The sublimity of the art-savvy canary
This book contrasts anecdotes by Handel, Bach, Telemann and Mozart with the concept of the sublime as defined by the philosophers of their time.
Who would have thought that the term "sublimity" could be associated with so many surprising, even serious things when we look at the sublime age, the 18th century, from today's perspective. It is not difficult to associate Handel's imposing figure and his great oratorios with it, or Bach's complex creations with their sophisticated formal language, which was little understood in his day. But the fact that Telemann's oratorio The patient Socrates - which, by the way, lasts more than four hours - is counted among the sublime with the duets between the competing wives Xanthippe and Amitta or its Mourning music of an art-experienced canary with the exhortation "Eat so that your throat swells" immediately makes even someone who is not a fan of Baroque music want to read on. This is all the more true as the writing style of this book, despite the 448 notes that reek of scholarship, seems young and often quite casual, for example when the arguments on the subject of "war and music" are caught up in "a very decisive stop at the filling station of philosophy" or when it is complained that "Bach's cantatas resemble musical catastrophe training".
This makes you curious about the chapter that goes back to the Rococo period, "Mozart on the path to sublimity". But you don't want to miss out on anything that Handel, Bach and Telemann have to offer, because "this book presents for the first time the events and constellations in the lives of these four men that led to their actual sublimity". That is no exaggeration. Sublimity has never been "tackled" in this way before. Who has listened to Milos Forman's "Amadeus" film afterwards and put Mozart's (possible) statement, "people so sublime that they sound as if they are shitting marble", into a closer context? Nevertheless, his last three symphonies are viewed within this striving for sublimity and, albeit formulated in a somewhat more modern way, are also seen in this way by the musical avant-garde of the 20th century.
This leads to the following conclusion in the final chapter "The long path of sublimity - from 1900 to the present day" using a series of examples: "Whereas sublimity used to be an expression of dignity, splendor and moral superiority, modern sublimity has become the endurance of excessive demands and a sense of pleasure that borders on the divine - at least as far as the psychological intensity of the feeling is concerned." Which would restore the seriousness; but the misprint "erst" instead of "ernst" (on page 133) once again calls this into question.
Markus Köhlerschmidt and Stefanie Voigt, With timpani and wigs. The life arts of the illustrious gentlemen Handel, Bach, Telemann and Mozart. 167 p., € 24.90, Verlag Böhlau, Vienna and others 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-21035-9
