Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520250918
- eISBN:
- 9780520933699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520250918.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter discusses The Magic Flute, a work that probes modernity's democratic, communitarian aspirations. The subject of The Magic Flute is the revolution in values that occurred when the old ...
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This chapter discusses The Magic Flute, a work that probes modernity's democratic, communitarian aspirations. The subject of The Magic Flute is the revolution in values that occurred when the old regime, in which power was in the hands of the old, was replaced by a new order, in which the young were able to make their own autonomous choices. It is about the passing of mercy and the arrival of autonomy, and is also the work in which modern instrumental music acquires its own foundation myth. The abstract, autonomous subject of modern politics, no longer a mere “prince” but a universal “man,” finds his own medium in the new, abstract, autonomous art. Beethoven later took up the fundamental structure of this myth in a number of works, Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony among them.Less
This chapter discusses The Magic Flute, a work that probes modernity's democratic, communitarian aspirations. The subject of The Magic Flute is the revolution in values that occurred when the old regime, in which power was in the hands of the old, was replaced by a new order, in which the young were able to make their own autonomous choices. It is about the passing of mercy and the arrival of autonomy, and is also the work in which modern instrumental music acquires its own foundation myth. The abstract, autonomous subject of modern politics, no longer a mere “prince” but a universal “man,” finds his own medium in the new, abstract, autonomous art. Beethoven later took up the fundamental structure of this myth in a number of works, Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony among them.
