Symphonic Aspirations: German Music and Politics, 1900–1945 (review)

Painter examines the politicization of music criticism in Germany and Austria between 1900 and 1945 by focusing on the treatment of the symphony genre in that period. The book is divided into three main sections: writings about the symphonies of Gustav Mahler and Anton Bruckner at the fin de siècle; writings about the same figures between 1914 and 1933; and symphonic traditions under the National Socialists, primarily the compositions of Paul Hindemith and Carl Orff. The author makes extensive use of reviews, editorials, and lengthier critiques to get at the idea of the symphony, and how it changed over that tumultuous forty-five year span. She aims to “recover the listening habits and aesthetic values these writers aspired to instill in the public” and to “explore the debates around exemplary works, controversial and otherwise,” in order to recreate “the politicization of music” that “required a massive discursive effort by critics and biographers, and a willing readership” (2, 5, 3).

Unfortunately, Painter’s aspirations are thwarted by a lack of focus in argument and prose, and an alarming lack of editorial attention. In the introduction, she notes that the terms progressive, liberal, conservative, and nationalist have both aesthetic and political connotations, and that the two sets of meanings are not necessarily aligned (10). In other words, a politically liberal critic may have an aesthetically conservative musical agenda. This is a crucial distinction, but the author is not assiduous in her application of those terms throughout the book, leaving unclear whether the use of a label in a given context refers to a critic’s politics, aesthetics, or both. Given that the point of the book is to examine politicization, this lapse muddies the waters considerably.

Distinguishing between Austrian and German critics is essential as well, but she does not do so consistently beyond the introduction. Symphonic Aspirations is well grounded in hundreds of citations from many different critics, but most of these writers are virtually unknown today. It is difficult to remember which politically conservative aesthetic liberal was writing for which anti-Semitic newspaper. Thus, the book’s greatest strength—its primary sources—becomes a hindrance. A brief list of critics and newspapers and their known political affiliations would have been enormously helpful.

Non sequiturs and dense prose may be stylistic issues obfuscating valuable insights or symptoms of arguments not yet fully formulated. Either way, the large number of such infelicities indicates that greater editorial intervention was certainly warranted. This irritation aside, the sheer amount of material that Painter invokes demonstrates that musical criticism did, in fact, become politicized across the entire political spectrum—though this conclusion is hardly news. Intrepid readers will find a treasure trove of primary sources, from which they can draw their own conclusions.