Goethe and Music

http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

JOHN L. MILLER, University of Oregon

While the fact that over 600 composers have set Goethe's works to music
attests to the musicality of his poetry, opinions on the musicality of the man
Goethe have varied greatly. Goethe's childhood musical training, his efforts
with the Singspiel, his lifelong reverence for Mozart, and his opinions on
opera and song are discussed. The celebrated misunderstanding with
Beethoven is related to Goethe's association with Zelter and Mendelssohn.
As a poet, Goethe naturally felt that music should be the "handmaiden" of
the text, and this hindered his appreciation of instrumental music and the
budding nineteenth-century song, with its increasingly complex accompani-
ment. Given these limitations, music was always an important factor in
Goethe's life, an art which he held in the greatest esteem, and a central point
on which his entire creative output revolved.

The works of Goethe have inspired perhaps more music than those of any
other poet in the history of western culture. Moser's Verzeichnis von
Goethes Vertonern 1contais59mefporswhaveudtx
by the German poet. Already in 1910 Ernest Newman counted 35 to 40
musical versions of Faust alone, 2 very many more than exist of Hamlet,
Romeo and Juliet, or Othello, to name some other famous plays which have
fallen victim to well-meant musical misdeeds.
On the basis of this information alone, the question, "Was Goethe
musical ?" would have to be answered with: "His poetry has certainly
been proven to be so, by the sheer number of times composers have been
inspired to set it."
Hans Pleß feels that all of Goethe's work is not only musical in nature,
but that in Goethe music and poetry are organically interwoven and
created simultaneously. 3 He says that Goethe is speaking for himself when
he puts the words into Wilhelm Meister's mouth:
1 Hans J. Moser, Goethe und die Musik (Leipzig, 1949), Anhang.
2 Ernest Newman, "Faust in Music," Musical Studies (London, 1910), p. 71.
3 Johannes Mittenzwei shares this view, and in his book Das musikalische in der
Literatur (Halle, 1962), he also presents a rather detailed discussion of Wilhelm
Meister in connection with Goethe's musical concepts as expressed in the work
(pp. 180-207).

SEMINAR, VIII, 1, March 1972

 GOETHE AND MUSIC 43

Mir ist zwar von Natur eine glückliche Stimme versagt, aber innerlich
scheint mir oft ein geheimer Genius etwas Rhythmisches vorzuflüstern, so
daß ich mich beim Wandern jedesmal im Takt bewege und zugleich leise
Töne zu vernehmen glaube, wodurch denn irgend ein Lied begleitet wird,
das sich mir auf eine oder die andere Weise gefällig vergegenwärtigt
(italics Goethe's). 4
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

Pleß believes that Goethe, though not a practising musician, is nevertheless

inherently musical in nature. In the same article he cites such passages as
"Die Sonne tönt," from the "Prolog im Himmel" of Faust in support of
this contention of inherent musicality, saying that this "Prolog" begins,
"präludierend den das Riesenwerk durchflutenden Geist der Musik und
seinen Cantus Firmus – die Idee erlösender, ewiger Liebe."
If the musical nature of Goethe's works seems beyond question, the
musicality of the man Goethe certainly has not been. Commentators whose
main interest has been music have generally dismissed the poet as a "man
of little musical discernment" 5 because of his lack of understanding of
Beethoven and Schubert, and musicians who know of the celebrated
misunderstanding with Beethoven have often disposed of Germany's
greatest poet with even fewer words. 6
Germanisten, on the other hand, whose main interest has been in Goethe
and who were only secondarily interested in music, have ignored the
unfortunate incidents with Beethoven and Schubert and pointed to
Goethe's interest in Mozart and Bach and his studies in music theory as
proof of the poet's musicality. We shall see through a sketch of Goethe's
musical background that the truth lies somewhere between these two poles,
and, after attempting to throw some light on these seeming contradictions,
we shall proceed to a short discussion of the poet's main area of concern,
the combination of words with music.
Music was an important part of upper middle-class life in the eighteenth
century, and was also important in the Goethe household during the poet's
youth. Italian and French opera troupes performed often in Frankfurt,
and travelling instrumental virtuosi and singers were a regular event.
Goethe studied keyboard instruments as a boy, but was too "launisch"
and too impatient with finger drills to become a really good performer.
Nevertheless, he played the compositions and dances of his time, marches,
4 Hans Pleß, "Goethe und die Musik," Musik-Erziehung, 3 (1949), 73.
5 Louise Leven, "Goethe and Music," Contemporary Review, 176 (1949), 225-6.
For others who have held Goethe's musical perception in low esteem, see W.C.R.
Hicks, "Was Goethe Musical?," Publ. of the English Goethe Society, 27 (1958), 75.
6 In one devastating sweep - less than half a page - Anton Webern "takes care of"
Schopenhauer, Goethe, Nietzsche, and Strindberg on the basis of foolish or
inaccurate musical judgments which they made. Anton Webern, Der Weg zur
neuen Musik (Wien, 1960), p. 14.
 44 JOHN L. MILLER

polonaises, minuets, as revealed in a letter to his sister in 1795, "gar nicht

schlecht."' He also took lessons on the cello (1770-1), and learned to play
well enough to accompany Frau Brentano as she played the spinet, and
later to take part in the musical evenings with Frau von Stein.
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

Goethe became interested in folk music through his association with

Herder, and his musical memory was such that he was able to "go into the
field" and listen to folk songs and then, on his return, to sing them well
enough for the music to be transcribed. He agreed with Herder that "nicht
gesungene Volkslieder sind keine Volkslieder oder nur halbe."'
He wrote with Johann André a Singspiel called Erwin und Elmire,
which was performed in Berlin twenty-one times. Goethe's interest in
improving the German Singspiel occupied him for some years, and resulted
in several attempts in the form. It is the misfortune of posterity that Goethe
was destined never to work with a composer of stature, since he retained
an interest throughout his life in the combination of words and music.
During the first Italian journey Goethe became acquainted with the
music of Palestrina through a musical associate, Philipp Christoph Kayser,
and he developed a lasting interest in unaccompanied vocal music. Bach
chorales were a favourite with him, and he had them sung in his home in
Weimar on a regular basis until the increasing insistence of the singers on
performing solos annoyed him to the point that he stopped the practice.
There was even a performance of Handel's Messiah in Goethe's home in
1824.
Goethe's insight into the works of J.S. Bach was considerable, especially
when one takes into account the fact that the compositions of the older
Bach were little known at the time. Goethe recognized Bach's significance,
and was furthermore perceptive enough to realize that the editions of the
Chorales which were available were poor, a situation which it took musi-
cologists some time to correct.
When Goethe was fourteen, he had heard Mozart play and never forgot
the experience. Mozart's operas had a decisive effect on Goethe's work to
improve the German Singspiel. When he heard Die Entführung aus dem
Serail, however, Goethe realized that Mozart had already done exactly
what he was seeking to do : to elevate the Singspiel to an artistic level
commensurate with the other arts in Germany, and with the opera in
other countries. It was directly because of Die Entführung that Goethe
stopped his efforts in the field of opera text writing. He wrote to Kayser on
22 December 1785:
7 Moser, p. 12.
8 Max Friedlaender, "Goethe und die Musik," Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft,
3 (1916), 286.
 GOETHE AND MUSIC 45

Neulich ward Die Entführung aus dem Serail, komponiert von Mozart,
gegeben. Jederman erklärte sich für die Musik. Das erstemal spielten sie es
mittelmäßig, der Text selbst ist sehr schlecht, und auch die Musik wollte mir
nicht ein. Das zweitemal wurde es schlecht gespielt, und ich ging gar heraus.
Doch das Stück erhielt sich, und jedermann lobte die Musik. Als sie es zum
fünftenmal gaben, ging ich wieder hinein. Sie agierten und sangen besser als
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

jemals. Ich abstrahierte vom Texte, und begreife nun die Differenz meines
Urteils und des Eindrucks aufs Publikum und weiß woran ich bin.9

When Goethe was director of the Weimar Hoftheater (1791-1817) he

arranged for operas of Mozart to be performed 280 times. Le Nozze di
Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte, Titus, Zauberflöte — they all were
performed repeatedly, with the greatest response on the part of the
audience. Die Zauberflöte was a special favourite with Goethe, and he
wrote sections of a sequel to the work, which was never finished because
after Mozart's death Goethe could conceive of no one who would have
been capable of writing satisfactory music for his text. Mozart and Goethe
never met, but speculation as to what might have resulted had these two
giants worked together has intrigued nearly every scholar who has con-
cerned himself with the musical aspect of Goethe's life. One example will
serve to sum up this speculation, as well as to underline Goethe's ac-
quaintance with Die Entführung aus dem Serail:

Zu derselben Zeit, da das Mozartsche Veilchen entstand, 1785, hörte

übrigens Goethe in Weimar das um drei Jahre ältere Mozartsche Singspiel:
Die Entführung aus dem Serail zweimal ohne innere Anteilnahme und ohne
die Bedeutung dieser neuen Musik zu erfassen ... Wäre doch damals in
Weimar ein hervorragender Fachmusiker zur Stelle gewesen, um Goethe
über die Schönheit und Bedeutung der Mozartschen Musik die Augen zu
öffnen ... ! Eben hatte Mozart seinen Figaro geschrieben. Don Juan entstand
erst zwei Jahre, Die Zauberflöte sechs Jahre später. Wie anders hätte diese
Zeit für die Entwicklung der deutschen Vokalmusik entscheidend sein
können, wenn Goethe den Augenblick erfaßt hätte! Es ist unausdenkbar,
welcher Segen für die deutsche Literatur und die deutsche Musik einer
Verbindung Goethes mit Mozart entsprossen wäre. 10

Mozart composed only one song to poetry by Goethe, Das Veilchen, and
Mozart apparently did not know that Goethe had written the poem.
The knowledge that Goethe was considerably more than an untutored
musical amateur makes his lack of understanding of Beethoven and his
complete disregard of Schubert the more baffling, and in view of the
esteem in which posterity holds these composers, it is difficult to observe
9 In the "Propyläen Ausgabe," iv, 413-14; subsequent references in parentheses.
10 Friedlaender, pp. 314-15.
 46 JOHN L. MILLER

Goethe's reaction to them without losing some respect for his musical
perception. However, explanation for some of his adverse opinions is to be
found in the circumstances under which these judgments were formed.
First, although Goethe has been clearly shown to be basically musical,
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

he was not a practising musician. Music alone of the arts (if one excepts the
dance) requires an interpreter between the composer and the listener.
Sometimes the composer himself is the interpreter, but, in any case, the
average music enthusiast is not sufficiently well trained technically to be
able to pick up a score of a new symphony at his bookshop and read
through it, as he might in the case of a novel. The layman's helplessness
without the interpreter was even more pronounced before the advent of
sound recording.
This brings us to a second point : Since Goethe was not proficient
enough in a technical sense to play and form his own opinions about the
new music of Beethoven and others, the question, who brought the music
to him, becomes important. Although Goethe worked for a time with
Philipp Christoph Kayser, and later with Johann Friedrich Reichardt, his
most important musical friendship was with Karl Friedrich Zelter. Zelter
was a rough personality, but he and Goethe developed a friendship which
lasted until 1832, the year in which they both died. Their correspondence
was extensive, and in addition to the humorous and personal exchanges,
reveals the extent to which Goethe came to depend on Zelter for musical
information.
Zelter was a respected musician and composer in his day, and there is no
doubt that Goethe held him in high regard. He set Goethe's poems ex-
tensively, and the poet made no secret of his pleasure at the results. He was
also Mendelssohn's teacher, a point to which we will return. Although he
was a well trained musician of the old school, Zelter not only had no
understanding for, but was also hostile to, the new directions of Beethoven,
von Weber, Schubert and others. It was he who "screened" the enormous
volume of music which Goethe received from composers who hoped for
his approval, and it was he who sent Berlioz one of the most tactless and
cruel letters in the annals of music history after looking over the French
composer's Huit Scènes de Faust. Although Zelter's works have completely
fallen from today's repertoire, Goethe was not alone in his high opinion
of the musician. Klopstock, Tieck, Schiller, and Ruckert were among the
others of note who praised the composer's work.
Beethoven and Goethe met at Karlsbad and Töplitz, largely through the
efforts of Bettina Brentano, 11 Beethoven had admired Goethe since his
11 While this essay was in press, the following article appeared, in which this meeting
(and Bettina Brentano's version of it) are discussed : Johannes Urzidil, "Dynamic
Encounter — Goethe und Beethoven," Patriae Pacem, 2 (1971), 91-103.
 GOETHE AND MUSIC 47

youth, and in the composer's copy of Werther many favourite passages

are underlined three and four times. Beethoven's famous Heiligenstadt
Testament had as its conscious or unconscious model this work of Goethe's
youth, which Beethoven could recite almost from memory. One of the
composer's lifetime ambitions was to set Faust to music; he spoke of it
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

even on his death bed.

At these often cited meetings in 1812, Beethoven performed finished
pieces and also improvised for the poet. Goethe wrote in his diary,
"Beethoven spielte köstlich," and probably indicated something of the
same feeling to Beethoven after the performance, since the composer
expressed disappointment in Goethe's reaction. That Goethe did not
overlook the intensity of the man himself is indicated by his letter to his
wife (19 July, 1812), in which he says: "Zusammengefaßter, energischer,
inniger habe ich noch keinen Künstler gesehen" (24, 74).
Beethoven was also annoyed and disappointed at what he considered a
servile attitude on Goethe's part toward the nobility who were at Töplitz,
and, with his typical brusqueness, lost no opportunity to berate Goethe
about this. Beethoven's behaviour toward Goethe approached outright
rudeness, and even after Goethe had returned to Weimar, Beethoven
continued to tell jokes about Goethe and the nobility ; he was simply
unable to contain his disappointment at having to accept the polished
Hofrat in place of his idol who had created Werther and Egmont.
Beethoven's disappointment soon faded to more normal proportions,
however, and in 1823 he wrote to Goethe:

Die Verehrung, Liebe und Hochachtung, welche ich für den einzigen Unster-
blichen Goethe von meinen Jünglingsjahren schon hatte, ist immer mir
geblieben, so was läßt sich nicht wohl in Worte fassen, besonders von einem
solchen Stümper wie ich, der nur immer gedacht hat, die Töne sich eigen zu
machen; allein ein eigenes Gefühl treibt mich immer, Ihnen so viel zu sagen,
indem ich in Ihren Schriften lebe. 12

Unfortunately this letter remained unanswered, as it arrived during a

period when Goethe was severely ill, and the letter had been misplaced by
the time he recovered. That Goethe never took Beethoven's lack of social
polish too seriously, and that he was able to separate his reactions to the
music from his reactions to the man is indicated by an excerpt from a letter
to Zelter in September 1812:

Beethoven habe ich in Teplitz kennen gelernt. Sein Talent hat mich in
Erstaunen gesetzt; allein er ist leider eine ganz ungebändigte Persönlichkeit,
die zwar gar nicht unrecht hat, wenn sie die Welt detestabel findet, aber sie

12 Friedlaender, p. 319.
 48 JOHN L. MILLER

freilich dadurch weder für sich noch für andere genußreicher macht. Sehr zu
entschuldigen ist er hingegen und sehr zu bedauern, da ihn sein Gehör
verläßt, das vielleicht dem musikalischen Teil seines Wesens weniger als dem
geselligen schadet. Er, der ohnehin lakonischer Natur ist, wird es nun
doppelt durch diesen Mangel. (24, 93)
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

Goethe's observation about Beethoven's hearing not affecting his music

shows more insight than that of many professional musicians of the day,
who attributed Beethoven's increasingly advanced harmonic structures to
his deafness.
One last quotation will serve to show that Beethoven also understood
the difficulties of a relationship between two people of such different social
backgrounds : "Ich kenne ihn [Goethe] auch. In Karlsbad hab' ich ihn
kennen gelernt, vor – Gott weiß, wie langer Zeit. Ich war damals nicht so
taub, wie jetzt : aber schwer hörte ich schon. Was hat der große Mann da
für Geduld mit mir gehabt! was hat er an mir getan !" 13
Goethe's relationship with Schubert was no more successful than that
with Beethoven. The two never met, and Schubert's well known reticence
and clumsiness at expressing himself in any way other than musically
did not improve the situation. He made the further mistake of sending
Goethe the difficult Opus 19 songs, instead of Opus 1 or 2, which would
have been much easier to grasp on the basis of the single, rather indifferent
performance which is the most we can assume Goethe heard. Goethe
did not acknowledge Schubert's dedication of the songs to him, and left
Schubert's accompanying letter unanswered.
Although one can hardly avoid speculation as to what might have been
the result of a more favourable relationship between Goethe and these
composers – Spohr and von Weber could also have been mentioned – one
should not take Goethe's failure to appreciate them as concrete evidence
of his lack of musical understanding. Goethe's dependence on others to
perform and bring the music to him, coupled with the short-sightedness
of his chief musical advisor, Zelter, was a great factor in his failure to see
the worth of the new music.
Also, we must keep in mind the sheer bulk of the music dedicated and
sent to him. (In his later years it was not unusual for several hundred songs
to arrive within a week.) It is safe to assume that the huge majority of these
pieces by composers hopeful of the poet's approval were not "master-
pieces," and that most of the music was quite justly ignored and forgotten.
When one takes into account the extent and variety of Goethe's activities,
and the fact that music was only one small part of these activities, the
context of Goethe's "missing" the significance of Schubert becomes
clearer.
13 Ibid.
 GOETHE AND MUSIC 49

A third factor, which is related to his dependence on professionals to

bring the music to him, is the dearth of good performances which Goethe
was able to hear. One thinks again of the poor first performance of
Die Entführung aus dem Serail. We have no evidence that Goethe ever
heard an orchestral piece by Beethoven actually performed by an
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

orchestra!
Although we know that Goethe had a strong aversion to those songs in
which the music is "setting up, as it were, in its own right,"" we can see
from the following incident that he was not immune to Schubert's magic
when the performance was convincing. Goethe, after hearing Schubert's
setting of his own Erlkönig, sung by the famous Wilhemine Schröder-
Devrient, is said to have strode up to her and said : "Ich habe die Kom-
position früher einmal gehört, wo sie mir gar nicht zusagen wollte, aber so
vorgetragen, gestaltet sich das Ganze zu einem sichtbaren Bild."15
The fact that Goethe was able to understand the new music when it was
properly presented is also clear in the context of one of the happy results
of the Goethe-Zelter friendship: Goethe's acquaintance with Mendelssohn.
Zelter brought his eleven-year-old pupil Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy to
Weimar in 1821, and introduced him to Goethe. A brilliant boy of un-
usually good education in extramusical subjects, as well as a prodigy as a
musician, he was immediately received as a "Wunderkind." He had
composed small symphonies, string quartets, sonatas, songs and choral
music, and Goethe accepted him at once and wholeheartedly. Mendelssohn
played for the older man often and to the poet's great delight. He visited
Weimar again in 1825, this time bringing with him a string quartet
dedicated to Goethe.
Mendelssohn's third visit, in 1830, is the most enlightening for our dis-
cussion. Goethe was eighty-one, and had grown quieter than Mendelssohn
had remembered from his earlier visits. However, the old enthusiasm
slowly returned, and he could not hear enough of the young genius's
playing. Mendelssohn was with Goethe almost constantly during his
fourteen-day visit, and played for him every morning. He led Goethe
slowly from the more familiar to the most difficult music, even to Beet-
hoven. Mozart's C-minor Phantasie, a Haydn trio, and Weber's Capriccio,
all were played while the old man sat in a corner, listening intently.
Goethe later wrote to Zelter (June 3, 1830) :

Mir war seine Gegenwart besonders wohltätig, da ich fand, mein Verhältnis
zur Musik sei immer noch dasselbe; ich höre sie mit Vergnügen, Anteil und
Nachdenken, liebe mir das Geschichtliche; denn wer versteht irgendeine

14 Hicks, p. 121.
15 Pleß, p. 73.
 50 JOHN L. MILLER

Erscheinung, wenn er sich von dem Gang des Herankommens [nicht]

penetriert ? Dazu war denn die Hauptsache, daß Felix auch diesen Stufen-
gang recht löblich einsieht und, glücklicherweise, sein gutes Gedächtnis ihm
Musterstücke aller Art nach Belieben vorführt.
Von der Bachischen Epoche heran hat er mir wieder Haydn, Mozart und
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

Gluck zum Leben gebracht, von den großen neuen Technikern [Beethoven
and Weber!] hinreichende Begriffe gegeben und endlich seine eigenen
Produktionen fühlen und über sie nachdenken machen; ist daher auch mit
meinen besten Segnungen geschieden. (42, 214)

It was this last (Beethoven) which elicited the famous "groß, ganz toll"
remark from Goethe. The incident is described by Mendelssohn in a letter
to his family, which he wrote from Weimar in May, 1830:

Goethe ist so freundlich u. liebevoll mit mir, daß ich's gar nicht zu
danken und zu verdienen weiß; Vormittags muß ich ihm ein Stündchen
Clavier vorspielen, von allen verschiedenen großen Componisten nach der
Zeitfolge u. muß ihm erzählen, wie sie die Sache weitergebracht hätten, u.
dazu sitzt er in einer dunklen Ecke, wie ein Jupiter tonans u. blitzt mit den
alten Augen. An den Beethoven wollte er gar nicht heran ... Ich sagte ihm
aber, ich könne ihm nicht helfen, u. spielte ihm nun das erste Stück der
c moll Sinfonie vor; das bewegte ihn ganz seltsam; er sagte erst "das
bewegt aber gar nichts; das macht nur staunen; das ist grandios, [" ] u. dann
brummte er so weiter u. fing nach langer Zeit wieder an : das ist sehr groß,
ganz toll, man möchte sich fürchten, das Haus fiele ein; und wenn das nun
Alle die Menschen zusammenspielen! Und bei Tische mitten in einem
anderen Gespräch fing er wieder damit an. 16

While the ambivalence of Goethe's statement as expressed here must be

admitted, it does show Goethe's way of listening to music, and his diffi-
culty with purely instrumental, non-programmatic music, as well as the fact
that it took this kind of performance to make him really aware of the power
of Beethoven's art. If the man at eighty-one was capable of this kind of
revolution — it was really no less than that — in his musical thinking, one
wonders what insight he might have developed had he been introduced to
the new music under more favourable circumstances at an earlier age, and
without Zelter's benevolent protection from all but the most staid and
pedestrian works.
One could note Goethe's musical specifications for Egmont, as well as
his work in theory and psychology of sound, the musical instruments he
invented, and more in support of his knowledge in the field, but the
purpose of this outline of Goethe's musical experience is merely to indicate
that his opinions are worthy of serious consideration.
What were Goethe's opinions about music? The question is both easy

16 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Briefe einer Reise (Zürich, 1958), p. 21.

 GOETHE AND MUSIC 51

and difficult to answer. Easy, because of the wealth of material from which
we can draw and the number of times the poet expressed himself on the
subject, and difficult for the same reason, for such an abundance of
material is always subject to the interpretation of the individual com-
mentator, and the judgments expressed by Goethe are in each case shaped
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

by the circumstances under which they were made. However, a few fairly
unassailable conclusions can be drawn.
First, we know that Goethe needed music. He speaks repeatedly in his
letters about the lack he felt when cut off from the opportunity to hear
music." His pleasure at the association with the young Mendelssohn, and
the fact that his latest enduring friendship was with Zelter are also signifi-
cant. On 5 February 1801 he wrote to Reichardt: "Das erste höhere
Bedürfnis, was ich nach meiner Krankheit empfand, war nach Musik."
But what kind of music ?
On 20 January 1780 he wrote to Kayser to discuss an operetta on which
they were working. In this letter he reveals his knowledge of orchestration,
as well as his desire to have nothing interfere with the understanding of the
whole. In particular, he advises against letting the accompaniment intrude:
"Disponiren Sie Ihre Melodien Ihre Accompagnements u.s.w. daß alles
aus dem Ganzen und in das Ganze hinein arbeitet. Das Accompagnement
rathe ich Ihnen sehr mäßig zu halten nur in der mäßigkeit ist der Reich-
thum, wer seine Sache versteht thut mit zwei Violinen, Viole und Bass
mehr als andre mit der ganzen Instrumentenkammer" (punctuation
Goethe's). Then follows advice on how to use the wind instruments
sparingly, always avoiding a clouded texture.
What should the composer depict in nature ("malen") ? "Nichts und
alles. Nichts, wie er es durch die äußern Sinne empfängt, darf er nachah-
men ; aber alles darf er darstellen, was er bei diesen äußern Sin nesein-
wirkungen empfindet ... das Innere in Stimmung zu setzen, ohne die
gemeinen äußern Mittel zu brauchen ist der Musik großes und edles
Vorrecht" (16 February 1818, to Schopke [31, 26]). On song settings, to
Zelter (2 May 1820): "Die reinste und höchste Malerei in der Musik ist die,
welche Du auch ausübst; es kommt darauf an, den Hörer in die Stimmung
zu versetzen, welche das Gedicht angibt, in der Einbildungskraft bilden
sich alsdann die Gestalten nach Anlaß des Textes, sie weiß nicht wie sie
darzu kommt" (33, 57-8).
The increasing complexity of the instrumental accompaniment was a

17 The important role of music during Goethe's painful period of adjustment to the
separation from Ulrike von Levetzow could also be mentioned. The third poem
from Trilogie der Leidenschaft, Aussöhnung, in addition to being a lasting monu-
ment to Goethe's devotion to music, was originally intended for the Polish
pianist Maria Szmanowska, who played to Goethe during this time of need.
 52 JOHN L. MILLER

developing characteristic of the early nineteenth-century song upon which

Goethe looked with disfavour. This is also a major reason why Goethe and
Beethoven could probably never have really understood each other artisti-
cally, even under better circumstances. Beethoven was primarily an
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

instrumental composer, and Goethe simply could not conceive of music as

having a valid life of its own away from words. He is explicit in Wilhelm
Meister: "Melodien, Gänge und Läufe ohne Worte und Sinn scheinen mir
Schmetterlingen oder jenen bunten Vögeln ähnlich zu sein, die in der Luft
vor unsern Augen schweben."18
While it is true that Goethe was fond of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier
and other instrumental compositions of Bach, it is clear that he listened to
this music with extramusical images in mind, and greatly preferred those
pieces which lent themselves to such an approach. For all Goethe's
admiration of Mozart, he saw him as a composer of opera ; we have no
evidence that he knew or concerned himself with the symphonies, concerti,
sonatas, and other non-vocal music.
Goethe also spoke out often against the "durchkomponiertes Lied,"
and a few words of explanation seem in order here. First, the song form
which was prevalent in Goethe's youth, and which he held to be the ideal
way of "realizing" poetry, was the strophic form. In this form, each stanza
of a poem is sung to the same music, the singer making the nuances in the
text apparent through his interpretation. Perhaps the most obvious example
of this strophic composition is the hymn, with its single musical setting,
and three or four additional stanzas of words to be sung to the same music.
Eduard Genast tells of an experience with Goethe in 1814, which des-
cribes how Goethe felt the singer should handle the various stanzas of a
strophic song through his performance : 19
Ich sang ihm zuerst "Jägers Abendlied," von Reichardt komponiert. Er saß
dabei im Lehnstuhl und bedeckte sich mit der Hand die Augen. Gegen
Ende des Liedes sprang er auf und rief: "Das Lied singst Du schlecht!" ...
"Der erste Vers, sowie der dritte müssen markig, mit einer Wildheit vor-
getragen werden, der zweite und vierte weicher; denn da tritt eine andere
Empfindung ein. Siehst Du so!" (indem er scharf markierte:) "Da ramm!
Da ramm! Da ramm! Da ramm!" Dabei bezeichnete er zugleich, mit beiden
Armen auf- und abfahrend, das Tempo und sang dies "Da ramm" in einem
tiefen Tone. Ich wußte nun was er wollte, und auf sein Verlangen wieder-
holte ich das Lied. Er war zufrieden und sagte: "So ist es besser! Nach und
nach wird es Dir schon klar werden, wie man solche Strophenlieder
vorzutragen hat."

18 Moser, p. 72.
19 Jack Stein, "Was Goethe Wrong About the Nineteenth Century Lied?" PMLA,
77 (1962), 233.
 GOETHE AND MUSIC 53

In contrast to the form described here, in the through-composed song

the entire poem is treated as a linear unit, and from beginning to end the
composer sets each stanza according to his feeling about its content. There
are no regular repetitions imposed by the requirements of the musical form.
This has been the basic model for songs from Schubert to the present day,
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/sem.v8.1.42 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 4:25:05 PM - IP Address:95.181.177.34

although of course there are modern examples of strophic songs, just as

we find through-composed songs in the earliest preserved music.
While this seems at first glance the obvious way to compose music, one
can also see the inherent dangers of over-interpretation, and the new power
which the composer gains over the text in choosing this method of compos-
ing. That Goethe should find this trend disturbing is not difficult to
understand. Although he expressed himself negatively many times about
"durchkomponieren," the following quotation from a letter to W. v.
Humboldt (14 March 1803) seems to explain the reasoning behind his
objections better than some others :

Für das Gehör im höhern Sinne hat indessen auch unser wackrer Zelter
gesorgt, der durch Kompositionen einiger Lieder von Schiller und mir unsre
Winterstunden sehr erheitert hat. Er trifft den Charakter eines solchen, in
gleichen Strophen wiederkehrenden Ganzen trefflich, so daß es in jedem
einzelnen Teile wieder gefühlet wird, da wo andere durch ein sogenanntes
Durchkomponieren den Eindruck des Ganzen durch vordringende Einzelheiten
zerstören. (15, 19, italics mine)

In Goethe's opinion, music was to be an aid to the listener's under-

standing of the poetry, and no more. It was desirable and even necessary,
but under no circumstances was it to be more than a vehicle. In this com-
bination neither the singer nor the setting was to obscure the text or the
meaning of it, and, above all, the composer should not interpret, should
not "den Eindruck des Ganzen durch vordringende Einzelheiten zerstören,"
for "nur in der mäßigkeit ist der Reichtum" (see above).

What was music for Goethe ? It was an art of indispensable value, a healing
balm, a refuge in times of stress and need. He always held the music of his
youth, that of Mozart, to be the ideal to which the art should aspire. As a
poet he naturally believed in the supremacy of the word in any combination
with music, and this also limited his concept of instrumental music.
Goethe was disturbed by and rejected the direction of art represented by
Beethoven ; by the time he met Beethoven – the musical personification of
Sturm und Drang – Goethe had become a classicist. Theirs was not only
an age difference ; it was a difference of Ages : they lived in different
worlds. Even given this, we have seen the insight of which the poet was