‘The Condition of M ozart ’: Mozart Year 2006 and the New Vienna
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/17411912.2011.650926
ISSN1741-1920
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Musicological Studies
ResumoAbstract The broad strokes of economic and political globalisation in Central Europe and the concomitant flows of people in the current fin-de-siècle manifest themselves as shifts in the practice of 'classical' music in Vienna, a practice itself the legacy of analogous processes during the previous fin-de-siècle. Music in the Mozart Year 2006 reveals emergent multivalent possibilities in the transformation of classical music as cultural practice and is viewed through the rubrics of tradition, tourism, branding and the popular. This article argues that ultimately, the practice of classical music in Vienna continues to serve as a site for experiments in cosmopolitanism. Keywords: MozartViennaMozart Year 2006The Ethnomusicology of Western European Art Music Kunstmusik Cosmopolitanism Notes 1. On the specific experience and phenomenon of Central European Jewish assimilation and music, see Singer (Citation1964, Citation2003), Spiel (Citation1987), Torberg (Citation1975), Wagner (Citation2005), Wechsberg (1997) and Zweig (Citation1986), amongst many others. Beller's collection (2001) has more recently complicated our understanding of Schorske's (1980) pioneering thesis on Jewish assimilation, culture, and the arts in Vienna. 2. See Bohlman (Citation1997) and Usner (Citation2010). 3. For a detailed exploration of the concept of Kunstmusikwesen, see Usner , 'Classical Musics, Cosmopolitanisms, and the New Vienna' (forthcoming). 4. I use Christopher Small's now commonplace term 'musicking' here to indicate a holistic understanding of 'music' as something that 'is an activity in which all those present are involved and for whose nature and quality, success or failure, everyone present bears some responsibility. It is not just a matter of composers, or even performers, actively doing something to, or for, passive listeners. Whatever it is we are doing, we are all doing it together—performers, listeners … dancers, ticket collectors, piano movers, roadies, cleaners and all' (Citation1998:12–13). After completing my dissertation, I came across Eduard Hanslick's (1869) history of early concert life, or what I might call musicking, in Vienna: Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien. 5. In contrast to 1991, the ubiquity of private sponsors is significant (since they are far less common in countries where culture is underwritten by the government). In German, the 'Intendant' is the creative director of an artistic organisation such as an opera house or theatre. In Germany, Austria and other social democracies, they are traditionally all-powerful in the institution. Their role is changing rapidly as the carte blanche funding of the arts by provincial and federal governments is being curtailed in a climate of EU reform and privatisation (Sailer Citation2004), and even more drastically since the onset of the recent global economic crisis. Peter Marboe, the Intendant of this temporary cultural institution, is a Conservative Party member and former Minister of Culture for the City of Vienna, among other cultural political appointments. 6. The full year-long programme is documented in the book/DVD pairing Wienermozartjahr 2006: Dokumentation (Marboe Citation2006). There were also 12 issues of Mozart Now!, a 32-page monthly magazine and interpretive guide to the festival. The number and scope of events was unprecedented in the history of city and country, if not Europe. In 1991, the number of events was measured in the hundreds, in 2006 in the thousands. Salzburg, Mozart's birthplace, had its own year of programmes (see Luger Citation2006). 7. For more on the recent development of cultural tourism, see the project Culture Tour Austria, an initiative co-sponsored by two ministries to bring together elements of the cultural sector and tourism. See www.bmwa.gv.at/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe (accessed 27 August 2010). 8. Conversation with a functionary at one of the two major concert halls and concert-producing organisations, the Konzerthaus (23 March 2006). 9. On the 'popular' and 'popular culture' see Hall (Citation1981) and Mukerji and Schudson (Citation1991) among innumerable work that has adopted a Cultural Studies notion of popular culture as non-'hegemonic' in Gramsci's (Citation1971) sense; see also Delgado and Muñoz (Citation1997), especially their 'Introduction'. 10. Interview in Die Bühne: Österreichs Theater- und Kulturmagazin, January 2006, pp. 57–9; translation by current author. 11. This is a pastiche of various marketing texts from tourist orchestra websites, originally published in English. See advertising copy on the following sites: www.strauss-concerts.com (accessed 28 August 2010); www.imperial-orchestra.com/orchestra.html (accessed 20 November 2011); www.mozart.co.at (accessed 20 November 2011). 12. www.mozart.co.at/index_en.htm (accessed 22 November 2011). 13. www.mozart.co.at/index_en.htm (accessed 22 November 2011). 14. Although I wanted to work, if only briefly, as a (participant/observing) salesman, these jobs seemed given almost exclusively to Eastern European men. 15. Since the original version of this article, presented as a paper at the World Conference of the International Council for Traditional Music in Vienna in 2007, the ensembles are now collected under one centralised ticketing agency online: http://www.viennaconcerts.com/concerts. 16. Austria Sales Manual Mozart Year 2006, 10th edition, 30 September 2005, p. 7. 17. See http://www.austria.info/xxl/_site/en/_area/408019/_subArea/408042/index.html (accessed 28 August 2010). 18. See http://www.austriatourism.com/xxl/_site/int-en/_area/519533/home.html (accessed 28 August 2010). 19. Oberasher, quoted online: www.austriatourism.biz (accessed 27 August 2010). Oberascher later briefly chaired a tourism initiative for the EU's Lisbon Process (the EU development plan for 2000–10). The ARGE Mozart was an experimental collaboration that, due to its success, led to the creation of ARGE Haydn for the Haydn Year 2009. On emotional branding, see Gobe (Citation2001); for work on brands, consumption and commodification, see Bolz (Citation2002), Brooks (Citation2001), Klein (Citation1999) and of course Marx, who first theorised 'commodity fetishism' in Das Kapital (Marx 1968 [1867]). 20. An ARGE, or Arbeitsgemeinschaft, is a business partnership or joint business venture. 21. The €10 million that Sellars received was not included in these figures, but headlines in the print press after the end of the New Crowned Hope reported that his festival too was solvent. As far as I am able to discern, the Sellars Festival was not accounted for in the same way. It should be noted, however, that in comparison with the WienMozart 2006, whose legacy is a few newly-commissioned works, Sellars used much of his budget as seed money to start new social and cultural initiatives intended to have a long-term impact in the city. 22. Notably, the presented version of this paper met with some reserve among Austrians in the audience, who dismissed this 'MOZART' as irrelevant by virtue of being 'just' for tourists (implying that Austrians are above this). But the foreign tourism described above only accounts for around one-third of the tourist industry; one-third is domestic (that is, Austrian), and another third German. Thus, the ARGE was a conscious effort to expand tourism in both established German-speaking and developing non-German-speaking markets. Indeed, the events of the opening weekend, not at all limited to music, were presented in German, so tourist or not, one had to at least be a German speaker to understand the proceedings. In fact, the thousands of visitors in Vienna and taking the Mozart tours were primarily German-speaking, since everything was conducted in German, including tour leaders' commentaries, theatre pieces, and so on. 23. The Wiener Klangstil ('Viennese Sound Style') is defined by the Institute for Viennese Sound Style on their website: http://iwk.mdw.ac.at/definition_wks_de.htm (accessed 1 December 2011). 24. In fact, Mozart was a member of the lodge 'Beneficence', which, after a decree by Emperor Joseph II intended to reduce the number of lodges in the city, joined with several others to form 'New Crowned Hope'. Its first meeting was held on 14 January 1786. The decree—a form of political censorship meant to curb the spread and influence of Enlightenment thinking—originally shut all Freemasonry lodges, but there were enough influential persons who were masons to convince the Emperor to allow one to remain open. Mozart composed two songs for the first meeting of the consolidated lodge (KV 483 and 484) (Küster and Whittall Citation1996). 25. On representation of difference and 'otherness' in Western European Art Music generally, see Bellman (1998), Bohlman and Radano (Citation2000), Born and Hesmondhalgh (Citation2000) and Brown (Citation2007); for Britain, see Clayton and Zon (Citation2007); and for an exacting study of representations of blackness in Vienna, see Johnston-Arthur (Citation2004). 26. For a well-archived overview of the exhibition, see http://remappingmozart.mur.at (accessed 20 November 2011). 27. Somewhat ironically, these arias manifest in the music Mozart's reflection of the fascination with things Turkish at the time. However, as Hassam points out, this aria—with its folk-like diction—underscores the harmlessness of the character, countering the ways in which it is usually constructed in both plot and costume (Citation2005:11). 28. This translation is taken from the aria database—http://www.aria-database.com/translations/magic_flute.txt (accessed 13th September 2009)—and is an accurate translation. However, the Dover English edition (Mozart Citation1951 [1941]) has a curiously censored text wherein the language is de-racialised and offered as the pitiful lament of a reluctant bachelor. 29. On Soliman, see the summary biography on the History of African Studies in Austria website: www.afrikanistik.at (accessed 20 November 2011). See also Müller-Klomfar (Citation2005) and Nettl (Citation1946). 30. For a somewhat polemical but thorough documentation of this, see the chronicles and archives at William Osbourne's website: http://www.osborne-conant.org/ (accessed 20 November 2011). 31. An estimated 15% of the population. See www.statistik.at (accessed 20 November 2011). Additional informationNotes on contributorsEric Martin Usner Eric Martin Usner studied with Philip V. Bohlman in Vienna, with Philip Brett, Deborah Wong, René Lysloff and Marta Savigliano at the University of California, Riverside, and with Gage Averill at New York University. He holds an MA and PhD in ethnomusicology. Early work in Vienna was made possible through a Fulbright Scholarship and his doctoral research was supported by an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, New York. He is currently editing a collection on global praxes of applied ethnomusicology drawn from the 2nd Meeting of the Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology of the International Council for Traditional Music. He is also at work on a monograph about cultures of classical music in contemporary Vienna. He extends sincere thanks to Laudan Nooshin in seeing this article to print
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