The Harmony of the Tea Table: Gender and Ideology in the Piano Nocturne
Author(s): Jeffrey Kallberg
Source: Representations, No. 39 (Summer, 1992), pp. 102-133
Published by: University of California Press
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KALLBERG
JEFFREY
The Harmony of the Tea Table:
Gender and Ideology
in the Piano Nocturne
IN
THE
FLOURISHING
BUT
fledglingliteratureon constructions
of gender in music, instrumentalmusic reposes in relativeneglect. Guided by
the premise that,in Teresa de Lauretis'swords, "gender is both a sociocultural
constructand a semiotic apparatus, a systemof representationwhich assigns
meaning ... to individuals withinthe society,"'and nourished by theoretical
models developed bycriticsof literature,art,and film,musichistorianshave most
of gender in opera and song. The attractionis
readilyexplored the ramifications
obvious. Gender may initiallybe broached throughthe semanticcontentof the
text, which then serves as a kind of lens through which is filteredthe critic's
reading of the music. Instrumentalmusic, on the other hand, poses its ever
familiarquandary: lackingan evidentsemanticcontent,it would seem to stymie
effortsto understand"systemsof representation"at workwithinit.
Music historianshave shied away fromtryingto recoverand explicate these
gendered systemspartlybecause the idea that instrumentalmusic occupies an
autonomous realm still remains a powerfulideological force in the discipline.
Those of us who would seek to lessenthe strangleholdof thisideologyon modern
We mightrecognize that the
criticaldiscourse encounter particulardifficulties.
stepchildof the aeslanguage of formalistmusicalcriticism-a twentieth-century
theticsof autonomy-does not adequately serve the purposes of an inquiryinto
gender.2But shorn of thiscustomaryprop, we face an apparent conceptual void,
for the ideology of autonomystillseems to command our linguisticpossibilities.
How can we speak of gender when constrainedbythe analyticaldemands of "the
music itself"?
The feweffortsto treatgender in instrumentalmusicall seem mostawkward
preciselywhen discussionshiftsfromfeminismto traditionalmusicalanalysis.We
can trace this sense of incongruityprimarilyto an implicitdissonance between
the aims of the two systemsof thought.The vocabularies of musical analysiswhether they label harmonic and contrapuntal processes, detect Schenkerian
Urlinien,or identifypitch-classsets-typicallyrepresentimplicitor explicitdistillations of individualviewpoints,usually those of a composer,analyst,or "ideal"
listener.(And assertionsthat these analyses are or were generallyperceived by
102
REPRESENTATIONS
39
*
Summer 1992 ?
THE REGENTS
OF THE UNIVERSITY
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OF CALIFORNIA
audiences usually remain in the realm of the ideal.) But feministprojects that
mightinclude these analyses generallystake widersocietalclaims,ones validated
(in principal) by a networkof historicalcontexts.The goals of the feministcritiques and the musical analysesapparentlyclash.3As yetunresolved,thisdiscord
has resultedin a sense of aporia thathas rendered the historicaltracesof gender
in instrumentalmusic almost unrepresentableand has caused us to concentrate
on more pliant,text-basedrepertories.
Yet a nocturne or a ballade was no less a culturalconstructthan Carmenor
und -leben,and in principalit should have been no less (and no more)
Frauenliebe
givento gendered meanings.If musichistoriansare to detectand interpretthese
meanings, we need to seek alternativeconceptual frameworksfor use in discussing instrumentalmusic. But thistask,so smuglyexhorted,is formidable:at
the presenttime,we mightat best hope forpartialresults.Thus, although I venture two alternativemodels of explanation in thisessay,neitherof them breaks
decisivelywithconceptual tradition.First,I examine the consequences of trying
to understand historicalconstructionsof gender in instrumentalmusic without
undertakinga close reading of the musical notes. Here I seek to cast offthe
burden of instrumental"autonomy"-of the "work itself."But second, and in
I assess how studyingthe notes of a piece, if we filter
some wayscontradictorily,
our received analyticalsystemsthrougha social-historicalnet,mightindeed contributeto our understandingof gender.4
My approach hingeson a crucialmethodologicalmove. Ratherthan studying
instrumentalmusic fromthe traditionalhorizon of form,I suggestinstead that
we focus on its constituentgenres. To do so directsour criticalattentionaway
froma composer-centerednotion,form,and onto a societalconcept,genre, that
withthe idea of gender.
displaysmore thanjust an etymologicalaffinity
I firstunderstood the significanceof thismethodologicalshiftwhile drafting
a book on Chopin's nocturnesand the problem of genre in the nineteenthcencattury.Having rejected the notion thatgenre functionsonlyas a classificatory
egory located solely in compositions,I adopted instead an understanding of
genre as a communicativeconcept shared by composers and listenersalike, one
that thereforeactivelyinformsthe experience of a musical work.5Construing
genre as a social phenomenon requires an investigationintothe responsesof the
communitiesthatencountereda particulargenre. And itwas the investigationof
such responses to the nocturnethat eventuallyled me to ask just who made up
these communitiesin Chopin's day.6
The answer is: women, mainly.But thissimple response masks a number of
more complex meanings. For when we understand genre as a communicative
concept, it makes us aware of waysin whichmusic interactswithsociety.In particular,as literarycriticsand historiansoften remark,an examinationof genre
frequentlyuncoversotherwisehidden ideological agendas.7 I began the process
of exploringthe societalconstraintsgoverningthe perceptionof the genre in an
The HarmonyoftheTea Table
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103
examination of Chopin's early Nocturne in G Minor,where the mixtureof gestures fromthe mazurka,chorale, and nocturnegenres seems calculated to articulate his kinshipwiththe cultural goals of the Polish romanticnationalists.8In
thisstudy,I want to take the process one step further,to address a question that
is basic to the understandingof the nocturne.What did it mean-culturally, hisaudience forthisgenre was
torically,and musically-that the nineteenth-century
understood as primarilyfemale?
An Archive of Musical Difference
listenersto the
I am not the firstto observe that nineteenth-century
genre of the piano nocturneoftencouched theirreactionsin feminineimagery.
Christophvon Blumrbder,in his excellentarticleon the nocturneforthe Handincludesdocumentationof this"feminine
dermusikalischen
Terminologie,
worterbuch
topos" in his discussion of the "poetic idea" of the genre.9But von Blumroder's
stance toward the topic (perhaps constrainedby his format)remainsneutral; he
does not explore the critical,historical,and ideological implicationsof these gendered responses.
Since these reactionstook manyforms,we ought firstto consider some representativesamples of criticismin which femininetropes were invoked. G. W.
Fink'sbriefreviewof Chopin's Nocturnes,op. 15, writtenin 1834 for the AllgeZeitung,drew attentionto the unmediated,spontaneous quality
meinemusikalische
of the feminineresponse:
fromfeelingto feelingin thestill
The Nocturnesare reallyreveriesof a soulfluctuating
buttheoutburst
ofa feminine
heart
ofthenight,aboutwhichwewanttosetdownnothing
ofthesame:"TheseNocturnes
surelyare myentirelife!"'0
aftera sensitive
performance
In the followingimpressionsof Chopin's Nocturnes,op. 27, penned in 1836, an
anonymous criticlimned a femininegenre associated with both darkness and
pain:
dark
The names of the creations,Nocturnes... admitnothingelse but a fancifully
withlonging,
hue.... It is the dream,whichcelebratesitsrounddances [Ringeltdnze]
longingwhichchosepain on itsown,becauseitcouldnotfindagainthejoy thatitloves.
liketheoldones(as different
as theyarefromthem),
ForthatreasonthesenewNocturnes,
to all heartsinclinedtowardthefeminine."
willagainalwaysbe mostattractive
Sometimes the femininetopos arose in more general discussionsof the genre.
der Tonkunst
Ferdinand Hand, in his discussion of the nocturne in the Aesthetik
as a potentialexpressivedeficitin the genre:
(1841), introducedfemininity
thatis characteristically
broughtintopromiIn thenotturno,
gracebalanceseverything
nenceand surroundsitwithtendermildness.But thiscan lead to a twofolderror.With
thecomposerfallsinto
is signified
bya fixedsoul-state,
levelbearing,whichheregenerally
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On theothersidetherepresentaundSchleppende]....
theprolixand dawdling[insBreite
and lanrunsthedangerof fallingintotheeffeminate
in thenotturno
tionof sentiment
tiresthelistener.'2
soulsand altogether
whichdispleasesstronger
guishing,
musikalische
And Carl Kossmalyvoiced similaropinions in 1844 fortheAllgemeine
of
in
of
a
overview
Schumann's
the
midst
lengthy
occur
His
comments
Zeitung.
and theBlumenstiick:
piano music; the subjectsat hand are theArabeske
likeness
family
prominent
isinsomemeasureimpairedbyan occasional,
[TheBlumenstick]
and romances.Both
"SongswithoutWords"and J. Field'snotturnos
to Mendelssohn's
therapturous,
also "effeminate"],
of thesoft[dasWeiche,
piecesremindus unequivocally
oftheFieldiancantilena.'3
character
almostwomanly
thetender,lyrical,
In manyof thesepassages, directreferencesto theperceivedfemininequality
in the nocturnewere accompanied byotherfigurallanguage. "Feeling,""dream,"
"longing,""sentiment,""tender"-all of these affectivetermswere linkedto, and
surelyin differentdegrees meant to complement,the primaryimage of the feminine. And often,when these analogous termsappeared in other criticismindependent of any explicitcitationof the feminine,theywere understood as code
words for overtlyfeminineimagery.The feminineslant of Maurice Bourges's
1842 reviewof Chopin's Nocturnes,op. 48, publishedin theRevueetGazettemusicale de Paris is clearer than most. In fact,its title,"Lettersto Mme la Baronne de
*** on Some Modern Pieces for Piano," already frames the feminineimage.
crit(Although such rhetoricalstrategieswere ubiquitous in nineteenth-century
icism,thisdoes not weaken theirabilityto dispose a reader towardinterpreting
some of theirtropes in termsof the gender of the addressee.)'4 In the following
excerpt,the gender-typingbehind the criticallanguage explicitlyrevealsitselfin
the finalsentence:
shouldconceala sense,an intimate
Each note should be renderedwithintelligence,
to thespiritualelement.Forthemusicof
expression.The materialpartis subordinated
ifnotsoul,thenat leastimagination,
M. Chopindemandson thepartof theperformer
nextofkinto thespirit.Thatiswhy,madame,I havesomereasons
and thatnaivefinesse,
theletterof this
willnotcontentherselfwithonlyrendering
to thinkthatMlle Brigitte
production.
charming
And it is not hard to sense a subliminallygendered message in the following
passage fromRobertSchumann's 1838 critiqueof CountJosephvon Wielhorsky's
Nocturnes,op. 2:
To be sure,itcouldalsobyno
thetalentseemsmanifest.
Eventhoughnothighlyoriginal,
drawnoutform.Butthecomposeralsohas expemeansbecomeevidentin suchstrongly
more.15
can stretch
genrewhereimagination
rienceon approvalwitha lesssentimental
construethe sex of the "heart"in the following
Likewise,we can withoutdifficulty
anonymous critiqueof Chopin's Nocturnein B Major, op. 32, no. 1, subtitled"Il
Lamento" by Chopin's English publisher,Wessel:
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105
inthestyleofBellini'sgracefuland pathetic
is a morceau
sostenuto,
"Il Lamento,"an andante
portraiture
ofimagination,
be takenas a faithful
muchstretch
melodies;and may,without
in strainsof intensefeelingand
of a heartpouringforthitsfeelingsof "sweetsorrow,"
affection.'6
All of these reviews and discussions date from the 1830s and 1840s, the
period during which the piano nocturne firstbegan to flourishas a genre. (A
decade or so elapsed before John Field's activityin the teens and twenties
spawned sustained interestamong other composers.) Feminineimagerydid not
cease afterthispoint; indeed itcontinuedwithsomethingof a vengeance. Rather
formulations
than immediatelyquoting some of these later nineteenth-century
of the femininetopos, though,I wantto considersome of the historicaland critical ramificationsof the evidence we have seen thus far.
Demography and the Feminine
What can have prompteda gendered response to the piano nocturne?
Demography offersone obvious answer: women were farand away the primary
consumersof piano music in the firsthalfof the nineteenthcentury(just as they
had been of keyboardmusic generallyin the eighteenthcentury).Any number
of sources confirmthis. We have known for some time, through the work of
ArthurLoesser,WilliamWeber,and JudithTick in particular,thatwomen played
mostof the keyboardsfound in middle-classhomes throughoutEurope and the
United States in the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies.'7A pair of citations
culled fromperiodicalsin the twodecades of concernto us suggeststhe ubiquity
of female pianistsin Paris. First,thejournalist Henri Blanchard in 1843:
ofthepianohasa highpublicusefulness,
wemust
Sinceitis recognizedthattheprofessor
this
to inquirewhatare the qualitiesmostsuitableforproperlyfulfilling
be permitted
so faras this
mission.Sincehe oftenhas to do withyounggirls,itis necessary,
important
of
bothof moralsand of the security
is possible,thathe be married,in the interests
parents.'8
Second, an even more directcorrespondent,writingin 1835 forthe periodicalLe
Pianiste:
and thatis truebecause,thoughI do
The pianotodaysharespopularfavorwithsinging,
the provinceof
the twospecialtiesare exclusively
notwishto favorotherinstruments,
women.'9
Stunningly,Loesser also deduced, froma statisticalsurveyprintedin theRevueet
Gazettemusicalede Parisin 1845, thatthe presence of some 60,000 pianos in Paris
at that time meant that somethinglike one woman out of fivelivingin the city
Even allowingforsome exaggeration
had some kind of facilityat the keyboard.20
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in Loesser's estimate,it stillsuggeststhata remarkablepercentageof the female
population was engaged in music makingat the piano.
Iconographical evidence furtherbolsters this writtenand statisticaltestimony. Writingof the eighteenthcentury,and surmisingfrom evidence found
in paintings from the time, Richard Leppert has suggested that keyboard instrumentswere conceived as "both signifiersand insurers" of the domestic
role of women. He has also demonstratedthe currencyof thisconceptionin the
early nineteenthcentury,particularlyas embodied in portraitsof Britishsubjects in India.2' Engravingsand paintingsof the sortreproduced in figure1 were
common coin in the firsthalfof the nineteenthcentury,suggestingthatthe association of the piano withthe domesticworld continued unabated fromthe previous century.The commentsof Henri Blanchard in 1847 leave no doubt about
the matter:
to social
thathas becomeas essential,as necessary,
the piano is something
Cultivating
of thepotatois to theexistenceof thepeople.... The piano
harmonyas thecultivation
of all kinds,
associations
gentlecontacts,
provokesmeetingsbetweenpeople,hospitality,
that
ones... and ifouryoungmenso fullofassurancetelltheirfriends
evenmatrimonial
thousandfrancsofincome,theyat leastadd as a cortheyhavemarriedtwelveor fifteen
rective:"Mydear,mywifeplayspianolikean angel."22
Beyond Demography:
The Feminized Detail
But demography by itself cannot explain the affinityof feminine
imageryto the nocturne.While women and the piano were clearlypaired in the
observers,the femininetopos
general consciousnessof manynineteenth-century
of
music.
We
rarelyencounterit,forexample,
did not extend to all genres piano
in treatmentsof polonaises and scherzos. This begins to suggest that demographic factorsmightprimarilyhave provided a conducive atmosphere for the
trope,and thatother culturalconstructionsimpinged on the nocturnein such a
way as to help reinforceitscharacterizationas a femininegenre.
Perhaps the mostobvious of theseideas was the ancientassociationof women
with notions of darkness and night.23Less intuitivelyapparent, however,but
playingjust as significanta constructiverole in the musical cultureof the time,
was the persistentalignmentof theidea of detailwiththe feminine.Naomi Schor
has recentlydrawn attentionto the markingof detail as a feminineaestheticcategory.24She observes a pattern of associating particularitywith the feminine
extending at least as far back as Aristotle.The veryantiquityof the association
fact,whichcould thenbe mustered,
ultimatelylentitthe statusof a semi-scientific
of women
along withother unchallenged tropeslike the presumed close affinity
and nature, to help "explain" and evaluate the respectivecontributionsof men
and women to the creativearts.
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107
FIGURE
1. Karl Eduard Suffert,HausmusikamAbend,c.
1840. Photo: HistorischesMuseum Basel.
Schor findssupportforher readingof detailin scholarshipon thevisualarts.
Thus ErnstGombrich'sobservationthatassociationsof crowded detail withfeminine taste can be traced to the rhetoricalmanuals of classical antiquityleads
Schor to see a similaralignmentof sexual and aestheticcategoriesinformingSir
Joshua Reynolds's criticalevaluations of artisticschools!5 This in turn helps
account for Reynolds'sslightpreferencefor the sublime Roman art of Raphael
and Michelangelo over the ornamentalVenetianart of Titian and Veronese.
And the culturalresonances of thisalignmentwere not limitedto the art of
the Italian peninsula. Rather,in thedominantSouthernview,theymirroredwhat
was perceived as a largeroppositionbetweenthe universalistItalian traditionof
art and the particularistDutch tradition.SvetlanaAlperscogentlyargues thatthe
persistentprivilegingof Southernover Northernart,and the consequent exclusion of Dutch art from the "great tradition,"derive in large part from covert
associationsof Dutch art withthe feminine.26
From the Renaissance on, Italians
had difficulty
coming to grips withDutch art, and oftenexpressed it by calling
Dutch art an art for women. For example, a remarkattributedto Michelangelo
dismissesFlemishpaintingas appropriateonlyforcertainclasses of viewers:
Flemishpainting... will... pleasethedevoutbetterthananypaintingof Italy.It will
appeal to women,especiallyto theveryold and theveryyoung,and also to monksand
nunsand tocertainnoblemenwhohaveno senseoftrueharmony.27
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Alpers remarksthat"to say an art is forwomen is to reiteratethatit displaysnot
measure or order but rather,to Italian eyes at least, a flood of observed,unmediated details drawn from nature."28And, as Schor notes, the problem of this
flood of details for Italian observerswas thattheythreatenedthe relationshipof
the peripheryto the center.They seemed to subordinatethe background to the
foreground2
Schor's analysisof the gendered role of detail in Westernculturewould seem
to be suggestivefor our critique of the "feminine"nocturne. The brevityof a
nocturne, along with its typicallyornate melodies, would presumablyhave led
listenersto focus more on momentarysurface details of its
nineteenth-century
constructionthan on the sortsof larger-scaleprocessesthatmightenterintotheir
experience of a more expansive work. And if thiswere so, theirpreoccupation
withsuch details would help reinforcethe sexual characterizationof the genre.
fur
An articleby August Kahlert froman 1835 issue of the Neue Zeitschrift
Musiksupportsthiscontention.The title,"Genre Paintingin Modern Music" (Die
in der modernen
Genrebilder
Musik),reveals its goal: to articulatean explicitlink
between French genre painting(whichgrewout of the Dutch tradition)and the
recent glut of short instrumentalcompositions.30Kahlert drew what he saw as
alarming parallels between the situation in contemporaryart, where genre
paintingseemed to profitat the expense of historicalsubjects,and thatin music,
where small instrumentalgenres gained at the loss of larger kinds. And what is
more important,the criticismshe leveled at the smaller"genre pieces" drew on
the same kinds of gender-based rationalizationsAlpers and Schor documented
in Michelangelo and Reynolds:
thatenthusiasm
forthe
Genrepaintinghasalsobecomevisibleinmusic.Itischaracteristic
ofsmalldesigns,accomgreat,thefar-reaching,
thedeep mustmakewayfora multitude
The lowestand most
charming,
coquettish
[gefallsiichtigen].
plishedformsforthegraceful,
popularmusicgenre,dancemusiceven,musthaverecourseto themostexpensivefinery
ofpleasurecomposed
inordertocorruptthemeaning.Dramaticmusiciswiththegreatest
ofnothingbutsmallforms(Romances,Couplets,Lieder,etc.).The cataloguesswarmwith
Bagatelles,
Rhapsodies,Etudes,etc.One wantsas much
Sketches,
Eclogues,Impromptus,
as is possible,howevernothingbutthesmall.31
variety
Kahlert'sdescriptivelanguage revealstherole of gender in the formulationof his
aestheticstance.The notionthat"finery"might"corruptthe meaning"of a genre
piece already deflectsjudgment onto a gendered criterion.Still more tellingin
this regard are his polar oppositions that pit "far-reaching"and "accomplished
forms"against"coquettish"and "smalldesigns."Later in thearticlehe mentioned
Chopin as one of the purveyorsof musical genre pictures,even includinghim,
withPaganini, among those whose use of the concept struckKahlertas "pathological" (krankhaft).
Kahlertconfirmsthatthe gendered resonancesof detail as outlinedbySchor
also were feltin theworldof music.Hence, we can securelyassertthat,in addition
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109
to the demographicenvironmentof the nocturne,itsverybrevityand ornateness
also encouraged its perceptionas "feminine"music.
Gender and the Devaluation
of the Nocturne
The significanceof this assertiongoes beyond its affirmationof the
of the nocturneand the feminine.For to be associated withthe
historicalaffinity
femininewas also often to be devalorized.32How did this side of the aesthetic
equation affectperceptionsof the nocturne?We already witnessedin Kahlert's
commentarya general censure of Chopin on grounds thathad partlyto do with
feminineassociations(althoughin otherforumshe praised the composer).33And
recall these words of Ferdinand Hand: "The representationof sentimentin the
notturnoruns the danger of fallinginto the effeminateand languishing,which
displeases strongersouls and altogethertiresthe listener."
The negativetone should not surpriseus. Indeed, given the prevailingattiwithwomen usuallyled to a lesser ranking
tude of the time,in which affiliation
in the aesthetichierarchy,it would have been odd if the nocturnehad escaped
unscathed. But what is strikingis how what was only an occasional trope in the
criticismof the 1830s and 1840s grew to an almost obsessive preoccupation of
writersin the second halfof the nineteenthcentury.They theorizedthe feminine
as a lack. A relativelymild sample of such disapproval comes froman articleon
the nocturnein Arreyvon Dommer'sLexicon of 1865:
of thispiece of musicis usuallygivento a gentleand quiet
NOTTURNO: The character
howeverelevatedideas and artful
rapture,withouttherebyexcludingcheerfulness;
fromit.The wholeamountsmoretoan agreeable
ofthesameremaindistant
arrangement
thanto
ofa mellowframeofmind[milderGemiithsstimmungen]
and awakening
amusement
of deep feelingsand passions.For thatreason,modernpiano
an energeticstimulation
is precisely
suitableto
piecesas wellas theNotturno,
music,likeotherso-calledcharacter
ofencroachas muchas possible,without
worry
and gushover[empfindeln]
sentimentalize
byawakeningstrong
menton theharmonyof thetea table[derHarmoniedes Theetisches]
feelingsand thoughts.34
Von Dommer did not directlyinvoke the feminine,but his aestheticcategories nonetheless can be read as covertlyrepresentingsexual differences.He
distinguishedthe "gentleand quiet rapture"of the nocturnefromthe "elevated
ideas and artfularrangement"that mightbe encountered in other,unnamed
genres. The passive categoriesof "agreeable amusement"and "mellowframeof
mind" run up againstthe more active"energeticstimulation"and "deep feelings."
and "gushing over" as characteristicsof the genre:
He labeled "sentimentality"
two more femininecategories in the minds of listenersin the late nineteenth
centurycould hardlybe imagined.By thetimewe reach theend of von Dommer's
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definition,we have littledoubt as to whichsex mightbe sittingabout the tea table
avoiding "strongthoughts."
critics-malecritics,I should now begin to stressLater nineteenth-century
It should thereobsessivelydisparaged musicthattheyassociatedwithfemininity.
nocturnes
in
which
Chopin's
forecome as no surprisethatthiswas the onlytime
were frequentlyreproached, even by criticswho were otherwisewell-disposed
toward the composer. FrederickNiecks,who authored the firstgreat biography
of Chopin in 1888, had thisto say about the nocturnes:
someofhismostpopularworksaretobe found.Nay,themost
AmongChopin'snocturnes
as a manand musicianseemstohavebeenderived
idea ofhischaracter
widelyprevailing
comfromthem.But theidea thusformedis an erroneousone; thesedulcet,effeminate
and byno meansthebestor
onlyone side of themaster'scharacter,
positionsillustrate
mostinteresting.35
Earlier in the same work,Niecks had remarkedon the qualitiesthatgave variety
to the compositionshe admired more than the nocturnes:
isthatChopin'smusicisalllanguorand
almostuniversal,
Anotherprejudice,wide-spread,
invariety.
Now,therecanbe no greatererrorthan
wanting
and,consequently,
melancholy,
ifhe had comwe shouldbe obligedto wonderat itsinfiniteness
thisbelief.As to variety,
pensive,
posednothingbutthepiecesto whichare reallyapplicabletheepithetsdreamy,
itself
and despondent.Butwhatvigor,whatmorethanmanlyvigor,manifests
mournful,
in manyofhiscreations!36
If Niecks's"epithets"here are not preciselythose he used in his discussionsof the
individual nocturnes,theyrevolve in the same expressiveorbit. What the nocturneslacked, in his view,was "manlyvigor,"a qualityhe located elsewherein the
composer's oeuvre.
A few years later,James Huneker contributedthese ramblingthoughtson
the nocturnes:
in someof thesecompositions.
Theyare notaltosentimental
Chopinis so desperately
fromanaemia.However,
theyseemto be suffering
getherto thetasteofthisgeneration;
and methodsofperformance
mayhavemuchto answer
thereare a fewnoblenocturnes;
and
ofthetime-pulse,
of someothers.Morevigor,a quickening
forthesentimentalizing
touchwillrescuethemfromlushsentiment....Mostofthemarecalled
a lesslanguishing
and
false.The poeticsideof menofgeniusis feminine,
a termpsychologically
feminine,
in Chopinthe femininenotewas overemphasized-attimesit was almosthystericalin thesenocturnes.37
particularly
By now,the constructionof gender behind Huneker's repeated use of such adjecis clear. But it is interestingto witnessHuneker's reaction to
tives as sentimental
these and other "feminine"traits.He did not, like Niecks, simplyconsign the
nocturnesto a lesser hierarchicalcategory.Rather,he tried,in JudithFetterly's
FirstHuneker urged
cleverneologism,to "immasculate"some of thenocturnes.38
a less "sentimental,"more "vigorous" performanceof them. And second he
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111
attemptedto coopt altogetherthe explicitcharacterizationof themas "feminine"
byquestioningthe psychologicalvalidityof theconcept.If (in a common romantic
is the "poeticside of men of genius,"thenitbecomes somehow
trope) "femininity"
less related to actual sex, and more a "neutral" (or neutered) featureof gifted
men.39
Devaluations of Chopin's nocturneswere usuallyframedin termsof general
praise for his output as a whole and at least guarded recognitionof his achievementsin the nocturnesthemselves.Nonetheless,in these negativejudgments we
can stilldetectthe reflectionof a largerissue in women'shistory.For throughout
the nineteenthcentury,and in many differentspheres of creativework,genres
that were primarilythe purviewof men (as producers and/orconsumers) were
privileged.Genres cultivatedbywomen,on theotherhand, were relegatedto the
margins of the aesthetichorizon. Writingof an earlier period, Janet Todd has
recentlyargued thatthe belittlementof sentimentalwritingin the late eighteenth
centuryderived in part from its association with women readers and writers;
reactionsagainst itwere oftenframedin termsof manliness,of men speaking to
men.40
These are preciselythe termswe encountera centurylater in the criticisms
of Niecks and Huneker.4' Each in his own way longed for "masculine vigor" to
conquer the "feminine"qualitiestheyfound in Chopin. In adopting thisoutlook,
Niecks and Huneker took part in the broader culturalprojectthatgrantedprivileged status to the larger musical genres practiced by men. This attitudetoo
would workagainst Chopin in the late nineteenthand earlytwentiethcenturies,
in the commonplace derogation of his effortsin larger genres like the concerto
and sonata. Criticsof the time found it simplyimplausible that the "feminine"
Chopin could crafta sonata that measured up to the great traditionof Mozart
and Beethoven.
Given that we of late have repressed most of these explicitassociations of
feminineimagerywiththe nocturne,by what process was the genre "retrieved"
fromthe femininesphere earlyin thetwentiethcentury?A shiftin thinkingabout
the genre-at least as itrelatedto Chopin-can be detectedearlyin the twentieth
centuryin diverse sources,includingpianistsand analysts.ArturRubinsteinfreof Chopin awayfromthe
quentlygave himselfcreditforsteeringinterpretations
"salon style"-itselfan encoded referenceto "women'smusic"-of the late nineteenth century.In his memoirs, Rubinstein disparaged the performances of
Chopin he attended as a youth,whichled him initiallyto adopt, as he wrote"the
generallyaccepted opinion of Chopin as the young, sick,romanticfigurewho
wrotesentimentalmusicforthe piano." But his epiphanycame when he was able
to hear "Chopin's musicas itshould sound,"thatis expressing,among otherqualities,"dignityand strength,"qualitiesfound in his favoritecomposer of the time,
Brahms.42
Theorists did not state theirpositionsquite so baldly,but the veryfactthat
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devoted serious analytical
the likesof Heinrich Schenkerand Hugo Leichtentritt
attentionto the nocturnesof Chopin served to "validate"the genre by negating
itsgendered past. Analyseslike Schenker'sthatsoughtto laybare thebackground
structureof a musicalworkglossed over the same sense of detail thathelped link
the nocturnewiththe femininein the firstplace. Analyticaldetail remained, of
course, but of a "deep" not "surface"variety,and of a sortthatcommentatorslike
Kahlert already in the nineteenthcenturywould have found appropriate to
"great,German" art.43
examined in his analyticaloverviewof Chopin's
The firstgenre Leichtentritt
music was the nocturne,and his introductorycommentsare instructivefor the
wayin whichtheysituateChopin's contributionsto the genre in history.Leichtentrittcited Field and Schubert as progenitorsof the Chopin nocturnes.He also
specifiedgeneric,formal,melodic,and harmonicties to worksof Mendelssohn,
But he nowhere
Schumann, Liszt,Rossini,Bellini,Grieg,Brahms,and Wagner.44
linked the genre to women; his language avoids even covertlyfeminineimagery.
In effect,his chronicle of affiliationsasserts that Chopin's nocturnestook part
solelyin the great traditionof male masterworks.Yet by stressingtieswithother
told only part
composers and neglectingassociationswithwomen, Leichtentritt
of the story:he neutralizedthe past. By such routes the nocturneeventuallylost
to the feminine.
much of itsexplicitaffinity
Nocturnal Love Songs and the Female Listener:
"Voice" and the "Double-Voiced Discourse"
While I have thus far stressed only the tendency toward feminine
imageryin reactionsto the nocturne,thiswas not the onlytypeof response to the
genre in the nineteenthcentury.The generic origins of the piano nocturne,
whichgrewout of the vocal kindof the same name, also led to a situationin which
both the conception and perception of the nocturnewere bound to metaphors
associated with "voice"-by which termI refercollectivelyto figuresthat evoke
vocal musicratherthanto Edward Cone's conceptof musicalpersonae.45In 1839,
Carl Czerny described the expectationsmanylistenersbroughtto the genre:
isreallyan imitation
ofthosevocalpieceswhicharetermed
forthePianoforte
The Notturno
before
bynight,
and thepeculiarobjectofsuchworks-thatofbeingperformed
Serenades,
the dwellingof an esteemedindividual-mustalwaysexercisean influenceupon its
character.6
Czernyimplied thatmanylistenersunderstoodthe piano nocturneto be roughly
equivalent to itvocal counterpart;theyvieweditquite literallyas a "song without
words." And Czerny'sidentificationof the piano nocturneas a transmutationof
its vocal namesake receives confirmationfrom another,very differentsource.
The frontispieceto the Hofmeistereditionof Ignacy Dobrzyn'ski'sTroisNocturnes
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113
op. 21, sportsan engraving(fig.2). A man, accompanyinghimpourlepianoforte,
selfon a guitar,singsthenocturneto hisbeloved,who watchesfromher window.47
Anotheramorous couple strollsin thedarkened streetin thebackground.Cupid,
silhouettedby the moon, surveysthe entire scene, arrow ready to flyfrom his
bow. This narrativealone would suggestthatvocal associationswere part of the
piano nocturne;it seems to translategraphicallyCzerny'swordsabout the "peculiar object" of nocturnes,"thatof being performedbynight,before the dwelling
of an esteemed individual." And a quick surveyof some poetic textsfor vocal
nocturnes,which tend to be addressed frommen to women, confirmsthe ubiquityof the performingsituationrepresentedin the engraving.48
minds a
But if a nocturne in one sense representedto nineteenth-century
kind of love poem sung by a man to woman, how could it also be perceived, to
recall our earlierdiscussion,as a mirrorof the femininespirit?On the one hand,
a nocturne found its embodimentin the actionsof a man; on the other hand, it
expressed the soul of a woman. The genre appears to have been engendered in
contraryways.How can we account forthiscontradiction?
Again, we need to remindourselvesthatboth of thesevisionsof the nocturne
were articulatedprimarilyby men. Thus, as Ruth Solie has recentlysuggestedin
connectionwiththe impersonationof women'sexperiencein Schumann'sFrauenliebeund -leben,the disparitymostlyinformsus about the mindsetof men at the
time: it cannot be taken as an accurate representationof feminineresponse to
the genre.49Instead, we can see in itan idealized conceptionof women of the sort
thatproliferatedin the late eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies(Solie mentions
Goethe's das ewigWeibliche).
Through the simultaneousportrayalof the nocturne
as a woman's"entirelife"(to quote again Fink'sreviewof Chopin's Nocturnes,op.
15), but a lifesomehow orientedtowardbeing courted bya man, the message of
the genre served to reinforcea widespread ideological stance.
But what of the responses of women to thisideology? How mighta female
pianistof the timehave reacted to whatmusthave been a typicalsituationforher
performanceof a nocturne?Here again, the same environmentthatRuth Solie
und -lebenmustalso have existedfora pianist
imagined fora singerof Frauenliebe
performinga nocturne(see fig. 1). She likelyplayed in a house in frontof men;
the nocturne was probablywrittenby a man; its expressivemessage was determined by men, and the ultimatepoint of the message was the satisfactionto be
gained in being wooed bya man. To be sure, forsome such pianiststhe situation
would have seemed entirely"normal,"and not worthyof reflection.
in thisstateof affairswould have
Butjust as surely,forothersthe asymmetry
seemed anythingbut normal. I make this assertionfor two reasons. First,the
risingsubcultureof women'smovementsacrossEurope in the nineteenthcentury
suggeststhat the mainstreamideological message of the nocturne cannot have
had an absolutelysecure hold on all listeners.And second, scholars of women's
historyhave uncoveredinstanceafterinstanceof womenchallenginga pervasive
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mode of interpretationforced upon them by men. Two particularlymoving
examples concern artisticportrayalsof male sexual aggression. First,Mary D.
Garrard convincinglyshows that the expressivecore of ArtemisiaGentileschi's
paintingof Susanna and theEldersresides in the victim'splight,not the villains'
anticipatedpleasure as in other,more familiarversionsof the subjectO5Garrard
furtherargues that Gentileschi'ssympathetictreatmentof the Susanna theme
owed much to her own feelingsof sexual vulnerability
at thetimeof the painting,
a year before she was actuallythe victimof a rape. And second,JanetTodd records the outrage of one of Samuel Richardson'sfirstreaders,Lady Echlin,upon
reading Clarissa.So disturbedwas Lady Echlin thatshe composed a new ending
to protectherselfagainst"those passages so horriblyshockingto humanity."'"
All of this suggeststhe likelihood that some listeners(lay and professional
alike) mightnot have entirelyaccepted the prevalentimage of the nocturnein
the nineteenthcentury.Surelysome performancesof nocturnesencounteredlisteners who at least partiallyresistedthe ideological message of the genre, who
questioned the need to "listenlike men" to this "feminine"kind.52(If we grant
thispoint,we can furtherimaginethe possiblevarietyof experiencesenfolded in
performancesof nocturnes:male composers impersonatingfemale experience,
2. Title page,
[Ignacy] Felix Dobrzynski,
TroisNocturnes
pourle
pianoforte,
op. 2 1, c. 1835.
Photo: Staatsbibliothek
PreussischerKulturbesitz.
FIGURE
~
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CoA 1
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1e
PA in
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115
men listeningto women,women listeninglike men [listeningto women],women
tryingnot to listenlike men [listeningto women]-everything,itwould seem, but
women listeninglikewomen.)And tojudge fromevidencein therepresentational
artsof the nineteenthcentury,we mightexpect thatthe listenerswho challenged
or questioned the patriarchaltraditionmaywell have found themselvesin a particularlyambiguous relationshipto thispractice.
But we need to go beyond speculation. For the instrumentalnocturne,can
we uncover traces of female listenerswho, although dependent upon a patriarchal frameof reference,nonethelessintimatedwoman-centeredmeanings?Or,
said anotherway,can we findevidenceof a "double-voiceddiscourse"in therealm
of the nocturne?53
The Composer as Listener:
Two Nocturnes by Women
At the present time,we have only limiteddocumentationof specific
feminineresponses to music. Whereas one can investigatethe reactionsof men
of the time with relative ease-men were the criticsfor the newspapers, and
the correspondence and diaries of well-knownmale composers tend to be published in some form-the responses of women, who were for the most part excluded fromjournalism and were not well-knowncomposers,are not as directly
retrievable.
For a few notable figureslike Clara Wieck Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, however,we have excellentaccess to theircorrespondenceand diaries.54 Occasional passages in these published sources support a tentative
hypothesisthat some women were trained to "listenlike men," and moreover,
thatthisexperience led to a conflictor internaldivision.Clara Wieck'sdiaries and
correspondenceprovidegood examples. As is wellknown,she held contradictory
feelingsabout her work as a composer; at times she was very happy with her
efforts,at timesquite displeased. But the termsin whichshe expressed her displeasure could be revealing.For instance,on 11 November 1839 she wrotein her
diary:
I once believedthatI possessedcreativetalent,butI havechangedmymindaboutthis
mustnotwishtocompose-no one has yetbeenable to
idea; a woman[einFrauenzimmer]
withwhichonlymy
something
do it,shouldI be destinedforit?thatwouldbe arrogant,
fatheronce temptedme in earliertimes,butI soonchangedmymindaboutthisbelief.
MayRobertonlystillcreate;thatshouldalwaysmakemehappy.55
And about her own Trio, she wrotein her diaryon 2 October 1846:
oneselfand thenlistening
to it.
There is no greaterpleasurethancomposingsomething
There are somenicepassagesin theTrio,and I believeitis also ratherwelldone in its
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whichalwayslacks force
form,naturallyit stillremainswomen'swork[Frauenzimmerarbeit],
and hereand thereinvention.
Wieck deprecated herselfin termsdrawn directlyfromthe prevailingmale ideology of the day. Particularlystrikingis her definitionof "women'swork"as that
which "lacks force,"for the descriptioncould be transferredintactinto manyof
the reviewsand descriptionsof the nocturnecited above.
Yet anothermeans of understandinghow women in the firsthalfof the nineteenth centurymighthave listened to nocturnesis to examine nocturnescomposed by them. This is both to view these composers as a special categoryof
listenerand to treattheirnocturnesas responses (at least partly)to the predominantlymale generic tradition.And it is also to invoke,for the firsttime in this
study,the vocabularyof traditionalmusicalanalysis.But whilethejargon maybe
familiarto musicologists,the use to whichI put it differsin one crucialway from
ordinarymusicologicalpractice: I explicitlymean my analyticalobservationsto
serve as representationsof documented earlynineteenth-century
perceptionsof
the genre. Because all representationsof thissortare incompletetranslationsof
the past, heavilyburdened by and implicatedin the present,it mighttherefore
seem thatI am guiltyof mere sleight-of-(critical)-hand,
promotingas new method
the same, tired bag of analyticaltricks.But thisundervalues the significanceof
the move fromunderstandingfamiliaranalyticalidiomsas expressionsof an ideal
or individual listenerto grasping them as sociallyconstructedrepresentations.
Shiftingfroma univocal to a polyvocalanalyticaldiscourseat least raises the possibilityof bringingthe aims of feminismand musicalanalysisintoa similarcritical
orbit.
I wantto focusprimarilyon a NotturnobyClara Wieck,and to a lesserdegree
on one byFannyHensel. These twostunningexamples of thegenre standin some
interestingwaysapart fromthe effortsof Field and Chopin.57The WieckNotturno
formspart of her Soireesmusicales,op. 6, whichwas composed in 1835-1836 and
published in 1836.58The autograph manuscriptof Hensel's Notturnobears the
date 15 October 1838; the work,whichshe withheldfrompublication,was first
printedonly in 1986.59
In musical outline,includingitsharmonicinventiveness,treatmentof dissonance, rhythmicvariety,clever dispositionof form,and wistfulcoda, the Wieck
nocturneis an extraordinarywork.But our main concern here is what the piece
mighttell us about Wieck'sreading of the generic tradition.In thisregard, two
excerpts seem particularlynoteworthy:the opening measures of the piece, and
itsmiddle section(figs.3 and 4). In bothof thesepassages, Wieckrevealed herself
as a progressive.Rather than followingthe model of Field, she instead adapted
innovativegesturesintroduced into the genre by Chopin only a fewshortyears
earlier.
crucialto any genre,foralong
Firstthe opening. Beginningsare strategically
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117
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1
withthe titletheycan establishthe appropriate mentalframeforthe apprehension of the generic codes of the work. In the firstfew measures of nocturnes,
Wieck'sincluded, several featuresgenerallydhelp evoke the gentleand ethereal
spiritthatcommentators(and presumablylisteners)of the day identifiedwiththe
genre.60But likeonlythenocturnesof Chopin before,theWieckpiece at thesame
to subvertthe feelingof surfacestabilityat the start.
time seems surreptitiously
We can detect two elementsof the opening that undercut stability:1) the tonic
pedal (i.e., thereiteratedF in thelefthand), which,occurringso earlyin the piece,
produces a feelingof anticipatorytension-we expect change, not stasis,at this
juncture of a work-and 2) the cunningplacementof the dissonantand unstable
augmented triad (f-a-c#)as accompaniment for the firstnotes of the melody.
(The augmented triad becomes a kind of referencesonorityin the piece, recurring in each statementof the primarytune as well as the transitionback to the
repriseand the coda.) Hence the opening measures of the Wiecknocturnesubtly
undermine the "normal" associationsof serenitythatattached to the genre and
substitutein theirplace a kind of latentdynamism.
The functionallycontrastingmiddle section of the Wieck nocturne (it projects a differentmood fromthe opening section) again runs counter to Field's
conception of the genre, and instead sides withChopin's-but only to a degree.
Before Chopin, middle sections themselveswere infrequentin nocturnes,and
when theydid appear, theymostlyleftundisturbedthe generic mood of tranquility.Chopin howeverintroducedradical shiftsin mood in his middle sections;
initiallyhe did so chieflybyimportingtechniquesfroma foreigngenre,the etude
(good examples occur in the middle sectionsof the Nocturnesin B Major, op. 9,
no. 3; and F Major, op. 15, no. 1).61
These agitated middle sectionsdeparted so sharplyfromthe Fieldian tradition of the genre thata wide spectrumof his listeners,includingthe progressive
Robert Schumann, doubted the proprietyof the gesture.62Yet no other innovationwas so quicklyrecognizedas derivingspecificallyfromChopin. Wieck'sdecision to adopt a contrastingmiddle section would plainly have linked her with
Chopin in the minds of her contemporaries.
Nonetheless,the middle sectionin the Wiecknocturnesounds differentfrom
the typicalexample in early Chopin: the sense of contrastwiththe opening section seems more muted. It is as though Wieckdecided to take a positionmidway
between the older Fieldian traditionand Chopin's recentchallenge to thistradition. Through her nocturne,she seems to assertthat,while the addition of functional contrastadds positivelyto the generictradition,thiscontrastneeds to be
kept in check so thatit does not upset listenersbyapparentlyreferringto foreign
genres like the etude.63
From these passages we gain a sense of Wieck'sprecarious strugglewiththe
prevailingdiscourseon the nocturne.(Her diarieshave alreadyframedthischaracteristicallyambiguous stance forus.) On the one hand, underminingthe calm
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119
of the opening in favorof a latentdynamismsuggestsa rebuttalto (or a complication of) the notion thatonly placid sensationsare appropriate to the opening
of a "feminine"nocturne. On the other hand, mutingthe vigor of the Chopinlike middle sectionsuggestsa fear thatsuch assertiveness,leftunchecked,might
ultimatelycoopt the nocturneout of the femininesphere,and so deprive women
of one of the fewgenres deemed appropriate forthem.Wieck faced a powerful
predicament,bothstrainingagainstand constrainedbytheculturallyconstructed
values of musical "assertiveness."And onlyin some idyllicrealm of fantasycould
she have found a homogeneous resolutionto this predicament.Hence, just as
the genre transmitteda message of conflictedidentityof gender, so too Clara
Wieck must have been divided against herselfin her response to the "feminine"
nocturne.
The storyof Wieck'snocturnedoes not end here, for the piece also figured
as an encoded signof RobertSchumann'slove forWieckduringtheirclandestine
engagement. On 6 February 1838, Robertwroteto Clara about his recentburst
of creativeactivity:
And thenI havealsobeencomposingan awfullotforyouinthelastthreeweeks-jocular
a wedding,
inshortextremely
sceneswithfathers,
charming
family
Egmontstories,
things,
[sic],becauseyouarenamedClaraandWieckettes
things-andcalledthewholeNovelettes
does notsoundgood enough.64
Imagining Clara, but unwillingto name her publicly,Schumann drew his title
fromthe name of another well-knownmusical Clara, the singer Clara Novello.
stillfreshon his mind, Robert let slip,
And five days later,with the Novellettes
unconsciouslyperhaps, the presence of another covertmusical signal to Clara:
ofyoursis forme-Your Notturno
Do youknowwhatthemostpreciousthing[dasLiebste]
melancholy
in F Majorin six-eight
time.Whatdo youthinkaboutthat?It is sufficiently
I think.Then theTriofromtheToccatina.65
[Schwermiithig],
thefirstpiece in theSoirees
(That Schumann also loved theTrio fromtheToccatina,
Musicales,is not surprising,given that it practicallyduplicates the melody and
When Clara finallysaw
harmonyof the opening themeof the followingNotturno.)
the completedNovellettes,
however,the signalbecame clear,forRoberthad incorporated-without attributingit (contraryto his practicewithother borrowings
Schuinto his eighthNovellette.
from Wieck)-the opening tune of the Notturno
mann firstintroducedthe theme as an eerilyinterruptive"distantvoice" (Stimme
aus derFerne)at the end of the Trio II, and then recalled it twicein varied form
(the variationsare substantialenough that we mightbetter say that he trans-
ofWieck'stheme;see figs.5_7).66
character
formedtheexpressive
bears telling for two
This tale of the immediate reception of the Notturno
of
this
related
to
the
essay,Schumann's
argument
and
most
directly
reasons. First,
as Wieck's"mostprecious"workshowsyetone more
of theNotturno
identification
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121
way in which the genre served both to shape and to reinforcecommonlyheld
In otherwords,I thinkit significantthathe prized precisely
ideas of femininity.
a nocturneand not a ballade, mazurka,polonaise, impromptu,or piano concerto
(to name other genres in whichClara had worked to thatpoint). For Robert,the
Notturnonot only embodied a generalized femininespirit,it also represented
quite literallyhis beloved Clara. We can thereforeread his favoringof it as a sign
upset his musicalexpectationsfora nocturne.
thatthe piece did not significantly
And should Robert have sensed any generic dissonance arising from Clara's
authorshipin a genre thatordinarilywas understood to recall the love song of a
effecman to a woman, his appropriationof her principalthemein the Novellette
tivelyreversed the direction of the address: now the nocturne-its theme, at
least-did quite literallytransmita message of love froma man to a woman. Robert'sact of quotation would have in part served to redressthe balance of gender
in thisnocturne,and so to lend it a kind of culturalvalue ordinarilyhard won by
''women's''music.
Second, the nature of Schumann'squotation itselfmay well bear on Wieck's
ambivalentself-imageas a composer. For careful comparison of Clara's theme
showsthateven on itsinitialhearing,
withitsrepresentationsin Robert'sNovellette
Schumann altered Wieck's theme in several ways. In addition to the obviously
disjunctiverhythmof the accompanimentalpattern,whichin large measure conveys the effectof "distance" Schumann wanted, I would note in particularthe
subtle harmonic change Schumann made at the moment the melody begins.67
=
446=
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122
7.
REPRESENTATIONS
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(if unstable) augmented triad in Wieck now
What had been a straightforward
becomes, withthe addition of the mid-rangec#,a harmonicentitya good deal
more complicated (it maybe scanned eitheras an F# major triadover a D pedal
or as an augmented D triad witha dissonantc# appoggiatura). It is difficultto
imagine any strongcontextualreasons whySchumann would have opted forthis
c#; a d maybe substituted,restoringthe unadulteratedaugmentedtriad,without
disturbingthe frameworkof the phrase. Rather,as becomes clear in the twovariof Wieck'stheme,neitherof whichpreservesthe augationscumtransformations
mented harmony,Schumann simply"composed out" Wieck'sdistinctivetriadon
personal aestheticgrounds.
My point here is not to argue the relativemeritsof Wieck'sharmonization
against Schumann's. Rather it is to contemplatethe effectsthatRobert'srevision
of Clara's theme-and this is not the only instance of such retouching-might
As is thecase in so manyotherfacetsof Wieck's
have had on her creativepsyche.68
life,the situationseems fraughtwithambiguity.On theone hand, we surelymust
concur with Nancy Reich's reading of Robert's quotations as evidence of the
"uncommonunity"and "extraordinarysharingand flowingof ideas" betweenthe
twolovers.69On the otherhand, we cannot help but wonder ifRobert'srewriting
contributedto Clara's basic indecisivenessover the worthof her own composiitsuggestsat theveryleasta kind
tions.When quotationbecomes transformation,
of exertionof Robert'sselfover Clara's, an "authorizing"of the femininework.
And itcalls intoquestion the proprietyof maintaining,as has one writer,thatthe
two"enjoyed a completedialogue, made possiblebya shared musicalheritage."70
Wieck wroteto Robert thatshe harbored "a peculiar fear of showingyou any of
mycompositions,I am alwaysashamed of myself,"and we knowthatshe objected
to alterationsSchumann suggested for the thirdRomancefrom her opus 11.71
When we note in addition thatWieck'ssole quotationof Schumann,in her "Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann,"op. 20, is almostentirelyfaithfulto its
in Schumann'sBiinteBldtter,
op. 99), we sense thatthe
source (the firstAlbumblatt
"dialogue" may have seemed more complete from Robert's side than from
Clara's.72With such basic asymmetryin compositionaloutlooks confrontingher
seem to emanate
at everyturn,it is no wonder that workssuch as the Notturno
conflict.
readingof thetradition
providesa different
FannyHensel's G-minorNotturno
of the nocturne.It directlyengages the Fieldian model, avoidingthe typeof contrastingsectionsimportedinto the genre by Chopin. Instead, its formalprocess
develops out of thejuxtapositionof shortthematicphrases,the accompaniments
of whichremainmostlyunchanged in style(fig.8 showstheopening of the piece).
In writingthisway,she may have followeda familyprejudice: as writersin the
1830s and 1840s noted, her brotherFelix Mendelssohn's"Songs withoutWords"
are similarlyrooted in the Fieldian nocturne.73
Yet Hensel's nocturneat the same time departs fromthe Fieldian model in
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123
Hi-_
3
-
m-
X
FIGURE 8.
One essentialway.Roughly two-thirdsof the way throughthe piece the opening
theme returns with sufficientweight as almost-but not quite-to suggest a
reprise (fig.9). What gives the momentitsimportis thatit marksthe firstunambiguous dominant-toniccadence in the piece. Earlier,everyapparent cadential
progression proves to be a deceptive feint,along the way slidingthroughsome
fairlyextraordinarychromaticbyways(fig.10). Chopin, in hisFieldian nocturnes,
was up to similartricks(somewhattentativelyin the D-flatMajor op. 27, no. 2,
and more emphaticallyin the E-flatMajor op. 55, no. 2). But if the firstof these
pieces at all influencedHensel (the second had yetto be written),thenshe plainly
went beyond the Chopin model in more decidedly imposing a sense of higherlevel structure,of formalreturn,on the processivephrases.
Hensel's at once confrontsthe generictraditionand is
Like Wieck'sNotturno,
implicatedin it too. In itself,thiscombinationof innovationand traditionmight
not seem noteworthy:the new alwayscomes withan admixtureof the old, and a
similar pattern could undoubtedly be detected in any competentwork in any
genre. Yet a common gesture need not arise out of common motives.We need
also to consider Hensel's peculiar statusas a woman composer. The published
correspondence with her brother Felix often reveals a profound ambivalence
1 24
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~~~~~~~~~~poco
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125
about composing and publishing,as in this passage writtenon 22 November
1836:
I standlikethedonkeybetweentwobalesofhay.Allthesame
Withregardto publishing
thatI myself
amratherneutralaboutit;Henselwishesit,youare
I havetoadmithonestly
withthewishesof myhusbandin anyother
againstit. I wouldof coursecomplytotally
itI
matter,
yeton thisissuealoneit'stoocrucialforme to haveyourconsent,forwithout
ofthekind.74
mightnotundertakeanything
The implied comparison (a manifestone in other letters)of her own talentsto
thatexpressed itselfthrough
those of her brotherand the lack of self-confidence
the conscious stiflingof her artisticimpulsestogethercast the formalexperiment
in a differentlight.In other words,to view Hensel's nocturneas
in the Notturno
simplyanother exemplar in the great traditionof the genre is to whitewashthe
mostessentialfeatureof itsrelationshipto thistradition.For her experiencewith
the genre plainlydifferedfromthatof her male contemporaries.In the end, her
challenge to it remained a personal battle; she never published the nocturne.75
Can we imagine Chopin making the same decision with a piece of this high
quality?The message fromFannyHensel seems to be thatchallengesto tradition
must be confined to privatemusical statements,that for a woman there lurked
unstateddangers in publiclyconfrontingthe orthodoxy.
To investigatewomen and the piano nocturnein the nineteenthcentury
is to uncover stories of devaluation, marginalization,and sometimesoutright
exclusion-but also to discoverintimationsof individualvoices questioningthe
withthe
patriarchaltradition.We have learned thatthe associationof femininity
nocturneserved to reinforcean idealized male viewof womanhood,one thatmay
have had littleconnectionwiththe perceptionsof women themselves.Signs of
challenge on the part of female composers were at best muted and ambiguous,
at worst held from public view. And when a reaction to the prevalence of this
in the nocturnebegan in the second half of the century,the affilia"femininity"
tion withwomen acted like an aestheticlead sinkeron the nocturne,pulling it
swiftlydown the hierarchyinto the murkydepths of sentimentalsalon music.
What do these stories lead us to conclude about the potential of musical
analysisfora feministmusicology?On the one hand, I thinkwe stillmustbe wary
of the music historian'sreflexto analyze. Projectsthatveer towarda note-by-note
mapping of musical discourse onto structuresof feministthoughtmay,by privilegingcomposer-centeredconceptsoversocietalones, unconsciouslypromotethe
patriarchalagendas theyostensiblywould deny. I have not entirelyescaped this
tendencyhere. Yetin the processof examiningthe nocturnesof twowomen comanalysis(or at leastclose working
posers,I have shownhow,ifsituatedhistorically,
withthe notes) can aid our formationof past musical ideologies. So something
likeanalysismightbe of some serviceto a feministmusichistoryafterall. I realize
126
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thisfallsshortof a ringingendorsementof the concept. But to wishotherwiseis
to riskslightingthemore significant
insightsintoconstructionsof gender in music
thatare likelyto followfromthe explorationof alternativeepistemologies.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
I wishto thankaudiences in the Departmentsof Music at Cornell University,
the Universityof California at Berkeley,the Universityof Pennsylvania,CUNY Graduate
as well as those at the Second InternationalChopin
Center,and StanfordUniversity,
Symposiumin Warsaw(1989) and the Annual Meetingof the AmericanMusicological
Societyin Oakland (1990); theirquestions and commentson earlier versionsof this
paper helped greatlyin the processof revisingit forpublication.Particularlyvaluable
to me on these occasions were remarksby John Rink and PeterJaffe.I have also
benefittedenormouslyfromthe careful readings of Ruth Solie, Marcia Citron,and
Gary Tomlinson.
Teresa de Lauretis, "The Technology of Gender," in Technologies
of Gender(Bloomington,Ind., 1987), 5.
For a thorough expositionof how the language of formalistcriticismplaces barriers
in the path of social and cultural history,see Rose Rosengard Subotnik,"Toward a
Deconstructionof StructuralListening:A Critiqueof Schoenberg,Adorno, and Strain Music,theArts,and Ideas: Essaysin HonorofLeonardB. Meyer,
vinsky,"in Explorations
ed. Eugene Narmour and Ruth A. Solie (Stuyvesant,N.Y., 1988), 87-122.
I find this often to be the case in the writingsof Susan McClary. Throughout her
otherwisefinelynuanced collectionof essays,McClaryappeals to "the common semiotic codes of European classical music" to bolsterher readings of the gendered and
sexualized natureof such chronologicallyand culturallydivergentworksas Monteverdi's Orfeo,Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor,
Bizet's
Carmen,and Tchaikovsky'sFourth Symphony;FeminineEndings:Music, Gender,and
Sexuality
(Minneapolis, 1991). She premisesher discussionson thebeliefthat"anyfiveyear-oldhas sufficient
experience fromwatchingSaturdaymorningcartoonsto verify
mostof the signs[she] willread" (68). But thisis to ground her criticismin whatseems
to me to be an unsupportable beliefin the immutablenature of semioticcodes. Did
listenersin the 1820s reallyhear the "unspeakable violence"and "explosiverage" that
McClaryfindsat various momentsof Beethoven'sNinthSymphony(128-30)? I think
it more likelythat McClary instead has documented (and documented valuably) a
sexual politicsthatgovernsthe hearingof some modernlisteners;what remains silent
in her exposition are the voices of Beethoven'sgeneration.Moreover,the appeal to
semioticcodes of any sort is worrisome,for in most criticalapplicationsthese codes
turnout to representa kind of deep structuralanalysisonce removed,and therefore
no more societallybased than any otherreductivetheory.
Similar discrepancies between the enterprisesof feminismand music analysis
trouble both Eva Rieger's and Lawrence Kramer's examinationsof gendered meanings in Liszt's Faust Symphony.See Eva Rieger, Frau, Musik,und Mdnnerherrschaft
(Frankfurt,1981), 139-40; and Lawrence Kramer,"Liszt,Goethe, and the Discourse
of Gender,"Musicas CulturalPractice,1800-1900 (Berkeley,1990), 102-34.
The precariousnessof thissecond alternativeis particularlyclear to me. It both tinges
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127
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
128
the firstalternativewiththe shadow of a traditionalmode of explanationand suggests
thatI am unable to freemyselffromorthodoxanalyticalgestures.On the otherhand,
at thisstage (and perhaps at any stage) it would be naive to expect anythingbut slippery epistemologicalground when tryingto reconcileor confrontthe disciplinesof
feministstudiesand music history.At the veryleast,then,myalternativemodels may
open the way formore radical perspectives.
My understandingof genre derives in large part frommodels developed by literary
critics.Of the several studiesthatinfluencedme, I willmentionherejust three: Gary
Saul Morson, TheBoundariesofGenre:Dostoevsky's
"Diaryofa Writer"
and theTraditions
of
An Introduction
Literary
Utopia(Austin,Tex., 1981); AlastairFowler,KindsofLiterature:
totheTheory
ofGenresandModes(Cambridge,Mass., 1982); and Heather Dubrow,Genre,
The CriticalIdiom, vol. 42 (London, 1982).
I am chagrinedto admitthatthisbasic questionoccurredto me onlywhen I had nearly
completed the firstdraftof mybook. In otherwords,fora long time I was contentto
formulatea model of listeners'responses to the nocturnewhile simplyignoringwho
actuallymade up thatbody.This was tantamountto assertinga "neutral"audiencebut of course, frommyside, "neutral"had a decidedly"male" cast. Patternsof exclusion run deep: even when one is made aware of the social dimensionsof an issue like
genre, one can forgetthatsocietyis a gendered construct.
See in particularthe discussions in Janet Todd, Feminist
Literary
History(New York,
1988), 136; and Rita Felski,BeyondFeministAesthetics:
FeministLiteratureand Social
Change(Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 82-153.
JeffreyKallberg, "The Rhetoric of Genre: Chopin's Nocturne in G Minor," 19thCenturyMusic 11 (1988): 238-61. This article also gives a fuller explication of the
relevance of the theoryof genre to musicalcriticism.
Handwurterbuch
dermusikalischen
TerChristophvon Blumr6der,"Notturno/Nocturne,"
ed. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht(Wiesbaden, 1982-1983), 9-10.
minologie,
G. W. Fink,Allgemeine
musikalische
Zeitung,13 August 1834, col. 543. Translationsin
thisarticleare myown, unless otherwisecited.
musikalische
Allgemeine
Zeitung,20 July1836, col. 473.
der Tonkunst,
2 vols. (Jena, 1841), 2:314ff.; cited in von
Ferdinand Hand, Aesthetik
9-10.
Blumroder,"Notturno/Nocturne,"
musikalische
Carl Kossmaly,Allgemeine
Zeitung,17 January1844, col. 34.
Maurice Bourges, "Lettresa Mme La Baronne de *** surquelques morceaux de piano
modernes. Quatrieme Lettre,"Revue et Gazettemusicalede Paris, 17 April 1842, 171.
The same strategyoccurs in an unsigned reviewof three sets of nocturnesbyJ. C.
Kessler printedin Le Pianiste1 (1834): 124-25.
Robert Schumann,NeueZeitschriftfur
Musik,10 August 1838, 56.
Musical World,23 February1838, 120.
and Pianos. A Social History(New York, 1954), 64-67,
Arthur Loesser, Men, Women,
379-97, passim; WilliamWeber,Musicand theMiddleClass:TheSocialStructure
ofConcert
Lifein London,Paris,and Vienna(London, 1975), 35-36; JudithTick, AmericanWomen
Composers
Before1870 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1983), 13-31; Tick, "Passed Away Is the
Piano Girl: Changes in American Musical Life, 1870-1900," in Women
MakingMusic:
The Western
ArtTradition,
1150-1950, ed. Jane Bowers and Tick (Urbana, Ill., 1986),
325-48.
And it was not just the pianos of the middle class that were played mostlyby
women: amongstChopin's high-bornpupils,women outnumberedmen at the rate of
at least 3 to 1.
REPRESENTATIONS
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18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
and Pianos,382.
Cited fromLoesser,Men, Women
Le Pianiste,1835, 48; cited and translatedin Weber,Musicand theMiddleClass,35.
and Pianos,386.
Loesser, Men,Women
Richard Leppert, "Men, Women, and Music at Home: The Influence of Cultural
England,"ImagoMusicae2 (1985): 51Values on Musical Life in Eighteenth-Century
133. The quotationis takenfromhis "Music,DomesticLife,and CulturalChauvinism:
Images of BritishSubjects at Home in India," in Musicand Society:ThePoliticsofComed. Leppert and Susan McClary(Cambridge, 1987),
andReception,
Performance,
position,
85.
Henri Blanchard, RevueetGazettemusicalede Paris,10 January1847, 18.
There is a good discussionof nightimageryin von Blumroder's"Notturno/Nocturne,"
7-8. And recall the anonymous reviewof Chopin's Nocturnes,op. 27, cited above.
and theFeminine(New York, 1987).
Naomi Schor,Readingin Detail: Aesthetics
ofDecorativeArt(Ithaca,
Ernst Gombrich,The SenseofOrder:A Studyin thePsychology
N.Y., 1979), 23; citationfromSchor,Readingin Detail, 19.
Svetlana Alpers, "ArtHistoryand Its Exclusions: The Example of Dutch Art,"in FemtheLitany,ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard
inismand ArtHistory:Questioning
(New York, 1982), 180-99.
28. Ibid., 195.
Ibid., 194.
Schor,Readingin Detail,20.
Musik,
August Kahlert,"Die Genrebilderin der modernen Musik,"NeueZeitschriftfiur
12 June 1835, 189-91.
Ibid., 190-91.
Schor does document the risinginterestin and greatervalue assigned to detail beginning with Hegel and the rise of realism and continuingto the presentday. But she
also observesthatthe growthof realismdid not lessen criticismof detailin some quarters,but instead made it more shrill.Moreover,even when the detail attainedpositive
to the feminine;Readingin
associations,it did not, untilveryrecently,lose itsaffinity
Detail,23-97.
In an 1834 article entitled "Uber Chopin's Klavier-Kompositionen,"Kahlert registered his astonishmentat and admirationforChopin's skillsas a pianist.A portionof
thisarticleis printedin Jean-JacquesEigeldinger,Chopin:Pianistand Teacheras Seenby
His Pupils,trans.Naomi Shohet et al., ed. Roy Howat (Cambridge, 1986), 289-90.
10.
Cited fromvon Blumr6der,"Notturno/Nocturne,"
Frederick Niecks, FrederickChopinas a Man and Musician,2 vols. (London, 1902;
reprinted., New York, 1973), 2:261. The 1973 reprintreproduces a later edition of
the Niecks biography,whichwas firstpublishedin 1888.
Ibid., 2:213.
James Huneker, Chopin:The Man and His Music (New York, 1900; reprinted., New
York, 1966), 142.
ApproachtoAmericanFiction(BloomJudithFetterley,TheResistingReader:A Feminist
ington,Ind., 1978), xx.
a Feminist
Aesthetics
(Bloomington,Ind.,
Genderand Genius:Towards
ChristineBattersby,
justifications
1989), 103-112, provides an interestinganalysisof nineteenth-century
of the "feminine"side of male "genius."
An Introduction
(New York, 1986). Todd has also traced the
Janet Todd, Sensibility:
process whereby the extremelyhigh value placed by criticson early nineteenthcentury poetry writtenby men served to downgrade the predominant mode of
History,111-14.
Literary
didactic fictionpracticedbywomen at the same time;Feminist
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129
41. And Charles Ives's notoriousmoteven more succinctlyencapsulatesthisattitudeabout
Chopin: "One just naturallythinksof him witha skirton, but one which he made
himself";see Ives, Memos,ed. John Kirkpatrick(New York,1972), 134-35, as cited in
oftheAmerican
Maynard Solomon, "Charles Ives: Some Questions of Veracity,"Journal
40 (1987): 452.
MusicologicalSociety
42. ArturRubinstein,MyYoungYears(New York, 1973), 86-87.
43. Kahlert,"Die Genrebilder,"189.
Klavierwerke,
2 vols. (Berlin, 1921),
44. Hugo Leichtentritt,Analyseder Chopin'schen
1:1-2.
Voice(Berkeley,1974).
45. Edward Cone develops his theoryof personae in TheComposer's
For a precis of the generic background of the piano nocturne,see JeffreyKallberg,
of the EarlyPiano Nocturne,"AttidelXIV
"UnderstandingGenre: A Reinterpretation
di musicologia,
3 vols. (Turin, 1990), 3:775-79.
dellaSocietdinternazionale
Congresso
ofAll
46. Carl Czerny,SchoolofPracticalComposition:
CompleteTreatiseon theComposition
KindsofMusic,Opus 600, trans.John Bishop, 3 vols. (London, 1848; reprinted., New
York, 1979), 1:97.
47. WolfgangKrueger,tracingthe iconographyof depictionsof serenades back to the late
fifteenth
century,revealsthat,untilthe earlyeighteenthcentury,the woman was ordiEin
narilyportrayedemptyingher chamber pot on the singer'shead; Das Nachtstuck:
im 19. Jahrhundert
(Munich,
Pianofortestiickes
Beitragzur Entwicklungdes einsdtzigen
1971), 11-12 and 165-67.
48. For a late, transoceanicexample of such a text,considerthese lines:
Beautifuldreamer,queen of mysong,
List while I woo thee withsoftmelody;
Gone are the cares of life'sbusythrong,
Beautifuldreamer,awake unto me!
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
130
Stephen Foster's"Beautiful Dreamer" is by genre a serenade, but it could easily,as
Czerny suggestedabove, be taken fora nocturne.
Ruth Solie, "Whose Life?: The Gendered Self in Schumann'sFrauenliebeSongs," in
Musicand Text:CriticalInquiries,ed. StevenPaul Scher (Cambridge, 1992), 219-40. My
thanksare due to Prof.Solie forsharingthispaper withme priorto itspublication.
and ArtHistory,146-71.
Mary D. Garrard,"Artemisiaand Susanna," in Feminism
History,
123.
Todd, Feminist
Literary
The phrase "listenlike men"is adapted fromJonathanCuller's"Reading as a Woman"
in On Deconstruction:
and Criticism
Structuralism
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1982), 43-64.
Theory
After
Culler derived his formulationfromPeggyKamuf's "WritingLike a Woman,"Women
and Language in Literatureand Society,ed. Sally McConnell-Ginetet al. (New York,
1980), 284-99. The viewpointsof Kamufand Culler have subsequentlybeen criticized
by a number of writers;for an interestinganalysisof the dispute over "reading as a
woman," and in particularits relationshipto the question of essentialism,see Diana
Nature,and Difference
Speaking:Feminism,
Fuss, "Reading Like a Feminist,"in Essentially
(New York, 1989), 23-37.
On the "double-voiceddiscourse,"see Susan Sniader Lanser and EvelynTorton Beck,
"[Why]Are There No Great Women Critics?:And What DifferenceDoes It Make?,"
ed. JuliaA. Sherman and Evelyn
in ThePrismofSex:Essaysin theSociology
ofKnowledge,
Torton Beck (Madison, Wisc., 1979), 86; and Elaine Showalter,"FeministCriticismin
and Theory,
the Wilderness,"in TheNew Feminist
Criticism:
Literature,
Essayson Women,
ed. Showalter(New York, 1985), 263-64. MyraJehlendescribesmuch the same phe-
REPRESENTATIONS
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54.
55.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
nomenon in notingthe frequencyof "actiondespitedependence" in femininecreative
spheres; see "Archimedesand the Paradox of FeministCriticism,"Signs6 (1981): 581.
KritischeGeFor Wieck, see in particularClara and Robert Schumann, Briefwechsel:
samtausgabe,ed. Eva Weissweiler,2 vols. to date (Frankfurtam Main, 1984-); and
Arbeitin
kiinstlerischer
Beatrix Borchard,RobertSchumannundClara Wieck:Bedingungen
Ergebnisse der Frauenforschung,vol. 4 (Weinder erstenHdlftedes 19. Jahrhunderts,
ofFannyHenseltoFelixMendelssohn,
heim,W. Ger., 1985). For Mendelssohn,see Letters
ed. Marcia J. Citron (New York, 1987).
56. Ibid., 292.
Borchard, SchumannundWieck,232.
Although I will read the "double-voiced discourses"of the Wieck and Hensel nocturnesagainst models by Field and Chopin, I do not mean to implythatthe relation
of these men (or men in general) to this "feminine"genre was necessarilystable or
unproblematic.But it exceeds the scope of thisarticlefullyto explore the male side
of the equation here. I can only offera fewobservationsabout Chopin's case, which
particularlyinterestsme (I am investigatingthe topic in a separate study).While we
have already seen how Chopin's nocturnessufferedcriticallyin the late nineteenth
withthe feminine,in facthe had long before been
centurybecause of theiraffiliation
marked as either"feminine"or "androgynous"bysome of the metaphoricaldisplacements of his contemporaries.From the time he arrived in Paris, writersrepeatedly
drew on a small and related stockof metaphorsin theiraccountsof the composer,his
performances,and his music. "Raphaelesque," "the Trilbyof pianists,""the Ariel of
pianists,""an airyapparition,"and "smallfairyvoices sighingunder silverbells": these
and other gendered tropes frameddiscourse about Chopin during his lifetime.Chopin's own understandingof the "feminine"nocturneunfolded in the contextof these
all complexlyrelatedbut each also freighted
more general metaphoricalsubstitutions,
with individual meanings. And that the metaphors continuallyevoke notions of
draws our attentionto even more complicatedcontexts:Choandrogyny/femininity
and his relationshipswithwomen,above all with
pin'sratherill-definedsexual identity,
George Sand. Buffetedby all of these resonances,Chopin surelyfound writingnocturnesto be, at the veryleast,a psychicallycharged activity.
ed.
Klavierwerke,
For a modern edition, see Clara Wieck-Schumann,Ausgewdhlten
Janina Klassen (Munich, 1987), 27-30. Also available is a facsimilereprintof the origPiano Music(New York, 1979).
inal 1836 edition: Clara Wieck Schumann,Selected
ed. FannyKistner-Hensel(Munich, 1986),
See FannyHensel, Ausgewdhlte
Klavierwerke,
16-20.
Thus Czerny suggested that the characterof the nocturne "must be calculated to
create an impressionof a soft,fanciful,gracefullyromantic,or even passionate kind,
1:97.
but never of a harsh or strange";SchoolofPracticalComposition,
Readers withaccess to compact disc playerscan easilylocate these middle sections:in
Artur Rubinstein'ssomewhat understatedrecording of the complete Chopin Nocturnes(RCA Red Seal 5613-2-RC), the middle sectionof op. 9, no. 3, begins at 3:36,
and thatof op. 15, no. 1, begins at 1:27.
Schumann remarked in his reviewof Count von Wielhorsky'sNocturnes,op. 2, "In
the firstand last of the Notturnosare interwoven,afterthe example of some of Chomiddle sections,whichalready in Chopin are oftenweaker
pin's,agitated [bewegtere]
than his firstinventions,here also delayingmore than promotingcontinuity";Neue
Musik,10 August 1838, 56-57.
Zeitschrififtir
In a reversalof the patriarchalmode I have discussed here,Schumann'sviewof Chopin's middle sections may well reflectWieck's practice in the genre. As we will see
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131
64.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
132
was verymuch on his mind around the timehe draftedthe review
below,her Notturno
of Wielhorsky'sNocturnes.
1:90.
65. Ibid., 1:100.
Schumann,Briefwechsel,
These examples maybe heard on Youri Egorov'sexcellentcompact disc recordingof
(EMI CDM 7 69537 2): the passage in figure5 begins at 4:00; that in
the Novellette
figure6 at 4:51; and thatin figure7 at 10:34.
Other changes include an added trill(note also the chromaticalterationthat Schumann introducedinto thisfigure,the upper note of whichchanges fromc#'to c4'), a
simplerafterbeatfollowingthe trill(in place of Wieck'schromaticturn),and the simplificationof Wieck'smelodyfollowingthe upward leap of an octave.
Schumann lopped offthe firsttwo measuresof Wieck'sMazurka in G Major fromthe
op.
Soireesmusicalesto serveas the opening "Mottovon C.W." in hisDavidsbfindlertanze,
6. Even in such a briefcitation,Schumann could not restrainhimselffromrevising
rhythmsto
his model: he altered Clara's third-beatdotted-eighth-note/sixteenth-note
figures(in the second edition of 1850, he
eighth-note/sixteenth-rest/sixteenth-note
furthershortenedthe firstdyads byadding staccatodots to them),changed her downbeat accents to crescendos fromthe upbeat throughthe second beat, and converted
restto a simplequarter note.
the rhythmof her second beats fromeighthnote/eighth
Clara Schumann:TheArtistand theWoman(Ithaca, N.Y., 1985), 231. And we know that
both Schumann and Wieck at some level shared pleasure in the published Novellettes.
Robert: "YesterdayI also received my Novellettes;theyhave grownstrong;four volumes of dear Clara [LiebCldrchen].... Bride, in the Novellettesyou will come upon
yourselfin all possible registersand positionsand other irresistiblethings.Yes, consider only me! I maintain: Novellettescould only be writtenby one who knows such
eyesas yours,who has touched such lips as yours.In short,one can no doubt produce
somethingbetter,but scarcelysomethingsimilar";Schumann to Wieck,30 June 1839,
2:608. And Clara: "I myselfalwaysfindnew beauties each time I replay
Briefwechsel,
one of his things(hence, e.g., this is now the case for me withthe Novellettes).The
Novellettesare an absolutelybeautifulwork. Intellect[Geist],soul [Gemith],humor,
are unlimthe greatesttenderness.Everythingis united in it,the finestcharacteristics
ited in it. One mustknow him as I do, and one willfindhis whole selfin all his compositions";diary entryof 29 August 1839, quoted in Borchard, Schumannund Wieck,
301.
Anna Burton,"RobertSchumann and Clara Wieck: A CreativePartnership,"Music&
Letters69 (1988): 224.
Clara Wieck to Robert Schumann, 22-23 April 1839 and 16 June 1839, Briefwechsel
2:500, 577.
Wieck made only one substantivechange to Schumann's theme: she omitted the
repeat dots enclosingthe passage betweenmeasures 9 and 24.
One might argue that the initial statementof the theme in a variation genre
demanded a greaterfidelityto the source than would a quotationof a themein works
But thiswas not the case, as we may see
or the Davidsbfindlertdnze.
like the Novellette
fromSchumann's own practicein his never completed "Variationson a Nocturne of
Chopin." Schumann altered the source (Chopin's Nocturnein G Minor,op. 15, no. 3)
in several ways: he changed the melody,revoicedchords,reversedaccompanimental
figuration,and omitteda particularlydissonantmeasure (measure 19 in Chopin). For
thetextof Schumann'sVariations,see Karol Musiol,"RobertSchumann und Fryderyk
Chopin: Ein Beitrag zur Genesis der asthetischenAnschauungen und des poetischen
zurMusikwissenschaft
23 (1981): 56-58.
Stilsder MusikkritikSchumanns,"Beitrdge
REPRESENTATIONS
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73. Carl Kossmaly's discussion of Schumann's Arabeskeand Blumenstick,cited above,
groups together in the same category Mendelssohn's "Songs withoutWords" and
Field's nocturnes.
222 and 521. I have modified somewhat
74. LettersofFannyHensel to FelixMendelssohn,
Citron'stranslation.
75. That Hensel did not release thisNocturne is in itselfnot unusual. Discouraged from
publishingfirstby her fatherand then by her brother,and deeply conflictedherself
(as suggests the lettercited in the previous note), she issued only a very small percentage of her entire output. (For a full discussion of this topic, see Marcia Citron,
"Felix Mendelssohn'sInfluenceon FannyMendelssohn Hensel as a ProfessionalCom37-38 [1984]: 9-17). In no waywould one wantto consider
Musicology
poser,"Current
all or even the majorityof these unpublished worksas "personal battles"withtheir
diverdoes seem to embodya strikingly
respectivegenerictraditions.But herNotturno
gent relationshipto its generictradition.And preciselybecause it was composed by a
woman who feltconstrainednot to publish it,it was denied the possibilityof participating in the subsequent traditionof itsgenre.
The Harmonyof the Tea Table
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133