This article examines the transformation of Jewish musical identity through the lens of Friedrich Gernsheim’s Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, op. 54, highlighting its unique position at the intersection of absolute and program music. Initially presented as an absolute symphony at its 1888 premiere, the work was only later recontextualized through a Jewish programmatic lens, with its title Mirjam-Sinfonie appearing in 1903 and a full program first published in Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums in 1909. This delayed revelation underscores the complex interplay of Jewish particularity within nineteenth-century German universalist ideals of art music. This article situates the work in histories of Jewishness in music and interrogates how aesthetic interpretations shifted with the later programmatic integration of Biblical association. Through careful analysis of early performance history, I uncover the sociocultural pressures that necessitated a gradual revelation of the Symphony’s programmatic content, which stands in contrast to the lack of overt sonic markers of Jewishness. This article argues that understanding the Mirjam-Sinfonie as both an absolute and programmatic work provides deeper insights into the professional and societal challenges faced by German-speaking Jewish musicians in the long nineteenth century.
A. Stein (Thu,) studied this question.