INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Subject of the course is a social history of music, with special focus on the 18th and 19th

century. In this period, the status of both music and musicians rose to unprecedented heights. The key to understanding the ‘sacralisation of music’, which turns music into an alternative religion and brings the musical ‘man of genius’ into the position of its high priest, is closely related to the development of the ‘public sphere’ and bourgeois capitalism.

The course relies on a book written by the English historian Tim Blanning, an internationally acclaimed expert in the field. It is titled:

The Triumph of Music: Composers, Musicians and Their Audiences, 1700 to the Present (London, 2008)American edition: The Triumph of Music: The Rise of Composers, Musicians and Their Art (Cambridge, Mass., 2008)

The book contains five chapters:

1. Status: ‘You Are a God-Man, the True Artist by God’s Grace’2. Purpose: ‘Music Is the Most Romantic of All the Arts’3. Places and Spaces: From Palace to Stadium4. Technology: From Stradivarius to Stratocaster5. Liberation: Nation, People, Sex

Chapter 1 (on Status) will be dealt in depth with. Special topics will be selected from the remaining chapters.

THE MUSICIAN AS SLAVE AND SERVANT

For most of recorded history→ sharp discrepancy between:

status of music → high status of musician → low

STATUS OF MUSIC

ANTIQUITY

Mythology

belief that music is of divine origin

Egypt: Osiris as composer of the traditional chants → any alteration strictly forbidden

Ancient Greece:Orpheus, legendary singer and musician:

divine ancestry: Apollo and the muse Calliopealternative version: son of the Thracian king Oeagrus

divine power of his singing and playingcharming wild beasts, diverting the course of rivers, …

Philosophy

music as a main preoccupation

Plato (428/427 BC -348-347 BC) affinity between music and mathematics

‘Harmony of the Spheres’ (Pythagoras) music as an essential part of education

theory of the ‘ethos’ → music affects the character (soul)‘good’ versus ‘bad’ music

blueprint of the ideal state (totalitarian utopia?)music strictly regulated to avoid anarchy, disorder and moral degeneration

only Dorian and Phrygian modes permitted (courage, temperance)

MIDDLE AGES

Substantial cultural shift

Antiquity: ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ (a sound mind in a sound body)

Middle Ages: man as a sinful creature salvation only through God and a pious life Evil and the Devil as a permanent threat

Persistent influence of the platonic teachings: strong opposition body-soul, material-spiritual dichotomy ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ music

Saint Augustine (354-430): era of the Church Fathers (early Christian writers) Confessiones (Confessions) under the spell of Ambrosian chant in Milan

o enjoying the music in itself = mortal sino music reinforcing the Word of God = divine gift

RENAISSANCE – BAROQUE – EARLY MODERN EUROPE

15th – 18th century

Cultural changes: self-awareness of man theocentrism → (theo-)anthropocentrism process of secularisation Antiquity sets the example

Growing royal power (absolutism; Louis XIV)→ development of a court culture:

Italy (Florence, Milano, Mantua,…) Duchy of Burgundy (Brussels, Philip the Good) Paris

Baldassare Castiglione, Il libro del cortigiano (The Book of the Courtier, 1528): music = ‘a holy matter’ harmony of the spheres soul affected by music

≈ Shakespeare , The Merchant of Venice (mid-1590s): ‘the sweet power of music’

Reformation: 16th century attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church establishment of the Protestant Churches

Calvin (1509-1564): uneasy about power of music unaccompanied congregational singing of psalms aversion of instrumental music

 ≈ Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531): total banning of music

Martin Luther (1483-1546):• music as magnificent gift of God• song of the congregation• hymn Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress is our God)

Healing qualities of musicRobert Burton (1577-1640), Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

Conclusion

Blanning, p.11:

In short, with the exception of the grim Franco-Swiss reformers, Europeans have always cherished music – especially when performed collectively (whether by Athenians, Jews, medieval monks, Protestant congregations or whomever).

STATUS OF THE MUSICIAN

ANTIQUITY

musicians → often slaves

Aristotle, Politics: music = essential part of education (moral improvement) professional performers (payment) = vulgar

MIDDLE AGES

Boethiusca 480 – ca 524De institutione musica

division into three types: musica mundana musica humana musica instrumentalis

music as a science: music = a science of numbers (part of the quadrivium) true musician = philosopher (clerics!) performers and composers (!) → driven by instinct

Lay musicians

Jongleurs (jugglers): perform tricks, tell stories, sing or play instruments itinerant precarious living low status

Minstrels: more specialized musicians (from 13th century on) itinerant often employed at court or city varied backgrounds (former clerics, sons of merchants and craftsmen, knights

Troubadours / Trouvères:

poet-composers in medieval France (12th – 13th century) supported by the many castles and courts all over the country

Blanning: most came from the margins of polite society

Christopher Page: study of 15 troubadours: 5 clergymen 4 poor knights or their sons 3 sons of townsmen 2 former artisans

Burkholder, Grout & Palisca on troubadours and trouvèressocial background:

noblese.g. Guillaume IX, duke of Aquitaine (1071-1126)

sons of servants at courte.g. Bernart de Ventadorn (ca 1130 – ca 1200)

families of merchants, craftsmen, or even jongleurs

acceptance into aristocratic circles because of: accomplishments in poetry and music adoption of the value system and behaviour practiced at court

actual performance → often entrusted to jongleur or minstrel

German Minnesinger (Minnesänger): 12th – 14th century knightly poet-musicians e.g. Walther von der Vogelweide

(ca 1170 – ca 1230)

EARLY MODERN EUROPE

musicians → growing self-confidence

e.g. Josquin des Prez (ca 1450 - 1521): career in France (Louis XI) and Italy (duke of Ferrara, house of Este) independent in his behaviour

important factor = music printOttaviano Petrucci (1466-1539), Venice

compare to the visual arts: higher prestige importance of visual representation

Michelangelo (1475-1564)o ‘Il Divino’ (The Divine One)o first Western artist whose biography published during his own lifetime

(Giorgio Vasari / Ascanio Condivi)basic problem for musicians→ fickleness, capriciousness of princely patrons

Claudio Monteverdi1567-1643

music director at the court of Mantua: 1607: Orfeo 1612: Vincenzo → Francesco Gonzaga abrupt dismissal

1613 → maestro di capella in Venice, St Mark’s Basilica

1620Mantuans try to recover himMonteverdi refuses and makes his point in a famous letter:

income, regularly paid out permanent appointment (security) control over his musicians and singers respect

working in a Republic > serving a princely patron?

Johann Sebastian Bach1685-1750

Weimar 1708-1717: court organist / Konzertmeister (1714) no perspective of further promotion (Kapellmeister) attractive offer by prince of Anhalt-Cöthen gets imprisoned / ‘unfavourable discharge’

Anhalt-Cöthen 1717-1723: prince Leopold Kapellmeister (music director) 1721 Leopold x Fredericka Henriette of Anhalt-Bernburg

Leipzig 1723-1750: cantor of the St Thomas Church employed by the town council

moving from West to East→ examples of ‘artistic despotism’

Prussia

Frederick the Great (1740-1786)

Gertrude Elizabeth Mara (1749-1833): 1774: London offer 1780: illness ‘weight of slavery’ ‘O Liberté!’

Russia

society: tsarist autocracy magnates serfdom

serf = unfree person, bound to the land

musicians: serf troupes maintained by magnates position often complicated and ambiguous:

o relatively well-paido emancipationo corporal punishment

Sheremetev family: > 8,000 km² of land

compare Belgium: 30,528 km² 200,000 registered serfs (approx. one million in real terms) Saint Petersburg palace (Fountain House)

(> 300 servants) splendid theatre buildings in the summer houses (French opera!):

o Kuskovo Palace (east of Moscow)burns down in 1789

o Ostankino Palace (north of Moscow)opens in 1795room for 260 spectators

Conclusion

Blanning, p. 15:

… the subservient status of even the greatest singers and composers was the rule in courts large and small.

Further illustrations

Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780)

manual for her son Archduke Ferdinand (1754-1806): table illustrating social hierarchy musicians at the very bottom (along with beggars and actors)

advice to Ferdinand, then governor of the Duchy of Milan, on Mozart (1771): ‘you don’t need a composer or any other useless people’ (gens inutiles) ‘it brings service into disrepute when these people roam around the world like

beggars’ (comme gueux)

Joseph Haydn and the Esterházy family

Joseph Haydn(1732-1809): ° Rohrau (south east of Vienna) son of a wheelwright 1740: choirboy in St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Vienna)

Esterházy family: Hungarian magnates main residence: Eisenstadt

(50 km south of Vienna)

1761 Haydn is appointed deputy director of music (Vice-Capel-Meister)

employment contract between Prince Paul Anton and Haydn→ detailed enumeration of Haydn’s duties:

exemplary conduct strict dress code for performances:

o white stockings, white shirto powderedo wigo ‘identical appearance’

servant-composerThe said Vice-Capel-Meister shall be under permanent obligation to compose such pieces of music as his Serene Princely Highness may command, and neither to communicate such new compositions to anyone, nor to allow them to be copied, but

to retain them wholly for the exclusive use of his Highness; nor shall he compose for any other person without the knowledge and gracious permission of his Highness.

→ complete unbalance in the clauses regarding the ending of the contractual relation Haydn:

o probationary period of 3 yearso 6 months’ notice before leaving

Prince: free at all times to dismiss him from servicerelation Haydn - Prince Esterhazy ≈ feudal bond between lord and vassal:

personal (moral) relation paternalism submissive language substantial payments in kind

(wine, firewood, wheat, beef, candles, cabbages, a pig)

≠ real contract→ presupposes equality between the parties to the contract

music for baryton: derived from the viola da gamba ‘cumbersome and difficult to play’ (Blanning) favourite instrument of Prince Nicholas (1762-1790) 126 pieces (1765-1778)

Farewell Symphonysymphony no 45 in F sharp Minor (1772)

context: Esterháza summer palace

‘Versailles of Hungary’opera house (500 spectators)

‘in the middle of nowhere’ musicians living there without their families closing adagio: musicians one by one snuffing their candle and leaving the room return to Eisenstadt

Haydn ≠ revolutionary: good-natured, easy-going (‘Papa Haydn’) grown up and socialized in the society of the Ancien Régime

(masters and servants)

Haydn’s greatest frustration = isolation / restrictions on his freedom of movement:

frustration grows as time goes onexamples of self-pity (1790):

Esterhaza = ‘my wilderness’ It really is sad to be a slave, but Providence wills it so.

HANDEL, HAYDN AND THE LIBERATION OF THE MUSICIAN

HAYDN AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

Haydn1790 Nicolas → Anton= characteristic ‘critical moment’ of succession:

disbanding of the court orchestra and opera company Haydn takes advantage:

o lifelong, comfortable pensiono permission to travel

London journeys, 1791-1792, 1794-1795offer from the impresario Johann Peter Salomon (1745-1815)

England: collapse of royal absolutism (Stuarts)

Glorious Revolution, 1688Bill of Rights, 1689constitutional monarchyparliament

free enterprisesociety of ‘movers and doers’dynamism

London: Blanning: ‘the Eldorado of musicians’ one million inhabitants ‘London Season’:

o parliamentary sessionso concentration of elites (upper class) and wealth

Haydn’s situation = ambiguous: isolation as court servant of the Esterházys notoriety, even fame in London

Blanning, p. 18:

Haydn was fortunate that his career coincided with a massive expansion of music printing and publishing. Although printing had been possible since the late fifteenth century, not until the middle of the eighteenth did something approaching a mass market begin to develop. This was an integral part of a much wider phenomenon – the emergence of a public sphere.

elements: expansion of towns / promotion of urban values rise of consumerism / commercialisation of leisure proliferation of voluntary associations (reading clubs, choral societies, masonic

lodges,…) improvement of communications and postal services

→ result = ‘a new kind of cultural space into which musical entrepreneurs eagerly moved’

mushrooming of publishing houses after c. 1750: 1745 Breitkopf (Leipzig)

technical innovations (movable type process) commercial techniques

(catalogues, advertising, distribution networks, mail-order) > 100 workers

1767 Artaria (Vienna) 1770 Schott (Mainz)

Haydn: 1763 harpsichord divertimento in Breitkopf’s catalogue […] music published and sold in Paris, Amsterdam, London 1779 revision of contract (removal of restrictions) by the 1780’s international reputation:

composing for patrons all over Europe (e.g. 6 Paris Symphonies, ordered by the Loge Olympique)

music readily available for sale across Europe

Francisco Goya (1746-1828): portrait of the Duke of Alba (1795) holding a Haydn score (Four Songs with Pianoforte Accompaniment)

efforts at self-promotion: flattering portrait by Johann Ernst Mansfeld (1738-1796) (1781) engraved, reproduced, advertised for sale by Artaria

Blanning, p. 24

In short, by the time Haydn really did reach London on New Year’s Day, 1791, the musical public was ready and waiting.

A NEW HANDEL?

Haydn ≈ HandelLondon musical public → willingness to embrace German-speaking musicians

GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL

1685-1759

London period‘Georg Frederick Handel’1710-1759

Blanning: Handel = an early demonstration of how a musician could become rich and famous through the public sphere

musical entrepreneur paying public wealth + social status

A Statue in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

Handel-statue: Louis-François Roubiliac (1738) homage by Jonathan Tyers ‘Orpheus-posture’

Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens c 1660 – 1859 Kennington (South of the Thames) free entrance until 1785 food and drink for sale

main venue for fashionable society: ‘to see and be seen’ walks concerts, balls, fireworks rococo structures (pavilions):

o Turkish tent (1744)o chinoiserie styleo fashionable drinks: coffee, tea, hot chocolate

Jonathan Tyers (1702-1767):

John Barrell, Times Literary Supplement, 25 January 2012:

Vauxhall pleasure gardens, on the south bank of the Thames, entertained Londoners and visitors to London for 200 years. From 1729, under the management of Jonathan Tyers, property developer, impresario, patron of the arts, the gardens grew into an extraordinary business, a cradle of modern painting and architecture, and... music.... A pioneer of mass entertainment, Tyers had to become also a pioneer of mass catering, of outdoor lighting, of advertising, and of all the logistics involved in running one of the most complex and profitable business ventures of the eighteenth century in Britain.

1749: rehearsal of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks→ audience of 12,000

Imitations: Paris (1760s) Brussels (1781, Parc de Bruxelles)

Handel as a national hero to the English

Handel’s tomb in Westminster Abbey, LondonStatue by Louis-François Roubiliac, 1761

Westminster Abbey: coronation, wedding and burial site for the English (British) monarchs tombs of famous British subjects

≈ Pantheon in Paris

Handel’s tomb= indication of:

personal status sacralisation of his art

Handel does never fall into oblivion: first book-length biography devoted to a musician

John Mainwaring, Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel (London, 1760)

1784: 5 commemorative concertso Westminster Abbey / Pantheon (Oxford Street)o main event attended by the royal family (George III)

THE BEST OF TWO WORLDS

HAYDN IN LONDON

17911792 / 1794-1795

warm welcome:• newspapers• invitations for dinner

financially rewarding: 6,000 guilder in 6 months net profit: c. 15,000 guilder compare annual salary at Esterházy court: 1,000 to 1,200 guilder

Hanover Square Rooms: 1775 first purpose-built concert hall in London private enterprise Sir John Gallini (1728-1805)

Swiss-Italian dancing-master‘mover and doer’

Johann Christian Bach / Carl Friedrich Abelsubscription concerts

SACRALISATION

music: functional → valued for its own sake religion → art

‘sacralisation of music’

concert hall ≈ church building: audience seated as if it were a congregation orchestra in a chancel-like space:

o platform fenced off by a railo organ taking the place of the altar

COMMERCIALISATION

commercialisation → impact on the content of an art form

size of the orchestra:o Esterházy court: 14-22 players

permanent charge for the princeo London concerts: 50 to 60 players

unique context of the metropolismusicians recruited from a much larger poolhired by the season or even the concert

stimulating interaction between composer and his audienceH.C. Robbins Landon:The music reflects the atmosphere of fin de siècle London: assured, disputatious, intriguing, eccentric, open-minded yet sensitive

PUBLIC RECOGNITION

Oxford: honorary doctorate, 7 July 1791 on the proposal of Charles Burney (1726-1814) Sheldonian Theatre (Christopher Wren) Symphony no. 92 in G (Oxford) (1789) emblematic of his emergence as a celebrity

HAYDN RETURNS TO THE ESTERHÁZYS!

Advantages (≈ Monteverdi in Venice): comfortable income security control prestige

In sole command of large musical establishment of high quality: instruments space library orchestra unlimited rehearsal time

Prince Nicholas Esterházy, ‘discerning and tolerant’:• room for artistic experimentation• Sturm und Drang symphonies

(late 1760s – early 1770s)

Haydn manages to have the best of both worlds: aristocratic + public

cultural icon of the Habsburg monarchy: national anthem ‘Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser’

(God Save Emperor Francis)≈ ‘God Save the King’1797threat of revolutionary France

27 March 1808, University of Viennagala performance oratorio ‘The Creation’birthday presentPrince von Trauttmansdorffreception committee: Prince Lobkowitz, Prince Esterházy, Beethovenorchestra conducted by Antonio Salieri

Blanning, p. 29:

At the beginning of his career, Haydn became famous because he was the Kapellmeister for the Esterházys; by the time he died, the Esterházys were famous because their Kapellmeister was Haydn.

MOZART, BEETHOVEN AND THE PERILS OF THE PUBLIC SPHERE

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

1756-1791

painful struggle for recognition and emancipation

Biography: 1756-1773: childhood / travelling as child prodigy 1773-1781: employment at the Salzburg court 1781-1791: freelance composer-performer in Vienna

SALZBURG PERIOD

SalzburgCourt of archbishop Hieronymous Count von Colloredo

relation patron-servant → ‘bad luck’

Colloredo = narrow-minded and unappreciative chain of humiliations

e.g. eating with the valets and cooks

Mozart’s revolt

Mozart ≠ Haydn: generation younger extensive travelling as a child prodigy encouraged in social aspirations by his ambitious father Leopold lively temperament

June 1781 → Count Arco’s notorious ‘kick on the arse’

servant → freelance composer and performer

revolutionary step: socially: leap in the dark, or at least the unknown personally: sharp conflict with his father Leopold

VIENNA

4 sources of income: commissions for new works ticket sales from concerts as a pianist royalties from publishers music lessons

1787: appointment as imperial chamber composer (800 guilders annually)

Mozart, gifted and energetic, lives well in Vienna: comfortable accommodations horse and carriage wardrobe of an aristocrat

Major flaw in his condition→ dependency on the (high) nobility:

private concerts in their palaces main presence at public concerts:

o ‘Academies’o subscription concerts

noble ‘connoisseurs’: exceptionally high level of musical education receptive to innovative music of high quality Countess Thun

Count CobenzlPrince GalitzinArchduke Maximilian Franz (brother of Joseph II)…

nobility ≈ diplomatic corps

Gottfried Freiherr van Swieten(° 1733 Leiden – 1803 Vienna):

son of Maria Theresa’s personal physician Jesuit college diplomatic career prefect of the Imperial Library (1777) Councillor of State under Joseph II freemason

1786 Gesellschaft der Associierten: society of music-loving nobles veneration for the old masters silence

one of Mozart’s main patrons: salon of Countess Thun conductor at the Gesellschaft (1788)

financial support introduces Mozart to the music of Bach and Handel

counterpoint

late 1780s→ Mozart confronts financial problems:

moves 4 times in 18 months loans from friends

explaining elements: 1786: Le Nozze di Figaro 1788: illness Constanze 1787-1790: war with the Turks:

exodus of noble army officers contraction of cultural life in Vienna Europe-wide economic recession

from 1790 on→ recovery

1791: La Clemenza di Tito / Die Zauberflöte international reputation

invitations from London to St. Petersburg

1791: Mozart dies of rheumatic fever

Caution!Mozart’s alleged ‘poverty’ and ‘falling into oblivion’→ to a large extent the product of romantic imagination→ creation of a legend

financial problems = shortage of liquid assets (short term)recovery had started

achievement recognised in public and privatememory venerated

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

1770-1827

→ builds on the achievement of Haydn and Mozart→ raising the status of both music and the musician to unprecedented heights

PUBLIC SPHERE COMES TO AGE

19th century → breakthrough of a substantial market for music: improvements in music print: use of steam engines manufacturing industry of musical instruments (piano) middle class demand in cities

Beethoven to Franz Gerhard Wegeler29 juni 1801:

My compositions earn me a great deal, and I can say that I have more orders than is possible for me to fulfill, and for every piece, I have 6, 7 publishers and more if I wanted to, and one does not negotiate with me, anymore, I demand and one pays, you see, that this is a beautiful situation, …

STATUS

1809 Beethoven gets an attractive offer from Jerome, king of Westphalia (Kassel)→ 3 aristocrats coalesce to keep Beethoven in Vienna→ lifelong annual income of 4,000 guilder

prince Lobkowitzprince Kinskyarchduke Rudolph (brother Francis I)

Observations: Beethoven clearly recognised as a man of genius relation more akin to friendship than patronage

Beethoven only wants to be treated on equal terms dedications as friend, not as supplicant

e.g. archduke Rudolph (piano concerto no 5, Archduke trio, Missa Solemnis) Beethoven thinking of himself as being the son of Frederick II

Beethoven has ‘attitude’ appearance behaviour deafness

→ first musician to become the centre of a cult, a legend in his own time→ Beethoven worshipped by ‘fans’ all over Europe (fanatic)→ admirers want to know how their hero looked like→ unprecedented visual access

Franz Kleinlife mask 1812 → portrait bust

Blanning: ‘passionate, indomitable, exciting, untamed, above all original’

BEETHOVEN’S DEATH AND FUNERAL

artist’s standing ≈ manner in which his death is marked

Mozart † 1791anonymous grave

Beethoven † 1827

Beethoven † 1827: sense and awareness of an historical moment:• autopsy• locks of hair• drawing and death mask by Josef Danhauser (1805-1845)• last words: ‘Pity, pity – too late!’

(Schade, schade, zu spät)

funeral: grand and formal event: formal invitations school holiday declared by the authorities funeral procession:

o 36 torch bearers (Schubert)o 10,000 – 30,000 onlookers

Währing cemetery:o oration written by dramatist Franz Grillparzero only deity recognised = music per se

Beethoven as its high priestsacralisation of music

BEETHOVEN AND 19TH-CENTURY STATUOMANIA

BonnBeethoven-monument (1845)Ernst Julius Hähnel (1811-1891)MünsterplatzInvolvement of Franz Liszt

ViennaBeethoven Monument (1880)Kaspar von Zumbusch (1830-1915)Beethovenplatz

RELATION TO THE MUSICAL PUBLIC

Beethoven: sense of aristocracy distanced from the general public

developments noble connoisseurs (Lichnowsky, Lobkowitz) subject to substantial financial

pressures:o wars 1787-1815o dissolution of their musical establishments

growth of populationemerging public sphere (middle classes)→ larger musical public→ cultural participation as social pressure‘keeping up appearances’public concertsimpresariosprofit

Blanning p. 44

These paying audiences were given what they wanted, and that was easy listening in the form of plenty of variety, good tunes, regular rhythms and pieces that were not too long or demanding.

‘pot-pourris’→ popular overtures, operatic arias, dance tunes→ at best a single movement of a symphony or concerto

Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven → Italians

complex music → simple enjoyment

complaint of ‘vulgarisation’Beethoven: ‘It is said vox populi, vox dei- I never believed it’ROSSINI, PAGANINI, LISZT – THE MUSICIAN AS CHARISMATIC HERO

GIOACCHINO ROSSINI

1792-1868

Stendhal (1783-1842)Vie de Rossini (1824)

Light, lively, amusing, never wearisome, but seldom exalted – Rossini would appear to have brought into this world for the express purpose of conjuring up visions of ecstatic delight in the commonplace soul of the Average Man

stupendous successpopular adulation

middle classesin Italy even popular among layers of the working class

→ public sphere has come of age→ musician enters spheres previously reserved for kings and generals

Stendhal:

Napoleon is dead; but a new conqueror has already shown himself to the world; and from Moscow to Naples, from London to Vienna, from Paris to Calcutta, his name is constantly on every tongue. The fame of this hero knows no bounds save those of civilisation itself; and he is not yet thirty-two! The task which I have set myself is to trace the paths and circumstances which have carried him at so early an age to such a throne of glory.

In the rich man’s world …

1829 Rossini retires

1855 Rossini settles in Paris: protagonist of Paris society ‘jours’

cultural, diplomatic, financial elite

atmosphere of luxury, fashion and opulencegourmand‘tournedos Rossini’ (foie gras, truffle)

Rossini as ‘charismatic musician’

charisma: original meaning: ‘gift from God’ 19th century secularisation

→ purely internal quality→ derived exclusively from the personal qualities of the individual

archetype of the modern charismatic leader = Napoleon Bonaparte→ extraordinary force of his personality, charm, authority, sense of destiny, self-assurance→ 1804 places the imperial crown on his own head

power of personal myth in the cultivation of public opinion