Music, Romanticism and Politics

Hambridge, Katherine

doi:10.1017/9781108647342.008

Music, Romanticism and Politics

Hambridge, Katherine

Authors

Dr Katherine Hambridge katherine.hambridge@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Contributors

Benedict Taylor
Editor

Abstract

This chapter explores a range of possible intersections between music, politics, and Romanticism in France and German lands in the first half of the nineteenth century. Beginning with a discussion of early German Romantic theories of political organisation and how they influenced Romantic conceptions of art, I subsequently unpick the complicated relationship between the French Revolution and Romanticism in music, and between the politically revolutionary and the artistically revolutionary. I show the extreme adaptability of the Romantic aesthetic when it came to its political interpretation, not only through the contrast between German and French Romanticism, but also through the surprising twists and turns in the political associations of Romanticism in France over three decades. In the second section, I look at the political mobilisation of Romantic symbols in Prussian musical life to nationalist and dynastic ends, before ending with a brief consideration of politicised anti-Romanticism amongst music critics in 1848.

Citation

Hambridge, K. (2021). Music, Romanticism and Politics. In B. Taylor (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Music and Romanticism (92-109). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108647342.008

Online Publication Date	Aug 6, 2021
Publication Date	2021
Deposit Date	Oct 17, 2021
Publicly Available Date	Feb 6, 2022
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Pages	92-109
Series Title	Cambridge Companions to Music
Book Title	The Cambridge Companion to Music and Romanticism
Chapter Number	6
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108647342.008

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This material has been published in The Cambridge Companion to Music and Romanticism edited by Benedict Taylor. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University Press.