Antonin Dvorak first came to widespread notice in Vienna in the fall of 1879, at the outset of an era in the city's history when, to quote a memorable phrase from the Liberal critic (and Brahms biographer) Max Kalbeck, "music became mixed up in politics." Although Kalbeck made fleeting mention of what he called the "anti-German politics of the government," he offered no real attempt to link that development to music, quickly passing on to a critical discussion of the purely "musical politics" of the familiar Brahms-Bruckner divide, the overriding concern of commentators ever since. (1) I hope to make good on Kalbeck's missed opportunity here by exploring how the rising fortunes of Czech interests within Austria during the later nineteenth century--widely seen as a result of certain "anti-German" measures taken by the central government--affected the way in which Dvorak's music was heard in the Austrian capital. (2) As we shall see, the composer's appearance on the Viennese scene coincided with a momentous shift in Liberal ideology, whereby older notions of what it meant to be German gave way to newer ones that would work against him. It is a matter of some irony, then, that the Viennese reception of the Czech composer was consistently colored by changing notions of what did and did not count as German.
As invoked here, the expression "Liberal Vienna" implies above all a specific cultural milieu, covering roughly the period from 1867 (when Emperor Franz Joseph reluctantly ratified a liberal constitution for the Austrian half of the newly created Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary and appointed a "Burger Ministry") through 1897 (when, with no less reluctance, the monarch ratified the mayoral election of Karl Lueger, leader of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party [Christlich-Soziale Partei]). (3) There was, in fact, no single "Liberal Party" in Austria during this period. The Constitutional Party (Verfassungspartei) had been formed in 1861 from various liberal parliamentary factions, but this loosely held coalition eventually began to splinter into various ever-changing formations that went under such names as the United Left (Vereinigte Linke), the Progressive Club (Fortschrittsklub), the German Club (Deutscher Klub), the German Austrian Club (Deutschosterreichischer Klub), and the United German Left (Vereinigte deutsche Linke). The term "Left" may be misleading, since the Liberals' economic platform was largely one of laissez-faire capitalism. But in addition to serving as representatives of industry, the chambers of commerce, and high finance, the Liberals also appealed to professional people, the well-educated middle and upper middle classes, much of the bureaucracy, and those who wished to minimize the influence of the Catholic Church, above all in matters related to public education. (4) Liberal electoral dominance was ensured at first...