This chapter concentrates on the painful zigzag course of Jewish emancipation during the first half of the nineteenth century. It begins with the Prussian legislation of 1812, with special emphasis on the attitude of the national-liberal movement in the various parts of Germany with regard to emancipation but also to other relevant issues of the time. It then tells of the emerging new kind of antisemitism at the time, beginning with Fichte’s ambivalence, through Wilhelm von Humboldt’s principled stand on equality and the outright antisemites, Fries and Rühs. The upheavals known as the Hep-Hep attacks on the Jews in 1819 are then briefly described, followed by quotes regarding ongoing integration in the following decades. Finally, the ambivalent situation of young Jewish scholars, who could now study at the best institutions, but were refused academic posts, is described through the biography of Eduard Gans and the changing fortunes of the young Heinrich Heine.

In this essay, I explore the text and contexts of Richard Strauss’s “Schlechtes Wetter,” Op. 69 No. 5 (1918), in order to illustrate the nature of song as interpretation. First, from the musicological side (and with brief reference to two classic theoretical accounts of the methodology of Lied analysis by Kofi Agawu and Lawrence Zbikowski), I consider Heinrich Heine’s poem and Strauss’s setting of it as meta-texts that reflect on the artists’ creative processes, observing in particular how Strauss’s song can also be heard to reveal the creative and interpretative essence of the traditional manner of identifying text-music relationships in the Lied. Turning then toward the work and perspectives of performers, I explore Strauss’s song as it was interpreted by soprano Elisabeth Schumann and the composer at the piano on their 1921 tour of the United States, along with some brief concluding reflections on my own performance of the song as pianist with soprano Sari Gruber in recitals given over the past decade. These performances radically alter our understanding of what the song is about and who we are to understand its vocal persona to be, illustrating the vital role of performance in determining what a song is and means.