Lara Venghaus: From gender as an aesthetic category in Friedrich Schleiermachers “Weihnachtsfeier“ to the underrated compositions of Louise Reichardt

A more thorough examination of early Romantic art songs reveals that numerous composers of this era have been completely forgotten. While many poets who are unknown today have been immortalised in Schubert’s songs, the contemporary settings of the poetry of Novalis, Tieck, Arnim and the Schlegel brothers have largely vanished into oblivion. Considering this, it is important to acknowledge the pioneering contributions of Louise Reichardt, who, alongside the now-obscure Wilhelm Schneider, was the first to set Novalis’ poems to music. Friedrich Schleiermacher, who at the time was a professor of theology in Halle, encouraged Louise Reichardt to compose and advocated for the publication of her works. Her first volume of songs was published in 1806 by Schleiermacher’s friend, the publisher Reimer. Schleiermacher commemorated his close friend and her family’s life in Giebichenstein in his last literary work ‘Die Weihnachtsfeier. Ein Gespräch’ (The Christmas Celebration. A Conversation). This work, which until now has exclusively been examined in terms of its theological significance, provides profound insights into domestic musical practices, in which Liedgesang (singing of songs) and the ‘geistliche Lieder’ (sacred songs) of Novalis play a significant role. Even more, women’s singing is attributed an expressiveness that by far exceeds any intellectual digressions originating from men’s reason. This piece’s way of characterizing emotion as a feminine attribute and reason as a male one is by no means a novel concept; however, the conviction that women who create music are inherently superior and stand closer to God than men is remarkable. Schleiermacher’s ‘Weihnachtsfeier’ is regarded as an interface between art song and gender. It offers the opportunity to examine gender as an aesthetic category in depth and to take a closer look at the art songs of Louise Reichardt, an underrepresented composer.

Lara Venghaus studied „philosophy, cultural reflection and cultural practice“ at the Witten/Herdecke University. Supervised by Prof. Dirk Rustemeyer and Christian Grüny, she received her master’s degree with distinction in 2021. In her master’s thesis she already dealt with the interconnection of philosophy and the arts, in particular with the aesthetics of Friedrich Schleiermacher. Since 2021 she has been a doctoral student, supervised by Prof. Rebecca Grotjahn at the Detmold/Paderborn Musicology Seminar. The importance of her research under the working title “On the foundation of the art song from the spirit of romantic philosophy” was emphasized with the award of a graduate scholarship from the University of Paderborn.

Lara Venghaus: From gender as an aesthetic category in Friedrich Schleiermachers “Weihnachtsfeier“ to the underrated compositions of Louise Reichardt

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