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chapter four “German Music,” Lieder, and the Austrian Franz Schubert up until now, we have focused on the league’s debate on Jewish music, both in theory and practice. But, in some ways, the performance of music by German composers was more complicated. The search for Jewish music gave audiences a framework for their interpretation of music by Jewish composers. Music by German composers, on the other hand, was wide open and interpreted in a variety of ways. Determined to keep the League out of German culture, Hinkel’s of‹ce also censored music of German origins more often. This did not stop League leaders. During the organization’s early years, they programmed music considered German more regularly than Jewish music , and it was more popular with audiences generally. This popularity challenged the foundation of the League as a Jewish organization. However, it is readily understandable. For the League members who regarded themselves as primarily German, German music functioned in part as a link to German culture and, for many, to the German nation as a whole. This attitude, as we have seen, was part of a much larger historical tradition of assimilation through culture. The Lied, a genre Richard Taruskin offers as answer to the question “What is German?” (Was ist deutsch?),1 held a special signi‹cance within this strategy. Popular in both the League repertoire and lecture series, German art song was familiar. As studies on the psychology of music have recognized, there is a connection between a pleasure response to music and familiarity or repeated hearings.2 There was thus an attachment to Lieder, which was further nurtured by nostalgia for the past implicit in the genre.3 More instructive, however, Lieder connected League members to Germany through language—a vital element of the German nation. In a letter to her mentor Karl Jaspers, in 1933, Hannah Arendt wrote, “For me Germany means my mother tongue, philosophy, and literature.”4 Regime 87 authorities generally shared this opinion and attempted to deny German Jews access to it as a preliminary method of excluding them from the nation. On 13 April 1933, for example, Nazi students posted a list of twelve crimes allegedly committed by Jews on university buildings and billboards throughout Germany . The ‹fth charged Jews with wrongfully writing in German, a language alleged foreign to their kind. As remedy, the students insisted that Jewish works appear only in Hebrew, or, if they must appear in German, they should be labeled as translations.5 As previously mentioned, Nazi of‹cials also encouraged the Jewish Culture League to conduct its affairs in Hebrew, rather than German . This was a dif‹cult request given that most members of the League did not know Hebrew.6 The Nazi leaders in charge, however, viewed this as insubordination , as a means of “passive resistance.” Coming closer to the truth, the New York Times explained the League’s opposition to this order as reluctance to discard the “manifold Jewish cultural values that ‹nd expression through the medium of the German language.”7 Still, the popularity of Lieder and “German music” in general is not solely explained by connecting the League’s German self-identi‹cation and traditions with the Germanness of their repertoire. Music, like people, rarely adheres to neat national distinctions. Indeed, despite the distance many felt from Jewish traditions, the signi‹cance of Lieder also relates to the belief that true Jewish music had to be vocal. This point featured prominently in the Jewish Culture League Conference (see chap. 2, this vol.). The composition contest, announced at the Conference, called for entries in the following genres: an overture for orchestra , a choral work for four-voice mixed choir with orchestra suite, a choral work for two-or-more-voice choir for school or youth groups, a cycle of Lieder for voice with piano, and a cycle of choral songs for small choir a cappella or with instruments.8 The importance of vocal music in this list is undeniable. This League value was only enhanced by the Lied’s special position in Jewish communities historically and during the Third Reich as a genre appropriate for Hauskonzerte (concerts given at home).9 During the early nineteenth century, Hauskonzerte thrived in the Berlin salons hosted by Sara Levy and Amalie Beer. These salons were centers of open sociability and egalitarianism. This tradition was exported to Vienna under the auspices of numerous Jewish ‹nancier families. The most famous of these was hosted by Fanny Arnstein...

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