kinkels Memoiren’, Zeitgeist: Beilage zum Berliner
Tageblatt, 39 (2), 40 (2–3), 41 (2–3), 42 (2), 43 (3), 44 (2–3), 45 (3–4), 46 (2), 47
(1–2); G. Kinkel ( Jr), ed., ‘Aus Johanna Kinkel’s Memoiren’, Internationales Jahrbuch
der Bettina von Arnim-Gesellschaft 8/9 (1996/97), 239–71.
7
Briefe aus London (unpublished, n. d., ULB; S 2390), Musikalisches aus London
(unpublished, n. d., ULB, S 2391), Erziehungswesen in London (unpublished, n. d.,
ULB, S 2389), Lecture on Beethoven’s earliest Sonatas, including Opus 10 (unpublished,
n. d., ULB, S 2397), Friedrich Chopin als Komponist (unpublished, 1855, ULB, S 2399),
Lecture on Harmony (unpublished, n. d., ULB, S 2394), Lecture on Mendelssohn
(unpublished, n. d., ULB, S 2398), Lecture on Mozart (unpublished, n. d., ULB,
S 2396), Musical History (unpublished, n.d., ULB, S 2393) and her two-novel volume
Hans Ibeles in London (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1860).
Johanna Kinkel’s Social Life in Berlin 15
selection of letters between Kinkel and her contemporaries, but omits certain names
and details of musical performance.8 However, as the son and nephew of Kinkel’s
friends Leopold and Alexander Kaufmann, his approach might have been somewhat
biased. Further early twentieth-century writings on Kinkel include Max Pahncke’s
and Marie Goslich’s editions of letters, as well as one by Adeline Rittershaus, who,
in 1900, published letters between Kinkel and Felix Mendelssohn.9 However, these
sources do not elaborate critically on Kinkel’s role as a composer and musician or
her self-image. More recently, Monica Klaus has written a comprehensive biogra-
phy of Kinkel; however, as this spans Kinkel’s entire eventful life, nuances of her
socio-musical environment during her Berlin time remain obscure.
Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger has established three characteristics of Berlin salons
during the first half of the nineteenth century: they were interlinked; they fostered
a domestic, almost family-like atmosphere; and only very few regularly entertained
first-class celebrities.10 Thus, many salon visitors’ written accounts, if they have even
survived, are yet to be located and examined, let alone published, and those accounts
which have been located may be incomplete or one-sided. The diaries, memoirs, let-
ters and writings of Kinkel, as well as those of her friends and acquaintances, both
published and unpublished, exemplify all these challenges.
Depending on many factors, primary sources often contain little detail of indi-
viduals and performances. I will consider this aspect from the perspective of both
performances of Kinkel’s work and her personal connections by uncovering and
commenting on omissions and misrepresentations in Kinkel’s own and her con-
temporaries’ writings. On 10 December 1837, Kinkel praised the diverse cultural
life of Berlin and mentioned that she visited approximately thirty different social
gatherings during her residency in Berlin, ‘all of which attracted an almost entirely
different circle of guests’.11 A year later, Kinkel enthused again that ‘most of the cir-
cles which I visit here are the most colourful conglomerations of all social strata
and nations’.12 However, she provided very few details of hosts, gatherings or
8
P. Kaufmann, ‘Johanna Kinkel: Neue Beiträge zu ihrem Lebensbild’, Preußische
Jahrbücher 221 (1930), 290–304; P. Kaufmann, ‘Johanna Kinkel: Neue Beiträge
zu ihrem Lebensbild: Schluß’, Preußische Jahrbücher 222 (1930), 48–67; and
P. Kaufmann, ‘Noch einmal auf Johanna Kinkels Spuren’, Preußische Jahrbücher 229
(1932), 263–8.
9
A. Rittershaus, ‘Felix Mendelssohn und Johanna Kinkel: Ungedruckte
Tagebuchblätter und Briefe’, Neue Freie Presse: Morgenblatt, 19 April 1900, 1–4; M.
Goslich, ‘Briefe von Johanna Kinkel’, Preußische Jahrbücher 97 (1899), 185–222, and
M. Goslich, ‘Briefe von Johanna Kinkel: Schluß’, Preußische Jahrbücher 97 (1899),
398–433; M. Pahncke, ‘Briefe von Johanna Kinkel an Willibald Beyschlag’, Preußische
Jahrbücher 122 (1905), 77–112.
10
P. Wilhelmy-[Dollinger], Der Berliner Salon im 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin and New York:
de Gruyter, 1989), 140, 464–5.
11
‘jedes hat fast einen anderen Kreis von Gästen’. Johanna Kinkel in a letter to Angela
Oppenhoff, 10 December 1837, cited in Kaufmann, ‘Johanna Kinkel: Neue Beiträge zu
ihrem Lebensbild: Schluß’, 52.
12
‘Die Zirkel, die ich meist hier besuche, sind das bunteste Gemisch aller Stände und
Nationen.’ Johanna Kinkel in a letter to Angela Oppenhoff, 10 November 1838, cited
in Kaufmann, ‘Johanna Kinkel: Neue Beiträge zu ihrem Lebensbild: Schluß’, 57.
16 Anja Bunzel
performances. Drawing on eight sources, Table 1.1 lists documented performances

by thirteen protagonists during Kinkel’s time in Berlin and six further protagonists
who performed her works after she had left.
Table 1.1: Confirmed Berlin performers of Johanna Kinkel’s works
Performer Occasion/venue Source

While Kinkel was in Berlin
Armgart von Arnim Friedrich Carl von Savigny’s, Maxe von Arnim’s diary
1836–39 [Sav] [MvA], Johanna Kinkel’s
Berlin memoirs [KBerlin]
Bettina von Arnim Sav MvA, Kberlin
Friedmund von Arnim Sav MvA
Gisela von Arnim Sav MvA, KBerlin
Maximiliane von Arnim Sav MvA, KBerlin
Adolf Eckenbrecher Sav MvA
Emanuel Geibel Sav MvA, KBerlin
Otto Goeschen Sav MvA
Henriette Hochstetter Sav MvA
Philipp von Nathusius Bettina von Arnim’s, Letter from Kinkel to Philipp
1836–39 [BvA] von Nathusius
Franz von Savigny Sav MvA, KBerlin
Leo von Savigny Sav MvA
Mary Shaw 28 January 1839, Leipzig Letter from Felix Mendelssohn
Gewandhaus; February to Lea Mendelssohn
1839 in Berlin (?) from 29 January 1839,
records of the Leipzig
Gewandhauskonzerte by
Alfred Dörffel
After Kinkel’s time in Berlin
Wilhelmine Bardua 18 November 1850 in Wilhelmine Bardua’s diary
Ballenstedt, also 1836–39 [WB]
in Berlin
Pauline Decker Soirée at Decker’s, 27 Giacomo Meyerbeer’s diary
February 1855, 7 March
1860
Irene Countess of Flemming Kaiserwochen in Baden- MvA
Baden; 27 October 1878
Ottilie von Graefe 1836–39 in Berlin WB
Anna Richter L’Hardy’s in Charlottenburg; Marie von Olfers’s letter to
January/February 1872 her sister-in-law Angèle von
Olfers on 2 February 1872
Armgard Countess of Oriola, Kaiserwochen in Baden- MvA
Maxe von Arnim’s daughter Baden; 27 October 1878
Kinkel’s statement that she visited approximately thirty completely different

social gatherings on a regular basis contradicts her own and her Berlin contem-
poraries’ memoirs and letters, through an examination of which I was only able to
name and locate twelve houses (Table 1.2). Five of these, however, were never men-
tioned specifically by Kinkel in her memoirs or letters.
Table 1.2: Social gatherings attended by Johanna Kinkel
House Address Comments

Bettina von Unter den Kinkel was a frequent visitor and lived here for a while
Arnim Linden
Wilhelmine Französische Kinkel attended their social gatherings
and Caroline Straße 28
Bardua
Carl Begas A note from Begas to Kinkel reveals that she visited him
sometimes
Ms A. Dorn Kochstr. 58 A note from Kinkel to Ms Dorn reveals that she visited
her sometimes; the identity of Ms A. Dorn is unclear
Georg Wilhelm Am Kupfer Although Hegel died in 1831, his family and children still
Friedrich Hegel graben held gatherings in their house
(1770–1831)
Emilie von Am Kupfer According to Kinkel, the von Hennings held regular
Henning graben gatherings
Fanny Hensel Leipziger Str. 3 Kinkel frequented this salon relatively often, possible
connections to other salonnières and/or musicians
Johanna Kinkel Am Kupfer According to Kinkel, the Hegels, von Hennings and
graben Müllers met at her house when they wanted to play
the piano as the Hegels’ piano was out of tune
Nanny Müller Am Kupfer According to Kinkel, the Müllers held regular gatherings
graben
Friedrich Carl Western part of Frequent performances of Kinkel’s works
von Savigny Berlin
Schmid (Emilie Kinkel attended a social gathering here at least once
von Henning’s
brother-in-law)
Friedrich Charlottenstr. Possible connections to other salonnières and/or
August von 31 musicians
Staegemann
(1763–1840)
18 Anja Bunzel
Of all performance venues, it was those of Bettina von Arnim and Friedrich Carl
von Savigny which Kinkel visited most frequently. Many of her comical works were
conceived and performed there, but most of the scores are lost today.13 Maxe von
Arnim’s and Kinkel’s memoirs both confirm that Kinkel’s musical joke Vogelkantate
was performed for Friedrich Carl von Savigny’s birthday on 21 February 1837 in
his house. But Kinkel’s casual allusion to a different comedy, titled Dampfwagen-
Komödie (Steam-Car Comedy), in a letter to Bettina von Arnim’s friend Philipp von
Nathusius (1815–72), cannot be verified by any member of von Arnim’s circle. In the
hitherto unknown letter Kinkel writes:
Perhaps … you remember [me as] a distant acquaintance who, at the same time
as you, was welcomed at Bettina von Arnim’s house. Should you have forgotten
my name completely, I would like to remind you of a truly delightful steam-car
comedy in which you played the leading role and I myself (the composer of this
nonsense) fixed the chimney on your head.14
No further evidence of this performance exists in any other source related to Kinkel,
Nathusius or the von Arnims, and thus it is unknown who else was involved in
the performance and where the manuscript may be (it is not included in Kinkel’s
estate). Yet knowledge of this piece adds to Kinkel’s image as a whole: although she
only published one musical joke, the Vogelkantate, further humorous compositions
of hers must have enriched Berlin’s private musical life.
While the performances at the von Arnims’ and von Savignys’ tended to be given
by amateurs, Kinkel’s music was also performed within professional contexts. On 28
January 1839, the English contralto Mary Shaw (1814–76) sang a song by Kinkel at
the Leipzig Gewandhaus. It was labelled ‘German song’ in the concert announce-
ment, and the correspondence between Felix Mendelssohn and his mother suggests
that Kinkel’s Lied was performed at Fanny Hensel’s home in Berlin at some point
after Shaw’s visit to Leipzig.15 On 29 January 1839, Felix Mendelssohn recommended
to his mother that she request a song by Kinkel from Shaw when the latter passed
through Berlin.16 On 6 February 1839, he asked his mother to introduce Shaw to
13
Klaus, Johanna Kinkel, 34ff.
14
‘Vielleicht … erinnern Sie sich noch dunkel einer flüchtigen Bekannten, die mit
Ihnen zu gleicher Zeit im Heiligthum der Bettina von Arnim Aufnahme fand.
Sollten Sie meinen Namen ganz und gar vergessen haben, so mahne ich Sie an eine
sehr tolle Dampfwagen-Komödie, in der Sie die Hauptrolle spielten, und ich selbst
(die Verfasserin des Unsinns) Ihnen den Kamin auf die Locken befestigte.’ Johanna
Kinkel to Philipp von Nathusius on 26 February 1841, UB Kassel, 4° Ms. hist. litt.
15[151].
15
See A. Dörffel, Die Gewandhauskonzerte zu Leipzig (Leipzig: VEB, 1884, reprint
1980), 213; K. Grönke and A. Staub (eds), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Sämtliche
Briefe (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2012), VI, 643; H.-G. Klein, ‘… mit obligater Nachtigallen-
und Fliederblütenbegleitung’: Fanny Hensels Sonntagsmusiken (Wiesbaden: Reichert,
2005), 51–2. Kinkel did not have a song titled ‘German song’; Shaw must have chosen
this title by way of generalisation, as Kinkel was a German composer.
16
See Felix Mendelssohn’s letter to his mother dated 29 January 1839, cited in Grönke
and Staub (eds), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Sämtliche Briefe, 296–7.
Kinkel as soon as possible, ‘and let her perform her song for her; this will make both
of them happy’.17 Unfortunately it is unclear which of Kinkel’s songs Shaw sang.
Although Kinkel’s Lieder were reviewed enthusiastically in all major music jour-
nals, her Vogelkantate was recorded more meticulously in terms of private perfor-
mance. For example, the evidence of an 1850 performance reveals hitherto unknown
aspects of Kinkel’s musico-social life. The diary of the singer and biographer
Wilhelmine Bardua (1798–1865), who was the portrait painter Caroline Bardua’s
(1781–1864) sister and one of Kinkel’s Berlin friends, reveals that the Vogelkantate
lived on in Bardua’s hometown Ballenstedt, where she spent much of her later life:
Today, on Princess Louise’s birthday [18 November 1850], we have a comedy

again: the Vogelkantate by Kinkel, along with a spoken overture by myself …
What a wonderful time it was, when we saw Johanna Mathieux [Kinkel] at the
Arnims’ and also at ours in the Französische Straße. How happy were we playing
music with her, Franz Savigny, [Adolf] Eckenbrecher and Ottilie [von Graefe]!18
Not only does this show that Kinkel’s Vogelkantate was performed in Germany long
after she left Berlin, but it also tells us that Kinkel must have visited the Barduas,
although she herself never mentioned them. While Klaus has established links
between Kinkel and Caroline Bardua, Kinkel’s participation at the Barduas’ social
gatherings at their home in Französische Straße adds to our picture of her Berlin
life. However, there are no further details of those gatherings. Wilhelmine Bardua’s
diary was interrupted between 27 November 1835 and 26 November 1838. Of the
people Bardua mentions, Ottilie von Graefe (1816–98) did not leave a diary, and nor
did Franz von Savigny or Adolf Eckenbrecher. Kinkel’s teacher Franz Ries’s son,
the Royal Prussian Concertmaster Hubert Ries (1802–86), who helped Kinkel find
a place to live when she moved to Berlin, also left no diary. In a surviving memoir,
Ottilie von Graefe’s sister Wanda von Graefe (1830–1914) mentions Caroline
Bardua attending her own gatherings, but not Kinkel, so it is unclear whether or not
Kinkel visited von Graefe’s house with Bardua.19
The letters between Kinkel, Nanny Müller and Emilie von Henning provide fur-
ther insight into her Berlin life, and were first published by Kaufmann. Comparing
them with her memoirs, however, reveals that details were omitted by Kinkel in her
17
‘laß sie ihr ihr Lied vorsingen, das wird beiden Plaisir machen’. Felix Mendelssohn
in a letter to his mother on 6 February 1839, cited in Grönke and Staub (eds), Felix
Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Sämtliche Briefe, 301–2.
18
‘Heute, zum Geburtstag der Prinzeß Louise, gibt’s wieder Komödie: die Kinkelsche
Vogelkantate, mit einem Vorspiel dazu, das ich verfaßt habe. … Was war das eine
schöne Zeit, als wir Johanna Mathieux so oft bei Arnims und auch bei uns in der
Französischen Straße sahen! Wie fröhlich haben wir damals mit ihr und Franz
Savigny, Eckenbrecher und Ottilie musiziert!’ J. Werner (ed.), Die Schwestern Bardua:
Bilder aus dem Gesellschafts-, Kunst- und Geistesleben der Biedermeierzeit, 3rd edn
(Leizig: Köhler and Amelang, 1929), 258–9.
19
W. Hoffmann-Axthelm, ‘Die Familie Graefe und ihre Villa am Finkenherd im
Berliner Tiergarten’, in Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins, ed. W.
Hoffmann-Axthelm, J. Lachmann and H. E. Pappenheim (Berlin: n. p., 1965–70),
294–301.
20 Anja Bunzel
own records. These details might indicate what Kinkel herself regarded as worth
documenting; for example, a letter from Emilie von Henning to Nanny Müller
alludes to Kinkel visiting the house of von Henning’s brother-in-law Schmid, fur-
ther details about whom I have been unable to trace:
At a knitting society of my elegant brother-in-law Schmid, where the knitting nee-

dles never miss their points nor change their rhythm, and where only the refresh-
ments tray urges a short break, this frivolous woman [Kinkel] used the break to
steal and hide all the knitting under the couch. She thereby caused an endless
fermata within the choir, which lasted until the end of the evening.20
This excerpt exemplifies another challenge in dealing with private sources, namely
that of self-staging in autobiographical documents. In her essay on modern Lieder
composers (‘Über die modernen Liederkomponisten’) Kinkel places herself
among such other ‘Lieder composers with more serious artistic ambitions’ as Felix
Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert, Karl Bank, Josef Dessauer, Ferdinand Hiller, L. Huth,
Franz Lachner, Wilhelm Speier and Carl Gottfried Wilhelm Taubert. However,
Schmid’s salon is unmentioned in all other primary sources of 1830s Berlin, and was
thus probably quite insignificant. Perhaps Kinkel, with one eye to posterity, felt that
documenting her participation in less prestigious salons would harm her musical
reputation.21 Similarly, in a note from Kinkel to one Ms Dorn of Kochstraße 58,
dated 31 March 1838, she apologises that she will not be able to make it that evening,
but says that she will visit the next gathering in two weeks’ time. Despite this, Kinkel
never refers to Dorn elsewhere.22
However, significant salons also go unmentioned, which suggests that Kinkel’s
diary-keeping and memoir-writing may not have been that strategic. The unpub-
lished Tagesblätter (Diaries) of Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (1785–1858) reveal
that Kinkel attended the renowned Staegemann salon. A German diplomat, writer
and chronicler of the Romantic period, von Ense was a central figure of the Berlin
scene in particular, and German culture more generally. As can be seen in Petra
Wilhelmy-Dollinger’s chapter in this volume (Chapter 12), the Staegemann salon,
established around 1810, was hugely significant in shaping musical taste in Berlin
20
‘Bei einer gesitteten strickenden Gesellschaft von meinem feierlichen Schwager
Schmid, wo die Stricknadeln nie ihre Pointe verfehlen, noch aus dem Tact kommen
und wo nur das Presentierbrett eine kurze Pause herbeiführt, hat die Leichtfertige
diese Pause benutzt, um sämtliche Strickzeuge zu stehlen, unter dem Sopha zu
verbergen, und so eine unendliche Fermate im Chor veranlaßt die denn auch bis
an’s Ende der Gesellschaft währte.’ Emilie von Henning in a letter to Nanny Müller
on 30 August 1838, cited in Kaufmann, ‘Johanna Kinkel: neue Beiträge zu ihrem
Lebensbild’, 301; also L. Schmid-Delbrück, Leopold von Henning: 1791–1866: Ein
Lebensbericht zusammengestellt aus alten Briefen und Dokumenten (Berlin: self-
published, 1961), 155–6.
21
‘Liederkomponisten von ernsterem künstlerischen Bestreben’. J. Kinkel, ‘Über die
modernen Liederkomponisten’, in Der Maikäfer: Zeitschrift für Nichtphilister, ed. U.
Brandt-Schwarze et al. (Bonn: Stadtarchiv, 1982–85), III, 37.
22
J. Kinkel to A. Dorn on 31 March 1838, Stadtarchiv Bonn, SN 98/77.
and bringing together cultural advocators from all over Europe. Von Ense records
that Kinkel played the piano there on 7 April 1837:
Yesterday [I was] at the Stägemanns’. … There was a piano player, Mad. Mathieu
[sic], who lives at Bettina’s [Bettina von Arnim’s], and who also, like herself
[Bettina], has a Rhineland dialect; I did not like her at all; but today I was amused
to hear from Henriette Solmar the peculiarities about me she had discussed with
her [Kinkel].23
However, Kinkel herself never mentions her acquaintanceships with Varnhagen

von Ense, Henriette Solmar (1794–1889), a renowned singer who also hosted a
salon in Berlin for three decades from 1828 onwards, or, indeed, the Staegemann
family, despite their significance.
Kinkel’s visits to the painter Carl Begas (1794–1854) also remain obscure, as she
does not reflect on them in her memoirs or correspondence. Begas sent Kinkel a
note regarding a visit on 2 June 1838, but it is uncertain why this visit was initiat-
ed.24 In 1849, Kinkel referred to her link with Begas in her petition for her impris-
oned husband Gottfried in which she reminded the Princess of Prussia of their first
encounter ten years earlier. Then, Kinkel had entertained the young princess with
piano music while Begas painted the latter’s portrait. It is unclear whether this work-
ing relationship between Kinkel and Begas was ongoing, whether Begas’s note to
Kinkel referred to a regular visit, or whether Begas entertained social gatherings
besides his professional meetings.25
While the omission of Varnhagen von Ense and Begas suggests a lack of stra-
tegic thought in Kinkel’s memoir-keeping, a different picture is revealed by her
misrepresentation of her relationship to the Mendelssohns, surely the most pres-
tigious musicians she knew. Kinkel’s own accounts, as well as that of Kaufmann,
suggest that they were close friends. Kinkel gave a Lecture on Mendelssohn during
the 1850s in London, in which she emphasised her closeness to the Mendelssohns
by way of personal anecdotes. For instance, she promised the audience that ‘how
much [Mendelssohn] overlooked already then Virtuosi [sic] of the fashionable
style, an anecdote will prove to you, which Mendelssohn’s mother related to me’.26
Furthermore, she included details of Felix Mendelssohn’s personal relationships
and recounted a tale of when he and his sister Fanny Hensel coincidentally sent
each other a newly composed prelude and fugue which were similar in style and
23
‘Gestern Abend bei Stägemann’s, … Eine Klavierspielerin Mad. Mathieu [sic] war
dort, die bei Bettinen wohnt, und auch wie diese rheinländisch spricht; mir gefiel
sie gar nicht; heute aber war mir sehr ergötzlich, von Henriette Solmar zu hören,
was jene mit ihr über mich Wunderliches gesprochen!’ Karl August Varnhagen von
Ense in his Tagesblätter on 8 April 1837, unpublished, Biblioteka Jagiellonska, Krakow,
Collection Varnhagen, Box [252]/1. I am grateful to Nikolaus Gatter, Varnhagen-
Gesellschaft, who provided the excerpts of Varnhagen’s Tagesblätter. On 26 October
1838, Varnhagen recorded in his Tagesblätter another encounter with Kinkel at the
Staegemanns’.
24
Stadtarchiv Bonn, SN 98/ 165.
25
J. Kinkel, Gesuch an die Prinzessin von Preußen (unpublished, 1849, ULB 2407).
26
Lecture on Mendelssohn, 2, original in English.
22 Anja Bunzel
expressive character. By directly quoting Fanny’s reaction to Felix’s work, Kinkel

stresses her own presence during this incident.27 In her memoirs, Kinkel also sug-
gested that Fanny Hensel encouraged her regularly to perform in her salon:
In the social swirl that surrounded me, I was not given the time to look to my own
living. Now Fanny Hensel asked me more often to perform a significant piece on
my own or together with herself for four hands in order to be recognised by an
audience whose judgement was considered valuable within the musical world of
Berlin.28
Kinkel probably presented herself as close to the Mendelssohns in order to stage

herself as an influential protagonist of Berlin musical life, especially as Mendelssohn
was by then a celebrated (but dead!) composer.29
To some extent, this picture is supported in the Mendelssohns’ autobiographi-
cal documents. However, Hensel’s diary-keeping is interrupted from 26 November
1835 to 8 July 1839; when she resumed it, her accounts of musical and social events
were overshadowed by her sister Rebecka’s poor health, and the deaths of her
father and Rebecka’s son Felix on 19 November 1835 and 17 November 1838 respec-
tively. Referring to the winter of 1838/39, she writes: ‘I had music only three times,
when Shaw was here, then, [Pauline] Decker stopped singing because she was
pregnant; [Rosa] Curschmann was unwell, so that I could not organise gatherings
anymore.’30
Nevertheless, on 19 January 1838, Fanny asks Felix whether he had ‘come across
the Lieder by Madame Mathieux [Kinkel]. There are a few very charming ones
among them.’31 She clearly knew Kinkel’s Lieder, although there is no record of her
or Kinkel singing them (and this was before Mary Shaw’s visit to the Mendelssohns
in 1839). Kinkel recalls that she played the piano at Hensel’s several times, but her
name appears only once in the records of the Sonntagsmusiken, much later that year
on 17 December 1838, when she performed a Chopin etude, which, according to Lea
27
Ibid., 14–16 and 22–3.
28
‘In dem geselligen Strudel, der mich umgab, war mir nicht Zeit gelassen worden,
Schritte zu thun, die mich einem eigenen Erwerb näher geführt hätten. Jetzt forderte
mich Fanny Hensel häufiger auf, allein oder mit ihr zu vier Händen ein bedeutendes
Musikstück vorzutragen, um vor solchen Zuhörern bekannt zu werden, deren
Urtheil in der musikalischen Welt Berlins etwas galt.’ G. Kinkel, ‘Aus Johanna Kinkel’s
Memoiren’, 265–6.
29
Klaus, Johanna Kinkel, 310.
30
‘Musik hatte ich im Winter nur 3 mal, als die Shaw hier war, nachher hörte
die Decker, ihrer Schwangerschaft wegen, auf zu singen, die Curschmann war
unwohl, und da konnte ichs nicht mehr zusammenbringen.’ F. Hensel, Tagebuch,
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin MA M5.162, 45. See also Klein, ‘… mit obligater
Nachtigallen- und Fliederbegleitung’, 52.
31
‘Hast Du die Lieder von Madame Mathieux zu Gesicht bekommen? Es sind ein Paar
sehr hübsche darunter.’ Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn on 19 January 1838, cited
in M. J. Citron (ed.), The Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn (Hillsdale, NY:
Pendragon Press, 1987), 541.
Mendelssohn, was played ‘too clumsily considering the composer’s elegant charac-
ter’.32 Admittedly, smaller musical gatherings at Hensel’s do not seem to be docu-
mented meticulously. Furthermore, Hans-Günter Klein has shown that music was
also played outside of the Sonntagsmusiken, and that audiences of 120 to 130 visitors
were not unusual, so Kinkel may not have been named on each occasion. Rather,
only solo performances may have been recorded.33 For instance, Kinkel is not
included in Klein’s records of 3 December 1837 although it is likely that she attended
Hensel’s gathering that day because she received a personal invitation from Hensel
on the previous day.34 Indeed, to some extent Hensel must have valued Kinkel’s
musical participation at her gatherings.
Nevertheless, a different picture is revealed by the Mendelssohn family corres
pondence. On 30 November 1836, Lea Mendelssohn wrote the following unpub-
lished double-edged letter to Felix:
Are we not incredibly lucky, dear Felix! that you sent us Madame Mathieu [sic,
Kinkel]; because it could have been the other way around and then you would
have damned us forever. She must feel neglected, since she unloaded all her emo-
tions at mine while playing [the piano], and she told me how you are being
deified in Dsd. [Düsseldorf], the village …! – We were at Fanny’s house with
her yesterday, appropriately enough she had only invited another twenty-five
unpleasant people. But it was lively and delightful nonetheless.35
The next mention of Kinkel is in early 1838 (see the letters quoted above). Then, on
26 February 1839, Fanny wrote to Felix:
32
‘viel zu klobig für das zarte Wesen des Komponisten’. Klein, ‘… mit obligater
Nachtigallen- und Fliederbegleitung’, 49.
33
Ibid., 16 and 22.
34
Hensel wrote a short message to Kinkel inviting her to attend her rehearsal
‘tomorrow, Saturday’ and the ‘musicale on Sunday at noon’, which was stamped on
2 December (‘Morgen Sonnabend um 5 Uhr werde ich Probe, und Sonntag um 12
meine Musik haben’). A handwritten note was added later indicating the year 1838.
The correct year, however, is likely to be 1837. Hensel entertained very few musical
gatherings in the winter of 1838/39, and there is no record of a gathering for the first
weekend of December 1838, while Klein takes note of a musicale on 3 December
1837 (Klein, ‘… mit obligater Nachtigallen- und Fliederbegleitung’, 49). Furthermore,
2 December 1838 was a Sunday; thus it is more likely that this correspondence took
place in 1837, when 2 December was a Saturday and the letter could have been penned
by Hensel on Friday, 1 December. Note from Hensel to Kinkel on 2 December
[1837?], Stadtarchiv Bonn, SN 98/183.
35
‘Es ist ein nicht genug zu schätzendes Glück, lieber Felix! daß Du uns Mde. Mathieu
[sic] zugeschickt; denn es könnte doch auch umgekehrt sein, und dann hättest Du
uns ewigen Haß geschworen. Sie muß wohl an einiger Unliebenswürdigkeit leiden,
da sie all ihren Enthu[siasmus], spielend bei mir entladen, mir erzählend, wie Du
in Dsd. [Düsseldorf] abgegöttert wirst, dem Dorf, …! – Wir waren gestern Abend
bei Fanny mit ihr, sie hatte paßenderweise nur noch 25 andre nicht angenehme
Leute eingeladen. Aber es war dennoch animiert und hübsch.’ Lea Mendelssohn
to Felix Mendelssohn on 30 November 1836, Bodleian Library Oxford, GB-Ob,
M. D. M.d.31/143. Italics in original.
24 Anja Bunzel
Mathieux will pass [through Leipzig] any day now. She wants to go to Bonn in
order to get divorced from her husband, but the foolish man does not agree. Have
you ever seen such a thing before? Do not put this letter in the bin in case she finds
and reads it.36
In response, Felix wrote equally ambivalently to Lea Mendelssohn on 2 March 1839:
When I was still tired from writing letters, Madame Mathieux entered my house.
She is staying until tonight; she cried and complained a lot, and then she wanted
to sell a new Lieder opus, and I talked Kistner into it; and I invited her last night;
she arrived at 6pm and annoyed Cécile; at 6:30pm, Schlesinger arrived coinci-
dentally, and at 7pm, the Schuncks arrived, also coincidentally – we improvised
a gathering. Madame Mathieux talked, played and sang Lieder and although her
voice is really bad, I did enjoy it as she is musical through and through and there
are some nice songs among her Lieder.37
Fanny responds to Felix on 4 March 1839: ‘I agree with you completely about
Mathieux.’38 Although the Mendelssohns supported Kinkel’s musical endeavours,
they evidently had mixed feelings towards her personally and Kinkel might not have
been as close with them as she insinuated.
However, there is no reason to regard the Mendelssohns as automatically more
reliable. Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn might have been prejudiced against
Kinkel because of her personal life and her lower musical standards. Mendelssohn’s
unpublished letters to Gottfried Kinkel dated 2 April 1843 and 31 July 1843, in which
he encourages Kinkel to write an opera libretto for him, reveal that his associa-
tion with the Kinkels was quite close even long after Johanna’s return to Bonn in
1839.39 The bond between the Kinkels and the Mendelssohns was revived in 1850,
when Gottfried was freed from the Spandau prison with the help of Carl Schurz
36
‘In diesen Tagen geht die Matieux bei Dir durch. Sie will nach Bonn, um sich von
ihrem Mann scheiden zu lassen, und der närrische Mann will nicht. Ist Dir so etwas
schon vorgekommen? Laß den Brief nicht in den Papierkorb fallen, damit sie ihn
nicht findet und liest.’ Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn on 26 February 1839, cited
in Citron (ed.), The Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn, 556.
37
‘Als mir der Kopf noch davon [vom Briefeschreiben] brummte trat Mme. Matthieux
herein. Sie bleibt bis heute Abend hier, und brüllte sehr und war in Nöthen,
und dann wollte sie gern ein neues Liederheft verkaufen, und ich habs Kistner
aufgeschwatzt, und ich hab sie auf gestern Abend eingeladen und da kam sie um 6
und fiel Cécile auf die Nerven, und um 1/2 7 kam zufällig Herr Schlesinger dazu,
und um 7 eben so zufällig sämmtliche Schuncks – hieraus wurde eine Gesellschaft
improvisirt, Mme. Matthieux erzählte, spielte, sang Lieder und so schlecht
ihre Stimme ist, so hat mirs doch Vergnügen gemacht, denn sie ist durch und
durch musikalisch und in den Liedern kommen ganz hübsche Sachen vor.’ Felix
Mendelssohn in a letter to his mother on 2 March 1839, in Grönke and Staub (eds),
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Sämtliche Briefe, 332–3.
38
Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn on 4 March 1839, cited in Citron (ed.), The
Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn, 557.
39
Felix Mendelssohn to Gottfried Kinkel on 2 April and 31 July 1843, cited after S.
Münnich, L. Schiwietz and U. Wald (eds), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Sämtliche
Briefe, IX, 262–3 and 355–6.
(1829–1906) and a number of acquaintances, among whom was Fanny Hensel’s

and Felix Mendelssohn’s sister Rebecka Dirichlet (1811–58). Unfortunately, little is
known about the relationship between Kinkel and Dirichlet. Still, Paul Kaufmann’s
characterisation of an ‘honoured friendship’ (‘verehrungsvolle Freundschaft’)
between the Mendelssohns and Kinkel seems to be informed solely by Kinkel’s
own writings and her 1850s links with Dirichlet.40 Kaufmann refers to Adeline
Rittershaus’s edition of Kinkel, Mendelssohn and Ferdinand Hiller’s correspond-
ence after Kinkel’s escape from Bonn in 1836, but neither Rittershaus nor Kaufmann
consider Mendelssohn’s letters to his mother and sister.
Furthermore, in his selection of letters between Kinkel and her Bonn friend
Angela Oppenhoff, Kaufmann omits passages which include explanations as to how
Kinkel conceived her own Lieder and how they should be performed.41 Kaufmann’s
estate reveals these to be deliberate omissions.42 Another aspect which Kaufmann
seemingly aimed to steer is the omission of names and addresses (although, as I
have shown, Kinkel herself was inconsistent with some details). For example,
Kinkel’s mention of one ‘Ms Naumann’ in relation to her Berlin time was ignored by
Kaufmann.43 Furthermore, Kinkel’s letter from 14 July 1838 includes a lengthy pas-
sage on friends whom she met in Berlin, but Kaufmann omits all of it, even though
he devotes a full section precisely to Kinkel’s social environment in Berlin.44
Even though Kaufmann’s omissions are not factually ‘wrong’, they privilege
Kinkel’s affiliation with Mendelssohn. Ultimately, Kaufmann presented Kinkel as
an intelligent and supportive housewife and a talented writer, rather than a reputa-
ble composer. Interestingly, Kaufmann reminds the reader that ‘it was not until 1856
that Johanna had written down her Berlin memories, which might have faded a little
bit and which might not be seen as fact without fancy in all places’.45
All this reveals Kinkel as a musician who participated actively across a wide
range of Berlin salons, but whose own writings concentrate on her relationship
with a small group of influential figures: Bettina von Arnim and her circle, as well
as the Mendelssohns. This chapter offers three conclusions: firstly, the purpose
of Kinkel’s memoirs and lecture on Mendelssohn needs (re)thinking, as perhaps
aimed at establishing her social and professional credibility. Secondly, there is
more to be discovered about Kinkel’s salon attendance in Berlin, as not all of the
40
Kaufmann, ‘Johanna Kinkel: Neue Beiträge zu ihrem Lebensbild’, 293.
41
Kinkel’s letter to her Bonn friend Angela Oppenhoff from 21 July 1837 includes a
passage in which she provides instructions as to how to perform ten songs which she
enclosed in the letter. This entire passage is not reproduced by Kaufmann. Johanna
Kinkel to Angela Oppenhoff on 21 July 1837, Stadtarchiv Bonn, SN94167, no. 4,
1–2. Likewise, the Lieder section in the letter from 10 November 1838 is omitted in
Kaufmann’s edition. Johanna Kinkel to Angela Oppenhoff on 10 November 1838,
Stadtarchiv Bonn, SN94167, no. 7, 1.
42
Kaufmann’s estate can be found at Stadtarchiv Bonn under the signature SN94167.
43
Johanna Kinkel to Angela Oppenhoff on 10 December 1837, Stadtarchiv Bonn,
SN94167, no. 5, 4.
44
Hasenklever, Ladner, Pfeffer and Mantius are mentioned in the letter. Johanna Kinkel
to Angela Oppenhoff on 14 July 1838, Stadtarchiv Bonn, SN94167, no. 6, 3–4.
45
‘Johanna hatte ihre Berliner Erinnerungen, die schon ein wenig verblaßt waren und
nicht mehr überall als Wahrheit ohne Dichtung gelten durften, erst 1856 zu Papier
gebracht.’ Kaufmann, ‘Johanna Kinkel: Beiträge zu ihrem Lebensbild’, 294.
26 Anja Bunzel
thirty gatherings which Kinkel claims to have visited have yet been traced. Berlin
salon culture certainly enabled social mobility; however, this relied on influential
connections. For instance, access to von Savigny’s salon depended on von Arnim’s
introduction, and Mendelssohn’s reference permitted entry to Hensel’s salon. In
a similar vein, in her writing Erziehungswesen in London (Pedagogy in London),
Kinkel observes that scholars and musicians who are seeking a job in London do
not bring their own works as proof of their abilities, but as many references from
respected people as possible. She remarks that ‘the Englishman does not trust his
ears, but he trusts the references’.46 Thus, a link to the well-known composer Felix
Mendelssohn doubtless raised her musical profile in London. Thirdly, consider-
ing the reconstructive nature of historiography and (auto)biography, the possible
intention of an (auto) biographer should be examined just as thoroughly as the con-
tent of their writings. The salons Kinkel attended had different functions within her
life – education, promotion and pleasure – which might be the reason she granted
them different degrees of attention in her memoirs and letters.
As this chapter has shown, subjects of historiographical enquiry are always the
victims of their scholarly documenters’ biases. Kaufmann focused on Kinkel’s per-
sonal life and her political engagement, with a few asides on her musicality in order
to complete the image of her as a nineteenth-century all-round heroine. Klaus shed
a more critical and comprehensive light on Kinkel as a Romantic composer and rev-
olutionary, but this panoramic view permits only brief scrutiny of Kinkel’s time in
Berlin, although it was hugely significant for her as a musician. Kinkel’s and her con-
temporaries’ private sources add two new aspects to Kinkel scholarship, particularly
in relation to her self-image as a close friend of the Mendelssohns. But more impor-
tantly, better-known sources, such as the Mendelssohns’ correspondence, are not
necessarily more reliable; each edition of Fanny Hensel’s and Felix Mendelssohn’s
correspondence is itself selective. Having said this, it is my hope that this chapter
will inspire further critical enquiry on figures like Kinkel, who existed on the fringe
of professional musical success, while also reiterating the need for methodological
care when researching private musical culture.
46
‘Der Engländer traut seinen Ohren nicht, aber er traut den References’. Kinkel,
Erziehungswesen in London, 23.
Chapter 2
Accidental Aesthetics in the Salon:

Amateurism and the Romantic Fragment in the
Lied Sketches of Bettina von Arnim
Jennifer Ronyak
B ettina von Arnim is best known for her social role within early nine-
teenth-century German salon circles and for her literary achievements, which
include the three epistolary books, Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (1835), Die
Günderrode (1840), and Clemens Brentanos Frühlingskranz (1844). In addition to
being the sister of the writer Clemens Brentano and the wife of Brentano’s close col-
league Achim von Arnim, she was personally entangled with Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe and Ludwig van Beethoven and maintained other important relationships
with prominent cultural figures. From 1810 to 1859, when she lived in Berlin, she was
also an integral part of salon life there, as both a frequent guest and hostess. Less
well known is the fact that she also engaged in the improvisation and composition
of Lieder. Although the scholars Ann Willison Lemke and Renate Moering have
done extensive work on her musical compositions and activities, her musical profile
remains slight within musicology.1 Her status as an amateur composer who enjoyed
only limited skill in comparison to her abilities as a writer has been problematic for
her status as an object of further musicological study. While she did publish a hand-
ful of songs to some success, much of the evidence that we have of this salonnière’s
compositional activities come in the form of unfinished sketches and other scribbles
in her personal musical notebook, held today at the Pierpont Morgan Library as
manuscript Heineman 9B.
This essay looks at one of the most pregnant of the unfinished sketches in that
source: a melodic outline of a setting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s ‘Wandrers
Nachtlied’ II (‘Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’). Although nominally a sketch study,
this investigation departs from the traditional method of dealing with sketches as
preliminary drafts of finished works. I treat Arnim’s sketch as an aesthetic object
that points towards overlapping social and aesthetic aspects of Lied composition in
relationship to salon musical activity in the early nineteenth century. More specifi-
cally, I classify the sketch as what I will call an ‘accidental’ and ‘amateur’ Romantic
fragment. This framework builds on the aesthetic category of the Romantic frag-
ment in order to illuminate underexplored aspects of that aesthetic category itself,
to broaden its relationship to Lieder as a genre inherently associated with the salon
and amateur musical activity, and to interrogate the status of amateur compositional
1
See multiple contributions by Ann Willison Lemke. See also R. Moering, ‘Bettine
von Arnims Musizieren’, in Annäherung: An sieben Komponistinnen. VII., ed. C. Mayer
(Kassel: Furore, 1996), 84–96, and Die offene Romanform von Arnims Gräfin Dolores
(Heidelberg: Winter, 1978).
28 Jennifer Ronyak
activity – especially by women connected to salon life – within musicological study

of the nineteenth century.
It is actually questionable whether Arnim’s accidental, amateur fragment
‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II can be said to be a Romantic fragment in a durable sense.
I seek the ways in which it might inhabit this aesthetic identity, however, in order
to pursue new insights into the ties between Lieder, salon life, amateurism, women,
improvisation and sketching in the early nineteenth century. Previous scholarly
approaches to the nature of the relationship between women-led salons, women
amateurs, and their musical activities and composed Lieder have been determined
to a significant degree by the mastery displayed in any given song. Great songs –
whether by Schubert, or, happily, by Fanny Mendelssohn or Josephine Lang – are
automatically aestheticised in scholarship. They are analysed according to their aes-
thetic presence even when the scholarship also seeks to contextualise these com-
positions. Less masterful songs or the fragments thereof have been considered to
be mere artefacts in a cultural or social history that can lay much less claim on an
aesthetic presence worthy of study.
I posit Arnim’s song sketch as a Romantic fragment in order to ask questions
about what we choose to aestheticise in musicology and why. My focus on this argu-
ably insignificant, short musical sketch for this purpose has something in common
with the now established and recently critiqued trend of ‘quirk historicism’ in musi-
cology, in which historians seize on an anecdotal detail and use it rather freely as an
anchor for diverse and wide-ranging historical investigations. As Mary Ann Smart
and Nicholas Mathew argue, musicologists who use this technique have done so as
part of a large-scale move in the discipline to set aside the aesthetic close reading of
masterworks as a central aim, instead looking to social history, practices, intellec-
tual history and the like. But they discover nevertheless a tendency to aestheticise
anyway: not the musical work but the anecdotal quirk.2 In this essay I move my aes-
theticisation back to its traditional musicological home, the musical object – but to
a fragmentary one that would normally escape this kind of attention. This process
allows me to ask when, why and how we can more thoroughly value and analyse
traces of performing and compositional activity that are connected to the extensive
amateurism within the salons, and indeed the broader middle-class musical com-
munity of the period, and what role aestheticising these fragmentary musical traces
can have in this endeavour.
Accidental Fragments
Arnim’s sketch of ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II (transcribed in Example 2.1) is fragmen-
tary by accident. It is not incomplete as part of some deliberate aesthetic design,
but rather because Arnim did not ever come back to the song to make decisions
as to metre, harmonisation or accompanimental figurations for the pianist, or any
number of other musical possibilities.
2
N. Mathew and M. A. Smart, ‘Elephants in the Music Room: The Future of Quirk
Historicism’, Representations 132/1 (2015), especially 64–5.
The Lied Sketches of Bettina von Arnim 29
Ex. 2.1 Transcription of Bettina von Arnim’s sketch of ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II
   
                 
      
ü - ber all - en Gip - feln ist ruh in all - en Wip - flen spür - est du Kaum ein - en
      
    

       

hauch Die Vög - lein schwei - gen im Wal - de war - te nur bal - de
  
     
de Schwei - gest Du auch.
In this it differs a great deal from the locus classicus of the Romantic fragment
within musicological approaches to Romantic German Lieder: ‘Im wunderschönen
Monat Mai’, the first song from Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe Op. 48 (1840). Both
songs are essentially domestic or salon music, although Schumann’s completed
song rightfully enjoys the sort of strong canonical position that Arnim’s sketch never
could. As Charles Rosen argued in The Romantic Generation, Schumann’s song par-
takes in the fragmentary aesthetics of earlier theories of the specifically Romantic
artwork in that it is ‘balanced and yet unstable … complete in itself, a fragmen-
tary image of the infinite’.3 He relates this musical strategy to the principle of the
Romantic fragment, an ideal articulated by Friedrich Schlegel around 1800 in the
journal Athenaeum and elsewhere as part of a shared programme for Romanticism
created by Schlegel and numerous colleagues. For Schlegel, the fragment indicated
the fundamental way that Romantic creative activity would differ from the Classical
– that it would forever be in a state of striving or ‘becoming’, as opposed to being
closed or finished.4 Schlegel’s Athenaeum fragment no. 206, one of many literary
fragments that he authored to both explain and demonstrate the aesthetic princi-
ple, states that ‘a fragment should be like a little work of art, complete in itself and
yet separated from the rest of the universe like a hedgehog’.5 Schumann’s song gets
this idea across melodically and tonally, most obviously in that it only points to
its tonic via opening and closing sections that rest, at most, on dominant seventh
chords. A number of scholars have later refined this association between the deft
compositional strategies of Schumann and the Romantic aesthetics of the fragment,
3
C. Rosen, The Romantic Generation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1995), 48.
4
‘Die romantische Dichtart ist noch im Werden; ja das ist ihr eigentliches Wesen, daß
sie ewig nur werden …’ F. Schlegel, Athenaeum fragment no. 116, cited in F. Schlegel,
Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe in 35 Bänden, ed. E. Behler et al. (Paderborn:
Schönigh, 1958–), II, 182–3. Hereafter KFSA.
5
Athenaeum fragment no. 206, cited in KFSA, II, 197. Trans. Rosen, The Romantic
Generation, 48.
30 Jennifer Ronyak
creating one standard paradigm for understanding Romantic aesthetics in music in

and beyond song composition.6
Schlegel’s aesthetic of the fragment is much more capacious than this path of
study suggests, however. It was formulated in theoretical engagement with eight-
eenth-century aesthetics, as well as with Classical and contemporaneous litera-
ture and art. Work on the concept of the fragment was bolstered through convivial
living arrangements with colleagues and contacts made in the salons of Berlin. To
an important extent, Schlegel’s concept of the fragment owed as much to those
fragments that came into being by accident as to those that he and his literary
and artistic contemporaries deliberately created themselves: both accidental and
designed fragments could create a similar response in the reader, viewer or listener.
Accidental fragments, however, required that the perceiver aestheticise the object,
even when that meant turning away from fully acknowledging its original histori-
cal, social or artistic uses or meanings. Schlegel, for example, engaged with classi-
cal Greek sculpture in this way, as well as fragmentary texts (like those of Sappho)
of that period. Ancient Greek sculpture, especially, had accidentally come down to
eighteenth-century viewers and aestheticians as fragments. With their more deli-
cate outer limbs having broken off over time, many important classical sculptures
were nothing more than ‘torsos’, or were otherwise incomplete. (As classicists have
since emphasised, the white colour of such sculptures was also a matter of wear over
time; they were originally painted brightly.) From his Romantic viewpoint, Schlegel
valued these accidental fragments as a part of his larger project. One could take the
same aesthetic position with respect to these fragments of the Ancients as one could
towards Romantic ones that were designed as such. As Schlegel put it in Athenaeum
fragment no. 24: ‘Many works of the Ancients have become fragments. Many works
of the moderns are already fragments at the time of their origin.’7 In either case, the
perceiver must simply allow the fragments’ incomplete nature to point outward to
an indefinite form of completion. In the case of classical Greek sculpture, it served
Schlegel’s aesthetic musings to encounter the sculptures in a form lacking colour
and otherwise not representative of their original state.8 Albrecht Riethmüller claims
that this tendency to aestheticise accidental fragments by setting aside a more his-
torical investigation in fact runs through eighteenth-century Classicism (including
in the work of Johann Joachim Winckelmann), Schlegel’s Romanticism and even
later instantiations of the ‘cult’ of the fragment. In all of these cases, the real history
6
See especially D. Ferris, Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis and the Genre of the
Romantic Cycle (Oxford: OUP, 2000); B. J. Perrey, Schumann’s Dichterliebe and
Early Romantic Poetics: Fragmentation of Desire (Cambridge: CUP, 2002). These
methodologies have also been pursued beyond the song repertoire. See R. Kramer,
‘The Hedgehog: Of Fragments Finished and Unfinished’, 19th-Century Music 21
(1997/2), 134–48, and other contributions.
7
‘Viele Werke der Alten sind Fragmente geworden. Viele Werke der Neuern sind es
gleich bei der Entstehung’. KFSA, II, 169.
8
G. Gruber, ‘Das Fragment in der Musik und im Musiktheater’, in Das Fragment im
(Musik-)Theater: Zufall und/oder Notwendigkeit?, ed. U. Müller, F. Hundsnurscher
and O. Panagl (Salzburg: Verlag Mueller-Speiser, 2005), LV, 38.
of the accidental fragment, including its original artistic form and its social or ritual
uses, is set aside in the project of aestheticisation.9
We have accidental fragments in the Western art music canon of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries as well; however, the ones that tend to receive the most
collective attention from musicologists are usually large-scale masterworks that
were left unfinished, sometimes due to the death of the composer. The general dis-
ciplinary tendency in this case, however, differs a bit from the way in which Schlegel
and Winckelmann viewed accidental fragments. We do not usually aestheticise
these incomplete works as fragments in the same sense as the Greek torso or a ruin.
These musical compositions are treated differently than accidental fragments in
sculpture or poetry in that the desire to find a suitable way to perform them today
has a strong effect on how we engage with them. These efforts include practical
compositional attempts to complete these works for performance. Our traditional
‘torsos’ include works such as J. S. Bach’s Art of the Fugue, W. A. Mozart’s Requiem,
Franz Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony and Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. The
performance conventions surrounding these works vary, depending on the nature
and degree of their incompleteness. For example, Mozart’s Requiem is generally per-
formed in completions by other composers; Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’, however, is
usually treated in performance as a short set of symphony movements, in line with
a general popular understanding that these two movements are musically satisfying
in themselves. In general, the consensus revealed by these performing conventions
seems to be – at least at the level of aesthetic enjoyment or judgement – that we
need to encounter even these fascinating, accidental fragments in a performed form
that gives them some measure of tonal or other formal completion in order to grant
them their due.10
9
A. Riethmüller, ‘Friedrich Nietzsches Fragment an Sich’, in Das musikalische
Kunstwerk: Geschichte-Ästhetik-Theorie: Festschrift Carl Dahlhaus zum 60. Geburtstag,
ed. H. Danuser et al. (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1988), 565.
10
A broad survey of recent orchestral programmes reveals that Schubert’s Unfinished
symphony is generally performed as a two-movement work. Programme note
authors alternately revel in longstanding myths about why Schubert left the work
unfinished or align themselves more with efforts to debunk those myths. For two
contrasting examples, see J. L. Keller, ‘Symphony in B Minor, D. 759, Unfinished,
Franz Schubert’, Programme booklet for the New York Philharmonic, 3 November
2016, 32–3, https://nyphil.org/~/media/pdfs/program-notes/1617/Schubert-
Symphony-in-B-minor-Unfinished.pdf (17 March 2018), and P. Huscher, ‘Franz-
Schubert – Symphony no. 8 in B Minor, D. 759 (Unfinished)’, Programme booklet
for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, n. d., 1–4, https://cso.org/uploadedfiles/1_
tickets_and_events/program_notes/031110_programnotes_schubert_symphony.
pdf (24 August 2018). Scholarly approaches to the symphony focus on its genesis and
the reasons for its incompletion, the possibility of completing the third movement
based on Schubert’s piano sketch, and the myth-making process surrounding the
work. See J. M. Gingerich, ‘Unfinished Considerations: Schubert’s “Unfinished”
Symphony in the Context of his Beethoven Project’, 19th-Century Music 31/2 (2007),
99–112; T. Hiller, ‘Zum Fragment und dem Versuch einer Vervollständigung des 3.
Satzes von Schuberts “Unvollendeter” Sinfonie h-Moll D 759’, Schubert: Perspektiven
4/2 (2004), 187–8; and A. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘The Myth of the “Unfinished” and the
Film Das Dreimäderlhaus (1958)’, in Rethinking Schubert, ed. L. Byrne Bodley and J.
Horton (Oxford: OUP, 2016), 111–26.
32 Jennifer Ronyak
Sketches in the visual arts were viewed by the Romantics as bearing the same
aesthetic properties as fragments; however, musical sketches, much as in the case
of the unfinished musical ‘torsos’ just discussed, can be more difficult to aestheti-
cise in the same way. A visual artist’s sketch could be left in a seemingly unfinished
or unpolished state either due to its genuinely preliminary nature, in which case
the artist never meant it to be exhibited, or as an intentional result for exhibition
or other viewing by an audience. August Wilhelm Schlegel, who worked alongside
his brother Friedrich in theorising Romanticism, articulated the way in which both
types of visual sketches aligned fully with the goals of the fragment:
The more the visual art stays with its first lightly sketched hints, the more it will
act analogously to poetry. Its marks will almost become hieroglyphs, like those of
the poet; the imagination will be required to complete and continue to develop
according to the received stimulus, rather than becoming captive to the accom-
modating satisfaction of the completely worked out painting.11
Just like the individual who is moved to contemplation by the Ancient Greek torso,
or who responds aesthetically to the Schlegels’ own literary fragments or a frag-
mentary lyric poem, the viewer of the visual sketch must allow the mind to dance
between the suggestive part given and the dimly imagined whole. Painters in France
and England, especially, came to experiment with this concept during the nine-
teenth century. In France and England, painters had previously only considered
their sketches as a necessary working step to building up a genuinely finished canvas
at a later date. During the first half of the nineteenth century, painters such as John
Constable, Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Jean Désiré Gustav
Courbet moved the techniques of sketching from just a working step to an aesthetic
end in itself, exhibiting paintings that had a sketch-like quality to them.
Musical sketches during the early nineteenth century generally did not function
in the same way. The distinction between the working sketch as an accidental frag-
ment, left unfinished after a few ideas were tried out, and the composed ‘improvisa-
tion’, ‘prelude’ or other genre that might give the aesthetic impression of something
‘just sketched’ was greater than in the visual arts. Part of this has to do with the tonal
syntax of music during the period. While it was becoming increasingly possible by
the 1830s and ’40s to write in a way that blurred harmonic goals (as in the already-
cited case of Schumann’s ‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’), the difference between
the sound of this planned technique and the results of a more haphazardly unfin-
ished sketch of a score are usually very significant. Jeffrey Kallberg has explored the
limits involved in aestheticising a true musical sketch in relationship to Chopin, for
example. Seeking to find the traces of Chopin’s reputedly astonishing and sponta-
neous powers as an improviser in salon performances in one of Chopin’s sketches,
Kallberg concluded that even a rather well worked-out sketch of Chopin’s does little
11
A. W. Schlegel, Über Zeichnungen, in Athenaeum: Eine Zeitschrift von August Wilhelm
Schlegel und Friedrich Schlegel, ed. C. Grützmacher (Munich: Rowohlt, 1969), II, 78.
Trans. Ferris, Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis, 67.
to capture either the desired fragmentary aesthetics of Romanticism or Chopin’s

powers as a live improviser.12
Still, Kallberg’s attempt to connect the accidental fragment that is a musical
sketch to the live musical practices of an improvisatory persona is worth consider-
ing further. In the case of Chopin, much of the problem of taking the sketch under
consideration lies in the great distance that we immediately hear between its qual-
ity and the much more impressive, fully planned, sketch-like brevity of Chopin’s
completed, published, canonical preludes. But if we take a much less skilled ama-
teur composer into view, this distance between our knowledge and even adoration
of a canonical, finished style and the sketches before us can collapse. In the case
of Arnim’s sketch, we thus have a kind of accidental fragment, a contour of a song
melody left aside, which we need not feel compelled to compare to any set of her
own finished products. (This is the case even though Arnim did complete and pub-
lish a few fine songs; in that they do not form a well-known style, they simply do not
have the same regulatory power over our musical hearing today that Chopin’s music
does.) We can ask questions very similar to Kallberg’s, but without a Chopinean
ear, including how this sketching in the context of salon literary and musical activity
relates to Arnim’s involvement with Romanticism, improvisation itself and improvi-
sational aesthetics.
As Ann Willison Lemke has documented, Arnim was known to improvise songs
on the texts of her husband, her brother, Goethe and others in salon and domestic
gatherings. In her major literary works, she developed a persona based in this kind of
Romantic ‘spontaneity’ that went beyond her actual musical abilities.13 Still, Arnim
did have a strong voice with a reportedly extensive compass; given this physiological
fact, the rather large melodic span of the sketch of an octave and a major sixth, rang-
ing from B-flat3 to G5, and the surprising, leap-based contours of the melody may
reflect idiosyncratic aspects of Arnim’s vocal improvisations.14 And when we read
this sketch with the aesthetics of Schlegel’s fragments in mind, the sense in which
it points outward to a series of possible, but not notated, improvisational choices
in approaching Goethe’s famous text grows. Although it is ‘complete’ in two basic
senses, in that it sets the entire poem once through and opens and closes on the
tonic key, this fragment otherwise points outward, beyond its bare contents, in that
an improvisatory performer could take this basic outline in many different direc-
tions by adding different rhythmic and harmonic solutions. The highest and lowest
points of the melody, especially, call out for interesting timbral or dynamic effects
of the voice (that could be done in the space of the implied and notated fermatas),
potential ornaments and accompanimental flourishes or even harmonic movement
by the piano underneath that could all add a variety of atmospheric possibilities to
12
J. Kallberg, ‘Chopin and the Aesthetic of the Sketch: A New Prelude in E  Minor?’,
Early Music 29/3 (August 2001), 421–2.
13
A. Willison Lemke, ‘Bettine’s Song: The Musical Voice of Bettine von Arnim, née
Brentano (1785–1859)’, PhD thesis (Indiana University, 1998).
14
Moering (‘Bettine von Arnims Musizieren’, 86) cites the memoir of an acquaintance
of Arnim’s, who noted that Arnim once began a performance in a tenor or bass
register, only to startlingly switch to a very high one: Marie Helene von Kügelgen geb.
Zöge von Manteuffel: Ein Lebensbild in Briefen (Leipzig: Wöpfe, 1900), 177.
34 Jennifer Ronyak
the text. Much like Friedrich Schlegel’s posited reader for his fragments, here an
individual who aurally imagines these options partakes in a series of non-fixed pos-
sibilities for Arnim’s accidental fragment: one performance, of course, would fix just
one of these temporarily in place. Arnim’s unfinished song exhibits the qualities of
the Romantic fragment most convincingly so long as it remains heard in the mind
and not in live performance. Much as we might most wonder about the implications
of Schlegel’s puzzling hedgehog when loosely contemplating it in private (instead
of fixing one explanatory meaning in published scholarship), we perhaps recapture
Arnim’s improvisational tendencies best when we stop short of ‘finishing’ this acci-
dental fragment in performed or composed form.
Amateur Fragments
Looking at this particular sketch by Arnim, the fact that she was not only a musical
amateur, but an amateur of limited skill, can be detected easily. For example, the
rather awkward word-painting on the word ‘Wipfeln’ (‘treetops’) created by a leap
up to G5, is followed by such a long descent to the bottom of the scale – as if Arnim
was compositionally stuck a bit in a corner – that it can even lead to a chuckle. Other
aspects of her sketchbook may provoke more tender smiles of recognition for some-
one who remembers the beginning stages of the process of learning Western musi-
cal notation and voice-leading rules. Her sketchbook itself is a notational record
of her struggle to gain musical competency over time. The sketchbook served (at
some points in her own development, and possibly that of her brother or husband)
as a site for everything from reviewing the basics of notation and pianism to more
complex work with harmony (so that she might eventually write suitable accom-
paniments for her songs). For example, on one page, someone’s hand (likely not
Arnim’s) has written in the note names along the staff so that they can be learned
(Figure 2.1); on an outside cover, the fingering for a C-major scale has been written
out for right and left hands (Figure 2.2); and, on another Lied composition inside,
numerical counting has been placed over the melody to correctly discipline it into
a metre.
In line with Arnim’s numerous complaints in her letters that she could not really
master harmony, despite semi-regular instruction, there is evidence throughout the
manuscript of harmonic exercises or Lied harmonisation attempts that are begun
and just as quickly dropped on particular pages.15 While the manuscript does con-
tain a limited number of fully complete, harmonised songs (including some that
Arnim would publish), these were generally finished with the help of one of her
teachers. Regardless of whether she ‘dictated’ these harmonies by ear to those that
assisted her, they do not represent her initial, independent efforts with setting a text
to music.
This evidence seems to suggest that the bulk of the contents of this notebook
would serve scholarship better as a sign of Arnim’s interest in music than as a repos-
itory for aesthetic objects. Still, the matter of how we, in musicology, tend to value
the creations of nineteenth-century amateurs with limited compositional skill
15
A. Willison, ‘Bettines Kompositionen zu einem Notenheft der Sammlung Heineman’,
Internationales Jahrbuch der Bettina-von-Arnim-Gesellschaft 3 (1989), 183.
Figure 2.1 Scale in Arnim’s sketchbook with note names
© The Morgan Library & Museum
Figure 2.2 C-major scale with fingering for both hands in Arnim’s sketchbook
© The Morgan Library & Museum
36 Jennifer Ronyak
ultimately involves more than our primary disciplinary preference for aestheticis-
ing recognisable musical mastery. Instead, where musical mastery is more ques-
tionable, we have so far engaged with the compositions, fragments and sketches of
musical amateurs in ways that betray gendered approaches to genius and creativity.
The amateur musical activities of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche provide an
instructive counter-example to the case of Arnim where musicological study is con-
cerned. Nietzsche’s efforts as a composer in general have captured the attention of
music scholars who hope to find a deeper understanding of Nietzsche the man, his
philosophical and poetic works in general, and his thoughts on music through his
approach to composing. Although Nietzsche was praised during his lifetime as a
successful improviser at the piano, his actual compositions display both talent and
significant limitations. But his status as a major philosopher has elevated his musical
works and even sketches and fragments to our musicological attention. It is hard
to imagine that the same body of music, when composed by a skill-limited, female
amateur not so well canonised within intellectual history, would be granted a com-
plete critical edition.16
Nietzsche’s Fragment an Sich has interested scholars above a number of
Nietzsche’s other compositions. The ‘unfinished’ piece originated as a multi-layered
witticism designed for his friends. The main inside joke involved his friend Erwin
Rohde: on one version (of two) of the piece, he notes that Rohde owns the ‘full’ ver-
sion of the composition, even though none is extant, and it appears that there never
was one. Nietzsche added two other witticisms to the fragment, as well: the ‘an sich’
likely referred to Immanuel Kant’s ‘Ding an sich’ (thing in itself), which had appar-
ently been a topic of conversation among Nietzsche and his friends in Naumberg
around the time that he titled the fragment. Nietzsche also suggested an additional
layer of humour, giving the performance direction da capo con malinconia, as if the
brief fragment, which just vanishes into the air, could be repeated to create a sense
of perpetual melancholy. The weight that Nietzsche’s ‘genius’ has accrued over
time, however, has transmuted this amateur jest into an object of more serious aes-
theticisation and musical hermeneutics. Albrecht Riethmüller’s study of the com-
position, for example, looks at it in light of how its compositional structure aligns
with Nietzsche’s praise for fragmentary states and work with prose poetry.17 He also
justifies the fragment’s importance by pointing out its deliberate nature; however,
it is quite possible that Nietzsche himself only aestheticised this unfinished piece as
a fragment by titling it as such. Through such study, Nietzsche’s fragment has cer-
tainly received more aesthetic and critical attention than its composer or his friends
likely would have expected.18 Nietzsche’s stature outside of musical composition has
lent the Fragment an Sich its own small but insistent claim on aesthetic interest and
even importance beyond its status as a historical curiosity. Nietzsche’s Fragment an
Sich – a musical ‘quirk’ if there ever was one – has been aestheticised into a musical,
even Romantic, fragment by the hermeneutic operations of scholarship.
16
C. P. Janz, foreword to Friedrich Nietzsche. Der musikalische Nachlass, ed. C. P. Janz for
the Schweizerische Musikforschende Gesellschaft (Basel: Bärenreiter, 1976), ix.
17
Riethmüller, ‘Friedrich Nietzsches Fragment an Sich’, 568–76.
18
See also B. Kytzler, ‘Texte zum Denken’, in Das Fragment im (Musik-)Theater: Zufall
und/oder Notwendigkeit?, 49–51.
Arnim self-styled herself a ‘genius’, but intellectual history has not ranked her in a
class with Nietzsche.19 This difference is to some extent fair, given that Arnim’s own
literary accomplishments, to which her achievements in music or even visual arts
were secondary, have simply not had as large an impact within their own tradition
as Nietzsche’s writings have had within theirs. But another part of the difference in
our view of these two figures today is that even Arnim’s best-known artistic achieve-
ments – her three epistolary books – draw upon her intertwined roles as a social
mediator in and out of the salon and a bourgeois ‘accomplished woman’. Although
these books were professionally published, as were a few of her songs, the books
fully reflected her feminine role within domestic and semi-domestic literary circles.
Much like less well-known ‘accomplished women’ in the nineteenth century, Arnim
wrote in a way that can be read more as ‘reacting’ to the life and works of more
major authors or artists, including Goethe, than as occupying a ‘fuller’ masculine
authorial position.20 For example, the most famous of her epistolary books, Goethes
Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde, fictionalises her real-life correspondence with Goethe:
although she transforms the otherwise basic social grace of letter-writing through
some daring fictionalisation, she still bases her work in documenting and dramatis-
ing her worshipful stance towards the poet. Elsewhere, Arnim also wrote her own
poetic responses to Goethe’s existing poems, including the Harpist’s ‘Wer sich der
Einsamkeit ergibt’ from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre; her attempt to set Goethe’s
words to music in her sketch for ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II involves this same posi-
tion as a feminine receiver or reader of the work of a male genius.21 In these endeav-
ours, Arnim followed the generalised mould prescribed for well-educated bourgeois
women of the period: to be artistic but not a full artist or connoisseur of art; to be a
reader, or even a writer, of responses, but not a full author or critic.
Arnim was thus a qualitatively very different intellectual figure than someone like
Nietzsche, in terms of both her actual impact and the relationship of gender norms to
the impact that could even have been possible for her. However, if we consider these
two amateurs in the sphere of musical composition on its own, the differences between
their compositional profiles are not so great. Like Nietzsche, Arnim was described as
a captivating improviser. Like Nietzsche, she encountered technical limitations when
taking these performance and improvisation skills to paper. And like Nietzsche, too,
19
Willison Lemke, ‘Bettine’s Song’, argues throughout that Arnim constructed herself
in her literary works and letters as a ‘natural’ musical genius, a quality that connected
both to her actual activities as a vocal improviser in the salon and her struggle with
composition.
20
A. Bermingham, ‘The Aesthetics of Ignorance: The Accomplished Woman in the
Culture of Connoisseurship’, Oxford Art Journal 16/2 (1993), 3–20, argues that
women were thought to lack (and were definitely not trained to have) the judging,
editorial skills of connoisseurship with respect to art; instead, they were encouraged
to stop short of this skill when learning to draw in their own right. F. Kittler, Discourse
Networks 1800/1900, trans. M. Meteer (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1990), 125–44, similarly shows that women’s expected position in literary discourse
was to read or write in reaction to the voice of male authors, as opposed to full
authorship involving a critical, reflective step.
21
B. Williams, ‘Bettina von Arnim, Goethe and the Boundaries of Creativity’, in Goethe:
Musical Poet, Musical Catalyst, ed. L. Byrne (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2004), 188.
38 Jennifer Ronyak
she used her compositional activities to grapple with other artistic forces that she found
fascinating. While in Nietzsche’s case this meant Wagnerian aesthetics, as well as the
texts of the poets that he set, in Arnim’s case it meant the literature of her brother,
her husband and especially Goethe. For both amateurs, the act of composing – which
sometimes left behind accidental fragments – meant grasping at aesthetic goals that
were likely to remain unreachable for them. The Fragment an Sich turns this lack into a
witticism; Arnim’s ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II shows us that this lack can lead to a stylistic
freedom that might interest us in and beyond its connection to salon musico-poetic
practices. In fact, Friedrich Schlegel once compared the aesthetics of Romantic striv-
ing to the more personal, individual striving involved in the ongoing, never-finished
Romantic process of self-cultivation, or Bildung. Schlegel used the primarily mascu-
line example of an Englishman setting out on the grand tour to broaden his horizons,
a version of Bildung that involved travel and the public sphere. In Arnim’s case, her
personal study of and adulation of Goethe, when coupled with the above-mentioned
poetic parody, the eventual work on Goethes Briefwechsel, and her attempts to set his
words to music, mimic this never-finished and thus Romantic or even fragmentary
Bildungsprozess in the semi-domestic sphere of the salon world in which Arnim spent
much time.22 This aspect is all the more striking in that Arnim seems to have set the
words completely from memory, given a slight alteration that she makes to Goethe’s
text (below, Goethe’s original poem is compared to Arnim’s version in the sketch).23
Text of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II

Über allen Gipfeln Over all of the peaks
ist Ruh, is peace,
in allen Wipfeln in all the treetops
spürest du you sense
kaum einen Hauch; barely a breath;
die Vögelein schweigen im Walde, the little birds are silent in the forest,
warte nur, balde only wait, soon
ruhest du auch! you will also rest!
Text of ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II, as adapted (likely remembered) by Bettina

von Arnim
über allen Gipflen Over all of the peaks
ist Ruh is peace,
in allen Wipflen in all the treetops
spürest du you sense
Kaum einen hauch barely a breath;
Die Vöglein schweigen im Walde, the little birds are silent in the forest,
warte nur, balde only wait, soon
Schweigest Du auch. you will also be silent.
22
Schlegel, in Athenaeum fragment 297, compares the fully formed nature of the
nevertheless fragmentary Romantic artwork to the nature of the process of self-
cultivation (Bildung) involved in the grand tour. Cited in Ferris, Schumann’s
Eichendorff ‘Liederkreis’, 64.
23
Willison Lemke, ‘Bettine’s Song’, 117.
Keeping the amateur nature of Arnim’s sketch at the forefront of the discussion,
there are additional ways in which Arnim’s accidental fragment points or pushes
outward to be further aestheticised or connected beyond itself in the listener’s mind.
Subjecting the sketch to a close reading of its text–music relationships, alongside a
comparison to other well-known, completed settings of the poem during and after
Arnim’s lifetime, sheds light on these possibilities. When looked at in this way, the
sketch demonstrates how the limited skill involved in Arnim’s amateurism led her
to produce unconventional and thought-provoking, if possibly expressively naïve,
results when setting this text. This unconventionality rests specifically in the com-
bination of harmonic stasis throughout the sketch with the comparatively extreme
leaps involved in Arnim’s attempts at text painting. The harmonic stasis of the open-
ing phrases of the melody is a sort of word-painting itself, in that the subject of the
text is the stillness and peacefulness of the scene; the opening gesture, when com-
bined with this static harmony, might also suggest a pastoral horn call or quiet yodel.
But, this effect is also likely in part an accidental compositional effect resulting from
Arnim’s tendency to remain close to the tonic or to a single chord throughout much
of a song, because she was not personally comfortable with venturing out harmon-
ically while composing on her own. (It was generally only with greater help that
she was able to add this dimension.) Thus, this illustrative stasis emerges as a kind
of compromise between her own harmonic limitations and a possible expressive
reaction to the text.
Against the background of this stasis, Willison Lemke has already noted the indi-
vidual text-painting choices that most leap out at the viewer.24 In addition to the
highest note on ‘Wipfeln’, mentioned earlier, ‘Gipfeln’ receives a secondary high
note and ‘Ruh’ receives a ‘restful’ fermata.25 Surely Arnim meant to paint these
words clearly and literally. I would add that this explanation also accords well with
her overall position as a ‘receiver’ of Goethe’s texts and person throughout her
other work. By focusing on this word-for-word approach, however, Arnim injects
a melodic extravagance (in terms of the intervallic extremes covered in these ges-
tures) into her setting that extends beyond the bounds of what most established
composers during and shortly after her lifetime brought to these same phrases.
Amateurish though it may be, the accidental fragment suggests additional ways of
setting or improvising upon Goethe’s poem that were not tried elsewhere during
Arnim’s lifetime. Carl Friedrich Zelter, who published his setting of the poem as the
song Ruhe in 1821, also starts with a vocal entry on the fifth scale degree when the
text enters in his bar 4; however, his concept of that ‘rest’ requires that the vocal line
repeat a series of graceful descents from that pitch (Example 2.2). Franz Schubert,
who composed what is still the best-known setting of this poem by 1824 and pub-
lished it in 1827, begins even more staidly on the tonic note; his opening passage
moves incrementally outward from a narrow, declamatory range for the voice to
also incorporate what might be termed graceful descents (Example 2.3). Even
Liszt, from whom we might expect a more melodically extreme language, traces out
stasis within the narrow vocal range of a fourth in the opening passages (bars 1–10)
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid.
40 Jennifer Ronyak
Ex. 2.2 Carl Friedrich Zelter, ‘Ruhe’, bb. 1–9
Still und nächtlich

    
       
     
            
  
              
   
   
  
    

  
         
 
4
      
    
  In
Ü - ber al -
 
len Gip - feln ist Ruh, al - len
        
     

                 
   
  
      
 
   
  
7
    
                
   
Wip - feln spü - rest du kaum ei - - nen Hauch. Die
  
      
 
    

 

         
      

 
(Example 2.4). Arnim’s intervallic extravagance does not necessarily make her con-
cept a more successful one; in fact, the opposite could be argued. But this accidental,
amateur fragment does point outward to unexplored possibilities in the setting of
this text that have the potential to be novel, or even stunning, in the right perform-
er’s or composer’s hands and for the listener ready to play freely with the resulting
perspective on Goethe’s text.
Much like salon attendees in the early nineteenth century, who were fond of
games of many types, I have played a sort of game with this entry in Arnim’s sketch-
book. Playing with some existing methodologies involved in historicism, aesthetic
analysis and the hermeneutic close reading of Lieder, I have attempted to trans-
form this simple, amateur sketch, which might otherwise just be treated as one of
the many basic examples of Arnim’s musical activity, into an accidental, amateur
Romantic fragment. I have aestheticised Arnim’s sketch in this way in order to ask
what meaning these compositional traces may have beyond their clear status as a
documentation of personal, feminine cultural activity by a well-known salonnière.
Seen as an amateur, accidental, Romantic fragment, Arnim’s sketch points outward
to a wider range of perceptible complements, if not completions. These include the
general efforts towards self-cultivation that were common in the salons of the period;
Ex. 2.3 Franz Schubert, ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II D. 768, bb. 1–6
      
Langsam

Singstimme    
    
Ü - ber al - len Gip - feln ist
         
                

pp
 
Pianoforte
         
        
        
4
         
      
Ruh’, in al - len Wip - feln spü - rest du kaum ei -nen Hauch; die
 
  
                 
    
pp
     
             

Ex. 2.4 Franz Liszt, ‘Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’ S. 306, bb. 1–10
(Spätere Fassung, veröffentlicht 1860,

die erste 1848.)
Langsam, sehr ruhig
   
   
p sotto voce
Singstimme           
(Sopran oder
Mezzosopran)
Ü ber al len Gip - feln ist Ruh,
 
       
    
 
      

Klavier
pp pp
       
  
 


 


una corda 
             
6
 pp
         
 
      
in al len Wip - feln spü rest du kaum ei - nen Hauch; die

smorz.
      
     

       
 
pp

pp
      
 

   






  




42 Jennifer Ronyak
aspects of the discourse of the fragment that involve the concept of genius; and alter-
native aesthetic possibilities for setting or improvising upon Goethe’s poem.
In the admittedly permissive way in which I have treated it here, Arnim’s sketch
functions as a kind of musical ‘quirk’. Much like the historical anecdotes that Smart
and Mathew discuss, this sketch also perhaps connects most to the aesthetic cat-
egory of the ‘interesting’: in this, however, it also recalls the ‘chat’ that was at the
centre of early Romantic salon activities and with which Schlegel’s fragments
enjoyed a strong kingship. Furthermore, while Arnim’s sketch can be connected
historically via Arnim and her literary Romantic circles in the salons of the period to
the discourse of the fragment, it need not be. I would hardly recommend that this
essay serve as the beginning of a trend of reading any, or every, or even another ama-
teur song sketch of the period through this aesthetic lens: this study relies heavily on
a hermeneutic operation that would certainly lose meaning were it to be repeated
too often. This intensive particularity, however, recalls the similarly intensive par-
ticularity with which both individuals in salon culture around 1800 and scholars
today engage with the texts of others. While both forms of particularity present their
problems as the basis for a scholarly methodology – some, but not all, of which are
addressed in the critique of the ‘quirk’ – here I mean to validate them. For Arnim,
the sketch was a way of close-reading Goethe’s poem – a text from a man whom
she knew up close yet revered at a distance. In this essay, the aestheticisation of
Arnim’s sketch is a way of intellectually revisiting not just the discourse of the frag-
ment but its implications in aspects of Romantic artistic and social life that revolved
around a great deal of amateur artistic activity. Positing that Arnim’s sketch can be
seen as an accidental fragment, as opposed to merely an amateurish and unfinished
song, also offers a critique of the claims concerning genius that were embedded in
the discourse of the fragment and Romanticism, and that were strongly gendered
male and oriented to finished, public artistic work, even when that work embodied
a fragmentary aesthetic. My strategy here also seeks to critique the extent to which
we still, at least aesthetically if not historically, privilege works and artistic artefacts
that are beholden to the concept of genius, even as we do not take the concept at
face value, and even as we laud the Lieder of numerous female, amateur composers
of the period. Given the connection between the Lied genre and amateur musical
practices, the ramifications of this relationship deserve to be investigated as fully as
possible.
By taking the aesthetic implication of Arnim’s accidental fragment seriously, I
also imply a homology between her compositional activity and our historical and
hermeneutic work as musicologists. While there are as many different configura-
tions of talents and expertise in the field as there are people, many of us, too, enjoy
only limited musical, and certainly compositional, skill in comparison to the masters
that we study. While I cannot speak fully for other scholars or readers in this sense,
Arnim’s attempt to interpret Goethe’s poem bears more than a little resemblance to
my approach here, even though hers is compositional and mine is critical. Arnim’s
amateurism may be more like our own than we might wish to admit, given our dis-
cipline’s tradition of both valuing and projecting mastery.
Chapter 3
Salon Culture in the Circle of Joseph Joachim,

or, Composing Inwardness: C. J. Arnold’s
Quartettabend bei Bettina von Arnim Reconsidered
Katharina Uhde and R. Larry Todd
I n Carl Johann Arnold’s famous watercolour, Quartettabend bei Bettina von

Arnim,1 Joseph Joachim appears as a faceless Rückenfigur that pulls us from
behind into the space of an intimate musical performance. When this depicted
scene may have occurred is unclear, although scholars generally assign it to 1854
or 1856.2 Similarly unclear is exactly which works were performed at Bettina von
Arnim’s ‘Gesellschaften’ at her residence ‘Unter den Zelten’ in Berlin. Although
Petra Wilhelmy has argued that in the strict sense of the word, Bettina did not
direct a salon,3 contemporary reports of prominent Berliners such as Karl August
Varnhagen von Ense, who described gatherings at ‘Unter den Zelten’ where music
was performed for groups of culturally minded intellectuals, encourage us to con-
sider further the involvement of one of Bettina’s most cherished musicians – Joseph
Joachim. Wilhelmy concedes that if Bettina did not host a typical salon, she did
entertain assembled house parties that were interesting, unconventional, and quite
heterogeneous, with audiences that ranged from ‘Prussian princes’ to ‘democratic
authors’.4 And, as Wilhelmy adds, music played a large role in the von Arnim house.5
Nor was Bettina’s ‘salon’ the only one frequented by Joachim. During the Bismarck
era, the musician and his wife, Amalie (a mezzo-soprano whom he married in 1863),
were guests at the Berlin salon of the Countess Marie von Schleinitz-Wolkenstein,
an aristocrat who, much like Bettina and other salonnières, recruited musicians to
enrich the cultural offerings of her private social gatherings.
If salon research aims, as one of its goals, to understand a cultural space typi-
cally inhabited by women whose voices were often not heard (partly explaining, in
this instance, the sparse documentation for Joachim’s participation in von Arnim’s
salon), this chapter proposes that Joachim’s relationships with members of this salon
and his creative output between the years surrounding Arnold’s painting can shed
light on the very concept on which Bettina von Arnim’s social gatherings were based
– intimacy. By attempting a reading of correspondence and documents related to
Joachim’s interaction with the von Arnims – including a composition – we examine
1
Original at D-Ff (Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum).
2
B. Borchard, Stimme und Geige: Amalie und Joseph Joachim (Cologne: Böhlau, 2005), 95.
3
P. Wilhelmy-[Dollinger], Der Berliner Salon im 19. Jahrhundert: 1780–1914 (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1989), I, 587.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
44 Katharina Uhde and R. Larry Todd
what it meant for him to be involved with the von Arnims and, in turn, what it meant
for the von Arnims to be so intimate with the Jewish-Hungarian musician, by then
already hailed as one of Germany’s most distinguished violinists.
Among the surviving documents about Bettina’s ‘Gesellschaften’ are her letters
and Varnhagen’s diary entries. Here we find especially rich evidence for the two
summers of 1854 and 1856, when Joachim performed almost daily at Bettina’s ‘salon’,
presumably the inspiration for Arnold’s painting. In a letter from early September
1854 to her son Freimund, Bettina writes: ‘Joachim played almost every evening for
us …; these were really some of the most enjoyable days in a long time. Beethoven’s
quartets in our parlour [Saal] – so wonderful!’6 Indeed, Joachim arrived on 3 June
1854 and performed frequently at the home ‘Unter den Zelten’, for example on 3
August 1854, as Varnhagen relates, when Joachim offered, with Woldemar Bargiel,
a Beethoven sonata.7
In addition to the long Berlin summer of 1854, we can document several perfor-
mances in 1856 between August and September.8 Thus, Varnhagen reports about a
performance of Beethoven’s String Trio Op. 8 on 31 August:
We arrived at Arnim’s shortly after 8:30. Joachim, Count von Flemming [cellist],
Wendt were already warming up with their violin, cello, and viola. Herr Bargiel;
Bettina receives us, but also complains, and appears in pain and disturbed.
Fräulein Armgart, exceedingly courteous and gracious, shows us her room, and
then sets out to prepare tea … The music begins; two splendid trios of Beethoven,
marvellously rendered, Joachim threw his entire soul into the task; the music
pleased me without end, refreshed my most inner self. Gisela remained in the
darkened, adjacent room. Bettina sat like a gloomy demoness below the white
plaster model of her Goethe monument … After 10:30 we went home, stimulated
and satiated by the evening.9
On 10 September Joachim played ‘very nice things by Bach and Beethoven’;10 before
departing to Hanover he repeated Beethoven’s Op. 8 on 29 September 1856.11
6
‘der Joachim spielte fast alle Abende bei uns …; das waren wirklich meine
genußreichsten Tage seit langem, in unserem Saal Quartette von Beethoven so
schön!’ W. Bunzel and U. Landfester (eds), Du bist mir Vater und Bruder und Sohn:
Bettines Briefwechsel mit ihrem Sohn Freimund (Göttingen: Wallstein, 1999), 79.
7
L. Assing (ed.), Tagebücher von K. A. Varnhagen von Ense (Bern: Lang, 1972), XI, 170
(hereinafter Varnhagen von Ense).
8
Ibid., XIII, 125. He left Berlin on 30 September. Ibid,. XIII, 171.
9
Ibid., III, 139, 31 August 1856.
10
‘[S]ehr schöne Sachen von Bach und Beethoven.’ Ibid., XIII, 149, 10 September 1856.
11
‘Nach halb 9 Uhr traten wir bei Arnim’s ein. Herr Joachim, Graf von Flemming,
Herr Wendt, schon mit Geige, Violoncell und Bratsche im Vorspielen. Herr Bargiel;
Bettina empfängt uns, klagt aber gleich, und sieht auch leidend und verstört aus.
Fräulein Armgart überaus zuvorkommend und liebenswürdig, zeigt uns ihr Zimmer,
setzt sich dann zum Theemachen. …. Die Musik beginnt; zwei herrliche Trio’s von
Beethoven, herrlich ausgeführt, Joachim ist mit ganzer Seele bei seiner Aufgabe;
die Musik that mir unendlich wohl, erfrischte mich im Innersten. Gisela blieb im
dunklen Nebenzimmer. Bettina saß wie eine düstre kleine Dämonin unten am
Salon Culture in the Circle of Joseph Joachim 45
Varnhagen’s meticulous reports do not mention a string quartet but do describe

in fair detail how an evening at the von Arnim’s would have progressed and who
was present. The circle that formed at these private concerts often included close
friends of the family as well as literary figures, ambassadors and highly ranked mili-
tary officers:
At 8:00 Ludmilla [Assing] and I went … to Frau von Arnim’s. Herman Grimm
and his sister, Fräulein von Strantz and her brother, an officer in the Dutch
service, the painters Xeller and Ratti, Fräulein von Maltzahn – daughter of the
Bavarian ambassador, the musician Bargiel, Herr Joachim – the main person!
Accompanied by Bargiel, the latter played a sonata of Beethoven with the greatest
mastery, with particular force. Bettina was somewhat ailing, and didn’t step for-
ward much, Fräulein Gisela was cheerful and pleasant.12
Carl Arnold, on the other hand, is not mentioned, so it remains unclear which
of these musical events, if indeed any at all, inspired or related to Arnold’s paint-
ing (Figure 3.1). Portrayed are, first of all, three unidentified Attic alabaster busts,
looming over the scene from above. Featured below them are Joachim with his
string quartet, Bettina von Arnim sitting by her Goethe monument, and three other
figures – on the left, a younger woman with a red hairband, and on the right two
additional male figures, one seated, one standing. Most likely the younger woman
is Gisela von Arnim (a second Rückenfigur), who played such an important role in
Joachim’s love life in the 1850s, while the seated figure is most likely Herman Grimm
(a third Rückenfigur) and the standing figure, according to some sources, the painter
himself.
The use of Rückenfiguren impels us to imagine what might remain concealed or
undeciphered in this painting, and points inward to something invisible. Indeed, at
least one ‘invisible’ part of the monument, a small figure with a lyre standing before
Goethe’s lap, invites us to explore the concept of inwardness within Bettina’s salon
– in this case relating directly to Bettina von Arnim, Goethe, Joachim and Gisela von
Arnim. Similarly, like the painting, Joachim’s own music presents an exterior shell
that masks an interior world not exposed to the public at large: through the exten-
sive use of musical ciphers, Joachim encodes an interior narrative meant only for
the intimate members of his circle. The idea of inwardness or intimacy is common
to both socio-cultural and musical expression as far as it related to Joachim, Gisela
and Bettina von Arnim, and Herman Grimm. In short, they are core members of
Bettina’s salon as depicted in Arnold’s painting.
weißen Gipsmodell ihres Goethedenkmals. … Nach halb 11 fuhren wir nach Hause,
erregt und befriedigt von dem Abend.’ Ibid., XIII, 170, 29 September 1856.
12
‘Um 8 Uhr fuhren Ludmilla und ich … zu Frau von Arnim. Hermann [sic]
Grimm und seine Schwester, Fräulein von Strantz und deren Bruder, Offizier in
holländischen Diensten, die Mahler Xeller und Ratti, Fräulein von Maltzan – Tochter
des baierischen Gesandten, Musiker Bargiel, Herr Joachim – die Hauptperson!
Letzterer spielte von Bargiel begleitet eine Sonate von Beethoven in größter
Meisterschaft, eigenthümlich und eindringlich, Bettina war etwas leidend, und trat
wenig vor, Fräulein Gisela munter und freundlich’. Ibid., XI, 170, 3 August 1854.
Figure 3.1 Carl Johann Arnold, Quartettabend bei Bettina von Arnim (1854/56)
© Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum
The private/public sides of Joachim’s music have attracted some scholarly

attention, but their full extent and significance are yet to be probed.13 Not only do
Joachim’s cipher pieces, including the Variationen über ein eigenes Thema for viola
and piano Op. 10 (1854), show how we can understand musical inwardness as an
aesthetic category,14 but the reception of this music also underscores its intimate
nature. Evidently Joachim believed that music composed for ‘dear friends’ – writ-
ten under a certain ‘Stimmung’ – should not be performed in public, or even pub-
lished at all, as he clarified in a letter to Clara Schumann: ‘Moreover, just these three
pieces originated from such a special mood that I wouldn’t want to play them to
anyone other than really dear friends, and from time to time I even regret having
published them’.15 In the case of the earlier Drei Stücke for violin and piano Op. 5,
we confront an example in which the first public performance was actually delayed
until three years after their composition, in Hanover on 8 May 1856;16 the next dated
performance by Joachim did not take place until 19 February 1894 in London, when
he performed only part of Op. 5.17 The documented reception history of the Op. 10
variations most likely also represents a mere fraction of the actual performances that
13
K. Uhde, ‘Psychologische Musik, Joseph Joachim, and the Search for a New Music
Aesthetic in the 1850s’ (PhD dissertation, Duke University, 2014), has contextualised
Joachim’s ‘diary-like’ approach to composing – and some of the resulting
compositions – in relation to the newly arising academic discipline of psychology.
K. Uhde and R. L. Todd have discussed Joachim’s Op. 5 cipher pieces vis à vis
his relationship with Gisela von Arnim (‘Joachim and Musical Solitude, or, the
Beginnings of the Ciphers F-A-E and Gis-e-la’, in Nineteenth-Century Programme
Music, ed. J. Kregor (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019). Perhaps related, B. A. Kraus, ‘Joseph
Joachims “religiöses Glaubensbekenntnis”: Die 9. Symphonie von Ludwig van
Beethoven’, in Musikwelten – Lebenswelten: Jüdische Identitätssuche in der deutschen
Musikkultur, ed. B. Borchard and H. Zimmermann (Cologne: Böhlau, 2008), 133,
has applied Borchard’s discussion of gender construction in music (‘Beethoven:
Männlichkeitskonstruktion im Bereich der Musik’, in Kunst, Geschlecht, Politik,
Geschlechterentwürfe in der Kunst des Kaiserreichs und der Weimarer Republik, ed. M.
Kessel [Frankfurt: Campus, 2005], 65–83) to Beethoven, and, briefly, to Joachim.
14
Here the extreme example is ‘Abendglocken’ Op. 5 no. 2, examined and analysed in
Uhde, Psychologische Musik, and K. Uhde, ‘Of “Psychological Music”, Ciphers and
Daguerreotypes: Joseph Joachim’s Abendglocken Op. 5 no. 2 (1853)’, Nineteenth-
Century Music Review 12 (2015), 227–52.
15
‘Ausserdem sind gerade die 3 Stücke unter so besonderer Stimmung entstanden,
dass ich sie ungern andern als recht theuern Freunden vorspiele, und bisweilen
bedauere ich sogar die Veröffentlichung derselben’. Letter of December 1854 to
Clara Schumann, in A. Moser and J. Joachim (eds), Briefe von und an Joseph Joachim
(Berlin: J. Bard, 1911–13), I, 236 (henceforth Joachim Briefe).
16
G. Fischer, Musik in Hannover, 2nd edn (Hanover: Hahn, 1903), 242.
17
Esther Bright’s diary (pp. 167–8), MS N.Mus. Nachl. 119/B, 2, Mappe 7, D-B.
Joachim performed Op. 5 no. 2 in March 1856 but no date is recorded. ‘Recently
I played the “Abendglocken” here; seldom have I produced such an effect on the
Hanoverians, and had to play it again the next day for the king, who specifically for
that purpose arranged a musical soirée, and again commanded the piece for the
next time.’ (‘Die “Abendglocken” spielte ich neulich hier; ich habe selten solchen
Eindruck auf die Hannoveraner gemacht, und mußt’ sie den Tag darauf dem König
noch einmal spielen, der eigens deshalb einen Musikabend einrichtete und sie für
took place in intimate settings, including a couple of performances in the 1850s and
1860s by musicians other than Joachim.18
In addition, the less than satisfactory renditions of Joachim’s variations contrib-
uted, at least in one particular performance, to a poor public image of the composer,
an image to which even Brahms and Clara Schumann seem briefly to have sub-
scribed. Although Brahms expressed his positive reaction to the variations in two
letters from January 1864 and September 1867, the first documented performance in
1856, at the Leipzig residence of the soprano Livia Frege, was a veritable disaster.19
After performing the pieces with Ferdinand David in January 1856, Brahms recorded
this reaction: ‘But then I played with David the Hebrew Melodies and Variations
of Joachim, that gradually summoned forth enormous disgust, boredom, and all
else possible, for everyone without exception.’20 Brahms’s withering summary, as
reported to Clara, continued:
David was the only one with whom I spoke about J[oachim] in general terms. If
J. develops as I think and hope he will, [if] his brooding and self-torturing stops
because for once other people torture him, then in ten years everyone will admire
his things more than I now [do] and ever [will]. In J. there is more than in all of us
young people put together – that has to turn out well.21
Before returning to Arnold’s painting, we may now consider further Joachim’s

Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10, for viola and piano, which originated
late in August 1854, and which provides a compelling example of how Joachim con-
structed inwardness in his music (Example 3.1; Table 3.1).
Regrettably little information has survived about details such as why Joachim
chose to draw upon and mix the darker colours of the viola instead of the violin with
the piano, as he had specified in his earlier Op. 2 and Op. 5 pieces. What is known
is that he composed Op. 10 between 31 August 1854 – the date on which the idea of
nächstens wiederbefahl.’) Joachim Briefe, I, 327, letter from Joachim to von Arnim, 15
March 1856.
18
For example, performances by Hans von Bülow in early March 1858 with Ferdinand
Laub, and with Ludwig Abel in Basel on 26 March 1867. H.-J. Hinrichsen,
Musikalische Interpretation: Hans von Bülow (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999), 483.
19
A. Moser (ed.), Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mit Joseph Joachim, 3rd edn (Berlin:
Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft, 1908; repr. Tutzing: Schneider, 1974), VI, 23, letter
from Brahms to Joachim, January 1864, and VI, 43, letter from Brahms to Joachim, 26
September 1867; 12 January 1856. MS Mus. Nachl. K. Schumann1, 183, D-B.
20
‘Dann aber spielte ich mit David die hebr. Gesänge und die Variationen von
Joachim, die dann allmählich eine enorme Entrüstung, Langeweile und alles
mögliche hervorriefen; bei allen ohne Ausnahme.’ Letter from Brahms to Clara
Schumann of 15 January 1856, in B. Litzmann, Clara Schumann: Johannes Brahms,
Briefe aus den Jahren 1853–1896 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1927), I, 168.
21
‘David war der einzige, mit dem ich weitläufig über J.J[oachim] sprach. Wenn J.
sich entwickelt, wie ich’s denke und wünsche, hört sein Grübeln und Selbstquälen
dadurch auf, dass ihn einmal andere quälen, dann werden all die Leute die jetzigen
Sachen in 10 Jahren mehr beschwärmen, als ich jetzt und jemals. In J. ist mehr als in
uns allen jungen Leuten zusammen, das muss ja doch werden!’ Ibid.
Ex. 3.1 Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10, Theme, bb. 1–4
Table 3.1 Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10, formal plan
Section Theme 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Theme Return of 1

Cipher Gisela Gisela Gisela (Gisela)   Gisela Gisela Gisela (Gisela) Gisela Gisela Gisela Gisela
(G E A)
(FAE) (FAE) G#E#A Gisela
FAE
Topic canon Fugue Imitative Thirds Hungarian Hungarian
at 8 lassu friss
   
Key E E E E/F E g c E/F E c c E/F E
a G-sharp-E-A (in German Gis-E-[l]A22) variation cycle was born – and December
1854. It appeared the following year from Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig and Ewer
& Co. in London with a dedication to Hermann [sic] Grimm, later the husband of
Gisela von Arnim and the composer’s rival suitor. On 31 August, Gisela’s birthday,
Joachim, Herman Grimm and the birthday girl went to the Tiergarten in Berlin.
There Joachim presented her with flowers, as he reminisced a year later in a letter
to Grimm from Düsseldorf on 30 August 1855: ‘Dear Herman … around this time a
year ago we went to the Thiergarten, with your glass and my bouquet well concealed
under our coats. We spoke of poetry, of the sound born of ideas and how few genu-
ine poets there were – today we are all widely spread apart!’23 But on the same day –
perhaps privately, not in the presence of Grimm – Joachim gave Gisela a manuscript
of a theme starting on Gis-e-la, which he signed with this comment: ‘Theme of a love
that can never cease to grow. Myriad variations follow.’24 Indeed, ten variations did
eventually follow, albeit on a new theme.
That Joachim’s title acknowledged the theme as his own invention invites spec-
ulation about its special significance – speculation, we should add, indeed encour-
aged by the very first three notes, for they unambiguously spell out Gis-e-la (Example
3.2). The prominent appearance of her cipher and the dedication to Grimm under-
score the triangular relationship with the composer, and reveal the work as another
example of Joachim’s cipher compositions, into which he wove so many threads
of his private, psychological narrative. That is to say, if the ‘public’, exterior shell of
the composition presents a theme and ten variations (with the return, in the clos-
ing pages, of the theme and, curiously, a recall of Variation 1), the ‘private’, interior
space is energised by the presentation and manipulation of verbal ciphers that add
quite another layer of meaning to the work.
At the beginning, Joachim entrusts the elegant E major theme (symbolically
Gisela’s voice) to the piano alone, with a homophonic accompaniment of stately
chords. One subtle detail concerns the unexpected ending of the theme, not on
the tonic, but rather on a pianissimo subdominant A minor chord, elided to the
beginning of the first variation and entrance of the viola (symbolically announcing
Joachim’s voice). Why the subdominant? If we consider that the theme begins in
E major, and touches on G-sharp minor in its first half before pausing briefly on A
minor at the end, we realise that Joachim is embedding the Gisela cipher not only
melodically in the opening pitches of the theme, but also harmonically in his choice
of tonal regions over the course of the theme, a strategy that, as we shall see, plays
out in various ways throughout the composition.
22
A pun on Gisela von Arnim’s first name whereby A was replaced with la, the sixth

solmisation syllable. For this chapter, the three-note formation G -E-A will be used
interchangeably with Gis-E-A and Gis-e-la.
23
‘Lieber Herman. … Vor einem Jahr um die Zeit gingen wir wohl in den Thiergarten,
Dein Glas und mein Strauß wohlverhüllt unterm Rock. Wir sprachen vom Dichten,
vom Klang geborenen Gedanken und wie wenig wirkliche Dichter es gäbe – heute
sind wir alle weit auseinander!’ Joachim Briefe, I, 292.
24
‘Thema einer Liebe die nie zu wachsen aufhören kann. Unzählige Variationen folgen.
Am 30ten August 1854, Berlin’. Ibid., 200.
Ex. 3.2 Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10, Variation 1, bb. 1–2, the Gis-e-la motive
     
Var. 1
   
   
     

dolce molto cantabile

  
3 3
3 3
  
        

   
3 pp sempre
  
3 3

3
    

Ex. 3.3 Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10, Variation 2, bb. 1–2
Var. 2
       
espressivo
   
     
p
                    

           


 

  
p teneramente
 
 
 
Var. 5

Adagio mesto

  
   
   
    
Adagio mesto
 
               
   espressivo
 

Ex. 3.5 Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10, Variation 6, b. 1
Var. 6
 
Allegro moderato e risoluto
                 

    
    
 
ff
     
 
Allegro moderato e risoluto
 
                   
       
  
 
sf sf
   
f marcato
       
    
     
Var. 9
       
     
Sehr langsam und mit freiem, tief melancholischem Ausdruck; in Zigeuner Art
 
                        

Sehr langsam [...] ff sempre   
      

 
     
     

    
f
  
        
  

   
Var. 10
Allegretto vivace al’ Ongarese
    
 
Allegretto vivace al’ Ongarese
 
armonioso
                
   
pp 3
           
3
   
Each of the ten variations deploys the Gisela cipher, either explicitly, as in nos
1, 2, 5, 6, 9 and 10, or implicitly, in some modified or slightly veiled version, as in
variations 3, 4, 7 and 8. The explicit versions are clear enough, and summarised in
Examples 3.2 to 3.7, which reveal the different ways in which Joachim insinuates into
his music the basic G -E-A motive, either as a descending major third and rising per-
fect fourth, or ascending minor sixth and falling perfect fifth. The implicit versions of
Gis-e-la, on the other hand, bring us into the interior circle of Joachim’s art of varia-
tion, and invite further consideration. Here, in nos 3, 4, 7 and 8 (Examples 3.8–3.11),
he disguises the cipher in different ways, or, indeed, alters it to the form G -E -A, so
that through a slight chromatic adjustment the cipher now begins to impinge on the
domain of Joachim’s personal cipher, F-A-E (‘frei aber einsam’, or ‘free but lonely’,
coined in relation to Joachim’s notorious bachelorhood), to which he alludes in var-
iations 3 and 7, before literally juxtaposing G -E-A and E-A-F (retrograde of F-A-E)
and briefly uniting the two ciphers near the ending of the work (Example 3.12).
In the first ‘implicit’ variation (no. 3), Joachim initially shares Gisela’s motive
between the treble of the piano (G  and A, separated by a few pitches), and the
Ex. 3.8a Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10, Variation 3, bb. 1–2

Var. 3
   
6 6
 
      
  
pp
  
          
    
                      

p
                
               
     
Ex. 3.8b Joseph Joachim, Variationen über ein eigenes Thema Op. 10, Variation 3, second half, bb. 11–12

                        
11
  
      
pp cresc. f  p
   
   
              
    
    
pp cresc. ff pp
        


   
             
6 6 6
   
         
     
ff

p
    
   
 
  
        

        
ff p
      

   
sempre ritenuto e più

[piano]
 
viola, which sustains a low E pedal point. Much of the variation unfolds at a p or
pp dynamic, but in the second half we encounter a rousing ff interruption. Here
Joachim swerves to F major, and exploits the unexpected harmonic shift to work
into the treble of the piano the third F-A and then in a lower register E, so that for
the first time Joachim’s cipher begins to materialise. In no. 4 Gisela’s cipher is gently
etched by the demisemiquavers of the piano treble, but, as observed above, in the
  
Var. 4
         
dolce assai
 
       
         
  

espress.
   
    
(Gruss an R. S.)
     
       
  
   
pp teneramente
                             
 
Var. 7
      
Maestoso
     
     
     
p

    


  

Maestoso
   
   
 
       


 
p sempre cresc..
  
       
   
     
Var. 8
 

Moderato
 
Allegro assai
   
           
pizz.
    
          
                          
Moderato Allegro assai
       

pp  
            

                           
      
 
modified version G -E -A, playing on the enharmonic relationship between E  and
F, and in effect creating a hybrid of Gis-e-la and F-A-E.
In the case of no. 7, we seem initially to lose all traces of Gis-e-la. As the piano
descends in thirds, in an instance of a Terzenkette reminiscent perhaps of the slow
movement of Brahms’s Piano Sonata in F minor Op. 5 of 1853, the viola ascends
in a mixture of fourths and thirds. But the fourths and thirds could be heard as a
 
104   
 
           

p
 
       
        
     
    
  
     
distant reference to the intervallic profile of the cipher, and the chain of thirds effec-
tively generates the cipher (or a slightly modified variant) with every four pitches in
the sequence: thus, E-C -F  can be extracted from E-C -A-F , for example. Indeed,
Joachim seems to have been aware of this option, for he begins the subsequent no. 8
with the variant E-C -F , which then undergoes various transpositions and rework-
ings, and rather saturates that variation. Returning briefly to no. 7, we see that here
again Joachim interrupts the measured course of the music with a wayward ff erup-
tion in F major, as if to invoke, harmonically at least, for a second time the realm of
Joachim’s F-A-E cipher.
What can we conclude from this brief survey of the ciphers in Joachim’s Op. 10?
First, the ‘hidden’ narrative centres on Gisela, whose presence is felt explicitly or
implicitly in each variation. Second, Joachim’s persona figures in three variations,
nos 3, 7, and 10, at first seemingly in opposition to Gis-e-la – F major vs E major, ff vs
pp, etc. – but then, in juxtaposition to Gis-e-la, in the remarkable parenthetical pas-
sage set off by fermatas near the end of the composition, in which the two ciphers
unfold together for the first and only time.
Apart from the distribution and manipulation of the ciphers, two other musical
topics shed light on the deeper, interior realms of programmatic meaning in Op. 10.
First, Joachim dedicates three variations, nos 2, 5 and 6, to artful uses of counterpoint
– specifically, to a two-part canon at the octave, a fugato (with mirror inversion) and
imitative counterpoint (coupled with augmentation). Why this learned display?
Joachim may have had in mind the precedent of Clara Schumann’s Variations on a
Theme of Robert Schumann Op. 20, for piano solo, written for her husband’s birthday
in 1853. The sixth variation of Clara’s work features a (gendered) duet-like canon at
the fifth below between the soprano and tenor voices, a reference, perhaps, to the
couple’s joint study of counterpoint several years before, in 1845, when Clara had
composed her Three Preludes and Fugues Op. 16 and Robert his six Organ Fugues on
BACH Op. 60. Some ten years later, in 1856, Joachim too would commit himself to
a formal study of counterpoint, when he exchanged erudite exercises with Brahms.25
Be that as it may, in Op. 10, Joachim pursued the topic of counterpoint further by
25
D. Brodbeck, ‘The Brahms-Joachim Counterpoint Exchange; or, Robert, Clara, and
“the Best Harmony between Jos. and Joh.”’, in Brahms Studies 1, ed. D. Brodbeck
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 30–80.
crafting for no. 5 a mirror-inversion fugato, and for no. 6 a series of (cipher-infused)
imitative exchanges between the piano and viola, with augmented statements in the
piano bass. We might dismiss all this display as the scholarly trappings of a con-
firmed contrapuntist, but the mirror inversion in no. 5 betrays, perhaps, something
else that bears on the narrative arc of the whole. Joachim surely would have appre-
ciated that the two Gis-e-la and F-A-E ciphers stand in a mirror-inversion relation-
ship to each other (in their original forms, descending major third and rising perfect
fourth, and rising major third and descending perfect fourth, respectively). In short,
the intellectual rigour required for the mirror-inversion fugato perhaps masks the
– for Joachim – quite real play of the two ciphers as they continuously reflect one
another in the variation.
The second topic that Joachim employed materialises in the penultimate and
ultimate variations, where the composer lapses into his Hungarian manner, or style
hongrois. Essentially, the two variations offer the characteristic slow-fast pairing of
Hungarian music. No. 9, marked ‘Rather slow, with deep melancholic Gipsy-like
expression’ (‘Sehr langsam und mit freiem, tief melancholischem Ausdruck; in
Zigeuner Art’), suggests, perhaps, a lassú in C-sharp minor that, with its improvisa-
tory flourishes, borders on a rhapsody. No. 10, marked Allegretto vivace al’Ongarese,
might suggest, then, the faster friss, though here the music also displays rhapsodic,
dreamy passages that prepare us for the return of the opening theme (Adagio) and
the recall of the first variation, so that the music eventually circles back on itself, as
if to repeat the narrative, before a few quiet bars yield the final, alluring statement
of Gis-e-la. The ‘Hungarian’ presence late in the composition impresses as the unan-
ticipated intrusion of an exotic element, a musical ‘other’, into a score that Joachim
had clearly anchored to the traditions of Austro-Germanic Classical/Romantic var-
iation sets. Here, it seems, Joachim acknowledges his origins as a Hungarian Jew
pursuing a path towards full assimilation into the dominant German musical cul-
ture of his time – a path that also included the hoped-for, if idealised and ultimately
frustrated, union with Gisela von Arnim, a member of the lesser Prussian nobility.26
FAE, Bettina’s Goethe Monument and

Ciphers Extending to Seals
Let us now return to Arnold’s Quartettabend bei Bettina von Arnim and explore one
last cipher – or, rather, an unusual reuse of Joachim’s F-A-E cipher, and Gisela’s
response to it – that further helps us to approach Joachim’s discourse of inwardness.
Arnold’s watercolour captures the setting of Joachim’s appearances at Bettina’s
salon, where his string quartet performed just below the Denkmal of Goethe and
Psyche.27 Somewhat like an altar, this monument is lit in bright white light. In 1856,
Bettina was enraptured by the idea of having artists like Liszt and Joachim perform
benefit concerts for her Denkmal. In two diary entries of autumn 1856 Varnhagen
mentioned that, in Bettina’s view, Joachim could give benefit concerts for the mon-
26
For Hungarian markers in Joachim’s music see K. Uhde, The Music of Joseph Joachim
(Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018), 46–7.
27
See W. Bunzel, Die Welt umwälzen: Bettine von Arnim geb. Brentano (1785–1859)
(Frankfurt: Freies Deutsches Hochstift, 2009), 64, 73.
ument.28 Similarly, in a letter of 4 November 1856 he reported that ‘Joachim would

reckon it an honour to give concerts for the Goethe monument’.29
From her armchair, Bettina listens to the quartet with an ‘aura of devotion and
the sacred’;30 as Borchard observes, Joachim, primarius of the quartet, turns his back
to the viewer, suggesting this painting expresses a ‘Kunstideal’ dedicated to insiders,
for, as Borchard continues, only the ‘initiated’ know who is playing.31 For Dahlhaus
the painting evokes ideas about the ‘religion of art’, an aesthetic wherein the artwork
appears as a ‘self-contained musical process’, that is, a work of ‘absolute music’.32 One
significant being hidden though nevertheless ‘represented’ in the painting has been
overlooked by Dahlhaus, Borchard and others interested in this painting,33 although
this figure is no less ‘invisible’ than Goethe himself in the Denkmal. That figure is
Psyche, who, though not literally appearing in this watercolour, is represented by
the monument, where she stands before Goethe’s lap with a lyre. The mythological
figure of Psyche was, of course, intimately known to Bettina and Joachim, as it was
deeply embedded in the culture of the time, no less so than the Roman god of love,
Amor, also known as Cupid, or in the Greek, Eros, often linked with Psyche.
But what is the significance of the monument and its hidden Psyche for Joachim?
To answer that question, we shall leave for a moment the musical realm of his F-A-E
cipher and consider that he also appropriated the letters F-A-E for his personal wax
seal for his correspondence. And here we come to Psyche’s significance: the coun-
terpart of Joachim’s motto-like seal – Gisela’s seal – was not, as we might expect, the
Gis-e-la cipher but rather a seal portraying the figurine of Psyche. As Bettina expli-
cates in Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde: ‘the young Psyche stands in front of
him as I [did] back then’.34 Here Bettina hints at her own infatuation with Goethe
between 1807 and 1811, which, albeit unrequited, nevertheless resulted in a sporadic
correspondence. If, as we have seen, the ciphers in the Op. 10 variations pointed
towards an intimate dialogue between Joachim and his beloved Gisela, the enci-
phered seals added a material manifestation to their correspondence, which directly
related to Bettina’s salon and its Goethe monument.
The occasion for the Denkmal was Goethe’s seventieth birthday in 1819, a cele-
bration prompting Bettina to create a monument featuring Goethe and Psyche. And
indeed, she not only sketched her vision on paper (Figure 3.2) but also commis-
sioned various sculptors to realise the sketches. Already in 1824, she offered Goethe
28
Assing (ed.), Varnhagen von Ense, XIII, 201, 26 October 1856.
29
‘Herr Joachim werde es sich zur Ehre rechnen, Konzerte für das Goethedenkmal zu
geben’. Ibid., XIII, 214, 4 November 1856.
30
‘Aura der Andacht, des Sakralen’. Borchard, Stimme und Geige, 94.
31
Ibid.
32
C. Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. B. Robinson (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1989), 93 and 95.
33
A. Meyer, ‘Zum Violinkonzert in einem Satz’, in Anklaenge 2008: Joseph Joachim
(1831–1907): Europäischer Bürger, Komponist, Virtuose, ed. M. Calella and C. Glanz
(Vienna: Mille Tre, 2008), 131, 136, fn. 28.
34
‘Die junge Psyche steht vor ihm wie ich damals’, B. von Arnim, Goethes Briefwechsel
mit einem Kinde, ed. H. Grimm (Berlin: Hertz, 1890), 543.
Figure 3.2 Bettina von Arnim’s sketch for a Goethe-Denkmal, side view
© Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum, photograph by David Hall
a small model of her creation.35 A few decades later, the sculptor Carl Steinhäuser
executed a 2.5-metre-tall, 10-ton36 monument in white marble, after Bettina’s small
model, which was erected in Weimar in the Bellevue (Belvedere) Schlosspark in
1853,37 historically significant for Gisela and Joachim, as it commemorated where
their relationship began (Figure 3.3).
In a letter dating most likely from the spring of 1856, Gisela referred to Joachim’s
F-A-E seal, applied to close his letters since 1854 (also when, during composition,
he needed to glue additional music paper over crossed-out notes): a seal featuring
a harp (or lyre) and, on top of it, the three letters ‘f.a.e.’, as shown in Figure 3.4.38
Joachim arrived in Berlin for an extended summer stay on 3 June 1854.39 Several
contemporary letters hint at exchanged kisses. Joachim wrote glowing poems.
Gisela’s answering letters likewise attest to their infatuation. And, as another link in
the F-A-E chain, Joachim now, in addition to employing the seal, begins signing his
35
U. Härtl, ‘Vorübergehend enthüllt: Das Bettinasche Goethedenkmal im Weimarer
Landesmuseum’, in Internationales Jahrbuch der Bettina-von-Arnim-Gesellschaft 6/7
(1994/5), ed. U. Lemm and W. Schmitz (Berlin: Saint Albin, 1994), 244.
36
Ibid., 246.
37
Bunzel, Die Welt umwälzen, 75, cites von Arnim, Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem
Kinde; see K. Werckmeister (ed.), Das Neunzehnte Jahrhundert in Bildnissen (Berlin:
Kunstverlag der Photographischen Gesellschaft, 1899), II, 323.
38
MS BRA:Be4:52, D-Hs, dated ‘June–August 1854’. Photograph owned by D-Hs.
39
Joachim Briefe, I, 196, letter from Joachim to Clara Schumann of 5 June 1854.
Figure 3.3 Carl Steinhäuser, Goethe mit der Psyche (1851), photograph by Concord
(Wikimedia Commons), 2016
letters with ‘Dein FAE’ (‘Yours, FAE’), clarifying to Gisela that from now on ‘FAE’
would mean: ‘für alle Ewigkeit’ (for all eternity).40 Shortly thereafter, on 31 August,
Joachim conceived an early version of the theme for the Op. 10 variations, not unlike
the ‘Nordisches Lied’ from Robert Schumann’s Album für die Jugend Op. 68 (1848),
an homage to the Danish composer Niels Gade, whose name had yielded a four-
note cipher to generate the principal theme. But Joachim abandoned his early ver-
sion, and instead settled on the chorale-like theme for his Op. 10.
Responding to the F-A-E seal and its new significance as ‘für alle Ewigkeit’, Gisela
wrote: ‘P. S. This letter will be sealed with the ancient little head of Psyche.’ She also
40
‘Nicht mehr: “frei aber einsam,” sondern Dein für alle Ewigkeit’. J. Joachim (ed.),
Joseph Joachims Briefe an Gisela von Arnim, 1852–1859 (Göttingen: Hubert/Co., 1911),
51, letter of June–August 1854.
Figure 3.4 Joseph Joachim’s letter seal, ‘f.a.e.’ © Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek
Carl von Ossietzky, Musikabteilung Hamburg, Brahms-Archiv, BRA:Be4:49
commented that ‘your symbol appears to me too broad for always, and I am send-
ing you this little head until I find something that is entirely fitting for you’ (Figure
3.5).41
Thus, an exchange of cipher-related seals complemented, in a material way,
Joachim’s cipher music.
Gisela, Psyche and Renunciation

In the eyes of Bettina and Gisela von Arnim, the Psyche myth’s ‘moral lesson’
concerned the renunciation of physical love, or ‘mere entertainment’, in favour of
41
‘P. S. Dieser Brief wird mit einem antiken Psychenköpfchen gesiegelt … Dein
Symbol kam mir zu groß für immer vor [F a e seal] und ich schenke dir dies
Köpfchen [i.e. the seal] bis ich etwas finde was ganz für dich passt.’ MS Hs-#10472a,
D-Ff.
Figure 3.5 Gisela von Arnim’s letter seal with the Head of Psyche (‘Psycheköpfchen’)
© Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum
spiritual (platonic) love.42 During her journey to the underworld, Psyche was tested
before emerging as a winged creature, no longer human but a goddess. When Cupid
brought Psyche to his higher realms, he prevailed against Venus, who had ordered
Psyche to the underworld. In Gisela’s words, Psyche was ‘fresh, pure, bold, and for
the time spiritual’ – in short, ‘in opposition to the earthly beauty of Venus’.43 And so,
not surprisingly, the idea of renunciation – Entsagung – assumed a central role in the
dynamic between Gisela and Joseph, who viewed losing her as the most profound
(‘eingreifende’) pain or suffering – Mendelssohn’s and Schumann’s deaths included
– that had ever weighed on his soul, as he wrote to Gisela on 31 October 1856.44 Clara
Schumann, to whom Joachim confided his situation, criticised Joachim’s long stay
at the von Arnims: ‘That you now stay so long at the Arnims often makes me brood.
Don’t you expose your heart to too much pain?’45 The idea that a renunciation was
the only option for Gisela von Arnim and Joachim arose from a drama that played
42
Bunzel, Die Welt umwälzen, 47, cites C. Holm, Amor und Psyche: Die Erfindung eines
Mythos in Kunst, Wissenschaft und Alltagskultur (1765–1840) (Berlin: Deutscher
Kunstverlag, 2006), 235.
43
‘frisch, rein, kühn und für damalige Zeit vergeistigt’; ‘Gegensatz zur irdischen
Schönheit der Venus’. MS Hs-#10472a, D-Ff.
44
Joachim (ed.), Joseph Joachims Briefe an Gisela von Arnim, 132, letter of 31 October
1856.
45
‘Daß Sie so lange nun schon bei Arnims, erfüllt mich oft recht mit Nachdenken.
Legen Sie Ihrem Herzen nicht zuviel der Pein auf?’, Joachim Briefe, I, 371, letter of 28
September 1856 from Clara Schumann to Joachim.
out in the autumn of 1855 in Wiepersdorf, the rural estate of Achim von Arnim some
thirty miles south of Potsdam, where Bettina, Gisela and their family and friends
vacationed. Here Gisela made a confession to Joachim that weakened his determi-
nation to separate from her. We can only partially piece together the train of events
from the later correspondence. In essence, what transpired was a chain reaction.
Thus, in a letter of 7 December, Joachim confessed to Herman Grimm his feelings
for Gisela;46 the next day he wrote again of his eternal love for Gisela, his inability to
let her go, but at the same time his acceptance ‘that you will not be entirely my own
with body and soul’ and that she would be at ‘the friend’s hearth’.47 Joachim knew,
in other words, that Gisela had promised to marry Herman. Nevertheless, Joachim
wanted to maintain his relationship with Gisela, even if primarily in a spiritual bond.
Nearly one year later, Joachim explained that he had been at a point where he
could have easily surrendered Gisela to Herman; but at Wiepersdorf she made him
waver.48 As a consequence, their relationship became more complicated. Joachim
wallowed in her assurance of ‘infinite love’ and reminded her of his words, ‘Gisela
and Beethoven’,49 uttered in a love letter of 6–7 December 1852, which, as it hap-
pened, also included the first occurrence of the Gis-e-la cipher: ‘You are still … the
Gisel who loves me without end – the same to whom I wrote in Weimar: Gisela
and Beethoven.’50 Joachim repeated this Gisela and Beethoven ‘manifesto’ again on
15 August 1856,51 drawing now on the image of clouds, perhaps a metaphor for the
spiritual locus of the winged Psyche. In effect, Joachim visualised in ‘Beethoven and
Gisela’ his own constellation of ‘Goethe and Psyche’: Joachim identified with his
hero Beethoven, while Gisela played Psyche, as Bettina had for Goethe.
On Schiller’s birthday, 10 November 1856, Joachim requested permission to send
Gisela a ring.52 By 31 December he had received one in return from Gisela, thereby
sealing their platonic relationship and consummating his renunciation.53 Quite plau-
sibly, Bettina von Arnim was the inspiration for Joachim’s ‘Gisela und Beethoven’
fantasy. Bettina had made little attempt to conceal the significant encounters she
had had with Beethoven in her own day. Even during Joachim’s visit in August
1856, the conversation at the Zelten salon might have circled around Bettina and
Beethoven. For instance, Varnhagen reported on 31 December, ‘[Bettina] spoke
of Joachim, of Beethoven, who was not simply in love with her platonically, but
46
Joachim (ed.), Joseph Joachims Briefe an Gisela von Arnim, 70.
47
‘daß Du nicht ganz mein eigen werden sollst mit Leib und Seel – ich kann meine
Pflichten alle freudig erfüllen wenn Du mir bleibst, mir schreibst; werde es auch
können wenn Du einst Dein Versprechen hälst, an des Freundes Heerd sorgen
wirst.’ Ibid., 70–3, letter of [Hanover, 8 December] 1855.
48
Ibid., 135, letter of 8 November 1856.
49
Ibid., 1, letter of 1 November 1852.
50
‘Du bist noch immer die … mich unendlich liebende Gisel; dieselbe der ich in
Weimar schrieb: Gisela und Beethoven.’ Ibid., 135, letter of 8 November 1856.
51
Ibid., 123, letter of [Hanover c. 15 August 1856].
52
Ibid., 137.
53
‘Er ist ein wenig zu eng, ich muss abfeilen lassen, denn ich will ihn tragen.’ Ibid., 147,
letter of 31 December 1856.
who desired to marry her’.54 As Eshbach has shown,55 Joachim’s explicit Beethoven
veneration began in the autumn of 1852, and was spurred to no small extent by the
impact of Bettina’s ideas.
To solidify the competing connections between Bettina/Gisela and Joachim,
and Beethoven/Joachim and Gisela, we may note that in August 1856 Joachim sent
Gisela a copy of Beethoven’s poem ‘An Bettine’,56 which Joachim had received from
Bettina (who, in turn, had received the original from Beethoven for her wedding57).
More significantly for us, Joachim’s same letter returned to the topic of Psyche: he
requested from Gisela a ‘ballet’, or rather, a melodrama on the story of Psyche, for
which he would compose music.
By 3 January 1856 Gisela’s melodrama was completed; later that year, she had her
text translated into Italian, and sent to the actress Adelaide Ristori.58 Meanwhile,
Joachim had begun composing music, not for the entire play, but rather focusing
on a pantomime within the play titled Das Herz der Laïs.59 Joachim’s use here of the
term ‘pantomime’ implies that by 5 February 1856, he had received an (undated)
letter from Gisela revealing how she imagined his music being coordinated with her
drama. In addition, she sent one separate sheet titled ‘pantomime’ that specifically
featured the myth of Cupid and Psyche, with additional advice about how Joachim
might write his music for the interior playlet within the play. Despite her detailed
instructions, Joachim did not complete the piece until 1 July, and even when he dis-
patched it, he asked for clarification about how to synchronise the music and text.
If rather hopeful in January 1856 –‘Of course, I believe I can compose it’, he
wrote60 – two months later he spoke of his ‘Ballett’ as ‘dreadfully sober’.61 Gisela felt
obliged to offer encouragement – thus, in February or March 1856: ‘Like me, mother
and Armgart [Gisela’s sister] believe you could do it if you only imagined the move-
ments’.62 Even when the piece was finished, Joachim was not free of self-doubt: ‘Dear
54
‘[Bettina] erzählte von Joachim, von Beethoven, der nicht bloß platonisch in sie
verliebt gewesen, sondern sie habe heirathen wollen’. Assing (ed.), Varnhagen von
Ense, XIII, 132, 25 August 1856.
55
Quoted with permission from R. Eshbach, ‘“For all are born to the ideal”: Joseph
Joachim and Bettina von Arnim’ (paper presented at the North American
Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, Nashville, 2017).
56
Joachim (ed.), Joseph Joachims Briefe an Gisela von Arnim, 75, letter of [Hanover, end
of December 1855].
57
E. Walden, Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved: Solving the Mystery (Lanham, MD: The
Scarecrow Press, 2011), 91.
58
Ibid., 78; Assing (ed.), Varnhagen von Ense, XIII, 200, 26 October 1856.
59
Ibid., 81, letter of 5 February 1856 and 79, letter of 18 January 1856.
60
‘Ich glaube nämlich, dass ich es componieren kann.’ Ibid., 79, letter of 18 January
1856.
61
‘For today I don’t want to plague you – you philosophising Greek in the best sense
of the word … The ballet that I began this winter is dreadfully sober.’ (‘Für heut will
ich dich … philosophierende Griechin im besten Wortsinn … nicht plagen … Das
Ballett das ich diesen Winter angefangen, ist entsetzlich nüchtern.’) Ibid., 87, letter of
13 March 1856.
62
‘Mutter [Bettina] und Armgart [Gisela’s sister], wie ich meinen auch du würdest
das können [composing the melodrama music], wenn du dir nur die Bewegungen
Gisel, yesterday [1 July 1856] I tried to write out some ballet-like music; but I don’t
believe that it was in the least suitable for your purpose.’63 But besides expressing
self-doubt, Joachim’s letter also played on the mythological figure Psyche, suggest-
ing that he was trying to compose the music in exchange for a reward: ‘By autumn I
am hoping to earn the Psyche with the delicate pineapple-breath’, he wrote.64 Was
Gisela the Psyche Joachim was trying to lure or deserve by writing good music? All
the same, he sent off his Versuch eines Tanzes at the beginning of July, together with
instructions for her to go through it with red pen and indicate which portions of
the music she found usable. He closed by affirming he would try to compose more
music if she still believed he was right for the task.65
Joachim’s personification of Gisela as Psyche penetrated even into his music.
A letter of 1854 reveals Psyche’s significance and also alludes to sculpture, likely
Bettina’s design for the Goethe-Denkmal with which we began: ‘a new musical world
has opened up for me – I perceive everything twice as clearly – and thinking of you
in tones I have often fantasised at the piano – since I do not have a Psyche that
I can make in plaster’.66 Did Joachim know of the small plaster statue of Psyche
that Bettina had made for Goethe? Perhaps Gisela had told him about her mother’s
earlier models of Goethe and Psyche. And perhaps, like Arnold when he contem-
plated in his watercolour the setting of Bettina’s salon, Joachim, when he performed
Beethoven string quartets there, imagined or re-experienced the interior narrative
that originally linked Beethoven, Goethe and Bettina, but then, through the myth
of Psyche, extended to the next generation to touch the lives of Joachim and Gisela
– Gis-e-la, whom he revealingly addressed as his dear Psyche, his all (‘liebe Psyche,
Du alles’).67
vorstellst.’ MS Hs– #10472a, D-Ff, letter from Gisela to Joachim of ‘ca. 1857’ [sic,
before 13 March 1856].
63
‘Liebe Gisel, gestern [July 1, 1856] versucht’ ich etwas balletähnliche Musik
aufzuschreiben; ich glaube aber nicht, daß sie im Geringsten tauglich zu Deinem
Zweck.’ Joachim (ed.), Joseph Joachims Briefe an Gisela von Arnim, 111, letter of 2
July 1856. For a discussion of Joachim’s melodrama music see chapter 5 of Uhde,
Psychologische Musik.
64
‘Die Psyche mit dem zarten Ananas-Odem hoffe ich mir bis zum Herbst noch zu
verdienen’. Joachim Briefe, I, 326, letter of March 1856.
65
Joachim (ed.), Joseph Joachims Briefe an Gisela von Arnim, 111, letter of 2 July 1856.
66
‘Mir ist seit meiner Rückkehr eine neue Musikwelt aufgegangen – ich empfinde
alles doppelt klar – und da habe ich mich am Klavier oft recht ausfantasiert, Dein in
Tönen gedenkend – da ich keine Psyche habe die ich in Gyps anräuchern [in Gyps
anfertigen] könnte.’ Ibid., 40, letter of 23 May 1854.
67
Ibid., 82, letter of 7 February 1856.
Chapter 4
Reading, Singing, Becoming: The Mädchenlieder of

Paul Heyse and Johannes Brahms
Natasha Loges
T he acts of reading and singing were indissolubly wedded in salon culture.1 The
authors whose works were read silently when alone, or declaimed aloud for
guests, were often the same whose lyrics were sung at drawing-room pianos. What
expressive possibilities might have been created by this synergy between the printed
and the sung word? How did these interlinked cultural objects encode – or possibly
subvert – wider aesthetic, social and moral values, particularly for women?2 This
chapter considers these questions through the works of the once enormously pop-
ular author Paul Heyse (1830–1914), whose writings at once fulfilled and challenged
expectations during the second half of the nineteenth century. Among Heyse’s fans
was his contemporary, the composer Johannes Brahms, who frequently set Heyse’s
poems to music aimed at female performers in private settings.3 Brahms’s late Heyse
setting ‘Mädchenlied’ Op. 95 no. 6 (1883–84) in particular seems to offer women a
chance, through individual interpretative choices, to present an unfamiliar, daring
persona, transforming the salon into what has been termed a ‘place of emancipation’.4
Heyse and Brahms became friends in 1873, by which point the writer had enjoyed
considerable popular success for around twenty years. Heyse was a man of tremen-
dous personal attraction. Heyse’s and Brahms’s mutual friend Max Kalbeck quoted
the singer Georg Henschel’s recollection of Brahms thus: ‘Heyse was … one of the
most charming of men … He was handsome, and that too, this exceedingly delight-
ful talent! I hardly know any man who lit up the room he entered, like he did.’5 A keen
1
The coexistence of music and word in the salon around 1800 is explored in
P. Gradenwitz, Literatur und Musik in geselligem Kreise: Geschmacksbildung,
Gesprächsstoff und musikalische Unterhaltung in der bürgerlichen Salongesellschaft
(Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1991).
2
For a consideration of this question with respect to Brahms, see H. Platt, ‘Brahms’s
Mädchenlieder and Their Cultural Context’, in Expressive Intersections in Brahms:
Essays in Analysis and Meaning, ed. H. Platt and P. H. Smith (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2012), 80–110.
3
See also the author’s Brahms and His Poets: A Handbook (Woodbridge: Boydell
Press, 2017), 198–205.
4
‘Der Salon, als Institution weiblicher Kultur, resultiert aus dem Mangel an weiblicher
Emanzipation und wird selbst zum Ort der Emanzipation.’ R. Simanowski,
‘Einleitung: Der Salon als dreifache Vermittlungsinstanz’, in Europa – ein Salon?
Beiträge zur Internationalität des literarischen Salons, ed. R. Simanowski, H. Turk and
T. Schmidt (Göttingen: Wallstein, 1999), 18.
5
‘Heyse war … einer der reizendsten Männer … Er war schön und dazu dies überaus
liebenswürdige Talent! Ich kenne kaum einen Menschen, der eine Gesellschaft, in
die er eintrat, so erleuchtete, wie er.’ M. Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms (Berlin: Deutsche
Brahms-Gesellschaft, 1912–21), III, 84.
66 Natasha Loges
music-lover, Heyse regularly attended concerts in Munich at which another mutual

friend, the conductor Hermann Levi, performed Brahms’s works, and they would all
socialise together afterwards. Like Brahms, Heyse was an extremely successful pro-
fessional creative artist. His oeuvre embraced a staggering 170-plus novellas, numer-
ous dramas, eight full-length novels and several volumes of translations. His work
was available in English from as early as 1867.6 Brahms was one of many readers who
adored Heyse’s work; he declared that ‘a new novella by Heyse always means a day of
celebration for me. I don’t read something like that just once; it lies by me for weeks
and I read it constantly.’7 The critic Eduard Hanslick, a close friend of Brahms, wrote
to Heyse: ‘I cannot imagine the time in which your novels will no longer be read.’8
By the 1870s, Brahms’s own reputation had been established through his oratorio
Ein deutsches Requiem Op. 45. It would be consolidated by the large-scale works that
followed, including symphonies, new concertos and more choral works. Alongside
these, he continually wrote songs and other smaller-scale pieces; this was not only
enjoyable work but also generated the income necessary to a figure who held no
formal paid position for any length of time. Furthermore, songs also reached a dif-
ferent demographic from the (male) conductors and (professional) instrumentalists
with whom Brahms regularly associated. Surely this is best exemplified by Brahms’s
lullaby, the ‘Wiegenlied’ Op. 49 no. 4 (published in 1868), which rapidly transcended
the limits of a specific time, sound, group or space to become one of the most univer-
sally loved works ever written. Little wonder that Brahms’s publisher requested more
of these ‘new songs, as intimate as possible’.9 As Brahms’s extensive correspondence
with his publishers shows, he was keenly aware of the needs of the market.
Songs aimed at amateur, female consumers had to balance inspiration with the
exigencies of the marketplace.10 For instance, subversive aspects of the day, includ-
ing social and political issues, seldom featured in women’s literature. Married love,
and the stages leading to it, had special status. ‘Sanitised’ anthologies of Goethe,
Schiller, Heine and Eichendorff were prepared for women.11 As Marion Gerards
6
English translations of Heyse’s works were first published by the house of Christian
Bernhard Tauchnitz in Leipzig.
7
‘Eine neue Novelle von Heyse bereitet mir immer einen Festtag. Dergleichen lese ich
nicht bloß einmal, das liegt wochenlang bei mir und immer lese ich darin.’ R. Heuberger,
Erinnerungen an Johannes Brahms, 2nd edn (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1976), 27.
8
‘Die Zeit aber, wo man Ihre Novellen nicht mehr lesen mag, kann ich mir nicht
vorstellen.’ Letter of 12 May 1870, Vienna, from Eduard Hanslick to Heyse, in S. von
Moisy, ‘Paul Heyse: Münchner Dichterfürst im bürgerlichen Zeitalter: Ausstellung
in der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek’ (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1981), 104.
9
See J. Brahms, Johannes Brahms Briefwechsel Vol. 9: Johannes Brahms: Briefe an P. J.
Simrock und Fritz Simrock (Berlin: Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft, 1917; repr., 1974),
94 n. 2. Simrock had asked Brahms for ‘neue, möglichst intime Lieder’, and Brahms
jokingly replied in a letter [Vienna, April 1870] that when he died, he would leave
Simrock just such a collection.
10
The author has discussed this from a technical standpoint in N. Loges, ‘The Limits
of the Lied’, in Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public
Performance, ed. K. Hamilton and N. Loges (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2014), 300–23.
11
For a discussion of the sanitised editions, see G. Häntzschel, Die deutschsprachigen
Lyrikanthologien 1840 bis 1914: Sozialgeschichte der Lyrik des 19. Jahrhunderts
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), 127ff.
Reading, Singing, Becoming: Paul Heyse and Brahms 67
has recently argued, Brahms’s generation witnessed a polarisation in gender roles,

a situation exacerbated by the wars of 1866 and 1871.12 Heyse, who hosted a popu-
lar salon in his Munich home, and Brahms, himself a frequent guest at his friends’
salons, were both keenly aware of the demand for cultural products which offered
models of passivity and modesty in women. Writing successful literature and music
for women, then, demanded a sensitivity towards what was suitable.
Interestingly, Brahms already evinced this professional nous as a boy; male-voice
choral settings dating from when he was fourteen deal with the topics of Germany,
wine, women and song. These were hardly a reflection of his own private preoccupa-
tions, given that his own literary tastes tended towards the works of Romantic poets
like Novalis and Ludwig Tieck.13 Furthermore, he regularly tested his works out on
friends prior to or shortly after publication, often receiving comments on both the
music and the choice of poem. These friends included the pianist Clara Schumann;
the composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg and his wife, Elisabeth, herself an excep-
tionally talented amateur musician and keen saloniste; the surgeon and amateur
musician Theodor Billroth, who also hosted salon performances in his home; but
also Doris Groth, wife of the poet Klaus Groth, whose humble home in the pro-
vincial North German town of Kiel could hardly be described as a salon, but was
nevertheless the space in which they enjoyed Brahms’s songs.14 Regardless of the
status or ability of such friends, their views were valuable because they reflected the
perception of the songs as a fusion of music and word within the primary space for
which they were written. Hence, Brahms’s choices of song-texts can be understood
as a careful negotiation between his private tastes and the strictures imposed upon
his buyers; this negotiation, which opened up a space for play, was not necessarily
unwelcome. Indeed, his last published song before the Vier ernste Gesänge Op. 121
was the utterly lovely setting of a different ‘Mädchenlied’ text by Heyse (Op. 107
no. 5), showing that even when he was prosperous beyond his dreams, he cher-
ished the female amateur musician. His use of the word ‘Liederstrauß’ or ‘song-bou-
quet’ in relation to his opus groups also evokes women; anthologies of poetry and
music specifically for female readers frequently had the word ‘Blumen’ or ‘Blüthen’
(‘flower’ or ‘blossom’) in the title.15
Lieder composers overlooked the female, amateur buyer at their peril. Smaller,
more elite groups of experts simply could not match the impact of this vast
market. Heyse and his collaborator Emanuel Geibel deliberately targeted their
1852 Spanisches Liederbuch at this readership, discarding the scholarly appendix
they had initially planned to include. By the 1880s, Geibel was frequently derided
12
See M. Gerards, Frauenliebe, Männerleben: Die Musik von Johannes Brahms und der
Geschlechterdiskurs im 19. Jahrhundert (Cologne: Böhlau, 2010), 28ff.
13
See H. Lauterwasser, ‘“Von seinen Jugendstreichen bewahrt man nicht gern die
sichtbaren Zeichen”: Johannes Brahms’ älteste Kompositionen im Stadtarchiv Celle
entdeckt’, Brahms-Studien 16 (2011), 101–12.
14
Accounts of these are scattered throughout D. Groth, ‘Wohin das Herz uns treibt’:
Die Tagebücher der Doris Groth geb. Finke (Heide: Westholsteinische Verlagsanstalt
Boyens & Co., 1985).
15
These anthologies are discussed in Häntzschel, Die deutschsprachigen Lyrikanthologien.
No comparative study exists for the song anthology.
68 Natasha Loges
as a ‘Backfischlyriker’ – effectively a scribbler of sentimental verse for young

girls – nevertheless, his poetry collection was reprinted 150 times during the cen-
tury. (Of course, this success needs to be seen in relative terms; the 1860 anthol-
ogy Dichtergrüße by Elise Polko, a powerful figure in women’s literature, was in its
312,000th reprint by 1909.16) The female agents of such literature were also often
forces in their own right. The writer Theodor Storm, who rarely left his native North
Germany, broke a journey to Baden-Baden in 1865 to visit Polko. The Swiss writer
Gottfried Keller described Eugenie Marlitt, a leading writer of women’s literature,
as worth a hundred times more than the critic who attacked her.17 The dramatist
Friedrich Hebbel’s journey from his native Wesselburen to Hamburg was facilitated
not by his plea to the famous poet Ludwig Uhland, but by Amalia Schoppe, yet
another popular women’s and young people’s writer.
Publication media were centrally important in this context; a writer or song
composer might gain vast circulation through the reams of anthologies, feuille-
tons, Taschenbücher and newspapers. Goethe, Schiller and Eichendorff readily
published their writings in Taschenbücher such as the Deutsche Blätter für Poesie,
Litteratur, Kunst und Theater, which published all sorts of useful daily information
alongside poetry. Friedrich Rückert negotiated the chance for the younger poet
August von Platen to publish two items in the Frauentaschenbuch für 1824; simi-
larly, Platen published twelve sonnets in the rival publication Urania, the income
from which carried him into the following year.18 Heyse, who specialised in the
novella, also benefited from these publication formats. From 1869 onwards, many
of his stories appeared in the magazine Westermanns illustrierte Monatshefte, subti-
tled Ein Familienbuch für das gesamte geistige Leben der Gegenwart (A Family Book
of Complete Contemporary Cultural Life). This would typically include a short
story or serialised longer tale alongside articles of general history, artistic or liter-
ary appreciation, musical aesthetics, geology, geography, biology and travelogue;
topics ranged from Indian railways to spectral analysis, to women’s rights, as con-
tributed by the highly respected German-Jewish writer Fanny Lewald. Such arti-
cles sat cheek by jowl with accounts of murders and recommendations of poetry
anthologies as gifts. Heyse’s stories were often the first item in each issue, indi-
cating their significance and popularity. Heyse also contributed nine novellas to
the journal Salon für Literatur, Kunst und Gesellschaft, which appeared monthly in
Leipzig from 1867 to 1890. Regular contributors to this publication included the
aforementioned Hanslick, Geibel, the playwright Adolf Wilbrandt and Kalbeck.
16
This statistic is drawn from Ibid., 7.
17
‘Sie haben sich sehr verdient gemacht um den ewig unreifen Hermann Friedrichs
wegen knabenhaften Angriffs auf die gute Dame Marlitt, die hundertmal mehr ist, als
er selbst.’ See letter of 22 March 1885 from Keller to J. V. Widmann in Gottfried Keller
und J. V. Widmann: Briefwechsel, ed. M. Widmann (Zurich, Leipzig and Berlin: Orell
Füssli, 1925), 103. A recent study re-examines her significance: K. Kohl, ‘E. Marlitt’s
Bestselling Poetics’, in The German Bestseller in the Late Nineteenth Century, ed.
C. Woodford and B. Schofield (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2012).
18
P. Bumm, August Graf von Platen: Eine Biographie (Paderborn: Ferdinand
Schöningh, 1996), 295.
Finally, Heyse published copiously in the Berlin-based Deutsche Rundschau, edited

(like the Salon) by Julius Rodenberg.
Heyse’s writings evince a rich mixture of influences. The first was his background
in the Prussian-Jewish intellectual aristocracy of the Berlin Biedermeierzeit; Heyse’s
mother Julie Saaling (originally Solomon) was cousin to Felix Mendelssohn’s
mother, and it was at the home of the latter that she met his father Carl Heyse. He was
a professor of Classical philology at Berlin University, tutor to Felix Mendelssohn for
eight years, and devoted to Goethe’s classicising tradition (he rejected Romantics
and post-Romantics alike). Paul Heyse therefore had entry to the best salons,
including the famous Sunday salons in Fanny Mendelssohn’s Gartensaal, and the
homes of the Levys and the Varnhagens. In 1873/74, Heyse settled in Munich’s
Luisenstraße, in a home which he had redesigned in neo-Renaissance style by the
architect Gottfried Neureuther. It exemplified the Gründerzeit salon: lavish, hospi-
table and cultured. Comparisons have been drawn with Goethe’s home in Weimar,
and Heyse was often regarded as his spiritual heir (a comparison that he, inciden-
tally, always refuted but could never ignore).19 This background was counterbal-
anced by Heyse’s first-hand experience of Italy, where he spent much time. Indeed,
Heyse’s considerable expertise in contemporary Italian literature is notable; his
five-volume Italienische Dichter seit der Mitte des 18ten Jahrhunderts (1889–1905) was
a landmark study which, exceptionally, included the work of eighteen female poets.
Heyse’s fictional writing is unashamedly populist, with a predilection for dark-
eyed maidens and dashing heroes who are either aristocrats or idealised ‘noble
peasants’. Nevertheless, the behaviour of his female characters often gives pause for
thought. Certainly, he created many desirable female characters, but he also allowed
them to express desire. On many other occasions when female desire is portrayed
in contemporary literature, the consequences are usually dire; for instance, in the
1894 novel Effi Briest by Heyse’s contemporary and friend Theodor Fontane, the
eponymous character has a brief affair out of sheer boredom; when the infidelity is
discovered years later, she is cast off by her husband and dies young. Worse still, in
Fontane’s Unwiederbringlich (1892), the devout heroine Christine pays for her hus-
band’s infidelity with her peace of mind, and eventually commits suicide. Heyse, on
the other hand, put extraordinary words into the mouth of Giovanna, heroine of one
of his best-loved novellas, Die Stickerin von Treviso (The Embroidress of Treviso),
when she decides to give in to her desire for Attilio, who is not only from a higher
social class but also younger than she is:
I don’t think little of myself, not on account of my poor and transient beauty, but
because I know that I have a free and strong soul which I don’t wish to relinquish
obediently to the power of a worse or weaker person, as a woman in marriage
must do to her husband.20
19
See G. Kroes-Tillmann, Paul Heyse Italianissimo: Über seine Dichtungen und
Nachdichtungen (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1993), 26–7.
20
‘Ich denke nicht gering von mir, nicht sowohl um der armen und unbeständigen
Schönheit willen, als weil ich weiß, daß ich eine freie und starke Seele habe,
die ich nicht in die Gewalt eines Schlechteren oder Schwächeren so gehorsam
70 Natasha Loges
This story first appeared in Der Salon für Literatur, Kunst und Gesellschaft in 1869.
Still more significant is the frame Heyse constructs around it. The setting is itself
a salon; a bored group trapped in a country house on a rainy day is told the tale by
a historian called Eminus, who seems to be modelled on Heyse himself. Eminus
initially hesitates to tell the story; not only does it contravene modern tastes, he
says, but it might offend the ladies. Afterwards, the salon company discusses it, and
Eminus asks one of his female listeners whether she found it decent; she confesses
some misgivings, but concludes that if Giovanna had been her sister, she would
have stood by her.21 The notional reader of such a novella, possibly a salon hostess
or guest herself, was thereby directly offered a model of free-thinking, compassion
and sisterhood.
Heyse often used devices like historical and/or Italian settings to present risqué
female characters. His first Italian journey, undertaken when he was twenty-two
years old, inspired La Rabbiata, the novella which made his name. Based on his stay
in Sorrento, this tale, with its beautiful, fiery, dark heroine, skilfully sketched set-
ting and satisfyingly happy ending, bears many of the hallmarks of his future work.
Exoticism permitted a bending of societal rules; ladies might read these novellas
without scandal, while still experiencing the frisson of Heyse’s erotic tangles. But
under the pretty wrappings, Heyse often tackled issues such as gender equality, reli-
gion and even domestic violence.22 His 1872/73 novel Kinder der Welt presents a pan-
oply of unconventional characters including two openly atheistic women. Indeed,
Heyse’s interest transcended moral matters. In 1866, he published a semi-humorous
poem called ‘Frauenemancipation’ in the family paper Die Gartenlaube, which was a
plea for education for women. It includes the following lines:
Dare to be free! – And a woman said: ‘You know,

man strives for freedom, woman for decency.’
And I said: Convention follows where the spirit draws it, gladly follows its
dominant steps.
Only one thing is indecent; to sacrifice one’s deepest existence
in order to adhere to blind custom.23
ergeben wollen, wie es doch in der Ehe das Weib dem Manne thun soll’. P. Heyse,
Gesammelte Werke Vol. 8 Novellen Vol. 5 (Berlin: Hertz, 1873), 156–7.
21
‘Ich gestehe, daß eine leidenschaftliche Hingabe, die nicht auf ewige Treue rechnet,
mir immer gegen das Gefühl gehen wird, und daß ich erst durch das tragische Ende
mit dem befremdlichen Anfang ausgesöhnt worden bin. Und doch, wenn diese
blonde Giovanna meine Schwester gewesen wäre, ich würde mich nicht besonnen
haben, in dem Leichenzuge Hand in Hand mit ihr hinter Attilio’s Sarge herzugehen.’
‘Ein besseres Sittenzeugniß konnten Sie ihr nicht ausstellen, erwiederte [sic] der
Erzähler. Erlauben Sie, daß ich Ihnen dafür die Hand küsse.’ Ibid., 165.
22
See, for example, in La Rabbiata, in which the heroine, Laurella, recalls how her
father beat her mother. Novellen (Zurich: Manesse, 1998), 159–60.
23
‘Wagt, frei zu sein! – Und Eine sprach: “Du weißt, / Nach Freiheit strebt der
Mann, das Weib nach Sitte.” – / Und ich: Die Sitte folgt, wohin der Geist / Sie
herrschend lenkt, gern seinem Führertritte. / Unsittlich ist nur Eins: sein tiefstes
Leben / Hinopfern, um am dumpfen Brauch zu kleben.’ ‘Frauenemancipation’, Die
Gartenlaube 46 (1866), 720.
In 1894 Heyse supported the founding of a Mädchengymnasium or girls’ secondary

school in Munich.
For all these reasons, the Baltic writer Laura Marholm upheld Heyse as a ‘Wecker
der Frauen’, an awakener of women, in her work Wir Frauen und unsere Dichter.24
She ranged Heyse alongside Ibsen, declaring:
None of [Heyse’s] contemporaries has a gallery of women as rich as his … he

knew woman in her essentiality, he felt her, he guessed her, he saw through her
in the variety of her unity, and in the whole era he is the only poet who com-
pletely upheld her … he liberated this refined, enriched woman from the grip of
domesticity.25
Brahms, like Heyse, both drew on and subverted familiar models of women in his
songs. Typically, he presented chaste and lonely female characters through an arche-
typical folk-based musical model.26 However he also regularly ventured into riskier
territories, for instance in the religious-erotic verses of Georg Friedrich Daumer,
and he expressed most states in between. (In that sense, Brahms’s representation
of women is rather more interesting than the polarisation of pathologised loathing
(Frauenverachtung) and veneration (Frauenverehrung) usually offered in the liter-
ature.27) The female protagonists of the songs ‘Von waldbekränzter Höhe’ Op. 57
no. 1 and ‘Unbewegte laue Luft’ Op. 57 no. 8 offer themselves to their lovers in a state
of sexual ecstasy fused with a sense of bliss in their natural surroundings.28 Elisabeth
von Herzogenberg declared in an often-quoted letter that she had to ‘break many
lances’ for the latter song, which many regarded as too explicit.29 Brahms’s push
against the boundaries of acceptability in these two songs would have been felt most
acutely by his female, amateur, middle-class audience. It is perhaps for this reason
that he gave both songs considerable technical demands, drawing them closer to the
recital stage. After all, the poetry collection from which the songs came, Daumer’s
1853 Frauenbilder und Huldigungen, was hardly the kind of poetry a typical German
middle-class man would wish to give to his mother, sister or wife as a gift, nor would
he wish to hear them sing these two songs in the family parlour.
24
L. Marholm, Wir Frauen und unsere Dichter, 2nd edn (Berlin: Duncker, 1896), 8–9.
25
‘Bei keinem seiner Zeitgenossen ist die Galerie der Frauen so reich, wie bei ihm
… Er kannte das Weib in seiner Wesenhaftigkeit, er fühlte es, er errieth es, er
durchschaute es in den Mannigfaltigkeiten seiner Einheit und er ist im ganzen
Zeitalter der einzige Dichter, der es durchaus hochhielt … Er befreite dies
verfeinerte, bereicherte Weib aus dem Hülster der Hausbackenheit.’ Marholm, Wir
Frauen und unsere Dichter, 8–11.
26
See Platt, ‘Brahms’s Mädchenlieder and Their Cultural Context’, 80–110.
27
This has been repeated most recently in Gerards, Frauenliebe, Männerleben, 77.
28
G. F. Daumer, Frauenbilder und Huldigungen (Leipzig: O. Wigand, 1853), III, 191–2,
and I, 123–4.
29
Letter of 26 December 1877 from Herzogenberg to Brahms, in J. Brahms, Johannes
Brahms Briefwechsel Vol. 1: Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mit Heinrich und Elisabet
von Herzogenberg, 2nd edn (Berlin: Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft, 1906; repr.,
Tutzing: Hans Schneider), 39.
72 Natasha Loges
Heyse’s poetry was not as popular with composers as, say, that of Geibel, so
the relatively large number of settings by Brahms is notable. Although the settings
reflect a range of types within Heyse’s oeuvre, the solo songs suggest a sympathy
with Marholm’s views. Furthermore, with the exception of the early ‘Spanisches
Lied’, they reflect both men’s profound love of Italy, not just as the wellspring of
Classical art, but for its contemporary landscape, language and people. Two of
Brahms’s three solo settings emphasised their Italian identity. In the first, ‘Am
Sonntag Morgen’ (published in 1868), the poetry source was mentioned in the first
edition (under the title was printed ‘Von Paul Heyse a.[us] d.[em] Ital.[ienischen]
Liederbuch’).30 The later ‘Mädchenlied’ Op. 95 no. 6 also bears the subtitle ‘Nach
dem Italienischen’, which the original poem does not explicitly state.31 This song
was published in 1883; Brahms drew the text from a book Heyse had given him, the
1877 (second) edition of his Skizzenbuch. It was not an obvious source of song lyrics,
since it mixed folk-style verses with lengthier poems hymning Italy, aphorisms, and
poems dedicated to cherished colleagues. Brahms’s single selection was the second
half of a poem ‘In der Bucht’, itself one of a group of nineteen poems grouped under
the title ‘Landschaften mit Staffage’. The entire poem is given below:
[Das Ufer ist so morgenstill, The shore is so quiet in the morning,

Noch kaum ein Fischlein springen will. hardly a fish leaps.
Am Bänkchen schon, in Rohr und Ried, Already at the riverbank, in the reeds,
Ein Wäschermägdlein emsig kniet. a washer-girl kneels, busy at her work.
O Jugendblut, kaum fünfzehn Jahr, O youthful blood, hardly fifteen years old,
Verschlafen noch ihr Augenpaar, her eyes still full of sleep,
Das Röckchen, hochgeschürzt, the shabby skirt hitched high,
Mit Singen sie die Zeit sich kürzt.] with singing, she speeds the time along.
‘Am jüngsten Tag ich aufersteh’ ‘On judgement day I’ll rise up
Und gleich nach meinem Liebsten seh’, and straight away go looking for my best
beloved,
Und wenn ich ihn nicht finden kann, and if I can’t find him
Leg’ wieder mich zum Schlafen dann. Then I’ll lie down to sleep again.
‘O Herzeleid, du Ewigkeit! ‘Oh, heartache, you eternity!

Selbander nur ist Seligkeit! Only togetherness is bliss!
Und kommt mein Liebster nicht hinein, And if my beloved doesn’t come,
mag nicht im Paradiese sein!’ I’d rather not be in paradise!’
The first two verses offer the kind of scene-setting at which Heyse was adept, but
which makes for uncomfortable reading today. Brahms stripped this away to leave
only the lyric in the first person. Therefore, instead of watching the young w
asher-girl,
the reader (or singer) is allowed to become her, to assimilate her nature. From a
30
The poem is found in P. Heyse, Italienisches Liederbuch (Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz,
1860), 15.
31
P. Heyse, Skizzenbuch: Lieder und Bilder (Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz, 1877), 205.
Ex. 4.1 Johannes Brahms, ‘Mädchenlied’ Op. 95 no. 6, bb. 1–15.

Behaglich
  
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   
 
           

Am jüng - sten Tag ich auf - er - steh’ und gleich nach mei - nem Lieb - sten seh; und
             
                               
       
 p   
                     
dolce
 
          
 
          
6
                 
poco rit.
   
wenn ich ihn nicht fin - den kann, leg’ wie - der mich zum Schla - fen dann, leg’ wie - der
          poco rit.
            

                   
         
              
                 
dim.
 
   
           
11
  
in tempo
   

mich zum Schla - fen dann. O Her - ze - leid, du
                      


in tempo
   
     

              
f
     
                 
  


 
   
musical standpoint, the song was evidently designed to be performable by amateurs

within a salon, with transparent keyboard textures and a technically unchallenging
melody. The sentiment is strikingly hyperbolic; the girl declines to be raised into
eternal life in paradise on the Day of Judgment if her beloved is not there. Yet the
performance direction ‘behaglich’, or ‘comfortable’ defuses the sentiment; a tenuous
relationship to the world of folksong is retained by the strophic setting, but the curva-
ceous, chromatic slides, the languorous flattened notes and the contour and rhythms
of the lines all make great play with the straightforward metre of the original verse,
inviting a lingering and savouring, as does the oscillation between the rocking 6/8
and the waltzing 3/4. Brahms positively invites sighing downward portamenti on his
setting of ‘Liebsten’ in b. 4. Indeed, in the right hands, this underrated work has the
potential to be one of Brahms’s most erotically charged songs (see Example 4.1).32
32
Heather Platt offers a different interpretation of this song, understanding its
protagonist as an innocent girl. See Platt, ‘Brahms’s Mädchenlieder and Their
Cultural Context’.
74 Natasha Loges
The song, a setting between friends, is a personal work, albeit mediated by the
public means of printed word and music. Brahms’s friendship with Heyse can be
read as part of an expanded notion of the salon, lacking geographical proximity but
still exemplifying the network of shared friends and values. After all, several people
connected Heyse and Brahms in addition to Levi and Kalbeck; Clara Schumann
had approached Heyse as a potential editor of her husband’s letters,33 and Hanslick
knew both Geibel and Heyse from the 1850s.34
Brahms wrote Heyse the following letter in 1885, in which he also belatedly
enclosed some settings of his poems:
I didn’t send these earlier, and at the right time, out of a kind of modesty. What
does a little setting of your poem, that I as a musician can call my own, signify
against all the beautiful things that you give the world, and to which I owe so
many precious hours. I have had great pleasure in your work over many years,
since from Jungbrunnen and Francesca onwards [referring to two early works], I
have been your fascinated and grateful reader.
For this, one should certainly offer an occasional unprompted, if brief, word
of thanks! But above all, who can approach with words he who delights us even
through words!?35
High praise indeed. Yet, in an era which favoured dichotomies, Heyse’s liberal-
ism and emotional intelligence was ignored in favour of a broad-brush criticism
which reflected only the more reactionary, crowd-pleasing aspects of his oeuvre. In
1859, the critic Robert Prutz wrote that ‘the entire aesthetic amateurism, the whole
intellectual dilettantism which suffuses the “educated” Berlin circles is reflected
in Paul Heyse’.36 Much later, in Die Gesellschaft of 1889, Conrad Alberti wrote: ‘to
read Heyse means to be a person of no taste – to admire Heyse means to to be
33
For more discussion of this, see B. Litzmann, Clara Schumann: Ein Künstlerleben:
Nach Tagebüchern und Briefen, 4th–6th edn (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1918–20),
III, 468.
34
E. Hanslick, Aus meinem Leben, 2nd edn (Berlin: Allgemeiner Verein für Deutsche
Litteratur, 1894), I, 309ff.
35
‘Daß ich letzteres nicht früher u. zu rechter Zeit that, war eine Art Bescheidenheit.
Was bedeutet das kleine Lied von Ihnen, das ich als Musiker mir aneignen kann, all
dem Schönen gegenüber das Sie der Welt schenken u. dem ich so köstliche Stunden
verdanke. Mich begleitet die hohe Freude an Ihrem Schaffen durch eine lange Reihe
von Jahren, denn vom Jungbrunnen u. der Francesca an war ich Ihr begeistert-
dankbarer Leser.
Dafür allerdings sollte man wohl gelegentlich auch ungefragt ein, wenn auch noch
so kurzes Wort des Dankes sagen! Aber, vor Allem, wer mag denn dem mit Worten
kommen, der uns eben durch das Wort entzückt!?’ R. Münster, ‘Brahms und Paul
Heyse: Eine Künstlerfreundschaft’, Brahms Studien 7 (1985), 67.
36
‘Die ganze ästhetische Liebhaberei, der ganze geistreiche Dilettantismus, der die
Berliner “gebildeten” Kreise erfüllt, spiegelt sich in Paul Heyse wieder [sic].’ R.
Prutz, Die deutsche Literatur der Gegenwart 1848 bis 1858 (Leipzig: Voigt & Günther,
1859), 238–9.
an oaf’.37 Heyse was reproached for preferring the feminine world.38 Yet his over-
whelming popularity during his lifetime speaks volumes about one way in which
literature might examine pressing social questions while retaining a wide audience
through print publication. As Jerrold Seigel has argued, ‘private and ungoverned
encounters between individuals and cultural materials’ through print enabled ‘indi-
viduals to draw on culture for personal development’, but also created ‘perceived
dangers for society in the reduced power of oversight these changes entailed’.39
Central to Heyse’s and Brahms’s venture was the distancing, impersonal and com-
mercial force of print culture, which reshaped the salon, a space characterised above
all by intimate, personal communication.
37
‘Heyse lesen, heißt ein Mensch ohne Geschmack sein – Heyse bewundern, heißt ein
Lump sein.’ Cited in Moisy, ‘Paul Heyse’, 222.
38
See A. von Ian, Die zeitgenössische Kritik an Paul Heyse 1850–1914 (Munich: K.
Urlaub, 1965), 48.
39
J. Seigel, Modernity and Bourgeois Life: Society, Politics, and Culture in England, France
and Germany since 1750 (Cambridge: CUP, 2012), 34.
part ii
representations
of the salon
Chapter 5
Fridays with Malla: Musical Repertoire in

the Swedish Salon of Malla Silfverstolpe
Kirsten Santos Rutschman
F or three decades beginning in 1820, Malla Silfverstolpe née Montgomery

(1782–1861) invited leading literary, academic and musical figures to her home
in Uppsala for regular gatherings. These ‘Fridays’ (fredagar), as she called them, con-
stituted the most prominent salon in Sweden during the first half of the nineteenth
century.1 Born into an aristocratic family and widowed before the age of forty, Malla
– as she refers to herself in the third person in her extensive, posthumously pub-
lished memoirs – was both independent and reasonably wealthy, possessing the
social capital to attract culturally prominent attendees with connections to Uppsala
University and the financial capital to serve what she self-deprecatingly described as
‘paltry’ (tarvliga) four-course meals.2 But more than this, she carefully orchestrated
her salon gatherings by selecting the participants and guiding topics of discussion.
Although detailed accounts of extended conversation at her Fridays have not
survived to the present day, we know that the evenings typically began with reading
various types of literature aloud, which provided grounds for discussion; after the
aforementioned supper, the gathering usually closed with musical performance.3
Indeed, music became a central feature of the salon, as Malla provided space for
prominent and up-and-coming musicians among her ever-widening circle of friends
to share their performances and original compositions with influential citizens of
Uppsala. The present study will examine repertoire by two younger composers to
show how Malla’s Fridays shaped contemporary musical production in Sweden – an
important aspect of her salon that has not yet been analysed in detail – with a focus
on songs growing out of the early nineteenth-century infatuation with folksong
1
For an introduction to Malla Silfverstolpe’s salon in English, see I. Holmquist,
‘Malla Silfverstolpe’s Romantic Salon – a Forum for Literature and Friendship’,
in Salonkultur und Reiselust: Nordische und deutsche Literatur im Zeitalter der
Romantik: Ein Symposium zum 200. Geburtstag von P. U. Kernell, ed. H. Seelow
(Erlangen: Universitätsbund Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2000), 85–98. See further I.
Holmquist, Salongens värld: Om text och kön i romantikens salongskultur (Stockholm:
Brutus Östling, 2000), 99–237, and A. Wischmann, ‘Salonkultur und weibliche
Autorschaft – Eine Untersuchung zu Malla Silfverstolpes Salon in Uppsala’,
Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek 24 (2003), 175–97. Malla herself discusses her fredagar
numerous times in the later volumes of her posthumously published memoirs: M.
Montgomery-Silfverstolpe, Memoarer, ed. M. Grandinson (Stockholm: Bonniers,
1908–11), III and IV. These memoirs have been studied in detail by P. Fröberg
in Minnen och bikt: En studie i Malla Montgomery-Silfverstolpes memoarer (Lund:
Hilding Hansson, 1975).
2
Holmquist, ‘Malla Silfverstolpe’s Romantic Salon’, 88–90. See also Malla’s own
description in Memoarer, III, 27.
3
Holmquist, Salongens värld, 120.
80 Kirsten Santos Rutschman
collection. Adolf Fredrik Lindblad crafted his noteworthy folksong settings under
conditions that developed from Malla’s salon activity, redefining the role of the
piano accompaniment and, in one case, pushing the boundary of ‘folksong’ beyond
the narrative ballad to include an urban work song. Lindblad also introduced Malla’s
salon guests to the songs of a mutual friend, Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, who wrote
in a varied and individual idiom that is, at times, highly reminiscent of ‘simple’ folk
practice even as it incorporates the concept of the aristocratic salon into itself as a
meta-performative layer.
Malla’s salon was rooted firmly in German models, particularly as communi-
cated to her by her friend Amalia von Helvig (1776–1831), whose literary salon was
a notable locus for Weimar Classicism in Berlin.4 In this way, Malla helped facilitate
a shift in Swedish cultural affinities from the Francophile Gustavian Enlightenment
of the late eighteenth century and towards the burgeoning Romantic movement
that guided much of the next hundred years. The significance of her salon has been
widely recognised and analysed from several perspectives. Paul Fröberg examines
Malla’s biography in relation to the memoirs she wrote, revised and shared within
the community of her salon, although they were not published until 1908–11, and
then in redacted form.5 More recently, Ingrid Holmqvist focuses on the romantic
ideology of gender in Malla’s salon, exposing tension between individualism (a mas-
culine concept) and family (belonging to the feminine domain).6 Antje Wischmann
further develops gender aspects of this salon by examining how writings by Malla
and one of her female attendees criticise the very salon atmosphere in which they
were developed.7 Åsa Arping sees Malla as an empowered curator who actively cre-
ated the works of art that were her Fridays.8 Moving closer to the musical realm, the
nature of Malla’s close friendship with the young composer Adolf Fredrik Lindblad
has led to several studies, but always from a biographical or gender studies perspec-
tive.9 While the wealth of primary sources surrounding Malla, her life and her salon
4
Amalia von Helvig developed many connections with Uppsala and Stockholm
through her Swedish Pomeranian husband, and she lived in Sweden for several
years; for more on von Helvig’s background and her Monday salons in Berlin, see
P. Wilhelmy-Dollinger, Die Berliner Salons im 19. Jahrhundert, 2nd edn (Berlin and
New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), 132–6. Through von Helvig, Malla Silfverstolpe
was introduced to Bettina von Arnim, another influential salon hostess, during
her stay in Berlin; see I. Drewitz, ‘Bettine von Arnim: A Portrait’, trans. Charles V.
Miller, New German Critique 27 (Autumn 1982), 117.
5
See Fröberg, Minnen och bikt.
6
See Holmquist, ‘Malla Silfverstolpe’s Romantic Salon’.
7
See Wischmann, ‘Salonkultur und weibliche Autorschaft’.
8
See Å. Arping, ‘In Public and/or in Print? Women as Literary Critics in Sweden
1820–1850’, NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 16/1 (March
2008), 36–7.
9
I. Holmquist, ‘Om Malla Silfverstolpe och Adolf Fredrik Lindblad’, in Litteratur og
kjønn i Norden: Foredrag på den XX. studiekonferanse International Association for
Scandinavian Studies (IASS), ed. H. Kress (Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan Universitets
forlag, 1996), 167–72. See also P. Fröberg, ‘Ur ett hjärtas historia: Malla Silfverstolpe
och Adolf Fredrik Lindblad’, Svensk litteraturtidskrift 33/3 (1970), 15–28.
Fridays with Malla: Music in the Swedish Salon 81
– diaries, memoirs and letters – have invited inquiry into her biography and relation-
ships, the musical component of her Fridays has received less thorough study.
Familiar central European names such as Mozart and Beethoven surface in
Malla’s descriptions of her fredagar but, more often than not, the repertoire that is
named is of local provenance: for example, songs of the poet-musician Carl Michael
Bellman (1740–95) were heard again and again, while friends and acquaintances
such as the history professor and amateur composer Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847)
and the student Adolf Fredrik Lindblad (1801–78) often performed their own songs,
piano compositions and chamber pieces. These three figures are also linked through
the use of folk melodies, a common thread running through Swedish music in the
nineteenth century. While Bellman’s songs on existing popular or original melo-
dies from the later 1700s pre-date the arrival of the Romantic concept of ‘folksong’
(folkvisa) in Sweden, several of his borrowed melodies would later be interpreted
as being of folk origin. Geijer was instrumental in spreading the German concept of
Volkslied in Sweden, and Lindblad wrote his groundbreaking collection of Swedish
folksongs while under the influence of Malla’s circle.
The catalyst for this shift was the teachings of Johann Gottfried von Herder on
the value of folksong, which took hold in Sweden during a period of political and
cultural instability following the loss of Finland to Russia in 1809. Sweden had lost
many territories around the Baltic since the collapse of its empire a century earlier,
but those lands had been acquired relatively recently, as opposed to Finland, which
had been part of Sweden since the thirteenth century. Swedish intellectuals grap-
pled with the task of re-envisioning the country within its much smaller borders
– no idle exercise, especially for those citizens such as Malla Silfverstolpe who had
been born in Swedish Finland.10 As Swedes processed their loss, interest in folklore
and folksong flourished as a means of rescuing a supposedly ancient cultural her-
itage from the brink of extinction. But where Des Knaben Wunderhorn and other
influential German collections contained only words, the first published collec-
tion of Swedish folksongs, Swedish Folksongs from Ancient Times (Svenska folk-visor
från forntiden, 1814–16), included simple piano-vocal settings by Johann Christian
Friedrich Haeffner (1759–1833), a German-born organist, conductor and composer
who had been living in Sweden since 1781.11 Material for the literary side of this
anthology was largely compiled and revised by Arvid August Afzelius (1785–1871),
but the prominent name of his co-author, Erik Gustaf Geijer, lent additional weight
to the project.12 As a member of Malla’s innermost circle, Geijer formed a direct link
10
After her mother’s untimely death, Malla returned to Sweden proper before her
second birthday, where she was raised by her maternal grandparents in Uppland.
See the introduction by Malla Grandinson (Malla Silfverstolpe’s granddaughter) in
Montgomery-Silfverstolpe, Memoarer, I, 6.
11
Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano (eds), Des Knaben Wunderhorn, 3 vols
(Heidelberg: Mohr und Zimmer, 1805–08). Haeffner’s settings of Swedish folksongs
would prove to be extremely influential to subsequent generations of composers,
who turned to these published melodies for compositional material reflecting
national roots; these settings first appeared as musical appendices to E. G. Geijer and
A. A. Afzelius (eds), Svenska folk-visor från forntiden, 3 vols (Stockholm: Strinnholm
och Häggström, 1814–16).
12
See the introduction to D. Lundberg and G. Ternhag, Folkmusik i Sverige, 2nd edn
(Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2005), 12.
between her salon activity and developing trends in musical composition as exem-
plified by Adolf Fredrik Lindblad and Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, to whom we will
now turn.
‘Home All Morning; Adolf Wrote Music,

and I Wrote in My Memoirs’
Malla Silfverstolpe later recalled her first encounter with the young composer Adolf
Fredrik Lindblad in her extensive memoirs:
The 18th of April, 1823, was a brilliant Friday-evening at Mrs Silfverstolpe’s. That
is to say, many people came, and all of those she preferred to see. [Per Daniel
Amadeus] Atterbom brought the young [Adolf Fredrik] Lindblad with him …
He had come to Uppsala to begin his university studies. He was twenty-two years
old. Immediately when Lindblad walked through the door of the drawing-room,
his appearance captured Malla’s attention … and when he sat at the piano and
sang the hunter’s song from [Atterbom’s play] The Island of Bliss to the beautiful
melody he had composed, Malla was enchanted.13
Their friendship developed quickly; Malla’s connections helped launch Lindblad’s

career, placing him to become the most prolific and well-respected composer of
Swedish song of his century.14 Malla hatched the idea and arranged the necessary
financial support to send Lindblad to Berlin in 1825, where he studied with Carl
Friedrich Zelter, befriended sixteen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn, and generally
honed the compositional and pedagogical skills that would sustain his professional
life.15 Upon returning to Stockholm, he established a music school and taught pupils
ranging from the offspring of middle-class households all the way to Crown Prince
Oscar – later King Oscar I – and other royal children.
During the two years in which Lindblad lived in Uppsala and participated most
actively in Malla’s salon (1823–25), she made numerous references to his vocal and
piano performances. When Lindblad and Geijer jointly published a volume of thir-
teen songs in 1824, the contents were already ‘dear and unforgettable’ (kära och
13
‘Den 18 var en briljant fredags-afton hos fru Silfverstolpe. Det vill säga, många
kommo och alla dem hon helst såg. Atterbom medförde den unge Lindblad …
han var nu i Uppsala för att blifva student. Han var 22 år; genast då han inträdde
genom salsdörren i förmaket fäste hans utseende Mallas uppmärksamhet … och då
han vid klaveret sjöng jägarvisan i “Lycksalighetens ö” med den vackra melodi han
komponerat därtill, tyckte Malla det var förtjusande.’ Ibid., III, 82. (Quotations from
nineteenth-century sources retain their original spellings.)
14
A complete biography of Lindblad has recently become available: E. Öhrström,
Adolf Fredrik Lindblad: en tonsättare och hans vänner (Skellefteå: Norma, 2016). For
a brief overview of Lindblad’s biography and symphonic writing in English, see O.
Ander’s ‘Introduction’, trans. Robert Carroll, Symfoni D-dur: Symphony D major, ed.
O. Ander (Stockholm: Ed. Reimers, 2004), xi–xiv.
15
Malla Silfverstolpe, who accompanied Lindblad during the first half of his stay in
Berlin, gives an account of her journey, her ‘Resejournal’, in Memoarer, III, 141–206,
and IV, 1–105. Lindblad’s brief diary of his first two months in Berlin, the ‘Dagbok
förd under resa i Tyskland (31 juli–6 november)’, is preserved among his papers in
Stockholm at the Kungliga biblioteket, Adolf Fredrik Lindblads papper, L48:8.
oförgätliga) to Malla, so often had she heard them sung.16 Earlier, at age seventeen,
Lindblad had spent a year in Hamburg in an attempt to establish himself in the
shipping trade; his business prospects faltered, but the time he invested in read-
ing about German romantic philosophy, literature and music paid off in this joint
publishing venture. Collectively, Geijer and Lindblad included settings of three
poems by Goethe and one by Schiller, a musical reflection of the types of literary
works discussed in the salon. Lindblad’s two Goethe settings, which bookend his
contributions to this collection, balance each other in mood. Where the speaker in
‘Erster Verlust’ (‘Ach wer bringt die schönen Tage’) grieves for lost happiness, the
singer in ‘Der Sänger’ (‘Was hör ich draussen vor dem Thor’) expresses gratitude
and satisfaction with his lot. The title of this latter song presages the eventual career
of its composer, whose reputation as a songwriter outstripped his larger works and
earned him the nickname ‘Sweden’s Schubert’.17
In 1825, after Malla Silfverstolpe secured funding for Lindblad to travel to Germany
to continue his studies, she and Geijer accompanied him to Berlin. Lindblad’s folk
music enters the written record one August evening as they ‘sailed’ up the Rhine on
a boat hand-drawn by two men walking along the shoreline. Malla later recalled: ‘It
began to get dark – Adolf got out his flute and played old familiar melodies – Geijer
reclined in the boat … The old Swedish folksongs sounded so beautiful in the quiet
evening, and sometimes the mountain’s echo responded. – Unforgettable!’18 Geijer,
too, recorded the same event in his own memoirs, elaborating on the experience of
hearing the folksongs intermingle with the natural environment:
Dusk soon fell. L*** took out his flute and played old Swedish songs. There is a
mysterious power in these old melodies. Our boat floated gently forward. All of
nature was silent. All I could hear were the tones that echoed in the mountains,
and with the placid splashing of the Rhine’s waves, it seemed to me as if the dis-
tant murmurs of the native Swedish forests intermixed themselves and whispered
to me memories of everything that is sweet and dear to me.19
16
Montgomery-Silfverstolpe, Memoarer, III, 121.
17
The comparison with Schubert was already well established by 1867, when a
newspaper columnist corrects a mistaken application of the similar nickname,
‘Nordens Schubert’, to the composer Otto Lindblad (1809–64); see the article
‘Många Parisertidningar innehålla numera kritiker öfwer Upsalasången i Paris’,
Kalmar (14 September 1867), 2. The earliest mention of Adolf Fredrik Lindblad as
‘Sveriges Schubert’ I have been able to locate using the online newspaper database
‘Sök bland svenska dagstidningar’ developed by the National Library of Sweden,
available at http://tidningar.kb.se/ (2 April 2018), is in the article Adolf Lindblad
(no relation), ‘Musik’, Aftonbladet (10 November 1875), 3. Eva Öhrström traces
possible roots of the nickname to a speech by Christian Eric Fahlcrantz to the
Swedish Academy in 1852 emphasizing the deep Swedish-Nordic character of
Lindblad’s songs; see Öhrström, Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, 383.
18
‘Det började mörkna – Adolf framtog sin flöjt och blåste gamla välbekanta melodier
– Geijer satt lutad ned i båten … De gamla svenska folkvisorna klingade så vackert i
den lugna kvällen och bergens eko svarade ibland. – Oförgätligt!’ Ibid., III, 174.
19
‘Snart skymde det på. L*** framtog sin flöjt och blåste gamla Svenska visor. Det är
en egen hemlighetsfull kraft i dessa gamla melodier. Vår båt flöt sakta fram. Hela
naturen var tyst. Jag hörde blott tonerna, som upprepades af bergens echo, och med
det stilla plaskandet af Rhens vågor tycktes mig det aflägsna susandet af de hemfödda
Exactly which folksongs Lindblad played on his flute that night cannot be traced.
He knew a wide variety; in addition to songs he may have picked up during his early
childhood in the rural market town of Skänninge, he would have been familiar with
the arrangements that Haeffner, under whom he studied in Uppsala, provided for
Geijer and Afzelius’s collection.
Lindblad’s own folksong arrangements, first published as The Hall of the North
(Der Norden-saal) in Berlin in 1826, aimed at a wider market by including sing-
ing translations in German by Amalia von Helvig, a connection brought about by
Malla’s influence.20 Lindblad’s settings are notable for the relative complexity and
independence of the piano parts. Where Haeffner and most other composers in the
1800s set folksongs predominantly using simple chordal accompaniments, Lindblad
is the first to showcase the piano in the style of the Romantic Lied, with broken
chords, quick scalar runs and other motions independent from the vocal melody.
While the piano typically doubles the voice, the melody may wander between the
hands, and occasionally the doubling disappears, leaving the voice to carry the
melody alone. Preludes, interludes and postludes often expand the scope of a stro-
phe, a practice already present in the 1824 collection he co-authored with Geijer
but which is used more extensively in the 1826 folksongs. For example, Lindblad’s
setting of Goethe’s ‘Erster Verlust’ includes a three-bar introduction of rising arpeg-
giated and scalar figures (Example 5.1).
Lindblad’s setting of ‘The Mountain-Kidnapped’ (‘Den bergtagna’) begins
similarly, setting a shadowy mood by means of phantastisch harp-like figuration
(Example 5.2), but here, the expanded scope and more adventurous sonorities
borrow the technical vocabulary of Bach’s keyboard fantasies, demonstrating tangi-
ble results of Lindblad’s study with Zelter during his stay in Berlin.
Although the harmonies in his folksong settings are generally limited to the
working vocabulary of the early 1800s, rarely straying beyond diminished sonorities
and secondary dominants, Lindblad creates opportunities for other types of com-
plexity. For example, other composers’ harmonisations of the ballad ‘Little Karin’
(‘Liten Karin’) are nearly always structured using a repetitive aabb pattern to match
the exact repetitions of the text:
||: Och liten Karin tjente wid unga kungens gård, :||
||: Hon lyste som en stjerna bland alla tärnor små. :||
||: And little Karin served in the young king’s court, :||
||: She shone like a star among all the young maidens. :||
Lindblad, however, varies the harmony at the end of the first line of text, landing
on the dominant the first time and tonicising the relative major the second time
(Example 5.3).
Svenska skogarna blanda sig och hviska mig minnen af allt hvad som är mig ljuft och
kärt.’ E. G. Geijer, Minnen: utdrag ur bref och dagböcker, 2nd edn (Uppsala: Palmblad,
1834), 150.
20
A. F. Lindblad, Der Norden-Saal: e. Samml. schwed. Volkslieder (Berlin: Schlesinger, 1826).
Ex. 5.1 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Erster Verlust’, bb. 1–3
Andante.
                
    
     
p
    
  

Ex. 5.2 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Den Bergtagna’, b. 1
Phantastisch und nicht zu geschwinde.
 
                 
        
      
  
pp cresc.
     

 
 
 
             
                      

   rallent.
  
  

Ex. 5.3 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Liten Karin’, bb. 1–8, variation in phrase endings
         

  
Och liten Ka- rin tjente wid un - ga kun -gens gård, Och liten Ka- rin tjen-te wid un - ga kun - gensgård, Hon
                    

   
p    
 
                      
         
V III
In the resulting new form for the full strophe, aa’bb, the different cadences in the
first half (a and a’) carry musical momentum forward until the exact repetition (bb)
at the strophe’s end, creating interior motion within the static confines of strophic
form.21
Lindblad’s arrangements owe much to Haeffner’s work, as all nine of the tradi-
tional ballads Lindblad selects are found among his teacher’s settings (see Table
21
Example 5.3 refers to the simpler of Lindblad’s two settings, no. 6a, labelled ‘Dasselbe
Lied [als das vorige] mit einfacherer Begleitung’.
5.1). In addition to the ballads, Lindblad includes two other types of song: tra-
ditional melodies outfitted with poems of modern origin, and, as the final entry,
‘Nachtwächter Lied’, a daring choice of an urban work song.
Table 5.1 Songs and sources in Lindblad’s Der Norden-Saal
Swedish title German title English translation type/source

1 Pröfningen Die Prüfung The Trial ballad/Haeffner #822
2 Sven i Swen im Rosenhain Sven of the Rose Garden23 ballad/Haeffner #67
Rosengård
3 Den Bergtagna Die Berg- The Mountain-Kidnapped ballad/Haeffner #1
Gefangene
4 Hertig Herzog Silfverdal Duke Silfverdal ballad/Haeffner #10
Silfverdal
5 Jungfrun i blåa Die Jungfrau im The Maiden in the Blue ballad/Haeffner #78
skogen blauen Walde Forest
6 Liten Karin Die kleine Karin Little Karin ballad/Haeffner #3
7 Hafsfrun Die Meerfrau The Mermaid ballad/Haeffner #55
8 Riddar Olle Ritter Olle Sir Olle ballad/Haeffner #39
9 Neckans polska Das Lied vom The Dance of the Water- old melody, new
Necken Sprite text24/Iduna 181225
10 Nordländarns Der Norden-Saal Memory of the old melody, new text/
minnen Northerners/Hall of the Poetisk kalender
North 181326
11 Klosterrofvet Der Kloster-Raub The Cloister Plundered ballad/Haeffner #26
12 Brandvaktsrop Nachtwächter Lied The Night Watchman’s urban work song/
Song unknown
Following Herder, early collectors sought the national folk soul in the songs of
peasants who were presumed to be bearers of a tradition thought to be unspoiled
by the social upheaval of urbanisation. As Geijer argued in his introduction to the
first volume of his collection in 1814, he believed folksong was most at home in the
‘fresh air, forests and the Nordic nature’ (‘friska luften, skogarne och den Nordiska
naturen’), and his instinctive association of folksong with nature has already been
22
Song numbers reference Haeffner’s musical appendices to Geijer and Afzelius,
Svenska folk-visor från forntiden.
23
‘Sven i Rosengård’ is the Scandinavian version of Child ballad no. 13, ‘Edward’.
24
Despite – or, very probably, because of – its hybrid status as a folksong consisting
of a traditional, anonymous melody outfitted with a newly written text by a known
poet, Afzelius, ‘Neckens polska’ became one of the most widely printed Swedish
folksongs in the nineteenth century.
25
A. A. Afzelius, ‘Necken: Romans’, Iduna 3 (1812), 87–90.
26
S. J. Hedborn, ‘Fjerran i Nord lyser salen så klar’, Poetisk kalender 1813 (1812), [299].
noted above.27 With its town setting, ‘The Night Watchman’s Song’ stands on the
‘wrong’ side of the urban–rural divide, yet Lindblad views it as an equally valid spec-
imen of folk music. Traditionally, night watchmen took turns in a tower, keeping
lookout for fire and unsavoury activity; hourly, a watchman would sing out the
time and a short prayer for the preservation of the town.28 While texts and melodies
varied from town to town, Lindblad’s particular text matches word for word the
version prescribed by the official code for night watchmen in Linköping, just twenty
miles from his birthplace in Skänninge.29
Klockan är tio slagen! The clock has struck ten!

Guds herrliga milda och mägtiga hand [May] God’s great, gentle and powerful hand
Beware wår stad för eld och brand!30 Preserve our town from fire and flame!
Klockan är tio slagen! The clock has struck ten!
Ordinarily, this text would have been cried out-of-doors or through an open window
for the express purpose of carrying the voice – and its message – as far as possible.
Yet in his new position comfortably indoors at the end of the collection Der Norden-
Saal, Lindblad’s night watchman signals to salon attendees, or whoever has been
listening to a performance of this song intended for amateur use within the home,
that the hour has come for all to depart.
Depending on perspective, the urban associations of ‘The Night Watchman’s
Song’ either problematise or enrich the concept of the folk soul that was so critical
to nineteenth-century Swedish identity and that flourished in Malla’s salon thanks
to her close association with Geijer and others involved in the early Herderian folk-
song collection movement. Sweden was predominantly a rural nation; through the
first half of the 1800s, only 10 per cent of the population lived in urban areas, among
which Uppsala was the fifth-largest.31 Nevertheless, this song-type would have been
familiar both to town residents such as Malla’s inner circle and to guests passing
through, making it more of a living tradition – relevant to actual people’s lives
27
Geijer, ‘Introduction’, Svenska folk-visor från forntiden, I, lxviii.
28
This practice is documented back to the seventeenth century and continued until
clocks became available in the late nineteenth century. For a history of the duties of
the night watchmen in the town of Falkenberg, see A. Ljung, Ur Falkenbergs stads
historia, 2nd edn (Falkenberg: Dahlgrens, 1954), 271–4, 280–2.
29
See John Landquist’s commentary in A. Strindberg, Samlade skrifter, ed. J. Landquist,
2nd edn (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1921), VI, 235. Lindblad’s version updates the
spelling slightly.
30
In the published German translation, Amalia von Helvig gratuitously changes the
time from 10 p.m. to midnight, perhaps to capitalise on associations between the
North, its underworld of trolls and other magical creatures, and the mystical power
of the stroke of midnight.
31
For population statistics, see D. Swaine Thomas, Social and Economic Aspects of
Swedish Population Movements 1750–1933 (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 42, and
Historisk statistik för Sverige D. 1, Befolkning 1720–1967, 2nd edn (Örebro: Statistiska
centralbyrån, 1969), 61–2.
– than the ballads, which were generally acknowledged to be dying out among rural
practitioners.
Lindblad took the first public step in broadening the definition of Swedish
folksong beyond the medieval ballad to include songs of urban origin, a category
deliberately excluded by early collectors of folkvisor. Although his arrangement was
published in Germany and in multiple editions in Sweden, it gradually faded from
consciousness, along with the actual night watchman’s cry, which was rendered
obsolete by the modernisation of city clocks and the institutionalisation of fire bri-
gades. (Not that the song was missed by all; a newspaper column in the town of
Strängnäs in 1873 complains of this ‘torment for every small-town citizen, who has
not been blessed by the Almighty with the gift of being able to “sleep like a log”’.32)
Interestingly, Lindblad’s somewhat freeform melody (Example 5.4) was revived in
the 1960s by jazz pianist Jan Johansson, whose arrangements of folksongs helped
spark a major folk music revival in Sweden.33
Ex. 5.4 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Nachtwächter Lied’, melody
 
Recitativisch doch mit gehaltenem Vortrage
               
a tempo
      
Klo - ckan är Ti - e sla - gen! Guds herr - li - ga mil - da och mäg - ti - ga


            
wie vorher
        
Hand. Be wa-re wår Stad för eld och brand! Klo - ckan är Ti - e sla - gen.
Stripped of its words, the song – in one of Johansson’s most experimental

arrangements – works against its original function, as layer upon layer of pitched
percussion successively enters at different speeds, obliterating the momentous
occasion of the striking of the hour. Time stands still; the clock is always striking
ten; and a song that was transported from the streets to the salon to the jazz studio
will be preserved as long as sound reproduction equipment continues to recognise
the format. The portable format of Johansson’s audio recording allowed the under-
lying song to re-enter the modern-day equivalent of a salon, in which gatherings of
friends are far more likely to listen to recordings than to perform live music for each
other.34
32
The column from the newspaper in Strängnäs is quoted in ‘Nattwäsen’, Kalmar (10
August 1873), 2.
33
J. Johansson, ‘Klockan är tio slagen’, Musik genom fyra sekler, 3 LPs (Megafon, 1969).
The album won a Swedish Grammis award in 1970; it was re-released on two CDs
(Megafon, 1988) and, later, in a remastered version (Heptagon, 2006), attesting to its
enduring popularity.
34
The era of recording in Sweden started in 1899, and within eight years, cheaper
technology began to enlarge the consumer base and encompass ever-larger segments
of the population; see P. Gronow and B. Englund, ‘Inventing Recorded Music: The
Recorded Repertoire in Scandinavia 1899–1925’, Popular Music 26/2 (May 2007),
300. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the First World War, the worldwide sale
‘Lindblad Was Now So Occupied by His Interest in

Brilliant Almqvist, His Music and His Writing …’
In addition to performing his own pieces in Malla’s salon, Adolf Lindblad also intro-
duced her circle to musical works of Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793–1866), an author
and theologian with a secondary interest in composition. The prolific Almqvist led
a colourful life.35 He studied and began his career in Uppsala; Malla first mentions
reading one of his books in 1820, which ‘delighted Malla by its genius, and its lofty
and deep ideas. However strange it seemed to her at times, it revived her with light-
ning-like new thoughts and gave her a lot to think about.’36 In 1823, he moved to the
rural province of Värmland and married, and a few years thereafter he returned to his
birth city, Stockholm. In 1851, in the face of charges of attempted murder by poison
(for which he was later convicted in absentia), Almqvist abandoned his family and
fled to America, where he took a second wife and lived in exile for fourteen years.
Although he eventually decided to return home, Almqvist died in Bremen before
he was able to reach Swedish territory. His published output, nearly all of which was
written prior to his departure in 1851, includes thousands of pages of prose and, on
the musical side, two dozen piano fantasies and approximately eighty songs.
Many of Almqvist’s literary works are connected through the creation of an
outer framework, an overarching collection called The Book of the Briar Rose
(Törnrosens bok, 1833–51) in which a cast of a dozen characters narrate and com-
ment on individual stories, thereby functioning as members in an imaginary salon.
Sir Hugo Löwenstjerna, master of an isolated countryside estate, has arranged for
the members of his household to gather each evening at 6 p.m. for ‘life, music, dis-
cussions, treatises, poetry, painting … the whole world’ – a programme not unlike
that of Malla’s actual salon.37 Music comes to the forefront in ‘Songes’ (‘Dreams’),
Almqvist’s collection of fifty mostly a cappella songs for one to four voices origi-
nally published in 1849, although the majority date back to the later 1820s and 1830s.
Malla reports already in late 1828 how much ‘Adolf [Lindblad] … was entranced
by the melodies he [Almqvist] had composed to his own words. At this time, they
were also a great source of pleasure for Malla.’38 But where the singer-songwriter
of pianos – long a staple of domestic music production – began to decline; see J.

Parakilas, Piano Roles: Three Hundred Years of Life with the Piano (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1999), 288.
35
On Almqvist’s life and works, see L. Hedwall, Tondiktaren Carl Jonas Love Almqvist:
en musikalisk biografi (Möklinta: Gidlund, 2014). A biography in English translation
is B. Romberg, Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, trans. Sten Lidén (New York: Twayne,
1977).
36
‘Manhems-förbundets historia … förtjuste Malla genom snille, höga och djupa idéer.
Ehuru besynnerligt det ibland föreföll henne, upplifvade det henne genom nya
blixtrande tankar och gaf henne mycket att fundera på.’ Montgomery-Silfverstolpe,
Memoarer, III, 29.
37
C. J. Love Almqvist, Jagtslottet: Romantisk berättelse ur närvarande tid (Stockholm:
Johan Hörberg, 1832), 98.
38
‘Adolf … var förtjust i de melodier han [Almqvist] komponerat till egna ord. De
gjorde nu också Malla det allra största nöje.’ Ibid., IV, 141.
Lindblad held closely to the conventions of piano-accompanied Lieder, the ama-

teur composer Almqvist created a new genre of simple, unaccompanied song for
performance in salons and other intimate atmospheres.
At first glance, the songes seem tailor-made for salon performance. They are intro-
duced within the context of Sir Hugo’s salon, interspersed with passages of prose
containing lively discussion about their nature and contents and recurring refer-
ences to sounding music, such as when ‘Sir Hugo’s amiable singers received the
sheet-music and sang it with commendable carefulness, sweet purity and strength’.39
Almqvist provides not only the lyrics to his songes, but also musical notation, equip-
ping persons reading his stories aloud with a means of seamlessly including the
musical dimension.
But narrative performance instructions go further: within the framework of The
Book of the Briar Rose, the songes appear as a newly invented diversion, a sort of tab-
leau vivant with the addition of movement, song and colourful gauze screens that
translate the practice of dreaming to the waking hours.40 Tableaux vivants were a
popular pastime in this period, both onstage – Malla reports attending a perfor-
mance of Lebende Bilder at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin – and in more intimate salon
atmospheres.41 For example, in the early period of her Uppsala Fridays, she hosted
a performance of lefvande taflor with scenes such as Raphael’s painting The Marriage
of the Virgin (1504), to which she invited a larger-than-usual number of guests.42
However, there is no evidence that Almqvist conceived of his songes as theatrical
performance pieces when he initially wrote them.43 Accounts of performances of
Almqvist’s vocal works in the decades prior to the publication of the Songes in 1849
give no indication of theatrical staging, and Malla always uses the ordinary Swedish
word for ‘songs’ (visor), rather than the French term songes (or even its Swedish
equivalent, drömmar), in reference to his works. Furthermore, although Almqvist
and Malla were acquainted with each other by 1822, he did not personally introduce
his own music within her salon; rather, it was Lindblad who championed the songs
beginning in the late 1820s, bringing them to the attention of her circle.
The songes have often elicited comparisons with folksong. Already in 1919, Ragnar
Ekholm took up this topic in his article ‘Folk Saga and Folksong in Almqvist’s
Poetry’, but he refers almost exclusively to textual parallels.44 Arne Bergstrand fol-
lows up with the plausible scenario that Almqvist may, on occasion, have heard a
folk melody, but by the time he was able to write it down, it had already started to
melt together with pictures and words inspired by folk life; into this mixture, with
39
Almqvist, ‘Songes’, in Törnrosens Bok (Stockholm: Laseron, 1849), II, 222.
40
Almqvist’s signature framework is found in the introduction to ‘Songes’, 165–8.
41
Montgomery-Silfverstolpe, Memoarer, IV, 66.
42
The performance took place on 30 May 1823; see Ibid., III, 86.
43
L. Breitholtz, ‘Songes-studier’, in Perspektiv på Almqvist: dokument och studier,
ed. U.-B. Lagerroth and B. Romberg (Stockholm: Raben & Sjögren, 1973), 165.
Arne Bergstrand indicates that, in most cases, the songes were likely written first,
and only later were Sir Hugo’s gatherings conceived as a means of turning the
individual numbers into an organic whole; see ‘Songes: litteraturhistoriska studier i
C. J. L. Almqvists diktsamling’ (PhD dissertation, Uppsala university, 1953), 39.
44
R. Ekholm, ‘Folksaga och folkvisa i Almqvists diktning’, Samlaren 40 (1919), 1–34.
time, would come other literary and musical impulses, resulting in an amalgamation
all his own.45 However, I find that the clearest musical connection lies neither in the
ballads nor the ring-dance games mentioned in earlier analyses, but rather in the
herding song, the vallvisa.
Almqvist’s songe ‘Sullivan and Vallivan’ (‘Sullivan och Vallivan’) embeds a song
within the tragic prose tale of the eponymous twin brothers who fall in love with the
same woman, Rosalba; the twins arrange a scheme in which one spends the days
with her and the other the nights. When the two eventually come clean and ask
Rosalba to choose between them, the poor woman goes mad and dances the origi-
nal tarantella, singing a repetitive song until she dies from exhaustion. 46 The struc-
ture of the first section of her unhinged song, ‘Sullivan and Vallivan,’ is shown in
Example 5.5. The staves are configured here such that each line begins with a motive,
which is then usually repeated once or twice with a slight variation; for example,
the opening motive (a) is repeated (a’) before the second motive (b) is introduced.
Sullivan, O Sullivan! I love you.

You are the father of my little child, O Sullivan!
Ex. 5.5 Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, ‘Sullivan och Vallivan’, bb. 1–9

a a'
  
        
Sul - li - van, o Sul - li - van! jag
  
3 b b b'
         
   
äl - skar dig, jag äl - skar dig, jag äl - skar dig. Du är
6 c c' c'
       
        
far åt mitt barn, mitt lil - la barn, mitt lil - la barn, o

9 d
    
Sul - li - - van!
The song continues with two additional sections, each of which unfolds as loose
chains in which material is immediately repeated, usually with slight variation.
A similar pattern is found in several herding songs (vallvisor) from Richard
Dybeck’s volume Swedish Herding Songs and Horn Tunes (Svenska vallvisor och horn-
låtar, 1846).47 In the song ‘Kulleri tova,’ a shepherd girl calls for help after being
45
A. Bergstrand, ‘Songes’, 215.
46
The prose story with its embedded song, including musical notation, are found in
Almqvist, Törnrosens Bok, II, 229–30.
47
For a modern facsimile edition, with an afterword by Märta Ramsten, see R.
Dybeck, Svenska vallvisor och hornlåtar, med norska artförändringar, Samfundet för
visforskning/Svenskt visarkiv (Stockholm: Bok och bild, 1974).
Ex. 5.6 Richard Dybeck ‘Kulleri tova’
 
a a'

           
  
Kul - le - ri to - va, Tolf män i sko - ga;
 
5
 
b b'
      
 
Tolf män ä - ro de, Tolf svärd bä - ra de,
 
9
 
c c
   

  


Svart' o - xen hän - ga de, Skäll - ko flän - ga de,
 
13
   
d d'
        
  
Mej vil - le de bort - lock - a, Kul - le - ri to - va.
caught by a band of robbers;48 in Example 5.6, each motivic letter corresponds to a

pair of bars.
Kulleri tova, twelve men in the forest.

Twelve men are they; twelve swords do they carry;
they hang the black ox; they skin the belled cow.
They wanted to lure me away, Kulleri tova.
Just as with ‘Sullivan and Vallivan,’ short blocks of material are repeated immedi-
ately, with significant or minimal variation. On the following two pages, Dybeck
prints four other variants of this herding song with their respective melodies, each
of which uses a similar structure. I do not go so far as to suggest that Almqvist
consciously modelled the structure of ‘Sullivan and Vallivan’ and similar songes on
this type of herding song; the pattern is simple and need not have derived from a
traceable source. Yet the relationship is audible and provides one method of putting
words to the difficult-to-define folk-like aura around the song.
‘The Clock Has Struck Ten!’

When the newly widowed Malla Silfverstolpe told a dozen friends in 1820 that she
would be home on Friday evenings to receive anyone who cared to visit, she could
not have guessed that her newly formed salon would become an Uppsala institution
for nearly thirty years. After her visit to Berlin and Adolf Lindblad’s subsequent per-
manent move to Stockholm, her salon met only irregularly, but by the 1840s regular
gatherings had resumed, first on Tuesdays, and then later once more on Fridays.49
48
Ibid., 4.
49
On the regularity with which the salon met during various periods, see Wischmann,
‘Salonkultur und weibliche Autorschaft’, 177.
In addition to providing a space for the discussion of German Romantic liter-

ature and music, Malla’s long-lived salon spanned three key stages of interaction
between Swedish folk music and art music. The early years coincided with the dis-
covery of folksongs by the reading public, thanks to Haeffner’s user-friendly settings
in Geijer and Afzelius’s collection. In the next stage, composers – most of whom
learned the songs from printed sources – took greater artistic liberty, whether by
writing more complex arrangements à la Lindblad (and, much later, Jan Johansson)
or writing new melodies in folk-like styles, as occurs with Almqvist. By the mid-
1840s, the bourgeois concept of folksong was just starting to outgrow the intimate
space of the salon and find a place on the concert stage, thanks to Richard Dybeck’s
series of ‘Evening Entertainments’ that grouped arrangements of folksongs with
orchestral accompaniment into thematic scenes.50 But in 1846, Erik Gustaf Geijer
moved away from Uppsala; the clock soon struck the final hour on Malla’s salon,
and the night watchman dispersed her guests for the final time.
50
For more on Dybeck’s revolutionary folk music concerts, see E. Danielson and M.
Ramsten, Du gamla, du friska: från folkvisa till nationalsång (Stockholm: Atlantis,
2013).
Chapter 6
Observing Musical Salon Culture in England c. 1800

through the Lens of the Caricature
Maren Bagge and Clemens Kreutzfeldt
Figure 6.1 James Gillray, Very Slippy-Weather (London, 1808)

© The Trustees of the British Museum
A n elderly gentleman has slipped and fallen on the pavement. He is in danger

of losing his wig, along with his top hat. The contents of his pocket are scat-
tered around him. His right hand is on the ground, clutching his walking-stick; he
holds onto a large, perfectly upright thermometer in his left hand. This is a scene in
an 1808 coloured etching entitled Very Slippy-Weather by the English caricaturist
James Gillray (1756–1815). However, the weather conditions are not the only ‘slip-
pery’ aspect of this scene. Apart from the dog, the crowd behind the man shows
little interest in the accident. Their backs to him, they stand shoulder-to-shoulder,
looking curiously at a shop window. The headline of the caricature, as well as the
lettering above the shop door, reveal it to be the showroom window of the publisher
Hannah Humphrey (c. 1745–1818). Since 1797, Humphrey had operated a successful
96 Maren Bagge and Clemens Kreutzfeldt
caricature trade on St James’s Street in London’s West End, a well-known address

where one could purchase Gillray’s works, as well as those of George Cruikshank
(1792–1878), who also ranks among leading illustrators in nineteenth-century
England and is considered Gillray’s successor.1 Furthermore, Humphrey commis-
sioned Cruikshank – whose prints often lampooned the royal family, especially
the Prince Regent – to complete a few of Gillray’s designs.2 The scene depicted is
probably not far from reality. At that time, many businesses trading in caricatures
were established in the wealthy neighbourhood of the West End. After the abolition
of censorship in England towards the end of the seventeenth century, the caricature
became increasingly popular.3 As an instrument of criticism, as well as commentary
on political and social life, caricatures seduced crowds of all classes to gather in front
of the showroom windows to catch a glimpse of the caricaturists’ latest creations.
Aristocracy, as well as politics, society, fashion, scandals and other circumstances,
were fodder for the often-feared caricaturists. The popularity of English caricatures
also reached beyond the British Empire. The cosmopolitical magazine London und
Paris, the agenda of which was to give insight into the cultural life of the two capitals
to the German-speaking world, printed several works by Gillray along with back-
ground descriptions. And another German magazine, the Journal des Luxus und der
Moden, even reported attempts at blackmail through the production of caricatures:
thus, ‘the newest fashion in extortion is to write to wealthy and respectable people,
threatening them that one will publish ludicrous caricature-etchings of them, if they
are unwilling to release a certain sum’.4
The world of caricature frequently involved musical protagonists.5 As a global
capital, and the world’s most populous city in 1800, London’s wealth was also
reflected in a rich musical culture, one that regularly supplied, not least because
of its variety, omnipresence and social significance, appropriate material for cari-
catures. Caricaturists paid attention to the public sphere of London’s musical life,
including its stage stars. Particularly popular subjects for caricatures were scandals
1
See C. Schenk, George Cruikshanks Karikatur im Wandel der Bildmedien (Frankfurt:
Peter Lang, 1992), 88.
2
The Prince is a topic of caricatures such as Princely Agility; or the Sprained Ancle
(London, 1812), Princely Piety, or the Worshippers at Wanstead (London, 1811),
Princely Predilections or Ancient Music and Modern Discord (London, 1812). See
R. L. Patten, ‘Cruikshank, (Isaac) Robert’, in Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (Oxford: OUP, 2004), XIV, 520–9.
3
See D. Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), and A. Kremers and E. Reich (eds),
Loyal Subversion? Caricatures from the Personal Union between England and Hanover
(1714–1837) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014).
4
‘Die Neueste Mode von Geld Prellerey ist hier, an reiche und angesehene Leute zu
schreiben, und ihnen zu drohen, daß man lächerliche Carricatur-Kupferstiche von
ihnen herausgeben werde, wenn sie sich nicht mit einer gewißen Summe dafür lösen
wollen.’ [Anonymous], ‘Aus England: London, den 7. May 1788’, Journal des Luxus
und der Moden 3/6 (June 1788), 218.
5
See M. Unseld (ed.), Delights of Harmony: James Gillray als Karikaturist der
englischen Musikkultur um 1800 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2017), and H. C. Worbs,
Das Dampfkonzert: Musik und Musikleben des 19. Jahrhunderts in der Karikatur
(Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen, 1982).
Observing Musical Salon Culture in England c. 1800 97
in the operatic and theatrical world. However, as will be shown here, caricatures also
offer insights into semi-private venues like salons, where one could expand one’s
social network and connect with like-minded individuals, and where a musician
could give a foretaste of his or her abilities, or even secure engagements like perfor-
mance opportunities. Private homes, in which amateur music flourished, were also
not neglected by caricaturists like Gillray, Cruikshank and their fellow artists.
Caricatures were ubiquitous in 1800 in England and beyond, and the present
abundance of exhibition catalogues and other illustrated publications indicates the
high level of public interest in caricatures still today. While the caricature has been
introduced into art and general history, predominantly in historical and political
education, it has so far played a marginal role in musicology. The works by Gillray,
Cruikshank and their fellow artists were a satirical reflection of contemporary cir-
cumstances, regarding political, social and also musical matters, whereby these mat-
ters are in many ways tightly interconnected. They offer us insights into bourgeois
parlours, fashionable country houses or royal courtly halls, insights which are rarely
found in more formal sources, such as sheet music, public concert announcements,
playbills or concert reviews. Public musical institutions like opera houses and con-
cert halls have archived their histories, providing access to these kinds of source
materials. Musical gatherings in salons and private homes seldom involved such
documentation. Apart from preserved musical scores, the most common sources for
insights into private musical life are letters or memoirs. Gillray’s and Cruikshank’s
caricatures may be seen as an enrichment to this source situation. Nevertheless,
in most musicological publications, caricatures still serve as peripheral, illustrative
material. Exceptions are Richard Leppert’s 1988 book Music and Image6 and, espe-
cially, Melanie Unseld’s 2017 Delights of Harmony. Unseld’s collection of essays
covers a large part of the preserved music-related caricatures by Gillray, and pro-
vides an overview of his work. Not only do the six essays give an insight into the
everyday musical practice of the bourgeois society, but they also offer an impres-
sion of the vivid musical club culture, as well as the quarrels around the London
theatres and opera houses and their singers.7 In contrast, the diverse music-related
caricatures by Cruikshank have not yet been considered in musicology.8 This chap-
ter examines three caricatures by Gillray and Cruikshank which introduce different
private spaces of music-making: Gillray’s ‘A Little Music’ or the Delights of Harmony
and A Country Concert; – or – an Evenings Entertainment in Sussex; and Cruikshank’s
Princely Amusements or the Humors of the Family. The subjects of these caricatures
are the domestic music culture of the economic elite in the English capital, and the
private musical settings in their summer retreats.
6
R. Leppert, Music and Image: Domesticity, Ideology and Socio-Cultural Formation in
Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: CUP, 1988).
7
See C. Kreutzfeldt, ‘“Whilst snug in our Club-room …”. Die Anacreontic Society:
Englische Musikvereinskultur aus der Perspektive von James Gillray’, 89–108, and M.
Bagge, ‘Sirenen und Kreischeulen: Sängerinnen der englischen Musikkultur um 1800
in den Karikaturen James Gillrays’, in Delights of Harmony, 109–34.
8
See for example G. Cruikshank, Humming-Birds – or a Dandy Trio (London, 1820),
or A Celebrated Performer in the Philharmonic Society (London, 1818).
Figure 6.2 James Gillray, ‘A Little Music’ or the Delights of Harmony (London, 1810) © Melanie Unseld
Turning now to the selected caricatures, Figure 6.2, ‘A little Music’ or the Delights
of Harmony by Gillray, depicts an aristocratic drawing-room. Music-related Asian
sculptures decorate the door and mantelpiece, hinting at the economic and cultural
status of the residents. A group of people devote themselves to the domestic culti-
vation of music.
Gillray’s use of the term ‘harmony’ plays on the term’s different semantic levels:
musical harmony, or euphony on one hand, and social harmony on the other.9
Yet the potential acoustic and social reality of the etching leaves the observer with
the impression of pure disharmony. The individual members of the musical party
are acting independently of one another. The young lady playing the harpsichord
is immersed in deciphering the sheet music in front of her; a gentleman to her
left clasps the sheet music sitting on the music stand, possibly to turn her pages;
they both seem to be singing. In the centre of the etching, the middle-aged flau-
tist notices neither his harpsichord-playing accompanist, nor his foot, which is on
a howling dog’s tail. Adding to the cacophony is the young boy blowing into a toy
horn of some sort, and the singing couple on the flautist’s left; the woman’s feather
ornaments are caught in a candle’s flames. Additional extra-musical sounds are the
hissing cat, and the corpulent, possibly snoring, elderly man.
9
See J. Traudes, ‘Delights of Harmony? Das Scheitern der “feinen” Gesellschaft am
Anspruch musikalischer Geselligkeit’, in Delights of Harmony, 35–49.
While individual characters depicted remain unidentifiable, Gillray’s sketch can

be read as a sardonic portrayal of the economic elite’s devotion to music in general.
The etching depicts the social purpose of music, which shares some aspects with
a recollection captured in a much earlier letter by Horace Walpole (1717–97), 4th
Earl of Orford, dated 1742: ‘The opera begins to fill surprisingly for all those who
don’t love music, love noise and party, and will any night give half-a-guinea for the
liberty of hissing – such is English harmony!’10 The mention of hissing in particu-
lar has resonances with Gillray’s etching, since animals served as recurring carriers
of sound in his works; furthermore, the social agenda of music was naturally not
unique to private spaces. Even the attendance of public musical performances, such
as the opera, served a social agenda instead of (or at least alongside) pure pleasure
in music.
Gillray’s caricature of this musical assembly also gives some indication regarding
gender roles. For women, it was much more common to learn a musical instrument
with a social purpose in mind, rather than fulfilling one’s own educational aspira-
tions or for pure pleasure and recreation. The ability to play a musical instrument
primarily helped to attract a potential spouse, as observed abroad by the corre-
spondent of the German fashion magazine Journal des Luxus und der Moden in an
article in 1794 on the state of music in England:
Let us, dear friend, now step for a few moments into the private homes, where
the muse is sacrificed to music. I have already told you that it is a part of good
education that young ladies preferably learn one or another instrument, usually
the harp or the piano, but also that they make an effort in singing but usually do
not accomplish very much. As long as they are not yet married, they devote them-
selves to it, probably as an additional attraction for their worshippers.11
While the piano part in such amateur musical gatherings was particularly connected
with the involvement of female performers, the German flute was regarded as a
male domain. A description of these gender attributions can also be found in an 1830
article in the New York Mirror, and Ladies’ Literary Gazette. The journal satirically
describes the social nuisances that were unfortunately ‘not indictable by law’ in the
new world as well as in the old world:
10
Letter by Horace Walpole to Horace Mann in Florence (23 December 1742), G.
Dover (ed.), Letters of Horace Walpole Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann (New York,
1833), I, 202.
11
‘Lassen Sie uns, lieber Freund, nun noch auf einige Augenblicke in Privathäuser
gehen, wo der Muse der Musik geopfert wird. Ich habe Ihnen schon oben gesagt,
daß es zur guten Erziehung gehört, daß die jungen Damen vorzüglich ein oder das
andre Instrument, gewöhnlich die Harfe oder Clavier, lernen, auch des Gesanges
befleißigen sie sich, aber, wie es gewöhnlich geht, sie leisten nicht sehr viel. So lange
sie nicht verheiratet sind, treiben sie das Ding wohl, um vielleicht einen Reiz mehr
für ihre Anbeter zu haben.’ [Anonymous], ‘Ueber den jetzigen Zustand und die
Moden der Musik in England: London, den 25sten März 1794’, Journal des Luxus und
der Moden 9/7 (July 1794), 347.
Young ladies learning to play the piano, and gentlemen the German flute. Both
cases are susceptible of great aggravation, by the former requesting you to turn
over the leaves of the music, and give your opinion of the successive execution as
they take place; the latter calling your attention to their slow but steadily progres-
sive improvement in their manner of going through the ‘Blue Bells of Scotland’.12
This description bears an uncanny resemblance to Gillray’s caricature, even though

it is not the then-admired ‘Blue Bells of Scotland’ being performed in that gather-
ing.13 The sheet music reveals the piece to be ‘On Rosy Bed by Tinckling Billy’. The
fictitious title ‘On Rosy Bed’, along with its equally fictitious composer presuma-
bly refers to the numerous popular romantic folksongs which boosted the musical
market at the time. ‘Tinckling Billy’ – possibly a reference to a billy goat – thus
stands for the countless composers trying to grab their share of this flourishing
market. The economic elite wanted to perform at home the music which had cap-
tivated them in the capital’s theatres, opera houses and pleasure gardens. Thus,
arrangements were available for various instrumental settings. The depicted com-
bination of harpsichord, German flute, horn and voice was absurd, but not unusual.
Gillray also illustrated real musical repertoire in his etchings, such as in the print
entitled A Country Concert; – or – an Evenings Entertainment in Sussex (Figure 6.3).
The setting is most likely one of London’s various wealthy fashionable summer
retreats. The concert season typically began at the end of January, while June sig-
nalled its end.14 The economic elite then departed to spend the summer months
at their country homes, often prestigious locations on the south coast, such as
Brighton in Sussex, where the young Prince of Wales (later King George IV) spent
much of his spare time. Gillray was known to respond rapidly to current affairs in his
etchings. The publication date of the caricature, 1 September 1798, coincides with
the described period.
The four musicians in this gathering include (again) a lady at a harpsichord or
square piano and a gentleman playing the cello. Two more male musicians play the
flute and the violin; both strain to glimpse the only sheet music present, on the key-
board, surrounded by lit candles. A standing gentleman dedicates his attention to
his dog, while a little girl entertains herself with the violinist’s wobbly chair, indicat-
ing the informality of the musical gathering. Gillray also hints at the actual music
being performed. The musicians’ speech bubbles read: ‘Beviamo tutti tre’, or ‘Let us
drink together!’, in reference to a popular glee originating from the composer and
violinist Felice Giardini (1716–96), a leading figure in London concert life for several
12
[Anonymous], ‘Nuisances Not Indictable at Law’, The New-York Mirror, and Ladies’
Literary Gazette 6 (5 June 1830), 381.
13
Gillray refers in another etching devoted to domestic music culture to the famous
folksong ‘Blue Bells of Scotland’. See J. Gillray, Farmer Giles & his Wife Shewing
Off Their Daughter Betty to Their Neighbours, on Her Return from School (London,
1809).
14
See J. Carnelley, George Smart and Nineteenth-Century London Concert Life
(Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2015), 70f.
Figure 6.3 James Gillray, A Country Concert; – or – an Evenings Entertainment in Sussex (London, 1798)
© Melanie Unseld
years.15 Giardini, also a professional member of the London Catch Club, was well
known by singing enthusiasts and audiences in London.16 Italian glees by the Catch
Club composers were highly fashionable, not just as a by-product of the fascination
with Italian opera, but as a ‘display of erudition and sophistication’.17 However, it is
doubtful that Gillray’s caricature refers to the pure vocal version of this then well-
known glee. Once again, the involvement of instrumentalists suggests that they are
playing one of the many arrangements of the popular composition.
15
See F. Giardini, ’Beviamo tutti tre’, Apollonian Harmony: A Collection of Scarce
& Celebrated Glees, Catches, Madrigals, Canzonetts, Rounds, & Canons: Ancient &
Modern with Some Originals: Composed by Aldrich, Arne, Atterbury, Battishall, Boyce,
Brewer, Dibdin, Eccles, Est, Giardini, Green, Handel, Harrington, Hayes, Hook, Morley,
Nares, Purcell, Ravenscroft, Travers, Webbe and Other Eminent Masters Most of
Which are Sung at the Noblemens’ Catch-Club, Theatres & Public Gardens. The Words
Consistent with Female Delicacy 2 (London, [c.1800]), 18–19. For Giardini, see S.
McVeigh, Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn (Cambridge: CUP, 1993),
120.
16
Gillray also refers to the rich vocal music culture in clubs and societies in one of
his etchings entitled ‘Anacreonticks in full song’, dated 1801. See also Kreutzfeldt,
‘“Whilst snug in our Club-room …”’, 89–108.
17
E. Rubin, The English Glee in the Reign of George III. Participatory Art Music for an
Urban Society (Sterling Heights, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2003), 139.
Ex. 6.1 Johann Baptist Cramer, Sonata II, second movement (Vivace), Op. 35
[extract: ‘Beviamo Tutti tre’], bb. 1–8
       
Beviamo tutti tre
            
      
  

  
     
Vivace
   

   

5
         
    
 
     
       

  
Johann Baptist Cramer (1717–1858), for example, was one of many musicians
who adapted popular vocal tunes in their instrumental compositions. As a piano
teacher, pianist, music publisher and piano-maker, Cramer was closely connected
with the English music market and aware of the economic potential of popular
tunes. He therefore arranged these melodies as simple sonatas that could be per-
formed by various instruments, including the voice.18 Gillray’s depiction may well
hint at such widespread, popular publications as Cramer’s. One of these from
slightly later than the etching, dated 1805, is entitled Three Sonatas for the Piano Forte
with Accompaniments for Flute or Violin & Violoncello Ad Libitum (Example 6.1).19
This, along with other airs, also quotes ‘Beviamo tutti tre’ (Example 6.2). The three
voices of Giardini’s glee are transferred in the piano setting with only small changes.
Harmonisations, embellishing tones and octaval transpositions supplement the
original three-part setting.
Finally, Cruikshank’s caricature Princely Amusements or the Humors of the Family
gives an impression of the public image of musical gatherings in the salons of the
royal family (Figure 6.4).
This etching is noteworthy for the remarkable profusion of characters and details.
High society, alongside the most important members of the royal family, amuse
themselves; this includes the Prince Regent, who is dancing a reel. His brothers, the
18
See M. Unseld, ‘James Gillray und das “slippy genre” der Karikatur: Ein “anderer”
Blick auf die englische Musikkultur um 1800’, in Delights of Harmony, 14.
19
J. B. Cramer, ‘Sonata II, Second Movement (Vivace), [‘Beviamo Tutti tre’]’, Three
Sonatas for the Piano Forte with Accompaniments for Flute or Violin & Violoncello, ad
Libitum, Op. 35, In Which Are Introduced the Following Airs, Haste to the Wedding, We
Be Soldiers Three, In My Pleasant Native Plains, Rondo Ecossois, Beviamo Tutti tre, Air
in Ariadne, Composed and Respectfully Inscribed, To Her Serene Highness the Electress
of Bavaria (London, [1805]).
Ex. 6.2 Felice Giardini, Glee ‘Beviamo tutti tre’, bb. 1–8
Glee Giardini
       
     
  

Be - via - mo tut - ti Tre, u - na la vol - ta
           
  
- via - mo tut - ti vog - lio
 
Be Tre,
    
Be - via - mo tut - ti Tre,
   
   
  
- - - -
   
Bav
        
  
be - ne,   
vi - va, vi - va, bra - vo, bra - vo,
   
Sig - nor si,
Figure 6.4 George Cruikshank, Princely Amusements or the Humors of the Family (London, 1812)
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York, are playing cards at a table with two ladies,
while the Duke of Sussex listens to the piano. King George III and Queen Charlotte
are both present in round-framed profile portraits over the two doors.20 The carica-
ture was published on 1 April 1812 in the magazine Scourge, a radical satirical publi-
cation for which Cruikshank designed, all in all, forty-one folding plates from 1811
20
See M. D. George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires preserved in the
Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (London: British Museum,
1949), IX, 89–91.
to 1816.21 This image focused on satirising the royal family rather than the musical
practice of that time, but still reveals many intertextual references.22
The caricature, which can be divided into individual scenes, contains at least two
which seem to be of particular interest from a musicological point of view: first,
there is a group of three musicians on the left half of the picture, providing music for
the dancing Regent together with his daughter and another couple. Second, a lady
at a square piano on the right edge of the picture is presenting her musical skills. The
latter can be identified by the open music book on the square piano: ‘The Sussex
Tune – I told a flattering Tale – by Mrs Billington’, referring to the celebrated musi-
cian Elizabeth Billington (née Weichsel, 1756/68–1818). Born into a musical family,
she was a well-known singer and had already appeared at an early age in public as a
pianist. She also composed a few sonatas: Three Lessons for the Harpsichord or Piano
Forte were published around 1775 and Six Sonatas for the Piano Forte or Harpsichord
in 1778.23 In 1783 she married her vocal teacher James Billington, a double bass
player. Her operatic debut in Dublin in 1784 was followed by a successful career
principally in England, but also in Italy. Billington lived a life in the spotlight and
was known as ‘The Billington’ in London’s social life, as she regularly attended soci-
ety events. She was both a pianist and a composer, but was nevertheless known pri-
marily as a singer.24
Although Cruikshank sketched her sitting at the piano and playing a song ‘by Mrs
Billington’ he does not only refer to her compositional or pianistic skills. The scene
is also to be read as a reference to Billington’s singing activities, which can be seen
by a closer look at the title of the sheet music lying on the piano. It is, presumably,
an allusion to the song ‘Hope told a flattering tale’, which was adapted from the pop-
ular duet ‘Nel cor più non mi sento’ from Giovanni Paisiello’s opera buffa La bella
molinara. This was among the most frequently published and arranged tunes of the
first quarter of the nineteenth century.25 Besides this version introduced by Madame
Mara (Gertrud Elisabeth Mara, 1749–1833) at London’s King’s Theatre in Thomas
21
See Patten, ‘Cruikshank’, 522.
22
Unfortunately, there is no explanation of the plate in the magazine text, but M.
D. George gives a description and interpretation of this caricature in his Catalogue.
23
Sonata VI from her Op. 2 was reprinted in 1998. See U. M. Rempel, ‘Elizabeth
Weichsell Billington’, in Women Composers: Music through the Ages, ed. S. Glickman
and M. Furman Schleifer (London: Hall, 1998), 181–92.
24
See P. H. Highfill, A. B. Kalman and E. D. Langhans, ‘Billington, Mrs James’, in A
Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other
Stages Personnel in London: 1660–1800 (Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: SIU Press,
1973), II, 124.
25
See H. Porriss, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of
Performance (Oxford: OUP, 2009), 152; I. D. Pearson ‘Paisiello’s “Nel cor più non
mi sento” in Theme and Variations of the 19th century’, Music Research Forum 21
(2006), 43–69; R. M. Long, ‘“Nel cor più non mi sento”: Notes on Paisiello’s Aria
and a Few of Its Interpreters’, in The Consortium on Revolutionary Europe Proceedings,
ed. D. D. Horward, H. T. Parker and L. S. Parker (Athens, GA: The Consortium on
Revolutionary Europe, 1986), 417–23.
Augustine Arne’s opera Artaxerxes,26 it also appeared with alternative words ‘Ah will
no change of clime’ by Billington in Samuel Arnold’s Inkle and Yarico.27 It may at
first seem surprising that Cruikshank refers to Mara’s rather than Billington’s ver-
sion. But, as preserved music sheets show, a mixture of different titles and interpret-
ers on the front pages of published sheet was not uncommon.28
Therefore, Cruikshank refers not only to Billington’s repertoire, but also to the
practice of associating that popular aria with certain singers. He furthermore refers
to widespread adapting and publishing policies: arranging popular arias, airs, bal-
lads and other vocal music from the repertoire of the London theatres and pub-
lishing them in a large number of copies for domestic music-making.29 However,
Cruikshank’s satiric allusion applies to another issue as well, which becomes appar-
ent if we look at Billington’s environment, and especially at her (only) listener. It
suggests that there is a special connection between Mrs Billington and the man
beside her, and the textual reference ‘The Sussex Tune’ on the open music book
confirms this suspicion. With this reference, Cruikshank comments on Billington’s
life, specifically her scandalous romances. The paunchy man is the Duke of Sussex,
who tramples on a print of ‘Lady Ag[usta] Murr[a]y’, whom he married secretly in
1793, but from whom he had already separated at the time the caricature was printed.
The Duke of Sussex was not only devoted to music, but it was rumoured that he was
also devoted to Mrs Billington,30 accounts of whose scandalous personal life were
frequently spread across the pages of the burgeoning yellow press. Following
James Ridgway’s publication of the scurrilous Memoirs of Mrs Billington from her
Birth in 1792, Billington’s personal life was ruthlessly exposed to public scrutiny and
‘[g] ossip about her sexual adventures, with partners from country actors up the
26
See the first page of P. Pindar’s eighteenth-century score Hope Told a Flattering
Tale: Introduced by Madam Mara at the Kings Theatre Haymarket in the Opera of
Artaxerxes. Written by Peter Pindar Esq. with the Celebrated Harp Accompaniment
composed by Mr. Mazzinghi (London: G. Goulding, [1800]).
27
See the printed score ‘Ah will no change of clime introduced by Mrs. Billington in
Inkle and Yarico’ in the National Library of Ireland (JM 2238) and in the British
Library (Music Collections H.1771.x.(6.)).
28
On some published sheets, more than one textual version is given, like on the one
published by Edmund and Lee around 1802. It bears the inscription ‘Ah che nel petto
io sento sung by Madam Mara in the opera of Idalide, and with English words as
sung by Mrs. Billington’. In addition to the Italian, the words of ‘Ah will no change
of clime’ are given, as well as the words of ‘Hope told a flatt’ring tale’. See the printed
score in the National Library of Ireland (JM 2229).
29
See Bagge, ‘Sirenen und Kreischeulen’, 109–10, and Unseld, ‘Gillray und das “slippy
genre”’, 15.
30
Thomas Wright and R. H. Evans identified the scene in Gillray’s caricature Country
Concert as representing Mrs Billington, who was discovered at home with her
lover, the Duke of Sussex, by her second husband. See T. Wright and R. H. Evans,
Historical & Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray (London: Blom,
1851), 440. However, M. D. George rebutted the presumption by arguing that Mrs
Billington was not in England in 1798 when the etching was published. Furthermore,
Prince Augustus Frederick only received the title “Duke of Sussex” in 1801. See
George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires, VII, 512f.
social scale to … [royalty], was rife through her career’.31 Thus, the caricature also
captures the public interest in the personal lives of London’s famous stage stars, a
popular topic of conversation stimulated by anecdotes and reports in newspaper
articles and other publications.32
Apart from the ongoing interest in the love affairs of famous singers like Billington
with members of the royal family, the caricature also indicates that the musical and
theatrical performers interacted with the most important political figures of the
day. These gatherings were arranged in different constellations. Firstly, national as
well as international stars, who would have appeared the evening before in public
concerts in places like Hickford’s Rooms or the Hanover Square Rooms, regularly
participated in musical gatherings in royal or aristocratic homes. Both sides ben-
efited from these arrangements: the royal and aristocratic hosts were pleasantly
entertained in a more intimate setting than in public concerts, and for many musi-
cians the personal contact with patrons and high society was a stepping stone for
their public musical career.33 Secondly, musical events in which professionals and
amateurs performed together were not uncommon.34 Finally, there was a growing
interest in music at the Court of George III, and the royal family regularly attended
the Concerts of Ancient Music at the Hanover Square Rooms.35 The king and his
son, the Prince of Wales, were great admirers and patrons of music, and the rest of
the royal family also included talented musicians.36 Therefore, it is unsurprising that
professional musicians and stars like Billington spent their evenings with them. The
Prince of Wales had a taste not only for making music, but also for listening and
31
J. Ridgway, Memoirs of Mrs Billington from Her Birth: Containing a Variety of Matters,
Ludicrous, Theatrical, Musical, and with Copies of Several Original Letters, now in the
Possession of the Publisher, Written by Mrs Billington, To Her Mother, the Late Mrs
Weichsel: A Dedication; and a Prefatory Address (London: Ridgway, 1792). Highfill,
Kalman and Langhans, ‘Billington’, 128. See also S. Levin, ‘Vice, Ugly Vice: Memoirs
of Mrs Billington from her Birth’, in Romantic Autobiography in England, ed. E.
Stelzig (Farnham: Routledge, 2009), 49–61.
32
See R. Grotjahn, ‘Diva, Hure, Nachtigall: Sängerinnen im 19. Jahrhundert’, in Frauen
in der Musikgeschichte, ed. S. Rode-Breymann (Cologne: Hochschule für Musik,
2001), 44. Mrs Billington’s amours, travels and theatrical politics were also attractive
themes for other caricaturist like Rowlandson, Gillray, Woodwards and Williams.
See Highfill, Kalman and Langhans, ‘Billington’, 129, and Bagge, ‘Sirenen und
Kreischeulen’, 118.
33
See S. McVeigh, ‘London, Musical Life, 1660–1800: Concert Life’, The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and P. Holman, 2nd edn (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), XV, 124.
34
See E. Buyken, ‘Musikalische Praxis, Gender und Politik: Oder: Wie kritisch sind die
musikalischen Karikaturen James Gillrays?’, in Delights of Harmony, 19–33.
35
This circumstance also inspired caricaturists like Gillray and Cruikshank for their
satires. See, for instance, Gillray, Ancient Music, London 1787 – a topic not specific to
royal satire. Throughout the eighteenth century the ancient-or-modern music debate
was at its height.
36
See Levin, ‘Vice, Ugly Vice’, 59. For music at the English court see P. A. Scholes,
‘George the Third as Music Lover’, The Musical Quarterly 28 (1942), 78–92;
H. J. Marx, ‘Die Musik am englischen Hof von Georg III. (1761–1820)’, Göttinger
Händel-Beiträge 15 (2014), 119–43; and McVeigh, Concert Life in London, 49–52.
especially dancing to music.37 Indeed, Cruikshank, as well as other caricaturists, rid-

iculed the prince for his addiction to dancing.38 In Princely Amusements Cruikshank
depicts the prince dancing to the sounds of an ensemble of three musicians: two
play the fiddle, pipe and tabor, while an aged flautist stops to receive a cheque or
note. We know neither who they were, nor whether Cruikshank intended to refer to
real people. However, we are told about the performed repertoire. The open music
book on the ground bears the inscription: ‘List of Tunes; Morgan Rattler &c.’ On
the one hand, the explicit naming of the specific tune could be interpreted as a ref-
erence to the song’s huge popularity. ‘Morgan Rattler’, a well-known English jig in
6/8 time, was so popular that there were many responses to it, for example the song
‘Darby O’Gallagher, or the Answer to Morgan Rattler’ dating from the 1780s.39 On
the other hand, Cruikshank may have been making a broader allusion to the grow-
ing publication of folksong and tune collections, evident from the early eighteenth
century on.40
The caricatures discussed above are not unambiguously ‘readable’ illustrations
of English musical salon culture around 1800, but they are embedded in a wider
cultural and social context. Caricatures in general reveal how a person (or a soci-
ety) experiences and remembers events, and they are bearers of stereotyped con-
cepts and images. Thus, the music-related content captured in caricatures at the
turn of the nineteenth century must be carefully dissected. Caricaturists like Gillray
and Cruikshank did not usually draw the genuine private musical gatherings they
attended. Although they knew the aristocratic contexts – Gillray, for example, met
George III, who commissioned him to make studies for a painting41 – they sketched
stereotypes rather than realistic situations. It is not known whether Cruikshank
attended any gathering like the one sketched in Princely Amusements, but it seems
most unlikely.42
37
Music-making was part of the daily routine of the royal family. In 1788 the Princess
Royal Charlotte described the high significance of music in the royal family life:
‘A love of music to distraction runs through our family.’ J. Brooke, King George III
(London: Constable, 1972), 302.
38
See, for example, Gillray’s caricature Dilettanti-theatricals; or a Peep at the Green
Room (London, 1803). See also Bagge, ‘Sirenen und Kreischeulen’, and E. Reda, ‘Ist
Musik sichtbar?’, in Delights of Harmony, 73–88.
39
See A. Carpenter (ed.), Verse in English from Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Cork:
Cork University Press, 1998), 399f., and C. Pendlebury, ‘Jigs, Reels and Hornpipes:
A History of “Traditional” Dances Tunes of Britain and Ireland’ (MPhil thesis,
Sheffield, 2015), 150–1.
40
See B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford:
OUP, 2015), 44–5.
41
See C. Oberstebrink, ‘The Politics of High and Low in Eighteenth-Century Art’, in
Loyal Subversion?, 52–68.
42
The only contact between the royal family and the caricaturist that is known
occurred in 1820, eight years after the publication of the caricature. The king ordered
that Cruikshank be paid £100 ‘not to caricature His Majesty in any immortal
situation’, and Cruikshank was summoned to the Brighton Pavilion to negotiate a
further easing of his satiric representations. See Patten, ‘Cruikshank’, 522.
Topicality is a key element of the functionality of caricatures. Their allusions

become accessible through direct experience and knowledge as well as from the
recognition of immediate events and discourses. Given the 200-year distance, it is
unlikely that all of these allusions can be decoded from today’s point of view. The
caricaturists’ attention to detail – referencing real compositions, along with their
writers, arrangers or performers who were in fashion in salon-like spaces – is impres-
sive. They thereby shine a spotlight on the widespread amateur music scene, whose
music practice was frequently motivated by a social agenda at least as much as by
affection for the art, as Gillray points out when underscoring the equivocation of the
term ‘harmony’. They also show that private and semi-private spaces, such as royal
rooms, likewise provided performance opportunities for professional musical pro-
tagonists like Elizabeth Billington, providing a network of mutual benefits between
artists and hosts. The most prestigious musical performers interacted with leading
political figures, accompanied by all kinds of gossip, supplying perfect material for
any satirical engraver.
Music serves in these works as a mediator of aesthetic, intellectual, social and
ideological discourses that become visible despite, or even because of, the exag-
gerations. The number of caricatures with music-related content is considerably
larger than the three works analysed in this chapter, and references to contempo-
rary music culture can be found not only in etchings of private spaces like salons.
Caricaturists also paid attention to the public sphere of London’s musical life, like
the opera, and the intersection points of these spaces, like clubs and societies, were
also a focus. The works call for further analytical attention, as they repeatedly dance
across thin lines: between the social classes, between musical professionals and
amateurs, between affirming and subverting gender stereotypes, and between musi-
cal and cultural exigencies.
Chapter 7
The Salon Singer as Subject of Satire in France

during the July Monarchy
Mary Anne Garnett
A fixture of upper-class social life in France during the July Monarchy, the chan-
teur de salon or salon singer provided a target for satire that reflected changes
taking place in society as well as in musical tastes during the period. The Revolution
of 1830 that ushered in the eighteen-year reign of Louis-Philippe brought social as
well as political change to France with the empowerment of the upper bourgeoisie.
Among its effects on social life in Paris, Marie d’Agoult noted that the change in
regime enabled a younger generation of aristocrats like herself to ‘open our salons
to new people, to men of lesser condition, bourgeois, the newly ennobled, writers,
artists whose fame was beginning to arouse our curiosity’.1 With the abolition of
censorship, political satire flourished, notably in new journals like La Caricature
Morale, Politique et Littéraire (1830–35) and Le Charivari (1832–93), both founded by
the publisher Charles Philipon, who famously caricatured Louis-Philippe as a pear.2
Technological advances in printing, in particular in lithography, facilitated the mass
production of illustrated publications, resulting in the 1830s being what one histo-
rian has called ‘the satiric decade’.3 However, the reintroduction of restrictive press
laws in 1835, including prepublication censorship of illustrations, brought about a
shift in subject matter from politics to society. As Keri Yousif notes, ‘Images of Paris
and its inhabitants – the world of the theatre, artists, the bourgeoisie, the working
classes – replaced those of the king, allowing the satirical and illustrated press to
pass the censor and still entertain its audience’.4
A phenomenon of the 1840s was the publication of physiologies, illustrated descrip-
tions of various social ‘types’ from all walks of life. The physiologies were relatively inex-
pensive pocket-sized editions aimed at the general reading public, but there were also
nicely bound anthologies destined for well-off bourgeois readers. The vogue was such
1
‘d’ouvrir nos salons à des personnes nouvelles, à des hommes de condition moindre,
bourgeois, anoblis, écrivains, artistes, dont la célébrité commençait à nous piquer de
curiosité’. M. d’Agoult (Daniel Stern), Mémoires, souvenirs et journaux de la comtesse
d’Agoult (Daniel Stern), ed. C. F. Dupêchez (Paris: Mercure de France, 1990), I, 260.
2
H. R. Chacón, ‘Power and Polemics in the July Monarchy’, in The Smart Museum
of Art Bulletin, Studies in the Permanent Collection (1988–1989, 1989–1990) (Chicago:
University of Chicago), 5–8. Brought to trial for defamation of the king because of this
depiction, Philipon defended himself by drawing four sketches in which he transformed
the jowly face of Louis-Philippe into a pear and then asking the jury if resemblance was
a crime. Chacón notes that ‘pear’ was also slang for ‘idiot’ or ‘imbecile’.
3
A. W. Forbes, The Satiric Decade: Satire and the Rise and Fall of Republicanism in
France, 1830–1840 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010).
4
K. Yousif, Balzac, Grandville, and the Rise of Book Illustration (Farnham: Ashgate,
2012), 15.
110 Mary Anne Garnett
that about 120 different physiologies were produced during the period 1840–42 alone.5
The inclusion of salon singers among the many types appearing in these publications
attests to their status as a recognisable social phenomenon of the period. As David
Tunley points out, ‘vocal music was the staple diet of the salons and drawing-rooms,
and a number of excellent singers made their livelihood in the fashionable quarters
by singing not only excerpts from the best-loved operas of the day, but also the latest
romance or, as the century progressed, the more developed form known as mélodie’.6
Tunley also cites the observation made by Anne-Martin Fugier, that ‘the social nature
of the salon was not the sole prerogative of the fashionable world; it served as model
for the middle class’.7 Indeed, it is most often the bourgeois who are targeted in cari-
catures of the salon singer, whether male or female, professional or amateur.
In his article on the French physiologies Richard Sieburth, citing Walter Benjamin,
asserted that ‘the innocuousness (Harmlosigkeit) and perfect bonhomie of the satire
contained in the physiologies mark them as a basically petit bourgeois genre, vir-
tually devoid of insight’ whose ‘humor never went beyond the bounds of innocu-
ousness’.8 I argue in this chapter, however, that the caricatures of the salon figure in
popular literature and images played a normative role in a period of social change
when boundaries were being broken down. This is particularly the case in depic-
tions of the female salon singer, whose performance in the public sphere is por-
trayed as detrimental to the patriarchal order. Likewise, the male singer is also often
depicted as a transgressor of boundaries, whether as a bourgeois interloper into the
closed society of the salon or as a potential seducer/fortune hunter. These carica-
tures are also intimately linked to a critique of the romance, perceived as a ‘feminine’
genre. Moreover, we shall see how these satires both attest to and promote changes
in musical taste and performance style during the July Monarchy.
Albert Cler, a contributor to Le Charivari, established the ‘type’ of the salon
singer in two publications. In both cases, the portrait of the salon singer was a
vignette included in larger satires of musical tastes and practices. The highly suc-
cessful multi-volume Les Français peints par eux-mêmes (The French as Portrayed by
Themselves), published by Léon Curmer in 1840, included Cler’s ‘Le mélomane’
(‘The Music Lover’).9 Cler’s text was illustrated by Henry Monnier, best known for
his creation of the paunchy and pretentious character Monsieur Prudhomme, an
emblematic figure of the bourgeois. Cler expanded on this caricature a year later in
his Physiologie du musicien (1841).
Cler begins ‘Le mélomane’ by describing how singing had changed since the
Ancien Régime, when ‘what has since been called the beau chanteur de société was
completely unknown’ and ‘one sang for the sake of singing, like birds, by natural
5
R. Sieburth, ‘Same Difference: The French Physiologies 1840–1842’, Notebooks in
Cultural Analysis: An Annual Review 1 (1984), 166.
6
D. Tunley, Salons, Singers and Songs: A Background to Romantic French Song,
1830–1870 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 13.
7
Ibid., 13.
8
Sieburth, 170.
9
A. Cler, ‘Le mélomane’, in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes (Paris: L. Curmer,
1840), I, 169–76. Curmer, incidently, was of Irish ancestry, his father’s family having
emigrated from Cork in 1689.
The Salon Singer as Subject of Satire in France 111
instinct’.10 Before describing the contemporary scene, Cler is careful to warn the
reader that his comments pertain not to ‘true artists who have always formed a class
apart but only to amateurs’.11 Today, Cler states, one sings no longer for the pleas-
ure of singing, but to be a social success and to get oneself noticed. In the provinces,
the ‘chansons de table’ sung after dinner have given way to ‘langorous and plain-
tive romances, sometimes even the funeral cavatina sung by Rachel in La Juive or
by Ninetta in La gazza ladra before marching to the scaffold’.12 Cler provides a sup-
posed eyewitness account of a provincial dinner in which ‘a local Duprez’ (an allu-
sion to the famous tenor Gilbert Duprez) decides to sing during dessert the aria ‘Asile
héréditaire’ from Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, ‘brandishing a fork instead of a sword’.13
In just seven pages, Cler satirises a wide variety of performers: the young girl
‘forced to sing by paternal or maternal authority’; supposed child prodigies,
‘Malibrans and Grisis ten years of age and younger’; calculating ‘amateur Duprez’
trying to impress young heiresses.14 Of principal interest to us, however, is Cler’s
portrayal of the chanteur de romance, a paid performer who combines pretentious-
ness with calculation. The chanteur de romance, Cler tells us, is the ‘obligatory lion of
all bourgeois get-togethers’.15 He enjoys entry not only into salons but also into bou-
doirs, thus posing a threat to the hapless husband.16 In keeping with the pseudo-sci-
entific genre of the physiologie, Cler provides the following physical description of
the ‘type’ illustrated by Monnier (Figure 7.1):
The romance singer is usually a thickset little man, stumpy, with bulging shoul-
ders, ruddy cheeks adorned with black and bushy sideburns, and with a promi-
nent abdomen like that of a corporal in the light infantry of the National Guard.
Nature had created him to be an Atlas of the wholesale grocery trade or a haulage
firm. It’s a pity to see such a powerful muscular apparatus employed in sustaining
simple musical notes.17
10
‘À cette époque, ce qu’on a appelé depuis le beau chanteur de société était
complètement inconnu.’ ‘Sous l’ancien régime, on chantait … pour chanter, comme
les oiseaux, par un instinct naturel.’ Ibid., 169.
11
‘Il est bien entendu que nos précédentes appréciations, de même que celles qui vont
suivre, ne s’appliquent point aux véritables artistes, lesquels ont toujours formé une
classe à part, mais seulement aux amateurs.’ Ibid., 170.
12
‘de langoureuses et plaintives romances, parfois même la cavatine funèbre chantée par
Rachel la Juive, ou par Ninette de la Pie voleuse, avant de marcher au supplice’, ibid., 170.
13
‘un Duprez de l’endroit’ and ‘en brandissant sa fourchette au lieu d’épée’, ibid..
14
‘les demoiselles, contraintes à chanter par autorité maternelle ou paternelle’, ibid.,
170–1; ‘des Malibran, des Grisi de dix ans et au dessous’, 172; ‘Duprez amateurs’, 173.
15
‘le lion obligé de toutes les réunions bourgeoises’, ibid., 174.
16
The trope of the singer who seduces the wife under the nose of the husband was
illustrated by Daumier in a lithograph titled ‘Une déclaration en pleine société’ (‘A
Public Declaration’), published in Le Charivari, 3 March 1846. A couple is shown
singing ‘Je t’ai ai ai me!’ (‘I looooooove you!’) with the caption ‘Against such a
tender declaration of love, a husband can say very little if presented in a B-minor
key’ (‘Ce tendre aveux se fesant [sic] avec un bémol à la clef, le mari ne peut rien y
trouver à redire’). Daumier Register Number 1174 (Daumier-register.org).
17
‘Le chanteur de romances est ordinairement un petit homme trapu, courtaud,
aux épaules largement cambrées, aux joues rubicondes, ornées de favoris noirs et
Figure 7.1 Albert Cler, ‘Le mélomane’, Les Français peints par eux-mêmes
© Bibliothèque nationale de France
His physique being comically at odds with his repertoire, it is ‘impossible to repress
a smile when you hear him complain of his misfortune, his languor, his path to the grave,
his frail existence, etc.’.18 The chanteur de romance is fortunate in that he can work year
round and needs little other than ‘an almost new black suit and a raspy voice’.19 He
makes the rounds of the provinces and watering holes such as Vichy, Baden-Baden
and Aix, before autumn finds him back in Paris. When the ‘winter of his life’ arrives
and he loses both his hair and his high note, he returns to his native province and
becomes a prominent member of his village, a member of the municipal council or a
churchwarden, singing the praises of the Lord or that of the local patron.20
buissoneux, à l’abdomen proéminent comme celui d’un caporal de voltigeurs de la

garde nationale. La nature l’avait créé pour être l’Atlas d’un commerce d’épicerie en
gros, ou d’une maison de roulage, et c’est pitié que de voir employer un si puissant
appareil de forces musculaires à soutenir de simples notes de musique.’ Ibid., 174.
18
‘Impossible de réprimer un sourire lorsqu’on l’entend se plaindre de son malheur, de
sa langueur, de son acheminement vers la tombe, de sa frêle existence, etc.’ Ibid.
19
‘un habit noir à peu près neuf et une voix râpée’, ibid.
20
‘l’hiver de la vie’, ibid.
Cler’s description of the male chanteur de romance in a chapter of his Physiologie

du musicien devoted to ‘chanteurs de société’ resembles that from ‘Le Mélomane’
with a few added touches, such as the comment on his abundant hair, ‘always shiny
and artistically curled like a corkscrew; but frequently his toupee is as false as his
notes’.21 In addition to ending his career as a prominent person in his native village,
he may also be decorated with the ‘croix d’honneur’, an honour that constitutes ‘a
reward for courage that, it seems to us, would be more appropriate for his listen-
ers’.22 Cler also criticises the current operatic singing style, deploring that ‘Everyone
shouts at the Opéra and the Opéra comique; and, by imitation, everyone shouts
even louder in the salon concerts’.23 He attributes this to the success obtained by
Duprez in his interpretation of the stretta ‘Suivez-moi’ in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell.
Cler’s first target in ‘Chanteurs de société’ is not the chanteur, however, but the
chanteuse, who is portrayed as forgetting her role as a wife subordinate to her hus-
band. Under the pretext ‘Madame is making music’ (italicised in the text), she neglects
her children and household duties. Her husband has ‘no means of objecting to the
numerous and brilliant outfits needed for salon concerts’.24 Nor has he the right to be
upset when he hears, through the keyhole of the boudoir, a feminine voice and that
of a young male warbling phrases such as, ‘the two of us, far from a jealous master, let
us love each other, let us love, let us love’.25 The dangerous seductive power of music
is illustrated by the accompanying drawing of the young female pianist kissing not
a singer but a violinist (Figure 7.2). The illustration is strategically placed directly
under the sentence, ‘that’s not all: Music has the advantage, so to speak, of neutral-
ising the famous article 213 of the Civil Code and assuring the virtuosa’s complete
independence from her husband’s authority’.26 The satire was topical: revocation of
article 213 of the Civil Code, which stated ‘The husband owes protection to his wife;
the wife obedience to her husband’, had been the subject of a petition to the legisla-
tive chambers by the bourgeois editors of the Gazette des Femmes as early as 1836.27
Hostility to women singers similar to Cler’s is evident in Maurice de Flassan’s
portrait of ‘La cantatrice de salon’, also published in Les Français peints par eux-
mêmes.28 Ironically, ‘Maurice Flassan’ [sic] was the pseudonym of a woman, Marie
21
‘toujours luisante et tire bouchonnée; mais souvent son toupet est faux comme ses
notes’, ibid., 67.
22
‘Cette récompense du courage conviendrait plus justement, ce nous semble, à ses
auditeurs.’ Ibid., 69.
23
‘Tout le monde crie à l’Opéra et à l’Opéra-comique, et, par imitation, on crie encore
plus fort dans les concerts de salon.’ Ibid., 65.
24
‘Pas moyen de contester la nécessité de nombreuses et brillantes toilettes pour les
concerts de salon – Madame fait de la musique.’ Ibid., 62.
25
‘Tous deux, loin d’un maître jaloux, aimons-nous, aimons-nous, aimons-nous.’ Ibid.
26
‘Ce n’est pas tout: la musique a l’avantage de neutraliser, pour ainsi dire, le fameux
article 213 du Code civil, et d’assurer la complète independance d’une virtuose en
pouvoir de mari.’ Ibid., 61.
27
The Gazette des Femmes (1836–38) had as its stated objective the obtaining of civil
and political rights for women. See C. Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the 19th
Century (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1984), 98–107.
28
M. de Flassan, ‘La cantatrice de salon’, in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes (Paris: L.
Curmer, 1840–42), II, 201–8.
Figure 7.2 Albert Cler, Physiologie du musicien

Pauline Rose Blaze de Bury, née Stewart (or Stuart).29 Flassan states that, ‘In Paris,
one has a cantatrice just as one has a seamstress; each neighbourhood, each soci-
ety, each family has its own’.30 Unlike most other satirists, Flassan does not spare
the aristocracy, whose singers are described as the ‘grandiflora of the species’ and
‘at least a countess, marquise or princess, belonging by right to ambassadors, gov-
ernment ministers, bankers and the English’.31 In particular, Flassan targets women
who organise concerts for charity with themselves as the star performers, accusing
29
G. d’Heylli (pseud. E. Poinsot), Dictionnaire des pseudonymes, 2nd edn (Paris:
E. Dentu, 1869), 92. She married Baron Henry Blaze de Bury, a diplomat and
contributor to the Revue de deux mondes, in 1844. ‘Maurice de Flassan’ is also
credited for having written the lyrics to Meyerbeer’s Le baptême (1839).
30
‘On a sa cantatrice à Paris comme on a sa couturière: chaque quartier, chaque société,
chaque famille a la sienne.’ Flassan, ‘La cantatrice de salon’, 203.
31
‘La cantatrice grandiflora de l’espèce. Elle est pour le moins comtesse, marquise ou
princesse, et appartient de droit aux ambassadeurs, aux ministres, aux banquiers, et
aux Anglais.’ Ibid., 203.
them of using charity as a cover for their vanity. This is a thinly veiled reference to
women like the Countess Merlin (Maria de las Mercedes de Jaruco), a fine singer
who has been described by Tunley as ‘a driving force in Paris musical life, not only
through her salon, but also in the many events in which she participated or organ-
ised, not least for charitable purposes’.32
Flassan does not neglect, however, the bourgeois imitators of the aristocracy, the
‘little cantatrices multiflores who spring up everywhere like weeds’.33 They are found
among ‘wives of notaries, lawyers, doctors, captains on the general staff, journal-
ists, old ruined countesses living on the fourth floor, grocery store owners living on
the mezzanine’ and the like.34 Flassan also criticises the kind of music sung by ‘little
girls who only know one thing: how to render even more insipid and unbearable, by
their manner of singing, the romances of Madame Puget and Monsieur Grisar, who
could in this regard do well without their efforts’.35 Flassan here is taking aim at two
well-known composers of romances. Loïsa Puget, who was known as the Queen of
Romance, composed well over 300 songs during her career, which reached its height
in the 1830s. Music historian Frits Noske has commented on the ‘bourgeois nature’
of her romances, citing titles like ‘Father’s Blessing’ and ‘The Sailor’s Mother’.36
Albert Grisar, a Belgian, was discovered by the tenor Adolphe Nourrit, whose per-
formance of Grisar’s romance ‘La Folle’ brought the composer overnight fame. The
song became part of the repertoire of Maria Malibran, and Chopin improvised upon
it during a concert for the court of Louis-Philippe.37
In keeping with the physiologies’ mimicry of scientific classification, Flassan
defines what might be called sub-species of the type being examined. Thus, she states
that there are two kinds of women singers: ‘those that only sing one piece, and those
who sing everything’.38 The pieces mentioned are taken from contemporary operas:
the finale from Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and arias from three operas by Bellini:
Norma (probably ‘Diva Casta’), La Sonnambula (the cavatina) and I Puritani (the
polacca). Of the two sub-groups, Flassan considers women who sing everything to
be the ‘more dangerous’ because ‘they never stop, especially if you haven’t asked
them to sing’.39 But even worse are those who have what she calls ‘sight-reading
32
Tunley, Salons, Singers and Songs, 23.
33
‘les petites cantatrices multiflores, qui poussent partout comme de mauvaises herbes’,
Flassan, ‘La cantatrice de salon’, 203.
34
‘Chez les femmes de notaires, d’avocats, de médecins, de capitaines d’état-major et
de journalistes, chez les vieilles comtesses ruinées demeurant au quatrième, et chez
les épiciers-propriétaires demeurant à l’entre-sol’. Ibid.
35
‘petites filles qui ne savent qu’une chose: le moyen de rendre plus insipides et plus
insupportables encore, par leur manière de les chanter, les romances de madame Puget
et de M. Grisar, qui pourraient bien, à cet égard-là, se passer de leurs efforts.’ Ibid., 204.
36
F. Noske, French Song from Berlioz to Duparc: The Origin and Development of the
Mélodie, trans. Rita Benson (New York: Dover, 1970), 8.
37
38
‘celles qui ne chantent qu’un morceau, et celles qui chantent tout’, Flassan, ‘La
cantatrice de salon’, 203.
39
‘plus dangereuses que les autres’; ‘elles n’en finissent plus, surtout si vous ne les avez
pas priées de chanter’, ibid., 204.
mania’.40 Flassan notes, ‘As soon as the salon singer starts to sight-read, she becomes
myopic and starts to cough like a consumptive in all the difficult places’.41
Despite being a woman herself, the portrait that Flassan paints of the woman singer
is harsher than Cler’s. Like him, Flassan criticises female performers for ‘neglecting
their duties as daughter, wife and mother (in fact all their social duties)’.42 But she
goes beyond him in enumerating their many faults. Flassan’s cantatrice displays an
overdeveloped and implicitly artificial sensitivity; she never ages; she sings in all lan-
guages (even Eskimo) without understanding the words; and she forces her hus-
band to play a ‘ridiculous role’ in society as her helper.43 At first, Flassan pretends to
disprove the statement, ‘they say that nothing is as perfidious as a woman who sings;
hers is the most feline nature that exists’.44 However, she goes on to provide exam-
ples that support the idea of woman’s perfidy, as in the example of the woman singer
who ostensibly encourages a young protégée but, secretly envious, subtly under-
mines her by encouraging the young girl to sing music beyond her range.45 Although
this statement strikes today’s reader as incredibly sexist, it reappeared, credited to
Flassan, in Larousse’s Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe siècle as an example of
the usage of the word ‘feline’ to describe ‘what is of a hypocritical sweetness’.46
The caricatures we have been considering so far were included in what Walter
Benjamin identified as panoramic literature, the physiologies consisting of collections
of individual sketches by numerous authors.47 With Louis Reybaud’s Jérôme Paturot
à la recherche d’une position sociale (Jérôme Paturot in Search of a Position in Society)
the sketches are integrated into a serial novel, first published in the newspapers Le
Constitutionnel and then Le National in 1842.48 A parody of a Bildungsroman, the nov-
el’s protagonist has been described as a ‘modern Candide’49 who, seeking to escape his
40
‘la manie de déchiffrer’, ibid.
41
‘Dès que la cantatrice de salon commence à déchiffrer, elle devient myope, et tousse
comme une poitrinaire dans tous les endroits difficiles.’ Ibid.
42
‘négliger leurs devoirs de fille, d’épouse et de mère (tous leurs devoirs sociaux
enfin).’ Ibid., 205.
43
Ibid., 207.
44
‘On dit que rien n’est perfide comme la femme qui chante, que c’est la nature la plus
féline qui existe.’ Ibid., 206.
45
Ibid.
46
‘Qui est d’une douceur hypocrite: Rien n’est perfide comme la femme qui chante: c’est
la nature la plus FÉLINE qui existe. (M. de Flassan)’. P. Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire
Universel du XIXe siècle (Paris: Larousse, 1872), VIII, 295.
47
W. Benjamin, ‘Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century. Exposé of 1935’, The
Arcades Project, trans. H. Eiland and K. McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press
of Harvard University Press, 1999), 5–6.
48
L. Reybaud, Jérôme Paturot à la recherche d’une position sociale (Paris: J.-J. Dubochet,
Le Chevalier et Cie, 1846). The book was illustrated by J. J. Grandville. It was so
successful that Reybaud produced two politically topical sequels, Jérôme Paturot à
recherche de la meilleure des républiques (1848) and Le Baron Paturot à la recherche de
la meilleure des monarchies, par un républicain du lendemain (1849).
49
Paturot is described as ‘un Candide moderne’ in the online description for a
modern edition of the novel published by Belin (1997), www.editions-belin.com/
ewb_pages/f/fiche-article-jerome-paturot-3686.php (15 August 2016). An extensive
summary of the novel, with lengthy excerpts translated into English, was published
Figure 7.3 Louis Reybaud, Jérôme Paturot à la recherche d’une position sociale
social position as a shopkeeper, runs a gamut of professions before ending up where

he started. In a chapter titled ‘Salon Singers and the Three Tenth Muses’, (‘Chanteurs
de salon et les trois dixièmes muses’), Paturot and his ambitious wife Malvina are
invited to a high-society salon where they have their first encounter with two chan-
teurs de salon. The first, whose appearance and bearing make the naïve Paturot assume
that he is seeing ‘some prince of the blood, some ambassador,’ is, in fact, ‘the cele-
brated Triffolato, emperor of the plaintive romance’.50 As Figure 7.3 shows, the preen-
ing Triffolato poses with one hand on the piano like ‘some melancholic Antinous’
(perhaps an allusion to homosexuality), runs his hand through his hair, rolls his amo-
rous eyes at the ladies, and proceeds to sing two or three romances before he bows to
the audience and quickly leaves, seemingly unfazed by their acclamation.51
Paturot comments on the singer’s modesty only to learn that Triffolato has left
hastily because he will sing at four salons that evening, earning the tidy sum of 1200
in The Irish Quarterly Review 4/13 (March 1854), 72–102, in an article titled ‘Phases of
Bourgeois Life’. The salon episode appears on pp. 85–6.
50
‘quelque prince du sang, quelque ambassadeur’; ‘le célèbre Triffolato, l’empereur de la
romance plaintive’. Reybaud, Jérôme Paturot à la recherche d’une position sociale, 207. In
Italian, the adjective ‘trifolato’ describes something cooked in oil, garlic and parsley.
51
‘un Antinoüs mélancolique’, ibid., 207.
francs.52 The second singer, who resembles the first with his dark hair and moustache,
likewise could be mistaken for a duke or peer. He is ‘the illustrious Muscardini, the
prince of the comical romance’.53 Muscardini takes the same pose at the piano as
Triffolato but then distorts his face and begins to sing a song from Normandy in a
Norman accent. He goes from ‘burlesque romance to burlesque romance and …
even so far as ventriloquism’ before he also quickly disappears, having exhausted
his repertoire.54 Paturot mistakenly thinks he will never see these men again but, as
he and Malvina continue to frequent society, wherever they go they are sure to hear
‘the celebrated Triffolato and the illustrious Muscardini’ performing the same songs
in exactly the same manner, without ‘changing an iota’.55
Reybaud’s satire implicitly critiques what might be called the ‘commodification’
of performance. Triffolato and Muscardini in their small way are ‘mass-produc-
ing’ music for multiple audiences at a time when the romance itself had become a
highly profitable commodity, with an estimated 500 new ones published each year.56
According to Tunley, ‘The proliferation of salons at all levels of the social scale gave
impetus to what became a veritable industry of uninspired romance composition
by amateurs and musicians of no true creative talent, reflective of a society in which
money and artistic discrimination did not often go hand in hand’.57 Criticism of
the romance also had a misogynistic aspect, since it was a genre in which women
composers flourished. For example, in addition to Loïsa Puget, mentioned earlier,
one can cite the prolific composers Pauline Duchambge, who wrote about 400
romances, and Sophie Gail, who wrote 200 or so.58
As historian Jolanta Pekacz notes, the romance from the beginning was a genre asso-
ciated with women in substance and form. Women could succeed as composers com-
posers in a genre that ‘did not require knowledge of the rules of musical composition
or advanced instrumental skills; thus, it did not challenge the gender division of labor
52
It is difficult to determine the equivalent of this sum in today’s currency, but it was
substantial. Lilian and Dieter Noack have compiled from various sources the ‘Cost
of Living in Daumier’s Time’, published on their website www.daumier.org. It is
estimated that Daumier’s monthly income during the period 1835–45 was 300–600
francs. The monthly salary of an unskilled worker in 1838 was 30 francs, rising to
45 francs in 1848. Daumier received 40 francs for each lithograph supplied to Le
Charivari in 1840.
53
‘l’illustre Muscardini, le prince de la romance bouffonne’, Reybaud, Jérôme Paturot
à la recherche d’une position sociale, 208. In French, a ‘muscardin’ is a dormouse. The
word is derived from the Italian moscardino, which refers to its musky odour. The
name also recalls the muscadins of the French Revolution, young dandies so named
because of the musk perfume they used. The muscadins formed royalist gangs to attack
Jacobins and sans-culottes after Thermidor and the overthrow of Robespierre in 1794.
54
‘de romance burlesque en romance burlesque, et … jusqu’à la ventriloquie’, ibid., 209.
55
‘le célèbre Triffolato et l’illustre Muscardini’; ‘changer un iota’, Ibid., 209.
56
Tunley, Salons, Singers and Songs, 68. Tunley is citing J. A. Delaire’s Histoire de
la romance considérée comme œuvre littéraire et musicale (Paris: Imprimerie de
Ducessois, 1845), 21.
57
58
J. T. Pekacz, ‘Music, Identity and Gender in France in the Age of Sensibility’, French
History and Civilisation: Papers from the George Rude Seminar 3 (2009), 52.
in the field of music’.59 However, Pekacz observes, ‘the genre of romance also had its
“masculine” and “feminine” idioms’.60 The first was considered serious, dramatic and
requiring true genius, whereas the second was sentimental, lyric and suited to amateurs.
She cites a contemporary critic for whom the ‘masculine’ romance was epitomised by
the works of Hippolyte Monpou and the ‘feminine’ romance was exemplified by the
compositions of Loïsa Puget, ‘widely applauded as “bourgeois” and “domestic,” with-
out pretense and aspiration to higher art’.61 It is well known that the French discovery
of the Lieder of Franz Schubert eventually led to the decline of the romance that would
be supplanted by its more serious and ‘masculine’ French version, the mélodie. It can be
argued that caricatures of the salon singer as a singer of romances both reflected and
contributed to this change in musical taste that was taking place in the 1840s in France.
By mid-decade, the stereotype of the salon singer was well established. Our final
literary example, published in Marc Fournier’s Paris chantant: romances, chansons,
et chansonnettes contemporaines (1845), in many ways constitutes a simple variation
on the theme.62 Fournier was a dramatist and would become the director of the
Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin during the Second Empire (1851–68). The purpose
of Paris chantant, Fournier states in his introduction, is to present ‘the real, naïve
and original physionomie of Paris that still sings’ and to show future generations that
the French in the 1840s still knew how to laugh and that the esprit gaulois endured.63
The heterogeneous collection includes Lieder such as Schubert’s Le Roi des Aulnes
(a French translation of Der Erlkönig) as well as drinking songs with titles like ‘The
King of Antidotes’. Fournier justifies the inclusion of romances along with chansons
in his compilation by affirming that, ‘The Romance occupies a large place in our
musical mores and to refuse the Romance the right to appear next to her joyous
sister [la Chanson] would be to leave our task unaccomplished’.64
In his satirical essay ‘Chanteurs d’intermèdes et chanteurs de salon’ (‘Intermission
singers and salon singers’), Fournier notes that most salon singers have other
employment: they work for ‘the administration of mud’ for the road systems, or
in pawnshops and funeral parlours.65 But once he puts on his black suit, the one in
which he was married and which he wears to funerals, the chanteur de salon becomes
‘what he believes himself to be … the child of nature’ and ‘forgets that he only has a
salary of 1000 francs’.66 Unlike Reybaud’s singers, however, Fournier’s all sing gratis
with the exception of a former clockmaker who earns 100 francs an evening.
Fournier’s salon singer enters the room with mixed emotions, worrying if the
piano will be visible and if he will be seen. He is happy when preceded by a member
59
Ibid., 50.
60
Ibid., 52.
61
Ibid.
62
M. Fournier, Paris chantant: romances, chansons, et chansonnettes contemporaines
(Paris: Lavigne, 1845).
63
‘la physionomie réelle, naïve et originale de ce Paris qui chante encore’, ibid., xiii.
64
‘La Romance occupe une grande place dans nos mœurs musicales, et refuser à la
Romance le droit de figurer à côté de sa joyeuse soeur, c’était laisser notre tâche
inaccomplie.’ Ibid.
65
‘l’administration des boues’, ibid., 155.
66
‘ce qu’il croit être … l’enfant de la nature’; ‘il oublie qu’il est employé à mille francs’, ibid.
of the French Academy reading his latest tragedy because then he will be able to
wake his audience up. Likewise, he is happy to perform after young girls who play
sonatas, amateurs who propose charades, mothers who make children dance or
recite fables: all serve as his foil. He also has two infallible tricks. First, he promises
to sing four romances but only sings two, which shows that he is so popular he is
awaited elsewhere, and, second, he starts by warning his audience that he is getting
a cold or a sore throat. However, his greatest gift is his ability to visit three homes in
an evening (presumably on foot) without getting mud-splattered.
Fournier, like Reybaud, divides salon singers into two sub-species, but his are
‘tender figures and stupid figures’.67 The first have long hair, wear a turned-down
collar with a black tie and ‘warble romances’.68 The second wear a white tie, have
short hair, thin sideburns and red ears and ‘grind out comic songs’.69 Fournier does
later add a third category: ‘ugly figures’, one of whom has made his reputation sing-
ing a chansonnette titled ‘Down with Men’.70 ‘All the women who saw the singer’,
Fournier remarks, ‘so completely agreed with this opinion that they made him a
success.’71 His comment here underscores how the salon itself as a space of female
empowerment and arbiter of taste becomes a target for ridicule.
As we have seen, a constant in the depictions of the male salon singer is his appeal
to women, despite (and perhaps the reason for) unflattering descriptions of his
physique. Two lithographs by Honoré Daumier in his series of Croquis musicaux
(Musical sketches) published in 1852 lampoon this appeal.72 In the first (Figure 7.4)
the caption reads: ‘In the process of charming an entire society with the romance
of Le Beau Nicolas [Handsome Nicolas]’.73 This chansonnette was composed by the
songwriter and café singer L. Darcier (pseudonym of Joseph Lemaître). The lyrics,
by A. Grout, tell the story of a young man who is the ‘village rooster’ sought after
by all the women because he possesses thirty acres of land.74 The fatuous singer fails
to realise that his own situation is a mirror image of that of the subject of his song.
The second lithograph shows a similar-looking singer in front of four young
women with the caption: ‘Seeking to impress a rich heiress with his high C from the
chest’.75 (Figure 7.5) Seduction, money, vanity: Daumier’s lithographs illustrate how
well established certain tropes associated with the male salon singer had become.
67
‘les figures tendres et les figures bêtes’, ibid., 156. The French word ‘figure’ can mean
both a figure or a face. From the context, Fournier is describing the entire individual.
68
‘roucoulent la romance’, ibid.
69
‘grincent la chanson comique’, ibid.
70
‘figures laides’; ‘À bas les Hommes’, ibid.
71
‘Toutes les femmes qui voyaient le chanteur étaient si bien de son avis, qu’elles lui
ont fait un succès.’ Ibid.
72
Daumier’s Croquis musicaux are composed of seventeen lithographs published in
Le Charivari from February to May 1852. This lithograph appeared on 2 April 1852.
Daumier Register Number 2242.
73
‘En train de charmer toute une société avec la romance du Beau Nicolas.’
74
‘le coq du village’, L. Darcier, Le Beau Nicolas (Paris: Bernard-Latte, 1850). The
song would inspire a comic opera composed by Paul Lacôme and presented at the
Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques in 1880.
75
‘Cherchant à fasciner une riche héritière avec son ut de poitrine.’ Croquis musicaux,
14 February 1852. Daumier Register Number 2232.
Figure 7.4 Honoré Daumier, ‘En train de charmer toute une société avec la romance du Beau
Nicolas’, Le Charivari, 8 April 1852 © Daumier-register.org DR Number 2244
Figure 7.5 Honoré Daumier, ‘Cherchant à fasciner une riche héritière avec son ut de poitrine’,
‘Croquis musicaux’, Plate 4, Le Charivari, 14 February 1852; Lithograph Delteil 2232
© Bibliothèque nationale de France, Estampes et Photographie, Rés. Dc-180b (46)-Fol.
Like all caricatures, those of the salon singer are exaggerations that yet contain
some grains of truth. For example, although no direct link can be established, many
of the criticisms of the salon singer’s singing style are reflected in the advice on
how to avoid ridicule given by Antoine Romagnesi in his Art of Singing Romances,
Chansonnettes and Nocturnes, and in general All Salon Music, published in 1846.76
Romagnesi warns that, ‘gestures, affected movements of head and body would be
irritating and almost always ridiculous … The singer must avoid desperate looks –
that exaggerated sensitivity, that false warmth of expression – in a word, what to the
art of singing is distortion in a fine design.’77 Echoing Cler’s criticism, Romagnesi
notes that ‘shouting must not be confused with expression’,78 and that it is mediocre
singers who ‘search for success in the power of their vocal cords, and, as one has
neatly put it, sing bien fort rather than fort bien (very loudly rather than very well)’.79
He cautions against the overuse of certain effects and artifices by imitators of those
who are masters of the art of singing – for example, the use of the tremolo to express
grief. He states that ‘their incessant little tremolos become the most unbearable
thing that one can hear’.80 One must also ‘guard against pretentious flourishes, or
against clumsy appoggiaturas [ports de voix], which some singers take to be expres-
sion but which is only parody’.81
To conclude, it seems evident from my discussion that, contrary to Sieburth’s
assertion, the humour of the physiologies did, in fact, go ‘beyond the boundaries of
innocuousness’.82 As we have seen, the caricature of the salon singer – both male
and female – was often linked to a perceived transgression of social boundaries. The
treatment of the female salon singer was particularly harsh, as she was castigated
for performing in the public sphere rather than attending to her duties as wife and
mother. Moreover, sexism also played a role in the criticism of the musical genre
of the romance, a staple of the salons perceived as a ‘feminine’ genre as opposed
to the ‘masculine’ Lieder of Schubert. As for the male salon singer, he is a potential
seducer and fortune hunter, a disrupter of the paternal order. Despite what may
be his ‘princely’ appearance as seen by a character like Paturot, his social status is
beneath that of the clientele he serves, who, in turn, are aping the model of the aris-
tocracy. In this, the caricatures of the salon singer bear witness to a period of social
change. They are not merely descriptive but also, through the use of ridicule, pre-
scriptive in their critique of the social order. They flourished, like the genre of the
physiologie itself, for a relatively short period of time to which they bear witness.
76
Tunley provides excerpts from Romagnesi’s manual, both in English translation and in
the original French, in Appendix C of his Salons, Singers and Songs, 250–65. All quotations
here are taken from Tunley’s translations. Romagnesi’s original text had the lengthy title
L’art de chanter les Romances, les Chansonnettes et les Nocturnes et généralement toute la
musique de salon, accompagné de quelques exercices de vocalisation, et suivi de dix romances.
It was self-published in Paris in 1846 and only a handful of copies still exist.
77
Ibid., 261.
78
Ibid., 263.
79
Ibid., 265.
80
Ibid.
81
Ibid., 263.
82
Sieburth, ‘Same Difference’, 170.
Chapter 8
The Instruments of the Vienna Biedermeier Salon:

Diversity in Design, Sound and Technology
Beatrix Darmstädter
I n early nineteenth-century Vienna, as elsewhere, the salon was a significant locus

of communication. Especially in middle-class homes, salons were fitted out with
stylish furnishings and modern musical instruments, and the furniture and its qual-
ity were a point of conversation. Thus, the prominent German writer Christian
Wilhelm Müller (1752–1831) recorded his impression of Viennese salons, notably
that of the Geymüller family, on 26 October 1820 as follows: ‘It is unbelievable how
far the enjoyment of music is taken, particularly accomplishment on the fortepiano.
In every home, there is a good instrument. At the banker Gaimüller’s, we found five
by different master-builders.’1
Musical instruments were indispensable to the salon; above all, it is impossi-
ble to conceive of the salon without keyboard instruments in their various forms.
Instruments designed for the Biedermeier salon were generally highly attractive. In
Vienna, piano legs with Egyptian-style caryatids, gilded rails ornamented with acan-
thus-leaf figures, mythological characters and symbols, and finely decorated tran-
soms and front boards dominated. The market for fortepianos with these detailed
designs, and lavish, occasionally highly exotic customisations, ebbed around 1850
with the decisive shift towards industrial piano manufacture and its associated
standardisation of piano sound.
The vast demand for fortepianos inspired renowned instrument-makers to
devote their energies to their development and modernisation. Initially, firms
manufactured pyramid pianos, cabinet pianos and giraffe pianos,2 which were
easily integrated into salons because of their modest size and attractive designs,
1
‘Unglaublich ist’s, wie weit die Liebhaberei für Musik und besonders für Fertigkeit
auf dem Fortepiano geht. In jedem Hause ist ein gutes Instrument. Beim Banquier
Gaimüller fanden wir 5 von verschiedenen Meistern.’ W. Chr. Müller, Briefe an
deutsche Freunde von einer Reise durch Italien über Sachsen, Böhmen und Oesterreich
1820 und 1821 geschrieben (Altona: Hammerich 1824), I, 130–1.
2
‘Forte Pianos en Giraffe’, in which the stringboard was placed not diagonally but
vertically straight, were regarded in the Biedermeier era as qualitatively the best
upright pianos. J. F. Bleyer, ‘Historische Beschreibung der aufrechtstehenden
Forte-Pianos, von der Erfindung Wachtl und Bleyers in Wien’, Intelligenz-Blatt zur
Allgemeinen Musikalischen Zeitung XVII (November 1811), col. 77.
124 Beatrix Darmstädter
despite being initially neither sonically nor structurally convincing.3 The earliest
pyramid pianos already existed by the middle of the eighteenth century, built by
Christian Ernst Friederici (1709–80).4 He constructed a vertical double escape-
ment action, placed the strings perpendicular to it, and arranged them diagonally
to the right from the performer’s perspective.5 In this way, the longest strings on
the tuning board were ideally placed over the corresponding keys in the bass, but
led to a point within the casing, giving the instrument the shape of a stylised pyr-
amid. It seems that Joseph Wachtl (active 1801–32) was the first Vienna-based
instrument-maker who produced an improved pyramid piano in 1804, which was
followed soon after by upright square pianos, as confirmed by his colleague Jakob
F. Bleyer (1778–1812).6 These compact pianos were a runaway success, so that
Wachtl and Bleyer brought (no less than) five different types of upright pianos
and two types of square pianos onto the market. Of the upright models, cabinet
pianos (see Figure 8.1) suited the contemporary taste of Biedermeier interiors
especially well.
As attractive, practical and space-saving as these cabinet, pyramid and giraffe
pianos were, their sound projection was perceived as unpleasant; the sound was
directed straight at the player, who was therefore made uncomfortably aware of the
disproportionately great differences between the individual registers. In order to
improve this, Wachtl and Bleyer installed a Schalldeckel or ‘soundboard’ – a type of
3
‘Wesentliche Mängel des Tons, der Haltung der Stimmung und Dauer des
Instruments verursachten, daß man immer zur gewöhnlichen [Form] des
Pianoforte zurückkehrte, und doch ist nicht zu läugnen, daß in einem kleinen
Zimmer dieselbe sehr unbequem ist, und in einem schönen, möblirten, wo alles mit
Geschmack berechnet ist, seine Figur dem Auge wehe thut.’ J. F. Bleyer, ‘Historische
Beschreibung’, col. 77; L. Gall, Clavier-Stimmbuch oder deutliche Anweisung wie jeder
Musikfreund sein Clavier-Flügel, Fortepiano und Flügel-Fortepiano selbst stimmen,
repariren, und bestmöglich gut erhalten könne (Vienna: Carl Kupffer, 1805), 124.
4
The Goethe family owned a pyramid piano from the Friederici workshop; it is
displayed in the music salon of the Goethehaus in Frankfurt today.
5
These instruments had three advantages in comparison with conventionally built
pianos and the plucked keyboard instruments which were out of fashion: ‘(1) a very
light action; (2) it does not need quilling; (3) it does not require more than three
feet of space.’ S. Pollens, The Early Pianoforte (Cambridge: CUP, 1995), 186.
6
It is not clear how much Martin Seuffert’s (1773–1847) knowledge contributed
to Wachtl’s invention. Jakob F. Bleyer, who came from Hungary to Vienna as a
carpenter and was employed in Wachtl’s workshop, may have contributed to the
invention, since in 1801, Wachtl, Bleyer and Seuffert established a cooperative
workshop, which Seuffert, who became independent, left in 1810. After he swore
his citizen’s oath in 1811, he led his own workshop until 1827. In this year, he began
collaborating with Johann Seidler (1791–c. 1848). As an independent piano-maker,
Seuffert always signed his upright pianos with ‘Erfunden von Martin Seüffert in
Wien’, which led to disputes with Bleyer. See Seuffert’s stance in Intelligenz-Blatt zur
Allgemeinen Musikalischen Zeitung V (May 1812), fol. 1. For Bleyer’s confirmation see
Bleyer, ‘Historische Beschreibung’, col. 73–4.
The Instruments of the Vienna Biedermeier Salon 125
Figure 8.1 Cabinet piano, Seuffert & Seidler, Vienna c. 1830 (SAM 718)
© Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
resonating surface above the string plane – which evened out the sound quality of
the various registers and diffused the sound projection.7
Since upright pianos were among the most popular salon instruments for ama-
teurs, numerous manufacturers undertook improvements in their design and tech-
nical simplifications. Two renowned Viennese workshops developed pedals which
could facilitate playing in octaves. Octave doublings were frequently encountered in
repertoire aimed at amateurs; they were often used in arrangements of dramatic and
symphonic works and, furthermore, they were part of the excessively employed pia-
nistic arsenal of sham virtuosity and exaggerated aesthetic of triviality. Oftentimes
7
Bleyer, ‘Historische Beschreibung’, col. 73 and 77. The concept of sound and dust
boards originated in London and was developed in order to protect the pianos from
dust when costumers did not want to use solid covers. Such Viennese piano-makers
as André Stein (1776–1842) and Conrad Graf (1782–1851) modified this part and
adjusted it to the conventional build of the Viennese instruments, a method which
enabled a remarkable improvement of sound.
Ex. 8.1 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 38, D major, KV 504,
arranged for piano by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, beginning of the first movement
   
Adagio

                
3 3 3 3
              

                              

sf f p
3 3
 3
 3
 
    
Ex. 8.2 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony no. 38, D major, KV 504,
arranged for piano by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, third movement, bb. 145–50

[Presto]
     
145
  
     
   
 
  
 
      
         
 
 
 
  

the doubled octaves might not be notated in the score but could be added at the
musician’s discretion. Examples 8.1–8.4 show such instances where the octave dou-
blings might have been added by the performer ad libitum.
However, extended octave passages could be physically tiring, and open doublings
tend to result in inflexible fingering and a reduction of independence in the voicing.
Hence, Johann Baptist Streicher (1796–1871) modified the upright piano in 1824.8 In
the patent, the invention was described after the lapse of the ten-year limit as follows:
The previous patent owner has improved the English mechanism, in that he has
added to each note its octave, so that one and the same note sets in motion its
own hammer as well as that of the nearest octave. The main device consists of
a frame with jacks set underneath, activated through pedals. This piano has the
shape of a cabinet piano, is very easy to move, and is therefore suitable for the
smallest spaces; it distinguishes itself advantageously through its powerful sound
from all currently existing upright instruments.’ 9
8
The wording of the privilege as well as the sketch and model of this invention are
published in P. Donhauser and A. Langer, Streicher – Drei Generationen Klavierbau in
Wien (Cologne: Dohr, 2014), 290–1.
9
‘Der gewesene Privilegiumsbesitzer hat die englische Mechanik dadurch verbessert,
daß er jedem Tone seine Oktave beifügte; sodaß ein und dieselbe Taste ihren eigenen
und den Ham[m]er der nächsten Oktave in Bewegung setzt. Die Hauptvorrichtung
besteht in einem Rahmen und den darunter befindlichen Stoßzungen, welche
durch Pedale in Bewegung gesetzt werden. Dieses Pianoforte hat die Gestalt eines
Sekretärkastens, ist sehr bequem zu stellen und daher für die kleinsten Lokale geeignet,
es zeichnet sich durch einen kräftig klingenden Ton von allen bisher bekannten
aufrechtstehenden Instrumenten vortheilhaft aus.’ OeStA [Austrian State Archives]/
FHKA, fasc. 29, box 2025, (1834); the cited description appears in the register of
expired patents dated 1 May 1834.
Ex. 8.3 Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 4, B-flat major Op. 60,
arranged for four-hand piano by Friedrich Mockwitz, first movement, bb. 121–36, ‘secondo’
121 [Allegro vivace]
         
     
pp cresc.
 
       
      
128
         
      

più f sf ff sf sf
     
       
          
Ex. 8.4 Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 4, B-flat major Op. 60,
arranged for four-hand piano by Friedrich Mockwitz, first movement, bb. 339–47, ‘primo’
[Allegro vivace]
      
     
339
     
           
3 3
 cresc.
      
3
      
3
 
   
   

     
343
                 
 

        
  f
3 3 3 3
  3    
ff
                  
3
         
  
3
3 
Coll’ottava playing seems to have been particularly popular in salon music until
just before the middle of the century, since the Streicher patent was superseded by
Johann Pottje (1793–c. 1870) as late as 1847. This was described as follows:
Improvement of all types of pianos through a foot pedal connected to a separate

mechanism through which:
1 twenty notes may be played with ten fingers, since namely, when one plays
three octaves in the middle range, the two low bass octaves and the sixth des-
cant octave also sound, or
2 one octave in the bass and two in the descant play, and
3 when the pedal is not depressed, the piano is perfectly suited to usual playing.10
10
‘Verbesserung an allen Arten Fortepiano durch Anwendung eines Pedals zum
Treten verbunden mit einem eigenen Mechanismus, wobei 1. mit zehn Fingern
Composers and arrangers did not specify the use of these pedals in the score or
sheet music. The application of it was left up to the musician, who played the low
voice and added the octave. Amateur musicians, particularly, benefited from this
improvement because they did not have the technical skills and stamina required
for conventional coll’ottava playing. It might be reasonably assumed that profes-
sional musicians preferred not to use the pedal for performance, and the pedal
eventually disappeared from the market.
The striking and somewhat intriguing name ‘dit[t]anaclasis’ was used by
Mathias Müller (1770–1844) to describe an upright piano from his workshop, the
construction of which he hoped to patent in 1801. Müller, from Wernborn near
Frankfurt am Main, moved to Vienna in 1796 and trained in the workshop of Anton
Walter (1752–1826) as a piano-maker.11 Müller, who was exceptionally industrious,
applied to the Hofkammer for at least eight privileges. One of these was submit-
ted together with Leopold Röllig (1754/55?–1804), others in collaboration with his
son Mathias junior.12 With the ditanaclasis, Müller took up the idea of his master
Walter and made upright pianos in German-speaking territory; this also led to his
being credited with having developed the instrument now known as the pianino.
The structural and technological innovations of the ditanaclasis related above all
to the position of the soundboard and the strings, the latter being placed as close
as possible to the floor so as to limit the total height of the instruments to around
1550mm, making it more suitable for smaller rooms. Furthermore, Müller had to
adapt the mechanism to the vertically aligned set-up. In earlier ditanaclasis models,
he used complicated back checks which worked towards a wooden rail. The upper
end of this was connected to the end of the hammer shank, and the lower to the
back half of the key.13
Amateur players were the intended beneficiaries of a special variation of the
ditanaclasis which suited chamber music: under the name ‘double ditanaclasis’,
Müller marketed a vis-à-vis instrument on which up to four players could play
simultaneously. Because of the facing manuals and a so-called ‘lyra’, in which the
top part of the casing was cut out and ornamented in Biedermeier style, eye contact
was possible between players sitting opposite one another. The space-saving design
and the charming, woodwind-like tone of these instruments were highlighted in a
zwanzig Töne gespielt werden können, da nämlich, wenn man drei Octaven in
der Mittellage spielt, die zwei tiefen Baß-Octaven und die sechste Discant-Octave
mitspielen, oder wobei 2. eine Octave im Baß und zwei im Discant spielen, und
wobei 3. wenn man das Pedal nicht tritt, das Fortepiano zum gewöhnlichen Spiele
vollkommen geeignet sei.’ WStLA [Vienna Municipal and Regional Archives], series
1.2.2., A44, box 17, (1847), rubric H1, no. 40939/[1]847; TU archives [Archives of the
Technical University of Vienna], Priv. Reg. Nr. 4765.
11
OeStA/FHKA, fasc. 72, box 251, (1805), ‘Erklärung’, 20 February 1805, fol. 3r.
12
E. Fontana Gát, ‘Privilegien und Patente Wiener Klavierbauer zwischen 1820 und
1850’, in Das Wiener Klavier bis 1850, ed. B. Darmstädter, A. Huber and R. Hopfner
(Tutzing: Schneider, 2007), 201–14.
13
A detailed description of the construction was published in R. E. M. Harding, The
Piano-Forte: Its History Traced to the Great Exhibition of 1851, 2nd edn (Cambridge:
Gresham, 1978), 222.
short article in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung.14 Müller advertised both types
of ditanaclasis on handbills with detailed images of these sophisticated and fash-
ionable instruments.15 The outstanding feature of the double ditanaclasis was the
different registers of the two pianos. There was an octave difference between the
two keyboards’ ranges, so that a higher part could be played on one keyboard, set at
4 feet (c2 = 141mm), and the lower part on the facing 8-foot keyboard (c2 = 275mm).
This made the instrument particularly ideal for two- or four-hand arrangements of
orchestral music. Even if Müller somewhat overestimated the impact of his inven-
tion on subsequent piano design and salon repertoire – he assumed he would
inspire a boom in new forms, for example for eight-hand sonatas – it is clear from
these instruments how seriously music-making was taken in the salon, and how
much piano-makers exerted themselves to meet the demands of the market through
appropriate instruments.16
The vast and varied piano repertoire of the musical amateur also embraced
descriptive music in which exotic colours, echoes of military music and imitations
of specific orchestral sounds featured. These were facilitated by design variations
controlled by pedals. The fashion for ever-greater numbers of pedals began in
England, where William Rolfe and Samuel Davis registered a patent for a Turkish
stop as early as 1797.17 Some Viennese makers also specialised in larger numbers
of pedals than usual; however, no maker applied for patents to register any funda-
mental innovations in this area. Nannette Streicher (1769–1833), Anton Walter &
Sohn, Mathias Müller, Joseph Dohnal sen. (1759–1829), Georg Haschka (c. 1772–
1828) and others met the demands of their customers by making decorative grand
pianos with a row of fancy pedals. Around 1815, Franz Dorn (active 1814–48) made
an elaborately decorated fortepiano with seven pedals: una chorda, harp, bassoon,
piano setting, pianissimo setting, raising the dampers and a janissary pedal (see
Figure 8.2).18
The pedals could be used individually or in combination, making unique and
exciting effects possible. The janissary pedal also imitated a drum by causing a
felt-covered wooden beater to strike the underside of the soundboard at the same
time as a brass-covered wooden bar pressed against the scaling, striking three bells
14
‘Es ist nur drey Quadratschuhe breit … hat zwey Klaviaturen, so dass mehrere
Personen zugleich spielen können. … zwischen beyden ist eine Lyra mit
Darmsaiten angebracht. … Der Ton ist voll und lieblich, und ähnelt dem, der
Bassethörner.’Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung III/15 (7 January 1801), col. 254–5.
15
GdM [archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien], Bi 1064 A,
announcement, Vienna, early nineteenth century.
16
‘Der Ausdruck Ditanacl: bezeichnet ein musikalisches Saiten-Instrument, das zur
Erhöhung des gesellschaftlichen Vergnügens von mehreren Persohnen zugleich
gespielt werden kann.’ OeStA/FHKA, fasc. 72, box 251, (1805), ‘Erklärung’, 20
February 1805, fol. 1v.
17
Harding, The Piano-Forte, 135.
18
A now playable instrument restored by Martin Vogelsanger and Ina Hoheisel is
catalogued SAM 1077 in the Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente and is included in
the permanent display of the Kunsthistorische Museum Vienna in the Neue Burg.
Figure 8.2 Fortepiano, Franz Dorn, Vienna c. 1820 (SAM 1077)

tuned to a C-major chord.19 Most instrument-builders seem to have regarded addi-

tional pedals as a passing fashion. It is therefore no wonder that some pianos initially
constructed with extra pedals were rebuilt around the middle of the century with
them removed.
In April 1821, Anton Haeckl (or Haekel; active in 1818–26) gained a five-year priv-
ilege for his physharmonica, an instrument played mainly in private spaces for which
a distinct salon repertoire rapidly emerged, consisting of sacred works for secular
settings and fantasies on popular themes.20 The sound of this reed instrument was
regarded as particularly expressive and could be dynamically controlled to evoke the
swell and ebb of the human voice. Attempts to popularise the physharmonica in large
concert spaces failed, firstly because they lacked the requisite volume, and secondly
because of a lack of renowned virtuosi. It therefore developed no concert repertoire
which was not derived from that of the fortepiano.21 However, in salons and small
19
M. Vogelsanger, Ein Hammerflügel auf Abwegen (MA thesis, Bern, 2010), 87.
20
Among the composers who engaged particularly intensively with this instrument were
Carl Czerny (1791–1857), who wrote Zwölf Präludien im gebundenen Styl für die volle
Orgel, das Pianoforte oder Physharmonika Op. 627 and Drei brillante Fantasien über
die beliebtesten Motive aus Franz Schuberts Werken für Piano-Forte und Physharmonica
Op. 339; Sigismund von Neukomm (1778–1858), whose 37 Morceaux (c. 1836), Kurze
und leichte Messe and a few smaller works for the l’orgue expressif (c. 1834) are known;
and Jakob Dont (1815–1888), with his Vater Unser for voice and physharmonika.
21
One noted virtuoso was the piano teacher Hieronymus Payer (1787–1845), who
also performed his 1824 Divertissement für Physharmonica und Pianoforte at Theater
an der Wien (see Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 26/12 (March 1824), col. 186).
Figure 8.3 Carl Agricola, portrait of the young Sigismund Thalberg

playing the physharmonica, Vienna 1827 (SAM 1201)
churches, the instrument was very popular. Figure 8.3 shows the young Sigismund
Thalberg playing the physharmonica in a small room. Its usages included expressive
vocal accompaniment and the timbrally distinct filling out of chordal passages, espe-
cially in spaces too small for ensembles.22 Furthermore, the physharmonica occasion-
ally functioned as an alternative for organists who wished to cultivate the distinctive
Carl Georg Lickl (1801–77) also played the instrument, regarding it as suitable for
vocal accompaniment among other uses. From the mid-1830s, he was the primary
exponent of the six-octave physharmonica made by Deutschmann (see Wiener
Theaterzeitung 123/27 (21 June 1834), 398, and 28/238 (30 November 1935), 956).
He also published a physharmonica method, Theoretisch praktische Anleitung
zur Kenntniss und Behandlung der Phys-Harmonica mit erläuternden Beispielen
und fortschreitenden Übungen, Vienna c. 1834/35 (?), as well as a Sonate für Piano-
Forte und Physharmonica Op. 40, and Die heilige Cäcilia Op. 49, a declamation
accompanied by physharmonika.
22
For the uses of this instrument, see Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung mit besonderer
Rücksicht auf den österreichischen Kaiserstaat 30 (14 April 1821), col. 240; also TU
archives, Priv. Reg. Nr. 661.
attack and articulation without access to an actual organ.23 A regionally distinct

instrumentation developed in Vienna in which the physharmonica was combined
with the guitar, a chamber ensemble which had a lukewarm reception.24 The corre-
sponding repertoire was cultivated mainly by the members of the Schulz family, who
had made names for themselves as guitar virtuosi.25 Haeckl’s patent notes mention a
‘6 Octafigen Instrument’, although in one of the earliest documented presentations
of the newly invented instruments from late October 1821, a smaller, three-octave
version was played, the sound of which was described as intense.
The even, sustained, clarinet- and flute-like sound was also regarded as a cru-
cial feature of the instrument.26 Early instruments preserved today have a range of
three octaves and have a scoop-bellows as well as diagonal- or wedge-shaped bel-
lows. The difficulty of controlling the even flow of air while playing is evident from
Lickl’s method, in which the technique of pumping the bellows is comprehensively
explained with reference to several musical examples and exercises. Whether the
‘sustaining bellows’ really functioned as reliably in practice as the patent suggests is
unclear.27 There were also varying opinions regarding the question of how to tune
the instrument. In his tutor, Lickl instructed the musician to reduce the size of the
tongue by filing off – an irreversible procedure – while Haeckl advised the musician
to work with wax in his patent description.28
The epitome of Viennese Biedermeier salon music was dance music. Although
this genre was based on the sounds of stringed instruments, and therefore one might
assume some development in the structural and tonal parameters of these instruments,
this is not borne out by the list of registered improvements. The exception was Johann
Georg Stauffer (1778–1853) and the non-specialist Johann Girardoni (active in the first
quarter of the nineteenth century), foreman of a cotton factory in Lower Austria, who
made improvements to the tuning pegs and screws in 1825/26. 29 Some development
of tuning systems also took place with lower stringed instruments, which went hand
in hand with the construction of screw mechanisms. Peter Teufelsdorfer (1787?–1845)
also occupied himself with the optimisation of string instrument body shapes in the
first three decades of the century; however, his work did not cause much of a stir. 30
23
C. G. Lickl, Theoretisch praktische Anleitung zur Kenntniss und Behandlung der Phys-
Harmonica mit erläuternden Beispielen und fortschreitenden Übungen (Vienna: c. 1834
(?)), 14–5.
24
E. Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien (Vienna: Braumüller, 1869), 257.
25
M. Kornberger, ‘Schulz’, in Österreichisches Musiklexikon, online, http://www.
musiklexikon.ac.at/ml/musik_S/Schulz_Leonhard.xml (18 May 2016).
26
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den österreichischen
Kaiserstaat 87 (31 October 1821), col. 692.
27
‘Die Tritte müssen in der Regel immer nacheinander gebraucht werden. Während
der eine Tritt hinabzugetreten wird, und man im Begriffe steht, denselben
loszulassen, muss der zweite schon leise mitgetreten werden.’ Lickl, Theoretisch
praktische Anleitung, 7–8.
28
TU Archiv, Priv. Reg. Nr. 661; Lickl, Theoretisch praktische Anleitung, 16.
29
For details on Stauffer and Girardoni see Sammlung der Gesetze für das
Erzherzogthum Oesterreich unter der En[n]s (Vienna: Staats-Aerarial-Druckerey,
1829), VIII, 782–3, and Fontana, ‘Privilegien und Patente’, 211–4.
30
The violin SAM 1002 with an experimental shape is attributed to Johann Georg
Stauffer.
In contrast, plucked instruments, particu-

larly the guitar, underwent notable develop-
ments; these instruments were fundamental
to domestic music-making. On the one hand,
newly shaped guitars with a narrower body,
very small upper bout and strongly drawn-in
waist came onto the market, partially reflect-
ing a regional Viennese building tradition. On
the other hand, guitars shaped like stylised
antique lyres were made, especially well suited
to elegant salon interiors.
In Vienna, structural improvements related
Figure 8.4 Guitar, Georg Leeb, Pressburg 1806
initially to the fingerboard and the frets. In (SAM 479) © Beatrix Darmstädter
1822, Stauffer and Johann Anton Ertl (1776–
1828) received a patent for guitars in which
the fingerboard lay higher than the belly (see
Figures 8.4–8.6). Hence the highest frets did
not need to be set into the belly, thus improv-
ing its resonating ability and bringing the string
tier somewhat closer to the frets.31 It is likely
that both instrument-makers were inspired by
violin design (in which they were expert), and
attempted to transfer the usual details of string
instrument design to the guitar.
The highly ambitious guitar-maker
Teufelsdorfer mentioned above sought to
optimise the size and fullness of the guitar’s Figure 8.5 Guitar, Johann Ertl, Vienna 1821
(SAM 469) © Beatrix Darmstädter
sound. To that end, he modified the guitar in
1829 by adding two C-shaped sound-holes in
the middle of the waist which improved the
sound.32 He also stabilised the instrument’s
neck through the installation of a steel straddle
under the fingerboard, thus avoiding the warp-
ing which had always been troublesome.33
In 1831, the Viennese guitar-maker Bernard
Enzensperger (1788–1865) patented his
Wappengitarre. It seems that guitars with
unusual body shapes were very popular and
Enzensperger rapidly found himself sur-
rounded by colleagues who also gave their
Figure 8.6 Guitar, Peter Teufelsdorfer, Budapest
post 1822 (SAM 492) © Beatrix Darmstädter
31
TU archives, Priv. Reg. Nr. 551.
32
‘wodurch nebst einer größeren Dauerhaftigkeit des Resonanz-Deckels, auch eine
größere Vibration desselben /: weil nämlich die Jahre des Holzes ober dem Saitfest
nicht abgeschnitten sind :/ mithin ein bedeutend besserer Ton erzweckt wurde.’ TU
archives, Priv. Reg. Nr. 1761.
33
TU archives, Priv. Reg. Nr. 1761.
guitars new shapes. Enzensperger’s construction was conceived to be geometri-

cally harmonious in every detail, which he believed would impact upon the acous-
tic behaviour and sound of the instrument. Thus the patent-owner described his
instruments as of ‘exceptional strength’ and durability, and ‘charming sweetness of
sound’. The ‘graceful form’ of his instrument served above all the ‘exceptional com-
fort of playing in higher fingerings.’34
Another guitar-maker from Vienna, Wenzel Soukup (active in 1834–50), simi-
larly occupied himself with new guitar shapes, and in 1834 submitted a patent for
an Apollo-Guittare. Since no technical drawing of his invention exists, it can only be
inferred from the verbal description that he placed greatest importance upon the
choice of wood (the exterior was of ash), that the body had three sound-holes and
that two further sound-holes were found ‘right on top at the line between the 12th
and 13th fret’.35 This suggests a lyre-shaped form. Special mention must be made of
the cobalt varnish, which Soukup presented as a particular advantage, since ‘one
may easily wipe dirt from the soundboard without causing damage.’36 Cobalt var-
nishes and lacquers were initially used in industrially produced objects when a dura-
ble, smooth surface was needed.
Two inventions in guitar design are especially eye-catching and significant
for amateur players of salon music: Knafl-Lenz’s capotasto pedal, and the vari-
ous makers’ different bowed guitars, of which Georg Stauffer’s arpeggione would
become best known. This new instrument emerged around 1823 and was described
as Guitarre d’amour and Sentimental Guitarre. A serious conflict between Stauffer
in Vienna and Teufelsdorfer in Pest broke out regarding the ownership, which
was publicly fought in the newspapers by both instrument-makers.37 The arpeg-
giones preserved today from Stauffer’s workshop are six-stringed models and,
also because of their tuning, have a close affinity with the guitar.38 The author of an
article in the AmZ indicated that he was delighted with the ‘beauty of sound’, the
34
‘ausnehmende[r] Stärke … reitzende[r] Lieblichkeit im Klange … graziose Gestalt
… außerordentliche[n] Bequemlichkeit des Spielens in den höheren Applikaturen’.
TU archives, Priv. Reg. Nr. 1871, envelope.
35
‘ganz oben an der Lienie zwischen dem 12- und 13 Bunde’. TU archives,
Priv. Reg. Nr. 1921, fol. 1r.
36
‘man von dem Resonantzboden den Schmutz leicht wegwischen [kann],
ohne das[s] der Resonantzboden einen Schaden leudet [sic]’. TU archives,
Priv. Reg. Nr. 1921, fol. 1v.
37
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den österreichischen
Kaiserstaat 49 (18 July 1823), col. 389–92; Allgemeine Theaterzeitung und
Unterhaltungsblatt für Freunde der Kunst 68 (7 June 1823), ‘Beylage’, fol. 1r (s. p.);
Allgemeine Theaterzeitung und Unterhaltungsblatt für Freunde der Kunst 87 (22 July
1823), 348; Allgemeine Theaterzeitung und Unterhaltungsblatt für Freunde der Kunst
91 (31 July 1823), 356. See also E. Fontana Gát, ‘Teufelsdorfer contra Stauffer’,
Schriftenreihe der Akademie für Alte Musik in Niederbayern e. V. (1991), 1–15.
38
For example the two early instruments included in the Instrumentensammlung at
Leipzig University (signature 609) and the instrument archived at the Musée de la
musique in Paris (signature E.982.8.1).
‘purity of tone ratios’ and the technical possibilities of the instrument.39 Roughly
three months later Teufelsdorfer published an article in the Gemeinnützige
Blätter, in which he presented a Sentimental Guitarre [sic], which he had already
conceived in 1822 but which he had only been able to build a month previously.
The description of this instrument strongly recalls Stauffer’s invention.40 The dif-
ference between the two lay in the number of strings. The article’s author was
also convinced by the sound quality and ease of playing, particularly chromatic
passages.41
The arpeggione or bowed guitar could be understood as an instrument princi-
pally for amateurs, since it was never fully integrated onto the concert stage. The
cellist August Birnbach (1782–1845?) seems to be one of the few professionals who
specialised in the arpeggione.42 Apart from him, it is mainly music-loving amateurs
such as Eduard Schmid (active in the first quarter of the nineteenth century) or
Vincenz Schuster (active mid-century) who are associated with it.43 Schuster, on
whose initiative Franz Schubert wrote his Sonata in A minor for Arpeggione and
Pianoforte (D. 821) in 1824, published a tutor for the instrument in 1825. Overall,
the bowed guitar was never fully accepted as a concert instrument, as confirmed
retrospectively by Eduard Hanslick when he wrote: ‘Since the late 1820s we have
observed – without regret – the disappearance of the guitar and its stringed relatives
from the concert hall’.44
The genres of music for entertainment, particularly accompanied song, required
considerable versatility from musicians, since unusual keys and transpositions
necessitated the command of unusual and demanding fingerings. The Pedal und
Mutations Guitarre made by the technician Knafl-Lenz, based in Rudolfsheim,
Vienna, was extremely helpful in this because the basic tuning of the instrument
could be adjusted up five semitones by a special mechanism (see Figure 8.7).45 His
39
‘Schönheit des Tons … Reinheit der Tonverhältnisse … Die Ausgiebigkeit des
Tons hierbey sowohl, als während [sic] der Behandlung mit dem Bogen ist beym
Wechsel der Nähe und Entfernung von überraschender Art, und zwar klingen und
tönen die hohen Töne mit derselben Reinheit und Stärke nach, als die in der Tiefe
des ziemlich kräftigen Basses.’ Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 18 (1823), col. 142–3.
40
Gemeinnützige Blätter zur Belehrung und Untersuchung als gleichzeitige Begleiter der
vereinigten Ofner und Pester Zeitung (29 May 1823), 337–8.
41
Ibid., 338.
42
‘Am 18ten [April], im landesständischen Saale …: Concert des Hrn. Birnbach, worin
vorkam …: 5. Concert für die von Hrn. Staufer erfundene Bogen-Guitarre (Chitarra
col’arco), gesetzt und ausgeführt vom Concertgeber, leider aber keineswegs
geeignet, die Vorzüge des Instrumentes in ein günstiges Licht zu stellen.’ Allgemeine
musikalische Zeitung 18 (29 April 1824), col. 283.
43
For the mention of Schmid see Gemeinnützige Blätter Ofen (29 May 1823), 337 and
339; for the mention of Schuster see E. Hilmar, Franz Schubert (Reinbek/Hamburg:
Rowohlt, 1997), 122.
44
‘Gegen Ausgang der zwanziger Jahre sehen wir – ohne Bedauern – die Guitarre und
ihre Seitenverwandten aus dem Concertsaal verschwinden.’ Hanslick, Geschichte des
Concertwesens, 257–8.
45
Wiener allgemeine Musik-Zeitung 35 (22 March 1845), 36, and (25 March 1845), 141.
invention, patented in 1844, consisted of a

capotasto which could be shifted by a pedal
so that the musician could retune his instru-
ment while playing. It worked by way of a
barrel-shaped device to depress the strings,
which could be lowered onto the string plane
through a pedal mounted on a rod. A steel
stick passed through the inside of the instru-
ment and neck, which enabled the position-
ing of the string-depresser, was a fundamental
part of the device. The pressure of the foot
on the pedal was transferred to the string-de-
pressor via two string casings and a pulley
mechanism.46
Knafl-Lenz had no reputation as an instru-
ment-maker and he himself made no guitars.
His capotasto pedal could be installed on any
guitar. In order to demonstrate its excellence,
Friedrich Schenk’s son Johann (Decker-)
Schenk (1826–99), as well as the renowned
guitar virtuoso Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806–
56) used it in concerts. On 1 November 1845,
Schenk performed Variations on a Theme
from Norma, a Concertstück by Leonhard
Schulz and a Fantasie by Luigi Legnani. The
critic Anselm Hüttenbrenner, writing in the
journal Stiria, noted the ‘praiseworthy preci-
sion and delicacy’ and the ‘rare bravura and
exceptional expression’ of his playing.47 If the
critic of the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst is to
be believed, ‘[Schenk] presented the newly
invented instrument in a far more advanta-
geous light than a much more famous virtuoso
in the last season’.48 As it was Mertz himself
who had first performed on this instrument in
Figure 8.7 Lyra-bass guitar, Friedrich Schenk,
with pedal-based transposition device by Rudolph
Knafl-Lenz, Vienna, c. 1848 (SAM 372)
46
TU archives, Priv. Reg. Nr. 4139, fol. 1r.
47
‘lobenswerther Präcision und Zartheit … seltener Bravour und ausnehmender
Expression’. Stiria ein Blatt des Nützlichen und Schönen 133/l (6 November 1845), 531,
and 134/l (8 November 1845), 535.
48
‘stellte [Schenk] das neu erfundene Instrument in ein weit vortheilhafteres Licht,
als in der letzten Saison ein viel berühmterer Virtuose’. Wiener-Zeitschrift für Kunst,
Literatur, Theater und Mode 233 (22 November 1845), 935.
public in March 1845, Hüttenbrenner’s review implicitly condemns his playing.49

The failure in the 1840s, even in the hands of popular virtuosi, of the guitar in general
and the capotasto model in particular to win over the Viennese public, is confirmed
by another review of a concert by Mertz in which, again, a Knafl-Lenz capotasto
instrument was played: ‘Am I wrong, or am I right – in this incarnation the guitar
seemed to me even duller than usual.’50 In Austria and its territories, and elsewhere
in Europe, the market for pedal-transposing guitars was rapidly exhausted. Thus,
Knafl-Lenz’s successors in the second half of the century took the invention to the
United States, where it appeared in 1873 in smaller versions, as evinced by US patent
134.679, Improvement in Guitars by Rudolph Knaffl of Nashville, Davidson county,
Tennessee.51
Brass-instrument-makers also worked on improvements and new inventions,
stimulated by the flourishing world of military music and the ever-growing orches-
tral wind and brass sections. However, these were were largely irrelevant to salon
music. In woodwind instrument-makers, a tendency can be identified to redesign
instruments so that they could not only be played on country gatherings/excur-
sions by salon groups, but also had practical uses outside the salon.52 Thus, the walk-
ing-stick flutes or Czakane became fashionable. Also popular with amateurs was the
transverse flute with long foot joints which extended the range of the instrument
downwards by means of additional keys.
At the end of the Biedermeier era, over 700 instrument-makers’ workshops
were documented in Austria and its territories. Of these, around 240 were in Lower
Austria, including Vienna.53 Following wider socio-cultural changes and the trans-
formations of salon music, aspects of elaborate furniture design and the pronounced
individuality of instrumental sound associated with salons declined in favour of an
overall sonic and structural homogenisation. The initially small-scale workshops, in
which bespoke requests were undertaken, either gave way to, or were themselves
transformed into, industrial-scale manufacturers.
49
For the concert announcement of Mertz’s performance in March 1845 see Wiener
Bazar, ein wöchentliches Beiblatt zur Zeitschrift ‘Der Humorist’ 10 (1 March 1845),
39, and Der Wanderer im Gebiete der Kunst und Wissenschaft, Industrie und Gewerbe,
Theater und Geselligkeit 55 (5 March 1845), 219.
50
‘Irre ich mich – oder habe ich Recht – mir schien die Guitarre in dieser
Metamorphose noch langweiliger als sonst.’ Der Wanderer im Gebiete der Kunst und
Wissenschaft, Industrie und Gewerbe, Theater und Geselligkeit 83 (7 April 1845), 332.
51
http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00134679&PageNum=1&&IDKey=
4DF297F3F465&HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/
nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2%2526Sect2=HITOFF%2526p=1%
2526u=%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.
html%2526r=1%2526f=G%2526l=50%2526co1=AND%2526d=PALL%2526s1=1873$.
PD.%2526s2=0134679.PN.%2526OS=ISD/1873%252BAND%252BPN/
0134679%2526RS=ISD/1873%252BAND%252BPN/0134679 (4 April 2018).
52
One of the most innovative woodwind makers was Stephan Koch (1772–1828), who,
together with the oboist of the Viennese court chapel Joseph Sellner (1787–1843),
renewed the oboe remarkably. These improvements were especially beneficial to
professional concert musicians, as well as to musicians in orchestras; they played a
marginal role for salon musicians.
53
Bericht über die dritte allgemeine österreichische Gewerbe-Ausstellung in Wien 1845
(Vienna: K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1846), 813.
Chapter 9
Offenbach and the Representation of the Salon *

Péter Bozó
T he salon found multiple representations, not only through image and

instrument, but also through musical works. This chapter considers the rep-
resentation of salon culture on stage, touching on a witty and amusing operetta by
Jacques Offenbach (1819–80), entitled Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le ….
(Mr Cauliflower Is At Home on …). Choufleuri is the name of the main char-
acter, derived from choufleur (cauliflower).1 A bourgeois gentleman and wealthy
pensioner who wants to be perceived as a patron of the arts, Choufleuri arranges a
musical soirée in his home, even though he himself thoroughly dislikes music, as he
confesses to his daughter Ernestine.2 The literal translation of the expression restera
chez lui is ‘he will be at home’. As in English, this wording functions as an invita-
tion: Choufleuri will attend his guests at the soirée musicale. The ellipsis indicates
the date of the event, which from the libretto is 24 January 1833 – the year in which
Offenbach settled in Paris, leaving his native Germany, and briefly studied at the
Conservatoire.3
Matthias Brzoska has studied Offenbach’s career and the genre most closely
associated with his name, the operetta, in the light of the theatrical landscape and
*
This study was supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation
Office (NKFIH; grant number: PD 124089) and by the János Bolyai Scholarship of
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
1
In certain English translations, Choufleuri is translated as ‘Nightingale’ or ‘Broccoli’;
the most exact translation is, however, ‘Colli-Flahr’. According to Andrew Lamb, the
piece was played on 27 March 1880 in the Gaiety Theatre as Nightingale’s Party, and
on 22 February 1972 in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as Mr Broccoli’s
‘At Home’. Monsieur Colli-Flahr’s At Home was given by the Welsh National Opera
on 2 November 1980 in Queen Elizabeth Hall. See A. Lamb, ‘Offenbach in London:
Chronologie der Aufführungen seit 1857’, in Offenbach und die Schauplätze, ed. R.
Franke (Laaber: Laaber, 1999), 198–9.
2
A character of the same name appears in the vaudeville entitled Les Folies
dramatiques by Dumanoir (1806–65) and Clairville (1811–79) set to music by
Florimond Hervé (1825–92), one of Offenbach’s contemporaries and another
operetta composer. In this latter piece, which was first performed in 1853 at the
Théâtre du Palais-Royal, a troupe of actors performs among others the parody of an
Italian opera seria entitled La Gargouillada. See Les Folies dramatiques. Vaudeville
en cinq actes par MM: Dumanoir et Clairville (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1853). We
find another Choufleuri in another piece performed at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal,
entitled Les Mémoires de Mimi-Bamboche (1860), written by Eugène Grangé and
Lambert-Thiboust. See Les Mémoires de Mimi-Bamboche: Roman en cinq chapitres par
MM. Eugène Grangé et Lambert-Thiboust (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1860).
3
The libretto was printed in a collected edition of Morny’s works: Comédies et
proverbes par M. de Saint-Rémy (Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1865), 9–189. There are,
however, some minor differences between this text and that of the vocal score
published by Heugel.
140 Péter Bozó
system of musico-theatrical genres of contemporary Paris.4 As he pointed out, the

founding of Offenbach’s Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens became possible due to a gap
in the system of operatic genres of contemporary Paris. During the 1850s, both the
Opéra-Comique and the Théâtre-Lyrique began to cultivate a more serious type of
opera, thus creating an opening for a new type of theatre showing lighter, genuinely
comic operas. According to Bzroska, it was because of the official restrictions aris-
ing from the system of privileges that Offenbach’s theatre programmed short pieces
with only a few people in its early period. While I concur with Brzoska, his argu-
ment can be refined by including in the investigation a thus-far unexplored genre
and music scene of contemporary Paris: the salon opera. Therefore, I will shed light
on the music played in Monsieur Choufleuri and I will contexualise it composition-
ally and cultural-historically. Following a brief historical outline of the opera genre
in Paris, I will first examine Offenbach’s influence on French opera, and on the Paris
musical scene more generally. In a second step, by decoding Offenbach’s musical
means of socio-cultural criticism and his parodies of Meyerbeer and Boieldieu, I will
analyse selected passages of Monsieur Choufleuri with a focus on intertextual links
between the operetta and French musical culture.
The relationship between Offenbach and nineteenth-century French salons is
multi-faceted. As a cello virtuoso, he himself was a frequent guest of the Parisian
salons from the late 1830s onwards. According to his biographer, Jean-Claude Yon,
it was Offenbach’s Prussian friend and musician colleague, Friedrich von Flotow
(1812–83), who introduced him to the salon of Madelaine Sophie Bertin de Vaux
(1805–48), where he regularly performed.5 Furthermore, it is more than likely that
the popular and fashionable music of the salons was an important source of inspira-
tion for the later operetta composer. At least we can draw this conclusion from the
earliest contemporary report concerning Offenbach’s presence in a Parisian salon.
In November 1838 the French music journal Le Ménestrel first reported his appear-
ance in a soirée in the rue de la Madelaine where two Styrian people in national
costume sang ‘Teutonic’ ensemble pieces:
On Thursday evening, a small but select public appeared in response to the invi-
tation of the Styrian singers and their accompanist, M. Albrecht. It was in the
salon of Miss Co…, rue de la Madelaine, that the virtuosos from across the Rhine
improvised this gathering, to which Mme Zuderel and Mr Offenbach the violon-
cellist contributed. The two Styrians appeared in their national costume, and their
ensemble pieces, sung with the nuances and masculine precision typical for this
Teutonic genre, had a huge effect on the audience.6
4
M. Brzoska, ‘Jacques Offenbach und die Operngattungen seiner Zeit’, in Jacques
Offenbach und seine Zeit, ed. E. Schmierer (Laaber: Laaber, 2009), 27–36.
5
J.-C. Yon, Jacques Offenbach (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), 43.
6
‘Jeudi soir, un petit public de choix a répondu à l’appel des chanteurs styriens et de
leur accompagnateur, M. Albrecht. C’est dans les salons de Miss Co … rue de la
Madelaine, que les virtuoses d’outre-Rhin ont improvisé cette séance, à laquelle ont
contribué Mme Zuderel et M. Offenbach le bassier. Les deux Styriens paressaient
dans leur costume national, et leurs morceaux d’ensemble, chantés avec les nuances
et la mâle précision qui caractérisent ce genre tudesque, ont produit beaucoup
Offenbach and the Representation of the Salon 141
The ‘Teutonic ensemble pieces’ mentioned by the reviewer were in all likelihood
yodel songs, a very popular genre in 1820s and 1830s Europe, particularly since the
Styrian family Rainer had toured the continent.7 Since their repertoire was published
in print as four-part vocal arrangements with piano accompaniment by the pianist
composer Ignaz Moscheles, it was performed in many salons.8 Parisian salons were
no exception, as is also attested by Chopin’s Waltz in G-flat major (Op. 70 no. 1),
which is somewhat like a piano transcription of a yodel song. Yodel songs were later
also incorporated into Offenbach’s musical farces. The most well-known examples
are Paris’s couplets from the third act of La belle Hélène (no. 21b ‘Et tout d’abord,
ô vile multitude …’, curiously in a duple metre, rather than the triple metre which
would be more typical of yodel songs); and that sung by the glovemaker Gabrielle
in the second finale of La vie parisienne, originally in German in the first version of
the piece (‘Auf der Berliner Brück’…’ in 1866), translated into French following the
Franco-Prussian War (‘On est v’nu m’invité …’ in 1873).9 There are numerous other
examples in Offenbach’s works.10
Regarding the early history of French operetta, it is worth mentioning that
around 1855, when Offenbach launched his new theatrical enterprise called Théâtre
des Bouffes-Parisiens, the French term opéra de salon (‘salon opera’) was used as
a synonym of what came to be called opérette: it denoted short musico-theatrical
pieces (usually consisting of a single act) with a limited number of characters and
with spoken dialogue, played outside the official privileged and state-subsidised
music theatres. In January 1855, i.e. half a year before the opening of the Bouffes,
Émile Barateau defined the opéra de salon in Le Ménestrel as ‘simple one-act pieces
with two, three or four characters at the most, without even the smallest choir’.11
In his article, he mentioned two such works, written by the composer and poet of
chanson Gustave Nadaud (1820–93). We also learn from Barateau’s article that one
of Nadaud’s pieces – La Volière, a one-act opéra-comique de salon with four actors –
was premiered privately in the apartment of the French playwright Camille Doucet
(1812–95), and was later performed also in the salon of a certain Madame Orfila.12
d’effet sur l’auditoire.’ ‘Concerts, Soirées, Matinées’, Le Ménestrel 52/260 (Sunday, 25

November 1838), [1].
7
H. Nathan, ‘The Tyrolese Family Rainer, and the Vogue of Singing Mountain-
Troupes in Europe and America’, The Musical Quarterly 32/1 (January 1946),
63–79, and Thomas Widmaier, ‘“Salontiroler”: Alpiner Musikfolklorismus im 19.
Jahrhundert’, in Cultures Alpines. Alpine Kulturen, ed. R. Furter, A.-L. Head-König
and L. Lorenzetti (Zurich: Chronos, 2006), 61–72.
8
The Tyrolese Melodies, 3 vols (London: Willis & Co., 1827–29).
9
Concerning the different versions of the piece, see R. Olivier-Schwarz, ‘Vom Witz
des Vaudevilles zum Rausch der Operette: La Vie parisienne’, in Jacques Offenbach
und seine Zeit, 198–220.
10
P. Bozó, ‘“Die Tiroler sind lustig”: Offenbach és a tyrolienne’, Magyar Zene 50/2
(May 2012), 169–86.
11
‘simples pièces, en un acte, à deux, trois, ou quatre personnages, au plus, sans le
moindre petit chœur’. É. Barateau, ‘Opéras de salon’, Le Ménestrel 22/13 (25 February
1855), 1.
12
For a description of Madame Orfila’s salon, see A. de Bassanville, Les Salons
d’autrefois: Souvenirs intimes (Paris: Victorion, 1862), 152–236.
142 Péter Bozó
Barateau remarks that pieces of similar character were given not only in salons but
also in the Salle Favart (i.e., in the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique). As examples, he
mentions Le Chien du jardinier, a one-acter with four persons, set to music by Albert
Grisar, first performed on 16 January 1855, and Miss Fauvette, a one-acter by Victor
Massé, first performed on 13 February 1855. This type of small-scale opéra comique is
dated back to the 1750s, when Italian comic intermezzos, such as Pergolesi’s La serva
padrona performed by an Italian troupe, made a furore in Paris and were imitated by
local composers and men of the theatre.
Barateau’s description of the salon operas also suits the early operettas performed
in Offenbach’s Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, for example works like Les Deux aveu-
gles, in one act and for two actors, first performed in 1855 in the opening evening
of the theatre, or La Rose de Saint-Flour, a one-act piece for three actors, located in
Auvergne and using auvergnat dialect, first performed in 1856. As Brzoska pointed
out, the brevity of the pieces and the limited number of characters were dictated in
these cases by the privilege of the Bouffes, defined by the authorities.13 Nevertheless,
the practice of providing small-scale operas in the salons as well as in the Théâtre
de l’Opéra-Comique was also an important factor. The term opérette was used by
Offenbach for those pieces. Full-length evening operettas requiring bigger forces
produced after the enlargement of his theatre privilege were, however, usually called
opéra bouffes by the composer and his contemporaries. Notable examples are Orphée
aux enfers or La Périchole, the earlier versions of which are both in two acts. The former
was first performed in the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in 1858, later revised for four
acts in 1874. The latter, an exotic piece based on Prosper Mérimée’s La carosse du
Saint-Sacrément, parodying Donizetti’s French grand opéra, La Favorite, and located
in eighteenth-century Peru, was first performed in the Théâtre des Variétés in 1868
and later revised in three acts in 1874. In connection with the fantastical spectacular
pieces produced at the Théâtre de la Gaîté under Offenbach’s directorship, like Le Roi
Carotte (in four acts, first performed in 1872) or Le Voyage dans la Lune (in four acts,
based on Jules Verne’s fantasy novel, first performed in 1875), the term féerie was used.
The terminology described above reveals that, for Offenbach, opérette meant a spe-
cial, small-scale type of opéra comique which was already being cultivated before he
launched his own theatrical enterprise, and not only in the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comi-
que but also in salons. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that in Monsieur
Choufleuri restera chez lui le … the setting is a salon in which a musical performance
takes place at the end. Moreover, the 1861 premiere of Offenbach’s operetta took
place in an actual salon. Although the venue of its public premiere (14 September
1861) was the Salle Comte – that is, Offenbach’s own small theatre – the first perfor-
mance (31 May 1861) took place semi-publicly in a quite exceptional venue: the Salon
of the French Legislative Assembly, known as the Corps législatif. In both cases, the
work was played by the company of Offenbach’s own theatre. It should be noted
that both performances took place at a time when full-evening pieces were already
licensed for the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, and the piece features six characters,
not to mention the supernumeraries. According to Jean-Claude Yon, the operetta
was performed in the French capital almost 100 times until March 1862.14
13
Brzoska, ‘Jacques Offenbach’, 30–2.
14
Yon, Jacques Offenbach, 261.
The semi-public nature of the premiere is revealed by a review published in the

journal La France musicale, which reads:
A remarkable and truly artistic soirée has taken place recently at the Count of
Morny. The splendid palace of the Chair of the Legislative Assembly received on
last Friday the most distinguished society of Paris; and in front of this Aeropagus,
which comprised all the illustrious personalities of the army, politics, literature and
the arts, and which was interspersed with a troop of ravishing ladies, the curtain
arose, that of a lovely theatre specially constructed in the ballroom of the palace.15
According to the press report, the programme of the evening consisted of three
parts: the overture of another operetta entitled Le Mari sans le savoir, a one-act
spoken comedy called Sur la grande route and last but not least, M. Choufleuri restera
chez lui le …. All three numbers were ascribed to a certain ‘Monsieur de Saint-Rémy’.
According to Yon, however, Saint-Rémy wrote the libretto in collaboration with
Hector Crémieux (1828–92) and Ludovic Halévy (1834–1908); he is also mentioned
as Offenbach’s co-composer on the title page of the printed vocal score published
by Heugel. Yon also pointed out that Saint-Rémy is in fact a pseudonym: the audi-
ence of the performance most likely knew that ’Saint-Rémy’ was actually the host
of the event himself, Charles-August-Louis-Joseph, the Duke of Morny (1811–65).
He was the president of the Legislative Assembly – thus explaining the exceptional
venue – and the stepbrother of the Emperor Louis Bonaparte. Bonaparte, as is well
known, was elected president in December 1848, following the breakdown of the
July Monarchy in February and the defeat of a worker’s uprising in June of the same
year. It was the coup d’état of 1851 that brought an end to the short-lived Second
Republic, and after that Louis Bonaparte became Napoléon III, the Emperor of
France. Morny was one of the organisers of the 1851 coup d’état that established the
Second Empire, and, at the same time, he was Offenbach’s protector. According to
Yon, it might have been due to Morny that the composer obtained French citizen-
ship in 1860 and became a chevalier de la Légion d’honneur (Knight of the Legion of
Honour) one year later.16
But what kind of opéra de salon was played in the palace of the Chair of the
Legislative Assembly? According to the libretto, Choufleuri wishes to invite three
singers of Italian opera: the soprano Henriette Sontag (1806–54; see Figure 9.1), the
bass-baritone Antonio Tamburini (1800–76; see Figure 9.2) and the tenor Giovanni
Battista Rubini (1794–1854; see Figure 9.3). In the fifth scene, however, he receives a
letter from the singers in which they write that they are collectively indisposed and
the event should be cancelled. Choufleuri is now in big trouble but, luckily enough,
he has his daughter. Although she has recently returned from a seminary, it turns out
15
‘Une soirée remarquable et vraiment artistique vient d’avoir lieu chez M. le comte de
Morny. Le magnifique hôtel de la présidence du Corps législatif recevait, vendredi
dernier, la société la plus distinguée de Paris; et c’est devant cet aréopage, composé
de toutes les illustrations de l’armée, de la politique, des lettres et des arts, et
qu’émaillait une foule de ravissantes femmes, que s’est levée la toile d’un délicieux
théâtre construit exprès dans la salle de bal de l’hôtel.’ H. Vernoy de Saint-Georges,
‘Soirée dramatique chez M. le Comte de Morny’, La France musicale 25/22 (2 June
1861), 171.
16
Yon, Jacques Offenbach, 227 and 260.
144 Péter Bozó
Figure 9.1 Henriette Sontag, lithograph by Léon- Figure 9.2 Antonio Tamburini, lithograph by
Alphonse Noël, 1850, after a painting by Franz Alexandre Lacauchie, c. 1830–49 © Bibliothèque
Xaver Winterhalter © Bibliothèque nationale de nationale de France
France
that she has an admirer, much to her father’s astonishment: the young and penni-
less composer Chrysodyle Babylas. Ernestine comes up with a brilliant solution: the
three of them will play the roles of the missing opera singers. In the last four scenes,
the musical soirée takes place and the highlight of the operetta, the ‘Trio italien’, is
performed by the main protagonists disguised as Sontag, Rubini and Tamburini. At
the end of the piece, Choufleuri consents to the marriage of the young couple and
Babylas receives 50,000 francs in exchange for not revealing the deception.
As Mary Ann Smart has pointed out, many Italian political emigrés lived in Paris
and participated in the salon life of the French capital during the 1830s.17 Although
some Italian composers also wrote French grand opéras for the Académie Royale
de Musique (Rossini’s Guillaume Tell (1829), Donizetti’s La Favorite (1840), and
Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) and Don Carlos (1867) are notable examples), the
main institution where Italian operas were performed in their native language was
the Théâtre-Italien. This institution had a state-subsidised company playing in dif-
ferent theatres from 1801 until it ceased to exist in 1878; at the time when the operetta
is set, they played in the Salle Favart. Sontag, Rubini and Tamburini were among the
well-known international stars active at this institution. As documented by the 1834
Parisian Theatre Almanach, Rubini and Tamburini were engaged at the Théâtre-
Italien at this time.18 As Table 9.1 shows, they both took on leading roles in the pre-
17
M. A. Smart, ‘Parlor Games: Italian Music and Italian Politics in the Parisian Salon’,
19th-Century Music 34/1 (Summer 2010), 39–60.
18
Almanach de spectacles de 1831 à 1834: Dixième année (Paris: Barba, 1834), 28.
Figure 9.3 Giovanni Battista Rubini.

Lithographed caricature by Benjamin, 1840
mieres of works by Bellini and Donizetti, both in Italy and in Paris. One of these
roles, Arturo from Bellini’s I puritani, is even mentioned in Offenbach’s operetta at
one point of the ‘Trio italien’.
Table 9.1 Rubini’s and Tamburini’s leading roles: selected premieres in Italy and Paris
Date Piece Theatre Rubini as Tamburini as

30 May 1826 Bellini, Bianca e Gernando Naples, Teatro S Carlo Fernando
7 Apr 1828 Bellini, Bianca e Fernando Genoa, Teatro Carlo Felice Fernando Filippo
27 Oct 1827 Bellini, Il pirata Milan, Teatro alla Scala Gualtiero Ernesto
14 Feb 1829 Bellini, La straniera Milan, Teatro alla Scala Valdeburgo
24 Oct 1831 Bellini, La sonnambula Paris, Théâtre-Italien Elvino
4 Feb 1832 Bellini, Il pirata Paris, Théâtre-Italien Gualtiero
6 Nov 1832 Bellini, La straniera Paris, Théâtre-Italien Arturo Valdeburgo
10 Jan 1833 Bellini, I Capuleti e i Montecchi Paris, Théâtre-Italien Tebaldo
24 Jan 1835 Bellini, I puritani Paris, Théâtre-Italien Arturo Riccardo
12 Mar 1835 Donizetti, Marino Faliero Paris, Théâtre-Italien Fernando Israele
8 Dec 1835 Bellini, Norma Paris, Théâtre-Italien Pollione
146 Péter Bozó
Italian music in Paris during the 1830s was not restricted to the Théâtre-Italian:
the appearance of Italian opera singers was also the main attraction in the musi-
cal soirées of the aristocratic salons, as documented by, among others, the recol-
lections of Franz Liszt’s first companion, Countess Marie d’Agoult. Writing about
salon life in the late 1820s and 1830s, she mentions that there were some salons ‘at
the time of the Restoration where people were proud of cherishing the arts and
literature, where poets were welcomed and artists were patronised’, and where
‘Italian and French opera was … in its greatest splendour and very fashionable’.
She also mentions that ‘the swan of Pesaro’ – that is, Rossini – ‘had a wonderful
company of artists for the execution of his earlier and more recent works’ in the
salons. She then quotes a list of names including all three opera singers who appear
in Offenbach’s operetta:
The swan of Pesaro had for the execution of his earlier and more recent works,
La Sémiramide, La Donna del Lago, Matilda di Shabran, La Cenerentola, La Gazza
Ladra, Otello, Le Siège de Corinthe, Guillaume Tell, etc. a wonderful company of
artists: Ms Pasta, Pisaroni, Malibran, Sontag, Mr Rubini, Tamburini, Pellegrini,
Lablache, Nourrit, etc.19
Sontag was not actually a member of the Théâtre-Italien in 1833. However, she
occasionally performed there from 1826 onwards, when she made a sensational
debut as Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. She was not Italian but German
and, in addition to other cities, worked in Vienna, where she sang the soprano solo
in the world premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in 1824. Her German back-
ground is important because it is part of how the libretto plays on real and mock
identities.
This playful handling of identity begins in the second scene, where Babylas and
Ernestine perform a Spanish dance, a bolero (no. 2 ‘Pedro possède une guitare …’),
of the young composer’s grand opéra in preparation, although they are not Spanish
but French. The bolero is repeated as the closing music number of the piece by the
guests of the salon (no. 7 ‘Vraiment votre petite fête …’). Choufleuri has a manser-
vant called Peterman, who plays an English groom; he is, however, Belgian. One
of the salon’s female guests depicted in the operetta, Mme Balandard, was played
by a male singing actor called Léonce whose real name was Édouard Nicole (1823–
1900). The ‘Trio italien’ in itself is a farcical play on mock identities. In the text of
the cabaletta section, not only Italian but also French, Polish and German opera
19
‘le “Cygne de Pesaro” … avait pour exécuter ses œuvres anciennes et nouvelles,
la Sémiramide, la Donna del Lago, Matilda di Shabran, la Cenerentola, la Gazza
Ladra, Otello, le Siège de Corinthe, Guillaume Tell, etc., une merveilleuse compagnie
d’artistes: la Pasta, la Pisaroni, la Malibran, mademoiselle Sontag, Rubini,
Tamburini, Pellegrini, Lablache, Nourrit, etc.’ M. d’Agoult, Mémoires, Souvenirs et
Journaux de la Comtesse d’Agoult (Daniel Stern), ed. C. F. Dupêchez, I, 235–6.
composers are mentioned, in the following order: ‘Bellini, Rossini, Halévy, Auberi,
Poniatowski, Davidini, Héroldini, Wagnerini’.20
The play on mock identities also infuses the libretto. The text of the ‘Trio italien’ is
a strange mixture of French and Italian operatic phrases (for example ‘Que-vois-jo?’
instead of the Italian ‘Che veggio?’ or the French ‘Que vois-je?’). Despite this, the
text does make sense. The narrative underpinning the trio shows obvious parallels
with that of the operetta: Pamela, a young girl, loves Arturo just as Ernestine loves
Babylas. Pamela’s father, however, objects to their love just as Choufleuri does in
the case of Ernestine and Babylas. According to Pamela’s father, Arturo would be
the enemy of the mother country (‘l’inimico della patria’); what is more, he even
curses the young couple. A parody like this is not unique within Offenbach’s oeuvre:
for example, in his pseudo-Chinese operetta entitled Ba-Ta-Clan, a similar music
number called ‘Duo italien’ is performed.21
As it was fashionable for nineteenth-century salons to include opera excerpts in
their musical agendas, the music played in Monsieur Choufleuri’s salon is repre-
sentative of this culture. The structure of the ‘Trio italien’ approximately follows the
well-known pattern of Italian operatic scenes from the 1830s: it starts with a scena,
that is, a recitativo (‘Italia la bella …’, bb. 1–17) followed by a slow, melodic can-
tabile section (‘Il mio caro Arturo …’, bars 18–69), where the extended melodies
with the same ornament at the end of each line evoke Bellini’s music, just as the
20
Davidini is the French composer Félicien David (1810–76), the author of the grand
opéra Herculanum (1859), whose action takes place in ancient Italy and by chance
ends with the eruption of Vesuvius, as does Auber’s La Muette. Later, Offenbach
parodied this spectacular scenic effect in the first finale of his operetta Coscoletto, ou
le lazzarone (Bad Ems, 1865) and in the Pompei tableau of his féerie, Le Roi Carotte
(1872). Józef Poniatowski was a Polish opera composer, singer and diplomat, but
he spent his early life in Italy, composed Italian operas and became the director of
the Paris Théâtre-Italien in 1861, in the same year that Offenbach’s operetta was first
performed. Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782–1871) is the author of La Muette de
Portici (1828). Fromental Halévy (1799–1862) was a well-known French musician,
Offenbach’s composition teacher, who won the Prix de Rome and whose opera Clari
(1828) was first performed at the Théâtre-Italien. Ferdinand Hérold (1791–1833) was
a composer of succesful opéra comiques and a piano accompanist at the Théâtre-
Italien between 1815 and 1826. Wagner, however, represented not the music of the
1830s but ‘the music of the future’: the scandalous Paris premiere of his Tannhäuser
took place just two months before the semi-public premiere of the operetta. One
year earlier, at the beginning of 1860, Wagner had also conducted three concerts of
his works at the Théâtre-Italien.
21
This is also a one-act piece, for four actors, first performed in 1855 in the opening
evening of the permanent playhouse of the Bouffes. It should be noted that
theatrical pieces of mixed language like this had a long tradition in France, well
before Offenbach. Italian comedians active at the French royal court were already
performing French parodies combining the two languages in the late seventeenth
century. Some of them were even published in print in 1694 in a collection by
one of the Italian actors, Evaristo Gherardi (1663–1700): Le Théâtre-Italien, ou le
Recueil de toutes les scènes françoises qui ont été jouées sur le Théâtre-Italien de l’Hôtel
de Bourgogne, 6 vols (Paris: De Luyne, 1694). This collection was very popular: it
was also published in London and Amsterdam and had several reprints during the
eighteenth century.
Ex. 9.1 Offenbach, Monsieur Choufleuri, Trio italien, bb. 19–26 (vocal part only)
                           
Andante
   
19 ERNESTINE
 
Il mi - o ca - ro Ar - tu - ro per me gril - lo - to d’a - mo - re
                    
23
                  

 
lo de - man - do pas mieux que ce - dar à ces vœux.
Ex. 9.2 Bellini, Norma, ‘Casta Diva …’, bb. 26–30 (vocal part only)
syncopation
        
Andante sostenuto assai sempre cresc. al
     
26
            
NORMA
    
a noi vol - gi, a noi vol - gi il bel sem bian - - - -
   
                 
culmination
           
29 ff

  
- - - te, il bel sem - bian - te, sen - za nu - be e sen - za vel.
Ex. 9.3 Bellini, Norma, Act 2, Finale, ‘Io più non chiedo …’ (vocal part only)
       
NORMA
         
crescendo sempre e incalzando
    
      
Io più non chie - do, io son fe - li - ce. Ah più non
                     calando
culmination
         

ff
        
 
chie - do, ah no, ah più non chie - do. Cont - ten - ta il ro - go_io a - scen - de - rò.
Ex. 9.4 Offenbach, ‘Trio Italien’, bb. 47–52 (vocal part only)

ERNESTINE, BABYLAS syncopation
       
   
47
   
     


  
O mo - men - to so - len - nel - lo! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!
 
culmination
     
51
            
dim.
 
     
ah! mo - ment - to sol - len - nel - lo!
melodic climaxes imitate the great culmination points of Bellini’s Norma (Examples
9.1–9.4). Then, instead of a tempo di mezzo there follows a second recitativo (‘Que
vois-jo …’, bb. 70–9) and the ensemble closes with a well-developed fast section
which is effectively a cabaletta (‘Ah! mio padre …’, bb. 80–215). The latter begins like
a gran duetto, with a musical strophe repeated and sung by Ernestine (‘Sontag’) and
Babylas (‘Rubini’) consecutively. This section is repeated at the end, followed by two
Rossini crescendos consisting of the names of operatic composers (for the structural
overview of the cabaletta, see Table 9.2).
Table 9.2 The structure of the ‘Trio italien’ cabaletta
Bars Subsection Incipit

80–98 ‘gran duetto’ I ‘Ah! mio padre …’
99–114 rejection ‘Jamaia …’
115–28 further supplication ‘A vostra pauvre enfant …’
129–36 malediction ‘Tout ce que je peux …’
137 cadenza ‘Les pères de famille …’
138–53 ‘gran duetto’ II ‘Ah! mio padre …’
153–76 crescendo I ‘Patati, patata …’
176–98 crescendo II ‘Patati, patata …’
199–215 stretta
Listening to this music, it is almost certain that it was composed not by Morny,
but by Offenbach himself; this is corroborated by one of his letters to Halévy, in
which he mentioned the piece as being his own (‘la musique étant de moi’).22
It is important to emphasise that Italian opera, rather than French grand opéra
or opéra comique, is parodied in Choufleuri’s musical soirée because it was a much
more aristocratic genre in contemporary Paris than the bourgeois French grand
opéra, not to mention the opéra comique.23 The latter genres, however, are also par-
odied in this operetta, albeit in a different way, namely in the form of direct musical
quotations. At the beginning of Trio no. 4 (‘Babylas, Babylas, Babylas …’) Ernestine
calls Babylas and introduces him to her father as her lover. After having sung
Babylas’s name three times, the orchestra quotes a melodic fragment of Giacomo
Meyerbeer’s grand opéra Robert le diable, first performed in the Paris Opéra in
1831 (Examples 9.5–9.7). The melody is connected to an evocation in Meyerbeer’s
opera, too. In Meyerbeer’s work, however, it is heard in a quite different situation,
when, according to the libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germaine Delavigne, Bertram
summons the dead nuns from their tombs in the third act of the opera, located
in the ruins of a medieval cloister (‘Nonnes qui reposez sous cette froide pierre,
m’entendez vous? …’). By intertextually alluding to Meyerbeer’s opera within the
operetta’s plot, Offenbach highlights the role of opera excerpts within salon culture.
22
P. Goninet (ed.), Jacques Offenbach: Lettres à Henri Meilhac et Ludovic Halévy (Paris:
Séguier, 1994), 86.
23
See Letter X in Heinrich Heine’s ‘Über die französische Bühne: Vertraute Briefe an
August Lewald’: Heinrich Heine: Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, ed. M.
von Windfuhr (Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, 1988), XII/I, 288.
Ex. 9.5 Offenbach, Monsieur Choufleuri, no. 4 Trio, bb. 1–15
               
          
Moderato ERNESTINE
         

Ba - by - las Ba - by - las Ba - by - las Ba - by - las Ba - by
  
Tr, Trb, Fg
           
    

p Archi
    
        
      
BABYLAS
  
                  
las J’ar - ri - ve, j’ar - ri - ve’en vail - lant pa - la - din, j’ar - ri - ve, j’ar - ri - ve
      
      
CHOUFLEURI Quel est ce pa - la - din?
   
                        
Fl, Ob
  
Fl, Ob
  
   
p Archi p
               
Cl, Fg
  
Cl
         
 
Ex. 9.6 Meyerbeer, Robert le diable, no. 15 Finale, Évocation, bb. 4–14
Molto moderato
   
 
             
4 BERTRAM
ff p
   
3
        
   
Non - nes, qui re -po - sez sous cet - te froi - de pier - re m’en - ten - dez - vous
        
3
            
3    
    
f p p
  
              
3
      
    3 
9
       
          3  
ff p
      
      
   
pour une heu - re quit - tez vot - re lit fu - né - rai - re re -le -vez vous!
 
          
       3   

 3
ff pp
       
ff
  
et détaché
 
 
3
      
3
    
        
Ex. 9.7 François-Adrien Boieldieu, La dame blanche, no. 5, bb. 296–304
  JENNY
Moderato
   
296
     
 
   
Pro - tè - ge, pro - tège un ga - lant pa - la - din, pro -
 
             

GEORGES
J’ar - ri - ve, j’ar - rive en ga - lant pa - la - din, j’ar -
 DICKSON
     
       
Dai - gne veil - ler tou - jours sur nos des - tins Dai -
                                        
un poco animato
           

pp
         
       
    
   
301
           
tè - ge, pro - tège un ga - lant - -

pa la din.
           

ri - ve, j’ar - rive en ga - lant pa - la - din.
     
         
gne veil - ler tou - jours sur nos des - tins.
 
                              
             

           
           

Babylas’s answer – ‘J’arrive en vaillant paladin …’ – is likewise a quotation

(cf. Example 9.1 and 9.3), this time taken from the well-known French opéra comi-
que: La dame blanche (first performed in 1825) by François-Adrien Boieldieu (1775–
1834). As in Meyerbeer’s opera, the libretto was by the prolific playwright Eugène
Scribe. The melody quoted by Offenbach is sung several times in the trio closing the
first act (No. 5 ‘Grand Dieu! que viens-je donc d’entendre …’). Both the music and
the text entertainingly contrast with the salon scene in Offenbach’s operetta. In La
dame blanche, the music is performed by Georges Brown, an offshoot of the house
of Avenel, who sings a similar text after he promises to accept the invitation of the
152 Péter Bozó
ghost mentioned in the title of the piece, and to visit the mysterious White Lady
in the ancient castle of the Avenels at night. The comic effect of both quotations is
increased by the gothic supernatural elements featuring in the plots of both quoted
pieces, while the situation of the operetta is all too prosaic.
In the light of the musical analysis of the ‘Trio italien’, it is obvious that the
parodic Italian operatic scene of Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le … must be
interpreted in the context of the musical and social practice of nineteenth-century
Parisian aristocratic salons. Italian and French operas entered the drawing-rooms
in small-scale forms, and, as Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le … shows,
Offenbach’s new genre, the operetta, was at least in part indebted to this musical
practice of Parisian salons.
Finally, Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le … proved to be quite popular not
only in Paris. It had already been performed in Vienna in July 1861, before the Paris
public premiere, during a guest performance of the Bouffes in Carl Treumann’s
Theater am Franz-Josef-Kai; in October of the same year, the French production was
followed by a German-speaking adaptation entitled Salon Pitzelberger.24 The oper-
etta was also well received in Pest (later Budapest), where it was performed both in
Hungarian and in German during the 1860s.25 It became so popular in Hungary that
a Socialist Realist adaptation was produced in 1953,26 in which the salon becomes
the scene of an imperialist conspiracy. Finally, it seems that this satirical picture
of contemporary Parisian salons still remains relevant today: in 2006, Offenbach’s
operetta was successfully revived by the Opéra National de Lyon, staged by Laurent
Pelly. Even more surprisingly, a TV movie of it has been broadcast on Hungarian
Television as Italománia avagy operaest pezsgővel (Italomany, or An opera evening
with champagne).27
24
R. Franke, ‘Chronologie der Aufführungen der Bühnenwerke Offenbachs in Wien
1858–1900’, in Offenbach und die Schauplätze seines Musiktheaters, ed. R. Franke
(Laaber: Laaber, 1999), 119, 132 and 161.
25
In Hungary on 18 April 1863 in the Buda Folk Theatre as Choufleuri úr otthon lesz; on
5 February 1865 in the Buda Summer Theatre as Salon Pitzelberger.
26
Premiered on 29 April 1953 in the Capital City Gaiety Theatre as Egy marék
boldogság.
27
On 14 October 2010. Other Hungarian adaptations of the piece were also played:
Pitzelberger estélye (13 May 1894, City Park Summer Theatre), Piculás úr szalonja
(1899, Dalos Theatre), Káposztafi úr fogad (15 December 1912, Ferenczy Cabaret),
Újgazdagok (1 April 1921, Capital City Music Hall), Pitzelberger úr szalonja (23 July
1985, Dominican Yard of Hotel Hilton).
Chapter 10
Affordances of the Piano:

A Cinematic Representation of the Victorian Salon
Harry White
A s a musical agent of domestic social discourse, the piano has few rivals in the
nineteenth century. George Bernard Shaw’s remark in 1894 that ‘the piano-
forte is the most important of all musical instruments; its invention was to music
what the invention of printing was to poetry’ echoes a more general remembrance
which is constantly affirmed in bourgeois culture throughout the 1800s and for long
afterwards.1 Nevertheless, the mediating influence of the piano as a conduit of social
meaning in cinema and literature has received considerably less attention than it
warrants. Moreover, the representation of salon culture in nineteenth-century fic-
tion, as well as in twentieth-century cinema, deepens the contextual and commu-
nicative significance of the piano intimated by Shaw’s observation.
In this chapter, I would like to show how the piano scenes in Mike Leigh’s film
Topsy-Turvy (1999) inflect our understanding of salon culture as a mode of rep-
resentation in which the medium of film affords new meaning to the musical trans-
actions it portrays.2 The film is a brilliant dramatisation of the lives of W. S. Gilbert
and Arthur Sullivan in the period leading up to and during the first production of
their masterpiece, The Mikado (1885). But Topsy-Turvy is also a richly textured and
intricate portrayal of Victorian society in which the piano variously and compel-
lingly features as a nexus of social, sexual and emotional exchange. Several scenes in
the film represent the piano at the heart of a salon culture in which music functions
as an essential (rather than merely decorative or aesthetic) mode of social commu-
nication. These scenes represent the piano in a host of different settings (a private
drawing-room, a brothel, a formal musical soirée and a bedroom); collectively, they
explore the connection between music and social discourse in the late nineteenth
century.
My reading of these scenes is informed by two preliminary considerations which,
taken together, indicate a more general context in which this reading might be situ-
ated. Even if we allow for recent research on the piano in nineteenth-century musi-
cal culture (some of which stems from Cyril Ehrlich’s classic study which originally
appeared in 1976), literary and cinematic representations of the piano remain to be
investigated more thoroughly than has been the case to date.3 The Piano: A Literary
1
See G. B. Shaw, ‘The Religion of the Pianoforte’, in The Great Composers: Reviews and
Bombardments, ed. L. Crompton (Los Angeles: California University Press, 1978), 3.
Shaw’s essay originally appeared in The Fortnightly Review, February 1894.
2
See M. Leigh, Topsy-Turvy (London: Faber and Faber, 1999). All subsequent
references are to this published screenplay of the film.
3
See C. Ehrlich, The Piano: A History (Oxford: OUP, 1976; rev. ed. 1990); see also
C. Bashford and L. Langley (eds), Music and British Culture, 1785–1914 (Oxford:
154 Harry White
History, if this were to be enterprised, would decisively engage with the instrument
not merely as the central intelligencer of the European musical canon (which is how
Shaw regarded it) but as a nexus of social communication and meaning. In this con-
nection, of course, the repertory itself would nevertheless be of account, as in the
almost axiomatic production of four-hand piano arrangements of the German sym-
phony that ensured the immediate transmission of that genre throughout Europe
and North America at a time when orchestral performances were an exceptional
experience for most people rather than otherwise, at least before the invention of
the gramophone.4 Indeed, a recent (2014) study of four-hand piano duets in nine-
teenth-century European fiction adumbrates exactly the more general history of the
piano in literature which I envisage here.5
It is obviously impossible for me to attend to this history in detail, except to
acknowledge briefly the moderating presence of the piano as a stable signifier of
social and cultural practice mediated through the instrument itself. In Jane Austen,
in Oscar Wilde and in James Joyce (to cite three germane, if widely spaced exam-
ples), the piano is (often literally) expressive of degrees of intimacy which its sta-
bility affords. In all three cases, it becomes an agent of departure from the social
status quo nevertheless represented by the instrument itself. Thus, in Pride and
Prejudice (1813), Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s endorsement of piano music during an
impromptu after-dinner recital in her drawing-room (in which morality and musical
accomplishment uphold each other) encourages an unfolding intimacy of which
she is unaware (and which she will later fiercely oppose):
OUP, 2000), and T. Ellsworth and S. Wollenberg (eds), The Piano in Nineteenth-
Century British Culture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Although the latter two books
contain valuable research on the repertory, performance and reception history of
piano music in the nineteenth century, I am unaware of any English-language study
devoted to the role of the piano in literature or film other than the monograph by
Adrian Daub referenced in footnote 5 below.
4
In this connection, it is interesting to consider the close of Shaw’s essay on the
piano: ‘The day will come when every citizen will find within his reach and means
adequate artistic representations to recreate him whenever he feels disposed for [sic]
them. Until then, the pianoforte will be the savior of society. But when that golden
age comes, everyone will see at last what an execrable, jangling, banging, mistuned
nuisance our domestic music machine is, and the maddening sound of it will
thenceforth be no more heard in our streets.’ Shaw, ‘The Religion of the Pianoforte’,
16. Shaw’s remarks are (to put it mildly) prophetic, given the wave of ‘domestic
music machines’ (including the gramophone, the radio and the internet) which
would overtake the piano in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but his
(characteristically exaggerated) contempt for the instrument should not be allowed
to eclipse its social and semantic prowess, of which Shaw scarcely seems to have
been aware.
5
See A. Daub, Four-Handed Monsters: Four-Hand Piano Playing and Nineteenth-
Century Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). As he makes plain in his
acknowledgements, Daub’s study is exclusively concerned with the four-hand duet
(as against piano playing in general) as a semantic entity, ‘as the screen on which
bourgeois culture could project its obsessions (from the nature of the individual,
of community, to the status of the body, or the possibility of becoming one with
another)’. Among several other authors, Daub examines the piano duet in the fiction
of Thackeray, Dickens, Musil and Thomas Mann.
Affordances of the Piano: A Cinematic Representation 155
‘What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are
you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.’
‘We are speaking of music, Madam’, said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply.
‘“Of music!” Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have
my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music. There are few people
in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a
better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And
so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident she would
have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy? No excellence
in music is to be acquired without constant practice.’6
Lizzie is already at the piano during this exchange, but it is the question about
Darcy’s sister (Georgiana) – expressly in contrast to Lady Catherine’s daughter,
the sickly Anne – which effectuates not only the ensuing private exchanges between
Lizzie and Mr Darcy, but also the association between probity of character and
Georgiana’s long hours at the keyboard which is introduced here for the first time.
This is an association which becomes vital to the unfolding of character and plot in
Pride and Prejudice, actuated by the piano itself.
Oscar Wilde’s witty subversion of this association in the opening lines of The
Importance of Being Earnest is at the other end of the century (in 1895): at the very
outset of the play, the stage directions tell us that ‘the sound of a piano is heard in the
adjoining room’. Lane, the Butler, is arranging afternoon tea in the morning room
and Algernon enters.
Algernon: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?
Lane: I didn’t think it polite to listen, sir.
Algernon: I’m sorry for that, for your sake. I don’t play accurately – anyone can
play accurately – but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is con-
cerned, sentiment is my forte.7
This is Lady Catherine’s speech transposed into the languid and sardonic tonalities
of a young man about town, but in either case the licensing agency of expression
is the piano itself.8 Lady Catherine likes the piano because it signifies a mode of
6
J. Austen, Pride and Prejudice (London: Whitehall, 1813). I quote from an edition
published in Leipzig (1870), 160.
7
O. Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (London, 1895). I quote from an edition of
the plays published by Thomas Nelson and Sons in the early 1940s (Edinburgh and
London, n. d.), 255.
8
There is a late echo of this in Harold Pinter’s play No Man’s Land (1974), when one
elderly man (Spooner) is trying to persuade the other (Hirst) to employ him as his
‘secretary’. Among the talents Spooner attributes to himself is music (‘I play chess,
billiards and the piano. I could play Chopin for you.’).
156 Harry White
domestic containment which (in her view) amounts to moral restraint and decency,
an opinion which is scarcely contradicted by Austen herself (even if she engages
both the physical location and symbolism of the piano to different ends), but Algy
uses it as the engine of indulgent feeling (‘I keep science for life’, he primly adds).9
So too with Joyce, notably in the ‘Sirens’ episode of Ulysses (1922) during a salon
concert in the bar of the Ormond Hotel in Dublin: it would take too long to explore
the thematic resonances of that episode here, but when Father Cowley is seated at
the piano and Ben Dollard is about to sing an aria from The Magic Flute, he is inter-
rupted by one of the attendees: ‘No, Ben, Tom Kernan interfered, The Croppy Boy.
Our native Doric.’ After a sequence of operatic arias, it’s time to turn to Irish ballads.
It’s time to sing about betrayal and confessional fear, to modulate from Wagner,
Mozart and Father Cowley’s ‘black, deepsounding chords’ to Tom Kernan’s ‘gin-
hot words’. As so often with Joyce, this amalgam of European and Irish sensibili-
ties achieves its meaning through musical adjacencies around the upright piano.10
In Austen, in Wilde and in Joyce, the propriety of the instrument itself becomes a
mediating agent, an affordance which is semantically promiscuous of meaning.
My second consideration concerns the role of the piano as an agent in the narra-
tive and dramatic propulsions of cinema. A History of the Piano in Film also appears
to be (as yet) an imagined enterprise, but to judge by films as otherwise diverse as A
Room with a View (1985), The Piano (1993), Schindler’s List (1993), Shine (1996), The
Talented Mr Ripley (1999) and The Pianist (2002) – a random but not wholly unstra-
tegic sampling – there are good grounds for suggesting that the major art form of
our own day continues to engage with and represent the piano as a nexus of social,
historical and cultural critique, even if this engagement has not been theorised or
even comprehensively surveyed to date.11 I shall return briefly to this phenomenon
at the close of this paper, but in the meantime, I want to propose that the cine-
ma’s genius for the representation of past events in relation to the present tense of
9
Georgina’s purity in Pride and Prejudice is unmistakably symbolised by her constant
devotion to the piano, a tenacity and stability of purpose which Austen contrasts
with both Lady Catherine’s boastful self-assurance and Mr Wickham’s feckless
inconstancy (as Georgina’s former suitor). Austen (or her narrator) pursues the
moral resonances of piano practice (now released from Lady Catherine’s pompous
conceit) in the private exchanges between Lizzie and Darcy, even as Lizzie plays for
Lady Catherine against her will.
10
See J. Joyce, Ulysses (London: Penguin Books, 1992 [1922]), 365. It is perhaps
salutary to add that Ulysses is set in June 1904 (and thus extends the ‘long’ nineteenth
century, not least in its musical references, which are preponderantly located in the
late 1880s and 1890s). This episode, with its progression from opera to Irish balladry,
summons a similar progression (from European piano music and operatic arias to an
air ‘in the old, Irish tonality’ (i.e. ‘The Lass of Aughrim’) in Joyce’s great short story
‘The Dead’, which is also set in 1904 (and published as part of Dubliners in 1914).
11
I nominate these films – four of which are adaptations from fiction or literary
biography – because in each the piano is decisively an actuating presence in the
development of plot or character. The piano scenes in A Room with A View, for
example, dramatise the irreconcilable differences between Lucy Honeychurch
and her fiancé, Cecil Vyse; in The Talented Mr Ripley, Tom Ripley’s prowess at the
keyboard neighbours (and indirectly leads to) the murder of Freddie Miles; and
in Shine the instrument itself is the primary constituent of that film’s mise-en-scène
throughout.
commentary, interpretation and even action (or plot) increases the semantic and
symbolic presence of the piano in European culture, cinematic and otherwise.
Topsy-Turvy imaginatively contrasts music as art (as in the creation of The
Mikado itself) and music as social discourse (as in the private lives of the protag-
onists) in order to affirm the relationship between these spheres, a relationship in
which the sound of the piano is pervasive.12 Almost the first sound heard in Topsy-
Turvy (immediately following that of a man’s voice, setting the tempo for the music
that follows) is of an upright piano.13
There are several scenes in Topsy-Turvy in which the piano is decisive in the film’s
representation of social and/or private life (there are also other scenes in which it
additionally features, generally in connection with rehearsals for The Mikado itself).
In the domestic/private scenes, however, we find music by Weber, Offenbach,
Frances Ronalds (Sullivan’s mistress) and Fauré, as well as by Sullivan. The first
two of these scenes effectuate a progression from propriety to promiscuity through
the agency of the piano, and they follow each other without interruption.14 In the
first scene, we are in Sullivan’s London apartment – in his study – where Sullivan
(to begin) is playing a duet at the piano with Mrs Ronalds. In the second scene, the
circumstances and setting are both very different.
It is impossible – notwithstanding the erotic extravagance and distraction of
the second scene – to mistake the structural parallels engaged by the piano in this
sequence. In the first scene, the visual impact of Mrs Ronalds’s broad-brimmed hat
(shot from behind), the expert composure and diligence of the Weber piano duet
(Op. 10, from 1810) and the corresponding composure and technical dexterity of
the two pianists dovetail effortlessly into the shot of Sullivan and his mistress on the
ottoman in his drawing-room, where the conversation that ensues between them
affords an intimacy and looseness that are thrown into sharp relief by the steady
pulse and concentration of the music that precedes it (see Figure 10.1). The piano
music is a prelude to sex, but it is also an overture to the conversation itself, in
which Sullivan’s hedonism, political conservatism, sense of humour, artistic prom-
inence and musical judgement are skilfully suggested by means of the little ques-
tion-and-answer duet he plays out with Mrs Ronalds as they prepare to leave music
and conversation behind (as the scene ends, they begin to disrobe). The topical
tropes of that conversation (women smoking, the starving Irish, the young Winston
Churchill’s return from Dublin to London with his parents) are subtly recovered
later in the film, but in the meantime, the shape of the scene itself is framed by the
degrees of intimacy it enacts. Prima la musica, poi l’amore (‘first music, then love’) is
the guiding stratagem throughout. It is the piano that affords this gradated intimacy,
adumbrated in the inherent intimacy of four hands sharing a single keyboard.15
12
Leigh says that the film is ‘about all of us who suffer and strain to make other people
laugh’ (Topsy-Turvy, vii).
13
At the outset of the film (as the credits are rolling), we hear the piano introduction
to the ensemble, ‘So please you, sir, we must regret’ from Act One of The Mikado.
14
See Leigh, Topsy-Turvy, 14–18.
15
It is this inherent intimacy which licenses and underpins the entire argument of
Adrian Daub’s study of the four-handed piano duet.
158 Harry White
Figure 10.1 Sullivan and Mrs Ronalds at the piano in Sullivan's apartment,
photograph by Simon Mein © Thin Man Films
In the second scene, we are within the plush (not to say lurid) environs of a
Parisian brothel, and here, too, the piano is there to regulate the ascendancy of sex,
moderated by the ‘Clockwork Doll’ duet from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman (writ-
ten as recently as 1881). This scene follows without interruption, and represents
Sullivan’s first evening in Paris, immediately following his departure from London
(and Mrs Ronalds) earlier on the same day. Two prostitutes (naked from the waist
upwards) are performing a kind of clockwork erotic movement accompanied on
the piano. The Offenbach duet is sung meanwhile in falsetto by the strange figure
of the male pianist (wonderfully suggestive of a eunuch in a harem, perhaps, but
also of the somewhat unnerving admixture of sordid indulgence and mechanical
pleasure which is the privileged and solitary recreation of Sullivan’s ‘first night of lib-
erty’)16 whose careful articulation of words and music regulates the erotic display it
is intended to support. This is theatre in miniature, mounted for the gratification of
Sullivan (who initiates sex with both women as the scene comes to an end). It is also
(literally) comic opera transformed into a kind of musical pornography, an overture
to prostitution, and a stylised celebration of privileged eros. Sullivan sits through-
out the performance slightly in front of the Madam of the brothel (an androgynous
figure whose maleness mirrors the pianist’s ‘female’ disposition) and occasionally
caresses her, before turning his attention to the two women who perform for his
16
‘How will you spend your first night of liberty?’ Mrs Ronalds asks Sullivan in the
preceding scene. ‘I shall take some exercise’, he tactfully replies. Leigh, Topsy-Turvy,
16.
pleasure. For all its striking musical stylisation and its expert retrieval of Offenbach,
this directly sexual encounter is where the scene is headed from the outset.
In both scenes, the actuating presence of the piano, as well as the gradated dif-
ferences in meaning suggested by the contrast between Weber (forthright and
Germanic) in the first scene and Offenbach (slinky and pert) in the second, are
essential to the more general perspective on Sullivan’s personality which the whole
film repeatedly affirms (especially in contrast to Gilbert).17 But of no less account is
the strong visual and musical parallel between these scenes: the piano is the pivot on
which both scenes turn, and its musical utterances acquire and anticipate the deliv-
erance of erotic meaning.18
A third of the way through Topsy-Turvy, following Sullivan’s return from the con-
tinent and his refusal to set the new libretto which Gilbert has read to him, there is a
scene set in Mrs Ronalds’s spacious and elegant London home, in which she is host-
ing a formal salon.19 A young pianist is in the closing moments of his performance,
and the camera pulls back to reveal his affluent audience, and then further back to
show Mrs Ronalds herself, standing near the doorway. A moment later, Sullivan
is quietly admitted to the room; he is careful not to disturb the performance. Mrs
Ronalds becomes aware of him, extends her hand backwards in order unobtrusively
to take Sullivan’s hand, and the recital comes to an end.
It is striking that throughout this scene Sullivan hardly speaks: instead, he is wit-
ness to the sombre close of the Fauré nocturne (no. 4, in E-flat, composed in 1884)
performed by Walter Simmonds. There is that fleeting exchange of covert intimacy
between Sullivan and Mrs Ronalds after he enters the salon, but this is supervened
by the auditory impact of the music itself, so that the sound of the piano apostro-
phises a more general discontent (explored in scenes adjacent to this one), in which
Sullivan’s unachieved ambitions as a ‘serious’ composer are rehearsed to the point
where he is no longer willing to ‘waste my time on these trivial soufflés’ (i.e. the
Savoy operas with Gilbert).20 In its melancholy and its introspection, the nocturne
is an advertence of Sullivan’s misgiving as an artist, even though this is swept away
by the brightness of Mrs Ronalds’s suggestion of an ‘impromptu’ (i.e. an encore)
which brings Sullivan into the limelight again. After the piano recital ends, Sullivan
is charmingly introduced to the audience by Mrs Ronalds as ‘another very young
hopeful’ (i.e. in addition to Walter Simmonds) ‘who has agreed to accompany us
17
One of the film’s most carefully cultivated and consistent contrasts lies between
the Anglo-Saxon forthrightness and candour of Gilbert and the sensual ambiguities
and nuances of his great collaborator. This contrast is delicately underscored by the
nimbus of French culture which surrounds Sullivan (as in the music by Offenbach
and Fauré which he hears in Paris and London) and Gilbert’s no-nonsense rhetoric
throughout the film (as when he tells one of his actors that The Mikado is ‘merely low
burlesque in a small theatre on the banks of the Thames’; ibid., 86).
18
When Sullivan returns from Paris, we see him accompanying Mrs Ronalds in a
performance of her own song, ‘Barcarolle’ (also from 1881), again in his study, and
again the performance is a prelude to sexual intimacy, on this occasion a brief fling
on the sofa before Sullivan’s day begins in earnest (in a tense meeting with Gilbert).
Ibid., 33–4.
19
Ibid., 39–41.
20
Ibid., 12–13.
160 Harry White
Figure 10.2 Mrs Ronalds, Sullivan and Simmonds from the perspective of the audience,
photograph by Simon Mein © Thin Man Films
with a new composition of his own – “The Lost Chord”!!’21 This brings a wave of
delighted laughter and applause from the audience, and Mrs Ronalds, Sullivan and
Simmonds (on the harmonium) settle down to perform the song (see Figure 10.2).
The melancholy of Sullivan’s ‘The Lost Chord’ sustains the delicate apposi-
tion between true achievement and mere fame which the whole scene (and the
Fauré nocturne in particular) engenders. The Victorian sentimentality of ‘The Lost
Chord’ in this performance may well be intended to refer to its origins and at least
one aspect of its afterlife: Sullivan wrote it at his brother’s deathbed in 1877 (his
brother passed away five days afterwards), and in 1916 Mrs Ronalds, near death her-
self, requested that a copy of the song be buried with her.22 But more immediately,
the song is potently suggestive of lost time, lost opportunity and lost talent. There
is certainly no doubt that these are Sullivan’s preoccupations in the scenes which
adjoin this one. It is for this reason that the nocturne is so suggestively eloquent of
Sullivan’s discontent. Sullivan is witness to the path he might have taken as a com-
poser. When he hears the Fauré, he is listening to the subjunctive mood of his own
21
Ibid., 40.
22
See A. Jacobs, Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician (Oxford: OUP, 1984), 106–7.
There is some dispute as to whether Sullivan wrote the song as his brother lay dying
or immediately after his death.
unfulfilled ambitions. His own performance of ‘The Lost Chord’ as this scene ends
quietly presses this reading home.23
Occurring as it does immediately prior to the sequence of events that leads to
Gilbert’s victory over the creative impasse which has beset him and Sullivan, the
music in this scene is subsequently overtaken by The Mikado itself. The piano con-
tinues to feature prominently, and even domestically, but it is no longer an agent
of Sullivan’s discontents or of his licentious character. It remains an agent of his
humour and vivacity (as in the music he wrote for The Mikado), and it smoothly
effects a modulation from Sullivan’s life to his art, simply because – with one vital
exception – whenever we hear the piano thereafter in Topsy-Turvy, we are listen-
ing to glittering ensembles from his new opera. In the second of these (remaining)
scenes, Sullivan himself is absent (during a stage rehearsal of ‘Three Little Maids
from School’); in the first, he is once again seated at the piano in his study, where he
rehearses the trio ‘I Am So Proud’ with three members of the D’Oyly Carte opera
company. This scene shows us Sullivan back in business, at the height of his creative
powers, at home with his talent and unencumbered by personal anxieties or pro-
fessional misgivings. The piano correspondingly recedes as a semantic affordance
and becomes a sparkling means to one end, which is the recovery of the composer’s
artistic confidence.24
Just once in Topsy-Turvy the piano is engaged to amplify the film’s characterisa-
tion of its other protagonist, W. S. Gilbert, albeit indirectly. In a brief scene which
occurs between Gilbert’s visit to the Japanese exhibition which will inspire The
Mikado and the scene in which the Japanese sword falls from his study wall (repre-
sented as the moment of inspiration itself), we find ourselves in his mother’s house.
Mrs Gilbert is bedridden and partly deaf. Her bedroom accommodates an upright
piano, at which one of her daughters, Florence, ‘is improvising a doleful dirge’.25 Her
other daughter, Maude, is arranging dried flowers. The whole tableau is the very
prison-house of Victorian oppression, clutter, material impoverishment and social
confinement: ageing, unmarried daughters attending upon a once-handsome and
now ‘withered old lady’ who presides over the torpor and gloom of this interior with
occasional zest and eccentricity. The exchange of conversation between mother and
daughters strains at the very margins of bearable behaviour, relieved only by the
undertow of macabre humour which enlivens it (as when Mrs Gilbert, in a parting
shot, advises her elderly daughter never to ‘bear a humorous baby’).26 The music
which Florence improvises – the heavy dirge with which she begins and the muted
hysteria of the fitful fragment with which she ends – is the darkest affordance of
the piano in the entire film. It is the dessicated remnant of the salon, the musical
23
Sullivan was obsessed for much of his working life with the contrast between his
popularity and his perceived failure as a ‘serious’ artist. Arthur Jacobs writes of the
‘huge sunken cargo’ of Sullivan’s ‘serious’ music in an assessment which evenly
balances the stern adjudications of (most of) Sullivan’s contemporaries with the
enduring legacy of the Savoy operas. Ibid., 401–3 and 405–6.
24
See Leigh, Topsy-Turvy, 76–80.
25
Ibid., 61.
26
Ibid., 62.
162 Harry White
detritus of a cultural milieu whose dark side is more than once inspected as the film
progresses.27
It would be disingenuous to pass in silence over the fact that much of Topsy-
Turvy is taken up with elaborate representations of Sullivan’s operas – Princess Ida,
The Sorcerer and The Mikado (the last of these in rehearsal as well as in full perfor-
mance). But this preponderance throws the smaller (and shorter) ‘piano’ scenes
into meaningful relief, because their disclosures are private and intimate, as against
the ebullience and public vigour of the scenes in the Savoy Theatre. This distinction
is all the more important when we come to consider the piano as an agent of mean-
ing in cinema. The intimacy between nineteenth-century music and twentieth-cen-
tury cinema (one canon, as it were, resurfacing through the medium of another) is
one which film historians have begun to explore, but there are good grounds (as I
have tried to indicate here) for arguing that the piano represents a special and sep-
arate case.28 It is not only the four-handed duet (as in Adrian Daub’s study) which
is of account here (even if we can plainly discern the relevance of this to the first
piano scene in Topsy-Turvy), but the more general reconfiguration of the piano as a
cinematic presence which not only enlists but also enlarges its semantic affordances
in literature. The arresting reconfigurations of semantic intelligibility in Chopin’s
piano music which Roman Polanski so powerfully achieves in The Pianist or the
almost unbearable distortion of ‘salon music’ enacted in Schindler’s List (a swift but
murderous surge of Bach at the piano during the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto)
decisively and memorably transcend the musical salon as a trope in European
fiction.
But the more general relationship between the piano and its significations in
literature and film amounts, I think, to largely unwritten history, to which these
scenes in Topsy-Turvy undoubtedly belong. In such a history, a whole seam of cul-
tural engagement between the instrument and its imaginative afterlife in fiction and
cinema might yet transparently emerge. It may well be the case that ‘the religion of
the pianoforte’ has long since been superseded by other creeds and conventions
(dare one suggest that it is the guitar which replaced the piano in the second half
of the twentieth century as the principal icon of musical semantics?), but this does
not attenuate the abiding (if somewhat neglected) importance of the piano as a ful-
crum of meaning which extends from the early Victorian salon to the cinema of the
27
Abortion, poverty, prostitution, sexual dysfunction, loneliness, marital discontent
and drug addiction are among the themes briefly but vividly sounded and
dramatised in Topsy-Turvy.
28
A characteristic study is J. Joe, Opera as Soundtrack (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), which
explores the operatic canon as a dramatic and suggestive presence in a range of films.
The book features a detailed analysis of the murder scene in Woody Allen’s Match
Point (2005), which is accompanied by a (non-diegetic) excerpt from Verdi’s Otello.
See also P. Powrie and R. J. Stilwell (eds), Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing
Music in Film (Farnham: Ashgate, 2006), the first section of which addresses opera
(and other elements of the classical canon) in the films of Stanley Kubrick, Francis
Ford Coppola and Milos Forman. A. Harvey, The Soundtracks of Woody Allen
(Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Company, 2007), is an important study
which foregrounds the prominence of the classical canon as a non-diegetic resource
strategically reserved for moments of high seriousness in Allen’s films.
present day. In that continuity, the instrument itself acquires a significance beyond
its function as a ‘domestic music machine’ and attests to the emotional and cultural
richness of Western music as a metalanguage which preoccupies literary and cine-
matic discourse alike. In this specific regard, the physical presence of the instrument
– its suggestive range of visual and acoustic tropes (which countenances a correla-
tive progression from the domestic intimacy of the upright to the solemn majesty of
the concert grand) – is perhaps more vividly and immediately achieved in film than
in any other representational art form, literature included. Viewed in such terms, the
cinematic afterlife of the piano becomes a mode of social history. George Bernard
Shaw would surely have approved of such a development, even if this entails a more
varied remembrance of Arthur Sullivan than he would otherwise have allowed.
part iii
case studies
Chapter 11
‘Der Mensch ist zur Geselligkeit geboren’:

Salon Culture, Night Thoughts and a Schubert Song
Susan Youens
Introduction
‘M an is a social being – that is why he has built cities, why he goes out in the
streets with others of his kind, and why the salon was created.’ So wrote
Adalbert Stifter (1805–68) in the early 1840s, in his part-affectionate, part-satirical
study of Vienna’s salon scene.1 By that time, he could survey the diverse types of
salons proliferating all around him – political, aesthetic, literary, etc. – in order
to praise those who remained true to the original goal of the salon: merriment
(Heiterkeit) in cultivated company. Those who excoriate salon life, he concludes,
have not experienced it: ‘Why, the entire world is itself a salon.’
One of Vienna’s earlier salons was just such a case study. ‘People are born
to be sociable. Only in association and traffic with other people can one attain
that degree of development … that raises us above the animal kingdom’, wrote
Caroline Pichler (1769–1843), whose life revolved around cultivated sociability
and writing. Between solitude at her writing desk and evening repartee with the
gifted and powerful, she carved out a distinctive identity for herself in literary
and political realms largely dominated by men.2 Her salon, the Swedish poet Per
Atterbom famously said, was equalled as a tourist attraction only by St Stephen’s
Cathedral; if there is a hint of sarcasm in his words, there is also recognition of
achievement.3 Some of the anecdotes in which figures from the Schubertian
realm appear in her salons are captivating: for example, it was the poet of ‘Auf
dem Wasser zu singen’, Friedrich von Stolberg, who whispered to Pichler the
news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba as one of her Abendgesellschaften was just
1
A. Stifter, ‘Wiener Salonszenen’, in Wien und die Wiener in Bildern aus dem Leben, ed.
J. Jahn (Berlin: Buchverlag Der Morgen, 1988, originally published 1844), 267.
2
C. Pichler, ‘Überblick meines Lebens’ (1819), appendix to Denkwürdigkeiten aus
meinem Leben, ed. E. K. Blümml (Munich: Georg Müller, 1914, originally published
posthumously, Vienna: A. Pichlers Witwe, 1844), II, 396. The most recent edition
of this work is K. Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten aus meinem Leben 1769–1843, ed. M.
Holzinger, 3rd edn (Berlin: CreateSpace, 2014).
3
P. Atterbom, Menschen und Städte: Begegnungen und Beobachtungen eines
schwedischen Dichters in Deutschland, Italien und Österreich (Hamburg: Tredition
Classics, 2011), 164.
168 Susan Youens
getting underway.4 A prolific writer, she was famous in her day, with several of
her most popular novels translated into French, English, Danish, Czech, Italian
and Romanian, and published as far away as America.5 But later literary trends
resulted in her consignment to the remaindered shelf by 1900, with the exception
of her lively memoirs, entitled Denkwürdigkeiten aus meinem Leben (Memorable
Moments from My Life), published in 1844, the year after her death. The daugh-
ter of the celebrated salonnière Charlotte von Greiner (1740–1816), Caroline was
the beneficiary of later eighteenth-century Viennese debates in favour of educat-
ing women,6 and she became one of the ‘determined dilettantes’ who persisted in
defining themselves as writers despite the dubiety of Goethe, Schiller and others
on the matter.7 If writing was then considered a perversion on the part of female
writers,8 there were increasing numbers of women who insisted on their identity
as serious professionals. Pichler was among them.
Prose dominates the sixty volumes of her complete oeuvre, but among her
poems were three that Schubert converted into music, two probably composed
in 1816 when he was nineteen years old: ‘Der Sänger am Felsen’, D. 482, and ‘Lied
(Ferne von der grossen Stadt)’, D. 483. The third song, ‘Der Unglückliche’, D. 713,
revised for the last time in 1827, is the richest of the Pichler songs, a gold mine of
cultural history bound up in a single Lied.
Schubert knew Pichler personally and was well aware of her ardent Austrian
patriotism.9 She was a close friend of the Lyre and Sword poet Theodor Körner,
who played a brief but important role in Schubert’s life, and the composer’s
knowledge of her love of nation is on display in the ‘Lied (Ferne von der grossen
Stadt)’. The words of Schubert’s final Pichler song, ‘Der Unglückliche’, are born of
Enlightenment debates about eudaimonia or the nature of happiness, the influence
4
See Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, II, 54.
5
To cite only a few: The Swedes in Prague, or, The Signal Rocket: A Romance of the
Thirty Years’ War, trans. J. D. Haas (New York: E. Ferrett & Co., 1845); Racconti
scelti, trans. L. A. Parravicini (Milan: Giovanni Silvestri, 1835); Le siège de Vienne:
roman historique, trans. Baroness I. de Montolieu (Paris: A. Bertrand, 1826); De
Zweden in Praag: of Vaderlandsliefde en vrouwendeugd (Zutphen: Thieme, 1832); and
Agatocles seau Revase scrise din Roma si din Grecia, trans. C. Gane (Iasii: La Institutul
Albinei, 1843).
6
Joseph Freiherr von Sonnenfels (1732–1817), well known to the Greiners and
Pichlers, wrote a weekly journal entitled Theresie und Eleonore (Vienna: Joh. Thomas
Edlen von Trattnern, 1767) in which he advocated education for women.
7
See H. Fronius, Women and Literature in the Goethe Era 1770–1820: Determined
Dilettantes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007).
8
See Minna (no further name given), ‘Weiblicher Genius: Ein Fragment’, Journal für
deutsche Frauen von deutschen Frauen 1/6 (1805), 48.
9
For more on Pichler’s Austrian nationalism, see B. Bittrich, ‘Österreichische
Züge am Beispiel der Caroline Pichler’, in Literatur aus Österreich, Österreichische
Literatur: Ein Bonner Symposium, ed. K. K. Polheim (Bonn: Bouvier, 1981), 167–89;
A. Robert, L’idée nationale autrichienne et les guerres de Napoléon: L’apostolat du baron
de Hormayr et le salon de Caroline Pichler (Paris: Alcan, 1933); R. Robertson, ‘The
Complexities of Caroline Pichler: Conflicting Role Models, Patriotic Commitment,
and The Swedes in Prague’, Women in German Yearbook (2007), 34–48, among others.
Salon Culture, Night Thoughts and a Schubert Song 169
of Edward Young’s Night Thoughts in the German-speaking world, the burgeoning

of psychology in German literature, discussions of the ‘beautiful soul’ in moral phi-
losophy, and more. It is intriguing to imagine a scenario in which Pichler herself, in
the midst of a salon reading of her work, might have expatiated on those issues with
which her listeners would have been more familiar than we are. To delve into that
backdrop is one purpose of the present essay.
A word of warning: Pichler’s fiction is now mostly vanished from view,
but her lively memoirs have never dropped out of sight, in part because of the
Geselligskeitstalent (gift for sociability) recorded therein.10 At their beginning, she
writes that she does not expect publication of these memoirs because she seeks to
be truthful, to tell those who love her how she came to be and what shaped her.11
But, having finished the memoirs, she then revised them for publication in order
to aid her widowed daughter, who was in financial difficulties, and those revisions
were made against the omnipresent backdrop of censorship. Her account of herself
should not be discounted merely because it was edited for appearance in a jittery
world haunted by revolution and gearing up for yet another, with freedom of the
press an issue of contention.12 As with any testament, we must be aware that the self
is always made, and we must look for fractal patterns and recurring threads, for what
lies behind reported ‘facts’.
From the Parental Salon to Her Own Salon

The Greiner salon – the backdrop to Pichler’s childhood and youth – was a Viennese
institution, with a certain Frenchified and free-thinking slant. 13 For Pichler and
other salonnières in Vienna, music was an essential ingredient in the best salons.
She was a music-lover who as a child studied fortepiano with Joseph Anton Steffan
(the Bohemian-born fortepiano virtuoso Josef Stepanín Stepán, 1726–97); he even
arranged for a small orchestra to accompany one of her musical performances
at the age of seven or eight.14 At her parents’ salons, she met Giovanni Paisiello,
Domenico Cimarosa and Antonio Salieri, in addition to Mozart and Haydn,15 and
in adult life, she owned a rare instrument by Anton Walter known as the ‘organis-
iertes Fortepiano’, or a combination of a Tafelklavier and an organ, which she and
10
See R. Auernheimer, ‘Karoline Pichler’, in Das ältere Wien: Schatten und Bilder
(Leipzig and Vienna: Tal & Co., 1920), 18–26.
11
K. Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, I, 1769–98, 3.
12
In light of revisions in advance of the censors, it is a trifle ironic that Pichler has such
negative things to say about Joseph II relaxing restrictions on the press, with the
result that anti-Josephinian satires and ‘irreligious’ books appeared by the score. See
Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, I, 64–9.
13
See H. Peham, Die Salonieren und die Salons in Wien: 200 Jahre Geschichte
einer besonderen Institution (Vienna: Styria Premium, 2013) for more complete
background and biographical information.
14
See Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, I, 3 and 41.
15
Ibid., 83.
170 Susan Youens
her daughter both played.16 She waxes wistful in her memoirs over happy times with
the Jacquin family, whose younger son Gottfried was an outstanding bass singer and
whose sister Franziska was one of Mozart’s best students.17 She cherished memories
of attending salons from 1812 to 1813 at Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz’s, where
the Archduke Rudolf played Beethoven on the fortepiano,18 and of a performance of
Handel’s Samson in the Riding School during the Congress of Vienna, in which she
and her daughter sang in the chorus.19 It was at one of the Pereira family’s salons that
she met the young Felix Mendelssohn, who impressed her with his musicianship
and modest demeanour.20
But for all her knowledge of music and the importance of music in her salons,
Pichler was ambivalent about musicians as people. Over and over, she expresses a
curious mixture of awe at their musical gifts and disdain for composers as people,
seeing them as uncultivated, often unprepossessing specimens of humanity. ‘It is
astonishing to me’, she writes in her essay on music, ‘that the high priests of this
art, so many mighty musical geniuses, are in their lives and conduct quite common,
ignorant, often boorish men’,21 and the paucity of her reminiscences about them,
the lack of detail, probably stems from that disdain. Her summation of Mozart and
Haydn is stunning; she declares that they could claim no other distinction of learn-
ing, cultivation, or higher perception than music, that they engaged in common-
place jokes and frivolous lives, and yet ‘what depths, what worlds of imagination,
harmony, melody, and feeling were hidden beneath these unremarkable outer veils’.
Schubert, too, created beautiful music almost unconsciously, and his outward sem-
blance was unremarkable.22
The Source of ‘Der Unglückliche’:

Pichler’s Olivier
‘Der Unglückliche’ is Schubert’s title, not Pichler’s, and it bespeaks his recogni-
tion that ‘Glückseligkeit’, moral-philosophical happiness, and its opposite/loss are
Pichler’s preoccupations in the final version of Olivier.23 She revised its first state
16
Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, I, 283–4. See also J. Rice, ‘Anton Walter, Instrument
Maker to Leopold II’, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 15 (1989), 32.
17
Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, I, 158.
18
Ibid., I, 401.
19
Ibid., II, 41.
20
Ibid., II, 159.
21
‘Ja, was noch erstaunenswürdiger ist, selbst die Priester dieser Kunst, so manche
ungeheure musikalische Genie’s, waren in ihrem Leben und Betragen alltägliche,
unwissende, und nicht selten beinahe rohe Menschen.’ Pichler, ‘Über Musik’, in
Zerstreute Blätter aus meinem Schreibtische, Neue Folge II (Vienna: Pichler, 1844) 92.
22
‘welche Tiefen, welche Welten von Phantasie, Harmonie, Melodie und Gefühl lagen
doch in dieser unscheinbaren Hülle verborgen’. Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, I, 294.
23
The first version was entitled Olivier, oder Die Rache der Elfe (Vienna: Anton Pichler,
1803). A ‘newly revised edition’ followed from the same publisher in 1821, this version
entitled simply Olivier.
as a Zauberroman in order, so she tells the reader in the preface, to convey in more
realistic fashion the development of a ‘mighty passion’; without supernatural dis-
traction, her meditations on love and happiness could become the principal ben-
efit for readers. Certain themes come to the fore in her complex plot: the effects
of parental fate on the lives of their children; the relationship between outward
appearance and inner being; and the quest for happiness properly defined and
enacted, especially in marriage. Near-Doppelgängertum is regnant throughout the
novel, with young adults resembling their dead or distant parents to an uncanny
degree and shaped for good or ill by their progenitors’ circumstances before their
birth. It is no coincidence that the last word in Olivier is ‘Glückes’ and that various
forms of the Janus-faced word (‘den Unglücklichen’, ‘glücklicher’, ‘sein Unglück’,
‘glücklich’, etc.) echo in profusion throughout the novel. Pichler belongs to the
early history of the psychological novel in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries: she knew the radioactive half-life of early experience (the title character
contracts smallpox in his youth), and she engages in considerable analytical dis-
section of her major characters, whose thoughts and feelings are reported to us in
vivid detail.24
For all the interwoven love stories typical of Pichler, this is a novel of ideas. Much
of Olivier hammers home the discrepancy between Olivier’s ruined face and his
beauty of spirit. If the latter wins out, it does not do so without a struggle against
the power of outward appearance over onlookers, who interpret other people’s
features in culturally determined ways. Novelists at the time often sought recourse
for characterisation in the four massive folio volumes of Johann Caspar Lavater’s
Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe
(1775–78);25 physiognomy appears in Goethe, Karl Philipp Moritz, Sophie von La
Roche – and Pichler. We can be assured that Pichler knew of Lavater’s theories: he
corresponded with her mother and was so famous that most in the literary world
knew of him. Character description is not a conspicuous feature of German fiction
before 1775 or thereabout, and it is to Lavater that we must give credit for prompting
this new development. Furthermore, Olivier belongs squarely with those attempt-
ing to define moral beauty in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
with Schiller’s essay ‘Über Anmut und Würde’ (On Grace and Dignity) and the
‘Bekenntnisse einer schönen Seele’ in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre the twin
24
See M. Bell, The German Tradition of Psychology in Literature and Thought
1700–1840 (Cambridge: CUP, 2009); A. Bellebaum (ed.), Glücksforschung: Eine
Bestandsaufnahme (Konstanz: UVK-Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002); A. Corkhill,
Glückskonzeptionen im deutschen Roman von Wielands ‘Agathon’ bis Goethes
‘Wahlverwandtschaften’ (St Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2003).
25
See. J. C. Lavater, Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis
und Menschenliebe (Leipzig: Weidmanns, 1775, reprint, Zurich: Orell Füssli,
1968–69). See also L. Hartley, Physiognomy and the Meaning of Expression in
Nineteeth-Century Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 2001) and R. T. Gray, About Face:
German Physiognomic Thought from Lavater to Auschwitz (Detroit, MI: Wayne State
University Press, 2004).
172 Susan Youens
peaks towering over the rest of the field.26 Pichler has acerbic things to say about
Werther and Elective Affinities, but she was clearly familiar with Goethe’s works and
with those of Schiller as well. But in this instance, Pichler sides with Goethe’s notion
that moral energy must be outwardly directed, not limited to the purely aesthetic
perfection of the self, to self-absorbed introspection. It is the ‘beautiful soul’s’ uncle
in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre who insists on the necessity of belonging to the world
and doing good within it: ‘One should not pursue moral cultivation in isolation and
seclusion.’27 Pichler’s Amalia von Fernhof, who later turns out to be Olivier’s bio-
logical mother, is a ‘beautiful soul’ of the sort Goethe would prefer, someone who,
without ever seeking publicity, devotes herself to good works on behalf of others
and imparts Bildung to the psychologically wounded Olivier. Olivier is the male
exemplar of a ‘beautiful soul’, with both nature and nurture at work in the forma-
tion of his personality, and Pichler makes it clear that his hard-won battle against
adversity would have been either impossible or far more difficult without the help
of others.
But it is Olivier’s ultimate love-interest Adelinde who sings ‘Die Nacht bricht an’,
a song of despair written by her dead mother. There were surely multiple reasons for
Schubert’s attraction to this poem for music: Pichler’s allusions to bygone times and
a previous generation meant that old wine could be poured into new bottles, that
hieratic gestures from Gluck and the musical ‘pathétique’ from Beethoven could
join forces with Schubert’s more radical harmonic procedures. And there is the
musical exploration of subjectivity in extremity. Winterreise is famously a psycho-
logical journey, but it had predecessors, including this song, whose creator carefully
matches each separate stage of the grief delineated here with its own appropriate
musical working-out.
Schubert, Pichler and Song

It is a possibility that Schubert’s engagement with this poem might span much
of his creative life, from his schooldays to the penultimate year of his life. In the
late 1980s, the song ‘Die Nacht’ was discovered in a collection of songs for voice
and guitar assembled in the 1840s by Franz von Schlechta (a Schubert poet and
boyhood friend), this song dated 26 September 1841 and without attribution to
a composer. Its Italianate cantilena and simpler harmonic language are very dif-
ferent from the two later versions, as is the inclusion of the pious lines at the end;
if this is by Schubert, it would most likely be a schoolboy work under Salieri’s
26
See B. Becker-Cantarino, ‘Die “Bekenntnisse einer schönen Seele”: Zur
Ausgrenzung und Vereinnahmung des Weiblichen in der patriarchalen Utopie
von Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahren’, in Verantwortung und Utopie: Zur Literatur der
Goethezeit, ed. W. Wittkowski (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1988), 70–90, and R.
Norton, The Beautiful Soul: Aesthetic Morality in the 18th Century (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1995), among others.
27
J. W. von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, ed. and trans. E. Blackall in
cooperation with Victor Lange (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995),
248.
tutelage.28 Pichler’s revised novel was not published until 1821, the same year as
Schubert’s first version under the title ‘Der Unglückliche’, and he took great pains
with it: there is a sketch in 12/8 metre of the first seventy-one bars, with only the
vocal line and the bass, followed by a complete fair copy dated January 1821. This
version differs in various details (tweaking and tinkering, not major reconceptual-
isation, reharmonisation or formal alteration) from the first published edition of
the song as Op. 84 (later changed to Op. 87) in August 1828; for example, he alters
the metre from 12/8 to 6/8 and adds the mid-bar accents we now see in the piano
introduction.29 The effect of those emendations is a palpable heavy weariness:
with each newly halved bar, the performers pick up their huge burden of grief and
depression anew.
Could Pichler perhaps have asked Schubert in 1821 to compose the song in con-
nection with the imminent appearance of her novel? One imagines readings from
the forthcoming work to go along with the performance of this dramatic work.
According to Johann Michael Vogl’s wife Kunigunde circa 1850, Vogl decided on his
own to send the sketches of ‘Der Unglückliche’ to the copyist; when the composer
and singer rehearsed the song sometime thereafter, Schubert reportedly said, ‘That’s
not bad! Who’s it by?’ (Pichler tells the story differently, as an example of Schubert’s
supposedly unconscious compositional process.30) In Graham Johnson’s supposi-
tion, Schubert may have been registering a subtle protest against Vogl’s appropri-
ation too soon, before completion, of a work perhaps composed with him in mind
– Pichler was fond of Vogl.31 Pichler does not mention ‘Der Unglückliche’ or any
other song by Schubert; she is seldom specific about the musical works performed
at her salon.32
In Pichler’s novel, ‘Der Unglückliche’ is sung as part of an evening’s entertain-
ment at court.33
28
See G. Johnson, Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs (New Haven, CT, and London:
Yale University Press, 2014), II, 410–2. Universal Edition published the song, its
authenticity not yet fully verified and no Deutsch number assigned, in 1990, with the
guitar accompaniment arranged for piano.
29
See F. Schubert, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Series IV: Lieder, ed. W. Dürr
(Kassel, Basel and London: Bärenreiter, 1979), IVb, 257–9; the complete first version
appears on pp. 209–15. The second version from 1827 is in IVa, 80–7. See also F.
Schubert, Dokumente 1817–1830, ed. T. G. Waidelich, R. Hilmar-Voit and A. Mayer
(Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1993), I, 348. Doc. 514: the announcement of Schubert’s
Op. 84 (‘Der Unglückliche’, ‘Die Hoffnung’, ‘Der Jüngling am Bache’) from A.
Pennauer, reproduced from the Wiener-Zeitung 179 (6 August 1827), 826.
30
Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, I, 294.
31
See G. Johnson, ‘Lieder der Nacht’, 12, note for The Hyperion Schubert Edition, XV
CDJ33015 (1992).
32
There is documentation for Schubert and Pichler both being present at gatherings
in 1820 and on several occasions in 1822. See, for example, O. E. Deutsch, Schubert:
A Documentary Biography, trans. E. Blom (New York: Da Capo Press, 1977), 180 and
213.
33
Pichler, Olivier, 166–7.
174 Susan Youens
Die Nacht bricht an, mit leisen Lüften sinket Night falls, descending with light breezes
Sie auf den müden Sterblichen herab; Upon weary mortals;
Der sanfte Schlaf, des Todes Bruder, winket, Gentle Sleep, Death’s brother, beckons,
Und legt sie freundlich in ihr täglich Grab. And lays them in their daily graves.
Jetzt wachet auf der lichtberaubten Erde Now perhaps only malice and pain
Vielleicht nur noch die Arglist und der Watch over the earth robbed of light;
Schmerz
Und jetzt, da ich durch nichts gestöret werde, And now, since nothing can disturb me,
Laß deine Wunden bluten, armes Herz. Let your wounds bleed, poor heart.
Versenke dich in deines Kummers Tiefen, Plunge to the very depths of your grief,
Und wenn vielleicht in der zerrißnen Brust And if perhaps half-forgotten sorrows
Halb verjährte Leiden schliefen, Have slept in your torn heart,
So wecke sie mit grausam süßer Lust. Awaken them with cruelly sweet delight.
Berechne die verlornen Seligkeiten, Consider your lost happiness,
Zähl’ alle, alle Blumen in dem Paradies, Count all the flowers in heaven,
Woraus in deiner Jugend goldnen Zeiten From which, in golden days of youth,
Die harte Hand des Schicksals dich verstieß. The harsh hand of fate banished you.
Du hast geliebt, du hast das Glück empfunden, You have loved, you have known
Dem jede Seligkeit der Erde weicht. Happiness that eclipses any earthly bliss,
Du hast ein Herz, das dich verstand, gefunden, You have found a heart that understands
Der kühnsten Hoffnung schönes Ziel erreicht. You, have attained the highest goal of the
most exquisite happiness,
Da stürzte dich ein grausam Machtwort Then pitiless might cast you out
nieder,
Aus deinen Himmeln [nieder], und dein stilles Of your heaven and your quiet joy,
Glück,
Dein allzuschönes Traumbild kehrte wieder Your all-too-lovely dream vision, returned
Zur besser’n Welt, aus der es kam, zurück. To the better world from which it came.
Zerrissen sind nun alle süßen Bande, Now all the sweet bonds are torn asunder;
Mir schlägt kein Herz mehr auf der weiten No heart now beats for me in the whole wide
Welt. world.
Lines Schubert omitted in 1821, 1827:

[Was ist’s, das mich in diesem Schattenlande, [What is it that keeps me still in this waste-
In dieser todten Einsamkeit noch hält? land, in this barren solitude?
Nur Einen Lichtstrahl seh’ ich ferner blinken; Just one ray of light I see shining from afar,
Im Götterglanz erscheint die heil’ge Pflicht: My sacred duty appears in divine radiance
Und wenn des müden Geistes Kräfte sinken, And if the strength of my weary spirit fails,
So sinkt der Muth, den sie mir einflößt, nicht.] Then the courage which that duty inspires In
me shall not fail.]
Schubert excised both the question in lines 27–28 and the entirety of the last quat-
rain when he set this poem to music in early 1821. The pious turn to God at the close,
was, I would speculate, not to Schubert’s taste. The ‘better world’ in stanza six is
non-specific, but ‘holy duty’ and ‘God’s glory’ in Pichler’s final lines are unmistaka-
bly Christian, while the capital E for ‘Nur Einen Lichtstrahl’ bespeaks Christ as the
‘Light of the World’.
Life-into-art difficulties fully acknowledged, anyone reading Pichler’s memoirs

soon realises that this inset-song is partly autobiography and partly a matter of over-
whelming literary influence. In 1790, Caroline had considered herself engaged to
Ferdinand Freiherr von Kempelen (‘Fernando’ or ‘Baron von K.’ in the memoirs)
but, while serving under General Karl von Mack – he of the disastrous Battle of
Ulm in 1805 – the young man had become enamoured of Mack’s wife, and rumours
abounded. ‘Damals fühlte ich mich sehr unglücklich’ [I was very unhappy]’, she
writes.34 When she sought comfort in religion, everything irreligious she had read
and heard in her home rose up to confound her: ‘I no longer believed.’35 Then a
copy of Edward Young’s Night Thoughts (first published 1742–45) fell into her hands
‘und begierig versenkte sich mein blutendes Herz in die Tiefen dieser Schwermut’
(‘my bleeding heart greedily immersed itself in the depths of this melancholy’).36
The phrase is right out of Young, and so too is the text of Schubert’s song. After
the first German edition appeared in 1751, the Night Thoughts were very popular
for a time, but Ossian and Percy’s Reliques drove Young off the stage in the 1780s
in Germany. Austria, however, was a latecomer to the fad, with Pichler among the
many Nachtgedankenmacher in 1790s Austria; she includes two of her earlier poems
written in that manner in her memoirs.37
Nowadays, Young’s bombast can be hard to endure, but in her youth, Pichler
revelled both in his hyperbolic gloom and his rhapsodic assurances of Christ’s con-
solation. The former is to the fore in ‘Die Nacht bricht an’, and Schubert could have,
had he wished to do so, assured that we would hear an ironic voice from within his
music, telling us not to take all this fustian seriously, although the ‘harsh hand of
Fate’ goes over the top for an instant in dramatic recitative style. Instead, he took
the opportunity to import Gluckian furies and the Beethovenian ‘pathétique’ – the
Grave strains of Op. 13 or the Marcia funebre in Op. 26 – into the realm of song and to
take Pichler’s depictions of apathetic gloom, agitation, surges of passionate feeling,
wistfulness and solemn renunciation very seriously indeed. He had, after all, com-
posed his Sonata in E major D. 459 in 1816, the year of his first Pichler songs, and its
fifth movement is marked Allegro patetico, the entire work pervaded by the dramatic
contrasts, from funereal to hectic, on which musical pathos depends. While there
is not space to discuss the entire song in detail, a closer look at the beginning and
ending and two interior passages can suffice to demonstrate the gravity and inten-
sity of Schubert’s approach to this work.
Every detail of the piano introduction is calculated to produce a doom-laden
atmosphere – Young’s night thoughts rendered in music (Example 11.1). The dis-
position of the piano’s chief pattern in 6/8 is striking: three identical non-legato
chords occupy half of the bar, followed by an accented chord rising slightly higher,
34
Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, i, 127.
35
Ibid., 128.
36
In Pichler, Denkwürdigkeiten, I, 129, she quotes passages from Edward Young
(1683–1765), Klagen, oder Nachtgedanken über Leben, Tod, und Unsterblichkeit, trans.
J. A. Ebert (Leipzig, 1790–94).
37
See J. Barnstorff, Youngs Nachtgedanken und ihr Einfluss auf die deutsche Litteratur
(Bamberg, 1895) and J. L. Kind, Edward Young in Germany (New York: The
Columbia University Press, 1906).
176 Susan Youens
Ex. 11.1 Franz Schubert, ‘Der Unglückliche’ D. 713, bb. 1–7
Langsam

          

     


         
Die
 
              
   
       pp   
            
pp
            
    
    
                      
  

     
            

for the remainder of the bar. Funereal regularity in the mournful key of B minor is
thus unbalanced, offset by the soft, heavy jolt at mid-bar. It is as if casket-bearers
pause in their slow processional pace to adjust the dead weight of what they carry.
This introduction is furthermore an almost perfectly shaped arch, three + three bars,
seamlessly joined to what starts as its repetition (b. 7) before diverging from the
prior path once the voice joins the proceedings; at b. 10, the ‘gentle breezes’ (‘leisen
Lüften’) impel a semi-magical common-tone harmonic shift to the submediant
chord G major, subdominant of the relative major D, a lightening of the total gloom
that prevails in the introduction.
Since Pichler’s alienated nocturnal character is obsessed with Fate, which raises
one to happiness and fortune, only to bring one down again, this arch seems the per-
fect musical symbol of that inexorable process, and also of day/life ceding to night/
death – all those things real and symbolic that rise and fall. The right and left hands
do exactly the same things an octave apart in bars 2, 3, 4 and 6; this is one of many
similarities between this song and the slow movement of the ‘Little’ A major Sonata
D. 664, composed two years earlier in 1819 (Example 11.2).
Ex. 11.2 Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata in A major D. 664, Andante, second movement, b. 1
Andante
 
       
    
 
pp
       


Bar 12 of ‘Der Unglückliche’ – an instrumental echo, harmonically altered to

enhance the ambiguity of B minor or D major at this point – is a rhythmic variant
and pitch duplication of the appoggiatura figure in b. 1 of the sonata, a figure devel-
oped with extraordinary intensity through the course of two pages (Example 11.3).
Here, it assumes a much darker cast. How to make a soft passage in minor mode
muffled and heavy, dense with symbolic portent: that was Schubert’s self-appointed
task at the start of ‘Der Unglückliche’, and it is a perfect means of commanding the
listeners’ attention in a salon setting.

11

    
sin - ket sie
 

     
    
    

      
Four years before Schubert’s last Pichler song, he had already set a famous poem
in which Death retains his ‘bone man’ appearance but speaks as a gentle friend,
‘Freund Hain’: ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’.38 In Pichler’s text too, Sleep, the
brother of Death, is gentle and good, laying humanity to rest in friendly fashion in
‘their daily graves’ to a varied statement of bars 8–12. We can note the gentle ripples
of third intervals at the word ‘sanfte’, elaborating the stark ascent D E F-sharp (a
solemn processional for Night’s arrival) in b. 8. The ambiguous interval of a third
is omnipresent in this first section. This time, instead of the half-cadence in relative
major for the ‘weary mortals’ of bars 14–15, Schubert turns at the end of this first
section (bb. 23–30) to the parallel major, created by means of accidentals to tell us
that this is temporary (Example 11.4). The prevailing climate is still B minor, and
this respite is brief. On the descending part of yet another arch shape at the words
‘und legt sie freundlich in ihr täglich Grab’, Schubert elides the figure with echoes
in the piano, emphasising the more benign ‘grave’ by means of repetition: a ‘drive
to cadence’ with a purpose, that of defending against the grimmer relative of Sleep.
Twice, the B minor of deepest mourning gives way to major mode as the pro-
tagonist solemnly observes the onset of Night and invokes its mercies for mortals;
first, the relative major and then parallel major. There is dignity, even majesty, in the
processional manner by which Night is hailed and grief is shaped in this lament. No
inconsequential person, we instinctively feel, would mourn in such a fashion.
Schubert’s imagination was clearly gripped with particular intensity by the words
‘Versenke dich in deines Kummers Tiefen’. One should, the inner self decrees, list
one by one all the lost joys; if sorrow is going to well up regardless, embrace it.
What is most remarkable about bars 47–55 (Example 11.5), the twofold injunction
to ‘Versenke dich in deines Kummers Tiefen’, is the treatment of the bass figure
in octaves, a rising diminished fourth or perfect fourth gesture in which staccato
heavily loaded upbeats storm up to the downbeat or (once) the mid-bar point of
arrival. One hears these figures as something physical in effect, as waves of feeling
that surge inexorably upwards, stop in place, then well onwards while the harmonies
in the right hand move inexorably, but more slowly, downwards. The way in which
the singer enacts plunging (‘versenke’) with the marvellous leap downwards of a
38
K. S. Guthke, in The Gender of Death: A Cultural History in Art and Literature
(Cambridge: CUP, 1999), 146–50, discusses Claudius’s poem as demonstrating the
recent conception of Death as a beautiful youth.
178 Susan Youens
            

23

       

 
und legt sie freund - lich in ihr täg - lich Grab, und
    
           

       
   
            
    
    
 
    
           

27
      

 
legt sie freund - lich in ihr täg - - lich Grab.

        
     
       
  
          

           
     
   
   

major seventh is heightened by the ‘Erlkönig’s-like dissonance formed by the piano

and voice (C D E-flat B-flat, a subdominant ninth chord whose upper voices act as
an appoggiatura to a ii diminished chord): that this is painful immersion cannot be
doubted. What is really dramatic is the harmonic intensification in the piano at b. 52,
with the common-tone shift from G minor to B-flat minor, the darkness suddenly
much thicker via Terzensteigerung. That the right hand keeps the ‘tolling bell’ tactus
going as the bass surges upwards by stages, mostly on an ostinato D (with its upper
neighbour E-flat) then F-natural (with its upper neighbour G-flat) for Stage 2 adds
to the hyper-drama of this embodiment of utmost despair rising irresistibly from the
depths of the psyche. It is a thrilling passage, these nine bars, and one can imagine
both the performers and the listeners at a Pichler salon responding almost viscerally
to such intensity at close range. The intensity of Schubert’s engagement with this
text, his recognition in quasi-Bachian vocal writing of the old-fashioned nature of
this dramatic emotional state, cannot be doubted.
But it is the Langsam section starting in b. 118 that is the beating heart of the work,
devoid of any trace of the hyperbolic.39 Schubert gives a nod to Pichler’s syntax –
this is the second half of a complete statement that starts with catastrophe – by
beginning on the same first inversion dominant seventh of G with which the pre-
vious recitative ended, but differently (and magically) voiced. This section starts
in the middle of line 2 of stanza 6, a line that swells from the iambic pentame-
ters regnant throughout the poem to an extra foot. The word ‘Glück’ is the extra
39
Johnson, Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs, III, 442.
     


47
  
      
 

     
Herz. Ver - sen - ke dich in dei - nes Kum-mers Tie - fen,
     

                             

mf
            
    
         
ben marcato
 
               
    
   
    

       
52
 
            

ver - sen - ke dich in dei - nes Kum - mers Tie - fen,
                    
                    
    
                         
            

      
monosyllabic foot, the end-weighted accent that tells us yet again of Pichler’s obses-
sion with eudaimonia and the nature of happiness. Once again, the piano sounds
the familiar tolling ostinato on octave Ds in the rhythm of the song’s beginning (one
thinks both of ‘Memnon’ and ‘Die Götter Griechenlands’ as one listens to this pas-
sage), and the relationship of the singer’s part to that ostinato, to the piano part in
general, is a matter of marvel. The singer starts just under the non-legato tolling bell
on C-natural, and the dissonance is poignant in its effect. The voice subsequently
circles within a narrow orbit of the bell tones, the intertwining intervals of a third (B
D, C E), a purified version of the prior tortured chromatic twisting and turning for
the catalogue of lost joys. Now we realise that the earlier passage is a tortured deriv-
ative of the later passage, its pure source (Example 11.6).
Even more heart-wrenching, the voice and piano duet and double one another
in thirds at bars 121–2 and 129–30 for the fateful words ‘kehrte wieder’, displacing the
tolling bell briefly. The 5 6 7 8 pattern in the bass, with its sixteenth-note ‘drive to
cadence’ at mid-bar, emphasises the word ‘wieder’ and points towards the wordless
echo in the piano, pressing immediately after in quiet urgency. These ‘temps’ are
indeed ‘perdu’, except in the obsessive re-enactments in the mind, and Schubert
plays with time past, time present (and time future – these memories will recur
until death stops the echoes once and for all). The music itself ‘returns again’ and
again in a manner both filled with pathos and gently ironic, as Echo so often is.
This tiny subset of the Langsam section is reminiscent of the final passage in the
180 Susan Youens
 
Langsam

118
         
        

       
und dein stil - les Glück, dein all - zu - schö - nes Traum - bild, kehr - te
             
                    
  
   
      
pp
   
    
122

      

 
wie - der zur bes - sern Welt,

                 
          
    
 
       

  
    
Schubert-Mayrhofer song ‘Sehnsucht’ D. 516 (1817?), bb. 34–42, in which the poet
yearns to journey with the cranes (an Oriental symbol of immortality) to a gentler
land. The voice and piano doubling one another, the tolling bell pitches, the translu-
cency of the texture: this provided the model for the plangent heart of the last Pichler
song. One also thinks of the final words of ‘Gute Nacht’ – ‘An dich hab ich gedacht’
– echoing wordlessly in the postlude to the first song of Winterreise, six years later.
There, an ending one can read as angry-ironic-tragic-wounded in Müller’s text is
converted by Schubert into something altogether different in its atmosphere, the
tolling stream of eighth notes in the piano related in its ostinato marking of a tactus
to ‘Der Unglückliche’. The two protagonists, after all, have much in common, and
once again, Schubert’s remarkably computer-like capacity for retrieval and rework-
ing over a span of years is in evidence.
In Pichler’s poetic structure, the words ‘kehrte wieder’ fall at the end of the line,
enjambed with ‘Zur besser’n Welt’ at the beginning of the next line. Schubert too
creates his own break between the echo-haunted first two words and the suita-
bly hymn-like setting of the ‘better world’, the singer descanting a third above the
piano’s topmost voice in b. 124 and b. 132, the two joining together for the cadential
word ‘Welt’. A pure IV–V7–I cadential progression seems the most apt of musical
analogues to the certainty, stability, harmony and simplicity one might expect in a
‘better world’, with the subdominant sounding for the first time on ‘bes-[sern]’ at
the peak of the tiny phrase. The key signature of this entire section, one notices with
a pang, is not changed: Schubert deploys accidentals for the C-naturals necessary
to assert G major. The ‘better world’ is not here, and ‘dein stilles Glück’ – Pichler’s
version of eudaimonia was quiet, contented happiness with love and children – has
vanished forever. B minor has not really gone away, and it will reassert its rule at the
end of this section.
The piano postlude of the Langsam section in bars 135–9 (Example 11.7) always
reminds me of a particular hinge point in b. 20 of ‘Nacht und Träume’ (‘rufen, wenn
der Tag erwacht’, a quiet battleground between the realms of Night and Dreams)
because, in both modulatory progressions, a longed-for subsidiary tonality does
quiet battle with the encroaching, returning primary key – what returns is not
wanted but is an irresistible force. Here, the 6 7 8 upbeat in the bass from bars 122,
123, 130 and 131 is chromatically altered as if approaching V/V, the C-sharps a con-
tradiction of the C-naturals we have just heard multiple times. E-sharp, the raised
fourth emphasising the dominant of B minor, appears and is sustained as part of
an augmented sixth chord, prolonged for almost four bars: the persona does not
want to go beyond it to resolution and therefore the echo becomes a stammer, a
temporary refusal to accept a return to the prevailing climate of gloom and doom.
Finally, she quietly gives in and capitulates, pausing on the dominant chord of B
minor, voiced with the open fifth in the bass that is so famously redolent of fatality in
‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ and thereafter. It is not possible to hold on to the pastoral
key of bygone bliss.
     

134
      
kam, zu - rück.
         
 
          
 
 
 
     

ppp
             
 
  
In Schubert’s final two lines (repeated for emphasis), the protagonist proclaims
herself severed forever from the ‘sweet bonds’ once hers. Both the inverted syntax
and the content are redolent of an old-fashioned variety of ‘Gothick’ romance (one
thinks of Lord Peter Wimsey striking a pose in jest and melodramatically declaim-
ing, ‘And so-o-o-o- the convent gates closed forever behind Sonia’ as Harriet Vane
enters Shrewsbury College in the fictional Oxford), but Schubert’s appropriately
old-fashioned French overture is not an exercise in mockery. The traditional succes-
sion of dotted rhythms constitutes both a motor to drive the music to its deadened
conclusion and a suitably ceremonial-sounding statement, as the protagonist hails
the end of all things good with ritualistic grandeur. This is no small loss, nor is this
an inconsequential personage, this music tells us. Here, we remember that plays,
182 Susan Youens
scenes and ballads were often declaimed at salons and that the dramatic nature of
this music would have found a natural home there. ‘Zerrissen sind nun alle Bande’,
we hear twice, the first time in B minor with the adjective ‘alle’ emphasised at the
peak of the phrase, with a downward turn at cadence, this time with B doubled in the
vocal line, the right hand and the bass: finality indeed. The second time, it is stated
even more loudly, driving towards ‘Ban-[de]’ at its end-directed peak and in D
major. Once again, major mode sounds more despairing than minor mode, richer,
higher, thicker, with the right hand striking three- and four-note full chords rather
than the doublings in sixths regnant in the B minor phrases. Every tiny detail of this
Mäßig conclusion reinforces the quasi-liturgical/ceremonial atmosphere and the
emotional intensity of this protagonist – for example, the way the ritualistic rhyth-
mic pattern virtually obliterates her, with ‘mir’ each time a sixteenth-note interior
‘upbeat’ to the verb ‘schlägt’. The motion towards the tonic and leading tone pitches
at the verb ‘sind’ on the downbeat prolongs and accentuates the wretched present
moment, while the ‘wide world’ is wide and cheerless indeed, with the adjective
‘weiten’ in each of three invocations consuming an entire bar (Example 11.8). Here,
the diphthong ‘ei-’ opens out to the horrifying prospect of a life without love, but
two years later, at the very end of Die schöne Müllerin, it points to a kinder, gentler
infinity after death (‘Und der Himmel da oben, wie ist er so weit’). The final phrase
and the piano postlude have the stark simplicity of ultimate tragedy, when nothing
more remains to be said or sung. The singer concludes by arpeggiating the tonic
chord, although her opening pitches D and B sound above the submediant G in the
bass before doubling the left hand’s dominant pitch F-sharp. There, she remains:
her life is not yet over, resolution is not at hand, and tonic closure in the top- and
bottommost voices is left to the piano, which echoes her prior cadential pitches to
the words ‘weiten Welt’ as she chants those same words, and then sounds three
tonic chords, the topmost voice a final statement of the third intervals so prominent
in this song.
It is the lack of frothing, foaming melodrama at the close, along with much
else, that sets the seal on Schubert’s largely serious approach to Pichler’s attempt
at a Night Thoughts of her own. Even in the hyperbolic recitative, we are aware
that Schubert is on his protagonist’s side and ensures that we are as well. From
the evidence of this music, Schubert had uncanny insight into those motions of
mind that dredge sorrows from the murkiest depths, probing them for whatever
grim truths they might reveal; after all, in his one-page masterpiece ‘Erster Verlust’,
D. 226 (1815), he had explored a similar state. His music for ‘Der Unglückliche’
marries Gluckian tragic majesty with his own more radical harmonic language
(‘Versenke dich in deines Kummers Tiefen’), conveys angst-ridden masochism
(‘Berechne die verlornen Seligkeiten’) and lingers wistfully over bygone happi-
ness, born in some better sphere and now returned to it (‘und dein stilles Glück’).
He knew that it is in human nature to drag our feet before confronting anything
painful (the beautiful bridge in the piano between the two final sections), and he
knew the totality of fresh grief, the way in which it both envelopes us in gloom
(the initial Langsam section) and throws everything into chaotic instability (the
Etwas geschwinder section). If this is a salon song, then Schubert was paying this

 

                    
  
Mäßig 141
        
  
        
                   
Zer - ris - sen sind nun al - le sü - ßen Ban - de, mir schlägt kein Herz mehr auf der
  
    
mf
  
     
     

                  
144
      
    
              
wei - ten Welt, zer - ris - sen sind nun al - le sü - ßen Ban - de, mir schlägt kein
            

  

       
 
f
          
        

       
    
148
       
    
  
         
Herz mehr auf der wei - ten Welt, auf der wei - ten Welt.
          

      


p pp
  
 
    
   
 

  
 
institution of Viennese social life and one of its chief proponents the compliment
of a long, rich and compelling work. Pichler was not even in the neighbourhood of
poetic greatness, but her fascination with the psychology of loss gave rise to a won-
derful song. Schubert’s recognition that her salon was a venue for serious art and
discussion, not for pure frivolity, is embodied in a work that assumes listeners fully
attuned to his musical complexities.
Chapter 12
Traditions, Preferences and Musical Taste

in the Staegemann-Olfers Salon
in Nineteenth-Century Berlin
Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger
M usical patronage, making music, listening to music and talking about it

were important constituents of nineteenth-century Berlin salon sociability.1
Sara Levy (1761–1854), the great-aunt of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, supported
the Berlin Sing-Akademie and was a lifelong champion of the music of the Bach
family; Meyerbeer’s mother Amalia Beer (1767–1854) had remarkable merits as a
kind patroness; and later the salonnière Mimi Countess Schleinitz-Wolkenstein
(1842–1912) created the Wagnergemeinde in Berlin. But music was also present in
other, predominantly literary salons. The way in which music was integrated into
conversation and cultural memory can be exemplified by the Staegemann-Olfers
circle, a literary salon which existed for three generations (c. 1810–c. 1914) and which
is documented by an extensive family correspondence.2 Though limited financial
means did not allow musical patronage, amateurs and professionals attended in
order to socialise among guests with diverse interests, and agreed to play or sing
if they felt like it. Sometimes musical soirées were held, but more often, music was
improvised. Music was regarded as a means of modulating and enhancing socia-
bility, but was not treated as a mere divertimento. In this chapter, I will concentrate
mainly, though not exclusively, on vocal music and the interrelationship of the arts
in the Staegemann-Olfers salon. The chronological survey of this case study hopes
to demonstrate how family tradition influenced musical sociability, keeping the
authentic spirit of Romanticism alive for a century. It reinforces the assessment that
real salon sociability depended less on great occasions than on a long-term associ-
ation of friends sharing cultural interests. Hitherto, scholarly research on musical
aspects of the Staegemann-Olfers salon has focused on the first half of the nine-
teenth century, especially on the famous Müllerlieder, whereas this study aims to
give a more complete picture, illuminating the salonnières’ musical circles well into
the early twentieth century.3
1
See P. Wilhelmy-[Dollinger], Der Berliner Salon im 19. Jahrhundert (1780–1914)
(Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1989).
2
H. von Olfers née von Staegemann, Ein Lebenslauf, ed. H. Abeken, 2 vols (Berlin:
Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Sohn, 1908–14); M. von Olfers, Briefe und Tagebücher, ed.
M. von Olfers, 2 vols (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1928–30).
3
See M. Friedlaender, ‘Die Entstehung der Müllerlieder: Eine Erinnerung an Frau
von Olfers’, Deutsche Rundschau 19 (1892), 301–7; E. Budde, ‘“Die schöne Müllerin”
in Berlin’, in Preußen: Versuch einer Bilanz, vol. 4: Preußen: Dein Spree-Athen …,
ed. H. Kühn (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1981), 162–72; S. Youens, ‘Behind the Scenes: Die
186 Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger
The style of this salon was set by Elisabeth von Staegemann née Fischer (1761–
1835) from Königsberg in East Prussia, who grew up in the lively musical circles of
her native town and in 1780 married Carl Ferdinand Graun, the youngest son of
the famous composer. She had a beautiful voice, painted with considerable talent,
wrote essays as well as a novel and was a friend of Johann Friedrich Reichardt. With
her second husband, the lawyer and poet Friedrich August Staegemann (1763–
1840), Elisabeth moved to Berlin in 1806 (she settled there permanently in 1810).
Staegemann worked as a senior civil servant among the Prussian reformers and
wrote patriotic poems. He became a privy councillor and was ennobled in 1816. The
family had risen from cultivated middle-class to court society. They were close to
the family of the composer Prince Anton Radziwiłł (1775–1833) and were held in
esteem by the Prussian royal family, but they never forgot their modest origins.
Elisabeth Staegemann believed in cultivating poetry and music as necessary
ingredients of Persönlichkeitskultur – the ideal of a harmonious personality so cen-
tral to the era of Goethe and Humboldt. Her efforts to unite everyday life and the
visual, literary and musical arts had to do with her own inclinations and the influence
of Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister. While her taste was firmly rooted in the litera-
ture of the Enlightenment and Weimar Classicism, she was on friendly terms with
Romantic poets like Heinrich von Kleist, Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano.
In her salon, Berlin Classicism (Berliner Klassik) was combined with Romanticism
– indeed, a very comprehensive conception of Romanticism similar to that of her
Königsberg compatriots Reichardt and E. T. A. Hoffmann.4 While the former vis-
ited the Staegemann salon in Berlin, Kammergerichtsrat Hoffmann, though an
acquaintance, was not an habitué. Staegemann apparently did not like him very
much, but his wife, children and grandchildren definitely loved Hoffmann’s music
and writings.5 And, like Hoffmann, most of the Staegemann circle were interested
schöne Müllerin before Schubert’, 19th-Century Music 34 /1 (Summer 1991), 3–22;

S. Youens, Schubert, Müller, and Die schöne Müllerin (Cambridge: CUP, 1997);
P. Dollinger, ‘Wilhelm Müller, die “Ur-Müllerlieder” und sein Freundeskreis in
Berlin’, Mitteilungen des Vereins für Anhaltische Landeskunde 25 (2016), 9–37; H.
and P. Dollinger, ‘Die erste Begegnung Luise Hensels und Clemens Brentanos im
Staegemannschen Salon 1816’, in Zwischen Traum und Wissenschaft – Aspekte zum
Zeitalter der Romantik. … Romantiktagung an der BTU Cottbus vom Herbst 2002,
ed. B. Baumüller and S. Krestin (Cottbus: REGIA, 2005), 136–51; and J. Ronyak,
‘“Serious Play”, Performance and the Lied: The Stägemann Schöne Müllerin
Revisited’, 19th Century Music 34/34 (2010), 141–67. Indispensable among early
research are still B. Hake, Wilhelm Müller: Sein Leben und sein Dichten: Kap. IV: Die
schöne Müllerin (Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1908), and F. Spiecker, Luise Hensel als
Dichterin: Eine psychologische Studie ihres Werdens auf Grund des handschriftlichen
Nachlasses … (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1936).
4
See P. Wilhelmy-Dollinger, ‘Singen, Konzertieren, Diskutieren: Musikalische
Aktivitäten in den Salons der “Berliner Klassik”’, in Urbane Musikkultur: Berlin um
1800, ed. E. Mutschelknauss (Hanover: Werhahn-Verlag, 2011), 141–69.
5
Staegemann, Hoffmann’s colleague in the law and old acquaintance from Königsberg,
is mentioned in the latter’s diaries; both attended the Gesetzlose Gesellschaft, an
intellectual club in Berlin, and shared acquaintances (Hippel, Chamisso, Koreff etc.).
While references to Hoffmann in Staatsrat Staegemann’s letters are rather cool, the
rest of his family loved Hoffmann’s opera Undine, held similar views on music and read
his books with delight. Hoffmann’s stories and characters are referred to by the Olfers
The Staegemann-Olfers Salon in Nineteenth-Century Berlin 187
in the symbiotic connections between poetry and music. Heinrich von Kleist
explicitly regarded music as the source or algebraic formula of all arts.6 Elisabeth
Staegemann had grown up in the Age of Sentiment and valued imagination, but
she rejected cheap enthusiasm and superficial accomplishments. Reading, playing
or singing should try to awake in the listeners’ souls the mood which had inspired
the poet or composer. For her, Romanticism had to be tempered with reason and
good taste (admiring ‘with an elevated mind’, as she put it), and the latter could only
be achieved by disciplined study.7 Accordingly, her daughters were taught to speak
several languages (French, Italian, English), to sing in German and Italian, and to
play the piano. Antoinette Graun (1785–1859; from 1804 Baroness von Korff, from
her second marriage in 1815 Frau von Horn) became a fine amateur soprano, and her
younger sister Hedwig Staegemann (1799–1891; from 1823 Frau von Olfers) com-
bined musical talents with an early reputation for writing attractive poetry.8
In 1814, musical life in Berlin profited from peace and the whirl of subsequent
celebrations. Elisabeth Staegemann’s letters to her husband,9 who attended the
Congress of Vienna, describe how amateurs and professionals made music together
in her salon, among them Franz Lauska (1764–1825) and Pierre Rode (1774–1830).
Antoinette von Horn sang duets with Berlin opera singer Auguste Schmalz (1771–
1848). The interchange of ideas with other circles was important, and for years
the Staegemann salon was connected with the Sing-Akademie, an amateur society
for the performance of serious music directed by Carl Friedrich Zelter. Hedwig
Staegemann’s best friend, Laura Gedike (1799–1864), who married the historian and
poet Friedrich Förster (1791–1868) in 1818, became a soloist of the Sing-Akademie
and later a presiding board member. Sometimes Elisabeth Staegemann used music
to enhance social gatherings of the civil servant circles she dutifully hosted; for
instance, in March 1815, when Laura Gedike played a sonata by Lauska, Antoinette
von Horn sang a cavatine and young Hedwig followed with ‘Thekla’s song’ from
Schiller’s drama The Piccolomini (the second part of Wallenstein), perhaps composed
by Reichardt or Zelter.10 Opera arias and grand genres were admired, but, according
to the Romantic view put forward by Prince Anton Radziwiłł, simple songs, per-
formed with feeling, were more suitable for intimate musical reunions.11 When the
family as a matter of course many decades after his death. H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, I,
13 (1816), II, 617 (1889) and M. von Olfers, Briefe, I, 335 (1868), II, 7 (1870).
6
H. von Kleist, Sämtliche Werke und Briefe, ed. H. Sembdner (Munich: Carl Hanser,
1952), II, 895 (1811).
7
‘ein sehr gebildetes Urtheil und ein erhöhter Sinn’, E. von Staegemann, ‘Fragmente
in Stunden der Muße niedergeschrieben’, in Erinnerungen für edle Frauen …, ed. W.
Dorow (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1846), II, 127. All translations are the author’s own.
8
P. Wilhelmy-Dollinger, ‘Musikalische Salons in Berlin 1815–1840’, in Die
Musikveranstaltungen bei den Mendelssohns – Ein ‘musikalischer Salon’? Die
Referate des Symposions am 2. September 2006 in Leipzig, ed. H.-G. Klein (Leipzig:
Mendelssohn-Haus, 2006), 17–33, 73–86.
9
Correspondence of the Staegemann couple during the Congress of Vienna from
September 1814 to May 1815, H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, I, 222–344.
10
Ibid., 244, 264 and 305.
11
Ibid., II, 7.
Munich composer Peter von Winter (1754–1825), introduced to the Staegemanns

by Achim von Arnim’s musical wife Bettina, brought Clara Metzger-Vespermann
(1799–1827) with him in October 1816, the singer charmed everyone by the natural
manner of her fine voice. In the ensuing discussion, Clemens Brentano passionately
rejected bravura singing (Bravourgesang).12 Even in great Italian divas, simplicity
was valued: Angelica Catalani (1780–1849), who visited the Staegemann salon in
1819 and 1827, was loved for her unpretentious, natural pathos.13 Improvisation was
appreciated. When Brentano read from his manuscripts at Staegemann’s in 1816, he
sang the incorporated lyrics to melodies of his own invention, accompanying him-
self on a guitar.14
On Thursdays, the jour fixe of the Staegemann salon, Hedwig von Staegemann
and her elder brother August (1797–1865), an artistically minded law student, hosted
a branch of their mother’s salon called the Thursday Young People (Donnerstag-
Jugend) consisting mostly of university students, literary youths and spirited young
ladies. Sometimes older friends like Brentano joined them. Among the members
were the painter Wilhelm Hensel (1794–1861), his sister, the poet Luise Hensel
(1798–1876), the poet Wilhelm Müller (1794–1827) from Dessau, Förster and Laura
Gedike. In 1816 two brilliant amateur settings of literary texts claimed their atten-
tion. The first was Prince Radziwiłł’s music to Goethe’s Faust. Some early pieces
may even have been tried out in the Staegemann salon; we definitely know that
Antoinette von Horn, Hedwig von Staegemann and Laura Gedike took part in
the rehearsal-like performances of the Faust music in cooperation with the Sing-
Akademie in spring 1816.15 These performances were possibly even more charming
than later, more elaborate stagings, because the composer himself directed the
choirs, played the interludes on his violoncello, explained his composition and read
from Goethe’s letters.16 A few months later, on 3 August 1816, E. T. A. Hoffmann’s
opera Undine was premiered. The story of the water spirit Undine had been written
by Friedrich Baron de la Motte-Fouqué in 1811, who now provided the libretto. The
opera was a Gesamtkunstwerk with decorations designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
Friedrich Förster wrote a festive prologue for the first night (it was the king’s birth-
day), Wilhelm Hensel composed a sonnet about Johanna Eunike (1798–1856) as
the character Undine, who earlier in 1816 had lent her voice to the role of Gretchen
in Radziwiłł’s Faust, Wilhelm Müller published a detailed review, and Hedwig von
Staegemann praised the splendid voices, the decorations and the way Hoffmann’s
12
Ibid., 14–15.
13
Ibid., 34–5 and 110.
14
Ibid., 15–16.
15
Ibid., 10. D. Duncker, Ernst von Wildenbruch: Ernstes und Heiteres aus seinem Leben
(Berlin: Hermann Paetel, 1909), 45.
16
Commentary by Marie Princess Radziwiłł, referring to a letter by Prince Anton’s
wife Louise Princess Radziwiłł, 2 April 1816, L. de Prusse, Princesse A. Radziwiłł,
Quarante-cinq années de ma vie (1770–1815), ed. Princesse [Marie] Radziwiłł née
Castellane (Paris: Plon, 1912), 386–7; H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, II, 10–2 (May/June
1816); see J. W. von Goethe/C. F. Zelter, Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter in
den Jahren 1799 bis 1832, ed. L. Geiger, I: 1799–1818 (Leipzig: Philipp Reclam, 1915),
438–80 (18 February to 16 June 1816, regarding the Faust rehearsals).
wonderful music laid ‘bold, enchanting wings’ over the whole work.17 The arias and
Lieder from Undine remained popular in Berlin for years.
As with other salons, there was a special regard for the Lied as a synthesis of poetry
and music in the Staegemann-Olfers salon. Whereas opera arias demonstrated
moods or passions with few words and elaborate music, in this context the lyrics of
a Lied asked for a simple strophic composition.18 This applied not only to folksongs
(Volkslieder), but also to art songs (Kunstlieder), many of which were settings of fine
poems. The idea was that the composer subordinated himself to the poet for the
sake of a congenial interpretation. In November 1816, Hedwig von Staegemann and
Eduard Grell (1800–86; later director of the Sing-Akademie) performed a duet of
Goethe’s poem ‘Willkommen’, set to music by Zelter, who accompanied them him-
self.19 At that time, the Donnerstag-Jugend experimented with folk lyrics. This was
the beginning of the Müllerlieder, later so famous in Wilhelm Müller’s cycle.20 The
Ur-Müllerlieder were created in an improvised drawing-room-game. Hedwig von
Staegemann took the part of the miller-maid Rose, who was courted in the poems of
the young journeyman-miller (Müller), the hunter (Hensel), the squire (Förster),
the gardener’s boy (Luise Hensel) and others. One of Hedwig’s poems, ‘Wie’s
Vöglein möcht’ ich ziehen’, resembles Goethe’s poem ‘Der Musensohn’, declaring
a love of everything green. When Rose prefers the hunter, the miller drowns him-
self, whereupon the girl feels responsible and commits suicide. Both are buried in
the green meadow, lamented by the remaining suitors. Of course, the young poets
were playing with musical and literary topoi – folksongs, Paisiello’s opera La bella
molinara and Goethe’s Müllerromanzen, which Goethe, in a letter to Schiller in 1797,
had called ‘conversations in song’ (‘Gespräche in Liedern’). The sad ending of the
Ur-Müllerlieder did not prevent the Donnerstag-Jugend from having great fun with a
pinch of Romantic irony.21
In the second stage of development, the composer Ludwig Berger (1777–1839)
set his favourites among the poems to music (including two by Hedwig von
17
‘die wunderliche Musik, die sich wie mit kühnen, zauberischen Schwingen über
das ganze Stück legt’, H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, II, 13. See F. Schnapp (ed.), Der
Musiker E. T. A. Hoffmann: Ein Dokumentenband (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981),
482, 486–7; and P. Wilhelmy-Dollinger, ‘Die Uraufführung der Oper “Undine” von
E. T. A. Hoffmann und Friedrich Baron de la Motte-Fouqué am 3. August 1816 in
Berlin’, in Mitteldeutsches Jahrbuch für Kultur und Geschichte, ed. G. Schlenker and
H. Kieser, in collaboration with S. Mittag (Bonn: Monumente Publikationen, 2017),
XXIV, 78–85.
18
E. T. A. Hoffmann, ‘Zwölf Lieder alter und neuerer Dichter … von W. F. Riem’, in
Werke, Vol. 14: Musikalische Schriften II, ed. G. Ellinger (Berlin: Bong & Co, [1927]),
62–4.
19
H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, II, 16–17.
20
See Youens’s detailed studies, in particular: Schubert, Müller, and Die schöne
Müllerin.
21
J. W. von Goethe, Gedichte, ed. H. Greiner-Mai and H.-J. Kruse, 2nd edn (Berlin:
Aufbau-Verlag, 1976), 227–36, 254 and 556. Dollinger, ‘Wilhelm Müller, die
“Ur-Müllerlieder” und sein Freundeskreis in Berlin’.
Staegemann), because music was the ‘soul of the lyric [Lied]’.22 The parlour-game
became a roughly sketched Liederspiel, a genre Reichardt had made popular.23 The
theatrical set was reduced, the plot was condensed and altered – the miller remained
in his watery grave and the miller-maid did not drown herself. That Müller added
‘Des Baches Lied’ as a lullaby for the dead miller is probably due to Berger’s influ-
ence, perhaps even to the formidable part of the personified brook ‘Kühleborn’
from the opera Undine. The Ur-Müllerlieder were written to be read; later Berger’s
songs were performed by Hedwig von Staegemann and other members of the
Donnerstag-Jugend, but almost certainly not by Müller (who claimed he could not
sing) and Wilhelm Hensel (who really could not sing).24 The theme continued to
challenge individual creativity. Müller elaborated the part of the miller, and in 1820
the twenty-five songs of the finished ‘monodrama’ were published. In Berlin, some
of these were set to music by the composers Bernhard Klein and later Friedrich
Curschmann. Even more importantly, at Christmas 1822 Wilhelm Hensel gave
Müller’s book to his fiancée-to-be Fanny Mendelssohn with a special dedication
page. Fanny Mendelssohn composed three of the Müllerlieder early in 1823, thus
preceding Franz Schubert’s famous composition of the complete cycle by a few
months.25 Relations between the Staegemann and Mendelssohn families were not
without slight frictions. In summer 1827 young Felix Mendelssohn, who did not like
the Staegemann salon because he found the company ‘boring’, refused to play there
when asked, pleading a sore finger, and was scolded by his mother Lea Mendelssohn
afterwards. This did not prevent the Staegemann-Olfers family from appreciating
his genius and character.26
In 1823 Hedwig von Staegemann married the Prussian diplomat Ignaz von Olfers
(1793–1872), a Catholic from Westphalia, and in 1824–26 and 1831–35 she accom-
panied him to Naples and Berne. In Italy, they became close friends of another
bi-confessional young couple, the composer Bernhard Klein, a specialist in sacred
music, and his wife Lili Parthey (1800–29). Klein set Hedwig’s poem Ischia in 1825
22
In Rellstab’s, and also seemingly Ludwig Berger’s, opinion, the musical composition
operated as a medium for blending the lyrics together. L. Rellstab, Ludwig Berger, ein
Denkmal (Berlin: Trautwein [J. Guttentag], 1846), 111.
23
L. Berger, Gesänge aus einem gesellschaftlichen Liederspiele ‘Die schöne Müllerin’
(Berlin: E. H. G. Christiani, [c. 1818]).
24
Wilhelm Müller’s diary, 8 October 1815, in Werke, Tagebücher, Briefe, ed. M.-V.
Leistner, with an introduction by B. Leistner (Berlin: Gatza, 1994), V, 10: ‘I can
neither sing nor play’ (‘Ich kann weder spielen noch singen’). See also E. Devrient,
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy und seine Briefe an mich (Leipzig: J. J. Weber, 1869), 91–2
and 94: The ‘completely unmusical’ (‘ganz unmusikalische[n]’) Wilhelm Hensel
caused much mirth in a Liederspiel by Felix Mendelssohn in December 1829, when he
was unable to hit the one note in his very small part in a trio.
25
See R. Hellwig-Unruh, Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Thematisches
Verzeichnis der Kompositionen (Adliswil: Kunzelmann, 2000), catalogue nos 59, 60
and 62, 115–17.
26
F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Sämtliche Briefe: 1816–Juni 1830, ed. J. Appold and R. Back
(Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2008), 219–20. H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, II, 407; M. von Olfers,
Briefe, I, 224 (1861).
and dedicated a Salve Regina to Olfers.27 Their friendship continued in Berlin and
was extended to the next generation (Elisabeth Klein, who married the archaeolo-
gist Richard Lepsius). Hedwig von Olfers’s marriage and the years spent in Naples
developed her understanding of Catholic liturgy and old Italian music (Marcello,
Pergolesi, etc.). In predominantly Protestant Berlin, this brought her close to initi-
atives for the promotion of such music by the Sing-Akademie and later by Henriette
Sontag, Countess Rossi, who returned to Berlin in the 1840s as a diplomat’s wife and
founded a choir which frequently performed old sacred music.
When Elisabeth von Staegemann died in 1835, Hedwig von Olfers succeeded to
her salon. In these years Friedrich Curschmann (1805–41) and his wife Rose (1818–
42), a fine soloist at the Sing-Akademie, contributed to the musical activities. For
Privy Councillor Staegemann’s birthday in November 1835, Hedwig von Olfers
wrote a scene in which her young daughters personified their grandfather’s poet-
ical works: ‘Nina with helmet and sword as a warrior’s song, Marie as a sonnet and
Hedwig as an epigram. Laura [Förster] and Lottchen [her daughter] sang a duet,
words by Förster.’28 She does not mention whether the composer was their friend
Curschmann, who could not attend that day. It may also have been the Förster’s
foster son Carl Eckert (1820–79), who became a distinguished composer and
conductor.
In 1839 Ignaz von Olfers was appointed director of the Royal Museums in
Berlin, and in the following decades the Olfers salon reached its social climax.
At the request of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who acceded to the throne in 1840,
Hedwig von Olfers opened the doors of the Yellow Salon in the director’s flat on the
Museumsinsel to courtiers, diplomats, scholars, artists, musicians and writers. The
Arnim and Olfers families grew even closer because their daughters shared similar
literary, artistic and musical interests. Nina and Marie von Olfers as well as Maxe
and Armgart von Arnim knew a large repertoire of a capella folksongs by heart and
belonged to Countess Rossi’s choir. The youngest Arnim daughter, Gisela, who
married the scholar Herman Grimm, affectionately called the Yellow Salon of the
Olfers family ‘an amiable theatre of the world’.29 Sometimes, for festive and charita-
ble purposes, it became a real theatre, in which rapidly written or adapted plays with
music and songs were performed. The fairy-tale play Ohne Herz, by Hedwig von
Olfers and her daughter Marie, premiered in March 1853, continued the Romantic
tradition of the Liederspiele.30 Everything, including costumes and decorations, had
to be improvised within a few days.
The special brand of Berliner Klassik, Romanticism and Historicism in the
Olfers circle engendered a constant dialogue between the generations. One friend
whom young Ignaz von Olfers had met in Brazil (1816) was Sigismund Ritter von
Neukomm (1778–1858), a pupil of Haydn. When Neukomm visited Berlin in 1853,
27
28
‘Nina mit Helm und Schwert als Kriegsgesang, Marie als Sonett und Hedwig das
Epigramm. Laura und Lottchen sangen ein Duett, Worte von Förster.’ Ibid., 185–6.
29
‘ein so liebenswürdiges Welttheater’, ibid., 527 (1876).
30
Ibid., 309–315.
he became particularly attached to Marie von Olfers (1826–1924).31 As regards a

Haydn symphony concert they attended, he told her that the tempi were too fast,
which would make the old master turn over in his grave, and that ‘Beethoven, too,
would have hated such a speed, because it lent a superficial character to all music’.32
For Marie’s birthday in October 1853 Neukomm composed or arranged an andante
for the French style harmonium.33
Marie von Olfers became a professional writer and painter. She also studied musi-
cal composition, adapted suitable melodies to Brentano poems and arranged music
for domestic performances. ‘I am sitting amid heaps of old melodies’, she wrote in
1860. ‘I am rummaging for this and that, insert a second voice and words where there
are none and am a sort of patchwork-tailor in the service of St Caecilia.’34 She prac-
tised sonatas by Bach and Beethoven and discovered how ‘very Romantic’ Franz
Schubert’s piano sonatas were.35 The marriage of her elder sister Nina (1824–1901)
to Ludwig Count Yorck (1805–65) in 1849 consolidated the friendship with the intel-
lectual, artistically gifted Yorck von Wartenburg family. After having attended a con-
cert in 1861, Marie von Olfers confided her failed efforts to like Robert Schumann to
Nina’s stepson Wolfgang Count Yorck (1840–70). After Mozart’s fine E-flat major
symphony, Schumann’s overtures had completely depressed her, but like ‘a soul lib-
erated from the body one resurfaces in Beethoven’.36
Wolfgang Count Yorck was a brother-in-law and friend of the poet Ernst von
Wildenbruch (1845–1909). The poet soon became a literary protégé of the Olfers
family and later married a granddaughter of Carl Maria von Weber (another favour-
ite composer of the Staegemann-Olfers circle). The long-standing amicable contact
of the Olfers and Beer-Meyerbeer families grew into friendship with Meyerbeer’s
youngest daughter Cornelie (1842–1922), who married the painter Gustav Richter
(1823–84) and later had a salon of her own. Romanticism remained a dominant key-
note of the Olfers salon. In 1864 Marie von Olfers defended the concept of artistic
idealism and praised Heinrich Marschner’s Romantic opera Hans Heiling (1833) as
‘amusing, melodic, a little bit old-style and therefore received very coolly’.37
31
M. von Olfers, Briefe, I, 118. About the acquaintance with Neukomm in October 1853,
see ibid., 121–2.
32
‘Auch Beethoven hätte solche Schnelligkeit gehaßt, weil es aller Musik einen
oberflächlichen Charakter gibt.’ Ibid., 121.
33
Ibid., 122. See H. von Olfers née von Staegemann, Gedichte (Berlin: Wilhelm
Hertz, 1892), 9–10: Gott grüßt manchen, der ihm nicht dankt Op. 263, composed
by Neukomm in 1825. R. Angermüller, Sigismund Neukomm: Werkverzeichnis,
Autobiographie, Beziehung zu seinen Zeitgenossen (Munich: Katzbichler, 1977),
no. 263, 92, see 203–5. H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, II, 114, 118 and 321–2.
34
‘Ich sitze in lauter alten Melodien. … Da such ich allerlei hervor, setze zweite
Stimme, mache Worte, wo keine sind, und bin eine Art Flickschneider in Diensten
der hl. Cäcilia.’ M. von Olfers, Briefe, I, 198.
35
‘so sehr romantisch’, ibid., 182 (1858) and 226 (1861).
36
‘Wie eine vom Körper befreite Seele tauchte man in Beethoven wieder hervor.’ Ibid.,
230. By 1870, she had learned to love Schumann. Ibid., II, 6.
37
‘eine amüsante, melodische Oper, etwas im alten Stil, deshalb wurde sie sehr kühl
aufgenommen’, ibid., I, 297 and 305.
Although still sceptical about ‘Zukunftsmusik’ (for them, Schumann and Liszt),
the Olfers family were happy when in 1856 Franz Liszt, his daughter Cosima and
Hans von Bülow visited and gave a performance ‘full of genius and fire’.38 Bülow’s
mother Franziska was not really satisfied by the ancient grand piano and the relaxed
atmosphere in the Yellow Salon: ‘… there is only conversation. Yesterday at last,
after much pleading, Hans (whom we had brought there only with much effort) and
then Cosima played some music on the piano.’39 When, in 1858, after acquiring a new
grand piano, Marie von Olfers inaugurated it by playing Bach and Beethoven, her
mother remarked that by hearing too much Bach one might lose the taste for recent
compositions.40 But in general, old and new music mixed very nicely in her salon. In
May 1862, she recorded: ‘The most modern Zukunftsmusik and the Italian as well as
the era of Reichardt’s songs were represented.’41 On most ‘Thursdays’, conversation
prevailed, but sometimes she had a tremendous challenge to ensure ‘that everyone
who wanted to sing got to the piano at least once, and Johann (the servant) had the
greatest of difficulty shoehorning in the sandwiches and cake between each piece’.42
By now her son Ernst von Olfers (1840–1915) contributed, singing quartets with his
friends. All genres of song, from old French to modern compositions, were splen-
didly performed by their spirited friend Jenny Meyer (1834–94), later director of a
leading private academy of music in Berlin (Sternsches Konservatorium). On Hedwig
von Olfers’s birthday in 1864, even Prince Georg of Prussia (1826–1902), a poet of
some distinction, was persuaded to perform on the piano, and he ‘played very beau-
tifully and [delighted us] with an abundance of songs’.43
Hedwig von Olfers always treasured the memory of her old friend Wilhelm
Müller. Forty years after his early death in 1827, she encountered his songs again,
this time not the Müllerin, but the lyrically more demanding Winterreise, set by
Schubert. One evening in May 1867, the distinguished amateur pianist Robert von
Keudell (1824–1903), a diplomat in the Prussian Foreign Office, performed four-
teen songs from Winterreise in the Yellow Salon for a small but cultivated audience.
He was a colleague of the Olfers’ son-in-law Heinrich Abeken (1809–72), husband
of their youngest daughter Hedwig (1829–1919). The soirée lasted until well after
38
‘sehr genial und feurig’, H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, II, 355. For the lingering scepticism
about Zukunftsmusik, see ibid., 400 (1861), and M. von Olfers, Briefe, I, 234 (1862).
39
‘es wird bloß Conversation gemacht. Gestern spielten zuletzt auf vieles Verlangen,
erst Hans (den wir mit Mühe und Noth hingebracht hatten), dann Cosima etwas
Clavier’. Briefe von Hans von Bülow, ed. M. von Bülow (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel,
1898), III, 39.
40
H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, II, 376.
41
‘Die modernste Zukunftsmusik und die italienische wie die Zeit der Reichardtschen
Lieder war vertreten.’ Ibid., 412.
42
‘daß der, der singen wollte, [nur] einmal ans Klavier kam und Johann [der Diener]
hatte die größte Not, seine Butterbrote und Kuchen zwischen jedes Musikstück
hindurchzuschleudern.’ Ibid., 412.
43
Ibid., 414 (about Ernst von Olfers) and 433: Prince Georg ‘spielte sehr schön und
gesangreich’.
midnight. In wise precaution, Frau von Olfers had provided a little supper, because
‘singing and listening to songs really make one hungry’.44
Chamber music was always present in the Olfers salon as a counterpart of sing-
ing. In this short survey, only Joseph Joachim and Robert Radecke can be men-
tioned. When Joseph Joachim was introduced by Gisela von Arnim in 1854, Marie
von Olfers wrote: ‘It is really remarkable how listening, how music lies on the sur-
face of his face and makes his rather sharp features harmonious’.45 Soon afterwards,
they heard him play the violin at Bettina von Arnim’s house. Hedwig von Olfers,
who liked his conversation and pensive, poetical disposition, in 1856 wondered ‘how
this quiet violet [stille Viole] had happened to come among the gaudy corn-pop-
pies (“Klatschrosen”) of the virtuosi’.46 In spring 1867, she wrote about an evening:
‘Joachim played incredibly beautifully, and his wife [Amalie] sang in a heavenly way.
– Without being asked, and I think they would have played and sung on and on, as
they were in the mood.’47 That Joachim wrote an Ouverture in memoriam Heinrich
von Kleist (Op. 13, 1877) must have touched Frau von Olfers, who had known the
poet well. Robert Radecke (1830–1911) and his wife were also among her habitués.
It was Radecke who set ‘Mein Preußen ist aus festem Holz’, a patriotic poem by
Hedwig von Olfers, in 1864. She liked to attend the little concerts in the Radecke flat
and particularly enjoyed an evening in October 1878, when Joseph Joachim and Max
Bruch played the latter’s compositions.48
Though the Olfers family were interested in the way Wagner treated the
Nibelungensage and had good contacts to the Berlin Wagnergemeinde, they were
not members of it.49 Instead, they pitied Kapellmeister Carl Eckert in 1870, when
he toiled for months preparing the Meistersinger for the Berlin stage with forty dif-
ficult rehearsals.50 The opera, however, became a success. On 1 May 1870 Marie
von Olfers admitted that she had enjoyed it. She conceded Wagner’s ‘mastery’,
although she thought his genius a rather peculiar one.51 In 1873 Frau von Olfers and
her daughters were invited to attend Richard Wagner’s reading of the libretto of
Götterdämmerung with an introduction, in the salon of Mimi von Schleinitz. As they
were in mourning at the time, they decided to stay at home and listen to reports
of their friends instead.52 They knew Richard Wagner’s niece, the singer Johanna
44
‘Singen und Singenhören macht wirklich hungrig’, ibid., 464.
45
‘Es ist ordentlich merkwürdig, wie das Lauschen, wie die Musik schon auf seinem
Gesicht liegt und sein sonst schroffes Gesicht harmonisch macht.’ M. von Olfers,
Briefe, I, 129. See also 133–4.
46
‘wie der [Joachim] nur jetzt unter die Klatschrosen der Virtuosen kommt, diese
stille Viole.’ H. von Olfers, Lebenslauf, II, 360. ‘Klatschrosen’ has a double meaning,
hinting at boisterous chattiness; ‘Viole’ implies both the shy violet and the violin.
47
‘Joachim spielte wunderbar schön, seine Frau sang himmlisch. – Unaufgefordert,
und ich glaube, sie hätten noch lange gespielt und gesungen, denn sie waren in der
Stimmung.’ Ibid., 463.
48
Ibid., 546, see also 438.
49
Ibid., 421 (1863) and 475 (1869).
50
M. von Olfers, Briefe, II, 5.
51
‘ein Meister, wenngleich ein verdrehter’, ibid., 7.
52
Jachmann-Wagner (1828–94), but their most intimate professional singing friend

was close to the Joachim family: Anna Schultzen von Asten (1836–1903), a pupil of
Pauline Viardot-Garcia.53
The hospitality of the Yellow Salon on the Museumsinsel ended in 1877,
when the widowed Hedwig von Olfers and her daughter Marie moved to the
Margaretenstraße south of the Tiergarten. The circle became smaller but retained
its old connections and interests. Hedwig von Olfers’s ninetieth birthday was cel-
ebrated by a concert of Anna Schultzen von Asten and her choir, a musical trib-
ute to her lifelong devotion to the Lied: Psalm 23 Gott ist mein Hirt (Schubert),
Eduard Mörike’s poem ‘Zum neuen Jahr’ (‘Wie heimlicher Weise, ein Engel leise’)
by Robert Kahn (1865–1951) and Hölty’s Minnelied (‘Holder klingt der Vogelsang’)
by Brahms.54 Fighting deafness at the end of her life, Frau von Olfers tried to keep
her inner sense of music, the treasure of musical remembrances in her heart.55 The
musicologist Professor Max Friedlaender, an habitué of the Olfers salon, recorded
that in September 1891 kind greetings were sent to the first Schöne Müllerin from the
inauguration of the Wilhelm-Müller-Monument in Dessau.56 When Hedwig von
Olfers died on 11 December 1891, Anna von Helmholtz (wife of the famous scientist
Hermann von Helmholtz) wrote: ‘She was the heroine of the Miller’s Songs … and
was the most charming, prettiest and best-beloved of all old ladies … always ready
for conversation, a graceful little specimen of femininity of long vanished times and
circumstances’.57
Marie von Olfers took over her mother’s salon and sometimes arranged musical
soirées, at which Joachim played; they reminisced about old times.58 After Joachim’s
death in 1907, Marie von Olfers attended his commemoration ceremony at the
Academy of Music: ‘First a chorale of Bach, then the funeral march of the Eroica,
and Brahms’s Nänie’. Everyone had to fight back the tears when Max Bruch deliv-
ered his memorial oration.59 But although Marie von Olfers remained loyal to her
dead friends, she was also interested in the works of young musicians. For example,
Leo Schrattenholz (1872–1955), a pupil of Max Bruch, set five poems by Hedwig von
Olfers to music, and dedicated them to Marie, perhaps for her eightieth birthday in
53
M. von Olfers, Briefe, II, 31 (1871), see also 171. Anna Schultzen von Asten became the
teacher of the talented Anna Richter (1851–79), the Olfers’s adopted daughter.
54
55
‘Wird einst den süß gewohnten Ohren / Der Töne Wonnereich entrückt, / Dem
innern Sinn bleibt unverloren, / Was ihn begeistert und entzückt.’ Olfers, Gedichte,
81.
56
Friedlaender, ‘Die Entstehung der Müllerlieder’, 307.
57
‘Sie war die Heldin des Müller Liedes … und war die liebenswürdigste, hübscheste,
geliebteste aller alten Damen … stets zur Conversation bereit, ein anmutiges
Stückchen Weiblichkeit vergangener Zeiten und Erscheinungen.’ E. von Siemens-
Helmholtz (ed.), Anna von Helmholtz: Ein Lebensbild in Briefen (Berlin: Verlag für
Kulturpolitik, 1929), II, 39–40.
58
M. von Olfers, Briefe, II, 258, 274 and 291.
59
Ibid., 277.
October 1906.60 Music, life and memories were inseparably interlaced. Marie von
Olfers and her sister Hedwig Abeken liked to visit the theatre and concerts, and
everything connected to Goethe’s Faust still raised a particularly keen interest. In
March 1909, Marie von Olfers attended and praised a renowned Faust production
by Max Reinhardt, though she would have preferred Radziwiłł’s compositions to
the ‘modern’ music.61 Three years later (1912) she went to a Berlin performance
of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. The Veni Creator Spiritus was too loud for
her taste, but she was deeply moved by the last part, the Faust-Symphony with the
choirs of the angels.62
At that time, Marie von Olfers had made the acquaintance of the pianist and
composer Adele aus der Ohe (1861–1937), a pupil of Franz Liszt and highly appreci-
ated by Peter Tchaikovsky. After many years abroad, she had returned to Germany
in 1906 and settled in Berlin.63 When Marie von Olfers could no longer attend con-
certs (her last was Brahms’s Requiem in 1915), aus der Ohe regularly played for her
and became a faithful friend. Marie von Olfers’s final years, overshadowed by the
worry and grief of the First World War, were lit up by friendship and art. After a visit
from the pianist Leonid Kreutzer (1884–1953) in 1917, she remarked gratefully that
‘music will not abandon me’.64 At the age of ninety-six, she was described listening
to Adele aus der Ohe playing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 110 for her – atten-
tively, with rapt concentration.65 Marie von Olfers died a year later, early in 1924, in
a domestic fire.
To professional musicians who were not friends of the family, the Staegemann-
Olfers salon meant very little. But for more than a century, music was integrated into
the everyday life and sociability of that family. Their salon was a living tradition of
Romanticism, where time and space contracted in the mirror of remembrance, and
where amateurs and professionals discussed a large spectrum of interdisciplinary
interests. When there was music, performers and listeners frequently changed their
roles and afterwards chatted in a friendly atmosphere. Elisabeth Staegemann had
regarded reading poetry aloud as an ‘interpreter’ (Dolmetscher) of ideas and feelings
(1801).66 The effects of music were even stronger. In 1879 Hedwig von Olfers called
music an ‘interpreter between the hearts’, explicitly referring to Mozart, Beethoven
and Radziwiłł’s Faust composition.67 The immediate communicative aspect of vocal
music fitted neatly into literary salon conversation. Moreover, music formed a bond
with past times and people. Old Hedwig von Olfers evoked the dear songs and mel-
odies of her youth, and asked them to accompany her on the way to eternity:
60
L. Schrattenholz, Fünf Gedichte von Hedwig von Olfers für eine Singstimme mit
Begleitung des Pianoforte, op. 39 (Berlin, Leipzig: Simrock, 1907).
61
M. von Olfers, Briefe, II, 285.
62
Ibid., 285 and 294–5.
63
Ibid., 291 (1911).
64
‘Wie schön, daß mich die Musik nicht verläßt.’ Ibid., 323.
65
Ibid., 318 and 341–2 (Sonata no. 31 in A-flat major, 1821).
66
Staegemann, Fragmente, 158.
67
Kehret wieder, kehret wieder, Come back, come back,

Schöne, liebe Melodieen! Dear, beautiful melodies!
Meine guten, alten Lieder! My good old songs!
Laßt mit Euch mich heimwärts ziehen.68 Let me travel homewards with you.
Instrumental music, on the other hand, in particular by Beethoven, played by great

masters like Joachim or aus der Ohe, expressed ideas which could not be put into
words and gained a metaphysical or almost religious dimension. The Staegemann-
Olfers salon exemplified how music could both provide aesthetic enjoyment and
help to enhance spiritual awareness and communication. There was a hermeneuti-
cal element in these social and cultural dynamics, and paradoxically, ‘seeing’ music
sharpened the ears. As E. T. A. Hoffmann had put it in 1815, ‘the solo player himself,
or the singer herself in a way becomes the resounding melody’.69
68
Olfers, Gedichte, 82.
69
Hoffmann, ‘Briefe über die Tonkunst in Berlin,’ in Werke, Vol. 14: Musikalische
Schriften II, 84: ‘[…] so wird der Solospieler, die Sängerin selbst die ertönende
Melodie!’ See also also P. Wilhelmy-Dollinger, ‘Literarische Salons um
E. T. A. Hoffmann’, E. T. A. Hoffmann Portal der Staatsbibliothek Berlin,
https://etahoffmann.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/erforschen/umfeld/salons/
(8 January 2019).
Chapter 13
Josephine Lang and the Salon in Southern Germany

Harald Krebs
S alons were of incalculable benefit to nineteenth-century women composers.

There, they were able to become acquainted with a broad array of prominent
musicians and with a broad spectrum of music. They were able to make contact with
people who could contribute to the development of their compositional careers.
They had the opportunity to be inspired by other musicians, including those of
their own gender.1 Salons provided them with venues in which their works could
be performed; such venues were, for most women composers, not easy to find. In
this chapter, I focus on Josephine Lang (1815–80), one of the best-known female
composers of her time, in order to point out the advantages (and occasional disad-
vantages) of her participation in the salons of southern Germany.2 With Lang, we
shall visit the salons of three centres: Munich, Stuttgart and Tübingen.3
Each of these locations was significant in Lang’s life. In Munich, her birthplace,
she received the minimal musical education which was granted to her. There, during
the 1830s, she experienced the first flowering of her compositional career, in the
form of intense productivity and a significant amount of publication. In 1840, at a
spa near Munich, she met the law professor and poet Christian Reinhold Köstlin
(1813–56). She married him in 1842 and moved to Tübingen, where he taught at
the university. Just before and during her marriage, she had the opportunity to visit
nearby Stuttgart, but she spent the bulk of her life after 1842 in Tübingen.
1
Johanna Kinkel, for instance, is eloquent in her memoirs about the deep impression
that Fanny Hensel’s playing and conducting made on her. ‘Aus Johanna Kinkel’s
Memoiren, Herausgegeben von ihrem Sohne Dr. Gottfried Kinkel’, Internationales
Jahrbuch der Bettina-von-Arnim Gesellschaft 8/9 (1996/97), 263–4.
2
Lang was quite famous throughout Germany during her lifetime; she had
considerable success in having her songs published, and enjoyed more support from
her male colleagues than most women composers. For detailed information about
her life and music, see H. and S. Krebs, Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
3
Very little has been written about salons in southwestern Germany. A few obscure
sources, taken together, provide the possibility of an overview: B. Zeller, ‘Literatur
und Geselligkeit: Karl Mayer und seine Freunde’, in Waiblingen in Vergangenheit
und Gegenwart: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stadt, ed. Heimatverein Waiblingen
(Waiblingen: Heimatverein, 1977), 97–116; H.-U. Simon, Stuttgarter Gesellschaft
um 1850: Justinus Kerner und Emma von Suckow, Briefwechsel, 2 vols (Stuttgart:
Hohenheim, 2012); E. Niendorf (pseud. E. von Suckow), Lenau in Schwaben: Aus
dem letzten Jahrzehnt seines Lebens (Leipzig: Herbig, 1855); T. Krause, ‘Eine schöne
Gesellschaft widmet sich der Kunst’, Die Welt (10 April 2004), http://www.welt.de/
print-welt/article305685/Eine-schoene-Gesellschaft-widmet-sich-der-Kunst.html
(22 July 2016); A. Blos, Frauen in Schwaben: 15 Lebensbilder (Stuttgart: Silberburg,
1929); M. Kazmaier, Tübinger Spaziergänge, 2nd edn (Pfullingen: Neske, 1979).
200 Harald Krebs
It was in Munich that Lang’s first and most prolonged exposures to salons took
place. Although it was already one of the larger cultural centres in Germany during
the 1830s, Munich was not at that time a stronghold of salon activity. Various nine-
teenth-century writers provided possible reasons for the paucity of salons. Both
the writer Otto Freiherr von Völderndorff and the theatre director and journalist
Franz Dingelstedt stated that southern Germans were not comfortable with inviting
people into their homes.4 The poet Felix Dahn, comparing salon culture in northern
and southern Germany, pointed out that Munich residents’ preference for gathering
at inns over beer, rather than in homes over tea, put a damper on the development
of salons in that city.5 Furthermore, Dahn wrote, houses in Munich were not con-
structed in a manner conducive to the hosting of a salon; these houses usually con-
tained no room in which a large group of guests could meet.6 Dahn also stated that
women in southern Germany were not educated and trained in a manner that would
have prepared them to host or even to attend a salon; they would, in general, have
known nothing about art, music and politics. They rose early, did their housework,
and retired early while their spouses went off to the inn to while away the evening
over beer. Although Dahn may be exaggerating the Münchnerin’s lack of social skills,
it is noteworthy that early nineteenth-century Munich salons were hosted by men.7
Josephine Lang participated in some of these circles, and they had a powerful
impact on her musical career. Lang’s son Heinrich Adolf Köstlin mentions several rel-
evant venues in his biography of his mother.8 His description of the home of the prom-
inent portrait painter Joseph Stieler as the ‘gathering-place of the best and noblest
minds of the Munich of that time [that is, 1830]’ indicates that this home functioned
as a salon (although it is not mentioned as such in other sources).9 Köstlin mentions
the ‘rich nourishment’ provided to Lang by her contacts with the fine minds that
4
O. Freiherr von Völderndorff, Harmlose Plaudereien eines alten Münchners (Munich:
C. H. Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1892), 239; F. Dingelstedt, Münchener
Bilderbogen (Berlin: Verlag von Gebrüder Paetel, 1879), 114–15.
5
F. Dahn, Erinnerungen (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1892), III, 155–63. Dahn, who
was born in Hamburg and relocated to Munich in his twenties, had experience of
salon culture in both northern and southern Germany.
6
Ernst Siebel has written about salons as physical spaces, with emphasis on Berlin, in
Der großbürgerliche Salon, 1850–1918: Geselligkeit und Wohnkultur (Berlin: Reimer,
1999). Since no comparable account exists for southern German salons, Dahn’s
statement about Munich architecture is difficult to verify.
7
Franz Hanfstaengl felt that Dahn had underestimated the Münchnerin; see
G. J. Wolf, Die Münchnerin: Kultur und Sittenbilder aus dem alten und neuen München
(Munich: Franz Hanfstaengl, 1924), 129. It must be noted that Munich salons after
1840 followed the Berlin model more closely in that they were usually hosted by
women (e.g. Franziska von Dönniges; Anna Heyse – the poet Paul Heyse’s second
wife; Elise Pacher; see Wolf, Die Münchnerin, 172–8).
8
H. A. Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang (Lebensabriß)’, in Sammlung musikalischer Vorträge,
ed. P. Waldersee (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1881), III, 56. Köstlin’s biography
contains some errors and some ‘white-washing’ of his father’s behaviour – but
since it is based on Lang’s diary (which unfortunately is not preserved) and on
autobiographical notes that she prepared in 1867, it is largely trustworthy.
9
‘Sammelpunkt der besten und edelsten Geister des damaligen München’. Köstlin,
‘Josefine Lang’, 57.
Josephine Lang and the Salon in Southern Germany 201
gathered there.10 He gives one specific example – Lang’s life-changing meeting with
one of the greatest musicians of the early nineteenth century, Felix Mendelssohn,
who visited Munich on his way to and back from Italy in 1830 and 1831, respectively.
During his visits, Mendelssohn participated in a sufficient number of Munich
salons to be able to make penetrating observations about them. He described a striking
difference between those of Munich and Berlin (his remarks on the latter likely being
based mainly on his experiences in his own home): in Berlin, silence reigned after a
musical performance, while the audience members thought about the music and tried
to formulate intelligent remarks about it, whereas in Munich, there was perambula-
tion, exchanging of opinions and even applause during a performance.11 Mendelssohn
also noted that young women at Munich gatherings played light and athletic pieces by
the likes of Henri Herz, and were ignorant of the piano music of the great classicists.
Through his own performances, Mendelssohn exposed his Munich audiences to ‘seri-
ous repertoire’, as he put it (for example Beethoven’s C minor Sonata).12
During Mendelssohn’s first visit, the Stielers asked Lang to perform some of her
songs for him. Enraptured by her talent, Mendelssohn demanded more and more
samples of her art. During his second visit the following year, he expressed amaze-
ment at her progress, and took her under his wing for the duration of his stay in
Munich, instructing her in counterpoint and figured bass, and giving her and her par-
ents advice about her future. She met him for lessons during each day of his sojourn
in Munich, and also at evening gatherings at the homes of the Stielers, Eichthals and
Kerstorfs (the latter two being related families, whose heads were engaged in the
worlds of finance and law).13 Lang learned just as much from Mendelssohn’s impro-
vising and his performances as from her lessons. Her contact with him ‘brought a
10
Ibid.
11
Mendelssohn to Goethe, Munich, 16 June 1830. Quoted in F. Rapp, Goethe und
München: Die Bedeutung unserer Stadt nach Goethes Tagebüchern und Briefen und
nach Mitteilungen seiner Freunde (Munich: Verlag der Münchener Volksbühne, 1932),
26–7. Mendelssohn was inclined to be critical of salons in cities other than Berlin;
see R. Wehner, ‘Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys Verhältnis zum musikalischen Salon
seiner Zeit’, in Die Musikveranstaltungen bei den Mendelssohns – Ein ‘musikalischer
Salon’? Die Referate des Symposions am 2. September 2006 in Leipzig, ed. H.-G. Klein
(Leipzig: Mendelssohn-Haus, 2006), 61–9, esp. 63 and 66.
12
Mendelssohn to Zelter, 22 June 1830. G. Selden-Goth (ed.), Felix Mendelssohn Letters
(London: Paul Elek, 1946), 82. Mendelssohn’s expectations of appropriate listening
behaviours were, of course, formed by his experiences in his family home in Berlin,
and his high standards for music to be performed by women in salons similarly grew
out of his family life. His derogatory remarks about Munich women may remind us
of those of another north German, Felix Dahn – but in Mendelssohn’s defence, it
must be stated that he recognised the extraordinary musical talent of more than one
Munich woman (Josephine Lang and Delphine von Schauroth). See R. L. Todd,
Mendelssohn: A Life in Music (Oxford and New York: OUP, 2003), 228–30.
13
Lang lists these three homes in her diary: ‘Hardly a day went by when I did not have
the good fortune to hear him play or improvise, at times at the Eichthals’, at times
at the Kerstorfs’, at times at the Stielers’’ (‘Es verging fast kein Tag, da ich nicht so
glücklich gewesen wäre, ihn spielen oder phantasiren zu hören, bald bei Eichthal’s,
bald bei Kersdorf’s, bald bei Stieler’s.’) Quoted in Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 58. I have
located no further information about the Kerstorf and Eichthal homes. Some of the
remarks about Munich salons in Mendelssohn’s letters must, however, be based on
his experiences in these homes. He stayed with the Kerstorfs in 1830; letters from his
202 Harald Krebs
complete upheaval in [her] being. His spirit brought [her] light, his creative activity
gave [her] an ideal.’14
Mendelssohn drew Lang’s and her family’s attention to what he perceived as the
dangers of her frequent salon performances. Lang wrote in her diary, ‘He spoke very
forcibly. He was very displeased with my goings-on hitherto. He chided me for wast-
ing my gifts at social gatherings – one must hold one’s talent sacred.’15 Mendelssohn
was particularly concerned that Lang’s genuine emotions during performance were
being treated as entertainment, and that the adulation she received might lead to a
state of self-satisfaction.16
Lang and her family did not heed Mendelssohn’s advice; she did not stop per-
forming at social gatherings and salons. Köstlin describes her life after Mendelssohn’s
departure as follows:
Daily she had to give up to eight hours of lessons in singing or piano, since her
teaching was sought out and in demand even in the highest society. She fre-
quently had to give up her evenings to social gatherings, in which the young artist
was truly pampered. She came into contact with the best people of the time; with
many of them, she entered into ties of friendship, which were not loosened even
by decades of separation.17
This quotation demonstrates that salons remained a dominant and a significant

component of Lang’s life throughout the 1830s. The reference to teaching provides
one reason for her continued attendance of salons: she needed to earn money to
contribute to her family’s income, and salons provided a ready source of affluent
family are addressed ‘Herrn Baron von Kerstorff [sic], für Herrn Felix Mendelssohn
Bartholdy’. MS. M. D. M. d28, nos 29 and 30, Mendelssohn MSS, Bodleian Library.
14
‘brachte in meinem Wesen eine völlige Umwälzung hervor. Sein Geist brachte mir Licht,
sein Schaffen gab mir ein Ideal.’ Quoted from Lang’s diary in Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 58.
15
‘Er sprach sehr eindringlich. Mit meinem bisherigen Treiben war er sehr unzufrieden.
Er schalt mich aus, daß ich in Gesellschaften meine Gaben verschleudere, man müsse
sein Talent heilig halten.’ Quoted in Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 58–9.
16
‘It has unfortunately become the custom to ask the little girl [to sing] songs, to
remove the candles from the piano, and to take pleasure together in her melancholy
… For it is possible that she may be ruined by all the talk … If she fell into a kind
of self-satisfaction, all would be over [with her].’ (‘So ist es nun gar leider Mode
geworden, das kleine Mädchen um Lieder zu bitten, ihr die Lichter vom Clavier
wegzunehmen, und sich an ihrer Melancholie in Gesellschaft zu erfreuen … Denn
es ist möglich, dass sie von alle dem Gerede noch verdorben werden kann …
Käme sie zu einer Art Zufriedenheit mit sich selbst so wäre es gleich vorbei.’) Felix
Mendelssohn, letter to his family (7 November 1831). *MNY++, Mendelssohn MSS,
New York Public Library, New York. Quoted in part in Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’,
59–60. Köstlin gives an incorrect date for the letter.
17
‘Täglich hatte sie bis zu acht Stunden Unterricht in Gesang oder Klavierspiel
zu ertheilen, da ihr Unterricht bis in die höchsten Kreise hinauf gesucht und
begehrt war. Die Abende mußte sie vielfach der Gesellschaft opfern, welche die
junge Künstlerin wahrhaft verhätschelte. Mit den Besten ihrer Zeit kam sie in
Berührung; mit vielen darunter knüpfte sie Freundschaftsbande, welche selbst durch
jahrzehntelange Entfernung nicht gelockert wurden.’ Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 61.
students. Another reason why she persisted in salon attendance, however, emerges
from the latter part of this quotation: she enjoyed the opportunities that they pro-
vided for making contact with other artists.18
By comparing biographical accounts of Lang’s early life and circle of friends with
contemporary sources about Munich salons, we can identify several gatherings in addi-
tion to those at the Stielers’, Kerstorfs’ and Eichthals’ in which she definitely or likely
took part. Lang was never in a position during her time in Munich to host gatherings at
her own family’s home. Her family, not at all well off, occupied a fifth-storey apartment
that was not suitable for large gatherings.19 One of the earliest descriptions of salons in
Munich, that of Sebastian Daxenberger, lists a number of homes where regular gath-
erings of intellectuals and artists took place during the 1830s. He mentions that each
Sunday the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (who taught at the uni-
versity in Munich from 1827 to 1841) hosted a soirée favoured by Munich’s Protestant
population.20 Although Lang was Catholic, she was friendly with Schelling’s daughter,
and therefore might have numbered among his guests at least occasionally.21
According to Daxenberger, Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius hosted another reg-
ular gathering.22 Martius was a botanist by profession, but also a poet, a fine violinist,
a violin-maker and a collector of instruments.23 Köstlin writes that Martius ‘counted
[Lang] among his friends’, a remark that in itself would render it likely that she visited
his home.24 Conclusive evidence of her attendance and musical activity there is fur-
nished by an account of one of her performances by the British writer Anna Jameson:
In the evening, a very lively and amusing soirée at the house of Dr. Martius … I
met here … a young lady of whom I had heard much – Josephine Lang, looking
so gentle, so unpretending, so imperturbable, that no one would have accused or
suspected her of being one of the Muses in disguise, until she sat down to the piano,
and sang her own beautiful and original compositions in a style peculiar to herself.25
18
See the discussion of Lang’s reminiscences of her time in Munich near the end of
this chapter.
19
Stephen Heller mentions the Langs’ modest accommodation in a letter to Robert
Schumann (Augsburg, August 22, 1838); see U. Kersten (ed.), Stephen Heller, Briefe
an Robert Schumann (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1988), 132.
20
S. F. Daxenberger, Münchener Hundert und Eins (Munich: Georg Franz, 1840–41),
85.
21
Köstlin mentions Josephine Lang and Klara Schelling’s close friendship (‘Josefine
Lang’, 62). The sparse information that I have located about the Schelling salon
contains no mention of the participation of musicians, but, on the other hand,
makes clear that women were present. An account by Mademoiselle Sylvestre (in a
letter dated 31 August 1833) mentions that on the occasions when she attended the
Schelling soirées, the guests were poets, painters and philosophers; see X. Tilliette
(ed.), Schelling im Spiegel seiner Zeitgenossen (Turin: Bottega d’erasmo, 1974), 362.
22
Daxenberger, Münchener Hundert und Eins, 85.
23
Martius’s musical activities are described in G. Schmid (ed.), Carl Gustav Carus und
Carl Fr. Ph. von Martius: Eine Altersfreundschaft in Briefen (Halle: Niemeyer, 1939), 6.
24
Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 62.
25
A. Jameson, Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad (London: Saunders and Otley,
1834), II, 19–20. I thank Aisling Kenny for drawing my attention to this source.
204 Harald Krebs
Further evidence of Lang’s attendance at the soirées at the Martius home are her
two unpublished settings of poems by Martius.26 When Martius travelled to South
America to gather botanical samples, he set down his experiences in the lengthy epic
Suitrams Fahrten (‘Suitram’ is his name in retrograde). He enjoyed reading excerpts
of it aloud; Lang likely gained access from his public readings to the unpublished
excerpts of his work that she set to music.27
One more Munich salon must be mentioned – that of the artist Wilhelm
Kaulbach, whom Köstlin lists among non-musicians who ‘sought out [Lang’s] com-
pany’.28 A regular gathering took place in his home as early as 1840.29 Felix Dahn
mentions that music played a major role at the Kaulbachs’.30 The artist also had the
habit of sketching during social gatherings.31 It is to this habit that we likely owe his
portrait of Josephine Lang (Figure 13.1).32 This may be a representation of Lang as
she performed; one can imagine the arms as continuing onto a keyboard.
Although, after her long days of teaching, having to spend a lot of time and
energy at salons during the evenings was a strain on Lang’s health and a distraction
from composition, the salons she attended in Munich brought her many benefits.
Most important of these was the establishment of a professional network. We see
this effect at work in the fortuitous meeting with Felix Mendelssohn, who not only
remained her friend and supporter, but also brought her to the attention of other
musicians, such as the composer and conductor Ferdinand Hiller (who assisted her
during the financially and emotionally difficult years of her widowhood).33
26
Two autographs of each song are preserved at the Württembergische
Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart: ‘Durch die ganze Schöpfung bebet’, Cod. mus. fol. 53m,
12r–12v, and Cod. mus. fol. 53p, 4v–5v; and ‘Nachts auf’s Lager hingestreckt’,
53o, 9r–11r, and 53p, 5v–8v. The songs are not dated, but judging by the dates of
surrounding songs in the respective booklets, they originated in the mid-1830s.
27
‘Here, Martius reads from Suitrams Travels, the fine epic of his trips to Brazil.’
(‘Martius liest hier in Suitrams Fahrten[,] das schöne Epos seiner Reise nach
Brasilien.’) Daxenberger, Münchener Hundert und Eins, II, 107. Daxenberger is here
describing a typical meeting of the Verein ‘Die Zwanglosen’ (The Casual Ones)
rather than a gathering at Martius’s home. Martius’s manuscript is preserved at the
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. The portions that Lang set to music are in
Martiusiana I, B, 1, 1, and I, B, 1, 6.
28
‘suchten ihren Umgang’. Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 62.
29
I. Kaulbach, Friedrich Kaulbach: Erinnerungen an mein Vaterhaus (Berlin: Verlag von
E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1931), 22.
30
Dahn, Erinnerungen, III, 175. Dahn here describes salons in the 1850s, but there is no
reason to suppose that the earlier phase of the Kaulbach salon was different with
respect to musical activity.
31
See Dahn, Erinnerungen, III, 176, and von Völderndorff, Harmlose Plaudereien eines
alten Münchners, 247.
32
Lang included this portrait in her souvenir album, now housed at the Archive of the
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien (Fellinger papers, I. N. 23970, 13r).
33
Hiller’s major contribution to Lang’s career was his publication of a widely read
biographical essay, first in a Cologne newspaper for which he wrote a column, then
in a book of musical essays. ‘Musikalische Briefe von Ferdinand Hiller: X. Josephine
Lang, die Lieder-Componistin’, Kölner Zeitung 148/Erstes Blatt (29 May 1867), 3; F.
© Archiv der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien
Figure 13.1 Wilhelm Kaulbach, portrait of Josephine Lang

We turn now to the salons that Lang likely or definitely visited in Swabia. Stuttgart,
the largest city in the area, was the primary centre of salon activity. Bernhard
Zeller stresses that ‘the external format of [Swabian] cultural socialising cannot be
imagined modestly and simply enough’ in comparison to its counterparts in Berlin or
Munich.34 He lists the names of a few hosts: August Hartmann and Georg Reinbeck,
Gottlob Heinrich von Rapp, and Gustav Schwab.35 The Hartmann/Reinbeck home
was a particularly prominent centre of social and intellectual life.36 The poet Karl
Hiller, ‘Josephine Lang, die Lieder-Componistin’, in Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit
(Leipzig: H. Mendelssohn, 1868), II, 116–36.
34
‘Die äußeren Formen dieser kulturellen Geselligkeit können nicht anspruchslos,
nicht einfach genug gedacht werden.’ Zeller, ‘Literatur und Geselligkeit’, 102.
35
Ibid.
36
The Hartmanns were the older generation; Emilie, their daughter, married Georg
Reinbeck, and she and Reinbeck shared the home. See Blos, Frauen in Schwaben, 110;
206 Harald Krebs
Gerok writes that this home was ‘among the most erudite of the city’, that it was ‘one
of the few in which, according to northern custom, tea-circles took place’ and that it
was ‘frequented by notable individuals from elsewhere as well as by Swabian poets
and authors’.37 Through the writings of Emma von Suckow, the spouse of a member
of the Stuttgart military garrison, we learn that there was a considerable amount of
musical activity at the Reinbeck gatherings. The poet Nikolaus Lenau was a frequent
listener or participant (as a violinist) when he was in Stuttgart, and the composer
Emilie Zumsteeg performed her songs there.38 Lenau’s attendance at this salon tes-
tifies to its high intellectual level, for he generally abhorred such gatherings, refer-
ring to the ‘great evil’ of desultory, fragmented conversation that was rampant in the
salons of the haut monde.39
Emma von Suckow herself hosted a salon that met regularly, from the late 1830s
until the 1850s. Little is known about it, beyond the fact that Eduard Mörike was a
prominent guest.40 A third Stuttgart salon was that of Wilhelmine Köstlin (1798–
1867), an aunt of Lang’s husband.41 Since Wilhelmine, the granddaughter of the
aforementioned civil servant and teacher August Hartmann, grew up in a home that
hosted a salon, it is not surprising that she later established her own. Music-making
played a major role there; a frequent participant was her talented daughter, Mimi
Köstlin, a singer who specialised in Lieder. She often performed Schubert’s songs,
including Die schöne Müllerin (in February 1848) and Winterreise (in January 1865).
What was Josephine Lang’s connection to these salons? She first visited Stuttgart
in October 1841, when Reinhold Köstlin introduced her to his family, and she
returned occasionally after they took up residence in Tübingen. Although it is likely
that she participated in the three aforementioned salons when in Stuttgart, concrete
evidence is sparse. Lang and her husband were acquainted with Lenau, the star guest
of the Reinbeck salon – but there is no record of their attendance. Similarly, there
is no documentation of Lang’s participating in Emma von Suckow’s gatherings,
although the two women knew each other well from Munich.42 Emma’s voluminous
K. Gerok, Jugenderinnerungen (Bielefeld: Verlag von Velhagen & Klasing, 1876), 168;
Niendorf, Lenau in Schwaben, 6.
37
‘Auch gehörte sein Haus zu den gebildetsten der Stadt und war eines der wenigen,
in welchen nach nordischer Sitte ästhetische Thee-Zirkel stattfanden und außer
den schwäbischen Dichtern und Schriftstellern auch auswärtige Notabilitäten
verkehrten.’ Gerok, Jugenderinnerungen, 168–9.
38
Niendorf, Lenau in Schwaben, 10, 17, 18. In one of the references to Emilie Zumsteeg
(p. 17), her name is given as ‘Erminie’; such disguising of names is typical of
Niendorf’s writings.
39
Niendorf, Lenau in Schwaben, 13.
40
Simon, Stuttgarter Gesellschaft um 1850, 448–9.
41
This salon has been researched by a descendant of the hostess, Tilman Krause. He
gleaned his information about the weekly gatherings in Wilhelmine’s home from
her unpublished diary, which spans the years 1838 to 1865. See Krause, ‘Eine schöne
Gesellschaft widmet sich der Kunst’.
42
Emma was the sister of Lang’s best friend in Munich, the singer and poet Agnes
von Calatin. She had heard Lang sing and play at gatherings in Munich; she begins
her book Reisescenen in Bayern, Tyrol und Schwaben with an account of Lang’s
performance in July 1839 at an unnamed Munich salon (probably that of Martius,
correspondence with the poet Justinus Kerner frequently alludes to Josephine Lang
and her songs, but does not mention that she was a guest at her salon in Stuttgart.43
In the case of Wilhelmine Köstlin’s salon, a definite connection with Lang exists
– not surprisingly, given the family relationship. Wilhelmine’s diary mentions
Lang’s presence in her home in only one entry, that for 22 April 1851; she writes
that ‘Josefine and Mimi sang many new songs composed by Josefine’.44 Other diary
entries record Mimi’s renditions of Lang’s songs without mentioning the latter’s
attendance. On 29 July 1851, Mimi performed a new song that Lang had dedicated
to her.45 On 23 March 1859, Wilhelmine mentions ‘a small gathering at our house for
the purpose of music-making. Josephine Lang’s songs play the primary role.’46 The
next, and final, mention of Lang is on 14 October 1865; it reads simply ‘New songs
by Josefine Lang’. Even if Lang did not frequently visit this salon, she was amply
represented through her songs.
The final stop of our Josephine Lang salon tour is Tübingen. In a few homes
within this small town, regular meetings of intellectuals and artists took place.
One of these was the home of the writer Ottilie Wildermuth (1817–77). She began
by hosting occasional Thee-Abende, but soon increased their frequency to once a
week.47 Her circle was dubbed ‘Breikranz’ (Porridge Circle) because of the simplic-
ity of the refreshments, but this simplicity did not detract from the popularity of her
gatherings. There were two groups of attendees: the women of Tübingen and uni-
versity students.48 The latter engaged in discussions of controversial issues, during
which Wildermuth skilfully smoothed over any incursions of acrimony. Her ability
to guide a conversation is one of the marks of a true salonnière.49 The circle endured
since the host is described as a fine violinist). E. Niendorf (pseudonym for Emma
von Suckow), Reisescenen in Bayern, Tyrol und Schwaben (Stuttgart: Verlag von
Ebner & Seubert, 1840), 1–2.
43
Simon, Stuttgarter Gesellschaft um 1850, I, 145, 158, 160, 353, 354, 429 and 494.
44
‘Josefine und Mimi sangen viele neue, von Josefine komponierte Lieder.’ This
remark is rather puzzling, for Lang did not compose ‘many new songs’ during her
marriage. I thank Tilman Krause for sharing with me the excerpts of Wilhelmine
Köstlin’s unpublished diary that mention Lang.
45
Eight years later, in 1859, Lang published Drei Lieder Op. 23, dedicated to Mimi
Köstlin. Op. 23 no. 2, ‘In Welschland’, was composed in 1849, and could therefore be
one of the ‘new’ songs that was performed on 29 July 1851.
46
‘Eine kleine Gesellschaft zum Musizieren bei uns. Josefine Langs Lieder spielen die
Hauptrolle.’
47
Kazmaier, Tübinger Spaziergänge, 101.
48
‘Ottilie also created a circle, the so-called “Porridge Circle” because the refreshments
were so very unassuming … Ottilie was a true mother to the Tübingen students.
They came to her Teetisch from all lands.’ (‘Auch einen Kranz gründete Ottilie, den
sog. “Breikranz”, weil die Bewirtung gar so einfach war … Den Tübinger Studenten
war Ottilie eine wahre Mutter. Aus allen Ländern kamen sie zu ihrem Teetisch.’)
Blos, Frauen in Schwaben, 157, 162.
49
‘All issues that occupy the world and especially its young people were discussed,
without any occurrence of disharmony, for the woman of the house was supremely
skilled at smoothing upwelling waves of excitement and at mediating differences
of opinion’. (‘[A]lle Fragen, die die Welt, besonders auch die Jugend bewegen,
wurden erörtert, ohne daß es jemals zu Disharmonien kam, denn die Hausfrau
208 Harald Krebs
for no less than thirty-four years.50 Lang and Wildermuth admired each other and
displayed this admiration in their respective art forms. Wildermuth wrote a poem
for Lang in her souvenir album; the poem, dated ‘Tübingen October 1854’, makes
clear that Wildermuth honoured Lang for her talent and fame, as well as for con-
scientiously attending to her household tasks.51 Lang, in turn, composed settings
of three of Wildermuth’s poems, two of which were published.52 Heinrich Adolf
Köstlin writes that Wildermuth visited Lang’s home.53 We may assume that Lang
reciprocated by attending the gatherings in Wildermuth’s home.
Additional Tübingen homes in which Geselligkeit occurred were those of prom-
inent university professors. The social gatherings in these homes marked a con-
trast with what Martin Kazmaier calls the typical ‘Tübinger narrowness’ (Tübinger
Enge).54 The Köstlin-Lang villa was, according to Heinrich Adolf Köstlin’s biogra-
phy and Kazmaier’s account of nineteenth-century Tübingen society, one of these
hospitable homes. Köstlin gives both of his parents credit for the popularity of their
home as a gathering place. He describes his father’s attributes as a host as follows:
Reinhold Köstlin was a thoroughly erudite, and at the same time stimulating and
popular teacher, additionally equipped with the gifts of gregariousness and of the
muse – a highly humorous, lovable and scintillating conversationalist.55
He credits his mother with musical contributions to the home’s social life: ‘The artist
never spared her gifts when it came to enhancing the joys of social communion.’56
Kazmaier refers to the ‘brilliant gathering of art-loving people’ in their home,57 and
verstand es meisterhaft, hochgehende Wogen der Erregung zu glätten und bei

Meinungsverschiedenheiten zu schlichten.’) Blos, Frauen in Schwaben, 162. It is
interesting to note that Wildermuth’s spouse, the philologist and Lyzeum instructor
Wilhelm David Wildermuth, is not mentioned in accounts of the Wildermuth salon;
it appears that it was hosted exclusively by Ottilie.
50
‘Vierunddreißig Jahre lang fanden sich hier Freundinnen zusammen, die Freud und
Leid treulich miteinander trugen.’ Blos, Frauen in Schwaben, 157.
51
Fellinger papers, Archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, I. N. 23970,
36r.
52
‘Glockenblume’ Op. 30 no. 1; ‘Wiegenlied in stürmischer Zeit’ Op. 30 no. 2; ‘Der
lieben Mutter zur guten Nacht’ (1874), unpublished song, Württembergische
Landesbibliothek, Cod. mus. fol. 54d, 28r–30r, and Archive of the Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde in Wien, Musikautographe Josephine Lang 21.
53
Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 82.
54
Kazmaier, Tübinger Spaziergänge, 124. Kazmaier’s expression ‘Enge’ may refer to the
aforementioned southern German characteristic of reluctance to open one’s doors
to guests.
55
‘Reinhold Köstlin war ein grundgelehrter, dabei anregender und beliebter Lehrer;
dazu reich ausgestattet mit Gaben der Geselligkeit und der Muse, ein höchst
humoristischer, liebenswürdiger und geistreicher Gesellschafter.’ Köstlin, ‘Josefine
Lang’, 79.
56
‘Nie kargte die Künstlerin mit ihren Gaben, [pp] wenn es galt, die Freuden der
Geselligkeit zu verschönern.’ Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 81–2.
57
‘Glänzende Gesellschaft kunstliebender Menschen’. Kazmaier, Tübinger
Spaziergänge, 124; Köstlin, ‘Josefine Lang’, 81.
Köstlin provides a long list of illustrious guests, including university professors,

poets (Ludwig Uhland, Berthold Auerbach, Emanuel Geibel, Friedrich Vischer,
Karl Gerok) and musicians (Immanuel Faißt and Friedrich Silcher). It is not clear
how frequently the gatherings in Lang’s home took place. Neither of the cited writ-
ers connects them to a particular day of the week, or indeed states that they took
place on a regular basis. It is unlikely that Josephine Lang was able to maintain a jour
fixe. She had a large family, few servants and little money at her disposal; the added
work and expense of frequent entertaining would have been beyond her capacity.
The gatherings in the Lang/Köstlin home ended when Reinhold Köstlin died in
1856. The years of Lang’s widowhood became increasingly lonely, as her children
died or moved away. She did have occasional visitors, but did not host large gather-
ings. She avoided travel to Stuttgart after Köstlin’s death, and thus dropped out of
the salon scene in that city as well.58 However, she continued to attend occasional
social gatherings in Tübingen. She mentions in letters to Ferdinand Hiller in 1866
and 1870 that she acted as a performer and conductor during numerous festivities
in ‘private circles’ while the princes of Württemberg (her singing students) were
attending the university. She thoroughly enjoyed these events, but also found them
wearing.59
During her years in Swabia, Lang looked back at her time in Munich with nostal-
gia – particularly at the opportunities to associate with artists and musicians of the
highest rank. She wrote to Hiller:
I am never more comfortable than when communing with artists! And it is my

fate to have lacked this necessary requirement for 26 years! – that is, for 11 years!
For as long as my dear husband lived, I did not miss it! With him, I was always
able to speak about art[;] he had such a profound understanding of everything
and always the most correct opinion!60
Before the qualifying phrase ‘that is, for 11 years’, Lang mentions the number twen-
ty-six, which, subtracted from the year of the letter, yields 1842 – her last year in
Munich. Clearly, the gatherings that she attended and hosted in Swabia did not
provide her with the degree of artistic stimulation and inspiration to which she
58
‘Since my husband’s death, since I was in Stuttgart with him, I have been unable to
decide to see this city ever again – this city in which many dear relatives and friends
live! (Although one can get there so easily in a few hours.)’ (‘Ich habe seit meines
Mannes Tod, seit ich mit ihm in Stuttgart war–diese Stadt, wo mir viele l. Verwandte
u. Freunde leben–zu sehen mich nie mehr entschließen können! (Während man
doch in ein paar Stunden so leicht hingelangen kann!–).’) Lang to Hiller, 23 March
1867, Hiller papers, no. 36 (185), Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln.
59
Lang to Hiller, 5 December 1866, Hiller papers, no. 36 (13), Historisches Archiv der
Stadt Köln; Lang to Hiller, 27 February 1870, Hiller papers, no. 39 (123), Historisches
Archiv der Stadt Köln.
60
‘[M]ir ist es nie wohler, als im Verkehr mit denselben! Und gerade mir ist dieses
nothwendige Bedürfniß zu entbehren seit 26 Jahren beschieden!–d.h. seit 11 Jahren!
Denn so lange mein l. Gatte lebte–vermißte ich sie nicht! Mit ihm konnte ich immer
über d. Kunst sprechen[;] er hatte ein so tiefes Verständniß über Alles, u. stets das
richtigste Urtheil!’ Lang to Ferdinand Hiller, 27 April 1868; Hiller papers, no. 37
(369), Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln.
210 Harald Krebs
had been accustomed in Munich. Whereas most of the southern German salons in
which she took part offered opportunities for the performance of her works (the
possible exception being the Wildermuth salon, which may have lacked a piano)
and whereas all of them provided the possibility of interactions with poets, thereby
functioning as sources of texts for her Lieder, the Munich salons were the only ones
in which she participated that were frequented by musicians of a calibre such that
they could inspire her, guide her and influence the progress of her career as a com-
poser. Lang’s immense productivity during her Munich years was likely in large part
a result of her participation in that city’s salons.
In his ‘Versuch einer Theorie des geselligen Betragens’, the most thoroughgo-
ing philosophical investigation of social impulses of the late eighteenth century,
Friedrich Schleiermacher refers to Geselligkeit as a state that ‘puts the sphere of an
individual into a position such that it can be intersected in as many ways as possible
by the spheres of others, and such that at each of its boundaries it provides [the indi-
vidual] a vantage point into other and unfamiliar worlds’.61 This remark perfectly
encapsulates the effects of the salon on women composers, and on Josephine Lang
in particular. In the salon environment (especially in Munich), Lang’s sphere, oth-
erwise narrowly circumscribed by her household tasks and her work as a teacher,
intersected with the much more extensive spheres of prominent composers, per-
formers, artists and writers, with profound consequences for her creative existence.
But this intersection also affected those with whom Lang was brought into contact
within the salon. For Felix Mendelssohn, as he wrote to his family, hearing her per-
form her songs was ‘the most perfect musical pleasure that he had yet been grant-
ed’.62 And Mendelssohn vividly described the impact of Lang’s performances on
salon audiences: ‘When she sings the first note with her delicate voice, everybody
becomes quiet and thoughtful, and everybody is in his way touched through and
through’63 – this in a city in which perambulation, conversation and applause during
performance were apparently the norm! Lang’s songs were not designed to provide
ephemeral and superficial entertainment, and her singing and playing did not con-
sist of the ‘dazzling rope-tricks’ that Mendelssohn had recognised as being typical of
women’s performances in Munich salons.64 With her songs and her performances
of them, Lang was able to draw her listeners into her sphere and to transform them.
This is the kind of experience that the salon, at its best, was able to grant to its guests.
61
‘Es muß also einen Zustand geben, der diese beiden ergänzt, der die Sphäre eines
Individui in die Lage bringt, daß sie von den Sphären Anderer so mannigfaltig
als möglich durchschnitten werde, und jeder seiner eignen Grenzpunkte ihm die
Aussicht in eine andere und fremde Welt gewähre.’ F. Schleiermacher, ‘Versuch
einer Theorie des geselligen Betragens’, Berlinisches Archiv der Zeit und ihres
Geschmacks 5/1 (1799), 163.
62
‘es ist die vollkommenste musikalische Freude, die mir bis jetzt wohl zu Theil
geworden ist’. Mendelssohn to his family, 7 November 1831.
63
‘Wenn sie dann mit ihrer zarten Stimme den ersten Ton singt, da wird es jedem
Menschen still und nachdenklich zu Muthe, und jeder auf seine Weise durch und
durch ergriffen.’ Ibid.
64
Mendelssohn to Zelter, 22 June 1830. Selden-Goth (ed.), Felix Mendelssohn Letters,
82.
Chapter 14
Jessie Hillebrand and Musical Life in 1870s Florence *

Michael Uhde
J essie Taylor Laussot Hillebrand (1826–1905) has received little scholarly

attention.1 Yet her activities in Florence as a salon hostess, piano pedagogue, and
founder and director of the first choral society in Italy (initially the Società Musicale
Fiorentina, later the Società Cherubini, established in 1860) were important in
Italian musical life.2 Typically, these activities overlapped; for example, the Società
rehearsals initially took place in Jessie’s home, where she also hosted her salon.
Her significance is largely evaluated through her close relationships with Richard
Wagner, Hans von Bülow and Franz Liszt. A recent collection edited by Mariateresa
Storino focuses on her relationship with the latter.3 An essay by David Cormack
clears up some misunderstandings and provides many facts, but also pleads for an
‘abduction [of Jessie Laussot] from the [Wagner’s] Seraglio’.4 Key to this is the
reassessment of her unpublished correspondence, which remains largely unscru-
tinised. So far, at least 380 letters sent to at least thirty-two recipients have been
located, above all her revealing correspondence with Hans von Bülow, Adolf von
Hildebrand, Julie Ritter (1824–64?) and Johanna Fuchs (1833–74). Most of these
letters deal with matters of business and networking while others, such as Bülow’s
and Ritter’s, are deeply personal in nature.
Drawing on hitherto unpublished correspondence, this chapter offers a series
of chronologically organised vignettes from the 1860s and 1870s which convey the
role of Jessie’s Florence salon connections in mediating the success of her protégés,
*
I herewith express my deep gratitude to Katharina Uhde, Sven Nyholm, Charles
Cornut, Karl August Neuhausen, Natasha Loges and Anja Bunzel for valuable help
and support.
1
She had three surnames (née Taylor, after her marriage in 1844 Laussot, and after her
second marriage, in 1879, Hillebrand); here she is referred to as Jessie.
2
Atti dell’ Accademia del R. Istituto Musicale di Firenze, Anno nono (Firenze:
Stabilimento Civelli, 1871), 68.
3
M. Storino (ed.), Franz Liszt e Jessie Taylor Laussot Hillebrand, Un capitolo inedito
della storia musicale dell’ Ottocento (Lucca: LIM Libreria Italiana Musicale, 2016);
M. Storino, ‘New Liszt Letters to Jessie Laussot’, in Franz Liszt, Lectures et Écritures,
ed. F. Fix, L. le Diagon-Jacquin and G. Zaragoza (Paris: Hermann, 2012), 131–48;
B. M. Antolini, ‘Jessie Laussot musicista e organizzatrice di cultura nella Firenze del
secondo Ottocento’, in Storia di una ‘novità’: la direzione d’orchestra al femminile: Atti
della Giornata internazionale di studi (Firenze: Società Italiana di Musicologia, 2004),
141–61. Antolini incorrectly states in her essay ‘Una vita per la musica: Jessie Taylor
Laussot Hillebrand’ in Franz Liszt e Jessie Taylor Laussot Hillebrand, 19, that only a
few of Jessie’s letters were preserved.
4
D. Cormack, ‘An Abduction from the Seraglio, Rescuing Jessie Laussot’, The Wagner
Journal 6/1 (2012), 50–63; R. Wagner, Mein Leben (Munich: Bruckmann, 1914), II,
194, 287. See also D. Mack, Wagners Frauen (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2013); La Mara (Ida
Marie Lipsius), Liszt und die Frauen (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1911).
212 Michael Uhde
including Ettore Pinelli (1843–1915), Giovanni Sgambati (1841–1914) and Giuseppe

Buonamici (1846–1914); and how the musical and social opportunities afforded by
her choral society enabled her to navigate her relationships with von Bülow, Liszt and
Wagner on several levels, as well as influencing Italian music institutional life. The
aim here is not so much to explore the musical details of Jessie’s salon, but to reveal
how the connections she cultivated there enabled her to fulfil overlapping private
and professional agendas. Her activities can be seen as a reflection of her self-percep-
tion as a cultural mediator between different cultural and national spheres.
Born in London on 27 December 1826, Jessie Taylor went to Dresden in 1842 to
study the piano. She had learned German from her father, an important translator
of German literature.5 In Dresden she encountered many musicians, including von
Bülow, who studied with the same piano teacher, Cäcilie Schmiedel (who died in
1848).6 On 8 August 1844, the seventeen-year-old Jessie married the Burgundian
wine merchant Eugène Laussot (1820–78).7 She lived with him and her mother Ann
Taylor (1799–1883) in Bordeaux. The marriage was unhappy; after it failed in the
mid-1850s, Jessie moved to Florence, where from the 1860s onwards she developed a
thriving salon as well as various connected musical and social initiatives. The writer
Karl Hillebrand (1829–84), with whom she was already involved long before their
marriage in 1879, was an important comrade-in-arms.
The salon convened at her house in Lungarno Nuovo (see Figure 14.1). The paint-
ings on the wall show (from left to right) Jessie’s father Edgar Taylor; Raffaelo Sanzio’s
painting La Madonna della Seggiola; and Hillebrand. Jessie, who used the nickname
‘Madonna’ in some letters, possibly placed Raffaelo’s picture in the middle because
she identified with the figure. Another significant detail is the 1885 bronze sculpture of
Hillebrand on the left, now in the Kunsthalle Bremen; this was made by the sculptor
Adolf von Hildebrand (1847–1921), who after his arrival in Florence in 1876 became
a lifelong friend (she called him ‘Herzensgrig’; he in turn referred to her as ‘My dear-
est Herzensmütterchen’). Von Hildebrand also benefited professionally from Jessie’s
social connections; he immortalised numerous musicians through his art, including a
painting of Joseph Joachim (formerly in Berlin), the monument of Johannes Brahms
in Meiningen, several portraits of the conductor Hermann Levi (1839–1900) and a
plaster bust of Clara Schumann. He himself played the violin and viola.
In a letter to his mother shortly after his arrival, von Hildebrand evoked the
dynamics of Jessie’s salon as well as her role in the success of her protégés:
[Jessie] got hold of … Buonamici, when he was 15 years old … and created a fine
musician out of a lazy boy. I was there yesterday evening. One arrives from half
5
Edgar Taylor (1793–1839) was a successful lawyer as well as a writer and translator.
He translated Grimm’s Fairy Tales into English for the first time and frequently
corresponded with the Grimm brothers. His sister Emily Taylor (1795–1872) and his
cousin Harriet Martineau (1802–76) were also writers.
6
Cäcilie Schmiedel was married to the composer Max Carl Eberwein (1814–75).
7
Under the title ‘Married’ we find on p. 8 in The Morning Chronicle (Saturday, 10
August 1844): ‘On the 8th instant, at St. George’s, Hanover-square, and afterwards
at the French Catholic Chapel, Little George-street, Portman-square, Mr. Eugène
Laussot, of Burgundy, to Jessie, only daughter of the late Edgar Taylor, Esq., of
Bedford-row.’
Jessie Hillebrand and Musical Life in Florence 213
Figure 14.1 Jessie Laussot Hillebrand’s salon, Lungarno Nuovo, Florence

© Technische Universität Munich, Architekturmuseum (hild-672-1002)
past nine onwards and leaves when one wants, is completely uninhibited, and
indeed finds the best of Florence there. There were a few nice people there and
so one was well amused in a small circle in English, German and Italian in turn.8
The salon thus offered relaxed encounters with both the ‘best’ of Florence and inter-
national visitors.
For Jessie, supporting local musicians entailed, among other things, exploiting
such connections to enable them to study music in Germany so that they might
refine their native talent with German ‘ideals’. She was involved in the musical edu-
cation of the pianists Walter Bache (1842–88), Buonamici and Sgambati, and her
links to figures like Liszt and von Bülow were decisive for their subsequent careers.
For example, in a letter to Emilia Peruzzi née Toscanelli (1826–1900), another
leading figure in Florentine salon culture discussed in more detail below, Jessie
8
‘Sie [Jessie] hat … Buonamici, als er 15 Jahre alt war aufgegabelt … und aus einem
faulen Jungen einen feinen Musiker gemacht. Dort war ich dann auch gestern abend.
Man kommt da von halb 9 Uhr an und geht wann man will, ist ganz ungeniert und
findet da wohl das beste von Florenz. Es waren da nette wenige Leute und so war
man in kleinem Kreise einmal englisch, einmal deutsch, und einmal italienisch gut
unterhalten.’ B. Sattler (ed.), Adolf von Hildebrand und seine Welt (Munich: Georg
D. W. Callwey, 1962), 127.
214 Michael Uhde
proposed the then 23-year-old pianist Buonamici for a Società concert, endorsing
him through her connection with von Bülow:
A pupil of mine, Mr Buonamici, son of Professor of Materia Medica at S[anta]

M[aria] Nuova’s Hospital, must be heard. Since last June I have placed him at the
Munich Conservatory under my friend, Mr de Bülow, who is the Director of the
Conservatory, and also the greatest living virtuoso and the most eminent Professor
of Piano. This young Florentine, endowed with a great natural talent, has made
most surprising progress in these ten months within a truly artistic atmosphere.9
Jessie’s confident ‘je l’ai placé’ implies her closeness to von Bülow, as well as her
willingness to exploit that connection in pursuit of her aims. Apart from von Bülow,
exposure to German musical culture was crucial to improving Italian musical stand-
ards, in her view:
I have long been convinced that the fortunate predisposition of the Italians
requires only the stimulus of a healthy artistic atmosphere to make them the most
eminent musicians.10
As with Buonamici, Jessie also shaped the violinist Ettore Pinelli’s development,
sending him to study with Joseph Joachim in Hanover. She wrote to Peruzzi:
Animated by the thought that only a transplantation of two or three years of a few
fortunately gifted young people, well chosen with regard not only to their natural
talent but also to their character, which should give guarantees of reliability and
sufficient nobility to justify the hope that they would dedicate themselves to the
new knowledge they will have acquired of a development of art from an elevated,
not purely mercenary, point of view, and that this transplantation would suffice to
ensure a brilliant future for Italy, I have made an attempt with two young artists,
a Roman, Ettore Pinelli, who spent two years in Germany and who makes every
effort in Rome to improve the taste – the other Giuseppe Buonamici, who I hope
is destined for a fine career, like a Virtuoso of first order, as Composer and as
Professor.11
9
‘Un élève à moi, M. Buonamici, fils de Professeur de Materia Medica à l’hôpital de
S. M. Nuova, doit s’y faire entendre. Depuis le mois de juin de l’année dernière je
l’ai placé au Conservatoire de Munich sous mon ami, Monsieur de Bülow, qui en
est le Directeur, et qui est en même temps le plus grand Virtuose et le plus éminent
Professeur de Piano existant. Ce jeune Florentin, doué d’un grand talent naturel, a
fait dans ces dix mois de séjour dans une atmosphère vraiment artistique des progrès
si étonnants.’ Letter from Jessie to Emilia Peruzzi of 27 March 1869, Biblioteca
Nazionale Firenze, Fondo Emilia Peruzzi, Ms E Per 107 28, hereinafter: FEP.
10
‘Depuis longtemps j’ai acquis la conviction qu’avec l’heureuse organisation des
Italiens, il ne leur faudrait que le stimulans d’une atmosphère artistique saine pour
en faire les musiciens les plus éminents.’ Letter from Jessie to Emilia Peruzzi of 27
March 1869, FEP.
11
‘Animée par la pensée qu’il ne faudrait que la transplantation pendant deux ou
trois ans de quelques jeunes gens heureusement doués et bien choisis eu égard
Unlike Buonamici, Pinelli was obviously not taught by Jessie, hence her support
of him is less well known. Nevertheless, as the letter below from Pinelli to Joachim
strongly implies, it was she who established contact between the two men; although
it bears Pinelli’s signature, she was most likely the unnamed ‘lady’ who translated,
possibly even dictated it:
30 June 1864
Highly esteemed Sir,
In the hope that you will excuse me if I dare to put before you a request which is of
the greatest importance to my future at a time when you are so busy, I am taking
the liberty of sending two recommendations with these lines, which, as I cannot
yet speak the German language, have been translated for me by a lady I have
befriended. … Mr Louis Ehlert,12 whose acquaintance I made in Florence … will
probably have told you in his letter that I was born in Rome, and am by profession
a violin player; perhaps also that, after great difficulties, with the help of a few
sympathetic friends, I finally see the great desire of my life fulfilled, as I now have
the time and means to visit Germany, to further my education. … However, the
state of music in my fatherland is completely unsuitable to promote and develop
a striving artist, and I certainly feel the great advantages which a longer stay in
Germany must give to every artist who intends to pursue his profession with
earnestness and love, and how deficient every emerging artist, to whom these
advantages were not given, must be.13
non seulement an talent naturel, mais aussi au caractère, qui devrait donner des
garanties de solidité et de noblesse suffisantes pour justifier l’espérance qu’ils
dédieraient les nouvelles connaissances qu’ils auraient acquises un développement
de l’art d’un point de vue élevé et non purement mercenaire, qu’il suffirait de cette
transplantation pour assurer un avenir brill[i]ant à l’Italie, j’en ai fait l’essai avec deux
jeunes artistes, l’un Romain, Ettore Pinelli, qui a passé deux ans en Allemagne et qui
fait tous ses efforts à Rome pour améliorer le goût – l’autre Giuseppe Buonamici, qui
je l’espère est destiné à une belle carrière, comme Virtuose de premier ordre, comme
Compositeur et comme Professeur.’ Letter from Jessie to Emilia Peruzzi of 27 March
1869, FEP.
12
Composer Louis Ehlert (1825–84), in Florence in 1863–65.
13
‘30 Juni 1864. Hochgeschätzter Herr, In der Hoffnung, daß Sie entschuldigen
werden, wenn ich es als völlig Unbekannter wage, Ihnen eine Bitte vorzulegen
welche für meine Zukunft die größte Wichtigkeit hat, zu einer Zeit, wo Sie so sehr
in Anspruch genommen werden, nehme ich mir die Freiheit Ihnen einliegende
zwei Empfehlungen zuzuschicken mit diesen Zeilen, welche, da ich der deutschen
Sprache noch nicht mächtig bin, eine mir befreundete Dame für mich übersetzt
hat. … Herr Louis Ehlert, dessen Bekanntschaft ich in Florenz machte … wird
Ihnen wohl in seinem Schreiben mitgetheilt haben daß ich aus Rom gebürtig
u. Violinspieler von Profession bin; vielleicht auch, daß ich, nach großen
Schwierigkeiten mit Hülfe einiger theilnehmender Freunde endlich den großen
Wunsch meines Lebens erfüllt sehe, indem mir jetzt die Zeit und die Mittel zu
Gebote stehen eine Reise nach Deutschland zu machen, und dort einige Zeit zu
meiner weiteren Ausbildung zu verweilen. … Jedoch ist der heutige Zustand der
Musik in meinem Vaterlande keineswegs geeignet einen strebsamen Künstler zu
befördern und entwickeln, und fühle ich wohl die großen Vortheile welche ein
216 Michael Uhde
Jessie clearly preferred her machinations to remain discreet, but her involvement
is suggested by the pejorative remarks about Italian as opposed to German musical
life; Pinelli would have lacked the experience to make this comparison.
A letter from Joachim to Jessie reveals the success of her plan:
Hanover, March 2nd. [1865]

Highly Esteemed Lady
Unfortunately, I have only a few moments to talk to you about a subject worthy
of the most careful detailed discussion, about our dear Pinelli, but at least I will
tell you before I leave this afternoon for London that I gave him the initial advice
to go to Leipzig for six weeks, where concert life is still in full swing, and where
he will receive great impressions, while the season is finished here. I think Pinelli
needs very little [money] here, and the expenses in Leipzig are not so great that
they make too great a hole in his funds. I will give him letters to David,14 Härtel,15
etc. Surely you can also offer him some recommendations. In the middle of April,
I thought Pinelli would return to his studies, and continue his studies under
Scholz,16 who also truly loves him, and visit the Cologne Pfingstmusikfest with
him. By then I will have decided what I am doing during the summer, and since I
am always happy to have Pinelli near me, I hope to associate with him again. His
ease of understanding facilitates helping him, and I hope that a certain energy of
rhythm, which this Italian strangely enough lacks, will be awakened in his playing.
I fully agree with you, dear lady, when you say that Pinelli’s friends have to keep
him in Germany for a longer time, and if you will write to me how I can contrib-
ute, I will be very thankful.17
längerer Aufenthalt in Deutschland jedem Künstler gewähren muß, welcher seinen

Beruf mit Ernst und Liebe auszuüben gedenkt, und wie mangelhaft jede Künstler-
Bildung sein muß, der diese Vortheile nicht beschieden waren.’ Letter from Pinelli
to Joachim of 30 June 1864, Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, Ms SM 12/1957–3611.
14
Ferdinand David (1810–73), violinist, concert master of the Leipzig Gewandhaus
orchestra.
15
Probably Hermann Härtel (1803–75) of the music publisher Breitkopf & Härtel.
16
Bernhard Scholz (1835–1916), conductor and composer, was a friend of Joachim and
director of the Società Cherubini in 1865/66.
17
‘Hannover, den 2ten März. [1865]. Hochgeehrte Frau, Leider habe ich nur wenige
Momente um mit Ihnen über ein Thema zu sprechen, das der sorgfältigsten
Ausführlichkeit werth wäre, über unseren lieben Pinelli, aber ich will Ihnen
wenigstens vor meiner Abreise nach London, heute Nachmittag, sagen, daß ich
ihm für die nächste Zeit gerathen habe auf 6 Wochen nach Leipzig zu gehen, wo
noch das Concertwesen in vollem Gang ist, und er große Eindrücke empfangen
wird, während hier die Saison vorüber ist. Ich glaube Pinelli hat hier sehr wenig
gebraucht, und die Ausgaben in Leipzig sind nicht so groß, daß sie eine zu starke
Lücke in seinem Geldfonds machen können. Briefe an David, Härtel etc werde
ich ihm geben; gewiß können Sie auch die eine oder andere Empfehlung für ihn
verschaffen. Mitte April, meinte ich, würde Pinelli wieder hie[r]her zurückkehren,
und seine Studien bei Scholz fortsetzen, bis er mit diesem, der ihn auch wahrhaft
lieb gewonnen hat, das Kölner Pfingstmusikfest besucht. Bis dahin wird es sich
Two of Pinelli’s letters to Joachim from March and April 1865 mention Jessie.
Together with his close friend Sgambati, he eventually went to Rome; following the
ideals of their ‘Maestra’, they founded an association for chamber music, the Società
di Musica da Camera. Pinelli was later an important violin professor at the music
academy Santa Cecilia.
However, not only did Jessie exploit her connections to help her protégés;
socially and musically, she also benefited famous figures like von Bülow. In 1869, von
Bülow’s arrival in Florence was greatly significant to Jessie. As is well known, after
Cosima (Liszt’s daughter) left him for Wagner, he was in crisis, a ‘ruined man’.18 In
the preceding months, he had repeatedly considered making a fresh start in Italy.
His correspondence with Jessie, in which she calls herself ‘Astratella’ and him ‘Quex’
or ‘Onkel Quecksilber’ (‘Uncle Quicksilver’), reveals that she did all she could to
bring this to fruition. Indeed, her salon and associated Società Cherubini played a
central role in his convalescence; for him, Italy offered a ‘heavenly land among ami-
able people’, as he wrote to his sister. He described his recovery as follows:
Strange Circle! Elb-Florence – Arno-Dresden. Birth and rebirth (?). And after 27
years (in 1842, Mme. Laussot and I pupils of the blessed good Schmiedel) the old
friends together again – suffering with very similar ailments, resolute to obliterate,
as before, to renunciation, feeling friendly and fatalistic, cheerful and pessimistic,
and therefore grateful to the grace of destiny for every joyful moment. Perfect
woman and virtuoso friend! With her, I like to strain my lungs (she is deaf like
Weitzmann and Draeseke, but not to music).19
entschieden haben was ich im Sommer thue, und da es mich immer freut Pinelli in
meiner Nähe zu haben, so hoffe ich mich dann wieder speciell mit ihm befassen zu
können. Seine leichte Auffassungsgabe macht es einem leicht ihm zu nützen, und
ich hoffe daß eine gewisse Energie des Rhytmus [sic], die sonderbarer Weise diesem
Italiener mangelt, auch noch in seinem Spiel zu wecken sein wird. Ganz bin ich mit
Ihnen einverstanden, hochgeehrte Frau, wenn Sie sagen, dß die Freunde Pinelli’s
alles aufbiethen müssen ihn noch länger in Deutschland zu halten, und wenn Sie
mir schreiben wollen, wie auch ich dazu beitragen kann, so werde ich von Herzen
dankbar sein.’ Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, estate of Adolf von Hildebrand, Ana
550. This letter is catalogued under letters to Irene von Hildebrand, B. Schäuffelen,
(1846–1921). However, she is unlikely to have been the recipient, as she was just
nineteen at the likely time it was written; the date can be reconstructed as follows:
1864 marked the beginning of Pinelli’s studies with Joachim, and in 1865 Pinelli
went to Leipzig, from where he addressed a letter to Joachim. The document could
have passed together with parts of Jessie’s estate to Adolf von Hildebrand, who was
named by her as executor in her will of 1901. A copy of the will is in Hildebrand’s
estate, Ana 550.
18
‘ein ruinierter Mensch’. Letter of 6 August 1869, Hans von Bülow: Briefe (Leipzig:
Breitkopf & Härtel, 1900), IV, 305. (Hereinafter BB).
19
‘Merkwürdiger Kreislauf! Elb-Florenz – Arno-Dresden. Geburt und Wiedergeburt
(?). Und da finden sich nach 27 Jahren (1842 waren Mme. Laussot und ich
Schülerinnen [sic] der seligen guten Schmiedel) die alten Gesichter wieder
zusammen – mit ganz ähnlichen Leiden geschlagen, zum Vergessen wie vorher zum
Entsagen gleich fest entschlossen, freundschaftlich-fatalistisch empfindend, heiter-
pessimistisch denkend, und darum dankbar der Gnade des Schicksals für jeden
frohen Augenblick … Treffliche Frau und virtuose Freundin! Mit ihr strenge ich
218 Michael Uhde
Figure 14.2 Sophie Wilhelmj and Jessie Laussot Hillebrand

© Technische Universität Munich, Architekturmuseum (hild-692-1000)
Von Bülow touches here on the torment of Jessie’s increasing deafness which even-
tually isolated her; he could still joke about it then. She later used an ear trumpet,
as shown in a photograph with Sophie Wilhelmj, the wife of the famous violinist
August Wilhelmj (see Figure. 14.2).20
Jessie successfully sought permission from the patrons of the Società Cherubini,
including Peruzzi, to appoint von Bülow its (honorary) president in 1870.21 During
the ceremony, he received ‘giant bouquets and a baton, the most beautiful ever
gerne meine Lungen an (sie ist tauber als Weitzmann und Draeseke, nur für Musik
nicht).’ Letter to his sister Isa von Bülow, 9 November 1869. BB, IV, 29. Cäcilie
Schmiedel was their piano teacher. Carl Friedrich Weitzmann (1808–80) and Felix
Draeseke (1835–1913) were composers.
20
Sophie Wilhelmj was the wife of the violinist August Wilhelmj (1845–1908)
and daughter of Karl Eduard von Liphart (1808–91). She lived in Jessie Laussot
Hillebrand’s house for some time after 1888; Jessie called her ‘her eldest daughter’
(‘meine älteste Tochter’). Letter from Jessie Hillebrand to Alexander Ritter of 17
May 1889, Richard Wagner Museum Bayreuth, Hs 80/III – 12.
21
Letter from Jessie Laussot to Emilia Peruzzi of 17 March [1870], FEP.
given to me – medal of the Italian Crown’.22 He took a significant interest in the

Società until he left Florence in the beginning of 1872.
Jessie’s friendship with von Bülow’s ex-father-in-law Liszt was more reverential.
Yet, in a letter to his mother, von Hildebrand left perhaps the most irreverent por-
trayal of Jessie’s salon, including its most famous guest:
Liszt’s manner of speaking is very exhausting and strange; it is mostly pauses

which he accompanies by incomprehensible sounds until a word comes again.
He has a fine head … and that is something … After dinner, numerous appalling
women arrived, as can always be found in Laussot’s house, and several tedious
gentlemen, and Liszt played Chopin with variations, which meant nothing to me.
Lots of very simple motifs decorated and blurred with all sorts of virtuoso tricks.
But later, he played a Viennese waltz, or something similar, charmingly, full of life
and grace, just to titillate the ladies.23
To Hildebrand (unlike the recollections of many of his contemporaries, including

Jessie), Liszt’s virtuosity was superficial.
Liszt, however, respected Jessie for her unconditional promotion of his music as
well as her role as the creator of the Società Cherubini; in 1867 he wrote to Jessie:
Dear Madam, I can not say how much your generosity of intelligence and heart
touch me. The warm welcome you received in Florence for the Beatitudes and the
Pater Noster is a further link to all my musical obligations towards you.24
The musical activities of the Società Cherubini have been discussed by Rossana
Dalmonte.25 Liszt dedicated several works to the Società and its ‘chère Maestra’,
among them the aforementioned Pater Noster III (S. 41; LW. J26) and Ave Maria II
22
‘Riesenbouquets und [ein] Taktstock, den schönsten, der mir gegeben worden ist –
Orden der italienischen Krone’. Letter von Bülow to Jessie Laussot of 26 March 1870,
BB, IV, 376.
23
‘Liszts Art zu sprechen ist sehr ermüdend und komisch, es sind meistens Pausen
die er durch unverständliches Geräusch accompagnirt bis dann mal wieder ein
Wort kommt. Er hat einen famosen Kopf … und das ist schon was. … Nach Tisch
kamen dann sehr viel scheußliche Frauenzimmer wie sie bei der Laussot immer zu
finden sind und einige langweilige Herren und Liszt spielte Chopin mit Variationen,
woraus ich nichts machen kann. Lauter sehr einfache Motive mit allerlei virtuosen
Kunststücken verbrämt und verundeutlicht. Nachher aber spielte er einen Wiener
Walzer oder was ähnliches ganz reizend und voller Leben und Grazie, ganz um die
Weiber geil zu machen.’ Sattler (ed.), Adolf von Hildebrand und seine Welt, 224.
24
‘Chère Madame, Je ne saurais dire combien votre générosité d´ intelligence et de
cœur me touche. Le bon accueil que vous avez obtenu à Florence pour les Béatitudes
et le Pater Noster est un chaînon de plus à toutes mes obligations musicales envers
vous.’ Letter from Liszt to Jessie of 24 May 1867. Storino, ‘Il carteggio Liszt-Laussot’,
in Franz Liszt e Jessie Taylor Laussot Hillebrand, 112.
25
R. Dalmonte, ‘Omaggi musicali di Franz Liszt a Jessie Laussot e alla Società
Cherubini’, in Franz Liszt e Jessie Taylor Laussot Hillebrand, 159–77.
220 Michael Uhde
(S. 38; LW. J24; R. 497).26 Jessie could therefore be seen as one of the first female
conductors in Italy. As she subsequently declared in an article in The Athenaum in
1868, she felt called to pursue her initiative because no one else ‘was willing to do
the work’:
It may seem to you presumptuous in a lady who has never professionally studied
music to have undertaken the direction of a choral society, which promises to
become tolerably numerous. Had there been any one here possessing sufficient
experience and willing to do the work I have done, I should never have under-
taken it. … I have now great hopes that I may have succeeded in founding an
enduring institution in the first choral society which has yet been attempted in
Italy.27
Furthermore, Jessie involved politically powerful individuals in the Società, fusing

political and artistic aims; in early 1869, she created an advisory council which
included Emilia Peruzzi along with other prominent ladies of Florentine high soci-
ety such as Madame la Marquise Ida Tresana, Madame la Comtesse L. Minghetti
and Madame Wilson Eyre. Tresana was a member of the Corsini family.28 Minghetti
was born Laura Acton (1829–1915), and had married the minister Marco Minghetti
(1818–86) in 1864. Madame Eyre was Louisa Lincoln Lear (1831–1912), wife of Wilson
Eyre (1823–1901) and mother of Wilson Eyre Jr (1858–1944), a famous American
architect. Peruzzi herself was married to Ubaldino Peruzzi (1822–91), who played
an important role in Italian unification, initially as a minister in the newly created
Kingdom of Italy, and then as mayor of Florence (1870–78). Her salon, the Salotto
Rosso, drew together philosophers, artists and liberal politicians, and was character-
ised by a sense of political activism which Jessie shared.29
In March 1870, Liszt decided to visit Florence. Again, Jessie marked the occa-
sion with a combination of personal, professional and artistic aims. She wished to
present him with a festive, public reception involving Buonamici, and so wrote to
Peruzzi:
I would like to announce that the Società Cherubini will give a music soirée
(short and composed of a few works) for Liszt next Sunday, April 3 … I do hope,
Madame, that you approve this project in your capacity as a patron, as it is of
urgent importance that we should not let this great artist pass through incognito,
26
Letter from Liszt to Jessie of 7 October 1869, Storino, ‘Il carteggio Liszt-Laussot’, 135;
see also Dalmonte, ‘Omaggi Musicali di Franz Liszt a Jessie Laussot e alla Società
Cherubini’, 159.
27
J. Laussot, ‘Musical and Dramatic Gossip’, The Athenaeum 2119 (6 June 1868), 803.
28
Ida Tresana, born Martellini (1822–84), was married to Lorenzo Corsini, marchese
di Tresana (1815–94), in 1856. Ida Tresana’s father was Marquis Martellini, grand-
maître at the court of Tuscany. See Almanach de Gotha: Annuaire généalogique,
diplomatique (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1867), 154.
29
See also Quando il futuro di Firenze si decideva nel ‘salotto rosso’, http://ricerca.
repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2011/03/18/quando-il-futuro-di-
firenze-si-decideva.html?refresh_ce (16 March 2017).
who has given us so much proof of sympathetic goodwill, has always encouraged
us, and finally, has dedicated two works exclusively to the Società.30
Von Bülow was recovering, but his impending divorce proceedings in Berlin were
particularly stressful. It was therefore better for him to avoid Liszt until the ‘unfortu-
nate business’ was concluded.31 In a letter to Jessie from Berlin, he bitterly declared:
So today you celebrate the majesty [Liszt]. I wish you a great success and high
spirits. (Magnificent programme!) Will I receive a report? The President expects
it. How did Beppo [Giuseppe Buonamici] play?32
Nevertheless, in 1871, Jessie achieved her goal of reconciling her famous friends
through a joint concert by Liszt and von Bülow at the Società. This must have taken
place around 14 November 1871; in a letter on that day, Liszt mentioned a meeting
he had just had with von Bülow and Hillebrand, as well as a journey to Pest that
evening; his stay was also reported in the press, mentioning a ‘banquet held in his
honour by Mme Laussot’ and his performance at sight of a new work by von Bülow
and a four-hand concerto performed by both men.33
Jessie’s relationship with Wagner, as is well known in the extensive Wagner lit-
erature, stemmed from 1850, when she supported him financially after his escape
from Germany and a disastrous love affair developed between them. Many years
later, Wagner’s stay in Florence from 3 to 17 December 1876 (with a brief interrup-
tion) was an excellent opportunity to showcase her adopted city and her protégé
Buonamici.34 Jessie laid out her plans in a letter to Peruzzi:
Mr Hillebrand told me, Madame, that Mr Peruzzi wanted to know if and when
Wagner would come to Florence, and I hasten to tell you that he leaves Rome on
Saturday or Sunday to spend a few days here. I do not know if it is your intention
to celebrate him, but I confess that I feel a certain pride and great selfesteem
for this lovely and beautiful city, and I would be very keen that he perceives the
beautiful sides (that is, of music, and musicians), as was apparently the case in
Rome, and I take the liberty (well understood, quite confidently, and without the
30
‘Je viens vous annoncer que La Société Cherubini donnerá une soirée musicale
(courte et composée de peu de morceaux) à Liszt Dimanche prochaine 3 Avril …
J’espère, Madame, qu’à votre qualité de Dame Patronnesse, vous approuverez ce
projet, car il est de toute urgence, que nous ne laissons pas passer incognito cette fois
ce grand artiste qui nous a donné tant de preuves de bienveillante sympathie et n’a
cessé de nous encourager et enfin nous a dedié deux morceaux seuls p-r la Société.’
Letter from Jessie to Emilia Peruzzi, 30 March 1870, FEP.
31
‘unselige Proceßangelegenheit’. Letter to his mother, 9 March 1870, BB, IV, 374.
32
‘ich bin krank’. ‘Also heute feiern Sie die Majestät [Liszt]. Schönes Gelingen und
gehobene Stimmung wünsche ich von Herzen dazu. (Prächtiges Programm!)
Empfange ich Bericht? Der Präsident erwartet es. Wie hat Beppo [Giuseppe
Buonamici] gespielt?’ Letter von Bülow to Jessie, beginning of April 1870, ibid., 382.
33
Le Guide musical, revue internationale de la musique (18 December 1871).
34
See G. Vitali, ‘Wagner a Firenze’, Das Rheingold, ed. F. Manfriani (Bologna:
Pendragon, 2007), 70.
222 Michael Uhde
slightest pretension to propose anything else to you but a personal opinion about
Florence’s artistic intention) to remind you of Professor Giuseppe Buonamici,
who was honoured by the Maestro with a special invitation to Bayreuth – an
honour given to very few foreign artists, who, in the opinion of all the cultured
musicians of Germany and France, is the most outstanding representative of the
musical art of the city Florence. This young artist would be exactly the right man
– since he knows Wagner very well – to be useful to you under these circum-
stances, and Wagner would certainly not fail to notice his absence. I also ask you,
Madame, to turn to me with regard to any advice you may wish, without my name
being mentioned.35
This remarkable letter is one of the few documents in which Jessie spoke about
Wagner, although again her ambitions for Buonamici were uppermost, and she
evidently wished her involvement to remain a secret.
Jessie also drew on her salon contacts to achieve institutional appointments, the
final vignette offered here. In 1878 the position of the director of the Conservatorio
di Milano, one of the most important cultural positions in Italy, fell vacant after the
death of Alberto Mazzuccato (1813–77). Jessie had intended to propose the violinist
Antonio Bazzini (1818–97) as the successor and to ‘deport’ the opponent Stefano
Ronchetti-Monteviti (1814–82), whom she regarded as less suitable, to the vacant
position of music director at the Duomo. In order to further this, she encouraged
Liszt to write to Baron von Keudell (1824–1903), one of the figures responsible for
filling the position. She wrote to Peruzzi:
Dear Madam, Thank you very much for your reply and the assurance of your
extremely precious cooperation. Liszt we can count on; I received a charming
letter yesterday, in which he told me among other things that Bazzini deserves the
35
‘M. Hillebrand m’ayant dit, Madame, que M. Peruzzi désirait savoir si et quand
Wagner viendrait à Florence, je m’empresse de vous avertir qu’il partira de
Rome Samedi ou Dimanche pour passer quelques jours ici. Je ne sais si vous avez
l’intention de le fêter, mais j’avoue que je me sens une certaine fierté et un grand
amour-propre pour cette chère et belle ville, et je serais bien aise qu’il en vît les
beaux côtés (en fait de musique et musiciens) comme il parait que cela a eu lieu
pour Rome, et je prends pour cela la liberté (toute confidentielle bien entendu et
sans la moindre prétention de vous présenter autre chose qu’un avis personnel dans
l’intérêt artistique de Florence) de rappeler à votre souvenir le jeune Professeur
Giuseppe Buonamici, qui a été distingué par le Maestro par une invitation spéciale à
Bayreuth – honneur accordée à très peu d’artistes étrangers et qui est, à l’avis de tous
les musiciens distingués d’Allemagne et de France, le représentant le plus éminent
de l’art musical de Ville de Florence. Ce jeune artiste serait parfaitement à même
– comme il connait très bien Wagner – de vous être utile en cette circonstance, et
Wagner ne manquerait certainement pas de s’apercevoir de son absence. Veuillez
également, Madame, disposer de moi pour tout renseignement que vous pourrez
désirez avoir sans que mon nom soit nommé.’ Letter from Jessie to Emilia Peruzzi of
30 November 1876, FEP.
place of D[irector] in the C[onservatoire] of M[ilan]. This should be offered to

him immediately.36
Peruzzi’s reaction is unknown, but Liszt did indeed write to Keudell, as revealed
by a humorous, self-effacing letter to Jessie in which he praised her background
diplomacy:
Your ‘intrigues’ are noble, salutary, well done, and gain every advantage in broad
daylight. To contribute to it, when you tell me, remains one of my most agreeable
duties. Yesterday I sent directly my letter at Rome to Baron Keudell … Perhaps
Hillebrand will write on the same subject to someone from Rome, or Milan?37
The initiative was cleverly contrived, as Liszt admits; yet he could not resist a small
pinprick, namely the advice to seek the help of her future husband. She sent another
letter to Peruzzi:
Today I would like to give you some useful advice. It seems that Ronchetti seri-
ously wants the place at the cathedral. Does the minister know this? In any case,
this would greatly ease the carambolage, and it would be good if he knew. What
do you think?38
Despite all her efforts, Ronchetti became director of the Conservatory in 1878; but
after his death in 1882 Bazzini succeeded him.
In 1878 Eugène Laussot died, clearing the path for Jessie to marry Karl Hillebrand,
which she did on 18 June 1879 in the German Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace,
London. This marriage was happy but short-lived, as Hillebrand died in 1884. Jessie
subsequently devoted herself to editing his works and nurturing her extensive social
circle. However, her increasing deafness severely restricted her activities. In her final
two decades, she maintained an extensive correspondence with von Bülow, Marie
von Bülow (1857–1941), Adolf von Hildebrand and various members of his family,
Herman Grimm (1828–1901), Gisela Grimm née von Arnim (1827–89), Ludwig
Schemann, Paul de Lagarde (1827–91) and others.
36
‘Chére Madame – Mille fois merci de votre réponse de l’assurance de votre
cooperation précieusissime. Liszt se met de la partie, j’en ai reçu une lettre
charmante hier ou il me dit entre autres choses: Bazzini mérite la place de
D[irecteur] au C[onservatoire] de M[ilan]. Laquelle devrait lui être offerte
d’emblée.’ Letter to Emilia Peruzzi of 2 February 1878 (Fondo Emilia Peruzzi).
37
‘Vos “intrigues” sont nobles, salutaires, bienfaisantes, et gagnerent tout avantage
au grand jour. Y contribuer, quand vous me le direz, reste un de mes plus agréables
devoirs. Hier je envoyé directement à Rome au Baron Keudell ma lettre … Peut-être
Hillebrand écrira-t-il sur le même sujet a quelqu’un de Rome, ou Milan?’ Letter from
Liszt to Jessie of 29 January 1878, Storino, ‘Il carteggio Liszt-Laussot’, 154.
38
‘Aujourd’hui j’ai un renseignement à Vous donner qui peut être utile au besoin. Il
parait que Ronchetti désire sincèrement la place au Duomo. Le ministre sait-il cela?
En tous le cas, cela faciliterait beaucoup le carambolage, et il serait bon qu’il le soît.
Qu’en pensez vous?’ Letter from Jessie to Emilia Peruzzi of 10 February 1878, FEP.
224 Michael Uhde
Jessie nominated her old friend von Hildebrand one executor of her will. In this
document, clause no. 20 stipulated: ‘I also ask that those papers – letters and others
– on which is written “to burn after my death” that they are really burnt without
going through other hands than theirs.’39 One can only speculate about what was
consigned to the flames. After her death in 1905, von Hildebrand eulogised her with
these words from an unpublished character sketch: ‘inner warmth and goodness
without any sentimentality … Pure objectivity, with the greatest personal modesty,
manly initiative and the energy to see things through.’40
39
‘Je les prie aussi de veuiller à ce que sont les papiers – lettres au autres – sur lequels
ils trouveront écrit “a brûler après ma mort” soient réellement brûlés sans passer
d’autres mains que les leurs.’ Last will of 1901, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, NL Adolf
von Hildebrand, Ana 550.
40
‘innere Wärme u. Güte ohne alle Sentimentalität … Reine Sachlichkeit, bei grösster
persönlicher Bescheidenheit, männliches Anpacken u. energisches zu Ende führen.’
Adolf von Hildebrand, Charakterskizze, estate of Adolf von Hildebrand, Ana 550.
Chapter 15
An Invitation to 309 Beacon Street:

Clara Kathleen Rogers and her Boston Salon *
Katie A. Callam
E nglish-born soprano Clara Kathleen Rogers (1844–1931, Figure 15.1) had

only travelled to Boston, Massachusetts, in January 1873 to sing Elvira in one
performance of Don Giovanni. She was to return to New York and her regular sing-
ing commitments the following day. But an afternoon of reading through Schubert
and Franz songs with pianist Otto Dresel, a German immigrant considered by his
contemporaries to be ‘the musical conscience of Boston’, left her convinced that
‘Boston … outstripped New York in musical appreciation’.1 She settled in Boston
permanently soon thereafter; here, Rogers wrote later, was ‘the musical atmosphere
I craved’.2 Over the next several decades, Boston continued to flourish as the bus-
tling epicentre of art music in the United States: ‘a city which in musical importance
ranks second to none’, proclaimed one critic in 1899.3 In addition to a dizzying
number of performances by groups including the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston
Symphony Orchestra (BSO), various music clubs, and visiting artists, Boston’s art
music scene also extended to private musical evenings in the homes of the city’s
wealthiest residents.
Rogers was among those who hosted such gatherings; her ‘musicales’, as she
called them, took place at her 309 Beacon Street residence in the affluent Back Bay
neighbourhood. The homogeneity of Boston’s upper class in the nineteenth cen-
tury meant that salons including Rogers’s took place in similar settings with similar
clientele; Rogers, however, who had married into the upper classes, was the only
professional musician among the regular hosts and hostesses.4 Furthermore, Rogers
discusses her salon in her memoir of life in Boston, The Story of Two Lives (1932),
*
I am grateful to Dale Stinchcomb (Harvard Theatre Collection), Lisa Long Feldman
(Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) and Maria Jane Loizou (New England
Conservatory) for their gracious research assistance as well as those who have read
and commented on the many iterations of this chapter, including Anja Bunzel,
Rujing Huang, Natasha Loges, Carol Oja, Diane Oliva, Julia Randel, Natasha Roule
and Anne Shreffler.
1
C. K. Rogers, Memories of a Musical Career (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1919), 403,
409.
2
Ibid., 406.
3
E. F. Bauer, ‘Boston’s Limitation’, Musical Courier (29 November 1899), 19.
4
Amy Beach is a possible exception, though biographer Adrienne Fried Block only
mentions musical events in the Beach household in passing. See A. Fried Block, Amy
Beach: Passionate Victorian (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 47.
226 Katie A. Callam
Figure 15.1 Studio portrait by Parkinson of Clara Kathleen Rogers, [c. 1910], Rogers Memorial
Collection: Photographs, prints, and drawings, MS Thr 470 (1185) – (1501), (1330),
Houghton Library, Harvard University
a volume that serves as the most extensive single source written by a hostess about
Boston’s musical salons.5
This chapter will examine Two Lives alongside materials from the Rogers
Memorial Collection (Harvard Theatre Collection), which preserves letters, music
manuscripts, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, pamphlets, and realia
once belonging to Rogers and her husband. Together, these sources provide a
glimpse into the experience of attending a Boston salon during the 1880s; illuminate
5
The ‘two lives’ are those of Rogers and her husband, Harry. He had the volume
printed after her death; the forward is dated 1918. Scholars who cite Rogers in their
studies of music in Boston during this period include Block, E. Knight, Charles
Martin Loeffler (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993); N. E. Tawa, From Psalm
to Symphony (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2001); E. D. Bomberger,
‘A Tidal Wave of Encouragement’: American Composers’ Concerts in the Gilded Age
(Westport: Greenwood, 2002).
Clara Kathleen Rogers and her Boston Salon 227
the complicated intersection between music and social class in Rogers’s life; and
demonstrate how, though her events grew smaller in scale, music-making at home
remained an important feature of Rogers’s routine during later years. The detail pro-
vided by Rogers – both in her own words and in her archive – presents a remarkable
opportunity to reimagine the festive evenings at number 309 and the salon’s place
in the lives of its participants.
Despite a wealth of primary source material and Rogers’s evident enthusiasm for
her musicales in Two Lives, discussions of private music-making in Boston have not
typically focused on Rogers, nor have studies of Rogers provided much analysis of
her salon. Since (and perhaps during) Rogers’s lifetime, her salon and those of other
Bostonians have largely been overshadowed by the gatherings of their contempo-
rary, Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924).6 A wealthy and idiosyncratic art collec-
tor, Gardner frequently hosted musical events in her palatial homes; her penchant
for being in the public eye and the museum she established to house her significant
collection have ensured an enduring legacy that has included study of her role as
hostess. Rogers, meanwhile, has primarily been understood as a composer of art
song, the eldest among the ‘Boston group’ of women composers at the turn of the
twentieth century.7 What makes Rogers a significant figure is her versatility in each
of these worlds: she was an enthusiastic and influential hostess and a composer-ped-
agogue. Without diminishing the significance of Gardner’s influence on Boston’s
music scene or Rogers’s work as a composer, the study of both is enriched with a
deeper understanding of Rogers’s musicales.
Musicales from Leipzig to Boston

Rogers had been familiar with domestic musical gatherings since her days at the
Leipzig Conservatory, which she entered in August 1857 with her elder siblings
Domenico and Rosamond. During this time, their mother and younger brothers
relocated to Germany while their father, the opera composer John Barnett (1802–
90), remained in England.8 As a treat for other international students who were far
6
R. Locke’s chapter ‘Living with Music: Isabella Stewart Gardner’, in Cultivating
Music in America: Women Patrons and Activists since 1860, ed. R. P. Locke and C. Barr
(Berkeley: University of California, 1997), provides a thorough overview and analysis
of Gardner’s musical activities. Scholars who look to Gardner as their chief example
of patronage and private music-making during this period include J. Horowitz,
Classical Music in America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 112–13, and M. Broyles,
‘Art Music from 1860 to 1920’, in The Cambridge History of American Music, ed.
D. Nicholls (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), 232. Tawa, From Psalm to Symphony, 124,
also cites Rogers (122). The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum still hosts concerts
regularly, in keeping with Gardner’s love of music.
7
L. Blunsom provides an excellent introduction to Rogers and her contemporaries in
‘Gender, Genre and Professionalism: The Songs of Clara Rogers, Helen Hopekirk,
Amy Beach, Margaret Lang and Mabel Daniels, 1880–1925’ (PhD dissertation,
Brandeis University, 1999). For an overview of Rogers’s life with particular attention
to her teaching, see A. Adams, ‘Voicing the Silent Language of the Soul: The Life and
Works of Clara Kathleen Rogers (1844–1931)’, Journal of Singing 67/3 (2011), 257–66.
8
C. K. Rogers, Chamber Music, ed. J. Radell and D. Wulfhorst (Middleton: A-R
Editions, 2001), vii.
228 Katie A. Callam
from home, Rogers’s mother Eliza invited eight to ten of them to the Barnett home
for Sunday dinners, with the strict understanding that the music-making afterwards
would not continue past ten o’clock.9 These weekly gatherings provided a space for
students to play bits of their repertoire and original compositions for each other.10
Even after twenty years and a move across the Atlantic, Rogers called upon her
memories of these events when organising her own salon, especially as she wel-
comed musicians who were new to the city. Of her musicales, she wrote,
I had succeeded in renewing – though almost unconsciously – a great deal of the

intimate, free, and enthusiastic spirit which pervaded our ‘Sunday evenings’ of the
old Leipzig days, and that, I think, was why people liked to come!11
Following her studies in Leipzig, Rogers moved to Italy, first studying voice in Milan
and later performing at venues across the country, including a summer season at
the Teatro di San Carlo. Rogers next spent several years in England ‘with the usual
round of concerts and musicales during the London season and professional tours in
the Provinces … during autumn and winter’. 12 Looking for more performing oppor-
tunities, she joined the Parepa-Rosa Opera Company for its 1871/72 American tour,
singing roles including Elvira in Don Giovanni and the Countess in The Marriage of
Figaro. The following season, she sang occasionally for the Max Maretzek Company
while living and performing in New York City.13 Otto Dresel, who inspired Rogers
to relocate to Boston in 1873, introduced her to John Sullivan Dwight, William F.
Apthorp and other prominent Bostonians.14 She was frequently invited to dine with
and sing for poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His witty letters suggest sincere
affection for the budding artist: in May 1877, he wrote: ‘I hope, nay, I am sure your
Concert in Providence was successful. If not, it was not your fault, but the fault of
the Rhode Islanders.’15
Rogers’s circle of friends, many of whom hosted musicales of their own, con-
tinued to expand after her marriage to lawyer Henry (‘Harry’) Munroe Rogers in
1878. The couple had met in September 1877 while staying in the same Liverpool
9
Rogers, Memories, 113.
10
On one occasion, Rogers was treated to the first performance of her string quartet,
organised by the young Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). See Rogers, Memories, 165–8.
11
C. K. Rogers, The Story of Two Lives (Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press, 1932), 30.
12
13
Ibid., 391, 397. In their edition of Rogers’s chamber music, Radell and Wulfhorst have
clarified several dates which are ambiguous in Rogers’s memoir.
14
Rogers does not articulate what she so admired in Dresel, though it seems to have
been related to his passion for German Romantic music. For Dresel’s and Dwight’s
views and influence on art music in the United States, see D. F. Urrows, ‘Apollo in
Athens: Otto Dresel and Boston, 1850–90’, American Music 12/4 (Winter 1994), 345–
88; and M. Broyles, ‘Music of the Highest Class’: Elitism and Populism in Antebellum
Boston (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).
15
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to Clara Kathleen Rogers, 2 May 1877. Rogers
Memorial Collection: Clara Kathleen Rogers Papers, MS Thr 470 (668) – (877),
(668), Vol. 1 p. 13. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library.
hotel on the eve of a return trip to Boston. Although she began her married life, in
her own words, as ‘an unpractical Prima Donna with no knowledge whatever of
economics … or anything useful’, Rogers was soon well-enough acquainted with
running a household to focus her energies on organising her salon, teaching voice
lessons and composing, which together took the place of her performing career.16
Born and raised in Boston, Harry graduated from Harvard College in 1862 and sub-
sequently served in the Union Army, after which he returned to practise law. He
easily gained the confidence of others; as one friend reminded Harry in the early
1930s, ‘you [have] more friends perhaps than any other one person in Boston’.17
Harry was a member of several social clubs in the city, to which many prominent
artists also belonged. In 1896/97, Harry and Henry Lee Higginson, founder of the
BSO, served as the co-vice presidents of the Tavern Club.18
Rogers’s role as hostess complemented her other musical activities: composing
and teaching. Her first collection of songs was published in 1882, during the years
of frequent salon gatherings, though it is unclear to what extent her own composi-
tions featured in her events.19 Published by Boston’s Arthur P. Schmidt Company,
these six songs were the first of several dozen the company would publish over the
next twenty-four years.20 The professional musicians with whom she corresponded
frequently praised her songs in their letters. Her father wrote that the Op. 20 songs
‘quite shame the piles of songs that are daily published & make the music sellers
shelves groan with their weight – There is quite a deal of grace[,] elegance & fresh-
ness about them all.’21 Similarly, the English pianist Charles Salaman gushed that
the song ‘Confession’ (also Op. 20) ‘is melodious, harmonious, & thoroughly mas-
terly as a composition’.22 Much less evidence exists in terms of Rogers’s teaching;
how many students she taught, for example, is unclear. What is clear, however, is
Rogers’s enthusiasm for her work: she describes how consideration of the best way
16
Rogers, Two Lives, 6.
17
Helen Goodrich to Henry Munroe Rogers, [c. 1932]. Rogers Memorial Collection:
Henry Munroe Rogers Papers, MS Thr 470 (88) – (667), (163). Houghton Library,
Harvard College Library.
18
The Rules of the Tavern Club of Boston: with a List of the Officers & Members (Boston,
1897), 3. Blunsom notes that the Rogerses were of a high enough social rank to
be included in the Social Register, a yearly publication providing ‘the names and
addresses of the several members of prominent families grouped together, with
their club membership’. Social Register, Boston, 1897 11/4 (New York: Social Register
Association, 1897), [3]. Harry is listed as being a member of the Union, University, St
Botolph and Tavern Clubs.
19
On one occasion she sang her ‘Ah, Love But A Day’ for friends, though it seems that
the gathering was merely informal after-dinner music-making (Rogers, Two Lives,
82).
20
In his Boston Sunday Post article of 15 September 1907, ‘Work of Mrs. Clara K.
Rogers as Composer’, Olin Downes praises Rogers’s compositions as having ‘good
workmanship’ and commends her Browning songs (Opp. 29 and 32) in particular.
MS Thr 470 (668) – (877), (863), Clara Kathleen Rogers Papers.
21
John Barnett to Clara Kathleen Rogers, 14 March 1884. MS Thr 470 (668) – (877),
(674), Folder 3 of 4, Clara Kathleen Rogers Papers.
22
Charles K. Salaman to Clara Kathleen Rogers, 4 June 1884. MS Thr 470 (668) –
(877), (736), Clara Kathleen Rogers Papers.
230 Katie A. Callam
to instruct pupils inspired her to study and theorise on topics of tone production
and diction, which eventually led to the publication of six books on singing and
diction between 1893 and 1927. As Blunsom suggests, Rogers’s enthusiasm for and
sense of duty regarding teaching, while genuine, also served as a socially legitimis-
ing factor because ‘paid employment was unacceptable for a woman of Rogers’s
station’.23 In Two Lives, Rogers does confirm that her students performed at her
musicales, though she gives no specifics; it is quite possible that Mary Beebe, a stu-
dent-turned-operetta-star and one of the only two students Rogers names in her
memoir, was among them.24
Upstairs to the Music Room

Soon after Rogers’s marriage, ‘all such friends and relatives as might feel disposed
to come and hear some music’ gathered in the music room at 309 Beacon Street
on Saturday evenings.25 Rogers called the three-storey red-brick row house home
from her marriage until her death; for many years, Harry’s father and sisters lived
three doors away.26 Musicales would have taken place during the winter season,
as residents retreated to their larger country estates for the summer months.27 The
Back Bay neighbourhood, part of an ambitious landfill project to expand the city,
was home to wealthy bankers and lawyers; according to census records, Boston
mayor Frederick Prince and his family lived next door to the Rogerses in 1880, with
poet-professor Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr living across the street.28 The census,
which also lists Delia Kane, Kate Murphy and Maggie Kane as servants of Irish
descent in the Rogers household, serves as a reminder of the planning and physical
labour that went into each musicale.29
The exact layout of the Rogers home goes unspecified in memoir and archive;
unsurprisingly, those present took precedence over architectural details. The fact
that Back Bay homes were largely built with the same layout, however, provides
a significant opportunity to consider the space in which Rogers hosted her salon.
Architectural historian Bainbridge Bunting notes that, despite some variation over
the course of the nineteenth century,
23
Blunsom, ‘Gender, Genre, and Professionalism’, note 26, 46. See Rogers, Two Lives,
4–5, 77–9.
24
Rogers, Two Lives, 30; 78–9.
25
Ibid. Rogers also noted (129) that the gatherings switched to Friday nights when
symphony concerts moved to Saturday nights. Radell and Wulfhorst note that this
occurred in 1885 (xi).
26
Three stories for the family, plus basement and attic for servants. The home was built
in 1871 by Fred Pope; see B. Bunting, Houses of Boston’s Back Bay (Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967), 407.
27
Bunting, Houses, 130. The Rogerses summered in Nova Scotia and later in Rockport,
Massachusetts (Rogers, Two Lives, 332).
28
‘H. M. Rodgers’ [sic] United States Federal Census, 1880 (Massachusetts, Suffolk
County, Boston, 657). Ancestry Library Edition. See also G. Morgan Hopkins,
Atlas of the County of Suffolk, Massachusetts (Philadelphia, 1873–75), I, plate O, and
iterations of the G. W. Bromley Atlas of the City of Boston (Philadelphia, 1888 et al.).
29
Ibid.
the town house retain[ed] certain fundamental and little-changing qualities. It is

a single-family dwelling arranged on four to six levels; it has a long, narrow plan
confined between party walls and open for windows (usually three per floor)
at the narrow ends only; it is constructed of masonry, and is set back a uniform
distance from the street line. During [the second half of the nineteenth century],
one finds relatively little variation in the size or the internal arrangement of the
Back Bay dwelling because it was built to meet the requirements of a class whose
way of life did not alter.30
The floor-plan of row houses generally allowed for two rooms on each floor, con-
nected by a hallway.31 Guests were entertained on the first and second floors of the
house. A hallway connected the reception room with its view of Beacon Street in the
front of the house with the dining room in the back; the staff brought up meals from
the kitchen in the basement. A grand main staircase, straight ahead as one entered,
led up to the second floor, where guests filed into the music room at the back of the
house. The music room, which likely doubled as a teaching studio for Rogers, was
paired with the library at the front of the house. It is still possible to tour a home very
similar to the Rogers residence: the Gibson House Museum (137 Beacon Street)
stands as the sole Back Bay home with its nineteenth-century features and furnish-
ings preserved.32
During the heyday of Rogers’s salon, the size of the house was unable to keep
up with the popularity of her gatherings; the whole second floor was approximately
4.5m by 18m, with the music room taking up about one third of the length, perfect for
a small gathering.33 As the number of attendees rose, however, Rogers recalled that
‘my only embarrassment [was] how to find house-room for them all’ because guests
came ‘in ever increasing numbers till the full capacity of music room, hall, library,
and staircase was often tested’.34 The fact that row houses were built with shared
party walls begs the question of how much of the musicales the neighbours would
have heard. Indeed, Rogers recalled one occasion in which a neighbour requested
that the evening musicale be moved across the hall to the library since the music
room was adjacent to his ill wife’s bedroom. The gathering was instead moved to the
home of ‘Father Rogers’ at 303 Beacon Street, so that the friends who ‘came pour-
ing in, among them singers, pianists, and violinists, with rolls of music under their
arms, eager to be heard by our goodly assembly’, would still be able to perform.35
According to a head count performed by John, an African-American servant who
30
Bunting, Houses, 172.
31
Ibid., 131.
32
The author attended a fascinating tour in 2012. See also A. Mitchell Sammarco,
Boston’s Back Bay in the Victorian Era (Portsmouth: Arcadia, 2003) and https://
backbayhouses.org (17 March 2018).
33
Measurements approximated from the Hopkins Atlas and Bunting floor plans; see
Bunting, Houses, 131.
34
Rogers, Two Lives, 30–1.
35
Ibid., 32.
232 Katie A. Callam
worked as handyman and waiter, 110 people were in attendance that evening.36 In his
discussion of Gardner’s salon, Locke raises the issue of guests chatting during the
music, particularly those unable to fit into the music room; it seems plausible that
as music was a serious endeavour for Rogers, she would have encouraged silence
during performances, leaving time for discussion between numbers.37
Those with larger homes than Rogers boasted music rooms of an even grander
scale. While Rogers designated a pre-existing space as her music room, some Back
Bay houses had, as she noted, perhaps with a hint of longing, ‘the additional luxury
of a large room designed especially for music’.38 On Commonwealth Avenue, four
blocks from the Rogers home, Henry Lee Higginson added a music room where the
pre-eminent Kneisel Quartet and other chamber groups performed. A few blocks
past the Higginson home on Arlington Street was the residence of real estate inves-
tor J. Montgomery Sears, which featured a ‘moderately large music room domi-
nated by a dignified pipe-organ’.39 This room was later replaced by an even larger
music room when an addition to the house was constructed.
Between the professional musicians in Rogers’s social circle and her students, a
number of whom were ‘well worth hearing’, there was always enough music to fill
an evening.40 Other Boston musicians made their way to the Saturday musicales
for the opportunity to perform in front of the city’s musical elite. These ‘musicians
of influence’, as Rogers called them, included critics John S. Dwight and William
F. Apthorp, composers Benjamin J. Lang, Edward MacDowell, Julius Eichberg,
George W. Chadwick and Arthur Foote, and conductors of the Symphony. Two
Lives provides a general sense of the repertoire of Rogers and her circle, performed
at musicales or informally in the homes of friends: Bach and Handel arias, songs
by Schubert, Franz, Schumann, Grieg and Wagner, and Beethoven piano trios and
violin sonatas.41 Rogers writes of ‘exchanging musical ideas, criticising or lauding
each others’ compositions’ with Arthur Whiting and Edward MacDowell, though
no specific pieces are named.42
In her professional capacity as singing instructor and composer, Rogers, along
with her salon, served as a vital conduit between students and musical celebrities.
In one instance, BSO conductor Arthur Nikisch (tenure 1889–93) found a last-min-
ute replacement for a concert at one of Rogers’s gatherings. When Nikisch’s wife,
Amélie, was unable to perform the part of Marcellina in a concert performance of
Fidelio, Rogers recalled,
36
As Rogers explained, John’s system involved ‘removing a visiting card from our
tray as each person entered and laying them all aside to be counted at his leisure’
(Rogers, Two Lives, 33).
37
Locke, ‘Living with Music’, 98–9.
38
Rogers, Two Lives, 36. For the larger Back Bay homes, see Bunting, Houses, 256.
39
Ibid., 36.
40
Ibid., 30.
41
Ibid., 81–2, 199, 218.
42
Ibid., 48.
he remembered my telling him that the young girl, whose singing he so admired
at our Musicale, was also an excellent musician. With only the thread of a hope
that she might consent to risk it, he hastened to her apartment and pleaded so dis-
tressfully that it ended in her promising to try her best to learn the part overnight,
although she knew nothing of the opera Fidelio. She came to me at once for help
and encouragement. I put her through the music in a couple of hours, thanks to
her quick musical perception, and next morning she appeared at rehearsal, full of
confidence, and note perfect.43
The Boston Globe reported that Rogers’s pupil, Mrs Hascall, ‘sang the Marcellina
solos with good taste and expression’ but makes no mention of her last-minute
triumph.44 Though this may be the most dramatic example, many of Boston’s pro-
fessional and amateur musicians would have first connected in the music room of
the Rogers home.
Music and the Upper Class

Just as Rogers’s memoir invites us to explore the sundry details of her events, so too
does it reveal the interconnectedness of Rogers’s musical life and social outlook. Of
the Boston hosts and hostesses she mentions in Two Lives, Rogers by far devotes the
most space to Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose notoriety warranted some discus-
sion. Locke’s assessment that Rogers may have been one of several ‘creative women
[who] regarded Gardner as inadequate or unaccomplished’ is valid; ‘I have to own
that personally’, Rogers wrote of Gardner, ‘in spite of her never failing courtesy and
charm of manner, I had never been drawn to her’.45 Gardner frequently hosted a
variety of musical gatherings throughout her lifetime, drawing talented musicians
from Boston and elsewhere to her home on Beacon Street (a ‘commodious house’,
Rogers remarked) and later to her replica Italian villa, Fenway Court.46 Surviving
programmes suggest that at least on some occasions, Gardner’s events tended to
be more formal and concert-like than Rogers’s musicales.47 Rogers does praise her
acquaintance for welcoming and assisting musicians in any way she could, which
meant, on one occasion, offering a BSO horn player in need of space to practise
‘the ample area of her Brookline estate’.48 But it seems that music and deservedness
were at the heart of Rogers’s reserve: while Gardner had none of the professional
music experience Rogers did, she was still able to host popular events with leading
artists and, being ‘socially conspicuous’, enjoyed the notoriety of tactics such as
43
44
‘Opera and Concert …’, Boston Daily Globe (26 April 1891), 21.
45
Rogers, Two Lives, 148; Locke, ‘Living with Music’, 107.
46
Rogers, Two Lives, 36; Locke, ‘Living with Music’, 94.
47
Locke mentions programmes as well as invitations (Locke, ‘Living with Music’,
100). Programmes and other music-related materials are on display in the Gardner
Museum Yellow Room.
48
234 Katie A. Callam
programming surprise guests.49 This may have given Rogers incentive, when writ-
ing her memoir, to portray her own events in terms of her childhood musicales.
Emphasising their ‘intimate, free, and enthusiastic’ nature highlighted how her own
musicality enlivened the events and gave musicians a more collaborative and per-
haps spontaneous scene than that which they might find elsewhere.50
As a former opera singer, professional musician and immigrant, Rogers had an out-
sider’s perspective on Boston society: ‘there was no social pigeonhole where I seemed
to belong’, she wrote.51 Her expressions of inclusivity in Two Lives are tempered by
her status among the city’s upper class, however; her memoir depicts a woman very
much a part of the exclusiveness that she decried. Guests at the Rogers salon were
members of Boston’s white, wealthy upper class, but she nevertheless considered
these events to be marked by a welcoming atmosphere not always present in Boston
society in the final decades of the nineteenth century. Rogers had been acutely aware
and critical of what she saw as ‘snobbishness’ when she first moved to Boston. Some
women in her social circle were particularly wary of associating with women who had
spent time performing publicly. Writing in the 1910s, however, she reported that,
during the last quarter of a century, [Boston] has happily outgrown the narrow
exclusiveness which led to class distinctions as rigidly observed as in countries
where a time-honoured aristocracy ruled supreme. There were still, however, traces
of it among certain hide-bound, hard-shell Bostonians … between 1880 and 1890.52
In one instance, a ‘Mrs X’ had expressed her shock and indignation that Hungarian
soprano Etelka Gerster (1855–1920) had been invited to a Boston social dance event.
Rogers had replied, ‘with [her] sweetest smile’, that it was fortunate she had not
joined when asked, for she herself was a former opera singer.53 Indeed, not only
had Rogers been a woman of the stage, but her social consciousness was possibly
influenced by her younger brother, Julius, whose spinal injury as an infant left him
intellectually disabled. She deplored the fact that their father had not sent Julius to
learn a trade such as carpentry because, while it would have been useful and engag-
ing for Julius, it would have been beneath his social status.54 In language similar to
her comments on Boston’s class conceitedness in Two Lives, she reflected on her
49
Ibid. See Locke, ‘Living with Music’, 100–3 for some of Gardner’s offbeat approaches
to musical gatherings. This social conspicuousness also led to more reminiscences
of Gardner than of Rogers, though this might also be because Rogers scaled back
her gatherings later in life while Gardner continued hers. Locke looks to C. Johns,
Reminiscences of a Musician (Cambridge: Washburn and Thomas, 1929) and J.
Paderewski and Mary Lawton, The Paderewski Memoirs (New York: Da Capo
Press, 1938). Thank you to Ellen Knight for sharing pianist Heinrich Gebhard’s
‘Reminiscences of a Boston Musician’, which Locke also cites.
50
51
Ibid., 128.
52
Ibid., 125.
53
Ibid., 127.
54
It is unclear whether Clara means that her father thought it beneath his son, or that
he was worried that it would appear so to others, or both.
brother’s situation, exclaiming ‘Thank Heaven, society is less hide-bound to-day

than it was then!’55
Hidebound and exclusive Boston society during the final decades of the nine-
teenth century, however, meant that Rogers’s self-identified inclusivity had its
limits. Betty Farrell notes in her study of the city’s upper class during this period that
the Back Bay neighbourhood home to the Rogerses ‘was, from the first, defined as
an exclusive residential area for elite Bostonians’.56 Students and early-career musi-
cians hoping to meet the city’s top musicians at the Rogers’s home would still have
needed the financial means to pay for lessons and to circulate in the proper social
networks to attend the salon. Responding to the growing socialist movement at the
time she wrote her memoir, Rogers argued that ‘there can be no such thing as equal-
ity, other than that of opportunity; and “equality of opportunity” has already long
existed’.57 She also believed, in roundabout righteousness, that ‘intrinsic superiority
is sufficient unto itself and needs no boosting, and that inferiority gravitates to its
proper level and needs no snubbing’.58 Rogers’s social benevolences, then, extended
to those individuals most like herself; her advocacy was primarily for the musical
elite to be accepted among the upper class. Hesitancy among some of her peers to
welcome foreign artists, like Gerster, exemplified to Rogers a ‘stultified democracy
… hard to reconcile with the generally accepted idea of Americanism’, at the same
time that her disapproval of American accents had much to do with class.59 Despite
their differences, she praised Gardner for ‘showing a marked preference for the aris-
tocracy of brains rather than of birth, wealth, or social position’, though the latter
three were not unimportant.60 While Rogers did reinscribe the social separateness
of Boston’s upper class through her salon, it is nevertheless important to note that
she devoted significant space in Two Lives to social dynamics, demonstrating that
she considered this matter an important aspect of Boston’s musical culture.
Beyond the Musicale

After the death of Harry’s father in 1887, the couple ceased to host their large-scale
‘musical “At Homes”’.61 Rogers shifted to hosting smaller gatherings, which, with
55
56
B. G. Farrell, Elite Families: Class and Power in Nineteenth-Century Boston (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1993), 28. Unlike Farrell in this excerpt,
Blunsom distinguishes between ‘elite’ as vocational excellence and ‘upper class’
as ‘descendants of Boston’s “first families”’. Blunsom, ‘Gender, Genre and
Professionalism’, note 44, 27.
57
58
Ibid., 125.
59
Ibid., 127. See a brief discussion in Adams, ‘Voicing the Silent Language’, 260–1.
60
Rogers, Two Lives, 149. She also wrote of defending Gardner’s reputation, ‘for, while
I am ready to take part in any criticism that is honest and free from prejudice, I detest
the attitude of censoriousness’. (Ibid., 148).
61
Ibid., 189. Rogers is not entirely strict either with date or with terminology; she
includes Edward MacDowell in her list of musicale guests, but MacDowell did not
move to Boston until 1888.
236 Katie A. Callam
just a few musician friends, would have allowed for more time to ‘workshop’ drafts
of compositions. The musician who perhaps benefited the most from these smaller
gatherings was the violinist and composer Charles Martin Loeffler (1861–1935),
who had first collaborated with Rogers for the 1888 premiere of her D minor violin
sonata. According to Rogers, the rehearsals for the sonata premiere had ‘invariably
merged into a musical orgy of one kind or another. Such orgies [were] oft recur-
ring.’62 Rogers may have later considered her sonata to be surpassed by Loeffler’s
more advanced works for violin, but at the time Loeffler was an unpublished com-
poser while over twenty of Rogers’s songs were in print. She was struck by the vio-
linist’s talent and intellect and, as the years passed, grew increasingly proud of his
professional success.
Manuscripts of Loeffler’s first published songs, settings of Verlaine poems with
viola obbligato, were ‘privately and tentatively’ tried out at 309 Beacon Street.63
Rogers became a champion of Loeffler’s compositions – support which he appre-
ciated and grew to depend on. In 1911 critic Lawrence Gilman described Loeffler as
very self-critical, even ‘loath to yield his manuscripts to the engraver’.64 His letters to
Rogers convey, amid replies to dinner invitations, how he valued her musical knowl-
edge and appreciation for his works:
I have only copied so far about one third of the orchestral score and I have not
yet made a Piano ‘reduction’. I will bring what I have and the libretto at any rate.
You can read it in 20 minutes. and [sic] your clear mind and fresh attitude – mine
being somewhat dulled by over familiarity – towards the dramatic problem, will
bring, doubtless, new idea’s [sic], suggestions and frank criticism from you to
me.65
Loeffler’s last extant letter to Rogers, dated 1 May 1929, conveys his appreciation for
Rogers’s encouragement even though by this time he was an established composer:
I was deeply touched by your most kind letter. After well-nigh 30 years my Poem
still … sounded very well, which is a good test for all music. That so distinguished
a Musician as you are should still have liked it makes me feel very proud and
happy. Thank you most sincerely for your generous expression of approval of my
work.66
The small gatherings that provided Loeffler with a space to present sketches and
ideas also gave Rogers a space to share her instrumental compositions. Because girls
were not allowed to study orchestration at the Leipzig Conservatory during her years
62
Ibid., 49.
63
Ibid.
64
L. Gilman, ‘The Music of Loeffler’, The North American Review 193/662 (January
1911), 47; see also Knight, Charles Martin Loeffler.
65
Charles Martin Loeffler to Clara Kathleen Rogers, 17 November –. MS Thr 470
(668) – (877), (721), Clara Kathleen Rogers Papers.
66
Charles Martin Loeffler to Clara Kathleen Rogers, 1 May 1929. MS Thr 470 (668) –
(877), (721), Clara Kathleen Rogers Papers.
there and faced other structural challenges to becoming composers, Rogers later
bemoaned her lack of instruction in crafting instrumental music. ‘Had I acquired
early in life a good technique in writing for instruments’, she reasoned, ‘I really think
I might have accomplished something worth while in orchestral composition.’67 At
least one unpublished work among Rogers’s papers, a fantasia for viola d’amore and
harp (c. 1897), was likely only ever heard in a private home performance.68 Her D
minor violin sonata premiered at the first meeting of the newly founded Manuscript
Club in 1888, held at the Gardner home; like Rogers’s get-togethers with a few musi-
cians, this forum was created to allow musicians ‘to hear their works adequately
performed, and to be able to judge of their effect on an intelligent audience’.69 The
sonata, which was positively received by her colleagues, was Rogers’s only major
instrumental work published during her lifetime. Amy Beach wrote, ‘I have enjoyed
playing It [sic] through and studying it more than I can tell you’.70
Other Bostonians also moved towards small, private gatherings as the twentieth
century approached. The Rogerses often spent Friday evenings at the home of Dr
Samuel J. Mixter and his wife, Wilhelmina; the couple ‘loved music and musicians
[and] gathered them in, great and small, full-fledged and half-fledged alike with
equal cordiality’.71 Additionally, the couple enjoyed Sunday evening gatherings at
the home of music critic William F. Apthorp and his wife Octavie, though music
‘was only incidental, never prearranged nor indispensable’.72 The counterparts to
these small gatherings were grander and more formal affairs. According to Rogers,
As time went on, improvised musicales of amateur and half-fledged artistic talent
waxed fewer and fewer. It was fast becoming as much a matter of course for the
more opulent contingent to provide a programme of professional artists for the
entertainment of their guests through a music bureau, as to order the supper from
a caterer.73
Despite the downsizing emphasised in her memoir, Rogers, ever the dedicated host-
ess, still occasionally held large-scale functions. In March 1897, the Musical Courier
reported that ‘Miss Caroline Gardner Clarke sang at Mrs. Henry M. Rogers’ musical
[sic] on Tuesday evening. Many prominent musicians were present, besides a large
number of society people.’74 Rogers’s musicales, large and small, provided a private,
positive environment for Boston’s musical royalty and newcomers to meet and
67
Rogers, Two Lives, 81. See M. J. Citron, ‘Gender, Professionalism, and the Musical
Canon’, The Journal of Musicology 8/1 (Winter 1990), 102–17.
68
Ibid., 249. Rogers also wrote a cello sonata; Radell and Wulfhorst note that the
existence of a fair copy and a copyist’s copy of the cello part suggest that Rogers
hoped to publish the work but for some reason this did not occur (ix).
69
70
Amy M. Beach to Clara Kathleen Rogers, 4 October 1893. MS Thr 470 (668) – (877),
(668), Vol. 1, p. 74, Clara Kathleen Rogers Papers.
71
72
Ibid.
73
Ibid., 36.
74
‘Boston Music Notes’, Musical Courier (31 March 1897), 16.
238 Katie A. Callam
mingle, critique and congratulate. For musicians new to Boston in particular, salons
provided ‘the opportunity to be heard and appreciated by an intelligent audience’,
which was ‘the most necessary and also the most difficult of attainment’.75 These
gatherings also show how integral communal music-making was to Rogers’s daily
life. While Rogers was busy with her musicales, she sent regular letters to her parents
detailing her active musical and social life. In one reply, her father is glad to hear that
his daughter is thriving across the Atlantic: ‘Your letters … tell us you & Harry are
in good health. & that you go to Concerts [sic] and dinner parties & that you enjoy
your salon very much. and [sic] that is quite sufficient to gratify us.’76 Rogers’s rem-
iniscences of these events, both inviting readers into the music room at 309 Beacon
Street and revealing the complexities of her social views, serve as an important
window into salon culture of late nineteenth-century Boston.
75
Rogers, Two Lives, 37. Here Rogers is describing the music room of Henry Lee
Higginson.
76
John Barnett to Clara Kathleen Rogers, 21 March, 1882, Box 2, Folder 2, Clara
Kathleen Rogers Papers.
Chapter 16
‘Too Much Playing Four Hands!’:

Ernst von Dohnányi’s European Salon in
the United States of the 1950s
Veronika Kusz
T he Hungarian composer-pianist Ernst von Dohnányi (1877−1960) spent his

last decade as an American emigrant (1949−60).1 Fate led him to a provin-
cial city in Florida where he had to live in far different circumstances than before.
Although he basically enjoyed life in the new world, he was nostalgic for his home
country and previous lifestyle. Probably as a result, and also because of his central
role within the cultural life of his small community, he established a type of salon
music culture. Despite Dohnányi’s undeniable significance as a composer, performer
and administrative leader, he was largely ignored in musicology until the 1990s,
even in his homeland, partly for political reasons.2 Interestingly, his Tallahassee
salon is even more unknown, as it was unmentioned in most existing biographi-
cal sources.3 In 2014, a hitherto unpublished part of Dohnányi’s American legacy
came to light, namely his wife Ilona von Dohnányi’s private diaries, which contain
many references to these events (see Figure 16.1).4 The diaries can be read along-
side Ilona’s letters to Dohnányi’s parents and sister-in-law, held in the Széchényi
1
From his youth, Dohnányi used the international form ‘Ernst’ instead of his original
Hungarian name ‘Ernő’ when he was abroad. The prefix ‘von’ refers to the family’s
aristocratic background, which originated from the seventeenth century. However,
for the later generations this title was more symbolic, since in terms of lifestyle and
standard, Dohnányi’s grandparents and parents led a bourgeois life. In what follows I
will use the form ‘Dohnányi’.
2
See J. A. Grymes, Ernst von Dohnányi: A Bio-Bibliography (London: Greenwood
Press, 2001), which however pre-dates the discovery of various new sources; see
also J. A. Grymes (ed.), Perspectives on Ernst von Dohnányi (Lanham, MD: The
Scarecrow Press, 2005); and I. von Dohnányi, Ernst von Dohnányi: A Song of Life, ed.
J. A. Grymes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002). Various studies have
appeared in Hungarian journals and in the Dohnányi Évkönyv series published by the
Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 2002.
3
Only one monograph has discussed Dohnányi’s American years: V. Kusz, Dohnányi
amerikai évei (Budapest: Rózsavölgyi, 2015). New source material relating to his US
salon emerged after its publication.
4
The diaries, still officially part of the Tallahassee family collection, are available
only with the current owner’s permission. Digitised versions are available at the
Archives for 20th−21st Century Hungarian Music in the Institute for Musicology of
the Research Centre for Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (shelfmark:
MZA-DE-Dig 000028–000034). See also V. Kusz, ‘From Budapest to Florida – and
Back: The Journey Taken by Ernst Von Dohnányi’s America Legacy’, Music Library
Association Notes 73/4 (June 2017), 658−72.
240 Veronika Kusz
Figure 16.1 Ernst and Ilona von Dohnányi c. 1955 © Hungarian Academy of Sciences
National Library. These letters (also unpublished) have never been researched to
date. This chapter gives an account of the salon based on these sources, and briefly
summarises the characteristics of the American salon of a truly European emigrant
composer. I will first situate Dohnányi’s salon experience within his own biography,
followed by a detailed examination of his salon in Florida, focusing on the following
aspects: spontaneity, inwardness and nostalgia, guests, repertoire, and the educa-
tional dimension.
Many excellent musicians left their European home for the United States of
America in the hope of a more secure life during and directly after the Second World
War. In some cases, these emigrants’ lives improved, while others faced new diffi-
culties; but all of them, including Dohnányi, experienced drastic changes. This is
evident from a comparison of two moments in Dohnányi’s life, fifteen years apart.
In 1937, he (then known as Dohnányi Ernő) turned sixty. His birthday was publicly
Ernst von Dohnányi’s European Salon in the US 241
celebrated both in Hungary and abroad.5 In 1952, Dohnányi’s family, close friends,
students and the local press celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday in Tallahassee,
the capital city of Florida, a pleasant town, albeit with little in common with the
European capitals he had frequented (Budapest, Vienna and Berlin). Having left
Hungary in 1944, Dohnányi was now a professor at Florida State University – not
among the most prestigious of American universities – where he taught piano and
elementary composition.6 Meanwhile, in his native country, he and his music were
largely forgotten. He had serious financial difficulties, and lived in a modest home
bought with a loan. He sought continually to give concert tours in the USA, but was
rarely invited to the important public cultural centres where he had enjoyed consid-
erable successes half a century earlier, as well as in the 1920s.7
Dohnányi had been internationally respected not only as a pianist and composer,
but as a leading figure in Hungarian musical life. He had been a highly esteemed pro-
fessor, head of the Piano Department (1928−43), president of the Liszt Academy of
Music in Budapest (1934−43), musical director of the Hungarian Radio (1931−44)
and, finally, conductor-in-chief of the Budapest Philharmonic Society (1919−43),
then the leading Hungarian orchestra.8 He was also a member of the Upper House
of the Hungarian Parliament (ex officio as president of the Liszt Academy). This
career was probably not the result of a planned strategy, but a natural consequence
of his multi-faceted musical abilities and his captivating personality. In those years,
he transformed much in Hungarian musical life, such as modernising the curricu-
lum of the Piano Advanced Class at the Liszt Academy, establishing the musical
standards of the newly founded national radio, and conducting significant new
works by Hungarian composers. In many cases, these were world premieres, includ-
ing Kodály’s Psalmus Hungaricus (1923) and Dances from Galánta (1933), as well as
Bartók’s Dance Suite (1923) and The Miraculous Mandarin Suite (1928). A leading
member of the Hungarian intelligentsia, he enjoyed a high standard of living in
an elegant, architect-designed villa with a landscaped garden in a wealthy part of
Budapest. He frequently toured throughout Europe (he had stopped his exhausting
annual tours to the USA in the late 1920s), and his compositions were performed
both in his home country and abroad.
Furthermore, salon culture had long been interwoven into his life. He was born
in Pozsony (now Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia), a cosmopolitan city where
5
See I. von Dohnányi, Ernst von Dohnányi, 111.
6
Dohnányi was offered several university positions, for example in Ohio and Texas,
but chose Florida State University in spring 1949. Ilona von Dohnányi discusses this
period in Ernst von Dohnányi, 127−68.
7
Dohnányi played his Piano Concerto no. 2 Op. 42 in Carnegie Hall in 1953. Though
the concert was successful, he was never invited back to New York. His first
American tour in 1900–01 had been extremely popular, as were his tours in 1921–27.
The New York State Orchestra even nominated him chief guest conductor in 1925–
26. For the press reception of the first American tours, see L. Gombos, ‘Dohnányi
Ernő művészi tevékenységének sajtórecepciója. II. rész: A nemzetközi karrier
kezdete, 1898. október – 1901. Április’, in Dohnányi Évkönyv 2004, ed. M. Sz. Farkas
(Budapest: MTA Zenetudományi Intézet, 2004), 99–346.
8
For a short biography in English, see D. Kiszely-Papp, Ernst von Dohnányi
(Budapest: Mágus, 2003).
242 Veronika Kusz
German, Hungarian and Slovakian were spoken. It was famous for its flourishing
bourgeois music life at the end of the nineteenth century. Dohnányi’s father, a high-
school teacher, arranged social gatherings with his friends at which mostly chamber
music was played. Thanks to his musical interest, the young Ernő was allowed to
participate in these occasions from a very early age. In a radio broadcast from 1944,
he recalled:
I was three years old when my father was practising Johann Sebastian Bach’s
Gavotte. The piece captivated me so much that my father had to play it several
times upon my constant urging. One day he gave me the bow, and I pulled it up
and down according to the rhythm of the melody while he produced the tones on
the string. It was the first manifestation of my musical talent. Nevertheless, the
only thing which happened then in my musical education was that I was allowed
to sit in an armchair and listen to the chamber music playing of my father and the
best amateurs of Pozsony, or even professional musicians. So I had the opportu-
nity to hear a lot of good music at a very early age.9
Aged seventeen, Dohnányi began his studies at the Liszt Academy of Music in
Budapest. As his biographer Bálint Vázsonyi has shown, the talented, polite and
handsome boy was soon a regular guest in the Budapest salons to which he was
introduced by professors such as István Thomán and Jenő Hubay.10 Two salons
were especially important: those of the Kunwalds and the Grubers. In the former,
Dohnányi met his future first wife Elza Kunwald, who, with the encouragement of
her art-loving parents, studied music. In the latter, he also found congenial female
companionship in Mrs Henrik Gruber (née Emma Schlesinger/Sándor). Also
known as Lady Emma, she was an extraordinary woman with a charismatic person-
ality and wide intellectual horizons. Her house served as an intellectual and social
hub for a generation of young musicians. She was passionately interested in music
and studied composition with three excellent young teachers: Dohnányi himself
9
‘Három éves voltam, mikor édesapám egy ilyen hangverseny előtt Joh.[ann]
Seb.[astian] Bach egyik Gavotte-ját gyakorolta. A darab annyira elragadott,
hogy folytonos unszolásomra apám kénytelen volt azt többször is eljátszani.
Az egyik napon játékos kedvében kezembe adta a vonót, melyet én a dallam
ritmusa szerint húztam le és fel, míg ő a balkezével a hangokat képezte a húron.
Ez volt zenei tehetségem első megnyilatkozása. Mindazonáltal zenei nevelésem
érdekében egyelőre csak annyi történt, hogy vasárnaponként, amikor édesapám
Pozsony legjobb műkedvelőivel vagy esetleg hivatásos zenészekkel kamarazenét
játszott, én ott ülhettem a karosszékben és hallgathattam. Így már egészen kicsiny
koromban alkalmam volt sok és jó zenét hallani.’ Dohnányi’s lecture, entitled
‘Emlékkönyvemből’, Hungarian Radio, 30 January 1944. See D. Kiszely-Papp,
‘“Emlékkönyvemből”. Dohnányi Ernő előadása a Magyar Rádióban Budapest I,
1944. január 30., vasárnap, 18 órakor’, in Dohnányi Évkönyv 2003, ed. M. Sz. Farkas
and D. Kiszely-Papp (Budapest: MTA Zenetudományi Intézet, 2004), 27−45.
10
B. Vázsonyi, Dohnányi Ernő (Budapest: Nap Kiadó, 2002), 41. István Thomán
(1862−1940) was a Hungarian pianist, one of Liszt’s favourite pupils, teacher of Béla
Bartók and Ernő Dohnányi at the Liszt Academy of Music. Jenő Hubay (1858−1937)
was a Hungarian violinist and leading violin teacher, pupil of Joseph Joachim, and
director of the Liszt Academy of Music.
(he met her in 1895/56), Béla Bartók (1901) and Zoltán Kodály (1905). As an aside,
it was Kodály who ended her unhappy marriage and became her second husband till
her death in 1958. But Dohnányi was also close to her, and probably owed much of
his intellectual development to her. He even dedicated some piano compositions to
her, such as his large-scale Variations and Fugue on a Theme of E. G. Op. 4, which was
modelled on Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Dohnányi enjoyed a lengthy period of
glittering success in Vienna from 1899 to 1905, and then in Berlin from 1905 to 1915.11
Vázsonyi makes several indirect references to private musical gatherings Dohnányi
attended in Vienna, immortalised in Dohnányi’s piano cycle Winterreigen Op. 13,
which hints at many of Dohnányi’s friends by way of dedications.12 We cannot
identify all dedicatees, but among them are Victor Heindl (no. 4, ‘Friend Victor’s
Mazurka’), a lawyer, amateur musician and poet whose texts were set to music by
Dohnányi several times (Sechs Gedichte von Victor Heindl Op. 14, Waldelfelein, with-
out opus number, Tante Simona, comic opera, Op. 20); Ada Mary Thomas (later
Lady Heath, no. 3, ‘An Ada’), a pianist and a close friend (or probably love) during
the Viennese years; and Adalbert Lindner (no. 9, ‘Morgengrauen’), Dohnányi’s
music-loving doctor who was also the dedicatee of his String Quartet no. 2 Op. 15.13
In terms of Dohnányi’s Berlin social life, Kodály’s accounts of chamber music eve-
nings provide evidence that Dohnányi must have entertained gatherings in his own
home.14
As the 1930s progressed, political tension escalated. By 1943, Dohnányi had grad-
ually relinquished his positions, partly because he was unwilling to enforce anti-Se-
mitic legislation in his institutions. He finally left Hungary in 1944.15 He could not
return because of the Soviet threat, but it was not easy to find an appropriate home.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that he did not travel with his
wife, but with his future third wife, Ilona Zachár, and her two children. As both were
still married to their respective spouses, getting a joint visa was virtually impossible.
Only Argentina accepted them all, and they spent a year and a half in that country
(1948/49). Following their marriage in 1949, they settled in the United States, in
keeping with their original plans.16
11
However, it was not a continuous progress: in 1919, he was appointed as director of
the Liszt Academy of Music. Half a year later, because of political changes, he was
suspended, returning to the institution only in 1928.
12
For Dohnányi’s social life in Vienna, see Vázsonyi, Dohnányi Ernő, 76, 100−1.
13
For more details see R. W. Garvin, ‘Self-Identification in the Romantic Tradition:
Dohnányi’s Winterreigen, Op. 13’, in Perspectives on Ernst von Dohnányi, 113−23; W.
Waterhouse, ‘Dohnányi and Great Britain’, in Perspectives on Ernst von Dohnányi,
59–69; I. von Dohnányi, Ernst von Dohnányi, 58–60.
14
Zoltán Kodály’s letter to Béla Bartók about a social gathering in Dohnányi’s home in
Berlin (January 1907): D. Dille (ed.), Documenta Bartókiana 4 (Budapest: Akadémiai
Kiadó, 1970), 130−2.
15
This period is discussed by Ilona von Dohnányi in her biography of her husband as
well as in her unpublished novels, short stories and diaries (held in the Dohnányi
Collection of the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences).
16
The hardship of those years was exacerbated by charges in the Hungarian press
in 1945/46 accusing Dohnányi of being a Nazi collaborator. The ‘Dohnányi affair’
is yet to be fully explored, but the source material suggests that he was criticised
244 Veronika Kusz
Dohnányi’s five years between Hungary in November 1944 and Tallahassee in

October 1949 were spent in obscurity, physical privation, financial difficulties and
humiliation. Tallahassee brought genuine relief. As the composer recalled:
I have come to love Tallahassee. I always think of it as a beautiful garden, with its
birds, its flowers and its ancient oaks with picturesque moss. Walking in spring-
time when the azaleas are in bloom, or sitting in my own garden to feed the birds,
I have felt that this was the most delightful spot in the world. Everything was
enchantingly beautiful.17
Even if somewhat embroidered posthumously by his wife, this reaction was fully
understandable. The political slanders in Hungary hurt him so profoundly that just
before he stepped onto the ship to Argentina, he wrote to his sister: ‘I had come
to hate Europe’.18 Owing to his adaptable and placid personality, he soon found
advantages in rural American life and, as eye-witnesses confirmed, did not com-
plain about this turn of fate.19 However, a different perspective is offered by a letter
his wife wrote in 1957 to his Hungarian musical friend, Ede Zathureczky, who also
attended his Tallahassee salon (see below). Zathureczky had travelled to Vienna a
few days before the Hungarian revolution broke out on 23 October 1956. He took
the opportunity to flee Hungary but was uncertain about what to do next. He asked
the Dohnányis’ advice and Ilona von Dohnányi responded:
You will need every bit of your nervous system if you really want to build a new
life … I do not know how you can put down roots in a strange country, and how
much you appreciate all your own people back home … But the first years were
just terrible, the persecution here too, you know, etc. But now, I can say that we
are contented and happy … We have a home which we love, we have friends,
Americans who took us into their heart and stand by our side. We love our new
country.20
mainly for administrative activities dating from the 1930s. These also suggest that the
accusations were unfounded and were never pursued officially. On this topic, see
J. A. Grymes, ‘Ernst von Dohnányi and Communist Hungary in Early Cold War’,
Acta Musicologica 84/1 (2012), 65–86.
17
E. von Dohnányi, Message to Posterity, ed. I. von Dohnányi, trans. Mary F. Parmenter
(Jacksonville, FL: Drew, 1960), 34. Recent research has revealed that ‘Dohnányi’s
memoirs’ were written by his widow right after his death, so they should be
interpreted circumspectly.
18
Dohnányi’s letter to Mária Dohnányi, 22nd January 1948. See É. Kelemen (ed.),
Dohnányi Ernő családi levelei (Budapest: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár – Gondolat –
MTA Zenetudományi Intézet, 2010), 207.
19
See for example C. M. Carroll, ‘Memories of Dohnányi’, and W. Lee Pryor,
‘Dohnányi at Tallahassee: A Personal Reminiscence’, in Perspectives on Ernst von
Dohnányi, 233–41 and 217–32.
20
‘Idegrendszerének minden porcikájára szükség lesz, ha valóban új életet akar
felépíteni. … nem tudhatom, hogyan tud gyökeret verni idegenben, s mennyire
értékeli mindazt, amit odahaza bírt. … Viszont irtózatosak voltak az első évek, az
üldöztetés itt is, amiről tud, stb. Most azonban azt mondhatom, hogy elégedettek
és boldogok vagyunk. … van otthonunk, mit szeretünk, vannak barátaink,
In letters from around the time of their arrival in Tallahassee, Dohnányi’s wife
seemed to be less contented, indeed:
Tallahassee is not at the end of the world but at the end of the tail of the world.21
Tallahassee is a little village, so minor and primitive that not even airmail writing
paper or any kind of alcohol can be had; if you want to buy anything you have to
go to nearby cities, but the nearest are 4–5 hours away by train.22
She justifiably complained that Tallahassee was a ‘cultural hick-town’.23 The popula-
tion was c. 40,000 (Dohnányi estimated it at 25,000 people in a letter). There was no
theatre, let alone an opera house; its entire musical life was reliant upon the university.
Despite Dohnányi’s positive attitude and enthusiasm about numerous practical
elements of American life (such as washing machines, dishwashers, air condition-
ing, vitamin pills, dog daycare and wedding lists) as well as Florida’s natural environ-
ment, he doubtless suffered from living on the cultural periphery.24 (Given his age
and bitter experiences of political accusations, he is less likely to have missed public
concert successes or administrative power.) One of his Hungarian colleagues, the
conductor-pianist Ernő Dániel, also in a small university town, in Texas, wrote the
following to him about their situation:25
Of course what’s lacking is musical atmosphere. We frown on Dallas, yet it’s a

long way from here. This is where the benefits of a good old Pest background
appear. Without them we’d turn into a dry creek.26
amerikaiak, kik szívökbe fogadtak, s kik hűségesen állnak az oldalunkon. Szeretjük

az új hazánkat.’ (Author’s italics.) Dohnányi’s letter to Zathureczky, 19 January
1957 (Dohnányi Collection, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, MZA-DE-Ta-Script
82.309).
21
‘a világ nem is végében, de farkában van’. Ilona von Dohnányi’s letter to the
Schulhofs, 30 September 1955 (Dohnányi Collection, Hungarian Academy of
Sciences, MZA-DE-Ta-Script 82.257).
22
‘Tallahassee egy kis falu, olyan apró és primitív, hogy még air-mail levélpapírt és
semmiféle alkoholt se kapni, ha valaki bármit venni akar, a közeli városokba utazik,
a legközelebbi azonban 4–5 óra vonaton.’ The Dohnányis’ letter to the Kilényis, 26
October 1949. (Kilényi–Dohnányi Collection, Florida State University).
23
‘kulturális Mucsa’. Letter from Ilona von Dohnányi to Mária Dohnányi, 26
December 1949 (Dohnányi Collection, Széchényi National Hungarian Library).
24
See for example Ilona von Dohnányi to Mária Dohnányi, July 11, 1952 (Dohnányi
Collection, Széchényi National Hungarian Library); and I. von Dohnányi, Ernst von
Dohnányi, 143.
25
Ernő Dániel (1918−77) studied with Dohnányi at the Liszt Academy of Music,
Budapest. After the war, he taught at a university in Texas; in 1956, he premiered
Dohnányi’s Stabat Mater Op. 46.
26
‘Persze, ami itt hiányzik: a zenei atmosphere. Le-le rándulunk Dallasba, dehát mégis
csak messze van. Most mutatja meg jótékony hatását a jó öreg pesti “background”. E
nélkül ma már száraz patakmeder lenne belőlünk.’ Letter from Dániel to Dohnányi,
10 January 1951 (Dohnányi Collection, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, MZA-DE-
Ta-Script 80.378).
246 Veronika Kusz
Dániel’s mention of ‘musical atmosphere’ and ‘background’ surely embrace both

public concert life and the private music-making which emerges when close-knit
communities regularly enjoy the arts together. Given Dohnányi’s background, it is
unsurprising that he attempted to develop a similar salon culture in his new home
in the new world.
Only a few months after settling in Tallahassee, the composer’s wife wrote to her
Hungarian friend Júlia Manninger:
though we are battling with financial difficulty, we have a chamber music evening
every week. I only serve some coffee and Coca Cola, but it still looks elegant
in our beautiful apartment … Thanks to these events, we have already made
some friends here. Everybody enthuses over us because we have brought some
European air here. I might say that we have become the centre of [Tallahassee]
social life; wherever we go we are welcomed with reverence.27
This brief excerpt reveals several important details about the Dohnányis’ chamber
music evenings, and gives us a way of structuring our observations.
Spontaneity
The lack of detailed documentary sources about the salon-like gatherings in the
Dohnányis’ home suggests that the composer did not consciously plan a salon in
Tallahassee.28 This may have arisen spontaneously from Dohnányi’s musicality and
charismatic personality, which attracted young and old music-lovers to the house.
Dohnányi had no ambitious plans for Tallahassee’s musical life at all, as revealed in
a note to his sister Mária dated 18 May 1951: ‘to make Tallahassee a “musical centre”
would be just as hard as in Kecskemét or Szolnok [two small provincial towns on the
Hungarian Great Plain], which are still bigger’.29 Whether he harboured any ambi-
tions of being a ‘musical leader’ within the community (as formerly in Budapest),
deliberately or not, he unconsciously became a reference point in Tallahassee cul-
27
‘noha küzdünk az anyagi gondokkal keményen, mégis azon voltam, hogy hetenként
legyen esténként egy kis kamarazene összejövetel, amire csak kávét és kokakolát
adok, de azért mégis elegánsan fest a szép lakásban s így elértük, hogy már vannak
barátaink, akikhez igen ragaszkodunk, mindenki lelkesedik értünk, mert európai
levegőt hoztunk ide, mondhatnám mi lettünk a társadalmi élet központjává.’ Ilona
von Dohnányi’s letter to Júlia Manninger, 1950 (Dohnányi Collection, Széchényi
National Hungarian Library).
28
The most important sources of the Dohnányis’ everyday lives are Ilona Zachár’s
personal diaries (see footnote 4) and the composer’s pocket calendars between 1949
and 1960 (MZA-DE-Ta-Script 9.173, 9.275−9.285). References to social gatherings
are also made in the correspondence (for example Albert Spalding’s letter to
Dohnányi, 26 October 1951, MZA-DE-Ta-Script 80.446, or 18 March 1952, MZA-DE-
Ta-Script 80.500).
29
‘Tallahasseeból “zenei központot” csinálni, époly nehéz, mint Kecskemétből vagy
Szolnokból, mely városok nagyobbak’. Letter from Dohnányi to Mária Dohnányi,
18 May 1951 (Dohnányi Collection, Széchényi National Hungarian Library, without
shelfmark).
tural life. There were also other motivations; as his wife wrote to Mária Dohnányi
in 1955:
In Cuci’s [Dohnányi’s] profession, popularity is very important, and we live here

in the storefront. Every word we say, everything we do circulates [throughout the
town] the next day. Wherever I go I hear something about us: somebody said this
or that – but fortunately always nice and good things.30
This indicates that Ilona von Dohnányi believed that socialising and networking
could not be separated. As she had a much more open personality, it must have been
she who who urged the composer to cultivate their social relationships. As far as she
could, she managed social tasks. As she wrote in connection with the premiere of
Dohnányi’s American Rhapsody Op. 47 in Athens, Ohio:
[Dohnányi] is incapable of fulfilling social requirements. So, when I am with him,

I manage all these things, to relieve him from them.31
Thus, it seems that the Tallahassee gatherings emerged because of three factors: the
appeal of Dohnányi’s artistry; their desire to make new friendships and fulfil social
requirements; and Ilona’s devotion in organising the gatherings.
Inwardness and Nostalgia

Following a detailed description of their house (Figure 16.2) and discussing the
differences between American and Hungarian life, Dohnányi’s wife noted in a letter
of 1952:
A friend told us that nobody used his home as nicely and loved to be at home as
much as we do, Cuci [Dohnányi] and I. And that is true. We never go anywhere if
it is not a must, I am typing, studying, Ernst is composing or reading.32
She also described their home as a bastion, shielding them from the external world
(i.e. the political accusations about her husband), and a place for nostalgia, a closed
30
‘Cuci hivatásában a népszerűség itt nagyon fontos és mi kirakatban vagyunk, minden
szó, amit kiejtünk, másnap közszájon forog, minden tettünk. Bárhová megyek,
hallom, hogy ez vagy amaz mesélte rólunk ezt vagy amazt, s hála az égnek mindég
szépet és jót.’ Letter from Ilona von Dohnányi to Mária Dohnányi, 16 January 1955
(Dohnányi Collection, Széchényi National Hungarian Library.)
31
‘[Dohnányi] társadalmilag képtelen eleget tenni minden követelményeknek,
hiszen ha én ott vagyok, én intézem ezeket a dolgokat, és a legtöbb teljesítmény alól
mentesíthetem’. Letter from Dohnányi to Mária Dohnányi, 5 March 1954 (Dohnányi
Collection, Széchényi National Hungarian Library).
32
‘Valaki azt mondta barátaink közül, hogy soha Amerikában senki az otthonát úgy
ki nem használta, s nem szeretett annyit, s úgy otthon lenni, mint Cuci meg én. S ez
való igaz. Soha ki nem mozdulunk, ha nem muszáj, mert én gépelek, tanulok, Cuci
meg dolgozgat, vagy olvasgat’. Letter from Ilona to Mária Dohnányi, 25 December
1952 (Dohnányi Collection, Széchényi National Hungarian Library).
248 Veronika Kusz
Figure 16.2 Ernst von Dohnányi’s Tallahassee house © Hungarian Academy of Sciences
space in absolutely different surroundings. In this fortress-like space they created

their own world, primarily through music. Incidentally, the house is still owned
by their descendants; Ilona von Dohnányi’s grandson (Dohnányi’s step-grandson)
faithfully maintains the traces of the composer. The red-brick building is surrounded
by a pleasant garden in which the flowers planted by Dohnányi still grow; the rooms
are dominated by dark-coloured furniture, some designed according to his plans,
emanating a sense of nostalgia. The walls are covered with decorations: memories
of their lives, photos and pictures of people, places and experiences.
Ilona von Dohnányi also pointed out other differences between their slower and
more intimate lifestyle and that of their new friends. She often declared that, in her
opinion, the average American worked too much, did not do their housework well,
and did not watch out for their family enough.
What is important for them: the car in which they can dash everywhere. They
change their homes as frequently as we change our underwear; and jobs, too, they
are ready to quit their old job and exchange it for another in California or God
knows which end of the US for $50 more salary. They do not want to put down
roots in one place because that would be against the principle of liberty.33
33
‘Ami fontos, az autó, mert azon elroboghatnak, ahová akarnak. Az otthont
váltogatják, mint mi a fehérneműt, az állást is, képesek 50 dollárt emelésért
odahagyni régi állást s felcserélni egy másikkal Californiában vagy ég tudja, mely
végén az U. S.-nek. Nem is akarnak gyökeret verni egy helyen, mert az ellenkezik
a szabadsággal.’ Letter from Mrs Dohnányi to Mária Dohnányi, 6 January 1956
(Dohnányi Collection, Széchényi National Hungarian Library).
It would therefore seem that the Dohnányis tried to not only mediate their musi-
cal culture when organising a salon-style gathering, but also promote a specifically
‘European’ way of living.
Protagonists: The Dohnányis and Their Friends

Ilona von Dohnányi played a central role, both as organiser and also as a symbol
of the ‘European soul’. One might say she represented a traditional womanly role
which recalled a pre-war life when women usually eschewed professional careers
in favour of establishing a supporting background for their spouses. Meanwhile
Dohnányi himself, the essence of the gatherings, played his pieces, improvised
and sometimes presented works in progress.34 According to passing references
in Ilona von Dohnányi’s diaries and family correspondence, the musicians were
drawn from their circle of friends: Dohnányi’s best students (Janet Sitges, Howard
Silberer and Mary Lilienthal, for example); his colleagues (especially his old friend
and Florida State University colleague Edward Kilényi and the theory professor
Walter Cowles); Frances Magnes, the dedicatee of Dohnányi’s Violin Concerto
no. 2 Op. 43; and Albert Spalding, the renowned American violinist and Dohnányi’s
best friend (see Figure 16.3); as well as famous Hungarian emigrant musicians who
came to Tallahassee to visit Dohnányi such as Antal Doráti, chief conductor of the
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the aforementioned Ede Zathureczky.35
34
See for example Ilona von Dohnányi’s diary entry, 1 September 1952 (Dohnányi
Collection, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, MZA-DE-Dig 000032): ‘I invite the
Polish girl and her mother to the evening. She talked there about their escape and
how he saved her daughter very interestingly. Mrs. Smith, Judy and others came, too.
Later Ernő [Dohnányi] played the harp piece [Harp Concertino Op. 45. finished
two weeks before].’ (‘Délutánra meghívom a lengyel lányt az anyjával. Az elmeséli
nagyon érdekesen a menekülését s hogy kereste meg a lányát. Smithné, Judy és mások
is eljön[nek]. Később Ernő eljátssza a hárfa darabot.’) See also Ilona von Dohnányi’s
diary entry, 5 May 1956 (Dohnányi Collection, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
MZA-DE-Dig 000033): ‘In the evening Olive and Ader [?] arrived, and then, at 8 p.m.,
4 [other guests] Kilényi, Sellers, Sedore and Zachara [all FSU colleagues]. There was a
lot of nice food, all of them were overjoyed. But Kilényi was not happy; I do not know
if he is angry with me … Beautiful music.’ (‘Este vacsorára jön Olive és Ader [?] majd
8-kor 4 [ember] Kilényi, Sellers, Sedore és Zachara. Rengeteg étel, mind el vannak
ragadtatva. De Kilényi rosszkedvű, nem tudom rám neheztel-e … Gyönyörű zene.’)
35
Edward Kilényi (1910−2010) was an American pianist of Hungarian descent, one
of Dohnányi’s favourite students. He was Dohnányi’s chamber partner during
his juvenile years, and later when they were colleagues at Florida State University
(1953−60). Frances Magnes (1919−2010) was an American violinist who was
regarded as a promising talent by Dohnányi. However, because of family matters,
her career did not progress as rapidly as anticipated. Albert Spalding (1888−1953) was
an American violinist who met Dohnányi in the 1920s. They were close friends and
Dohnány regarded him as his ideal chamber partner. Antal Doráti (1906−88) was a
Hungarian conductor, a distant relative of Dohnányi’s. He conducted the leading
orchestras of Minneapolis, London, Stockholm, Washington etc. He premiered the
two revised versions of Dohnányi’s Symphony no. 2 in Minneapolis (15 March and 15
November 1957). Dohnányi’s legacy includes photographs of Spalding, Magnes and
Zathureczky in Tallahassee, but the nature of the gatherings shown in those images
is not clear.
250 Veronika Kusz
Figure 16.3 Ernst von Dohnányi and Albert Spalding, c. 1957 © Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Generally, there is little detailed information about the evenings; Zathureczky’s

Tallahassee visit is better documented. It must have been received as a European
‘show’, in other words a deliberate presentation or evocation of old-fashioned
domestic music culture for their new American acquaintances. Zathureczky was an
old friend of Dohnányi; a star student of Jenő Hubay and internationally famous
Bartók interpreter, he launched his solo career in a Philharmonic Society concert
conducted by Dohnányi in 1928. He joined Dohnányi in the Liszt Academy of
Music in 1929. The Second World War entwined their fates strangely, as Dohnányi
wrote in a public declaration:
I resigned my position as Director of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1941,

and left finally in May 1943. My successor was Mr Ede Zathureczky who held, and
since then still holds, this position through all regimes.36
36
Dohnányi’s declaration before a Public Notary about the political accusations, 26
November 1948 (Kilényi-Dohnányi Collection, Florida State University).
Zathureczky remained director for eight years, an astonishing achievement in

that troubled time. However, Dohnányi’s declaration implies a little grudge; he
perhaps felt that Zathureczky’s political attitude was not determined enough.37 In
any case, his feelings must have been temporary, since (as discussed above) when
Zathureczky got stuck in Vienna after the outbreak of the Hungarian revolution in
1956, they corresponded about possibilities for emigration. Ultimately, Zathureczky
managed to emigrate to the US, visiting the Dohnányis in Tallahassee shortly after
his arrival. He wrote movingly about their reunion:
it is truly a dream-like experience: we are together again. They are sweet and good
to me – and we play a lot of music. Four Beethoven, four Mozart, Brahms, ‘the
sonata’ (Dohn.), the D minor by Schumann, César Franck: so you can imagine
my happiness. And moreover, all these beautiful things are documented, as they
are recorded on tape.38
This visit is significant because the performances were audio-recorded, leaving a val-
uable – and rare – document for posterity. (Dohnányi was averse to making record-
ings, so his legendary piano playing is otherwise poorly documented.) Although
these recordings, like others made of Dohnányi’s American concert performances,
are of very poor technical quality, and naturally also not musically polished, they
give us a glimpse into the music-making of this legendary duo, an insight into earlier
interpretative styles, and also into the ‘sound’ of the domestic music gatherings at
the Dohnányis in Tallahassee.39
Musical Genres: Typical and Atypical

It can be assumed that most of the music performed in the Tallahassee salon
included piano or chamber music works. There was, however, an interesting excep-
tion which took place not in Dohnányi’s home, but under similar conditions: the
private first performance of the Violin Concerto no. 2 on 26 April 1951. This was
nine months before the official premiere in San Antonio, Texas (26 January 1952),
and almost ten months before its most important performance in New York (14
February 1952), which Dohnányi did not attend because he was so upset that the
New York public believed the political accusations against him. In Tallahassee, the
37
Vázsonyi has located and published a letter from 1949 in which Zathureczky is
shown to be trying to do his best in the given situation; however, the original of the
document has not turned up yet. Vázsonyi, Dohnányi Ernő, 287−8.
38
‘bizony álomszerű élmény, ismét együtt vagyunk. Aranyosak, jók hozzám – és
rengeteget muzsikálunk. 4 Beethoven, 4 Mozart, Brahms, a “szonáta” (Doh), a
Schumann D-moll, a Césár Franck hát képzelheted örömömet. Méghozzá mindez
a sok szép meg van örökítve, mert fel van véve szalagra.’ Zathureczky’s letter to
Béla Szécsi, 30 January 1958, cited in A. Wagner and B. Szécsi, Zenei csillagok között
(Munich: Dr Paul Flach, 1984), 46.
39
A selection of Dohnányi’s American concert recordings, among them some excerpts
of the sonatas with Zathureczky, has been published recently: V. Kusz (ed.), ‘The
Last Romantic: Dohnányi’s American Concert Recordings/Az utolsó romantikus:
Dohnányi amerikai koncertfelvételei’ (Budapest: Rózsavölgyi, 2017, RÉTCD 089).
252 Veronika Kusz
work was performed twice on the same occasion for invited guests. People could
leave the hall if they chose not to hear the repetition, but (of course) no one did. The
atmosphere of the event recalls the Dohnányis’ private friendly gatherings in so far
as attendees were invited, and there was an exclusive reception after the concert.40
Another important genre in Dohnányi’s American salon was the four-hand
and two-piano repertoire, works which were so successful that they transcended
the ‘private’ setting and were given on the concert stage.41 Dohnányi’s most impor-
tant partner in this was Edward Kilényi. The American-born pianist of Hungarian
origin was one of Dohnányi’s most talented students from Budapest. Already close
to his professor during his studies (1928−30), Kilényi became crucially important
in Dohnányi’s life after the war. In his role as music control officer of the US Army
in Bavaria, he was the first person to investigate the political accusations against
Dohnányi officially.42 Out of gratitude, his old professor arranged a job for Kilényi
at Florida State University, where they became colleagues. Their joint concerts were
extremely popular in Tallahassee.
Educational Function
The shift of the two-piano and four-hand genres out of the private circle draws
attention to a final important feature of Dohnányi’s Tallahassee salon, namely the
pedagogical or didactic implications of this special slice of European musical cul-
ture for their new American friends. Dohnányi incorporated four-hand piano reper-
toire into the lecture-recitals which he gave at several American universities outside
Tallahassee, as a concert performer and guest professor. For example, he visited
Athens, Ohio, annually between 1948 and 1959, as well as universities in Kansas
(1951−53), Wisconsin (1955), Georgia (1951, 1955) and even San Francisco (1951).
Despite his dislike of speaking English before large audiences, and the tremendous
effort of preparation (as his wife recalled), he accepted these invitations.43
Three lecture texts have survived in his Tallahassee legacy.44 In one of them, he
called attention to the importance of sight-reading in piano studies, since this
40
I. von Dohnányi, Ernst von Dohnányi, 194−5.
41
According to Vázsonyi, the last flowering of Dohnányi’s piano-performing was in
these shared concerts with Kilényi, which the younger pianist proposed. Vázsonyi,
Dohnányi Ernő, 299. The dates of their Tallahassee concerts were 7 June 1954, 10
December 1954, 10 January 1955, 4 February 1955 and 3 August 1959.
42
I. von Dohnányi, Ernst von Dohnányi, 139, 144−5, and 148−50.
43
‘Ami a Convocation Speech-et illeti, azt semmiképpen nem vállalja. Neki előkészülni
ilyen beszédre tízszer nagyobb munka és fáradság, mint egy koncertet leadni, és a
honorárium nevetségesen kevés.’ Mrs Dohnányi’s letter to Schulhof, 1 October 1954
(Dohnányi Collection, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, MZA 82.245).
44
Two of the lectures were published as an appendix to A Song of Life: ‘Sight-Reading’
and ‘Romanticism in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas’. I. von Dohnányi, Ernst von
Dohnányi, 214–19. A recording also survives of the latter lecture delivered at the
University of Wisconsin on 16 November 1955 (Dohnányi Collection, Hungarian
Academy of Sciences, MZA-DE-Ta-AV 2.017). There is another lecture draft on
Beethoven’s piano sonatas (without title, under cataloguing; former shelfmark: FSU
Dohnányi Collection ‘McGlynn Documents’, 725).
enabled the pianist to become familiar with a range of piano literature, and therefore
the style of a given composer. However, in his lecture, he emphasised the special
pleasures of sight-reading for four hands, an essential form of music-making in old
European salons. As he declared in his lecture-recital on sight-reading:
It is a pity that four-hand playing on one piano has become so unfashionable, –

again, as the result of the diffusion of mechanical instruments. In my youth, play-
ing four-hands was so widespread in Europe that it was even used in courtship
between couples, and – incredible nowadays – quite a number of marriages were
contracted as a consequence of too much four-hand playing. But it had other
advantages too.45
None of Dohnányi’s own three marriages were contracted by ‘too much four-hand
playing’; as an aside, perhaps they should have been, and perhaps his private life
would have been more harmonious as a result. In any case, his third wife seems to
have suited him best, possibly because of her devotion and constancy. Not only was
Dohnányi’s bitter emigration period smoother thanks to her, but she organised the
precious social and cultural world of the Tallahassee Dohnányi salon. Indeed, this
salon would not have existed without the attraction of his multi-faceted musical
expertise, her tireless organisation and devotion, and – last but not least – receptive
surroundings.
45
Ernő Dohnányi, ‘Sight-Reading’ (lecture recital). Published by I. von Dohnányi
(Ernst von Dohnányi, 214−16); however, this citation originates from the autograph
at the Dohnányi Collection of the British Library (BL 50,870 A).
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Index
Abeken, Hedwig, 193, 196 sketches and fragments of Lieder, 27–8, 30, 40
Abeken, Heinrich, 193 Clemens Brentanos Frühlingkranz, 27
Afzelius, Arvid August, 81, 84, 93 Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde, 27,
Agoult, Countess Marie d’, 109, 146 37–8, 115
Agricola, Carl, 131n Die Günderrode, 27
Alberti, Conrad, 74 Arnim, Friedmund von, 16, 44
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 3, 129, 134 Arnim, Gisela von (later Grimm)
Almqvist, Carl Jonas Love, 80, 82, 89–90, 93 at mother’s salon, 45
‘Songes’ (‘Dreams’), 89–90 at Wiepersdorf, 62
‘Sullivan och Vallivan’, 91–2 Jessie Hillebrand corresponds with, 223
Törnrosens bok (The Book of the Briar Rose), Joachim separates from, 61–2
6, 89–90 Joachim’s attachment to, 50, 61–2, 64
Apthorp, Octavie, 237 marriage to Herman Grimm, 62, 191
Apthorp, William F., 228, 232, 237 melodrama on Psyche, 63
Argentina performs Kinkel’s works, 16
Dohnányi in, 243 personal seal, 61
Arne, Thomas Augustine represented in Joachim’s cipher, 45, 47,
Artaxerxes, 105 50–1, 54–60, 62
Arnim family, 191 and Staegemann-Olfers salon, 191, 194
Arnim, Achim von Arnim, Maximiliane (Maxe) von, 16, 18, 191
estate (Wiepersdorf), 62 Arnold, Carl Johann
friendship with Elisabeth von Staegemann, Quartettabend bei Bettina von Arnim
186 (painting), 43, 45, 56–7, 64
marriage to Bettina, 27 Arnold, Samuel
Arnim, Armgart von, 16, 44, 64, 191 Inkle and Yarico, 105
Arnim, Bettina von arpeggione (bowed guitar), 135
amateur status and musical knowledge, 27, Assing, Ludmilla, 45
34, 37–40, 42 Athenaeum (journal), 29–30, 220
in Arnold painting, 47 Atterbom, Per Daniel Amadeus, 82, 167
at Wiepersdorf, 62 Auber, Daniel-François-Esprit, 147
Berlin entertaining (Gesellschaften), 43–4, 57 Auerbach, Berthold, 209
entertains Kinkel, 18 Austen, Jane
improvisation and composition of Lieder, Pride and Prejudice, 154–6
27, 33–4, 37
infatuation with Goethe, 57 Bach family, 185
introduces von Winter to Staegemanns, 188 Bach, Johann Sebastian
Joachim plays at home, 5 influence on Lindblad, 84
and Joachim’s attachment to Gisela, 62–3 Art of the Fugue, 31
Kinkel stays with, 17–18, 25 Bache, Walter, 213
and Kinkel’s admission to Savigny’s salon, 18 Barateau, Émile, 141–2
marriage and relationships, 27 Bardua, Caroline, 2, 17, 19
monument of Goethe and Psyche, 59, 61–4 Bardua, Wilhelmine, 2, 16–17, 19
musical fragments, 5 Bargiel, Woldemar, 44–5
notebook/sketchbook, 34–6 Barnett, Domenico, 227
performs Kinkel’s Vogelkantate, 18–19 Barnett, Eliza, 228
relations with Beethoven, 27, 63 Barnett, John, 227, 229, 234
Romanticist connections, 30, 40, 42 Barnett, Julius, 234
self-styled ‘genius’ and accomplishments, 37 Barnett, Rosamond, 227
setting of Goethe’s ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II, Bartók, Béla, 242
27–9, 37–40, 42 Dance Suite, 241
272 Index
The Miraculous Mandarin Suite, 241 Boieldieu, François-Adrien

Bazzini, Antonio, 222 Offenbach parodies, 140
Beach, Amy, 225n, 237 La Dame blanche, 151
Beebe, Mary, 230 Boston Globe (newspaper), 233
Beer, Amalia, 185 Boston, Mass.
Beer-Meyerbeer family, 192 Back Bay neighbourhood, 230–2, 235
Beethoven, Ludwig van Clara Kathleen Rogers’s salon (‘musicales’),
Dohnányi lectures on piano sonatas, 252n 9, 225–6, 229–32, 238
Joachim plays at Bettina von Arnim’s salons, Isabella Stewart Gardner salon, 227, 233
44 musical life, 225–7, 231–2, 237–8
and Joachim’s attachment to Gisela von social exclusiveness and attitudes, 234–5
Arnim, 62–3 Brahms, Johannes
the ‘pathetic’ in, 172, 175 admires Heyse’s writings, 66
performed in salons, 10 careful choice of song-texts, 67
played at Olfers salon, 197 court post in Detmold, 8
relations with Bettina von Arnim, 27, 64 friendship with Heyse, 65, 74
‘An Bettine’ (poem), 63 as guest at Heyse’s salons, 66
Bagatelles, 4 on Joachim’s compositions, 48
Diabelli Variations, 243 and Joachim’s interest in counterpoint, 56
Piano Sonata Op. 110, 196 Meiningen monument, 212
String Trio Op 8, 44 music performed in salons, 3
Symphony No.4, B-flat major Op.60 and print culture, 75
arranged for four-hand piano, 127 reputation, 66
Symphony No.9 (‘Choral’) Op.125, 146 sets Heyse’s poems to music, 65, 72, 74
Begas, Carl, 17, 21 women models in songs, 71
Bellini, Giovanni ‘Am Sonntag Morgen’, 72
operas performed in Paris, 145, 147 Ein deutsches Requiem Op.45, 66
Norma, 115, 148–9 ‘Mädchenlied’ (Heyse) Op.95 No.6, 6, 72–3
I puritani, 115 ‘Mädchenlied’ (Heyse) Op.107 No.5, 6, 65,
Bellman, Carl Michael, 81 67
Benjamin (caricaturist), 245 Piano Sonata in F minor Op.5, 55
Benjamin, Walter, 110, 116 ‘Unbewegte laue Luft’ Op.57 No.8, 71
Berger, Ludwig, 189–90 Vier ernste Gesänge Op.121, 67
Berlin ‘Von waldbekränzter Höhe’ Op.57 No.1, 71
Classicism (Berliner Klassik), 186, 191 ‘Wiegenlied’ Op.49 No.4, 66
Dohnányi in, 243 brass instruments
Gesetzlose Gesellschaft, 186n in Biedermeier Vienna, 137
Johanna Kinkel in, 14–19, 25–6 Breitkopf & Härtel (Leipzig publishers), 50,
Lindblad in, 82 216n
Mendelssohn on salons in, 201 Brentano, Clemens
salons and social gatherings, 8, 14–18, 26, 69, acquaintance with Johanna Kinkel, 14
185–8 as brother to Bettina von Arnim, 27, 33
Sing-Akademie, 185, 187–9, 191 friendship with Elisabeth von Staegemann,
Wagnergemeinde, 185, 194 186
Weimar Classicism, 80 Marie von Olfers sets poems to music, 192
Bertin de Vaux, Madelaine Sophie, 140 rejects bravura singing, 188
‘Beviamo tutti tre’ (glee), 100, 102 Bruch, Max, 194–5
Biedermeier era Bruckner, Anton
in Vienna, 7, 123–37 Ninth Symphony, 31
Bildung, 38, 172 Budapest
Billington, Elizabeth (née Weichsel), 104–6, 108 Offenbach’s opera performed in, 152
Billington, James, 104 Bülow, Franziska von, 193
Billroth, Theodor, 67 Bülow, Hans von, 8, 193, 211, 213–14, 217, 221, 223
Birnbach, August, 135 Buonamici, Giuseppe, 212–14, 220, 222
Bleyer, Jakob F., 124 Bury, Marie Pauline Rose Blaze de see Flassan,
‘Blue Bells of Scotland’ (folk song), 100 Maurice de
Index 273
Calatin, Agnes von, 206n ‘Cherchant à fasciner une riche héritière

Caricature Morale, Politique et Littéraire, La avec son ut de poitrine’, 120–1
(journal), 109 Croquis musicaux, 120–1
caricatures ‘Une déclaration en pleine société’, 111n
in England, 6, 95–9, 107–8 ‘En train de charmer toute une société avec
in France, 109–22 la romance du Beau Nicolas’, 121
Catalani, Angelica, 188 David, Félicien (‘Davidini’), 147 & n
Chadwick, George W., 232 David, Ferdinand, 48, 216
Chaminade, Cécile, 3 Davis, Samuel, 129
Charivari, Le (journal), 109–10, 118n, 121 Daxenberger, Sebastian, 203
Charlotte, Princess Royal, 107n Decker, Pauline, 16, 22
Charlotte, Queen of George III of Great Deffand, Marie-Anne de Vichy- Chamrond,
Britain, 103 Marquise du, 2
Chopin, Fryderyk Delacroix, Eugène, 32
as improviser, 32–3, 115 Delavigne, Germaine, 149
music performed in salons, 3 Deutsche Rundschau, 69
Waltz in G flat major (Op.70 No.1), 141 Deutschmann (physharmonica manufacturer),
Cimarosa, Domenico, 169 131n
Clarence, William, Duke of (later King William Deux aveugles, Les (operetta), 142
IV), 103 Dingelstedt, Franz, 200
Clarke, Caroline Gardner, 27 Dirichlet, Felix, 22
Classicism, 30 Dirichlet, Rebecka (née Mendelssohn), 22, 25
see also Berlin ‘ditanaclasis’, 128
Cler, Albert, 110, 116, 122 Dohnal, Joseph senior, 129
‘Le mélomane’, 110, 112–13 Dohnányi, Ernst von
Physiologie du musicien, 110–11, 114, 222 audio-recordings, 251
coll’ottava playing (piano), 127–8 background and career, 239n, 241–2
Constable, John, 32 in Berlin and Vienna, 243
Constitutionnel, Le (newspaper), 116 as emigrant in Florida, USA, 239–40, 243
Coppola, Francis Ford, 162n four-hand piano repertoire, 252–3
Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille, 32 leaves Hungary (1944) and travels, 243
Courbet, Jean Désiré Gustav, 32 marriages, 242–3, 253
Cowles, Walter, 249 memoirs written by widow, 243n
Cramer, Johann Baptist, 102 musical tours, lectures and concerts in
Three Sonatas for pianoforte Op.35, USA, 251–3
102–3 name, 239n, 240
Crémieux, Hector, 143 piano performing, 252
Cruikshank, George, 96–7, 104–5 pictured, 240, 250
Princely Amusements or the Humors of the political accusations against, 243–4, 250–2
Family (caricature), 97, 102–3, 107 recordings, 251
Curmer, Léon, 110 salon in Tallahassee, 9, 239–41, 244,
Curschmann, Friedrich, 190–1 246–50, 252–3
Curschmann, Rose, 22, 191 on sight-reading, 253
Czerny, Carl, 130n university professorship, 241
and Zathureczky, 250–1
Dahn, Felix, 200, 204 American Rhapsody Op.47, 247
dance music Harp Concertino Op.45, 249n
in Vienna Biedermeier salon, 132 Piano Concerto No.2 Op.42, 241n
Dániel, Ernö, 245–6 ‘Romanticism in Beethoven’s piano
‘Darby O’Gallagher, or the Answer to Morgan sonatas’ (lecture), 252n
Rattler’ (song), 107 Sechs Gedichte von Victor Heindl Op.14, 243
Darcier, L. (pseud. of Joseph Lemaître) ‘Sight-reading’ (lecture), 252n
Le Beau Nicolas, 120–1 String Quartet No.2 Op.15, 243
Daumer, Georg Friedrich, 71 Tante Simona Op.20, 243
Frauenbilder und Huldigungen, 71 Variations and Fugue on a Theme of E.G.
Daumier, Honoré Op.4, 243
274 Index
Violin Concerto No.2 Op.43, 249, Ewer & Co. (London publishers), 50
251 Eyre, Louisa Lincoln Wilson (née Lear), 220
Waldelfelein (without opus no.), 243
Winterreigen Op.13, 243 Faisst, Immanuel, 209
Dohnányi, Ilona von (earlier Zachár) Fauré, Gabriel, 157, 159
advises Zathureczky, 244 féerie, 142
deprecates Tallahassee, 244–5 films (cinema)
diaries and letters, 239, 243–6 pianos in, 156, 162
on life in USA, 247–9 Finland, 81
marriage to Ernst, 239, 243, 253 Flassan, Maurice de (pseud. of Marie Pauline
portrait, 240 Rose Baze de Bury, née Stewart), 113–16
socialising and networking in Tallahassee, Flemming, Count von, 44
247–9, 253 Flemming, Irene, Countess of, 16
travels with Dohnányi and settles in USA, Florence
243–4 Jessie Hillebrand’s salon in, 211, 213–20
writings, 243n Liszt visits, 220
Dohnányi, Maria, 246 Wagner in, 221–2
Donizetti, Gaetano Flotow, Friedrich von, 140
Anna Bolena, 115 flutes
La Favorite, 142, 144 played by males, 99–100
Donnerstag-Jugend see Thursday Young People transverse, 137
Dönniges, Franziska von, 200n walking-stick (Czakane), 137
Dont, Jakob, 130n folksong
Doráti, Antal, 249 in Sweden, 80–1, 84, 86, 93
Dorn, Franz, 129–30 Fontane, Theodor
Dorn, Ms A., 17, 20 Effi Briest, 69
Doucet, Camille, 141 Unwiederbringlich, 69
Downes, Olin, 229n Foote, Arthur, 232
Dresden Forman, Miles, 162n
Hillebrand in, 212 Förster, Friedrich, 187–8, 191
Dresel, Otto, 225, 228 fortepiano, 129, 169
Duchambge, Pauline, 118 Fournier, Marc
Dumanoir and Clairville Paris chantant
Les Folies dramatiques, 139n romances, chansons, et chansonettes
Duprez, Gilbert, 111, 113 contemporaines, 119–20
Dwight, John Sullivan, 228, 232 Français peints par eux-mêmes, Les (published by
Dybeck, Richard Léon Curmer), 110, 112–13
evening entertainments, 93 France
‘Kulleri tova’, 91–2 1830 Revolution and July Monarchy, 109,
Swedish Herding Songs and Horn Tunes 143
(Svenska vallvisor och hornlåtar), 91 censorship, 715
discovers Schubert Lieder, 119
Eberwein, Max Carl, 212n musicians satirised, 109–22
Eckenbrecher, Adolf, 16, 19 operetta in, 141
Eckert, Carl, 191, 194 France musicale, La (journal), 143
Ehlert, Louis, 215 Frauentaschenbuch für 1824, 68
Eichberg, Julius, 232 Frege, Livia, 48
Eichendorff, Joseph von, 66, 68 Friederici, Christian Ernst, 124
Eichthal family Friedlaender, Max, 195
in Munich, 201, 203 Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia, 191
Ekholm, Ragnar Fröberg, Paul, 80
‘Folk Saga and Folksong in Almqvist’s Fuchs, Johanna, 211
Poetry’, 90 Fugier, Anne-Martin, 110
Enzensperger, Bernard, 133–4
Ertl, Johann Anton, 133 Gail, Sophie, 118
Eunike, Johanna, 188 Gardner, Isabella Stewart, 227, 233, 235
Index 275
Gazette des Femmes, 113 ‘Der Musensohn’, 189

Gedike, Laura (later Förster), 187–8, 191 ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II (‘Über allen Gipfeln
Geibel, Emanuel, 16, 68, 72, 74, 209 ist Ruh’), 27–9, 37–42
Spanisches Liederbuch (with Heyse), 67 ‘Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt’, 37
Geijer, Erik Gustaf, 81–4, 86, 93 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, 37, 171, 186
Gemeinnützige Blätter, 135 ‘Willkommen’, 189
Georg, Prince of Prussia, 193 Goslich, Marie, 15
George III, King of Great Britain, 103, 106–7 Graefe, Ottilie von, 16, 19
George, Prince of Wales and Prince Regent of Graefe, Wanda von, 19
Great Britain (later King George IV) Graf, Conrad, 125n
caricatured, 96, 100, 106–7 Grandinson, Malla, 81n
as patron of music, 106 Grangé, Eugène and Lambert-Thiboust
Gerok, Karl, 206, 209 Les Mémoires de Mimi-Bamboche, 139n
Gerster, Etelka, 234–5 Graun, Carl Ferdinand, 186
Geselligkeit, 210 Greece (ancient)
Gesellschaft, Die (journal), 74 symposia, 1
Geymüller family, 123 Greiner, Charlotte von, 168–9
Giardini, Felice, 100–1 Grell, Eduard, 189
Gibson House Museum, Boston, 231 Grimm, Gisela see Arnim, Gisela von
Gilbert, W.S. Grimm, Herman, 45, 47, 50, 62, 191, 223
family, 161 Grisar, Albert, 115
portrayed in Topsy-Turvy, 159, 161 Le Chien du jardinier, 142
The Mikado (with Sullivan), 153, 157, 161–2 ‘La Folle’, 115
Gillray, James, 6, 95–7, 99–100, 107–8 Grisi, Carlotta, 111
A Country Concert Groth, Doris, 67
– or – an Evenings Entertainment Groth, Klaus, 67
(caricature), 97, 100–1 Gruber, Emma (née Schlesinger/Sándor
‘A Little Music’ or the Delights of Harmony later Kodályi), 242
(caricature), 97–9 guitars
Anacreonticks in full song (etching), 101n bowed, 135
‘Beviamo tutti tre’, 102 design in Biedermeier Vienna, 133–7
Very slippy-weather (caricature), 95
Girardoni, Johann, 132 Haeckl (Haekel), Anton, 130, 132
glees, 100–1 Haeffner, Johann Christian Friedrich, 81, 84–5,
Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 172, 175 93
Goeschen, Otto, 16 Halévy, Fromental, 147, 149
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Halévy, Ludovic, 143, 149
and Arnold’s painting of von Arnim salon, Handel & Haydn Society, Boston, 225
45, 56–7 Handel, Georg Frederic
Bettina von Arnim improvises on texts, 33 Samson, 170
doubts on women writers, 168 Hanfstaengel, Franz, 200n
home in Weimar, 69 Hanover Square Rooms, London, 106
idealises music, 3 Hanslick, Eduard, 66, 68, 74, 135
influence on Bettina von Arnim, 37 Hartmann, August, 205–6
Lindblad and Geijer set, 83 Hascall, Mr (Rogers’s pupil), 233
monument in Bettina von Arnim’s house, Haschka, Georg, 129
57–8, 64 Haydn, Joseph
physiognomy of, 171 Neukomm and, 191–2
Pichler on, 172 Pichler meets, 169–70
publishes writings in Taschenbücher, 68 Hebbel, Friedrich, 68
relations with Bettina von Arnim, 27, 37, 57 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 17
sanitised for women readers, 66 Heindl, Victor, 243
set by Geijer and Lindblad, 83 Heine, Heinrich, 66
values, 186 Heller, Stephen, 203n
‘Erster Verlust’, 83–4 Helmholtz, Anna von, 195
Faust, 188, 196 Helvig, Amalia von, 80, 84
276 Index
Henning, Emilie von, 17, 19–20 birth and upbringing, 212

Henschel, Georg conducting, 220
describes Heyse, 65 correspondence, 211, 223
Hensel, Fanny (née Mendelssohn), 845 death and will, 224
diary, 22 first marriage (to Laussot), 212
Gartensaal (salon), 69 pictured, 218
and Johanna Kinkel, 13, 18, 24, 26, 199n relations with Wagner, 211, 221–2
music performed in salons, 3 second marriage (to Hillebrand), 223
musical gatherings, 26, 123 Hillebrand, Karl, 223
songs, 28 Hiller, Ferdinand, 14n, 25, 204, 209
Wilhelm gives Müller’s book to, 190 Hochstetter, Henriette, 16
Hensel, Luise, 188–9 Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Amadeus, 3, 186, 197
Hensel, Wilhelm, 188, 190 Undine, 188–90
Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 81, 86 Hoheisel, Ina, 129n
Hérold, Ferdinand, 147 Holmès, Augusta, 3
Hervé, Florimond, 139n Holmes, Oliver Wendell Sr., 230
Herz, Henri, 201 Hölty, Ludwig
Herzogenberg, Elisabeth von, 67, 71 Minnelied, 195
Herzogenberg, Heinrich, 67 ‘Hope told a flattering tale’ (song, adapted from
Heugel (music publishers), 140n, 143 Paisiello’s ‘Nel cor più non mi sento’),
Heyse, Anna, 200n 104
Heyse, Carl, 69 Horn, Antoinette von (née Graun
Heyse, Julie (née Saaling, originally Solomon), 6 then Baroness von Korff), 187–8
Heyse, Paul Hubay, Jenö, 242, 250
Alberti disparages, 74–5 Humboldt, Alexander, Baron von, 186
background and upbringing, 69 Hummel, Johann Nepomuk, 126
Brahms sets to music, 65, 72, 74 Humphrey, Hannah, 95–6
friendship with Brahms, 65, 74 Hungary
in Munich, 69 Dohnányi in, 241
popular writing, 69–70, 75 Offenbach’s Monsieur Choufleuri performed
print culture, 75 in, 152
prolific creative writings, 66 revolution (1956), 251
publishes writings in journals, 68 Hüttenbrenner, Anselm, 136
qualities and reputation, 65–6, 75
supports female emancipation, 70–1 Ibsen, Henrik, 71
and women’s tastes, 67 ‘improvisations’, 32–3
‘Am Sonntag Morgen’, 72 instruments (musical)
‘Frauenemancipation’ (poem), 70 playing by gender, 99–100
Italienische Dichter seit der Mitte des 18ten in Vienna Biedermeier salon, 123–37
Jahrhunderts, 69 Italy
Kinder der Welt, 70 opera parodied by Offenbach, 149
‘Landschaften mit Staffage’, 72 political emigrés and composers in Paris,
‘Mädchenlied’ Op.95 No.6, 6, 65, 72–3 144–5
La Rabbiata, 70
Skizzenbuch, 72 Jachmann-Wagner, Johanna, 194–5
‘Spanisches Lied’, 72 Jacobs, Arthur, 161n
Spanisches Liederbuch (with Geibel), 67 Jacquin, Franziska, 170
Die Stickerin von Treviso, 69 Jacquin, Gottfried, 170
Hickford’s Rooms, London, 106 Jameson, Anna, 203
Higginson, Henry Lee, 229, 232, 238n Joachim, Amalie, 43, 194
Hildebrand, Adolf von, 211–12, 219, 223–4 Joachim, Joseph
Hillebrand, Jessie (née Taylor in Arnold’s painting Quartettabend bei
then Laussot) Bettina von Arnim, 43, 45, 47
activities in Florence, 8–9, 211, 213–17 attachment to Gisela von Arnim, 50, 61–4
and appointment of director of and Beethoven, 62–3
Conservatorio di Milano, 222–3 as composer, 48
Index 277
composes music for Gisela’s melodrama, attendances at salons and gatherings in

63–4 Berlin, 14–19, 22–6
correspondence with Jessie Hillebrand, 216 attends Staegemann salon, 21
court post in Hanover, 8 autobiographical account, 117–21
death, 195 confirmed performers of works, 16–17
exchanges exercises with Brahms, 56 correspondence with Mendelssohn
Hildebrand portrays, 212 published, 15
Hungarian manner, 56 emigrates to London, 13–14
letter from Pinelli, 215 friendship with Mendelssohns, 13–15, 21–6
letter seal, 60 gives inadequate details of names, 25
loses Gisela, 61–2 on influence of Fanny Hensel, 199n
musical ciphers, 45, 47, 50–1, 54–9, 62 Kaufmann on, 25
personal seal, 56–61 Lieder (songs), 18–19, 20, 22, 24–5
and Pinelli, 216–17 life and musical activities in Berlin, 14–15,
plays at Bettina von Arnim’s Berlin ‘salons’, 25
43–4, 57, 64 in London, 13–14, 26
plays at Olfers-Staegemann salon, 194, 195, memoirs and writings, 14
197 mischief-making, 20
and Psyche figure, 57 performs at Hensels’, 22
Quartettabende, 5 piano-playing, 21–2
studies counterpoint, 55–6 second marriage and children with
Drei Stücke for violin and piano Op.5, 4 Gottfried, 13
Hebrew Melodies and Variations, 48 sources and biographical evidence, 4, 14–15,
Ouverture in memoriam Heinrich von Kleist, 26
194 unhappy first marriage to Mathieux and
Variationen über ein eigenes Thema for viola divorce, 14, 24
and piano Op.10, 47–56 Dampfwagen-Komödie, 18
Versuch eines Tanzes, 64 Erziehungswesen in London, 26
Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, 169n Lecture on Mendelssohn, 21, 25, 64
Journal des Luxus und der Moden, 99 Vogelkantate, 18–19
Joyce, James, 154 Klein, Bernhard, 190
‘The Dead’ (story), 156n Kleinhas, Hans-Günter, 23
Ulysses, 156 Kleist, Heinrich von, 186–7
‘Klockan är tio slagen’ (Swedish folk-cry), 87–8
Kahn, Robert, 195 Knaben Wunderhorn, Des (collection), 81
Kalbeck, Max, 65, 68, 74 Knafl-Lenz, Rudolph, 134–7
Kane, Delia, 230 Kneisel Quartet, 232
Kane, Maggie, 230 Koch, Stephan, 137n
Kant, Immanuel, 36 Kodály, Zoltán, 242
Kassel, 5 Dances from Galánta, 241
Kaufmann, Leopold and Alexander, 15 Psalmus Hungaricus, 241
Kaufmann, Paul, 5, 13, 19, 25–6 Körner, Theodor, 168
Kaulbach, Wilhelm, 204–5 Köstlin, Christian Reinhold
Keller, Gottfried, 68 death, 209
Kempelen, Ferdinand Freiherr von (‘Fernando’ on Lang’s life after Mendelssohn’s
or ‘Baron von K’), 175 departure, 202
Kerner, Jutinus, 859 and Lang’s visit to Stuttgart, 206, 208–9
Kerstorf family marriage to Josephine Lang, 199
in Munich, 201, 203 qualities, 208
Keudell, Robert, Baron von, 193, 222–3 Köstlin, Heinrich Adolf
Kiel, 67 life of mother (Josephine Lang), 200, 202
Kilényi, Edward, 249, 252 Köstlin, Mimi, 206–7
‘King of Antidotes’ (French drinking song), 119 Köstlin, Wilhelmine, 206–7
Kinkel, Gottfried, 13, 21, 24 Krause, Tilman, 206n
Kinkel, Gottfried Jr, 14 Kreisler, Johannes, 3
Kinkel, Johanna Kreutzer, Leonid, 196
278 Index
Kunwald, Elza champions Almqvist’s music, 89–90

marriage to Dohnányi, 242 compared with Schubert, 83
complex piano accompaniments, 84, 93
La Motte-Fouqué Friedrich Baron de, 188 flute-playing, 83–4
Lacauchie, Alexandre, 144 folksongs and settings, 6, 80, 83–8
Lagarde, Paul de, 223 friendship with Malla Silfverstolpe, 81–3
Lang, Benjamin J., 232 further studies in Germany, 83
Lang, Josephine in Hamburg as youth, 83
Kaulbach portrait, 204–5 sets Goethe and Schiller to music, 83
marriage to Köstlin, 199 settles in Stockholm, 92
Mendelssohn champions and teaches, ‘Erster Verlust’, 83, 85
201–2, 210 The Hall of the North (Der Norden-saal), 84,
in Munich, 199–204, 209–10 86–7
reputation, 199n ‘Little Karin’ (‘Liten Karin’), 84–5
in salons, 8, 199 ‘The Mountain-Kidnapped’ (‘Den
singing voice, 210 bergtagna’), 84–5
songs, 28, 210 ‘Nachtwächter Lied’ (’The Night
in Stuttgart, 205–7 Watchman’s Song’), 87–8, 181–4
in Tübingen, 199, 207–9 ‘Der Sänger’, 83
widowhood, 204, 209 Lindner, Adalbert, 243
Drei Lieder, 207n Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, 241, 242,
La Roche, Sophie von, 171 243n, 250
Larousse Liszt, Cosima (later Wagner), 193
Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe siècle, Liszt, Franz
116 and appointment of director of
Lauska, Franz, 187 Conservatorio di Milano, 222–3
Laussot, Eugène, 212, 223 court post in Weimar, 8
Lavater, Johann Caspar dedicates works to Società Cherubini, 219
Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung friendship with Jessie Hillebrand, 211, 213, 219
der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe, Hildebrand on, 8, 219
171 and Marie d’Agoult, 146
Leeb, Georg, 133 music performed in salons, 3
Legnani, Luigi plays at Bettina von Arnim’s home, 57
Fantasie, 136 teaches Adele aus der Ohe, 196
Leigh, Mike visits Florence, 220–1
Topsy-Turvy (film and screenplay) visits Staegemann-Olfers salon, 193
music as art and social discourse in, 157 ‘Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’, 39, 41
piano in, 7, 153, 157–8, 161–2 Lobe, Johann Christian, 4
Leipzig Lobkowitz, Prince Joseph Franz von, 170
Clara Kathleen Rogers in, 227–8, 236 Loeffler, Charles Martin, 236
Lemaître, Joseph see Darcier, L. London
Lenau, Nikolaus, 206 Kinkel in, 13–14, 26
Lepsius, Richard and Elisabeth (née Klein), 191 musical life caricatured, 95–7
Levi, Hermann, 66, 74, 212 London Catch Club, 101
Levy family, 69 London und Paris (magazine), 96
Levy, Sara, 185 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 228
Lewald, Fanny, 68 Louis-Philippe, King of the French, 109, 115
Lickl, Carl Georg, 131n, 132
Lieder MacDowell, Edward, 232, 235n
aestheticised, 27–8 Mack, General Karl von, 175
in Staegemann-Olfers salon, 189–90 Magnes, Frances, 249
subjects, 66 Mahler, Gustav
Liederspiele, 190–1 Eighth Symphony, 196
Lilienthal, Mary, 249 Malibran, Marie, 111, 115
Lindblad, Adolf Fredrik Manninger, Júlia, 246
in Berlin, 82–3 Manuscript Club, Boston, 237
Index 279
Mara, Gertrud Elisabeth (Madame Mara), Monnier, Henry, 110–11

104–5 Monpou, Hippolyte, 119
Maretzek, Max ‘Morgan Rattler’ (English jig), 107
Company, 228 Mörike, Eduard, 206
Marholm, Laura ‘Zum neuen Jahr’, 195
Wir Frauen und unsere Dichter, 71–2 Moritz, Karl Philipp, 171
Mari sans le savoir, Le (operetta), 143 Morny, Charles-Auguste-Louis-Joseph, Duke of
Marlitt, Eugenie, 68 (pseud. M. Saint-Rémy), 143, 149
Marschner, Heinrich Comédies et proverbes par M. de Saint-Rémy,
Hans Heiling, 192 139n
Martineau, Harriet, 212n Moscheles, Ignaz, 141
Martius, Carl Friedrich Philipp von, 203–4, 206n Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
Suitrams Fahrten, 204 Pichler meets, 169–70
Massé, Victor Requiem, 31
Miss Fauvette, 142 Symphony No.38, D major, KV 504
Mathew, Nicholas, 28, 42 arranged for piano, 126
Mathieux, Madame see Kinkel, Johanna Müller, Christian Wilhelm, 123
Mathieux, Johann, 14 Müller, Mathias, 128–9
Mayrhofer, Johann, 180 Müller, Mathias Jr, 128
Mazzuccato, Alberto, 222 Müller, Nanny, 17, 19–20
mélodie Müller, Wilhelm, 188–9, 193
as musical genre, 119 ‘Des Baches Lied’, 190
Mendelssohn, Fanny see Hensel, Fanny Winterreise, 193
Mendelssohn, Felix Müllerlieder, 185, 189–90, 193, 195
Carl Heyse tutors, 69 Munich
death, 61 Heyse in, 69
dislikes Staegemann salon, 190 Josephine Lang in salons, 199–204, 209–10
Kinkel’s lecture on, 21, 25 Mendelssohn plays in, 201–2
Lindblad befriends, 82 Murphy, Kate, 230
in Munich, 201–2 Murray, Lady Agusta, 105
on music listeners’ behaviour, 201n Musical Courier, 237
music performed in salons, 3–4
Pichler meets, 170 Nadaud, Gustave
recommends song by Kinkel to mother, 18 La Volière, 141
relations and correspondence with Johanna Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, 143
Kinkel, 14–15, 21–2, 23–6 Nathusius, Philipp von, 16, 18
teaches and befriends Josephine Lang, National, Le (newspaper), 116
201–2, 204, 210 Neukomm, Sigismund Ritter von, 130n, 191
Mendelssohn, Lea, 23–4, 190 Neureuther, Gottfried, 69
Ménestrel, Le (journal), 140–1 New York Mirror, and Ladies’ Literary Gazette, 99
Mérimée, Prosper Nicole, Edouard (pseud. Léonce), 146
La carosse du Saint-Sacrément, 142 Nietzsche, Friedrich
Merlin, Countess (Maria de Las Mercedes de as music composer, 36–7
Jaruco), 115 Fragment an Sich, 36, 38
Mertz, Johann Kaspar, 136 Nikisch, Amélie and Arthur, 232
Metzger-Vespermann, Clara, 188 Noack, Lilian and Dieter, 118n
Meyer, Jenny, 193 Noël, Léon-Alphonse, 144
Meyerbeer, Giacomo North America, 9
Offenbach parodies, 140 see also United States of America
Le baptéme, 114n Nourrit, Adolphe, 115
Robert le diable, 149–51 Novalis (Baron Friedrich Leopold von
Milan Hardenberg), 67
Conservatorio, 222–3
Minghetti, Laura, Comtesse (née Acton), 220 oboe, 137n
Mixter, Samuel J. and Wilhelmina, 237 Offenbach, Jacques
Mockwitz, Friedrich, 127 attends Paris salons, 140
280 Index
granted French citizenship, 143 Parthey, Lili, 190

launches Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, 141 patronage (musical), 185
and operetta, 142 Payer, Hieronymus, 130n
yodel songs, 141 Pelly, Laurent, 152
Ba-Ta-Clan, 147 Percy, Thomas (ed.)
La Belle Hélène, 141 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 175
Coscoletto, 147n Pereira family, 170
Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le ... Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista
(operetta), 7, 139–40, 142–4, 146–50, 152 La serva padrona, 142
Orphée aux enfers, 142 Persönlichkeitskultur, 186
La Périchole, 142 Peruzzi, Emilia (née Toscanelli), 213–14, 218,
Le Roi carotte, 147 220–3
Tales of Hoffman, 158–9 Peruzzi, Ubaldino, 220
La vie parisienne, 141 Philipon, Charles, 109
Ohe, Adele aus der, 196–7 physharmonica, 130–2
Olfers family, 191 physiognomy, 171
Olfers, Ernst von, 193 physiologies (France), 109–10, 122
Olfers, Hedwig von (née Staegemann) pianino, 128
decline and death, 191, 195 Pianist, The (film), 156, 162
honours Wilhelm Müller, 193 Piano, The (film), 156
on Joachim, 194 pianoforte
marriage and move to Italy, 190–1 additional pedals, 129–30
salon, 2, 187–9, 191, 194, 196–7 design in Vienna Biedermeier salon, 123–31
Schrattenholz sets poems by, 195 in films, 156, 162
Ischia, 190 four-handed duets, 154
‘Mein Preussen ist aus festem Holz’, 194 in Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy, 153–4, 157,
Ohne Herz (with Marie von Olfers), 191 160–1
‘Wie’s Vöglein möcht’ ich ziehen’, 189 prevalence and importance in literature,
Olfers, Ignaz von, 190–1 153–5
Olfers, Marie von, 191–6 repertoire, 129
Olfers, Nina von see Yorck, Nina, Countess women players, 99–100
opéra bouffes, 142 Pichler, Caroline
opéra de salon, 141–3 ambiguous attitude to music and musicians,
Opéra National de Lyon, 152 170
operetta background and upbringing, 169–70
in France, 141–2 engagement to von Kempelen, 175
Oppenhoff, Angela, 25 influenced by Young’s Night Thoughts, 175,
Orfila, Madame (French salonist), 141 182
organisiertes Fortepiano, 169 physiognomy in, 171
Oriola, Armgard, Countess of, 16 poems set by Schubert, 169, 172
Oscar I, King of Sweden (earlier Prince), 82 popular writings, 168–9
Ossian (James Macphersan), 175 preoccupation with loss, 183
Vienna salon, 7–8, 167–70, 183
Pacher, Elise, 200n views on Goethe, 172
Pahncke, Max, 15 Denkwürdigkeiten aus meinem Leben
Paisiello, Giovanni, 169 (memoirs), 168, 301
‘Nel cor più non mi sento’ (from La bella ‘Lied (Ferner von der grossen Stadt)’
molinara), 104, 189 (poem), 168
Parepa-Rosa Opera Company, 228 Olivier (novel), 170–3, 176
Paris ‘Der Sänger am Felsen’ (poem), 168
Fournier on song and singers in, 119–20 ‘Der Unglückliche’ (poem from Olivier, set
Italian political emigrés in, 144–5 by Schubert), 168, 173–81, 315, 317–19, 322
opera in, 144–5 Pinelli, Ettore, 212, 214–17
salons, 1–2 Pinter, Harold
satirical images in, 7, 109 No Man’s Land, 155n
Paris und London (journal), 6 Platen, August von, 68
Index 281
Polanski, Roman, 162 portrait, 226

Polko, Elise publishes collections of songs, 229
Dichtergrüsse, 68 regrets lacking ability to compose
Poniatowski, Józef, 147 instrumental music, 237
Pottje, Johann, 127 singing roles, 228
‘preludes’, 32 songs published, 229
Prince, Frederick, 230 string quartet, 228n
Prince Regent see George, Prince of Wales teaching, 229–30, 232
Prussia, Princess of (1830s), 21 Cello sonata, 237n
Prutz, Robert, 74 ‘Confession’ (song), 229
Psyche D minor violin sonata, 237
figures in Bettina von Arnim’s house, 57, 64 fantasia for viola d’amore and harp, 237
on Gisela von Arnim’s seal, 61 My Voice and I, 226
Gisela’s melodrama on, 63–4 The Story of Two Lives, 225–6, 230, 232–5
Joachim on, 63 Rogers, Henry (‘Harry’) Munroe, 226n, 228–9
represents renunciation of physical love, 61 Rogers Memorial Collection (Harvard Theatre
in Steinhäuser sculpture, 59 Collection), 226
Puget, Loïsa, 115, 118–19 Rohde, Erwin, 36
Rolfe, William, 129
‘quirk historicism’, 28 Röllig, Leopold, 128
Romagnesi, Antoine
Radecke, Robert, 194 Art of Singing Romances, Chansonettes and
Radziwiłł, Prince Anton, 186–8, 196 Nocturnes, and in general all salon music,
Rainer family, 141 122
Rambouillet, Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise romance (musical genre), 119–20, 122
de, 2 Romanticism
Raphael Sanzio in artistic fragments and unfinished works,
The Marriage of the Virgin (painting), 90 29–34
Rapp, Gottlob Heinrich von, 205 development, 80
Ratti, A. (painter), 45 discussed in Malla Silfverstolpe’s salon, 80,
Reichardt, Johann Friedrich, 186, 190, 193 93
Reinbeck, Georg, 205 Schlegel on, 29, 32–4, 38
Reinhardt, Max, 196 in Staegemann salon, 186–7, 191, 196
Reybaud, Louis Ronalds, Frances, 157–60
Jérôme Paturot à la recherche d’une position Ronchetti-Monteviti, Stefano, 222
sociale, 116–19, 122 Room with a View, A (film), 256
Richter, Anna, 16 Rose de Saint-Flour, La (operetta), 142
Richter, Cornelie (née Meyerbeer), 192 Rossi, Henriette Sontag, Countess, 191
Richter, Gustav, 192 Rossini, Gioacchino Antonio, 146
Ridgway, James Il barbiere di Siviglia, 146
Memoirs of Mrs Billington from her Birth, 105 Guillaume Tell, 111, 113, 144
Ries, Franz, 29 Rubini, Giovanni Battista, 19, 143–5
Ries, Hubert, 29 Rückert, Friedrich, 68
Ristori, Adelaïde, 63 Rudolf, Archduke of Austria, 170
Ritter, Julie, 211
Rode, Pierre, 187 Saaling, Julie (originally Solomon) see Heyse,
Rodenberg, Julius, 69 Julie
Rogers, Clara Kathleen (née Barnett) Salaman, Charles K., 229
Boston salon (‘musicales’), 9, 225–9, 231–4, Salieri, Antonio, 169, 172
238 Salle Comte, Paris, 142
as composer of art song, 227, 229 Salon für Literatur, Kunst und Gesellschaft, Der
family and background, 227–8 (journal), 68, 70
home life in Boston, 230–1 salons
hosts smaller gatherings, 235–8 as benefit to women composers, 99, 210
informal singing, 229n caricatured and satirised in France, 109–10,
marriage, 228–9 119
282 Index
history and pedigree, 1–2 music performed in salons, 4

male and female singers, 118–20, 122 Pichler’s view of, 170
multimedial nature and diversity, 5–6, 9–10 sets Pichler poems, 168
music and words in, 65 songs aestheticised, 28
in nineteenth century, 2–3 Der Erlkönig, 119, 316
in Offenbach operettas, 139–41 ‘Erster Verlust’ D.226, 182
and print culture, 75 Gott ist mein Hirt, 195
repertoires, 3–4 ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, 181
in Vienna, 167 ‘Lied (Ferne von der grossen Stadt)’ D.483,
vocal music in France, 110 168
women and, 5–6 ‘Die Nacht’ (attrib.), 172
Sappho, 30 ‘Der Sänger am Felsen’ D.482, 168
Savigny, Franz von, 16, 19 Die schöne Müllerin, 182, 190, 206
Savigny, Friedrich Carl von, 16, 17, 26 ‘Sehnsucht’ D.516, 180
Savigny, Leo von, 16 Sonata in A major D.664, 176
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 203 Sonata in A minor for Arpeggione and
Schemann, Ludwig, 223 Pianoforte (D 821), 135
Schenk, Friedrich, 136 Sonata in E major D.459, 175
Variations on a Theme from Norma, 136 ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’, 177
Schenk, Johann ([Decker-]Schenk), 136 ‘Unfinished Symphony’, 31
Schiller, Friedrich von ‘Der Unglückliche’ D.713 , 7, 168, 170, 173–4,
birthday, 62 176–82
doubts on women writers, 168 ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’, 39, 41
publishes writings in Taschenbücher, 68 Winterreise, 172, 193, 338, 206
sanitised for women readers, 65 Schultzen von Asten, Anna, 195
set by Gejer and Lindblad, 83 Schulz family, 132
The Piccolomini, 187 Schulz, Leonhard, 136
‘Über Anmut und Würde’, 171 Schumann, Clara
Schindler’s List (film), 156, 162 Brahms tries out works on, 67
Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 188 criticises Joachim’s long stays at von
Schlechta, Franz von, 172 Arnims, 62
Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 32–4 Hildebrand bust of, 212
Schlegel, Friedrich and Joachim’s attachment to Gisela von
on aesthetics of Romanticism, 38 Arnim, 62
on Romanticism in fragments, 5, 29–32, 34 on Joachim’s compositions, 48
Schleiermacher, Friedrich letter from Joachim on music for friends, 47
‘Versuch einer Theorie des geselligen music performed in salons, 3
Betragens’, 210 proposes Heyse as editor of husband’s
Schleinitz-Wolkenstein, Countess Marie von, letters, 74
43 Three Preludes and Fugues Op.16, 55
Schleinitz-Wolkenstein, Mimi, Countess, 185, Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann
194 Op.20, 55
Schmalz, Auguste, 187 Schumann, Robert
Schmid, Eduard, 135 death, 61
Schmid (Emilie von Henning’s brother-in-law), letters, 74
17, 20 Marie von Olfers dislikes music, 192
Schmidt, Arthur P. (Boston publishing music performed in salons, 3–4
company), 229 on salon music, 4
Schmiedel, Cäcilie, 212 Dichterliebe, 29
Scholz, Bernhard, 216 ‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’, 29, 32
Schoppe, Amalia, 68 Kinderszenen Op. 154, 4
Schrattenholz, Leo, 195 Organ Fugues on BACH Op.60, 55
Schubert, Franz Papillons Op. 1, 4
on Death as friend, 177 Schurz, Carl, 24
Lieder popular in France, 119, 122 Schuster, Vincenz, 135
Marie von Olfers on romantic qualities, 192 Schwab, Gustav, 205
Index 283
Scourge (magazine), 103 Stuttgart

Scribe, Eugène, 149, 151 Josephine Lang and salons in, 205–7
sculpture Suckow, Emma von (pseud. E. Niendorf),
classical Greek, 30–1 206
Sears, J. Montgomery, 232 Sullivan, Arthur
Seidler, Johann, 124n, 125 illus., 158, 160
Sellner, Joseph, 137n organises performance of Rogers’ string
Seuffert, Martin, 124n, 125 quartet, 228n
Sgambati, Giovanni, 212–13, 217 portrayed in Topsy-Turvy, 157, 159–61, 163
Shaw, George Bernard, 153–4, 163 as ‘serious’ musician, 161n
Shaw, Mary, 16, 18–19, 22 The Lost Chord, 160–1
Shine (film), 156 Sur la grande route (spoken comedy), 143
Silberer, Howard, 249 Sussex, Augustus Frederick, Duke of, 105
Silcher, Friedrich, 209 ‘Sussex Tune, The’, 104–5
Silfverstolpe, Malla (née Montgomery) Swabia, 205, 209
birth in Swedish Finland, 79, 81 Sweden
friendship with and support for Lindblad, folksong in, 80–1, 86–8, 93
81–4 music recording in, 88n
musical component of salons, 81 night-watchmen in, 87–8
organises tableaux vivants, 90 Swedish Folksongs from Ancient Times (Svenska
reads and admires Almqvist’s work, 89 folk-visor från forntiden, 1814–16), 81
salon (‘Fridays’ Sylvestre, Mademoiselle, 203n
fredagar), 6, 79, 81, 87, 89, 92–3
Simmonds, Walter, 159 tableaux vivants, 90
Sitges, Janet, 249 Talented Mr Ripley, The (film), 156
Società Cherubini (earlier Società Musicale Tallahassee, Florida
Fiorentina), 211, 218–21 Dohnányi’s life and salon in, 9, 239–41,
Solmar, Henriette, 21 244–8, 251, 252–3
Sonnenfels, Joseph Freiherr von, 168n Ilona Dohnányi on, 244–5
Sonntagsmusiken, 22–3 Tamburini, Antonio, 143–5
Sontag, Henriette, 143–4, 146, 149 Taschenbücher, 68
Soukup, Wenzel, 134 Tavern Club, Boston, 229
Spalding, Albert, 249–50 Taylor, Edgar, 212
Spohr, Louis, 5 Taylor, Emily, 212n
Staegemann, August, 188 Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich, 196
Staegemann, Elisabeth von (née Fischer), 186–7, Teufelsdorfer, Peter, 132–5
191, 196 Thalberg, Sigismund, 131
Staegemann, Friedrich August von, 17, 186 Theater am Franz-Josef-Kai, Vienna, 152
Staegemann, Hedwig von see Olfers, Hedwig Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, Paris, 140, 142
von Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris, 140–2
Staegemann-Olfers salon, Berlin, 8, 20, 185–9, Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, 142
193–7 Théâtre du Palais-Royal, Paris, 139n
Stauffer, Johann Georg, 132–5 Théâtre-Italien, Paris, 144, 146
Steffan, Joseph Anton (Josef Stepanín Stepán), Théâtre-Lyrique, Paris, 140
169 Theresie und Eleonore (weekly journal), 168n
Stein, André, 125n Thomán, István, 242
Steinhäuser, Carl, 58–9 Thomas, Ada Mary (later Lady Heath), 243
Stieler family, 201, 203 Thursday Young People (Donnerstag-Jugend),
Stieler, Joseph, 200 188–9, 193
Stifter, Adalbert, 167 Tieck, Ludwig, 67
Stiria (journal), 136 Topsy-Turvy (film) see Leigh, Mike
Stolberg, Friedrich von, 167 Trautwein (Berlin publisher), 14
Storm, Theodor, 654 Tresana, Ida, Marquise (née Martellini), 220
Strantz, Fräulein von, 43 Treumann, Carl, 152
Streicher, Johann Baptist, 126–7 Tübingen
Streicher, Nannette, 129 Josephine Lang and salons in, 199, 207–9
284 Index
Uhland, Ludwig, 6, 209 Whiting, Arthur, 232

United States of America Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, 136
Dohnányi tours, 241 Wiepersdorf (estate), 62
Ilona Dohnányi on life in, 247–8 Wilbrandt, Adolf, 68
see also Boston, Mass. Wilde, Oscar
Tallahassee The Importance of Being Earnest, 154–6
Uppsala (Sweden) Wildenbruch, Ernst von, 192
Malla Silfverstolpe’s salon in, 79, 82, 92 Wildermuth, Ottilie, 207–8, 210
Urania (periodical), 68 Wildermuth, Wilhelm David, 208n
Wilhelmj, August, 218
Varnhagen family, 69 Wilhelmj, Sophie, 218
Varnhagen von Ense, Karl August Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 30–1
on Beethoven’s attachment to Bettina von Winter, Peter von, 188
Arnim, 63 Winterhalter, Franz Xaver, 144
diary (unpublished), 20 women
on Joachim at Bettina von Arnim’s salon, appeal of male singers to, 120
44–5, 57, 63 Brahms portrays in songs, 71
on Kinkel’s piano-playing, 21, 43 composers benefitted by salons, 199, 210
Vázsonyi, Bálint, 242–3 education, 70–1, 168
Verdi, Giuseppe Heyse writes on, 70
Don Carlos, 144 learn musical instruments, 99
Les vêpres sicilienne, 144 and Malla Solfverstolpe’s salon, 80
Verne, Jules performers in Boston, 234
Le voyage dans la Lune, 142 piano playing, 99–100
Viardot-Garcia, Pauline, 195 as romance composers, 118–19
Vienna in salon culture, 5, 43
Biedermeier salon, 7, 123, 132 singers and composers satirised in France,
dance music, 132 113–18, 120, 122
Offenbach’s Monsieur Choufleuri performed in south Germany, 200
in, 152 status in art and literature, 37n
Pichler/Greiner salon in, 167–9 and subjects and readers of literature, 66–8
Stifter on salon scene in, 167 writings, 20, 168
Vischer, Friedrich, 209 woodwind instruments
Vogelsanger, Martin, 129n in Biedermeier Vienna, 137
Vogl, Johann Michael, 173 Wyre, Wilson and Mme, 220
Vogl, Kunigunde, 173
Völderndorff, Otto Freiherr von, 200 Xeller (painter), 45
Wachtl, Joseph, 124 yodel songs, 141

Wagner, Richard Yon, Jean-Claude, 140, 142–3, 768
court post in Bayreuth, 8 Yorck, Ludwig, Count, 192
mentioned in Offenbach’s operetta, 147 Yorck, Nina, Countess (née von Olfers), 191–2
and Olfers circle, 194 Yorck, Wolfgang, Count, 192
relations with Jessie Hillebrand, 8, 211, York, Frederick Augustus, Duke of, 103
221–2 Young, Edward
sets Nibelungenlied, 194 Night Thoughts, 169, 175, 182
Götterdämmerung, 194
Meistersinger, 194 Zathureczky, Ede, 244, 249–51
Walpole, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford, 99 Zeller, Bernhard, 295
Walter, Anton, 128–9, 169 Zelter, Carl Friedrich, 39, 82, 187, 189
Weber, Carl Maria von, 157, 159, 192 Ruhe, 39–40
Wendt (viola player), 44 Zukunftsmusik, 193
Westermanns illustrierte Monatshefte, 68 Zumsteeg, Emilie, 205
T HIS COLLECTION EXPLORES the idea of music in the salon during the
long nineteenth century, both as a socio-cultural phenomenon, and
as a source of artistic innovation and exchange. Drawing on a wide
range of scholarly approaches, the authors use the idea of the salon as a Min usical Salon Culture
in the Long Nineteenth Century ß

Musical Salon Culture
the
springboard to examine issues such as gender, religion, biography and
performance; to explore the ways in which the salon was represented in

different media; and to showcase the heterogeneity of the salon through a
selection of case studies. It offers fresh considerations of familiar salons in
large cultural centres, as well as insights into lesser-known salons in both
Europe and the United States. Bringing together an international group of
scholars, the collection underscores the enduring impact of the European
musical salon.
ANJA BUNZEL gained her PhD in

ß
Musicology from Maynooth University
and has published on Johanna Kinkel
EDITED BY
and nineteenth-century salon culture in
both English and German. ANJA BUNZEL
NATASHA LOGES is Head of &
Postgraduate Programmes at the
Royal College of Music, London. Her
NATASHA LOGES
publications include Brahm s in the
Home and the Concert Hall (Cambridge,
2014) and Brahms and his Poets
(Boydell Press, 2017). She is a pianist,
ANJA BUNZEL & NATASHA LOGES

EDITED BY
broadcaster and critic.
Contributors: Maren Bagge, Péter Bozó,

Anja Bunzel, Katie A. Callam,
Beatrix Darmstädter, Mary Anne Garnett,
Harald Krebs, Clemens Kreutzfeldt,
Veronika Kusz, Natasha Loges,
Jennifer Ronyak, Kirsten Santos Rutschman,
R. Larry Todd, Katharina Uhde,
Michael Uhde, Harry White,
Petra Wilhelmy-Dollinger, Susan Youens.
Cover image: Der Adelsstand, handcoloured pen

lithograph by Josef Trentsenky, Vienna, c. 1830.
Sammlungen der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
in Wien.
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T HIS COLLECTION EXPLORES the idea of music in the salon during the

long nineteenth century, both as a socio-cultural phenomenon, and

in the Long Nineteenth Century ß

Long Nineteenth Century

ANJA BUNZEL gained her PhD in

ANJA BUNZEL & NATASHA LOGES

Contributors: Maren Bagge, Péter Bozó,

Cover image: Der Adelsstand, handcoloured pen

Musical Salon cvr_proof04.indd 1 04/10/2018 16:22

Anja Bunzel and Natasha Loges

the boydell press

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

First published 2019

ISBN 978 1 78327 390 4

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy

This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Typeset in Adobe Arno Pro by

List of Illustrations vii

part i concepts and contexts

part ii representations of the salon

part iii case studies

Select Bibliography 255

2.1 Scale in Arnim’s sketchbook with note names

3.2 Bettina von Arnim’s sketch for a Goethe-Denkmal, side view

3.4 Joseph Joachim’s letter seal, ‘F-A-E’ © Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek

6.1 James Gillray, Very Slippy-Weather (London, 1808)

6.3 James Gillray, A Country Concert; – or – an Evenings Entertainment

6.4 George Cruikshank, Princely Amusements or the Humors of the Family

7.2 Albert Cler, Physiologie du musicien

7.3 Louis Reybaud, Jérôme Paturot à la recherche d’une position sociale

8.2 Fortepiano, Franz Dorn, Vienna c. 1820 (SAM 1077)

8.4 Guitar, Georg Leeb, Pressburg 1806 (SAM 479)

8.5 Guitar, Johann Ertl, Vienna 1821 (SAM 469)

8.6 Guitar, Peter Teufelsdorfer, Budapest post 1822 (SAM 492)

8.7 Lyra-bass guitar, Friedrich Schenk, with pedal-based transposition

9.1 Henriette Sontag, lithograph by Léon-Alphonse Noël, 1850, after a

9.2 Antonio Tamburini, lithograph by Alexandre Lacauchie, c. 1830–49

9.3 Giovanni Battista Rubini, lithographed caricature by Benjamin, 1840

10.1 Sullivan and Mrs Ronalds at the piano in Sullivan's apartment,

10.2 Mrs Ronalds, Sullivan and Simmonds from the perspective of

13.1 Wilhelm Kaulbach, portrait of Josephine Lang © Archiv der

14.1 Jessie Laussot Hillebrand’s salon, Lungarno Nuovo, Florence

14.2 Sophie Wilhelmj and Jessie Laussot Hillebrand © Technische

15.1 Studio portrait by Parkinson of Clara Kathleen Rogers, [c. 1910],

16.1 Ernst and Ilona von Dohnányi c. 1955

16.2 Ernst von Dohnányi’s Tallahassee house

16.3 Ernst von Dohnányi and Albert Spalding, c. 1957

2.1 Transcription of Bettina von Arnim’s sketch of

2.2 Carl Friedrich Zelter, ‘Ruhe’, bb. 1–9 40

2.3 Franz Schubert, ‘Wandrers Nachtlied’ II D. 768, bb. 1–6 41

4.1 Johannes Brahms, ‘Mädchenlied’ Op. 95 no. 6, bb. 1–15 73

5.1 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Erster Verlust’, bb. 1–3 85

5.2 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Den Bergtagna’, b. 1 85

5.3 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Liten Karin’, bb. 1–8, variation

5.4 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, ‘Nachtwächter Lied’, melody 88

5.6 Richard Dybeck, ‘Kulleri tova’ 92