Abstract
Ernst Krenek’s opera Jonny spielt auf (1927) was, according to the composer, concerned with ‘the problem of freedom’. But in what ways did it grapple with this problem? This article offers a new interpretation of Krenek’s opera in light of the composer’s views on freedom, developments in contemporary criticism, and the wider context of German Idealism. By focusing on constructions of subjectivity in Jonny, I argue that, much as Krenek lamented the fact that the opera’s fundamental message had not been taken seriously enough in the work’s reception, he himself had presented this theme of individual freedom ambiguously in musical terms. As a work that mediated between ethics and aesthetics, consistently adhering to an irreconcilable dialectic between the individual and the community, Jonny spielt auf contributed in important ways to the discourse that would stir so many Weimar intellectuals over the next few years to warn against the power of mass culture.
© 2013 Cambridge University Press