From the Ear to the Heart: Music Listening, Pleasure, and the German Reception of Du Bos

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The European eighteenth century redefined the perception of the arts in an aesthetic movement known in German-speaking countries as “Empfindsamkeit.” It newly defined the nature of art and the human relationship to the arts, replacing rules and norms with individual feeling as the central category, and also led to a revaluation of listening. Aesthetic texts of this period often explicitly speak about the ear when talking about music. In German-language music aesthetics, a transfer of knowledge from French discourses on this topic can be observed, in formats such as translation, quotation, review, and commentary. This article focuses on the reception of one important author, Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, who sees music as particularly capable of moving us, and hearing consequently as a direct path to the heart. Surprisingly, and unlike other French treatises, Du Bos’s Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1719/1733) were translated only late into German, but the passages about hearing were quoted all the more frequently. Du Bos’s ideas on listening entered the musical discourse in a rather indirect way. An instructive case is Christian Gottfried Krause’s book Von der Musikalischen Poesie (1752), where the idea that listening to music touches us in a profound way is commented on in particular detail as a means of providing rules for the poets of vocal music lyrics. With its numerous borrowings, this book is a striking example of intertextuality in music aesthetics.

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Introduction

Thus far, the history of listening has mostly been written with regard to a focused, more or less rationally controlled form of experience (listening), somewhat neglecting the various forms of musical experience that are more distracted and less intellectual (hearing). By doing so, research has—and consciously so—privileged a specific form of listening, epitomized in its most extreme form in Theodor W. Adorno’s “expert,”^[1] who keeps track of even the most minute aspects of a score, with an attention to musical structures that Adorno considered the most adequate form of listening.^[2] It goes without saying (and it is certainly not ignored by the scholars who have worked in this field) that this mode of Zuhören is only one of many possible attitudes toward music, one whose roots in the late eighteenth and especially the nineteenth century and whose relations to the “emphatic recognition of music as art”^[3] have been made evident by many contributions to this growing field.^[4] But privileging this mode of musical reception poses not only the problem that other modes are excluded. It may also, intentionally or not, lead to normative implications, suggesting that this form of musical experience is still considered the most valid.^[5] Considerations on the questions of knowing whether historic music publics were attentive or not—the question posed by James H. Johnson in his landmark study Listening in Paris^[6]—often imply tacit assignments of value,^[7] since the European tradition of art music has often favored the process of “understanding” a work of art as the most appropriate way of musical experience. The choice of focused listening as a topic of research is therefore not a neutral one. A more comprehensive “history of hearing and listening” might wish to include a variety of modes of musical experience without devaluating them a priori,^[8] and some of the more recent contributions have precisely shown the limits of the “listening paradigm” and its teleology.^[9]

This article leaves aside the often-considered question of whether or not music publics at a certain moment in time paid attention or not. Rather, I would like to contribute to describing the emergence of a specific notion of musical listening in the eighteenth century that highlighted the emotional value of music, the idea that music had a particularly strong effect on our emotions and that hearing it affected us deeply, maybe even more than did other forms of sensual experience. In some way, this idea could be regarded as the exact opposite of those modes of attentive listening that have emerged since the nineteenth century and that have been privileged by research.^[10] My argumentation is limited to the philosophical discourse on auditory experience. Rather than being a contribution to the history of listening (or hearing) in a broader sense, which potentially uses a wider range of sources, this article describes aesthetic considerations of music listening only. The perspective taken here is one that pays particular attention to the transfer of ideas across language borders, specifically from the francophone area to the German-speaking realm. Special consideration is given to various modes of text translation with regard to one prominent author, Jean-Baptiste Du Bos (or Dubos, 1670–1742). This is of course only one single layer in a multifaceted discourse, albeit an important one.

The following considerations are divided into four sections. First it is outlined how Du Bos enhances the importance of listening as a privileged path to access our emotions. In a second step, I describe the specific “translation culture” of the German Enlightenment that recently has been examined with respect to its importance for the music-aesthetic discourse.^[11] Subsequently, the case of Du Bos translation is examined, with an overview of how his ideas were adopted in the German Empfindsamkeit and a comparison of this case to the rather different case of Charles Batteux. Finally, the focus is placed on a specific example of Du Bos reception, the book Von der Musikalischen Poesie (On musical poetry; 1752) by Christian Gottfried Krause (1719–70), where the French author is referred to in a way that may seem insignificant at first glance, with a few quotations scattered across the many pages of the volume. A more thorough investigation reveals, however, that Krause made numerous borrowings from Du Bos. They are nothing less than the general basis of argument for this much-read handbook of German vocal music—and for Krause’s focus on the ear as the basis of musical experience.

The Revaluation of Listening in Du Bos

It was an observation that triggered the necessity of this investigation. The dissemination of the idea that music has powerful emotional effects becomes tangible in the recurrence of characteristic terms, formulations, and quotations. A particularly striking example is Du Bos’s phrase: “Each sentiment has its appropriate intonations, accents, and sighs.”^[12] As Bellamy Hosler and Danuta Mirka have observed, this is most likely an unattributed quotation from Cicero’s “omnis enim motus animi suum quendam a natura habet vultum et sonum et gestum” (every motion of the soul has by nature a certain countenance, sound, and gesture), which later resurfaces in writings by Charles Batteux and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also by Johann Georg Sulzer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, and Heinrich Christoph Koch.^[13] This simple example shows how aesthetic ideas circulate across language borders (and, given the reference to an antique authority, even across centuries) and how they develop in this process.

In classical accounts of the history of aesthetics, Jean-Baptiste Du Bos’s Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1719/1733) appear as a landmark: as the “first aesthetics of sentimentalism” (“erste Ästhetik des Sentimentalismus”),^[14] as the inauguration of “the primacy of sensation,”^[15] and as a first “serious challenge to the absolute rule of reason”^[16] in aesthetics. His biographer Alfred Lombard even considered Du Bos an “initiator of modern thought” (“initiateur de la pensée moderne”).^[17] The Réflexions critiques thus established—especially for music—a completely novel discourse.^[18]

Music plays a central role in Du Bos’s aesthetics. Several chapters of the three-volume work are specifically dedicated to music, and in others it is also mentioned frequently. Du Bos distinguishes the broad concept of music of antiquity—a concept that he discusses in detail in his considerations on the “Theatrical Performances of the Ancients” (“Répresentations Théatrales des Anciens”)^[19]—from “Music Properly Speaking” (“la Musique proprement dite”)^[20] in the modern sense. The fact that the title of the work nevertheless refers to poetry and painting may only be explained by the inferior status that music still had as an art form in the early eighteenth century.^[21] But Du Bos, who had a special affinity for opera,^[22] integrates music into his theory without any restriction. Music is no longer considered deficient in comparison to the other fine arts. Like them, music is capable of imitation, and one of its purposes is to increase the listener’s pleasure in poetry set to music, especially in the case of opera.^[23]

Du Bos ascribes to music a special emotive power that far exceeds that of spoken language, and this was to become an important idea of musical discourse in the eighteenth century and beyond,^[24] not least in the German-speaking area: “All of these sounds, as we have already shown, have a marvellous power to move us because they are signs of passions.”^[25] This idea is related to a semiotic distinction made by Du Bos when he discerns the arbitrary signs of language from the natural signs of painting and music, which are of greater intensity in their effect,^[26] due to the idea, inherited from Cicero and cited above, that the emotions manifest themselves in specific sounds.

Particular significance is given, in this concept of aesthetics, to the sensory quality of music and even recited poetry—in other words: to the act of listening. It is mentioned several times that it is the purpose of poetry “to please the ear” (“plaire à l’oreille”).^[27] In music, this aspect is of course even more important: “The natural signs of the passions that music resembles, and which it artfully uses to augment the power of words in a composition, must render the words more capable of touching us. … The signs receive this power from nature itself.”^[28] To express this idea and to emphasize the directness of the emotional process, Du Bos finds the beautiful phrase: “Thus the pleasure of the ear becomes the pleasure of the heart” (“C’est ainsi que le plaisir de l’oreille devient le plaisir du cœur”).^[29] There is, however, one exception to this rule, but one that merely confirms its validity: the existence of men whose ear is, according to Du Bos, “so far from the heart that the most natural melodies do not touch them” (“tellement éloignée du cœur, que les chants les plus naturels ne les touchent pas”).^[30]

This statement on music is of primary importance, since the notion of pleasure (“plaisir”)^[31] forms a key element of Du Bos’s aesthetics.^[32] Pleasure, defined as the distraction from boredom,^[33] is even the main purpose of the arts. Thus, reception of the arts, rather than its production, and the audience, rather than the creators of art, move to the center of attention. The public feels tedium (“ennui”) and therefore seeks distraction through the experience of emotions (“passions”).^[34] People come to their verdict on a work of art—and this is a paradigm shift—on the basis of a “sixth sense” (“sixième sens”).^[35] Rational reasoning, on the other hand, which Du Bos calls the “Way of Argument” (“voïe de discussion”),^[36] takes a secondary position and can (at best) justify in hindsight the judgment that has been made spontaneously. As a result, the artist’s creation is partially removed from rational discussion and must be explained via the notion of genius (“génie”).^[37] By enhancing the importance of the audience, Du Bos relativizes the normative approach of older aesthetic doctrines, appearing almost egalitarian in his view on the general public and its rights and merits.^[38]

The appreciation of sensual experience is the main reason why hearing becomes a primary focal point in discussions about music. The pleasurable qualities of the arts become the interest of aesthetic consideration, rather than their regularity or morality, as in older theories of the arts.^[39] It is not a set of rules that forms the basis for value judgments but, as Du Bos explicitly states, the eyes and ears of the recipient: “We have in us a sense intended to judge the value of works that imitate touching objects in nature. … It is the eye, when it is a question of the colours of a picture. It is the ear, when it is a question of judging whether the sounds of a narrative are touching, or whether they are adapted to the words, and whether the song is melodious.”^[40]

These new thoughts on the reception of art, and more specifically on watching and listening, which can only be summarized roughly here, met with vivid interest in the German-speaking area, where new aesthetic ideas, especially those from France, were discussed and adapted with particular intensity.

Translating Music Aesthetics in Eighteenth-Century Germany

Processes of cultural transfer have been a point of interest for research on cultural history for decades. They can be made particularly tangible in different modes of translation,^[41] understood here in a rather narrow sense as the transfer of a verbal text into another language. The eighteenth century was particularly productive in this field, with a flourishing discussion on translation theory and an important production of translations. The Enlightenment itself was in a sense, as Fania Oz-Salzberger puts it, “translated”—this supranational movement in the history of thought manifested itself not least in processes of translation.^[42]

The French language was of considerable importance in Enlightenment Europe and functioned as an important source, target, and intermediary language for translations. This is certainly true of the field of music aesthetics in Germany.^[43] The German language, in turn, may have been the main target language for translations around 1750.^[44] Knowledge of the two languages was very unevenly distributed in this period. While the French language and French writings enjoyed a high status in Germany and were widely read, the opposite reception of German literature in France was undoubtedly lower.^[45] This asymmetry existed particularly in relation to philosophical and aesthetic writings, which tended to have a very strong influence in the direction from France to Germany, but very little the other way around.^[46]

Translation procedures for non-fictional texts, such as the ones considered here, were somewhat different from those adopted in literary translations.^[47] While literary works were still often manipulated during the process of translation—a procedure inherited from seventeenth-century belles infidèles, the French translations that were “unfaithful” but beautiful—factual texts offered another option for input from the translator’s side, one that may have been less appealing in the translation of belles lettres: commentary.^[48] Comments to the text, often critical in nature, were added to the translation proper in prefaces, postscripts, and notes—in short: in what Gérard Genette calls the paratext.^[49] Translations thus gave the opportunity to comment on new theories, either confirming, supplementing, or rejecting them.

Although critical commentary was widely used in translations of the German Enlightenment,^[50] the origins of these procedures have not, to my knowledge, been researched yet. They seem to be inherited (among other sources) from belle infidèle translations, which were also often richly annotated, serving to explain incomprehensible aspects of the translated texts.^[51] The belles infidèles were still a model in the Leipzig circle of Johann Christoph Gottsched and his wife Luise Adelgunde Gottsched, whose importance for German translation theory and practice around the middle of the eighteenth century can hardly be overestimated.^[52] An article in Gottsched’s journal Beyträge zur Critischen Historie der deutschen Sprache, Poesie und Beredsamkeit (Contributions to the critical history of German language, poetry, and eloquence) from 1734 written by Georg Venzky explains the usefulness of annotations in translations. Only annotated translations are considered “complete,”^[53] and they serve the purpose of illuminating incomprehensible or contentious parts of the original.^[54] It appears that the additions thus made to translations are in no way viewed as a compromise, but rather as an improvement of the original.

Furthermore, the practice of annotation can be understood as a legacy of the early modern system of recension, which can be seen in publications such as the Journal des sçavans (Journal for the learned), a long-lived academic journal founded in Paris in 1665 and considered to be the first of its kind in Europe. Scholarly journals such as this one consisted to a large extent of reviews of texts and only secondarily of independent treatises.^[55] At that time, however, reviews contained rather long excerpts of the writings being reviewed and only a small amount of commentary.^[56] Consequently, they are closer in nature to annotated partial translations (whenever the publication under review is in another language) than they are to scholarly reviews in the modern sense.

Both traditions, the French models of literary translation and the scholarly culture of multilingual recension, are important for the comprehension of eighteenth-century musical discourse, as they shaped the way in which most of the early music journals in Germany talked about their subject.^[57] Translations were very important for the German musical discourse in general,^[58] and the translation techniques described so far are clearly observable in many of the German music journals of the eighteenth century, for example those edited by Johann Mattheson, Lorenz Christoph Mizler, Johann Adolph Scheibe, Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Johann Adam Hiller, and Johann Nikolaus Forkel. Seeing how prominent figures of musical discourse used translations, it becomes clear that in the eighteenth century the translation of foreign texts was a natural part of erudite publishing, not a separate activity in terms of personnel or content as it tends to be today, where it is often done by (more or less) specialized translators.

Batteux, Du Bos, and German Empfindsamkeit

An example of a vivid debate carried out through translation is Batteux’s treatise Les beaux arts réduits à un même principe (1746),^[59] which received a broad reception not only by way of translation in the narrower sense—it was translated into German no fewer than four times in the eighteenth century^[60]—but also in the form of a debate on the specifically musical aspects of his theory that considers imitation of nature as the principle of the arts. A controversial exchange of articles in Marpurg’s journal Historisch-Kritische Beyträge (Historico-critical contributions) in 1755 dealt with the question of whether this idea can be applied to music.^[61] These debates can be considered as part of Empfindsamkeit, an aesthetic current in eighteenth-century Germany for which processes of “translation” (both literally and figuratively) were of paramount importance,^[62] the German neologism empfindsam being a translation of the English or French adjective sentimental.^[63] Significantly, the four German translators of Batteux’s Les beaux-arts all chose the wording “Nachahmung der Empfindungen”^[64] when translating Batteux’s thoughts on “l’imitation des sentimens”^[65]—a process described by Batteux as the quintessential property of music as an art of imitation.^[66]

This thought is prefigured in Du Bos, an author who also became a point of orientation for the Empfindsamkeit.^[67] In Du Bos’s Réflexions critiques, sentiment is particularly important, as it is considered the basis of all art perception. Du Bos is considered one of the first to shift the concept of sentiment, which in the seventeenth century was still considered a rational capacity, towards emotion and subjectivity.^[68] However, even with Du Bos, sentiment is still not understood as a completely free “immersion” into art but as a process comparable in its immediacy to sensory perception, which happens prior to—and possibly independently of—rational analysis.^[69]

Although Du Bos is often mentioned in the same breath as Batteux in descriptions of eighteenth-century aesthetics, his reception in Germany was completely different from that of his younger compatriot. Even though his Réflexions critiques are considerably older than Batteux’s book, the translation into German took place much later. It was only in 1760 and 1761 that Gottfried Benedict Funk’s version Kritische Betrachtungen über die Poesie und die Mahlerey, apparently the first complete translation into German, was published in Copenhagen.^[70]

However, this in no way means that Du Bos was ignored. Paul Guyer, in his History of Modern Aesthetics, states that Du Bos’s treatise was “enormously influential,” being “widely read in both Britain and Germany before it was translated.”^[71] The intensity of the Europe-wide impact of the Réflexions critiques can first be seen in the large number of editions and (sometimes partial) translations. During the eighteenth century, no fewer than seven editions appeared in French, some of which were reprinted several times and at different publishing locations, including Dresden in 1760.^[72] Before Funk’s German translation, there were translations into Dutch and English.^[73]

Even without the existence of a complete translation, a vivid debate on Du Bos took place. His writing seems to have been particularly attractive in aesthetically progressive circles that opposed a rationalist doctrine of the arts personified by Gottsched.^[74] Significantly, a first, very brief partial translation of Du Bos’s Réflexions critiques, comprising only the first chapter, appeared in 1749 in the Bremer Beiträge,^[75] a journal published in Bremen but edited in Leipzig and more or less directed against the Gottschedian dominance.^[76] It is the same chapter of Du Bos’s book that, together with the following one, appeared twenty years later (1765) in an independent translation in the Hannoverische Magazin.^[77] Other translation projects, realized or not, also bear witness to the opposition that arose between the Du Bos reception and Gottsched’s rationalism. It appears that Gottsched himself did not support a complete translation that was planned by his former student Johann Friedrich Kopp in 1746/47. Kopp wrote at least three letters to the Leipzig professor, asking for his support in finding a publisher,^[78] a support that Gottsched (whose responses, if there were any, we do not have) was apparently not willing to provide. The first more extensive German translation was done by a proven opponent of Gottsched, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who in 1755 published a translation of Du Bos’s third volume, which deals with the theatre of the ancients.^[79] This translation became significant for music discourse in that Marpurg reprinted this rather long essay (which only indirectly refers to music) in its entirety in his journal Historisch-Kritische Beyträge,^[80] yet adding a mocking commentary by an author with the pseudonym C. Sol Ut.^[81]

It was not until 1760 and 1761, some four decades after the publication of the first edition of the original, that the first complete translation of the Réflexions critiques into German appeared in Copenhagen.^[82] The anonymous translator was Gottfried Benedict Funk, who at that time worked as a tutor for the court preacher Johann Andreas Cramer in Copenhagen,^[83] in a circle of Enlightenment thinkers sometimes called Kopenhagener Kreis (Copenhagen circle).^[84] Funk substitutes (albeit inconsistently) the French literary examples referred to by Du Bos with German ones,^[85] his choice testifying to aesthetic influences of this circle.^[86] For lack of competence, he deals with music only marginally, the exception being references to the oratorio Der Tod Jesu (1755) by Karl Wilhelm Ramler and Carl Heinrich Graun.^[87]

These were only the contemporary translations of Du Bos in a narrow sense of the word. The examination of a widely read book on vocal music published in 1752, Christian Gottfried Krause’s Von der Musikalischen Poesie, shows how the reception—and even translation—of aesthetic ideas, namely of Du Bos’s concept of listening, could also occur in a more concealed manner.

Christian Gottfried Krause and the “Healthy Ear”

Von der Musikalischen Poesie deals with specific problems of poetry that is meant to be set to music. The term “musical poetry” in the book’s title means exactly that: poetry that is meant to become the text of vocal music, especially in opera.^[88] The fact that various external sources informed Krause’s writing has been touched upon only in passing by scholars. That Du Bos was perhaps the most important influence on Krause has been hinted at many times,^[89] but never examined more closely.

It seems as if the reading of the Réflexions critiques was even the initial spark for Krause to conceive this book—a project to which a whole circle of writers contributed thoughts and feedback.^[90] In a letter to his friend Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim on January 12, 1749, Krause cites the French work as an important inspiration: “The Reflexions sur la Peinture et sur la Poesie [sic] have altogether strengthened me in the belief that I am on the right path, and what can still be altered in the future will consist only in particulars and elaborations.”^[91] Ramler, another advisor of Krause, also referred to Du Bos’s book in a letter to Gleim on February 3, 1748, citing it as a model for Krause, whom he expected to apply the French theory to music: “It would be good if he made a masterpiece, just like Du Bos did before him on painting and poetry.”^[92]

Krause was a Francophile author. Like Marpurg before him, he was employed as a secretary for the Prussian Lieutenant General Friedrich Rudolf von Rothenburg, who had often worked in Paris and had married a French aristocrat.^[93] In a letter to Ramler, Krause even admitted to thinking about working as a translator from French.^[94] An eloquent testimony of Krause’s linguistic skills is given by his anonymously published Lettre à Monsieur le Marquis de B*** sur la différence entre la musique italienne et françoise (Letter to Monsieur le Marquis de B*** on the difference between Italian and French music),^[95] dealing with questions of opera (especially in Berlin)^[96] and addressed to the Marquis d’Argens (Jean-Baptiste de Boyer),^[97] a confidant of Frederick II.^[98]

On the 484 pages of his Von der Musikalischen Poesie, Krause mentions Du Bos (spelled “Dübos”) only eight times.^[99] It is worth taking a closer look at these explicit references first, even though they are not the only Du Bos influence noticeable in Krause’s book. The French author’s name is always stated in connection with literal quotations from the Réflexions critiques. Since no German version existed at the time when Krause wrote this book (except for a very short partial translation), these quotations are technically translations, albeit very short ones.

As Krause does not use quotation marks, one could be mistaken about the extent of the quotes. Their length often only becomes apparent by comparison with the original. Krause’s borrowings from Du Bos usually amount to a mixture of literal quotation and paraphrase.^[100] The following synopsis from Du Bos and Krause (both in the original and in English translations) shows, for example, that the quotation from “Dübos” is by no means limited, as one might assume, to the phrase in which the author is mentioned.^[101] Rather, it includes large parts of a sentence shortly before and the adoption of the proverb “Ex voluptate fides nascitur” (“Belief is born from pleasure”).^[102]

It is worth noting that the references to Du Bos are found in precisely those passages where ideas about musical listening are developed. Quotations from Du Bos are not only longer than one might presume, they are also more numerous than the eight explicit mentions of his name suggest. This, of course, makes it difficult to find them. One clue that I have used in my (certainly incomplete) compilation of references is the appearance of quotations in Latin in both Du Bos and Krause. The following example shows a phrase from Cicero that can be found in both books (slightly abridged in Krause’s case) and that upon closer examination reveals another borrowing from Du Bos, one that is not announced by Krause.

Of course, parallels in references to “classical” authors and writings do not necessarily have to be the result of borrowing from Du Bos, especially since Krause himself studied relevant writings such as Horace’s Ars poetica while preparing his volume.^[111] The amount of common quotations is, however, striking. This concerns passages from, among others, Quintilian, Cicero, and Horace, as well as from the Vulgate.^[112] In addition, two different quotations that are closely related in the text occasionally appear in a similar sequence to Du Bos. A Seneca quotation, for example, is very likely borrowed from Du Bos, because it is immediately followed by a quotation from Macrobius that the French author had also employed. Krause even uses similar words to connect the two citations: “We also find this passage in Macrobius.”^[113]

This intertextuality particularly affects the first chapter (“Hauptstück”) of Von der Musikalischen Poesie “on the former and present combination of poetry and music,”^[114] that is, on a topic that Du Bos treated extensively. Here, Krause’s text is particularly close to Du Bos’s, more so than in most of the later chapters. In this part of the German book, there is a considerable amount of borrowing, also of a more elusive nature than the (more or less) verbatim quotes shown above. One example is Krause’s idea that “joy taught the first men to sing” (“Die Freude lehrte die ersten Menschen singen”).^[115] Whether or not one can find a passage for this in the Réflexions critiques that can serve as evidence of a quotation,^[116] the ubiquity of the word plaisir in Du Bos suggests influence, or at least affinity. This is all the more true when one considers the multitude of Du Bos citations, both explicit and implicit, on the pages immediately following this statement by Krause.

Granted, in passages like these where Du Bos is not mentioned and the formulation of thoughts becomes independent instead of being quotation, a search for traces of influence may become diffuse. It is therefore more prudent in these cases to speak in more general terms of intertextuality or shared ideas, since such correspondences may be coincidental or come from third sources, rather than being direct adoptions. The sheer number of explicit or very likely Du Bos references in Krause’s book, however, speaks for itself.

Krause’s affinity with Du Bos directly concerns the conception of listening. It is, after all, the historical specificity of the Réflexions critiques that they attributed to music the ability to have special emotional effects on people. In Du Bos’s text, this becomes tangible in the frequency of terms such as impression (impression), émouvoir (to move), plaire (to please), and toucher (to touch).^[117] Krause condenses this idea into the formula: “Music is directly touching” (“Die Musik rühret unmittelbar”).^[118]

Krause relates this argument to the physical realities of making and listening to music. The composer (“Musikus”), writes Krause, “has the ear as his organ of perception” (“Der Musikus hat das Ohr zu seinem Empfindungsmittel”).^[119] The ear then also acts as the link to the listener who perceives the music. Due to its emotional and physical immediacy, music as an art that is touching “does not need experienced listeners knowledgeable in this art” (“Eine rührende Musik bedarf keines erfahrnen und in dieser Kunst geübten Zuhörers”).^[120] This is another thought possibly inherited from Du Bos, who emphasized the directness of art perception, which in principle can be experienced by anybody. It is the ear and not any form of prior knowledge or rational capacity that conveys, according to Krause, the moods that music carries within itself, and it is striking to see the vocabulary of naturalness and physical health (Gesundheit) used by the author to explain the process: “It is not necessary to have heard anything merry or sad sung; if one has a sound ear [ein gesundes Ohr] and no natural aversion to music, it is possible that a musician can instill joy and sadness in him.”^[121] And this is an experience that concerns “our inner beings, our whole souls,” says Krause (“Unser Inneres, unsere ganze Seele will daran Theil haben”).^[122]

Conclusion

As part of the German adoption of Du Bos’s influential theories, Krause developed a specific form of reception of the French author that consisted in translating passages from his book and integrating them—both credited and uncredited—into a new work of aesthetic theory. The distinction between translation and commentary, two important and closely related practices of the time, thus becomes completely blurred and the two procedures almost merge.

With specific reference to the senses, Krause uses and refines Du Bos’s notion of hearing (not necessarily listening) as a bodily experience, thereby establishing a physiological definition of auditory experience. But hearing is not only described in terms of its physical realities. As an immediate path to the emotions, it is also the starting point for an experience of art. This evolution in the concept of hearing is, of course, part of a larger paradigm shift in aesthetics and anthropology, one that accentuates the function of the senses in the experience of art and that also, vice versa, treats the arts as a “school of sensibility” (“Schule der Empfindsamkeit”).^[123] As research on the Enlightenment and Empfindsamkeit has shown, new discourses of the eighteenth century changed the way in which body and mind were perceived,^[124] and the “emancipation of the senses” brought about by Empfindsamkeit emphasized “the links between nervous and emotional sensibility.”^[125] It may be that the importance of hearing in this development has been underestimated. As a sense that cannot be contained in the same way as vision, for example, hearing could be thought of as a path to the heart and soul, whose pleasures are those of the ear.

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References

1. Theodor W. Adorno, Introduction to the Sociology of Music, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Seabury, 1976), 4. ↑
2. For a critique of structural listening, see Rose Rosengard Subotnik, “Towards a Deconstruction of Structural Listening: A Critique of Schoenberg, Adorno, and Stravinsky,” in Explorations in Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Essays in Honor of Leonard B. Meyer, ed. Eugene Narmour and Ruth A. Solie, Festschrift Series 7 (Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press, 1988), 87–122. ↑
3. Christian Thorau and Hansjakob Ziemer, “The Art of Listening and Its Histories: An Introduction,” in The Oxford Handbook of Music Listening in the 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Christian Thorau and Hansjakob Ziemer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 1. ↑
4. For recent volumes on the history of listening, see Geschichte und Gegenwart des musikalischen Hörens: Diskurse—Geschichte(n)—Poetiken, ed. Klaus Aringer, Franz Karl Praßl, Peter Revers, and Christian Utz, Rombach Wissenschaften. Reihe Klang-Reden 17 (Freiburg: Rombach, 2017); and Thorau and Ziemer, Handbook of Music Listening. ↑
5. In the course of the loss of relevance of art music, the ideal of structural listening has also been questioned from philosophical points of view. See, for example, the contributions in Beyond Structural Listening? Postmodern Modes of Hearing, ed. Andrew Dell’Antonio (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). ↑
6. James H. Johnson, Listening in Paris: A Cultural History, Studies on the History of Society and Culture 21 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). ↑
7. This is insightfully described by William Weber, “Did People Listen in the 18th Century?” Early Music 25, no. 4 (1997): 678. ↑
8. See also the contribution by Ina Knoth to this special issue. ↑
9. It has been shown, for example, that until well into the nineteenth century publics were still often not silent, the attitude described by Johnson as a symptom of attentive listening. See Katharine Ellis, “Researching Audience Behaviors in Nineteenth-Century Paris: Who Cares If You Listen?” in Thorau and Ziemer, Handbook of Music Listening, 37–54. Practices of “not listening” are investigated by Christiane Tewinkel, “‘Everybody in the Concert Hall Should Be Devoted Entirely to the Music’: On the Actuality of Not Listening to Music in Symphonic Concerts,” in ibid., 477–99. ↑
10. This line of thought can be attributed to authors such as Rochlitz, Hanslick, and Adorno. See Thorau and Ziemer, “The Art of Listening,” 3–4. ↑
11. Benedikt Leßmann, Übersetzung als Debatte: Französische Musikästhetik in Deutschland zur Zeit der Aufklärung, Studien zur Übersetzungsgeschichte 4 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2024). ↑
12. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting, trans. James O. Young and Margaret Cameron, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 330; Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History 25 (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 339. I will quote from this English translation throughout this article, adding the French version whenever it seems necessary. Original wording: “Chaque sentiment a ses tons, ses accens & ses soupirs propres.” Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture: Nouvelle édition revuë, corrigée & considerablement augmentée (Paris: Mariette, 1733), 1:479. ↑
13. Bellamy Hamilton Hosler, “Changing Aesthetic Views of Instrumental Music in Eighteenth-Century Germany” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1978), 93; and Danuta Mirka, introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory, ed. Danuta Mirka (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 39. ↑
14. Alfred Baeumler, Das Irrationalitätsproblem in der Ästhetik und Logik des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zur Kritik der Urteilskraft (1923; repr., Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), 53. See also Klaus Dirscherl, “‘Von der Herrschaft der Schönheit über unsere Gefühle’: Elemente einer sich formierenden Ästhetik der sensibilité (Fénelon, Crousaz, Dubos),” in Frühaufklärung, ed. Sebastian Neumeister (Munich: Fink, 1994), 400. ↑
15. Jean Starobinski, The Invention of Liberty, 1700–1789, trans. Bernard C. Swift (New York: Rizzoli, 1987), 53. ↑
16. Cynthia Verba, Music and the French Enlightenment: Reconstruction of a Dialogue, 1750–1764 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 36. See also Philippe Vendrix, Aux origines d’une discipline historique: La musique et son histoire en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Geneva: Droz, 1993), 164; Élisabeth Lavezzi, “La dynamique d’une théorie: La musique et l’ébauche d’un système des arts dans les Réflexions de l’abbé Dubos,” in La musique face au système des arts ou Les vissicitudes de l’imitation au siècle des Lumières, ed. Marie-Pauline Martin and Chiara Savettieri, MusicologieS (Paris: Vrin, 2013), 89; Ernst Stöckmann, Anthropologische Ästhetik: Philosophie, Psychologie und ästhetische Theorie der Emotionen im Diskurs der Aufklärung, Hallesche Beiträge zur Europäischen Aufklärung 39 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2009), 54; and Reinhardt Brandt, “Ästhetik,” in Handbuch Europäische Aufklärung: Begriffe—Konzepte—Wirkung, ed. Heinz Thoma (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2015), 44. ↑
17. Alfred Lombard, L’Abbé Du Bos: Un initiateur de la pensée moderne (1670–1742) (Paris: Hachette, 1913). This is even today still a significant work. For a more recent monograph on Du Bos, see Paola Vincenzi, Jean-Baptiste Du Bos: gli antichi e la fondazione dell’estetica moderna (Milan: Mimesis, 2006). ↑
18. Zbigniew Skowron, “Imitation et expression: La musique dans les Reflexions critiques sur la poësie et sur la peinture de Jean-Baptiste Du Bos (1719),” in La note bleue: Mélanges offerts au Professeur Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, ed. Jacqueline Waeber, Publikationen der Schweizerischen Musikforschenden Gesellschaft 2/45 (Bern: Lang, 2006), 200. ↑
19. In the 1733 edition, this part forms its own volume and is thus separated from the remainder of the book. This third volume bears the subtitle “Dissertation sur les Répresentations Théatrales des Anciens.” Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 3:1. ↑
20. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 322; Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:444. ↑
21. Enrico Fubini, “Du Bos e la musica,” in Jean-Baptiste DuBos e l’estetica dello spettatore, ed. Luigi Russo (Palermo: Centro Internazionale Studi di Estetica, 2005), 67–68. ↑
22. Lombard, L’Abbé Du Bos, 41–52. ↑
23. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 323, also touches the subject of instrumental music by mentioning the symphonies in opera. ↑
24. Fubini calls this a “secret complicity and affinity between music and the world of feelings” (“segreta complicità e affinità tra la musica e il mondo dei sentimenti”). Fubini, “Du Bos e la musica,” 70. In this context, Fubini refers to Rousseau’s aesthetics of music. ↑
25. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 322. Original wording: “Tous ces sons, comme nous l’avons déja exposé, ont une force merveilleuse pour nous émouvoir, parce qu’ils sont les signes des passion.” Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:444. ↑
26. “These signs are established by nature, from which they receive their force. In contrast, spoken words are arbitrary signs of passions. Spoken words only receive their meaning and value from human convention, which gives a word currency only in a particular country.” Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 322. Original wording: “les signes des passions, instituez par la nature dont ils ont reçu leur énergie, au lieu que les mots articulez ne sont que des signes arbitraires des passions. Les mots articulez ne tirent leur signification & leur valeur que de l’institution des hommes qui n’ont pû leur donner cours que dans un certain Païs.” Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:444. ↑
27. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 248; Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:297. ↑
28. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 323. Original wording: “Les signes naturels des passions que la musique rassemble, & qu’elle emploïe avec art pour augmenter l’énergie des paroles qu’elle met en chant, doivent donc les rendre plus capables de nous toucher … Ils la tiennent de la nature même.” Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:446. (The word “assemble” would a more appropriate choice for the English translation than “resemble”.) On the notion of nature in eighteenth-century French philosophy, see Jean Ehrard, L’idée de nature en France dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle, L’évolution de l’humanité 3 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1994). ↑
29. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 323; Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:447. ↑
30. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 338; Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:477. ↑
31. The word “plaisir” is used frequently, starting from the very first page. Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:1. ↑
32. Skowron, “Imitation et expression,” 192. ↑
33. Carsten Zelle, “Angenehmes Grauen”: Literaturhistorische Beiträge zur Ästhetik des Schrecklichen im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, Studien zum achtzehnten Jahrhundert 10 (Hamburg: Meiner, 1987), 143. In this respect, Du Bos is influenced by the sensualism of John Locke, whom he met during his stays in England. See Lombard, L’Abbé Du Bos, 73. ↑
34. The very first chapter of the Réflexions critiques bears the title “Of the Necessity of Being Occupied in order to Avoid Ennui, and of the Attraction That Movements of the Passions Have for People.” Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 96. Original wording: “De la necessité d’être occupé pour fuir l’ennui, & de l’attrait que les mouvemens des passions ont pour les hommes.” Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:5. ↑
35. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 519; Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 2:326. ↑
36. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 526; Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 2:341. ↑
37. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 353; Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 2:2. Peter Bürger, Studien zur französischen Frühaufklärung, Edition Suhrkamp 525 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972), 56. ↑
38. For various perspectives on this much-discussed aspect of Du Bos’s theory, which cannot be considered here in more detail, see, for example, Bürger, Studien zur französischen Frühaufklärung, 52; Zelle, Angenehmes Grauen, 141 and 150–51; Dirscherl, “Herrschaft der Schönheit,” 404; Rudolf Lüthe and Martin Fontius, “Geschmack/Geschmacksurteil,” in Ästhetische Grundbegriffe: Historisches Wörterbuch in sieben Bänden, ed. Karlheinz Barck, Martin Fontius, Dieter Schlenstedt, Burkart Steinwachs, and Friedrich Wolfzettel (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2010), 2:797; and Eva Kernbauer, Der Platz des Publikums: Modelle für Kunstöffentlichkeit im 18. Jahrhundert, Studien zur Kunst 19 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2011), 92. ↑
39. Hugo Goldschmidt, Die Musikästhetik des 18. Jahrhunderts und ihre Beziehungen zu seinem Kunstschaffen (Zurich: Rascher, 1915), 37 (“Lustwert”). ↑
40. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 519. Original wording: “Il est en nous un sens destiné pour juger du mérite de des ouvrages, qui consistent en l’imitation des objets touchans dans la nature … C’est l’œil lorsqu’il s’agit du coloris d’un tableau. C’est l’oreille lorsqu’il est question de juger si les accens d’un récit sont touchans ou s’ils conviennet aux paroles, & si le chant en est mélodieux.” Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 2:326–27. Given that Du Bos was a connoisseur of opera, “récit” would be more accurately be translated as recitative. ↑
41. Stefanie Stockhorst, “Introduction: Cultural Transfer through Translation; a Current Perspective in Enlightenment Studies,” in Cultural Transfer through Translation: The Circulation of Enlightened Thought in Europe by Means of Translation, ed. Stefanie Stockhorst, Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 131 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 7–26. ↑
42. Fania Oz-Salzberger, Translating the Enlightenment: Scottish Civil Discourse in Eighteenth-Century Germany, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). See also Fania Oz-Salzberger, “The Enlightenment in Translation: Regional and European Aspects,” European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire 13, no. 3 (2006): 385–409. ↑
43. Wolfgang Hirschmann, “Zwischen Wissenstransfer und kritischer Lektüre: Zur hermeneutischen Funktion der Übersetzung in deutschsprachigen Ausgaben musikbezogener Fachprosa französischer Autoren (1750–1800),” in Studien zu den deutsch-französischen Musikbeziehungen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert: Bericht über die erste gemeinsame Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung und der Société française de musicologie Saarbrücken 1999, ed. Herbert Schneider, Musikwissenschaftliche Publikationen 20 (Hildesheim: Olms, 2002), 179–95. Less important source languages for translations into German in the field of musical aesthetics are English and Italian. Cf. Karsten Mackensen, Simplizität: Genese und Wandel einer musikästhetischen Kategorie des 18. Jahrhunderts, Musiksoziologie 8 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2000), 187. ↑
44. Oz-Salzberger, “The Enlightenment in Translation,” 388. ↑
45. Gonthier-Louis Fink, “Das Bild des Nachbarvolkes im Spiegel der deutschen und französischen Hochaufklärung (1750–1789),” in Studien zur Entwicklung des kollektiven Bewußtseins in der Neuzeit, vol. 1, Nationale und kulturelle Identität, ed. Bernhard Giesen, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 940 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1991), 453–92. ↑
46. Paul Guyer, A History of Modern Aesthetics, vol. 1, The Eighteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 2. ↑
47. The corresponding techniques have only marginally been commented on in translation research. An early exception to this rule is Helmut Knufmann, “Das deutsche Übersetzungswesen des 18. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel von Übersetzer- und Herausgebervorreden,” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel 91 (1967): 2676–716. ↑
48. Literary texts were nonetheless also sometimes annotated in eighteenth-century German translations, one example being Eschenburg’s Shakespeare translations. See Carolin Roder, “Der treue Sammler: Eschenburg und die Tücken der Shakespeare-Übersetzung,” in Johann Joachim Eschenburg und die Künste und Wissenschaften zwischen Aufklärung und Romantik: Netzwerke und Kulturen des Wissens, ed. Cord-Friedrich Berghahn and Till Kinzel, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift: Beihefte 50 (Heidelberg: Winter, 2013), 269. ↑
49. Gérard Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, trans. Channa Newman and Claude Doubinsky, Stages 8 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 3. ↑
50. This may be seen in the context of the more general paradigm shift described by Michel Foucault, in his The Order of Things, as the transition from commentary (in an older, religious sense as mere exegesis) to criticism. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London: Routledge, 2002), 86–90. ↑
51. Jörn Albrecht, Literarische Übersetzung: Geschichte, Theorie, kulturelle Wirkung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998), 77; and Wilhelm Graeber, “Blüte und Niedergang der belles infidèles,” in Übersetzung—Translation—Traduction: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Übersetzungsforschung, ed. Harald Kittel, Armin Paul Frank, Norbert Greiner, Theo Hermans, Werner Koller, José Lambert, and Fritz Paul, Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 26/2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), 2:1526. ↑
52. On their translations, see Werner Krauss, “Gottsched als Übersetzer französischer Werke,” in Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768): Ein “bekannter Unbekannter” der Aufklärung in Hamburg (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973), 66–74; Günter Gawlick, “Johann Christoph Gottsched als Vermittler der französischen Aufklärung,” in Zentren der Aufklärung, vol. 3, Leipzig: Aufklärung und Bürgerlichkeit, ed. Wolfgang Martens, Wolfenbütteler Studien zur Aufklärung 17 (Heidelberg: Schneider, 1990), 179–204; Marie-Hélène Quéval, “Johann Christoph Gottsched und Pierre Bayle: Ein philosophischer Dialog; Gottscheds Anmerkungen zu Pierre Bayles Historisch-critischem Wörterbuch,” in Diskurse der Aufklärung: Luise Adelgunde Victorie und Johann Christoph Gottsched, ed. Gabriele Ball, Helga Brandes, and Katherine R. Goodman, Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 112 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), 145–68; and Hilary Brown, Luise Gottsched the Translator, Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture (Columbia: Camden House, 2012). For a survey of translation theory in eighteenth-century Germany, see Anneliese Senger, Deutsche Übersetzungstheorie im 18. Jahrhundert (1734–1746), Abhandlungen zur Kunst-, Musik- und Literaturwissenschaft 97 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1971). ↑
53. He calls them “die vollständigsten Uebersetzungen.” Georg Venzky, “Das Bild eines geschickten Uebersetzers,” Beyträge zur Critischen Historie der deutschen Sprache, Poesie und Beredsamkeit 3, no. 9 (1734): 65. ↑
54. Venzky recommends adding short notes especially to these parts of the text (“die dunkelsten und streitigsten Sachen”). Venzky, “Bild eines geschickten Uebersetzers,” 111. ↑
55. Andreas Gestrich, Absolutismus und Öffentlichkeit: Politische Kommunikation zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts, Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 103 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 184. ↑
56. Thomas Habel, Gelehrte Journale und Zeitungen der Aufklärung: Zur Entstehung, Entwicklung und Erschließung deutschsprachiger Rezensionszeitschriften des 18. Jahrhunderts, Presse und Geschichte: Neue Beiträge 17 (Bremen: Lumière, 2007), 221–29. ↑
57. On the music journals of the eighteenth century, see Reinhard Raue, Untersuchungen zur Typologie von Musikzeitschriften des 18. Jahrhunderts, Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 36: Musikwissenschaft 134 (Frankfurt: Lang, 1995); Axel Beer, “Musikzeitschriften,” in Von Almanach bis Zeitung: Ein Handbuch der Medien in Deutschland 1700–1800, ed. Ernst Fischer, Wilhelm Haefs, and York-Gothart Mix (Munich: Beck, 1999); Die Musik in den Zeitschriften des 18. Jahrhunderts: Eine Bibliographie, ed. Laurenz Lütteken, Catalogus Musicus 18 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2004); Imogen Fellinger, s.v. “Zeitschriften,” in MGG Online, ed. Laurenz Lütteken (2016/2017), first published 1999. ↑
58. This is also emphasized by Mackensen, Simplizität: Genese und Wandel, 187. ↑
59. Charles Batteux, Les beaux arts réduits à un même principe (Paris: Durand, 1746). For a recent English-language translation, see Charles Batteux, The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle, trans. James O. Young (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). ↑
60. Charles Batteux, Die Schöne [sic] Künste aus einem Grunde hergeleitet, trans. Philipp Ernst Bertram (Gotha: Mevius, 1751); Charles Batteux, Einschränkung der schönen Künste auf einen einzigen Grundsatz, trans. Johann Adolf Schlegel (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1751); Johann Christoph Gottsched, Auszug aus des Herrn Batteux, öffentlichen Lehrers der Redekunst zu Paris, Schönen Künsten, aus dem einzigen Grundsatze der Nachahmung hergeleitet: Zum Gebrauche seiner Vorlesungen mit verschiedenen Zusätzen und Anmerkungen erläutert (Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1754); Charles Batteux, Einleitung in die Schönen Wissenschaften, trans. Karl Wilhelm Ramler, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1756). For a study on the Batteux translations and their implications for musical aesthetics, see Benedikt Leßmann, “Batteux ‘mit beträchtlichen Zusätzen’: Translation und Transfer der Nachahmungstheorie in der deutschen Musikästhetik der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 76, no. 2 (2019): 80–97. ↑
61. Hosler, “Changing Aesthetic Views,” 221–71; Ernst Lichtenhahn, “Der musikalische Stilwandel im Selbstverständnis der Zeit um 1750,” in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach und die europäische Musikkultur des mittleren 18. Jahrhunderts: Bericht über das internationale Symposium der Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Hamburg, 29. September–2. Oktober 1988, ed. Hans Joachim Marx, Veröffentlichung der Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Hamburg 62 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 65–77; and Wilhelm Seidel, “Die Nachahmung der Natur und die Freiheit der Kunst: Zur Kritik deutscher Musiker an der Ästhetik von Charles Batteux,” in Von Isaac bis Bach: Studien zur älteren deutschen Musikgeschichte; Festschrift Martin Just zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Frank Heidlberger, Wolfgang Osthoff, and Reinhard Wiesend (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1991), 257–66. ↑
62. For the purposes of this article, I would like to exclude the notion of Empfindsamer Stil in music composition from my argument. The concept of Empfindsamkeit as a current in cultural history that also affects music discourse is explained by Wolfgang Hirschmann, s.v. “Empfindsamkeit,” in MGG Online, ed. Laurenz Lütteken (2016), first published 1995. See also Arno Forchert, “Vom ‘Ausdruck der Empfindung’ in der Musik,” in Das musikalische Kunstwerk: Geschichte, Ästhetik, Theorie; Festschrift Carl Dahlhaus zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Hermann Danuser (Laaber: Laaber, 1988), 39–50. ↑
63. Gerhard Sauder, Empfindsamkeit, vol. 1, Voraussetzungen und Elemente (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1974), 4. ↑
64. Batteux and Bertram, Die Schöne Künste, 197; Batteux and Schlegel, Einschränkung der schönen Künste, 230; Gottsched, Auszug Batteux Schönen Künsten, 191; Batteux and Ramler, Einleitung Schönen Wissenschaften, 1:205. ↑
65. Batteux, Les beaux arts, 258. ↑
66. Du Bos writes that “the musician imitates … all of the sounds by means of which nature expresses its sentiments and passions.” Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 322. ↑
67. D. G. Charlton, “Jean-Baptiste Du Bos and Eighteenth-Century Sensibility,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 266 (1989): 151–62. ↑
68. Peter-Eckhard Knabe, Schlüsselbegriffe des kunsttheoretischen Denkens in Frankreich von der Spätklassik bis zum Ende der Aufklärung (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1972), 434. ↑
69. Ernst Cassirer, Die Philosophie der Aufklärung, ed. Claus Rosenkranz, Philosophische Bibliothek 593 (Hamburg: Meiner, 2003), 316–18. ↑
70. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, Kritische Betrachtungen über die Poesie und die Mahlerey, trans. Gottfried Benedict Funk (Copenhagen: Mummische Buchhandlung, 1760–1), vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3. ↑
71. Guyer, History of Modern Aesthetics, 1:78. On the German reception of Du Bos, particularly in literary circles, see Lombard, L’Abbé Du Bos, 351–78; Alberto Martino, Geschichte der dramatischen Theorien in Deutschland im 18. Jahrhundert, vol. 1, Die Dramaturgie der Aufklärung (1730–1780), trans. Wolfgang Proß, Studien zur deutschen Literatur 32 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1972), 55–76; Zelle, Angenehmes Grauen, 154–57, 304–15; Lorenzo Lattanzi, “La fortuna di Du Bos nel Settecento tedesco,” in Russo, Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, 157–69. Authors such as Johann Mattheson or Johann Ulrich von König verifiably knew Du Bos. See Lombard, L’Abbé Du Bos, 354; Martino, Geschichte der dramatischen Theorien, 55; and Bernhard Jahn, Die Sinne und die Oper: Sinnlichkeit und das Problem ihrer Versprachlichung im Musiktheater des nord- und mitteldeutschen Raumes (1680–1740), Theatron 45 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005), 190. ↑
72. Lombard, L’Abbé Du Bos, 542–45. Zbigniew Skowron has counted all the editions of the eighteenth century, including reprints and translations, and arrives at a total of 17, although he does not even count partial translations. Skowron, “Imitation et expression,” 191. ↑
73. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, Oordeelkundige Aanmerkingen over de poëzy, en schilderkunst, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: Loveringh, 1740). The English translation integrated music into the title: Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting and Music, trans. Thomas Nugent (London: Nourse, 1748), vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3. ↑
74. Zelle notes, however, that even when Gottsched’s authority declined, Du Bos still met with reservations in Germany. Zelle, Angenehmes Grauen, 311. ↑
75. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, “Abhandlung von der Nothwendigkeit, beschäfftigt zu seyn, wenn man der verdrüßlichen langen Weile ausweichen will,” Neue Beyträge zum Vergnügen des Verstandes und Witzes (known as Bremer Beiträge) 2, no. 1 (1745), quoted from the second edition (1749): 14–21. ↑
76. Lattanzi, “La fortuna di Du Bos,” 159; Peter-André Alt, Aufklärung: Lehrbuch Germanistik, 3rd ed. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2007), 47–48. ↑
77. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, “Von der Nothwendigkeit sich zu beschäftigen, und dem Vergnügen, das die Bewegungen der Leidenschaften gewähren,” Hannoverisches Magazin 3, no. 85 (1765): 1345–60. ↑
78. Johann Christoph Gottsched, Briefwechsel unter Einschluß des Briefwechsels von Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched, vol. 11, Oktober 1745 – September 1746, ed. Caroline Köhler, Franziska Menzel, Rüdiger Otto, and Michael Schlott (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 488 (July 26, 1746); and vol. 12, Oktober 1746 – Dezember 1747, ed. Caroline Köhler, Franziska Menzel, Rüdiger Otto, and Michael Schlott (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 377 (July 14, 1747) and 474 (September 28, 1747). See also Gabriele Ball, Moralische Küsse: Gottsched als Zeitschriftenherausgeber und literarischer Vermittler, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert: Supplementa 7 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2000), 315–16. ↑
79. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, Des Abts du Bos Ausschweifung von den theatralischen Vorstellungen der Alten, trans. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (Berlin: Voß, 1755). ↑
80. Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, “Von den theatralischen Vorstellungen der Alten. (nach der Uebersetzung des Hrn. M. Leßing.),” Historisch-Kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik 2 (1756): 448–64, 521–41; 3 (1757/58): 80–94, 268–76, 345–56, 435–62; 4 (1758/59): 151–86, 337–56, 498–558; 5 (1760–62): 45–94, 253–62, 327–40. ↑
81. C. Sol Ut., “Schreiben an den Verfasser über die Abhandlung des Du Bos,” Historisch-Kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik 3 (1757/58): 1–17. ↑
82. Du Bos, Kritische Betrachtungen, vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3. ↑
83. For a short biography of Funk, see Wolfgang Mayrhofer, s.v. “Funk, Gottfried Benedict,” in Magdeburger Biographisches Lexikon, last modified August 19, 2004, accessed June 30, 2022. ↑
84. Sven-Aage Jørgensen, Klaus Bohnen, and Per Øhrgaard, Aufklärung, Sturm und Drang, Frühe Klassik, 1740–1789, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart 6 (Munich: Beck, 1990), 243. ↑
85. A similar approach was chosen by Ramler in his Batteux translation. See Leßmann, “Batteux ‘mit beträchtlichen Zusätzen,’” 94–96. ↑
86. The authors chosen by Funk could be characterized as belonging to the Empfindsamkeit or the so-called Anacreontic Enlightenment. Quotes from Klopstock appear particularly frequently. ↑
87. This work functioned as the epitome of sublime as well as sensitive music in the North German musical discourse of the second half of the eighteenth century. See Ingeborg König, Studien zum Libretto des “Tod Jesu” von Karl Wilhelm Ramler und Karl Heinrich Graun, Schriften zur Musik 21 (Munich: Katzbichler, 1972); Laurenz Lütteken, Das Monologische als Denkform in der Musik zwischen 1760 und 1785, Wolfenbütteler Studien zur Aufklärung 24 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998), 371–86; and Herbert Lölkes, Ramlers “Der Tod Jesu” in den Vertonungen von Graun und Telemann: Kontext—Werkgestalt—Rezeption, Marburger Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 8 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999). ↑
88. “Primarily a reasoned and impassioned defense of the opera seria of Johann Adolf Hasse and Carl Heinrich Graun, the book quickly established for its writer a reputation as an authority, not only on questions pertaining to vocal music, but also on music aesthetics in general.” James Harry Mallard, “A Translation of Christian Gottfried Krause’s Von der musikalischen Poesie: With a Critical Essay on his Sources and the Aesthetic Views of his Time” (PhD diss., University of Texas, 1978), 4. On Krause’s aesthetics, see also John Richard Edwards, “Christian Gottfried Krause: Mentor of the First Berlin Song School” (PhD diss., University of Iowa, 1973); Dieter Gutknecht, “Nachdenken über Musik: Christian Gottfried Krauses Von der musikalischen Poesie, 1752,” Händel-Jahrbuch 47 (2001): 65–74; and Rainer Bayreuther, “Ästhetische Wahrnehmung in Christian Gottfried Krauses Von der musikalischen Poesie,” in Anakreontische Aufklärung, ed. Manfred Beetz and Hans-Joachim Kertscher, Hallesche Beiträge zur europäischen Aufklärung 28 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005), 275–86. ↑
89. Joseph Beaujean, “Christian Gottfried Krause: Sein Leben und seine Persönlichkeit im Verhältnis zu den musikalischen Problemen des 18. Jahrhunderts als Ästhetiker und Musiker” (PhD diss., Universität Bonn, 1929), 24; Paul F. Marks, “The Rhetorical Element in Musical Sturm und Drang: Christian Gottfried Krause’s Von der Musikalischen Poesie,” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 2, no. 1 (1971): 59; Gloria Flaherty, Opera in the Development of German Critical Thought, Princeton Legacy Library (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 167–75; Fritz Beinroth, “Ansätze zur Herausbildung ausdrucksästhetischer Positionen und ihre Einflußnahme auf die ‘Berliner Schule,’” in Neue Aspekte zur Musikästhetik und Musikgeschichte im 18. Jahrhundert unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Potsdamer und Berliner Musikkultur, ed. Fritz Beinroth (Potsdam: Wissenschaftlich-Technisches Zentrum der Pädagogischen Hochschule “Karl Liebknecht,” [1984]), 32; and Georgia J. Cowart, “Sense and Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Musical Thought,” Acta Musicologica 56, no. 2 (1984): 259. ↑
90. This concerns especially Karl Wilhelm Ramler, Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Johann Peter Uz, and Ewald Christian von Kleist. See Mallard, “A Translation,” 16–21. ↑
91. The Correspondence of Christian Gottfried Krause: A Music Lover in the Age of Sensibility, ed. Darrell M. Berg (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 84. Original wording: “Die Reflexions sur la Peinture et sur la Poesie haben mich völlig bestärket, daß ich auf rechtem Wege bin und was künftig noch kann geändert werden, das wird nur in näheren Bestimmungen und weiteren Ausführungen bestehen.” Ibid., 85. ↑
92. Briefwechsel zwischen Gleim und Ramler, ed. Carl Schüddekopf, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart 244 (Tübingen: Litterarischer Verein in Stuttgart, 1907), 2:97. Original wording: “Es wäre gut wenn er ein Meisterstück machte, wie du-Bos, von der Mahlerey und Poesie, es ihm vorgethan hat.” ↑
93. Darrell M. Berg, introduction to Berg, Correspondence Christian Gottfried Krause, xviii. ↑
94. Ibid., xxviii. ↑
95. (Christian Gottfried Krause), Lettre à Monsieur le Marquis de B*** sur la différence entre la musique italienne et françoise (Berlin, 1748). ↑
96. The question of knowing whether Italian or French opera is preferable is discussed with reference to the Berlin opera Cinna (1748) by Carl Heinrich Graun. The Marquis d’Argens was a leading figure in Berlin, who worked not only for Frederick’s Prussian Academy but was also involved in the engagement of actors and, at least in one case, opera singers for the court. See Julia Gasper, The Marquis d’Argens: A Philosophical Life (Lanham: Lexington, 2014), 135. ↑
97. This has become evident only recently through the publication of Krause’s letter to Gleim from October 8, 1748, where he explains “that my published marquis is the Marquis d’Argens.” Berg, Correspondence Christian Gottfried Krause, 76. ↑
98. See Gasper, The Marquis d’Argens, as well as several contributions in Der Marquis d’Argens, ed. Hans-Ulrich Seifert and Jean-Loup Seban, Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 103 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004). ↑
99. Christian Gottfried Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie (Berlin: Voß, 1752), 5, 152, 363, 372, 375, 407, 419, 429. ↑
100. Through this analysis of the use of external material in the text, I do not want to convey the impression that Krause’s writing shows traits of plagiarism. The procedure described here only concerns parts of Krause’s text. And, more importantly, erudite writing followed very different standards in the eighteenth century than it does today, especially when it comes to disclosing the use of sources and quotations. The notion of plagiarism may therefore be considered somewhat anachronistic for this period. ↑
101. I have added text highlighting in order to make the similarities between the two texts visible. ↑
102. The assumption that this is an ancient proverb comes from Wilhelm Seidel, “Du Bos, Abbé Jean-Baptiste,” in MGG Online, ed. Laurenz Lütteken (2016), first published 2001, accessed June 30, 2022. The editors of the English Du Bos translation (from where I take the translation of the Latin phrase) more cautiously state that no source beyond Du Bos could have been traced, see Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 338. ↑
103. Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 1:477. ↑
104. Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 372. ↑
105. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 338. ↑
106. Mallard, “A Translation,” 480. ↑
107. Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 2:331. ↑
108. Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 364–65. ↑
109. Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 521–22. ↑
110. Mallard, “A Translation,” 475. ↑
111. In a letter to Gleim from August 3, 1748, Krause mentions the many sources he studies in preparation for his book, including Horace, interestingly in the annotated French edition by André Dacier. See Berg, Correspondence Christian Gottfried Krause, 69–73. ↑
112. Compare, for example, the following passages: Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 14, 17, 36, 46–47, 77, 145, 171–72; and Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 3:103, 3:160–61, 2:378, 1:446, 1:462, 1:393, and 1:277. ↑
113. Mallard, “A Translation,” 225. “Man findet diese Stelle auch im Macrobius.” Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 13. “A quelques termes près ce passage se trouve encore dans Macrobe.” Du Bos, Réflexions critiques, 3:108. ↑
114. Mallard, “A Translation,” 218. ↑
115. Ibid., 219. Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 2. ↑
116. Similar thoughts are expressed when Du Bos describes the origin of poetical verse. See Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 303. ↑
117. See, for example, the wording in Du Bos’s chapter “Of Music Properly Speaking,” in Du Bos, Critical Reflections, 322–30. On this aspect of Du Bos, see also Belinda Cannone, Philosophies de la musique 1752–1789 (Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1990), 35. ↑
118. Mallard, “A Translation,” 247; Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 45. ↑
119. Mallard, “A Translation,” 252; Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 53. ↑
120. Mallard, “A Translation,” 252; Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 53. ↑
121. Mallard, “A Translation,” 252–53. Original wording: “Man darf keinen Lustigen oder Traurigen haben singen hören; man habe nur ein gesundes Ohr, und keinen natürlichen Widerwillen gegen die Musik; so ist es dem Tonkünstler möglich, uns Freude und Traurigkeit einzuflößen.” Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 53–54. ↑
122. Mallard, “A Translation,” 253; Krause, Von der Musikalischen Poesie, 54. ↑
123. Hirschmann, “Empfindsamkeit.” ↑
124. See, for example, the “remodeling of the human body” (“Neumodellierung des menschlichen Körpers”) insightfully described by Albrecht Koschorke, Körperströme und Schriftverkehr: Mediologie des 18. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Fink, 1999), 12. ↑
125. Catherine J. Minter, “Literary Empfindsamkeit and Nervous Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” The Modern Language Review 96, no. 4 (2001): 1016. ↑

Cover image: cover of Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, Kritische Betrachtungen über die Poesie und die Mahlerey, trans. Gottfried Benedict Funk (Copenhagen: Mummische Buchhandlung, 1760), vol. 1.