Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T08:18:41.898Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ernst Krenek's ‘Problem of Freedom’ in Jonny spielt auf

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2013

NANETTE NIELSEN
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ernst Krenek's opera Jonny spielt auf (1927) was, according to the composer, concerned with ‘the problem of freedom’. But in what ways did it grapple with this problem? This article offers a new interpretation of Krenek's opera in light of the composer's views on freedom, developments in contemporary criticism, and the wider context of German Idealism. By focusing on constructions of subjectivity in Jonny, I argue that, much as Krenek lamented the fact that the opera's fundamental message had not been taken seriously enough in the work's reception, he himself had presented this theme of individual freedom ambiguously in musical terms. As a work that mediated between ethics and aesthetics, consistently adhering to an irreconcilable dialectic between the individual and the community, Jonny spielt auf contributed in important ways to the discourse that would stir so many Weimar intellectuals over the next few years to warn against the power of mass culture.

Type
Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 25 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbate, Carolyn. Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Adorno, Theodor W.Kierkegaard: Konstruktion des Aesthetischen. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966. Trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor as Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Adorno, Theodor W. ‘Zur gesellschaftlichen Lage der Musik’, in Musikalische Schriften, vol. 5, ed. Tiedemann, Rolf and Schultz, Klaus. Gesammelte Schriften 18. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984. 729–77. Trans. Wes Blomster (rev. Richard Leppert) as ‘On the Social Situation of Music’, in Adorno, Essays on Music, ed. Richard Leppert. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. 391–436.Google Scholar
Bacht, Nikolaus, ed. Music, Theatre, and Politics in Germany: 1848 to the Third Reich. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.Google Scholar
Bauer, Ludwig. ‘Mittelalter, 1932’. Das Tagebuch 13/1 (1932), 10–13. Trans. Don Reneau as ‘The Middle Ages’ (1932), in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, ed. Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. 384–7.Google Scholar
Behr, Shulamith, Fanning, David, and Jarman, Douglas, eds. Expressionism Reassessed. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Bekker, Paul. Das deutsche Musikleben. Berlin: Schuster & Löffler, 1916.Google Scholar
Bekker, Paul. Die Sinfonie von Beethoven bis Mahler. Berlin: Schuster & Löffler, 1918.Google Scholar
Bekker, Paul. Briefe an zeitgenössische Musiker. Berlin: Max Hesse, 1932.Google Scholar
Bekker, Paul. Wandlungen der Oper (1934). Zürich: Orell Füssli, 1983.Google Scholar
Bowie, Andrew. Aesthetics and Subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche, 2nd edn. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Bowie, Andrew. ‘German Idealism's Contested Heritage’, in German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Hammer, Espen. London: Routledge, 2007. 309–30.Google Scholar
Bowie, Andrew. Music, Philosophy, and Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobussen, Marcel, and Nielsen, Nanette. Music and Ethics. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012.Google Scholar
Cook, Susan C.Opera for a New Republic: the Zeitopern of Krenek, Weill, and Hindemith. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Diettrich, Eva. ‘Auf den Spuren zu Jonnys Erfolg’, in Ernst Krenek, ed. Kolleritsch, Otto. Studien zur Wertungsforschung 15. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1982. 119–24.Google Scholar
Döblin, Alfred. ‘Dass der Einzelne unter dem Einfluss der Masse nicht verkrüppelt’, Uhu 8/6 (1932), 7–8. Trans. as ‘May the Individual Not Be Stunted by the Masses’, in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, ed. Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. 386–7.Google Scholar
Eichhorn, Andreas. ‘“Amerika als Wunschbild zukünftiger Gesellschaft”? Zur Rezeption von Ernst Kreneks Oper “Jonny spielt auf”’, in Amerikanismus, Americanism, Weill: die Suche nach kultureller Identität der Moderne, ed. Danuser, Hermann and Gottschewski, Hermann. Schliengen: Angus, 2003. 171–83.Google Scholar
Evans, Richard J.Rereading German History: from Unification to Reunification, 1800–1996. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar
Everth, Erik. ‘Individualität und Geistesgeschichte’, in Jahrbuch der Charakterologie, ed. Utitz, Emil. Berlin: Pan-Verlag Kurt Metzner, 1927. 1–43.Google Scholar
Forster, Merete. Reflexe kultureller Modernisierung: Ernst Krenek's Radikalismus der Mitte und der Einfluss von Karl Kraus 1928–1938. Frankfurt and Oxford: Peter Lang, 2004.Google Scholar
Gier, Christina B. ‘Sounding the Frauenseele: Gender, Modernism, and Intertextuality in Alban Berg's “Über die Grenzen”, op. 4, no. 3’. Women and Music 9 (2005), 51–68.Google Scholar
Grosch, Nils. Die Musik der Neuen Sachlichkeit. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999.Google Scholar
Harsh, Donna. German Social Democracy and the Rise of Nazism. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time, trans. Macquarrie, John and Robinson, Edward. Oxford: Blackwell, 1962.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. The Essence of Human Freedom: an Introduction to Philosophy, trans. Sadler, Ted. London and New York: Continuum, 2002.Google Scholar
John, Eckhard. ‘Jonny und Jazz: die Rolle des schwarzen Musikers auf der Bühne der zwanziger Jahre’, in Aspekte des modernen Musiktheaters in der Weimarer Republik, ed. Grosch, Nils. Münster: Waxmann, 2004. 101–19.Google Scholar
Johnson, Julian. ‘Berg's Operas and the Politics of Subjectivity’, in Music, Theatre and Politics in Germany, ed. Bacht. 211–33.Google Scholar
Kearney, Richard, and Rainwater, Maria, ed. The Continental Philosophy Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Keathley, Elizabeth L. ‘Revisioning Musical Modernism: Arnold Schoenberg, Marie Pappenheim, and Erwartung's New Woman’. PhD diss., State University of New York, 1999.Google Scholar
Kierkegaard, Søren. Enten-eller: et livs-fragment, ed. Eremita, Victor. 2 vols. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1843. Trans. as Either/Or, by David F. Swenson and Lillian Marvin Swenson (vol. 1) and Walter Lowrie (vol. 2), rev. Howard A. Johnson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Krenek, Ernst. ‘“Materialbestimmtheit” der Oper’. Musikblätter des Anbruch 9/1–2 (1927), 48–52.Google Scholar
Krenek, Ernst. Selbstdarstellung. Zürich: Atlantis, 1948.Google Scholar
Krenek, Ernst. Im Zweifelsfalle: Aufsätze über Musik. Vienna: Europa, 1984.Google Scholar
Krenek, Ernst. Im Atem der Zeit: Erinnerungen an die Moderne, trans. Saathen, Friedrich and Schultz, Sabine. Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, 1998.Google Scholar
Lukacs, Georg. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics, trans. Livingstone, Rodney. London: Merlin Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Mulhall, Stephen. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and Being and Time, 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Nanette. Review of The Artist-Operas of Pfitzner, Krenek and Hindemith by Claire Taylor-Jay. Music & Letters 86/4 (2005), 664–8.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Nanette. ‘Sein oder Schein? Paul Bekker's “Mirror Image” and the Ethical Voice of Humane Opera’. Opera Quarterly 23/2–3 (2007), 295–310.Google Scholar
Payette, Jessica. ‘Dismembering “Expectations”: the Modernization of Monodrama in Fin-de-siècle Theatrical Arts’, in Melodramatic Voices: Understanding Music Drama, ed. Hibberd, Sarah. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. 137–57.Google Scholar
Redlich, Hans F. ‘Heimat und Freiheit: zur Ideologie der jüngsten Werke Ernst Kreneks’. Musikblätter des Anbruch 12/2 (1930), 54–8.Google Scholar
Rehding, Alexander. ‘Magic Boxes and Volksempfänger: Music on the Radio in Weimar Germany’, in Music, Theatre, and Politics in Germany, ed. Bacht. 255–73.Google Scholar
Rogge, Wolfgang. Ernst Kreneks Opern: Spiegel der zwanziger Jahre. Wolfenbüttel und Zürich: Möseler, 1970.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Matthias. ‘Ernst Krenek, Paul Bekker und die “gesellschaftsbildende Macht” der Oper’, in Musiktheorie 16/1 (2001), 59–72.Google Scholar
Solomon, Robert C.Continental Philosophy since 1750: the Rise and Fall of the Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Stewart, John L.Ernst Krenek: the Man and His Music. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Taruskin, Richard. The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 5: The Late Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Taylor-Jay, Claire. ‘Kreneks Amerika-Bild vor und nach der Flucht: zu Utopien und künstlerischer Identität’, in Von Jonny zu Jeremia: Spuren der Vertreibung im Werk Ernst Kreneks, ed. Geiger, Friedrich. Saarbrücken: Pfau, 2001. 29–45.Google Scholar
Taylor-Jay, Claire. The Artist-Operas of Pfitzner, Krenek and Hindemith: Politics and the Ideology of the Artist. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.Google Scholar
Timms, Edward. Karl Kraus, Apocalyptic Satirist: Culture and Catastrophe in Habsburg Vienna. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Tönnies, Ferdinand. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Leipzig: Fues, 1887. Trans. Charles P. Loomis as Community and Association. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955.Google Scholar
Tregear, Peter. ‘Musical Style and Political Allegory in Krenek's Karl V’. Cambridge Opera Journal 13/1 (2001), 55–80.Google Scholar
Tregear, Peter. ‘“Stadtluft macht frei”: Urban Consciousness in Weimar Opera’, in Music, Theatre, and Politics in Germany, ed. Bacht. 237–55.Google Scholar
Weitz, Eric D.Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007.Google Scholar