Making Light
Haydn, Musical Camp, and the Long Shadow of German Idealism
Raymond Knapp
- English
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- Available on iOS & Android
Making Light
Haydn, Musical Camp, and the Long Shadow of German Idealism
Raymond Knapp
About This Book
In Making Light Raymond Knapp traces the musical legacy of German Idealism as it led to the declining prestige of composers such as Haydn while influencing the development of American popular music in the nineteenth century. Knapp identifies in Haydn and in early popular American musical cultures such as minstrelsy and operetta a strain of high campâa mode of engagement that relishes both the superficial and serious aspects of an aesthetic experienceâthat runs antithetical to German Idealism's musical paradigms. By considering the disservice done to Haydn by German Idealism alongside the emergence of musical camp in American popular music, Knapp outlines a common ground: a humanistically based aesthetic of shared pleasure that points to ways in which camp receptive modes might rejuvenate the original appeal of Haydn's music that hasmostly eluded audiences. In so doing, Knapp remaps the historiographical modes and systems of critical evaluation that dominate musicology while troubling the divide between serious and popular music.