Young Hegelian Music: The New German School and the Question of Avant-Gardism

abstract: Franz Brendel and Richard Wagner established the theoretical foundations for the New German School by using Young Hegelian ideas about history, democracy, consciousness, purely human sensuousness, and limits of "absolute philosophy" to advocate for a revolution of musical form. Their campaigns against "absolute music" emerged from broader, politicized critiques of aesthetic autonomy during the Revolutions of 1848. Overlooked in the Franco-centric literature on the history and theory of the avant-garde, both Young Hegelianism and the New Germans were crucial precursors, offering early critiques of art's separation from life, while also pioneering the displacement of revolutionary politics into aesthetic revolution.