Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-351) and index

Introduction. Viennese critics and the "Habsburg dilemma" -- From the Vormärz to the liberal heyday. Hanslick's Deutschtum ; Becoming a German : Goldmark and the assimilationist project ; Liberal essentialism and Goldmark's early reception ; Rethinking the "Billroth affair" -- From the iron ring to the fin de siècle. Language ordinances, Nationalbesitzstand, and Dvořák's reception in the Taaffe era ; Liberal accreditation and antisemitic attack : Goldmark's reception revisited ; "Politics makes strange bedfellows," or, Smetana's reception in the 1890s -- Goldmark's Deutschtum revisited -- Epilogue. Germans, Jews, and Czechs in Mahler's Vienna

Brodbeck offers a nuanced look at the intersection of music, cultural identity, and political ideology in Liberal Vienna by examining music-critical writing about Carl Goldmark, Antonín Dvořák, and Bedřich Smetana, Austrian citizens but not ethnic Germans. The critical reception of the three reveals a continuum of exclusivity, from a conception of Germanness rooted in social class and cultural elitism to one based in blood. The book thus offers insight into how educated German Austrians conceived of Germanness in music and understood their relationship to the 'non-Germans' in their midst