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Sovereign Feminine
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Ahmanson Foundation Humanities Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation.
The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the generous contributions to this book provided by the Hibberd Endowment and the Manfred Bukofzer Endowment of the American Musicological Society.
Sovereign Feminine
Music and Gender in Eighteenth-Century Germany
Matthew Head
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
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Examples 1, 3, and 4 are reproduced with permission from Journal of the American Musicological Society 52, no. 2 (1999): 211, 225, and 229.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2013 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Head, Matthew William.
Sovereign feminine : music and gender in eighteenth-century Germany / Matthew Head.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-27384-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
eISBN 9780520954762
1. Gender identity in music. 2. Women musicians—Germany—History—18th century. 3. Music—Social aspects—Germany—History—18th century. 4. Music—Germany—18th century—History and criticism. I. Title.
ML82.H44 2013
| 780.82’0943—dc2 | 2012043355 |
Manufactured in the United States of America
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro 100, a 100% post-consumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.
For my mother, Carol Ann Head (née Scott),and her feeling for beauty
What better can temper manly rudeness, or strengthen and support the weakness of man, what so soon can assuage the rapid blaze of wrath, what more charm masculine power, what so quickly dissipate peevishness and ill-temper, what so well can while away the insipid tedious hours of life, as the near and affectionate look of a noble, beautiful woman? What is so strong as her soft delicate hand? What so persuasive as her tears restrained? Who but beholding her must cease to sin?
J.C. LAVATER, PHYSIOGNOMY (1775–1777)
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Fictions of Female Ascendance
| 1. | Europe’s Living Muses: Women, Music, and Modernity in Burney’s History and Tours |
| 2. | “If the pretty little hand won’t stretch”: Music for the Fair Sex |
| 3. | Charlotte (“Minna”) Brandes and the Beautiful Dead |
| 4. | An Evening in Tiefurt: Corona Schröter’s Die Fischerin and Vegetable Genius |
| 5. | Sophie Westenholz and the Eclipse of the Female Sign |
| 6. | Beethoven Heroine: A Female Allegory of Music and Authorship in Egmont |
| Conclusion |
Appendix: Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Two Prefaces to the Fair Sex
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURES
| 1. | Frontispiece of Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Musicalischer Almanach | |
| 2. | Richard Samuel, Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo | |
| 3. | Maria Antonia Walpurgis, title page of Antonio Eximeno, Dell’origine e delle regole della musica | |
| 4. | Title-page engraving of Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Six Concertos pour le Clavecin à l’usage du beaux Sexe | |
| 5. | Title-page engraving of Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Wiegenlieder für gute deutsche Mütter | |
| 6. | Silhouette of Minna Brandes, in Operetten von C.F. Bretzner | |
| 7. | Engraving by Heinrich Sintzenich of a portrait of Minna Brandes by Rudolph Christian Schade | |
| 8. | Title page of Musikalischer Nachlass von Minna Brandes | |
| 9. | Title page of Juliane Reichardt, Lieder und Klaviersonaten | |
| 10. | Plan of Park Tiefurt, from Friedrich Menzel, Schloss Tiefurt | |
| 11. | Melchior Kraus, Felsen-Treppe bey der Stern Brücke im Herzl. Park bey Weimar | |
| 12. | Melchior Kraus, Performance of Die Fischerin | |
| 13. | Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People | |
| 14. | Anon., untitled [Eleonore Prohaska wounded in battle], from Wilhelm Oertel von Horn, Vier deutsche Heldinnen aus der Zeit der Befreiungskriege |
TABLES
| 1. | A selection of music for the fair sex by eighteenth-century German composers | |
| 2. | Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Wiegenlieder für gute deutsche Mütter, contents | |
| 3. | Musical numbers in Corona Schröter’s Die Fischerin | |
| 4. | Compositions by Sophie Westenholz | |
| 5. | Beethoven’s music for Goethe’s Egmont, op. 84 | |
| 6. | “Die Trommel gerühret”: text and translation | |
| 7. | “Die Trommel gerühret”: musical and poetic form | |
| 8. | Friedrich Schiller, “Würde der Frauen” |
MUSICAL EXAMPLES
| 1. | J.F.W. Wenkel, Clavierstücke für Frauenzimmer, no. 1, “Das Clavier” | |
| 2. | C. Nichelmann, Sei breve
|