Beethoven and the Sound of Revolution in Vienna, 1792–1814

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8958765
AutoresRhys Dafydd Jones (0000-0002-1231-7529, autor de correspondencia), Rhys Jones (0000-0002-2424-3459)
Año2014
Volumen57
Número4
Páginas947-971
Fecha de publicación2014-11-12
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x14000405
OpenAlexW2087758398
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas37

Beethoven the revolutionary is fading from history. Ossified by the Romantic tradition and, under the pressure of recent revision, reconsidered as conservative and prone to power worship, Beethoven's music has been drained of its radical essence. Yet his compositions also evoked the sonic impact of revolution – its aesthetic of natural violence and terrifying sublime – and so created an aural image of revolutionary action. Through stylistic appropriations of Luigi Cherubini and others, Beethoven imported the rhetorical tropes of French revolutionary composition to the more culturally conservative environment of Vienna. But where the music of revolutionary Paris accompanied concerted political action, the Viennese music that echoed its exhortative rhetoric played to audiences that remained politically mute. This inertia was the result of both a Viennese mode of listening that encouraged a solely internalized indulgence in revolution, and a Beethovenian musical rhetoric that both goaded and satisfied latent political radicalism. Far from rallying the public to the figurative barricades, then, the radical content of Beethoven's music actually helped satiate – and thereby stymie – the outward expression of rebellion in Vienna. This article is a bid to reaffirm the revolutionary in Beethoven

Aesthetics · Art · Literature · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Sublime · Diverse Musicological Studies · History · Law · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Philosophy