Schubert and Solomon

[ruudp]

Dear Posters on this forum.
I´ve been quiet for some time, but nonetheless enjoyed reading the discussions and articles posted here. Now it's my turn to once again pop up a question. Lately when I browse for Schubert, more and more links start to deal with his sexuality and imply that he was homosexual. I wouldn't mind a bit if it would be the case, but since it seems to be that it was first brought up by Solomon *whom if I'm not mistaken also seemed to try and coach Beethoven into some kind of homosexual straint with Karl* this case seems to be not that appealing.

Could some of the other members shed some light on the truth in this matter?

Thanks in advance,
Ruud.

[Hollywood]

I bet you Solomon thinks all of the great composers were homosexual, except for Tchaikovsky.

[Peter]

I don't think we will know the truth, it is a possibility as I think also in the case of Handel - again though there is only supposition and no proof. We can be sure Bach was heterosexual!

[Michael]

We can be sure Bach was heterosexual!

Just because he had two wives and twenty children? That sounds very suspicious ...............

[Preston]

I bet you Solomon thinks all of the great composers were homosexual, except for Tchaikovsky.

LOL, Hollywood!

Personally, I don't like that Solomon is calling Beethoven and Schubert gay, without sufficient evidence.

I knew that I had read somewhere that someone considered Beethoven to be gay towards Karl. I disagree with that, because, as I understand, there is no evidence of sexual abuse or anything like it. I think that in Beethoven's disgruntled state that he wanted some family, something he had so little of, and that he wanted a close friend, and that he wanted to keep his own blood away from the "queen of the night". There are a lot of other reasons I have why Beethoven wanted Karl but these are the ones that come off the top of my head.

I was reading something in Thayer not long ago about how Beethoven sent Karl to a class taught by a priest, in the country, and that the classmates said that they didn't want to be around the unruly Karl van Beethoven. He was called unruly because he talked about his mother (which breaks a commandment), etc. Beethoven said something about how he was going to unleash his wrath of lightning bolts upon the priest, .

Peter, I think I now see why you do not like to read psychoanalytical books on the masters, for the most part.

[Peter]

Peter, I think I now see why you do not like to read psychoanalytical books on the masters, for the most part.

Well I don't mind reading them, but the danger is coming to them having not read other factual biographies such as Thayer or Beethoven's letters first. Anyone knowing little about Beethoven reading the Sterba's account of Beethoven's nephew would have a very distorted view of Beethoven in my opinion. In the case of Solomon's Immortal beloved, again a wider context is necessary I think so you can put his ideas in perspective and decide whether you agree with him or not.

[Hofrat]

There is one point I always wanted to make concerning the relationship between Karl and his uncle Ludwig. Karl would later marry and have five children, four girls and a boy. The boy was named Ludwig! Karl did not name his only son after his father, rather after his uncle! I do not think that a person who was traumatically abused by a family member would name his child after the abusing family member.

[Peter]

There is one point I always wanted to make concerning the relationship between Karl and his uncle Ludwig. Karl would later marry and have five children, four girls and a boy. The boy was named Ludwig! Karl did not name his only son after his father, rather after his uncle! I do not think that a person who was traumatically abused by a family member would name his child after the abusing family member.

This is true and I suspect as he grew older Karl felt guilty about his understandably bad behaviour (mild by todays' standards). And despite everything he must have been proud to have been related to such a famous and great man.

[Cetto von Cronstorff]

Dear Posters on this forum.
I´ve been quiet for some time, but nonetheless enjoyed reading the discussions and articles posted here. Now it's my turn to once again pop up a question. Lately when I browse for Schubert, ...

If you "browse" the web for Schubert, you will find a lot of worthless information. It is much better to browse a library. Begin with: Rita Steblin, "Schubert's Relationship with Women: An Historical Account," Schubert Studies, ed. Brian Newbould, (Ashgate, 1998), pp. 159-182. The Schubert/Solomon debate was a typical phenomenon of the 1990s and has long died down as the followers of Solomon had to realize that they had been fooled by his countless mistranslations and misinterpretations. The whole tiresome topic of Schubert's sexuality has somehow lost its significance.

[Preston]

Peter, I enjoy reading the psychoanalytical books because they do have some pretty good information, and it is a different perspective. I didn't mean to write that you don't like them, I should have written that I see why you are skeptical about them.

Hofrat, I did not know that Karl named his son Ludwig. That is great information. Thank you for that.

Preston

[Peter]

Hofrat, I did not know that Karl named his son Ludwig. That is great information. Thank you for that.

Preston

LUDWIG JOHANN VAN BEETHOVEN (1839-) married Maria Anna Nitsche in 1865 and had 6 children. He was a journalist in Munich and later lived in the USA, where he was vice director of the south pacific railway.He died in Vienna.

For more on Beethoven's family - www.kingsbarn.freeserve.co.uk/familytree.html

[Quijote]

If you "browse" the web for Schubert, you will find a lot of worthless information. It is much better to browse a library. Begin with: Rita Steblin, "Schubert's Relationship with Women: An Historical Account," Schubert Studies, ed. Brian Newbould, (Ashgate, 1998), pp. 159-182. The Schubert/Solomon debate was a typical phenomenon of the 1990s and has long died down as the followers of Solomon had to realize that they had been fooled by his countless mistranslations and misinterpretations. The whole tiresome topic of Schubert's sexuality has somehow lost its significance.

Two points to raise regarding von Cornystuff's posting above : yes, reluctant though I am to agree, better to "browse a library" [sic] than the web.

Second point : The Schubert sexuality debate has not (and will not) go away, despite von Krankenhaus's wishful thinking. With due respect to CvC, it seems that the issue is far from settled. I have in front of me the following book : Lawrence KRAMER, ‘Franz Schubert : Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song’ (Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis, Cambridge University Press 1998).

If I may quote from the Foreword :

“This book does still more, however, for its hermeneutics is here harnessed to Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory and in particular those parts [...] which concern desire and sexuality; and also to Foucault’s work on sexuality and Gilles Deleuze’s on masochism. The result is a book of double importance: a radical work of music analysis, and a pioneering work in the growing field of musical sexuality.

This is the first of Lawrence Kramer’s books to focus on one composer, Schubert and [...] on one single genre, the Lied. Its reception will not lack controversy. It comes only nine years after Maynard Solomon’s article alleging Schubert’s membership of a Viennese homosexual subculture – an article which in the meantime has shaken Schubert studies to the core. Kramer now brings music analysis to bear on the issue of Schubert’s sexual orientation. With this book, and perhaps especially with his sustained analysis of the great cycle Die schöne Müllerin, Lawrence Kramer has changed for ever our way of looking at Schubert’s songs”.

End of quote.


Now, I haven’t had time to read this book (I only flicked through it recently, or "browsed it" [sic]), and so I am not sure how "tiresome" it may prove to be, or more importantly to what extent Kramer intends to directly link the actual music to any possible “gay theory”, but a quick perusal of the six chapters (181 pages) reveals four which tie in with “gender issues” :

Chapter 3 : Mermaid fancies : Schubert’s trout and the ‘wish to be a woman’;
Chapter 4 : The Ganymede complex : Schubert’s songs and the homoerotic imagination;
Chapter 5 : Masochism and domesticity in Die schöne Müllerin;
Chapter 6 : Revenants : masculine thresholds in Schubert, James, and Freud.


More to be said then, about music, gender and homosexuality. You find this tiresome?

[Quijote]

I don't think we will know the truth, it is a possibility as I think also in the case of Handel - again though there is only supposition and no proof. We can be sure Bach was heterosexual!

I don't really want to go down this path, but are you suggesting that because JSB had numerous children he wasn't homosexual? I know - personally - homosexuals with children (admittedly not 14 or so). OK, Bach was very probably not gay, but you seem to be suggesting a correlation between numerical progeny and sexuality.

[Rutradelusasa]

I don't really want to go down this path, but are you suggesting that because JSB had numerous children he wasn't homosexual? I know - personally - homosexuals with children (admittedly not 14 or so). OK, Bach was very probably not gay, but you seem to be suggesting a correlation between numerical progeny and sexuality.

He seemed to be making a joke.

[Peter]

He seemed to be making a joke.

Indeed but one of the draw backs of the internet is that it can't pick up on inuendo via tone of voice, so the danger is always of a humerous comment being taken literally unless we smother the board with smilies!