Raymond Knapp informs the reader that he began his book following an intuition that his pleasure in Haydn was related in a basic way to his pleasure in musicals. Haydn's compositions, like many musicals, offer examples of coexisting fun and seriousness. Knapp's contention is that German Idealism, with its emphasis on inwardness and contemplation, created problems for this composer's later critical reception. Haydn creates ‘sites of joyous interaction’ that create awkwardness for some Haydn scholars (unnamed) because of a friction with German Idealism, which demands that music must strive to be the highest and purest of the arts (a key text being Hanslick's Vom Musikalisch-Schönen, 1854).
In the first chapter, Knapp offers a brief account of such idealistic thought, tracing it back to the exploration of inner life in Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774), and the interest in subjectivity initiated by Kant and developed by Fichte. Musical idealism grew in the 19th century, and it is no coincidence that this occurred when Unterhaltungsmusik was proliferating. Knapp suggests that a crucial moment arrived when Schopenhauer, in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1819, revised 1844) interpreted music as an expression of the Will. By connecting music to the Will, Schopenhauer gave music a kind of content – albeit metaphysical and beyond consciousness. Music was now to be listened to as an object of contemplation, although active engagement was required rather than passive immersion. Schopenhauer declared music a great and magnificent art that powerfully affected the inner being (Die Welt, vol. 1, book 3, §52), and music was soon hailed as the most elevated of the arts, a remarkable change from the low position it held in Hegel's Aesthetics, on account of its inability to expand cognition. German Idealism was soon having to come to terms with German nationalism, but Knapp argues that it successfully accomplished this by idealising the past and by equating ernste Musik with German music.
Knapp explains how idealism affected the 19th-century reception of Bach and Mozart, and the strategies that were adopted to ensure both composers fitted into the idealist framework. Haydn proved more of a challenge, because he appeared to be often, and transparently, an entertaining composer. Knapp describes the idealist appropriation of Haydn as a ‘forced marriage’. Haydn's entertainment value had to be placed second to his ‘pioneering exploration’. Chapter 2 focuses on the composer's witty engagement with musical conventions in his symphonies, and stresses that his eccentricity needs to be always construed as competent. In short, the listener shares the joke. All the same, musical fun sits uneasily with demands for contemplation.
The chapter includes a case study of the ‘Military’ Symphony, in order to illuminate subtle arguments Knapp wishes to make about narrative and tone. Eccentricity in this symphony is found largely in the intrusions of ‘Turkish’ style, whereas competence is located in the ability to assimilate these intrusions. The Janissary element is a reminder of a once severe Ottoman threat (the centenary of the Siege of Vienna was in 1783, 10 years before the symphony's composition); therefore, the way this musical process relates to narrative and tone is crucial to the overall effect and the meanings that may be made of it. The musical narrative might appear on a superficial level as a victory for the ‘Turkish’ style, but this is undercut by the comic tone. Thus, it can only be adequately understood as assimilation, connoting ‘mutual triumph’. The narrative has been based in exaggeration (exaggerated complacency and its exaggerated shattering), and the tone has been that of comedy. Knapp is at one with David Schroeder in viewing Haydn's symphonies as vehicles for ideas of tolerance.
With its inclination towards social pleasures rather than individual contemplation, Haydn's music, in Knapp's opinion, can be placed comfortably alongside entertainment genres, such as operetta. At the same time, he sees Haydn's ‘dynamic of accommodation’ as representative of Aristotelian virtues. In Mozart, there is no expectation for the eccentric to prove competent. He asks us to consider the humour of Ein musikalischer Spass, K. 522, the incompetence of which is there to be recognised. In Haydn's Symphony No. 60, Il distratto, the distraction is also there to be recognised, but it becomes part of a dynamic of assimilation: it first inspires rage from other players in the orchestra, but it then begins to infect them. Knapp points to the significance of the nicknames of Haydn symphonies, which are almost all referential, whereas Mozart symphonies carry acquired titles, such as the Prague or Jupiter.
Chapter 3 examines the ‘inside–outside dynamic’ of the string quartet. The idea that this genre presents something akin to a conversation among the players owes much, of course, to Haydn. However, the audience, in appreciation its musical results, hears the musical interaction from both the inside and the outside. Knapp looks to Haydn's Op. 64 set for examples, but his neatest instance of an insider-outsider dynamic occurs in the finale of the ‘Joke’ quartet, Op. 33, No. 2. Here, the players know the ‘punch line’ but the first-time listener does not. Knapp's work treads new ground, while complementing the work of Haydn scholars such as Mark Bonds, Elaine Sisman, David Schroeder, James Webster and Gretchen Wheelock (all of whom he acknowledges).
It comes as something of a shock to find blackface minstrelsy and camp are the topics of the chapter that follows, but Knapp argues that both were driven by the ‘same spirit of rebellion’, and both relate to a ‘New World rejection of the musical archetypes imposed by German Idealism’. It might be added that blackface minstrelsy contributes usefully to the arguments advanced in this chapter and circumvents the difficulties of discussing camp in the 1840s and 1850s, when minstrelsy rose to prominence as a hugely successful form of musical entertainment. The claim that music ‘as an elevated art’ was one of the targets of minstrel rebellion is a fair one to make, but the link with German Idealism remains a little weak, given that minstrels were more drawn to parodies of Italian opera than Wagner or German concert music. Nevertheless, the discussion proves insightful as it moves from the troupes to the minstrel elements in Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia, Limited (1893) to blackface in Hollywood early sound film.
Film glides smoothly into the discussion of camp, via its elements of exaggeration and stylisation, and Knapp (unlike Sontag) embraces camp's intentional as well as unintentional modes. It is important to his argument that camp can be actively rebellious and not confined, as is unintentional camp, to the way it is perceived by another person. Knapp is interested in understanding how camp evolved, especially in its developing an antagonism towards ‘earnestness’ that does not lose sight of what is serious. More than once in this section, Knapp quotes Richard Dyer's observation (Dyer Reference Dyer1986, p. 182): ‘It is in the recognition of illusion that camp finds reality’.
It is no surprise to find Oscar Wilde playing a significant role in the account of the development of camp sensibilities, but Knapp also brings in Gilbert and Sullivan, especially with regard to the character of Bunthorne in Patience, who is often seen as a parody of Wilde (although Carolyn Williams (Reference Williams2011) makes the reverse case, that of Wilde's indebtedness to Bunthorne). The succeeding discussion of ‘pirate camp’, with reference to another familiar Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, mixes wit and perceptive comment (especially on Sullivan's use of rhythm). Further discussion of camp on Broadway and in the movies follows, offering additional illustration of the ‘aesthetic scepticism’ of camp and, in particularly, scepticism about elevated seriousness.
It is Chapter 5 that will prove most contentious to popular music scholars. It begins with a lengthy argument about the way the concept of ‘authenticity’ has been applied to various forms of popular music. The key words, here, are ‘has been’. Knapp is correct to point out that assertions about ‘authenticity’ increased in the 1960s, but the case for ‘authenticity’ began to fall apart in the 1980s and 1990s. This was happening in both popular music reception and theory. The ‘serious’ popular music consumer was no longer so convinced that punk had been the real thing but ABBA had not, or that Springsteen was genuine and Madonna not. Popular music scholars, such as Dave Laing, Allan Moore and Phil Tagg, were equally suspicious of ‘authenticity’ as poststructuralist theory took an ever-stronger hold on criticism. Camp, of course, challenges some basic premises of ‘authenticity’, and in order to shift to the camp perspective, Knapp no doubt felt it necessary to remove an awkward barrier. However, to many who read the present journal, it may seem as if a lot of energy has been expended in knocking down an already discredited concept.
The final chapter proposes that the camp aesthetic has a larger history than has been researched hitherto. To encourage further effort, Knapp offers a thoughtful exploration of the ‘underlying aesthetic of high camp’. It makes invaluable reading for those interested in employing a camp theoretical model in their research. Knapp grounds his theorising in a critical analysis of the musical Springtime for Hitler in Mel Brooks's film The Producers (1967). It illustrates how a camp aesthetic can engage with problematic content. One reason camp flourishes in theatrical performance is because it involves a social dynamic, and this leads back effortlessly to the author's earlier thoughts on Haydn's music.
In naming certain Gilbert and Sullivan operettas as representing a ‘tipping point’ when spoof transforms into camp, Knapp traces the camp sensibility back to the 1880s. He makes no claim that Haydn is part of a history of camp, only that his music shares much of the aesthetic of high camp. He concludes by presenting his thoughts on ‘bridging persistent dualities’, the most persistent in the past 200 years being that between ernste Musik and leichte Musik. He notes that camp loves to position itself ‘on the louche side’ of whatever fences exist and to indulge in ‘border skirmishes’. It may be too optimistic, however, to expect any day soon that ‘campy intrusions’ will open up the concert hall to ‘less religiously regulated experiences’. On the other hand, I think Knapp is too pessimistic about the lack of scholars who are prepared to join Richard Dyer and Mitchell Morris in attacking the stigma attached to categories such as ‘entertainment’ and ‘camp’. Not only has Knapp done so himself, but musicologists Stan Hawkins and Freya Jarman have been pursuing this course for many years, and that is to say nothing of the related scholarship that has emerged in the present decade.
I recommend Raymond Knapp's book strongly; it is provocative, stimulating and overflowing in original and insightful argument. He moves the study of Haydn in a new direction, while developing new ways of understanding how idealistic perspectives on music have shaped the values attached to different forms of music-making. In advancing a camp aesthetic, he offers an alternative means of understanding music and its social dynamics.
