“HEALTH” AND “ILLNESS” IN THE MUSIC: A PROBLEMATIC FIELD

The article synthesizes the cultural, historical and philosophical problem areas arising from the relationship of health / disease and music, with a focus on Western European music of the 19th and early 20th century. A first section gives an introductory overview of the representations of disease in operas and instrumental music. A second section examines medical histories of composers and the question of whether and to what extent illness may have had an effect on the creative process. In particular, works by Robert Schumann are examined in the light of his syphilis disease. Schumann was inspired by E. T. A. Hoffmann's insane Kapellmeister Kreisler to write a piano cycle Kreisleriana, which gives the impression of insanity with compositional means. But the creation of such music and the structures of this music are anything but “insane”, they are well thought out to evoke the effect of madness. A very different impression brings the so-called Ghost Variations, a small cycle, Schumann's last work. He believed that the music was given to him by angels – base is a subject that he had previously used in several works. The third part discusses the narrative of “ill art” on the one hand in the perspective it received from the Italian psychiatrist and coroner Cesare Lombroso. Illness, especially mental illness, in his opinion generates “degenerate” art. Illness, especially mental illness, in his opinion generates “degenerate” art. On the other hand, the opposite view is illuminated, pointing the disease, especially mental illness as a sign of the Chosen One. Thomas Mann embraces this perspective when he speaks of “genius-donating disease” in his Doctor Faustus. At the end there is an outlook on the ideological abuse of innovative art.