Beyond Music: Hindemith's Opera Mathis der Maler as Political Document

6 Historically Speaking May/June 2008 greatworks of 19th-centuryAmerican historicalwriting , John Lothrop Modey's The Rise of the Dutch Republic . Modey's grand narrative concludes with the relief of the Spanish siege of Leiden, die triumphal founding of its university with its motto Praesidium Libertatis (Bastion of Liberty) in 1575, and the establishment of the United Netherlands. It takes a moment for an Anglocentric historian to realize that these events predated the English defeat of the Spanish armadabymore than adozenyears and the founding of the Jamestown colony in America by a generation. The Dutch achievement, Modey asserts, was the seminal eventin alonghistorical process that led to parliamentary government in England, to the American Revolution, and to other triumphs of liberty in the Western world. If Modey were writing today, he doubdess would call the rise of the Dutch republic the first great victory of modern Western liberalism. Modey's argument strikes me as having much merit The early Dutch nation stands in sharp contrast to the rest of continental Europe as an incubator of liberalism in the early modern era. It extended a large degree of tolerance to the Cadiolicism it had defeated. It harbored the heretical Jewish pantheist Baruch Spinoza, who must have been even more repugnantto the Calvinist establishment. Holland provided refuge not only to John Robinson and his Pilgrims, but also toJohn Locke for five critical years. Andwhen England hadits liberalrevolution, Holland provided it with a new king and queen. John Locke returned to his native land with them. I will leave the issue of Dutch exceptionalism to colleagues who know far more than I, butit does appear to me that at one point in its history the Dutch nation was indeed exceptional, and critically so. Issues of national exceptionalism should remain of interest to historians, but they lack contemporary immediacy. The nations of the Western world are now more alike than they ever have been in their unprecedented and widespread affluence, socialmobility , and embrace of liberal democracy. It is easy to believe that national differences are marginal that all peoples have the same emotions and aspirations; the hard facts of history, whether ancient or recent, tell a different story. True national exceptionalism may be rare; it may be, as is likely the case with the Dutch, simply a phase in the long history of a country or a people. But differences persist. Many are small and manageable. Some involve huge and enduring gaps of perception and values. When these collide, diey can create a lot of history, much of it unlovely. The denial of exceptionalism usuallyis accompanied bya denial of fundamentaldifferences amongnations and peoples. Unfortunately, the end of history is not yet with us. Alonso L Hamby is DistinguishedProfessorof History at Ohio University. This article was adaptedfrom his inaugurallecture as thefirstRaymondandBeverly SacklerProfessorofAmerican History andCulture at the Univernty of Leiden, December, 2004, and 'The Politics of History: HowExceptionalIsAmerica?" postedon the POTUS blog atHistoryNewsNetwork, October29, 2007. Beyond Music: Hindemith's Opera Mathis der Maler as Political Document* Peter Paret Bytheearly 1920sPaulHindemithhadbecome one of the leading modernist composers in Germany. He experimented with atonality, explored jazz, and in his chamber music, operas, and odier vocal compositions gave practical examples of his theoretical teaching and writing. A comic opera, NewsoftheDayoi 1929, addressedthemes of contemporary life. It included a corps of typists, their typewriters functioning as percussion instruments, and a soprano,dressedinabodystocking,who deliveredher aria in a bathtub. Hider, who attended a performance of thework,founditimmoral—notsurprising,inview of hisprudishness—aswellasdestructive of German values.NewsoftheDayfitHider's conceptof anartthat injectedinternationalvalues, andinparticularthevalues of thatinternational people, theJews,into the nation 's bloodstream, an idea central to the cultural argument thatwas one of his weapons in theideologicalwaragainsttheWeimarRepublic .ThatHindemith was not aJew did not matter. From then on Hider regarded him as one, an assumption that was to play a * This is a slightly expanded text of a talk given on March 1 5, 2008, at Princeton University, in the interdisciplinary program "The Inspiration of Art," sponsored jointly by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and the Princeton University Art Museum. I thankJ. Lionel Gossman and Glen Bowersock for their helpful comments. role some years later in the conflict over another of Hindemith'soperas,MathisderMaler(MathisthePainter). WhenHindemith...