Macpherson, Ossian and the Bardic Ideal: Some Irish Reflections on a German Phenomenon
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3986/dmd12.1.08Keywords:
Macpherson, Ossian, Beethoven, Moore, “ folk music”Abstract
Despite the immense influence of James Macpherson’s Ossian poems on the formation of German romanticism (through the agency of Herder and Goethe), the extent to which Bardendichtung and an awareness of Scottish and Irish melodies existed independently in the German musical imagination has been insufficiently addressed. Notwithstanding Beethoven’s encounter with Irish traditional music, it was the ideal of “ folk music” – an imaginary construct – rather than the music itself which inspired the work of most German composers after Beethoven.Downloads
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