In Tune

Music was an important carrier of national inspiration and national sentiment: not only as a high art form (conservatoire-trained professional musicians performing for paying audiences) but also as a platform for participatory performance and rousing conviviality. For the former aspect the sample case is that of Franz Liszt, who, after an early cosmopolitan life, rediscovered his Hungarian roots and celebrated them in his rhapsodies. Those rhapsodies in turn provided a template for any composer, anywhere in Europe, who wanted to compose in a national vein. The more convivial aspect of music is surveyed by way of the choral movement, so widespread in the nineteenth century. Choral societies were an important aspect of nineteenth-century sociability, spreading from city to city, linking these cities in mutual visits and federative festivals, and drawing on the nationwide availability of a repertoire often patriotically celebrating the nation. The nation-building aspect of the choral movement, with its inspiring and mobilizing powers, is strikingly illustrated by the appropriation of the German format of the Sängerfest by the non-German populations of the Baltic countries for their own national purposes.