Sposato, Jeffrey – The Price of Assimilation

Description

In The Price of Assimilation, Jeffrey Sposato offers a bold, revisionist account of Mendelssohn’s relationship to his Jewish roots. Challenging the notion that Mendelssohn’s identity was strongly informed by a sense of Jewishness, a view that came into currency after World War II, Sposato argues instead that for much of his career, Mendelssohn consciously attempted to distance himself from his Jewish heritage.

CONTENTS

Introduction
I: New Christians
The Mendelssohns and the Synagogue
Reinventing Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn’s Evolving Relationship with Judaism
II: The St. Matthew Passion Revival
Judicious Cuts
The St. Matthew Passion Chorales and the Berlin Hymn Tradition
The St. Matthew Passion and the Theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher
Other Performances of the St. Matthew Passion
III: Moses
Christology, Anti-Semitism, and Moses
Mendelssohn, Marx, and the Nineteenth-Century Anti-Semitic Tradition
IV: Paulus
A Textual History of Paulus
Paulus and the Influences of Carl Loewe, Louis Spohr, and Abraham Mendelssohn
Paulus and Philo-Heathenism
The Evolution of the Anti-Semitic Image in Paulus
Lessons from Paulus: A Reevaluation of Die erste Walpurgisnacht
V: Elias
A Textual History of Elias
Christology in Elias
The Jewish Image in Elias
VI: Christus
The Genesis of Christus
The Jewish Image in Christus
The Universality of Das Volk
Conclusion: Matters of Perspective