46 lines
3.9 KiB
TeX
46 lines
3.9 KiB
TeX
\section{Nerve Damage?}
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The fact that making music, particularly in excess, can be injurious to health is firmly embodied in medical thinking around 1800. Therese of Brunswick writes 1804 to its sister Josephine: ``Do not make music so much, if it attacks your nerves too much ''\footnote{quoted in \BrBowerslWTG{}, 123}. If women are to be restrained from playing certain instruments or even from singing, it happens often under reference to health damage up to hemorrhage or early death\footnote{\BrBowerslWTG{}, 123, references \BrRiegerlWTl{}, 54\TODO{???}} In the Nekrolog on the Pianistin Caroline Hartmann, Sch\"{u}lerin von Chopin and Liszt, writes the AMZ: ``Unfortunately however this rare plant divided the fate of so some different of its sex, whose mental blossoming can happen only on expenses of a tender figure. The effort, with which it gave itself the study of the music during its stay in Paris, developed the germ of a fatal illness…'' (1834, frame 634).
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Warnings of overstimulation are often expressed around 1800 by pedagogues, the medical profession and music writers. The yearbooks of the German national association for music quote the thought even with the assumption, women caused the overstimulation intentionally: It is the speech by the statement of an English physician, ``that the music from the female sex with so much preference is therefore floated, because it increases the diseased attraction barness those into Hypochondrie changes last ''(1839, P. 304). The opinion, which stands behind this statement, was far common: Normal humans and man know illness only as a special case, as state of emergency of the body; the woman almost aims at illness for the perfection it a zudiktierten sex character.\footnote{\BrBowerslWTG{}, 124}
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Pohl-cursory notices.
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L\"{u}tge (in 1925) gives us a lovely list of \glassarmonica{} victims. He asserts: ``nearly all virtuosos had to give up playing after a few years''[\BrLuthgeA{}, 102]. According to L\"{u}tge, the armonica carnage includes:
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\begin{itemize}
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\item The early death of the beautiful Ch. Fr. Bause
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\item The attempted suicide by the wife of Kupferstechers Stock
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\item The unlucky poverty of Bernhard Theodor Breitkopf (nerve-damage to the wallet?)
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\item Roellig (of course) suffered from ``nerves, twitching muscles, dizziness, cramps, tumors and paralysis of the limbs''
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\end{itemize}
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There's no question that there were rumors about 'nerve damage'. Yet even contemporaries regarded this as silly. Rochlitz, a music critic of the day [AMZ, November 14, 1798] writes:
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\begin{quote}
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``\ldots I state: playing the armonica harms the health no more than playing any other expressive instrument.''
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\end{quote}
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The whole tone of Rochlitz's several-page article is to express amazement at the 'nerve-damage' rumor that was apparently circulating at the time:
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\begin{quote}
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I can find no harm in playing the armonica; so I am in no way in agreement with those who say it requires caution\EmDash{}no more than anything else which excites our feelings strongly.
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\end{quote}
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Nevertheless, Rochlitz gives some precautions (even in 1798 one can't escape the legal disclaimers!):
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\begin{quote}
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1. Patients with nervous-disorders, until they are cured, should not play they armonica\EmDash{}as they should also avoid everything that strongly excites their feelings and provokes their ill nerves.
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2. If you are not ill you should not play it excessively\ldots
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3. If you are feeling melancholy you should not play it or else play uplifting pieces\ldots
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4. If tired, avoid playing it late at night\ldots
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5. Use cold water to moisten the glasses, and don't use too much water\ldots
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\end{quote}
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Rochlitz then concludes his article by chastising composers: ``Why have you composed so little for this instrument? Could this be because of the small number of players and therefore the customers to be expected?\ldots'' Apparently, inflicting nerve-damage on players is not a concern!
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