Carl Dahlhaus and the "Ideal Type"

Author(s): Philip Gossett

Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Summer, 1989), pp. 49-56
Published by: University of California Press
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Viewpoint
CarlDahlhaus and the "IdealType"
PHILIPGOSSETT
The statement that CarlDahlhaus exercises his
encyclopedic activities as aesthetician, critic,
editor, historian, and theorist from a position
just slightly west of the Berlinwall is more than
a claim about geography.Both implicit and ex-
plicit through much of his published writings is
the goal of reconciling (dare one say dialecti-
cally?)a music history so focused on the "rubble
of facts" (the phrase is his)' that it fails to in-
volve itself with the process of concept forma-
tion, and the equally pernicious approachthat
considers the individual work of art little more
than the manifestation of concepts.
The last section of one of Dahlhaus's most
provocative essays, "Issues in Composition,"
addresses both constituencies. Looking West,
he perceives a fear of "making broadgeneraliza-
tions" and asserts that "the writing of any kind
of history would be severely impeded if meth-
19th-Century Music XIII/1 (Summer 1989). ? by the Re-
gents of the University of California.
An earlier version of this study was read at the national
meeting of the American Musicological Society in Cleve-
land in November 1986. It was conceived as a contribution
to the discussion of methodology in musical scholarship
largelygeneratedby ProfessorDahlhaus'swork. Thereis no
more fitting way to honorhis achievement than by continu-
ing to engageourselves with these issues. But his deathrobs
us of contemporarymusicology's most provocativevoice.
1Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in
the Music of the Later Nineteenth Century [1974], trans.
Mary Whittall (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980), p. 38
(henceforth,BRM).
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ods which have a footing in the empirical but
venture beyond its frontiers are to be con-
demned on principle" (BRM,pp. 75-76). Look-
ing East,he accepts the notion that "ahistory of
music which examines the subject primarily
from the standpoint of compositional issues is
one-sided and requires augmentation," but in-
sists that "the assumption that the context of
musical works is always society as a whole is an
exaggeration, dogmatic in origin" (BRM, p. 77).2
The historiographical principle through
which this reconciliation might be effected, a
principle to which Dahlhaus returns again and
again, is the so-called "ideal type." In the con-
clusion to his Realism in Nineteenth-Century
Music, he offers the following definition:
An 'idealtype,'briefly,is a hypotheticalconstruction
in whicha historianassemblesa numberof phenom-
2Thegulf that continues to exist between EasternandWest-
ern scholars can be measured by opposing reviews of
Dahlhaus's Nineteenth-Century Music [1980], trans. J.
BradfordRobinson(Berkeleyand LosAngeles, 1989),hence-
forth NCM. ForDouglas Johnson(Journalof the American
Musicological Society 36 [1983],532-43), one of the book's
strengths is the "attention paid to music that was closely
boundto social activity" (p.537),including "Trivialmusik."
GeorgKnepler("Uberdie NiutzlichkeitmarxistischerKate-
gorien fiir die Musikhistoriographie:Reflexionen anlaiflich
des Erscheinens von Carl Dahlhaus' Die Musik des 19.
Jahrhunderts,"Beitrdgezur Musikwissenschaft 24 [1982],
31-42), on the other hand, takes a dim view both of the way
this concept is defined by Dahlhaus and of the limited role
music that is not "highart"plays in his history (p.32).
49
 19TH enawhich in historicalrealityareobservedhaphaz-
CENTURY
MUSIC ardlyandalwaysin differentcombinations,andre-
lates and comparesthem to each otherin orderto
bringout the connectionbetweenthem.3
According to Dahlhaus, the theoretical model
"Realism in Nineteenth-Century Music" offers
a way of abstracting results from individual
analyses, allowing the historian to understand
and interpret the presence or absence of single
details as part of a largerfunctional nexus. And
Dahlhaus differentiates quite rightly between
"normative"concepts and "ideal types."
What Charles Rosen defines as "The Classi-
cal Style" corresponds essentially to Dahl-
haus's notion of an "ideal type," and Rosen's
language is similar to that of Dahlhaus: "It is a
fiction, an attempt to create order, a construc-
tion that enables us to interpret the change in
the musical language."4 Just as Dahlhaus
affirms that the characteristics grouped under
the heading of a single "ideal type" need not be
present in all works of a period, or be found to
the same degree even in the works he chooses
for examination (his "facts" of music history),5
so too Rosen seeks to avoid by his formulation
"the difficulties of the 'anonymous' period
style, which fails to distinguish between paint-
ing and wallpaper or between music and com-
mercial backgroundnoises for dinner."Histori-
cal writing based on the concept of the "ideal
type," in short, must not be confused with style
analysis that seeks, in the words of JanLaRue,
to identify "the predominant choices of ele-
ments and procedures a composer makes" and
to generalize from them in order to identify
"common characteristics that may individual-
ize a whole school or chronologicalperiod."6An
"ideal type" is not an "average."
Dahlhaus acknowledges the writings of the
sociologist Max Weberas the source for his con-
3Realismin Nineteenth-CenturyMusic [1982],trans.Mary
Whittall (Cambridge,1985),p. 121 (henceforthRNM).Inhis
review of this volume, ChristopherHatch rightly asserts
that the paragraphsin which Dahlhausfinally sets forththis
concept "encapsulatethe theretoforeunstatedburdenof the
whole book" (this journal 10 [1986], 188).
4The Classical Style (New York, 1972),p. 22.
5Foundationsof Music History [1976],trans. J.B. Robinson
(Cambridge,1983),pp. 33-43 (henceforthFMH).
6Guidelinesfor Style Analysis (New York, 1970),p. ix.
50
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ception of the "ideal type," and he cites in par-
ticular a famous essay by Weberentitled " 'Ob-
jectivity' in Social Science and Social Policy."
Written in 1904, on the occasion of Weber'sas-
suming the coeditorship of the Archiv ffir So-
zialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, it is availa-
ble in an English translation by EdwardA. Shils
and Henry A. Finch.7 Before we examine the
ways in which Dahlhaus invokes the notion of
"ideal types," we need to reconstruct Weber's
motivation in advancing this historiographical
approach,as well as the cautions he offers those
who employ it.8
II
Following the tenets of nineteenth-century
positivism, many social scientists adoptedatti-
tudes stemming from the then prevailingbelief
about the nature of knowledge in the natural
sciences. According to this view, the natural
sciences seek to orderempirical reality analyti-
cally so as to arriveat universally valid, "objec-
tive" truths. Weber does not deny that some
such knowledge is possible in the social sci-
ences, but he carefully circumscribesits nature,
as we shall see. In his own words, "a social sci-
ence journal . . to the extent that it is scientific
should be a place where those truths are sought,
which ... can claim, even for a Chinese, the va-
lidity appropriateto an analysis of empirical re-
ality" (OSS, p. 59). (He is here pursuing an ex-
ample in which "a Chinese" represents an
observer with different cultural values.) We
hardlyneed to wait for Thomas Kuhn'sanalysis
concerning the development of scientific
knowledge for a clear awareness that the ex-
treme positivist approachwas as little valid for
7Weber'soriginal essay is printed in his Gesammelte Auf-
siatzezur Wissenschaftslehre,ed. JohannesWinckelmann
(2nd edn. Tilbingen, 1951), pp. 146-214. The translation
forms part of a collection of Weber's essays entitled The
Methodology of the Social Sciences (New York, 1949),pp.
59-112 (henceforthOSS).
8My own understanding of the issues has been greatly
helped by Susan Hekman's, Weber, the Ideal Type, and
ContemporarySocial Theory(Notre Dame, 1983).I wish to
thank ProfessorDonald L. Levine of the University of Chi-
cago for clarifyingseveralpoints in Weber'sformulation,as
well as for his sympathetic readingof an earlierversion of
this essay. Thoughtful readings from Joseph Kermanand
Ruth Solie were also extremely helpful.
the natural sciences as for the social sciences.9
Weber himself remarks: "even the knowledge
of the most certain proposition of our theoreti-
cal sciences-e.g., the exact natural sciences or
like the cultivation and refine-
mathematics, is,
ment of the conscience, a product of culture"
(OSS, p. 55).
But Weber's concept of the "ideal type" is
less a reaction to positivism itself than to the
challenge to positivism that came with the
mode of historical thought known as "Verste-
hen." Throughout its various manifestations in
the work of writers such as Dilthey, Rickert,
and Windelband, "Verstehen" sees the histo-
rian as a subjective agent seeking to understand
the past by establishing an "imaginary dialogue
... with historical agents in an effort to dis-
cover," in Dahlhaus's words, "their aims and
motives" (FMH, p. 72). As such, it emphasizes
the "subjectivity" of historical knowledge at
the expense of the "objective" knowledge,
through framing laws, to which positivist
thought aspired. Raising the individual "subjec-
tive" to the group "intersubjective" (both in
terms of the historian in relation to other histo-
rians and historical agents in relation to one an-
other) provides a more broadly based concept,
but does not fundamentally alter the nature of
the intellectual endeavor.
It was in order to find a methodological mid-
dle ground between these extremes that Weber
introduced the concept of the "ideal type." He
sought to define the nature of the "subjective"
activity of the social scientist in a way that nev-
ertheless preserved a place for the objective
evaluation of data. According to Weber, every
historical enterprise initiates with "subjective"
considerations: "the very recognition of the ex-
istence of a scientific problem coincides, per-
sonally, with the possession of specifically ori-
ented motives and values" (OSS, p. 61). Just as
the questions we ask reflect our individual mo-
tives and values, so too does the choice of the
events we consider:
The quality of an event as a "socio-economic" event
is not something which it possesses "objectively."It
is ratherconditioned by the orientation of our cogni-
tive interest, as it arises from the specific cultural
9TheStructureof Scientific Revolutions (Chicago,1962).
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significance which we attribute to the particular VIEWPOINT
event in a given case (OSS,p. 64).
When Dahlhaus, in answer to the question
"What is a fact of music history?," responds
that "facts [are] selected on the basis of particu-
lar interests, and [rise] from the status of mere
source material to that of historical fact solely
by virtue of a conceptual system of the histo-
rian's own making" (FMH, p. 42), he is simply
restating Weber's proposition.
According to Weber, the social scientist or
historian, from his subjective viewpoint, em-
ploys conceptual patterns against which to un-
derstand the elements of reality he has selected.
These conceptual patterns are defined as "ideal
types":
An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentua-
tion [einseitige Steigerung]of one or more points of
view and by the synthesis of a greatmany diffuse, dis-
crete, more or less present and occasionally absent
concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged
according to those one-sidedly emphasized view-
points into a unified analytical construct. In its con-
ceptual purity, this mental construct cannot be
found empirically anywhere in reality. It is a utopia.
Historical research faces the task of determining in
each individual case, the extent to which this ideal-
construct approximates to or diverges from reality
(OSS,p. 90).
For Weber, the same historical phenomena can
be described by a multiplicity of ideal types. As
he puts it:
Those phenomena which interest us as cultural phe-
nomena are interesting to us with respect to very dif-
ferent kinds of evaluative ideas to which we relate
them. Inasmuch as the "points of view" from which
they can become significant for us are very diverse,
the most varied criteria can be applied to the selec-
tion of the traits which are to enter into the construc-
tion of an ideal-typical view of a particularculture
(OSS,p. 91).
"Ideal types," for Weber, then, are essentially
heuristic devices, "primarily analytical instru-
ments for the intellectual mastery of empirical
data" (OSS, p. 106).
Where, in this scheme, does the "objectivity"
of the social sciences lie? Precisely in the mea-
surement of empirical data against the ideal
types. However subjective the choice of ideal
51
 19TH types, however subjective the choice of "histor-
CENTURY ical facts," the extent to which the latter are ap-
MUSIC
propriately measured by the former is subject to
verification. Weber concludes, finally, that:
The "objectivity" of the social sciences depends ...
on the fact that the empirical data are always related
to those evaluative ideas which alone make them
worth knowing and the significance of the empirical
datais derivedfrom these evaluative ideas. But these
datacan never become the foundationfor the empiri-
cally impossible proof of the validity of the evalua-
tive ideas (OSS,p. 111).
I have summarized Weber's discussion at
length because an understanding of his argu-
ment helps us to perceive certain significant
problems both in Dahlhaus's use of the term
"ideal type" and in the way he relates "empiri-
cal reality" to "concepts." Many of these prob-
lems were already anticipated by Weber, who
recognized fully the dangers inherent in the
epistemological model he was recommending
for research in the social sciences. Indeed, in
one sense his entire essay can be understood as a
demonstration that "all specifically Marxian
'laws' and developmental constructs--insofar
as they are theoretically sound-are ideal
types." For Weber, Marxist concepts and hy-
potheses are extraordinarily significant as heu-
ristic devices for the "assessment of reality";
they become pernicious only when they are
thought to be "empirically valid" (OSS, p. 103).
The potential dangers Weber perceived can
be summarized as a series of cautions to histo-
rians:
(1) One must not confuse theory and history by be-
lieving that theoretical constructs are the "true"
content of historical reality.
(2) One must not use these constructs as a procrus-
tean bed into which history is to be forced,or,put an-
other way, one must not do violence to reality in or-
der to prove the validity of a construct.
(3) One must not confuse an "idea"as it may appear
in historical documents pertainingto an epoch with
the theoretical construct of an "ideal type," even if
the same term is used for both.
(4)One must exercise what Webercalls "the elemen-
tary duty of scientific self-control" (OSS, p. 98) by
sharply distinguishing between the analysis of his-
torical data comparatively,using ideal types, and the
imposition of value judgements about those data on
the basis of extraneous ideals.
52
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While these dangers may seem evident, Weber
recognized how difficult they might be to avoid
in practice. They are certainly worth bearing in
mind as we examine several instances of how
Dahlhaus uses the concept of the ideal type.
III
In his essay on "neo-romanticism," which
opens the collection Between Romanticism
and Modernism, Dahlhaus places the term in
quotation marks in his title and in its first ap-
pearances in the text, suggesting its status as a
historical construct. As his argument pro-
gresses, however, he gradually eliminates these
quotation marks, a stylistic maneuver that sub-
tly grants the term ever increasing stature. For
Dahlhaus, the musical "neo-romanticism" of
the second half of the nineteenth century is "ro-
mantic art in an unromantic, positivist age"
(BRM, p. 14), and he uses the term to define this
period in the history of music. In the same
breath, he affirms that "neither realism nor the
spirit of the early years (the Griinderjahre) of
the new German empire proclaimed in 1871,
neither naturalism nor symbolism had any ef-
fect on the major musical works of the second
half of the nineteenth century, with a few ex-
ceptions that did not influence style in general"
(BRM, p. 6).
Dahlhaus's treatment of "neo-romanticism"
in his book on Realism in Nineteenth-Century
Music is similar, but now the term "realism" is
rehabilitated, with the aid of Max Weber. "Real-
ism" turns out to be an "ideal type," a hypothet-
ical construct in the Weberian sense, which can
be used to relate and compare individual charac-
teristics found in a diverse set of historical
"facts" (in this case, "works"), and which pro-
vides a significant and functional nexus
through which to understand and interpret the
individual details (RNM, pp. 120-23). It is, as
Weber himself would argue, the synthesis of a
great many diffuse and discrete individual phe-
nomena, not all of which need be present at
once, arranged according to a one-sidedly em-
phasized viewpoint into a unified analytical
construct.
The problem is not Dahlhaus's use of the
term "ideal type" to refer to the construct "real-
ism"; rather it is his failure to recognize that
"neo-romanticism" is no less an ideal type, in
Weber's sense, than is "realism." Nor is it
enough to cover one's flank by proclaiming,
rightly, that: "Definitions of a period in the his-
tory of music or any of the other arts are never
completely independent of value judgments"
(BRM, p. 6). In effect, Dahlhaus grants the status
of historical truth (neo-romanticism, without
its cautionary quotation marks) to what he val-
ues most (in this case, a concept largely derived
from a consideration of some of the music of
Wagner and Liszt), while he explains as mani-
festations of an "ideal type" ("realism") works
he considers peripheral (in this case, restricting
ourselves to the period 1850-90, a concept that
seeks to join together aspects of the music of
Berlioz, Verdi, Bizet, and Mussorgsky). But such
a methodological distinction is antithetical to
Weber's meaning. It also reveals German ethno-
centricity masquerading as value judgement.
In his Analysis and Value Judgment, Dahl-
haus employs the expression "ideal type" twice
to refer to sonata form.'1 The first reference oc-
curs in the chapter entitled "Principles of
Form" and follows on a discussion of the ideas
of Adolf Bernhard Marx, for whom, according to
Dahlhaus, "[t]he individual work appeared as
the sample of a formal type, as the partial and
one-sided realization of a formal idea fully and
comprehensively realized only by the whole
history of a form" (AVJ,pp. 45-46). He sets this
dynamic vision of form against what he views
as the schematic approach of recent critics (he is
writing in 1970), who ignore general formal
principles in their pursuit of the individual. And
to underline his point, he writes:
The general concept or ideal type [Allgemeinbegriff
oder Idealtypus] of a musical form (sonata or fugue),
which graduallyfaded to a schema in the late nine-
teenth century and eventually degeneratedto a label,
still possessed historical substance around 1800. It
was musically real (AVJ,p. 46).
Later in the book, discussing Schoenberg's
approach to sonata form in his Third String
Quartet, Dahlhaus comments:
The thesis that the median compromise between
harmonic-tonal and thematic-motivic foundation
provides the ideal type [Idealtypus] of sonata form
1oAnalysisand Value Judgment [1970], trans. Siegmund
Levarie(New York, 1983),henceforthAVJ.
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rests on a dogmatic preference for classicism: the VIEWPOINT
earlydevelopmental stage of the form,in which tonal
orderis decisive, would appearas a rudimentaryon-
set; the late stage, in which thematic elaborationpre-
dominates, as decay (AVJ,p. 84).
Part of our difficulty in reconciling the two
statements lies in the cross-purposes to which
the term "ideal type" is being put.
In the first case, Dahlhaus considers the
"ideal type" musically real around 1800 be-
cause it is an idea present in history that also
functions as a historical fact-that is, it has
"the power to intervene positively in historical
developments" (BRM, p. 79). In the second case,
Dahlhaus decries as a dogmatic preference for
classicism the definition of sonata form as an
"ideal type" mediating between a harmonic-
tonal and thematic-motivic foundation. In both
cases, he falls directly into the dangers against
which Weber cautioned.
The first statement fails to differentiate satis-
factorily between a theoretical construct and
historical reality. There is no denying that some
contemporary concept of sonata form had his-
torical substance around 1800, but this concept
must not be confused with the theoretical con-
struct, the heuristic device that an "ideal type"
of sonata form represents to a historian. In fact,
Dahlhaus commits an error he recognizes in
other circumstances when he equates the Allge-
meinbegriff and the Idealtypus of sonata form,
confusing the general view of the form at a given
historical moment with a Weberian ideal type.
The second statement criticizes a particular
formulation of the "ideal type" of sonata form
as a "dogmatic preference for classicism." But
here Dahlhaus fails to observe Weber's precise
caution: the "ideal type" as a theoretical con-
struct is always a one-sided accentuation, and
never a presuppositionless copy of objective
facts. To quote Weber, substituting "sonata
form" for his "Christianity":
All expositions ... of the "essence" of sonata form
are ideal types enjoying only a necessarily very rela-
tive and problematicvalidity when they areintended
to be regardedas the historical portrayalof empiri-
cally existing facts.
They serve as "conceptual instruments for
comparison with and the measurement of real-
ity" (OSS, p. 97).
53
19TH This methodological confusion has direct
CENTURY
MUSIC consequences for Dahlhaus's analysis of the
finale of the Schubert C-Minor Piano Sonata in
Analysis and Value Judgment (pp. 73-75).
Again and again he sees as problematic certain
elements in Schubert's design--a particular use
of variation technique in a sonata movement, a
factual difference from Beethoven's formal pro-
cedures, the presentation of what he takes to be
a third theme after the initial two thematic and
tonal groups, and the construction of themes in
a way he considers more typical of a rondo than
a sonata. But in every case his point of reference
is an "ideal type" of sonata form defined in
terms of Beethoven. This is a perfectly accept-
able procedure, as long as it is done consciously:
it allows us to measure a group of works (the
late piano sonatas of Schubert) against an "ideal
type" that, through its one-sided accentuation
of certain features (those that characterize the
piano works of Beethoven's major middle per-
iod works), reveals relationships between his-
torical facts.
What is not acceptable is a dogmatic defini-
tion of the form of Schubert's sonata that re-
sults from its failure to correspond to this un-
acknowledged "ideal type": "The finale is
not an amputated rondo tending toward a pot-
pourri but a special case of sonata-rondo, aes-
thetically motivated down to the smallest de-
tail" (AVJ, p. 75). Were it not for Dahlhaus's
conceptual model, one would have hardly imag-
ined that the finale was in any sense an "ampu-
tated rondo," or that its formal procedures were
a "special case" of elements in Beethoven's so-
nata designs. Indeed, "Schubert's innovations
in sonata forms," to quote Charles Rosen, "are
less extensions of classical style than com-
pletely new inventions, which lead to a genu-
inely new style--at least one that cannot easily
be subsumed in classical terms."" (Dahlhaus
himself in Nineteenth-Century Music attempts
just such a definition of the form of the first
movement of the Unfinished Symphony [pp.
153-54].) It would be equally legitimate to de-
vise an "ideal type" for sonata form that seeks,
"Sonata Forms(rev.edn. New York, 1988),p. 360.
54
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one sidedly, to draw into a functional nexus cer-
tain elements of Beethoven's, Schubert's, and
Schumann's procedures. With respect to such
an "ideal type," the Schubert movement takes
on a very different meaning, its expansive me-
lodic groups and the lyrical, nonmodulatory
opening of its development section providing a
perspective from which to view the procedures
of earlier and later composers. None of these al-
ternative meanings is, in Weber's terms, true:
they reflect the relationship between observ-
able phenomena and differing "ideal types";
each provides new aspects of significance.
IV
Particularly revealing is Dahlhaus's treat-
ment of Rossini operas and Schubert songs in
Nineteenth-Century Music. In considering the
nature of Schubert's aesthetic of the song,
he defines what could be considered (and what
he calls) an "ideal type," one that mediates be-
tween the two extreme categories of through-
composed song and strophic song. Such an
"ideal type" could certainly be used as a heuris-
tic device for examining a wide range of actual
songs from a number of different viewpoints:
indeed, most writings on the nineteenth-cen-
tury Lied explicitly or implicitly adopt just this
methodology.
And yet, in the case of the Schubert Lieder,
Dahlhaus rejects the model. He does so because
he considers it to lead to a superficial analysis:
However, it is not enough to construct a dialectical
evolution culminating in "the" lied [die in einem
Idealtypus "des Liedes" terminiert]if we wish to do
justice to an art that consists less in transformations
of an ideal form-of what we might call the mid-
point of the formalinventory- than in ever-different
answers to a formal problem that will not admit a
general paradigmaticsolution. True, in principle we
could proceedfrom an ideal form suspendedbetween
varied strophic song and cyclic design, taking the
through-composedand the strophic song as extreme,
peripheralforms that are justifiable only under cer-
tain conditions. However, this would remaina super-
ficial analytical approachto Schubert'ssongs, which
are easier to understand as a configuration of forms
rather than as proceeding from a single pattern. For
the problemthat Schubertfacedwas to find ever-new
ways of striking a balance between criteria and pos-
tulates that sometimes complement one another,
and yet at other times are mutually exclusive and
contradictory.And only the success of the individual
workstandsas proofthata balancehas indeedbeen
struck (NCM,p. 99).
As in the case of "neo-romanticism,"Dahlhaus
here misunderstands and distrusts his own
methodology: he confuses the "ideal type," a
hypothetical construct used to gain further
knowledge, with a superficial analysis of indi-
vidual works. But this is completely at odds
with Weber's carefully defined concept, which
never pretends to account completely for his-
torical phenomena, let alone aesthetic ones.
Mired in his methodological confusion and con-
vinced of the artistic value of Schubert's art,
Dahlhaus shies away from the Weberianmodel.
No such reluctance affects his discussion of
Rossini, even though he has provideda fuller ac-
count than any other modern historian of Ros-
sini's place in music history. But his rehabilita-
tion of Rossini has a particulargoal: to provide
an alternative side of a "stylistic duality" with
Beethoven (NCM, pp. 8-15). According to
Dahlhaus, if Beethoven's music consists of invi-
olable texts, Rossini's scores are merely pro-
posals for a performance,and, strictly speaking,
no version of a Rossini opera can be considered
"authentic." If Beethoven's music has meaning
that can be decoded through interpretation, the
magic of Rossini's music requires no under-
standing. If in Beethoven musical form is a proc-
ess through which themes gain their meaning,
in Rossini musical themes have a meaning in
themselves, and form is only a means to bring
them forward.
Weberwarns against doing violence to reality
in order to prove the validity of a construct.
Though this is not the place to enter into a de-
tailed critique of Dahlhaus's views about Ros-
sini, it must be said that againand againhe com-
mits precisely this error.He mistakes Rossini's
flexible approach to operatic performance as
proof of the nonexistence of "authentic" texts,
failing to appreciate the limits within which
Rossini normally allowed variations.12When
12There are also generic differencesthat need to be brought
into consideration.Our view of Beethoven would be differ-
ent indeed if his attitude toward variation in performance
were to be measured by that shining example of a stable
text, Leonore/Fidelio.
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discussing the nature of Rossini's literary VIEWPOINT
sources, in orderto demonstrate the composer's
"lofty disregard of any distinctions between
'classical' and 'romantic' subjects" (NCM, p.
63), he generalizes from highly selective exam-
ples, of which several arein any case incorrect.'3
His analysis of Rossinian formal procedures
grows from a single example-a highly prob-
lematic trio from The Siege of Corinth. Not
only does he misread the form in many subtle
(and not-so-subtle) ways,14 he also fails to un-
derstandthat this piece is an enormous simpli-
fication of one of Rossini's most extraordinary
single compositions, the so-called "Terzet-
tone" (a big, fat trio) of Maometto II. This com-
position lasts more than twenty-five minutes
and pushes the formal structures of Italian op-
era almost to the limits of intelligibility. ' Any
discussion of Rossini that truly valued his mu-
sic would look toward those instances that
13Thelibretto of Rossini's Tancredihas nothing whatsoever
to do with Ariosto, but is derivedfrom a tragedyby Voltaire;
Bianca e Falliero comes not from a play by Manzoni (which
had not yet been written),but from the neoclassical tragedy
by Antoine-Vincent Arnault, Blanche et Montcassin. And
the statement that "Rossini did not bother with local color
until Guillaume Tell in 1829"could only be madeby some-
one who has never looked seriously at Rossini's Neapolitan
operas,especially La donna del lago (1819).
14Hisdiscussion of its cabaletta,for example, refersto a "bi-
nary form (ABCABC)without modulation," but this does
not correspondat all to Rossini's structure,which consists
of: a theme for Pamyraand an ensemble crescendo(allin the
tonic); a modulatorytransitionalsection (endingon V of vi),
followed by a shortreturnto the tonic; a repeatof the theme
and the crescendo; and concluding cadences in the tonic
(only generically related to the material of the transitional
section). Worse is Dahlhaus's mention of the existence in
Rossini's works of an alternative cabaletta structure,with
"arudimentary'developmental'section anda transposition
of the second theme from dominant to tonic" (NCM,p. 62).
The only such example I know is Rossini'sparody of sonata
form in Bartolo'saria in act I of I1 barbieredi Siviglia. Fi-
nally, Dahlhaus's statement that "the substanceof his form
resides in its patternof dynamics"fails utterly to appreciate
the melodic power of Rossini's lyrical forms. For a correc-
tive view, see Scott L. Balthazar,"Rossini and the Develop-
ment of the Mid-Century Lyric Form" in Journal of the
American Musicological Society 41 (1988), 102-25.
15MaomettoII, written in 1820 at the height of Rossini'sNe-
apolitanperiod,was a work the composerparticularlytrea-
sured. After its initial failure to please the Neapolitan pub-
lic, he revisedit forVenice in 1823 (whereits fate was hardly
more encouraging),then broughtit backto launchhis career
at the ParisOpera(1826).The revisions were compromises
with the limitations and expectations of contemporaryau-
diences.
55
 19TH demonstrate the goals to which the composer
CENTURY
MUSIC aspired,even if he could not always attain them.
That is, after all, precisely what Dahlhaus does
in the case of Schubert.
A methodology based on "ideal types," of
course, cannot be expected to provide even-
handed justice to individual composers or
works of art: as Weber asserts clearly, "ideal
types" are by definition one-sided. Yet Dahl-
haus's protestations that an analysis of Schu-
bert's songs using "ideal types" must necessar-
ily be superficial, while he accepts precisely
such a superficial penetration into Rossini's
music in order to limit the historical facts to
those favoring his construct of the "duality of
style," suggests a lack of that "duty of scientific
self-control" that Weberdemanded.
In short, though Dahlhaus invokes contin-
ually Max Weber's concept of the "ideal type,"
he restricts the term to certain constructs while
believing that other constructs, methodologi-
cally indistinguishable from the first group,are
56
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true. He confuses the role of a theoretical con-
struct with a historical idea. And he refuses to
apply the methodology to certain works, as if it
would somehow degradetheir aesthetic worth.
The value judgements that enter into these
choices are, more often than not, largely the
result of national bias. None of this is meant to
deny the brilliance of many of Dahlhaus's for-
mulations. We have all learned enormously
from these formulations, whether we accept
them at face value or are challenged by them to
new formulations of our own. But precisely be-
cause they are so challenging, scholars have a
particular duty to examine their underlying
methodology with great care. Weber's "ideal
types," or one of their contemporaryreinterpre-
tations, may well continue to prove useful to
music historians today, but their utility will de-
pend on our employing them with a keener
awareness of their potential dangers than is
found in the writings of
CarlDahlhaus. .P'-.