Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to The Musical
Quarterly.http://www.jstor.orgMendelssohn's Music and German-Jewish
Culture: An Intervention Author(s): Michael P. Steinberg Source:The
Musical Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp.
31-44Published by:Oxford University PressStable
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ConditionsMendelssohn'sMusicandGerman- Jewish
Culture:AnIntervention MichaelP. Steinberg In memoryofGeorge L.
Mosse (1918-1999) Volume 82, Number 1 of The Musical
Quarterly(Spring 1998) concluded with an article by JeffreySposato
titled"Creative Writing: The [Self-] Identificationof Mendelssohn
as Jew" and an editorial responseby Leon Botsteintitled"Mendelssohn
and the Jews." The "creative writing" alluded to in Sposato's
titlerefersto the vexed scholarlylegacy of Eric Werner's1963
biography Mendelssohn:A New Imageof the Composer and His Age (and
the German edition that followedin 1980). As is the case with most
significantscholarlycontroversies,thereis troubleboth at the level
of the factsand at the level of interpretation.According to
Sposato, Werner factually and interpretativelymisrepresented the
com- poser as a self-identified Jew.(He had been convertedfrom
Judaism to Protestantism by his parents in 1816 at the age of
seven.) Wernerwas the first biographer of Mendelssohn to workwith
trovesof Mendelssohn family lettersfromthe holdings of the New York
Public Library, the Library of Congress, the Bodleian Library of
Oxford University, the Staatsbibliothekin West Berlin,and
others.His own stated purpose was to use these sources towarda
correctionof the "faulty premises" on which previousbiographical
treatmentshad rested.But, according to Sposato and otherscholarswho
have spent time with these same sources, Wemrnerconsistently
mistranscribedand mistranslated pas- sages fromthe
correspondence.According to Sposato, he did so with
particularconsistency when the issue at hand involved the
composer's relationship to his Jewish heritage and to the climate
of anti-Jewishprej- udice to which he was exposed. According to
Sposato, then,Werner "created"Mendelssohn's Jewish identification.
In this issue,PeterWard Jonesseconds Sposato's views with a con-
vincing and carefulletter.As a Mendelssohn scholar working in the
Bodleian Library, one of the principalrepositories of Mendelssohn
let- ters,Ward Jones carries greatauthority in his negative opinion
of Werner's scholarlypractice. There is, in addition,an
interpretative agreement between Ward Jones and Sposato. They agree
that Werner consistently mis-and
over-representedMendelssohn'sidentificationwith 31 This content
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use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions32TheMusical Quarterly his
Jewishfamilyheritage.Sposato suggests, and Ward Jonesspecula-
tivelyconcurs, that Mendelssohn, the man, mustbe understoodas a
typ- ical, newly convertedProtestant ("Neuchrist"). There are, to
mymind,three issues in this controversy that are of fundamental
importance to three contiguous discourses:to Mendelssohn studies,to
the cultural history of German Jewry in the firsthalf of the
nineteenth century, and to the developing discoursethat we can call
the cultural history of music. I would like to addressthe
controversy at these threelevels, offering the followingargument:
1.The same overinvestmentin "Mendelssohn Hero" that appar- ently
led Eric Wernerto distortthe biographical recordalso produced a
measureof constructiveand indeed even truthful understanding of a
complicated culturalmomentand biograph- ical formation.His
errorsand even his alleged fraudulence notwithstanding, Werner's
interpretiveshortcomings are quite standardand his biography
standsas a major, if dated, mile- stone in Mendelssohn studies.
2.Felix Mendelssohn'sculturalmomentand biographical forma- tion
cannot be understoodas those of a "typical Neuchrist"but ratheras a
paradigm of a multiculturaland uncertainmoment in German
Jewishhistory that was available only to the Bie- dermeier
generation,i.e., the generation of 1815-1848. The assertionthat
Mendelssohn should be considereda Protes- tant ratherthan
Jewsimplyreplaces one conceptually and his- toricallyinadequate
label with anotherand thus duplicates Werner's conceptual and
historicallimitations,even if it restoresthe veracity of the source
material.As Leon Botstein reflectedin his response to Sposato,
"[s]elf-identifications are rarely exclusive or stable" (213). In
Biedermeier Germany,they were unusually volatile. 3.If what we
would today call "cultural identity" was in fluxin general in the
Biedermeier period, it was particularly so fora personality such as
Mendelssohn's.Felix Mendelssohn was not a "typical"anything. We
would have littleinterestin his life were ifnot forhis
exceptionality, much of which obviously residesin his music. Since
thereis so much culturaland per- sonal engagement evident in the
music,we should look there for guidance to significant issues
involving the man's mind. We should look into that
mind,moreover,for depth and conflict ratherthan forsheen and
harmony. In doing so, we should dispense, in myview,with three
interpretive fallacies: that of authorialintentionas a This content
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use subject to JSTOR Terms and
ConditionsMendelssohn'sMusicandGerman-JewishCulture33
sufficientcondition forthe understanding of a creativework,that of
cul- turalessentialismin the positing of "identity," and the
fallacyspecific to post-Wagnerian Mendelssohn reception that
recognizes the latter's"bril- liance" as an equivalent factorto his
musical sheen and harmony and thus as equally suggestive of an
alleged markof superficiality. As practi- tionersof a cultural
history of music,can we not pursue cultural depth and musical depth
together? The "new image" Wemrner sought to attach to Mendelssohn
was that of a "musical focal point" of the nineteenth century. He
sought to overcome threeobstacles in Mendelssohn reception: musical
fashion,as he put it, which could findno place forMendelssohn among
the categories of Wagnerism,impressionism,neo-classicism,and
expressionism, and dode- caphony; the "infamousbanishment" by the
culturalauthoritiesof the Third Reich; and the "equal harm that had
been done by the uncritical adulation during a part of the
nineteenth century."' Although he stated that he wanted to remove
Mendelssohn fromthe hero worship of Victo- rian listenersand
biographers in theirshadow,Werner certainlysought to reestablishthe
importance of Mendelssohn without qualification or apology. He
sought also to understandMendelssohn according to a high degree of
cultural complication. He referredto that complication on the first
page of the introductionas "the German Jewishsymbiosis." Wernerused
this phrase in a general and imprecise manner.It is not clear
whether by "symbiosis" he meant a new hybrid formationor a
cohabitationof essentially differentcultures.(The phrase does not
appear in the German edition of 1980, in which these opening pages
are quite changed.) The termcan be used legitimately to
discussforma- tions within German-Jewishspheres: Moses
Mendelssohn,for example, was clearly both a Jew and a German. When,
however,it is used to denote relationsbetween Germans and Jews it
duplicatesby defaultthe veryassumptions of essential separateness
of spheres that it claims to criticize. Wernerresortedto the
term"German Jewishsymbiosis" at pre- cisely the momentit was
falling into conflict.In a now classic letterof December 1962,
first published in 1964, Gershom Scholem wrote: I deny thattherehas
everbeensucha German-Jewishdialogue in any genuine sense
whatsoever,i.e.,as a historical phenomenon. It takestwoto have a
dialogue, who listento each other,whoare prepared to perceive
theother,who are prepared to perceive theotheras whathe is and
repre- sents,and to respond to him. Nothing can be more misleading
thanto apply sucha concept to thediscussionsbetweenGermansand
Jewsduring thelast200 years. It
diedwhenthesuccessorsofMosesMendelssohn- whostill argued fromthe
perspective ofsomekindof Jewishtotality, even This content
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use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions34TheMusical Quarterly
though thelatterwasdetermined by the concepts ofthe Enlightenment-
acquiesced in abandoning thewholenessin orderto salvage an
existence for pitifulpieces ofit,whose recentlypopulardesignation
as German- Jewish symbiosis revealsitswhole ambiguity.2 Scholem's
lifelong conviction that Zionism was the only modern alternative by
which to preserve his idea of Moses Mendelssohn's Jewish "totality"
led him, with increasing vehemence after1945, to deny the
historical validity eitherof a blending of German Christianand
German Jewish culturesor even of a productivedialogue between
them.On the otherside of the argument, historian George Lachmann
Mosse, eminent forhis own workon German Jewishculture,has
consistentlydisagreed with Scholem, who was a personal friendof his
as well as a scholarly interlocutor.In books such as
GermanJewsBeyondJudaism,Mosse affirmsboth the historicalexistence
of a German Christian-German Jewishdialogue as well as that of a
"German-Jewishidentity." Mosse has often stated-though I am not
aware whetherhe has said so in print- that he used to tell Scholem
that Scholem was himselfthe finestexam- ple of what he denied ever
to have existed.3 In all discussionsof the foundationsand
definitionsof German Christian-German Jewishdialogue or of German
Jewishculture,the figure of Moses Mendelssohn looms largest. None
of the figures under discussionhere devotes sustainedattentionto
the thinking of Moses Mendelssohn,and this is not the place to
attempt to provide it. In all discussionsof the Mendelssohns,he
figures as both the point of origin and the historicalreferent. For
Scholem, Moses Mendelssohn is the guarantor of a "totality of
Jewish life"forGerman modernity, a statementthat goes unelaborated.
For Mosse, Moses Mendelssohn signifies as the interlocutorand
friendof Gottfried EphraimLessing, who elevated their friendship
into a model of Christian-Jewish dialogue and elevated dialogue
into the principle of moraland aesthetic education that he and
others began to referto as Bildung. For Eric Werner,Moses
Mendelssohn's Judaism is consistent with a generalhumanism,and it
is as humanismthat it is transmittedto and preservedby his grandson
Felix. For Werner,Felix Mendelssohn is a humanistand thereforea
defenderof the Jews.Through thissomewhat imprecisegloss of
"humanism,"Werner argues forthe "European" ideals of Felix and
statesthat "[i]n his case the conflictbetween Germanism and Judaism
came as close to a solutionas the German nation would permit."4
Bildung encodes the principle, indeed the cult, that forges the
com- mon German Christianand German Jewishproject in the period
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11:51:19 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and
ConditionsMendelssohn'sMusicandGerman-JewishCulture35 1815-1848. It
is a bourgeoisproject and a civic one, locating both intel- lectual
and commerciallife in patterns of exchange available in cities such
as Berlin,Hamburg, and Leipzig, and deliberatelydifferentiating the
patterns and politics of such urban lifefromthe styles and claims
of imperial centerssuch as Vienna. Until 1848, the reactionarygaze
of Metternich'sAustriastillfellon German cities,and the livelihoods
withinthose cities that many historianshave called "unpolitical"
were in fact carefully elaborated political, indeed even
radical,practices. In a more temperedvein, Gershom Scholem said the
following about the relationsbetween Christiansand Jews in Germany:
The firsthalfofthenineteenth century was a period in which Jewsand
Germansdrew remarkably close. During thistimean extraordinary
amountof help camefromtheGermanside,with many individualJews
receivingcooperation in their stormystruggle
forculture.Therewascer- tainly no lackof goodwillthen;reading the
biographies ofthe Jewish elite ofthe period, one again and again
findsevidenceofthe understanding theyencountered.5 As always,
Scholem insistedhere on the polarity of Germans and
Jews,therebyreifying the nationalistessentialismthat grew dominant
later in the century. Scholem pursued this categoricalpolarization
delib- erately; mosthistorical scholarship has inheritedit more
passively. Scholem refused consistently to use the categories
"German Christian" and "German Jewish," and thusrefusedto
acknowledge the Germanness of the German Jews,which they of course
themselves proclaimed with the shared workof Bildung and civic
consciousnessas theirmeasures. In correcting Scholem's nobly
motivated counter-history, one must assertthe historicalfactthat
modern literary German was inventedin the period of Goethe and his
readers,the period of the early nineteenth century to which Scholem
refersas the most remarkableforthe Ger- man-Jewish encounter.
"Germany" as idea was producedby Christians and Jews.In this quite
literal "production of Germany," the Mendels- sohn family in its
multigenerational,multicultural,and multiprofessional eminence
plays a key role. My own scholarlyentry into the complicated
culturalworldof Men- delssohn and German Jewishhistory was afforded
by way of an unex- pectedlyproductivetangent. In 1991 I was
invitedto contributean essay to the collected volume Mendelssohnand
His World;myassignment was to writeon Mendelssohn'sincidentalmusic
to Sophocles's Antigone, which would be performed that summerat the
Bard Music Festival.The This content downloaded from 146.164.3.22
on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 11:51:19 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and
Conditions36TheMusical Quarterly discursivecontext of Sophocles's
Antigone in the period conjures the names of Hegel, Boeckh, Tieck,
and Droysen and confrontssome of the weightiest debates of the
time,the most importantbeing the relation between ancient religion
and modernstate practice.Antigone is about the characterof a
citycaught between inherited religious normsand state authority. It
was performed, in the versionwhich Mendelssohn contributed,in 1841
forthe courtof the recently crownedFrederick William IV of
Prussia,whose statistand increasingly intolerantmode of authority
stood in delicate negotiations with the civic health that had
emerged underhis predecessors. It became clear to me as I workedon
this relatively esotericeffort of Mendelssohn'sthat his
involvementand investmentwith the Antig- one themeswere
overdeterminedin that they broached reflectionsand resonancesof the
question of Judaism as an ancient faith.The substan- tial issue of
Christian-Jewish relationsand tensions notwithstanding, the debate
in this period about modern politics and ancient religion encom-
passed Judaism as well as Christianity. For Jews as well as
Christians, modernity and secularizationmeant the reinterpretation
of inherited faith.Assimilationmeant Christianization,but it also
meant seculariza- tion. Mendelssohn'sown reconfiguration of
faithand its modern place contended with three moving variables:
Judaism,Protestantism,and the secular world. This Antigone holds
clues to the issue of assimilated enlightened Judaism and the
uneasy Prussianstate. Their infusioninto Mendels- sohn's presence
in this realizationof the play is intenseand ambiguous, and speaks
to the importance of classical drama as a nineteenth-century
forumforthe issuesas it speaks to the importance of the issuesthem-
selves. It is not hard to see whySophocles's problematic of the
con- frontationof private,familyreligion and morality and the
exigencies of modernstate power strucka nerve among German
intellectualsand the- ater publics in the nineteenth century, a
period marked by the consoli- dation of state power-both the
Austrianand the Prussianvarieties- and the perceiveddissipation of
traditionalmodes of community and culture.Germans were asking the
same question posed in the tragedy: in the transitionto modernity
defined politicallyby the increasingly cen- tralizedstate,
wheredoes one locate and how does one preservelegiti- macy (the
central political category) and authenticity(the centralcul- tural
category). In Sophocles, the modem state opposes the intransigence
of tradi- tional morality-and hence the definitionsof legitimacy
and authentic- ity-in the persons of Creon and Antigone. Creon is
the restoringking who brings Thebes out of a
threatenedrevolution,led by Polynices, This content downloaded from
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JSTOR Terms and ConditionsMendelssohn'sMusicand German-Jewish
Culture37 brotherof Antigone. To show that legitimacy restswith the
state,he has forbiddenburialritualforthe slain Polynices.Antigone
resistsand attempts to bury the corpse in an insistencethat
legitimacy restsin a morality that is prior to and more
constantthan the lifeand the rights of the state. For Hegel, the
tragedy shows the way to synthesis and resolutionof value conflicts
(family versus city, moral law and traditionversus politi- cal
necessity)beyond the abilities of the characters,and hence of the
possibilities of the drama.6For both Friedrichand August Wilhelm
Schlegel, Antigone is the hero and Creon the villain; for Hegel the
opposition is morallysymmetricaland, forthat precisereason, tragic.
The harmonizationof the ethical lifeof individual
persons,families,and religions with the lifeand exigencies of the
state is the process of history workedout throughoutHegel's
work,with the referencesto Antigone a recurringpresence.Hegel's
reading cannot itselfbe read simply as an endorsementof Creon's
position,just as his emergingphilosophy of the state cannot be read
simply as an endorsementof state (i.e., Prussian) power. But such a
simplifiedreading was prevalent in the 1830s and 1840s, as it is
still today.George Steiner thereforetalksabout the con-
servative,pro-CreonHegel paradigm; such a paradigmbelongs more
accurately to the reception of Hegel than to his own position. This
pro- Creon paradigm remaineddominant,George Steiner argues, until
O. Ribbeck's Sophokles und seine Tragadien(1869)and
Wilamowitz-Moellen- dorfon Antigone's martyrdom.7 To pursue the
questions of the identity of "Mendelssohn's Antigone," the
reception of the workin the line of Hegel and Boeckh shows profound
political ambivalence,and we are in a position to see how
Mendelssohn adds new refractionsto such ambivalence. Felix's
culturaland religious sensibilitiescan be understoodaccord- ing to
(at least) three issues:his relationship to Judaismand to Jewish
assimilation,his growing devotion to Protestantmusic,and the social
taboo of the discussionof Jewish matters among the
assimilated,largely convertedBerlin intelligentsia. Abraham
Mendelssohn'sfamousletterto his son of 8 July 1829 is a stern
charge that his son adopt the name Bartholdy and drop the name
Mendelssohn. Only thuscould Felix reap the benefitsof the Lutheran
identity to which the family conversion entitledhim. The
letterbears quoting: My fatherfeltthatthenameMosesden
MendelDessauwould handicap himin gaining theneededaccessto
thosewhohad thebettereducation at their disposal. Without any
fearthathisownfatherwouldtakeoffense, my
fatherassumedthenameMendelssohn.The change,though a small This
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UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions38TheMusical
Quarterly one,wasdecisive.As Mendelssohn,he became irrevocably
detachedfrom an entireclass,thebestofwhomhe raisedto hisown level.
By thatname he identifiedhimselfwitha different group.Through the
influencewhich, ever growing,persists to this day,
thenameMendelssohn acquiredgreat authority and a significance
whichdefiesextinction.This,considering that you werereareda
Christian,you can hardly understand.A Christian Mendelssohnis an
impossibility. A ChristianMendelssohntheworld wouldnever recognize.
Nor shouldtherebe a ChristianMendelssohn;for my fatherhimselfdid
notwantto be a Christian."Mendelssohn"does and always willstandfora
Judaism in transition,whenJudaism,just becauseit is seeking to
transmuteitself spiritually,clings to itsancientformall the more
stubbornly and tenaciously,byway of protestagainst thenovelform
thatso arrogantly and tyrannically declareditselfto be theone and
only path to the good.8 This passage is a profound reflectionof and
on Jewish assimilation in Prussiain the firsthalf of the nineteenth
century. The historical logic is Hegelian: assimilation represents
historical development and the mat- urationof spiritual
life.Abraham did not see his conversionand name change as a
rejection of his father's path, but precisely as a continua- tion
of it. Moses had changed his name in accordance with the social
changes of German Jewry; Abraham took the process one significant
step furtherand expected his own son to respect thishistorical
trajec- tory. Felix's rebellionmustthereforebe seen in termsof his
general rejec- tion of a Hegelian historical linearity-more on
thiswill followbelow. Felix thus recomplicated the cultural
identity in relationto which his fatherand grandfather had
soughtharmony and resolution. With regard to this spirit of
complication, Felix's determinationto remaina Mendelssohn mustbe
understoodin conjunction with the growing devotion to
Protestantmusic-asa markof his increasing insis- tence on a
criticaland self-forming cultural identity. The 1829 revival of the
St. MatthewPassionis the strongestexample. One mightargue that
Mendelssohn'srelationto Protestantismand the integrity of its
aesthetic representations foreshadowsMahler's attachment,two
generations later (however moreconflictedthe latter's maybe), to
Catholicism and Catholic theatricality. Mahler roamed the
contoursof the German world,holding positions in Prague,Budapest,
and Hamburg, and craved the returnto the center, which meant the
cultural,musical,and sym- bolic worldof Vienna. His own
conversionto Catholicism mustthere- forebe understoodas a
dimensionof a desireto participate in the major- ity cultureof the
AustrianCatholic baroque.9 Similarly, Mendelssohn's itinerary had
taken him from Hamburg,Ddisseldorf, and Leipzig to the This content
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use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsMendelssohn'sMusicand
German-Jewish Culture39 new culturalcenter of Berlin,and his
Protestantdevotion represented also a devotion to
culturaltraditionsof northern Germany, with Bach as culturalas well
as musical hero. Nevertheless,the confidenceand mastery Mendelssohn
showed in 1829 were not freeof Jewishself-consciousness,as noted in
the memoirs of Eduard Devrient. Devrient,an actor (Haemon in the
1841 Antigone) and close friendof Mendelssohn's,recalled
Mendelssohn'sremarkson the success of the St. MatthewPassion: "To
thinkthat a comedian and a Jew mustrevive the greatest
Christianmusic forthe world."'1 The fact that the performance took
place in the Singakademie generated the re- curringdisapproval, in
the nineteenth-centuryliterature,of the alleged secularizationof
Bach.'1 Such uncertainties persisted. The difficult episode of the
Singakademie'srejection of Mendels- sohn's candidacy forthe
directorship in 1833 reaches to the core of the cultureof
Bildung,Christian-Jewishrelations,and civic life.'z In the essay
"Mendelssohn and the Berlin Singakademie: The Composer at the
Crossroads,"published as well in the 1991 volume, William A. Little
takes issue with the view,advocated by Werner,that
anti-Jewishnesswas involved in the rejection of Mendelssohn forthe
directorship. Little writes:"Eric Werner,by readingselectively and
falling back on polemics, sees the entire episode in termsof a
Judeo-Christianconflict,and more specifically as one more example
ofJudeo-Christianenmity. Such a reductiofalters however,on both the
factsand nuances of the case." But it is Little's argument that
falters,in myview,on precisely that border between factand nuance.
His solid circumstantial argument awakens the scholar'smost
frustratinganxiety: does one read the lines, or does one read
between the lines? In Little'saccount, the election of Carl Rungen-
hagen over Mendelssohn never touched the question of
religiousorigins, but rather swayed in favorof reliability and
experience over youth and unreliability.Mendelssohn, in Little's
summary of the Singakademie's attitude,was "urbane,and his
outlook,fashioned by wide experience, was broadlycosmopolitan." It
is the culturaland ideological loadedness of precisely these
termsthat mustbe considered:the virtuesof cos- mopolitanism and
urbanity become faultsas theybegin to signify root- lessnessand
insincerity, and they do so in nineteenth-century discourses
precisely as they are attached to Jews." Increasingly at the
midpoint of the nineteenth century, the civic is caught between the
international and local, with the common denominatorof national
language no longer able to hold the center. As early as 1833, one
can therefore suggest, the Jewish-Protestant symbiosis that
Mendelssohn had internalizedwas in jeopardy on the This content
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use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions40TheMusical Quarterly
outside as well. If Eric Wernerbelieved this to be the case, he was
right. Ifhe bent the nails more readily to receive his hammers, he
was egre- giously at faultfor doing so-andfor doing so
unnecessarily. Another example of the inner symbiosis
ofJewishmemory and Protestantculture,but increasingly
embattledfromwithout,appears in Eric Werner's perceptivereading of
the Jewish subtextin a January 1831 letter disparaging the
frivolity of New Year'scelebrations.The days around the turning of
the year, wroteMendelssohn,are "real days of
atonement."Wernerattributesthese thoughts to "his parentalhome,
where the very seriousattitudetowardsthe New Year had simply been
transposed from Jewish to Christian practice."'14 The same
sensibility is revealed in the wordsto the concludinghymn of
Goethe's "Erste Walpurgisnacht"(1831), which Mendelssohn set: Und
raubtmanunsden altenBrauch, Dein Licht,wer kannes rauben? And ifwe
arerobbedofourold costums, Who can robus of thy light?" The
Sophoclean theme of the robbing of custom musthave been
evident,perhaps even disturbing, to Mendelssohn. How can a Jewish
referencenot be present in such words,once appropriatedby Mendels-
sohn? This question intensifiesin the context of Mendelssohn'stwo
ora- torios:Paulus (1836) and Elias (1846).(Werner, it should be
noted, defendsElias and is condescending withreferenceto Paulus. He
criti- cized it forits waste of dramatic potential. It is
possible,although I am not aware of his ever having said so, thathe
scorned it, relativeto Elias, forits clear statementof
Protestantdevotion.) As a final example, I would like to offera
reading of Paulus that emphasizes the complicated- ness of its
cultural,devotional, and emotional references. I would argue that
Paulus can be understoodin termsof a seriesof dialogues between
fathersand sons, as voiced by the bass and tenor parts. The bass
part is consistently inhabited by the dramaticrole of Paul. The
tenor part shiftsbetween a Handelian anonymity and the role of
Barnabas. The shiftis itself fascinating in its nomadism,its
shifting positionpossiblyallegorical of the difficulty of a son in
finding a secure position of self-identification. Paulus was
writtenin the aftermathof Abraham Mendelssohn's death and as a
tributeto his memory. It transmitsAbraham's conviction in a linear
realizationof historythroughsynthesisand, a fortiori, conver- sion.
This work'snarrativeof the conversionof Paul tells this story in a
transparentway. And yet it does not do so without representing as
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ConditionsMendelssohn'sMusicandGerman-JewishCulture41 the
innerconflict required-and required of Felix-in telling and advo-
cating his father's story. The father/soninscriptions are multiple,
as the Abraham/Felixaxis is doubled by the Bach/Mendelssohn one and
the division of male voices into bass (Paul) and tenor. In the
firsthalfof Paulus, the tenorand bass have two duets. The firstis a
duet forPaul and Barnabas to the words (Corinthians 5:20): "So sind
wir nun Botschafteran ChristiStatt /Now we are ambassadorsfor
Christ."The second duet carriesa similarstatement. Finally, the
tenor has a last cavatina, with cello obbligato, to the words"Sei
getreu bis in den Tod, so will ich dir die Krone des Lebens geben!
Fiurchte dich nicht, ich bin bei dir! / Be faithfulunto death, and
I will give you the crownof life.Do not fear,I am with you."
Dramatically, it is unclear who is speak- ing here and to whom. But
the tenorvoice and rhetoricresonatewith the consolation offered by
a son to a father-a situationawkwardand indeed unrealizedin the
relationship of fatherand son but possibly invoked with
commemorativeaffectionof a son fora dead father. If this last
statementforthe tenorcloses the musical as well as the much less
certaindramaticrelationbetween tenorand bass, we can ask what may
have been achieved, or at least portrayed,by their joint trajec-
tory. If the bass/tenorduets in the second half of Paulus can be
under- stood as projections of harmony between fatherand son, then
they act out in musical termsthe alliance between Abraham and Felix
that the composition of thisoratorio explicitlyexpressed. The
oratorio,named forthe father,is concluded musically and
dramaticallyby the son. In a way, Felix anoints himselfthe
successorin Christian music that his fatherwanted. But the duet
formthat is so prominentspeaks in a differ- ent direction.The duet
formis Felix Mendelssohn'smusicalizationof G. E. Lessing'sprinciple
of Nebeneinander, an aesthetic principle that is also a culturalone
with important resonances to the concernsof his friendMoses
Mendelssohn. Lessing's mostfamoustreatiseon aestheticsis his essay
on the Roman sculpture Laocodn (1766). In it he argues forthe
necessary differ- ence between textualand visual
representationalpractice. The sculpture underdiscussion portrays a
fatherand his two sons being devoured by a serpent.(Obviously, this
"plot" resonatesas well in mytreatment.) But whereas the dramatic
description of this event in Virgil's Aeneidde- scribesthe horrible
suffering of the victims,the sculptor, at least accord- ing to
Lessing,portrays the scene with a reserveof pathos. For Lessing,
narrativeand its rulesof sequence (Nacheinander) can be moreliteral
than an image, with its rule of simultaneity(Nebeneinander).
Abraham Mendelssohn's understanding of history and cultural
development, as voiced in his understanding of religious conversion
through three generations of his family followsa code of
Nacheinander. This content downloaded from 146.164.3.22 on Wed, 08
Jul 2015 11:51:19 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and
Conditions42TheMusical Quarterly His son Felix returnsto a
Lessingian code of Nebeneinander,although he is able to explore
both options in music. In Paulus, these explorations play
themselvesout with enormous subtlety. In its most generalplan, this
oratorioworksin and through the dialectic of sequence and simul-
taneity; historicalevolution and historical dialectics; and a
scenario of Judaism into Christianity(Abraham's) and a scenario of
Judaism with Christianity(Felix's). If the tensionbetween Judaism
and Christianityduplicated the tension between generations-between
fathersand sons-thenits reso- lution would be more elusive than
ever. But a generous culturewould allow or even encourage the
negotiation of such resolutionas a pro- tected space where
subjectivitymight survive.The resolutionof the Christian/Jewish
tension is not-pace Werner-at hand, but the co-
habitation-theNebeneinanderis a possibility in the generosity of
Felix's aestheticformsand emotional desires. Eric Wernerdid not
question the profundity of Mendelssohn'sProtestant conviction. He
did insiston the profundity of his relationto Judaism. He
insistedon that in a post-Holocaust context in which Jewish and
Ger- man Jewishintegrityrequiredrescuing. His distortions may have
been caused by such ideological pressure. No
mattertheirmotivation,they cannot be condoned. Moreover, it is
possible that Wernerhad neither the conceptual nor the historical
subtlety to argue the characterof that relationship or the subtlety
of the confluenceof Jewish and Protestant attachments.It goes
without saying that Werner'sfactualerrorsshould not be repeated.
The same is trueforhis conceptual inadequacies, although he cannot
be blamed forthese in the same way. Conceptual and critical
adequacy have been at the centerof debates and innovationsin the
humanitiesin the decades since Werner's biography was first
published. New trendsin argumentation, often pooled under the
rubric "postmodernism" and oftenaccused of assuming -or
promoting-the "death of the subject" and the "death of the
author,"are in factmodes of human understanding that argueagainst
the presumption of the simplesubject or the simple author. They
are, moreover,grounded in the modernist positions of Marx and
Freud,both of whom understoodsecular modernityaccording to a new
configuration of misleading surfacesand submerged truths.Thus the
biographical sub- ject or the historicaltextcan be understoodas
complicated, overdeter- mined,and indeed
contradictoryformations,contingent on culture,his- tory, and
language and possessed of dignity and greatnessprecisely for
theircontinued confrontationswith conflictand complication. This
content downloaded from 146.164.3.22 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 11:51:19
UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and
ConditionsMendelssohn'sMusicandGerman-JewishCulture43 One principle
at the core of recentworkin culturalstudiesis that bf the hybridity
or multiple culturalconsciousnessof modernidentities and positions.
The term"double consciousness,"firstused by W. E. B. DuBois to name
what has now become the commonplace of "African- American"
culture,has been taken up recentlyby Paul Gilroy in his book The
BlackAtlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Gilroy
studiesmodernistCaribbean culturefromthe standpoint of its multiple
legacies and ambitions:black, local,
European,cosmopolitan.According to Gilroy,any authenticity that is
to be discoveredor assertedmustbe done so on the basis of
multiplicity.16 If we look through these lenses, as I believe we
should, onto Mendelssohn and his world, we can begin to
understandthe subtlety with which it speaks. Toward that goal, we
musttake at theirvalue cor- rectionsin the accumulation of
scholarly evidence. But we cannot con- fusesuch correctionswith
self-appointed new interpretations. Alternatively, we should ask
ourselves,to what extent we late- twentieth-century scholarsseem
drivento do to Mendelssohn what our nineteenth-centurypredecessors
did to Mozart-elevatehim to prodigy statusso that we can draw
circles around him by treating him as a child. In the case of
Mozart,thiswish to maintainhim as a precious child meant soaking
him in the eighteenth-century courtlinesshis music con- sistently
undermined.In the case of Mendelssohn, it means to insiston the
shallownessof the bourgeoiscomposer, the opportunist, the spoiled
child, devoid of ambition,complication, or conflict.To understand
Mendelssohn as a thinking adult requiresnegotiation with a
psychologi- cal and cultural composite of greatcomplexity. We
should ponder care- fully the stakes in attacking Eric Werner,and
ponder the hold on histor- ical reality that might be lost with the
dismissalof his arguments- which do not live or die by his
faultypractices. Does thisanti-Wernerian zeal not also allow a
certainreturnof a repressed anti-Mendelssohnian- ism in
itsforbearanceof a renewed two-dimensionality, ifnow the two-
dimensionality of the "typical Neuchrist"ratherthan the
"self-identified Jew?"Contrary to both of these labels, rather, I
would suggest that Mendelssohn'slifeand music are both more
productively to be under- stood according to the subtle negotiation
between Jewish and Christian spheres of cultureand memoryduring the
formationof the modernGer- man world--and that much at a
culturalhistorical moment,moreover, when the boundariesof all
threeof these were evolving and unpre- dictable. This content
downloaded from 146.164.3.22 on Wed, 08 Jul 2015 11:51:19 UTCAll
use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions44TheMusical Quarterly
Notes 1.EricWerner,Mendelssohn:A New Imageof the Composer andHis
Age, trans.Dika Newlin(NewYork:Macmillan,1963),viii. 2.The original
letterwaswrittentoManfred Schlksser,editoroftheFestschriftin
whichitwas published. The letter explainedwhy
Scholemwouldnotcontributean essay tothevolumeon the"German
Jewishdialogue." GershomScholem,"Widerden Mythos vom
deutsch-juidischen'Gesprich'," in
AufgespaltenemPfad:FestschriftfurMargarete Siissman, ed.M.
Schlosser(Darmstadt:Erato,1964),translatedas "Against the Myth of
the German-JewishDialogue," inOn Jews and Judaism inCrisis.Selected
Essays(New York:Schocken,1976),61-62. 3.ForMosse'sviewin general,
seeGerman]ewsBeyond Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana
UniversityPress,1985). 4.Werner,Mendelssohn: A-New Image,44. 5.
Scholem,"Jews andGermans"(1966),inOn Jews and Judaism in Crisis,80.
6.See thediscussioninMarthaC. Nussbaum,The Fragilityof
Goodness:LuckandEthics inGreek Tragedy and
Philosophy(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1986),52. 7.
GeorgeSteiner,Antigones(Oxford:ClarendonPress,1984),41.
8.Werner,Mendelssohn:A New Image,37. I have duplicated
thetranslationas pro- vided by Wernerbuthavemadeone change after
comparing histranslationwiththe
Germanversionusedinhisownlater,Germaneditionof1980.Wheretheletter
says thatthenameMendelssohnhad
acquired"greatauthority"(eingrossesGewicht), Wernerhad
hyperbolically translated". .. acquired a Messianic import." I am
verygrate- fultoPeterWardJonesfor pointing thisouttome. 9.See my
discussionofthisissueinitsrelationtoMahlerandotherthinkersinthe
chapter "TheCatholicCultureoftheAustrian Jews" inThe Meaningof the
Salzburg Festi- val:Austriaas Theaterand Ideology,
1890-1938(Ithaca:Cornell UniversityPress,1990), 164-95.
10.EduardDevrient,Meine Erinnerungen an FelixMendelssohn
(Leipzig:J.J.Weber, 1872),62. 11.See Werner,Mendelssohn:A New
Image, 100. 12.Werner,Mendelssohn:A New Image, 230-31. 13.WilliamA.
Little,"MendelssohnandtheBerlin Singakademie: The Composer at
theCrossroads,"inMendelssohnandHisWorld,ed.R. Larry
Todd(Princeton:Princeton UniversityPress,1991),78,80.
14.Werner,Mendelssohn:A New Image,171. 15.Werner,Mendelssohn:A New
Image, 203. 16.Paul Gilroy, TheBlackAtlantic: Modernity
andDoubleConsciousness (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard
UniversityPress,1993). This content downloaded from 146.164.3.22 on
Wed, 08 Jul 2015 11:51:19 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and
Conditions