6 - Literature: From Novel to Ephemera

Summary

When they were supposed to parade like a lot of soldiers, Mrs. Popper played Schubert's “Military March.”

—Richard and Florence Atwater, Mr. Popper's Penguins

In a study of Schubert's reception in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I remarked on the meaningfulness of situations in which characters in that period's fiction performed and listened to the composer's music. Regardless of the genre—novel, serialized tale, short story, drama, or poem—authors could rely on the public to recognize and understand references to Schubert's works, whether such occurrences were essential to the narrative or only provided a vivid detail. The readers of this literature were, after all, much the same audience as those who attended concerts or played music in the home. To the extent that specific compositions are mentioned, the Schubertian selections invariably were the songs and piano pieces that constituted the staple repertory of these milieus. Authors like George Eliot, Henry James, and Thomas Mann cited them, as did writers whose names have been forgotten today by all but those scholars who investigate the outlands of fin-de-siècle fiction. References to the Marche militaire appeared in the works of both classes of writers; the fact that this particular piece was incorporated into literature of varying merit is a testimony to its widespread popularity. Simply put, no author, regardless of standing, would bother to cite a score with such specificity without calculating that readers would comprehend and appreciate the reference. That some dozen writers, who will be discussed in chronological order, should have done so is testimony to the work's ubiquitous presence around the end of the nineteenth century.

Six Stories from the Fin de Siècle

The earliest examples involve two novels appearing coincidentally in serial form beginning in 1891. Elizabeth Cumings's The Story of an Artist started its run in the first issue of Music, “a monthly magazine devoted to the art, science, technic [sic] and literature of music,” published in Chicago and edited by W. S. B. Mathews. Like so many of his contemporaries who sought to merge education and appreciation, Mathews wished to bring the subject of his periodical to an avid populace.