ing is that the composer of this was from Zurich, educated in Germany, and a man who spent his entire career in Germany and chose a uniquely German topic for one of his first major works. And, above that, he won a prize for it. It is appearent that in Raff's mind that The Fatherland was a theme as important and invigorating as any other struggle witnessed in nineteenth century composition, be it life and death, fate, love, or mythology. Nationalism in German music was never a conscious effort to find a national voice, for that already existed. Wagner and theses other composers sought to portray a national phenomenon that they believed already existed in all aspects of life except the political. Another example can be witnessed in a work of Brahms. Born in Hamburg, where the history of independence, enjoyed by the old city as a member of the Hanseatic League, outweighed any notions of membership in a politically united Germany, lived in Vienna. Here the air was vastly different from the seriousness and emotional sobriety of northern Germany. The Austro-Prussian War of 1866, left Austria defeated and deprived of all influence among any German states and saw the formation of the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership. This left Brahms annoyed with both sides because he felt who would lead a united Germany, either Prussia or Austria, was of little consequence. It was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 that really stirred him. According to Raynor, he told a friend, Georg Henschel, a famous singer-conductor, that his first impulse was to join the Army. Also, the great statesman, Bismarck, had become an idol to him. Brahms celebrated the victory over France with a work entitled Triumphlied. This work, combing chorus and orchestra, used biblical words to connect the ideas of German nationalism with Old Testament Hebrew patriotism. This conviction that German composers wrote music that existed on a much higher intellect...
