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<jats:p>The intersection of politics and spectacle has a long tradition in French history, from Louis XIV's Versailles to the streets of revolutionary Paris. As a result, Chateaubriand's criticism of the coronation of Charles X in May 1825 as theatrical may at first seem unremarkable. His description of the occasion as a dramatic performance rather than a real event, however, deserves closer examination. In line with Chateaubriand, this article suggests that the anachronistic final Bourbon coronation can best be understood, at the most literal level, as an opera, with music, resplendent costumes, dashes of orientalism (the envoy for the Bey of Tunis provoked much interest), hired claqueurs, and the whole of Rheims turned into a stage set. Conversely, the coronation's reliance on operatic props and aesthetics can shed light on the dramatic crisis that led to the appearance of grand opéra. The largest piece written to celebrate the coronation, the multianchored Pharamond, was performed at the Paris Opéra, but failed to command either critical or popular acclaim, in contrast with Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims at the Théâtre Italien. Yet Pharamond's troubled negotiation between the demands of historical drama and celebratory Pièce de circonstance mirrors the logic that underpinned the planning of the coronation: a desire to invoke the authority of French history while bypassing unresolved memories of the Revolution and the Empire. Ultimately, the failure of Pharamond and its selective appropriation of history offer a productive mode for understanding the connections between opera, ceremonial language, and historical precedent, as well as those between musical works and large-scale political events.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Liszt's reliance on copyists throughout his career and in every stage of the compositional process aroused controversly only after his death, when published letters impugned his authorship by suggesting others had orchestrated his symphonic works. Thereafter, compelling testimony from three members of the Weimar Hofkapelle during the 1850's—concertmaster Joseph Joachim, prinicipal cellist Bernard Cossmann, and the scribe Joachim Raff—has informed the secondary literature's highly partisan criticism. Suspected scribal influence is constructed as weakness in Liszt's character and music, dismissed as inconsequential, or reluctantly acknowledged as a factor in Liszt's transformation from pianist to symphonist. I propose a more balanced view based on previously univestigated manuscript sources for incidental music to Herder's Der entfesselte Prometheus, produced in 1850. Raff's full scores for an overture and eight choruses, prepared from Liszt's typically detailed short-score, offer unrivaled opportunities to assess scribal influence. An original typology sorts contributions into four categories: minor tasks any competent musician could perform; transcribing unmarked passages in score order; extra doublings; and genuinely autonomus work, including the occasional invention of primary motives. Some of Raff's independent choices reflect astute awareness of Herder's text; others merely betray fascination with orchestral technique. Liszt's revisions eliminated or varied the overwhelming majority of scribal accretions, although Raff deserves credit for several salient features of the choruses. In the overture, however, rejection of Raff's contributions is virtually complete. The revisions also disclose that Liszt adopted more transparent textures, articulated phrases through gradual increases in orchestral density, and exploited instrumental ranges more idiomatically.</jats:p>

<jats:p>The music topic of "apotheosis" is examined in the context of Liszt's artistic biography. While the effect of the final apotheosis is familiar as a standard procedure in his symphonic poems, a prominent critical strand suggests that the overwhelming effect of the apotheosis may merely conceal a fundamental vacuity. Nietzsche in particular develops an incisive critique of this kind of monumentality, which he links with a historiographic model of what he calls "monumental history." Nietzsche's historical model is probed against an episode from Liszt's career, in which the apotheosis topic first entered his orchestral music: the Cantata for the inauguration of the Bonn Beethoven monument (1845). In this cantata, Liszt chooses a quotation from Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio for the apotheosis. In this way, the cantata pits a musical kind of monumentality against the physical Beethoven movement, not dissimilar from attempts by Schumann and Jean Paul to theorize nineteenth-century monumentality. Moreover, with this "secular sanctus" Liszt forges an artistic link between the dead composer and himself. This episode, by means of which Liszt succeeded in consolidating his fame as Beethoven's rightful heir, turns out to be crucial for his subsequent career when he settled in Weimar as a self-consciously great composer (and wrote his symphonic poems). The events surrounding Liszt's engagement in the Beethoven monument are used as an exemplar of a notion of nineteenth-century musical monumentality that thrives on the interplay between the musical structure, the events amid which the performance took place, and the biographical background of the (genius-)composer.</jats:p>

<jats:p>In 1891-92 Heinrich Schenker published a pair of analytical reviews of new vocal collections by Johannes Brahms, the songs, op. 107, and the choral pieces, op.104. In these essays, Schenker sought not only to provide a critique of the works in question, but also to counter a prevailing perception amoung critics that Brahms's late style as a whole is both emotionally tepid and difficult to understand. In order to elucidate the structure and significance of Brahms's music for his readers, Schenker relies on a hermeneutic approach, alternately considering what he characterizes as "objective" and "subjective" modes of description. Schenker's observations are often provocative, and at times reveal his indebtedness to conceptions of musical structure and meaning that are distinctly Wagnerian. In this way, Schenker's reviews are revealing of the complexities not only of his own intellectual history but also of the critical discourse in which he worked, as they call into question a commonly held belief that musicians and writers were sharply divided in their adherence to either Brahm's music or Wagner's aesthetic ideals at the turn of the century. In spite of their provocative nature, Schenker's reviews were received enthusiastically by several prominent members of his community, including some who considered themselves to be partisans in the critical debate. This fact reminds us that, critical politcs aside, there were many musicians and writers during this time who did not believe that Brahm's music was antithetical to Wagner's aesthetics. Rather, they considered both manifestations of a common ideal of musical expressiveness.</jats:p>

<jats:p>The idea that Felix Mendelssohn prevented his sister, Fanny Hensel, from publishing her compositions is central to biographical representations of her, including Françoise Tillard's Fanny Mendelssohn (1992) and Gloria Kamen's Hidden Music (1996). This story can be traced to nineteenth-century publications by male members of the Mendelssohn family and their desire to portray both siblings according to socially acceptable gender roles. Such origins challenge the assumption that the story of Fanny Hensel's "suppression" represents a modern feminist reinterpretation of her life. Instead, current treatment of Hensel relies on common biographical models for male composers; in her lack of a public career, she fits the Romantic stereotype of the neglected, suffering genius.</jats:p> <jats:p>The retelling of the "suppression" of Fanny Hensel represents a "story" in itself - a rescue plot in which modern women rediscover Hensel and somehow "save" her from historical neglect. This feminist recovery relies on the assumption that Hensel was forgotten, overlooking the numerous publications between 1830 and 1920 in which she appears. Centering Hensel's biography on her brother's influence rather than on her eventual publication of her music oversimplifies the larger historical situation for women composers, replacing the manifold issues surrounding gender and class with a single male villain. The difficulties encountered in telling the story of Hensel's life reveal a need for a feminist biography that balances an understanding of larger cultural constraints with recognition of individual female agency.</jats:p>

<jats:p>The writings of Hans Christian Andersen shed important light on Liszt's years in Weimar and his relationship with the city's most powerful patron, Grand Duke Carl Alexander. Andersen shared a strong friendship with Carl Alexander, and from 1844 to 1857 he visited Weimar on numerous occasions. He also corresponded with Carl Alexander regularly, taking special care to preserve the Grand Duke's thoughts about the role of the artist in society, the incongruousness of art and politics, and Liszt's "Music of the Future." Two of Andersen's lesser-known tales, "The Bell" and "The Pepperman's Nightcap," were inspired by his interactions with Carl Alexander and Liszt. These tales, along with the many firsthand accounts of life in Weimar preserved in Andersen's letters, diaries, and memoirs, serve as testimonials to the city's changing artistic climate during the mid-nineteenth century and elucidate the complexity of Carl Alexander's role as patron and the indelible imprint Liszt's presence had on those around him.</jats:p>

<jats:p>In contemporary Britain, the music of Elgar carries persistent associations with ideas of nature and a sense of place. Elgar scholarship has usually treated his utterances on the subject as biographical testimony, yet they also evoke a network of concepts inherited from myths, literary conventions, and the preoccupations of the Romantic movement. An awareness of this context yields new perspectives on his music, especially those passages that imitate the sound of wind, be it among reeds, trees, or across the strings of an Aeolian harp.</jats:p>