The Necessity of Music: Variations on a German Theme

by Celia Applegate

Overview

In The Necessity of Music, Celia Applegate explores the many ways that Germans thought about and made music from the eighteenth- to twentieth-centuries. Rather than focus on familiar stories of composers and their work Applegate illuminates the myriad ways in which music is integral to German social life. Musical life reflected the polycentric nature of German social and political life, even while it provided many opportunities to experience what was common among Germans. Musical activities also allowed Germans, whether professional musicians, dedicated amateurs, or simply listeners, to participate in European culture. Applegate’s original and fascinating analysis of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, and military music enables the reader to understand music through the experiences of listeners, performers, and institutions. The Necessity of Music demonstrates that playing, experiencing, and interpreting music was a powerful factor that shaped German collective life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487520489
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	04/13/2017
Series:	German and European Studies
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Celia Applegate is the William R. Kenan Jr. Chair in History at Vanderbilt University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Introduction

PART I: PLACES

Chapter 1 How German Is It?

Chapter 2 Music in Place

Chapter 3 Musical Itinerancy in a World of Nations

Chapter 4 Music at the Fairs

PART II: PEOPLE

Chapter 5 Mendelssohn on the Road

Chapter 6 The Internationalism of Nationalism in the Writings of A. B. Marx.

Chapter 7 Schumann’s German Nation

Chapter 8 The Musical Worlds of Brahms’ Hamburg.

PART III: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

Chapter 9 What Difference does a Nation Make?

Chapter 10 Men with Trombones

Chapter 11 Women’s Wagner

Chapter 12 The Past and Present of Hausmusik in the Third Reich

Chapter 13 To be or not to be Wagnerian in Riefenstahl’s Films

Chapter 14 Saving Music

What People are Saying About This

Michael Kater

"Professor Applegate's insights into music, society and politics of the last three centuries in Germany are unique. She has an extremely fine sense of how all three interacted with one another. This book will be a valuable aid especially for students of social and cultural history."

Anthony J. Steinhoff

"Celia Applegate is one of the leading practitioners of the socio-cultural history of music of modern Europe. Each essay is a significant and serious piece of scholarship that is beautifully written, combining sharp analysis with intelligible and engaging prose."

Editorial Reviews

"[Applegate] combines the interpretive tools of both historian and musicologist – methodologically, she writes as both, and the readership of this book should encompass both - and she forges an interpretive approach that draws the familiar and the unexpected together."

—Philip V. Bohlman, University of Chicago, American Historical Review, Feb 2019

"Focused on the rich contexts of music, rather than on the musical texts themselves (that is, the scores), these essays are essential for scholars interested in the cultural history of music and German national identity across the past three centuries."

—Tegan Niziol, University of Toronto, University of Toronto Quarterly: Letters in Canada 2018

"Professor Applegate’s insights into music, society and politics of the last three centuries in Germany are unique. She has an extremely fine sense of how all three interacted with one another. This book will be a valuable aid especially for students of social and cultural history."

—Michael Kater, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of History, York University

"Celia Applegate is one of the leading practitioners of the socio-cultural history of music of modern Europe. Each essay is a significant and serious piece of scholarship that is beautifully written, combining sharp analysis with intelligible and engaging prose."

—Anthony J. Steinhoff, Professor of History, Université du Québec à Montréal

From the Publisher

"[Applegate] combines the interpretive tools of both historian and musicologist — methodologically, she writes as both, and the readership of this book should encompass both - and she forges an interpretive approach that draws the familiar and the unexpected together."

American Historical Review, Feb 2019 - Philip V. Bohlman

"Focused on the rich contexts of music, rather than on the musical texts themselves (that is, the scores), these essays are essential for scholars interested in the cultural history of music and German national identity across the past three centuries."

University of Toronto Quarterly: Letters in Canada 2018 - Tegan Niziol