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Contents

Music in the Nineteenth Century

KULTUR

Chapter:
CHAPTER 3 Volkstümlichkeit
Source:
MUSIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Author(s):
Richard Taruskin

But the Herder/Grimm phase did contain a new wrinkle, namely the idea that the superior truth of unspoiled natural man was a plural truth. The next step in the romantic nationalist program was to determine and define the specific truth embodied in each cultural community. Here is where the motivating resentment or inferiority complex finally began to break the surface of German nationalism. Not surprisingly, the values celebrated in the German tales—the “Prince Charming” values of honesty, seriousness, simplicity, fidelity, sincerity, and so on—were projected onto the German language community, which in its political fragmentation, economic backwardness, and military weakness (its primitiveness, in short) represented a sort of peasantry among peoples, with all that that had come to imply as to authenticity. It alone valued das rein Geistige, “the purely spiritual,” or das Innige, “the inward,” as opposed to the superficiality, the amorality, the craftiness and artifice of contemporary civilization, as chiefly represented by the hated oppressor empire, France.

Citation (MLA):
Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 3 Volkstümlichkeit." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2023. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-003003.xml>.
Citation (APA):
Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 3 Volkstümlichkeit. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Nineteenth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 6 Dec. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-003003.xml
Citation (Chicago):
Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 3 Volkstümlichkeit." In Music in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 6 Dec. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-003003.xml
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