Level of Education of Students Involved

Undergraduate

Faculty Sponsor

Joseph Bognar

College

Arts and Sciences

Discipline(s)

Music History

Presentation Type

Oral Presentation

Symposium Date

Spring 4-25-2024

Abstract

The poet Heinrich Heine and the composer Franz Schubert had faced persecution in their social and cultural contexts for aspects of their identity. Heine grew up during the Napoleonic Wars in Germany, a very turbulent time and environment for Jewish people. This led to conflicting feelings about his own faith, providing the inspiration to write the poem Der Doppelgänger. Heine wrote this poem which incorporated many Jewish undertones, because it was purposely written from a Jewish perspective. Later on, Schubert would use Heine’s Der Doppelgänger as part of his song cycle titled Schwanengesang. Schubert utilizes unique musical elements to illustrate Heine’s themes, such as the consistent use of the note F# and a double articulation. Notable musicologists David Bretherton and David Løberg Code are key figures in analyzing the connections built through these musical elements. Though Schubert composed compositions including Hebrew and texts from the Jewish tradition, there is speculation that he did not compose Der Doppelgänger with Heine’s original intentions in mind. Schubert manifested his own life in two different avenues by being a successful composer and a homosexual, which was highly frowned upon in Vienna in the 19th century. This paper will utilize a musical, literary, and historical framework to analyze the events in Schubert and Heine’s life, as well as conditions of life in Germany and Vienna during their lifetimes, to evaluate what meanings each artist intended in their individual settings of Der Doppelgänger.

Biographical Information about Author(s)

Jasmine Collins is currently a Music and English double major with a minor in Humanities at Valparaiso University. She is the Vice President-Membership and Editor of the Beta Lambda chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota, as well as, a consultant at the Judith L. Beumer Writing Center, and the Music Librarian of Valparaiso University’s chapel choir, Kantorei.

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