The Critical Reception of Beethoven's Compositions by His German Contemporaries, vol. 1 (review)

The Critical Reception of Beethoven's Compositions by His German Contemporaries. Vol. 1. Edited, compiled, and translated by Wayne M. Senner, with Robin Wallace and William Meredith, musicological editors. (North American Beethoven Studies, 3.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. [xviii, 260 p. ISBN 0-8032-1250-X. $75.]

This volume is the first of four that will constitute a collected edition of German reviews of Beethoven's music in English translation. A valuable new resource in the field of Beethoven criticism and reception history, the compilation contains "reviews, reports, notes, and essays found in German-language periodicals published between 1783 and 1830" (p. [i]), many of which appear here in English for the first time. Following the prefatory material, there is a section on Viennese and European currencies from 1792 to 1827; a skillful introductory overview of Beethoven's critics in relation to the evolution of contemporary music and literary aesthetics; a general section of documents arranged chronologically (pp. 23-135); a section pertaining specifically to opus numbers 1-54, arranged chronologically for each opus (pp. 137- 236); and indexes of names, periodicals, subjects, and works.

Notes accompanying the texts are concise and designed to assist the reader by supplying factual identification of terms, persons, compositions, locations, and so on. This excellent compilation provides source material contributing to an understanding of topics such as the intellectual connections between the critics, but it cannot be expected to provide detailed information about them.

Scholars in the field may be familiar with a number of the included items that have appeared in a separately produced German collection edited by Stefan Kunze (Ludwig van Beethoven: Die Werke im Spiegel seiner Zeit: Gesammelte Konzertberichte und Rezensionen bis 1830 [Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1987]), but this set of fluently translated documents permits access to a broad range of materials for those who do not read German. Editor Wayne M. Senner has limited his selection to periodicals, including newspapers, and has emphasized the works in context rather than the composer, focusing on "matters such as audience, setting, facilities, orchestra, instruments, and performers as well as the relationship of Beethoven's music to theoretical and critical ideas of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries" (p. x).

The sources cover a wide range, from the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (AMZ) in Leipzig and the Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (BAMZ) to Libussa published in Prague and Thalia from Vienna and Trieste. The first two account for the greatest number of documents. Their musically knowledgeable readers could appreciate commentary with music examples, and the examples included here add to the volume's utility. (An obvious error occurs on p. 198, m. 6, where a d" appears instead of a c" as the first note in the treble clef.)

The varied documents show that commentators repeatedly mentioned bold spirit and fiery originality as characteristics of Beethoven's style and noted that new works were difficult to perform. Critics applying normative Enlightenment criteria of clarity and beauty were apt to dub Beethoven's unexpected turns of phrase or modulations bizarre, whereas those operating from romantic premises welcomed the complexity within an exalted ideal honoring Beethoven's unique imaginative creativity. These varied perspectives often "condition[ed] one another," according to Senner (p. 18), producing a richly textured diversity of ideas that contributed to contemporary perceptions of the music.

The general section affords the reader special pleasures in the essays that consider several different works or present aesthetic ideas constituting essential background for understanding the compositions. One of the most significant commentaries is A. B. Marx's "A Few Words on the Symphony and Beethoven's Achievements in This Field" (BAMZ 1 [12 May 1824]: 165-68, 173-76, 181-84) (pp. 59-77). Marx is one of the critics who openly admired essays by earlier music critic and author E. T. A. Hoffmann, including his famous review of Beethoven's Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, op. 67. Hoffmann dominated...