The inner world of Beethoven’s ninth symphony: Masculine and feminine?

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I explore the principal model within classical Western music, the sonata form, in terms of its gendered narratives. Susan McClary, an eminent American musicologist, started to do this in the 1980s as part of her forceful feminist critique of academic musicology and the music considered to be “great” within the Western classical music canon. She has been especially critical of much of Beethoven’s music, particularly the Ninth Symphony, which, along with other major works, she considers to be structured along patriarchal lines, actively if unconsciously promoting the values of patriarchy, overflowing with male violence and female subordination, its narrative primarily based on phallic sexuality. Her influence has been very considerable in musicology. I set out her case and critique it psychoanalytically, but in so doing I also set out my own theory of sonata form and Beethoven’s music as imbued with, and expressive of, a bisexual narrative. As Beethoven’s forceful masculinity has long been recognized, I particularly emphasize and illustrate his musical femininity. I also discuss and employ theories of countertransference and Oedipal configurations in relationship to Beethoven’s music in particular, and in general the links between Western classical music and the musicality of ordinary clinical psychoanalysis.

L’auteur explore la sonate, prototype principal de la musique occidentale classique, en tant que narration sexuée, ce que Susan McClary, éminente musicologue américaine, esquissait déjà au cours des années 1980 dans le cadre d’une critique résolument féministe de la musicologie académique et de cette musique dite « grande musique » selon les règles de la tradition occidentale classique. McClary a été particulièrement critique d’une grande partie de la musique de Beethoven, et spécifiquement de la Neuvième Symphonie, qu’elle considèrerait, ainsi que ses autres œuvres majeures, être structurée selon des principes patriarcaux, et promouvant ainsi de manière active, quoique peut-être inconsciente, des valeurs patriarcales débordantes de violence masculine et de subordination féminine, leur trames reposants essentiellement sur une sexualité phallique. L’influence de Susan McClary a été considérable en musicologie et l’auteur explique son point de vue à lui, avant de la débattre psychanalytiquement. En ce faisant, il présente sa propre théorie de la sonate et de la musique de Beethoven comme étant imprégnées de, et exprimant, un thème bisexuel. Étant donné que la masculinité puissante de Beethoven a été depuis longtemps reconnue, l’auteur appuie sur le côté féminin de sa musique en passant par la théorie du contre-transfert et des configurations œdipiennes, pour, en fin de compte, repenser sa musique, ainsi que les relations entre musique classique occidentale et la musicalité de la psychanalyse clinique de tous les jours.

Ich untersuche in diesem Beitrag das Modell der Form des Hauptsatzes in der westlichen klassischen Musik, die Sonatensatzform, auf geschlechtsspezifische Narrative. Susan McClary, eine bedeutende US-amerikanische Musikwissenschaftlerin, begann damit in den 1980er Jahren im Rahmen ihrer eindringlichen feministischen Kritik der akademischen Disziplin der Musikwissenschaft und der Musik, die innerhalb des Kanons westlicher klassischer Musik als “groß” gilt. Sie zeigte sich besonders kritisch gegenüber vielen musikalischen Werken Ludwig van Beethovens, insbesondere gegenüber der 9. Sinfonie, die nach McClarys Auffassung – wie andere bedeutende Werke auch – patriarchalischen Strukturen folgt und aktiv, wenn auch unbewusst, die Werte des Patriarchats anpreist – von überfließender männlicher Dominanz und weiblicher Unterordnung und mit einer Erzählstruktur, die hauptsächlich auf phallischer Sexualität beruht. Susan McClarys Einfluss in der Musikwissenschaft war erheblich. Ich stelle ihr Fallbeispiel dar und unterziehe es einer kritischen psychoanalytischen Betrachtung und lege so auch meine eigene Theorie zur Sonatensatzform und zu Beethovens Musik als von einer ausdrucksvollen bisexuellen Narrative durchdrungen dar. Da Beethovens stark ausgeprägte Männlichkeit bereits seit langem als gegeben gilt, betone und veranschauliche ich insbesondere seine musikalische Weiblichkeit. Außerdem erörtere ich und arbeite mit Theorien der Gegenübertragung und ödipaler Konfigurationen – einerseits mit Blick auf Beethovens Musik im Besonderen und andererseits im Allgemeinen hinsichtlich der Verbindungen zwischen der westlichen klassischen Musik und der Musikalität der gängigen klinischen Psychoanalyse.

In questo articolo analizzerò il principale modello della musica classica occidentale, la forma sonata, focalizzandomi sugli aspetti delle sue narrazioni legati al genere. A inaugurare questa corrente di studi è stata, fin dagli Anni ‘80, l’eminente musicologa americana Susan McClary nel quadro della sua potente critica femminista alla musicologia accademica e alla musica considerata “grande” all’interno del canone musicale occidentale. La critica di McClary si è rivolta con particolare virulenza alla musica di Beethoven nel suo complesso e in specie alla Nona Sinfonia, che ella considera (al pari delle altre opere maggiori del compositore) strutturata in senso patriarcale – e in tal senso non solo volta a promuovere attivamente, seppure inconsapevolmente, i valori del patriarcato, ma traboccante di violenza maschile e sottomissione femminile nella misura in cui le narrazioni che essa veicola si fonderebbero in misura prevalente su una sessualità di tipo fallico. L’influenza della McClary in campo musicologico è stata notevole, e nel mio studio presenterò in prima battuta le sue idee per effettuarne poi una critica di taglio psicoanalitico; contestualmente esporrò anche la mia teoria sulla forma sonata, ipotizzando che la musica di Beethoven contenga e insieme esprima un sistema di narrazioni fondamentalmente bisessuale. Mentre la potente mascolinità beethoveniana è stata riconosciuta da tempo, io sottolineerò e illustrerò i caratteri femminili della sua musica. Discuterò inoltre, adottandole nella mia argomentazione, le teorie del controtransfert e delle configurazioni edipiche sia in relazione al caso particolare della musica di Beethoven, sia più in generale rispetto ai legami tra musica classica occidentale e aspetti di musicalità nella pratica clinica della psicoanalisi.

En este artículo, el autor explora el principal modelo de la música clásica occidental, la sonata, en términos de sus narrativas de género. Esta exploración la inició Susan McClary, eminente musicóloga estadounidense, en la década de 1980, como parte de su enérgica crítica feminista a la musicología académica y a la que se considera “gran música” dentro del canon musical clásico occidental. La musicóloga ha sido especialmente crítica de gran parte de la música de Beethoven, en particular de la Novena sinfonía, a la que considera, junto con otras obras mayores, estructurada según líneas patriarcales, y activa promotora, aunque tal vez inconscientemente, de valores del patriarcado; también la considera colmada de violencia masculina y subordinación femenina, y con una narrativa basada primordialmente en la sexualidad fálica. McClary ha tenido gran influencia en la musicología. El autor presenta los argumentos de la eminente musicóloga y los somete a una crítica desde un punto de vista psicoanalítico, pero al hacerlo, también expone su propia teoría sobre la sonata como forma musical y sobre la música de Beethoven, a la que considera imbuida de una narrativa bisexual, y expresión de esta. Al ser reconocida desde hace mucho la fuerte masculinidad de Beethoven, el autor enfatiza e ilustra, en particular, su feminidad musical. También analiza y utiliza las teorías de la contratransferencia y de las configuraciones edípicas en relación a la música de Beethoven, en particular, y a los vínculos entre la música clásica occidental y la musicalidad de cualquier psicoanálisis clínico, en general.

KEYWORDS:

• Femininity
• gender
• masculinity
• countertransference
• music
• sexuality
• unconscious
• violence

ORCID

Francis Grier http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3757-852X

Notes

1 Schenker’s discussion of the Ninth begins:

The instinct for purely musical laws did not desert Beethoven even when he wrote “program” music or vocal music. An offence against musical logic – logic in the absolute sense, understood as completely separate from program or text – was by nature simply impossible for him; and so in this case too, as he set about composition of the Schiller text, he again let himself be guided – in spite of text – only by laws of absolute musical organisation (quoted in Cook 1993, 84).

For non-musicologists, it is vital to underline this controversy, since, given that what most music-lovers probably most love about music are its emotionality and narrative qualities, I imagine they would find it hard to believe that it is precisely these two aspects – emotion and narrative – which much of senior academic musicology regarded as seriously misleading with regard to the deeper understanding of music. Factual historical study of composers and musical styles was allowed, but the study of particular musical compositions in purely structural terms, often referred to as formalist analysis, gained academic precedence and predominance. There were indeed some important voices bucking this trend – Leonard Ratner (1980), Edward T. Cone (1974), Charles Rosen (1971), Maynard Solomon (1977, 1988), Leo Treitler (1989) and Joseph Kerman (1985) – but the dominating academic ideal was one of structural formalism.

2 Susan McClary had been trained and then worked as a musical academic within just such a traditional, formalist discipline. She has described (2007, ix–xvi) how increasingly constricted she felt working within the rigidity of this absolutist framework, and how affected she became by looking across to other academic arts disciplines, particularly literary criticism, to realize, first, that the limits musicology set itself precluded virtually any musical criticism (parallel to literary criticism), and, second, that feminism was breathing new life into other disciplines, such as film and literary criticism. She realized that it had the potential of doing the same within musicology – although, as things stood, because of musicology’s absolutist boundaries and academic near-monopoly, there was no room for any such challenge. Her writings also articulate clearly and movingly how she chafed under the experience of male domination within the profession, and therefore how refreshing, creative and liberating feminism was to her.

3 As an aside, I would point out that the different traditions within Indian classical music refer to the myriad musical styles and tonalities, ragas, movements and melodies in terms of gender, with regular references to differentiated sexual moods (e.g. aroused, tender). Other references are to natural phenomena and their associated moods (e.g. the weather – stormy or calm) or the time of day (e.g. early, the dead of night, the quiet of evening), and to the divine. The ragamala tradition and the theory of rasa are focused precisely on elucidating these different emotional atmospheres, and the striving for the meditative, metaphysical state of awareness requisite for experiencing them (Rowell 1992; Widdess 1995; Martinez 1997). I suspect it is universal among humans to hear music as referring symbolically to relationships between people, whether adults or children, almost always with a further or central reference to their gender, often to sexual states of mind, to the phenomena of nature and to the divine. In Indian theoretical treatises, an aesthetically pleasing balance is presented between technical descriptions of the music together with their emotional aims, such that it is impossible to tell whether the performer-composers are primarily inspired to evoke an emotion or to develop a compositional technique. I think it has been quite aberrant for our Western musical academic culture to have gone through a period in which the link between emotion, meaning and music has been denied.

4 One further gender dimension concerns the audience, we the listeners. Specifically regarding our feminine responsiveness to this music, John Steiner has written about the specifically feminine dimension of receptivity:

… femininity is characterised by a capacity to be receptive … What is the role of the listener to the music created by the composer and recreated in the performance? Do we have to be able to be receptive and to internalise the coupling that we are offered between male and female elements as if we are witnessing a prolonged primal scene? If we are made too anxious or if we over-identify with male or female elements … then maybe we cannot appreciate the terror and the beauty. (personal communication)

I would firmly endorse this view, that we the audience are in a particularly feminine position of actively receiving and responding emotionally and intellectually to the music, specifically to the interplay of masculine and feminine elements in a symbolic intercourse. This calls to mind Money-Kyrle’s stating that the parental intercourse needs to be recognised as the supremely creative act (Money-Kyrle 1971, 103).

5 This view also finds an ally in the words of another feminist musicologist, Paula Higgins, who, in a critique of Feminine Endings, wrote: “For if the male creative genius had a “feminine soul,” surely Beethoven was an androgyne if there ever was one” (Higgins 1993, 185). Higgins does not develop this point, showing in detail, as I am trying to do here, how Beethoven’s “feminine soul” expressed itself in his major compositions.

6 As a further illustration of the universality of this theme, note the words of H. Shmuel Erlich, writing recently about large group phenomena:

The pull of the [large group] … is towards losing oneself in it, allowing the self to merge and fuse with the overwhelming quantity and energy the group offers. At times this merger is willingly accepted … At other times, however, it is experienced as a threat to one’s individual existence, one’s identity and capacity to think … 

The group is therefore simultaneously experienced as enormously seductive and threatening. The anxiety it engenders is that of the sedutive pull and the simultaneous reticence evoked by the experience of the earliest maternal presence. It is an anxiety that touches on the very essence of what it is to be and feel alive … and yet also to be frightened and aversive to the overwhelming presence one cannot do without. (Erlich 2016, 428; emphasis added)