Undertones of Insurrection: Music and Cultural Politics in the Modern German Narrative Book

A basic tenet of literary studies is that aesthetic structures are politically significant because they represent an artists response to the political implications of cultural codes with which the recipient of the modern work is also acquainted. This tenet provides the basis for the ideological associations attending the appearance of music in the modern German narrative. With this understanding of the arts as involved in often unacknowledged ideological forces within a culture, Marc Weiner attempts to bridge a gap between the recent rewarding infusion of modern cultural and literary theory in musicology, the most recent and politically insightful examinations of narrative structures in the modern novel, and the methodologically conservative area of musical-literary relations in Germanic studies. Ranging from 1900 to Doctor Faustus (1947), Weiners study sets the stage by examining debates that conflated such issues as national identity, racism, populism, the role of the sexes, and xenophobia with musical texts. In the literary analyses that follow, Weiner discusses both obvious connections between music and sociopolitical issues - Hesses equation of ja and insurrection in Steppenwolf - and covert ones - the suppression of music in Death in Venice and the use of politically charged musical subtexts in Werfels Verdi and Schnitlers Rhapsody. By uncovering the ideological agendas informing cultural practice in modernist Germany, Undertones of Insurrection calls for reevaluation of the function of music in the modern German narrative. This unique project examines social and political issues associated with music in narratives of German modernism and, in doing so, draws upon recent developments in musicology and upon discussions of the ideological implications of literary form in the modern German narrative. The questions it raises are different from those pursued in most examinations of music and literature. Previous works on musical-literary relations within the purview of Germanic studies have often disregarded social concerns and political issues. Marc A. Weiner is professor of Germanic Studies at Indiana University. His research interests include German and Austrian music, German-Jewish relations, history of racial and sexual iconographies, and German film. He is the author of Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination and Arthur Schnitler and the Crisis of Musical Culture.Read More