Table Of ContentCompo<er< and
W
Their In<piration
A
L
T from Wagner
O
N
to Berg
CHRIS WALTON teaches music history “ Lies or epiphanies? Chris Walton offers a fascinating exploration Lies and Epiphanies offers case studies on the
at the Basel University of Music in Switzerland. of the stories his chosen composers—German Romantics from A “inspiration” of five composers—Richard Wagner,
He is the author of Othmar Schoeck: Life and Wagner to Strauss—have told about inspiration. His conclusion is L Gustav Mahler, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Richard
Works (University of Rochester Press, 2009) powerful, even moving, but no less important are his portraits of CHRIS Strauss, and Alban Berg. Their own tales of their
I
and Richard Wagner’s Zurich: The Muse of Place these still-looming figures.” epiphanies played a determining role in the
E
WALTON
(Camden House, 2007). reception history of their works: the finale of
P AUL GRIFFITHS, author of The Substance of S
Mahler’s Second Symphony was supposedly born
Things Heard: Writings about Music
of a “lightning bolt” of inspiration at the funeral
A
of Hans von Bülow, while Alban Berg’s Violin
N
Concerto was purportedly his direct response to
“ Instead of the hagiography that often masquerades for music
D the tragic early death of Alma Mahler’s daughter.
history, Walton offers a candid assessment of some of the major
Chris Walton looks behind these tales to
compositional personae of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
E explore instead the composer’s dual role as author
If we are unsurprised to learn that Wagner lied about the sources
and self-commentator, laying bare the fissures and
of his inspiration in order to intensify the pseudo-religious aura of P
inconsistencies within these artists’ testimonies
his work, we may be disappointed to discover that Berg was sig- I
and revealing how the putatively extrarational
nificantly more friendly to Austrofascism than has been generally P
world of creative inspiration intersects with the
recognized, or that Richard Strauss repeatedly reinvented himself
H
highly rational world of money and politics. As
to best profit from the ruling power—whether the Kaiser, Hitler,
A Walton points out, the composer often imposes
or the Americans. In this important book, Walton debunks the
on the audience an interpretation of a work and
myths of inspiration invented by composers and their canonizers N
its genesis that is as superficial as the score itself
in the contexts of power and money.”
I is not. This study seeks to show why.
T IMOTHY L. JACKSON, Distinguished University E
Research Professor of Music, College of Music, University of
S
North Texas
Jacket image: Oskar Kokoschka: “Man raises his head
from the grave on which the woman is sitting—Bach
Cantata,” lithograph, 1916–17 © Fondation Oskar 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA
Kokoschka / 2014, ProLitteris, Zurich. P.O. Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.urpress.com
L I E S A N D
E P I P H A N I E S
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C H R I S W A L T O N
L I E S A N D
E P I P H A N I E S
C O M P O S E R S A N D
T H E I R I N S P I R A T I O N
F R O M W A G N E R T O B E R G
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Copyright © 2014 by Chris Walton
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no
part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted,
recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2014
University of Rochester Press
668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.urpress.com
and Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suff olk IP12 3DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-477-2
ISSN: 1071-9989
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Walton, Chris, 1963– author.
Lies and epiphanies : composers and their inspiration from Wagner to Berg /
Chris Walton.
pages cm — (Eastman studies in music, ISSN 1071-9989 ; v. 111)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58046-477-2 (hardcover : alkaline paper) 1. Composition (Music)
2. Composers. 3. Inspiration. 4. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) I. Title.
II. Series: Eastman studies in music ; v. 111.
ML430.W35 2014
781.3'111—dc23
2014003436
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Th is publication is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
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For Vreni and Martin Germann
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C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Richard Wagner’s Dynastic Dreams 11
2 Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection and the
Apostolic Succession 31
3 Of Forked Tongues and Angels: Alban Berg’s
Violin Concerto 55
4 Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Return of the Muse 94
5 Here Comes the Sunset: Th e Late and the
Last Works of Richard Strauss 110
Postlude: Th e Telephone Call 127
Notes 135
Bibliography 147
Index 159
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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
T his book has its origins in my research into Mahler’s Second
Symphony, to which I was prompted by Peter Quantrill. In writing
it, I have been aided by numerous other friends and colleagues, in par-
ticular Heiri Aerni, Stefan Dell’Olivo, Daniel Gloor, and Alice Robinson
of the Zentralbibliothek Zürich; Régine Bonnefoit and Hermann Köstler
of the Fondation Oskar Kokoschka; Karin auf der Maur-Reichmuth and
Katja Fleischer of the Richard Wagner Museum Luzern; Th omas Leibnitz
and Peter Prokop of the Austrian National Library; Jürgen Neubacher of
the Hamburg University Library; Nele Tincheva and Michaela Giesing of
the Th eatersammlung of Hamburg University; Nancy M. Shawcross and
John Pollack of the University of Pennsylvania Library; Alex Ross, who
pointed my interest in many diff erent directions; and Roger Allen, Antony
Beaumont, Wolfgang Gartzke, Martin Germann, Renate Gygax, Stephen
E. Hefl ing, Ray Holden, Tim Jackson, Douglas Jarman, Anna-Barbara
Rothen, Gerhard Splitt, and Marie-Pierre and Pierre Walliser. John Tyrrell
kindly helped with translations from the Czech of Josef Foerster; Sandro
Balzarini helped with setting the music examples; and Isobel Rycroft ’s aid
in procuring various source materials was invaluable. I owe many thanks,
too, to the staff of the music library at the Musikhochschule Basel and of
the music department of the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn. Hans Müller
provided a regular stream of relevant literature that I would otherwise nev-
er have found. And from my colleagues at Syntax AG in Zurich—especially
Barbara Bruppacher and Sonia Dreiser—I have profi ted more in my daily
work with language(s) than they can suspect.
Much in the chapter on Wagner I owe to Thomas Rösner’s inter-
pretations of the composer’s music, including the finest performance
of the Siegfried Idyll I have yet heard; our conversations on Berg and
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