Metapolitics and the Avant-Garde

Abstract

Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina was created in a environment profoundly influenced by the ideology of volkisch art and its attendant task of national integration. This concept had its roots in the musical religion of Richard Wagner; in Paul de Lagarde's notion of the mystical representation of the people; and in the recognition of the special position that the conservative, agrarian, and Catholic south occupied in a Germany colonized by a Protestant Prussia, which had surrendered art to commodification and monetarization. The term metapolitics refers to the idea of a cultural-intellectual current within the camp that strove to create and defend in the work of art a higher political unity of the people (Volk), able to outlast and transcend all political, social, and schisms. Opera as a nationalist art form, and Palestrina specifically, can be analyzed in this context. I shall begin with some thoughts on the possible gains debates about the cultural turn in the humanities may have for a current, topical discussion of opera. The subsequent discussion will focus on the temporal and regional context of Palestrina, which is the task of any genuine historical analysis. The linkages between certain work-immanent aspects and the context and references to intertextual interpretative possibilities will conclude the essay. The comments of Thomas Mann, who must still be considered the ultimate aural witness of Palestrina, will serve as guide throughout.1 Three terms seem suited to link contemporary studies with musicology: alterity, subjectivity, and identity.