"The English are the only cultured nation without its own music (except street music)"
- Oskar Schmitz
(via Ed, identifying the more nuanced source of the famous "the land without music" claim, which sounds harsher and more contemptuous in German: Das Land ohne Musik)
This was the title of a 1904 book seemingly dedicated to this mystery: Das Land ohne Musik : Englische Gesellschaftsprobleme
Here's an even larger portion from the book with the quotation above embedded:
''I have long sought to understand the nature of that lack which repeatedly becomes apparent behind so many English good qualities and has such a dulling effect. I have asked myself what is missing from this nation, perhaps kindness, love of humanity, piety, humour, aesthetic sense? No, all these qualities are present in England, some even more visibly than in our country. Finally I discovered something that distinguishes the English from all other civilised nations to an amazing extent, a lack which everyone admits – thus no discovery at all – but the implications of which have probably not yet been emphasised: THE ENGLISH ARE THE ONLY CIVILISED PEOPLE WITHOUT MUSIC OF THEIR OWN (apart from street ballads). That does not mean that they have less fine ears but that their whole lives are the poorer for it. To have music in oneself, even if ever so little, means being able to forget oneself and to tolerate dissonance, even linger with it, because it is resolved in harmony. Music gives us wings and makes everything miraculous easy to understand.''
Wonder how many people in England bought this insult in book form and how much indignation and disagreement it stirred up?
An interesting discussion of the Schmitz quote and the fact that this was quite a common prejudice on the part of Germans in the 19th Century.
Heinrich Heine, for instance, wrote:
"These people have no ear, neither for the beat nor indeed for music in any form, and their unnatural passion for piano-playing and singing is all the more disgusting. There is verily nothing on earth so terrible as English musical composition, except English painting."
The phrase "Land Without Music" has been picked up by other people over the years for books about English music traditions
