A Kingdom Not of This World: The Political Context of E. T. A.

Hoffmann's Beethoven
Criticism
Author(s): Stephen Rumph
Reviewed work(s):
Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer, 1995), pp. 50-67
Published by: University of California Press
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Kingdom

The
E.

Political
T.

A.

of

Not

This
of

Context

Hoffmann's

World:

Beethoven

Criticism

STEPHEN RUMPH
Our kingdomis not of this world,say the musicians,for where do we find in
nature,like the painteror the sculptor,the prototypeof our art?Sounddwells
everywhere,but the sounds-that is, the melodies-which speakthe higherlanguageof the spiritkingdom,residein the humanheartalone.1
This passage from Kreisleriana (1813) sounds
the keynote of all E. T. A. Hoffmann's efforts as
a writer about music. In novel, short story,
essay, and review, Hoffmann tirelessly championed the unique status of music among the
arts. True music, accordingto Hoffmann,eludes
the shackles of imitation that bound the plastic and representational arts to nature, to the
world of the senses. Yet this abstraction does
not deprive music of articulate communication. On the contrary, as the purely ideal, spiri19th-Century Music XIX/1 (Summer 1995). O by The Regents of the University of California.
'E. T. A. Hoffmann: Musikalische Novellen und Aufsatze,
vol. I, ed. EdgarIstel (Regensburg,1921), p. 162. All translations are my own, made in consultation with the recent
English translation, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Kreisleriana,The
Poet and the Composer, Musical Writings, ed. David
Charlton;trans. Martyn Clarke (Cambridge,1989).
50

tual art, music soars above physical reality to a

realm of absolute, metaphysical experience. Indeed, as the allusion to John's Gospel makes
clear, Hoffmann credited music with nothing
less than the power of religious revelation. Nor
did Hoffmann labor in vain. Perhapsmore than
any other aesthetician he helped to establish
the doctrine of "absolute music," which still
maintains a powerful grip on the minds of critics and audiences alike.
Nowhere did Hoffmann more eloquently set
forth this aesthetic of the musical absolute than
in his review of the Fifth Symphony of Ludwig
van Beethoven, the composer Hoffmann revered
above all others. In this justly celebrated review, which appearedin 1810 in the Allgemeine
musikalische Zeitung, he set a new standard
for musical criticism by combining the loftiest
philosophical vision with the keenest analytical precision. His exordium hails Beethoven as

the high priest of a new, purified instrumental

music, a music that "opens to mankind an
unknown kingdom, a world which has nothing
in common with the outer sensory world."2
And yet, Hoffmann argues, let no one mistake
this spiritual abstraction for undisciplined
frenzy, the "product of a genius who, unconcerned with form and the selection of thoughts,
gave himself over to his fire and the momentary impulses of his powers of imagination"
(pp. 36-37). Through a detailed musical analysis Hoffmann seeks to demonstrate that, despite Beethoven's unfamiliar and eccentric
idiom, the composer "is no less qualified, in
regards to self-possession [Besonnenheit], to
stand beside Haydn and Mozart" (pp. 36-37).
Indeed, Hoffmann's central thesis in the review sums up the claim enunciated in
Kreisleriana: that music can detach itself from
the prototypes of physical reality, yet still communicate intelligibly about the spiritual realm.
A paradox lurks at the heart of Hoffmann's
argument in the Fifth Symphony review: in
order to discuss the transcendent, spiritual
meaning of music he must resort to verbal language, a signifying system rooted in the real
world. Hoffmann himself was acutely aware of
the chasm separating music and language. As
he contends in "Beethovens Instrumentalmusik" (Kreisleriana),music conveys "a higher
expression than mere words, fit only for confined, earthly pleasure, can signify."3Hoffmann
implicitly acknowledges the shortcomings of
verbal description of music at the beginning of
the Fifth Symphony review when he confesses
that "he is overwhelmed by the object of which
he should speak" and entreats the readernot to
"begrudgeit him if, overstepping the bounds of
common judgments, he strives to contain in
words what he has profoundly felt within his
sensibility [Gemiite]through that composition"
(p. 34).
Hoffmann's theoretical separation of Wort
and Ton did not, however, inhibit him from
producing an imposing corpus of literature de2E. T. A. Hoffmann, Schriften zur Musik: Nachlese, ed.
FriedrichSchnapp (Munich, 1963), p. 34. (All further citations of the Fifth Symphony review refer to the Schnapp
edition and will be given parenthetically in the text.)
3Musikalische Novellen, p. 68.

voted precisely to illuminating the inner nature of music. Hoffmann wanted it both ways,
upholding the ineffable transcendence of music, while at the same time giving detailed verbal accounts of its content. This contradiction
gives rise to a sense of strain in Hoffmann's
criticism that has not escaped notice. Robin
Wallace has noted a rigidity in the Fifth Symphony review, remarking that "everything
works together to demonstrate the central thesis, which is driven home with an almost irrational consistency."4 Peter Schnaus has raised
further doubts as to Hoffmann's interpretative
acuity by tracing much of his critical language
to a well-worn vocabulary.5Most troublesome,
perhaps, is the sheer materiality of the Fifth
Symphony, which stubbornly resists repatriation into Hoffmann's Geisterreich. Assuredly,
certain moments do seem to evoke a ghostly,
supernatural sphere-the mysterious modulations in the second movement, the withered
recapitulation of the scherzo, or the muffled
drum beats before the finale. Yet, offsetting
these transcendent glimmers is the overpowering physicality of the symphony, felt in the
unrelenting rhythmic propulsion of the first
movement, the ubiquitous marches (that invade even the triple-time Andante and scherzo),
and the sustained drive to C-major catharsis.
This symphony, which critics from A. B. Marx
to the present day have heard as the epitome of
heroic, humanistic striving, would seem to provide one of the least convincing examples of a
music that "has nothing in common with the
outer sensory world."6

4RobinWallace, Beethoven's Critics (Cambridge,1986), p.

24.
SPeterSchnaus,E. T. A. Hoffmannals Beethoven-Rezensent
der Allgemeinen musikalischen Zeitung (Munich, 1977).
6Space does not permit a satisfactory construction of
Beethoven's "heroic" manner, with all its political and
philosophical ramifications. I have attempted this task in
the second chapter of my dissertation, Beethoven After
Napoleon: Political Romanticism in the Late Works, for
which the present article serves as an introductory chapter. The ethos of the "heroicstyle" may perhapsbe grasped
in the words of Felix Markham, when he wrote of
Beethoven's exact contemporary Napol6on that he "was
not of the generation which made the Revolution, but he
was a product of the revolutionary age-a time when the
mould of tradition and custom was broken, and nothing
seemed impossible in the face of reason, energy and will"
(Napoleon [New York, 1966],p. 56).
51

STEPHEN
RUMPH
E. T. A.
Hoffmann's
Beethoven
Criticism

19TH

CENTURY
MUSIC

A fissure thus opens between signifier and

signified in Hoffmann's discourse of the musical absolute. If, as he claims, music and verbal
language inhabit wholly separate realms, then
his critical language must necessarily possess
its own independent meaning. This point comes
into particularly clear focus as we measure his
analysis against the text of the Fifth Symphony-at least as interpretedthrough received
critical wisdom. Hoffmann'sreview might thus
suggest the subject for a poststructuralist reading, a case study of language contradicting its
own metaphysical assertions. Instead, I should
like to follow those critics of the so-called New
Historicism who have sought to explain the
paradoxes of Romantic literature by reference
to the material historical conditions of their
time.7 As I shall argue, what Hoffmann says
and leaves unsaid about the Fifth Symphony
owes much to his experience of the political
situation in the years surrounding 1810. Moreover, as Beethoven's nearly exact contemporary, he may serve as an entr6e into the world
of political thought surrounding his beloved
composer.
II
"My kingdom is not of this world." The
words of Christ to his imperial Roman captor,
Pontius Pilate, had a special resonance in 1813.
For Hoffmann, as for any Prussian citizen, the
dominating historical fact was the subjection
of his land to Napol6on. Although war had
smoldered continuously in Europe since the
Revolution, Prussia had enjoyed eleven years
of peace following the 1795 Treaty of Basel. In
1806, however, Prussia at last took up arms
against Napoleon and, after disastrous defeats
at Jena and Auerstedt, lost half its population
and territory in the reorganization of the dissolved Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon occupied the country, installed French agents and
officials, and levied heavy war reparations,further crippling the enfeebled economy. With the
traditional boundaries of their land liquidated
by a foreign power and their leaders vacillating

7JeromeMcGann, The Romantic Ideology: A Critical Investigation (Chicago, 1983) provides a good introduction
to the concerns of this New Historicism.
52

between resistance and collaboration, Prussian

subjects might well have wondered if they possessed a kingdom of this world.
No disinterested bystander, Hoffmann suffered the direct impact of the French occupation. Ousted from his government post in 1806
for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to
Napol6on, Hoffmann found himself in severe
financial straits, forced to hawk trivial compositions and give music lessons. To the lean
conditions of the war years we also owe in part
Hoffmann'swork as a professional music critic.
In fact, the period of his full-time musical activity-from 1806 until 1814, when he resumed
work in the civil service-coincides exactly
with the Napoleonic occupation and so-called
Befreiungskrieg,or "Warof Liberation."
This period is also known as the Prussian
reform era. Following the debacle of 1806, a
powerful faction among FriedrichWilhelm III's
ministers sought to infuse new ideas and organization into every aspect of Prussian national
life. Spearheadingthe movement was the outstanding statesman and head minister, Baron
Karlvom und zum Stein. A longstanding advocate of modernization, Stein seized on the wartime crisis to muscle through his political
agenda. After 1808, when Napoleon forced
Stein's resignation for conspiracy to foment a
revolt, the leadership fell to the less effective
Count Hardenberg,under whom the liberal reform movement ultimately capitulated to the
pressure of entrenched aristocratic interests.
The reformersblamed the defeat of 1806 on
deficits in the national spirit. They had witnessed the power unleashed by French nationalism and recognized that Prussia's survival
depended on harnessing this new sense of corporate political involvement. The collapse of
the famous Prussian army, backbone of the
Frederician absolutist state, brought home
sharplythe power of modern nationalism. Stein
believed that victory againstNapoleon depended
on rousing the nation to patriotic resistance,
which in turn required revamping a paternalistic Obrigkeitstaat, which had discouraged political involvement and civic spirit. As Walter
Simon has put it, Stein's "formula for the salvation of Prussia penetrated into all departments of public life: it was no less than the
restoration and mobilization of the nation's re-

sources."8 Generals Scharnhorst, Boyen, and

Gneisenau set about restructuring the army,
striving for universal conscription, limits on
corporalpunishment, and the establishment of
a Landsturm, or citizen militia. Albrecht Thaer
labored to replace the feudal agricultural system with more productive capitalist methods
imported from England. Stein's Emancipation
Edict of 1807 freed the peasants and opened
land ownership to all classes, and under
Wilhelm von Humboldt national education underwent a revolution, culminating in the establishment of the University of Berlin in 1810.
Less successfully, Hardenbergworked to introduce a constitution and representative governing bodies.
The reformers concurred in their hatred of
the Frenchconquerorsand on the need to arouse
patriotic resistance. For an understanding of
Hoffmann's political outlook, however, we
must distinguish between the Prussian "revolution from above" and the French Revolution.
Stein, the animating spirit of nationalist reform, actually served only a short term as chancellor. Hardenberg,who dominated the government from 1810-19, favored the eighteenthcentury model of enlightened absolutism, treating the nationalist reforms primarily as means
toward strengthening the centralized, bureaucratic state. Hardenberg's instrumentalist approach to reform is evident in a communiqu6
to Stein from 1811, in which he argues that a
representative body "must emanate directly
from the government alone, it must come as a
welcome gift from above .... The government

alone must have the right to convene, to dismiss, and to propose legislation.'"9Hardenberg's
elitism accurately sums up the reality of the
reform movement-a project engineered primarily by aristocrats and effected through the
unilateral action of an enlightened bureaucracy.
Close contacts connect Hoffmann with the
reform movement. His best friend from school
days until the end of his life was Theodor von
Hippel, an important reformer and the author
of Friedrich Wilhelm's famous wartime appeal,
8WalterSimon, The Failure of the Prussian Reform Movement, 1807-1819 (Ithaca, 1955), pp. 6-7.
9Quotedin Simon, Failure, p. 62. Fora general comparison
of Stein and Hardenberg,see pp. 51-56.

"An mein Volk." Hippel figures as the poetwarrior Ferdinand in Hoffmann's essay "Der
Dichter und der Komponist," whose setting
was inspired by a chance meeting between the
two friends in 1813. Hoffmann must also have
felt kindly disposed toward Baron Stein, who
seems personally to have offered him financial
assistance in 1807.10Acquaintancewith Hardenberg does not seem to predate Hoffmann's resettlement in Berlin in 1816, after which Hoffmann became an honored guest at the
chancellor's home. Hippel, however, provides
an earlier link, having served as counselor to
Hardenbergduring the war. During his Berlin
Hungertageof 1807-08, Hoffmannmet the theologian Schleiermacherand mentions in his journal the philosopher Fichte, two of the most
important intellectuals involved in the nationalist movement. Hoffmann's career in the upper civil service would have further disposed
him to a deep loyalty to the Prussian government, as demonstrated by his refusal of the
oath to Napoleon. His oft-professed contempt
for official life notwithstanding, Hoffmann
achieved an exemplary judicial career in the
highest Prussian courts, performing his duties
not merely competently but, to all reports, superlatively." His career reached its apogee in
1819 when the king himself appointed him to
an "Immediat-Untersuchungskommission," a
tribunal set up to suppress radical movements
following the assassination of the conservative
playwright August Kotzebue. As the highest,
and virtually sole, position of political influence for Prussian commoners, the upper civil
service enjoyed a high esprit de corps and devotion to state service; as Klaus Epstein has explained: "Their self-respect required that they
view themselves as servants of the law and the
general welfare rather than instruments of the
king's arbitrarywhim: their 'enlightened' emphasis upon the Rechtsstaat arose as frequently
from personal pride as from attachment to law
and justice."'2Hoffmann's careerindicates that
he fully shared in this pride of office.
'oHarveyHewett-Thayer, Hoffmann: Author of the Tales
(Princeton,N.J., 1948), p. 37.
"Hewett-Thayer,Hoffmann, p. 85.
'2See Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton,N.J., 1966),p. 53.
53

STEPHEN
RUMPH
E. T. A.
Hoffmann's
Beethoven
Criticism

19TH

CENTURY
MUSIC

Political concerns appearin Hoffmann'svery

first publication, the fantastic tale Ritter Gluck
of 1809. In the introduction, we read the following description of occupied Berlin: "Soon
all the places are occupied at Klaus and Weber;
the carrot coffee steams, one argues about King
and peace ... about the closed commercial
state and bad Groschen." Benedikt Koehlerhas
unpacked the constellation of political references in this passage: the "Mohrrtiben-Kaffee"
alludes to the substitute beverage forced on
Berliners by Napol6on's blockade, the Continental System; the argument "tiberK6nig und
Frieden"applies to the debate between nationalist proponentsof an uprisingagainstNapoleon
and the royal cabinet, which was steering a
course of accommodation to the French conquerors; and the "geschlossener Handelsstaat"
refers to the protosocialist treatise of Johann
Gottlieb Fichte, who had emerged as a fiery
nationalist with his Addresses to the German
Nation, delivered in Berlin the previous year.13
While Hoffmann's subsequent writing
scarcely exhibits the blatant nationalism of such
authors as Fichte, Theodor K6rner, or Ernst
Moritz Arndt, an unmistakably patriotic current runs through his work. During 1813, while
conducting the Seconda Opera troupe in
Dresden, Hoffmann recorded his impressions
of the Dresden battlefield in a grisly Phantasiestiick entitled Die Vision auf dem
Schlachtfeld bei Dresden, in which he savagely
attacked Napoleon and ended with a paean to
"the resplendent heroes, the sons of the gods,
[Czar] Alexander and Friedrich Wilhelm."
Michael Rohrwasserhas characterizedthis work
as "one of those propagandawritings called for
by BaronStein, even if it remains the only such
contribution of the author."14Napoleon's defeat at Dresden inspired the following joyful
entry in Hoffmann's journal:"Freedom!-Freedom!-Freedom! My dearest hopes are fulfilled,
and the steadfast faith to which I clung through

the darkest times, is proven true."1sIn 1815,

after hearing of Napoleon's escape from Elba,
he penned the tale Der Dei von Elba in Paris
(1815), an apotheosis of the German liberation,
which ends with the nationalistic exultation:
"We have built a mighty fortress;the banner of
the fatherlandwaves high, terrorizing the cunning enemy. However much the dark powers
may enter into our life, we, who are born to
pious trust and firm faith, shall banish the fearsome shadows."'6
Patriotic sentiments also dot Hoffmann's
musical criticism. In the Fifth Symphony review, he singles out for special abuse a certain
Bataille des trois Empereurs, a French battle
symphony by Louis Jadin celebrating
Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz. Ironically, he
would himself compose such a programmatic
piece in 1814, the piano work Deutschlands
Triumph im Siege bey Leipzig. In the "H6chst
zerstreute Gedanken" of Kreisleriana, under
the ironic guise of a scattershot fancy, he aimed
some of his most pointed political barbs. A
panegyric to Gluck, the Germanic musician
who had conquered Paris, ends with a call to
arms that clearly extends beyond the operatic
quarrel of the Piccinists and Gluckists: "Be of
good cheer, you unrecognized ones, you who
are bowed down beneath the frivolity and injustice of the spirit of the age; you are assured
of certain victory, and it is eternal, since your
exhausting struggle was but fleeting."'7 The
four words are "Euch," "gewisser," "der,"
"Kampf."David Charlton has suggested that
this cryptic acrostic may encode a patriotic
message;18while Charlton says no more, we
might hazard the solution, "Erhalte Gott der
K6nig," or "God save the King." A few pages
later comes the wry observation: "What artist
ever concerned himself before with current political events? He lives solely in his art, and
only in her does he move through life; but a
fatefully heavy time clutches humanity in its

'3Musikalische Novellen, p. 177. Benedikt Koehler,

Asthetik der Politik: Adam Mfiller und die politische
Romantik (Stuttgart,1980),pp. 114-15.
14Hoffmann, Schriften, p. 605. Michael Rohrwasser,
Coppelius, Cagliostro,Napoleon:Der verborgenepolitische
Blick E. T. A. Hoffmann (Frankfurt,1991),p. 31.

schinsten
,s"Freyheit!-Freyheit! -Freyheit!-Meine
Hoffnungen sind erfiillt, und mein fester Glaube, an dem
ich selbst in der tri-bstenZeit treulich gehalten, ist bewihrt
worden"(quotedin Rohrwarsser,Der verborgenepolitische
Blick, p. 33).
16Hoffmann,Schriften,p. 641.
"'MusikalischeNovellen, p. 78.
'8Charlton,E. T. A. Hoffmann, p. 109n.

54

iron fist, and sorrow wrings out sounds otherwise foreign to it."19Again Hoffmann concludes
a vicious review of Bofeldieu's Nouveau
Seigneur from 1814 with
the heartfelt wish that the paltry genre of operetta,
with its cloying sweetness, with its insipid buffoonery, just as it came from the French stage to ours, as
something wholly uncongenial to our spirit, to our
view of music, might, together with the blind reverence-admittedly extorted sword in hand-for everything else that comes from there, disappear as
soon as possible.20
Hoffmann spelled out the connection between artistic and political aims in the essay
"Der Dichter und der Komponist" (1813). The
union of the twin operatic arts, symbolized by
the poet Ferdinand and the composer Ludwig,
intertwines
with militant patriotic unity:
"Ferdinand pressed his friend to him. The latter took up his full glass: 'Eternally united in a
higher cause through life and death!' 'Eternally
united in a higher cause through life and death!'
repeated Ferdinand, and in a few minutes his
impetuous steed was carrying him into the host
which, rejoicing in their wild lust for battle,
drove towards the enemy."21 The corporate
spirit of the reform movement shines through
in Hoffmann's theory of operatic reform, as
expressed in both this essay and "Der vollkommene Maschinist" from Kreisleriana. Indeed, the reforming spirit animates not only
Hoffmann's written opinions but every sphere
of his musical activity during the Napoleonic
years. As director of the Bamberg Court Theater and Seconda Opera Troupe, he fought for
an organic conception of opera, in which music, drama, and spectacle would unite to project
a single effect. With the premiere of Undine in
1816, Hoffmann answered the call he himself
had sounded for a German Romantic opera.
Theory and practice also unite in his campaign
to reform church music, a project culminating,
on the one hand, in the nine-voiced Miserere of
1809, and, on the other, in the essay "Alte und
neue Kirchenmusik" (1814). In this essay,

19MusikalischeNovellen, p. 80.
20Hoffmann,Schriften, p. 272.
2'Musikalische Novellen, pp. 330-31.

Hoffmann forays into the realm of practical

political reform when he prescribes for the bourgeois choral societies, "Should these societies
prove to be a genuine influence on church music, they must not remain private enterprises,
but rather should be directed and supported in
religious form by the state."22
With this proposal, Hoffmann joined in the
foremost cultural demand of the Prussian reformers: national education. In particular, the
neohumanist program of inner formation,
Bildung, had been adopted as a nationalist symbol. Rudolf Vierhaus has explained the importance of education to the nationalist reform
movement:
The political and spiritual excitement of the
Napoleonic age had created a propitious situation
for essential educational reforms, but also for the
notion that the resurgenceof Germany,her national
rejuvenationand greaterunity, the overthrow of absolutism, and the "participation"of the people in
the state could be neither solely nor decisively effected politically, but must ratherbe a matter of the
education and Bildung of all. . . . With powerful
optimism, numerous philosophers, pastors, government officials, teachers, political writers, and journalists busied themselves with special and general
problems of Bildung.23
The pages of the Allgemeine musikalische
Zeitung give some taste of this mania for
Bildung. Between 1809 and 1811 no fewer than
eleven issues featured articles devoted to the
Gesangsbildung of Heinrich Pestalozzi, the
Zurich educator whom Fichte had singled out
as the guiding light for the new German education. Pestalozzi himself contributed a brief column to the paper in 1811. In February and
September of 1810, straddling Hoffmann's July
review of the Fifth Symphony, a two-part essay
appeared, "Ober die disthetische Bildung des
componierenden Tonkiinstlers," which prescribed the proper nurturance and training for
Germany's future composers.
Hoffmann addressed the subject of educa-

22Hoffmann,Schriften,p. 234.
23RudolfVierhaus, "Bildung,"in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe;historisches Lexikonzur politische-soziale Sprache
in Deutschland, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and
Reinhart Koselleck (Stuttgart,1972), I, 526.
55

STEPHEN
RUMPH
E. T. A.
Hoffmann's
Beethoven
Criticism

19TH

CENTURY
MUSIC

tion most explicitly in Kreisleriana, through a

pair of antithetical epistolary essays. The
"Nachrichtvon einem gebildetenjungenMann"
sets forth a letter from a monkey who has been
trained in all the graces of human speech, behavior, and culture. With heavy-handed irony,
Hoffmann thus targets the mechanical, external method of education, which teaches the
pupil merely to "ape" an adopted culture. His
attack on cultural imitation faithfully echoes
the polemic that advocates of an autochthonous German culture had long waged against
the Francophile aristocracy.
Hoffmann counters such sterile imitation in
"Johannes Kreislers Lehrbrief,"the source of
our original epigraph. The imitation of a
journeyman's certificate of mastery obviously
alludes to Goethe's Wilhelm MeistersLehrjahre,
and indeed the essay centers on a miniature
Bildungsroman narratingthe development of a
young composer, Chrysostomus. The youthful
Chrysostomus finds himself irresistibly drawn
toward a mysterious bloodstained rock, from
which seem to issue incomprehensible ghostly
shapes and melodies. Later, forgetting this
youthful fascination, the adolescent composer
undergoes a rigorousacademic trainingin counterpoint and strict composition. On returning
to the childhood spot years later, he finds that
his new training allows him to graspwith perfect clarity the shapes and melodies once veiled
in obscurity. The narratordraws the moral that
the composer's art depends on the development
of inner powers of concentration and creative
formation, a central goal of Bildung: "The more
lively, the more penetrating his recognition becomes, and the greater his ability to hold fast
his exertions as with special mental powers
and to conjure them into signs and symbols,
the higher the musician stands as composer."24
The marriage of inspiration and technique that distinguishes the fully formed
Chrysostomus recalls, of course, the central
thesis of Hoffmann's review of the Fifth Symphony. Hoffmann had lauded Beethoven's
Besonnenheit, his ability to bestow coherent
shape and inner logic on absolute musical
thought. The educational ideal of disciplined
24MusikalischeNovellen, p. 134.
56

fantasy recalls Goethe's famous manifesto of

Weimar Classicism, the sonnet "Natur und
Kunst" (published 1807):
So ist's mit allerBildungauchbeschaffen;
VergebenswerdenungebundneGeister
Nach derVollendungreinerH6hestreben.
WerGrofgeswill, mufgsich zusammenraffen;
In derBeschrlinkung
zeigt sich erstderMeister,
Und dasGesetznurkannuns Freiheitgeben.
(Thusis all Bildungaccomplished;
In vainshallunboundspirits
Strivetowardsthe perfectionof the pureheights.
Whoeverseeksgreatnessmust controlhimself;
Masteryfirstappearsin limitations,
Andonly law cangive us freedom.)
The voice of the pedagogue speaks in Hoffmann's comment that Beethoven's contrapuntal treatment "testifies to a deep study of the
art" (p. 43), or in the claim that Besonnenheit
is "inseparablefrom the true genius and is nourished through the study of the art" (p. 37).
Hoffmann himself aimed at a such a marriage
of genius and self-possession in his review of
the Fifth Symphony, matching the most rarefied metaphysical speculation with the most
concrete technical analysis. In both matter and
manner,his review reflects the educationalideal
of the reformers: it exalts a paragon of Germanic Bildung and models the kind of wellformed sensibility worthy of such culture.
The essay "Alte und neue Kirchenmusik"
carries us to the heart of Hoffmann's politicalaesthetic program.He introduces the essay with
an unveiled attack on France:
It is clearthat this frivolity,this wicked denialof
the Powerrulingoverus which alonegives prosperity andstrengthto ourworksanddeeds,this mocking contemptfor wholesomepiety stems fromthat
nationwhich, incredibly,stoodfor so long beforea
bedazzledworldas a model of art and science...
The unutterable sacrilege of that nation led finally
to a violent revolution that rushed across the earth
like a devastating storm.25
This passage resonates richly with a whole tradition of German nationalist literary polemics.
25Hoffmann, Schriften, pp. 209-10.

The slap at French "frivolity" dates back to

Herder and the Sturm und Drang. In their efforts to define a national literature in opposition to the Francophilic culture of the aristocracy, German writers of the late eighteenth
century had championed the values of profundity, spirituality, and intuition against French
elegance and sensualism. The religious jeremiad
against French "sacrilege" taps into another
prominent strain of German nationalist rhetoric. Such writings as Novalis's Christenheitoder
Europa, Friedrich Schlegel's historical lectures
of 1805-07, and Adam Muiller'sElemente der
Staatskunst had idealized the Catholic Middle
Ages as a golden age of political and religious
concord, before the onslaught of godless liberalism and its atomistic social tendencies. Indeed, a striking number of Romantic authors,
including both Schlegel brothers, Mfiller and
Schelling, converted to Catholicism during the
years of the Napoleonic occupation. Writers
within the Protestant traditionalso transformed
the nationalist struggle against Napoleon into
a holy war, as in Schleiermacher's patriotic
sermons, and Fichte's Addresses, named for
Luther's Addresses to the German Nobility.
Ernst Moritz Arndt went so far as to declare in
his Geist der Zeit (1814), "Let the unanimity of
your hearts be your church, let hatred of the
French be your religion, let Freedom and Fatherland be your saints, to whom you pray!"26
Beethoven himself would come into contact
with this trope in 1823, with the abortedoratorio project Der Sieg des Kreuzes, whose subject
was to have been Constantine's triumphant
establishment of Christianity in pagan Rome.27
Hoffmann's glorification of the sacred art of
Palestrina and the Baroque contrapuntalists in
"Alte und neue Kirchenmusik" provides a musical analogue to this crusade against Enlightenment and Revolution. He explicitly linked

26Quotedin Hagen Schulze, The Course of German Nationalism: From Frederick the Great to Bismarck, 17631867, trans. SarahHanbury-Tenison(Cambridge,1991), p.
50.
27AlexanderWheelock Thayer, Thayer'sLife of Beethoven,
rev. and ed. Elliot Forbes (Princeton, N.J., 1967), pp. 88384.

the aesthetic and political polemic in the stirring conclusion of the essay:
The old, greatmasterslive on in spirit;their songs
have not ceasedto echo:it is just that they cannot
be heardamidthe roaring,ragingtumultof the events
that have brokenoverus. May the time of our fulfilled hopes not tarrylonger,may a pious life in
peace and bliss begin, and may music spreadher
seraphicwings freelyandpowerfully,once moreto
beginthe flightinto the Beyond,which is her home
and from which beam comfortand salvationinto
the humanheart!28
The politicized aesthetics of "Alte und neue
Kirchenmusik"belong within a movement that
has come to be known as politische Romantik,
"political Romanticism." Prominent figures
include such members of the early Jena school
as Novalis, the Schlegel brothers, and
Schleiermacher, but especially such members
of the later Romantic generation as Heinrich
von Kleist, Adam Mfiller, Clemens Brentano,
Achim von Arnim, Franz Baader, and Joseph
Gorres. United by hatred of France, a mistrust
of Western liberalism, and a mystical belief in
the historical German nation and Volk, these
authors marshalled the literary symbols of Romanticism as ideological weapons in the wars
of liberation against Napoleon. Friedrich
Schlegel served as a paid publicist for the
Hapsburg Court, delivering historical lectures
glorifying the medieval Holy Roman Empire;
his brother August Wilhelm served a similar
propagandistic function for the King of Sweden, while delivering lectures attacking French
Classical drama. Schleiermacher delivered patriotic sermons in occupied Berlin, while Kleist
glorified militant nationalism in the historical
dramas Die Hermannschlacht and Prinz von
Homburg. Arnim and Brentanoundertook their
nationalist folkloreproject,crownedby the publication of Des Knaben Wunderhorn. And
Miiller, the most systematic political thinker,
developed the notion of the "organic state" in
his lectures Die Elemente der Staatskunst
(1809-10), before entering the service of Prince
Metternich. Berlin became a major locus of
political Romanticism, centering in the famous
28Hoffmann,Schriften,p. 235.
57

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"Christlich-deutsche Tischgesellschaft," a fortnightly meeting of all the important Romantic

authors, numbering perhaps seventy members.
Meanwhile in Vienna, a vigorous Catholic Romanticism sprangup aroundZachariasWerner
and Clemens Hofbauer, while the Nazarene
School of painters undertook a "neu-deutsche,
religi6s-patriotische Kunst."29
Critics of Romanticism have reached different opinions of its concrete political program.
Heinrich Heine summed up the feelings of the
leftist writers of the Vormdrz in his savage
essay, The Romantic School (1833-35), which
pilloried the Romantics as shameless propagandists of the aristocratic reactionaries. Certainly, the medievalist, theocratic symbolism
of the Romantics lent itself easily to an official
ideology for the aristocratic opponents of liberalism. CzarAlexanderI drewon Romanticideas
in formulating the "Holy Alliance," and Ludwig
I of Bavaria enthusiastically embraced the
Nazarene movement. During the 1830s Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia embarked on an
explicitly Romantic culturalprogram,summoning the mystical philosopher Schelling to the
University of Berlin and rebuilding the historical Cologne Cathedral-efforts that called forth
a satirical essay from the left-Hegelian theologian David Strauss, Ein Romantiker auf dem
Throne des Cisars (1847). Yet the Vormdjrz
critics paint an incomplete picture. Romantic
evocations of Germany's Christian past could
equally well serve radical purposes, as in the
celebrated Wartburg Festival of 1817. Indeed,
the vilkisch nationalism that had served the
European monarchs during the wars against
Napoleon came under suspicion duringthe Restoration; as John Toews has pointed out,
Schleiermacher and his nationalist "Historical
School" at the University of Berlin suffered
repeated government harassment after the
CarlsbadDecrees of 1819.30
Carl Schmitt, the first major twentieth-century scholar of Romantic political thought, focused on precisely this multivalence. Writing
in the wake of the World War I, Schmitt stig-

29Koehler,Asthetik der Politik, p. 167.

3oJohnToews, Hegelianism: The Path Toward Dialectical
Humanism, 1805-1841 (Cambridge,1980),pp. 60-61.
58

matized the "subjective occasionalism" of Romanticism, whose promiscuous adaptation to

any practical political situation mirrored the
disembodied individualism of bourgeois society.31Such patently nationalist writers as Paul
Kluckhohn and JakobBaxa, on the other hand,
sought to resuscitateRomantic political thought
by emphasizing its communal, statist strains.32
Benedikt Koehler has recently portrayedpolitical Romanticism as a genuinely utopian project
for national rebirth, which disappointingly
failed to materialize in the regressive Restoration.33Koehler's reading must, finally, be balanced against Jacques Droz's more skeptical,
and perhaps more convincing, interpretation.34
As Droz amply demonstrates, the Romantic
opponents of Napoleon joined wholeheartedly
in an authoritarian, antiliberal movement
whose roots reached back well into the eighteenth century. This "built-inConservativetendency," as Klaus Epstein has put it,35 indeed
seems to have drawn the Romantics into an
almost inevitable complicity with the forces of
reaction.
Clearly, Hoffmann's critique of Beethoven resonates beyond the discourse of abstract musical
aesthetics. There can be no doubt that Hoffmann came under the influence of the reform
movement and the political ideology of the
Romantics. His personalconfrontationwith the
French government, his position in the upper
civil service, and his association with members
of the reform movement, as well as with leading Romantic figures, furnish both ideal motives and circumstances to develop antiNapoleonic, nationalist sympathies. And his
activities and written opinions as musician and
author provide explicit evidence of his avid
complicity in the cultural war against France.

31CarlSchmitt, Politische Romantik (Munich, 1925).

32Paul Kluckhohn, Pers6nlichkeit und Gemeinschaft:
Studien zur Staatsauffassung der deutschen Romantik
(Halle, 1925); JakobBaxa, Einfiihrungin die romantische
Staatswissenschaft (Jena,1933).
33Koehler,Asthetik der Politik.
34JacquesDroz, Le Romantisme allemand et l'Etat: Resistance et collaboration dans l'Allemagne napoleonienne
(Paris,1966).
35Epstein,Genesis of German Conservatism, p. 674.

Hoffmann's openly political writings date

from 1813 to 1815, after Prussia had rejoined
the battle against France. That does not, however, rule out a political reading of the 1810
review of the Fifth Symphony. Only a few intrepid spirits, such as Fichte and Schleiermacher, had dared to speak out against the
Napoleonic regime before the war. Such overt
subversion had already led to the dismissal of
BaronStein by Napoleon, and the censorship or
banishment of Kleist and Adam MUiller by
Hardenberg's conciliatory
government.
Hoffmann might have quite reasonably chosen
to cloak his political sentiments beneath an
aesthetic polemic. The following analysis will
seek to demonstrate that the language of the
1810 review indeed encodes the ideas of the
Prussian reform movement and political Romanticism.
This political connection in no way diminishes the aesthetic import of Hoffmann's
Beethoven criticism; on the contrary,it heightens its urgency. To grasp the depth and breadth
of Hoffmann's impassioned argument we must
imagine the carnage of Dresden and Leipzig,
the humiliation of a subjected nation, and the
millennialist optimism of a generation bent on
reforming society. Behind Hoffmann's ethereal
Geisterreich lurks the sordid violence of the
all-too-real kingdoms of this world. Conversely,
out of the glimpses of the real meaning that
color Hoffmann's discourse of the musical absolute we sense the definite outlines of an ideal
kingdom yet to come.
III

In a recent study of nationalist literature in

Napoleonic Prussia, Otto Johnston has identified a common paradigm underlying the patriotic writings of the authors under the influence
of Baron Stein: "A program of national education, a focus on the language bond uniting a
national group and a portrayal of the contemporary citizen as a link between a nation's past
and future development-became
the blueprint
for the work of those authors who cooperated
with Stein's political
faction."36 While
36OttoM. Johnston, The Myth of a Nation: Literatureand
Politics in Prussia under Napoleon (Columbia,S.C., 1989),
p. 10.

Hoffmann's muted political statements differ

enormously in degree from the frank exhortations of Fichte, Kleist, or Schleiermacher,
Johnston's tripartite model of education, language, and history proves an accurate guide to
Hoffmann's review.
Johnston's second component, the concern
with language, comes into play at the beginning of the review with Hoffmann's assertion
of music as a higher, spiritual language. At the
outset of the review he claims for music a
spiritual realm in which humanity "leaves behind all feelings capable of conceptual definition, in orderto give itself over to the unspeakable" (p. 34). As mimetic counterexamples to
Beethoven's pure musical language he adduces
the Bataille des trois empereurs and
Dittersdorf's imitative symphonies. This pairing may be seen as symbolizing two prominent
targets of nationalist polemics, France and its
degenerate imitators in the Frenchified German courts. In fact, Hoffmann's polemic resembles arguments advanced in the realm of
natural language. The German tongue, according to nationalist writers, possessed a unique
power of expressingabstract,philosophical conceptions, as opposed to the shallow sensuality
of the French language. Thus, Fichte claimed
in the Addresses to the German Nation, that
"the German speaks a language which has been
alive ever since it first issued from the force of
nature, while other Teutonic races speak a language which has movement on the surface only
but is dead at the root."37
Hoffmann's argument next turns toward
Johnston's third component, history, situating
Beethoven's musical language within a Germanic lineage. His famous apotheosis of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven has received much attention for its "Romanticization" of the
Viennese classicists. The actual literary form
of Hoffmann'shistorical excursus, however, has
attracted little commentary. The three German masters are located in a teleological progression, structured around the temporal meta37JohannGottlieb Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, trans. GeorgeArmstrongKelly (New York, 1966), pp.
58-59. Fichte uses the term "Teutonic," like Hegel's expression "Germanic,"to signify the modem Europeancountries.
59

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phor of day-into-night. Hoffmann takes as his

point of departureHaydn, whose music dwells
in the "Glanz des Abendrotes": "The expression of a childlike, serene sensibility reigns in
Haydn's compositions. His symphonies lead us
unto unbounded, green groves, in a cheerful,

Hoffmann's history of the Viennese instrumental style may thus be seen as tracing a path
from natural immediacy to a purely spiritual
state, from the Garden of Eden to the City of
God. Imagery drawn from traditional mysticism emphasizes the redemptive purification
of the spirit in Beethoven's music. The pain in
which the emotions are "consumed, but not
destroyed" recalls the holy fire of mysticism,

as does the traditional via negativa, whereby

the Absolute is approachedsolely through the
elimination of positive, earthlytraits. Hoffmann
thus narrates a musical history that not only
features a purely Germanic cast of characters,
but also highlights the German nationalistic
trope of spiritual transcendence.
Hoffmann's chronicle of the musical spirit
echoes the spiritual historiography of his famous philosophical compatriots. Fichte, in his
lectures of 1804-05 Characteristics of the
Present Age (Die Grfindzfigedes gegenwidrtigen
Zeitalters), had narrated a history of the human spirit in five stages, passing from purely
instinctual behavior to the reign of "reasonart." Two years later Hegel published his landmark Phenomenology of Spirit, tracing the odyssey of the human spirit from sensory immediacy to absolute self-knowledge, absolutes
Wissen. Schelling's Philosophy and Religion
(1804) and The Ages of the World (1811) evoke
the same redemptive history, drawing heavily
on mysticism. In Geist der Zeit (1806-13), the
nationalist writer Ernst Moritz Arndt proposed
an explicitly nationalistic history of the spirit
in which, as in Hoffmann'snarration,Germanic
culture plays the leading role.
In common with these philosophic treatises,
Hoffmann's narrative contains a reference to
an original Fall from a state of pure communion with nature, representedby Haydn's pastoral style. It also features what M. H. Abrams
has called the "circuitous journey,"39in which
alienated spirit spirals toward a higher sense of
integrity. Thus Beethoven's music, having left
behind the natural daylight, ends by ushering
in the return of a mystical light, the "fiery
beams [which] shoot through the deep night."
Hoffmann later maps this imagery onto the
musical odyssey of the symphony itself, comparing the arrival of the C-major finale to "a
beaming, dazzling sunlight, that suddenly illuminates the deep night."40

38CompareHoffmann's description of Haydn's Seasons in

"Old and New Church Music": "There is no more splendid or more colorful picture of the whole of human life
than that which the composer has musically delineated in
The Seasons; and the playful wit only colours more vividly the motley figures from life who dance about us in
brilliant circles" (Charlton,E. T. A. Hoffmann,p. 370).

39SeeM. H. Abrams,Natural Supernaturalism(New York,

1971), chaps. 3 and 4.
40Hoffmann'swas not the only attempt at a "universal
musical history." Elaine Sisman has called my attention
to a long historical narrativeby J. K. F. Triest, "Bemerkungen iiber die Ausbildung der Tonkunst in deutschland
im achzehnten Jahrhundert,"which ran serially in the
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung during 1803 (vol. 3).

motley throng of humanity. . . . A life full of

love, of bliss, as if before the Fall, in eternal

youthfulness" (p. 35). The phrase "before the
Fall" may perhaps refer to Haydn's most famous work, The Creation, which concludes
with an affirmation of prelapsarianhuman concord.38Hoffmann's diurnal conceit would fit
neatly with the oratorio,which begins with the
celebrated passage representing the creation of
light and, hence, day itself.
Mozart leads the way from Haydn's naturalistic, Enlightened vision into the "Nacht der
Geisterwelt." Yet Mozart's music arouses only
the "Ahnung des Unendlichen." It is Beethoven
who opens to us a "tiefer Nacht":
The realmof the monstrousandthe immeasurable.
Fierybeams shoot throughthe deep night of this
realmand we becomeawareof giant shadowsthat
wave up and down, drawcloserand closerin upon
us, andannihilateeverythingin us, exceptthe pain
of infiniteyearningin whicheverydesirethatrushed
upwardsin jubilanttones sinks downandperishes;
and only in this pain, in which love, hope, joy are
consumed,but not destroyed,andwhichmustburst
our heartswith a full-voicedchorusof all the passions, do we live on as enraptured
spiritualvisionaries (p.36).

60

Hoffmann's spiritual history leads directly

into the central thesis of the review, the assertion of Beethoven's "self-possession," or
Besonnenheit. As was argued above, the concept of Besonnenheit belongs integrally within
the ideals of Germanic Bildung advocated by
the reformers-the remaining component of
Johnston's paradigm, national education, thus
falls into place. The nationalistic overtones of
Hoffmann's polemic become explicit as he goes
on to sneer at those "aesthetic geometricians
[Messkiinstler] [who] have often complained of
the complete lack of true unity and inner coherence in Shakespeare" (p. 37). Hoffmann's
argument calls up the Romantic polemic waged
only the year before the review by A. W.
Schlegel, whose Vorlesungeniiber dramatische
Kunst und Literatur had pitted Shakespeare
against the arid formalism of the French Classicists. To counteract such shallowness,
Hoffmann has recourse to a favorite German
Romantic symbol, comparing Beethoven's musical thought to the way "a lovely tree grows,
with its blossoms and leaves, flowers and fruit,
bursting from a single seed" (p. 37).
Proceeding to Hoffmann's actual analysis, we
may begin to discover just what sort of polity
he may have intended in his Reich des
Unendlichen. A term that recurs with almost
hypnotic regularity throughout the review is
das Ganze-the whole. The idea of the whole
lies at the heart of Romantic political thought,
in the central notion of the "organic state."
With Friedrich Gentz's seminal translation of
Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution
in France (1790), Novalis's Glauben und Liebe
(1797), Schelling's Vorlesungen iiber die
Methode des akademischen Studiums (1803),
and Adam Mi:iller's Elemente der Staatswissenschaft (1809-10), the organic metaphor
that had been established in aesthetics by
Herder and Goethe entered decisively into Romantic political theory. The Romantics repudiated the mechanistic, atomizing, and utilitarian tendencies of Western liberalism, as expressed in free-market economics, the individualistic rights of natural law, and contractual
theories of government. They upheld instead a
vision of the state in which each individual
interest was subordinated to the articulated-

and hence, hierarchical-structure of the total

organism. Novalis had referredto the state as a
"Makroanthropos," a magnified individual.
Miller declaredin the same year as Hoffmann's
review, "The state is not a mere factory, a
farm, an insurance, institution or mercantile
society, it is the intimate association of all
physical and spiritual needs, of the whole of
physical and spiritual wealth, of the total internal and external life of a nation into a great,
energetic, infinitely active and living whole.'"41
Hegel, although generally antipathetic to the
mystical strains of the Romantics, articulated
a similarly totalizing, anti-Enlightened view of
the state: "Since the state is mind objectified,
it is only as one of its members that the individual himself has objectivity, genuine individuality, and an ethical life. Unification pure
and simple is the true content and aim of the
individual, and the individual's destiny is the
living of a universal life."42
This concern with organic totality and unity
finds an aesthetic correlatein Hoffmann's wellknown analysis of the symphony's thematic
unity. As he states, "it is particularly the inner
relationship of the individual themes to each
other which produces the unity that holds fast
one feeling in the listener's sensibility" (p. 50).
He remarks of the opening of the symphony
that
thereis no simplerideathanthaton whichBeethoven
has basedhis entireAllegro[hereHoffmanninserts
the four-noteheadmotive]and one perceiveswith
astonishmenthow he was ableto link all the subsidiaryideasandepisodesto this simplethemeby their
rhythmicrelation,so that they serveto unfoldmore
and more the overallcharacterof the movement,
whichthat themeby itself couldonly hint at (p.43).
Significantly,the qualities in the opening theme
that Hoffmann singles out concern its negative
relation to the syntactical structure:the lack of
harmonic definition ("even the key is not yet
E1 listener assumes major" [p. 37])
certain; the
and aphoristic brevity ("one would believe that

41H.S. Reiss, The Political Thought of the German Romantics (New York, 1955),p. 150.
42G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox
(Oxford,1967), p. 156.
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from such elements only something fragmentary and difficult to grasp could arise" [p. 43]).
In short, Hoffmann diminishes the intrinsic
definition of the theme in orderto enhance the
overall developmental process, in which the
individual idea alone finds meaning.
As suggested above, Hoffmann's aestheticand political-priorities frequently lead his
analysis into seeming conflict with what seem
the most obvious features of Beethoven's score.
We may detect a strain between the totalizing strategy of his thematic analysis and
Beethoven's manifest intention to spotlight the
primary theme at the symphony's outset.
Etched in stark unison and framed by fermata
pauses, the theme veritably shrieks to be heard
for its own sake. Hoffmann's account registers
none of the positive traits that lend the theme
its particular affective character: the impetuous, anacrusic rhythm; the unsettling fermatas;
the fatalistic downward pull of the melody,
from the dominant toward the tonic; the insistent hammering on one pitch, which Beethoven
could liken to Fate knocking on the door. No
mere "hint," the opening theme defines, even
creates, the character of the movement.
Hoffmann shows a similar indifference to
the specific character of the other themes. He
remarks of the secondary theme of the first
movement that "it is indeed melodious, yet
still remains true to the character of anxious,
unrestful yearning which the whole movement
projects... with the result that the new theme
becomes wholly woven into the whole texture" (p. 39).
The threefold repetition of the word whole
(ganz)demonstratesHoffmann'sbias away from
the particularity of the thematic moment toward its general significance. Hoffmann cites
the "resplendent, jubilant theme" (p. 47) of the
final movement, yet stops shy of naming it a
march-this in spite of the clear, indeed blatant, topical allusions of key, instrumentation,
and rhythm. He points instead to the contra-

marks that "it is primarily the singular modulations; cadences in which the major dominant
chord, whose root the bass takes up as the
tonic of the following minor theme; the theme
itself which continually expands by several
measures-which
project the character of
Beethoven's music posited above" (p. 45). Harmonic modulations, cadences, phraselengthsin short, features of syntactical treatmentthus define the mood, rather than, say, the
mysterious quality of the unison string opening, or the heroic character of the answering
horn call. Similarly, in his description of the
finale, Hoffmann overlooks the clearly triumphant characterof the second theme, drawinga
strained conclusion based on an unremarkable
modulation: "Through this theme and its further development through A minor to C major
the sensibility is plunged again into that foreboding mood which receded but momentarily
amidst the rejoicingand jubilation"(p.48). That
Hoffmann can hear anything beyond exultation in the exposition reveals how willingly he
subordinates the manifest thematic surface to
a generalsyntactical principle,such as harmony.
Indeed, Hoffmann is fascinated, even obsessed with harmony, lavishing detailed attention on chordal analysis to the expense of what
seem more salient aspects of the symphony.
This emphasis makes sense in light of the
aesthetic enunciated in "Alte und neue
Kirchenmusik." In this essay, Hoffmann drew
a fundamental distinction between two musical aesthetics, the "pagan-antique" and the
"Christian-modern."The former drew its inspiration from Classical models and treated
music as vehicle of rhetorical, humanistic expression; the latter, a product of the modern
Christian world, viewed music along
Pythagorean lines, as a reflection of a higher
supernatural order (as Carl Dahlhaus has
pointed out, the hoary categories of the prima
and seconda prattica underlie Hoffmann's adaptation of the eighteenth-century querelle des

puntal possibilities of the finale themes-that

is, their relation to a general syntactical category: "The themes [Satze] of this Allegro are
more broadly treated than the preceding ones;
they are less melodious than forceful and susceptible to contrapuntal imitation" (p. 48). Describing the character of the scherzo, he re-

anciens et moderns43). "Pagan-antique" music

was above all concerned with rhythmic melody,
mimetic of human speech; in the words of

62

43SeeCarl Dahlhaus, The Idea of Absolute Music, trans.

RogerLustig (Chicago, 1989), chap. 3.

Rousseau, the foremost eighteenth-century exponent of this aesthetic, "by imitating the inflections of the voice, melody expresses pity,
cries of sorrow and joy, threats and groans....
[Harmony] shackles melody, draining it of energy and expressiveness. It wipes out passionate accent, replacing it with the harmonic interval."44In contrast to this humanistic, rhetorical emphasis on melody, "Christian-modern" music centered on the totalizing, preternatural symbol of harmony; as Hoffmann declared, "the love, the consonance of all things
spiritual in nature which is promised to the
Christian, expresses itself in chords which first
awoke to life with Christianity;and thus chords,
harmony become the image and expression of
the spiritual fellowship, of the union with the
eternal, the ideal, which reigns over us yet embraces us."45Hoffmann's emphasis on harmony
and concomitant neglect of individual melodic
expression may thus be seen as a further attempt at countering a humanistic, individualistic expression with the appeal to a sacred,
totalizing whole-an aesthetic program with
obvious parallels to Romantic political theory.
Again Hoffmann's a priori critical categories
lead him into seeming conflict with Beethoven's
text. Rousseau could hardly have found better
examples of unshackled, passionate melody
than in the Fifth Symphony. We might cite the
remarkableamount of unison and solo melodic
writing-the opening measures of the first
theme, the horn call, and oboe cadenza in the
first movement; the beginning of the scherzo;
the tympani solo leading into the finale. The
driving,marchlike rhythms in the second, third,
and fourth movements and the single-minded
monorhythm of the first offend equally against
the serene balance of the Palestrinian ars
perfecta. These recalcitrantly "antique" features, which slip undetected through the net of
a "Christian-modern" aesthetic, cast a lingering shadow of doubt around the edges of
Hoffmann's Romantic interpretation.

to instrumentation. Granted,he does praise "the

inner disposition of the instrumentation, etc."
and meticulously specifies Beethoven's orchestration throughout the analysis. Nevertheless,
timbre andinstrumentationrarelyfigureas more
than accidental signposts on the face of the
musical work. He entirely ignores two of the
most salient instrumental effects in the symphony, the oboe cadenza in the first movement
andthe disembodiedreturnof the scherzotheme.
He also neglects the seemingly obvious connection between the C-majormilitary band of the
second movement and the opening of the finale.
Only twice does instrumentation enter significantly into Hoffmann's interpretation. Describing the opening of the finale, he notes "the
full orchestra, with piccolos, trombones, and
contrabassoonadded-like a beaming, dazzling
shaft of sunlight that suddenly illuminates the
depths of the night" (pp. 47-48). This description, however, may perhapsbe traced to a literary conceit, Hoffmann's spiritual history of the
Viennese symphonic tradition. The day-night
metaphor recalls the culminating moment of
the Universalgeschichte, the higher spiritual
dawn ushered in by Beethoven's music, where
"fiery beams shoot through the deep night of
this realm." Once again, his analysis seems
dictated less by the concrete expressive qualities of the score than by higher philosophical
conceptions. He also pays close attention to
the tympani solo in the transition to the finale,
drawing an uncharacteristic comparison to the
human voice: "Why the master continues the
dissonant C in the kettledrum till the end is
explained by the character that he was striving
to give to the whole. These hollow blows of its
dissonance, sounding like a strange, fearful
voice, excite a horror of the extraordinary-of
ghostly fear"(p.47). This description, however,
demonstrates anew Hoffmann's compulsion to
dissolve all disturbing surface details within a
general conception of "the whole." Not surprisingly, he resorts to a harmonic explanation.

Hoffmann's indifference to thematic character and rhetorical expression extends a fortiori

If Hoffmann tends to neglect affective character and instrumentation, he shows no more

interest in formal process, passing nonchalantly
over even the most dramatic moments. The
electrifying recapitulation of the first movement stirs him to nothing more than the remark that "the whole orchestra with tympani

Rousseau and JohannGottfried Herder, On

44Jean-Jacques
the Origin of Language, trans. John H. Moran and
Alexander Gode (Chicago, 1986), pp. 57-58.
45Hoffmann,Schriften, p. 215.

63

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E. T. A.
Hoffmann's
Beethoven
Criticism

19TH
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MUSIC

and trumpets enters with the main theme, in

its original form" (p. 42). Likewise, Hoffmann
registers not the slightest sense of catharsis at
the recapitulation of the finale, despite the extraordinaryreturn of the scherzo. Admittedly,
this method of arguing ab vacuo has its limits;
yet when one considers what raptures the
most quotidian modulation could arouse in
Hoffmann, it is striking indeed that he remains
unmoved by these formal coups de thdatre.
Hoffmann does not overlook these formal
events out of ignorance,46but rather because
his governing conception of "infinite longing"
precludes such finite demarcations. As suggested above, he links the arrival at the finale
with the attainment of full spiritual development in his Universalgeschichteof the Viennese
symphonic style. As he puts it in another part
of the review, the symphony "sweeps the listener irresistibly into the wonderful spirit realm
of the infinite" (p. 37). Wallace has astutely
observed that "at no point does Hoffmann distinguish an actual thematic statement ... [but

only] connecting material, separating and developing the important thematic events of the
movement."47Hoffmann'sone-sidedfascination
with unbounded dynamism is nowhere more
evident than in his description of the finale
coda. Unlike most commentators of the symphony, he hears no sense of finality in the reiterated tonic chords, but rather "a fire which
flares up in bright flames after one had believed
it extinguished" (p. 50).
Like such other totalizing conceptions as harmony, thematicism, and counterpoint, "infinite longing" conveys real political associations
in Hoffmann's Romantic aesthetic. In the introduction to "Alte und neue Kirchenmusik,"
he contrasts pure spiritual longing with destructive worldly desires, using imagery familiar from the Fifth Symphony review. He prophesies of his troubled era, "in which the obliviousness of all our inverted strivings, of all our
captivity to earthly drives after earthly goals is

nizes its home, and in this recognition gains

courage and strength to bear, even to resist, its
earthly travails."48Spiritual Sehnsucht, as the
final phrase makes clear, has become a spur to
endure, indeed, to resist "earthly travails"whose identity can scarcely be mistaken in
this context. We find similar imagery in the
martial conclusion to "Der Dichter und der
Komponist," where the soldier-poet Ferdinand
exults that "the golden doors are open, and
with a single ray knowledge and art enkindle
that holy striving that unites mankind into one
church."49By contrast, in "Die Vision auf dem
Schlachtfelde bei Dresden," Hoffmann portrays
Napoleon as having confounded the kingdoms
of heaven and earth. In the Phantasiestiick, a
host of fallen soldiers rises up in judgement
against Napoleon:
Thenthe voices shriekedagain:
one!Do not mockthe powerthatsends
"Depraved
death.Lookaboveyou!"
Yet still the tyrant directedhis gaze downwards;
staringinsteadat the earth,he spoke:
"Madmen,what do you seek over my head?nothingabove me!-the darkspace up there is
empty,for I myself am the powerof vengeance
anddeath."50
Hoffmann's analysis thus far has depicted an
organic commonwealth, subordinated in every
detail to totalizing structures and fortified
throughout by a pure, heavenly yearning. But
this musical commonwealth is by no means a
democracy. Haydn, he concedes, "romantically
apprehendsthe humanity in human life; he is
more congenial to the majority"; not so
Beethoven, whose instrumental music "rarely
appeals to the crowd" (p. 36). In the reworking
of the symphony review in Kreisleriana,
Hoffmann states that "Beethoven's mighty genius oppresses the musical rabble;they rebel in
vain against it." A few sentences later the autocratic model surfaces explicitly in the state-

so plainly revealed, in which the spirit, as

though illuminated by a heavenly bolt, recog-

ment that Beethoven "separates his Ego [Ich]

from the inner realm of sounds and rules over
it as unlimited ruler [unumschriinkter Herr].''s51

46Hisreview of FriedrichWitt's Fifth Symphony demonstrates that he understood well the dynamics of sonata
form (ibid., pp. 19-23).
47Wallace,Beethoven's Critics, p. 131.

48Hoffmann,Schriften,p. 211.
49MusikalischeNovellen, p. 330.
SoHoffmann,Schriften,p. 602.
"1MusikalischeNovellen, p. 61.

64

Hoffmann resorts here to Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre (as filtered through Jean-PaulRichter52),which portrayed the ego (Ich) in a constant struggle for mastery over external reality,
the "non-ego" (nicht-Ich). Ironically, while the
young radical Fichte of 1794 had once compared the non-ego to the oppressive and arbitrary structures of the old Regime, Hoffmann
has turned the ego against the subjects of the
realm. But again, by 1811 Fichte's own outlook
had changed to the extent that he could write,
"Good governments make good majorities."'53
In Hoffmann's musical monarchy, the critic
assumes a vital new role. No longer a guardian
of public taste, the critic now occupies an elite
position above common sense or accepted opinion; as Hoffmann avers, "Romantic taste is rare,
romantic talent rarer."He decisively turns the
table on traditional criticism in a contemptuous passage:
But the wise judges,gazingaboutwith a self-important air, offerassurance:one may trust their judgement as men of great understandingand deep insight.... Buthow is it, thatthe inner,deepstructure
of all Beethoven'scompositionsescapesyourfeeble
gaze?Has it not dawnedupon you that you do not
understandthe master'slanguage,understoodonly
by the initiated,when to you the portalsof the most
holy sanctuaryremainsshut?54
The true critic has become an initiate in a
hieratic order, capable of interpreting the
"hieroglyphs"-Hoffmann's favorite word for
musical notation-of the genius.
Charlton has noted the "legalistic rigor and
detail" of Hoffmann's analysis of the Fifth Symphony,55and in his meticulous argumentation
from the musical text we sense the profound
respect for the legal code so evident in his other

52"Nun gibt es eine h6here Bessonnenheit, die, welche die

innere Welt selber entzweit und entzweiteilt in ein Ich

und in dessen Reich, in einen Schipfer und dessen Welt"
(Jean-PaulRichter, Vorschuleder Aesthetik, quoted in Carl
Dahlhaus, "E. T. A. Hoffmanns Beethoven-Kritikund die
Aesthetik des Erhabenen,"Archiv f!urMusikwissenschaft
38 [1981], 85).
53Quotedin George Armstrong Kelly, Idealism, Politics,
and History: Sources of Hegelian Thought (Cambridge,
1978), p. 279.
54Musikalische Novellen, p. 61.
5sCharlton,E. T. A. Hoffmann, p. xii.

writings. The role of the critic in Hoffmann's

thought might indeed be compared to the Prussian civil servant, who similarly mediates between monarch and populace. In both cases,
the process flows unidirectionally, from top to
bottom. Hegel, in his Philosophy of Right of
1821, could thus idealize the civil service as a
"universal class," in whom "the consciousness
of right and the developed intelligence of the
mass of the people is found."56This model
proved enduring, in both the theory and the
practice of German political life throughout
the nineteenth century.
The definite contours of a political model
thus take shape in the laboratoryof Hoffmann's
review. We behold a harmonious, spiritually
unified collective ruled over by an absolute
monarch and mediated by an elite intelligentsia. This paradigm would in fact guide German political development in the nineteenth
century, despite all efforts at liberal reform,
culminating in Bismarck's winning combination of cultural nationalism and political
authoritarianism. It can hardly be coincidental
that the German art music culture of this time
developed along the same lines, giving rise to
the cult of the autonomous genius who composes in fine disregardfor the public, and whose
wishes are reverently interpreted by an elite
class of conductors, performers,and critics. To
the extent that this paradigmretains a hold on
modern musical life, we remain heirs of
Hoffmann's ideology.

IV
"Our kingdom is not of this world, say the
musicians." So said Hoffmann, and so have succeeding generations of musicians to our own
day. Yet that very act of saying, that concrete
verbalization, belies the claim. For when we
fixate on the languageof Hoffmann'sspirit kingdom a substantial, human form comes into focus, telling of wars, nations, and political associations. Into the vacated space of Hoffmann's
spirit realm rush a host of positive, material associations-France, Napoldon, gory battlefields.
Ironically, Hoffmann's myth of the absolute
founders on the very work he proposed as a para56Hegel,Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford,
1967),p. 193.

65

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Hoffmann's
Beethoven
Criticism

19TH
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MUSIC

gon of purely spiritual music. The sheer materiality of the Fifth Symphony-its insistent
rhythms, its triumphal marches, its cathartic
release into the major-threaten to expose
Hoffmann's review as a critical Phantasiestiick.
Yet Hoffmann's review pays other, unexpected dividendstowarda historicalunderstanding of Beethoven's music. In 1809, only months
after the premiere of the Fifth Symphony, Austria began its own Befreiungskrieg,and the composer who had once intended to dedicate a symphony to Napoleon ended up instead writing
patriotic potboilers for the Emperor'senemies
at the Congress of Vienna. At just this time too
Beethoven's music underwent profound stylistic changes, moving beyond the heroic bluster
and teleology of the Fifth Symphony. By the
1820s Beethoven had perfected a style that, it
could be argued, uncannily matches the specifications of Hoffmann's critical model. These
late works operate at the highest level of metaphysical abstraction; they draw on the spiritualizing, "Christian-modern"resources of counterpoint and modal harmony; they exhibit the
stark contrast between a chaotically disjunct
surface and an esoteric motivic substratum.
Hoffmann's portrait of Beethoven in the Fifth
Symphony review may thus appearnot so much
inaccurate as premature.
And in Hoffmann's prescient criticism lies
the key to a revised political interpretation of
Beethoven's late style. Two main views hold
sway at present. The first position adopts the
Hoffmannesque myth of the absolute at face
value, characterizing the late period as
Beethoven's retreat into a realm of purely spiritual exploration. In 1927 J. W. N. Sullivan articulated a notion still popular today, when he
claimed of the late works that "the regions
within which Beethoven the composer now
worked were, to an unprecedenteddegree,withdrawn and sheltered from his outward life. His
deafness and solitariness are almost symbolic
of his complete retreat into his inner self."57s
The second, more sophisticated position sees
the spiritualized abstraction of the late style as
an indirect form of political resistance. Theodor

57J.W. N. Sullivan, Beethoven: His SpiritualDevelopment

(New York, 1952), p. 122.

66

W. Adorno heard Beethoven's withdrawal in

the late works from the clear public stance of
his earlier works as a negation of the false syntheses of "affirmative culture."58 Maynard
Solomon, while certainly no follower of Adorno,
portrays a similarly negative relation between
society and music when he writes of the late
chamber music that "serious art flees to the
margins of society and to the more private
forms, where it sets up beachheads in defense
of its embattled position in life."59 Sieghard
Brandenburghas more recently resorted to the
same argument, claiming that "the repressive,
antiliberal attitude of the Metternichian state
finally drove [Beethoven], like other spiritual
creators, into an inner emigration."60
Hoffmann's review challenges both these
positions. By 1810, well before the advent of
Metternichian repression, a musical aesthetic
uncannily descriptive of Beethoven's late style
had already crystallized, forged from German
Romanticism as a cultural weapon against
France.This aesthetic emerged during an activist, even millennialist, epoch as a form of political commitment, preaching a direct relation
between spiritual and temporal reform.61In the
light of Hoffmann'spoliticized aesthetic, the sea
change in Beethoven's late style may be viewed
as part of a largerpattern of German history. Sir
Isaiah Berlin wrote of Beethoven's generation:
Almost without exception,they beganby welcomplantingtrees
ingthe FrenchRevolutionrapturously,

_8Forthe best English summary of Adorno's Beethoven

criticism, especially of the late works, see Rose Rosengard
Subotnik, Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in
WesternMusic (Minneapolis, 1991),pp. 15-41.
59MaynardSolomon, Beethoven (New York, 1977), p. 318.
60Beethoven:Zwischen Revolution und Restauration, ed.
Helga Liihningand SieghardBrandenburg(Bonn,1989),p. 3.
61Thereis a familiar ring to the rhetoric of a letter of 1824,
in which Beethoven's admirers defend his music against
the "new Napoleon," Rossini: "The symbol of the highest
within the spiritual realm of tones sprangfrom the soil of
[the Austrian] fatherland. All the more painful must it
have been for you to feel that a foreign power has invaded
this royal citadel of the noblest, that above the mounds of
the dead and around the dwelling-place of the only survivor of the band, phantoms are leading the dance who can
boast of no kinship with the princely spirits of those royal
houses; that shallowness is abusing the name and insignia
of art, and unworthy dalliance with sacred things is beclouding and dissipating appreciationfor the pure and eternally beautiful" (Thayer,Life of Beethoven, p. 897).

of liberty,and denouncingas obsoleteand brutally

oppressive the rule of the three hundred German
princes, until, horrified by the Terrorand wounded
by the military humiliation of Germany before the
armies of Revolutionary Franceand, still more, those
of Napoleon, they turned into patriots, reactionaries, and romantic irrationalists. Was not this the
path pursued by Fichte (above all Fichte), Goerres,

Novalisandthe Schlegels,Schleiermacher
andTieck,
Gentz and Schelling,and to some degreeeven by
HegelandSchiller?62

in As62IsaiahBerlin,"Herderand the Enlightenment,"

pects of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Earl R. Wasserman

(Baltimore,1965), p. 57.

Beethoven's careernearly exactly parallels that

of Fichte, Hegel, and the Romantic authors,
and no general historian would fail to list him
among the central intellectual figures of the
age. Yet Berlin seems not even to have thought
of mentioning the composer. The omission certainly owes much to the tenacious dogma of
"absolute music" that denies music the possibility of any concrete, let alone political, repre-

sentation. Our understanding of Hoffmann can

help at this point, by demonstrating the vested
political interests that went into the formation
of this aesthetic doctrine. And in this way the
present study may serve as a prolegomenon to
a largercritical project:to discover in the absolute, spiritual language of Beethoven's late
t
works the solid outlines of a kingdom
that is of this world.

;4.

67

STEPHEN
RUMPH
E.T. A.
Hoffmann's
Beethoven
Criticism