ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of on-stage portrayals of church music as a signifier of music heralding from the distant, medieval past, namely in Robert Schumann’s opera Genoveva (1850). The author investigates Schumann’s music-historical knowledge and examines the composer’s employment of a Bach-style chorale in his opera to evoke a historical style of church music deemed emblematic of German national and cultural identity. Chorales that appear in the other German operas in this study are addressed as well, along with allusions to other forms of historical church music on stage such as Gregorian chant and the music of Palestrina. A look at the nineteenth-century reception of Genoveva rounds off the discussion.
