Rilke and Music - University of Edinburgh

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RILKE AND MUSIC
by
.A.lison Cairns
Ph.D., Universi~ of Edinburgh, October 1968.
CONTENTS
Page
Summary i
Abbreviations vi
Chapter I - Musical Experiences 1
Chapter II - Musical Encounters
Chapter III - Rilke's Musicality -
'.Augenmenschtum' and
'Ohrenmenschtum' 125
Chapter IV - Afusical Imagery 167
Chapter V- Attitude to Music 239
Chapter VI - Theories -
Music, poetry and 'Ordnung' 322
Conclusion 374
Bibliography 378
'So narrisch bin ich nicht, zu glauben,
daB Musik keinen Einfluii auf Dich
habe • • • • Me ins t Du dann, Du warst'
d.er Du bist, wenn es nicht Musik ware
in Dir?'
(Bettina von Arnim to Goethe)
i
Summary
'fhe impact of the visual arts upon Rilke's work is obvious and
indisputable; it has been the subject of much detailed discussion
and study and is now more or less taken for granted by Rilke 's
critics. This emphasis on the visual arts can, in part, be
explained by the amount of material readily available: the
Worpswede and Rodin monographs, for example, or the highly important
Cezanne letters to Clara Rilke. Rilke did, after all, marry a
sculptor and act for a while as secretary to Rodin. Perhaps because
of this clearly acknowledged debt, the importance of music in
Rilke's life and work has been largely overlooked, if not expressly
denied. The early writers were fond of regarding Rilke as a Slav
musician-poet; but more recent critics have, without more ado,
proclaimed that Rilke was not in the least musical and that music
never in any way influenced his poetry. One good example here is
K.A.J. Batterby, the author of the most recent English study of
Rilke, Rilke and France. K.A.J. Batterby states repeatedly that
Rilke, unlike the French whose writings meant so much
~bolists,
to him, was interested exclusively in the representational arts;
and, by wisely keeping away from music, he thus avoided the pitfall
into which Mallarme fell. When, however, he comes to discuss the
late verse, Batterby, like many other writers, realizes that music
cannot be entirely disregarded; he therefore gets round the problem
by explaining that Rilke, under the influence of Valery, who had
studied the Symbolists' preoccupation with music, was-suddenly
enabled to make use of the true 'music' of his native German
language.
Those critics who have mentioned Rilke's contact with music
have tended to assume that the only decisive experience was in
19~,
ii
the year of Rilke's meeting vdth Frau von Hattingberg, the reason
for this being, presumably, the publication of her book Rilke und
Benvenuta (which describes their meeting in that year), and, later,
of her correspondence with Rilke. Such critics were therefore
surprised to find Rilke expressing a marked interest in music in
his letter of 1912 about the French scholar and musicologist, Fabre
d'Olivet. Eudo C. Mason, however, has hinted that music helped to
influence the changes of style in Rilke's poetry after the period
of the Neue Gedichte and Malte Laurids Brigge, in the same way as
the visual arts effected the changes of style between the Stunden
Buch and the Neue Gedichte. Indeed, Rilke himself indicated this.
There has been only one published of Rilke's relation
stu~
ship with music: Clara Magr 's Rainer Maria Rilke und die Musik.
As the author herself states, this work is aimed, not at the
Rilke-scholars, but at the Rilke-lovers; she therefore devotes a
considerable amount of space to the external details of his life,
and quotes all the poems on music in full. · She is chiefly con
cerned to bring together chronologically what she regards as all the
available material, without subjecting it to detailed scrutiny.
Quite rightly, she stresses the dispersed and state of
fragment~
the available material - doubtless the main reason why no attempt
at a more minute study of the subject has been made.
Clara Magr deals almost exclusively vdth Rilke's practical
attitude to actual music. It is, however, his theoretical idea
of music that is most important. His idea of music ftS a symbol,
and the frequent fluctuations and refinements of that idea played
a significant part in his theory of art in general and in the
development of the language of his late poetry in particular: the
'Bezug' that prevails in the mature verse certainly owes something
iii
to his thoughts on musical form. Each of the two parts of the
Neue Gedichte begins, significantly, with a poem to Apollo, god of
the visual arts; the Orpheus of the Sonette is at once the god of
poetry and of music. 'r.his thesis aims at showing that Rilke's
contact with music, though not so marked, not so immediately
fruitful as his contact with the representational arts, was,
nevertheless, highly significant. doing so, it touches upon
~
common misconceptions concerning the relationship between poetry
and music, misconceptions which have caused some critics to see
the late verse as 'musical', others as decidedly 'unmusical', and
hopes to illuminate Rilke's own idea of the relationship between
the two arts.
The plan of the thesis is as follows:
Chapter I brings together and catalogues Rilke's many and various
musical experiences, noting, whenever possible, what works were
played and how Rilke reacted to them. His experiences are divided
into rour distinct categories: concerts, chamber music, church
music and song.
Chapter II lists Rilke's musical friends and acquaintances and
records his encounters with modern and classical composers. In
the section on modern composers, his attitude towards the musical
setting of his poems is discussed. As his remarks on classical
composers are - with the one important exception of Beethoven - of
a fragmentary nature, it has been thought fit to list them alpha
betically, rather than to attempt to bring them together in a
continuous narrative.
iv
Chapter III discusses what is known of Rilke 's musicality, with
special consideration of the wider problem of his 'Augenmenschtum'
as opposed to his 'Ohrenmenschtum'. His many auditive experi-
ences, which are not in the strict sense of the word 'musical',
for example his reaction to the sounds of fountains, bells and
bird-song, are also taken into account.
Chapter IV deals with music in Rilke's writings, poet~ and prose.
The poems that may be called 'music-poems', that is to say, poems
on music or poems with a musical subject or theme, are briefly
listed at the beginning of the chapter, as more detailed reference
is made to them in the following chapter. The rest of the
chapter is concerned with Rilke's use of musical which
image~,
is divided into three classes, figurative language in the prose
writings, musical terms as symbols of the poetic vocation, and
recurrent themes and images.
Chapter V attempts to trace Rilke's general attitude to music,
referring chiefly to the 'music-poems' and the letters. Three
chronological stages are distinguished, 1898-1908; 1908-1914;
and 1914-1926. Definite and probable influences on the formation
of his early attitude are examined; and the three important
encounters with Beethoven, Bettina (von .Arnim) and Benvenuta (Magda.
von Hattingberg) are discussed in detail.
Chapter VI studies the most important books on musical aesthetics
which Rilke is known to have been familiar with, endeavours to
discover what it was in each of them that impressed him, and to
discuss what relationships he saw between them. The second half
of the chapter deals more fully with a already raised in
que~tion
V
previous chapters: Rilke's conception of the importance of form
in music and in art in general. It ends with a discussion of
what is meant by 'musical' poetry, indicating the way in which
Rilke's late poetry may be said to be 'musical'.
Vi
Abbreviations
Br. A., I-VI Briefe aus den Jahren 1899-1902, 1902-6, 1906-7,
1907-14, 1914-21, 1921-6.
Br. C., I-II Briefe 1898-1914, 1914-26.
Br. Frau G. N. Die Briefe an Frau Gudi Nolke.
Br. Kipp., I, II Briefe an seinen Verleger (2 vols.).
Br. Sizzo Briefe an Grafin Sizzo.
Brw. Benv. Briefwechsel mi t Benvenuta.
Brw. I .J. Briefwechsel, Rainer Ma.ria Rilke und Inga Junghanns.
Brw. K.K. Rainer Maria Rilke und Katharina Kippenberg,
Briefwechsel.
Brw. L.A.S. Rainer Maria Rilke und lou Andreas-Salome,
Briefwechsel.
Brw. T.T·.H. Rainer Maria Rilke und Ma.rie von Thurn und Taxis
Hohenlohe, Briefwechsel (2 vols.)
C. M. Magr, Clara, Raine r Maria Rilke und die Musik.
J.R. v. S. J.R. v. Salis, Rilkes Schweizer Jahre.
K.K. Katharina Kippenberg, Rainer Maria Rilke. Ein
Beitrag.
L. A. L. Lulu .Albert-La.sard, Wege mi t Rilke.
M.L.B. Malte Laurids Brigge.
R.M.R. et Rainer Maria Rilke et Merline, Correspondance
~~rl.
1920-1926.
R. u. Benv. Magda von Hattingberg, Rilke und Benvenuta.
S.W., I-VI R.M. Rilke, 3amtliche Werke, I-VI.
T.T.H., Souvenirs Marie von Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, Souvenirs
sur R. M. Rilke.
1.
CHAPTER ONE
Musical Experiences