# German? French? Are You Sure?



## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Had a look at St. Lukes Guild's Austro-German Composers Thread. Rather than post in that thread (and risk hijacking it), I thought I'd address the following here-

Noticed that the opening post included Giacomo Meyerbeer, but not Jacques Offenbach.

Not yet sure whether I agree or not- but why one, and not the other? Or (my initial inclination) why consider _either_ of them German composers?

Both composers were German-born, both have opera (or operas) as their _Magnum Opus_, both had their most enduring success living in (and being performed in) France. In fact, when they hit their stride, they do have a _plus français que les français_ quality to them, don't you think?

In another footnote, the immigrant (to America) composer Charles Loeffler took his embrace of France to the level of fiction. Even though it's confirmed that his birthplace was near Berlin, he insisted that he was Alsatian-born throughout his life- and reportedly threatened fisticuffs to anyone who attempted to say otherwise.


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## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

Both pretty much were eh too....


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

This is why I prefer to use the term "German-born" for example not "German composer." This can get confusing, esp. with many composers moving around and making their homes elsewhere, often in many countries other than their country of birth over a lifetime. Look at Stravinsky - he was truly more of a man of the world than simply a "Russian composer." Delius really didn't like the UK for various reasons, although born there he spent most of his life outside it, he specifically didn't like being called a British or English composer, it apparently p*ssed him off to no end.

So I'd basically say re Offenbach & Meyerbeer that they were "German born composers who worked & lived in France." It's harder than saying simply that they were "German" or "French" composers, but more accurate.

In any case, I'm dubious about the whole "Austro-German" label, although I've used it a bit, Austrians will tell you they are very different, not the same, as the Germans (& the Germans vice-versa). I prefer to use the term "German-speaking countries" to cover Germany, Austria & Switzerland. Grouping with language makes more sense than grouping with culture & using geography as a marker can be a bit confusing as well (eg. what exactly is "Central Europe" for example? Is it only geographic but also say economic, etc.?).

Anyway, these kinds of things come to my mind when people, or I myself slip into, using these labels...


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

Sid James said:


> In any case, I'm dubious about the whole "Austro-German" label, although I've used it a bit, Austrians will tell you they are very different, not the same, as the Germans (& the Germans vice-versa).


This is an extremely hazardous issue to raise, and perhaps not all that wise in a forum like this. The questions surrounding the Anschluss have been a very politically loaded issue ever since. Austria certainly has its own distinctive culture and history but I don't think they'd actually deny being Germans. Bavarians consider themselves as 'different' to other Germans too.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^It's not necessarily the Anschluss that's the issue, but the fact that Austria - the old Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Hapsburgs - had a different history to what is now Germany. Vienna was the centre of an empire which included Hungary, what is now Czech and Slovak republics, and even parts of Northern Italy & what used to be known as Yugoslavia. So Vienna was a kind of melting pot of people from these places, eg. a lot would have gone to study & work there, etc. There was a large Jewish community in Vienna before the Holocaust. This is just the beginning but I think people understand my point that although they speak the same language Austrians and Germans are not the same, or at least not exactly the same, and neither are the Swiss, although they also have German as one of their main languages...


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Meyerbeer wrote operas who clearly fit in with the French grande opéra. And certainly not germanic operas.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

Sid James said:


> ^^It's not necessarily the Anschluss that's the issue, but the fact that Austria - the old Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Hapsburgs - had a different history to what is now Germany. Vienna was the centre of an empire which included Hungary, what is now Czech and Slovak republics, and even parts of Northern Italy & what used to be known as Yugoslavia. So Vienna was a kind of melting pot of people from these places, eg. a lot would have gone to study & work there, etc. There was a large Jewish community in Vienna before the Holocaust. This is just the beginning but I think people understand my point that although they speak the same language Austrians and Germans are not the same, or at least not exactly the same, and neither are the Swiss, although they also have German as one of their main languages...


Obviously I'm well aware of the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and I do appreciate where you're coming from. I just think that denying the existence of a broader Germanic culture is overstating the case. Whilst Vienna was certainly cosmopolitan I think that viewing the Hapsburg Empire as a melting pot is a little unrealistic -it was a different age. What's your argument -that Sammartini is Austrian and not Italian? Germany wasn't one country in the era you're talking about, and Austria shared in the legacy of the time when it once had been -Germany remains a very regionalised country (like Italy). As far as the Anschluss is concerned, there is the danger of swallowing the line that was politically expedient after the war as if the overwhelming majority of Austrians were against unification. Whilst most may well have been there was certainly enough of a split to show that Austrians do feel a degree of shared culture with Germany -just as you'd expect.

Obviously I agree that such broad cultural and nationalistic stereotyping is of very limited use, and Rasa's observations are certainly pertinent. Lumping the Czechs, Moravians, Slovakians and Hungarians in with the Germans as some sort of 'greater Germanic culture' is even more questionable (Lebensraum anyone?) but StLukesGuildOhio did state why he was going about it that way.

What's the use? I don't know. Maybe comparing the two biggest schools of music in Europe: the German and Italian. In that context perhaps it makes sense to lump the Bohemians in with the sausage munchers. As Rasa pointed out though, French opera was founded by an Italian (Lully) and one of its greatest exponents was a German (Gluck). Giovanni Valentini, Poglietti, Cesti, Steffani etc, etc lived and worked on the north side of the Alps and undoubtedly had a huge influence on music there. Quite the opposite is true about Rosenmuller in Venice. Still, most of us reckon we can identify some degree of national 'schools' so I guess its not all nonsense.

In any event, sure Germany and Austria are very different things, but Austrians are still Germans; and so are Schweizers for that matter...


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Ia pripatchitaiu russkuyu operu

Martin


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

hocket said:


> ...As far as the Anschluss is concerned, there is the danger of swallowing the line that was politically expedient after the war as if the overwhelming majority of Austrians were against unification. Whilst most may well have been there was certainly enough of a split to show that Austrians do feel a degree of shared culture with Germany -just as you'd expect.


I don't deny the aspect of shared culture/language, etc. It's similar to pan-Slavism, which partially led to the unification of various countries/cultures under the banner of Yugoslavia, but in practice it didn't work out because they were too different, despite similarities (politics as well, etc.). The Polish people for example respect Russian culture, as do the Czechs, etc., but I don't think they appreciated being a Soviet satellite post-1945.

This is very political. There was support for Anschluss in Austria but an obvious factor was that Hitler was one of their own sons coming home. They welcomed him and swept under the carpet what it would lead to (which we all know).



> ...
> Obviously I agree that such broad cultural and nationalistic stereotyping is of very limited use, and Rasa's observations are certainly pertinent. Lumping the Czechs, Moravians, Slovakians and Hungarians in with the Germans as some sort of 'greater Germanic culture' is even more questionable (Lebensraum anyone?) but StLukesGuildOhio did state why he was going about it that way.
> 
> What's the use? I don't know. Maybe comparing the two biggest schools of music in Europe: the German and Italian. In that context perhaps it makes sense to lump the Bohemians in with the sausage munchers. As Rasa pointed out though, French opera was founded by an Italian (Lully) and one of its greatest exponents was a German (Gluck). Giovanni Valentini, Poglietti, Cesti, Steffani etc, etc lived and worked on the north side of the Alps and undoubtedly had a huge influence on music there. Quite the opposite is true about Rosenmuller in Venice. Still, most of us reckon we can identify some degree of national 'schools' so I guess its not all nonsense.
> ...


Well the connections are to do with music, but not just aimless generalising. Eg. Janacek looked east to the Russian culture for inspiration, in music, history and literature. I think he believed in pan-Slavism (post World War 1). Sibelius was also heavily influenced by Tchaikovsky. So there are connections there with Russian culture in this example, but they were also responding to their own national concerns, regional culture, we shouldn't overstate their looking further East. & it's the same with other similar things regarding music, it's good to be aware of the large nations which obviously had huge impact on the smaller nations. But they were also separate, just like I'd argue Austria & Germany to a good degree.



> ...
> In any event, sure Germany and Austria are very different things, but Austrians are still Germans...


Well if Austrians are Germans then why are they different countries? Because they're really not Germans. I think a lot of Austrians would take some umbrage against them being described like that, in some ways it's the same as calling Canada the extra state of the USA, or New Zealand an add-on to Australia...


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The common convention in literature is to label the author according to his or her language. Thus Hermann Hesse (Swiss-born) and Kafka (Czech-born) and Goethe (German-born) are all "German". The problem with Germany is the same as that of Italy and Holland/Belgian. Our concept of a unified Germany or Italy is barely 100 years old. For most of their existence these nations were a collection of city-states, duchys, principalities, and other political entities with ever-shifting borders.

Well if Austrians are Germans then why are they different countries? Because they're really not Germans. I think a lot of Austrians would take some umbrage against them being described like that, in some ways it's the same as calling Canada the extra state of the USA, or New Zealand an add-on to Australia...

This analogy is far from the mark. The separation between Germany and Austria is a political construct effected by the powers-that-were during the period of national unification. The Prussian/Protestant contingent was not open to including the Austrian/Catholic camp within a unified Germany for the simple reason that the former Austrian states represented a threat to Prussian hegemony. If you look at the German states over the course of history from the fall of the Roman Empire you will notice that the boundaries of individual states and alliances continually shifted. If we are going to argue the finer points of nationhood, then Mozart wasn't Austrian, he was born in the Archbishopric of Salzburg. Kafka wasn't Czech, he was Bohemian. while Liszt wouldn't be Hungarian, but rather Austrain or Burgenland-born. No one has such time for such nonsense, and so the common use is to base the nationality of an artist/composer/writer upon his or her primary language.

Of course there are cultural and historic differences between Germany and Austria. There are differences between Prussia and and Saxony and Bavaria and Bohemia. But there are huge differences in culture and history between Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, Illinois, California and Alaska as well. What unifies the German states is a common language. What unifies the United States is a common idea of nationhood.

When we speak of British literature, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, Lawrence Sterne, and James Joyce are all included... even though they are Irish. They all wrote in English and are part of the British literary tradition. We don't include the US or Canada or Australia in British literature for the simple reason that these nations... in spite of a shared language... do not share the same continent, the same history, the same population. There is also the clear notion of nationhood behind the United States and Canada and Australia.

I don't deny the aspect of shared culture/language, etc. It's similar to pan-Slavism, which partially led to the unification of various countries/cultures under the banner of Yugoslavia, but in practice it didn't work out because they were too different, despite similarities (politics as well, etc.). The Polish people for example respect Russian culture, as do the Czechs, etc., but I don't think they appreciated being a Soviet satellite post-1945.

Pan-Slavism? Has there ever been seriously an attempt at a Slavic nation? Any notion of a unified state lacking a single language is bound to fail. You might be surprised, if you knew many Poles or Ukrainians or Lithuanians or Hungarians just what they really felt about each other... and what they especially felt about Russia/the Soviet Union. And you are placing the Czechs within this construct? Considering the history of Czech artists, writers, and composers they have far more links with the West than with the East.

So I'd basically say re Offenbach & Meyerbeer that they were "German born composers who worked & lived in France."

And Offenbach would have been irritated by your comment to no end. He was born in Koln/Cologne which just a few years before his birth had been part of the French Republic but was turned over to the Kingdom of Prussia following the fall of Napoleon. The tension between the predominantly Catholic population of Cologne and the Protestant Prussians led to continual debate concerning Cologne. Offenbach's own position would have been even more precarious as the Jewish son of a cantor in the synagogue. The composer aspired from the start to be recognized as a Frenchman. He learned French, changed his name from Jakob Offenbach, was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, and became highly recognized as one of the leading composers of the Second Empire.

Again... none of the alternatives to basing "nationality" upon language... at least in Europe... are at all practical. If we follow your idea of calling Offenbach a German-born composer who lived and worked in France (a bit verbose already) we have to be more clear and title him a "Kingdom of Prussia-born composer who lived and worked in France, England, Vienna, New York, and Philadelphia". What then do we make of Stravinsky? Handel?

Again... this has nothing to do with some concept of a "Greater Germany" or the darker sides of Nationalism, and it has everything to do with a simplification of the idea of national or cultural identity based upon the spoken language.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Once again you've taken snippets of what I wrote and fashioned an argument against them. Just pick up any book on music written in the last 20 or even 30 years. They usually don't talk of "Austro-German" composers or stuff like that. Many of them are neutral and just list where they were born and died (apart from going into detail about what happened in between, that is the main thing, of course). I'm talking of a more recent approach, which is maybe more long-winded than before, but more accurate. The way I described Offenbach is exactly how many more recent writers describe composers like that, who were born somewhere but spent most of their careers elsewhere. & he mainly lived/worked in France, spent most of his time there as far as I know, the other places you list were side-trips. As for pan-Slavism, it was a big movement during the early part of the c20th, and you cannot deny it had a huge impact on guys like Janacek. In terms of Austria being staunchly Catholic & other things, yes that was a factor. But by the same token, southern Germany (or what's now that) has many Catholics as well, but it didn't prevent them from becoming part of what became the greater Germany. So there are many factors there. I have studied this history in depth.

I agree with some things you say and not others, but on the whole you seem to be invalidating what I'm on about, which in light of the fact that this is how a lot of more recent writers on music approach this issue, what I'm saying is more attuned to the current thinking than the old labels.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> ...
> 
> Again... this has nothing to do with some concept of a "Greater Germany" or the darker sides of Nationalism, and it has everything to do with a simplification of the idea of national or cultural identity based upon the spoken language.


Well then let's get Ukraine and Russia to unite, since their language is virtually the same. Maybe throw in Belarus as well. How about Romania and Moldova. Or at a stretch, India and Pakistan, the main difference there is religion. I can throw this kind of thinking back at you. I can go on and on but I won't. I dislike reductionist thinking. It's the easy way out, sorry...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The other thing is that what I said is largely in tune with what you write, but not exactly the same. If we want to group together German-speaking countries, that's what we call them. So Austro-German doesn't make sense unless you include Switzerland. So isn't Austro-Swiss-German more long-winded? Am I making sense?

Anyway, this is semantics, useless, but I'm just putting across how music writers write about music now re nationality, etc. The newer approach, more neutral, has been going on since the last 20-30 years as far as I know...

[EDIT - Apologies for going too hard, but I won't edit, I think it's time I took a back seat from these more controversial threads, or maybe not speak my mind too much, etc., probably more harm than good?]...


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Just pick up any book on music written in the last 20 or even 30 years. They usually don't talk of "Austro-German" composers or stuff like that. Many of them are neutral and just list where they were born and died (apart from going into detail about what happened in between, that is the main thing, of course). I'm talking of a more recent approach, which is maybe more long-winded than before, but more accurate.


Yes that is a more neutral scholarly approach. However that's a choice, it doesn't mean there is no validity whatsoever to talking about a degree of shared Austro-German culture. Is there no such thing as European culture since it's composed of lots of countries or did such an idea only become a reality with fiscal union (in which case the UK presumably isn't part of European culture)? StLuke's is not bound by current academic practices when framing the terms of a forum thread!



> Well then let's get Ukraine and Russia to unite, since their language is virtually the same.


No one is suggesting that Austria and Germany should unite (!?). For all their differences, and they do have distinctive individual cultures, Russia and Ukraine do have a great deal of shared history and culture (possibly more than Germany and Austria) so it doesn't seem like a very good example.



> So Austro-German doesn't make sense unless you include Switzerland. So isn't Austro-Swiss-German more long-winded? Am I making sense?


I can't help but feel you're being a little pedantic here. It seemed pretty clear to me what StLuke's was on about. Of course there are misgivings about lumping Austria and Germany together, but there are also reasons to do so. I'd agree that in most instances we'd look at Austrian music independently (if we must make distinctions on national lines at all), but they are different perspectives on the same thing, both having some validity. Do we need to talk about Austro-Swiss-Sudetenlander-Danziger-Germans?

*StLuke's,*
out of curiosity I'd be interested to know why you chose to view things this way in your thread as context is all. I did pose the Q earlier and then waffled speculatively for a while in a rather unintelligible frashion... My eyebrows did raise to see the Bohemians lumped in with the Germans. I appreciate that the political/historical ties with Austria and the Holy Roman Empire result in them being bound up in the same patronage networks and thus swimming the same waters as many Germans but they do have their own tradition and culture too and would certainly resent being called German.
Anyway it might help to make some sense of your approach if we could understand what you had in mind to compare your selection with.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

What I am saying is that these temporal political boundaries have virtually nothing to do with the culture or nationality of the population, and that includes such political boundaries of today. Ukrainians may speak Russian (after having been indoctrinated for years) but they have their own language and they will tell you to a man that they are most certainly not Russian. I tell you this from experience as Cleveland has one of the largest Ukrainian populations in the US with a big festival every year. If you ever saw the film, The Deer Hunter and remember the big wedding scene, it was filmed in the great Ukranian cathedral in Cleveland.

Ireland/Great Britain, India/Pakistan, Holland/Belgium are are political constructs largely based upon religious animosities that have nothing to do with the culture, language, or nationality of the populace. France, Spain, and England have benefited as nations from the result of clear natural boundaries beyond which the language/culture clearly ceased to be English, French, or Spanish. Most of the rest of Europe has been Balkanized for centuries by various wielders of political and military power who have carved up the land and the populations with little regard for culture/language/nationality.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dominated by the Germanic rulers (and their French and Spanish allies), but much of that which comprised the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not German. Czechoslovakia was a nation constructed by the allies after WWI in an attempt to keep the Austro-Hungarian Empire from ever reasserting itself as a world power. It combined German, Czech, and Slovakian populations. Yugoslavia was created with the same intention and disregard of culture. The United States, like Australia, has never faced such Balkanization... outside the secession attempt of the Confederacy which resulted in the US Civil War.

What I am suggesting is that the political constructs of national boundaries... even those of today... are largely temporal. One need only look at the change in the maps of Eastern Europe... starting with the former USSR... to recognize that the boundaries of today have little to do with the culture of the individuals in many cases... even now. It only seems logical to categorize artists in terms of the culture/language in which they came of age. The great Strassburg Cathedral is recognized as a masterpiece of German Gothic architecture... in spite of the fact that it is located in Strasbourg, France. Strassburg, and the state of Alsace in which it is located was a German-speaking state at the time of it's construction (and is still heavily German-speaking today). Kafka and Paul Celan are considered masters of German literature in spite of the places of their birth. Camus is considered French, and Joseph Conrad English.

StLuke's is not bound by current academic practices when framing the terms of a forum thread!

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

Harold Bloom is one of the leading literary critics. You will note in going through his list of classic literature taken from his text, The Western Canon, that Sterne, Swift, Wilde, Joyce, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Dylan Thomas, etc... are all listed under Great Britain or British Literature and not Balkanized into sub-categories of English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, etc... Kafka (Czech), Paul Celan (Romanian), Hermann Hesse (Swiss), Rilke (Bohemian/Austrian), and Sigmund Freud (Austrian) are all categorized under German Literature. If you wished to study Kafka or Hesse you would likely take a university class in German Literature (not Czech or Bohemian or Swiss Literature). This does not mean that you would not be made aware of the fact that Kafka was born in Prague or Wilde in Ireland and explore the impact of these cultures upon these artists oeuvre within the larger English/German tradition.

Again, to categorize an artist according to the language and culture that he or she came into maturity simply seems the most logical approach. Nabokov remains a Russian writer as he came of age speaking and writing in Russian... in spite of the fact that he also wrote in German and English (where he attained his greatest success). Stravinsky is Russian in spite of the fact that the majority of his compositions were composed in Switzerland, France, and the US. If we use the temporal boundaries as a means of denoting the nationality of an artist we must first know where those boundaries lie at the time of the artist's birth... and then we are faced with problems such as Mozart. Mozart is a German composer in that his spoken language was German and he is recognized as one of the founders of German opera. Quite often however, he is categorized as Austrian because of the fact that he spent much of his career in service of the Viennese courts. But he was NOT born in Austria. He was born in Salzburg in the Archbishopric or Salzburg. The Archbishopric was not annexed into the Austrian Empire until 1805.

It is interesting that the entire debate centers upon the Germans. No one argues about the Russians suggesting that George Balanchine, Tchaikovsky, Rheinhold Gliere, Sergei Prokofiev, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Isaac Stern, Mieczysław Weinberg, etc... are not "Russian" in spite of the fact that they were born and raised in Georgia, the Ukraine, and even Poland. No one debates the issue that Dante and Michelangelo and Titian and Tintoretto and Petrarch and Monteverdi are all "Italian" artists by virtue of their language... in spite of the fact that there was no Italy... but rather a collection of often-warring, independent city-states (Venice, Rome, Padua, Florence, etc...). I suspect that the whole complaint against the notion of clustering all the German-speaking artists under one umbrella is simply a bit of reverse prejudice... undoubtedly rooted in response to the negative aspects of German nationalism. Of course it's equally intriguing that the issue of the Anschluss was raised without once mentioning that the "German" dictator behind this was actually "Austrian".


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The other thing is that what I said is largely in tune with what you write, but not exactly the same. If we want to group together German-speaking countries, that's what we call them. So Austro-German doesn't make sense unless you include Switzerland. So isn't Austro-Swiss-German more long-winded? Am I making sense?

No... because the term "German" simply denotes the language, not the temporal political constructs. German literature includes writers born in what is today France, Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Austria, etc... British or English Literature includes writers from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland (North and South), as well as Polish (Joseph Conrad), Indian (Rudyard Kipling) etc...


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

StLuke's,
out of curiosity I'd be interested to know why you chose to view things this way in your thread as context is all. I did pose the Q earlier and then waffled speculatively for a while in a rather unintelligible frashion... My eyebrows did raise to see the Bohemians lumped in with the Germans. I appreciate that the political/historical ties with Austria and the Holy Roman Empire result in them being bound up in the same patronage networks and thus swimming the same waters as many Germans but they do have their own tradition and culture too and would certainly resent being called German.

Again, my measure is simply to categorize a given artist according to the language in which he or she came to maturity. Honestly, a few individuals are questionable in that I'd need to go back and look at their biographies. I tossed in Zelenka due to his long periods working in German-speaking courts at Dresden and Vienna... but left out Jakub Jan Ryba and Antonin Rejcha who I know very little about other than their Bohemian/Czech birth. Liszt is a real problem. He's seen as a Hungarian nationalist due to his Hungarian Rhapsodies and use of Hungarian folk tunes... His father spoke Hungarian... but was employed at the Esterhazy court where both Hungarian and German might have been spoken. Liszt himself was sent abroad (Vienna) to study at age 9. Following his history, he was certainly a true international figure, but then I've come upon his own words speaking of himself in the German music tradition (which he undoubtedly saw as the great tradition of the time, unlike the nascent Hungarian tradition.

I have a large library of both books and CDs. I'm not about to engage in hundreds of minute subdivisions to please contemporary politically correct sensibilities (which often ignore real political facts). I can't imagine breaking up my library into Bavarian, Bohemian, Prussian, Austrian, Swiss, etc... I would also point out that in most cases the artists we are speaking of clearly thought of themselves as being part of a given cultural artistic tradition. Van Gogh was Dutch... but there are good arguments to be made for the fact that he was part of the French Impressionist/Post-Impressionist tradition. Offenbach was German-born, but who doesn't recognize him as part of the French operetta tradition? I am even open to Handel being recognized as a great English composer as he certainly built upon Purcell and the English choral tradition. He is really a tough one to place considering he was born and came of age in "Germany", came to artistic maturity in Italy and brought the Italian tradition to England where he served the English court under a German king. 

And then there's Lully... as someone else has noted!


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

*StLuke'sGuildOhio wrote:*



> I'm not about to engage in hundreds of minute subdivisions to please contemporary politically correct sensibilities


Nor would I suggest that you do, but as I tried to point out in the other thread the Bohemian (and here I am talking about non-Sudetenlanders) tradition is not inconsiderable even if it hasn't always received its due. Tuma, the Bendas, Richter, Stamitz, the Dusseks, Vanhal, Myslivicek, Krommer, Rosetti, Kozeluch, Reicha and possibly others I'm not familiar with made a considerable, and in some cases formative influence on Classicism. I can't help but feel that the relationship between it and Vienna warrant a good deal more attention.

Any way, I'm not trying to say that you can't view them as within a very broad tradition of 'German' music, rather that the context in which such an extremely broad generalisation is adopted needs qualification. It's certainly reasonable to view them in terms of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but they're certainly not German and surely deserve attention in their own right. I could understand it in terms of the rivalry between 'German' music north of the Alps and Italian south of them (in which for a long time it was Germany, in spite of its riches during the baroque era, that was viewed as the poor relation -the dominance of German music in the late 18th and 19th Cs resulted in history being rewritten to some extent) which ultimately resulted in the blackening of Salieri's name. As a more general categorization I would be rather resistant to it though. FWIW I gather that Zelenka studied counterpoint under Fux for several years. OTOH I understand that rather lamentably he's being used for the purposes of Czech nationalism now.

BTW, I don't think Sid was suggesting anything to do with German nationalism and in one of his comments it was strongly implicit, and hard to miss, that Hitler was Austrian. I suspect you may be being unecessarily touchy there.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Actually I can't be overly touchy considering Hitler's nationality considering that my own background is primarily a mix of Austrian and German (so I have both sides of the divide within me) with a single strain of English/Irish (another great cultural debate). However, born in the US and speaking American/English I would have to say I'm 100% American.:lol:


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Actually I can't be overly touch considering Hitler's nationality considering that my own background is primarily a mix of Austrian and German (so I have both sides of the divide within me) with a single strain of English/Irish (another great cultural debate). However, born in the US and speaking American/English I would have to say I'm 100% American.:lol:


Funny, my ancestry is almost identical to yours, but with a bit of Swiss thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, sorry; back to topic.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

It looks like if I speak commonsense I get the old "you're politically correct" cliche thrown in my face.

Anyway, the OP agrees with what I say, here re Offenbach and Meyerbeer -



Chi_townPhilly said:


> ...
> Both composers were German-born, both have opera (or operas) as their _Magnum Opus_, both had their most enduring success living in (and being performed in) France. In fact, when they hit their stride, they do have a _plus français que les français_ quality to them, don't you think?...


& I replied like this -



Sid James said:


> This is why I prefer to use the term "German-born" for example not "German composer." ...
> 
> So I'd basically say re Offenbach & Meyerbeer that they were "German born composers who worked & lived in France." It's harder than saying simply that they were "German" or "French" composers, but more accurate.
> 
> ...


It's not political correctness, it's simply stating facts to say these things, to express them as recent scholars & writers on music do. Offenbach was called "the Mozart of the Champs-Elysees" in his day. The French knew he wasn't born there, or ethnically French, but they embraced him and his music, he became part of their culture. That's what basically matters, it's commonsense not political correctness. As for Meyerbeer, we could probably say similar things, although I'm not that familiar with his life other than he was a major figure on the French scene as the OP says.

All I'm saying is that of course a number of countries or groups of countries have strong linkages, eg. in terms of language, culture, history, economic/political factors, sometimes aspects of ethnic groups, but at the end of the day, lumping things together is not always a good idea, or even necessary.

I also speak from experience, like others here. Australia is a multicultural country, we have many people here born overseas or with parents or grandparents born overseas. Go back far enough, and we're all from overseas, the early settlers were mainly from the UK, the only "real" Australians are the native Aboriginal peoples. But even though we have Aboriginal members of parliament, they're Australians like everyone here, sometimes we call them "Aboriginal Australian" but that's more detailed than calling Offenbach simply "French" or "German." In this light, we can describe Offenbach the way I did above, as being born in Germany & working in France, or maybe a French composer who was born in Germany. But just one or the other doesn't give the full picture, imo...


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> What I am suggesting is that the political constructs of national boundaries... even those of today... are largely temporal ...


The best point made in this entire thread thus far. People who don't see this end up with dribble and verbose posts going around in circles.


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