A. W. Ambros in Vienna: Essays and Reviews in Music

A distinct, enchanting well-being lies on such a life, to which even the already southward-pointing sound in city and countryside contributes its part. He who has got to know this magic is pulled time and again to Vienna (August Wilhelm Ambros) At the end of 1871, after working in Prague for approximately thirty years, August Wilhelm Ambros, according to Friedrich Blume one of the most sparkling appearances among the German musical writers of the nineteenth century, moved to Vienna to influence the musical life of this city until his death in 1876. The proposed research project focuses on this final five-year period of his work. Despite its brevity, it was of an intensity comparable to the period in Prague, which encompassed three decades: in Vienna, Ambros was engaged to instruct the Crown Prince Rudolf in music and art history, and he moreover accepted a professorship at the conservatory, lectured at the university, conducted research in music history, composed, and wrote numerous critiques, feuilletons and essays on music, mainly for the Wiener Zeitung. It is precisely these approximately 150 essays and reviews, in which the exceptionally busy Viennese musical life of the 1870s is reflected, that most comprehensively document Ambros s Viennese work. The goal of the planned project is to make these as yet largely neglected and basically unedited sources accessible in a historical-critical edition, and to analyze them in the context both of Ambros s preceding work and of the Viennese music criticism and aesthetics of the 1870s, especially that of Eduard Hanslick. Ambros s Viennese essays and reviews are to be understood not only as the conclusion of his activity as a musical writer, but also as the last stage of the musical-aesthetical discourse between him and Hanslick. In this respect they provide an answer to the hitherto open question how this discourse, which began in the mid-1850s with Hanslick s treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen and Ambros s polemical response to it in Die Gränzen der Musik und Poesie, developed under the influence of the musical events of the 1870s, that is, among other things, preparations of Wagner s Total Artwork of the Future, performances of Liszt s program music, and the emergence of the instrumental music of Brahms. They make possible the determination of the position which Ambros, after his relocation to Vienna in an environment of formalistically oriented Austrian philosophy and aesthetics, occupied in actual fact, i.e., independently of his 1855 polemic against Hanslick. Last but not least, on the basis of the source materials to be edited an extensive documentation can be made of the existence of that insufficiently considered school of Viennese music criticism which sought as objective an approach as possible, wholly beyond the quarrel between Wagnerians and anti-Wagnerians.

The main result of the research project is a two-volume edition of musical essays and reviews from the pen of the musical writer August Wilhelm Ambros (18161876). The edition covers the years 18721876a time that Ambros spent as a music reviewer for the Wiener Zeitung and as a teacher of music and art history for the crown prince Rudolf in Vienna, among other things. For the Wiener Zeitung and its supplement, the Wiener Abendpost, Ambros wrote in the course of this five-year period numerous feature articles and essays about music, as well as short reviews. Until today these were little or scarcely known, because, with a few exceptions, they were available only in the contemporary sources, that is, scattered throughout different editions of the Wiener Zeitung. In the present edition they are published for the first time as a collection.Both volumes contain, in total, 265 essays from the years 18721876. These consist chiefly of reports on the Viennese concert and opera performances, as well as reviews of sheet music printings and books on music, reports on exhibitions (music at the Viennese world exhibition 1873), portraits of composers, and essays on other music-related themes. Important events in Viennese musical life of the 1870s are described, including, for instance, the performances of the works of Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms. Ambros reports on many artists and music ensembles appearing in Vienna, above all on the concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic, of the Hellmesberger Quartet, of the Florentine Quartet and of the Anton Door Trio.All the texts in the edition are not only converted into modern script, while still maintaining all the specific marks of the periods manner of writing, but are above all thoroughly annotated. In the commentary the reader will find information about the people and works named in the text, sources of quotations, and explanations of unusual and foreign words, as well as cross-references to other writings of Ambros and to other authors. Moreover, important musical history contexts are also identified in the commentary, so that even laymen can understand all the texts without having to seek help in diverse reference works. The edition also contains several indexes, for instance a chronological index of all reviewed musical events and, not least importantly, a complete index of names and compositions.The edition which will be published by Hollitzer Verlag in Vienna thoroughly documents not only Ambros position within Viennese music criticism of the 1870s, but also an important chapter in European musical history. Thanks to their comprehensive nature and brilliant style, Ambross essays and reviews can be substantially assessed by scholars, but they can also be read by non-specialists interested in music.