Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Dancing the Symphonic: Beethoven-Bochsa's Symphonie Pastorale , 1829

Dancing the Symphonic: Beethoven-Bochsa's Symphonie Pastorale , 1829 Abstract . On 22 June 1829, the legendary French harpist, convicted forger and escaped felon, Robert Nicolas Charles Bochsa performed his most infamous musical offense: a rendition of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony with stage action. Since Grove, this surprisingly early reworking of the Sixth as a ballet-pantomime has not gone down well in the literature. As the twentieth century unfurled, the moment steadily receded into obscurity, losing all cultural and contextual meaning to the point where it is now remembered (if at all) as a lesson in the rogue potential of performance—a pockmark on the historical map. This article will reverse the general slide into amnesia by first excavating this vanished but important moment of the musical past, and then recuperating its seriousness. Enough evidence from the 1820s and 30s suggests that Bochsa's Symphonie (performed at London's King's Theatre) was representative of much more than itself. Far from historically inexplicable, it can be read as an extreme manifestation of a strongly defined ballet-concert exchange that characterized the artistic trends of the late 1820s. By taking on abstract and “musical” forms, dance was becoming more concertlike. Concerts, meanwhile, were developing balletic traits in their increasing use of picturesque effects, and their growing fascination for the visual or bodily aspects of musical performance. A rapprochement took place that reshaped the nature of listening and figured the emerging concept of the musical work in a curiously plastic, objective way—as the case study exemplifies. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png 19th-Century Music University of California Press

Dancing the Symphonic: Beethoven-Bochsa's Symphonie Pastorale , 1829

DAVIES, J. Q.
19th-Century Music , Volume 27 (1) – Jul 1, 2003
Download PDF
23 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-california-press/dancing-the-symphonic-beethoven-bochsa-s-symphonie-pastorale-1829-0PiaC3LpKW

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of California Press
Copyright
Copyright © by the University of California Press
ISSN
0148-2076
eISSN
1533-8606
DOI
10.1525/ncm.2003.27.1.25
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract . On 22 June 1829, the legendary French harpist, convicted forger and escaped felon, Robert Nicolas Charles Bochsa performed his most infamous musical offense: a rendition of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony with stage action. Since Grove, this surprisingly early reworking of the Sixth as a ballet-pantomime has not gone down well in the literature. As the twentieth century unfurled, the moment steadily receded into obscurity, losing all cultural and contextual meaning to the point where it is now remembered (if at all) as a lesson in the rogue potential of performance—a pockmark on the historical map. This article will reverse the general slide into amnesia by first excavating this vanished but important moment of the musical past, and then recuperating its seriousness. Enough evidence from the 1820s and 30s suggests that Bochsa's Symphonie (performed at London's King's Theatre) was representative of much more than itself. Far from historically inexplicable, it can be read as an extreme manifestation of a strongly defined ballet-concert exchange that characterized the artistic trends of the late 1820s. By taking on abstract and “musical” forms, dance was becoming more concertlike. Concerts, meanwhile, were developing balletic traits in their increasing use of picturesque effects, and their growing fascination for the visual or bodily aspects of musical performance. A rapprochement took place that reshaped the nature of listening and figured the emerging concept of the musical work in a curiously plastic, objective way—as the case study exemplifies.

Journal

19th-Century Music – University of California Press

Published: Jul 1, 2003

There are no references for this article.