The writings and letters of Konrad Wolff 9780313307485, 0313307482

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Composers --
Letters --
Miscellany --
The Brendel-Wolff "debate."

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

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Beethoven's sketch for the Finale of the first movement of the Tenth Symphony, Autograph 9/1, f.3r. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabtellung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv. 1

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff Edited by Ruth Gillen Prologue by Leon Fleisher Foreword by Russell Sherman

Translations of certain texts from the German by Otto Begus

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STUDY OF MUSIC AND DANCE, NUMBER 48

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Bloomington and Indianapolis

This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu

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Originally published in 2000 by Greenwood Press

© 2006 by Ruth Gillen All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of America The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: The writings and letters of Konrad Wolff / edited by Ruth Gillen; prologue by Leon Fleisher; foreword by Russell Sherman; translations of certain texts from the German by Otto Begus. p. cm. -(Contributions to the study of music and dance, ISSN 0193-9041 ; no. 48) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-313-30748-2 (alk. paper) l. Music-History and criticism. 2. Wolff, Konrad, 1907- -Correspondence. 3. Composers-Correspondence. I. Title. II. Series. ML60 .W742 2000 780-dc21 98048898 ISBN 0-253-21880-2 (pbk.: all-/JI

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I"-------------~ [The Finale] And so we are now ready for the great finale. One would have expected Beethoven to start it with the statement of a principal theme (as Bach does in the Chaconne) or with an improvisation paralleling the opening of the first movement. It is utterly surprising to find out that this piece, dedicated to the concept of Joy, instead begins with a harsh dissonance! The dissonance itself is harmless enough as it consists of a D minor chord with A in the bass and an added B-flat

Beethoven

69

on top. Its overwhelming effect stems from the fact that it is the opening chord, and that it is aggressively orchestrated. Immediately, we are drawn into melodrama. Beethoven makes his "story" obvious to even the uninitiated listener. In the dissonance he stamps his foot, as it were, and then exclaims: "Where can we go from here?" This happens in an instrumental recitative of 'cello and bass in unison. Each of the preceding movements is for a moment recalled and then rejected in further instrumental recitatives. Next, Beethoven, after a brief preparation (meas. 77 ff.), has these same two instruments playa new tune, again in unison. This tune is none other than the hymn-like melody of "Freude schoner Gotterfunken" which we now hear for the first time, instrumentally [Ex. 61]. This melody consists of steps up and down, for a long time, comparable to Haydn's Emperor Hymn, the obvious model, when all of a sudden, at the end of its 12th measure, it jumps up in a crescendo from the lower dominant tone (A) to the upper third (F-sharp). This jump, which appears in none of the published sketches, is at the center of the Joy experience and emotion and gives the Beethovenian stamp to the phrase. It must have been the inspiration for this individualizing melodic event that determined Beethoven to use that particular tune for the Finale. The upward progression from the lower fifth to the upper third, over the interval of a major sixth, is the most direct, the most romantic melodic progression of all. Strauss used it for the Rosenkavalier Waltz [Ex. 62]; Verdi for the beginning of Traviata [Ex. 63]; Chopin for the E-flat Nocturne [Ex. 64] and the slow movement of the B minor Sonata [Ex. 65]; and Beethoven himself had always reserved it for moments of greatest intensity, like the opening of the slow movement of his first Piano Sonata [Ex. 66], and again of the Waldstein Sonata [Ex. 67], and the variation theme in his A major Quartet, Op. 18, No.5 [Ex. 68J. [Ex. 61} First statement of melody for Freude Schaner Gotterfunken (Ode to Joy),

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While the theme is repeated by viola and' cello in unison, a most delicate polyphonic well-sounding discreet accompaniment is given to it by bassoon and double-bass-a 3-part passage sans pareil in the lowest register in strict counterpoint-one of the high points of the entire Symphony [Ex. 69]. With each repeat of the tune, the music becomes bigger until finally the entire orchestra shares it in almost

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

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hysterical excitement. All of a sudden-·measure 203-a ritard, a sudden stop, and the frightful opening dissonance returns, much sharper now by the addition of a diminished seventh-chord in the strings: the c-sharp-/g/-/e/ of the seventh-chord sounds together with the d-f of the D minor chord, while on top and bottom B-flat and A provide the frame. Now the melodrama continues; as the recitative of discontent returns, it is this time given to the solo baritone. The role of this soloist

Beethoven

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throughout what follows is so prominent that one feels he represents Beethoven personally; and it is in Beethoven's words that he exclaims, "Oh! friends-not these tones-but let us sing more pleasing ones-and more joyful ones!" A small vocalization on "pleasing" (angenehm) is followed by a longer and more complex one on "joyful" (freudenvoll). Whereupon, contrary to this announcement, what we receive is no new tune at all, but the exact same one as before, except that this time it is sung and not played! It is this moment that can be anticlimactic, depending on quality of vocal performance and listener-receptivity. There is no doubt about what Beethoven intends, namely that the mere adding of Schiller's words and of singing makes the tune just heard more joyful now. This is what aroused all the pros and contras among contemporary listeners, and what motivated all the later compositions discussed earlier, by composers who saw the vocal element indeed as a valid addition to the symphonic medium. Beethoven went very deeply into Schiller's poem, first selecting and then reorganizing several of the eight stanzas. The first and third stanzas are sung completely, if not entirely, in the order in which they appear in the poem, and the first part of the second as well as the last part of the fourth stanza are also incorporated in the Finale.3s At the end of the first stanza Schiller says: "Be embraced, millions!"; "You are collapsing, millions?" follows two stanzas laterj and where the first stanza then continues: "Brethren-above the stellar tent a loving father must be living," Schiller goes on in the third stanza: "Can you feel the presence of the Creator, world? Look for him above the stellar tent. He must be living above the stars." Beethoven in his music puts these two passages-which obviously belong together-into a unit which contrapuntally stands against the rest of the words; that is, he groups the words of the poem creatively so that they become an inherent part of the overall musical form-another innovation .... In the elaborate code ... each soloist says his and her individual good-byes. For this passage Beethoven modulates quickly to B major, probably for no other reason than that these solos-difficult enough to sing as they are-would have been impossibly hard to perform in the higher key of D. The rush resumes; a last Maestoso for the "daughter of Elysium" appears; and in a direct, fighting assault, the music comes to a positive end [Ex. 70aj on the same A and D on which the first movement ended negatively [Ex. 70bj-a final proof that the "story" does not begin with the Finale but connects all four movements.

74

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

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75

SCHUBERT (1797-1828) SCHUBERT'S REACTION TO BEETHOVEN This probably was Konrad Wolff's last article, written before leaving on a lecture-recital tour of Europe in October 1989. It was still on his desk at home in New York when his widow presented it to the editor for the purposes of this book. (He died on October 23 during the tour.) Clearly intended for publication, he had reserved blank spaces for musical illustrations, which have been filled in by the editor.

I

The student of Franz Schubert's life cannot fail to be puzzled by the burning interest that Schubert showed at all times in Beethoven and Beethoven's music. We can trace the expressions of what almost seems to have been a permanent obsession from Schubert's twentieth year to the day before his death. The history of music does not record any other case of such fanatical concentration of a great composer on the works and person of another great composer. Brahms, in his love and admiration for Schumann, was at no time perturbed by Schumann's music in the same manner in which Schubert was disturbed and troubled by the works of Beethoven. Mozart and Haydn were friends and learned much from each other, but they always retained their own spiritual equilibrium. Their unqualified praise of each other has none of the accents of exaggeration and excitement which we find in nearly all the remarks Schubert made about Beethoven. His adoration of Beethoven's works went so far, in his later years, as to make him unjust to Mozart, the idol of his youth. An apparently reliable witness of the time, the Viennese novelist Karl Johann Braun von Braunthal quotes Schubert as follows: "Beethoven can do every-

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

thing, but we cannot yet understand everything, and there will be much water flowing down the Danube ere the creations of this man be generally understood. He is not only the most exalted and exuberantly imaginative composer, he is also the most enterprising of all composers. He is equally great in dramatic and epic music, in lyrical music and in music having the function of prose: in a word, he can do everything. Mozart is to Beethoven what Schiller is to Shakespearei Schiller already is completely understood by the public, but Shakespeare is not. Everybody understands Mozart, but nobody really understands Beethoven, unless there were a person of rare spirit and even more extraordinary heart-and that person were terribly unhappy due to love or other circumstcmces./I This confession of extreme worshiping appears all the more extraordinary when one knows that at the age of 19 Schubert had hated Beethoven with the same degree of extremism. In his diary entry of June 16, 1816, Schubert praised his teacher Salieri (a resentful old man, known to posterity mainly for some infamous intrigues against his colleague W. A. Mozart) for being "free from all that bizarrerie which tends to govern most composers nowadays, and which is almost entirely due to one of our greatest German musicians (i.e. Beethoven). That bizarrerie confuses and confounds without any distinction the tragic with the comic, the attractive with the repulsive, the heroic with the howling, the: sacred with the buffoon: it engenders in people not love but madness: it rouses them to scornful laughter instead of lifting up their thoughts to God./I These words, written by a boy who had already composed works like "Erlk6nig,/I have to be taken very seriously.39 There can hardly be any doubt that Beethoven's music already at that time constituted a very personal problem for Schubert. One may ask whether Schubert could have solved this problem more easily if Beethoven had shown a greater interest in Schubert's compositions. Schubert, in fact, occasionally complained that Beethoven was "unappro~chable./I However, as one reads reports by Josef and Anselm Hiittenbrenner, Anton Schindler and other mutual friends and acquaintances of the two composers, one cannot help feeling that it was Schubert himself who, perhaps subconsciously, prevented the establishment of a closer personal contact between himself and Beethoven. In 1822, Schubert dedicated to Beethoven his E minor variations for piano, four hands, opus 10, and took the manuscript himself to the master's home. What happened there is controversial. According to Anselm Hiittenbrenner, when Schubert learned that Beethoven was not at home, he simply left the music there and departed. According to Schindler, he found Beethoven at home, but ran away in utter confusion, when Beethoven, in a very nice and

Schubert

79

friendly manner, pointed out one harmonical"mistake" in the score to the young composer. 40 Either of these versions agrees with Schubert's general attitude toward Beethoven. We know from many sources that Schubert avoided talking with Beethoven. However, he followed him everywhere at a distance. Schubert, for instance, would lead visitors to the restaurant Beethoven frequented, sit down at a near-by table when Beethoven was present and show himself quite familiar with all of Beethoven's usual actions. He also frequently spent hours in the same room with Beethoven at the office of the publisher S. A. Steiner, but apparently rarely entered into conversation with him.41 Yet there can be no doubt that Beethoven was very kindly disposed toward Schubert and that Schubert knew it. In 1823, Josef Hiittenbrenner wrote to Peters, the famous publisher, on behalf of Schubert and, in his letter, quoted Beethoven as having said about Schubert: "This one will surpass me." There is no reason to doubt that Beethoven really had said this, nor that Schubert was familiar with the fact. He also must certainly have known that many times with his nephew Carl, Beethoven had played the Schubert variations mentioned above. Only when Beethoven, in March, 1827, was about to die did the situation change a little. Although the reports of eyewitnesses disagree on details, it seems certain that Schubert visited the dying master at least once. At that eleventh hour, according to Schindler, Beethoven had finally become acquainted with and deeply impressed by some of the more important of Schubert's lieder, including the song cycles. 42 At the funeral, Schubert was one of the thirty-odd torch-bearers who saw Beethoven to the Wahring cemetery outside the city. On his way horne he stopped with two friends at the Mehlgrube Gasthaus. Schubert raised his glass and drank" to him we have just buried." Then he refilled his glass and, raising it again, said: "To him who will be next." Less than twenty months later Schubert was himself desperately ill of typhoid fever. On November 18, 1828, he became irrational and suddenly cried out. "Put me in my own room-don't leave me in this corner under the earth! Do I not deserve a place above the ground?" His brother Ferdinand43 assured him that he was lying on his own bed. "This is not true," he exclaimed. "No, Beethoven is not lying here." The following day he passed away. Ferdinand took his remark to heart and, although the considerable expense was difficult for him to bear, saw to it that Schubert, too, was buried in the Wahring cemetery, as closely as possible to Beethoven's grave.

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

II All this is very strange. Many explanations offer themselves only to be rejected immediately. Not knowing Schubert's music, one might suspect it, when reading this account, to consist mainly of attempts to imitate Beethoven's style. That would then explain a certain feeling of inferiority on the part of the younger composer. One bar of Schubert's music reveals the absurdity of this explanation. Equally to be rejected at once is the theory that Beethoven's music shattered Schubert's own musical convictions and conceptions so completely that it engendered a revolution in the development of Schubert's works. This might have happened, but in fact it did not happen. 44 When one compares any of Schubert's early works (e.g. "Gretchen am Spinnrad"-1S14-, "Der Wanderer"-lS16-, piano sonata op. 164 in A minor-1S17-) with any of his later works (e.g. the lieder to poems by Heine-1S2S-, the C minor sonata-1S2S-) one will not detect any fundamental change of style or expression traceable to Beethoven's influence. Schubert's development, much more than Beethoven and even Mozart's, always followed a straight course. This is even true for his symphonies, although they show a greater variety of musical language than his other compositions (see below). Nor is it compatible with Schubert's character to explain his passionate interest in Beethoven by any kind of ambition for fame and recognition. It is true that Beethoven's popularity, in his last years, was so great that it became almost impossible for any young composer to be fully recognized except in such fields as were neglected by Beethoven. That explains why Schu~)ert became famous as a composer of lieder while remaining practically unknown to the public as a composer of chamber music, piano works and symphonies. The attitude of responsible music circles towards Schubert's music is illustrated by the fact that the famous society "Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde," to whom Schubert had dedicated his Eighth Symphony (written in 1826 shortly after the so-called "Unfinished"), lost the manuscript forever-one of the gravest cases of criminal negligence in the entire history of music. The discouraging experiences which Schubert met at the hands of publishers both in Austria and abroad, especially in the field of instrumental music, make very sad reading today.45 There can be no doubt that Schubert suffered very deeply from this lack of public interest in his works. Yet he was not ambitious by nature, and never did jealousy enter his mind. One of Schubert's friends, Kathi Froehlich, reports that "Schubert had a wonderful character. He was never jealous or narrow, like so many

Schubert

81

others. On the contrary, how great was his pleasure whenever any beautiful music was given! He then would press his hands against each other or against his mouth and sit there, completely enchanted." And her sister Anna adds: "Schubert always was overjoyed whenever anything good composed by someone else was performed; and I remember that once, when many of Schubert's lieder had been sung during the evening, Schubert suddenly complained: 'Now that is enough! I begin to be bored."'

III

To find the reasons for Schubert's attitude toward Beethoven's genius-although it is hardly possible to elucidate them completelyone has to consider, first of all, the peculiar historical situation in which Schubert found himself as the first and sole competitor with Beethoven in the fields of chamber music and symphonies. No other composer of great talent had written quartets, trios or symphonies since the death of Haydn in 1809. In the field of piano music the situation, except for Weber's works, was the same. Schubert, twentysix years younger than Beethoven, was conscious of the overwhelming task to which his genius committed him. This is shown by a remark which he once made to his friend Spaun: "Who can compose anything after Beethoven?" However, he probably was thinking in the first place of Beethoven's symphonies, and not so much of Beethoven's piano sonatas and quartets, because here Schubert at all times felt completely at ease. String quartet writing was his most natural medium of expression. 46 As a boy, Schubert played the viola ably in the family string quartet of which he was a member at home along with his father and two of his brothers, and at the age of 16 he had already composed at least seven string quartets! He also began very early to play and compose for the piano. These factors may explain that the influence on Schubert of Beethoven's chamber music and sonatas is surprisingly small. Nowhere is there a single phrase that one could, even for a moment, take for having been written by Beethoven. 47 Occasionally one finds a passage that is slightly reminiscent of Beethoven's music. The finale of the great posthumous A major sonata, in its middle section, remotely recalls the harmonies of a famous passage from the opening movement of Beethoven's sonata in C sharp minor. The form of Schubert's octet may have been inspired by Beethoven's septet. One case-perhaps the only one-in which Beethoven's influence seems to manifest itself beyond doubt occurs in the theme of the finale of Schubert's

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

[Ex. 71] Schubert Sonata in B-flat major, Op. posth. D 960, last mvt., opening

last piano sonata in B flat major [Ex. 71]. This theme obviously was inspired by Beethoven's last composition, the second finale of his string quartet in B flat major, Op. 130 [Ex. 72]. Note that in both themes the general harmonical progressions are alike, and appear in the same metrical structure of 10 measures: 8 measures, preceded by the introductory note "G" in the first 2 measures. This example, however, clearly shows the superficiality of any such resemblance. Not only are the two themes utterly different in expressionj they also have a totally different function in their respective places. In Schubert's sonata the accented note, in the first two measures, expresses a sudden call interrupting the music, after the quiet close of the preceding scherzo. In Beethoven's quartet, on the contrary, the first two measures continue the last melody note of the preceding [Ex. 72] Beethoven, Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130, last mvt., opening ~

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cavatina in E flat, introducing a modulation from that key to the new key of B flat major. Much more noticeable is the influence exercised by Beethoven's symphonies on Schubert's compositions. True, Schubert had early orchestral experience in the Imperial Convict (a preparatory school in Vienna) where he played, in the viola section of the pupil's orchestra, not only works by Haydn and Mozart, but also Beethoven's Second and Sixth Symphonies. There he composed his First Symphony at the age of 16. 48 However, he was never absolutely sure of himself in this field and throughout his life we find evidence of his search for a new symphonic style. This fact gives a partial solution to his temporary hate of Beethoven in June, 1816. In April of that year Schubert had completed his Tragic Symphony (the Fourth) in the "Beethovenian" key of C minor, the only one of Schubert's works in which occur traces of attempt to catch the spirit of some of Beethoven's great compositions. Notwithstanding the great beauty of this symphony, it is likely that Schubert was dissatisfied with some of its passages which did not entirely conform to the dictates of his own nature. His next symphony, written in the autumn of the same year-the famous Fifth Symphony in B flat major-thus shows a deliberate return to the tradition of Mozart. Schubert stated as late as 1824 (letter of March 31) that he had written the octet and two string quarters "in order to feel my way toward the composing of great symphonies." The Grand Duo for piano, four hands, op. 140, was obviously written with the same intention, during that same year. 49 Its slow movement [Ex. 73] contains a very direct reference to the slow movement of Beethoven's Second Symphony [Ex. 74]. But, again, it is only the material which [Ex. 73] Schubert: Grand Duo, Op. 140, 2nd mvt., opening

[Ex. 74] Beethoven Second Symphony in D major, Op. 36, 2nd mvt., opening

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is similar, and it is almost touching to think of the humility of Schubert who, under the illusion that he is imitating the old master, writes music that is so charmingly and unmistakably his own.50 Schubert's whole attitude toward Beethoven, however, transcends the musical field. One may better grasp this attitude by studying Schubert's relationships to women. Paul Stefan, in his biography of Schubert, makes it quite clear that Schubert was at all times attracted by women, but avoided them because he must have felt in the very fact of being attracted a danger for himself, for his music. His attitude toward Beethoven was the same. He avoided him because he was so much attracted that he could not afford to come too close to him. The nature of Beethoven's music explains both the attraction and the disturbance that this music held for Schubert. His closing remark to Braunthal, which was quoted earlifr in this article (pp. 77-78) shows how much the sadness expressed in many of Beethoven's works shook Schubert to the limits of his forces. The man who once wrote: "All that I have created is born of my knowledge of music and my personal sorrow" (letter of March 31, 1824) certainly could not bear to live with these works all the time. Beethoven's music may also have hurt Schubert even where it conveys the composer's occasional moods of exuberance and almost aggressive joy of life. Beethoven, in his music, kept joy and sorrow in different compartments in a clear separation of successive moods" In Schubert joy and sorrow are much closer together. His music makes people cry when they are most happy, and smile when they are most sad. In this light, we understand the entry in Schubert's diary of 1816: A person of distinction, when unhappy, feels profound sorrow and and happinessj and, when happy, happiness and sorrow." In this contrast of their natures possibly lies the basic reason why Beethoven's personality more than anything dominated Schubert's life and death, while leaving untouched Schubert's music. 1/

SCHUBERT'S "L'istesso Tempo" Wolff's enthusiastic, step-by-step description of his discovery of Schubert's use of l'istesso tempo (the same tempo) as a compositional device-and his other commentary-help clarify what is freqently a dilemma for students and performers. Sometimes, as in Exs. 77 and 78, the time signature remains the same, but the predominating note values and character change significantly. The preferred approach of retaining the basic beat

Schubert

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may conflict with the inclination to modify the tempo to adjust to the new mood. Since composers don't often stipulate l'istesso tempo as such, it is not impossible for confusion to reign! This article is a reprint from Piano Quarterly (Summer 1979), pp. 38-39.

The British author Cecil Gray, in his The History of Music, which was first published in the Schubert year of 1928 [the 100th anniversary of Schubert's death], states that Schubert's large instrumental works, although they contain "much fine music," suffer, among other things, from being" diffuse in form," a "defect" which-in a statement equally devoid of grace and of truth-he attributes to Schubert's "flabbiness and superfluity of adipose tissue in his mind as in his body."5! Such views were then common, and even the great Schubert connoisseur and scholar Maurice J. E. Brown in his Schubert of 1958, while being the first to dispel some of the derogatory myths of this kind, occasionally lapsed into unjustifiable criticism of Schubert for his lengthy forms because he was not aware of the specific ways and means by which Schubert held the sections of a long piece together. 52 Now the climate has changed. The turning point came in 1971 when Charles Rosen, in his The Classical Style-even though he still barred Schubert from carrying a Classical-Composer passport-was the first to pay full tribute to Schubert's eminence as a composer in classical forms. He explained one of the two devices used by Schubert to promote unity-the "device by which whole sections of a development are exactly repeated"-as Schubert, in the works from his last years, "unexpectedly returns to a more thoroughly classical spirit. "53 The other device, until now overlooked in the Schubert literature, consists of the juncture, within long movements, of sharply contrasting sections which surprisingly not only share a constant beat but this beat is deliberately reinforced as one part ends and the next part is about to begin. My first clue to the importance of this compositional technique came through reading the letter which Schubert wrote to the publisher Heinrich Albert Probst on May 10, 1828, as he sent him the manuscript of the E-flat Major Trio (D. 929/op. 100). He was greatly concerned with securing a good performance for this difficult work and asked Probst to get the best available musicians. Then he continued: " ... [ellipses by Wolff] most particularly see to a continual uniformity of tempo at the changes of the time signature in the last movement. "54 Such care for a single detail is unique in Schubert's correspondence, so that I was struck by

86

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

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his emphasis that one should "most particularly see to" the strict observance of the l'istesso tempo markings where 6/8 and q; alternate [Ex. 75]. Then I realized that the B-flat Major Trio (D. 898/0p. 99), probably composed earlier in the same year, contains a similar alternation, of 2/4 for the main section and 3/2 for the middle, where the same exact continuity of the beat is necessary [Ex. 76]. Finally, it dawned on me that all three of the Klavierstucke of May 1828 (D. 946)-which were first edited by Brahms, anonymously, in 1868-are again each held together in the same manner wherever the main section leads to an episode. 55 It was nothing new to see fast and slow sections of a piece succeed each other under the same beat. Two famous examples occur in the two Mozart Romances, that from Eine kleine Nachtmusick (K. 525), and that from the D Minor Piano Concerto (K. 466) [Ex. 77]. While

Schubert

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[Ex.76J Schubert, Piano Trio, B-nat Major, Op. 99, 4th mvt., allegro vivace

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in these two instances the meter remains the same and no new tempo marking intervenes, in his late operas Mozart occasionally builds an entire long scene with mixed tempo and time signatures, on one continued beat. The great conductor Fritz Busch once told me that if he missed hitting the exact tempo for the opening of the First Finale in Cosi fan futte (Andante 2/41, he would be unable to regain the beat in the later sections as well (Allegro q;; Allegro 3/4; Andante C; Allegro q;).56 Everywhere in Mozart, however, the emphasis is not on contrast, but on flow and continuity-in other words, on what Grieg once aptly called the "seamless" quality of Mozart's music. When Beethoven and, after him, Schubert established an istesso tempo situation, they intended, conversely, to make this sound like the tour-de-force it really was, and to emphasize how the apparent identity of motion enhances the sudden contrast. Beethoven used this technique-most probably invented it-first in the Finale of his

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The first section up to bar S6 ends with a passage in the dominant, the second up to bar 186 (the new place of the repeat sign) ends with a similar passage in the tonic; both passages develop motifs of the main theme. The last 27 bars do not fit at all into the binary form. Schubert was a master of the binary form, and the new place of the repeat sign serves to underline his mastery, whereas the present place detracts from it. Both sections are now well balanced, whereas a repeat after the triumphant ending and the seven beats' rest at the end-as played at present-upsets the balance of the two sections. These seven beats of silence are meant to be a preparation for the quite different mood of the Trio. The last 27 bars of the Scherzo should be played only once before the Trio and once at the Da Capo after the Trio, as there is such an air of finality in their triumphant character that they must be regarded as a definite Coda. Schubert used the same design at the end

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of the Menuetto of his A minor quartet where he excluded the last four bars from repetition. Oskar E. Rudnitzky [Excerpts from Wolff's response to Joy Roger.] Dear Joy, ... I am delighted with Mr. Rudnitzky's correction of the Schubert Quintet. I know the work so well that I can go through it in my mind and know what he is talking about. Unfortunately I have no copy of the work at home (I just checked my Eulenburg library) and cannot mark the change in it. It is true that occasionally composers, especially Beethoven but also Schubert, make senseless repeats just for the sake of achieving certain proportions of length. I count among these the repeat of the second half in Beethoven's Sonata in F major, op. 10 no. 2 both in the first and especially in the last movementj and Schubert's repeat of the second half in the F minor Moment Musical no. 5 (where Serkin proceeds in a similar fashion to Rudnitzky by not repeating the last few measures). Beethoven repeats the first exposition in the Pathetique from the beginning of the Grave, which seemed so outrageous to all, that from earliest times all editions added a repeat sign at the beginning of the Allegro. Tovey remarked the error (Schnabel did not), but decided that Beethoven must have forgotten. Again Serkin is the only one who repeats the movement correctly from the Grave, just as in the Quartet op. 130, where 20 years later Beethoven repeats this structure. Do you know, speaking of chamber music, that the original version of the E-flat Trio by Schubert has now finally been found and published (I believe by Biirenreiter)? It adds a few measures to the Finale, and adding those in performance, as my friends of the Rogeri Trio do, makes the Finale appear shorter, not longer! Schubert must have cut these out in order to cut the length, but I am sure you will want to put them in again. (Not you, but your group.) Much love from us both, Ilse and Konrad

SCHUMANN (1810-1856) ON TITLES AND VERBAL DESCRIPTIONS IN MUSIC Extracted from program notes by Konrad Wolff for the New Friends of Music concert in New York on November 3, 1946, when the Piano Quintet in E flat Major, Op. 44, {Ex. 92] was performed. Schumann's text is indented.

In many of his works, Schumann used descriptive titles; yet, like all German musicians of his time, he considered himself to be a composer of absolute music. His attitude, inconsistent in appearance, becomes clear from what he observed on this subject in a few of his articles for the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik. 1. A classical example of program music was given in Beethoven's Sixth, the Pastoral Symphony, in which every movement and characteristic section have their own titles. Of course Beethoven was misunderstood and attacked by the orthodox musicians .... Schumann ... comes to his defense: In composing his Pastoral Symphony Beethoven well understood the danger he incurred. His explanatory remark, "Rather expressive of the feeling than tone painting," contains an entire aesthetic system for composers. And it is absurd for painters to portray him sitting beside a brook, his head in his hands, listening to the bubbling water! ... [ellipses by Konrad Wolff] When Beethoven conceived and carried out his idea for a Pastoral Symphony, it was not a single short spring day that inspired him to utter his cry of joy, but the dark commingling of lofty songs above us (as Heine, I believe, somewhere says). The manifold voices of creation stirred about him. 61 The remark by Beethoven which Schumann quotes here-" rather expressive of the feeling than tone painting"-was added to the listing of the titles in the programs of the first performance.

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It is interesting to see that Friedrich Nietzsche came to the same conclusion, although apparently he did not know this. He formulates it, in his "Geburt der Trag6die" (no. 6), more precisely, if less poetically: "Even there where the composer has spoken descriptively about one of his compositions; where, for instance, he has designated a symphony as 'pastoral,' one of its movements, as 'Scene at the Brook,' another one, as 'Gay Meeting of the Peasants,' he has given no more than images generated by the music ... which have no exclusive value in relation to other, different images."62 2. Shortly after the foundation of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (1833) Schumann undertook to review Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, "La Vie d'un Artiste." While the leading musical journal of the time, the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, remained vigorously opposed to all modernistic, particularly the non-German music, Schumann, in his paper which he had founded precisely to fight Philistinism, felt the necessity of pointing out to the utmost degree the merits of young, impulsive talents who sincerely attempted to create something new; and if the composers were not German, it suited him all the better in his attempt to wipe out nationalistic narrowness. Therefore, he devoted to this review of Berlioz's big work more care and more space than to any other of his articles, and attempted to bring out all that could be considered praiseworthy in the symphony.... 63 Tackling the problem of the detailed program which Berlioz had given to his symphony, Schumann starts out by giving a detailed resume. In this program, the composer intended to describe, in music, a few moments in the life of an artist. It seems necessary that the scheme of an instrumental drama be explained beforehand through words.

After the resume Schumann continues as follows: Such is the programme. All Germany turned up its nose; to our minds such indications have something undignified and charlatanic about them! In brief, the sensitive German, averse to the subjective as he is, does not wish to be led so rudely in his thoughts; he was already sufficiently offended that Beethoven in the Pastoral Symphony did not trust him enough to divine its character without assistance. It seems as if men stand somewhat in awe of the workshop of genius; they do not care to know the causes, tools, and mysteries of creation, just as Nature herself seems to exhibit a certain delicacy in covering her roots with earth. Therefore let the artist also lock the door upon himself and his griefs; we should gain too deep an insight if every work revealed to us the causes of its existence. 64

102

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

So far, Schumann identifies himself almost completely with the German way of thinking. (How a certain type of modern biography would have repelled him!) But then he goes on to say: Whether a listener, unaware of the composer's intention, would see pictures in his mind similar to those which Berlioz has indicated, I cannot decide, as I read the program before I heard the work. Once the eye is directed to a certain point the ear can no longer judge independently.... I confess that the program at first spoiled my enjoyment, my freedom; but as this faded into the background and my own imagination began to work, I found more than was set down, and almost everywhere in the music a vital, glowing tone. Many are too conservative in their approach to the difficult question as to how far instrumental music may go in the presentation of thoughts and events. People certainly err if they suppose that composers prepare pen and paper with the deliberate predetermination of sketching, painting, expressing this or that. Yet we must not too lightly estimate outward influences and impressions. Unconsciously an idea sometimes develops itself simultaneously with the musical imagination. The greater the number of elements congenially related to music, which the thought or picture created in tones contains within it, the more poetic and plastic will be the expression of the composition. And the more imaginatively or keenly the musician takes hold of these, the more his work will elevate us and move US. 65 This general explanation of the relations between tone and picture is followed by an even more specific plea for the recognition of thoughts and pictures connected with a musical composition. Why is it not possible that the thought of immortality should have seized Beethoven during his improvisations? Why should not the memory of a great fallen hero have excited a composition in him? Why could not the memory of bygone happy days have inspired another? Shall we be ungrateful to Shakespeare, who has inspired in a young tone poet a work not unworthy of himself [Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream]-ungrateful to Nature, denying that we borrow of her beauty and nobility wherewith to grace our works? Italy, the Alps, the sight of the ocean, spring, twilight-has music indeed not told us anything of these?66 3. It is in this same sense that we must understand the titles which Schumann himself gave to his own compositions. The most striking case probably is that of the Spring Symphony in B flat major: I wrote this symphony at the end of winter (in 1841) with a springlike urge-if I may say so-such as is given every year anew to all men, even to the most aged, I think. I did not attempt to depict and to describe anything in it; but I do believe that the season in which this symphony was born influenced its structure and helped make it what it is. 67 ... In the following section of the Introduction, let me

Schumann

103

say, it might be possible to feel the world turning green; perhaps, a butterfly fluttering; and, in the Allegro, the gradual assemblage of everything that belongs to Spring. However, it was only after I had completed the composition that these ideas came to my mind. 68 This was what mattered to him most of all, for he repeated the same remark on different occasions, notably in regard to his Kinderscenen, with their particularly poetic, characteristic titles: here, too, Schumann emphasized that the superscriptions came into existence af-

terwards. Why then did he use titles at all? He himself gives the answer in one of his articles: Titles for pieces of music, since they again have come to favor in our day, have been censured here and there, and it has been said that "good music needs no sign-post." Certainly not, but neither does a title rob it of its value; and the composer, in adding one, at least prevents a complete misunderstanding of the character of his music. If the poet is licensed to explain the whole meaning of his poem by its title, why may not the composer do likewise? What is important is that such a verbal heading should be aptly and delicately chosen. It may be considered the test of the general level of the composer's education. 69 Not everybody passed this test. When a piano capriccio by a young composer entitled" Adieux a la Patrie" was submitted to Schumann for reviewing, he became very sarcastic: Much as we love the characteristic, we should prefer if many a young composer brought us four-part chorals for criticisms rather than tone-pictures whose descriptivity resides exclusively in their titles .... [ellipses by Konrad Wolff] If only one could succeed in having our Federal Parliament order that no publisher print the work of young composers before they had delivered a volume of decent four-part chorals! In that case we should have far better capriccios. 70 Schumann's conception of titles in general, as well as of those he used himself in his compositions in particular, is of paramount importance for the rendering and teaching of his works. No greater mistake could be made than to force oneself-or one's pupils-to think of "Foreign Parts and People" when playing the first of the Scenes from Childhood. First comes the music. It may suggest different pictures, or none at all, to the performer. But if he feels the poetic spirit of the composition in the music itself, all kinds of pictures, more or less closely associated with the title, may come to the mind of the listener. And no matter how different the pictures are, they will refract the identical conception of the tone-poem. This is

104

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

not only true for Schumann's music. What he and Nietzsche said of titles in music, and that they should follow the music, not precede it, contains a general insight into the world of the arts-symbolically expressed by Debussy in his Preludes when he had his titles printed at the end of each piece, and in parentheses [Ex. 931. [Ex. 93}

(... L.a fille aux cheveux de lin)

"The Girl with the Flaxen Hair"

LISZT (1811-1886) BEETHOVENIAN DISSONANCES IN LISZT'S PIANO WORKS This article, presented in the Journal of the American Liszt Society in Tune 1977, was extracted by Konrad Wolff from a lecture he had given at the 1975 convention of the American Liszt Society at Catholic University, Washington, D.C.

Liszt's piano music ought not to be compared to Chopin's, nor to Paganini's violin pieces. Though Paganini had some influence on the young pianist Liszt, as a composer Liszt was repelled by what he designated as Paganini's /I selfish" attitude: Virtuosity-as he once wrote Wagner-he regarded as /I a form of poetry." This is also true for Chopin, but Chopin lacked Liszt's universality and public personality. Liszt was indeed the "Mr. Music," as it were, of his time. He deliberately created a strong image of himself as the audacious composer, the magical pianist, the professional conductor, the conscientious author of books and essays on music, the champion-by transcriptions and editions-of lesser known composers of all nations, and the friend of other composers, painters (Delacroix), authors (Balzac), philosophers (Lamennais), scientists (A. V. Humboldt) and other celebrities in their field. Beethoven was Liszt's sale predecessor in much of this. Though in later life his activities were severely curtailed by his deafness and by the restrictions imposed upon personal freedom by the Metternich regime, Beethoven, too, represented music in a legendary fashion in public. Both masters, aware of their importance for the world of music, occasionally when writing for the piano, indulged in attempts to evoke and thus perhaps perpetuate their image as pianists. Liszt, knowing that his best concerts succeeded in communicating the power of music per se-as a human, religious, demonic, and intellec-

106

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

tual power-most probably felt a moral responsibility thus to preserve the essence of his playing for posterity. This accounts for the dreamy episodes and improvisatory climaxes of pieces such as Sposalizio" and "Funerailles." As for Beethoven, nearly every time his music is juxtaposed with that of other composers we find him deliberately asserting himself by starting out immediately with typical Beethovenian sonorities. This happens, for instance, in the Variations on "Rule Britannia," those on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120 [Exs. 94 and 95] and in the first-movement cadenza to Mozart's 0 minor Concerto, K. 466 71 [Exs. 96 and 97]. In the latter case particularly he seems to exclaim: "Now it is my turn," and yet he is acting for the sake of the power of music such as was given to him, and not in order to outdo Mozart, whom he admired greatly. Liszt considered Beethoven his great model. Musically, he had more in common with him than with his friends and contemporaries. It is absolutely untrue to look upon Liszt as a composer who simply passed on to Wagner what he had learned from Berlioz and Chopin. /I

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As a boy of eleven Liszt had met Beethoven once when his teacher, Carl Czerny, took him to the master's house. Supposedly, Liszt later reported Beethoven's final words on that occasion as: "You are lucky, for you will give happiness to many-there is nothing greater or better than that." However, the authenticity of this account is doubtful. Liszt was perennially preoccupied with Beethoven's piano music. The G611erich 72 notes on Liszt's last years of lessons demonstrate that Liszt knew the Diabelli Variations intimately, and that he had played the Emperor Concerto, as he said himself, "hundreds of times./I His performances of the Hammerklavier Sonata were among the first, if not the very first, to make people aware of the fact that Beethoven's late music was, after all, playable in public-and meant to be publicly playedJ3 While Liszt's tone poems are romantic, all his compositions display the classical roots of his training and taste. His background included in addition to Beethoven's music-which reached him directly and through his teacher Czerny, Beethoven's child pupilsome Austrian church and dance music, but also much of Schubert, whose Piano Duet: "Divertissement a l'Hongroise" was a favorite piece of his-just as it was of his musical antipode Brahms. Liszt, at the end of his life, once privately played it with-Anton Bruckner! The classicist tradition shows in Liszt's way of notation. Everything is written down with the meticulous care of a Haydn or Beethoven

108

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

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and with the approach of the experienced conductor; thus he explains, in the score of the Mephisto Waltz No. I, that the piece starts on the second of four measures forming the metrical period [Ex. 98]a notation comparable to that used by Beethoven in the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony. Also like Beethoven, and differently from Bach, Mozart, and Chopin, Liszt in his music on the whole refrains from rubato passages. His rhythmic impulses-just like Beethoven's in the recitatives of the Tempest Sonata, first movement-are as a rule measured subconsciously, even when they are written out as free passages. In matters of form Liszt fails to equal Beethoven's ability to let the expressive content determine the individual shape of a piece. He uses, in Schonberg's words, "a broadening, a combination, a rewelding, a mathematical and mechanical further development of the old formal components" instead. More simply expressed, Liszt's forms-as those of Franck, Faure (spedalist in merciless recapitulations), and even Debussy (champion of "impressions" in ABA form!)-are often pedantic, except in the Sonata and in the late piano pieces, whose original shape comes close to that of Beethoven's late Bagatelles; neither Schubert, Chopin, or Debussy mastered this aphoristic form. Specifically, Liszt's concept of dissonance is influenced by Beethoven. Liszt's dissonances have little in common with Wagner's and with Chopin's. They are not devices for the purpose of delaying a harmonic resolution. It is quite unimportant whether they are resolved or not. Their only aim is to evoke extreme states of mind. One of the late pieces is called (after a poem): "Schlaflos, Frage und Antwort" ["Sleepless, Question and Answer"], but what Liszt composes is only the "Frage," the question. There: is no solution, and therefore no resolution of the dissonance. Not only does it not occur, it is not even expected. This makes Liszt's dissonance concept unromantic, for romantic harmony is the harmony of involved expectations; it calls for a kind of writing that began earlier than the romantic period

Liszt

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proper, with works as, for instance, the slow movement of Mozart's E-flat major Quartet, K. 428 and that outlasted the epoch of romanticism proper. Beethoven's dissonances, on the other hand, are rammed down the listener's ear drums, as in the G minor Bagatelle Op. 126 no. 2 (Ex. 99), without any concern for resolution. This is what Liszt imitated. Harmonically speaking, his late pieces do in no way anticipate Debussy, whose harmonic language was much more romantic. (Perhaps Debussy was aware of this when he decided, together with the Liszt pupil Paul Vidal, to play Chabrier's Three Valses Romantiques for Liszt during their Rome meeting, for Chabrier's definite harmonic style was closer to Liszt's own than Debussy's.) Three examples of Liszt dissonances may illustrate these views. The first example occurs in the coda section of Valse Oubliee no. 2 (Ex. 100). Horizontally this dissonance is easily explained as a "confluence of non-harmonic tones," but Liszt was obviously concerned with the vertical effect. Following an A-flat major triad in root position, the keynote being doubled at the top, Liszt now moves in halfsteps: A-flat in the top voice and the C below both descend while E-flat ascends a semi-tone. The bass, A-flat, remains unaltered. The result of this motion is an /IE minor-major chord" in which the minor third, G, is pitted against the bass tone which we therefore hear both as A-flat and as G-sharp. This dissonance is followed by another, less harsh one consisting of the continued G-sharp-A-flat in the bass underneath a B major chord in the upper voices. The resulting 7thchord on the 6th degree of B major is quite unexpected. All in all there is a striking first dissonance growing out of a major triad which fails to lead even indirectly to another triad. Compare this to the

110

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

Ex. 100

Liszt Valse Oubliee, no. 2, mm. 304-321

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opening of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde." Here, quite oppositely, a dissonance out of nowhere strongly pulls toward a resolution which is almost reached in the dominant seventh chord of A minor [Ex. 101]. This pull constitutes the "sentirnental"-in a non-pejorative sense-element in Wagner's chromaticism. Its absence, however, is precisely what makes Liszt's dissonances, like Beethoven's, self[Ex. 101J

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fulfilling; each such dissonance expresses "a moment that stands vertically to time." (Rilke) The second example (which is briefly discussed in Sacheverell Sitwell's book on Liszt) is drawn from the opening of "Czardas Obstine" (Ex. 102). Technically speaking, it is less daring, and it is obviously folkloristic in character. The piece begins with an unaccompanied melodic introduction on the 4 notes E, F-sharp, G, and A, as part of the natural B minor scale. A is played on alternate downbeats and remains undisturbed by the later dramatic entrance of the left hand on a broken dominant ninth chord. The justaposition of the Asharp included in this chord with the A-natural of the melody is in itself nothing unusual, but here it sounds audacious, because no

112

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

Ex. 103 Liszt's Cadenza for Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, Op. 37, 1st mvt., 6 bars from the end 11

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resolution (by a B minor triad) is provided or expected. It seems that the music is caught in this impasse for all time. * The third example, from Liszt's cadenza for the C minor Concerto of Beethoven, first movement, uses alternating dissonances in a way comparable to an endless chess game in which the king is threatened, escapes by stepping aside, is threatened at this new location, steps back, is rethreatened, etc., ad infinitum. Both dissonances employed here in alternation derive from the diminished seventh chord over the leading tone of C minor. Liszt marks the pedal to be held throughout both chords, producing an impressive accumulation of seven tones, divided into two tone clusters: F, F-sharp, A-flat; B, C, D, E-flat (Ex. 103). I know of no similar progression in the music of Liszt's time. However, Beethoven uses very much the same constellation in the cadenza-like ending of the slow movement of his Fourth Piano Concerto, Op. 58 (Ex. 104). The main features are identical: trill; alternating neighbor notes fused through held pedal; absence of an immediate resolution. Thus, what Schonberg programmatically calls the "emancipation of the dissonance" was accomplished occasionally by Beethoven as well as by Liszt, perhaps as strikingly as by Schonberg himself. -[The editor believes that Wolff took a nonliteral, intuitive approach in analyzing example 102. Whereas one "feels" that no resolution is expected after the F# dominant ninth chord in mm. 17-20, it technically is provided in mm. 21-24, but only in name, not in spirit. The B minor here is a weak, nonassertive one in which the left hand is not in root position and the right seems to be making a special effort to avoid the key-note-thus, probably, the sense of an impasse.]

Liszt

113

LISZT'S APPROACH TO PIANO TECHNIQUE Excerpts from an article in the Journal of the American Liszt Society, October 5,1978, pp. 45-51. References to musicians and their works are detailed in Wolff's bibliography at the end of the book.

This paper deals with the place which piano technique occupies within Liszt's aesthetic credo. It would be presumptuous for me to pose as if I were able to define and explain Liszt's miraculous technical equipment in a new manner. Instead, I am referring to Dr. Elyse Mach's excellent article. 74 Liszt's only teacher-and that, for a short period-was Carl Czerny, who built up the strength of the frail boy and then trained his rhythmic control and disciplined fingering. Being of Germanic taste and conservative character, Czerny was never entirely satisfied with the result, and-just as he rejected Chopin's music as so much "sugar water with a little paprika"-he also criticized his most famous pupil when he heard Liszt, 16 years later, in Paris, as playing in a style that was "rather wild and confused in every respect." In the meantime Liszt had, however, developed his technique on his own, through indefatigable practicing as soon as he arrived in Paris. It also helped him that he began to teach at a tender age .... Without the aural and visual evidence of recordings and films it is impossible really to know how a person played the piano. Accounts of Liszt's playing by colleagues and critics are often conflicting. Schindler 75 says: "Hands in the air always, and sometimes flung above the head; keys struck from the height of 2 feet above the keyboard" (Beethoven as I Knew Him, p. 416), while Amy Fay/6 much later, describes his playing of "Au Bord d'une Source" by saying that "the notes seemed to ripple off his fingers' ends with scarcely any perceptible motion," and Weingartner (Buffets and Rewards, p. 99) remarks: "He kept his arms and body so still that one formed the impression that he was not playing at all, but bringing forth sound from the piano by imagination." But then again, Liszt tells one of his pupils in the presence of Lachmund 77 to play the melody of Chopin's 4th Nocturne, in F major, by lifting the hand a few inches and letting it fall with relaxation on the keys; he added: "This is not terribly important-I just wanted to mention it." More than any of the others, Friedheim 78 seems to have been objective in appraising Liszt's technique in general. Himself one of the most accomplished virtuosi of the Liszt school, an ambassador for

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

Liszt's piano compositions, and living long enough to compare Liszt with several of the succeeding generations of pianists, he says: "Liszt's technique ... [ellipses by W01ffl was prodigious, but in certain respects it had not only been equaled since, but also surpassed. Moriz Rosenthal and Leopold Godowsky went beyond Liszt in specialized phases of mechanisme. However, while Godowsky's metier was dexterity of fingers and Rosenthal concentrated on brilliance and power, Liszt shone in every department of technique and probably has never been approached as a builder of 'orchestral' climaxes, overwhelming masses of sound, and exciting effects.'~ It seems indeed plausible that Liszt combined the diverse and sometimes opposite qualities of his best pupils in this respect. I offer my personal testimony from the little that I experienced listening to Liszt students myself. Apart from my own teacher Josef Lomba in Bonn, a late pupil of Liszt with whom I studied in 1921 and who, though not a concert pianist any longer when I knew him, sometimes played for me and my family, I heard Eugene d' Albert and Emil Sauer several times. It is impossible to imagine greater contrasts than between these two masters. D' Albert--whom Liszt tenderly called "Albertus Magnus" when he arrived in Weimar as a prodigy, and who more than any other pupil impressed everybody not only by his playing, but also by his musicality-was the most demonic player I ever heard, and this not only of Beethoven's works. After 56 years I can still inwardly hear the B minor Bagatdle op. 26 no. 4; the Finale of the E-flat sonata op. 31 no. 3 as a frightening Tarantella; the trills at the opening of the Appassionata and the coda of its second movement; the theme of the Eroica Variations among others, but also of Bach (the last page of the Chromatic Fugue, and the Gavotte and Gigue of the 6th English Suite revealed a "Don-Giovanni"-like side of Bach that I have never heard again since then) .... Emil Sauer, on the other hand, though less musically creative, was most enchanting in his treble sonorities-he truly made ledger lines come to life!and perfect in tone control and leisurely, light finger dexterity; but he could also rise to authentic grandeur, for example, in Liszt's A major Concerto which I heard him play when he was in his 78th year, on an Erard 79 that seemed to be no younger than he. I have no doubt that both these artists developed their opposite qualities through Liszt's teaching. That Liszt gave up public playing when he was only 35 is an important factor in his later attitudes toward playing. It meant nothing to him any longer to receive the same plaudits-more than any pianist before him-over and over again, and no reports on his later teaching ever mention that Liszt spoke of his successes. Yet there is no doubt that he remained interested in public playing as such. Only

Liszt

115

he now developed his pianistic ideas rather by composing for the piano and also by experimenting at home. The Prussian diplomat Kurd von Schloezer found Abbe Liszt in Rome one day in his attic, sitting at a modest upright piano and trying to learn playing the left hand trill on Band C-sharp in the last movement of Beethoven's Sonata op. lO9 with the 3rd and 4th fingers. Liszt developed a fast trill by using the fingers 1423 on white keys, and he devised a "chromatic glissando" by playing glissando on the white keys combined with taking the black keys with the 5 fingers of the other hand. In all this, as Roes so correctly states, Liszt proceeded by intuition rather than by abstract knowledge, for he was much less an intellectual than Chopin. Chopin's pianistic ideas stemmed from his knowledge of the human body, of the mechanical laws, and of the instrument, so that he was able to formulate and teach his own method systematically. Liszt, on the contrary, tackled technical challenges in the spirit of a do-it-yourself enthusiast and tinkerer. Liszt was particularly attracted by the problems of playing either two successive keys with one finger, or the same key with two successive fingers. The latter led to the famous "2-finger exercise" which Liszt said was derived from Hummel's school of piano playing. s1 In this exercise a chromatic scale is played up and down in repeated tones (C-Dflat-Dflat-D, etc.) with all finger combinations (2-3-2-3 or 3-4-3-4, etc.), but so that there is no sound gap at all after the to-be-repeated tone. Liszt said that whenever he had to get back into playing form in his late years (usually for some court event), all he needed was a few hours of this exercise .... I base my own conception of Liszt's physical handling of the keyboard to a great part on Roes. Some of his premises are definitely confirmed by known facts, as, for instance, that Liszt sat very straight and did not look at the keys. One report specifies that this was the case even during the coda of the 2nd movement of Schumann's Phantasie, and during Liszt's Campanella! He told a male student: "You must sit the same way as when you shave." This way of sitting, in which the head proudly points up, symbolizes the place which the performing artist occupies in the hierarchy of music. Physically it leads to the use of the total arm so that the fingers touch the keys with the "ball" where the greatest sensitivity is, and not near the nail. This, too, is confirmed by various SOurces as being the way Liszt played and taught. ... It is interesting to quote what Lachmund reports about Liszt's hand. After playing the Adagio of the H ammerklavier Sonata, Lisztwho had played the final F-sharp major chords not without trouble"began to get up, but sat down once more and said, after brief hesitation: 'Most people believe that I have a very big hand, but that

116

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

is a mistake. As you see, I can just reach a tenth here and play it as quietly as it must be played.' And with that, he put his fingers once more down on the final chord so that we could judge for ourselves .... [ellipses by Wolff]. Liszt's hands were slender and of a poetic-spiritual type, very unlike the typical pianist's hand of Anton Rubinstein, d' Albert, or Rosenthal. His knuckles were hidden and not fleshy and wide, and his thumbs did not stretch away from the palm, but caressed it, and the palm was neither fleshy nor muscular." These technical details are important as amounting to a visual and symbolic manifestation of the task of the interpreter, as was mentioned before. Characteristically, Liszt often spoke contemptuously of Clara Schumann's extraneous body motions: "she metronomizes with her head" was said to prevent students from doing the same. In general, stage deportment was important enough for Liszt to make him instruct his students in it. The pride of the interpreter as such was a new idea. Before Paganini and Liszt there had essentially been only two types of performers, namely first the composers who concentrated for the most part on their own works-including Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and also Chopin-and secondly, the circus performers like Herz and Loebl who just wanted to show their skills. Sometimes a mixture of both occurred, as in Thalberg and Kalkbrenner. Liszt saw his task in dominating an audience by arousing emotions and inspiring visions and images, thus transmitting the timeless spirit of great music through a momentary overwhelming excitement. Therefore Liszt's technique serves neither articulation and musical shape nor the player's ego. Its function is that it allows the pianist fully to focus on the emotional and visionary impact of music making, or, more abstractly, that it encourages and makes possible his personal initiative. In the training of pianists this means that exercising-as Liszt said explicitly-is for young people, in order for them to be able to play without technical worries ever after and fully to concentrate on the music. Technique is thus taken for granted, but it must first be there, of course! If exceptionally this was not the case, Liszt could sarcastically advise the student to go to the conservatory (to him, the lowest form of musical institution), critici:z:e his physical motions (" Are you scrambling an omelet?" "Why gargle here?") or simply throw him or her out. We have lost some of this emotional spontaneity, made possible by relegating technique into the background after perfecting it. We have become too academic about pianism; Harold Schonberg 82 knows that much. On the other hand, we have also gained something .... Today, the Liszt pupils and some of their pupils, such as Rachmaninov, are remembered for their virtuosity which was (as

Liszt

117

Liszt and Busoni said) "poetic," rather than mechanical or cerebral. In our century we have discovered that musical intellect and intuition can be friends and allies, and we have heard artists-from Fischer and Schnabel to Richter and Brendel-whose thinking about the structure and texture of the music and the technique of realization led them to experience a deeper feeling for its substance and hence made their performances more gripping. This approach, though different from Liszt's, is not incompatible with it and could eventually create a marvelous synthesis about which we may be permitted to dream.

STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) A Modern Faust From a letter to a friend, dated April 30, 1971.

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This brings us up to our own times. I had a discussion with a taxi driver in Washington, D.C. not so long ago. This man told me that he hated the music composed today: "It is all unholy," he said. But he was then quite surprised and glad when I told him that just that same week a recording was being made in NY by the Concert Choir, conducted by Margaret Hillis, of new Christmas carols, composed this year, 1953, in America. Of these no less than 15 carols by 5 different composers, let me play for you 2. One of these 2 carols is by a young American pupil of Hindemith and Schoenberg, Manus Sasonkin. Written for a solor soprano part amidst the mixed voices, it is called " A king is born." The words are also by the composer: [* **J. The other one, a humorous one, complex but so masterfully executed that it becomes quite transparent, was written by David Kraehenbuehl, Hindemith's successor in Yale. The text is a 16th century carol, called" a song against bores," and the essential part of the words reads: "Let no man come into this hall, groom, page, nor yet marshall, but that some port he bring withall, for now is the time of Christmas"-you can take it easily from there. [***J. Nor are these the only carols written in our day. I would like to play here a piano arrangement of the first beginning of one by Paul Cooper, a young Californian, at the moment in Paris working as a Fulbright scholar, who wrote these very serious lines after 2 years of service in Korea, where his closest friend was killed at his side. He wrote it for unaccompanied choir without having any particular words in mind, and only after it was finished, his wife discovered that the words of the Christmas message in St. Luke's fit the music easily. Even in a piano transcription you ought to be able to gain an impression from this solemn and beautiful music: [* * * J. In all of these examples you certainly feel how the Christmas spirit-although itself never varies-brings out ever new manifestations of the eternal feeling that Christmas arouses in us humans, in the music of each epoch. But some of the pieces written today, as that of Cooper, for instance, or certain compositions by Poulenc, also recall the medieval mysticism of which I spoke briefly before. It was expressed mainly in the many motets sung on the text "0 magnum mysterium," which was one of the responses during the nocturnal liturgy.... Of all these motets, the most famous and probably the most beautiful is the one by Tomas Luis de Victoria [Ex. 120J written about 1600. The music has three parts. The first, longest, praises the mysterious sacrament which enabled the beasts in the field to see the Lord. The second part praises Mary, beata virgo. The last part, faster and in triple time (according to an established tradition), contains the hallelujah. I am profoundly grateful ... to Mr. James Aliferis that it has been possible to end this program now by a presentation of the

Christmas Music

171

[Ex. 120j

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motet "0 Magnum Mysterium" by Victoria, sung by the University Choir under his direction. And when, later in the season, we will have reached the point where all wish each other Merry Christmas, at that moment I hope that some of us will then still hear, in our inner ear, the Hallelujah with which the motet, and our program, is going to conclude now. Thank you.

[MUSIC APPRECIATION 101] Guidance and "tips." This class lecture-demonstration is an early one of a series. Date and place unknown, but the use of the term gramophone could take us back a bit! A series of asterisks indicates a demonstration at the piano by Wolff.

Listening to music and hearing music are two different things. We all hear music practically all day, what with radio, practicing neighbors, movie background music, concerts in which, after a tired day, we begin to let our thoughts wander. This is a natural state of affairs in our time, near a big city, just as it is natural for us to be surrounded by technical inventions of all kinds, which we take for granted in exactly the same manner. Listening to music means hearing music without taking it for granted. This can be difficult, when it comes to a familiar piece. Some melodies we have heard so often that we just mechanically can reproduce them in our head without attaching any poetic or even merely musical meaning to them. Take, for example, Beethoven's piece Fur Elise; it has been played and practiced and performed in student recitals so much that almost everyone has reached a point where it becomes as good as impossible to listen to the piece any more. Our mind just does [this] mechanically. Now this is a pity. This little piece, which Beethoven composed as a man of forty for a little girl, is a sad, at times almost frightening little piece, with so much goodness and so much gracefulness combined that one might enjoy its performance with real delight and almost suspense. I don't know whether I can succeed, in playing the piece for you, in helping you enjoy it, but I want to try it: [***] Now if you listened carefully you will have observed that one note, the E, has a special function in this piece. First it comes in the theme, is, in fact, the first note: [***]. Then Beethoven, in the second part of the theme, intensifies its importance by repeating it over and over again in different forms: [***] no less than 10 times [Ex. 121]. In the

174

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

{Ex.121} Beethoven Fur Elise, WoO 59* [27 April, 1810}

"[Woo: Werke ohne Opuszahl (Works without opus numbers).]

second theme, which technically we would call an episode theme, he is trying to get away from the E in a very tender and more relaxed theme, but at the end suddenly ["" * 1here we are againl Then comes a second episode [Ex. 122]. This time, Beethoven does not attempt any more to get away from the sadness of the theme; on the contrary, he becomes ever more tragic and dramatic, repeating the bass-note first alone [***] then with its fifth [***] then finally, here is the climax, he moves the bass-note up one half-tone, from A to B-flat [***] after which the music sinks down with a last deep sigh [***] and the final repeat of the theme is just this, final. The way it ends, for me, has something cruel, in all its softness: [* * *]. Now, I cannot prove it, but I think that this story of the note E, as told in music, was invented by Beethoven because E was the initial of the little girl. And so, this obstinate little note is the redeeming feature in the composition which otherwise would almost be too heavy in content and mood for its form, and through the playing around with this one tone Beethoven provides a compensating element of lightness and grace.

Music Appreciation 101

175

[Ex. 122}

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Now it would be too much to expect from anybody to be aware of all these things consciously at a first hearing. I confess that only through an embarrassing accident my attention was brought to this point, when I once played this piece at a soldier's canteen during the war, on a piano where preCisely this tone did not work! ... [Ellipses by Wolff.] This brings me to another matter, the question of repeated hearing. Even for the most experienced listener, it is impossible to grasp the entirety of the music at a first hearing, as soon as the piece is something out of the ordinary. On the other hand, mechanical repetition is a dangerous thing. I am thinking especially of those of you who have a good phonograph and good records which you can play over and over again. There is no doubt that this constitutes one of the most helpful and important means of musical education. I have known people who became, without any active music-making, actual music-experts through having a fine record collection, and whose judgment one then could absolutely trust. But you have to be careful on two counts: first, you have to select the right records. Sec-

176

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

ond, you have to listen to them carefully every time you play them, just as if you were sitting at a concert, and not have them run as background music to dishwashing, letter writing and the like, the way one does so easily with radio. The second point needs no elucidation after what I said before. But about the first I have to say a few words. There is, first of all, a matter of interpretation. Every performance of a work, even the very best, even the Toscanini recording of a Beethoven symphony, or the Horowitz playing of a Chopin Scherzo, or the Lehmann singing of a Schubert lied, is to a certain extent arbitrary. One might do these things differently; the tempo, the phrasing, the expression might be different in a different interpretation. Stravinsky has recorded several of his earlier works at different epochs; and-if my memory is correct-the records do not absolutely coincide. Thus even the composer cannot be trusted to give a once-and-for-all perfect rendering of his works .... Therefore it is in a way dangerous to listen to one interpretation of a piece too often, because you cannot help getting used to the interpretation on this record, and will easily find any other interpretation wrong, or less good, etc. Therefore try to make it a point, when a piece which you own on records is given in a concert or over the air, to listen to it especially, and to listen to it with a view to hear things which you have failed to observe on your record. I will give you two examples of what I mean. The Finale of Brahms' Piano Concerto in B-flat major is marked allegretto grazioso, which means a graceful leisurely but lively tempo, and Brahms gives a metronome marking, too. I know two records of this piece, one by Horowitz, and one by Schnabel. Horowitz gives the emphasis to the lively, crisp character of the theme and plays it slightly faster than marked; Schnabel, on the other hand, mainly observes the graceful character of the piece and has a tendency, therefore, rather to play the movement on the slow side. I cannot attempt to imitate correctly the way they both do it, especially since I have not heard the recordings for some time, but it is something like this: [Ex. 123]. [Ex. 123} Brahms Piano Concerto No.2 in B-flat major, Finale

Music Appreciation 101

177

Now I am not saying that one is better or more correct than the other; rather I believe that the piece, like any masterpiece, has in it several possibilities of interpretation which no one can bring out all at once in a single performance. In this connection, I like the image of the reflected sun-ray: one ray can have an infinite amount of refractions; they are all faithful refractions of the sun-ray, but they go all in different directions. The same for interpretations: in every good piece there is more than one interpretation a musician can bring out in a performance. So, if you happen to own the Schnabel recording, let's say, and suddenly hear the Horowitz one played over the air, don't be prejudiced and critical in advance of everything he does differently, but rather try to understand new angles of the piece through the opportunity of hearing a new performance. (Of course, you do not have to be indiscriminate: afterward, you may still say that you prefer this or that in your own recording.) My other example is from Beethoven's "Coriolanus" Overture, and something out of my own experience. For the second theme, Toscanini emphasizes the bass: [* * *]. First I was a little shocked and did not understand the meaning of this emphasized bass line; then I realized that this bass is indeed important for the structure of the piece, for out of this rhythm develops the third theme of the Overture which concludes the first part: [* * *]. The same thing might happen to you with your gramophone records. You may happen to own a piece where the interpretation fails to bring out some of the important inner voices so clearly that you can hear them. Then, one day, you hear them at a concert, and from now on, when you listen to your record, you will be able to hear the same thing there, if a little less distinctly. When you select recordings, be very careful to select a performance which comes as close as possible to the original source. Always tell yourself, before you select a recording, THE COMPOSER KNEW BEST. See that you avoid buying transcriptions. They have their use wherever the original is not available, or not readily available. To play an opera score at the piano, or a symphony in a four-hand arrangement, makes sense, and is, in fact, the best preparation for a concert where you will hear it played by an orchestra, even if the arrangement is bad and is not too well played. Because there you are actively engaged in the reception of good music, and it is no psychological secret that anybody being active absorbs much more quickly and profoundly than anybody who just sits back passively. But on a record-where you are anyway more passive as a mere listenertranscriptions make no sense. And especially not the opposite kind of transcription where a bigger ensemble is substituted for a smaller one. There is always something to be said for the piano arrangement

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of an orchestra piece: it makes the music accessible to the home. Brahms, Debussy, even Schubert and sometimes Beethoven wrote themselves the piano arrangement to not a few of their scores. But since some time the reverse process has taken place: Schumann's Carnaval, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Bach's organ fugues, piano suites and other works have been arranged for orchestra where they lose their home tone color and their essential qualities. Of course, even here there are better and less good arrangements in the market. Berlioz, Tchaikovsky and other great composers started this fashion a long time ago: Schumann-Bach, Schonberg-Brahms. But they presupposed that the listener was familiar with the original and would enjoy the orchestration as an experiment, in the same way that one enjoys a variation over a well-known theme. Ravel's transcription of Mussorgsky, for instance, is a masterpiece of orchestration, but you miss the point if your knowledge of the piano score does not enable you to follow the subtleties of Ravel's interpretation (for that is what his orchestration amounts to: he interprets Mussorgsky's score by finding individual tone-colors for each little phrase). Today, however, these orchestrations have assumed the function of popularizing great music in a manner which is not much less crude than the movie biographies of famous composers. The result is that you know certain tunes written by great composers which otherwise you would not know, but that you do not know their right tone-color and therefore do not really know them. Another reason for bad transcriptions is the increased number of solo recitals by violinists, 'cellists, etc. Because the literature is not too big for these instruments, the famous virtuosos take to transcribing piano or chamber music or orchestra pieces, and sometimes beyond recognition in the endeavor to make them sound brilliant. When you select records, this is the kind of thing you would avoid, and-as a general indication-be on your guard of compositions listing two names as presumptive authors, Bach-Stokowski, ProkofieffHeifetz, and the like. Always see that you get the original. As I said: THE COMPOSER KNEW BEST. That also means that you should always see that you get the entire composition. Through the anthology collections which are published by the leading music houses, very often the general public is only acquainted with half a piece, or with one movement out of a sonata, or one song out of a song cycle. You then know the tunes and can enjoy them, but you do not know the context in which they were written. Take the so-called Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, for instance. First of all, the title is not Beethoven'S, and he would probably have protested against it. But, second, through the fault of this misleading title, which can only apply to the first of three movements,

Music Appreciation 101

179

[Ex. 124} Bach Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, Prelude No.1 in C major BWV 846

people are apt to forget that the slow movement with which the sonata begins is only a prelude-fantasy introducing the two other movements. So the whole picture is distorted when this movement is played alone or figures by itself in a piano music anthology. The classical example of horrible distortion, where transcription and isolation of part of a composition are combined, is the so-called Ave Maria by Bach-Gounod. First of all, Gounod took a prelude from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier [Ex. 124] without taking the fugue to which it preludes. This prelude, as you remember, moves in harmonies. I'll just play the beginning today, as I intend to come back more extensively to this music when we will discuss harmonies. To this progression of harmonies Gounod, a music-loving opera composer of great talent and ingenuity, invented a sentimental melody which, in its character, is absolutely opposed to Bach's prelude [Ex. 125]. This transcription has done much harm, precisely because tastelessness was combined here with talent, and the tune is catching, so that it is hard for those who have known the Gounod first to forget it entirely when they then become acquainted with the beautiful original. Therefore, wherever you listen to music, try to listen to a piece, or a group of pieces which belong together, like a sonata, a symphony, a quartet, a suite, a song cycle etc., in their entirety. In some radio performances, where time means money even more than usual, they

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

[Ex. 125] Bach-Gounod: Ave Maria p

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try to give a kind of digest of a concerto or a symphony, where more than one half is cut off, of one movement, and only one movement, in this amputated manner, is performed. A digest is all right for a scientific article, but not for art. Stay away from things like that, if you really want to listen to music. There are enough good performances of good music in its original form going on, so that one does not need distortions, amputations, digests, and other forms of popularization. I have spoken at length about records because this is a good and important example of listening to music repeatedly, for what is true of listening to records is true for listening to music in general. Now I want to conclude this general survey of the art of listening by two more observations: one warning, and one encouragement. The warning concerns listening to the performance of music as such. It is a general phenomenon of our time, not restricted to music, that people are inclined to concentrate more on the way in which a thing is presented than on the thing itself. When we read novels or even scientific books or books of philosophy, we are apt to watch for the author's style more than for what he has to say. In the words of a contemporary German philosopher (Jaspers), if we try to absorb

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something through a medium-for instance, try to learn a philosophical idea from a book, or to listen to a piano sonata in a piano recital-we are in the position of a man who looks outside his closed window: if his eyes are focused on the glass in the window, he will see whether the glass is clean or not, but he will not be able to see clearly what is beyond. In music the case is particularly manifest, for two reasons. One is that much of the music performed, including the very best, has an element of brilliancy which automatically makes you admire or criticize the performing artist and at the same time easily makes you forget the music which he performs. We listen to such marvels as the Emperor Concerto by Beethoven, and it can happen that our mind is focused on a pearl-like run, or a beautiful pianissimo sound, without relation to the music itself. The other reason is that the sound of music, just any chord played by any instrument, has something captivating, has a sensuous quality; and the same is true of melodies, as we will see next time; this is all right; we should enjoy it, should be happy when Heifetz plays a beautifully executed passage, why not. But we should remember that this is the body of the music, and that music also has a soul. (Brilliant music, too, has a soul.) Nearly all the great composers in their letters and verbal sayings have emphasized that brilliancy of execution can become a danger for what is essential in music. We have no reason to complain that there is so much brilliancy in our time; I think it is wonderful to know of so many fabulously acrobatic pianists, violinists and so ani but a brilliant execution is not all, and-I venture to point out-is not even always essential. As our understanding of music grows we shall be able more and more to recognize the greatness of the music even in a less brilliant and less perfect performance-or, to repeat the image-to feel the soul of the music even when the body is not perfectly beautiful-like an expressive but not pretty face. This is important especially for those of you who are lucky enough to hear music outside of public performances: in a home where amateurs or professionals sit down together and sightread chamber music, or things like that. Very often, in those sessions, the music is not perfectly performed but with much more enthusiasm and real grasping of its essential beauty when everybody is just discovering it, and you, being in the same room, participate in the general music joy and excitement much more actively; listener and performer really become one, as they can never in a concert hall. Another pitfall connected with brilliancy is that you may be inclined to watch how difficult certain passages are. Now, this is never fruitful, because you cannot know what is difficult and what isn't. Even in piano music I don't know myself unless I have practiced a

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

piece myself. So when I listen to a piano recital where a piece is played which I don't know well I assure you that I never even begin to think whether it is difficult to play. A great help is, in this respect, to listen with your ears only, and not also with your eyes. Don't try to sit on the left side so you can watch the pianist's hands; that may only distract your attention from what he is playing. That is my warning. And now to the final encouragement. Don't ever think that you cannot understand the music which is played, because you are not a trained musician .... I would say: when you hear a composition for the first time, always try to find something, and even if it is only one little phrase or motive, which you can pick up because you "take to it at sight," so to speak. Then you have a landmark in the strange landscape, and can find your way about more easily. You will also enjoy the fact that you can! As musical form depends on repetition and variation, you probably will find your landmark again after a while, either identical, or somehow changed and developed-as I will have to show you in later lectures. But the main thing is, try to find something that you can enjoy, and forget what you don't know. As I said here last Tuesday, that is the way to learn: you instruct yourselves by enjoying yourselves, "On s' instruit en s'amusant." I would say, that is the supreme rule of listening. Music has many elements, just like a body has different dimensions. In music there is melody, harmony, rhythm, tone-color, which you must be able to isolate to a certain extent when you want to enjoy listening to music. Of this, and of melodies and rhythms in particular, I shall speak and give examples next time.

[AUTHENTICITY] This excerpt was taken from what appeared to be a comprehensive class lecture on period instruments, early performance practices, and considerations for present-day interpretations. (Wolff did not indicate where the lecture took place or a date.)

To be authentic we need the 1Q.t.al picture: Authentic details in juxtaposition with anachronisms can be misleading. Our own mind has to be authentically the mind of a 1785 listener: if we dropped in on a Mozart recital of 1785, we would be disappointed. It is not a question just of ear adjustment to halls and instruments, but also of pre-knowledge of harmony, contemporary orchestral sound, etc., and putting out of your mind all the Beethoven, Rachmaninoff music you know, so that a Mozart dissonance has all the fragrance of the time. It is like reading Jane Austen (born 1775), after reading Zola or Joyce Carol Oates. On the other hand, forget the idea that we have made progress since then, and that authentic Mozart is less advanced in sound or largeness of concept than the music of yesterday and today. Don't think you have to play measured trills to be authentic, or do you believe that the birds in the Prater in Mozart's time sang measured trills? Don't think that big sound is anti-Mozart; the voices he used in opera were just as big as now-or do you believe that the trees were less green in the 18th century?

THE BEGINNINGS

OF CYCLIC FORM * Wolff was asked to give an informal program for a "house warming" party at his manager's new apartment in New York City. The following excerpts of the program have been interwoven by the editor with parts of a class lecture on the same subject (place and date not recorded). A series of asterisks indicates a demonstration at the piano by Wolff.

As I am professionally connected as a lecturer-pianist with our gentle host, King Henry, with the invaluable help of Queen Ann and their charming Princess, I have been asked to open tonight's program with a few words, illustrated at the piano, about a fitting musical subject. The most fitting would have been, of course, if I could have taken Beethoven's glorious overture "Die Weihe des Hauses," because consecration of the house is what we are here for tonight. However, I am no orchestra. So I wondered what else might be fitting. This being Apartment SB, the famous piece of music came to my mind which opens with five B's [Ex. 126]. But again, I would need an orchestra. I don't know whether you have looked around and seen the whole apartment. If you do, you will find that it is, indeed, a royal suite, which suggests the idea of a royal suite by Couperin to be played. But once more, the piano is the wrong instrument. This idea, however, put me on the right track. What I like so much about this new place of the Colbert dynasty is that, big as it is, an underlying unity connects the many rooms, reflecting the spirit and taste of our hosts. And so I began to think about how in suites and, later, in sonatas, * [Cyclic Form: Use of the same themes and motives in different movements of a symphony or sonata, etc. The word "cyclic" is aptly chosen: according to the Oxford Concise Dictionary, cycle means a recurrent period of events, phenomena, etc., and, speaking of cycles of poems, the dictionary defines the word even more precisely as a complete series collected around a central event. This is exactly also what is meant here. -Wolff]

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

[Ex. 126} Beethoven Piano Concerto No.4 in G major, Op. 58 Allegro moderato II· tJ

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symphonies and quartets, the classical composers sometimes created a secret connection between the different movements by weaving into their texture some basic idea which only the initiated is in a position to notice consciously, but which gives to everybody a feeling of particular unity within the work as a whole . . . . Let us go back to the beginnings. It is as far back as the middle ages that the idea of a succession of movements based on one theme was carried out by composers in the so-called cantus firmus, or fixed song, in most cases a Roman Catholic liturgical melody in long equal notes which was used as a foundation for a succession of different short movements or sections. It would, for instance, be given to the tenor (hence the name) in one, to the soprano in another movement. Bach then uses the same old procedure in his cantatas for the treatment of the Lutheran chorales. Here it sometimes approaches actual variation forms. But it is instrumental music that we have to look [to] for the roots of cyclic form, and that, the music of Bach offers to us. Let us, for instance, look at the suites. As you kow, the different movements of a suite are in the same key, but in rhythm and speed and melodic invention they are different and in theory independent. However, the unity of tonality very easily leads to a certain similarity, for all composers have certain moods and types of patterns which they associate with a definite key-a vast subject into which I cannot dive here, but think of what Mozart does in G minor, Brahms in D minor, Beethoven in C minor-. Also, the form of a suite as handled by Bach emphasizes unity rather than contrast; when I hear a Bach suite played, I feel that I am being led around a central building and see one of its sides after another. Therefore it is not surprising to see the same thematic and harmonic sequences pop up in different dances of a suite, and it is at first hard to say whether this is an intentional formal feature, or a subconscious return to similar patterns. See the B minor suite 97 [Ex. 127], for instance. Are these traits intentional? It seems they are. For one thing, it is hard to imagine that Bach

The Beginnings of Cyclic Form

187

[Ex. 127] Bach Suite in B minor, BWV 1067

QUVERTURE*

'[Wolff did not indicate which parts of the Suite he selected for demonstration. The examples presented here are by the editor. The scoring is for flute, violin I, violin II, viola, and continuo.]

should come back to so unusual a pattern as the deceptive cadence merely by accident. And secondly, there are other cases in which the thematic relationship certainly is more than accidental. I am thinking in the first place of his D minor suite for violin alone [also referred to as Partita II], the one which leads up to the Chaconne. The basic harmonic pattern of the Chaconne theme [Ex. 128] is anticipated several times, most clearly in the Allemande [Ex. 129], and in the Sarabande [Ex. 130]. [Ex. 128] Bach Suite for Violin in D minor, BWV 1004 Ciaccona

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Another manifest example in Bach was caused by a special situation; I am speaking of the trio sonata from the Musical Offering, for flute, violin, and continuo, written on a theme invented by King Frederick * -another king hailing from Berlin-in which this theme [Ex. 131], of course, is used in everyone of the four movements. It is worthwhile to investigate how Bach does it, because it shows up the problem of motivic unity in general. In the first Largo, the beginning five notes of the theme are used for a base [Ex. 132]. The second movement uses the theme as it is, as one of the counterpoints to the opening theme [Ex. 133]. The third movement hides it so well that one has to look for it with great care until one finds it, snuggled in, in the bass again [Ex. 134]. The finale then again uses the theme openly, but in a new, most expressive variant [Ex. 135].98 [Ex. 131]

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The Beginnings of Cyclic Form

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... But this sonata is the only work of Bach in this form in which the theme recurs in the different movements. Why does he not use the cyclic form in any of his other sonatas? And the same question applies even more strongly to the works of Haydn and Mozart. I am not familiar with all of Haydn's quartets and symphonies; in the works I know I do not recall any, even faint, use of the cyclic form. And as to Mozart, the only clear example of it occurs in one of the six Haydn quartets which I shall show you presently. lOG Now what was the reason? To our mentality, to the generations since Brahms, Wagner and the modern French school, it seems almost a matter of course that the unity of a work in several movements should be stressed by using related thematic material in its several parts. But for one thing, Mozart's and Haydn's works, on the whole,

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The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

were much shorter than those of the later composers who gradually re-introduced cyclic forms. Therefore, in their composing, the accent was necessarily on diversity rather than on unity. Secondlyand this is the principal reason-their conception of composing was different from ours. Although Haydn and Mozart did more than anybody else to perfect the art of developing sonata themes, their art was principally considered under the aspect of melodic inventiveness. The greatest composer in the opinion of the time certainly was the one who invented the maximum of beautiful melodies. This conception, stemming from Italian music and from operatic music, remained predominant for a long time, until finally Beethoven's influence led the music world to come round to the idea that the material does not matter, and that the art of composing absolute music 101 is the art of developing a suitable theme. This latter opinion I share, too, although, of course, I recognize the melodic inventiveness of Haydn, Mozart, and also Beethoven, not to speak of Schubert, as an integral part of their creative gift. But take the case of Dvorak and Brahms, for instance. The themes of Brahms, taken as such, are, for the most part, poor, when compared to the beautiful melodies which his disciple Dvorak invented so easily. But see what Brahms does with his themes, and how little, in nearly every case, comes out in the works in Dvorak! So I think we will agree Brahms was by far the greater composer. It would have been nice, especially since they were personally on good terms, if they could have written a symphony together, Dvorak inventing the themes, and Brahms developing them. To go back to Mozart and Haydn, since this was their professional conception of composing, use of the same theme in several movements of the same work would have been cheating at the rules of the game, and was out of the question. Quoting a theme used previously is something else, which Mozart once did, in a jesting spirit, in the course of one of the horn concertos. However, there is one case in which Mozart made an entire work out of one motivic germ. He hides it so skillfully that the unsuspecting listener, likely, did not notice anything exceptional, but there is no mistaking Mozart's intention. I am speaking of the A major quartet which is one of the six quartets dedicated to Haydn. It results from Mozart's dedication; he had taken more trouble composing these works than with nearly any other of his compositions (except the operas and the Piano Concerto in E Flat, K. 271) and used them as a kind of master thesis in quartet writing, proving to himself and to the world that he had learned from Haydn how to conquer this new and difficult medium. Therefore the series, as such, is not unlike the series of works which Bach used to write. Each one is different in its basic structure, and there is some-

The Beginnings of Cyclic Form

191

thing experimental about them in general, a trait one misses in most of the rest of Mozart's output. This may explain why, in one of the six quartets, he tried his hand at the cyclic form. The connection is generally well hidden, as I said, but in the first two movements, which are both in triple time, it is nevertheless so evident that the editors of the publishing house of Peters must have become aware of it so that, correcting Mozart, they reversed the order of the middle movements in the current edition. The result is that to this day, nine times out of ten, we hear the quartet in an order not wanted by the composer! This quartet was Beethoven's favorite quartet which he copied in part for his own study. When he experimented with the cyclic form, he must therefore have known that his attempt was not unprecedented. Which brings us to the Pathetique, according to Vincent d'Indy, the first cyclic piece in the music literature. This, as we have seen, is not correct, but it is Beethoven's first cyclic piece, if not exactly in the way in which d'Indy probably meant it. What struck d'lndy-at least, I presume so-was the similarity of the second subject of the first movement [Ex. 136] with the rondo theme of the last [Ex. 137]. Also in the middle episodes of the slow movement, we find another form of the same theme, as my friend Kurt Appelbaum showed me [Exs. 138 and 139]. But this similarity is, to my taste, unimportant and it is almost misleading to point it out as cyclic. It may well have been accidental and does not reveal anything of importance for the structure of the sonata, as a whole. The real cyclic [Ex. 136} Beethoven: Piano Sonata, Op. 13, (Pathetique) 1st mvt., mm. 51-55 Allegro di molta e coo brio

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element is much more subtly presented. It consists in the harmonic scheme used throughout the work. Nearly everything is based on the diminished seventh chord and on the harmonic minor scale which as you know contains this chord. Beethoven ... especially in his latest period, used the basic connection between movements as an essential means of construction. Again, I am not speaking of the occasional quotation, like in the Ninth Symphony and in the sonata Op. 101 where the opening theme is rejected just before the opening of the finale. I am speaking of basic ideas permeating an entire sonata or quartet. But this procedure is a new one. He does not use the same themes; instead he builds the entire work from a basic musical idea, like upward-downward, highlow, etc. In some of his earlier works, this does not come out very clearly, and one may doubt whether the connection was a conscious one. I, for instance, think that the idea of the violin concerto was the unfolding of the tonality of D. It starts with the repeated key note and both themes of the first movement are diatonic, containing only intervals of a second [Exs. 140 and 1411. Thus, the D major chord, in the theme of the last movement, gives something more, something new [Ex. 142J. The proof of this, in my opinion, as an intentional build-up, is given by the Emperor Concerto. In the first movement after a preluding cadence which also explains the first theme, the second subject is again strictly diatonic [Ex. 143], and the theme of the finale [Ex. 144], is so similar to that of the violin concerto that one could actually play them together [* * *].

The Beginnings of Cyclic Form

[Ex. 140J

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In his last works, the cycle of great quartets, Beethoven then actually used one basic motive in all three quartets, as Paul Bekker demonstrated 40 years ago. They are the quartets in A minor, Op. 132-the one with the Dankgesang* in the Lydian Mode-, the quartet in B Flat Major Op. 130, to which also belonged the Great Fugue Op. 133, because it was originally written as the Finale of this quartet, and, finally, the quartet in C-Sharp Minor, in seven movements played without interruption, Op. 131. These three works are based on one common set of intervals of half-steps and sixths almost in the manner of a Schoenbergian 12-tone row inasmuch as the intervals are invariably given at the very beginning of each quartet for everyone to hear and to remember. The clearest case is that of Op. 132 [Ex. 145]. Here only the first movement contains the germ motive. In Op. 130, we find it at the very beginning [Ex. 146] and in the [Ex. 145] Beethoven Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, opening Assai sostenuto Violillo I Violino

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The Beginnings of Cyclic Form

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Fugue [Ex. 1471. In Op. 131, finally, it pervades almost the whole quartet [Ex. 148]. Let me give you just a few instances, also of other cyclic patterns connecting the compositions. [***]. It has been said that if one believes in dividing Beethoven's life into epochs, the epoch of the late quartets ought to count as a separate, fourth epoch. I believe this is true and it rhymes well with Beethoven's words, during his last illness, that "it seems to me as if I have written only a very few notes."

196

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

[Ex. 148} Quartet in C# minor, Op. 131

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[Ex. 169} Beethoven Piano Concerto No.1 in C, Op.15, Finale, m. 1

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notes before the main note. These things happen so often that one gets the impression of mannerisms, of bad habit. It is something, I have the feeling, which he failed to control. Sometimes he probably did, but in the finale of the Beethoven C major Concerto it was his way of showing how Beethoven foreshortens the phrases. Of course it was not out of control. It had a musical purpose. It may have been the wrong means ... [Ellipses as in text of Music Sounded Out.]

Let me put it differently. The musical purpose is too thickly underlined. Musical ideas cannot be presented as fixed ideas. Schnabel's treatment of rhythm too often gives

The Brendel-Wolff "Debate"

Wolff

Brendel

Wolff Brendel

237

me the feeling ... [ellipses by Brendel] well, that he thought a continuous rhythmic pulse was boring. There is a matter of principle in his playing where principle should not come in. He had a great fear, which came out in his teaching, in his criticism of his students, of being what one usually calls "notey"-that one would hear too many single notes. He always quoted a negative review that he had had many years earlier, where a critic wrote, "His semi-quavers sounded like peas counted by a prisoner. II Apparently that was what he wanted to avoid under all circumstances. Do you have some of that same fear-of playing one note after the other in fast music? Well, first of all I wouldn't listen too attentively to critics. I try to make out what the music requires. There may be a situation where evenness of rhythm is essential. I think that is more often the case than Schnabel's playing would disclose. But does evenness of rhythm exclude expressive playing? Wasn't it Schnabel who, when asked "Do you play with feeling or in time? /I responded: "Why shouldn't I feel in time? /I But let me go on to another matter. The central area of my disagreement with Schnabel is not the treatment of rhythm, it is the treatment of tempo. Yes. It is probably a generation difference too. I ask myself whether this is the case. If I compare performances of other great players of Schnabel's generation, like Cortot and Fischer, then I find that fast movements and fast pieces are often played faster than some people would dare to play them today, whereas the treatment of slow tempi varies. For instance, Cor tot never played extremely slowly in his whole life. Not that I missed it, but he got away without playing a real Largo. Fischer tended to play slow movements fluently, particularly Andantes, and told his pupils that there is a marked difference between Andante and a really slow movement. On the other hand he could expand the tempo of a Largo, as the one in Beethoven's First Concerto, to wonderful effect. With Schnabel I get the impression (and he says so in the book) that he wants extremes of tempo. He suggests it to be a virtue to play a slow movement slower than anybody would expect. He also suggests that it is an interesting way to amaze the listener to start a fast movement faster than the listener thinks one can manage, and I have the feeling that he is really doing that in some of his own perfor-

238

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

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mances. Here I do disagree. I think that playing music as slow or as fast as possible makes music into something bordering on sport .... May I say that you simplify his approach to tempo a little bit. For instance, in certain symphonic first movements, he tried to have the tempo slow enough to have the music develop with a certain majestic quiet. The examples that come to my mind are not from piano music but chamber music. In two B flat trios, the" Archduke" and the Schubert B flat, he usually criticized everyone for being too fast in the first movements. There again he was not quite alone in his generation. And yet if I think of the recordings I have heard, of most of the Beethoven sonatas, the general impression remains of extreme tempi. Of course, I ask myself whether he always played like that, whether that was his intention, or whether a certain amount of nerves made him play too fast and, in slow movements, extremely slowly. You must remember that records in those days were only about four minutes long, and therefore the tempo of slow movements was occasionally slightly modified for recordings. For instance, I don't recall the slow movement of the Beethoven Fourth Concerto played as fast by him as on his record. It had to fit on two sides. This is a great pity, because it is an Andante can mota and I think it should be played flowing! I remember being told that Schoenberg was listening to a performance of Schnabel playing the Beethoven C minor Concerto on the radio. There was the first chord of the slow movement, then the second one never came, and Schoenberg said, "I can't count any longer!"

2 Sound Brendel Wolff Brendel

I never heard Schnabel in the concert hall. I only have second-hand experience from the records. I heard him often in his house and in the concert hall. In my opinion, the pirated records are the best reproduction of his real sound. I must say that from the records I do admire his sound very much. It is one of the reasons why Schnabel is a constant source of inspiration to me ....

The Brendel-Wolff "Debate"

Wolff Brendel

Wolff

Brendel

Wolff Brendel Wolff

239

How do you react to Schnabel's rules for the ratio of loudness within chords?l23 I think that the ratio of loudness of chords depends very much on the character of the music. For example, at the beginning of the "Waldstein" Sonata you have fourvoiced chords. If you play them in the manner recommended in the book (the soprano and bass leading and the middle voices slightly in the background) you will get a great deal of clarity but a totally wrong atmosphere. The atmosphere of this beginning is pianissimo misterioso ... [ellipses by Brendel). In the book there are several categories, if I may contradict you, and you have to find the right category. The category where they are all in the same register, as is the case in this beginning. The category of the soprano and the bass being stronger than the inner voices would not obtain but, instead, the category is where they all belong lito one family." Yes, but even with chords in the same position it is imperative to see which colour is required, which atmosphere, which distance (I mean that space-like quality which music can convey). In the case of the "Waldstein," it is not daylight but dawn, I would say, not bright energy but mystery-even within the strict rhythmic pulse-and for me that tips the balance in favour of the inner voices. I play the inner voices slightly stronger than the outer voices. That makes the chord sound softer. This is an important matter. If the outer voices are played louder than the inner voices it does not sound pianissimo, no matter how soft you try to play them. The inner voices, in certain positions, give the dolce character, the warmth .... I personally feel, after listening to pianists like Cortot, Fischer and Kempf£ ... that to bring out the bass line is usually unnecessary. It is the basis of the harmony, of course, and it should be controlled perfectly, but it only needs to be pointed out where it denotes energy or where the bass has a special melodic or motivic or atmospheric importance. Otherwise, in music with functional harmony every musicallistener will hear the bass more or less automatically, even if it is played very softly. Yes, that is the difference between you and Schnabel which I have also sometimes noticed when you play. Yes? Sometimes my bass line is perhaps too soft? It sometimes seems that way to me.

240

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

Brendel Wolff Brendel

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Yes? I can't recall a recent occurrence where it seemed so to me, but several years ago there were moments. There were, yes. I realized that myself and hope I have corrected it. I still think that to favour melody and bass as the two most important components of musical writing is, in practice, not always very successful. ... I should also like to mention balance rules for the playing of octaves, of which Schnabel says that they are usually duplications of the main voice. From the standpoint of part-writing this may be very true, but as a principle of giving more value to the main voice during the performance, I would not always agree .... I would not accept the principle that in an octave there is necessarily one leading voice and an accompanying one. There are octaves where both notes have to be exactly equally loud, sounding so to speak, like one instrument. There are octaves where the inner voice, even in melodic passages, comes in like a duplication with a horn. For instance, let's take the Schubert G major Sonata [Ex. 170], about which we talked earlier-the beginning of the first movement. I do not play the upper voice louder than the octave. I favour the sixth in the right hand and make the high voice accompany, gently, and that gives warmth and body to the sound, whereas if I were to bring out the soprano it would, to me, sound too direct. But Schnabel thought, I believe, as he usually did in such cases, of the third on top, like a soprano and alto singing in duet, and that's why he took the B in the left hand-the B below middle C.

[Ex. 170] Schubert Sonata in G major, Op. 78, 1st mvt. Molto moderato e cantabile .

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The Brendel-Wolff "Debate"

Brendel

241

But then, what is the role of the thumb in this theme? There is a continuity of colour in the line of the thumb, and nearly all of it is a doubling of the soprano. It should sound particularly relaxed, and it lies so well in the hand. Why interrupt this continuity? To my ears, the sound of thirds and sixths should often be on the dark side. That means that the lower voice in Schubert and Brahms has to be at least as prominent and expressive as the main voice-particularly in minor keys. If I listen to the slow movement of Schubert's B flat Sonata, at least the thought that the inner voice is the most meaningful is valuable to me, even if it is not louder than the soprano. Maybe it comes just a split second after the soprano and thus draws imperceptibly a little attention to itself. Wolff I hear and enjoy these things when you do them. The other day you did something extraordinary and beautiful. In the B flat Impromptu (Schubert 0.935, No.3), just before the end, is a sforza to that I am always afraid of. You played it so that it was a sforzato but it had no violence, no harshness-you gave it the right dose. Brendel I changed the balance. That, for me, is often the solution and there is no secret about it. Other people have done it before. If I look at the accents of the A minor Sonata (D. 784), in the second movement, they are not positive accents which stand out dynamically; they ask for a change of colour in favour of inner voices, which gives the impression of pointing to a particular meaning or conveying something which is more private than anything before. Wolff To end, let me ask you this: is there anyone point or points, in general, where you think that Schnabel's doctrines, in the way I have tried to explain them, are valid and important? Brendel Your question tells me that I must have given the impression of being entirely critical. I apologize! The subject of our conversation was to find out where Schnabel's approach, as you put it forward, differs from mine. I often feel close to Schnabel: when he speaks about general matters I usually share his opinion. When he goes into certain details of performance, such as rhythm and tempo, I sometimes have to disagree. I would say that the majority of things in the book are totally natural to me. I estimate that I would accept about two-thirds of your book with joy, and leave one-third open to discussion. And with all my queries, it remains the most stimulating and thought-provok-

242

The Writings and Letters of Konrad Wolff

ing professional book that I have read in many years-to be precise, since Schnabel's own Music and the Line of Most Resistance. 124 (1979)

Addendum by Alfred Brendel In 1989 Brendel wrote an addendum, a few points of which are presented below. Looking through this interview ten years later, I feel that I should add a few more instances of my dissent, if only for the sake of argument. Musicians who prefer to remain unaware of what they are doing may look at such scrutinizing as a useless contest in cleverness. This, I think, would not be quite fair. Konrad Wolff's, and Schnabel's, focus was on the discussion of musical matters, not on the promotion of personal glory and superiority. So is mine.

Schnabel avoided "playing measured trills and turns exactly coinciding with the figurations of the left hand." An idiosyncratic statement, to me unacceptable as a rule .... Schnabel, during a crescendo, "would not admit any drop in loudness between beats, not even in the event of two-note phrasings" (p. 112). Why not? I see the completely even crescendo rather as the exception, the crescendo that incorporates smaller declamatory dynamics as the rule. [Wolff had illustrated: "Thus, in bar 24 of Beethoven's Sonata in A flat, op. 110, he (Schnabel) ruled out any diminuendo from the first to the second beat" (Ex. 171).] "Ritardandos should only be made where they are marked." In another essay125 I have reproduced a list of unmarked opportunities Ex. 171

Beethoven Sonata in Ab, Gp. 110, 1st mvt., m. 24

[Reprint from Schnabel's Interpretation of Piano Music, p. 112.J

The Brendel-Wolff "Debate"

243

for ritardando, or ritenuto, given by Czerny in his Pianoforte School Op.500. If, in contrapuntal music, "two equally important parts are to be brought out with equal clarity, they should not be played equally loudly." Agreed. But "in a two-part setting the lower of the two parts must always be softer than the upper" (p. 160). No, it must not. Either way is possible.

Sections of the concluding paragraphs of the addendum (and of Music Sounded Out) follow. It might be added that Sir Alfred's final two lines are ~aralleled.

I never met Schnabel, and do not belong to the legion of his enthralled pupils. Yet he remains one of the great musicians I relate to, both in admiration and in criticism. I should like to close these pages by quoting some of Schnabel's (and Konrad Wolff's) statements I am only too glad to share. Schnabel" always encouraged students to find out as much as possible about the structure, harmonies, motivic technique, etc., usedin each score. But there is no basis for interpretation in most of this . . . . [Ellipses by Brendel.] To begin the study of a new work by analyzing its form, in school term-paper fashion, is more harmful than helpful. ... [Ellipses by Brendel.] True analysis is but a clarification and intensification of musical sensitivity, an additional push in the right direction as established by musical instinct" (pp. 18-19). Like Schnabel, I feel that few analytic insights have a direct bearing on performance, and that analysis should be the outcome of an intimate familiaritywith the piece rather than an input of established concepts .... lilt is a mistake to imagine that all notes should be played with equal intensity or even be clearly audible. In order to clarify the music it is often necessary to make certain notes obscure" (p. 157). Complete and permanent clarity of execution is a manner of playing which, instead of serving the music, is content with itself. It happens to be the beau ideal of most record producers. liThe performer's inner ear hears everything twice: each little bit is mentally anticipated as well as checked out by later control. If all goes well, these two mental perceptions are blended into one or, as Schnabel phrased it: 'The conception materalizes and the materialization redissolves into conception.' "126 An event as mysterious as parallel lines meeting in the infinite. If all went well, Schnabel made them meet. (1989)

NOTES Frontispiece Note 1. Barry Cooper, an authority on deciphering and interpreting Beethoven's sketches, has made a good case (in variance with the scholar Robert Winter) that" a certain group of sketches" found in Beethoven's small pocket notebook "can be identified with reasonable certainty as having been intended for the Tenth Symphony." (Barry Cooper, "Newly Identified Sketches for the Tenth Symphony," Music and Letters, Vol. 66, No. I, Jan. 1985, pp. 9-18). Although Beethoven knew exactly how his sketches translated into sound, Dr. Cooper has performed a real service in clarifying them for the rest of us. Below are a few of his "realizations" of the sketch in the Frontispiece, marked in Beethoven's hand, "Finale des ersten Stiicks" (Finale of the first movement). It appears that the first two lines here correspond to the first three lines in the autograph; the third line here, to the last two lines in the autograph.

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In his discussion of the Ode in the Ninth Symphony, Konrad Wolff emphasizes the importance of the rising major sixth (see pp. 69-71). Barry Cooper emphasizes the importance of the rising sevenths and especially the minor sixteenths (two octaves and a semitone) in the Tenth Symphony. In Wolff's article on cyclic form, he uses the term "something more" to describe the intervallic enlargements from the diatonic (stepwise) themes in the first movements of the Emperor and Violin Concertos to the arpeggiated chordal themes in their last movements (see pp. 19293). The words "something more" come to mind in a different context but more literal sense relating to the "stretched intervals from the Ninth to the Tenth Symphonies. (What limits expressivity!) Cooper underlines the significance of the leaps in the Tenth as he sums up a few of his thoughts in this excerpt from the end of his article: "Hence the Tenth Symphony, long dismissed as either a lost work or an illusion, can be seen as possessing real musical substance, even though it came nowhere near completion. Had Beethoven lived to finish the work it would doubtless have turned out to be very different from its tentative beginnings, but some of the main features described above would probably have survived, as they generally did in other cases. The use of large leaps seems to have been such a central feature of the movement that one would expect them to have been kept in some form, and very likely as minor 16ths. II

II

Biographical Sketch 2. Another musician whose father insisted that he study the law was Adolph Bernhard Marx (1795-1866). He quit that profession, however, and became an important music scholar to whom Beethoven referred as "that gifted Herr Marx. I hope that he will continue to reveal more and more what is noble and true in the sphere of art" (letter to Adolph Martin Schlesinger, Baden, 19 July 1825, New Beethoven Letters, translated and annotated by Donald W. MacArdle and Ludwig Misch, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957, p. 474). Harold C. Schonberg (see p. 155) referred interestingly to Marx's insight into Beethoven's music (Ludwig van Beethoven, Berlin: Otto Janke, 1863). "Marx ... introduced the concept of Idealmusik, the idea being that the music of Beethoven had as much to do with ethics as with pure tone" (The Lives of the Great Composers, New York: W. W. Norton, 1970, p. 103). 3. Rene Leibowitz and Konrad Wolff, Erich Itor Kahn (Paris: Correa Ed., 1958). 4. Helicon: the title of Robin Seto's composition referred to in the introductory paragraphs of this letter.

Notes

247

Bach Albert Schweitzer, f. S. Bach (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1907). Johann Christoph Altnikol (1719-1759), Bach's pupil and copyist. G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English essayist, critic, and novelist. The title page of the textbook has been inserted by the editor, as has the quotation that follows. Wolff had left a large blank space following his words: "This is what he says. II The editor believes this passage to be the one he intended. 9. This passage is Bach's rewording of thoughts expressed by Friedrich Niedt (1674-1708 I, the writer of a textbook on figured bass realizations (The Musical Guide) [New York: Oxford University Press, 1989] and a student of Bach's cousin, Johann Nicolaus Bach (1669-1753). Pamela L. Poulin, who translated and explained Bach's treatise (based in large part on Niedt's book), surmised as follows: "Perhaps Sebastian received a copy of the Musical Guide from Nicolaus and saw that it would serve well as a starting point for his teaching . . . . As with music by other composers attractive to Bach, both Niedt's words and musical examples are refashioned to suit Bach's purposes .... It seems that in his teaching Bach would rather demonstrate musically, would rather lecture than write down his own theories, or better yet, dictate his ideas for his wife, son, or students to take down .... Refining the words of another must have appeared attractive to this busy composer" (pp. xvii-xix). Dr. Poulin adds an interesting quotation on Bach's preferences by his student and organ virtuoso Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809):

5. 6. 7. 8.

When Sebastian Bach performed a church cantata, one of his most capable pupils always had to accompany on the harpsichord. It will be easily guessed that no one dared to put forward a meager thoroughbass accompaniment. Nevertheless, one always had to be prepared to have Bach's hands and fingers intervene among the hands and fingers of the player, and without getting in the way of the latter, furnish the accompaniment with masses of harmonies which made an even greater impression than the unsuspected close proximity of the strict teacher. (p. xxi) Pamela L. Poulin, f. S. Bach's Precepts and Principles for Playing the Thorough-bass or Accompanying in Four Parts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 10. Wolff, however, points out distinguishing factors between the two compositions, in Masters of the Keyboard, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989). The Italianisms of the Italian Concerto were meant to contrast with the Gallicisms of the French Overture, as can be deduced from the way in which Bach juxtaposed the two pieces, calling one "in the Italian taste" and the other "in the French manner." Bach's Italian style was influenced by Vivaldi, his favorite composer. The music is distinguished by its textural simplicity: minimal embellishments and polyphony.... The French style of the Overture ... seems to originate with a totally different kind of composer. Here we discover playful ornaments, piquant polyphonic rhythmic games .... The performer who is aware of these stylistic contrasts will observe and enjoy these sophisticated nuances in the French Overture while giving prime attention in the Italian Concerto to architectural designs, tonal beauty, and direct expression of strong feelings. (pp. 23-24)

248

Notes

11. Novation: the substitution of a new legal obligation for an old one [as by a substitution of a new contract, a new debtor, or a new creditor for an old one). Webster's Third New International Dictionary.

Mozart 12. "Ludwig von Kochel (1800-1877), Viennese botanist and mineralogist, was dismayed by the chaotic disorder of Mozart's opus numbers. Kochel exactingly studied their actual chronology, published the first complete edition, and earned a peculiar immortality in the K-numbers thereafter attached to the master's works." Quote from the New York Times, editorial page, June 14, 1997. 13. Alfred Einstein [1880-1952), musicologist and author, wrote a revised edition of Kochel's catalog of Mozart's oeuvre (1937) and other important works. 14. Charles Rosen (1927-) pianist, author of The Classical Style [New York: Viking Press, 1971) and The Romantic Generation [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). 15. Mischa Schneider, 'cellist of the Budapest Quartet.

Beethoven 16. Rosen, The Classical Style. 17. Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903), German classical historian. 18. Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (1818-1897), Swiss historian and writer, described by the Dutch historian Huizinga as the "wisest man of the 19th century." 19. Beethoven himself, however, was not enamored of this work and was furious that it was so popular. 20. Beethoven, acceding to the prEssures of his publisher, substituted a lighter Finale for his Quartet in B major, Op. 130. The original Finale was published separately as The Grosse Fugue, Op. 133. (In a New York concert in May 1998, the Emerson Quartet played this quartet with the original Finale and, as an encore, played the substituted one.) 21. Anton Schindler [1795-1864), Beethoven's friend and biographer, Beethoven [Boston: Oliver Ditson, English edition, 1841, p. 406). Many statements that he attributed to Beethoven are deemed by scholars to have been figments of Schindler's imagination or exaggerations. However in Masters of the Keyboard, Wolff refers to Peter Stadlen's observation: "The fact that so many of Schindler's reports proved to have been put in later by Schindler himself, to give his statments the ring of authenticity, does not necessarily mean that their musical substance is inaccurate. In this instance it is more likely that at some time or other Beethoven said exactly what Schindler attributed to him" (p. 116). Peter Stadlen [1910-1996), concert pianist, is author of Schindler's Beethoven Forgeries [London: Musical Times, 1977, pp. 549-52). Also see the German original: "Zu Schindlers Fiilschungen in Beethovens Konversationsheften," Oesterreichische Musikzeitung 32 (1977), p. 250.

Notes

249

22. The vibration on 0 is repeated for 38 measureSi using Wolff's analyses of the Waldstein Sonata (Exs. 20 and 211 and the Archduke Trio (Exs. 25a and 25bl as models, it becomes clear that the vibration does continue, with little interruption, in one form or another, through the entire movement. For example, a variation of the vibration occurs in measures such as 73-80, where quarter note repetitions become eighth note repetitions, adding rhythmic activity but retaining the essentials of the concept. Beethoven, Sonata in D major, Op. 28, 1st mvt., mm. 73-80

The development section starts with twenty measures of the quarter note vibrations, heralding the tumult that follows. When the concluding section of this mvt. is reached, the vibrations return "in pure form," vividly recalling the opening. 1st mvt. conclusion

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23. Beethoven's diary of 1820; see Hiirlimann, M., ed. Beethoven: Briefe und Gespriiche [Zurich: Atlantis, 1944], p. 239. See also Solomon, Beethoven's Tagebugh, p. 261; and idem, Beethoven [New York: Schirmer Books, 1977], p. 37. [Wolff] 24. Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), German composer and noted writer, with a penchant for detailed listings. He wrote an encyclopedia describing his musical ideas, and a book containing the biographies of 148 composers. (Advanced for his time, he advocated the inclusion of women in church choirs, and good musical education for musicians, with adequate payment for their services.) 25. J. N. Maelzel (1772-1838), credited as the inventor of the metronome. 26. TournaI of the American Musicological Society.

Notes

251

27. Konrad Wolff, The Teaching of Artur Schnabel (New York: Praeger, 1972), pp. 121-22. 28. "Essentially, Schnabel heard trills as what they are in singing, namely the vibration of a single note. With very few exceptions this referred to the lower tone of the trill, and Schnabel listened to its rapid repeats rather than to both trill notes equally. The result was that the two notes were even in their timing but uneven in strength, the auxiliary note being softer than the principal note. The trill was always played as rapidly as possible so that it would be just a vibration, avoiding an accent on the very first beginning, so as to get the motion fully going at once. Played this way, the trill could have an almost 'transcendental' power." Ibid., p. 177. 29. In his Memoirs, Czerny wrote of his lessons with Beethoven: " ... He especiall y insisted on legato technique, which was one of the unforgettable features of his playingj at that time all other pianists considered that kind of legato unattainable, since the hammered, detached staccato technique of Mozart's time was still fashionable. [Emphasis by Czerny.] (Some years later Beethoven told me that he had heard Mozart play on several occasions and that, since at that time the forte-piano was still in its infancy, Mozart, more accustomed to the then still prevalent Fliigel [harpsichordL used a technique entirely unsuited for the fortepiano.)" (from R. R. Gerig, Famous Pianists and Their Technique, Washington and New York: Robert B. Luce, 1974), p. 90. 30. Debussy's attitude toward Beethoven showed the same tendency. Harold Bauer tells in his memoirs about a concert where he had dragged Debussy and in which a Beethoven quartet was performedj shortly after the beginning Debussy ran out, loudly exclaiming: "There goes that man again, developing his themes!" [Wolff] [Complete citation is: Harold Bauer, Harold Bauer: His Book (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), p. B2. With permission of W. W. Norton, 194B.] 31. From his earliest times Beethoven had a special gift for writing gratifying coda sections. As examples one may think of the A-flat major Variations in the Sonata, Op. 26, and of the slow movement of the First Symphony. His technique usually consists of inventing a different and harmonically simpler version of the main motif, in which the tensions of the preceding sections are resolved. [Wolff] 32. Fifteen years earlier (lBOB) Beethoven had already created a miniature role model for his Ninth Symphony in the Choral Fantasy, Op. BO. In a letter to his publisher, Probst, he described the new symphony as made "the same way as my Piano Fantasy with chorus, only much larger." Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven'S illustrious pupil, relates that at the first performance of the Fantasy at the place where the last beguiling theme appears already in a varied form, the clarinet player made, by mistake, a repeat of eight bars. Since only a few instruments were playing, this error was all the more evident to the ear. Beethoven leaped up in a fury, turned around and abused the orchestra players in the coarsest terms and so loudly that he could be heard throughout the auditorium. Finally, he shouted: "From the beginning!/J The theme began again, everyone came in properly, and the success was great. But when the concert was finished, the artists, remembering only too well the honorable title which Beethoven had bestowed on them in public, fell into a great rage, as if the offence had just occurred. They swore that they would

252

Notes

never play again if Beethoven were in the orchestra, and so forth. This went on until Beethoven had composed something new, and then their curiosity got the better of their anger. [From H. C. Robbins Landon, Beethoven (New York: Macmillan Company, 1970), Kerst I, 96, p. 223.] 33. According to the great pianist Thalberg, who was there, there was such applause after the second movement that the contralto, Caroline Unger, plucked Beethoven's sleeve. He had been so deaf and so absorbed in his score, standing among the musicians, that he had not noticed anything else. Beethoven then turned around and bowed to the audience. [Wolff] 34. See the beginning section of "Beethoven," Several Perspectives, p. 23. 35. The late distinguished scholar Leonardo Olschki had reached this conclusion on the basis of his studies of free masonry, but failed to have sufficiently neat evidence for a publication. [Wolff] 36. Ellipses following "Freude schoner" are by Wolff. 3 7. The exhilaration expressed reflects one of Beethoven's favorite sayings at such times: "I feel unbuttoned today!" 38. Possibly they correspond to Schiller's original version of 1785 (see above) which is not known to me. [Wolff]

Schubert 39. The noted scholar O. E. Deutsch attempts to discount the remark by stating that "Schubert merely voiced here the general opinion of the time." But Beethoven's fame and popularity were never greater than in these years. Salieri, of course, hated Beethoven's music, but we know that Schubert's judgment was independent of Salieri's, for in the same diary of 1816, we find Schubert praising Mozart, Salieri's old enemy. [Wolff] 40. Anton Schindler described Schubert's visit to Beethoven's home: "It was a dark day for Franz Schubert when, in 1822, he called on Beethoven to present a copy of the Piano Variations for Four Hands which he had dedicated to the master .... His courage, which had held fast as far as the house, deserted him completely at the sight of His Musical Majesty.... Beethoven looked through the copy hastily and came across an error in the harmony. He drew the young man's attention to it with kindly words, adding immediately that it was not a mortal sin. Schubert, however, was utterly disconcerted now, perhaps as a result of Beethoven's soothing remark. Not until he had left the house did he pull himself together, and then he cursed himself in the most common terms. He never had the courage to try to make the master's acquaintance again." Schindler II, 176. Landon, Beethoven, Kerst 1,274 f. p. 331. 41. That Schubert did have occasional talks with Beethoven we can take for granted. Friedrich Rochlitz, for instance, reports that Beethoven had spoken to Schubert about him (letter to G. C. Haertel, July 9, 1822). [Wolff] 42. Anton Schindler reported: "The great master, who until that time had known less than half a dozen of Schubert's songs, was astonished at their number and could not be made to believe that Schubert had by then [February 1827] already written more than five hundred. But if he was astounded at the number, he was even more amazed when he came to know their content. For several days he could hardly put them down .... Again

Notes

253

and again he cried out enthusiastically, 'Truly, there is a divine spark in Schubert!'-'If I had had this poem I would have set it to music too!'" Landon, Beethoven, Kerst I, 274 f., pp. 331-332. 43. Schubert's letters to his brother reveal an uncommon closeness between them. On October 29, 1818, he refers to Ferdinand's "tender conscience," and continues: "My Requiem pleased you, you wept during the performance of it, and perhaps at just the same passage as I. My dear brother, that is the highest reward possible for this gift of mine." In his letter of July 16th (or 17th) to 18th, 1824: " ... I feel in this moment more strongly than ever before that you are my closest friend, bound to me by every fibre of my being." 44. It happened to Verdi who, at the height of his career, was so much impressed-although at the same time repelled-by Wagner's music that he ceased to compose for several years and then showed a marked change of style in his next opera "Otello." [Wolff] 45. It is hard to imagine how it was possible that the noted publisher Schott returned the Impromptus, opus 90, to Schubert as being too "heavy." [Wolff] 46. In this respect, he was very different from Beethoven who conquered this medium only at a relatively late stage of his development. [Wolff] 47. Curiously enough, one of Schubert's waltzes circulated for many years in a distorted version under the name of "Sehnsuchtswalzer" by Beethoven. [Wolff] 48. He [Schubert] wrote at the age of 29 his Eighth Symphony, while Beethoven, at that age wrote his First! [Wolff] 49. Some believe that this work was identical with the lost Eighth Symphony. It was a favorite work of Brahms, and was orchestrated by his friend Joseph Joachim. [Wolff] 50. The same holds true of the A flat major variations for piano, four hands, op. 35, which, in several places, reflect the rhythms of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. [Wolff] 51. Gray, History of Music (New York, 1928), 193. [Wolff] [Complete citation is: Cecil Gray, History of Music (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1928), p. 193.] 52. Brown, Schubert: A Critical Biography (New York, 1958). [Wolff] [Complete citation is: Maurice John Edwin Brown, Schubert: A Critical Biography (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1958).] 53. Rosen, The Classical Style, pp. 454-60. [Wolff] [Modified to short citation.] 54. O. E. Deutsch, The Schubert Reader (New York, 1947), 774. [Wolff] [Complete citation is: O. E. Deutsch, The Schubert Reader (New York: W. W. Norton, 1947), p. 774.] 55. If Schubert later crossed out the second episode in the first piece, he was probably motivated by the failure of this episode to fit into the same beat; for otherwise the music is lovely-so much so that Brahms, overriding the composer's veto, restored it to the text. [Wolff] 56. The "proportioning" between the 3/4 section and its neighbors in common time can be provided in various ways, but I have no doubt that Mozart wanted it established clearly. [Wolff] 57. Motive (motif): the briefest intelligible and self-existent melodic or rhythmic unit. From Percy A. Scholes, The Oxford Companion to Music, 10th ed., ed. John Owen Ward (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). 58. In a lecture-demonstration, Wolff elaborates a bit more: "Beethoven sometimes would also write long-spun melodies of vocal character. The

254

Notes

effect of the use of these melodies is that they cannot be broken up into small fragments during the development section .... Beethoven proceeds exactly the same way as Schubert does, repeating the entire tune time after time without chopping it up as he does normally." 59. For a fuller treatment of this movement, see pp. 67-68. 60. In a letter to the editor, dated March 6, 1993, Joy Roger wrote: "Oskar Rudnitzky, a violist, was born in Germany and remembers playing in the orchestra of Berlin University when Artur Schnabel was the soloist in the Brahms Second Piano Concerto. Driven out by the Nazis, he settled in Belfast, North Ireland, where he has played string quartets for over forty years and still lectures on chamber music at the Queen's University." Mr. Rudnitsky's article was published in The Strad (London), September 1980; The Musical Times, June 1980; and Music and Musicians, September 1980. (Mrs. Roger's husband, the Austrian composer Kurt Roger [18951966], had dedicated his piano quartet to Konrad Wolff, who performed it at a memorial service for Mr. Roger in Washington, D.C., in 1969.)

Schumann 61. See Konrad Wolff, ed., Robert Schumann: On Music and Musicians (New York: Pantheon, 1946), p. 96. 62. Berlioz's comments on the Pastoral Symphony: "This is no question of gaily dressed shepherds ... it is a matter of nature in her simple truth." 63. See Schumann's detailed analysis in Wolff's Robert Schumann: On Music and Musicians, pp. 164-188. 64. Ibid., p. 180. 65. Ibid., p. 180-181. 66. Ibid., p. 181. 67. Ibid., letter to Spohr, November 23, 1842, p. 258. 68. Ibid., letter to Taubert, January 10, 1843, p. 258. 69. Ibid., p. 72. 70. The submitted capriccio must have been quite disagreeable. In a different mood, Schumann had expressed himself thus: "For aught I care the fifths may ascend or descend chromatically, the melody may be doubled in every interval in octaves. Yes, lately I heard (in a dream) an angelic music filled with heavenly fifths, and this happened, so the angels assured me, because they had never found it necessary to study thorough-bass. Those for whom my words are intended will understand my dream" Ibid. p. 72.

Liszt 71. Composition finished in Vienna, February 10, 1785. Played in public for the first time, and by the composer himself, in Vienna, February II, 1785. See Otto John, W. A. Mozart, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Leipzig: Breitkopf &. Hartel, 1956), p. 727. 72. August Gollerich, a student of Liszt. 73. In another lecture, devoted exclusively to the Diabelli Variations, Wolff had pointed out that the biographer Paul Bekker believed that the Variations were meant to be studied only.

Notes

255

74. Elyse Mach, "The Technical Aspects of Liszt's Pedagogy," The Radford Review 23, no. 3 (Summer 1969), p. 143. 75. Anton Schindler: see note 21 under "Beethoven." 76. Amy Fay, Music Study in Germany (New York: Dover Publications, 1965). 77. Carl V. Lachmund, Mein Leben mit Franz Liszt (Eschwege: G. E. Schroeder Verlag, 1970). 78. Arthur Friedheim, Life and Liszt, ed. T. L. Bullock (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1961). 79. Erard, see note 105 under "Observations." 80. Paul Roes, Music- The Mystery and the Reality, trans. and ed. Edna Dean McGray (Chevy Chase, MD: E&M Publishing, 1978). 81. Johann N. Hummel (1778-1837), prodigy-pianist, pupil of Mozart, friend of Beethoven, author of the well-regarded Piano School, a collection of over 2,200 short technical exercises published in Weimer, 1828. Discussing Hummel's lessons with Mozart in Famous Pianists and Their Technique, Reginald Gerig quotes a portion of a letter Mozart wrote to his father (dated December 22, 1781), describing his travails as a piano teacher. Every morning at six o'clock my friseur arrives and wakes me, and by seven I have finished dressing. I compose until ten, when I give a lesson to Frau von Trattner and at eleven to the Countess Rumbeck, each of whom pays me six ducats for twelve lessons and to whom I go every day, unless they put me off, which I do not like at all. I have arranged with the Countess that she is never to put me off, I mean that, if I do not find her at home, I am at least to get my fee; but Frau von Trattner is too economical for that. On January 23 he wrote again that he had solved his problem: II • • • I have three pupils now, which brings me in eighteen ducats a month; for I no longer charge for twelve lessons, but monthly. I learnt to my cost that my pupils often dropped out for weeks at a time; so now, whether they learn or not, each of them must pay me six ducats. I shall get several more on these terms, but I really need only one more, because four pupils are quite enough." (Mozart had said: "I am not very fond of teaching; it takes too much of my time and interrupts my composing.") 82. Harold C. Schonberg, author, former chief music critic for the New York Times. See pp. 155-57.

Letters 83. Paul Badura-Skoda, Musik und Bildung (Mainz: Schott Musik International,1983). 84. See Brendel-Wolff "Debate," p. 233. 85. Thea Baker, Dictionary of Musical Terms, 16th ed. (New York: G. Schirmer, 1895). 86. C.P.E. Bach, Versuch tiber die wahre Art das Klavier zu spielen, I, section 3, no. 29. [Wolff] 87. This was close to the final (German) version: Interpretation at the Piano-What We Can Learn from Schnabel. 88. The thematic catalogs for Liszt omit it. [Wolff)

256

Notes

89. Artur Balsam (1906-1974) became well known especially as a chamber musician (Balsam-Krall-Heifetz Trio); collaborated with many great musicians, including Milstein, Morini, Oistrach, and Rostropovich; soloist with major orchestras; editor of Mozart Concertos. 90. Apodictically: demonstrably or necessarily true. Webster's College Dictionary, 1987. 91. See" A Lesson in Writing," p. 219 ff. 92. This is also what distinguishes the songs of Hugo Wolf, to his disadvantage, from those of Schumann, Brahms and Mahler. Wolf's oeuvre, in my view, forms a musically illustrated anthology of the best German poetry while all the others took what came: good, bad, or indifferent. [Wolff] 93. The Republic, Third Book, no. 18. [Wolff] 94. Claude Frank told this rather amusing story: Wolff was traveling from Washington to New York sometime following a Richter recital in Washington when he had a premonition that Richter might well be on the same train. Wolff walked the entire length of the train, studying each passenger-and he found him. They traveled together the whole way, conversing in German. (It is known that Richter visited at Wolff's home subsequent to that meeting.)

Christmas Music 95. This setting of the chorale-probably the one Wolff intended-is the last section of Part I. 96. No.6, in a cycle called "Der Weihnachtsbaum" ("The Christmas Tree").

The Beginnings of Cyclic Form 97. Some of Bach's orchestral Suites as they are called on their title pages today, Bach himself called "Overtures" (possibly meaning by "Overture" rather "Overture, etc."). Scholes, The Oxford Companion to Music. 98. Wolff discusses these points in a slightly different frame of reference in Masters of the Keyboard, pp. 57-58. 99.10hann Sebastian Bach's Werke, Leipzig: Breitkopf &. Hartel, 1885, 1926. Republication from vols. 31 and 47, London: Constable, Dover ed., 1992 (frontispiece). In" A Special Issue" of the New York Times Magazine ("The Best Ideas, Stories and Inventions of the Last Thousand years," April 18, 1999) Charles Rosen singled out another section of the Musical Offering-the six-voice ricercare [fugue]-" as the most significant piano work of the millennium ... among the greatest achievements of Western European civilization." 100. Wolff alludes to this subject also in ibid. p. 95. 101. "Absolute music"-instrumental music that is not related in any way (consciously) to extramusical subjects, that is, a story, a particular event, some form of nature, and so on. (An interesting analogy to poetry was made by the English poet Edith Sitwell [1887-1964] when she declared: "The poem comes first and it is not necessary that it should have any meaning.") The other side of the coin is "Program"

Notes

257

Music (Schumann's Carnival, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Richard Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, etc.). See "Schumann," p. 99££. 102. There is another cyclical motif in Schubert's A major posth. sonata-the half-step ascent and descent. Hearing Andras Schiff, in a recording, unexpectedly stress the G-sharp in m. 2 of the 2nd mvt. prompted a check of the score. "'» II AD~tino ......

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To speak of all the details in the major cataclysmic development of this movement is not possible herei please note especially, however, the spasmodic, but gradual, half-step ascent in the left hand, starting in m. 109 and culminating in a frenzied 2-bar chromatic scale while the right plays wild octaves on "e," catapulting unrelentingly forward, jumping up and down a range of four octaves. The left hand then further participates in the upheaval, which climaxes in a C-sharp minor "ffz" chord! Even now, though, the aftershock continues, moving up the half step to a vociferous D major! And then back down to C-sharp minor-switching in a while to the major, as it starts on its transitional role as dominant to the recapitulation in F-sharp minor. (Could this have been Schubert's way of saying, at age thirtyone, what Beethoven said at about age fifty-six-in a very different mannerat the start of his quartet, Op. 135: "Muss es sein? Es muss sein! Es muss sein!"?) See [Ex. 149] in the text. (Schubert died two months after writing this sonata, Beethoven about six months after the quartet.) Turning back to the 1st mvt., one finds significant allusions to the half step "all over the place" but perhaps with most telling effect at the end of the mvt., where an A major arpeggio and chord, followed by a suspenseful fermata, moves up a half step to a Bb major arpeggio followed by an augmented 6th chord and another suspenseful fermata, resolving back to A major-this tim\; fading (with resignation, with peace?). A summation of these final bars: A B A. Wolff wrote of these closing bars: "And even at the very end of the movement, Schubert cannot conclude in A Major before once more stretching out to its upper chromatic neighbor, B flat Major" (1989).

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