Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Neue Händel-Gesellschaft.

See Handel societies.

Neue Sachlichkeit

(Ger.: ‘New Realism’, ‘New Objectivity’). Term used since the 1920s for various cultural modernizing trends of the Weimar Republic and to describe the general mood of that period. It was first used in 1923 for an exhibition of post-Expressionist painting by G.F. Hartlaub of Mannheim, and soon appeared in discussions of musical aesthetics. Writers in the journal Melos, for instance, particularly Heinrich Strobel, Erich Doflein and Hans Mersmann, promoted the term for the retreat from ideals of expressivity in post-Expressionist composition and interpretation and for the neo-Baroque style of recent works, particularly by Hindemith, which was felt to be ‘realistic’ and kinetic.

Composers sympathetic to the concept saw in it the means of appealing to a broad public. In 1927 Krenek formulated his views on Neue Sachlichkeit out of his opposition to Expressionism, his chief criticism being that the Expressionist artist was isolated as an individual from his effect on a wide public. For Krenek, as for Weill, Neue Sachlichkeit was primarily defined by the musician’s search for a broader basis of operation, and was characterized by the absence of complexity and by an element of familiarity in both subject and means of expression. Many composers achieved this by incorporating the idioms of contemporary popular dance and light music or jazz, quotations from the classical repertory and Baroque techniques of composition into new works. The self-contained work of art was thus largely rejected in favour of communication, and reference to external subjects and events became a crucial factor. This is particularly evident in music drama: in their first ‘Zeitopern’, Krenek (Jonny spielt auf, 1927) and Weill (Royal Palace, 1927) took as their subjects modern social and cultural issues and used a wide variety of styles from both opera and light music, as well as music reproduced by radio or gramophone on stage, thus making it clear that this music was available to all. Other composers of such works in the late 1920s include Hindemith, Schoenberg, Ernst Toch, Max Brand and George Antheil. This new aesthetic approach also attracted opera composers to commercial music theatre, notably Weill (Dreigroschenoper, 1928; Happy End, 1929), while technical development inspired the Neue Sachlichkeit composers to experiment with ‘mechanically’ produced sound and to use the opportunities for mass communication offered by the gramophone and radio and film music.

Some writers, such as Adorno, tried to extend the term to include Schoenberg’s 12-note compositional technique. Yet despite its constructivist, anti-Romantic and anti-ornamental features, 12-note music runs directly counter to Neue Sachlichkeit’s aim of mass reception, its reversion to harmonic tonality and its structural simplification.

See also Gebrauchsmusik.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG2 (N. Grosch)

H. Strobel: ‘“Neue Sachlichkeit” in der Musik’, Musikblätter des Anbruch, viii (1926), 254–6

H.H. Stuckenschmidt: ‘Mechanisierung’, Musikblätter des Anbruch, viii (1926), 345–6

E. Toch: ‘Musik für mechanische Instrumente’, Neue Musik-Zeitung, xlvii (1926), 431–4

M. Butting: ‘Die Musik u. die Menschen’, Melos, vi (1927), 58–63

E. Krenek: ‘Neue Sachlichkeit in der Musik’, i 10, vi (1927), 216–18

L. Misch: ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’, AMz, liv (1927), 613

H.H. Stuckenschmidt: ‘Neue Sachlichkeit in der Musik’, Unterhaltungsblatt der Vossischen Zeitung (7 May 1927)

K. Weill: ‘Verschiebungen in der musikalischen Produktion’, Berliner Tageblatt (1 Oct 1927)

E. Schliepe: ‘Musik u. Neue Sachlichkeit’, Signale für die musikalische Welt, lxxxvii (1929), 1206–10

A. Heuss: ‘Was unter “Sachlichkeit” in der Tonkunst zu verstehen wäre!’, ZfM, Jg.99 (1932), 495–9

S.C. Cook: Opera for a New Republic: the Zeitopern of Krenek, Weill and Hindemith (Ann Arbor, 1988)

S. Hinton: The Idea of Gebrauchsmusik: a Study of Musical Aesthetics in the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) with Particular Reference to the Works of Paul Hindemith (New York and London, 1989)

S. Hinton: ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’ (1990), HMT

C. Hailey: ‘Rethinking Sound, Music and Radio in Weimar Germany’, Music and Performance During the Weimar Republic, ed. B. Gilliam (Cambridge, 1994), 13–36

N. Grosch: ‘Radio, Neue Musik und Neue Sachlichkeit: Kompositionsaufträge des Rundfunks in der Weimarer Republik’, Orchesterkultur, ed. J. Stenzel (Stuttgart and Weimar, 1996), 43–8

N. Grosch: Die Musik der Neuen Sachlichkeit (Stuttgart and Weimar, 1999)

NILS GROSCH

Neufville [Deneufville], Johann Jacob de

(b Nuremberg, 5 Oct 1684; d Nuremberg, 4 Aug 1712). German composer. Born into a Huguenot family, he was the son of a merchant. For several years he was a pupil of Johann Pachelbel, who gave him instruction first in keyboard and later also in composition. According to Walther, in 1705 he was organist in a church in a suburb of Nuremberg. In November 1707 he made a journey to Italy to complete his education, and he stayed in Venice in February 1708. He returned to Nuremberg, through Graz and Vienna, in April 1709 and, because no better position was vacant (according to GerberNL), he became organist in the suburb of Wöhrd. His Sex Melea, five arias each with five to seven variations and a ciaccona, were influenced by Pachelbel’s Hexachordum Apollinis (Nuremberg, 1699). His keyboard suite consists of an allemande, a courante, a sarabande and a minuet.

WORKS

Sex Melea s[eu] Ariae cum variationibus, org (n.p., n.d.) [preface dated Venice, 3 Feb 1708]

Encomia: Sit nomen Domini benedictum; Non est similis tui, Domine; Beatus vir, cujus est nomen Domini spes ejus; Confitemini Domino, quoniam excelsum nomen ejus, 1v, 3 insts, bc (Venice, 1708 [according to GerberNL]), lost, cited in WaltherML and GerberNL

Honig-Opffer auf andächtige Lippen trieffend, oder der allersüsseste Nahme Jesus, in 4 Denck-Sprüchen (Nuremberg, 1710), lost, cited in WaltherML and GerberNL

Trauermusik for J.W. Haller (Nuremberg, 1710), lost, see Dupont

Suite (g), kbd, D-Bsb, 2 movts ed. K. Herrmann in Alt-Nürnberger Klavierbüchlein (Mainz, n.d.)

Laudate pueri Dominum ‘di Deneufille’, lost, cited in catalogue of Rudolstadt Hofkapelle, see Baselt

Festmusik for arrival of Charles VI, 1712, collab. M. Zeidler, lost

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EitnerQ

FrotscherG

GerberNL

MGG1 (F. Krautwurst)

WaltherML

J.G. Doppelmayr: Historische Nachricht von den nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern (Nuremberg, 1730), 263–4

Musikalische Realzeitung (7th Oct 1789)

E. Born: Die Variation als Grundlage handwerklicher Gestaltung im musikalischen Schaffen Johann Pachelbels (Berlin, 1941)

B. Baselt: ‘Die Musikaliensammlung der Schwarzburg-Rudolstädtischen Hofkapelle unter Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657–1714)’, Traditionen und Aufgaben der hallischen Musikwissenschaft, ed. W. Siegmund-Schultze (Halle, 1963), 122

W. Dupont: Werkausgaben Nürnberger Komponisten in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Nuremberg, 1971), 191–2

E. Nickel: Der Holzblasinstrumentenbau in der Freien Reichsstadt Nürnberg (Munich, 1971), 245–6

GÜNTER THOMAS