Substance, Subject, and Functional Metamorphosis: Theorising Collective Subjectivity in Ferdinand David’s Solo-Tutti Interaction

Mitterer, Dominik

Abstract

Speculation about the expressivity of the socio-political order in concertante works has persisted in the aftermath of the New Musicology (McClary 1986, Kerman 1999, and Tusa 2012), and in hermeneutic responses to the New Formenlehre (Caplin 2001, Hepokoski & Darcy 2006, and Horton 2017). Yet, infused with Hegelian philosophy, Schillerian aesthetics, and French Republicanism, the German Vormärz brought an intimate account of the individual-society relationship to the fore, which regarded the inner cultivation (Bildung) of a ‘spiritual unity’ that is a collective form of consciousness as the conditio sine qua non for external social harmony (Applegate 2011; Garratt 2010; Vick 2002). This paper asks how issues around collective subjectivity are made manifest in solo-tutti interactions in Vormärz violin concerti.
Contemporaneous critiques, theories, and practice engaged with this political context by finding new ways to bring soloist and orchestra into a co-dependent relationship (Horton 2024; Macdonald 2005): A B Marx subordinated both agents to the labour of sonata form by annulling the structural significance of ritornelli (Stevens 1974). The type 5Type3 sonata collapsed into a type 3, notably in the violin concerti of Mendelssohn (Op. 64 1844) (Hepokoski & Darcy 2006) or Spohr (No. 15, 1844). Instead of realising an abstract ideal, Ferdinand David’s concerti dealt with the textual changes’ ‘necessary politics’ on a substantial level: in the sense of Schmalfeldt’s ‘becoming’ as ‘metamorphosis’ (Osborne 2022) the same thematic substance asserts various intra-thematic and inter-thematic functions throughout first movements. Ultimately, I theorise collective subjectification as the formal process of becoming collectively aware of a movement’s thematic substance.

Citation

Mitterer, D. (2024, July). Substance, Subject, and Functional Metamorphosis: Theorising Collective Subjectivity in Ferdinand David’s Solo-Tutti Interaction. Paper presented at Edinburgh Music Analysis Conference, Edinburgh

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Edinburgh Music Analysis Conference
• Conference Location: Edinburgh
• Start Date: Jul 1, 2024
• End Date: May 3, 2024
• Deposit Date: May 1, 2024
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2431331