Lydia Goehr

8/19/2019 Lydia Goehr

1/23

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In the Shadow of the Canon

Author(s): Lydia GoehrSource: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Summer, 2002), pp. 307-328Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600955Accessed: 01-11-2015 20:57 UTC

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2/23


3/23

308 The

Musical

Quarterly

chosenas the

paradigmatic

omposer

orthe

new

symphonic ge.

This

doesnot meanGermanmusicbeganwithBeethoven, nlytheconscious

process

f

canonization,

ecause

Bach,

Haydn,

andMozartwere

counted

and ncluded s at least hreeof Beethoven's

reat

predecessors.

The

year

1814

was

alsothe start

of

the

Congress

f

Vienna,

a con-

gress

hat

sought

o reorder

urope

fter he

Napoleonic

Wars.Conser-

vative

n

direction,

t

prompted

morenational

eparation

han

European

unity.

Like he

emerging

anon,

t determinederritorial orders f in-

clusionandexclusion.

Though

1814

marked momentof relief orEu-

rope,

now releasedromFrance's

omination,

t

marked lsoa critical

periodof time andneed,asthepoemsays,ofuncertaintys to whether

French deals

of

liberty

nd

equality

were

any onger

upportable

nd,

f

not,

whatwould tand

n

their

place.

Born

n

theseuncertain

imes,

he German anon

tells a

story

ess,

paradoxically,

bout he undoubted

reatness

f its masterworkshan

about

Germany's

ufferings

nd

anxieties

ver

nationhood.

The

language

f

suffering

nd

greatness

Leiden

nd

Grosse)

ught

naturally

o evokeThomasMann'smost amous ecture

on Richard

Wagner.

However,

myessay

attends o the

composer

who so

desperately

soughthis canonic tatusn the musicalParnassusnlyto saysomething

about he connectionbetween anonandnation ormation.As

Thomas

Mann

made

explicit

n

1933,

the

aspirations

ndanxieties hat had ain

behind

Germany's

anonizing

ts music nto a

particular

istoricalin-

eage

of

masterpieces

ere

nextricably

ound

up

with thosethathad

ain

behind

Germany'sationalizing

ts

people.2

The

poem

"Kanon" as

penned

by

an inveterate

raveler,

n

aristo-

craticwriter orn

n

France,who,

withhis

parents,

led he Revolution-

ary

Wars ndsettled

n

Berlin.Therehe came o be knownas Adalbert

vonChamisso, Germanic erivation f a much ongerFrenchname.

YetChamissowasknown essforthis

poem

hanforhis

authorship

n

1813

(published

814)

of Peter chlemihlsundersameeschichte

nd,

with

this,

the contributiono German omanticismf a

powerful

Kunst-

marchen,

he

story

of "the hadow."

owever,

n this

essay

refer

o a

dual

mage

of

Chamisso o that

whenever

ne

thinks

of the writer f

the shadow ne thinksalsoof the

poet

of difficult imesandneeds.

Chamisso's

tory

s abouta manwho sellshis shadow orthe

promise

f immediate

appiness

ndassimilationnto a

community

wherehe hasjustarrived sforeigner. utthepromise, e quickly

learns,

s

false,

because

lthough

e

acquires happypurse

Fortunati

Gliickssdckel),

t costshim his

humanness,

he

sort

hat

says

here s no

happiness

without

uffering,

o individual ontentmentwithout om-

munity,

o

history

without

mortality,

ndno wisdomwithout he

recog-


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4/23

In

theShadow

f

theCanon 309

nition

that

thereare imitson whatwe can know.As with

the Faustian

bargainorPlato's arable f thecave),the shadow asts tselfcanoni-

cally ong

and

wide,

hrough

E. T.A. Hoffmann's ie Elexiere es

Teufels,

HansChristianAndersen'sable

"The

Shadow"

Skyggen],

o Richard

Strauss's ie Frauohne

Schatten.3

ndersen's

ableof

1847

most

helpfully

links he themeof

the

shadow o that of the canon.It

tells of

a

scholar

who,

havingbetrayed

is commitment

o

the

canonicvalues

of "the

true,

he

good,

and

the

beautiful,"

ries

o redeem imselfbut finds hat

it

is too late.

In

this

essay,

ateness ndbelatedness

radually

ecome he overar-

chingthemes: he lateness rdecayofGermanmusic nterpreteds an

expression

f the belatedness

f

the modem

German

ation-all worked

out

through

he themeof the shadow.

Andersen

ells of a

young

but

learnedman rom

he

north

(Berlin)

who,

while

traveling

n

warm outhern

limes,

one

evening

indshis

curiosity

o aroused

by

the

magical

trains f music

andthe

image

of

a

beautiful

woman)

hat

he

sendshis shadow

ff to

seekthe

knowledge

e

cannot

himself

acquire.

However,

he shadow

eturns

nly

years

ater,

leaving

he learned

manmeanwhile

earful

hathe

hasbecome he man

ofthestory Chamisso'story)wholosthis shadow.When the shadow

finally

eturns,

e claims

o

have

learned ot

only

the woman's

dentity,

but

alsothe entirecourtof

Poetry.

The

womanwas

ust

Poetry.)

On this

basis,

he shadow laims urther o have becomea

man,

rich

n

wealth

and

convincing

n

his new suit

of

clothes.

Despondent,

he

learnedman

wonders

whether

his

pursuit

f "the

rue,

he

good,

andthe

beautiful"

has not

just

been

a

wasteof his

time,

because

e

has so little

of

whathis

shadow

now has.

Fearing

he

loss,

he wastes

away

andbecomes mere

shadow f

his

former

elf.

Opportunistically,

he

shadow ffers o

take

the learnedmanon a restorativerip,butonlyifhe willaccept he re-

versalof their

roles

as manandshadow.The learnedman

agrees.

Arriv-

ing

at

the

sanatorium,

he

shadow s

immediately

ursued

y

a

sharp-

sighted

princess

o whomhe

quickly

ecomes

ngaged.

The

shadow

knows hat

to

keep

he

princess

appy

he must

ustain

he

illusion hat

he is a

man,

and

or

this

he

mustconvince he learned

man

permanently

to

swap

dentities.

He offers

he man

everlasting

ealth

o

maintain he

deceit.Butthe

learned

manrefuses ndthreatens o revealall. The

princess

ndthe shadow

marry;

he learnedman s silenced.The

learned

man indshisredemptionnhisexecution;heprincesss left withfar

lessthanshe

bargained

or.4

It

wouldbe

wrong

o thinkthat there s more hanone male

agent

in this

story

or

that it was he shadow's

ault hat he

assumedhe

rich

clothes

of

apparent nowledge.

he

story

s the man's lone: t is he




5/23

310

The

Musical

Quarterly

who,

by losing

his

shadow,

ost his

ground.

or

a

shadow

s

nothing

at

all,onlythe reflection f aman-strewn across heground.Thusthe

detached hadow ssumeshe

appearance

f

the

inhumanman

the

learnedman

becomes,

he

"impotent"

anwho must

keep

the secret

of his

deficit.

Why

doesthe

story

not have a

happy nding,

with the

shadow eattachedo the

man,

with the man's

umanity

estored? e-

causeAndersen

must

mirrorChamisso's eter

Schlemihl,

who in

his

story

hoseto wander he earth orthe rest

of his

days eeking nly

the

("dehumanized")

nowledge

f

science.

Hadhe

no otherchoice?

Yes,

but it wasworse.Eitherhe could

get

his

shadow ackbutnow

only

in

exchangeorhissoul,or he could ive withhis soul ntactbutseparated

forevermoreromhis

shadow.

n the lateness f the

times,

hesewere

the

only

choices

eft,

and

he chose

the latter.5

How,now,

does

the

shadow erveas

an

allegory

o elucidate he

sufferings

f

the German ation?

The

first

hing

to stress

s

the transition

of

focus hat

will

take

place

rom

he individual'sossto the

community's.

Wittgenstein egins

he

argument:

It

seems o me that

the

story

of

PeterSchlemihl hould ead ike this:He makes verhis soulto the

Devil

for

money.

Then

he

regrets

t and

now

the

Devil

demands

is

shadow sa ransom.ButPeterSchlemihl till has a choicebetweengiv-

ing

the Devil his souland

sacrificing,long

with his shadow

ife,

life

in

community

with

othermen."6

But,

as

Wittgenstein

well knew

(in

1931),

if

individualshooseeither

o lose

theirsouls

or

to sacrificeheir ives

as

part

of a

community,

he

community

s

affected oo. Forwhatwoulda

community

e like

if

it reached

point

where he memberswho

stayed

had soldtheir

souls,

whilethosewho

kept

theirsouls ivednow

only

in

shadowlessxile?

Exile s

precisely

ThomasMann's oncern oo

when,

n

his

essay

"Chamisso,"e describes solitaryman,SchlemihlorChamisso imself,

who,

having

eft

his

native

country,

indshimself

n a

strange

andand

immediately

oseshis shadow-becausea manwithouta

country

s a

manwithout

a

shadow.Mann

writes,

"The

Shadow

s in

Peter chlemihl

symbol

f

all

bourgeois

olidity

andhuman

belongingness."

adMann

written

his

essay

n

1941,

he wouldhave

known irsthandhe anxieties

of

living

n

a

strange

and.

But

n

1911he usedChamisso's

strangement

to focuson

the

young

writer's

endency

o

glorify

is

suffering

f

separa-

tion not

only

fromhis native

country

nd

anguage,

ut

also,

and

more,

because f his

genius,

romhis

community.

Thewhole ittle book s

nothing

but

a

profoundlyxperienced

escription

f the

sufferings

f

the

marked nd

solitary

ndividual."

uffering

rom

his

greatness, oung

Chamisso

wonders-perhaps

ike Goethe's

oung

Werther r

Wagner's

young

Walther on

Stolzing-how

he will

fulfill

his

duty

o art.

But




6/23

In

the

Shadow

f

the

Canon

311

Chamissoeelsalsoa

duty

o

German

rt,

because or

him,

Mann

writes,

"[t]obeaGerman,hat almostmeant o beapoet.To beapoet,thatal-

most

meant o be a German."Whereas

Mann

grants

Chamisso

is

suc-

cessas a German

oet,

he refuses o

glorify

he

genius

of his

youth.

As

Goethe

survived

Werther,

o Chamissomust urviveSchlemihl: One

cannotbe

interesting

orever."

nly

eternalbohemianswouldresent

an

artist's

maturation,

referring

hat

he rather ie

in

obscurity

from

is

own

interestingness""geht

an seiner nteressantheit

ugrunde")

ather

than

join

the

community

nd

become

"amaster." oran artist o have a

shadow

s

alsofor

an

artist

o

have an

impact-to

casta shadow-on

art's uture.7

Yet,

as Thomas

Mann

would

witness,

becoming

masterwasnot

withoutramifications

orthe

community

s a whole.At

worst,

masters

mightcapitulate

o a

community's

emands,

owever

alamitous;

t

best,

they

would

ive

up

to theirown

proclaimed

alueseven whena

community

was n crisis.Herewasa transition

n

Mann's iewbetween

1911and 1933:

hough

a

young

writer

ught

not

celebrate

he

sufferings

of his

exiling

greatness

ndchoose o

join

the

community,

here

will be

times

when

the

community

ets

the master

own,

suchthat he is

forced,

inorder o keephissoul,to choosea different indof exile.

Recall

now

Mann's

most

amous laimof

exile,

that

whenhe

moved

to America

he tookGerman ulturewith

him

to

preserve

t

against

ts

Nazi

appropriation

nd

abuse.

YetwasMann

reallyhoping

or

anything

different

rom

Wagner's

ans

Sachs,

who,

by staying

t

home,

sang

at

the end

of Die

Meistersinger,

hat

"zerging'

n

Dunst

das

heil'

ge

rom'sche

Reich,

unsbliebe

gleich

die

heil'ge

deutscheKunst "

"even

f

the

Holy

Roman

Empire

were

o

go

up

in smoke

through

he

"decay"

rought

about

by

foreign

ule],

holy

German rt

might

till

remainwith

us ")

Wagnerwasnever ar romMann'shoughts.However,whatMann

mademore

xplicit

hanSachs

was hata

threat

o a

nation hat

is

taken

to be from

without

or

from"the

oreign")

s

usually

nly

a

projection

andrationalization

f a

cause

romwithin

(fromoneself).

But

still,

if

the

problem

was

all

about

whatwas

going

on insidea

country,

hen wasnot

Mann's

ope

to save ts culture

n

exile

quite

utile,

as

if

one could ake

the culture ut of

a

country-as

if

a

culture,

ike

a

man,

couldsurvive s

a

detached

hadow?Of

course,

he

question

was

whether,

n

the lateness

of

the

times,

he had

any

otherchoice.

I

hesitate o state

the harsh ruthnow that the German anon

of

Germanmusichas

in

dark

imes

entered,

with dire

consequences,

nto

Faustian

argainsegarding

uman

ommunity,

r that it became

aught

up

in the

most

catastrophic

eriod

of

Europe'sistory.

ButI thinkone




7/23

312 The Musical

Quarterly

shouldnot

avoid his

truth,

because

nvestigating

cultural

henome-

non under xtreme rabnormalonditions anserve o showuswith

frightening larity

what

s

always

t stake

even in

a

purported

ondition

of

normality.

Myargument

ow

assumes

ome

political

esonancesrom

critical

theory.

make hem

explicit

ess

to enteran

immediate

olitical

debate

than

yet

furthero

encourage

dialectical

pproach

o the musical

anon,

where he dialectical im s to

disentangle

he truths f

suffering

hat

ie

in the

shadow f

the

canonandareconcealed

recisely

y

assertions

f its

greatness.

am aware hat

my approachmight

trikean American ead-

ership, sopposed, ay, o aGerman ne,asrather xtreme,but oneof

mypoints

s

explicitly

hat mainstream

merica,

unlike

Germany,

as

not

chosen,

needed,

wanted,

r beenforced o

confront

o much

"at

he

extreme"whata dialectical

pproach

o the canon

showsmost

seriously

to be at stake.

Let me

saysomething uickly

bout he debateover

the

canon

that

has

taken

place

n the

lasttwo decades

n

mainstream

merica,

but

somethingust

about

he

fairly

rude

plit

that

has

emerged

etween

the canon's o-called onservative efenders ndthe liberal

detractors.

Theformer avetended o defend anonicworks srightlybelonging

to the

canon,

or as

having

tood

he test

of

time,

by

virtue

of their

repre-

senting

he noblevaluesof "the

rue,

he

good,

and

the beautiful."

hey

have seen their askas

defending

nprejudiced

udgment

ndvalue.De-

tractors,

ontrarily,

ave criticizedhe canon or ts elitismandchauvin-

ism,

or for ts

claimed

purity,

onpoliticality,

ndaestheticism. ommit-

mentto "the

rue,

he

good,

andthe beautiful"

ay

well

capture

he

mosthumanand

enlightened

f our

values,

but it doesso

only

if

it

re-

mains rue o

itself

and s not

used o

eclipse

he voicesof

its detractors

or further o ostracize society'sepressedroups. uchcommitment id

not work

n

the Old

World,

ritics

point

out;

why

should

t

in the New?

Mostly

he debatehas

kept

the

idea

of a

canon

n

place.

Detractors

have

justurged

defenderso

acknowledge,

s

they usually

o,

that

a

canon

will remain rue o

the

spirit

of

truth,

genius,

or

individuality

f

it is treated s

open

and

revisable,

nd

not,

like

Polykleitos's

tatueor

Moses's

ablets,

as

eternally

et

in

stone.8Most

heorists

ive priority

o

individualworks verthe

canon o whichthe

works

belong

and

agree

that

if

a

given

workdoesnot fit the

canon's tandard

f

value,

t

is better

to revise he standardhanreject he work.Buttherehasbeen far ess

agreement

bout

he character ndextentof the

standard'sevision.

When criticsask hat a

greater

iversity

f

worksbe included

n

the

canon,

what

hey

alsodemand

s that

more

of

society's

or America's)

values,

and

not

only

its

so-called

European)

estheticor intellectual




8/23

In the Shadow

f

the

Canon 313

ones,

come into

play.

Defenders

alkat the

suggestion

or

fear

hat the

canon(orresultinganons)will,under hesepluralisterms,become ust

the

mirror

f

a

society'sluctuatingdeologies.

The

purism

f

lasting

aes-

thetic and ntellectual alues

s

accordingly

eld

up

as

the

antidote

o

pluralism,

elativism,

r

the

extremes

f

democratization.

ationalism

stands o a nationas democratizationtands o

democracy:

oth,

according

o the

defenders,

equire

n

antidote.

However,

o

long

as the debate

over

the canon s driven

by highly

polarized

ilemmas etween

asting

valuesand

fluctuating

deologies,

s

seen

from

he conservative efenders'

tandpoint,

r

betweennew forms

ofexpressionndethnocentrism,s seen from he liberal tandpoint,

critical

hinking

about

canonization

s

unlikely.

For

both thesedilemmas

leavetheorists ontent

ust

o

argue ndlessly

verwhichwork houldor

shouldnot be includedwithout urther

eflecting

n the

argument's

re-

suppositions.

r,

worse,

hey

further

ncourage

whathas

become

a

pub-

lic

game

of

canon

busting,

wheredetractorsemove he

busts

of

canonic

authors

r,

better orthe

present

rgument,

anonic

composers

rom he

concert

halls,

not even on the basisof the

works,

ut

because

f

the

composers' ersonal

ommitmentso all manner f

illiberal iews."Bad

man,badworks." efendershentryto savetheworks gainsthead-

mittedly

"bad"

omposers

n

grounds

o

aestheticizedhat the

works re

effectively

tripped

f their

shadows,

heir

mediation

y

andwith soci-

ety.

What

encourages

his

"tawdry

melodrama"?9

deep-seated

ear hat

the shadeof the Commendatore ill

appear

o send he

actors o hell.

Defenders etreat

nto a

place

of

having

no

politics

at

all,

detractors,

nto

a

place

of

having

oo

much,

but either

only

further

anctions he

anxiety.

The

anxiety

may

be illustrated

y

two

dialectically ontrasting

m-

ages.

The

first,

unfortunately

ess

ronic hanthe

second,

s

taken

rom

the coverofadeservedlynfluentialAmerican ookentitledDisciplining

Music hat

shows he would-be allen

miniaturetatues f

canoniccom-

posers

s chess

pieces

on a chessboard.10

he second

comes rom he

opening

of a Czech

novel;

ts

author,

iri

Weil,

tells of

ill-educated S

guards,

who,

instructed

o

topple

Mendelssohn's

ust rom he

roof

of the

former

GermanTheatre n

Prague,

ad

difficulty

dentifying

he

Jewish

omposer

ndalmost

oppledWagner

s a

result.11

lthough

he

demand ortolerance

nd

pluralism

motivates he first

mage

and

"obedi-

ence and

ong legs"

he

second,

he

first s more

ragile

nd

too often

becomes the second.12

The recent

debateoverthe canonhas

obviously

o do with the

politics

of

inclusion nd

exclusion,

but

alsowith the

transitionrom

authoritarian

o democratic

olitical

orms.

Stressing

he

latter,

t does

not serve he

debate

well

to think t

solved

by keeping

ome

composers




9/23

314

TheMusical

Quarterly

on the roofand

toppling

thers.

ndeed,

n a

deep

sense,

he debate s

notabout hecomposersrworks tall,butabout onstructingcanon

andhow that

process

s bound

up

with

building

nation

or a

group's

collective

dentity.

Thus,

when

thinking

about he

canon,

we

ought

o

move

away

rom

ocusing

n its criteria

or

belonging

oward n investi-

gation

of the nationalist nxieties

and

aspirations

hat motivate he

process

f

canonizing

n

the first

place.

And

although

here

are

clearly

less nnocuous easons

why

countries

nddifferent

pheres

f

production

have their

"common

raditions,"

ineages,

ules,

and

classifications,

hose

reasons o not

belie the

claim

hat the

specific rocess

f

canonizing

workss inextricablyied to howwriting ndmaking istorieshape

the

political

dentity,

onfidence,

nd

authority

f

particularroups.

Looking

t

how

oppressed eoples

have written

heirhistories nd

constructedheir

myths

s a

powerful

nd

optimistic

way

o

illuminate

someof

the

complex

anxieties

and

aspirations

f

canon

building.

But,

by looking

at

history

rom his

side,

we run he risk

of

missing

he au-

thoritarianismhat

threatens

he

construction

n the

other.

n the

early

stages

of

Germany's

ovetoward ationhood

officially

stablished

n

1871),

t wasobvious hat

its

history

f

composers

ouldbe

separated

(moreorless)from heFrench, talian,oranyother"foreign"ineage.

However,

he

separation

ssumed

terroristharacter

recisely

whenthe

elected

works ame o

be identifiedwith

music's

ssence,

ruth,

andsole

future. t

wasnot even

an extreme ersion

of this

claim

o hearabout

that whichdidnot

belong

as

beingconsigned

o dasFalsche nd

das

Feuer.

Here s a

way

o think

about he shadow: s

the dialectical

nder-

side

of

a

canon

whenthe

oppositional,

adical,

nd

nonconformistle-

mentsare

consigned

o

the darkness

n order o

promote

he

illusionof

a canon's

niquely ure

and

natural

reatness.

he

point

doesnot rest

with the banalclaim hatcanonizingworks,ikenationalizingeoples,

cannot

rack ts

grouping

endencieswithout

hreatening

o

repress

ts

opposition.

The

point

is rather o

emphasize,

t the

extreme,

he fact

of

repression,

he

generation

f an illusionof comfortablenclusion hat

masks he

suffering

f exclusion.

ust

because ations

andcanonsdo not

always

how hemselves

t their

extremes, till,

there s the constant

threat hat

theymight-because

at least

Germany

nce did.

A dialecti-

cal model

acknowledges

hat nations

andcanons

may

exist

undera so-

called

conditionof

normality,

condition

having

igns

of

productively

unclear

nclusions

in Germanyoo),

but it refuseso take he

normality

of

any

nation's anon

at facevalue

or as

risk

ree.

Post-WorldWar

I

theorists nfluenced

y

critical

heory

have em-

ployed

his dialectical

modelwell.

Critical

heory

s

precisely

he refusal

to

jump

over

ts shadow r to assume safe

place

outside ime

andneed




10/23

In

the

Shadow

f

the

Canon

315

where

hadows reno

longer

ast.

Thus,

he

phrase

in

the

shadow"

as

used n 1997byAnsonRabinbachorhisbookofessays,n theShadowf

Catastrophe:

ermanntellectualsetween

pocalypse

nd

Enlightenment.13

Rabinbach

ave

his introduction

he title

"Apocalypse

nd

Its

Shadows"

to

conjure

up

both the

apocalyptic

ventsof violenceandterror f the

last

century

ndthe

deep

reflection

Andenken)

n whichwe are

cur-

rentlyengaged

n

the

shadows f the

past.

Borrowing

rom

he work

of

Agnes

Heller,

Rabinbachonfined

mourning

s an emotional

esponse p-

propriate

nly

to thosewho

died,

o that

genuine

philosophical

hinking

could ake

place

about he ideas hatwere

complicit

n

the

catastrophe.

TheseparationerewasalreadynNietzsche searlyas 1883:"Thoughts

are he shadows f our

eelings-only

darker,

mptier, impler."14

In

1997

Seyla

Benhabib sed

he title

"In

he Shadow f the Wall"

to

review

or

the

suitably

amedNation

magazine recently

ranslated

collectionof

essays

yJurgen

Habermas nder

he

title

A Berlin

Republic:

Writings

n

Germany.15

enhabib

aid

special

attention o the final

essay,

"1989

n

the Shadow

f

1945:

On

the

Normality

f

a

Future

BerlinRe-

public."

This title

conveyed

all the

anxiety

of

an

essay

hat

was

asking

how

one

might

hinkabout he

normality

f a future ora

Berlin

Repub-

lic in the shadow f its abnormalast.Habermasskedus to consider

what ollows

rom he factthat the

terrors

receding

945

can

be under-

stood

as

havinggivenway

o

the doctrine f human

ights.

He

wrote:

"Thata liberal

political

culture ould

develop

n a

culturally ighly

civi-

lized

ociety

uchas

Germany nly

after

Auschwitz

s a

truthdifficult

to

grasp.

The fact that it

developed

ecause f

Auschwitz,

ecause

f

re-

flectionon the

incomprehensible,

s

lessdifficult o understand

f

one

considerswhat

human

ights

and

democracy

meanat

heart;

namely,

he

simple xpectation

hat no

one will be excluded rom he

political

com-

munity, ndthatthe integrity f eachindividual,

n his or her

otherness,

will be

similarly espected"

164).

Benhabib

emarkedhat

few in America

would

ikely

ind

anything

radical

n

being

asked

o

respect

human

ights.

Butshe made he

point

neither

o criticize

Habermasor

being

behind

he timesnor to

congrat-

ulate he

Americans

or

being

with the

times,

but rather o

point

out to

Americans

ow the

self-evident

ssertion

f human

ights

proves

any-

thing

but

self-evident,

hough

orthat reason

all the more

urgent,

when

considered

gainst

he

extreme onditionof

Germany'sast.

And

if

the

assertion

acks

elf-evidence

here,perhaps

t

will

begin

o

lose its

self-

evidentcharacter

verywhere

lse,

for

self-evidence,

ike

normality,

e-

tokens

he

false

llusion hat

we no

longer

ave o think

omethinghrough.

For

Habermas,

earning

rom

Germany'sast

s a

dialectical

mode

of

interrogation,

s is the

dismantling

f

self-evidence,

hich

pays xplicit




11/23

316

The

Musical

Quarterly

homage

to

Adoro's seminal ecture

of

1959,

"Was

bedeutet:

Aufarbeitung

derVergangenheit?"16t is a reflective mode of thinkingthroughcondi-

tions

in

and

at the

extremes,

a

mode

of

thinking

about

what is

possible

now

against

the

catastrophic

darknessof what once

proved possible,

even

though

it

seemed,

then

as

now,

inconceivable. Benhabib

writes:

"For

Habermas,

earning

from the

past

means that

any

futureGermanre-

public

must anchor itself

firmly

n

the traditionsof liberal

democratic

constitutionalism

and

respect

for universal

human,

civil

and

political

rights, including

the social and

economic

rights gained

by

the

working

classes in welfare-statedemocracies.

Only

a vibrant civil

society

and an

energeticpublic sphere,in which socialmovementscreate alternative

associations

and

spaces alongside

representative

democratic

nstitutions,

can

guarantee

hat liberal-democratic

onstitutionalism

becomes a liv-

ing

culture rather

than

a

dead

tradition."

The

optimism

of

Benhabib'swordsdoes

not,

however,

mask

the

general anxiety.

The

notion that

a

living

culture

can

become a

dead tra-

dition derives from

the

early

nineteenth

century,

when

Germany

was be-

ing shaped by

dialectical

proclamations

of its

end,

of its

prior

and

living

history

of

art,

religion,

and

reason

having

reached,

for

example,

the

cul-

minating point of self-realization.The ironicfatalismthat accompanied

such

proclamations

was

deep: having

at last

found

its

history,

Germany

was somehow no

longer

living

or

making

one.

Habermas

asks:

What,

if

anything,

can

we

learn from

history

against

the fatalistic

Hegelian

thought

"that

learning

always

comes too

late

for those who act?"17 ut

the

question

is also what

we

do to

history

in

late

times.

Evidently

we

reify

it,

canonize

it,

and

place

its

products

n

a

museum,

as

a

way,

para-

doxically,

to

prove

it

alive. Here

is a

motivation

for

canon formation

perfectly

llustrated

by Germany's

xample,

a

motivation based on an

obsessivepreoccupationwith the thoughtthat Germany'smusic,and

therefore

all

music,

had reached its

end.

Nietzsche

articulated he fatalism

n

reference

o

Wagner

when he

describedDie

Meistersinger's

vertureas "late

art,"

a

decadent

style

that

prides

tself on the

living

relationship

t establishes o a

two-hundred-

year-oldpast,

and via this

relationship

on the vision it

offers or music's

future.

And

yet,

precisely

because

of

this

Janus

ace,

it

negates

its own

presence

as

present

art. Here now

is the

anxiety

of

lateness

or

decay

that

throwsdoubt on the

very

idea of a

living

culture under the

belated con-

dition of

German

modernity.

"Thiskind of music

expresseswhat I con-

sider

true

of

the

Germans:

hey

are of

the

day

before

yesterday

and of

the

day

after

tomorrow-they

haveas

yet

no

today."

Without

a

today,

Nietzsche

continues,

in what do

Germans

put

their

hope?

In

finding

an

answerto the

most fatal of all

questions:

"Was

st

deutsch?"18




12/23

In

theShadow

f

the

Canon

317

So consider

Wagner's ssay

"Was st

deutsch,"19

egun

in

1865

duringhis own repatriation o Bavariaafter exile andcompletedin the

1880s. It

opens

with the anxious

observation hat it is

only

the

Germans

who,

in their

insecurity,

have

constantly

to

repeat

their own

name with

reverence:deutsche

Tiefe

(depth),

deutscher rnst

seriousness),

deutsche

Treue

fidelity).

Why

do

they

do this?

Because

of their

lack of success

in

reestablishing

hemselves,

in

suitably

modem

form,

as the

Holy

Roman

Empire

hey

once

were.

Should

they

want to do

this,

given

their failure

the firsttime round?

Only

if

it means

not

repeating

he

political

errorsof

the

past.

But this is

exactly

what

Germany

s

doing

now,

Wagner

thinks:

repeatingthe errorof allowingGermanpoliticalreform o be dictatedby

formsand

principles

oreign

to

it. Once the

problem

was

Rome;

now it is

France.

All recent "revolutions

n

Germany

are

entirely

unGerman,"

he

writes.

"'Democracy'

n

Germany

s

entirely

a translated

hing."

What,

then,

is

appropriate

or

Germany?

Seeking

Germany's

ssence.

And

where does

one find that?

In

just

that

part

of

Germany'shistory

that

transcends

ts

political

failure: ts

music, aesthetics,

and

philosophy,

he

"supreme

masterpieces"

f

Bach, Goethe,

Mozart,

and

Beethoven-but

also of

Shakespeare,

Wagner

adds,

whom the

English

have failed to un-

derstand.Only in this lineagedoes one find"thebeautifulandthe no-

ble"

pursued

disinterestedly

or

its

own sake.

Only

here does one

find

the unsullied

expression

of that which

transcends

all

politics

and even

nationalities:

the

"purely

human"

spirit

of

Christianity.Only

in

the

re-

birth

of

spirit

and culture

will

Germany

save itself

against

the invasion

not

merely

of the external

foreign,

but

also of those

"foreign"

lements

within-by

which

Wagner

meant the

Jews,

who

pursue

everything

with

"interest."20

Because

Wagner

saw

political

failureas

the

cause

of both

the inva-

sion and the successof those elements that did not belongto the Ger-

man

Heimat,

he

turned

his attention

to

spiritual

and canonic

reform.

Hence

Hans

Sachs's

monologue,

which

predates

Mann's,

where

he

says

that

when

politics

fails

a land one should

seek to

preserve

he

land's

idealized

"burgherly"

alues

through

its

culture. But

Wagner's

hope

for

German

culture

was also

deeply

tainted

by

the

pessimism

of lateness

that

had lain

for

so

long (allegedly

since

Luther)

in

Germany's

hadows.21

or

to

seek the

rebirthof

Germany

n its

culture,

and

in a

culture that

was

freed from

utilitarian

concerns,

was

also a mode

of retreat rom

a

society

that wasunableanymorenot to fail.No one expressed

he

pessimism

for

Wagner

more

overwhelmingly

han

Schopenhauer,

who

spoke

of

the

attempt

no

longer

to

"conquer

he

world,"

only

to "overcome"

t.22

As

early

as

1819,

Schopenhauer

had

spoken

of a retreat

nto a

will-freed

world

of aesthetic

and

intellectual

contemplation

existing

"outside

and




13/23

318 The Musical

Quarterly

independently

f all the relations"hat

had

shaped

he world nto

a

battle-groundf torment ndsuffering.23 agner imselfmorbidlypoke

of

seeking

onsolation

rom

he

ruinsof the

present.24

The

pessimistic

etreat rom

political

ailure nto

a

spiritual

rcul-

tural onsolation

ertainly

ontributed

o

giving

German

musicand

ts

canonic

ineage

of works

greater

rominence

n the

country's olitical

life.

That,

one

might

hink,

wouldnot

have

been

so

badhad

it

not

as-

sumed

o

collectively

narcissistic r so

obsessively

elf-conscious

char-

acter.For

n

doing

so,

its

purported

aluesofthe

true,

he

good,

and

the

beautifulwere

profoundlymisinterpreted

o sustain

myth

of

the

Ger-

manashavingaunique laim o theauthentically,aturally,imply, nd

purely

uman-which

was

precisely

art

of the

"condescending

o Reich-

sdeutsch"hat

finally

ed Nietzsche

away

rom

Wagner,

ndof

the natu-

ralizing rocess

hat Habermas

escribesora

nation

n

the

process

f

being

nationalized. The

Republic

s

damaged

f

the

integrativetrength

of

a nation s basedon a

prepolitical iven,

on a

fact

independent

f the

formation

f

political

will.

A nation

naturalized

n

this

wayreplaces

he

historical

ontingency

f

the

contextualizing

f

the

community

ndfor-

tifies

artificially

reated

boundaries

y lending

hem

the aura f

the nat-

ural.Althoughapeople's ation slargely nartifact,t imaginestself o

have

grown

organically

ndunderstands

tself

by

contrast

with the artifi-

cial

order f

positive

aw"

173-174).

What s the

argument

erethat

disturbs

Habermass

it disturbs

me?

Wanting

ulture o do a

country's

ork

given

the failure

f

political

reforms

premised,

irst,

on

separating

ulture

rom

politics,

and,

second,

on

universalizing

r

purifying

ultural alue

such hat it

leaves

culture's

role

n

the

national

project

clipsed,

unless

of

course

he

national

proj-

ect is

then also

separated

rom

politics

by being

somehow

niversalized

or

naturalizedoo.But sthis not adecadent rocess, recognition f

a

dead

or

late

modeof

living,

a modeof

living

withouta

shadow:

Ger-

many

without

geography;

ermany

ecome

purely

ultural

ntity;

he

world

ustified,

o recallnow

the

early

Nietzsche,

s an

aesthetic

phenom-

enon? n

that

case,

one

might

argue,

olitics

now

has to be

reintroduced

as

the

naturalization

rocess's

artificial"

ntidote,

o

bring

he

nation

back

o life.

But s

not the

appeal

o

politics

as

positive

aw

subject

o

the

sameriskas

the

appeal

o the

naturalnessf

culture-that,

by

being

conceivedas

artificial

r

abstract,

s the other

sideof

naturalism's

oin,

it

too will

be

stripped

f

its

grounding

nd

mediationn the

actualhis-

tory

of

the

troubled

ountry?

Even

f

one

were o

seekan

answern

cosmopolitanism,

uro-

peanism,

r

multiculturalism,

his

would

no.t

automatically

vercome

the

difficult

ppositions

etween

nature

nd

artifice,

r

between

politics




14/23

In

theShadow

f

theCanon 319

andculture.25 ut t wouldat leastavoid he

pitfalls

f the naturalismf

nationalism,Germany'sommitmento aSonderwegauniquedestiny).

So this

is the answer owardwhichHabermas ow

moves,

as Benhabib

notes

when,

to concludeher

review,

he articulateshe choicebetween

two visionsavailable o

contemporary ermany:

Will "aunifiedGer-

many,

which s

increasingly

ecoming

n ethno-cultural osaic eflect-

ing

its

place

n

the

global conomy,

lsocontinue he bestof

Europe's

democratic ndsocialist

raditions,

r

will

the new

Germany

urn

n-

ward

and

away

rom he

project

f a

multicultural,

ulti-ethnic

epublic

toward he ideals

of a

third

way

or

a

nation

with a

supposedly nique

destiny?"Whatwouldbe theadvantagef thepluralist ption?That it

wouldnot ask

Germany

o sell its soul.But

would

t

allow

Germany

o

keep

ts shadow?

hat,

for

Habermas,

s still the

question: Republican-

ism,"

e

writes,

"realizests truenature o the extentthat it shakes

ff

the ambivalent

otential

of

nationalism,

hichonce servedas its vehi-

cle. The multicultural

ormof social

ntegration

hathas beenhatched

under he

wing

of the nation-statemust till

prove

tselfoutsideand

beyond

he nation-state"

176).

And

yet,

although

Habermas

peaks

ereof

moving

"outside nd

beyond"henation-state,hat demandwould ail were t understood

simply

as a declaration

f our

having

gotten

overthe

past

or

simply

givenup

on nationhood.

His

demand, ather,

s a criticalor hermeneuti-

cal

one,

that

requires

s

constantly

o work

hrough

Germany'sast,

o

keep

n

focus

he

changing

earsof what

t couldbecome

again),

he

fear

of what t could

ose,

the fearof what

t cannot

get away

rom

as

when one

says

hat one can never

ump

overone'sown

shadow),

he fear

of what

may

happen

est we ever

orget."Only

s a critical

authority,"

Habermas

rites,

"does

history

erve

as a teacher.At

best,

t tells us how

weoughtnotto do it. It is fromexperiencesf anegativekindthat we

learn"

180-81).

Habermas

sefully

raws n

analogy

o the canon:

f

the canon s still

to exerta useful

authority

ver

us,

we have to treat t

not

as "a

petrified

uest

of the

past"

12),

but as

something onstantly

demanding

ur

revision,

or

only

then

will

we cometo see

what

t has

excluded

romour

view.

Comparably,

here

s a deliberate

oint

in

artic-

ulating

he bidformulticultural

ormas the direct

alternative

o

unique

destiny:

t

keeps

he ideaof

genuinepolitical

eform

horoughly

medi-

ated

by

the

aspirations

ndanxieties

of a troubled

ountry.

I

have

been

arguing

hat

in the canon

debate,

as

in

the nationde-

bate,

t is not

enough

ordefenderso

proclaim

ure

aesthetic alues

n

isolation

rom

politics,

as

if suchvalueswere

deology's uaranteed

nti-

dote;

norshould

ritics hinkthat

politics

as artificialaw

will

do all

the




15/23

320 The Musical

Quarterly

work of

a

canon's

or a

nation's reform.

However,

despite

this

argument

of

analogy, t would be wrongto conclude that a canon is merelya shadow

of a nation

(or

vice

versa).

The

relationship

s much more

complex.

Consider

just

at

the

historical level of fact the

incongruence

between

Germany's

political

and

geographical elationship

o Austria

(the

prob-

lem of

Germany'sbeing

kleinor

gross)

and Austria's

ong-term

domina-

tion of German

music,

or the

deep

tension between

composers

who are

pronounced"foreign"

n

political,

racial,

or

religious

grounds

but whose

music is nonetheless

pronounced

"German."And then

think of the

deeper,

dialectical

point:

that even when a

country

claims to

be in a

state of political normality, he continuedobsessionwith the canon as

an

authoritativecultural ormation

might

show us

something,

albeit

indirectly,

of the false confidence

of that claim.

I

also

suggested

earlier hat to

engage

in the canon

debate was not

to focus on

composers

or their

works,

because one

tends,

by

so

focusing,

not

to

confront the anxieties head on.

However,

perhaps

t is time to

reintroduce his

focus,

although

now in a

completely

different

way.

Re-

call

the

worry

rom that debate

regarding

he

dangers

of

judging

new

works

according

o

an

already

ixed standard.As

Wagnerargued

n

Die

Meistersinger,he masters,ratherthan subsuming he value of a songun-

der the idea of

fittingness

o a

rule,

should rather

adapt

the rule to the

song,

for

what

produces

a

beautiful

song

is that

enigmatic

or

even

spiri-

tual

quality

of

genius,

not

just

the correct

following

of rules.

Why

should

a mastercare

more for the

enigmatic

quality

of

songs

than for a tradi-

tion's rules?To

keep

the traditionfrom

suffering

death

by pedantry

or

Beckmesserei. nd what is

death

by pedantry?Exactly

the

attempt

to

mask the

differentiaof

songs

to maintain

the orderof the

day.

But is not the control of

difference

ust

part

of

what contributes o

a canon's

becomingcollectively narcissisticorauthoritarian?And if so,

how then could Sachs

appeal

to the canon to save a

country against

it-

self when its

politics

had

purportedly

ailed it?

Perhaps

his

appeal

was

not

really

to the canon

after

all,

but

only

to its

potentially

constitutive

songs.

And

perhaps

his was what Mann

really

meant

too when he

pro-

claimed

in

English

in

1938,

where

I

am,

there

is German

culture

For,

ratherthan

claiming

to

preserve

German

culture

per

se,

was he

not

just

stressing

he

lonely

burdenthat

had now been

placed

on

the exiled and

individualwriterto

produce

those

saving

and

redemptive

works?

Why impose

a

gap

now between the

canon and its

individual

works?Becausewhen

one thinks of a

canon,

one

thinks about how the

worksstand in

relation to one another

to

give

the canon

its

authority.

And when one thinks

about

works,

one

thinks more about their

enig-

matic

qualities

and

individualconstruction

than

merely

their

canonic




16/23

In

theShadow

f

theCanon

321

fit. The

relationship

etweena

canonand ts worksbecomes

mirror

f

that betweena communitynd ts individuals,made ncreasinglyntag-

onistic

by

the artist's

eeply

elt modem

oneliness.

Again,why

mpose

a

gap

betweena canonand

ts

works? o

allow

individualworks

o

resist

ven

the canonwhen

they ought

o.

When

would his resistance

rove

most

mportant?

ne

mightsay"always"

f

one wanted

o

glorify

he

suffering

ctsof

greatness.

emember

Mann's

early

worry

bout he bohemian

retensions

f

youth.

But

following

Mann's

ater

tep,

one

might

rather

ay

hatresistance

s

appropriatenly

when the canon

s

interpreted

s

having

uccumbedo

same

collective

dictateas the nation tself.

Butwhatdoesthe resistance

f

individualworks

mean,

andto

whatdoes

t

amount?Consider

he

so-called

Kiinstleropem

f

the

early

twentieth

entury-although

think

they might

betterbe called

Kanonopern-which

ssumed

many

of the anxieties f art's

uthority

o

track

he

path

of music's

uture n the faceof

Germany'surported

e-

cline.

HansPfitzner's

alestrina,

aul

Hindemith'sMathis er

Maler,

Ernst

Krenek's

onny

pielt

uf,

andArnold

Schoenberg's

oses

undAron

are

all

exemplary

f works hat faceda

declineattributed

t the

different x-

tremes o technology,o jazz,o techniques f thenew,and/orncreas-

ingly

o

the

tendentious ictatesof

Nazism's fficial ulture.What is

shared

mong

heseotherwise

ery

differentworks

s

how fareach

nego-

tiated

he

relationship

etweenmusic

and

politics

by calling

attention o

the

self-appointed

askof the individual

omposer,

rtist,

r

charismatic

leader o continue

or transformn

exemplary

musical)

ast

and

thereby

to continue

or transform future

ommunity.

These

Kanonoper

ot

only

assumed s their

very opic

the

ques-

tion

of canonic

heritage;

heir

composers

lso

used he

topic

to affirm

thestatusof theirworks ndthemselves scanonic.AsThomasMann

called

comparable

ovels

"confessional,"

ne

might ay

that these

operas

were

composed

nxiouslyor

canonictatus.

One

could

not

judge

hese

works, herefore,

s

pedantic.

Butone

might

till note theirshared on-

ceit to

compose

orthe continuation

r transformation

f Germanmusic

as

the continuation f

music

per

se. At

another

evel,

this conceit

only

demonstrated

hat t wanted o

conceal-the

anxiety

or relief hat

in

these

catastrophic

imes he canon

of German

works,

ike

the

nation,

wasat

an end. Where

n the actualworksdid

this

conceit

underminet-

selfmost? ntheviolent,silent, mpotent,desperate,

ndmelancholic

gestures

f

their

endings,

r

in

the

anxiety

or

relief

each

thus

showed,

that

each

in

fact

might

be the

very

ast

German

ork.

But

f

thesewere

he anxious xtremes

r

part

of the intensification

(Steigerung)

f

Germanness

o which

Germany's

odem

operas

ither




17/23

322 The Musical

Quarterly

contributed

r

resisted

n

the shadow

f

its

emerging atastrophe,

hen

note once morehowmuch heanxietyofParnassusasalreadynplace

in

the

opera

n whose

shadow

hey

werewritten.26have mentioned

e-

peatedly

Hans

Sachs's

ope

that

in

timesof

political

risisGerman rt

might

preserve

he truevaluesof the land.But

against

what orcewashis

particular

ope

expressed?

recisely

he

young

Walther

on

Stolzing,

who

having

won the

prize,

not

only

refusedo become

a

master ut

also,

because

he

ambiguity

f the

phrase

llows

t-"[Ich]

will

ohne Meister

selig

sein"-refused

any

further elation o

mastersinging.

achs hen

lectured

im

and

everyone

lse on

whymastersinging

ad to

continue,

andeveryone"wavedheirhatsandscarves." utstillweare eft with

Wagner'shought

hat

the

tradition

wasno

longer

worth

upporting

because he

song

Walther

ang

rom

"Paradies"o

win

Evawas oo

compromised

y

the demands f

"Parnassus."

ith Thomas

Mann,

one

might

worry

hat

young

Waltherwas

ust

more

ready

o die

of

his inter-

estingness

han

willing

o

workhard o become

a

master.But t is also

possible

hatWaltherwanted

nothing

urther o do with

a tradition hat

he

thought

had

already

ied ts death.27

ollowing

eter

Schlemihl,

per-

haps

he shouldhave

relinquished

uman

ommunity

ltogether

nd

continuedhis lifeas he entered he story, s a lonely raveler. erhaps,

following

Krenek,

Walther

hould

have

taken he next boatto

America,

singing

now no

longer

he Prize

Song,

but

Jonny's

riumph

ong

of

"Amerikanismus."

But

do we now have an

adequate

olution o our

problem,

solu-

tion wherewe

put

our

hope,

as ThomasMann

did,

n

the

thought

hat

we

can

preserve

he valueof

song

n the exile or

escape

of

the

artist

away

rom

corrupted

radition,

olitics,

and

country?

oesthe

appeal

o

exile,

or to the

individual ndhis

songs,

not alsorun

he sameriskof

lossaspurifyingulture,universalizingalues,ormakingawpositive?

Do

any

of

these

ppeals

and

this

is

what

I

have been

asking

ll

along)

really ive

us whatwe

want

of

them,

safe

and ecure

lace rom

whicho

savea nation

rom tself?

do not think

so,

and

no

one,

I

think,

better

explainedwhy

thanAdomo.

WhenAdornowrote n

"Aufdie

Frage:

Was

st

deutsch?"

hat

"[t]he

Goodandthe Better n

every

people

s

surely

hatwhichdoes

not

integrate

tself into

the collective

subject

and

if

possible

resists

t,"28

r

whenhe

argued,

n the

shadow f

Auschwitz,

hat artwas he last

refuge

of

truthfulness,

e

also

sounded s if he

were

claiming

hat

individual

pursuits

r

singular

works

f artcouldresista

nation's ollectiveauthor-

ity.

Buthe never

claimed

his resistancewithoutalso

dialectically

ndo-

ing

it. Fora

work

an

autonomous

ork)

could

provide

uch

a

refuge

only

if

it also

refused

recisely

he claim t was

making

n

behalf

of

it-




18/23

In the Shadow

f

the

Canon

323

self.

In

this

second

refusal,

t

would eveal

he

condition

of the

world

withwhich n thefirst efusalt claimedo havenothing o do.Being

shipwrecked

omewhere

r

nowhere,

houting

ut its truthwith no

one

to

hear

t-what could

he

meaning

f this

work's

ouble efusal

hen

be?

That

present

hinking

about

Germany's

uturewasstill

firmly

n the

grip

of its

past,

shadowed,

n the one

hand,

by

the

"greatness"

f its

mu-

sic, but,

on the

other,

by

the fateful

anxiety

hat modem

Germany's

rue

citizenhad

only

everbeen the

lonely

man

who,

since

1813,

had

wan-

dered he

worldwithout

his shadow.

Only

ymphonic

ime,"

Adorno

wrotewhile

thinking

aboutautonomous

orks,

"makes

egible

he

horror fwhattimehaslost,like PeterSchlemihlhis shadow."29

Adomo named

he extreme onclusion o

an

ideology

f

belated-

ness

and ateness

by naming

no

safe

place-as,

in

my

view,

he was

right

to do so.

He

named

no

safe

place

o counter he.false llusion hat

one

couldor hadbeen

found.At this

extreme,

he revealed

he

deepest

anxi-

ety

forthe German ation

andcanon: hat even the German

enius

did

not

belong.

The

genius

hen made

he

foreigner

what

he

feared

he was

himself,

a shade

of

the

non-belonging. ynaming

he

extreme,

Adorno

saw

he

possibility

f

change,

but a

possibility

remised

ever

again

on

a

redemptiveetreat ythegeniusnto thepure phere fculture, ut

rather

n a

deep

andcritical

ethinking

f

humanity's

eason

nd

politics.

This,

one

may

conclude,

was

ust

he sortof

thinking,

roma

politi-

cal

perspective,

ne wishes

Wagner

adnot

given

up

on

so

quickly

fter

the

political

ailures f

1848.

With

the

anxiety

of

not

belonging

n-

curbed,

e

left himself

olely

with the meansof

art,

not

just

to

express

his

anxiety

about

politics,

but also

to

seek n

art

ts

resolution.Great

op-

eras

he

might

have

produced,

ut,

ike

the

Kanonopern,

hey

are

n

some

sensealienated

peras

oo,

which

try

to aestheticizehe

political

n

their

apparentbutonly apparent)efusal f thepolitical. nextricablyied to

an

ideology

f

"greatness

nd

suffering,"

Wagner's

ater

operasmay

be

readas late

works f

non-belonging

hat look

exactly

n the

wrong

place,

impossibly

ack nto

themselves,

or

their ost shadows.30

Looknow at

Wagner

see

Fig.

1),

standing

withhis handon his

breast

nd

palms

at his

feet,

as a

ghost

n

1911

n

TheMusicalHall

of

Fame.31Whatdoes

he

say?

Does

he

repeat

he limited

choices

of

late-

ness:

Hans

Sachs,

rying

o convinceBeethoven o

give

up

his

throne;

young

Walther,

elling

he

"composers

f the chair"

e

wants

nothing

more o do with them?Or doesWagner uststillspeakof "was st

deutsch,"

oping

o find he voice

of

the outcastwho so

desperately

wants

o

belong?

This at lastreturns

s to the

Schlemihl-however,

no

longer

now

just

o

Chamisso's

igure,

ut

also,

because f our

mage,

to Heinrich

Heine's.32

n Heine's

1851

poem

"Jehuda

en

Halevy"

we




19/23

324

The

Musical

Quarterly

Figure

1.

Musical

Hall

of

Fame.

From eft to

right:

Chopin,

Handel, Gluck,

Schumann,

Weber,Bach,

Haydn,

Mozart,

Schubert,

Beethoven-the

reigningfigure Apollo)

in

this

European

musical

Parnassus-Mendelssohn,

Wagner,Meyerbeer,

Gounod, Verdi,Liszt,

Bruckner,Brahms,

Grieg. Reproduced

rom

Etude,

December 1911.

finally

meet

the

figure

who has been

hiding

in the

shadows of

Germany's

modem

tradition: the

outcast

Jewish

poet

who,

by being given

compan-

ionship

with

the "the

big,

divine

Schlemihl,"

Apollo,

finds his voice.

And

though

the

smaller Schlemihl

regrets

that he must

sing

only

in

Apollo's

"shadow,"

he

demonstrates his desire

also to

belong.

... Dichterschicksal boser

Unstem,

Der die

Sohne des

Apollo

Todlich

nergelt,

und

sogar

Ihren

Vater nicht

verschont

hat,

Als

er,

hinter

Daphnen

laufend,

Statt des

weiBen

Nymphenleibes

Nur den

Lorbeerbaum

rfaBte,

Er,

der

gottliche

Schlemihl

Ja,

derhohe

Delphier

ist

Ein

Schlemihl,

und

gar

der

Lorbeer,

Der

so stolz die

Stime

kronet,

Ist

ein Zeichen des

Schlemihltums.

... What a fate reserved or

poets

Star of

evil,

deadly

gadfly

Of

Apollo's

sons,

and

one that

Did not

even

spare

their

father,

On that

day

when,

chasing Daphne

He reached

out for her white

body

And

instead embraceda

laurel.

What

a

big

divine Schlemihl

Yes,

the

highbor Delphic

God is

A

Schlemihl; indeed,

the laurel

That

enwreatheshis

brow so

proudly

Is a

sign

of this Schlemihldom.




20/23

In

theShadow

f

the

Canon

325

WasdasWortSchlemihl

bedeutet,

Wissenwir.Hat dochChamisso

Ihmdas

Biirgerrecht

n Deutschland

Langst

erschafft,

emWorte

namlich.

Aber

unbekannt

eblieben,

Wie

des

heilgen

Niles

Quellen,

Ist sein

Ursprung;

abdaruber

Nachgegriibelt

ancheNacht.

Zu

Berlinvor

vielen

Jahren

Wandt chmichdeshalb nunsem

Freund

Chamisso,

uchteAuskunft

BeimDekane

derSchlemihle....

What

the

wordSchlemihldenotes s

Known o us.Long ince,Chamisso

Saw to it that

it

got

German

Civic

rights-I

mean he word id.

But ts

origin

s still as

Far rom

knownas are he

sources

Of

the

Holy

Nile;

I've

pondered

Many

a

nightupon

his

subject.

Manyyears go

I

traveled

ToBerlin o see Chamisso

Our

good

riend,

or nformation

Fromthe dean

of

the

Schlemihls....33

Not

incidentally,

ate

in

Chamisso's

tory

is the man

"ohne

Schatten" also identified

as a

Jew

with the non-name

"Numero

Zwolf."

"That

he

had

no

shadow,"

Chamisso

remarks,

"seems

o

have

gone

unnoticed."

What

a

paradoxical

companionship

Heine thus forms.

In

linking

the

Jewishpoet

to

Apollo,

he also links

him

to the

German

genius

who

has

always

ooked to the same

god

for his

inspiration

and

belonging.

What follows

from this

affinity

of difficultneed?

A

difficult

time,

to re-

call Chamisso's

poem,

of assimilation

and

exclusion

by

too

many

of

a

country's

people

who

feel

they

do not

belong.

Hannah

Arendt once

ex-

pressed

he

point

perfectly:

"Thoughthey

dub its author

'unknown,'

"

she

wrote,

"the Nazis cannot

eliminate

[Heine's]

Lorelei rom the

reper-

toire of German

song"

(71).

With

the

Schlemihl, therefore,

one could

not

find a more

appropriate

Kunstmdrchen

y

which to understand

he

anxiety

of lateness

in the modem German

nation. And in this

lateness,

one

cannot

help

but see

the

deep anxiety

of

non-belonging

that has

sustained

one of

Germany's

most

profound

and

tragic

contradictions.

Notes

"That s

the

need

of the dire

imes,

That s the dire

ime

of

need,

That

s

the direneed

of the

times,

That s

the timeof direneed"

trans.

Susan

H.

Gillespie).

This

essay

was

written orthe

IntemationalesWissenschaftliches

ymposium

Kunst-Fest-Feier,"

presented

t

the

Staatsoper

nter

den Lindenund

the

Humboldt-Universitat

uBerlin

for

he

(Wagner)

esttage

002.

A

German

ersion f this

essay

will

appear

n the

Edition

Argus Schliengen),

d. HermannDanuser ndHerfriedMuenkler.hanks

to

many

olleagues

nd

riends,

ut

especially

o Boris

Gasparov,

nselm

Gerhard,

Susan

Gillespie,

Brigitte

Hilmer,

Gregg

Horowitz,

orman

Manea,

Ernst

Osterkamp,

Thomas

Pogge,

nd

Leo

Treitler,

ll

of

whom

will find hemselves

n the shadows

f

my

thoughts.




21/23

326 The Musical

Quarterly

1.

Cf.

Joseph

Kerman's

A Few

Canonic

Variations,"

n

Canons,

ed. Robert

von

Hall-

berg (Chicago:

University

of

Chicago

Press,

1983), 177-95;

Anselm

Gerhard,

"

'Kanon'

in der

Musikgeschichtsschreibung:

ationalistische Gewohnheiten nach dem Endeder

nationalistischen

Epoche,"

Archiv

iir Musikwissenschaft

8,

no. 1

(2000):

18-30;

Goehr,

The

Imaginary

Museum

of

MusicalWorks

Oxford:

Clarendon

Press, 1992).

2. Thomas

Mann,

"Leidenund Grosse Richard

Wagners,"

n

Essays,

vol.

4,

Achtung,

Europa

1933-1938,

ed. Hermann

Kurzkeand

Stephen

Stachorski

(Frankfurt: ischer,

1995),

11-72.

Published

n

English

as

"Sufferings

nd Greatnessof Richard

Wagner,"

n

Essays

of

Three

Decades,

rans. Helen

T.

Lowe-Porter

New

York:

Knopf,

1948),

307-52.

3. See also Gero von

Wilpert,

Der verlorene chatten:Varianten ines iterarischen

otivs

(Stuttgart:

Kroner,

1978).

4.

Tales,

HarvardClassics

1909-14

(New

York:

Harvard

University

Press,2001).

5. Andersen

met

Chamisso

in Berlin in

1831,

after

which he

went

on his

travels and

produced

a

travelogue

entitled ShadowPictures.Note that Andersen's

torysays

some-

thing

about

the

relationship

between

poetry

and science.

The

shadow,

n

assuming

he

pretensions

of

knowledge,

does so

by learning

about

poetry,

but fails to use his

poetry

for

noble ends. The learned

man,

separated

rom his

shadow,

s

left

skepticallypursuing

a

knowledge

he thinks has lost its

humanity.

Thus,

both

man and

shadow

are left with

the sort of

knowledge

the other

needs, but,

again,

it is too late for each to find the other.

Finally,

here

is

also an

explicit

class theme

in

this

story,conservatively

expressed

n

termsof an aristocraticman

who

finds

himself

threatened

by

a

poor

man

(the

shadow)

who has assumed he

appearance,

but the

appearance

only,

of wealth.

6. Cultureand

Value,

trans. Peter Winch

(Oxford:Blackwell,

1980),

21.

7.

"Chamisso,"

Essaysof

Three

Decades,

241-59.

8.

Moses

arguably

mashesthe tablets the firsttime

around o

prove

"the law"as

eternal

and thus

separable

rom

any

particular nscription,

also to sustainhis

power

or

"charismatic

uthority"

ver and above

any

of

the

religion's

uturescribes.I thank

Gregg

Horowitz or this

point.

For more on canons and

charismatic

authority,

ee Gerald

L.

Bruns,

"Canon and Power

in

the Hebrew

Scriptures,"

Documents

Lydia Goehr