Mythmaking and Hagiography

Abstract

Mythmaking and hagiography lie at the heart of the biographical and autobiographical enterprise, including self-mythologizing, legends around composers and individual works, and hero worship. A comparison of the establishment of mythologies around Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven provides a case study, including planned recollections of Haydn’s life by early biographers, the legend of Mozart’s Requiem, and the enshrining of a composite romantic myth for Beethoven via numerous personal recollections. Hagiographical writing is subsequently investigated primarily through the lens of Thomas Carlyle’s influential On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1840), focusing on discourse around Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, and Wagner. The chapter concludes that both mythologizing and hagiographical writing should be cast in a positive light (rather than in a traditionally negative one), as they convey compelling stories that generate and cultivate critical, scholarly, historical, and popular interest essential to a composer’s cultural impact, influence, and reputation.