Composing the Canon: Narratives of Romanticism in the German Democratic Republic

政治学家约翰·基恩指出，“危机是活着的人为死者的心灵、思想和灵魂而战的时候”(基恩，1988)，这一观点与冷战时期德国人对正典的接受有关。在20世纪50年代，这部音乐经典成为泛日耳曼紧张局势的焦点，联邦共和国和民主德国都抓住了德国杰出音乐人物的周年纪念日作为国家建设和宣传的机会。德意志民主共和国的正典建筑反映了集体社会主义的理想，并强化了国家作为德国启蒙运动遗产的真正继承者的官方叙事。相比之下，到了20世纪70年代，由于承诺的社会主义乌托邦未能实现，正典成为民主德国不满的人表达他们的幻想破灭和批评国家的工具。艺术家们不再把贝多芬和舒曼等人物描绘成革命英雄；更相关的是对他们与19世纪社会的孤立和疏远的解读。这个项目着眼于浪漫主义和更广泛的19世纪音乐遗产的接受，探索了民主德国正典的构建。我考察了官方和学术叙事，并分析了对浪漫传统的一系列创造性反应，包括作曲、歌剧制作和电影。该项目的核心是这样一个前提，即正典是当代政治、社会和文化话语的场所。我感兴趣的是确定外部因素，如主要的政治危机点如何塑造经典接受，进而探索这种接受在多大程度上可以作为一个透镜，通过它来探索国家音乐文化的异质性。我的项目旨在挑战民主德国目前关于音乐的文学，它坚定地坚持独裁的范式，这些范式在其他学科中受到了严格的审查。最近关于经典接受的研究仅仅集中在政府对经典的挪用上。他们把国家描绘成一个自上而下的铁板一块的政权，把东德音乐家描绘成政党的延伸(Thacker，2007；Janik，2005；Potter，2003；Klingberg，1997)。我的研究试图使音乐学超越这些意识形态和方法论的限制，以便构建一幅更准确的民主德国音乐文化图景。该项目基于对国家档案馆、歌剧档案馆和昆斯特大剧院档案馆的广泛研究。这项工作的补充是对该州出版的关于19世纪音乐的报纸、期刊和专著的研究，以及对乐谱和视听材料的分析。这种多样化的来源使得民主德国音乐实践的更微妙的图景浮出水面。我驳斥了一种流行的观念，即单一的官方经典结构渗透到音乐生活的方方面面，并探索对浪漫主义的各种反应如何不仅揭示了艺术家和政客之间关系的复杂性，而且揭示了存在于权力和审查制度话语中的创造力空间。最终，这引发了对德意志民主共和国艺术遗产的质疑，并破坏了当前否认国家生产的艺术的合法性的倾向。

The political scientist John Keane notes that 'crises are times during which the living do battle for the hearts, minds and souls of the dead' (Keane, 1988), an observation that is pertinent to the reception of the canon in Cold War Germany. In the 1950s the musical canon emerged as a focal point for pan-Germanic tensions, and anniversaries of Germany's illustrious musical figures were seized upon in both the Federal Republic and the GDR as nation-building and propaganda opportunities. Constructs of the canon in the GDR reflected the ideals of collective socialism and reinforced official narratives of the state as the true successor to the heritage of the German Enlightenment. By the 1970s in contrast, as the promised socialist utopia failed to materialise, the canon emerged as a vehicle for the GDR's discontented to express their disillusionment and to criticize the state. Artists no longer identified with portrayals of figures such as Beethoven and Schumann as revolutionary heroes; far more relevant were interpretations that focused on their isolation and alienation from nineteenth-century society. Focusing on the reception of romanticism and the wider nineteenth-century musical heritage, this project explores constructs of the canon in the GDR. I examine official and academic narratives and analyse a range of creative responses to the romantic tradition, including compositions, opera productions, and films. At the heart of the project is the premise that canons serve as a site for contemporary political, social, and cultural discourse. I am interested in determining how external factors such as major political crisis points shaped canonic reception, and in turn explore the extent to which this reception can serve as a lens through which to explore the heterogeneity of musical culture in the state. My project aims to challenge the current literature on music in the GDR, which adheres firmly to paradigms of dictatorship that have come under harsh scrutiny in other disciplines. Recent studies of canonic reception focus solely on government appropriation of the canon. They portray the state as a monolithic top-down regime and East German musicians simply as an extension of the party (Thacker, 2007; Janik, 2005; Potter, 2003; Klingberg, 1997). My research seeks to move musicology beyond these ideological and methodological constraints in order to construct a more accurate picture of musical culture in the GDR. The project is based on extensive research in state archives, opera archives and in the archive of the Akademie der Künste. This work is complemented by studies of newspapers, journals and monographs on nineteenth-century music that were published in the state, and by analyses of musical scores and audio-visual materials. This diverse range of sources allows for a much more nuanced picture of musical practices in the GDR to emerge. I contest the prevailing notion that a single official construct of the canon permeated all aspects of musical life, and explore how the various responses to romanticism reveal not only the complexity of the relationships between artists and politicians, but also the spaces for creativity that existed in discourses of power and censorship. Ultimately this raises questions about the artistic legacy of the GDR, and undermines current tendencies to deny the legitimacy of art produced in the state.