The Lives of the Great Composers (1997) 0393038572

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface to te Third Edition
1. Pioneer of opera: Claudio Monteverdi
2. Transfiguration of the baroque: Johann Sebastian Bach
3. Composer and impresario: George Frideric Handel
4. Reformer of opera: Christoph Willibald Gluck
5. Classicism par excellence: Joseph Haydn
6. Prodigy from Salzburg: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
7. Revolutionary from Bonn: Ludwig van Beethoven
8. Poet of music: Franz Schubert
9. Freedom and a new language: Weber and the early Romantics
10. Romantic exuberance and classic restraint: Hector Berlioz
11. Florestan and Eusebius: Robert Schumann
12. Apotheosis of the piano: Frédéric Chopin
13. Virtuoso, charlatan--and prophet: Franz Liszt
14. Bourgeois genius: Felix Mendelssohn
15. Voice, voice, and more voice: Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini
16. Spectacle, spectacle, and more spectacle: Meyerbeer, Cherubini, Auber
17. Colossus of Italy: Giuseppe Verdi
18. Colossus of Germany: Richard Wagner
19. Keeper of the flame: Johannes Brahms
20. Master of the lied: Hugo Wolf
21. Waltz, can-can, and satire: Strauss, Offenbach, Sullivan
22. Faust and French opera: from Gounod to Saint-Saëns
23. Russian nationalism and the mighty five: from Glinka to Rimsky-Korsakov
24. Surcharged emotionalism: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
25. From Bohemia to Spain: European nationalists
26. Chromaticism and sensibilité: from Franck to Fauré
27. Only for the theater: Giacomo Puccini
28. Romanticism's long coda: Richard Strauss
29. Religion, mysticism and retrospection: Bruckner, Mahler, Reger
30. Sympolism and Impressionism: Claude Debussy
31. Gallic elegance and the new breed: Maurice Ravel and Les Six
32. The chameleon: Igor Stravinsky
33.The English Renaissance: Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams
34. Mysticism and melancholy: Scriabin and Rachmaninoff
35. Under the Soviets: Prokofiev and Shostakovich
36. German Neoclassicism: Busoni, Weill, Hindemith
37. Rise of an American tradition: from Gottschalk to Copland
38. The uncompromising Hungarian: Béla Bartók
39. The second Viennese school: Schoenberg, Berg, Webern
40. The international serial movement: from Varèse to Messiaen
41. The new eclecticism: from Carter to the minimalists
General Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

ISBN 0-393-03857-2

in

$35.00 USA $45.00 CAN.

new edition of this highly successful book, Harold Schonberg has traced the the

consecutive line of composers from Claudio

Monteverdi to the tonalists of the 1990s through a series of fascinating biographical chapters. Music, the author contends,

is

a

and there have been

continually evolving

art,

no geniuses, however

great,

who

have not been

influenced by their predecessors. The great

composers are here presented as human beings who lived and related to the real world around them. Schonberg brings the reader closer to an identification with the composers he discusses and thus closer to an understanding

of their music. The book consequently places

more emphasis on biographical details and less upon technical analysis of the music. All

music

of the important figures in "serious"

— Bach,

Handel,

Mozart,

Beethoven,

Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Mahler, and many others are included, their lives woven into a fabric rich in detail and anecdote. There are also chapters on the nationalist schools and the so-called light music of the Viennese

—

Strausses, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Offenbach,

and

others.

For this newly designed edition, Schonberg has once again extended the book's coverage with informative and clearly written descriptions of the later serialists, minimalist

composers, and the new tonalists of the 1990s. Scattered throughout are

many changes and

additions reflecting the wide range of musicological findings of the past fifteen years.

An

updated bibliography has been prepared and additional illustrations provided.

What has not been changed

is

the

character of the book, which remains an object

of delight to

all

music

lovers,

engrossing from

beginning to end, and a joy to pick up and read anywhere.

THE LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS

Other books by the author

The Great Pianists The Great Conductors Facing the Music

The Glorious Ones Vladimir Horowitz: His Life and Music

THIRD EDITION

Harold C. Schonberg

W W •

New York

•

NORTON London

8v

COMPANY

Copyright

©

1997, 1981, 1970 by Harold C. Schonberg

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

The

text

of this book

with the display

is

composed

set in Friz

in

Bembo

Quadrata

Composition and Manufacturing by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Book design by Jacques Chazaud

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harold C. Schonberg.

p.

—3rd

cm.

Includes bibliographical references

(p.

)

and index.

ISBN 0-393-03857-2

—

Composers Biography. ML390.S393 1997 1.

Title.

I.

780'. 92 '2— dc20 f

B

96-13308

l

CIP

W. W. Norton

& Company,

Inc.,

500

Fifth

Avenue,

Coptic

Street,

New

York, N.Y. 10110

http:/ /www. wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton

& Company

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0

Ltd., 10

London

WC1A

1PU

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2016 with funding from

Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/livesofgreatcomp00scho_1

CONTENTS

13

Preface

1

Pioneer of Opera

Claudio Monteverdi 2

Transfiguration of the

Baroque

Johann Sebastian Bach 3

4

5

55

Reformer of Opera Christoph Willibald Gluck

71

Classicism par excellence

Haydn

81

Prodigy from Salzburg

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1

36

Composer and Impresario George Frideric Handel

Joseph

6

21

95

Revolutionary from Bonn

Ludwig van Beethoven

1 1

CONTENTS

8

8

Poet of Music

Franz Schubert

9

10

1

12

Freedom and a New Language Weber and the Early Romantics

Hector Berlioz

152

and Eusebius Robert Schumann

169

Florestan

Apotheosis of the Piano

Virtuoso, Charlatan

16

17

18

19

20

Voice, Voice,

Mendelssohn

Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini

222

Spectacle, Spectacle, and More Spectacle Meyerbeer, Cherubini, Auber

236

Colossus of Italy Giuseppe Verdi

249

Germany Richard Wagner

268

Keeper of the Flame Johannes Brahms

289

Colossus of

Master of the Lied 303

Waltz, Can -Can, and Satire Strauss, Offenbach, Sullivan

22

211

and More Voice

Hugo Wolf 21

197

Bourgeois Genius Felix

15

183

—and Prophet

Franz Liszt 14

138

Romantic Exuberance and Classic Restraint

Frederic Chopin 13

124

Faust

and French Opera

From Gounod to Saint-Saens

310 4

329

Contents

23

9

Russian Nationalism and the Mighty Five

From Glinka to Rimsky-Korsakov 24

Surcharged Emotionalism Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

25

From Bohemia to Spain European Nationalists

378

Chromaticism and Sensibilite From Franck to Faure

400

Theater Giacomo Puccini

413

26

27

28

29

30

31

Only

for the

Romanticism’s Long Coda Richard Strauss

423

and Retrospection Bruckner, Mahler, Reger

Religion, Mysticism,

Symbolism and Impressionism Claude Debussy Gallic

Elegance and the

New

452

Breed

Maurice Ravel and Les 32

Six

35

36

Vaughan Williams

492

Mysticism and Melancholy Scriabin and Rachmaninoff

510

Under the Soviets Prokofiev and Shostakovich

525

German Neoclassicism Busoni, Weill, Hindemith

37

479

The English Renaissance Elgar, Delius,

34

466

The Chameleon Igor Stravinsky

33

437

American Tradition From Gottschalk to Copland

Rise of an

CONTENTS

10

38

39

The Uncompromising Hungarian Bela Bartok The Second Viennese School Schoenberg, Berg, Webern

40

The International

Serial

The

New

578

Movement

From Varese to Messiaen 41

567

595

Eclecticism

From Carter to the Minimalists

610

General Bibliography

621

Index

637

LIST

OF

ILLUSTRATIONS

Claudio Monteverdi Bach, portrait by Haussmann J. S.

Thomas’s Church George Frideric Handel by Thomas Hudson, 1749 St.

Contemporary of

23 43 53

“The Charming

Robert Schumann, 1839

Schumann Frederic Chopin

Clara

61

the

64 Brute,”

caricature by

Goupy

69

Christoph Willibald Gluck, by Greuze Joseph Haydn, by Anton Grassi Esterhazy Palace family in 1781

84 87 91

painting

by Lange, 1782 Engraving of Beethoven by Flood Schubert: detail from a watercolor by Kupelwieser Schubert and his friend, Johann Michael Vogl Nicolo Paganini, c. 1837 Carl Maria von

Weber

Weber conducting Der

Freischiitz

at

the height of his career

caricatures

Farinelli

The Mozart The Mozart

Hector Berlioz

103

last

in

year of his

life

205 207 213 215 Mendelssohn 219 227

Death mask of Felix Gioachino Rossini Gaetano Donizetti Vincenzo Bellini Giacomo Meyerbeer Giuseppe Verdi in 1857

231 233 241 253

Verdi and the baritone

Richard Wagner in

131

135 140 149 150

189

conducting at Pest in 1865 Franz Liszt, c. 1870 Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel Mendelssohn at the age of twelve

Liszt

265

Victor Maurel

119

155 173 175

The

at

home

Bayreuth, 1882

Festspielhaus, Bayreuth

Johannes Brahms toward the end of

Hugo Wolf Johann

Strauss, Jr.

Jacques Offenbach

his life

281 283

297 307 315 321

LIST OF

12 Charles

Gounod

ILLUSTRATIONS 330 333 336 342

Georges Bizet Jules Massenet Camille Saint-Saens

Francis Poulenc

469 477

Igor Stravinsky in 1932

483

Maurice Ravel

Stravinsky

Sir

Edward Elgar Dame Ethel Smyth Frederick Delius

501

Ralph Vaughan Williams Alexander Scriabin in 1914 Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1943 Sergei Prokofiev in 1936

507 515

Dmitri Shostakovich

535 539 543 545 550 552 553 557 565

in the

caricature by Gabriel

Faure

Mikhail Glinka Mily Balakirev in 1866 Modest Musorgsky,

344 347 350

by Ilya Repin Alexander Borodin,

351

Repin Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

353 363 373 380 381 388 391 398 403 408 409 417 425 440 445 450

Ilya

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Bedrich Smetana

Antonin Dvorak Leos Janacek

Edvard Grieg Jean Sibelius Cesar Franck Cecile

Chaminade

Gabriel Faure

Giacomo Puccini Richard Strauss en famille Anton Bruckner Gustav Mahler

Max Reger Debussy, photographed

456

by Pierre Louys Claude Debussy,

459

Houlgate

in

1911

1950s

1958

Kurt Weill Paul Hindemith

Louis Moreau Gottschalk

Amy

Beach

Edward MacDowell Charles Ives

Aaron Copland Bela Bartok in early 1900s Arnold Schoenberg in 1940 Alban Berg

Anton Webern Edgard Varese Karlheinz Stockhausen

John Cage Elliott

Peter

Carter

Maxwell Davies

Alfred Schnittke Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

464

in

Ferruccio Busoni

Olivier Messiaen

by Pierre Louys in 1896 Photograph of Debussy

at

recording session

485 497 500

Saint-Saens,

by

at a

Hildegard of Bingen

521 531

571

584 587 588 596 60 605 608 611 612 614 615 618

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

These words

being written

are

great calamities shall befall the earth

writing them for

and the law of entropy The

this third edition of

“great.”

The

will

this

book up

composers always, one way or another,

great

I

Lives of the Great Composers,

published in 1970 and then revised in 1981. The Lives of the Great Composers. The emphasis in

on

when be voided. am

1996, shortly before the millennium,

late in

to

which was

now

has

been

altered the course

of all humanity, of musical history and have entered into, if not the consciousness believe politicians who certainly the consciousness of Western peoples. (Never

prate about music being “an international language. ers also as in

were, almost always, accepted

the case of,

say,

Hummel,

It

as great in their

isn

own

t.)

The

great

lifetimes.

compos-

Sometimes,

Spohr, or Meyerbeer, they lacked staying power.

took two generations for them to become recognized as geniuses icons. But the great ones always have made their way, about the process. almost from the beginning. There is something Darwinian

Sometimes,

as in

the case of Mahler,

Perhaps survival of the

And

in their

they were the

composers

all

fittest

it

explains the great composers.

time the great composers were leaders. They were leaders because to influence subsequent first to write a kind of music that was

over the world: Berlioz,

Liszt,

and Wagner

as

the generals of the

marshals of the conserMusic of the Future; Mendelssohn and Brahms as the field permanent shelf life. It may be that vative faction. And their own music has had a the influence of some of the

more

recent leaders of the

ephemeral, that they will be regarded

as

last

few decades

will

prove

the Spohrs and Meyerbeers of their time.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

14

That, in the long run, to decide. Atter

is

and for performing musicians of the future

for the public

the only final test

all,

and

universal public acceptance

is

love.

Pierre Boulez, for instance, was probably the strongest leader of the international

musical avant-garde for decades. John Cage was another leader, representing an entirely different philosophy

mean

their

their

works

there

is

no

music

of music. Today their influence has waned. Does that

We

will not live?

at that

know some

will

Does

are in 1996.

honesty

is

it

Minimalism has been

been proved wrong.

in the eighteenth century;

in the nineteenth; Stravinsky,

Bar-

in the twentieth?

hard to think of any. Take minimal music, for instance. a fact

of musical

over the world have turned to

all

believe

Mozart and Haydn

Schoenberg, Cage, and Boulez all

who

if

show any acknowledged

Beethoven and the great Romantic composers In

from now; and

the world of music

leaders today? Leaders equivalent to

tok,

years

time are firmly in the repertory, then those today

possible future for their music will have

So here we

fifty

serialism forty years ago.

Who

life

the

it

for the past fifteen years,

way composers flocked

could have predicted that the

nant, fearsomely complicated serial

and

post-serial

and composers

to the

banner of

intellectual, disso-

movements would have been

discarded in favor of a kind of baby music that went back to the classical triad and little

more?

Serial

tered out,

and

when

music never was popular. Indeed, great contribution had

its

been

movement finally sputwedge between composers

the serial

to drive a

making “modern music” a noxious stench to the international concert audience. Minimal music, on the other hand, poses no intellectual problems. All it seems to demand is stamina on the part of the listener. It has taken their public,

over

a surprisingly large part

with such pieces

of international composition

Henryk Goreckis Third Symphony

as

in the last ten years,

hitting the best-seller

charts

and the operas ol Philip Glass and John Adams attracting

siastic

following.

But even the admirers of Gorecki, or of Philip minimalists, might think twice before equating

Composers everywhere today

most

Glass, the

them with

a large

a

Berlioz or Stravinsky.

of a Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, Stravinsky, Boulez, or Copland leader of the

American school)

Lives of the Great Composers

composers.

It

up

has emerged. to date

is

So

all

that

successful of the

no leader

are looking for a style, but

in the sense

(for so

one can do

not to worry too

and enthu-

much

long the

to bring

The

about “great”

could be that some are indeed around, unrecognized by insensitive

writers of music books like this one. Alfred Schnittke? Sofia Gubaidulina?

They

have their admirers. Elliott Carter? Ellen Taaffe Zwilich? Peter Maxwell Davies?

The the I

crystal ball explodes. All

last fifteen

wrote

organize

it

this

years

one can do

and perhaps make

book

a

describe

is

few

all

too

what has been going on

fallible guesses.

for an intelligent, music-loving lay audience,

so that the continuity of

in

and tried to

music history from Claudio Monteverdi to

today can be traced. Musical composition

is

a constantly

evolving process, and

15

Preface to the Third Edition

who have not taken from their predeto say along cessors. The German conductor Karl Muck once had something piece by a these lines at the turn of the century. He was urged to program a

there have

been no geniuses, however

great,

composer who, he was told, was so individual, so far in advance else, that there was no precedent tor such kind of music.

“Oh?” and

father

Muck. “That

said

is

Where

strange.

I

come

of

everybody

from, everybody had

a

mother.”

a

felt have tried to humanize the great composers, to give an idea of what they fust and thought. This approach was considered unfashionable at the time of the scholars insist that edition, and is still considered unfashionable today. Many music I

rather than the person

work

the

explained tural

as

no

is

struc-

sentimental program-note writing

fkiiiW bejieve that music can be explained by the man; indeed,

I

of

else

made through

music.

must be explained by \the 'man. For a reflection

can be

explanation

Anything

analysis.

real application to the

disagree.

I

the thing; that a piece of music can best be

music that the only valid

and harmonic

that has

is

mind and

his

fris

mans music

is

a function of himself,

reaction to the world in

which he

lives.

and

;How

is

a

can

understand the music pf Robert Schumann, without knowing something invented fellow about his fixation with su(th writers as Je^n Paul his group of

we

spirits

known

the Davidsbund, his

as

own

mental teirois about insanity. Just

as

world and other beings through the eyes of a Rembrandt, Cezanne, or we experience the world through the Picasso when we look at their paintings, when we hear their rrfusic. ears and mind of a Beethoven, Brahms, or Stravinsky with a powerful mind when we hear their music, and we must

we

see the

We

are in contact

attempt an identification with that mind. it is

possible to

read the composer’s that can

to understanding the creator’s

come

Hence

and work.

book

this

composers. There

is

is little

I

relate the piece

it is

of music to the com-

unavoidable, especially in a discussion of twentieth-

setual

music.

Jt is

but are not these, topics best I

piece of music, also

agree.

1

other professionals?

the Fiench

concerned with the biographical aspects of the great minianalysis,, and technical terminology is kept to a

century dodecaphonic and analysis;

why

greatly

mum, though sometimes and

a

is

biographies by others, writing, and everything else

letters,

be learned. Then the pupil had to

poser’s entire life

work. That

while studying

insisted that his pupils,

Cortot

pianist Alfred

closer the identification, the closer

The

easy to

left

make

a mystique out of form

to the professionals, to

be read by

have always been amused by books supposedly for the

lay

of complicated music examples. Some ot those examples himself would have found difscore reductions and the like—Vladimir Horowitz A reader who is an able enough musician to play them does not reader that are

full

ficult to play.

need them

in a

single line in

them.

C

book of

this kind,

major on the

G

while

clef— and

a

reader

who

has trouble following a

that includes the

majority—cannot use

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

16

have taken pains to avoid program-note writing

I

dominant of

the

D

minor, with

Bernard Shaw had the

last

“Now

this

the music goes to

...”

soaring melody that

a

word on

like

George

In 1893

kind of tedious nonsense:

How succulent this and how full of Mesopotamian words like “the of D minor.” will now, ladies and gentlemen, give you my celebrated is;

I

dominant “analysis

of Hamlet’s soliloquy on suicide, in the same scientific style. Shakespear [Shaw s first in spelling], dispensing with the customary exordium, announces his subject at pasthe infinitive, in which mood it is presently repeated after a short connecting sage in which, brief as

which and

a

much of the

so

it

we

recognize the alternative and negative forms on

significance of repetition depends.

pointed pository phrase, in which the accent

pronoun, brings us to the

A

is,

glance

first full

stop.”

are better

understood

Other

great composers,

when compared with one

contemporaries, are bracketed with them within a

relative

the table of contents will reveal that most of the greatest composers

at

whose contributions

is

colon;

a

on the

decisively

falls

receive a complete chapter devoted mainly to themselves.

there

Here we reach

And,

a single chapter.

kind of chapter devoted to an entire period or

or

more

finally,

time and place,

a specific

offering general material to supplement the succession of biographical chapters.

have started with Monteverdi not because there were no great composers before him, but because his music is the earliest in the current active repertory. I

The

book began with Bach, because when was writing it in 1960s Monteverdi was still a composer with relatively tew public perform-

first

the late

edition of this

I

ances or recordings. In the succeeding decade he was rediscovered to a point where his operas are now in the repertory of opera houses all over the Western

Who

world.

knows? Perhaps by the next

Josquin, Dufay, and

them

a

Machaut

will have

gamed

the kind of currency that will earn

chapter or two.

Orthographical problems always

arise in

normal American professional usage writers have accused I

edition, the likes of Palestrina, Lasso,

books about music.

in spelling

my writing of being

Schoenberg. American usage inconsistently,

Symphonie

to as Harold en Fantastic

Italie,

“too American’ in

Symphony. Generally

dictates

style.

Did they think

“twelve-tone” music

for reasons explained in the chapter

on

two examples, Harold in Italy yet, Never have I heard the former work referred

dictates, to give

fantastique.

just as

have followed

and terminology. Some British

was Mesopotamian? American usage, for example,

instead of the British “twelve-note,

I

one it is

rarely, if ever,

hears reference to the Berlioz

just Fantastique:

“Abbado conducted

the Fan-

tastique last night.”

Russian and other foreign names pose their familiar problems. endings for Prokofiev, Balakirev, and the others. In America that style.

Yet

I

spell

Rachmaninoff with

a

double

“t

because that

I

is

is

use the

v

the accepted

the

way he

17

Preface to the Third Edition

signed his name, just (Try telling the

as

Germans about

instead of the Anglicized cies

Schoenberg

Handel

throughout the book,

Some of pieces in

that.

I

insisted

and not Schonberg.

that spelling

insist

on Schonberg, and on Handel

composer

used.) If there are inconsisten-

They

that the

on

still

apologize.

the material in the following pages originally appeared as Sunday

my

New

weekly

York Times Sunday column, and

Times magazine pieces. All have been revised and amplified.

permission to use that material.

appeared

Ives originally

by permission of Esquire

A

substantial portion

I

several

appeared

as

thank the Times for

of the chapter on Charles

December 1958 issue of Esquire and is reprinted Magazine, Inc. The late Eric Schaal was kind enough to in the

supply several rare photographs of composers from his great collection, and Rose-

mary Anderson was extremely helpful in gathering others. The late Robert E. Farlow, my editor at Norton in 1970, gave the original manuscript a stupendously thorough scrutiny, one unparalleled in my fairly wide experience. In more than was “our” book. Mr. Farlow was succeeded by Claire Brook, and it was her idea to subject the 1970 edition to a thorough revision and update, taking advantage of new musicological findings since the original publication, and

one respect

it

adding the Monteverdi chapter and the one on developments since World War II. She, too, carefully went through every word in the book, suggesting changes here

and

there.

I

am

indebted to her for her knowledge, and for her

with the aims of The Lives of the Great Composers. wife, Helene,

who

would

and sympathy

also like to

darted to the library, notebook in hand, to capture

and background material.

Brook on her

I

tact

And

thanks to Michael Ochs,

retirement, for his

many

who

I

can ever

say.

data

suggestions about this revision. Richard

volunteer to read the galley proofs. Nothing has escaped than

some

succeeded Mrs.

Freed, that walking encyclopedia of musical fact and lore, was kind

owe him more

my

thank

enough

his all-seeing eye,

to

and

I

THE LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS

1

Pioneer of Opera

.

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

T But

he

earliest

composer

in the history

tory status in our times sors

music plays

Willaert, Johannes

named.

all

It is

a

in their times

of his great predeces-

—and famous even now.

very minor part in today’s actual concert

Ockeghem, Jacques

pioneers,

Arcadelt,

Orlando

all

mighty

figures;

di Lasso,

and so were many others

true that their music can be sampled

heard in churches and choral concerts. logical studies

Many

life.

Adrian

William Byrd,

Jan Sweelinck, Palestrina, Heinrich Schtitz, Jean-Baptiste Lully:

Tallis,

they were

Claudio Monteverdi.

and contemporaries were famous

their

Thomas

is

of music to enjoy an international reper-

They

and occupy much space

fanatic followers. Yet their

work

is

in

who

could be

on recordings and occasionally

are exhaustively discussed in

musico-

any history of music. They even have

simply not heard, by and large, in concert

around the world. Relatively few musicians

know much

period and the complications of its performance practice, and

halls

about the pre-Bach this militates against

performances. In addition, audiences tend to find the music archaic, or lacking in personality, or just plain dull.

It is

an unhappy

state

of affairs, but there

it is.

who was born in Cremona on May 15, 1567, and died in Venice on November 29, 1643. Nobody in the 1950s could have predicted Monteverdi’s current popularity. In his own day he was phenomenally It is

different

A

popular.

and for first

a

with Monteverdi,

few generations

after his

death the wheel of fortune

came

half-circle,

long time Monteverdi was forgotten. There were some stirrings in the

half of the nineteenth century,

Giovanni Gabrieli, published

in

when

Carl von Winterfeld’s massive study of

Germany, focused some attention on Monteverdi.

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

??

Yet not until 1881 was the

Even

first

modern

edition of his great opera Orfeo printed.

much. There were,

that did not help very

of Monteverdi operas here and there, including

Opera

Orfeo at the Metropolitan

make

to

in 1912.

But

Wherever

somehow

fits

from the way

of

of performing traditions

decades

over the Western world.

all

is

is

psyche; and this despite the fact that,

manner

generally heard in a far different

in

Pitch has is

known

Monteverdi’s day. Yet the music sounds with passion,

in

and humanity.

intelligence,

It is

daring music, backed by

technique, and the Monteverdi operas in

modern conception of opera than

many

superb compositional

a

respects are

much

closer to the

works of Wagner and Puccini.

are the stage

music up to Monteverdi can be called personal from our vantage point.

little

Monteverdi’s

A

be staged

Mantua or Venice over 300 years ago. Monteverdis instruments are obsolete. Not enough

sounded

it

Many

changed.

to

modern

the

almost of necessity, his music today

and

own

has remained for our

there are choral or madrigal groups, the vocal music of Monteverdi

sung. Monteverdi

clear

modernized and bowdlerized

proper hero of Monteverdi.

a

Suddenly Monteverdi operas began

Very

it

a

performances

true, sporadic

it is

A

is.

powerful, individual, expressive voice

is

commenting on

life

in

direct terms.

known about the worked, even how much he got good

deal

is

external aspects of Monteverdi’s paid. Less

is

known about

life:

where he

the man, though

some Would

fortunately he was a prolific correspondent and there are 121 extant letters,

of great length, that that

we had

as

much

peppery person

illustrate a

who

stood on

his rights.

information about Monteverdi’s contemporary in England,

William Shakespeare!

Monteverdi spent the

twenty-four years of his

first

niques that culminated in the

was

work of Stradivari and

sisters.

It

is

was in charge of music

—The

and the Canzonette of Ingegneri.’’ His

first

at

He

the cathedral in

of 1584

is

no

proof, that Claudio

Cremona.

In Monteverdi’s

of 1582, the Madrigali

his

spirituali

—he proudly described himself

Among

a

of 1583,

Cremona young man and, as

music shows, an extremely talented one. At the age of 20, with

of madrigals, he already was

first

as a “disciple

two books of secular madrigals were published

1587 and 1590. Obviously Monteverdi was an industrious

in

Monte-

studied under Marc’ Antonio Ingegneri,

Sacrae cantiunculae

a tre voci

the Guarneri family.

assumed, though there

attended the University of Cremona.

three publications

Cremona,

Claudio was the oldest child in the family; he had

a physician.

four brothers and

who

until 1591, in

where Andrea Amati (1520—1578) was working out the tech-

the city of violins,

verdi’s father

life,

in

his first

book

master.

the influences that bore

on Monteverdi’s

early

development there

are

traces of the

Netherlands School. In the second half of the sixteenth century

composers

all

over Europe were copying the Netherlands

the official

medium

posers traveled a

for sacred or large-scale music.

good

deal

and spread

style,

which was almost

The famous Netherlands com-

their gospel everywhere.

Guillaume Dufay

23

Pioneer of Opera

(1400—1474) spent many years in Rome, Florence, and Turin. Johannes Ocke-

ghem

1420—1497), born in Flanders, was active in the French court and in

(c.

Spain. Josquin Desprez

(c.

1440—1521) influenced musicians

and Rome. The Brabant-born Heinrich

Rome, and Vienna. Adrian

Marks. Orlando

cappella in St.

before ens,

moving

known

as

in Florence,

1490—1562) spent much of

his career in

Rore (1516—1565), succeeded him

as maestro di

di

Munich for the Clemens non Papa to

Isaac

(c.

(c.

Lasso (1532—1594) spent last (c.

to be everywhere;

They

disciples.

garde to

serial

its

could, and did,

years in Italy

Jacobus Clem-

1510-1556), lived in Florence for ecclesiastical

compose

Netherlands

style

their pupils

light or secular music, but

that attracted composers,

a while.

much

as

it

was

and

their

the totally

music of the 1950s and 1960s gathered the international avant-

bosom. This kind of polyphony,

height with such composers Lasso,

life.

and where they were not, were found

tremendous contrapuntal mastery organized

many

thirty-eight years of his

Thus, great exponents of the contrapuntal,

seemed

Milan, Florence,

1450-1517) worked

Willaert

Venice. His pupil, Cipriano de

in

as

it

is

generally agreed, reached

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594),

Byrd (1543—1623), and Tomas Luis de Victoria

Monteverdi would have had

a

its

(c.

1549—1611)

in Spain.

strong training in the Netherlands style; his teacher,

Ingegneri, had studied with Cipriano de Rore. But even verdi appeared to be restive about the strict rules and

as a

young man Monte-

ever-murmuring polyphony

Claudio Monteverdi The

first

of the great composers

whose music astonishes

still

modern

moves and audiences. Meyer

Andre

Collection

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

24 of the Netherlanders.

He

him more than

secular music interested his

all

The

As early

life.

Italians

had

religious music,

He

attracted.

secular forms

a large variety

he wanted, but

that

was to be true

and

—masquerades, which Monteverdi forms —

of popular forms

ballets, pastorals,

meant more

him most was

poem

the madrigal,

madrigal was

a rule, the

two or more voices (seldom exceeding

for

which

had

a

a

often but

six),

not always with instrumental accompaniment. Madrigals could be highly tional

that

medium by Luca Maren-

songful, fluent, often dramatic

(1553—1599) and Carlo Gesualdo (1560—1613). As

setting ot a short

seems clear

it

to him.

musical torm that seemed to interest a

was

to

never wholly abandoned the Mass and motet, but

had been wrought into zio

style

1584, with his canzonets, he broke from the old tradition.

as

and various other song and dance

frottole,

The

could write, and write well, in any

emo-

and manneristic, with music describing the words of the poem. Composers lot of fun setting words like “death” (a chromatic droop), “fly” (rising and

falling coloratura),

moved

“pain” (aspirated

to England, the

sighs),

When

and so on.

the Italian madrigal

—Wilbye, Weelkes, and

composers there

great Elizabethan period

—

also

indulged in

good

a

the others of the

deal of word painting.

Textures of the late madrigal could be extremely chromatic and,

as in

Gesu-

aldos or Monteverdis case, often downright dissonant. Elements of other Italian

song forms

—

the giustiniana,

villanella,

and

balletto

—could

play a part in the madri-

Not only did the madrigal gobble up song forms, it also looked ahead to opera, and some scholars have written about the influence of madrigal technique gal.

on

the recitatives in the Monteverdi operas. Monteverdi was to

compose madri-

death the torm gradually faded and almost disappeared

gals all his life. After his

for good.

Like

all

composers of the period, Monteverdi looked

after his apprenticeship violinist,

had ended.

He

altogether a provincial. In 1590 he found his

Duke Vincenzo was nobles,

A

immensely

typical

Through

Gonzaga court

in

job.

first

a bit

He

was an expert

and thus was not

was given the post of

Mantua.

the head of the court.

He

was, like most great Renaissance

rich, arrogant, disputatious, pleasure-loving,

and ostentatious.

Renaissance prince, in short, though more powerful than most. intermarriages, the

Gonzaga family had

burg, Este, Tuscany, Farnese, and Medici.

and he was interested

in art

and music.

was the court painter for eight chapel.

He

had proved himself.

he had four published works, he had traveled

singer and violinist at the

church or court job

for a

The

links

Duke Vincenzo had

No

less a figure

years. Naturally the

theater was famous, and

with the houses of Haps-

it

generous

than Peter Paul

duke had

Vincenzo took

his

his

own

to Versailles

on

side,

Rubens

theater and at least

two

occasions.

At

first

Monteverdi worked under Gian Giacomo Gastoldi,

appointed maestro

good

deal

di cappella in

who

had been

1582. Monteverdi probably learned, in addition, a

from Giaches de Wert, the Netherlander

who

was

a

famous madrigalist

25

Pioneer of Opera

and the former maestro active in the court

were Benedetto

Salamone Rossi (“l'Ebreo” a

the

di cappella at

—

Mantuan

Pallavicino,

the Jew).

It

was

a

Other good musicians

court.

Lodovico Grossi da Viadana, and close-knit group of musicians, and

busy group. Music constantly had to be supplied for court and church.

Monteverdi

He

settled in.

published another

book of madrigals

accompanied the duke on the Turkish campaign of 1595-1596, and

him

Flanders with

in 1599, the year he

he

in 1592; also

married Claudia de Cattaneis,

went

to

singer at

a

the court. She bore three children and died at an early age, in 1607. Monteverdi

never remarried. Monteverdis brother, Giulio Cesare, was also

composer his

in the

famous

Mantuan

sibling.

court, and Giulio sometimes acted as

was Giulio, for instance,

It

who

musician and

a

spokesman

some of

explained

for

Claudio’s

theories and thinking in the preface to the Scherzi musicali of 1607.

Monteverdi waited, not too

patiently, for

advancement.

On November

20,

1601, alter the death of Pallavicino, he wrote a letter to the duke pointing out

Monteverdi, had seen the deaths of Alessandro Striggio, de Wert, Fran-

that he,

cesco Rovigo, and maestro di cappella.

now Pallavicino. Monteverdi He got it. But the pay was

demanding, and Monteverdi, and

his

came out

low,

in financial difficulties, constantly fretted.

even too busy to compose. There gals

demanded the job of the work was hard and

but

all

an eleven-year gap between

is

his

He

was

1592 madri-

next publication, the fourth book of madrigals, in 1603.

The

fifth

1605 and was attacked by Giovanni Maria Artusi, an academic con-

in

servative. Yet

it

was Book

V

made Monteverdi

that

an international figure.

It

was

published in Germany, Denmark, and Belgium. In 1607 the Scherzi musicali for three voices was published.

And

then, also in 1607,

came Monteverdi’s

opera,

first

Orfeo.

Opera was

a

brand-new form

decades earlier when, in Florence, amateurs) worked out to the lyric stage. (father

of the

The

new

a

art

he and

went back only

genesis

form

that

was supposed

more or

to restore

ancient

music, yet “there

is

state. Galilei

that

composers think of require.

reasons

.

.

.

why

it

is

Galilei

moderna (1581). his

would

own

day.

re-create

His

what

admitted the excellence of

not seen or heard today the slightest sign of

what ancient music accomplished.” Modern music aims delight of the ear, if

few

Greek purity

down by Vincenzo

less laid

of music from ancient Greece to

its

a

group of literati and musicians (some of them

combination of drama and music

group considered

much modern

Its

scientist) in his Dialogo della musica antica e della

to effect a

his

a

theories were

Galilei tried to trace the course

aim was

the time.

at

can be truly called delight.”

The

“at

very

nothing but the

last

thing

modern

“the expression of the words with the passion that these

Their ignorance and lack of consideration

is

one of the most potent

the music of today does not cause in the listeners any of those virtu-

ous and wonderful effects that ancient music caused.” Galilei pleaded with posers to write music in

person speaking,

which

all

his age, his sex,

factors are considered: “the character

of

whom

comof the

he was speaking, and the effect he

26

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

sought to produce by

this

means.” Finally the composer must express, in time,

with the appropriate accents, “the quantity and quality of sound, and the rhythms appropriate to that action and to such a person.”

The

Florentine Camerata,

and

as Galilei

group were

his

They were

they were going back to the practice of the ancient Greeks.

polyphony; they wanted

a

simple

line, a

kind of reformation almost two hundred years the poet Ottavio Rinuccini, de’ Cavalieri,

with

Peri’s

posed, but

Jacopo

Peri,

who

music

later.

Among

similar

the Camerata were

supplied librettos, and the composers Emilio

generally held to be the

is

first

opera ever

com-

Several years later Peri and Caccini collaborated

lost.

is

somewhat

to attempt a

and Giulio Caccini. Their theories took concrete form

Dafne of 1597. This its

against

simple accompaniment, natural charac-

and natural word-setting. Gluck was

terization,

thought that

called,

on

Euridice (1601). In the preface to that opera, Peri wrote, “I believed that the

Romans

ancient Greeks and

throughout) used

(who, according to many, sang their tragedies

kind of music more advanced than ordinary speech but

a

less

than the melody of singing, thus taking a middle position between the two.”

Whether or not

really

it

was “Greek”

day nobody knows very

(to this

ancient music), there was no doubt that Euridice

marked

much about

a significant

break from

the past. It

was monodic rather than polyphonic. The solo voices sang

and the chorus was used music

is

as in a

Greek

indeed simple and pure.

The

tragedy.

is

The

Galilei’s strictures, the

figured bass, so important to later

form of musical shorthand

a

kind of chant,

extant score of Euridice gives the melodic

line ol the singers over a figured bass.

Baroque music,

Following

in a

in

which numerals

are placed

under the bass note to indicate the appropriate harmony.

A

keyboard player had

and accurately

as

he read the printed

to learn to read a figured bass as rapidly

He

notes, translating the numerals into the proper chords.

also

had to

flesh

out

the bare harmonies with ornamentation and improvisation. This took a great deal

of skill. There are

still

many

things not

known about

the

way

the figured bass was

“realized” in Monteverdi’s day.

Naturally Euridice

is

of overwhelming

rather stylized and stilted.

make opera

a vital, living

what could be done with and during

his lifetime

It

historical importance,

remained for Monteverdi

form. Monteverdi, above

a play set to

music.

He

all

even

if its

in his Orfeo

music

is

of 1607 to

composers of his

day,

saw

was fascinated with the problems,

composed nineteen dramatic or semidramatic composi-

Only six of them survive, and of those only three are operas. The actual term opera was not yet in use when Monteverdi composed

tions.

He

called

it

a “favola in

musica”

—

a story in music.

To

Orfeo,

Monteverdi brought

elements of the madrigal and some of the monodic ideas of the Florentine erata.

The

pomp

ol the Renaissance. Monteverdi’s orchestra

music,

as in

Orfeo.

Cam-

the theatrical opening horn flourishes, also evokes the

anything the Camerata envisaged;

it

was much more elaborate than

calls for thirty-six players.

Orfeo

is

carefully

27

Pioneer of Opera

and symmetrically constructed, and scholars have spent ing out

sung

and

its

formal relationships. But the work

recitatives

their

stile recitative

and the

style)

of the Florentines have

is

much more

now been

(reciting style) has

than pure form.

The

enriched with arioso and

aria,

turned into the

(agitated style). For the

stile concitato

of time work-

a great deal

stile

rappresentativo (theater

time in history there was

first

complete unity between drama and music. The natural flow of the word

wrenched, and the music, unlike

that

madrigals, such as Lasciate

and dance interludes. There

monti,

i

penetration of the piercing sadness Euridice:

a

of Euridice,

when

is

Throughout the opera

there

carryover of the medieval

to

is,

never

highly varied. There are jolly is

the psychological

the Messenger announces the death of

hushed, chromatic droop that has

simple,

is

a

modern

an archaic quality because of the

ears,

modes on which

Giotto-like purity.

a

the scales and

harmonic system were

The modes had not yet disappeared in Monteverdis day. Fully a dozen were still in use. Not long after Monteverdi’s death the rise of harmony destroyed the modes to the point where only the equivalent of major and minor remained. Ofeo also demanded virtuoso singing. An aria such as Possente spirto, with its based.

elaborate rising and falling

the voice,

demands

a

on

vowel while the orchestra weaves

a

powerful vocal technique. In

own

amazingly modern: not only for Monteverdi’s

modern

in that everything

is

aimed

and the music points up the emotions. In to, say,

Monteverdi and Berg, stage a di

works

more

in

slender and derivative

at least

Duke

from Arianna survives, and is

said to

it

last

at

di Savoia in

Monteverdi

year.

1608 ceremonies

Only

know one

can compose

and Arianna (and the 1500

father (his wife intolerable.

its

fast,

but

For the wed-

recast

fast

it

as a

madrigal.

had died the

Monteverdi always was

a

The

fast.

He

felt

In later

he had been

and good do not go well together.” a drastic step.

Cremona with year before). The to

com-

tears.

verses), his relations

went back

time.

short time, and that the job nearly killed

Monteverdi’s unhappiness led him to take

deteriorated that he

to

the famous Lamento

that in addition to the opera a

Isolde.

naturally

the peak of his creativity, but he was not happy.

required to set 1500 verses to music in

him. “I

is

1608, Monteverdi

overworked and underappreciated, and he had to do too much too years he said of the

und

opera, L’iticoronazione

had been composed up

have reduced the audience to

Monteverdi was

is

closer in style

to Wagner’s Tristan

also the Ballo delle ingrate.

that because

It

paramount,

is

equal with the music. Ofeo

Vincenzo’s son to Margarita

posed an opera, Arianna, and

Lamento

is

works came Irom Monteverdi the following

significant

ding of

it

The drama Ofeo is much

work than Monteverdi’s

Poppea, but nothing even remotely like

Two

day but also for ours.

is

reduced rather than elaborated, creating

in their pithy way, is

respects the opera

detail.

that respect

Berg’s Wozzeck than

which the drama

around

furthering words and emotion through

at

music with no pause for extraneous or irrelevant

and technique

many

itself

Shortly after Ofeo

with the Mantuan court had so his children.

He

stayed with his

pressures at court had

slow worker, and

as

an

artist

become

he simply could

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

28

not turn out music by the yard. As early “I lack the

energy to work

as

assiduously as

and weak from recent overwork. of God, you never again give

do

short a time to

it;

1604 he was complaining to the duke:

as

much

so

do

to

took

his

work too

very best. “If

skill

that, for the love

my

poor

life

me

so

instead of

Of course

sons.”

a

could have written to order on the spot, but he

seriously to produce music that was not representative of his

have to write

I

now

feel tired

still

I

one time nor allow

at

being able to serve Your Highness longer and to help

composer of Monteverdi’s

For

past.

have an unexpectedly short

shall

I

have in the

beseech Your Highness

I

me

otherwise

I

a lot in a

short time,” he once said, “I shall be

reduced to mere note-spinning instead of composing music appropriate to the text.”

Other things bothered him. There was was taken for granted, and

feeling that he

low

his pitifully

There was

salary.

hurt Monteverdi,

that, too,

a

whose ego

appears to have been fully developed. In a letter of resignation to Annibale

Chieppo, counselor to the Mantuan court, Monteverdi cited

as

one reason:

“I

was never favored by His Highness with any public acknowledgement, but Your Excellency well knows that servants appreciate marks of favor, both to their honor

and advantage, from great princes, particularly

The duke ordered was not going

verdi

the recalcitrant

to

composer

be pushed around. His

of strangers.”

in front

to return to

Mantua, but Monte-

Chieppo on December

letter to

8,

1608, demonstrates his independence of spirit and the real grudges he held:

Today, the

which

I

day of November,

last

Mantua in order reply, he commands. I

tasks at the theater,

my

that if

tremendous over-exertions

maddening

rash

the purgatives I

I

from Your Honor from

a letter

to hold

myself in readiness to

myself out once again with exacting

to tire

span of

have received

commands me

gather that His Highness

return to so

I

I

do not take

life

complete

be shortened; for

will

in the past

a

I

consequence of

in

on my body which neither the cauterizing

I

be the cause of

the fortune

I

partially.

my

suit

The Signor Padrone

death not long hence.

I

tell

favor by letting

me accompany him

disadvantage; for expenditure

far as to fear that

you, Your Honor, that

mounted up

to

when

I

at last,

fortune seemed to favor

by His Highness’s favor

from the

city

then, after

I

should receive

a

me

and

Hungary

it

it

was neverthe-

to an extent such as

my

poor

until today.

.

.

.

allowed myself to believe that

money from me once again. And

pension of 100 scudi of Mantuan

Governor, His Highness withdrew

my marriage,

I

me

rejoiced that the

household has been aware of ever since the time of that journey

And when,

rash to

have enjoyed in Mantua throughout nineteen years has given

Duke showed me

my

maddening

me, and he even goes so

cause to feel ill-disposed rather than friendly. For even

less to

a severe,

have taken, nor even the blood-letting and other measures to which

Mantua which does not

air will

my

have undergone, nor

ascribes the cause of the headaches to strenuous study, but the

the

from the exacting

rest

have developed headaches and

have submitted, have succeeded in curing more than

the air of

tasks; at least,

his favor

was no longer 100 scudi, but

still

only 70; and in addition

Pio n eer of Opera

I

was deprived ot the good

months gone

the

did return.

He

Rome. Was he out of

how

Duke Vincenzo

that, as

some

His brother

made

then

a trip to

left

me no more

he had

freedom.

By

He

works.

made

also

He

did not march

than 25 scudi after 25 years,” he said

money and

a

a salary

dream

was

Cremona,

position: that

of maestro

of 300 ducats, “and with the

and an apartment “which

later the salary

a trip to

were taken

the court with him. Monteverdi returned to

regalia,”

modated.” (Three years

Mantua.” Nevertheless he

in

was discharged.

Milan. In 1613 he achieved

normal and customary

in his life

am

and Monteverdi resigned from the court.

died,

Mark’s in Venice, with

di cappella at St.

I

Your Honor

better position? In 1612 matters

a

scholars believe, he

out in triumph. “I took with bitterly.

miserable

his attention to religious

scouting around for

his hands.

may be

it

turned

“Now

other grievances, ending with:

list

understand perfectly well

will

had requested and of the payment due for

I

by.

Monteverdi goes on to

Or

facilities

29

raised to

400

will

be properly accom-

For the

ducats.)

position. In Venice he also

first

time

had almost complete

the standards of the day, Venice was liberal and even democratic.

Monteverdi had

one

to observe only

meddle

proviso: he could not

in political

matters.

Venice,

when Monteverdi

city in the world.

power;

came

it

Its

population was about 110,000.

was cosmopolitan;

good

for a

was probably the

arrived,

was

it

where

a city

It

was

Venice was

a city

the city in

which Tintoretto, Veronese, and Titian had

of wealth and

a city

from

nobility

time, spent lavishly, dissipated stupendously.

of parties, entertainments,

most effervescent

liveliest,

all

over Europe

Throughout the year

carnivals, balls, feasts, theater.

musical traditions were extremely distinguished. Situated

was

and worked.

lived as

It

Its

was, Venice was a

it

crossroads that had assimilated the antiphonies of Eastern liturgical chant, the

popular music of southern

Italy,

the graceful secular music of the French court,

the contrapuntal austerities of the Netherlands style, the church music of the Vatican. Foreign musicians

Rore had been

maestri di cappella at St.

from Europe had made Venice

cians

Italian

and

were constantly

and Cipriano de

Marks, and many other important musi-

their

home.

It

also

had

its

own

school of

composers. Very important were the two Gabrielis, Andrea (1533—1585)

his

worth

in residence. Willaert

nephew Giovanni

special

mention.

of the church for

He

(c.

1553—1612). The music of Giovanni Gabrieli

wrote many works for

special effects.

Each

side

St.

Mark’s, using the resources

of the church had

were

Symphoniae

inevitable,

sacrae

and Gabrieli

of 1597 there

is

a

choir

its

organ, and plenty of room for instrumentalists, soloists, and chorus. nal effects

is

loft,

an

Thus antipho-

fully exploited their possibilities. In his

Sonata pian’

e forte that

opposes one group

consisting of a cornet and three trombones with a second group containing a viola

da braccia and three against the other,

and

more trombones. Each group, or “chorus,”

how

St.

Mark’s must have reverberated to

plays with

this

and

proud, noble

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

30

A work

music! brass,

and

such

Gabrielis In

as

has

ecclesiis

was interested in

strings. Gabrieli

two vocal

choirs, soloists, organ,

a big, brilliant

hears his music, the glory of the late Italian Renaissance

was an innovator, and

when one comes alive. The man sound, and

way

“sonate” for instruments alone pointed the

his

to the

future.

When

Opera composers abounded.

the Teatro Cassiano

opened

in 1637,

Ven-

promptly became the opera headquarters of Europe, attracting such composers

ice

Francesco Cavalli (1602—1676), Marc’ Antonio Cesti (1623—1669), and

as Pier

such other masters Cavalli

as

Giovanni Freschi, Antonio Sartorio, and Giovanni Legrenzi.

was one of Monteverdi’s pupils and second only to him

enough

pioneers. Venice could not get

had become

been given. people from

opera.

By

as

end of the century, opera

the

public spectacle. Venice had sixteen theaters, and 358 operas had

a

Many all

of those were

expensive productions, and

full-scale, elaborate,

over Europe came to marvel. John Evelyn, the British diarist

by the most excellent musicians, vocal and

plays are presented in recitative music,

instrumental, with variety of scenes painted and contrived with perspective,

and machines for flying

taken together,

it is

in the

times.”

(

Monteverdi loved Venice, accorded him. “There

not

is

Striggio at the

Mantuan

and wherever

perform

whole

my

orders, asked

himself]; neither

also in

the

more sweet

maestro

since

di cappella:

in

such

the chapel, dies.

.

house.

.

.

nobody

and

among them.

Mantuan

court.

a

way

it.

I

that the

all

esteem and honor, can assure you that

Mantuan several

Striggio, acting

Monteverdi

on

him

let

In Venice, he said,

that in the cappella they

is

do not accept

[i.e.,

Monteverdi

no gentleman who does not esteem

go to make either church or chamber music,

whole

the cappella

city runs to hear. is it

And

then

my

service

I

can is all

under temporal employment except the is

up

will say anything to him;

him

to

of absence or not; and

his salary, if

it

friend Alessandro

and commissioned

music

his

I

honors

either organist or vice-maestri unless they have a

on the contrary

singers, to grant leave

in

except that of the maestro di cappella

do they accept

Your Excellency,

changed thirteen

contact with the

lost

he would not consider

that

and honor me; and when

assure

good

me

not hold

Monteverdi never

report from said maestro di cappella; there

me

his

music, either profane or sacred,

to return to the

They have honored me a singer

Lydia; the scene

he wrote to

ballet Tirsi e Clori (1616)

Monteverdi

any report on

in

“who would

interested

no uncertain terms

in

of

and other wonderful motions;

for the city itself as for the

a patrician,”

city flocks together.”

important works, the

much

as

court,

which remained

court,

less art

was an opera by Giovanni Rovetta.)

Hercules in Lydia

I

air,

no

one of the most magnificent and expensive diversions the wit

of man can expect. The history was Hercules

know

who

Venice in 1645, wrote about going to the opera, “where comedies and

visited

the

one of operas

he does not go to collect

and dismiss the

he does not wish to go into

if

and

to appoint

his position

it

at

is

certain until he

the right time,

is

sent to his

^

Pioneer of Opera

Monteverdi contrasts

this

sweet

of

state

Mantuan tenure, when he had “to go to what was mine by right. As God sees me, abasement of the

spirit

than

when

31 with the sour memories of

affairs

the treasurer every day, to beg

have never in

I

all

my

him

for

deeper

life felt a

was necessary ... to beg the treasurer

it

his

for

what was mine.” No, Monteverdi was not going to leave Venice. At St. Mark s, Monteverdi had the services of about

He

instrumentalists.

was required

of music. Like Bach,

work

compose, teach, and be in complete charge

to

Monteverdi was

so hard during

was approaching, and

whole

and twenty

a

busy church composer. In 1618 he wrote

Striggio apologizing for not delivering a promised score because he had

a letter to

to

thirty singers

Holy Week and

“it will

my

be

Easter; then the Feast

duty to prepare

writing religious music, and he begrudged the time

him most. “My

ecclesiastical service has

the species of theatrical music,” he wrote; or,

That

distracted me.”

is, it

mass and motets for the

a

Monteverdi was not especially interested in

day." All indications are that

interested

of the Holy Cross

had taken up

all

took from the work that

it

removed

“The

from

service at St. Mark’s has

An

of his time.

me somewhat

energetic administrator,

a brilliant

executive musician, Monteverdi reorganized the liturgical music and

quality of

performance

ecclesiastical

at St.

Marks, bringing them up

music was published

(1640) and Messa a quattro

e salmi

two

in

new

to a

standard. His

large collections: Selva morale e spirituale

(posthumous, 1651).

His church duties did not stop him from writing secular music, however. Col-

were published

lections of madrigals

in 1614, 1619,

the 1638

book Monteverdi had something

had been

a

lengthy preface to Combattimento

most scholars about the

to say

call

about

his theories.

“the excited genre,”

way of writing. “In

all

as

he described

soft

there were many. Yet Plato has described this type in the third

Monteverdi decided “to

about the rediscovery of

set

He

it.

music was received with great applause and

beginning of the imitation of wrath,

further through

and

this style

more

studies

into detail

claimed to have

I

I

could

book of The Repub-

this

music.”

He found

“The had once more made a e

Clorinda.

continued to investigate the

and composed sundry works

wrote imitations,

stile concitato

pizzicato, used as

much

to

my

for

style

church and court;

pleasure and honor.”

was the introduction of such

One

effects as the string

it

aspect of

tremolo and

symbols of passion and war.

Monteverdi s madrigals, with plete musical

I

work

was so much appreciated by composers that they not only praised

orally but also

the

praise. After

also

and the temperate

the secret in certain rhythmic patterns that he used in Tancredi

successful

went

the works of composers of the past,

not find an example of the excited genre, though of the

lic.

There

Clorinda (1624), a

di Tancredi e

“a dramatic cantata." In this preface Monteverdi

stile concitato,

discovered this

and 1638. In the preface to

world

rules to suit himself,

their variety

in themselves.

moving with

of mood and technique, are

a

com-

As he grew more experienced he bent the

ever-increasing freedom in these relatively short

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

32

Some of his pungent harmonies are amazing for any age; “expressive dissonance" is what many scholars have written about them. The Monteverdi madrigals could be dramatic or, as in Zefifiro torno, ravishingly melodic. They are full of word painting that only adds to the charm. The old counterpoint was put through a wringer, with many of the old rules flouted. No wonder conservatives like pieces.

Artusi were disturbed. Artusi could hear only dissonances in these madrigals, and

he simply could not understand that the composer deliberately sought those har-

monic

Monteverdi madrigals there

clashes for expressive purposes. In the

are, in

the words of Denis Stevens, “a repertoire of textures and techniques almost with-

out

among

parallel

Opera continued works e

as

La

VUlisse has

di’s

finta

contemporaries.”

Armida, Adone, La Proserpina

Licori,

but

lost,

correspondence with

Madness

his

occupy much of Monteverdi’s time. The music

to

pazza

been

all

and

his predecessors

in

and La Delia

rapita,

we know something about them through MonteverLa finta pazza

his librettists.

—was composed

to such

1627 and

is

Licori

held to be the

—

Who

Licori

first

Feigned

comic opera

in the

him

history of music. Giulio Strozzi was the librettist, and in his dealings with

Monteverdi worked very much

as

Both composers had strong

Verdi did with

his librettists.

and the way the action

ideas about the poetry

should go. Both despised over-literary, “elegant" language. Both were interested in logical

development of character. Both strove

the essence of character

is

for a kind of musical truth

more important than

Strozzi, discussing the character

irrelevant music.

it

must consequently be based upon

sense of a phrase as a whole.

Monteverdi

to

of Licori: “For since the representation of such

moment and

feigned madness must take account only of the present past or future,

where

single

When she speaks of war she

not of the

words and not

in the

must represent war, when

of death, death; and so on." Strozzi had trouble shaping the plot to Monteverdi’s satisfaction,

and the composer wrote

Strozzi the libretto

scenes such If

as

I

does not

he discussed

move me

can naturally inspire

satisfy

still

me

him. Monteverdi,

to a

and

is

even

moving

all,

simplicity and living

Monteverdi operas

—

human

—wrote

di

that “I avoided

difficult to

I

set

also

it

to music. In a

climax.” His

understand, nor do

I

feel

librettists strove valiantly to

della musica,” as

He

was the great

he was

He

called.

beings from his poets, and he was not

Eneo all

e

the librettist for

Lavinia and the surviving

II

two

ritorno

far-fetched thoughts and conceptions,

to the affections [emotions] as

have them; to his satisfaction

had used.”

he refused to

Thus Giacomo Badoaro,

the lost Le nozze

and paid more attention

first

further varied, novel and diverse

was not just another composer.

bashful about hurting their feelings.

d’Ulisse in patria

got through with

about which he had doubt: “I find that

a libretto

at all,

after

a libretto,

and famous Claudio Monteverdi, the “oracolo

demanded

when he

certainly will suggest to him.”

letter to Striggio

it

would be enriched “with

Monteverdi was not moved by

this tale

to a friend that

changed and

left

out

Monteverdi wished

many of the

to

materials

I

*

33

Pioneer of Opera

Busy though he was, Monteverdi nevertheless found time was

good

in

health and he lived to an advanced age, though

On

troubled with headaches and eye disorders.

and robbed. Monteverdi described the event

emerged from

criminals

had

third

on the

a field

one

his life

all

he was

upon

set

The The

in a lively letter to Striggio.

Two

held muskets.

made

dagger and seized Monteverdi's horse. Monteverdi was

a

was

of his trips he

of the road.

side

He

to travel a bit.

to kneel

while the bandits helped themselves. They ordered Monteverdi to undress, but he

he had no more

said

money and

him with many

they

ordered to undress, “but she resisted

let

succeeded in making them leave her in peace.” teverdi's cloak. It

It

He

was too long.

a suit

Monteverdi had

again."

are only a

we

this

few other things

that

learn

musician in Paria

come

a

few

about the courier from

there was nothing he could prove. If

we know about him. From

a letter

Monteverdi worked onlv

details: that

a

There

written by in the

j

sons, the elder, Francesco,

good voice and was taken on

appointment there

The

in 1623.

who became

singer at

as a

St.

a

morn-

a great deal; that

arrested.

Carmelite a

other boy, Massimiliano, became

took months of effort by the

It

a

Mark’s, with

1627 he got into trouble with the Inquisition for reading

was

tall.

difficult.

Of Monteverdi’s two had

Mon-

of the boy and went through the

ing and evening; that he rested in the afternoon; that he talked

he could be

and

tears,

of the thieves tried on

episode that Monteverdi was probably

from

else,

One

his suspicions

Mantua who was accompanying them, but nothing

and

prayers, entreaties

then grabbed the cloak of Monteverdi’s son.

was too short. “Next he came across

whole procedure

was

alone. His maidservant also

frantic

a

friar,

permanent

a doctor.

In

prohibited book, and

Monteverdi

to clear the

young

man. Monteverdi was growing

old, but

deeper music. Working in Venice

1630 Mantua was

court. In

many of

scores of

Scherzi musicali,

70

in 1637.

above

all,

But the

the

Poppea.

The

and the

parallel

There

are

last-named,

was

still

operas,

come

to II

guerrieri et amorosi.

—

composed

some problems about

but in 1881

title

page

a

the Selva morale

ritorno d’Ulisse in patria

in 1642,

with the Verdi of Otello and

lost,

is

best

two

last

1632 Monteverdi wrote the second book of

In

1638 the Madrigali

in

e

Monteverdi turned spiritual (1640) and,

and L’incoronazione

Falstaff

is

frequently made.

ritorno d'Ulisse in patria. It

II

missing, the manuscript

is

was long believed

in the

from the extant Badoaro

hand of libretto.

a copyist,

Most

It

has a kind of blazing genius that

could have approximated.

It

is

the

The

and there

are

experts, however,

have no hesitation attributing the work to Monteverdi. About Poppea there doubt.

di

was the work of a 75-year-old man,

manuscript was discovered in the Vienna State Library.

significant differences

old

at his

went many Monteverdi manuscripts, including the

his operas.

and

he did, he was spared the troubles

low during the War of Succession, and with the

laid

destruction of part of the city

as

he continued to write ever-fresher, ever-

is

no

no other composer of Monteverdi’s day

summation of Monteverdi’s

art.

Years pre-

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

34

answer to one ot Artusis

viously, in an

word must

dictate the

harmony

word. Monteverdi was aiming Poppea he achieved

L’ incoronazione di Popped

canto

lines,

at

an expressive music,

a

is

new

style

at

sion, lust, petulance, love,

and lyricism, and

With

gated to terse musical drama. Aeneds, not until Mozart’s

human

condition

music and drama

Nozze

show

is

subju-

the possible exception of Purcell’s Dido dtid

was an opera

di Figdro

to be written in

Complete

parity

which

between

off the virtuosity of the singers, or the composer’s

The

write pretty tunes.

to create a series

which everything

jump

achieved. Monteverdi did not regard opera as a group of

is

unrelated set pieces to ability to

bel

its

skips over three centuries to

it

so vividly translated into music.

is

dd cdpo arias,

its

touches of humor. In Popped are pas-

right into operatic theories ot the twentieth century, in

the

the mistress of the

poetic speech in song. In

of opera, with

lifelike characterizations, its

its

harmony being

rather than the

that the

he never had before.

as

it

Monteverdi had written

attacks,

great avant-gardist of his day,

of musical forms that would

Monteverdi

tried

emotions of

exdctly express the

his

characters.

Products of the

pose

first

many problems

as

half of the seventeenth century, the as

the plays of Shakespeare. There

no manuscript

ing. Virtually

editors today have to

work from

Monteverdi’s orchestra, with

modern

today of Orfeo, disagree.

There

meant, what basses.

singers. this

There

There

Peri’s

a

Not many

notes and

art

really

his figured

He

first

opera on.

We know

pays tribute to a singer, “that

she constantly invents if

trills .

.

.

art

of the voice

by adorning them .

.

.

which by the

but also with those charms and

notated, cannot be deciphered.” So singers

kind of leeway unheard of today.

one of the original Camerata, wrote which is used “without tying a man’s voice

years later Giulio Caccini,

to the ordinary

measure of time, often making the value of the notes

and sometimes more, according that excellent kind

point

Monteverdi and

is

to the conceit

of singing with

tion ofrubato, “stolen time,”

The

the very

made them “worthy of her

about “the noble manner of singing,”

tion.

many such

are

be called the Euterpe of our age, Signora Vittoria Archi-

graces that cannot be notated and, a

There

problems in resolving

of 1600.

and not only with those turns and long

were given

and

raised a scholarly storm. Experts

are

way of life from

to Peri’s Euridice

who may

of her

to exist,

problems in performance practice, especially in relation to the

from the preface

liveliness

known

so-called practical editions.

and Popped, and each has

Ornamentation was

She took

is

problems in deciding what Monteverdi’s directions

are

are

the question of edit-

copyists' manuscripts or first printed editions.

his orchestra really was.

excellent lady, lei.”

Ulisse,

is

obsolete instruments, has to be translated into

its

means

terms. That

own hand

in Monteverdi’s

Monteverdi operas

that musicians

his pupil Cavalli

This

is

a

half,

very good descrip-

to be considered only a

and singers today

(who enjoyed

by

of the words, whence proceeds

a graceful neglect.”

which used

less

a

who

romantic inven-

address the operas of

remarkable revival during the

35

Pioneer of Opera

late

1970s) in a

literal,

note-perfect

manner

are getting

it all

wrong and

are missing

the essence of the composer. In the revisit

year ol his

last

life

Monteverdi took

Cremona and Mantua

a leave

of absence.

He wanted

before he died, and his trip was in the nature of

triumphal procession. Great receptions and honors were accorded him.

away

for six

months. Shortly

seventh year.

Two

Venice he died,

after his return to

many

years, spent nearly a

1651, printing the music that Monteverdi had

finally, in

a

He was seventy-

in his

churches held simultaneous services for “the divine Claudio.”

Alessandro Vincenti, his publisher for

and

to

Hennnge and Condell

decade collecting

left.

(One

thinks of

gathering and finally publishing the complete works of

Shakespeare in 1623.)

How

could so great, so

One

after his death?

vital,

and so famous

answer suggests

itself.

a

composer be forgotten

Music was

so soon

to take a different turn.

Monteverdi straddled the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but the High

Baroque washed away the school also

must be remembered

Nobody

300

in his

is

largely a

little

alive

years to be rediscovered.

position as the

first

mechanism

modern

day was kept

had culminated with the great Venetian.

Monteverdi

that in

expensive); that there was

consciousness

that

by

day few operas were printed (too

s

to disseminate ideas; that historical

concept. Monteverdi was not the only one. his music.

Monteverdi had

But today there

are

few

of the great composers whose music

and astonish modern audiences.

It

to wait well over

who would still

has

dispute his

power

to

move

—

Transfiguration

2.

of the Baroque

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

T

here was

been interred near the door of the

paces from the south wall. In 1894, St.John’s readied

alterations that

upon

body of Johann Sebastian Bach had Church of St. John, approximately six

Leipzig that the

a tradition in

would have destroyed

group of

a

the traditional

site

itself for alterations

of Bach’s grave. Where-

headed by an anatomist named William His,

scholars,

started

looking for the grave. They had one piece of information with which to work: in 1750, the year coffins.

One

Three

of Bach’s death, only twelve persons had been interred

of those twelve was Bach.

coffins

were dug up near the south

was of oak and contained was made, and Karl Seffner. his report,

a facial

a

male skeleton

mask

wall.

in

Two

indeed Bach’s.

who

closely to the

known all

transferred to a

portraits

of Bach. In

evidence and concluded,

had worked on the project,

The remains were then

possible test

was contributed by the sculptor

published in 1895, Dr. His summarized scientists

One

of them were of pine.

good condition. Every

to cover the skull

The mask corresponded

along with the

St.

oak

in

that the skeleton

tomb beneath

was

the altar of

John’s. If

the skeleton was indeed Bach’s, and there

composer was

a

man

about 5

feet,

strong physique, and a solid body, portraits

from

life

the fact that there

way

of telling

that have is

so

IVi inches

all

to us.

like.

tall,

with

to

doubt

it,

the

a rather massive head, a

Bach iconographers have bemoaned

pictorial evidence,

what he looked

no good reason

physical characteristics suggested by the few

come down

little

is

and

a

few believe

that there

But whatever pictures we do have

—

all

is

no

with

37

Transfiguration of the Baroque

Bach wearing

wig, according to the custom of the day (though some scholars

a

have wondered are the a

if

it

covers a bald head)

prominent nose, the

—show many

fleshy cheeks, the outthrust chin, the severe lips.

man who

tough, strong masculine face, the face of a

an uncompromising face: not with the look of

It is

who

the look of one

of

All

pupils,

a

man,

up

for his rights.

but certainly with

a fanatic,

way.

known about Bach

is

He

the man.

He

it

far

feared this stern figure.

Lutheran whose library contained

a practicing

worrying about

may have

likely his children,

volumes.

ecclesiastical

own

his

will stand

It is

was stub-

temper, he had the reputation of being hard to get along with. His

and most

religious

with whatever

this tallies

born, he had

determined to have

is

common. There

points in

a large

He was

a

number of

seems to have been obsessed with the idea of death,

more than

his

contemporaries, and in those days Heaven

and Hell were not abstract concepts but

fearful truth.

Handel, for instance, was

a

profoundly religious man, but he knew he would be going to Heaven. So, one

who

stood

men

Haydn. Those two

gathers, did

much more

in

awe of the

were friends of God. Not Bach,

that they

felt

Deity.

He once

reason of music “should be none else but the glory of

said that the

God

the mind.” That he had a strong sexual drive, his family children, of

whom

nine survived him.

by any of the great composers: not unusual. There also 1706: “Thereupon ask

maiden

was the

It

the reproof handed

is

him

further by

what and

to be invited into the organ loft

day,

him by

final

and the recreation of

attests;

largest family,

even for Bach’s

large

aim and

when

he had twenty

by

far,

produced

large families

were

the Arnstadt authorities in

right he recently caused the strange

her

let

make music

there.” Victorian

biographers of Bach were thrown into sheer consternation by the implication that

composer of the B-minor Mass, could have been interested in strange maidens. It was decided that the strange maiden was his cousin, Maria Barbara, whom he married the following year. But there is no evidence one way their saintly hero, the

or the other.

Bach was

burgher, twice married, and

a solid

suffered want.

Of

all

amusing

less

humor

composed

life.

Did

the

man

it

is

virtually the only

One

ever smile?

a Meistersinger.

Bach’s musical

of wine that

Anyway, getting back

Elias

had

mightily “that even the spilled.”

return.”

Elias,

amusing thing

wonders. Certainly

humor

on the Departure of a Beloved Brother, one or

gift

Johann

his cousin,

his

Then Bach Then,

finally,

sent.

least

this

he

in

hastily says

there

is

to

Johann

is

a postscript:

—bulk

Elias,

music has

Wagner

gift

of

infinitesimally

Bach writes about

lost in transit,

noble

rather

his Coffee Cantata, his Capriccio

two other pieces

Some of it was

drop of

—

is

in Bach’s

than the music of any of the other great composers. Even

small in his output.

never

penny and watching grimly over

Some of his correspondence with

in this respect. Indeed,

humorless

He

the Bachs of his day he was the most affluent and most

respected, but he was not above pinching every

every expense.

as thrifty as a peasant.

a

and Bach lamented

God

should have been

no position “to make an appropriate “Although my honored Cousin kindly

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

38 offers to oblige

with more of the

liqueur,

I

must decline

his offer

on account of

the excessive expenses here. For since the carriage charges cost 16 groschen, the

man

delivery

2 groschen, the customs inspector 2 groschen, the inland duty 5

my honored

groschen, 3 pfennig, and the general duty 3 groschen,

judge is

for himself that each quart costs

really

me

almost 5 groschen, which for

a

present

too expensive.”

Bach was born

in Eisenach, Saxony,

on March

eight children of Johann Ambrosius Bach,

who

Cousin can

who

21, 1685, the youngest of the

was the son of Christoph Bach,

was the son of Johannes Bach, and so back to Veit Bach, whose birth date

unknown

but

who

great pride in the accomplishments of the family,

“Origin of the Musical Bach Family.” baker in Hungary,”

Hungary because

who

ol his

picture of old Veit,

who

died in 1619. Johann Sebastian,

He

once

traced

it

like

all

the Bachs took

started a genealogy

back to

is

Veit, “a

named

white bread

“in the sixteenth century was compelled to escape from

Lutheran

who

“found

Bach draws

a

charming

his greatest pleasure in a little cithern

which he

faith.” In this

genealogy,

took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on.

(How

pretty

it

must have sounded altogether! Yet

And

have the rhythm drilled into him.)

this

way he had

in this

was,

as

a

chance to

were, the beginning of

it

a

musical inclination in his descendants.” Bach always believed he was of Hungarian descent, but

moved

to

now

most scholars

Hungary, and then returned.

In Veit’s day there were also

and

Lips.

came

the

think that Veit had been born in Germany, had

Hans Bach and Caspar Bach.

Veit fathered Johannes

From Johannes sprang Johanna, Christoph, and Heinrich. From Lips Meiningen line of Bachs. The family was industriously fertile, and for

over two centuries bred true, producing one respected musician after another.

There were musical Bachs

in Arnstadt

and Eisenach,

in

Ohrdruf, Hamburg, and

Ltineburg, in Berlin, Schweinfurt, and Halle, in Dresden, Gotha, Weimar, Jena,

They were a close-knit, clannish group who making music, exchanging gossip, trying to place

Mtihlhausen, Minden, and Leipzig. loved to

visit

members of presented

Bach

man

one another,

their

own

family in important musical posts.

itself anywhere in

Whenever an opening

Germany, news raced through the ganglia of the great

family, causing twitches

and responses. As often

as not,

the Bachs got their

in.

Johann

Sebastian’s father,

organist in Eisenach.

He

Johann Ambrosius, was

died

when

preceding year). Sebastian and brother Johann Christoph,

about the

who

five years Sebastian

was what we would

call a

that time the average age

his

a

highly regarded church

Sebastian was ten (his

mother had died the

brother Jakob were taken in by their older

was organist

spent there.

at

Ohrdruf. Not

He must

much

is

known

have been a gifted child.

He

senior in the local school at the age of fourteen, and at

of seniors was nearer eighteen.

organist and clavier player (the clavier

is

the generic

term

instruments: harpsichord, clavichord, spinet), a singer,

a

He for

good

also

was

a

good

keyboard stringed violinist,

presum-

39

Transfiguration of the Baroque

we

ably already a composer. But

We

are discussing

Johann Sebastian Bach, perhaps the most stupendously and there

figure in the history of music,

about

When

childhood.

his

any talented young musician.

are not discussing

much more we would

so

is

did his extraordinary talent

show

first

like to

itself?

gifted

know

Did he

The Bach family being what it was, a consideration. What went on in the boys head,

have absolute pitch? (He must have had.) genetic factor must be taken into

what kind of musical and

We

did his father and elder brother give him?

We

do know the main external events of

fifteen

he went to

that already

St.

he was

in the service

his

We know

life.

that at the age

was

a series

which he held

his final position,

in Leipzig.

We know

that

he was highly respected in

an organ player and organ technician than

the Baroque

of positions

for twenty-seven years, as

cantor (teacher) of St. Thomas’s School and organist-choir-master

as

Hamburg;

Michael’s School in Liineburg; that he visited life

of

of the court or the church: Arnstadt, Miihlhausen, the ducal court

of Anhalt-Cothen,

Church

training

do not know.

contentious young man; that his

a

what kind of

physical reflex operated, exactly

movement

were undermining the

to

its

though more

his day,

who

composer. Bach,

as a

when

peak, lived during a time

radical

had been

edifice that to a large extent

Thomas’s

at St.

built

new

carried

concepts

on polyphony.

Indeed, Bach lived to find himself considered an old-fashioned composer, a ped-

whose music was pushed

ant,

music of the his son,

style galant

—

and

fill

as

a specific

art’s

level-headed

he regarded himself

day,

so popular in

are that this did not

romantic notion of art for practical

—

need

of music composed for

working

ever lived. Like

as

all

one

professional,

Sunday, an exercise

a particular

instrument.

He

book

When

his predecessor’s music, storing

for the children, an

did publish a very few

that his successor

were around.

It

would

was

just as

a cantor’s

summarily get

rid

expected the

fully

he became cantor

in Leipzig,

somewhere (although

it

as

ordinarily wrote to

he carefully read everything through before getting rid of

that

Bach was

composers of the

all

who

He

lived before the

eternity.

by and large he

especially proud, but

bulk of his music to disappear after his death.

he bundled up

made

London.

composer

a cantata for

which he was

homophonic, melodic

bother Bach very much.

sake,

a

as a

organ piece to demonstrate pieces of

lighter,

the elegant, graceful, rather superficial music that

Johann Christian,

The chances

of the

aside in favor

it),

it

seems

and he knew

of whatever Bach manuscripts

job to present music that he had composed not the

music of another man.

Of course, if

he

knew

his

worth.

there was anything that drove

He must

have

him out of his mind

or musicianship of a kind that did not meet his

—

were

well, Bachian. His

whole

determination to make music on got involved in an argument with that

Bach drew

his

known from

life

his a

own

it

the beginning, and

was slovenly musicianship,

standards.

And

those standards

dotted with episodes that

is

own

level.

student

As

attest to his

early as 1705, in Arnstadt,

he

named Geyersbach. The upshot was

dagger and went for Geyersbach; and, in

a trice,

the future

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

40 composer

hem on

Matthew

ot the St.

opponent.

his

On

Passion

was rolling on the ground, attempting may-

examination

it

colleague a Zippelfagottist

fully called his

turned out that Bach had once disdain-

—

who

bassoonist

a

those of a nanny goat. Bach was reproved, especially

produced sounds

like

he “already had the reputa-

as

tion ot not getting along with the students.”

But Bach was incorrigible. was determined to have music and

drive

his

improve himself,

body

—

his

no,

would seem

It

own his

way.

He

is

“For

if

is

it

no

his potentialities

interfere

with

and of

his vision

to saturate himself in his art,

to

could be absorbed. If some-

reproved in 1706 for staying away from his duties

Buxtehude

at

once

reproved for being

he considers

his salary,

do

He

—

a

He

play the organ).

the organ during services.

at

long and, in defiance, “he had too short.”

Nothing could

compulsion

(he had walked to Liibeck to hear

harmonies

knew

he

to study, to absorb everything that

interfered, taut pis!

his strange

that

He

fallen into the

is

is

reproved for

reproved for playing too

other extreme and

made

it

“loner,” for his standoffish, superior attitude.

disgrace to be connected with the

Church and

to accept

he must not be ashamed to make music with other students assigned to

so.”

At Weimar he

is

actually sent to

issue of his dismissal.”

jail,

Bach wanted

complaining to the authorities about

to

in 1717, for

go

Cothen. In Leipzig he

to

money

“too stubbornly forcing the constantly

is

matters and his perquisites, and soon

becomes very unpopular with the town council, which accuses him of neglecting his duties. Bachs duties were numerous. In his application to Leipzig in 1723 he had written out what he promised to do:

(1) life,

That

I

shall set the

boys

a

shining example of an honest, retiring

manner of

serve the School industriously, and instruct the boys conscientiously;

(2)

Bring the music in both the principal Churches of this town into good

to the best (3)

of my

Show

ability;

to the

Honorable and Most Wise Council

dience, and protect and further everywhere as best likewise

if

a

estate,

gentleman of the Council

unhesitatingly provide

him with

I

desires the

all

may

proper respect and obe-

its

honor and reputation;

boys for

a

musical occasion,

the same, but otherwise never permit

them

to

go

out of town to funerals or weddings without the previous knowledge and consent ot the (4)

in

Burgomaster and Honorable Directors of the School currently

Give due obedience to the Honorable Inspectors and Directors of the School

each and every instruction which the same

able

in office;

shall issue in the

name of the Honor-

and Most Wise Council;

(5)

Not

take any boys into the School

in music, or are not the least suited to

who

have not already

laid a

foundation

being instructed therein, nor do the same

without the previous knowledge and consent of the Honorable Inspectors and Directors; (6)

So

that the

fully instruct the

Churches may not have

to be put to unnecessary expense, faith-

boys not only in vocal but also in instrumental music;

41

Transfiguration of the Baroque

that

good order

In order to preserve the

(7)

shall

it

not

last

in the

too long, and shall be of such

a

Churches, so arrange the music nature

as

not to make an operatic

impression, but rather incite the listeners to devotion;

New

Church with good scholars; with caution, but, in case they do (9) Treat the boys in a friendly manner and not wish to obey, chastise them with moderation or report them to the proper Provide the

(8)

place;

Faithfully attend to the instruction in the school

(10)

me

and whatever

else

it

behts

to do;

And

(11)

if

cannot undertake

I

this myself,

arrange that

it

be done by some

other capable person without expense to the Honorable and Most Wise Council

or to the School;

Not

(12)

to

go out of town without the permission of the Honorable Burgo-

master currently in office; (13)

Always so

(14)

And

shall

far as possible

walk with the boys

at funerals, as is

customary;

not accept or wish to accept any oflice in the University without

the consent of the Honorable and Learned Council.

Bach was responsible for the music and its performance in all four churches. He had to compose a cantata for the weekly service and

In addition,

of the

city’s

conduct the performance. this

to provide Passion

was the normal part of any cantor’s

such the

He had

post.

music for

city.

From

Friday. All

There were extracurricular

providing motets for weddings and funerals, or

as

Good

festival

activities,

compositions lor

these extracurricular tasks he derived income, and he once pointed

“when there are rather more funerals than usual, the fees rise in proportion; but when a healthy wind blows, they fall accordingly, as for example last year, when lost fees that would ordinarily come in from funerals to an amount of more than 100 thaler.’’ out in

all

seriousness that

I

In Leipzig,

tion he

Bach found neither the cooperation, the income, nor the apprecia-

had hoped

for,

and soon he was

as usual at

Councilor Steger was provoked into saying

odds with the

that not only did the cantor

ing “but he was not even willing to give an explanation ol that

confirmed the council’s

secret suspicions

because no other candidates Platz

had put

it,

who

“since the best

fact.’

about Bach, for he had

suited the council

man

were

available.

The

“best

man”

to

(1681-1767), an incredibly credit at his death.

Telemann,

—

do noth-

to Leipzig

As Councilor

could not be obtained, mediocre ones would

whom

prolific

City

This probably

come

have to be accepted.” Thus did Councilor Platz assure himself ot history.

officials.

footnote in

he referred was Georg Philipp Telemann

composer

a fine

a

who

had some 3,000 works to

his

musician and an admirable composer, was

more than the less fashionable Bach ever was. (Telemann and Bach, incidentally, were on very good terms, and the Hamburg

very popular in

Germany

far

composer was the godfather of Bach’s son, Carl Philipp Emanuel.) Then, in 1736, came Bach’s great battle with Johann August Ernesti, the rector of St. Thomas’s

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

42 School.

It

was an

rocked the school, drove the council

affair that

brought out every

bit

and

frantic,

of the considerable stubbornness and fighting instinct of

Bach. Ernesti had chosen one Johann Gottlieb Krause to be prefect of the

Thomas

School. But Krause was

a

poor musician, and Bach was

infuriated.

St.

He

protested to the council. Ernesti answered back. There were charges and counter-

Bach would not

charges.

he could get no

quit.

He

carried the fight to the consistory and,

when

His Most Serene Highness, the Mighty Prince

satisfaction, “to

and Lord, Frederick Augustus, King

in Poland,

Grand Duke

in Lithuania, Reuss,

Mazovia, Samogitia, Kyovia, Vollhynia, Podlachia, Lieffland, Smolensk,

Prussia,

Severia and Czernienhovia,

Duke of

Saxony,

Westphalia, Archmarshal and Elector of the

Jtilich,

Cleve, Berg, Engern, and

Roman

Holy

Empire, Landgrave of

Upper and Lower Lausiz, Burgrave of Magdeburg, Prince and Count of Henneberg, Count of the Marck, Ravensberg and Barby, Lord of Ravenstein, My Most Gracious King, Elector, and Master.” Nobody knows how the affair finally came out. It is assumed that Bach finally Thuringia, Margrave of Meissen, also of

won.

The

point

is

Bach was not

that

music making.

attitude into his

a

man

How

to

be pushed around, and he carried

he chafed

he was surrounded! This complete musician,

incomparable executant,

this

composer whose vision embraced the then-known musical to

work

in Leipzig

strength he for

church music

contain

at least

forces.

In

1730 he outlined

his

far

minimum

requirements

it

would be

better if sixteen

were

For the orchestra there should be eighteen and preferably twenty

complained Bach, what did he have? three professional fiddlers, and

of their

A

grand

total

of eight

qualities

students. Seventeen

These Poor

Peters

on top of everything

were “usable,” twenty “not yet

Church got

me

pipers,

to speak

said, for

else,

his

most

the decline of

At the end, he summarizes the quality of the

fifty-four boys constituted the choruses St.

—four town

and musical knowledge.” Bach threw up

of the students were untalented. This accounted, Bach in Leipzig.

available.

players. But,

one apprentice; and “Modesty forbids

hands. Such conditions were intolerable, and

performance standards

below the

Every musical choir, he told the town council, should

twelve singers, though

at all truthfully

this

universe, this titan had

with wretched students and with personnel

needed and wanted.

which

the mediocrity with

at

this

the worst of the

usable,”

and seventeen “unfit.”

of the four churches in Leipzig. lot,

understand music and can only just barely sing in

“namely those

who do

not

a chorale.”

(Note the reference to the “town pipers.” Those gentlemen could be wellrounded musicians, and in 1745 Bach examined one of them, a worthy named Carl Friedrich Pfaffe. “It was found,” Bach wrote, “that he performed quite well,

and

to the applause

employed by town

of all those present, on

all

the instruments that are customarily

pipers, namely: violin, oboe, transverse flute, trumpet,

and

horn, and the remaining brass instruments, and he was found quite suited to the post of assistant

which he seeks”)

).

.

Bach

S.

.

.

portrait

by

the face of a matt

Elias Gottlieb

who

will stand

Haussmann

up for

Ins rights.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

44

That, then, was what Bach had to

work

occasions, he could get more. For the

with. Every once in a while, for special

St.

Matthew

Passion he scraped together

over forty participants. Bach evidently craved large forces, and in the

name of

“authenticity,” to present such large-scale

Mass and the two big Passions with Bach’s

memo

of 1730.

Of course,

a tiny

number of

a

it is

works

mistake today,

as

the

B-minor

participants in line with

Bachian textures must be preserved whatever

the forces involved, and the music must be presented with perfect clarity. But that

does not preclude

Bach did

big sound.

a

with the raw material.

his best

He

could probably play most of the

instruments in the orchestra, and he took his forces in charge

much

as a

modern

conductor does. Generally he conducted from the violin or the harpsichord. Very little

scholarly

work

has been

general assumption

is

beat time. Yet there

is

done

of conducting, and the

in the early history

that not until the nineteenth century did a leader actually

plenty of evidence from Bach’s

own

day that the person in

charge of an ensemble most definitely did beat time. Indeed,

when Bach exam-

ined the unfortunate Krause, he specifically mentions that the student could not beat time correctly; that “he could not accurately give the beat in the

of time, namely even, or four-quarter, and uneven, or three-quarter.”

pal kinds

From

two princi-

all

eyewitness accounts, Bach

nating figure.

He

was

at

the head of an orchestra was a

a brilliant score reader.

“His hearing was so fine that he was

able to detect the slightest error even in the largest ensembles.”

he would

sing, play his

own

part,

keep the rhythm

“the one with a nod, another by tapping with his finger, giving the right

bottom, and

a third

dm made

all

by

domi-

steady, feet,

While conducting,

and cue everybody

in,

the third with a warning

note to one from the top of his voice, to another from the

from the middle of it

—

all

alone, in the midst of the greatest

the participants, and, although he

parts himself, noticing at

is

executing the most difficult

once whenever and wherever

a

mistake occurs, holding

everybody together, taking precautions everywhere and repairing any unsteadiness, full of rhythm in every part of his body.” Thus did Johann Matthias Gesner, the Rector

who

preceded the troublesome Ernesti, describe the great

man

at

work. His son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, remarks that Bach was especially finicky about tuning. To this he paid the greatest attention, both in the orchestra and in his

own

instruments

please him.

even

He

at

home. “Nobody could tune and

did everything himself. ...

in the largest ensembles.”

He

The concept of

sense of the word, had not been invented; but, a

modern conductor

per, a

in everything but

name

quill his

instruments to

heard the slightest the conductor, in

it is

—and

wrong note the modern

interesting to note,

Bach was

probably, with his quick tem-

fearsome one.

Exactly

how

he conducted,

we do

not know.

about rhythm? Expressive devices? Today

mance

practice have

been

lost.

We

What were

many of the

his

fine points

tempos? Ideas

of Bach perfor-

can only speculate about things like pitch,

instruments, ornaments, embellishments, balances, even the rhythms and tempos.

45

Transfiguration of the Baroque

Take the subject of pitch. Scholars have determined that full tone lower in Bach's day than it is in ours. But there day,

still

in operation, in

on the

How

higher.

is

also are

much

as

organs of Bachs

Bach himself tuned

Which

disagreed. In addition there

written out, such

not surprising, for authorities in Bach’s

is

seem

holding notes for

as

been many conventions

to have

that

own

make an informed

specialized study,

But while performance

longer or shorter length ot time than

a

at

it

Domenico

it

ever was. Stronger, indeed, lor

comparing

in historical perspective,

—Handel,

Vivaldi,

By any measurement Bach

Scarlatti.

changing from generation to

practices are transitory,

other great composers of his day

with the music of the

it

Couperin, Alessandro and

eclipses

all.

His vision was greater,

technique unparalleled, his harmonic sense frightening in

and ingenuity.

sion,

And

while he

is

much

guess.

generation, Bach’s music remains stronger than

can look

day

were not

they were actually written. At best the conscientious musician can, after

his

his

subject of written-out embellishments in Bach’s music, and often the

authorities disagree.

we

as a

not know. As tor embellishments, books have been published

we do

instruments

which the pitch

was often

it

its

power, expres-

not considered one ol the great melodists, he

could nevertheless spin out tunes of ineffable rapture, such as the slow movement phrases of the Trio Sonata in E minor, which proceeds in calm, immense, noble in a

kind of tidal ebb and flow.

Bach was

a

about 1600 to 1750. Baroque music,

nounced mannerist

its

doubt.

The Baroque saw

which numerals thorough

greatest figures, has pro-

of the supernatural or grandiose,

all

commin-

High.

indicate the harmonies to

bass,

and

Bach

to

harmony and the figured bass, in be used. Another name tor figured bass

the rise of four-part

The thorough

it

was equivalent to

he was quoted by

bass,

a

system handed

a pupil as saying,

a perfect foundation of music, being played with both hands in such

the

from

the Renaissance period (and later the Classic) stood lor order and Baroque (and later the Romantic) stood for movement, disturbance,

the

On

practiced by

era runs

Where

clarity,

is

as

Baroque

mysticism, exuberance, complexity, decoration,

qualities;

allegory, distortion, the exploitation

gled.

In music, the

composer of the Baroque.

left

hand

plays the notes written

dissonances, in order to

make

a

down

down from is

the most

manner

while the right adds consonances and

well-sounding harmony to the Glory of

the permissible delectation of the

spirit;

music, so of the thorough bass, should be

that

and the aim and

none

else

God and

final reason, as

of

all

but the Glory of God and the

recreation of the mind.”

saw the disappearance of the old church modes and the associated keys that consolidation of the major/ minor system of scales and their of rhythmic ideas have remained in use to this day. It also saw the development

The Baroque

that

also

broke music into accented barlines.

lead directly into sonata,

Baroque

also

had

its

own

It

was the

rise of the

symphony, concerto, overture, and free

forms

forms that weie to variation.

toccata, fantasia, prelude, ricercar.

But the

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

46

It

was

period that saw the

a

of

rise

a

spread trom court and church into the started

cultured middle

class.

Music began

to

where many middle-class citizens demanding musical entertainments. These were the forerunners of today s city,

public concerts. Musicians began to supply those demands, sometimes,

on

case of Handel,

a

as in

the

spectacularly successful financial basis. Musical academies

were formed, and even coffeehouses put on musical programs to satisfy their patrons. Bach was involved in such a project, and for many years conducted the weekly concerts at Zimmermann s coffeehouse in Leipzig, on Friday evenings from 8 to

The

10.

participants (so ran the

announcement

in 1736) “are chiefly

students here, and there are always

times they become,

as

well

is

good musicians among them, known, famous virtuosos.”

so that

some-

With Bach the Baroque in music came to fulfillment. Bach was all that had gone before, and he anticipated much that was to come. He was not only a learned musician when it came to his own music; he also was a learned musician in all music. a a

He

was one of the most cultured musicians of his day, with tremendous knowledge of what was happening in the European scene. He had

know and

sheer lust to

contemporary. is

certainly

It

no evidence

was not

that

to assimilate that

he was

all

of the

music then

a scholar, interested in

he made any great

available, ancient

and

musical history. There

unearth medieval music, for

effort to

That probably would not have interested him. What did interest him, overwhelmingly and even compulsively, was technique. How did composers put instance.

things together?

What was

seems to have had

the quality of their ideas? In matters like these,

insatiable professional curiosity.

Was

it

because, consciously or

unconsciously, he wanted to measure himself against other composers? to hear

new

music, wherever

it

was possible for him

Bach

to attend,

He went

and was constantly

reading what he was not able to hear in person. Bach, of course, could read a printed score as easily as an accountant reads a ledger or a commuter the evening

newspaper. As great organists

a

youth he would absent himself from

his duties to listen to the

—Vincent Liibeck and Buxtehude, among

of the great regrets of

his life that

—and

he never heard the famous Handel.

the old music by Palestrina, Frescobaldi, and Legrenzi;

Telemann, and Albinoni.

others

it

was one

He knew

new music by

Vivaldi,

music interested him very much, and he must have been particularly impressed with the works of Vivaldi (1678-1741), his Italian

almost exact contemporary.

Not only

did Bach copy and transcribe Vivaldi’s

works; he also took over Vivaldi’s concerto form for his

He knew Scarlatti.

the sonatas of

But

Domenico

was not only

Scarlatti

own works

in that genre.

and the choral works of Alessandro

music that Bach read through and assimilated. He was familiar with the music of the French school from Lully to d’Anglebert and Couperin. Bach is supposed to have had a long correspondence with the it

Italian

famous Francois Couperin (1668-1733), but no letters survive. Couperin, like Bach, came from a musical family and was celebrated throughout Europe. His wonderful clavecin music is still very much in todays repertory, and some of his

47

Transfiguration of the Baroque

organ music and Concerts royaux are man’s music for himself and for

heard.

still

Bach copied some

Anna Magdalena,

his

second wife.

ot the

Of

the

French

German

composers, Bach esteemed the music of Handel, Froberger, Kerll, Fux, Schiitz, Theile, Pachelbel, and Fischer. There is no evidence that he was acquainted with

would only be because the printed music or manuscripts were not generally available. As a child Bach had grown up with

the English music of his time, but that

an unquenchable musical appetite and was never able to

To

a large

possessed by

satisfy

it.

extent he probably was self-taught. Musicians on the order of genius a

Bach,

Mozart, or

a

a

much

Schubert do not need

instruction.

They

immediately soak up and assimilate every musical impulse. They merely have to be pointed in the right direction and be given a from all sources little push. So it was with Bach. From the very beginning he took have minds

like blotters that

and made them

own. And he did

his

this in

every

known At

musical form with the

and Bach could

worst

exception of opera. Bach’s music has endless

variety.

write dull music, though never bad music

Bach’s music bears signs ot haste and

—

its

impatience, and clearly he was dashing off a formula piece to meet the demands

of

But

a specific occasion.

the

summit of the

fresh

and

original,

his average

is

very high, and

at its best his

music

is

at

Bach could use formulae of the day and make them sound because they were his formulae. The forty-eight preludes and

art.

as are

the

hailed as of Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge), unanimously

one

fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier are

Chopin Etudes. The Art of the great intellectual

tours de force of

from one another

as different

Western man,

is

a colossal

work, an unfin-

ished series of contrapuntal variations, again with unfailing variety and imagination.

intended The Art of Fugue to be played— as an organ work, as an orchestral work, or anything in between. The instrumentation is unspecified (although most scholars believe that it was composed for a keyboard

Nobody knows how Bach

instrument), and the

German

scholar Friedrich

Blume even

himself was not interested in whether su’ch works

performed, or were capable of being performed.

wanted

to continue a tradition

inherited from the

Roman

suggested that Bach

The Art of Fugue were ever he In them, Blume writes,

as

of consummate contrapuntal

skill,

school of the Palestrina period by

which he had

way

ot Berardi,

‘esoteric Sweelinck, Scacchi, Theile, Werckmeister and G. B. Vitali. It was ... an theory.’ Perhaps, but activity, this disinterested transmission of a purely abstract

was there ever

a

composer

who

wrote abstract music not

to

be played?

One

The Art of Fugue carries pure counterpoint to its height. To tour fugues, two ot give an idea of the complexity of the work: it starts with doubts

it.

In any case,

which present the theme, the others presenting the theme in contrary motion which the original sub(that is, back to front). Then there are counterfugues, in ject

is

inverted (turned upside

double and

down) and combined with the

triple fugues, several

Geiringer’s description,

original.

There

are

canons, three pairs ot mirror fugues. In Karl

“Bach presents

all

the voices

first

in their original

form

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

48 and then, reflection

like a reflected

doubly

second fugue, the

realistic,

image, in complete inversion. To the treble ol the

changes into

alto

into a treble, with the result that

first

a tenor, the

make

the mirror

fugue becomes the bass of the tenor into an

alto,

and the

bass

No. 12:2 appears

like 12:1 standing on its head.” Musicians for over 200 years have been awed by the incredible technique and ingenuity with which Bach, in The Art of Fugue, summarized everything known about counterpoint and then added the full measure of his

own mighty

creating a score that in

genius,

majesty and poetry stands unique. It is Bachs last major composition, and he never finished it. While working on an enormous triple fugue he decided to add as a counterpoint the letters of his own name (B = Bflat, and H = B-natural in German nomenclature). Just as his name

autograph out

stops.

its

Some

musicians

—

appears, the

Tovey,

Riemann, and others

— have worked

completion, but those are never played in concert, nor should they be. The emotional shock of hearing the B-A-C-H theme and then abrupt silence, just as the countersubject with the notes spelling out his name is getting a

started,

is

a

shattering experience.

Polyphony

is

but one side ol Bach.

ments under the

titles

He

could write collections of dance move-

ol Suite or Partita; or devotional cantatas; or

music with

the bracing athletic vigor ol the Brandenburg Concertos; or music as titanic as the B-minor Mass and St. Matthew Passion; or out-and-out virtuoso pieces for the organ, of grand design, overwhelming sonority, and uninhibited finger and foot display (these organ works should be played on a Baroque and never on a Romantic organ); or involved pieces for solo violin or cello; or a long set of harpsichord variations called the Goldberg, which in chromatic tension (that twenty-fifth variation!) has hardly a peer until Chopin and Wagner. It is

harmonic

intensity above

all

that sets Bach’s

music apart from that of

contemporaries. Bach had anything but a conventional musical mind. His always full of surprises: something unexpected,

something

norm, something

that only

that departs

Bach could have dreamed from the material.

his

work

is

from the

A Vivaldi

concerto grosso, lor example, goes along primarily in tonic, dominant, and subdominant harmonies, and any exploration of keys is within safely charted courses. In Bachs music a completely new harmonic language is forged. A superior har-

monic sense is the mark ot nearly all the great composers, the one thing- that sets them ofl from their more timid and less inventive contemporaries. Where most composers ot his day would confine themselves to the rules, Bach made the rules. Even as a young man he was industriously investigating the harmonic potential of music. It was tor this that he would be reproved. His listeners were not used to

such daring. At Arnstadt, the twenty-one-year-old Bach was rebuked “for having hitherto made many curious variations in the chorale, and mingled many strange tones in it, and for the fact that the congregation has been confused by it.” As he grew older, his harmonic adventurousness became more and more pronounced.

Taking the forms bequeathed to him, Bach was constantly expanding, refining,

49

Transfiguration of the Baroque

improving them.

He

wrote organ,

on works by other composers, such

them

in the process.

clavier concertos, often basing

and

violin,

and putting

as Vivaldi,

his

own

them

genius into

His music for solo string instruments has never been sur-

passed for ingenuity, complexity, and difficulty.

One wonders how good

a violinist

Bach was. Surely none but a master of the instrument could have conceived such figurations. One also wonders how many violinists in the world at the time could have played, with any degree of accuracy, such phenomenally taxing writing. The

immense Chaconne from

the

D-minor

Partita for solo violin

is

the best

known

of these solo string pieces, but the fugue of the C-major Sonata is as powerful and magnificent a conception. The fugal movements of the solo suites tor cello are also

of extreme complexity and

of the

day,

Bach

clearly

As one of the outstanding performers

difficulty.

enjoyed an occasional workout. There are bursts of exhila-

rating virtuosity in his music, as in the clavier cadenza of the Concerto.

And many

of

D-major Brandenburg

organ works are finger-twisters and foot-tanglers.

his

“There!” one can imagine Bach saying,

conclusion of the D-major Pre-

after the

lude and Fugue for organ. “Beat that!"

Bach was one of those who, once and for all, established the well-tempered tuning used today. Composers had been working in that direction, but it remained for

Bach

to demonstrate the practicality and, indeed, inevitability of the system.

mean-tone temperament was in general use, which meant half tones of different sizes. The problem was how to arrange the tones within the octave so that the scale would have consistent harmonic ratios from tone to tone.

Up

to his time,

of the scale in any given key could

mean-tone temperament, the ratios worked out, but what was good for, say, In

German

theoretician and writer

born

Bachs time) put

in

it

C

major was not good

tor F minor.

be

The

on music Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (who was way: “Three scales were made ugly in order to

this

Or, in the words of the British musicologist Percy A. than Scholes, “It is not possible to tune any keyed instrument perfectly for more one key; if you tune it correctly for key C, the moment you play in another key

make one

some of

beautiful.”

the notes will be out of tune.

single key

was

perfect, but,

by

a

On

compromise,

mean-tone temperament just a certain number of keys were made

the a

near enough perfect for the ear to tolerate them, the

The compromise mentioned by

points out, certain keys were so outside the

very seldom found

—except

in

being outside the

pale.

Scholes involved raising or lowering individual

pitches of the scale so that several keys could be

not be used. In early music such

rest

common

accommodated. But,

mean-tone patterns

keys

as

B major

as

Scholes

that they

could

or C-sharp minor are

Bach. Following the lead suggested in Andreas

Werckmeister’s Musical Temperament (1691), Bach divided the octave into twelve approximately even tones. Wo one key was perfect in this kind of compromise,

and there were

slight imperfections in

the ear to tolerate.

The system made

it

all

keys, but those

practicable to

and any of the twelve keys could serve

as

were small enough

modulate into any other

the tonic. Bach

composed 7 he

for key,

U'ell-

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

50 Tempered Clavier

The two books

as

an illustration of what could be done with

kind of tuning.

this

The Well-Tempered Clavier contain forty-eight preludes and fugues, two each in all of the major and minor keys. ot

In recent years a

good

been written about Bach’s use of musical symbolism. Albert Schweitzer was one of the first proponents of the idea. He maintained that not only was

often

deal has

Bach

essentially a painter in tones, but also that

not incorporated into

as

his

music specific motives of

weariness, and so on. Schweitzer insisted that

work

this line are

Bach

discounted today, though

The

substitution of

known

a practice

numbers

is

terror, grief,

hope,

impossible to interpret a Bach

known. Most of Schweitzers

it is still

as

a parlor

game among

a

ideas along

handful of

and even numerical symbolism into Bachs

specialists to read ecclesiastical

music.

been

meaning of the motive

unless the

it is

Bach

for the letters

of the alphabet seems to have

since the time of the Netherlands composers. Thus, to

quote from Karl Geiringers 1966 biography of Bach, “14, for instance, is the number symbolizing Bach [B = 2, A = 1, C = 3, H = 8]; inverted, it turns

which

into 41,

stands forj.

S.

Bach, asj

is

9 plus 18 plus 14 makes 41. In Bach’s very

method is significantly used.” The temptation is great to Bach

he. Fortunately, his

ulating as such exercises

the ninth, S the eighteenth letter, and last

chorale arrangement this symbolic

was indeed Bach’s method, the less music can be enjoyed without such artificial props, stimsay that if this

may be

to a certain kind of

mind. There

is

no music

in

the literature that has Bach's kind of rightness, of inevitability, of intelligence, of logically organized sequences religion,

specifically,

It

is

also a

music that

is

tied

up with

Lutheranism. Bach honestly believed that music was an

expression of divinity. “Jesus, help”)

of notes.

He

began

and ended with

his scores

SDG

of sacred music with

JJ (Jesu Juva,

“To God alone the Glory”). Unconvincing attempts have been made by one or two scholars to prove that Bach was not really a religious composer. It is hard to follow the reasoning. Bach

composed in the

a great deal

(Soli

Deo

Gloria,

of church music (including

much

that has

motets and cantatas, the Masses and Passions, there

is

been

lost),

and

so religious a feeling

that the

music cannot

any

the responder’s identification with the mental processes of the

be understood except by one whose religious roots, feeling, and very background run closely parallel to Bach’s. In the appreciation of is

art,

critical:

fully

the closer the identification, the greater the appreciation.

get the obvious message of Christ lag in Todesbanden or the niceties

and refinements of the music

actual religious service that

identify with the

it

church and the

Any of us

can

B-nnnor Mass. But

the

in relation to the spiritual

represents are fully spiritual life

open only

of Bach’s

day.

necessarily confined to Bach’s church music. Certainly a

Fugue means more to one is

who

it

means

message and the

to those

Nor

who

can

are these remarks

work

The Art of has himself struggled with counterpoint, and thus

in a position to recognize the diabolically

lems, than

composer

to a listener

who

ingenious

way Bach

like

solved the prob-

cannot even read music. But

at least

the

51

Transfiguration of the Baroque

secular music poses fewer difficulties.

Bachs thought, sharing emotional

One

in his

music has to

treats

It

and following the

abstract;

is

mental processes,

one of the

is

of

lines

and

intellectual

offer.

of the great problems posed by Bachs music in the twentieth century

involves matters of performance practice. Obviously,

it is

impossible to re-create

Too many factors have changed. And every age has its own performance style. The Romantics, as they did in everything, took a very free attitude toward Bach, and played him in their

a

performance

that

would

duplicate

one

in

Bachs

day.

own

image. Romantic performance practice has extended into our

been only within the

come

last

research,

now know much more

and

it

has

been made

that serious attempts have

few decades

to grips with the problem.

day,

to

Musicians, thanks to intense musicological

than previous generations did about the salient

corrective to

Not enough, however, is known. As a Romantic performance practice, a generation of young artists grew

up

singing,

points of Bach’s style in performance.

playing,

and conducting Bach with mechanical

approved editions and

relatively small forces in

an attempt to be “authentic.”

trouble has been that the music then sounds sterile

of grace, of passionate

ducted

his

of

style,

line. If

we know one

—

thing about Bach,

Bach himself

practice will admit.

it

is

that

he was

spontaneity than

told a pupil,

one Johann

He

should

express the “affect,” the meaning, the emotional significance of the piece. it

might eventually turn out

though lacking today s scholarship, were style

than the severe, note-perfect, and

that the derided

By

a

Romantics, even

instinctively closer to the essential

literal

a

played and con-

Gotthilf Ziegler, that an organist should not merely play the notes.

strange irony,

The

Bach robbed of humanity,

a

man and a passionate performer. He undoubtedly own music with infinitely more dash, freedom, and

modern performance

using

rigidity,

Bach

musicians of today.

After Bach’s death, most of his music was shelved, though he himself and a

handful of his scores were not forgotten.

It

seems to be an

ad nauseum, that he was neglected until Mendelssohn’s

That simply

is

not true. For one thing,

his sons,

attitude toward their father (and toward his

St.

who

article of faith,

Matthew had

revival in 1829.

a rather

second wife, too; they

repeated

let

ambivalent

Anna Mag-

dalena ah but starve, and she was buried in a pauper’s grave), nevertheless did

something

Johann Christian may have once referred

to propagandize his music.

to his father as “the old peruque,” but

Bach’s music to

who

a little

all

day. Carl Philipp

introduced

Emanuel,

who

embarrassed by the old-fashioned quality of Bach’s

Johann Nikolaus

of Bach’s sons spread

they were expected Several died

who

disposed of the plates of The Art of Fugue, nevertheless supplied

invaluable material to

Indeed,

was Johann Christian

many of the performers of the

seems to have been music, and

it

to.

his

Forkel, Bach’s

name and

fame.

biographer (1802).

They

all

took up music,

as

“All born musicians,” the proud father said of his boys.

young and another was feeble-minded.

important careers.

first

Four, however,

went on

to

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

52

Wilhelm Friedemann (1710—1784) went and

He was

drunkard. life.

He

finally settled in Berlin.

was eccentric and

very talented, and

for twenty-eight years, achieving great

keyboard

player,

burg. As

a

ill-adjusted and,

fame

at

the court of Frederick the Great

— more than

his father ever did

composer, Carl Philipp Emanuel represented the

—

the elegant, noncontrapuntal

from the age of eighteen

Finally, there

Bach.

A

Then,

One

curious thing

on

his fathers tradition.

family.

He went

to

Italy,

artistic success,

who

known

Bach

set

two

ol Bach,

memory

he composed operas, gave piano

alive.

who

Bach

ol

them known

all

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg

when

his

when

debts.

the

He, too,

over Europe, helped keep

whom

(for

name from being

Bach wrote

his

forgotten. Several things

discussing Bach’s reputation after his death.

of the public concert was in

its

When

infancy.

whatever kind of hall could be pressed into service

(a

The

concerts were given,

nobleman’s salon, or

a

it

own

was generally through the music.

The

efforts

of a composer

who wanted

at

dance

or an opera house, or whatever, for there were almost no concert halls

such), his

recitals

pupils such as Johann Friedrich Agricola, Johann

helped keep

should be kept in mind

hall,

John

of variations) went on to become famous musicians, and they were

proselytizers

institution

as

style galant.

Philipp Kirnberger, and

famous

called

His father would not have

a Catholic.

London; he went bankrupt and died leaving many

These lour sons their fathers

was one

where he

and conducted orchestras, taught, was mentor to the young Mozart

represented the

was

the Biickeburg Bach, served in

he went to England, where he was

in 1762,

big social and

child visited

Ham-

in

style that

was Johann Christian (1735-1782), the London Bach,

himself Giovanni Bach, and he became liked that.

as

until his death, carrying

few traveling members of the

ot the

as

he could not play the violin because he was left-handed.

E. Bach:

Johann Christoph Bach (1732-1795), known that city

new

—

galant that was developed

style

by the Mannheim composers and led into Haydn and Mozart. P.

believed, a

composer, and teacher. In 1768 he succeeded Telemann

sweeping Europe

about C.

it is

life,

but he lived an unfulfilled

his father’s pride,

Emanuel (1714—1788) was

Carl Philipp

wandering

to Halle, then started a

as

to introduce

idea of a concert artist playing other men’s music

was

still

in

Romantic period was very much a contemporary art, concerned primarily with what was going on, not with what had been. Little the future.

interest

Music

until the

was paid to music of the

hear, or to study,

music of the

past.

past. In

any

case,

it

was extremely

difficult to

Scores were hard to find, performances

all

but

nonexistent.

Yet so great was the power of Bach’s music that professional musicians.

remaining

in the

It

Bach’s music

at

remained known to many

even came to pass that Bach’s music broke tradition by

repertory

successor as the cantor at

it

Johann Friedrich Doles, Bach’s pupil and Thomas’s from 1756 to 1789, continued to perform

at

St.

Leipzig.

the services. Doles also acquainted

and Mozart was entranced.

He

Mozart with some Bach

studied them, arranged

some of

scores,

the music, and

Augsburg

Archive,

Municipal

Collection,

Zenger

St.

Thomas's Church

where Bach worked from

1

123

in

Leipzig

to the

end of his

life.

was strongly influenced by Bachian counterpoint. Baron Gottfried van Swieten in

Vienna was the leader of something

that

amounted

to a

Bach

cult.

He showed

which Bach’s music was played. Haydn was well acquainted with The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Bminor Mass, owning the music of both. Beethoven was brought up on The WellTempered Clavier. The English organist and composer Samuel Wesley (1766-1837), Bach

scores to

Mozart and Haydn, and had musicales

long before Mendelssohn revived the

and preaching Bach

St.

Matthew

at

Passion,

— and Wesley had been introduced

dedicated amateurs and professionals. Johann Baptist

was studying, playing,

to

Bach by

a

group ot

Cramer (1771-1858), com-

poser and pianist, was playing Bach in public before 1800, and was followed by

such other pianists

as

Alexandre Boely, Joseph Lipavsky, and John

Field.

Anybody

go through European musical periodicals and books ot the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries can dig out innumerable references to “the famous Bach.” Far from being forgotten, Bach bulked large. Not so

who

takes the trouble to

large, perhaps, as

poser of

now

should be

Handel, or Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783), the popular com-

forgotten operas, but large; and the

laid to rest.

myth of

his “total neglect”

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

54

With Bachs

sons,

the

great stream

exhausted

itself.

The

last

male Bach

descended directly from Johann Sebastian was Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst (1759— 1845), a grandson through the Biickeburg Bach. the

Meiningen and Ohrdruf branches

The

strain

is still

are in existence today,

there was started a Bach’scher Familienverband

fiir

Thiiringen

and

—

alive.

Bachs of

as late as

1937

the Bach Family

Association lor Thuringia. But none of the twentieth-century Bachs was or professional musician.

is

a

Composer

3.

and Impresario

GEORGE FR1DER1C HANDEL

W

here Bach was great

a provincial, a

contemporary George Frideric Handel

where he spent most of his

in England,

of the world, an independent

also a

German who never

figure,

one of the

first

businessman of music. George Frideric Handel:

a naturalized British subject

who

spoke English with

an explosive temperament and withal anthropist; a

owner of

a

man who made and good

big

Handel city.

first

man and

heavy accent;

came

to

London

in

That was no easy thing to do a collection

poets, essayists, politicians,

centers of Europe.

It

was

lost fortunes in his

write to Alexander Pope,

who would

pass

it

who

on

in those days.

was

a lusty

one;

man

with

a

paintings;

man

with

one of

a simple,

a shattering

What

an age

it

life.

impact upon the

was!

The London

litterateurs, eccentrics, dandies, perverts,

of wits,

that

made

closed society and

who would

man

musical enterprises; the

some Rembrandt

1710 and made

and courtiers a

name a

and an equally simple and uncomplicated view toward

faith

of Handel’s day had

cosmopolite,

composers

the greatest organists and harpsichord players of his day; a

uncomplicated

his

his

sweet-tempered and even generous phil-

a

including

art collection,

a

great a

a

he spelled

(so

was

life)

Germany,

left

a

relay the

to Jonathan Swift. Joseph

it

one of the great

gossipy one. John

intellectual

Gay would

information to Dr. Arbuthnot,

Addison and Richard Steele were

London with their Tatler and Spectator papers. Sir Isaac Newton, having overturned many mathematical concepts and introduced new ones that would keep scientists busy for generations, was brooding about religion. The wits were delighting

running

all

over London, maliciously telling stories about one another. There

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

56 were no

secrets, especially at court;

and when Lord Hervey got into one of

his

when one of the Duchess of Queensbury’s ladies-in-waiting flirted with a member ot the royal family, or when Lord S. was observed slipping from Lady B.’s boudoir, tongues started to wag simultaneously all over London. frequent scandals, or

But the wits did not claim their lips.

use

be retailing gossip. Never

to

As Swift once wrote to

our endeavours to make

all

enemies except knaves and

Sir Charles

folks

Wogan, “You

merry and

they

that,

said, licking

and profess

wise,

Gay and

Pope,

see,

to have

I

no

fools.”

Into this society, Handel, the burly stranger from Saxony, simply erupted.

Domineering, Addison and

tactless,

Steele.

he immediately started to make enemies, beginning with

Addison’s position was not exactly disinterested. Shortly

before the arrival of Handel, Addison had written

by

named Thomas

nonentity

a

seldom has the

lyric stage

Clayton.

made

given birth to such

Addison released opera are

polemic

still

still

The Spectator and most venomous

the funniest

had hoped

when

smarting, and

his heaviest artillery.

among

who

Addison,

that for-

Italian libretto,

papers dealing with Italian contributions to the British

style.

Handel

No

was

a failure.

debut with enormous success, and with an

his

music

set to

The opera was named Rosamond, and

to establish a school of opera in English,

eigner Handel

was

a libretto that

set the pace,

and

for years turned out Italian opera after Italian opera.

composer could stand up

opera the rage; and,

as a

him for very by-product, he made a great against

long.

Handel made

deal of

Italian

money. The impact

was overwhelming. Gay wrote about the fad to Swift, with great

disgust:

“There

nobody allowed to say I sing but an eunuch or an Italian woman. Every body is grown now as great a judge of singing as they were in your time of poetry; and is

folks, that

could not distinguish one tune from another,

the different ster, in all

stiles

of Handel, Bononcim and

polite conversations, Senesino

Attilio. ... In

daily voted to

is

now

daily dispute

about

London and Westmin-

be the greatest

man

that

ever lived.” Senesino, born Francesco Bernardi, was one of the important castrato singers active in

The attacks

public,

London.

and

upon him

Of the

time.

who

more

in the press. Nevertheless,

ever lived.

later.

took to Handelian opera, but there were fearsome

society,

most cultivated Englishmen musician

castratos,

by and

— and Europeans, too—

He

large,

that

it

was believed by

Handel was the

greatest

did not suffer from lack of appreciation in his

“Hendel from Hanover,

a

man of the

vastest genius

and

skill in

own

music that

perhaps has lived since Orpheus.” That was the entry of Viscount Percival in diary ot August 31, 1731. (Percival, like

graphic day, spelled words

from

his

del,”

and so

name it

after

as

many

in that free

his

and permissive ortho-

they were pronounced. Handel dropped the umlaut

he settled in England, but the pronunciation remained “Hen-

was frequently

Lescaut, gave an estimate

perfection in any art been

spelled.)

of Handel in

combined

Antoine Prevost, he his

in the

Le Pour

et contre

who

wrote Marion

(1733):

same man with such

“Never

fertility

has

of pro-

Composer and Impresario

51

duction.” These reactions of Percival and Prevost were typical. history have been so eulogized in their

time,

Few composers in and few were more written

history,

except Franz Schubert, have

own

about.

And of none of the famous composers in we such scant personal information. There anybody can

about Handel, as

an enormous

is

A

himself.

Gaps

in Italy.

We know how much money

material

Otto Erich Deutsch’s massive

see leafing through

Handel:

amount of

Documentary Biography. But no composer has been so secretive about

Handel chronology,

exist in the

especially

during the years he spent

we know how

he made,

music was

his

we know almost nothing about what he thought. The few Handel letters that have come down to us are formal, stilted affairs in which he reveals nothing about his personal life. For a man so much in the public received throughout his

eye

—

as

composer,

as

in a colorful period

had some secret keep

but

life,

—

cannot be entirely accidental.

this

to hide.

Handel guarded

The main contemporary

colorful figures

almost

It is

him comes from

biography by the Reverend John Mainwaring. This was published

cian.

That alone

phy came

first

biography ever written about

in 1802, fifty-two years after his death.)

knew Handel. He

got

much of

his

Much Handel

which

information from Handel’s secretary, John

has a sketch of the composer’s

Burney

deal of miscellaneous information.

biogra-

But Mainwaring never even

life

knew Handel, and

at least

full

is

A

material can be found in Charles Burney’s

History of Music (1776-1789),

the

musi-

a

first

Christopher Smith (born Johann Christoph Schmidt), and the book inaccuracies.

to

in 1760, the

extraordinary testimony to Handels fame. (Bach’s

is

way

life.

source of information about

year after Handel’s death, and was the

though he

as

privacy and went out of his

his

divorced from his private

his public life

more

impresario, as executant, as one of the

of

General

and

a

good

has given a

physical description that can be accepted with confidence. Handel, he says, was large,

corpulent

John Hawkins, another were bowed), unwieldy in

Handel’s thick legs

his

was somewhat heavy and sour; but when he bursting out of a black cloud. his

.

.

.

He

manners and conversation, but

That appears

be

to

rages, but there

humor,” and was he been

as great a

have been

as

Hamburg,

not count to

totally

says that

frequent, and

five.

.

.

his dealings

as a

Handel’s

wry

He

sun in

all

his heavily

people were to wit

accented English.

as Swift, his bans

kind.”

terrible

mots

and

“Had would

Johann Mattheson, the

young man had been very

close to

sense of humor. Handel “behaved as

Handel if

in

he could

a

dry way of making the most serious people laugh,

He

retained his sense of proportion and could even

had

without laughing himself.”

with

Handel had “a natural propensity

somewhat of the same

who

.

his sire the

devoid of ill-nature or malevolence.”

master of the English language

attests to

was

was impetuous, rough, and peremptory

good raconteur even with

then-famous composer

it

judgment. The great composer could go into

a fair

Burney a

says that

motions, and “his general look

did smile,

never was any malice in him, and

invariably honest.

on music,

British writer

(Sir

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

58 joke about the

—

his

lost

him from composing and playing

the

his blindness

surgeon, Samuel Sharp, suggested that John Stanley participate in one

of the Handel concerts. Stanley was to have burst out in a roar

Scriptures?

— he

During

late years.

1752, though that did not stop

his sight in

organ

cursed his

affliction that

Do

a

famous blind

Handel

organist.

supposed

is

of laughter. “Mr. Sharp, have you never read the

you not remember,

if

the blind lead the blind, they both

fall

into

the ditch?”

Much been

a

traveled, in contact

well-rounded personality.

He

ing.

which means

good humanistic education. But because of

a

made about

guesses have to be that has to

do with

women

had with

his liaisons

his sex

life.

his secretiveness,

many

never married, and whatever associations he

copy of the Mainwaring biography

Italian singers. In a F.

were vague rumors

his early days there

Handel

.

.

.

is

a

scorned the advice of any but the

Amours were rather of short duration, and always within own profession.” The handwriting is believed to be that of George

he loved, but

the pale of his

He

he kept to himself. In with

he must have

that

the breadth of his culture. Also guesses are anything

scribbled bit of marginalia: “G.

Woman

many great men of the day, Handel must have It is known that he was a connoisseur of paint-

studied at the University of Halle,

received

about

with

his

III.

Judging from

his activities,

Handel was

a

gambler,

who

His temper was legendary, especially with singers

famous occurrence along refused to sing an aria

—

meanwhile: “Madame,

am

I

came when

Falsa immagine

and made

control, grabbed her

I

that line

as if to

know you

impresarios must be.

as all

crossed him.

—

from Ottone

as

written. Handel, losing

throw her out of the window, bellowing

are a true she-devil, but

else?

He was

religious, but

not fanatically

delight at setting the Scriptures to music.

I

will

so,

barrel,

surrounded by food. (For

He moved

his will.)

this

He was

He

day).

could

party,

easily

on April

it

that

an enormous eater, and the

any

society.

case,

He is

the charming account

which he attended. Lord and Lady Rich were Percivals.

played the harpsichord, accompanied amateur singers, and was 11,

a

was not one of those

and Lord Shaftesbury, and Lord and Lady Hanmer, and the from 7 to

on

almost unheard-of in Handel’s

be persuaded to entertain. There

12, 1734,

pig, seated

seems that Handel cut Goupy out of

comfortably in the highest

art-for-art’s-sake musicians (that was, in

is

show you

and he told Hawkins of his

famous caricature by Joseph Goupy shows him with the face of a

of a

Cuzzoni

the soprano Francesca

Beelzebub, the chief devil.”

What

wine

The most

at

there,

Handel

the keyboard

enjoying himself immensely.

Handel was born

in Halle

known about

boyhood, though by the age of ten he was playing the organ

well

enough

was sent Halle.

If

his

on February

to attract the attention

to study

23, 1685, the year

Bach was born.

Little

of Duke Johann Adolf of Weissenfels. Handel

with Friedrich Zachow, organist

at

Handel had any teacher other than Zachow, he

the Lutheran church in is

not known.

By

1702,

Composer and Impresario

Handel was organist

at

59

the Calvinist cathedral. But he was not cut out to be a

church organist. From the very beginning he was attracted to the theater, and 1703 he went to Hamburg, one of the busiest and most famous opera centers Europe.

was there

It

was

It

in

he made friends with the young German composer

that

Johann Mattheson (1681 — 1764), and earnest.

in

there, too, that his

strong-minded and stubborn

as

life

was there

he started composing

in

almost came to an end. Mattheson was

as

it

that

Handel, and the two young

men

got into an

argument. Cleopatra, an opera by Mattheson, was being produced in Hamburg. In addition, Mattheson sang

one

of the leading roles.

Then, presumably

to

show

he descended into the orchestra, where Handel was presiding

versatility,

harpsichord, and attempted to relieve

him of that

task.

at

his

the

Handel was not the kind

young man who could be pushed aside. There were words, and the two hotheads marched out and drew their swords. Mattheson lunged at Handel, and the of

sword broke on direction

Handel’s

.

.

year, 1706,

where he was

Handel went

called

Sassofie

he did everywhere. Very

little is

He had

anecdotes.

coat.

A

to

—

in

in 1705.

Rome. He

the Saxon

spent the next four years in

—making

known about

a

big impression there,

this Italian

sojourn. There are

Domenico

harpsichord and organ duel with

a

half-inch in any other

and Mattheson even took the tenor lead

up,

composed

opera, Almira,

first

opponent s

his

II

Italy,

as

metal button of

The two made

.

The next

a

Scarlatti, his

exact contemporary (Scarlatti also was born in 1685) and the composer of those

remarkable keyboard sonatas, or “exercises.” short, glinting masterpieces,

repertory.

The

and to

this

composed over 550 of these

Scarlatti

day they are

a staple

of the keyboard

Handel-Scarlatti encounter took place in the house of Cardinal

Ottoboni. As harpsichordists, both were declared equal. As organist, Handel easily. “Scarlatti,” says

Mainwaring, “himself declared the superiority of his antag-

and owned ingenuously,

onist,

had no conception of

its

that

till

who would

and Clementi fought to

out

it

—

the appearance

this

instrument, he

under the

table.

with

Mozart

draw before the emperor of Austria. Beethoven demolelse

who came

his way. Liszt

and Thalberg

the salon of Princess Belgiojoso in Paris.

at

Another anecdote involves the great violinist-composer Arcangelo

work by Handel was being pestuous

life

on one program of two

try to play each other

Abbe Gelinek and anybody

ished the

had

a

he had heard him on

powers.” Something has gone out of musical

the disappearance of duels like that

major instrumentalists

won

style

Corelli.

played, and Corelli was having trouble with the

of the piece and the high positions. (None of Corelli

s

A

tem-

music goes

above the third position.) Handel, always impulsive, snatched the violin from the hands of the greatest virtuoso

in

Europe and demonstrated how the passage should

go. Corelli, a

sweet-tempered and generous man, took no offense.

Saxon,

music

point

is

this

is

that

into contact.

in the

French

style,

of which

Handel achieved the respect of

He met

all

I

“My

dear

have no knowledge.”

musicians with

whom

The he came

everybody, studied everything, and was influenced by the

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

60 sunny flow of

The music of

melody.

Italian

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660—1725),

Domenicos father, made a particular impression on him. From Italy, Handel went to Hanover in 1710 as court musician Later that year he

went on

where

leave of absence to England,

to the elector.

becoming the most fashionable of musical entertainments, and where were astonishing everybody with

singers

composed an opera and was

for the English.

tremendous

a

what went on

in his

great city of London

Handel obtained permission return within his arrival in

a

Two

little

Handel

in 1711,

easy to guess

it is

opportunity, versus the

become famous and

to

wealthy. So, in 1712,

to England, with the proviso that he

England he composed an opera,

II

pastor

fido,

and, soon

after, a

On

grand

Deum, celebrating the Peace of Utrecht. He also Queen Anne, who settled upon him a yearly pension

Utrecht Te

a birthday piece for

of jT2 00.

court with

go back

to

brilliance.

reasonable time. In this case, a reasonable time was forever.

official piece, the

wrote

back to Hanover, and

a sleepy little

and the chance

the castrato

was named Rinaldo, was produced

He went

success.

mind:

It

power and

their vocal

opera was

Italian

years

had passed, and Handel definitely was absent without leave

He may

may not have had thoughts of going back. But matters were taken out of his hands when Queen Anne died in 1714. His employer, the Elector of Hanover, succeeded Anne as George of England. Hanfrom the Hanover court.

or

I

must have spent some uneasy hours wondering what would happen

del

Nothing did happen. Before long, he was back bled pension. There

is

now

a pleasant story,

There was such

on the Thames, a trip,

was played during the

George

that

and

his Water Music.

which was played

the king so admired the score,

it is

in

a

dou-

As the story goes,

1717 on the occasion of

that a reconciliation

a

immediately took place.

matter of record that a suite of Handel’s music

a

festivities.

with

considered apocryphal, that Handel

was restored to the royal confidence through

royal barge trip

in George’s favor,

to him.

And

the Daily Courant of July 19, 1717, states

liked the music so well “that he caus’d

it

to be plaid over three times

going and returning.’’ Unfortunately for the pleasant legend, however, the

in

reconciliation appears to have taken place before 1717.

In

London, mentally

lished,

the

Handel began

at

his

ease

now

with British

Chandos. For

a

with the king were estab-

long series of operas, becoming

economic and producing end

liaisons

that his relations

as in

the creative side.

nobility, especially

He

as

much

tangled up in

established

permanent

with Lord Burlington and the

time he lived in Burlington’s great house in Piccadilly,

which John Gay took

careful note.

The

British wits always

Duke of a fact

were greatly interested

in the sponsorship

any creative figure enjoyed. Burlington House was an

and

and Gay commemorated

literary center,

Yet

Burlington’s fair Palace

still

Hendel

in his Trivia:

remains;

Beauty within, without Proportion There

it

reigns

.

.

.

strikes the Strings, the melting Strain

Transports the Soul,

and

thrills

through ev’ry Vein.

of

artistic

By kind permission

Famous

.

.

.

of the

Heather Professor of Music. Oxford University

George Frideric Handel by Thomas Hudson, 1749 portrait of

an explosive temperament and withal sweet tempered and generous.

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

62

Handel plunged into Londons from George

1

social

life,

aided not only by the ,£400 pension

He

but by an additional .£200 from the Princess of Wales.

headed

opera companies that were underwritten by the nobility, and went to Europe to search for singers. In the meantime, a stream of operas was flowing from his pen: II

pastor fido (1712), Teseo (1712), Silla (1713), Radamisto (1720), Floridante (1721),

among Giacomo

Ottone (1723), Giulio Cesare (1724), Tamerlano (1724), and Serse (1738),

He

others.

The

turned these out with amazing speed.

Rossi was amazed

way Handel dashed

the

at

Italian librettist

off the music for Rinaldo in 1711:

“Mr. Hendel, the Orpheus of our century, while composing the music, scarcely gave

by

me

time to write, and to

that surprising genius,

What

weeks."

my

great

wonder

I

saw an entire opera put to music

with the greatest degree of perfection, in only two

Rossi did not

know was

that

Handel used

for Rinaldo

some music

he had previously written for another opera. But Handel was

a very,

workman. Before he was through, he was

forty operas. All

were

and

in Italian,

all

were what today

Handelian Baroque opera was sonata and the

cowboy

the libretto was based

film.

on

is

to

compose more than

called

as strict a

form

as

such

later art

forms

mythological subject. Characters in Handel

attempt

Little

at

characterization was

of Baroque opera. Handel’s music to these heartbreaking in

The

character. as a

its

plots

the

as

was marked by certain conventions. Almost always

It

a classical or

names.

fast

Baroque opera.

operas sport names like Bradamante, Oronte, Melissa, Morgana, Alcina. as artificial as their

very

pathos, but

it

is

made by

They

are

librettists

may be gay, or martial, or more often defines mood than

librettos

music that

had almost no action, and Baroque opera has been described

concert in costume. Most of Handel’s operas were no exception. Dramatically

they are close to being entirely

static.

Basic to the operas was the da capo aria. In the da capo aria, the singer goes

through

all

of the musical material and then returns to the

return the singer was expected to lishing,

show

first

section.

On

off his or her bag of vocal tricks, embel-

adorning, and ornamenting the melody. Handelian opera

is

largely a suc-

cession of da capo arias, with a few duets and occasional larger ensembles

One

Choruses and orchestral interludes are few.

in.

might be noted

—

the

thrown

other aspect of Baroque opera

the behavior of the audience. Opera-going in Handel’s day was

not the sedate experience

it is

today. People

went

to the opera to be seen,

follow the vocal gyrations of a favorite singer. At performances they

and to

would

play

move around, eat oranges and nuts, spit freely, hiss and yowl at a singer not like. The singers themselves would go out of character, greeting

cards, chat,

they did

friends in the boxes, or talking to

Nobody on For ers,

A

this

one another while they were not

singing.

stage pretended to act.

kind of opera, spectacular singing was needed. Handel had those sing-

and vocal

art has

been

in decline ever since the disappearance

great castrato was the vocal

wonder of all

of the

castratos.

time: a singing machine, virtually a

musical instrument. Even before Handel’s time the castratos were idols.

They were

— Composer and Impresario spoiled,

pampered

They were

the

of great wealth and

figures

and even greater

vanity,

performers in musical history to achieve

first

what the name implies

Castratos are

—

eccentricity.

star status.

They were known

castrated males.

and reappeared in the service of the popes

antiquity,

63

in the twelfth century.

to

Wom-

had been banished from the church, and the castratos replaced them, being officially admitted to the Sistine Chapel in 1 599. The operation took place en’s voices

before puberty. After years of rigorous training, the singers were sent into the service of the church, having female voices and male lungs.

Such was the accom-

plishment of their singing that they began to appear in public, outside of the

They were

church.

Ferri (1610—1680).

the

of the musical matinee

They could do

close to four octaves,

were voices

first

up

to the

A

Some of them had ranges of even B above high C in full voice. And those

incredible tricks.

or

sounded youthful

that lasted. Caffarelli

with barrel chests and skinny arms and

sexual

life

women

a

freaks, over-

seems that their

it

ladies

figures

affairs

with

were pursued

new kind of thrill. There were many such in the eigharistocracy. They also knew that, come what may, there would be out for

a

children.

The

castratos

had

kind of

a sexless

womans

voice, but

sound they produced was of exceptional sweetness. astounded audiences every time, was their could sustain

a

note for well over

a

One

flutist.

All

would turn blue

castrato always

held on to

a

won.

It is

still

continued on and on, waiting for

of the young

him

singing, let

still

in the

added

nardi (Senesino),

singers as

a difficult

after

from 1673, when Nicolini was born,

(Caffarelli),

crociato in Egitto

(1824).

sat transfixed,

to 1783,

Francesco Ber-

and the greatest of

when

The breed became

a

whom

all,

Carlo

hundred years

Caffarelli died.

the operatic castratos was Giovanni Battista Vellutti, for II

Farinelli

to 1790, a period

(called Nicolmi),

Broschi (Farinelli). All flourished within the period of about

a part in

which

at

extempore cadenza; and

from about 1720

Nicolo Grimaldi

Gaetano Maiorano

but the

air.

great period of castrato singing was

dominated by such

trumpeter

longer than he had done

same breath. While the audience

to explode, Farinelli

a

oboe player once

Farinelli that an

much

and

a single note,

him run out of breath,

not until then did he have to pause for

The

tricks, that

Some of them

a tone.

a castrato

holding on to

note, in unison with the singer,

rehearsal. Farinelli,

reports the

all

minute, and part of the fun of going to the

in the face,

related

from

of their vocal

hold

ability to

opera in those days was to cheer an encounter between or

But

legs.

the age of

at

were physical

few even married. These glamorous, ungainly

teenth-century

no

died

was untouched. Some were homosexuals. Others had

and

by bored

seventy-three, and ten

who

Maria Theresa. Bannieri,

102, was singing at ninety-seven. Often these singers sized, fat,

Orsini caused a

at seventy.

when he was

furor with his beautiful singing in Prague years later was singing before

with Baldassare

idols, starting

The

last

of

Meyerbeer wrote

extinct, as far as

with the death of Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922). Moreschi was

a

is

known,

member of

Reproduced by permission of S Karger, Basel/New York from P J Moses. The psychology of the castrato voice. Folia phoniat 12:204-16 (1960)

Contemporary caricatures of the great castrato

the Sistine Chapel first

Chorus and

made a few phonograph records in the The sound on those records makes one

actually

decade of the twentieth century.

shiver.

j

The

and with

What

who

voice has a timbre like that of an alto

a strange, sad,

Farinelli

is

neither male nor female,

pleading quality.

A

the castrato stood for, vocally, was control and flexibility.

score of any

Handel opera

glance

at

the

of running thirty-second

reveals coloratura passages

notes that seem to continue forever without giving the singer a chance to take a breath.

The

parts

do not run

did not care for high notes.

matter of

fact,

and

especially high,

The

C

tenor’s high

the starring tenor was largely a

opera, tenors sing secondary roles.

It is

true that

believed, Farinelli could take an F above high

ible breath control

without

a

and the

is

singers

What

most

audiences of the day

Romantic

invention. As a

invention. In Baroque

ot the castratos could easily

C

in full voice.

But the

is

to

be

castratos

they were proud of was their incred-

ability to negotiate

of Handel’s day

a

case,

Romantic

any kind of complicated figuration

break in register or any evidence of vocal

The women

any

Johann Quantz (1697-1773)

take a high C, and if the flutist-composer

did not normally go in for such effects.

in

also

had

strain.

this ability.

Most famous were

Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. Both sang in Handel operas in London, often in the same cast. Cuzzoni was short, at all, just as

the castratos tended to be

fat,

tall, fat,

ugly, ill-tempered,

and no

ungainly (the absence of secondary

sex characteristics prevented the growth of their beards and often gave breasts ot a

woman), and were no

attractive and, tor the day, an

actors at

all.

accomplished

actress

them

the

Bordoni, on the other hand, was

actress. Naturally, the

two

women

Composer and Impresario hated one another, and things came to

ance ot Bononcini

dom

was

a

and

circle),

two

1727, with

perform-

a

a great

Madame

women made

two

the

for each other with

curved

ensued, complete with screams and hair-pulling.

a great fight

by-blow report of the the

6,

Spurred by their supporters in the audience (Borfavorite of the Burlington faction, and Cuzzoni’s admirers were part

newspapers had

between

climax on June

Astianatte.

s

of Lady Pembroke’s talons,

a

65

time with

it,

and

pamphlet was published giving

a

a

The

blow-

and true Account of a most horrible and bloody Battle Faustina and Madame Cuzzoni.’ The pamphlet proposed that

ladies fight

“full

it

out in public. Handel happened to be the impresario that

He

immortal evening.

roared that Cuzzoni was

a she-devil,

that Faustina

was

“Beelzebub’s spoiled child,” and that both were hussies.

Audiences tions ot

in Handel’s day

were willing

to accept the castrato

Baroque opera. Later audiences did

handle the vocal writing stilted librettos

are necessary.

as

not. Today,

no singer could begin

to

did the singers of Handel’s day, nor can the impossibly

compensate for the wonderful music. Highly

Some

and the conven-

stylized productions

scholars suggest that the castrato roles be transferred to bari-

tones or basses. In any case, the vocal line has to be simplified today, and the raison d’etre of Handelian opera

among

ofJulius Caesar and Alcina,

thus

is

lost. It

can

much of

give pleasure, as revivals

still

shown, but these modern produc-

others, have

tions can only be called adaptations of the original.

A

surprisingly large part of

some Handel operas

is

not original music. Audi-

ences of Handel’s day were prepared to accept his appropriations of other composers’

works. This always has been a touchy subject in Handel biography, and writers

have turned themselves inside out trying to explain it

bluntly,

Handel was

in his career

a plagiarist,

as

or apologize for

such in

it

view of

the music of other

The Abbe

this practice.

Lully, especially

from our French

to disguise in the Italian style.

One

charitable explanation

Prevost wrote in 1733:

istration

cantatas,

material, generally

improving

it

works were

no evidence

Gluck was

that

a self-plagiarist

other composers.)

in the nature

Bach ever

who

Handel

has the venial,

a

critics,

beautiful things skill,

were

so they it

say,

certain.”

with the adminsingers, faced

do everything. So he took other

in the process,

of Handel plagiarisms would be appallingly others, but these

ill,

Graun,

operas and of writing occasional pieces for

the court, simply did not have the time to

is

many

that the busy Handel, faced

new

day. Early

“Some

of an opera house, faced with the personality clashes of his

with the necessity of turning out

there

which he

But the crime would be

would be

To put

men. His contemporaries took

however, accuse him of having borrowed the matter of

from

it.

as Reiser,

own. From 1737, the year he became

off as his

more and more drew on

own

his

he was drawing upon the music of such composers

and Urio and passing

lenient

and was known

it,

and passed

large.

off as his

own.

A

list

(Bach rewrote the music of

of adaptations or arrangements, and

tried to profit

plundered

it

his

from material not

own music

his

own.

rather than the music of

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

66

By

the late 1720s, the craze in

was almost English,

killed

of

full

London

by the success of The

began to

for Italian opera

Beggar’s

—

Opera

and

tall off,

opera sung in

a ballad

addressed against the Walpole administration. The Beggar’s

satire

Gay and music arranged by John Christopher Pepusch (1667-1752), has had a more consistent life than any Handel opera, and has never been out of the repertory since its premiere in 1728. It is an authentic minor Opera, with words by John

masterpiece. pany.

contributed to the bankruptcy of Handel’s Italian opera

also

But Handel had made

to put

£10,000 of

—

Theater rival

It

a

his

a great deal

own

enough

venture that lasted until 1737.

two houses, and

to support

might have

It

at Lincoln’s

this

He

found

a

ready public for

lost a great deal ol

Egypt in 1739, Messiah in 1741. In

ending the great

series

in

Handel

the

all

else

—

a

big

money.

oratorio in

Saul in 1738,

Israel in

he composed close to twenty oratorios,

Had not total blindness set in by composed many more. Recent years have seen an

with Jephtha

1751 he doubtless would have increasing interest

He composed

this.

had not

London was not

Inn Fields.

time Handel

the King’s

at

lasted longer

opera seemed dead, and Handel turned to something

Italian

English.

of money in the enterprise and was able

funds into his next operatic venture

opera company been established

com-

in

1752.

but most of them

oratorios,

still

remain

unknown.

Why

did Handel turn to the oratorio? Older biographers liked to believe that

after a stroke

and some mental disturbance

The

probably more mundane.

his

truth

is

own. He was

would turn

to

He

was

businessman-composer.

a

something

Handel became very

a professional

If Italian

composer

religious.

on

largely

opera was played out, he

Discovering that audiences would flock to

else.

oratorios, he supplied oratorios. insist that

in 1737,

Some Handel

scholars, notably Paul

the oratorios are not devotional religious works at

all,

his

Henry Lang, that they are

dramatic works on biblical subjects, completely divorced from the church. In any case,

Handel found

was, after a

all,

that

composing oratorios was

one of London’s most famous

performer. So he saw to

it

that

figures,

he appeared

as

oratorio presentations, playing a concerto or

aroused

pity,

and

that too helped.

When

Beard stood next to the blind composer to

Total eclipse

—

Of the

most and

organ

two

as

profitable enterprise. also

He

extremely popular

as

soloist

on every one of his

added

lure.

His blindness

Samson was presented, and tenor John sing:

no sun; no moon.

All dark, amid the blaze

there must have

a

of

noon

been an audible gulp from the audience.

oratorios, Messiah

is,

of course, by

far the

most popular.

It

could well

be the most popular piece of choral music ever composed. Handel wrote

it

1741, and stories about

how

Handel received the

its

text

composition are part of the mythology of music;

from the o’erweening Charles Jennens;

how

in

he locked

Composer and Impresario himself into

how

London apartment and composed

his

he was guided by the hand ot the Lord;

this

how

work

twenty-four days;

in

the manuscript, written in a

bedewed with tears; how Handel ignored food, ignored music on paper for the Dublin performance. Scholars, alas, call

fury of creation, to get his

the

61

apocryphal,

is

more

the

all

in that Messiah did

not receive

sleep, all

of

world premiere

its

until April ot the following year.

What was Handel doing Lieutenant to give

how

well

to

had accepted the invitation of the Lord

of concerts, including

new

a

oratorio for

got out in Dublin that the great Mr. Handel had his Messiah

and the publicity

ready, lull

a subscription series

Word

a local charity.

He

Dublin?

in

make

mills

—

there were plenty at the time, and Handel

them

use of

—

started to grind.

knew

There were notices

in

all

the papers, and the public rehearsals, starting April 8, confirmed the publicity.

Messiah was a masterpiece. del’s

new work

The

reporter for the Dublin News-Letter said that

“in the opinion ol the best Judges, far surpasses anything of that

Nature, which has been performed in Journal

went the News-Letter one

greatest Judges to be the finest

this

The Dublin

or any other Kingdom.”

better, calling Messiah a

Composition ofMusick

wonder everybody was anxious

knew

Han-

work “allowed by

the

was ever heard.”

No

that

on April

to get to the actual premiere

13.

The

demand for seats far exceeded the capacity of the hall. Ladies were urged “not to come with Hoops this day,” and “The Gentlemen are desired to come without their Swords.” London found Messiah just as great. Tradition has it that King George became sponsors

that the

Chorus

so excited during the Hallelujah

with him, and the tradition continues to oratorio, the literati discussed

that

rose.

Naturally

all

had to

rise

Poems were written about the and Messiah was off on its career as

this day.

exhaustively,

it

he

one of the most phenomenally popular pieces of music ever written.

The

exact

makeup of the

Cibber was the leading contralto, largely

Handel’s

own

orchestra at the Dublin premiere

singer. Later generations

on the grounds

that

were

was London’s favorite

Born

of her

to think

Handel had selected her

age really did not consider her a singer

at all.

unknown. Mrs.

is

as a great

for his great

work.

Susanna Maria Cibber

daughter of an upholsterer

named

Arne, she was the second of two children. Her brother, Thomas, became

a cele-

brated composer. voice.

It

actress.

was he

who

in 1715, the

discovered that Susanna had

She appeared on the operatic stage

in

works

a

small but pretty

that her brother

composed or

produced. She then joined the Drury Lane company, met Theophilus Cibber (son of Colley Cibber, the poet laureate), and married him.

singing in favor of acting.

Her

London. But then came

messy scandal,

a

success was spectacular, and she was the toast of

figure (he was, in effect, a pander), soloist for Messiah

musical

The

as

Soon she dropped

in

and she

which her husband cut retired to Dublin.

miserable

a

Handel needed

and she was around. Thus Mrs. Cibber achieved

a

a

place in

well as dramatic history.

neglect of most of Handel’s operas and, indeed, of nearly

all

of

his

music

,

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

68

except tor the choral works shortly after his death tor almost the next 200 years,

some perplexing

raises

the greatest musicians

who

had

time Handel was considered one ot

ever lived, and posterity has seen no reason to change

England remained consistently high, and

that opinion. His reputation in erful influence

own

questions. In his

a stifling effect

on English music. Indeed, not

his

pow-

until the appear-

ance of Edward Elgar did England produce an internationally famous composer.

Thanks

to Handel, later British

prove themselves, and, in

effect,

composers had

to write elaborate choral pieces to

England went oratorio-crazy. The craze

the end of the nineteenth century, prompting

George Bernard Shaw

of pleasure

that “the British public takes a creepy kind

music was considered the property of the people. Only a

named William Mann was

writer

a

in

year after Handel’s death

saying that village musical groups

Kingdom, can by no means be

the

in

to every

upon

British music,

all

over

Market

unless they introduce

satisfied

Chaunts, Services, and Anthems into their British Churches. ...” geois pall descended

to observe

Requiems.” Choral

England “since the rage of oratorio has spread from the Capital

Town

lasted to

and annual Handel

A

great bour-

festivals

became

Whether or not Handel meant his oratorios as a religious exercise, they were taken as such by the public. The Chester and North Wales Magazine of April 1813 had this to say: “The music of Handel is, indeed, admira-

almost

a religious event.

bly adapted to

fill

the

mind with

commemoration of our and,

impact.

But in

No

British

It

fist,

with only Mendelssohn making any other kind of

composer was strong enough

was amazing

how

larity outside

to break free.

his

music actually was heard in public.

little

of

own

lifetime.

half of the twentieth century only

first

to admire,

For well over 150 years, music in England was clutched

His operas were forgotten in the

men we ought

turn of the twentieth century Handel’s reputation declined even

after the

England.

of devotional rapture which, with the

blessed Lord and Saviour, as

as Christians, to feel."

by Handel’s enormous

that sort

his

Throughout the nineteenth and

one of his works achieved great popu-

of England. That was, of course, Messiah, though Samson and Judas

Maccabeus might get occasional hearings. Seldom did an orchestra perform one of his

concern

grossi,

and seldom do they do so

today. His

most popular orchestral

work, the Water Music, was most often heard in an abridgement arranged by

Hamilton Harty. (Today, conductors Music

heard,

is

to play

it is

Handel

in

its

at all,

are

more

sophisticated,

approximate original form.)

and when the Water

Violinists, if they

turned to such souped-up Romanticisms

as

bothered

the

Nachez

arrangement of the A-major or D-major Sonata. His organ concertos contain magnificent music, but almost never are they introduced into the concert

Most of

his operas

was an attempt

As

late as

remained unknown. In Germany before World War

at a revival

1970

it

there

of the Handel operas, but the works did not take hold.

was possible to claim

composer ( Messiah of

II

hall.

that

Handel was

basically a

course). Since then there has not only

been

a

one- work change;

it

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.. a Wild Rose

dime

is

is

wanted

was here

it

The Woodland

out.

would repay the to be a “big” that

Sketches are

whatever

much more

Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words and Grieg’s Lyric

as

They

worth

all

more than period

are

and have

perfect and individual of their kind,

a

pieces because they are

melodic flavor that

the four sonatas rolled together,

worth more than

$100

a counterfeit

Thus, where MacDowell’s orchestral music his large-scale

brilliant pianistic

songs, too, are of real beauty and so desperately

transcend their period).

that an honest

terms reserved

ideas.

who

than period pieces (just Pieces

—

creaks, the passion

For MacDowell,

there were in

traits

workmanship

Some of his

recitalists.

composer, was national

Keltic (1901)

piano sona-

nothing sham about the lovely Woodland Sketches and some of the

other piano pieces. attention of

that the

unsupported by cogent musical

difficulties are

But there

and the

his four

and passion of the music. What they did not

was

close,

two

those

MacDowell had ambitious dreams

did.

B-minor. They raved about the workmanship, the

layout, the depth

were too

are the Norse (1900)

to live by his

how

easy to see

It is

and attempted an equally big canvas. Critics spoke of

here, tas

These were considered

Lily.

is

is

altogether

on the premise

bill.

mostly embarrassing, and where

compositions (the D-minor Piano Concerto excepted) are mostly

rhetoric unsupported by content, his shorter piano pieces and songs do deserve a

niche in the repertory.

MacDowell,

to

be the

Dowell did was

to

first

show

creative musical talent;

remained for Charles

It

great

American

born fourteen years

national composer; but

after

what Mac-

the world that the United States was not devoid of

and to show the United

poser was one that could

Ives,

command

States that the career

Through

respected social status.

a

of

a

com-

his activities

composer of world-wide reputation, and as pianist and as teacher, he crystallized an emergent national pride. He came on the scene just as America was as a

conquering

its last

frontiers

and

for the

were beyond pure materialism.

It

to

make

time beginning to think of things that

was the time when the

beginning to separate Europe from

banded together

first

its

art treasures;

when some

academy of music;

were

wealthy people

New

when when Theodore Thomas was

for themselves a great opera

there was great talk of a national

industrial barons

house

in

York;

bringing the best in symphonic music to the people. Charles Ives, whose early career coincided with MacDowell’s

not be judged in any rational manner. His music was so it

was mutated rather than composed.

was

a

He was

everything

far

last

period, can-

ahead of its time that

MacDowell was

not,

and

bewildering combination of seer and practical man, mystic and democrat,

sentimentalist and businessman. His music

England youth: remembrances of life

in a

is

a

constant reflection of his

simpler age.

He

New

yearned for the virtues

FROM GOTTSCHALK TO COPLAND

556 an

of

town-hall-meeting,

older,

village-band,

transcendentalist,

Emersonian

America, and expressed those yearnings in the most advanced, unorthodox, earsplitting, grating music composed by anybody anywhere up to that time. This was the composer who, with

most successful insurance agencies

worth

dollars

poser

who

of

new

his partner Julian

in the

country

at

Myrick, ran one of the

the time (forty-eight million

business in 1929, the year he retired). This was the

com-

who

was captain of the baseball and football teams at Danbury High School, pitched a winning ten-inning game against the Yale freshmen, and later

made

composer who avoided most profes-

the Yale football team. This was the

sional musicians,

seldom went to

concert, published his

a

own

music, refused

and copyrights, delved into atonality before Schoenberg, into dissonances made most contemporary music sound Victorian, into tone clusters long

royalties

that

Henry Cowell,

before

into polytonality long before Stravinsky and Milhaud, into

polyrhythms that remained for the

postserialists to

investigate.

Quarter tones,

asymmetrical rhythms, disjunct melodies, jazz and ragtime elements, anticipations

name

of aleatory

So advanced was of unusual textures

and devices,

was

however,

as

it,

that hardly

He

typical.

first

was attracted by what

I

and original man, and in quality,

was doing

Ives

usually long before

anybody

else.

idiom, so convulsively dissonant and complicated, so

his

Stravinsky’s reaction

could say that

and

it,

I

wanted well as

I

anybody could grasp

significance.

heard music by Ives in 1942. “I wish

heard, for

It

seemed

On

proportioned.’

I

respected Ives as an inventive

I

to like his music. ill

its

full

to

me

badly uneven

further exposure to Ives,

Stravinsky decided that though his original objections had not changed,

I

think

I

now

unimportant.

“The Great

perceive the identifying qualities

The danger now

Anticipator.’’

He

is

is

to think

certainly

of Ives

as

more than

which make those objections a mere historical phenomenon, that,

but nevertheless, his antic-

ipations continue to astonish me. Consider, for example, the “Soliloquy, or a Study in 7ths and Other Things.” The vocal line of this little song looks like Webern’s Drei Volkstexte, albeit the Ives

was composed

decade and more before the Webern. The retrogrades are of the sort Berg was concerned with in the Kammerkonzert and Der I Vein, though the “Soliloquy” was composed a decade and more before the

Berg

a

The rhythmic

devices such as “4 in the time of 5” are generally thought to be the discoveries of the so-called post- Webern generation, but Ives pieces.

anticipates this generation by four decades.

The

aphoristic statement, and the piano style

point in the direction of later and

all

interval idea

itself,

the idea of the

more

accepted composers. But Ives had already transgressed the “limits of tonality” more than a decade before Schoenberg, had written music exploiting polytonality almost two decades before Petrushka, and experimented with polyorchestral groups a half

century before Stockhausen.

Small

wonder

that Ives has

Very few composers write in

been canonized his style,

as

American music. become one of the spiritual

the saint of

but he has

Charles Ives Village-hand

America

—

,

Emersonian

expressed in the

most avant-garde music of its time.

fathers of

all

composers

America. To them, he

active in

is

the symbol of daring

and independence, of uncompromising genius decades ahead ol complete break from academism; and

its

own

sometimes flawed but always

vital.

of music that literature,

also, incidentally, as

finally has

come

into

American unconscious, drawing together

as

—

it

the

composer of a body

body of music unique in the Ives’s music in a way reflects the a

does the hymnodists from Billings

American

on, black Americans and their music, Stephen Foster, the

even the academic tradition of the Boston

his time, ol a

Classicists. Ives’s

music

is

folk music,

also the his-

tory of American music.

He

was born

York on

May

to Leipzig

in

19,

Danbury, Connecticut, on October 20, 1874, and died in New 1954. At a time when all good American composers were going

and Munich,

dutifully studying the mysteries

Rheinberger and the other great

prolessors, Ives

of fugue and sonata under

was putting two bands against

each other, each band playing different American tunes in age of twenty, he

composed

and organ pedals, each

a

a different key.

Song for Harvest Season for voice, cornet, trombone,

in a different key:

complete polytonality in 1894. Mac-

Dowell and Paine, the then leading American composers, with quast sostenutos

and andante

con motos,

was writing such musical directions

“The piano should be way.”

One

of

his

played

songs

is

At the

spoke as

a different

named A Son

language from

roughly and in

as indistinctly as possible,”

of a Gambolier,

their allegros

a

Ives,

who

half-spoken way,

or “In

a

and

or

gradually excited

and toward the end

Ives

FROM GOTTSCHALK TO COPLAND

558 inserts a

he

“Kazoo chorus with

directs:

He

“And

and

flutes, fiddles

and

piccolos, ocarinas

A

flageolets.”

few measures on,

fifes.”

did not expect the singer to run out and collect kazoo players.

the direction because

kazoo and ocarina virtuosos). Leopold Stokowski, had

Ives piece,

wrote

was an indication of the type of tone color he wanted

it

(though he would have been delighted had the singer actually

program an

He

a

hard time locating

effect that Ives requested. Local

thousands of members, but not

a

who

come on

stage with

wanted

in the 1950s

jew’s-harp player for

to

a certain

802 of the American Federation of Musicians had a single

jew s-harp

player.

Stokowski had to adver-

before one was found.

tise

The bulk

of Ives’s

music

falls

between 1896 and 1916. His work was so uncon-

ventional and eccentric, and so impossibly hard to perform, that he did not get a public hearing of an orchestral

work

until 1927.

It

took John Kirkpatrick about

ten years to learn the Piano Sonata No. 2 (the Concord). In 1947 Ives was given a Pulitzer Prize tor his Third

He

Symphony

—

was seventy-three years old then, and

by the middle 1890s. he once explained.

“I

found

I

could not

something

“I heard

composed

forty-three years after he his style

had been substantially formed

go on using the familiar chords

else.”

At

Yale,

he had taken

a

submitted by the young maverick. “Ives, must you hog

would Very

ask,

with

little

of Ives’s

music has been published. His manuscripts,

ven’s), marginalia, erasures,

and scratches,

completed compositions, rough

ideas

at

the exer-

the keys?” he

a sigh.

of scarcely decipherable notes, prose (he had

are

all

early,”

composition

course with Horatio Parker in 1898. Parker would look sorrowfully cises

it.

are

drafts,

of genius, and ideas of banality.

On

a

wild collection

a

worse handwriting than Beetho-

all

but impossible to decipher. There

compositions started and abandoned,

one manuscript he

scribbled:

“May

not

be good music, but true sounds make beauty to me.” He writes, at the end of one of the Tone Roads, “There are many Roads, you know, besides the Wabash.” One of his most haunting pieces is The Unanswered Question. The strings, Ives wrote, “are to represent the Silences of the Druids ing.”

The trumpet

Flying Answerers

intones

(flutes

“The

—Who Know, See and Hear Noth-

Perennial Question of Existence,” while

and other people)” run around

in vain trying to discover

the invisible reply to the trumpet. Nonsense? Profundity? Mysticism?

cheek? All things to

all

men, perhaps; but

strange language indeed to emanate

all

from the

men would

Ives

“The

Tongue

in

agree that this was

and Myrick agency of Mutual

Life.

He

starts a

composition

in

wedge formation

after seeing a

Yale-Princeton foot-

game. “Trumpet running halfhack,” he suggests. Another unfinished composition is named Giants vs. Cubs, August, 190 1, Polo Grounds. Partly decipherable ball

among

the frenzied scribblings are:

“A

—

Mike jaunts [?] out to CF. Johnny at bat. Hits over Mike’s head. Pitcher on mound. Ball. Strike. Ball. Ball. Strike.” The classic 3-and-2 situation. “Johnny comes sliding home safe. Tune: Johnny Comes 1st

— 559

Rise of an American Tradition

Home .” A

Marching

Ives probably

went

pleasant research in newspapers of the day reveals that

little

Grounds on

to the Polo

played the Giants only one series

no Sunday games

the Polo

at

August

Grounds

was 3-2

in favor

weakened

mark

home

The Cubs

17, 1907.

There were

that August.

National League on August 18, and the chances are that

in the

working man, could attend only the Saturday game of the

Ives, a

the

Saturday,

of the Cubs; they

won when

the great Christy

have been

in the twelfth inning. Ives, incidentally, appears to

The only

in his description of the action.

four-game

(the only player, indeed, in the

The score Mathewson

series.

player in that

a little off

game who

slid

between August 17 and

series

August 21) was William “Spike” Shannon, the left fielder of the Giants. Ives did not especially care if his music was considered unplayable. “The imposof today are the

sibilities

vidualist,

of tomorrow,” he

possibilities

he did not even care

Himself an indi-

insisted.

musicians bobbled the notes

if

long

as

understood what the composer was trying to say and the general

effect

they

as

he was

trying to achieve. At one of his infrequent performances, in 1931, the orchestra,

way of writing, ended up

struggling with his adventurous

—every man

town meeting

for himself.

ingly said. Like Beethoven,

whom

how

Wonderful

it

in chaos. “Just like a

came

out!

he admir-

he so greatly admired, Ives pursued an Idea, in

the Platonic sense. But he was not an ivory-tower composer.

He

accepted

art as a

when “every man, his own Epics, his own Symphonies evening in his own back yard in shirt

natural function of humanity, and looked forward to the day

while digging (Operas

if

he

themes for

and

likes);

his pipe

sucking

sleeves,

The

as

he

and watching

Above

all,

name

his children in their

fun of building

it

—

he

who

sits

and inhales the “pretty sounds,” he

taken from the series of books for children written by the

don’t quit because the ladybirds don’t like

of false

nobility.

country

Debussy

esthetics.”

to

him was

Chopin was

“a city

“soft

.

morbid, and monotonous.” Stravinsky’s

.

man

Firebird a

Ives stands for a fierce musical integrity

it.”

with

.

got tiresome.” Mozart was effeminate and

He

work

tunes, entire

“The etc.,

contains references to his

hymns,

patriotic songs, dances,

approach can be

summed up

subject matter, such as

it is, is

of the children’s services

at

—hard

art!

with

his

a skirt

week-end

on.

Wagner”

flights into

Ravel was

weak,

kept “going over and over and

it

bad influence on music. and

a

unique type of nationalism. his philosophy, his music.

and marches he heard

own

He

and tried

Almost every

own New England background

in his a

a nice, dull

accuses “Richie

had been brought up on Emerson, idolized the man and to express an Emersonian kind of transcendentalism in Ives

his

he despised the “pretty music” admired by the

Reverend Jacob Hallowell Abbott between 1834 and 1858. Rollo was mama’s boy. Rollos en masse Ives called ladybirds. “Keep up our fight at

their

he will look over the mountains and see

life,

typical music-lover,

called Rollo, a

of an

sits

sonatas of their

their

visions, in their reality.”

public.

breathe

his potatoes, will

—

to the

in his youth. His

notes to his Fourth Violin Sonata:

kind of reflection, remembrance, expression,

the outdoor

summer camp meetings

held around

— FROM GOTTSCHALK TO COPLAND

560

Danbury and many and Nineties

whether

.

.”

.

ot the

farm towns

Reflection

,

The Second Symphony

of the Connecticut country around here

the tunes they sang and played then.

while over

it

in

Danbury on

ot the Holidays

“barn dance

.

.

The

.

at

the Centre.

the old

.

.”

.

Some

train,

Everything Ives heard

Central Park in the

lustily

jigs, gallops

Dark

in 1889.”

and

The

“a picture in

is

men would

hear thirty or

from Healeys, the elevated

runaway horse, an echo

pianolas, tire engines, a

as a child

at a baseball

seems to have made

rally in

of tonalities.

Ives

again and again in his music.

yowled

its

and horn keep up an

fiddles, file

a

permanent impression

Danbury, he heard two marching bands,

playing different music, approach and recede. As they

it

of

Washington's Birthday describes a

— pond “and we walk home.”

frightful clash

all

Wooster House bandstand

ot those sounds are street cries, night owls

on him. Once,

It is full

combustion engine and radio monopolized the earth and

newsboys yelling “uxtry!”,

over the

express “the musi-

in the 1890s. ...

sounds ot the sounds ot nature and of happenings that so years ago (betore the

New

Places in

part suggesting a Steve Foster tune,

Symphony named The village band ot

unending ‘break-down' medley.

air).

tries to

the old farmers fiddled a barn dance with

was played

movement

the key to Ives,

is

Second Symphony, Second String Quartet, Three

to his

cal teelings

in the Seventies, Eighties

Remembrance, Expression: that

England, or the Concord Sonata.

reels,

Connecticut

in

came together

there was a

thought the sound delightful, and he reproduced

He would

where

attend revival meetings

out of tune. This to Ives was

life;

people sounded

singers

like this, so

shouldn’t his music? In the preface to the Fourth Violin Sonata he explains

why “.

.

.

The second movement is quieter and more serious except when Deacon Stonemason Bell and Farmer John would get up and get the boys excited. But most of the movement moves quietly around that old favorite hymn of the children ‘Yes, Jesus Loves Me, the Bible Tells Me So,' while mostly in the accompaniment is

heard something trying to reflect the outdoor sounds of nature on those

days.” All this

is

in the music. Yet

it is

not

at all

program music.

It

summer

has flavors and

colors rather than story content. Reflection,

Hearing he called tunes

it

Remembrance, Expression.

and understanding

“sissy

— tunes

Old Camp Ground; Ride,

Gem

the

Good

melodies. But what he does with

true that he

It is

Columbia

Britannia;

sounds simple enough

iarity

and De Camptown Races

all

is

another matter.

is

going on

make what

constantly using familiar

Night, Ladies; favorite

them

described.

of the Ocean; Tenting Tonight on the

Second Symphony has fragments of Columbia fiddling,

as

not so simple. Ives was not out to

it is

sounds” for Rollo.

like America;

all

It

the

Gem

hymns and ragtime The ending of the

of the Ocean,

in different keys at once.

some barn But famil-

with the Ives idiom permits the listener to pull the polyphony apart. This

unselfconscious,

quoted

unabashed handling of the sentimental old melodies (never

in full but always allusively)

separates the Ives national

put through

a sieve

of dissonance

is

what

idiom from that of the other American composers.

561

Rise of an American Tradition

Compared

Roy Harris is a tub-thumping chauvinist, Virgil Thomson a who dreams of the Middle West while sipping tea, and Copland

to him,

Parisian aesthete is

a

cowboy from Brooklyn.

Ives

had an authentic Yankee voice, speaking the

accent pure and communicating the belief and dignity of an entire people.

He

had

a right to his

in 1653. Ives’s father,

know,”

I

He

orthodox.

better part of

new

ested in

George, was

War and

during the Civil

me what

Yankee accent. His ancestors had come

Ives

later a

was

remarkable

man who had been

of

to say. Part

Ives’s

instruction was unheard of in his day.

and taxes

fools

and had

are absolute,”

who

with people

years old, his father

accompany him be

ears ... to

With

this

in

he

He

said.

tried to

less

thought and heard conventionally.

major. This was, Ives said

dependent on customs and

kind of background

(Henry Cowell,

felt

many

When

man

could keep

no wonder

it is

his

a

system

he was impa-

Charles was ten

years later, “to stretch our

habits.”

that Ives

was

his biographer, suggests that Ives

that a

was inter-

work out

his son,

music

developed

a

as

he

did.

writing his father’s

really

music for him.) But Ives soon gave up the idea of becoming “Father

He

sing Swanee River in the key of E-flat and

would make him

C

them. But the

completely open mind about them.

a

of microtones, with twenty-four notes to the octave. Like tient

bandmaster

was completely

his father’s instruction

insisted that Charlie learn the rules before breaking

George

a

England

bandmaster and teacher in Danbury. “Pa taught

tonal relationships

“Nothing but

a

New

to

full-time composer.

interest stronger, cleaner, bigger,

and

make a living out of it.” Ives never regretted going into the insurance business, and came to believe that there was more open-mindedness in the business world than in the music world. “My work in music helped my

freer if

he didn’t

and

business,

adopted

try to

my work

daughter,

a

went

in business

helped

to the office,

my

composed

music.”

He

married in 1908,

industriously

on weekends and

holidays (he had a farm in West Redding, near Danbury), and shrugged off the

laughter his few public performances evoked. His wife,

Hartford clergyman. “She never told

the daughter of

a

something nice

that

people would

Bernstein conducted the

New

like,’

he

Harmony

me

to

be good and write

said gratefully. In 1951,

York Philharmonic

in Ives’s

Twitchell, was

when Leonard

Second Symphony,

had had sad experiences with audiences and her husbands music, timidly sneaked into a box. The symphony created a furor, and Mrs. Ives could not at first accept the idea that a work of Charles’s was being applauded. Ives did Mrs.

Ives,

who

not attend the concert.

He

heard the Sunday broadcast in

his

home on

East

Seventy-fourth Street, listening in the kitchen to the maid’s table radio. (That was the only radio in the Ives home.) When the symphony was over, Ives, according to

Henry Cowell, “did an awkward little jig of pleasure and vindication.” The Second Symphony was the first of Ives’s four to come into favor. His

First

was

a

graduation piece, tuneful enough,

full

of reminiscences of Beethoven,

Brahms, and Dvorak. The Second, composed in 1902 and not performed until Bernstein “discovered” it in 1951, moves with much more assurance. It is one of

FROM GOTTSCHALK TO COPLAND

562 Ives’s

blander works, but

composed

1904 and not performed

in

tune symphony, and

independence. Fourth

He

It

a sweet,

is

is

wild.

hrst

it

parts.

in 1965.

The symphony

hall.

The

work

Copyists had to all

but undecipher-

compendium of what Ives was and polyrhythms with moments of is

a

Sunday-to-church calm (Stokowski had to use two It is

hymn-

like a

complete performance came with Leopold

trying to do, alternating massed dissonance

premiere).

Third,

most sonorous, and most complex.

into shape; the notation frequently was

and there were no

able,

something

1904 screaming out of the

Stokowski and the American Symphony Orchestra for a long time to get

is

The

flowing score written with spiky harmonic

Ives’s biggest,

its

1945,

until

sent listeners of

It is

1916, and

in

it

too

it

would have

Symphony

finished

authentic Americana, sweet and flowing.

it is

assistant

an amazing work, and by far the greatest

conductors

symphony

ever

at

the

composed

by an American.

During written.

his creative

When

period Ives heard only

a tiny

handful of the scores he had

he did begin to receive performances, he was an old

bad heart and sight diminished by

cataracts,

man

and he was unable to leave

with

his

a

house

To the public he was an unknown figure. There are very few photographs ot him, and he shunned publicity. Only once in his long life, in 1949, did he ever give a newspaper interview. As nobody wanted to hear his music, Ives published some ot it himself: “privately printed and not to be put on to attend concerts.

Complimentary copies will be sent to anyone as long as the supply lasts.” Among his few supporters were the poet-novelist Henry Bellamann, the pianist E. Robert Schmitz, the composer Henry Cowell, and the composer-conthe market.

ductor Nicolas Slommsky. Slonimsky programmed the Three tor a

Town

Hall concert

and Carl Ruggles

s

on January

Men and

10, 1931.

Mountains,

uproarious reception. Ives bore his

own

Places in

The music was resoundingly booed,

on the same program, got an even more failure stoically,

but during the screaming

over the Ruggles he got to his feet and yelled, “Stop being such sissy!

Why

can’t

like a

man!”

music

in

you stand up betore

(Ives really

spoke

Europe, and while

responsible musicians and critics. Ives cause

tine,

like this.)

it

New England

God-damned

strong music like this and use your ears

Slonimsky

was ridiculed,

it

later

also

conducted some

New

Ives

caught the ears of some

The one major American

was Lawrence Gilman of the

a

York Herald

critic to take

Tribune.

up the

When

fame

and recognition hnally did come, during the last decade of his life, Ives may have had some resentment about its tardy appearance. He did accept the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for his Third Symphony, but told the committee that “prizes are for boys. I’m grown up.”

He

told a reporter that “prizes are the badges

he gave away the $500 he received for the award. ers,

perhaps of genius, had been started on the

He

of mediocrity,” and

also said that

downward path by

many compostrying to

win

a

$10,000 prize for an opera. The reference here was to Horatio Parker, whose opera Mona won a $10,000 prize offered by the Metropolitan Opera in 1911. This attitude is basic Ives. It can, ot course, be pooh-poohed away by pointing

563

Rise of an American Tradition

out that he was independently wealthy and could afford to scorn commercialism.

(Mozart or Beethoven would have been the

last

men

down What

world to turn

in the

$10,000 commissions.) But Ivess remark cannot be thrown aside so easily. he meant was that pretty-pretty music for the Rollos of the world flourishes under

who

conditions of patronage, that he

composer would be tempted

gifted

cerned, there was no such thing

pays the piper

to prostitute himself.

as a

public,

new

the tune, and that a

As

was con-

tar as Ives

part-time prostitute: you were pure, or you

were not. Pretty-pretty music meant compromise.

Yankee and

calls

Ives considered

it

his

duty

as a

Puritan to scorn comfort in listening; and he also believed that the

a

which was spoiled enough

What he

tonal relationships.

did despite himself.

He

as

was, had a similar duty to listen hard to

it

did musically

did not have a very

—

those amazing innovations

good technique;

in

some

—he

respects he

What he had was genius and a new way of hearing. It received is fascinating to speculate on how Ives would have composed had he performances, worked with orchestras and musicians. Would he have gone into a smoother kind of writing? Would his notation have been clearer? It is hard to say, had

a terrible

technique.

but probably not. Ives was too stubborn

where,

and

as

said

With poser

man, and he came from

a

he noted on the manuscript of

what they thought Ives an almost

who

best represented the

was Aaron Copland, born the break that took

Dowell into

a

in

Roads No.

1,

background

people “got up

of the consequences."

regardless

unknown

his Tone

a

factor until his discovery in the 1950s, the

United

States in the public

Brooklyn on November

com-

and professional eye

14, 1900.

Copland made

American music away from the faded provincialism of Mac-

powerful, modern, very personal kind of speech.

He

also

helped

German domination on American music. As a young composer, he first studied with Rubin Goldmark (nephew of

break the stranglehold of the pianist

and aspiring

Karl Goldmark, the composer of The Queen of Sheba), but abruptly shifted and went to Paris in 1921. There he studied with Nadia Boulanger at the new School

of Music for Americans described by Copland

as

at

Fontainebleu. Those studies with Boulanger were later

the most important musical experiences of his

life.

Bou-

became the teacher of virtually every important American composer of the period from 1920 to 1940; she was to those two decades what Rheinberger and Jadassohn previously had been to theirs. So numerous were her students that it langer

was

said every

American town had two

things

a

five-and-dime, and

a

Boulanger

pupil.

Boulanger led her pupils away from nineteenth-century models. She was just was in Brahms and Beethoas much interested in Musorgsky and Stravinsky as she over ven, and she was fully in sympathy with the new experiments springing up all the world.

Copland was

in Paris at a

Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev, ters there. Picasso,

heroes of the Left

good

Lex Six the ,

Hemingway, Gertrude

Bank made

time, and was intellectually stimulated. Ballets

Russes— all had

their

headquar-

Stein and her circle, Joyce, and the other

Paris in the 1920s the

most exciting

city in the

FROM GOTTSCHALK TO COPLAND

564

world. Copland, brash, breezy and confident,

American

in

jazz, started turning

music that reflected the an avant-garde

sound

of ideas about music, interested

kind of music that was

a

sake.

keyboards and getting

was

It

a

age.

Leo Ornstein, the

good

a

was smashing

pianist,

deal of publicity about his rhythmic, dissonant

who

Copland was the one

young

brilliant

music. But Ornstein soon disappeared, and Cowell talent.

own.

his

Copland was not the only American to work in Henry Cowell had experimented with tone clusters and

style.

sounds

for

new

out

full

had the

seemed

at best to

and

brains, determination,

be

skill

a

minor

to arrive

at his goal.

At

he was influenced by Stravinsky and Les Six, and composed polyrhyth-

first

mic music

that played

Dance Symphony (1925), belongs to

this

(1925) and the Piano Concerto (1926).

Copland dropped

After 1927,

way

to

be American

possibly be confined to

number.”

Many

It

its

was clear that

one

a

major

Concerto

I

I

Theater

for the

talent

felt

into the

had arrived.

had done

all

I

was an

it

American music could not

all

jazz models: the ‘blues’ and the snappy

other composers of the period had stars,

come

same conclusion.

to the

including Stravinsky, had

a

brief

much came of it.

After the Piano Concerto, expression,

the

in musical terms, but

two dominant

with jazz, but nothing

worked

limited emotional scope. True,

During the 1920s some of the international fling

ballet Grohg, later

period, and so do Music

“With

jazz.

could with the idiom, considering easy

The

with jazz elements.

Copland turned

that stimulated every

to a completely different

young American composer. With

form of

the Piano

Symphony (1933, later reduced to a Sextet), and State(1935), Copland became the leader of the new American

Variations (1930), the Short

ments

for

Orchestra

school.

These new products from Copland’s pen were stripped-down percussive, powerful, abstract. Pattern

much more

than melody.

mind was amounted to pure strong

to perform,

music.

The

and

at

scores, dissonant,

and rhythm were the main preoccupations,

The Russians would have

called

them

“formalistic.”

A

work, manipulating the musical elements in forms that

logic.

Even Stravinsky had not gone

difficult tor

an audience to

public did not respond;

it

“They comprehend,” Copland

seldom does

so

far.

to abstract

are difficult said

music

—

of

this

that

is,

which the rigorous development of an idea occupies more importance than melody (in the traditional sense of the word). To many audiences, this kind music

in

of music of the

is

considered too “intellectual,” abstruse, and ungrateful. But elements

new Copland

style crept into the

writing of

many American composers.

These were the days when everybody was desperately anxious and Copland was most modern of all the Americans. Suddenly Copland changed to a that

his style

more popular idiom. Copland it

once

felt that

again.

the

“modern,”

He shifted from abstractionism

new music could be dangerous

might end up completely alienating the

pointed out that during the early 1930s,

to be

public.

In The

New

in

Music he

—

—

Aaron Copland The

urbane, respected

symbol of American music.

an increasing dissatisfaction with the relations of the music-loving public and the living composer. The old “special” public of the modern music concerts had fallen away, and the conventional concert public continued apathetic I

began to

feel

composers were

in

danger of working

in

grown up around

the

public for music had sense to ignore

was worth the

them and

classics.

It

seemed

to

to continue writing as if they did not exist.

effort to see if I couldn’t say

me

we a vacuum. Moreover, an entirely new radio and the phonograph. It made no

or indifferent to anything but the established

what

I

had

I

that

felt

that

it

to say in the simplest possible

terms.

Thus came loved.

with

into being the music by

With The Second

his three

which Copland

is

best

known and

best

Hurricane (1935), El Salon Mexico (1936), and above

“American”

Billy the

ballets

all

Kid (1938) for Eugene Loring, Rodeo

(1940) for Agnes de Mille, and Appalachian Spring (1944) for Martha Graham he moved out of a small circle into a position as not only the most respected

American composer but also the most popular, by added to this list would include his Lincoln Portrait Land (though

it

was not

a success

when

it

far.

Other works

that can

be

(1942), the opera The Tender

was produced

in

1954), Quiet City

these are sophisti(1940), and the Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950). All of cated, tuneful,

and atmospheric

scores,

popular but not written-down. All bear

Copland imprint, with his characteristic harmonies and rhythmic breaks. In other words, Copland did not follow the material; he bent it to his will. Once the

again

young American composers rushed

to imitate the Master.

— FROM GOTTSCHALK TO COPLAND

566

The 1930s saw a group of prominent American composers attracting with Copland. Few have had his staying power. It was hoped in those

attention

days that

Roy Harris, Walter Piston, William Schuman, Samuel Barber, and VirThomson would spearhead the new American school. Things did not work

Copland, gil

out that way, and history will put the group (Copland excepted) in analagous to that of the Boston Classicists lacked the individuality to create a lasting

work, but only

alter

work

is

much

currency, and today that

music of no particular urgency or individuality. Schuman’s music, lean organized and smartly orchestrated, was discussed but never

athletic, well

much

who

musicians

body of music. Harris turned out work

Third Symphony achieved

his

skillful

only on the fringe of the repertory. Piston turned out polite, well-tailored

classisistic

and

—worthy and

a position

liked.

Perhaps

melodic inhibition was the reason.

its

posed two operas to Gertrude Stein

The Mother of Us All (1947)

—

in

at least

com-

Three Acts (1934) and

had something sweet and genuine. They

that

works and not

rather precious

Four Saints

librettos

Thomson

with

to everybody’s taste but,

all

are

their Satie-like

“white-key" harmonies, they are immensely sophisticated and appealing. Barber, the most traditional of all, enjoyed great popularity and

still

the repertory. His most ambitious work, Antony and Cleopatra,

Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center in 1966.

Barber composed relatively

It

much in opened the new

remains very

was

a failure.

After that,

little.

Music had changed. Instead of being the spearhead of the American movement, Copland and the other big American composers of the 1920—40 period found themselves

and

its

in the

derivatives,

tional style.

backwash.

and instead of an American

Copland, never

form of serial composition, tra,

composed

in

Fisher Hall), in

a

most

as in

New

to serial

music

suddenly was an interna-

made

a

few attempts

at a

the Piano Fantasy and the Connotations for Orches-

1962 for the opening concert

at

Philharmonic Hall

York’s Lincoln Center. Neither less

and

less.

He

(later

work had many

Avery

perfor-

busied himself in other ways. As

American music and musicians, he was

writer,

conductor, educator, and administrator. In his books and

articles

articulate

critic, analyst,

style there

very prolific composer,

mances, and Copland composed the

The younger composers turned

spokesman

for

he had for years been explaining students at the Berkshire

new

music;

Music Center

in

as

an educator he guided the young

Tanglewood, which he headed from

its

inception in 1940 to 1969. Counselor and elder statesman, Aaron Copland was, until his death

on December

century of American music.

2,

1990, the urbane, respected symbol of a half

The Uncompromising 38.

Hungarian

BELA BARTOK.

t is

generally agreed that the three greatest post-Debussyian composers of the

first

I

half of the twentieth century were Igor Stravinsky,

and Bela Bartok: each

a

If Stravinsky represents logic

powerful individualist, each

and precision

the break from tonality into an entirely

in music,

new

and

Arnold Schoenberg,

a significant innovator.

if

Schoenberg represents

philosophy ol musical composition,

Bartok represents the fusion of nationalism and nineteenth-century musical thought into a convulsively powerful means of expression. Bartok was

a tiny, frail

man with

own uncompromising way

even

it

explosive psychic force, prepared to go his

his

music was never played.

A

stubborn integ-

and an all-encompassing humanism animated the man, and he would not swerve from his ideal of truth, even when it involved resisting the Nazis and rity

making

a

new home

elsewhere.

He

was prepared

at all

times to stand up to the

Establishment in defense of his music and in defense of his nation to maintain his personal and berg, and

some of his

letters

artistic integrity

even read

was getting hardly any performances,

like

liberty. In this

determi-

much

Schoen-

he was

like

Schoenbergs. In 1915,

when Bartok

was played, but

in a mutilated

his First Suite

of protest to the directors of the Budainterdependence of pest Philharmonic Society, pointing out that “the thematic each movement is so close that there are measures in certain movements that form. Bartok immediately got off a

letter

movesimply cannot be understood unless they have been preceded by the eailitr ments.” Bartok added

monic

Society,

who

a final

paragraph; and the directors of the Budapest Philhar-

probably honestly thought they were doing Bartok a favor

— BELA BARTOK

568

by programming several movements of his Suite, must have been the

composers

fiat:

must, under the circumstances, declare that

I

startled to read

I

should be exceptionally grateful

you would never again perform any of my works.

to

you

all

the more, since the regrettable state of musical affairs in Budapest has in any case

it

me

can

I

make

this

request

withdraw completely from public participation as a composer for the tour years, and to refrain from producing any of the compositions I have writ-

forced past

to

ten during that period.

Bartok was

a nationalist

ever lived, and there

is

composer, probably, with Musorgsky, the greatest

scarcely a note of his mature music that

with the feeling of the Hungarian folk melodies,

deeper than

though once

that.

melos.

It

was not

of him that he automatically thought real,

was something

his scholarly researches in folk

the sound, rhythms, and scales of the music of his native

was the

It

Hungary were

in those terms.

And what he

raw material, the Ur-folk.

He

But

of East and West.

’

to Bartok’s.

conventional mind, and while he was

From

as suited

I,”

he

a fine

Kodaly had

to basics,

said,

“wanted

a

more

to

make

his music.

polite

and more

composer, he could not break entirely

away from the nineteenth-century formulae. Bartok other forms

much

expressed

down

Zoltan Kodaly too used folk elements in

works sound tame next

his

so

often put these materials into forms derived

from the mainstream of Western music. “Kodaly and a synthesis

music

undiluted thing. Most nationalists of the previous century used a

westernized, smoothed-out version of folk elements. Bartok went to the

far

As one of the worlds most knowledgeable ethnomusicologists

Bartok had an international reputation for

a part

not impregnated

he invented or quoted

that

while that could happen.

in a

is

who

did,

him, and using folk elements in

the beginning he was exposed to folk music.

changing the sonata and

new and daring manner. He was born in Nagyszenta

Hungary (now Romania), on March who developed into a serious man, and though

miklos, in the Torontal district of

25, 1881.

He

his figure

was

was

a serious child

slight,

and

his

features

unyielding strength. His father died a

moved around

piano teacher,

he nevertheless gave the impression of

delicate,

when he was

seven years old, and his mother,

the country. Bartok thus during his childhood had

the opportunity of hearing several varieties of folk music. His

on piano when he was

mother

started

him

soon discovering that he had absolute pitch and amazing aptitude. At the age of eleven he was playing in public. In 1899 he entered the Budapest

Hungarian pianist,

became

and

talent a

five,

Academy of Music. Those were

composer who worked

were

when

was Erno Dohnanyi (1877-1960). Dohnanyi was skillfully in

the czar of Hungarian music.

their paths

the days

to cross

many

graduated in 1901 and gave

He

the

Brahms

a

his public concert, the critics

remarkable

tradition. Later

and Bartok were friendly

times throughout the years.

the major

When

rivals,

he

and

Bartok was

could find no higher

,

569

The Uncompromising Hungarian words of praise than

who

might follow

Academy

the

to say that

Bartok was the only piano student

winning

in 1897,

a great

wildly excited. “Straightaway

I

number of prizes.)

He

as a child.

threw myself into

a

More work

with Dohnanyi. There

Bartok was

life,

Rhapsody

days, such as Kossuth, a

tradition in general

some

the piano followed, including

and

lessons

were periods of bad health; throughout much of his one way or another. In 1904 he composed his Op. 1, a

also

ailing in

and orchestra. This again was a German-derived work, strong nineteenth-century type of Hungarian nationalism. Liszt

a

might have written of

at

and became

for piano

though with

style

German

in ten parts, reflected the

concen-

study of Strauss’s scores and

began again to compose.” The pieces he wrote in those

Strauss in particular.

a while, to

stopped for

Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra

on the piano. In 1902 he heard

symphonic poem

Academy

Dohnanyi’s footsteps. (Dohnanyi had been graduated from

in

Bartok had started to compose trate

the

at

Liszt’s

had he lived another twenty

it

years;

Hungarian Fantasia. Bartok composed

it is

as a

it

somewhat

in the

vehicle for himself.

Like any pianist-composer from Mozart on, he needed material to demonstrate

own

his

wares, and

1905 to

in

lost

was

this

compete

Paris, to

composition, to an

he

it

Italian

work, among others, that Bartok carried with him

He

for the Rubinstein Prize.

named

and

Attilio Brignoli;

took second place in

in the piano

competition

out to Wilhelm Backhaus, which was no disgrace.

The

came

big break in Bartok’s line of development

Zoltan Kodaly went into the

field to collect folk music.

in 1905,

when he and

They had with them an

Edison machine on which they recorded hundreds of cylinders, and they took voluminous notes. The study and classification of folk song was to occupy a good part of Bartok’s energy for the rest of his

life.

His

first

publication, with Kodaly,

was the collection named Twenty Hungarian Folksongs, which came out in 1906. Bartok and Kodaly discovered that there were several categories of Hungarian the old style, largely pentatonic in melody; a new style, with mixed folk song

—

modes and heptatonic To

his friend Stefi

and

which both elements were combined. Bartok wrote an amusing letter in dialogue

a class in

Geyer, the violinist,

form, discussing the

“T” (The

scales;

difficulties in pulling old

music out of the peasants. Bartok

Traveler);

X: The neighbor’s wife here

said

you’d

know

learned in your youth from the old folks. P: Me?! Old songs?! The gentleman mustn’t pull T.:

But look

far away,

known

very

the sort of old, old songs

my leg.

from Budapest,

you

Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!

here, this isn’t a lark! I’m speaking quite seriously. I’ve

far away,

come from

just to look for these old, old songs that are

only hereabouts!

R: Well, and in the

is

what do they do with those songs then

—

are they

going to be put

newspaper?

X; Not

at all!

The

point of this

work

is

to preserve these songs, to put

them

BELA BARTOK

570 down

Because

in writing.

what used

if

sung here

to be

So

right?

Is

much

ones made nowadays. Well,

lovelier than the

Bruhahahaha

that so? [Pause.]

But just look

T. (desperately):

[He whistles

this.

know

will

songs;

all

my I

even existed,

that they

—heeheeheehee! No, Auntie — booklet.

at this

day

This one was sung by Mrs. Andras

a tune.]

is

over.

know now

is

still

I

see, I’ve

know them

another] and this by Mrs. Balint Kosza. Well, you R: Eh,

later,

quite

that

isn’t

if

we

don’t

down now.

write them R:

day.

from now, no one

years

fifty

our

in

them down, people won’t know, Because, you see, young folk know

don’t write

even have any use for the old ones, they don’t even learn

different songs; they don't

them, though they’re

we

It’s

not for an old

woman

to

don’t believe

down

written

Gego

it!

all

[he whistles

don’t you?

also,

spend her time singing such

church songs.

Bartok can get nothing from the lady but church songs, which he does not want, and adulterated folk songs, which he wants even

He

less.

goes away

“crushed,” but he has squeezed out of Auntie an introduction to Mrs. Gyurka

Sandor,

who

up the

lives

street at the

many

corner and knows so

old songs she

could sing them from sunup to sunset without repeating any.

what he

In

argued

long

(in a

Bartok found

called “peasant music,” article in the

German magazine

He

rejuvenating force.

a

Melos, published in 1920) that

the beginning of the twentieth century there was a turning point in music:

at

“The

excesses of the

Romantics began

turn? “Invaluable help was given this change (or rather

by

a

kind of peasant music

But where

to be unbearable to many.”

unknown up

till

let

us call

it

to

rejuvenation)

then.” In the best of this music, said

Bartok, the forms were varied but perfect. In addition, the expressive power was

“amazing,” and

at

the

same time the music was “devoid of sentimentality and

superfluous ornaments.” Here, claimed Bartok, was “the ideal starting point for a

musical renaissance, and a composer in search of better master.”

What

the

composer has

music so completely that he

is

to

do

able to forget

is

all

new ways cannot be

“assimilate the

about

tongue.” Ralph Vaughan Williams and others in England

were arguing along similar

lines.

Among

idiom of peasant

and use

it

at

led by a

it

much

as his

mother

the same time

those British “others” was the eminent

Australian-born pianist Percy Grainger (1882-1961). Like Bartok, he tramped

around with British

a

cylinder recording machine, and one result was a

Folk-Music

radical than

His compositions based on folk music were

much more

anything Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, and the other members of

the English Folk

advance of

in

Settings.

volume named

Song Society ever attempted.

In

is

a pleasant

respects Grainger

which he

was

far

known, Country example of commercial work that he himself

his time. Ironically, the piece for

Gardens for solo piano,

many

is

best

called “a frippery.”

The concept of assimilation was

integral to Bartok’s

Vaughan Williams and the other

nationalists

to his

Czech speech

of the

way of thinking,

day,

as

it

was

mcludingjanacek, with

patterns in music. All agreed that peasant music had to be stud-

Bela Bartok

in

early

1900s

was the world’s outstanding specialist on Hungarian folk music. Here he is playing a myenyere,

He

a peasant instrument of the hurdy-gurdy family.

BELA BARTOK

512 ied in the field, as peasants. “It

is

and

actually existed,

it

not enough," wrote Bartok, “to study

ums.” Using peasant music in

a superficial

manner

few new ornaments and gewgaws: nothing more. music had to be developed, Bartok

folk

had

that life

insisted.

it

as

be shared with the

to it is

music with

will only supply

An

muse-

stored up in

entirely

new approach

a

to

For instance, take the strange

notion of the nineteenth century that only simple harmonizations were suited for folk melodies.

That

may sound odd, but

very wrong. “It

is all

more complex and

to say that the simpler the melody, the

harmonizations and accompaniments that go well with

But

a

who wanted

composer

work

to

medium. That was where Bartok and

I

do not

may be

strange

not be reconciled with Schoenberg’s atonality. Bartok, anyway, was

One method way

and

One method

to salvation for a

were

it

from

me

is

for

I

him

materials.

of

insisting that there

to base his

music on folk

wish that our opponents had an equally

composers were charged by the

piece of music.

When

was

to maintain that the only

atonalists

clarify a

you come down

to

it,

few

with using borrowed

But the use of borrowed materials has nothing to do with the a

could

tonal,

a little irritated

opinion of the significance of folk music.” Bartok tried to

points. Nationalist

results

be

our day

in

music,” Bartok wrote in 1931. “But liberal

who

his followers,

only. “Far

composer

in a tonal

the Viennese atonalists parted company.

Bartok was adamant about the “truism” that folk music, which was

by the claims of Schoenberg and

the

it.”

idiom had to work

in this

hesitate

artistic

Bartok pointed out,

Shakespeare borrowed, and so did Moliere, Bach, and Handel. Everybody has roots in the art of

some former

time.

peasant music that contains our roots.” if a

composer

as a

model.

puts

it

bases a

On

work on

folk

the other hand,

It

so happens that in Bartok’s case, “it

It is

no

sign of barrenness or

is

incompetence

music rather than taking Brahms or Schumann just as

it is

bad

if a

composer

takes folk

music and

into stereotyped musical forms. In both cases the basic conception

is

a

mistake, for “it stresses the all-importance of themes and forgets about the art of

form

that alone can

make something of those themes.”

merit of any piece of music

is

in direct ratio to a

Ultimately, of course, the

composers

talent.

“In the hands

of incompetent composers, neither folk music nor any other musical material will ever attain significance.

.

.

.

The

result will in every case

be nothing.”

The Viennese atonalists could not have been less interested. They of course went their own way and, as it turned out, history was on their side. After World War II and Bartok’s death, his music, while popular, exerted very little influence upon the thinking of young composers. Exponents Bartok’s theories

of the

serial

worked

for him.

school found Bartok’s music interesting only in those areas where a

relationship could be traced with the

work of Schoenberg and

Pierre Boulez dismissed Bartok as “a kind of synthesis of late

his school.

Thus

Beethoven and the

mature Debussy,” and had praise only for that Bartok music which “arrived phase of very specially chromatic experiments not

Otherwise Bartok’s music,

far

at a

from Berg and Schoenberg.”

to Boulez, “lacks interior coherence;”

and

as for

the

— 573

The Uncompromising Hungarian Bartok works that have found most favor with audiences

No. 3 and the Concerto

for Orchestra

—they

—

the Piano

exhibit “doubtful

nationalism was described by Boulez, rather sneeringly,

as

“only

Concerto Bartok’s

taste.’'

a

residue of the

of the nineteenth century."

nationalistic thrusts

So doctrinaire an approach toward the Bartok aesthetic ignores the fact that starting in 1906 Bartok began to compose a body of music in which folk elements were transmuted into something and there was of

universal. His style did not evolve

period of consolidation. As he became

a

less

he became more interested in the music of

Strauss,

the Russian music of Stravinsky up to Les Noces.

once,

interested in the music

Liszt

and Debussy, and

He became

a

piano teacher

in at

(never did he teach composition) and started composing

Academy

the Budapest

at

all

the Portraits (1908), the Bagatelles (1907), the First String Quartet (1908), and a great deal of piano music in which the instrument was treated with a sharp, percussive attack.

The Wooden

among and the

his

A

one-act opera, Bluebeard’s Castle (1911), the ballet-pantomime

Prince (1917),

bigger works.

with

ballet,

its

and

a ballet,

None of these

The Miraculous Mandarin (1919), were achieved

much

popularity

at

the time,

neo-Sacre rhythms, ferocious dissonance, and sex-ridden

was universally condemned. Other works of the period from 1907 to the early 1920s include two Violin Sonatas (1921-1922) and the Second String Quar-

plot,

tet (1917).

If

Bartok received few performances,

at least his

music made

a

strong impact

was much more discussed outside ol Hungary than in his own country, where he was very much a prophet without honor. His music was considered atonal, which it was not even though it may have sounded

upon European

so.

Not

until

That was full

professionals.

1923 did Bartok write Dance

his

maturity.

It

A

Suite.

series

The

a

work

latter half

style

come

of major works ensued: the Cantata profana (1930), the

1934, and 1939), the Sonata for Percussion,

had any degree of popularity.

of the 1920s saw Bartok’s

two Piano Concertos (1926 and 1931), the

Strings,

that

Two

last

to

first

four String Quartets (1927, 1928,

Pianos and Percussion (1937), the Music for

and Celesta (1936, considered by

many

his masterpiece), the

Violin Concerto No. 2 (1936), and the Divertimento for String Orchestra (1939).

period had enormous thrust, personality, and virility, all savage kind of nationalism. It was harsher in sound than anything

The music of enclosed in

a

this

French school were writing, and its slashing sound was immediately recognizable as Bartokian. Only the Viennese atonalists and Charles Ives were capable of such uncompromising music. Naturally Bartok was attacked because of his lack of melody. He liked to build Stravinsky, Prokofiev, or the

works from motto themes, sometimes only a few notes long, and from Liszt he Stevens, developed a kind of cyclic form that would unify all elements. As Halsey frequently of two or three in his biography of Bartok, has written: “His motives,

They grow organically; they doubt many motivic mampula-

notes only, are in a constant state of regeneration. proliferate; the evolutionary process

is

kinetic.

No

— BELA BARTOK

514 which seem

tions

carefully calculated

between reason and intuition

were brought about

intuitively: the line

never sharply defined, but the compact thematic

is

logic cannot be denied.”

A

man, Bartok was appalled by the spread of Nazism. After

politically sensitive

the Anschluss

on March 11—13, 1938, Bartok knew

that he

would be forced

to

would come Hungary. As he wrote to a friend imminent danger that Hungary will also surrender

leave his country, lor after Austria

“There

in Switzerland,

is

to this system ot robbery

which amounts

to the

Bartok was

able.” Yet

and

tion to his wile

the

and murder.

—work

same thing

family.

all

in

could then continue to

such

He made some wry

a

country

composers on the Universal

his

grounds that such questions were

illegal

we

are

list

me, means “Indo-European.”

indeed perhaps even North Turkic,

We

in addi-

when

the Nazis

received a questionnaire

and unconstitutional.

non-Aryan

mother

— “an

—asking “Are you of German blood,

pity they so decided, Bartok wrote, because

For example, say that

or

remarks about the Nazis and their

or non-Aryan?” Bartok and Kodaly refused to

racially related,

live

quite inconceiv-

is

was Universal, of Vienna, and

infamous questionnaire,” Bartok exploded

tells

1

and was supporting

fifty-eight years old

ideas oi racial purity. His publisher

took Austria,

How

fill

It

it

out on the

was, in a way, a

one could make such lovely jokes:

—

for, after all,

“Aryan,”

as

my

dictionary

Hungarians, however, are Finno-Ugric,

racially,

and so

in

no way Indo-European, con-

Another question goes: “Where and when were you wounded?” Answer: “On 11, 12, and 13 March in Vienna.” sequently

Bartok

Hawkes.

not Aryan.

left

Universal to go to the British publishing firm of Boosey and

In 1939,

when

his

mother

died, he decided to leave Hungary,

and the

following year he was in the United States, where he was to spend the

last

of

that fully

his

life.

illustrates

Before he

left,

he wrote

a will,

and

in

it

is

one paragraph

years

Bartoks libertarianism and hatred of dictatorship:

my death they want to name a street after me, or to erect a memorial tablet to me in a public place, then my desire is this: as long as what were formerly Oktogon-ter and Korond in Budapest are named after those men for whom they If

after

named

are at present

[Hitler

Hungary any square or

street,

and Mussolini], and, or

is

In the

tablet

United

he worked on his

a

is

to

be erected

States,

as

there

is

in

named for those two men, then neither Hungary is to be named for me, and no

in a public place.

he was given

a position at

Columbia

University,

where

He had very little money, but stories of invention. He was never in actual want. For a

collection of folk songs.

sheer penury are a romantic

while he lived

long

to be,

square nor street nor public building in

memorial

further, as

in

Forest Hills, in an apartment house,

and on Christmas Eve,

575

The Uncompromising Hungarian

1940, wrote

and

his

a

charming

letter to his

new home

sons in Budapest describing his

American experiences:

On

Dec. 7

into a furnished apartment at the above address.

we moved

km. from the center of

New

York, but the subway (express) station

is

It is

16

in front ot

our door, so that for 5 cents we can be in the city in 20 minutes, at any time. Trains There are shops and all run constantly, and day and night without interruption. conveniences nearby. The heating is so excessive that we have to turn off 3/ 4 of .

the radiators;

wind).

We

we can keep one

are

ol

.

.

our bedroom windows wide open

beginning to be Americanized,

e.g., in

(if

there

s

no

the matter ot food. In the

morning, grapefruit, puffed wheat (!) with cream, brown bread and butter, eggs or My head is filling up with all sorts of new words: subway stations, bacon or fish. trains: absostreet names, subway-system plans, a mass of possibilities tor changing .

.

.

lute necessities in order to live here.

cope with various gadgets of the

to

.

.

.

We’ve had enough trouble learning how

electric, gas, corkscrew,

can-opener type,

etc.,

we are managing now. Only once in a while for inst., we recently wanted to take the subway to what (the I didn’t know exactly where to change to

and with means of transportation, but is

there any inconvenience; so,

New York’s southernmost part: directions aren’t

much

in evidence; in tact, they are sparse

and muddled), so

that

we jaunted around for 3 hours under the ground; finally, our time having lun out, we sneaked shamefacedly home, underground of course, without having achieved our purpose.

Columbia, Bartok composed and did some concert in, and his last public appearance was made in New

In addition to his job at

work. But bad health

set

He and his wife Ditta played his Two-Piano Conceito Two Pianos and Percussion) with the New York Phil-

York, on January 21, 1943. (originally the Sonata for

harmonic under

Fritz Reiner.

Doctors could not diagnose the cause of the

illness,

or so they told Bartok.

leukemia, and no cure was possible. Bartok’s

weight

to

He had dropped alarmingly, down

The American (ASCAP) supplied money to fever.

stant

87 pounds, and he

Society of Composers,

also suffered

from

a

con-

Authors, and Publishers

bad period. Serge Koussevitzky work. came to Bartok with a commission of one thousand dollars for an orchestral Szigeti.) The (This was done at the prompting of Reiner and the violinist Joseph oichesConcerto for Orchestra resulted; it turned out to be Bartok s most popular tral lin;

him through

his

Viowork. For Yehudi Menuhin he composed a Sonata for Unaccompanied ot 1944, and for his wife he worked on the Third Piano Concerto. At the end

things in; a

were looking

up.

Money from

royalties

and performing

new agreement with Boosey and Hawkes promised

worked on a

see

concerto

fees

was coming

a great deal

more; he

Viola Concerto for William Primrose; and he started thinking about prospects began for two pianos for Bartlett and Robertson. But as his a

two he grew progressively weaker. Desperately he tried to finish the Viola Concerto, which was left incomlarge-scale works at the same time to improve,

—

BELA BARTOK

576

and the Third Piano Concerto, ot which

plete,

were

On

finished.

he lamented,

like

September 26, 1945, he died

“The

Schubert,

trouble

is

but

all

New

in

that

1

few measures of scoring

a

York.

On

deathbed

his

have to go with so

much

still

to say.”

Within

tew years

a

alter his

death Bartok was

among

the most played of

all

modern composers. Even Boulez, whose disdain for most of Bartok s music was palpable, came around and became admired as a most persuasive Bartok conductor. The Concerto for Orchestra not only entered the repertory, it almost elbowed and the

aside Petrushka

Classical

Symphony. Beginning

pianists

began

to cut their

eyeteeth on the six volumes ot Mikrokosmos, those 153 pieces ranging from simple to ditficult,

They became

modern keyboard

intended to introduce youngsters to

all

Young

standard teaching material.

two piano concertos,

especially the Third.

sounds.

virtuosos began to play the

There was

last

run on that work, and

a

vied with Prokofievs C-major Concerto and the ones by Rachmaninoff

it

the

as

most popular of twentieth-century works for piano and orchestra. Especially admired were the six string quartets. Cycles of the six were played with increasing frequency

Bartoks death, and they were considered by many the greatest body of chamber music after the last quartets by Beethoven.

The

after

first

two Bartok

quartets, ot

though the harmonies employ

1908 and 1917,

dissonant type of chromaticism.

a

1927, and the three after that, are in

chamber-orchestra sonorities and players of the day.

a

a series

harmonics,

col legno

of

finger board.

even

late

famous “Bartok pizzicato”

Coming

third,

all

of of

and

instruments, ponticello bowings

wooden

(using the

—

full

effects that frightened listeners

complicated multiple stoppings, quarter tones, and that include the

The

new, wild, cataclysmic world,

Bartok asks for glissandos for

(close to the bridge),

are relatively conventional,

a variety

part of the bow),

of percussive sounds

the rebound of the string against the

music unprepared, with the quartets of Brahms or Beethoven in mind, can be a disconcerting experience for listeners. to this

These quartets can no more be understood on one hearing than the Beethoven quartets can be. The same can be said of Bartok s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta

and

of the Sonata for

of the former, with

its

Two

The opening movement

Pianos and Percussion.

muted polyphonic flow and

rarefied, austere world, has

been compared with the opening of the Beethoven Quartet in C-sharp minor. The idiom of these works has to be absorbed, and it takes many hearings to do so.

Once

it is,

so difficult as folklike

the music clears up. it

sounds

melody come

at first.

Rich and complicated

The

ever-present

as

it is, it is

nowhere near

Magyar rhythms and fragments of

strongly to the fore, and the dissonances begin to

sound

pungent instead of fearsome. Those grating seconds and sevenths, those big interlocking chords, those harmonies stemming from the modalities of peasant music, those savage and eccentric rhythms in fives and sevens

—

all

clear

up into

a direct

emotional utterance.

As Bartok himself was so careful

to point out, he

was not primarily

a

“national-

511

The Uncompromising Hungarian

He

ist.”

pure

was

state

a

was

composer

who

merely happened to believe that folk music in

a fructifying force.

not

as a folklorist.

and

his best

works

He composed

Thus he wanted

to be assessed as a

its

composer,

rugged music that asked no quarter of anybody,

are the reflection of

one

of the strongest

mising musical minds of the twentieth century.

and most uncompro-

39. The

Second

Viennese School

SCHOENBERG,

WEBERN

BERG,

T make after

he

first

in

human

decade of the twentieth century saw

of convulsive changes

thought. So radical were those changes that the implications of

impact were not recognized

their full

a series

at

the time, and they took years to

Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, which mankind found a new way to probe into the human mind. In the

same

their effect. In 1900,

altered tions,

Max

quantum theory, which fundamentally Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics. Working with Planck’s equa-

year,

Planck published

his

Albert Einstein in 1905 evolved his special relativity theory, after which

mankind’s understanding of the rules governing the universe were changed. In

1903 the Wright brothers got an airplane into the for

powered

tational

flight. In

work,

after

first fully

nonrepresen-

which painting could never be the same. For the

without reference to anything his

ending man’s age-old search

1910, Vassily Kandinsky painted his

painting could be regarded purely

posed

air,

as a

first

time, a

formal assemblage of shapes and colors

in nature.

And

in

1908 Arnold Schoenberg com-

Buck der hangenden Garten, destroying the age-old concept of tonality

effectively as Einstein

had destroyed Newton’s macrocosmos. All

this

in

as

one

decade, perhaps the most revolutionary decade in recorded history.

who

Arnold Schoenberg, revolutionary

who

all

his life

was born

in

Vienna on September

kept insisting he was

a traditionalist.

he had to admit that he had discarded the musical aesthetic of the theless

maintained that

German

music.

.

.

.

all

My

13, 1874,

was

a

Even though

past,

he never-

of his works had “arisen entirely from the traditions of

teachers were primarily

Bach and Mozart; secondarily

579

The Second Viennese School Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner.” Or,

become

He

a radical!”

strong, heavily lined,

was

a short,

“I

am

a

bald-headed

man

uncompromising

messianic,

magnetic

of the

face;

Schoenberg

in

fanatic: a

mouth

face with a

a

a face

to

with huge, glar-

“His eyes were protuberant and explosive, and the whole force

eyes.

man was

was forced

with the face of a

twisted into a tight-lipped grimace of permanent distrust; ing,

who

conservative

them”

(Stravinsky).

himself to be

felt

a

man

with

a

mission. “Once, in the army,

was

I

was the composer Arnold Schoenberg. ‘Somebody had to be,’ I said, ” He conceived of music ‘and nobody else wanted to be, so I took it on myself.’ toward as an art that conveyed “a prophetic message revealing a higher form of life

asked

if

I

which mankind message.

A

was the prophet bearing the

evolves.” Schoenberg, of course,

higher force was directing him.

When

he finished

his

Chamber Sym-

phony No. 1 he told his friends that he had now established his style. “But my next work showed a great deviation from this style; it was my first steps toward The Supreme Commander had ordered me on a higher my present style. road.” His letters are full of an insistence on the unalterable rightness of his music. Schoenbergs egomania approached Wagner’s. “I believe what I do and do only what I believe; and woe to anybody who lays hands on my faith. Such a man I regard as an enemy, and no quarter given! You cannot be with me if you are also .

with

my

.

opponents.” Or, “Views divergent from

never resent, a

.

as little as

clumsy hand,

etc.

I

I

could only be sorry for such a

something

“The composer of Pierrot

the history of music thanks

you

lunaire

should

one short

person, but

a

I

leg,

couldn’t be

I

student writing a masters thesis on

and

to supply certain information about himself

devastating:

are

resent anyone’s having any other disability!

angry with him.” In 1942 he was asked by

him

my own

his

music. His reply was

and other works which have changed

for the honorable invitation of participating in

more important that he writes those works which candidates for a master degree will never know; and, it they know them, will never feel the distance which would forbid them to bother him with such questions.” It followed that very little if any of the music comthe production of a Master Thesis. But he thinks

it

is

—

time

posed in

his

satirized

him

satisfied

personally.

him.

He poked

fun

For those composers

“like gluttons (wishing to pass as ‘moderns’) but

at

Stravinsky

who

s

Neoclassicism and

piled discords

mith,

“who

claim to

make

‘a

discords,

do not have the courage

the consequences from them,” he had nothing but contempt. “pseudo-tonalists,” and at such

on

neo-Baroque composers

return to So and So’

’

as

He

to

jeered

draw

at

the

Busoni and Hinde-

(though, inconsistently, he

regarded Reger, the leader of the Back-to-Bach movement, as a genius). His “who try to apply to the dislikes included the folklore school headed by Bartok,

of popular music, which are by nature primitive, appropriate to a more evolved type of thought.” Finally, ideas

a

technique that

as

it

to

make

is

only

sure he had

not overlooked anybody, Schoenberg in one sweeping condemnation attacked “all the ‘ists,’ whom I can see only as mannerists.”

SCHOENBERG, BERG, WEBERN

580

Schoenberg wrote more or

In the beginning

conventional music of

less

chromatic texture that stemmed from Wagner and Mahler. Yet from

Schoenberg was regarded public outburst

as a subversive. In

at a recital.

its

premiere

group of

a

Even

in 1903.

a

his first scores

songs created

a

years later, “the

Nacht (Transfigured Night) caused a

Verkldrte

Today

his

many

“Since then,” Schoenberg said

scandal has never ceased.”

near-riot at

1900

a lush

score like Verkldrte Nacht

regarded

is

as

the essence ot post-Romanticism, but audiences at the turn of the century did

not see

and the lack of firm tonality was unsettling to them.

that way,

it

Schoenberg came the violin

at

as a sell-taught

the age of eight, he had very

pose, as a teen-ager,

he worked in

mixing with

music

to

a

was

it

in imitation

composer. Although he was playing

When

training.

little

he tried to com-

of music that he had heard. For

bank, though he became part of the intellectual writers,

artists,

He met

and musicians.

life

a

while

of Vienna,

composer and conductor

the

Alexander von Zemlinsky and took some counterpoint lessons with him. As as

anybody knows, Schoenberg never had any other

lew important composers married Zemlinsky s married the

sister

Schoenbergs

in history

sister in

of the

early

who

instruction.

violinist

Rudolf Kolisch.)

works included

quartet and a group of songs. In

a string

Verkldrte Nacht,

One

he revised that version extensively in 1943.) a

comes

chamber music

piece of

readily to

came from

a

mind

—

set to a

program

on

first

example

is

that

My Life). The scenario

later

went on

to

compose

the “rules,’’ and eventually he created an organizational

all

method”

—

that

was to be the most important

the musical thinking of the generation after

But, ironically, the rather conventional Verkldrte Nacht that has

a long,

is

for string orchestra;

it

(the only other

Smetana’s E-nnnor Quartet, From

the so-called “twelve-tone

single influence

which

oddity about Verkldrte Nacht

poem by Richard Dehmel. Schoenberg

musio. that ruptured

system

is

one of the

1901. (She died in 1923, after which Schoenberg

languorous post-Tristan sigh. (In 1917 Schoenberg rescored

it is

is

was largely an autodidact. Schoenberg

1899 he composed the voluptuous string sextet

that

He

far

remained the most popular, just

as

of

all

is

World War

;

II.

work

the Schoenberg

the Stravinsky scores Firebird

is

in public favor.

For

a brief

time

after his

marriage Schoenberg worked in Berlin, conducting

music-hall and operetta performances.

He worked on

his

symphonic poem

Pelleas

mid Melisande and in 1900 on the enormous Gurrelieder which was not scored ;

until

many

Among

years afterward. In 1903 he returned to

his first pupils

on December

3,

1883.

ate in musicology.

Workers’

For

Symphony

Schoenberg wrote

to teach.

were Anton Webern and Alban Berg. Webern was born

He

was

many

a quiet, scholarly

years he

made

man who

his living as

Concerts. Berg, born on February

in

1906 took

in 1910, “.

.

.

was such

a

doctor-

conductor of the Vienna 9,

1885, was a

man whose family had money. As a when he came to Schoenberg. “The

some, aristocratic young

complete dilettante

Vienna and began

tall,

hand-

musician, he was a state

he was

that his imagination apparently

in,”

could

581

The Second Viennese School

work on anything but

not

song-like in

style.

He was

songs.

Even the piano accompaniments

for

them were

absolutely incapable of writing an instrumental

move-

ment or inventing an instrumental theme. You can hardly imagine the lengths went to in order to remove this defect in his talent.” Schoenberg had other talented pupils, but none on the order of a Berg or Webern. They worshiped him, I

which was

Schoenberg exacted worship. Schoenberg’s teaching

just as well, for

was rigorous and demanding, but not doctrinaire.

own

his

imagination, even

as a

He

insisted

on the

pupil’s using

beginner. Exercises were not to be written by rote.

They were, even in their simplest form, to be exercises in expression. “Hence,” Webern later wrote, “he [the pupill must actually create, even in the most primi-

What Schoenberg explains to the student no external is altogether bound up, then, with the work in hand. He brings dogmas. Thus Schoenberg educates actually through creating. He follows the tive

beginnings of musical construction.

traces

of the students’ personality with the utmost energy,

deepen them,

.” Schoenberg all his life remained them break through of Berg and Webern. He preached, they obediently listened.

to help

father

tries to

.

.

Schoenberg’s music soon began to cepts of Pelleas und Melisande

and

drift

away from the

Gurrelieder. It

the spiritual

colossal orchestral

became more compact,

con-

aphoristic,

and dissonant. The Chamber Symphony No. 1 of 1906 experimented with fourths, much as Scriabin was doing at the same time in Russia. In 1908 Schoenberg had arrived

at

the point

where

tonality

was abolished.

He

realized that the

songs in the Buck der hangenden Garten (Op. 15) had led to something new:

With the songs Op. 15 have succeeded for the first time in approaching an ideal of form and expression that has hovered before me for years. ... I am conscious of having removed all the traces of a past esthetic; and if am in the process of going towards a goal which seems certain to me, I already feel the opposition I shall have think that even some people who have believed in me up to to overcome. ... I

I

I

now

will not realize the necessity

of this evolution.

These songs were followed by the short one-act opera Erwartung, the Five Orchestral Pieces (both in 1909), the Six Little Piano Pieces of 1911, and, above rather than lunaire in 1912. Schoenberg was now writing Expressionistic Pierrot

all,

post-Romantic music. This was no accident. He was closely allied with the Geiman painters of Die Briicke, the group that put Expressionism on the rails, and he a selfhimself even painted some intense, though amateurish, canvases, including contained the statement. portrait. Kandinsky ’s definition of Expressionist painting

and visible form, the presentation of an internal expression in external, Schoenberg very consciously tried to do in music what the Expressionists were “.

.

.

doing

in painting.

“Everything

myself.” Expressionism All Expressionistic art

is

I

have written has

intensified

and music

a certain

inward similarity to

Romanticism, the exploration

of inner states.

are very serious. Expressionism avoids the super-

SCHOENBERG, BERG, WEBERN

582 ficially pretty

and attempts

commentary,

psychological

tary,

to transcend nature.

Kokoschka once painted you,” he told the

Where

well.”

and sensuous

the

who knew you who do not know you will

subconscious.

will not recognize

recognize you very

the Impressionists tried to evoke an ideal state through transparent textures,

and an avoidance of black pigments (“Black does not

in nature”), Expressionism

texture, full

psyche,

the

soul,

commen-

often deals with social

“Those

a portrait.

“but those

sitter,

the

It

stark, often brutal,

is

purposely distorted in line and

of nervous tension. Impressionistic music

breaks away from tonality

with jagged melodic

(

= nature);

smooth and never

is

Expressiomstic music

entirely

dissonant, atonal,

is

and deals with an intensified realism rather than ide-

leaps,

alism.

Schoenberg was

steadily

moving toward completely

emancipation of the dissonance,” 1

piano pieces and

1

as

he put

it

— and he

His opera Erwartung

Pierrot lunaire.

aesthetic that finally resulted in Berg’s Wozzeck.

them

— “the

in the

Op.

none too

(a title translated,

a significant step in the

Schoenberg composed Erwartung

seventeen hectic days, between August 17 and September 12, 1909. (Then he

in

had to wait

fifteen years for a staged

The

text

by Marie Pappenheim.

finds

him

is all

the story.

is

atonal textures

realized

“Expectation” or simply “Awaiting”) was

effectively, as

exist

is

sevenths, and is

A woman

dead, near the house of the

The music

largely declamatory,

there

and

reflects the

in a

seeks her lover in the forest. She

woman who has stolen him from her. That womans states of mind, in a vocal line that

harmony

that

is

largely fourths

complex groupings of notes. The

entire

no repetition of any theme, and melody

as

looks forward. Indeed,

it

it is

is

ends with

a

full

many

of night-and-day symbolism, and so

love-death, and so does Erwartung:

in

its

is

athematic. That

is,

idiom, looks back

Wagner

is

as

apparent in

aspects of the libretto. Tristan is

when

Erwartung. Tristan und Isolde

the

woman

erg opera finds her dead lover, she sings a long passage that Liebestod.

and altered fourths,

in the accepted sense has disap-

heavily Wagnerian.

the big orchestra, in the rich textures, and in unci Isolde

work

become immersed

peared. Yet the work, after one has

much

performance of the 30-minute-long work.)

is

in the

nothing

Schoenbless

than

a

Through Schoenberg’s new and unconventional language, something

very traditional can be experienced. Just as Erwartung looks

which many consider

composed flute

on

for speaker

back to Wagner, so

to be Schoenberg’s (it

also looks

most

forward to

Pierrot lunaire,

significant score. Pierrot lunaire

was commissioned by an

is

actress rather than a singer),

(doubling on piccolo), clarinet (doubling on bass clarinet), violin (doubling

viola), cello,

and piano. For the twenty-one songs of Pierrot

poem by Albert Giraud in a German The poem is a parallel to T. S. Eliot’s later used

it

a

decadence of modern man. Schoenberg’s daring and novelty, and for the voice”) and Sprechgesang

first

(literally,

translation

Schoenberg

by Otto Erich Hartleben.

Waste Eand and

settings

lunaire

is

a series

about the

were unprecedented

time the words Sprechstimme

(literally,

“speech song”) entered the language.

for their

“speech

The

vocal

—

— 583

The Second Viennese School

patterns rise and

fall.

not singing, nor

It is

between, with the voice

Some of the music

passacaglia, canons,

the

and the

lunaire

is

a

work

as

speaking, but

like.

is

full

down

something

known

the

of blood symbolism. Today

it is

in

sounds of

in

fal-

based on traditional forms

new world of sound. But

a

which speech

it is

But where the forms may be all

in

ascending to an unearthly high

also

magical and evocative score that inhabits

ridden world a

was

is it

in Pierrot lunaire

harmonic and melodic idiom break

ately realized that here

Sprechgesang

times swooping up and sliding

at

approximate pitch (and, here and there, setto sound).

—

heightened kind of speech song

line calls for a

Musicians immedi-

rules. it is

classically precise,

more than

a ghostly,

that. Pierrot

miniature, imagery-

recognized

as

being

as

seminal

he Sacre du printemps, Joyce’s Ulysses and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles ,

d’ Avi-

gnon. In particular, the vocal style of Pierrot lunaire exerted an overwhelming

on many composers of the post-World War II period. book Style and Idea Schoenberg traced his development from the com-

influence In his

,

poser of Verklarte Nacht through

Pierrot lunaire

and dodecaphony.

passage deals with the concepts in Schoenbergs

mind

One

important

that led to Pierrot:

hundred years the concept of harmony has changed tremendously through the development of chromaticism. The idea that one basic tone, the root, dominated the construction of chords and regulated their succession the concept of tonality had to develop first into the concept of extended tonality. Very soon it In the last

—

—

became doubtful whether such a root still remained the center to which every harmony and harmonic succession must be referred. Furthermore it became doubtful whether a tonic appearing at the beginning, or at the end, or at any other point really had a constructive meaning. Richard Wagner’s harmony had promoted a change

in the logic

and constructive power of harmony.

One

of

its

consequences

of harmonies, especially practiced by Debussy. His harmonies, without constructive meaning, often served the coloristic purpose of expressing moods and pictures. Moods and pictures, though extra-musical, thus

was the so-called

impressionistic use

became constructive elements, incorporated in the musical functions; they produced a sort of emotional comprehensibility in practice, it not in theory. This alone would perhaps not have caused a radical change in compositional technique. Howdevelever, such a change became necessary when there occurred simultaneously a opment that ended in what I call the emancipation of the dissonance.

The term “emancipation of the

dissonance,” Schoenberg explains, refers to the

comprehensibility of dissonance, “which nance’s comprehensibility.

A

consonances and renounces

considered equivalent to the conso-

based on

a tonal center.

By

this

premise

treats

dissonances like

avoiding the establishment of a key,

excluded, since modulation means leaving an established tonality the first establishing another tonality.” It was in 1908, says Schoenberg, that

modulation

and

style

is

is

compositions in

and Berg.

this style

were written by him and, soon afterward, by Webern

SCHOENBERG, BERG, WEBERN

584 Needless to does.

Even

their

century, nearly every

hostility,

music seldom was performed. In the

first

Schoenberg premiere was accompanied by

were many premieres. The music was

years,”

a scandale.

his

Schoen-

it.

music would become the normal language. “In ten

of whether he has learned

it

directly

from

me

or only from

this

my

Later he was not so confident. “Today,” he wrote in 1924, “I realize that

be understood, and his

I

am

Not

strange, very difficult, not liked

he wrote in 1910, “every talented composer will be writing

regardless

it still

decades of the

by audiences, and therefore most musicians and conductors avoided berg was confident that

and

during the height of the Schoenberg and Webern craze

in the 1960s,

among composers, that there

kind of music encountered tremendous

say, this

make do with

content to

death he was resigned to his

fate. In a letter

quite conscious of the fact that a

full

way,

works.” I

cannot

respect.” Several years before

written in 1947 he said that “I

understanding of

my

am

works cannot be

expected before some decades. The minds of the musicians, and of the audiences, have to mature ere they can comprehend

renounced an

early success,

duty to write what

my

and

I

know

destiny orders

me

my

music.

that

—

I

know

this,

success or not

I

—

have personally

it

is

my

historic

to write.”

Like any composer, Schoenberg eagerly sought performances. Unlike most

composers, he insisted that performances be true to the music

oughly prepared lied

—or

else

no performances would be allowed.

by anyone,” he wrote to

his publisher in

Franz Schreker threatened to cancel

a

—

that

“I will

is,

not be bul-

1913, after the composer-conductor

performance.

“I

am

not

so

eager for success.

Arnold Schoenberg in

He

1940 destroyed the age-old

concept of tonality.

Schaal

Eric

c

thor-

585

The Second Viennese School

In particular:

mance.

.

.

permit

what

interested in

do not

Please

.

am

I

dropped. “I would

theater have

let a

Hand

gliickliche

them only

good

a

perfor-

He would

hesitate to cancel the performance.”

Erwartung and Die

his operas

not a performance, only

is

not

once and then

to be given

for inclusion in the repertory.”

and insulted because the Vienna Philharmonic had never played

Irritated

music, he notified

Wilhelm Furtwangler

its first

performance

tion at

all

whom

at that!” In

in Vienna.

The

fact

that “I

am

is I

would not

let a

new work

his

have

composer of any reputa-

the only

And

the Philharmonic has not yet performed.

may

it

as

well rest

the United States he learned that Otto Klemperer had expressed a

Klemperer had

dislike for his music, that

said

it

was “alien”

When Klem-

to him.

perer got in touch with Schoenberg about conducting a work, he received a letter bitterly accusing

him of

cease to conduct

my

become

you?” In 1922 Edgard Varese decided to perform

alien to

and received

you should

the alleged statement. “I then consider that

works. For what can

performance be

a

Among

from Schoenberg.

a stiff letter

like if the

music has

Pierrot lunaire

other things, there was

this

paragraph:

What

offends

and may do

me

you simply

so,

however,

equally,

that

is

me whether you

without asking

my

set a definitive date for

Pierrot lunaire.

already got a suitable speaker; a violinist, a pianist, a conductor, etc.? rehearsals

do you mean

shivering,

something

achieved with all

there

tion,

is

to

my

it?

No, I’m not smart enough

do with me, you must

How many blessing.

But

Who

obliging.

I

I

The of

big,

his

it

is

difficulties,

all

I,

Berg was

for that. If you

quite differently. in charge all

Schoenberg remained

one another’s

latest

style,

expect

want

What

I

is

to

my

that’s

of the declama-

me

want

of the rehearsals?

this

and think

to associate

to have anything to to

know

Who

3.

satisfaction,

reject this exclusively business approach.

occasion to be

Schoenberg was

I

is:

1.

does the

shall give

more

sincerely

I

my

in service for

two

spells,

between 1915

little,

not publishing again until 1923.

in the

army

for three years,

and Webern well,

Of his two

for a short time.

was discharged because

released because of bad eyesight. Berg,

in constant

hope

cordial.

very

Webern was

Schoenberg moved

of the

And you

that?

handsome Berg, healthy looking but never

asthma.

fix a date

I

must

He composed

pupils,

Who

may have

During World War famous

and

am, of course, powerless and you can do as you like. But from asking me about it. I regret not being able to say anything

But

that another time

about

are the players? If

for the rest

then kindly refrain

and 1917.

set

rehearsals? 2.

Sprechstimme? 4.

more

But you people simply

collaboration.

of the tempi, of the dynamics, and

myself with

How many

100 rehearsals were held and an impeccable ensemble

Have you any inkling of the

it!

Have you

to hold, etc., etc. In Vienna, with everyone starving

like

can

Webern, and

touch during the war years and afterward,

to Berlin, always corresponding, describing,

when

and analyzing

compositions. Berg was the most Romantic of the three, the

one most suggestive of Wagner, Mahler, and post-Romanticism. Like Schoen-

SCHOENBERG, BERG, WEBERN

586

German

berg, Berg had his roots in the

He

old forms.

compose much.

did not

and was constantly working

tradition

work on Wozzeck, adapting

the Three Orchestral Pieces, and in 1914 he started the

Georg Buchner

score in 1922.

play to his purposes.

was characteristic

It

that

He

finished the libretto in 1917, the

Berg erect

Classical forms. This atonal, Expressionistic opera

the

as a sonata,

first

form of

third a

act

was described by

Act

recapitulation.

I,

a

and rondo. The

scherzo, and rondo (with an introduction). Act

of inventions: on

theme, on

a

of

are conscious

premiere in 1925

unprecedented

at

a tone,

on

a

construction

this

its

composer

development, and the

in five scenes, contains a suite, rhapsody, five scenes

movements of a symphony: sonata movement,

effect five

it

opera on Classical and pre-

his

being an exposition, the second

military march, lullaby, passacaglia,

Few

the Altenberg songs, in 1914

came

In 1912

rhythm, on

a

are in

II

and fugue,

also in five scenes,

III,

when

fantasy

of Act

chord, on

largo,

a series

is

a tonality.

listening to Wozzeck.

had

It

of rehearsals.

series

it

as

It

cannot be

said that the

opera was liked, but

degenerate

art

and chaos

in music; but

Wozzeck

had

also

admirers and defenders. So powerful and original an opera naturally had perceptive listeners

method

in Berg’s

on

The more

side.

its

madness.

Max

sensitive listeners

its

some

decided that there was

a veritable principle; that

resolve into continuity, colors coalesce, and there results

very oscillation and nebulous atmosphere, justifies the

it.

Marschalk, in the Vossiche Zeitung, pointed out

Wozzeck dissonance had been elevated to

that in

its

the Berlin State Opera, Erich Kleiber conducting, after an

created such a furor that other European opera houses hastened to produce

Critics attacked

in

is

“forms

something which, by

its

probably exactly the music which

transformation of Wozzeck into an opera.” Adolf Weissman in Die

Musik wrote about the

spiritual values

of the opera and

its

“instinctive percep-

tion.”

Other

critics felt uneasy.

“The

listener attains an

believes the walls of the theater are about to crash

hypnotic

down on

which he

state in

him,” wrote Erich

who

Steinhardt in Der Auftakt. And, of course, there were the old-line critics

frothed

the

at

mouth. Paul Zschorlich of the Deutsche Zeitung was one: “As

leaving the State Opera,

but in an insane asylum.

men. rally

.

.

.

We

deal here,

had the sensation of having been not

I

On from

the stage, in the orchestra, in the a

I

was

in a public theater stalls

—

plain

mad-

musical viewpoint, with a capital offence.” Natu-

the Soviet critics saw in Wozzeck the decline of the West, and expressed

their opinions in the

approved ideological language: “Berg’s opera

.

.

.

reveals

the helplessness of the Western-European petty-bourgeois intelligentsia before

oncoming

fascistization,

and demonstrates the

crisis

not only in the individual

consciousness of the Western-European bourgeois composer, but in Western-

European musical culture Berg to

in

in general” (Boris Asafiev, in Sovietskaya Musica).

1928 explained what he was trying to do,

Gluck and Wagner:

in

language that goes back

Alban Berg Expressionistic opera

,

though

with a strong post-Romantic

I

bias.

never entertained the idea of reforming the

Wozzeck. ...

I

wanted

to

compose good music,

of Buchner’s immortal drama, to

when

than that,

I

artistic

structure of the opera with

to develop musically the contents

translate his poetic

language into music; but other

my

only intentions, including the

decided to write an opera,

technique of composition, were to give the theater what belongs to the theater. In other words, the music was to be formed

moment. Even more,

the action at every

as

consciously to

duty ol serving

fulfill its

the music should be prepared to furnish

whatever action needed to be transformed into

reality

on the

stage.

.

.

.

That these purposes should be accomplished by use of musical forms more or less ancient (considered by critics as one of the most important of my ostensible reforms of the opera) was to

make

a selection

a natural

consequence. For the

libretto,

it

was necessary

from twenty-six loosely constructed, sometimes fragmentary,

scenes by Buchner. Repetitions that did not lend themselves to musical variations

had to be avoided. Finally the scenes had to be brought together, arranged and grouped in acts. The problem therefore became, utterly apart from my will, more musical than

by the

No

rules

literary,

one

to

of dramaturgy.

matter

how

.

be solved by the laws of musical structure rather than .

.

cognizant any particular individual

contained in the framework of everything

is

worked

out,

the curtain parts until

audience

who

movements,

it

this opera,

and the

skill

may be

ol the musical

forms

of the precision and logic with which

manifested in every

closes for the last time, there

detail,

from the

moment

must be nobody

in the

pays any attention to the various fugues, inventions, suites, sonata

variations and passacaglias

— nobody who heeds anything but

the idea

SCHOENBERG, BERG, WEBERN

588 of

this

opera,

believe to be

which by

my

far

transcends the personal destiny of VVozzeck. This

achievement.

—

the world of the

Webern, meanwhile, was exploring

a

diderent kind of world

macrocosm;

a

world of delicate, ephemeral,

microcosm

instead of the

sounds, silences,

new

pointillistic

pitch relationships, constant aphoristic distillation, daintily

shimmering orchestration. songs, in the Five

I

In his Passacaglia lor Orchestra, in the Stefan

Movements

for String Quartet

and Six Pieces

George

lor Orchestra,

all

composed between 1908 and 1909, he worked with tiny fragments, mottoes, and cells rather than themes. He worked out a new method of scoring, in which almost every note of

a

phrase was given to a different instrument, with conse-

Webern

quently changing colors.

who

got the idea from Schoenberg,

had talked

about “a melody of tone colors,” or Klangfarbenmelodie. Webern’s music continued to

become more and more compact and

all

but

(in

brief. In his

song cycles of 1914—17 he

the estimation of Pierre Boulez) anticipated the serial system with his

“assimilation of rigid counterpoint to fundamental serial forms.”

Webern

here created a

new

To Boulez,

dimension: sound-space. “The genius of Webern

appears unprecedented, both for the radicalism of his points of view and for the novelty of his sensibility.” In 1923

Schoenberg again

started

composing, and gave to the world

“I called this

Twelve Tones Which

Related Only with

Josef Matthias Hauer had been evolving

new way

procedure ‘Method of Composing with

of musical organization. are

a

a

One

Another.’ ”

A composer named

comparable system, but

it

was Schoen-

Anton Webern The world

of the

microcosm;

a dialectic o f sound

and

silence.

— 589

The Second Viennese School took hold.

that

berg’s

Briefly,

method involved basing

Schoenberg’s twelve-tone (or dodecaphonic)

composition on

a

a “series”

notes of the chromatic scale, arranged in such a

within the basic

Thus no

way

made up from

the twelve

no note was repeated

that

or tone-row, or series (hence the term “serial composition”).

set,

was more important than any other note. This basic

single note

set,

the

tone-row, functioning in the manner of a theme or motive, could be manipulated

ways

in three

after the initial statement.

backward

sion),

(retrograde),

All these are mirror forms,

for

Schoenberg

felt

are not new.

What Schoenberg was

Fuge and elsewhere.

was looking

and backward upside

and

—was

way

a

new method

that his

and unitary perception of musical

whatever

its

space.

”

Bach had used them

—

looking for

in the

Kunst

der

indeed, what Bach

as,

piece of music.

a

the absolute

But however the music was composed,

system, Schoenberg insisted that listeners and musicians should forget as

music: “I can’t say

it

often enough:

my

are twelve-tone compositions, not twelve-tone compositions.”

new music

This

was, basically, horizontal (contrapuntal)

(harmonic) writing of the Romantics.

The tone-row was arranged

leaps.

tional)

used

(inver-

(retrograde inversion).

“corresponds to the principle of

about the system and judge the music

works

down

complete unity within

to achieve

down

could be played upside

It

Its

melodic

so that there

harmony. (Berg was to break

this rule.)

was

line

from the tone-row. The

last

with wide

disjunct,

was no feeling of

triadic (tradi-

Instruments and the voice were

unusual registers. Instead of recognizable themes, there were

in

the vertical

as against

cells

movement of Schoenberg’s Op. 23 Piano

derived

Pieces and

sections of the Serenade, both published in 1923, contained twelve-tone elements; 25), also published in 1923,

and the Piano Suite (Op.

was

a

twelve-tone work

throughout. (British writers refer to “twelve-note” rather than “twelve-tone” music. Schoenberg himself, in letters and essays written in English, and in conversation,

Ton,

used the term “ twelve- tone.”

which can be

The

difficulty

comes with the German word

translated as “tone” or “note.”)

Schoenberg’s two disciples enthusiastically adopted the

new

never entirely divorced himself from post-Romanticism, and have called

his

work

a

set to

and

a serial opera, Lulu;

Lulu,

ruins

his last

all

Lulu

is

an

He

then started

principles.

entire opera

from the

is

Erdgeist

initial

row of twelve

story of Lulu

Berg wrote

is

a feeling

Webern

who

uncon-

Berg derived the

tones, but as customary with him, the

approaching

one of the more bizarre episodes

a letter to

life.

is

For

and Die

an amoral temptress

the serpent in the menagerie of

note-to-note relationships often have

In 1934

also serial.

she touches; and yet she has a curious innocence because she

scious of her evil. She

The

Lilith:

often

and on the

work, the Violin Concerto, was

embodiment of

it

string quartet,

Berg brought together two dramas by Frank Wedekind

Biichse der Pandora.

later serial purists

hybrid, because even within the serial technique

work on the Lyric Suite for Chamber Concerto, both of which incorporate serial

sounds tonal. Berg

technique. Berg

tonality.

in the history

of music.

saying that he had finished the opera and

SCHOENBERG, BERG, WEBERN

590

was going to retouch

He

act unfinished.

But Berg died on December 24, 1935, leaving the

it.

however, leave

did,

“Particell”

a

—

short score with

a

last

some

indications of the orchestration. Every note ot the third act except lor a few

measures of

a

vocal quartet

contained in the

is

Particell.

Berg

also left sketches

and other materials, including the typescript of the Act III libretto. Erwin Stein, who had made the piano score of the first two acts (which were published) also prepared Act

in

III

entirety.

its

Universal Edition, Berg’s publisher, started to

Then came

engrave Steins vocal score.

was one of the composers on the hate was

The two-act

instantly dropped.

There were

the Anschluss, and Hitler took over. Berg

list

version had

no further productions

to be

of National Socialism. All work on Lulu its

premiere in Zurich in 1937.

until alter the war.

Then why did not Universal hasten to publish Stein’s definitive Act 1945? The answer had to do with Berg’s widow, Helene. She appears been, to put

it

mildly, eccentric.

She claimed

husband. They spoke to each other every

was not

to

be completed. Not only

and Alexander Zemlinsky, Berg’s

to have

be in communication with her

to

He

day.

after

III

kept on telling her that Lulu

Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern,

that:

closest friends

and

associates,

had told her that

Lulu would be impossible to complete. So said Mrs. Berg. Stein died in 1958. Universal, honoring Mrs. Berg’s wishes (she also was the

executrix of the estate), firmly see anything.

on

versal that there

relics.

were no plans

So matters remained

He was

Particell

and the

see,

would not be

it

Nobody was

allowed to

expert George Perle desperately

turned down.

until 1963. In that year Perle

libretto

from what he could Perle,

Lulu materials.

He

to publish Stein’s vocal score

was

also told

of Act

by Uni-

III.

was granted permission to

Vienna and examine the Lulu material. The

to the Universal headquarters in

go

all

The American composer and Berg

examine the Lulu

tried to

sat

were placed

in front

of him. Perle was

electrified. Lulu,

was eminently capable of being completed. Indeed,

that difficult a task.

He

set forth his findings in a

long

said

letter

Kalmus of Universal. “With the exception of not more than twenty Act III, Scene 2,” Perle wrote, “which are almost but not entirely com-

to Alfred A.

bars in

pleted, the third act of Lulu

the

full

As

for the

few incomplete were not,

that suggested those bars

“With

posed, said Perle. self,

I

complete, both musically and dramatically, including

orchestration of three-fifths of Scene 2 and almost the same proportion of 1.”

Scene

is

cannot see

why

bars, Perle after

all,

found many indications by Berg

“incomplete.”

No

problems were

the assistance of the suggestions provided by Berg

a satisfactory solution

should require more than

of work.” Another point made by Perle about Berg’s plan for Act music of the

new

characters,

the music of the previous

by Berg, the same or in

Act

III,

What

who

two

acts.

are alter egos

Perle did not

task

III is

that the

of the old characters, duplicates

could apply to the equivalent episodes

of reconstruction that

know

few hours

Since the earlier music had been fully scored

a similar orchestration

making the

a

him-

much

easier.

then was that Universal, in 1962, had given permis-

591

The Second Viennese School sion to a specialist to reconstruct Act

III.

conductor, and scholar, was already

work when

Perle looked at the Lulu materi-

Nobody wanted

Mrs. Berg to find out. She died

als

in 1963.

was kept

It

a secret.

and bidding immediately

in 1976,

honor of being the

at

Friedrich Cerha, an Austrian composer,

started.

Opera houses everywhere wanted

to present Lulu complete.

first

“world premiere” on February 24, 1979. Most

demned

round out the

was generally agreed

also

It

cyclic nature

and

Lulu’s degradation

fall

in

Act

III

that

was necessary to

Lulu was

that,

when

—

Lulu’s last three clients

appear.

They

But

a torso.

are observed, previous motivations

the Negro, and Jack the Ripper

—

as

and musi-

the Profes-

are mirror reflections

of the

Lulu previously had dragged down, and Berg uses the same singers to

cement the

point. In

its

three-act completion, Lulu

the tightly organized Wozzeck, but serial

and musicians roundly con-

that the last act

of the opera. Before

cal references fall into shape, especially

men

Opera gave the

Paris

the Patrice Chereau staging, but Cerha’s realization of the score received

universal praise.

sor,

critics

The

the

it

is

no

is

a

more sprawling work than put together, and the

less brilliantly

elements are used in an extraordinarily expressive manner.

Webern during the 1920s kept refining his style into what Boulez calls “a new manner of musical being.” Webern, he says, “was the first to explore the possibilities

of

of sound and

a dialectic

rhythmic

cells.

Webern

also

silence,”

evolved

a

with silences

new

structure of pitches, rethinking “the

very idea of polyphonic music on the basis of the principles of

Where Schoenberg and Berg

(Boulez).

of the

as integral parts

serial

writing”

never could discard Romanticism,

Webern was the one who worked in pure tonal organization, rejecting completely the Romantic rhetoric. It could be said that there was no rhetoric at all. So condensed was the writing once

in a while

under

a

that a piece

might

last

only

few minutes, and every

a

minute. Forms so highly concentrated cannot stand

lengthy developments. Boulez, Webern’s most articulate spokesman, points out that

Webern’s adoption of

not fundamentally

serial

alter his

technique helped unify

Webern’s mature works, between 1927 and 1934

sound becomes

a

vocabulary but did

musical thinking: his style had been revolutionary

before dodecaphonism and remained revolutionary after

the String Trio, the

his

Symphony, and the Concerto

phenomenon

it.

Boulez claims

that in

—those works would —include for

Nine Instruments

in itself linked to the others.

.

.

.

He

“each

aerates his

positionings in time and space as well as in their instrumental context.” Instru-

mentation

itself takes

on

a structural function.

Boulez summarizes Webern’s con-

tributions as an art of unprecedented refinement and concentration ol musical materials, in

which

relationships are so rigorously organized that melody, har-

mony, and even rhythm become indissoluble trom each was only

a

other.

From

there

it

short step to the totally organized music of Olivier Messiaen, Milton

Babbitt, and Boulez himself,

which came

into being shortly after

World War

II.

In totally organized music, even dynamics, tone colors, and silences are serially

handled.

SCHOENBERG, BERG, WEBERN

592

The

transition

from twelve-tone music

might have come ear-

to total serialism

had not the Nazis and seven years of war intervened. With Hitler’s rise to as the Schoenberg-Bergpower, the music of the Second Viennese School lier

Webern group came

known

be

to

—was banned

—

as cultural

Bolshevism. Berg died

of the Nazi horror became apparent. Webern was

in 1935, before the full impact

forced to live in obscurity, doing editorial

work

accidentally shot and killed in Mittersill during the night of

who

by an American soldier

was working on

Webern’s son-in-law was involved. Schoenberg, Berlin in 1933.

Academy of the

He had been Arts. He went

1933 he settled in Boston health, he

went

as a

who

‘6’

have the

type,

‘oe.’

and

I

I

was

a

Jew, had to flee from

to France

and then

United

to the

States,

where

—was

year

a

later,

where he taught

at

He became

the University of

an American

citi-

his

I

wanted

to avoid the

form ‘Schonberg.’

” In 1944, at the

so small, because he had

been

a faculty

member

—$38

lived in California he

for only eight years,

was so busy

as a

teacher that he had relatively

little

time for

composition, though he finished the Violin Concerto, the String Quartet No.

Second Chamber Symphony, the Theme and Variations

Concerto, and

He acts

a

was forced to continue private teaching. During the seventeen years he

that he

the

in

teacher in the Malkin Conservatory. Because of ill

age of seventy, he had to retire from the University, but his pension

month

which

name from Schonberg to Schoenberg. “My name is changed it when came to America because few printers

zen in 1941 and changed

be spelled with

14, 1945,

black market case in

a

California in Los Angeles and gave private lessons.

to

September

there since 1926, teaching at the Prussian State

Los Angeles

to

He was

for Universal Edition.

also

A

for band, the Piano

Warsaw for speaker, men’s chorus, and orchestra.

Survivor from

worked on

opera Moses und Aron, which he had started in 1927.

his

4,

Two

had been completed by 1932. Schoenberg was anxious to complete Moses

und Aron, but he never did.

There his life

good

a

is

he was

neglect: a

deal of

died in Los Angeles on July 13, 1951.

Schoenberg himself

in

man, acutely conscious of

a bitter

man of the

He

highest ideals

who

Moses und Aron. At the end of his stature

tried to give the

world

most found unpalatable or incomprehensible. Small wonder identified with Moses.

mounted There

are

Schoenberg had

Germany, he returned

in

two

fascinating

to

and revealing

left it,

his religion,

ers”)

artists

with

(Franz

whom

Marc used

letters

close friends. After

World War

were reports

some of

that

rationalized their beliefs,

I,

anti-Semitism

as

his Jewishness.

associated,

Reiter, a

group of avant-

hence the name, “Blue Ridand he and Kandinsky were

Kandinsky entered the Bauhaus group, and there

the Bauhaus

members were

anti-Semitic.

But they

On

April 20,

and some of their best friends were Jews.

1923, Schoenberg wrote an anguished letter to Kandinsky: “I have the lesson that has been forced

message that

he wrote to Kandinsky in 1923.

to paint blue horses,

Schoenberg had been

but

a

his

he should have

that

proudly proclaiming

Kandinsky had been one of the founders of the Blaue garde

and resentful of

on

me

during the years, and

I

shall

at last

learned

not ever forget

593

The Second Viennese School

it.

It is

being .

.

am

I

not

a

German, not

European, indeed perhaps scarcely

a

the Europeans prefer the worst of their race to me), but

(at least,

have heard that even

I

.

that

a

Kandinsky and

their evil actions only Jewishness,

any understanding. ...

I

Kandinsky of today each

should

like the

I

a

Jew.

up the hope of reaching

give

I

Kandinsky

to take his fair share

Kandinsky answered, explaining

ings.”

point

am

I

of Jews and in

sees only evil in the actions

at this

human

a

knew

in the past

and the

of my cordial and respectful greet-

Schoenberg was not representative of

that

most Jews. Schoenberg exploded:

Dear Kandinsky: That was what of what be

my

a

you were deeply moved by my letter. hoped of Kandinsky, although I have not yet said a hundredth part

you

address

I

you wrote

so because

I

that

Kandinsky’s imagination must conjure up before his minds eye

Kandinsky. Because

I

have not yet said that for instance

the street and each person looks at can’t very well

me

whether I’m

to see

Jew

I

he

to

is

walk along

or a Christian,

I

each of them that I’m the one that Kandinsky and some others

tell

make an exception

of,

although of course that

man

This was in 1923, and Moses und Aron was

Hitler

ran into the problem of how to reconcile

what he

is

not ol their opinion.

come. Schoenberg,

to

still

finishing the second act in 1932, never could figure out

He

a

when

it

how

to

after

end the opera.

“some almost incom-

called

prehensible contradictions in the Bible.” In any event, Schoenberg was not trying to

compose

a biblical

opera

a la

Samson

number of liberties can be taken with

et

With

Dalila.

of opera, any

that kind

the text. In an opera that seeks a philosophi-

cal truth, as

does Moses und Aron, there has to be some kind of support for the

conclusions.

And

while Schoenberg became strongly religious

been

(“In these years religion has first

my

time”), his was a religion based

What seemed in the Bible

nor since

to interest

Thou

on

Schoenberg

where Moses

only support

slow tongue.” Schoenberg in

particularly about

Thy

am not

servant, but

up

his libretto set

a

brother Aaron. Moses sees and understands the

convey

gogue long

who

as

Thus

Aaron,

his vision.

can act

Moses

is

A

man of less

understanding

is

I

Moses was

eloquent, neither heretofore,

am

slow ol speech, and ot

side,

God

of the Jews, but cannot

his people.

go back

is

a

politician-dema-

But he can

act

only

as

Aaron and the people (mob?) on

Moses understands the Oneness

given to few men. Perhaps

to

a

dualism between Moses and his

it is

to idol

worship

when

of

God. But such

an understanding

masses will never arrive. Even Aaron, so close to Moses,

compromise but

a little passage

prompt him.

God and Moses on one

conflict ensues.

I

confess that here for the

vision and insight,

Moses’ tongue and sway

at his side to

there are

the other.

as

a

I

World War

ethical teaching, not external conformity.

says to the Lord: “I

has spoken unto

—

after

is

at

which

the

ready not only to

the spiritual leader

is

not beside

him. Aaron realizes that the masses have “naught but their feeling.” To Moses

this

SCHOENBERG, BERG, WEBERN

594

is

anathema. "‘My love

is

for the idea.

tablets

containing the Ten

whole

idea.”

shall also ask

Moses

falls

Then,

Him

to the

says

to

only tor

Commandments

Moses,

“I shall

withdraw the

ground

live

I

One God. It is that he despairs of people. “Oh word, thou word that

It is

that the

are also images, “just part ot the

smash to pieces both these

task given

in despair.

Aaron points out

it.

tablets,

and

me.” At the end ot the second

I

act,

not that he doubts the existence ot the

ever being able to explain the Idea to the I

lack.”

The

allegory

is

clear

enough. Will

Moses-Schoenberg ever find the Word? Schoenberg

tried to tinish the opera, rewriting the last act tour times.

he wrote to an expert on the Bible,

“I

have so

tar

encountered great

Here,

difficulties

because of some almost incomprehensible contradictions in the Bible. For even there are comparatively few points on which I strictly adhere to the Bible, still, is

precisely here that

it is

shalt smite the rock’

difficult to get

on It

a

this

question?

Up

to

now

I

it

over the divergence between "and thou

and ‘speak ye unto the

material for so long: can you perhaps

if

tell

You have worked on

rock.’

me where

this

could look up something

I

have been trying to find

a solution tor myself.

.

.

.

does go on haunting me.”

But Schoenberg never did tind the solution, and thus Moses unci Aron remains torso. It also remains; however, one of the most personal operas ever written;

and, unfortunately, so will

command much

static,

wordy, and unoperatic an opera that

probably never

is

seen the figure of Moses-

tor the people to tollow

him, never beset by doubts

of an audience. Through

Schoenberg pleading mutely

it

it

concerning the Message he was carrying, but wondering it the Message would ever be accepted. Could spiritual principle ever triumph over matter and the

Golden Calf? Schoenberg himself never doubted the eventual triumph

And he died just as his vision was beginning to come true moment when his Message was beginning to dominate the

ple.

ot princi-

tor him, just at the

thoughts ot every

avant-garde composer in the world. If the period from 1830 to 1860 was the early Romantic period, if the latter half of the century was the age of Wagner, if the

period from 1910 to 1945 was the age of Stravinsky, then the decades from 1950 were the period of Schoenberg and his school; and the final returns are not yet in.

40. The International

Movement

Serial

FROM VARESE TO MESSIAEN

—even though he was

was not Arnold Schoenberg

t

new music

I

1945

after

—who captured

the Western world. Rather

it

was

the patron saint of the

the imagination of composers

his pupil

Anton Webern. Webern’s

all

over

incredi-

bly tight organization, his kind of logic and musical purity, turned out to be a

international avant-garde was swept along. Suddenly the

which the

torrent in

course of music appeared to take off at a right angle.

Webern above

all,

New gods were worshiped

but also such previously arcane figures

as

Edgard Varese and

Olivier Messiaen.

Something It

was

as if

in the Zeitgeist latched

the

new world

on

to the ideal of order

and

clarity in music.

ushered in by the atom bomb, the world of quantum

mechanics and Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle, the beginnings of the contor it was as if the musicians of this new world yearned quest of outer space

—

strict

control backed by scientific principles. All of

to appear.

It

often based

was music that was

on mathematical

Romanticism and

its

a

sudden

a

new music began

abstract, constructed like a precision instrument,

theory.

It

was

trappings, basing itself

a

music that completely discarded

on

entirely

new

concepts of sound

and organization.

But nothing, even was

a

a

mutant, comes from nowhere.

seminal force in the eyes of the

Varese,

born

in

new

of the composers

school was Edgard Varese

France but resident in America

but was in the vanguard of the

One

after

(1

883-1965).

1915, was never

modern movement. He was

discarded almost every element of the past and looked for

a

a serialist

revolutionary

a totally

who

who

new kind

of

Edgard Varese

A

natural revolutionary, he

looked for a totally

new kind

of music.

new instrument that would free music from the he once said. He looked for new instruments that would create

music. “I had an obsession: a

tempered system,”

new

sounds; in

thing

a

way, he was writing electronic music before there was any such

music.

as electronic

much more matter.”

To

He was

much

very

so than in traditional harmony,

and he aimed for “pure sound

find the instrument of his dreams he

who

Russian inventor Leon Theremin, the theremin. Varese also

worked

his Ionisation

for a while

as living

with the

created an electronic instrument

worked with the

Bell

of 1931 he broke entirely

named

Telephone Laboratories.

At the beginning Varese wrote music influenced by Le with

rhythm and timbre,

interested in

free

from

all

Sacre du printemps.

But

past music. Ionisation

is

scored for an orchestra consisting only of sirens, percussion instruments, and

whatever electronic instruments, such Varese described Ionisation ships.

I

was

as a

as

the theremin, that were then available.

study of “internal rhythmic and motivic relation-

sonorous aspects of percussion

also interested in the

architectonic elements.” There was

no precedent

for this

as structural,

kind of music, with

its

complex rhythmic percussion, its wails and shrieks, its modernity well ahead of its time. Ionisation descended upon the world and the world laughed at it, calling it

nothing but cacophony. Three years

named

Density 21.5.

(the specific gravity

Not

until

It

was written

of platinum

is

later Varese

for

21.5).

composed

a

Georges Barrere and

Then

work his

for solo flute

platinum

flute

there was a long silence.

1954 did Varese resume composition. By that time the tape recorder

and electronic music were being used by fascinated musicians, and Varese took

The

new

advantage of the

media, putting together

electronic interludes. In 1958 sels

World’s

Fair,

Philips Pavilion.

terpoint.

own

an orchestral work with

the Poeme electronique,

composed

the edge of the repertory.

It

was

for the Brus-

in Le Corbusier’s

Today most of Varese’s music has vanished except a historic

new

for Ionisation,

conception;

it

dem-

was possible to write music without melody, harmony, or coun-

it

was sound

It

Deserts,

on eleven channels and 425 loudspeakers

which remains on onstrated that

came

597

Movement

International Serial

excuse for being.

as

sound, pushed along by

The concept meant

a pulsating

rhythm, that was

a great deal to the serialists, to

its

whom

Varese was a hero.

There were other adventurers. Henry Cowell and Leo Ornstein,

World War

I

as early as

the

period, had been experimenting with tone clusters and music of

extreme dissonance. Ornstein dropped from public attention entirely (though in the late 1960s there was a mild revival of interest in his music). Cowell lived long

become one of the Grand Old Men of American music. He used an mix of folk materials (many of them Asian-derived), polyrhythms, and

enough

to

eclectic

dissonance mixed with tonic-donnnant consonance.

But the future of music was not with them. After World War II, composers like Olivier Messiaen in France and his pupils Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen were thinking along different

lines.

So was Milton Babbitt

in

New

York.

its

logical

To most of the younger generation, it was Webern and not Schoenberg who had extreme. It was true that Schoenberg had led

the way, but to the excitable

young

revolutionaries of the 1950s

They took and

off where

especially to the

Webern had

French school,

carried the art of music to

a creator

who

had

failed to live

up

stopped.

to his potential.

Schoenberg was

The young

Pierre Boulez

of the composer and loudly announced, in capital letters, SCHOENBERG IS DEAD. Schoenberg, in the words of Andre Hodeir, a

wrote

study

a

spokesman

for the

French group, did not

realize that the

new

language “implied

an exhaustive reappraisal of form in music. Schoenberg had broken new paths but had no clear notion of where they led.” As for Alban Berg, he had “merely used the

new

system without grasping

But Webern!

It

its

real implications.”

was Webern who,

as

the French avant-gardist Jean Barraque

“endowed the word polyphony with a broader and deeper meaning; the musical components were disassociated and reorganized in such a way as to tighten

wrote,

the bonds as

between them,

establishing their equality with respect to

well as the indivisibility of the whole.”

of the

new

serial school,

was the

first

Webern,

composer

it

one another

was decided by the exponents

in history to have a clear vision

of athematic music (music entirely without themes and, to conventional ears, without melody). Yes, Webern, it was excitedly claimed by the Young Turks, was the

first

explorer of a world

When Webern

was working

visited.

in the period prior to

World War

II,

even highly

and qualified composers had trouble following his music. Luigi Dallapicwho became Italy’s leading exponent of the twelve-tone system, experienced

gifted cola,

nobody previously had

FROM VARESE TO MESSIAEN

598

He

a typical reaction.

he had trouble making head or in

1935

wrote utes

ot

tail

He

it.

in his diary:

.

heard Webern’s Concerto (Op. 24) Prague, and

in

composition of unbelievable brevity (scarcely

a

.

something new, but

Contemporary Music

the International Society for

at

six

min-

of music) and truly extraordinary concentration. Every decorative element

eliminated. ... is

in the presence of

he was

realized that

have not managed to form an exact idea ot the piece, which

I

too difficult for me; but that

far

is

creates a

it

world of

own seems

its

to

me

unquestionable.”

Webern’s music, so concise and

computer terminology).

brief,

is

kind of polyphony that to some evoked

also contains a

It

(to use

packed with “information”

the Netherlands school of the Renaissance. Perhaps

it

was no coincidence

that

Webern’s doctoral dissertation had been on the Netherlands composer Heinrich Isaac. Canonic devices play a prominent part in Webern’s music. He himself said of

Second Cantata (Op. 31)

his

movement “constructed thought

of:

in a

much

it

took

less to

way

a

is

a

was

it

I

ever had to

mind

term Augenmusik came into wide

professional,

from

use:

was

it

no matter how versed

Many

this

a

canon,

a

in the style,

said no,

Augenmusik, or “eye music,”

had to be seen and analyzed on the printed page;

more

fulfill

to realize that

take in this kind of music even with repeated hearings?

that

last

four-part canon ot the most complicated kind.”

Could any

it.

a

none of the Netherlander ever

difficult task

very sophisticated musical

follow

with

basically a Missa brevis

that perhaps

was perhaps the most

it

point of view. For the basis

But

that

and the

kind ot music

a

kind of music that was

impressive visually than aurally.

many composers of the older generations, such as Dallapiccola, had trouble understanding Webern at first, the generation after World War II found him If

mother’s milk. Composers rapidly assimilated his concepts. But what, exactly, to

do with them?

It

did not take long to find out. Webern’s theories were expanded

into a series of techniques that swept the

Western world.

At Princeton University in 1948 Milton Babbitt composed Piano and

sitions for first

also the

Composition

Four Instruments,

Three

Compo-

which

in

for the

time various aspects of music were subjected to serialism within the same

piece: the pitches (arranged into rows or,

dynamics, as

for

his

more

and timbre. In other words, not only were the notes organized

register,

any composer would organize notes, but

Perhaps only

a

properly, sets), durations, tempo,

also the

dynamics,

rests

—

mathematically trained and brilliantly focused mind

could have carried off

this tour deforce.

others rapidly followed, and Babbitt

Once he showed how

became

the leader of the

it

everything.

like Babbitt’s

could be done,

American school

ot

serialism.

There

also

were older composers determined

ultimate conclusion. a

composer with

bird

calls,

a

One

such was Messiaen,

debt to Debussy,

and Asian music. Yet

it

a

who

to

push Webern’s music to

its

was something of an anomaly:

mystic interested in nature, Catholicism,

was Messiaen, in Paris

after the war,

who worked

The

out

advance

a significant

Mode

piece called

The

et d’intensites.

uses four basic elements: a basic

third

of a

mode of thirty-six

and

mode of twelve

a

different

keyboard

named Four

set

pitches,

of twenty-four “durations,” or different rhythmic values; intensities;

1949 he wrote

in relation to serial music. In

de valeur

599

Movement

International Serial

a

all

mode of seven

but

it

short piece, not

et d'intensites is a

carried a weight incommensurate with

its

brevity.

much It

it

mode

different

Messiaen was work-

attacks.

somewhat along the lines Babbitt had established in his 1948 attempt to serialize more elements than the pitches themselves. de valeur

Etudes,

different; a

ing

The Mode

piano

a

pieces.

It

was an

over four minutes,

sparked the

orga-

serial

oncoming

nization of his brilliant pupil Pierre Boulez, and was studied by the

over the world.

serialists all

Boulez, born on March 26, 1925, was smart, articulate, ambitious, and dogmatic, and was also an important conductor and administrator. Like Babbitt, he

had

a

background

Conservatoire.

in mathematics.

From

Music

and he was trained

at

the Paris

Rene

the beginning he was an atonalist. Private studies with

Leibowitz, a Schoenberg disciple, led ing, in a ballet

called,

company. After

him

He

into serialism.

also started

conduct-

Piano Sonata No. 2 (1948) and Le Marteau

his

satis

he became one of the supreme figures of the musical avant-garde. His work became a kind of textbook into which avant-garde composers everywhere dipped. He also established the standard orchestration for serial music. At maitre (1954),

any concert or

festival

that contained flute,

perhaps

a string

of modern music one could count on hearing an ensemble vibraphone, xylorimba, many varieties of percussion, and

or two.

It

was noted

at

these affairs that the music only too often

was incomprehensible, that everything tended to sound themselves were delicate and pretty. It was also noted are short

—

that the time

it

took to rig up

generally took longer than the time

Boulez was took up

a

a slow, careful

good

garde concerts in Pans.

He

at

most

serial

works

on

stage

took to perform the work.

remained

He founded taught

He made

musical thought.

He

since

those percussion instruments

writer with a small

part of his time).

control over the materials.

it

all

but that the sounds

alike,

the

number

of

a doctrinaire,

works (conducting

an exponent of

Domaine Musical

total

series of avant-

Darmstadt, that postwar center of progressive

a big career as a

conductor, specializing in music of

Second Viennese School and other important modernists, including, of 1971 to course, Pierre Boulez. He headed the New York Philharmonic from 1978 and even was invited to conduct the Wagner Ring cycle at the centenary of

the

Bayreuth in 1976.

1976 to head the

He

had

Institut

left

Paris in 1964,

de Recherche

et

vowing never

to return, but did so in

de Coordination Acoustique/Musique,

Heavily subsidized by the French Government, it remains a music. center for musical experimentation that includes electronic and computer IRCAM, however much it may have added to contemporary theory, has not

known

as

IRCAM.

But

produced

a

composer who has captured the imagination

Boulez himself became

a

legend, his music

still

of the public.

And

while

has not established itself in the

FROM VARESE TO MESSIAEN

600

active repertory. Like so

when

it is

heard

much

generally

it

at

is

music,

serial

it

praised than heard, and

more

is

specialized concerts, or with those orchestras he

himself conducts.

Following the lead of Boulez and Babbitt, composers of the 1960s championed the total organization of music. Not only were the pitches to be serialized, but

tempo, and dynamics. Ol course, some famous

also durations, timbre, intensity,

composers kept writing

in a

more

Shostakovich, to mention but two.

tri

so than the representatives of the

many

pointed out that a

music

serial

group. But

it

to

Britten and

be played,

Dmi-

much more

was the avant-garde that

the excitement, even

all

it

the public, the

musicians stubbornly resisted the music. Critics also

music, the most organized kind of music that ever existed,

which every parameter was

in

— Benjamin

They continued

new

captured the headlines and created establishment, and

idiom

traditional

stringently organized by the composer,

nevertheless sounded chaotic and disorganized. All that mighty intellectual effort

had gone into creating too,

a

many

kind of music that the public, and

professionals

found incoherent.

But from

over the world came the

all

serial

composers. In France the foremost

Maurice Le Roux,

practitioners included, in addition to Boulez. Jean Barraque,

and Gilbert Amy. They did not develop into household names. Hungary was represented by Gyorgy Ligeti; Germany by Hans Werner Henze, Giselher Klebe, and Karlheinz Stockhausen;

Nono, and Bruno Maderna; experiment with

Italy

by Sylvano Bussotti, Luciano Berio, Luigi

in Switzerland the veteran

serial textures.

Frank Martin began to

Belgium had Henri Pousseur;

Iannis

Xenakis was

Greece and Bo Nilsson in Sweden. Poland had Tadeusz Baird; England had Alexander Goehr and Humphrey Searle; Japan had Toru Takemitsu and Toshiro in

Mayuzumi. Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky fooled around with serial technique. There were other composers who, if not orthodox serialists, used elements that

in

stemmed from

Poland and

the serial

movement.

a strong British

Among

were Krzysztof Penderecki

school headed by Peter Maxwell Davies and Har-

Even the Soviet Union had

rison Birtwistle.

these

a

group of underground

who worked

against

something big was going on

in the

including Edison Denisov and Alfred Schnittke in Moscow,

overpowering handicaps. They knew

that

West, but radio communications were blocked and they had no

new

broadcasts of the

about the

Of

new

serialists,

way of hearing

music, nor did they have access to textbooks or articles

music.

group, Stockhausen proved to be one of the most prolific and

this large

inventive.

One

(1953), in

which

of

his first

all

works

to attract attention

was

the musical materials were serialized.

his

Composition No. 2

Then came such widely

discussed works as Kontra-Punkte (1952), Gesang der Junglinge (1956), Gruppen for three orchestras (1957), Zykins (1959), and junglinge Stockhausen was

one of the

first

to

distorted vocal sounds. (Later, Berio was to

Momente (1964). In the Gesang

work

make

der

in electro-acoustic music, using a

bigger thing of

this.)

Stock-

Karlheinz Stockhausen His

later

works reveal

his

preoccupation with unifying

form and material.

hausen,

“no

as

much

a

recapitulation,

polemicist

no

Boulez,

as

variation,

let

the world

no development. He

the old formal procedures in favor of a

know

that his

said that

new kind of musical

music had

he had abandoned

organization. Stock-

hausen kept on experimenting, working in open forms, closed forms, music in space (the three orchestras in Gruppen have three conductors and are placed in of the

different parts

years he

was

a

hall),

electronic music,

potent influence

as

and

composers

sound

structures.

tried to figure out

For

many

what he was

doing and tried to imitate him.

The

result

of

“total organization” in serial

music of the 1960s was

total disso-

One nance, in which melody was abolished and national characteristics eiased. matter its provenance. serial work tended to sound like any other serial work, no have escaped from the tyranny of the theme,” exulted the British composer of composing memorable Iain Hamilton, who in any case had never been guilty from themes. Not only did composers escape from the theme, they also escaped

“We

harmony. The new music dispensed with the concept of chords and their inveron the initial tone row. In sions and alterations, substituting a linear system based

way it almost was as though music had leaped backward become totally polyphonic once again. a

a

few centuries, to

FROM VARESE TO MESSIAEN

602

And

the music proved especially difficult to play. Very few musicians trained in

the classical tradition could begin to handle

time out to decipher the

new

Even

it.

notations and

specialists

work out new

had to take

much

fingerings, bowings,

and physical responses.

A new new

terminology came with

music and similar manifestations of the

musical thought. Composers no longer spoke of chords, they

“densities.” sets,

serial

The new

now

spoke of events, actions, gestures, interval

analysts

with

classes,

periods, indeterminacy, aggregates, parameters, tritones, tetrachords, hexa-

chords, aleatory. In the United States the official publication for the

was

dealt

Perspectives of

New

which one could come

Music, in

new thought

across such delightful

prose as the following, from an article by Michael Kassler in the issue of Spring

1963:

R

a single-value function of

is

and one only element relational inverse

elements (w,

z)

Z

of

E

D

E

to

exists

of the relation R' of such that (z,w)

is

E

to

D

if

function of

to-one correspondence

with the other.)

single-valued function of

This kind of analysis proved

E

as

element

for every

if,

such that (w,z)

an element of

E if and only if R is R is a single-valued

a

and only

R

is

if

R

is

R

the set of

is

the

all

the

a one-to-one function of

D to E and

as

D

of

D and E

some of

is

in one-

the music, and

Ernst Krenek admitted that

even such respected members of the avant-garde

as

they were befuddled. Krenek also wondered

such old-fashioned notions

“inspiration” had anything to

if

do with the new music. He pointed out

of the musical process in

elaboration.

.

.

.

a

manner

as

that serial-

ism had abolished inspiration because “predetermination has already covered details

to

the relational inverse of

to D. (In this last case each

hard to understand

of D, one

an element of R.

is

and only

R\

w

all

that precludes further 'inspirational’

This evolution indeed does away with most of the fundamental

concepts that had traditionally dominated the creation and perception of music since

its

rise in

Western

But Krenek s was

no doubts about the with the

down

past,

minority view. Most practitioners of

historic inevitability

of their

art.

They

serial

technique had

gloried in the break

and Luciano Berio, one of the heroes of the movement, threw

the gauntlet: “Categorical statements, such as right or wrong, beautiful or

ugly, typical

of the

rationalistic

why and how

thinking of tonal esthetics, are no longer useful in

mind works.” chasm developed between composer and public. The world of the

understanding

A

a

civilization.”

a

tional avant-garde in the 1960s

composer’s

had developed

virtually every serial-dominated

a

composer had

interna-

variety of styles, but the music of certain traits in

common

—

the

absence of melody, an emphasis on the linear (polyphonic) rather than the vertical

(harmonic) aspects of music,

total dissonance, objectivity, abstraction.

would have none of it. This was something new

The

in the history of music.

public

Even the

— The

wildest experimenters in the previous centuries had

and

ers,

after a

generation or so their music,

future age. But,

writing for

a

to operate?

Here

work

tory piece,

much

perhaps

just

it

—

it

was asked,

it

hard core of public admir-

a

cultural lag.

how

to say, entered the

had anything long was

They

said they

cultural lag

a

were

supposed

was 1950, 1960, 1970, and then 1980, and even so seminal

Schoenbergs

as

if

composers talked about the

repertory. Serial

603

Movement

International Serial

less

Pierrot lunaire

of 1912 could not yet be described

Could

the Boulez Marteau sans maitre.

it

a

reper-

as a

be that perhaps

the fault lay not with the public but with the composer?

Serial thinking

after the war,

dominated the avant-garde

but the 1950s and

many other forms of musical activity. Shortly after 1945 Pierre Schaefand Pierre Henry in Paris started experimenting with electronic music, using

1960s saw fer

the tape recorder and allied equipment that had been developed in Germany. At first

human concrete. Many

they recorded and manipulated sounds from nature, including the

voice. This paleolithic type of electronic cities

music was called musique

—Milan, Utrecht, and Cologne were among

the most prominent

—had

electronic-music studios. In the Columbia-Princeton studio, located in

their

New

York, were Babbitt, Otto Luening, and Vladimir Ussachevsky. Soon the senalists

took over, determined to take advantage of the millisecond process of electronic equipment, synthesizers, and computers in order to create an even tighter kind of musical organization. Unfortunately for the composers, the public regarded

newest electronic technique

as a

this

chaotic melange of assorted bleeps and white

were experiments with synthesized music combined with the human voice, either live or electronically processed, and Babbitt’s Philomel was a pioneer effort along those lines. Mario Davidovsky, an Argentine-born composer

There

noise.

in

New

also

York, used the Columbia-Princeton

that used live piano

facilities to create a

with electronic sounds. Luciano Berio

voice and orchestra against electronic music. Later

of such composers of the

first

to

as

For

human

voice.

that electronic

human

the sonic environments

Dodge worked with

music. Charles

created

development of the

some big

taped

electronic

Moog synthesizer,

there

music could be of major importance, but the

excitement soon died down. Today,

when composeis facility

merely

Styles followed each other in dizzy succession.

Using

they do so in an offhand manner, using the at

used the

Steve Reich. Lejaren Hiller was one

And Stockhausen

a time, especially after the

were suggestions initial

Monte Young and

work on computer

manipulations of the pieces.

La

came

also

body of music

use electronic sounds, as

another instrument

hand.

basis,

composers experimented with

part of a

Mahler symphony

in

collage, in

Berios

Sinfonia)

serial

which music

techniques

as a

of the past (such as

was manipulated against modern

make their techniques. Aleatory music, in which performers were expected to contribution within “parameters” set by the composer, had a big vogue for

own a

while. There were improvisation groups, of

which Lukas Foss

one of the pioneers, and there was third-stream music,

in

in

America was

which Gunther Schuller

— FROM VARESE TO MESSIAEN

604 combined which

There were “happenings,’

jazz with serial and aleatoric techniques.

were burned, or

violins

nothing but

nonsense

a

“stochastic music”

a cellist

figure. Iannis

played nude, or in which

Xenakis

a

at

singer recited

1956 developed what he called

in

—music of indeterminacy, an attempt

away from the

to break

rigor of serialism.

But the composer most identified with indeterminacy was John Cage (191 2— 1992).

Seldom have the

theories of a

composer whose work

is

seldom played by

so

establishment organizations had such an overwhelming international impact. Cage,

who

studied in Los Angeles with Schoenberg,

wrote twelve-tone music. Then, starting

became

in 1938,

music’s Dadaist. At

came

he

first

pieces for prepared piano,

which the sound of the instrument was modified by pieces of metal, rubber, or other materials inserted under the strings. This was a new sound in music. Along in

with the prepared piano came Varese-like pieces for percussion orchestra. started to

work with

the

Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and

Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No. 3 in 1942 looked in a

which audio

in

ments created

oscillators, variable-speed turntables,

in the early 1950s

from those realms. Starting

nese

dominating

a

role.

Using

com

was

It

a

and amplified instrua

study of

Zen

drawn

which

in

had worked up from the Chi-

tossing,

of music

called Music of Changes. This led to a kind history,

direction.

he constructed pieces

charts he

Ching book of chances, and from

I

a fructi-

philosophies, began using ideas in his music

Buddhism and other Eastern chance played

new

new kind of chaos. Then Cage, who had made

a

was

composer and the dancer-choreographer.

fying experience for both the

work

it

He

Cage developed

that, for the first

work

a

time in

was completely disorganized. All music used to be organized sound. Now,

in his Imaginary Landscape No. 4, the instruments are twelve radios

sounding

differ-

ent stations simultaneously, with two players at each radio manipulating the knobs to

change

stations

Cage worked with magnetic notes, derived

continuously

Concert

for

Of course every performance had to be different. tape. He wrote a set of piano pieces in which the

and volume.

from chance operations, could be played

one

as

piece.

The

piece could

last

as

separate pieces, or

ten minutes or over an hour. His

Piano and Orchestra gives an unspecified number of players permis-

work

sion to play the

notorious work,

4'

as a solo, in

whole or

in part, or in

any order. In

33" the pianist (or any other performer/ s) ,

sits at

his

most

the keyboard

without touching the keys for four minutes and thirty-three seconds or any other period of time, ad pianist’s

libitum.

The

lowering and raising the

sounds, ambient noises, noises are the content if

wacky

By

of the piece.

piece lid.

in three

is

The

idea behind 4' 33"

coming from

Nobody

movements, indicated by the is

that the audience

the street or whatever or wherever,

disputed the claim that Cage had a

fertile

— imagination.

the late 1950s

Cage was giving

his

choice. His scores were calling for any

performers almost complete freedom of

number of

players

and whatever instru-

John Cage The

apostle of indeterminacy,

he opposed the mathematical intricacies

of serial music.

merits, or noisemakers, or electronic

in

sounds they wanted.

which the notes were the imperfections on

notate the music.

and drank

a

One

He

the printed page that he used to

bizarre episode occurred at a concert

concoction,

all

was writing music

where Cage prepared

of the sounds heavily amplified, including the gulps

he swallowed. That was the music. It also was pure Dada by any definition. indetermiAll over the Western world composers began to experiment with but also by nacy, fascinated not only by this new and “freeing’ approach to music

as

Cage

himself. His ideas

were so anarchic,

mind he became

his prose writings so sni generis, his

what constituted music, that Europe, legendary. He and the pianist David Tudor went around America and demonstrating, teaching, proselytizing. Boulez and Stockhausen introduced elements of indeterminacy into their music. For a while the rage everywhere was so free of any preconceived notions about

derived from Cage’s indeterminacy. Aleatoric music has sections in which the player or players are given the liberty of doing exactly what they want far too within certain structural and temporal parameters. The procedures are complicated to go into here. Readers interested in following through on the aleatory,

subject can consult the best

book of its

kind,

Robert

P.

Morgan’s Twentieth-Cen-

tury Music.

Cage had actually

a positive

genius for getting himself into the newspapers without

Whatever he did made news, even his mushroomCage was a well-known mycologist. Music editors of

seeming to work

hunting expeditions

—

at

it.

FROM VARESE TO MESSIAEN

606

newspapers doted on him.

What

come up with

new, shocking idea would he

next?

Every once in

when

his

music was played by

were baffled and audiences walked out. But

players

Cage was

avant-garde,

American It

a while,

colleges.

was not,

as

He

a hero.

was

also

a

symbol

for revolutionary visited their

of the

youth

in

campuses.

told a critic, that they especially liked his music;

it

was

a revolt against

he represented, in those student-activity times ot the 1960s,

that

orchestra,

in the tight little circles

They turned out en masse whenever he

one student

symphony

a

any kind of establishment. That they identified with. Even in the Soviet Union,

where Cage’s music was not allowed

be performed, Russian composers would

to

buttonhole visiting musicians and demand to

would

know what Cage was up

with

listen to the reports unbelievingly,

a sort

to.

They

of horrified longing and

fascination.

What with tion,

indeterminacy, serialism, aleatory techniques, electronics manipula-

and the other new approaches, music became increasingly

human

Instruments and the

plicated.

and com-

difficult

voice were used in an unprecedented

manner. Technique was expanded so that chords could be played on such

monodic instruments

Composers were

or oboe.

flute

as

fascinated with the

extreme range of instruments and of the human voice. Singers were required to

produce eerie sounds

ment with

New

far

above the

their knuckles. Pianists

Cellists

staff.

were asked

were asked

to rise

to rap their instru-

and poke around the

techniques in percussion playing were developed.

New

strings.

notation had to be

invented. Cage’s scores were so ingenious and of such beautiful calligraphy that

they were exhibited in museums.

Things got to

a

nobody could

the point of writing music if Schuller,

begged

who

for

was

some

some of you

will

What was

point where even specialists threw up their hands.

a

play or sing

conductor and former horn player

reality

and

practicality. “I

be surprised

at this

—

would

as

well as a composer, a plea

composers

writing. ... If you feel that the

you

—

human

well, then, write for other

being, the

Nono

really

and Berio

that simply

Babbitt, in a 1958 article,

where he ...

to

original

is

unable to give

went

public could not be filled

as far as to

editor of the journal in title,

haunt avant-garde composers.

in.

Milton

suggest that composers retire from the

“The Composer inflammatory “Who Cares If You Listen?”, Babbitt’s

limiting

cannot be played.

public arena and, in effect, regard themselves as an elite

The

is

want.” Schuller went on to point out examples of music by

The chasm between composer and

for each other.

instrument,

which he

means, possibly electronic means. But do not

force the player into a kind of suspended position

you what you

human

—perhaps

to take into

consideration the innate, intrinsic characteristics of the instrument for is

Gunther

In 1960

make

like to

a plea to the serial

it?

which the as

a

who

article

Specialist,”

phrase that

should write only

appeared discarded

and substituted the

comes back repeatedly

The

In

International Serial

America the avant-garde

patronage

607

Movement

retreated largely into the universities,

which offered

churches and nobility of years past had done. During World

as the

took unto their bosoms such dominating figures as Schoenberg (University of California at Los Angeles), Hindemith (Yale), Milhaud (Mills), and Nadia Boulanger (Radcliffe and Wellesley). Following them there was

War

II,

American

universities

American composer of importance who was not associated with a university or conservatory: Walter Piston (Harvard), Roger Sessions (Princeton), Mel Powell and Morton Subotnik (California Institute of the Arts), Leon Kirchner (Harvard), Arthur Berger (Brandeis), Milton Babbitt (Princeton), Otto Luen-

scarcely an

ing and Mario Davidovsky (Columbia), Ross Lee Finney (University of Michigan in

Ann

Arbor), William

Schuman and

Peter

Mennin

(Juilliard),

(University of Chicago), Salvatore Martirano (University of

Crumb

(University of Pennsylvania), William

veros (University of California in San Diego), the City University of

New

Bolcom

Hugo

Ralph Shapey

Illinois),

(Michigan), Pauline Oli-

Weisgall (Queens College of

Donald Martino (Princeton,

York),

George

Yale,

New

England Conservatory, and Harvard), Andrew Imbrie (San Francisco Conservathe list could easily be doubled. tory), Jacob Druckman (Juilliard and Yale) With all the Sturm und Drang associated with the three-decades-plus of serial

—

whimper. After some twenty-five years of creation, of contemporarypublicity, of polemics, of public-relations work, of numerous music recordings after all this, how many twelve-tone or serial works entered

music,

it all

ended with

a

—

Violin Concerto the ongoing international repertory? Berg’s Lyric Suite, Lulu, and mind. (only parts of Wozzeck are serial) are the only three that spring to

The one composer who was repertory status the

Messiaen.

is

technique in favor of

He may a

pioneer yet seems to have

a serial

have started

as a serialist,

a

good shot

at

but soon dropped

mixture that combines modernism, archaism,

And

paganism, Catholicism, and pantheism.

ornithology.

was born in Avignon on December 10, 1908, and died in Pans personal. on April 27, 1992, blended the dodecaphonic style with something very Messiaen,

who

Even though he wrote the Mode

de valeurs that so helped stait serialism

on

its

group of mystical, often leliand he cieated works gion-tinted pieces that ended up belonging to no school;

merry journey, he

largely discarded

it

in favor of a

that actually have entered the repertory.

when he was about seven, studied in Nantes, and He then became organentered the Paris Conservatoire when he was only eleven. forty years. He also La Trimte in Pans, where he remained for more than Messiaen started to compose

ist at

taught

at

the Ecole

he composed

his

Normale and

Quatuor pour

clarinet, violin, cello,

the Schola

la fin

and piano)

in

one of his more popular ones. After

End of Time toi a prison camp in Silesia. The piece became his release from the prison camp he became

du temps (“Quartet tor the

professor of harmony at the Conservatoire,

of composition.

He

Cantorum. Captured during the war,

where

later

he was appointed professor

married the pianist Yvonne Loriod,

who became

the authori-

Olivier

Messiaen

The composer

in his

garden

,

transcribing the songs of birds into musical notation for

one of his compositions.

Hackett

D

G

©

performer of his music. During

tative

songs,

which would become an

of 1956

is

probably the best

large part in nearly

In the ol the

United

all

States

all

those years he went around notating bird

essential part

known of

of

his music.

His Oiseaux exotiques

although bird

his bird pieces,

play a

calls

of his music.

he

first

came

immense (about an hour and

to public recognition in a half)

Turangalila

1949

as

composer

the

Symphony, commissioned

by Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony and conducted

at its

premiere

by the young Leonard Bernstein. Messiaen became one of the most publicized

composers of his time. music played His music

all is

He

traveled

everywhere and lived long enough

to see his

over the world. notable for

its

color and especially

its

rhythm. His pupil Boulez

believed that Messiaen’s real discoveries were in the area of rhythm.

indebted to Messiaen for having created

on

his

sky.”

“We

are

conscious technique of duration, based

a

thorough studies of plain-chant, Hindu rhythm and the music of Stravin-

Messiaen, said Boulez, “should be regarded

as

Western music’s

great

first

theoretician of rhythm.”

Messiaen would have agreed. meticien.”

He

He

considered himself

a

“compositeur

et

rhyth-

had studied ancient Greek and Hindu rhythms up through Stravin-

sky and polyrhythms. langage musical. In a

He

even wrote

a

book about rhythm:

newspaper interview he

said that

And even

military music,

depends on even

also detest jazz,

because

it

mon

he did not write according

to the barline. “I totally despise even beats. I

Technique de

tempos.

I

not only hate

beats.

My

music

The depends on uneven tree

International Serial

beats, as in nature. In nature rippling

movement of clouds

branches are uneven, the

Messiaen

also

seemed

to have synesthesia; at least,

makes color an

One

had done.)

he claimed that he always

Vamen

for

Vingt regards sur V enfant Jesus. Messiaen told the

to it

an act of faith,

be about God.”

Many

a

music that

musicians detested

is

Time

to

often stands

York Times

New

was

solo piano

that “I

want

to

about everything without ceasing kind of music. Stravinsky called

it

“overrated, boring and vulgar.”

it.

still

in Messiaen’s music.

His opera,

St.

Francois d' Assise,

staged in Paris in 1986, lasted six hours and was not well received.

of The

religiosity

two pianos and the

New

this

“the slag heap of art,” and Elliott Carter called

But audiences took

color chart in relation

a

of the work. His

essential in the construction

is

uneven, waving

is

of his orchestral pieces, Chronochromie (1960),

reflected in such pieces as the Visions de

write music that

water

uneven.”

is

saw colors when composing. (But he never worked out to keys, as Scriabin

609

Movement

York Times called

it

John Rockwell

“too extravagant, impractical, and,

finally, sell-

indulgent for most opera houses.” Messiaen’s Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur JesusChrist for orchestra

was

When

in

was done

it

long

as

New

as

York

the Turangalila, running an hour and a hall. in

1972, with Antal Dorati conducting the

National Symphony, the Times reviewer noted that “any work that contains

(among

others) the bird calls of the Great Indicator, Alpine

Starling,

Barred Owl,

Rock

Chough, Superb

Thrush, Alpine Accentor, Blue Mocking Bird, Slate-

colored Solitaire, Grayish Saltator, Tropical

Mocking

Bird, Blackcap, Olive Tree

Warbler, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Crimson-winged Finch, Moussier’s Redstart

and

Bonelli’s Eagle

is

an ornithological onthrust unique of its kind.”

liked the work, describing

it

as

The

reviewer

“an exciting piece of music of unusual variety and

he has brought together many of the warring factions of the last two decades and created something personal out of them. The important thing about La Transfiguration is not the bird calls and the other well-publicized originality. In a way,

examples of Messiaen the Mystic. No; the important thing is the pulse than animates the score and makes it work as pure music.”

real creative

Whatever one may think of his music, whatever his eventual place in music history, Messiaen wrote with pronounced individuality. Was he the Berlioz of his day? In any case, he was the

first

tonal-based music (dissonant

as

major avant-gardist of

some of

it

may

be),

audience in the process. Perhaps the lesson was not it

started maturing. For in the 1970s there

serialism.

his

and

lost to

began to be

a

time to return to

attract a large

the

new

popular

generation

worldwide

a

flight

as

from

New

41. The

Eclecticism

FROM CARTER TO THE MINIMALISTS

t

seemed

to

come

had been trained

I

an unexpected gust of wind.

like

in serial techniques

Young composers who

suddenly started beating their breasts

They had seen what happened when Copland left abstract music in favor of nationalistic ballet scores. From being a composer whose works were played more or less on sufferance, Copland (he may have been the and crying mea

leader of the

became

culpa.

American school, but

the most-performed

of merely respected. The

his earlier

music never attracted

American composer, and

new

ber groups of the world. Perhaps

music was loved instead

a

all

the leading orchestral and

potent lesson was there?

began

to

New who my

of each other. As David Del Tredici told John Rockwell, in

a

York Times

“The success of Final Alice was very defining as to think many composers regard success as a kind of threat.

real friends

interview,

were.

I

they think, it

is

if

nobody has any success, to be

all

considered vulgar to have an audience

hearing. But sive?

cham-

come back. Composers decided that there was no vacuum. They now wanted to write for an audience instead

so tonal music

point working in a

wide public)

generation had seen the Messiaen scores begin to

enter the international repertory, presented by

And

his

a

To have

in

one boat.

really,

are

.

.

For

really like a

we writing music except to move what has moved us move somebody else?

why

.

It’s

really better,

my

piece

generation

on

a first

people and to be expres.

.

.

The

sleeping giant

is

the audience.”

Of course

wedded to serial United States, Roger Sessions,

there remained holdouts. Boulez and Babbitt were

music and stubbornly went their old way. In the

Elliott

A greatly

Carter

admired and

oft-

revered composer he writes ;

works

Elliott Carter,

of

awesome complexity.

and Stefan Wolpe continued

Those three achieved the

status

admired and even revered

figures.

whose uncompromising,

of

to turn out knotty, dissonant scores.

classics in professional

Of these,

the most admired ol

the Ecole

born

Normale

Nadia Boulanger. nence when

New

He

taught

at

at

11, 1908, studied in Paris at

various American schools and 1

captured

was Carter,

not love.

many American composers, had

Quartet No.

his String

it

York on December

and, like so

Competition

tional

in

all

They were

complicated rhythmic structures

brilliantly assembled,

and powerful sonorities commanded admiration Elliott Carter,

circles.

first

came

lessons

with

into promi-

prize in 1953 at the Interna-

Commissions and other prizes came his way, String Quartet No. 2. He began to write polyrhythmic

Liege.

including a Pulitzer for his

music of unusual density in which instruments seemed to go their own way, and it took a most sophisticated mind to work out the thematic and metrical relationships.

His String Quartet No.

form of two duos

—

violin

3, for

example, was composed in 1973 and takes the

and viola opposed

against the other, each going

its

own

separating again. At the very opening indications and a series

two

entirely different

to violin

and

way, occasionally

Duo

I

and

Duo

II

is

the violin and cello go along simultaneously with

time.

The dynamics

are fortissimo, full

of double and

the Juilliard Quartet,

together, then

which played the premiere,

Duo

live. I

triple stops

completely atonal texture. Claus Adam,

plays

have different tempo

playing in groups ol

Duo

a

coming

One duo

rhythmic schemes. The violin ot

of triplets against which the viola

ments, with

cello.

at that

Duo

I

has

In the other

in twelve-eight

from

all

time the

instru-

cellist

of

told the audience at a public

FROM CARTER TO THE MINIMALISTS

612

—

work was the hardest the ensemble which had played many modern works had ever tackled. “For twenty-five

rehearsal that the Carter

the premieres of so years,”

Adam

said,

—

“we have

Now we

trained ourselves to listen to each other.

have had to unlearn everything.”

Music

Difficulty for the sake of difficulty? listener?

Or

a

completely dead end? Carter’s admirers

of unparalleled technique and

In any case, the feeling

at least a

segment

to

in the

composer and audience had

many

felt that,

presbyter writ large.

to invert

Many

composer whose music could

about

make

eclecticism, in

itself felt.

Les Illuminations,

World War Carols,

f hey

to be reestablished.

new

phrase,

priests.

But

It

priest

of the old presbyters had their roots

new

communi-

said that

a

is

true that

was but old

in the past

group of relative

do something

II

which

a

kind of neo-Romanticism was mingled, began

Benjamin Britten (1913—1976), with

and

settings

and never

his Sinfonia da

of Michelangelo poems, had made

his

With

his

substantially

changed

his style.

Serenade, and, especially, his opera Peter Grimes (1945), he

cessful operas (Albert Herring,

The Rape

A

of Lucretia,

Peter

A

Requiem,

mark before Ceremony of

became one of

the world’s best-known and most important composers. There were

Midsummer

more suc-

Night’s Dream,

Maxwell Davies

master of eclecticism,

Davies achieves an unusual

and

successful blend

serialism

and

neo- Romanticism. Chlala

Hanya

by

Photograph

and

it.

A new to

days,

strongly about the situation and started trying to

felt

that serialism

1970s to issue manifestos that they

John Milton’s

could not entirely break away to become the

newcomers

of the

tailed.

do with the bad old

cation between

observers

composer

a

John Cage and his nihilisnowhere. What to do and where to go^ It

composers

de rigueur for

would have nothing more

is

among many of the new composers was

musical deconstructions had led to

seemed almost

he

of the concert-going public.

and the polyrhythmic dissonance of a Carter had tic

insist that

one of the great musical thinkers

integrity,

generation. Others ridiculed the idea of a “great”

not arouse enthusiasm from

of performer and

for a future age

of

New

The

Billy

Budd, and Death

the

to

Orchestra

613

Eclecticism

such orchestral works

in Venice);

as

the Young Person’s Guide

and Simple Symphony; the massive choral effusions of the War

Requiem; songs, chamber music, ballet music, and even music for children. Britten’s

music might be described

as eclectically conservative, in that

strong tonal basis coupled to certain ity

was so strong

body of music

that

that

he created

more advanced

most of it has

a

techniques. But his personal-

highly individual style of writing, producing a

a

seems to be firmly ensconced in the repertory.

demon-

Brittens successor, Peter Maxwell Davies (born in England in 1934),

was not necessary

to lower standards or

condescend in order to

strated that

it

compose

highly advanced music that could also be accepted by the public.

a

Superficially,

Davies seemed to be the complete eclectic. In L’ Homme arme (1968)

Mad

King (1969) he mingled dissonance with plainchant, jazz, raga, evocations of the Broadway musical, serialism, and Renaissance polyphony.

or Eight Songs

It

was

a

icones, a

for a

very heady mixture, strange but arresting,

full

of personality. In

his Vesalii

theater piece for solo dancer and small orchestra, Davies created a dance

study about the stations of the cross and the emergence of Antichrist.

of Messiaen plays

a part in Vesalii,

electronic music.

It

is

and so do jazz and parody elements, modal and

a strange, disturbing

1976 seems to retrogress into

The music

a totally

work. His ambitious Symphony ot

dissonant, abstract style of writing; but

Davies nevertheless speaks with pronounced individuality and

is

very

much

his

own man. Perhaps the one composer

who seemed

to put

all

styles

together in the period

1970 was the Russian Alfred Schnittke. Born in Engels, on the Volga, in 1934, he started music rather late. That was in Vienna at the age of twelve; his

after

father

was stationed there

as a translator in

the Russian army. Alfred started taking

piano lessons and discovered that music was going to be

Moscow, Schnittke entered that time

he was interested

the Conservatory,

in serial

for “eclectic”?).

Which means

and bent the materals into

a

life.

On

returning to

also taught after 1961.

At

and electronic music, but soon worked himself

into a system that he called “polystylistic”

word

where he

his

that

(is

that

merely

a fancy, polysyllabic

he took everything that came

personal kind ot music.

He

his

way

used jazz, aleatory tech-

nique, serialism, church music, musical puns, anagrams, collage, parody. Other composers of the period could be equally eclectic Peter Maxwell Davies, tor instance.

But they tended

to

sound

effete, inbred,

and precious

against Schnittke

s

Russian emotionalism and extroverted sweeping statements. His talent was too big to ignore, even in those days of Socialist Realism. But

when

his

music was performed, very often

ideologists in the

it

was

in

some

House of Composers were not going

provincial center.

The

to allow such violent

departures from Socialist Realism to be heard by delicate Muscovite ears and ideological apparachiks. Not until 1980 did a major Schnittke work arrive at one

of Moscow’s major concert

halls.

That was

his

Requiem

Mass.

By

that time

Schnittke was by far Russia’s best-known nonconformist composer. His music

FROM CARTER TO THE MINIMALISTS

614

began to make the rounds. In 1982, for instance, in

New

works occupied

his

a full

evening

York’s Alice Tully Hall.

With the demise of the Communist system, Schnittke moved was an incredibly

prolific

composer, writing in

productivity did not seem to be

1995 he had to

his credit eight

including opera. His

strokes that he suffered.

hampered by two

symphonies,

fields,

all

Hamburg. He

to

a large

As of

body of chamber music,

solo

piano pieces, concertos for various instruments, cantatas, and film music. His harmonic language, running from consonance to serialism,

What, they wondered, did represent? To the American musicologist and critic Richard

philosophy of polystylism, bothered some Schnittke really

Taruskin, “Schnittke s

more

well as his

as

critics.

Tower of Babel proclaims not

acceptance but

a universal

which nothing can

nearly the opposite, an attitude of cultural alienation in

claim allegiance.”

And

it is

true, as Taruskin

Schnittkes music.

how naughty

I

pointed out, that there

Some of it seems

am,”

it

says.

emotionalism which make

to

a large

is

be written pour

element of Kitsch

epater

le

bourgeois.

Yet the impudent grin can be replaced by a listener realize that in the

the blood of Dostoyevsky and Musorgsky.

He

a

in

“Look

depth and

blood of Schnittke

is

also

has something to communicate.

Alfred Schnittke

He that

X

took everything

came

his

way and bent

the materials into

a personal kind of music.

,

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Foundations

Her music is always solid and dependable.

Tilden

and

Lenox

Astor,

Arts.

Performing

the

for

Library

Public

York

New

The

Division,

Music

And

it

is

true that nothing succeeds like success. Schnittke had

become,

point of writing (1996), the most played and most recorded of any living poser working in an advanced In the

United

States,

at this

com-

medium.

George Crumb (born

in

1929) attracted a great deal of

attention in the 1960s with such scores as Echoes of Time and the River and Ancient Voices of Children.

These used simple melodic means, often drawn from ethnic

sources (especially from India), backed by a most sophisticated feeling for delicate

instrumental colors. George

of techniques in

Rochberg (born

his string quartets

a

music derived from Alice

post-Romantic language

parodistic elements

When

that

to late

Beetho-

1937), another former

serialist,

and other music

ven and Mahler. David Del Tredici (born started writing

in 1918) discarded serialism in favor

in

in

that

went back

Wonderland using

stemmed from Mahler. These

a

huge orchestra and

pieces also displayed

and great splashes of dissonance. Audiences took

his Final Alice

was making the rounds of American concert

noted that audiences walked out

humming

the big Alice tune.

Such

to

them.

halls, it

a

was

phenome-

non had never occurred before with “modern music.”

Women

composers began

to attract attention. In

England there were the vet-

Maconchy (born in 1907), who specialized in chamber music with Bartokian influence, and Thea Musgrave (1928), who wrote operas. In Russia,

eran Elizabeth a

Sofia Gubaidulina (1931) attracted international interest with her seriousness of

purpose

in a very

advanced atonal music tinged with consonances and mysticism.

FROM CARTER TO THE MINIMALISTS

616 She

God.” At

stated that she writes “to serve

turned to

more personal message

a

color organ, and strong dissonances.

that

hrst she

was

Then

a serialist.

employed mixed media,

Her music, too modern

electronics, a

for the Soviet estab-

lishment, was seldom performed, and her reputation was spread largely by

of mouth. Not

until the events after

and in the West. They made

a

1989 were her works played

a

word

her homeland

in

of her most famous pieces was

Gidon Kremer, who played

the Violin Concerto that she wrote for

world.

One

big impression.

she

it all

over the

looks back to Bach, with a theme from the Musical Offering playing

It

prominent

but the language

part,

uncompromisingly modern. The

is

cellist-

conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, for one, claimed that Gubaidulina was the most important Russian composer since Prokofiev and Shostakovich. In the United States

women

composers such

1932), Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1939), and Meredith

as

Pauline Oliveros (born in

Monk

(1943) achieved parity

with their male counterparts. Oliveros has written mixed-media works for dance and other theatrical events. Zwilich, who studied with Carter and Sessions, was the

woman

first

and the

No.

1

to

first

ever to earn a doctorate in composition from the Juilliard School

win

a Pulitzer

She represents

.

a sort

Prize in music, awarded in 1983 for her

of eclectic modernism that ranges from Bartok to

modified type of serialism. Her music are comfortable

with

it.

Symphony

Monk, born

a

is

always solid and dependable, and listeners

in

Peru but trained in America, has special-

working with choreographers and film makers. She created her own vocal ensemble that uses materials from pop and ethnic music to mini-

ized in theater pieces,

Her

malism. that

striking opera, Atlas, does not use words.

somehow manages

In using minimalism,

non of

to hold the audience

Monk

had been

after

World War

human mind, minimalism was

more than common titioners

II.

at

which

and mtellectualized music ever conceived by the simplest, basing itself

monic did not know what

to

There were nervous

note or chord, or

come

C

of serialism, and

a

it.

early prac-

and Steve Reich. Rileys festivals in

musicians of the

The audience

giggles after a while,

In

C

the 1960s.

known

as

New

did not

and then

was

The

York Philhar-

know how

slow speeds, so that they eventually get a

Harmony and melody were

is

to

a rush to the exits.

phase shifting, in which

constantly repeated pattern of notes,

together again.

its

played in the same patterns by assorted

The

make of

Steve Reich developed a technique

at different

Riley,

based on the single note

instruments, ran well over 45 minutes.

it.

on nothing much

diatonic triads twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.

one of Leonard Bernsteins modern music is

as

But where serialism was the most compli-

were La Monte Young, Terry

performed

receive

vocalise

interest.

started as a revolt against the complexities

piece,

murmuring

was but reflecting the big international phenome-

cated, dissonant, highly structured,

It

a

the 1970s and thereafter. Minimalism was as unexpected a departure

serialism

the

s

It is

a single

played by tape machines

little

out of phase and then

abolished.

Some bemused

or

—

7

The depressed

critics

wrote

61

Ncti’ Eclecticism

articles discussing the

new philosophy of boredom

an

as

aesthetic.

The most successful minimalists have been Philip Glass and John Adams. Both composed operas in which there is hardly any movement. It is music of pattern, marked by obsessive repetition. Adams seems to favor topical librettos. In his opera Nixon in China (1987), Adams tried to interpret the visions of the American president, with Henry Kissinger cast as a burlesque villain. The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) recounts the murder by terrorists of ship Achille Lauro. Glass was even

more

a

Jewish tourist on board the cruise

successful.

Three of his theater pieces

and Akhnaten (1983)

Einstein on the Beach (1975), Satyagraha (1980),

—

actually

made the rounds of the world’s opera houses. Young people, especially, flocked to minimalist music. It was considered chic, and it was modern music for people who did not like modern music. One could listen to this it

was

flow of sequential patterns with no intellectual strain

anti-intellectual.

otic sea

of sound.

And

It

was hypnotically soothing.

also

pop

art

and op

floated in an

amni-

had received some years back,

art

audience listened with the comfort of being

its

vanguard of the very

latest,

ways, can be termed the

New

in the

approved aesthetic phenomenon.

But what minimalism

A

Baroque. like

Indeed,

because minimalism received high endorsement in certain

critical quarters, just as

certified,

One

at all.

large part

really

is,

in so

many

of Baroque music (Bach and Handel always excepted)

is,

minimalism, music of pattern. The typical Vivaldi, Corelli, Locatelli, or

Geminiani concerto grosso

moves

is

largely devoid

in purely sequential, predictable

of personality or imagination.

melodic patterns, and

its

mostly confined to tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords.

come

anywhere and guess the ensuing

in

As such,

it is

listener can

tremendous vogue

its

of the attraction of Baroque music was that one did not

have to think while listening to listener in

A

are

patterns.

wallpaper music. Perhaps that accounted for

in the early 1950s. Part

harmonies

It

it.

Its

excuse for being was that

innocuous sound, the busy patterns moving up and

it

wrapped the

down without

really ever saying anything. Diddle, diddle, diddle; diddle, diddle, diddle.

And,

to

the musical unsophisticate, there was the illusion of being exposed to “classical

music” and even liking bland

field

Thus

it

it.

After

all,

what was there

to dislike in this

enormous,

of nothingness? is

with minimalism, except that

than the three chords of Baroque music.

And

it

has even less

even

less in

the

harmonic adventure

way of development.

Nevertheless minimalism, unlike serialism or indeterminacy, found an audience.

—depending

In 1995,

minimalism was the most popular manifestation of

how one

looked

at

it

—advanced or

recessive musical thought.

One

upon

thinks of the

Henryk Gorecki’s Third Symphony, which was almost an hour of simple repeated cells. It went to the top of the charts. Its hysterical public reaction to

FROM CARTER TO THE MINIMALISTS

618

prompted the

success

One

wanting.

And

heads.

Gorecki works. They were tried and found

pop and

minimalism have an equivalent

thinks of

op. Will

shelf

had many composers scratching their some stopped scratching long enough to climb aboard the band-

In any case,

life?

release of other

it

was

a

phenomenon

that

wagon. minimal phenomenon, but featuring composers centuyouth of the ries-long dead, was the Gregorian-chant craze. All of a sudden the world discovered unison antiphonal singing as practiced by the early Christian

Somewhat

allied to the

Church. Like minimalism, has

little

melody,

little

this

music goes along

variation,

no rhythm

in quiet

contoured patterns.

and

to speak of,

it

It

employs the sim-

of means. Hitting the top of the best-seller CD listings were such discs as antiphons Chant, sung by Spanish monks, and Hildegard of Bingen s murmuring

plest

in unisons

sung

have sold

as

and

titled

well had

Hildegard’s dates are

by the record company

and

a

with

a

past.

the church,

It

seemed

to give receptive listeners an iden-

had something to do with

spirituality. It also

attention because in music with it

it

not so been

vanished

kind of trancelike

So was

(Would

named by a brilliant advertising executive?) 1098-1179. Now, that is posthumous fame. Whatever the it

authenticity of the performances, they tification

Canticles of Ecstasy.

little

was possible

to listen

or no contour there

some 1500 and more

(Successful revivals of operas by Lully

religion, mysticism,

is

without paying

nothing to latch on

to.

years ago, that invented minimalism?

and Marc-Antoine Charpentier

in the

1990s, by such groups as William Christies Arts Florissants, are another matter.

The music

is

written in the French Baroque

style,

a

language

common

Hildegard of Bingen Religion, mysticism,

of trancelike

2 V

c i

CD

and

spirituality.

a

kind

to

all

The music

acclaimed In

Handel operas

lovers.

P.

the 1970s.

619

Eclecticism

were being unearthed, performed, recorded, and

also

the same time.)

concluding chapter of

the

Robert

much

at

New

comprehensive Twentieth-Century Music,

his

Morgan discusses the pluralistic nature of much of todays music after The period was characterized by “a range of compositional attitudes

and aesthetic ideologies unprecedented basic distinctions

between what

is

in the history

and what

of Western music. Even

not music are no longer easily

is

maintained, and lines between different types of music have often faded to the point of

“now

invisibility.”

Various styles of music not only exist simultaneously, but

they impinge on one another, both directly and indirectly, and often overlap

entirely.

.

.

The extreme

.

pluralism of current music seems to suggest that the

present period actually does not have

Morgan goes on life

has

to conclude:

been bought

community

at

“The openness and

The

symptomatic of

and unfocused age ... At

uncentered

Which,

it

strategies

condition.

seems

quality.

least until there

likely that

.

.

music represents an honest,

hears, current

consciousness,

this

of contemporary music from the

isolation

extreme

larger social fabric, as well as the

one

if unflattering,

is

profound

a

music will retain

its

likes

this

what

image of a cluttered

shift in

contemporary

present pluralistic and

For music to change, the world will have to change.”

in effect,

more or

less

complements the

wild, a highly productive thirty-five years

complex of reasons, the period

decades saw

introduced to combat

Whether or not one

.

second editions of The Lines of the Great Composers:

ever the

eclecticism of current musical

the expense of a system of shared beliefs and values and a

of artistic concerns.

isolation, are

musical culture of its own.”

a

a hiatus in the

mighty

line

—but

after

.

it

.

.

last

“It

words of the

first

and

had been an interesting,

had gone up

World War

II

a

a

dead end. What-

and the following

of powerful, individualistic composers that

had extended from Monteverdi through Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg.” Alas, those

words

are

still

true.

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Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Music

and Musicians, ed. Nicolas Slonimsky. 7th ed.

New

York,

1990.

Burney, Charles. Dr. Burney’s Musical Tours through Europe. 2 ed., .

vols., ed.

Percy Scholes. Reprint

London, 1959.

A

General History of Music. 2 vols., ed. Frank Mercer. Reprint ed.,

Dwight’s Journal of Music, 1852-1881. 41 vols. Reprint ed..

New York,

New

York, 1967.

1968.

New York, 1965. Lang, Paul Henry. Music in Western Civilization. New York, 1941. Morgenstern, Sam, ed. Composers on Music. New York, 1956. Nettl, Paul. The Book of Musical Documents. New York, 1948. Forgotten Musicians. New York, 1951. Grout, Donald

J.

A

Short History of Opera.

2nd

ed.

.

The

New

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie in 20

vols.

London, 1980.

New York, 1971. Music History. New York, 1950.

Slonimsky, Nicolas. Music Since 1900. 4th ed. Strunk, Oliver. Source Readings Tovey,

Donald

Francis.

in

The Main Stream of Music and Other

Essays.

Reprint of 1949

ed..

New

York, 1977. Weiss, Piero, ed. Letters of Composers through Six Centuries. Philadelphia, 1967. Zoff, Otto, ed. Great Composers through the Eyes of Their Contemporaries.

1

.

New

York, 1951.

Pioneer of Opera

Arnold, Denis. Monteverdi. London, 1963. ,

and Nigel Fortune. The Monteverdi Companion.

Einstein, Alfred. The Italian Madrigal. 3 vols. Princeton,

New York, 1968. New Jersey, 1949.

Prunieres, Henry. Monteverdi: His Life and Work. Reprint ed., Magnolia, Massachusetts, 1973.

Redlich, Hans

F.

Claudio Monteverdi: Life and Works. London, 1952.

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1

INDEX

Numerals Numerals

in

in

bold denote

italics

denote references to

Abduction from the Seraglio see Entfuhrung aus deni Serail,

detailed discussion illustrations

Alboni, Marietta 230, 233 Albrechtsberger, Johann

Die

Abraham, Gerald 161 Adam, Adolphe 246, 248, 410 Adam, Claus 611, 612

Alchevsky, Ivan 519

Adamberger, Valentin 106 Adams, John 14, 616, 617

Alkan, Charles 541

aleatory music

Modest 516, 517 Amati, Andrea 22 Amy, Gilbert 600 Altschuler,

aesthetics J.

603—6

Alfano, Franco 420

Addison, Joseph 55, 56

Cage,

Georg 113

Anglebert, Henri

604

’d

46

Janacek, L. 388

Anne, Queen of England 60

Messiaen, O. 608, 609

Ansermet, Ernest 396

Saint-Saens, C. 343

Arbutlmot, John 55

Schoenberg, A. 579

Arcadelt, Jacques 21

Scriabin, A. 513, Stravinsky,

I.

Archilei, Vittoria

515-18

Arensky, Anton 365, 51

486-90

Arriaga, Juan Chrisostomo 393

Wagner, R. 272-74, 277, 278, 285 African-American music 385, 386

Art of Fugue, The (Die Kunst der huge)

Agricola, Johann Friedrich 52

Artaria firm 82

Agujari, Lucrezia 100

Artot, Desiree

Albemz,

Isaac

see Strauss,

392-94, 406

Eugen d’ 301, 544 Alberti, Leon Battista 259 Albinoni, Tomaso 46

Albert,

(J.

S.

Bach)

47, 48, 50, 51

Agoult, Marie d’ 201

Ahna, Pauline de Aida (Verdi) 257

34

Pauline de

Ahna

Artusi,

369

Giovanni Maria 25, 32, 34

Asafiev, Boris

586

associations see societie

Auber, Daniel Francois 236, 237, 239, 240, 248 Aubert, Louis 410

Auden, W. H. 487

8

1

638

INDEX

Auguste

see Levasseur,

Auguste

Bartok, Ditta 575

Auric, Georges 474

Bartos, Frantisek

awards

Bathori, Jane

387

470

Liege International Competition 61

Battista,

Metropolitan Opera prize 562

Baudelaire, Charles

Prix de

Rome

330, 334, 336, 454, 461, 468,

469 1,

616

Amy

Marcy Cheney 552, 552, 553

Beard, John 66

Beecham, Thomas 355, 398, 502, 503, 505 Beer, Jacob Liebmann see Meyerbeer, Giacomo

Rubinstein Prize 569 Shostakovich, D. 535

Beethoven family Babbitt, Milton 591, 597, 598, 603, 606, 607,

Bach

288

Bax, Arnold 506

Beach,

Pulitzer Prize 558, 562, 61

Vincenzo 259

names

family, see also individual

610

Beethoven, Ludwig van 53, 59, 111-23, 119, 183,

370

38, 39, 54

Bach, Anna Magdalena 47, 51

Eroica

Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel 41, 44, 51, 52, 84, 93,

Fidelio

Symphony,

no. 3 16, 116, 117

222

Symphony

104

1 1

no. 9 118, 123

Bach, Johann Christian 39, 51, 52, 104

and Brahms 290, 292, 296, 298, 300

Bach, Johann Christoph 52

and French Romantics 160, 245, 246, 247,

Bach, Johann Elias 37

312

Bach, Johann Sebastian 36-54, 43, 178, 260

and German Romantics 144, 145, 150, 178,

Art of Fugue, The 47, 48, 50, 51

Brandenburg concertos St.

48,

198,

49

438

and Haydn 83, 94

Matthew Passion 51, 215

Romantics 226, 228, 261 and Mahler 438, 443, 447, 449 and

Well-Tempered Clavier 47, 50

and Brahms 290, 293

Italian

and Mendelssohn 215, 217 and Schubert 127, 132

and Busoni 540, 541 and Chopin 183, 185, 195, 196 and French composers 160, 330, 331, 402, 410, 456

and 20th-c. composers 455, 462, 505, 540, 541,

and Mendelssohn 215, 216

reception 14, 15, 143, 215, 217

and Russian composers 349, 352, 371 and 18th-c. composers 70, 104

545, 559, 579

and Wagner 269, 270, 274, 285, 286 Opera (Pepusch) 63

Beggar’s

bel canto 140, 222-35, 288, 328,

and 20th-c. composers 450, 505, 545, 578,. 616 Bach, Maria Barbara 37

and Berlioz 165

Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann 52

and Meyerbeer 242, 243

Bachrich, Sigismund 305

and Verdi 250, 251

Backhaus, Wilhelm 569 Badoaro,

Giacomo

Baird, Tadeusz

and Chopin 193

Mitrofan Petrovich 365

Balaiev,

32, 33

Bellamann, Henry 562

600

Vincenzo 222, 225, 232-35, 233, 255, 347, 393

Bellini,

Bakunin, Mikhail 272

Mily 349-52, 350, 354, 361, 362, 472, 512

Balakirev,

and Tchaikovsky 355, 356, 366, 369

513

Benda, Jin 378 Bennett, William Sterndale 494

Russes 470, 482

Berardi,

Bannieri 63

Angelo 47

Berg, Alban 580, 581, 583, 585-92,

Barber, Samuel 566 Barber of Seville see Barbiere di Siviglia,

Bely, Andrei

Bennett, Joseph 284

Balanchine, George 340, 487 Ballets

587

Lulu 589-91 II

(Rossini)

Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini) 224, 226

Wozzeck 261, 274, 311, 586, 587 and German composers 179, 180, 274, 287 influence 597, 607

Antonio 250, 256 Barnum and Bailey circus 487

Berg, Helene 590

Barraque, Jean 597, 600

Berger, Arthur 607

Barezzi,

Barrere,

433

Georges 596

Bartered Bride (Smetana) 379, 380 Bartok, Bela 14, 387, 567-77, 571

and folk music 387, 568, 572 and other composers 210, 388, 481, 579

Berio, Luciano 600, 602, 603, Berlioz,

606

Hector 80, 138, 142, 152-68, 155, 216, 311, 400

Enfance du Christ, L’ 161

Requiem

162, 163

1

1

4

639

Index

Symphonic fantastique 16, 157-59, 199 Troyens, Lcs

164—66

and Wolf 304, 305 reception 13, 15

and French composers 246, 340, 342

Brandenburg concertos Braunfels, Walther 544

and German composers 123, 177, 199, 272,

Brecht, Bertold 543

and Donizetti 231, 232

Breitkopf & Hiirtel

429 and

Italian

composers 222, 229

Brentano, Antoine Brewster,

1

1

(J.

28 1

Anne Hampton 208

and Mendelssohn 216, 218 and Meyerbeer 243, 245

Brignoli, Attilio 569

and Musard 318, 319

Britten,

and other composers 314, 352, 549

Broschi, Carlo see Farinelli

reception 13, 14

Bruch,

Bernardi, Francesco 56, 63

Benjamin 537, 612, 613

Max

291, 505

Bruckner, Anton 287, 291, 437, 438, 439-42,

440

Bernstein, Leonard 561, 608, 616 Beyle, Marie Henri see Stendhal

Bach) 48, 49

S.

Briill,

Ignaz 291

Billings,

William 557

Bruneau, Alfred 336, 337, 342

Billroth,

Theodor 296, 299

Bukinik, Mikhail 51

Bingen, Hildegard of see Hildegard of Bingen

600

Birtwistle, Harrison

Bizet,

Georges 245, 247, 282, 333—35, 333

Blake, William Blavatsky, Bliss,

524

Helena 513

Hans von and Wagner 276, 279, 280

Billow,

and other composers 257, 298, 369, 381, 445 conducting 276, 279, 280, 298, 299, 428 life

141, 203, 279,

280

performing 141, 143, 318

Arthur 506

Ole 391

Blok, Alexander 513, 514

Bull,

Blume, Friedrich 47

Burney, Charles 57, 78, 80, 90

Boely, Alexandre 53

Busch, Fritz 426, 451

Bohm, Joseph 116

Busoni, Ferruccio 522, 538—43, 539, 579

Boieldieu, Francois

237-39

Doktor Faust 542, 543

Boito, Arrigo 259-64, 266, 267, 414

Bussotti, Sylvano

Bolcom, William 607 Bonaparte, Napoleon 116

Butler, Nicholas

Bononcini, Giovanni 56, 65

600

Murray 554

Buxtehude, Dietrich 46 Byrd, William 21, 23, 492

Bordes, Charles 406

Bordom,

Faustina 64

Caccini, Giulio 26, 34

Maiorano, Gaetano

Bori, Lucrezia 421

Caffarelli see

Gudonov (Musorgsky) 357-59 Borodin, Alexander 350-52, 353, 355, 356, 359,

Cage, John 14, 604—6, 604, 612

Boris

360-62

Cahill,

Thaddeus 538

Callas,

Maria 223

M.

D. 358, 469

BoutTes-Parisiens (Paris) 319, 320

Calvocoressi,

Boulanger, Nadia 563, 607, 61

Calzabigi, Kanieri de

Boulez, Pierre 14

Campion, Thomas 304 Canille, Feodor 351, 352

and Bartok 572, 573, 576

71-73

and French composers 452, 462, 608 and Stravinsky 487, 488

Cannabich, Christian 88

and Webern 588, 591

Carnaval (Schumann) 179

style

597, 599, 600, 605, 610

Bowers, Faubion 517, 518 Brahms, Johannes 139, 289-302, 297, 311, 345, 370, 397

Carmen

(Bizet)

333-35

Carnegie Hall 375, 376 Carner,

Mosco 415

Carre, Albert 457 Carse,

Adam 313 D'Oyly

D’Oyly

Carte, Richard

and American composers 552, 553 and Austrian composers 316, 445

Carte, Richard

and Dvorak 383, 384 and English composers 495, 500

Caruso, Enrico 22, 245, 247, 421

and French composers 335, 455, 472 and German composers 203, 437, 579

Casazza, Giulio Gatti- see Gatti-Casazza, Giulio

and Schumann 177, 178 and Wagner 284, 286

Castil-Blaze, Francois

see

Carter, Elliott 14, 609, 61

1,

612, 616

Carvalho, Leon 165

Casella, Alfredo

462

240

Castillon, Alexis de 403,

405

640

INDEX

castrato singers

62-65, 223

Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel 506

414

Catalani, Alfredo

Comettant, Oscar 168

Cattaneis, Claudia de see Monteverdi, Claudia de

conducting,

Cavalieri, Emilio de’

26

performing 138, 139, 141

34

Copland, Aaron

Marc’Antonio 30 Cezanne, Paul 287

14, 490, 561,

,

Arcangelo 59, 617

Corelli,

334, 339-42, 393, 404, 467,

472

Cornelius, Peter 202 Corregidor

Der (Wolf) 308

Chadwick, George 552 Chaliapin, Feodor 482

Cortot, Alfred 15, 454

Chaminade, Cecile 407, 408, chant 618

Couperin, Francois 45-47

Charpentier, Gustave 337-39, 456

Craft,

Cost fan Tutti (Mozart) 102, 105, 106

Cowell, Henry 561, 562, 564, 597

Robert 481, 484, 487, 491 Cramer, Johann Baptist 53, 139, 228

339

Charpentier, Marc- Antoine 618

Creation,

Chausson, Ernest 400, 401, 403, 405, 406 Cherubini, Luigi 80, 246 - 47 , 258

Crumb, George 607, 615

Conservatoire

563 —66 565, 600,

610

Cesti,

Louise 338,

Ponte, Lorenzo da

Cooper, Martin 333

Cerha, Friedrich 590

Emmanuel

see

Conradi, August 203

Cavalli, Pier Francesco 30,

Chabrier,

see also

Conegliano, Emanuele

Cattaneis

activities 156,

401

The (Haydn) 92, 93

Cui, Cesar 349, 350, 352, 354, 355, 357, 358

Cuzzoni, Francesca 58, 64

operas 236, 237, 239

Czerny, Carl 111, 198

reception 217, 219, 240 child prodigies

Albemz,

52

1

D’Oyly

394

I.

Beethoven,

Dalayrac, Nicolas 236

Franck, C. 401 Indy, V. d’

598 Damrosch, Walter 426, 446 Dallapiccola, Luigi 597,

406

Meyerbeer, G. 240

dance music

Mozart, W. A. 95, 96

Reger,

can-can 318

M. 449

Dvorak, A. 384

342

Saint-Saens, C. 341, Strauss,

Les Six 474

R. 428

Tchaikovsky,

P.

326-28

Dahl, Nikolai 512

van 112

L.

Carte, Richard

Smetana, B. 379 I.

367, 368

Chopin, Frederic 183 - 96

,

waltz 310-14, 316

189, 214, 243, 311

19th century 126

and American composers 549, 559 and French composers 158, 411, 462

Daudet, Alphonse 287

and Mendelssohn 214, 216-219

David, Ferdinand 216, 218

and Schumann 173-75, 177

Davidovsky, Mario 603, 607

Dargomizhsky, Alexander 352, 357

and Scriabin 511, 513

Davidsbund Society

and other composers 199, 232, 243, 274, 526

Davies, Peter

harmony

Davison, James William 196

142,

206

nationalism 144, 346

Chorley,

Henry

312, 322

618

Pelleas et

14, 600, 612,

see Cavalieri,

360 452 -65 ,

,

613

Emilio de’ 456, 459, 464,

and German composers 431, 583 and Grieg 389, 392

414

Domenico 228, 346 Classical Symphony (Prokofiev) 527 Clayton, Thomas 56 Cimarosa,

and Messiaen 598, 599 and Puccini 413, 414

Clemens, Jacobus 23

and Ravel 466-68, 472, 473 and Stravinsky 479, 481, 482

Clementi, Muzio 59, 107, 108, 145

Cocteau, Jean 474 see Rossini, Isabella

Melisande 274, 342, 457-58, 460

and French composers 243, 332, 337, 342, 405, 406, 411, 474

237

Colbran, Isabella

Debussy, Claude 80,

177

573

Cibber, Susanna Maria 67

Cilea, Francesco

Maxwell

De' Cavalieri, Emilio

Fothergill 148, 170, 255, 275,

Christie, William 493,

Ciceri, Pierre

15,

and Wagner 273, 274, 286, 287, 288 Colbran

reception 311, 400, 449

4

4

7

641

Index

and other composers 287, 291, 296, 380,

Debussy, Rosalie Texier 454

389

Degas, Edgar 287

255, 274, 322, 327, 369

Dehmel, Richard 580 Dehn, Siegfried 348 Del Tredici, David 610

Dwight, John

Eugene 196, 288 Delibes, Leo 333, 372

Eberst,

Delius, Frederick 501-5, 501

Eisenstein, Sergei

Delius, Jelka

Anton 217

Eberl,

Delacroix,

S.

Jakob

Offenbach, Jacques

sec

383

Ehlert, Louis

529

electronic music 539,

Rosen 502

Edward 68, 494 - 99 49 Dream of Gerontius 495, 496

Elgar,

Delvincourt, Claude 473 Denisov, Edison 600

,

Enigma

Dcs Knaben Wunderhorn (Mahler) 447 Des Prez,Josqin sccjosquin Desprez

495, 496

Variations

Pomp and

Havelock 376

Ellis,

Diaghilev, Sergei 473, 490, 527

Eisner,

Joseph 185

and Ravel 470, 471

Elssler,

Fanny 237

and Stravinsky 479, 480, 482, 483

Enesco, Georges 337 Enfance du Christ, L’ (Berlioz) 161

Diemer, Louis 229 Ditters

von

see

Variations (Elgar) 495,

Enigma

harmony

dem

Entfiihrung aus

Dittersdorf, Karl 103, 104

Divine Poem (Scriabin) 5

Serai!

496

Die (Mozart) 102, 105,

,

106

1

296

Dodge, Charles 603 Dohnanyi, Erno 520, 568, 569 Doktor Faust (Busoni) 542, 543

Epstein, Julius

Doles, Johann Friedrich 52

Eroica

Don Carlo (Verdi) 257 Don Giovanni (Mozart)

Ertmann, Dorothea von

Erlkonig (Schubert) 128, 132 Ernesti,

89, 200, 216, 237, 271,

333, 341, 445

Don Juan

496-97

Circumstance

Deutsch, Otto Erich 57, 129

dissonance

603

Johann August 41, 42

Symphony (Beethoven)

Escudier,

Leon 233

Essipova,

Anna

16, 116,

117

1 1

525, 526

Esterhazy family 82, 85—89, 87, 124, 198

(R. Strauss) 430

Donizetti, Gaetano 222, 224, 225, 230—32, 231,

Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky) 374, 375 Euridice (Peri

239, 347

and Caccim) 26, 34

exoticism 334, 348, 364, 420

and Verdi 250, 251 Dorati, Antal 609

Expressionism 582, 586

Dorn, Heinrich 172 Falcon, Cornelie 237

Dowland, John 132, 492 Downes, Olin 398, 399 Dream of Gerontius

(Elgar) 495,

Falla,

Falstaff (Verdi) 263,

496

Locle, Camille see Locle, Camille

Dubois, Theodore 404, 410, 41

Dudevant, Aurore

see

264, 266, 274, 288

Fantin-Latour, Henri 287

Druckman, Jacob 607

Du

Manuel de 395, 396, 482

1

,

du

469

Sand, George

Dudevant, Solange 187—88, 190 Dufay, Guillaume 16, 22 Dukas, Paul 342, 394, 400, 407, 423

Duke, Vernon 526, 530 Dukelsky, Vladimir see Duke, Vernon Dunstable, John 492

Fargue, Leon-Paul 469 Farinelli 63, 64,

223

Farrenc, Louise 176

Faure, Gabriel 221, 334, 342, 344, 400,

409 and Ravel 467, 468, 472

(Gounod) 329, 331 Fenby, Eric 501, 503 Ferri, Baldassare 63, 223 Faust

Alexander 217

Duparc, Henri 403, 405 Duponchel, Edmond 237

Fesca, Fetis,

Francois Joseph 274, 275

Dupont, Gabrielle 454

Field,

John

Duprez, Gilbert-Louis 141, 230, 237, 238

figured bass 26

Durand, Emile 453 Durey, Louis 474

Filtsch,

Dussek,Jan Ladislav 120, 139, 378, 379 Dvorak, Antonin 311, 381 87 381 New World Symphony 385, 386

Finney, Ross Lee 607

53, 139, 145, 193, 347

Joseph 192, 194 192

Filtsch, Karl

Fiorentino,

P.

A. 244

,

Fischer,

Johann 47

407 - 12

,

642

INDEX

Fitzgerald,

S. J.

Adair 328

Giardini, Felice de 91

T.119

Flood,

Gibbons, Orlando 492

Fokine, Michel 483

Gilbert, William

folk music, see also nationalism 387, 438,

548

Gilman, Lawrence 424, 562

and Bartok 568, 572

Gilmore, Patrick

and Russian composers 345-50, 363, 364, 366,

Giordano,

377

Schwenck 325-28 317

S.

Umberto 414

Giraud, Albert 582

and Spanish composers 393, 394

Glass, Philip 14,

617

Fontana, Jules 191

Glazunov, Alexander 361, 365, 482, 528

Foote, Arthur 552

Gliere,

Glinka, Mikhail 346 - 49 , 347, 393

Johann Nikolaus 51 Lukes 603

Forkel, Foss,

Gluck, Christoph Willibald 26, 65, 71 - 80

Franck, Cesar 342, 400 — 5 , 403, 453, 454 Franck, Joseph 402

II

Freschi,

of Saxony 42

Der (Weber)

1

50

Giovanni 30

Frescobaldi,

Girolamo 46

Sigmund 444, 578

Freud,

78

influence 144, 160, 165, 247, 371

Godet, Robert 481

Godowsky, Leopold 390, 393, 394 Goehr, Alexander 600 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 111, 128, 172, 261, 306, 329, 542

Friedman, Ignaz 525

Goldberg, Johann Gottlieb 52

Froberger, Johann Jacob 47

Goldenweiser, Alexander 522

Fry,

77,

Orfeo ed Euridice 71, 72, 75, 76

Frederick the Great of Prussia 52 Freischiitz,

,

99 Iphigenie operas (Gluck) 76,

Benjamin 78

Frederick Augustus

346, 347, 348

Russian and Ludmilla 347, 348

France, Anatole 400

Franklin,

A

Life for the Czar,

Stephen 548

Foster,

Reinhold 526

William Henry 548

Goldmark, Karl 310

Furtwangler, Wilhelm 276, 585

Goldmark, Rubin 563

Fux, Johann Joseph 47, 113

Gonzaga, Vincenzo 24, 27-29 Gorecki, Henryk 14, 617

Gabo,

Naum

Gabrieli,

529

Gorky,

Andrea 29

Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser (Haydn) 92

Gabrieli, Giovanni 21, 29,

30

Gottschalk, Louis

Gade, Niels 177, 217, 391

Vincenzo 25-27

and other composers 154, 245, 334, 404, 408,

Galuppi, Baldassare 346 Garcia,

456

Manuel 226

Goupy, Joseph 58, 69

Garden, Mary 457 Gastoldi, Gian

Moreau 331, 385, 495, 548 — 52

550 Gounod, Charles 221, 261, 329-33, 330

Gabrilowitsch, Ossip 525

Galilei,

Maxim 516

Goya, Francesco Jose de 394, 395

Giacomo 24

Goyeseas (Granados) 395

Gatti-Casazza, Giulio 421, 446

Graener, Paul 544

Gautier, Theophile 160, 161

Graf,

Gay, John 55, 56, 60, 66, 543

Graham, Martha 565

Gebrauchsmusik 546

Grainger, Percy 390, 506, 570

Geiringer, Karl 47, 48, 50

Granados, Enrique 392—95

Gelinek, Joseph 59, 113

Grassi,

Gemignani, Elvira 418, 419

Grau, Maurice 322, 323

Geminiani, Francesco 617

Graun, Carl Heinrich 65

gender

George

issues see sexuality

and gender

Max

291, 293

Anton 84

Gretchen

am

Spinnrade (Schubert)

1

32

Andre 99, 236, 240

King of England 60, 62, 67 George III, King of England 58

Gretry,

Germano, Vittorio 259 Gershwin, George 473

Grieg, Edvard 291, 389 - 92 , 391, 500

Gesner, Johann Matthias 44

Grillparzer, Franz 126,

Gesualdo, Carlo 24

Grimaldi, Nicolo 63

Geyer,

I,

Ludwig 269

Geyer, Stefi 569, 570

Greuze, Jean Baptiste 77

Griesinger,

Georg August 85 130

Grimm, Friedrich Melchior von 96 Grimm, Julius Otto 292

,

1

643

Index

Grisi, Giulia 230,

Grondona

V.

Haydn, Michael 84

233

Heiligenstadt Testament (Beethoven)

259

Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians 213, 379,

Stephen 191, 310

Grove, George 220

Heller,

Guarneri family 22

Hellmesberger, Joseph 296, 304

Gubaidulina, Sofia 14, 615, 616

Henry, Pierre 603

Guillaume de Machaut Tell

see

Machaut, Guillaume de

Hensel, Fanny Mendelssohn, sec Mendelssohn Hensel, Fanny

see William Tell (Rossini)

Wilhelm 213, 215 Henselt, Adolph 512 Henze, Hans Werner 600 Herbeck, Johann 440

Guilmant, Alexandre 406

Hensel,

Guiraud, Ernest 324, 404, 453, 454

Manfred 544

Gurlitt,

15

271, 306

520

Guillaume

1

Heine, Heinrich 132, 146, 199, 234, 244, 245,

Gutman, Robert W. 286

Herold, Ferdinand 236, 239, 247 Haas, Bela 291

Herz, Henri 140, 146, 192, 392, 410

Haas, Robert 442

Hesse,

Haba, Alois 539

Hildegard of Bingen 618

Habeneck, Fran^ois-Antoine 139, 162, 163, 237,

Hiller,

Adolphe 402 Ferdinand

Hiller, Lejaren

312, 313

56,

1

243

603

Hagerup, Nina 391

Hindemith, Paul 398, 544 -47 , 545, 579, 607

Halevy, Fromental 236, 237, 239, 247

Hitler,

Halevy, Genevieve 334

Hodeir, Andre 487, 597

Halevy, Ludovic 320, 335

Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Amadeus 145, 171,

Halffter,

295, 324

Ernesto 396

Halle, Charles 163, 192, 197, 215,

Hofmann, Josef 522, 523 Hofmannstahl, Hugo von 432-34

549

Hamilton, Iain 601

Hampton Brewster, Anne Hampton

see

Brewster,

Anne

55 - 70

,

61, 69, 493,

Hudson, Thomas 61

Messiah 66, 67, 68, 70

and

Honegger, Arthur 474, 475 Hornstein, Robert von 268

618

S.

Holst, Gustav 387, 506

Holzer, Michael 125

Handel, George Frideric 37,

andj.

Adolf 286

Huguenots, Lcs (Meyerbeer) 240, 243, 244

Bach 45-47, 53

Hummel, Johann Nepomuk

104

Classicists 72,

reception 13, 119, 124, 185, 219, 247

and Romanticists 130, 217, 290, 371 Hanslick, Eduard 313, 324, 369, 486

196

style 113, 145,

and German composers 292, 440, 441

Humperdinck, Engelbert 308

and Rossini 229, 230

Htinten, Franz 146

and Wagner 276, 277, 282, 284

Hiittenbrenner, Anselm 135

Harmomscher Harris,

Roy

Verein

50

1

Idomeneo (Mozart) 80, 101

561, 566

Andrew 607

Harrison, Julius 386

Imbrie,

Hartmann, Franz von 129 Harty, Hamilton 68

impressionism 206, 452, 453, 462—66, 582

Haschka, Leopold 92

Incoronazione di Poppca, L' (Monteverdi) 34

Hasse, Johann Adolf 53

Indy,

improvisation

43

Ingres, Jean

Hawkins, John 57, 58

Haydn, Joseph

14, 53,

Creation, Tire 92,

81 - 94

84, 311,

,

Classicists 52, 97, 104,

1

13

and Romantics 160, 217, 228, 371 Esterhazy contract 85, 86

Haydn, Maria Anna 85

527

246

Ionisation (Varese)

596

Iphigenie operas (Gluck) 76,

93

Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser 92

and

322, 400

and other composers 336, 342, 394, 41 Ingegneri, Marc’Antonio 22, 23

Haupt, Karl August 552 Elias Gottlieb

d’

and Franck 403, 405, 406

Hauer, Josef Matthias 588

Haussmann,

Vincent

performance practice

see

78

Ippolitov-Ivanov, Mikhail 365 Ireland, Isaac,

John 506

Heinrich 23, 598

Ivanov, Vyacheslav 513 Ives,

Charles 385, 549, 555-63, 557

INDEX

644

Ives,

George 561

Knappertsbusch, Hans 426

Ives,

Harmony

Kochel, Ludwig 103

Twitchell 561

Kodaly, Zoltan 387, 568-70, 574

Jadassohn,

Koechlin, Charles 337, 410—12

Solomon 552, 563

Koussevitzky, Serge 355, 398, 407, 517, 518, 575,

306

Jager, Ferdinand

Janacek, Leos 387 - 89 388, 570

608

,

Jarnach, Philipp 542

Kozeluch, Leopold 89

jazz

Krause, Johann Gottlieb 42, 44

and French composers 473, 474, 608

Henry E. 424, 446 Kremer, Gidon 616

and Stravinsky 484

Krenek, Ernst 543, 602

and Weill 543, 544

Kunst der

and American composers 556, 564, 604

Jean Paul

Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich

see

Jeanrenaud, Cecile

see

Johnson, Edward 421

Holy

Kupelwieser, Leopold 131

Roman Emperor

102, 104, 107

Lady Macbeth of Mtsetisk (Shostakovich) 528, 531, 532, 535 Laipunov, Serge 356

Josquin Desprez 16, 23

Lalo,

Judaism

Lalo,

Adams Death

of Klinghoffer, The 617

322

Mendelssohn,

Edouard 295, 400, 407 Pierre 341, 467, 470

Laloy, Louis 467,

468

Lambert, Constant 398, 399

Landon, H. C. Robbins 89

Mahler, G. 438 F.

212, 220

Lang, Paul Henry 66

Meyerbeer, G. 240, 245

Lange, Josef 103

Schoenberg, A. 592-94

Lanner, Josef 313, 314, 316

Shostakovich, D. 535

Laparra,

Strauss,

R. 435

Lasso,

Wagner, R. 272, 282, 286, 287 Junker, Carl

Bach)

Lachner, Franz 126

Joachim, Joseph 203, 291, 292, 294, 295, 296, 299

Indy, V. d’

S.

Lablache, Luigi 141, 223, 230, 233

Maria 421, 422

II,

(J.

La Laurencie, Lionel de 458

Jennens, Charles 66

Joseph

Art of Fugue, The

Ftige see

Mendelssohn, Cecile Jean-

re naud

Jeritza,

Krehbiel,

Ludwig

1

13

Raoul 410 Orlando di 16,

21, 23,

216

Laube, Heinrich 314 Laurencie, Lionel de

la see

La Laurencie, Lionel de

Laurens, Jean-Bonaventure 402

Kabalevsky, Dmitri 532

Kalbeck,

Max

291, 298

Laussot, Jessie

275

Lavignac, Alfred 453

Kalkbrenner, Friedrich 146, 147, 186, 216, 247

Le Roux, Maurice 600

Kallman, Chester 487

Leblanc, Georgette see Maeterlinck, Georgette

Kaminski, Heinrich 544 Kandinsky, Vassily 581, 592, 593 Kassler,

Keiser,

Leclere,

Leon

see Klingsor, Tristan

Lecocq, Charles 322

Michael 602

Legouve, Ernst 156

Reinhard 65

Legrenzi, Giovanni 30, 46

Keldish, Yuri 529 Kelly,

Leblanc

Michael 310, 311

Lehmann,

Lilli

235

Rene 599

Kenner, Josef 128

Leibowitz,

Johann Kasper 47 Kerman, Joseph 416

leitmotif 273, 288, 337, 375,

Kerll,

Khachaturian,

Aram

532, 533

460

Lekeu, Guillaume 342, 401, 403, 405 Lenz, Wilhelm von 148

Khrennikov, Tikhon 532, 533, 537

Leo, Leonardo 216

Kirchner, Leon 607

Leonard, Richard Anthony 524

Kirkpatrick,

John 558

Kirnberger, Johann Philipp 52 Klebe, Giselher 600 Kleiber, Erich

586

Klemperer, Otto 585 Klingsor, Tristan

469

Knahen Wunderhorn see Des Knaben Wunderhorn (Mahler)

Leoncavallo, Ruggiero 414

Leopold

II,

Holy

Roman Emperor

106

Theodor 525 Ludwik 119

Leschetizky,

Letronne,

Levasseur, Auguste 238 Levi,

Hermann

198, 276, 287, 296,

Lhevinne, Josef 51

1

,

523

Liadov, Anatol 365, 483, 525

440

4

645

Index

Mainwaring, John 57-59

Liapunov, Serge 356 Libani, Giuseppe

Libman,

Maiorano, Gaetano 63

259

Malevich, Kasimir 529

491

Lillian

Life for the Czar,

A

(Glinka) 346, 347, 348

Malipiero, Gian Francesco 423

Gyorgy 600

Ligeti,

Malibran, Maria 141, 232, 233, 238

Lind, Jenny 230, 233, 255, 323

Mallarme, Stephane 288

Lipavsky, Joseph 53

Manfredi, Doria 418

197 - 210 205, 207, 279,

Franz 13, 144,

Liszt,

,

Manfredini, Vincenzo 346

Mann, William 68 Mannlich, Johann Christoph von 78

281, 346

and Berlioz 153, 158 and Chopin 183, 184, 187, 191, 196

Manzoni, Alessandro 257, 258 Manzoni Requiem (Verdi) 257-59

and Franck 402, 404

Marcello, Benedetto 73

and French composers 342, 412, 472

Marchetti, Filippo 259

and German composers 148, 294, 304

Marek, George

and Mendelssohn 216, 217, 219, 220

Marenzio, Luca 24

and Russian composers 348, 352, 360, 361

Maretzek,

and Schumann 174, 177

Maria Theresa, Holy

and Strauss 429, 430

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France 76

and Wagner 167, 272, 274, 284

Mario 230, 233 Marmontel, Antoine 453 Marnold, Jean 458 Marpurg, Friedrich Wilhelm 49

and Busoni 540, 541

and other composers 229, 391, 394, 554, 573 as

performer 59, 139, 140

Litolff,

Henry 392

Locatelli, Pietro

Locle, Camille

Max

1

255, 274

Roman

Nozze

Marriage of Figaro see

617

Marschalk,

du 335

Loeffler, Charles

1

Max

Long, Marguerite 462

Martino, Donald 607

see

Messiaen,

Lr (Mozart)

Marschner, Heinrich 147, 237

Martin 552

Martin, Frank 600

Yvonne

di Figaro,

586

Loewe, Karl 132 Loriod,

Empress 87

Yvonne Loriod

Martirano, Salvatore 607

Marx, Adolf Bernhard 122

Lortzing, Albert 237 Louise (Charpentier) 338,

Marxsen, Eduard 293

339

Louys, Pierre 454, 456, 459

Mascagni, Pietro 308, 414, 416

Lowe, Ferdinand 442

Mason, William 548

Liibeck, Vincent 46

Mass of Life,

Ludwig II, King of Bavaria 278-80, 282, 287 Luemng, Otto 603, 607

Massenet, Jules 245, 334, 335 -37 , 336, 406 and other composers 342, 401, 404, 410, 456

Lully, Jean-Baptiste 21, 46, 65, 76,

A

(Delius) 502,

503

Mattheson, Johann 57, 59

618

Maurel, Victor 265

Lulu (Berg) 589-91

Maxwell Davies, Peter

see

Davies, Peter

Maxwell

Mayakovsky, Vladimir 529

Macbeth (Verdi) 252, 254

MacDowell, Edward Alexander 553 - 55 555

Mayr, Johannes 228

Machaut, Guillaume de 16

Mayreder, Rosa 306

Mackenzie, Alexander 494

Mayrhofer, Johann 126, 130

Maconchy, Elizabeth 615 Maderna, Bruno 600

Mayuzumi, Toshiro 600 Meek, Nadezhda von 354, 360, 370, 375, 455

madrigal 24, 27, 31, 32

Medtner, Nikolai 520

Maeterlinck, Georgette Leblanc, 457, 458

Mehul, Etienne-Nicolas 240 Meilhac, Henri 331, 334

,

Maeterlinck, Maurice 457, 458

Magic

Flute,

The see

Zaubeiflote,

Die (Mozart)

Meistersinger,

Die (Wagner) 280

Magnard, Alberic 342

Mendelssohn family 212, 213

Alma 339, 426, 443, 444, 447 Mahler, Gustav 437-40, 442 - 49 445

Mendelssohn, Cecile Jeanrenaud 217

Mahler,

,

Des Knaben Wunderhorn

13,

447

and other composers 153, 287, 289, 291, 397,

423

Mendelssohn Hensel, Fanny 212, 213, 214, 217, 218 Mendelssohn, Felix and Bach 51

,

13,

211 - 21

,

215, 219, 224

144

arrangements 144, 181

and Chopin 187, 191

influence 399, 603

and England 68, 328, 382, 493, 494

3

1

1

646

INDEX

Mozart, Maria Anna (Nannerl) 96, 97

Mendelssohn, Felix (continued)

and French composers 155-58, 243, 330

Mozart, Maria Anna (Wolfgang’s mother) 97, 100

and German composers 136, 174, 177, 197,

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 80, 88, 95 — 110

conducting 211, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 276,

Cost fan Tutti 102, 105, 106

Don Giovanni

312, 313

Mendes, Judith 286 Mennin, Peter 607

89, 107, 200, 216, 237, 271, 333,

341, 445

Entfuhrung aus dem

Menuhin, Yehudi 498, 575 Merelli, Bartolomeo 250

Idomeneo 80, 101

Messager, Andre 322

Zauberflote,

Nozze

591. 595, 597 - 99 607 - 9 608,

Messiaen, Olivier

,

,

Serail,

Die 102, 105

Le 102, 105, 106

di Figaro,

Die 102, 105, 106-7, 237

and Bach family 52, 53, 104 and Beethoven 113, 120, 121

610, 613

Yvonne Olriod

607, 608

and French composers 160, 245, 342, 462,

472

Messiah (Handel) 66-68, 70 Metastasio, Pietro 73

and German composers 292, 578

Metropolitan Opera 22, 287, 387, 395, 446, 453,

and Haydn 81-83, 89, 92, 94

and Mendelssohn 211, 213, 217

537 and Musorgsky 358, 359

and Tchaikovsky 371, 372

and Puccini 419, 421

and Verdi 258, 264

and Strauss 424, 426

life

and American composers 562, 566

performing 95, 96, 109, 113

Meyerbeer, Giacomo

13, 63, 162, 236, 237,

240 -

Huguenots, Les 240, 243, 244 Diable 239, 240,

le

242

Portici,

La (Auber) 239

Muradeli, Vano 532-34

Musgrave, Thea 615 musicals 544

193

Anna 128

Musorgsky, Modest 350—52, 351, 356—60

Gudonov 357-59

Milhaud, Darius 474, 475, 481, 607

Boris

Miliukova, Antonina Ivanovna

and Debussy 41

see

Tchaikovsky,

Antonina Ivanovna Miliukova

minimalism

14,

Moke, Marie

298

Musard, Napoleon 312-14, 318

Miaskovsky, Nikolai 530, 532

Milder,

Karl 15, 304, 431

Mtihlfeld, Richard

Meyerhold, Vsevolod 529

Adam

1 1

reception 14, 109, 240, 284

Muette de

and other composers 192, 229, 249, 271, 274

Mickiewicz,

59, 85,

Muck,

46 , 241, 255 Robert

97,

103, 183, 311, 559

274

Messiaen,

,

616-18

1

,

455

and Tchaikovsky 355, 366, 377 and other composers 257, 343, 363, 472 Mysterium (Scriabin) 517-19

159, 160

Monk, Meredith 616 Monsigny, Pierre 240

Nabokov, Nicolas 486

Monteux,

Nabucco (Verdi) 250, 252, 256

Pierre

407

Monteverdi, Claudia de Catteneis 25

Monteverdi, Claudio

14, 16,

21-35, 23

nationalism, see also folk music

Bartok, B. 567-70, 572, 573, 576, 577

Monteverdi, Giulio Cesare 25

Bohemia 378

Montgomery, David 2 1 Monti, Gaetano 259

Bruckner, A. 438

Montuoro, Achille 259

Copland, A. 565

Morales, Melesio 259

Dvorak, A. 381, 382, 384-87

Moreschi, Alessandro 63

Elgar, E.

Morgan, Robert

England 495

P.

Chopin,

605, 619

F.

192, 193

497

Morike, Eduard Friedrich 305, 306 Morley, Thomas 492

Europe 345, 346

Morzin, Ferdinand Maximilian von 85

Grieg, E. 389-92

Moscheles, Ignaz 113, 139, 142, 214, 217, 247

Ives,

Gottschalk, L.

M. 549-51

C. 559

Moses und Aron (Schoenberg) 592-94

Janacek, L. 387-89

Mottl, Felix 276, 280, 440, 445

Mahler, G. 438

Mozart family 95-102, 97

Mendelssohn,

Mozart, Constanze Weber 102

—

Mozart, Leopold 80, 96, 97, 98-101, 104

F.

212

Musorgsky, M. 357, 358 Poland 397

647

Index

Rachmaninoff,

Onslow, George

521

S.

Opera

Rimsky-Korsakov, N. 363, 364

Sibelius,

J.

20th

399

Tchaikovsky,

United

1

66

395, 482, 591

c.

(Paris)

247, 248, 335

and Debussy 457, 460

Spain 392-96 I.

56,

Opera-Comique

Smetana, B. 379, 380

Stravinsky,

1

278, 329

grand opera 236—40, 245

524

Scriabin, A.

(Paris) 79,

and Berlioz

Russia 288, 347-50, 352

46

1

and Meyerbeer 240, 245

479, 480, 483, 485

and Offenbach 319, 324

366, 369, 376, 377

P. I.

States 384,

385

orchestration

Vaughn Williams, R. 501, 506—9 Verdi, G. 251, 259, 260

Faure, G. 412

Wagner, R. 279, 287

Rimsky-Korsakov, N. 364

Weber, C. M. von 147, 149, 222

R. 423, 424, 431 Verdi, G. 266 Wagner, R. 273, 274, 496

19th

c.

Strauss,

144

Neefe, Christian Gottlob

12

1

M. 473

Ravel,

neobaroque 544-46

Orel, Alfred 442

neoclassicism

Ofeo (Monteverdi) 26, 27 Ofeo ed Euridice (Gluck) 71,

England 495

ornamentation

M. de 396

Falla,

Poulenc,

F.

Young

I.

76

performance practice

Ornstein, Leo 564, 597

476

Orphee aux Enfers (Offenbach) 320

Saint-Saens, C. 343 Stravinsky,

see

72, 75,

288, 483, 484, 485, 487, 488

Orsini,

Gennaro 63 263

Otello (Verdi) 262,

Classicism 540, 541

neoromanticism 612

Neue

Zeitschrift fur

Musik 173-76, 187

Pachelbel,

Paderewski, Ignacejan 199, 396, 397, 525

Neukomm, Sigismund 217 New Grove Dictionary of Music

and Musicians, The

see Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians

New World Symphony Newman, Ernest 163, Newton,

Isaac

Johann 47

Paganini, Niccolo 130, 139, 140, 162, 185, 199 Paine,

John Knowles 552 Giovanni 226, 228, 346

(Dvorak) 385, 386

Paisiello,

427, 499

Palestrina,

Giovanni Pierluigi da 16, 21, 23, 46,

216, 260, 331

55

Benedetto 25

Otto 237, 250 Nicolini see Grimaldi, Nicolo

Pallavicino,

Nielsen, Carl 397

Pappenheim, Marie 582

Niemetschek, Franz 96

Parade (Satie) 473,

Nietzsche, Friedrich 280, 282, 324, 333, 503,

Parker, Horatio 552, 558,

Nicolai,

Papier,

474 562

Hubert 494, 505 Parsifal (Wagner) 286, 287

Parry,

513 Nijinsky, Vaslav 470, 480,

482

Pasta, Giuditta 230,

Nikisch, Arthur 276, 440, 445 Nilsson,

Rosa 306

Bo 600

Pathetique

Symphony (Tchaikovsky) 376

Adelina 224, 230, 233

Nono, Luigi 600, 606

Patti,

Nordica, Lillian 245

Pedrell, Felipe Pelleas et

Nordraak, Rikard 391

233

393

Melisande (Debussy) 274, 342, 457-58,

460

Nonna (Bellini) 232 Nottebohm, Gustav 296, 304 Nourrit, Adolphe 237, 238

Pellisier,

Nouvel, Walter 484

Pepusch, John Christopher 66

Nowak, Leopold 442 Nozze di Figaro, Le (Mozart)

Percival,

102, 105, 106

performance practice 44, 45, 48, 51

J. S.

,

321, 328

Chopin,

F.

L. van.

215, 217

191, 192

Contes d’ Hoffmann, Les 324, 325

improvisation 223, 224

Orphee aux Enfers 320

Liszt,

Okhlolokov, Nikolai 529 Oliveros, Pauline 607, 616

Olympe

Viscount 56, 58

Beethoven,

21, 23

Offenbach, Jacques 310, 318, 318 - 25

see Rossini,

Penderecki, Krzysztof 600

Bach,

Ockeghem, Johannes

Olympe

F.

191

Mannheim

orchestra 88

Mozart, W. A. 109, 110

Pellisier

INDEX

648

Prokofiev, Sergei 482, 510, 525 - 34 , 531

performance practice ( continued )

Symphony 527

pitch standards 109

Classical

before 1750 21, 22, 34

and other composers 365, 481, 519

19th

Giovanni

Pergolesi, Peri,

Proust, Marcel 334, 461,

143, 144

c.

Battista 232,

484

Giacomo 413 - 22 417

Puccini,

,

Puchberg, Michael 102

Jacopo 26, 34

Henry 70, 492, 493 Purgold, Nadezhda see Rimsky-Korsakov, Nadezhda Purgold

Periquet, Fernando 395

Purcell,

George 590 Perseus 328 Petipa, Marius 372

Pushkin, Alexander 375

Perle,

Errico 259

Petrella,

Pfaffe,

Quantz, Johann 64

Carl Friedrich 42

Hans 180

Pfitzner,

Philidor, Francois

philosophy

240

Raaff,

Anton 108

Rabuad, Henri 337

see aesthetics

Piccaso, Pablo 474, 482, 489,

Rachmaninoff, Sergei

583

Minna

Planquette,

Raff,

(Schoenberg) 582, 583, 585

Piston, Walter 566,

607

Wagner, Minna Planer

see

Joachim 301, 310, 370, 554

Rosa 415, 420, 421 Ramuz, C. F. 486 Rathaus, Karol 358, 359 Raisa,

Ravel, Maurice 311, 342, 360, 466 — 73 , 469, 507,

Robert 322

Pleyel, Ignace

510—12, 518,

,

Pierne, Gabriel 403 Pierrot lunaire

16, 139, 364,

519 - 23 521

Niccolo 76, 78, 99

Piccini,

Planer,

462

559

159

and French composers 332, 410, 458, 463, 474

Poe, Edgar Allan 453

Recio, Marie 162

Polacco, Giorgio 419

Berg, A. 590

Redon, Odilon 287 Reger, Max 437, 449 - 51 450, 541, 579 Reich, Steve 603, 616

Charpentier, G. 338, 339

Reichardt, Johann Friedrich 132

Schoenberg, A. 593

Reik, Theodor 438, 439, 444

Second Viennese School 591, 592 Smetana, B. 379, 380 Soviet Union 527-36

Reiner, Fritz 575

Wagner, R. 272, 279

Rellstab,

politics, see also Socialist

Realism

Bartok, B. 567, 574

Circumstance (Elgar) 496, 497

Pomp ami

Ponchielli, Amilcare 259, 262, 414, Ponselle,

,

418

Reinhardt,

432

217

Ludwig 196, 318 Remenyi, Eduard 293, 294 Reno, Morris 375 Repin,

Rosa 421

Max

Reissiger, Karl

Ilya

359

Ponte, Lorenzo da 71, 106

Reske, Jean de 245

Pope, Alexander 55

Reske, Edouard de 245

Porpora, Nicola 84

Rheinberger, Josef 552, 563

Potter, Cipriani 116,

229

Poulenc, Francis 474 - 78 , 477

Prevost,

259

Richter, Hans 276, 280, 282, 299, 305, 439, 440,

445, 496

Pousseur, Henri 600 Powell,

Ricci, Frederico

Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich 15, 141, 142, 170,

Mel 607 Antoine 56, 66

171, 180

Prez, Josquin des seejosquin Desprez

Ricordi family 262, 418, 421, 422

Primrose, William 575

Riemann, Hugo 48

Probst family 129, 146

Ries, Ferdinand 146, 217

program music 142

Riley, Terry

Beethoven,

L.

van 121

Berlioz,

H. 153, 157-59

Liszt,

204

F.

Strauss,

Rimskaya-Korsakova, Nadezhda Purgold 362

Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai 336, 351, 352, 362 - 65

363

Mahler, G. 447, 448 Scriabin, A.

616

R. 430, 431

Tchaikovsky,

P.

I.

and Russian composers 357-59, 361, 525 and Stravinsky 349, 479, 482

517

376

and Tchaikovsky 354, 355, 369, 377 Rinuccini, Ottavio 26

,

0

1

1

649

Index

The (Stravinsky) 480, 48

Rite of Spring,

Ritorno d’Ulisse

II

Rovigo, Francesco 25

(Monteverdi) 33

Alexander 429

Ritter,

Ritter, Julie

Robert

Patna,

in

275

234

and other composers 349, 368, 554 Rubinstein, Nikolai 352, 354, 368, 369

Rochberg, George 615

Ruffo, Titta 418

Rockwell, John 609

Ruggles, Carl 562

Roger-Ducasse, Jean 4 1

Romain

Rolland,

Battista 141, 223, 230, 233,

Rubinstein, Anton 295, 301, 310, 352-54, 392

Diable (Meyerbeer) 239, 240, 242

le

Rubini, Giovanni

Russian and Ludmilla (Glinka) 348, 349

336, 342, 431, 458, 467

Ruzicka, Wenzel 125

Roller, Alfred 446

Romani, Felice 231 Romanticism 161, 169,

Safanov, Vassily 5 170, 179, 183

St.

Matthew

Dussek,

J. J.

(J.

S.

Bach) 51, 215

Saint-Saens, Camille 334, 337, 341 - 44 , 342, 344,

290, 302

and French composers 332, 401, 404, 409, 410, 472

H. 154

Brahms,

Passion

234

Bellini, V. 232,

Berlioz,

1

L.

360, 423, 549

379

England 493

and Rossini 224, 229

French opera 236, 239

Salieri,

M. 348 Gottschalk, L. M. 551

Salomon, Johann Peter 89 Sammartini, Giovanni Battista 72

Grieg, E. 391

Sand, George 187-88, 243

Glinka,

Liszt,

201, 203

F.

Sard, Giuseppe 228

Mahler, G. 448

Mendelssohn,

Antonio 125

Sartorio,

216, 217-20

F.

Satie,

Antonio 30

Erik 454, 455, 467, 473, 474

performance practice 51

Sayn-Wittgenstein, Carolyne 201, 202

Poland 397

Scacchi,

Rachmaninoff,

S.

512

Scala,

Marco 47

La (Milan) 264

Rossini, G. 228, 230

Scarlatti,

Alessandro 45, 46, 60

Rubinstein, A. 353

Scarlatti,

Domenico

Second Viennese School 591

Schaeffer, Pierre

Sibelius,

J.

399

Scheffer,

Guy 403

Johann 132 Schillings, Max von 544 Schindler, Anton 132 Schiller,

Rore, Cipriano de 23, 29

Rose, Arnold 305 see Delius, Jelka

Rosen

Schlichtergroll, Friedrich 95

Rosenfeld, Paul 220 Rosenkavalier,

Rossi,

Schloezer, Tatiana

Der (R.

Strauss) 432, 434,

435

Giacomo 62

227, 239, 240, 244

Tell

II

224, 226

and other composers 320, 330, 393, 537 Rossini, Isabella Colbran 225

Olympe

Smith, John Chris-

Pellisier

Schmitt, Florent 337, 410, 469, 474, 480

Schmitz, E. Robert 562 Schnabel, Artur 137, 525, 544

226

Schneider, Hortense 320 Schnittke, Alfred 14, 600, 613,

Schnorr,

Schober, Franz von 127, 128, 135 Schobert, Johann 104

Roullet, Francois du 76

Schoenberg, Arnold

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 74, 76, 141, 236 Roussel, Albert 407 le see

Rovetta, Giovanni 30

Le Roux, Maurice

614

Ludwig 279

Rostropovich, Mstislav 616

Roux, Maurice

see

Schnabel, Joseph 148

226, 239

and Verdi 250, 257, 258

Rossini,

Schmidt, Franz 544

topher

Rossini, Gioachino 141, 217, 222-24, 225 - 30 ,

William

515-17

Schmidt, Johann Christoph

Rossi, Salamone 25

Barbiere di Siuiglia,

Ary 184

Schikaneder, Emanuel 106

Ronald, Landon 498

Rosen, Jelka

603

Scharwenka, Xaver 392

Wagner, R. 274 Ropartz,

396

Schalk, Franz 442

R. 431

Strauss,

45, 46, 59,

578 - 94 584, 607 Moses und Aron 592-94 Pierrot lunaire 582, 583, 585 17,

,

and Brahms 289, 301

and German composers 158, 287, 542

)

650

INDEX

Schoenberg, Arnold ( continued

Boulez,

P.

599

and Mahler 439, 443, 448

Messiaen, O. 599, 607

and Reger 414, 451

reception 23, 399, 572

and other composers 415, 488, 523, 572, 604

Schoenberg, A. 588, 589

reception 14, 399, 567, 597

Soviet

Union 536

Scholes, Percy A. 49

Stockhausen, K. 601

Scholz, Bernhard 292

Stravinsky,

I.

487-89

Schott firm 129

Webern, A. 588, 591 after 1950 14, 15, 566, 600, 602-4, 607, 610 Serov, Alexander 352

Schreker, Franz 584

Sessions,

Roger 607, 610, 616

Schroder-Devrient, Wilhelmine 141

sexuality

and gender

Schone Miillerin, Die 133

Schopenhauer, Arthur 277, 278, 438

Schroter,

Rebecca 91

castrato singers

63

Schubart, Christian 88

Schubert,

Schubert, Franz 124 - 37 , 131, 135, 143, 226, 345,

Scriabin, A. 523,

472

Tchaikovsky,

Erlkonig 128, 130, 132

am

Gretchen

F.

Spinnrade

Seyfried, Ignaz 1

P.

524 366, 369, 375, 376

I.

von 217

Shakespeare, William 34, 35, 91, 114, 456, 492

32

and Berlioz 160, 164

Schone Miillerin, Die 133 Winterreise,

128

and German composers 172, 220, 284

Die 133

and German composers 120, 144, 178, 217, 308

Verdi settings 254, 262-64, 266, 274, 288

Viennese friends 126-29, 130

Wagner

Gunther 603, 606 Schuman, William 566, 607

270

libretto

Shapey, Ralph 607

Schuller,

Shaw, George Bernard

Schumann, Clara Wieck 146, 172-75, 175, 178, 197, 500 and Brahms 291, 292, 294, 296, 299 Schumann, Robert 15, 139, 143, 151, 216, 217, 218, 169 - 82 173, 553

16, 68, 264, 274, 285, 496,

500 Shebalin, Vissarion 532

Henry Rowe 385, 386

Shelley,

Shostakovich, Dmitri 359, 510, 528, 530—37

Carnaval 179

Duly Macbeth of Mtsensk 528, 531, 532, 535 Sibelius, Jean 397 - 99 398

aesthetics 142, 143

Siebold, Agathe von 293

and Chopin 183, 185, 187, 193, 214, 216 and French composers 157, 243

Siloti,

and German composers 133, 135, 145, 272,

Slonimsky, Nicolas 562

,

,

and Mendelssohn 216, 217, 219

Bartered Bride 379,

Schumann-Heink, Ernestine 245, 432

380

Smith, John Christopher 57

Heinrich 21, 47

Smithson, Harriet

1

58—60

Schweitzer, Albert 50

Smyth, Ethel 499-501, 500

Schwerdgeburth, C. A. 149

Socialist

Schwind, Moritz von 126 Scriabin, Alexander 397, 448,

374

Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky) 372,

Smetena, Bedrich 379 — 81 , 380, 383

294, 301

Schtitz,

Alexander 511, 522

Realism,

36,

510- 19

524

,

515, 523,

see also politics

508, 529, 53 1 —

613

Solomon, Maynard 98, 114, 128 Sonnleithner, Leopold von 127

Divine Poem 514

Sontag, Henrietta 230, 233, 238, 255

Mysterium 517—19

Spaun, Joseph von 125, 130

Scribe, Searle,

Eugene 237-39, 242, 243 Humphrey 600

Seasons,

The (Haydn) 92, 93

Specht, Richard 291

speech melody

Sprechstimme

see

Spiridion, Pierre Joseph 244, 245,

247

Ludwig

Simon 130, 439, 441 Anton 276, 280 Selva, Blanche 394 Seneke, Teresa 259

Spohr,

Senesino

Spontini, Gaspare 80, 139, 240, 247, 274, 312

Sechter, Seidl,

see

Bernardi, Francesco

reception 13, 124, 217, 237, 247 style 120, 145,

146

Sprechstimme 582, 583

serialism

Babbitt,

conducting 139, 312

M. 598

Berg, A. 589, 591

Stamaty, Camille 549 Stamitz,

Johann 88

651

Index

Stanford, Charles Villiers 494, 505

John 58

Stanley,

359

04

symbolism 50, 277, 453 Symphonic fantastique (Berlioz)

Richard 55 Daniel

Steibelt,

1

Swift, Jonathan 55, 56

Stasov, Vladimir 352, 358, Steele,

Swieten, Gottfried van 53,

1

Symphonies

13

Wind

of

6,

1

57-59,

Instruments (Stravinsky)

Erwin 590 Steinbeck, Fritz 496

synaesthesia see visual arts

Steinberg, Maximilian 528

Szymanowski, Karol 397

Stein,

1

1

99

484

Joseph 575

Szigeti.

Steinhardt, Erich 586

Stendhal 228

Tadolini, Eugenia

Sterba, Edith 112, 114

Taglioni,

Sterba, Richard 112, 114

Stern,

David

d’

Stevens, Denis 32

Germaine 474

Takemitsu, Torn 600 Tallis,

Jane 188, 190

Stirling,

Marie 237

Tailleferre,

Agoult, Marie

see

252

Thomas

21,

492

Tamberlik, Enrico 141, 228

Stockhausen, Julius 296

Tamburini, Antonio 233

Stockhausen, Karlheinz 597, 600, 601, 603, 605

Tancioni, Eugenio 259

Stokowski, Leopold 558, 562

Taneiev, Sergei 365, 511, 520

Antonio 22

Stradivari,

Strauss family 314, Strauss, Franz Strauss,

Strauss,

Johann,

Jr.

Giuseppe 139

Taruskin, Richard 614

428

Tausig, Karl 141, 203, 292

291, 310-13, 314-18, 315,

Taverner, John 492

Deems 427

322, 472

Taylor,

Johann, the elder 311-14, 316

Tchaikovska, Antonina Ivanovna Miliukova 369

Ahne de

Strauss, Pauline Strauss,

Tartini,

316

Richard 31

424, 425, 427, 435

423-36, 425

1,

Tchaikovsky, Modest 369, 376 Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich 366-77, 373

Don Juan 430

Eugene Onegin 374, 375

Dcr 432, 434, 435 and Bartok 569, 573

Pathetique

and Elgar 495, 496, 497 and French composers 153, 157, 342, 458

and French composers 335, 455 and German composers 221, 291, 540

and German composers 221, 287, 291, 318,

and Russian composers 347, 348, 354-56, 512,

Rosenkavalier,

Sleeping Beauty 372,

445, 544 Stravinsky, Igor 396,

Symphony 376 374

521

479-91, 483, 485, 506, 573

and Stravinsky 484, 490

Rite of Spring, The 480, 481

Tcherepmn, Nikolai 525 Telemann, Georg Philipp

Symphonies of Wind Instruments 484

temperament

and American composers 556, 559, 564

Texier, Rosalie see Debussy, Rosalie Texier

and French composers 474, 475, 596, 609 and German composers 288, 436, 579

Thalberg, Sigismond 59, 186

and Prokofiev 529, 530

Theatre-Lyrique

and Ravel 466, 470

Theile,

Petrushka 313

Theatre des

see

41, 46, 52

tuning and temperament

Italiens (Paris) (Paris)

238, 254

329, 331, 334

and Rimsky-Korsakov 364, 365

Johann 47 Theremin, Leon 596

and Russian composers 376, 524 style 348, 398, 600

Thomas, Ambroise 401, 404, 410, 456 Thomson, Virgil 399, 561, 566

reception 14, 15

Thurber, Jeannette 384, 385

Strepponi, Giuseppina

see Verdi,

Giuseppina Strep-

Tomasek, Vaclav 379

poni Striggio, Alessandro 25, 30, 31, Strozzi, Giulio

Subotnick, Suckling, Sue,

33

32

Morton 607

Norman 409

Eugene 184

Sullivan,

Tomaschek, Johann Wenzel 82

Arthur Seymour 310, 325-28, 494

tonality see

harmony

Torrefranca, Fausto 416

Toscanini, Arturo 143, 276, 419-21, 431, 446

Tovey,

Donald

F.

48, 72,

Tremont, Baron de Tristan

und

Isolde

1

73

12

(Wagner) 166, 277—79, 446

Sutherland, Joan 223

Troyens, Les (Berlioz)

Sweelinck, Jan 21, 47

Tudor, David 605

164—66

652

INDEX

tuning and temperament Busoni,

538, 539

F.

Solomon 530

Volkov,

Vorisek, Vaclav

379

mean-tone 49 Wagner, Cosima 201, 279, 280, 281, 286

well-tempered 49, 50 Twitched,

Harmony

see Ives,

Harmony Twitched

Wagner, Minna Planer 270, 271, 275, 276, 278,

280 Unanswered Question, The

Unger, Caroline

1

(Ives)

Wagner, Richard 268 - 88 281

558

,

18

Meistersinger,

Die 276, 285

Urio, Francesco Antonio 65

Parsifal

286, 287

Ussachevsky, Vladimir 603

Tristan

und

Isolde 166,

277-79, 446

and Berlioz 153, 154, 157, 166, 167 Varese, Edgard 539, 585, 595 - 97 596 Vaughn Williams, Ralph 501, 505 - 9 507 ,

,

and Brahms 289, 292 and Bruckner 438, 439

and folk music 387, 570

and Debussy 454, 455, 460

and other composers 379, 496

and French composers 245, 246, 320, 335, 338,

Giovanni

Vellutti,

Vera,

Battista

342, 401, 405

63

Edoardo 259

Verdi,

Giuseppe 249 - 67 253, 265 ,

Aida (Verdi) 257

Don

Carlo 257

Falstaff 263,

264, 266, 274, 288

composers 232, 261

and

Italian

and

Liszt 202, 206, 281,

284 and Rossini 225, 226, 229 and Russian composers 356, 357, 370, 537 and Schoenberg 579, 582, 583

Macbeth 252, 254

and Schumann 177, 178

Manzoni Requiem 257-59 Nabucco 250, 252, 256 Otello 262, 263

and Strauss 427, 429, 434, 435

and Wagner 259, 260, 264, 273, 274

and other composers 123, 146, 194, 383, 438,

and Verdi 259, 260, 264 and Wolf 304, 308 495, 559

and other composers 230, 232, 245, 291

416

librettos 32, 239,

reception 141, 242, 244, 285, 288

conducting 144, 149, 166, 202, 271, 275, 276,

312

Verdi, Giuseppina Strepponi 256, 258, 263,

266

criticism 255,

verismo 414 Bizet, G.

345

aesthetics 143,

324

reception 13, 14, 141, 170

Walker, Frank 256

335

Bruno 438, 443, 444, 446

Charpender, G. 338

Walter,

Puccini 413, 416, 420

Waltz, Gustavus 72

Shostakovich, D. 528

Ward, Thomas 502

Veron, Louis 237-40

Weber

family 101, 102

Weber, Carl Maria von 120, 137, 147 - 51 , 149,

Concetto 259

Vezzossi,

Viadana, Lodovico Grossi da 25 Viardot-Garcia, Pauline 141

150, 222, 240, 311 Freischiitz,

Der 150, 237

Victoria,

Queen of England

217, 325, 493, 494

conducting 139, 150, 312

Victoria,

Tomas

393

and others 120, 145, 156, 274

Luis de 23,

Webern, Anton 399, 580, 581, 583, 585, 588 - 94 588, 595

Vidal, Paul 461

Vincenti, Alessandro 35

influence 597, 598

Vines, Ricardo 469, 472 Virgil 164,

and Stravinsky 488, 489

165

Weelkes,

visual arts

abstraction

578

F.

215, 219

Weill,

Weingartner, Felix 168, 276, 431

Messiaen, O. 609

Weinlig, Weisgall,

Vitali,

Union 346, 529

Giovanni

Battista

47

Antonio 45, 46, 48, 49, 138, 617 Vogl, Johann Michael 127, 128, 135 Volkmann, Robert 289 Vivaldi,

492

Kurt 543, 543, 544

Schoenberg, A. 581, 582, 592 Soviet

24,

Wegeler, Franz 115, 118

impressionism 453, 455, 464, 465

Mendelssohn,

Thomas

Theodor 270

Hugo 607

Weiss, Amalie 296,

299

Weissman, Adolf 586 Well-Tempered Clavier, The

(J.

S.

Werckmeister, Andreas 47, 49

Werner, Gregorius 85, 87

Bach) 47, 50

,

1

1

1

Index

Wert, Giaches de 24, 25

653

Wozzeck (Berg) 261, 274, 311, 586, 587 280

Wesendonck, Mathilde 276 Wesley, Samuel 53

Wiillner, Franz

Whistler, James McNeill 287

Xenakis, Iannis 600, 604

Whiting, Arthur 552

Wieck, Clara

see

Schumann, Clara Wieck

Wieck, Friedrich 172 Wieck, Marie 254, 255 Wienstock, Herbert 229

Zachow, Friedrich 58 Zaremba, Nikolai 368

Wilbye, John 24, 492 Willaert. Adrian 21, 23, 29

William

(Rossini) 226,

Tell

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny 535 Young, La Monte 603, 616

Zaubeifiote,

239

Die (Mozart) 102, 105, 106-8

Zecchini, Francesco 259

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 74 Winkelmann, Hermann 308

Zemlinsky, Alexander von 580

Winterfeld, Carl von 21

Zhdanov, Andrei A. 533

Winterreise,

Die (Schubert) 133

Wittgenstein, Paul 47

Hugo

289, 303 - 9 ,

Ziegler,

Johann Gotthilf 5

Zimmerman,

Wittich, Marie 432

Wolf,

Zelter, Carl Friedrich 132

Pierre 331,

549

Zschorlich, Paul 586

307

Zumsteeg, Johann Rudolf 132

Wolffl, Joseph 1 13 Wolzogen, Hans von 281 Wolpe, Stefan 61

Zweig, Stefan 435

Woodland Sketches (MacDowell) 553-55

Zywny, Adalbert 185

Zverev, Nikolai 510-12

Zwilich, Ellen Taaffe 14, 615, 616

r

Harold

S* h-

(

New Yo

'

^

was born and raised

in

Ch-v and received degrees from

Brooklyn College and

New

served on the staff of the

York University. He

New

York Times for

nearly thirty years and was senior music critic

from 1960 until 1980. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1971, the

first in

the field of music to receive this honor.

He

is

the author of several books, including one on chess, his passionate avocation. lives

with his wife in

Schonberg New York City and on

Shelter Island.

Jacket art

and design by Honi Werner

Printed in the United States of America

4/97

liilta^JrargJtEli^nHJg^Rr

“An entertaining and informative book

filled

with opinions and anecdotes not likely td be

found the if

in the pages

bo6k

hand

to

of Grove's Dictionary...

.

It is

your thirteen-year-old son

to

Franz he asks, 'Dad, what could Joe Namath, w — ^ *

Liszt,

'

'

•

4

-•

*

’•

•

and ClaudePebussy have 'll

k

'

“A smooth, closely

’

'

.

in

*

/

'

‘

fP

common?'

"

— Saturday Review

woven sequence of

brief

biographies and vivid pen-portrait?, set in a surrounding continuum of depth and breadth

which

reflects the author's

culture, his erudition, his

solid musical

command

of socio-

and his long experience of music in every kind and degree of performance. An omnibus book of this sort is full of potential pitfalls which Mr. Schonberg has sjde-stef)ped historic background,

with

—New

agility.

90000

9

780393 038576

York Times

>