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King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt
 Praise for King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt

‘Shepherd’s fresh take on King David shows why this controversial ruler is one of the
most compelling characters in the entire Bible. With a clear command of current
scholarship on King David, this deeply researched and carefully argued book presents
a bold case for greater attention to the often-overlooked problem of bloodguilt as
central to our understanding of David’s reign. Shepherd models what a skilled and
detailed interpretation of the text can provide when one reads the story of David in its
current form.’
Jeremy Schipper, Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Toronto
and author of Parables and Conflict in the Hebrew Bible
‘Shepherd’s monograph is a lucid, accessible, and welcome addition to studies of the
figure of David, combining a rich knowledge of scholarly work on Samuel and Kings
with fascinating and judicious readings of individual stories that convincingly
demonstrate just how much the narrative of David is shaped by questions surrounding
illegitimate bloodshed.’
David Janzen, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament,
Durham University and author of The Necessary King
‘From the slaying of Goliath to the secretly arranged murder of Uriah, the specter of
blood follows the famous career of King David at every turn. With a meticulous and
carefully documented analysis of the text, Shepherd’s work draws attention to the
paradox of violence at the core of this narrative and an important subplot that will be
of interest to general readers and biblical scholars alike.’
Keith Bodner, Professor of Religion, Crandall University
and author of The Rebellion of Absalom
‘Shepherd provides a fresh and compelling reading of David’s story. The problem of
bloodguilt emerges as a central motif within the narrative, making this a crucial work
for future work on David’s story and also the wider issue of how this motif is
understood within the Hebrew Bible.’
David Firth, Trinity College Bristol and author of
1 and 2 Samuel: A Kingdom Comes
‘Shepherd makes a strong case for reading bloodguilt as a pervasive theme throughout
the David story, illuminating aspects of the story of David’s rise, reign, and succession.
The book will repay careful reading; its argument is well-constructed and well-supported,
and certainly got me thinking about these well-known stories in new ways.’
Christine Mitchell, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Knox College, Toronto
‘This book deals with a question that is immensely important not only for the image
of King David and for the assessment of the Books of Samuel, but also for the
theology and ethics of our days . . . Scholarly and with a commanding knowledge of
the relevant research, Shepherd offers clarifying insights into both the bloody reality
as portrayed in the books of Samuel, and the struggle against the curse of constantly
renewed bloodguilt that is waged in them.’
Walter Dietrich, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, University of Bern
and author of The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century B.C.E.
King David, Innocent
Blood, and Bloodguilt
DAV I D J. SH E P H E R D
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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© David J. Shepherd 2023
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ISBN 978–0–19–8842200
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 Contents

Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
David: A Man of War and Blood(s) 1
Reading the David Story/ies 3
What is the David Story About? 8
The David Story and Bloodguilt 11
The David Story and Retribution 12
The David Story and Homicide 14
The David Story and Ritual Violence 16
The Approach and Outline of the Book 18
1. ‘Innocent Blood’: 1 Sam 16–22 23
The Sparing of David 23
The Killings at Nob 29
2. ‘Blood without Cause’: 1 Sam 23–26 37
The Sparing of Saul 37
The Sparing of Nabal 41
The Sparing of Saul (Again) 49
3. ‘Your Blood be on Your Head’: 1 Sam 27–2 Sam 1 59
The Killing of Saul 61
The Killing of Saul (Again) 65
4. ‘His Blood at Your Hand’: 2 Sam 2–4 73
The Killing of Abner 73
The Killing of Ishbosheth 86
5. ‘The Sword Will Never Depart’: 2 Sam 5–12 99
The Killing of Uriah 103
The Killing of David and Bathsheba’s First Son 118
6. ‘That the Redeemer of Blood Will Ruin No More’: 2 Sam 13–14 127
The Killing of Amnon 127
The Sparing of Absalom 142
7. ‘Man of Blood’: 2 Sam 15–20 159
The Sparing of Shimei 159
The Killing of Absalom 168
The Sparing of Shimei (Again) 182
The Killing of Amasa 185
vi Contents

8. ‘The Bloodguilt of Saul’: 2 Sam 21–24 193

The Killing of the Seven Saulides 193
9. ‘Bring Back His Bloody Deeds’: 1 Kgs 1–2 211
The Killing of Adonijah 211
The Killing of Joab 213
The Sparing of Abiathar and the Sons of Barzillai 224
The Killing of Shimei 226
Conclusion: King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt 236
The Problem in David’s Rise 236
The Problem in David’s Reign 238
The Problem in David’s Succession 241
The Nature of the Problem 243
The Prevalence and Importance of the Problem 247
Problem without End 249
A Problem for Whom? 251

Bibliography 255
Index of Subjects 273
Index of Biblical References 277
 Acknowledgements

Thanks to the name my parents gave me, I am quite sure that ‘David’ was among
the first words I heard upon entering the world. Being a David who was also a
Shepherd ensured that my interest was especially keen when the subject of David
came up in my youth and I am very grateful to those who acquainted me with the
highlights of his story in those early years. The rest of David’s story in the Hebrew
Bible was introduced to me by yet another David—­Professor David Jobling—­
distinguished scholar and teacher of Old Testament language and literature at St.
Andrew’s College. His close reading of Samuel during my days as an undergradu-
ate student in his class set a standard which few since have matched, and influ-
enced me in ways which became clearer to me only when I began to take a more
serious interest in David a decade ago. This interest in David inevitably found its
way into my own classroom in turn and I am grateful to my students for their
insights on the David story over the years as we have explored it together at
Trinity.
I am also very appreciative of the feedback offered in recent years by various
scholarly audiences with whom I have shared papers in preparation for this book.
Some of the ideas on David and Uriah which appear in Chapter 5 were aired at a
meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study held in Manchester in 2012, while
early thoughts on Abimelech were presented at the University of Lausanne in
2016. My reading of 2 Sam 21:1‒14 (Chapter 8) benefited from feedback offered
at: the Society of Biblical Literature’s 2017 Annual Meeting in Boston, Cambridge
University’s Divinity Faculty Senior Research Seminar in 2018 and, in that same
year, the Doktorandenkolloquium in the Faculty of Theology of Georg-­August-­
Universität Göttingen. Rather closer to home, my treatment of 1 Sam 25
(Chapter 2) was refined with the help of those who attended a symposium on
forgiveness in the Hebrew Bible at the Trinity Centre for Biblical Studies in
Dublin. Finally, the treatment of Absalom which now appears in Chapters 6 and 7
was improved by comments and questions from those attending the joint meeting
of the Society for Old Testament Study, the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap
and the Old Testament Society of South Africa held at the University of Groningen
in 2018 and from members of the Divinity Faculty Research Seminars of the
Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, where I presented in October of 2019.
That various colleagues around the world have been kind enough to comment
on drafts of chapters—­and in some cases, the entire manuscript—­of this book,
has been truly humbling. For this, I owe debts of gratitude not easily repaid to
Graeme Auld, Walter Dietrich, Hugh Pyper, Rachelle Gilmour, David Firth,
viii Acknowledgements

Jeremy Schipper, Keith Bodner, George Nicol, Christine Mitchell, David Janzen,
Stephen Chapman, Steve Wiggins, and Mark Awabdy. Together they have spared
the reader a good number of deficiencies in what follows and certainly bear no
responsibility for those which remain. The same must be said for Tom Perridge
and the staff at OUP to whom I am very grateful for their patience and their pro-
fessionalism in seeing this project through and affording me the scope to tackle it
properly.
Finally, my greatest appreciation must be reserved for my dear wife, Hilda, and
my three wonderful daughters, Anna, Sophie, and Sarah, not only for allowing
this David to have spent so much time writing about ‘that’ David, but also for
ensuring that our family life is thankfully much less fraught than his.
 Introduction

David: A Man of War and Blood(s)

When the prophet Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons to be
king, David is not only the last, but also seemingly the least to appear. Even his
own father summons David only grudgingly, and apparently for good reason,
because as he advises Samuel, David is the youngest and a keeper of sheep
(1 Sam 16:11). However, when King Saul requests that a musician be found to
soothe his troubled soul and his servants suggest David, the reader soon discovers
that the youngest son of Jesse is no ordinary shepherd. Indeed, the servants insist
that David is not only divinely blessed, musically gifted, brave, and eloquent: he is
also a ‘man of war’ (‫ ;איש מלחמה‬1 Sam 16:18).
The son of Jesse’s willingness to go to war is confirmed in the very next chapter,
by the first words David utters in the books of Samuel: ‘What will be done for the
man who kills this Philistine and removes the reproach from Israel?’ (1 Sam
17:26). When Saul goes on to compare David’s mettle unfavourably to that of the
seasoned warrior Goliath, the young shepherd reports proudly what he would do
when a bear or lion had the temerity to turn on him after relinquishing a stolen
sheep. David would not merely take the would-­be predator by the hair and strike
it; he would kill it for good measure (v. 35). David’s victory over Goliath, however,
is much more than the killing of a beast. It is the triumph of youth over experi-
ence, humility over arrogance, and little over large. But it is also the triumph of
sling over sword and the decisive blow in the Israelite army’s routing of their
Philistine rivals. It is thus hardly surprising that David’s killing of Goliath has
cemented his reputation as a man of war. Indeed, this is underlined in the follow-
ing chapter (1 Sam 18), when the women irritate Saul by eulogizing David for
slaying ten times more Philistines than he has.
Yet if those in Saul’s orbit sing the young David’s praises in 1 Sam 16, by the
time we reach 2 Sam 16, other Saulide voices may be heard expressing a rather
different view. Here, as the now much older David retreats from Jerusalem to save
his life and kingdom from his son Absalom, he is met by Shimei, son of Gera and
a man of Saul’s tribe. Instead of celebrating David as a ‘man of war’, Shimei curses
him as a ‘man of bloods’ (‫ ;איש דמים‬2 Sam 16:8 and cf. 7).1 In 1–2 Samuel and 1 Kgs

1 In 1 Chron 22:8 and 28:3, David reports that the divine refusal of permission for him to build the
temple relates to the divine judgement that he is both a man of war(s) and a man of ‘bloods’. While

King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt. David J. Shepherd, Oxford University Press. © David J. Shepherd 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842200.003.0001
2 King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt

1–2, this language of ‘blood(s)’, or ‘bloodguilt’ as it is often translated, is invariably

associated with David and often killings with which he is connected, including
those of Saul, Ishbosheth, and Abner. Because David seems to benefit from these
and other killings and seeks to dissociate himself from them, some have suggested
that the tradition intends to rebut historical accusations of David’s responsibility
for killing these men.2 Indeed, the reporting of Shimei’s accusations strongly sug-
gests that such charges did circulate at some point and were perceived as prob-
lematic for David. Some scholars go further, concluding that the historical David
was in fact guilty of the killings.3 Steven McKenzie, for instance, argues that the
historical David not only sanctioned Abner’s death, but must be the prime sus-
pect in Ishbosheth’s killing and must also have encouraged the Philistines into the
conflict which claimed Saul’s life.4 In a similar vein, Baruch Halpern suggests that
David commissioned the assassination of Ishbosheth, killed Abner (apparently
himself) and was at least complicit in the killing of Saul by the Philistines.5
It is of course theoretically possible that the books of Samuel, as we now have
them, have indeed omitted details of David’s actual involvement in these and
other killings which work to his favour. However, such details are ultimately
beyond literary analysis and outside our concern here, because they belong to the
necessarily hypothetical histories reconstructed by McKenzie, Halpern, and
­others, rather than the (also tendentious) history of David offered by the books of
Samuel and 1 Kings.6 Instead, the interest of the present study is in how the story
of David we do have in Samuel and 1 Kings is illuminated by attention to the
shedding of innocent blood and the problems it has presented as posing for David
and others within the narrative. But before explaining how earlier readers have
engaged with the David tradition vis-­à-­vis bloodguilt and related issues, it is
worth considering how and why we have arrived at a place where we may speak
of these traditions as constituting a ‘Story of David’ at all.

Chronicles contains ample evidence of the former, it shows little awareness of the latter, unlike the
traditions of David as we find in them in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings 1–2.
2 This view became more popular in German scholarship thanks to Weiser, ‘ Legitimation’, 326–7,
332–3; and Grønbæk, Aufstieg Davids, 19–20, 29, 72; and, in the English-­speaking world, following an
influential article by McCarter, ‘The Apology of David’, 502, in which he surmises that some or all of
these accusations must have been actually levelled at David during his lifetime.
3 While McCarter, ‘The Apology of David’, 502, n. 24, stops short of accusing the historical David
of active involvement, some of those persuaded by his argument are more confident of the historical
David’s direct involvement.
4 McKenzie, King David, 113–26.
5 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 78–84, argues that the historical David was almost certainly
culp­able for other deaths (including those of Amnon and Absalom) of which the narrative seeks to
exonerate him, but innocent of the killing of Uriah—­the one death for which David is explicitly found
responsible in the tradition.
6 Though Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 283–4, might prefer ‘fictitious’ to ‘tendentious’, he makes some-
thing like this same point in responding to Halpern’s work. Yet even Van Seters admits that by the time
Shimei accuses the fictional David of being a ‘man of blood(s)’ (2 Sam 16), the writer of the ‘David
Saga’ has already offered ample grounds for suspecting, if not convicting, this fictional David of
Saulide homicide.
 Introduction 3

Reading the David Story/ies

The rich afterlife of the biblical David in Western culture undoubtedly owes much
to his associations with messianism and the Psalms, but there can be little doubt
that David’s later fame is also very much due to the stories about him in the
Hebrew Bible.7 Indeed, the tales of David’s unlikely anointing, his defeat of
Goliath, and his liaison with Bathsheba have entranced readers over the cen­tur­
ies, including, of course, biblical scholars. Those within this guild, however, have
also concerned themselves with stories of David which are less well-­known—­
indeed known only to those inducted into the mysteries of biblical scholarship. In
the case of David, these mysteries produced for many years what might be
described as a scholarly ‘Tale of Two Stories’—a tale which can be told here only
in a very abridged and imperfect way.
Amongst his many contributions, Julius Wellhausen long ago identified a story
focused on David’s rise, the beginning of which is obvious (David’s arrival in
1 Sam 16) and the end of which Wellhausen found in 2 Sam 8.8 The similarity of
some individual stories to each other within this wider narrative and various
inconsistencies between—­and intrusions within—­them, persuaded Wellhausen
that here in the books of Samuel, as elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, various
sources had been collected and edited to produce the text as we now have it.
Nevertheless, he argued that when taken together, the passages from 1 Sam
15/16–2 Sam 8 represented a ‘First story/history of David’, recounting David’s rise
from shepherd in Bethlehem to king in Jerusalem at the expense of Saul and his
house.9 Wellhausen’s ‘Second story/history of David’ ran from 2 Sam 9 to 1 Kgs 2
(excluding 2 Sam 21–24) and told the story of David’s subsequent reign and
Solomon’s installation.10 The artistry and coherence of Wellhausen’s second story
was increasingly acknowledged following Leonhard Rost’s influential analysis of
these chapters as a ‘Succession Narrative’.11 Of course, some since have seen this
narrative as beginning rather earlier than 2 Sam 9 and have rightly preferred the
terminology of ‘Court History’ due to 2 Samuel’s initial lack of explicit interest in
succession.12 However, the discrete division of the traditions about David into
‘two stories’—one account of his rise and another of his reign—­enjoyed wide-

7 For a survey of David’s ‘afterlife’, see Frontain and Wojcik, The David Myth. For a more recent
and much more specific example of David’s reception, see Shepherd and Johnson, David Fragments.
8 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 247–55. Wellhausen sees 1 Sam 15 with the first thirteen verses of
ch. 16 as one of two parallel introductions of David. For a recent treatment of the ‘History of David’s
Rise’ and various scholarly positions in relation to it, see Yoon, So-­Called History of David’s Rise. For a
survey of earlier work, see Dietrich and Naumann, Die Samuelbücher, 47–86.
9 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 247. 10 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 255–60.
11 Rost, Die Überlieferung; and, in English, The Succession.
12 Flanagan, ‘Court History or Succession Document?’. For recent surveys of scholarship and bibli-
ography on 2 Sam 9–20, 1 Kgs 1–2, see Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 228–40; and Hutton, Palimpsest,
176–227.
4 King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt

spread scholarly support (with honourable exceptions) throughout much of the

twentieth century.
The fact that scholarship on the David traditions as a whole did not remain
entirely a tale of two stories is due in large part to a series of studies appearing in
the late 1970s and early 1980s which explored the David narratives in new ways.13
Charles Conroy’s 1978 study of 2 Sam 13–20 as ‘story’ broke new ground by view-
ing these chapters through the lens of plot, character, point of view, etc.14
However, in that same year, a very similar furrow was also ploughed by David
Gunn.15 Perhaps because of Conroy’s more technical focus on language in the
later sections of his work, but probably also because of the greater scope and
ambition of Gunn’s book, it was the contribution of the latter which would prove
more enduring.
Gunn’s title, The Story of King David, might have suggested to some readers
that he would begin with David established on the throne in 2 Sam 9. Instead, he
argued that 2 Sam 2 (beginning in verses 8 or 12) through to chapter 4 offers a
more satisfactory beginning to the story of the reign of David which unfolds in 2
Samuel. In making his case, Gunn pointed out that David’s request to show kind-
ness to a Saulide at the beginning of chapter 9 seems to presuppose the account of
Ishbosheth’s death (and by extension chapters 2‒4). Gunn then showed that the
style of these chapters has much in common with the much-­vaunted style of
Rost’s ‘Succession Narrative’. Finally, he joined his voice to those who had already
suggested that Rost’s theme of ‘succession’ failed to capture the breadth of narra-
tive interests in 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2, let alone the expanded story of King
David for which Gunn was arguing. Thus, Gunn included in his story of King
David not merely David’s retention of the throne (at Absalom’s expense) and
Solomon’s accession to it (at Adonijah’s expense), but also now David’s accession
to the throne (at Ishbosheth’s expense; chs. 2‒4). Moreover, Gunn argued that this
larger story is not merely about succession, but also the interplay and conse-
quence of David’s and others’ ‘giving and grasping’ of the kingdom, both for him-
self and other individuals.16
While Gunn’s careful thematic analysis has been cited less often than it deserves,
his willingness to think in terms of a larger story of David instead of a ‘Tale of
Two Stories’ was to prove influential. Gunn himself would go on to discuss the
second half of 1 Samuel as very much Saul’s story rather than David’s.17 However,
The Story of King David led others to consider whether the story of David might

13 For an analytical digest of such voices from this period, see Conroy, Absalom, 2.
14 Conroy, Absalom. 15 Gunn, Story of King David.
16 Gunn, Story of King David, 87–111. Gunn acknowledges his debt to others in developing this
interpretation, including especially Brueggeman’s studies earlier in that same decade. Gros Louis, ‘The
Difficulty of Ruling Well’, applies the public/private distinction developed by Gunn in his earlier art­icle,
‘David and the Gift of the Kingdom’, out of which Gunn’s interpretation discussed here was developed.
17 Gunn, Fate of King Saul.
 Introduction 5

not begin even earlier than Gunn had recognized and whether the themes of a
still wider story of David might differ from those which Gunn himself had
identified.18 This influence is visible already in Walter Brueggeman’s slender and
more accessible David’s Truth in Israel’s Imagination and Memory (1985). This
study is still explicitly structured with reference to ‘the rise of David’ and the
‘Succession Narrative’, but insists on reading them together as a single story of
David which includes and even goes beyond 1 Sam 16 to 1 Kgs 2.19 Brueggeman’s
suggestion that this larger story illustrates David’s capacity for ‘receiving and
relinquishing with some graciousness’ is itself an obvious illustration of Gunn’s
influence, but also reflects Brueggeman’s wider scope.20
The extent to which scholarly interest in the larger story of David and its
themes burgeoned in the years which followed may be seen in a series of studies
which appeared before and after the turn of the millennium. While K. L. Noll’s
The Faces of David (1997) is largely focused on the three poems in 2 Samuel
(1:19‒27, 22, 23:1‒17), he begins by discussing the themes and characterization of
David in the ‘prose story’ as a whole.21 Noll is critical of Shamai Gelander’s earlier
argument that the books of Samuel are primarily about the capriciousness of God
and David’s heroic domestication of him. Indeed, as Noll notes, the textual evi-
dence offered by Gelander is slender and these books are much more about David
than they are about God.22 More appealing to Noll, however, is David Damrosch’s
passing suggestion that the David story’s ‘deepest concerns are with issues of
knowledge and understanding’.23 In developing this to a greater extent than
Damrosch does, Noll rightly points out that the David stories are often less than
forthcoming regarding why things happen in the way they do and what charac-
ters do and do not know.24 While this may to some extent reflect the sort of narra-
tive the books of Samuel offer (i.e. open-­ended, indeterminate),25 we will see that

18 See Whitelam, ‘The Defence of David’, for an early attempt to read all of 1 Sam 9–1 Kgs 2 through
the ‘apologetic’ lens suggested by McCarter. Such a reading struggles to account for David’s killing of
Uriah and his taking of Bathsheba in 2 Sam 11–12, in which any pretence of a defence of David seems
to be well and truly abandoned.
19 Brueggemann, David’s Truth, 113–15. In addition to ‘The Trustful Truth of the Tribe: 1 Sam
16:1–2 Sam 5:5’ and ‘The Painful Truth of the Man: 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2’, Brueggeman’s story
of David includes ‘The Sure Truth of the State: 2 Sam 5:6–8:18’ and ‘The Hopeful Truth of the
Assembly: Pss 89; 132; Lam 3:21–7; Isa 55:3; 1 Chron 10–29’.
20 Brueggeman, David’s Truth, 113–15. 21 Noll, Faces of David, 40–75.
22 Noll, Faces of David, 49. Gelander, David and His God, is focused almost entirely on 2 Sam 5–7
and 24—rather slender scaffolding to support interpretive claims regarding the David story as a whole.
23 Damrosch, The Narrative Covenant, 259. While this thematic judgement appears at the end of
Damrosch’s discussion of the composition and themes of the David stories, it is not obviously sup-
ported by the analysis it concludes, which instead elucidates a variety of more minor themes within
the stories of David’s rise and reign respectively.
24 For the question of how much or little Uriah knows in 2 Sam 11, see Sternberg, The Poetics of
Biblical Narrative. For my own modest effort to illustrate something similar in relation to Saul’s gen-
eral, see Shepherd, ‘Knowing Abner’.
25 Indeed, Noll, Faces of David, 44, n. 19, seems to admit as much himself by referencing ‘open-­
ended narration’ and ‘indeterminate literature’.
6 King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt

others too have discerned the thematic significance of knowledge within the
David story. At the same time, Noll suggests elsewhere in his study that the chief
concern of the books of Samuel is ultimately that of divine election and rejection,
as captured in the question: ‘Why has Yahweh rejected Saul and chosen David?’.26
While there can be little doubt this question is explored in 1 Samuel and the
opening chapters of 2 Samuel, in the remainder of 2 Samuel, such a question is
clearly less to the fore than those relating to Adonijah and especially Absalom.
Two years after Gunn’s study appeared, confirmation of this growing willing-
ness to explore the David traditions more holistically may be seen in Robert
Alter’s commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel, advertised as The David Story, despite
David’s absence from the first half of 1 Samuel.27 Because Alter wishes to tell the
story of David, he exceeds the boundaries of Samuel in tracking his protagonist
into 1 Kings, but his reasons for commenting on the often excised appendix
(2 Sam 21–24) are worth noting. He acknowledges that these final chapters of
2 Samuel are ‘not of a piece’ in style or perspective with the rest and may have
come from elsewhere. However, he also makes it clear that he comments on them
not merely because they are part of 2 Samuel, but because he is persuaded of their
coherence with the wider story of David. For Alter too, this wider story of David
revolves around ‘knowledge’. While Saul seems to be consistently deprived of
knowledge, David is initially well-­supplied with it, before eventually succumbing
to the fate of the ‘purblind Saul’.28
Still further, if slightly more oblique, evidence for the growing appreciation of
the wider David story in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings may be found in Steven
McKenzie’s King David: A Biography and in Baruch Halpern’s David’s Secret
Demons, which appeared around the same time.29 Unlike some others, both

26 Noll, Faces of David, 44. The title of a recent treatment of 1 Sam 16–2 Sam 5 rather proves the
point: Short, The Surprising Election and Confirmation of King David. For a slightly idiosyncratic treat-
ment of the David story which also considers the David-­Saul election question to be central to the
narrative, see Flanagan, David’s Social Drama, 241 and 270ff., who sees the struggle mediated by the
image of the ‘house’. Borgman, David, Saul and God, 211–19, reads David’s insistence on his own
innocence (22:24) within the so-­called Samuel appendix (chs. 21–24) as a clue that God chooses
David over Saul, not because David never sins, but because he readily recognizes his sin and repents of
it before even being confronted with it (ch. 24). While the including of chs. 21–24 within the story of
David is to be welcomed, Borgman’s treatment of these chapters, rather than 1 Kgs 1–2, as the ‘conclu-
sion’ to the David story feels rather too convenient for his thesis.
27 Alter, The David Story. For more recent commentators who also see the books of Samuel as pri-
marily about David, see Auld, I & II Samuel, 1–2; and Green, David’s Capacity for Compassion. By
contrast, Firth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 43–5, suggests that the books of Samuel are more about monarchy than
merely David.
28 Alter, The David Story, xix–­xxi. While Alter views biblical scholars’ framing of why David’s story
was written and what interests it served as reductionist, he does suggest that prior to the
Deuteronomistic editors getting their hands on it, the story of David was simply written to provide a
reliable account of the founding of the kingdom.
29 See also Baden, The Historical David, for a treatment which echoes the approach of McKenzie;
and see Wright, David, King of Israel, for the unexpected use of the notion of ‘war memorial’ as a
means of making sense of the biblical (and historical) David along with Caleb, whose paths in the
Hebrew Bible both pass through Hebron.
 Introduction 7

Halpern and McKenzie set out in search of the David of history and both con-
clude that the latter is rather different from the David of Samuel and Kings.
Allowing for later additions (including Solomon’s succession by the hand of the
Deuteronomist), McKenzie divides the David traditions in these books into two
parts along the broadly recognizable lines of David’s rise (1 Sam 16–2 Sam 5:3)
and his reign (2 Sam 5:4–1 Kgs 2).30 However, while McKenzie exhumes a more
‘historical’ and rather less attractive David by frequently reading against the grain
of the biblical traditions, he does largely treat them as a whole. In doing so,
McKenzie sees the tendency to defend David in the history of David’s rise also
reflected in the account of David’s reign in the remainder of 2 Samuel and 1 Kgs
1–2. This tendency McKenzie sees as complicated only slightly by the later add­
ition of the Bathsheba affair to explain Absalom’s rebellion as a punishment.31
Halpern too understands the David traditions as containing two stories. However,
Halpern’s two stories are not those of David’s rise and reign respectively, but
rather two separate accounts of David with differing perspectives (called simply
A and B) which have been woven together to produce the story of David as we
now find it. Nevertheless, like McKenzie, Halpern’s interest in David’s story as a
whole in Samuel and 1 Kings (in addition to his own ‘Tale of Two Stories’) is
made clear from his title and the extended treatment of ‘David’s History in the
Books of Samuel’ which he offers at the outset of his study.32
The exploration of David’s story as a whole and in its ‘final form’ in Samuel and
Kings has persisted even amongst those who are also and perhaps more interested
in the compositional history of the David story.33 This may be seen in the still
more recent work of two other eminent David scholars, Walter Dietrich and John
Van Seters. Dietrich, one of the most prominent and prolific exponents of a
redaction critical approach to the traditions about David, believes that what we
have now in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings is the result of a long process of
collection, expansion, and revision of sources beginning in the earliest period of
the monarchy.34 Indeed, Dietrich now sees a large collection of texts comprising a
‘narrative opus’ as having existed prior to the work of the Deuteronomistic editor.
Running from the beginning of 1 Samuel to 1 Kgs 12, Dietrich’s ‘maximal’ narra-
tive collection includes the traditions of Saul and Solomon, but it has at its heart
the traditions about David. It is worth noting, however, that in Dietrich’s view,
this collection was sufficiently complete and coherent already in its pre-­exilic
form to allow for a ‘holistic appreciation of the present text, its poetic structure

30 McKenzie, King David, 25–46.

31 See also Whitelam, ‘The Defence of David’ (and n. 18 above).
32 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 14–53.
33 In addition to the theories of Dietrich and Van Seters, see e.g. Auld, I & II Kings, 9–14, for a
concise summary of his alternative theory of the present text’s origins and development—­a theory
reflected in the commentary as a whole and worked out more fully in Auld, Kings without Privilege.
34 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 262–316, sets out his basic understanding of the sources and their
redaction and his assessment of their characterization of Israel, God, and David.
8 King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt

and its content’—not least in relation to David.35 For Dietrich, following the fin-
ishing touches of a pro-­Davidic redactor, the portrait of David as he rises to
power is positively glowing and only slightly tarnished as he reigns and is eventu-
ally succeeded.36
While Van Seters disavows the extensive and multiple redactional layers
detected by Dietrich, he does share Dietrich’s interest in how the narratives about
David came to be as we have them now.37 It is clear that Van Seters also shares Rost’s
enthusiasm for the unity and artistry of what Van Seters would call the Court
History. However, Van Seters is happy to abandon the ‘History of David’s Rise’ in
favour of offering, as Halpern does, his own ‘Tale of Two Stories’ of David, which
he too labels, ‘Account A’ and ‘Account B’. Van Seters’ Account A—­part of an earl­
ier and larger Deuteronomistic history—­is basically positive in its portrayal of
David, coinciding in extent with Wellhausen’s first story of David’s rise (1 Sam
16–2 Sam 8). However, Van Seters’ earlier and happier portrait of David is much
slimmer than Wellhausen’s. This is because large parts of it (e.g. 1 Sam 17, 1 Sam
25, etc.) are seen by Van Seters as belonging instead to his second story, Account
B, which includes these and the Court History (2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2) as
part of the Deuteronomistic story’s radical revision in the Persian period. Yet, if
Van Seters’ presentation seems at first glance to perpetuate the ‘Tale of Two
Stories’ of David,38 he too is deeply concerned with the final form of the story of
David as a whole, which he christens the ‘David Saga’ on analogy with later
Icelandic texts. According to Van Seters, in the hands of the Saga’s author, David’s
character and family are heavily tarnished in order to impress upon later readers
how dangerous and undesirable a revival of the Davidic kingdom would be in
their own time.39

What is the David Story About?

What becomes clear from this all-­too-­brief survey is that the story of David as a
whole has been increasingly the object of scholarly investigation,40 even amongst
those whose interests are also in the stories of David they find within it or behind

35 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 27. 36 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 309–14.
37 Van Seters, Biblical Saga. For a good illustration of helpful work on the compositional history of
the David traditions, see the essays in Bezzel and Kratz, David in the Desert.
38 See Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 361–3, for a convenient summary of the contents of his Account A
(Dtr History of David) and Account B (added to A by its author who was finally responsible for the
Saga). While Van Seters’ two tales no longer simply follow each other like the ‘History of David’s Rise’
and the ‘Court History/Succession Narrative’ do, he still offers a tale of two stories of David—­one
positive and negative—­now not divided primarily by sequences of events (rise and reign), but by their
ideological (for and against) and historical (earlier and later) perspectives on David.
39 Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 345–60.
40 For a more recent example of the interest in the ‘David narrative’, see Fleming, ‘Casting
Aspersions’.
 Introduction 9

it. Yet, while we have already seen that considerable effort has been invested in
discerning the themes of these subsidiary stories of David, with a few exceptions,
rather less progress seems to have been made in answering the question: what is
the story of David, as a whole, about?
The most obvious answer to this question might seem to be that the story is
about ‘David’—whose entrance in 1 Samuel marks the beginning of his story and
whose exit in 1 Kings marks its end. However, it is clear that ‘David’ is a much
better answer to the question ‘who is the story about?’ or perhaps even ‘who/what
is the subject of the story?’. To suggest instead that David’s story is about David’s
rise, reign, and succession might seem equally unexceptionable. Yet, again, while
this summary captures what the story of David is about at the level of plot, it begs
the question what the story of David is really about at a deeper level? It is at this
point that we begin to grapple with the question of theme.41 Indeed, Rost recog-
nized as much when he famously argued that the Succession Narrative’s ‘theme
(thema) is the question (frage): “Who will sit on David’s throne?” ’.42 As we have
seen, many since have been persuaded that 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2 are about
rather more than merely succession and that this is even more true of the wider
story of David. However, most would acknowledge not only the value of consid-
ering what lies behind or above the plot of this part of David’s story, but also the
theoretical possibility that succession is one of the themes which does so.
That a story which is composed of multiple sources, as David’s surely is, might
have more than one theme, seems rather likely. Indeed, this is recognized by
David Clines in relation to the Pentateuch, even if he insists that one theme must
be primary and others subsumed within it.43 This latter assumption is less evident
in Gunn’s treatment of David’s story, which also argues for an overarching theme
of the ‘giving and grasping’ of the kingdom, without explicitly insisting on its pri-
ority or primacy.44 Indeed, it seems probable that the story of David as a whole
might be about a variety of things at a thematic level, including, for instance,
‘relinquishing and receiving’ (Brueggeman’s variation on Gunn’s theme), as well
as ‘knowledge’ (so Noll and Alter). If so, it might be useful to think of assertions
of the priority of a particular theme as answering not merely the question what is
the story of David really about, but rather which of a variety of themes is this
story more about?

41 Theoretical discussions of ‘theme’ are few and far between in biblical studies. For exceptions to
the rule, see Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 19–26; and Mettinger, The Eden Narrative, 42–7. For
a theoretical discussion of theme in terms of ‘aboutness’, see Prince, Narrative as Theme, 1–5.
42 Rost, The Succession, 89. For a helpful summary of demurrals and the range of alternative sug-
gestions of the theme of these chapters up to the late seventies, see Gunn, Story of King David, 135,
n. 46; and more recently, Hill, ‘ “Leaving” Concubines’, 136–7, n. 38.
43 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 22–3.
44 Gunn, Story of King David, 136, n. 55, explicitly follows Rost in equating ‘theme’ with the
idea of ‘aboutness’. As we have seen, Noll, Faces of David, articulates the theme of ‘knowledge and
understanding’ in a form akin to Gunn, but also seems to see a central question (‘Why has Yahweh
rejected Saul and chosen David?’) as thematic.
10 King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt

Certainly, such a question makes some sense at the level of character, as most
would agree that the story of David is more about David than it is about, for
instance, Mephibosheth, or even more significant characters like Absalom. So too
at the level of plot, the story of David as we find it in Samuel and 1 Kings seems to
be more about David’s struggle to rise, retain, and pass on the throne than it is
about, say, his playing of the lyre, of which we read only a bit, or his shepherding
of the flocks, about which we hear even less. So, it does not seem unreasonable
that a thematic analysis which recognizes the possibility or probability of multiple
themes, might still ask: which one of these themes is the story of David more
about? And how might we determine this?45
In answer to these questions, it seems reasonable to suggest that the more evi-
dence of the theme which may be found in the narrative, the more important it is
likely to be.46 So too, the importance of a theme might also be suggested by where
it appears—­especially if it is referenced in prominent parts of the narrative and at
its close.47 Yet Clines is surely right to insist that the most important theme is not
merely the one that appears most frequently or prominently, but also the one that
‘most adequately accounts for the content, structure and development of the
work’.48 Indeed, the recognition of the importance of theme for a work’s narrative
development chimes with the recognition that a theme is concretized through its
representation in the action of a work, as well as in the persons and images which
populate it.49 We will see that the theme of illegitimate bloodshed traced in the
present study would seem to be reflected in all of these. That being said, our
ex­pos­ition of it is very much offered in the spirit of both Clines and Gunn’s
themes—­as an invitation to readers to judge for themselves to what extent it ‘fits’
the story of David.50 Before explaining how this theme will be traced here, it is
important to note the ways in which this work intersects with and builds upon
previous studies related to it.

45 So Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5.

46 Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5, refers to ‘redundancy’, Mettinger, The Eden
Narrative, 46, to ‘recurrence of manifestation’ (see also Prince, Narrative as Theme, 6).
47 With reference to the latter, Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5, speaks of ‘closure’ (see
also Mettinger, The Eden Narrative, 46).
48 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 20. Clines makes clear that by ‘development’ he does not
mean the ‘growth’ of the text as posited by historical/redaction critics.
49 Holman, Thrall, and Hibbard, A Handbook to Literature, 508.
50 Gunn, Story of King David, 88, explains the process in terms of a reader testing the theory
(or theme) by ‘ “trying it on for size” in his or her reading’. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 23,
speaks of a process of ‘trial and error’ and examining ‘likely candidates’. Some earlier suggestions of
themes are based on only part of David’s story (e.g. Rost, Gunn, and even Morrison, 2 Samuel, 5–9,
whose otherwise appealing theme of divine deliverance seems not to include the end of David’s story
in 1 Kings). Themes identified by others (e.g. Damrosch, Alter, Brueggeman) would benefit from
fuller and more detailed demonstration, while still others (Green, David’s Capacity) seem less persua-
sive to this reader (see Shepherd, ‘Review’; and Morrison, ‘Review’).
 Introduction 11

The David Story and Bloodguilt

Given how frequently the language of ‘blood(s)’ appears in the David story, it is
not surprising that it has attracted the attention of those scholars, however few in
number, who have concerned themselves with ‘bloodguilt’ generally in the
Hebrew Bible. The first serious and specific study of the subject, by Edwin Merz
in Germany during the early years of the First World War, ranges widely across
the canon, but draws regularly upon traditions associated with David, including
many of those explored in the present study.51 No less than the present one, Merz’s
work was a product of its own time, confident both in its Wellhausian under-
standing of the evolution of Israelite religion and in the direct relevance of later
Middle Eastern culture for the interpretation of blood vengeance in the Hebrew
Bible.52 Moreover, Merz’s desire to cover the breadth of the canon’s witness to
these traditions, when combined with the brevity of his book, precluded the kind
of detailed treatment which passages within the David story will receive here.53
Nevertheless, Merz’s mining of the traditions of bloodguilt associated with David,
offers important ore for the present work, even if, as will become clear, such ore
may need refining at various points.54
Further appreciation of passages from the David story for the understanding of
‘bloodguilt’ in the Hebrew Bible is to be found in Johannes Pedersen’s magisterial
Israel: Its Life and Culture, the first volume of which appeared only a few years
after Merz’s work.55 In his short treatment, Pedersen, like Merz, only turns to
legal traditions after beginning with narrative passages, including especially
2 Sam 2–3 (Asahel, Abner, and Joab), 13–14 (the Tekoite woman and Absalom),
and 21 (the Gibeonite episode). While Pedersen’s work as a whole consciously
resists the Wellhausian evolutionary understanding of Israelite religious thought

51 Merz, Die Blutrache, discusses passages in the following chapters associated with David in con-
nection with bloodguilt/blood vengeance: 1 Sam 25, 31; 2 Sam 3, 4, 12, 13, 16, 18, 21; 1 Kgs 1, 2.
52 Merz, Die Blutrache, 3, cites, for instance: Eickhoff, Über die Blutrache; and Procksch, Über die
Blutrache, drawing heavily on the latter for comparison and on Wellhausen’s understanding of the
history of Israelite religion.
53 In the space of a mere 137 pages, Merz covers not only various passages drawn from the books of
the Former Prophets (especially, Judges and 1 and 2 Samuel), but also material from the legal corpora
including Exodus, but especially Numbers and Deuteronomy.
54 So, for instance, while the present study will have the luxury of a far more detailed analysis of 2
Sam 21:1–14, Merz, Die Blutrache, 82, suggests that the sparing of Rizpah from blood vengeance hints
that the question of vulnerability to blood vengeance here (and elsewhere) is gendered. See also from
around this time, Buttenwieser, ‘Blood Revenge’, whose comparison of Greek and Hebrew traditions
regarding bloodguilt and discussions of 2 Sam 21 and Job 16:18 are rather compromised by source
critical assumptions regarding the biblical traditions and too great a dependence on later Arab tradi-
tions. For more on 2 Sam 21, see below, Chapter 8.
55 Published in Danish as Israel: Sjæleliv og samfundsliv, vols. I–­II by Branner in 1920, and then in
English in 1926 by Oxford University Press.
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Title: Famous composers and their works, Vol. 3

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Karl Klauser
Theodore Thomas

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS

COMPOSERS AND THEIR WORKS, VOL. 3 ***
Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is
granted to the public domain.
Famous Composers and their Works

Edited by

John Knowles Paine

Theodore Thomas and Karl Klauser

Illustrated

Boston
J. B. Millet Company
 Copyright, 1891, by
J. B. Millet Company.

JOSEPH JOACHIM RAFF

Reproduction of a photograph from life,

made in 1878 by Mondel & Jacob, in
Wiesbaden.
 JOSEPH JOACHIM RAFF

Joseph Joachim Raff, was the son of an organist and teacher, Franz
Joseph Raff, who early in 1822 left the little Würtemberg city of
Weisenstetter in the Horb district of the Black Forest to settle in
Lachen on the lake of Zurich in the canton Schwyz. Here on May 27
of the same year the boy was born. In his early childhood he
displayed that mental ability which does not always fulfill its promise
in years of maturity. He was able to translate Homer at the age of
seven and generally preferred books to rude outdoor sports. He
displayed musical tendencies, too, learning to play the organ and to
sing in the choir; but no special attention was given to his musical
training, probably because his facility in this art was regarded as only
an evidence of his general activity of mind. He was first put to school
at the Würtemberg Institute, and after a thorough preparation there,
was sent to the Schwyz Jesuit Lyceum. He was graduated with
distinction, carrying off prizes in Latin and mathematics, but his
means were not sufficient to enable him to take a university course.
He obtained the post of tutor of Latin at St. Gallen, where he
remained a short time, afterward going as a teacher to Rapperswyl.
He was at this time hardly twenty years of age. He now began his
study of music, for which his fondness had been growing. He was
unable to afford a teacher, but he diligently practised at the piano
and made many earnest attempts at composition.
The patron saint of musical Germany in 1842 was Mendelssohn
and in August of that year he set off on one of his tours in
Switzerland. No date is recorded, but we may be sure that Raff seized
upon this visit as his opportunity. Mendelssohn, with his customary
promptness in recognizing and assisting aspirants, gave the young
man a warm letter of recommendation to the great publishing house
of Breitkopf & Härtel. So effective were the master’s words that Raff’s
first work was published in January, 1843. Thenceforward the
current of his life could not be checked, and despite the opposition of
his parents, he devoted his future to music. No critical notice of
Raff’s opus 1 has been found, but opus 2 (“Trois Pièces
Caracteristique” for piano) is mentioned with kindness in
Schumann’s journal, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, of Aug. 5, 1844.
The critic found in the composition “something which points to a
future for the composer.” One readily discerns here the keen insight
of the greatest of all music critics, Schumann himself. Favorable
comments were made on the young composer’s works numbered
opus 2 to 6 in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of Aug. 21 in the
same year, and we may readily understand that with such
encouragements Raff bent his whole mind to the production of
music.
In 1845 the wizard Liszt appeared in Switzerland. The great pianist
was not long in discovering Raff’s gifts and was equally quick to see
that the young man was struggling against privations that would
have overwhelmed a weaker nature. Liszt invited Raff to accompany
him on a concert tour, and thus laid the foundations of the beginner’s
reputation. Together they travelled in the principal German cities,
the tour ending at Cologne. Thence Liszt returned to Paris, but Raff
remained. This stay in Cologne was a happy one, for it led to a
personal acquaintance with Mendelssohn. The famous master, who
had given the young composer his first help, now displayed fresh
interest in him and made him a proposition to go to Leipsic and
continue his studies under Mendelssohn’s own guidance. Such an
offer was not to be refused, but the fates were not propitious. Just as
Raff was making his preparations to go to Leipsic in the fall of 1847
Mendelssohn’s untimely death put an end to his hopes. He had not
been idle while in Cologne, however, for he had studied composition
with great earnestness, and had sent to the Cäcilia, published in
Berlin by the noted contrapuntist, Siegfried Dehn, many
contributions displaying wide knowledge of musical science. Later he
published “Die Wagnerfrage” (“The Wagner Question”), a pamphlet
which attracted much attention, as did all discussions of the works of
the Bayreuth genius.
Raff now became anxious to make a permanent home for himself
in one of the larger German cities. He appealed once more to Liszt,
who gave him a letter of introduction to Mechetti, at that time a
prominent publisher of Vienna. It seemed as if ill luck relentlessly
pursued Raff, for while he was actually on the way to visit Mechetti,
the latter died. In spite of such obstacles to his advancement the
composer continued his labors with undaunted spirit. He returned to
his old home at Würtemberg and resumed his studies. For a short
time he taught and studied at Stuttgart, seeking in the latter city to
fill the gaps in his early training. That his ambition was unconquered
is well proved by the fact that in Stuttgart he wrote his first large
work, an opera in four acts entitled “King Alfred.” In Stuttgart, too,
he was in some measure recompensed for his many trials and
adversities by making the acquaintance of one who was destined to
be his life-long friend and his champion after death. This was Hans
von Bülow, then a youth of barely twenty, not yet the famous pupil of
Liszt, but a law student who was neglecting his studies for the
pursuit of music. Von Bülow, no doubt, perceived that to introduce to
the public a new composer of merit would add to his own success as
a player, and he accordingly performed from memory a recently
finished composition of Raff’s, which he had seen for the first time
two days before. The result was a storm of applause for both player
and composer. This success cemented the friendship of the two, and,
as all who have often heard the pianist well know, Dr. von Bülow
very rarely plays a miscellaneous programme on which the name of
Raff does not appear.
It was in 1850 that the young man met Liszt again, this time in
Hamburg, and followed the magnet of attraction to Weimar. Here at
last it seemed as if Raff had found the atmosphere for which his
spirit hungered. Music, literature and art permeated the air; and the
foreign artists who came to lay their tributes of flattery before the
throne of the musical idol of the hour had smiles of approval for Raff,
who basked in the sunlight and let the essence of the new German
ideas in music saturate his soul. He went to work with renewed vigor,
and inspired by the presence of competent performers wrote his first
chamber music (Quatuor No. 1 in D minor for strings), some of his
best piano suites, his setting of Geibel’s “Traum König und Sein Lieb”
(“Dream King and his Love”), “Wachet auf” and other well known
works. Raff made himself popular and respected in the artistic circles
of Weimar by his learning. When Berlioz, who was ignorant of
German, was there and a banquet was given in his honor, Raff
relieved the situation of some difficulty by making the address to the
guest in Latin, an attention which highly delighted the Frenchman.
In the meantime Raff had found his domestic fate in Doris Genast,
an actress, grand-daughter of Goethe’s favorite actor. This young
lady having accepted an engagement in Wiesbaden, the composer
followed her thither in 1856. He speedily became the most popular
music teacher in the city, but his compositions still failed to find a
ready market. Nevertheless he employed his spare hours unceasingly
in writing. In 1859 he and Fräulein Genast were married, and a
daughter was the result of their union. Previous to his marriage he
composed in 1858 his second violin sonata and the incidental music
to “Bernhard von Weimar,” a drama by Wilhelm Genast. The
overture to this drama became a favorite and was played frequently
in many parts of Germany. In the summer of 1859, however, he
began the work which was to establish his fame. This was his first
symphony, “In the Fatherland.” It was ready for the publisher in
1861, when the composer was informed of the prize offered by the
“Society of the Friends of Music of the Austrian Empire”
(“Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde”), for the best symphony offered in
competition. Raff sent in his new work, and in 1863 a committee
consisting of Ferdinand Hiller, Carl Reinecke, Dr. Ambros, Robert
Volkmann and Vincenz Lachner adjudged it the best of thirty-two
compositions. Other large works followed, and their success enabled
him to give up teaching to devote himself wholly to composing. No
artist’s life shows more plainly than Raff’s the result of escape from
poverty’s iron control. Hitherto he had written copiously for the
drawing-room, but now he sought to produce works wholly artistic in
purpose. His retirement after the beginning of the year 1870 was
almost idyllic, being broken only by the visits of fellow artists. It is
impossible to agree with the oft-repeated statement that his best
works date from this period, for the beautiful “Im Walde” (“In the
Forest”) symphony appeared in 1869; but there is every proof of a
higher purpose in the compositions after 1870 than in the majority of
those originating earlier than that year. Perhaps, too, Raff’s lack of
business ability may be accepted as an evidence of his artistic
sincerity. For his first, second and fourth symphonies he received no
cash payment; for the third (“Im Walde”) he got sixty thalers, the
same amount being paid him again, when the work was sold to a
French publisher. Thereafter, however, he seems to have acquired
courage enough to ask fair prices for his works.
In 1877 Raff left Wiesbaden to become director of the new
Conservatory of Music at Frankfort. He taught composition himself,
arranged the library, and conducted the institution upon such a
broad-minded plan that its success was assured from the beginning.
He continued his labors in composition, his symphonies after the
seventh, having been written at Frankfort together with other
important works. Ignorant of the fact that a mortal disease had
fastened upon him he worked with undiminished zeal till 1882, when
on the night of June 24, heart disease ended his career.

Fac-simile autograph letter from Raff to a personal friend.

 Raff’s principal works are the following: operas—“King Alfred,”
Weimar, 1850; “Dame Kobold,” (comic) Weimar, 1870; “Benedetto
Marcello,” (lyric), not performed; “Samson” (opera seria), not
performed.
For voices and orchestra—“Wachet Auf” (“Be on Guard”), opus 80;
“Deutschland’s Auferstehung” (“Germany’s Resurrection”), opus
100; festival cantata for the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of
Leipsic; “De Profundis” (Psalm CXXX.) for eight voices and
orchestra, opus 141; and “Morgenlied” (“Morning Song”), for mixed
chorus and orchestra, opus 171.
For orchestra: symphonies—“In the Fatherland,” opus 96; No. 2,
in C, opus 140; No. 3, “Im Walde,” in F, opus 153; No. 4, in G minor,
opus 167; No. 5, “Lenore,” in E, opus 177; No. 6, in D minor, opus
189; No. 7, “In den Alpen,” B flat, opus 201; No. 8,
“Frühlingsklänge,” (“Sounds of Spring”) in A, opus 205; No. 9, “Im
Sommer” (“In the Summer”) in E minor, opus 208; No. 10, “Im
Herbstzeit” (“In Autumn”), F minor, opus 213; No. 11, “Der Winter,”
A minor, opus 214; four suites in C, F, E minor and B flat; and nine
overtures, including those to “Romeo and Juliet,” “Othello,”
“Macbeth” and the “Tempest.”
For piano with orchestra—“Ode to Spring,” opus 76; concerto in C
minor, opus 185; and suite in E flat, opus 200.
For violin with orchestra—concerto No. 1 in B minor, opus 161;
concerto No. 2, in A minor, opus 206.
In addition to these principal works there is a great mass of
chamber music, piano compositions, songs and ’cello pieces.
It may, perhaps, be unfortunate for Raff’s fame that his dramatic
works are unknown in this country, though it is indisputable that
none of them has achieved high repute in German. It is probable,
although we in America know far less about the music of this gifted
man than the Germans do, the estimate of his abilities generally
accepted on this side of the Atlantic is a wise one. He is regarded as a
composer who, possessing exceptional fecundity of melodic
invention and rare mastery of orchestral tone-color, sought to
impose upon music a definiteness of expression somewhat beyond its
power. This eagerness to delineate in detail a chain of feelings or
impressions led Raff into diffuseness of style and to frequent
sacrifices of those formal elaborations which are regarded as
essential to the construction of artistic music. He has been generally
thought to lack self-criticism and a want of restraint resulting
therefrom; but it has always seemed to the present writer that Raff’s
errors were not in the direction of criticism, but of fundamental
belief. In other words he let the beautiful vision of a genus of
pictorial programme music which is to be more expressive than
speech run away with his reason. The preface to his “In the
Fatherland” symphony clearly exhibits his idea of the possibilities of
music.
Now it is neither necessary nor expedient to repeat here any of the
familiar discussion as to the expressive power of music. The most
serious thinkers about the art, even when they disagree in details, are
generally of the opinion that music can express only the broader
emotions, and requires text to make clear the cause of the feelings.
We are able to get great pleasure, and at times genuine emotional
exaltation from the music of Raff provided we are willing to
approach it in the only fair spirit in which programme music can be
approached—that of willingness to accept the composer’s premises.
The first movement of the “Fatherland” symphony has strength and
aspiration, and we have only to accept Raff’s explanation that he is
singing of Germany to enter into the heart of his composition. In the
same way we are obliged to approach the “Lenore,” the “Im Walde”
and his other symphonies. The grisly story of Burger’s “Lenore” is
told in detail in the finale of the symphony, but in order to follow the
music we need the poem. Having that, we perceive the aptness and
peculiar fitness of the composer’s rhythmic and melodic fancies.
Nothing could have a more stimulating effect upon the imagination—
once the key to the secret is possessed—than the inexorable
persistence of the groups of a quaver and two semi-quavers by which
the infernal flight of the lovers is indicated. If perchance we find an
instrumental representation of a gallop not new (it having been
invented by Claudio Monteverde in the beginning of the seventeenth
century) we can at any rate get all the effect designed by Raff in his
woodwind shrieks of the nightbirds and his trombone hymn for the
dead.
 Fac-simile autograph manuscript of an “Album Leaf” by Raff.

He has achieved a greater fidelity of feeling and a subtler realism

of tones, however, in his “Im Walde,” which is generally looked upon
as his masterpiece. The first movement is intended to bring to the
hearer’s mind the woods in the sunlit beauty of noon. The second
reveals them to us in the suggestive shadow of twilight. In the third
movement the composer entertains us with an airy and delicate
dance of Dryads, a woodland scherzo in deed and in truth. In the
fourth and last movement we have a musical embodiment of the
familiar German legend of the Wild Huntsman. A gentle fugal
thought pictures the repose of the woods. Suddenly the rhythm of the
galloping hunt is heard, as it were, in the distance. Nearer and nearer
it comes, till the whole orchestra thunders with its riotous fury. It
dies away in the distance, returns and dies away again. Then comes
the glory of sunrise. This symphony makes less demands in the way
of preparation than many of Raff’s other works. The single
suggestion that he is painting the forest and that there is a wild hunt
is all that the imagination needs to give it complete enjoyment of this
work. Freedom of form is a natural result of the kind of composition
in which Raff excelled and his ability to write quickly and with little
effort prevented his feeling the necessity of working out his
compositions with the care and science of the classical school. One
gets much less intellectual satisfaction, therefore, out of Raff’s work
than out of Schumann’s, who was his precursor, and still less than
out of Mozart’s. But the ear and the imagination are delighted by the
clear intelligibility of his melodic ideas, their unfailing poetic
sentiment and musical grace. It is these qualities of his themes,
together with the splendid colors in which his orchestral palette is so
rich, that have given to his symphonic works their wide popularity,
and have made the name of Raff recognized as that of one of the
really gifted followers of the romantic school founded by Schumann
and Schubert. In the general outline his symphonies follow the laws
of the earlier masters, notably in the distribution of the movements.
His separate movements, however, are not always built according to
the old rules, his finales being notably free and irregular. It can only
be said, then, in concluding this brief estimate of his symphonic
writing, that his works in the large orchestral form are admirable
examples of that class of modern composition in which structural
skill and scientific development are sacrificed to warmth of
sentiment and opulence of color. In a word, they belong to what may
be called the impressionist school of music.
Lest it be supposed that Raff was deficient in musical learning, let
us note that his chamber music, always melodious and graceful,
frequently displays profound mastery of the resources of his art. His
sextet in G minor, opus 178, deserves especial mention because it is
one of his most carefully written productions. It is written for two
violins, two violas and two ’cellos in six real parts, and every trick of
canon and imitation is introduced. One commentator
enthusiastically describes it as “a veritable triumph of counterpoint.”
In his treatment of the first subject of his “In the Fatherland”
symphony, too, he writes a canon in augmentation and double
augmentation that would have delighted the eye of Bach himself. Dr.
Franz Gehring, of Vienna, in his article on Raff in Grove’s
“Dictionary of Music” calls attention to the interesting fact that “in
the pianoforte concerto in C minor (opus 185) in each movement all
the subjects are in double counterpoint with one another, yet this is
one of Raff’s freshest and most melodious works.” The composer’s
piano music is very popular, and some of it, notably the variations on
an original theme (opus 179) and most of the suites, is remarkable
for its fertility of resource as well as for the composer’s usual
readiness for the production of new melodies. His songs are equally
rich in tunefulness and many of them have attained the rare
distinction of becoming the common property of the German people.
 Raff may not deserve a seat among the Titans of music. Yet his
originality, his grace of thought and his oriental gorgeousness of
utterance lift him above the level of mediocrity and stamp him as a
man possessed of rare and valuable gifts. His larger works show
every evidence of artistic earnestness, and had he been less imbued
with impressionistic ideas and more free from the burdens of
poverty, he might have attained perfection of art.

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Reproduction of a triplex photograph from life, made in 1889 by

Brasch.
 JOHANNES BRAHMS

The spirit of modern civilization is preëminently a critical one. A vast

amount of knowledge and talent is constantly put in its service and it
seems as though education had no higher purpose than to enable
man to become as early as possible a critic of everything offered for
material or spiritual use or enjoyment. In no field have these
tendencies become more conspicuous than in the most delicate and
complicated art of music. Our generation is brought up not so much
for a life-long devotion, study and true appreciation, as for a most
premature forming and uttering of opinions as to the merits, and
particularly the shortcomings, of any production. Most of our critics,
too, work in this wrong direction, instead of preaching that modesty
and prudence and earnest devotion which alone enables us to
become familiar with new talent or works of a higher order. Goethe
accuses critics in general, that they have the habit of ignoring really
great things and of showing an unusual interest in mediocrity. He
ascribes to them a bad influence upon creative artists, saying that
these can only follow the path dictated by their nature, while
arrogant criticism, which assumes to prescribe to them how to do or
not to do a thing, may destroy them. He doubts whether in modern
England, with the criticising daily press, such an astounding
appearance as that of a Shakespeare would be possible, and, as an
expert, declares that great things can be accomplished only in a state
of absolutely undisturbed, innocent, almost somnambulistic
creation, attained by complete isolation. That such self-chosen
isolation, resting upon a strong personal and artistic character, yet
combined with a hearty interest in all human concerns and the most
comprehensive general culture, is possible, even in our modern time,
and that it can be crowned with most wonderful results, is splendidly
shown by the career of Johannes Brahms, whose greatness rests
mainly on this unswerving fidelity to his genius in spite of all adverse
criticism during the years of his development and attained
mastership.
He was born in Hamburg, May 7th, 1833, being the eldest of three
children of Johann Brahms, a remarkable musician, who played
double bass at the theatre, and Christiane Nissen, a lady of an
affectionate, noble character. There was never a doubt as to his
becoming a musician. Under the instruction first of O. Cossel and,
from his tenth year, of Eduard Marxsen, a most thorough musician
and excellent teacher in the sister city Altona, the boy made rapid
progress on the piano. Marxsen soon began also to give him
theoretical instruction and was at once attracted by the rare keenness
of the intellect of his pupil. Indeed, in his first productions he
recognized a spirit which convinced him of a profound latent talent.
He therefore spared no effort to awaken and guide this talent that his
pupil might become another priest of art to “preach in a new way
what is high, true and imperishable.”
As a lad of fourteen Brahms played for the first time in public,
pieces of his favorite masters, Bach and Beethoven, and original
variations on a folk-song, thus showing an early liking not only for
popular melodies, but for a musical form which he has cultivated
more assiduously and for higher purposes than any other modern
composer. Indeed this combination of popular elements with most
artistic and complicated forms has perhaps remained the most
characteristic feature of Brahms’ music.
After giving a few other concerts, Marxsen kept him for several
years from appearing in public, until in 1853 he could send him as a
master of his instrument upon his first journey with the Hungarian
violin virtuoso Remenyi. In Hanover, where he played much before
the king, he met Joachim, who became his life-long friend, and
Joachim was especially impressed when Brahms, in one of these
concerts with Remenyi, transposed on account of the low pitch of the
piano, without any preparation and even without notes, a Beethoven
violin sonata, raising it a semitone. Marxsen was not surprised; for
years Brahms had been accustomed to transpose great pieces at sight
into any key, and so astonishing was his memory, that he never
carried notes with him upon a concert trip. The compositions of
Beethoven and Bach and a long list of modern concert pieces were
safely committed to memory by him. Brahms remained several
weeks in Weimar as the guest of Liszt, who delighted in playing the
young composer’s manuscripts. Then he parted from Remenyi and
went with Joachim’s recommendation to Robert Schumann in
Düsseldorf. The impression which his personality, playing, and
works made upon the latter was profound. Nothing in his later
career, rich in honors and triumphs, can be dearer to his memory
than the enthusiastic greeting with which Schumann introduced him
to the musical world.
Without some citation from an oft-reprinted article in the “Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik” no sketch of Brahms’ life is complete.
Schumann greets him as the one whom he had expected to appear to
utter the highest ideal expression of his times, claiming the
mastership not by a gradual development, but appearing suddenly
before us fully equipped as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jupiter.
“And he has come, a youth at whose cradle graces and heroes kept
watch.” “Sitting at the piano he began to unveil wonderful regions.
We were drawn into more and more magical circles by his playing,
full of genius, which made of the piano an orchestra of lamenting and
jubilant voices. There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies;
songs, whose poetry might be understood without words; piano
pieces both of a demoniac nature and of the most graceful form;
sonatas for violin and piano—string quartets—each so different from
every other, that they seemed to flow from many different springs.”
“Whenever he bends his magic wand, there, when the powers of
orchestra and chorus lend him their aid, further glimpses of the ideal
world will be revealed to us. May the highest genius strengthen him;
meanwhile the spirit of modesty dwells within him. His comrades
greet him at his first step into the world of art, where wounds may
perhaps await him, but bay and laurel also; we welcome him as a
valiant warrior.”
This cordial introduction created quite a sensation, yet it was by no
means a guaranty of an enthusiastic reception of the young