Instructor Brendan Fay Summer 2008HIS 323 Office Hours: MW 1-3MWF: 12-1

Beethoven: Napoleon to the Nazis, 1810-1989

Few composers can claim to have made as profound an impact on the development of Western art music than Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). A cursory glance at the literature surrounding the composers life and works over the last two centuries has frequently revealed a widespread cultivation of the composer as transcendental and the endowment of his music with universal meaning. It is largely for this reason that Beethoven and his music, more than any other composer, has been claimed as the representative of various social, political, cultural and intellectual systems over the past two centuries. This course examines the origins and constructions of those appropriations beginning in the composers own lifetime and ending at the turn of the twenty-first century. We will examine Beethoven as arch-revolutionary, conservative, fascist, socialist and liberal, to name a few, over the course of Europes nineteenth and twentieth centuries, keeping in mind the following questions: What is the connection between music and politics? What can discussions held in the cultural sphere tell us about larger socio-political developments? What specific function does music offer as a site of political/social/intellectual discourse? In answering these questions, we will draw on historical, philosophical, musicological and other approaches.

Grades will be determined as follows:

Exam 1-20%Final Exam-25%Research Paper-40%Participation/Attendance-15%

Required Texts: Many of the readings will be available on e-reserve or online. There are, however, three required texts for this course:

Burnham, Scott. Beethoven and His WorldDennis, David. Beethoven and German Politics: 1870-1989Comini, Alessandra. The Changing Image of Beethoven

Week 1: Introduction and Background

Burnham: pp. 1-50

Week 2: Beethovens Vienna

DeNora, Tia. Musical Patronage and Social Change in Beethovens Vienna in American Journal of Sociology, 97 (2) [1991], pp. 310-346Burnham: pp. 51-200

Week 3: Beethovens Vienna (contd)

Burnham: pp. 200-300

Week 4: Beethoven as Revolutionary

Clubbe, John. The Creative Rivalry of Beethoven with Napoleon in European Romantic Review, 17 (5) [2006], pp. 543-558Miller, William. Haydn and Beethoven: Two Views of Napoleon Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750-1850: Selected Papers, [1998], pp. 355-363Donakowski, Conrad. Beethoven as a Revolutionary Ideal Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750-1850: Proceedings, 20 [1990], pp. 270-277Solomon: Stephen Rumph, Beethoven after Napoleon: pp. 222-245

Week 5: A.B. Marx, Music and German National Identity

Rumph, Stephen. A Kingdom not of this World: The Political Context of E.T.A. Hoffmanns Beethoven Criticism in 19th Century Music, 19 (1) [1995], pp. 50-67

Burhnam, Scott. Criticism, Faith and the Idee: A.B. Marxs Early Reception of Beethoven in 19th Century Music, 13 (3) [1990], pp. 183-192Applegate, Bach in Berlin: pp. 80-124

Week 6: Music and Cultural Theory

Jander, Owen. Beethoven's Orpheus in Hades: The Andante con moto of the Fourth Piano Concerto in 19th Century Music, 8 (3) [1985], pp. 195-212.Julian Johnson, Who Needs Classical Music?: pp. 3-32

Week 7: Beethoven and Romanticism

Newman, William. The Beethoven Mystique in Romantic Art, Literature and Music in The Musical Quarterly, 3 [1983], pp. 354-387.

Keiler, Allan. Lizst and Beethoven: The Creation of a Personal Myth in 19th Century Music, 12 (2) [1988], pp. 116-131.

Week 8: Beethoven and German National Identity

Dennis: 32-85

Week 9: Beethoven as Fascist

Dennis: pp. 142-174Michael Meyer, The Nazi Musicologist as Myth Maker in the Third Reich in Journal of Contemporary History, 10 (4), 1975, 649-655.

Week 10: Beethoven in Popular CultureFilm: Immortal BelovedLewis Lockwood, Film Biography as Travesty: Immortal Beloved " and Beethoven in Musical Quarterly, 1997, pp. 190-198

Week 11: Beethoven in Popular Culture II

Yang, Mina. Fur Elise, circa 2000: Postmodern Readings of Beethoven in PopularContexts in Popular Music and Society, 29 (1) [2006], pp. 1-15.

Week 12: Beethoven and the Democratic Tradition

Dennis: pp. 175-203Film: Excerpts from Ode to Freedom