Wilhelm Heinse's Musikalische Dialogen

RITA TERRAS Wilhelm Heinse's Musikalische Dialogen Heinse's Musikalische Dialogen, written around 1770 but first published posthumously in 1805, are of interest both as commentaries on the aesthetic of music and from a structural point of view. Heinse's aesthetic of music as voiced in the Musikalische Dialogen and in some of his other works has been described by A. von Lauppert in his dissertation Die Musikästhetik Wilhelm Heinses and has received attention in studies by Schurig, Utitz, and others.11 shall confine myself to some of the formal aspects of the Dialogen, including the need for certain editorial adjustments. Considering the number of studies on dialogue published in recent years and their emphasis on dialogue in the eighteenth century, it is somewhat surprising that Heinse's Dialogen have not generated the interest they deserve. They are actually a textbook example of the independent dialogue genre, a genre not frequently practiced in eighteenth-century Germany. The independent dialogue is neither part of a drama nor of a novel. It stands alone and usually presents philosophical issues in conversational form with at least a pretense of objectivity and of being engaged in a serious search for truth. Heinse's Musikalische Dialogen meet these criteria without any doubt. Controversy has surrounded the authorship of Heinse's Musikalische Dialogen ever since they were first published in 1805 by I.F.K. Arnold in Erfurt. While earlier doubts about their authenticity have been removed, there remain several questions regarding their genesis and editorial arrangement. Von Lauppert and Schüddekopf, the later editor of Wilhelm Heinses Sämmtliche Werke (1913),2 have presented convincing evidence that the Dialogen are Heinse's work and that they were written sometime before and during the early 1770s, when the young writer showed a marked interest in producing essays on diverse subjects (I, 356). As far as is known, Heinse first contributed essays to F.J. Riedel's Bibliothek der elenden Skribenten (Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1768). His contributions to this journal have not yet been fully investigated (I, 333). In 1770 his Prosaische Aufsätze appeared in a short-lived weekly, Der Thüringische Zuschauer (January through March; 13 issues), which he himselfand a friend, J.G.C. Gleichmann, founded and edited. In 1775 he 182 Rita Terras published, with a preface written in 1774, a collection oÃ- Erzählungen für junge Damen und Dichter with stories by such well-known authors as Hagedorn, J.G. Jacobi, Lessing, Wieland, and others. His Gemahldebriefe , which appeared in Wieland's Teutscher Merkur, 1776-1777, are generally considered the most important publication of his early years.3 The Dialogen fit in well with Heinse's attempts to establish himself as an essayist. At the time, he also tried his hand at translating (Begebenheiten des Enkolp, lili) and poetry (Sinngedichte, 1771), and published his first novel (Laidion, 1774). All of these early publications as well as his notebooks and letters strongly reflect the interests he developed under the guidance of FJ. Riedel and Wieland during his student years in Jena (1768-1769) and Erfurt (1769-1771). In all of his early works he repeatedly mentions his favorite sources of information and pleasure, such as Sterne, Rousseau, Fénélon, Grécourt, Crébillon-fils, Jomelli, Metastasio, Anacreon, and Aristippus. These figures are rarely featured in the works of Heinse's mature years, but are prominently displayed in the Dialogen, placing this work in the writer's early period. Schüddekopf s evidence for Heinse's authorship of the Dialogen includes the fact that a line from Heinse's poem "Auf Petrarchen," first published in the Thüringische Zuschauer (1770), is quoted in the "First" oÃ- the Musikalische Dialogen (I, 25, 243). It seems likely that this particular dialogue was written more or less at the same time as the poem. The various pieces oÃ- the Musikalische Dialogen appear in Schüddekopf s edition in the order established by their first editor, I.F.K. Arnold, presumably on the basis of a Heinse manuscript in the editor's possession . The present whereabouts of this manuscript are unknown. It is likely that in 1805 it was not in a form intended for publication...