This is cultural history at its best -- "thick" history that uncovers the multiple, fascinating forces at work between the centennial celebrations of Schubert's birth and death. A dazzling work of reception history, Messing's book illuminates Schubert's role in the politics of gender, race, and cultural identity in fin-de-siecle Vienna. In so doing it provides the long-awaited musical counterpart to Carl Schorske's classic study Fin-de-siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture. -- Glenn Watkins, Earl V. Moore Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, and author of Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War A graceful, far-ranging, important study of fin-de-siecle perceptions of the Viennese composer as they affected national politics and cultural self-definition in the early twentieth century. The conceptual legacy of a feminine Schubert is scrutinized through the lens of political history, art, literature, music, and the inquisitive but choosy new science of sexuality. Proceeding with the contagious tempo of a fine mystery novel, this is "reception history" at its broadest, yet most exacting, often surprising best. -- Alessandra Comini, University Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita, Southern Methodist University
