Musicologica Olomucensia (Jul 2023)
The Question of National Identity in the Multiethnical Sopron Through the Work of the Dalfüzér/Liederkranz (1847-1867)
Abstract
Richard Taruskin describes the German choral movement as the hotbed of German nationalist unification, the musical precursor of a new nation-building ideology. However, the Liedertafel movement did not stop in Germany, but spread to the whole of Europe, practically without exception the founding of choirs had a national-political dimension, including Hungary. It is interesting to examine how nationalism overtones could take hold in the multiethnical Hungary, especially in the German-dominated cities. Sopron is an excellent case study, since this town, which lies in the western corner of the country, bordering Austria, had a large part of German population, and as a consequence had a German theatre and German speaking press. Christian Altdörfer, the choirmaster of the Lutheran church and founder of the Dalfüzér/Liederkranz, came from Württemberg to set up a singing group in the 1840s that sang in both German and Hungarian. This situation gives us an opportunity to examine how the association saw itself and how others saw it, and in doing so to highlight what national identity meant in mid-19th-century Hungary.
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